Metagame np: Stage 17: Somebody That I Used To Know (Duraludon Unban Suspect)

[DugZa]

​

Duraludon was quickbanned last year following the October tier shifts, which saw PU lose a chunk of its staples at the time, including Slowbro-G, Milotic, and Bronzong. This quickly led to Duraludon dominating the metagame with Steel-types being in short supply and the departure of some of its best checks, leaving the tier with little to no reliable switch-ins against its Choice Specs-boosted STAB combination. At the time of its quick ban, Copperajah was still in PU; however, since then Copperajah has risen to NU, which has limited our Steel-types even further, leaving just Sandslash-A and other extremely fringe options such as Orthworm and Perrserkerr, both of whom do an extremely poor job switching into it, regardless.

Moreover, since then, the tier has also lost many offensive options such as Tornadus, Scyther, Meloetta, and Flamigo, that were able to reliably revenge kill Duraludon, so if the tier has the tools to deal with the Dragon-type stapler remains unclear. In addition to this, Duraludon could also run other sets such as Eviolite and Choice Scarf sets; the former of which allows it to switch moves unrestricted while also further bolstering its naturally decent bulk, making revenge killing it a harder task, while the latter allows it to outspeed the entire unboosted metagame while sacrificing its breaking abilities. That said, the original ban last year was almost solely due to the threat posed by Choice Specs sets and none of the other sets in its arsenal, and the majority believe it would still be the most threatening set even in the current metagame.

All this said, some things are going against Duraludon right now. For starters, Slowbro-G and Milotic are back in the tier, along with a new drop in Amoonguss. While none of these are absolute counters, they can act as soft checks, especially in the case of Slowbro-G and Amoonguss with Assault Vest sets in tandem with Regenerator. Moreover, the tier as a whole is significantly more fast-paced than it was a year ago, with most offensive threats, such as Pawmot, Delphox, and Tauros-Paldea-B, capable of revenge killing Duraludon residing in speed tiers above 100, which hinders Duraludon's average speed tier.

Above all, the key argument posed by many for Duraludon's unban is its ability to act as a defensive Steel-type—something the tier significantly lacks— capable of checking Pokemon such as Articuno-Galar, Espeon, and Dudunsparce, while others argue that it is also incapable of fulfilling a reliable defensive role as a Steel-type that does not resist Fairy- or Dragon-type moves, especially in a metagame where Florges is as dominant as it is.

In conclusion, Duraludon's quick ban was warranted at the time as a cautionary practice to keep the metagame stable and was a largely uncontested decision until recent major shifts in the tier, but its potential presence in the tier still raises some concerns among many. While the tier did recently receive a few Pokemon capable of checking Duraludon, whether they can do the job reliably enough to keep it in check at a healthy level is a question mark. Similarly, it is unclear if the positives it could offer as another defensive Steel-type outweigh the potential negative implications it could have in the tier. As such, Duraludon has been a hotly debated topic in the past few weeks, and all of this is, of course, purely speculative. Do the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa? The ball is in your court now. Be sure to post your thoughts on Duraludon!

• To participate in this suspect test, create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in PU before this suspect test went up, or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played PU before the test, full stop.)
• At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
• You have to reach a COIL of 2800 in order to get reqs. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 7.
• This suspect test deadline will be on Friday, August 8th, 2025 at 11:59 PM (GMT -4).
• Check HERE to see if you have reqs.
• If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or asa or post here!

minimum games required

GXE = Games Required
71 = 343
72 = 173
73 = 116
74 = 88
75 = 71
76 = 59
77 = 51
78 = 45
79 = 41
80 = 37
81 = 34
82 = 31
83 = 29
84 = 27
85 = 25

Regarding the Tiering Contributor badge

• TC is awarded to those with 10 tiering-related votes across all tiers or 4 tiering-related votes in PU suspect tests.

If you have achieved the above threshold, feel free to PM asa or I with the links to your votes so we can process your request.

 

[Excal]

just got recs and i used duraludon in every single match i played, also facing it very often. i really like duraludon in this metagame and do not think it's broken. the main positive traits are being able to offensively switch into status-inducing bulky attackers like slowbro-g, milotic, and amoonguss (which this metagame lacks), the defensive utility of a steel type notably resisting psychic, flying, rock, and normal type attacks, translating offensive pivoting and play into progress against more uninteractive teams, as well as having the bonus of destroying nonsense mu fish cheese like full terrain teams.

i used specs for almost the entire run and from my experience using it, there are more than enough soft checks/offensive checks available that this set, while very good, is not broken. i found that while specs dura is difficult to switch into by virtue of two shotting a decent amount of the tier, it does not actually one shot most of the tier naturally without tera reliance. soft checks in av gbro, amoonguss, milotic, and faster pokemon who can switch into draco exist, while offensively anything faster than 295 speed is probably forcing it out due to horrible spd and proneness to chip damage (it's not that easy to actually get in). while people cite the "fake steel" lingo to claim that duraludon does not serve as defensive utility and therefore is a bad influence, i respectfully disagree, and find that the simultaneous resistance to psychic and flying as well as normal types is extremely valuable defensively. the fact that it cant even resist fairy is a weakness to the pokemon; florges can 1v1 it and aggressively switch in to the most spammable and clicked move (draco), if needed.

overall, i think duraludon is a positive influence on the metagame and is strong but balanced. i think the metagame can adapt quite well to its presence and i will confidently be voting to unban it.

 

[DD Joe]

Hello,

I'll most likely be voting unban. Outoffensing Duraladon isn't overly difficult. Its speed tier of 295 at timid is pretty decent but feels paltry in comparison to some of the other premiere breakers.

Here are some mons that make Duraladon cry (pending Tera shenanigans) -

Delphox
Hoopa
Redbull
Pawmot
Florges
Salazzle

This means that offensive structures might become more viable and interesting and I think PU could benefit from a boost to these styles.

Defensively, there are a plethora of ways of dealing with the dreaded specs Draco. Pory2, Spdef Milo, Wochien, AV Bro, some spdef Amoong. With a strong balance line-up, it's easy to gain momentum into specs duraladon and outmaneuvre it.

I think it brings a nice flavour into a meta of tox spam, regen Spam and incredibly tedious balance.

It also adds further role compression with access to rocks, phazing, twave.

It's a new toy. It's not as overtuned as it would have been pre the most recent shifts and I think it would make the meta more interesting.

 

[Breakfastbiscuit]

High tide, brahs.

I too will be voting for a Duraladon unban. I think that there are several reasonable courses of action when up against it. As esteemed user DDJ mentioned / and with some Sp.Def investment to switch in on it once dropped.

- A good answer to not only the specs set but also the set. As getting rid of it is always super beneficial.

- A rather miserable matchup for it, as well as the fighting bruisers (/)

There exists plenty of setup sweepers that can punish it after clicking Draco ////

I was concerned initially because of how many threats that made it more manageable previously rose to NU, being //// but I’ve found that it is just a healthy and welcome change to the metagame providing another viable rocker/pseudo phys wall.

Worth noting this Pokémon is super shut down by Tera fairy so long as you have something that resists flash cannon. If you are struggling into it consider the switch-up

Welcome back para spam

 

[asa]

We will be hosting two suspect tours this weekend in case you don't feel like laddering but really wanna show your love (or hate) for Duraludon. They will take place on the following dates and times:

• Saturday, July 26 at 12:00 PM (-4), hosted by MZ
• Sunday, July 27 at 5:00 PM (-4), hosted by gulch

Be sure to join for a chance to save (or banish) Duraludon!!

 

[tom holland]

traditional team drop and thoughts on suspect. P.S. I realized after typing all of this that I constantly mispelled Duraludon in this post. I am too lazy to fix it. I am sorry.

Duruladon Stack: https://pokepast.es/8d6f66482d1f4435
I built this team very quickly tbh because i knew i wanted to use specs duruladon, florges, and rotom-heat. this is because I wanted to try the idea of having a dragon immunity and solid flash cannon switchin paired with protect on any of my passive mons to deal with opposing duruladon. The rest fell into place quickly because i needed a volt immune rocker, a specially defensive dark type, and houndstone fit in the end because my team kinda hated snowslash removal and offensive houndstone can be a niche spinblocker on these types of teams that have hazard stack without palosand. Anyays, I achieved reqs in 40 games with this, went 33-7. It should be a pretty solid option if you want to get reqs yourself!

Thoughts on Duruladon:
As some may know, I have been very unsure about what I want to happen with duruladon. I'm going to start with what I believe it brings positive into the tier, then I will talk about the threat level of its sets, and lastly tiering philosophy.
1. The positives- Duruladon brings some small positive influences into the tier. One of those is that it is a steel type, and though it does not resist florges and has terrible special defense in general, it can do well into ambipom even if it has low kick, it can switch into annoying stuff like hwilfish, qwilfish, amoonguss, and to an extent glowbro, as well as dudunsparce. Specialized sets can handle the psychic type setup sweepers, though at the price of being less threatening. It also has the correct defensive profile to handle most bruxish variants, which is nice. This in particular is a cool trait since the common rockers (think mudsdale, rhydon, palo) lose to it without tera. This gives it space to create new types of balances which can be fun. Also, the specs set in my opinion does not offer terribly much except once again, punish some of these more passive pokemon like amoongus. You can say it may disrupt some common balance tropes we see in the current meta, but I would consider that a neutral aspect of Duruladon unlike the rest mentioned. Overall, Duruladon offers a decent amount of utility unseen in the tier currently, but nothing astounding by any means.
2. Threat Level- Duruladon's most dangerous set is its specs set, and this is what I was most worried about and what was keeping me on the fence. I did not have much confidence in our tiers ability to handle specs duruladon teams. However, after getting reqs, I feel pretty confident about the meta being okay with it. I used a simple tect muds+rotom heat+florges combo and that worked fine, and there are a bunch of other options in that combo you can do, there is AV glowbro, porygon 2, spdef milo, etc. Because of its terrible spDef and in my opinion only average speed tier, common threats like scarf florges, heattom, zoroark, scarf hoopa, pawmot, etc. can check it and flip momentum. The other concern I had was duruladon mirrors, but from my experience it actually creates a rewarding dynamic where both players need to outposition one another to get their own duruladon entry, and it only ever gets down to speed ties if the opponent is desperate and needs to go for the tie, and only 2 times in my run out of 40 games did i experience a duruladon speed tie roll. I truly believe duruladon is fine in the tier, the meta will adapt to its presence and has already started to.
3. I think a good point brought up by isthar in discord was that it is not necessarily amazing tiering philosophy to unban something if the intent is to shake up the meta or make it less boring. This is why I said i don't really think saying that it will break the common rhydon/snowslash/physdef milo or bruxish/filler structures or amoonguss structures is the most valid point. If Duruladon I felt like would truly put too much strain on the metagame, then I would not vote to unban it even if I think it would make the meta less boring in the short-term. However, since I do think it will be fine in the tier and won't strain any archetypes too much, I will still be voting Unban on Duruladon.

Replays for some examples
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2407825002-ynmk59vtopxb2ekiouc3ycgo83n57mfpw

in this replay, it showcases how like I mentioned above, Duruladon mirrors are rewarding in the sense that both players need to position well to get their duruladon in more than the other, and also it showed two different effective methods of dealing with duruladon. I had that protect combo, and as you can see it is very much so fullproof in handling specs. My opponent had AV glowbro and milotic, which would usually be enough in normal circumstances, and honestly would have been without florges in the picture, but due to stealth rocks and hazards being up, even though duraludon couldn't net a ko with specs draco, scarf tera fairy florges was able to break instead. This match imo shows how even with everything in duraludon's favor, well built teams can keep it from netting kos still, and the real mvp here was actually florges.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2407806449

in this replay, its another example of how a simple protect combo can handle duraludon even if its tera stellar in this case. As you can see, my own duruladon barely did anything really except get one strong draco off early, and my opponent couldn't get a chance to break with his due to houndstone being the only real entry to it, and even then he has to click the right move between draco and flash cannon on the rare occasions he gets entry with duraludon that way. The team was able to withstand multiple turns of duraludon even after florges got nailed by a flash cannon. In my experience duraludon is never really overbearing and I just wanted to show how a simple protect combo can be enough to navigate the specs dura matchup.

anyways yeah that's all i got goodbye

 

[asa]

I got reqs (34-7) using the first four teams here, but I realized none of them had Choice Specs Duraludon and so I quickly made the fifth one just to try out all of Duraludon's "main" sets.

- https://pokepast.es/14a7f981cf0864e2
- https://pokepast.es/a70d1972fc1595d6
- https://pokepast.es/0c4592f972f7d24d
- https://pokepast.es/c6893b0a3fc75e03
- https://pokepast.es/16ec480214f9fb10

Before I explain how I feel about Duraludon, I want to start by saying I don't think it's entirely unhealthy. Its presence does add some positives to the tier, some of which others above have already pointed out. It keeps walls like Amoonguss, Slowbro-G, Qwilfish-H, and Cramorant from being too comfortable and trades with annoying offensive threats like Ambipom, Bruxish, non-Tera Blast Ground Salazzle, and Houndstone, all without being passive. The capacity to trade does also help against hyper offense, though I didn't personally find this too valuable with how unimpressive Terrain teams are (even before Duraludon) + HO in general feels easy enough to trade with anyway. Still, its typing, bulk (particularly with Eviolite but even without it), and strength give Duraludon the potential to thrive in most matchups, regardless of what set it's actually running. Duraludon also has nice utility options like Stealth Rock, Thunder Wave, Roar/Dragon Tail, etc. that let it compress a few different roles, meaning it will rarely ever be deadweight.

I also wouldn't really call Duraludon "braindead" or anything. It does have to make tough clicks from time to time, even if it isn't Choice Specs, since stuff like Milotic, Florges, Rotom-H, defensive Frosmoth, etc. are common and good at punishing Dura's use of certain moves. Dura also needs to manage its HP tightly imo. Switching into stray hits from stuff like Amoonguss, Slowbro-G, and Milotic, Pain Split from Qwilfish-H, even the slight chip from Volt Switch, etc. can easily end up biting you later, especially if Spikes are up. Aside from requiring a bit of finesse to get the most out of it, Dura is obviously also specially frail and hates dancing around stuff like Choice Scarf Florges, Hoopa, Zoroark, etc. While it has a good Speed tier (one that I don't think gets proper acknowledgement), faster threats that threaten heavy damage or an OHKO like Salazzle, Pawmot, Paldean Tauros-F do still exist, not to mention the Choice Scarfers that do the same like Florges and Decidueye-H. Even past that, there's other things like Draco Meteor being exploitable and Dura not dealing nearly as much damage without Choice Specs, so both offensive and defensive counterplay are there.

With all of that in mind, though, I am very likely voting to keep Duraludon banned. My main issue with Duraludon is that its presence doesn’t make Slowbro-G/Milotic/Amoonguss feel that much less “automatic” and if anything makes the meta revolve more around them. These walls were already great without Duraludon around and easy to use for their ability to check other stuff, but reintroducing Duraludon just makes it harder to build a solid balance without some combination of them. The concessions you have to make otherwise don’t seem very appealing. For example, Pokemon like Porygon2 and specially defensive Wo-Chien are very flawed and not much less exploitable than going for Draco Meteor, not to mention that their lack of Regenerator means they can’t just sponge the hit and then freely switch to something else. Protect Mudsdale isn’t necessarily a bad option either and has use outside of Dura, but without Roar, Mudsdale becomes so much more passive and prone to getting cheesed by setup sweepers, which feels like a really big deal to Mudsdale.

Other Pokemon like Florges and Rotom-H are also dominant and offer repreive against Duraludon’s STAB moves, but I still take some issue with citing them here. If you’re not using them in tandem with some combination of Slowbro-G/Milotic/Amoonguss, you’re practically guessing as to which move Duraludon will click, and the margin of error there is very low—even lower if Duraludon is Choice Specs. If you are using them with the walls I mentioned before, it just leads you back to the issue of not having all that much builder freedom when defensively dealing with it. Even then, your margin of error remains low, and you’re forced into some pretty linear gameplay when switching around it, especially if entry hazards are up.

Besides (what I perceive as) negative builder influence, I have a few other issues with Duraludon, though they’re admittedly smaller ones. Spikes are pretty much the only way you’re passively wearing Duraludon down, unless you burn it, since it doesn’t care about Stealth Rock, poison, etc, and the relevant Spikers right now can’t put up much of a fight in return. Duraludon’s Speed tier doesn’t feel like it gets enough respect given its other traits either. Being right above Pokemon like Tatsugiri, Goodra, Jolly Skuntank, and Venusaur is really great, and doing that while being pretty bulky and strong is kinda crazy, without even being a terrible Pokemon like Kingdra. Goodra isn’t that much slower and has better special bulk, but I don’t find its overall defensive profile as good as Duraludon’s, who also gets to be stronger and needs less coverage. Obviously Choice Specs Duraludon is the super scary set, but I don’t think Modest tank sets get talked about enough. They’re not just dropping neutral targets, but being able to shit out consistently good damage and waste Recover PP/force switches without predicting as much was appreciated in my ladder games. The added bulk also makes out-offensing it tougher, even sometimes when it’s already been chipped, and guessing the set from Team Preview is annoying. There are other things, but this post is long enough and I’m more or less rambling by now.

Overall, I feel like we’re better off without Duraludon right now. I’m open to discussing anything I mentioned/didn’t mention here, so just let me know.

 

[MZ]

Congratulations to DugZa for winning the first Duraludon suspect tour!

Semis: DugZa vs sdfsdgdf
Semis: Piyu vs Zauce
Finals: DugZa vs Piyu