pressure on dusclops is far from being useless
PP stall is very much a thing and iirc dusclops gets spite and has the bulk to wear down the opponent especially w/ rest
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion (Usage stats in post #944)
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
- Status
PP stall is very much a thing and iirc dusclops gets spite and has the bulk to wear down the opponent especially w/ rest
Pressure stalling is a tremendously powerful utility, particularly on bulky, faster mons that use substitute and reliable recovery to do so. Dusclops resting makes it useless for two turns, letting a powerful wallbreaker/sweeper switch in, set up, and attack. It can also invite a mon when you use spite since it doesn't work on a mon switching in. Corsola's recovery is so strong, it can take 90% consistently and come back to full against strong physical attackers. Dusclops relying on rest has to survive 3hko thresholds since it's so slow, and that means it's pressure stalling antics don't work versus even a nightshading corsola since it gets 3Hkoed by it.
Cherrypicking aside, I think the comparison and discussion about dusclops needs to stop. One liners don't exactly prove your point as they lack any meaningful context and are pointlessly argumentative. Could dusclops possibly pressure stall? It is technically possible. Can it do so with any reliability against even a half baked OU team? No. It's not a point worth warranting as a significant plus. There are reasons dusclops isn't used in OU at all for many generations. Shallow move pool, no reliable recovery, and no great defensive ability that it can abuse. Moving on.
After only building a bunch of teams last weekend I went through every pokemon that still finds itself in the new generation. In conjunction with having played a lot of battles earlier at the end of last week and today I feel confident in focusing down what troubles battling and teambuilding the most in this very new metagame. Thus a post of my opinion on what is broken and what probably isn't.
please do council votes on these:
- GalarDarm: yeti darm has no switchins whatsoever, it's an absolute pain to face with any non-HO team, you can run the fattest cores and still find your members being ONEshot by it even though you probably send in the one that was supposed to be somwhat of a counter at least. defensive arcanine w boots and avalugg w boots would probably the best "counters" to it but they still get murdered by eq/fb respectively.
funfact: before stats/abilities where out I posted in the german wcop chat that yeti darm looks hella cool and that it's my fav regional-form ever but here I am posting to get it banned. I also thought it wouldn't be any good but lmao
- Gyarados: while being a little but really only a little less teambuilding restricting than yeti-darm it still is very hard to deal with. Gyara also is the biggest reason we have a ditto sitting at #5 in usage which is unheard of. Depending on the set of gyarados (or rather if it runs whip or eq as the 4th moveslot) the only remaining counters of it are decided. Duraludon does a fine job at least of coming in on eq-less gyara 2 or 3 times and rotom does decently against non-whip variants. Other than that unaware maxdef twave clefable can probably beat it and a dynamaxed ferrothorn's whips do hurt at least a bit. In all respects I believe that this pokemon is one cut above the others and extremely limits teambuilding.
undecided/requires further testing:
- dynamax: There has been a lot of discussion going on in the policy threads so I would like you all to give it a look but personally I feel like the mechanic itself might be managable. I'm not arguing that it's not strong and that it doesn't shift the metagame but the correct approach imo should be to ban the broken mons first and see whether or not dynamax was the problem. If broken threats continue to pop up every time we ban something then dynamax for sure is the root of all evil. So far I'd rather see darm and gyara being removed for the time being and go from there.
- excadrill: yeah it's strong but feels managable at least? It's hard to judge if teams would still bow down to it after they don't have to deal with gyara/darm anymore. There are also other really strong pokemon like: clefable, kommo-o, hawlucha, dragapult, barraskewda and ditto. aegi and dugtrio have hardly seemed broken in comparison to others, so far. Ditto has obviously been a phenomenon that mostly occured when offensive threats had been too strong to account for in teambuilding which leaves near to no other choice than to slap a ditto on your team. The precedents would tell that ditto should become less present as soon as the broken mons are removed but maybe gen8 is also just a good gen for it? It is too soon to tell and so far the reason for it's use were too oppressive offensive threats.
Teambuilding would already get a lot of freedom by removing the top2 named above from the equation at least for a small amount of time. While unnecessary banning/unbanning should obviously be prevented I believe that being a bit more flexible at the start of this generation wouldn't hurt anyone. All in all it truly is hard to determine what exactly the negative factors are right now but by making this a community effort we should be able to create not only a healthy but also a fun metagame. Gen8 looks very promising so far and there's a good chance it will prove to be an amazing tier after the starting issues are resolved
please do council votes on these:
- GalarDarm: yeti darm has no switchins whatsoever, it's an absolute pain to face with any non-HO team, you can run the fattest cores and still find your members being ONEshot by it even though you probably send in the one that was supposed to be somwhat of a counter at least. defensive arcanine w boots and avalugg w boots would probably the best "counters" to it but they still get murdered by eq/fb respectively.
funfact: before stats/abilities where out I posted in the german wcop chat that yeti darm looks hella cool and that it's my fav regional-form ever but here I am posting to get it banned. I also thought it wouldn't be any good but lmao
- Gyarados: while being a little but really only a little less teambuilding restricting than yeti-darm it still is very hard to deal with. Gyara also is the biggest reason we have a ditto sitting at #5 in usage which is unheard of. Depending on the set of gyarados (or rather if it runs whip or eq as the 4th moveslot) the only remaining counters of it are decided. Duraludon does a fine job at least of coming in on eq-less gyara 2 or 3 times and rotom does decently against non-whip variants. Other than that unaware maxdef twave clefable can probably beat it and a dynamaxed ferrothorn's whips do hurt at least a bit. In all respects I believe that this pokemon is one cut above the others and extremely limits teambuilding.
undecided/requires further testing:
- dynamax: There has been a lot of discussion going on in the policy threads so I would like you all to give it a look but personally I feel like the mechanic itself might be managable. I'm not arguing that it's not strong and that it doesn't shift the metagame but the correct approach imo should be to ban the broken mons first and see whether or not dynamax was the problem. If broken threats continue to pop up every time we ban something then dynamax for sure is the root of all evil. So far I'd rather see darm and gyara being removed for the time being and go from there.
- excadrill: yeah it's strong but feels managable at least? It's hard to judge if teams would still bow down to it after they don't have to deal with gyara/darm anymore. There are also other really strong pokemon like: clefable, kommo-o, hawlucha, dragapult, barraskewda and ditto. aegi and dugtrio have hardly seemed broken in comparison to others, so far. Ditto has obviously been a phenomenon that mostly occured when offensive threats had been too strong to account for in teambuilding which leaves near to no other choice than to slap a ditto on your team. The precedents would tell that ditto should become less present as soon as the broken mons are removed but maybe gen8 is also just a good gen for it? It is too soon to tell and so far the reason for it's use were too oppressive offensive threats.
Teambuilding would already get a lot of freedom by removing the top2 named above from the equation at least for a small amount of time. While unnecessary banning/unbanning should obviously be prevented I believe that being a bit more flexible at the start of this generation wouldn't hurt anyone. All in all it truly is hard to determine what exactly the negative factors are right now but by making this a community effort we should be able to create not only a healthy but also a fun metagame. Gen8 looks very promising so far and there's a good chance it will prove to be an amazing tier after the starting issues are resolved
CB G-Darm warrants correct predictions....which makes dynamaxing on it even more scarier with the ability to pick any move
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
Gather around boys, I have a bit of a controversial proposal I'd like to share with y'all.
So, right now we are feverishly arguing over what to do with Dynamax. This is an incredibly important discussion to have, one whose outcome could set the tone and dictate future tiering decisions for a good chunk of or even potentially the entirety of Generation 8. One idea that's been tossed around is having two ladders with and without Dynamaxing allowed respectively to compare and contrast the metas, but this has been shut down by higher-ups for causing a split in the playerbase. At the same time all this is happening SPL inches ever closer, and with that comes the additional dilemma of whether to ban it beforehand or let the tournament be a testing ground for the mechanic.
So here's my absurd idea that'll probably be vetoed: What if we quickbanned Dynamaxing on the core OU ladder, but allowed it in SPL?
Think about it. For one thing we avoid a playerbase split, for I doubt people are gonna flock to smogtours en masse just to play with Dynamax.
We also get to compare the two metas side by side, with the more volatile option (Dynamax allowed) being evaluated more closely by experienced players while not causing frustration for ladderers.
So, right now we are feverishly arguing over what to do with Dynamax. This is an incredibly important discussion to have, one whose outcome could set the tone and dictate future tiering decisions for a good chunk of or even potentially the entirety of Generation 8. One idea that's been tossed around is having two ladders with and without Dynamaxing allowed respectively to compare and contrast the metas, but this has been shut down by higher-ups for causing a split in the playerbase. At the same time all this is happening SPL inches ever closer, and with that comes the additional dilemma of whether to ban it beforehand or let the tournament be a testing ground for the mechanic.
So here's my absurd idea that'll probably be vetoed: What if we quickbanned Dynamaxing on the core OU ladder, but allowed it in SPL?
Think about it. For one thing we avoid a playerbase split, for I doubt people are gonna flock to smogtours en masse just to play with Dynamax.
We also get to compare the two metas side by side, with the more volatile option (Dynamax allowed) being evaluated more closely by experienced players while not causing frustration for ladderers.
Does anyone have a rain team that's pretty good so far. Not sure who I should use, all the Pokemon I plan to use are basically water type, so I have terrible coverage. Also would Umbreon be alright in a rain team, she's my favorite pokemon.
umbreon no
barraskewda is a must
maybe pelipper
+others
noivern/corviknight
etc.
Would you recommend a gyarados in there as well? I was also thinking about Ludicolo, Toxicroak, Rotom Wash. I definitely want Pelipper because he can set up rain with drizzle. I want to try Ludicolo because he looks cool, but I know hes bad so I might not. I am not sure if Toxicroak is good in Gen 8 but if someone knows that would be cool. Then looking at the most used pokemon, it seems that I should definitely got with Rotom Wash. Also might I ask why Corviknight would be good?
SwiSh snapped most of the good Swift Swimmers and Rain abusers, so the most successful Rain core you can build around is Pelipper/Seismitoad/Barraskewda. Pelipper can set Rain (and later, Defog), Seismitoad can sweep and set SR, and Skewda can wallbreak or sweep. The nice thing about the core is that overlapping weaknesses are kind of distributed (Seis is immune to Elec, Pelipper is neutral to Grass). Your next couple of Pokemon should cover Grass and Elec should attempt to cover the Grass and Electric weaknesses well. Overall, I found this to be a decent framework for most OU rain teams.
Pelipper - SR Seismitoad - Skewda - Hazard Removal (90% Excadrill here) - Wallbreaker that beats Ferrothorn - Wallbreaker that beats Pex
Make sure to run Aqua Jet on Skewda in case you lose Weather wars and Exca becomes tough to manage.
Pelipper - SR Seismitoad - Skewda - Hazard Removal (90% Excadrill here) - Wallbreaker that beats Ferrothorn - Wallbreaker that beats Pex
Make sure to run Aqua Jet on Skewda in case you lose Weather wars and Exca becomes tough to manage.
iirc pelipper lost defog?
I... think it's time to stop posting about this. No offense.
I don't usually like gag ordering things, but I think this is one of the more absurd things I've read. Please do not post anything else like this again or I'm just going to delete the post.
As to why this is bad - we don't allow things through a tournament like that just to "test" something. Not all tournament players are on board with Dynamax as is, and to force something simply as some... entertainment value is grossly throwing tournament players under the bus.
For the rest posting - I'm okay with people talking about making two ladders and disagreeing on Dynamax being broken. I may not think the opinion is great, but I respect the platform if you have a good basis. This, on the other hand, is an example that does not have a good platform in the best interest of competitive Pokemon in my opinion.
I'd also like to point out that it is not an ideal direction that Finch wants to take as far as split ladders. You can read about that here.
And unless you're a council member or moderator, I'd like to ask that you don't respond to that particular post please.
Last edited:
Aside from Ditto, which doesn't even fully counter-play all Dynamaxing Pokemon like Hawlucha, how exactly do you counter-play Dyanmaxing universally? By that, I mean don't "Well just use Duraludon+Rotom-Wash to beat Gyarados".
Even in National Dex OU (the more balanced OU), it's pretty tough dealing with Dynamaxing despite the increase in the number of Pokemon that can check it.
It feels like the only times half my team isn't killed off is when the opponent is a dumbass that Dynamax something like Body Press Corviknight or they made a misclick.
Even in National Dex OU (the more balanced OU), it's pretty tough dealing with Dynamaxing despite the increase in the number of Pokemon that can check it.
It feels like the only times half my team isn't killed off is when the opponent is a dumbass that Dynamax something like Body Press Corviknight or they made a misclick.
So who would be considered wallbreakers that would deal with ferro and pex? Sorry I am very inexperienced in understanding how to create teams
definitely adding the excadrill cause it is immune to electric, the next 2 pokemon I was thinking were corviknight and Rillaboom. Only reason I am keeping Rillaboom is because its an agreement me and my friend made when we started and Corviknight seems to be used for everyone and its flying type so it should cover the grass
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm just going to cast my thoughts into the aether if anyone is interested.
This meta is really dumb but hilarious. Dittos on every team and blown-up enormous pokemon sprites make me feel like I'm playing some weird OM ubers tier at points. This is the most broken initial gen OU I've ever seen which isn't to say it hasn't been fun in its own stupid way. In the past when broken mons were in OU you could at least counterteam around them until the banhammer struck but every single match is pretty much decided around optimally playing around those 3 dynamax turns. Of which you don't know when will start or which mon will do them. If you don't you are either getting swept or they punctured such a large hole in your team you can't really recover. Snow darm being the lovely topping on this conundrum of a sundae.
I think people calling for gyara, exca, hawluhcha, etc. bans are frankly kidding themselves and the fact that the list of "issue" mons is so large and consists of mons that have been fine for generations is really telling. I don't think there is balancing around this mechanic.
I've seen the idea floated that we could enact a clause that would force min dynamax level to 0 making all mons have 150% hp instead of 200% but I think this is just going to exasperate the steamrolling effect of offensive threats and further upset the offensive / defensive balance of the mechanic drastically in favor of busted offensive setup sweepers.
The only other valid options I see are to just ban Dynamaxing & Gigantamaxing or just Dynamaxing. Personally I'd really like to see this meta with only Gigantamaxing legal to where I can at least form a semblance of a game plan at team preview because I can actually see what mons on my opponent teams can suddenly turn into a skyscraper. I don't like how difficult, sometimes it feels damn near impossible, to scout out a good game plan in this meta. When you are eyeing down in an offensive team knowing any of them can double their HP at any moment and start steamrolling you you're forced to play an active react game all the time. At least it gets rid of many of these "issue" mons i'm tired of being swept by gyara personally. If it is still determined that gigantamaxing by itself is still busted or is just detrimental to the meta then we can ditch it too but I don't see why people aren't willing to give it a chance. We don't need to take a scorched earth approach on this.
If/when snowman darm gets suspected I'd like it to be a meta where it can't just break out of its choice lock at any given point and bust through walls with its coverage. I think darms ability in this dynamax meta to just break out of its choice lock chains and blast pex with Max Quake when it was locked into icicle crash is frankly dumb. I think darm may still be busted in a non dynamax meta but I'd really like to be able to judge that for myself because right now darm is so mindless when the downside of its ability can be tossed to the wayside at any moment.
Just so this isn't completely a ban/unban meta post I really like Toxtricity. Boomburst specs hits hella hard and I think it works well with webs since excadrill is outsped and 2hkod. I've really been enjoying it with NP gengar to block spin. Max ooze off that speed steamrolls a lot.
So yea Ban Dynamaxing leave Gigantamaxing to be judged by its own merits and if that is busted to ban it as well. I don't think snow darm should be suspected until after Dynamax is banned.
This meta is really dumb but hilarious. Dittos on every team and blown-up enormous pokemon sprites make me feel like I'm playing some weird OM ubers tier at points. This is the most broken initial gen OU I've ever seen which isn't to say it hasn't been fun in its own stupid way. In the past when broken mons were in OU you could at least counterteam around them until the banhammer struck but every single match is pretty much decided around optimally playing around those 3 dynamax turns. Of which you don't know when will start or which mon will do them. If you don't you are either getting swept or they punctured such a large hole in your team you can't really recover. Snow darm being the lovely topping on this conundrum of a sundae.
I think people calling for gyara, exca, hawluhcha, etc. bans are frankly kidding themselves and the fact that the list of "issue" mons is so large and consists of mons that have been fine for generations is really telling. I don't think there is balancing around this mechanic.
I've seen the idea floated that we could enact a clause that would force min dynamax level to 0 making all mons have 150% hp instead of 200% but I think this is just going to exasperate the steamrolling effect of offensive threats and further upset the offensive / defensive balance of the mechanic drastically in favor of busted offensive setup sweepers.
The only other valid options I see are to just ban Dynamaxing & Gigantamaxing or just Dynamaxing. Personally I'd really like to see this meta with only Gigantamaxing legal to where I can at least form a semblance of a game plan at team preview because I can actually see what mons on my opponent teams can suddenly turn into a skyscraper. I don't like how difficult, sometimes it feels damn near impossible, to scout out a good game plan in this meta. When you are eyeing down in an offensive team knowing any of them can double their HP at any moment and start steamrolling you you're forced to play an active react game all the time. At least it gets rid of many of these "issue" mons i'm tired of being swept by gyara personally. If it is still determined that gigantamaxing by itself is still busted or is just detrimental to the meta then we can ditch it too but I don't see why people aren't willing to give it a chance. We don't need to take a scorched earth approach on this.
If/when snowman darm gets suspected I'd like it to be a meta where it can't just break out of its choice lock at any given point and bust through walls with its coverage. I think darms ability in this dynamax meta to just break out of its choice lock chains and blast pex with Max Quake when it was locked into icicle crash is frankly dumb. I think darm may still be busted in a non dynamax meta but I'd really like to be able to judge that for myself because right now darm is so mindless when the downside of its ability can be tossed to the wayside at any moment.
Just so this isn't completely a ban/unban meta post I really like Toxtricity. Boomburst specs hits hella hard and I think it works well with webs since excadrill is outsped and 2hkod. I've really been enjoying it with NP gengar to block spin. Max ooze off that speed steamrolls a lot.
So yea Ban Dynamaxing leave Gigantamaxing to be judged by its own merits and if that is busted to ban it as well. I don't think snow darm should be suspected until after Dynamax is banned.
Okay I really didn't think I'd have to post this, or want to, but apparently it's not clear to people that you shouldn't make posts that lack substance. I've had to delete about 15 of these posts over the last day or so and I'm just going to start immediately infracting people that make a post that lacks substance from this point onward.
So just so I understand, Rotom-heat is good into ferro and pex? because I need one more pokemon on my team that covers pex and ferro. I was gonna run corviknight but it didnt seem to cover well, so I thought about Rotom-H since its fire/electric
There is at least one person at Game Freak that one day stood up and proposed to the others "What if we just let Dynamax mon ignore Choice items?", and this idea was somehow approved by everybody else because they were too lazy to code a way not to let Choice Dynamax lead to Struggle.
For that brilliant reason, I feel like most people who have been playing the ladder must have seen these guys around a couple of times:
Charizard @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Solar Power
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Focus Blast
- Solar Beam
Excadrill @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
I could add a Pokemon for rain as well, but honestly rain has so many Pokemon that can abuse this I wouldn't know where to start. Barraskewda hits terribly hard with CB, Ludicolo's typing is great to tank a lot of hits, Dreadnaw has a pretty good double typing, and even something like Mantine, of all things, can become disgustingly powerful with Choice Specs and 100% accuracy Hurricane boosting its speed even more (and confusing the opponent as well). The gist of it is, you Dynamax to settup your terrain, let your ability kick in, then when Dynamax ends you just lock yourself in the move you need to get some more kills and continue slaughtering from there. Not even Ditto can fully save you here, Choice Scarf Dynamax means Ditto relies on a coin flip to win, and against Specs/Band mons, it will most of the time straight up lose unless they already have some chip. Even Excadrill, by getting a Def boost from DMax Iron Head can avoid the OHKO from Earthquake, while a Choice Band Earthquake does kill you back.
Even though these sets might seem a bit gimmicky, they can work stupidly well, and the most annoying thing about them is the fact they are almost unpredictable. You can most of the time have no chance to know that the opponent was Choiced thanks to Dynamax's genius design. You might think your Hippowdown is useless since that Charizard might have been Boots, so you try to chip it down with its own Solar Power and have your Scarf mon come in to finish the job, but whoops, Charizard was Scarf all along and now he has +1 Speed on a Choice Scarf. Stupid situations like that made me feel like trying something even more stupid, like this:
Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Flash Cannon
- Nasty Plot
Simply put, I needed something to bait some fairies and possibly Toxapex to think Hydreigon could not touch them at all, only to Dynamax and get past my main sweeper's walls to win the game. This set is much less reliable for sweeping, as once Dynamax ends you will be locked into Nasty Plot, but in exchange you have both a fast revenge killer and a potential stall breaker. Since like I said it can't sweep once Dynamax is gone, I recommend pairing sets like this with another real sweeper who might badly need some key threats to be gone. Counterplay against sets like these are also easier, somewhat. If you correctly predict what you assume is Scarf to Dynamax, then Dynamaxing back and wasting turns with Max Guard is a massive deal.
The key part is in "correctly predicting". For example, I have since a while replaced this Hydreigon with a Substitute Black Glasses one. Factors like this could make you potentially waste your Dynamax entirely, while the Hydreigon has instead sat down behind a Substitute ready to plot even more.
It's definitely weaker than the weather setters, but it can still caught people off guard because of how unpredictable it can be. I feel like Scarf Rotom might even make Nasty Plot into a regular thing to have in its moveset if your team doesn't particularly need Burn or Para, not like you can use Hidden Power anymore, and in the meanwhile you even get to keep momentum thanks to Scarf Volt Switch.
Here is one replay where Hydreigon completely saved me the game through Scarf Nasty Plot. Sub NP has been more useful overall, but in this particular game, Scarf Hydreigon was really what I needed:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1014786192
For that brilliant reason, I feel like most people who have been playing the ladder must have seen these guys around a couple of times:
Charizard @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Solar Power
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Air Slash
- Focus Blast
- Solar Beam
Excadrill @ Choice Band
Ability: Sand Rush
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Earthquake
I could add a Pokemon for rain as well, but honestly rain has so many Pokemon that can abuse this I wouldn't know where to start. Barraskewda hits terribly hard with CB, Ludicolo's typing is great to tank a lot of hits, Dreadnaw has a pretty good double typing, and even something like Mantine, of all things, can become disgustingly powerful with Choice Specs and 100% accuracy Hurricane boosting its speed even more (and confusing the opponent as well). The gist of it is, you Dynamax to settup your terrain, let your ability kick in, then when Dynamax ends you just lock yourself in the move you need to get some more kills and continue slaughtering from there. Not even Ditto can fully save you here, Choice Scarf Dynamax means Ditto relies on a coin flip to win, and against Specs/Band mons, it will most of the time straight up lose unless they already have some chip. Even Excadrill, by getting a Def boost from DMax Iron Head can avoid the OHKO from Earthquake, while a Choice Band Earthquake does kill you back.
Even though these sets might seem a bit gimmicky, they can work stupidly well, and the most annoying thing about them is the fact they are almost unpredictable. You can most of the time have no chance to know that the opponent was Choiced thanks to Dynamax's genius design. You might think your Hippowdown is useless since that Charizard might have been Boots, so you try to chip it down with its own Solar Power and have your Scarf mon come in to finish the job, but whoops, Charizard was Scarf all along and now he has +1 Speed on a Choice Scarf. Stupid situations like that made me feel like trying something even more stupid, like this:
Hydreigon @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Flash Cannon
- Nasty Plot
Simply put, I needed something to bait some fairies and possibly Toxapex to think Hydreigon could not touch them at all, only to Dynamax and get past my main sweeper's walls to win the game. This set is much less reliable for sweeping, as once Dynamax ends you will be locked into Nasty Plot, but in exchange you have both a fast revenge killer and a potential stall breaker. Since like I said it can't sweep once Dynamax is gone, I recommend pairing sets like this with another real sweeper who might badly need some key threats to be gone. Counterplay against sets like these are also easier, somewhat. If you correctly predict what you assume is Scarf to Dynamax, then Dynamaxing back and wasting turns with Max Guard is a massive deal.
The key part is in "correctly predicting". For example, I have since a while replaced this Hydreigon with a Substitute Black Glasses one. Factors like this could make you potentially waste your Dynamax entirely, while the Hydreigon has instead sat down behind a Substitute ready to plot even more.
It's definitely weaker than the weather setters, but it can still caught people off guard because of how unpredictable it can be. I feel like Scarf Rotom might even make Nasty Plot into a regular thing to have in its moveset if your team doesn't particularly need Burn or Para, not like you can use Hidden Power anymore, and in the meanwhile you even get to keep momentum thanks to Scarf Volt Switch.
Here is one replay where Hydreigon completely saved me the game through Scarf Nasty Plot. Sub NP has been more useful overall, but in this particular game, Scarf Hydreigon was really what I needed:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1014786192
1. Galar Darmanitan w double choice band feels incredible oppressive. Wouldn`t be surprised if it gets banned, the ability of course
2. Whomever mentioned Power Swap Prankster Grimmsnarl is woke: You can`t be swept by Dynamax if you sport a Sub/Swap Grimmsnarl. Furthermore it`s STABs are amazing against a lot of OU mons.
2. Whomever mentioned Power Swap Prankster Grimmsnarl is woke: You can`t be swept by Dynamax if you sport a Sub/Swap Grimmsnarl. Furthermore it`s STABs are amazing against a lot of OU mons.
Guys , Ditto should be banned from OU , I'll explain why. It literally has no real counter , in the past gens it used to be pretty good but at least you know he was probably locked in one move , but now screw that he can Dynamax and change move. I found irrealistic that one should go , build his team and think how to counter his own Pokemon. IMO the meta would be better without Ditto . Thanks for reading if you did.
I highly doubt the problem is Ditto, but instead the problem is Dynamaxing itself.
I'm on the fence about it being banned but I honestly don't see why Ditto can't be overused.
I didn't see people complaining that much about Lando-T being overused last gen.
And about being forced to counter your own pokemon, a lot of people already did that last time.
With a team including pokemon A, you still have to figure out a way to beat opposing pokemon A.
Ditto is basically a requirements BECAUSE of Dynamaxing, and banning Ditto would just make the game unplayable.
Not only that, but Hawlucha get Unburden which Ditto won't copy the same boosts.
id say ditto is a positive impact so long as dynamax is legal. the mere possibility of ditto is one of the few things keeping people from using just any braindead sweeper and steamrolling. a good offensive team either needs a way to stop ditto directly (sub, lucha, etc) or some way of beating/stalling out their own mons.
like im not even using ditto but there have still been times when ive won a game cuz the opponent had sub instead of a coverage move. and likewise there have been times where simply having a ditto was the only thing stopping me from just boosting up and 6-0ing their team. and id rather have those scenarios than deal with a meta where anyone could go godzilla with no consequences.
like im not even using ditto but there have still been times when ive won a game cuz the opponent had sub instead of a coverage move. and likewise there have been times where simply having a ditto was the only thing stopping me from just boosting up and 6-0ing their team. and id rather have those scenarios than deal with a meta where anyone could go godzilla with no consequences.
This is actually what made me side against dynamaxing and firmly. Ditto being required for a team to function just seems absurd, as it showcases a distinct lack of defensive counterplay towards the mechanic. Now while ditto can act as a bandaid for the issue, dynamaxing WILL be a serious problem in lower tiers. Without ditto to check it, a bad lead is all it takes for a single turn of setup from a dangerous sweeper to end the game. Ditto stops that from being a serious threat since it can reverse sweep some attempt at brute force like that. Without ditto, there's little that can stop that simplistic strategy outside of winning the lead matchup.
Well, you could out predict for three turns by pivoting around, but then the offensive threat could just use his setup move twice, right? At that point it's all over.
To me, that just showcases how busted a mechanic dynamaxing really is. It needs itself to counter itself.
Banning Dynamax will also cripple all weather based teams apart from Sand. Rain will be left with only Pelipper, and Sun doesn’t fair much better either with 2 subpar drought users. Dynamaxing is crazy but it does open up a lot of strategies with terrains and weather, and they will be sorely missed once the meta settles down and people look for more creative strategies to experiment with.
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
I'm pretty sure no good weather team is relying exclusively on Dynamax setting their weather. The abusers are still there and fully functional. The Dynamax setting should only be seen as a last resort/something to get you out of a pinch, not something that any good weather team should bank on
- Status