Seems more action is needed to further balance the metagame. I will be banning three abilities based on the feedback and my experience. Contrary is now banned. This is an issue that will not go away even if the two biggest abusers are banned. Fur Coat is now banned. Defensive combos are too powerful at the moment (specifically Fur Coat + Ice Scales + Regenerator) and I believe that banning Fur Coat would help alleviate that, without being too detrimental to stall as the alternative Fluffy exists. Sand Rush is now banned. Two complex bans are unnecessary as manual sand is not a thing. I'll also be moving Slush Rush to a non-complex ban for cleanness because manual hail is not a thing.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Metagame Shared Power
- Thread starter The Immortal
- Start date
New changes mean Marvel Scale and Fluffy are more potent again. Especially Marvel Scale milotic now provides a wincon; bewear is bewear still.
As a whole, many teams are invalidated right now and particularly hydra stall is dead.
However this also alleviates the burden of requiring prankster on any stall team.
As a whole, many teams are invalidated right now and particularly hydra stall is dead.
However this also alleviates the burden of requiring prankster on any stall team.
no come on seriously i was going to post about contrary etc and 25 min before that you ban it -__-
ok so i've seen people here show replays of how broken one thing is or another, and they are at a crazy ELO of 1000...........
I'm actually around 1400 or more dunno, I was top 100 in OU with a trick room team (and there was only another TR team) in gen8.
My take is that contrary is probably broken on the special side, with draco meteor, leaf storm etc... So what could be done is to ban the use of these moves if you have contrary in your team, shouldn't be too hard to code. But the physical attacks are only superpower and close combat, they are fighting type, they get resisted by several common types, and they only boost by +1.
About fur coat and ice scales, imo only regenerator should be banned when paired with these, not fur coat and ice scales. I'm playing a full physical team and get hard countered often still.
Fur coat / fluffy + stamina is quite horrible too, dunno if it should be banned
Serene grace is a piece of shit, please ban it before it becomes the new thing. Back when I was in OU, 90% of the top 100 teams used cloyster king's rock, here it will be even more nightmarish. Please do something about it.
And finally, Sand spit, I don't know, I lose like 70% against them but the match is really interesting each time, it's like chess. It's not like these retards who spend 90% of the time switching with regenerator, here any move is important. Of course, the sand spit team is at a high advantage against any HO, they don't need to think as much, but still fun. Dunno yet, but what should be banned here is as follow: contrary + sand spit AND sand spit + damp rock (so it's only 4 turns)
But i guess i'm too late
EDIT: i think the last 3 bans are complete mistakes, please don't get too much influenced by new players, and you can always undo what you did, it's fine
EDIT2: and some item clause could be interesting too, like no 6 king's rock (or just ban this shitty item), or no 6 rocky helmet
ok so i've seen people here show replays of how broken one thing is or another, and they are at a crazy ELO of 1000...........
I'm actually around 1400 or more dunno, I was top 100 in OU with a trick room team (and there was only another TR team) in gen8.
My take is that contrary is probably broken on the special side, with draco meteor, leaf storm etc... So what could be done is to ban the use of these moves if you have contrary in your team, shouldn't be too hard to code. But the physical attacks are only superpower and close combat, they are fighting type, they get resisted by several common types, and they only boost by +1.
About fur coat and ice scales, imo only regenerator should be banned when paired with these, not fur coat and ice scales. I'm playing a full physical team and get hard countered often still.
Fur coat / fluffy + stamina is quite horrible too, dunno if it should be banned
Serene grace is a piece of shit, please ban it before it becomes the new thing. Back when I was in OU, 90% of the top 100 teams used cloyster king's rock, here it will be even more nightmarish. Please do something about it.
And finally, Sand spit, I don't know, I lose like 70% against them but the match is really interesting each time, it's like chess. It's not like these retards who spend 90% of the time switching with regenerator, here any move is important. Of course, the sand spit team is at a high advantage against any HO, they don't need to think as much, but still fun. Dunno yet, but what should be banned here is as follow: contrary + sand spit AND sand spit + damp rock (so it's only 4 turns)
But i guess i'm too late
EDIT: i think the last 3 bans are complete mistakes, please don't get too much influenced by new players, and you can always undo what you did, it's fine
EDIT2: and some item clause could be interesting too, like no 6 king's rock (or just ban this shitty item), or no 6 rocky helmet
Serene Grace definitely is filth. not much to say about it.
I agree that regen + coat might've been banworthy and I'm unsure about the ban as a whole, but not that it IS banned we should be looking forward. Choices get made, the meta WILL evolve based on this, let's see where it goes.
Did a match before this was banned. First time stalling past 100, the timer got me in the end Edit: Fixed Link First Stall though
yesterday when i played i kept seeing new teams all the time (apart from the sand spit teams that all looked alike), and now the team i carefully created is fucked up (my team was the most physical team on the ladder, quite original in itself too, full of fighting pokemons with like 10 fighting moves lol), i think there is no point playing if in one day everything changes
this meta should make heavy use of complex bans to create something unique in smogon, instead of all these horrible bans (or non-bans aka serene grace/king's rock) we have in every tier. That could bring a fresh of new air to the scene too
Another example: What about allowing the holder of the banned ability be playable with its ability but the ability is not spread to other pokemons? Might not apply to all banned abilities
Another problem: What if you ban toxapex + mareanie? then we lose "merciless" and can't try something fun with it
Last EDIT: just wanted to say that this OM is maybe the best in the whole smogon (i played AAA, balanced hackmons, AG), especially since you have to pop your pokemons in a certain order, that's really cool and that's also why regenerator is at a huge advantage because switching to pop all your abilities is a big part of each match, for example for me, i take huge damage and get all my flame orb knocked off, but a regenerator gets 0 dmg
Last edited:
This is probably the single most blasphemous thing that can be said after what happened last gen. Then again, the banlist is practically just as huge as last time, but it's all lumped into one category instead of "banned" and "restricted".
fur coat died for regen's sins. change my mind
regenerator is the broken aspect, and i'm not sure why it was unbanned in favour of banning toxapex. toxapex might be bannable ontop of regen, but regen is definitely the main issue for stall, alongside maybe prankster.
fluffy and marvel scale are just not an okay replacement for fur coat when non contact moves exist. and when, icicle spear, bullet seed, and rock blast don't make contact and we aren't banning skill link and other degenerate HO abilities, physical tanks can't function. the vast majority of the offensive meta is based on physical attackers who can abuse non-contact moves instead of whatever they are using currently.
regenerator is the broken aspect, and i'm not sure why it was unbanned in favour of banning toxapex. toxapex might be bannable ontop of regen, but regen is definitely the main issue for stall, alongside maybe prankster.
fluffy and marvel scale are just not an okay replacement for fur coat when non contact moves exist. and when, icicle spear, bullet seed, and rock blast don't make contact and we aren't banning skill link and other degenerate HO abilities, physical tanks can't function. the vast majority of the offensive meta is based on physical attackers who can abuse non-contact moves instead of whatever they are using currently.
New bans cool. Banning Fur Coat and keeping Fluffy seems fine, there might as well be some sort of draw back for better Defense stats across the board and Alolan Persian as a Pokemon was extremely useful anyways. I want to see how things develop today but still heavily in favor in getting Regenerator out of here. Guess I can finally make some wild Darmanitan team now since it can break through Fluffy mons. Want to comment on some others' posts as well.
I would post more of my replays if I could but most of my builds illustrate Stall vs Stall and reaplys unfortunately don't go past what is it, 200 turns? So there's really no point in me saving 400 turn replays of me PP stalling and trapping my opponent until I win or of 1000 turn replays of us ending in a draw because my opponent refused to tie (this actually happened more often than I expected). Just going to throw this out there ahead of time before breaking down your post but please don't talk about your experience in OU when discussing an OM. It carries no relevance to this discussion and makes me think less of what you're trying to discuss because you aren't actually discussing this OM at times. Anywho the way you want to bans to occur is, plainly put, absurd. Complex banning any moves that could potentially provide useful stats through Contrary is so ridiculous, why would you not just ban Contrary at that point? If someone showed me this comment alone without context I would think that the person posting it is trying to be satirical by saying let's just ban every special move and keep the physical ones that utilize Contrary instead of banning the ability. This is an example of how not to tier a meta.
Your stance on Regenerator I agree with, it needs to go. I do like seeing Fur Coat gone and Fluffy staying and this could have an interesting impact on the meta now that Fire-types are a hot commodity. A combination ban on Fluffy + Ice Scales could still be interesting to see pan out but we'll need to see how the meta changes over the next 24 hours. Also Stamina is great when paired with these abilities but you're still weak to special moves and I personally have had no trouble dealing with Stamina stall.
I think I've played maybe 1 Serene Grace team and it wasn't that great so idk how to approach this. This type of team obviously loses to Pressure Prankster stall, which also kind of invalidates Serene Grace offense. There's just no way this type of offense is going to find much success in the current meta outside of trying to compete with Quick Feet offense and subpar offensive builds. Sand Rush being the main issue with Sand Spit is banned so this problem is solved, don't really want to discuss your other points on the Sand Spit debate because I honestly think you just don't know what you're talking about when assuming Contrary + Sand Spit was the main issue or when you listed the wrong weather rock.
Item clauses aren't necessary. Knock Off is the most used attacking option in the meta and items really aren't an issue in general.
I don't see an issue with the meta changing every day at this stage, we're heavily focused on working out the kinks and removing blatant issues within the OM and honestly I enjoy building new teams for this every day. I haven't used the same team past a day and it's fun to test new ideas and try to find different ways to beat the meta. Your request for complex bans I already touched on a bit but that's just not a good way to manage a metagame and we should mainly focus on blanket bans. Otherwise this OM will become way too confusing and convoluted to the point that nobody is going to want to play it.
These observations are from someone who has sat in Top 10 for the ladder through 100+ matches for the past uhh, 5 days? I think I started playing this OM 5 days ago so whatever day I started is how long I've been there. That also isn't including the amount of private test games I've done or battles I've watched so take that was you may. Anyways that's just to reinforce my understanding of the meta because I feel like I have a strong grasp on it.
Not sure how the banning of Fur Coat now enables this "potent" combination of Marvel Scale + Fluffy when it already existed in a better form. I don't think this combo is that great to be completely honest. Assuming you're running Flame Orb on things to get burn and not Rest, you have to casually avoid Knock Off which is probably the most widely used attacking move in the meta and still need to be able to outlast Pressure + Prankster stall which probably just isn't going to happen. I don't want to see responses that you can just switch either because that doesn't mean that Marvel Scale + Fluffy is potent, Regenerator is just saving you. Anyways since your mons now all carry a weakness to Fire moves thanks to Fluffy you should definitely have a weak point regardless of your possibly large Defense stat. I also don't know what Hydra stall is. Hydreigon? Hydration? Not sure what else this could mean and neither of those are things, at least when considering relevant builds. Lastly I don't think Prankster was impacted too greatly. It does lose a part of its strength now that you don't need Haze for Contrary, but Prankster Haze is going to be good regardless in a meta where set-up mons are still widely spread and Unaware is unavailable.
Going to lump your two posts together because I have quarrels with both.
I would post more of my replays if I could but most of my builds illustrate Stall vs Stall and reaplys unfortunately don't go past what is it, 200 turns? So there's really no point in me saving 400 turn replays of me PP stalling and trapping my opponent until I win or of 1000 turn replays of us ending in a draw because my opponent refused to tie (this actually happened more often than I expected). Just going to throw this out there ahead of time before breaking down your post but please don't talk about your experience in OU when discussing an OM. It carries no relevance to this discussion and makes me think less of what you're trying to discuss because you aren't actually discussing this OM at times. Anywho the way you want to bans to occur is, plainly put, absurd. Complex banning any moves that could potentially provide useful stats through Contrary is so ridiculous, why would you not just ban Contrary at that point? If someone showed me this comment alone without context I would think that the person posting it is trying to be satirical by saying let's just ban every special move and keep the physical ones that utilize Contrary instead of banning the ability. This is an example of how not to tier a meta.
Your stance on Regenerator I agree with, it needs to go. I do like seeing Fur Coat gone and Fluffy staying and this could have an interesting impact on the meta now that Fire-types are a hot commodity. A combination ban on Fluffy + Ice Scales could still be interesting to see pan out but we'll need to see how the meta changes over the next 24 hours. Also Stamina is great when paired with these abilities but you're still weak to special moves and I personally have had no trouble dealing with Stamina stall.
I think I've played maybe 1 Serene Grace team and it wasn't that great so idk how to approach this. This type of team obviously loses to Pressure Prankster stall, which also kind of invalidates Serene Grace offense. There's just no way this type of offense is going to find much success in the current meta outside of trying to compete with Quick Feet offense and subpar offensive builds. Sand Rush being the main issue with Sand Spit is banned so this problem is solved, don't really want to discuss your other points on the Sand Spit debate because I honestly think you just don't know what you're talking about when assuming Contrary + Sand Spit was the main issue or when you listed the wrong weather rock.
Item clauses aren't necessary. Knock Off is the most used attacking option in the meta and items really aren't an issue in general.
I don't see an issue with the meta changing every day at this stage, we're heavily focused on working out the kinks and removing blatant issues within the OM and honestly I enjoy building new teams for this every day. I haven't used the same team past a day and it's fun to test new ideas and try to find different ways to beat the meta. Your request for complex bans I already touched on a bit but that's just not a good way to manage a metagame and we should mainly focus on blanket bans. Otherwise this OM will become way too confusing and convoluted to the point that nobody is going to want to play it.
Another example: What about allowing the holder of the banned ability be playable with its ability but the ability is not spread to other pokemons? Might not apply to all banned abilities
Posting your part above so my response makes more sense. I assume this can potentially be coded (no idea if it can or not) but this is a bad idea. Hardcoding only say Quagsire on a team to have Unaware defeats the whole point of this meta as it's no longer a team of Shared Power, it's X amount of mons sharing and Y amount of mons not sharing. That's also not considering how confusing of a ban this would be for new players let alone whether this type of complex ban would even be necessary. I don't really see the merit in this kind of ban since you're basically crippling your own team by having however many mons not sharing abilities and it doesn't follow the OM's concept.These observations are from someone who has sat in Top 10 for the ladder through 100+ matches for the past uhh, 5 days? I think I started playing this OM 5 days ago so whatever day I started is how long I've been there. That also isn't including the amount of private test games I've done or battles I've watched so take that was you may. Anyways that's just to reinforce my understanding of the meta because I feel like I have a strong grasp on it.
Enabling by virtue of better options not being non-existent. Regenerator should stay. Stop trying to get rid of every form of stall, jesus.
Fur coat on its own already hits stall way too hard. There's no reliable way to run anything that walls adap daunt anymore in tandem with guts no guard zolt or whatever else. In all honesty, if anything, HO is now stupid strong. And then you're talking about banning more stall-based abilities?
Just in case you don't realize, Fluffy halves damage from contact moves and Crawdaunt and Dracozolt only use contact moves. The matchup with both has literally not changed at all so this post is completely faulty. I would presume optimal stall builds still constitute the best builds in the meta even now. Offense can finally catch up to some degree since the main gatekeepers in Contrary and Sand Rush are gone so you can actually make offensive builds that don't have to rely on free stat boosting and untouchable speed. Your questioning of my wanting to remove certain abilities that stall abuses makes a lot more sense in the scenario that I haven't been using stall, but judging by how you have been using stall builds that I've posted on this thread and have also lost to my stall teams it becomes clear that I know what needs to be changed with my most used archetype in this OM.
But yeah, as I mentioned before the great offensive gatekeepers are basically almost entirely gone. Quick Feet + Guts/Flare Boost still exists so we'll need to see how that pans out. I think getting rid of any speed boosting abilities is fine because at the end of the day if a speed boosting offensive build is using Queenly Majesty (as it should be) there is no reason to think that it has any real weaknesses outside of the matchup with optimal stall builds. I don't think that means Queenly Majesty is a problem, in fact any check to priority is a very good thing for this meta in my honest opinion. I do think that at this point there just shouldn't be an ability that can freely boost speed with almost no drawback. FYI, burn damage is not a drawback. You can toss on a Regenerator mon into these teams over what used to be Shuckle and they post almost the same results.
Fluffy is considerably worse than Fur Coat since it allows for more counterplay in the form of non-contact moves and fire moves. You could argue that a fire immunity gets rid of the fire weakness but that means running a Fire immunity, which was generally not the case in stall, even with Ferrothorn. As for speed abilities, i think keeping quick feet is fine since it's just a +1 boost, and you have to run Flame Orb in order to get it. The drawback is not burn damage, it's being item locked.
Answering to iLlama.
I said I was well ranked in OU with a weird team to explain that I kinda know how to teambuild, and deal with interesting gameplay, but that was too subtle, sorry. So let's put it simply: I know how to teambuild a crazy team in a non-creative meta/gen, and I played several OMs.
Knock off the most used move? I didn't play today, maybe it's the new move, but for the last days it was really not. Imagine knock off being the most used move against stall :rofl:
My idea about banning only certain moves for contrary is simple, there are less than 10 problematic moves with contrary. Physically there are 3 in this gen (no v-create) and they're all fighting move. One boosts attack + def, one boosts speed, one boosts def + spdef. All by only 1 stage
Specially speaking, there are more possibilities but how many? From the top of my head I can count 3, draco meteor, overheat, leaf storm, then I don't see another but there is probably another. These 3 moves are hitting harder, they don't make contact, they boost your SPA by 2 instead of 1 Atk for Superpower, and they have various coverage. Mew can have 2 of them. I hope you can see the difference now, it's not that hard.
"I don't really see the merit in this kind of ban since you're basically crippling your own team by having however many mons not sharing abilities and it doesn't follow the OM's concept."
Genius spotted. So instead of allowing someone to make an unorthodox strategy, let's just remove completely that pokemon usability. Coming from a stall/serene grace player, it's not surprising (0 creativity). Let's make this OM as fun as OU, good idea.
And of course it can be coded easily... However it would be confusing to players that's true. Like it's 1000% confusing as it is now because the interface is not coded to display specific OM things. With the correct information on mouse hover (but that part would be harder to work on development wise imo), it would be easy but I guess I'm seeing too much potential in this OM, in the end I feel like it will just be another unplayable meme.
And now Serene grace is fine from your perspective, wow that just proves that all you said was useless.
Anyway I won't answer back to such stupidity. Will wait until everything has been banned instead and if things are unbanned. Have fun guys, and try to be creative.
I said I was well ranked in OU with a weird team to explain that I kinda know how to teambuild, and deal with interesting gameplay, but that was too subtle, sorry. So let's put it simply: I know how to teambuild a crazy team in a non-creative meta/gen, and I played several OMs.
Knock off the most used move? I didn't play today, maybe it's the new move, but for the last days it was really not. Imagine knock off being the most used move against stall :rofl:
My idea about banning only certain moves for contrary is simple, there are less than 10 problematic moves with contrary. Physically there are 3 in this gen (no v-create) and they're all fighting move. One boosts attack + def, one boosts speed, one boosts def + spdef. All by only 1 stage
Specially speaking, there are more possibilities but how many? From the top of my head I can count 3, draco meteor, overheat, leaf storm, then I don't see another but there is probably another. These 3 moves are hitting harder, they don't make contact, they boost your SPA by 2 instead of 1 Atk for Superpower, and they have various coverage. Mew can have 2 of them. I hope you can see the difference now, it's not that hard.
"I don't really see the merit in this kind of ban since you're basically crippling your own team by having however many mons not sharing abilities and it doesn't follow the OM's concept."
Genius spotted. So instead of allowing someone to make an unorthodox strategy, let's just remove completely that pokemon usability. Coming from a stall/serene grace player, it's not surprising (0 creativity). Let's make this OM as fun as OU, good idea.
And of course it can be coded easily... However it would be confusing to players that's true. Like it's 1000% confusing as it is now because the interface is not coded to display specific OM things. With the correct information on mouse hover (but that part would be harder to work on development wise imo), it would be easy but I guess I'm seeing too much potential in this OM, in the end I feel like it will just be another unplayable meme.
And now Serene grace is fine from your perspective, wow that just proves that all you said was useless.
Anyway I won't answer back to such stupidity. Will wait until everything has been banned instead and if things are unbanned. Have fun guys, and try to be creative.
I explained this early in the thread, but since the topic has come up again, I find it worth reiterating why it's a really bad idea to allow some abilities to be used but not shared. iLlama brushed on this, but in short, doing so isn't just confusing. It fundamentally breaks the rules of Shared Power.
Imagine you wanted to play an OM on an actual cartridge. What would you do? While mechanically simple OMs like STABmons would be easy to implement, more complex OMs like Mix and Mega or Shared Power would require modifications to the game's mechanics. So you mod the game to allow mega stones to work on anything and remove the restriction on how many times you can mega evolve in a battle, or you make it so that each of your Pokemon simultaneously has every ability of everything you've sent out in this battle.
Now that you've finished modifying the game, how do you handle bans (or in STABmons' case, the entire thing)? It's simple. You just do what you always do when playing a Smogon tier on cart: you use gentlemen's agreements. The reason you don't use Zacian in OU, or you don't use Beedrillite or don't mega evolve Lunala in Mix and Mega, or you only give Pokemon normally illegal moves if they share a type but you don't give Extreme Speed to non-native users in STABmons, or you don't bring a mon with Simple or you don't bring a mon with Steely Spirit if you also have a mon with Steelworker in Shared Power, is because you and your opponent agree to play by those terms. If the ruleset ever changes, like if Dracovish is banned for OU or Water Veil (random example) is banned for Shared Power, the underlying mechanics aren't touched. You just agree to not use Dracovish or Water Veil.
This is why it's such a bad idea to allow some abilities to be used without being shared. It would require going the mod's code and making further modifications. Now, instead of the underlying mechanics being "you have all the abilities of everyone before you", it's "you have all the abilities of everyone before you, except for this list of exceptions: ...". And you would have to change that list every time you banned or unbanned an ability from being shared.
EDIT: I thought I might also address Tier Shift, because at first glance it does seem to break the "no further modification" rule. While it would require some janky internet reference to get it working on a physical cart, its modification is "check what tier a Pokemon is in and buff its stats accordingly". So while it's true that a Pokemon's stat buffs can be altered, the modification itself isn't being updated. It's just drawing from the same external data source it always has. It's like how a TV set to channel 42 might change what show it's displaying despite the TV itself never getting altered.
Imagine you wanted to play an OM on an actual cartridge. What would you do? While mechanically simple OMs like STABmons would be easy to implement, more complex OMs like Mix and Mega or Shared Power would require modifications to the game's mechanics. So you mod the game to allow mega stones to work on anything and remove the restriction on how many times you can mega evolve in a battle, or you make it so that each of your Pokemon simultaneously has every ability of everything you've sent out in this battle.
Now that you've finished modifying the game, how do you handle bans (or in STABmons' case, the entire thing)? It's simple. You just do what you always do when playing a Smogon tier on cart: you use gentlemen's agreements. The reason you don't use Zacian in OU, or you don't use Beedrillite or don't mega evolve Lunala in Mix and Mega, or you only give Pokemon normally illegal moves if they share a type but you don't give Extreme Speed to non-native users in STABmons, or you don't bring a mon with Simple or you don't bring a mon with Steely Spirit if you also have a mon with Steelworker in Shared Power, is because you and your opponent agree to play by those terms. If the ruleset ever changes, like if Dracovish is banned for OU or Water Veil (random example) is banned for Shared Power, the underlying mechanics aren't touched. You just agree to not use Dracovish or Water Veil.
This is why it's such a bad idea to allow some abilities to be used without being shared. It would require going the mod's code and making further modifications. Now, instead of the underlying mechanics being "you have all the abilities of everyone before you", it's "you have all the abilities of everyone before you, except for this list of exceptions: ...". And you would have to change that list every time you banned or unbanned an ability from being shared.
EDIT: I thought I might also address Tier Shift, because at first glance it does seem to break the "no further modification" rule. While it would require some janky internet reference to get it working on a physical cart, its modification is "check what tier a Pokemon is in and buff its stats accordingly". So while it's true that a Pokemon's stat buffs can be altered, the modification itself isn't being updated. It's just drawing from the same external data source it always has. It's like how a TV set to channel 42 might change what show it's displaying despite the TV itself never getting altered.
Last edited:
Hey, let's not divert away to discuss mechanics and the possibility of "restrictions", for lack of a better word. As mentioned above, and as was discussed last gen, OMs should be assumed to be the actual game. What if in the actual game everything shared abilities? Preventing certain things from being shared would be modding the game. This is outside the scope of OMs and of Smogon tiering as a whole (bar the exceptions like Sleep Clause). So, I ask that we move on from this topic and discuss the metagame in its current format. Thanks.
Some more things iv'e noticed.
1.Stamina reigns supreme(not saying that it's unbalanced, it's just a good strat, can be killed by SpA but could be combined with calm mind)
2. A still growing amount of creativity
3. Most teams are now just a good balance of offense and defense, no hyper offense, no hyper defense.
The situation seems to get better besides, the one guy talking about how Serene Grace will kill us all
I casually agree that Re-generator should be banned
1.Stamina reigns supreme(not saying that it's unbalanced, it's just a good strat, can be killed by SpA but could be combined with calm mind)
2. A still growing amount of creativity
3. Most teams are now just a good balance of offense and defense, no hyper offense, no hyper defense.
The situation seems to get better besides, the one guy talking about how Serene Grace will kill us all
I casually agree that Re-generator should be banned
Someone posted a creative idea here for electrify Heliolisk, i thought i would show off my balance team around their concept since it worked well for me.
I guess it doesn't matter now. But at the time of banning, i had nearly an 100% win rate against sand spit/rush teams and contrary teams. It's not exactly anti-meta (anti-sandspit maybe), but i found it had an answer to everything if i played well, particularly if they didn't have an answer to electrify (Like volt opposing volt absorb or a way to shut down prankster)
In 20 games with this team specifically, most of my losses were against pressure, regen, hydration/rest, block, fur coat, icy scales stall. And i quit before even playing half those matches because i would have to play perfectly while all they did was spam protect, rest and switch. Basically pacifistmons invaded this OM.
I reached 1400 points and it was pure stall from that point. So that lowered my win rate substantially, but for this team it's still probably 70% and i have beaten a few regen/fur coat/icy scales teams.
Anyway here it is:
Pelipper @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Hurricane
- Scald
- U-turn
- Defog
Heliolisk @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Electrify
- Hyper Voice
- Thunder
- Surf
Rhyperior @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
Grimmsnarl (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Play Rough
- Trick
- Sucker Punch
Bewear @ Leftovers
Ability: Fluffy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Body Slam
- Iron Head
Togekiss @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Air Slash
- Aura Sphere
- Heal Bell
At first glance you might think the team isn't very strong or lacks a definitive strategy. But oddly enough, it's one of the only teams in the meta where every single Pokemon puts in a tonne of work. There's plenty of ways to cripple stall or difficult mons, wall Pokemon, or give yourself a speed boost. Rhyperior is surprisingly good, which I hadn't expected.
Yes, you have a serious weakness to fire on every mon, but the rain subtly discourages people and there's nearly no fire types in the meta. Although i guess fire types will come back now that fluffy is the alternative to fur coat, so perhaps it won't perform as well. This team also doesn't have reliable recovery, which personally I like. It makes you play more aggressively and it's not necessary in this meta where everything is either a sweeper or relies on stall.
I'd like to see more teams like this in the future of the metagame. I've seen a lot of low effort, copy and pasted teams on the top of this ladder, but creativity is slowly creeping in as we remove stall and broken speed boosting methods. I currently don't see any abilities being a serious problem by themselves, but there's still combinations that are problematic. Dusclops is the Pokemon I've been most annoyed by recently, particularly as it always brings pressure stall players who spam rest/protect. Which, even if it is beatable, is just a technique that shouldn't be encouraged over creativity and enjoyment in a casual monthly metagame.
I guess it doesn't matter now. But at the time of banning, i had nearly an 100% win rate against sand spit/rush teams and contrary teams. It's not exactly anti-meta (anti-sandspit maybe), but i found it had an answer to everything if i played well, particularly if they didn't have an answer to electrify (Like volt opposing volt absorb or a way to shut down prankster)
In 20 games with this team specifically, most of my losses were against pressure, regen, hydration/rest, block, fur coat, icy scales stall. And i quit before even playing half those matches because i would have to play perfectly while all they did was spam protect, rest and switch. Basically pacifistmons invaded this OM.
I reached 1400 points and it was pure stall from that point. So that lowered my win rate substantially, but for this team it's still probably 70% and i have beaten a few regen/fur coat/icy scales teams.
Anyway here it is:
Pelipper @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
Modest Nature
- Hurricane
- Scald
- U-turn
- Defog
Heliolisk @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Electrify
- Hyper Voice
- Thunder
- Surf
Rhyperior @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Lightning Rod
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Toxic
- Stealth Rock
Grimmsnarl (M) @ Choice Band
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Play Rough
- Trick
- Sucker Punch
Bewear @ Leftovers
Ability: Fluffy
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Drain Punch
- Body Slam
- Iron Head
Togekiss @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Tailwind
- Air Slash
- Aura Sphere
- Heal Bell
At first glance you might think the team isn't very strong or lacks a definitive strategy. But oddly enough, it's one of the only teams in the meta where every single Pokemon puts in a tonne of work. There's plenty of ways to cripple stall or difficult mons, wall Pokemon, or give yourself a speed boost. Rhyperior is surprisingly good, which I hadn't expected.
Yes, you have a serious weakness to fire on every mon, but the rain subtly discourages people and there's nearly no fire types in the meta. Although i guess fire types will come back now that fluffy is the alternative to fur coat, so perhaps it won't perform as well. This team also doesn't have reliable recovery, which personally I like. It makes you play more aggressively and it's not necessary in this meta where everything is either a sweeper or relies on stall.
I'd like to see more teams like this in the future of the metagame. I've seen a lot of low effort, copy and pasted teams on the top of this ladder, but creativity is slowly creeping in as we remove stall and broken speed boosting methods. I currently don't see any abilities being a serious problem by themselves, but there's still combinations that are problematic. Dusclops is the Pokemon I've been most annoyed by recently, particularly as it always brings pressure stall players who spam rest/protect. Which, even if it is beatable, is just a technique that shouldn't be encouraged over creativity and enjoyment in a casual monthly metagame.
Last edited:
What happens when they're like, hey that guy has a heliolisk, ima save my dark type for last and then you die due to electrify not working
Me dying with an electrify team 6-0 to Ransei (Im trash though so maybe yours does better?)
Maybe instead of prankster do quick feet, then replace life orb with flame orb. Since it's mainly a offensive team you could replace Fluffy with Flash Fire? Still can't beat stall, but has better speed with no dark immunity.
Last edited:
Yeah, haha, prankster becomes a liability in quite a few games honestly. But it also comes in clutch a lot too, tail wind on my togekiss for example won't be blocked and helps me revenge kill them.
It think my team is a little more well suited to beating teams like that than yours, since i have hax if everything else fails.
Hydreigon is a serious threat against me too, particularly lifeorb/sheer force
I think I'll create an entirely seperate team for the flame orb, quick feet, solar power combo. This one has worked too well for me to change, but thanks for the idea
I just tested a new team this pm and made it from 1300-ish to 1588 (first on the ladder) with a single loss (I may not remember correctly, excuse me if I forgot anyone beating this team).
It's basicaly a non-stally defensive using a combo of fluffy+stamina+marvel scale to replace fur coat on the physical side. There's definitely a few weaknesses to it, as to any other team, but it fends notably well against the Skill link teams that have invaded the meta since the most recent bans, thanks to stamina. Prankster recovery helps getting around stench shenanigans as well.
I personally run more offensive setup builds on Grimmsnarl and Bewear, and to a lesser extent on Reuniclus and Frosmoth as well. I don't particularly enjoy stallmates, but there's definitely potential to make the team even more stally. Each of these Pokemon has the offensive stats and movepools to break through a lot of defensive sets, however, and running more offensive sets makes up for the lack of Pressure against stally opponents.
The plan is to switch around, using regenerator to recover while introducing each ability, tanking incoming hits until one of the offensive pokemon on the team has a chance to set up and strike back. Milotic is the main tank, with its natural bulk and access to Haze, a precious gift in this meta. Reuniclus is also quite good defensively, reaching great bulk with priority Calm Mind and Stamina boosts. To keep other mons alive, you can run Rest for recovery (sleep still activates Marvel Scale), run Drain Punch on an offensive Bewear or just switch around and let Regenerator do its job.
The biggest weaknesses to this team so far have been:
It's basicaly a non-stally defensive using a combo of fluffy+stamina+marvel scale to replace fur coat on the physical side. There's definitely a few weaknesses to it, as to any other team, but it fends notably well against the Skill link teams that have invaded the meta since the most recent bans, thanks to stamina. Prankster recovery helps getting around stench shenanigans as well.
I personally run more offensive setup builds on Grimmsnarl and Bewear, and to a lesser extent on Reuniclus and Frosmoth as well. I don't particularly enjoy stallmates, but there's definitely potential to make the team even more stally. Each of these Pokemon has the offensive stats and movepools to break through a lot of defensive sets, however, and running more offensive sets makes up for the lack of Pressure against stally opponents.
The plan is to switch around, using regenerator to recover while introducing each ability, tanking incoming hits until one of the offensive pokemon on the team has a chance to set up and strike back. Milotic is the main tank, with its natural bulk and access to Haze, a precious gift in this meta. Reuniclus is also quite good defensively, reaching great bulk with priority Calm Mind and Stamina boosts. To keep other mons alive, you can run Rest for recovery (sleep still activates Marvel Scale), run Drain Punch on an offensive Bewear or just switch around and let Regenerator do its job.
The biggest weaknesses to this team so far have been:
- Sniper critical strategies, which break through stamina boosts, though it hasn't been enough to beat the entire team this far;
- Powerful fire types, which are luckily quite rare in the meta, as only Milotic comfortably takes fire hits with Fluffy;
- Taunt and/or haze on opposing defensive teams, which make setting up more difficult;
- Long Reach Decidueye, as it cancels Fluffy entirely, on top of having a great matchup against Milotic.
Last edited:
This is literally stall.
Stall implies you have no way to deal consistent damage. In a lot of my matches, I KO'd the opponent's team without having to send in all my Pokemon, because mons like Bewear and Grimmsnarl can easily get in a position to sweep. People in Shared Power always tend to go either for insane raw offense or pure stall where any defensive matchup turns into pp-stalling. It's one of the reasons people make mistakes against my team, because they assume any defensive ability means stall and don't expect a fast-paced match. I don't mind people calling this strategy stall, but failing to see the difference is a nice way to get swept by it.