Pressure only reduces the additional PP if the pressure mon is being targeted by an attack; Recover self-targets and isn't affected.Zapdos may have received some big nerfs with the Roost PP cut in half and no more Defog or Toxic, but this doesn't mean Zapdos is bad at all. Pressure gets overlooked quite a lot, but is a solid ability that got even better this gen. Let's look at an example. Zapdos against Cover Cloak Gholdengo, so it can't be Discharge paralyzed. Zapdos can spam Heat Wave and Gholdy can only Recover four times instead of 8, leaving it much more limited to check Zapdos defensively. Of course, this is just one situation out of multiple, but I wanted to show how useful Pressure can be. Speed and nature are to outspeed max investment base 85s without a plus speed nature. Rest is physical bulk to take advantage of the contact moves it will be punishing with Static. Of course, had to spread status with more than just an ability, and that's where Discharge came in. Heat Wave is to hit Kingambit, Gholdy, and the occasional Treads, but Hurricane can also be ran to hit Lando T harder as well as demolishing Great Tusk. Even after all this, though, the team isn't complete. Steel tera seemed obvious for Zapdos to me due to the rock and ice weaknesses being turned into resistances and Zapdos resisting fighting and being immune to ground before tera. While Zapdos's rock weakness is covered by H Goodra, it's ice weakness isn't. For this, I brought in
in my humble opinion, i’m unsure if many of those mons should I be banned. out of all of them, only volcarona gets anything from the pokebilities gimmick, and even then i don’t understand why it was banned from OU. one thing i definitely think should be banned is eleki, as tera just makes it too powerful. for magearna, i’m not sure. the thing that made it too powerful (afaik) was stored power, and honestly i might be in favor of banning the move rather than the mon, though that could also potentially let espathra backSo, obviously the meta has Mag and Eleki banned right now. I know that for the last time pokebilities was OMotM in April, bans weren't kept the same as base OU, and that didn't made the meta a bit more chaotic than otherwise. The big question is will it stay that way the next time it returns (if we're still in the pre-DLC era) where we keep mons like Chien, Volc, Zama C, and Urshifu RS?
While the idea makes sense and I would also like it if a course of action similar to that was chosen, unfortunately Tiering Policy says that unless a move or item proves to be broken on most users (Baton Pass and Last Respects) or it adds unnecessary RNG to the game and makes the result of the turn rely on chance (King’s Rock) only then the move or item can be banned and Stored Power isn’t uncompetitive nor broken.in my humble opinion, i’m unsure if many of those mons should I be banned. out of all of them, only volcarona gets anything from the pokebilities gimmick, and even then i don’t understand why it was banned from OU. one thing i definitely think should be banned is eleki, as tera just makes it too powerful. for magearna, i’m not sure. the thing that made it too powerful (afaik) was stored power, and honestly i might be in favor of banning the move rather than the mon, though that could also potentially let espathra back
As much as I hate to diss Alolan Persian despite its massive head due to nuzlocke experiences, competitive is a completely different scenario from in game. I looked at Alolan Persian the last two generations as a mon that had potential for a niche. Unfortunately, I just don't see that happening. While Fur Coat and Technician seem neat in one boosting defensive prowess and the other boosting offensive prowess, it does minimal to nullify the many weaknesses of Perisian.random theorymonning go! unsure if this would be any good but i’d like to present alolan persian. tons of utility with technician boosted snarl, icy wind and chilling water (it is a spatker weirdly enough), and fluffy is never bad. add on shadow ball (or swift ig) and you can run vest, making it a fairly useable mixed wall that can dish out damage and provide utility. it’s also fast- 115 base speed is nothing to scoff at. seems like it could be interesting, what do y’all (*cough cough* typhlosion787 *cough cough* alsoni *cough cough*) think?
yeah, my thoughts exactly. good tools with very bad stats, and utility is useless if that’s all you can do and you can’t even do it very well. i’ll probably end up trying it a few times anyways, but i don’t expect muchAs much as I hate to diss Alolan Persian despite its massive head due to nuzlocke experiences, competitive is a completely different scenario from in game. I looked at Alolan Persian the last two generations as a mon that had potential for a niche. Unfortunately, I just don't see that happening. While Fur Coat and Technician seem neat in one boosting defensive prowess and the other boosting offensive prowess, it does minimal to nullify the many weaknesses of Perisian.
It has some interesting tools such as Taunt, Parting Shot, and Switcheroo, but it doesn't have the stats to make them work.
While Fur Coat is an amazing ability, Persian has a pitiful base 65 HP to pair with it, and the SpDef is still meager in tandem with the HP despite AV giving the SpDef boost. We have to keep in mind how AV also means that Persian can't use any of its interesting utility except Foul Play, Snarl, Icy Wind, and Chilling Water, not even Knock Off now with gen 9 changes.
Ok, defensive stats are still awful except the ok physical defense (after Fur Coat is taken into account), so what about offensively? Base 60 attack is absolutely awful and 75 base special attack isn't much better, even with Nasty Plot to boost.
So, does the typing redeem it? Dark is a great offensive type not for how many types it hits super effectively (only doing so to ghost and psychic), but for how much it hits neutrally. Even with stab, though, Persian's dark type moves won't do much damage. To add on to that, while dark has the amazing and rare ghost resistance, it still is weak to two amazing and extremely common offensive types in fighting and fairy as well as the ever present U-Turn. But doesn't being hit by U-Turn raise your speed? What will raising your speed do if you take 20% and lose momentum with Leftovers and Rest as your only forms of recovery.
Utility is nice, but Persian offers nothing but utility and ends up just being a sitting duck. It's a debuff machine, but debuffing really isn't something you want a pokemon to spend most of its time doing in higher tiers where its stats simply don't match up and what it offers isn't unique enough to separate it from the competition and warrant using it seriously
Rivalry mons, Skarmory, Mandibuzz, Durant, Sableye. Many of those mons aren't in this gen as of now, but they all get pretty screwed overi had a random thought that i thought y’all might have some interesting opinions on. as we all know, this om is all about making mons better and more interesting by activating all of their abilities at once. however, i’ve been wondering- is there any situation in which this would be a bad thing? i can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but i thought y’all would know for sure :D
I don’t think Mandibuzz becomes bad since Big Pecks blocks defense drops so it gets only +2 speed but don’t quote me on that, I never used Mandibuzz in Gen 8.Rivalry mons, Skarmory, Mandibuzz, Durant, Sableye. Many of those mons aren't in this gen as of now, but they all get pretty screwed over
Big Pecks doesn't prevent defense drop since it is from your own other ability, not the opponent's move. It was temporarily just a speed boost with no defense drop in early gen 7 pokebilities, but that was found to be a glitch and patched out eventually. No longer has that ability.I don’t think Mandibuzz becomes bad since Big Pecks blocks defense drops so it gets only +2 speed but don’t quote me on that, I never used Mandibuzz in Gen 8.
Female is definitely far better due to having reliable ghost stab, but I'll admit I underestimated male Basculegion quite a bit. Without Last Respects, though, not nearly broken.basculegion is completely broken, mold breaker + adapt + swiftswim is a fever dream made in hell
so my funky lil idea from earlier this month did have some merit after all! i can absolutely see this being an obscene trick room sweeper, if with just LO it OHKO’D PEX (after rocks) WITHOUT SPECS (rhyming is fun)!!! feels like it’s gonna be a phenomenal wallbreaker, very excited to useSo, I played some games today with someone using mostly lower tiered mons that abuse the meta gimmick. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show off Hisuian Braviary, and I was right.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pokebilities-1892823756-03ppe2y0r3gwrnrn6zbykxij0153fbxpw
I may have lost the game, but this just goes to show how powerful Hisuian Braviary was. It was Modest, 252 SpAtk EVs, and had Life Orb, but it still shocks me to see it do as much as it did. OHKOing Alomomola and then Toxapex after Rocks is wild imo. I get Toxapex is weak to psychic, but that never stopped it from taking only around 60% from Lando T Earthquake and switching to shrug it off. Glad I got to use this monster, even with me forgetting to lower speed to no investment. New Trick Room monster
i never played pokebilities in past gens so i hadn’t even considered clefable as a viable threat, thanks for bringing this to my attention. two very good abilities (and cute charm), great utility, solid spatk- not excited to face this lol. also i loved it when you said “It’s [sic] typing is brilliant…”; fairy really is putting in work this gen more than ever :)So, the new directs and news came out and we officially have at the minimum what has already been confirmed before the direct, the Clefairy line, and now all starters from past games. I could talk about the starters another time, but you all know the reason I'm actually here. Let's talk about Clefable and what it would be like for the meta!
But first off, let's look at what it was like in the past two generations for pokebilities. In gen 7 pokebilities, Clef was undeniably top 5 in the meta. You had your basic USUM OU top 3 mons, then you had Conkeldurr (since it wasn't banned due to not being nearly as overwhelming in gen 7), and finally Clefable. An absolute pillar of the meta in every way. Holds teams together so well, it can be a hazard setter, item remover, status spreader, Trick abuser, Calm Mind sweeper, Cosmic Power+Stored Power, it was just extraordinarily versatile and had already gotten some complaints. In gen 8, however, Clef definitely started to become more problematic. The meta, while still strong, didn't have the same capability to effortlessly bust through Clef with things such as Z moves. It was like the prior gen with Clef being bulkier. Yes, there was a time when I defended it, but in retrospect, I was wrong when defending it in those days and my mindset then was much more a "broken checks broken" mindset where I was thinking to keep Clef in to check Dracozolt, Conkeldurr, and Phermosa, which were all broken in their own right. By the end of last gen's pokebilities, I definitely think Clef did become too much.
So, how will it be in gen 9 pokebilities? Well, I can't make a 100% accurate guess, but I can try. First off, Clef's competition has grown. Three new viable Unaware users it has to compete with, those being Clod, Dirge, and Dozo. Magic Guard isn't too common, but will have the team slot filled in by Reuniclus often times. It has more pokemon to compete with for the Unaware slot, but still can keep its best Magic Guard user award.
Anything to mention other than abilities? Actually, a bit. First, Clefable now can't use Knock Off itself, having to rely on teammates to do so in order for items to hold you back less. Second, the healing move nerf. Clefable can no longer nigh infinitely sit on a pokemon without question due to Softboiled PP being only 8. This gives Clefable a significantly harder time dealing with huge offensive hitters such as Valiant and Baxcalibur.
However, Clefable still has several positives. It's typing is brilliant, the movepool is incredibly deep, and the multiple roles it can perform are all vital to gameplay and versatile in purpose. Bulkier sets definitely dropped off, but I do think that set up will still be solid.
Of course, always open to discussion about this with anyone, just thought it'd be cool to discuss about it before the pokemon returns instead of after
Bax is already insane with Ice Body and no burn, but having an even better snow setter with a new snow sweeper is nice. It is annoying that you also have to deal with the 25% evasion chance on A. Ninetales and Snowslash, but the benefits they bring to snow are quite solid. A snow setter that can use Freeze-Dry to OHKO Pelipper and do really solid damage to Hippowdon with access to Encore and a sleep move is amazing utility. The addition of Snowslash is also really important because it gives snow teams not only another sweeper, but also hazard removal, so you don't have to free up another team slot to remove hazards. You have the faster snow setter that also supports through screens in A. Ninetales, a Snow Rush (I know it's called Slush Rush, but I'm gonna call it Snow Rush now) sweeper that can Spin, Bax getting the best of both worlds with it's abilities, Glowking for the bulkier snow setter with more longevity, and Cetitan as another Snow Rush sweeper that has potentially terrifying power with Life Orb+Sheer Force and moves like Icicle Crash, Liquidation, and Play Rough. I'm just glad it looks like Chien is definitely getting banned whenever the meta returns because that would be the nail in the coffin for other team styleshaven't thought about this metagame in a while, but I remembered it exists and I would like to propose Snowslash+Alolatales+Bax
idk i just remember basculin was busted so idk if slash was banned in the past or what but i think it could be cool w snow cloak/slush rush