Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

[CodeFour]

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 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 laziest 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.

I know it maybe isn't the ideal to strive for but keep in mind that most of the signature move and ability pokemon are the coolest pokemon to have come out and its not even close. And people want to play with them. They get put into too good for OU and not good enough for ubers.

Arch was not considered broken by anyone until it started spamming electroshot in rain. It was super useful to check many things.

The game is already complex enough you're not walking in and being successful immediately. A box that doesn't allow you to use Arch w electro Shot isn't that crazy.

We all know there will be more similar mechanics going forward. Seems like something to get out of the way now.

Respectfully


Edit: i don't see that thread though

 

[Klobik]

OU defined by what 'Mons meet the usage criteria and aren't Ubers+. That's it. If you look into OU's history, from generation to generation you'll find plenty of examples of "fallen" 'mons and historically powerful threats brought into the meta-game due to "power creep". It's a fairly normal occurance.

The main "issue" this generation is offensive power being able to choose it's match-ups. Historically, this would get a Pokemon banned but tera isn't a Pokemon, the vote to ban it narrowly failed, and players have not expressed a strong desire to revisit that. Tera is also equally distributed in a way that doesn't centralize metagames in a traditional sense which makes it a bit weird to assess from a tiering perspective (imo).

I can't find the policy thread mentioned but players advocating for complex balancing for "diversity" isn't new and unless the upcoming policy revisions change something, I wouldn't worry about it. There's a few hang-ups for this type of balancing that are difficult to overcome and I've never seen any good solutions for it. The players who advocate for these types of changes are, in my opinion, shortsighted or only acting out of self-interest. They seem to think a system like this would only work the way they envision it to work (if it works at all), which is par for user behavior in both game dev and software dev. (games are software but w/e)

 

[gephicka]

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.

i’m not sure how you can simultaneously say that “supreme overlord, which is straight up inferior to huge power and pure power, neither of which are broken” and then proceed to argue that rage fist and electro shot are only broken because of the Pokemon that they’re on

pure/huge power are only balanced because they’re on mons with bad BSTs and/or low speed (with the exception of Mega Medi who is still not particularly speedy, has fairly mid priority options, & is decently frail). i’m really not sure what you’re trying to argue between these two paragraphs as you almost directly contradict yourself between the two. Blood Moon is worse Boomburst, sure, but that doesn’t make it less broken on Ursaluna-BM in the slightest. Does it really matter that Palafin’s Jet Punch is weaker than broken SS Grassy Glide? it didn’t stop Jet Punch Palafin from being broken anyways

i don’t really think there’s much to come out of Lax’s post as it’s been deleted by Lax & we’re going to be getting tiering policy updates soon-ish anyways, but your bad examples here are undermining your argument against the original post.

(also, for future reference you can DM a forum moderator if you would like to make a post on a specific topic in policy review!)

 

[GOthee]

There is just too many factors impossible to consider while banning only a move or ability, Dont try to play god, i wish of course some abilities get unbanned, then it SHOULD be fair some abilities get unbanned as well,
If you all decide to bring this back , then it would apply as well to: sand veil, snow cloak, etc.

 

[gephicka]

There is just too many factors impossible to consider while banning only a move or ability, Dont try to play god, i wish of course some abilities get unbanned, then it SHOULD be fair some abilities get unbanned as well,
If you all decide to bring this back , then it would apply as well to: sand veil, snow cloak, etc.

how does this make sense? the proposal was to ban certain uncompetitive moves/abilities, evasion abilities are cheap & uncompetitive & would not be unbanned even if this were to be implemented (which is not happening)

 

[pika pal]

My only input about Signature (as in limited to a 1-3 mons/lines at the most) moves and abilities is that this is a trend that wasn't particularly common when a lot of tiering groundwork was laid, despite exploding in Gamefreak's design usage in Gen 7-8 onward. If we're going to continue to tier around the games GF is making, it's worth acknowledging that shift in the Mon design philosophy if only to properly back up why things are better off continuing as they are. Last Respects and Shed Tail already sort of demonstrate why this will be a matter to address, the latter in particular to me because it begs the question of where the line is on a move being a bad addition in concept vs on all its users (since Smeargle exists to throw virtually any support move around no matter how bad it is at it).

It also does bring a consideration to an argument that comes up constantly on Suspect tests, whether or not it's supposed to, in the form of the mon's role compression vs one role pushing it over, alongside the concern or paranoia that removing one problem element leaves another one unchecked. A frequent topic of discussion with Kingambit for example was that its Endgame SO sweeps led to oppressive Tower Wincons, but for early and midgame it also had legitimate defensive utility to offer such as one of the sturdiest non-passive Ghost Resists.

Definitively deciding "Signatures will never be banned without the whole mon" is a necessary decision to make to solidify or shut down that argument and say "you either get all of the mon or none of them" and thus what it does well is not a counterargument against if its problem sets are indeed problems.

 

[Rekka's Backend]

All I'll say is that at the rate we're going some of these OU mons in the future will be packing Supreme Overlords that give them priority on physical moves. And depending on the nature of the mons in terms of what they actually provide, the question of banning only their batshit insane moves or abilities is a legitimate one. Some of these mons aren't just stats with great typings, they're effectively mini nukes in an arms race with each other cuz they balance around doubles first.

 

[Moyashi]

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

Uh… not how that really works.

OU is not “Ubers-lite” nor will it ever be. Look at UU? That’s just the progression of power creep. Very few Pokémon are truly immovably resilient to it.

but keep in mind that most of the signature move and ability pokemon are the coolest pokemon to have come out and its not even close. And people want to play with them. They get put into too good for OU and not good enough for ubers.

It’s not relevant to tiering at all, plus the notion of “coolest Pokémon
to have come out” is purely subjective”. Some Pokémon are too good for one tier but not good enough for the tier above. It’s unfortunate but you don’t arbitrarily do things to preserve mons for such reasons.

Arch was not considered broken by anyone until it started spamming electroshot in rain. It was super useful to check many things.

The game is already complex enough you're not walking in and being successful immediately. A box that doesn't allow you to use Arch w electro Shot isn't that crazy.

We all know there will be more similar mechanics going forward. Seems like something to get out of the way now.

1. I feel like a broken record in this but without e-shot, Arch would be a very niche at best pick. Non rain it’s an unremarkable Pokémon and would realistically drop to UU (which defeats the purpose of your idea).

2. Smogon rules are not complex. But also, the point is that E-Shot is not broken. You can’t ban something just to try and preserve a Mon for arbitrary/subjective reasoning, that’s a slope you don’t want to go down.

3. What does this even mean.

pure/huge power are only balanced because they’re on mons with bad BSTs and/or low speed (with the exception of Mega Medi who is still not particularly speedy, has fairly mid priority options, & is decently frail). i’m really not sure what you’re trying to argue between these two paragraphs as you almost directly contradict yourself between the two. Blood Moon is worse Boomburst, sure, but that doesn’t make it less broken on Ursaluna-BM in the slightest. Does it really matter that Palafin’s Jet Punch is weaker than broken SS Grassy Glide? it didn’t stop Jet Punch Palafin from being broken anyways

Lots of normally balanced abilities suddenly become extremely broken if given to specific kinds of Pokémon. But we don’t judge them in a vacuum like that, but based on context. Rage Fist and Electro Shot have to be on bulky enough Pokémon to be able to advantage of them. Neither would be very useful on frail Pokémon. Avira isn’t contradicting themselves at all.

The point is that moves like Bloodmoon and Jet Punch are just a part of what helps to push these Pokémon over the edge. By themselves they aren’t broken. Bloodmoon works because its user has the longevity and bulk to get around its drawbacks. Jet Punch… isn’t even very crazy of a move at all. It’s just strong priority.

Last Respects and Shed Tail already sort of demonstrate why this will be a matter to address, the latter in particular to me because it begs the question of where the line is on a move being a bad addition in concept vs on all its users (since Smeargle exists to throw virtually any support move around no matter how bad it is at it).

These moves were banned because they were outright broken, unhealthy or unbalanced.

It also does bring a consideration to an argument that comes up constantly on Suspect tests, whether or not it's supposed to, in the form of the mon's role compression vs one role pushing it over, alongside the concern or paranoia that removing one problem element leaves another one unchecked.

Not really no. If removing one thing leaves something else a problem, that second problem can be addressed. Trying to preserve a problematic Pokémon to check it just results in a worse metagame.

 

[darkmoonbeam]

Uh… not how that really works.

OU is not “Ubers-lite” nor will it ever be. Look at UU? That’s just the progression of power creep. Very few Pokémon are truly immovably resilient to it.



It’s not relevant to tiering at all, plus the notion of “coolest Pokémon
to have come out” is purely subjective”. Some Pokémon are too good for one tier but not good enough for the tier above. It’s unfortunate but you don’t arbitrarily do things to preserve mons for such reasons.



1. I feel like a broken record in this but without e-shot, Arch would be a very niche at best pick. Non rain it’s an unremarkable Pokémon and would realistically drop to UU (which defeats the purpose of your idea).

2. Smogon rules are not complex. But also, the point is that E-Shot is not broken. You can’t ban something just to try and preserve a Mon for arbitrary/subjective reasoning, that’s a slope you don’t want to go down.

3. What does this even mean.



Lots of normally balanced abilities suddenly become extremely broken if given to specific kinds of Pokémon. But we don’t judge them in a vacuum like that, but based on context. Rage Fist and Electro Shot have to be on bulky enough Pokémon to be able to advantage of them. Neither would be very useful on frail Pokémon. Avira isn’t contradicting themselves at all.

The point is that moves like Bloodmoon and Jet Punch are just a part of what helps to push these Pokémon over the edge. By themselves they aren’t broken. Bloodmoon works because its user has the longevity and bulk to get around its drawbacks. Jet Punch… isn’t even very crazy of a move at all. It’s just strong priority.



These moves were banned because they were outright broken, unhealthy or unbalanced.



Not really no. If removing one thing leaves something else a problem, that second problem can be addressed. Trying to preserve a problematic Pokémon to check it just results in a worse metagame.

oops i was drunk-posting, but I guess I was just attempting to say people are attached to the history of OU and 'broken' doesn't mean the same thing as it did in gen 3/4/5 etc.

Im not entirely sure how to put it into good words, I'll have to give it some thought =o its hard for me to explain ;_;

Hope you have a good weekend!

 

[Welcome to mars]

Just witnessed this brutal 100+ turn game in a room tour, guy almost won with NP rotom after getting blissey to low 1 hp but gliscor was too bulky (and was immune to thunderbolt which the scarf from trick galarian slowking locked rotom into) to be defeated despite having no ways of touching tera steel rotom and forced rotom to struggle to death, giving Trainer #39 the win.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2365532277
The player that audio was facing is also a ladder menace using bizarre and morally dubious stall teams to win games,

 

[Magcargo]

Just witnessed this brutal 100+ turn game in a room tour, guy almost won with NP rotom but gliscor was too bulky to be defeated
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2365532277

Trick Scarf Slowking showing once again why its an amazing Pokémon on stall, saving our hero from a clutch Rotom sweep. Unfortunately, it will never get the recognition it deserves, as innovation is looked down upon in our community......

 

[pika pal]

Not really no. If removing one thing leaves something else a problem, that second problem can be addressed. Trying to preserve a problematic Pokémon to check it just results in a worse metagame.

I'm agreeing with this point. My point is that a definitive "Signatures were evaluated and they're still not getting tested on their own" puts to rest any argument of "is Kingambit problematic without Supreme Overlord/Archaludon without Electro Shot?" because you and I both know people argue from the perspective of "this Mon checks things even if it's also problematic" because it's been happening as recently as Kyurem's and Gliscor's 2nd DLC2 Suspects.

 

[RainWaiv]

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

Gliscor is a solid enough utility mon. It does get outshined on more offensive teams by tusk/lando and as a spike setter it faces pretty severe competition against ting-lu (not like i use either a whole lot, i'm team hamu the whole way). But non-SD scor is more of a stall-exclusive, at least to the point where if you see gliscor with more than like 2 offensive mons you can pretty safely assume it's SD.

Of course this neglects the fact that toxic heal is, while not neccesarily overbearing, is a massive pain in the ass to deal with. I think this ability might be one of the biggest travesties to come from the game freak dev team bar none.

 

[UltraSword]

Some of these mons aren't just stats with great typings, they're effectively mini nukes in an arms race with each other cuz they balance around doubles first.

See this is why I think gen 9 competitive singles failed in a way. It is not the player base's fault, the moderator's fault, or anyone else aside from Gamefreak. This balancing of doubles over singles is really stupid since, even though doubles is the official competitive format, in every generation at least 90% of battles are singles. I know that these battles aren't competitive battles against real players, but it is still important to note. Gen 8 was the first generation to really do this with dynamax being broken as hell and honestly, we should be lucky that it was the only major mechanic that was broken. Now in gen 9 we have a ton of broken or potentially broken stuff like tera, tera blast, sleep (though I would personally argue we should have just banned Darkrai), protosynthesis/quark drive which broke speed tiers, and the other insane abilities or even items that break the game like zero to hero, the various treasure of ruin abilities, booster energy, the ogerpon masks, and plenty of others.

The point I am trying to make is that by almost completely neglecting singles balance the system we have in smogon is breaking apart. I will be honest and say that as it is I think the tier is in a good place but what about in the future? We might have another huge discovery like with what happened with Roaring Moon and it will be too late to do anything about it because the generation will be over and the playerbase will dwindle significantly (likely even more than past gens because of the way the tier is). And even if we do discover something during current gen, the tier is so volatile and experimental anyway that people will think it is fine and not ban or even suspect it. And of course, it might be even worse in gen 10 since while tera will probably disappear, we are still going to get even more insane abilities and items than this gen as well as whatever the new gimmick will be. And we can't complain to Gamefreak about this because for one thing they won't hear us anyway but for another thing if they find out Pokemon Showdown exists (because if they did know they would have done this a long time ago) they would DMCA Smogon or worse, sue them. Basically, our only hope that I can really see is Pokemon Champions hopefully bringing some balancing to singles but even on the unlikely chance that this happens, it is also a double-edged sword since that game will probably take away a lot of the smogon playerbase (or at the very least, lower the chances of people discovering Smogon/Showdown in the first place).

For all these reasons and plenty of others, I think gen 9 was in many ways a failure for competitive smogon singles. Unless Gamefreak suddenly stops neglecting their LITERAL MAIN BATTLING FORMAT, I am afraid for the future of competitive singles.

 

[MC Squared]

This doomposting is dragging on. Moving to a different topic. I remember over a month or two ago the OU Council discussed Pecharunt and its impact in the tier; determining if Malignant Chain + Poison Puppeteer is uncompetitive or not. Has that sentiment changed or not?

 

[Avira]

All I'll say is that at the rate we're going some of these OU mons in the future will be packing Supreme Overlords that give them priority on physical moves. And depending on the nature of the mons in terms of what they actually provide, the question of banning only their batshit insane moves or abilities is a legitimate one. Some of these mons aren't just stats with great typings, they're effectively mini nukes in an arms race with each other cuz they balance around doubles first.

We'll cross that bridge when/if it happens. The Ability you described is far beyond any Ability that has ever been released. Even Orichalcum Pulse and Hadron Engine, which bring out their respective field effects and then power up an offensive stat based on that field effect being present, making them extremely powerful but only in a particular situation, demonstrate that the Ability you described is ridiculous even by Uber standards. The next relevant two-in-one Ability in Ubers is As One from Calyrex-Ice and Shadow with the Unnerve effect functionally never proccing since very, very few mons have any reason to run a Berry as their item in Ubers. And yes, I know Abilities that are multiple Abilities in one exist outside of Ubers, such as Purifying Salt and Water Bubble, but they are not an issue. The current tiering framework serves its function very well based on how the format is right at this moment, so I don't think discussing some arms race that may not even materialize is helpful.

This doomposting is dragging on. Moving to a different topic. I remember over a month or two ago the OU Council discussed Pecharunt and its impact in the tier; determining if Malignant Chain + Poison Puppeteer is uncompetitive or not. Has that sentiment changed or not?

I don't think Pecharunt is uncompetitive as there are plenty of mons that are naturally immune to Poison, and as such, Poison Puppeteer is irrelevant to them. And if Poison Puppeteer does proc, you can try switching out instead of risking it all on a 50/50. Pecharunt is healthy for the meta due to how much of the meta it soft and hardchecks while also generating momentum with Parting Shot. In a tier with a power level so high, it has a very useful niche that makes the meta more playable.

 

[UltraSword]

This doomposting is dragging on. Moving to a different topic. I remember over a month or two ago the OU Council discussed Pecharunt and its impact in the tier; determining if Malignant Chain + Poison Puppeteer is uncompetitive or not. Has that sentiment changed or not?

I was not doomposting lmao I was just saying how unhappy I am with Gamefreak.

Anyway, I have not seen much discussion about Pecharunt since that discussion thread about it was being advertised everywhere. I myself think it is perfectly fine in ou. I fact, I like Pecharunt quite a lot and I even think it is pretty healthy. It beats a lot of the scariest threats in the tier (especially Ogerpon Wellspring which is starting to gain more suspect support again), it walls a lot of...the scariest threats in the tier thanks to its high defense, and parting shot is a huge annoyance to the steels it can't poison and especially Kingambit. It's also quite a fun pokemon to use (imo) despite being a wall and not in the same way stall pokemon (or DPP Jirachi) are where you are half laughing and half groaning in pity for the opponent who is suffering from boredom, anger, or hax. All in all, Pecharunt is at worst perfectly fine in ou and at best a pretty damn fun and healthy pokemon all things considered.

 

[UltraSword]

It wasn't just about you, the last several posts were all doomposting by different people

Ah I see. Well, I wasn't attempting to doompost but if I did I apologize. I don't hate the tier or anything I am just unhappy with how unbalanced it is. It is too volatile, and I hope that Gamefreak balances singles more in the future.

 

[Bold School]

This doomposting is dragging on. Moving to a different topic. I remember over a month or two ago the OU Council discussed Pecharunt and its impact in the tier; determining if Malignant Chain + Poison Puppeteer is uncompetitive or not. Has that sentiment changed or not?

There are plenty of ways to counter it. The main ways are: Poison types, Steel types, Garganacl, and Covert Cloak. Then there are conditional options. Gliscor can counter it, although it needs to be wary of Hex and carry the right moves to hit Pech. Natural Cure Blissey is also a decent option on stall. Guts, mostly on Ursaluna, can also threaten Pech.

There are a combined 10 Steel and Poison types rated OU. If we add Garg, Gliscor, and Blissey to that to make 13, it means more than a third of the 36 mon tier can naturally counter Malignant Chain just by their typing and/or ability. This doesn't even include decent options from lower tiers like Fezandipit, Geezing, or Scizor.

The hardest thing about Pech is that Parting Shot is fairly difficult to counter in a way that you don't lose momentum. I don't think that makes it uncompetitive, though. Pivots are not a new thing.

 

[gephicka]

Natural Cure Blissey is also a decent option on stall.

would like to note that a lot of the defensive counterplay mentioned (especially blissey) are pretty vulnerable to NP pech. even CM Blissey has a somewhat difficult time outlasting NP pech if it gets lucky enough w. mchain. gliscor is not necessarily a great check to NP pech either, w. it being able to take all of glisc's hits very well & usually win the 1v1.

ursaluna is a pretty notable wall to pech but unless you're running flame orb/resttalk it still doesn't appreciate being toxic'd (also it's so strong that the possible confusion hits are not insignificant), and ursaluna itself is still pretty specific as far as mons go. on stall, clod is pretty notable because of how hard it beats NP pech allowing blissey to not have to worry about it as much. garg can damage trade w. it p well & im not quite sure who wins that interaction but either way pech gets some hefty damage on garg if it's boosted.

TL:DR NP pech does exist and is a pretty huge threat to a lot of fatter teams additionally bc most walls hate getting toxic'd

 

[darkmoonbeam]

We'll cross that bridge when/if it happens. The Ability you described is far beyond any Ability that has ever been released. Even Orichalcum Pulse and Hadron Engine, which bring out their respective field effects and then power up an offensive stat and a move based on that field effect being present, making them extremely powerful but only in a particular situation, demonstrate that the Ability you described is ridiculous even by Uber standards. The next relevant two-in-one Ability in Ubers is As One from Calyrex-Ice and Shadow with the Unnerve effect functionally never proccing since very, very few mons have any reason to run a Berry as their item in Ubers. And yes, I know Abilities that are multiple Abilities in one exist outside of Ubers, such as Purifying Salt and Water Bubble, but they are not an issue. The current tiering framework serves its function very well based on how the format is right at this moment, so I don't think discussing some arms race that may not even materialize is helpful.



I don't think Pecharunt is uncompetitive as there are plenty of mons that are naturally immune to Poison, and as such, Poison Puppeteer is irrelevant to them. And if Poison Puppeteer does proc, you can try switching out instead of risking it all on a 50/50. Pecharunt is healthy for the meta due to how much of the meta it soft and hardchecks while also generating momentum with Parting Shot. In a tier with a power level so high, it has a very useful niche that makes the meta more playable.

Just as an aside, confusion is 33% since gen7, not 50/50, so its less scary then you might think

 

[ShizuOsaka]

Ngl, I feel that for most problems in this metagame, most of them are just set-up sweepers that can conveniently turn into another typing and invalidate your checks.
But since we have waaaay past the tera discussion, I just wanna say. I don't personally find Gambit that broken.

 

[Redfeatherz]

Ngl, I feel that for most problems in this metagame, most of them are just set-up sweepers that can conveniently turn into another typing and invalidate your checks.
But since we have waaaay past the tera discussion, I just wanna say. I don't personally find Gambit that broken.

It doesn't look too bad at times...I feel adding Zamazenta to the metagame did a good job of suppressing the general impact it once had... but then of course it would. Not only is it a big fat stat check, but one that gets a free defence boost, and can viably run iron press. It's not just good against gambit, it's a good switchin against every other physical attacker.

Anyway, whether the metagame balances through bans or unbans is another thing. Gambit remains, to me ,a cheap looming threat of a game otherwise won. Like, gambit games can feel like one long part actual strategy and one short part rock paper scissors, weighted in the gambit user 's favour to just take the win regardless of the plays you made to get there. It's a blessing when it risks HP and/or a status before the endgame.

Teams are certainly better adapted to gambit endgames. But Gambit sets remain versatile and adaptable.Tera types and lum can bypass status. Encore (+ Iron Valiant) was and remains a good adaptation to lock up a win... but it's a scary click if the item isn't known.I don't see them often, but mental herb sets can change an otherwise forced switch or locked in win into damage or further KO's. And you can argue item slot opportunity cost, but the fact that even these measures of otherwise reliable counterplay can be rendered useless is irritating.

 

[Achohermano]

And we can't complain to Gamefreak about this because for one thing they won't hear us anyway but for another thing if they find out Pokemon Showdown exists (because if they did know they would have done this a long time ago) they would DMCA Smogon or worse, sue them. Basically, our only hope that I can really see is Pokemon Champions hopefully bringing some balancing to singles but even on the unlikely chance that this happens, it is also a double-edged sword since that game will probably take away a lot of the smogon playerbase (or at the very least, lower the chances of people discovering Smogon/Showdown in the first place).

Not wanting to sound rude, but do you really, really think that a company that clearly acknowledges player like Pokeaimmd or WolfeGlick, does not know what Pokémon Showdown is? Like, after idk, 13 years? Of being consistently more played than their games and being avaliable on PC, mobile, console or even samsung fridges?
Like, really?

And if a Pokémon is broken after the end of the generation, it will be banned. Sand Veil and Mr. Mire were banned in ADV OU, Cloyster, Sleep and gems were banned in BWOU, Machamp in DPP... Don't worry about that. Also, as you said, the tier is improving with each tier change! Step by step.

I remember over a month or two ago the OU Council discussed Pecharunt and its impact in the tier; determining if Malignant Chain + Poison Puppeteer is uncompetitive or not. Has that sentiment changed or not?

I don't think that Pecharunt is uncompetitive nor it is broken. It's annoying but after landing a 50%, the odds of getting confused hit are almost the same as scald / lava plume / flame body / Scorching sands burn, or para by static. It's hella frustrating when it happens but if we ban one, we should ban all the others then? Idk, seems a lot imo.

Pecharunt also has clear roadblocks, is not that fast and while it's stupidly bulky on the physical side, it's just good on the special side.

Imo, it's a really strong and necessary Pokemon in tier.

 

[Dreadfury]

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

Every gen's going to give us plenty of powercreep and I'd argue that this meta isn't quite as high-powered as SM OU (although it's damn close; that tier's freakishly strong and also freakishly bulky), and as such I feel like calling any gen's OU "ubers-lite" kinda takes away from each gen's identity, especially given the absolute titans that rule both SM OU and SV OU.

SV OU has been quite famous/infamous for having a laundry list of threats you have to build for since DLC2's release; most of the top dogs in the pre-HOME meta (Gambit, DNite, Pult, Gholdengo, Ting-Lu, Valiant, Garg, Tusk) are still quite fantastic to this day, HOME brought us some meta-warping threats (Zama, Zapdos, G-Slowking, Ceaseless Edge simulator, Lando-T although that needed some time to reestablish itself in DLC2, Cinderace, etc.), DLC1 gave us even more good mons (Wellspring, Gliscor, Clef, Sinistcha), and obviously DLC2 gave us some absolute juggernauts (Kyurem, Raging Bolt, Darkrai, Pecharunt, Deo-S, Primarina, and a Weavile with an actual movepool), and that's not to mention the mons we've seen get banned and stay banned (Bax, Gouging Fire, Archaludon, Roaring Moon, etc.), and it's simultaneously impossible to point to any one of those mons I listed being THE issue and very easy to say "man, that's a lot of stuff I need to account for." That's not me advocating for any of these getting banned fuck Wellspring and it isn't me saying that any of them isn't a problem fuck Kyurem too but there's eventually a point where one looks at the aggregate power level of a metagame and realizes that, maybe, this is kinda just the power level we're working with now.

This is no DPP OU, this certainly isn't an ADV OU, and, hell, this isn't SwSh OU either. This meta's power level is really high, and IMO waiting until WCoP is probably the best course of action so we can see where things are going. But post-RMoon ban, I think this meta's in a fine spot; far from perfect, absolutely, but in that spot where nothing seems to be standing out much as far as this "new norm" of power levels goes, at least as of now.