Metagame Metagame Discussion Thread

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JSND said:
Heres the problem with Flygon who tried utility

Landorus Therian

Landorus vs Flygon is a Garchomp vs Swampert situation where its 2 pokemon who is actually the exact same, the only problem is the former is better in every way
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Lando don't get Defog (or, of lesser importance, Roost) tho. Izzat still worse? I don't have time for the sims so really I can only theorymon, but I'm trying to find SOME kind of niche for Flygon where he isn't 100% outclassed or useless, and Defog+U-turn along with his unique resistances/immunities has gotta be good for something, I figure.

In theory, at least, Flygon has Defog and Roost where Lando/Ziggy don't, U-Turn where Mence don't, and Twave immunity/SR resistance where Dreigon don't. In a team that wants this specific combination of traits-- Ground/Elec immunity + virtual hazard immunity while being able to remove them + momentum-- is condensing these roles into one mon not a viable option? (Not rhetorical, like I said I don't have many opportunities to adequately test this, and perhaps there are other mons with these features I'm overlooking, but I think it's a fair question)

EDIT: Oh yeah and I forgot Tailwind. So that's something over Lando at least (Mence and Dreigon get TW too but the electric immunity / SR resistance is relevant there if your team wants it)

I'm not gonna pretend it's not extremely niche, but Defog/Tailwind/U-Turn + resistances/immunities (plus the 100 base speed over Hydreigon if that's good for anything) ARE something that only Flygon can claim having all in one package, as far as I'm aware. I guess the question in my mind is just whether that's worth anything lol.
 
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Banryu said:
I'm not gonna pretend it's not extremely niche, but Defog/Tailwind/U-Turn + resistances/immunities (plus the 100 base speed over Hydreigon if that's good for anything) ARE something that only Flygon can claim having all in one package, as far as I'm aware. I guess the question in my mind is just whether that's worth anything lol.
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But it has those tools now and never rose, which begs the question, what did dragon dance really do for him? What particularly does flygon now by pass, or offer to teams that he didn't before because he got dragon dance? If he was RU by utility standards before, than DD, which is more of a sweeper's move, would have to single handedly give him a reason to be used out of RU. Outspeeding and dealing with hydrei is a good niche, but scarf u-turn momentum flygon also did that niche decently.

The only thing I'm liking the sound of, is tailwind + defog since priority is so restrictive this generation in higher tiers and the speed tiers are really weird, but that's less of a "DD carrying him higher" factor and more of a "meta trend" vibe I'm getting.
 
PimpParasect said:
But it has those tools now and never rose, which begs the question, what did dragon dance really do for him? What particularly does flygon now by pass, or offer to teams that he didn't before because he got dragon dance? If he was RU by utility standards before, than DD, which is more of a sweeper's move, would have to single handedly give him a reason to be used out of RU. Outspeeding and dealing with hydrei is a good niche, but scarf u-turn momentum flygon also did that niche decently.

The only thing I'm liking the sound of, is tailwind + defog since priority is so restrictive this generation in higher tiers and the speed tiers are really weird, but that's less of a "DD carrying him higher" factor and more of a "meta trend" vibe I'm getting.
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I guess you've got me there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'd like Flygon to be useful, but I'm willing to be realistic about it too lol. OU status might just be too much to hope for from him (even if Tailwind is nice, it still lasts so briefly and I lack the imagination to think of what can take advantage of such a brief window).
 
Am I the only one who still thinks Gengar is still pretty good in the Sun and Moon OU meta? His typing is really good right now (offensively speaking), and he's got a good speed tier and special attack stat for firing off shadow balls and sludge waves. Yet most ladder players are scared to touch him since he lost levitate.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I fail to see how he's lower than BL.
 
mew-2Chainz said:
Am I the only one who still thinks Gengar is still pretty good in the Sun and Moon OU meta? His typing is really good right now (offensively speaking), and he's got a good speed tier and special attack stat for firing off shadow balls and sludge waves. Yet most ladder players are scared to touch him since he lost levitate.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I fail to see how he's lower than BL.
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I think he still has a nice roll to play. running a specs set for max damage dosen't hurt because of his great coverage, and while losing levitate does hurt him quite a bit he can now absorb toxic spikes which is becoming more prevalent.
 
mew-2Chainz said:
Am I the only one who still thinks Gengar is still pretty good in the Sun and Moon OU meta? His typing is really good right now (offensively speaking), and he's got a good speed tier and special attack stat for firing off shadow balls and sludge waves. Yet most ladder players are scared to touch him since he lost levitate.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I fail to see how he's lower than BL.
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I had completely forgotten about Gengar before reading this. I may just have to give it a shot because I do often find myself struggling to find a good Fairy killer beyond the typical stuff. Phenomenal movepool outside of its STAB's as well.
 
mew-2Chainz said:
Am I the only one who still thinks Gengar is still pretty good in the Sun and Moon OU meta? His typing is really good right now (offensively speaking), and he's got a good speed tier and special attack stat for firing off shadow balls and sludge waves. Yet most ladder players are scared to touch him since he lost levitate.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I fail to see how he's lower than BL.
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Lol, I had a feeling Gengar would be pretty much the same, actually. Honestly, how often did it get switched INTO attacks? Even if you think it might be fighting or ground move, it also might be a free gengar KO due to paper thin defenses. We're likely still slow turning this thing in like before. Unless I missed some priority ground move, Gengar is going to be taking hits from the same pokemon as before. If gengar is significantly worse now, it's the overall state of the meta, not that he isn't switching into ground types all day.
 
Where Gengar ends up in the meta is going to be noticeably influenced by hazards, since he can absorb Toxic Spikes but now has to watch for normal Spikes. For a mon whose frailty means he's mostly losing health to passive damage in a "normal" use, that Spikes susceptibility could cut into him against defensively inclined teams if you want to use him as a Stallbreaker. I agree it probably isn't as big as it would be for some mons, but there is an impact to be noted on him.
 
I've really enjoyed using his trick set, sometimes I'll trick onto something that does hazard control and they'll get hit by cursed body and have to switch where I trick again(sash for leftovers) or I'll get a custap berry and save it for later vs something that'd clearly out speed gengar.

I'm sure trick won't be as good when Z moves are more common place and more megas are released.

It isn't as flexible as before thanks to extreme speed tier ing but maybe slowing down for some bulk might be enough to cement him in ou.

Ground also just seems to be a very good type too right now

Tatu lele only makes him more viable for now
 
mew-2Chainz said:
Am I the only one who still thinks Gengar is still pretty good in the Sun and Moon OU meta? His typing is really good right now (offensively speaking), and he's got a good speed tier and special attack stat for firing off shadow balls and sludge waves. Yet most ladder players are scared to touch him since he lost levitate.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I fail to see how he's lower than BL.
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Nah Gengar is actually kinda sexy in the meta rn, base 110 is still a decent speed tier for what it does, and of course its phenomenal offensive and support movepool give it a number of niches. I thought it would be less viable before the meta due o general power creep, but the trends towards fairies, psychics, and slow hard hitting wallbreakers works to its favor
 
How about scarfGar?

He has the speed, he has the offense and he has the moveset to pull off a late game cleanup.

A typical Trick/SBall/SWave/FBlast would be pretty decent i reckon
 
Any thoughts on running Soul Dew on Latios? I've been planning to make a Sumo team and I really like how good this mon is, however I'm somewhat scared that Fini's terrain makes Latios life harder.

Still, I'm not sure but since Latios has levitate, does that mean he's not affected by it and Draco still hits hard despite the terrain?
 
Gengar still faces competition from Salazzle as a Poison-type Special attacker as Salazzle can boost and is faster than Gengar. Nihilego also competes with Gengar with a better Special bulk (lower Speed), potential to snowball with Beast Boost and an interesting dual STAB combo. It would be interesting to see what people can come up with. Scarf or Specs on Nihilego, maybe?
 
Random Passerby said:
Gengar still faces competition from Salazzle as a Poison-type Special attacker as Salazzle can boost and is faster than Gengar. Nihilego also competes with Gengar with a better Special bulk (lower Speed), potential to snowball with Beast Boost and an interesting dual STAB combo. It would be interesting to see what people can come up with. Scarf or Specs on Nihilego, maybe?
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Is this a joke? Gengar is infinitely better than both Salazzle and Nihilego. Salazzle's lack of coverage options, SR weakness, and worse defensive typing mean it has far fewer chances to get in than Gengar (and hat's saying something because Gnegar already has a tough time getting in). Immunity to Seismic Toss and access to Taunt will always make it a better stall breaker. And although it can't boost, it can both outlast bulkier teams with Sub Wisp, or blow them apart with better coverage options like Focus Blast hitting Heatran.

Nihilego doesn't even compare. I can't even believe people think this mon is good. It has relatively slow speed and easily abusable physical bulk. Gengar outspeeds things and hits hard with a life Orb. Nihilego can hit hard, but it cannot outspeed much without a Scarf, in which case it's locked into either Rock or Poison coverage, both of which are exploitable. It should only be used as a Rocker and a lure with it's Hidden Power of choice, neither of which interferes with Genagr's role at all.
 
Philos said:
Any thoughts on running Soul Dew on Latios? I've been planning to make a Sumo team and I really like how good this mon is, however I'm somewhat scared that Fini's terrain makes Latios life harder.

Still, I'm not sure but since Latios has levitate, does that mean he's not affected by it and Draco still hits hard despite the terrain?
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It halves Dragon type damage taken by grounded Pokemon, even if the Pokemon using the Dragon-type move is not affected by the terrain. In your case, Latios's dragon type attacks would be weaker against all grounded Pokemon.
 
Yeah it's funny that people are giving Gengar so much shit this gen because of it no longer having Levitate but to be perfectly honest it's arguably in a better position than it was at the end of ORAS atm. New offensive threats such as Tapu Bulu, Lele, Alolan Marowak, and Kartana are running around which it outspeeds and easily OHKOs, Pokemon such as Tornadus-T, Weavile, and T-tar are getting a lot less usage which were normally good checks to it, and with Aegislash gone it has practically zero competition as an offensive Ghost-type. Not being able to check Lando reliably is a bit of an issue and does hurt it some, but LO Shadow Ball is still doing an absolute ton to it regardless, and it still lacks any reliable switch-in; Toxapex and Mantine are so damn passive as well as Taunt bait. In fact Gengar is actually a huge problem for Toxapex because it can absorb its Toxic Spikes. Tapu Fini being another premier glue mon is also food for it as well.

But yeah Gengar is great right now it's just not getting usage because people are retarded and think that not having Levitate makes it a bad Pokemon when they are forgetting that Levitate wasn't the only thing that made Gengar good.
 
Actually, with Tapu Lele being everyone's favorite toy right now and Psychic spam seeing Gen 1 levels of resurgence, Dark-types including Weavile and Greninja are everywhere, so right now Gengar is legitimately a poor option to run.
 
Schpoonman said:
Actually, with Tapu Lele being everyone's favorite toy right now and Psychic spam seeing Gen 1 levels of resurgence, Dark-types including Weavile and Greninja are everywhere, so right now Gengar is legitimately a poor option to run.
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Without discussing if Lele's gonna stick around, isn't there also the matter of the actual Psychic types, including Lele itself? Gengar is a frail attacker, so he'd fear priority, which Lele's presence discourages in teambuilding and inhibits in use. I haven't played enough to see what Psychic types in particular are surging up, but Gengar also poses a danger to the Latis in a tie (or outspeed for HP Fire), who I see popping up often as a Core option. While I can't comment on Weavile, Greninja's a thing that was probably gonna see use regardless.

Another mon that Gengar actually can deal with well is Alolan-Ninetales, which I've heard stupid things about for Hyper Offense cores thanks to Aurora Veil. Outspeeding to Taunt or OHKO makes it good given Voltturn entry or decent prediction (admittedly call this cherry picking) for stopping that facet of the team.

If we want to bring up the Tapus, I think another threat to him is Tapu Koko, who's stupid fast, plays well under Rain (see Swift Swim) and pairs with Alolan Raichu, who even outside Terrain speed ties.

How would Gengar pair with Tapu Bulu? Bulu deals with its new ground weakness as well as Dark types, while Gengar can eat Poison types. Gengar provides a decently speedy partner to clean up after Bulu's wall breaking, Grassy Terrain offsets his LO recoil, and weakens coverage Earthquakes that might let Gengar survive something like a coverage-after-Stealth Rock KO, and the two overall make for a pretty fearsome Wall Breaking duo. The one thing I'm having trouble pinning down, if any exist, are other non-generic perks Gengar offers Tapu Bulu.

I just want to see discussion of Gengar, being he's always been a favorite of mine and I'm curious to see how the Gen changed for him. Loss of Levitate, even ignoring the Ground weakness, can see some influence this gen with the Tapus throwing Terrain all about.
 
I honestly think Gengar benefits this gen from losing Levitate.

For example, against standard 4 attacks LO Gengar sets, Bisharp can either Pursuit-trap or revenge with Sucker Punch. But if Psychic Terrain is up, then Bisharp is in danger of eating a Focus Blast and dying without being even able to threaten a Sucker Punch. Banded Azumarill often threatens to KO Gengar with Aqua Jet with a little bit of chip, but again with Psychic Terrain, that can't happen and you can freely click Sludge Wave.

Grassy Terrain's EQ resistance is great for Gengar, and giving pseudo-Lefties (even if for only one turn) help alleviates LO recoil and passive hazards damage that Gengar now takes.

Electric Terrain doesn't benefit Gengar, and Misty Terrain is good for...stopping Thunder Wave and that's about it (so you fear Clef even less, which is nice), but all in all, being able to benefit from 2.5/4 Terrains is really good.
 
I don't mind a Gengar/Salazzle comparison although Ghost is obviously a better STAB than fire and Gengar hits substantially harder; I think Gengar generally outclasses Salazzle as a special attacker btw. I don't think that Gengar is bad right now but that's mostly because it completely screws a lot of the new introductions. I'm very, very annoyed that GF filled all of Gengar's ability slots with Cursed Body when there were so many appropriate low-hanging fruit for Gengar's abilities. That being said, cursed body is sort of useful. The problem is that it's a RNG-dependent ability that requires you to be hit on a non-bulky Mon. The good things for Gengar this gen are that it absolutely murders Tapus and sucker Punch got nerfed; the fact that it can take advantage of terrains is cold comfort compared to Levitate (outside of priority protection from psychic terrain) although strengthened energy ball/tbolt coverage is there and passive healing is pretty nice. I've been using trick specs because it hits silly hard but I guess you could mess around with some sub disable set with Grassy Terrain if that appeals to you, or just LO 3/4 attacks with wisp.

I've been using Nihilego almost exclusively as a hard-hitting suicide lead alá Azelf because its coverage is pretty bad for a Specs set although a special Rock STAB is really, really good.
 
I'm not sure what the dude's grudge against Nihilego was, but base 103 is actually nothing to sneeze at, since you outspeed Garchomp and below. Beating Genesect is pretty big when you've got a really meaty Power Gem to fire at will (I kept getting ruined by Specs after they scouted that I didn't have a Scarf), and your great special bulk means you can lead fairly effectively with Stealth Rock and/or Toxic Spikes.

The farthest Nihilego is going to fall will be UU. It's definitely one of the more balanced UBs (though not as fuckoff annoying as Celesteela), and its Defense is the only thing keeping it from being a real bitch.
 
DeeJ said:
It looks decent but in reality Torkoal is super booty. No reliable recovery, pressured easily by ALOT of other things cuz its so slow. Hazard weak spinners aren't good either, ever (loses to every rocker in the tier). Role compression is always nice but its not even good @ settin rocks..or spinning lol. Only Drought Pokemon worth using is Zard
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I did pretty well with a garbage team just by virtue of the support Torkoal can give (Y-zard cannot support things like Chlorophyll venusaur due to how short its sun lasts) and there's a much better Torkoal Sun team that saw some success in the OU Bazaar.

Torkoal IS an aggressively medicore pokemon but so are Pelipper this gen and Politoed last gen... the auto-weather abilities are really just that strong due to how they can support things. It's so much better than Ninetales though and compress so many roles that I believe it pushes sun up to a non-gimmick status.
 
Any success at using physical Tapu Koko? It doesn't have much options, albeit it does hit very hard.
This is one set i found to be funny as hell:

Tapu Koko @ Flynium Z
Evs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature

-Mirror Move
-Wild Charge
-Brave Bird/Acrobatics
-Roost

Z-Mirror Move gives you a SD boost, while mirrowing any action your opponent had last turn (which could lead to hilarious, effective and surprising moments). Wild Charge is an excedingly powerful move at +2 and Electric Terrain active. Brave Bird is there for coverage, which goes well with Roost (also provides an emergencial powerful move when you can't use Mirror Move for some reason). Acrobatics is a good alternative with no recoil once you use the Z-Move.

Thief could be on the last slot, it hits ghosts for some damage and steals the item; but no, don't use Thief.
 
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