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

If we being real pex is the only problematic regen mon. Regen on its own is no more of a problem than it's been in every other gen. Just because you can't run only 1 (one) form of passive damage and cover literally every mon anymore doesn't mean stall is broke. But pex is another story. Who cares if you have two mons that 1v1 it? mon just takes 60 from a super-effective STAB, clicks koff or toxic or tspikes or scald or whatever other random utility the mon gets and then switches out for free to its teammate that answers your pex answer (which any good pex team will have). Not saying it's broken for sure but I'd bet a pex suspect would be a lot less one-sided than the melm one.
I agree, most regen mons are fine and even healthy for the meta (see the slowtwins), but pex in particular just has so much going for it that I think it's probably the most unhealthy thing in the meta right now, punishes switches arguably moreso than hazards can in some scenarios, has a dangerous hazard of it's own in tspikes, and doesn't really provide much to the tier besides kinda soft-checking a bunch of things, I'm not entirely sure it's banworthy, but it's right on the line for me at the moment
 

Scarfire

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Boots are the one thing that prevents this meta from being really cancerous. Learn to apply offense without depending on one move clicked at the beginning of a match.
This has to be a bottom 10 take of the gen, especially the last sentence. Learn to position your defensive mons around the rocks chip and when to remove them or simply play with them up, like people have been for years before ss.

Its very easy to boil it down to a very nothing statement that makes it sound like a skill issue. Instead, can you elaborate on how exactly this metagame becomes cancerous with boots gone?
 
Not saying it's broken for sure but I'd bet a pex suspect would be a lot less one-sided than the melm one.
Pex can be annoying yes, but I don't think it really crosses that threshold. It has a similar issue to Melmetal defensively, it has to spread itself out to check specific threats and isn't always the end-all be-all of defensive options when considering regenerator mons. We have specific tools such as trappers like Fini and Heatran, things that naturally threaten it and are very common like Tapu Koko, Zapdos, Lele, Washtom, Landorus, Garchomp, Nidoking, etc., and wallbreakers that threaten to pulverize teams like Dragapult, Blacephalon, Gengar, Crawdaunt, and Kartana. I think given the wide array of tools we have there is really no reason to complain about Toxapex aside from miniscule interactions, it needs prepared for.

On the subject of boiling down concerns to nothing more than skill issue, specifically on boots, there is some truth to the fact that it needs to be adjusted to. However, I don't necessarily think boots are all the problem as regenerator could be, even if the two go hand-in-hand as I have previously mentioned. Boots have given more viability to mons that would have otherwise been pretty stunted this generation like Volcarona and Dragonite, while providing certain defensive options like Tornadus and Zapdos with more of a buffer to deal with offensive threats that run the tier. Slowbro and Slowking hold a special place seeing as we've almost had issues with them before, though again that was mostly Teleport + Future Sight and they have since toned down as the meta matured. Offensive options such as Victini, Weavile, Moltres-G, Tapu Koko, and Zeraora have also benefitted from boots, and none of them really present any major issues because of it.

I understand and respect some of the reasoning behind wanting to look into Toxapex, but there has been no real indication that it is broken or unhealthy in a meta where we have plenty of answers to it. We've even seen it decrease in usage over previous months and eventually trends such as Gastrodon and Rotom-W sprang up and became more popular which further contributed to a decline in usage. I think the meta has done nothing less than prove that it can adapt to Toxapex naturally with the available tools it has in a healthy way that isn't overbearing or restrictive.

Given that reasoning, I don't think Toxapex would be a difficult case as much as it would be open and shut because the majority of the community recognizes that it poses no real problem. Same for boots really, it's just the way that things are in the generation 8. Things are no better or worse than previous generations due to either of these, it's just different.

(P.S.)

That said though, it isn't impossible to see a Toxapex or Boots test before the popularity of this generation dies down. However, I think we all know how it would go. It's mainly just a peace of mind thing.
 
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No surprise to Melmetal staying, one of the few times a suspected mon is actually more healthy than harmful for a tier. Glad to see most peoppe agree.

Anyways can we end the gen on a boots suspect I think that would be quite neat.
indeed thank you for your continued work, those on the council
 
Pex can be annoying yes, but I don't think it really crosses that threshold. It has a similar issue to Melmetal defensively, it has to spread itself out to check specific threats and isn't always the end-all be-all of defensive options when considering regenerator mons. We have specific tools such as trappers like Fini and Heatran, things that naturally threaten it and are very common like Tapu Koko, Zapdos, Lele, Washtom, Landorus, Garchomp, Nidoking, etc., and wallbreakers that threaten to pulverize teams like Dragapult, Blacephalon, Gengar, Crawdaunt, and Kartana.
Yeah but it can often trade to toxic something like garchomp and then switch out to smth to deal with it since a team obv has +2 garchomp counterplay otherwise wtf are u doing. Pex just trades super super well and can even recovery on many mons and even stuff such as heatran, fini, zapdos, koko dont exactly want to switch in and it forces so much progress esp with knock, scald, toxic, toxic spikes and u pretty much have to consider all of them as they are all viable options for forcing progress. It also is hard to overwhelm because it checks so much of the meta and can get regen of so much of them
 
Hazards are broken and take no skill. Fire, flying and Ice types deserve to be viable. Defog is too much of a momentum drain and you will lose the war because everytime you come in to Defog you give your opponent a free turn to attack your defogger or poison it. Rapid Spin is beat by Rocky Helmet chip + hazards damage or Ghost type. Hazards is a lazy way to win with no thought required. It's so brain dead. You simply come in with your Ferro, Skarm or whatever on something it walls and you're good to go. Keep the boots please.
 

Scarfire

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Hazards are broken and take no skill. Fire, flying and Ice types deserve to be viable. Defog is too much of a momentum drain and you will lose the war because everytime you come in to Defog you give your opponent a free turn to attack your defogger or poison it. Rapid Spin is beat by Rocky Helmet chip + hazards damage or Ghost type. Hazards is a lazy way to win with no thought required. It's so brain dead. You simply come in with your Ferro, Skarm or whatever on something it walls and you're good to go. Keep the boots please.
Boots are broken and take no skill. Fire, flying, and Ice types are already viable. Defog requires thinking about when it is affordable to sap your momentum and remove them, and when you can afford to give your opponent a free turn by having positioned in well. Boots are a lazy way to avoid the mechanic entirely with no thought required. It's so brain dead. You simply come in with your Weavile, Torn, Zapdos or whatever on something and you're good to go. Delete the boots please.
 
Hazard control has been since GSC, and it has gotten easier every single gen. HDB have trivialized this skill quite a bit, it’d be ridiculous to pretend otherwise
On the flip side, I dont think clicking stealth rocks and basically guarenteeing 200% damage over the course of a battle is exactly high skill either. Boots was super obnoxious pre dlcs, but nowadays I don't find balance or stall teams to be that awful to face. I mean, it's not like tournament games right now are dominated by stall wars where 3 or 4 out of 6 mons are regenerator boots, right?


What I do think is deserving of a suspect is future sight. Future sight lele is basically unwallable when it pairs with a really strong physical attacker like urshifu or whatever, you basically guarentee a kill every other cycle, especially when urshifu forces in certain checks on the opposition's side. And if you wanna talk about skilless, future sight teleport bro is yes less powerful, but also much easier to pull off and uses 0% brainpower. Future sight makes offense way too good, and I know this might rustle some people's jimmies
 
Hazards are broken and take no skill. Fire, flying and Ice types deserve to be viable. Defog is too much of a momentum drain and you will lose the war because everytime you come in to Defog you give your opponent a free turn to attack your defogger or poison it. Rapid Spin is beat by Rocky Helmet chip + hazards damage or Ghost type. Hazards is a lazy way to win with no thought required. It's so brain dead. You simply come in with your Ferro, Skarm or whatever on something it walls and you're good to go. Keep the boots please.
1) fire, flying, and ice types that are alr viable have way more positive traits and arent detered by rocks that much, besides volcarona maybe and even then it has expanded to other items such as LO, lefties, ive seen silver powder even. fire, flying,a nd ice types that aren't viable are weak because of many other weaknesses they have such as the lack of defensive utility, being slow, weak, frail, etc.

2) Rapid spin is better because it only removes the hazards on your side and the downside is that its contact, blockable by ghosts, and generally on frailer pokemon. If pokemon who had defog had rapid spin taht is going to be so nuts.

3) if your team succumbs to hazards easily you can just run defog, u have alr removal with good MU against ferro such as torn-t, zapdos, and volcanion. Or if you really want to just run SUB id magnezone and defeat the ferro if you really hate it so much, or just overload it, its not unmovable. Skarm even less so since its so vulnurable from the special side
 
1) fire, flying, and ice types that are alr viable have way more positive traits and arent detered by rocks that much, besides volcarona maybe and even then it has expanded to other items such as LO, lefties, ive seen silver powder even. fire, flying,a nd ice types that aren't viable are weak because of many other weaknesses they have such as the lack of defensive utility, being slow, weak, frail, etc.

2) Rapid spin is better because it only removes the hazards on your side and the downside is that its contact, blockable by ghosts, and generally on frailer pokemon. If pokemon who had defog had rapid spin taht is going to be so nuts.

3) if your team succumbs to hazards easily you can just run defog, u have alr removal with good MU against ferro such as torn-t, zapdos, and volcanion. Or if you really want to just run SUB id magnezone and defeat the ferro if you really hate it so much, or just overload it, its not unmovable. Skarm even less so since its so vulnurable from the special side

Torn, Zap and Volc are weak to Stealth Rock so you will often have to trade your mon just to get rid of hazards or not be able to Defog at all if your opponent applies enough pressure. Suddenly Zap and Torn can't really come in on Rillaboom anymore after Stealth Rock. Suddenly Victini can't come in on Lele after Stealth Rock, etc. If you really hate boots run more Knock Offs and Trick. Boots isn't broken and can be played around. It just seems like it is because we were so used to the brain dead hazards doing a lot of the work for us. The only problem I see with boots is that it makes games longer and you have to pp stall the opponent sometimes but that's because those teams lack wallbreakers or Taunt users. I CAN see the positive side of banning boots but at the same time I see the negative side of it as well.
 
Torn, Zap and Volc are weak to Stealth Rock so you will often have to trade your mon just to get rid of hazards or not be able to Defog at all if your opponent applies enough pressure. Suddenly Zap and Torn can't really come in on Rillaboom anymore after Stealth Rock. Suddenly Victini can't come in on Lele after Stealth Rock, etc. If you really hate boots run more Knock Offs and Trick. Boots isn't broken and can be played around. It just seems like it is because we were so used to the brain dead hazards doing a lot of the work for us. The only problem I see with boots is that it makes games longer and you have to pp stall the opponent sometimes but that's because those teams lack wallbreakers or Taunt users. I CAN see the positive side of banning boots but at the same time I see the negative side of it as well.
torn, zap, and volc are indeed eak to rocks but u dont have to trade a mon to get rid of it, volc can still be a threatening HO sweeper that can get one boost and smash teams, choice specs zapdos is still a threatening breaker, and non-boots zapdos still makes sure u dont give it free turns to its offensive sets. Torn-t uses av and wants rocks off but its not mandetory for it to check opposing mons. You are not forced to just sack a mon just to make them "useful".
 
Personally, I am hoping for a Heatran suspect next. I was surprised that Melm was suspected before it, since I always thought Heatran was the more limiting presence in the teambuilder. It just performs too many roles well, between blanket several threats in the tier, being one of the best Stealth Rock setters and almost always forcing progress due to Magma Storm, even on threats that are notoriously difficult to force progress on like Toxapex.

I do not think Boots are broken, mainly since they are so easy for them to be Knocked Off. They are a temporary protection against Hazards for most mons. Most non-SR weak Pokemon are better off using Leftovers I think.
 
one pokemon that I hope gets buffed in the future generations is jellicent because it has some pottential of being somewhat viable in OU as anti-rain team pokemon and it is only one change away from getting to that point.

this pokemon needs a stronger electric attack, shockwave just does not help it.

this pokemon:
  • has the great ability water absorb
  • pretty good bulk (okay defensive typying, good defensive stats AND access to more than one reliable recover options)
  • it can deal with the water-ground types thanks to its access to nature power
  • it has access to trick room for the swift swim users
  • some other decent moves.
unfortunately in this generation it is not really viable,but I believe that it is just one-two buffs away from becoming somewhat viable in OU.
it really really needs a better electric attack.
 
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Anyone still saying toxapex is should be banned in October 2022 gen 8 OU meta should be ashamed of themselves as a player. It's a good mon no doubt but it isnt problematic whatsoever. People who are endlessly complaining about it should post replays where it puts in an inordinate amount of work. Frankly I'm not the best player around but I'm pretty decent if you ask me and I don't think pex is a big issue, plenty of things deal with it and it's rather passive outside of having good utility.
 

awyp

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Since Melmetal didn’t get banned, can we push for a Toxapex, Heavy Duty Boots suspect test? I believe it should be looked into. :blobwizard:
Okay this is getting slightly ridiculous, yeah Heavy-Duty Boots is a great item since entry hazards are a crucial part of the game, but what Pokémon in the modern metagame does not have Knock Off / the ability to learn Knock Off. If Knock Off was a 20 BP move like it was in Gen 4 then yeah it's a hassle to have but it's a great move in Gen 8 and very common.


Anyone still saying toxapex is should be banned in October 2022 gen 8 OU meta should be ashamed of themselves as a player. It's a good mon no doubt but it isnt problematic whatsoever. People who are endlessly complaining about it should post replays where it puts in an inordinate amount of work. Frankly I'm not the best player around but I'm pretty decent if you ask me and I don't think pex is a big issue, plenty of things deal with it and it's rather passive outside of having good utility.
My thoughts exactly friend.
 
Curious for pro boots ban people on what mons specifically showcase boots being stupid like I get annoyed by blissey most by boots as proxy (tho ofc blissey not stupid generally) but never find any others using boots stupidly
 

Da Pizza Man

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I swear hdb discussions have become the Smogon equivalent of arguments with Dream stans.

I have a different idea: lets push for some nerfs to stall teams like limiting the ammount of protection moves,recover moves the regenerator ability etc that each team is allowed to have.
Why? Stall is far from problematic at the moment. Also those examples are all complex bans, which is something we try to avoid.
 

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