I think most Tyranitar on Sand BO should run Toxic. Excadrill and Ocelzolt are the premier sand abusers atm, and both struggle with Spdef Hippowdon and Physdef Pert. Tyranitar's toxic is a great way of softening them up so Excadrill can OHKO Hippo and Pert with +2 eq and Dracozolt can 2HKO both with Draco Meteor.
Tyranitar @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rock Blast
- Crunch
- Ice Beam / Fire Blast
With the return of Lando and Chomp and the rise of Ferro, T-Tar now once again has reason to tack on its special lure. Fuck, if you're a real man then you can run full Specs and run them both plus Hydro Pump to catch Hippo too, but my balls are too small to recommend that. There's really nothing to explain here besides this should pretty much be on every T-Tar, it's a perfect bait for those mons and Sand Rush partners would absolutely love them gone or hurt.
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Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #2753)
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
not suggesting anything just curious
are there any defensive mons that are either oppressive, centralizing, or constrict team building?
and if any of these defensive mons were removed would that lessen the hole left by removing something like urshifu?
look at this as 2 separate questions not a 2 part question.
are there any defensive mons that are either oppressive, centralizing, or constrict team building?
and if any of these defensive mons were removed would that lessen the hole left by removing something like urshifu?
look at this as 2 separate questions not a 2 part question.
I don't have an immediate answer for your actual question, but I think Urshifu being banned would actually make the tier more offensive, rather than defensive. A broken breaker getting kicked out frees up a lot more room for balance and less bulky playstyles, cuz you no longer need to run, for example, Clefable, Toxapex, or Amoonguss on every team to beat Urshifu. HO and more offensively-oriented playstyles are only bound to improve with bans.
I think Toxapex could be suspect-worthy after all the other broken shit, though. At least, I've seen a lot of people complain about it.
You know, I was gonna make a really lengthy post about how Toxapex is a horribly balanced affront to game design, but to be honest, Spectrier and Urshifu might actually be worse. I really like breaking down game design choices, so might as well attempt to make it relevant to the conversation!
Sure, Pex can choose what it beats and has Knock Off for no reason except you suck, but Spectrier, too, can customize its sets to beat whatever it needs to. Some people even use Dark Pulse (which is very much not optimal) on the substitute set so it doesn’t get blanked by Chansey. Like, you think you have a hard stop to it, but then it blanks you instead of what should happen, which is the opposite. Its movepool sucks, which should be its fatal flaw (I remember everyone was making fun of it when the stats got leaked), but instead, it has pretty much all the tools it needs to beat whatever it must.
Urshifu isn’t really like that. It uses Close Combat, Wicked Blow, two other moves, you’re good now ok go win. It has good-but-not-incredible stats and a typing that historically should be TERRIBLE in OU, but who cares? Wicked Blow and Close Combat are strong enough that OU’s army of resists can’t stand in the way of them. Its other moves can kind of be chosen based on what you need for your team and whether you want to kill Clefable with cold iron or a toxic punch. Urshifu isn’t a mon that can be perfectly tailored to suit the unique needs of YOUR team, but when you have all of its bullshit, that doesn’t really matter, does it?
Basically, looking at them on paper, Spectrier and Urshifu have glaring problems that should make them easy to take care of even if you’re not specifically prepared to beat them. In fact, looking at past OU trends, Urshifu sounds like it should be crippled by its typing, and Spectrier certainly would be were Pursuit still in the game (Ghosts used to suck lol). Yet in practice, these “flaws” do not hinder them in the slightest and are merely an annoyance when building teams with them. I think so anyway, I don’t play very often nowadays and I’m not very high on the ladder so
Yea, specifically I really hate the movepool design for Spectrier. Looking at Spectrier's stats and ability it's broken, so they tried to "nerf" it by giving it a hilariously limited movepool (which they didn't really accomplish). This just turns an obviously broken mon into a still broken but not so obvious mon. These mons can blow through teams without the proper counterplay. Remember Regieleki? Modest Specs 2HKOs 0- speed Chansey after rocks with Electro Ball. The whole idea of "It's not broken because you can just use mon A, B, or C" really just clogs up the whole process. Had Spectrier gotten Moonblast we would all be done with this thing months ago but because they decided to "balance" it it's still clogging up our system as we speak. Of course, the same could be said for any newly released broken mon (poor zamazenta-C), so maybe I'm just being a complainer.
What I really wrote about was about how you made it seem like Fighting-Dark is a bad typing. For a long time, especially before fairies, Fighting-Dark was an amazing type combination. Mons like Darkrai and Lucario have used it in the past to great effect. Fairies coming along mandated a third coverage slot but that's 3 moves to hit the entire meta. CAP invented Tomohawk (Fighting-Flying type with intimidate) in part to help with this. Pangoro obviously isn't that good but bad speed, a not-so-great ability (Scrappy when half your stab is dark), and no stab priority, being bullet punch, means it does face a lot of roadblocks.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-round-8-aint-no-rest-for-the-wicked.3675310/
Urshifu is being suspect tested
Urshifu is being suspect tested
BOOYAH
Time to abuse it before it leaves :D
Honestly though, in my opinion after this suspect, we can slow down the testing for a while. As much as I hate Spectrier, and I do understand why people want Magearna banned, I think time should be given for the meta to settle. Maybe things will change after the suspect (assuming Urshifu's very likely ban), and maybe Spectrier will hopefully be easier to handle. I'm also posting this because I just know that people will be pushing for another suspect the moment this one is over (or even before it is).
I am disagreeing very hard on leaving the metagame "to settle" after Urshifu suspect most likely removes it from the tier. I am not looking forward to dealing with Magearna in OU. (especially behind screens).
About Urshifu, after it gets banned, I'll run the water one. Its underrated anyways (not superior to dark, but still awesome) And yes, I am certain it will get banned. Otherwise more pressing mons would have been first on the chopping block (e.g. Magearna... again, how is this Mon OU again? It can run 3+ valid sets with different checks and can be slapped on every team archetype.)
(also didn't we have a poll? I don't remember Urshifu being on the poll at all)
If (when) Urshifu-S is gone, the meta will certainly look much different, so I agree with you that we should let it settle. However, I unfortunately can only see Spectrier getting better. The omnipresent Urshifu-S was just another mon preventing it from mindlessly clicking shadowball. Obviously it wasn't the best answer, but Urshifu was definitely on the list of mons Spectrier would rather not see on the opposing team.
Urshifu-S has a huuge influence on the tier. When it leaves, Clef are free to run Wishport spdef again, Mandi might run exclusively Spdef, and Buzzwole might drop to UU, not to mention how Slowbro's role would change now that the 2 best fighting types are probably gone. We haven't seen something as controlling yet in such an indirect way in a long time.
I mean come on, what does Clef really run Physdef magic guard for. Pheromosa? Urshifu? that's about it.
Clef runs Defense for non offensive Lando-T, unboosted Chomp, Lucha, and a handful of other things besides CM variants. There is real application to Clefs running Def> SpDef not just cause Ursh is in the tier granted that's a big reason now.
With that being said I agree with Pokeron the idea of waiting for meta stabilization is a bad idea . Phero was gone and it stabilized being revolved around Ursh, Spec, Mag within like a week and it was already like that when Phero was around just with Phero added on. You're attempting to stabilize a metagame with a bunch of unhealthy and centralizing mons in the tier that are too restricting in the teambuilder and creates extreme matchup problems. I don't buy the idea of letting a meta settle unless you have suspects that at least are questionably broken. You're suspecting stuff that's already hated by the community they're going to hit 70%+ thresholds in a voter account lol.
Granted I don't think it matters much now since a lot of this is dictated in the direction of whatever tours are being run, with SPL coming up. So we'll see then but Im not buying this argument of letting the meta settle since it settles after like 2 weeks into the same old routine anyways.
With that being said I agree with Pokeron the idea of waiting for meta stabilization is a bad idea . Phero was gone and it stabilized being revolved around Ursh, Spec, Mag within like a week and it was already like that when Phero was around just with Phero added on. You're attempting to stabilize a metagame with a bunch of unhealthy and centralizing mons in the tier that are too restricting in the teambuilder and creates extreme matchup problems. I don't buy the idea of letting a meta settle unless you have suspects that at least are questionably broken. You're suspecting stuff that's already hated by the community they're going to hit 70%+ thresholds in a voter account lol.
Granted I don't think it matters much now since a lot of this is dictated in the direction of whatever tours are being run, with SPL coming up. So we'll see then but Im not buying this argument of letting the meta settle since it settles after like 2 weeks into the same old routine anyways.
It's a couple days late but it's still a very nice christmas present. Thanks a lot Finch
knowing how much people like slower, bulkier play styles, I'll believe this when it happens
A bulky ass 150~/140~ defenses on a water/poison, with good ass recovery in regenerator and black sludge, and yet some think it isnt unhealthy.
like, the only good types are electric, psychic, and ground. electric is like, koko and maybe zapdos, so better hope a ground type like the omniking landorus isnt around, nidoking which surged recently, or hippowdon which is rare but sand uses it well so...
psychic is a fucking joke besides future sight right now, and with the copious dark types in urshifu and a good chunk of the DLC1 meta, it wont be tossed around as much.
ground is used by like, landorus and nidoking, but toxapex says fuck you and packs scald, which not only does intimidate not affect, but it can also burn.
The absurd bulk and amount of effort needed in teambuilder to plan around what if this urchin is who im facing against, while having few answers that arent easily dealt with by the team style toxapex commonly associates with, imo, makes it unhealthy at least. im down for a suspect test after the dark bear thing, whenever really.
Most Choiced attacks can still break through. Not at all an argument, just wanted to clarify that it isn't unbreakable by the likes of rillaboom. Lots of mons pack ground coverage not only for it, but also for Heatran, such as Melmetal, Hydreigon, and Dragonite. A lot of pokemon also run psychic coverage but that's just for pex :/. You can also break through it with pretty much any invested special attack since Spdef pex isn't a thing atm.
Toxapex isn't as good right now as in DLC1 largely also due to Slowbro, who can afford to lose its boots for a 100% free future sight and teleport. Honestly when building I never think to myself "how am I going to switch into pex" like i did in DLC1, but that may also be partly due to the fact that a Clef is forced on all of my teams for urshifu anyways.
Mons like Glowking, Nidoking, Tapu Lele, Taunt Roost Koko, Taunt Fini (sometimes) Latios, and Magearna are headaches for balance and can all beat Pex.
152 and 142 are both big numbers, but pex has 50 base HP; factoring that in, it's not nearly as bulky as people like to believe. Mandibuzz, for example, is even bulkier both physically and specially, has Roost recovery and a great defensive typing, but nobody wants that to be suspected. A pokemon being hard to kill doesn't make it unhealthy. Pure bulk isn't what makes toxapex overbearing; it's the amount of threat it generates via scald burns and toxic spikes, and said bulk increasing the value of those things.
I think in this current meta it's in no way overbearing; there's plenty of things that can deal with it without caring about scald burns too much. Latis, Slowtwins, Magearna, Koko, Lele and Spectrier all spring to mind as things that can easily deal with it offensively, to say nothing of things like Rillaboom and Garchomp that just have to avoid a scald burn. Toxic Spikes also don't end up too overbearing IMO; Poison types like Nidoking, G-King, Amoonguss and other Pexes are all relatively easy to slot onto most teams, and it's pretty common to see teams with only 1 or 2 TSpikes-affected pokemon factoring in boots.
Bottom line is that you'll have to do more than just say it's bulky to convince people of any type of brokenness.
the idea that Pex is too hard to break right now is laughable
Urshifu, Cinderace, Spectrier, and Magearna all can easily blow through Toxapex (Band/BU, Electro Ball/Zen, Specs/Wisp, Specs/DD/CM+Thunderbolt respectively), and stuff like Nidoking, Rillaboom, offensive Lando-T, Suicune, Kartana, Tapu Lele, (Specs) Koko, G-Slowking, and more run can easily through Pex.
Scald is really annoying but it's only a 30% chance to burn - those are not favorable odds in a 1v1, which means even the physically oriented threats listed above will beat Pex in the 1v1 assuming they don't come in on a Scald (or Knock Off, depending on the set) on the switch in.
Urshifu, Cinderace, Spectrier, and Magearna all can easily blow through Toxapex (Band/BU, Electro Ball/Zen, Specs/Wisp, Specs/DD/CM+Thunderbolt respectively), and stuff like Nidoking, Rillaboom, offensive Lando-T, Suicune, Kartana, Tapu Lele, (Specs) Koko, G-Slowking, and more run can easily through Pex.
Scald is really annoying but it's only a 30% chance to burn - those are not favorable odds in a 1v1, which means even the physically oriented threats listed above will beat Pex in the 1v1 assuming they don't come in on a Scald (or Knock Off, depending on the set) on the switch in.
No one is saying that Pex is impossible to win 1v1 against, but the problem is that it is so Hard to make consistent progress in some games due to Pex because it can constantly fish for burns or quickly knock off switch-in's items and Then switch out of unfavorable matchups. Also, if you havent noticed half of the mentioned mons are really good because they break Pex or are only good vs it if they are specifically prepared. Now I am not saying it is the biggest problem in this meta because it is not even close but still after the remaining trio gets banned it could be something to consider I guess
I'm not the biggest fan of Pex and all that, but I think people are just really oversimplifying the ways we have to deal with it, not saying it's totally busted (sadly) but the amount of arguments just completely forgetting about Toxapex's access to Knock Off is astounding.
I mean yeah, you can blow it away with a Choiced user(never in one hit though), but then at full health you can just make it tank stuff like Adamant Banded Rillaboom's Wood Hammer, attack that does a maximum of 80% and Knock its Choice Band away and flee (you'll be at half health after this exchange thanks to Regenerator), next time, Rillaboom's Wood Hammer goes from doing 80% to barely 50%, which Pex can easily recover from, the same stuff applies for a huge amount of offensive mons, as you may notice that they do indeed need their items to even kill Pex reliably, another great example is Urshifu of course:
Goes from doing respectable damage
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex on a critical hit: 157-186 (51.6 - 61.1%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
To failing to even 2HKO it, it can literally recover the most of the damage done to it by switching out
252 Atk Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex on a critical hit: 106-126 (34.8 - 41.4%) -- 68.3% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
No need to mention what happens if Pex gets the "30%" with Scald. Other stuff like Slowking Galar, Nidoking and more sure hate losing their AV/LO too, because while they might still defeat Pex 1v1, they become much easier to deal with for the partners Pex is frequently being accompanied by.
Also, of course, why are we even discussing Toxapex's stats when it's been constantly proven that this thing is very rarely OHKOed by anything in practice?
Again, not saying Pex is incredibly difficult to deal with right now, specially with the Future Sight spam, but I just wanted to illustrate how people are seriously undermining it ITT
I mean yeah, you can blow it away with a Choiced user(never in one hit though), but then at full health you can just make it tank stuff like Adamant Banded Rillaboom's Wood Hammer, attack that does a maximum of 80% and Knock its Choice Band away and flee (you'll be at half health after this exchange thanks to Regenerator), next time, Rillaboom's Wood Hammer goes from doing 80% to barely 50%, which Pex can easily recover from, the same stuff applies for a huge amount of offensive mons, as you may notice that they do indeed need their items to even kill Pex reliably, another great example is Urshifu of course:
Goes from doing respectable damage
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex on a critical hit: 157-186 (51.6 - 61.1%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
To failing to even 2HKO it, it can literally recover the most of the damage done to it by switching out
252 Atk Urshifu Wicked Blow vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex on a critical hit: 106-126 (34.8 - 41.4%) -- 68.3% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
No need to mention what happens if Pex gets the "30%" with Scald. Other stuff like Slowking Galar, Nidoking and more sure hate losing their AV/LO too, because while they might still defeat Pex 1v1, they become much easier to deal with for the partners Pex is frequently being accompanied by.
Also, of course, why are we even discussing Toxapex's stats when it's been constantly proven that this thing is very rarely OHKOed by anything in practice?
Again, not saying Pex is incredibly difficult to deal with right now, specially with the Future Sight spam, but I just wanted to illustrate how people are seriously undermining it ITT
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I think another thing that people tend to overlook is how easy it is to cover pex's weaknesses with your team. All three weaknesses (electric, psychic, and ground) all have natural immunities that are easy to add to a team. Lando T and Mandi both cover two of pex's weaknesses in one slot while Pex covers their weaknesses in return. This makes strong neutral hits the better option because of how hard it is to deal chip damage that sticks.
I think that's fair, but the increased ease of pivoting stuff in via Teleport, especially in conjunction with Future Sight, make it easier than before to deal with Pex since there's more ways to bring in breakers vs Pex that avoid taking a Knock Off or Scald on the switch in.
Mind you, if the remaining potentially-busteds (Mag, Spectrier for sure will be suspected at some point IMO) leave, Pex might prove to be unhealthy (if not broken) and warrant a suspect.
I would like to talk how ridicolously underrated of a set 4 attacks Cinderace is. I got 33 and 4 in a night thanks to this set + LO Shifu. Running U-Turn is absolutely a waste, like it used to be on Ash Gren back in Gen 7. Pyro Ball, HJK, Sucker and Gunk breaks basically every defensive core around, and to be effective you need all of them at once. The only mon you miss out the 2hko with the aforementioned moves are Zapdos, Moltres, Mandi, Slowbro and Pex. The birds are forced to Roost at every 120 base power STAB move you throw at them, considering each does around 46%: they are a Knock Off away from falling to Cinderace's attacks. Slowbro and Pex are thougher to deal with, but the fact that this mon forces them in can easily be exploited by Ace's teammates with a double.
I cannot overstate how good this mon when paired with Knock off support, with Urshifu being the busted mon that it is, considering how wears everything down and how enjoys Fini getting Gunked, or with Future Sight support demolishing Zapdos, Moltres and Pex.
IMO Adamant + Life Orb on 4 Attacks (non-U-Turn) Cinderace is the way to go - that extra power lets Cinderace just beat the birds outright, and Mandibuzz is threatened with a 2HKO if Gunk Shot poisons (or even if Pyro Ball burns IIRC). Yea the chip is annoying, and losing that speed tier isn't the best, but Adamant LO Sucker Punch is pretty good speed control in and of itself.
I would like to talk how ridicolously underrated of a set 4 attacks Cinderace is. I got 33 and 4 in a night thanks to this set + LO Shifu. Running U-Turn is absolutely a waste, like it used to be on Ash Gren back in Gen 7. Pyro Ball, HJK, Sucker and Gunk breaks basically every defensive core around, and to be effective you need all of them at once. The only mon you miss out the 2hko with the aforementioned moves are Zapdos, Moltres, Mandi, Slowbro and Pex. The birds are forced to Roost at every 120 base power STAB move you throw at them, considering each does around 46%: they are a Knock Off away from falling to Cinderace's attacks. Slowbro and Pex are thougher to deal with, but the fact that this mon forces them in can easily be exploited by Ace's teammates with a double.
I cannot overstate how good this mon when paired with Knock off support, with Urshifu being the busted mon that it is, considering how wears everything down and how enjoys Fini getting Gunked, or with Future Sight support demolishing Zapdos, Moltres and Pex.
That depends wildly on the team. Being Adamant means that you underspeed non scarf Kart, which is a very big threat in general, but if you have the right team (Zapdos/Moltres + secondary grass check) I would agree that Adamant is the way to go. Kart is also the only mon you lose out by going Adamant, considering that you hit 337 speed, which is higher than Chomp (333), the mon immediatly below Kartana if you order the OU tier by Speed.
I don't personally like Orb, considering how common Clef is and how much Ace likes to switch into Moonblasts. HDB are also so ridicolously good on an offensive mon that the added longevity lets it actually do a lot more damage in the longer run. On webs offense or hyper offense in general though, where the turns in which Ace has to deal its damage are much less, I'd agree with you on Orb being very good.
