Doublade prevents stall from being broken up by somewhat common threats by allowing you to double up on checks to mons that make yours susceptible to being worn down. Translation: Doublade gives full stall free wins against a sizable amount of teams. You can't really call that irrelevant. By virtue of its typing, it's really the only thing that can do that in OU. That's its niche.
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Resource ORAS OU Viability Ranking Thread V5 (See Page 43 - Post #1063)
- Thread starter bludz
- Start date
Imo the ability to handle Mega Gard, Mega Hera, and CB Terrakion, all pretty big threats/annoyances to stall, all in one slot, makes Doublade D rank
The problem i've got with doublade is that you are essentially using 2 eviolite mons on the same team both of which are relatively pursuit weak. I feel like doubling up on weaknesses makes the things it can wall to be more of a negative than positive.
There is also the matter of redundancy, out of this list:
Mega Gardevoir, Terrakion, Mega Heracross, Mega Medicham Pinsir, Mega Diancie, Latios, Tornadus Therian, Kyurem-Black, Staraptor, Togekiss and Hawlucha.
The only ones that i can think of where it might actually have value in walling are banded terrakion, sub M-Hera and banded Kyurem. You dont beat togekiss you just rely on luck to not get flinched and kill it with gyro (not a solid gameplan). Everything else is already walled by the very common other members on a stall team.
M-Garde is easily beatable by chansey especially as most are running will-o these days. CM latios is only a problem if you dont run a status chansey which you would be able to do if you swapped your doublade for a more team-orientated mon such as jirachi or pursuit metagross.
I guess its got a 'surprise' factor going for it which most people wont expect/prepare for but thats too small of a bonus to merit a ranking factor. The niche of checking literally 3-4 mons in OU which you *might* struggle to otherwise wall is way too small to really warrant a rank.
There is also the matter of redundancy, out of this list:
Mega Gardevoir, Terrakion, Mega Heracross, Mega Medicham Pinsir, Mega Diancie, Latios, Tornadus Therian, Kyurem-Black, Staraptor, Togekiss and Hawlucha.
The only ones that i can think of where it might actually have value in walling are banded terrakion, sub M-Hera and banded Kyurem. You dont beat togekiss you just rely on luck to not get flinched and kill it with gyro (not a solid gameplan). Everything else is already walled by the very common other members on a stall team.
M-Garde is easily beatable by chansey especially as most are running will-o these days. CM latios is only a problem if you dont run a status chansey which you would be able to do if you swapped your doublade for a more team-orientated mon such as jirachi or pursuit metagross.
I guess its got a 'surprise' factor going for it which most people wont expect/prepare for but thats too small of a bonus to merit a ranking factor. The niche of checking literally 3-4 mons in OU which you *might* struggle to otherwise wall is way too small to really warrant a rank.
The concept of doubling up on checks is so counter-intuitive for stall (unless it's like, something with multiple sets that dictate very different counters like Kyub. Balance can double up with regards to shit like HP Fire/EQ Lati being covered separately by Tran and Ferro because cores like that also have actually noteworthy merits other than just providing security against Latios). You have limited slots to beat a plethora of threats, using more than one slot for a single, or even a few Pokemon weakens the overall integrity of a team. It's better to spread thinly against a large spectrum when playing reactively than it is to hedge your bets and throw on a shitmon. This mentality is so screwed it's actually amusing. Instead of having to make decent plays to not get worn down and lose, I'll just depend on a shitmon.
Yeah man it gives real free wins if on-paper you've already got ways to handle the Pokemon it supposedly beats. It's definitely the Doublade.
I thought we'd all moved past the era of "wow this has a niche it's definitely worthy of a ranking now". Do you not see the flaws behind that term?
For the most part, full stall is set in stone, the few differences in builds are choosing what they want free wins against. The only reason I'm okay with Doublade getting D rank is because it's a match up based mon in a match up based play style. Doesn't help that we still have a decent amount of trashmons ranked.
I agree with TFL for the most part. Doublade has a niche that makes sense and I think it's sorta silly to argue this niche is less notable than some of the other dong mons still on the thread. I don't think it's worse than Roserade personally although that might mean we should unrank that and not the other way around.
Either way the ranking team focuses a lot less on the bottom ranked stuff for multiple reasons. 1. We dont use these mons nearly as much as the more viable ones. 2. Mostly what's important is C+ and up since realistically these are the things you'll actually put on teams 95% of the time unless you are (or fancy yourself) an innovator. 3. Mostly an extension of the second point but it's really not worth anyone's time to argue too much about mostly unseen, unused or just straight up bad mons in OU. Not here at least which is an attempt to uncover more relevant and overarching trends. There becomes this whole semantics argument about where do we draw the line "oh we rank Shedinja but not Donphan" but there's no objectivity to this anyway. Rankings can't be totally objective and the blurred line between what's worth ranking and what isn't is the most difficult thing to define. Which is why I usually ask people why they give half a shit, if you know the tier well then you don't need the VR thread to know about your niche team picks. Newer players are already bombarded by information when learning a tier so it's better they aren't confused by seeing dong mons like Emboar on the rankings even if you personally enjoy using it.
So yeah in short we will talk about whether to add Doublade or not but can we please move on. You guys are gonna turn me into AM (do you wonder why leading this thread drove him nuts? I don't any more) with the constant discussion about all the niche mons. We have a thread for this now it's called OU Underdog, go give it some love instead of spending 2 pages on Shedinja and Doublade here when we could be arguing about Mega Venusaur dropping which I thought was a solid nomination to consider.
Either way the ranking team focuses a lot less on the bottom ranked stuff for multiple reasons. 1. We dont use these mons nearly as much as the more viable ones. 2. Mostly what's important is C+ and up since realistically these are the things you'll actually put on teams 95% of the time unless you are (or fancy yourself) an innovator. 3. Mostly an extension of the second point but it's really not worth anyone's time to argue too much about mostly unseen, unused or just straight up bad mons in OU. Not here at least which is an attempt to uncover more relevant and overarching trends. There becomes this whole semantics argument about where do we draw the line "oh we rank Shedinja but not Donphan" but there's no objectivity to this anyway. Rankings can't be totally objective and the blurred line between what's worth ranking and what isn't is the most difficult thing to define. Which is why I usually ask people why they give half a shit, if you know the tier well then you don't need the VR thread to know about your niche team picks. Newer players are already bombarded by information when learning a tier so it's better they aren't confused by seeing dong mons like Emboar on the rankings even if you personally enjoy using it.
So yeah in short we will talk about whether to add Doublade or not but can we please move on. You guys are gonna turn me into AM (do you wonder why leading this thread drove him nuts? I don't any more) with the constant discussion about all the niche mons. We have a thread for this now it's called OU Underdog, go give it some love instead of spending 2 pages on Shedinja and Doublade here when we could be arguing about Mega Venusaur dropping which I thought was a solid nomination to consider.
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Going off of Bludz's post (which I agree with, arguing over Sheddy in hindsight made no sense for me to do and is why I'm not getting involved with Doublade, these mons don't matter in the long run whether they're ranked or not) I'd like to talk more about M-Venu dropping to B+, which I wholeheartedly agree with. There's simply too much opportunity cost to using it, as stall and balance teams are far better off using different megas (Sableye, Sciz, etc.) so using it on those archetypes is a bit of a waste of a slot. Not that Mega-Venu teams are automatically shit just for having it on the team, but pivoting into my next talking point, if you need something like Mega Venu on your team, there are better options, such as Amoonguss (which I mentioned earlier should totally go to A-) and Tangrowth, whom not only don't take up mega slots but can stay healthy throughout the match a lot easier via Regenerator. Overall Venu's simply outclassed, and as such should drop to B+
Instead of free wins, how about we use something more realistic, like "better matchup"? That way you remove the notion that plays have no part in bad/good matchups. It's uncommon for auto-losses to happen with any well-built team, ergo, it's uncommon for stall to ever have completely free wins. The only reason I'm not okay with Doublade being ranked is that standard full stall already beats the majority of what it can beat without much overlap and what it DOES beat either isn't relevant, it does it really shakily (see: Terrakion), or stall has simply better options (see: Jirachi for Fairies, Mega Eye for Mega Medi which really was the only reason people started using Doublade right after the Aegi ban).
If the aim of this thread is to analyse and discuss the relevant overarching trends of the meta, then why does D-rank (or even everything below B-) exist in the first place? Really, is there any need for, what really are irrelevant shitmons to even get a mention?
feel free to delete the first part of this post if you want, or even the whole post. I'm just perplexed
we (ranking team collectively throughout gen 6 in terms of we) put D rank there for the reasons bludz, to an extent tfl, explained. Its why dugtrio was put in D in the rank clean up revamp to use as a baseline for what defines a D rank mon, effective wise. Over the years though it got inflated with lots of worse stuff (due to a lot of factors) and as such the baseline has been the root of lots of awful discussion and an excuse to put anything there. It has its purpose but the nature of the Ou forum and its active users abuse it and degrade the quality of the thread all the time. Not going to change soon as long as the split between ou forum and high level players is there but there is a reason why the lower ranks exist and are nice to have in the big picture.
I'd be fine with doublade in D and roserade unranked for what its worth, not much reason to argue when the points have been made and the post last page was by a guy who peaked 1 with the stall team that utilizes Doublade. I think stall is buns but its the only stall team ive seen in awhile that utilizes doublade effectively for its intended purposes while being part of that baseline of D mons worth using.
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Roserade is only cool because of its access to Toxic Spikes, which are pretty good in the current meta and only don't see much usage because the users of them suck. Tentacruel is super duper bad and Roserade is just a worse Amoonguss/Venusaur. But Toxic Spikes is a good enough reason to keep both ranked.
Doublade is definitely good enough to be ranked, just not amazing. It does stop CB Terrak, which is a huuuuge pain for the most common stall teams (ABR stall variants). It really doesn't do a good job stopping Mega Gard unless you run Rest, which is a waste I think. I would rather have the ability to provide offensive pressure with SD on a stall team than do nothing but sit there and let Gard HP Fire you while you risk the Sleep Talk rolls. But beating Hera/terrak is good enough reason i think to rank it.
Shedinja is really really bad, but that one team with it does well on the ladder (still a bad team since it either auto wins or auto loses but w/e it gets wins still so it's at least usable). It should probably be ranked, but that leads me to my next point:
I think it would be beneficial to have write-ups for the mons in D rank, and maybe the C ranks as well, just to explain exactly what they are supposed to do and what the specific niche they fill is. This would prevent someone from reading this list and making some terrible team with Shedinja and Roserade and Doublade just because they saw they were viable. Might be worth it to clear this up, and it also makes in more justifiable (imo) to keep some of these mons ranked if we have clear explanations as to why they're there.
Doublade is definitely good enough to be ranked, just not amazing. It does stop CB Terrak, which is a huuuuge pain for the most common stall teams (ABR stall variants). It really doesn't do a good job stopping Mega Gard unless you run Rest, which is a waste I think. I would rather have the ability to provide offensive pressure with SD on a stall team than do nothing but sit there and let Gard HP Fire you while you risk the Sleep Talk rolls. But beating Hera/terrak is good enough reason i think to rank it.
Shedinja is really really bad, but that one team with it does well on the ladder (still a bad team since it either auto wins or auto loses but w/e it gets wins still so it's at least usable). It should probably be ranked, but that leads me to my next point:
I think it would be beneficial to have write-ups for the mons in D rank, and maybe the C ranks as well, just to explain exactly what they are supposed to do and what the specific niche they fill is. This would prevent someone from reading this list and making some terrible team with Shedinja and Roserade and Doublade just because they saw they were viable. Might be worth it to clear this up, and it also makes in more justifiable (imo) to keep some of these mons ranked if we have clear explanations as to why they're there.
In all honesty, at this point Mega Venusaur should have been dropped. It's been brought up so many times and there really wasn't any action taken around it.
It's just the idea that if you use it you're losing the opportunity to preserve the Mega Slot and most of time you're thinking, "Why should I use this over Amoonguss?" Fun fact, there's hardly any reason to. The biggest contributing factor that Mega Venusaur has over Amoonguss is it's ability to better checks Electrics, feasible offensive presence, and better overall bulk. Considering Electrics are on a steady decline and the utility that Amoonguss brings in Clear Smog, Spore, Stun Spore, etc none of the other perks that Mega Venusaur has is just usually overshadowed. Then they is the notion that Mega Venusaur is just gets overwhelmed far too easily when relying on Synthesis as recovery in a Sand and passive damage infested meta. The popularity of hazard stack is a huuuuge deal too. It just can't stand up to offensive pressure anymore without completely folding to it and being overwhelming in many matchups. Amoonguss (and by extension Tangrowth) don't have to worry as much about being progressively overloaded with Regenerator usually keeping them healthy enough to consistently check threats throughout the match. This doesn't mean Amoonguss or Tangrowth should go to A- though, B+ is perfect for Pokemon of their caliber, if anything their near the top of B+ if that makes you feel better. So all in all, Mega Venusaur should drop to B+.
I really think Tentacruel would be better fit for C- or possibly lower, rather than C. On paper it seems like such a good mon, but it just seems to fall short a ton of time in practice. It's a seeming good support mon that necessitates a lot more support than it offers. Using Tentacruel usually means that you intend to capitalize on Toxic Spikes, but it's easy to clear nowadays and is really bad anyway, which means Tentacruel would really appreciate a Trapper so it's efforts to set up TSpikes aren't in vain. Plus, Tentacruel is often used a check to a few of the more difficult to check threats, but without any method of recovery bar Black Sludge it usually succumbs wayy to quickly before it does it's job to the fullest, which means it necessitates some form of Wish support to consistently check things and setup TSpikes, which at this point you'd be better off using another Mon that checks the range of threats that it does due to the amount of support it requires. The popularity of hazard stack ironically is another factor that dampers the overall effectiveness of it as it pressures it and it's Wish Passer a great deal more ensure that they are both healthy enough to check what they have to check for basic team functionality. So basically, Tentacruel needs a LOT of support to effectively be used and bring the relatively small support that it does bring to a team, this argument is sorta similar to the Mega Venusuar problem, except there's more room to argue why it should stay and the virtue of just having Toxic Spikes is also a reason.
I think the issue for Tenta is three fold:
1.) Toxic Spikes actually don't do much right now
2.) Ground weak spinners are weak to setters and this is a bit of a ground heavy meta.
3.) It really isn't a mon stall should use
I think Tenta is better off forgoing toxic spikes right now because of Sableye-M teams (which also has amoongus), prevelanance of levitate/flying (avg 2 per team, probably) types to counteract ground meta, and grounded mons like heatran/ferro/exca not caring and being pretty big.
Toxic spikes are the definition of an investment, and not really one with good return. Toxic itself is a status any mon can hold and costs a turn for hitting flying mons and not being cleared. It's very slow in building up damage, unlike immediate returns in SR and Spikes. +If a team wants to avoid a burn, it can choose to eat poison/toxic to avoid you choosing status. This last reason in particular (opponents being able to block scald/wisp burns by poisoning themselves) makes t-spikes counterproductive in a lot of situations. Not to mention you're losing two turns of pressure to even set these just so a latios can defog them.
However outside maybe Entei (who is probably really good but super underrated), I think he fits well with C. I think his better set as a spinner is ignoring tspikes for acid spray. This is the old set used vs CM Sableye to allow him to win without issue, and it still allows tentacruel to spin on any ghost due to no ghosts in OU/UU carry anything to him him for SE damage. While it isn't exactly the most necessary niche with defog around, I really like the dueling power and spinning power tenta brings to neutral/neutral fights and vs ghosts respectively.
1.) Toxic Spikes actually don't do much right now
2.) Ground weak spinners are weak to setters and this is a bit of a ground heavy meta.
3.) It really isn't a mon stall should use
I think Tenta is better off forgoing toxic spikes right now because of Sableye-M teams (which also has amoongus), prevelanance of levitate/flying (avg 2 per team, probably) types to counteract ground meta, and grounded mons like heatran/ferro/exca not caring and being pretty big.
Toxic spikes are the definition of an investment, and not really one with good return. Toxic itself is a status any mon can hold and costs a turn for hitting flying mons and not being cleared. It's very slow in building up damage, unlike immediate returns in SR and Spikes. +If a team wants to avoid a burn, it can choose to eat poison/toxic to avoid you choosing status. This last reason in particular (opponents being able to block scald/wisp burns by poisoning themselves) makes t-spikes counterproductive in a lot of situations. Not to mention you're losing two turns of pressure to even set these just so a latios can defog them.
However outside maybe Entei (who is probably really good but super underrated), I think he fits well with C. I think his better set as a spinner is ignoring tspikes for acid spray. This is the old set used vs CM Sableye to allow him to win without issue, and it still allows tentacruel to spin on any ghost due to no ghosts in OU/UU carry anything to him him for SE damage. While it isn't exactly the most necessary niche with defog around, I really like the dueling power and spinning power tenta brings to neutral/neutral fights and vs ghosts respectively.
It's interesting that Amoonguss used to be seen as a poor man's Mega Venusaur. The way the meta has played out lately, I agree with moving Mega Venusaur down to B+ and Amoonguss up to A- rank, though it's difficult to really say that one is overall better than the other.
The biggest thing Mega Venusaur has going for it is greater offensive presence, being able to run a more powerful HP fire, stuff like Knock Off, etc while having enough speed to beat things like BD azumarill. Lately this offensive presence hasn't meant much since both Mega Venusaur and Amoonguss are used primarily for bulk and defensive typing. The common pokemon they're meant to check these days are mostly fairies and water types, which means they're going to take Scald burns and T-Waves all the time. The issue for Mega Venusaur when being compared to Amoonguss, is that the Venu hates being whittled down by burn and has more to lose by getting paralyzed. Burns obviously make it difficult for Venusaur to get mileage since it's pressured to waste turns on active recovery. Especially while burned, Venusaur's active recovery options in Leech Seed and Synthesis are pretty bad with Tyranitar being extremely common and Hippowdon being somewhat overshadowed. On the other hand, burn and paralysis aren't much of an issue for Amoonguss considering it has two modes of passive recovery and its speed only really comes into play vs slowbro. Thick Fat hasn't been doing much for Mega Venusaur either; fire type moves are either going to shit on Venusaur regardless (Zards/Volc) or land a burn eventually (Heatran), while ice type moves are forcing Venusaur to risk a flinch (Weavile/Mamo) or just ignoring Thick Fat entirely (KyuB). I dare say Amoonguss is an all-around better mon than Venusaur defensively, not even factoring the opportunity cost of using a mega slot.
Halcyon. well-built shedinja teams don't auto-win/auto-lose matches. they never did. this has been a misconception for an entire year now based on how the teams look on paper.
The biggest thing Mega Venusaur has going for it is greater offensive presence, being able to run a more powerful HP fire, stuff like Knock Off, etc while having enough speed to beat things like BD azumarill. Lately this offensive presence hasn't meant much since both Mega Venusaur and Amoonguss are used primarily for bulk and defensive typing. The common pokemon they're meant to check these days are mostly fairies and water types, which means they're going to take Scald burns and T-Waves all the time. The issue for Mega Venusaur when being compared to Amoonguss, is that the Venu hates being whittled down by burn and has more to lose by getting paralyzed. Burns obviously make it difficult for Venusaur to get mileage since it's pressured to waste turns on active recovery. Especially while burned, Venusaur's active recovery options in Leech Seed and Synthesis are pretty bad with Tyranitar being extremely common and Hippowdon being somewhat overshadowed. On the other hand, burn and paralysis aren't much of an issue for Amoonguss considering it has two modes of passive recovery and its speed only really comes into play vs slowbro. Thick Fat hasn't been doing much for Mega Venusaur either; fire type moves are either going to shit on Venusaur regardless (Zards/Volc) or land a burn eventually (Heatran), while ice type moves are forcing Venusaur to risk a flinch (Weavile/Mamo) or just ignoring Thick Fat entirely (KyuB). I dare say Amoonguss is an all-around better mon than Venusaur defensively, not even factoring the opportunity cost of using a mega slot.
Halcyon. well-built shedinja teams don't auto-win/auto-lose matches. they never did. this has been a misconception for an entire year now based on how the teams look on paper.
If we're going to compare Amoonguss to M-Venu, let's not just leave out the negative aspects about Amoonguss. Venusaur's main benefit over Amoonguss is its far greater offensive presence, which allow it to still be more threatening to teams as opposed to Amoonguss who kinda sits there once it has thrown out a Spore since its damage output uninvested is pretty damn poor, especially if you're running Clear Smog over Sludge Bomb. Granted, Amoonguss is great at pivoting around during the time that it has used Spore, but its passiveness still must be stated.
I feel that Venusaur should definitely drop, but Amoonguss' main competition as a splashable bulky grass type is Tangrowth and they are about on the same level of viability, so I see no reason why Amoonguss should rise a rank above Tangrowth, unless you are willing to raise Tangrowth to A- as well along with Amoonguss (which I certainly think is a good idea, but that's a nom for another day) So overall, drop M-Venusaur to B+, and keep Amoonguss in B+ as well.
I feel that Venusaur should definitely drop, but Amoonguss' main competition as a splashable bulky grass type is Tangrowth and they are about on the same level of viability, so I see no reason why Amoonguss should rise a rank above Tangrowth, unless you are willing to raise Tangrowth to A- as well along with Amoonguss (which I certainly think is a good idea, but that's a nom for another day) So overall, drop M-Venusaur to B+, and keep Amoonguss in B+ as well.
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Make no mistake, I'm not trying to understate Amoonguss's passiveness, the reason I wouldn't make it go any higher than A- is because it has shit for offensive presence. However, for something that's meant to be a defensive pivot not having much offensive potential isn't the worst thing in the world. Amoonguss's main job is to switch into threatening mons, spread status, and be a semi-stop to setup sweepers via Clear Smog. There's also Foul Play which allows Amoonguss to somewhat circumvent its poor offensives, albiet only against physical attackers.
As for Tangrowth, I haven't really used it much in the current meta (if I need a bulky grass type I usually just auto to Shroom Goon ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) but it seems about on par with Amoonguss, each have similar roles but each can do something the other can't (Tangrowth is better at beating physical threats and has actual considerable offensive presence, and Amoonguss provides far more utility and beats Keldeo better as well as fairies) so bringing Tangrowth up to A- with Shroom Goon wouldn't be something I'd be opposed to.
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What do people think about mega metagross to B+? i know this is probably gonna be pretty controversial, but its just not that effective right now. Its stab isnt exactly great, and while its stats and ability are good, the metagame has really adapted to it. Especially with all these grounds around right now that can take a hit and retaliate hard, mega metagross is really struggling. on top of that increased usage of rocky helmet on stuff like lando isnt exactly great for it either. Bulky sd/purusit zor is also an issue for it, and thats super common right now. This thing just feels so underwhelming in practice right now that i dont really feel its on par with the other A- mega wallbreakers like mega hera and pins. Im not 100% sure it should drop but after using it recently those are the vibes ive been getting. If this drops however, i'd like mega alt to drop to B rank. but thats a nom for a different time.
As for venusaur, yeah it should drop. Some metagame trends are screwing it over big time. Sand is super common right now and that reduces its recovery, its recovery move only has 8 pp, and its hard to justify using over amoonguss and tangrowth which are arguably better in some ways and dont take up a mega slot. Not a ton else to say
As for venusaur, yeah it should drop. Some metagame trends are screwing it over big time. Sand is super common right now and that reduces its recovery, its recovery move only has 8 pp, and its hard to justify using over amoonguss and tangrowth which are arguably better in some ways and dont take up a mega slot. Not a ton else to say
Personally, I just do not think that Ferrothorn is not a good pick these days. When you think about it, switching this thing in onto something can do more harm than good at times. The lati twins carry hp fire, garchomp with FB, Landorus setting up SD on it, etc. Not to mention Amoongus entering the tier as well as Volcanion being released, the odds seemed stack against ferrothorn, especially when this mon is susceptible to burns, encouraging people to just stay in and click scald. I feel like a mon like this is not good as what it does anymore. I just think that ferrothorns role in the metagame is just not what it used to be, I used to be able to just swtich this thing in with no fear. Nowadays it harder with the meta being more aggro I feel, and that Ferrothorn needs to step down for the time being.
The metagame is less aggro than it used to be if anything. The ban of Hoopa U made it easier for bulkier teams to thrive and the metagame has been shifting in a bulkier direction ever since. Also, ferrothorn is a really effective check to a bunch of common balance breakers like mgarde and mgyara that are huge problems for such teams. With teams becoming more bulky and passive, punishing switch ins for your fellow teammates with entry hazards like spikes is extremely valuable, and klefki is pretty much dogshit right now and skarm really only fits on super bulky balances or stall since it saps so much momentum. If you feel really sad about things switching into ferro easier, just run twave+power whip and run a backup fairy check to punish switch ins. Also, being able to check waters is really valuable coming from the perspective of someone who enjoys being able to build defensive teams since you can pair up ferro with chansey or some other special wall to ensure that you won't lose to manaphy, which is arguably the largest threat to stall in the tier. (bar weird ass hp fire rd sets lmao) Lastly, ferro has amazing synnergy with so many megas with such a great defensive typing like being able to take on fairies for sab, taking on gengar for slowbro, etc. that it is definitely worth a slot on defensive and balanced teams alike. In terms of the current metagame shifts, tyranitar and weavile without low kick have gained a ton of popularity lately, and that really helps out ferro since it can really do a good job checking them and ensuring that they don't break through your team, especially if ferro has clerical support on a defensive team.
I'm gonna start posting here less and less because I'm frankly getting tired of OU and wanna try to get better at lower tiers, but I personally love using ferro and wanted to point out why it should stay in A rank.
Edit: People really need to fucking stop using sand in their arguments, sand has been common for over a year now, and it frankly isn't a recent metagame trend or something that's changed recently for indicate shifts in viability lol. In fact, ttar usage actually went down .4% this last month, so you could argue that sand is becoming less relevant as opposed to more relevant.
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Mew B+ -> B NO : Despite losing the niche it had in XY due to both megas with Magic Bounce I still think Mew is really good and deserve the B+ rank, as still checks a lot of thing due to its amazing bulk and access to WoW such as Thundy, Lopu, Medicham and even Metagross. However isnt that good as back in days because now stall means sableye but still dominates fat balance squads p well.
Nidoking B -> B+ YES: Im not a fan of Nido but i think is a huge threat that deserve more rank due to its facility to destroy balance squads with only a bit of help aka hazards. Offensively can check Electric types and fairies such as Clef and non EP Diancie. or even fat MGarde. Its so sad that its speed hold it back and web isnt than good on OU so that's that.
e:already is B+ my b
Nidoking B -> B+ YES: Im not a fan of Nido but i think is a huge threat that deserve more rank due to its facility to destroy balance squads with only a bit of help aka hazards. Offensively can check Electric types and fairies such as Clef and non EP Diancie. or even fat MGarde. Its so sad that its speed hold it back and web isnt than good on OU so that's that.
e:already is B+ my b
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idk how skarm only fits on "super bulky balances" like its pretty splashable and i hardly ever find myself actually considering ferro over it. Ferro isnt a terrible mon but imo skarm is just way easier to fit onto teams thanks to reliable recovery and not being spikes weak (a rlly big problem for a lot of balances) while also being immune to ground, and resisting flying and bug. ferro wishes it was neutral to fighting so bad and running chople to be able to actually beat stuff like garde and azu sucks ass because you lose lefties and are entirely reliant on leech seed for recovery. Ferro is almost like a middle ground between physdef and spdef skarm that just misses out on a lot. Resisting water is nice untill you realize how poorly it fares against the tiers better water types. Skarm also has whirlwind and taunt to stop it from being total setup bait unlike ferro whos best way of stopping stuff like mzor from setting up is leech seed. Iron barbs and better offensive presence counts for something, but i dont think it justifies ferro being a rank above skarm.
edit: to clarify i was talking about skarm on balance, not saying its good/splashable on offense. sorry i wasnt being clear but i was just pointing out that the balance doesnt need to be borderline stall for skarm to work. also im not sure where the comment about rocky helm on lando-t came from, but i wasnt trying to imply that was bad either. The point about skarm not fitting on offense is worth considering though because i was thinking about this post in the context of balance just because it was mentioned in the post i was responding to. I also dont run ferro very often on bulky offense, so that probably contributed to me not thinking of it in that context.
edit: to clarify i was talking about skarm on balance, not saying its good/splashable on offense. sorry i wasnt being clear but i was just pointing out that the balance doesnt need to be borderline stall for skarm to work. also im not sure where the comment about rocky helm on lando-t came from, but i wasnt trying to imply that was bad either. The point about skarm not fitting on offense is worth considering though because i was thinking about this post in the context of balance just because it was mentioned in the post i was responding to. I also dont run ferro very often on bulky offense, so that probably contributed to me not thinking of it in that context.
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Dude you are seriously understating how much Sand has affected the tier recently. While your fraction of a percent that you use as an argument may very well be true, T-Tar and Excadrill, the two most common mons on Sand teams, are consistently two of the top 20 most used mons on tha ladder (Exca consistently being one of the top 10) so it's not like that .4% changed a whole lot. We can even see the effects Sand's growing popularity has had on the tier, with Helmet Landorus rising in usage and M-Venu falling out of popularity and being replaced by Amoonguss and Tangrowth. Overall I guess Idk what you mean by "people really need to stop fucking using sand in their arguments," sand's rising influence on the tier has changed a whole lot so to not discuss it whilst talking about the viability of a mon (hell Smogon literally put out an article talking abot meta trends that coensided with Sand's resurgence lmao)
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HailFall Skarmory is a complete momentum drain and absolutely does not fit on offense well. If you use a Skarmory on your offense team chances are it's Custap or that team isn't good. Just being real, Skarms access to recovery makes it more passive than Ferro whose way of recovering also annoys the other team. Ferro fits fine on bulky offense in fact it's a staple on many bulky offense builds. It is certainly a lot less viable on stall teams due to its lack of reliable recovery but on offense this is fine - note that Rocky Helmet over Leftovers on Lando-T is fine, and often preferable, for offense. They both have pros and cons on balance... do what you will with that.
Skarm is a wall, Ferro is a tank. Comparing them with the idea that Ferro should stay alive and wall shit the whole match is wrong. It comes in on some things and forces switches, capitalizes by using moves like Spikes, Thunder Wave or Leech Seed and then you switch out. Skarm is more dedicated to Roosting up on shit which is fine but if you think this and the ground immunity make it better than Ferro (which fits on the best playstyle while Skarm does not) then I guess I wont convince you. But IMO these two should absolutely not share a rank in the current metagame.
Skarm is a wall, Ferro is a tank. Comparing them with the idea that Ferro should stay alive and wall shit the whole match is wrong. It comes in on some things and forces switches, capitalizes by using moves like Spikes, Thunder Wave or Leech Seed and then you switch out. Skarm is more dedicated to Roosting up on shit which is fine but if you think this and the ground immunity make it better than Ferro (which fits on the best playstyle while Skarm does not) then I guess I wont convince you. But IMO these two should absolutely not share a rank in the current metagame.
The thing is that sand is and always has been prevalent in the tier pretty much since the inceptionof ORAS, so using sand as an argument to indicate that a RECENT metagame shift is going against it is frankly really stupid. If sand has been common for a long time, then that means something that is weak to sand isn't getting worse, it just should be accepted as one of its flaws as tyranitar has historically dominated in terms of OU usage. I'm not saying that venu shouldn't drop, I'm just saying that something being weak to sand should at most be a footage in an argument when you're comparing two things as opposed to a main discussion point. Obviously, the ranking team knew what they were doing when they initially ranked these mons, so we should take into account more recent shifts such as Landot usage skyrocketing over garchomp or quag and amoong rising to OU from nu and ru respectively if anything.
No Sand has definitely had a big influence on stuff over the past 8 months or so compared to early ORAS. Why do you think Rotom sucked (comparatively, although this was also related to Manaphy usage) and Tank Chomp was good - Excadrill wasn't fucking everywhere spamming Earthquake on unprepared teams. The rise of Lando-T as the bulky ground over Chomp (when the roles had been reversed about a year ago) is a direct indication of how much Sand has influenced stuff.
That said there are a lot of other reasons Venusaur lost traction but the main one is being outclassed on stall by Sableye which supports the team more and Sab stalls beat Venu stalls. Also Venu balance by and large was one of the most consistent archetypes for so long, of course the meta was gonna eventually adapt. You can read the article CTC is a lord mentioned (I wrote it, and the Venusaur stuff was mostly stuff I learned from Reymedy when he gave me a QC check) if you want more specifics
That said there are a lot of other reasons Venusaur lost traction but the main one is being outclassed on stall by Sableye which supports the team more and Sab stalls beat Venu stalls. Also Venu balance by and large was one of the most consistent archetypes for so long, of course the meta was gonna eventually adapt. You can read the article CTC is a lord mentioned (I wrote it, and the Venusaur stuff was mostly stuff I learned from Reymedy when he gave me a QC check) if you want more specifics