Confused by the 'National Dex Leader' title.Do keep in mind that Runo isn't even on council for OU which is who decides the suspects though, he isnt a dictator (yet)
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Metagame National Dex Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter Nashrock
- Start date
he leads nd lower tiers mainly not ou
dark lord runo bides his time in the shadows waiting to unleash his twin calamities "Roaring moon" and "espathra" upon the humble citizenry of the ndou community. once the refugees flee from the wasteland created by his war dogs, he alone shall seize power over the national dex. a bloody and vicious power grab made only for his own gain, he becomes the de facto warlord of the NatDex Junta, and he sets his sights on new territories.........
completely agree with this, and while they're not actually on the ou council, i think its pretty clear at least a notable portion of the ou council unfortunately does share the same perspective as them
I personally despise the "if a Pokemon doesn't add anything to the format, then keep it locked up" argument for many of the reasons listed by others, and I'm glad other people share that sentiment. A Pokemon shouldn't be locked up just because it doesn't affect the metagame in any notable way, I don't think that is how tiering should work. In that sense, shouldn't we ban Ledian and Regieleki because they don't contribute anything to the format? No, because they aren't in any way overwhelming, destructive, or a combination of both. Pokemon should only be ousted from the format if they actively harm the health of the game. Whether it be through over-centralization or raw power (Flutter Mane) or being uncompetitive by nature (Darkrai, Sneasler). Something like Deoxys Speed could be considered annoying, but it never was an active detriment to the metagame. It was just a simple hazard lead that HO could run (it never enabled HO to an overwhelming degree), or a U-Turn weak sweeper that needed Terrain support and a Nasty Plot to get rolling, but would rarely ever find the chance to set up. Deoxys' ban made me really disappointed because it just, wasn't broken. That and many of the ban reasons seemed very lackluster. I've seen some fair reasons to ban Deoxys but many of the reasons pro-ban people mentioned boiled down to "well it doesn't really do anything so why bring it down" and "I'm gonna vote Ban because it would be funny!" (Yes, I know people who actually did this, if one of you people are reading this, I hope you run into Eiscue + Pyukumuku Stall for the rest of your life). I really hope Deoxys Speed gets revisited in the future, it feels unjust to leave it locked up, especially after the voting threshold was changed shortly after the suspect's results.
FREE HIM!But, that is besides the point. The point is that a Pokemon shouldn't be held back from OU simply because it "doesn't add anything of value". If said Pokemon is truly a "null variable" then I see no justifiable reason to keep them out of OU. I understand that I am no tiering leader or anything like that, but I believe that tiering should be strength-based. A Pokemon that is too overwhelming or uncompetitive should have no place in OU, but a Pokemon that hasn't shifted the metagame towards a more unhealthy state, or shifted the metagame at all for that matter, shouldn't get sent to Ubers just because it's "annoying", "adds no value" or "cheesy". A Pokemon that arguably fits these descriptions is Shedinja, I bet that if Shedinja was banned, not many people would mind. It wouldn't shake the current metagame. Only a few teams used it, and they could probably find a replacement in a matter of minutes. But would this theoretical ban be justified? Obviously not, and that is because Shedinja is simply not broken, and can be beaten with skilled play, if your team loses to it and it alone you might be doing something wrong. We should focus more on banning Pokemon based on how overwhelming or uncompetitive they can be, not by how pointless their addition would be to the format.
ONE of them is being suspect tested inside of NDOU, the other One is OBVIOUSLY too strong for NDOU
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 348-411 (80.1 - 94.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian: 319-376 (83.5 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Ferrothorn: 273-322 (77.7 - 91.7%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 267-315 (92.3 - 108.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 288-340 (57.1 - 67.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 211-250 (41.8 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 176-207 (60.8 - 71.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Ferrothorn on a critical hit: 232-274 (66 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery (Yes Jimmy STAB CB Ada CC does OHKO Ferro)
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian on a critical hit: 330-388 (86.3 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 255-301 (58.7 - 69.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes
One has DD, Roost, 119 Base Speed, 104 by techniciality when running Ada, the other has SD, Trailblaze, 97 Base speed, 84 by techniciality when running ada.
"outrage is bad" "it doesn't run ada" "it dosnt run 252 Atk EVs" Sure as shit people are NOT bringing CB ada Darkshifu if it were to be allowed in OU, yet that's like the only set ever in "problematic" calcs. Moon is far better as a Setup sweeper with DD over SD Trailblaze, and even better as a Breaker when running yall's cursed ahh Ada CB set. Both have coverage for fairies, except one also comes with Bulk, recovery, trapping, Scale shot, resist to Tclap, ability to become the fastest allowed Pokemon in Meta (fuck Boulder) depending on the set, while maintaining very respectable breaking power still. I'm P sure ada Mmedi also has crazy calcs but is Mmedi even OU proper? no. Moon also got better overall Coverage, Nuking Tusk and buzz with Acro when they could Trade is insane to say the least. I understand the decision, survey etc., I ain't criticizing the Decision, that's only logical, but the very fact that people genuinely think Moon is kay at all. Scarf and band in a single mon? yea y'all really REALLY liked Garmanitan while it was there lol (jk jk)
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 348-411 (80.1 - 94.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian: 319-376 (83.5 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Ferrothorn: 273-322 (77.7 - 91.7%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 267-315 (92.3 - 108.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Roaring Moon Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 288-340 (57.1 - 67.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 211-250 (41.8 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 176-207 (60.8 - 71.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Ferrothorn on a critical hit: 232-274 (66 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery (Yes Jimmy STAB CB Ada CC does OHKO Ferro)
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Landorus-Therian on a critical hit: 330-388 (86.3 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 255-301 (58.7 - 69.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes
One has DD, Roost, 119 Base Speed, 104 by techniciality when running Ada, the other has SD, Trailblaze, 97 Base speed, 84 by techniciality when running ada.
"outrage is bad" "it doesn't run ada" "it dosnt run 252 Atk EVs" Sure as shit people are NOT bringing CB ada Darkshifu if it were to be allowed in OU, yet that's like the only set ever in "problematic" calcs. Moon is far better as a Setup sweeper with DD over SD Trailblaze, and even better as a Breaker when running yall's cursed ahh Ada CB set. Both have coverage for fairies, except one also comes with Bulk, recovery, trapping, Scale shot, resist to Tclap, ability to become the fastest allowed Pokemon in Meta (fuck Boulder) depending on the set, while maintaining very respectable breaking power still. I'm P sure ada Mmedi also has crazy calcs but is Mmedi even OU proper? no. Moon also got better overall Coverage, Nuking Tusk and buzz with Acro when they could Trade is insane to say the least. I understand the decision, survey etc., I ain't criticizing the Decision, that's only logical, but the very fact that people genuinely think Moon is kay at all. Scarf and band in a single mon? yea y'all really REALLY liked Garmanitan while it was there lol (jk jk)
a) 0 def lando give it up bro </3
b) pokemon aren't just their damage calcs, if they were then hoopa u would be an actually good pokemon
Moon seems pretty interesting, since I don't think it'll actually see too much use on sun teams, because you've already got raging bolt, and stacking more dragons doesn't feel super good on that. Dragon/Dark offensively also isn't THAT insane, you definitely need to rely on prediction and ival geniunely can just switch in on you which is pretty funny. Also it's really weak to physical priority forms of speed control, so fatter stuff can run like mmedi or mlop to help deal with it.
shifu single is way more broken than moon could ever hope to be, fighting/dark is a lot better than dragon/dark because of just how reliant a lot of teams are on their ghosts to check fightings. Ghold just explodes if you click wicked blow, and crits let you bypass a lot of annoying shit that'd normally stop you like intim spam. also sd + sucker is broken and lets you bs your way though a lot of stuff a la kingambit.
It's probably still broken but like bro urshifu single is actual cancer to check
Hydrametr0nice and friends,
As sealoo just said, I was giving my opinion. My powers reach into policy matters such as the 50% +1 vs 60% issue, they can step into OU sometimes depending on the situations but I am not deciding on what gets suspected or not. Even if I was, it doesn't change the fact that this post was an opinion piece. For people who looked at that post and believed that I was shutting down the conversation, you missed the point entirely. I want people to go more in depth.
The reasoning people were using were very surface level (X checks Y) and didn't really consider how their presence impacts building. A mon can have checks yes but I don't want to have a mon in a tier that mandates additional prep without it providing equivalent or better benefits. I frankly hate building this tier and my teammates in Blind Draft outside of like one helper also dislike the state of it since it's still fairly fishy (albeit better than Tera metagame imo). How do you convince these people that adding more threats to deal with is beneficial? How do they make the state of the tier better? I've said it in other places but the gist is essentially that a lot of assumed matters regarding tiering are irrelevant if the current state of the tier isn't balanced. This includes the common talking point of "they have checks = unban". You need more leverage as a result.
Magcargo has explained some of the benefits Palafin has in discord for example (fairly bulky and hits rather hard = it's a pretty nice blanket / secondary check to a lot of really annoying stuff). I appreciate things like that more because it gives me a reason to run it for myself and justify it being in the tier outside of it being "broken but it's #fine" I would like to see more arguments with Magearna, Espathra, Lugia, Roaring Moon etc, etc touch on this as a means of convincing people on the fence/pro status-quo to see the value of their unbans.
Two bullet points I just cherry-picked from the very public Tiering Policy Framework (the same tiering policy you claim supports your take) that align with my values here:
Regarding Assumptions in Tiering Policy [III.] (1.), it is true that Tera being banned was an insane shift in the metagame, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that we haven't unbanned enough since this time. Melmetal, Kingambit, Dragapult and Gholdengo were all unbanned and are really powerful threats in the metagame, this clearly isn't enough for some users so at what point do you want to stop? It's been like almost 3 months since Tera was banned, that doesn't seem like a "new" change to me anymore. When does it stop becoming new for others? How far could one even apply this argument anyways? "Tera is banned so we should unban anything that isn't a box legend, Spectrier, Naganadel, Pheromossa, Mega Blaziken, etc, etc included" ? Surely the ball is in council's court to draw the line somewhere, otherwise we could be here all year trying to hash out unbans that may or may not be broken regardless instead of making the current state better.
Regarding Assumptions in Tiering Policy (2.), this is something that I also have not been seeing substantial discussion on. "Need" as a term is actually pretty important as, to someone backing the status-quo, this tier doesn't "need" any of these proposed unbans really. Especially when the the unban side is not interested in explaining why they would be good to have in the tier. Unbanning something for having checks is super but it's not stopping the iron clad logic of "tier's fine as is don't make it worse" 9/10 times because they ultimately failed to connect how it being unbanned makes the tier better. This is exactly what happened with Deo-S but thankfully they had an out because they could go after the policy and now have an additional opportunity in the future to get it unbanned, this time without having to consider the status quo for it or Roaring Moon. I'm not sure when people stopped giving a shit about the concept of a status quo but the onus was "supposed to" be on the people pushing for change to convince people on the fence to do push for it as well. That's not going to be achieved by posting a wall of calcs or saying x checks y.
Don't even mention the "is it uncompetitive/broken/unhealthy" bit, I made it very clear that I find each of these mons fitting into at least one of these categories. At the end of the day when both sides' arguments hold equal weight in theory, you need something else that gives a mon a reason to be unbanned outside of the slugfest of "I think it has checks" vs "no it doesn't"
I suppose it doesn't matter much anymore since with the 50% +1 ruling since there's less of a need to come across the isle to convince people on the fence and can instead just win if you have a larger base for an ultimately polarizing vote but the plea still stands.
As sealoo just said, I was giving my opinion. My powers reach into policy matters such as the 50% +1 vs 60% issue, they can step into OU sometimes depending on the situations but I am not deciding on what gets suspected or not. Even if I was, it doesn't change the fact that this post was an opinion piece. For people who looked at that post and believed that I was shutting down the conversation, you missed the point entirely. I want people to go more in depth.
The reasoning people were using were very surface level (X checks Y) and didn't really consider how their presence impacts building. A mon can have checks yes but I don't want to have a mon in a tier that mandates additional prep without it providing equivalent or better benefits. I frankly hate building this tier and my teammates in Blind Draft outside of like one helper also dislike the state of it since it's still fairly fishy (albeit better than Tera metagame imo). How do you convince these people that adding more threats to deal with is beneficial? How do they make the state of the tier better? I've said it in other places but the gist is essentially that a lot of assumed matters regarding tiering are irrelevant if the current state of the tier isn't balanced. This includes the common talking point of "they have checks = unban". You need more leverage as a result.
Magcargo has explained some of the benefits Palafin has in discord for example (fairly bulky and hits rather hard = it's a pretty nice blanket / secondary check to a lot of really annoying stuff). I appreciate things like that more because it gives me a reason to run it for myself and justify it being in the tier outside of it being "broken but it's #fine" I would like to see more arguments with Magearna, Espathra, Lugia, Roaring Moon etc, etc touch on this as a means of convincing people on the fence/pro status-quo to see the value of their unbans.
Two bullet points I just cherry-picked from the very public Tiering Policy Framework (the same tiering policy you claim supports your take) that align with my values here:
Regarding Assumptions in Tiering Policy [III.] (1.), it is true that Tera being banned was an insane shift in the metagame, but it would be disingenuous to suggest that we haven't unbanned enough since this time. Melmetal, Kingambit, Dragapult and Gholdengo were all unbanned and are really powerful threats in the metagame, this clearly isn't enough for some users so at what point do you want to stop? It's been like almost 3 months since Tera was banned, that doesn't seem like a "new" change to me anymore. When does it stop becoming new for others? How far could one even apply this argument anyways? "Tera is banned so we should unban anything that isn't a box legend, Spectrier, Naganadel, Pheromossa, Mega Blaziken, etc, etc included" ? Surely the ball is in council's court to draw the line somewhere, otherwise we could be here all year trying to hash out unbans that may or may not be broken regardless instead of making the current state better.
Regarding Assumptions in Tiering Policy (2.), this is something that I also have not been seeing substantial discussion on. "Need" as a term is actually pretty important as, to someone backing the status-quo, this tier doesn't "need" any of these proposed unbans really. Especially when the the unban side is not interested in explaining why they would be good to have in the tier. Unbanning something for having checks is super but it's not stopping the iron clad logic of "tier's fine as is don't make it worse" 9/10 times because they ultimately failed to connect how it being unbanned makes the tier better. This is exactly what happened with Deo-S but thankfully they had an out because they could go after the policy and now have an additional opportunity in the future to get it unbanned, this time without having to consider the status quo for it or Roaring Moon. I'm not sure when people stopped giving a shit about the concept of a status quo but the onus was "supposed to" be on the people pushing for change to convince people on the fence to do push for it as well. That's not going to be achieved by posting a wall of calcs or saying x checks y.
Don't even mention the "is it uncompetitive/broken/unhealthy" bit, I made it very clear that I find each of these mons fitting into at least one of these categories. At the end of the day when both sides' arguments hold equal weight in theory, you need something else that gives a mon a reason to be unbanned outside of the slugfest of "I think it has checks" vs "no it doesn't"
I suppose it doesn't matter much anymore since with the 50% +1 ruling since there's less of a need to come across the isle to convince people on the fence and can instead just win if you have a larger base for an ultimately polarizing vote but the plea still stands.
This post was very well written, and I honestly agree with a lot of these points. Just because something has checks doesn't mean it should be unbanned (gee, I wonder who fits that criteria
). If a Pokemon's presence might be detrimental to the state of the metagame, even if it does have a lot of checks, then it probably shouldn't be freed. I can possibly see Espathra being an example of this, even if it is checkable, it might still restrict teambuilding to an unhealthy degree. Though if a Pokemon doesn't really help nor harm the format, I think it should come back. If it doesn't change ladder and/or tournament play to a significant degree, shouldn't it be let free? Perhaps it comes down to where you draw the line on how many bad things a Pokemon may add to the meta.Anyways, I hope my previous post didn't come off as insulting or as a jab towards you. Apologies if it did.
truly neutral pokemon can be freed sure but it's rather hard to apply this to many of our banned pokemon. I think Deoxys-S was the only thing that could've had the case made
I find that some of your points completely miss the mark.
Furthermore, you ask where the line is. Well, we don’t know where the line is. In my opinion, we should explore how the tier would develop if it started this generation without Terastallization. Otherwise, some Pokémon may be paying the price simply because they were too overwhelming when Tera was allowed. We all know it’s easier to ban than to unban.
All the Pokémon you mentioned have a precedent from last generation’s National Dex. However, some of the Pokémon being pushed forward now never had that opportunity. I understand that National Dex usually unbans many Pokémon at the start of a generation, but let’s hope Palafin and friends don’t end up burdened by their current Uber status hanging over their heads for NatDex Generation 10.
I want to reiterate that I don’t particularly care if these Pokémon get unbanned; I just believe they deserve the opportunity they would have been given if this were the start of the generation. You thought Deoxys-Speed was too much; some people thought it would end up in UU. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened to Espathra.
There is no such thing as 'have we unbanned enough', just as there is no such thing as 'have we banned enough' (an argument many people used in OU this generation). Also, you are somewhat contradicting yourself. Dragapult didn’t need to be dropped. The tier might arguably be 'healthier' without Dragapult in it. So why was it unbanned? I could even argue that Dragapult is harder to deal with than Espathra.
Furthermore, you ask where the line is. Well, we don’t know where the line is. In my opinion, we should explore how the tier would develop if it started this generation without Terastallization. Otherwise, some Pokémon may be paying the price simply because they were too overwhelming when Tera was allowed. We all know it’s easier to ban than to unban.
All the Pokémon you mentioned have a precedent from last generation’s National Dex. However, some of the Pokémon being pushed forward now never had that opportunity. I understand that National Dex usually unbans many Pokémon at the start of a generation, but let’s hope Palafin and friends don’t end up burdened by their current Uber status hanging over their heads for NatDex Generation 10.
Again, I think you are completely missing the point. The current status quo is that 'Roaring Moon is in Ubers because it is uncompetitive, broken, or unhealthy.' The status quo is not 'Roaring Moon is in Ubers because it is not needed in the tier'. The unban side doesn’t need to provide arguments for why something is needed in the tier; they need to provide arguments for why Roaring Moon is not uncompetitive, broken, and unhealthy. You can’t hold bans and unbans to different standards, as that promotes Council manipulation.
Roaring Moon was already tested after the quickban, so I don’t see a reason for the 50% +1 requirement to apply to this suspect test, but I guess this is uncharted territory.
I want to reiterate that I don’t particularly care if these Pokémon get unbanned; I just believe they deserve the opportunity they would have been given if this were the start of the generation. You thought Deoxys-Speed was too much; some people thought it would end up in UU. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened to Espathra.
guys I'm yapping about a non-controversial mon for once!
I think both Venu and Mvenu have good Viability, altho very VERY differently from one another. Venu is a Funny delete button in sun that fears none but Sucker Punch, that 6-0s vs Stall, that hits with Fire-Ground-Grass, very deadly, and only fears Moltres and Zard, B+ imo but this aint VR thread. Mvenu on the other hand is a big fat wall. a lot of teams struggle killing it, as it can eat a Hurricane from mons and not drop. it spreads Sludge bomb poison, Giga Drain chip and heals itself with Synthesis. it can leech seed, Koff, EP, lots of way to deal with dengo. and yea Mvenu is REALLY hard to remove, Non-superreffective Damage Rarely takes it down and SE doesnt OHKO unless it's specs Lele. obvousy with the devious Rmoon sus Sun is wayyy better so it gives RegVenu a niche, but Mvenu is Solid altogether. Checks soooo much while Not dying instantly to things it doesn't check.
I know Venu is sus so here's a replay https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2289136505
I think both Venu and Mvenu have good Viability, altho very VERY differently from one another. Venu is a Funny delete button in sun that fears none but Sucker Punch, that 6-0s vs Stall, that hits with Fire-Ground-Grass, very deadly, and only fears Moltres and Zard, B+ imo but this aint VR thread. Mvenu on the other hand is a big fat wall. a lot of teams struggle killing it, as it can eat a Hurricane from mons and not drop. it spreads Sludge bomb poison, Giga Drain chip and heals itself with Synthesis. it can leech seed, Koff, EP, lots of way to deal with dengo. and yea Mvenu is REALLY hard to remove, Non-superreffective Damage Rarely takes it down and SE doesnt OHKO unless it's specs Lele. obvousy with the devious Rmoon sus Sun is wayyy better so it gives RegVenu a niche, but Mvenu is Solid altogether. Checks soooo much while Not dying instantly to things it doesn't check.
I know Venu is sus so here's a replay https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9nationaldex-2289136505
It was unbanned because the metagame had just shifted and was worth quickdropping to test. We should be past the honeymoon stage by month 3 at this point and should now be prioritizing what will lead to a more healthy game-state. There's a reason why a lot of unban tests get held back until way later: there are more pressing matters to discuss. To expedite the timeline, it would behoove pro-unban users to focus on why a mon would be beneficial in the current state of the meta.
I'm asking at what point do we stop focusing on unbans and instead focusing on currently legal problematic elements. Again going back to expediting matters with unbans, I would prefer that a mon gets unbanned if it adds some sort of benefit to the metagame so it can improve the state. Otherwise we should kick the can down the road until the tier isn't on thin ice.
Officially yes all you need is the "X checks Y" argument, but it's not helpful if the goal is to sway undecisive voters. As I said before the pro-unban side has no interest in reaching across the isle to convince people that it's benefical for the tier. It having checks doesn't automatically make it a good presence. Ho-oh has checks that are common but you don't see us unbanning this. To a hesitant user, saying it has checks alone is not enough because they will just look at the mon as a whole and weigh the benefits vs the constraints it adds to the tier and vote accordingly. I'm not stupid for suggesting that not providing the benefits to an unban can be detrimental for the cause.
This isn't an anti-unban argument and it never really has been outside of the OG post not liking the unbans on a personal level. I'm asking you to make your argument stronger for your own sake. Not demanding or forcing it on you. The Roaring Moon suspect isn't gonna be cancelled if you choose not to do this. If you're want to double down that posting a wall of checks will be enough...go ahead!!!
Roaring moon is being suspect tested. Thank you guys so much for granting me access to such brokeness for 2 weeks. And I the sunlord, will be now be unleashing a higher percentage of my power.
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is it crazy to say that during these last two suspect tests, i have noticed literally zero change in ladder dynamics? like with deoxys i saw so little of it and every time i did it kinda just did nothing or was a "win more" poke. similarly to deo, although moon has much more impact in-game imo, the fluffy mence is just kinda... there. he clicks acrobatics, sure. i play the exact same way as i would against a dark type hawlucha. sure knock blows but like 60% chance to be worthless assuming moon doesnt swap away from contact punishers like moltres and it just has me feeling very blase about the mon. ive played a few games with it and it's quite fun and can blow open unprepared teams but so can fucking xard lmfao. i feel like it won't see uubl status, but in terms of quality? it feels like if mega gyara sacrificed 100% of its stall matchup for better matchups elsewhere. idk i just felt the need to voice this as people try to make grand sweeping points about the health of the metagame when in reality we just have weavile but good™
I noticed the same thing. The first day and a bit during the beginning part of today I saw a ton, and slowly saw less and less. My guess as to why is because these aren’t very flash suspects like Magerna, or Paladin would be. That and they both are pretty balanced (at least in my opinion).
Nope During Deo S I there was a Lele usage rise which is also why it's everywhere now, Lele is just very good and they discovered thanks to deoS sus.
Glimmora usage has skyrockettted even tho it's still somwhat low, I think the Roaring sus is currently what will prevent it from going UU next shift ngl. I also think that the only way for it to be OU proper is if it didn't have DD. CB in Sun is alright-ish, since it doesn't have crazy shit like growth and is choice-reliant I guess i's fine, but DD is insane work on moon.
I'm so excited to be part of an amazing meta and I look forward to new ventures into the forums and what not.
I'd like to share my opinions on roaring moon since I will not be participating in the sus due to a newfound busy schedule.
I believe the mon is well versed across multiple structures ranging from Bulky Balance all the way to Hyper Offense.
Having the access to key moves such as Knock and U-Turn makes the mon already pretty desirable.
Choice band is my personal favorite set as I find it a very good cleaner on more Offensive structures.
As of now I do not know the ends and outs of the pokemon however it's just been uncaged.
It's not overwhelming and it's a breath of fresh air filling up spots on teams pretty well.
I'd like to share my opinions on roaring moon since I will not be participating in the sus due to a newfound busy schedule.
I believe the mon is well versed across multiple structures ranging from Bulky Balance all the way to Hyper Offense.
Having the access to key moves such as Knock and U-Turn makes the mon already pretty desirable.
Choice band is my personal favorite set as I find it a very good cleaner on more Offensive structures.
As of now I do not know the ends and outs of the pokemon however it's just been uncaged.
It's not overwhelming and it's a breath of fresh air filling up spots on teams pretty well.
Mega Altaria has been a good anti-meta mon as of late. It has a fairly open moveset, only requiring fairy move + roost allowing the rest of the team to dictate the final two slots. It can 1v1 many of the sun mons including Zard Y, Bolt, etc. and depending on those final move slots can punish Ferrothorn, Gambit, etc. Probably better on ladder against the constant sun spam but it's been performing well for me.
It’s definitely very good. It’s got an incredible defensive typing right now. It’s got reliable recovery in roost. Pixalate hyper voice will never not be good. And you can combo this with good coverage, as well as good support moves like, healbell, Defog, toxic, and wisp. A big plus is being able to go physical or special depending on the set.
Smallish side note, I noticed when laddering there was one Mega Altaria team going around. So I checked different places to see why different people all had the same team and if I could get the team to try it/know the sets. Couldn’t find it, and later in the day I was watching some YouTube and I see Pinkacross had live streamed the day before. I look at the stream and he was building with Mega Altaria. And sure enough it was the team.
It’s got great typing and it could be a decent trapper. My issue with it is Alomomola is so popular and is not threatened at all by Perish Song. I think it’s just too mediocre in every role it tries to do, whether you use it to Defog or Dragon Dance, for every upside there is an equally opposite drawback. Like being weak to every type of hazard and it cannot run HDB. Without looking at damage calcs, I'm under the impression it’s very min maxed in terms of defensive sets but it is bulky enough to check what it needs to. So I do see the value in it, typing and move pool gives it a unique niche but ultimately not very reliable from experience.
As someone on the other side of this argument I like to call your position the "Pokemon Lawyers" because from my perspective some of you care more about Pokemon Rights than the actual videogame.I personally despise the "if a Pokemon doesn't add anything to the format, then keep it locked up" argument for many of the reasons listed by others, and I'm glad other people share that sentiment. A Pokemon shouldn't be locked up just because it doesn't affect the metagame in any notable way, I don't think that is how tiering should work. In that sense, shouldn't we ban Ledian and Regieleki because they don't contribute anything to the format? No, because they aren't in any way overwhelming, destructive, or a combination of both. Pokemon should only be ousted from the format if they actively harm the health of the game. Whether it be through over-centralization or raw power (Flutter Mane) or being uncompetitive by nature (Darkrai, Sneasler). Something like Deoxys Speed could be considered annoying, but it never was an active detriment to the metagame. It was just a simple hazard lead that HO could run (it never enabled HO to an overwhelming degree), or a U-Turn weak sweeper that needed Terrain support and a Nasty Plot to get rolling, but would rarely ever find the chance to set up. Deoxys' ban made me really disappointed because it just, wasn't broken. That and many of the ban reasons seemed very lackluster. I've seen some fair reasons to ban Deoxys but many of the reasons pro-ban people mentioned boiled down to "well it doesn't really do anything so why bring it down" and "I'm gonna vote Ban because it would be funny!" (Yes, I know people who actually did this, if one of you people are reading this, I hope you run into Eiscue + Pyukumuku Stall for the rest of your life). I really hope Deoxys Speed gets revisited in the future, it feels unjust to leave it locked up, especially after the voting threshold was changed shortly after the suspect's results.
But, that is besides the point. The point is that a Pokemon shouldn't be held back from OU simply because it "doesn't add anything of value". If said Pokemon is truly a "null variable" then I see no justifiable reason to keep them out of OU. I understand that I am no tiering leader or anything like that, but I believe that tiering should be strength-based. A Pokemon that is too overwhelming or uncompetitive should have no place in OU, but a Pokemon that hasn't shifted the metagame towards a more unhealthy state, or shifted the metagame at all for that matter, shouldn't get sent to Ubers just because it's "annoying", "adds no value" or "cheesy". A Pokemon that arguably fits these descriptions is Shedinja, I bet that if Shedinja was banned, not many people would mind. It wouldn't shake the current metagame. Only a few teams used it, and they could probably find a replacement in a matter of minutes. But would this theoretical ban be justified? Obviously not, and that is because Shedinja is simply not broken, and can be beaten with skilled play, if your team loses to it and it alone you might be doing something wrong. We should focus more on banning Pokemon based on how overwhelming or uncompetitive they can be, not by how pointless their addition would be to the format.
I'm here to play a quality competitive metagame.
If a Pokemon even makes the metagame a bit worse while adding little, I would probably vote to ban it. I don't really agree with the verdict of Deoxys-Speed per se, but when you read the arguments, people said it wasn't that people felt it "doesn't add anything of value" in a vacuum, but that it's a simple value proposition:
-If Deoxys-Speed was good, it'd be shit for the meta. Most people don't actually want to see a meta with that Pokemon viable because it's gross.
It's just a bajillion speed hazard shitter / five-hundred coverage moves and Z-Move Lottery.
-If Deoxys-Speed wasn't good, it's probably dropping to UU/UUBL.
When people say "this Pokemon doesn't add anything to the tier", the implication behind it is that it's a risk they don't think is worth it. Where is the value that is added from a Pokemon that is very likely to be a problem? Espathra is either UUBL or a cringelord fence-sitter that makes the metagame objectively worse while providing no other value, is an easy example.
Ultimately, it's fair to disagree with this point, but I wanted to expand on this because I see this language be used confusingly. If we like it or not, every single person who is making a vote in a Suspect Test has some image of a metagame afterwards in their minds, and enough people (with the controversial format of the suspect) envisioned that it would either just be cringe or do nothing. Which meant it stayed banned.
Also sorry for double-post, but honestly I wasn't confident to try to make a post for Mega Altaria to be somewhere on the VR because I know I'm not the best player, but seeing others enjoy the Pokemon feels pretty validating.
Pinkacross is a much better player and builder than me so I'll 100% give his team a go lol, I'm sure it's significantly better.
I personally 100% agree with you. Adding cheese that’s mid isn’t worth it. Moody is not a broken ability(especially without evasion boosting), but should we add it back? No. It’s blatantly uncompetitive. Same thing as your Espathra example.
Yeah same here. I haven’t tried it out personally, but fighting when against it, it felt strong.