Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

[Lord Xen III]

There are already are and always have been effective counter measures to hazards outside of HDB.

There is no competitive basis to any argument so far seen in the recent pages of this thread against banning boots.

There is no principle of competitiveness that says Volcarona and xyz pokemon that are weak to rocks need to be unoppressed by Stealth Rocks, in fact it is the opposite:

A characteristic of a competitive meta is that players have a reasonable capacity to build a team that covers most of the metagame. As more and more pokemon are introduced, threats proliferate and building a reasonable team becomes more impossible. Moves like hazards which could restrict a vast segment of pokemon, and centralize team construction around moves (which are the basis of competitive outcomes) become more vital than ever to maintaining a playable game.

I think a pokemon and team builder using it should still have the option of being able to lessen how stealth rocks affect it.


I dont think HDB in principle is flawed.

There is a balance to be struck. You want a diverse metagame to avoid over- centralization.


SR is unkind to flying, bug, ice, and fire types, and having an option to make that go away should be a thing, it should just have a strong opportunity cost or weakness so it cant just be mindlessly abused.

 

[Bakugames]

Hdb does have a big opportunity cost on paper imo:

You lose the opportunity for any sort of recovery or power/speed increase by running boots which can be crucial to hit 1/2hkos or surviving attacks, it has no use as long as there's no hazards on the field, and knock is more spammable than ever this gen. It synergizes well with switch moves but coming back without getting knock off is a bit of a struggle.

The issue is simply that stealth rocks are so big that not only do you get rid of one of the downsides (its very rare to have a game with no hazards on), the boons are just too good to pass.

I'm not sure if banning boots would lead to a healthier metagame, it's nice to not have to worry about hazard control for once in my life, but it's hard to argue that boots aren't somewhat game warping by themselves. I kinda just accepted this as a quirk of the generation, though

 

[SLDR]

There are already are and always have been effective counter measures to hazards outside of HDB.

There is no competitive basis to any argument so far seen in the recent pages of this thread against banning boots.

There is no principle of competitiveness that says Volcarona and xyz pokemon that are weak to rocks need to be unoppressed by Stealth Rocks, in fact it is the opposite:

A characteristic of a competitive meta is that players have a reasonable capacity to build a team that covers most of the metagame. As more and more pokemon are introduced, threats proliferate and building a reasonable team becomes more impossible. Moves like hazards which could restrict a vast segment of pokemon, and centralize team construction around moves (which are the basis of competitive outcomes) become more vital than ever to maintaining a playable game.

Your last sentence can be flipped entirely. We do play by effectively 'clicking moves', but pokèmon aren't the only things that are introduced each generation: abilities, moves and items keep growing in numbers as well. Moves are being affected by both abilities and items since Gen 3, all three are basically what Pokémon battling is about. Items have even defined new overarching mechanics in Gen 6 and Gen 7, with Megas and Z-crystals. This is to say, you can't just single out moves being the main basis of competitive outcomes when you choose your movesets with abilities and items (and typings of course) in mind.

With this premise, the way you tackle on HDB has to be reconstructed in a different light: how do you measure its impact on the competitive scene? How restrictive can it be? Does it negatively affect the viability Pokémon, moves, abilities? Does it make entire playstyles more broken? Does it create unhealthy circumstances?
I agree with you that in a vacuum HDB is an absolutely crazy item, top 2 alongside Leftovers for sure. If you try to answer the questions I raised, you'd realise that they are difficult to answer in an objective way. For example, in this generation you use SR a lot to pressure the opposing defensive backbone by forcing passive damage and/or gaining momentum by forcing Defog/Rapid Spin. I've not seen many games where Stealth Rock were just BAD or not worth setting up. You could even argue that limiting the effectiveness of Stealth Rock a bit more is a good thing because of how easy it is to force chip damage with it, considering that it naturally hits everything. You are given the choice to ignore it by sacrificing the item slot or deal with it and use the item slot.

Speaking of this is HDB's drawback (admittedly the only one): you can't use power- or speed-boosting items, leftovers/black sludge or other miscellaneous items like helmet or berries. Many mons that use HDB would love being able to receive passive recovery from Leftovers (mainly defensive mons) or holding Life Orb/Protective Pads/Choice items/Lum Berry/whatever (mainly offensive mons). Chip damage stacks on the generic HDB Pokémon (Regen+HDB is another issue entirely and the broken-ness of it to me is mainly brought by Regenerator), and sources of chip damage aren't only entry hazards: contact-punishing abilities and rocky helmet, sandstorm or hail, burn and poison, damaging trapping moves. Of course, Volcarona and company couldn't have asked for a better item, but that goes to show the power of Stealth Rock as much as the power of HDB.

However, banning a move or an item is incredibly more complex than banning an ability or a Pokèmon, because - as I said earlier - competitive Pokémon is based on MOVES, ITEMS AND ABILITIES and how they interact.
Let's take Cinderace as an example. With Boots, has Cinderace always been broken from the start? No. We had Blaze Cinderace in the tier and it was a perfectly fine Pokèmon. Then again, without Boots, would have Libero Cinderace been broken? Also no. HDB made Ace the ultimate pivot that thanks to Libero+crazy coverage also had pretty phenomenal breaking power. How do you assess this situation? Is HBD the issue, or is it Libero? The answer is: the combination of both. The same logic can be applied to Regenerator mons, ESPECIALLY the Slowtwins which abuse the holy trinity of RegenPort+HDB. This combination is one of the best move-ability-item interactions we have ever seen, but none of the single components individually pushes either Slowtwin over the edge by itself. I would argue HDB is the least valuable of the three, seeing how Slowbro worked perfectly fine with Rocky Helmet, although HDB is definitely still very valuable.

What HDB does can ultimately be divided in two sections:
1) Give viabilty to SR weak Pokémon, mainly defoggers
2) Give even more viability to PIVOTS - the understandable part of the ban-HDB argument.
The first point I can only see as a good thing honestly. The more viable Pokémon we have, the better it is. I understand that for the longest time, keeping stealth rocks up was the way to deal with a certain portion of the metagame, but these pokèmon can also be dealth with outside of rocks. The ones you can't, get banned (kyurem-black, ace), but that's clearly because of their other traits IN CONJUNCTION with the boots, it's never just because of the boots. Secondly, HDB is a gen 8 item and - since we've established how difficult it is to evaluate an item like this outside of subjective frustration - we gotta deal with it: as Lemingue said, it's the quirk of our generation.
The "principle of competitiveness" you are searching for is simply that this item was created for this purpose: make rocks less punishing. Is it less competitive just because it makes it easier or is it competitive exactly because it gives another layer of counterplay around hazards?

The second point is where it gets tricky, because HDB definitely sinergyzes VERY well with pivots, as hazards have been notoriously their worst enemy and of course the boots negate them as long as they don't get knocked/tricked. it creates longer games exactly because we are used to entry hazards doing a big amount of work against pivots, limiting the amount of switches they can afford. In gen 8 we have developed other ways to defy pivots but they are absolutely living their best lives, especially regen mons, especially the slowtwins that have regenport.

Massive TL;DR.
HDB is definitely a strong item that has defined gen 8 so far. It created a more pivot-centric meta where you can't constantly deal that 6%/12% chip even when rocks are up, and where already good abilities like regen now effectively got boosted. I personally think it's fine right but I can see the issues you guys bring up.

 

[Finchinator]

The dispute between “boots is the problem” and “stealth rocks warp the game” is going to spiral into a “what came first: the chicken or the egg” caliber shitshow at the rate we are going. Both sides will repeat the same thing and not technically be wrong without being fully correct either. Let’s drop that circular debate for the sake of whatever may be left of my sanity

I’m going to bring it (boots) up to council and we will likely use the upcoming WCoP to gauge the metagame anyway, so don’t worry — we will be on top of everything we can be.

A long, internal discussion around these five things is probably already happening. Your decision is invaluable (please move/share this to the necessary members/communities if need be) to resolve the dissent amongst members of the community.

A discussion on everything relevant to the metagame will occur, but the community is not in the disarray your post implies it is and we do not rule without checks/balances, which include the community and their input.

Council involvement and decisions are important, but the suspect process exists for a reason. Keep that in mind and we will likely be providing more on what’s happening from the council chat in the future anyway as we plan to make a council minutes thread.

 

[Emanuel.EXE]

Does this mean everyone is gonna stop talking about how the Boots are "bad"?
I hope so, it has been said before that the Boots will not be banned. And banning Items is almost as rare as banning moves, which means it will likely not happen.

 

[TURBODERP]

Honestly while I personally disagree with a boots ban right now, I think that one of the benefits of suspecting it would be the potential of looking into things like a semi-item clause, or other similar-ish bans/experimentation. There's a lot of potential, although the potential to become unnecessary/complex bans is a real one.

 

[Finchinator]

Does this mean everyone is gonna stop talking about how the Boots are "bad"?
I hope so, it has been said before that the Boots will not be banned. And banning Items is almost as rare as banning moves, which means it will likely not happen.

Nobody said that and that thread is still open for discussion, so people who have PR access should absolutely share their thoughts as they wish.

 

[ahriko]

I think a boots clause sounds good. The problem isn't necessarily the way that mons like Torn get to do their jobs better, it's more in the way that they become too much and make wayyyy too many mons immune to hazards. The aspect of Volcarona's 4x weakness meant that if you wanted to use it efficiently, you had to be really smart about how to do it, and you needed to play well and read your opponent to get it done. Nowadays, a slow U-Turn or teleport gets that guy in regardless of what's happening regarding rocks, which as fun to use Volcarona as it is, doesn't seem too great for that whole meta thing to me at least.

 

[SuperiorTroodon]

I think a boots clause sounds good. The problem isn't necessarily the way that mons like Torn get to do their jobs better, it's more in the way that they become too much and make wayyyy too many mons immune to hazards. The aspect of Volcarona's 4x weakness meant that if you wanted to use it efficiently, you had to be really smart about how to do it, and you needed to play well and read your opponent to get it done. Nowadays, a slow U-Turn or teleport gets that guy in regardless of what's happening regarding rocks, which as fun to use Volcarona as it is, doesn't seem too great for that whole meta thing to me at least.

I dont necessarily agree, as while boots seems like an item you can just slap on to make a mon usable, there are some obvious downsides to them. First, knock off is still in the game, and it is very prevalent and widespread. The chance to have this important item completely removed is a good reason why it's not super busted. Another thing is that running boots means you cant run anything else. For example prior to boots, volcarona usually ran something like lum berry or leftovers. If volcarona now uses boots instead of something like lum berry, its much more susceptible to status conditions, which halts its sweeping potential. Another example is if kyurem, a powerful wallbreaker, chooses to run boots instead of specs. Its no longer stealth rock weak, but the lack of specs means that it cuts into its damage output, and wallbreaking becomes harder. So there is some nuance to HD boots.

 

[ahriko]

I dont necessarily agree, as while boots seems like an item you can just slap on to make a mon usable, there are some obvious downsides to them. First, knock off is still in the game, and it is very prevalent and widespread. The chance to have this important item completely removed is a good reason why it's not super busted. Another thing is that running boots means you cant run anything else. For example prior to boots, volcarona usually ran something like lum berry or leftovers. If volcarona now uses boots instead of something like lum berry, its much more susceptible to status conditions, which halts its sweeping potential. Another example is if kyurem, a powerful wallbreaker, chooses to run boots instead of specs. Its no longer stealth rock weak, but the lack of specs means that it cuts into its damage output, and wallbreaking becomes harder. So there is some nuance to HD boots.

There's a downside for sure, and I'm not acting like boots suddenly makes a mon like Volcarona better in ALL cases, but it makes it way easier for it to come in and removes a lot of the counterplay and difficulty around using Volcarona, especially with Teleport's prevalence, which can get it in for free pretty easily. The problem is that it removes having to play around an important part of the game, and while yes, there's counterplay, there's always counterplay to anything unless it gets REAL bad. Boots just makes it way easier than it should be to use the high-risk, high-reward stuff like Volcarona, and makes it far too easy to get it in without addressing an important part of the game, but at the end of the day that's just how I see it.

 

[Finchinator]

I highly doubt Boots clause happens in any form. If the item is problematic enough to warrant tiering action, we ban it. If it is not, then we do not. There is no true midground here enough to justify taking a preservationist stance on a lone item, essentially throwing out any semblance of precedent or tiering priority for the sake of arbitrarily enabling use of an item.

Even Item clause would make more sense than this, as it at least is a recognized clause and handles items universally rather than singling out a lone item. This is not me proposing we add item clause either -- I am not a fan of this proposal personally, but it easily makes more sense than creating a new boots clause. To me, the real options are just ban the item or not ban the item. I prefer to keep them around right now, but it's clearly controversial enough to warrant more discussion here so long as we do not continue to try to move the goalposts unrealistically.

 

[ahriko]

I think an OU Item Clause could lead to some more diversity, especially when it comes to something like leftovers, but it would in a sense give a little bit of an edge to Toxapex for black sludge over leftovers. I think it could be cool overall tho, we could get to see some new items or rarer ones, maybe discover some cool new tech along the way

 

[ahriko]

Sleep Clause's whole idea is that you can't just win a game by spamming a sleep move, and honestly it's more because it makes the game uninteractive and unfun. It's fundamentally the same idea as when Minimize and Double Team, it's an unfun strategy that makes the game unfair to one side. And having a limit on one sleeping mon makes it so you have to choose a mon to get slept, and so that it can be a sort of strategy around which mon you need the least. Overall, Sleep Clause removes an unfair and unfun strategy so I see literally no issue with it.

 

[Bakugames]

I've always loved item clause in vgc. It really changes how you approach team building and breaks some of the monotony (is that the correct word?) of the metagame. It's probably a long shot to implement in current OU, and may be more of a policy review topic, but I think even just trying it out would be worth it. I think it would kill stall even more though lol

In theory, the "galar symbol only" moveset would be pretty interesting (no more knock spam let's goooooooo), but I'm unsure if it should actually be applied to in practice.

 

[SLDR]

I'd say HDB and Item Clause are something that the council COULD evaluate with the next playerbase survey they do, just to gauge the perception of the players. I'm not saying they should, there's a council for a reason and they decide the best course of action. They would have to discuss the topics thoroughly before deciding to do something like that, especially because the idea of item clause is very related to the HDB issue so I'm assuming there are many implications and HDB needs to be discussed before doing so for the Item Clause.
I don't know if this is feasible or not, I don't want to mess with their job which is difficult enough already. I'm just giving my input.

...but since I'm here I'm giving my opinion. HDB is very busted with certain mons but I like having it in the meta, HDB Clause is bad and doesn't make sense, but Item Clause I like it a lot! Imma try to build my teams with self-imposed Item Clause now lol

 

[tigers jaw]

I have a few questions for those suggesting consideration of an item clause: Where does the impetus to implement an item clause come from, other than grievances regarding HDB? What is the case for an item clause? How does it add to, and not detract from the competitive integrity of the metagame at large?

Most teams are dependant upon the ability to use a single item on multiple Pokemon as a means to adequately prepare for common threats and builds, many of which flounder when stripped of this ability. From my experience in building and playing VGC in XY, most of the time you're left to ration out items that are very sub-standard and ultimately hamper the ability of teams to handle threats within a metagame. This would be exacerbated in a singles metagame that isn't operating on a "bring six, pick four" basis.

I also think that ultimately, item clause would lead to a very offence-dominated metagame, and a volatile one at that. Defensive roles are usually the ones that cannot be maintained without the ability to mitigate passive damage or accrue passive regeneration, which is why Knock Off is a crucial tool for opening up defensive backbones for many teams. I imagine some will offer responses akin to "well, you may have less resources with which to prepare for the metagame, but this also applies to the nature of threats which you will be preparing for". This is flawed, as we must remember that there is an asymmetry when it comes to overcoming offensive threats and defensive roadblocks, both naturally in the way that building and playing functions, but also where item choices are concerned. There is a lot more variability in viable offensive items (Life Orb, Choice items, 1.2x boosting items, etc.) than there is with more typically defensive items.

 

[5camp]

I have a few questions for those suggesting consideration of an item clause: Where does the impetus to implement an item clause come from, other than grievances regarding HDB? What is the case for an item clause? How does it add to, and not detract from the competitive integrity of the metagame at large?

I play a lot of VGC, so I suppose I'll add something here. My favourite part of item clause is the process of elimination you run through while evaluating the opponent's team. You're constantly running through a mental checklist of where the focus sash/life orb/weakness policy/choice scarf could be. It rewards knowledge of popular sets, how teams work together, so you can intuitively work out that X Pokemon could not be running a scarf because X pokemon in the back must be running it. This sorta happens anyway in smogon singles to a degree, but it becomes much more an explicit part of the game when item clause is in effect.

The negatives I can see is that it would I feel constrain teambuilding somewhat. Suddenly it's a lot more difficult to justify running Slowking, Zapdos, Moltres, Blissey, Mandibuzz etc if item clause is in effect since you can't use the most effective item on all of them, aka boots. Same with pokemon that rely on leftovers more like Clefable, Heatran, Tapu Fini, etc. However these Pokemon are so good that most teams will use one of those leftovers/boots mons, meaning if you found a lower tier mon that could put in work for your team, it restrains what you can do with that lower tier mon if some metagame staples are already hogging the best items.

However if you were to ask me if I enjoyed the meta more with item clause or without, the answer is 100% prefer item clause.

 

[HeartfulKitty]

I'm a bit worried that an item clause would limit the number of available playstyles. Both stall and hyper offence oftentimes rely upon mons that have the same item. On hyper offence you might have two life orb users, two users of a specific choice item, or what have you. For stall, most of every mon you run will want either leftovers or HDB, with few exceptions. Hyper offence would adapt to this far more easily than stall, but it'd still limit it a bit and ultimately remove some of the current capabilities for both archetypes to succeed, especially stall. I know people don't care much for stall usually, but I think there should be at least some thought into how an item clause would impact that.

It'd also cause several mons that are currently used to varying degrees of success to fall off the cliff of viability, since there's not a lot of reason why you'd run them without an item that you'd rather use on something else. It is possible that it would overall increase diversity in the metagame by having new mons become viable as others lose viability, but I believe that's a consideration worth looking into as well.

I'm not wholly opposed to an item clause, but I'd be very cautious about actually implementing it without looking at how it would effect the metagame. Limiting HDB usage might sound good, but it'd be a mistake to hurt the rest of the metagame in trying to do that.

 

[AquaVanilla]

item clause makes no sense since every team has knock off and it will ruin some playstyles like ho and stall. Doesnt matter if its gonna be "diversity', we dont need a item clause lol

 

[ausma]

Hey everyone! I'd like to remind you all that discussion regarding the integration of an Item Clause is probably best not to have here. This is somewhat similar to Sand Veil and King's Rock, in the sense that clauses that center around battle policy are things that center around the entirety of CG, as opposed to just SS OU. If any of you are interested in the idea of discussing an Item Clause for CG or otherwise, the Policy Review forum is the perfect place to discuss it and I would heavily suggest doing so there. However, that being said, I believe discussion on Heavy-Duty Boots and their effect on the metagame, on the other hand, is completely fair as their impact centers heavily around the tier itself and its inhabitants.

To add to that discussion, I personally feel as though Heavy-Duty Boots are an incredible item, but are not inherently broken since they come with the opportunity cost of the item slot in order to take full advantage of, while also boasting surprisingly straight-forward counterplay in the form of Knock Off. While impunity to entry hazards can be pivotal to hazard weak setup Pokemon like Volcarona and some variants of Weavile which heavily appreciate the ability to maintain their HP and set up with much less strenuous conditions attached, the lack of additional strength or utility from any other item can limit immediate strength in exchange for more reliable setup opportunities. For defensive Pokemon, it's a bit of a rougher case as they are considerably more Knock Off-prone and in some cases really enjoy having Leftovers or another item in order to enhance longevity and/or reduce passivity. In cases like with Mandibuzz, some Pokemon can be too reliant on them and their defensive utility can drastically sink when hit with Knock Off.

Heavy-Duty Boots remind me quite a bit of Leftovers in previous gens, which were used as a "why not" item of sorts that alleviated the need to recover as much, and gave Pokemon without natural longevity the ability to do their job more reliably in the long term. In the case of Heavy-Duty Boots, they see use on many of the tier's more dedicated pivots, as well as on Pokemon in general that enjoy not having to deal with entry hazards to do their jobs more reliably. This also being said, I don't entirely believe the item slot alone determines and maintains team variety; this comes from the make of the team itself and what moves are utilized, too. Though even this gets into subjective territory as to what we consider to be "variety", if there is variety, and if variety/the lack thereof is actually breaking CG. From there, we start to teeter into a discussion point that is less about SS OU and more about battle conditions as a whole, which, again, are not for this thread.

In short: I have never really seen Heavy-Duty Boots as a broken element in the tier in spite of their incredible utility. I'll be looking into it more, though!

 

[Chameleon]

Hey everyone! I'd like to remind you all that discussion regarding the integration of an Item Clause is probably best not to have here. This is somewhat similar to Sand Veil and King's Rock, in the sense that clauses that center around battle policy are things that center around the entirety of CG, as opposed to just SS OU. If any of you are interested in the idea of discussing an Item Clause for CG or otherwise, the Policy Review forum is the perfect place to discuss it and I would heavily suggest doing so there.

Putting aside that there is no place for badgeless users to discuss things like Item Clause (no other threads, and PR is locked), I would argue that Item Clause is specifically an SS OU consideration. SS OU is the first generation where item stacking is of balance concern. And secondly, to quote a recent poster:

This is flawed, as we must remember that there is an asymmetry when it comes to overcoming offensive threats and defensive roadblocks, both naturally in the way that building and playing functions, but also where item choices are concerned. There is a lot more variability in viable offensive items (Life Orb, Choice items, 1.2x boosting items, etc.) than there is with more typically defensive items.

The ratio of available offensive and defense items is not the same between generations. Stall would be hard pressed to ration Gen III items, but in the years after we received Black Sludge, Eviolite, Rocky Helmet, and HDB. Item Clause is not backwards-compatible, though at some point, it may become forwards compatible.

I'm fine dropping discussion on item clause here, but it is one of those clauses that, being easily selectable on cart yet untested in practice, has always intrigued me.

 

[Lord Xen III]

Hey everyone! I'd like to remind you all that discussion regarding the integration of an Item Clause is probably best not to have here. This is somewhat similar to Sand Veil and King's Rock, in the sense that clauses that center around battle policy are things that center around the entirety of CG, as opposed to just SS OU. If any of you are interested in the idea of discussing an Item Clause for CG or otherwise, the Policy Review forum is the perfect place to discuss it and I would heavily suggest doing so there. However, that being said, I believe discussion on Heavy-Duty Boots and their effect on the metagame, on the other hand, is completely fair as their impact centers heavily around the tier itself and its inhabitants.

You are the only one with a badge(s) that I've seen weigh in on Item clause aside from Finchinator, so if one of you could make that thread in Policy Review it would be nice. Or anyone else for that matter. I haven't seen much discussion on this topic ever so it would be interesting to see modern takes on it, given how much the situation with items ( and Knock off since its introduction in Gen VI) has evolved.

 

[Finchinator]

You are the only one with a badge(s) that I've seen weigh in on Item clause aside from Finchinator, so if one of you could make that thread in Policy Review it would be nice. Or anyone else for that matter. I haven't seen much discussion on this topic ever so it would be interesting to see modern takes on it, given how much the situation with items ( and Knock off since its introduction in Gen VI) has evolved.

I would be more willing to bump the boots thread or make a thread in the future. I’m not sold myself quite yet and I know council will be discussing this more moving forward. It would be premature to do so now, but this can be changed if there is more support and this is reflected in the metagame. I’ll keep an open mind as always, but just not there quite yet

 

[gye5]

Don't really think Vish needs a test but I needed a second mon for the meme and that was the least ridiculous one other than Ace. After Ace is tested, I can't really think of what else is test-worthy. Maybe we'll just have a stable meta from there.

Honestly I wouldnt mind testing urshifu again after all the draga issue is done.

 

[freezai]

Teleport and Heavy Duty Boots have been a hot topic lately, and its reached new heights as now some people are running Level 99 Slowking so that they can teleport slower than other Slowkings. In fact, we've seen Level 99 Slowking in multiple World Cup of Pokemon games so far! What do you think of this metagame trend, just a gimmick or something here to stay?