Metagame Almost Any Ability

After getting packed up by Stamina NP Pecharunt in AAA Open Semis, I decided to make my own version--except it's Manaphy:

:sv/Manaphy:
Manaphy @ Kee Berry
Ability: Stamina
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Take Heart
- Scald
- Stored Power
- Aqua Ring

This thing is insane, especially when behind dual screens. I've played a number of matches where it comes in, takes a pivotspam move, and the opponent is now facing Victory Dance Calm Mind Refresh Manaphy. Not much else to say since the principle is relatively straightforward; I just wanted to share the idea. The team I made isn't particularly good or anything, but it'll get the job done for the most part:

:sv/Great Tusk::sv/Regieleki::sv/Manaphy::sv/Roaring Moon::sv/Volcarona::sv/Moltres-Galar:
 
Soiramio3000 said:
which pokemon would ruin the game the most
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Single most ruinous set is probably Volcarona, as after one Quiver Dance you outspeed every relevant Scarfer with Modest and have 135 Modest +2 attacks. Many, many other things would ruin the meta as well to the point that Unaware becomes semi-mandatory, but that’s probably the worst offender.
 
UT said:
Single most ruinous set is probably Volcarona, as after one Quiver Dance you outspeed every relevant Scarfer with Modest and have 135 Modest +2 attacks. Many, many other things would ruin the meta as well to the point that Unaware becomes semi-mandatory, but that’s probably the worst offender.
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thanks.

I will use volcarona then.
lets see if this gimmick will work.

edit: the gimmick was to use latias with prankster simple beam and eject button and give trace to volcarona.
it pushes the anti-simple rule to its limits without breaking them.

it was not all that great, but keep in mind that I am a bad player.

maybe someone here with a million IQ can make it work.
 
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2 abilities that I dislike are desolate land and primordial sea.

I want to use "snow warning" from time to time and these 2 abilities ruin it.

I am not saying that they should be banned, I am just saying that I don't like them.

edit: also the fact they completely shut down water and fire type moves is a little busted.
 
Soiramio3000 said:
2 abilities that I dislike are desolate land and primordial sea.

I want to use "snow warning" from time to time and these 2 abilities ruin it.

I am not saying that they should be banned, I am just saying that I don't like them.

edit: also the fact they completely shut down water and fire type moves is a little busted.
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Assuming your using snow warning for the use of aurora veil, I suggest switching to either regieleki or prankster corviknight for screens. Deso Land and Prim Sea also aren't really that busted as there's still plenty of counterplay. For example, Manaphy and sometimes Swampert (it struggles with Solar Beam variants of Moth and Heatran) can reliably switch in on Lando-T, Heatran, and Iron Moth, then pivot out to some fast revenge killer (Roaring Moon, Azelf, etc), while for Prim Sea users, Primarina, Empoleon, and again Manaphy can somewhat easily switch in on Walking Wake and pivot to a fast revenge killer. They also do a really good job of balancing each other out cause certain switch ins rely on Deso Land mons to counter Prim Sea mons and vice versa. Example: Swampert switches in on Walking Wake but Weather Ball does a bit too much so you go to Deso Land Iron Moth to switch into it. There's also other stuff like Well Baked Body Gholdengo and Pecharunt, as well as Water Absorb Heatran but I don't think I need to go on.
 
Gambit_Gamin said:
Assuming your using snow warning for the use of aurora veil, I suggest switching to either regieleki or prankster corviknight for screens. Deso Land and Prim Sea also aren't really that busted as there's still plenty of counterplay. For example, Manaphy and sometimes Swampert (it struggles with Solar Beam variants of Moth and Heatran) can reliably switch in on Lando-T, Heatran, and Iron Moth, then pivot out to some fast revenge killer (Roaring Moon, Azelf, etc), while for Prim Sea users, Primarina, Empoleon, and again Manaphy can somewhat easily switch in on Walking Wake and pivot to a fast revenge killer. They also do a really good job of balancing each other out cause certain switch ins rely on Deso Land mons to counter Prim Sea mons and vice versa. Example: Swampert switches in on Walking Wake but Weather Ball does a bit too much so you go to Deso Land Iron Moth to switch into it. There's also other stuff like Well Baked Body Gholdengo and Pecharunt, as well as Water Absorb Heatran but I don't think I need to go on.
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I want the freedom to negate them on the switch without having to use their polar opposite.

I also want the freedom to use sand stream if I want to, not just snow warning.
 
Dahness said:
well, the thing is, in a game as vast as Pokemon, you can't have everything be viable, even if it sounds fun to use
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Isn't the whole point of the almost any ability format to have fun with the stupidest combos you can think?

Wasn't neutralizing gas banned due to beating the whole point of the format rathen than making certain pokemon overpowered(like triage) or being too unpredictable(like magic bounce)?

Anyway, I am aware that these 2 abilities are never going to be banned.
 
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Let's suspect test Ice Scales

Our special walls suck: excluding RegenVest, we have very few actual special walls at our disposal, and most of them are exceedingly passive. Blissey / Chansey are extreme momentum sinks, Empoleon is heavily reliant on loading the correct immunity ability (more on that later), guys like Heatran and Gholdengo aren't really that speically bulky and rely heavily on resistances / immunities, and other true special walls like Florges are never seen for good reason. Which means...

Relying on RegenVest sucks: Most teams rely on a RegenVest to handle special attackers. Especially in SAC, this is a major restriction, and even then not a particularly effective one. Knock Off, even on special attackers, is extremely common; Walking Wake, Azelf, Deoxys-S, Gengar, etc all can easily remove Assault Vest on a predicted switch. RegenVest are also pretty good at checking a single special attacker, but are relatively easily overwhelmed by threat stacking as their recovery is conditional.

Our specially defensive abilities suck: compared to Intimidate, Fluffy, and a more niche options like Flame Body, we have very few ways to check special attackers outside of Regenerator or immunity abilities. Relying on immunity abilities makes progress very non-linear; either you have a hard wall, or you have effectively no ability, your ability to soft check / play around threats is severely diminished.

Our special attackers are extremely varied: just skimming down the top of the VR, Walking Wake, Scream Tail, Iron Moth, Deoxys-Speed, Gholdengo, Gengar (why is he in A-), Latios, Azelf, Electrode-Hisui, and Sandy Shocks are all top threats that you're not going to cover in a single RegenVest, espeically if they stack threats. Without splashable special walls or specially defensive abilities, that means handling the ones your RegenVest does not can be incredibly patchwork and inconsistent. They also tend to have excellent coverage options, potentially throwing a wrench into normally consistenct counters. This doesn't even include the already-banned special attackers like Darkrai, Keldeo, Iron Bundle, and Raging Bolt (okay Raging Bolt is probably never coming back, why does it get Rising Voltage).

Bulky setup is not as big a problem with Ice Scales: the most common broken setup combinations imo are Bulk Up (or Victory Dance) + Recovery + Ice Scales and Calm Mind (or Quiver Dance) + Recovery + Fur Coat. There are 1,001 mons that get Calm Mind + Recovery, but the list that gets Bulk Up + Recovery is far more limited:
1714585046850.png
Outside of the obviously-banned-no-matter-what Slaking, this is not an intimidating list. Maybe Lilligant-H can pull something off, maybe Quaquaval can, but even then these are not world-ending threats (and if it's just one or two of them, we can ban for that).

Yes you can still set up without recovery, but espeically without a boosting ability onboard, it's much harder to setup to a full game-stopping wincon like Calm Mind + Fur Coat could.

Cards on the table, I am generally happy with the meta right now and am enjoying it, but as someone that plays mostly balance / bulky offense, it's hard not to notice how janky my answers to common special attackers can be, especially when threat stacked, and it's frustrating to feel like my Regen is locked to a RegenVest. I legitimately believe that Ice Scales would be a healthy adition to the metagame, improve the consistency of teambuilding, and not end up with runaway bulky setup.

It's worth remembering that Ice Scales was only two votes away from staying legal, it was not a landside result, and that was with it being lumped in with the (imo) more broken Fur Coat. I think Ice Scales by itself is a legitimately balancing element that could improve the meta and I would like to see it tested.
 
Soiramio3000 said:
Isn't the whole point of the almost any ability format to have fun with the stupidest combos you can think?

Wasn't neutralizing gas banned due to beating the whole point of the format rathen than making certain pokemon overpowered(like triage) or being too unpredictable(like magic bounce)?

Anyway, I am aware that these 2 abilities are never going to be banned.
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there's a big difference between neutralazing gas and psea/deso.The format is supposed to let you have (almost) any ability you want, so an ability like neutralizing gas, who nullifies any other ability, would defeat the point.However, desoland and psea being legal do not defeat the purpose, as they are just 2 abilities that are meta.You can still use sand stream and snow warning, but they just aren't viable.It's like asking the ou council to ban meta mons because you wanna use low tier mons.
 
Soiramio3000 said:
Wasn't neutralizing gas banned due to beating the whole point of the format rathen than making certain pokemon overpowered
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Neutralizing Gas is also broken as hell; turning off Regenator on their RegenVest, making a MGLO mon take recoil, making Weather Ball users useless, blocking Unaware / Fluffy / Intimidate, and all the other stuff it does is hella broken.

In a format like AAA where most sets rely heavily on their ability, just turning the ability off is extremely powerful.
 
UT said:
Neutralizing Gas is also broken as hell; turning off Regenator on their RegenVest, making a MGLO mon take recoil, making Weather Ball users useless, blocking Unaware / Fluffy / Intimidate, and all the other stuff it does is hella broken.

In a format like AAA where most sets rely heavily on their ability, just turning the ability off is extremely powerful.
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Really?
Okay then.

Which pokemon could abuse this ability the most?
 
Soiramio3000 said:
Really?
Okay then.

Which pokemon could abuse this ability the most?
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It has never been allowed in this generation, so we have no idea. It won't really be a relevant point of discussion unless there's actual consideration for a suspect test; at the moment, there is not. Theorymonning VRs for this kind of thing is typically avoided because it takes away from talking about the actual metagame at hand.

...That being said, it doesn't really matter who the user is as long as they have decent bulk and a recovery move, because even just stuffing regenvesters is typically broken and at maximum efficiency.
 
UT said:
Let's suspect test Ice Scales

Our special walls suck: excluding RegenVest, we have very few actual special walls at our disposal, and most of them are exceedingly passive. Blissey / Chansey are extreme momentum sinks, Empoleon is heavily reliant on loading the correct immunity ability (more on that later), guys like Heatran and Gholdengo aren't really that speically bulky and rely heavily on resistances / immunities, and other true special walls like Florges are never seen for good reason. Which means...

Relying on RegenVest sucks: Most teams rely on a RegenVest to handle special attackers. Especially in SAC, this is a major restriction, and even then not a particularly effective one. Knock Off, even on special attackers, is extremely common; Walking Wake, Azelf, Deoxys-S, Gengar, etc all can easily remove Assault Vest on a predicted switch. RegenVest are also pretty good at checking a single special attacker, but are relatively easily overwhelmed by threat stacking as their recovery is conditional.

Our specially defensive abilities suck: compared to Intimidate, Regenerator, and a more niche options like Flame Body, we have very few ways to check special attackers outside of Regenerator or immunity abilities. Relying on immunity abilities makes progress very non-linear; either you have a hard wall, or you have effectively no ability, your ability to soft check / play around threats is severely diminished.

Our special attackers are extremely varied: just skimming down the top of the VR, Walking Wake, Scream Tail, Iron Moth, Deoxys-Speed, Gholdengo, Gengar (why is he in A-), Latios, Azelf, Electrode-Hisui, and Sandy Shocks are all top threats that you're not going to cover in a single RegenVest, espeically if they stack threats. Without splashable special walls or specially defensive abilities, that means handling the ones your RegenVest does not can be incredibly patchwork and inconsistent. They also tend to have excellent coverage options, potentially throwing a wrench into normally consistenct counters. This doesn't even include the already-banned special attackers like Darkrai, Keldeo, Iron Bundle, and Raging Bolt (okay Raging Bolt is probably never coming back, why does it get Rising Voltage).

Bulky setup is not as big a problem with Ice Scales: the most common broken setup combinations imo are Bulk Up (or Victory Dance) + Recovery + Ice Scales and Calm Mind (or Quiver Dance) + Recovery + Fur Coat. There are 1,001 mons that get Calm Mind + Recovery, but the list that gets Bulk Up + Recovery is far more limited:
View attachment 629801
Outside of the obviously-banned-no-matter-what Slaking, this is not an intimidating list. Maybe Lilligant-H can pull something off, maybe Quaquaval can, but even then these are not world-ending threats (and if it's just one or two of them, we can ban for that).

Yes you can still set up without recovery, but espeically without a boosting ability onboard, it's much harder to setup to a full game-stopping wincon like Calm Mind + Fur Coat could.

Cards on the table, I am generally happy with the meta right now and am enjoying it, but as someone that plays mostly balance / bulky offense, it's hard not to notice how janky my answers to common special attackers can be, especially when threat stacked, and it's frustrating to feel like my Regen is locked to a RegenVest. I legitimately believe that Ice Scales would be a healthy adition to the metagame, improve the consistency of teambuilding, and not end up with runaway bulky setup.

It's worth remembering that Ice Scales was only two votes away from staying legal, it was not a landside result, and that was with it being lumped in with the (imo) more broken Fur Coat. I think Ice Scales by itself is a legitimately balancing element that could improve the meta and I would like to see it tested.
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I think it would be reasonable to at least give Ice Scales another shot to be tested in this environment. During the FurScales suspect, almost all of the arguments against the two abilities were primarily directed at Fur Coat and specifically Fur Coat setup. Also, Ice Scales almost didn't even get banned, so it's not like the previous suspect test was a hard and fast decision or something.

While it's true that certain Pokemon can do the same thing with Ice Scales, I'm not fully convinced that Ice Scales alone is an unhealthy element for certain. I agree with all of the pro-unban reasons UT already stated, but I also think we should be open to considering the possibility that there's a world where the tier ends up in a fine balance state even with Ice Scales legal. If we get some overly strong setup guys because of their ability to tank strong hits with Ice Scales and then SD or CM to +50 or whatever, then we can just ban them--that possibility isn't a good case for testing in a potentially balanced element. Double spdef is pretty strong, but to me, playing around it isn't particularly different from trying to play around immunity abilities, and although Mold Breaker special attackers would be re-introducing a dynamic we haven't used since before FurScales ban, they do exist as an option. Also, if we end up authorizing unbans of certain strong special attackers later down the line due to the new defensive power level, that just means even more viable options.

And if a suspect does happen and ends in keep banned, then oh well--just means it wasn't meant to be. That's why there are two options to begin with, after all.
 
Soiramio3000 said:
Has slaking ever been allowed to compete before getting the banhammer?

I am not asking for it to be unbanned, I am just curious on how it broke the game especially when zamazenta is legal.
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Yes, specifically for one day - day one of SV AAA. Zamazenta is nowhere close to Slaking in terms of power - 160 Attack is pretty fucking broken and with sets like Guts + Facade or just CB SoR, it will be very broken
 
UT said:
Let's suspect test Ice Scales
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While it would be fun/interesting to see what the meta would look like with ice scales in it, I think that for the health of the meta in the short and long term it would be better to test individual mons before adding an ability that halves all special attack damage. I also don't believe that ice scales setup will be limited to bulk up + recovery, and instead could be used by things with SD or NP to set up and just invest in bulk to live any hit. I believe damage amp abilities are being overvalued here since many mons can function without these abilities and still do huge damage with just regular set-up. Set-up + ice scales doesn't need to be immediately game winning, being able to punch a big enough hole in a team would be more than enough, and I think it would be easier to snowball than not with ice scales since it wouldn't be immediately obvious the mon is running the ability. There would also simply be no reason to not use it, and it would have an offensive presence that regen does not that would make it as if not more centralizing than regen. My final point will be that I simply don't think the meta needs it, g9 has always been full of heavy hitters/more offensive mons than previous gens, and I think atp it has to be accepted that the baseline power level is stronger. There are still ways to answer the meta, but it is more offensively oriented than ever before, which isn't bad compared to defensive answers, just different. I would be more open to suspecting individual mons that put this pressure like wake and deos before susing the ability.

UT said:
Our special attackers are extremely varied:
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I don't believe you should be able to answer all of these threats with just a regenvest, and if you use just one wall to answer a whole form of attacking it is always gonna be p rough. Even with this sentiment, less than a week ago people were complaining about how nothing beats mana and it just sits there, gets health back, and 'never dies' so I am not too sure about the shakiness of some of the regenvesters. The mons listed in this section all have meaningful counterplay outside of regenvest that needs to be considered when building in terms of resistances and immunities. Immunities especially are an integral part of AAA, and having ice scales freed lowers need for them and makes gameplay less dynamic as there isn't any inherent risk in running IS when compared to immunity abilites. Even the physical lowering abilities have risk/drawbacks: fluffy is weak to fires/only on contact and intim only lowers by one stage and is susceptible to set-up, but ice scales has no drawback, it is an effective doubling of one's spdef. The reason that regenvest sometimes doesn't feel like enough is because the best of the best special attackers have ways of getting rid of an AV, and to that I would say the problem lies more in those mons than needing ice scales to fix it. Even then there are more fundamental teambuilding issues at play if a team autoloses if a special mon gets a knock on the regenvest. This also applies to physical attackers as one shouldn't be using just intim or just fluffy to answer them. The best of the best physical attackers also have ways to muscle through these abilities, and using only these answers will always leave holes in a team defensively. 'Overloading' a team with checks and/or using more offensive mons to defensively check some of the biggest threats (mglo rmoon and scarf ghold are prime examples) is something I think one should be doing more often in this meta and not relying on fatter/slower cores to get by. Putting in a bunch of soft checks that are able to pivot in your offensive threats that scare these mons out/force a KO is huge. Finally, one has to put more faith in some special checks like moon, ghold, tran, and stail as these can easily switch in on many spdef mons; it just isn't nearly as free as regenvest.

I am not super against a test after individuals are looked at and it is still seen as an issue, but I think as of now ice scales would be a bandaid over some of the larger 'problem' mons and lock out many weaker spatkers like stail and lead to more centralization in what special mons you could viably use, which wouldn't be nearly as fun or competitive (I put a high enjoyment and comp on the most recent survey so this could be bias but whatev).

In summary: test the individual mons first, a team should already have more varied ways outside of regenvest to take on special mons, ice scales would get rid of this variation and centralize with regen as the blanket answers, and the meta is always gonna lean offensively so let's just go with it.
 
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Survey Results!

Thank you to the 38 that responded! With responses having significantly slowed down and some interesting results, here are the results, stick around for the end for ANOTHER SURVEY! (mini-sized)

Average Enjoyability: 7.47/10

A fairly fine score, though not entirely perfect, does signify general happiness or acceptance with the enjoyability of games at the moment which is good to hear that we're not completely failing.

Average Competitiveness: 7.68/10

Similar to before, with a slightly higher score. Once again, not perfect, but is a sign of a mostly satisfactory state of competitiveness in the meta and we dont need to super rush things right now.

Short Answer Responses:

:manaphy: Manaphy (2): Being such a pivotal defensive piece within the meta, with such little support dredged up so far it is quite unlikely for much action to occur. While true, it has almost monopolizing degree in terms of the Regen slot, it is not quite yet up to its DLC1 state with other Regens like Ting-Lu and Swampert still squeezing out their own place and more offensive teams popping up with all types of diverse uses. It's not overtly broken either, with plenty of play available to threaten or break it. Its ability to consistently make progress is annoying, but doesn't notably warp most teams who just accept it. Stall is a notable exception... but without much of a case argued, there's little chance for any form of action.

:zamazenta: Zamazenta-Hero (2): Fairly unlikely. Zamazenta has put up ok results, but nothing to show much of it being broken. Popular checks to CB/ID are abound in the likes of Pecharunt, Scream Tail, Zapdos, Dragonite and Fluffy Corv with varying degrees of effectiveness while not being impossible to revenge yet with PsySurge Azelf maintaining popularity as well as other strong scarfers like Walking Wake. While its IDBP sets can be annoyingly fishy, without any better showings and more solid support it's unlikely for Zama-H to see any action for the forseeable future.

:gholdengo: Good as Gold (2): Guys we have two (two) viable removers and you want to test GaG...

:chien-pao: Sword of Ruin (2): Little chance. Sword of Ruin while a strong ability, is not without competition and would be easily replaceable in its absence by the likes of Tough Claws, Adaptability and even other boosting abilities. Furthermore there's not really widespread issue with the ability so, no chance.

:groudon-primal::kyogre-primal: Desolate Land and Primordial Sea (2): Unlikely. These abilities have defined the meta for generations and have been comfortably adapted to for all it. While there are arguments for their power being a bit warping, there's too little support to justify any kind of action here.

:iron-bundle:Iron Bundle (2): Fairly unlikely. With an incredible speed tier that can let it pressure and force out a lot of the meta and having strong coverage with STAB Water and Freeze-Dry, Iron Bundle can put a great amount of pressure on the special slot of a team. While specialised checks are somewhat popular, ie Wabs Heatran and Iron Moth, Iron Moth isn't particularly safe with Specs Adapt IBeam doing chunks, and it always retaining the ability to pivot freely to enable other teammates greatly and the special slots are pressured enough as is.

:gliscor: Poison Heal (2): While Poison Heal opens up an interesting avenue for more defensive cplay, its unhealthy ability in enabling potent setup sweepers proven both in the past and tested far back in the generation (though granted it was a very different meta) has shown its historically outweighted its positives and would need some firm support and argument to free again, which it lacks here so little chance.

:ceruledge:Ceruledge (3): Ceruledge is an exceptionally powerful mon, but has for the most part proven somewhat balanced. While undoubtedly strong, it does not completely lack defensive checks with itemless checks and Regen Ting-Lu popping up more often as well as Fire immunities being pretty common to allow some degree of defensive cplay while struggling quite hard into the more offensively paced teams of the meta with its low speed and general frailty in bulk, typing and rocks weakness. Unlikely to see action.

:dragonite:Dragonite (3): As of now, there's not too much support for action on DNite, so it's unlikely for the forseeable future. While Dragonite is definitely an annoying mon with the plethora of coverage it can run to annoy checks like Fluffy Corv and ilk, for the most part there has been little evidence for it being properly too strong and most teams have been able to adapt mostly fine with the likes of Pecha and STail proving popular among other mainstays like PsySurge Azelf, all culminating in a lack of real support that leads to little chance of action.

:noivern: Noivern (3): Very unlikely. Noivern has proven extremely strong wallbreaker with Choice Specs, and while it does not completely lacks checks and neutral cplay in a vacuum, its ease of use, speed and strength means in reality it simply is too overbearing for the majority of neutral checks and would exert pressure for more specialised checks (doing 40+ to Max SpD AV Mana). There already is considerable pressure from other special breakers in the current meta, so there's little chance we will free another one that's so strong.

:glimmora: Toxic Debris (3): Unlikely for now. Having been suspected into oblivion only a few months ago, more support and argumentation is required to push forward any action on Toxic Debris, Pecharunt is a decent case but at the same time removal is pretty awful at the same time with Pecharunt around...

:lugia: Lugia (4): Not given much consideration for now. While it has its name pop up now and then for quite a while, the benefit it offers are little and Bulky CM sets are potentially quite detrimental in their strength and just general fishiness. Arguably, they wouldn't be much worse than other similar sets for mons like Cresselia, but without much more support or a case put forward, it isn't something at the top of our priority to push action forward for given other pressing matters.

:roaring-moon: Roaring Moon (4): Pretty unlikely to see action. Roaring Moon is certainly quite strong, with an insane amount of popularity in recent months however that does not necessarily entail it being outright broken or unhealthy with checks like Fluffy Corv and Regen Ting-Lu popping up to strong popularity along with mainstays like Tusk always popular. While consistent, and can certainly break through these checks with play and time, it can often be played around fairly well and there's not too much outright support calling for its ban.

:chien-pao: Chien-Pao (5): Unlikely for now. Chien-Pao has held a controversial position in the past, and still to a degree now even but its relevance has far fallen from its past. With Manaphy rising in popularity as well as the like of Empoleon, Heatran and Tect Ting-Lu, CB Chien-Pao has struggled far more in this meta, indicated with its low usage and winrates with Fluffy Corv being far more popular in spite of it and showing a lack of too much constraint caused by Chien Pao. As such, there's no real reason for worry or action against CPao, for now.

:zacian-crowned:Zacian (5): A maybe, but for the future and only if there's an increase in support. The notion of freeing Zacian-Crowned has floated around for quite a while now but has lacked solid strength to push through the suspect. There's certainly some argument to be made for it, but with its insane speed and strengths some more support will be needed.

:slowbro::toxapex:2 Ability Clause/No Ability Clause (5): An interesting idea that has gone through its ups and downs in popularity for quite a while, popping up very recently again as perhaps a change to alleviate teambuilding pressure caused by the numerous strong special attackers in the meta. Still, it constitutes a rather large change affecting several mons and the entire meta, so it requires far more support before any real action can be taken.

:persian-alola::frosmoth:Fur Coat + Scales (3), Ice Scales (2): As can be seen in the above posts Ice Scales have popped up as a new idea for fixing the skewed dynamic between special attackers and their defensive counterplay. We can see this in the survey as well, with 2 of the mentions specifically mentioning Scales alone. While Fur Coat has a general lack of support due to the amount of setup sweepers, Ice Scales alone is a more interesting proposition that could possibly be explored further...

:sneasler: Sneasler (6): Ehhh. While there was some decent support in the survey, there has been little support elsewhere stirred. Sneasler is undoubtedly quite a strong mon with a speed tier outpacing RMoons, 130 base ATK, strong STABs and coverage with SD, personally I'm gonna need some more convincing. On the other side of the coin, Pecharunt and Gholdengo serve as popular dual-resists while Fluffy Corv still remains popular, but it gets Throat Chop and Fire Punch just saying... Unlikely as of right now but a maybe in the future if it gets more support to be tested.

:enamorus:Enamorus (8): Being the most popular potential unban mentioned in the survey, Enamorus has also had some decent conversation stirred in the forums as well indicating some decent support. While a potential offensive nightmare, its speed isn't spectacular, can be juggled with resists and is quite frail and could possibly offer some interesting defensive benefits of the fabled Fairy type for more offensive team. Whether it'll be freed... we'll see...

:walking-wake: Walking Wake (10): With more than a quarter of responses noting Walking Wake as a potential problematic element, Walking Wake has shown itself to be quite controversial. While lacking much direct support here in the forums, it has been brought up in discussion and shown itself quite notably in here, the prime suspect thing in the meta as of now with its strong effect on the meta shown with the likes of Manaphy, Empoleon and even stuff like Wabs Heatran/Gholdengo popping up.


With quite the list of potential action in bans and unbans and no intense consensus or incredible urge given the fairly satisfactory scores given in enjoyability, we've decided to release a new mini-survey to sus out and try to focus on potential action for the most prominent candidates brought up recently (Enamorus, Walking Wake and Ice Scales)

>>>CLICK HERE FOR MINI-SURVEY!!!!!<<<
(fill out fast!!)​
 
Walking Wake Ban / Suspect? :walking wake:

Im personally against Ice Scales, but the motivation behind wanting it i sympathize.
If you personally think that special attackers are too tough, i feel like it would make sense to first start looking at the mons then.

Its pretty unargueable imo that Walking Wake is the strongest most prevalent special attacker right now, and the one really pushing the envelope on destroying these balance cores. While technically its pure damage numbers can be recreated with other mons, none of the other candidates are nearly as good or effective. Wake has a perfect mix of very respectable bulk, speed, power, typing, high bp stab moves including the incredibly free weather ball, pivoting, and last but not least Knock Off.
In practice Walking Wake with one knock off turn and a couple sequences dismantles most reasonable defensive cores.
Because of this, we're seeing tons of usage of otherwise bad mons ran semi exclusively for Wake (they all do check other things but the main reason is here). Most of it consists of hard immunities, making it frustrating at times. Record high :Empoleon: usage (still can be circumvented pretty easily), Water Absorb :Heatran: (loses once knocked lefties), Water Absorb spdef :Skarmory:, and other things (water absorb :BLISSEY: lol). A lot of these mons and sets are pretty flawed imo and struggle agains the larger metagame as well. Its also really pushing the usage of your regenerator mon resisting water such as :Manaphy: or :Primarina:, slightly pushing out some mons like :Swampert:. None of these options are completely safe though, and ive seen over and over again Wake win despite of it. These techs are very present in tournament play as well, with tons of water absorb :Heatran: and others galore. The mon is clearly a large concern in the builder
Its not only good vs more balanced teams however, as it still does very well into Offense. Oftentimes it can position itself to get a kill pretty early on, and with its bulk it likely survives any one neutral hit. The choice scarf set however is also equally viable, and my personal favorite set. It is deadly vs Offense giving you very free lines and endgames where they just lose if they are down on sacks. It still retains enough power, still being able to bust through regenvests and the likes albeit with more precise play than specs requires. This is also where flip turn is deadly, as Wake now forms strong volt-turn cores with mons such as :Roaring Moon: and can still rack up rocks chip on :empoleon:.

However theres still fair arguments to be had against it, especially with the prominence of cores like :Manaphy:/:Iron Moth:/:Scream Tail: giving it trouble. Even i am still mixed on it, but leaning on action. The mon still generally falls under the umbrella of whats acceptable, it may just be a little too efficient. Shame cuz i realllllly like this mon lol its so so fun and i was the original Wake is broken person way ago smh

But i think it makes sense to go after some of the top mons, as Wake really enables how effective special spam is, and while there are definitely other options they have much more flaws such as :Gengar: or :volcanion:. I also recognize this wont change things too much, just nerf the style a little bit and open up more breathing room in defensive cores. Better than going for a huge paradigm shift with Ice Scales (not to mention the potential flaws with the idea)
 
Soiramio3000 said:
are you sure that you should be asking people about how "competitive" THIS metagame is?

almost any ability is waaaay too unpredictable and silly to be "competitive".
other metagames like OU make sense, but almost any ability seems like the epitome of casual.

asking people how "balanced" the metagame is sounds like a much more reasonable thing to ask, balance is a thing on all games both casual and competitive.


that's weird, 2 qualified users asked for these 2 abilities to be removed (I asked for them but I am not qualified).
I wonder if they got that inspiration from my comment.
Click to expand...
It's really not as unpredictable as your making it out to be. Many Pokemon only use one ability, like Chien-Pao, Azelf, Walking Wake, Iron Moth, etc. About half of abilities used are also revealed upon a Pokemon entering battle as well. If you don't know what ability a Pokemon is using, just take a look at the usage stats.
 
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