Announcement Pyroak Nerf - Burning Down the House

[quziel]

Ever since its buff, Pyroak has been a very contentious Pokemon, offering nearly unmatched trading ability, strong snowballing, and significant set flexibility on a very bulky platform. While its typing is a hinderance, making it often quite difficult to build with, it also makes Pyroak one of the best Ferrothorn answers in the game, both denying Leech Seed, and threatening to OHKO it with a STAB Contrary Overheat, and letting it check several meta threats including Melmetal, Tapu Koko, and Tapu Fini. Its sheer bulk adds on to this, letting it reliably switch into Dragapult, and preventing it from being OHKO'd by even offensive Zapdos or offensive Tornadus. This lets Pyroak beat even Assault Vest Tornadus on switch-in and then potentially heal later. Pyroak's bulk also forces opponents to rely on inaccurate moves, such as Zapdos's Hurricane, or Tyranitar's Stone Edge to have a chance to take it down, making counterplay frustratingly RNG based.

All of that said, the impact of its typing on both building with Pyroak, and getting it onto the field cannot be overstated. It cannot reliably switch into pokemon such as Clefable, Landorus-Therian, and Toxapex due to a fear of Knock Off and Toxic, it can be easily forced out if it hasn't boosted yet by CAP's many strong flying types. Pyroak's speed stat also means that most of the wallbreakers in the format outrun it, with Choice Banded Tyranitar being especially noteworthy, taking little from Overheat or Giga Drain, and easily KOing back, while Venomicon-Epilogue easily OHKOs with Brave Bird.

Given its strength and somewhat binary performance, the metagame council has elected to proceed with a nerfing process for Pyroak.


I or another moderator will edit in replays explaining this, but I am too busy atm.

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Some questions to start the discussion:

1) Do you think Pyroak's presence in the metagame reaches a bar such that a nerf is needed?
2) What aspects of Pyroak do you consider to be out of line, or potentially nerf-worthy?

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/!\Rules for posting in this thread/!\

Do not post one liners, nor uninformed posts;

Do not hold discussion on other potential nerfing processes;

Do not hold discussion on the nerfing process;

You are required to make respectful posts.

If you fail to follow these rules, your post will be deleted and you will be infracted.

The closing date of the nerf process will be announced once it is scheduled with the council.

 

[quziel]

To provide an initial argument.

I think Roaks' trading ability is a bit too high compared to where it should be. We can target this a few ways. Firstly would be reducing its bulk (I am not proposing numbers here) but pushing it below a few KO thresholds. This would force it to predict a lot better, and also add a few checks. Secondly would be targeting its setup move. I've seen some people suggest removing Overheat and replacing with Leaf Storm. While I'm generally against this (every single Fire type gets Overheat barring Silvally-Fire and Marowak-Alola), it would constrain its moveslots a ton, and prevent it from boosting against incoming Flyings. A third approach I can think of is targeting its coverage; Earth Power compressing Pex, Heatran, and Lotl into one slot is fairly huge, and removing Ground Coverage would be a very significant power decrease, while preserving its "Power Fantasy". This list is not complete, and I am sure there are other routes forward.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Change the thread song to this:

Anyways, my biggest issue with Pyroak right now is that it's just too bulky in its current state. 120/105/90 is quite frankly quite ridiculous for a mon that has the capacity to snowball so easily, and a lot of the mons that are supposed to check it just don't feel like they are doing enough damage a lot of the time. Dropping HP and Special Defense (I'm not entirely such by how much I want right now), would be the ideal nerf to me. I think it could also be worth looking into removing Special Ground coverage or dropping Special Attack, but I'm not entirely sure how necessary that would be.

Also in terms of replacing Overheat with Leaf Storm, I'm not entirely sure what to think about it, since while it most certainly has its benefits (Constrains movesets and also makes us work into bulky flying-types), it also has a fair number of downsides. The biggest one here is that it makes our matchup into Balloon Tran a lot better. At the moment, Balloon Tran is a very solid check into us since if Pyroak (Which it certainly has a reason to not be running right now), it just loses, and even if it does run Giga Drain, that's less time it is able to afford boosting. Neither of these are true when you put Leaf Storm into the equation, since now not only is it far more likely to be running a set that can actually pop the balloon, but it can beat Heatran while getting the boosts it needs to sweep. Arghonaut is also far less reliable as a check now, since the damage difference it's taking is very significant.

216+ SpA Pyroak Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Arghonaut: 182-216 (43.9 - 52.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
216+ SpA Pyroak Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Arghonaut: 312-368 (75.3 - 88.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[Mova]

Even though Pyroak didn't start the fire, it tried to fight it with... more fire. My preferred approach here is to reduce HP and Defense, if not Special Defense, by about 5-10 each. Despite this, we also have other methods of nerfing this reptile by forcing it to use Leaf Storm instead of Overheat, or removing Earth Power entirely, but not both. At least when Serperior existed, it had to use Leaf Storm to boost, and it did not have a secondary STAB, let alone much non-redundant coverage.

Optimally, we could reduce its HP from 120 to 99, giving us a sub-500 BST CAP, haha.

 

[Voltage]

Pyroak is one of those mons that is able to consistently make progress in a match when provided an opening. there are a lot of things I want to say about Pyroak in the short time that I've been able to play with it, but I think the thing that bothers me the most about Pyroak is how easy it really is for Pyroak to claim at least one KO per match simply by coming on on either a double switch or upon a safe switch in whether by losing a teammate or from a slow U-turn / Teleport. With bulk of 120/105/90 and being only super effectively hit by Poison, Flying, and Rock coverage, the former having very little attack typing presence, and the latter two often being dependent on moves that have a bad habit of missing (Hurricane and Stone Edge), Pyroak has plenty of chance to immediately snowball into a menace. That's not to say Pyroak cannot be beaten, it can be beat by anything fast than it most of the time and especially after chip damage, but getting to that point where you can beat an opposing Pyroak almost definitely comes with a trade of a mon and Pyroak being at at least +2 SpA.

As a fun little exercise in statistics, just from this first week of CAPPL, Pyroak was the tied as 4th most commonly brought mon, but had the highest win percentage of an in the top 13 at 66.67%. I would venture to say that while this sample size is small, we can look at some CAPPL matches to see why this win may be the case.

Here's an example of what I mean from a match from last week.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8cap-636523

At turn 3, Pyroak has entered when Eject Button Pex denies a Rotom-W Volt Switch. Pyroak is now in and Revenge Killer can more or less click whatever buttons they want. Overheat is easily the most reliable option since, even if Heatran weren't Flame Body, it wouldn't want to switch in and then take an Earth Power which does end up getting the KO. Without a +2 boost, Earth Power is still easily a 2HKO, and Heatran has no chance of doing enough damage on Pyroak to beat it 1v1.

216+ SpA Pyroak Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Heatran: 240-284 (62.1 - 73.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 115-136 (30.1 - 35.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after trapping damage

And with Flame Body, it has even less of a chance. Pyroak nets a KO on a bulky mon and forces in the Tornadus-T thereafter. This situation almost happens again later in the match as well, at Turn 17, but this time rotom-W opts to try to Hydro Pump, doing about 30%, to which Pyroak can easily take from its useful bulk + typing and heal off the damage with Giga Drain and Synthesis. Now I'll be honest that Hetran probably wasn't doing a ton in this match, but it's still important to see just how quickly a mon can be taken thanks to Pyroak.


Another example of a match in which Pyroak becomes a serious problem, TNM vs. Fakee
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8cap-636544

Throughout the match Pyroak consistently switches in, forcing Fakee to repeatedly bring in Zapdos. On one of these switch-ins Pyroak Toxics the Zapdos, making progress when it really shouldn't, and once Zapdos is gone (since TTar is gone) Pyroak can in theory come in on a free switch and immediately start wreaking havoc. This is also evident when Dragapult starts spamming Shadow Balls around Turn 32 to get chip on Pyroak, inadvertently causing SpDef boost. This boost from Contrary gives TNM the ability to then keep Pyroak in during the match when Zapdos switches in, netting a KO from clicking Overheat. By Turn 34, Fake is now down wo mons, with a+2 Spa +1 SpD Pyroak in front ofthem, and they have to decide what they want to use to sack while getting some chip off. And consider that when an 82% Saharaja comes in and clicks Earthquake, it does less than 50% damage (45%) and then +2 Pyorak can OHKO with Overheat and continue to boost. Of course, Pyroak is now at 26% and can be knocked out by Dragapult's Draco Meteor, but simply in that three turn frame, Pyroak comes in and gets two KOs simply by nature of its ability, bulk and to an extent Toxic. TNM eventually wins this game as a result of the removal of Saharaja and Zapdos, as Arghonaut and Galarian-Slowking can basically sit on the remainder of Fake's team.

From these two matches, I would probably say that the part that I dislike the most about Pyroak is its ability to claim knockouts very quickly through the combination of Contrary making Overheats very strong and Pyroak's 120/105/90 bulk allowing it to handle powerful neutral attacks. I also agree with the stance posited in the OP about attackers having to rely on inaccurate moves to handle Pyroak as I feel that openings such as a missed attack are exactly what allow Pyroak to become a problem. At this point I don't have a solution aside from removing some bulk somehow so that there's at least a 2HKO chance from Pult's Shadow Ball, or something of that nature, but this is at least where I stand on Pyroak being an issue.

Might add more to this later, idk.

 

[Brown4Sides]

2) What aspects of Pyroak do you consider to be out of line, or potentially nerf-worthy?

I think Pyroak's bulk is its most problematic aspect.

120/105/90 are very good defensive stats for an OU-level environment, especially on an offensive boost-while-attacking powerhouse. When the Contrary buff package was proposed, I thought that the amount of Flying types in the metagame would keep it balanced. But I was wrong. And it's partially because of its bulk that makes this not an issue.

252 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 296-350 (77.6 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Offensive Zapdos, which boasts a 125 Sp. Attack and a 110 power STAB supereffective Flying move, can't even OHKO it with its offensive sets.

Other Flying types, such as Tornadus-Therian and Venomicon-Prologue, do even less to it without Nasty Plot boosts.

0 SpA Venomicon Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 254-300 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Tornadus-Therian Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 236-282 (61.9 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And for all 3 of these mons, this is assuming Hurricane actually hits, and Hurricane is very unreliable.

Physical attackers like Venomicon-Epilogue and Galarian Zapdos have an easier time killing it from full health, but it is surprisingly resiliant from the special spectrum. I think its special bulk is a problem and I think is what should be targeted.

 

[Zetalz]

I think the main thing putting Roak over the edge is the lack of strain it feels on it's EV spread + Overheat clickability. Hitting one of or ideally both in some fashion I think is the ideal way to proceed.


A hit to Roak's bulk has been my preferred nerf since the initial nerf discussion back in the buff thread. Don't have much else to say that hasn't already said about how ridiculous it's bulk is or how brainless it lets Roak play at times. It is worth noting thought it would take some pretty strong hits to either/both of HP and SpDef to have a really meaningful impact on what actually picks up KOs or 2HKOs on it.

With that in mind I think it's also pretty desirable to hit it's offensive potential (potentially alongside a minor bulk hit as well). If HP and/or SpDef take significant hits it increases EV strain and reduces the amount of things it can trade vs but it's snowballing ability if played well is still fairly intact. The proposed Leaf Storm > Overheat, (aside from flavor concerns), I think is the most succinct way to limit it's offensive potential. Grass boosting is significantly worse into a lot more things than Fire and the things you do have a better MU against (tran and argh) aren't exactly solid Roak checks even right now, plus the moveslot strain from being forced into 3 Atks pretty much always reduces any weird variability it has.

Not really into hitting it's coverage to be honest. The god Fire/Ground combo I think is only out of hand because of how ridiculously easy Overheat is to click and how brainless you can trade with it. Removing Ground entirely I think guts the mons viability more than necessary, would prefer to see other nerfs to it's offense such as Leaf Storm > Overheat before that.

 

[dex]

Pyroak is too hard to switch into. If played correctly, it essentially collects a KO every time it enters the field unless the opponent brings one of Dragonite or Pajantom.

Solution: Remove Earth Power. Pyroak retains its status as a contrary sweeper with its defensive utility, but is no longer impossible to switch into, as now Galarking, Toxapex, and Heatran counter it. Nerfing bulk does nothing to change how impossible Pyroak is to switch into, and changing Overheat to Leaf Storm is ignorant of the meta and how Pyroak plays and would actually be (surprisingly) too much. Removing Earth Power is not too much, it adds a few more mons to its counter list, which is really all I think Pyroak needs to be in a good place.

 

[shnowshner]

need something to do so my mind is busy and i don't get sick while laying in the back of the car, bear with the poor presentation

ive played with and against pyroak a lot in test games and tours/rooms or whatever, to me the big issue is that pyroak is pretty easy to use and get mileage out of compared to how annoying it can be to pressure it in return.

rn counterplay to pyroak is as follows:

• hit it hard with strong neutral hits or se attacks
• weaken with knock/status
• bring strong defensive check and/or offensive pivot into it

first point is pretty straightforward but the issue comes down to pyroaks insane defensive stats for how hard it can hit, and how many pokemon rely on imperfectly accurare attacks to damage it in return. hurricane is the most egregious example as even when it does decide to hit, specially defensive pyroak sets are able to survive from full, and the good roak sets run a large amount of special defense. its not impossible to ohko or even 2hko but doing so consistently is difficult, and the pyroak user is capable of finding ways to bring it in safely or heal up again later

knock off and status are pretty big problems for it and with knock and toxic being everywhere, including on pokemon you will be looking to get pyroak in on, and if you are able to hold it off this definitely makes it easier to handle as time goes on. a problem with these however is that pyroak is often something that is going to make trades anyway, so if it can enter the field and not be subsequently threatened with getting ko'd, that's sorta what it wants to be doing anyway. these slower ways of weakening pyroak don't always feel immediate enough for something that can so rapidly boost itself

the last one is pretty dependent on what ur roak check is and what it wants to accomplish. av torn does both somewhat, but not super convincingly. something like spdef argh or unaware clef works as well but need the right set or right pyroak to do anything important. dragonite is v good against it if no toxic, and pajantom is a pretty dire matchup due to its typing and comatose (also pajantom coming onto the field is generally a bad time for the pyroak user). zapdos feels like a false check lol i'd rather bring defensive pelipper against it, moltres was also nice versus it but saharaja exists and giving it opportunities to use diamond storm is not good so idk i'll bring it back anytime soon. balloon tran is good if not running third attack but you have to preserve it, and if its giga or smthn u are in trouble. big ttar can come in easily and hits like a truck either way, stratagem as well is annoying if it hard switches but can be exploited with giga/energy ball. the last check i wanna mention is to bring in pult and simply acro (dont do this..)

obviously there are good check of varying purpose but roak has ways around them or the mons have other issues like passivity or consistency issues, and for many of them you really need to preserve HP else roak can just muscle through anyhow.

not really had enough time to mess around with nerfs and whatnot but i think contrary does provide some cool interactions and having this fat fuck you need to actively respond to is nice for some builds, just needs actual answers lol. stat nerfs forcing it to make sacrifices with its investment or gutting coverage sounds like the best way forward imo, as it stands not enough is safe into roak as it boosts either because it can't respond fast or efficiently enough to withstand overheats or is vulnerable to strong coverage.

 

[spoo]

I have a lot to say as usual, sorry for the essay. The issue with Pyroak is, as dex said, its complete lack of consistent switch-ins. Choice Band Pajantom, SpD Arghonaut, and Dual Wingbeat Dragonite are probably the best you're going to get, but none are perfect, especially when factoring in some techs like Toxic in the latter two's cases or even just Energy Ball for Argh. Other "good" checks like Choice Band Tyranitar and Air Balloon Heatran may work well in the short-term but are quickly removed from the equation with a couple correct predictions, while mons like AV Tornadus-T/Glowking are laughably fake answers to begin with.

A lot of Pyroak's more specific strengths like its ability to make positive trades, ease in finding switch-in opportunities, etc, still boil down to "nothing can switch into Pyroak and force it out" –– ie, it wouldn't matter if Pyroak could switch in on Ferrothorn and Dragapult anymore if it was actually realistic for teams to carry an answer for it. It's for this reason that any nerf we pursue should be focused on adding new switch-ins before anything else, ideally while preserving the positive elements that Pyroak brings to the metagame.

We could attempt this by removing Earth Power, sure, but I don't think this has the intended effect that some people are arguing. Overheat + Energy Ball is still super competent for breaking past Toxapex, you can now run Dragon Pulse for Astrolotl plus Dragonite/Paj (not like Astro can touch you, anyways; at worst, you're just forced to waste more PP on it), and Earth Power has never been necessary at all for breaking Glowking –– Overheat actually does more damage against it. I guess this makes Nihilego a pretty good switch-in? It's true that Heatran becomes a hard counter more or less, but I don't think we should be content with adding only one new consistent answer. Strong Fire/Grass/Ground coverage, to me at least, is also part of Pyroak's unique core identity. I find this option to be pretty undesirable on the whole.

The biggest reason Pyroak lacks consistent counterplay is its absurd strength, aka Special Attack. Pyroak's Overheat is one of the most risk-free moves in the entire tier, because against a significant amount of teams (dare I say the majority), you'll trade 60-80% of your health for an immediate kill just by clicking it two or three times. Still though, we already cut its SpA by 20 points, and there's only so much you can reasonably gut in this area. Something small like -5 SpA would let bulkier AV Torn spreads become near-guaranteed switch-ins, even against max SpA invested Pyroak, while faster Torn spreads still have rolls in their favor.

I think it's obvious that -5 SpA isn't enough by itself, though, so a bulk cut is also in order. The "no switch-ins" issue is really double pronged; Roak has the firepower to blow through anything that comes in, but is also bulky enough to not be forced out. An HP cut of -20 addresses the latter issue fairly well. A couple notable things about this: offensive Zapdos's Hurricane is now nearly guaranteed to OHKO the analysis spread, +2 LO Kart Knock Off almost always OHKOs now (opposed to about ~30% of the time before), and Dragapult's Draco Meteor almost always 2HKOs (opposed to 25% before). I'm sure there are more benchmarks if you dig for them. This also means greater chip from weak pivot moves that Pyroak frequently switches into, forcing more Synths and therefore fewer chances to wallbreak, and keeping Pyroak at a lower HP if it makes a trade and thus harder to get back into the game.

I don't enjoy hitting bulk this hard, because that's really the best (only?) thing it brings to the metagame. Roak is a welcome enabler for non-Landorus structures with its ability to answer Electric-types quite well, and has a sweet niche on Veil HO for checking some of the playstyle's usual headaches like Kartana, Astrolotl, and Melmetal. Being able to eat Dragapult hits forever is also fantastic for a lot of teams. But the mon frankly has no business being the literal tank that it is, and it should see a significant bulk hit to address that fact. As an alternative, I could see -15 or 20 SpD which arguably maintains more of Pyroak's positive elements against Steels and Zeraora while still being much worse into birds and Dragapult.

 

[Voltage]

One other notable calc that was posted in the Discord not too long ago. With Pyroak's current bulk, it can be EV'd to live a Brave Bird from Venomicon-E and then KO with Overheat after recoil damage, which is frankly ridiculous.

252 Atk Vile Vial Venomicon-Epilogue Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 244 Def Pyroak: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (33.9 - 40.3% recoil damage)
216+ SpA Pyroak Overheat vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Venomicon-Epilogue: 208-246 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

So in case I wasn't already on board with removing Pyroak bulk, consider me on the -20 HP train

Base 100 HP Pyroak:
252 Atk Vile Vial Venomicon-Epilogue Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Pyroak: 320-378 (93.8 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

 

[The Number Man]

Pyroak more like Professor Broke

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Pyroak more like Professor Broke

 

[TailGlowVM]

If it seems wrong to have a CAP below 500 BST, you could always put the spare points from reducing other base stats in Attack (since I doubt improving 70 base Attack to 90 is doing much in terms of making physical sets at all usable, it still will hit like an absolute wet towel physically.)

 

[Da Pizza Man]

If it seems wrong to have a CAP below 500 BST, you could always put the spare points from reducing other base stats in Attack (since I doubt improving 70 base Attack to 90 is doing much in terms of making physical sets at all usable, it still will hit like an absolute wet towel physically.)

It's safer to just do a flat out stat reduction just to avoid any unintended consequences. Also flavor isn't really a huge concern right now.

 

[Rabia]

If it seems wrong to have a CAP below 500 BST, you could always put the spare points from reducing other base stats in Attack (since I doubt improving 70 base Attack to 90 is doing much in terms of making physical sets at all usable, it still will hit like an absolute wet towel physically.)

I'll be blunt bro I don't care if it seems wrong this mon is a cancer to the metagame and if it looks out of place then that's fine by me if we reduce threat overload at all

 

[adem]

Nerfing Pyroak without making it complete garbage / actually make it less broken is quite hard, ill cover some of the responses in the thread and why I personally dont think they really hit the nail on the spot + explain my own nerf.

1. Remove Earth Power.

This I feel makes Pyroak at best a extremely niche fishy breaker that requires a lot of support, and overall not a good Pokemon. Nuking Earth Power essentially turns it into a worse Serperior, except with much much worse speed and less self sufficient (Cant SubSeed / Glare to cheese past checks, and not having such a broken utility move in the aforementioned Glare sucks as well for it and its team.)
Now you load into Pex / Tran / GKing and make no progress, but if you dont load into those you tear through the team with no difference.

e: this shit gets sands LOL this is barely going to change anything they all still lose all u need now is a bit more chip on spdef pexy to beat it? in the end same outcome me thinks, and if it burns you even worse. in the end u just take a little more to break past these 3 mons, that little more is easily gotten via a burn, or some minor hazard chip

2. Cut Bulk

Cutting bulk to about the 100-90 range is a popular suggestion, as a Pokemon with that much offensive capabilities (Unresisted coverage, recovery, solid enough typing) really shouldn’t be having Pyroaks current solid (120/105/90) bulk, which alongside its solid defensive typing (with Boots) and access to recovery simply make it too hard to KO, and a monster trading machine with would-be checks / revenge killers. Reiterating some calcs previously mentioned in the thread:

It trading with Venomicon E, a supposed revenge killer :
252 Atk Vile Vial Venomicon-Epilogue Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 244 Def Pyroak: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (33.9 - 40.3% recoil damage)
216+ SpA Pyroak Overheat vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Venomicon-Epilogue: 208-246 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

“Checks” having to rely on Hurricanes inconsistency alongside requiring a major amount of chip to actually get the job done:
0 SpA Venomicon Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 254-300 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Tornadus-Therian Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 236-282 (61.9 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 296-350 (77.6 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

A cut in bulk by itself though, personally would not work though as dex explained in his post, although I do think it helps a bit in the sense of requiring more reasonable amounts of chip in order to beat it, ie AV Torn requiring a Knock Off on Pyroak to beat it after with Hurricane, and Veno E and Offensive Zapdos being able to revenge kill it easier.

3. Removing Overheat and giving it Leaf Storm

This is an interesting change, but I dont think its really a nerf, and if you view it as it would be an extremely minor one. This essentially makes Pyroaks most spammable move a much worse offensive typing in general, and makes Flying-types such as the aforementioned Zapdos, Venomicon, and Torn T more consistent checks. However, now it makes Pyroak do much better into Water- and Ground types.

For example, now Pyroak is able to trade with faster Saharaja variants, instead of losing to it:
216+ SpA Pyroak Leaf Storm vs. 36 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 290-344 (100 - 118.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Water types such as Rotom-W, Slowking, and Slowbro now are unable (in a one on one scenario) to slow-pivot out to a revenge killer or potentially cripple Pyroak on a predicted Overheat as they are immedietely forced out by Leaf Storm. This could also make it much more threatening in some scenarios as its able to instantly threaten out Water-types which can normally stay in to either trade, pivot out, cripple or revenge kill it as they barely fear its weak unboosted Giga Drain.

Personally, I feel that both cutting bulk (hitting around the 85-90 HP range [if cutting HP] or about maybe 100/100/80 range, or something around those [iif cutting defenses as well], and removing Overheat for Leafstorm is what should be done about Pyroak.

Cutting the bulk this much (and I definitely think this much is needed, since removing 20 HP really doesnt change much in terms of calcs and if it beats X mon) firstly makes a lot of trading-related calcs not possible, such as the Venomicon-E calc posted above, as well as making checks such as Torn T, Zapdos and Venomicon base deal with it better. For example, now uniinvested Torn-T’s Knock Off into Hurricane KOs Pyroak, ans Offensive variants have a chance to KO it. Defensive Zapdos variants KO it with Discharge / Heat Wave into Hurricane, while offensive variants straight up have a roll in their favour, to OHKO. It also makes other miscellaneousrevenge killers such as Choice Specs Dragapult be able to OHKO with Draco Meteor after a U-Turn / minor chip, and it gives Shadow Ball the chance to 2HKO. It makes Specs Blacephalons Overheat OHKO, as well as let Adamant Choice Band Weavile OHKO, and Jolly variants have a roll to KO.

Swapping Overheat with Leaf Storm now also diversifies Pyroak in how it plays, and really makes its unique offensive typing shine, and I feel is cool with the mon. Being a Fire type that prevents Water, Rock, and Ground types from checking it, while also being a Grass type that isnt checked by other Grassess, while still being able to do Grass type things. With these changes Flying types deal with you much better and are actually checks, you are more strapped on moveslots (and often forced into 3 of LStorm, Fire Move and Earth Power + a filler which is most likely Synthesis. This makes Pyroak more inclined on a Contrary breaker role, while making it have its checks actually check it, not make it a complete MU fish, while still being quite threatening (Bulk is still solid, offensive capabilities mean it is still annoying to deal with defensively, but not unstoppable and wont snowball as much. Aka pushing it into a breaker role in comparison to a sweeper.

e: if you think the bulk cut is too much move some stats to attack, to give it a serperior like EV spread (relatively balanced) minus the much higher speed (which is now spread into bulk). I also think a sub-500 Cap is fine, but if you’re really irked by it, something along the lines of 85/90/105/75/90/60 for the HP cut spread, or 100/90/100/75/80/60 for the Defenses + HP cut spread (both having a total of 505 Stats) is what I would aim for. I do not think Physical Pyroak will be much with Contrary being so good, and 90 Attack is still meh, though you can possibly adjust that later.

 

[Galvanatic]

I like adem's proposal of making birds more reliable at checking Pyroak, and I'm okay with Leaf Storm instead of Overheat because Rotom's not denting it much anyway and it can still just run Giga Drain for Stratagem. It's not perfect because many of those birds rely on Hurricane to hit, but I'm drawing blanks on what else we could do rn. Maybe remove Earth Power and give it a utility move or two to compensate, but I struggle to think what it would run when it needs 3 coverage moves and Synthesis if we ditch Overheat.

While I agree with what dex said about cutting into something positive Pyroak brings to the tier, leaning into wallbreaking seems like the least problematic way to go at this point, and cutting into bulk to some degree will limit how much it wins the war despite staring down a Torn-T.

Also it's about time we made another mon with a reasonable BST

 

[Micaiah]

the obvious nerfs were already proposed so i'm gonna go ahead with a more radical approach:

Add: Leaf Storm, reversal (or partial reversal) of the previous spatk nerf
Remove: All special fire-type moves, Zap Cannon

Adds most Flying-types as reliable switchins/pivot (zapdos tornadus-t corviknight books galar zapdos/moltres), makes it harder to duel some fringe-viable cap mons (syclant/miasmaw/necturna/tomohawk) and other stuff such as sd kartana, glowking, cawmodore. Zap Cannon is preempively removed to avoid dumb hurricane/zc interaction; Pyroak users retain electric coverage through Nature Power, giving them a short window to scare out flying checks without endlessly snowballing after the terrain ends.Ancient Power is also a thing for beating flying types at +2 but it does have a very heavy drawback which is why i didn't remove it, as well as leaving physical fire coverage as a last ditch effort into Cawmodore. Obviously it is a very heavy (but warranted i think) nerf, which is why it should only come w a revert / partial revert of the previous spatk one.

 

[snake]

Nerfing Pyroak without making it complete garbage / actually make it less broken is quite hard, ill cover some of the responses in the thread and why I personally dont think they really hit the nail on the spot + explain my own nerf.

1. Remove Earth Power.

This I feel makes Pyroak at best a extremely niche fishy breaker that requires a lot of support, and overall not a good Pokemon. Nuking Earth Power essentially turns it into a worse Serperior, except with much much worse speed and less self sufficient (Cant SubSeed / Glare to cheese past checks, and not having such a broken utility move in the aforementioned Glare sucks as well for it and its team.)
Now you load into Pex / Tran / GKing and make no progress, but if you dont load into those you tear through the team with no difference.

e: this shit gets sands LOL this is barely going to change anything they all still lose all u need now is a bit more chip on spdef pexy to beat it? in the end same outcome me thinks, and if it burns you even worse. in the end u just take a little more to break past these 3 mons, that little more is easily gotten via a burn, or some minor hazard chip

2. Cut Bulk

Cutting bulk to about the 100-90 range is a popular suggestion, as a Pokemon with that much offensive capabilities (Unresisted coverage, recovery, solid enough typing) really shouldn’t be having Pyroaks current solid (120/105/90) bulk, which alongside its solid defensive typing (with Boots) and access to recovery simply make it too hard to KO, and a monster trading machine with would-be checks / revenge killers. Reiterating some calcs previously mentioned in the thread:

It trading with Venomicon E, a supposed revenge killer :
252 Atk Vile Vial Venomicon-Epilogue Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 244 Def Pyroak: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (33.9 - 40.3% recoil damage)
216+ SpA Pyroak Overheat vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Venomicon-Epilogue: 208-246 (66.8 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

“Checks” having to rely on Hurricanes inconsistency alongside requiring a major amount of chip to actually get the job done:
0 SpA Venomicon Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 254-300 (66.6 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Tornadus-Therian Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 236-282 (61.9 - 74%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 296-350 (77.6 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

A cut in bulk by itself though, personally would not work though as dex explained in his post, although I do think it helps a bit in the sense of requiring more reasonable amounts of chip in order to beat it, ie AV Torn requiring a Knock Off on Pyroak to beat it after with Hurricane, and Veno E and Offensive Zapdos being able to revenge kill it easier.

3. Removing Overheat and giving it Leaf Storm

This is an interesting change, but I dont think its really a nerf, and if you view it as it would be an extremely minor one. This essentially makes Pyroaks most spammable move a much worse offensive typing in general, and makes Flying-types such as the aforementioned Zapdos, Venomicon, and Torn T more consistent checks. However, now it makes Pyroak do much better into Water- and Ground types.

For example, now Pyroak is able to trade with faster Saharaja variants, instead of losing to it:
216+ SpA Pyroak Leaf Storm vs. 36 HP / 0 SpD Hippowdon: 290-344 (100 - 118.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Water types such as Rotom-W, Slowking, and Slowbro now are unable (in a one on one scenario) to slow-pivot out to a revenge killer or potentially cripple Pyroak on a predicted Overheat as they are immedietely forced out by Leaf Storm. This could also make it much more threatening in some scenarios as its able to instantly threaten out Water-types which can normally stay in to either trade, pivot out, cripple or revenge kill it as they barely fear its weak unboosted Giga Drain.

Personally, I feel that both cutting bulk (hitting around the 85-90 HP range [if cutting HP] or about maybe 100/100/80 range, or something around those [iif cutting defenses as well], and removing Overheat for Leafstorm is what should be done about Pyroak.

Cutting the bulk this much (and I definitely think this much is needed, since removing 20 HP really doesnt change much in terms of calcs and if it beats X mon) firstly makes a lot of trading-related calcs not possible, such as the Venomicon-E calc posted above, as well as making checks such as Torn T, Zapdos and Venomicon base deal with it better. For example, now uniinvested Torn-T’s Knock Off into Hurricane KOs Pyroak, ans Offensive variants have a chance to KO it. Defensive Zapdos variants KO it with Discharge / Heat Wave into Hurricane, while offensive variants straight up have a roll in their favour, to OHKO. It also makes other miscellaneousrevenge killers such as Choice Specs Dragapult be able to OHKO with Draco Meteor after a U-Turn / minor chip, and it gives Shadow Ball the chance to 2HKO. It makes Specs Blacephalons Overheat OHKO, as well as let Adamant Choice Band Weavile OHKO, and Jolly variants have a roll to KO.

Swapping Overheat with Leaf Storm now also diversifies Pyroak in how it plays, and really makes its unique offensive typing shine, and I feel is cool with the mon. Being a Fire type that prevents Water, Rock, and Ground types from checking it, while also being a Grass type that isnt checked by other Grassess, while still being able to do Grass type things. With these changes Flying types deal with you much better and are actually checks, you are more strapped on moveslots (and often forced into 3 of LStorm, Fire Move and Earth Power + a filler which is most likely Synthesis. This makes Pyroak more inclined on a Contrary breaker role, while making it have its checks actually check it, not make it a complete MU fish, while still being quite threatening (Bulk is still solid, offensive capabilities mean it is still annoying to deal with defensively, but not unstoppable and wont snowball as much. Aka pushing it into a breaker role in comparison to a sweeper.

e: if you think the bulk cut is too much move some stats to attack, to give it a serperior like EV spread (relatively balanced) minus the much higher speed (which is now spread into bulk). I also think a sub-500 Cap is fine, but if you’re really irked by it, something along the lines of 85/90/105/75/90/60 for the HP cut spread, or 100/90/100/75/80/60 for the Defenses + HP cut spread (both having a total of 505 Stats) is what I would aim for. I do not think Physical Pyroak will be much with Contrary being so good, and 90 Attack is still meh, though you can possibly adjust that later.

Personally, I think swapping Overheat for Leaf Storm is a good start for a nerf. It's still a Contrary booster but it doesn't boost with the best offensive typing in the game. Heatran can stop Overheat boosts, but it's pretty shaky, even if you run the balloon frog set.

If we swap to Leaf Storm, consider this set:

Pyroak @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Contrary
EVs: 216 SpA / 252 SpD / 40 Spe
Modest Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Fire Blast
- Earth Power
- Synthesis

Assuming the same stat spread (and EV spread) is kept, Pyroak really can't deviate from this set that much. Fire/Grass/Ground coverage is really strong, but without any one of those three and Synthesis, Pyroak struggles with coverage and longevity. Thus, if you do want to run something like Aromatherapy, Toxic, Leech Seed, or Stealth Rock, Pyroak hast to lose out on crucial coverage. Meanwhile, Overheat Pyroak can run those options pretty freely as long as a teammate can pop balloon frog's balloon.

Basically, Leaf Storm forces Pyroak to run one moveset that's very strong but hard to deviate from, and I think that's a good thing for Pyroak. You see Pyroak on the other team, you know it has devastating coverage, but you also know pretty much what four moves it's going to have: Leaf Storm, a Fire-type STAB, Earth Power, and Synthesis.

A bulk cut might be required in conjunction with this adjustment, but I think the bulk cut will be much less than would be required if we stick with Overheat.

 

[Brambane]

I agree that a general nerf to Pyroak's base HP is a good direction, although I do consider Pyroak to be something of a "perfect storm." It's just strong enough to maintain a formidable offensive presence with investment and bulky enough without significant investment to force the opponent into trades that favor it. I think you take away one of these aspects, Pyroak is left in a substantially weaker place than before, but hopefully not to the point of obscurity. I would not be opposed to adjusting Pyroak to have significantly lower mixed bulk by lowering HP, but maintaining some of its physical or special bulk by buffing the respective defensive stat. If I had to choose which one to maintain, it would 100% be the physical bulk. Pyroak's ability to eat stuff from the physical attackers in the meta is honestly a nice buffer in the teambuilder, and I also think Pyroak should have a much greater fear of Hurricane from the likes of Zapdos and Torn-T. Cutting HP is definitely the call for lowering tankiness; Pyroak should be a in position it has to invest in its HP if it wants to run bulk.

I am okay with replacing Overheat for Leaf Storm. The main Pyroak set I fear is 3 Attacks + Synthesis. It has stuff like Aromatherapy and Rocks and Toxic which are situationally very strong of course, but the bread and butter set is the thing that breaks the camel's back. Otherwise, cutting its options would probably be the obvious nerf, which no one justifiably seems on board with. Torn-T and Zapdos are much more consistent answers, which is ideal imo. Not being able to run Giga Drain does hurt Pyroak's ability to trade with some things, but it does open up Pyroak's moveslot for a significantly stronger secondary STAB with Fire Blast sure, but also Lava Plume. You typically don't have to worry about Pyroak burning you, but with Leaf Storm that seems like the obvious direction for the mon. Pretty much every (non-bulky Flier ala Torn-T) that you would switch into a mon to avoid a Lava Plume burn isn't eating Leaf Storm or Earth Power. I think this leaves Pyroak with its current gameplan mostly intact, but less able to blow past the bulky Flying-types that should force it out.

 

[Amamama]

• hit it hard with strong neutral hits or se attacks
• weaken with knock/status
• bring strong defensive check and/or offensive pivot into it

A lot of Pyroak's more specific strengths like its ability to make positive trades, ease in finding switch-in opportunities, etc, still boil down to "nothing can switch into Pyroak and force it out"

A lot of proposals want to target Pyroaks bulk and rightly so.
It is frankly too good at making positive trades, which with its ability to steamroll teams if checks are gone is just too much.

Nerfing bulk doesn’t mean cutting HP or defenses though.
A third option could be removing reliable recovery all together.

Does this add new switch ins? Not really.
But it greatly reduces Pyroaks ability to boost out of control and makes it way less self sufficient in trading.
Can you still boost past Tornadus? Yes but you are likely left with only a few HP making it very susceptible to being picked off.
This means trades can not be made as recklessly as before.
It means that Knock off from ferro actually is crippling and that Being toxiced means your going to be on a timer. Uturns and Tbolts from Koko now stick making it a short or mid term answer but not a consistent wall with snowballing potential.

Removing Synthesis means Pyroak needs to rely on leech seed or giga drain to remain healthy, changing its gameplan from tanking and breaking through its checks to having to wear them down with help of the team or actually trading a defensive piece of the opponent for itself.

This change would transform pyroak from a tanky breaker and sweeper to a pure Tanky breaker, that can be a check to some common mons like clef ferro or koko but plays that role closer to mons like Melmetal, Tapu fini or even ferro, which have to conserve their health.

 

[spoo]

Hey all, just providing an update on this. After a thorough discussion period, the council is now in the later stages of voting and approaching a final resolution. We are aiming to have this finished before CAPPL playoffs next week. That's pretty much all, enjoy your day.

 

[quziel]

The council has discussed the above, and voted on a change to implement for Pyroak. We have decided to go for -25 Special Defense, and -5 Special Attack. The decrease in Special Defense is the main change here, and makes it significantly easier for offensive Flying-types, and strong special breakers in general to check or soft-check us.

Special Defense Reasoning

252 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 360-426 (94.4 - 111.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 396-468 (103.9 - 122.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Overheat vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 366-432 (96 - 113.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak in Psychic Terrain: 324-382 (85 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 169-199 (44.3 - 52.2%) -- 16.4% chance to 2HKO

The Special Attack decrease was then added on to make Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian slightly better into us, letting bulkier spreads guarantee living through 2 Overheats, while the frailer, CAP specific, spread has an increased chance to live. Zapdos also is guaranteed to live a single +2 Overheat from standard Pyroak.

Special Attack Reasoning

216+ SpA Contrary Pyroak Overheat over 2 turns vs. 252 HP / 88 SpD Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian: 298-352 (82.3 - 97.2%) -- not a KO
216+ SpA Contrary Pyroak Overheat over 2 turns vs. 192 HP / 80 SpD Assault Vest Tornadus-Therian: 303-357 (87.3 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to 2HKO
+2 216+ SpA Pyroak Overheat vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Zapdos: 324-382 (84.5 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

These two changes represent a significant decrease in Pyroak's ability to tank through various special hits, notably letting it get OHKO'd by CAP's strongest special breakers with even minor chip, while preserving its good matchups into pokemon such as Melmetal, Tapu-Koko, and Kartana.


-----

Summary of Discussion

I will now pivot into discussing all of the changes proposed, and why the council went down the selected path.

The initial stage of the nerf was selecting a broad path to head down when nerfing Pyroak. Initially we proposed focusing primarily on stats, on replacing Overheat with Leaf Storm (and potentially also removing other fire moves), or another path to nerfing. Focusing primarily on stats won this vote, and then we moved onto focusing on which stats to reduce.

We discussed and came to the conclusion that Special Defense and Special Attack were the most impactful stats to nerf, as Special Defense is a large part of why Pyroak is so hard to actually check using pokemon such as Tornadus and Zapdos, while Special Attack is why its near impossible to check using passive means. Defense and HP were also discussed during this stage, however we felt that Pyroak's identity is tied into its impressive physical bulk, and nerfing HP made assumptions on EV spreads significantly more difficult. We then went to a vote on which stats to nerf between a) Pure SpD nerf, b) Primary SpD and also SpA nerf, and c) Primary SpA and also SpD nerf. Option b) won here, and we then went to voting on the magnitude of the SpD nerf.

During the discussion of SpD nerfs, we made the assumption that Pyroak would be running a 252 SpDef spread throughout. This assumption may not be perfectly safe, but it matches current investment. We then calculated various special breakers and special flying types, seeing when an OHKO/2HKO range started, and when it ended.

Based on the calculations tabulated above, we then moved -20 Special Defense, -25 Special Defense, and -30 Special Defense to polling, where -25 Special Defense won, giving the following calcs.

Special Defense Reasoning

252 SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 360-426 (94.4 - 111.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Zapdos Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 396-468 (103.9 - 122.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Overheat vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 366-432 (96 - 113.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak in Psychic Terrain: 324-382 (85 - 100.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Pyroak: 169-199 (44.3 - 52.2%) -- 16.4% chance to 2HKO

Following this, we moved to discussing ways to nerf Pyroak's offensive power. The main changes discussed here were -10 Special Attack, which ensures we never OHKO Zapdos with a +2 Overheat, -5 Special Attack, which ensures we do not OHKO Zapdos with a +2 Overheat given current investment, removing Earth Power, and removing Ground coverage all-together. We then polled 5 SpA reduction combined with an Earth Power removal, a 5 spA reduction, a 10 SpA reduction, and a total removal of Ground coverage. A reduction of 5 SpA won this poll, and we moved into final discussions, during which no additional changes were decided upon.

Tagging Marty