Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion (Usage stats in post #944)

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm a lurker on these forums and almost never post in like 7 years of showdown battling. With that dynamax has to go . Being able to negate choice lock and use budget Z moves for 3 turns should be enough for an outright ban . But obvii it does much more than that, add the insane secondary effects and encore Immunity and it goes from "maybe this is unhealthy and should be tested." To " BAN THIS TRASH RIGHT TF NOW."
 
I just think sometimes there needs to be someone advocating for NOT banning things, which is what I’m doing. People get attacked by the masses whenever we have an opinion that involves not banning things.
Darkrai’s strongest and only STAB is Dark Pulse FFs... the thing’s not that OP! I hope it gets unbanned in future or at least a test.
Aegislash was just an example of people clamoring for bans because they have past traumatic memories of when it was OP. But now it’s nerfed in multiple ways and overshadowed by bigger threats, and it has done nothing at all of note in the Dynamax metagame, and yet here we are talking about banning it???

And I don’t hate Smogon. It’s very useful resource and great site in general. I just feel like there’s a select few people that get to decide everything and have opinions, and people like me don’t get much representation.
People like you don't have your opinions considered in the grand scheme because you don't use actual logic and sophisticated reasoning to prove your point, instead just defaulting to things like "Why's this Pokemon banned? It's not even broken because (insert something about 1 counter that isn't even a full counter or type weaknesses here)" and won't give proper evidence for something to not be broken (matchups vs the metagame, potential sets and combos and why they're not as overwhelming as we may think, etc), likely because you yourself don't have enough experience at a high level for that type of thing. If you actually cared so much about Darkrai or whatever else being banned in a past gen or even current gen when it didn't deserve that banning, make an appeal to a council member and explain your thought process in an educated, civil, and open manner. Hell, if you get the permission to do so, make a thread to explain it as Ojama or BKC did with DPP Latias. But the thing is, barely if anyone here who bitches about how things aren't allowed when they "should be" actually does anything about their issue and are more happy to just complain for the sake of it and use incredibly simplistic and unintuitive logic like "Its STAB is Dark Pulse, not strong" or "It has a type weakness/counter" thinking their opinion will be considered by those who actually play the game at a high level. I don't even know why you're bitching about a past gen tiering decision in the gen 8 discussion thread but I won't minimod.

EDIT REPLYING TO HIS EDIT: I don’t think anyone is calling for a Dracovish suspect right now. If someone is, let me know who it is cause I don’t see anybidy. I also want us to take our time with most suspect tests when appropriate which is what we do already, so yeah.
 
Last edited:

chimp

Go Bananas
is an official Team Rateris a Contributor to Smogonis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
These "offensive sweepers and devastatingly powerful wallbreakers" mostly stem from one cause: Dynamaxing.
If dynamaxing is gone, Gyarados will see a drastic drop in usage, Hawlucha will see a drastic drop due to terrain setters being really subpar rn, Togekiss will likely see a drop, etc. Hell, even G-Darm will see a drop and that piece of icy shit can operate just fine without Dynamaxing (plz ban it btw)
The meta will no longer possess such "offensive sweepers and devastatingly powerful wallbreakers" with the banishment of Dynamaxing, and therefore, Ditto will no longer see such usage.
Disagree. Dynamaxing is powerful, yes, but these Pokemon are certainly not one trick ponies that rely solely on the mechanic. Will their viability take a hit? Certainly. But it won't be that drastic, atleast not for most of them. Gyarados will still remain a top DD threat. Hawlucha has other sets it can run to be self sufficient. G-Darmanitan will remain an absurdly powerful wallbreaker. And that's not to mention Dragapult, Hydreigon, Gengar, Haxorus, Eiscue, Polteageist, Excadrill, Dracovish, Aegislash, Grimmsnarl etc. Will banning Dynamax weaken these Pokemon? Yes. Will they stop running through the metagame? No. All I'm saying is that Ditto has a lot of value as a check-all to most offensive juggernauts, and I don't think it'll disappear from the metagame that easily.
 
Gyarados will still remain a top DD threat
I sincerely doubt this. Without Dynamaxing I really don’t see Gyara being all that threatening; it would pretty much just get hard stopped by Ferrothorn, Mandibuzz, and basically anything else that can comfortably take its attacks and threaten it offensively, which describes a good chunk of common defensive mons in the tier right now. Max moves are literally the only reason why it’s so good now; Airstream gives Gyara an obscenely strong and reliable flying STAB (which it otherwise lacks entirely) that essentially gives it an entire DD if it manages to kill something with it (which isn’t hard considering how spammable flying STAB is) meanwhile geyser allows it to blow past most defensive walls by summoning rain.

While mons like Barraskewda would still be good without dynamaxing, the absence of the bs choice-lock mechanic and automatic stat boosts for three turns would pretty much remove the necessity of having Ditto on your team to act as a fail-safe check to them since you wouldn’t get needlessly punished so much for trying to pivot around during their rain turns. And without dynamaxing to break its choice-lock, Ditto also wouldn’t be able to pull reverse sweeps nearly as easily as it does now.
 

spatula

I LOVE CHIPFLAVOUR
is a Tiering Contributor
Hi, I lurk a lot and have been reading through pretty much every post here relating to the sw/sh metagame. I have recently been using and facing a lot of Life Orb Clefable and have found it to be an absolute nightmare for any remotely non-offensive team to play around. Arcanine and Heavy-Duty Boots Rotom-Heat have been brought up in this thread as mons that can deal with Clefable decently well, but I am curious if there are any other methods of dealing with this problematic pokemon you guys have had success with.
 
Some of the points I mention here will be pretty controversial, but I think even the most competitive players can agree to some extent. I think it has been established that dynamaxing is a centralizing mechanic, but this can also be said with regards to megas and z-moves; and I don't think a centralized mechanic is necessarily a bad thing. Let's face it, dynamaxing is inherently fun. Your pokemon gets huge, doubles its HP, and goes on a rampage. Fun. This is the mechanic GF intended to implement into the game in a balanced way, and to be honest, they did a pretty good job.

I feel like banning dynamax completely splits the community in terms of fun and competition. We all want to have fun and enjoy playing the game, right? At the same time, though, we want to compete in a balanced metagame. I believe that the argument ultimately comes down to what we, as a community, would prefer. Do we want a more balanced metagame that lacks the explosiveness of dynamax, or do we want more freedom and creativity to do as we please with the powerful dynamax mechanic?

Personally, I think dynamax should stay. The vast majority of players, even in smogon, play this game as a hobby. At the end of the day, we play the game because we enjoy it. We enjoy using our favourite pokemon, outsmarting our opponent, testing different sets, etc. and dynamaxing really caters to that creative side of pokemon.

A lot of arguments I read complain about how dynamaxing completely removes long-term game plan; I completely disagree. When the player decides to dynamax, they are trying to make the most out of that opportunity. It isn't some braindead decision. Choosing when to dynamax and which pokemon to dynamax is all part of the game plan and strategy. Yes, dynamax is strong as fuck, it's supposed to be. Yes, dynamax increases the pace of the game, it's supposed to. Personally, I'm all for it. I'd much rather a 20 turn battle than a 50 turn battle. Every decision in that period is crucial.

To me, dynamax is a breath of fresh air. So far, I genuinely enjoy the meta and haven't felt this urge to play in a while (especially in comparison to when gen 7 was initially released). I want to finish this rant by saying that I am not ignorant of the strengths of dynamax. I'm aware of how powerful max airstream sweepers are, how powerful it is to switch up moves with choice locked mons, how difficult it is to stop a dynamaxed setup sweeper; but this is just how it is. The key to winning battles is using dynamax and getting the most out of it.
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
Some of the points I mention here will be pretty controversial, but I think even the most competitive players can agree to some extent. I think it has been established that dynamaxing is a centralizing mechanic, but this can also be said with regards to megas and z-moves; and I don't think a centralized mechanic is necessarily a bad thing. Let's face it, dynamaxing is inherently fun. Your pokemon gets huge, doubles its HP, and goes on a rampage. Fun. This is the mechanic GF intended to implement into the game in a balanced way, and to be honest, they did a pretty good job.

I feel like banning dynamax completely splits the community in terms of fun and competition. We all want to have fun and enjoy playing the game, right? At the same time, though, we want to compete in a balanced metagame. I believe that the argument ultimately comes down to what we, as a community, would prefer. Do we want a more balanced metagame that lacks the explosiveness of dynamax, or do we want more freedom and creativity to do as we please with the powerful dynamax mechanic?

Personally, I think dynamax should stay. The vast majority of players, even in smogon, play this game as a hobby. At the end of the day, we play the game because we enjoy it. We enjoy using our favourite pokemon, outsmarting our opponent, testing different sets, etc. and dynamaxing really caters to that creative side of pokemon.

A lot of arguments I read complain about how dynamaxing completely removes long-term game plan; I completely disagree. When the player decides to dynamax, they are trying to make the most out of that opportunity. It isn't some braindead decision. Choosing when to dynamax and which pokemon to dynamax is all part of the game plan and strategy. Yes, dynamax is strong as fuck, it's supposed to be. Yes, dynamax increases the pace of the game, it's supposed to. Personally, I'm all for it. I'd much rather a 20 turn battle than a 50 turn battle. Every decision in that period is crucial.

To me, dynamax is a breath of fresh air. So far, I genuinely enjoy the meta and haven't felt this urge to play in a while (especially in comparison to when gen 7 was initially released). I want to finish this rant by saying that I am not ignorant of the strengths of dynamax. I'm aware of how powerful max airstream sweepers are, how powerful it is to switch up moves with choice locked mons, how difficult it is to stop a dynamaxed setup sweeper; but this is just how it is. The key to winning battles is using dynamax and getting the most out of it.
A sense of "fun" is arbitrarily derived from each individual's personal experience and cannot be used as a conclusive argument piece in a tiering context. The entirety of the tiering process and suspect process is built around building a competitive metagame and maximizing the chances for competitive gameplay. While Dynamaxing may be fun or cool in the eyes of many, most people also understand that it lacks a place in a competitive environment. I am not going to repeat arguments that have been stated countless times already -- including by myself here and in the PR thread -- but your argument on the "fun" of Dynamax is most definitely not valid in any serious tiering discussion.
 
A sense of "fun" is arbitrarily derived from each individual's personal experience and cannot be used as a conclusive argument piece in a tiering context. The entirety of the tiering process and suspect process is built around building a competitive metagame and maximizing the chances for competitive gameplay. While Dynamaxing may be fun or cool in the eyes of many, most people also understand that it lacks a place in a competitive environment. I am not going to repeat arguments that have been stated countless times already -- including by myself here and in the PR thread -- but your argument on the "fun" of Dynamax is most definitely not valid in any serious tiering discussion.
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word fun because you're entirely correct, it is subjective. "Different" would be more accurate; dynamaxing offers something completely new. I understand that the tiering process is used to create the most balanced and competitive metagame, but I'd also like to argue that dynamaxing is unique to sword and shield and by removing it we are removing the fundamental aspect of the game that makes it unique. I truly believe that we should play the game how it is intended to be played and make adjustments from there. If we're willing to ban dynamax because it is an "over-centralizing mechanic" then we are not playing the game how its intended to be played; we're not playing sword and shield. It's time for change.
 

Finchinator

-OUTL
is a Tournament Directoris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Community Leaderis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Smogon Media Contributoris a Top Dedicated Tournament Hostis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Championis the defending OU Circuit Championis a Two-Time Former Old Generation Tournament Circuit Champion
OU Leader
Maybe I shouldn't have used the word fun because you're entirely correct, it is subjective. "Different" would be more accurate; dynamaxing offers something completely new. I understand that the tiering process is used to create the most balanced and competitive metagame, but I'd also like to argue that dynamaxing is unique to sword and shield and by removing it we are removing the fundamental aspect of the game that makes it unique. I truly believe that we should play the game how it is intended to be played and make adjustments from there. If we're willing to ban dynamax because it is an "over-centralizing mechanic" then we are not playing the game how its intended to be played; we're not playing sword and shield. It's time for change.
I don’t personally want to ban it because it’s over centralizing — in fact, the phrase over centralizing has always annoyed me and I will never include it in my posts. Cannot speak for others, but my big thing is the timing causing a lot of guessing/unpredictability with something with so much potential firepower. Games get wrapped up or decided by short spans that cannot be accounted for after every last twist and turn. Dynamax has a lot of ridiculously good effects from damage to secondary stuff as is, but it’s also just not competitive in terms of raw application timing in a purely competitive game.

I still do not view difference as a staple of tiering policy, especially when considered as an alternative to balance and the ideal competitive nature of a metagame. I understand what you are going for and simply do not think the importance is there relative to our normal approach. To each their own though.
 
Fun is not what makes things competitive, yes. What makes things competitive is opportunities to demonstrate skill. That is best demonstrated in a system with multiple moving parts as each one is an additional opportunity to demonstrate skill and a different resource that has to be skillfully managed. Banning dynamax removes one of those moving parts.

As for those claiming dexit brings enough change already, there's a difference between a change in roster and a change in mechanics.

Edit: Basically, I am saying that having something extra to guess is inherently more competitive, not less. This is one of the reasons the addition of abilities and items was good
 
The more I play OU, the more I am ready for Dynamax to go. It's a foregone conclusion at this point that it will be banned, and I'm ready to start playing the actual metagame. The versatility it gives Choice item users is ridiculous and while I have had many "normal" games maaany of them just end in a Gyarados sweep, either mine or theirs. With monsters like Darmaritan and Dracovish running around Dmax is annoying to navigate because I know it's probably getting banned anyway.

So yeah yeah you're all right it should be banned. Yet, I stand by my stance on a separate ladder that includes Dynamax and don't feel even a little bad for being cautious about banning it. It's a huge (literally haw) mechanic and there's nothing wrong with wanting to preserve it in some way. Z Moves were some boring uninspired malarky and I would have had the same stance on them. Obviously Megas were the perfect "gimmick" for Smogon. All they did was update old Pokemon and any overtuned ones could just have their Mega stones banned. They were perfect. With Z Moves things got shaky, but because OU had so much insanity in it I never felt they were super out of place.

I guess the real argument for me is "does banning Dmax too far remove Smogon from the actual game itself and how most people are playing it?". In a way, no, because Dmax will probably not even be in the next generation and isn't needed for an authentic Sw/Sh experience. In a way, yes, kiiiinda, because it is such a signature mechanic in this gen and is part of the face of Sw/Sh. That's why I feel there should be some attempt to preserve the mechanic. But not in OU. Because I'm over it. Fin.
 
Some of the points I mention here will be pretty controversial, but I think even the most competitive players can agree to some extent. I think it has been established that dynamaxing is a centralizing mechanic, but this can also be said with regards to megas and z-moves; and I don't think a centralized mechanic is necessarily a bad thing. Let's face it, dynamaxing is inherently fun. Your pokemon gets huge, doubles its HP, and goes on a rampage. Fun. This is the mechanic GF intended to implement into the game in a balanced way, and to be honest, they did a pretty good job.

I feel like banning dynamax completely splits the community in terms of fun and competition. We all want to have fun and enjoy playing the game, right? At the same time, though, we want to compete in a balanced metagame. I believe that the argument ultimately comes down to what we, as a community, would prefer. Do we want a more balanced metagame that lacks the explosiveness of dynamax, or do we want more freedom and creativity to do as we please with the powerful dynamax mechanic?

Personally, I think dynamax should stay. The vast majority of players, even in smogon, play this game as a hobby. At the end of the day, we play the game because we enjoy it. We enjoy using our favourite pokemon, outsmarting our opponent, testing different sets, etc. and dynamaxing really caters to that creative side of pokemon.

A lot of arguments I read complain about how dynamaxing completely removes long-term game plan; I completely disagree. When the player decides to dynamax, they are trying to make the most out of that opportunity. It isn't some braindead decision. Choosing when to dynamax and which pokemon to dynamax is all part of the game plan and strategy. Yes, dynamax is strong as fuck, it's supposed to be. Yes, dynamax increases the pace of the game, it's supposed to. Personally, I'm all for it. I'd much rather a 20 turn battle than a 50 turn battle. Every decision in that period is crucial.

To me, dynamax is a breath of fresh air. So far, I genuinely enjoy the meta and haven't felt this urge to play in a while (especially in comparison to when gen 7 was initially released). I want to finish this rant by saying that I am not ignorant of the strengths of dynamax. I'm aware of how powerful max airstream sweepers are, how powerful it is to switch up moves with choice locked mons, how difficult it is to stop a dynamaxed setup sweeper; but this is just how it is. The key to winning battles is using dynamax and getting the most out of it.
Couldn't have put it any better. Be open to change, embrace the new, rethink your past beliefs if the circunstances changed (e.g. Mon A is unviable because it always was/ Mon B is too strong and should be banned because it always was).

On the other hand, I don't like that many users here "argue" by making fun of or mildly insulting the opposing party on a personal level, e.g. calling their views "ridiculous", telling them "the pros" think otherwise etc. If you need to express your views, at least be constructive.

About when to dynamax:
More often than not, I found that not dynamaxing first puts me in a better position. If the opposing dynamax ended, I can usually win with my own dynamax afterwards. Of course, I try to keep there Set up to a Minimum, e.g. by using a ghost as my sack to avoid +attk from max knuckle or dynamax+max guard on turn 3 to stall out their max-form and finish them afterwards. Or if the opposing max-mon was a choice user, its easy to set up on it after dynamax ended and the choice lock comes back. So dynamaxing first ussually puts you about one mon ahead and sometimes thats enough to win, but dynamaxing second when the opponent allready used theirs and thus can't dynamax reactively is what won me most games. Opinions on this?

Other thoughts:
I tried playing full Trickroom (using the strong OTR setters), but feel like there is a lack of strong abusers (like Mega-Mawile or A-Marrowak where). Ans recommendations? Found Scrafty working surprisingly well (doubles as a dark/ghost resist), in fact better than Conk. Thoughts?
 
Some of the points I mention here will be pretty controversial, but I think even the most competitive players can agree to some extent. I think it has been established that dynamaxing is a centralizing mechanic, but this can also be said with regards to megas and z-moves; and I don't think a centralized mechanic is necessarily a bad thing. Let's face it, dynamaxing is inherently fun. Your pokemon gets huge, doubles its HP, and goes on a rampage. Fun. This is the mechanic GF intended to implement into the game in a balanced way, and to be honest, they did a pretty good job.

I feel like banning dynamax completely splits the community in terms of fun and competition. We all want to have fun and enjoy playing the game, right? At the same time, though, we want to compete in a balanced metagame. I believe that the argument ultimately comes down to what we, as a community, would prefer. Do we want a more balanced metagame that lacks the explosiveness of dynamax, or do we want more freedom and creativity to do as we please with the powerful dynamax mechanic?

Personally, I think dynamax should stay. The vast majority of players, even in smogon, play this game as a hobby. At the end of the day, we play the game because we enjoy it. We enjoy using our favourite pokemon, outsmarting our opponent, testing different sets, etc. and dynamaxing really caters to that creative side of pokemon.

A lot of arguments I read complain about how dynamaxing completely removes long-term game plan; I completely disagree. When the player decides to dynamax, they are trying to make the most out of that opportunity. It isn't some braindead decision. Choosing when to dynamax and which pokemon to dynamax is all part of the game plan and strategy. Yes, dynamax is strong as fuck, it's supposed to be. Yes, dynamax increases the pace of the game, it's supposed to. Personally, I'm all for it. I'd much rather a 20 turn battle than a 50 turn battle. Every decision in that period is crucial.

To me, dynamax is a breath of fresh air. So far, I genuinely enjoy the meta and haven't felt this urge to play in a while (especially in comparison to when gen 7 was initially released). I want to finish this rant by saying that I am not ignorant of the strengths of dynamax. I'm aware of how powerful max airstream sweepers are, how powerful it is to switch up moves with choice locked mons, how difficult it is to stop a dynamaxed setup sweeper; but this is just how it is. The key to winning battles is using dynamax and getting the most out of it.
Fun is not what makes things competitive, yes. What makes things competitive is opportunities to demonstrate skill. That is best demonstrated in a system with multiple moving parts as each one is an additional opportunity to demonstrate skill and a different resource that has to be skillfully managed. Banning dynamax removes one of those moving parts.

As for those claiming dexit brings enough change already, there's a difference between a change in roster and a change in mechanics.

Edit: Basically, I am saying that having something extra to guess is inherently more competitive, not less. This is one of the reasons the addition of abilities and items was good
This would be a good point if Dynamax did not remove a huge amount of player to player interactions from the average game. Dynamax is stupidly non-interactive and removes a large amount of the decision making in the average game. Dynamax wins the game so if you are playing with a game plan that doesn’t account for that, you’ll just lose. Additionally, is a game lasts 20-50 turns but only 6 (give or take a turn or two of setup) *really* matter what is the point of the rest of the game?

In short, this sucks. The mechanic is shiny and nifty except it’s not even that. The Pokémon gets big and it gets a lot of health. I understand mistaking the dopamine rush that one feels when seeing the numbers on their Pokémon go higher and higher for fun, I would argue that consistently outplaying an opponent to wear down their defensive core so you can sweep the rest of their team is much more fun in the long run. Especially for a game you are gonna be playing for 2-3 years.
The meta will stagnate incredibly quickly with dynamax. Team building will be more constrained than in any gen previously. Frankly, tournaments with dynamax should be played with higher game counts in a match because the level of variance is so much greater in a dynamax game.
In short, this sucks.
Dynamax is inarguably non-competitive and very arguably “fun”
 
Aegislash was just an example of people clamoring for bans because they have past traumatic memories of when it was OP. But now it’s nerfed in multiple ways and overshadowed by bigger threats, and it has done nothing at all of note in the Dynamax metagame, and yet here we are talking about banning it???
Aegislash is also quite reliant on King's Shield; which Dynamax pokemon can just brute-force through. It is also perhaps one of the worst Dynamax users in the game; due to it's low HP stat; and the fact it cannot Kings Shield or Shadow Sneak in Dynamax means it'll frequently simply be OHKO'ed because it's stuck in Sword Forme with pathetic bulk as a result; and is slow.

It's bad against Dynamax and it's bad when Dynamaxed. Considering the meta right now revolves around Dynamax...

Dynamax's existence in of itself is a massive nerf for Aegislash. Without Dynamax; it's entirely possible Aegislash rises up again. Especially while; yes; it got nerfed, Aegislash also got movepool buffs; for example; access to Close Combat; Psycho Cut [Aegis didn't have any Psychic-type coverage before]; Air Slash [Again; coverage it lacked before] and even Solar Blade for Sun teams or with a Power Herb to smash bulky waters who do not expect a BP125 Super-effective hit instead of a resisted Steel hit.

Aegis lost a bit of raw power [I think it's the only pokemon to get a BST nerf actually] and Kings Shield got nerfed to not completely wreck anything physical; but I'd say it's movepool buffs are pretty significant and make it quite a lot less predictable. Bulky Fighting-types used to be fairly safe for example, but now they can get slapped by a Psycho Cut or Air Slash.

Hell; Special Aegislash can use Steel Beam, a STAB BP 140 move; from it's Base 140 Sp.Atk in Sword Forme. And that thing is powerful enough to 2HKO Max/Max+ G-Corsola.

252+ SpA Life Orb Aegislash Steel Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Corsola-Galar: 165-196 (50.9 - 60.4%)

And keep in mind that's a Neutral hit; and SE Shadow Ball only does 58.6 - 69.7%, and I'm pretty sure most G-Corsola go physically defensive because pretty much all the major threats are physical [Gyarados; Hawlucha; G-Darm; Barraskewda...]; and Phy Def Corsola takes 71.2 - 84.2% from Steel Beam; which is basically a KO with Rocks and any amount of prior damage.

I'm not saying Slash is banworthy in a post-Dynamax metagame, but to ignore the fact that Dynamax really screws over Aegislash; and Aegislash's greatly improved movepool, is a little foolish too.
 
Last edited:

peng

fuck xatu
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
There's so many anti-ban arguments here that just are "yes its overpowered but its meant to beand I have fun doing it when i play casually".

Guys if you get fun out of playing with blatantly overpowered stuff then there are still a million ways you can do that. You can play with your friends with dynamax on showdown (just not OU ladder), you can play on cartridge with Battle Stadium 3v3, I'm sure Ubers / Anything Goes has Dynamax etc. The bans here don't just blanket ban Dynamax on every single platform and format available - you'll have other outlets where you can use it.

But on the other hand, people who legitimately play OU competitively in tournaments are forced to use the specific ruleset that we're deciding on here, and those people overwhelmingly dislike dynamax. Does it not make sense to have at least one format where Dynamax is banned, and also to pick the format that is actively being played at a high tournament level i.e. Smogon OU? Or do you really want Dynamax to be playable in every single Gen 8 format because its fun for a minority of people even though you could play like 5 other formats where its definitely going to be allowed?

People playing for fun can play literally any format under the sun, the rest of which all have Dynamax if you're that in love with it. People playing in tournaments on this site have to play Smogon OU. Normally I wouldn't recommend to people "just play non-Smogon rules then" but there are a few people posting here who, based on their posts, would be opposed to basically any kind of ban whatsoever, and that there's some kind of "intended" way to play Gen 8 that Game Freak has given us and we have to strictly stick to. If thats your mentality then (in the least rude way possible), Smogon is probably not set-up in a way that is ever going to really appeal to you, because our entire philosophy in recent generations is based off the fact that GF can't make balanced Pokemon games out of the box. If you're convinced we should play as GF intended then this site does have a Battle Stadium subforum that is pretty active and I'd suggest checking it out.

More often than not, I found that not dynamaxing first puts me in a better position. If the opposing dynamax ended, I can usually win with my own dynamax afterwards. Of course, I try to keep there Set up to a Minimum, e.g. by using a ghost as my sack to avoid +attk from max knuckle or dynamax+max guard on turn 3 to stall out their max-form and finish them afterwards. Or if the opposing max-mon was a choice user, its easy to set up on it after dynamax ended and the choice lock comes back. So dynamaxing first ussually puts you about one mon ahead and sometimes thats enough to win, but dynamaxing second when the opponent allready used theirs and thus can't dynamax reactively is what won me most games. Opinions on this?
This is a much better type of argument for why not to ban Dynamax - nothing about it being "fun" or "different" or "unique", but you're somebody who believes that it is not broken and that is is handleable. These are the types of anti-ban arguments that are actually worth discussing.

However, you're acknowledging that sacking something to Dynamax is an inevitability - this is huge red flag that this is an unhealthy mechanic. What if your Ghost-type is an essential counter to a different opposing Pokemon, what do you do? If we're ackowledging that something like Barraskewda is so unbearable with +1 attack that you'd sack Corsola or Aegislash to stop it using Max Knuckle, then what are you doing against Barraskweda paired with Kommo-o, Conkeldurr, or Hawlucha?

You're basically arguing in favour of it being broken here - you're always stuck between a rock and hard place where even if you play well defensively its still getting boosts off you, and if you want to try and control the specific boosts it gets you have to lure it into other attacks and sacrificing. In this case Barraskewda has effectively succeeded by luring Corsola because now you get pumped by its partner in the back. If sacrificing a Pokemon every single time is the response not to get swept, then we have a problem.
 
Last edited:

Matthew

I love weather; Sun for days
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
So we should make the game less competitive and worse for players to prep for and play just because it’s the gens gimmick and you’re scared it’d make the tier dull if it left? You made no effort to try and argue actual reasons as to why dynamax isn’t broken. Why should we even care what Gamefreak calls the defining mechanic of the gen (the gimmick)? Our tiering philosophy is a lot more complex and sophisticated than that and we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves like that. Those “themes” are just mechanics of the gen and how we play them differently. As has been said a trillion times in this thread alone, the way dynamax alters how we play is unhealthy and overcentralizing, so we shouldn’t care cause it’s fun to watch (debatable) and it doesn’t make the tier “too stale”. I think the vast majority of good players would rather have a stale metagame that’s stable balance wise than a clusterfuck of bullshit that’s nearly unplayable that’ll have the same spammed threats that’ll eventually becoming boring anyway. Sorry for being so scattered.
I think you might be mistaken on how the ban policy works; I don't have to prove something isn't broken it's on you to prove that it is. As I said I don't mind dmax staying or going, I just want the metagame to be different between generations, no national dex is probably good enough for me. However the pro-ban group needs to explain why a mechanic is overpowered.
 
My argument isn't that it's fun. My argument is that it's a resource. A resource like moveslots or items. I am saying that banning dynamax wouldn't be comparable to banning a Mon, ability or move. It would be comparable to banning items in GSC. Yes, items are powerful. That is why they're a limited resource. Resource management is a good part of a competitive metagame.
 
I think you might be mistaken on how the ban policy works; I don't have to prove something isn't broken it's on you to prove that it is. As I said I don't mind dmax staying or going, I just want the metagame to be different between generations, no national dex is probably good enough for me. However the pro-ban group needs to explain why a mechanic is overpowered.
I’m legitimately curious, did you just not read this thread at all before page 27 or the Policy Review Thread (like I said a in a previous post, why would I expect people to? Too much to ask at this point). Pretty much everyone who plays this game at a remotely competent level doesn’t want Dynamax allowed at this point because it’s unhealthy and overcentralizing. I made my stance clear in there and I will also link Roze’s, Talah, ABR, and Colonel M’s posts here, here, here, and here. Now you have to tell me why this mechanic isn’t broken. If you’ve ever visited a suspect thread, you would know discussion needs to happen both ways. You can’t just say “give me evidence” then not even give your own evidence on the basis of me wanting it banned. And I mean actual arguments not stupid filler shit like “It’d make the game boring if it was banned” or “It’s the gens main mechanic” which literally don’t prove in any way why the mechanic isn’t unbalanced or why players should put up with it. I don’t even know why you were posting in here and not in Policy Review (you’re badged and that’s where this discussion mattered before the thread closed).

Basically, I am saying that having something extra to guess is inherently more competitive, not less. This is one of the reasons the addition of abilities and items was good
There’s a difference. Items don’t break the entire game you’re playing as it’s you easily infer what item the Pokemon is carrying and you can play around it without having to worry about one mess up causing you to lose your whole game on the basis of the item. For example, you won’t be seeing a Choice Scarf Toxapex or Assault Vest Kartana. Abilities can apply to this occasionally but it’s usually obvious what ability the Pokemon has based on team structure, the fact it’s its only ability, or the fact the ability shows as soon as it comes on to the field (I’d count Magic Guard with this as well). However, guessing what set a Pokemon is when each set’s counters are vastly different, for example Pheremosa is not because the Pheremosa user always had the upper hand on you until the set was revealed and it’d still be hard to play around even when the set was revealed. To get back to Dynamax (the “moving part you don’t want gutted) who out of the opponent’s 6 Pokmon, their set, and when they Dynamax sways your entire game and guessing wrong more times than not results in you losing. This makes the things you have to guess so overbearing on how you play to the point where it’s pretty much all that matters sometimes. And you have to have this worry for multiple Pokemon, not just one. And to swing it back as well as respond to your post above, yeah, items and Dynamax aren’t comparable, one “resource” completely changes how we have to play and can easily break any sort of balance or consistency, the other is just a small aid to a Pokemon. Not to mention, GSC’s item is pretty much only Leftovers (besides Thief users) so there isn't any guessing to items in it which weakens your overall argument so why of all gens to compare was GSC is beyond me.
 
Last edited:

Patolegend!

Fan of 1000 Arrow 'Slash
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Rotom-W comes to mind as a hard Corviknight counter. It still is likely going to be very viable in the OU meta due to its utility options . Plus it also gets Nasty Plot now, which can also be of benefit to toher Rotom forms too
The problem is that it isn't a hard counter. Sub BU can beat it, as it stalls out volt-switch pp. If it Dynamaxes as Rotom volt switches and breaks the sub, it gets the speed boosts to stall the rest of the PP.
 

Thunder Pwoell

Banned deucer.
Gigantamax forms are A-ok for me because they lack some of the biggest strengths Dynamax has.
1a. Gigantamaxing is limited to certain Pokemon, meaning that its very sign posted in team preview what Pokemon you will Gigantamax
1b. Also because of its limited distribution, it acts more like what Z moves (especially Exclusive Z-moves), where you can’t gigantamax any time in the battle to fit the situation best. You are forced to have this specific Pokemon out on their field, and you can decide mid-match to swap who you are going to Gigantamax (like you could with Dynamaxing since you can Dynamax anything at any time)
2. Most G-max rarely snowball. In fact, the only (correct me if I’m wrong) G-max move that increases your stats is Machamp’s and its a focus energy boost.
That isn’t to say all the G-Max moves have bad effects, but pretty much all of them don’t force you to use Ditto like Max Airstream/Knuckle or Max Geyser does with how many boosts you can accumulate.

If there are Gigantamaxes that are still broken, just treat them like Megas, Banning only the broken forms.
bro do you even know what GMax is? seriously all of your posts have been severely foolish so I’m asking? everything you said was wrong other than 1a. Jesus Christ dude it's like you don't even play the game or know what youre talking about.

From the opponents point of view you do not know which mons are gonna gigantimax, people can carry multiple, there is no sign. secondly, and this is the most severely egregious of your points, what the hell do you think gigantimax is? It's just a. cosmetic difference most of the time, and they can and do use other dynamax moves. In fact they don't have to use the specialized z moves. I don't know what brought you to think otherwise. like even in your own posts, a lot of the gigantimax mons can and do use "Max Airstream/Knuckle or Max Geyser". like what the hell dude. COME ON, really sick of y'all.
 
I chose GSC because it was the gen which introduced items, but fair enough.

Edit: I haven't been using dynamax in every battle anyway. And yeah, I have won with my opponent dynamaxing first. Admit, I am low ladder, so I admit my experience is not representative.
 

Thunder Pwoell

Banned deucer.
The more I play OU, the more I am ready for Dynamax to go. It's a foregone conclusion at this point that it will be banned, and I'm ready to start playing the actual metagame. The versatility it gives Choice item users is ridiculous and while I have had many "normal" games maaany of them just end in a Gyarados sweep, either mine or theirs. With monsters like Darmaritan and Dracovish running around Dmax is annoying to navigate because I know it's probably getting banned anyway.

So yeah yeah you're all right it should be banned. Yet, I stand by my stance on a separate ladder that includes Dynamax and don't feel even a little bad for being cautious about banning it. It's a huge (literally haw) mechanic and there's nothing wrong with wanting to preserve it in some way. Z Moves were some boring uninspired malarky and I would have had the same stance on them. Obviously Megas were the perfect "gimmick" for Smogon. All they did was update old Pokemon and any overtuned ones could just have their Mega stones banned. They were perfect. With Z Moves things got shaky, but because OU had so much insanity in it I never felt they were super out of place.

I guess the real argument for me is "does banning Dmax too far remove Smogon from the actual game itself and how most people are playing it?". In a way, no, because Dmax will probably not even be in the next generation and isn't needed for an authentic Sw/Sh experience. In a way, yes, kiiiinda, because it is such a signature mechanic in this gen and is part of the face of Sw/Sh. That's why I feel there should be some attempt to preserve the mechanic. But not in OU. Because I'm over it. Fin.
bro nothing is stopping you from actually purchasing the game other than your bank account I guess. Please stop this ridiculous non argument - "
I guess the real argument for me is "does banning Dmax too far remove Smogon from the actual game itself and how most people are playing it?". In a way, no, because Dmax will probably not even be in the next generation and isn't needed for an authentic Sw/Sh experience. In a way, yes, kiiiinda, because it is such a signature mechanic in this gen and is part of the face of Sw/Sh. That's why I feel there should be some attempt to preserve the mechanic. But not in OU. Because I'm over it. Fin."
completely irrelevant and not even an issue. Glad you finally came over to the right side but for other people that are thinking the same of "oh gee it defines the generation lets keep it" just don't. If you're that invested, please purchase and spend time on the actual switch console game and steamroll with a mechanic made so that 7 year olds could win games easier. Thank you! And lets Finally get back to actual meta game discussion.


I think bewear has some huge potential this gen, e
 

peng

fuck xatu
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
Basically, I am saying that having something extra to guess is inherently more competitive, not less. This is one of the reasons the addition of abilities and items was good
This is true up to a point, but once you start adding in too many things to think about it becomes more and more of a guessing game rather than skill.

For the last few generations, Pokemon has been relatively balanced in terms of how many options you have per turn. Every turn, you can choose one of 4 moves, or make a switch to one of 5 Pokemon. Therefore, every turn you have to pick 1 option out of 9, based on which of the 9 options you expect your opponent to pick. Often, there will be 4ish options that are objectively quite bad ("choking"), 3 that are pretty good if your opponent makes the corresponding move, and 2 that are generally safe and "good". Each turn you have to work out which of those 9 options is the best for you to take. There will be situations where 2 options are almost indisinguishable, particularly in the late-game and therefore causing coin flip situations, but for the most part there's tons of skill in a 9-option metagame. [Note: In gens 6 and 7 there are slight deviations to this, because 1 Pokemon per team can Z-move or Mega which means that on one turn per game there's 10 options]. If I have 9 options, and you have 9 options, then every turn can go one of 81 ways.

Dynamax in Gen 8 OU flips this on its head, because it effectively adds an extra 4 options to consider every single turn up until Dynamax is activated. Every turn we now have 13 options per turn each meaning 169 outcomes.

This would be handleable if the Max moves just did damage, cos you'd still probably only have a 2-3 objectively good choices per turn. But all the Max moves all have secondary effects, meaning that in some way or another they are basically all good options on any given turn. Without Dynamax, Close Combat into a resist is a bad option, but with Dynamax, Max Knuckle into a resist is legitimately good. So rather than having 2 good options out of 9 per turn, an attacking Pokemon now has 4-6 really good options per turn factoring in dynamax (e.g. If you have Barraskewda out vs a water-weak Pokemon and Toxapex is in the back, you can 1) Liquidation to try and KO, 2) Psychic Fangs to predict 3) switch to something with a better Toxapex match-up, which are all pretty good options. But Dynamax adds in Max Geyser if you want to set-up Rain, Max Knuckle for attack boost even if Pex comes in etc etc). Its much more difficult to then pick between those 4-6, especially factoring in that your opponent can also Dynamax. Its for this reason that people say that Dynamaxing is unpredictable - ultimately in turns into guesswork because offensive Pokemon commonly have multiple options that are equally good and almost the same risk:reward, and there's little skill in picking between them AND that's even if you know which Pokemon is actually going to do it. The number of times I've seen legimitately very good players lose a game because of 50:50s regarding whether the opponent will Dynamax or not is absurd.

This also has particularly shitty ramifications for Choice items, which are obviously very very good but are limited by the fact that after attacking, you now only have 6 options per turn (1 attack + 5 switches). But Dynamax opens up all those options for you again, meaning that even somebody making objectively the best plays against something like Darm has to play a complete guessing game because the limitation on their item now just doesn't exist. With specific relevance to Darmanitan, Dyanamaxing at the right time and Max Quaking a Toxapex can be an auto-win, but this is a 50:50 basically every turn because there are so few switch-ins to CB Icicle Crash already.

tl;dr Up to 9 options per turn has tons of skill, but if you add in an extra 4 super powerful attacks every turn that boosts stats then its more of a guessing game. Too many good options per turn with dynamax involved that predicting when it'll happen is just a myth. Obviously you can still be skilled this generation but I'd argue the skill cap is way lower and there's tons more guesswork, may more situations where "if he does x I win, if he does y I lose".
 
Last edited:
Okay, literally the next battle I play shows my experience. I am not the one who uses dynamax (g-max in this case), yet I was the winner (yes, I admit I am at the bottom of the ladder.)

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1019307096
But like you said, you're at the bottom of the ladder. Your opponent made some very questionable plays as well (sacking Pelipper like that for example).

And even disregarding the level of skill of play, one (or even a few) examples of "well I didn't need to dynamax to win" doesn't actually invalidate the argument that Dynamaxing is not good for 6v6 singles here at Smogon.

I can pull up replays of me smashing people who dynamaxed at higher ranks on the ladder, and I still think it's uncompetitive for 6v6 singles here (and I just don't like the mechanic from a lore view).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 2)

Top