Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

Anchor9 said:
What are people’s thoughts on Supercell Slam as a coverage option for Great Tusk? It would help against Rain. It keeps Tusk from either being an easy kill from Pelipper or slow U-Turn. It would also help Tusk break through Skarmory.
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Tusk really needs it's four moves and while supercell slam is good on tusk, it just isn't good enough over bulk up, rapid spin, knock off and stabs. Maybe if you have something like a quaquaval on your team, sure, I could see it, but tusk has much better moves to use. Plus quaq isn't the best right now, so supercell slam isn't probably the best. In general, it isn't too good, because most mons that get it either have thunder punch/wild charge which is more consistent or have other moves they want more.
 
June Heat said:
Hot take, OU would be unbearable without Tera. Too much min-maxed offensive Pokemon running around, and banning Tera will just add even more to the list while taking away a huge defensive tool for team building. Yeah, no thanks.
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Tera is weird. If you take it away, then you don't have to deal with mons suddenly either getting a power boost or getting a free turn to set up by turning into another type. But also, mons being able to defensively tera is really important against set up sweepers that get a bit out of control, even ones that don't tera. It would be both a benefit and a detriment to remove tera.
 
June Heat said:
Hot take, OU would be unbearable without Tera. Too much min-maxed offensive Pokemon running around, and banning Tera will just add even more to the list while taking away a huge defensive tool for team building. Yeah, no thanks.
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without the ability to change your matchups mid-game, i think this gen would be basically 100% matchup fishing and we'd need like 30 more bans to solve that. i don't see gen 9 not being just completely unplayable after a tera ban
 
June Heat said:
Hot take, OU would be unbearable without Tera. Too much min-maxed offensive Pokemon running around, and banning Tera will just add even more to the list while taking away a huge defensive tool for team building. Yeah, no thanks.
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I agree with you, a Tera-less metagame would be unbearable, and while TPC didn't quite hit the nail on the head in terms of balancing, in terms of how fun Tera can be, even at low-level where I generally play, I believe that Tera makes this metagame so much more fun, and the worst generation of OU was the one without its gimmick, aka SWSH OU, which I personally hate with a burning passion.
 
Heatranator said:
Tera is weird. If you take it away, then you don't have to deal with mons suddenly either getting a power boost or getting a free turn to set up by turning into another type. But also, mons being able to defensively tera is really important against set up sweepers that get a bit out of control, even ones that don't tera. It would be both a benefit and a detriment to remove tera.
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its a lot more straightforward evaluating pokemon in that instance though. if a pokemon requires defensive teras to check it and doesnt require tera itself then its undoubtedly broken. I've grown to accept teras existence but i dont think OU would become "unbearable" without it. I just get frustrated at pokemon like kingambit who can run 5+ teras effectively, its so difficult to predict what it may run
 
Some interesting points. It seems unlikely that Tera helps defense more than it enables offense in the most power crept generation to date. As far as flexibility in the teambuilder goes, though, that would be a good a point. There are only so many matchups you can prepare a team for. Tera lets you cast a wider net, so to speak.

On the other hand, we had 8 gens where we didn't have that ability and it was mostly fine. Gen 9 is the most powercrept gen to date, though, so I could understand the argument that it might be different. But if that's the case, what do we do in generation 10 and so on? The trend is powercreep. Are all future gens just going to be unplayable without Tera to help the teambuilder? I don't think that would be the case.

And going back to gen 9, which is the discussion that is really relevant, I also don't think that would be unplayable. Without Tera, it's easier to predict opposing threats because they can't do things like just decide to counter their counters by changing type... or not. And you have to guess not just what, but when.

As far as the dichotomy between gen 8 and 9 OU, I personally find it frustrating. Heck, I find the dichotomy between some decisions in the same gen to be frustrating. Maybe what happened in gen 8 is why Smogon shifted so much this time. But I can't help but feel certain things become more about popularity contests than consistent standards sometimes. And that bugs me. I can see why folks find Tera to be very fun, but again, fun is subjective. It isn't a reason to decide to ban something or not.
 
tommytt22 said:
its a lot more straightforward evaluating pokemon in that instance though. if a pokemon requires defensive teras to check it and doesnt require tera itself then its undoubtedly broken. I've grown to accept teras existence but i dont think OU would become "unbearable" without it. I just get frustrated at pokemon like kingambit who can run 5+ teras effectively, its so difficult to predict what it may run
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If they require tera, then sure, but a lot of mons that I think people don't feel are broken are checked quite well by tera. As DaddyBuzzwole said, the tier would become very matchup fishy, as tera is a great way to patch up weaknesses on teams because of the sheer amount of threats there are in the metagame that are not really broken, but moreso can be difficult to manage on top of everything else. In DLC1, I would say absolutely that tera needed some action, but now when the power level is so high, not so much.
 
Heatranator said:
If they require tera, then sure, but a lot of mons that I think people don't feel are broken are checked quite well by tera. As DaddyBuzzwole said, the tier would become very matchup fishy, as tera is a great way to patch up weaknesses on teams because of the sheer amount of threats there are in the metagame that are not really broken, but moreso can be difficult to manage on top of everything else. In DLC1, I would say absolutely that tera needed some action, but now when the power level is so high, not so much.
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Sorry but can you explain to me like I'm stupid what the gigantic difference in power level is between dlc1 and dlc2? Kyurem is likely to get banned, gouging fire is strong but is countered by dondozo, checked by walking wake and just generally loses to rain. Raging bolt is powerful but it's movepool really struggles against ground types that are faster (tusk, gliscor, lando) and then theres archaludon, which is kind of weird I can't make heads or tails of that thing. Roaring moon relies on tera and Triple Axel is a great returning move but beyond what I've mentioned I don't see why dlc2 would be any less manageable than dlc1.
 
tommytt22 said:
Sorry but can you explain to me like I'm stupid what the gigantic difference in power level is between dlc1 and dlc2? Kyurem is likely to get banned, gouging fire is strong but is countered by dondozo, checked by walking wake and just generally loses to rain. Raging bolt is powerful but it's movepool really struggles against ground types that are faster (tusk, gliscor, lando) and then theres archaludon, which is kind of weird I can't make heads or tails of that thing. Roaring moon relies on tera and Triple Axel is a great returning move but beyond what I've mentioned I don't see why dlc2 would be any less manageable than dlc1.
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While sure, every mon has its checks, defensive counterplay hasn't gained much in DLC2, thus this exacerbates the offensive power creep a lot. We only got one rapid spinner in excadrill and no defoggers, which doesn't help the hazard game at all which I would say offensive teams benefit more from than defensive teams, though both do improve. The mons that defensive teams gained are gliscor, pecharunt (though that will most likely fall), primarina and skarmory. Compare that to the offensive threats such as darkrai, gouging fire, iron boulder, kyurem, raging bolt, roaring moon, serperior and volcarona that have been introduced, and you can see that there are way more offensive threats than defensive threats. Even mons like meow and weavile have gained new tools, which further increases the power level. 4 defensive mons to 8-10 offensive mons (depending on if you count meow and weavile) is massive powercreep.
 
Heatranator said:
While sure, every mon has its checks, defensive counterplay hasn't gained much in DLC2, thus this exacerbates the offensive power creep a lot. We only got one rapid spinner in excadrill and no defoggers, which doesn't help the hazard game at all which I would say offensive teams benefit more from than defensive teams, though both do improve. The mons that defensive teams gained are gliscor, pecharunt (though that will most likely fall), primarina and skarmory. Compare that to the offensive threats such as darkrai, gouging fire, iron boulder, kyurem, raging bolt, roaring moon, serperior and volcarona that have been introduced, and you can see that there are way more offensive threats than defensive threats. Even mons like meow and weavile have gained new tools, which further increases the power level. 4 defensive mons to 8-10 offensive mons (depending on if you count meow and weavile) is massive powercreep.
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I mean counting the number of defensive pokemon to offensive Is a bit oversimplified, especially when the best defensive answers handle multiple threats. Just out of your list unaware clodsire can beat darkrai (sleep nerf), raging bolt, serperior and volcarona, without using a defensive tera. Skarmory can handle iron boulder and roaring moon, even if theyre on the same team. Tera enable offensive more than defense I don't think it would be any more difficult to beat the threats defensively if tera left
 
tommytt22 said:
Sorry but can you explain to me like I'm stupid what the gigantic difference in power level is between dlc1 and dlc2? Kyurem is likely to get banned, gouging fire is strong but is countered by dondozo, checked by walking wake and just generally loses to rain. Raging bolt is powerful but it's movepool really struggles against ground types that are faster (tusk, gliscor, lando) and then theres archaludon, which is kind of weird I can't make heads or tails of that thing. Roaring moon relies on tera and Triple Axel is a great returning move but beyond what I've mentioned I don't see why dlc2 would be any less manageable than dlc1.
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It's not really about any specific mon, it's that the total pool of mons has grown. Each additional viable offense threat means one more thing your team has to account for, and the DLC additions lean far more offensive than the base game did. After all, this is a generation where Ting-Lu, Dondozo and Garganacl (e: and Clodsire! how could I forget you) are all fresh additions -- not to mention the significant bulk of mons like Gambit and Tusk.

Short of dropping down mons like Lugia (no), Giratina (hell no), or Ho-oh (lmao), DLC2 was always going to lean sharply offense. And that means Tera is doing some heavy lifting.
 
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tommytt22 said:
Sorry but can you explain to me like I'm stupid what the gigantic difference in power level is between dlc1 and dlc2? Kyurem is likely to get banned, gouging fire is strong but is countered by dondozo, checked by walking wake and just generally loses to rain. Raging bolt is powerful but it's movepool really struggles against ground types that are faster (tusk, gliscor, lando) and then theres archaludon, which is kind of weird I can't make heads or tails of that thing. Roaring moon relies on tera and Triple Axel is a great returning move but beyond what I've mentioned I don't see why dlc2 would be any less manageable than dlc1.
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Archaludon is lowkey broken imo. It's got massive snowball potential in Rain. Outside of it, it's more manageable. If kyurem goes I could see it getting more notice than it did before. Offensively, it's got pretty disgusting coverage, the typical tera fairy, gets smacked by flash Cannon. It's got electro to just boost past checks not packing unaware. Stamina let's it boost up for a strong BP. And it has Draco to just throw out for a good chunk. The only real flaw I've seen is sp.def and lack of recovery, skeledirge and clodsire, are solid checks but they can't really run cloak to avoid the rng due to the strength of hazards, so it can just be a matter of getting lucky.

I'm still trying to figure out how to really handle it, but right now it's not as pressing.
 
Idk man. I like Tera. Bias established, I feel like it's just fundamentally fun and interesting as a generational mechanic. It's not just making a chocolate cake with even more chocolate (g-max, mega), it's actually a new tool for fine-tuning and playing with the core of the game. Now, I don't believe OU would be unbearable without it either. It would take a while but it would probably establish itself as a meta where setup sweepers are not fucking everywhere because of a free turn due to a matchup flip. Further, I would love to see a world where Kingambit gets smacked by Mach Punch consistently.

Regarding Archaludon: it has all the makings of a kinda meh pokemon - no recovery with some key weaknesses is a big problem and means your longevity is subpar even with Stamina. Now, under rain? That thing is crazy. Not having recovery isn't that much of an issue if you got a 130bp electric Torch Song with solid bulk to keep the pressure. You won't 6-0 but you can bet your ass it is able to tear a hole big enough for the match to snowball.

Unrelated: fuck Gliscor
 
The problem is less with archaludon, because that mon is fine on its own. Its archaludon WITH Barraskweda for seven turns is the problem. You can deal with one of them quite easily if it was seven turns, but combined over seven turns, that's the problem. I think that if you only have 5 turns of rain, then the mons are fine. I would want a damp rock suspect before an archaludon suspect because 7 turns of rain is awful. And while we are at it, why not a heat rock suspect, because sun is also cracked right now.
 
I dont think a modern generation metagame where weather is this prominent will ever work. Weather teams are automatically somewhat matchup fishy, and lean on the hyper offensive side, making playing against them unfun. A possible damp rock/heat rock suspect could be fun to see after kyurem is gone, as this would let us keep rain teams AND archaludon in a less powerful state
 
Oh yeah. A turn 1 Meow Knock Off is perhaps my most common play when versing rain, really messes with their long-term plan if they can't win the game before the seven turns are up.
I'm unsure if I'd like a Damp Rock suspect. That would just artificially nerf Rain when other weather effects are fine, and a general weather rock suspect would just push them way too far down. The issue at hand clearly is the pokemon available to each play style.
I'm not convinced Flip Turn was enough to push Barraskewda over the line though. I'm leaning toward Archaludon - it is fine on its own, but if we look closely "on its own" is basically playing outside rain, which is quite clearly its strongest set. Remember when Excadrill got banned in gen 5? It would be fine outside of sandstorm, but the fact of the matter is it is a sandstorm mon, and as such it was not fine. I think the same applies to Archaludon. I don't think it's actually broken though. I'm not entirely sure at least. Maybe rain will be undoubtedly broken once Kyurem goes since Freeze-Dry kinda fucks the archetype, but until then we just kinda chill
 
Roshino said:
Oh yeah. A turn 1 Meow Knock Off is perhaps my most common play when versing rain, really messes with their long-term plan if they can't win the game before the seven turns are up.
I'm unsure if I'd like a Damp Rock suspect. That would just artificially nerf Rain when other weather effects are fine, and a general weather rock suspect would just push them way too far down. The issue at hand clearly is the pokemon available to each play style.
I'm not convinced Flip Turn was enough to push Barraskewda over the line though. I'm leaning toward Archaludon - it is fine on its own, but if we look closely "on its own" is basically playing outside rain, which is quite clearly its strongest set. Remember when Excadrill got banned in gen 5? It would be fine outside of sandstorm, but the fact of the matter is it is a sandstorm mon, and as such it was not fine. I think the same applies to Archaludon. I don't think it's actually broken though. I'm not entirely sure at least. Maybe rain will be undoubtedly broken once Kyurem goes since Freeze-Dry kinda fucks the archetype, but until then we just kinda chill
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I'd say sun is also a bit of an issue, though less so since the sleep ban, but I think the clear problem is the 7 turns and how complimentary both barra and arch are, they cover each other's weaknesses so well. Arch's main weaknesses is it's speed tier and difficulty with ground types, as although it can destroy tusk, it can't take a hit from it if it hasn't got a stamina boost while being at high hp, which probably won't occur since the opponent will be wary to use u-turn and other low power moves if you have arch on your team. Barra's main weaknesses is it's fraility and difficulty with some physical walls, though those are few and far between. Together, they can solve each other's issues. Combine them with a special wall, and you have perfect synergy. Then add on the fact that you have to deal with this for seven turns at a time, and then it is unstoppable.
The difference between this and excadrill is that sand was permanent, and they eventually banned sand rush, so we have some precedent on not banning the weather.

Also, I was looking at mons that get rain dish, and couldn't specially defensive ludicolo pair pretty well with these two mons, as it resists ground moves while being neutral to electric. It can get up a leech seed and support the team further.
 
Heatranator said:
I'd say sun is also a bit of an issue, though less so since the sleep ban, but I think the clear problem is the 7 turns and how complimentary both barra and arch are, they cover each other's weaknesses so well. Arch's main weaknesses is it's speed tier and difficulty with ground types, as although it can destroy tusk, it can't take a hit from it if it hasn't got a stamina boost while being at high hp, which probably won't occur since the opponent will be wary to use u-turn and other low power moves if you have arch on your team. Barra's main weaknesses is it's fraility and difficulty with some physical walls, though those are few and far between. Together, they can solve each other's issues. Combine them with a special wall, and you have perfect synergy. Then add on the fact that you have to deal with this for seven turns at a time, and then it is unstoppable.
The difference between this and excadrill is that sand was permanent, and they eventually banned sand rush, so we have some precedent on not banning the weather.

Also, I was looking at mons that get rain dish, and couldn't specially defensive ludicolo pair pretty well with these two mons, as it resists ground moves while being neutral to electric. It can get up a leech seed and support the team further.
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Agree, sun is annoying as hell. Gouging fire is a bitch, though I have had issues with the man even outside sun.
Now, about sand being permanent - yep, I do agree, but my point was specifically on how the distinction between a pokemon being played in or out of its main niche shouldn't matter much when defining how problematic it is.

That said, I don't agree when it comes to rain being unstoppable. It is annoying to deal with that kind of team but that goes for every hyper offense archetype (and those have been hella common because balance is getting shrekt by Kyurem anyways). I agree that it is problematic though, and I think if push comes to shove, the piece we remove to tone down its synergy is Arch. Banning Damp Rock and no other weather rocks would set a weird precedent, general weather rock ban would be iffy. Hitting Pelipper would be a bit much. Barraskewda is itching the line with nuclear Flip Turns. Arch's 130 bp Torch Song with good bulk is a bit too much snowball potential and seems to be what pushes it over the edge imo.
 
Roshino said:
Oh yeah. A turn 1 Meow Knock Off is perhaps my most common play when versing rain, really messes with their long-term plan if they can't win the game before the seven turns are up.
I'm unsure if I'd like a Damp Rock suspect. That would just artificially nerf Rain when other weather effects are fine, and a general weather rock suspect would just push them way too far down. The issue at hand clearly is the pokemon available to each play style.
I'm not convinced Flip Turn was enough to push Barraskewda over the line though. I'm leaning toward Archaludon - it is fine on its own, but if we look closely "on its own" is basically playing outside rain, which is quite clearly its strongest set. Remember when Excadrill got banned in gen 5? It would be fine outside of sandstorm, but the fact of the matter is it is a sandstorm mon, and as such it was not fine. I think the same applies to Archaludon. I don't think it's actually broken though. I'm not entirely sure at least. Maybe rain will be undoubtedly broken once Kyurem goes since Freeze-Dry kinda fucks the archetype, but until then we just kinda chill
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I think its really funny how conditioned this generations players are. i lead glimorra into pelipper and they uturn like 90% of the time expecting me to click rocks and i OHKO with power gem, for a rain team its pretty much an instant loss

also what burns me about archaludon is if you switch a ground type into electro shot it still gets the boost, and now you have to take a +1 draco meteor afterwards
 
Roshino said:
Agree, sun is annoying as hell. Gouging fire is a bitch, though I have had issues with the man even outside sun.
Now, about sand being permanent - yep, I do agree, but my point was specifically on how the distinction between a pokemon being played in or out of its main niche shouldn't matter much when defining how problematic it is.

That said, I don't agree when it comes to rain being unstoppable. It is annoying to deal with that kind of team but that goes for every hyper offense archetype (and those have been hella common because balance is getting shrekt by Kyurem anyways). I agree that it is problematic though, and I think if push comes to shove, the piece we remove to tone down its synergy is Arch. Banning Damp Rock and no other weather rocks would set a weird precedent, general weather rock ban would be iffy. Hitting Pelipper would be a bit much. Barraskewda is itching the line with nuclear Flip Turns. Arch's 130 bp Torch Song with good bulk is a bit too much snowball potential and seems to be what pushes it over the edge imo.
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I kinda exaggerated with the unstoppable part lol. I think that if we go down the damp rock path, we at the same time ban heat rock. Banning just one weather rock has been done in the past with lower tiers, though I don't know if that is just lower tiers not having some setters.

tommytt22 said:
I think its really funny how conditioned this generations players are. i lead glimorra into pelipper and they uturn like 90% of the time expecting me to click rocks and i OHKO with power gem, for a rain team its pretty much an instant loss

also what burns me about archaludon is if you switch a ground type into electro shot it still gets the boost, and now you have to take a +1 draco meteor afterwards
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When I was running a rain team, I used mystic water barra, and the amount of times that people would send in their gambit to revenge kill it with sucker punch, only for me to click aqua jet, then they click kowtow only for me to click cc and ko them is astounding. I have had that interaction happen every time when I have faced a gambit with my rain team. The glimmora thing I can attest to because I have done that as well lol. People forget it has 130 sp.A, it is not just a hazards machine, it can hit HARD.
 
NotDaProGamer said:
D
Does Ludicolo not get substitute? SubSeed could be fun...
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It does, but I found that encore can be quite good for setup sweepers, locking them into a move can give free turns for the rest of the team. I guess it's probably up to personal preference if you want sub vs encore, as if you have decent setup sweeper denial, then sub could be better.
 
Bold School said:
Iron Valiant was seen as like the perfectly balanced mon before people started spamming Hypnosis on it. Valiant being in the tier is great for OU, in my opinion, but it still isn't the most consistent with past decisions.
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Was it??? People have always complained about Valiant being too strong, too quick and too versatile. Coming up against a Valiant has always had a "let's spin the wheel and guess what one of 50 different sets it can run": is it Specs, Booster CM, Booster SD, Scarf Trick, Mixed Life Orb and this is before it Teras which it doesn't really need to anyway.

Bold School said:
Do we test the problematic pokemon first? Or do we just wholesale ban the mechanic first? The answer seems to be that it depends.
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Well, Tera suspect happened and it was No Action, so until another Tera suspect happens, it will always be test the Pokémon.

Bold School said:
And as this relates to Tera, we had close to 30 bans before this latest DLC even came out. Shouldn't we, by this logic, have just wholesale banned the mechanic? I know some people have made the argument that many of the mons were broken without Tera. But I don't know. I think at least a good chunk of them would be much more manageable without it.
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Okay this has been disproved so many times but fuck it, let's count it - 14 Ubers mons right now,
  1. Annihilape
  2. Baxcalibur
  3. Chi-Yu
  4. Chien-Pao
  5. Espathra
  6. Flutter Mane
  7. Iron Bundle
  8. Magearna
  9. Ogerpon-H
  10. Palafin
  11. Regieleki
  12. Sneasler
  13. Terapagos
  14. Ursaluna-B
18 (I believe) including ones that went up and have come back down
  1. Cyclizar
  2. Gliscor
  3. Houndstone
  4. Volcarona
Now out of these mons, how many are actually broken because of Tera? Annihilape Tera Water, Espathra Tera Fairy/Fighting, Regieleki Tera Ice, Volcarona Tera Anything and Terapagos Tera Stellar. Out of all those bans only a handful were actually because of Tera, maybe the problems were exacerbated with Tera but at its core the mon was still problematic.

Bold School said:
Dynamax was banned last gen for being clearly broken. I'm not trying to get into a fight with somebody over which one is worse. But Tera enables a lot of broken or borderline stuff at minimum. It feels like folks just generally like Tera more, which is understandable, but not a competitive reason to keep something that should be banned around.
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I also don't vibe with this point because yes, Dynamax was clearly broken and yes people like Tera more because it is nowhere near as broken and has more uniqueness to it - it's not just because "it's fun" it also is competitive to a lot of people otherwise we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
 
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