np: USUM UU Stage 9.1 - Dancing In the Dark

[yeezyknows]

hey, copped reqs yesterday and i have a few thoughts about bisharp. i know i'm probably in the minority here, but i don't think we should add bisharp to the tier. for now, i'm still undecided, but i'll likely be voting ban.

i initially thought bisharp was relatively tame, after all, it has a decent amount of both offensive and defensive counterplay, it's relatively slow, and its coverage is fairly one-dimensional. however, once i actually started running into bisharps, and more specifically, bisharp HOs, my view started to change.

bisharp spikes offense is such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of offense dominating UU for the foreseeable future, nor do i want balance to literally necessitate having chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable. i don't think this statement is hyperbole either, balance legitmately has next to no bisharp counterplay outside of m-agg, mlix, and ches. one can call this the 'meta adapting', but i'd rather think of it as bisharp unhealthily constraining a playstyle.

few, if any, defoggers actually beat bisharp, and bisharp can muscle through common spinners too. playing mind games with defog reminded me a lot of the suit/knock dilemma posed by weavile a while back in the metagame. defiant lets spikestack keep hazards up in a way that makes offense far too overbearing in the majority of cases.

to anyone voting dnb, ask yourself if the tier is legitimately better with bisharp in it. i think we're in pretty close to the ideal metagame right now, and adding such a volatile element to the tier can have immense ramifications on the state of the meta. think back on the weavile suspect, let's not forget that only one person on council voted to keep weavile BL (pedo sbb), and weavile was almost unanimously banned later in a suspect.

i cba to write a wall of calcs, but both z and LO bisharp have an inordinate amount of power behind their sucker punches and knock offs, meaning that it only takes a small amount of chip/hazards up for bisharp to beat its checks

while we do have "counters" in the form of cobalion and lucario, so too did weavile with similar mons. bisharp could warp the meta in a way that I don't believe would be conducive to a healthy and balanced tier

just my thoughts on why i'd prefer it to err on the side of caution, rather than risking another weavile scenario. feel free to disagree or refute my points, as i'm still not 100% locked in on the ban side.

 

[Sickist]

I just got reqs mixing in 3 playstyles: Frosslass HO w/Bisharp, bulky offense w/o Bisharp, and balance w/o Bisharp. The latter two were old teams of which I made very few changes to adapt to Bisharp. Here are my thoughts, although I don't want to repeat too much of what has been said since I largely agree with other unban posters.

Bisharp without Defiant is nowhere near broken. Scizor is a far more threatening SD sweeper as a Steel-type since Dark-type resists are not weak to SR like Fire-types, and it has more weaknesses to exploit. It's a fantastic Pokemon no doubt, but as a standalone sweeper it’s nothing UU cannot handle.

Thus, I focused on if Defiant puts it over the edge, and again, I cannot see Spikes making it overbearing so long as Klefki is our most viable Spiker. While I used Froslass HO, the overlapping weaknesses these types of build tend to have made it very hard to win certain matches. In particular, I struggled against floating Dark-type resists in Hydreigon, Togekiss, and M-Alt (somewhat). Strong spinners were also difficult to punish, as outside of Tentacruel they all can OHKO the tier's Ghost-types. I also encountered some Klefki and Chesnaught builds which had their distinct problems. Klefki stacks too many weaknesses and honestly sucks, while Chesnaught's passivity makes it difficult to pull off as a partner. Even if we ignore our scarcity of Spikers, all is not lost as we do have multiple removers that beat Bisharp, even if it nabs a Defiant boost. Honestly the best Defoggers don't give a shit about it at +2 (Hydrei + M-Alt) or can KO it if it tries to switch in (Rotom-H, Gligar, Molt).



I largely disagree with this because it heavily implies that Bisharp is unhealthy by punishing stuff like a -2 Latias or Defog. Why is this a bad thing? How is this any different from giving Scizor a Swords Dance when using Draco with a Latias? Or Terrakion a Rock Polish after you locked Krook into Knock Off? You further describe a perfect scenario for Bisharp as an element for its brokenness. If you let your Sucker Punch resist get weakened and then let Bisharp get a free boost, then yes, you may lose. This is true for any sweeper and is not unique to Bisharp at all.



The Breloom comparison doesn't make much sense to me since they share nothing in common besides being slow as shit and having Swords Dance. Spore mindgames were infinitely worse than what Bisharp brings since using Spore has 0 drawbacks, whereas Bisharp risks dying or wasting a turn if uses Knock Off or Sucker Punch incorrectly.




Here are my counterarguments:

Defensive counters and checks: Mega Aggron/Steelix, Chesnaught, Hippowdon, Gligar, Swampert, Quagsire

Offensive checks: Cobalion, Infernape, Mega Houndoom, Mega Sharpedo, Terrakion, Lucario, Crawdaunt, Kommo-o, Moltres, M-Altaria, Togekiss (w/coverage), Hydreigon, Bewear.

This is a non-exhaustive list of checks and counters, some of which are more reliable than the other. Low Kick can dent a lot of these, but again, access to coverage is not a Bisharp-exclusive trait.

I don't think Bisharp forces the meta to radically adapt. So far I ran EQ > Psychic Fangs on my offensive Shark builds as an adaptation to great success. It really messes with the Keys + Bisharp builds. On balance teams you might need to run more physical bulk on Hippowdon and the Mega Steel-types, which is hardly radical in a tier where random Pokemon run HP Fire just for Scizor. The fact is there are so many Pokemon that naturally check it. I never found myself scrapping entire teams because it single handedly invalidates them.

Lastly, I truly believe Bisharp is healthy for the tier. A solid Scizor + Latias check is always welcome, and it breathes life into the near-dead playstyle known as HO. It gives Pokemon like Frosslass and Chesnaught a time to shine again while nerfing the too-easily spammed Defog. Free Bisharp.

As Adaam said, Bisharp does have counterplay and checks, but i feel like that isnt enough. I'd like to compare this to Aegislash back in ORAS/XY days. Aegislash was banned because it forced too many 50/50s and was very unhealthy. Back to Bisharp, I believe that Bisharp isn't that unhealthy, (although personally it seems really unhealthy, but thats only my personal opinion and not the metagame trend) but it does force ALOT of 50/50s, which is my main reason for saying Bisharp should remain UUBL. The problem comes in with Suckerpunch, Knock Off, and Pursuit. When Bisharp comes in, it's either clicking Sucker to revenge you, Knock to remove an item, or Purusit to trap you. Overall the 50/50s it causes I feel is too much for UU.

 

[Rubyblood]

have a reqs , no ban bisharp ! I love specs hydrei.

 

[Schpoonman]

hey, copped reqs yesterday and i have a few thoughts about bisharp. i know i'm probably in the minority here, but i don't think we should add bisharp to the tier. for now, i'm still undecided, but i'll likely be voting ban.

i initially thought bisharp was relatively tame, after all, it has a decent amount of both offensive and defensive counterplay, it's relatively slow, and its coverage is fairly one-dimensional. however, once i actually started running into bisharps, and more specifically, bisharp HOs, my view started to change.

bisharp spikes offense is such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of offense dominating UU for the foreseeable future, nor do i want balance to literally necessitate having chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable. i don't think this statement is hyperbole either, balance legitmately has next to no bisharp counterplay outside of m-agg, mlix, and ches. one can call this the 'meta adapting', but i'd rather think of it as bisharp unhealthily constraining a playstyle.

few, if any, defoggers actually beat bisharp, and bisharp can muscle through common spinners too. playing mind games with defog reminded me a lot of the suit/knock dilemma posed by weavile a while back in the metagame. defiant lets spikestack keep hazards up in a way that makes offense far too overbearing in the majority of cases.

to anyone voting dnb, ask yourself if the tier is legitimately better with bisharp in it. i think we're in pretty close to the ideal metagame right now, and adding such a volatile element to the tier can have immense ramifications on the state of the meta. think back on the weavile suspect, let's not forget that only one person on council voted to keep weavile BL (pedo sbb), and weavile was almost unanimously banned later in a suspect.

i cba to write a wall of calcs, but both z and LO bisharp have an inordinate amount of power behind their sucker punches and knock offs, meaning that it only takes a small amount of chip/hazards up for bisharp to beat its checks

while we do have "counters" in the form of cobalion and lucario, so too did weavile with similar mons. bisharp could warp the meta in a way that I don't believe would be conducive to a healthy and balanced tier

just my thoughts on why i'd prefer it to err on the side of caution, rather than risking another weavile scenario. feel free to disagree or refute my points, as i'm still not 100% locked in on the ban side.

Balance can also run Cobalion or defensive Ape. Earth Power or Focus Blast Hydreigon can safely Defog, eat a +2 Sucker Punch, and OHKO in return. That's three hard checks (with a Defogger) that all fit very well on balance. If you don't mindlessly switch in on Low Kick, Cobalion is damn near a counter.

Weavile was far faster and that made all the difference in the world. Also, a reminder that Sucker Punch fails to inflict any damage if it doesn't activate, unlike Pursuit which still chips.

 

[AJ]

Balance can also run Cobalion or defensive Ape. Earth Power or Focus Blast Hydreigon can safely Defog, eat a +2 Sucker Punch, and OHKO in return. That's three hard checks (with a Defogger) that all fit very well on balance. If you don't mindlessly switch in on Low Kick, Cobalion is damn near a counter.

Weavile was far faster and that made all the difference in the world. Also, a reminder that Sucker Punch fails to inflict any damage if it doesn't activate, unlike Pursuit which still chips.

Yeezy talked about Bisharp constraining balance and making Hydreigon use Focus Blast and Earthpower (idk why you didn’t say Fire Blast because that actually hits Scizor) forces it to not use one of its STABS because Roost Defog Fire Blast Draco/DPulse is literally putting a constraint on what Hydreigon can do. Using defensive Ape as a Bisharp counter is basically saying that balance has so few counters that it has to use an Infernape set that hasn’t been seen since Weavile over other optimal sets like Nasty Plot or Choice Scarf. Since defensive Infernape isn’t really good for much else other than Bisharp it is just taking up a slot. I agree with Yeezy that balance has a finite amount of counters, like 6, to bisharp which will consistently bring balance in the same direction which will make the style boring and stale. Klefki Spikes forces Defog which means Bisharp comes in, this easy to play hyper offense play style is going to inflate the ladder and I think it will invalidate a lot of strategies. I’m still close to ban but I might change my mind.

 

[Dlanyer]

Just putting my reqs here

Hide

 

[Lin]

I wonder how many times its been posted there will be a separate thread for alt identification and how many of you actually read that. smh

 

[skvettleif]

hey, copped reqs yesterday and i have a few thoughts about bisharp. i know i'm probably in the minority here, but i don't think we should add bisharp to the tier. for now, i'm still undecided, but i'll likely be voting ban.

i initially thought bisharp was relatively tame, after all, it has a decent amount of both offensive and defensive counterplay, it's relatively slow, and its coverage is fairly one-dimensional. however, once i actually started running into bisharps, and more specifically, bisharp HOs, my view started to change.

bisharp spikes offense is such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of offense dominating UU for the foreseeable future, nor do i want balance to literally necessitate having chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable. i don't think this statement is hyperbole either, balance legitmately has next to no bisharp counterplay outside of m-agg, mlix, and ches. one can call this the 'meta adapting', but i'd rather think of it as bisharp unhealthily constraining a playstyle.

few, if any, defoggers actually beat bisharp, and bisharp can muscle through common spinners too. playing mind games with defog reminded me a lot of the suit/knock dilemma posed by weavile a while back in the metagame. defiant lets spikestack keep hazards up in a way that makes offense far too overbearing in the majority of cases.

to anyone voting dnb, ask yourself if the tier is legitimately better with bisharp in it. i think we're in pretty close to the ideal metagame right now, and adding such a volatile element to the tier can have immense ramifications on the state of the meta. think back on the weavile suspect, let's not forget that only one person on council voted to keep weavile BL (pedo sbb), and weavile was almost unanimously banned later in a suspect.

i cba to write a wall of calcs, but both z and LO bisharp have an inordinate amount of power behind their sucker punches and knock offs, meaning that it only takes a small amount of chip/hazards up for bisharp to beat its checks

while we do have "counters" in the form of cobalion and lucario, so too did weavile with similar mons. bisharp could warp the meta in a way that I don't believe would be conducive to a healthy and balanced tier

just my thoughts on why i'd prefer it to err on the side of caution, rather than risking another weavile scenario. feel free to disagree or refute my points, as i'm still not 100% locked in on the ban side.

^ This:) Yeezy said it perfectly. Zeraora in itself has already made huge changes to the metagame, as teams that had electric types checked with mons like hippowdon on balance or mamoswine on offense were rendered useless with the introduction of Zeraora. I know 90% of all my teams were suddenly unusable after it dropped. Very unfortunate as I was in the middle of UU majors.. How tournaments are conducted during drops is something I hate, but thats a story for another time.

But ye my points is that adding bisharp now is as yeezy said adding a very volatile element to a metagame that is already trying to adapt to zeraora. And ye, I also dont like how zeraora and bisharp are both checked by mons like chesnaught and steelix, making teambuilding repetitive.

I just got reqs, and im definetively voting ban

 

[Bengsu]

Just got my reqs, and thought I'd dive into the discussion instead of lurking like I usually do. Personally as someone who isn't very established in the UU scene I think Bisharp puts heavy constraints on fatter builds, and I'm not positive as to what I'm going to vote yet but it is a top tier threat. The sheer breaking power Bisharp has is crazy and when laddering I used a team with multiple soft checks to bisharp but never felt quite safe against it if it turned out to be fear Z-Dark or Low Kick variants which I think are both criminally under explored sets that have me leaning towards ban. However, I think that Chesnaught is by far the best mon to stop Bisharp from manhandling the tier, being able to check any of its sets with ease. From what I see the main problem with Bisharp is his ability to invalidate Defog as an option for removal, but I feel like there are ways to adapt to Bisharp people are not talking about that I think should be mentioned. To start I personally overcame the hazard stack bisharp archtype with Rapid Spin. Tentacruel, Tsareena, and Mega-Blastoise are great offensive answers to Bisharp that provide removal without allowing Bisharp to come in for a free +2 boost. Icium-Z Haze Tentacruel gave me alot of success on the ladder to handle both Bisharp and Scizor. Finally Will-O-Wisp is a great move that if Bisharp stays, I can see being run alot more to stop bisharp sweeps. Wanted to keep this brief but all in all, I think this was a great suspect and I like the points brought up from both the unban and ban camps, keep up the good posting!!

 

[Moutemoute]

I'm not sure how to begin.. Well, firstable : probably I will not get reqs.. I don't think they are too hard to get but I already failed them on a couple of alts because I hate a lot the current metagame. I definitively don't like how UU has evolved since a few weeks and I struggle a lot to make some decent and efficient teams. Plus, I don't have a lot of time and I don't want to be too much fed up of Underused

Now talking about Bisharp, I trully think that its presence is damaging for the tier and I think this is why I struggle to make some good teams. It's sheer force coupled with its great typing and Movepool allows it to be a scarry threat to face. Even if it has some checks like Cobalion, Krookodile, Terrakion, Chesnaught etc.. I feel like it's not healthy to have a Pokemon like that in Underused and that's why I think we should ban it

I will probably make another post if miraculously I was able to get those damn reqs.

 

[Lil Infant Tylenol]

Alright since there are a lot of pro ban people all of a sudden, I want to make some counter-points because I don't really like their arguments at all. Just to be clear, I am not talking about them as a player/person. Just solely these specific arguements.

bisharp spikes offense is such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of offense dominating UU for the foreseeable future, nor do i want balance to literally necessitate having chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable.

First off, calling Bisharp Spikes an "AIDS" Archetype literally does nothing. Watch this, "Blissey Stall such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of stall dominating UU for the foreseeable future". Then if 3 defensive checks to something isnt enough (and one with reliable recovery) then we need to ban a lot more than just Bisharp. Cause what are laitas' guaranteed defensive switch ins on balance? Klefki? Also, balance teams do not need chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable. There are other options like coballion, luc, infernape that can fit on balance as well that are good answers to Bisharp. Also, its not like chesnaught is terrible and only job is to wall Bish. It is a P good spike setter and can check almost any physical attacker w/o a super effective move.

while we do have "counters" in the form of cobalion and lucario, so too did weavile with similar mons. bisharp could warp the meta in a way that I don't believe would be conducive to a healthy and balanced tier

I wasnt playing the tier (or mons) when Weaville was in the tier, but I feel its unfair to compare the 2. Weaville is a better pursuit trapper and Ice is a better secondary offensive typing than steel IMO. Not to mention, Weaville has ungodly speed compared to Bish.

^ This:) Yeezy said it perfectly. Zeraora in itself has already made huge changes to the metagame, as teams that had electric types checked with mons like hippowdon on balance or mamoswine on offense were rendered useless with the introduction of Zeraora. I know 90% of all my teams were suddenly unusable after it dropped. Very unfortunate as I was in the middle of UU majors.. How tournaments are conducted during drops is something I hate, but thats a story for another time.

This argument really bothers me. You say 90% of your teams were invalidated for UU majors. IDK what tier shift hasn't had a huge impact on UU. Just looking at last tier shift, Gliscor and Serp leaving invalidated approximately 35% of teams by virtue of it was on that many percentage of teams. Then, Amoongus and Mamo further this gap (and mamo still tears apart balance cores). In fact, Id say it was about the same rate of teams were becoming ineffective from this month and last month. Zeraora and Bish are going to be meta defining mons, but that does not mean they are broken at all. Scizor, Krook, latias, hydriegon, terrak, kiss, Malt, hippo, mamo, amoongus, Infernape, Kommo-o are all meta defining mons IMO and very few (if any) argue that they are broken (might have added a few too many or left a few out, but I think you get the point).

From what I see the main problem with Bisharp is his ability to invalidate Defog as an option for removal,

I can really tell you are trying to see both sides. I am not talking about the vast majority of this post. Rather, just this one specific point u made. While it is a pain for Bish to get plus 2 on you, Bish doesn't invalidate defog at all. No doubt it makes it worse, but that doesn't mean it invalidates it. I think it just means that people cannot just slap on defog on Florges or Latias and call it a day. There were literally no relevant defog publishers in the tier before bish. Just cause we have one now, that doesnt mean it is invalidated. In fact, this just means that defoggers that can beat +2 bish are getting more popular (ie, kiss, rotom-h, tres, etc.). Not to mention, that non-av bish hates switching in on basically any mon as it has low HP and Low sp def (most defoggers are Sp Atkers).

So yeah thats all I got to say about that. Vote anyway u want (obviously), but these were the ones I felt were least compelling.

 

[skvettleif]

This argument really bothers me. You say 90% of your teams were invalidated for UU majors. IDK what tier shift hasn't had a huge impact on UU. Just looking at last tier shift, Gliscor and Serp leaving invalidated approximately 35% of teams by virtue of it was on that many percentage of teams. Then, Amoongus and Mamo further this gap (and mamo still tears apart balance cores). In fact, Id say it was about the same rate of teams were becoming ineffective from this month and last month. Zeraora and Bish are going to be meta defining mons, but that does not mean they are broken at all. Scizor, Krook, latias, hydriegon, terrak, kiss, Malt, hippo, mamo, amoongus, Infernape, Kommo-o are all meta defining mons IMO and very few (if any) argue that they are broken (might have added a few too many or left a few out, but I think you get the point).

Hmm. Pretty sure u misunderstood my point completely. I wasnt using my no longer usable teams as an argument for a bisharp ban in any way. Bisharp hasnt even been allowed in majors yet anyway. It was merely a critique of how little time you get to get familiar with tier changes before they are implemented into tours. Which admittedly doesnt rly belong in this thread, but I kinda made that clear too... Makes me feel youre just rambling without taking the time to understand other peoples arguments. The rest of your post is just listing a bunch of mons saying that these mons are also good and not necessarily broken. Which is honestly just empty talk.

My reasoning for wanting bisharp banned is what I wrote under what you quoted btw. Although its moslty just reciting what yeezy said. To elaborate: I think the smart thing to do is to let the meta settle with zeraora for a while, as zeraora in itself has shaken the meta up more than enough on its own. Adding bisharp to the mixture is creating unecessary chaos.

 

[Freeroamer]

Keeping these here cos I'll lose them otherwise. I don't have a lot to add on what's already been said by some of the more eloquent pro Bish posters in this thread, I think ultimately Bisharp is something contributing to the development of this metagame as opposed to it and overall do I think it adds a greater measure of skill as opposed to the "constant 50-50s" some of the pro ban posters in this thread seem to think it creates? Yeah for sure. It's definitely frustrating when old teams have to be ripped up because of new mons dropping, but having played against Sharp numerous times during this suspect never once did I think, damn this pokemon is so dumb there's nothing I can do to stop it! I did lose to a boosted Bisharp once, but watching the game back (my opp hid room at the start so I didn't save) I was able to clearly point out where I misplayed and where my opp played well to get into that position, which is literally the point of playing pkmn and never smth that should be taken as "brokenness". Ultimately this is all personal experiences but I'm just reiterating that I've never felt the effect Bisharp has in the teambuiler or in game as anything more than this mon is a real threat, not jesus fuck how do I not lose to Bisharp while not losing to the rest of the tier. PLEASE don't vote to ban this just because it makes a lot of your old teams unviable, I consider this good provided the mon isn't dumb as shit because who wants to be stale and using the same teams for months on end lol. If you have reqs and genuinely think the mon is broken despite this and the better non ban posts in this thread then fair enough that's your opinion and you're entitled to it but it'd be a shame to see it banned just because ppl don't want to build new stuff. Ramble over.

 

[brodudeguy1]

I believe its ability to wallbreak and punish defog do not make it unhealthy.

The first pro-ban argument of saying its wallbreaking ability makes it unhealthy is just a terrible argument, since uu has many wallbreakers (mamoswine, primarina, heracross) with much fewer switch ins, and those wallbreakers are not labeled unhealthy for their lack of safe switch ins.

The second pro-ban argument of saying its ability to punish defog makes it unhealthy is also flawed because most of uu's defoggers have ways of dealing with bisharp. Fire blast Mega altaria and hydreigon can 1v1 a +2 bisharp. Other defoggers, such as moltres and latias have moves that can knock bisharp out or come very close. Another thing that's being ignored is that bisharp has to make another prediction after it gets its defog boost in order to take advantage of the boost. This forces bisharp to have to make 2 perfect predictions in order to take advantage of defog. Not only does bisharp have to switch in when its opponent is using defog, it also has to predict whether it should use sucker punch or knock off after its boost.

Every sun & moon uu suspect so far, i have thought that the suspected pokemon is broken. However, this time i believe that is not the case.
Because I was a able to get reqs, ill be voting for bisharp to stay.

 

[Nightingales]

Hi.

Comparing Bisharp to Weavile has one key issue - speed. Weavile armed with Low Kick could mess up a prediction into Cobalion and STILL punish it because you outran it. Bisharp has to be dead on with that prediction or else it’s dead in the water. It’s a pressure-heavy mon that forces lots of predictions in both ways. There’s been tons of checks listed before, I won’t dive into it, and the fact that you have to adapt a few things to a new pair of mons isn’t going to make it broken.

I’m STILL running Kevin with just a few minor changes to not be bodied. That’s it. A team I built literally a year ago is still active and viable today, though maybe needing some more tweaks. Come on, guys. Don’t blow this up into “This forces me to adapt so it should be banned.”

 

[Sickist]

I believe its ability to wallbreak and punish defog do not make it unhealthy.

The first pro-ban argument of saying its wallbreaking ability makes it unhealthy is just a terrible argument, since uu has many wallbreakers (mamoswine, primarina, heracross) with much fewer switch ins, and those wallbreakers are not labeled unhealthy for their lack of safe switch ins.

The second pro-ban argument of saying its ability to punish defog makes it unhealthy is also flawed because most of uu's defoggers have ways of dealing with bisharp. Fire blast Mega altaria and hydreigon can 1v1 a +2 bisharp. Other defoggers, such as moltres and latias have moves that can knock bisharp out or come very close. Another thing that's being ignored is that bisharp has to make another prediction after it gets its defog boost in order to take advantage of the boost. This forces bisharp to have to make 2 perfect predictions in order to take advantage of defog. Not only does bisharp have to switch in when its opponent is using defog, it also has to predict whether it should use sucker punch or knock off after its boost.

Every sun & moon uu suspect so far, i have thought that the suspected pokemon is broken. However, this time i believe that is not the case.
Because I was a able to get reqs, ill be voting for bisharp to stay.

Hi.

Comparing Bisharp to Weavile has one key issue - speed. Weavile armed with Low Kick could mess up a prediction into Cobalion and STILL punish it because you outran it. Bisharp has to be dead on with that prediction or else it’s dead in the water. It’s a pressure-heavy mon that forces lots of predictions in both ways. There’s been tons of checks listed before, I won’t dive into it, and the fact that you have to adapt a few things to a new pair of mons isn’t going to make it broken.

I’m STILL running Kevin with just a few minor changes to not be bodied. That’s it. A team I built literally a year ago is still active and viable today, though maybe needing some more tweaks. Come on, guys. Don’t blow this up into “This forces me to adapt so it should be banned.”

I see what you're saying here, both of you. But I have to disagree with you brodudeguy1. The reason I believe it is unhealthy is because it causes too many unhealthy 50/50s. I would like to somewhat compare it to Aegislash back in XY OU. The reason for its ban was because of it's offensive capabilities and the 50/50s it caused with Kings Shield and Stance Change. Although, not exactly the same case with the same moves, it does create close to the same situation with Knock Off/Pursuit/Sucker Punch. Although brodudeguy1 used the example of making predictions with Sharp, I feel it is better illustrated through an analogy to the pills from The Matrix series. One pill will win you the game, one pill will lose you the game. You expect them to click Knock Off or Sucker Punch, you switch out. On the other hand, They could be running Pursuit and you could lose your mon right there, costing you the game. However, despite this, after actually using Bisharp, This only makes it slightly unhealthy. It wouldn't bother me to see it banned, but after seeing everything that checks it or counters it, how it's dealt with, and what straight up beats it, when I get reqs, I'll have to say i'm voting to let Bisharp stay in the UU tier.

If anyone has any questions or anything they need to discuss with me, feel free to leave a message on my smogon profile.

adieu to all-
S.k.

 

[smogsicle]

I'm unlikely to have time for reqs, but I played a bit before the suspect test and never found Bisharp problematic in the slightest even with a balance team.

I honestly don't find Bisharp particularly dominate, let alone broken. I understand Bisharp possibly coming in a defog and getting a free boost is annoying, as is sucker punch, but there's a bunch of annoying pokemon in the meta game. The way I see it, there are three major weaknesses to Bisharp:

1. Sucker Punch is kind of a lousy priority: Yes, I know it's the strongest priority in the game. But unlike other priority, your opponent has to actually attack. This allows for all kinds of exploitation - You can set up a sub on a Bisharp, boost in its face, wisp it and so on. In order to successfully sweep, the Bisharp player has to out think their opponent to do significant damage in most cases. It also only has 8 pp, meaning the Bisharp player can't blindly spam it until the opponent attacks. Yes, it will lead to 50-50s that the Bisharp player will sometimes win, but I don't find that in itself to be broken.

2. Bisharp's poor speed: Pretty much every offensive threat outspeeds Bisharp, which means practically every Sucker Punch resist is a reliable revenge killer, and there is a lot of them. I won't take the time to name them all, but it's safe to say most teams have a Bisharp RK or two.

3. Bisharp sets are really predictable. Yeah, some of them have Low Kick, and sometimes they're holding a Z Crystal, but outside of that, how does one deviate from the standard set? It means the things that check Bisharp are always going to check it, and makes it a very easy Pokemon to prepare for.

I will admit my experience against Bisharp is somewhat low, as before it dropped, my only experience is when I played a little bit of the Clef meta when it was first around. But I found it certainly wasn't broken then, and I don't think Keldeo being around then was the only thing holding it back from being broken. It's just a strong Pokemon that's hard to switch into, and has an annoying ability. UU has a handful of those.

Best of luck to the voters!

 

[Moutemoute]

This is a pretty good joke right ? >o>
​

This is the team I've been using ; a brainless Sharpedo Spikes Offense.
As you can see, I've done 165 games on this Suspect (because I'm impetuous and I tilt pretty fast) and I definitively think that my opinion is pretty clear now. I've been using teams with and without Bisharp and every time I played / faced it, it shows how good it was. SD with 3 STABs and LO, Dread Plate, Darkinium Z, Steelium Z, Lum Berry, Focus Sash is scary af and can act as a powerful Late Game Sweeper thanks to Sucker Punch. Low Kick is a good option if you want to lure Pokemon like Cobalion or Lucario while Stealth Rock and Pursuit add even more utility to Bisharp.

On the other hand, Bisharp does have some checks of course :

Unlike Latios / Latios-Mega which had almost no Switch-in, there is some Pokemon that can handle Bisharp but most of them need to be careful because they can't take a +2 Darkinium Z / Steelium Z or a Low Kick etc.. In the end, I feel like Bisharp puts too much pressure on the current metagame and it's a too good Pokemon with medium risk, high reward. For all this, I've decided to vote ban.

Please feel free to answer to this post if you want to discuss about Bisharp or just highlight some points you disagree with !

 

[Pais]

Just a question, when identification thread will be up?

 

[Adaam]

I want to post a second time to address a set of arguments that have bothered me:

1. Spikes Offense is annoying/brainless

This is the team I've been using ; a brainless Sharpedo Spikes Offense.
As you can see, I've done 165 games on this Suspect (because I'm impetuous and I tilt pretty fast) and I definitively think that my opinion is pretty clear now. I've been using teams with and without Bisharp and every time I played / faced it, it shows how good it was. SD with 3 STABs and LO, Dread Plate, Darkinium Z, Steelium Z, Lum Berry, Focus Sash is scary af and can act as a powerful Late Game Sweeper thanks to Sucker Punch. Low Kick is a good option if you want to lure Pokemon like Cobalion or Lucario while Stealth Rock and Pursuit add even more utility to Bisharp.

bisharp spikes offense is such an aids archetype to face, and i sincerely don't want that style of offense dominating UU for the foreseeable future

Klefki Spikes forces Defog which means Bisharp comes in, this easy to play hype offensive playstyle

Lil Infant Tylenol addressed this already, but I want to emphasize that this is my least favorite argument because it is entirely subjective, and I enjoy playing both with and against HO builds. I think the fast-paced nature of these games require some good thought behind each play, as one wrong turn can screw you over. That being said, its current viability is almost non-existent (as evidenced by the scarcity of them in major tours), so Bisharp gives it a nice buff. Is it too much of a buff? I don't think so. I and many other pro-ban voters have already listed numerous forms of counterplay in the forms of checks and Defoggers that beat Bisharp. And I really mean no offense when I say this, but surely if Bisharp Spikes was stupid OP it would take less than 100 games to get reqs with it.

2. Defog is invalidated

Klefki Spikes forces Defog which means Bisharp comes in.

few, if any, defoggers actually beat bisharp, and bisharp can muscle through common spinners too. playing mind games with defog reminded me a lot of the suit/knock dilemma posed by weavile a while back in the metagame. defiant lets spikestack keep hazards up in a way that makes offense far too overbearing in the majority of cases.

This argument is in of itself flawed because it implies that a player is entitled to free removal every game. Previously, we had no mechanism to punish Defog outside of a fast Taunt. Now that we have Bisharp and may need to think twice before Defogging, should we ban it? Again, I say no. Perhaps if it was so good that Defog can never be used so long as the opponent has Bisharp, but that is far from the case.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-821927517

Gardevoir aside, I get 2 layers of Spikes up and SR, essentially "forcing" a Defog. I switch Bisharp in on a Defog only to get immediately toasted by Hydreigon's Fire Blast. Now some might say being "forced" to run Fire Blast on Defog Hydreigon is constraining, but I hardly think running a move for a Pokemon is too much.

3. Not enough counters

nor do i want balance to literally necessitate having chesnaught/m-agg/mlix in order to be viable. i don't think this statement is hyperbole either, balance legitmately has next to no bisharp counterplay outside of m-agg, mlix, and ches. one can call this the 'meta adapting', but i'd rather think of it as bisharp unhealthily constraining a playstyle.

I agree with Yeezy that balance has a finite amount of counters, like 6, to bisharp which will consistently bring balance in the same direction which will make the style boring and stale.

Again I want to credit Lil Infant Tylenol for his response to this point, but we are banning Pokemon based on not having an arbitrary amount of defensive hard counters for balance, then let's also ban Primarina (Empoleon, Blissey), Terrakion (Mega Slowbro, Doublade), Latias (Mega Steelix if it is Mega Evolved, Bronzong, Klefki), and Scizor (literally no hard counters).

4. Too much chaos

My reasoning for wanting bisharp banned is what I wrote under what you quoted btw. Although its moslty just reciting what yeezy said. To elaborate: I think the smart thing to do is to let the meta settle with zeraora for a while, as zeraora in itself has shaken the meta up more than enough on its own. Adding bisharp to the mixture is creating unecessary chaos.

This is not how we tier. Adding Bisharp is not "unnecessary." It dropped to UU and therefore should be treated normally like any other drop. Banning a drop because you do not want to adapt to multiple things at once is not how things should be banned.

This will be my last post here, feel free to message me if you wanna discuss some more.

 

[Moutemoute]

Adaam I think you misunderstood my point.
I never say Bisharp was too much of a buff for Spikes Offense. I just threw that, in general, in Underused, Spikes Offense has always been a brainless and powerful playstyle. Sorry if it wasn't clear ^^'

 

[Freeroamer]

What justification do you have for just throwing out “spikes offense is a brainless playstyle” when it’s been hardly seen in tours over the last few months? I actually concur with adaam on this one in that I think playing with and against good HO builds is a real skill test, because one misplay tends to completely derail the game for whoever made the misplay, particularly for the HO user. There’s a reason these teams are seen as inconsistent for use on ladder and why people lean so heavily on balanced and stall builds for reqs / attempted peaks / ladder tour qualifying and that is because if you do fuck up or get haxed, for the most part, provided it wasn’t a colossal mistake/piece of luck the game is recoverable. Hyper offense playstyles usually dictate the user to lay down a clear game plan prior to the game and use every single turn and opportunity to enforce that plan because once you’re behind that, as said before it’s very hard to recover.

This is no more evident than when a HO team loses its hazards and doesn’t have the opportunity to get them back up, which is obviously where Bisharp comes in and is why it makes the playstyle viable again because it’s an active deterrent to what was previously a pretty brainless play in clicking Defog whenever you got the chance. Bisharp being in the tier means you have another offensive threat to account for and that you carefully need to consider when and how you’re going to remove your hazards. If a Bisharp user puts you in the position where they get a ton of hazards up, you feel like you cant win without Defogging and they take advantage of that with Defiant, what exactly is wrong with that? The Bisharp user has played his team to put himself in a winning position which is the epitome of skill in this game.

In my opinion there’s enough means of hazard removal in this tier as well as ways you can build and play to guard against putting yourself in these positions that when it does happen, usually the flaw is in something you could’ve done better rather than Bisharp being OP which is easy, and in my opinion lazy to blame.

 

[Moutemoute]

I think that we take away from the basic subject Freeroamer.
Obviously I'm not gonna talk about matchs in tournament cuz' except French Tournaments, I do not have a lot of experience in this area.
I've been laddering a lot since a shit-load of time with Sharpedo + Klefki Spikes Offense and it has always been a really solid and efficient pick on the ladder personally. I'm not gonna say it's easy for everyone to play this kind of team but I feel like this is the kind of team that you can play in "autopilot". You need to have a gameplan yeah, but it's the same pattern each time you're versus a Stall or a Balanced.

tl;dr : I got reqs with ease using Sharpedo Spikes Offense, it's not the first time I got my reqs easily with this archetype and that's why I talk about it as "brainless". Chill & peace out


Edit for Kink : I failed the other reqs using mainly Balanced and BO.

proof

 

[Kink]

I have a hard time believing something is “brainless” if a decent battler needs 4 attempts to achieve reqs using said “brainless” methods.

 

[dingbat]

Sorry, on my phone, but a few things I wanna say here:

-Bisharp isn’t a top 3 (maybe not even top 5) pursuit trapper in this tier. It lacks very important characteristics that others use to their advantage (scarf krook/aero for being fast af, or muk for being thicc), and it already has a difficult time fitting Pursuit in, because it also wants to run a much better option (imo) in Low Kick to even remotely threaten shit like Cobalion that otherwise do not give two fucks.

-Some of y’all seem to be exaggerating what certain defoggers like Hydreigon need to be running. Let me set this straight:

252 spa 3hed dragon:

Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Bisharp: 138-162 (50.9 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Devastating Drake (195 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Bisharp: 206-243 (76 - 89.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Devastating Drake (195 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Bisharp: 206-243 (61.6 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Someone please tell me in what fucking world does Defog Hydreigon ever need a coverage move just to effectively punish bisharp? Unless your opponent is running some bulky ass set, all you need to do is get chip damage equivalent to Dark Pulse damage and then after that you just blast the fucker, what’s so difficult about that?