Resource ORAS OU Metagame Discussion

[cityscapes]

And which pokemon use taunt in competitive play really?

Mew
Magma Storm Heatran
Azelf
use other stuff if you want I guess

And talking about a OU being more diverse is a laugh. People are always going to use clefable and landorus therian, and other top tier pokemon. If people use the same top tier pokemon in competitive, I guess there isnt much diversity is there?

have you ever heard of the term "role compression"? For the examples you gave, Landorus-T (let's say you're running the defensive variant) is a Stealth Rock setter, a Knock Off user, an Earthquake switch-in, a defensive pivot, etc while Clefable (maybe Calm Mind/Magic Guard with Thunder Wave) is a win condition, a speed control, a Dragon counter, and so on.

You might think that this restricts teambuilding (for instance you don't like having to use Landorus-T) but on the contrary, it frees it up. Now you don't have to squeeze in a Flying-type to switch in on Excadrill and shoehorn in a Stealth Rock setter because Landorus-T will do both for you, allowing you to use dumb stuff from the lower ranks of the VR as you beat people who are bad at the game.

 

[Martin]

Its pretty sad to even suspect M-sableye, or even ban him. Saying hes unhealthy doesnt mean anything, if you cant prove it.

Literally looking at the history of stall in the gen 6 meta is more enough proof, given that it changed stall from an archetype with 2-3 good variants in XY into an archetype with one good variant while also shutting down traditional stallbreaking methods.

Pretty much any ground type with earthquake can kill it,

or not to mention clefable, which is S-tier, can deal with it like nothing. Also manaphy wrecks house with tail glow, rain dance, scald.

I'm not quite sure how this is at all relevant considering that it's not been banned for being some impossible-to-KO threat so much as for how restrictive it is in the teambuilder.

People just dont like M-sableye cause they want to use rocks, or spikes every single game.

There are a lot more reasons than just this, but whatever you say bro

If you are having a hard time killing M-sableye, then you are just bad at the game.

What the fuck does this statement even mean? In addition to being a complete non-argument that adds literally no substance to your post (hint: no they're not), it is a fundamentally flawed argument in the same way that prediction is a fundamentally flawed argument 'cause it is on a player level rather than... y'know, the level of what you're actually talking about. Furthermore, in addition to the OU room scrubs/the handful of competent people in there who were moaning about it, there were major tour players moaning about it too.

And which pokemon use taunt in competitive play really?

Non-Sab meta: Heatran, Talonflame, Mew, Gliscor, Terrakion, Azelf, Jellicent, (Mega) Gyarados and probably more that I'm forgetting

Sab meta: Heatran, Talonflame, Azelf, Jellicent, Mega Gyarados (and I didn't even like using it on two of those pre-ban)

Now let's play a game of count the pokemon! Non-Sab has 8+ whereas the Sab meta has 5. :thonkang:

Like I said before people are just bad at the game.

Saying this again doesn't make the statement any less wrong/idiotic.

And talking about a OU being more diverse is a laugh. People are always going to use clefable and landorus therian, and other top tier pokemon. If people use the same top tier pokemon in competitive, I guess there isnt much diversity is there?

Except that there is diversity. Yes, you get trends--people use good Pokémon for a reason--but you aren't seeing every single player using the exact same team. That is unless you look at stall, where you very quickly notice that stall right before the Sab ban was literally Sab+Zapdos+Skarmory+Clefable+Dugtrio+Suicune. Note the fact that there is not only literally one (consistently) viable team. Also note the reduced diversity in stallbreakers relative to the pre- and post-Sab meta, namely due to the fact that traditional stallbreaking methods are completely shut down by Sableye and, as such, stallbreaking basically consists of setup and Heatran/Taunt MGyara--namely the Taunt thing, and going down the list of viable Taunt users in the Sab meta I can literally point out key issues that prevent all but one of them from consistently stallbreaking.

Heatran just gets trapped and taken out by Dugtrio, which was only considered to be an actual issue when used alongside Mega Sableye. Talonflame can't stallbreak consistently if it forgoes Bulk Up or SD in favor of Taunt+Wisp (a set that would traditionally shut stall down) solely because of Sableye shutting such a set down. Azelf only uses it to stop opposing hazards going up (it's not got enough longevity to stallbreak consistently), and later on in the Sab meta I personally just outright dropped it in favor of Skill Swap+Iron Tail on one set. Jellicent not only needs to forgo it's better double status set to run Taunt, but it also doesn't really stallbreak very well when it does opt to run it because Sableye just completely shuts it down.

 

[hecatomb]

Really like people here are completely ignorant. 1st off arena trap and shadow tag are the problem, not mega sableye. 2nd off he wasnt even the most played at the time, people still use clefable and landorus-t all the time, and can be on any team. Clefable out classes all other fairy types in the meta, and landorus outclasses all ground types in the meta, so theres no reason not to use them.

Smogens logic makes me sick sometimes.

 

[Master B8s]

Really like people here are completely ignorant. 1st off arena trap and shadow tag are the problem, not mega sableye. 2nd off he wasnt even the most played at the time, people still use clefable and landorus-t all the time, and can be on any team. Clefable out classes all other fairy types in the meta, and landorus outclasses all ground types in the meta, so theres no reason not to use them.

Smogens logic makes me sick sometimes.

Do you even hear yourself? Clefable outclasses every fairy? there are fairy type wallbreakers like azumaril and diance and gardevior mega and making blanket statements like this just make your argument even more moranic. Landorus still has competition from hippowdon and garchomp for bulky ground types. Yeah Landorus and Clefable might be the most splashable of those types but saying they just outclass everything shows me how little you know about the meta. Btw I'm not even pro ban for sableye (personally thought dugtrio should've been looked at but that's just one mans opinion). Calling the entire smogon community idiots and bad at Pokemon doesn't help your argument that sableye wasn't broken.

 

[ericaroselia]

Really like people here are completely ignorant. 1st off arena trap and shadow tag are the problem, not mega sableye. 2nd off he wasnt even the most played at the time, people still use clefable and landorus-t all the time, and can be on any team. Clefable out classes all other fairy types in the meta, and landorus outclasses all ground types in the meta, so theres no reason not to use them.

Smogens logic makes me sick sometimes.

Pokemon aren't banned from usage, they are banned if they are broken/unhealthy, Mega Sab didn't have super high usage because it was only viable on defensive teams and stall isn't the most common playstyle, landorus-t and clefable fit in offense and also balance, the most common playstyles, they may be S rank but they aren't broken or overcentralising, just very good and the meta is well prepared for them, Sableye made stall pretty unhealthy and it was almost impossible to break unless you had some specific mons, some of them were trapped by Dug/Weavile or walled by another poke, without Sableye in the tier it's easier to keep hazards and overall wear down the team better, Sab was just too good on stall and made it low risk high reward, Dug stalls aren't as good as they were when sableye was around.

 

[JTD783]

To shift this discussion away from the Sableye aspect of the Sab ban, I'd like to bring up Ferrothorn and how it is affected by Sab's departure. It's better to focus on what changes the meta faces now instead of talking about the way things were with Sab in OU.

Obviously ferro appreciates something that prevents it from laying hazards and throwing out leech seeds, and it doesn't have to worry about being burned by Sab's wisp anymore. However, the recent rise of Zapdos makes ferro's life hard since it heat waves and defogs in ferro's face. Ferro can at least use toxic, but if zap is on any build with clerics (read: stall) then this is not a big deal for zapdos. Newly viable stall megas, such as Mega Venusaur, Mega Altaria, and Mega Slowbro, can also deal with ferro to some extent. Venu HP Fires, alt has fire blast/flamethrower, and slowbro can fish for scald burns.

I figure ferro's viability will not be affected a lot, although it may be less deadweight against stall teams. All of the stuff mentioned earlier applies to Skarmory as well.

Interested to hear what everyone else thinks about this.

tl;dr stop dwelling on the past and talk about the new meta

 

[EndPhaze]

To shift this discussion away from the Sableye aspect of the Sab ban, I'd like to bring up Ferrothorn and how it is affected by Sab's departure. It's better to focus on what changes the meta faces now instead of talking about the way things were with Sab in OU.

Obviously ferro appreciates something that prevents it from laying hazards and throwing out leech seeds, and it doesn't have to worry about being burned by Sab's wisp anymore. However, the recent rise of Zapdos makes ferro's life hard since it heat waves and defogs in ferro's face. Ferro can at least use toxic, but if zap is on any build with clerics (read: stall) then this is not a big deal for zapdos. Newly viable stall megas, such as Mega Venusaur, Mega Altaria, and Mega Slowbro, can also deal with ferro to some extent. Venu HP Fires, alt has fire blast/flamethrower, and slowbro can fish for scald burns.

I figure ferro's viability will not be affected a lot, although it may be less deadweight against stall teams. All of the stuff mentioned earlier applies to Skarmory as well.

Interested to hear what everyone else thinks about this.

tl;dr stop dwelling on the past and talk about the new meta

Ferro might move down in viability in stall in general, however against your more common BO and HO teams Ferro might see more usage as a result of the ban, being able able to force a switch on Mega Diancie, a prominent wallbreaker in the meta ( when it's not running HP Fire) is nothing to be laughed at. Although it may be a bit of a deadweight against more prominent Megas for stall, such as Mega Venusaur, it still is an annoyance to Mega Slowbro, resisting both its STAB's and causing residual damage on Leech Seed. As you said Slowbro can really only fish for scald burns, which is really not a whole lot more than praying and hoping. Not to mention toxic as well, ironically outstalling a staple stall mon. Ferro has been viable since it came out in gen 5, and i believe that it will continue to be viable in the current meta despite recent changes, and will still be viable in Gen 7

 

[ericaroselia]

Ye JTD783, Ferro's viability won't change much, sure that Sableye was banned and lets it get hazards but it still doesn't do much to stall, as you said Zapdos is more common on stall and from my experience, people are starting to run Magic Bouncers like Xatu and Espeon on that kind of team to compensate for lack of Sab and WoW Charizard X is one of the most common stall megas now.

And EndPhaze, i never saw Ferrothorn being ran on serious stall teams before the Sab ban, Skarmory has always been better due to Roost and Unaware Clefable, especially Unaware CM is a better Manaphy counter but Ferro is awesome in offense and balance tho since it has the typing to check stuff, cool utility, especially the hazards it sets and doesn't take much momentum since Gyro Ball and Power Whip deal some damage.

BTW Toxic Ferrothorn is ultra rare and doesn't seem good, i don't think anyone uses that, i'd rather use Knock Off since it removes Heatran's Leftovers so you can wear it down better with Leech Seed + T Wave looks like a better utility move in general for speed control.

 

[hecatomb]

Do you even hear yourself? Clefable outclasses every fairy? there are fairy type wallbreakers like azumaril and diance and gardevior mega and making blanket statements like this just make your argument even more moranic. Landorus still has competition from hippowdon and garchomp for bulky ground types. Yeah Landorus and Clefable might be the most splashable of those types but saying they just outclass everything shows me how little you know about the meta. Btw I'm not even pro ban for sableye (personally thought dugtrio should've been looked at but that's just one mans opinion). Calling the entire smogon community idiots and bad at Pokemon doesn't help your argument that sableye wasn't broken.

Clefable outclasses all other fairy types, deal with it, azumaril is a 1 trick pony everyone knows its going to do bellydrum, m-diance can be countered pretty easy by landorus therian, or anyone with earthquake or water types. Though I think m-diance might be the 2nd best fairy in OU.

Shadow tag was a problem so they banned it, so why not arena trap? Oh right cause smogen logic. It really makes 0 sense to have arenatrap be allowed, but shadow tag is banned.

 

[Shurtugal]

lol

 

[Master B8s]

Clefable outclasses all other fairy types, deal with it, azumaril is a 1 trick pony everyone knows its going to do bellydrum, m-diance can be countered pretty easy by landorus therian, or anyone with earthquake or water types. Though I think m-diance might be the 2nd best fairy in OU.

Shadow tag was a problem so they banned it, so why not arena trap? Oh right cause smogen logic. It really makes 0 sense to have arenatrap be allowed, but shadow tag is banned.

While i do agree arena trap should have been looked at as well in terms of a suspect, Clefable does not outclass fairy types. Clefable cannot run a physical set like Azumarill (CB or BD). Offensive sets may have similar damage output to Diance + Gardevoir Mega, but lack the speed to outspeed anything notable and at that point, Clefable isn't able to reliably check any of the offensive threats it is used to (Keldeo, Latios, Altaria, Kyu-B)

252+ SpA Life Orb Clefable Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 179-212 (52.4 - 62.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
232+ SpA Pixilate Mega Gardevoir Hyper Voice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 186-220 (54.5 - 64.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
248 SpA Mega Diancie Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 181-214 (53 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Lure sets only work because they have the surprise factor and usually means running a sub par set as to the more common set. In what world does Lando-T counter Diance? It cant switch in, and only outspeeds with scarf, which isn't the best set for it honestly.

Don't throw around blanket statements about clefable that aren't true. Yeah it's the best fairy in the tier, but that doesn't mean it outclasses everything, if that were the case, there'd be no other fairy types ranked on the viability or OU by usage which isn't the case.

 

[SketchUp]

Are smogen logic ruining the metagame?

I would say no. However, I would say that a lack of metagame knowledge is ruining discussions on possible suspects. Calling Azu a one trick pony is a nice example of a lack of metagame knowledge btw.

Dugtrio (Arena Trap) and Gothitelle (Shadow Tag) are not really comparable. In the worst case scenario, Gothitelle was still able to stop at least one pokemon from murdering your team because of Shadow Tag + Trick. It did well on stall teams trapping stallbreakers like Togekiss and it did well on balance trapping passive mons like Heatran or Chansey so [insert wallbreaker that loses to Heatran / Chansey] could win easily. Gothitelle was able to cripple like 80% of the tier simply because of Trick + Shadow Tag, Dugtrio traps like 20% of the metagame and it doesn't even do that reliable because of zero bulk.

 

[volx757]

Are smogen logic ruining the metagame?

I would say no. However, I would say that a lack of metagame knowledge is ruining discussions on possible suspects. Calling Azu a one trick pony is a nice example of a lack of metagame knowledge btw.

Dugtrio (Arena Trap) and Gothitelle (Shadow Tag) are not really comparable. In the worst case scenario, Gothitelle was still able to stop at least one pokemon from murdering your team because of Shadow Tag + Trick. It did well on stall teams trapping stallbreakers like Togekiss and it did well on balance trapping passive mons like Heatran or Chansey so [insert wallbreaker that loses to Heatran / Chansey] could win easily. Gothitelle was able to cripple like 80% of the tier simply because of Trick + Shadow Tag, Dugtrio traps like 20% of the metagame and it doesn't even do that reliable because of zero bulk.

Dugtrio traps all grounded mons which is closer to 80% of the metagame. If it's being played properly, it does it's job of picking up guaranteed revenge kills fairly easily. It's bulk will almost never come into play: either it's getting hit twice (once to break sash, once to kill) or getting hit once (hazards break sash, one hit to kill). Since it out-speeds the majority of the meta, as long as it's only sent out on pokes it's sure it can kill (which can be pretty much anything in a revenge kill situation, from a full-health heatran or heracross to a 30% chansey or clefable), it almost assures the dugtrio player is getting 1-for-1s on every kill.

But besides all that, arena trap and shadow tag should be treated the same way because they both remove the same fundamental aspect of battle from play, and both can do so against the large majority of the meta. They are uncompetitive abilities.

 

[ericaroselia]

Clefable outclasses all other fairy types, deal with it, azumaril is a 1 trick pony everyone knows its going to do bellydrum, m-diance can be countered pretty easy by landorus therian, or anyone with earthquake or water types. Though I think m-diance might be the 2nd best fairy in OU.

Shadow tag was a problem so they banned it, so why not arena trap? Oh right cause smogen logic. It really makes 0 sense to have arenatrap be allowed, but shadow tag is banned.

Clefable does NOT outclass Azumarill or Mega Diancie and affriming that shows that you don't understand this metagame very well and that you haven't analyzed Azuma and Diancie's potential yet. Clefable may be great and i think you said that it deserved to be banned before but it does not, its defensive stats aren't huge for a wall so it ends up being 2HKO'd by wallbreakers, Specs Latios with Psychic is getting more common and that set scores the 2HKO on Clefable, regardless of its spread and overall it's pressured easily, if not at 100% hp, it stops being able to switch on certain opponents. Also steel types such as Excadrill, Heatran, Mega Scizor, Jirachi, Mega Metagross, Ferrothorn, Magnezone are everywhere and even tho they aren't hard counters due to moves such as Flamethrower and Thunder Wave, they are checks regardless and there are other pokemon that check Clef, for example poison types like Nidoking and Gengar and opposing CM users such as Suicune, mainly if it has Roar to phaze it or Sub + Protect and Psyshock users such as Reuniclus and Slowbro/King. Obviously Clefable is great and has a ton of positive aspects but i'm just focusing on the negative ones and on its checks so you can see that Clef is not unbeatable, also Clef not being a physical water type that has Huge Power and being able to utilise a Choice Band or a Belly Drum set effectively should tell you that it's not outclassed by Azumarill and don't compare Diancie with Clefable either, Clefable is a bulky wall, Mega Diancie is a fast Rock-type wallbreaker so they clearly do different things.

You also said something about Landorus-T earlier and from your post, it seems that you also wanted Smogon to ban Lando and i do not know where are you coming from, i often read on showdown things such as "omg they need to ban lando, it's too broken" and i don't understand, sure that it's S rank and is an incredibly splashable pokemon but it's actually healthy to the metagame, it checks threats that would otherwise be much more dangerous such as Excadrill, Mega Lopunny, Terrakion and Mega Charizard X. Lando-T is not the pokemon that you see on the opposing team and think "omg lando, i'm going to lose" mainly because it is way too common not for you to cover and it's easy to check it, especially when the own Landorus-T checks other Landorus-T but it usually doesn't hurt including pokemon such as Tangrowth and Rotom-W on the team since they are very good and also check Lando but other common threats such as Keldeo, Slowbro, Starmie and Kyurem also beat it. The most common Landorus-T sets you will see are Defensive and Choice Scarf, the defensive set isn't so powerful as it's not an offensive set, easily worn down since it tries to check multiple pokemon and then lacks recovery not to mention that many pokemon have no trouble fitting Ice type coverage moves on their sets for example, every Mega Medicham carries Ice Punch in this meta and Lopunny can use Ice Punch or even Ice Beam on the set without losing much. The Choice Scarf set may be good but it's not overpowered either, it is a U-turn spammer so it invites Rocky Helmet users such as defensive Landorus-T and Tangrowth to come in to wall and deal chip damage and it cannot simply freely use alot of EQs either because ground immunities are everywhere. Also, i fail to see how Landorus outclasses all ground types when Garchomp, Excadrill, Dugtrio, Diggersby, Hippowdon, Gliscor, Mamoswine, Nidoking, Gastrodon and Seismitoad are all viable in this meta...

Also, Dugtrio may be awesome and i understand where are you coming from when you say that it's unhealthy and frustrating to play against, getting rid of Heatran or Diancie can win you the game but Dugtrio can't trap "the entire meta" as you say, its base atk is pretty low, only traps grounded pokemon and its fraility equals over reliance on Focus Sash or predictions and if you try out Dugtrio, you will notice that it's total deadweight against some teams pretty much and its effectiveness on stall (and the effectiveness of stall in general) has been reduced due to the Sableye ban. By the way, not being able to switch in safely on Heatran (the mon that it likes to trap the most) due to the possibility of taking a Lava Plume and being burned or in the worst case, taking a Magma Storm which kills it through sash is an issue too.

 

[cityscapes]

Yes I need to be banned cause you dont like my opinion, grow up kid, this is the internet, how old are you? By the way your opinion sucks.

what.

#1: No one said that you needed to be banned.
#2: What you stated before was not an opinion. It was a fact. And it was wrong.
#3: This is the Internet, but this is also Smogon. We have higher standards here so people are expected to have informative discussion. There hasn't been any kind of "discussion" going on here; you haven't even addressed any of the counterarguments people have been making besides "your opinion sucks".
#4: When you saw "Silver_Lucario42 quoted your post in the thread 'ORAS OU Metagame Discussion'" in your alerts, you probably thought something along the lines of "Oh no, another Smogoner disagreeing with me". If you don't want people to disagree with you (which, judging from your posts, is probably true), then do your research before posting. Remember that broken and good are two different things. Belly Drum Azumarill being the "only viable set" doesn't mean that Azumarill is bad because you know what set it is, it means that the Belly Drum set is just really good and absolutely terrifying to deal with late-game. If you don't have anything to say except for an angry one-liner, then don't post it.
#5: Keep in mind that people here don't hate you as a person. They just disagree with you and your sentiments that Landorus-T should be banned and stuff. As I said before, we don't want to ban you-- in fact, we never permanently ban people on the basis of posting uninformed opinions-- and, in fact, we'd prefer if you stayed.

If you do decide to stay, what are your goals for Smogon? Do you want to build a fantastic team that gets spammed all over the ladder by scrubs that don't know how to build better ones? Do you want to become a famed tournament player who has many wins under their belt? Do you want to become someone who sees every ebb and flow in the metagame, and can get 10 likes minimum by posting in the Viability Rankings? No matter what kind of player you want to become, continuing to argue for a side with clear evidence against it will probably not help you.

(Note to mods: please don't delete this post like you did the last one, and if you do decide to, at least poke me on Discord or something to tell me why.)

 

[EndPhaze]

what.

. Belly Drum Azumarill being the "only viable set" doesn't mean that Azumarill is bad because you know what set it is, it means that the Belly Drum set is just really good and absolutely terrifying to deal with late-game. If you don't have anything to say except for an angry one-liner, then don't post it.

I quite agree with your sentiments, however I did just want to point out that although they don't have the prominence of Belly Drum sets, Assault Vest and CB sets are still viable albeit less used. In some cases, other variants are better in surviving a specific attack or fulfilling a niche role on a team

Subject 18 Edit: Removed mentions of a quoted post.