Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread (read the op before posting a thread)

When did it become fashionable to run Defog on scarf users like Lando-T? It's almost everywhere on hyper offense teams, let alone being the 4th sole move for the set on the dex page. It is literally inviting the opponent to set up as it loses its surprise value by being the only defogger, or part of two mons that can learn the move where one of which is more likely to have it than the other. It's so unviable and I can't understand why it's normal now.
 

Colonel M

I COULD BE BORED!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
When did it become fashionable to run Defog on scarf users like Lando-T? It's almost everywhere on hyper offense teams, let alone being the 4th sole move for the set on the dex page. It is literally inviting the opponent to set up as it loses its surprise value by being the only defogger, or part of two mons that can learn the move where one of which is more likely to have it than the other. It's so unviable and I can't understand why it's normal now.
Compression.

Defog is nice to have and there are situations where Lando-T can force switches to some passive Pokemon such as bulky Water-types and Grass-types. It's not always easy for teams to randomly slap a dedicated Defog user and most will have it as an emergency option if the opponent lays hazards on your field and things start going south.
 
What set is running Mega Latias on balance on the core M-Latias/Pex/Gliscor?
I guess that Gliscor is SD + Facade or is it Stealth Rock + Toxic?
 
What is best to run on CM Stored Power Latias Refresh/Sub/Reflect Type? And why?
Currently is better run Ice Beam, as it makes Mega Latias a good check of SD Lando, Garchomp and Gliscor.
But Reflect Type makes you better against pursuit, av Magearna and utility Heatran with toxic
 

gnashed

Banned deucer.
Currently is better run Ice Beam, as it makes Mega Latias a good check of SD Lando, Garchomp and Gliscor.
But Reflect Type makes you better against pursuit, av Magearna and utility Heatran with toxic
So do Refresh/Sub have anything over Reflect Type?
 
Well with both of them you can avoid status or weaker attacks chipping away at your health (the latter only with sub tho), and all 3 options (RT, sub, refresh) leave you complete helpless against dark types, if there are no toxic spikes up.
Using RT to avoid status is a Bit tricky, cuz you need to use it on a steel/Poison/Electric typ First, but it can make it much easier to get a few CM boosts.
 
A major part of the reason Zygarde was banned was due to its ability to easily adapt to its counters and being too adaptable for the OU metagame. However, isn't this normal? I mean, every time there is a threat, the meta has to adapt to it, and the threat is the one who needs to adapt back to stay viable. Isn't this normal?
 
Someone in the viability thread mentioned offhand that Scarf Tapu Lele is one of the least popular sets for it right now. Here's my question: why? It seems to me like Choice Scarf would be a natural choice for it, since Psychic Terrain makes it more difficult to revenge kill.
 
Someone in the viability thread mentioned offhand that Scarf Tapu Lele is one of the least popular sets for it right now. Here's my question: why? It seems to me like Choice Scarf would be a natural choice for it, since Psychic Terrain makes it more difficult to revenge kill.
It struggles to break through defensive teams with Steel-types like Celesteela/Magearna etc. in the long run, whereas Fightinium Z and Choice Specs Tapu Lele would be able to overwhelm them over time. Furthermore, Tapu Lele is quite redundant as a Choice Scarf user because it doesn't check anything particularly important with the Choice Scarf boost.

tl;dr: It's just not that threatening and doesn't really hit any important Speed tiers.
 

Colonel M

I COULD BE BORED!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
A major part of the reason Zygarde was banned was due to its ability to easily adapt to its counters and being too adaptable for the OU metagame. However, isn't this normal? I mean, every time there is a threat, the meta has to adapt to it, and the threat is the one who needs to adapt back to stay viable. Isn't this normal?
While there is a small amount of truth to this, the adaptation needed for Zygarde is severely underplayed.

Zygarde was a Pokemon that could naturally adapt to its checks and counters as you said. The problem is this adaptation creates an issue of it being one extra thing to prep for in a team builder or with the strategy of the team. While you have Pokemon like Tangrowth and Tapu Bulu which can check some of the Zygarde sets, they also had difficulty handling the Toxic sets (to the point where they actually lost pretty hard) and the opposing team could do very little about it. Zygarde had so many viable sets and options - quite like Aegislash - that make it almost impossible to reliably check and counter. While there are some Pokemon that are harder to check or counter, they usually have flaws such as being too slow, relying on a Z Crystal to bypass its checks / counters, or some variation of team support. One thing that hurt when taking Zygarde into the equation was that only resists were "effective" against taking Thousand Arrows whereas some Pokemon naturally resist or have immunities to moves such as Ground-type attacks.

If you want more information I feel it's best to look at some of the posts made by council members on their thoughts on the suspect thread. There is also an article iirc explaining things as well.

I dont want to turn this into another "why was Zygarde (questionably) banned" shenanigan (though the meme potential from it was quite something to behold), so if you have further questions on Zygarde and its ban you can PM council members or moderators such as myself on it (though bear in mind I may redirect you to council if I must).
 
A major part of the reason Zygarde was banned was due to its ability to easily adapt to its counters and being too adaptable for the OU metagame. However, isn't this normal? I mean, every time there is a threat, the meta has to adapt to it, and the threat is the one who needs to adapt back to stay viable. Isn't this normal?
You can read this article written by me and Mellow. It goes pretty in-depth about why people felt that Zygarde was over the top.
 
I have a bit of a tiering question that was raised in the Policy thread. Why is OU balanced around (generally) everything up to but not including cover legendaries? In isolation dropping any of the terrible ubers (UUbers) like Pheromosa or Arceus Fire would break OU because the general power level and bulk of the tier are not comparable to that single element, but UUbers check other UUbers. Would everything not just filter down the tiers were multiple UUbers released at once into OU and the meta was balanced around this new, higher power level?
 

Yoshi

IT'S FINK DUMBASS
I have a bit of a tiering question that was raised in the Policy thread. Why is OU balanced around (generally) everything up to but not including cover legendaries? In isolation dropping any of the terrible ubers (UUbers) like Pheromosa or Arceus Fire would break OU because the general power level and bulk of the tier are not comparable to that single element, but UUbers check other UUbers. Would everything not just filter down the tiers were multiple UUbers released at once into OU and the meta was balanced around this new, higher power level?
You don't want to use the logic of "broken checks broken." This creates not a broken meta, but rather an unhealthy meta. Some metas require you to run x mon so you don't lose to y mon, but imagine having to run the same three or four Pokemon on a team so you don't autolose at best. In the event that we did free all the "UUbers", there would be certain matchups you just couldn't win because you didn't use the same six Pokemon (this could be an exaggeration but I'm sure you understand the point). Even though Smogon aims to make every Pokemon viable in some way, there are always going to be unviable Pokemon, no matter how much we try to change the policy. It's just how metagames work.
 
Someone in the viability thread mentioned offhand that Scarf Tapu Lele is one of the least popular sets for it right now. Here's my question: why? It seems to me like Choice Scarf would be a natural choice for it, since Psychic Terrain makes it more difficult to revenge kill.
It's not bad, per se, but Lele's wallbreaking capabilities with Specs or a Z-Move set are a lot more appreciated nowadays. If you're running Scarf Lele you run the opportunity cost of not running a tremendously strong wallbreaker in Specs or Z-Move Lele.
 
You don't want to use the logic of "broken checks broken." This creates not a broken meta, but rather an unhealthy meta. Some metas require you to run x mon so you don't lose to y mon, but imagine having to run the same three or four Pokemon on a team so you don't autolose at best. In the event that we did free all the "UUbers", there would be certain matchups you just couldn't win because you didn't use the same six Pokemon (this could be an exaggeration but I'm sure you understand the point). Even though Smogon aims to make every Pokemon viable in some way, there are always going to be unviable Pokemon, no matter how much we try to change the policy. It's just how metagames work.
Is there any difference in practice though between if we said that many (most?) OU threats would be broken/unhealthy in UU? Or UU threats in RU? The metas form around power levels that roughly orbit that of OU. Do the too-strong-for-UU mons not form a healthy meta when all the OU threats are together (if my hypothetical was about UU and OU rather than Ubers)? I just don't see how it would be any different than dropping UUbers and letting the cards fall where they may.
 

Yoshi

IT'S FINK DUMBASS
Is there any difference in practice though between if we said that many (most?) OU threats would be broken/unhealthy in UU? Or UU threats in RU? The metas form around power levels that roughly orbit that of OU. Do the too-strong-for-UU mons not form a healthy meta when all the OU threats are together (if my hypothetical was about UU and OU rather than Ubers)? I just don't see how it would be any different than dropping UUbers and letting the cards fall where they may.
It's the same thing regardless if it's Ubers -> OU, UUBL -> UU, RUBL -> RU. Letting the cards fall where they may is very irresponsible considering you're more than likely going to end up with an incredibly broken meta that isn't even fun to play. However, I guess if we want to meet in the middle somewhere, GS OU dropped a lot of threats like Genesect and Arceus Fire and that meta was decent to play, although not as fun as OU was by itself.
 
Is there a thread for Pokemon sets used to counter very specific threats? I feel it's a great idea to have one as 6 mons isn't enough to counter every threat in the game and some players have to create crazy sets to counter specific pokemon. It would different from an underused sets thread since these sets aren't so much underused but more of a way for someone running a certain team to be able to at least check certain threats they have.

Here's an example of the type of sets I'm talking about:



Volcanion @ Iapapa Berry
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 92 Def / 68 SpA / 96 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Steam Eruption
- Flamethrower
- Earth Power
- Sludge Wave

I've been using this set recently and it is really great against lead Landorus. With the evs given, It can take even a 252 atk adamant Earthquake, activate iapapa berry and ohko it with Steam Eruption. It can also Revenge Kill Mawile after an sd boost as the evs given outspeed adamant max speed Mawile and can take a +2 Sucker Punch even after taking Stealthrock damage. Weaker Earthquakes from pokes like Mamoswine and Excadrill have an 83% chance of activating Iapapa berry. The speed evs also mean you can outspeed and KO Adamant Azumarill that has set up Belly Drum.
 
Last edited:
Is there a thread for Pokemon sets used to counter very specific threats? I feel it's a great idea to have one as 6 mons isn't enough to counter every threat in the game and some players have to create crazy sets to counter specific pokemon. It would different from an underused sets thread since these sets aren't so much underused but more of a way for someone running a certain team to be able to at least check certain threats they have.

Here's an example of the type of sets I'm talking about:
Fwiw I think these sets are fine to post in the metagame discussion, that's pretty much what purpose the thread serves these days.

What I don't understand, however, is your post, because you're basically saying they're the same but they're not without any substance. Could you be more clear?
 

Colonel M

I COULD BE BORED!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
Is there a thread for Pokemon sets used to counter very specific threats? I feel it's a great idea to have one as 6 mons isn't enough to counter every threat in the game and some players have to create crazy sets to counter specific pokemon. It would different from an underused sets thread since these sets aren't so much underused but more of a way for someone running a certain team to be able to at least check certain threats they have.

Here's an example of the type of sets I'm talking about:
This thread can also be used for something like this too. So long as it has replays and the like. Metagame discussion as Jordy said is fine too.
 
Fwiw I think these sets are fine to post in the metagame discussion, that's pretty much what purpose it serves these days.

What I don't understand, however, is your post, because you're basically saying they're the same but they're not without any substance. Could you be more clear?
I feel the underrated sets thread is more for sets that are good but not really used whereas this tread would be more for sets to use when your team has a huge weakness and no pokemon slot to cover that weakness. Something like Yache berry Lando with more spdef to take boosted Ice beams when you don't have a safe switch in on ice types. I actually built a set like this specifically for Nidoking as I had no answer for it. But yeah, just stuff like that.
 
I feel the underrated sets thread is more for sets that are good but not really used whereas this tread would be more for sets to use when your team has a huge weakness and no pokemon slot to cover that weakness. Something like Yache berry Lando with more spdef to take boosted Ice beams when you don't have a safe switch in on ice types. I actually built a set like this specifically for Nidoking as I had no answer for it. But yeah, just stuff like that.
The metagame discussion thread should be fine to discuss techs like that; I don't think it's necessary to make a separate thread for that. Furthermore, if you REALLY want to showcase a set, the underrated sets thread is still fine. In regards to having to provide replays, I feel like this is a good rule because there's no reason to showcase and discuss a set if you have no way to prove that its actually worth it.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top