Okay okay, I get it. But icicle spear and dual wingbeat are hardly OU, and axel / scale shot are unreliable. I've fixed the wording in my post to be more accurate to what I meant.
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Announcement np: SS OU Suspect Process, Round 12 - Monster Mash
- Thread starter Finchinator
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My brother in Christ, you have completely missed the point. I, and others, am saying that we believe this Mon is plain not broken. We do however believe that the meta is not perfect but can be improved with subsequent suspects but these suspects are going to require a little more foresight than previous suspects due to not much, if anything, being overtly broken right now. If banning Mon X makes the tier worse and results in a needless domino effect but banning Mon Y or testing clause Z will be beneficial while not having those repercussions then you'd think aiming for the better alternatives would be the better option, right?
Yes, I'm aware that no one can actually see the future and unforeseen outcomes can occur regardless, hence why I was also pretty heavy on the idea of being open for retests, but when people expect the outcome of a ban as more problematic than its existence (especially if, just to reiterate, that Mon isn't broken) then of course they're more inclined to keep it and look for alternative fixes. Clearly I've not been the only one who feels this way.
Again, please don't boil these arguments down to just 'broken checks broken' sympathising, I feel like we've mentioned before multiple times that that's not what we're saying here.
How can you not accurately predict how the meta will proceed? If metagame becomes unbalanced with the removal of a mon that shouldn't be removed then players are forced to play in an unbalanced meta for a long time even if you keep your word and say suspect test/ban stall mons.
As long as you are a top ladder player, provided with good argumentation and calculations you can easily predict the future. I was a top 3 player when I was playing ladder 2 years ago and I easily predicted everything that happened in last 2 years in this post -> Metagame - SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539) | Page 29 | Smogon Forums
If you think we cannot predict the future, why are you even holding a suspect test? The whole point is to predict the future by assessing the healthiness of meta with Melmetal gone/staying.
I can just copy paste the same thing I wrote 2 years ago and it will be valid if you change the names of the mons. Apparently some of us could predict the future. (please read the post I don't want to repeat the same stuff since it is way too long and not specifically focused on melmetal)
Prethia said:
Claiming that metagame will be even more centralized on countering Clef because you are once again trying to ban something that is a great answer to Clef's 1500 different sets is a completely valid claim. It is actually harder to not being able to predict this
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I am fully aware of this and don't have a problem with this. If it wasn't clear I apologize. If I may play devils advocate, while no ban voters don't view melm as broken and thus the idea of Melm checking other potentially broken threats being a positive for the tier (and a ban would worsen the tier), for pro ban voters who DO see it as broken, it can come across from their perspective as a bit of "broken checks broken" since they view melm to be so. I should have been clear when trying to explain so I apologize.
I don't see reasons why melmetal is broken, ok, it can be a threat against more offensive teams cuz it's very bulky, sets as AV Melmetal or even Left-Tect ones can be a headache to these archetypes, however, melmetal isn't a demon against bulkier teams, even with toxic disturbing his defensive checks as Slowbro Rotom-W and Gastrodon, there are ways to deal with it, melmetal is very dependent of it's held item so knock off is a nightmare for him on every set, so the classic "OU The Pex" set (Max HP Def) it's a natural treat, doing cheap damage with iron barbs or helmet after threwing out it's leftovers is a good way to check it, nowdays, CB Melmetal is a rare set, almost exclusive to rare TR teams, even with this, with good gameplan and health keeping, bulky water types like Slowbro and Toxapex can switch into it and endure a super effective move if necessary and switch back regenerating it's HP,
Synthesis: Melmetal is a good pokémon overall, it's bulk can be a treat and if well played can win games almost alone, however, there are consistent checks counters and ways to deal with it, isn't broken on my vision, so I will vote: Do not ban
Synthesis: Melmetal is a good pokémon overall, it's bulk can be a treat and if well played can win games almost alone, however, there are consistent checks counters and ways to deal with it, isn't broken on my vision, so I will vote: Do not ban
I managed to get reqs at the cost of sleep time and most of my sanity (this ladder is seriously nerve-wrecking), most of the interesting things have been said, so I wanted to add some things to illustrate on why I'll vote Do not ban:
Firstly, I think somebody asserted that the metagame can't be simultaneously dominated by offense and stall, which I disagree with: Those are two very consistent play styles (on ladder at least), and there's no reason why they can't be good at the same time, at the cost of balance and other play styles. Toxapex and Dragapult can be (and are imho) both very good and splashable Pokémon independent of each other.
Secondly, there was some discussion on the fact that Melmetal can easily wear down most of its checks with Toxic + Protect, and win long-term, and is very difficult to counter over time (just like Toxic Heatran, by the way). I want to go on record saying that I consider this one of its best qualities: Isn't that the kind of games people actually consider to be good, games where Pokémon make gradual progress and eventually win within a reasonable time frame? Or are stall and games that end before turn 20 preferable? I respect other people having different opinions, but I personally like the idea of a metagame where gradual progress is a consistent strategy. Please respect my opinion as well.
Thirdly, the in my opinion most important argument on why Melmetal shouldn't be banned is that it in my opinion isn't excessively centralizing and doesn't consume an unreasonable amount of the opponent's resources to deal with it. For comparison's sake I dug up some old replays from the DOU tier, a metagame that did ban Melmetal:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-502140
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1124063898
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1128281344
As seen in the replays, there was an excessive amount of Melmetal usage and usage of Pokémon that have a decent or good match-up into Melmetal, such as Kommo-O, bulky water types, offensive fire types, etc., and a significant amount of the replays consisted of Melmetal vs. Melmetal brawls, while dominating most other Pokémon on the field. This is a metagame that allowed Melmetal to do the best (or worst) with its sheer stats and offensive movepool. The same can in my opinion not be said about the OU metagame, where a counter-strategy to Melmetal can be relatively easily conceived at team preview. Passive teams can try to status it with Scald or Will'o'wisp or knock it off with a healthy Toxapex, and then focus on gradually wearing it down with hazards and burns damage. More offensive teams soft-check it with Rotom or Zapdos or Ferrothorn or Flame Body Heatran or their own Melmetal, and try to force chip damage or status on it with contact punishment or one of their more expendable Pokémon, so it ends up in range of Dragapult, Urshifu, Kartana, Blacephalon, etc. This Pokémon is in my humble opinion not more difficult to check either in the builder or in-game than Weavile or Garchomp or Blacephalon or Tapu Lele, all Pokémon that force not only much more specific (in some cases even obscure) counterplay, but can immediately threaten to pull off a sweep if given the chance. Obviously this is Melmetal's suspect thread and not any other Pokémon's, but I'm still curious what makes Melmetal a more suspect-worthy Pokémon than for example Blacephalon, a Pokémon whose reliable switch-ins in the tier consist of two Pokémon, neither of which are terribly easy to build with (Tyranitar and Blissey). Melmetal can still punch holes into the opposing team if given too much room to do so, but given the current state of the metagame, I believe it is prudent to expect players to find a way to not give it said freedom.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Have a nice day!
Firstly, I think somebody asserted that the metagame can't be simultaneously dominated by offense and stall, which I disagree with: Those are two very consistent play styles (on ladder at least), and there's no reason why they can't be good at the same time, at the cost of balance and other play styles. Toxapex and Dragapult can be (and are imho) both very good and splashable Pokémon independent of each other.
Secondly, there was some discussion on the fact that Melmetal can easily wear down most of its checks with Toxic + Protect, and win long-term, and is very difficult to counter over time (just like Toxic Heatran, by the way). I want to go on record saying that I consider this one of its best qualities: Isn't that the kind of games people actually consider to be good, games where Pokémon make gradual progress and eventually win within a reasonable time frame? Or are stall and games that end before turn 20 preferable? I respect other people having different opinions, but I personally like the idea of a metagame where gradual progress is a consistent strategy. Please respect my opinion as well.
Thirdly, the in my opinion most important argument on why Melmetal shouldn't be banned is that it in my opinion isn't excessively centralizing and doesn't consume an unreasonable amount of the opponent's resources to deal with it. For comparison's sake I dug up some old replays from the DOU tier, a metagame that did ban Melmetal:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8doublesou-502140
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1124063898
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8doublesou-1128281344
As seen in the replays, there was an excessive amount of Melmetal usage and usage of Pokémon that have a decent or good match-up into Melmetal, such as Kommo-O, bulky water types, offensive fire types, etc., and a significant amount of the replays consisted of Melmetal vs. Melmetal brawls, while dominating most other Pokémon on the field. This is a metagame that allowed Melmetal to do the best (or worst) with its sheer stats and offensive movepool. The same can in my opinion not be said about the OU metagame, where a counter-strategy to Melmetal can be relatively easily conceived at team preview. Passive teams can try to status it with Scald or Will'o'wisp or knock it off with a healthy Toxapex, and then focus on gradually wearing it down with hazards and burns damage. More offensive teams soft-check it with Rotom or Zapdos or Ferrothorn or Flame Body Heatran or their own Melmetal, and try to force chip damage or status on it with contact punishment or one of their more expendable Pokémon, so it ends up in range of Dragapult, Urshifu, Kartana, Blacephalon, etc. This Pokémon is in my humble opinion not more difficult to check either in the builder or in-game than Weavile or Garchomp or Blacephalon or Tapu Lele, all Pokémon that force not only much more specific (in some cases even obscure) counterplay, but can immediately threaten to pull off a sweep if given the chance. Obviously this is Melmetal's suspect thread and not any other Pokémon's, but I'm still curious what makes Melmetal a more suspect-worthy Pokémon than for example Blacephalon, a Pokémon whose reliable switch-ins in the tier consist of two Pokémon, neither of which are terribly easy to build with (Tyranitar and Blissey). Melmetal can still punch holes into the opposing team if given too much room to do so, but given the current state of the metagame, I believe it is prudent to expect players to find a way to not give it said freedom.
Thanks for reading, if you did. Have a nice day!
I think the biggest sticking point with Melmetal in the tier, even bigger than its ability to cheese with Double Iron Bash, is that it excels at “collecting” more than pretty much any other mon in OU. Melmetal is great at forcing the opponent to choose between what to sack/let get weakened. Oftentimes it is preferable to sack just to weaken Melmetal (see: its interaction with Heatran). This ability to say “ok, now pick” is really only matched by Life Orb Weavile, which has its own set of issues that aren’t related to this suspect. All other aspects of Melmetal, its offensive power, its bulk, its coverage and set diversity, they all add up to Melmetal’s supreme ability to force progress through damage and status unlike any other Pokemon in the tier. Now the question arises: is this broken?
As has been demonstrated in other posts, Melmetal is not uncheckable. It does, however, require near pristine scouting to check due to how many moves it can viably run. It punishes misplays heavily, and offensively doubling into it is less, if rewarding at all, due to its bulk. That being said, I do not think this aspect of Melmetal alone is broken. Utilizing Melmetal to its full potential means utilizing its defensive capabilities too; this means switching into the tier’s big three of fast strong breakers in Tapu Lele, Dragapult, and Weavile. This means Melmetal has a realistically tougher time of leveraging its bulk in situations where it wants to tank a hit and KO back (again, the Heatran interaction) than it may seem.
As of right now, I am leaning towards no ban. I think Melmetal is often asked to do wholly too much to make full use of its insane trading capabilities that consistently. I do want to say that the argument of it being the end of the gen and we have to consider Melmetal’s role in the metagame here is completely baseless and wholly irrelevant to the conversation. Whether Melmetal’s presence or absence improves or diminishes particular archetypes does not hold any ground in this discussion. Y’all gotta detach from all that before voting.
As has been demonstrated in other posts, Melmetal is not uncheckable. It does, however, require near pristine scouting to check due to how many moves it can viably run. It punishes misplays heavily, and offensively doubling into it is less, if rewarding at all, due to its bulk. That being said, I do not think this aspect of Melmetal alone is broken. Utilizing Melmetal to its full potential means utilizing its defensive capabilities too; this means switching into the tier’s big three of fast strong breakers in Tapu Lele, Dragapult, and Weavile. This means Melmetal has a realistically tougher time of leveraging its bulk in situations where it wants to tank a hit and KO back (again, the Heatran interaction) than it may seem.
As of right now, I am leaning towards no ban. I think Melmetal is often asked to do wholly too much to make full use of its insane trading capabilities that consistently. I do want to say that the argument of it being the end of the gen and we have to consider Melmetal’s role in the metagame here is completely baseless and wholly irrelevant to the conversation. Whether Melmetal’s presence or absence improves or diminishes particular archetypes does not hold any ground in this discussion. Y’all gotta detach from all that before voting.
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In my attempt to obtain reqs I have realized 2 things:
-I am not good at SSOU. I can’t build well, I can’t play any better than average, I’ve never made a serious ladder run. I am not good enough to get reqs. I am going to stop pretending I am and use SV as a chance to reset.
-Melmetal is not broken. Pretty much anything I could say on this has already been said in the 4 pages of discussion. It has serious longevity issues, something you don’t want in your bulky Steel, and while Assault Vest somewhat mitigates that, it still doesn’t want to get hit by most of the many special moves in OU: sure it can 1v1 a Heatran, but when it loses half its health doing so it can no longer confidently switch in on a lot of other things. Or you could run Lefties, but that (and every other non-Pads item) opens up the commonly used Ferrothorn and Zapdos as checks.
-I am not good at SSOU. I can’t build well, I can’t play any better than average, I’ve never made a serious ladder run. I am not good enough to get reqs. I am going to stop pretending I am and use SV as a chance to reset.
-Melmetal is not broken. Pretty much anything I could say on this has already been said in the 4 pages of discussion. It has serious longevity issues, something you don’t want in your bulky Steel, and while Assault Vest somewhat mitigates that, it still doesn’t want to get hit by most of the many special moves in OU: sure it can 1v1 a Heatran, but when it loses half its health doing so it can no longer confidently switch in on a lot of other things. Or you could run Lefties, but that (and every other non-Pads item) opens up the commonly used Ferrothorn and Zapdos as checks.
Thought I'd give my thoughts about Melmetal now that I got reqs, wasn't planning on actually being active this gen as a long time lurker but couldn't resist the Melm suspect test partly because of the new gen hype and partly because I don't think it's broken (everything here will only be taking into account pokemon that are B rank or higher as I don't consider anything below noteworthy enough to be mentioning, except for scizor because it sucks and itself for obvious reasons)
I don't wanna talk about the av/cb or any other lesser seen sets in too much detail since I don't see how they could be considered broken at all.
Av is good against offense like taking lele's focus blast and switching into shadow balls but struggle to break through it's checks and counters without the extra power and utility it's other sets provide (T punch can't even 2 hit ko pex or corviknight), while cb can basically 2 hit ko everything in the tier but you can easily pivot around it and it's the most prediction reliant of all it's sets, and both of these sets can be worn down pretty heavily during the course of a game with all the rocky helmet chip they have to eat and random attacks they're tasked to switch into.
Then there's the protective pads + t wave set, which is the 2nd best set imo. The thing that makes this set better than the others I've mentioned so far is the fact that it can win against a lot of it's checks and counters like pex, bro and corviknight, with Melm being able to t wave them and then potentially flinch them down with double iron bash, while still remaining threatening to most offensive mons with double iron bash + t punch + superpower. The problems with this set is that it can still be chipped down like the other sets discussed so far (though not with rocky helmet/rough skin/iron barbs chip this time) and that it relies a lot on RNG with the paraflinching, like Togekiss and Jirachi, and it can potentially get punished by these defensive mons with a U-turn/Knock off/Teleport/Scald if they get through the paraflinching. This set isn't too reliable at breaking these defensive mons either, with it for example to have a chance at breaking pex, you first have to predict the switchin and hit the t wave, then paraflinch it 3 times in a row with double iron bash and then you finally finish it off with a t punch. if pex breaks out 1 of all these times you get punished with a potential burn from scald or a knock, making you basically unable to paraflinch it anymore due to the rocky helmet chip. It also doesn't help that pex can switch out any of these times which are quite predictable, putting you in a potential disadvantage and letting the pex heal up with regen. This set can't do much of anything to corviknight, rotom wash and zapdos either, but overall I'd still say this is the 2nd best set with it's nice utility and value against many matchups.
And pretty easily the best set would be the toxic + protect set, and the only set I could see it potentially being banworthy for. This set is able to retain most of the offensive presence the other sets have while combining it with survivability from leftovers + protect, this and being able to cripple most of it's switchins with toxic makes this set the most difficult to deal with over the course of a game. That extra bit of recovery from leftovers + protect really matters a lot due to how naturally insanely bulky it is, those extra slices of health could be the difference between you being revenge killed or you surviving and koing back the opponent with it's still incredibly strong double iron bash. You can do pretty much whatever you want with the last moveslot, but Eq is realistically the best since it threatens switchins such as heatran, volcanion, Magnezone and pex, potentially even 2 hit koing pex. The problem with this set is that it gets hard walled by common defensive pokemon, it's basically useless against corviknight, skarm, ferrothorn and the best it can do against a predicted rotom wash or zapdos switchin is toxic and then switch out only to get completely walled by them next time it tries to do anything. Common offensive mons can also potentially take advantage of it too, the only thing Melm can do against Urshifu is predict the switchin, toxic and then switch out (it can't even protect because of urshifus ability meaning it can go for any of it's threatening stabs or U-turn) and the best thing you can do against a predicted kartana switchin is double iron bash once (not even a 2 hit ko) and then switch out (you can't protect to heal with lefties since SD exists). This set is also fairly prediction reliant from my experiance playing with it. Lets say your opponent has a zapdos and a heatran on their team, then you have to play 1 in 3 mindgames until one of either zap or heatran dies, and if you guess wrong you'll get punished pretty hard (you also still get walled by zapdos after you toxic'd it). Overall, I think there's enough both defensive and offensive counterplay for it to not be considered broken.
But lets take all these sets combined since it can be difficult to tell what set melm is running just from team preview. Since it can be difficult to predict exactly what set melm is running, lets assume you always wanna switch into double iron bash since it's easily the most threatening move at Melm's disposal and it's something every set is running. Offensive mons that can take at least 3 double iron bashes includes Urshifu, Kartana, Magnezone, Volcanion, Bulky Volcarona, Offensive Rotom Wash, Heatran, Aegislash and Victini while offensive mons who can take 1 double iron bash and then threaten out melm or at least put a serious dent in it includes Offensive Buzzwole, Offensive Zap, Blaziken, Drill, Lando T, Chomp, Offensive Volcarona and Crawdaunt.
And then for defensive mons who can take at least 3 double iron bashes includes Corviknight, Skarm, Bro, Pex, Zap, Pelipper Gastrodon, Defensive Rotom Wash, Defensive Buzzwole, Ferro, Defensive Lando T and Defensive Heatran.
The point with pointing all of these mons out is that you should always be able to build a team with at the very least 2 of them in it who doesn't lose to the exact same coverage move, so even if Melm has the right moveset for one of these checks, it can't fit all the moves it wants for the other one too, and even if it does it still have to play 1 in 3 mindgames since the Melmetals coverage moves is often too weak to 1 shot the switchin, meaning you can't just stay in and tank the hit incoming hit after you guessed wrong if you want melm to stick around for a longer time. I gave an earlier example with Heatran and Zap on the same team, but something like Lando T and Volcanion or just slapping a Rotom wash on your team can put the Melmetal in unfavorable situations a lot of times, where it and it's team gets punished a lot if they predict wrong. It's also a lot easier to predict the Melm once you know it's set, which isn't too difficult to figure out (cb is self explanatory, the lefties set clicks protect all the time and you know it's the lefties set once it gets chipped a tiny bit and the other 2 sets have similar enough counterplay). Another thing is that it isn't as easy as people make it out to be to safely get in Melm either, while it's defenses are amazing, it can't really take repeated hits, and almost every good offensive mon can threaten it in one way or another, while defensive mons can cripple it with t wave, scald and knock off since it really hates losing it's item.
I don't think Melm is limiting the builder in any significant way, and it simply rewards players for predicting right and playing around it's counters. It's quite manageable from a game to game basis from my experience as it's neither the most offensively threatening as shown earlier or the best defensive mon due to how easily it gets shipped down with all the hits it has to take with it's poor speed, and it can potentially take a lot of damage every time it predicts wrong too. It's a good pokemon that always provide value to a good player who find the right set for the team, not a broken mindless pokemon who just clicks 1 move with no counterplay and certainly not the end all be all of OU some make it out to be.
Taking everything I've said into account, I will be voting do not ban, but I don't have any problems if anyone would think it's too much for the tier as I can see the arguments against it too. (Also fuck ladder and Heavy duty boots)
I don't wanna talk about the av/cb or any other lesser seen sets in too much detail since I don't see how they could be considered broken at all.
Av is good against offense like taking lele's focus blast and switching into shadow balls but struggle to break through it's checks and counters without the extra power and utility it's other sets provide (T punch can't even 2 hit ko pex or corviknight), while cb can basically 2 hit ko everything in the tier but you can easily pivot around it and it's the most prediction reliant of all it's sets, and both of these sets can be worn down pretty heavily during the course of a game with all the rocky helmet chip they have to eat and random attacks they're tasked to switch into.
Then there's the protective pads + t wave set, which is the 2nd best set imo. The thing that makes this set better than the others I've mentioned so far is the fact that it can win against a lot of it's checks and counters like pex, bro and corviknight, with Melm being able to t wave them and then potentially flinch them down with double iron bash, while still remaining threatening to most offensive mons with double iron bash + t punch + superpower. The problems with this set is that it can still be chipped down like the other sets discussed so far (though not with rocky helmet/rough skin/iron barbs chip this time) and that it relies a lot on RNG with the paraflinching, like Togekiss and Jirachi, and it can potentially get punished by these defensive mons with a U-turn/Knock off/Teleport/Scald if they get through the paraflinching. This set isn't too reliable at breaking these defensive mons either, with it for example to have a chance at breaking pex, you first have to predict the switchin and hit the t wave, then paraflinch it 3 times in a row with double iron bash and then you finally finish it off with a t punch. if pex breaks out 1 of all these times you get punished with a potential burn from scald or a knock, making you basically unable to paraflinch it anymore due to the rocky helmet chip. It also doesn't help that pex can switch out any of these times which are quite predictable, putting you in a potential disadvantage and letting the pex heal up with regen. This set can't do much of anything to corviknight, rotom wash and zapdos either, but overall I'd still say this is the 2nd best set with it's nice utility and value against many matchups.
And pretty easily the best set would be the toxic + protect set, and the only set I could see it potentially being banworthy for. This set is able to retain most of the offensive presence the other sets have while combining it with survivability from leftovers + protect, this and being able to cripple most of it's switchins with toxic makes this set the most difficult to deal with over the course of a game. That extra bit of recovery from leftovers + protect really matters a lot due to how naturally insanely bulky it is, those extra slices of health could be the difference between you being revenge killed or you surviving and koing back the opponent with it's still incredibly strong double iron bash. You can do pretty much whatever you want with the last moveslot, but Eq is realistically the best since it threatens switchins such as heatran, volcanion, Magnezone and pex, potentially even 2 hit koing pex. The problem with this set is that it gets hard walled by common defensive pokemon, it's basically useless against corviknight, skarm, ferrothorn and the best it can do against a predicted rotom wash or zapdos switchin is toxic and then switch out only to get completely walled by them next time it tries to do anything. Common offensive mons can also potentially take advantage of it too, the only thing Melm can do against Urshifu is predict the switchin, toxic and then switch out (it can't even protect because of urshifus ability meaning it can go for any of it's threatening stabs or U-turn) and the best thing you can do against a predicted kartana switchin is double iron bash once (not even a 2 hit ko) and then switch out (you can't protect to heal with lefties since SD exists). This set is also fairly prediction reliant from my experiance playing with it. Lets say your opponent has a zapdos and a heatran on their team, then you have to play 1 in 3 mindgames until one of either zap or heatran dies, and if you guess wrong you'll get punished pretty hard (you also still get walled by zapdos after you toxic'd it). Overall, I think there's enough both defensive and offensive counterplay for it to not be considered broken.
But lets take all these sets combined since it can be difficult to tell what set melm is running just from team preview. Since it can be difficult to predict exactly what set melm is running, lets assume you always wanna switch into double iron bash since it's easily the most threatening move at Melm's disposal and it's something every set is running. Offensive mons that can take at least 3 double iron bashes includes Urshifu, Kartana, Magnezone, Volcanion, Bulky Volcarona, Offensive Rotom Wash, Heatran, Aegislash and Victini while offensive mons who can take 1 double iron bash and then threaten out melm or at least put a serious dent in it includes Offensive Buzzwole, Offensive Zap, Blaziken, Drill, Lando T, Chomp, Offensive Volcarona and Crawdaunt.
And then for defensive mons who can take at least 3 double iron bashes includes Corviknight, Skarm, Bro, Pex, Zap, Pelipper Gastrodon, Defensive Rotom Wash, Defensive Buzzwole, Ferro, Defensive Lando T and Defensive Heatran.
The point with pointing all of these mons out is that you should always be able to build a team with at the very least 2 of them in it who doesn't lose to the exact same coverage move, so even if Melm has the right moveset for one of these checks, it can't fit all the moves it wants for the other one too, and even if it does it still have to play 1 in 3 mindgames since the Melmetals coverage moves is often too weak to 1 shot the switchin, meaning you can't just stay in and tank the hit incoming hit after you guessed wrong if you want melm to stick around for a longer time. I gave an earlier example with Heatran and Zap on the same team, but something like Lando T and Volcanion or just slapping a Rotom wash on your team can put the Melmetal in unfavorable situations a lot of times, where it and it's team gets punished a lot if they predict wrong. It's also a lot easier to predict the Melm once you know it's set, which isn't too difficult to figure out (cb is self explanatory, the lefties set clicks protect all the time and you know it's the lefties set once it gets chipped a tiny bit and the other 2 sets have similar enough counterplay). Another thing is that it isn't as easy as people make it out to be to safely get in Melm either, while it's defenses are amazing, it can't really take repeated hits, and almost every good offensive mon can threaten it in one way or another, while defensive mons can cripple it with t wave, scald and knock off since it really hates losing it's item.
I don't think Melm is limiting the builder in any significant way, and it simply rewards players for predicting right and playing around it's counters. It's quite manageable from a game to game basis from my experience as it's neither the most offensively threatening as shown earlier or the best defensive mon due to how easily it gets shipped down with all the hits it has to take with it's poor speed, and it can potentially take a lot of damage every time it predicts wrong too. It's a good pokemon that always provide value to a good player who find the right set for the team, not a broken mindless pokemon who just clicks 1 move with no counterplay and certainly not the end all be all of OU some make it out to be.
Taking everything I've said into account, I will be voting do not ban, but I don't have any problems if anyone would think it's too much for the tier as I can see the arguments against it too. (Also fuck ladder and Heavy duty boots)
It was extremely obvious from day one that Melmetal was too good for the tier. It was a bizarre decision to drop it in without a suspect test in the first place after its previous banning.
Scrolling down the OU list, it beats every single mon 1v1 unless the opponent is choiced with a super effective move. It often does 70%+ to resists with non boosted Double Iron Bash. The power level is clearly too high and its bulk is also clearly too much for the tier. We could probably drop other Ubers down to OU and claim that the tier can handle them with X or Y mon. The elephant in the room is that its stats, typing and attributes make it better than almost anything else. Vote Ban if you have any level of common sense.
Scrolling down the OU list, it beats every single mon 1v1 unless the opponent is choiced with a super effective move. It often does 70%+ to resists with non boosted Double Iron Bash. The power level is clearly too high and its bulk is also clearly too much for the tier. We could probably drop other Ubers down to OU and claim that the tier can handle them with X or Y mon. The elephant in the room is that its stats, typing and attributes make it better than almost anything else. Vote Ban if you have any level of common sense.
Quoting this, there's another pokémon that with the right set cripple all the tier, in theory there's no 100% safe switch in to tapu lele, aegislash and blacephalon to be an example, but the main way to handle with them is discovering it's sets doing an analysis of opponent's team, melmetal isn't a Pokémon like magearna, that with the right set can easily 6-0 your team alone, there are pretty solid checks to every set of it on the tier, so vote ban isn't common sense
You're very correct in all of the above.
Fortunately I didn't argue that Melmetal has no switch-ins, and simply 6-0s teams.
My point still remains that Melmetal beats pretty much every mon 1v1 - nothing else comes close to this feat. Blacephalon and Lele are clearly not analogous comparisons to make as they both lose 1v1 to large swathes of the rosta.
Melmetal just beats everything and is thus clearly too strong for the tier.
Fortunately I didn't argue that Melmetal has no switch-ins, and simply 6-0s teams.
My point still remains that Melmetal beats pretty much every mon 1v1 - nothing else comes close to this feat. Blacephalon and Lele are clearly not analogous comparisons to make as they both lose 1v1 to large swathes of the rosta.
Melmetal just beats everything and is thus clearly too strong for the tier.
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Yup that's one hundred percent me
I was significantly better in gen 7, despite having played that tier much less
I also feel that Melm isn't broken, for the reason that it can have many sets, but none are unbeatable and any serious team in OU will have proper answers. It's a hard Mon to take on, but I believe that it's not harming the meta. However, do keep in mind that I am not good at the game
Melmetal does not beat everything in the tier. Being able to 1v1 Pokemon does not signify that the Pokemon beats every Pokemon. Melmetal generally gets out of these trades with a major amount of damage lost due to its lack of recovery in tandem with the amount of chip damage in the tier, making it pretty much lose a major load of its main utility - being a super solid blanket check to a plethora of Pokemon in the tier. This trading isn't really anything that pushes Melmetal to a whole other level of extreme, as there are teams where Melmetal does face issues breaking, i.e. teams with Pokemon that tank its most common coverage moves or teams that can force enough chip damage on it to the point where Melmetal is KO-able.
Also, what "large swathes of the rosta" do Blacephalon and Tapu Lele lose to? No team is truly safe when facing these threats, as their mind boggling offensive capabilities make them similar to Melmetal in that they will always force some impact/force some progress against pretty much any given mon (bar specific countermeasures like SpDef Jirachi on stall), just through a more offensive lense.
Remember the key point that I've (as of now) made and highlighted three times is that Melmetal beats things 1v1. Not that it forces things out (although it definitely does this) and not that it 6-0s teams.
You also appear to be making the point that even though Melmetal can beat everything 1v1 that it somehow simultaneously can't beat everything 1v1. Which of those is true? It can't be both of them!
Blacephalon and Lele lose 1v1 to loads of Mons that are faster than them. Off the top of my head - Garchomp, Weavile, Koko, Dragapult, Kartana to name but a few, let alone surprise scarf mons that can win the 1v1. In addition they also lose 1v1 to lots of defensive mons like Heatran, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Corviknight, Toxapex and of course Melmetal itself.
Melmetal wins 1v1 against many things you intuitively think it wouldn't such as Garchomp, Landorus, Hippowdon, Toxapex, Zapdos, Slowbro, Victini. You just stay in, tank the hit and KO frailer mons in return with your unboosted hits, and use your other options to get around the walls.
You normally need two Mons to take Melmetal down - it's clearly too good.
You also appear to be making the point that even though Melmetal can beat everything 1v1 that it somehow simultaneously can't beat everything 1v1. Which of those is true? It can't be both of them!
Blacephalon and Lele lose 1v1 to loads of Mons that are faster than them. Off the top of my head - Garchomp, Weavile, Koko, Dragapult, Kartana to name but a few, let alone surprise scarf mons that can win the 1v1. In addition they also lose 1v1 to lots of defensive mons like Heatran, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Corviknight, Toxapex and of course Melmetal itself.
Melmetal wins 1v1 against many things you intuitively think it wouldn't such as Garchomp, Landorus, Hippowdon, Toxapex, Zapdos, Slowbro, Victini. You just stay in, tank the hit and KO frailer mons in return with your unboosted hits, and use your other options to get around the walls.
You normally need two Mons to take Melmetal down - it's clearly too good.
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Okay so Melmetal is very obviously broken lmao that's obviously not the problem here. We're determining if opening the floodgates of shit kept in check by Melm is worth opening. Ban Melmetal and suddenly Tapu Lele and Weavile go from broken and unfair to ... the same thing but more. As we near the end of the gen its quite difficult to A) care, and B) decide what's best for the generation as we leave it. I think when people vote they should keep in mind that action can happen after the gen. I'm gonna vote to ban Melmetal then I'm going to vote to ban Tapu Lele afterwards and maybe Weavile or Pult after that but currently Melmetal is too obscene.
While getting reqs I've had Melmetals:
Easily live +2 Keldeo Secret Sword
Easily live 2 Garchomp Earthquakes
Easily live +2 Fiery Dance from Volcarona
(hint it also easily OHKO's all of these)
dumb mon, shoulda left a while ago
here's my team if anyone's interested, CM Keldeo is an incredible pick in the tier rn.
While getting reqs I've had Melmetals:
Easily live +2 Keldeo Secret Sword
Easily live 2 Garchomp Earthquakes
Easily live +2 Fiery Dance from Volcarona
(hint it also easily OHKO's all of these)
dumb mon, shoulda left a while ago
here's my team if anyone's interested, CM Keldeo is an incredible pick in the tier rn.
Very curious on what kind of melms your facing living 2 eqs a melm one shotting a volcarona and living a +2 keldeo and apparently easily on top of that.
Also don't think I'm gonna overlook "very obviously broken" that's just absurd idk whether you haven't read the thread or something but there's clearly arguments to keep it around.
From reading this over it looks like basically everyone is voting No Ban. Makes me kind of sad because it's so annoying to play against like you see a melmetal and you just know the game is going to suck and you're going to have to sacrifice multiple pokemon trying to deal with it, but I'm also a noob without the necessary skill or experience to have a valid opinion. It's sort of like how Corviknight is a pain in the ass, but at least that probably won't kill you while you work to remove it.
Well melmetal isn't easy to play around, you gotta make predicts, so that's probably why you struggle with it. Chipping it down w/ helmet and SE hits can usually work, and doubling on a melm switch can help too.
I actually played against multiple sets and even multiple games if you can believe it
There is no Melmetal that can tank a +2 fiery with AV and can also OHKO with an DIB/EQ. Band Melmetal maybe can just barely kill, but also almost always dies from even +0 fiery dance. This is what I mean when I say banners act like the mon in suspect can simultaneously act as two different sets.
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Ik its not common but I ran into Rock Slide Melm like 3 diff times it was v annoying. Also the thing about Melmetal is regardless of the set you often need 2 Pokemon to take it down, and its pretty hard to scout for the set besides obvious Lefties vs non Lefties bc Melm hits so hard just bc DIB + Tpunch is such a broken combo
Rock slide is fair; when I ran "low-budget Melmetal" (phys AV Bronzong) it was always a surprise. But the usage is pretty low, not even on the stats for top 8. Personally I haven't found Melmetal to be hard to scout. Slowbro and Suicune can easily take DIB+Tpunch (not to mention get chip with rocky or pp stall with protect, and both threatening with scald burn) and you can determine band from the strength. It sounds like the issue is HO players don't like that it slows their momentum, but I think Melmetal is a crucial way to keep HO in check. If Melmetal gets banned, stall teams will surely become more prevalent to fill this niche (and now have one less wallbreaker to deal with).
Since I have no friends who want to talk about this, I’d figure I’d make a whole detailing about hyper offense and it’s relationship with melmetal since I’m most familiar with building and using hyper offense so I can make an informed comments about it.
The big issue with ho and melmetal is that melmetal with its insane coverage,bulk, and attack can pretty easily 1v1 most ho Pokémon while also having the ho team struggle to switch in. The best scenarios for ho usually being switching into a Pokémon that resists and still taking 50 and maybe forcing it out if the melm users needs it healthy. This obviously at a glance looks like a pretty horrible matchup for ho, but ho has many tools to be able to stop melmetal from being as effective as it would look on paper.
Weather
Rain has ferrothorn+zap and generally pokemon melmetal can’t switch into safely. This leads to melmetal struggling to come on without getting pivoted in. If it switches in it either gets pivoted on by barraskewda or just taking a good chunk of damage. Protect Melmetal and assault vest can both be slightly annoying due to protecting away rain turns and being able to check zapdos/other birds.
Hail can run volcanion,rocky helm corviknight or other more uncommon pivots for hail like rocky helmet rotom-wash to help chip melmetal for arctozolt. Hail does have to watch for it being a good check to zolt mainly with protect and it being able to switch in on ninetales effortlessly. Thunder wave pads can be extremely threatening to the majority of hail teams because nothing that wants to switch in can handle well with para+pads. Pads does struggle with hail chipping it down and it taking damage from arctozolt blizzards/bolt heals/low kicks, leading to it having issues staying healthy
Sun is generally a good matchup. Assault vest melmetal can live venusaur and force damage but overall melmetal has little areas to come in without a teammates pivoting and can’t live many strong hits from victini, +2 venusaur (assuming no vest), darmanitan, charizard, and Entei.
saying all these weathers are “hyper offense” is kinda weird but there’s no way sand can even be considered one since they are all balances.
Veil/ Screens
Veil relying on set up sweepers and usually giving melm a free turns/lead with koko/ninetales/ and grimmsnarl while it can also force set up sweepers to trade against it for damage can seem very bad for veil which melmetal usually is but there are some ways these teams have been able to hold off melmetal. Air Balloon flame body rocks physically defensive heatran is one such example. An odd choice for veil teams it patches up many holes like the weakness to weavile/Dd pult/melm/rillaboom/ and add rocks it puts these teams together nicely. It also isn’t passive like other walls forcing chip with magma storm/earth power and toxic. Another option for these teams is Pokémon that can force melm to not want to come in. These include blaziken, volcarona, cm lele, and even more. Basically forcing melm to take a back seat to the game as it can’t really switch into these Pokémon. Even with Pokémon that let melm come in (cloyster/Dd dragapult and more) you can force melm to take damage with one veil abuser so that their team is weakened to another abuser melm would check leading to an end game with that Pokémon once melmetal is weakened by it.
Hazard stack
My favorite type of ho style, it generally use very similar Pokémon as veil so the same applies to chipping melm down with one Pokémon to open up another. This does have other struggles, phys def tran doesn’t fit and veil isn’t around making you take half damage. What you can do is have leads that deal with melm to force it to come into hazard and possibly into a +1/2 Pokémon to force more damage. Will-o wisp mew, Spikes endeavor scolipede, lead offensive rocks sash heatran are some examples. This leads melm to either be crippled, take damage for a revenge kill or switch out and come into rocks/spikes. Melm is a very tough matchup for hazard stacking though but it really isn’t even close to unbearable.
Six offensive pokemon
Kinda hard to describe these teams, but it’s just normally 6 offensive pokemon, one being an offensive rocker, who havegood type synergy and rely on natural bulk+resist. These can struggle with melm usually relying on weakening it, if you have rillaboom and it’s protect melm you are also put in a very hard position assuming the melm players plays well. But these teams can use pivoting into blaziken,volcarona,specs pult and more to weaken it or revenge kill it to try to deal with it. Usually these teams have Pokémon that don’t let melmetal in for free but even then melm can take many of hits coming out of an allies teleport or u turn.
In conclusion while you may read this and conclude correctly that melm is an absurd threat to these teams and makes you use certain Pokémon and makes some Pokémon worse for these teams in the builder, this presence is about as bad as scarf lele/scarf kartana/ urshifu/ dragapult/ weaviletoxapex/ and clefable are for these teams. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about ho being much better if melm is banned and I personally disagree. It’s going to open up options but these above pokemon are still as restricting as ever. Nor do I think melmetal is too restricting for these teams, it’s a threat to these teams but every playstyle should have threats to them, HO even with melmetal has found ways to beat it that aren’t super specific to just melmetal but instead can cover it+ other Pokémon that also threaten ho.
btw I’m voting no ban despite my personal distaste of melm
The big issue with ho and melmetal is that melmetal with its insane coverage,bulk, and attack can pretty easily 1v1 most ho Pokémon while also having the ho team struggle to switch in. The best scenarios for ho usually being switching into a Pokémon that resists and still taking 50 and maybe forcing it out if the melm users needs it healthy. This obviously at a glance looks like a pretty horrible matchup for ho, but ho has many tools to be able to stop melmetal from being as effective as it would look on paper.
Weather
Rain has ferrothorn+zap and generally pokemon melmetal can’t switch into safely. This leads to melmetal struggling to come on without getting pivoted in. If it switches in it either gets pivoted on by barraskewda or just taking a good chunk of damage. Protect Melmetal and assault vest can both be slightly annoying due to protecting away rain turns and being able to check zapdos/other birds.
Hail can run volcanion,rocky helm corviknight or other more uncommon pivots for hail like rocky helmet rotom-wash to help chip melmetal for arctozolt. Hail does have to watch for it being a good check to zolt mainly with protect and it being able to switch in on ninetales effortlessly. Thunder wave pads can be extremely threatening to the majority of hail teams because nothing that wants to switch in can handle well with para+pads. Pads does struggle with hail chipping it down and it taking damage from arctozolt blizzards/bolt heals/low kicks, leading to it having issues staying healthy
Sun is generally a good matchup. Assault vest melmetal can live venusaur and force damage but overall melmetal has little areas to come in without a teammates pivoting and can’t live many strong hits from victini, +2 venusaur (assuming no vest), darmanitan, charizard, and Entei.
saying all these weathers are “hyper offense” is kinda weird but there’s no way sand can even be considered one since they are all balances.
Veil/ Screens
Veil relying on set up sweepers and usually giving melm a free turns/lead with koko/ninetales/ and grimmsnarl while it can also force set up sweepers to trade against it for damage can seem very bad for veil which melmetal usually is but there are some ways these teams have been able to hold off melmetal. Air Balloon flame body rocks physically defensive heatran is one such example. An odd choice for veil teams it patches up many holes like the weakness to weavile/Dd pult/melm/rillaboom/ and add rocks it puts these teams together nicely. It also isn’t passive like other walls forcing chip with magma storm/earth power and toxic. Another option for these teams is Pokémon that can force melm to not want to come in. These include blaziken, volcarona, cm lele, and even more. Basically forcing melm to take a back seat to the game as it can’t really switch into these Pokémon. Even with Pokémon that let melm come in (cloyster/Dd dragapult and more) you can force melm to take damage with one veil abuser so that their team is weakened to another abuser melm would check leading to an end game with that Pokémon once melmetal is weakened by it.
Hazard stack
My favorite type of ho style, it generally use very similar Pokémon as veil so the same applies to chipping melm down with one Pokémon to open up another. This does have other struggles, phys def tran doesn’t fit and veil isn’t around making you take half damage. What you can do is have leads that deal with melm to force it to come into hazard and possibly into a +1/2 Pokémon to force more damage. Will-o wisp mew, Spikes endeavor scolipede, lead offensive rocks sash heatran are some examples. This leads melm to either be crippled, take damage for a revenge kill or switch out and come into rocks/spikes. Melm is a very tough matchup for hazard stacking though but it really isn’t even close to unbearable.
Six offensive pokemon
Kinda hard to describe these teams, but it’s just normally 6 offensive pokemon, one being an offensive rocker, who havegood type synergy and rely on natural bulk+resist. These can struggle with melm usually relying on weakening it, if you have rillaboom and it’s protect melm you are also put in a very hard position assuming the melm players plays well. But these teams can use pivoting into blaziken,volcarona,specs pult and more to weaken it or revenge kill it to try to deal with it. Usually these teams have Pokémon that don’t let melmetal in for free but even then melm can take many of hits coming out of an allies teleport or u turn.
In conclusion while you may read this and conclude correctly that melm is an absurd threat to these teams and makes you use certain Pokémon and makes some Pokémon worse for these teams in the builder, this presence is about as bad as scarf lele/scarf kartana/ urshifu/ dragapult/ weaviletoxapex/ and clefable are for these teams. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about ho being much better if melm is banned and I personally disagree. It’s going to open up options but these above pokemon are still as restricting as ever. Nor do I think melmetal is too restricting for these teams, it’s a threat to these teams but every playstyle should have threats to them, HO even with melmetal has found ways to beat it that aren’t super specific to just melmetal but instead can cover it+ other Pokémon that also threaten ho.
btw I’m voting no ban despite my personal distaste of melm
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