BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

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im really not sure what makes ability spam problematic for you and not species spam because theyre pretty much the same thing.
With ability spam, it truly didn't require any skill; Players could just make one decent set, press (Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+P) 5 times, and come out with a "solid" team that could actually deal damage. That was nonsense, but we handled that. From your post, it is rather apparent that, because all six of a player's Pokemon are (x), you assume that team to be uncompetitive and unintelligent in nature... However, let's run a brief thought experiment.

If there was a team that had two Hoopas in it, would you consider this to be problematic? From the looks of your post, and from the other comments arguing in favor of a clause, the answer would have to be "yes". However, if we substituted one of those Hoopas for an XTwo, the consensus seems to be that this would be fine, judging from this:
?????? there are a ton of viable psychic types that can fill the same roles as mmx or mmy in case you still want your precious psychic spam in a species clause meta. mega zam, mega gallade, deoxys-a, medichamite medi, mega gardevoir, mega metagross, hoopa-u, ultra necrozma are all usable psychic type breakers/sweepers, and a significant portion of them can go mixed.
This immediately tells me that this problem is purely relative, and superficial in nature. It's not about balance, it's about optics. Having two Hoopa-Us on a team is "threat-stacking", "spam" and outrageous, yet replacing that second Hoopa for a Pokemon that's better than it in nearly every way, is completely fine since now it's no longer "spamming". Being forced to utilize a wider variety of Pokemon doesn't automatically make things "balanced", nor does it raise any sort of "bar" for the format. It simply restricts team building options with no benefits to show for it. If somebody really wants to spam Pixi-sets or brute-force walls as such, they're going to do it regardless of who's face is leading the charge. Species Clause isn't going to magnify the meta or its Pokemon, rather, it'll do the exact opposite and turn everyone into functions. Now, rather than having Pixilate XTwo and SashSmash XTwo, you'll just have [pixilate mon], and [sashsmash mon], and many of these teams will likely achieve effects similar to the ones you were trying to prevent... Pro-banners will still be annoyed per tradition and pursue the next suspect, whilst killing part of what makes BH into the wonderful, surreal experience that it is.

There's no hostility intended by this, although there's really no other way to say it: The impulsiveness needs to stop. Not every set or strategy that's triggering is overpowered or broken. And just because a set beats a high, or even top-level player doesn't mean that its user is automatically gaining unfair advantages by from their strategies. Different players will inevitably have different playstyles and approaches, and not even the greatest players will be able to Catch 'Em All. This reality has existed for as long as Pokemon games have. You're never going to have a 100% win streak forever. You will lose, sometimes humiliatingly so, and it'll likely happen more than once, but not even that's a good enough reason to invoke the banhammer.

Let's stop rushing to remove everything we don't like. Let the meta develop, and allow it to change.
 

pazza

Banned deucer.
With ability spam, it truly didn't require any skill; Players could just make one decent set, press (Ctrl+C -> Ctrl+P) 5 times, and come out with a "solid" team that could actually deal damage. That was nonsense, but we handled that. From your post, it is rather apparent that, because all six of a player's Pokemon are (x), you assume that team to be uncompetitive and unintelligent in nature... However, let's run a brief thought experiment.

If there was a team that had two Hoopas in it, would you consider this to be problematic? From the looks of your post, and from the other comments arguing in favor of a clause, the answer would have to be "yes". However, if we substituted one of those Hoopas for an XTwo, the consensus seems to be that this would be fine, judging from this:
ay
This immediately tells me that this problem is purely relative, and superficial in nature. It's not about balance, it's about optics. Having two Hoopa-Us on a team is "threat-stacking", "spam" and outrageous, yet replacing that second Hoopa for a Pokemon that's better than it in nearly every way, is completely fine since now it's no longer "spamming". Being forced to utilize a wider variety of Pokemon doesn't automatically make things "balanced", nor does it raise any sort of "bar" for the format. It simply restricts team building options with no benefits to show for it. If somebody really wants to spam Pixi-sets or brute-force walls as such, they're going to do it regardless of who's face is leading the charge. Species Clause isn't going to magnify the meta or its Pokemon, rather, it'll do the exact opposite and turn everyone into functions. Now, rather than having Pixilate XTwo and SashSmash XTwo, you'll just have [pixilate mon], and [sashsmash mon], and many of these teams will likely achieve effects similar to the ones you were trying to prevent... Pro-banners will still be annoyed per tradition and pursue the next suspect, whilst killing part of what makes BH into the wonderful, surreal experience that it is.

There's no hostility intended by this, although there's really no other way to say it: The impulsiveness needs to stop. Not every set or strategy that's triggering is overpowered or broken. And just because a set beats a high, or even top-level player doesn't mean that its user is automatically gaining unfair advantages by from their strategies. Different players will inevitably have different playstyles and approaches, and not even the greatest players will be able to Catch 'Em All. This reality has existed for as long as Pokemon games have. You're never going to have a 100% win streak forever. You will lose, sometimes humiliatingly so, and it'll likely happen more than once, but not even that's a good enough reason to invoke the banhammer.

Let's stop rushing to remove everything we don't like. Let the meta develop, and allow it to change.
you don't understand it i think.

species spam isn't "broken" or "overpowered" at that at least. the fact that a player who has never touched bh or a player who isn't as good as others can simply do good/ win vs great players is the fact of how uncompetitive species spam is.

i've brought this up before but andy has made it to round 6 and could have also beaten sl42 if he brought his spam team all games

ive made an rmt and shown me beating countless good players

also join the om discord so we can stop clogging this thread of species suspect, we should be clogging it of ray suspect
 
PhantomVortex I can't speak for others, but Species Clause most definitely isn't impulsiveness on my part. I've been in favor of it since Gen V and voted for it in the Gen VI "suspect". Which... wasn't a real suspect. No ladder or reqs or anything, just a public poll on the forum where literally anyone with a forum account could vote, so that one doesn't really count for much in my book. Regardless, I've always been the mindset of species spam being unhealthy rather than broken or overpowered.


Anyway, so I see your Baneful + Sunsteel Steel type and I ask you: what does this set do against other teams? What does it do against MMX spam? MMY spam? Ray-spam? Kyogre-spam? Mixed spam, such as 3 Rays and 3 MMX? What if the Diancie team is only running 4 Diancie and two mons to cover their weakness? ...and the real bigger question, which Pokemon are you using that's A) Running those moves and B) Faster than Diancie? ...well, I guess I can answer that since, barring natures and other boosts, your only options are Mega-Lucario, who's niche and does not resist Fairy, and Alolan Dugtrio, who's probably worthless. Mega-Metagross, who's niche, does speed tie if you wanna go for 4-6 50/50s. But that's it

Whether its broken or not, you see the problem? You're having to go to niche mons to counter this team you may or may not encounter, who instead might bring other mons or a set to beat yours. It's not healthy. Also, if you're really, really trying to break Sash Diancies, run Gear Grind. Same power as Sunsteel and it hits twice.


For the bit about offensive mons getting OHKO/2HKOed... well yeah, many are glass cannons, but most can survive 2 or 3 weaker or non-super effective hits. Some can even just recover. Some, meanwhile, are actually pretty bulky. Like, if MRay didn't have a 4x Ice Weakness and poor defensive typing, it'd probably be able to pull some hybrid defensive/offensive roles like being a hard-hitting Regenvest user. Conversely, with the right items, abilities, and/or moves, these Pokemon can OHKO-3HKO most defensive mons if they're not crippled. (Trust me, it's frustrating when you like, send out Solgaleo to beat the opposing Kyu-B and they Tough Claws Band V-Create OHKO it.) There's a reason why a loooot of offensive Pokemon are Specs/Band, Sashsmash, or have some other form of damage boost built into the set whereas you don't see stuff like... Scarf Magic Guard typically or at all like you might in standard.


...also, the bit about "species clause preventing usage of niche sets"... I'm gonna have to be blunt and call bullcrap. It's entirely going to depend on team needs. For example, having only one Pdon on one of my teams doesn't force it to run V-Create/Precipice. Mine runs Fire Lash/Earthquake because it its my team better. The V-Create set is going to be better in general, but not in this instance so I would still be able to use it whether species clause is in effect or not. Alternatively, you could still run like Fridge/Pixie MMX to lure in Zygarde/Giratina to pave the way for something else on your team that they'd wall, like a Kyogre or something.

...plus there's the whole argument about bluff sets and stuff too.


As for check stacking, I wanna see an effective "check stacking team". Like, I don't even care about replays much. (They'd be nice, but its easy to cherry-pick replays). I just want to see a "check stack" team that doesn't have some sort of major, critical flaw.


pazza I can understand the desire to keep things focused on one topic, but the Ray suspect is already live. But, more importantly, if we're gonna get any more suspects after it, I think it's a very good idea to start talking about them now so we'll be able to jump on the next ball right away. Considering the suspect process usually takes almost a month and choosing the actual next suspect takes about one to two... yeah if we wait we won't have another suspect at all or there'd be no real point.

EG: Ray suspect = most of Aug. Discuss next suspect: Sept - Oct. Suspect test: Oct Ban in effective, if voted ban: Nov Two weeks later: Gen VIII
 
Speaking of suspects, I think we should have suspected triage over Mega Ray but I wouldn't be against suspecting it immediately after. I am actually baffled as to why people aren't talking more about the power of Triage. In my opinion, Triage is what sets Mega Ray over the edge into broken, and banning it would make Mega Ray quite tolerable.
the fact that it only needs to run Tail Glow and Oblivion Wing and then has a full pallet of moves to fill the other two moveslots is why Triage is so good. Any two of, in rough order of current viability, Secret Sword, Moongeist Beam, Giga Drain, Substitute, Core Enforcer, Earth Power, Taunt, Toxic, or Drain Punch can be used to get around standard checks and counters without hurting overall viability much. This seems to be more a problem with Triage + Oblivion Wing than with Mega Rayquaza. Though it was a little harder to use, I managed to make a quite viable team with Triage Mega Charizard y and even enjoyed the extra Fire stab to hit Steel types.
There may also be a point about banning Oblivion Wing. It is the only draining move that recovers a full 75% of the damage dealt, and also has the highest BP. This is the big reason why other Triage sets that don't have STAB on oblivion Wing, such as Mega Ampharos with Parabolic Charge, just don't work. They don't do enough damage or recover enough HP to actually be viable.

Another reason why Triage is such a big problem is the ability to boost. Choiced Rayquaza sets have a hard cap on the damage they can deal, which is either Banded Dragon Ascent or Specs Boomburst, and we already have able resists to those. The metagame has actually don't a fairly decent job adapting to choiced Rayquaza sets, as one can see from OMPL replays that people who run them aren't consistently winning with them. Triage sets can boost via Tail Glow, and with a single boost can easily eclipse the power of specs sets on non-STAB moves, such as SecretSword and Earth Power (it's a 2.5x boost versus a 1.5x boost with specs). Triage's power comes mainly from the myriad coverage moves it can run and the damage it can do at +3. As they say, the threat is stronger than its execution.

Don't believe me about triage? Check out some replays:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-954682664 Triage beats fc chansey because of a nice 50-50
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-953082286 triage beats team with Zekrom + Nihilego nti-triage core
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-952051383 Triage claims several kills
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-951837619 Triage takes down mewtwo spam
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
hey whats up guys. its been a while since anyone made a good post on ray, so i figured i'd give my two cents.

part 1: just counter it bro just use your defensive core

this is an argument i see thrown around a lot when asked about mray. apparently tough claws can be countered by fur coat, specs aerilate by soundproof or a steel type, and triage by unaware. the problem with these arguments is how not only are they often not applicable in practice, but they also miss the actual point. mray isn't broken because it "has no counters" or whatever, it's broken because the counterplay it does have is generally really bad against the rest of the metagame.

looking at options you have, the trait all of them share is that they're super passive and tend to lose momentum. even if you get lucky and bring fur coat vs a tough claws ray team, in practice they can dragon ascent you for 35%, go to something like ph xern or shed or diancie as you're forced to recover, and get up hazards for free.

in games, mray is incredibly good at starting loops by rewarding the player for clicking the strongest attack with it, instead of rewarding the opponent who switched out into their appropriate counter. slower teams can just be trapped in a loop and completely invalidated by this, and i think this relationship is incredibly unhealthy for the metagame. the ray player isn't encouraged to take risks when they can just get an early lead and ride that to victory.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-937027294 this ompl game illustrates what i'm talking about pretty well. qt brings specs ray which is countered by skylake's regenvest dialga, but qt has his scarfless imposter in the back so he can click boomburst with no risk and just bring in imposter when skylake is forced to go to dialga, conserving momentum. this allows qt to prevent skylake from doing anything with his own specs ray and win fairly easily.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-936709118 another ompl game. despite having a chansey that counters ray and checks chomp (i was spectral icebeam), mray prevents me from getting any offensive initiative and i'm forced to keep switching my mons around into spikes. i know you guys are gonna be like "why did u keep mmx in on oblivion wing bad play u deserve to lose" but really, what would have happened if i went to chansey there? i would've been forced to recover, let someone else like shed in, and stay trapped in the loop. i really had no good options in this game outside of maybe playing extremely aggressively at the start, which is not a very good idea

this loop that i'm describing is also a big part of why other variants of penguin work so well. imposter allows you to pick up an early lead by scouting the opposing mon for free, xern + shed can help get hazards up, and after that any ray set just wins the game for free. there's nothing they can really do about it. if you want evidence, consider that the original team was already incredibly successful even without a super aggressive mray set, and others have found even more potential in it.

part 2: just ban triage bro its broken on all pokemon ESPECIALLY MY SHINY CHARIZARD AND HAXORUS

hopefully in the previous part i have sufficiently argued that specs/band mray can function in a similar way to triage mray in how they can leave the opponent with no options given an early lead. in this part, i will argue that even though other pokemon have almost as much power as mray, in practice they aren't nearly as constricting in games.

first off, let's address the replays from the previous post.
these look less like the loops we were talking about earlier and more like triage zard y randomly doing something after a bunch of interactive play. and even then, zard y only gets to do anything because of opponents misplaying or similar reasons.

first game: opponent is running double unmon shed stall (which is a joke in itself), and they lose because they cant get anything done offensively thanks to anchor defog registeel + sand stream blocking hazards from xern and shed, not because of zard y doing anything. i'd wager that even with fini as your only way of doing anything you still wouldve won that game.

second game: zard y wins because of a min roll on revdance. ray wouldnt need that roll because he lives any attack from regenvest ogre bar the uncommon icebeam. also seeing 0 loops here, i was able to get a lot of stuff done with my offensive mons here.

third game: opponent forgets sand runs out and clicks shell smash with diancie instead of head smash, which would have killed (even if it missed, they lived the next hit). if they clicked head smash zard y just died and did nothing

fourth game: zard kills 1 pokemon before being forced out directly into pokeball hell. id hardly call that "taking down" at all

ok now its time for me to post some replays of my own. today i played some friendlies with resident hehe boi Zovrah using teams that originally had ray, but replacing the ray with a different mon.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-955143349 triage scald mence + coatana vs triage zard y penguin. i'm put in a bad spot early game because of triage mence unfortunately dying to crit xern moonblast (unlike ray, oblivion wing doesnt kill at +3), but i'm able to try and come back with kartana while keeping zard y in check with rocks kart + toxic damage. ultimately i still lose the game, but only because i tried to play too aggressively with kartana and was too scared of penguin switching in on rocks (which really wasnt that big of a deal).

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-955146561 mixed aerilate base ray + triage steela vs cb base ray penguin. i'm able to play aggressively early game to set up rocks and lure in + ko penguin, allowing steela to sweep later on. i took advantage of the fact that he didnt know what zekrom and ttar were going to do and used lure sets to take out his counterplay to celesteela. this is really just taking a lucky matchup and then outplaying from there. if i hadn't made these plays, penguin would have been able to consistently counter steela and his ray could just come in and break walls.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7balancedhackmons-955149258 cb pinsir bowser jr collab vs triage yveltal penguin (yes this man rly brought 3 penguins in a row lol). im able to get pinsir in on empoleon through a double and take it out of the game with high horsepower. if i hadn't done that, he would've been able to get rocks up with shed, severely limiting pinsir, while being able to hold off my qd rocks ogre with penguin. his triage yveltal did nothing in the game because he was running a bad set, if he was tail glow i had counterplay in the form of prank guzzlord + regenvest steela + scarf imposter, which is very inconsistent vs triage mray but good vs this, stable but not infinite.

i think there are a few things to be learned from these replays:

every flying type other than mray actually has significant downsides that keep it in check. base ray is slower than xern and yveltal and regi, aero and yveltal aren't that powerful with less than 140 atk/spa, mence dies to core enforcer, and pinsir/zard y are 4x weak to rocks.

something i want to talk about is that last one, mega pinsir and zard y. instead of mray, who is weak to rocks but can still come in 3-4 times on it if aerilate (game is never going on that long) and heal off all the damage if triage, these threats actually force the player to break the loop they have going if stealth rocks go up. i think this is really healthy, because it encourages a read-heavy playstyle where instead of just clicking the stab move and getting results, the pinsir user is forced to call out switchins in order to break walls as quickly as possible, while the triage zard y user is encouraged to use risk/reward and consider all the different factors in the game instead of just setting up at 75%, living a hit, and winning the game.

going back to all the flying types, i think that banning mray so that each one of them is viable offensively leads to the best kind of diversity: the type that increases the skill involved when building with it, but doesn't require unique preparation. even with pre-existing teams, we had solid counterplay for each one of these flying types. meanwhile, the person building with them gets to choose the one that best fits their team.

i'd like to see a metagame where threats can't just restrict the other player from getting any kind of initiative given any momentum, and games are instead decided by which person played better; in my games vs zovrah, i really felt that. because of this, i plan to vote ban on mega ray. thanks for reading.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
Wouldn’t it be better to use Thundurus-Therian for direct comparison on SpA, if your argument about Charizard-Mega-Y is the 4x weak to SR?

As Thundurus-Therian is only 2x weak to (Stealth) Rock and Ice, 145 SpA, faster than Xerneas and Yveltal, while STAB Parabolic charge 1HKO Waters/Flying types like Kyogre-Primal, Celesteela, Ho-Oh, and resisting opposing Flying from Oblivion Wing, etc.

Further, with a lower HP than Rayquaza-Mega, it can recover more % per Oblivion Wing, and that helps when considering flat damage like Stealth Rocks and Life Orb.

I see how a slightly higher SpA on Charizard-Mega-Y at 157 can be nice, but oftentimes it’s secondary STAB is blocked by Flash Fire / Primordial Sea, and that takes some of the appeal from it. While being able to resist Xerneas is helpful, I think Thundurus-Therian being able to KO PHeal Kyogre-Primal is just as impressive. Also with many of the Steels being weak to Moongeist Beam, (Solgaleo, Dusk-Mane, Aegislash, Metagross-Mega), or Parabolic Charge (Penguin, Celesteela), I feel that can use both it’s STABs to full effect, and handles more than people realize.

Here are some Calcs:
VS PH Kyogre:

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Parabolic Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Kyogre-Primal: 421-499 (104.2 - 123.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Vs Ho-Oh

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Parabolic Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ho-Oh: 437-515 (105 - 123.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Vs AV Dusk-Mane
+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Moongeist Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Necrozma-Dusk-Mane: 382-450 (95.9 - 113%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

Vs Prankster Registeel

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Parabolic Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel: 222-263 (60.9 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I think bringing up Pokémon like Mega-Salamence is irrelevant bc it only has 120 SpA and would need much more than a Tail Glow to even come close to Rayquaza-Mega’s Triage Set, and for Pinsir-Mega using High-Horsepower on a Tough Claws Set, wouldn’t it be better to just use Landurus-Therian? Neutral to Stealth Rocks, STAB Ground, and ability to sweep with Bolt Strike without fear of Imposter depending on the rest of the moves.

My point is that it’s much easier to make Rayquaza-Mega look even better than it is when you don’t provide comparisons that can come close to Rayquaza-Mega. You just picked the Flying Pokémon with the next highest Offense (Pinsir-Mega and Charizard-Mega-Y) without considering what would allow a Pokémon to do well without the same Stealth Rock weaknesses.

Doesn’t it make sense to find suitable “replacements” that don’t lose 50% each time they switch in, with arguably better STAB than, say Bug, as well as resistances? For example, due to STAB alone, Thousand Arrows has more Base power on Landurus-Therian than Tough Claws High-Horsepower does on Pinsir-Mega, letting it hit more and much harder (such as Aerodactyl-Mega, Ho-Oh, and Celesteela), that normally wall other Ground moves...

Landurus and Thundurus are barely weaker offensively than the others and can last much longer, with ideal secondary typing.
 
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cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
My point is that it’s much easier to make Rayquaza-Mega look even better than it is when you don’t provide comparisons that can come close to Rayquaza-Mega. You just picked the Flying Pokémon with the next highest Offense (Pinsir-Mega and Charizard-Mega-Y) without considering what would allow a Pokémon to do well without the same Stealth Rock weaknesses.
ok what is your actual position in regards to the ray suspect? i'm just asking because all you seem to be doing is nitpicking other people's arguments without making your own posts, and it feels like you keep changing your position to do this. mastermewtwo is suddenly a hero for being against the ray suspect, but thundurus t and landorus t are broken pokemon? what?

anyway i'll address your points:
As Thundurus-Therian is only 2x weak to (Stealth) Rock and Ice, 145 SpA, faster than Xerneas and Yveltal, while STAB Parabolic charge 1HKO Waters/Flying types like Kyogre-Primal, Celesteela, Ho-Oh, and resisting opposing Flying from Oblivion Wing, etc.

Further, with a lower HP than Rayquaza-Mega, it can recover more % per Oblivion Wing, and that helps when considering flat damage like Stealth Rocks and Life Orb.

I see how a slightly higher SpA on Charizard-Mega-Y at 157 can be nice, but oftentimes it’s secondary STAB is blocked by Flash Fire / Primordial Sea, and that takes some of the appeal from it. While being able to resist Xerneas is helpful, I think Thundurus-Therian being able to KO PHeal Kyogre-Primal is just as impressive. Also with many of the Steels being weak to Moongeist Beam, (Solgaleo, Dusk-Mane, Aegislash, Metagross-Mega), or Parabolic Charge (Penguin, Celesteela), I feel that can use both it’s STABs to full effect, and handles more than people realize.
thundurus t isnt that good with triage or aerilate. i'm not saying it's unusable, because it definitely will be viable if ray leaves, but it's not even close to broken.

the spa drop is the biggest thing that separates it from mray. the significant power drop in oblivion wing can leave it unable to kill pokemon like xern and chipped giratina, which ray would be able to kill. parabolic charge is neat, but its a very low-powered move that can't kill anything besides electric weak mons. thundurus t also has nothing good to run in its last slot because you want all 3 of magma storm, moongeist, and icebeam.

aerilate and triage also share a pretty significant flaw. the flying resistance means that imposter can easily switch in on even specs aerilate boomburst or +3 oblivion wing. this can prevent him from putting in work vs teams that run imposter.
I think bringing up Pokémon like Mega-Salamence is irrelevant bc it only has 120 SpA and would need much more than a Tail Glow to even come close to Rayquaza-Mega’s Triage Set
megamence is still a viable triage user because as we discussed in the game, it can viably bluff other sets such as tough claws, unlike a lot of other flying types.
and for Pinsir-Mega using High-Horsepower on a Tough Claws Set, wouldn’t it be better to just use Landurus-Therian? Neutral to Stealth Rocks, STAB Ground, and ability to sweep with Bolt Strike without fear of Imposter depending on the rest of the moves.
as someone who's used tc ray in the past, you definitely want dragon ascent to be as strong as possible. horsepower already kills the things it needs to even on pinsir. lando t is more comparable to chomp if anything because it's forced to rely on ground stab more than dragon ascent, which is much less spammable with its lower attack. and i dont think anyone is arguing that chomp is broken.

landorus and thundurus are viable options that we overlooked in the no ray game, but theyre not broken by any stretch of the imagination.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
ok what is your actual position in regards to the ray suspect? i'm just asking because all you seem to be doing is nitpicking other people's arguments without making your own posts, and it feels like you keep changing your position to do this. mastermewtwo is suddenly a hero for being against the ray suspect, but thundurus t and landorus t are broken pokemon? what?

anyway i'll address your points:

thundurus t isnt that good with triage or aerilate. i'm not saying it's unusable, because it definitely will be viable if ray leaves, but it's not even close to broken.

the spa drop is the biggest thing that separates it from mray. the significant power drop in oblivion wing can leave it unable to kill pokemon like xern and chipped giratina, which ray would be able to kill. parabolic charge is neat, but its a very low-powered move that can't kill anything besides electric weak mons. thundurus t also has nothing good to run in its last slot because you want all 3 of magma storm, moongeist, and icebeam.

aerilate and triage also share a pretty significant flaw. the flying resistance means that imposter can easily switch in on even specs aerilate boomburst or +3 oblivion wing. this can prevent him from putting in work vs teams that run imposter.

megamence is still a viable triage user because as we discussed in the game, it can viably bluff other sets such as tough claws, unlike a lot of other flying types.

as someone who's used tc ray in the past, you definitely want dragon ascent to be as strong as possible. horsepower already kills the things it needs to even on pinsir. lando t is more comparable to chomp if anything because it's forced to rely on ground stab more than dragon ascent, which is much less spammable with its lower attack. and i dont think anyone is arguing that chomp is broken.

landorus and thundurus are viable options that we overlooked in the no ray game, but theyre not broken by any stretch of the imagination.
1. Um, I already clarified that I don’t think Rayquaza-Mega is overpowered, and that’s why I listed things like Audino-Mega, and Chansey for countering SpA sets (Unaware for Triage, and for Audino-Mega it can use Soundproof for Aerilate), and brought up other things like Misty Surge to show that Rayquaza-Mega can be handled, and that it’s not impossible to prepare for. I backed that up by mentioning that Imposter is to be ranked higher due to being a pretty surefire universal counter to Rayquaza-Mega, and was pretty much sticking with the argument that it can be dealt with, and even listed important checks that handle sets people were saying are near impossible to prepare for.

Can you let me know when I said anything along the lines of “Rayquaza-Mega needs to be banned because I think it’s too overpowered.” If I did I would understand your confusion, but by my consistent decision to list checks and counter measures, I doubt it’s so overpowered like Groudon-Primal was.

2. I think you missed my point- where did I say the two Therians are broken?

They are not being discussed as broken, they are simply better replacements for Ray if Ray is absent.

I thought you simply picked the wrong “next best alternative if Ray is banned”.

Salamence can bluff other sets? It’s not worth using over faster and more powerful Underrated Dragons like Necrozma-Ultra bc it doesn’t have the mixed stats to pull off Special sets. I’m sorry but having 2/3 of the Base SpA of Ray makes it weak. And if it’s highest attack is 145, you may as well use Landurus-Therian for having equal attack, Ground STAB and the ability to just run Ice moves when you lack Dragon STAB to hit durable walls like Zygarde-Complete.

I was only saying “Ray looks way more powerful than it actually is bc you compared it to something much weaker” such as Salamence-Mega.

Further, I don’t see what the appeal for Pinsir-Mega is considering you mentioned a CB Tough Claws Set while being 4x weak to Stealth Rocks, at least Triage Charizard-Mega-Y can reliably heal itself, but even for other sets like -ate, I think Pinsir-Mega is just outclassed by even Heracross-Mega for Damage with Priority (comparing -ate Pinsir-Mega to Triage Heracross), and for Flying I don’t see what 1-2HKOs Pinsir-Mega manages to offer over Landurus-Therian unless you pack Mega Horn for something like Cresselia, or Slowbro-Mega, while Landurus-Therian can still hit more with Ground moves, which I believe pairs pretty perfectly with Flying STAB (resisted by Steel, Rock, Electric - which are all weak to Ground moves).

As for Xerneas:

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Oblivion Wing vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Xerneas: 406-477 (89 - 104.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

That’s pretty strong, but even so, Charizard-Mega-Y has the same problem with Kyogre-Primal, but unlike Charizard-Mega-Y, it isn’t going to be KOed by anything super effective from the opponents STAB.

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Charizard-Mega-Y Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Kyogre-Primal: 348-411 (86.1 - 101.7%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

3. Um, hard to say Parabolic Charge is weak when it hits harder than Giga Drain used on Rayquaza-Mega. It’s almost as powerful as Moongeist Beam, and unlike Giga Drain, which has many more resistances, Parabolic Charge can pair nicely with things like Ice Beam for coverage, as you listed that as one of your options for the final attack slot. If it’s that bad, you can replace Parabolic Charge to have 2 of those 3 options. Thundurus is still easier to use bc it can heal off Stealth Rocks and doesn’t have as many weaknesses.
 

MAMP

MAMP!
1. Um, I already clarified that I don’t think Rayquaza-Mega is overpowered, and that’s why I listed things like Audino-Mega, and Chansey for countering SpA sets (Unaware for Triage, and for Audino-Mega it can use Soundproof for Aerilate), and brought up other things like Misty Surge to show that Rayquaza-Mega can be handled, and that it’s not impossible to prepare for. I backed that up by mentioning that Imposter is to be ranked higher due to being a pretty surefire universal counter to Rayquaza-Mega, and was pretty much sticking with the argument that it can be dealt with, and even listed important checks that handle sets people were saying are near impossible to prepare for.

Can you let me know when I said anything along the lines of “Rayquaza-Mega needs to be banned because I think it’s too overpowered.” If I did I would understand your confusion, but by my consistent decision to list checks and counter measures, I doubt it’s so overpowered like Groudon-Primal was.

2. I think you missed my point- where did I say the two Therians are broken?

They are not being discussed as broken, they are simply better replacements for Ray if Ray is absent.

I thought you simply picked the wrong “next best alternative if Ray is banned”.

Salamence can bluff other sets? It’s not worth using over faster and more powerful Underrated Dragons like Necrozma-Ultra bc it doesn’t have the mixed stats to pull off Special sets. I’m sorry but having 2/3 of the Base SpA of Ray makes it weak. And if it’s highest attack is 145, you may as well use Landurus-Therian for having equal attack, Ground STAB and the ability to just run Ice moves when you lack Dragon STAB to hit durable walls like Zygarde-Complete.

I was only saying “Ray looks way more powerful than it actually is bc you compared it to something much weaker” such as Salamence-Mega.

Further, I don’t see what the appeal for Pinsir-Mega is considering you mentioned a CB Tough Claws Set while being 4x weak to Stealth Rocks, at least Triage Charizard-Mega-Y can reliably heal itself, but even for other sets like -ate, I think Pinsir-Mega is just outclassed by even Heracross-Mega for Damage with Priority (comparing -ate Pinsir-Mega to Triage Heracross), and for Flying I don’t see what 1-2HKOs Pinsir-Mega manages to offer over Landurus-Therian unless you pack Mega Horn for something like Cresselia, or Slowbro-Mega, while Landurus-Therian can still hit more with Ground moves, which I believe pairs pretty perfectly with Flying STAB (resisted by Steel, Rock, Electric - which are all weak to Ground moves).

As for Xerneas:

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Thundurus-Therian Oblivion Wing vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Xerneas: 406-477 (89 - 104.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

That’s pretty strong, but even so, Charizard-Mega-Y has the same problem with Kyogre-Primal, but unlike Charizard-Mega-Y, it isn’t going to be KOed by anything super effective from the opponents STAB.

+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Charizard-Mega-Y Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Kyogre-Primal: 348-411 (86.1 - 101.7%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

3. Um, hard to say Parabolic Charge is weak when it hits harder than Giga Drain used on Rayquaza-Mega. It’s almost as powerful as Moongeist Beam, and unlike Giga Drain, which has many more resistances, Parabolic Charge can pair nicely with things like Ice Beam for coverage, as you listed that as one of your options for the final attack slot. If it’s that bad, you can replace Parabolic Charge to have 2 of those 3 options. Thundurus is still easier to use bc it can heal off Stealth Rocks and doesn’t have as many weaknesses.
the current topic of discussion in this thread is whether mega rayquaza is banworthy. discussing stuff like thundurus is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand and serves only to derail the thread.
 

a loser

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I backed that up by mentioning that Imposter is to be ranked higher due to being a pretty surefire universal counter to Rayquaza-Mega
I'm currently DNB on Mega Ray, but this is just incorrect. Imposter usually checks Mega Rayquaza if it comes in safely against it, but that's the same with almost every mon. Imposter is by no means a surefire counter because it cannot reliably switch in to Mega Ray's attacks. I'm not going to show every variation, but see the below calcs that show how Imposter Chansey (both Eviolite and other items) does against the Mega Ray it transforms into.

Imposter against Specs Ray:
252 SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Boomburst vs. +1 252 HP / 252- SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 307-363 (43.6 - 51.5%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Rayquaza-Mega Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 644-758 (91.4 - 107.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Imposter against Life Orb Triage:
+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Triage Rayquaza-Mega Oblivion Wing vs. +1 252 HP / 252 SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 316-372 (44.8 - 52.8%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO

Imposter against Banded Tough Claws:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Hammer vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 422-500 (59.9 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 283-334 (40.1 - 47.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
I'm currently DNB on Mega Ray, but this is just incorrect. Imposter usually checks Mega Rayquaza if it comes in safely against it, but that's the same with almost every mon. Imposter is by no means a surefire counter because it cannot reliably switch in to Mega Ray's attacks. I'm not going to show every variation, but see the below calcs that show how Imposter Chansey (both Eviolite and other items) does against the Mega Ray it transforms into.

Imposter against Specs Ray:
252 SpA Choice Specs Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Boomburst vs. +1 252 HP / 252- SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 307-363 (43.6 - 51.5%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Rayquaza-Mega Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 644-758 (91.4 - 107.6%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

Imposter against Life Orb Triage:
+3 252+ SpA Life Orb Triage Rayquaza-Mega Oblivion Wing vs. +1 252 HP / 252 SpD Rayquaza-Mega: 316-372 (44.8 - 52.8%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO

Imposter against Banded Tough Claws:
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Hammer vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 422-500 (59.9 - 71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 283-334 (40.1 - 47.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
You are not making it chansey, I.e. the entire HP stat difference, and the second calc for the Specs Set (Draco Meteor), doesn’t include the +1, while the Boomburst does. Which is important if you are using Eviolite.
the current topic of discussion in this thread is whether mega rayquaza is banworthy. discussing stuff like thundurus is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand and serves only to derail the thread.
I was on topic bc I was literally replying to Gurpreet Patel (Sent you a Friend Request) point on who would replace Rayquaza, bc they were explaining they believed how Triage is not overpowered and gave the next best example of highest SpA of Charizard-Mega-Y to prove their point, and also covered Aerilate for the next highest Atk with Pinsir-Mega.

My reply on his topic was about considering other relevant examples, which directly related to his post. Since my post was about his post, then it’s about the same point, and therefore on topic.

I didn’t want it to be “Everyone use Thundurus-Therian”, that’s not my purpose for posting, afterall, Rayquaza-Mega is not banned and people would pretty much only use Rayquaza-Mega for Oblivion Wing Triage, until / if it’s banned at all.

My point was if you use an alternative “if Ray gets banned then consider what replaces it”, then we should consider a candidate that can switch in with less issues for Stealth Rock.

That was all. I didn’t say Gurpreet was bad, or that we should only talk about this other Pokémon from now on, I just thought it would be an alternative that mattered enough to compare.

By comparing it to Rayquaza, and showing that Thundurus had a niche, I didn’t stray the topic away from Rayquaza, I actually stated my point that I don’t think Rayquaza should be banned, and therefore I was discussing the Suspect, and not making up some random offtopic thing.
 
1. Um, I already clarified that I don’t think Rayquaza-Mega is overpowered, and that’s why I listed things like Audino-Mega, and Chansey for countering SpA sets (Unaware for Triage, and for Audino-Mega it can use Soundproof for Aerilate), and brought up other things like Misty Surge to show that Rayquaza-Mega can be handled, and that it’s not impossible to prepare for.
We have already said that using niche stuff that don't check anything else isn't making Rayquaza any less broken. You can run all sort of mons that check it and then you lose to every other threat in the meta such as MGar and MMX.
I backed that up by mentioning that Imposter is to be ranked higher due to being a pretty surefire universal counter to Rayquaza-Mega,
Not only is this completely false, the reasoning is also laughable, basically you are saying that if A counters/checks B then A should be higher ranked than B. So by your logic Yveltal should be ranked higher than NDM in Ubers, Skarmory higher than Lando-T in OU, and Arceus-Electric higher than MegaRay in BH.
You are not making it chansey, I.e. the entire HP stat difference, and the second calc for the Specs Set (Draco Meteor), doesn’t include the +1, while the Boomburst does. Which is important if you are using Eviolite.
Can you read? First the calcs are legit so actually calc the stuff before saying stuff like this. Also it literally says +1 there???? You thinking that the calcs are wrong is proof that you have not played the meta very frequently (as anyone who has used or faced ray should know the rough damage Imposter takes).

To make this not a one-liner that might get deleted, I thought I would talk about the thing after Ray, which is Shed (I think Species Clause should be quick implemented, personally prefer a limit of 2 but 1 is perfectly ok too, as long as it goes through). The main part of Shed I will analyze is the impact it has on teambuilding.


Defensive Restrictions.
Due to Endeavor, every team usually must have a Ghost-type to not lose a mon every time Shed comes in. The two problems with this is that Ghost-type Pokemon are generally difficult to improof, and there aren't a lot of these Ghost-type mons, and even they lose to Shedinja often, despite being immune to Endeavor. Here we will take a look at the useable Ghosts in the meta and how they deal with Shed (Excluding Shed itself).


The go-to Ghost for most teams thanks to its general high viability and role compression.
Common sets: Prankster, Magic Bounce, Poison Heal, RegenVest.
- Prankster Tina can only threaten Shedinja with the subpar Will-O-Wisp or Poison Fang (maybe Rocks but they can just go to the mandatory Bouncer), while having a big 4MSS due to only having 2 free moveslots and one of them is typically Core. In addition, Shed just sets free rocks.
- Magic Bounce Tina prevents Shed from setting rocks which is nice, however it again struggles to fit a move to threaten Shed. Due to already wanting to run Dual STAB, Recovery, and Defog, it also has big 4MSS. The only decent move it can run to threaten Shed is Poison Fang, as Will-O-Wisp is extremely suboptimal on MB. Scald can work but is even more niche.
- Poison Heal Tina has passive recovery which is useful for negating stuff like hazards chip such as from the rocks from Shed it cannot prevent. It does have the option of running Will-O-Wisp as a very solid move to threaten Shed. This set also has the advantage of being Imposter-proof if it is running Shield over Recovery.
- RegenVest Tina has Regenerator which can also shrug off some chip damage. However it is also free rocks (Rapid Spin is not good at all) for Shed, and is even more Imposter-bait. It can fit a move to threaten Shed such as Poison Fang thanks to not running Recovery freeing up a slot.


This is the second most splashable Ghost (which definitely says something about the number of good ghosts). Its also the most viable offensive ghost.
Common sets: Normalize, Shell Smash, Mold Breaker, Choice Adapt.
Note that basically all Gengar sets lack recovery so they get chipped down with U-turn, hazards, and even Pursuit. In addition, they are all free Rocks.
- Normalize Gengar's problem is that it cannot threaten Shed at all before it Entrains it. This means that even if it catches Shed on the double Shed gets a free turn.
- Shell Smash Gengar cannot threaten Shedinja (LOL) outside of Sludge Bomb Poison which some don't even run (they just run Sword). Imagine being an offensive Ghost hard walled by Shed while it chips you down with 10 million U-turns.
- Mold Breaker Gengar is a nice answer to Shed and is even one of the more reliable answers if it runs Pursuit. However running Mold Breaker means you can't run something else and running Pursuit means you forgo either Sword or Sludge.
- Choice Adapt carry Moongeist which directly threatens Shed but you can be predicted to get locked into Moongeist. The drawback of Geist over Judg of being not imposter-proof is also annoying sometimes.


This is the second best defensive Ghost, not even going to talk about how this mon is so trash that it checks basically nothing. Oh and its bigger Imposter-bait than Giratina because Imposter has bigger bulk and Aegislash has 0 offensive presence. It cannot even use one move (PFang) to threaten both Shed and Imp.
Common sets: Prankster, Flash Fire.
- Prankster has basically no room for any move to threaten Shed because as a suboptimal mon unlike Giratina it already needs an extra utility move apart from Haze such as Encore, Topsy, or DBond. Free rocks too. Can't even usually fit Rocks because if its only U-turn its passive af and if its Spectral it has 0 momentum.
- Flash Fire is better at checking Shed because it can run Wisp and Defog viably but if you are already not doing as good because you are running this set, like why aren't you another Steel that isn't actually Imposter bait. This set is worse than Prankster because it just gets 2HKOed by a lot of stuff.

The above are the common Ghosts, there is a big usage drop here. Not basing the good sets on usage because now the used sets aren't very good.

This is like the next most used Ghost, using 1760 stats at 49th. The big advantage of this mon is that it underspeeds Shed, so that Shed cannot just do whatever and slow pivot out. Unfortunately isn't as viable as the above Ghosts and also is neutral to U-turn. Imposter also has big bulk.
Common sets: Poison Heal, Magic Bounce, Fur Coat.
- Poison Heal is usually Imposter-proof which is nice, and carries Will-O-Wisp regularly which threatens Shed. Also has the passive recovery to mitigate U-turn and hazards chip. Is free rocks though and doesn't carry removal.
- Magic Bounce prevents Rocks from going up which is nice. Pretty noticeable Imposter-bait and has the same problems as Giratina with fitting moves that are good and force out shed.
- Fur Coat is like Magic Bounce but it takes less from U-turn but it doesn't prevent Rocks.


The next offensive Ghost.
Common set: Tough Claws.
- Tough Claws runs Sunsteel Strike which threatens out Shed but first is that this mon isn't that great and also has similar problems with Choice Gar.

+

The next offensive Ghosts.
Common sets: IDK.
- Can run Photon along with Judg to be Imposter-proof and still threaten Shed. Also can run Moongeist as well. Neutrality to U-turn sucks. Also the big question is why are you running these in the first place???

+

These aren't Ghosts but these can run Sand Stream pretty viably which instakills Shed. Problem is you are at 1 HP if you hard switched and doesn't work very well if they U-turn (great if they go for rocks though). Sand also has the cool thing of boosting offensive mons SpD like Aero and Diancie.
- Sand TTar is probably its best set rn and apart from killing Shed it also gives amazing extra bulk which allows it to survive some really crazy stuff such as not getting 2HKOed by SF EP MMY. Sand also chips offensive mons down which is cool too.
- Sand Nihi is much more rare but is a solid Diancie Xern Gar and Ray check. Problem is it generally wants Levitate.

There are other stuff that can switch into Endeavor and live ESpeed but those are just kinda bad because your mon is crippled and cannot do anything while still leaving the Shed perfectly healthy (it even gets free rocks because all of these mons cannot run MB and still live I believe).

Conclusion:
Basically there aren't very good switch-ins to Shed at all as you either let it get free Rocks and/or slow pivot and/or you cannot threaten it without forgoing some useful move.

Offensive Restrictions:
There are a couple of ways to deal with Shed as an offensive mon. Moldy Moves, Moldy, Status moves, Status/Passive damage inducing moves, and hazards.


Moldy Moves:
Sungeist Geyser is the most straight forward way of dealing with Shed on offensive mons. The main problem with running these moves (apart from not allowing you to use your own Shed to improof) is that they don't offer much coverage usually. In addition they are commonly run on Choiced sets, which are obviously exploitable seeing unless they are STAB they are generally weak. The PP is also annoying.
- Sungeist Geyser as STAB is generally really good as they are pretty strong already. However there aren't a lot of mons that run these as STAB moves. Excluding Moongeist (Ghosts are already covered) you have Kartana and sometimes NDM using Sunsteel and MMX, MMY, Deo-A, and sometimes NDM using Photon. For the special Psychics they sometimes don't even run Photon in favour of Psystrike, Psycho Boost, or Psychic for SF.
- Photon Geyser is never used outside of STAB as it has horrendous offensive coverage.
- Sunsteel Strike notably has no immunities which is nice for setup and it also is the go-to physical Moldy. However Steel is not a great offensive typing at all as it has common resistances like Steel Water Fire and doesn't hit a lot of targets super effectively, only hitting Rocks and Fairies such as Xerneas, Mega Audino, and Mega Tyranitar which aren't the best defensive mons anyways (Xern is lol, Mega Dino isn't usually used as a check to strong offensive mons, and TTar is better hit with Fighting or Ground moves usually). The only good coverage Sunsteel gives is on Dark types with setup to hit Fairies (and ofc Shed).
- Moongeist Beam is also not great coverage despite Ghost types great coverage. Only hitting Psychic and Ghosts types isn't fantastic, as despite these types being fairly common the only time this coverage is valued is on MMX and maybe MMY as the best way to hit fat Psychics and Aegi. Giratina is so fat it doesn't even care too much about unSTAB Moongeist. An immunity and being resisted by Dark isn't great at all. Rayquaza doesn't even want to use this half the time on Specs if it wasn't for Shed, and Triage only uses it to smack Unawares (which are bad) (and shed).


Moldy:
Mold Breaker is often not as useful on offensive mons because Unaware and FC are getting much worse (MGar Moldy isn't great rn and is only really good at killing Shed). In fact apart from Gengar no other common offensive mon commonly runs Moldy.


Status Moves:
Status Moves aren't very good on offensive mons as they want as much coverage as possible. Generally the only time you will see these moves is on PH mons like MMX and Primal Kyogre. Xerneas doesn't even run Status Moves that damage Shed usually. MMX runs Wisp sometimes which is good but MMX is already not letting Shed in usually. Primal Kyogre rarely runs Leech Seed but offensive PH Ogre isn't usually letting Shed in either so...


Status/Passive damage inducing moves:
The common moves in this category are Scald, Magma Storm, Blue Flare, maybe Steam Eruption (Sludge Bomb is basically only used by Gar). Scald offensively only used on PH Ogre and honestly Scald PH Ogre is kinda weak and imo Spout is better. Magma Storm is a useful move as nice coverage and guaranteed kill shed but its lower base power compared to Flare and Shaky accuracy is annoying. Blue Flare has a very low chance of proccing and magma is usually better (fire isn't even that great of coverage rn). Steam Eruption is hardly ever used and is only on Specs Ogre or Palkia which are both very very rare.


Hazards:
Probably the best way to remove Shed, as it prevents it from ever coming in once they are up. Offensive mons are usually the only way to get hazards up against Shed teams anyways because of the strong hazard control. The problem with hazards is it takes up a moveslot and is also more difficult to improof. In addition many offensive mons cannot even get hazards up against shed teams or will get them removed (not to mention that the hazard setting mon usually cannot break the team and will rely on a teammate). For reference the setters are PH mons (all usually threaten shed anyways), PDon, Tech MMX, Diancie, and miscellaneous choiced mons.

Conclusion:
Offensively its difficult to fit moves to threaten shed and generally offensive mons either forgo another coverage move or rely on hazards up, which is kind of difficult to maintain against shed teams. Furthermore the mons that can fit an offensive mons are often choice locked and will rely on predictions (which are removed if the shed team runs regenvest).

TLDR:
Shed is very restrictive on teambuilding as it not only forces every team to run certain mons but it also heavily impacts what moves offensive mons run which are often in comparison sub optimal. Basically suspect shed asap after ray.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
We have already said that using niche stuff that don't check anything else isn't making Rayquaza any less broken. You can run all sort of mons that check it and then you lose to every other threat in the meta such as MGar and MMX.

Not only is this completely false, the reasoning is also laughable, basically you are saying that if A counters/checks B then A should be higher ranked than B. So by your logic Yveltal should be ranked higher than NDM in Ubers, Skarmory higher than Lando-T in OU, and Arceus-Electric higher than MegaRay in BH.

Can you read? First the calcs are legit so actually calc the stuff before saying stuff like this. Also it literally says +1 there???? You thinking that the calcs are wrong is proof that you have not played the meta very frequently (as anyone who has used or faced ray should know the rough damage Imposter takes).

To make this not a one-liner that might get deleted, I thought I would talk about the thing after Ray, which is Shed (I think Species Clause should be quick implemented, personally prefer a limit of 2 but 1 is perfectly ok too, as long as it goes through). The main part of Shed I will analyze is the impact it has on teambuilding.


Defensive Restrictions.
Due to Endeavor, every team usually must have a Ghost-type to not lose a mon every time Shed comes in. The two problems with this is that Ghost-type Pokemon are generally difficult to improof, and there aren't a lot of these Ghost-type mons, and even they lose to Shedinja often, despite being immune to Endeavor. Here we will take a look at the useable Ghosts in the meta and how they deal with Shed (Excluding Shed itself).


The go-to Ghost for most teams thanks to its general high viability and role compression.
Common sets: Prankster, Magic Bounce, Poison Heal, RegenVest.
- Prankster Tina can only threaten Shedinja with the subpar Will-O-Wisp or Poison Fang (maybe Rocks but they can just go to the mandatory Bouncer), while having a big 4MSS due to only having 2 free moveslots and one of them is typically Core. In addition, Shed just sets free rocks.
- Magic Bounce Tina prevents Shed from setting rocks which is nice, however it again struggles to fit a move to threaten Shed. Due to already wanting to run Dual STAB, Recovery, and Defog, it also has big 4MSS. The only decent move it can run to threaten Shed is Poison Fang, as Will-O-Wisp is extremely suboptimal on MB. Scald can work but is even more niche.
- Poison Heal Tina has passive recovery which is useful for negating stuff like hazards chip such as from the rocks from Shed it cannot prevent. It does have the option of running Will-O-Wisp as a very solid move to threaten Shed. This set also has the advantage of being Imposter-proof if it is running Shield over Recovery.
- RegenVest Tina has Regenerator which can also shrug off some chip damage. However it is also free rocks (Rapid Spin is not good at all) for Shed, and is even more Imposter-bait. It can fit a move to threaten Shed such as Poison Fang thanks to not running Recovery freeing up a slot.


This is the second most splashable Ghost (which definitely says something about the number of good ghosts). Its also the most viable offensive ghost.
Common sets: Normalize, Shell Smash, Mold Breaker, Choice Adapt.
Note that basically all Gengar sets lack recovery so they get chipped down with U-turn, hazards, and even Pursuit. In addition, they are all free Rocks.
- Normalize Gengar's problem is that it cannot threaten Shed at all before it Entrains it. This means that even if it catches Shed on the double Shed gets a free turn.
- Shell Smash Gengar cannot threaten Shedinja (LOL) outside of Sludge Bomb Poison which some don't even run (they just run Sword). Imagine being an offensive Ghost hard walled by Shed while it chips you down with 10 million U-turns.
- Mold Breaker Gengar is a nice answer to Shed and is even one of the more reliable answers if it runs Pursuit. However running Mold Breaker means you can't run something else and running Pursuit means you forgo either Sword or Sludge.
- Choice Adapt carry Moongeist which directly threatens Shed but you can be predicted to get locked into Moongeist. The drawback of Geist over Judg of being not imposter-proof is also annoying sometimes.


This is the second best defensive Ghost, not even going to talk about how this mon is so trash that it checks basically nothing. Oh and its bigger Imposter-bait than Giratina because Imposter has bigger bulk and Aegislash has 0 offensive presence. It cannot even use one move (PFang) to threaten both Shed and Imp.
Common sets: Prankster, Flash Fire.
- Prankster has basically no room for any move to threaten Shed because as a suboptimal mon unlike Giratina it already needs an extra utility move apart from Haze such as Encore, Topsy, or DBond. Free rocks too. Can't even usually fit Rocks because if its only U-turn its passive af and if its Spectral it has 0 momentum.
- Flash Fire is better at checking Shed because it can run Wisp and Defog viably but if you are already not doing as good because you are running this set, like why aren't you another Steel that isn't actually Imposter bait. This set is worse than Prankster because it just gets 2HKOed by a lot of stuff.

The above are the common Ghosts, there is a big usage drop here. Not basing the good sets on usage because now the used sets aren't very good.

This is like the next most used Ghost, using 1760 stats at 49th. The big advantage of this mon is that it underspeeds Shed, so that Shed cannot just do whatever and slow pivot out. Unfortunately isn't as viable as the above Ghosts and also is neutral to U-turn. Imposter also has big bulk.
Common sets: Poison Heal, Magic Bounce, Fur Coat.
- Poison Heal is usually Imposter-proof which is nice, and carries Will-O-Wisp regularly which threatens Shed. Also has the passive recovery to mitigate U-turn and hazards chip. Is free rocks though and doesn't carry removal.
- Magic Bounce prevents Rocks from going up which is nice. Pretty noticeable Imposter-bait and has the same problems as Giratina with fitting moves that are good and force out shed.
- Fur Coat is like Magic Bounce but it takes less from U-turn but it doesn't prevent Rocks.


The next offensive Ghost.
Common set: Tough Claws.
- Tough Claws runs Sunsteel Strike which threatens out Shed but first is that this mon isn't that great and also has similar problems with Choice Gar.

+

The next offensive Ghosts.
Common sets: IDK.
- Can run Photon along with Judg to be Imposter-proof and still threaten Shed. Also can run Moongeist as well. Neutrality to U-turn sucks. Also the big question is why are you running these in the first place???

+

These aren't Ghosts but these can run Sand Stream pretty viably which instakills Shed. Problem is you are at 1 HP if you hard switched and doesn't work very well if they U-turn (great if they go for rocks though). Sand also has the cool thing of boosting offensive mons SpD like Aero and Diancie.
- Sand TTar is probably its best set rn and apart from killing Shed it also gives amazing extra bulk which allows it to survive some really crazy stuff such as not getting 2HKOed by SF EP MMY. Sand also chips offensive mons down which is cool too.
- Sand Nihi is much more rare but is a solid Diancie Xern Gar and Ray check. Problem is it generally wants Levitate.

There are other stuff that can switch into Endeavor and live ESpeed but those are just kinda bad because your mon is crippled and cannot do anything while still leaving the Shed perfectly healthy (it even gets free rocks because all of these mons cannot run MB and still live I believe).

Conclusion:
Basically there aren't very good switch-ins to Shed at all as you either let it get free Rocks and/or slow pivot and/or you cannot threaten it without forgoing some useful move.

Offensive Restrictions:
There are a couple of ways to deal with Shed as an offensive mon. Moldy Moves, Moldy, Status moves, Status/Passive damage inducing moves, and hazards.


Moldy Moves:
Sungeist Geyser is the most straight forward way of dealing with Shed on offensive mons. The main problem with running these moves (apart from not allowing you to use your own Shed to improof) is that they don't offer much coverage usually. In addition they are commonly run on Choiced sets, which are obviously exploitable seeing unless they are STAB they are generally weak. The PP is also annoying.
- Sungeist Geyser as STAB is generally really good as they are pretty strong already. However there aren't a lot of mons that run these as STAB moves. Excluding Moongeist (Ghosts are already covered) you have Kartana and sometimes NDM using Sunsteel and MMX, MMY, Deo-A, and sometimes NDM using Photon. For the special Psychics they sometimes don't even run Photon in favour of Psystrike, Psycho Boost, or Psychic for SF.
- Photon Geyser is never used outside of STAB as it has horrendous offensive coverage.
- Sunsteel Strike notably has no immunities which is nice for setup and it also is the go-to physical Moldy. However Steel is not a great offensive typing at all as it has common resistances like Steel Water Fire and doesn't hit a lot of targets super effectively, only hitting Rocks and Fairies such as Xerneas, Mega Audino, and Mega Tyranitar which aren't the best defensive mons anyways (Xern is lol, Mega Dino isn't usually used as a check to strong offensive mons, and TTar is better hit with Fighting or Ground moves usually). The only good coverage Sunsteel gives is on Dark types with setup to hit Fairies (and ofc Shed).
- Moongeist Beam is also not great coverage despite Ghost types great coverage. Only hitting Psychic and Ghosts types isn't fantastic, as despite these types being fairly common the only time this coverage is valued is on MMX and maybe MMY as the best way to hit fat Psychics and Aegi. Giratina is so fat it doesn't even care too much about unSTAB Moongeist. An immunity and being resisted by Dark isn't great at all. Rayquaza doesn't even want to use this half the time on Specs if it wasn't for Shed, and Triage only uses it to smack Unawares (which are bad) (and shed).


Moldy:
Mold Breaker is often not as useful on offensive mons because Unaware and FC are getting much worse (MGar Moldy isn't great rn and is only really good at killing Shed). In fact apart from Gengar no other common offensive mon commonly runs Moldy.


Status Moves:
Status Moves aren't very good on offensive mons as they want as much coverage as possible. Generally the only time you will see these moves is on PH mons like MMX and Primal Kyogre. Xerneas doesn't even run Status Moves that damage Shed usually. MMX runs Wisp sometimes which is good but MMX is already not letting Shed in usually. Primal Kyogre rarely runs Leech Seed but offensive PH Ogre isn't usually letting Shed in either so...


Status/Passive damage inducing moves:
The common moves in this category are Scald, Magma Storm, Blue Flare, maybe Steam Eruption (Sludge Bomb is basically only used by Gar). Scald offensively only used on PH Ogre and honestly Scald PH Ogre is kinda weak and imo Spout is better. Magma Storm is a useful move as nice coverage and guaranteed kill shed but its lower base power compared to Flare and Shaky accuracy is annoying. Blue Flare has a very low chance of proccing and magma is usually better (fire isn't even that great of coverage rn). Steam Eruption is hardly ever used and is only on Specs Ogre or Palkia which are both very very rare.


Hazards:
Probably the best way to remove Shed, as it prevents it from ever coming in once they are up. Offensive mons are usually the only way to get hazards up against Shed teams anyways because of the strong hazard control. The problem with hazards is it takes up a moveslot and is also more difficult to improof. In addition many offensive mons cannot even get hazards up against shed teams or will get them removed (not to mention that the hazard setting mon usually cannot break the team and will rely on a teammate). For reference the setters are PH mons (all usually threaten shed anyways), PDon, Tech MMX, Diancie, and miscellaneous choiced mons.

Conclusion:
Offensively its difficult to fit moves to threaten shed and generally offensive mons either forgo another coverage move or rely on hazards up, which is kind of difficult to maintain against shed teams. Furthermore the mons that can fit an offensive mons are often choice locked and will rely on predictions (which are removed if the shed team runs regenvest).

TLDR:
Shed is very restrictive on teambuilding as it not only forces every team to run certain mons but it also heavily impacts what moves offensive mons run which are often in comparison sub optimal. Basically suspect shed asap after ray.
1. Considering you and others constantly discuss and follow my battles on PS! You are literally lying when you say I must not have played recently, I.e. me playing yesterday...

You also conveniently ignored my point that there is not a +1 for the Draco Meteor Calc.

Please read your own question on ”Can you not read?” Maybe it’s best to ask yourself...

Considering that you wrote the analysis and yourself listed Unaware on Audino-Mega as an Other Option tells me that you want the official analysis to state, for everyone who refers to it, that Unaware Audino is a literal set. You even list the moves as
Core Enforcer, Spectral Thief, U-Turn and Shore Up.

It checks much more than just Rayquaza-Mega, as you said it checks setup Sweepers. For anyone else reading, it especially checks PH Xerneas, PH Kyogre, etc. who are blocked by Spectral Thief taking their SpD boosts, while for Shell Smashers like Dazzling Gengar, it will boost it’s Atk for Spectral Thief against the Pokémon with lowered Defenses. Core Enforcer also allows it to remove abilities like Poison Heal to accumulate damage so it’s not passively just sitting there unable to react.

You also listed Soundproof Audino-Mega in Other Options as well, and list moves for that set as well.

So according to you...you believe it’s worth listing on it’s official analysis as a good option for it on teams...

Since you wrote the analysis including it, in order to officially suggest it to others, please stop pretending it’s only good for one thing when you yourself believe it’s worth promoting... here is the link so people know you are promoting Soundproof and Unaware Audino-Mega yourself.

Also Unaware Chansey is suggested as an Other Option on their official BH analysis as well bc like Audino-Mega it has an immunity to Moongeist Beam.

I am basing it off of what was officially written, and not Setpedia; so I didn’t just say it for the sake of it. The only thing I changed was Baton Pass over U-Turn so it can escape Normalize Gengar and aid it’s allies. Plus if Imposter has Scarf you can Spectral Thief if they attempt to Baton Pass first.

2. So basically I didn’t say that for everything. I think everyone is well aware that Imposter is almost universal on most teams bc the Set is basically your opponent with more HP and Eviolite, Scarf, etc. for Defense, Speed Stat buffs.

Overall, I think that when we were discussing the VR rankings and I mentioned that Imposter should be ranked higher than Rayquaza, I stated that it was more universal to put on teams, and listed as an additional benefit that it can handle each of the main Rayquaza-Mega sets. We can switch counter to Check, but we can still agree that Rayquaza is checked by Imposter bc as long as it is weak to its own STAB Dragon Move then Imposter can exploit that and threaten Rayquaza, as well as whatever else comes in since Ray is considered for a ban because it is argued how it so powerful, and can be applied to many teams. My point is Imposter can be applied to many more types of teams.

Here is my official post as a reference so the point isn’t taken out of context.

Lastly, you mentioned Rayquaza checks have to be niches and can basically only handle Rayquaza and nothing else, and my point on Imposter was that it checks pretty much each set for Rayquaza without compromising your team bc most teams consider having at least 1 Imposter anyways, and your set is the opponent’s so it’s not really a niche set if you don’t control what the set will be bc the opponent decides what to use on their Pokémon.

I found a universal check (not a counter, I’ll agree I used the wrong term), and it didn’t have to compromise the team as you suggested... so either way, whether you want to admit you undermined Unaware Audino-Mega, Chansey, etc. is up to you, but you cannot say that all checks are only niches when Imposter is not a niche, is almost an expected Pokémon to be included for most teams.

————
I believe Shedinja is very much like Imposter, unique and serves a useful role, and I believe it’s the second most Defensive Ghost bc it can check some sets completely, such as SF MMY.

It’s ability to serve as a slow pivot, provide hazards support, and check many non-Ghosts (and if it’s carrying Soak or Foresight, then it can also check Ghosts) allows it to maintain a balanced trade off- strong utility, with many vulnerabilities that can KO it in a single turn.

I think Shedinja is good enough to stay, because unlike other banned mons like Groudon-Primal, or the suspected Rayquaza; Shedinja cannot got on just any team, and requires a lot of support, it’s just a matter of ensuring the unique role it serves provides enough worth for the risk.

Overall, it’s a Pokémon justified by its weaknesses that compensate for its strengths, and deserves to stay since the risk is much higher in using it than for Rayquaza, Groudon-Primal, etc.
 
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cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
i post too much

Considering that you wrote the analysis and yourself listed Unaware on Audino-Mega as an Other Option tells me that you want the official analysis to state, for everyone who refers to it, that Unaware Audino is a literal set. You even list the moves as
Core Enforcer, Spectral Thief, U-Turn and Shore Up.

It checks much more than just Rayquaza-Mega, as you said it checks setup Sweepers. For anyone else reading, it especially checks PH Xerneas, PH Kyogre, etc. who are blocked by Spectral Thief taking their SpD boosts, while for Shell Smashers like Dazzling Gengar, it will boost it’s Atk for Spectral Thief against the Pokémon with lowered Defenses. Core Enforcer also allows it to remove abilities like Poison Heal to accumulate damage so it’s not passively just sitting there unable to react.

You also listed Soundproof Audino-Mega in Other Options as well, and list moves for that set as well.

So according to you...you believe it’s worth listing on it’s official analysis as a good option for it on teams...

Since you wrote the analysis including it, in order to officially suggest it to others, please stop pretending it’s only good for one thing when you yourself believe it’s worth promoting... here is the link so people know you are promoting Soundproof and Unaware Audino-Mega yourself.
Also Unaware Chansey is suggested as an Other Option on their official BH analysis as well bc like Audino-Mega it has an immunity to Moongeist Beam.
apparently tough claws can be countered by fur coat, specs aerilate by soundproof or a steel type, and triage by unaware. the problem with these arguments is how not only are they often not applicable in practice, but they also miss the actual point. mray isn't broken because it "has no counters" or whatever, it's broken because the counterplay it does have is generally really bad against the rest of the metagame.

So basically I didn’t say that for everything. I think everyone is well aware that Imposter is almost universal on most teams bc the Set is basically your opponent with more HP and Eviolite, Scarf, etc. for Defense, Speed Stat buffs.

Overall, I think that when we were discussing the VR rankings and I mentioned that Imposter should be ranked higher than Rayquaza, I stated that it was more universal to put on teams, and listed as an additional benefit that it can handle each of the main Rayquaza-Mega sets. We can switch counter to Check, but we can still agree that Rayquaza is checked by Imposter bc as long as it is weak to its own STAB Dragon Move then Imposter can exploit that and threaten Rayquaza, as well as whatever else comes in since Ray is considered for a ban because it is argued how it so powerful, and can be applied to many teams. My point is Imposter can be applied to many more types of teams.
imposter isnt even that good though. in 2017-18 i liked to use it on my teams as a blanket check to threats, but it doesnt really do that anymore. pokemon it fails to take on like ph xern/mmx and gar, and those it struggles to switch into like specs ray himself, have become more popular, while the mons it was best at taking on like diancie and mmy have somewhat fallen out of favor.

is it still a pretty good mon that fits on a bunch of teams? yes. but at the same time there are a lot of teams i'm building where you can't just throw on imposter because then you lose to a lot of other stuff.

the same applies for audino and unaware chansey. the point isnt that theyre "unviable" because they definitely work on some teams. the point is that in practice there are a lot of teams that realistically can't hope to win against mray without hard losing to the rest of the meta or being worse in general because theyre running an incredibly passive mon in a meta thats incredibly fast. throwing on imposter without enough support for it is just asking to lose to every ray set anyway.

I believe Shedinja is very much like Imposter, unique and serves a useful role, and I believe it’s the second most Defensive Ghost bc it can check some sets completely, such as SF MMY.

It’s ability to serve as a slow pivot, provide hazards support, and check many non-Ghosts (and if it’s carrying Soak or Foresight, then it can also check Ghosts) allows it to maintain a balanced trade off- strong utility, with many vulnerabilities that can KO it in a single turn.

I think Shedinja is good enough to stay, because unlike other banned mons like Groudon-Primal, or the suspected Rayquaza; Shedinja cannot got on just any team, and requires a lot of support, it’s just a matter of ensuring the unique role it serves provides enough worth for the risk.

Overall, it’s a Pokémon justified by its weaknesses that compensate for its strengths, and deserves to stay since the risk is much higher in using it than for Rayquaza, Groudon-Primal, etc.
this looks at shed on paper and not in practice. i wont go into why because youll just start nitpicking and steer the conversation off topic again. improve your reasoning or reply to the other parts of this post.
 

Champion Leon

Banned deucer.
i post too much







imposter isnt even that good though. in 2017-18 i liked to use it on my teams as a blanket check to threats, but it doesnt really do that anymore. pokemon it fails to take on like ph xern/mmx and gar, and those it struggles to switch into like specs ray himself, have become more popular, while the mons it was best at taking on like diancie and mmy have somewhat fallen out of favor.

is it still a pretty good mon that fits on a bunch of teams? yes. but at the same time there are a lot of teams i'm building where you can't just throw on imposter because then you lose to a lot of other stuff.

the same applies for audino and unaware chansey. the point isnt that theyre "unviable" because they definitely work on some teams. the point is that in practice there are a lot of teams that realistically can't hope to win against mray without hard losing to the rest of the meta or being worse in general because theyre running an incredibly passive mon in a meta thats incredibly fast. throwing on imposter without enough support for it is just asking to lose to every ray set anyway.


this looks at shed on paper and not in practice. i wont go into why because youll just start nitpicking and steer the conversation off topic again. improve your reasoning or reply to the other parts of this post.
I have replied to you via your profile. I don’t feel the need to continue “back and forth”.

I won’t bothering trying to defend myself, I just want to move on to let others discuss the main suspect in Rayquaza-Mega.
——————
To make this relevant, while I don’t believe a lack of Species Clause, Ray, or Shedinja needs to be suspected, I understand why people would.

I respect the opinions of others who point out that Ray and Shedinja and Species spam can force some people to “overprepare”, but I also feel like since my teams typically have checks to those anyways, I don’t feel it’s as needed.

Maybe it’s just my teambuilding, where I use things like Unaware Audino-Mega, so Triage was never really a concern, especially since I also used a Dazzling Normal type to take the typical Moongeist Beam, Oblivion Wing, and Giga Drain / Substitute sets.

I guess I’ll try better to not assume that just because I can handle it doesn’t mean everyone else will pack certain sets on their typical teams to check the aforementioned Ray-Mega.

As for Shedinja, I have used both the Moldy ability and Moldy Moves, Hazards, and other moves like status inflictions to handle it, so while in some scenarios it really threatened my team, I still feel that most people should have enough checks to Shedinja available. Unlike Ray, Shedinja’s Set and it’s weaknesses are much more obvious, and so I feel it is easier to deal with.

As for Species Spam, in the past I argued that it should be Claused only bc of the glitch on PS! Where it has the full amount of moves used by all Pokemon of the same species on one Pokémon; and the only way to tell is by HP. But even if Species Clause worked like the Ability Clause with 2 max of the same per team, the glitch will impact the 2 of the same per team and that is not fixed, only mitigated.

Overall, I apologize for any “stubbornness” on my part. I am seeing both sides more clearly.
 
I feel pretty tired right now so instead of my usual 10 paragraphs this is going to be pretty short.

The only problems in the meta I can see right now are: smash, glow, and drum along with possibly species clause

A lot of people want mega-ray banned. I am not one of them. There are always op breakers, the real strength (in my opinion) that non triage ray sets have come not from the mon, but from a very powerful base power attacks paired with choice. Banning ray in no way will solve this problem. People will still run band ttar and mmx and chomp and people will still run specs diancie, and gar and mmy. If glow is banned (as it really should be) then triage sets won't really exist.

People will say, there's no way to tell the difference between them! And this may be valid to an extent (until the community bans heavy set-up moves) but do -ate ray and TC ray really run sets that are all that different? It's obvious in either case that a flying move is going to be selected unless predicting a switchin, and both variants run fight, fire, and dragon quite commonly. And this uncertainty only lasts 1 turn anyway so it isn't all that vital

I can't really see a viable reason to ban ray. Sure it kills a lot of things, but so does every other breaker in existence. It isn't like pdon in that it has a very difficult to wall stab (both rays stabs are walled by steel while pdon hit the entire meta with it's stabs) as well as access to a 180 BP move. Pretty much every single offensive mon relevant in the meta has access to at least a 120 BP stab move and similar attack stats as ray so I don't really see how much is going to change if we ban it.

If people actually want to deal with OP breakers then we could address the problem by banning specs and band. though this would make me very sad so please don't do it.
 
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The only problems in the meta I can see right now are: smash, glow, and drum

the real strength (in my opinion) that non triage ray sets have come not from the mon, but from a very powerful base power attacks paired with choice. Banning ray in no way will solve this problem. People will still run band ttar and mmx and chomp and people will still run specs diancie, and gar and mmy. If glow is banned (as it really should be) then triage sets won't really exist.

I can't really see a viable reason to ban ray. Sure it kills a lot of things, but so does every other breaker in existence.

Pretty much every single offensive mon relevant in the meta has access to at least a 120 BP stab move and similar attack stats as ray so I don't really see how much is going to change if we ban it.

If people actually want to deal with OP breakers then we could address the problem by b a n n i n g s p e c s a n d b a n d.
thank you for this intelligent post
 
time to post my views on mega ray in a double post like a gamer

rayquaza-mega.gif

Rayquaza-Mega @ Sky Plate / Safety Goggles / Life Orb
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Fake Out / King’s Shield
- Extreme Speed
- Boomburst
- V-Create / Precipice Blades / Thousand Arrows / U-turn

Rayquaza-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Aerilate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Naive / Modest Nature
- Boomburst
- Draco Meteor
- Secret Sword / Magma Storm / Extreme Speed / Moongeist Beam
- Volt Switch / Extreme Speed

Rayquaza-Mega @ Life Orb / Safety Goggles
Ability: Triage
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Naive Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Oblivion Wing
- Moongeist Beam / Giga Drain / Earth Power
- Tail Glow / Shell Smash
- Spore / Substitute / Earth Power / Taunt / Drain Punch / Secret Sword

Rayquaza-Mega @ Choice Band
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Ascent
- Dragon Hammer
- V-create / Close Combat / High Horsepower
- U-turn / Extreme Speed

Rayquaza-Mega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Naive Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Core Enforcer / Draco Meteor
- Oblivion Wing / Dragon Ascent
- Moongeist Beam
- Volt Switch

Rayquaza-Mega @ Focus Sash
Ability: Dazzling
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Core Enforcer / Oblivion Wing
- Moongeist Beam / Sunsteel Strike
- Earth Power / Sacred Fire
- Shell Smash

Rayquaza-Mega @ Flame Orb
Ability: Quick Feet
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature / Modest (to OHKO Chansey)
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tail Glow
- Oblivion Wing
- Ice Beam
- Moongeist Beam / Earth Power


Being an amazing sweeper and wallbreaker with many sets while also being able to improof itself is great but did you know that Mega Rayquaza also negatively centralizes the metagame and heavily restricts teambuilding?

Why should we even keep this in the metagame? If it is not only insanely powerful, but also makes the meta one dimensional, and has like 7 sets, why the fuck should we ban one set and think we're good to go? People often forget about Specs Aerilate and Band TC, because those two sets alone are enough to establish nearly the same position Mega Rayquaza is in right now. Sure Triage is insane but if the Pokemon in question negatively centralizes the metagame we should just ban it instead of applying a slight nerf.

Also have I mentioned how much this thing restricts teambuilding? All teams are literally just the same. Anything out of the ordinary will just get destroyed, and there are pretty much no consistent checks to this thing, so you have to basically either pray or give up multiple team slots. If that's not restrictive I don't know what is.

TL;DR MRay has a ton of amazing sets, it negatively centralizes the meta, it restricts teambuilding, there are no consistent checks, triage ban is a really bad idea. Ban.
 
We want a species clause

Votes
why:
1. has a very high likelihood of giving the player with the species spam an advantage because the spammer can overload checks/counters to the mon being spammed
2. Removes a large amount of prediction ability from the defender as long as he cannot differentiate between the different pokemon (someone suggested forcing different nicknames on the mons which would make life better, but I am unsure if this can be easily done on the simulator and wouldn't match ingame mechanics)
Yes, only two points but they're significant ones. Now I don't think we really need to suspect this. It's not like a single mon is being talked about, it's literally anything with good stats and a variety of sets that can be spammed.

You'll notice that in the above spreadsheet, over 83% of people want something to be done about this. I didn't restrict the voting, because it's not like player skill really factors into this.
If two people are playing, their teams are comparable in build quality, and one of them is running species spam, the person with the species spam has a much greater chance of winning.
If both players are running species spam teams of comparable quality, then the matchup is decided exclusively at the teambuilder level for the most part. I mean, yes you can make a prediction every so often but it's totally a guess, and that's just uncompetitive.

TLDR: Quick Species clause of some sort pls

Edit: link that works
 
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E4 Flint

-inactive in BH due corrupt leader-
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I would prefer to not have unofficial polls drive official decisions, especially ones where voters can vote more than once (because I was able to do so myself for different options..), and there is necessarily a bias in where and to whom the poll was posted. I already had planned for the next topic to be species clause based on discussion in this thread, PS and Discord, and that was in the form of a suspect poll. Also we will have to figure out if a species clause vs a “name clause” is possible.

Re: your second point, I also kinda feel uncomfortable about basing a decision because of a problem in the sim i.e. not tracking the moves and abilities properly for a given Pokemon and ideally that should be fixed instead of making clauses to address it. I think we should limit discussion purely to your first point and later paragraphs.

My own personal thoughts: I agree with your first point but also, yes you can overload checks and counters but your team by its nature is usually also vulnerable to the same weaknesses. Since we are addressing a clause that affects all kinds of teams which could be spam teams (of any mon, not just one or two) or just multiples of the same mon, imo a spam team being effective is more a symptom of the mon being used being extremely versatile or purely too powerful on its own such that the set choices don’t really matter.

The Immortal can you give some advice on my concerns about running a decision based on a sim problem, and also if it can’t be fixed, how likely is it to be able to have a “name clause” vs a species clause to allow m2y and m2x to both be used instead of allowing only a single mewtwo. Then we can proceed with a suspect poll after the current suspect concludes.
 
While I still think a Species Clause suspect remains consistent with certain members' proclivity to impulsiveness, I'm appreciative that potentially permanent meta changes aren't allowed to be determined through biased and underhanded means. Amateur opinions should never serve as a substitution for proper regulation.

Since I already stated my opinions on this matter, I'll keep my statements brief: Monospecies doesn't have any definitive counters, but neither does Imposter. Monospecies isn't a threat to the game's balance, it's just a threat to certain playstyles. If Imposter is the ultimate Anti-Offense, Monospecies is the ultimate Anti-Defense. Monospecies, just like Imposter, is simply another viable tool available for players to use. Unfortunately, since certain people, perhaps to their own dismay--propagate this format as being a "bulky pivot" meta, anything that threatens their dreadful narrative instantly sends them into a frenzy, wherein they trip over themselves as they dash to the "polls" and forums to riot until the perceived "problem" is removed.

Many people genuinely think that Monospecies is a problem, and for those that do, I respect their opinions--however, if we drop the pretenses for a just a moment, some of you simply want Monospecies banned because you're tired of me getting reqs. These people are easily identified by their shaky arguments and trademark impulsiveness. "We want a species clause... I don't think we really need to suspect this." really? Try again.
 
While I still think a Species Clause suspect remains consistent with certain members' proclivity to impulsiveness, I'm appreciative that potentially permanent meta changes aren't allowed to be determined through biased and underhanded means. Amateur opinions should never serve as a substitution for proper regulation.

Since I already stated my opinions on this matter, I'll keep my statements brief: Monospecies doesn't have any definitive counters, but neither does Imposter. Monospecies isn't a threat to the game's balance, it's just a threat to certain playstyles. If Imposter is the ultimate Anti-Offense, Monospecies is the ultimate Anti-Defense. Monospecies, just like Imposter, is simply another viable tool available for players to use. Unfortunately, since certain people, perhaps to their own dismay--propagate this format as being a "bulky pivot" meta, anything that threatens their dreadful narrative instantly sends them into a frenzy, wherein they trip over themselves as they dash to the "polls" and forums to riot until the perceived "problem" is removed.

Many people genuinely think that Monospecies is a problem, and for those that do, I respect their opinions--however, if we drop the pretenses for a just a moment, some of you simply want Monospecies banned because you're tired of me getting reqs. These people are easily identified by their shaky arguments and trademark impulsiveness. "We want a species clause... I don't think we really need to suspect this." really? Try again.
are you really doing this?

you didn't even make a post that was helpful to the meta. the post was basically "yeah you guys are all dumb i'm am smart guys" instead of telling us WHY species clause wasn't needed. you think we want species clause because we don't want you to get reqs? no, we want species clause because it's uncompetitive and allows low level players to beat high level players effortlessly. want proof? go see big man on campus, that's a really good example. hell i made a team of 5 hoopa-u and a celesteela for a meme and beat a couple of good team comps.

imposter is a healthy centralization of the meta. imposter forces you to make a good team. species spam on the other hand will encourage you to make a team where it's just 5 of the same mon + ttar, and you can win a lot of games easily with both. so i guess you can compare the two in that vein.

in the future refrain from making these kinds of posts because they don't really add anything to the discussion
 
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