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OU DPP OU Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Excal
- Start date
I get the criticism and I think it's fair, but want to add some context.
First on the council point, there's been some big changes recently, several members stepped down and PDC, twash and myself have joined the council. All three of us actively play tournaments so that part about lack of involvement doesn't apply anymore. We will do our best to be as transparent as possible going forward.
On Jirachi, it's become a lower priority for me since usage has dropped drastically. Doesn't seem to be a dominant force right now, even if it probably deserves a look down the line.
As for Clefable, I get it and agree it deserves discussion. I've noticed a lot of DPP games lately turning into CM Clef wars, with some pretty clear auto-loss/win matchups where teams basically forfeit the moment they're facing CM Clef. Sleep ban made this worse too since Breloom was one of the more reliable ways to pressure it and its viability's taken a hit as a result. It's a dynamic I find questionable myself, which leads to a question, are these teams genuinely as strong/oppressive as they look, or is this more a symptom of people not prepping well enough for it? There's admittedly a lot to account for, CM Clef + Spikes, CM Clef + Toxic Spikes, CM Clef + Mag, on top of having to prep for Knock Off Clef which has its own set of variations too.
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as much as i enjoy discord chatting i also play this tier quite frequently.
clef is on the menu for pokemon to watch out for, but i disagree that it is as broken as you say, even with variance in the combinations listed above. the absence of loom + machamp does bode well for clef, but i think their impact on its viability is a bit exaggerated. without those two pokemon, other fighting types (luke, ape, yama) and cbtar have seen a resurgence, all of which handle clef well. support clef has remained at about the same threshold of viability, if not slightly lower, than it was pre-spl. cm clef has definitely improved from its lowpoint of the last couple years, but i hesitate to deem it broken. if anything, it is a response to the stagnation of defensive teams which relied too much on phasing / their own clef to beat special attackers. already, people have realized that they can alter the makeup of stall to handle cm clef beyond a cm war mirror (e.g. roar hippo, encore quag, encore knock clef, trick on stall, haze, jirachi, cbtar defense, sd emp, and others).
regardless, clef is an excellent pokemon and i would like to see how it develops during dpp cup. if it becomes too oppressive, i am fine w/ a suspect test for it. right now i don't see any massive issues with it.
i am against banning jirachi. jirachi's flinch-hax is obnoxious but greatly exaggerated in the modern meta. jirachi is a fantastic glue pokemon, but the days of wishtect being able to 6-0 offense are long gone. the tier has adopted surprisingly well to jirachi's orthodox sets the past few years, and with loom gone i actually think jirachi has become a little bit worse. ground types are more freely able to pivot in jirachi without worrying about an incoming spore. mie can switch into jirachi and twave it without being worried about loom's constant presence. zapdos also doesn't need to pick and choose b/t countering physical jirachi and loom anymore. metagross, gliscor, hippo, slowtran, and rotom are just a few of the pokemon that handle jirachi better w/o spore.
Gen 4 OU has become nearly unrecognizable from the dynamic format many of us loved. What was once a high-skill, high-variance environment full of explosive Dragons, versatile setup sweepers, and creative offense has converged into a narrow, defensive grind dominated by a handful of ultra-consistent Pokémon like Jirachi and Latias.
The tier increasingly mirrors the staleness that contributed to Gen 5 OU's decline in popularity, another format burdened by heavy centralization and complex restrictions. It feels like the community has defaulted to pushing everyone toward Gen 3 OU's established balance instead of preserving what made DPP special. Excessive caution around any potential '50/50' or coin-flip matchup has led to nerfing or banning nearly everything that isn't a safe, reliable pivot or wall. This over-correction kills diversity: offensive threats get preemptively restricted, games drag out, and creativity suffers.
It's time for a proper reset. Unban everything for a dedicated 3-month Anything Goes testing period. Let players explore Salamence back in OU, Latios, Froslass (which was a wild ban), Machamp (oh no, a pokemon with 4 arms punches the fuck out you), and Breloom with Spore access. See what actually breaks the format versus what just adds healthy variance and excitement.
The current rule-making process feels disconnected from the player base that wants fun, varied games over sterile consistency. And fundamentally, why isn't Gen 4 Ubers a standard, always-available ladder option on Showdown outside of occasional ROA Spotlights?
The tier increasingly mirrors the staleness that contributed to Gen 5 OU's decline in popularity, another format burdened by heavy centralization and complex restrictions. It feels like the community has defaulted to pushing everyone toward Gen 3 OU's established balance instead of preserving what made DPP special. Excessive caution around any potential '50/50' or coin-flip matchup has led to nerfing or banning nearly everything that isn't a safe, reliable pivot or wall. This over-correction kills diversity: offensive threats get preemptively restricted, games drag out, and creativity suffers.
It's time for a proper reset. Unban everything for a dedicated 3-month Anything Goes testing period. Let players explore Salamence back in OU, Latios, Froslass (which was a wild ban), Machamp (oh no, a pokemon with 4 arms punches the fuck out you), and Breloom with Spore access. See what actually breaks the format versus what just adds healthy variance and excitement.
The current rule-making process feels disconnected from the player base that wants fun, varied games over sterile consistency. And fundamentally, why isn't Gen 4 Ubers a standard, always-available ladder option on Showdown outside of occasional ROA Spotlights?
This.
Omg, I really thought people thinking like you (and me) regarding DPP OU tiering had disappeared.
I get what you’re saying but how is needing to twisting your team in a manner to not autolose to salamence, have salamence on every offensive team bc it’s just that strong
or like before sleep was banned where every good defensive team has to have at least 2 “good breloom checks” any less limiting to creativity than having the current bans hold up which advertizes a healthy balance thus more creativity having space to actually be expressed
As is gen 4 ou still has a lot of room for creativity, in fact I would say more so than ever before because breloom oppresses the crap out of many things
There's currently an RoA spotlight that's essentiallly this is if you want to give it a try, it's called platinum ou and it's based around the dpp meta pre-HGSS.
In the light of this transparency, I have quite a few questions, my apologies if this is public knowledge somewhere but I genuinely couldn't find it
1) Who is actually on the dpp council right now? The only source I can find is this thread, given your post I suppose this list has been out of date for some time?
2) How does the council work? Is it only tiering decisions? in this thread Elodin mentioned voting against a council proposal to suspect Machamp. Is there a separate body that gates what the council is allowed to put up? And if so, is that a change from how things worked when e.g. Salamence and Froslass were handled?
3) Would it be possible to include in the OP of this thread the current memberlist of the council and ideally a brief description on what the council does? how the suspect process works?
CM Clef feels like karmic punishment for do-nothing teams. It is way easier for offense to break through it than any other set. Wish protect can freely scout vs cb tar, knock twave slows down your threats and is harder to trick since you can't just swap your choiced mon into it. Encore can stop set up mons from beating it and cosmic power somehow adds shell armor to its abilities.
As a set it mostly shines vs stall. Specifically old structures like I Crawled by BKC which were made before it became popular. Unfortunately stall is the easiest structure to fit it on since it relies less on its utility then other teams leading to all the cm wars. Cm clef emerged as a set to beat stall and stall teams have a choice of either teching vs it and making their matchup into everything else a bit worse or saying fuck it and rolling the dice with their own cm clef. I would blame the players for choosing the coinflip so often to be honest but as an offense lover I'm enjoying the effects of it
1) deepbluec, student of sinnoh, pdc, twash and me
thread is not updated its Star's job I can't do that
2) community survey, for machamp after surveying qualified voters; the community supported a ban at 76% so the council started a suspect
for Froslass it was a bit of a different situation, the council invoked tiering policy rules and made snow cloak fall under that ruling, thats why they were able to ban it without a suspect. in fact that's not froslass that got banned but snow cloak that now falls under evasion clause and since its froslass only ability its not usable in OU
similar to if you wanna use Gabite its not banned by the council, but because sand veil is its only ability it's not usable in OU
3) ok i updated the forum info thread and added a brief description of what council does
Regarding Froslass, some players found regrettable to ban her entirely as a consequence of banning her ability, because a complex ban (the devil) could be enforced. For example banning Hail + Snow Cloak or Snow Warning + Snow Cloak.
Regarding Machamp, Dynamic Punch should have been banned and not Machamp itself;
But I'm just a casual competitive player who has no say over the matter;
As much as I love DPP Ubers that would not make sense logically speaking since if DPP Ubers became a permanent ladder then all the other past gen ubers would have to become a permanent ladder since it wouldn't be fair to the other tiers and bringing all of them back is a waste of time because not enough people play those tiers.
As for everything else you said that is a great idea except don't bring Salamence back because that thing is for sure broken.
What are the common tools for dealing with stall in DPP OU?
...asking for a friend..
I know about trick rotom and latias and taunt Gliscor.
Realized last night having reliable rapid spin helps a lot
Magnezone for skarm and Forretress
Any other common mons or approaches for dealing with it?
...asking for a friend..
I know about trick rotom and latias and taunt Gliscor.
Realized last night having reliable rapid spin helps a lot
Magnezone for skarm and Forretress
Any other common mons or approaches for dealing with it?
-Set up
-Hazards
-Game knowledge
-Practice
You can also watch tournament replays, which will help gain tips on dismantling stall
- Mixed Attackers
- Strong Choiced Mons
- Pursuit
- Overwhelming walls with offensive pressure
Honestly practice helps alot no one team style is so much better than the other that you can’t beat it.
Pursuit and Sand help alot as well as hazards and good knock off Switchins and Pokemon that generally threaten stall’s passiveness like SubPetaya Empoleon
Choice users like Band Tar,Specs Kingdra and Specs Heatran
-Pokemon like Breloom ,Infernape and CM Lucario that take advantage of Stall really only have one or two checks to them
youve gotten some good advice in the other replies so I won’t repeat em, only other thing I’d add is play wise learn to maintain offensive pressure as stall can be played passively but offense can’t. Use that to your advantage. Would watch some of the replays of offense or bulky offense wins vs stall in DPPPL or SPL in dpp ou
Ofc it changes player to player as a high level player stall may even play aggressively with stall in key moments to trip you up or to get rid of something in your team that’s a huge threat to his own and then cruise the rest of the game with low risk moves as you can’t break past his walls anymore.
Also notice trends in common stall structures and see what mons or sets you can come up with to trip them up. You don’t have to innovate crazy even though you can, sometimes a different item, spread or move that they’re not used to on common breakers and sweepers is all you need to lure and eliminate key walls like clef, hippo, lati, skarm to have the team rally behind and take advantage of.
https://psim.us/t/1900430-j0gnlubbjl2vo8fhew2l is this team good its a 
balance team its made to get the best out of its sweepers,
like dd lum berry
and nasty plot , alongside rapid spin support from 
and T-Wave Support from 
,
is the real leader of the team spreading burns and doing good damage with shadow balls and thunderbolts.
balance team its made to get the best out of its sweepers,like dd lum berry
and nasty plot , alongside rapid spin support from and T-Wave Support from , is the real leader of the team spreading burns and doing good damage with shadow balls and thunderbolts.https://psim.us/t/1900430-j0gnlubbjl2vo8fhew2l is this team good its a
like dd lum berry
Seems reasonable enough to me
You probably want an attack on Blissey I’d get rid of Aromatherapy since you already have refresh on Claydol and Lum berry on Ttar
It seems a bit weak to Infernape and Jirachi as well as Taunt users like Gliscor and Gengar since your defensive teammates can’t apply any offensive pressure
I would also revisit if there’s a better sweeper partner for Raichu. Usually with multiple sweepers I like to have them have the same checks so one can open a hole for the other. Ttar and Raichu seem like they’d have different switchins
Just my two cents though I’m no expert!
alright thank you just edited the team, about aromatherapy i need it because of T-spikes And Gengars Will-o-miss,
Heres the updated team https://psim.us/t/1900806-hucjjkgaqfpt2xg0vppo
I did use Excal's HO team, experimented with different mons other than SD Emp since I felt Emp was too slow for a HO team.
I think Shuca Raikou with Calm mind is the best, inspired by Fruhdazi's slop guide did I want to see Raikou be used on HO in DPP.
https://pokepast.es/a2ed340c6deac226
Replay:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2657792138-c6jrekewr806cs8ievjwy0jvbr7nh2opw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2657788160
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2656196221
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2656197611
I think Shuca Raikou with Calm mind is the best, inspired by Fruhdazi's slop guide did I want to see Raikou be used on HO in DPP.
https://pokepast.es/a2ed340c6deac226
Replay:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2657792138-c6jrekewr806cs8ievjwy0jvbr7nh2opw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2657788160
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2656196221
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-2656197611
Cool team. I also have a Raikou HO that I’ve enjoyed using. Shuca berry is nice, but I have trouble saying it’s the best item for it. Lum is really helpful in staving off paralysis, which is how most fatter teams try to deal with Raikou.
Thanks for the tip, now that I think about it, Lum is better when trading against T-Wave Clef & Fat Rotom.
Raikou in DPP imo is the hardest to build, HO Raikou is cool bc it offers speed, if only you can run Timid while keeping Aura Sphere...
Yeah, I agree that it’s a hard mon to build with. Raikou’s ability to check fat waters like Suicune and Milotic is appreciated on these physically based HOs that normally struggle with them. Choice Scarf existing somewhat diminishes its niche as a fast mon, and then being locked into a Rash nature makes things worse. However, I must admit I do like the power of + Spa Raikou, and 329 Spe is still plenty fast.
To go back to item choice, you mentioned Lum berry helps out against Rotom, but I think that it’s a lot more important for the Jirachi, Latias, Zapdos, and even Celebi matchups, as you are able to 2HKO them at +1. Therefore, you don’t want to be paralyzed against them. Having said that, my Raikou is currently holding a Shuca berry because my team needs help against DD Gyarados.