Ladder STABmons [OMotM November]

[Funbot28]

I believe it all depends on what grants the ban of a move in STABmons, as it was never really specified. On one hand, if it is determined banworthy if it is broken on each user, then Boomburst wouldn't make the cut as there are quite a few mons that the move only enhances them (Pory 2, Sylveon, etc..) Same could be applied to Dark Void, which was only really an issue with Sableye and fats dark types like Weavile. If a move is banworthy if it breaks any mon, than yes Boomburst can be debatable (although not really imo as it just makes Mega Alt and Pory Z very good).

I think we should follow the first option, as it suits with Smogon's ideology that if the [move/ability] is not broken on each recipient and only breaks one or two mons, then we should ban those two mons for consistency sake (ex: Blaziken and Greninja). So I believe Boomburst is fine, if anything suspect the mons in question that are "broken" with it.

 

[Lcass4919]

I believe it all depends on what grants the ban of a move in STABmons, as it was never really specified. On one hand, if it is determined banworthy if it is broken on each user, then Boomburst wouldn't make the cut as there are quite a few mons that the move only enhances them (Pory 2, Sylveon, etc..) Same could be applied to Dark Void, which was only really an issue with Sableye and fats dark types like Weavile. If a move is banworthy if it breaks any mon, than yes Boomburst can be debatable (although not really imo as it just makes Mega Alt and Pory Z very good).

I think we should follow the first option, as it suits with Smogon's ideology that if the [move/ability] is not broken on each recipient and only breaks one or two mons, then we should ban those two mons for consistency sake (ex: Blaziken and Greninja). So I believe Boomburst is fine, if anything suspect the mons in question that are "broken" with it.

but then by that logic, no move is banworthy. you even said it "same could be applied to dark void" which is a banned move for the same reasons boom is "banworthy". why is boomburst fine? but belly drum, dark void, and geomancy all broken, if they literally follow the exact same reasoning of "broken"?

From where I sit, the mons that abuse boomburst and the reason we want it tested,(PZ, altaria, sylveon, etc), don't get noticeably worse with boomburst gone. Technoblast is almost as good, and unless your getting in a pp stall, its not going to really affect all that much. As unfixable has said, the upside it has of making other special attacking normal types more viable, especially defensive mons, is somewhat balancing to the metagame. If we want something done about malt,PZ

well i mean, if technoblast isnt much better then a broken move, then id imagine it should be suspected too, rather then saying "it balances the meta because it allows bulky normal type pokemon to be somewhat viable" thats not a reason for its stay. thats a reason you PERSONALLY want it to stay. mega alt, sylv, and pz would all be far less broken without boomburst, and rather then remove three otherwise fine pokemon, id rather remove a move that has literally a 20 base power/40 base power(judgement normal) less powered alterior options would be both the smarter, and more logical solution. sure, p2 and meloetta wont be completely destroying max spc def steel types anymore with it, but its not like they become cannon fodder after losing it. this argument is as solid as "unbanning giratina to handle some of the attackers running rampant" yes, it does, but that's not a argument for its staying.

okay, ill make this simpler. someone show me how boomburst isnt as bad as the other bannable moves. and DON'T tell me stuff like dark void guarentees a sleeping mon" or "belly drum guarentees a sweep" because just like your arguments on boomburst, i can pull out mons who CAN use it effectively, but be just as "unsatisfying" as the other boombursters, and thus, completely shut down that argument by saying "yeah, but only on three mons, what about the others who are average at best on it". the problem #1 i see, is you guys are calling boomburst fine, because "only three mons are good with it otherwise you spike down tons of other mons viability" without looking at the previous bans, which do the EXACT SAME THING. literally, down to how many mons were BROKEN with the moves in the first place. ive literally even named out the specific mons for you guys. so please, give arguments other then "it hurts the viability of other mons" because thats honestly the worst argument out there...im not trying to be rude. i'm just saying this as a "that means your nitpicking bans of moves vs mons even though they fit in the exact same scenario" which is just biased.

 

[Funbot28]

I was just trying to clarify what grants a ban of a move in STABmons. Does it need to be broken on every user? Does it need to break just a specific group of mons? Shell Smash, Geomancy and Belly Drum were broken as they can literally take any mon and boost there offensive capabilities to insane heights. Being able to sweep teams with minimal effort. If there is proof that Boomburst has the same offensive pressure at the same caliber as these three moves then maybe I would consider to ban it. It really depends on the banning criteria we are willing to establish here.

 

[xJownage]

I really agree with unfixable on geomancy. This reset was supposed to be a chance for us to have a redo, and for us to ban things for the purpose of balancing the metagame instead of because "they are borderline broken when we apply this metagame-unfitting definition". We wanted to make our conversations drawn out and to the point, and make sure we cover the entire spectrum of both the suspect and the repercussions. With Geomancy, we did none of those things.

Boomburst really should stay legal. I think it's becoming more and more apparent that Altaria is more of the issue in the case of Altaria breaking boomburst, and not the other way around. Furthermore, we can get mad that specs sylveon "2HKOs all our walls", but we can't ban things just because they break bulky cores. Look at Hoopa-U in OU, being basically uncounterable. People find ways to play around it, and that's okay. Sylveon is a decent tank, sure, but we don't need to make bans that only help a playstyle that is already basically impossible to use in this format regardless of Sylveon's banning. Against offense, there are a lot of things that can 2hko entire teams, sylveon included, and calling it broken with or without boomburst just doesn't make sense. Sylveon's only issues came when it could boost its speed and power. It can't anymore. Porygon-Z is the only mon that is even moderately broken due to just boomburst alone, but then again, when do we just let it replace boomburst with techno blast? And when do we realize that Adaptability breaks Boomburst, not Boomburst breaking Porygon-Z? These are things that aren't accounted for.

Pory-Z and Sylveon are being thrown into the broken category without us looking much at their effect on the Metagame. Sylveon doesn't adversely affect your teambuilding as much as, say, Scizor or one of the many other very good mons in this tier. Sylveon doesn't sweep your team. Sylveon doesn't make you change your entire playstyle because its presence will inevitably destroy your entire team. It simply doesn't have those qualities. It may fit a part of a broken definition, but if we are looking to limit our broken definition (which has to be done since stabmons always has mons that fit the normal "broken definition"), Sylveon doesn't deserve to be in that category of banworthy mons. Porygon-Z isn't metagame smashing either. It's not like we ban Pory-Z (the boomburst variant) and suddenly stall/bulky balance becomes possible. Every team still needs a revenge killer, etc. These bans aren't changing anything.

We can argue that Boomburst deserves to be banned, but does it really help the metagame? Do we really gain anything? We'll still ban Altaria, and Porygon-Z and Sylveon still wallbreak with Techno Blast, while many good options suddenly become much less effective. Has anybody actually used Sdef Meloetta with Boomburst and Luster Purge? It's actually a very good set, but without the power boomburst brings, the tank is much less threatening. There are many healthy elements that have arisen because of boomburst's use, and the only negative elements the ban attempts to eliminate will remain anyways. We'll still ban Altarianite. We'll still have to deal with Techno Blast Pory-Z and Sylveon, which aren't really metagame breaking as is. No, don't ban Boomburst.

 

[Lcass4919]

I really agree with unfixable on geomancy. This reset was supposed to be a chance for us to have a redo, and for us to ban things for the purpose of balancing the metagame instead of because "they are borderline broken when we apply this metagame-unfitting definition". We wanted to make our conversations drawn out and to the point, and make sure we cover the entire spectrum of both the suspect and the repercussions. With Geomancy, we did none of those things.

Boomburst really should stay legal. I think it's becoming more and more apparent that Altaria is more of the issue in the case of Altaria breaking boomburst, and not the other way around. Furthermore, we can get mad that specs sylveon "2HKOs all our walls", but we can't ban things just because they break bulky cores. Look at Hoopa-U in OU, being basically uncounterable. People find ways to play around it, and that's okay. Sylveon is a decent tank, sure, but we don't need to make bans that only help a playstyle that is already basically impossible to use in this format regardless of Sylveon's banning. Against offense, there are a lot of things that can 2hko entire teams, sylveon included, and calling it broken with or without boomburst just doesn't make sense. Sylveon's only issues came when it could boost its speed and power. It can't anymore. Porygon-Z is the only mon that is even moderately broken due to just boomburst alone, but then again, when do we just let it replace boomburst with techno blast? And when do we realize that Adaptability breaks Boomburst, not Boomburst breaking Porygon-Z? These are things that aren't accounted for.

Pory-Z and Sylveon are being thrown into the broken category without us looking much at their effect on the Metagame. Sylveon doesn't adversely affect your teambuilding as much as, say, Scizor or one of the many other very good mons in this tier. Sylveon doesn't sweep your team. Sylveon doesn't make you change your entire playstyle because its presence will inevitably destroy your entire team. It simply doesn't have those qualities. It may fit a part of a broken definition, but if we are looking to limit our broken definition (which has to be done since stabmons always has mons that fit the normal "broken definition"), Sylveon doesn't deserve to be in that category of banworthy mons. Porygon-Z isn't metagame smashing either. It's not like we ban Pory-Z (the boomburst variant) and suddenly stall/bulky balance becomes possible. Every team still needs a revenge killer, etc. These bans aren't changing anything.

We can argue that Boomburst deserves to be banned, but does it really help the metagame? Do we really gain anything? We'll still ban Altaria, and Porygon-Z and Sylveon still wallbreak with Techno Blast, while many good options suddenly become much less effective. Has anybody actually used Sdef Meloetta with Boomburst and Luster Purge? It's actually a very good set, but without the power boomburst brings, the tank is much less threatening. There are many healthy elements that have arisen because of boomburst's use, and the only negative elements the ban attempts to eliminate will remain anyways. We'll still ban Altarianite. We'll still have to deal with Techno Blast Pory-Z and Sylveon, which aren't really metagame breaking as is. No, don't ban Boomburst.

just want to throw out there, OU is considered a "joke" of 99% of metas, due to their extreme bias towards offense...and this isnt just a "OM" thing, even UU and NU tend to joke about it. they clearly dont favor balance, while Stabmons does.

and as ive said before, if technoblast is bad, we can ban that too, its basically just as bad, as eevee even added it on to the past suspect. this is not a reason for boomburst staying.

and also arguing "dont ban it because it doesnt do anything" is a very flimsy argument, completely avoiding the question of "does it break pz, altaria, and sylveon" we aren't asking if "it has a replacement" we are asking does boomburst deserve to be banned due to what it does. alternate moves, mediocre abusers(in that it nerfs them), and its resistances are ALL irrelevant to answering this. and i want an answer that ISN'T derailing from this point. what separates boomburst from geomancy and belly drum, which as i said before, are basically carbon copies of why you are arguing for boombursts stay. tell me all you want "they break all mons who run it" but that is complete bull because geomancy klefki and whmsicott (both fairly common users) were both on best average with it. same with belly drum, snorlax was a common user, and it wasn't nearly as bad as say, lopunny(this was geared more towards funbot Funbot28) sure it boosted their power.but boomburst is a attacking move, and comparing it to the two makes no sense no duh it doesnt boost stats its "broken" because its literally a 140 base power nuke with 0 reprocussions, and as it has shown, ANY user of it gains viability 3 of which happen to be considered broken. shell smash is on a different level from the 2, as ALL abusers were broken with it. and so far it is the ONLY one with that reputation. am i missing something? is something really different from void, geo, and belly drum and boomburst other then "its an attacking move" and the falsely claimed "the two makes all users threatening with it"? nobody is answering this and are instead commenting that the three will be broken with another potentially broken move.

and lastly, your saying we shouldnt look into banning a broken move because...it doesnt make playstyles viable? why ban dark void? it doesn't either. the ban changed nothing of the meta except making a few mons less viable. if you truely believe boomburst is not banworthy because of that, i think geomancy and dark void should be unbanned for the same reason. both didnt nullify a playstyle, and did nothing more but nerf a few broken mons. we can ban the mons instead. banning moves is actually such a slippery slope, because now people are nitpicking mon vs move. as ive shown, and nobody has proven me wrong, theres literally no difference in "What makes boomburst bad" compared to dark void and geomancy and belly drum, and if these three were banned with NO ARGUMENT. why is boomburst being defended? im getting tired of constantly repeating this. and getting the same "Derailment" answers. "oh, p2 and meloetta dont like the nerf" "technoblast exists!" "the 3 mons are the only things broken with it" are ALL not arguments. and that's ALL ive been hearing from you guys. well on top of "its the mons that are broken" but again, no arguments on why boomburst ISN'T the problem other then one of the above three exuses. those aren't arguments, they are exuses. all im asking is for a decent answer WITHOUT one of the three. you bring up a good point with the "they arent that bad in the current meta" but, hey, they still destroy stall completely, and can scare offense with a different set. do we really want a "OU metagame" which is what we had before we immediately asked for the move/status restriction removal, and as ive mentioned before, most om players detest the concept as is.

a bit of a long one, but eh. its a part of arguments. sorry for nitpicking the "three arguments" but i wont accept those kind of arguments in ANY form. if you want to convince me, i suggest going with the "not bad in current meta" as that's really the breakthrough for me changing opinion on boomburst. as the "three arguments" just makes me laugh at this point.

 

[Throbulator36]

Eevee General would i be correct in assuming that we ban moves because they are the primary reason for making a broken pokemon broken? or no?

 

[xJownage]

just want to throw out there, OU is considered a "joke" of 99% of metas, due to their extreme bias towards offense...and this isnt just a "OM" thing, even UU and NU tend to joke about it. they clearly dont favor balance, while Stabmons does.

and as ive said before, if technoblast is bad, we can ban that too, its basically just as bad, as eevee even added it on to the past suspect. this is not a reason for boomburst staying.

and also arguing "dont ban it because it doesnt do anything" is a very flimsy argument, completely avoiding the question of "does it break pz, altaria, and sylveon" we aren't asking if "it has a replacement" we are asking does boomburst deserve to be banned due to what it does. alternate moves, mediocre abusers(in that it nerfs them), and its resistances are ALL irrelevant to answering this. and i want an answer that ISN'T derailing from this point. what separates boomburst from geomancy and belly drum, which as i said before, are basically carbon copies of why you are arguing for boombursts stay. tell me all you want "they break all mons who run it" but that is complete bull because geomancy klefki and whmsicott (both fairly common users) were both on best average with it. same with belly drum, snorlax was a common user, and it wasn't nearly as bad as say, lopunny(this was geared more towards funbot Funbot28) sure it boosted their power.but boomburst is a attacking move, and comparing it to the two makes no sense no duh it doesnt boost stats its "broken" because its literally a 140 base power nuke with 0 reprocussions, and as it has shown, ANY user of it gains viability 3 of which happen to be considered broken. shell smash is on a different level from the 2, as ALL abusers were broken with it. and so far it is the ONLY one with that reputation. am i missing something? is something really different from void, geo, and belly drum and boomburst other then "its an attacking move" and the falsely claimed "the two makes all users threatening with it"? nobody is answering this and are instead commenting that the three will be broken with another potentially broken move.

and lastly, your saying we shouldnt look into banning a broken move because...it doesnt make playstyles viable? why ban dark void? it doesn't either. the ban changed nothing of the meta except making a few mons less viable. if you truely believe boomburst is not banworthy because of that, i think geomancy and dark void should be unbanned for the same reason. both didnt nullify a playstyle, and did nothing more but nerf a few broken mons. we can ban the mons instead. banning moves is actually such a slippery slope, because now people are nitpicking mon vs move. as ive shown, and nobody has proven me wrong, theres literally no difference in "What makes boomburst bad" compared to dark void and geomancy and belly drum, and if these three were banned with NO ARGUMENT. why is boomburst being defended? im getting tired of constantly repeating this. and getting the same "Derailment" answers. "oh, p2 and meloetta dont like the nerf" "technoblast exists!" "the 3 mons are the only things broken with it" are ALL not arguments. and that's ALL ive been hearing from you guys. well on top of "its the mons that are broken" but again, no arguments on why boomburst ISN'T the problem other then one of the above three exuses. those aren't arguments, they are exuses. all im asking is for a decent answer WITHOUT one of the three. you bring up a good point with the "they arent that bad in the current meta" but, hey, they still destroy stall completely, and can scare offense with a different set. do we really want a "OU metagame" which is what we had before we immediately asked for the move/status restriction removal, and as ive mentioned before, most om players detest the concept as is.

a bit of a long one, but eh. its a part of arguments. sorry for nitpicking the "three arguments" but i wont accept those kind of arguments in ANY form. if you want to convince me, i suggest going with the "not bad in current meta" as that's really the breakthrough for me changing opinion on boomburst. as the "three arguments" just makes me laugh at this point.

You failed to address my main points anyway. Those being the fact that Mega Altaria is not broken due to boomburst, that Sylveon isn't broken in the first place by what the stabmons definition should be, and that Porygon-Z is the only one that is arguably broken due to boomburst, with that being more attributed to adaptability instead of boomburst. Banning a move on the principle of what the move does is the wrong way to look at an argument. Banning the move instead of mons that aren't broken solely due to the move is not smart. I already explained why we need to have a more loose definition of broken than standard metas, please listen.

Also, 50+ people probably stopped reading your post after the first two sentences. Don't say that all the normal metas are bad, or that they are a joke. Furthermore, if you want to believe offense is biased, that's fine, but when was the last stallmon that was banned? In any of those metas?

 

[Lcass4919]

You failed to address my main points anyway. Those being the fact that Mega Altaria is not broken due to boomburst, that Sylveon isn't broken in the first place by what the stabmons definition should be, and that Porygon-Z is the only one that is arguably broken due to boomburst, with that being more attributed to adaptability instead of boomburst. Banning a move on the principle of what the move does is the wrong way to look at an argument. Banning the move instead of mons that aren't broken solely due to the move is not smart. I already explained why we need to have a more loose definition of broken than standard metas, please listen.

Also, 50+ people probably stopped reading your post after the first two sentences. Don't say that all the normal metas are bad, or that they are a joke. Furthermore, if you want to believe offense is biased, that's fine, but when was the last stallmon that was banned? In any of those metas?

my only opinion of OU is that it has a bias towards offense, i didn't say they were bad or anything. don't get me wrong, im going by what i hear here not my own opinion, threads on smogon(even uu and nu) all show signs of OU bashing.

idk, maybe banning the mons just simplifies things. i just feel like banning boomburst saves 3 mons from a potential ban. by not doing something about boomburst/fakespeed we are LITERALLY back at the beginning but with a bit more leniancy due to a few moves removal. idk, i give up on playing stabmons now though. its gotten to stale to me. i don't really care anymore. im getting too old to care for the direction meta's take.

one last thing, offense doesnt ONLY fear stall...aegislash, deoxys N D and S, and genesect were all banned because offense had problems with them. when was the last time a poke that heavily beats stall was banned? mega maw. and that was more because offense started to have problems with it. offense IS biased in OU. this isnt a opinion, this is a fact. its not entirely a bad thing for it either. its just the way it is.

 

[Ghoul King]

I reeeaaally don't think banning Boomburst makes sense. The fact that the move is amazing is not a reason to ban it. The fact that the move is clearly superior to various roughly equivalent moves (eg Draco Meteor) is not a reason to ban it. The fact that maybe three Pokemon are broken with it is... the thing is, Mega Altaria is really really good, even if you take away Boomburst from it. Banning Boomburst is not going to make Mega Altaria not banworthy, it's not the primary problem, not remotely.

So that's down to 2 Pokemon bans we've be "avoiding" if we banned Boomburst.

Sylveon is just not that terrifying on the basis of Boomburst alone. What made it broken back in the day was primarily the combination of Shell Smash and Extreme Speed, in conjunction with Judgment providing arbitrary coverage. (Letting it beat stuff like Heatran that would wall it if all it did was spam Pixilated moves) It no longer has Shell Smash, leaving it with a mediocre Speed tier and no longer able to hit mixed +2/+2. At that point Boomburst mostly helps it wallbreak, and with the lack of Shell Smash it's a lot easier to find a wall that can take it. I find it questionable to assert that banning Boomburst would prevent Sylveon from being banned -I think the main thing helping keep it un-ban-worthy is the elimination of Shell Smash.

Which would bring us down to 1 Pokemon that we would be avoiding banning by banning Boomburst.

Porygon-Z is a lot less threatening now that it's forced to run double dance to beat both stall and offense, instead of running Shell Smash to cover both at the same time, which freed up a moveslot to run any number of things to beat any number of checks or counters. I haven't fought it personally on the ladder as yet, so I can't speak to whether it is still broken or not, but it's definitely a lot less threatening.

Regardless, if I assume Porygon-Z is still broken... I'd rather ban it than ban Boomburst, given my suspicion that we'd be weakening a large number of not-so-viable Pokemon to maybe un-break one Pokemon.

Even if I additionally assume that Meloetta is broken via Boomburst... I dunno, this still seems a weak argument to ban Boomburst. Shell Smash and Belly Drum made multiple Pokemon all by themselves that were, otherwise, not very notable (Such as Kangaskhan and Stoutland being relevant pretty much entirely for Scrappy Belly Drum Extreme Speed) in addition to helping push several Pokemon over the edge, while Boomburst is taking a few Pokemon that are good to great already and maybe being the key thing to push them over the edge -maybe.

That seems like a situation we ought to ban the Pokemon, not one of its moves, to me.

 

[Tornadus-Therian]

I agree as well. I can't imagine any situation where Altarianite doesn't get banned, so Boomburst Altaria is pretty much a moot point.

Porygon-Z is a great wallbreaker and is a decent scarfer, but I don't think its power alone makes it broken. It has a really limiting combination of speed and bulk. Every other relevant special attacker is either ~10-20 points of speed higher (which encompasses literally all of the relevant speed tiers for offense) or significantly bulkier (Meloetta, Sylveon, Latias, etc.). PgonZ may be a bit more powerful than things like Keldeo, Thundy, Latios, and Serperior, but they are strong enough and significantly faster.

Sylveon is way too slow and has a pretty poor typing in this metagame to be broken. Almost every pokemon on offense can wallbreak, so that doesn't really differentiate it from most of the metagame.

Meloetta seems decent, but definitely not broken. I like it in the meta because it has a lot of cool tech, and Boomburst is the big draw to using it. I definitely don't see it as a reason to ban boomburst.

Overall I can't find any reason to ban boomburst. It may be a really powerful move, but it's also normal type which means that power is literally all it has. It isn't super effective against anything and really bulky steels are everywhere in the meta.

 

[EV]

Boomburst is not banned but I decided to do Mega Altaria instead :(

RIP everyone's teams

 

[Lcass4919]

Boomburst is not banned but I decided to do Mega Altaria instead :(

RIP everyone's teams

gg you evil bird..thing...

 

[Funbot28]

Boomburst is not banned but I decided to do Mega Altaria instead :(

RIP everyone's teams

Ugmmm no re-suspect? We should have some more discussion on it as I feel there wasn't enough tbh...
#freethecotton

 

[skies]

this is a bad change. >:(

 

[EV]

Ugmmm no re-suspect? We should have some more discussion on it as I feel there wasn't enough tbh...
#freethecotton

What did you want to talk about exactly?

 

[Kingslayer2779]

You want to discuss Mega Altaria? It has barely any reliable switch ins, set up, and Fake Speed. It's not like Meg Altaria is Mega Heracross, where it has barely any counters but tons of checks. This is a Pokemon with That can threaten and revenge kill frail Pokemon with Fake Speed, and break down bulky Pokemon with coverage and Boomburst. Banning Alt was a great change. We only have a couple weeks until the STABmons open. We should really use that time to talk about Diggers IMO.

 

[Throbulator36]

You want to discuss Mega Altaria? It has barely any reliable switch ins, set up, and Fake Speed. It's not like Meg Altaria is Mega Heracross, where it has barely any counters but tons of checks. This is a Pokemon with That can threaten and revenge kill frail Pokemon with Fake Speed, and break down bulky Pokemon with coverage and Boomburst. Banning Alt was a great change. We only have a couple weeks until the STABmons open. We should really use that time to talk about Diggers IMO.

I really don't know what there is to talk about with diggs since, although his shell smash set was super powerful, when he was banned, he was banned entirely on the pretext of his fake speed set. If we compound that with the facts that one of its two offensive checks at the time were banned(scizor and aero), and that its only counter on stall is a pokemon that was found to be broken last time it was suspected(and doesn't have to worry about OP setup anymore), then I just don't see what the opposing arguments are.

 

[Tornadus-Therian]

The current meta as I understand it has three parts right now:

1) Diggersby
2) Diggersby checks
3) Diggersby fodder for when your checks get overwhelmed and you have to revenge with your own diggs

I'm going to go off on a slight tangent now, because I think this is the most important part of my argument and I want people to actually read it. My big problem with Diggersby is that it completely runs through every offensive pokemon with just LO + ESpeed. The standard offensive pokemon has between 65 and 90 HP and between 65 and 95 Def. Usually it's one or the other, e.g. M-Lopunny has 65/94, while Excadrill has 110/60. Most pokemon have ~80/80 physical bulk, and some 600 BST mons have upwards of 90/90 (Keldeo, and Dragonite are pretty close to this benchmark and are reasonably fat for offensive pokemon). LO Diggersby's ESpeed flat out OHKOs every pokemon less bulky than ~90/95 from 87.5% HP. This means that as long as Diggs is still around, it's impossible to sweep even if it doesn't carry Fake Out. I think this is pretty unacceptable since currently Offense is literally the only viable playstyle in STABmons. Pokemon like Ursaring does this as well, but Ursaring is really slow, which means it has to rely on prediction to break things like Scizor, Heatran, and Landorus, instead of just clicking ESpeed and then the appropriate button afterward if you make a mistake.

80/60 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hoopa Unbound: 331-391 (109.9 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

79/70 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Thundurus: 294-347 (98.3 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

80/80 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 265-313 (88.6 - 104.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

80/90 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latias: 242-285 (80.3 - 94.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

75/95 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Serperior: 230-270 (79 - 92.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

100/80 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 265-313 (77.7 - 91.7%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

91/90 bulk
252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 242-285 (74.9 - 88.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes

Back to what I was saying before, the set of Diggs checks is significantly smaller than one would think, since Lando gets bopped by Ice Punch, Ferro/Scizor die to Fire Punch or PBlades, Gengar dies to literally anything that hits it besides U-Turn, fast Heatran, Terrakion, M-Diancie, etc., can only switch into ESpeed once, and almost everything else kinda just dies.

Diggs really just needs FakeSpeed, PBlades, and Ice Punch to run through most teams, although Fire Punch and U-Turn are both pretty useful.

-1 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-T: 286-338 (74.8 - 88.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 196-231 (55.6 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery <-- Fire Punch isn't strictly necessary

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 208-246 (80.3 - 94.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock <-- Knock Off is pointless

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Extreme Speed vs. 28 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 104-123 (31.5 - 37.2%) -- 85.8% chance to 3HKO <-- The second time it switches in, it has an 85.8% chance to die

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Precipice Blades vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Slowbro: 153-183 (38.8 - 46.4%) -- 28.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock <-- has to mega BEFORE switching in and isn't guaranteed to life anyways

I think we all remember the last time this happened, and hopefully this doesn't take very long. I clearly want Diggs banned, since I think it's insanely centralizing.

 

[EV]

Skarmory, Tangrowth, and Gyarados are other options, too.

And I just got my Diggersby analysis in QC. :(

 

[Tornadus-Therian]

Max Def Gyarados is solid, but Diggs gets Thunder Punch and Stone Edge if it really cares. The other two aren't guaranteed switchins on a more standard moveset either.

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 159-187 (47.6 - 55.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Fire Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 172-203 (42.6 - 50.3%) -- 34% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

It's not like there's absolutely no way to deal with it, but for the vast majority of teams, 4/6 of your team get OHKO'd from full at +2 priority by something that isn't choiced. I think that's the main problem. Even if you have a Gyarados and I run standard stuff, I only need to get rocks up and lure you once before Gyara gets wrecked by ESpeed the next time. That would literally be the whole game.

 

[Funbot28]

Skarmory, Tangrowth, and Gyarados are other options, too.

And I just got my Diggersby analysis in QC. :(

So did unfixable with Mega Altaria..

Yes Diggersby runes though offense, but with such an offensive methane initially, i find it to be quite healthy as it is able to deal with all these HO teams that run the ladder. Broken on paper maybe, but in play i find it adds a positive influence to the tier (like mega alt imo).

ihhca this isn't GSC OU lol. Here are several threats that are needed to be prepared for that somewhat limits teambuilding, don't just claim it with diggs.

 

[skies]

I would like to call for a quickban of Diggersby. It is absolutely awful, and it's the exact same as before and should be banned. I really don't think I need to even put justification for this, it's common knowledge.

 

[Lcass4919]

I would like to call for a quickban of Diggersby. It is absolutely awful, and it's the exact same as before and should be banned. I really don't think I need to even put justification for this, it's common knowledge.

i actually support this, diggersby has the tools to handle both offense and stall pretty effectively and easily, and pretty much forces people to run strategies revolving around landorus t and skarm, the meta would be probably better without such a meta breaker in the tier. and even then it has methods of getting past its usual checks and counters. this is the absolute worst on a "priority mon" as for offense you really need a reliable switchin to them if they are diggersby-strong, or diggersby literally is able to 6-0 just about any team. and considering a intimidate max/max mon takes 35% from espeed, you know somethings going to be running through your team. diggersby is literally no different then it was before the change. and i dont oppose a quickban at all lmao.

 

[EV]

Diggersby almost always needs both Fake Out and Extreme Speed to take out its targets, meaning it has to keep coming back into the field in order to refresh Fake Out. This gives the opponent a free turn in most cases, allowing them to setup with Shift Gear Mega Scizor (which isn't getting revenged by Diggersby anytime soon) or even Kyurem-B throwing up a Sub and then DDancing. Plus there's Protect, which sure is kind of annoying to have to run on certain Pokemon, but if it saves you from getting murdered by FakeSpeed, I think it's well worth it. Note that Mega Lopunny can function beautifully with Protect, as it becomes immune to Fake Out and has a faster Extreme Speed to hit Diggersby first.

I'd like to see more variety in the metagame before we just ban Diggersby. It is really good. But it is predictable to a fault.

Also while on the topic, maybe this is a good time to revisit Extreme Speed. I know I argued vehemently in the chat against a ban, but perhaps it's Extreme Speed (being the second and strongest in the FakeSpeed combo) that needs to go and not Diggersby.

 

[Lcass4919]

Diggersby almost always needs both Fake Out and Extreme Speed to take out its targets, meaning it has to keep coming back into the field in order to refresh Fake Out. This gives the opponent a free turn in most cases, allowing them to setup with Shift Gear Mega Scizor (which isn't getting revenged by Diggersby anytime soon) or even Kyurem-B throwing up a Sub and then DDancing. Plus there's Protect, which sure is kind of annoying to have to run on certain Pokemon, but if it saves you from getting murdered by FakeSpeed, I think it's well worth it. Note that Mega Lopunny can function beautifully with Protect, as it becomes immune to Fake Out and has a faster Extreme Speed to hit Diggersby first.

I'd like to see more variety in the metagame before we just ban Diggersby. It is really good. But it is predictable to a fault.

Also while on the topic, maybe this is a good time to revisit Extreme Speed. I know I argued vehemently in the chat against a ban, but perhaps it's Extreme Speed (being the second and strongest in the FakeSpeed combo) that needs to go and not Diggersby.

the problem with diggersby is somewhat true, to guarentee a ohko on something it has to switch in, and fakespeed something. and scizor sets up on non fire punch(which is rising in popularity) but thats the problem. diggersby almost ALWAYS guarentees a KO on offense. and if it really wanted, it could forgo fake out entirely and just run SD, as its not like its hard for diggersby to scare out stuff after all. the problem is diggersby punishes setup. but it punishes it in such a way that even if they don't setup they get punished.

OU bans things that scare both offense and stall. (greninja, deoxys N, and deoxys speed to name a few) diggersby does the exact same thing. the fact that with diggersby, the best way for offense to handle it is literally "hope its not ___" is quite rediculous. especially when stall ALL READY has problems and they usually run both landorus AND skarm to handle it. i understand we arent OU, but honestly, if something scares every playstyle to the point of restriction, thats when something should be done.

"predictable" doesn't suddenly make diggersby super easy to handle. you can "Assume" a train is going to pass through the train tracks, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can stop it bare handed. diggersby is "predictable"...but that doesn't stop it from tearing everything. especially when its known for "surprise! fire punch/ice punch/wild charge!" for the few checks it runs into, making it LESS predictable on top of that.

i mean, you can argue espeed again is the problem, but as a supporter of fakespeed ban, nobody is going to support that. espeed is ONLY broken on diggersby. at LEAST boomburst had 3 broken abusers. espeed literally only has diggersby. on top of all this, like the arguments presented for aeros ban, we already SEEN diggersby and what it does, and the meta hardly changed to change our stance on that. this meta wont change magically to handle it, when people were crying out for at least ONE reliable counter. you didn't support that argument with aero, and i refuse to accept it for diggersby for the exact same reason.

id like to see variety too...but why would there be when diggersby nullifies 2-3 slots to its checks and counters which already weakens teambuilding options?