Blast has a lot of yappers in this thread, me included, but yeah, the support isn't growing, but rather the opposite. I think realistically like the most action we see moving forward is looking at Kyurem and Glisc given the general low-middling ratings of the mons on the radar, but even these are mons which have been suspected twice each.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
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I’d argue OU is a fine enough place now, with new threats emerging and old mainstays adapting to beat said threats. I don’t see why we’d need to change anything - Dragonite may be an issue for some, but personally I don’t find it difficult to handle, while Gliscor and Kyurem feel easier to counter with good play.
True, at this point it's really up to what happens during WCoP. Kinda unfortunate survey timing tbh. I don't it was in the best interest of many qualified players to shake the metagame up in any form. Course that's an unsubstantiated claim, and a bit conspiracy brained. Reality is most likely people are having fun so why change anything.
The best plan of action is to see what trends pop up during World Cup, but I’m not going to lie I really don’t know what could happen during that tournament to create new buzz about what’s broken and what’s not. Maybe someone perfects a funny matchup fishing Kyurem set to make people mad? Dragonite still Tera Blasting with seventeen different types and people struggle between thinking it’s acceptable? Like don’t get me wrong there have been new notable developments in the tier lately like G-Weezing balance and stall becoming viable, but that doesn’t really push the needle at all. Suspecting mons like Gliscor for a THIRD time also doesn’t strike me as something that will ever be successful unless once again top players find a way to optimize the mon to be even more broken than it is already (which imo already happened when Gliscor Veil teams became a thing for a month and then vanished soooo yeah it’s cooked). Tier’s fully done fellas
Yup doing nothing was not my first choice either (Tera Preview still has my vote), but I am done wasting my energy fighting a battle that has already been decided.
It depends on the teams. If you have a team that can target or even trap some Ground types with an innovative set, you can free the way for Regieleki somewhat. Also, most of the Ground types besides Gliscor and Clod can be chipped down over time. Eleki would still likelu be UU, but it would certainly be usable in OU since it beats Ghold and Pech. I don't think it's ever a bad thing to introduce another spinner if it isn't broken.
Terapagos is the big one. And it's very big since it is a spinner with actual bulk and limited weaknesses. Between that and Regieleki, it would greatly change the hazards part of the meta.
As far as reafirming broken mons, we shouldn't just unban them all at once. Past those two, we should suspect any other banned mons one at a time. But I really don't think we should even test most of the obviously broken mons and/or the speed boosting setup sweepers.
I don't think we have even seen the full potential of TB. It's not about unbanning broken mons. It's about breaking things that shouldn't even be broken. Once more people start unlocking crazy STAB pairings on more mons that shouldn't have them, it's going to be different. For some examples, look out for Tera Fairy Darkrai, Tera Flying Tusk, and Tera Fire Rillaboom, and Tera Fighting Dragapult. I'm not suggesting all those mons and combinations will break the tier, but there is a lot more possible variance than the player base even currently uses.
Kyurem also hasn't yet reached the theoretical limit. It's entirely possible we look at things differently after WCoP.
Wasn't Terapagos banned because the site admins or whatever (I distinctly remember Finch/some other Tier Leaders not being against banning the Stellar Form, dunno if they were for banning it and don't wanna shove words in their mouths) didn't want to ban the Stellar Form of it? Besides, even if Terapagos was unbanned come the banning of Tera Blast, wouldn't it still have Tera Starstorm as a potent attack it could use?
Terapagos was banned 'cause arbitrarily deciding why it can't Terastalize whereas everything else can since it's a universal mechanic goes against tiering norms/philosophy. It's just that banning a mon from Terastalizing was deemed not okay, and since Terapagos-Stellar was an unhealthy centralizing presence, Terapagos as a whole was banned from OU.
Aside from what was already said, Terapagos is Tera locked into Stellar. Because the Zero form requires Tera Stellar to activate, you can't ban it without banning either the Tera or the mon itself.
However, Tera Starstorm is basically Tera Blast on steroids. That move could be banned. Generally, it is against Smogon tiering policy to ban moves if they are only on a single pokemon. But if Tera Blast gets banned, Tera Starstorm has a chance to go with it. This would also make Tri Attack the go to STAB move, which is a substantial drop in power. I suppose there is a chance the Zero form is still broken because of the base stats, though it seems unlikely when things like Ting Lu and Kyurem are running around.
Naw, I don't think there is any justification for banning Tera Starstorm. It's just a strong, non-broken signature move and doesn't meet the criteria for being banned as was the case with Baton Pass, Shed Tail, and Last Respects, the first which led to a clusterfuck of a format and the other two which resulted in any OU-viable mons with the move being ridiculous.
Tiering action discussion is fun and all, but considering how little comes with it, it might just be better to look into existing niche metagame options to deal with whatever it is we are complaining about or LARP as whatever mon it is that we want to drop (Metagross for Solgaleo, shitty QDers like Bellossom, Oricorrio, Frosmoth, Venemoth for Volcarona, Quaquaval / Keldeo for Palafin / Urshifu etc). Tera Blast is here to stay too, so why not have some fun with it on low tiers with some niche applications for it, whether it be sweeping, or sniping key threats that usually stifle their progress like Gking, Ghold, or Ting-Lu? Heatran is a pretty good example of a decent, 'fun' TB user that can use it to make progress in its normally awful MUs vs Mola or Samu-H, while also making great use of it defensively against several miscellaneous threats like Ogerpon-W or Zamazenta depending on whether its Tera Grass or Fairy. I'm sure other players could find similarly fun users of the move such as say... a Rapid Spinner or Defogger that can use TB to get past Ghold or Pecharunt. 252 SpA Expert Belt Tera Ground Cryogonal Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 274-324 (86.9 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
I feel like a big reason that we see so many lower tiers succeed in SV / SS compared to other generations is that we were forced to use them, giving us a general idea of other certain Pokemon Pokemon can be played. Hydreigon is the perfect example, largely seeing usage and development in the pre-home era. Nobody would've known that this mon is a beast with Tera Steel Nasty Plot without that initial development. And that's not even the only set we've seen Hydreigon be successful with! Other players have used Stealth Rock Hydreigon, Specs Hydreigon, and Tera Fairy NP sets to achieve pretty decent success as well and I've even seen another player run Protect Tera Steel Hydreigon on Stall. All of this shows that even a relatively niche Pokemon like Hydreigon has a lot more depth to its game than we initially percieved - and it likely wouldn't have been explored at all if our options weren't so limited during the first few months of SV. I'm only bringing this up because I feel this could also be applied to a lot of Pokemon that currently don't see any usage in OU. A lot of these lower tier Pokemon could certainly be expiremented with more to either fulfill the roles we'd want of the banned Pokemon or to serve as a check to some of the Pokemon that players are annoyed by. I'm not even saying this expecting half of the stuff to be good neccisarily - just that they'd be able to contribute or fulfill the role we want them to better than we initially envision. I've certainly been surprised by what some of the low tier mons are capable of given past biases.
I feel like a big reason that we see so many lower tiers succeed in SV / SS compared to other generations is that we were forced to use them, giving us a general idea of other certain Pokemon Pokemon can be played. Hydreigon is the perfect example, largely seeing usage and development in the pre-home era. Nobody would've known that this mon is a beast with Tera Steel Nasty Plot without that initial development. And that's not even the only set we've seen Hydreigon be successful with! Other players have used Stealth Rock Hydreigon, Specs Hydreigon, and Tera Fairy NP sets to achieve pretty decent success as well and I've even seen another player run Protect Tera Steel Hydreigon on Stall. All of this shows that even a relatively niche Pokemon like Hydreigon has a lot more depth to its game than we initially percieved - and it likely wouldn't have been explored at all if our options weren't so limited during the first few months of SV. I'm only bringing this up because I feel this could also be applied to a lot of Pokemon that currently don't see any usage in OU. A lot of these lower tier Pokemon could certainly be expiremented with more to either fulfill the roles we'd want of the banned Pokemon or to serve as a check to some of the Pokemon that players are annoyed by. I'm not even saying this expecting half of the stuff to be good neccisarily - just that they'd be able to contribute or fulfill the role we want them to better than we initially envision. I've certainly been surprised by what some of the low tier mons are capable of given past biases.
Introducing Terapagos into the metagame would be an absolutely cancerous decision. Spinblocking for more than a turn or two would become basically impossible thanks to Dark Pulse combined with its base typing, ability, and potent SpAtk allowing it to easily beat all Ghost types it comes across. Terapagos is brainless guaranteed R*pid Sp*n 100% of the time. Adding more spinners into the tier will always be a terrible idea.
Terapagos will never come back since tera (which allows it to achieve its stellar form) will never be banned, but a consistent rapid spinner that beats most spinblockers wouldn’t be a bad thing since hazard management is healthy and allows hazard vulnerable pokemon to either be more flexible with a different item or simply not live in fear of knock off. spinners are our friends, not our enemies.
To change the subject, what is your favourite iron valiant set? For me I always liked running calm mind due to moonblast hitting common pokemon like great tusk, darkrai, dragapult and zamazenta for supereffective damage and tera ghost shadow ball being mostly unresisted whilst also breaking iron crown and hatterene, though admittedly a single cm may not always be enough to sweep.
The traditional encore set is still in my opinion the best on HO. I feel like calm mind is underwhelming and the best it does sometimes is just trade. SD ice punch is an absolutely ridiculous tech that removes your biggest counter. Knock for gloking and spirit break for fighters is all you'd ever need. I'd argue that val is better than kyurem in this metagame because it beats Zam.
for me I feel like encore calm mind iron valiant is the easiest to fit onto a team since boosted moonblast is so strong and having a tera ghost user who gets actual ghost STAB is nice. expert belt 4 attacks tera stellar is the most fun though, really leans into the whole "guess the set" shtick in a fun way
I'm partial to the Encore sets as well because Iron Valiant's extreme set variety makes it a prime candidate for "break this core and you're good to go for game" strategies, whether with Valiant itself or something in the back that it forces into a bad position by responding to it. I also prefer Encore in general as a tech because it's flexible in limiting the opponent's responses: whether you lock them into a single attack move or a Boost/Status move, it's almost always easier to pick a response knowing their options are limited in turn (repeat move or switch out), so it gives Valiant a way to generate momentum even if the opponent is a hard check to the mon itself in a metagame where 1 or 2 turns can make a win con.
105 isn't really that significant for a Non-STAB dark move (has to roll to 2HKO bulky Gholdengo) and most Hazard setters like Gliscor and Ting-Lu just laugh in its face. I don't feel like Terapagos would even be that spectacular for beating Spinblockers so much as being sturdy enough to ensure at least one spin, which even then you'd probably have to be playing a very Offensive/Momentum-favored team to fully capitalize on.
252 SpA Terapagos-Terastal Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Pecharunt: 190-224 (50 - 58.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Terapagos-Terastal Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 164-194 (43.3 - 51.3%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Terapagos-Terastal Tera Starstorm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 106-126 (20.6 - 24.5%) -- possible 6HKO
252 SpA Terapagos-Terastal Tera Starstorm vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 150-177 (42.6 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal
My lambasting of the Terapagos gassing and the usual anti-Rapid-Spin crusade aside, it makes for a transition into another major thing I feel about this meta's roster: We have such consistent Hazard setters, be they offensive like Hamurott or defensive like Ting-Lu and Gliscor, that Spin-blocking might legitimately not be something you need a dedicated slot for on most teams given how much momentum Rapid Spin can sink compared to even putting 1 or 2 spikes back up, on top of the "soft" responses like Rocky Helmet and Tera Ghost switch-ins. A lot of other key mons are vulnerable to chip/overload like Zamazenta, Tusk, Ogerpon, non-Boots Kyurem to name a couple, which goes both ways of wanting to keep hazards up but also putting pressure on the remover if the opponent wants to get value out of those mons, as even 1-2 turns of Spike or Rocks Chip can flip important match-ups for them.
Anyways
I've been having a lot of fun using some wacky cores, especially right now Doom Desire Jirachi leading into Azu/Choice Band Okidogi/Meow switch ins. Absolutely tears up some of the usual cores and being able to nail a usual switch in answer with one of the three makes for some substantially strong wallbreaking, have you guys used any sillier combos to mild or Good success?
One of my favorite silly little cores is Rotom Wash and Banded Ceruledge. Either they have to play every turn right against Hydro Pump and Volt Switch or you get to bring in Banded Poltergeist into a special wall. Stealth Rock sucks but it's not unplayable if they don't have a good Fire resist aka they don't have Mola.
I don't want to be overtly negative towards a post that's ultimately saying "experiment and have fun," but I will say that if someone feels the need to use lower tiered mons just to handle one or two specific threats shows that there is a problem. Pokemon like Bronzong should just be a fun, goofy pick that can work, but their flaws usually lead to them underperforming. No one should truly be considering Bronzong as a Kyurem check. Pokemon in OU should be more than enough to handle practically any threat in OU. The fact that we still have Pokemon capable of muscling past anything you throw at them to the point where you're looking at bad/mediocre Pokemon as a solution is a bad sign of something being unhealthy imo.
Also never say never, Tera Blast/Dragonite/Kyurem/Waterpon/etc have real chances at showing up in WCoP and proving to be problematic. If Top Players opinion sway because of tournament performances than they have genuine chances of getting suspect. So let's wait and see what happens before we close the book for good.
was about to laugh at the idea of tera blast waterpon but realized you're talking about the 4 individual survey guys and not tera blast sets for the 3 mons.
But tera blast does have untapped potential and all it takes is one good player whose team is weak to one specific mon for another TB abuser to rise out of the woodwork. A lot of TB uses is mostly just making up for shortcomings for specific set i.e band pult being reliant on a 2-turn move for its ghost stab (which in a playthrough is fine but when your opponent can switch pokemon it becomes pretty hard to justify) or just lack of coverage like band/dd kyurem being unable to hit steels and relying on TB ground/fire to do so (i feel like fire is a bit better for the tera since heatran is nowhere to be seen)
Unrelated note but i've been messing around with more gimmicky Hamu sets after seeing a blunder policy SD hamu sweep on twitter once (link to post). Did you guys know hamu gets upper hand? Really fun and shockingly usable since unlike blaziken where it's really obvious that's what he'll go for in the face of priority while no one expects hamu to run it on account of the guy having a bit of 4MSS and most people not even knowing he has it. And there's no chance of Gambit using tera ghost since doing so in front of hamu is objectively one of the dumbest moves to make.
i don't particularly think this discussion around the survey is rly helpful atp, either smth comes out during WCoP & we get a suspect or we chill w. the meta as is. i think overall it's in a fine place & while i think a TB ban is better for the tier, having it in the tier isn't the end of the works
to shift the direction of the conversation a bit: how are we feeling about non-SD gliscor rn? haven't seen many recently outside of stall
to shift the direction of the conversation a bit: how are we feeling about non-SD gliscor rn? haven't seen many recently outside of stall
So lax created a thread in Policy Review about banning signature Moves and/or Abilities, and since I can't post there, I will say here that I completely disagree with doing that as it's arbitrarily banning a part of a mon for no valid reason aside from wanting there to be more mons to be playable in OU, which doesn't sit well with me.
For one, some of the Moves/Abilities lax mentioned banning are not even broken and straight up worse versions of existing moves, such as Blood Moon, which is a complete downgrade compared to Boomburst, Jet Punch, which is a worse priority move than Rillaboom's Grassy Glide on Grassy Terrain in Gen SS OU, and Supreme Overlord, which is straight up inferior to Huge Power and Pure Power, neither of which are broken. The reason Palafin is broken is not 'cause of Jet Punch but 'cause of its insane BST that complements its movepool and Water being a strong attacking type with both Wave Crash and Jet Punch contributing to it being broken or unhealthy depending on the set, not just Jet Punch.
Electro Shot, while it is admittedly an extremely powerful move which is the main factor that got Archaludon banned, would not be all that on a frail midspeed mon that wouldn't get many opportunities to boost with Electro Shot, and it'd only be good on the right special attacker too. Rage Fist is straight up not broken on a mon that doesn't have the bulk + Taunt to abuse it.
Dire Claw is the only move lax mentioned that is arguably uncompetitive or broken in my opinion, and Sneasler is the only one that gets it and is arguably still broken even without Dire Claw due to Tera since Gunk Shot is still great at shredding teams aside from inconsistency due to its low accuracy, so banning Dire Claw might not even free Sneasler, making banning it a waste of time.
You can arbritrarily nerf any Pokemon to make it OU, but I don't see why that should be desired when one can keep tiering and rules simple. This is why I didn't agree with the decision to ban Mewnium Z in Gen 7 UU 'cause it was done to arbitrarily nerf Mew, preventing it from using an option that would otherwise be available to it, something intrinsically part of its kit in a generation designed for Z-Move usage.
Yeah, I get some people like remote work or hybrid work arrangements due to the flexibility, but that doesn't mean that you need this sort of flexibility in EVERYTHING you participate in, such as Smogon's tiering, when it just complicates the ruleset. As far as ease of understanding the ruleset, which I believe should be something Smogon strives for now and forever, Smogon's current tiering framework perfectly encapsulates that, and that's why changing it in this fashion is something I'm against. It's not about being resistant to change but keeping the rules simple.
In particular lax believes increasing the diversity of the pool of mons is something to strive for, but this generation with Tera legal has at many times in the generation resulted in many players complaining about the breadth of threats that need to be covered, which constrains building since too much diversity lends itself to chaos. The point of tiering should be to have a balanced metagame, not having as many mons playable as possible, especially since Gamefreak was going for broke in releasing abnormally strong mons relative to past gens in Gen 9 with SV being a celebratory work of sorts since it was developed during Pokemon's 25th anniversary, and this design trend could continue in Gen 10 since it's another milestone generation. The design trend towards making abnormally strong mons could continue even past Gen 10 since Gamefreak has to make new mons stand out in some way, and making them strong competitively is the easiestlaziest way of doing that.
I also know there are players who want the format to have stronger and stronger mons, and that is happening already, and powercreep will get higher as time goes on. SV OU has Darkrai, Gholdengo, Gliscor in a meta without Hidden Power Ice, Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Walking Wake, and Zamazenta, all of which would be broken in previous generations. We're already pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable in OU this generation.
For one, some of the Moves/Abilities lax mentioned banning are not even broken and straight up worse versions of existing moves, such as Blood Moon, which is a complete downgrade compared to Boomburst, Jet Punch, which is a worse priority move than Rillaboom's Grassy Glide on Grassy Terrain in Gen SS OU, and Supreme Overlord, which is straight up inferior to Huge Power and Pure Power, neither of which are broken. The reason Palafin is broken is not 'cause of Jet Punch but 'cause of its insane BST that complements its movepool and Water being a strong attacking type with both Wave Crash and Jet Punch contributing to it being broken or unhealthy depending on the set, not just Jet Punch.
Electro Shot, while it is admittedly an extremely powerful move which is the main factor that got Archaludon banned, would not be all that on a frail midspeed mon that wouldn't get many opportunities to boost with Electro Shot, and it'd only be good on the right special attacker too. Rage Fist is straight up not broken on a mon that doesn't have the bulk + Taunt to abuse it.
Dire Claw is the only move lax mentioned that is arguably uncompetitive or broken in my opinion, and Sneasler is the only one that gets it and is arguably still broken even without Dire Claw due to Tera since Gunk Shot is still great at shredding teams aside from inconsistency due to its low accuracy, so banning Dire Claw might not even free Sneasler, making banning it a waste of time.
You can arbritrarily nerf any Pokemon to make it OU, but I don't see why that should be desired when one can keep tiering and rules simple. This is why I didn't agree with the decision to ban Mewnium Z in Gen 7 UU 'cause it was done to arbitrarily nerf Mew, preventing it from using an option that would otherwise be available to it, something intrinsically part of its kit in a generation designed for Z-Move usage.
Yeah, I get some people like remote work or hybrid work arrangements due to the flexibility, but that doesn't mean that you need this sort of flexibility in EVERYTHING you participate in, such as Smogon's tiering, when it just complicates the ruleset. As far as ease of understanding the ruleset, which I believe should be something Smogon strives for now and forever, Smogon's current tiering framework perfectly encapsulates that, and that's why changing it in this fashion is something I'm against. It's not about being resistant to change but keeping the rules simple.
In particular lax believes increasing the diversity of the pool of mons is something to strive for, but this generation with Tera legal has at many times in the generation resulted in many players complaining about the breadth of threats that need to be covered, which constrains building since too much diversity lends itself to chaos. The point of tiering should be to have a balanced metagame, not having as many mons playable as possible, especially since Gamefreak was going for broke in releasing abnormally strong mons relative to past gens in Gen 9 with SV being a celebratory work of sorts since it was developed during Pokemon's 25th anniversary, and this design trend could continue in Gen 10 since it's another milestone generation. The design trend towards making abnormally strong mons could continue even past Gen 10 since Gamefreak has to make new mons stand out in some way, and making them strong competitively is the easiest
I also know there are players who want the format to have stronger and stronger mons, and that is happening already, and powercreep will get higher as time goes on. SV OU has Darkrai, Gholdengo, Gliscor in a meta without Hidden Power Ice, Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Walking Wake, and Zamazenta, all of which would be broken in previous generations. We're already pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable in OU this generation.
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I get what you're saying; OU is getting stronger and stronger, but that's legit always happened. Garchomp, the first "too strong for OU" Uber, was dropped down as soon as the next generation proved it had what it takes to take it down (that being shit like Keldeo and Latias offensively, and Ferrothorn and Landorus-Therian (LandoT delenda est) defensively). Furthermore, it isn't just new Pokémon that creep, but old ones too, if much rarer than the new ones, as Volcarona's timbs and Tera shenanagins, & Regieleki getting Ice STAB and ruining our days goes to show.
We've been at the brink before, numerous times even. Hell, I wasn't around for it personally, but anyone with a penchant for competitive history knows that weather conditions themselves were the brink at a point or two. Every banworthy Pokémon is another shuffle back and forth over the line, or perhaps a scuffle over where the line even is. I don't know where the brink really is, or if we can narrow it down so easily, but I do know that not only will people make a reasoned choice on where that line is when asked, but also that it's likely (but not guaranteed to be) ahead of us and not behind us already, if the recent Survey is anything to go off of.
OU isnt OU anymore, if anything its almost ubers-lite.
People are just attached to 2 letters, the power levels have increased.
Just look at UU and how many mons used to love in OU for example. Its just how it is, not entirely sure what to do about it tho - Uubers was a step in the right direction but im not sure its a popular format, perhaps that could be the actual OU for those attached to older times =D