np: USUM Stage 9 - Ready or Not (Bisharp, Latios and Latiosite banned from UU)

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Hogg

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Zeraora
moved from OU to UU
Bisharp
moved from OU to UU
Latios
moved from OU to UU
Mega Latios
moved from OU to UU
New tier shifts, new np thread! This shift brings along some major changes, with four drops that can all potentially shake UU to its foundations. Bisharp returns after a long sojourn in OU, where it has been since early SM. During its brief time in UU previously it was a top 'mon despite the presence of balancing factors such as Gliscor and Keldeo, With a great offensive typing and an ability that punishes Intimidate and Defog, it has the potential to be a major threat in the current meta. Zeraora is a new addition, a lightning-fast mixed attacker that can threaten offense and balance alike with its excellent coverage and a Speed that outstrips every non-Mega in the tier. And finally, we have Latios (and its Mega). Latias has already proved to be all but impossible to counter in UU; Latios dials that up to 11 with a whopping 20 additional points in Special Attack, though this comes at the cost of some of Latias's defensive utility. Its Mega form is perhaps even scarier, possessing excellent bulk and roughly the same offensive potential as Life Orb Latios. Ready or not, UU, these new threats are here to play.

As is always the case following a tier shift, the council will be testing these drops over the next couple of days. On Sunday, October 7, the council will vote to determine if these four Pokemon should remain UU or get sent up to UUBL. Following this initial vote, the council will also discuss future public suspects. In the meantime, enjoy the post-shift meta, and leave your thoughts on any potential suspects or tiering decisions here!

 
I made a stall team feat. mud slap blissey and flash slowking so that we can all remain calm in these trying times

Slowking @ Leftovers
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Flash
- Slack Off
- Dragon Tail
- Scald

Gligar @ Eviolite
Ability: Immunity
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Roost
- Wing Attack
- Earthquake
- Knock Off

Blissey @ Leftovers
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Wish
- Soft-Boiled
- Mud-Slap

Registeel @ Leftovers
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Toxic
- Seismic Toss
- Protect

Altaria @ Altarianite
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- Heal Bell
- Roost
- Defog
- Return

Moltres @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 248 HP / 44 SpD / 216 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Defog
- Flamethrower
- Substitute
- Roost


btw this is relevant because gligar beats bisharp and zeraora, and slowking beats latios (no guarantees)
 

List of checks:
Status+Fire:

Checks:

Soft-Checks:

Counters:


I do personally believe UU isn't ready for a metagame with Bisharp, while there are a few good responses for it, its typing paired with its ability Defiant make balance teams suffer through the game. Bisharp is an exceptional wallbreaker and a great Defog deterrent, it can easily find a hole and boost with SD or activate its ability in consequence, it will proceed to make some good damage in return with a boosted Knock Off and it might be hard to stop due its priority with Sucker Punch. Pokemon that are currently good like Klefki are absolutely vulnerable and setup fodder, Mega Manectric might struggle providing momentum, running Defog Latias can also be a risk as normally Bisharp can take 1 hit from HP Fire LO variants and will face some awkward 50-50s against CM variants. However, we're still lucky to have Krookodile watching our backs, as we know it can revenge kill Bisharp with either Superpower or Earthquake although the safest option is Superpower due Shuca variants; in the other hand we have Togekiss as a soft-check which, despite Zeraora being around, I think it'll remain good thanks to its decent movepool while Tentacruel can stop it from boosting with SD. The issue here is the aforementioned Pokemon cannot switch in safely it requires to some mind games in order to predict BIsharp and not being KO'd instead. So now let's think about counters, we have Infernape, Cobalion, perhaps Hippowdon (i think it works as a counter i'm not 100% sure though) and M-Steelix, yeah probably I am missing more than 1. That said, Bisharp will give some headaches and I haven't mentioned its stats yet but I think for UU standards its Speed is somewhat ok I mean it's enough to deal with passive teams. Bisharp can take advantage from hazard stacking cores (which are very popular), let's not forget there are so many item options for this mon like Lum/Shuca Berry, Dread Plate, Assault Vest, Focus Sash etc. checking most of them is a real challenge. Once again, this is just my personal opinion maybe I'm worrying too much, I just found this Pokemon very dangerous for a metagame where balance is (probably it's not anymore due the tier shifts) the dominant playstyle.

I'm convinced (and hopefully) Zeraora, Latios and Mega Latios will get banned from UU so I didn't bother talking about these. This is the only Pokemon that I'd consider suspect test-worthy.

edit- Had to edit this post a bit cuz I said a few things contradicting myself ty everyone who pointed out my mistake o/
 
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Moutemoute

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A rare footage of me reacting to this new shifts !

Zeraora
I've been testing quite a lot Zeraora on the ladder and I have to admit that it's pretty underrated imo. Its Movepool is insanely vast which allows it to basically choose its checks. You want to deal with fairies and things like Altaria-Mega ? Then run Work Up / Hone Claws + Iron Tail. You want to break through Amoonguss ? Choice Band Fire Punch or Z-Bounce are right there for you.
Unfortunately, Zeraora has a terrible 4 MSS which means it can not beat whatever it wants and it need to choose between a ton of fillers. I've been using some strange set like AV (which is surprisingly nice), AoA Electrium Z, Work Up + 3 Atk.
To conclude I do not think that Zeraora is too much for the tier. It's definitively a great Pokemon that can deal with some major threats like Manectric-Mega while also being a pain for some Stall but it's 4 MSS is a pain in the ass.


Bisharp
OMG, finnaly, our second Iron Man is back in the tier !
I was waiting for Bisharp for a while and I'm definitively not disappointed. It's typing is as good as before (maybe even better now that things like Keldeo, Conkeldurr or Gliscor or not anymore in UU) and it's probably one of the best Pokemon to spam Knock Off. SD is incredible but I've seen some AoA with (Z-)Low Kick and even HO with Stealth Rock + 3 Attacks. Defiant is insane considering how Empoleon and Defog in general is common in the tier. Finnaly, Sucker Punch is the cherry on top and allows it to clean some game while compensating its mediocre speed.


Latios
I personnaly think that regular Latios is better than Latios-Mega.
The fact that Latios can hold an item its a huge buff and CM + Z-Move allow Latios to be an incredible Wallbreaker. Able to nuke a huge part of the metagame on its own. Its +20 SpA compared to Latias are really, really, really good. Thanks to it, Latios is able to 2HKO Blissey without LO after 1 Calm Mind with Psyshock and Stealth Rocks. Even if I love this Pokemon I trully don't know if the Underused is ready to deal with a stronger Latias considering this last one is already S Rank.


Latios-Mega
What is supposed to be stronger than a regular Latios ? A Latios-Mega of course ! This thing is deadly for sure but I feel like it's not as much threatening as Latios. I've been testing Bulky Latios-Mega (248 HP / 8 Def / 252 Spe) with CM / Recover and Bolt-Beam and Recover + 3 Attacks. I have to admit it's damn good and it hits like a freaking truck (Latios-Mega without any EV in SpA hits harder than Latias with 252 SpA LMAO) but I don't know, I do not feel it's overwhelming..


tl:dr : Great shifts overall with amazing new Pokemon, I've been really enjoying those shifts and I can't wait to see how the metagame gonna change.
 

skvettleif

Banned deucer.
I havent made up my mind on bisharp yet, but im leaning towards it being unhealthy. Im currently using offense (like I usually am) and I have two "checks" to bisharp on my team in infernape and crawdaunt. The problem is that bisharp is so damn strong, that it just ohkoes both ape and daunt at +2 after two stealth rocks switch ins. It differs from scizor because dark is such a nasty offensive typing compared to steel. Also swithing into stab Knock off is just a total bitch, and when playing offense u have to hard into knock all the time in fear of them setting up and potentially sweeping your ass at +4

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Infernape: 209-246 (71.3 - 83.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Iron Head vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Crawdaunt: 207-244 (77.5 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Ive only been using two teams so far tho. And my other one with vacuum wave lucario and shark mostly did just fine. And if youre using cobalion the opponents bisharp turns into a liabilty unless theyre packing low kick.

edit: Mlatios is too strong and too hard to kill. Latios im not sure about yet. Zeraora so far is balanced imo:)
 
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Pokemon that are currently good like Klefki are absolutely vulnerable (and setup fodder) to this threat which means that Klefki's usage can be extremely reduced
If anything, Klefki usage should go up as Spikestack teams got a pretty nifty buff with a Defiant user in Bisharp itself. You said it yourself:

Bisharp can take advantage from hazard stacking cores (which are very popular)
Mane + Bisharp + Klefki + Fighting-type is a frightning strategy to go against now since Bisharp can both threaten defog and psychic types/most fairies that try to come in on your fighting-type breaker like Terrak or Nape.
Overall, Bisharp is immensely threatening to the meta, idk if its broken but I can see Coba and Slack Off Nape getting more traction.

Latios and Mega Latios are very very strong but I'm unsure as them being too strong. I don't think Latios is unhealthy for the metagame as of now, whereas I'm on the fence about Mega Lati.
 
I'm not the biggest UU player, but I'm gonna leave my thoughts on these four guys:

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zera.png
:

Zeraora is an interesting addition to the tier, it brings some good offensive presence with an excellent coverage and an amazing speedtier, its offensives stats are far from incredible but definitly great, even more when coupled with a Life Orb. It's coverage might be actually too great, from S to A- rank, there is only one "counter", which is Altaria but loses to some Iron Tail variants, from B+ to B-, there is only one counter, Chesnaught, but is not too splashable right now due to Latios and its Mega form being everywhere. Of course there are good checks, M-Lix, M-Aggron, Rotom-H, Kommo-o, Scarf Krookodile, Gligar and Nidoqueen, but I could see it staying because of a shit 4MSS and the lack of raw power. (edited cuz i didn't c/c the good text i'm so dumb)

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bish.png
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Bisharp is back, and it's definitly a nice addition to the UU tier, I used it in 8 or 9 games today, but I already have something to say about it, Bisharp is a top-tier threat but is far from broken, it's really hard to handle when it setup an SD, but it can be easily revenge killed by fighting-types which are already dominant in the meta, Terrakion, Infernape, Cobalion (which is also a counter), Kommo-o, Heracross, Mienshao, Toxicroak, Lucario etc... In terms of defensive awnsers, there is M-Aggron, M-Lix, , Cobalion, Hippowdon, Chesnaught, Bewear, the two Unawares water, and that's pretty much all, I've seen Low Kick variants to punish some Cobalion, M-Lix and Bewear switch-ins, but it loses SD, so it's cleaning potential is reduced a lot, I personally don't think it's broken by any means, but easily one of the best mons on the tier.

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tios.png
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What if you take one of the top 3 mons of UU, make its offensive presence better ? That's right, it does Latios, and it's easily one of the most threatening mon out there, it does the same shit as Latias but better, CM + Z-Move Latias ? It's now Latios' property. Specs is imo, the best set that Latios can run, like wth there is no switch-in to this beast, Specs Draco does around 50% to bulky Scizor, which forces it to Roost, so you can switch freely into another threat. There is no actual counter to Latios, it doesn't shift the meta like Zeraora or Bisharp does, but idk, I think giving Latios some time in UU then suspect it after might be a better idea just to see how the meta evolves, but I'll totally understand if it gets quickbanned.

(edit: tested specs a little more, fucking ban this thing)

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mtios.png
:

What if you take an already incredible mon and make it bulkier ? Mega-Latios. Calm Mind + BoltBeam with Roost is actually so hard to deal with and might be it's best set, it can break defensives cores so easily, and thanks to that additional bulk, it's actually so hard to revenge kill, Scarf Krook ? M-Tios takes ~50% from Knock Off and Ice Beam the shit out of it, Bisharp is your check ? Ok, just get predicted once and it's now dead. Draco from Scarf Hydreigon or Scarf Lati ? Ok it can just Roost off the damages. The only good revenge kill is actually Beedrill and is not the biggest thing to get rid off, it's the typical low-risk, high-reward mon and I personally think it's too overwhelming for the UU tier and should be banned.
 
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Perish Song

flaunt
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My thoughts on Latios are written here , I'd like to make some additions to that and explain once again why Latios doesnt belong in UU.

1) As it can shut down most of hazard removal pokemons on its own, its encouraging hazard stacking.
Mega Latios and Z Elec Latios can effectively beat every hazard removal in the tier in a 1 v 1 situation. As I experimented it in the ladder, most common pokemon that were paired with Latios were Klefki and Bisharp. Bisharp switches in defoggers to pressure the removers even more. That makes hazard removing nearly impossible, thus putting balance and stall teams in a very difficult position.

2) It has no real switch-ins.
Given correct set and item, Latios can 2 hit KO every pokemon in the tier, has no real switchins and can be only checked offensively. That is NOT OKAY. It also has a very big move pool that lets it deal with its offensive checks. ( Anyone tried sub/colbur latios yet?)

3) Amount of sets Latios can use is way too much
As stated above, it has a big move pool and can fulfill lots of roles for teams. Predicting what set its using is too much pressure as you mostly lose 1-2 pokemons before you figure out its set and its getting quite restrictive to teambuilding to factor every set its capable of using. It also has sets that can beat its checks on switchins. ( Has Surf for Megalix , +1 draco kills Bisharp and Krook )

4) Cores it can create are hard to manage
Latios doesnt have U turn or Volt switch, but it appreciates the teammates that can give Latios free switchins everytime to nuke something. I mentioned above that Latios has no real switchins in the tier. That being said, pairing it with a VoltTurn core just gives it free switchins it needs to nuke stuff. Also, since its checks are very limited, it can be paired with a pokemon that can eliminate those checks early in the game and perform a sweep. As I stated above, hazard stack teams are also good possibilities.

After more testing my initial thoughts on Latios didnt change, moreover I am now 100% convinced that it needs to get banned asap.

Edit : There's a good amount of people thinking Latios is balanced because they can kill opposing Mega Latios with Bisharp. Not the same thing guys, not the same.
 
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I do personally believe UU isn't ready for a metagame with Bisharp, while there are a few good responses for it, its typing paired with its ability Defiant make balance teams suffer through the game. Bisharp is an exceptional wallbreaker and a great Defog deterrent, it can easily find a hole and boost with SD or activate its ability in consequence, it will proceed to make some good damage in return with a boosted Knock Off and it might be hard to stop due its priority with Sucker Punch. Pokemon that are currently good like Klefki are absolutely vulnerable (and setup fodder) to this threat which means that Klefki's usage can be extremely reduced,
Lol, how bad? Bisharp & Klefki have complementary usage. In the first place, Bisharp's role is an <anti-defog> mon. So, what can pair well with it? (hint: the answer rhymes with 'yikes'). There also aren't that many great spikers in the tier. Come on now, I don't even play UU but, I at least know that much... ><

also, formatting where? ctrl+f 'paragraphs' .. smh. GP: 0/2

nice try tho. +1 for effort.
 
Latios needs to go. It does everything Latias does but more power (+1 Psyshock, like on Z-Thunder, can 2HKO Blissey without hazards), dialing up the best Pokemon in the tier to 11. Meanwhile, Mega Latios is also on its own broken, again employing Mega Latias' sets but even more difficult to wall, and adding in mixed offenses capable of beating a number of Latias' checks.

Bisharp is very, very good. I think it will probably stay, but will actually and literally mandate a Sucker Punch resist on Offense (or you can be a crazy person like me and run Sub and Earthquake on Mega Latios. It's got exactly one Bisharp kill) or it can sweep almost at will. That being said, there are enough answers (resists and otherwise) that I think Bisharp is merely a top 5 Pokemon.

I'll post thoughts on Zeraora later.
 
Hey, so now that I played the meta a ton, I would like to give some of my thoughts on the metagame at the moment.

Zeraora
- I think this thing is a little overhyped IMO. Its no doubt a good pokemon, but its kinda weak, relys way to heavily on predictions(needs super effective hits to 2hko a lot of things), and has a hard core 4 mss. Not to mention its kinda frail (also mega man is a good check). I think basically what itll end up doing is becoming an offesive alternative to mega Man. For example, Joeys sash spam team (here) would probably better off having a Zeraora now and freeing up a mega slot for something else. So yeah, its good, but not as amazing as I thought it would be


Bisharp-
HO in UU was already good, but it is really amazing now. Just look at the defoggers in the tier.
Defog (Offensive):



Defog (Defensive):


Very few of them can deal with a Plus 2 Bish. this puts HO on another level and as long as it is in the tier (it honestly definitely should be.), On top of that, its good defensive typing allows it set up on a lot of threats. So yeah, I really love using this thing and its going to be a staple in the meta for offensive teams.

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Latios is just amazing. Draco is a nuke and it has all the coverage it could ask for except a powerful fire move. It has great special attack and specs does not have a switch in. Pair that with 110 speed and we have a mon that is a better offensice version of latias. The only issue Ive seen with latias is that its a little too weak and cant really power through stall. latios doesnt have that problem and its just insane in the tier rn.



- As crazy as this sounds, I really think M latios is a little underwhelming(compared to latios). The only instance where I would justify using this over regular latios if I was the Max HP set. being able to deal with krook better is nice, but its just not as powerful as one might excpect. Obviously, it is still great, but not as good as I think people thought it would be. Latios doesnt need to run Eq for coverage in UU IMO so the extra attack is unnecessary and LO/specs hits harder than this thing anyway.

Also I would like to talk about 2 mons that have gotten better as a result of the drops
213.png
- Shucks got a great new partner in Bish. Bish loves the web support and Bish can deter the defog and even boost if predicted right. Bish opens up more possibilities in the HO department. And since there there is only one viable magic bouncer (M absol) it easy to see that this got better. which leads me to my next point
pasted image 0.png
- this thing got better for a couple reasons. First it can beat all the new additions except zeraora (needs to be at half to take out tho). It can pursuit trap Lati@s and also stop the surge of HO teams in UU. It taking up a mega slot might be too much, but I think this thing def got a lot better with the new drop
 
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Posted some of my thoughts in the meta discussion thread but I'll post some more of them here since I've played around with some other teams featuring or beating these since then:

Mega Latios:

This functions very differently from regular Latios and should be immediately compared to Mega Latias (minus some bulk but with a better offensive presence to make up for it) instead. This alone makes it extremely questionable by UU standards, and that doesn't even factor in its ability to run effective mixed sets should it need to. This thing has a lot of versatility and it's on something that already has a tremendous amount of versatility and I firmly believe this thing should be quickbanned ASAP as it has no place in UU.

Latios:

I don't think I want to see this quickbanned, but it doesn't take more than a single game to realize why this thing is a top-tier threat that absolutely warrants a public suspect test: everything Latias does offensively is done even better by Latios, and that's terrifying. Latios scores OHKOs and 2HKOs (frequently with only a little chip) that Latias can only dream of, such as a 55% chance to 2HKO Blissey with Life Orb Psyshock after Stealth Rock, the ability to easily 2HKO Alolan Muk on the switch with +1 Gigavolt Havoc into Draco Meteor, the ability to always OHKO Mega Aggron at +2 after Stealth Rock and to frequently OHKO it after only a little (about 20%) chip, etc. While Healing Wish is great, Memento is also great as it gives Latios yet another option on Hyper Offense teams. In addition, it and Latias have near-perfect synergy with Bisharp, which is another new addition that is very welcome here. It's definitely extremely powerful but I think we should give it a chance.

And yes, in my opinion CM Electrium Z is better than Specs. Specs isn't bad, but Electrium shreds everything.

Bisharp:

I've seen a lot of people here say it's unhealthy, but I quite frankly don't see it. The tier has no shortage of checks to Bisharp on both the offensive and defensive ends of the spectrum, although Bisharp does have the movepool to work around this as one sees fit. It's an extremely welcome addition to the typical Spikestack core of Mega Sharpedo+Klefki+Mamoswine, but it also doubles down on several weaknesses in providing that anti-Defog utility. It seems incredibly good, but not as blatantly broken as Mega Latios and not as terrifying of an upgrade over a top-tier threat as Latios. Cobalion, Infernape, Lucario, and Terrakion are all pretty prominent right now and they can all deal with it handily; alternatively, bulkier teams can still pressure it with Unaware Quagsire, Mega Steelix, Defog Moltres, etc.

Make no mistake: Bisharp is gonna have considerable influence over the tier. But it's most certainly not unhealthy. It should absolutely remain here since it's a very welcome addition to offensively-oriented teams that adds something new to them instead of cranking up a staple's power even further.

Zeraora:

Great speed tier and an incredible movepool are two great things Zeraora has going for it. It can pick and choose what counters it and it has a pretty good niche as a stallbreaker since it hits almost everything on those archetypes for brutal damage, or can alternatively treat some Stall staples as setup fodder for a Bulk Up or Work Up variant. It's the "worst" of the four drops, in my opinion, but I still firmly believe it'll have an impact as a solid A or A+ threat.

EDIT: Zeraora's pretty nuts. I hate playing around this thing since Bulk Up is a horrifically powerful wincon against Stall unless you're running Quag or Mega Aggron and even without Bulk Up this thing still hits like an absolute nuke and Quagsire still folds to Grass Knot with no trouble whatsoever. May wanna consider suspecting this although I really do want to give it a chance.
 
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Thoughts on running both the latis together? Latios could help weaken latias checks with the right set.
 

ehT

:dog:
is a Contributor Alumnus
Dragmag is super solid in this meta, but I think Latios + Hydreigon is a way more effective double Dragon core. Hydreigon does a really good job harassing Steels while Latios forces out Fighters and can beat down Fairies with Specs / CM Psyshock. Double Lati can wear down with offensive redundancy but it's still easier to overwhelm with Steels etc even if you run Dragmag.
 

Hogg

grubbing in the ashes
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The votes are in! HT and McMeghan asked to sit out of this vote, so Adaam and aim filled in as council members for this go-round. The results of the vote are as follows:

Screenshot 2018-10-07 at 8.41.35 PM.png


By unanimous council vote, Latios and Latiosite have both been banned from UU. The sheer offensive power of Latios was simply too much for the tier. Boasting a significantly better Special Attack than the already-threatening Latias, Latios was able to provide an unreasonable amount of pressure, especially once Z-crystals came into play, leaving it all but impossible to properly check and counter. The sheer power of its Z-Draco Meteor was enough to power through almost any non-Fairy, even breaking relatively bulky resists like Scizor, and with the ability to effectively hit from both sides of the spectrum thanks to Psyshock and the freedom to run a variety of moves, the council felt it was simply too much for the tier. Mega Latios lacked some of the immediate firepower of the Z-crystal versions, but traded that in for significantly improved bulk: an uninvested Mega Latios boasted the same Special Attack as regular Latios, and that firepower combined with excellent Speed and 80/100/120 defenses left it every bit as deadly as its non-Mega counterpart.

Another unanimous decision was to keep Zeraora UU. On paper Zeraora is incredibly threatening: a Speed to die for, above-average mixed attacking stats and an impressively deep offensive movepool will ensure that it will threaten both offensive and bulky teams. However, after testing, the council felt it was not as overwhelming as the other new drops and deserved more exploration within the tier.

And finally, after three unanimous decisions, we come to Bisharp. The council was quite split on this matter, eventually voting 6-5 to ban Bisharp from UU. Bisharp is incredibly deadly, possessing a strong offensive typing (including STAB Knock Off), access to Swords Dance and the strongest priority in the tier. It also has a great deal of utility, with a useful defensive typing, an ability that punishes the ever-present Defog, STAB Pursuit and utility moves such as Stealth Rock. While it was previously in UU, the tier at the time possessed two excellent checks in Keldeo and Gliscor; with those two gone, many members of the council felt Bisharp was simply too much for the current meta. However, others believed it deserved a closer look, and several expressed the opinion that it had the potential to positively impact the tier thanks to its excellent offensive utility.

So, to summarize, Bisharp, Latios and Latiosite have been banned from UU. Zeraora will remain UU. The Immortal, please implement this change when possible.

In addition, due to the closeness of the vote, we will be holding a public suspect of Bisharp in the near future to determine if it can return to UU. Expect more details of this over the coming week.

 

ehT

:dog:
is a Contributor Alumnus
nice and double post

Well I gotta say nothing about this vote was particularly surprising save for maybe Bisharp. I missed clicking Specs Draco but Latios was way too strong, and Mega Latios's added bulk and flexible coverage + setup options made it way too powerful and unpredictable as an offensive glue.

Zeraora is fine? albeit really annoying for our current balance cores to handle since it punishes virtually every Electric check. I've been getting the most mileage out of this set, which gives you the power to beat up fat cores (most notably 2HKOes Hippo and Blissey), without having to worry about longevity to give you some leeway clicking attacks long-term. This is the most consistent Zera set in my experience, since it doesn't kill itself like LO sets and it's not reliant on taking any crucial hits to set up and break all in one sitting like with Bulk Up Z sets. I definitely see merit in Bulk Up / Work Up sets, though, and people have yet to explore other options like Shuca Berry or Mago Berry. Interested to see how this balance-centric meta will learn to play around it.

Bisharp is the most intriguing ban. While I don't think its presence would be the worst thing ever, I do think giving us the breathing room of a suspect test was the right call. IMO what the Bisharp + Latios core gave to hyper offense made the meta way too volatile to explore anything beyond Spike stack HO. And that's fun and all, but introducing it in a more controlled environment following the removal of the more flagrantly broken things I think will really help us gauge how much better it's gotten since Keldeo left us.

Good stuff council

free keld
 
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Hyper offense became an absurdly powerful archetype overnight. Latios + Bisharp were both additions that made the archetype abeit over the top. I used a Sharpedo spikes team with Latios and Bisharp and it was quite deadly, honestly. Latios and Bisharp together put so much pressure on every hazard remover in the tier that careful play made it impossible for any defensive team to get things done. Latios in particular was very very oppressive in my experience. There were so many situations where I told myself "Latias wouldn't get away with this." When I was using Latios. Sometimes I would win games just by hitting raw, unboosted Z on something I needed to take out, something Latias would get punished for with it's lower SpA. I personally think Bisharp alone might be just fine, but that's something we'll find out during the suspect. It would certainly be a massive boost to more offensive archetypes that have been absent for most of the past month's meta. Azelf 5 goons HO, Webs, Veil, and as we've seen in the meta with Latios, spikestack may even have potential in the coming meta if Bisharp gets unbanned. It won't be as powerful without Latios, but still a force to be reckoned with. I think Latios and it's Mega deserved the ban, and that Bisharp and Zera were worth testing. I'm excited to see how the Bisharp suspect goes, I think it'll be just as close as the council vote! And I can't wait to see what our creative UU players do with the new Zeraora. It has so many viable moves that it's biggest flaw is 4MSS, but I think someone crafty may be able to piece together a definitive set or two for it. I'm personally biased to a mixed attacker pivot, kinda like the one eht posted. I think it could be a scary force on the omnipresent voltturn, especially when paired with a pivoting mega since Manectric wouldn't need to command a mega slot in this scenario.
Here's my 5 cents on the new drops and the bans!
 
Z moves have almost completely invalidated any attempt to create a fat build. I don't even know why people attempt to run stall anymore given how lacking our defensive options are. The stall team I made hangs on by a thread trying to counter the most it can and still loses to so many things, I highly doubt you could create a stall that doesnt get destroyed by like 25% of the VR in this meta. Balance has been good recently only because there's so much shit to check that people are too scared to run pure offense and lose to something.

Bisharp is especially bad because it beats almost every single defogger aside from Moltres (barely) and Gligar so a spikes stack core is way too strong. There aren't even any defoggers in the lower tiers to borrow for this. To make matters even worse, it sets up on Klefki, so you can't even get your own spikes up to have a spikes vs. spikes matchup. Then there's the absurd amount of damage it does after an SD, just look at this:

  1. +2 252+ Atk Dread Plate Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 195-230 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after 3 layers of Spikes
  2. +2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 172-203 (61.2 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes

That makes its priority stronger than Scizor's bullet punch, a move we already changed the whole meta to adjust to. So after 3 spikes you almost beat the entire metagame, and your opponent certainly isn't getting rid of those spikes as we've established. We haven't even looked at other sets, such as scarf which can surprise OHKO moltres, and darkinium which almost kills Aggron after spikes. Yet another reason why Z moves are an absolute cancer to every meta.

A lot of stuff actually does check it reasonably well, but then those things are getting knocked off or coming in on spikes every time. Hydreigon, Infernape, and Cobalion come to mind, and people who have ever played against offense know how hard it is to check something when they can just troll you with spikes. Most of these checks allow common pokemon to set up on them anyway, Altaria for example, allowing you to sacrifice Bisharp and just win. I presume a team using Infernape will not have an Altaria counter so readily available, and if they do it probably gets killed after spikes.

Lastly, there's the mindgames, which force almost every game into random chance. Is he clicking pursuit? Is he going to iron head or knock off? Will he SD on my protect? Is he going to keep sucker punching or eventually use knock off? These situations speak for themselves when it comes to how annoying they are, and most times when using or facing a Bisharp you will win or lose a game as a result of a 50-50.

So that's my take. The hilarious thing is that Bisharp almost brings every shitty thing about pokemon to the table. 50-50s, Z-moves, knock off, dark types in general, hazard spam, all of the borderline broken stuff that no one wants to have a conversation about coming together around one pokemon and making the meta even worse.
 
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Z moves have almost completely invalidated any attempt to create a fat build. I don't even know why people attempt to run stall anymore given how lacking our defensive options are. The stall team I made hangs on by a thread trying to counter the most it can and still loses to so many things, I highly doubt you could create a stall that doesnt get destroyed by like 25% of the VR in this meta. Balance has been good recently only because there's so much shit to check that people are too scared to run pure offense and lose to something.

Bisharp is especially bad because it beats almost every single defogger aside from Moltres (barely) and Gligar so a spikes stack core is way too strong. There aren't even any defoggers in the lower tiers to borrow for this. To make matters even worse, it sets up on Klefki, so you can't even get your own spikes up to have a spikes vs. spikes matchup. Then there's the absurd amount of damage it does after an SD, just look at this:

  1. +2 252+ Atk Dread Plate Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 195-230 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after 3 layers of Spikes
  2. +2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 172-203 (61.2 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes

That makes its priority stronger than Scizor's bullet punch, a move we already changed the whole meta to adjust to. So after 3 spikes you almost beat the entire metagame, and your opponent certainly isn't getting rid of those spikes as we've established. We haven't even looked at other sets, such as scarf which can surprise OHKO moltres, and darkinium which almost kills Aggron after spikes. Yet another reason why Z moves are an absolute cancer to every meta.

A lot of stuff actually does check it reasonably well, but then those things are getting knocked off or coming in on spikes every time. Hydreigon, Infernape, and Cobalion come to mind, and people who have ever played against offense know how hard it is to check something when they can just troll you with spikes. Most of these checks allow common pokemon to set up on them anyway, Altaria for example, allowing you to sacrifice Bisharp and just win. I presume a team using Infernape will not have an Altaria counter so readily available, and if they do it probably gets killed after spikes.

Lastly, there's the mindgames, which force almost every game into random chance. Is he clicking pursuit? Is he going to iron head or knock off? Will he SD on my protect? Is he going to keep sucker punching or eventually use knock off? These situations speak for themselves when it comes to how annoying they are, and most times when using or facing a Bisharp you will win or lose a game as a result of a 50-50.

So that's my take. The hilarious thing is that Bisharp almost brings every shitty thing about pokemon to the table. 50-50s, Z-moves, knock off, dark types in general, hazard spam, all of the borderline broken stuff that no one wants to have a conversation about coming together around one pokemon and making the meta even worse.
Stall has been one of the best, most consistent teambuilds in the S/M UU meta for the longest time, seemingly able to adapt to just about any trend. If it can adapt to breaking monsters like Terrakion and Chandelure, it's hard to believe that "25% of the VR" can destroy a well-built stall When a good stall could handle most of the VR with ease (I mean, that's pretty much what stall is designed to do.) And making a blanket statement as wide as "Z-moves have invalidated fat builds" When Stall has been consistent in the face of so many Z-move users in the past makes me think you're not looking at stall from all the right angles.

And while Bisharp is a powerful mon, I think you're over-glorifying it's power. There's many hazard removers that can handle Bisharp with careful play. And a lot of hazard removers in our arsenal have counterplay to Bish. Offense was only as powerful as it was in the brief stinge it had because it also had Latios, which honestly pressures even more hazard removal than Bish does, and Bish likely wouldn't be as powerful without Latios in conjunction with it. Against a good player, harding in your bish willy nilly to every defogger is just going to get your Bish killed since a lot of them run fire moves, hit it hard in general, or can status it. And many defoggers have the tools in their arsenal to beat even a well-played Bish. Also, are we not going to ignore the fact that your calc exemplifying Bisharp's power is literally using the frailest mega in the entire tier? I'd sooner calc something like Cobalion or Hydreigon before passing judgement on the power of a sucker punch user.

Its fair if you think Bisharp is banworthy, but at least do better to exemplify why beyond making blanket statements like "Stall is invalidated" and "Bisharp beats all defoggers" and calcing Bisharp against a mon with the defenses of a wet paper bag.
 
Let's go over some of your points:

Stall has been one of the best, most consistent teambuilds in the S/M UU meta for the longest time
Citation needed dude. Just checked every single snake replay and only two of them used hard stall, and they lost terribly. Anecdotally, haven't seen a successful stall on the ladder in a good while. Also recently saw a kind of old pokeisfun RMT that lost to every stallbreaker under the sun, and haven't seen a stall RMT since. Not sure why you think stall is the best and most consistent build. The only thing consistent about it is how much it loses and how few people want to use it. My point was more about bisharp than stall anyway.

And while Bisharp is a powerful mon, I think you're over-glorifying it's power. There's many hazard removers that can handle Bisharp with careful play. And a lot of hazard removers in our arsenal have counterplay to Bish. Offense was only as powerful as it was in the brief stinge it had because it also had Latios, which honestly pressures even more hazard removal than Bish does, and Bish likely wouldn't be as powerful without Latios in conjunction with it. Against a good player, harding in your bish willy nilly to every defogger is just going to get your Bish killed since a lot of them run fire moves, hit it hard in general, or can status it. And many defoggers have the tools in their arsenal to beat even a well-played Bish.
You haven't considered that a lot of these defoggers are now not able to use the move as freely as before. They have to choose between killing a bisharp or letting the rest of their team get chewed up by hazards.

Latios is one of many offensive boosters capable of pressuring defoggers. There isn't even anything particular to it that makes it especially hard for defoggers to deal with, aside from raw strength, which is not unique to Latios. The two worked incredibly well together but latios wasn't what made a core like that possible, it was bisharp's ability to pursuit things and generally keep hazards up. I don't doubt latios spikes would have been successful without bisharp, but you can't argue latios made it broken without considering bisharp making it broken too.

Also, are we not going to ignore the fact that your calc exemplifying Bisharp's power is literally using the frailest mega in the entire tier? I'd sooner calc something like Cobalion or Hydreigon before passing judgement on the power of a sucker punch user.

Its fair if you think Bisharp is banworthy, but at least do better to exemplify why beyond making blanket statements like "Stall is invalidated" and "Bisharp beats all defoggers" and calcing Bisharp against a mon with the defenses of a wet paper bag.
If you look hard enough you'll find I never said Bisharp beats all defoggers. Even if it doesn't, the enourmous amount of pressure it puts on them is unparalleled by any pokemon currently in the tier.

The calc was to show that it is stronger than scizor, that's why I picked a pretty random pokemon. 70/70 defenses are not even wet paper bag defenses, they're thick dry towel defenses at worst.

Also you ignored so many of other points just so you could make a post to rip on me. Not cool dude. If you don't agree with me at least be objective about it.
 
Let's go over some of your points:



Citation needed dude. Just checked every single snake replay and only two of them used hard stall, and they lost terribly. Anecdotally, haven't seen a successful stall on the ladder in a good while. Also recently saw a kind of old pokeisfun RMT that lost to every stallbreaker under the sun, and haven't seen a stall RMT since. Not sure why you think stall is the best and most consistent build. The only thing consistent about it is how much it loses and how few people want to use it. My point was more about bisharp than stall anyway.



You haven't considered that a lot of these defoggers are now not able to use the move as freely as before. They have to choose between killing a bisharp or letting the rest of their team get chewed up by hazards.

Latios is one of many offensive boosters capable of pressuring defoggers. There isn't even anything particular to it that makes it especially hard for defoggers to deal with, aside from raw strength, which is not unique to Latios. The two worked incredibly well together but latios wasn't what made a core like that possible, it was bisharp's ability to pursuit things and generally keep hazards up. I don't doubt latios spikes would have been successful without bisharp, but you can't argue latios made it broken without considering bisharp making it broken too.



If you look hard enough you'll find I never said Bisharp beats all defoggers. Even if it doesn't, the enourmous amount of pressure it puts on them is unparalleled by any pokemon currently in the tier.

The calc was to show that it is stronger than scizor, that's why I picked a pretty random pokemon. 70/70 defenses are not even wet paper bag defenses, they're thick dry towel defenses at worst.

Also you ignored so many of other points just so you could make a post to rip on me. Not cool dude. If you don't agree with me at least be objective about it.
The points that I didn't highlight weren't necessarily points I disagreed with. If I completely disagreed with your post and wanted to rip on it like you're saying I would, I would have tried harder. I simply wanted to highlight some points I disagreed with and spark discussion. Anywho, I never said stall was the most consistent build, I said it was one of the most consistent ones. I'd even argue there's been more consistent teambuilds across SM UU's lifespan, but stall has always been there. And while it's not doing so hot in snake, it's still definitely a workable teambuild.

Bisharp is especially bad because it beats almost every single defogger aside from Moltres (barely) and Gligar so a spikes stack core is way too strong.
Alright, so you said that it doesn't beat Moltres and Gligar. I might have exaggerated by saying that you said it beats every defogger, and I apologize for such an exaggeration. But its still a pretty wide blanket statement to make when most defoggers have a method of pressuring it.

And while Bisharp definitely puts pressure on hazard removers, that's it's niche as a mon. A Rotom being forced to click overheat on a Bisharp is no different than a Tsareena being forced to click knock off on a Chandelure. Defiant is very comparable to a spinblocker in this regard.

Also, what made Latios so different from a lot of Breakers that normally pressure defoggers is that it it directly answered a lot of the defoggers not as bothered by Bisharp's presence. Namely the fires, Gligar, and Hydreigon. (While it couldn't switch on Hydreigon, it was still an offensive check, not to mention that Klefki itself handled Hydreigon to a degree and it wasn't too uncommon of a spiker in these kinds of conglomerates) Latios also helped by laying pressure on spinners like Tsareena and Tentacruel who wouldn't be too phazed by Bisharp/Klefki alone. Bisharp could still be very powerful on it's own as a mon for oppressing hazards on to the opponent, don't get me wrong, but Latios was a fantastic partner for it and it's weaknesses may very well stick out more if it's on it's own. Bisharp itself did also break Latios to a degree, but a two-man conglomerate is still weaker without both men in it. And I think Bisharp wouldn't be quite as strong without a Latios partner.

As for the last point, it's fair if you were just comparing the damage of Scizor and Bisharp. But another counterpoint is that I don't believe simply having a stronger priority than Scizor alone makes something broken, after all, if that were grounds for something to be destructive, then Talonflame would be broken as it's also stronger than Scizor
+2 252 Atk Gale Wings Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 312-367 (96 - 112.9%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 282-333 (86.7 - 102.4%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
It takes more than a strong priority to be a broken mon, and while Bisharp definitely does have other things going for it, strong priority is nothing new to UU at all (Before Bisharp rolled in, we were having a huge Daunt craze and that thing's priority is about as strong as Scizor's is, not to mention other strong priority users like Mamoswine, infernape, and Lucario)
And as I highlighted in my post with the Cobalion and Hydreigon examples, there are plenty of options to handle Bisharp's sucker punch. Even IF Bisharp can pressure 3 layers of spikes on to the field, it'll still struggle with floating mons that resist it, other priority users like Infernape, and things like Cobalion will need more chip beyond just a triple spike to get taken down by a Bisharp.
 
Z moves have almost completely invalidated any attempt to create a fat build. I don't even know why people attempt to run stall anymore given how lacking our defensive options are. The stall team I made hangs on by a thread trying to counter the most it can and still loses to so many things, I highly doubt you could create a stall that doesnt get destroyed by like 25% of the VR in this meta. Balance has been good recently only because there's so much shit to check that people are too scared to run pure offense and lose to something.

Bisharp is especially bad because it beats almost every single defogger aside from Moltres (barely) and Gligar so a spikes stack core is way too strong. There aren't even any defoggers in the lower tiers to borrow for this. To make matters even worse, it sets up on Klefki, so you can't even get your own spikes up to have a spikes vs. spikes matchup. Then there's the absurd amount of damage it does after an SD, just look at this:

  1. +2 252+ Atk Dread Plate Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 195-230 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after 3 layers of Spikes
  2. +2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 172-203 (61.2 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes

That makes its priority stronger than Scizor's bullet punch, a move we already changed the whole meta to adjust to. So after 3 spikes you almost beat the entire metagame, and your opponent certainly isn't getting rid of those spikes as we've established. We haven't even looked at other sets, such as scarf which can surprise OHKO moltres, and darkinium which almost kills Aggron after spikes. Yet another reason why Z moves are an absolute cancer to every meta.

A lot of stuff actually does check it reasonably well, but then those things are getting knocked off or coming in on spikes every time. Hydreigon, Infernape, and Cobalion come to mind, and people who have ever played against offense know how hard it is to check something when they can just troll you with spikes. Most of these checks allow common pokemon to set up on them anyway, Altaria for example, allowing you to sacrifice Bisharp and just win. I presume a team using Infernape will not have an Altaria counter so readily available, and if they do it probably gets killed after spikes.

Lastly, there's the mindgames, which force almost every game into random chance. Is he clicking pursuit? Is he going to iron head or knock off? Will he SD on my protect? Is he going to keep sucker punching or eventually use knock off? These situations speak for themselves when it comes to how annoying they are, and most times when using or facing a Bisharp you will win or lose a game as a result of a 50-50.

So that's my take. The hilarious thing is that Bisharp almost brings every shitty thing about pokemon to the table. 50-50s, Z-moves, knock off, dark types in general, hazard spam, all of the borderline broken stuff that no one wants to have a conversation about coming together around one pokemon and making the meta even worse.
Alright, I have to add to this. Bisharp does not beat stall whatsoever and IDK where you got this idea. Quagsire is probably one of the best answers to Bish as here Z Dark does 50 max. So quag can take a knock and z and just recover off the damage. Also if you consider 3 spikes in any calc, its going to seem broken. You could techinically do the same with with something like a banded Braivary and I know no one thinks that is broken. And also u posted a stall team in the thread without an unaware mon and the dark resist being M Alt while also having flash and mudslap. OFC thats bisharp food, and I think that might be clouding how you see bish.

As someone who used Bish every game (when it was allowed), Bish had the hardest time against stall. Cause even if I predicted the defog right, they could just switch into quag (or pyuk) and the best I could do is knock lefties. While that is nice, Its not enough to say "Bish invalidates fat builds". there are outs against Bish and Stall definetly has them. basically any set up mon could do what u say Bish can do against fat builds. While they cant get a boost from defog, they can set up and destroy stall builds w/o and unaware mon.

Finally, if it wasnt clear how stall can beat bish spike stacking, here is how. First, u must have a defog mon that isnt weak to pursuit trapping by bish (just in case they are AV). Then switch to quag. Its honestly that simple.
 
Just to be clear ur all good players and good debaters this is just bants
Alright, I have to add to this. Bisharp does not beat stall whatsoever and IDK where you got this idea. Quagsire is probably one of the best answers to Bish as here Z Dark does 50 max. So quag can take a knock and z and just recover off the damage. Also if you consider 3 spikes in any calc, its going to seem broken. You could techinically do the same with with something like a banded Braivary and I know no one thinks that is broken. And also u posted a stall team in the thread without an unaware mon and the dark resist being M Alt while also having flash and mudslap. OFC thats bisharp food, and I think that might be clouding how you see bish.

As someone who used Bish every game (when it was allowed), Bish had the hardest time against stall. Cause even if I predicted the defog right, they could just switch into quag (or pyuk) and the best I could do is knock lefties. While that is nice, Its not enough to say "Bish invalidates fat builds". there are outs against Bish and Stall definetly has them. basically any set up mon could do what u say Bish can do against fat builds. While they cant get a boost from defog, they can set up and destroy stall builds w/o and unaware mon.

Finally, if it wasnt clear how stall can beat bish spike stacking, here is how. First, u must have a defog mon that isnt weak to pursuit trapping by bish (just in case they are AV). Then switch to quag. Its honestly that simple.
I literally posted a stall team in this thread that beat bisharp quite comfortably. It was never my argument that bisharp beats stall.

Anywho, I never said stall was the most consistent build, I said it was one of the most consistent ones. I'd even argue there's been more consistent teambuilds across SM UU's lifespan, but stall has always been there. And while it's not doing so hot in snake, it's still definitely a workable teambuild.
It's not just Snake. You're failing to see exactly how terrible stall is. It's pretty awful on the ladder as well. Stall will obviously always be around but it's more unworkable in this meta than ever before.

And while Bisharp definitely puts pressure on hazard removers, that's it's niche as a mon. A Rotom being forced to click overheat on a Bisharp is no different than a Tsareena being forced to click knock off on a Chandelure. Defiant is very comparable to a spinblocker in this regard.
The difference being that spinblockers do not gain anything from blocking a spin. Bisharp gains an attack boost. There are also way more defoggers than spinners.

I think Bisharp wouldn't be quite as strong without a Latios partner.
Fair points here overall, latias is still ultimately quite similar to latios though and still exists in the tier. Yes, it's quite a bit weaker, but functions just about the same.

As for the last point, it's fair if you were just comparing the damage of Scizor and Bisharp. But another counterpoint is that I don't believe simply having a stronger priority than Scizor alone makes something broken, after all, if that were grounds for something to be destructive, then Talonflame would be broken as it's also stronger than Scizor
+2 252 Atk Gale Wings Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 312-367 (96 - 112.9%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon: 282-333 (86.7 - 102.4%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
It takes more than a strong priority to be a broken mon, and while Bisharp definitely does have other things going for it, strong priority is nothing new to UU at all (Before Bisharp rolled in, we were having a huge Daunt craze and that thing's priority is about as strong as Scizor's is, not to mention other strong priority users like Mamoswine, infernape, and Lucario)
And as I highlighted in my post with the Cobalion and Hydreigon examples, there are plenty of options to handle Bisharp's sucker punch. Even IF Bisharp can pressure 3 layers of spikes on to the field, it'll still struggle with floating mons that resist it, other priority users like Infernape, and things like Cobalion will need more chip beyond just a triple spike to get taken down by a Bisharp.
a few things wrong here...

Crawdaunt's priority is a quite bit weaker than scizor's because it has less attack and less BP, even with adaptability. Very few pokemon have comparable priority to Scizor let alone Bisharp.

Talonflame loses quite a bit by being forced to run a z move and also not being able to use brave bird if damaged. It also has a really bad attack stat.

I mentioned how hydreigon and infernape are checks, but also mentioned that they generally don't want their item knocked, same goes for most checks. Cobalion is obviously as reliable as it gets but it's hard to just take 1 pokemon that covers it and say that everything is okay.

BUT regardless you all have good points and it is nice to talk about this. I ultimately enjoy bisharp a lot, contrary to what you might think, but I like to highlight some reasons about why it's probably banworthy that we may have not thought of. The 50-50 thing is still a big one for me.
 

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I figured I'd share my reasoning for why I voted to keep Bisharp considering it was the most controversial of the 3 (4?) drops. The last time we had Bisharp was over a year ago, and it was fine then. Of course, we also had Keldeo and Gliscor, but we still have a bunch of checks to handle it. Offensively we have more than enough Sucker Punch resists; outside of the obvious Fighting-types we have Hydreigon, Mega Altaria, Togekiss (Aura Sphere/Fire Blast), Krookodile, and Mega Sharpedo. Defensively there's Hippowdon, Swampert, Mega Aggron and Steelix, Chesnaught, Bulky Kommo-o, Z-Haze Tenta, Quagsire, and Gligar. Mandating a fast Sucker resist or one of these defensive Pokemon is restrictive, sure, but there's plenty of viable Pokemon to choose from. This contrasts from, say Breloom, which could Spore anything slower minus a few Grass-types and nuke offensive switch-ins with a 5 hit Bullet Seed.

Some of these defensive Pokemon fall to Z-Moves, but honestly you're crippling your Bisharp if you opt to run that. Z-Dark is barely stronger than LO Knock off, and Z-Steel is complete ass outside of Hippowdon. The LO/Dread Plate set is probably the "broken" set, so I'll be addressing that in this post mainly.

Bisharp is especially bad because it beats almost every single defogger aside from Moltres (barely) and Gligar so a spikes stack core is way too strong. There aren't even any defoggers in the lower tiers to borrow for this. To make matters even worse, it sets up on Klefki, so you can't even get your own spikes up to have a spikes vs. spikes matchup. Then there's the absurd amount of damage it does after an SD, just look at this:

  1. +2 252+ Atk Dread Plate Bisharp Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 195-230 (69.3 - 81.8%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after 3 layers of Spikes
  2. +2 252+ Atk Iron Plate Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sharpedo-Mega: 172-203 (61.2 - 72.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes

That makes its priority stronger than Scizor's bullet punch, a move we already changed the whole meta to adjust to. So after 3 spikes you almost beat the entire metagame, and your opponent certainly isn't getting rid of those spikes as we've established. We haven't even looked at other sets, such as scarf which can surprise OHKO moltres, and darkinium which almost kills Aggron after spikes.
I think Bisharp + Spikestack is very overhyped. On paper, it's an extremely potent offensive strategy, but then you realize we have a grand total of two Spike users, and I really don't see Chesnaught offense taking UU by storm anytime soon (I could be wrong though, ORAS UU AloBliss offense was legit :mehowth:). This leaves Klefki as the sole partner for Bisharp as a Spiker, but the weaknesses they stack force a linear build each time. I played my fair share of these builds on ladder, and they struggle against the tier's various Ground-types and floaters like M-Aero and Moltres. Not to mention that outside of the Bisharp threat, Klefki has next to no way of preventing Defog, so even if it does end up getting the Defiant boost, a good team will have something in the back to force it out again.

Lastly, there's the mindgames, which force almost every game into random chance. Is he clicking pursuit? Is he going to iron head or knock off? Will he SD on my protect? Is he going to keep sucker punching or eventually use knock off? These situations speak for themselves when it comes to how annoying they are, and most times when using or facing a Bisharp you will win or lose a game as a result of a 50-50.

So that's my take. The hilarious thing is that Bisharp almost brings every shitty thing about pokemon to the table. 50-50s, Z-moves, knock off, dark types in general, hazard spam, all of the borderline broken stuff that no one wants to have a conversation about coming together around one pokemon and making the meta even worse.

I 100% agree that Bisharp mingames suck to play against. That being said, if we banned everything that make games annoying to deal with, then we'd have banned Regenerator, Togekiss, and Klefki a long time ago haha. Most offensive Pokemon force the "which STAB will they click" anyway (looking at you CB Terrakion and Specs Prim), so isolating this to Bisharp is unfair.

The suspect should be interesting, as I've only got to play with it for a few days. Maybe I find it's broken as the tier finds new ways to use it, but for now I think it should stay in UU.
 

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A rare footage of me reacting to the votes of the council...



Well.. that was fun while it lasted..
I enjoyed a lot that Metagame but I have to admit that both Latios and Latios-Mega were busted as fuck. The first one was able to break through the whole tier without having a real switch-in while the other was bulky and powerfull enough to take some hits while being able to hit pretty damn hard..

0 SpA Latios-Mega Psychic vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Terrakion: 320-378 (98.7 - 116.6%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Latias Psychic vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Terrakion: 288-338 (88.8 - 104.3%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO

Yeah, Latios-Mega without any investment was stronger than 252 EV Latias.. pretty fun right ?

Then we have Bisharp which was a pain in the ass for offense and I understand that some people in the council might though that it was too much for the tier. However, I still think that without Latios / Latios-Mega, Bisharp can be a great addition to the tier and I really hope we will get asap a Suspect Test for this dude.



And now ladies and gentlemen... let's talk about our brand new toy, our UU's Super Saiyan : Zeraora !


Look, it's trying to do a Kamehameha !

Zeraora defintively has some pretty nice potential in the tier. Thanks to its really good Speed (4th better Speed in Underused without any kind of boost) it can act as a really nice Revenge Killer. It's pure Electric type may not be the best offensive typing, it allows it to be a decent check to Scizor but also to Volt-Switch thanks to its ability Volt Absorb.
I've seen a lot of set on the Ladder : Choice Band, Life Orb, Expert Belt, AV, Shuca Berry, Work Up / Bulk Up / Calm Mind with Electrium Z or Fightinium Z and it is a non-exhaustive list for sure. I'm pretty sure Zeraora is going to be a good Pokemon in the tier with a lot of potential.
Finnaly, I just would like to make a shoutout to our council which is super efficient and didn't wait to do the right thing (tl;dr fuck both Latios).
 
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