On The Radar Vol. 2 [See Post #336]

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G-Darm is an interesting case since the Pokemon has no reliable counters. One could make the argument that Choice-lock + Hazards is "counterplay" against it, but the only real way to beat Darm is to have enough revenge killers. CB combined with hazards easily wears away defensive checks since the amount of offensive pressure it generates stops any attempt to pull off a Defog or Rapid Spin. Teambuilding against G-Darm involves packing at least 3 different checks to it. The second most broken aspect of G-Darm is U-Turn. On paper, you could pack three checks that could switch into a resisted Icicle Crash or its other two coverage moves and capitalize on the choice lock, but U-Turn negates that aforementioned risk.

Despite these two major red flags, I haven't played OU post-Dynamax ban (or since December when UU alpha came out) to formulate a conclusive opinion about the Pokemon. I very much welcome a suspect test so I can ladder to get a feel of OU's state rather than relying on other people's experiences to formulate my own. One thing I've realized with suspect tests is that players that main a tier will often consider a problem larger than it actually is (take UU's attempt to "nerf" Stall via banning Blissey, Pyuk, Alomomola). A suspect test gives a person with an initially neutral stance on the issue to formulate a final opinion that may or may not be different from his or her initial position. The opinion of these players that hold a greater validity than that of a OU main since their conclusions comes from a place with less initial bias. Despite everyone's call for a quickban, I think a suspect test is the best way to approach the G-Darmanitan issue.
 
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Finchinator

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While the metagame is still developing each and every day, I can say that Galarian Darmanitan is undoubtedly broken. The metagame lacks sufficient defensive counterplay to G-Darmanitan, thus heavily restricting teambuilding or making in-game counterplay largely prediction reliant and oftentimes inconsistent.

There are two variants of G-Darmanitan, Choice Scarf and Choice Band. It does not make any sense to run much else on it seeing as Gorilla Tactics force it to lock into a move regardless and it is a purely physical attacker, so these two items simply provide it with a free +1 speed or +1 attack as it stands. With this said, G-Darmanitan is a potent threat with either of these two items equipped. Personally, I prefer Choice Scarf as it already is capable of muscling through a vast majority of the metagame and the extra speed opens up countless possibilities, be it as a revenge killer or as a faster breaker. The Choice Scarf set does have a small handful of counters admittedly. Jellicent is able to barely survive 2 Earthquakes after Stealth Rock if it is at full health while Milotic and Vaporeon are able to do this with a bit more durability. With this said, a U-turn or two or any status affliction or Knock Off can lead to a very realistic situation where G-Darmanitan is able to overcome these initial counters. Additionally, this is only a pool of three Pokemon, with two of them only existing due to the presence of G-Darmanitan (jury's still out on if Jellicent would see much usage regardless, but I'm not here to theorize). Beyond this, there are a handful of situational, prediction-based checks. Rotom-H is very common right now, but after switching in for the first time, it is always going to be in range of being 2HKOd afterwards, which is an issue seeing as this will happen repeatedly throughout games and the lack of durability plagues it. Aegislash, Toxapex, and Centiskorch can pose as situational checks, but a single switch into the wrong move can pretty much eliminate them as answers, if not take them out entirely depending on battle conditions. So basically you are stuck relying on one of a small handful of bulky waters, all of which only fit on balance or stall, if you wish to reliably combat Scarf G-Darmanitan. Otherwise, it is largely prediction reliant and there are very few ways to revenge kill it in the late game due to how fast it is with Choice Scarf. All things considered, I think this set individually is easily the most problematic thing in the current metagame and it is banworthy, but then there is also the Choice Band variant.

While Choice Band G-Darmanitan has a lot more offensive counterplay (i.e revenge killing and pressuring it enough to where it can only make a minimal impact due to not having the same speed and revenge killing prowess as Choice Scarf G-Darmanitan), the defensive counterplay essentially vanishes. There are no actual counters to Choice Band G-Darmanitan and you cannot argue otherwise. This thing has led to so many different things using Protect to scout it out; even with that, a Choice Banded Icicle Crash is one flinch away from breaking through passive defensive checks such as the aforementioned answers to the Choice Scarf set. And if any of those Pokemon switch in to Earthquake, they get 2HKOd. If they eat a U-turn, then pretty much anything can 2HKO them from there, too. It is very true that Choice Band G-Darmanitan is much more limited in how often it can come in, but it is not nearly as prediction reliant and there is no consistent counterplay. It, too, is not a healthy presence in the metagame.

All things considered, I believe that G-Darmanitan is banworthy.
 
Most of the points have been made already about why this thing is a goofy (but fantastically visually designed IMO) and incredibly powerful threat.

One thing that was brought up that I think bears repeating is the fact that G-Darm has access to U-turn which quite possibly puts its over the top. Since even Scarf sets are functionally operating with +1 Attack, +1 U-Turn hurts. Sure it's not 2HKOing Rotom-Heat, and yea it can be scouted with Protect, but unless you're packing strong priority-and Darm is weakened (outside of Conk's Mach Punch)-or a faster Scarfer (rare outside of Scarf Hydreigon/Dragapult which are definitely sets in part BECAUSE of Scarf G-Darm), something is taking a good amount of chip damage and the G-Darm user gets momentum for free too.

+1 252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar U-turn vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Rotom-Wash: 87-103 (28.6 - 33.8%) -- 97.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252 Atk Darmanitan-Galar U-turn vs. 252 HP / 24 Def Ferrothorn: 94-111 (26.7 - 31.5%) -- 20.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Over 25% min against common defensive sets on common defensive mons is nothing to laugh at, and Scarfed G-Darm can kinda click U-Turn for free outside of the situations mentioned earlier (or Prankster T-Wave Grimmsnarl and stuff like that), especially with the lack of Pursuit. Yea U-Turn isn't gonna be breaking walls or sweeping teams on its own, but the lopsided risk-reward means it's pretty darn safe. And the chip damage G-Darm brings with Scarfed U-Turn (Band is nutty, the same defensive Rotom-Wash spread has a 41% chance to be 2HKO'd by U-Turn after Rocks) is enough that Protect+Lefties isn't outhealing it and turning it into a net damage/momentum loss.

Unlike Dracovish's Fishious Rend, there are no immunities to G-Darmanitan's U-Turn (barring Shedinja), and thus much fewer options to stop it from gaining momentum and doing decent damage at the same time. Unless you're packing strong priority or one of the rare faster scarfers (Dragapult, Hydreigon, Cinderace), G-Darmanitan can click U-Turn and take at least 25% off standard defensive staples such as Defensive Rotom-Wash and Ferrothorn, with nearly 0 risk or downside. And while Corviknight and Rotom-Heat may take much less, they're certainly vulnerable to Flare Blitz and the combination of Icicle Crash and hazard damage, respectively.
 
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This guy is either a suffocating speed control and offensive pivot that hits like a runaway train or a wallbreaker that folds everything in the game with next to no defensive opposition to stand up to it. Between Icicle Crash/Flare Blitz/Earthquake, Darm pretty much has the coverage to decimate everything in its path with no reasonable switchin available. Bulky waters are the remotely closest thing we have as an answer to this thing as Finch stated above, but even they can only take two resists at best before they're in range for him to come back in and melt them with EQ. The argument that you can counter him with rocks is also pretty weak imho. Between the new boots item, old mons getting new toys to play with like Excadrill's buffed Rapid Spin and Conkeldurr getting Defog, and new threats such as Corviknight, Cinderace and Hatterene, hazard removal/management has never been easier to fit onto your team to alleviate Darm's rock issue.

We also need to look at the move that I personally think puts his most popular set (Scarf) over the top: U-Turn. This move allows him to lead scout while simultaneously doing damage off of a 140 base attack with a Choice Band slapped on. Darm doesn't exist in a vaccum, he has 5 teammates that he can pivot into and fall back on to help him take care of the very limited amount of things that slightly delay him from tearing OU a new one. Nothing holds this mon back, you are one Icicle Crash flinch or misinterpretation of which Choice item he was running from getting absolutely railroaded.

While I'm for a quickban of Gorilla Tactics, I think Zen Mode could stay. I know Smogon as of recent is adverse to complex bans, but banning a signature ability on one mon that is the root of 90% of the complaints people have about it wouldn't be what I consider to be "complex". No other mon gets punished from the absence of Gorilla Tactics except for Darm himself. The removal of GT would also mitigate a lot of what makes his uncommon but still incredibly dangerous SubSalac Belly Drum Zen Mode set so overwhelming as there would be no more uncertainty to switch out and give him a free Sub + Belly Drum from a reasonable assessment that he's most likely running a Band/Scarf GT set.
 
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Sayuze

Banned deucer.
Darmanitan is for sure the most controversial Pokemon in the meta right now, for good reason.

I don't feel like going over in-depth and highlighting how it doesn't have any true, 100% checks or counters because it is understood by this point -- all its checks are mainly situational and do not check it in the long run, or are prediction-based (e.g. Toxapex and Earthquake). The three main points that I believe distinguish it from any other wallbreaker in this tier is the combination of an amazing raw attack stat (factoring in Gorilla Tactics), a wide movepool with near-perfect coverage, and a good speed tier. It's 1.5x boosted base 140 Attack along with a held item to compliment it, its amazing movepool with moves like Icicle Crash, U-Turn, Flare Blitz, Earthquake (the first two being its best), and then a speed tier of 317 w/ Jolly (which is not even bad in this metagame; while this meta in general is fast, outspeeding many things including Excadrill is amazing)... it is easy to see why on paper it is broken.

As some others have said in this thread, there is undoubtedly a heavy teambuilding strain that Darm enforces. Pokemon such as Rotom-W/Rotom-H, Toxapex, and Seismitoad (because of its good role compression that offenses appreciate) are seeing very high usage and for good reason, but even still do not fully check it.

In practice, it is just as scary. Fatter builds are threatened even though they are usually over-equipped, but even then it is difficult to not lose to a well played Darm or if you are outpredicted in a few sequences. As well, it forces many 50-50 speed ties between opposing Darm/Dittos. Similar to the Dynamax situation, this opens a whole cans of possibilities when two Darm/a ditto are facing: "Do I risk the speed tie? Do I play it safe and go into my check? What if I even get predicted to switch out and I get punished by either a U-Turn or a move that can kill my check?". Many 50/50s are forced as well as the few different outcomes possible, which I believe to be just as unhealthy. And finally, the 30% flinch rate of Icicle Crash creates many situations where going for the STAB + Boosted with a 30% flinch rate attack is free/high reward vs. low risk. U-Turn is just as good; being able to keep up momentum while doing great amounts of damage to switch-ins is only good for it.

For those reasons, I think Darm is both broken in paper and practice, and I would agree with a ban.
 
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Once again, I would like to restate the confusion I presented on the SQSA thread at why people including the council are looking into a ban/suspect on Darmanitan-Galar itself over just banning Gorilla Tactics and letting Zen Mode Darm stay. Basically, my reasons for why I feel this is the superior option are as follows:

-There is precedent for banning broken abilities over the abusers themselves: Shadow Tag, Power Construct and most recently the re-ban of Moody come to mind
-Gorilla Tactics is undeniably the central issue with Darmanitan that makes it so overbearing: Without that ability, a ton of immediate power is lost and Darm has to rely on the much more inconsistent Zen Mode. Hell, even the Zen Mode sets indirectly get worse because now they can't rely on the threat of Scarf/Band Gorilla Tactics sets to scare out stuff and make room for Belly Drum sweeps.
-Since Gorilla Tactics is the signature ability of Galarian Darmanitan and Galarian Darmanitan only, there is 0 collateral damage done by a flat ban on the ability itself unlike Speed Boost Blaziken or Gen 6 Protean Greninja.

Ultimately I'm not gonna throw a hissy fit if this idea is rejected, but I do think not giving Zen Mode Darm a chance just because the other ability is broke is a huge shame and would like clarification on what exactly is wrong with this approach that makes it less desirable than a ban on Darm itself. Whether this idea is accepted or not, it's pretty undeniable that Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan is hella absurd. Defensive checks do exist, but the issue is that you are basically forced to run those checks to even stand a chance, and with the exception of Jellicent even many of those fall to Choice Band. It's one of the biggest restraints on teambuilding right now to an unhealthy degree. In addition, whether it's on Darm itself or Gorilla Tactics, I fully agree with Hayburner that a quickban is the way to go. The community (or at least what can be seen on this thread so far) pretty unanimously feels Darm is busted and unlike Dynamax a quickban wouldn't be a potential PR shitstorm of immense magnitude at all: Pokemon quickbans are pretty standard affair, nobody's gonna care if we did that.
This kind of thinking always intrigues me greatly because it hovers around the fundamental balance between inclusivity and tiering policy.

Yung Dramps brings up a great point in pointing out that Gorilla tactics is what pushes G-Darmanitan over the edge. Theoretically, a suspect test could take place to determine whether the tier could handle Zen mode G-Darm. This would imply that if the tier could handle this form of G-Darm, then Gorilla Tactics as an ability is broken and therefore could be banned. This might not be true, however, as no other mon has this ability. It is an interesting case where it is difficult to determine the brokenness of an ability on a mon without multiple mons having it.

But then this exposes the dilemma: is this a slippery slope of thinking?

Let's take Blaziken, a mon that is only really broken because of speed boost. One could argue banning speed boost from it sounds like a slippery slope, but this is technically only the case because there are other mons who have the ability speed boost. The ability is not broken on them, so Blaziken has to be the actual culprit and deserves to be banned.
Likewise, moves are also similar to this logic, because technically Smeargle can learn mostly any move. Moves like thousand arrows, king's shield, and Dark Void (pre-nerf) are not broken when Smeargle uses them, so it has to be the mons themselves abusing them (as silly as that sounds).

I personally side with the idea of inclusivity. If a mon can be included in OU without conflicting with tiering policy, then all the better I say. And if another mon eventually came around that had gorilla tactics and proved to be not broken, then G-Darmanitan as a whole could be suspected instead in the future.

I'd frankly like to see one of two actions take place: either there is a quickban for G-Darm, or a suspect test that revolves around banning Gorilla tactics.

However, I understand the constraints this might put on the OU council and tier. It could set a bad precedent for future testing, and so I am not really pushing this idea hard either. I just want to see how other people view this situation.
 
every gen has had pokemon that are stronger than others. Sometimes you need a dedicated check for certain mons. I don't think Darm is strong enough to warrant a ban. The biggest thing for me is that with the ban of dynamax keeping him locked in to whatever moves he chooses I think its fair to keep him. he can't just break out to hit you with a super-effective move anymore. now he's just a stronger-than-average revenge killer.
 
every gen has had pokemon that are stronger than others. Sometimes you need a dedicated check for certain mons. I don't think Darm is strong enough to warrant a ban. The biggest thing for me is that with the ban of dynamax keeping him locked in to whatever moves he chooses I think its fair to keep him. he can't just break out to hit you with a super-effective move anymore. now he's just a stronger-than-average revenge killer.
Stronger than average? Darm breaks through virtually every possible switch-in just by running a different item and is strong enough to muscle past certain checks with its scarf set alone. Darm would hardly click Dmax because it lost both G tactics and its item. There were very few situations where it would actually want to dynamax. Calling darm stronger then average is wrong. Its possibly one of the strongest if not the strongest scarf mon in the tier and one of the strongest mons in the current meta. I think your underestimating what darms capable of. Not to mention this thing is extremely splashable.
 
I would like to know why the council has framed this around garm and not gorilla tactics. It feels shortsighted; garm without gorilla tactics could be a fun and balanced contributor to the meta. With it, gam is undoubtedly too strong for the meta to handle.

This kind of thinking always intrigues me greatly because it hovers around the fundamental balance between inclusivity and tiering policy.

Yung Dramps brings up a great point in pointing out that Gorilla tactics is what pushes G-Darmanitan over the edge. Theoretically, a suspect test could take place to determine whether the tier could handle Zen mode G-Darm. This would imply that if the tier could handle this form of G-Darm, then Gorilla Tactics as an ability is broken and therefore could be banned. This might not be true, however, as no other mon has this ability. It is an interesting case where it is difficult to determine the brokenness of an ability on a mon without multiple mons having it.

But then this exposes the dilemma: is this a slippery slope of thinking?

Let's take Blaziken, a mon that is only really broken because of speed boost. One could argue banning speed boost from it sounds like a slippery slope, but this is technically only the case because there are other mons who have the ability speed boost. The ability is not broken on them, so Blaziken has to be the actual culprit and deserves to be banned.
Likewise, moves are also similar to this logic, because technically Smeargle can learn mostly any move. Moves like thousand arrows, king's shield, and Dark Void (pre-nerf) are not broken when Smeargle uses them, so it has to be the mons themselves abusing them (as silly as that sounds).

I personally side with the idea of inclusivity. If a mon can be included in OU without conflicting with tiering policy, then all the better I say. And if another mon eventually came around that had gorilla tactics and proved to be not broken, then G-Darmanitan as a whole could be suspected instead in the future.

I'd frankly like to see one of two actions take place: either there is a quickban for G-Darm, or a suspect test that revolves around banning Gorilla tactics.

However, I understand the constraints this might put on the OU council and tier. It could set a bad precedent for future testing, and so I am not really pushing this idea hard either. I just want to see how other people view this situation.
A reasonable discussion but not one for right now. Darm is the only mon to get gorilla tactics.
 
every gen has had pokemon that are stronger than others. Sometimes you need a dedicated check for certain mons. I don't think Darm is strong enough to warrant a ban. The biggest thing for me is that with the ban of dynamax keeping him locked in to whatever moves he chooses I think its fair to keep him. he can't just break out to hit you with a super-effective move anymore. now he's just a stronger-than-average revenge killer.
Name a dedicated Darm check that doesn't get dropped after minor chip.

So this isn't a one-liner I'm going to go ahead and say I actually support Omari P's suggestion from last generation that we make people's ladder peaks visible when they post in these threads. Oh, and of fucking course Darm should be suspected. A Pokemon with literally zero reliable counterplay that can shit on both offense and fat teams alike is not a healthy presence in the metagame.

Also something to consider is that Zen Mode Darm, while a rare sight and perhaps not as broken on its own, can actually be terrifying to face when you do run into it because you don't know if it's Zen Darm until it's too late. Zen Darm takes advantage of the numerous switches standard Darm sets force in order to set up, and by playing like you normally would against a Gorilla Tactics Darm, you can easily give it opportunities to sweep you, which it requires very little chip on certain key threats to do. Things like Jellicent and Milotic, who are usually pretty solid checks to GT Darm, are not walling a Drummed up Zen Darm;

+6 252 Atk Darmanitan-Zen-Galar Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 425-501 (107.8 - 127.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252 Atk Darmanitan-Zen-Galar Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Jellicent: 458-539 (113.3 - 133.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Hell, even max/max Rotom-W is losing over 70% of its health to Icicle Crash, so it's not unrealistic that you could chip it into KO range;

+6 252 Atk Darmanitan-Zen-Galar Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-Wash: 222-261 (73 - 85.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Furthermore, with 135 base Speed and a Salac Berry boost, revengekilling it without a priority user is basically out of the question. I think Gorilla Tactics Darm is far more dangerous than Zen Mode but I'm not wholly convinced Zen Mode Darm is balanced on its own. It's still basically unwallable, it just requires a bit of set-up in order to reach that state first.
 
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I'd much prefer Gorilla Tactics be suspected or quickbanned rather than Darm itself.

People making comparisons to cases like speed boost are missing the point, this is a different case and would not be a complex ban. The most direct comparison here is to Power construct, an overpowered ability that was available on two pokemon in the same family and was banned at the start of gen 7 because of it.

Gorilla tactics is an overpowered ability available on two pokemon in the same family and should, like power construct's precedent, be banned.
 
I would like to know why the council has framed this around garm and not gorilla tactics. It feels shortsighted; garm without gorilla tactics could be a fun and balanced contributor to the meta. With it, gam is undoubtedly too strong for the meta to handle.
I'd much prefer Gorilla Tactics be suspected or quickbanned rather than Darm itself.

People making comparisons to cases like speed boost are missing the point, this is a different case and would not be a complex ban. The most direct comparison here is to Power construct, an overpowered ability that was available on two pokemon in the same family and was banned at the start of gen 7 because of it.

Gorilla tactics is an overpowered ability available on two pokemon in the same family and should, like power construct's precedent, be banned.
The problem with banning Gorilla Tactics is that, as DialgaTheTimeLord pointed out, it's objectively inferior to Huge Power. The comparison to Power Construct isn't entirely accurate either. Ostensibly, it was the ability that was banned, but it was banned because it gave Zygarde access to a broken form. This isn't the case with Darmanitan. For a better understanding of Darmanitan's situation, we need to look at mega evolutions. Like Power Construct, while it's ostensibly the mega stones being banned, the main purpose is to ban the forms. However, in the few cases where the mega was underwhelming compared to the base form, the entire Pokemon was banned.

Allowing Darmanitan in OU on the condition that it uses Zen Mode instead of Gorilla Tactics is exactly the same as allowing Garchomp in UU on the condition that it holds Garchompite and not Rockium Z or a Choice Scarf or whatever.
 
The problem with banning Gorilla Tactics is that, as DialgaTheTimeLord pointed out, it's objectively inferior to Huge Power. The comparison to Power Construct isn't entirely accurate either. Ostensibly, it was the ability that was banned, but it was banned because it gave Zygarde access to a broken form. This isn't the case with Darmanitan. For a better understanding of Darmanitan's situation, we need to look at mega evolutions. Like Power Construct, while it's ostensibly the mega stones being banned, the main purpose is to ban the forms. However, in the few cases where the mega was underwhelming compared to the base form, the entire Pokemon was banned.

Allowing Darmanitan in OU on the condition that it uses Zen Mode instead of Gorilla Tactics is exactly the same as allowing Garchomp in UU on the condition that it holds Garchompite and not Rockium Z or a Choice Scarf or whatever.
Everyone making comparisons to previous gens and bans is not relevant and not helpful, so if we can please focus on gorilla tactics alone that would be useful.

It is not a complicated proposition, and has a simple justification, so again please let us not get sidetracked in to discussions around complex bans. If Garm continues to be outrageous then Garm should go in its entirety. But at the moment gorilla tactics is the outstanding element that is making a pokemon uncompetitive and it is gorilla tactics that should go first.
 

Deleted User 229847

Banned deucer.
I highly dislike g-darm and wish for it to be banned as fast as possible. Since no one pointed out it, I think part of the reason I want it banned is how the counterplay for the most common and reliable set is complete setup fodder for the less common (but good enough) zen mode sub salac berry one. If I need to choice lock g-darm I almost always have to use protect, which is what I did while laddering a while ago, but I lost the game on turn 1 because welp, g-darm was using zen mode.
This set is objectively inferior to the gorilla tactics ones and yet it's viable and extremely effective when the biggest form of counterplay for the latter is giving a free turn to the former. I hate this and find it highly uncompetitive.

Since this thread was made with the whole SwSh metagame in mind and I found only one post raising him as a potential problem, I'd also love to voice my opinion in favor of a dracovish suspect test. This mon is pretty fucking dumb, and no, using jellycent or vaporeon in order to stop him (I don't really consider seismitoad that good of a counter since you can still chip him down and he has no reliable recovery whereas leftovers can even be knocked off eventually) is neither enough counterplay nor a sign that dracovish is not inherently problematic.
I've even seen people running rest on this thing in order to replenish the chip damage it receives. Fishious Rend does simply too much damage to anything that is not immune to it, my toxapex gets basically 2hko'd for fucks sake, and I can't even check this thing with ferrothorn unless I'm at full health. I'm forced to run like 3 protect users because the best way to win against this shit is either revengekilling it or stalling a 16-pp move. How is this not a symptom of a greater problem?
 
Everyone making comparisons to previous gens and bans is not relevant and not helpful, so if we can please focus on gorilla tactics alone that would be useful.
In pretty much any body of law, be it as small as a competitive ruleset for a game or as large as the United States Supreme Court, precedent is extremely important.

It is not a complicated proposition, and has a simple justification, so again please let us not get sidetracked in to discussions around complex bans. If Garm continues to be outrageous then Garm should go in its entirety. But at the moment gorilla tactics is the outstanding element that is making a pokemon uncompetitive and it is gorilla tactics that should go first.
It is genuinely absurd to ban Gorilla Tactics while simultaneously not banning Huge Power.

Zen Mode Darmanitan is a cool mon, but if Gorilla Tactics Darmanitan proves to be too much, then the fiery snowman will be an unfortunate casualty.
 

peng

fuck xatu
is a Community Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnus
I think most of the main points have been covered, but I want to talk about one specific core that I find makes particularly good use of Darm-G.

:Darmanitan-galar:+:xatu:(+:dugtrio:)
Scarf Darm can stuggle to get through dedicated defensive cores, particularly builds that can keep hazards up effectively. Speaking from personal experience, I near exclusively run fat sand teams with a couple of faster mons (like ScarfTar / Exca / Jelli / Ferro / Corv / Clef type stuff) and have never really had an issue with Darmanitan most of the time.

So I specifically built a team designed around helping Darmanitan break through its tiny list of answers without needing to go Choice Band and suffer against offense - i.e. I counterteamed myself. In short, Xatu (+ Dugtrio, but less important) makes a lot of teams completely helpless against Darmanitan and allow it to literally rack up 4+ KOs a game by straight up denying the natural ways of beating it.

Literally every single time something like Jellicent, Corsola, Toxapex, Ferrothorn is sat in front of Darmanitan, you just go into Xatu. You don't even need to U-turn, you just Icicle Crash for damage against the switch-in and then switch. Xatu not only denies hazards, which prevents Darm from getting worn down, but also prevents Jellicent and Corsola from recovering with Strength Sap, meaning that they are likely beaten by Darmanitan the next time it comes in. If you're lucky you might even bounce back a Will-o-wisp which makes your job even easier. Xatu then packs either U-turn or Teleport (Tele is mostly better for the -6 priority, but U-turn has a niche by enabling you to pivot against stuff that can otherwise threaten you like slow Ttar), which, if the opponent switches their Darm check out, lets you go straight back into it again and launch an Icicle Crash. Repeat twice or three times and Darmanitan sweeps against most defensive teams.

This core is particularly effective with Dugtrio (either sash or CB), which takes advantage of Xatu's Teleport to trap a couple of the Pokemon that can still give you trouble. Most notably, Toxapex's Regenerator can be kinda an issue here but Dugtrio always threatens to trap and beat it down off a well-timed U-turn or Teleport. If Jellicent chooses not to switch out of Xatu as you Teleport, then CB Dugtrio can deal roughly 50% to it with Earthquake meaning you can streamline the Darmanitan + Xatu cycling a little bit faster. A lot of people are also relying quite heavily on Exca in sand to beat Scarf Darmanitan on these kind of teams, but Dugtrio puts this strategy to bed pretty easily too.

Anyone who played against Genesect/Victini/Torn-T + Xatu + Dugtrio back in BW OU knows how helpless you can feel against oppressive fast mons + hazard control + trapping - just wanted to point out that Darmanitan is an excellent abuser of this kind of core.

As for my position regarding ban or no ban, I'm kinda on the fence because like I said, I run teamstyles that naturally deal with Darmanitan decently. But its counterplay is so restricted to hazard stacking and a handful of defensive mons that can be taken advantage of pretty easily as noted above, I'd probably lean ban.
 
First of all let me start by saying how proud I am of ice types this gen! KyuB finally leaves to Uber and now Darmanitan is on its way there! Thank you GF for finally giving some justice to my fav type.

Having said that, Gdarm is broken! quite simply it is a high reward, zero risk pokemon! The scarf set (my personal favorite) out speeds most pokemon while also leaving huge dents in counters, while the band set is just flat out crazy. provide sticky webs and/ or tailwind and it is gg.

If this wasn't enough, you can even surprise ur opponent by running zen mode and then curb stomping their entire team.

Darm is not only broken but it also has the benefit of the surprise factor as well! given how it has two viable abilities! is this the standard scarf set? is this band? is my opponent crazy and running zen mode? usually the opponent finds out after it is too late.

Believe me it is not only my bias talking cuz of my love to ice types, but Darm is better off being in Ubers!

Darm leaving will also allow more diversity in the meta! i.e more ice types to be used like normal Kyurem and Eiscue.

TLDR: extremely high reward for null risk. as an other poster has said above, literally a monkey could use G-darm.
 
Just weighing in regarding the Gorilla Tactics vs Darmanitan ban.

Since Darmanitan is the only mon to get this ability, to me it seems safer to suspect test Golla Tactics rather than kill off Zen mode, who is powerful but by no means broken. If another Pokemon comes along with Gorilla Tactics as an ability, then it should be reviewed again to see if it is still bannable (although I suspect it won't be).

I appreciate what people are saying when discussing Huge Power in relation to Gorilla Tactics, yet we all know what we're trying to achieve here. I feel that sticking strictly to precedent and having zen mode be removed as collateral damage is cutting our noses off to spite our faces.
 
I totally agree with a Gorilla Tactics ban. It's a shame that such an interesting pokemon like Darmanitan-Galar will be banned just because of an ability only exclusive to itself. Zen Mode is definitely a worse ability, yet it provides an interesting mechanic to the game with the form change. Honestly I can't see why anyone wouldn't want to only ban Gorilla Tactics.

Edit: A guy earlier (think it was MrPonty) mentioned something about how Darmanitan should be banned because its Zen Mode ability provides added unpredictability. The Gorilla Tactics ban solves this issue as well by restricting Darm to only 1 ability
 
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Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
The problem with banning Gorilla Tactics is that, as DialgaTheTimeLord pointed out, it's objectively inferior to Huge Power. The comparison to Power Construct isn't entirely accurate either. Ostensibly, it was the ability that was banned, but it was banned because it gave Zygarde access to a broken form. This isn't the case with Darmanitan. For a better understanding of Darmanitan's situation, we need to look at mega evolutions. Like Power Construct, while it's ostensibly the mega stones being banned, the main purpose is to ban the forms. However, in the few cases where the mega was underwhelming compared to the base form, the entire Pokemon was banned.

Allowing Darmanitan in OU on the condition that it uses Zen Mode instead of Gorilla Tactics is exactly the same as allowing Garchomp in UU on the condition that it holds Garchompite and not Rockium Z or a Choice Scarf or whatever.
I really don't think comparing a Gorilla Tactics ban to allowing underwhelming Megas in lower tiers is a fair comparison. Gorilla Tactics is an ability that is baked into the Pokemon and its design, while Garchompite was an item introduced 2 gens after Garchomp was created. In that hypothetical you presented Garchomp can still use its base form's talents without an item, while Darm without Gorilla Tactics has to bank exclusively on Zen Mode.

Name a dedicated Darm check that doesn't get dropped after minor chip.

So this isn't a one-liner I'm going to go ahead and say I actually support Omari P's suggestion from last generation that we make people's ladder peaks visible when they post in these threads. Oh, and of fucking course Darm should be suspected. A Pokemon with literally zero reliable counterplay that can shit on both offense and fat teams alike is not a healthy presence in the metagame.

Also something to consider is that Zen Mode Darm, while a rare sight and perhaps not as broken on its own, can actually be terrifying to face when you do run into it because you don't know if it's Zen Darm until it's too late. Zen Darm takes advantage of the numerous switches standard Darm sets force in order to set up, and by playing like you normally would against a Gorilla Tactics Darm, you can easily give it opportunities to sweep you, which it requires very little chip on certain key threats to do. Things like Jellicent and Milotic, who are usually pretty solid checks to GT Darm, are not walling a Drummed up Zen Darm;

+6 252 Atk Darmanitan-Zen-Galar Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Milotic: 425-501 (107.8 - 127.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+6 252 Atk Darmanitan-Zen-Galar Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Jellicent: 458-539 (113.3 - 133.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Hell, even max/max Rotom-W is losing over 70% of its health to Icicle Crash, so it's not unrealistic that you could chip it into KO range;

+6 252 Atk Abomasnow Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-Wash: 222-261 (73 - 85.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Furthermore, with 135 base Speed and a Salac Berry boost, revengekilling it without a priority user is basically out of the question. I think Gorilla Tactics Darm is far more dangerous than Zen Mode but I'm not wholly convinced Zen Mode Darm is balanced on its own. It's still basically unwallable, it just requires a bit of set-up in order to reach that state first.
As I said earlier, in the event of a Gorilla Tactics ban Zen Darm indirectly gets worse because it can't abuse the switches its counterpart forces, once you see Darm you know it's gonna be a form of Zen Mode. If it somehow turned out to be still OP I'll gladly take the L

All in all, regardless of the outcome I'm pretty happy my original post has actually sparked a debate on which option is better. Look at me making an important contribution!
 
I believe a Gorilla Tactics suspect would be more appropriate.
If we can avoid banning a Pokemon with the already low options of available Pokemon then we should try to preserve the Pokemon.
Gorilla Tactics is what makes GDarm broken I believe and he is the only one with the ability.
We should only suspect Zen Mode GDarm to see if GDarm as a whole is the problem.
If we suspect GDarm as a whole then we already know it's broken so there is no point in suspecting when we will already know the outcome.
 
In case it isn't obvious, I think that gorilla tactics should be suspected, not G-Darm as a whole. No need to give zen mode the boot when it's not overpowered.

Two words: Blaze Blaziken.

So this isn't a one-liner... Honestly, I have no strong feelings on Darm either way, but there is one thing I do have strong feelings on: DRACOVISH. As much as I love that abomination, it's the most broken thing OU's seen in generations and I do not understand why y'all seem to be focussing on everything but it. We're talking about a Pokemon that basically mandates Water Absorb or Storm Drain on every team because it 2HKOs PhysDef Pex and Ferro with a resisted move, and that's before you add rain support to the equation; even Dynamax had more counterplay than Vish the mish fish does. Frankly, it should've been quickbanned the moment we discovered Rend is a biting move.
 
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If i have to choose the ban of Gorilan Tactics is the better. But I doesnt have problem fighting against him.
I see many player lead with GDarmanitan, bc of the utility of uturn gaining but i play against him using protect. if you know his move he become fairly manegable.

Things like Dracovish or LO Clefable generated more problem in general...
 

Yung Dramps

awesome gaming
Two words: Blaze Blaziken.

So this isn't a one-liner... Honestly, I have no strong feelings on Darm either way, but there is one thing I do have strong feelings on: DRACOVISH. As much as I love that abomination, it's the most broken thing OU's seen in generations and I do not understand why y'all seem to be focussing on everything but it. We're talking about a Pokemon that basically mandates Water Absorb or Storm Drain on every team because it 2HKOs PhysDef Pex and Ferro with a resisted move, and that's before you add rain support to the equation; even Dynamax had more counterplay than Vish the mish fish does. Frankly, it should've been quickbanned the moment we discovered Rend is a biting move.
Once Dynamax was banned, I too deliberated over whether Dracovish or Darmanitan was in greater need of tiering action. Ultimately I think what separates them is that whereas Dracovish has one attack that is a ludicrous nuke, EVERY SINGLE ONE of Darmanitan's moves is a ludicrous nuke.

I don't think anybody's ignoring Vish, there are many, many people who feel that it is absurd. But right now, Darmanitan is the greater evil who needs to be dealt with first.
 
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