Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[ant4456]

Just wanted to pop in with some relevant in game knowledge: We have nothing confirmed yet on transfer moves being in or not for certain.

There is circumstantial evidence they might not be in with gen 8’s treatment of intergenerational transfer moves and how SV lacks a battle ready NPC so older gen Pokémon can have their movesets wiped for cartridge formats, but that’s it for now. Both of these could be pretty easily addressed since Gen 9 isn’t hampered by supporting three games and the NPC could simply be patched in with the Feb update a la what SWSH did with IoA. Some rumors spread early off bad info that they were gone for good. Unless there’s some new development i’m not aware of, the truth is now we simply don’t know.

I hope they don't bring back transfers. Even if that means Gholdengo is broke, we can ban that at some point.

Wanna know the true way to stop Knock Off spam without Crystals or Stones? or zamazenta-c in ou to stop weavile from spamming knock off the full game?

not having a bajillion pokemon with knock off, making the Pokemon that have it have more utility!

Toxic made no sense in the lore, or gameplay wise; why would every Pokemon learn Toxic. That's weird and kinda dumb! Now, Pokemon with Toxic have that extra value and utility.

Outside of Gholdengo, hazards have been on a downwards trend. I'm not fully against that, but also having Defog on a lot of Pokemon was kind of overkill. Not only did Rapid Spin give a lot of Pokemon more utility, but it made... say it with me... Pokemon with Defog have more utility!!!

Lando-T in Gen 8 is the epitome of this. It just had like all utility moves + Earthquake, it was pretty funny. It could mix and match as well.

Two more points:

1. Making These Pokemon on Cart

I know a lot of people don't care here, but this change in Gen 8 made a split in terms of pre-Gen 8 and ahead. If you transferred a Pokemon into Gen 8, to use it in Ranked Battles (singles or doubles), you had to remove transfer moves. A part of that is because some of these moves on certain Pokemon we use competitively go back... Literally 15+ years. Or, more likely, to play Smogon on cart (doubles ou or singles ou, etc. etc.) you have to PKHEX to be optimal.

2. Something You May Not Want To Hear

Moves are one of the easiest ways to nerf or buff a Pokemon. Being able to say "Clefable can't learn X" in the next gen? Well, now it's worse, and maybe even more in line. And that... is a good thing. Using transfer moves means Game Freak's decisions cannot meaningfully nerf a Pokemon in Smogon's formats meaningfully outside of circumstantial decisions, or base stats. A lot of the most annoying Pokemon are suddenly not that obnoxious now that they don't have every utility move in the game, or broken moves from before.

Otherwise the only way is to nerf moves, remove them from the game (lame), or use base stats/abilities. Which all are IMO a lot lamer than just following the fact that maybe, that one Pokemon just isn't supposed to learn that move anymore.

Game Freak has made good balancing decisions with movesets before!!!

I remember early Gen 8 where people were excited to get all of these moves from HOME, and then they made the game way worse. Suddenly, most Pokemon became more obnoxious, and the new Pokemon from Gen 8 which didn't universally learn shit like Toxic were left behind, it felt disjointed.

I hope and pray that Gen 9 marks the end of transfer moves. For convenience, balance, lore and congruety between pre-Gen 8, and post.

 

[PeachJuiceOwO]

Toxic made no sense in the lore, or gameplay wise; why would every Pokemon learn Toxic. That's weird and kinda dumb! Now, Pokemon with Toxic have that extra value and utility.

Toxic is a move that poisons the target. The animation is a blob of something going from the user to the target. Almost any pokemon could learn toxic.








(If you haven't figured it out toxic is poop, well at least my interpretation)

 

[ant4456]

Toxic is a move that poisons the target. The animation is a blob of something going from the user to the target. Almost any pokemon could learn toxic.








(If you haven't figured it out toxic is poop, well at least my interpretation)

This is a funny interpretation but this also implies Galarian and Paldean Pokemon cannot poop

 

[SarahPhoenix]

Two more points:

1. Making These Pokemon on Cart

I know a lot of people don't care here, but this change in Gen 8 made a split in terms of pre-Gen 8 and ahead. If you transferred a Pokemon into Gen 8, to use it in Ranked Battles (singles or doubles), you had to remove transfer moves. A part of that is because some of these moves on certain Pokemon we use competitively go back... Literally 15+ years. Or, more likely, to play Smogon on cart (doubles ou or singles ou, etc. etc.) you have to PKHEX to be optimal.

2. Something You May Not Want To Hear

Moves are one of the easiest ways to nerf or buff a Pokemon. Being able to say "Clefable can't learn X" in the next gen? Well, now it's worse, and maybe even more in line. And that... is a good thing. Using transfer moves means Game Freak's decisions cannot meaningfully nerf a Pokemon in Smogon's formats meaningfully outside of circumstantial decisions, or base stats. A lot of the most annoying Pokemon are suddenly not that obnoxious now that they don't have every utility move in the game, or broken moves from before.

Otherwise the only way is to nerf moves, remove them from the game (lame), or use base stats/abilities. Which all are IMO a lot lamer than just following the fact that maybe, that one Pokemon just isn't supposed to learn that move anymore.

Game Freak has made good balancing decisions with movesets before!!!

I remember early Gen 8 where people were excited to get all of these moves from HOME, and then they made the game way worse. Suddenly, most Pokemon became more obnoxious, and the new Pokemon from Gen 8 which didn't universally learn shit like Toxic were left behind, it felt disjointed.

I hope and pray that Gen 9 marks the end of transfer moves. For convenience, balance, lore and congruety between pre-Gen 8, and post.

Arguments for banning based on rarity are an incredibly slippery slope, how would you even begin to define something is rare and nearly only obtainable by hacking? Until the day gamefreak adds a Pokémon generator to the game, having them hacked will always be the easiest way to build and play competive teams. The difficulty of building a team in game has never been a merit in balance discussions.

The second argument is balancing based on "gamefreak's intent". How would someone even guess at that? Even more absurd is using formats like Ranked Battles as a crystal ball to guess at what gamefreak desires, a format that isn't even 6v6, and in my personal opinion a complete shitshow that makes week one of SV look diverse and interesting.

I have nothing against obtainable "on cart" restrictions, it will inevitably become a main topic of discussion if something like Scald returns, giving people a clean shot at an elegant way to get rid of it. How this rule would be applied is another can of worms waiting to be opened. Considering breeding and all its exceptions, I imagine this rule would end up a mess, there would probably end up being exceptions within exceptions and it would be hard to ever apply this rule in a uniform and justifiable way. In game legality has always been effective because its of its simplicity.

 

[viivian]

Toxic is a move that poisons the target. The animation is a blob of something going from the user to the target. Almost any pokemon could learn toxic.








(If you haven't figured it out toxic is poop, well at least my interpretation)

how exactly does magearna poop

but to avoid another one-liner, i (for the most part at least) agree with keeping transfer moves out for good. on one hand, i think it's for the better that some pokemon are left without access to certain moves such as knock off, toxic, etc. but on the other hand, i would like to see defog and roost get redistributed at some point since i don't think either of those were necessarily bad things for pokemon to have and removing it cuts into the defensive utility of so many pokemon and hampers their longevity as well

 

[Vall]

I agree transfer moves should be left behind. That said more mons need defog, like they gave to giritina in gen 8 as part of its level up learnset.
The lack of knock off & toxic is an incredible breath of fresh air, and without scald counterplay to pex becomes a lot less rng dependant on a lot of strates.

 

[YNM]

i think it's for the better that some pokemon are left without access to certain moves such as knock off, toxic, etc.

The problem isn't the fact that GF is trying to limit the access to certain moves, which is understandable considering that there were way too many mons that could learn moves like Toxic, Defog and Knock Off (and I'd argue that even U-Turn's spread is ridiculous, why the hell are 95% of the mons that learn that move not even Bug types); rather, the problem is that GF is taking away these moves from mons that should absolutely be able to learn them. Who the fuck decided to take Knock Off away from Weavile, Bisharp and Krookodile? Same thing for Defog, what's the reason for removing it from Tornadus, Pelipper and Zapdos movepools? They all have wings and can create winds to get rid of the hazards ffs, it's not like they're Rotom-W, which actually didn't make any sense that it could learn that move in previous gens.

 

[Mega Breloom]

There are also UU and below mons that can remove hazards, but most of them don't see play in OU because they're bad, not because of Gholdengo. So realistically, I think a Gholdengo ban would mean your hazard removal options go from Great Tusk and Iron Treads to those 2 + Corvi. And you can already run Corvi as your lone hazard removal, you just need to have other outs against Gholdengo Hazard stack teams.

Agree 100% with this, if Gholdengo were truly an issue for getting rid of hazards like most people say Talonflame would be Ou just because it is a deffoger that checks Gholdengo, but everyone prefers to keep using Corvi despite being walled by Gholdengo because it outclasses Talonflame in other ways in this meta.
The issue with hazards is not if Gholdengo blocks defog, it is the distribution of SR and spikes vs the distribution of good defogers (good rapid spiners have a good match up as you said). Considering that is worth to ask, Gholdengo needs to be banned so Corvi can defog freely when we have good options in rapid spin users that check him?
In other hand, we also have items that mitigate SR impact on the matches in case we get outplayed every single 50-50 in HDB and leftovers but since we have to give up at least one of six of out item slots to use convert cloak just for 1 mon the hazards have a higher impact in all matches even if said mon isn't here, just saying.

 

[ant4456]

Arguments for banning based on rarity are an incredibly slippery slope, how would you even begin to define something is rare and nearly only obtainable by hacking? Until the day gamefreak adds a Pokémon generator to the game, having them hacked will always be the easiest way to build and play competive teams. The difficulty of building a team in game has never been a merit in balance discussions.

The second argument is balancing based on "gamefreak's intent". How would someone even guess at that? Even more absurd is using formats like Ranked Battles as a crystal ball to guess at what gamefreak desires, a format that isn't even 6v6, and in my personal opinion a complete shitshow that makes week one of SV look diverse and interesting.

I have nothing against obtainable "on cart" restrictions, it will inevitably become a main topic of discussion if something like Scald returns, giving people a clean shot at an elegant way to get rid of it. How this rule would be applied is another can of worms waiting to be opened. Considering breeding and all its exceptions, I imagine this rule would end up a mess, there would probably end up being exceptions within exceptions and it would be hard to ever apply this rule in a uniform and justifiable way. In game legality has always been effective because its of its simplicity.

i'm not arguing for smogon banning on rarity

i'm saying game freak is based by making it so no one has to get random moves from gen 3 events to make smogon shit on cart

to be clear, nowhere in my message did i advocate for any smogon policy or action, just defending the idea of game freak preventing transfer moves

also, i dont really care about the "should we consider game freak's intent" argument, at all. it's simply something that most already have an opinion on that will not be changed, including me. as someone who plays smogon, I obviously don't think everything game freak does to balance the game is good, and they make mistakes clearly. but i refuse to be boxed into (apologies if you are not trying to, but it feels like you are) "nothing game freak does is cool for smogon" or "game freak loves smogon and hates you". most people (including probably you) have nuanced opinions about things

it just so happens that transfer moves have obviously made metagames way more annoying/worse in recent history, and if game freak stops that, that's awesome

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on @ yNot Mence's message, I agree quite
a bit; some are ridiculous. I will say though that I do not miss having to lose an item against Weavile and the Bisharp line... but realistically, it makes sense for them to have it. For Defog and Flying-types, I mostly agree. It is funny that Lurantis gets Defog but not most other Flying-types.

However, I think it's still an overall improvement. Still, hope that some return. Maybe some DLC tutor?

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

However, I think it's still an overall improvement. Still, hope that some return. Maybe some DLC tutor?

last gen's first dlc added a move tutor with a whole bunch of new moves, some of which changed the meta significantly (rillaboom started existing because of grassy glide, weavile became super oppressive with triple axel, flying and ghost finally got real physical stab, scale shot garchomp, etc). if there were ever a time to introduce a new, more widespread form of hazard removal without having to bring back the rest of the transfer moves, dlc would be it

 

[Nish the Great]

flying and ghost finally got real physical stab

average bird hater when they see a 120 bp physical move with an extremely limited pool of resists

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

average bird hater when they see a 120 bp physical move with an extremely limited pool of resists

brave bird doesn't count because it discriminates against non-birds. destroy the idea that all flying-types are birds. dismantle the birdtriarchy

 

[Nish the Great]

brave bird doesn't count because it discriminates against non-birds. destroy the idea that all flying-types are birds. dismantle the birdtriarchy

i was gonna pull up a huge list of non-birds with brave bird but its actually just the crobat line and mew

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i was gonna pull up a huge list of non-birds with brave bird but its actually just the crobat line and mew

mew gets a pass because it learns all the tms. crobat is a filthy taxonomic class traitor

 

[PeachJuiceOwO]

Hey did anyone experiment with booster energy speed on Roaring Moon? You do have to sacrifice attack EVs/IVs but would it be worth it for the extra speed? I don’t think this will be better than attack boosting moon when you have dragon dance because you would rather have extra attack for extra Pokémon KOd at one dance and stuff but could this be a niece set?

 

[Taka]

Hey did anyone experiment with booster energy speed on Roaring Moon? You do have to sacrifice attack EVs/IVs but would it be worth it for the extra speed? I don’t think this will be better than attack boosting moon when you have dragon dance because you would rather have extra attack for extra Pokémon KOd at one dance and stuff but could this be a niece set?

I’ve seen it a couple times on ladder, but I generally wouldn’t run it over atk, which is much nicer for taking on Garg and Dozo.

 

[YNM]

Hey did anyone experiment with booster energy speed on Roaring Moon? You do have to sacrifice attack EVs/IVs but would it be worth it for the extra speed? I don’t think this will be better than attack boosting moon when you have dragon dance because you would rather have extra attack for extra Pokémon KOd at one dance and stuff but could this be a niece set?

Same thing as Takatk, I'd run Booster Atk any day over Speed, since Moon is already one of the fastest mons in the tier and that extra power really shows off when facing bulky mons like Corvi, Skeledirge or Garg. I'd also argue that Booster Energy sets benefit from having DD on their movesets (unless you're running some kind of bulky Special wall variant of Moon), therefore still making Atk the best stat to get boosted as you said, so you can outspeed everything after a DD and knock out most mons. If you really wanna try a faster Moon revenge killer I'd suggest you try Scarf, which I run a couple of times and actually put some work with it, since people usually expect Banded or BE (you have no idea the amount of Pult leads I've killed this way).

 

[Talpr0ne]

Hey did anyone experiment with booster energy speed on Roaring Moon? You do have to sacrifice attack EVs/IVs but would it be worth it for the extra speed? I don’t think this will be better than attack boosting moon when you have dragon dance because you would rather have extra attack for extra Pokémon KOd at one dance and stuff but could this be a niece set?

Speed boosting Roaring Moon can work as a variation of its Band set in Sun as a pseudo-chlorophyller, but on Booster Energy it has too much opportunity cost. The big issue is also that Photosynthesis announces the stat it boosts so it has little surprise factor. It also loses a lot of breaking power compared to the standard Band in sun due to having to forego a few EVs and the Photosynthesis boost.

 

[Lectrys]

Regardless of the banworthiness of Gholdengo right now, which I do not support since I consider it extremely good obviously but not broken at all, I'm 100% sure that once Home gets released Gholdengo will definitely become way easier to check and work around. Mons like Lando-T, Tornadus-T, Gren and Heatran have always seen widespread usage in OU, and are all incredibly good answers to Gholdengo:
Lando-T obviously outspeeds it and threatens it with an EQ or a Stone Edge if it Teras into a Flying type, and it's also bulky enough to tank a Make it Rain or a couple of Shadow Balls;
Tornadus-T will be crazy good with an AV and thanks to Regen it will be able to always switch in and check Gholdengo (unless it happens to be Specs Thunderbolt), and can threaten it back with an Heat Wave or a Knock Off (if it gets it back);
Greninja resists both of its STABS and could OHKO it with a Life Orb powered Dark Pulse or a Specs set;
Heatran is bulky enough to take multiple Shadow Balls without a problem, it resists Make It Rain and can completely destroy Gholdengo with any Fire move.
Other mons that could be very good against it are Moltres-G, Ursaluna, Typhlosion-H, Samurott-H and Arcanine-H, all of which outspeed it with the exception of Ursaluna and can easily 2HKO it, if not OHKO it.

If you think that Tornadus-T with Defog will actually be able to Defog through Gholdengo, then boy do I have bad news for you:

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/defensive-nasty-plot-gholdengo-qc-0-2.3714610/#post-9476900

name: Defensive Nasty Plot
move 1: Shadow Ball
move 2: Make It Rain
move 3: Nasty Plot
move 4: Recover
ability: Good as Gold
nature: Calm
tera type: Water/Fairy
evs: 252 HP / 116 Def / 12 SpA / 128 SpD

Oh heck, the set in the thread doesn't even come with an item. Assume Air Balloon or Covert Cloak or something.

Notable quotes from this set's (admittedly NatDex but the Torn-T parts are hella relevant) current analysis:

...notably Tornadus-Therian, the tier's top defogger,...

In regards to the specific EVs on the set, the SpD allows you to survive 2 max invested SpA Heat Waves from Tornadus-Therian from max HP, while the SpA allows you to OHKO bulky Tornadus-Therian with Make It Rain after a Nasty Plot, with the remaining in defense to be able to take hits from the likes of Kingambit and Mega Tyranitar much better after Tera.

Calcs check out and even bring brutal news for Enamorus to boot while still tanking Iron Valiant at least somewhat competently:

0 SpA Tornadus-Therian Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 128-152 (33.8 - 40.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
0- Atk Tornadus-Therian Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 116 Def Gholdengo: 116-138 (30.6 - 36.5%) -- 60.7% chance to 3HKO (99.3% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock)
+2 12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Tornadus-Therian: 363-427 (100.2 - 117.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Enamorus Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 260-308 (68.7 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Enamorus Mystical Fire vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 216-256 (57.1 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Enamorus: 402-474 (139.1 - 164%) -- guaranteed OHKO
-1 12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Enamorus: 266-314 (92 - 108.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Iron Valiant Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 116 Def Gholdengo: 294-346 (77.7 - 91.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Iron Valiant Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 214-252 (56.6 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Valiant: 500-590 (173 - 204.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Nasty Plot Torn-T (yes, it can fit in Defog in NatDex) fares better but not much better:

252 SpA Tornadus-Therian Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 158-188 (41.7 - 49.7%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 SpA Tornadus-Therian Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 128+ SpD Gholdengo: 316-374 (83.5 - 98.9%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
0- Atk Tornadus-Therian Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 116 Def Gholdengo: 116-138 (30.6 - 36.5%) -- 99.3% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Tornadus-Therian: 364-429 (121.3 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO

AV Torn-T obviously can't use Defog, and the bulky Torn-T calcs above (and heck, even the NP Torn-T calcs, too) indicate it's setup fodder for Defensive Nasty Plot Gholdengo, but at least it tanks hits better:

+2 12 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. 192 HP / 80 SpD Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian: 222-262 (63.9 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 12 SpA Gholdengo Shadow Ball vs. 192 HP / 80 SpD Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian: 148-175 (42.6 - 50.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO

It's time to see how much Torn-T really wants to go Tera Fire!

Now if we can transfer Lando-T's with Defog...there's a Defogger that can crack through Gholdengo.

 

[1LDK]

Lando-T's with Defog

Who wants to tell him that [supposedly] lando lost defog, toxic and knock off this gen
i mean, at least he gained taunt tho, if you wanna use that, maybe support lando is gonna die this gen, but thatss okay because Choice band lando will take his place

 

[Mimikyu Stardust]

Alright time to go back into my "Ban Garganacl" arguments, this one is just a quickie.

The meta has settled itself nicely, we see rises and fall with quite a few mons, but one thing is for sure, Gargnacl is still by far a top 5, even top 3 mon in my honest opinion.

The one thing that made garganacl seriously iritating is the strain you get in the builder. Now i am aware people (including myself) have been running a lot of Anti-Garganacl techs, mainly substitute and covert cloak. The thing is, its really hard to check a garganacl, you NEED to hard counter it. What i mean is that in the past, anoyying/broken pokemon like in Gen 7 with Magearna/Ash-Greninja or Gen with 5 Latios they don't need hard counters, for example, in SM people can run teams with only checks to ash greninja like clefable + spdef ferrothorn like in this one https://pokepast.es/d3faf67e59fa92c2 and is still able to beat ash greninja effectively so you don't need to use teams with hard countermeasures specifically to beat it like in this one https://pokepast.es/d648446ea4f1e03b.

Garganacl doesn't give you much breathing room to check it, if you have a team with Great Tusk + Meowscarada or Garchomp + Trick Scarf Gholdengo which are two great checks to Garg, you need to seriously outplay with it (I've beaten teams with those cores using garg alone). If you have a covert cloak pokemon like gholdengo or amoonguss or something like skeledirge or hatterene with substitute or Regenerator spam Garganacl should be managable (most of the time), but the thing is, you don't always want to use that, Air Balloon Gholdengo or Scarf Trick gholdengo are amazing, black sludge or rocky helmet amoonguss is amazing support, leftovers on great tusk is amazing, the 4 move combo of Hex/Will-o/Torch Song/Slack Off is amazing on skeledirge. So Garganacl just feels really restricting in the builder, the fact that outside of HO, you really cannot check it and need some HARD counter measures. Checking it offensively doesn't work either due to tera mind games and VERY little pokemon being able to actually one shot it after rocks, not even an adamant Fallen: 5 Kingambit.

On top of that, a lot of garg have been running sets to beat those pokemon, from the curse earthquake set to beat covert cloak pokemon and substitute pokemon, block set to dismantle fat/stall/regenerator spam teams, and many more.

So yea this post is mainly targetting those people who say "use substitute, regenerator spam and covert cloak pokemon" to beat garganacl, yes that is true but you NEED to have one of these, because outside of HO, if you don't have a hard counter and only checks, you will most likely lose.

oh and ban chien pao too but thats a given.

 

[pika pal]

Who wants to tell him that [supposedly] lando lost defog, toxic and knock off this gen
i mean, at least he gained taunt tho, if you wanna use that, maybe support lando is gonna die this gen, but thatss okay because Choice band lando will take his place

The thing I found funny was giving Lando Nasty Plot. Despite knowing they don't pay significant attention, it almost feels like saying "will you guys stop trying to put Incarnate in OU?"

To not make this a one-liner, something I was thinking with the Booster Energy RM: Do its bulky sets have any niche in the tier since Chi-Yu got banned? It's funny noticing how every special attacker has a SE STAB against it without Tera, aside from Gholdengo (who is quite present but not necessarily a herculean thing to check defensively)

 

[YNM]

To not make this a one-liner, something I was thinking with the Booster Energy RM: Do its bulky sets have any niche in the tier since Chi-Yu got banned? It's funny noticing how every special attacker has a SE STAB against it without Tera, aside from Gholdengo (who is quite present but not necessarily a herculean thing to check defensively)

I feel like a set with some investiment to HP and SpDef would do fairly well against mons like Gholdengo, Espathra and Volcarona, and also some more less used mons like Specs Pelipper and Life Orb Kilowattrel. Its special bulk is actually quite solid, and I'm pretty sure it could tank 1 Focus Blast easily from Gholdengo (not Specs) and just Roost it off.
Roaring Moon @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 120 HP / 88 Atk / 80 SpD / 220 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Iron Head
- Stone Edge
- Roost
Maybe something like this? The problem is that Gholdengo couls easily start running Dazzling Gleam, Volcarona can just use Will o wisp and most other special mons can either just burn it (Rotom-W, Skeledirge) or straight up OHKO it (Hatterene, Iron Valiant).

 

[Critaquil]

it just so happens that transfer moves have obviously made metagames way more annoying/worse in recent history, and if game freak stops that, that's awesome

this.
this isn't some "on paper" thing, either, just look at gen 8, pre-home, while nothing special, was considered by many to be a pretty good meta, meanwhile post home was considered a horrid meta with clefable being one of, if not the most complained about thing, mostly due to it's movepool additions from home, namely teleport. It would not be a massive stretch to say that home was a catalyst for a good chunk of the most complained about things from gen 8: clefable, futureport, (really, teleport in general), tox tect melm, which was arguably its best set, was only possible due to it getting toxic from home. torn and pex, the 2 regen mons that many people were complaining about near the end of gen 8, were both made a good deal better with home additions. same with weavile, who without knock would not have been nearly as problematic.

more defog distribution would obviously be nice, but just about every other move given wider distribution from home just arguably makes the meta less healthy.

 

[YNM]

Braviary @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Sheer Force
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 72 Def / 184 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Heat Wave
- Hurricane
- Roost
Speaking of Defoggers that are also able to check/threaten Gholdengo, what do you guys feel about this set? I was experimenting a bit during teambuilding and it looks like it could work in theory.
Thunderbolt 46 - 54.4%
Make It Rain 46 - 54.2%
This is how much it takes from offensive Gholdengo, and Sheer Force boosted heatwave does a solid 39.3 - 46.3% back. Of course you'd switch out if Gholdengo actually has Thunderbolt, but not every set runs it and you'd still have the chance to recover your health later with Roost. It also does fairly well against offensive Great Tusk, taking 56.6 - 66.8% from a CC and having the chance to OHKO it back afterwards with Hurricane. And of course this means that you always win 1v1 against defensive Tusk. I'm still not sure about this set honestly but it's not like there's much else out there to experiment when it comes to hazard removers.