OU ADV OU Metagame Discussion

[YubelVT]

Re this and you saying octillery shuts down my argument as well. 1 the soundproof ban was not because exploud was too good at sweeping it was because Mr mime could shut down roars mid-chain. 2 octillery doesn't really solve anything with 0 spatk boosts and it should be limited to at most 2 speed boosts, where it still gets outrun by aero unless it's timid. I mean this thing has 105 base spatk it's not really cream of the crop out here.

If your team loses to speed boosted octillery you were gonna lose to starmie anyway. If you traded away something that could stop octillery and then you lost it's your own fault.

Couple things
1. I'm fully aware of why Soundproof was banned, Octillery is just the new recipient for these jask teams and, in my opinion, you should not be forced to run haze on gengar or perish song on celebi/gengar in order to not get cheesed/put into a position where you can't out whatever they pass to next.
2. Banning Ninjask would improve the team comp diversity of the tier because you wouldn't be forced into Skarmory, Celebi, or Gengar in order to not get cheesed. Don't get me wrong, all 3 are great pokemon, but I do not want to have to put at least one of them (and dedicate at least one moveslot on the latter two) to not get cheesed.
3. All of the teams I've ever built bar like 5 have lead Zapdos, and most of those have been roar (not just for ninjask but for lead electrics too). However, Skarmory is the ONLY roar user immune to Toxic, and again, I don't want to be forced to use Skarmory to not get cheesed.

Ninjask teams don't encourage diverse gameplay, they have one gameplan and you, the opponent, are forced into one response. Most people agree that this just isn't fun. (Celda I love you I think you're sick but ADV Revival showing ninjask gameplay doesn't not make it uncompetitive cheese) Sand Attack, which is banworthy in its own right, only adds to this uncompetitive mess of a playstyle by making it even more volatile and forcing Skarmory, Celebi, and Gengar again to consistently not get cheesed.

 

[Redless]

Every day the common man struggles under the yoke of a ladder inhabited by 8 year olds who only like boring, linear strategies. Each 8 year old has no job and endless patience that they use to torture their poor victims with team after team of matchup fishes and insane risk taking. Not even losing can dissuade the 8 year olds, as a reduction in elo only makes for a sharper sword with which to stab their next victim.

The powerful sit and laugh on their thrones of gold, for they do not play on ladder and they especially don't play in the wood league elo's where adv's nocturnal hunters are most prevalent. Meanwhile, Joe 1400's flood the Smogon thread thinking that increased volumes of bitching will somehow change the minds of those who hold the reins. Do they seek to affect this change by sheer annoyingness or do they think they're eliciting pity? Are they still laboring under the delusion that arguments from cloutless paupers are anything more than a drop in the ocean? Shiloh, beagle that he is, only laughs and grows more powerful as he quaffs your salty tears.

Third and most foolish in this sad parade are the Sigluts and Celdanami's of the world. Bearing no power of their own to enforce it, they nevertheless rail against attempts to challenge the status quo. Their arguments are as useless as those they're attacking, and they share another sad similarity with adv's butthurt serf class: namely, they're addicted to having their time wasted and their brains destroyed by someone who is their superior in both patience and delusion.

Come with me, dear reader, and immerse yourself in the latest farce as it dances upon your screen over thousands of pages of useless posting. Even these meager flames can warm our cold hearts as we sip our honeyed wine and raise our rosy cheeks in a grin. If nothing else, they remind us that there is suffering in this world that we have had the personal good fortune of avoiding.

 

[Siglut]

You're right redless. I am wasting my time in here arguing against unemployed 8-year-olds with way more spare time than I have.

Seriously this is the last I'm gonna post in here on the topic. There's no reason to chase ninjask or acc drop moves and add something else to the list of "things banned for baton pass's crimes" when it clearly won't solve peoples' actual issue, which is not wanting to respect any speedpass in the builder or in-game, despite almost any reasonable team having ample tools to deal with it. No, you do not need perish song, haze, or even phazing on every team.

 

[Celdanami]

Yeah bro so is Latios, yet we banned that

For a real arguement, Celdanami, I believe you're ignoring the point that the accuracy dropping moves are what are deemed uncompetitive, which is only exacerbated by Ninjask teams being so reliant on getting that pass on something that can KO stuff before you can Roar or KO it yourself. These moves, in Gen 3 affect phazing moves such as Roar or Whirlwind, lowering their accuracy to 75%, which, as any person who has used Aerodactyl before can attest to, can make or break a game.

Comparing Ninjask to Latios is a bit much. But I don't really get the point of your post. In my previous post, I agreed with everything that you're saying.

However now that we're on this subject, paralysis has those exact same odds, but can't be removed by switching. While paralysis has counterplay in abilities, types, and moves, sand attack has abilities such as keen eye and clear body. Paralysis affects all moves, while sand attack does not affect moves that affect the user, meaning you can boost or support your team mates while having lowered accuracy. I'm not saying they are the same thing, but I am saying that they're comparable. Which is why it confuses me that I don't see anybody complaining so loudly about paralysis, but we're all just supposed to accept that sand attack is this overbearing negative aspect of the meta. If you were to count the number of times a full paralysis occurs vs the number of times a move fails due to a lowered accuracy, the results would be ludicrously lopsided.

Looking at the statistics found here, https://www.smogon.com/stats/2024-05/gen3ou-0.txt we can see that Ninjask's usage rate is ~2.5%. Let's be generous and say that half of those use sand attack. 2.5 x 0.5 = 1.25%. ~1.25% of all adv games each month has sand attack. That's miniscule, and it just seems like the outcry is a little lopsided. It's not like we have people spamming unbreakable baton pass chains. In this thread, you'll find continuous attacks on the competency of the council or otherwise public players. But I can see why it's not really that big of a deal. By its very nature, sand attack strategies are not reliable. I really think we should ground this discussion in the fact that, while yes it sure is annoying and, yes it does heavily rely on rng, it's also a relatively insignificant aspect of the ladder meta game, and a near completely irrelevant aspect of tournament play.

Again, I'm in favour of addressing sand attack. But I think some kind of ninjask or speed boost ban would be silly. And I also think we could have a more grounded and reasonable discussion about it instead of a creating player vs council/tour player narrative.

 

[w_r]

Ban quick claw (item) & baton pass on ninjask & smeargle. Here's why...

It's well established within the community that baton pass is a healthy addition to adv alongside arena trap. In a tier with a limited pool of viable pokemon and the absence of choice specs & scarf allowing some form of bp strategies to exist becomes ideal to establish a diverse metagame. With that logic in place let's focus on some mons that push the boundaries of this healthy strategy.

Exhibit A - DD Pass Beagle

Smeargle @ Leftovers
Ability: Own Tempo
EVs: 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spore
- Substitute / Taunt
- Dragon Dance
- Baton Pass

The combination of sleep + the infinite combo of movesets + surprise value (trying to guess if it is carrying bp along with dd or whether it's a bait with dd + boom) is a headache to say the least. The initial 3 turns the mon is sent out on the field + opps response during those turns is mostly enough to let this strategy snowball.

Sub - helps setup safely & synergizes well alongside leech seed support + forces switches / free turns
Taunt - shuts down skarm among other useful applications of the move.

Exhibit B - uninteractive ninjask shenanigans

Ninjask @ Leftovers
Ability: Speed Boost
Careful Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Protect
- Toxic / Sand Attack
- Baton Pass

Not much to add except - uninteractive / cheese / unhealthy cringe garbage aptly descibes it. No one (sane) wants to keep this mon in the tier. Unlike the healthier alternative in Agility Zapdos which actually takes damage while setting up and doesn't just spam the uninteractive combo of Protect + Substitute while raising it's stats for free.

Exhibit C - Quick Claw / The God Claw

On a glance using anything other than leftovers might seem like a joke in a metagame with infinite turns of sand but this thing can be quite destructive and the worst part being neither the opp nor the person who brings this item can predict when this item is gonna spring into use. Why do we need to tolerate rng from something so trivial skewing interactions like revenge killing and forces one to think twice or go for unoptimal sequences fearing a possible trigger from this luck item? Literally zero resistance in seeing this item getting booted from the tier!!

Lead machamp suddenly becomes a lot more menancing, magneton now revenge kills dug 50% of the time?? Camel shrugs off it's speed stat while appearing a lot more intimidating etc etc

Pro's

It brings the adv ruleset closer to dpp while preserving the unique identity of adv.

It's extremely disrespectful when quick claw suddenly skews the speed tier hierarchy and ignores the most important stat in adv (speed) so no more of that nonsense

Con's

Make the adv ladder & tour meta significantly better.

Maybe that isn't so bad compared to blindly following some arbitrary guidelines set forth by an imaginary council

 

[FJ2K]

Re this and you saying octillery shuts down my argument as well. 1 the soundproof ban was not because exploud was too good at sweeping it was because Mr mime could shut down roars mid-chain. 2 octillery doesn't really solve anything with 0 spatk boosts and it should be limited to at most 2 speed boosts, where it still gets outrun by aero unless it's timid. I mean this thing has 105 base spatk it's not really cream of the crop out here.

If your team loses to speed boosted octillery you were gonna lose to starmie anyway. If you traded away something that could stop octillery and then you lost it's your own fault.

Octillery is a big sleeper threat in the ADV OU metagame. Boasting mighty dual 105 Offenses, it is very difficult to switch into if it receives speed boosts from a teammate. It's great defensive typing ( Water) allows it switch into Ice and Fire moves that will get used against Speed Passers, since opponents will expect Breloom , Marowak or Heracross to come out. However sometimes the opponent proactively positions to phase out the Speed Passer with a non Steel type phaser. But here comes Octillery's trick up it's sleeve. Suction Cups. It can stop phasing moves. Don't have Blissey? You will get cooked. Water , fire , ice and grass coverage hits EVERYTHING.

I think in the upcoming Jimvitational we will see plenty of this red monster.

 

[YubelVT]

I'm slowly getting better at teambuilding in an agonizing "build what looks solid and then realize in the process of laddering that you lose to something obvious and common and feel like a fucking moron" process and the most recent time around I realized that whatever final team I build, it will need a grass type. Celebi Leech Seed is one of the most annoying moves in the entire game because there's not really a reason to not click it twice. I don't even particularly want a grass type but I need a leech seed switch in and Celebi has the best utility movepool and learns BP so it's better than Breloom in what I'm looking for in a Grass type.

You're right redless. I am wasting my time in here arguing against unemployed 8-year-olds with way more spare time than I have.

Seriously this is the last I'm gonna post in here on the topic. There's no reason to chase ninjask or acc drop moves and add something else to the list of "things banned for baton pass's crimes" when it clearly won't solve peoples' actual issue, which is not wanting to respect any speedpass in the builder or in-game, despite almost any reasonable team having ample tools to deal with it. No, you do not need perish song, haze, or even phazing on every team.

I know I'm not one to post this statement currently considering I'm struggling to stay in the 1400s, but post elo. You don't get to say uninformed things about this meta and then turn around and not prove you actually know what you are talking about. Speedpass, despite maybe being a problem inherently, is not currently seen as a problem outside of ninjask. And, while not affecting tournaments (which is a dumb line of reasoning), accuracy lowering moves don't exactly provide anything either other than a semi consistent way to hit the 1000 turn cap on ladder (which is reason enough to ban them tbh) and making ninjask teams even more annoying to play against.

You are the OGC's biggest defender and, like them, you don't actually care about what the ladder players have to say (which btw are the majority of gen 3 players). Baton Pass itself is not a problem. CM pass is not a problem. SD pass is not a problem. Speed Pass is (probably) not a problem. Arena Trap is not a problem (eeveeto).

Ninjask pass is a problem. Sand Attack is a problem. Tournaments being no different from ladder in terms of best of 1 is an entirely unrelated problem but is a problem that I felt like bringing up nonetheless.

Like I genuinely don't think you play the tier with takes like these. (Also your team is genuinely bad if you don't have at least one form of phazing are you nuts)

 

[Painkiller Already]

I think Ninjask is completely indefensible. It's not overpowered. It's just not good for the tier.

I legitimately cannot believe that no action is taken. Ninjask is near auto-lose vs some teams and near auto-win vs others. No one wants matchup fishing to be impactful. It's not fun and it's not competitive.

Please stop attacking strawmen with the "Ninjask is not even good though" because no one here is arguing that it is overpowered. In fact, it's quite easy to counter.

Ninjask is just net-negative fun and competitiveness. It takes away more than it adds. This is the argument people are making and I am one of them. If you want to defend Ninjask, then please address the actual argument.

Especially this Sand Attack Ninjask bullshit is just ridiculous. Is Sand Attack a good move? No. Does it have fringe uses that are degenerate? Yes. Even if it is not a good move, a bad player can beat a better player by fishing for free subs with Sand Attack with Ninjask. This is by definition uncompetitive and does not belong in a competitive game.

If Ninjask is not addressed, then certainly accuracy reduction should be. Again, I can't believe this is controversial at all.

 

[YubelVT]

I think Ninjask is completely indefensible. It's not overpowered. It's just not good for the tier.

I legitimately cannot believe that no action is taken. Ninjask is near auto-lose vs some teams and near auto-win vs others. No one wants matchup fishing to be impactful. It's not fun and it's not competitive.

Please stop attacking strawmen with the "Ninjask is not even good though" because no one here is arguing that it is overpowered. In fact, it's quite easy to counter.

Ninjask is just net-negative fun and competitiveness. It takes away more than it adds. This is the argument people are making and I am one of them. If you want to defend Ninjask, then please address the actual argument.

Especially this Sand Attack Ninjask bullshit is just ridiculous. Is Sand Attack a good move? No. Does it have fringe uses that are degenerate? Yes. Even if it is not a good move, a bad player can beat a better player by fishing for free subs with Sand Attack with Ninjask. This is by definition uncompetitive and does not belong in a competitive game.

If Ninjask is not addressed, then certainly accuracy reduction should be. Again, I can't believe this is controversial at all.

I think part of the reason that Ninjask hasn't been acted on is because the OGC has a crippling fear of complex bans and a complex ban on Speed Boost + Baton Pass would be the best way to deal with Ninjask as to not arbitrarily take a pokemon away from UU because of how "good" it is in OU. This is not to say I agree with this course, because I very clearly do not, I've just come to understand the reasons behind the lack of action, dumb as they may be.

The reasoning for action not even being ALLOWED TO BE CONSIDERED on sand attack is so dumb tho. "It doesn't affect tournament play" is so stupid because most ADV players are ladder players. If something can semi-consistently take ladder games to the turn 1000 cap as a dedicated strategy instead of a fringe and unfortunate combination of factors, that thing is worth taking action on regardless of its impact on tournament play. Like... oh no, sand attack dugtrio... not a bad and also completely replicable niche... whatever will we do...

 

[VarelaSensei]

I'm going to put my 2 cents in before this spirals into some onesided narrative. Ninjask is a part of the game, get over it. I don't play this team style, but I like facing it. The fact that such a fringe team archetype with statistically low usage and success rates is causing this kind of outcry is frankly confusing. If you're bothered by a team that consistently loses to the commonly found 2 phasers on a team, set up mons like metagross, or common structures like V5, then maybe this issue is a you thing. This mon has like, 2% usage or something ridiculously low? This pokemon is not dominating the game with omnipresent, overpowering, unbeatable strats.

ADV OU has an entirely unique team archetype that forces fast and dynamic gameplay. I think this is a sign that the game is healthy. I appreciate that ADV offers players willing to take on the risk, the chance to 'put all their chips in one basket'. I like the creativity in the builder this affords. I like the game play where each player must make the correct play in order to either continue or end the speed pass sequence. If you argue that ninjask teams are all linear, then I don't know what to say other than that take is just wrong. Each player has a variety of lines they can take and they have the choice of when to reveal those lines: bluffs, fakeouts, pivots, traps, and proactively hiding information. Ninjask teams enable otherwise unviable mons, strategies, and reward creative team building on both sides. And yet, they are simply ruined by the presence of two phasers, commonly found OU mons, and a laundry list of good moves found on good pokemon.

And most importantly, I love playing arcanine, which sits on these ninjask teams for days and I don't want one of this mon's few niches gone from ADV lol.

Ninjask is uncompetitive cheese that sees no high-level use? It has limited counterplay?

"Baton pass is severely nerfed. Ninjask used to be kind of busted." Of note in this game, the speed is roared out and the subsequent magneton is dug trapped, demonstrating punishing counterplay that decides the game's outcome in a swift, decisive sequence.

Ninjask is not fun? It's not creative?

The highest viewed video on the channel. A hype match with insane team building. The commentators piss themselves laughing as the game unfolds. "How many times are you going to click Giga Drain?!" "This is highly illegal, what you two are doing!" "Thank you for blessing us [with this replay]."

This was from a quick search. I'm sure if I went digging I'd find plenty more examples, both on the ladder and in tournament.

I can accept that there are some uncompetitive aspects of Ninjask teams. Although I did not like the swagger simple ban, I accept it because it addresses one of those aspects of Ninjask teams. I would also accept action taken on sand attack. But action on Ninjask entirely? That's stupid and I hope I've outlined why. Action on speed boost would also be stupid #protectyanma.

TLDR: I like facing Ninjask teams. Jask teams create unique and engaging gameplay that feels very different than the standard tss vs tss. I like that the weight of my decision making feels greater every single turn. I like that the outcome is decided by risk management and proactive gameplay. 100% accuracy lowering moves are stupid. And most importantly, don't fuck with Arcanine's one good MU c:

Crazy how you managed to write this whole post glazing Ninjask just to completely miss the point that the problem isn't Ninjask but accuracy drops being uncompetitive.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I also think Ninjask passing is degenerate but sand attack takes it beyond reasonable doubt. At least dry sub passing with Ninjask is something I could prepare for, even if I feel like I shouldn't have to because there is 0 skill expression in clicking substitute to get free speed boosts.

 

[Deezcastforms]

The reasoning for action not even being ALLOWED TO BE CONSIDERED on sand attack is so dumb tho.

What the fuck. When the hell did this happen? Sand-Attack Ninjask is the single worst thing that exists in the ADV OU bar none in terms of competitive, skill-based gameplay. SpeedPass Jask on its own isn't even a problem, but having a button that gives it progressively increasing odds to just flip the bird to it's counterplay, even when you bring teams that should normally be able to handle it makes it unfair, uncompetitive, and unfun. So the worst thing that the ADV tier leaders could possibly do is to shut down discussion on Sand-Attack and protect its place in the game.

Take every major non-Smogon ran ADV tour: Mushi League, Revival, CI, and Jimvitational all had accuracy lowering moves and items banned and were better off for it. Sand-Attack Ninjask should've been dealt with the moment people realized it was god level cheese after they had to drop Swords Dance. At this point, if you genuinely believe that Sand-Attack Ninjask is a healthy tool that belongs in ADV OU, then you're just wrong.

 

[Achohermano]

Like I genuinely don't think you play the tier with takes like these. (Also your team is genuinely bad if you don't have at least one form of phazing are you nuts)

I don't want to sound mean, but if you want to see Siglut's level, Siglut is playing in an invitational (The Jimvitational) and Jimothy Cool made a video presenting the player. Siglut is an elite player, objectively, and was invited from the beginning to a really prestige tournament.

He knows what he's talking about. You can disagree with him, of course. In the same way you can disagree with anyone online. However, Siglut's opinion is backed by a lot of experience.

As someone that actually plays in the 1400 ELO in ADV (XDDD) I don't really care/mind about Ninjask or accuracy moves. I think the tier is in a really good point

 

[bdt2002]

Coming back here to voice my admittedly uneducated opinions on Ninjask and the state of the metagame. I feel like ADV’s been in a very healthy spot for a long time now, and that is in part because Gen 3 feels like one of the only past generations that doesn’t have some overcentralizing mess to deal with. It’s also because, at least as far as I can tell, this generation does a great job at finding the healthy middle ground between Gens 1 and 2’s more stall-oriented landscapes and Gen 4’s more offense-oriented landscape. The only thing I would maybe consider overcentralizing in ADV OU personally would be Sand Stream (Tyranitar), but again, Tyranitar’s had a pretty healthy metagame standing for a long time now to the point where I don’t think any of the experienced playerbase would actually consider Sand Stream a significant enough problem to warrant tiering action.

Tyranitar and its trademark Sand Stream are a great example of a really strong Pokémon that is centralizing but balanced. I bring this up because Ninjask… might as well be the exact opposite of that. Ninjask feels like it’s bordering on “gimmick Pokémon” status to me, though not to the same extent as something like Shadow Tag Wobbuffet and Wynaut. To me, Sand Attack on Ninjask feels like a deliberate attempt to scrape out any sort of “value” from a Pokémon who is nothing in this metagame without its beloved Baton Pass. Seriously, if you haven’t tried using “Pass-less” Ninjask before, I highly recommend it just so you can witness for yourself how irrelevant it is.

At this point in time, I do not believe Ninjask or SpeedPass to be problematic enough to warrant tiering action, though I’m open to having my mind changed on that. The problem with accuracy lowering moves isn’t that they’re uncompetitive- which they are by default- but more specifically, the idea that these accuracy drops many help certain Pokémon (like Ninjask) cheese their way through situations they shouldn’t realistically be able to handle. I can see it now- a big tournament game hosted on Showdown with real life money on the line, and a SpeedPass Ninjask team wins because this thing just hit the opponent’s preferred phaser with Sand Attack and successfully dodged (at least) one Roar/Whirlwind as a result and was able to successfully get the Baton Pass off. Or what about something like a Zapdos or a Jolteon or whatever trying to offensively check it? Sand Attack, meet Thunderbolt misses. I understand that tiering action on accuracy lowering moves isn’t an option at this time, but if Sand Attack isn’t really a “good” move anyway, I struggle to see why these moves are still allowed, though I’m sure the council has their reasons. And- what happens in the situation that two Ninjask meet? Are they just supposed to click Sand Attack on each other and hope they win the 50-50?

 

[YubelVT]

I don't want to sound mean, but if you want to see Siglut's level, Siglut is playing in an invitational (The Jimvitational) and Jimothy Cool made a video presenting the player. Siglut is an elite player, objectively, and was invited from the beginning to a really prestige tournament.

He knows what he's talking about. You can disagree with him, of course. In the same way you can disagree with anyone online. However, Siglut's opinion is backed by a lot of experience.

As someone that actually plays in the 1400 ELO in ADV (XDDD) I don't really care/mind about Ninjask or accuracy moves. I think the tier is in a really good point

One would think that elite players would have good opinions on the tier they have nearly 43000 games in and are still sub 1300 in but damn I guess the theory of "the best players have the worst opinions" still goes strong to this day. Being good at the game doesn't automatically insulate your opinions from being bad.

 

[baddummy]

I'd like to add my thoughts on both speedpass and sand attack since I think they fall into two completely different categories.

I think a fallacy that the people who are vehemently anti-Ninjask commit is thinking that matchup fishing is something that exists inherently in a pokemon rather than a decision made by the player in the teams that they choose to bring. You can pretty easily construct a mag dol team that ruins standard SkarmBliss at the expense of being hopeless against a range of other matchups, and similarly so complete counter-teams for other styles that have glaring flaws facing other matchups. The point here is that if a player wants to matchup fish, they will do so, and so the relevant question is whether Ninjask is too effective. Its usage and win rate show that it isn't. While you can have matchups that Ninjask wins (standard zap dug + CM offensive teams are the best example of something it is really good against), you can also just lose by bringing it. You can see me losing my week 3 spl game as evidence of this, which is completely fair enough as I knew I had a risk of instantly losing when I loaded the team up, that is why it's a matchup fish. There's plenty of other replays of people instantly losing with Ninjask too, which is what you'd expect from an inconsistent pokemon, I wasn't the first and will by no means be the last to look foolish. We just haven't seen it be dominant enough to justify banning it, it's risky and has a wide range of counters. If somebody is getting continually smacked around by Ninjask pass teams they should probably look in the mirror to see the issue rather than the banlist.

As per regards Sand Attack, I feel differently. We should aim to have the rules of the game enforced by in-battle rules rather than mod intervention, and it currently plays a crucial role in the strategy where players are forcing infinite battles - the odds that you can make it to turn 1000 avoiding enough critical hits without using any accuracy drop moves are really small. The strategy basically becomes unworkable without accuracy drop moves, and it is a simple ban of a few moves rather than a more complex adjustment to the endless battle clause. Collateral damage is of course a concern when banning cheese strategies, and people have played honest teams that make use of things like agility pass zapdos or sub salac vap, but nobody has ever brought sand attack or flash with the intention of playing a regular game of pokemon. While sand attack -> aim for nonsense with set up sweepers might not be a particularly good strategy, there's nothing worth preserving about it either. It seems we're seeing a complex adjustment of the endless battle clause specifically for the sake of it being complex (something Smogon typically tries to avoid), as opposed to the simple ban of a handful of accuracy drop moves that have no competitive merit whatsoever, which would be very easy to implement and also make the community happy. This feels somewhat spiteful.

 

[DkKoba]

One would think that elite players would have good opinions on the tier they have nearly 43000 games in and are still sub 1300 in but damn I guess the theory of "the best players have the worst opinions" still goes strong to this day. Being good at the game doesn't automatically insulate your opinions from being bad.

Today I learned that eevee0 is Siglut. (/j)

 

[Ajjc]

finally broke through and hit 1629 on ladder yesterday. so as a now high level ADV OU player my opinion on ninjask is that nothing it does now (especiallyafter all the other bans related to BP) is remotely banworthy. to be honest with you when i see lead ninjask now it's kinda like... well, this is annoying to play against, but... you know what's more annoying to play against? a good player using a competent team structure. ninjask teams are extremely inconsistent by nature and even when executed properly they don't automatically guarantee wins like they did when some of the more degen strats were around. more often than not, it should be free points for you if you know what you're doing. i did almost get absolutely gimped by a cb ninjask around 1550 though.

so while ninjask may not be banworthy per se, if you are the type of person who uses ninjask teams seriously on ladder it is kind of a tacit admission that you have absolutely no regard for like... competitive integrity. i also cannot understand for the life of me what is fun about playing this team style from the ninjask player's perspective. if i found out

using ninjask on ladder is kind of like the moral equivalent to the types of people who don't return their shopping carts after going to the store. you don't deserve to go to jail (be banned) or anything but you're just kind of a huge jackass.

 

[YubelVT]

finally broke through and hit 1629 on ladder yesterday. so as a now high level ADV OU player my opinion on ninjask is that nothing it does now (especiallyafter all the other bans related to BP) is remotely banworthy. to be honest with you when i see lead ninjask now it's kinda like... well, this is annoying to play against, but... you know what's more annoying to play against? a good player using a competent team structure. ninjask teams are extremely inconsistent by nature and even when executed properly they don't automatically guarantee wins like they did when some of the more degen strats were around. more often than not, it should be free points for you if you know what you're doing. i did almost get absolutely gimped by a cb ninjask around 1550 though.

so while ninjask may not be banworthy per se, if you are the type of person who uses ninjask teams seriously on ladder it is kind of a tacit admission that you have absolutely no regard for like... competitive integrity. i also cannot understand for the life of me what is fun about playing this team style from the ninjask player's perspective. if i found out

using ninjask on ladder is kind of like the moral equivalent to the types of people who don't return their shopping carts after going to the store. you don't deserve to go to jail (be banned) or anything but you're just kind of a huge jackass.

I mean ladder ninjask users leading it are just bad, good ninjask players are not going to be leading it. Speed pass is (probably) not inherently problematic but it is when you just get the boosts for free like jask does. Ninjask is also a problem in that it prevents any accurate assessment of speedpassing as a whole because there's just this massive variable that you need to take into account otherwise your analysis is just inaccurate.

I'd like to add my thoughts on both speedpass and sand attack since I think they fall into two completely different categories.

I think a fallacy that the people who are vehemently anti-Ninjask commit is thinking that matchup fishing is something that exists inherently in a pokemon rather than a decision made by the player in the teams that they choose to bring. You can pretty easily construct a mag dol team that ruins standard SkarmBliss at the expense of being hopeless against a range of other matchups, and similarly so complete counter-teams for other styles that have glaring flaws facing other matchups. The point here is that if a player wants to matchup fish, they will do so, and so the relevant question is whether Ninjask is too effective. Its usage and win rate show that it isn't. While you can have matchups that Ninjask wins (standard zap dug + CM offensive teams are the best example of something it is really good against), you can also just lose by bringing it. You can see me losing my week 3 spl game as evidence of this, which is completely fair enough as I knew I had a risk of instantly losing when I loaded the team up, that is why it's a matchup fish. There's plenty of other replays of people instantly losing with Ninjask too, which is what you'd expect from an inconsistent pokemon, I wasn't the first and will by no means be the last to look foolish. We just haven't seen it be dominant enough to justify banning it, it's risky and has a wide range of counters. If somebody is getting continually smacked around by Ninjask pass teams they should probably look in the mirror to see the issue rather than the banlist.

I know that matchup fishing is a thing present in teambuilding, hell one of my favorite teams to play is one that loses extremely hard to blissey if I don't play correctly, my problem with jask is that it's a gen 9 style of matchup fishing where it's just not fun to play against.

As per regards Sand Attack, I feel differently. We should aim to have the rules of the game enforced by in-battle rules rather than mod intervention, and it currently plays a crucial role in the strategy where players are forcing infinite battles - the odds that you can make it to turn 1000 avoiding enough critical hits without using any accuracy drop moves are really small. The strategy basically becomes unworkable without accuracy drop moves, and it is a simple ban of a few moves rather than a more complex adjustment to the endless battle clause. Collateral damage is of course a concern when banning cheese strategies, and people have played honest teams that make use of things like agility pass zapdos or sub salac vap, but nobody has ever brought sand attack or flash with the intention of playing a regular game of pokemon. While sand attack -> aim for nonsense with set up sweepers might not be a particularly good strategy, there's nothing worth preserving about it either. It seems we're seeing a complex adjustment of the endless battle clause specifically for the sake of it being complex (something Smogon typically tries to avoid), as opposed to the simple ban of a handful of accuracy drop moves that have no competitive merit whatsoever, which would be very easy to implement and also make the community happy. This feels somewhat spiteful.

ur so real for this

 

[Painkiller Already]

finally broke through and hit 1629 on ladder yesterday. so as a now high level ADV OU player my opinion on ninjask is that nothing it does now (especiallyafter all the other bans related to BP) is remotely banworthy. to be honest with you when i see lead ninjask now it's kinda like... well, this is annoying to play against, but... you know what's more annoying to play against? a good player using a competent team structure. ninjask teams are extremely inconsistent by nature and even when executed properly they don't automatically guarantee wins like they did when some of the more degen strats were around. more often than not, it should be free points for you if you know what you're doing. i did almost get absolutely gimped by a cb ninjask around 1550 though.

so while ninjask may not be banworthy per se, if you are the type of person who uses ninjask teams seriously on ladder it is kind of a tacit admission that you have absolutely no regard for like... competitive integrity. i also cannot understand for the life of me what is fun about playing this team style from the ninjask player's perspective. if i found out

using ninjask on ladder is kind of like the moral equivalent to the types of people who don't return their shopping carts after going to the store. you don't deserve to go to jail (be banned) or anything but you're just kind of a huge jackass.

But here you are, as most Ninjask defenders, just attacking the argument that no one is making. You are basically saying here that Ninjask is not overpowered so it is fine. This is a strawman.

I agree, Ninjask is not overpowered. I'd say almost everyone would agree here, this is not really the issue.

The actual argument that you should address is that Ninjask does not promote healthy gameplay. It is cheesy and relies heavily on matchup fishing to succeed. And before anyone makes the argument "bad matchups exist, deal with it", I will already respond in advance that this is oversimplifying something down to a binary. Bad matchups exist on a spectrum, it's fine that some teams have bad matchups, but there are certain thresholds of volatility that are just too much. I believe Ninjask surpasses this threshold and then some.

This just further exacerbated with the Sand Attack cheese. This only exists to cheese wins. It is not particularly strong or reliable, but you can auto-win a certain amount of games from uncompetitive mechanics if you attempt it.

If you would place a 1200 elo player in a high level tournament, they'd probably be best off using a Sand Attack Ninjask team because maximizing RNG by definition helps the worse player more than the better player.

I hope you can see how saying "ADV OU would be better without Ninjask (or at least accuracy reduction moves)" is a different statement than "Ninjask is overpowered" or "Sand Attack is overpowered".

The question I want everyone to ask themselves is this: Would ADV OU be a better and more competitive tier without Ninjask/Sand Attack or not?"

You will notice how simply saying "Ninjask/Sand Attack is not overpowered though" does not answer that question at all, so that can be thrown out of the window already.

We will go nowhere in a discussion like this if we don't at least have the courtesy to address the arguments made instead of conflating things and attacking strawmen.

 

[OOF_MAXIMA]

On another note, I would like to discuss a set that has confused me for a while: Pursuit Metagross.

Pursuit on Metagross, in theory, accomplishes a couple of things:
- Chipping Choice band-locked fliers, like Aero, Mence, Flygon, Gyarados, etc.
- Pursuiting Gengar that has already taken a Pursuit from Tyranitar or a Psychic

However it comes with heavy sacrifices:

Mixed sets have to drop either Meteor Mash or Explosion to fit it for questionable payoff, and physical sets where you have existing Pursuit support (think Forretress teams) sacrifice longevity by dropping Protect / a screen when it is likely the main rock resist.

My question is:
On what structures is this useful?

My attempts were focused around Pursuit Tyranitar + Meta/Dol/Cune/Lax core with a physical Pursuit set, which allows weaker Suicunes and frailer Claydols to more comfortably work without trading health into Aerodactyl and Gengar, respectively.

 

[Ajjc]

But here you are, as most Ninjask defenders, just attacking the argument that no one is making. You are basically saying here that Ninjask is not overpowered so it is fine. This is a strawman.

I agree, Ninjask is not overpowered. I'd say almost everyone would agree here, this is not really the issue.

The actual argument that you should address is that Ninjask does not promote healthy gameplay. It is cheesy and relies heavily on matchup fishing to succeed. And before anyone makes the argument "bad matchups exist, deal with it", I will already respond in advance that this is oversimplifying something down to a binary. Bad matchups exist on a spectrum, it's fine that some teams have bad matchups, but there are certain thresholds of volatility that are just too much. I believe Ninjask surpasses this threshold and then some.

This just further exacerbated with the Sand Attack cheese. This only exists to cheese wins. It is not particularly strong or reliable, but you can auto-win a certain amount of games from uncompetitive mechanics if you attempt it.

If you would place a 1200 elo player in a high level tournament, they'd probably be best off using a Sand Attack Ninjask team because maximizing RNG by definition helps the worse player more than the better player.

I hope you can see how saying "ADV OU would be better without Ninjask (or at least accuracy reduction moves)" is a different statement than "Ninjask is overpowered" or "Sand Attack is overpowered".

The question I want everyone to ask themselves is this: Would ADV OU be a better and more competitive tier without Ninjask/Sand Attack or not?"

You will notice how simply saying "Ninjask/Sand Attack is not overpowered though" does not answer that question at all, so that can be thrown out of the window already.

We will go nowhere in a discussion like this if we don't at least have the courtesy to address the arguments made instead of conflating things and attacking strawmen.

you're sitting here talking about strawmen and "conflating things" meanwhile your entire argument contains no actual substance beyond "I believe Ninjask surpasses this threshold and some". why? because you lost to it on ladder a few times and it upset you?

you're acting like Ninjask teams are some crazy matchup fish that auto-win against some team archetypes and i am telling you that is simply not true. any halfway competent team should have plenty of answers to deal with the strat after all the nerfs and bans related to BP. you have multiple turns to respond to the Ninjask player as they do their stupid sub/protect dance, and the only thing they can pass is speed and *maybe* a substitute if you fucked up. nothing about that is creating "auto-win" situations against any matchups.

to answer your "Would ADV OU be a better and more competitive tier without Ninjask/Sand Attack or not" question... the answer is that it would have no impact on the tier's quality or competitiveness because we are ultimately talking about a shitmon that has a 1-2% usage rate and is pretty easy to beat in the overwhelming majority of positions anyway. add on Ninjask specifically using sand attack and we're talking about what, less than 1% of all games played?

if you want to make the argument that accuracy modifiers need to go, then fine. make that argument. it's honestly a completely separate argument from the Ninjask one (and I do find it ironic that you call other people out for conflating things meanwhile it's what your entire argument is built around). but i've directly responded to your concerns about the mon and i think it is pretty close to the general consensus from people who actually understand how to play this game.

 

[Shitrock enjoyer]

On another note, I would like to discuss a set that has confused me for a while: Pursuit Metagross.

Pursuit on Metagross, in theory, accomplishes a couple of things:
- Chipping Choice band-locked fliers, like Aero, Mence, Flygon, Gyarados, etc.
- Pursuiting Gengar that has already taken a Pursuit from Tyranitar or a Psychic

However it comes with heavy sacrifices:

Mixed sets have to drop either Meteor Mash or Explosion to fit it for questionable payoff, and physical sets where you have existing Pursuit support (think Forretress teams) sacrifice longevity by dropping Protect / a screen when it is likely the main rock resist.

My question is:
On what structures is this useful?

My attempts were focused around Pursuit Tyranitar + Meta/Dol/Cune/Lax core with a physical Pursuit set, which allows weaker Suicunes and frailer Claydols to more comfortably work without trading health into Aerodactyl and Gengar, respectively.

- What does he do?
Pursuit Metagross is a rather weird pokemon.
Honestly, I never thought of it as using with SuitTar, or even use it as a SuitTar replacement so u can enable PhysTar/WeatherLess, I believe its true application lies within chipping down fliers (especially Aero) with rather absurd ease while having the Gar nab factor, however SuitTar deals with both pretty well already. It's true to some degree that SuitMeta does accomplish the Aero job easier by being able to hard in Rock Slide, it also does less chip damage, and SuitTar punishes Aero DE spam already, and its especially notable SuitTar punishes the most spammed team right now (Zap/Skarm/Pert/Gar/Aero/Ttar) very well, as Gar+Aero gets owned by SuitTar, and SuitTar can tech in Grass as a nasty and rare surprise to bone the Swampert, often times the best physical backbone of said style of teams.
After this analysis of how SuitMeta works and how to compare its strongest application (chips down Aero/CBMence) vs how SuitTar handles those two, we now have to analyze the second best application: Enabling Lax teams to run PhysTar.
There are however problems with this logic. SuitMeta may deal with Gar, but here is where the coverage issue lies, many times teams with Lax would use MixMeta for its insane versatile Explosion + how it can act as a Gar stopgap with Psychic + chips Swampert down to low HP, Suit in fact does enhance the Gar stopgap factor, however often not that means dropping Mash, as said teams cannot afford to drop the defensive, offensive and versatility of Explosion, however dropping Mash is not a good alternative, as Meta's job on these teams is to act as the Ttar/Lax/Bliss check, and without Mash, it cannot check these three, now this still doesnt answer the question, as surely Suit's benefits can outweigh the downside of Mashless if put in a correct team, for us to factcheck this statement, lets try and pull some comparisons with the other funky mashless set (TP/EQ/Grass/Boom):
- TPunch MixMeta vs SuitMeta
▪︎ TPunch+Grass allows for stronger coverage vs SkarmPert
▪︎ EQ's presence means its not walled by Ttar unlike Suit/Psy/Fire/Boom, its also better vs Meta/Mag
▪︎ TPunch+Grass has the most versatile of Explosions in question of targets, while SuitMeta still has only the classical MixMeta targets (still versatile)
▪︎ TPunch+Grass still has the option to use Mash>EQ, while Suit cant really drop any of its moves (Fireless too passive vs Skarm/Forre/Meta, drop Psy and u lose one of the main draws vs Gar/Pert, drop Boom and u lose versatility, Mash/Suit/Fire/Boom is cute, but Psy is much better in average at getting damage done than Suit is, maybe Suit/EQ/Fire/Boom? U can get some luring done w that set, sounds awnk though).
By no means is TPunch/Grass/EQ/Boom is a elite set, its rather not splashable because of how key Meta's role at being a Lax/Bliss/Ttar check is, and Psychic is more consistent at damaging Swampert, and while I respect Mash/TP/Grass quite a bit too (especially when ur luring Mag by booming this, then Midgame Skarm as a nasty surprise), the fact TP+Grass is walled by Meta/Jira wout EQ, and it will always be walled by Forre no matter what.
- How to use:
Honestly complicated question, we went through all logical reasons to why Suit isnt used often, and why compared to the other viable Mashless set, it seems failed in comparison, a smart user however would notice I did not mention Mag. I do believe MixMeta's qualities are appreciated in Mag teams, especially that versatile Boom, I enjoy quite a lot of physical Mash/EQ/Grass/Boom on Mag teams in general, as it gives pressure to BlissPert while having that Ttar/Lax/Bliss check role that Meta provides so often (the true number 1 reason Meta is almost mandatory on Spikeless Offense), Mash/Psy/Suit/Boom could do something similar, Psy does a bunch of damage to Pert and can put it to low HP often, finally being able to check Ttar/Lax/Bliss also gives slots, ur able to fully support DDTar+Lax or DDTar in general in most teams, and its almost no cost, Psy/Suit/EQ/Boom is also somewhat similar, and I have seen it to a moderate degree of sucess, but it no longer checks Ttar/Lax/Bliss, however there is benefit, as it now can check or heavily dent most forms of Jirachi, and dent Meta for a Mag trap, it pairs exceptionally well with DD Brick Mence, a powerful anti-stall threat, as Psychic's ability to damage Pert still applies.
- Conclusion:
It is likely/seems to me that the best place to use Suit or make it suitable for your team (get it?) is on Mag Off styles, as a way to get the damage vs Gar while still having various MixMeta qualities thanks to STAB Psychic, Suit also helps other fringe threats like Jolly Ghost Gyara by chipping down Aero or making it so DD Brick Mence no longer needs to risk Slide vs Aero, and other small useful applications that the naked eye does not meet at first, interesting mon. I feel it is majorly outclassed in Dol Off/Mix Off type of teams but who knows? There is merit to everything thats in the OU tier after all, and yes that includes Breloom and Milotic.
- Side Note:
Can we please stop repeating the same Jask/Sand Attack discussions everyday and start asking useful questions in this forum like this one example I answered to. It's not that I pick a side to this (In fact, I am pro Jask-ban/SA-ban), I know any player worth their salt usually does not ask questions here and would go to places like ML to actually learn about the game, but it would be nice to get some interesting posts every once in a while like this one instead of the same repeated slam dunk on Starmaster or whatever, I dont agree with his approach to tiering and the system in general but this outrage is literally leading nowhere, you have the right to frustration, but it honestly would be nice to rest the case.

 

[Padeli]

Hi all. As of this post, I've topped the ladder #1 with a bulky offense TSS, using sub-liechi aero. Within a day of using it I shot straight up to #1, and as oppose to my last BO TSS team with offmie (with I don't think is that good...), I am confident this is a strong team.

View attachment 600570

This post is just to bring further attention to sub-liechi aero, which seems to be all over the ladder at the moment. Below is the team and its pokepaste, but I'm not going to discuss the team as a whole in a ton of detail, just aero and some things I've noticed about it and why I think it's excellent (this is prompt 1 and 2 that vapicuno has listed at the start of this thread). This sub liechi aero isnt news to people of course: just posting my thoughts about it (and also my achievement because I like to come out of hiding and make a post when I make #1 haha.)

View attachment 600573View attachment 600574View attachment 600575View attachment 600576View attachment 600577View attachment 600578

https://pokepast.es/7b9655e822fd5bf5.

The question behind the team: what is the best spikes-sand cleaner? Ignoring DD'ers, we have options like agil-gross, agil-zap, aero, jolt, starmie, and other niche things. After thinking hard about the question I think that it's aero but not the CB set.

On a sand/spikes team with an inclination towards offense (bulky offense, because I want to still make use of reasonable use of spikes), one wants a cleaner which is strong into sand immune walls such as jirachi/skarm/meta/tar/pert, as well as levitators. The electrics don't work great as cleaners due to the choice of hidden power, starmie hydro pump never hits, and agility gross is completely blanked by skarm and needs too much support in my opinion if you already commit to using Tyranitar Skarmory Gengar. Or, maybe it's fine but for me, I prefer to have something faster out of the box because my team is going to be offensive and otherwise we will be run over by offmie, jolt, aero, etc.

Then at a glance CB aero is perfect: comes on the field easy, flinches everything, fastest in the tier with jolteon. But in my opinion CB aero is overrated and it feels like people on the ladder understand this more and more now.

(1) using a physical cleaner without clear body is annoying especially when you only have 105 base attack. being choice banded magnifies this weakness even more.

(2) of course the main idea about sub liechi aero: you dont have enough defense on your offensive team to lock yourself into a move. It's completely terrible on a team with no defense, DD'ers and agility users will run you straight over.

(3) CB aero isnt even that strong! 50% to ohko off gar, misses the KO on things like starmie, etc. Frustratingly weak to me.

Simply by running sub-liechi we resolve 2/3 of these issues. Sub lets us play around intimidate and not lock moves. It also is a super strong bluff: you can revenge kill something early with aero and switch out to bluff CB and completely win the game a few turns later when revealing sub on a switch.

Also, on such a team as mine, you really want something that can reliably revenge kill certain pokemon like magneton, starmie, gengar, etc. Since aero is immune to sand and spikes, it excels at this especially when you dont lock yourself. So actually it's extremely useful mid game too (as oppose to something like Raikou or whatever).

To support it, just need spikes and strong pert lures (by the way, toxic on pert wins you the end game with sub if it comes down to a 1v1), and pick pokemon that provide the bulk in the right places (such as BKC tar for 1-2 zap switchings, modest zapdos with spdef to take on some suicunes, etc). Also, one wants pokemon with ice/fire/grass coverage like mixed tar, mix mence, or gar, on sand of course to break cores that utilize rachi/pert etc. So its off gar and bkc tar. I've experimented with mix tar but its not what I want for this team, I find that BKC tar with FP is still able to sufficiently chip pert and skarm without running fire blast and hp grass and all.

So that's my take which again I know is nothing new! : sub liechi aero = amazing.

some other notes about the team: I've tried D-bond on gar but its too specific to me. explosion has more general utility, plus sub aero isn't terrible into claydol because we aren't CB anymore (obviously you want to heavily chip that, though). I've also considered agility gross but I find this team struggles with skarmory if you dont have more breaking power. I've also considered hp ice toxic on zap because like I said, toxic on pert is sufficient to beat it in the end game with aero if you have health for like 3 subs (of course I would keep roar on spikes, so twave would go).

Anyways, I am pretty new to ADV, so I'm happy to hear criticism or whatever the more experienced playerbase thinks about this team and its success on the ladder, and sub-liechi aero overall. I would also want suggestions on the above possible tweaks to the team if people are willing to give feedback.

Thanks for reading, see you all on the ladder!

-Padeli

UPDATE 2/4: 1832 after three more wins, team is still performing very well.

Hello all,

Just going to update this post many months later. Played a ton of ADV since then and peaked many more times with various teams, such as joltspikes in June (my version) and some other el-classico variants in March, though most notably this team I made had the highest peak. Just going to post here the 1957 peak once and for all (screenshot is from April 6 2024).

I made some edits to the team that helped it perform better: agility over CB (controversial for some), def gar, toxic tar, and some other small changes. Again this was a long time ago just finally putting this here for completeness...

I think lots of styles can work well on the ladder as long as you prepare for the teams the ladder will throw at you in some way. I'm not a big fan of this team I built anymore but it did do very well for a very long time, even after being public for months, and even after everyone knew it, which in my opinion is very notable especially since it's a pretty aggressive team, and I'm still somewhat new to ADV.

I won't ramble about it here right now but after playing on the ladder much more over the last 6 months I think there's certain traits that teams that consistently perform well on the ladder have: obviously spikes,sand, etc..., but theres some traits that aren't necessarily obvious imo (I've talked abt it with many ppl in discord). Broadly speaking though lots can work its just about improving and being consistent with actually good teams. But there are some subtle, small optimizations that can really take a team to the super high elo level imo (again not gonna fully go into it here, maybe later in a different post).

--Padeli

 

[oopsalldeoxys]

after about a year of tinkering with this set i think i've finally cracked the code on hp fighting moltres

B2b (Moltres) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 24 HP / 116 Atk / 252 SpA / 116 Spe
Mild Nature
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Fire Blast
- Toxic
- Protect

this set cleanly 2 hits bulky tar with hp fighting and is capable of putting a ton of pressure on blissey, especially with spikes. protox synergizes perfectly with hp fighting because once the set is revealed, mons like pert become a main switchins and toxic is the next best way of pressuring them. evs are pretty simple, 244 speed for tar and max spattak because fire blast hitting hard is important, rest goes in hp. I have this on a superman team rn but i think it could be built around on other structures to good effect. try it out! (please dont run cb molt its trash garbage)

edit: forgot my calcs....

calcs!!

116 Atk Moltres Hidden Power Fighting vs. 248 HP / 0 Def 30 IVs Tyranitar: 214-252 (53.1 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
116 Atk Moltres Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 224-264 (34.4 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

 

[Caloom]

after about a year of tinkering with this set i think i've finally cracked the code on hp fighting moltres

View attachment 651139
B2b (Moltres) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 24 HP / 116 Atk / 252 SpA / 116 Spe
Mild Nature
- Hidden Power [Fighting]
- Fire Blast
- Toxic
- Protect

this set cleanly 2 hits bulky tar with hp fighting and is capable of putting a ton of pressure on blissey, especially with spikes. protox synergizes perfectly with hp fighting because once the set is revealed, mons like pert become a main switchins and toxic is the next best way of pressuring them. evs are pretty simple, 244 speed for tar and max spattak because fire blast hitting hard is important, rest goes in hp. I have this on a superman team rn but i think it could be built around on other structures to good effect. try it out! (please dont run cb molt its trash garbage)

edit: forgot my calcs....

calcs!!

116 Atk Moltres Hidden Power Fighting vs. 248 HP / 0 Def 30 IVs Tyranitar: 214-252 (53.1 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
116 Atk Moltres Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 224-264 (34.4 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

Have you tried using this set with missy? I think the synergy between them would be great. Missy is probably the most effective spin blocker in the tier and the moltres does a good job of dealing with pursuit tar.