Other General Metagame Discussion

[Rosen]

k so Knock Off Pinsir + Mag is huge atm, so much so that *honorable gentlefolk* want a *fornicating* trapping suspect test because it p much turns Skarm n Ferro into a liability to have on stall teams

a lot of folks get really *grumbled* when this statement is uttered but if Mag + Knock off Pinsir is too much for your Skarmory to handle, there is a solution to that: don't use Skarmory

There be a perfectly viable mon out there that, despite different typing, functions very similarly to Skarmory BUT gives 0 *frickle-frackles* about Magnezone and doesn't give two-and-a-half *defecations* about Mega Pinsir either:

srsly stop *expressing such utter dissatisfaction about the state of* muh skarm

just use hippo

sr + eq + rock slide + slack off = no *carnal activities* given

also hippo, unlike skarm, can actually severely dent gothitelle, nd if you want a diff moveset you've got room for whirlwind or toxic that does just dandy against wobb.

so yeah *coitus* skarm hippo 4 prez

*apparently my manner of speech was too crude for the likings of my superiors so I have replaced all the naughty-naughty words with some more family-friendly terminology

 

[Miridy]

I'm afraid things aren't that easy (rock slide by the way cannot ohko Mpinsir, while stone edge has shaky accuracy) for this pinsir+diggersby core
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 360-425 (85.7 - 101.1%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.
I suppose another solution is not to ban magnezone, but directly Pinsirite, the fuel of this type of hyper offense at the moment.

 

[Sun King]

k so Knock Off Pinsir + Mag is huge atm, so much so that *honorable gentlefolk* want a *fornicating* trapping suspect test because it p much turns Skarm n Ferro into a liability to have on stall teams

a lot of folks get really *grumbled* when this statement is uttered but if Mag + Knock off Pinsir is too much for your Skarmory to handle, there is a solution to that: don't use Skarmory

There be a perfectly viable mon out there that, despite different typing, functions very similarly to Skarmory BUT gives 0 *frickle-frackles* about Magnezone and doesn't give two-and-a-half *defecations* about Mega Pinsir either:

srsly stop *expressing such utter dissatisfaction about the state of* muh skarm

just use hippo

sr + eq + rock slide + slack off = no *carnal activities* given

also hippo, unlike skarm, can actually severely dent gothitelle, nd if you want a diff moveset you've got room for whirlwind or toxic that does just dandy against wobb.

so yeah *coitus* skarm hippo 4 prez

*apparently my manner of speech was too crude for the likings of my superiors so I have replaced all the naughty-naughty words with some more family-friendly terminology

Except Hippo's NOT Skarmory. It's got inferior typing, and significantly reduced utility. Pretty much the only thing they share is physically bulky mon.

It's a damn shame that we've let an entire play style just die out though.

EDIT: Not that I'm tooting the banhammer horn or anything, but I think we really should take a look at some of the centralizing forces of the metagame.

 

[Rosen]

I'm afraid things aren't that easy (rock slide by the way cannot ohko Mpinsir, while stone edge has shaky accuracy) for this pinsir+diggersby core
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 360-425 (85.7 - 101.1%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.
I suppose another solution is not to ban magnezone, but directly Pinsirite, the fuel of this type of hyper offense at the moment.

it is a ohko after sr but w/e

also just posting a calc from one of the strongest attackers in the game at +2 does not an argument make, look, I can do it do:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 374-442 (111.9 - 132.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

want to handle Diggersby, kill it first. that sounds like a shit strategy but tbh that's the only way you can handle it to begin with so...

Except Hippo's NOT Skarmory. It's got inferior typing, and significantly reduced utility. Pretty much the only thing they share is physically bulky mon.

It's a damn shame that we've let an entire play style just die out though.

EDIT: Not that I'm tooting the banhammer horn or anything, but I think we really should take a look at some of the centralizing forces of the metagame.

also outside of a slow-ass taunt, counter, and defog I fail to see what the major function differences are,,, the fact that hippo and skarm both get rocks but skarm gets defog isn't really saying much as it's usually not the best idea to have rocks and defog on the same mon anyway. also worse typing? Skarmory's typing is why it's getting fucked so hard by Mag/Pinsir teams to begin with... to say hippo is worse than skarm... ESPECIALLY at the moment... tha's just not true, mang

 

[Miridy]

Well... many things ohkos mega pinsir after stealth rocks, since he's very weak to them, that's why people use stuff like defog latios/defog+ healing wish latias, taunt terrakion and so on in order to clear the field.
Also, wild charge and return is a different case, while wild charge might be able to defeat skarmory at +2 it sacrifices diggersby coverage, and with it, diggersby's management becomes more easy, that's not the case with hippowdon.

 

[Sun King]

it is a ohko after sr but w/e

also just posting a calc from one of the strongest attackers in the game at +2 does not an argument make, look, I can do it do:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 374-442 (111.9 - 132.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

want to handle Diggersby, kill it first. that sounds like a shit strategy but tbh that's the only way you can handle it to begin with so...



also outside of a slow-ass taunt, counter, and defog I fail to see what the major function differences are,,, the fact that hippo and skarm both get rocks but skarm gets defog isn't really saying much as it's usually not the best idea to have rocks and defog on the same mon anyway. also worse typing? Skarmory's typing is why it's getting fucked so hard by Mag/Pinsir teams to begin with... to say hippo is worse than skarm... ESPECIALLY at the moment... tha's just not true, mang

But it IS true. And literally all of the other niches you listed are seriously significant niches. Skarmory is one of the 3 (4 technically) premier defoggers. Losing out on that is way bigger than you clearly think. And a slow taunt? ANY taunt on stall is a good taunt, because it lets it handle other stall way better.

 

[Rosen]

But it IS true. And literally all of the other niches you listed are seriously significant niches. Skarmory is one of the 3 (4 technically) premier defoggers. Losing out on that is way bigger than you clearly think. And a slow taunt? ANY taunt on stall is a good taunt, because it lets it handle other stall way better.

I'm not saying skarmory's roles aren't important, I'm saying it's not irreplaceable. atm with Pinsir/Mag spam all over the place I'd say having both Hippo and Zapdos/Mandibuzz/Latias/Mew > one skarmory. Especially Hippo/Mew, who has more utility than skarmory could ever hope for

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moving on/avoiding double-posting:

since we seem to be on stall atm, one thing that I just don't quite get is why stall isn't running talonflame more.

yes, talonflame.

The stallbreaker set is the tits, and is more than capable of handling all the wallbreaker mega w actual OFFENSIVE PRESSURE HEAVEN FORBID and does great against opposing stall with Will-O + Taunt nd dat priority roost

srsly, burdstall is fantastic

 

[Sun King]

Stall doesn't run that set anymore because they often don't have the team space to devote to a stall breaker. With the multitude of new threats to cover, stall has to focus on the things that would otherwise trash it if not accounted for. Opposing stall teams an always be beat by better play.

 

[Rosen]

Stall doesn't run that set anymore because they often don't have the team space to devote to a stall breaker. With the multitude of new threats to cover, stall has to focus on the things that would otherwise trash it if not accounted for. Opposing stall teams an always be beat by better play.

Stallbreaker talonflame is the only stallbreaker I can think of that can revenge and OHKO mega pinsir, medicham, gardevoir, heracross...

 

[Sun King]

Stallbreaker talonflame is the only stallbreaker I can think of that can revenge and OHKO mega pinsir, medicham, gardevoir, heracross...

Okay it can, but keep in mind the severe pressure its presence alone puts on your defogger/spinner. It suffers the same problem as Moltres--Which otherwise is fantastic on stall. It CAN switch in and threaten those things out, but it has a limited capacity to do so. Stall teams simply can't afford to support one team member that much.

 

[WebBowser]

I've done a bit of testing to find out that trapper + sweeper in general is really strong. I literally just threw a wobbuffet onto my scolipass team and it either removes troublesome mons like skarm or tran or makes them into setup bait for scoli by locking them into SR (who will happily swap into SR any day if it means a free turn). Pinsmag is definitely a meta defining team atm and I've seen more then my fair share of goths too.

Not gonna lie, I wouldn't oppose a trapping suspect (though we should suspect pinsir and scolipede first, get broken **** out of the tier before we suspect maybe broken ****). I'm still on the fence on whether trapping is broken or if it just makes broken mons more broken.

 

[Zebstrika]

The knock off pinsir trend really sounds like it originated from a counter team imo. It's better for one pokemon holding one item: skarmory. Pinsir doesn't need Knock Off to make sure its free turns put up lasting damage, its Return already hits hard enough to do that. Otherwise it gives up coverage vs so many rock and steel typs, like Ttar, Heatran, Excadrill, Magnezone, and a lot more lower usage stuff that I could list for days.

There are also perfectly fine alternative counters to Pinsir besides Skarmory. The one I'm using right now is Mega Aerodactyl, who like Skarmory can also handle Diggersby without Wild Charge or Stone Edge since people are using them together a lot. I can throw in a plug for my RMT if you want to check out the full team :D

Mega Aero even has the advantage of always offensively checking Pinsir/Diggersby, so it can't be weakened like Skarmory can. Well, if it goes into priority KO range, but that's at around 10-20%, while Skarm can be finished off from much higher. If you don't want to get Mega Aero worn down, let a less important mon get worn down / KOd to give Aero a switchin. Skarmory doesn't have the speed to pull that off as easily, since one of the wall breakers can sac itself to put good damage down on Skarmory before dying.

I've seen a couple Mega Aerodactyl stall teams but not enough to call it a trend (basically, it's up from like zero a couple months ago), and a noticeable amount more offensive Mega Aeros since I built my own team, which was somewhere between Aegislash ban and the start of the Mawilite suspect.

Feel free to turn it into a trend though, because I see people preaching how ridiculously good that Pinsir + Mag core is while ignoring some of Pinsir's non-skarm counters. Which are still really limited but I'm pretty sure there are more counters to Pinsir that aren't trapped by Mag than counters that are.

 

[RichieTheGarchomp]

Are people using full-on rain teams or just slapping Politoed onto a team with pokemon that don't find rain too detrimental? I don't call any old team with Politoed, Ferrothorn and Keldeo on it a rain team, I call that an offense team with rain slapped on.

Some people use Tornadus as I have seen, but all rain teams should have a grass resistance and an electric resistance. Garchomp would be a good addition to rain as it is immune to Electric and Grass Moves do normal damage. You Can also run Thundy T if you really don't like electric types.

 

[Salemance]

Some people use Tornadus as I have seen, but all rain teams should have a grass resistance and an electric resistance. Garchomp would be a good addition to rain as it is immune to Electric and Grass Moves do normal damage. You Can also run Thundy T if you really don't like electric types.

Or you know, could go Mega Ampharos. The sexy typing pairs well with rains and the purepower of modest 165 Sp Atk Thunder in rain is a bilast to use I find. The grass resist and bird resist with great all round bulk is pretty nice addition to rain teams even if you think you can Finns oemthing better suited for it.

 

[RichieTheGarchomp]

Or you know, could go Mega Ampharos. The sexy typing pairs well with rains and the purepower of modest 165 Sp Atk Thunder in rain is a bilast to use I find. The grass resist and bird resist with great all round bulk is pretty nice addition to rain teams even if you think you can Finns oemthing better suited for it.

I can agree with that.
Although now that I think of it Magnezone with a Levitate/Flying pivot user would be nice also. It traps Ferrothorn, which is nice. You can also run MPinsir with EQ to clear out all Electric types and Grass types in the way.

 

[megacrazyhand]

I've done a bit of testing to find out that trapper + sweeper in general is really strong. I literally just threw a wobbuffet onto my scolipass team and it either removes troublesome mons like skarm or tran or makes them into setup bait for scoli by locking them into SR (who will happily swap into SR any day if it means a free turn). Pinsmag is definitely a meta defining team atm and I've seen more then my fair share of goths too.

Not gonna lie, I wouldn't oppose a trapping suspect (though we should suspect pinsir and scolipede first, get broken **** out of the tier before we suspect maybe broken ****). I'm still on the fence on whether trapping is broken or if it just makes broken mons more broken.

Too build off this I would like to argue that at least at the current its trappers making broken mons more broken as well as making mons on the border of being broken less ambiguously so. Back before Magnezone rose I only saw a few outliers ever argue for a ban on MPinsir and what seemed to be the majority opinion was that as MPinsir lost 50% on SR switch in and had trouble against the ever common Skarmory, it was pretty easy for players to circumvent its sheer power. I come back to the tier a few months after I stop playing OU (although I have now returned to it) and suddenly there's a pretty big discussion about Pinsmag (I was on a low ladder alt today and ran into a few myself, althought while it was annoying I can't quite say how well it plays above about 1500 at the moment).

To give another example, I was running Specs Gothitelle Pre-Aegi ban and even pre-Aegi ban I found it pretty effective. The general idea being to pair it with something that is weak to M-Venusaur (like Azumaril) and bring it in on the Venusaur. You can then proceed to press Specs Psychic until it fainted and then either fodder it off to something like Aegi or try to keep it to trap something else later. Of course Pre-Aegi ban, teams weren't prepared for trappers so it was pretty effective then, as with no shed shell Goth could trap and kill Skarm if it lacked whirlwind. And then after all of that, Azumaril is more or less free to rein havoc on your opponent's team, have fun.

Of course, we do have to acknowledge the counter argument I've heard from Ubers players because they do have the most broken trapper of all. Now I understand this is OU and strictly speaking Ubers has no place in this discussion but lets not discount the fact that they held there first ever suspect test because of Shadow Tag. Of course, there we may have a reverse of the shadow tag making broken things more broken trend I'm seeing in OU because everything in Ubers is already broken hence making trapping the broken aspect.

I do stick to my original belief that trapping makes broken things more broken. It may be broken itself but at the current moment the larger issue seems to be that trapping is making accentuating problems OU already had by making offense much easier.

 

[Taylor]

It's a shame Pinsir doesn't get U-turn otherwise I would be tempted to use it with Magnezone on some kind of Volturn team. The combination seems effective on paper but I prefer the lure strategy and with Pinsir you just end up playing the double-switch game, not always coming out on top. Magnezone gives away your game plan straight off team preview which doesn't help getting Pinsir clean OHKOs without getting past Steels/Electrics/Rock-types first.

 

[megacrazyhand]

So as a side note here, I've had a strange obessesion recently with using Chesnaught in OU and am finding it pretty decent at the moment. While I am a lower level player than the rest of the people commenting here, I find that the only things in the meta that really beat it up are Magpins and Talonflame. With Magpins it can't take on Pinsir and has weak SpDef so it can't take on Magnezone and if rocks aren't up Talonflame can take it out with little consequence even if it Brave Birds into a Spiky Shield first. The other major threat it runs a foul of is Heatran, which while it doesn't like taking Hammer Arms certainly can and has no problem KO'ing back. The reason I do bring him up is that I feel like he's a decent way for more defensive teams to handle Sand and Rain offense. As he resists EdgeQuake he can take on most physical attackers from Offensive Sand teams (ie. Ttar, Exca and Terrakion while serving as more or less a full stop to RushDrill) and annoy the switch in with Leech Seed either forcing a switch to get rid of the seed or have a guaranteed second turn of leech seed recovery due to Spiky Shield. With Rain Offence, it has more to worry about but I've found that it takes on MGyarados decently well and can KO Azu after rocks with Wood Hammer (while outspeeding to boot).

I do also believe that I should connect this to the slightly larger conversation of Scolipass (which I am sure we'll be discussing more after we discuss Pinsmag to the point where no new points can be made) in that I think he can be helpful on a Scolipass team in wearing down opponents especially the counter to any physical sweeper that Scoli may be passing to.

 

[WebBowser]

megacrazyhand The primary issue with chesnaught is that he is not terribly self sufficient. It is true that he can check/counter a wide variety of physical threats (and is quite possibly the trolliest gengar counter in existence), but he has some difficulty keeping his hp up in a prolonged fight (leech seed helps a lot tho). Furthermore, he is total setup bait for either zard and cannot do much to other dragons like dnite, which can make him a liability at times.

 

[Taliheim]

(and is quite possibly the trolliest gengar counter in existence)

 

[Inflikted]

megacrazyhand The primary issue with chesnaught is that he is not terribly self sufficient. It is true that he can check/counter a wide variety of physical threats (and is quite possibly the trolliest gengar counter in existence), but he has some difficulty keeping his hp up in a prolonged fight (leech seed helps a lot tho). Furthermore, he is total setup bait for either zard and cannot do much to other dragons like dnite, which can make him a liability at times.

Chesnaught does not actually counter the Gengar set that is on the rise right now (speaking of mg trends...) , which is Taunt 3 attacks w/ sludge wave, which shuts it down completely. Furthermore the stallbreaker set often runs Hex, and wow + taunt pretty much screw up chesnaught even with shadow ball...so it's never been a counter :x

Tbh I've found Chesnaught way more useful (or annoying, depending on the point of view) when Sand Exca was more popular and you could use it to set up spikes and stuff, even if the recent rise in Bisharp's usage may make up for this.

 

[trc]

This seems like the perfect place to discuss the recent stats (talking about the ones that determine tiering btw).

| 1 | Landorus-Therian | 28.38187% | 455821 | 10.639% | 400916 | 11.712% |

Landorus-T cements itself as #1, something to be expected considering its Choice Scarf set is seen on so many teams and it is a stellar set in this metagame.

| 20 | Magnezone | 9.71642% | 219726 | 5.128% | 180470 | 5.272% |

Pretty high for Magnezone, though it was to be expected.

| 23 | Gardevoir | 9.10160% | 341718 | 7.976% | 260663 | 7.615% |
| 25 | Medicham | 8.82497% | 302955 | 7.071% | 251420 | 7.345% |
| 27 | Heracross | 8.20057% | 256659 | 5.990% | 197323 | 5.765% |

Turns out Gardevoir was the most dominant of the three Megas in the end.

| 45 | Mandibuzz | 3.57947% | 168339 | 3.929% | 135148 | 3.948% |

Mandibuzz has taken a huge drop, it just isn't as good in this meta is it used to be.

| 46 | Crawdaunt | 2.99512% | 112285 | 2.621% | 88434 | 2.584% |

Lobster is really becoming more common.

| 78 | Alomomola | 1.06451% | 19478 | 0.455% | 15815 | 0.462% |

Man, whatever happened to OU Alomomola...

 

[Aragorn the King]

I think this is partially responsible for the death of OU Mola:

| 35 | Slowbro | 6.99228% | 201149 | 4.695% | 162986 | 4.762% |

I understand they aren't identical (bro can't wish), but as a bulky water, Slowbro just has more assets, namely its Psychic typing (never thought I'd say that).

Anyway, just to continue...

| 66 | Manaphy | 1.54547% | 44437 | 1.037% | 35302 | 1.031% |

This is really surprising. Manaphy is pretty damn good now, and #66 doesn't really do it any justice.

| 72 | Cresselia | 1.18753% | 33192 | 0.775% | 26647 | 0.778% |

| 68 | Celebi | 1.52176% | 39060 | 0.912% | 31655 | 0.925% |

| 59 | Victini | 1.76070% | 75219 | 1.756% | 60629 | 1.771% |

Same thing here. Bulky Psychics are awesome, but other than lati@s and slowbro, aren't that popular.

 

[Clone]

1695 stats:
| 42 | Diggersby | 4.15640% | 88914 | 2.075% | 69381 | 2.027% |
| 44 | Raikou | 3.78606% | 57966 | 1.353% | 47627 | 1.391% |
| 47 | Jirachi | 2.96914% | 82628 | 1.929% | 66579 | 1.945% |
| 52 | Starmie | 2.52125% | 93901 | 2.192% | 71909 | 2.101% |

The former two are seeing enough usage to be OU. This doesnt surprise me that much thanks to the spike in usage of Mag and Slowbro in relation to Raikou, while I think the whole Double Bunny ladder trend is why Diggersby is so high.

As for the latter two, Id like to see them get back to OU, especially Starmie. Only time will tell.

Very bland post for now but will elaborate later

 

[Wombat4sale]

I haven't seen anything mentioned about this yet, after noticing that the only common Ghost-type in OU is Gengar I decided to try out an Extreme Speed spam offense, CB Dragonite and LO Lucario. It works pretty well with the right support, I'll have to come back later after some more testing.