Gambit with tera is broken. Said it since the first chien pao ban. There are counters like iron hands for example but its still over the top. Fighting type went from a mid offensive typing to a mandatory defensive typing just to resist sucker punch. People talk about great tusk being the new landorus because of its usage but let's see how many people use it if gambit wasn't in the tier... sure tusk is good but half of them are there as a gambit check.Kingambit is definitely made broken by Tera, it would be so much easier to deal with if you could just... Close Combat it without risking to do just 30% with Booster Energy Great Tusk because it suddenly terad into a resist.
this sort of wall of calcs is about as convincing as "look how much damage cb rampardos does with head smash", which is to say, not convincing at all. ursaluna already hits hard enough to tear apart most of the metagame, especially given its offensive nature. seems way more productive to me to run a tera type that lets you switch up your defensive profile so you can force an unfavorable trade for your opponent. example: your opponent switches their specs dragapult into your weakened ursaluna on a predicted facade. if you're tera normal, you are now forced out and depending on how good your opponent's team is at pressuring yours, your ursaluna may not be able to get another kill for the rest of the game. on the other hand, you could also be tera fairy, simply stay in, and eq that pult into oblivion. similarly, it can utilize tera fairy or other useful defensive types like water to turn weaknesses into neutral hits or resistances and turn the tables on a slew of revenge killers. if i were to make a case for ursaluna being busted because of tera id home in on that aspect of it, not on "tera normal big dmg"Some ridiculous calcs with tera included for realism:
252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 185-218 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 316-372 (72.8 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 348-410 (69 - 81.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO Copied252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 442-520 (82.7 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 328-386 (63.8 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
now this just doesn't seem true. stall already wasn't great before home. think it has to do with a lot more than the presence of one funny breaker, i.e. with the dearth of clerics (tho at least the pink blobs got heal bell back i suppose), lack of reliable hazard control, severely reduced pool of fat mons w/ useful progress-making tools (i.e. toxic, knock off), tera existing, those sorts of thingsUrsaluna has single handedly invalidated stall this generation, it breaks through everything.
stall deals with gambit by switching in a dozo and cursing upPersonally I see ursa as a worse Gambit because of the defensive typing and lack of priority, I'm curious on how stall deals with Gambit and why that doesn't work with Ursa?
So I've gathered some of my thoughts after laddering quite a lot in the last couple of days.
I think Zama-H is definitely in the upper echelon of A tier mons. It's Body Press set is pretty good, I can see value in the Choice Band sets as well, it is definitely nowhere near as annoying as it's brother Zama-C. 120 Base attack (especially when it's always running Jolly isn't that much). Now if it gained Swords Dance instead of Howl it'll be a different story maybe but I'll elaborate on Zama-C opinions on the suspect thread. I'll be voting No Ban.
Now mons I think needs to get banned (and the main point of this post):
Ursaluna might be slow but there's so much Trick Room setters now, Slowking, Glowking, Cresselia, and Hatterene to name the notable ones. They're all good mons and it's not difficult to set Trick Room to be honest, you pivot out to Ursaluna and it just goes to town.
Some ridiculous calcs with tera included for realism:
252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 185-218 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 316-372 (72.8 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 348-410 (69 - 81.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO Copied252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 442-520 (82.7 - 97.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu: 328-386 (63.8 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Ursaluna has single handedly invalidated stall this generation, it breaks through everything. I think it's sheer power in combination with Tera (which should get banned) it's too overwhelming and should be the next suspect test for sure. Don't forget with no EVs added it has 401 HP and 246 Defense, this thing is not easy to take down even with Burn damage included. It's slow but it has access to Trailblaze and if it's running Jolly it can hit 327 (+1) speed which is kind of crazy for a bulky piece of shit to be honest. I think we can view it again in OU if tera does end up getting banned but in this current environment it just has too much power.
I also think Ting-Lu and Sneasler should get banned but I'll break that down in a different post so this doesn't become TLDR.
this sort of wall of calcs is about as convincing as "look how much damage cb rampardos does with head smash", which is to say, not convincing at all. ursaluna already hits hard enough to tear apart most of the metagame, especially given its offensive nature. seems way more productive to me to run a tera type that lets you switch up your defensive profile so you can force an unfavorable trade for your opponent. example: your opponent switches their specs dragapult into your weakened ursaluna on a predicted facade. if you're tera normal, you are now forced out and depending on how good your opponent's team is at pressuring yours, your ursaluna may not be able to get another kill for the rest of the game. on the other hand, you could also be tera fairy, simply stay in, and eq that pult into oblivion. similarly, it can utilize tera fairy or other useful defensive types like water to turn weaknesses into neutral hits or resistances and turn the tables on a slew of revenge killers. if i were to make a case for ursaluna being busted because of tera id home in on that aspect of it, not on "tera normal big dmg"
now this just doesn't seem true. stall already wasn't great before home. think it has to do with a lot more than the presence of one funny breaker, i.e. with the dearth of clerics (tho at least the pink blobs got heal bell back i suppose), lack of reliable hazard control, severely reduced pool of fat mons w/ useful progress-making tools (i.e. toxic, knock off), tera existing, those sorts of things
Ursaluna has been hurt immensely with the ban of Magearna. It's incredible on trick room, and makes trick room viable, but trick room isn't great by any means and Luna is pretty easy to play around. Nowhere near banworthy, and arguably not even suspect worthy
Also, Ting Lu ban? I don't think Fissure is legal in OU, unlike VGC
Choice Band Lando has been putting in work for me. It's natural bulk isn't terrible even with minimal investment, and it makes those U-Turns hit do much harder. Banded EQ is no joke, and since you only really need one coverage move (Stone Edge, or Fly if you're silly like me), you can still fit Rocks or Taunt in if you want.
usage doesn't determine viability/brokenness. turns out a lot of people dont think very hard about their team composition and just go "tera normal facade go brrrr", who knew?okay I’m not arguing what Tera is better, I don’t care, I’m just going off usage and if you look at usage Tera normal is what’s being used most,
i dont really know what this part of your sentence is getting at. in any case numbers certainly dont lie but they also require context to be meaningful, otherwise you end up with precisely the sort of cb rampardos nonsense i alluded toand you can look at the calcs and bring up CB rampardos but the one thing that doesn’t lie is numbers
im agnostic as to whether or not ursaluna is broken but i think your argument would be a lot more interesting if you could back this up further, because it's not like this is the first time we've seen a mon that doesnt have solid counters under trick room. thing about trick room is that you still need to set it up and you still need to get your breaker in without taking too much damage and you still need to click the right buttons. there are common immunities to both of ursa's stab moves, so even if your opp gets tr up and gets ursa in safely it's not like there aren't ways to stall those turns out. and tera does exist as a last-ditch method of counterplay, as you already mentioned. if you want to present a serious argument that ursaluna is broken, you will have to show that all the means one has at their disposal to keep ursa under tr in check are not sufficientand with Trick room is up there’s no way to stop it unless you Tera which would be a sad waste of a Tera.
yeah but who cares, most ladder players aren't especially good at this game and do not know how to deal with stall (hence the many posts you see every single generation decrying bans on offensive mons because the ou council must have some sort of hidden stall agenda). anyone who can pilot a stall team decently well is guaranteed to do well on ladder, using stall and loading like 4 games at once has been a tried-and-true strat to get ez suspect reqs throughout the generations for a reason. stall's prevalence and success in high-level tournament play is the only metric by which you can realistically determine stall's viability, and afaik its presence there has been marginal this gen, though i've only paid so much attentionstall wasn’t as good as it was in gen 8 but it was still viable and peaked high ladder numerous times. Ursa has invalidated completely imo.
It has lost explosion though, what 4 moves are you running?
They hated him because he told them the truth.There's an easy solution to fighting power creep in OU:
Accept Ubers as a real format.
Make OU answer to the same tiering it imposes on UU.
Make every Pokemon with a 4.52% stat in Uber BANNED from OU.
That's how you fix tiering and balance out the roster.
You lose all of the completely asinine legendaries designed over the past 5 generations.
Subject yourselves to the same tier shift nightmares that happens to UU every single month.
Break out the laugh reacts, but realize that I'm serious. The only way to stop power creep is to accept that you are using Uber level pokemon in OU.
Make the delineation clearer between OU and Ubers. Answer to the 4.52% usage stat.
stall wasn’t as good as it was in gen 8 but it was still viable and peaked high ladder numerous times. Ursa has invalidated completely imo.
It has lost explosion though, what 4 moves are you running?
Fun isn't a competitive argument.
If somethings broken, its probably not fun, but not being fun is not the reason it's broken and there's plenty of unfun things in the game that aren't broken.
I don't find landorus-t fun to see in A-S tier since gen 5 but I couldn't come up with a reason to call it broken, just boring to see.
EDIT: Also showdown is a ranked ladder, there's 4fun modes and there's serious modes, we balance around the ranked ladder not the 4fun modes. That's how any competitive game works and frankly idk many games where i'd consider playing ranked 'fun' just by default. They also get frustrating to some degree.
There's an easy solution to fighting power creep in OU:
Accept Ubers as a real format.
Make OU answer to the same tiering it imposes on UU.
Make every Pokemon with a 4.52% stat in Uber BANNED from OU.
That's how you fix tiering and balance out the roster.
You lose all of the completely asinine legendaries designed over the past 5 generations.
Subject yourselves to the same tier shift nightmares that happens to UU every single month.
Break out the laugh reacts, but realize that I'm serious. The only way to stop power creep is to accept that you are using Uber level pokemon in OU.
Make the delineation clearer between OU and Ubers. Answer to the 4.52% usage stat.
Correct.
Moving on.
"Ubers has a different metagame than OU" quote Finchinator(?) from a post either pre-home or last generation (pretty sure it was finch, but I don't care to go back and check).
I know this would fundamentally change "what OU is", but it is the only way to completely cut power creep out of the game. Relegate the best of the best to Ubers, and let the rest be OU, where they belong.
Let OU have its garchomps and Ttars, and let uber have its Great Fusks and Iron Treads.
I know this will literally never happen, but I'm just saying that's the only way you save Garchomp from being crept out of OU. You have to DEFINE OU as something other than "diet Ubers".
I could dig up the stats that I did last time, where like... 7 of your mainstays are ubers by usage stats, but I again don't have the time or inclination to dig the data back up. I'm sure it won't matter anyway.
Regardless, I hope Garchomp enjoys UUBL, or better yet UU realizes that it's the real OU format, with Scizor, Zone, Ttar, Gengar, Garchomp and others, so people start playing UU instead.
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These two are completly wreaking my shit (and hazard/moon blast spam+coverage in general).
How can I deal with them while using a balance team with Landorus please?
okay I’m not arguing what Tera is better, I don’t care, I’m just going off usage and if you look at usage Tera normal is what’s being used most, and you can look at the calcs and bring up CB rampardos but the one thing that doesn’t lie is numbers and with Trick room is up there’s no way to stop it unless you Tera which would be a sad waste of a Tera.
stall wasn’t as good as it was in gen 8 but it was still viable and peaked high ladder numerous times. Ursa has invalidated completely imo.
usage doesn't determine viability/brokenness. turns out a lot of people dont think very hard about their team composition and just go "tera normal facade go brrrr", who knew?
i dont really know what this part of your sentence is getting at. in any case numbers certainly dont lie but they also require context to be meaningful, otherwise you end up with precisely the sort of cb rampardos nonsense i alluded to
im agnostic as to whether or not ursaluna is broken but i think your argument would be a lot more interesting if you could back this up further, because it's not like this is the first time we've seen a mon that doesnt have solid counters under trick room. thing about trick room is that you still need to set it up and you still need to get your breaker in without taking too much damage and you still need to click the right buttons. there are common immunities to both of ursa's stab moves, so even if your opp gets tr up and gets ursa in safely it's not like there aren't ways to stall those turns out. and tera does exist as a last-ditch method of counterplay, as you already mentioned. if you want to present a serious argument that ursaluna is broken, you will have to show that all the means one has at their disposal to keep ursa under tr in check are not sufficient
yeah but who cares, most ladder players aren't especially good at this game and do not know how to deal with stall (hence the many posts you see every single generation decrying bans on offensive mons because the ou council must have some sort of hidden stall agenda). anyone who can pilot a stall team decently well is guaranteed to do well on ladder, using stall and loading like 4 games at once has been a tried-and-true strat to get ez suspect reqs throughout the generations for a reason. stall's prevalence and success in high-level tournament play is the only metric by which you can realistically determine stall's viability, and afaik its presence there has been marginal this gen, though i've only paid so much attention
I mean, you have Raichu in your nick, he is an Electric type, use that logic.
Electhor, Rotom and Thundurus are too slow, can't take a hit from any of them (hate knock off from Samurott + 2hko by Moonblast).I mean, you have Raichu in your nick, he is an Electric type, use that logic.
Electhor, Rotom and Thundurus are too slow, can't take a hit from any of them (hate knock off from Samurott + 2hko by Moonblast).
Electhor, Rotom and Thundurus are too slow, can't take a hit from any of them (hate knock off from Samurott + 2hko by Moonblast).
Nevermind, thank you for the wise words.I mean, you have Raichu in your nick, he is an Electric type, use that logic.
counterpoint: that would be really fucking funnyIf that's the case, then last gen SHUCKLE would be in Ubers. I don't think that's a good idea