adding on to this
chien-pao not only is able to set up in front of most Grimmsnarls, but also becomes even more unkillable and broken when abusing those screens
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chien-pao not only is able to set up in front of most Grimmsnarls, but also becomes even more unkillable and broken when abusing those screens
It has priority of its own, and it outspeeds everything that isn't Dragapult, who matches up poorly against it (also, Terastallization is a thing, in case you thought you had it dead to rights). Heavy-Duty Boots make hazards a non-factor. And ironically, Chien-Pao loves screens too, because they make it even more broken.
This might actually be an argument if these were not super universal things that Chien-Pao can also take advantage of. Especially priority. The only faster mon in OU is Dragapult, who has a terrible matchup against it.
Pinlup is the best you have awoken me. You have simply repeated arguments, unaware of us already addressing them. Please read posts addressing them.
Again, priority users are afraid to switch into it as they get chunked by crunch. Additionally, Pao has Sucker and Ice shard so uhh good luck.
HDB can be used to prevent stealth rock. Additionally, great tusk is everywhere and it’s spin is incredibly hard to block. Gholdengo and Dragapult both fear it’s knock off, and headlong rush for the former. If you try to switch into a great tusk check, it will use it as spin fodder.
This is a new argument you have brought but it makes no sense at all. Pao is a mon used in screen offense, and if your gonna use screen offense to beat Pao, remember that grimmsnarl is SD fodder as it can’t be statused, taunted or parting shotted. Pao lives a spirit break and can crush your Screens Offense.
my friend and I did a quick run thru of the SPL games this week after noticing chien pao's win% drop from 70% in week 1 to 60% in week 2 to 55% in this most recent week, and we made a few notes. for reference, the W/L represents the Pao user's result.
if u don't wanna watch all of these games we made a summary of what actually occurred, with the number of times it occurred on the left
so, in general, after factoring out hax what we discovered was...
6 - got played linearly and doesn't change the flow of the game at that point
3 - fucked on the opponents team thanks to sd and coverage
3 - got a couple kills or heavy chip on opponents mons didn't change the outcome of the game (Lycan vs Franklin, Star vs Nat, bea vs lunala)
3 - got fucked on by tera or sash
2 - died doing nothing
2 - died in a 1v1 vs another mon after inflicting heavy chip
1 - didn't come out
this summary, i think, accurately shows chien paos place in the meta. its not instantly broken to the point where it completely changes games and oftentimes teams are very well suited in handling it to the point where they wouldn't straight up lose. it did a good job cleaning in these two instances and wouldve in a third once the opponents team got really weakened. the set that people had initially been complaining about (band) and which has been talked about excessively in here alongside a ton of scary calcs failed to decimate in a single SPL game this week and in fact the choicelock proved a limitation in two instances, wouldve in a third if it didnt get haxed. it also had trouble with being locked into attacks from band or got smacked up by well worth teras
as i thought, people are adapting to what chien pao can do and are finding ways to deal with it. the fever pitch that was band pao for a brief but notable moment in the meta has started to fade, so as a result, i believe pao should remain in the tier.
no pao vs no pao (-)
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: block garg fucks up gxes team, neither pao has potential to win thanks to resistances, plentiful sacks and hazards which ultimately benefit BlazingDark since his garg went in beforehand]
no pao vs no pao (-)
no pao vs pao (L) [pao dies to surprise tera]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao comes out at the very end when the game is already over, doesn't absolutely nothing special]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao gets a nice defence drop forcing a kill, pao kills the low hp pult bc it can tank sball, solid this game but u cant call this broken]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: michaelderbeste2 brought mu fish team, pao doesn't do much as game is very linear]
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: pao doesn't really do anything special this game from either side, one dies to sash lead the other gets a surprise crit putting raptor so far ahead to where volc + pult clean up this is hax rather than pao being broken]
no pao vs no pao (-)
no pao vs pao (L) [note: pao kills the lead which is cool i guess but yet again this mon appears far from broken, ima got a bit unlucky vs moon]
pao vs pao (-) [note: lots of paras in The Franklin's favor, his pao is sacked tho his set looks weird, 1TL's pao gets a couple kills but it ultimately doesn't matter as The Franklin just has to play it safe to ensure victory]
pao vs pao (-) [note: chien pao does absolutely nothing this game as Savouras uses it as a sack and TPP never has to send it out thanks to hydromisses]
pao vs pao (-) [note: talahs pao was going to clean but got haxed, that position was thanks to iron moth luring pex otherwise would've much harder for them, pao does very little for fc]
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: pao does nothing impressive for either side each game. dekzeh uses it to kill a sack and rkill the thing that essentially swept his team but had to choicelock into shard meaning anything on robjrs team kills it back he just chose to do it w his pao]
no pao vs pao (L) [note: pao has real potential to be a threat but the choice lock limitation makes it tough in this instance]
no pao vs pao (W) [note: pao cleaned up pretty nicely this game tho opp was also using cryogonal]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao also does a good amount this game]
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: block garg fucks up gxes team, neither pao has potential to win thanks to resistances, plentiful sacks and hazards which ultimately benefit BlazingDark since his garg went in beforehand]
no pao vs no pao (-)
no pao vs pao (L) [pao dies to surprise tera]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao comes out at the very end when the game is already over, doesn't absolutely nothing special]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao gets a nice defence drop forcing a kill, pao kills the low hp pult bc it can tank sball, solid this game but u cant call this broken]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: michaelderbeste2 brought mu fish team, pao doesn't do much as game is very linear]
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: pao doesn't really do anything special this game from either side, one dies to sash lead the other gets a surprise crit putting raptor so far ahead to where volc + pult clean up this is hax rather than pao being broken]
no pao vs no pao (-)
no pao vs pao (L) [note: pao kills the lead which is cool i guess but yet again this mon appears far from broken, ima got a bit unlucky vs moon]
pao vs pao (-) [note: lots of paras in The Franklin's favor, his pao is sacked tho his set looks weird, 1TL's pao gets a couple kills but it ultimately doesn't matter as The Franklin just has to play it safe to ensure victory]
pao vs pao (-) [note: chien pao does absolutely nothing this game as Savouras uses it as a sack and TPP never has to send it out thanks to hydromisses]
pao vs pao (-) [note: talahs pao was going to clean but got haxed, that position was thanks to iron moth luring pex otherwise would've much harder for them, pao does very little for fc]
no pao vs no pao (-)
pao vs pao (-) [note: pao does nothing impressive for either side each game. dekzeh uses it to kill a sack and rkill the thing that essentially swept his team but had to choicelock into shard meaning anything on robjrs team kills it back he just chose to do it w his pao]
no pao vs pao (L) [note: pao has real potential to be a threat but the choice lock limitation makes it tough in this instance]
no pao vs pao (W) [note: pao cleaned up pretty nicely this game tho opp was also using cryogonal]
pao vs no pao (W) [note: pao also does a good amount this game]
4- nothing special due to linearity of game at the point it comes out
3 - surprise killed (tera fire brute bonnet, sash meow, tera fairy iron moth)
2 - sd pao cleans up very nicely
1 - gets 2 kills (defense drop helps)
1 - kills a tusk when it shouldn't have (crits)
1 - kills a lead taking 80 in the process does nothing else
1 - sacked/dies for nothing
1 - pao gets 2 kills but this is because the opponent played as safe as possible to ensure victory
1 - pao gets sacked
1 - pao doesn't come out at all
1 - pao should've won but got unlucky burn
1 - pao kills a sack then rkills a valiant that killed half its team, choicelocks into ice shard and ensures an L
1 - pao gets a rkill that anything could've done
1 - band paos choicelock gives it trouble when having to deal with kingambit + ghosts (pult and skele) + dark resist (tusk) + ice resist (skele)
3 - surprise killed (tera fire brute bonnet, sash meow, tera fairy iron moth)
2 - sd pao cleans up very nicely
1 - gets 2 kills (defense drop helps)
1 - kills a tusk when it shouldn't have (crits)
1 - kills a lead taking 80 in the process does nothing else
1 - sacked/dies for nothing
1 - pao gets 2 kills but this is because the opponent played as safe as possible to ensure victory
1 - pao gets sacked
1 - pao doesn't come out at all
1 - pao should've won but got unlucky burn
1 - pao kills a sack then rkills a valiant that killed half its team, choicelocks into ice shard and ensures an L
1 - pao gets a rkill that anything could've done
1 - band paos choicelock gives it trouble when having to deal with kingambit + ghosts (pult and skele) + dark resist (tusk) + ice resist (skele)
so, in general, after factoring out hax what we discovered was...
6 - got played linearly and doesn't change the flow of the game at that point
3 - fucked on the opponents team thanks to sd and coverage
3 - got a couple kills or heavy chip on opponents mons didn't change the outcome of the game (Lycan vs Franklin, Star vs Nat, bea vs lunala)
3 - got fucked on by tera or sash
2 - died doing nothing
2 - died in a 1v1 vs another mon after inflicting heavy chip
1 - didn't come out
this summary, i think, accurately shows chien paos place in the meta. its not instantly broken to the point where it completely changes games and oftentimes teams are very well suited in handling it to the point where they wouldn't straight up lose. it did a good job cleaning in these two instances and wouldve in a third once the opponents team got really weakened. the set that people had initially been complaining about (band) and which has been talked about excessively in here alongside a ton of scary calcs failed to decimate in a single SPL game this week and in fact the choicelock proved a limitation in two instances, wouldve in a third if it didnt get haxed. it also had trouble with being locked into attacks from band or got smacked up by well worth teras
as i thought, people are adapting to what chien pao can do and are finding ways to deal with it. the fever pitch that was band pao for a brief but notable moment in the meta has started to fade, so as a result, i believe pao should remain in the tier.
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people were adapting to flutter mane too
my adaptation to flutter mane was "click imprison on my own flutter mane and pray i win the booster energy speed tie". if chien-pao got imprison, i'd use the same strategy because that would be better than 99% of the """"""counterplay"""""" people are proposing. as it is, the most reliable answer to pao, offensively, is pao, and even then you have to play mindgames because some paos are now running tera ghost to avoid sacred sword in the pao ditto
Yeah I have yet to find a better strategy than "switch in Scarf Pao and hope they aren't also Scarfed". This thing needs to go.
Defensive Chien-Pao is omega based.
Give me that set
Now
it's a concession is what it is. what it actually says is "i can't think of any argument for this thing staying that's better than 'at least it's not flutter mane'"
snowscape recover pao new meta
(i jest but it probably beats most to all of the regular pao "checks", like every other set besides the two bog-standard ones)
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You say people are "adapting" to Chien-Pao, but Chien-Pao can and will adapt in response. Anyway, how in the seven hells do you adapt to something that:
-Smashes the premier walls in the tier like they were paper cups
-Outspeeds the entire metagame except for one mon, with the one mon that outspeeds it be one that's also got a crappy matchup against it
-Because of the above two, has no reliable answers save for itself
Banish this shit to the shadow realm that is Ubers.
try not to die (Chien-Pao) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 160 HP / 96 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Recover
- Taunt
- Swords Dance
- Crunch
Ability: Sword of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 160 HP / 96 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Recover
- Taunt
- Swords Dance
- Crunch
It's also Outspeed by Electrode and Barraskewda, but both of those Pokemon are incredibly shit by OU standards.
Again, It's outsped by Electrode (even if Electrode is ass).
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To truly understand how broken and restrictive this mon we have to understand its possible switch ins:- (damage is calculated using choice band and tera dark)
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 192-228 (63.1 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 238-280 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Azumarill: 151-178 (37.3 - 44%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 328-386 (75.9 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 252-298 (63.1 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
the only mon currently that can resist all 3 of it's main offensive attacking types ( dark, ice, fighting) in the current meta is azumarill, and it takes 37.3% at max physdef from a banded crunch, and on top of that a hyperdefensive azumarill is extremely useless offensively and for support being, walled by almost every defensive mon there is (toxapex, dondozo, gholdengo and the list goes on). Other defensive mons have atleast one typing that takes super effective damage (Great tusk, Ting-Lu, etc.) and a good read can almost always deal ridiculous damage. With priority moves like ice shard and sucker punch combined with it's crazy good speed tier it can take out almost every offensive mon faster than it.
This is a mon that consistently 2hkos every mon in the meta right now with moves under 85 bp, a pokemon with offensive power rivaling kartana with a better speed tier and a better offensive type and with the added attacking boost of tera. Tera'ing with Chien-Pao is also never a double-edged sword, taking less damage from stealth rock in case one chooses not to run heavy duty boots.
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 192-228 (63.1 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 238-280 (47.2 - 55.5%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Azumarill: 151-178 (37.3 - 44%) -- 100% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 328-386 (75.9 - 89.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 252-298 (63.1 - 74.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
the only mon currently that can resist all 3 of it's main offensive attacking types ( dark, ice, fighting) in the current meta is azumarill, and it takes 37.3% at max physdef from a banded crunch, and on top of that a hyperdefensive azumarill is extremely useless offensively and for support being, walled by almost every defensive mon there is (toxapex, dondozo, gholdengo and the list goes on). Other defensive mons have atleast one typing that takes super effective damage (Great tusk, Ting-Lu, etc.) and a good read can almost always deal ridiculous damage. With priority moves like ice shard and sucker punch combined with it's crazy good speed tier it can take out almost every offensive mon faster than it.
This is a mon that consistently 2hkos every mon in the meta right now with moves under 85 bp, a pokemon with offensive power rivaling kartana with a better speed tier and a better offensive type and with the added attacking boost of tera. Tera'ing with Chien-Pao is also never a double-edged sword, taking less damage from stealth rock in case one chooses not to run heavy duty boots.
You don't even need to use Tera, all of the mons above except for Azu and Dondozo get 2HKOd regardless by Banded Crunch. And god forbid you get a Def drop after Crunch, not even Unaware will be able to do anything about it. So, as everyone else has said already, the only true checks to Pao are either Azumarill or Tauros-P, both of which lack reliable recovery and are average mons at best.
Now I'll wait for the inevitable dude that's gonna reply by saying that you can simply run a defensive core with 2 or 3 mons that check Pao, or you could spam hazards to chip it down, as if Heavy-Duty Boots wasn't a common set that sweeps after a SD.
This logic is pretty strange not gonna lie. Winrate doesn't really necessarily prove whether a mon is broken or not. A winrate going down can often be the result of people over preparing for it. There's also the fact that even the best pokemon in a given meta, as it appears more across more weeks, maintaining that high of a winrate is difficult no matter how good or broken a mon is.
Pao absolutely changes the way games are played from turn 1, because nothing is more threatening from team preview. Any player has to make a plan from turn 1, to try and limit it or deal with it. Not sure what "failed to decimate" means in this context either. You mean failed to 6-0 teams or something similar? Mons don't have to do so. Relying on it being choice locked to be handled, bundled with having multiple resists to it on a team is about the best way on paper to handle it, but then you realize that banded sets can open up those teams with one good predict, a predict that is heavily skewed in terms of risk reward to the Pao player.
As a matter of fact, teams stacking resists to Pao to force that type of predict game just leads to an unhealthy dynamic. Not to mention the continued existence and danger of boots based sets, which can take advantage of those expecting a choice lock. Teams have no choice but to task multiple bulky resists and hope they get the right predict when switching around and this can't really change in the future because of how good band Pao is. By being pigeonholed into these types of builds, it centralizes and greatly restricts team building in a way that simply isn't healthy for the metagame.
So to end, people may "adapt" but it's not in a way that is healthy for the meta long term. Band sets have not ceased to be extremely dangerous, and until Pao is removed from OU, the tier won't be able to breath and develop in a reasonable, healthy way.
This very neatly summarizes what the big issue with this thing is and does a good job at it. Chien-Pao doesn't have reliable answers. The best devensive pivots (And these are just the ones that don't have to take a 50/50 on whether it clicks the STAB they resist or the STAB that OHKOs them!) take too much damage to be defensive pivots. Even if Chien-Pao doesn't win every game it's in, these numbers should concern you. Being able to beat it at all doesn't mean it's a fair fight.
no it most certainly is not the most threatening mon from team preview, that is entirely dependent on the team and the sets, u assuming that it is is why i say shit like "fail to decimate" because u and others in here hype it up so much based on all these scary calcs which didn't materialize in any of the spl games this week. stacking resistances to pao would be unhealthy if the resistances were ass. having to deal with great tusk being on most teams is painful for locking into dark type attacks, kingambit makes both its stabs a nightmare and don't try to click sacred sword with the abundance of ghosts or a pivot like toxapex because getting the play wrong is a massive momentum drain. prediction isn't skewed in favor of the pao player vs these kinds of teams and they're effective when not facing pao so don't act like they're some tauros level garbage
people have been overrating the CB set especially with these scary calcs that made up a sliver of high level games this past week. this theory shit doesn't apply to these games which was the whole point of me going thru all of these replays..
itd be nice to see some new arguments instead of people spamming the same super crunch calcs acting like u need something like tauros when it already has stopped being prevalent in tour games.
Bonus calcs to prove that Pao doesn’t even need Tera to blow past supposed checks (using standard sets from the calc except for Azu)
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 192+ Def Toxapex: 151-178 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 178-210 (35.3 - 41.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Crunch vs. -1 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 267-315 (52.9 - 62.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (defense drop go brr)
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Azumarill: 120-141 (29.7 - 34.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock (if it flinches once it’s good night)
252+ Atk Choice Band Sword of Ruin Chien-Pao Crunch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 189-223 (47.3 - 55.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Ofc these calcs are slightly weaker without rocks, but rocks are almost omnipresent in this meta and you really aren’t finding any fogging attempts against Pao. Spikes make this even nastier.
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Gladly.
Pao in and of itself is restricting from preview. The calcs show how if you get something in that is threatened by Pao, it is very likely to take a kill. Positioning for both players is key, and if Pao gets well positioned it’s likely going to take a kill. While band is immediately scary, SD foregos beating Fairy Dirge and Dozo in favor for beating literally the entire rest of the tier. Playing around it is a headache.
However, the second point would be an old post of mine, here:
It’s evidently competitive (not RNG based), but I’d say it removes more options from building than it adds. I’ll let you look at these questions and ask: “How does Chien-Pao fit into this?”
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wdym dracovish is broken just run seismitoad
I think may rather be missing the point.
Putting aside the fact that these numbers are at all possible for a zero commitment zero setup literally-just-save-your-Tera-for-it loadout, you have to respect it when you see Pao. Unless it doesn't take danage from rocks, you don't know what item it has. However, you also know in the back of your head that the most explosive thing it can do is Tera, then start spamming Banded Crunch. Sure, it might not. You could even say it probably won't. But it can. And that's the problem. If you don't respect the Band nuke, if it does whip it out you're so far on the back foot recovering isn't very possible.
This is what pressure on teambuilding looks like. Pao can do this very easily. Putting the most immediately threatening version of it on your team is easy and effective. If you don't respect it, it will run you over. It's not like it's an uncommon set with a niche use case.
So first you say prediction isn't a favourable playstyle while running Pao, and then you say that people overreact when they consider the CB set, which is literally the most common set right now?
The problem with Pao is precisely the fact that you don't need to predict anything when using it, you just spam Banded Crunch and 2HKO anything that switches in and doesn't resist the hit. Not only that, but the only mons that can switch into a Banded Crunch and live a second turn to threaten Pao back don't have any reliable recovery (Tusk, Azu, Tauros, Kingambit, Ting-Lu), which means that you can't use them as pivots after you scout the move, or quite simply to scout the move in the first place. This also means that they won't be able to keep up with this back and forth for more than 3 or 4 times, before eventually getting chipped to death.
You say that prediction isn't skewed in favor of Pao players, and you're absolutely wrong. Again, you Pao player don't need to predict at all with Crunch, but as soon as the opponent predicts one single turn wrong they're beyond fucked, switching Tusk or Kingambit into either an Ice Spinner or a Sacred Sword will result in them losing their only true answer to that mon, which will then be free to feast on the rest of their team.
Using prediction as an argument in favour of Pao is honestly ridiculous, considering how much it punishes opponents who face Pao, and not those using it.
funny thing is imo the best way to beat chien pao is terastilizing other pokemon
it isn't dependent on tera at all to be a good breaker, a lot of mons however rely on tera against pao to not get instantly murderized by this (pocket) monster
ban this shit!!
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