Resource ORAS OU Metagame Discussion

[thesecondbest]

Attract should be banned. It is just as bad as swagger and has no reason to be legal. The Baton pass team running around reminds me how stupid that is.
Similarly, ban sand veil. It should already be banned under evasion clause.

 

[Millionsunz]

Attract should be banned. It is just as bad as swagger and has no reason to be legal. The Baton pass team running around reminds me how stupid that is.
Similarly, ban sand veil. It should already be banned under evasion clause.

Sand Veil is already banned under evasion clause. So is Snow Cloak if I remember correctly.

Attract is rarely seen, due to the fact that most of the genders in PS are randomized, so being able to successfully use Attract is harder than it appears. Instead of the 33.3% chance (male, female, and genderless Pokemon total) you have with manually setting your Pokemon's gender, you actually have an even smaller chance due to the randomization of genders in the simulator. That being said, if PS set all genders to a single one manually, then Attract would be broken af, but it doesn't, so it's rarely seen and used successfully. You can also just switch out from Attracted status like Confusion, making it easy to deal with.

 

[thesecondbest]

Sand Veil is already banned under evasion clause. So is Snow Cloak if I remember correctly.

Attract is rarely seen, due to the fact that most of the genders in PS are randomized, so being able to successfully use Attract is harder than it appears. Instead of the 33.3% chance (male, female, and genderless Pokemon total) you have with manually setting your Pokemon's gender, you actually have an even smaller chance due to the randomization of genders in the simulator. That being said, if PS set all genders to a single one manually, then Attract would be broken af, but it doesn't, so it's rarely seen and used successfully. You can also just switch out from Attracted status like Confusion, making it easy to deal with.

The point is not that it is op, it is that it is uncompetitive. It is exactly like swagger.

 

[bluegrass]

The point is not that it is op, it is that it is uncompetitive. It is exactly like swagger.

There just isn't a point in banning such a little used move, one that's not even that bad lol. If we ban Attract we might as well go ahead and ban stuff like Confuse Ray or Block because they're also haxy/noncompetitive. Chance is a huge part of this game, you can play a perfect match and still lose because your Hydro Pump missed. Attract is super easy to deal with unlike evasion moves or Swagger where it's a 50%? chance you're going to take damage if you don't switch.

Swagplay was literal ass to face, and unlike Attract it was actually a gimmicky noncompetitive strategy that worked. It was pretty easy to climb the ladder with a team of six prankster mons with Swagger / T-Wave / Sub / Filler.

 

[aybekay]

I wanted to mention that Baton Pass Teams with Scolipede seems to be on the rise again. First of I wanted to say that this strategy is absolutely scum and it is also extremely frustrating to deal with it.

 

[Martin]

Sand Veil is already banned under evasion clause. So is Snow Cloak if I remember correctly.

That is no longer the case in gen 6. You can use Sand Veil/Snow Cloak legally, and it was even the centre of an RMT a while ago:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...g-that-is-raging-peaked-1-on-suspect.3539069/


Edit: Sorry that this is kinda against the rules of the thread, but while I am still here I just want to comment on the BP thing in PR due to the lack of PR access+me not really thinking it's worth the effort to go through someone else for such a short point. Feel free to delete this if you think I'm out of line.

I don't see any merit what-so-ever to banning BP as a whole, and similarly I don't think that all stat passing is borked/uncompetitive to the point where you need to ban that aspect of BP's mechanics. That said, there is a lot to be said about speed passing and I think that simply doing what NU have done and banning any method of intentionally passing speed boosts (Agilipass, Speed Boost+Baton Pass etc.). Speed is just so much more effective because you can easily make things like Heracross, MMeta, Manaphy etc. virtually impossible to stop consistently to the point where it is just stupid, while when passing defenses you at least have the drawback of stuff being slow and it needing careful planning ahead to get it to work in a match.

 

[TheGreatKoala]

I wanted to mention that Baton Pass Teams with Scolipede seems to be on the rise again. First of I wanted to say that this strategy is absolutely scum and it is also extremely frustrating to deal with it.

A good excuse to use something strong with priority(eg. Dragonite)/Something where you can boost on Scolipede's protect turn(eg. Dragonite)/Something which Scolipede struggles to kill on it's first turn if it doesn't protect(eg. Guess lol)

Obviously Dragonite isn't the only answer, it's just an example. Scizor/Mega Scizor with Swords Dance is another good one. Something powerful with Sucker Punch is another(Swords Dance Absol). Anything that can either stop that pass, or cancel out the speed gain from it renders the strat fairly useless.

At times, however, it can be very frustrating to deal with(like you said)

 

[Martin]

A good excuse to use something strong with priority(eg. Dragonite)/Something where you can boost on Scolipede's protect turn(eg. Dragonite)/Something which Scolipede struggles to kill on it's first turn if it doesn't protect(eg. Guess lol)

Just saw this and thought I'd comment, but boosting alongside Scolipede doesn't work unless you are either a) already boosted when Scoli comes in or b) faster and already in vs. it. Given that Scoli typically runs a bulky spread (fast scoli is dookie srs just run enough to beat MZam at +1 (28 Spe Jolly) and ur set), this basically consists of Zard, Volcarona and Agility/Rock Polish users if you just look at unboosted 'mons. And then this brings with it the issue that no sane player would bring out a Scoli on something which is both currently faster than it and capable of boosting it's speed alongside it. At the end of the day if you don't have something that can take a hit from smth like +1 Zard on a BP team it's not a very good build, and with berries in particular being good on these types of builds (Sitrus Manaphy being a favorite of mine) you are able to come out of these matchups without being in range of weak priority (i.e. not ESpeed/Gale Bird). Not to mention that banking on the Protect turn to boost up leaves you susceptible to people mixing up their rhythm (like you should with Scolipede regardless of whether you run Attract or not) and subbing up as you boost--providing a safe BP to something that can beat it with a free switch-in.

 

[ckw]

Wanted to bring up the fact that Azelf's usage actually pretty high in OU. The reason to this being the very popular bird spam team that has been flying around. Due to such, some Mega Pokemon such as Mega-Diancie seems to be on the rise too, almost touching the heights of Mega-Scizor. The purpose of bringing this topic up would be ,how the bird spam team has been affecting usage of other pokemon in OU.

 

[SketchUp]

Mega Diancie's usage has been this high for a few months now (6,5 - 7,5%). The birdspam team you're talking about doesn't have a big influence on Mega Diancie I think, especially because the team is pretty well prepared for it (Skill Swap on Azelf, Steel Wing on bandflame which also 2HKOs with BB fwiw, Scarf Exca is a great offensive check and Manaphy + Dragonite at full beat it 1v1). With the exception of Zapdos I can't realy think of another pokemon that gained a lot of usage mainly because of the birdspam team; Rotom-Wash' usage has always been high, Hippowdons usage dropped which is weird because its matchup against the team is great, Mega Venu's usage dropped but that has more to do with Amoonguss and Tangrowth being overhyped than with the birdspam team. So the usage statistics don't really show the impact birdspam has on the metagame with the exception of Zapdos. Maybe if you take a look at the usage of some specific items / moves you will find something but I doubt it will be really significant.

 

[aybekay]

Just saw this and thought I'd comment, but boosting alongside Scolipede doesn't work unless you are either a) already boosted when Scoli comes in or b) faster and already in vs. it. Given that Scoli typically runs a bulky spread (fast scoli is dookie srs just run enough to beat MZam at +1 (28 Spe Jolly) and ur set), this basically consists of Zard, Volcarona and Agility/Rock Polish users if you just look at unboosted 'mons. And then this brings with it the issue that no sane player would bring out a Scoli on something which is both currently faster than it and capable of boosting it's speed alongside it. At the end of the day if you don't have something that can take a hit from smth like +1 Zard on a BP team it's not a very good build, and with berries in particular being good on these types of builds (Sitrus Manaphy being a favorite of mine) you are able to come out of these matchups without being in range of weak priority (i.e. not ESpeed/Gale Bird). Not to mention that banking on the Protect turn to boost up leaves you susceptible to people mixing up their rhythm (like you should with Scolipede regardless of whether you run Attract or not) and subbing up as you boost--providing a safe BP to something that can beat it with a free switch-in.

So what would be generally a good and reliable way of beating this strategy or is this strategy perfect so you are not able to counterplay against it ?

 

[Millionsunz]

So what would be generally a good and reliable way of beating this strategy or is this strategy perfect so you are not able to counterplay against it ?

Both Whirlwind and Roar are great options to stop the Speed set-up, and any other form of setting up your opponent chooses to do. Skarmory and Hippowdon are great phazers, being able to (probably) tank a hit and respond with a Whirlwind and Roar respectively. Priority attacks also come in handy, like Gale Wings Brave Bird from Talonflame and Quick Attack from Mega Pinsir. Mega Gardevoir can also deal sorta well, being able to hit behind a possible substitute with Hyper Voice.

There is no such thing as a perfect strategy, and everything has it's weakness. It'll be interesting to see how the metagame shifts, if at all, in response to the rise of BP teams.

 

[zbr]

baton pass is a tried and tested matchup reliant strategy. it's either you have the out to it or you forcefully prep yourself for it.

if you rly want to deal with it, one of the best way to deal with is just to have haze on your team. but then again you're forcing something suboptimal on your team because you don't have a solid out to bp without restructuring your team. people often just say phaze and priority deals with it but in the end, if you don't play well around it and you end up losing just a bit of momentum, the bp player will most likely trample all over you.

also, bp normally appears on the ladder when olt is ongoing so if you're lazy to change your team's moveset then wait till olt is over then ladder. lol.

 

[Revelation]

Personally, I feel retaining Dry Passing would be optimal because of certain sets in lower tiers, but I'm not opposed to a BP ban. After all, we've thought previous nerfs were enough but again it's become a problem.

However, whatever action is taken on Baton Pass, be it a further nerf or outright ban, I feel it to be time to revisit Blaziken. Might be getting ahead of myself, granted, but still.

 

[aybekay]

I would love have Baton Pass banned once and for all. Weren't there rumors about complete ban of Baton Pass around ?

 

[Norne]

Dude fuck that! I have been using momentum dry pass for a long time, I mean it's not volt turn but it's still a great way to keep momentum if you use mega lopunny+trapper or a Sylveon+magnezone core.

I know it is a very niche thing and people would rather u turn with Celebi than BP with Espeon(Seriously no one uses screen Espeon) but BP does has it's uses outside of some cheese, namely momentum keeping to non volturn users.

 

[tigers jaw]

Baton Pass needs to stay, mainly because it's obviously not the broken aspect in the ScoliPass teams. The ability to pass Speedboosts was always the most broken factor in all iterations of Baton Pass teams, and it is currently the only only thing that you really can pass (don't give me that bs about Lansat to CritDra because that's a sub-optimal version of the Speedpass team). All I deem necessary is either of the following: ban Scolipede, or ban Speed-boosting methods+Baton Pass. This is evidently the avenue which provides the least (see: absolutely zero) collateral damage.

Also, zbr, you kinda provided your own counter-argument in saying you're going to have to restructure your team to beat it. We all were around during the previous Baton Pass trails, and we all know that Haze is extremely sub-optimal outside of BP matchups, and the amount of viable Pokemon that have access to haze and can afford to run it is slim-to-none. Not to mention that the recent iterations of Speedpass have options to pass out to the Pokemon that beats your Haze Pokemon, considering the nature is heavy-hitters+pass.

Revelation, Blaziken is incredibly broken even if you overlook its ability to pass. There's no way, in my eyes, that Blaziken can ever be balanced in gen 6 OU, and I doubt it will ever be in subsequent generations.

Edit: and yes, I know this isn't the place for this, hence my post is very superficial. Don't have privileges to post in the actual BPass thread so hey-ho.

 

[volx757]

Also wanted to say a couple of things about Bp. and about scoli.
ScoliPass is a blatantly obvious strategy (i mean i haven't seen suicide lead scoli in forever, so i assume a scoli lead is BP), and thus you can work towards countering it immediately from turn one. Other speed passing strategies can take one totally by surprise, but that should only happen once. It feels gimmicky in a way to me, because your speed passer generally just tries to do the same thing over and over. Also, roar is a viable move learned by viable mons that of course beats this strategy (you have to switch in on the scoli-tect).

I think you ^^ were just saying ban scoli option to help prove your point? But scolipede itself should definitely not be banned, as it has other roles to fill which are far from OP (suicide lead, psychic/dark killer, late-game cleaner)
To the bulky scolipede person above, one notable thing your missing out on by not running max speed is beating the Latis outright, and i'm not sure any bulk you give it helps that much in such a hard-hitting metagame. And you outspeed the relevant scarfed metagame at +1.

 

[JosephCottone]

The only time baton pass is every broken is when you boost multiple stats at once on a bp then storedpower team

 

[tigers jaw]

Also, roar is a viable move learned by viable mons that of course beats this strategy

 

[Martin]

Also wanted to say a couple of things about Bp. and about scoli.
ScoliPass is a blatantly obvious strategy (i mean i haven't seen suicide lead scoli in forever, so i assume a scoli lead is BP), and thus you can work towards countering it immediately from turn one. Other speed passing strategies can take one totally by surprise, but that should only happen once. It feels gimmicky in a way to me, because your speed passer generally just tries to do the same thing over and over. Also, roar is a viable move learned by viable mons that of course beats this strategy (you have to switch in on the scoli-tect).

I think you ^^ were just saying ban scoli option to help prove your point? But scolipede itself should definitely not be banned, as it has other roles to fill which are far from OP (suicide lead, psychic/dark killer, late-game cleaner)
To the bulky scolipede person above, one notable thing your missing out on by not running max speed is beating the Latis outright, and i'm not sure any bulk you give it helps that much in such a hard-hitting metagame. And you outspeed the relevant scarfed metagame at +1.

Any goood Scolipass team has either Espeon or Xatu don't pretend that Roar beats it. Also you exchange the ability to beat Latios before a boost (doesn't matter if you run Attract>Megahorn, which has it's own set of pros and cons, is not hard to attain, and if they switch on your Protect you can double protect 100% of the time to sub on faster scarfers or to next an extra free boost). The bulk is really nice vs. a lot of hard hitters like MegaCham and it also lets it take most 40 BP priority whenever it is over about 25% (including MegaCham's Bullet Punch and a few other things) and allows it to sub on stuff like MSab kinda consistently, which speed can't do. The pros of max speed are so few and far-between that it is p. much never worth running considering that you aren't normally doing stuff before you get to +1 anyway and it is pretty easy to attain the boost anyway.

 

[volx757]

But BP-clause has changed this. I said you switch in on the Scolipede protect, so either they BP their speed to Espeon and your roar fails, or they bp to someone else and your roar succeeds. +1 Speed Espeon isn't threatening so either of these scenarios are fine, and BP clause means Espeon can't then pass that speed on to someone else.

 

[zbr]

tigers jaw yeah the issue is that you have to restructure your team such that you potentially lose out on perhaps one important coverage or certain synergies in teams by using haze / restructuring. offense with gren had to forgo a coverage on gren to use haze. balance had to use tentacruel to somewhat deal with the issue. why should i have to restructure my team to deal with a strategy that is somewhat rouge and matchup reliant at best when i have a better chance at using that open option for dealing with some other more potential threatening to my team? you see where i'm getting?

don't get me wrong. i'm not talking or discussing about banning or nerfing baton pass. i'm just saying that baton pass itself is a really rouge strategy that players use because it either 1. catches people rly off guard and thus decreases the difficulty of the game by pressuring your opponent into making mistakes that are much more costlier than usual or 2. gives them the satisfaction of "sweeping" with a slow mon (e.g mhera, mchomp, crawdaunt). in our current metagame where it's already filled to the brim with threats that you can only check at best, why forfeit yourself certain coverages on mon just so you can have an "edge" against this rouge strategy?

also, phazing isn't particularly the greatest option out there against bp. like i've mentioned, if you're rly afraid of it, then go run tentacruel and eviolite tentacool with haze so that you can deal with bp.

 

[Norne]

Dude, no one uses this thing other than on dedicated BP teams or on gimmick eeveelution low ladder thematic stuff to post in YouTube.

He is only part of the argument on gimmicky hard bpass teams that are mostly dead now.

Seriously let's not forget Azelf does nearly everything Espeon does better.

 

[Norne]

Yes, I have seen it, but I normally use wallbreakers and stall breakers so I really never get to lose vs this things, I can see balance without a dedicated wallbreaker struggling, but offence match ups or wallbreakers don't really fear that Espeon even at +3 speed + cm stored power.

After gothitrap ban, BP teams can't deal with neutral stab wallbreakers at all.