You can distinguish Wicked Blow and moves like Last Respects and Rage Fist but this isn't how Smogon decides to ban the move or Pokemon that learn the move. They look at whether some or all Pokemon with the move are broken. You put Last Respects and Rage Fist in the same category, but Rage Fist is not banned because Primeape learns it and is not broken. So Last Respects would not be banned after home if Chansey or Blissey learned it, and shed tail would not be banned if some terrible ZU Pokemon learned it and they're weren't good in OU. They ban the move or the Pokemon depending on what Pokemon learn them. This takes priority over the power and capabilities of the move.
-
The moderators of this forum are Finchinator, Ruft, ausma, 658Greninja, kd458, FayaWizard, Srn, and TPP.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
You can distinguish Wicked Blow and moves like Last Respects and Rage Fist but this isn't how Smogon decides to ban the move or Pokemon that learn the move. They look at whether some or all Pokemon with the move are broken. You put Last Respects and Rage Fist in the same category, but Rage Fist is not banned because Primeape learns it and is not broken. So Last Respects would not be banned after home if Chansey or Blissey learned it, and shed tail would not be banned if some terrible ZU Pokemon learned it and they're weren't good in OU. They ban the move or the Pokemon depending on what Pokemon learn them. This takes priority over the power and capabilities of the move.
Wicked Blow is just a 120BP dark type move (80*1.5 from crit). Essentially a very strong move without much drawback, but not inherently broken.
When a move is inherently broken regardless of statistical differences in Pokémon is opens the discussion for banning the move (Shed Tail and Baton Pass) (Pre Req: Multiple mons need to know the move)
When just one mon knows the move (You ban the mon) something like Wicked Blow. Something like Fishious Rend which 2 mons learn it, Dracovish and Arctovish it becomes a deeper discussion, Dracovish's ability powers the move plus Dracovish is faster than Arctovish naturally which is needed for the moves power to double, so you ban the more broken mon.
When just one mon knows the move (You ban the mon) something like Wicked Blow. Something like Fishious Rend which 2 mons learn it, Dracovish and Arctovish it becomes a deeper discussion, Dracovish's ability powers the move plus Dracovish is faster than Arctovish naturally which is needed for the moves power to double, so you ban the more broken mon.
This on it's face isn't entirely true, truth is Smogon has never banned a non-status move, so there isn't particularly any kind of precedent as to how moves with large BP should be categorized or necessarely banned. The reason I brought up Last Respects is because there is a lot of speculation that it will be available on Basculegion as well as Basculegion-White-Striped whenever they are released. A lot of people seem to be on the train that they'd prefer to see Last Respects banned instead of seeing Basculegion (and potentially basculin-w as well) banned mainly due to the power of Last Respects.
Personally I don't think it's worth creating a new precedent based specifically on the base power of a move, with Last Respects only being "broken" with mons that have additional stab damage applied to it as well as speed boosting abilities or even Adaptability.
Generally I think smogon should stay away from banning offensive moves, I think there can be situations where some status moves get banned however, Shed Tail brings about a lot of the problematic of baton pass which is definitely worthy of being universally banned.
This is an argument that supports banning Pokemon when only it knows the move.
Rage Fist is not banned because Primeape learns it and is not broken. Would it be "inherently broken" if only broken mons learned it? Shed tail would not be banned if many terrible ZU Pokemon learned it and they're weren't good in OU. Then it wouldn't be "inherently broken"?
The Pokemon? Quite probably, yes. The reason they would be potentially broken isn't because Wicked Blow is broken, but because their already very strong, arguably near broken qualities would be buffed with the addition of Wicked Blow. It's the same idea as when we banned Cyclizar: we figured it was the combination of Shed Tail and its other qualities, like Regenerator, that made it broken. The difference is that we realized the move itself is broken when it became clear that Orthworm, which, let's face it, is a crappy Pokemon by itself, was also broken with Shed Tail. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Pokemon that's crappy like Shed Tailless Orthworm but that would be broken if it had Wicked Blow.
Let's refrain from continuing theorymon discussions like this though.
Didn’t you start the theorymon of what if weaker Pokémon learned Wicked Blow the post before this?
The difference is in degree, not principle. Wicked Blow improves a Pokemon somewhat. Shed Tail improves a Pokemon a lot. The fact that the Pokémon would be OU or under without the moves remains. There is no criteria that says Shed Tail should be banned and Wicked Blow not just based on the moves
Last edited:
Orthworm is pretty close to a terrible ZU Pokémon and it tore OU apart lol.
Orthworm is a viable UU defensive pokemon, it may be an RU pokemon now but it is a pretty good pokemon esp with all of its traits, esp now with dd tar and checking edge eq variants, being able to spike up all over quag and gastro, while also having ID press for mons that give it to much room
There are a ton of new Hisui moves/mons that look borderline broken, and I really think HSamurott's unique move is an insta ban. But I think it's not the time for serious discussion about these yet. Let's just wait til " E A R L Y 2 0 2 3 " happens
It's a 65 bp move with 90 accuracy that sets spikes, what did it do to you man :(
Glimmora isn't remotely banworthy but god do I hate it. It only ever enables stall or cheese and that's just really really annoying
All this talk about Wicked Blow being broken or not broken as a move idea and I'm thinking to myself "wait isn't that just Flower Trick with a different typing?" thinking about its mechanic. The majority of the time the auto-crit just functionally makes it a stronger BP move with no RNG to Critting that a normal 100 BP move would have, since in practice we don't see a lot of Defense-boosting mons doing it to buff DEF in particular (i.e. compared to IronPress).
Status moves being banned in the past was simpler because they're a lot more Stat-Agnostic: A Dark Void or a Baton Pass from Smeargle doesn't necessarily "achieve" less than one from Darkrai or Scolipede or such in terms of the move when it goes off, whereas obviously it's not going to hit nearly as hard with Last Respects compared to Houndstone or Basculegion since now something besides using the move in the first place matters. Ironically it's kind of the inverse of why we often see offensive mons/tools banned more frequently than defensive ones: Offense is easier demonstrated by how little effort it takes to break cores or heavily centralize defensive counterplay, whereas Defensive mons by nature are going to be taking on a lot of work and have to be synergistic with teammates, making them harder to single out until there's been a lot of time to see them strangle things without workarounds emerging like, say, Mega Sableye in Gen 6.
It also brings muddier terms in with them being just narrowly-distributed enough that we question the collateral of banning 1-2 mons vs a move only available to 2-3 Pokemon anyway. Dracovish was made easy because the two users being compared were as binary good-bad as you could make them, but in something like Gen 9's case, we have to ask how many users have to make a move OP before it's the move's fault and a few are just knee-capped? Is banning both Basculegion and Houndstone to keep LR Basculin-W such a big deal when the end result is either identical (Basculin-W not here, no accounting for how it fares lower tier-wise with a NFE kit built around LR), or much more likely to end the other way than a healthy result (i.e. Basculin-W relevant in OU, either decent or ripping things up)?
The latter is essentially creating more potential suspect/action time to achieve functionally the same thing for OU, and on a subjective note it feels like the kind of slippery slope facetious jokes we make about bringing Ubers down in reverse (i.e. instead of "Kyogre isn't broken without an Item" it's "350 BP isn't broken on a non-STAB NFE"), which aren't necessarily incorrect statements, but also are mentalities that take a lot of time and scrutiny to enforce for what seems like aiming at a particular result ("Kyogre playable in OU" for the former, "Last Respects allowed in OU" for the much less absurd latter). I realize this comparison is taking an extreme but I wanted to nonetheless illustrate what the concept reads like to me when people argue down to the weakest user in defense of the Move vs the Mon.
Gens 7-8 started a trend that I think is simply now starting to show its relevance to OU in several mons getting signature/narrowly distributed moves by species even if they're not from a special status (i.e. Legendaries or Starters). A large reason this precedent hasn't been brought up before is simply because very rarely did GF design mons that way or moves to go with them. As easy as they are to achieve, Last Respects and Rage Fist do still have gimmicks to how they achieve that power, they're just significantly less cumbersome than drawbacks like V-Create or (in theory) the positioning needed for Fisheous Rend/Bolt Beak, even before considering the much higher ceiling. So I'm not sure how much stock I put in the lack of precedent as a reason to think this shouldn't be done. Several past gens where this approach wasn't taken by Smogon exist simply because GF in turn wasn't designing mons in a fashion that would lead to cases like it.
Status moves being banned in the past was simpler because they're a lot more Stat-Agnostic: A Dark Void or a Baton Pass from Smeargle doesn't necessarily "achieve" less than one from Darkrai or Scolipede or such in terms of the move when it goes off, whereas obviously it's not going to hit nearly as hard with Last Respects compared to Houndstone or Basculegion since now something besides using the move in the first place matters. Ironically it's kind of the inverse of why we often see offensive mons/tools banned more frequently than defensive ones: Offense is easier demonstrated by how little effort it takes to break cores or heavily centralize defensive counterplay, whereas Defensive mons by nature are going to be taking on a lot of work and have to be synergistic with teammates, making them harder to single out until there's been a lot of time to see them strangle things without workarounds emerging like, say, Mega Sableye in Gen 6.
It also brings muddier terms in with them being just narrowly-distributed enough that we question the collateral of banning 1-2 mons vs a move only available to 2-3 Pokemon anyway. Dracovish was made easy because the two users being compared were as binary good-bad as you could make them, but in something like Gen 9's case, we have to ask how many users have to make a move OP before it's the move's fault and a few are just knee-capped? Is banning both Basculegion and Houndstone to keep LR Basculin-W such a big deal when the end result is either identical (Basculin-W not here, no accounting for how it fares lower tier-wise with a NFE kit built around LR), or much more likely to end the other way than a healthy result (i.e. Basculin-W relevant in OU, either decent or ripping things up)?
The latter is essentially creating more potential suspect/action time to achieve functionally the same thing for OU, and on a subjective note it feels like the kind of slippery slope facetious jokes we make about bringing Ubers down in reverse (i.e. instead of "Kyogre isn't broken without an Item" it's "350 BP isn't broken on a non-STAB NFE"), which aren't necessarily incorrect statements, but also are mentalities that take a lot of time and scrutiny to enforce for what seems like aiming at a particular result ("Kyogre playable in OU" for the former, "Last Respects allowed in OU" for the much less absurd latter). I realize this comparison is taking an extreme but I wanted to nonetheless illustrate what the concept reads like to me when people argue down to the weakest user in defense of the Move vs the Mon.
Honestly, BP Tusk isn't bad at all. I use it on my Walking Mid Sun Team and you just squoosh all of the things. It really isn't bad. Both have their places and their uses.
before the meta developed I was having fun beating every physical pokemon that didn't run CC lol, it can be a really fun Pokemon that owns stuff like DD Nite (without Fire Punch)
Kleavor with his stone axe:There are a ton of new Hisui moves/mons that look borderline broken, and I really think HSamurott's unique move is an insta ban. But I think it's not the time for serious discussion about these yet. Let's just wait til " E A R L Y 2 0 2 3 " happens
Samurott Hisui will be good unlike Kleavor because its type is actually decent at checking Pokemon like Gholdengo, and if you are going to use a move repeatedly it's nice to get Spikes each time instead
Having a move to destroy Great Tusks works better in its favor, and then if you can't get the kill spinblock as always
Kleavor will not be kleaving ou
Having a move to destroy Great Tusks works better in its favor, and then if you can't get the kill spinblock as always
Kleavor will not be kleaving ou
When I once saw a post comparing the banning of a offensive move to banning a set/item on a mon, I had my doubts on how to handle this subject.
On the one hand, it's true that if a pokemon is broken when running only one item/specific set, you're not going to ban that combination simply to force the mon to run other viable sets.
However, I also think that if a pokemon is obviously broken with an X move, that's share with other mons that also are broken with that move, maybe it's worth taking the time to evaluate the possibility of at least thinking if banning the move would allow them to be fine. But also, that begs the question if that pokemon would even bring anything to the table. Would the ban of this move allow for the healthy use of this pokemon in the context of the meta?
Yeah, I was thinking that :(
Kleavor's typing is pretty garbo defensively. But it has good coverage and can pivot out with U-Turn, so who knows? It might hold a niche.
Yeah. H-Samurott will be quite decent in OU and his partner in crime will be Gholdy, once H-Samurott gets rid of Tusk, unless you have another spinner in your team those spikes will stay there alongside Gholdengo.
252+ Atk Samurott-Hisui Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 162-192 (37.3 - 44.2%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Def Great Tusk Body Press vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Samurott-Hisui: 350-414 (109 - 128.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Samurott always loses the lead match up unless you tera, can't KO Tusk and get spikes up at the same time, and if you use sash, attack first and then use Ceaseless Edge Tusk can just spin. IDK, Meowscarada still looks like the best option for spikes lead unless there is a Hatt in the other side.
252+ Def Great Tusk Body Press vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Samurott-Hisui: 350-414 (109 - 128.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Samurott always loses the lead match up unless you tera, can't KO Tusk and get spikes up at the same time, and if you use sash, attack first and then use Ceaseless Edge Tusk can just spin. IDK, Meowscarada still looks like the best option for spikes lead unless there is a Hatt in the other side.
In terms of water moves, think it's a lot more likely Samurott-H runs Hydro Pump, mainly to hit the Tusk OHKO, doesn't require too many SpA EV's either.
96 SpA Samurott-Hisui Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 434-512 (100 - 117.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
- Status