Discussion Sun teams in SS ZU

Tuthur · Nov 2, 2025

For the past years, concerns on sun teams in SS ZU have arised and many tournament players have loudly expressed their wish for some tiering actions to take place on sun. BaitWiz recently wrote a post detailing how the sun archetype functions in SS ZU, and I invite people to read it to get a good picture of sun's place in the SS ZU metagame.

A lot of the complains around sun revolve arround Ivysaur; this Pokémon's natural bulk with Eviolite and Toxic immunity allow it to find set-up opportunities on staples of the tier like Stunfisk, Miltank, and Rhydon; while threatening the whole tier with neutral coverage in STAB boosted Solar Beam and Sludge Bomb, and sun boosted Weather Ball. Choice Scarf users like Sawk and Rotom outspeed the bulkier variants of Ivysaur, but still struggle to take it if it hasn't been significantly weakened. However, Ivysaur's strength shouldn't be overstated as it lacks many OHKOes even at +2, making it possible to trade against it.

This leads many to believe that sun should be looked at as a whole archetype, rather than individual setters, as Ivysaur is only marginally stronger than Shiftry or other special Chlorophyll users like Lilligant and Exeggutor that are generally considered outclassed by Ivysaur in this role. A majority of the council members, therefore, would support taking actions on Heat Rock over Ivysaur.

Moreover, many aren't convinced that banning sun is required in SS ZU as there is still some counterplay with defensive Pokémon like Cramorant, Altaria, Silvally-Poison, and Coalossal that are very hard to navigate around for sun teams; or even strong priority moves like Pawniard's Sucker Punch and Piloswine's Ice Shard. Even some of the most common defensive Pokémon can put some work against sun, such as Articuno, Miltank, and Throh.

This thread goal is to determine whether actions should be taken on sun or not in SS ZU, and if yes, should they target Ivysaur or Heat Rock.

Here is the list of voters;

Voters list:
5gen
avarice
Beka
Beraldo
BloodAce
carlosrhv
clean
Corthius
Danny
dex
Drud
DurzaOffTopic
Elfuseon
Fogbound Lake
Greybaum
Indulge in dreams
Jojen
kay
Lizardu
Luck O' the Irish
LustfulLice
Medeia
Monai
neomon
Ninja
OranBerryBlissey10
PandaDoux
pannu
plznostep
Pokeslice
Quagg
RawMelon
seraphz
Shaneghoul
shiloh
Shiritu
sinnabyss
SOMALIA
terreitor
THE_CHUNGLER
TheFranklin
TJ
Toto
Tuthur
Yovan
zause

PandaDoux · Nov 2, 2025

This tier has a MU issue and sun is def contributing a lot to this, it is hard to cover this archetype without downgrading your team; i support tiering action on Sun, specifically Heat Rock since Ivysaur will likely get replaced by one of the many chlorophyll users anyway, idt it'll fix the tier but it will make it better for sure

BaitWiz · Nov 2, 2025

I’ll redirect most of the discussion I had about Sun for the post I already made that Tuthur linked and I don’t actually get a vote in this mess since I’ve never stuck around playing SS ZU long enough to meet criteria for this vote (1-1 SS in ZUPL and basically every other tour I’ve been support for SS rather than starter lol), so I’ll suffice it to say that I think while Ivysaur being banned could potentially be enough, I would much rather see Heat Rock banned to remove Sun altogether.

sinnabyss · Nov 2, 2025

Sun being so polarizing makes building in SS such a nighmare. Basically every team needs 2-3 checks to sun, lest they run into sun and get demolished on preview. Ivy is undeniably a factor, but the brokeness of sun comes more from the lack of solid splashable answers, as well as just how overwhelming the core of ivy/dash/shift is. Supposed defensice answers like Altaria, Coalossal and Silv-Poison usually trade at best, or are left with too little health to answer the next sun abuser. Priority that actually deals with these mons are rare, sucker punch doesnt threaten any of the abusers above 40% HP, mach punch only scares shiftry, ice shard users like pilo and band lass are much harder to fit onto teams, and also dont threaten dash. Banning Ivy doesn't solve the root of the problem, which is how unhealthy the combination of all the abusers are. Having checks to a sun team often leads to worse MUs into other team archetypes. I support banning heat rock, removing a mu fishy ho teamstyle will benefit the tier more in the long run.

Danny · Nov 2, 2025

ban nothing, get good, you youngins and your complaining.

Pokeslice · Nov 2, 2025

My fellow ditto manager Danny is wrong here and I apologize for that. BaitWiz I'll make sure to talk him down don't worry.

As far it relates to Sun discussion, I'll be voting ban on it no matter what and I hope others join me. I think SS ZU is an awesome tier and some of my more fun Smogon moments have come from playing it in ZU tours, but the entire time I've built this tier or looked at scouts, the idea of Sun has been a constant annoyance. It's not a very skillful playstyle, is entirely a fish, and is a pretty large strain on the builder. Nerfing Sun feels like a no brainer quality of life move to make this 9/10 tier a 10/10.

I'd say to move on Heat Rock. Ivysaur is definitely the most common Sun abuser, but I hesitate to say it's the reason Sun is tough to deal with. There are countless of other mons that work extremely well on Sun to overwhelm teams/checks, especially in tandem with each other, and Ivysaur is just one part of that.

Greybaum · Nov 9, 2025

people talk like sun across all tiers and all gens is a stagnant archetype and it's either awful or it's broken and needs to be "nerfed" until it's awful again with no middleground. it's just another flavour of ho that happens to have more obvious synergistic qualities because it's grass and fire types every time. it's screens, it's webs, it's set-up spam, it's hazard stack.

people also talk about how sun causes stress in the builder but this isn't true. people aren't making their teams worse by bringing dogshit like hakamo-o or cloud nine golduck and if they did people wouldn't say "wow sun makes building so hard" they'd say "wow whoever built this team sucks" and rightfully so. if you want to make this claim please provide examples of how you've made your team worse to account for sun so people can see your perspective.

beating sun doesnt require you to have a hard answer to every (or any pokemon) on the team - like screens it just needs you to be able to stall out turns. with sun down ivysaur is abysmally bad and ivysaur is the only good pokemon sun has to begin with.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8zu-867430 ninja vs seraphz

ninja has a bad sun matchup on paper here. kadabra is life orb, not sash. lurantis and palossand both give free entry points to ivysaur, and even if it's not the good set (heavy hp investment) ivysaur needs to be below 40% and knocked before pawniard can get above a 0% roll to kill with sucker punch. coal is the only saving grace, but it's still taking 50% from +2 solar beam and when nothing else can take attacks from ivysaur on the team that's not great. it is good but it's not great. there's also other factors like knock off, uxie getting rocks up etc. to consider but you get the jist.

anyway, ninja still wins. he is able to cripple both sun setters early and after that he positions himself with midgrounds that prevents seraphz from getting any momentum. it looks close but it isn't; ninja secures the endgame very well.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8zu-860994 oranberryblissey10 vs avarice
on the other hand this game between obb and avarice demonstrates what i was saying earlier about sun just being glorified set-up spam. obb tricks his rotom's scarf and subsequently gets 6-0d by carracosta, who unironically is the second best sweeper on a team centered around sun. read kay's post (it's below the baitwiz post linked in the op) for more information on this. the second best sweeper on seraphz's team was lunatone btw.

to focus in on ivysaur a bit more - shiftry has a terrible defensive typing, poor bulk, and is 4x weak to u-turn which makes it extremely easy to chip into range of life orb, helmet, or priority.
rapidash is even worse - it kills itself with flare blitz, doesn't have chlorophyll, and it doesn't even share the same answers the other sun pokemon do. getting palossand or qwilfish to 10% isn't useful to the team. so why use them? positioning. you use rapidash because you can force scarf sawk to kill you with cc, for example, and give your ivysaur free setup.

sun requires smart positioning from both sides like any other ho archetype and people who claim it's linear or lacks skill expression are wrong. if you're going to "nerf" sun please at least show you understand how the teams work and ban ivysaur instead of heat rock, it's all the same end result of killing the playstyle anyway. DNB.

Discussion Sun teams in SS ZU

Tuthur

gnawtier than ever

PandaDoux

PD

BaitWiz

ZU Ladder Achievement Hunter

sinnabyss

Viva Misery

Danny

MSGA

Pokeslice

Thanks for the Dance

Greybaum

GENTLEMEN, THIS IS DEMOCRACY MANIFEST