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Oricorio formes have made themselves a name as the most banned Pokémon in SV lower tiers, due to deadly Quiver Dance sets. ZU makes no exception for it. Oricorio-F itself had already been banned once, when the power level was lower, and Oricorio-G was quickbanned only a few months ago. Since then, Oricorio-F has risen as the preferred replacement over Oricorio-P thanks to its superior offensive and defensive typing, notably enabling mono attacking sets with Revelation Dance.
It must be noted that Oricorio-F has notable flaws that Oricorio-G didn't have. Notably, due to its double weakness to Stealth Rock, it's hard for it to forgo Heavy-Duty Boots, while other forms could use Grassy Seed and Kee Berry to boost their Defense and run bulkier sets. Its typing also leaves it much more susceptible to common special walls such as Snorlax and Regirock, that could struggle to beat down Oricorio-G, but also to common priority moves like Floatzel's Aqua Jet and Lycanroc's Accelerock. Naturally, Oricorio-F's Fire-typing also has advantages such as a better match-up against Charizard and the rising in popularity Dark-types like Hisuian Qwilfish and Spiritomb; but it's overall a downgrade from its Ghost form.
However, despite lacking Oricorio-G's flexibility, some still argue it doesn't belong to ZU. As highlighted by the recent tiering survey, it was on average deemed the most problematic threat. Oricorio-F still has crazy variety in its moveset choice between offensive sets with Hurricane + Revelation Dance, and mono-attacking sets with Taunt + Revelation Dance; a variety that is further enhanced by the ability to run almost any tera type and benefit from it with Revelation Dance, that isn't a burden in case you want to tera something else. Some of the most popular tera-types include Fighting and Water to get extra coverage for Rock-types, while still hitting Steel-types, and escaping weaknesses to priority moves. Tera Ghost and Steel can be used defensively to take advantage of common walls like Snorlax and Hisuian Qwilfish. However, other tera-types like Fairy, Ground, and Flying can also be used effectively, based on your team's specific needs. This can make games involving very volatile, especially factoring in Air Slash' and Hurricane's RNG, and is thus seen as an unhealthy aspect of the Pokémon. Oricorio is the kind of sweeper that can just sweep through your whole team if you assume the tera wrong it give it more set-up turns as a result. It falls under the same umbrella as the most recent bans in Venomoth and Oricorio-G, and is one of the biggest variance inducers in ZU.
NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING A NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!
The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
Create a new account on PS. You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in ZU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played ZU before the test, full stop.)
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
Double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact me, sleid, or a member of staff.
If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2920. For reference, the B-value for this suspect will be 4. The suspect test will go on for about 14 days, lasting until Friday, June 27th at 10:00 pm GMT-4.
This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message me or anyone else on the ZU council. Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you. Happy posting and laddering!
Avoid posting one-liners or posts that do not contribute to any discussion. They will be deleted.
I haven’t tried laddering for reqs quite yet, but I wanted to see if I could get a good feel for Oricorio for laddering with braindead HO. Well, it’s not braindead material, or if it is, it needs more support than like parting shot lol. I’ll make a longer post when I have time to actually play more games, but before then here are my thoughts:
1. Every team has a (pre-Tera) check to Oricorio
Oricorio overlaps in typing with Charizard, who is known for overwhelming teams. When Snorlax, Lanturn, Regirock, Floatzel, and Electrics are everywhere for Zard (and the rest of the meta), you can usually flex your Zard check into an Oricorio check.
This isn’t my main point, but with Tera, your opponent has every right to surprise you too. If you Tera Ground to catch lanturn and regirock, then the regi is Tera Fairy or something besides poison, you’re now taking more from Body Press. And besides, most Tera types good into Regirock (ground water grass fighting and technically steel) are bad-to-useless into other Oricorio checks.
2. This tier has a lot of anti-setup
OTR Spiritomb, Choice Scarf Trick Mowtom/Grafaiai, Encore from Mesp/Whimsi/Grafaiai and more, Roar Zard, Dipplin, Twave Lanturn/mesp/Persian-a. Good luck, since you have to set up on one of their teammates and don't one-shot most of these.
3. Customizing Oricorio has Drawbacks
I’m not trying to argue that Oricorio isn’t customizable and can’t get around its checks with the right set. I’m saying that if it doesn’t get the ideal matchup, the way you customized your Oricorio can come back to bite you.
It needs more than 1 boost to sweep if you don’t invest in SpA since it’s base stats aren’t that goods, and it dies to more physical hits if you are not investing in HP (or physdef but I’m not calc’ing rn). If your in Taunt, you lose out on flying STAB or revdance (or roost lol), which can be a death sentence into something like Magneton or Charizard. If you don’t have speed, you are REALLY exploitable, since a faster scarf switching into a QD can just be Mowtom or something slower, and you’d really need that +2 to have a chance of doing anything in a game.
It’s a balancing act- you need bulk to set up but you need offenses to sweep easier, and sacrificing speed is even worse somehow. You need more than 1 STAB because mono stab is wallable, but you need taunt to not be like Snorlax fodder.
If it wasn’t clear, I think it’s not broken because most of the metagame naturally checks it, and because that makes using Oricorio like fighting an uphill battle, it’s not uncompetitive or otherwise banworthy. Sure, it’s above-average with Tera, but like, what isn’t? Just Lanturn??
I’m not trying to argue that Oricorio isn’t customizable and can’t get around its checks with the right set. I’m saying that if it doesn’t get the ideal matchup, the way you customized your Oricorio can come back to bite you.
Grassy seed Oricorio set seems like an example of this, it is a set i have been trying and it does work but only the opponent does not have an indeedee or the mons that can easily stop my hazard removal (i use mortal spin smeargle btw) so perserker and magneton
I will be voting do not ban on Oricorio-F. ZU has a lot of viable counterplay to this mon as it relies on the classic quiver dance + tera strategy, and Encore, Aqua Jet and status go a long way into making this mon manageable.
When you see Oricorio at team preview you know exactly what item and set it will run - the only question would be the EV spread - so I'd worry a lot more about the teammates that enable it. Psyspam is imo the most dangerous as it disables encore, but I've also seen pinchurchin and even sunny day on the ladder. So this means Knock Off is what you need, and Knock Off is a move you carry regardless of Oricorio. Oricorio itself can't afford to lose its item which often leads to it using tera way sooner than it would like.
And even if it boosts, it often needs to do it at least twice to sweep because at +1 it just doesn't hit hard enough, and at +2, if the opponent has an av mon or a rev dance resist, you better pray your hurricane hits. AV Eelektross with Dragon Tail is a hard check to most Oricorio variants, especially with SR up. Lanturn can use volt switch shenanigans, and Charizard can use Ancient Power should your 4th slot be free.
I don't think Oricorio-F is broken although I was leaning more on the ban side when I started laddering. DNB seems more reasonable.
Won't be able to get reqs, failed at the finish line unfortunately - but I figured I'd give some thoughts of my own. Oricorio is a frustrating Pokemon to play against. I can see reasons against banning it, but I think if I had gotten reqs I'd have voted ban. I had a team that felt pretty anti-Oricorio, and even then I often found myself doing calcs trying desperately to figure out what was the least likely to collapse my team immediately on a crit or Hurricane confuse. I don't think it's the end of the world if it stays, it's not so overbearing as to be impossible to handle, but it's certainly a 'mon that I feel more pressure when loading into a game against it compared to say, idk, Mesprit.
Both Amoonguss being PU was... not on my bingo card, and Qwilfish-H will be missed here. Grafaiai was cool here but is probably the easiest loss to stomach. Edit: i forgot abt braviary lol
Oh, and I have some thoughts abt P2:
We've been expecting Porygon2 to drop basically since it rose. Some people are excited to have the top-tier special wall back in the tier, but other people are clamoring for it to be banned. Well, this mon needs to be PoryGONE-2-ZUBL. If you weren't around last time it was in the tier, here's why I think it needs to be quickbanned:
TL;DR P2 is better regirock with a recovery + a real ability + special attacks + flexibility to beat its checks. ban it. replay.
About 6 months ago, Porygon2 was discovered in the meta, and it fit in as a special wall with Trace. This was a meta where Oricorio-Sensu was legal and Venomoth was outclassed by it, and having Trace to stop Sensu in its tracks was valuable. As this meta was explored through ZU Olympiad, people discovered Charge Beam P2, and once the big threats like Sensu and Venomoth were banned, it remained standing as a mon with no true counters.
This game is the first time I was personally exposed to Charge Beam P2. If there's one thing I want you to get from the replay, it's that Charge Beam P2 (charge beam/recover/2 of tri attack, psyshock, sball, ice beam, tera blast or any other coverage) is hard to take down. The only non-cheesy way I could have beaten it was to run P2 out of recover PP. With charge beam and tri-attack, every turn that Porygon2 doesn't click recover is a turn it spends either raising its special attack or rolling status chance with Tri-attack, which makes stalling out recover difficult.
On top of that, Porygon2 is so bulky that it does not need to click Recover every turn. If you haven’t seen this mon’s statline, it has 85/90/95 bulk, which after getting boosted with Eviolite, is obscene. Oh, on top of that, its special attack stat is 105, and this gets boosted by Download 50% of the time. While it's living almost every hit in the metagame, it's clicking Charge Beam to boost its special attack.
P2 is going to live any special hit:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Launcher Clawitzer Aura Sphere vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 204-240 (54.5 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tera Fire Scovillain Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2 in Sun: 260-306 (69.5 - 81.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 SpA Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 261-307 (69.7 - 82%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Arboliva Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2 in Grassy Terrain: 220-259 (58.8 - 69.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Virizion Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 198-237 (52.9 - 63.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Shaymin Seed Flare vs. -2 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 163-193 (43.5 - 51.6%) -- 9.4% chance to 2HKO
+6 252+ SpA Spiritomb Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Porygon2: 225-265 (60.1 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (psyshock is ~the same)
(some of these attacks are not viable, but these are the strongest special attacks in the tier, and P2 is shrugging them off with ease)
P2 will also not die to hits on the physical side somehow:
+6 252 SpA Mesprit Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 328-387 (87.7 - 103.4%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Floatzel Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 248-292 (66.3 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Passimian Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 270-320 (72.1 - 85.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tera Fighting Passimian Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 360-428 (96.2 - 114.4%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Snorlax Body Slam vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 73-87 (19.5 - 23.2%) -- possible 5HKO
+6 0 Atk Snorlax Body Slam vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 288-340 (77 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 175-208 (46.7 - 55.6%) -- 78.2% chance to 2HKO
+4 252 Atk Sneasel Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 345-409 (92.2 - 109.3%) -- 57.7% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Sneasel-Hisui Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 230-272 (61.4 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+6 252 Atk Sneasel-Hisui Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Tera Poison Porygon2: 229-270 (61.2 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 16+ Def Regirock Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 342-404 (91.4 - 108%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
+6 16+ Def Regirock Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Tera Poison Porygon2: 171-201 (45.7 - 53.7%) -- 46.9% chance to 2HKO
Without tera on P2, Close Combat can still be a trade at best for the attacker:
252 Atk Passimian Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 270-320 (72.1 - 85.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 SpA Porygon2 Tri Attack vs. -1 0 HP / 0 SpD Passimian: 306-361 (89.7 - 105.8%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Sneasel-Hisui Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 230-272 (61.4 - 72.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 SpA Porygon2 Tri Attack vs. -1 0 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Sneasel-Hisui: 115-136 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
4 SpA Porygon2 Psyshock vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Sneasel-Hisui: 260-308 (103.5 - 122.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Life Orb Virizion Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 289-343 (77.2 - 91.7%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
4 SpA Porygon2 Tri Attack vs. -1 0 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 109-129 (33.7 - 39.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
4 SpA Porygon2 Psyshock vs. -1 0 HP / 0- Def Virizion: 262-310 (81.1 - 95.9%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
(Sneasel-H & Viriz are winning vs non-Psyshock P2, but tera poison is also very free into them, and viriz needs life orb)
If you didn't look at the calcs (they're crazy do it), it's insane that this mon can live 120BP super-effective STAB moves across the meta. It doesn't switch into them (of course, and especially with rocks), but these don't always kill. Not even Regirock would be happy to take an attack like that (it’s the only other thing that can tho), and if it does, Regirock is basically out of the game. To be fair, the premise of either of these mons taking a fighting attack this way is unlikely. I'm just trying to show that the most straightforward way to offensively kill a P2 is still not a guarantee, even without Tera.
I also brought up Regirock because I think it, Snorlax, and Porygon2 are similar on paper. All three are defensive mons that use fighting-resist tera types to set up and sweep. However, Porygon2 has several differences from the other 2 that make it broken.
Unlike Regirock, P2 can run multiple sets and multiple EV spreads. It can invest in SpA to be even harder to switch around, and maybe also invest in speed to move before and OHKO physdef mesprit with Shadow Ball (yes it can, i'm ev'd for that with tera iirc here). You have no way of knowing if it's Ice Beam, Shadow Ball, or Psyshock until you get hit by whichever coverage move, and even then the P2 user can hax you with Tri Attack or drop Tri Attack altogether. Regirock has little to no flexibility, and Snorlax's flexibility (eq/crunch/heat crash and maybe atk ev's) is more limited than P2's, has more drawbacks (mesprit), and is and easier to play around than guessing P2's coverage.
Lax, Regi, and P2 are all about equally great at using Tera to get around offensive checks. As far as defensive ways of answering these (like encore, roar/dtail, trick, and status), they work better against Lax/Regi than P2. Encore-ing P2 into Recover is going to force it out, but it's switching out around full health - it'll come back and set up again. This also loosely applies to phasing. If you trick it Specs or a Scarf, you'll stop P2 from setting up with charge beam, sure, but by it being faster and a special attacker, it's not as bad as Lax and Regi with these items. It doesn't want a choice band, I'll concede that. And status is annoying for everyone, but a burned P2 can do more than a burned Regirock or Lax. Most of these non-offensive checks to P2 don't stop it long-term.
Phasing/encore work better vs Regirock and Snorlax since they tend to be a lot worse on their second time trying to set up, and I don't think P2 has that same issue. Maybe, then, you want to encore or trick something to a P2. What mon are you using to do that? Your chipped, shadow ball-weak mesprit? Your ice beam weak whimsi/mowtom? Your psyshock-weak Sneasel-H? Poliwrath? You have to consider what coverage move(s) P2 is running with any of these checks in a way you don't for Snorlax/Regirock.
Maybe you think the ideal way to beat a P2 is to slowly chip it down over time with hazards, status, forcing it out at low HP, etc. However, here's this replay with a Tera Ghost P2 (its the one in the TLDR at the top where I paint P2 as broken). When the P2 came out, I shoulda expected ice beam since it was the most common coverage move at the time, and it’s not like I played that P2 sequence well. However, once Baddy clicked Tera Ghost on P2 instead of letting it get forced out by Pass CC or Knock, I just lost. There was no way that squad can whittle down that Porygon2. On paper, it looks like that team can beat a P2. I have Regirock, but its useless vs tera ghost. I have Pass, but you see how that went. I have Weezing, but i chose wisp > toxic for tera poison mons like Regirock. I have Scarf mowtom, but Baddy has 5 other mons to eat a trick if neeed. Even if I had an encore mon like Mesprit or Whimsicott over Lurantis, that still wouldn't have improved my matchup unless I played around ice beam, which uhhh.
Now, what would a squad good into P2 look like? You probably need 1 mon to force the tera, like Sneasel-H, Pass, or Viriz. If not, you likely can't deal enough damage to really threaten it. Tera Dark Sneasel-H can handle almost anything but maybe tera poison P2, so pairing that with a psychic like Mesprit should work. You could also use Boots Whimsicott + Lanturn to scout for ice beam and pivot around P2, and if it's not ice beam, SubSeed away. Stacking all 4 of these means you are prepared to offensively set up against most fighting-resist teras for P2, and have options like Mesp and Whimsi to check tera poison and/or click encore, and Lanturn to get those guys in. I don't think there is much else you can add besides maybe Snorlax to make P2's life harder on this squad.
The point of doing that is to show that it's a 2-mon minimum task to check P2 once you factor in different movesets, and there aren't too many other options besides the ones I listed. If there are let me know, but most special attackers invite P2 to spam charge beam until they are chipped to death, and physical attackers are prone to getting tera'd on, on top of being overall easier to check with stuff like Weezing, Spiritomb, and Poison Regirock. I know I'm probably glossing over Mesprit and Whimsicott a little, but you should have a plan to chip Mesprit in the early game on most teams anyways, and I'm still gonna ignore Whimsicott, but itll check p2 against me.
When you can't check it, P2 will live a hit. It will recover the damage. It will click charge beam and get stronger. You don't know its coverage. And you need a couple of mons to check it, as it’ll repeat this loop as needed until your team is weak to something else.
I hope I've made my points clear. If you are still DNB, I hope your reason isn't just because you want to use P2 as a special wall (imagine your heasel gets twaved lol). P2 is gonna be warping, impossible to take down, and will be using the charge beam sets that shred your team while you try to chip away at it.
And yeah, mAYBe it'll be fine, maybe i'm overreacting, but based on my experience i (clearly) don't think it will be.
Since porygon2 is back I'm looking forward to play with it. I keep hearing that it's broken but I can see that knock off weakness playing a big role in how to defeat that thing.
I'll miss Qwilfish tbh, great spiker and decent swords dance wallbreaker. Never used Braviary but Grafaiai was a good speed control mon so that could play a big role for P2 to have its way in the tier.
as for brute bonnet... idk why it rose to PU i honestly think it sucks
Voted DNB on Oricorio, happy with this decision. Biggest issue for me right now is P2.
Firstly, on the shifts: I think offensive Grass-types (Shaymin, Virizion, and Whimsicott) will definitely get better, with some of their best checks gone in the Poisons. Same goes for Fighting- and Ghost-types, which likely means the few remaining Poisons (mainly Weezing and Muk) will probably become catch-all checks to stuff like the aforementioned Grasses and Fighters like Passimian / Primeape. Ghost-types I see being ambivalent to the shifts - having P2 drop is incredibly annoying for them and the heightened presence of AV Muk can't help, but outside of those two things and Snorlax they haven't really gotten any offensive checks.
As for the duck, Lettuce summarized it very well - it's got a combination of bulk and power thanks to the SpA boosts it can farm. Outside of paralyzing it or getting rid of its Eviolite (which is far tougher than it looks - the most common Knockers in Mesprit and Sandslash are deathly afraid of a boosted Shadow Ball or Ice Beam respectively.
This is very early but I played a bit with P2 on the ladder and honestly I'm not convinced it's broken.
I used Charge Beam/Tri Attack/Ice Beam + Recover with Tera Ghost. Granted, this one was max HP max SpA, because i don't feel comfortable with having to rely on possibly three boosts with a specially defensive spread. Run Psyshock if AV Muk is annoying.
LettuceLeaf07 points out P2's strengths over Regirock in this sense, but Regirock can snowball far more easily, especially with the correct Tera, and its teammates are thus free to pressure the opponent's ghost type if they have one. Whimsicott also gets bopped with Tera Poison.
And Porygon2 can be managed a lot more easily by spamming knock off early (it's kinda like oricorio in this matter, super reliant on one item and can't run anything else).
Hello everyone, the ZU Council recently had a quick ban vote on Porygon2. After coming back into the tier after leaving at the peak of its powers, the Council wanted vote to take tiering action on Porygon2. A lot of the community has spoken out about it before its departure and since it has returned as well. The results can be found below (note that Tuthur abstained from voting).
Outcome
Drud
fish anemometer
LustfulLice
OranBerryBlissey10
BloodAce
yo cho
sleid
diegoyuhhi
Porygon2
DNB
dnb
ban
ban
DNB
ban
ban
ban
dnb
Porygon2 did not reach the 2/3 threshold to be quick banned. A suspect test thread will follow shortly for Porygon2!
