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2. Offense reigns supreme. Perhaps the most dominant team composition at the moment is varying forms of offense. There are just too many Pokemon that fit comfortably on these playstyles that together check Manaphy for me to consider Manaphy banworthy. You have Latios and Starmie which commonly run Electric coverage, Garchomp which outspeeds and does upwards of 50 with quake alone, Breloom which commonly runs sash, and quite a few other mons that can revenge. Manaphy cannot so easily set up anymore without rain boosting its attacks, giving it that initial offensive power to force a switch, and I for one have not been swept by a manaphy once since the Drizzle ban came through. It is just too easy to chip and revenge now since Tail Glow is so incredibly telegraphed.
Not gonna lie, my opinion on Manaphy was, at first, an unflinching ban. I found it's tail glow shenanigans to be incredibly obnoxious and overall it just seems a bit too strong for the tier-everybody seems to agree that it's one of the "problem pokemon". However, with that in mind, I find your argument here to be pretty persuasive. 100 base speed isn't bad at all-but when you're coming up against stall (who don't care) and HO (who have too many mons faster than that) it's less impressive. I brought up how flawed a lot of latios counterplay is but things seem a bit more well-rounded for the water lady. and also yeah actual manaphy sweeps aren't common because, as you said, it's currently very predictable.
However, one thing you failed to mention that R8 did was this:
While i agree that Drizzle being gone made Manaphy more manageable, i believe the trends you described (Offensive playstyles and Stall being dominant) are a direct consequence of Manaphy presence in the tier.
And he's right here. You ever heard of balance? Yeah, that playstyle is struggling right now. Some posts back I said that Latios was fucking up Balance, but the reality is that there's a lot of stuff invalidating an archetypal playstyle-chief amongst them being manaphy, I believe? Defensive pokemon that can brawl with Manaphy and are not stall are quite limited. I guess you got clefable? But even then, unaware clef is primarily a stall mon anyways. It's true that the playstyle hasn't been explored a lot and there could definitely be developments in how it's played, but Manaphy definitely takes a chunk out of Balance-and also Bulky Offense as well. Bulk is only so useful versus +3 STAB Surf.
Offensively, i feel like Manaphy has ways around lot of its offensive counterplay (i will develop that a bit later in this post), which already feels a bit limited to me.
I think the bigger issue with Manaphy is that it's just fucking fat lol. Most of it's counterplay falls apart because they aren't killing without some to a lot of chip. Latios is a pretty consistent answer because it blasts manaphy for a shitton of damage but the rest need some actual decent chip to do so (like starmie) or cannot (like all the priority in the tier). To reiterate:
252 Atk Choice Band Infernape Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 252-297 (73.9 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Throat Chop vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 186-219 (54.5 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Alakazam Psychic vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Manaphy: 196-231 (57.4 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Manaphy: 213-252 (62.4 - 73.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
only mons that can consistently dispose of it are latios and specs gengar, which doesn't feel like suitable offensive counterplay to me. You've got the scarfers but none of them are killing lol, not with bandnape doing less than 90%.
now, unto the idea of exploring manaphy further. First off: Cool idea! I like it. Secondly, though:
That might look like a joke, but Manaphy is probably the best Quick Claw abuser in the metagame. Of course, it's not a reliable item, but Manaphy doesn't rely on its item to perform its main role anyway, and having 20% odds to bullshit through teams relying on revenge killers to deal with Manaphy is absolutely stupid. Quick Claw Manaphy also saw usage in the National Dex metagame while it was legal, and while comparing different metagames is usually not a good starting ground for a good argument, i personally don't see why Manaphy wouldn't be able to replicate this feat in the BDSP OU metagame. However, in my opinion, this item cannot make Manaphy banworthy by itself: even if we take Manaphy out of the equation, Quick Claw is an uncompetitive item by nature, and should be quickbanned from this metagame as soon as possible.
Going to start off by saying I do not believe that quick claw is an uncompetitive item. Yeah, it's random, but as far as I'm concerned the effect isn't all that overpowered and it depends 100% on the mon using it. Slowbro-G with quick claw was a menace in lower tiers for a bit but I don't think anyone really wanted to ban the claw over bro, and that's because claw's effect isn't that broken in of itself. Any mon that qclaw is broken with was broken to begin with...which cannot be said for something like king's rock or sand veil. Plus, you have to give up an entire item for it. You sacrifice a wholeass item so that it can work 1/5 times randomly. Not very good. For comparison's sakes, attract has about a 20-25% chance of working (only works on about less than half of all mons due to gender rules, only has a 50% chance of working even then) and nobody considers that uncompetitive.
That being said qclaw manaphy sounds like a bitch and a half, as well as those berry ideas that you made. All of those sound like good ways to fuck with it's balance, seeing as it kind of nukes everything with or without an item.
Finally, what are my opinions on manaphy? Don't know, and currently seeking more information/ladder experience. Undeniably a strong mon, but whether it crosses the line, I've yet to see. Good discussion overall though.
that being said, I 100% agree that delaying the inevitable will lead us nowhere; right now the meta is in a state of chaotic disarray where we have Tios, Mana, Zam and Gar competing for whoever is the most broken ass threat in the tier (alongside the funny niche builds that we still have and I love that almost every Pokémon is getting at least a glint of usage), and as I said multiple times we HAVE to address at least one of them in order to get some progress done on balancing the tier proper
I agree with this quite a bit. I can point to quite a few tiers that got fucked due to their respective councils being too slow to make things work properly before players lose interest (cough smou). So far so good, though. Here's to seeing at least some of the problem pokemon gone.
Hello, BDSP OU thread! After playing the metagame for a bit now, I have some opinions on a few of the Pokemon I've run into, along with some of the discussions noted above. This is particularly from my view only, so there may be a few misconceptions here and there. With that said...
Manaphy is ridiculous. The speed tier of 100 is amazing for its 100/100/100 bulk, especially when considering the access it has to Tail Glow, one of if not the best offensive boosting move in the game. I have been using two different items on it with the teams I have, Lum Berry and Wacan Berry. Lum Berry is great for Pokemon with Thunder Wave, as getting paralyzed usually cripples Manaphy to the point where Breloom, Rotom and other Pokemon can outspeed it and deal with it (somewhat) reliably. Thunder Wave can somewhat easily be spread to Manaphy by Blissey and Unaware Clefable (though both tend to get the paralysis anyways if Manaphy is kept in, though Lum Berry helps if Blissey is in a range where two +3 Surfs would kill). Wacan Berry helps deal with Thunderbolt Latios and Starmie, Choice Scarf Magnezone, and other Pokemon with electric moves that would usually spell its doom. The destruction it brings after using a single Tail Glow is astonishing, and I'd love to see a suspect test on this Pokemon -- even if it stays around in the tier, it would be an useful method to get more opinions on the Pokemon as a whole.
I wanted to talk about Gliscor for a bit, because in the mid-ladder ranges, more than half of the teams I face carry around this poison-loving vampire. Fire Fang allows this Pokemon to be a reliable answer to Swords Dance Scizor. Ice Fang is useful for Garchomp and opposing Gliscor, forcing them out and/or forcing Garchomp to lock into Outrage/Sack with Stone Edge, if it is a Swords Dance set. This Pokemon is also useful when it comes to Stealth Rock and (sometimes) Defog, thanks to its good speed and recovery. U-turn is also notable, since it can chip down Pokemon not using Leftovers and give you the advantage in momentum. A great Pokemon so far, can't wait to see what else awaits it as the meta progresses.
[This is definitely an invitation to talk more about Gliscor. Oh, how I've missed this Pokemon!]
Similar to the post above, I don't believe Quick Claw is noncompetitive in this format, majorly because of 1. The lack of Pokemon that can abuse this item to win games they shouldn't, and 2. The fact that this item itself is majorly unreliable with its 20% chance of working. Sure, Manaphy can occasionally (and I mean occasionally) Ice Beam your Latios thanks to a random Quick Claw, but 80% (or 85%, if Paralysis is in effect) of the time, you're just dropping to Draco Meteor for gambling on the item. When thinking of other Pokemon to use a Quick Claw, I can think of...
I don't know, Tyranitar? I'd assume Earthquaking a Choice Scarf Infernape would be pretty funny.
Point is, little to no Pokemon would give up their utility item to gamble on Quick Claw, meaning the risk is almost never equal to the reward. I can see why people would want to ban it, but unless something that pushes it over the edge comes up, I don't think it's worth the discussion yet. It CAN be useful, but what's the point in Quick Clawing your Breloom to beat Manaphy less than 20% of the time (assuming you're Bullet Seed) when it can simply run the previously mentioned Focus Sash, or even a Choice Scarf? It feels outclassed when compared to other items you can run to pass by certain answers to certain Pokemon.
I climbed to the high ladder with an alt and got to keep a decent gxe, had some fun and want to share my thoughts on some mons, as im finally more decided on what should leave to improve the meta
(Banstallty is the name, not a serious name, i used stall for most of the run and i know how everyone in the ladder hate me for doing so, fuck mixed crawdaunt)
Scary mon, i think is broken, if it get a chance to set up without taking much damage then your next mon is going to die as there isnt much than can revenge kill it, you can even give up some Speed EVs to survive two Psychic from sash Zam or other stuff you can fear (and you can even add some berries to reduce the number of possible revenge killers), as i dont think every Manaphy needs to be max speed, you are not going to outspeed most of the stuff you find in offensive teams and is already faster than everything on stall, for example 96 Speed Timid Manaphy outspeed Jolly Mamoswine and Adamant Lucario.
Against stall is really restrictive in the building as you need CM Blissey to be sure you dont lose, at least until it gets a lucky crit, as Blissey cant kill it that fast and each turn you are more likely to recieve one, but crits shouldnt be a reason to ban something so whatever. Other options include Clefable who lose to skill swap and Shedinja who may die from a Tyranitar double switch, rare mon but not as rare as Shedinja itself and give 5 turns of no shedinja.
With no real counters while being the best revenge killer in the tier this thing is one of the best mons. You cant give it a free turn to NP, risking a mon to take a lot of damage if it chose to not to, at least is not hard to kill after the sash is broken (with priority or a scarfer as it is faster than everything but Weavile), but if you cant it kills everything as even SpD Scizor take like 70% from +2 Focus Blast. The 4 Attacks LO set is also good, as everyone expect you to have a shash even when you dont, and then the damage surprise them, SpD Clefable takes 38-45% from Psychic and 57-68% from Psyshock, being able to attack from both sides prevent Clefable and other defensive mons to get reliable EV spreads to answer you and the second time Alakazam hits the field it knows your weaker side if it couldnt 2HKO you before.
Main reason every Blissey must carry Shadow Ball and you better dont trigger Cursed Body. And if you arent playing stall then you most likely dont have a good switch for this thing. Is scary enough to force a lot of stuff to give it a free turn, then it can choose between sub, np, toxic, wow, or just attacking because almost nothing can take Shadow Ball/Hex while being able to survive Sludge Bomb or Focus Blast.
Latios has this really awkward stronghold on the metagame where, despite being a very offensive Pokemon, it makes the tier far more reactionary and, as an extension of that, defensive. Stall teams contain Latios easily with a couple of pink blobs and I know of a large handful of people that cruised through the suspect ladder because of this.
The thing is that the reason why these teams have grown so common and virtually every other team is Scizor balance/BO is because of Latios. Perhaps you have not struggled with it in practice due to conforming to these norms, but the lengths we had to go to check it alone are a testament to how restrictive Latios is. That’s why I voted ban and that’s why I worry about where we are headed.
I don’t think Manaphy needs to go in part because it has far more consistent counterplay than Latios, which we just allowed, on both the offensive and defensive end. However, another thing is that we are just looking to suspect for the sake of suspecting or banning for the sake of banning as per the logic in these posts. Perhaps letting things settle after a hectic start and prompt suspect can lead us to a healthier conclusion, especially if the current conclusion involves wasting a page of posts on Haunter of all things.
Well no, you need moderator permission before posting a new thread in general. The point is that Haunter does not warrant that much discussion in any OU setting and its niche is ridiculously limited when compared to dozens of other Pokemon.
Manaphy is a problem. A big one. And it's not just because it's too strong, because below is a set I conjured up that proves why this thing is such a problem:
Rain of Terror (Manaphy) @ Leftovers
Ability: Hydration
EVs: 212 HP / 188 SpA / 108 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Surf
- Rain Dance
- Ice Beam / Energy Ball / Rest / U-Turn
Yep, you're manually setting up Rain with this set. And here's why:
In one move slot, Rain Dance makes the prospect of checking Manaphy through passive means completely irrelevant. Now your unboosted Unaware Clefable is 2HKOed by Surf, no longer are you able to status it with the likes of Thunder Wave Blissey to be done with it, and whittling it down may not be an option since Rest can reset themselves at once. You can also forget about trying to wall boosted Surfs now, because they're somehow even stronger and harder to deal with than they were before. The conservative methods that have been labbed out are thrown straight out the window at this point. From now on, you need manual setup, raw KO power, or hard dedicated answers to deal with Manaphy, because the generalist approach is no longer applicable here. Can't be that hard, right...?
The point where it really gets out of hand is the last slot, as each choice offers a completely different set of checks required to deal with it. Ice Beam prevents Breloom or Dragons from working, and Energy Ball snipes the Water-immune tanks and Rotom-W out of the sky while easing matchups against opposing Water types. Rest, as mentioned before, makes the task of wearing Manaphy down over the course of the game to eventually take it out an unfairly difficult proposition, and can turn entire matchups upside-down. U-Turn lets you keep momentum while forcing your few unwinnable matchups into unfavorable situations, because oh yeah, Manaphy gets that too.
The EVs are almost infuriatingly flexible, as Manaphy doesn't NEED max Speed or even Special Attack to get to where it needs to go with the proper support. Manaphy is so naturally bulky that the feats it can do with Hp investment is almost comical, if not absurd. 212 Hp alone gives you the chance to witness your opponent watch in despair as their Choice Specs Latios is unable to ever OHKO Manaphy at full HP, or scream in rage at Choice Banded Brave Bird failing to do so at full health as well. You don't even need to go this high on bulk if you don't want to, or you can go to 240 Hp because why not, am I right? 108 Speed is enough to get the jump on Jolly Breloom and anything below, and lets it outspeed almost everything unboosted while Sticky Webs are out. 152 Speed can be ran instead to be sure that Smeargle can't do any tricks against you or so 252 Speed Rotom-W can't attack before you can, but 84 Speed lets you creep past uninvested Latias. 188 Special Attack is just enough for Manaphy to ensure a 2HKO against an uninvested Clefable while Rain is up, even with Unaware negating Tail Glow. Really, any Special Attack investment under a Modest Nature would work just so long as you make sure it's at least 144. Hell, go to max Special Attack for even MORE overkill! Leftovers is all you need for your item, ensuring Manaphy remains healthy throughout the course of its reign. You shouldn't need Lum Berry anymore with Hydration, so go with whatever floats your boat. Want Salac Berry? Splash Plate? Damp Rock, even? Sure thing, whatever your team needs...
...my god this thing is way more versatile and unpredictable than it has any reason to be.
So, with the advent of setting up Sticky Web fairly easy with Shuckle or Smeargle, making it so no Pokemon that can outspeed and OHKO it at full health exists, enough bulk and longevity to make revenge killing surprisingly hard, and all of these options on this one set that changes the set of checks and methodology depending on the time of day, what Pokemon can stand up to Manaphy 1v1, regardless of the move selection?
There's... um... Calm Mind Blissey? Although it could just U-Turn out, I guess. Calm Mind Unaware Clefable could work, but that needs Wish and Protect with proper EV distribution. And... uhhhhhhhhhhh...
...oh, what's that? Those all lose to Scizor? You mean the super-splashable staple who can also pivot Manaphy in at almost any time to set this whole predicament up in the first place? Well damn, I guess I got nothing then.
And right there is the problem. You have to dedicate a majority of your team with specialized and fringe support to withstand teams using Manaphy. Manaphy's team does not. You need to run specific sets and spreads to make sure you don't just lose to Manaphy. Manaphy can get over them with one or two quick edits. You have to go through all of this effort just to make a functional team that survives with Manaphy in the picture. Manaphy does not. You have to go through way, WAY more effort to build your team while Manaphy is around if you aren't using it.
Latios just barely got off the hook because the meta has started to finally adapt to it's presence using reliable tools like Scizor and Tyranitar, but there is no adapting to something like Manaphy this way. If you want to make sure you don't lose to any kind of Manaphy, you either need inhumanly perfect performance, or will have to disassemble your whole team and rebuild it all from the ground up.
I don't care if you personally haven't seen or had any issues with Manaphy, or think there are worse problems in the tier right now. Here's what I care about: A Pokemon like Manaphy that enforces this much centralization and strain on teambuilding, on top of nuking almost everything and requiring different checks and strategies almost every time, is outright unacceptable. Ban this thing, now.
Hi all! This is a public service announcement. Following SwSh OU's decision to ban Bright Powder, Lax Incense, Sand Veil, and Snow Cloak, we have unanimously decided to do the exact same thing! This shouldn't really change things much, but losing to people that deliberately run worse sets just for a chance to win about 10% of their games is not conducive to competitive play and removing it is a blatantly good decision.
Also, the Manaphy suspect test will not be starting until the festive season is over, as we don't want people celebrating them to feel pressured into laddering. This additionally gives the meta a bit of growing room so if you want to try and innovate or break stuff, this is your chance! Happy holidays :)
Update: it's been brought to our attention that the Snow Cloak ban puts Articuno in Ubers. Just wanted to share because we think that's really funny. We might take another look at this situation if Home doesn't bring back Pressure Articuno.
It still going to switch into you easily though, and unless you click knock (lol) u can't do anything to it.
Personally i think running mixed 4a with sludge bomb is a much better idea: instead of somewhat crippling tangrowth (which actually isn't that much annoyed by being locked into a move), u can dispatch it immediately. Banded crunch also 2hkoes it after rocks
It still going to switch into you easily though, and unless you click knock (lol) u can't do anything to it.
Personally i think running mixed 4a with sludge bomb is a much better idea: instead of somewhat crippling tangrowth (which actually isn't that much annoyed by being locked into a move), u can dispatch it immediately. Banded crunch also 2hkoes it after rocks
it usually runs no items to tank the hit:
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 237-281 (58.6 - 69.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Anyone else a fan of those funny videos of Rubber chickens just screeching? I sure am! Speaking of which, I'd love to shed light on a certain Pokémon that I think is very unfairly overlooked, and has grown on me so much. So let's dive in and talk about the forever-burning rubber chicken!
A quick introduction (Optional read):
Moltres, introduced in the original game, is quite well known. However, it never appealed to me as I by far preferred the other legendary birds design wise. This pokémon has had quite the competitive profile, although a usually lower tier Pokémon, combatting its Stealth rock weakness ever since Generation 4. Despite the controversial release of Heavy-Duty Boots in Generation 8, Moltres still couldn't hack it into OU as it struggled checking the Knock off spam that was around every corner, but that ain't stopping me. I've used it on a Stall team with a Subpressure set and I immediately fell in love; this made it quickly become one of my favorite Pokémon and it's why I am writing a post about it right now, as it became my favorite Legendary bird. Sooooo, what makes it underrated? It's only fair if I provide!
What's good about Moltres?:
Moltres is a fire type, this is a rare typing that is known for its offensive capabilities but also known as a very mediocre typing defensively in the BDSP OU metagame, this is why Arcanine and Entei aren't solid parts of the OU metagame: More positive attributes need to be present in a Fire type to be good like Heatran's Steel typing and Infernape's speed tier, terrifying fighting stab Close combats, and great movepool.
Moltres' secondary type is flying. And much like Heatran, it sports the ability Flame body and good natural bulk of 90/90/85 (HP, defense and special defense respectively). This already makes Moltres decent defensively provided good hazard support is in place; checking some physical attackers that are unfortunate to make contact like the U-turn machine Scizor, Mach punch (and possibly Force palm) Breloom. Although I'll admit that its defensive profile isn't fantastic, it's still decent because of our next segment: its Offensive profile.
Moltres' movepool is quite shallow, losing Scorching sands in the shift between Sword and Shield and BDSP. But that does not matter, as its stabs are MORE than enough to dent several holes in the opponent's defenses; let's get into the set.
Other options (Not recommended):
- A timid nature lets you outspeed Adamant Lucario and most Specially defensive Gliscor as well as every variant of Non-Scarf Rotom-Wash, but this shows a very big decrease in power.
- You can ditch Hurricane to boast Overheat and Roar, but losing flying stab can suck for midgrounding.
- You can run Leftovers but this cuts into your power, as the boost provided by Charcoal is very appredicated.
I will be calculating damage for Overheat Hurricane Flamethrower Moltres, to show every case possible, with and without leftovers.
You may notice an immediate lack of coverage, this is because out of all of the Pokémon that resist its coverage, only 3 of them are in the Overused metagame: Tyranitar, Aerodactyl and the dangerous Rotom-Wash with Blissey always being a burden for Special attackers. Aerodactyl is always a Suicide lead, this means that you do not have to worry about it as it'll usually go down early, so we can cross it off the list. Tyranitar is a big issue as it's a fierce offensive behemoth and simultaneously very potent defensively. Rotom-Wash is the biggest issue, arguably the definitive best Water type in the metagame and definitely one of the Top 5 in the BDSP OU metagame, packing a Water/Electric typing and a dangerous Will-O-Wisp completely deterring every Ground type in the game and even the gimmicky Shedinja from trying to block its Volt switch. Blissey, a fierce stall staple exploring its offensive sets can force out Moltres nearly infinitely throughout a game. How do we work around these three?
(PS. For all of this to work and apply properly, Moltres will need heavy dedication to Hazard control in the form of: Xatu, Starmie, Defog gliscor, Defog no-attack Skarmory, etc... This will assure the best results, building around its weakness to the almighty pebbles is necessary but I think it is definitely worth it.)
Usually restricted to running Weakness berries in its defensive sets like Colbur or Passho to deal with Gengar, Alakazam or Starmie and Latios respectively or running a Choice item or a Lum berry on the rare Dragon dance sets; you'll notice a big lack of recovery. Let's exploit this.
Roar is a phasing move, we can phase out Tyranitar upon forcing out another Pokémon to rack up hazards damage on it. 12.5% from Stealth rock and potential additional damage from Spikes is invaluable, as it puts it on a ticking timer trying to check the dangerous Moltres that can otherwise threaten to outlast it. Watch out for Defensive sets as they carry Stealth rock, mandating proper reactions to getting rid of them when necessary to let Moltres back in.
252+ SpA Moltres Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 54-65 (13.3 - 16%) -- possibly the worst move ever
252+ SpA Moltres Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 46-54 (11.3 - 13.3%) -- possibly the worst move ever
While these damage numbers are quite laughable, when you account for hazards, this'll let Moltres bully Tyranitar over the course of a game, forcing it into uncomfortable ranges of health where it can be finished off. Here are the calculations vs the Offensive variants:
252+ SpA Moltres Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 76-90 (22.2 - 26.3%) -- 12% chance to 4HKO
252+ SpA Moltres Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 63-75 (18.4 - 21.9%) -- possible 5HKO
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 90-107 (26.3 - 31.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
A lot better! As you can see, this will be very easy to overwhelm over the course of a game, and it is definitely not a permanent roadblock to you.
The issue isn't that Rotom-Wash hardwalls you, quite the opposite:
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Overheat vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 128-151 (42.1 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Moltres Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 90-107 (29.6 - 35.1%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 89-105 (29.2 - 34.5%) -- 99.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Overheat vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 128-151 (53.1 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Moltres Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 90-107 (37.3 - 44.3%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Flamethrower vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-Wash: 89-105 (36.9 - 43.5%) -- 99.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
The real issue comes from Rotom-Wash's reputation versus Stall teams (which Moltres prefers), sporting a very big advantage especially with its Choice scarf set: Giving it some free turns can be devastating if you do not play right; you have to keep your guard up and predict well to beat it.
However! This is very do-able with Blissey & co. being able to pivot into it. Play carefully, and you'll be fine.
Blissey is fat, that's about it. Calm mind and Seismictoss sets force you out, the latter carrying Stealth rock commonly: you will have to maintain good pressure with Roar and good hazard control to properly deal with it. You'll notice your stabs still deal a lot of damage despite its great bulk, this lets you get the chance to break past it as long as you play it right, play it slow and play it well (Which you can do because Blissey is usually only seen on opposing Stall).
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Overheat vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 210-247 (29.4 - 34.5%) -- 7.1% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Moltres Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 148-175 (20.7 - 24.5%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
252+ SpA Charcoal Moltres Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 145-172 (20.3 - 24%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
Extra notes!:
-Gliscor does not wall you, it is rather a very poor check as Hurricane and Overheat deal too much damage to it and it cannot quite damage you back.
-Heatran usually runs Flame body itself, which is why I did not include it in this post. Like Gliscor, it struggles to take and deal damage to Moltres. If you happened to meet the rare Flash fire Heatran, you can use Roar strats to beat it over the course of a game if played well.
-It's mandatory to name your Moltres rubber chicken, because I said so.
Drawbacks and limitations: I almost completely forgot to include this! I want to be honest about these posts so I do not misguide people.
-Moltres is 4x weak to Stealth rock and commonly overly relies on good hazard control.
-Hurricane is inconsistent, which can really suck.
-Overheat generates free turns for the opponent.
-Without investment, it can struggle defensively sometimes; however with investment it's very weak. It still appreciates U-turns or Teleports from fellow teammates like Gliscor and Xatu.
Conclusion: You should give Moltres a try! I think it's underrated as a Stall win condition and looked over due to losing Boots, but the world doesn't stop for anyone, this includes Moltres and Shedinja with the latter already making a name for itself with its amazing defensive utility. Try Moltres out! Preferrably on stall where you can comfortably fulfill its needs. It has been a monster for me so far!
Hey everyone long time no post (back from dealing with COVID after recovering from getting a melanoma tumor removed, feeling way better now), I wanted to share some interesting things that I've been toying around with in BDSP OU to some solid success.
Nasty Plot Lucario + Webs Combo
Lucario's bane has always been its relatively mediocre base 90 speed, but what if I told you that most of the Pokemon it struggled with are cleanly dealt with thanks to webs support? This is where the Lucario + Shuckle combination comes in. Shuckle makes it relatively easy to set up Sticky Webs which is why it's my preferred setter (along with being able to compress Rocks, Knock Off, or Infestation into a single set), but if you need a faster Webs setter, Intimidate Masquerain is always an option.
With Webs support, Lucario is able to outspeed and handle some seriously problematic Pokemon that it normally couldn't deal with. For example, Garchomp can no longer outspeed and common Swords Dance variants are cleanly OHKO'd by Flash Cannon or Aura Sphere. In addition to this, if Garchomp is below 50% health, webs allow Lucario to act as a revenge killer, as even without a boost, Garchomp is cleanly 2HKO'd by Flash Cannon or Aura Sphere as well.
252+ SpA Life Orb Lucario Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 196-231 (54.9 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Lucario Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 390-460 (109.2 - 128.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Garchomp isn't the only Pokemon who has to worry about Lucario now being able to outspeed; Alakazam has a chance to be OHKO'd by an unboosted Dark Pulse (always OHKO'd by +2 Dark Pulse), most Gliscor variants bar extremely specially bulky ones are cleanly OHKO'd by +2 Flash Cannon, Gengar is always OHKO'd by Dark Pulse, and much more. Here are some relevant damage calculations for Pokemon that normally outspeed Lucario that now get either severely chunked, nearly taken out, or feasted upon entirely.
252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gengar: 265-312 (101.5 - 119.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Alakazam: 218-257 (86.8 - 102.3%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Manaphy: 309-367 (90.6 - 107.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Flash Cannon vs. 244 HP / 76 SpD Gliscor: 359-422 (101.9 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Infernape: 413-487 (140.9 - 166.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Be wary of Mach Punch variants)
252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Jirachi: 208-247 (60.9 - 72.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Lucario Aura Sphere vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Weavile: 707-842 (251.6 - 299.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Obviously, Lucario has some pretty annoying issues (such as being frail, having common weaknesses to Fighting, Ground, and Fire-type attacks, and being worn down by LO recoil), but Sticky Webs takes care of one of Lucario's most serious issues.
Abomasnow
Abomasnow I've found to be a nice anti-meta pick with Choice Scarf thanks to its potent offensive typing and neat coverage, in addition to being an excellent Heatran lure. Abomasnow's acceptable natural Special Bulk means it can take some unexpected hits from opposing Scarf mons such as Scarf Latios as well, let's dive in and look at what makes Abomasnow work, in addition to providing team support with Aurora Veil. Snow Warning helps to dismantle and wear down many common archetypes in the OU metagame as well. I'd like to stress heavily here that Abomasnow isn't meant to be an almighty powerhouse (although it hits harder than you think), it's meant to severely chunk and threaten a huge portion of the OU meta while resetting weather and dismantling common defensive cores. In addition to this, several Pokemon that were previously able to handle Abomasnow lost crucial coverage that allowed them to do so, meaning they would have to rely on more niche, objectively worse options to deal with our snowy friend. On top of this, Abomasnow lost its extremely overwhelming competition in Alolan-Ninetales and Vanilluxe.
With just a little bit of chip, common Special Defense variants of Heatran are whomped by Earthquake (with a small chance to OHKO), while none defensive variants are always cleanly OHKO'd. In addition to this, Earthquake can severely chunk or even OHKO some other common Pokemon in the tier thanks to the lowered defensive level of BDSP OU.
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 328-388 (84.9 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 328-388 (101.5 - 120.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 76 Def Empoleon: 176-208 (47.3 - 55.9%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Magnezone: 308-364 (109.6 - 129.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 260-308 (99.6 - 118%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Infernape: 228-270 (77.8 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 172-204 (42.5 - 50.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Abomasnow Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Lucario: 230-272 (81.8 - 96.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
Wood Hammer is a fantastic STAB move that, while having an annoying recoil, means that certain potentially problematic Pokemon have serious problems switching into it or taking hits from it, let's take a look at some relevant calculations.
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 372-440 (108.7 - 128.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tyranitar: 284-336 (70.2 - 83.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 288-338 (84.4 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (OHKO with Chip)
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Hippowdon: 270-318 (64.2 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Feraligatr: 308-366 (98.7 - 117.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 372-438 (103 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 308-366 (90.3 - 107.3%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Starmie: 356-420 (136.3 - 160.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Finally, STAB Blizzard even with low Special Attack investment can hit particular Pokemon quite hard and as such nails a good portion of the Metagame for super effective damage. Here are more calcs (they'll stop for Abomasnow after this I promise, I just want to hammer the point in).
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 508-604 (120.9 - 143.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Aerodactyl: 282-332 (93.3 - 109.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 236 HP / 176+ SpD Breloom: 236-282 (73.7 - 88.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage and Poison Heal
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 222-264 (68.7 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage (Important as Dragonite no longer has access to Dual Wingbeat)
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 244 HP / 244 SpD Gliscor: 424-504 (120.4 - 143.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latios: 204-242 (67.7 - 80.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latias: 176-210 (58.4 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Staraptor: 336-396 (108 - 127.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
4 SpA Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Togekiss: 198-234 (52.9 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage
Abomasnow has some additional options as well. I like to slot in Aurora Veil in the last slot allowing my team to have a much easier time getting onto the field and enabling some seriously powerful sweepers, but you could also run options such as Shadow Ball, Ice Shard, Rock Slide, Brick Break, or Giga Drain if you don't want to run Aurora Veil and having additional coverage or utility attacks seem more appealing to you. I implore you to try Abomasnow on your team, you will be extremely surprised at just what kinds of things Abomasnow can accomplish.
Well, to preface this: welcome to our newest official OU members™, and (the former by usage, the latter by quickban; ironically both have 35%ish usage in UU, rip); not sure why Donphan managed to stay in OU with such a large margin (8.92962%, more than double the required %) since the DON doesn't really offer anything special and you should usually use Gliscor unless you have such a dragon weakness you need that shard for some unholy reason, while Mence is still gonna play second banana behind Tios, Chomp and DNite in all their purposes, so nothing new on this front. Well then, let's address the huge metal-plated elephant in the room.
Thank you for leaving Latios unbanned, by the way; while arguably Scizor being that present in this meta is not just only Latios' fault (more on that real soon), it's still one of the big reasons it's here to carry this whole metagame on its shoulders (worth of note SDef Scizor has double the usage of EVERY other set), and its getting heavy for him to do it. Like I said, Latios is just one of the bigger problems of the picture, but things like Gengar and Alakazam don't do it any favours, and like I said in a earlier post and multiple times in either chat or cord with a lot of people that can testify, we KNEW this would get to problematic levels real soon, since the tier is very ill-equipped to deal with all these specially busted threats at once. Right now the metagame is overrelying on Scizor to help check them all, and the sheer amount of usage the metal bug is receiving won't get down any time soon until *some* threat is addressed; feel free to choose which one, although the usage stats speak from themselves.
Also I wanna note how its either first or second in EVERY Pokémon out of the top 10 (down until Magnezone, actually, and for obvious reasons) in the list of their most used teammates.
Latios fell a bit from last month, although to be extremely fair those usage stats also had the short but intense tenure of Latios having to deal with Blaziken and its very solid mainstay in rain teams, sooooo... Other than that, nothing new here; Gliscor is a very solid glue to most teams and its ability to be extremely flexible in their job speaks from itself; best Defogger in the tier, very solid pivot, has a very wide array of support options and the Speed to use them all, plus SD sets to be able to get fitted in more offensive teams; nothing to say, from stall to offense having a ground immunity of Gliscor's caliber is nothing short of vital; the other two are the usual slew of Broken Ass Dragons, with Latios carpet bombing an enemy team when their Steel resist is weakened, and Garchomp taking no survivors since nothing tanks every set it can have, and its a perfectly competent Rocker too (noting how Fire Blast has 28% usage on its movepool OVERALL is a great statement on how we're really in desperate need of Scizor-killing tools, although it's also arguably more useful to getting away from Skarmory); really, we talked about Latios enough to know where it should be in this meta, and nothing will change that.
Something tells me we have problems to solve in this mess of a offensive tier we're in... eh, must have been the wind. Jokes aside, remember how I talked about the Four Big Ones, ravagers of the meta? (Latios, Manaphy, Gengar and Alakazam); while Latios is up there, and the other two are... surprisingly a bit far ahead, Gengar landed FIFTH. This is truly a testament on how the metagame is struggling to find a ghost resist decent enough to handle a offensive behemoth like this spooky ghost, arguably also thanks to its newfound access to Nasty Plot in its already extensive array of tricks in his bag; stallbreaker, revengekiller, cleaner; you name it, Gengar can do it, and only a very few Pokèmon can stop it. We're such in deep trouble against special breakers that Blissey has to be ran CALM to actually being able to live enough to represent a threat to them, and the playerbase chose Gengar to showcase it. With good reasons, I might add.
Now, aside from pointing out how Heatran resurfaced (finally), even in a meta full of Gliscors, the rest of the top15 ain't exactly special (although we can easily make an argument on the slow decline of Clefable because it can't quite deal with all the threats the meta is facing right know, especially with limited recovery making it sacrifice two slots for it, restricting a lot its already barren set variety, so...); let's talk about something VERY discussed until recently, then:
You might wonder why it's this down, and honestly there's just a simple reason; you don't actually need to run it to threaten the whole existence of an archetype, and the meta (also thanks to Latios' missed departure) adapted to it, and so it became clear how this happy bundle of blue joy isn't infesting everything and everyone with its light. But the point I wanna make is another: We know the playerbase in general was pretty vocal in banning Manaphy, yet... they're not even using it. Unfiltered usages rank Manaphy two spots lower, at 9%, while rising through the ladder you actually have MORE Manaphys showing up (up to 12%), meaning we're still seeing it, but not much on the low ladder. It's weird how this is basically contradictory, but also a interesting trend to note; regardless, we can argue that Manaphy is still winning a lot of games up there, and it's still a very threatening presence to face, especially on Screens HO, very famously used to farm said ladder, although Kickoff tour for now didn't offer THAT many Manaphy games either, so I still find the opinions to be rather mixed on this. I guess we'll see on our first official circuit tour?
Last Pokémon I wanna point out:
- I find it a bit weird in how Alakazam is still this """"low"""" (well, by comparison), but to be fair the playerbase didn't quite catch up on it straight away, although, like Gengar, we're finally seeing how this beast is performing on the metagame thanks to access to Nasty Plot. But of course, unlike Gengar this brainac actually has more issues in the forms of priority, and being almost entirely itemlocked on either Sash (the usual one) or Orb (for stallbreaking purposes, and worthy of note they almost have similar usage, with Sash having 56% against Orb's 40%) makes it more predictable, and slightly harder to fit on a team than its spooky counterpart. But make no mistake, like Gengar this Pokémon is straight up a menace and it doesn't matter if you know its set when you can get smacked by a late Zam sweep, and it's another reason on why we still need a lot of Scarfers, Weaviles and priorities in the tier.
- Also happy in seeing Tyranitar rise again to decent competitive levels, thanks to the current meta trend we're facing; our not so friendly kaiju is one of the best Rockers you can have in the tier out of its sheer capacity of beating every single other hazard remover at full, and running Resist berries makes it even better doubling as a lure for a lot of Pokémon that would otherwise cook it, like Crunching a Gengar to death after eating a good old Chople Berry, or just settling on the usual Band to demolish every check in its way. Nothing new, you all know what Tyranitar does (= everything), I'm just happy to see it again, and it's certainly quite welcome in a tier filled to the brim with threats like Latios, Gengar and Alakazam.
- Last but definitely not least, it took only two week of intensive usage to get to see Feraligatr at its peak, in a tier where it can reign almost supreme after a DD, with nothing eating two of its hits, and having the Speed to not even needing to DD sometimes. Paired with its actually decent bulk, this Pokèmon both packs enough of a punch to just being able to 2HKO the Unaware fatties, but also a good boosting move and Speed to end the life of a lot of current offense teams, especially under Screens or just dealing with the opponent's scarfer of choice, since it will take way more than a priority to beat the crocodile down. I swear, this Pokémon is a threat and you should always be prepared to face it, because I honestly think it's the most consistent Water-type to get easy kills, and it would be even higher if it didn't have good competition in the likes of Azumarill and Starmie (ofc, both for different secondary purposes); I'm totally expecting to see all three gain spots in the next month, if the meta stays like this.
Overall you might already know what my opinion on the meta is currently, and I'm honestly just expecting our first Circuit tournament to see if I'm right, but the metagame, while fun to play and fairly offense paced with also a good presence of stall, it's still a complete mess, and just that Scizor up there is a huge red (hah) flag, not to mention how most non-stall games always end in trading blows until the Steel die, or trading pieces and winning a sack war over a good turn (if anyone says "but this is how you play offense" I'll turn off their computer remotely bc this isnt the point im trying to make) and we have to do something to ease the pressure off it, be banning Latios (which is still my favourite option) or Gengar (and subsequently Manaphy, since right now the only thing holding Manaphy down from its true potential is the presence of bigger fish to fry). Still very disappointed in the suspect results, although the tier still feels fun to play for me since i'm a HO addict, but still we can't keep this up forever trying to scrape around with lure sets and using subpar sets to have a chance into using anything that isn't a hyper offense (I hope not, at least)
btw its midnight and I would study the moveset data and the overall usages more but you have to just see for yourselves
For real though, I'm pretty happy with the usage stats so far, I think BDSP's OU has a ton of potential and feels like a more aggressive version of the original DP metagame, but with the same flexibility. One thing, in particular, I want to talk about though, and echo Lalaya on.
Feraligatr should not be this low, Dragon Dance Sheer Force LO with Waterfall, Crunch, and Ice Punch is almost impossible to stop once set up. I feel as though people are sleeping on the strength of water types and their strong coverage as a whole this gen, and Manaphy's low usage despite being absolutely bonkers is proof of that.
hey, just thought i'd share a latios set that i think has potential in the meta: calm mind+stored power.
Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Stored Power
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
dragon pulse is a good stab move to click prior to using calm mind, if you need to - though i am considering ice beam/surf over this. calm mind+stored power allows it to break through blissey as well as non-cm unaware clef, which is pretty neat, and makes it very threatening as a cleaner and breaker. thunderbolt is used to chunk scizor at +1 if desperate for the chip, and to beat down empoleon that are keen on phasing you out.
i have ideas of using soul dew with stabs+roost alongside magnezone support, on more of a bulky offence team. anyway, here are a couple of sick replays with life orb 3a:
echoing above, cm stored power could also get some usage in latias too tbh, since the more offensive nature of latios will probably get results with psychic already (esp since there arent many cmwars to win except clef)
definitely a set id recommend using, although i guess the type of team that can fit well that set isnt quite there yet
hey, just thought i'd share a latios set that i think has potential in the meta: calm mind+stored power.
Latios (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dragon Pulse
- Stored Power
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind
dragon pulse is a good stab move to click prior to using calm mind, if you need to - though i am considering ice beam/surf over this. calm mind+stored power allows it to break through blissey as well as non-cm unaware clef, which is pretty neat, and makes it very threatening as a cleaner and breaker. thunderbolt is used to chunk scizor at +1 if desperate for the chip, and to beat down empoleon that are keen on phasing you out.
i have ideas of using soul dew with stabs+roost alongside magnezone support, on more of a bulky offence team. anyway, here are a couple of sick replays with life orb 3a:
The only problem is that you need to get 2 CMs before you outdamage psychic, and even then it’s only 10 points stronger at +2. This set would be good against bulkier teams but struggle much more against offense, where getting multiple CMs up would be more difficult
I've that the playerbase at large has 4 primary targets for suspect tests and potential bans and .
But I see no one talking about the most banworthy Pokémon in the tier who is uncontested for #1 in viability holds a lowly #2 usage only due to and panic an overcentralizing, unhealthy, uncheckable, broken Pokémon who despite holding all these traits is somehow being overlooked; the one the only GLISCOR
Now I already know what you're going to say "Gliscor isn't hard to deal with just Ice beam it or hit it with a STAB water move and it dies" so lets get this out of the way early.
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Waterfall vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 294-348 (83.5 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Blissey Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 260-308 (73.8 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Hea +1 0 SpA Blissey Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 268-316 (76.1 - 89.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ Atk Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 280-332 (79.5 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal <-if you knock the Choice Band which you can do since you're faster 88 SpA Life Orb Crawdaunt Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 291-348 (82.6 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO <-although Ice Beam D-nite is a niche stall set so its usually.. 0 SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 224-268 (63.6 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Empoleon Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 164-194 (46.5 - 55.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Empoleon Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 248-292 (70.4 - 82.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Empoleon Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 306-362 (86.9 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO 252+ SpA Empoleon Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 336-396 (95.4 - 112.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO 252+ Atk Donphan Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Gliscor: 152-180 (43.1 - 51.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 252+ Atk Expert Belt Donphan Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Gliscor: 182-216 (51.7 - 61.3%) -- 48% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Life Orb Clefable Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 281-333 (79.8 - 94.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Waterfall vs. 244 HP / 72 Def Gliscor: 296-351 (84 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Waterfall vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 237-281 (67.3 - 79.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 296-354 (84 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Waterfall vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 260-307 (73.8 - 87.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Feraligatr Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 322-385 (91.4 - 109.3%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Latias Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 254-300 (72.1 - 85.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ Atk Choice Band Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 252 Def Gliscor: 292-348 (82.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Life Orb Mamoswine Freeze-Dry vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 255-302 (72.4 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 212-252 (60.2 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Manaphy Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 284-336 (80.6 - 95.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 234-276 (66.4 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Manaphy Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO 252+ SpA Life Orb Manaphy Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 304-359 (86.3 - 101.9%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO 0 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 216-254 (61.3 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 270-318 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 294-348 (83.5 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 156+ SpD Gliscor: 296-350 (84 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Surf vs. 244 HP / 180+ SpD Gliscor: 296-351 (84 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 276-328 (78.4 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 338-400 (96 - 113.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO 252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Ice Fang vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 296-352 (84 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO 252 Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Avalanche vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 248-296 (70.4 - 84%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 232-276 (65.9 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 Atk Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 328-388 (93.1 - 110.2%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO 0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 88 SpD Gliscor: 292-348 (82.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 224-268 (63.6 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Milotic Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 260-308 (73.8 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal <- shoutout to Had Sweep's fake 252 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 284-336 (80.6 - 95.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal <- and another one 252 SpA Sheer Force Nidoking Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 332-392 (94.3 - 111.3%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO <- scarf may be rare but it does exist
0 SpA Quagsire Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 156-188 (44.3 - 53.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Quagsire Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 232-276 (65.9 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Raikou Scald vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 204-240 (57.9 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 252 SpA Choice Specs Raikou Scald vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 306-360 (86.9 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Choice Specs Raikou Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 208-246 (59 - 69.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Slowbro Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 224-268 (63.6 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Slowbro Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 88 SpD Gliscor: 292-348 (82.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 244 HP / 164 SpD Gliscor: 164-194 (46.5 - 55.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 138-164 (39.2 - 46.5%) -- 82.6% chance to 3HKO after Poison Heal +2 0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 272-324 (77.2 - 92%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal +1 0 SpA Suicune Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 308-364 (87.5 - 103.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO 252+ SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 338-398 (96 - 113%) -- 75% chance to OHKO 0 SpA Poliwrath Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 114-134 (32.3 - 38%) -- 76.5% chance to 4HKO after Poison Heal <- niche on hard stall for 0 SpA Poliwrath Scald vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 164-194 (46.5 - 55.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 252+ SpA Choice Specs Milotic Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO <- damn you Had Sweep for making me check this 252+ SpA Choice Specs Milotic Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 350-414 (99.4 - 117.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO <- this one isn't even relevant but I'm including it to spite Had Sweeps fake by pointing out its technically a roll
Now while taking some of those hits may not always be the best play and all of these calcs assume the in question is invested into the optimal defensive stats to take whatever hit the calc is for (except for some show-off calcs) this is somehow not an unreasonable standard given that regardless if a particular spread is optimal or not will still remain not only functional but dominate allowing the user to choose what attacks they can take without even calling into question the viability of the particular spread.
So why is not being OHKO'd such a big deal? I mean even if you technically live taking 80-90% is hardly small damage.... Except it is
Due to 's ability Poison Heal and its access to Roost it can heal up to 62.5% in a single turn and if it got that turn by switching in after the Toxic Orb has been activated that's actually 75% damage the can be recovered in a single turn. What this means is that anything less than 62.5% or 75% if can switch in (which given its 2 immunities to Ground and Electric the former being the type of the most common attack in the game Earthquake and the high amount of Thunderbolts flying around to hit the endless list of excellent waters in the tier or just as STAB or the fairly common and not to mention its 4x Poison resist making Sludge Bombs aimed at things like near 0 damage and a Fighting resist that lets it take disgustingly little from Close Combats and a Bug resist that lets it take around 6-7% from most U-turns with even common s peaking at 13% if is sp def AND its functional immunity to status AND its immunity to all hazards aside from Stealth Rocks which is neutralized by Poison Heal giving it functional immunity so long as it isn't KO'd on switch in) which happens quite often to say the least, it has functionally taken 0% damage. AND EVEN IF the user lets you do upwards of 75% to their you have still only functionally done 1-24% to the which is a ludicrously poor achievement for what are the best anti- options in the game.
Ok so we've established as immortal and capable of rising back from anything that isn't outright death. So What? and have been rising from near certain death only to come back for 22 years now and although annoying it's nothing we can't handle. Well to begin with is harder to KO than either or (Let THAT sink in) due to both having an easily targetable mediocre defense. They (and most stall options) are both fairly passive with only being able to exert pressure through laying hazards or hunting a quad flying weakness (RIP ) and being limited to 100 Seismic Toss damage, status, and hunting specific weaknesses to check specific mons like Shadow Ball for . has no such passivity. In fact even its defensive threats are some of the greatest offensively pressuring options in the game.
KNOCK OFF
The big one. Knock Off. It may not always do much damage (although it quiet often does) but that's not what makes it the best offensive tool in the game. No, that would be the effect of removing the targets item. Now most of us know why this is so good so I'll try and keep it brief. Items are one of the game's key defining aspects which open up so many unique and creative opportunities to the point the many of Pokemon's most excellent sets are defined by their item and shorthand for communicating about these sets is often done so by naming the item and then the name of the Pokemon (see: Scarf Ape , Specs Lati , Scarf Chomp ect.). Now what do you get when you remove these items?
A Limit.
A hard limit on what any individual Pokemon can achieve and given how hard dealing with is already not to mention what this enables from 's teammates simply clicking Knock Off is more threatening than any Choice Specs or ever could be. Speaking of 's teammates...
U-Turn
"OMG is so broken nothing can deal with it BAN BAN BAN"
This applies to all of the currently prime suspect candidates (and any future ones) but more so to due to the it's complete lack of defensive utility as opposed to the others who at least have a bit of their own. But let's ask this:
Is the problem surviving an onslaught from <insert suspect target> or is the problem that they can launch off that onslaught as many times as they want due to the support from their pivot?
Now normally the answer is quite simple: No, pivots can be pressured by hazards punishing constant switching and severely damaged on the switch in heavily limiting the amount of times they can pivot for their teammates often down to a mere 2-3 times. But again let's ask this:
What if there was a pivot that wasn't pressured by hazards? That had such amazing bulk that it could come in on most brute force attacks? That had immunities to plenty of these attacks and the utility options Pokemon often resort too when brute force isn't enough? That had a speed stat so flexible that it could underspeed or outspeed the vast majority of other Pokemon depending on what the pivot wanted? That possessed enough offensive pressure and variety that you couldn't safely say it wasn't just going to beat you by itself or even if it was a pivot at all?
How would you beat it then?
Earthquake
Damage. Good clean reliable damage. Base 95 attack STAB 100% accurate damage.
Taunt
Earthquake may be good damage but its hardly threatening to OHKO anything outside of so its fairly likely that the other player will just send out something to take the Earthquake heal up and... Huh? What do you mean I can't heal?! may not be threatening many OHKO's but it has a long, long list of 2HKO and 3HKO victims who will confidently come in trying to halt only to realize they can not do so without healing, fail to OHKO , and then fall to a few safe consistent Earthquakes. But that's not all, not by a long shot, if it was Heal Block would be a regularly viable move but Taunt does so much more Dragon Dances, Swords Dances, Nasty Plots, Calm Minds, Whirlwinds, Roars, Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Heal Bells, Aromatherapys, Defogs, Encores, Leech Seeds, Shell Smashes, Sleep Talks, Sleep Powers, Spores, Will-o-wisps, Sticky Webs, Tricks, OTHER TAUNTS all removed as progress making options due to Taunt. On top of all that Taunt forces to other team of Pokemon to attempt brute forcing they're way through which as we've established isn't a particularly easy thing to do.
Defog
While may not have any fear of hazards itself its teammate will still feel the pressure they exert.
That is until comes in with its functional immunity to all hazards, great speed stat allowing it to move first against a large number of Pokemon, and positive matchup against most of the Pokemon who can always be faster than it is the uncontested best hazards remover in BDSP and due to the lack of any Magic Guard Pokemon ever receiving hazard removal outside of Defog possibly ever.
Roost
The move the takes from amazing to disgusting Roost is your standard recovery move 50% regain with 16 PP. But its not standard recovery, not quite. No, its far better than standard recovery. As established earlier Poison Heal+Roost allows to heal 62.5% in one turn, 75% if it switched in. For the record moves like Moonlight can heal 2/3 of your health if the Sunny Day effect is active and this move has 8 PP and the drawback of only healing 25% in Rain, Hail, and Sand whereas simply gets this healing all the time with no drawback and actually heals even if you don't use Roost which has the hilarious side effect of making Roost on a bulky pivot/wall completely optional as the passive healing from Poison Heal is often more than enough in shorter matches and can be even better against hard stall matchups who exert so little immediate offensive pressure that they often run out of PP on their attacks before the net damage they can do KOs .
Stealth Rock, Swords Dance, and the Coverage has Stealth Rocks. Not only does this allow a team to set rocks while having the debatably mandatory it also prevents the endless battle from occurring (more on that later). As for Swords Dance (as well as the Agility double dance option) while certainly not its best set the threat of standard and the assumed time players will believe they have often leads them to play in a way that provides free set ups for Swords Dance or double dance Agility . This offensive option not only makes defensive even better given that fear of the offensive option can intimidate players into going straight to their offensive response which can then be Knock Off'd or U-turn'd on for momentum, but also if defensive is discounted that only makes it easier for offensive to come in and sweep a team who assumed they where safe playing against with its STAB Earthquake, Base 140 Facade thanks to Toxic Orb and Poison Heal, Fire Fang for Ground immune steels and , Ice Fang for opposing and Dragons,Grounds, and Grasses, Knock Off for bulky Psychics and Ghost while also having Knock Off utility and bluffing defensive, Rock Slide and Stone Edge for classic EdgeQuake coverage, Poison Jab and Steel Wing for any Fairies if for some reason HOME introduced post Gen 4 dex, Brick Break for Darks and Screens, Fling to toxic poison the Unaware s and s, Acrobatics to hit Fightings as well as being base 110 if you've been Knock Off'd or Flung your Toxic Orb at a or while having no immunities and being STAB making it even more spammable than Earthquake, Quick Attack for priority picking off weakened faster Pokemon or outprioritizng something like a weakened or , or even good old U-turn to maximize the chip you get against as team not ready to be swept and further bluffing defensive if you have yet to Swords Dance.
Protect "Just spam Knock Off with your or so the opposing never gets its Toxic Orb and all this can be avoided!"
Yeah, no.
And with that we've finally, FINALLY, somewhere between 6-8 hours of writing later, established WHAT does and can get onto why it's overcentralizing, unhealthy ,uncheckable, and broken.
Note: I know we have proper definitions for these terms but I don't remember them nor am I going to go searching for them and risking having to rewrite this post for another 6-8 hours so while I may edit this to be more clear and precise based on those proper definitions later as of now we're running off "everyone knows the core concept" logic and not precise definitions.
Overcentralizing
It is no secret that all offensive Pokemon in the tier currently aim to break 2 targets: and . This by default makes them centralizing but what takes from a central staple to an overburdensome nuisance?
Versatile Viability and Limited Exploitable "Checks and Counters"
has a large variety of sets roles and variation within those sets and roles but this is fairly standard for any long term good Pokemon, when the meta adapts you adapt back. However what sets apart is 3 things, The ability to viably run any of its options with no regard to the changing metagame around it, The sheer variance in those viable options drastically altering any would be checks and or counters, and the big big one, Being able to function as any one of its possible sets on any team without even running that particular set. If you run defensive you still retain the relative power and versatility of offensive , If you run offensive you still retain the numerous immunities, absurd typing, passive healing, and great natural bulk of defensive , If you lack the coverage move you want for a matchup you can still Knock Off or Taunt the target which, yes, is slower but its not like is rushing to KO things with its great bulky and passive healing which debatably make it better not to run coverage because benefits from the long game which makes actually running the coverage better by making players not account for it which makes actually accounting for the coverage a factor that has to be taken into accounting with makes no coverage better which makes people get conditioned into not expecting coverage which makes coverage better and so on and so on and so on.
This self-perpetuating loop of viability means that any and all potential responses to can not simply beat a variant they MUST beat ALL variants because the self viability boosting nature of 's sets guarantee that all variants of will continue to see notable viable usage for as long as continues to be in the tier. This is the key aspect that makes 's versatility overcentralizing as the 2nd most used Pokemon (and calling this now future 1st) in the tier is is far to common to be ignored in builder and teams must have a response which can beat any the list of which is almost entirely Water types (most of which have to boost first which can not be done reliably thanks to Taunt and its high speed or at best go for the roll) pack high enough attacking stats and the Ice or Water move coverage, (even specs Hex specs Adaptability Tri Attack or banded Outrage aren't enough to OHKO they're respective defensive sets with neutral damage) be able to outspeed the respective defensive set if set up is required due to Taunt, not fear 's coverage options, and not be item reliant due to Knock Off.
While calcing I realized the coverage condition may not seem to make sense based on current but this is meant to account for the potential future of the metagame if stays and with the viability of almost all its coverage options fishing for "counters" on the switch has to be taken into account as an adaptation which is why something like doesn't make it.
0 Atk Gliscor Brick Break vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Weavile: 292-348 (103.9 - 123.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Based on these criteria the list of responses are:
252 SpA Latias Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO 252 SpA Latios Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 340-404 (96.5 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO 252 Atk Mamoswine Icicle Crash vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 340-408 (96.5 - 115.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO +3 252 SpA Manaphy Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 528-624 (150 - 177.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO only if Modest 252+ SpA Starmie Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO 252 Atk Cloyster Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 420-500 (119.3 - 142%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252+ SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO <- I hate this but Had Sweep's fake actually makes this list. 252+ SpA Slowbro Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO 252+ SpA Slowking Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
Bulk up +2 252 Atk Floatzel Ice Fang vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO Exempt from coverage rule due to exclusively being used as a lead and being faster 252 SpA Froslass Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 372-436 (105.6 - 123.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO Item Permitted thanks to Sticky Hold 252 SpA Life Orb Gastrodon Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 354-416 (100.5 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO 252+ SpA Kingdra Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 300-356 (85.2 - 101.1%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO 252+ SpA Octillery Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 320-380 (90.9 - 107.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
Big technically but 252+ SpA Sheer Force Tauros Blizzard vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 296-352 (84 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Vaporeon Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Bigger technically 252 SpA Wailord Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 330-390 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
I actually realized while running these calcs that learns Thunder Fang so some of these may not even count but I'm not re-calcing so bleh.
As you can see not only is this list much smaller than the first but around half of the Pokemon on there either niche or outright unviable outside of this highly specific role but of the 10 that aren't (, , , , , , , , , and ) 7 are water types, 2 are running coverage they have no other use for (latis draco do the job against everything else) 2 are competing directly with each other for the slot ( and ), 2 require spreads they would never seriously otherwise run (ignore Had Sweep), and 1 even has to rely on an inaccurate move ().
Not only is mandating that players choose 1 from this list of 10 viable options (5 is you stick to purely OU) if they want to reliably make any progress against when teambuilding unhealthy and far too restrictive...
Its Overcentralizing.
Unhealthy
This problem is two-fold however I managed to explain the restrictive teambuilding aspect of this above in the overcentralizing section so I'll be focusing on the far simpler aspect that is admittedly more a symptom of and unhealthy Pokemon rather than the cause.
Standard is the Best Answer to Standard
"You just made a whole list of answers to and now you're saying its the best answer to itself you can't even finish the post without contradicting yourself!"
The list of above answers consist of the long term reliable answers to that can be identified at teambuilder while this refers to the dynamic of the current metagame as it is. As such this point is liable to become outdated or irrelevant with metagame shifts which is why the rest of the post isn't written in this way and as mentioned above this discusses a symptom not the cause of the problem for the cause see: Overcentralizing.
Now how is the best answer to itself? Surely some Water or Ice type or just a Pokemon with high speed, power, and the right coverage is the best answer right? Well as of now, No. All faster Pokemon with the raw power and coverage to KO fear Knock Off's item removing effect as even though they may not need that item to deal with they almost always need it to fulfill they're rolls against the rest of 's team (which with the exception of the U-turn section haven't even come up till now so let it sink in that everything else is essentially what can do in a reverse 6-0 scenario). Now as for why 's teammates have had such sparse mentioning throughout this post and why they are being mentioned here allowing the factor or s teammates, or any pivots for that matter, would essentially require considering the utility of every Pokemon in the game as the pivots own utility which would make anything with a pivoting move functionally unstoppable unless the pivot can be blocked (this is the main argument against Volt-Turn being fundamentally broken and while I personally disagree its relevant here so its getting mentioned). And as for why break the rule now this is to explain why a potential candidate for best answer to can not be something that has its function changed by the loss of its item even if it is capable of defeating itself without said item.
So we've established that in order to be the best answer to current standard you have to not fear the loss of your item at all the list of which is: Sticky Hold and , or Poison Heal and post-orb activation. (if I missed a method let me know and I'll edit it in here). and are out of the question due their weakness to STAB Earthquake while fears Acrobatics and while looks like the better answer on paper its low speed allows to simply U-turn out before can retaliate in any way combined with 's poor synergy with lots of common Pokemon making it hard to fit in the first place. This whittles the list down to who fails to even threaten opposing with currently standard sets and which leads to artificial inflation of game length and potentially endless games. (see: Broken) But wait! Doesn't just U-turn on opposing ? Well, yes and no. while can U-turn on opposing it's actually a fairly risky play given the common potential speed ties brought about by the use of standardized spreads so while CAN U-turn on its an extremely risky move which can not be relied on as losing (or I guess winning) the speed tie can be a forfeiting of momentum to the opposing and simply relying on getting the tie in your favor is not a reliable strategy.
Note: While it is still in the process of rising in usage and can not yet be considered standard if you don't understand why itself doesn't fear Knock Off pre-orb see : Protect and be aware that if Knock Off spam is the counterplay you must click all 32 Knock Offs in a row or risk letting in on a predicted switch which can all be invalidated if the user has a pivot slower than whatever is spamming Knock Off.
Uncheckable
Honestly I've kinda explained both sides of this in Overcentralizing and Unhealthy so I'm considering removing this section for the sake of cleanliness if this section makes final post know its liable to be retroactively removed.
TLDR: Knock Off + Pivot on and already great Pokemon that is the only viable holder of this combination removes the potential ability to check by fundamentally redefining how the game can and will be played and overcentralizes the meta on the utility of this 1 Pokemon see: Overcentralizing and Unhealthy
Broken
This is it. The Big One. The problem that even if absolutely everyone hard disagreed without absolutely everything said up until now or if absolutely everything was wrong or invalid in some way still requires some action to be taken against or Poison Heal.
The Endless Battle
1. Endless Battle Clause
Endless Battle Clause: Any moveset on any pokemon that is capable of intentionally causing an endless battle is banned from competitive play.
There are 2 big things that prevent Endless Battle Clause from being applicable to this situation:
A. Intentionally causing an endless battle
B. Any Moveset on any pokemon
A. There is no way to prove intent to cause an endless battle in the case of Gliscor as the endless battle can occur regardless of the Gliscor set being used and there is any number of reasons to use any number of Gliscor sets.
B. Gliscor's endless battle is directly and indisputably caused by its ability Poison Heal which is not a forbidden method of causing endless battles under the current Endless Battle Clause.
Source: Anywhere the rules for competitive play are posted
2. The Endless Battle Itself
A. The Setup
The set up for the endless battle is as follows:
2 1 for each team
2 other Pokemon who can not knock each other out before they run out of PP (example: 2 Defog holding leftovers)
And that's it. There are ways to increase chance the endless battle occurring (making the Defog, having the second Pokemon have hazard removal while walling itself, Magic Guard users like ) this is all that is mandatory and in case you haven't played the format for yourself and are just reading due to word of mouth or something the first condition is expected for any given game and the second is fairly naturally common.
B. The Execution
Gliscor's functional immunity to hazards is what makes this all possible. While most potentially endless battles are made irrelevant through the use of hazards inflicting damage on switch making the infinite switching (or trapping) dynamic required to cause most possible endless battles Gliscor can invalidate this potential progress regardless of its set due to Poison Heal, its phenomenal defenses, 2 immunities, 3 resistances, and ability to wall common variants of itself to the point that Poison Heal will out heal the damage being done allowing for safe PP stall of the opposing Gliscor as well as a large variety of other 2nd pokemon for the endless battle set up (and if the Gliscor is a Roost variant this list gets much larger).
As for the second pokemon which is required due to the need to switch this can turn into "what about x" very quickly so I'll try to establish rules for what are the most likely and realistic second pokemon for this set up however be aware that this list is not limited to these options and can occur with far more than what is being listed here.
A. Disregard for hazards
B. Ability to be PP stalled by itself or by Gliscor
C. Assuming the item is leftovers due to its wide spread usage and viability
Non-Ice Beam Non-Calm Mind Magic Guard
Non-Ice Shard
Defog
While these are not the only possibilities they are the current most likely ones and while Magic Guard may not be the optimal variant right now the potential banning of will likely allow it to become a matter of preference as opposed to the current mandating of Unaware.
Now given the magnitude of the problem that is a potentially endless battle you'd hope that that list would be empty not only does it compose of fairly viable and realistic options (looking at you Defog ) that will naturally see effective long term usage but its not even the full list if you apply realistic non-worst case criteria meaning not only is this possible but if you take into account the entire size playerbase (Who knows but its undeniably large) and the number of games being played (900K in December) it is inevitable that this will occur to someone, somewhere, sometime.
(And just because its unlikely to be you specifically doesn't make it a non-problem)
While there are adaptations to decrease the likelihood of the endless battle (such as Stealth Rocks, or Ice Fang on the required ) forcing the metagame to adapt to the theoretical possibility of an endless battle is the logical extreme of the Overcentralizing, Unhealthy, Broken nature of Poison Heal and thus the possibility for this inevitable scenario should not be allowed in competitive play.
Conclusion
And that's it! My roughly 13 hour, 6585 word, manifesto on why Gliscor should not be allowed in competitive play for the BDSP OU tier. Now with everything that been said there will most certainly be disagreements and counter arguments about why this is wrong about certain points so I will be responding to any criticisms or replies in the order they where posted and possibly editing the post based on those criticisms so if you see a problem be sure to mention it on the thread!
The TLDR:
Gliscor is far too bulky with for gen 4 levels of power with its new ability Poison Heal beating things it shouldn't to a degree where ignoring almost all its weak points and "counterplay" is an entirely viable option which should never be the case.
Gliscor makes itself viable meaning it can generate viability with complete disregard to the metagame around it.
Gliscor turns any potential checks or counters into victims with its unique access to viable Knock Off + Pivot move while being the only Pokemon in the game to do so.
Gliscor enables a realistic endless battle scenario not prohibited by Endless Battle Clause.
For these reasons I believe that Gliscor or Poison Heal Should Be Banned From Use In BDSP OU.
Gliscor is not a problem at all. It’s not hard to reliably switch into, it’s not hard to kill, it provides fantastic role compression, and it helps keep other mons in check. With the exception of stall, I have never once built a team where I specifically ensured counterplay against Gliscor; I literally always have ways of beating it. Seriously, in the S through A- ranks alone we have offensive checks in Latios, Alakazam, Starmie, Azumarill, Crawdaunt, Feraligatr, Latias, Manaphy, and Mamoswine. Futhermore, defensive counterplay includes Scizor, Clefable, Rotom-W, Skarmory, and Slowbro. Every decent team ought to have multiple of these and therefore every team should have counterplay against any Gliscor set.
I don't even know why I put effort into responding to a BDSP-edition post of "Ban Lando-T". Gliscor is completely healthy for the meta. End rant.
I've that the playerbase at large has 4 primary targets for suspect tests and potential bans and .
But I see no one talking about the most banworthy Pokémon in the tier who is uncontested for #1 in viability holds a lowly #2 usage only due to and panic an overcentralizing, unhealthy, uncheckable, broken Pokémon who despite holding all these traits is somehow being overlooked; the one the only
This mon is definitely not "uncontested for #1 in viability" lmao, it faces a good amount of competition from Garchomp mainly, and doesnt fit as well on more offensive teams. Both Scizor and Latios are arguably the most viable mons in the tier, with Latios holding it as a breaker and Scizor due to how many roles it can fulfill in almost every team, and yes, if you remove the 2 biggest things that Scizor checks (which are really big offensive threats) it might not be as good as it is, but the fact of the matter is that those things are in the tier and cant be just overlooked. Gliscor is definitely not a "overcentralizing, unhealthy, uncheckable, broken Pokémon", as it in self has many issues, mainly due to the fact that a lot of teams really need it for its support capabilties, and it cant always run an offensive set, and as previously mentioned it faces competition from Garchomp mainly with the same roles (barring Defogging)
Anyways, lets get to the elephant in the room. The wall of calcs you posted is completely misleading to anyone new to the tier, and I honestly hope you didnt do this on purpose, and was just a mistake due to a lack of understanding. Gliscor cannot run both Max Def and Max SpDef with boosting natures at the same time, so even if you disinclude all the other issues with the calcs, realistically only a small portion of them actually apply to Gliscor at any one time. Next, Gliscors always run Speed investment, and a Jolly nature due to how many important Speed benchmarks it has to hit such as Heatran (both Modest and Timid, although usually the latter), Lucario (Adamant), Breloom (Jolly), Washtom, Jirachi, Empoleon (Modest), Magnezone (Timid), and all other mons creeping around these Speed tiers. The most common Gliscors ive seen in both the kickoff tour, ladder, and side discord tours have all been creeping Adamant Lucario or Modest Tran Speed, which is a good chunk more than 0 Speed. Furthermore, a lot of these calcs are with fairly uncommon / outright bad mons and sets which just arent used at high level or tour play, such as the likes of Milotic, or Life Orb Manaphy and SpAt Ice Beam Dragonite??? (Dont think its being used on stall at all, and even then I dont think 1 or two people testing out a set that doesnt have much use in this tier is enough justification), Specs Kindra like ????? at this point you are surely knowingly filling this up with useless fluff. Who is using these sets that are apparently important enought to add to your calc wall, because honestly right now it just seems like your filling it up to make it look like it has substance, when really non of these calcs are actually relevant to the tier.
Due to 's ability Poison Heal and its access to Roost it can heal up to 62.5% in a single turn and if it got that turn by switching in after the Toxic Orb has been activated that's actually 75% damage the can be recovered in a single turn. What this means is that anything less than 62.5% or 75% if can switch in (which given its 2 immunities to Ground and Electric the former being the type of the most common attack in the game Earthquake and the high amount of Thunderbolts flying around to hit the endless list of excellent waters in the tier or just as STAB or the fairly common and not to mention its 4x Poison resist making Sludge Bombs aimed at things like near 0 damage and a Fighting resist that lets it take disgustingly little from Close Combats and a Bug resist that lets it take around 6-7% from most U-turns with even common s peaking at 13% if is sp def AND its functional immunity to status AND its immunity to all hazards aside from Stealth Rocks which is neutralized by Poison Heal giving it functional immunity so long as it isn't KO'd on switch in) which happens quite often to say the least, it has functionally taken 0% damage. AND EVEN IF the user lets you do upwards of 75% to their you have still only functionally done 1-24% to the which is a ludicrously poor achievement for what are the best anti- options in the game.
Thank you for telling me what Gliscor has done for the past 2 generations, and showing me the type chart. By the way, you forgot to mention that the last line only applies if you are slower than Gliscor so it can Roost faster than your next attack, which you wont be outspeeding much because your running 0 Speed. Again, this is extremely misleading to people who are new to the tier and not exactly constructive.
The big one. Knock Off. It may not always do much damage (although it quiet often does) but that's not what makes it the best offensive tool in the game. No, that would be the effect of removing the targets item. Now most of us know why this is so good so I'll try and keep it brief. Items are one of the game's key defining aspects which open up so many unique and creative opportunities to the point the many of Pokemon's most excellent sets are defined by their item and shorthand for communicating about these sets is often done so by naming the item and then the name of the Pokemon (see: Scarf Ape , Specs Lati , Scarf Chomp ect.). Now what do you get when you remove these items?
A Limit.
A hard limit on what any individual Pokemon can achieve and given how hard dealing with is already not to mention what this enables from 's teammates simply clicking Knock Off is more threatening than any Choice Specs or ever could be. Speaking of 's teammates..
LOL Koff is good and all but why are you making this sound like it is a complete game changer. Furthermore you also used terrible examples that dont Glisc either wont be knocking off (Infernape), or would die before Knocking Off (Latios or Latias) fyi Specs Tias does not exist idk where you got that from. Dealing with Gliscor is definitely not hard, please dont assume everyone else here cant play better. And Specs Tios clicking Draco and forcing a heal or forcing a good chunk of damage on something, or outright killing something is much more threatening and Gliscor potentially removing some1s item, if it doesnt have to immedietely roost / eq on whatever it came in on. Specs Gar clicking SBall is also stupidly hard to switch into, and without something like Blissey or Tar it easily forces progress for teams. Glisc KOff is not this game changing.
U-Turn
"OMG is so broken nothing can deal with it BAN BAN BAN"
This applies to all of the currently prime suspect candidates (and any future ones) but more so to due to the it's complete lack of defensive utility as opposed to the others who at least have a bit of their own. But let's ask this:
Is the problem surviving an onslaught from <insert suspect target> or is the problem that they can launch off that onslaught as many times as they want due to the support from their pivot?
Now normally the answer is quite simple: No, pivots can be pressured by hazards punishing constant switching and severely damaged on the switch in heavily limiting the amount of times they can pivot for their teammates often down to a mere 2-3 times. But again let's ask this:
What if there was a pivot that wasn't pressured by hazards? That had such amazing bulk that it could come in on most brute force attacks? That had immunities to plenty of these attacks and the utility options Pokemon often resort too when brute force isn't enough? That had a speed stat so flexible that it could underspeed or outspeed the vast majority of other Pokemon depending on what the pivot wanted? That possessed enough offensive pressure and variety that you couldn't safely say it wasn't just going to beat you by itself or even if it was a pivot at all?
How would you beat it then?
Honestly at this point im just baffled. Yes, Alakazam has no defensive utility, but instead it is completely impossible to deal with Defensively barring Scizor, which is forced to roost and can lose if it takes minor chip, and god i dont know how you can compare Zam with Gliscor in how threatening they are, as even with a boost Glisc isnt that threatening, so please stop exagerrating how good the mon is, it doesnt "launch off that onslaught" even as close to the extent as Zam. Also if you are using Turn, then I assume you arent using Swords Dance, and honestly if you think non SD Gliscor can "launch off that onslaught" you should probably build a better team.
Earthquake may be good damage but its hardly threatening to OHKO anything outside of so its fairly likely that the other player will just send out something to take the Earthquake heal up and... Huh? What do you mean I can't heal?! may not be threatening many OHKO's but it has a long, long list of 2HKO and 3HKO victims who will confidently come in trying to halt only to realize they can not do so without healing, fail to OHKO , and then fall to a few safe consistent Earthquakes. But that's not all, not by a long shot, if it was Heal Block would be a regularly viable move but Taunt does so much more Dragon Dances, Swords Dances, Nasty Plots, Calm Minds, Whirlwinds, Roars, Stealth Rocks, Spikes, Heal Bells, Aromatherapys, Defogs, Encores, Leech Seeds, Shell Smashes, Sleep Talks, Sleep Powers, Spores, Will-o-wisps, Sticky Webs, Tricks, OTHER TAUNTS all removed as progress making options due to Taunt. On top of all that Taunt forces to other team of Pokemon to attempt brute forcing they're way through which as we've established isn't a particularly easy thing to do
And what exactly are you Taunting with your 0 Speed invested Gliscor? You just listed a bunch of status moves but nothing that uses them that you actually Taunt? Okay you Taunt the Feraligatr clicking DD but then it clicks Ice Punch instead and kills you lol. We know Taunt stops status moves and Taunt Glisc is an established set since ORAS that breaks bulkier teams, nothing really special, are you going to just vomit dex info or actually give scenarios where its useful and good quality replays where it does something? Because right now I dont see any1 using Taunt Glisc and not exactly the most common thing by usage either so...
The move the takes from amazing to disgusting Roost is your standard recovery move 50% regain with 16 PP. But its not standard recovery, not quite. No, its far better than standard recovery. As established earlier Poison Heal+Roost allows to heal 62.5% in one turn, 75% if it switched in. For the record moves like Moonlight can heal 2/3 of your health if the Sunny Day effect is active and this move has 8 PP and the drawback of only healing 25% in Rain, Hail, and Sand whereas simply gets this healing all the time with no drawback and actually heals even if you don't use Roost which has the hilarious side effect of making Roost on a bulky pivot/wall completely optional as the passive healing from Poison Heal is often more than enough in shorter matches and can be even better against hard stall matchups who exert so little immediate offensive pressure that they often run out of PP on their attacks before the net damage they can do KOs
Mashallah what is this, Roost has more PP and with PHeal heals a lot, cool info nothing I cant google. And your example / analogy is terrible because why would any good stall player needlessly waste PP when they know they cant break it (which most of them usually either wall it and use it as fodder for stuff like Spikes, get free recovery from it with Leech Seed, set up on it with their own Gliscor / Poliwrath, or PP stall it instead. Again, replays.
has Stealth Rocks. Not only does this allow a team to set rocks while having the debatably mandatory it also prevents the endless battle from occurring (more on that later). As for Swords Dance (as well as the Agility double dance option) while certainly not its best set the threat of standard and the assumed time players will believe they have often leads them to play in a way that provides free set ups for Swords Dance or double dance Agility . This offensive option not only makes defensive even better given that fear of the offensive option can intimidate players into going straight to their offensive response which can then be Knock Off'd or U-turn'd on for momentum, but also if defensive is discounted that only makes it easier for offensive to come in and sweep a team who assumed they where safe playing against with its STAB Earthquake, Base 140 Facade thanks to Toxic Orb and Poison Heal, Fire Fang for Ground immune steels and , Ice Fang for opposing and Dragons,Grounds, and Grasses, Knock Off for bulky Psychics and Ghost while also having Knock Off utility and bluffing defensive, Rock Slide and Stone Edge for classic EdgeQuake coverage, Poison Jab and Steel Wing for any Fairies if for some reason HOME introduced post Gen 4 dex, Brick Break for Darks and Screens, Fling to toxic poison the Unaware s and s, Acrobatics to hit Fightings as well as being base 110 if you've been Knock Off'd or Flung your Toxic Orb at a or while having no immunities and being STAB making it even more spammable than Earthquake, Quick Attack for priority picking off weakened faster Pokemon or outprioritizng something like a weakened or , or even good old U-turn to maximize the chip you get against as team not ready to be swept and further bluffing defensive if you have yet to Swords Dance.
????? are you okay cuh. 1 SRocks definitely does not prevent an endless battle from occuring, EBC prevents that. Even with Rocks a pokemon with any form of passive recovery that outdamages it (Gliscor, Regen Mons, Leppa Berry + recycle + recovery) can theoretically still start an endless battle if EBC were a thing. Agility Double Dance Gliscor is definitely not an option LMAO, unless you suddenty cut into all your longevity and bulk / or longevity and damage (depending on how you invest it with this horrid set) for whats essentially a budget Garchomp. As stated before, even boosted Gliscor isnt really game changing, unlike say Garchomp where a Life Orb Garchomp at +2 basically guarantees a dent, and no, no one is scared of dual dance Gliscor so much that they will go into different answers for it. Again, you seem to give vague examples that dont have any actual substance lol, what Ground immunes is Fire Fang really hitting? The Skarmory who takes literally 40% on average from a boosted max attack FF and WWinds you away (Why not use Garchomp at this point lol, it actually does damage to Skarm and is actually threatening, and actually pressures Blissey from coming in and Ice Beaming your 0 bulk Gliscor, or Clef from walling it. I dont really want to get into the other options since honestly the rest are even more hilarious, a Gliscor that offensively is a worse Garchomp in literally every way possible? A Gliscor that has legit negative defensive utility now? On god your just reaching at this point, if you really want to use a offensive Ground use Garchomp which actually forces progress, not a Gliscor that gives away all the things that make Gliscor, Gliscor.
My class is starting soon and honestly the last few paragraphs are just fluff that add nothing information wise (not like the rest of this was substantial anyways), please actually think before making posts and use actual good examples with good quality replays showcasing why its broken, instead of just flooding this thread with half a page of useless calcs and vomited dex info.
ty.
Ill prolly edit this post / make another post about the other posts, but seeing this Gliscor post made me remember the horrid manectric post in the OU thread and I felt i needed to address this so we dont get a horde of misinformed people arguing a mon is broken with no / a terrible / an inaccurate basis.
I respect your opinion Spookz but tbh what JTD783 said really summed it up for me: no team I've built has had gliscor specifically in mind when picking mons, moves, or EV's.
Ice is super prevalent, water is just always good, and both take Gliscor out in 1-2 turns, 3 if he has protect. Every team has to prepare for Latios and Garchomp: so you bring ice moves, typically via Weavile or a water mon, and almost every team has one of the latter. I've even broken through Gliscor by just clicking Outrage on Garchomp and Glisc switches after 1 hit and I dent a second mon, or Glisc gets 2hko'd.
I'm not sure if you have a specific team that gliscor is preventing you from winning with, but I don't know if it could be very strong because gliscor's not that tough to get through on his own.
damn is your Landorus-T hate so deep it moved on to Gliscor now
why would a mon with -1 offensive presence aside from EQ be ever banned in a tier full of Pokémon that can outdamage it in 0.4 seconds
let the mon put Rocks/Defog them in peace, it doesn't even have Toxic to stall opponents to death
Lum Berry and 
Wacan Berry. Lum Berry is great for Pokemon with Thunder Wave, as getting paralyzed usually cripples Manaphy to the point where 
Breloom, 
Rotom and other Pokemon can outspeed it and deal with it (somewhat) reliably. Thunder Wave can somewhat easily be spread to Manaphy by 
Blissey and 
Unaware Clefable (though both tend to get the paralysis anyways if Manaphy is kept in, though Lum Berry helps if Blissey is in a range where two +3 Surfs would kill). Wacan Berry helps deal with Thunderbolt 
Latios and 
Starmie, 
Choice Scarf Magnezone, and other Pokemon with electric moves that would usually spell its doom. The destruction it brings after using a single Tail Glow is astonishing, and I'd love to see a suspect test on this Pokemon -- even if it stays around in the tier, it would be an useful method to get more opinions on the Pokemon as a whole.
Swords Dance Scizor. Ice Fang is useful for 
Garchomp and 
opposing Gliscor, forcing them out and/or forcing Garchomp to lock into Outrage/Sack with Stone Edge, if it is a Swords Dance set. This Pokemon is also useful when it comes to Stealth Rock and (sometimes) Defog, thanks to its good speed and recovery. U-turn is also notable, since it can chip down Pokemon not using 
Leftovers and give you the advantage in momentum. A great Pokemon so far, can't wait to see what else awaits it as the meta progresses.
Tyranitar? I'd assume Earthquaking a 
Choice Scarf Infernape would be pretty funny.
SAND VEIL CHOMP + TTAR TEAMS GONE 
and 
(the former by usage, the latter by quickban; ironically both have 35%ish usage in UU, rip); not sure why Donphan managed to stay in OU with such a large margin (
| 7.28140% | 140640 | 7.771% | 109206 | 7.517% | 
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Waterfall vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 294-348 (83.5 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 
252+ Atk Adaptability Crawdaunt Crabhammer vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 280-332 (79.5 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal <-if you knock the Choice Band which you can do since you're faster
252+ SpA Dragonite Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO <-although Ice Beam D-nite is a niche stall set so its usually..
0 SpA Empoleon Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 164-194 (46.5 - 55.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal 
252 SpA Latias Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO 
252+ Atk Choice Band Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 252 Def Gliscor: 292-348 (82.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 
252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 232-276 (65.9 - 78.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 
0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 88 SpD Gliscor: 292-348 (82.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal 
252 SpA Sheer Force Nidoking Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 332-392 (94.3 - 111.3%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO <- scarf may be rare but it does exist
0 SpA Quagsire Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 156-188 (44.3 - 53.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal
252 SpA Raikou Scald vs. 244 HP / 0 SpD Gliscor: 204-240 (57.9 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Slowbro Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 224-268 (63.6 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Suicune Scald vs. 244 HP / 164 SpD Gliscor: 164-194 (46.5 - 55.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal
252+ SpA Choice Specs Kingdra Surf vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 338-398 (96 - 113%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Poliwrath Scald vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 114-134 (32.3 - 38%) -- 76.5% chance to 4HKO after Poison Heal <- niche on hard stall for 
have been rising from near certain death only to come back for 22 years now and although annoying it's nothing we can't handle. Well to begin with 
) and 
possibly ever.
so the opposing 
specs Adaptability Tri Attack or banded 
252 Atk Cloyster Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 420-500 (119.3 - 142%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Slowking Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 312-368 (88.6 - 104.5%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Floatzel Ice Fang vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Exempt from coverage rule due to exclusively being used as a lead and being faster 252 SpA Froslass Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 372-436 (105.6 - 123.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Item Permitted thanks to Sticky Hold 252 SpA Life Orb Gastrodon Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 354-416 (100.5 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Octillery Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 320-380 (90.9 - 107.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Sheer Force Tauros Blizzard vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 296-352 (84 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Wailord Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 330-390 (93.7 - 110.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
and 
, or Poison Heal 
