While developing a new team, I try my best to use pokemon that are hardly seen in the OU metagame while using innovative movesets but they are never good enough to win consistently so I eventually end up resorting back to my usual combinations of pokemon. In our current metagame, it's definitely very difficult to make a solid team without havin to implement the typical defensive and offensive cores.
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BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Tobes
- Start date
I actually think you can make a decent amount of creative sets in the current meta, especially mixing and matching Salac Berry and different new moves on various Pokémon.
This is an improved meta though, it cannot be denied, because many different playstyles can be used, despite a decent restriction on choices of Pokémon.
This is an improved meta though, it cannot be denied, because many different playstyles can be used, despite a decent restriction on choices of Pokémon.
I remember back in the Tornadus-T days, literally every non-HO team had to have Jirachi / Zapdos + Latias / Celebi / Amoonguss. Things have definitely improved since then.
Btw, what do you guys think is the most centralizing pokemon in the meta right now (barring Politoed)? Keldeo or Lando would be my picks.
Btw, what do you guys think is the most centralizing pokemon in the meta right now (barring Politoed)? Keldeo or Lando would be my picks.
I Used Offensive Zapdos for quite some time great rain counter , wen i used the opponents usually complain that they didn't expect it , wen they realized it was offensive it was too late
Zapdos can do a lot of work on its own
Zapdos is...cool, but...I always felt that, while it has a clear niche (checking a lot of stuff really well, SubRoost stalling) it has so many counters and opponents would inevitably be running one or more of them. Basically it makes it really hard to do anything once you actually get in. Personally, the most success I had with Zappy was to use it along Ferrothorn and just spam Roar to rack up Spikes damage.
On the offensive spectrum Thundurus-T completely outclasses Zapdos, with that Gargantuan SpA stat and that Speed which is just slightly higher but allows it to beat all base 100s, something Zapdos has to speed tie with. Coupled with Volt Absorb which is definitely a notch better than Pressure. But even if pressure were released, Zapdos would be a poor man's Thundurus-T at best.
On the other hand if we are talking about Defensive sets, Zapdos, definitely has the upper hand. With the much better bulk, and roost to back it up added with only 2 weaknesses with 5 amazing resistances against very common types faced in the game, Zapdos can stall you like hell, add Pressure to the equation and you'll soon start to tun out of PP of moves that can do S-E damage to Zapdos, which is crucial considering that Stone Edge will usually be the most common coverage option you'll have against it.
On the other hand if we are talking about Defensive sets, Zapdos, definitely has the upper hand. With the much better bulk, and roost to back it up added with only 2 weaknesses with 5 amazing resistances against very common types faced in the game, Zapdos can stall you like hell, add Pressure to the equation and you'll soon start to tun out of PP of moves that can do S-E damage to Zapdos, which is crucial considering that Stone Edge will usually be the most common coverage option you'll have against it.
I'm sorry, but it's posts like these that sap away a lot of fun from the game. Seriously, if you get pissed off every time you play the game, then stop playing. You're not getting paid to play. Try and lighten up and enjoy what we have. The metagame does change. A couple of months ago, rain was dominating. Now sand has made a return. Who knows what could happen next. I really think creativity is stifled when people start complaining about it. So what if everything is the same? Why can't you be the first one to try that different move or different set? I really think if you can't find a way to be creative in this metagame, then you are not trying hard enough. It saddens me to see people complaining that there is no creativity when I'm the one running around using shit like Double Dance Skarmory and DD Latios and whatever hits my fancy. These things were even mildly successful. I've even tried shit like Specs Articuno recently as well. Sure, it completely fell apart, but I sure as hell had fun with it. You guys need to learn that your primary goal when playing Pokemon is, while to be competitive and stimulate your neurons, to have fun. Pokemon is a game. I really think we need to learn to celebrate the metagame we've made instead of being so negative about it. The metagame doesn't stifle creativity, only attitudes do.
Totally agreeing with shrang! If you are always using the same cookie-cutter teams and then say ''OU is boring'' then this is clearly your fault. You don't always have to build the most competitive teams that can get you at the top of the ladder you know. When playing on the ladder, sometimes having fun is more important than winning more. You can build a perfectly viable team that uses some original Pokemon or strategies and still win the majority of your games with good playing. I really don't get some good tour players that bitch about the metagame being boring when they don't really try to use anything to change this. Also, it is much more enjoying, fun, and rewarding to peak at the ladder with an underused Pokemon/strategy, as it means you have to try harder, and i thought that good players liked such challenges. You have tours to go all out and use the best to try and win, why do the same to the ladder and not just relax and try to have some fun?
In the past month, i have been using two of my Moltres rain teams, one HO team with Accelgor and 5 Pokemon that don't care about hazards, and an offensive team that features SubPass Mienshao, and they have all been very fun to play with and were very decent when i was playing correctly. I get it that this meta is not the best ever, but bitching is not going to do anything, so try and change it a bit yourselves too (the ladder at least).
As for offensive Zapdos, from the little experience i had with it, it is a good option to use alongside vicious offensive Pokemon that have troubles with Breloom and Scizor, two offensive Pokemon that are difficult to deal with for some teams, and Thundurus-T rarely can take a hit from. For example, Terrakion makes for a very good partner to Zapdos, as the only way to deal with it is priority, revenge killing, and a few soft-counters, such as Landorus-T, Gliscor, and Hippo. Zapdos deals with the priority that troubles Terrakion, with some of the revenge killers that trouble Terrakion (Jirachi, choiced Fighting moves), and even with most Ground-types provided it switches in for free.
In the past month, i have been using two of my Moltres rain teams, one HO team with Accelgor and 5 Pokemon that don't care about hazards, and an offensive team that features SubPass Mienshao, and they have all been very fun to play with and were very decent when i was playing correctly. I get it that this meta is not the best ever, but bitching is not going to do anything, so try and change it a bit yourselves too (the ladder at least).
As for offensive Zapdos, from the little experience i had with it, it is a good option to use alongside vicious offensive Pokemon that have troubles with Breloom and Scizor, two offensive Pokemon that are difficult to deal with for some teams, and Thundurus-T rarely can take a hit from. For example, Terrakion makes for a very good partner to Zapdos, as the only way to deal with it is priority, revenge killing, and a few soft-counters, such as Landorus-T, Gliscor, and Hippo. Zapdos deals with the priority that troubles Terrakion, with some of the revenge killers that trouble Terrakion (Jirachi, choiced Fighting moves), and even with most Ground-types provided it switches in for free.
don't give me that horseshit. how about you try using that gimmicky trash in a tournament against actual good players before you tell me that garbage like double dance skarmory (this is a joke right?) is viable. you can be creative, sure, but only for the sake of being creative. you cannot get (too) innovative without using (mostly) inferior options against good players. of course we want to have fun, but we play to win. take that "use shitty pokemon and lose for the sake of having fun" mentality to serebii.
Let's not get stuck on minor details. Even excluding very gimmicky options such as Double Dance Skarmory, Articuno, and even Moltres (or the whole D-Rank list if you want), all the Pokemon in the B and C Rank of the viability ranking list are viable options and can be used without being outclassed or being used just for the sake of creativity, as long as you put a little more thought into building a team with them. As for the best choices being limited in this meta, i think it's always have been this way for the OU tier. If you want to use the best of the best and be as competitive as possible, of 'course you will have to choose from a somehow limited amount of Pokemon and play styles, as the top Pokemon in this tier are so good that force a big amount of centralization, leaving only a few Pokemon at the spotlight.
it has not "always been this way for OU". i could go on forever about how you can get creative in DPP without necessarily resorting to inferior options. i'm less experienced with ADV but it applies there even moreso. i think we could get to this level in BW if we got rid of goddamn sun/rain/even sand... look at UU, they've got it figured out. they got rid of sun & sand. the result? UU is arguably the best BW tier.
Funnily enough, it's in tournaments where gimmicks actually thrive. Tournaments is where most of these new and cool sets come from, like your HP Bug Keldeos and what not. It's up to you to test out new things. So what if they're inferior? At least you tried. Failure is only another word for success. You cannot be innovative without making mistakes. Maybe you should realise this before berating the metagame because you're the one who's afraid of failing a couple of times to succeed in the long run and create new things. Again, like I said, if you're getting pissed off at the metagame, then stop playing. No-one's paying to do it. Your negative attitude is the only thing that's stifling creativity, not the metagame.
Well the problem is that the smogon community decided that weather was going to be "the metagame". I agree 100% that the metagame lacks the beauty in team making that DPP had. No matter what kind of team you have you always have to have a pokemon to take a boosted water/fire attacks. I remember in DPP when you had teams that looked so weird but they worked and had the synergy to keep it alive. I don't think the metagame should be 3 pokemon fighting each other. I think it would open up a variety of more pokemon if at least sun and rain were gone. The interesting thing is that the team preview is less helpful this gen than it would have been last gen. Once you seen the weather you know what kind of pokemon they may have.... Do I have a solution? No.. It is way too late to ban weather. I think splitting the official metagames up is a good start. So if the people that want to play "kill the politoed, ninetales, tyranitar" want to play that they can. Otherwise the people that want to play pokemon can play without weather. I would like to see clear skies be the main metagame and weather be an auxillary tier like RU and UU.
@pocket:
There is also a huge difference between volcarona, heatran and starmie in clear skies and those pokemon in their weathers. Of course you need to pack the resist and have good team synergy. But the difference between taking a unboosted hydro pump and a boosted hydro pump is very significant. Also some of those creative pokemon sets you stated need weather to even be effective and to be honest besides cresselia, conk and the custap leads those sets are highly situational.
Conflict and later on shrang know what they're talking about. There are always room for innovation in competitive Pokemon. Innovations are what sets apart exceptional players from good players. As Conflict, the semifinalist of OST 9, have stated, he used many non-standard options to climb his way to the top. Hellpwna and gr8astard both used SD Feraligatr, a Pokemon in RU, to win the finals of SPL and OST, respectively. SPL and tours were where many uncommon sets began to emerge, such as EB HP Bug Keldeo, Healing Wish Jirachi, Focus Sash Tyranitar, Sun Cresselia, custap leads, and the comeback of Conkeldurr.
Also, let's not pretend that removing sun and rain would all of a sudden remove the need to pack a strong fire or water resist. Specs Keldeo, Starmie, Heatran, and Volcarona would still demand for solid resistances of both elements. If you think banning Rain and Sun will solve the problems of "creativity," you're sorely mistaken.
Also, let's not pretend that removing sun and rain would all of a sudden remove the need to pack a strong fire or water resist. Specs Keldeo, Starmie, Heatran, and Volcarona would still demand for solid resistances of both elements. If you think banning Rain and Sun will solve the problems of "creativity," you're sorely mistaken.
lol
its not Specs Keldeo thats the issue, its facing a Specs Keldeo with another 1.5 boost on top of that, or a Scarf Keldeo that effectively gets a Specs boost too.
theres a massive difference between preparing for a rain-boosted Keldeo and a non-rain boosted Keldeo. having played exclusively stall for the last few months before I "quit", I can't stress enough how big a strain the weather boosts put on defensive teambuilding. specs Keldeo in rain 2HKOs even the bulkiest water resists (i.e. celebi), limiting you to use Jellicent from the offset which well built rain teams will always capitalise on, as we saw in OST finals. the exact same principle applies for volcarona, where defensive teams nearly always need to pack SDef Hippowdon or Heatran (preferably both). take away its immediate +1 boost to fire attacks, and its ability to set-up on numerous bulky waters (some of which would be checks, if not counters, in a sun-less format) and theres no doubt it becomes much easier to handle, and doesn't force you to use one of these two pokemon.
i'm not saying i 100% agree with bkc because i do think that there is still some place for creativity in bw2 ou, and i'm also not trying to say that rain and sun should be banned because they put too much strain on defensive teams - i havent played enough recently to make such a comment. however, claiming that defensive teams don't get a bunch of new options to play with if rain and sun aren't in the picture is just outright ignorant, and honestly it looks if you are just arguing for the sake of arguing.
clearly these teams still need to run water and fire resistances, but there are far more choices available to you as your pokemon only need to be able to tank specs or +1 boosted attacks, not specs + another 1.5 boost on top of that. i really don't understand how you can disagree with this...
everything penguinx said is right but i'm going to expand a little upon it i guess, just cause posts like pocket's piss me off.
specs keldeo isn't a problem for a well-constructed stall team to handle. stuff like sdef rachi, sdef celebi, and even sdef zapdos to a certain extent can take care of it. specs keldeo in rain is an entirely different story. now you're 2hkoing jirachi with surf, 2hkoing celebi with hydro pump, and ohkoing zapdos with surf after rocks sometimes (always with hpump). if it's not painfully obvious yet what makes keldeo broken, let's offer another example. scarf keldeo outside of rain doesn't even 3hko latios with surf, and can't ohko gengar with surf, even after rocks. in rain, it gets an easy 3hko on latios, and ohkos gengar even without rocks up. i could flood the page with damage calcs but i'm not going to go to such lengths to make a relatively simple point that some people apparently still don't understand...if you want a more clear and intelligent view of why rain's killing the metagame, refer to this thread (i think the ten experienced and accredited players that support a drizzle ban, as opposed to the mere two against, speaks for itself tbh).
specs keldeo isn't a problem for a well-constructed stall team to handle. stuff like sdef rachi, sdef celebi, and even sdef zapdos to a certain extent can take care of it. specs keldeo in rain is an entirely different story. now you're 2hkoing jirachi with surf, 2hkoing celebi with hydro pump, and ohkoing zapdos with surf after rocks sometimes (always with hpump). if it's not painfully obvious yet what makes keldeo broken, let's offer another example. scarf keldeo outside of rain doesn't even 3hko latios with surf, and can't ohko gengar with surf, even after rocks. in rain, it gets an easy 3hko on latios, and ohkos gengar even without rocks up. i could flood the page with damage calcs but i'm not going to go to such lengths to make a relatively simple point that some people apparently still don't understand...if you want a more clear and intelligent view of why rain's killing the metagame, refer to this thread (i think the ten experienced and accredited players that support a drizzle ban, as opposed to the mere two against, speaks for itself tbh).
shrang, please don't act like you understand the tournament mindset. the difference between the good gimmicks (this is what you see in tours) and bad gimmicks (the trash you're using) is that the gimmicks you see in high-level play have a purpose. they punish a pokemon's usual counters. bad gimmicks are creativity just for the sake of being creative, with disregard for the actual effectiveness of the set, such as the mighty double dance skarmory (anyone who played wifi with the youtube community will remember the 'origifags' who bitched about 'OU whores' and made their own rules [no skarmbliss!!1]).
everything else i wanted to say has already been excellently phrased by yee, curtains, peng & lavos.
everything else i wanted to say has already been excellently phrased by yee, curtains, peng & lavos.
I wasn't even being serious about Double Dance Skarm lol. It was just something I had always liked to troll with. The difference is that I enjoy what I'm doing, and you're just hating on everything. I'm not using Double Dance Skarmory for the sake of going being hipster, I'm doing it for curiosity. However bad it may be, I don't really give a shit. Besides, if "good gimmicks" exist, why are you complaining about lack of creativity? It clearly exists. There are plenty of new sets coming into C&C all the time. A lot of them get approved, or very close to being approved. You can berate me for using bad gimmicks, but at least I'm out there looking, instead of sitting around complaining about everything. There are plenty of new things that can still be discovered. If you can't find them, don't blame the metagame, you are either not looking hard enough or you are just unlucky in your pursuits. It's fine to stereotype teams and things that you need to run to work well in this metagame, but you cannot ignore micro-variations or even large scale variation that run across the board. This still comes back to how seriously you're taking this. Like I said, if you don't like the metagame, don't play it. Play something else. In the end, you're not getting paid for this. You don't have to earn a living from it. So what are you getting out of it? If it's not enjoyment, then I'd like to know what it is. If it is, then the clear answer would be to go and play something you do enjoy. Complaints about the metagame only tend to make everyone else unhappy while not bringing you any in return. Negativity is highly contagious. I'm not even going to get into the fact that plenty of people DO enjoy the metagame we're in, myself included, to a certain extent.
PenguinX, who said about defensive teams? I was speaking of BW2 teams in general.
Ummm...252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 236+ SpD Celebi in rain: 160-189 (39.6 - 46.78%) -- guaranteed 3HKO =/= 2HKO. Even with Rocks, Specs Hydro Pump has 0.39% chance of 2HKO, not even accounting its 80% accuracy.
Also - 252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jirachi: 211-249 (52.22 - 61.63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock. So no, SDef Jirachi (or SDef Zapdos) doesn't take care of Specs Keldeo even without Rain, and you would still need a solid Water resist to deal with Specs Keldeo.
Let's stop thinking with the mindset of hard-countering mons and begin thinking about checking mons. This is BW2 where offensive behemoths like Kyurem-B are present - you cant counter everything. That's not to say that Keldeo already have a handful of solid counters, not to mention plenty of checks. It's not like Excadrill where it is uncheckable other than priority, changing weather, and some few defensive threats, nor is Keldeo like Genesect or Tornadus-T, who can easily U-turn out of a disadvantaged position and grab momentum. No, Keldeo, like other Pokemon, requires significant support to break through a well-constructed team. There are Pokemon that Keldeo simply cannot muscle through, and requires such threats to be removed to have any freedom of action in a given match. Even with Rain support, which is a significant investment in itself (Politoed...), Keldeo experiences these obstacles. In fact, you're better off supporting Keldeo with Tyranitar than with Politoed, and many competitive players have realized this, as seen by many variations of the highly effective Keldeo-TTar teams. This is me speaking as a frequent Rain Keldeo user (and of course facing opposing Rain Keldeo). Perhaps if Rain granted Keldeo double speed, similarly to how Excadrill doubled in Speed with sand support, then we would have a truly unstoppable (ie uncheckable) beast in our hands (although, such pairing would be prohibited by Aldaron's Proposal anyway!) As it stands now, Rain is hardly breaking the metagame.
Lavos Spawn said:
Ummm...252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 236+ SpD Celebi in rain: 160-189 (39.6 - 46.78%) -- guaranteed 3HKO =/= 2HKO. Even with Rocks, Specs Hydro Pump has 0.39% chance of 2HKO, not even accounting its 80% accuracy.
Also - 252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jirachi: 211-249 (52.22 - 61.63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock. So no, SDef Jirachi (or SDef Zapdos) doesn't take care of Specs Keldeo even without Rain, and you would still need a solid Water resist to deal with Specs Keldeo.
Let's stop thinking with the mindset of hard-countering mons and begin thinking about checking mons. This is BW2 where offensive behemoths like Kyurem-B are present - you cant counter everything. That's not to say that Keldeo already have a handful of solid counters, not to mention plenty of checks. It's not like Excadrill where it is uncheckable other than priority, changing weather, and some few defensive threats, nor is Keldeo like Genesect or Tornadus-T, who can easily U-turn out of a disadvantaged position and grab momentum. No, Keldeo, like other Pokemon, requires significant support to break through a well-constructed team. There are Pokemon that Keldeo simply cannot muscle through, and requires such threats to be removed to have any freedom of action in a given match. Even with Rain support, which is a significant investment in itself (Politoed...), Keldeo experiences these obstacles. In fact, you're better off supporting Keldeo with Tyranitar than with Politoed, and many competitive players have realized this, as seen by many variations of the highly effective Keldeo-TTar teams. This is me speaking as a frequent Rain Keldeo user (and of course facing opposing Rain Keldeo). Perhaps if Rain granted Keldeo double speed, similarly to how Excadrill doubled in Speed with sand support, then we would have a truly unstoppable (ie uncheckable) beast in our hands (although, such pairing would be prohibited by Aldaron's Proposal anyway!) As it stands now, Rain is hardly breaking the metagame.
Let's get the numbers right, there are 6 anti-Drizzle users, 2 pro-Drizzle users, and 1 neutral user. Apparently OU mods and I didn't do a good job evening out the playing field, with a much larger representation of anti-Drizzle sentiment than pro-Drizzle. If we go by quality over quantity, however, I have to say the two camps are evenly matched (and this is me being generous, because some arguments from the anti-Drizzle camp are based highly on shaky conjecture / hypothesis).Lavos Spawn said:
I'm not going to mix in with any discussion, but Shrang. I think you need to realise that a gimmick is meant to suprise the opposing player, if it's on the main-site. It's pretty much by definition not suprising and thus not-gimmick.
You know what's gimmick?:
Healing Wish Jirachi before it became 'main stream', though it's still cool to use once in a while.
Porygon2 with trick scarf/specs back in DPP
Jirachi lead with E-ball over U-turn to net the 2HKO on opposing swampert leads in DPP
Scarf Rotom-H running HP-ground instead of Overheat to play mindgames against scizor and the KO/2HKO on Heatran in DPP.
Those are useful and suprising gimmicks, they are still reliable after the suprise has been lost.
You know what isn't a gimmick anymore? HP-ghost or HP-Bug Keldeo, yes it was a gimmick, but it is becoming so common that the definition of gimmick is lost.
Also I'm suprised people think original sets have been thought up lately. I mean look at baton pass Celebi: it has been hailed as an incredible anti-trapping set, something that is unexpected and useful. Never mind that that strategy was around since Gen4 at least. People have become lazy in this metagame, and team preview, far more powerful pokémon and weather have caused it. I mean, people I played against have been suprised that PORYGON2 is ABLE to wall dragons, I call that a massive disappointment about the overall knowledge the average player has.
Incredible important parts of comp. pokémon have been lost in the transition from DPP to BW. Scouting and the lead metagame being the most important ones. Scouting is now only there to 'get out' again, deal heavy damage or see if they stay in or not. In DPP it was essential to utilize scouting to find out your opposing team's pokémon, sets and potential ass-pulls. With the lead metagame being essential to set-up SR, potentially screens, perhaps learning what the entire style of the opposing team is. That's massive for knowing just a single pokémon. There's a reason Aerodactyl and Azelf were OU and had massive lead-usage.
You know what's gimmick?:
Healing Wish Jirachi before it became 'main stream', though it's still cool to use once in a while.
Porygon2 with trick scarf/specs back in DPP
Jirachi lead with E-ball over U-turn to net the 2HKO on opposing swampert leads in DPP
Scarf Rotom-H running HP-ground instead of Overheat to play mindgames against scizor and the KO/2HKO on Heatran in DPP.
Those are useful and suprising gimmicks, they are still reliable after the suprise has been lost.
You know what isn't a gimmick anymore? HP-ghost or HP-Bug Keldeo, yes it was a gimmick, but it is becoming so common that the definition of gimmick is lost.
Also I'm suprised people think original sets have been thought up lately. I mean look at baton pass Celebi: it has been hailed as an incredible anti-trapping set, something that is unexpected and useful. Never mind that that strategy was around since Gen4 at least. People have become lazy in this metagame, and team preview, far more powerful pokémon and weather have caused it. I mean, people I played against have been suprised that PORYGON2 is ABLE to wall dragons, I call that a massive disappointment about the overall knowledge the average player has.
Incredible important parts of comp. pokémon have been lost in the transition from DPP to BW. Scouting and the lead metagame being the most important ones. Scouting is now only there to 'get out' again, deal heavy damage or see if they stay in or not. In DPP it was essential to utilize scouting to find out your opposing team's pokémon, sets and potential ass-pulls. With the lead metagame being essential to set-up SR, potentially screens, perhaps learning what the entire style of the opposing team is. That's massive for knowing just a single pokémon. There's a reason Aerodactyl and Azelf were OU and had massive lead-usage.