Metagame [Gen 8] Category Swap

[Instruct]

This tier looks interesting, here's some cool ideas I was thinking of.


Zygarde @ Leftovers
Ability: Aura Break
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Earth Power
- Core Enforcer
- Focus Blast / Sludge Wave

Finally this Pokemon has use out of its 4th signature move, and it becomes a generally solid DD sweeper and has the niche of having one of the better newly physical dragon attacks in the game, second to kommo-o. Focus Blast can hit flying steels or use Sludge Wave for fairies, both seem to be solid options.

Lucario @ Life Orb
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Close Combat
- Meteor Mash
- Nasty Plot
- Extreme Speed

Lucario will most likely play really similar, but it does allow to use its better stats on the higher attacking stat so you can use Espeed quite well, nothing more to say besides that.

Talonflame @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Hurricane
- Fire Blast
- Roost

UT hi.
At the cost of accuracy and 10 BP, Talonflame does what Talonflame does best, but now you don't have to worry about recoil so Gale Wings will be much more effective. However, it does face serious competition with other Flying type set up sweepers who also have Hurricane.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Roserade has STAB Technician Bullet Seed, as well as its usual useful utility moves like Spikes and Sleep Powder, so it could maybe make a good lead / anti-lead. Keep in mind that its Special Attack is nearly as high as Breloom's Attack, and Breloom's Bullet Seed in vanilla hits like a damn truck.



It's a small buff, but Pex's Scald is a little bit stronger now, and I think any buff to Pex is hilarious.


Braviary's special movepool may be pitifully small, but honestly those two moves are really all it needs. Sheer Force Hurricane is incredibly spammable, and the one thing standing in its way (bulky Steel-types) are fried by Sheer Force Heat Wave. The last two slots can fit a few different things. U-turn is always nice, as far Defog and Roost, while Hone Claws makes Hurricane more reliable, and Air Slash is a more reliable backup STAB.

 

[willdbeast]

Zeraora @ Choice Band
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Volt Switch
- Thunder
- Grass Knot
- Focus Blast

Are you feeling lucky? Grass coverage and physical volt switch are very nice for this mon, and it gets options stronger than plasma fist (you can run thunderbolt if you're a coward). You still get the fighting coverage its just a terrible move now lol

Darmanitan @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fire Blast
- Focus Blast
- Psychic
- U-turn / Grass Knot (/ Solar Beam on sun?)

You lose a bit of power and reliability on your main move, but dont take recoil now and actually get to use your ability to boost some good coverage moves (though as above, focus blast is focus blast). Psychic is quite strong when sheer force boosted and hits psydef pex for like 70%.

No set here. It basically does what it did before. You get play rough and waterfall instead of moonblast and surf(/scald) which is a bit of a downgrade, but you get special knock which is nice and you can still defog, taunt, natures madness as before.


On a site note everything with iron fist and tough claws got majorly shafted in this meta lol

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Roserade has STAB Technician Bullet Seed, as well as its usual useful utility moves like Spikes and Sleep Powder, so it could maybe make a good lead / anti-lead. Keep in mind that its Special Attack is nearly as high as Breloom's Attack, and Breloom's Bullet Seed in vanilla hits like a damn truck.

Oh gosh, Roserade finally being able to use Technician didn't cross my mind, and I love it.

Braviary's special movepool may be pitifully small, but honestly those two moves are really all it needs. Sheer Force Hurricane is incredibly spammable, and the one thing standing in its way (bulky Steel-types) are fried by Sheer Force Heat Wave. The last two slots can fit a few different things. U-turn is always nice, as far Defog and Roost, while Hone Claws makes Hurricane more reliable, while Air Slash is a more reliable backup STAB.

So... discount Mega Pidgeot?

 

[DuGuo]

Legends of the dragons​

First: Preface:
I was very lucky to find the interesting Category Swap when I was browsing smogon. After exploring in TeamBuilder for a period of time, I found that Dragon Mons was very strong. So I decided to publish my findings here.
Second: Dragon Dance:
Dragon Dance is a move that makes Dragon mons strong. Many dragon mons have strong special moves, so they will have unbeatable physical moves in this meta.
(Click to get sets)
They are really good - depending on your team choose alternate moves and they will rip through your opponent's defenses.
Third: Scale Shot:
Contrary to normal, here we use Scale Shot+Nasty Plot. It looks powerful, and sadly I've only found one good user of Hydreigon so far.

It looks cool. I hope it works.
Fourth: Others:

Better than normal sets.
The End:
This tier looks pretty cool and underdeveloped, I think I'll keep working on it, thanks for reading!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Category Swap is now on Trash Channel!

Here's a replay of a match I had against multibandit.

 

[Clas]

this has looked like a ton of fun, and now that it's on trashchannel we can actually start experimenting with possible sets!


Volcarona @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flare Blitz
- Wild Charge
- Leech Life / Roost / Zen Headbutt
- Quiver Dance

this is genuinely terrifying. great stabs, wild charge and its own flame body just makes this the best sweeper in the tier in my eyes. oh, and did i forget to mention that counterplay consists of...nihilego, water/ground mons and blob. good luck.


Blissey (F) @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Seismic Toss / Ice Punch
- Soft-Boiled
- Stealth Rock / Thunder Wave / Toxic
- Teleport / Thunder Wave / Toxic

hey remember when i said that volcarona was the best sweeper? yeah, this is why it's not broken. almost all contact moves are now special too, making helmet blissey the de facto special attacking punisher. gone are the days of simply stacking boosts against this or freely pivoting, as you'll be losing 1/8 of your max hp every time you hit it with a contact move. there's a reason why physical attackers are so popular in this thread.


Nonbinary Agenda (Nihilego) @ Choice Specs/Scarf / item that makes pain split any use
Shiny: Yes
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Head Smash
- Gunk Shot
- Knock Off
- Rock Slide (fill slot)

man this post is so getting mod deleted after this image anyway nihilego is my favourite mon in the tier because it can simply spam funny recoil move when blissey is dead and can even wear blissey down itself via pain split if it so chooses to forgo a choice item. its only real issue tbh is the low pp on its moves, so hazard support to wear blissey down is useful.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

immunity to burn (huge on special attackers)

About that... in theory, burn should still halve the power of physical moves, which in this case used to be special moves, but I'm not sure if it actually works. In the replay I've posted, it seems like Hippowdown's Scorching Sand gets weaker after she's burned, but that could just be Grimmsnarl's defence boosts.

 

[Clas]

About that... in theory, burn should still halve the power of physical moves, which in this case used to be special moves, but I'm not sure if it actually works. In the replay I've posted, it seems like Hippowdown's Scorching Sand gets weaker after she's burned, but that could just be Grimmsnarl's defence boosts.

it did, blaziken took 40% from burned hippo. worth testing if regularly physical moves have this happen too or not

 

[Toxtection]

Can now make use of Eruption off its stronger attack stat, it has Scorching Sands for other fire types and can at least threaten to burn Pex although Extra Sensory is a better option in that matchup, Shadow Ball could prove useful if the slows are still used, Inner Focus blocks Lando-T's Intimidate.



Gains Hurricane as flying STAB, Flamethrower/Fire Blast for Ferrothorn, Thunderbolt for Pex and Corv and Ice Beam for all the dragon pseudo-legends although it does lose Power Whip and Earthquake, even then, its new movepool looks a lot better (Even if these specific defensive mons aren't as common)

It's kind of annoying but if you don't have any physical moves in your current set, the teambuilder will automatically set your attack IVs to 0 every time you edit the moveset or the ability



Flare Blitz and Gunk Shot are very strong STABs, options include Knock Off, Leech Life and Taunt, combined with Corrosion, this could be a very good stallbreaker although it could face competition from Volcarona as a special fire-type setup sweeper

Looking at some Ubers that become worse (that are currently banned):



Its only ghost stab is Phantom Force and its best psychic STABs are Zen Headbutt and Psycho Cut, both of which are pretty horrible but it gains useful coverage in Crunch, Seed Bomb, Stomping Tantrum and Double Kick



Loses out on Water Spout and Ice/Electric coverage, it has Earthquake for Pex but nothing for most grasses and waters, still, Kyogre has base 100 Attack and banded Water Spout comes close to 2 HKOing bulky waters, personally I would prefer Dracovish if both were legal since their damage output is very similar and Dracovish doesn't need to be at full health



Its coverage is limited to Focus Blast and Air Slash but it gets a much more spammable fairy stab, helpless vs Pex and struggles with Magearna but can tear through most things banded Moonblast, the crowned forme has stab Steel Beam



Poison Jab and Dragon Tail are its only STABs but defensive sets with Pressure and Toxic Spikes can make use of Dragon Tail, base 85 Attack isn't that bad either as far as walls go

Imo out of these, the only one that could be considered for an unban is Eternatus but what do I know

 

[Clas]

Imo out of these, the only one that could be considered for an unban is Eternatus but what do I know

cosmic power + recover says otherwise (as if kyurem wasnt bad enough, remember that)

 

[CringeMeta]

Do Body Press and Foul Play work the same as usual?
Yes. Their damage is calculated by substituting the user’s attack for the user’s defense and the opponent’s attack, respectively, so all that changes is that they use the opponent’s special defense.

What about Psyshock?
Psyshock would still calculate damage based on the target’s defense, so there’s no point in using it over any other special-now-physical Psychic move.

I looked into this a bit, and while this is a correct description of how Body Press and Psyshock work, at least on Showdown (they replace which stat is used in damage calculations), Foul Play works differently. It replaces the Pokemon that is used as the source attacker in most respects, but doesn't do anything to override which stat is used on that Pokemon, meaning that when Foul Play is category swapped it does damage based on the opponent's Special Attack and stat changes. DaWoblefet has also confirmed that this isn't just a Showdown implementation detail and is how a hacked special Foul Play would work on cart, at least up to USUM.

This also means that it's better to have 0 IVs in Special Attack on Pokemon that don't use this stat offensively to minimize opposing FP damage (confusion self-damage still uses Attack...I'm not sure if this is something that should count as an 'attack' to be recategorized or not...)

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Good catch. I've updated the OP. Thanks!

 

[Keyacom]

Runs almost the same moveset, which now takes advantage of its slightly higher Attack (because it does not get Gunk Shot).
A bit worse because its best Water STAB is weaker (Waterfall) or may miss (Aqua Tail), and its best Electric STAB is now a recoil move (Wild Charge).
A better Gardevoir that has Aura Sphere even before PLA. (Except that it does not have Moonblast here, but some weaker moves such as Dazzling Gleam.)
Might be a bit worse because it has less powerful STABs (especially the Ice-type STAB in Ice Beam), but can now use Surf as coverage.
A bit better because it can now use Poltergeist. It does get Knock Off, but unless the target's about to faint, it's useless because it makes Poltergeist unusable. Shadow Claw can still be used.
Better than Eternatus offensively due to Gunk Shot, Scale Shot/Outrage and Adaptability. Also gets several coverage options such as Flip Turn or Play Rough. Still, absolutely better in Flipped than here.

 

[willdbeast]

A bit worse because its best Water STAB is weaker (Waterfall) or may miss (Aqua Tail), and its best Electric STAB is now a recoil move (Wild Charge).

I think more important is the DOES NOT BURN, especially on fairly defensive mons like this. Plus not being able to utilise volt switch as well as before really hurts. I think one of the big strengths of it in normal play is it's hard to kill outright and if you don't kill it it threatens to burn a random mon or pivot to get momentum while doing fairly good damage in the process, whereas now it kinda just sits doing the damage without the other benefits.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Category Swap is now playable on ROM!

 

[Clas]

discord when, finding games is hard and this is also fun to talk about

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I haven't made a server yet because:

1. I didn't think there would be enough interest.
2. I'm running a server already.

...But if any of the council want to, go ahead.

 

[zastra]

discord when, finding games is hard and this is also fun to talk about

Wish granted (By Will though, not me)... Category Swap Discord Server is now here!

 

[Heavyweapons Mann]

Not sure where to ask this, but couldn’t the moves that drop stats just have the attacking stat be swapped accordingly? (So here, Draco Meteor, Overheat and friends would drop Attack, Superpower drops Special Attack and Special Defense)

 

[Nitro Indigo]

^ Changing the way individual moves work is a Pet Mod thing.

 

[Cuddly]

Will Zamazenta-C be considered for an unban?
First and formost, its movepool that was already bad is even worse now.
It trades Crunch for Snarl and it doesn’t have a Psychic or Electric attack to use anymore. It additionally trades in Behemoth Bash for Flash Cannon/Steel Beam and trades in Close Combat for Focus Blast.
Furthermore, in the original meta, physical moves were typically better than their special counterparts. CC > FB, Flare Blitz > Fire Blast, Earthquake > Earthpower, ect. Now that’s flipped without Zamazenta’s ability flipping either.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

That didn't cross my mind.

 

[flying moose]

I'm interested in the effects of still-physical burns on category-swapped moves. Unfortunately most Guts mons have terrible special movepools. Luxray and Flareon have improved STAB moves but absolutely no coverage. Guts Machamp has nuclear Focus Blast and Fire Blast but that's it, and will be brought down by speed and accuracy. So the best Guts user is probably this guy:


Obstagoon @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Dark Pulse Snarl/Protect/Parting Shot
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt
Guts-boosted physical BoltBeam plus STABs. Could drop one move for Protect or Parting Shot.
EDIT: RIP doesn't learn Dark Pulse :'(

What I find even more interesting however, is Facade. Any special attacker could slot it to gain powerful 140 bp neutral coverage for any time it switches in on a Will-o-Wisp or gets burned by Scald. And in theory any special attacker can run a Flame Orb to get a powerful Facade without the other moves being affected (something that only Guts users could do when it was physical). In practice there probably isn't much that would do that effectively, though these do look fun:


Aurorus @ Flame Orb
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Facade
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake
- Rock Polish
Yes it's still Aurorus, but damn that is a powerful Ice move.


Drifblim @ Flame Orb
Ability: Flare Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Phantom Force
- Facade
- Sucker Punch
- Protect
Facade finally gives a reason to use Flare Boost, but with no good OG physical STAB moves, it's probably not worth it. At least it has priority.


Sylveon @ Flame Orb
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Facade
- Quick Attack
- Iron Tail
- Calm Mind
Anyone who's played Flipped knows that while Sylveon is basically a mono-Fairy attacker when it comes to physical moves, a 110 base attacking stat plus Pixillate boosts is surprisingly potent, especially when that includes priority. May manage here as well, although it lacks the good speed it had there.

 

[zastra]

hey, it's me (again) with some sets...

Victini @ Choice Specs
Ability: Victory Star
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- V-create
- Bolt Strike
- Final Gambit
- U-turn
Nuke. (But this time it's special)


Gengar @ Choice Specs
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Poltergeist
- Poison Jab
- Trick
- Nasty Plot
Gengar's power is no joke, and now it gets an even powerful Ghost STAB in Poltergeist. Trick can cripple potential Blobs Assault Vesters, paired with Nasty Plot, which makes it an amazing late game cleaner imo. Potential mon to look into.


Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Superpower
- Knock Off
- Acrobatics
- Nasty Plot
Special Knock Off+Nasty Plot+Superpower is nice. However, its most powerful special flying STAB is Fly which is simply heartbreaking...

Obstagoon @ Flame Orb
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Thunderbolt

unfortunately Obstagoon doesn't get Dark Pulse...