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

 

[gulch]

grats to Hera for winning the second tour!

replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2410432588 - hera vs omartheogerpon6
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2410430852 - holico vs understandabledad
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9pu-2410436584 - hera vs understandabledad

 

[ishtar]

Finally finished my worst reqs run 36-9 (fuck PU ladder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and have collected my thoughts so far! I only utilized ONE team during my reqs run which was sort of a hybrid between one of the teams asa posted w what I considered a better mu into random bs thanks to Ambi:



In regards to Duraludon, Specs is by far the only set that I believe deserved attention in terms of potential unhealthiness. I cannot count the number of times that I lead with Duraludon vs. a random balance and saw the opportunity to pop tera and drop a Draco that would’ve managed to kill 4 or 5 pokemon over the course of one or two turns upon safe entry everytime. This is something that did happen fairly frequently through my run vs. teams that had AV Glowbro, spdef or even AV amoong, Milotic. It wasn’t even that risky to do that vs. the multitude of Florges teams I encountered due to the fact that the usually mentioned better answers into Dura are obviously not fairies and the Regen mons rely on being able to survive these hits before being switched out for the fairy. Tera Dragon disallowed this strategy due to the fact that it fully neutralized the opponent's ability to pivot around nearly as effectively. You either nearly irreparable damage to Glowbro and Amoong or do decent damage (to fully Spdef sets) to where these threats can’t revenge kill you later when you’re able to spam Tera Dragon Dragon Pulses. Either way, the answers did not feel remotely reliable even when I wasn’t popping Tera Dragon t1 like a 1000 ladder player. The same Pokemon that are often staged as somewhat reliable switch ins to Dura thanks to Regen are allowed to switched into fairly easily by Dura itself allowing it to dent them, and since these Pokemon often require multiple points of entry to once again have the required bulk to cover other threats, it was often the case in my run that my Rotom-Heat and Scarf CM Florges managed to win thanks to the immense chipping created by Dura. I'm also really not a fan of something like AV SpDef Glowbro with Tera Steel, cause I think its way too weak and makes you extremely vunlerable to a multitude of threats. Of course, this inherently isn’t a problem in a vacuum, there’s a lot of skill involved in breaking a bulky regen mon in order for your sweeper to win, but there was very little opportunity cost to the core that I was using due to how good Dura’s teammates have also become post its release, which is actually my main point:

I believe that Dura has elevated certain Pokemon in viability to levels almost grander than Dura itself. While I was building other teams, I often found myself resorting to the same type of Pokemon: Rotom-H seemed somehow better than it already was, Scarf Florges especially felt fairly essential to most of my balance structures, AV Glowbro also often had a field day vs most teams, Salazzle, Delphox and Pawmot which were already top tier fast threats managed to also look amazing. A lot of the good offensive mons only managed to look even better, but not even in a healthy sense cause it felt like I was suddenly having to stack Dura checks into the mix.

The main reason why I only utilized one team for my reqs run is because I frankly felt like I couldn’t go wrong with this type of build for balance. The options seemed extremely safe into the meta, even somewhat safe into Dura, but I did find myself struggling vs other glaring issues due to limiting my options so much. Psychics were a pain due to utilizing Dura as my Steel, Uxie was a similar case, Frosmoth could often snowball (though I guess it could always do that lately). I’m not saying that you’re unable to build a good Snowslash, Cram, Wo Chien, Bomb team, in fact I think some of these mons still have merit, but I felt like Dura gave too many openings into too many mons and the rest of the tier seemed fairly immobile apart from the Pokemon I was often using or seen other people succeed with. Whenever I saw someone use Cramorant I got up and did a little jump cause I was aware of how great this was for my Dura mu, same with Skunk, Bomb, Hecid to name a few. The speed tier is simply too good vs. 70% of the tier.

A point of comparison I've seen made with Dura is how it is sometimes interchangeable with Goodra, but simply looking at Speed Tiers should give a very decent view of how relevant the jump from 80 to 85 is in this tier:

Another point of analysis is Duraludon's secondary STAB, in contrast with Goodra's ability to Knock and pressure with Toxic. Both amazing traits on a bulky mon like Goodra, but definitely plays very different from Duraludon's bulky Specs breaker attributes, unless we consider Specs Goodra, which at this point based on this speed tier seems like a downgrade vs most teams. Lastly, Dura is much sturdier physically meaning that even with a Specs set it can feasably check faster and priority-heavy Pokemon such as Ambipom, Skunk, Bomb, Bruxish, which Goodra naturally struggles with. Of course the other side of the coin is Goodra's ability to check certain special threats such as Rotom-H, Lazzle as well as some Psychics. I'll let the reader decide if these things all in tandem make Goodra a sidegrade or a downgrade from Dura. Obviously the answer is less black and white and matchups and nuance exist for it, but I think I know who I think would rank higher and be used more.

Now I also wanna name a circumstance that I encountered quite a lot through my run too. These so-called revenge killers that give Dura such a hard time: Salazzle, Delphox, Pawmot, Rotom-H. I’ve seen v little few people mention the fact that these mons are always a flipped tera away from losing the mu to Dura? Tera Dragon on a healthy Dura flips the mu 100% unless you predict vs it. Ofc this is far from special in SV and it even occurs with some of the previously mentioned Pokemon. My issue is that after this interaction, when you lose your strong revenge killer cuz Dura clicked Tera Dragon and Dragon Pulse, you’re left with a team that just lost probably its main breaker vs. a team that has a Terad Specs Dura and other defensive tools that handle your lesser strong threats, assuming that the Dura player clicked Tera acknowledging that the rest of their team is able to beat the opposition. Meanwhile Pokemon like Lazzle, Pawmot and Delphox have poor enough bulk into the usual revenge killers that it is harder for them to flip mu on common scarfers such as Hecid, Bruxish, Pass, Redbull (they're also much more subsceptible to Sucker Punch, Espeed, Ajet and Fake Out).

Frankly, all of my points are in relation to balance, often balance vs balance. Dura is whatever into offense and thank god it is, though it definitely still gets decent value due to Tera still flipping mu on some of the previously mentioned threats that also function in HO like Salazzle and Hecid. I wouldn’t complain about Dura in relation to HO though cause popping your tera like that vs a lazzle usually means you're gonna lose later on to something else. I just wholeheartedly believe that Duraludon makes balance incredibly lame and linear even if it isn’t getting kills every other turn. Its answers are often taken advantage of by allowing Dura itself to switch into them and the risk is often placed on the Duraludon opponent by having to predict switch ins w stuff like Stun Spore Amoong, Flip Turn Milo, etc. I felt this was a very skewed imbalance in favor of the Dura player.

The tier is able to handle Dura, but at a hefty cost, so I will be voting ban. I believe our tier had enough diversity before this shift to where we can focus on other modern problems, like banning Glowbro instead of adding something else to the mix that, to my eyes, will just reestablish the status quo of the tier into an even lamer version of what people thought was worth fighting for when pushing for this suspect test. Thanks for reading, P used.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

I just got reqs, first time I've been playing PU more seriously and finished with a 40-12 tally. On my first attempt I used asa's teams before eventually deciding to build my own (https://pokepast.es/887ff6ca3b7bb8c6) - it's tons of fun and a bit cheesy but here you go if you wanna try it

I'm gonna give my opinion on Duraludon now, it's a solid do not ban for me. PU is really scrambling for a good steel-type, with Sandslash-Alola being so constrained that it gets easily overwhelmed. Dura serves as a good secondary check to the fire type premier attackers, being able to take a Flare Blitz and (w/ eviolite) a Fire Blast and retaliate with status or Draco Meteor. Unlike ZU, the ghost type pokemon here are much, much better, and the tier could honestly use a switch-in to Poltergeist, so Duraludon serves to check Houndstone and choiced Golurk sets. Being able to 1v1 Galar Slowbro (by spamming flash cannon) is another nice bonus.

Choice Specs Duraludon honestly disappointed me. It has atrocious special bulk and its stabs are resisted by Florges and Milotic, meaning it is really difficult to pilot in my opinion. If your opponent loads an AV Glowbro it's even worse. It's also really vulnerable to niche mons e.g Whimsicott and Virizion, which can survive a Draco Meteor and proceed to exploit. I feel like without its Specs it becomes much more of a liability, too, since trash special bulk + average STABs besides Draco means it can be sacrificed in many situations.

Which ties into the next point, Duraludon's vulnerability to Knock Off. Dura really needs its item to be at its best, and even with Eviolite it can't really take more than two special attacks. I tried to invest fully in its special defense at one point e.g. Modest 84 HP / 176 SpA / 252 SpD and even that set can be 2HKOed by Delphox's Fire Blast with the tiniest chip damage. This means that if you protect your Dura from hazards, it will perform, but you know damn well your opponent will try to get them up early when they see you with a Duraludon in the back. Spamming Knock Off early game is another solid strat. Without Choice Specs or Eviolite, it's not strong enough to wallbreak and survive across the game. Asa's Focus Sash Dura is the exception here, but tbh, it needs more exploration to be worth mentioning, same with Thunder Wave, Body Press, I once saw Metal Sound too. It's kinda like my own anti lead H-Avalugg lol.

In conclusion I think Duraludon needs to be unbanned, so I endorse everyone to vote DNB to make PU a more healthy and positive metagame.

 

[DripLegend]

i used a random assortment of teams i built either walking home from bars or during my lunch break so i'm not linking unless you REALLY want some ass. I used specs dura and some HO with eject pack and overall I do not think it should be unbanned. I think it makes balance interactions within the tier really lopsided despite having an achilles heel in both kinda average speed and horrible spdef, while being neutral to the best special attacking types in the tier fire and fairy.

with dura's inclusion I feel like the main change is not itself, but every Mon surrounding it improving as a result. it rly has no bad partners and is able to wear down most if not all of the fatter walls in the tier with specs, even without getting ohkos besides on squishy mons it forces recovers or entry of the regenvest or spdef Mon and often forces recover which can get turned into momentum easily. The other sets like eviolite are cute but don’t really have the same warping effect in both play and builder imo.

I think freeing dura on the notion of like “we need a Real Steel” is kind of way too broad to do anything productive since I don’t think it’s able to check anything I would want an actual steel to check in this tier (Florges). Despite the flaws of the Pokémon I still would like to keep duraludon banned, just because it isn’t dropping every Mon like flies similar to when it was banned before it doesn’t mean the Pokémon still doesn’t cause unhealthy dynamics in play styles that didn’t have the issue at all previously.

 

[VyoletRayn]

Alright alright alright, what do we have here? I got the reqs and as it is stirring lot of debates, I think I can bring my piece of thoughts here.

- Specs Hoopa Balance
&
- Hands Rated E for Everyone (Pawmot Band)


Used the Specs hoopa team when below 1250, but then got fixated on the idea that I didn't want to actually do it with duraludon as I want it gone, so then I switched to that Pawmot team.

Now, I'll make it clear : I want that pokémon to stay banned

Why?

I don't think this mon is healthy for the metagame, as we have reached a point of stability, while some other mons may be the actual problem, we better suspect said mons instead of freeing another one that could be problematic. To me, it is problematic as it is, or will be, centralizing, polarizing the metagame around it, whether it's for its defensive utility or its damage dishing abilities, the bulky cores everyone talks about being too strong will end up stronger with Duraludon on their sides, and while some might think we don't have enough threats to actually break through those defensive cores, I'm convinced of the opposite and will even go out of my way to call out the laziness of the people playing the tier, it's really not difficult to find some threats to defensive cores as Balance is a good playstyle right now, volturn is great as well and stack hazards have rarely been this strong.
The necessity of dealing with Duraludon adding to the other threats will be too much for the tier and will severely make it less competitive, less playable, less enjoyable as a whole.
AV amoonguss can't do anything against Dura, Milotic can't really do stuff besides trying to scald burn it for chip damage, glowbro may be able to do something against it depending on glowbro's set, overall dura is good into the defensive staples of the tier.

Regarding specs duraludon, while some would say there are checks, the problem isn't the set in itself, it's what it implies in the course of a game, remember that it's 6v6 and you don't play duraludon alone. Therefore, forcing usually physically defensive mons to run special defense investments is already an adaptation that will hinders their hit taking capabilities, it's fairly easy to surround Duraludon with some other threats such as Pawmot and take profit out of said adaptations. Still specs Dura deals too much damage, whenever it's in, and if you happen to have a fairy, it's a 50/50 on whether the dura player will click draco or absolutely thrash your fairy with flash cannon
It's also one that benefits, if not the most, a lot out of stack hazards and status spreading archetype, being already hard to deal with lately in the tier, having no real scald switchins, no real thunder wave switchins, Dura can profit a lot out of these and will thrive too much in there.
I'm not even taking the tera into account but flipping the switch and boost the damage to actually get the KO on some targets or turn the tables on a duel will break the game too much.

Just for the example :
252 SpA Choice Specs Duraludon Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Florges: 254-302 (70.5 - 83.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Duraludon Draco Meteor vs. 228 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Slowbro-Galar: 198-234 (51 - 60.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

The argument of needing a steel type seems void to me, we're talking about a specially frail steel type that doesn't resist fairy, this all seems fake to me, the tier indeed lacks a steel type, a response to fairy types other than sandslash-alola, but dura is not it, it's not the steel type we're talking about, if we want a steel type, I'm afraid we'll have to wait and hope something like bronzong drops, as it will answer more of our demands.
Duraludon is already bulky with Eviolite and can status spread pretty easily, as there are nearly no twave switchins, being able to have some durability while putting pressure with rocks/twave, added to it the raw power it has, it's becoming a bit too overtuned for one single pokemon. One can argue that since it doesn't have recovery it might be ok, but given the ease you have to slap it on a team and put on some wish support, I wouldn't get into the point of absence of longevity here.

Dealing with dura is not impossible, but it's too hard to be able to build consistent teams that would be able to respond to most matchups. My experience around the ladder during the suspect test confirms me this point, as people running anti-dura team got absolutely smashed by more classic stuff, it's already too centralizing as it is a new toy but I think it's far from being limited to the tendency of the suspect test, I believe if it's freed it will have the same consequences, leading to potentially the tier becoming HO fest, stack hazards duels and dura mirrors.

All in all, I stand on the hill of do not unban it. The tier is already at a stable point, which feels already nice to build in and play, if you really want some changes, I'd rather suspect something already here and overtuned, or at least suspect worthy (thinking about glowbro on this one).

 

[tom holland]

Finally finished my worst reqs run 36-9 (fuck PU ladder!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and have collected my thoughts so far! I only utilized ONE team during my reqs run which was sort of a hybrid between one of the teams asa posted w what I considered a better mu into random bs thanks to Ambi:



In regards to Duraludon, Specs is by far the only set that I believe deserved attention in terms of potential unhealthiness. I cannot count the number of times that I lead with Duraludon vs. a random balance and saw the opportunity to pop tera and drop a Draco that would’ve managed to kill 4 or 5 pokemon over the course of one or two turns upon safe entry everytime. This is something that did happen fairly frequently through my run vs. teams that had AV Glowbro, spdef or even AV amoong, Milotic. It wasn’t even that risky to do that vs. the multitude of Florges teams I encountered due to the fact that the usually mentioned better answers into Dura are obviously not fairies and the Regen mons rely on being able to survive these hits before being switched out for the fairy. Tera Dragon disallowed this strategy due to the fact that it fully neutralized the opponent's ability to pivot around nearly as effectively. You either nearly irreparable damage to Glowbro and Amoong or do decent damage (to fully Spdef sets) to where these threats can’t revenge kill you later when you’re able to spam Tera Dragon Dragon Pulses. Either way, the answers did not feel remotely reliable even when I wasn’t popping Tera Dragon t1 like a 1000 ladder player. The same Pokemon that are often staged as somewhat reliable switch ins to Dura thanks to Regen are allowed to switched into fairly easily by Dura itself allowing it to dent them, and since these Pokemon often require multiple points of entry to once again have the required bulk to cover other threats, it was often the case in my run that my Rotom-Heat and Scarf CM Florges managed to win thanks to the immense chipping created by Dura. I'm also really not a fan of something like AV SpDef Glowbro with Tera Steel, cause I think its way too weak and makes you extremely vunlerable to a multitude of threats. Of course, this inherently isn’t a problem in a vacuum, there’s a lot of skill involved in breaking a bulky regen mon in order for your sweeper to win, but there was very little opportunity cost to the core that I was using due to how good Dura’s teammates have also become post its release, which is actually my main point:

I believe that Dura has elevated certain Pokemon in viability to levels almost grander than Dura itself. While I was building other teams, I often found myself resorting to the same type of Pokemon: Rotom-H seemed somehow better than it already was, Scarf Florges especially felt fairly essential to most of my balance structures, AV Glowbro also often had a field day vs most teams, Salazzle, Delphox and Pawmot which were already top tier fast threats managed to also look amazing. A lot of the good offensive mons only managed to look even better, but not even in a healthy sense cause it felt like I was suddenly having to stack Dura checks into the mix.

The main reason why I only utilized one team for my reqs run is because I frankly felt like I couldn’t go wrong with this type of build for balance. The options seemed extremely safe into the meta, even somewhat safe into Dura, but I did find myself struggling vs other glaring issues due to limiting my options so much. Psychics were a pain due to utilizing Dura as my Steel, Uxie was a similar case, Frosmoth could often snowball (though I guess it could always do that lately). I’m not saying that you’re unable to build a good Snowslash, Cram, Wo Chien, Bomb team, in fact I think some of these mons still have merit, but I felt like Dura gave too many openings into too many mons and the rest of the tier seemed fairly immobile apart from the Pokemon I was often using or seen other people succeed with. Whenever I saw someone use Cramorant I got up and did a little jump cause I was aware of how great this was for my Dura mu, same with Skunk, Bomb, Hecid to name a few. The speed tier is simply too good vs. 70% of the tier.

A point of comparison I've seen made with Dura is how it is sometimes interchangeable with Goodra, but simply looking at Speed Tiers should give a very decent view of how relevant the jump from 80 to 85 is in this tier:
View attachment 759643
Another point of analysis is Duraludon's secondary STAB, in contrast with Goodra's ability to Knock and pressure with Toxic. Both amazing traits on a bulky mon like Goodra, but definitely plays very different from Duraludon's bulky Specs breaker attributes, unless we consider Specs Goodra, which at this point based on this speed tier seems like a downgrade vs most teams. Lastly, Dura is much sturdier physically meaning that even with a Specs set it can feasably check faster and priority-heavy Pokemon such as Ambipom, Skunk, Bomb, Bruxish, which Goodra naturally struggles with. Of course the other side of the coin is Goodra's ability to check certain special threats such as Rotom-H, Lazzle as well as some Psychics. I'll let the reader decide if these things all in tandem make Goodra a sidegrade or a downgrade from Dura. Obviously the answer is less black and white and matchups and nuance exist for it, but I think I know who I think would rank higher and be used more.

Now I also wanna name a circumstance that I encountered quite a lot through my run too. These so-called revenge killers that give Dura such a hard time: Salazzle, Delphox, Pawmot, Rotom-H. I’ve seen v little few people mention the fact that these mons are always a flipped tera away from losing the mu to Dura? Tera Dragon on a healthy Dura flips the mu 100% unless you predict vs it. Ofc this is far from special in SV and it even occurs with some of the previously mentioned Pokemon. My issue is that after this interaction, when you lose your strong revenge killer cuz Dura clicked Tera Dragon and Dragon Pulse, you’re left with a team that just lost probably its main breaker vs. a team that has a Terad Specs Dura and other defensive tools that handle your lesser strong threats, assuming that the Dura player clicked Tera acknowledging that the rest of their team is able to beat the opposition. Meanwhile Pokemon like Lazzle, Pawmot and Delphox have poor enough bulk into the usual revenge killers that it is harder for them to flip mu on common scarfers such as Hecid, Bruxish, Pass, Redbull (they're also much more subsceptible to Sucker Punch, Espeed, Ajet and Fake Out).

Frankly, all of my points are in relation to balance, often balance vs balance. Dura is whatever into offense and thank god it is, though it definitely still gets decent value due to Tera still flipping mu on some of the previously mentioned threats that also function in HO like Salazzle and Hecid. I wouldn’t complain about Dura in relation to HO though cause popping your tera like that vs a lazzle usually means you're gonna lose later on to something else. I just wholeheartedly believe that Duraludon makes balance incredibly lame and linear even if it isn’t getting kills every other turn. Its answers are often taken advantage of by allowing Dura itself to switch into them and the risk is often placed on the Duraludon opponent by having to predict switch ins w stuff like Stun Spore Amoong, Flip Turn Milo, etc. I felt this was a very skewed imbalance in favor of the Dura player.

The tier is able to handle Dura, but at a hefty cost, so I will be voting ban. I believe our tier had enough diversity before this shift to where we can focus on other modern problems, like banning Glowbro instead of adding something else to the mix that, to my eyes, will just reestablish the status quo of the tier into an even lamer version of what people thought was worth fighting for when pushing for this suspect test. Thanks for reading, P used.

I just wanted to make a quick post to amend my thoughts on dura, because im voting ban now and dont want to give a partial opinion when with more experience building and playing, I feel differently now. I still stand by a majority of my own thoughts I posted, however, specifically the ending of ishtar's post was something I did not consider until reading it and thinking back on my games. When dura clicks Tera, its checks are no longer checks and in fact dying oftentimes. And the thing is, not only is dura the type of mon where these checks really need to be full proof for it to not be over the edge for me, but also its checks are top meta threats that will oftentimes flip a game if Tera is popped vs them. Salazzle, rotom heat, pawmot, all of these are mons that make clicking Tera to take them out worth it more often than not. Due to the shakiness of the checks in combination with how detrimental it can be if Tera is indeed popped, I will be instead voting ban on dura.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

I want to address some arguments regarding the pro-ban stance, specifically those coming up regarding Choice Specs Duraludon.

It seems the main concern of Specs Dura is that it hits too hard and the prediction game is in favour of the Duraludon user. In this sense I find Assault Vest users to be helpful, particularly the AV Glowbro mentioned above, which can take a Draco Meteor and heal back up, thus letting Duraludon become wide open for exploitation, especially if you have a fairy. Another tech you can use is AV Eelektross, which carries U-turn and Knock Off in conjunction with your own strong wallbreaker (ghosts work well here). AV Houndstone can survive a Draco Meteor and endeavor+shadow sneak.

but much more importantly imo, Specs Dura, and Dura in general is very weak to knock off + spikes, so a good hazard game will make it very manageable imo. Spam knock off early and it will never get a chance... and even stealth rock can help.

You can use HDB I guess but you're left with a special wallbreaker that can't truly wallbreak and become an entry point for the opponent's scary special breaker itself.

Unban dura

 

[Breakfastbiscuit]

Hi just thought I’d add some further elaboration as to why I think Duraludon is unban worthy. For starters I’ve seen the argument used that Duraludon can force your hand to bring overly fat teams and that playstyle isn’t something that should be rewarded but I’d just like to point out that it was very much the norm before hand and the PU player base certainly needed no further encouragement to run such defensive cores. Duraludon would actually be a welcomed breaker to balance things out.

In my experience it is certainly not brainless or free by any means and provides extra dynamics to games sometimes at a worrying pace I do admit. But as I touched on I still feel there’s a lot to exploit it and I don’t think things would get too out of hand should it be unbanned and I think there is still some good adaptations to be made.

I still think it functions well enough as a steel type to avoid the “fake steel” label. Faring well into the many common Poison threats while not left unchecked by the handful of viable Fighting/Fire types we have. Its base 85 speed is very humble and is still forced out by a lot of things. And as I’m tapu bulu mentioned it doesn’t do too hot into hazard stack teams or knock off both of which it has to tip-toe around to get full effectiveness.

Another thing Tera Steel is the most used in PU so it has to be wary of that too. Its barrage may not be as free as it would seem. Sash leads prevented it from leading in the past while gaining good info as to what set it is.

Not without apprehension as playing without it after it was banned last time was rather nice if I’m honest & I’m pretty on the fence with this one but lean slightly more to unban, I think it brings more positives than it does negatives.

 

[Bloshh]

Got my reqs a couple days ago and I have been reading and participating in the usual debates about duraludon in PUcord these days so I decided I would pour a couple thoughts here too both about the state of the metagame and duraludon.

To begin with I must say im not happy with the current state of the PU metagame. I don’t find the tier that enjoyable or healthy atm as I believe lots of other players do. To be honest and fair, some of the issues the tier seems to have (imo) are not fixable:

- Defoggers and spinners are really limited and some of these mons wouldn’t be considered if the moves were more distributed, resulting in some of them being really easy to overwhelm or exploit. The tight distribution makes teambuilding feel a lot like a decision tree which is something I think most metagames should avoid.

- Status is broken. Really little counterplay to it. The situation would be harsh just with + toxic users but the presence of , a mon with a ton of sets and close to 0 real counters, makes it unbearable. I blame it on no clerics, resttalk mons not being that good and the main steel type ( ) losing to most of the toxic users.

- The offensive threats are really diverse and, while none of them reach a banworthy status imo, when you have to account for all of them + tera building and playing the tier feels like an unpleasant experience. This is one of the reasons too why ladder is so frustrating and sometimes unreliable for testing. It isn’t even like these mons are broken. Best way of defining it I find is that they are both unreliable at breaking through stuff and at being checked.

On another note I don’t find regen cores problematic defensively as some people have been claiming specially in PUcord. The real issue with them is that glowbro be doing a little bit too much in these each time it comes in. I even think a tier with these conditions (lots of defensive mons don’t have reliable recovery + are really weak to status) could benefit in theory from regen cores being good. It’s just that not with glowbro.


So, about our guy, .
I think we must keep in mind that the conversation here isn’t about if duraludon is banworthy, but about if its unbanworthy. While it may seem like the same thing, it isnt, since the real question here isn’t if we have enough counters/checks for the guy but “does the metagame benefit from a duraludon unban”.


After some days of thinking and reading people’s opinions I reached the conclusion that the metagame wouldn’t benefit from duraludon being legal and therefore I will be voting to keep it banned. The reasons for my opinion rely on duraludon not solving any of the metagame problems said above and actually intensifying some.

- Almost every defogger/spinner is hugely pressured by duraludon and some of them like even allow it to switch in. This gives specs the capacity of pressuring lots of defensive structures in ways that don’t feel balanced and eviolite+rocks sets the capacity to keep them up quite easily.

- Some people have been stating that Duraludon helps vs status spam. I get that the mon can defensively switch into scald (kinda) and toxic but tbh I don't think it solves anything. I even think this point is contradictory with some of the points people on the unban side are making, stating that duraludon loses to clicking recover on the attack and scouting it that way. The status spreader mons are able to this (glowbro needs spdef bulk for specs but its still able to do so) therefore making duraludon already not that good vs status. If you add up that specs takes a lot from glowbro flamethrower and that evio doesnt break through it I just can’t think about duraludon as a mon that solves this problem.

- I find that the 3rd problem stated is also intensified by the unban of duraludon, specially since, as ishtar stated, this mon benefits a lot from tera.

Aside from this, I dont find the steel type arguments valid. The tier is in need of steel types not because they are cool (which they are tbf) but because we lack toxic inmunities and having a couple more mons able to take on special psychic and fairy types would be nice. Duraludon isn’t able to do this. As I stated it isn't that good vs glowbro + loses to special psychic attackers and doesn't ressist fairy types. It’s obviously true that it can switch into normal types and mons like bruxish but it isn’t like these are problematic atm.

Lastly, I must admit I thought this mon would have a bigger breaking power than it does, that specs is easy to rkill and that eviolite could be cute to use. Either way, It’s still a pretty big nuke that I would find annoying if implemented. I dont find the mon as broken offensively as some people claim and as easy to handle as some others do but for me the defining factor on making up my mind towards the keep it banned position is, as I said, the idea of it not solving but intensifying the tiers problems.

I think there are some other tiering decisions we can make that would aim towards the tier problems much better.
I propose starting by killing this guy right here ⮕ then we can politely talk about

 

[Lambovino]

My opinions :

On the fact that dura doesn't bring much to the tier : I don't like how some people say that dura is useless as a steel type : as Excal said it he is very good to come into some mons that are problematic rn like Slowbro-galar (it's annoying sets), and abusing some very annoying mons like amoonguss or cramorant. It indeed does not come on fairies (or dragon types), but we have always used fire/poison types to deal with fairies, and it's not because dura doesn't do one part of it's job that he's useless defensively. Everybody has seen games where glowbro did too much work (and some people even want to ban it). I think duraludon is the solution, and not just banning glowbro.

On the fact that he will be centralizing the tier : It's true that "dura's presence doesn’t make Slowbro-G/Milotic/Amoonguss feel that much less automatic”, and in fact, in balanced builds, it encourages people to play av regen mons to scout it's set + a good steel type switch in (we already have either a fire type or a bulky water type in every team). But is it bad ? It's okay to have some centralization, as long as it's not a bad one, and idt this one is a bad one. People will need to prep for dura and that's fine, it's not like only 1 mon checks it well, Tom showed it with evio qwilfish (can take hits + pain split + spikes cheap) or tect mudsdale (a small price to deal with a centralizing mon), but there is also spdef milotic or rest wo chien, on top of having a lot of small checks like rotom-heat or the av regen mons.

On the fact that dura could force people to play more fat teams : idt it's true. I think balanced build will have to go a bit fatter, but offense will still be good, as long as you have good type resistances, more speed than dura on most of your mons and ways to rk it (not that hard). Also spikes will be really good against him so spikes offense will be something to keep in mind. + dura can be really good in offensive teams too because of his ability to come on some very annoying mons.

On how dura limits some defog users : It's also true that duraludon pressures the only good defog user that we have. But keep in mind that 1- cramo can tera steel, 2- cramo hits the specs set for 30% with surf + hazards if you have some, so it's not 100% free, 3 - if you play cramo you just have to play a good dura switch in, like av amoon to cover both tbolt and dm. Also if it allows teams to spikes stack more to beat fatter teams then it's not that bad i think ?

On how dura benefits too much from the tera : I mean such as most of the other breakers. Hoopa does the same no ? A tera is always good to pick up a kill, and maybe dura's speed makes it better. But everybody knows that wasting the tera on a breaker means you don't have it for your sweeper, and it's usually not duraludon who will finish the games. Using tera first is often not an optimal tech, especially offensively just to kill 1 mon, and dura losing his steel type means that it will be harder for him to come on the field (either bc of rocks damages or the fact that he doesn't resist amoonguss / glowbro / cram's hurricane anymore) or not get revenge killed.
Also, i've seen someone say that dura just has to tera to kill his revenge killers. Idt it's that much the case, usually you'll click dm or flash cannon with the specs set, and at -2 dm even with the tera you won't ohko delphox for example. The only moment where it's relevant is when 1- you click dragon pulse (only 38% of chance to OHKO delphox with the tera, not that good) or 2- when you have a situation with delphox vs a specs dura that has not used a move yet, but you can just use sub delphox or switch out to scout. Also teams should not have only 1 fast mon that is able to rk such mons, it's a classic rule in tiers with the tera available.
+ it goes the other way around, the scary set of dura is choice locked so you can just tera fairy on his dm and either kill it or gain 2 turns

tldr :
Will duraludon bring some utility to the tier ? yes - by being able to deal with some mons that were very annoying in this tier
Are there both solid ways and innovative ways to deal with duraludon, both offensively and defensively ? yes - some people already showed it in this thread, an adaptation is needed but it is possible to do so.

I'll be voting unban personally

 

[Lambovino]

(glowbro needs spdef bulk for specs but its still able to do so

252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Dragon Duraludon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro-Galar: 362-426 (91.8 - 108.1%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
And i'd argue that full spdef glowbro or AV are not the most annoying sets at all, i'm fine with glowbro taking a dm if he dies to my rhydon's eq

The idea is that dura can indeed kill those annoying mons by commiting to it, but commiting has drawbacks (the use of tera here, and being locked at -2). And you can usually check dura (or at least scout) by playing sets that are less scary on glowbro / amoonguss, like av

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

I never thought Milotic + Glowbro cores are this big giant boogeyman, honestly ghost types clown on that core. CB Golurk/Houndstone/Trevenant can switch into glowbro and proceed to spam the hell out of poltergeist especially with a weakened Duraludon in the back. Even H-Typhlosion has access to endeavor if it really has to take a scald.

I don't think Duraludon has a necessarily negative impact on those guys. They can wall it just fine.

On what Duraludon provides: status, stealth rock, physical tanking capabilities, immunity to toxic spikes, and a strong draco meteor and more.

 

[MZ]

Thanks to some severe bad luck and my personal refusal to use a team more resistant to hax, I got to play a nice 69 games on ladder. And I never changed what team I was using and faced very few well played Duraludon. This is something that ladder just isn't well-equipped to handle, even if I was facing well-played Duraludon, because it's more a question of long-term healthiness and team restrictions than anything else. And coming at it from that angle, this is an easy do not unban and it's not really a hard choice. Bloshh is basically correct about how it would continue to constrain an already restrictive teambuilding environment while the pro-unban arguments are really missing the forest for the trees with what it provides. Do we need what it does? Why is a strong Draco Meteor a good thing in this meta? Or being Tspikes immune? How is a phys def steel that important given what's scary right now (Glowbro, Florg, Pawmot, etc.)? Is forcing more Tera Steels an easy adaptation, or something that'll leave teams even weaker to things like Pawmot and Hariyama? I think Duraludon absolutely fits the "fake steel" archetype and I really don't care for what it does defensively because it does so so temporarily and unreliably. That one-time check is not really enhancing PU where it needs enhancing, only the more offensive teams that don't need buffs really want what it provides. And offense is not the same as hyper offense, which also doesn't love this fat strong threat that can check basically everything, but it does like something that can become setup fodder weirdly quickly, it's a bizarre dynamic that I don't love. In fact Duraludon dynamics in general just aren't really fun to play with and looking at my builder and how it'd need to adapt for the thing seems really dreadful. We can do better than this.

 

[hex]

I have yet to get reqs (laddering but unsure if I'll get there) and just from playing so far I think Duraludon should firmly stay banned. The tier was already thrown for a loop after Guno remained unbanned, and our Steel-type variety became worse as time went on (i.e it's not that easy to swap into Steel/Dragon STAB). SVPU right now is in a state where we are already constricted in what we need to use to cover our bases defensively. Every game I've used Specs Duraludon in I literally didn't think and just clicked buttons and won. Games where I used Duraludon defensively or faced someone using Eviolite Duraludon it just felt like the most useless Pokemon ever.

If we free Duraludon, we're just gonna promote seeing all of Glowbro/Milotic/Wo-Chien every game even more. The tier is going to become stale and repetitive. The tradeoff of getting a new mon as a potential defensive piece is not worth it for the headaches it is going to cause, and with SCL on the horizon I can't help but think PU would be the most boring thing to spectate/build for with Duraludon in the tier.

Please keep it banned.

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

I have yet to get reqs (laddering but unsure if I'll get there) and just from playing so far I think Duraludon should firmly stay banned. The tier was already thrown for a loop after Guno remained unbanned, and our Steel-type variety became worse as time went on (i.e it's not that easy to swap into Steel/Dragon STAB). SVPU right now is in a state where we are already constricted in what we need to use to cover our bases defensively. Every game I've used Specs Duraludon in I literally didn't think and just clicked buttons and won. Games where I used Duraludon defensively or faced someone using Eviolite Duraludon it just felt like the most useless Pokemon ever.

If we free Duraludon, we're just gonna promote seeing all of Glowbro/Milotic/Wo-Chien every game even more. The tier is going to become stale and repetitive. The tradeoff of getting a new mon as a potential defensive piece is not worth it for the headaches it is going to cause, and with SCL on the horizon I can't help but think PU would be the most boring thing to spectate/build for with Duraludon in the tier.

Please keep it banned.

you were never required to use that core to check Duraludon. honestly just keep offensive pressure on that thing and it will never get a chance. I've used trick rotom-C, voltturn cores, tera steel rotom-H, and wow+hex+eruption h-typhlo and that was often enough to reel Duraludon in. Also glowbro isn't a good check to dura imo, it loses to flash cannon spam which will eventually drop its special defense, while milotic doesn't like tera'd dragon pulse and draco. I honestly think the tier can handle specs dura, PU has faster and stronger mons that can spam STABs like maniacs, like the aforementioned hisuian typhlosion.

this post feels like it's full of fearmongering and tiering action that is not necessarily productive for the tier. Free dura

 

[Bloshh]

you were never required to use that core to check Duraludon. honestly just keep offensive pressure on that thing and it will never get a chance. I've used trick rotom-C, voltturn cores, tera steel rotom-H, and wow+hex+eruption h-typhlo and that was often enough to reel Duraludon in. Also glowbro isn't a good check to dura imo, it loses to flash cannon spam which will eventually drop its special defense, while milotic doesn't like tera'd dragon pulse and draco. I honestly think the tier can handle specs dura, PU has faster and stronger mons that can spam STABs like maniacs, like the aforementioned hisuian typhlosion.

this post feels like it's full of fearmongering and tiering action that is not necessarily productive for the tier. Free dura

 

[I'm Tapu Bulu]

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my G i would like you to expand your view here, otherwise i like memes as well

you say that Dura provides a soft check to status spam, well as an offensive tank that's a pretty good role already since scald bothers it only in conjunction with hazards and toxic does jack. On the no clerics, i used EV Dura + Choice Band Trevenant and boy can that mon provide a lot of leverage against broken ass defensive cores. Ghost spam is way more broken than Draco Meteor spam in PU if you ask me.

Specs Duraludon is not the main mon to break through the likes of Milotic and Glowbro, mons you bring up in the same paragraph, from my laddering experience ghosts do a much better job, so Dura is not in my opinion the best fit for your main breaker that does the heavy work.

Unban dura