Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

[Glicht]

I think special attack outclasses psychical why? because special attack doesnt have any drawbacks of psychical like activating rocky helmet and iron barbs and rough skin and do not activate effects of spiky shield,king shield,bunker etc. This is why i think special attack is better than psychical

 

[Glicht]

and i think Nihelego is pretty cool maybe max special attack but tomax speed with choice scarf to jump on likes of scrf tapu lele?

 

[SLDR]

I think special attack outclasses psychical why? because special attack doesnt have any drawbacks of psychical like activating rocky helmet and iron barbs and rough skin and do not activate effects of spiky shield,king shield,bunker etc. This is why i think special attack is better than psychical

To avoid confusion with anything related to the Psychic typing, you want to say physical and not psychical.
Nitpick aside, what you said technically is correct - physical attackers tend to be more punished than special attackers. However, outclass is a big term and it's mostly incorrect, because there is no competition between special and physical attackers. They have to deal with different Pokémon between each other and thus their value is determined on how well they achieve this as well as their impact in the bigger picture, and this doesn't come in comparisons between each other but through their overall viability. For example, a physical attacker like Garchomp is more viable than a special one like Nihilego but it doesn't mean it outclasses it, because - again - they are different Pokémon that do different things. One Pokémon can only outclass another if it's better than it at doing the same thing.

and i think Nihelego is pretty cool maybe max special attack but tomax speed with choice scarf to jump on likes of scrf tapu lele?

Scarf sets should definitely used max special attack and max speed, however a power herb + meteor beam set like the one showcased are better off with dropping their special attack below their speed stat, so that beast boost boosts speed. This, coupled with meteor beam's special attack raise, makes nihilego harder to deal with than it would be if its ability boosted special attack instead.
Also, power herb is better than scarf most of the times.

 

[Glicht]

To avoid confusion with anything related to the Psychic typing, you want to say physical and not psychical.
Nitpick aside, what you said technically is correct - physical attackers tend to be more punished than special attackers. However, outclass is a big term and it's mostly incorrect, because there is no competition between special and physical attackers. They have to deal with different Pokémon between each other and thus their value is determined on how well they achieve this as well as their impact in the bigger picture, and this doesn't come in comparisons between each other but through their overall viability. For example, a physical attacker like Garchomp is more viable than a special one like Nihilego but it doesn't mean it outclasses it, because - again - they are different Pokémon that do different things. One Pokémon can only outclass another if it's better than it at doing the same thing.


Scarf sets should definitely used max special attack and max speed, however a power herb + meteor beam set like the one showcased are better off with dropping their special attack below their speed stat, so that beast boost boosts speed. This, coupled with meteor beam's special attack raise, makes nihilego harder to deal with than it would be if its ability boosted special attack instead.
Also, power herb is better than scarf most of the times.

To this attack yeah "outclassed" is to big word maybe i should choose "better in some ituations" twt and this set is brilliant because on that pokemon meteor beam was something very needed

 

[ZannaBianca]

This place has gone a little quiet, so why don't I spark up a conversation.

I wanna hear people's opinions on Nihilego in the current meta.

View attachment 403228
Nihilego seems to have gotten more love over the last little stretch despite the influx of things like Weavile and Rillaboom able to do massive damage. It's shown itself in a few SPL replays and I've been seeing it on the ladder a little more than usual. Was wondering what sets you guys like to run with Nihilego, or if you do like running Nihilego in OU at all?

I seemed to get decent results with this set:

Nihilego @ Power Herb
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 80 HP / 176 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Stealth Rock
- Meteor Beam
- Sludge Wave
- Thunderbolt

The obvious meteor beam concept, but also getting some role compression by making it an offensive stealth rocker that can set up as it forces switches. The 176 Special Attack allows for the speed boost to happen instead of the special attack boost, letting Nihilego outspeed the entire meta including some threats to it like Scarf Lele, which normally threatening to kill, is now an easy KO with Sludge Wave once you get a kill most likely with Meteor Beam. Losing power gem coverage sucks, but Volcarona cant kill Nihilego in time before another Meteor Beam gets sent off, so it's not that huge of a deal. The biggest drawback to no PGem is the loss of Dragonite coverage, as one swift EQ will decimate Nihilego before a second Meteor Beam can come out, but if Dnite is crippled, you can get away with killing it with a +1 Sludge Wave.

+1 176 SpA Nihilego Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragonite: 216-255 (66.8 - 78.9%)

Overall decent mon, but a glass cannon on the physdef side. Has it's problem but is interesting to use imo. What do you guys think?

I feel Nihilego's power herb set can be honestly pretty underwhelming as a sweeper, mostly because of its lacking attacking movepool and pathetic defense. Slowking and Blissey can teleport out to a revenge killer such as banded Shifu, Weavile or Rillaboom. Chomp, Ttar, Ferro and Lando can take a boosted power gem and KO back and Heatran severely dents it. Where I feel the jellyfish can excel best is by using it's great spdef and spatk to take a hit from Pult, Volc or other special attackers and responding in kind with its specs set. Alternatively it may also work as a cleaner with scarf and use its snowballing potential to act as a special Kartana. One thing to note is that Nihilego is the only relevant specs user in OU with access to knock off while not having a SR weakness, making it work well on hazard stack.

Nihilego @ Choice Specs
Ability: Beast Boost
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Power Gem
- Sludge Wave/Grass Knot
- Thunderbolt/Grass Knot
- Knock Off

I feel this may be a good set to try out, with Grass Knot if you fear spdef Hippo.

 

[AnimeFox2007]

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to show off a new set I have been working on and found success with it, my Imprison Lando. For those of y’all that don’t know, Imprison basically locks all moves from your opponent if that mon controls it for I think 5 turns. This Lando is supposed to lock the most used Lando sets to prevent anything crazy from your opponent. Here is the set:
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 240 Atk / 14 Def / 14 SpD / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Imprison
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
This is my Imprison Lando set. Let me explain the stat, it’s supposed to have high attack and speed but the defensive stats are there to actually take hits if needed and Leftovers to heal your health back up. Hope y’all enjoy it.

 

[AnimeFox2007]

Imprison Lando is dope tech, simultaneously cool and fucking annoying to run into. Got to point out U-Turn being one of the more important things to cover on this particular set though imo. One of Lando's best functions is as a positioning asset who can lure in specific things and pivot off them to bring in strong breakers and make progress immediately; this Lando set not only forces an opposing Lando to basically only be able to do that but given that it's so fast it also gives an opposing Lando the switch initiative, whether you stay in or U-Turn yourself, the opposing Lando (assuming it's not max speed which they typically aren't) will still have the advantage of being able to help an opponent take a better offensive position than you in that interaction since it's bound to move last vs you. Obv if you've not had that issue come up much then awesome, but I personally feel like U-Turn is a strongly considerable, if not mandatory option on these sets.

I essentially asked the OU Room in Showdown and they said those and I used, hoping they were right.

 

[Tio Chico]

Landorus-Therian has become even more flexible and viable after Kyurem's ban, bordering on an absurd 52% usage in OU and present in 28/30 teams from the last week of the SPL, with an unclear winrate, because when a Landorus-Therian wins, another loses.
EV adaptability, defensive and offensive pivot, Srock and Defog support. While not broken by definition, it has increasingly become a "Why not use it?" and making other Ground-types obsolete, see Hippowdon which is threatening to drop to UU.

1- So, any thoughts on Landorus-Therian?
2- How healthy is your centering?
3- What has been the most common set you've seen?
4- Landorus-Therian being one of the best answers to himself is good or bad?
5- Have you been surprised by any set?
Answering this last one, I want to bring a battle from the last week of the SPL where Luthier brings an Eject Button Landorus-Therian forming a double momentum along with U-Turn.
Considering that Landorus-Therian usually loses its item during battle, using a single consumable item makes perfect sense, bolstering the offensive pressure with CB Weavile, CS Lele, and trap Magnezone.

 

[remetagross]

I don't mind Lando's omnipresence. It does make the metagame a little stale by how often one sees it during a day of laddering, sure. And I try to not use it in my teams when i can, just for the sake of it. But it's fairly abusable, it can be chipped in a lot of ways, its Ice weakness makes it easy to take down with a lure, it can be robbed of momentum through rocky helmet/rough skin death or eject button as you have shown in your replay...It doesn't strike me as unhealthy.

 

[TailGlowVM]

it has increasingly become a "Why not use it?" and making other Ground-types obsolete, see Hippowdon which is threatening to drop to UU.

This isn't true. Landorus-T is a poor choice for the bulkier balances and stalls you would want to use Hippowdon on. Even without Landorus, you wouldn't be using Hippowdon on bulky offense - it's way too passive for that. I'm pretty sure Hippowdon's decline is more due to people realising those fat balances are bad in this meta for a lot of non-Landorus-T reasons.

If you actually want to look at whether Landorus-T "makes other Ground-types obsolete", then you need to be comparing it to the other grounds you can run on bulky offense like Garchomp. Garchomp isn't on the verge of dropping to UU, is it?

 

[Lalaya]

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to show off a new set I have been working on and found success with it, my Imprison Lando. For those of y’all that don’t know, Imprison basically locks all moves from your opponent if that mon controls it for I think 5 turns. This Lando is supposed to lock the most used Lando sets to prevent anything crazy from your opponent. Here is the set:
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 240 Atk / 14 Def / 14 SpD / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Imprison
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
This is my Imprison Lando set. Let me explain the stat, it’s supposed to have high attack and speed but the defensive stats are there to actually take hits if needed and Leftovers to heal your health back up. Hope y’all enjoy it.

As answered through Discord, this set pretty much doesn't accomplish what it should do; you can use Imprison Landorus-T both as a antilead for opposing Landorus-T and for a fast rocker (that spread doesn't accomplish anything in terms of calcs, and 14 isn't even a number divisible by 4, meaning you're EV spreading them wrong - it should be 16 to get a point more, 12 otherwise, and three or four points in Defense don't help at all, unless there's a calc behind them), or you could replace the fourth move on a bulky Landorus-T (the usual Careful SpDef one), although at that point you should just run it Defog yourself - the point in Imprison is to have a remover in a very offensive playstyle, anyway

imprison boom lead

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Imprison
- Explosion / Swords Dance

bulky imprison, evs can be tinkered as needed

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Imprison
- Toxic

Useful tech sets are useful if they're built with some thinking and reasoning behind them, not just thrown randomly

 

[Tio Chico]

This isn't true. Landorus-T is a poor choice for the bulkier balances and stalls you would want to use Hippowdon on. Even without Landorus, you wouldn't be using Hippowdon on bulky offense - it's way too passive for that. I'm pretty sure Hippowdon's decline is more due to people realising those fat balances are bad in this meta for a lot of non-Landorus-T reasons.

If you actually want to look at whether Landorus-T "makes other Ground-types obsolete", then you need to be comparing it to the other grounds you can run on bulky offense like Garchomp. Garchomp isn't on the verge of dropping to UU, is it?

I disagree about Landorus-T not being a good choice for any style other than stall (Rest is until a niche imo), while stall itself is more unviable than ever.
I agree that Hippowdon has its own passivity issues and 4MSS despite solid recovery.
While Garchomp, which is an excellent Pokémon full of merit, has dropped from sixth to seventh in use but keeping the same almost 17% this month. But that's it, aside from other possible defensive niches like Swampert, and offensive ones like Mamoswine, Excadrill, RainToad and Nidoking.
These 3 Ground-types (a "vital" type build) are the only ones in OU right now. You brought up some interesting points but I still advocate Landorus-T centering which makes other Ground-Types irrelevant/uninteresting. Landorus-T is also a superior glue for anyone who doesn't want to focus their build on a specific Ground type, but needs one at the end of the day.

 

[Smashburn]

Landorus-Therian has become even more flexible and viable after Kyurem's ban, bordering on an absurd 52% usage in OU and present in 28/30 teams from the last week of the SPL, with an unclear winrate, because when a Landorus-Therian wins, another loses.
EV adaptability, defensive and offensive pivot, Srock and Defog support. While not broken by definition, it has increasingly become a "Why not use it?" and making other Ground-types obsolete, see Hippowdon which is threatening to drop to UU.

1- So, any thoughts on Landorus-Therian?
2- How healthy is your centering?
3- What has been the most common set you've seen?
4- Landorus-Therian being one of the best answers to himself is good or bad?
5- Have you been surprised by any set?
Answering this last one, I want to bring a battle from the last week of the SPL where Luthier brings an Eject Button Landorus-Therian forming a double momentum along with U-Turn.
Considering that Landorus-Therian usually loses its item during battle, using a single consumable item makes perfect sense, bolstering the offensive pressure with CB Weavile, CS Lele, and trap Magnezone.

I mean when you have something with one of the single best typing combinations in the tier, not to mention the stats and utility that back this up, it would make sense that Landorus would end up at the head of the tier. TailGlowVM well said, it's a series of trends that would lead to the decline of role competition like Hippowdon. I don't think it's reasonable to say that Landorus is directly responsible for the decline either, Landorus happens to fill a specific niche that other Ground-types can't offer. That said, I don't believe competition is the sole factor for the usage of defensive Ground-types, it's the role they fulfill and the direction of the tier. It's centering is based around this, a testament to its uncontested splashability and role compression.

The most common utility Landorus lends is defensive, and is adaptive to the meta. The once popular physically defensive set, alongside the now common specially defensive and mixed sets are the most frequent. Speaking to its versatility, Landorus also sports a variety of other, more offensively inclined sets. Of course, being so common in the tier, it will often be in mirror situations. I don't see this as a bad thing either, in fact, it is a good thing because the ways that it can deal with itself are very linear and easy to manage. Although its set variety can be surprising at times, sets which attempt to deviate from its normal roles struggle to be successful and hold the same utility that more viable sets do (which instigates high risk-to-reward). This said, while at times being surprising, nothing is unmanageable.

P.S.

Eject button is cool tech.

 

[AnimeFox2007]

As answered through Discord, this set pretty much doesn't accomplish what it should do; you can use Imprison Landorus-T both as a antilead for opposing Landorus-T and for a fast rocker (that spread doesn't accomplish anything in terms of calcs, and 14 isn't even a number divisible by 4, meaning you're EV spreading them wrong - it should be 16 to get a point more, 12 otherwise, and three or four points in Defense don't help at all, unless there's a calc behind them), or you could replace the fourth move on a bulky Landorus-T (the usual Careful SpDef one), although at that point you should just run it Defog yourself - the point in Imprison is to have a remover in a very offensive playstyle, anyway

imprison boom lead

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Imprison
- Explosion / Swords Dance

bulky imprison, evs can be tinkered as needed

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 104 Def / 156 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Imprison
- Toxic

Useful tech sets are useful if they're built with some thinking and reasoning behind them, not just thrown randomly

Like I said, it doesn’t make sense to use it as a suicide lead mon considering you need it in order to counter other landos. Sorry you don’t think it does crap, you don’t have to use it. It’s not random, it’s me thinking about what I might encounter and thinking forward about it.

 

[AnimeFox2007]

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 16 HP / 240 Atk / 12 SpD / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Imprison
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
This is better for you know. I don’t know why it has to be divided by 4, but here. I decided to invest in SpD and HP would be better. This is the final adjustment I will make

 

[shadowpea]

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 16 HP / 240 Atk / 12 SpD / 240 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Imprison
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- U-turn
This is better for you know. I don’t know why it has to be divided by 4, but here. I decided to invest in SpD and HP would be better. This is the final adjustment I will make

at level 100 every 4 EVs give another stat point (unless natures get in a way then it sometimes adds 2 if positive and 0 if negative and i cba to find out the exact numbers)

 

[Martin]

I don’t know why it has to be divided by 4, but here.

at level 100 every 4 EVs give another stat point

This, but to be more specific, it's because this is how EVs are treated in the stat calculation formulae:

Note the denominator of 4 and the floor function wrapping that step of the calculation.

(unless natures get in a way then it sometimes adds 2 if positive and 0 if negative and i cba to find out the exact numbers)

It’s because of the floor function that wraps the whole formula:

• If [neutral stat]*1.1 is a whole number, it won’t round down after the positive nature modifier is applied (e.g. ⌊299*1.1⌋=⌊328.9⌋=328, ⌊300*1.1⌋=⌊330⌋=330)
• If [neutral stat]*0.9 is a whole number, the next stat point up will round down to the same number after the negative nature modifier is applied (e.g. ⌊300*0.9⌋=⌊270⌋=270, ⌊301*0.9⌋=⌊270.9⌋=270)

 

[Lalaya]

Like I said, it doesn’t make sense to use it as a suicide lead mon considering you need it in order to counter other landos. Sorry you don’t think it does crap, you don’t have to use it. It’s not random, it’s me thinking about what I might encounter and thinking forward about it.

the point is your specific set won't counter most Landorus, since almost every bulky Landorus packs Toxic on it, so you're basically just blocking hazards from it until your opponent forces you to switch (and beats you in a 1v1), and you won't block Scarf Landorus either, since it has no reason to use EQ on you anyway, so I'm not sure what your set in particular accomplishes; and again, putting EVs in random stats because "you feel" it helps taking more hits is putting them randomly, since so few of them are absolutely not gamechanging (you're free to prove me otherwise, but Pokèmon is a game where we can calculate the damage other Pokémon do), so Imprison there is, quite frankly, useless

Again, if you want a Landorus counter, you can use other Pokémon, and if you want to use Imprison Landorus, you might as well use it as a counterlead against other Landorus; otherwise, it's not worth it, especially not with that set only blocking moves that don't bother you anyway (or where you could just run Defog to beat opposing hazards)

edit: this isn't just "not appreciating the idea", it's just improving it since your implementation of it is wrong, as we explained

 

[SLDR]

I feel like Imprison Landorus-T is a tech mostly to be used on Offense / HO to take advantage of Landorus-T's omnipresence for better positioning for the main attackers. You still get Defog and Stealth Rock to block opposing Landorus-T from using either, and U-turn is the mandatory move to disrupt opposing pivoting and get free momentum. You don't need to lock away either Earthquake or Toxic as long as you have a switchin for either, while you want to prevent opposing Landorus-T from grabbing free momentum and setting/removing Stealth Rock. Conversely, you don't need Earthquake on Landorus-T for this type of set for HO because you are only using it for pivoting and rocks related purposes.

Eject Button is a very interesting item; I used to toy around with it on Toxapex with Magnezone in the back to allow safe entry for Magnezone against a U-turning Corviknight or a Choice Band Melmetal. I feel like it has some potential - again - for more offensive teams to allow easy positioning for one of the many scary wallbreakers available for such teams.

 

[AnimeFox2007]

the point is your specific set won't counter most Landorus, since almost every bulky Landorus packs Toxic on it, so you're basically just blocking hazards from it until your opponent forces you to switch (and beats you in a 1v1), and you won't block Scarf Landorus either, since it has no reason to use EQ on you anyway, so I'm not sure what your set in particular accomplishes; and again, putting EVs in random stats because "you feel" it helps taking more hits is putting them randomly, since so few of them are absolutely not gamechanging (you're free to prove me otherwise, but Pokèmon is a game where we can calculate the damage other Pokémon do), so Imprison there is, quite frankly, useless

Again, if you want a Landorus counter, you can use other Pokémon, and if you want to use Imprison Landorus, you might as well use it as a counterlead against other Landorus; otherwise, it's not worth it, especially not with that set only blocking moves that don't bother you anyway (or where you could just run Defog to beat opposing hazards)

I’m sorry you don’t appreciate the team. I have found success with it and decided to share it for others. Don’t use it if you don’t want to. Run your own Lando and don’t use mine

 

[Bruh Wobuffet]

Idk should they but landorus-t has been broken for years and they may consider a ban
it even have a high usage

 

[Obsidian297]

What do you think of Tyranitar at the moment? What sets have you been using?

I think CB is a really good breaker, though every other set is just mediocre, especially Scarf-Tar and Dragon Dance.

 

[Smashburn]

Idk should they but landorus-t has been broken for years and they may consider a ban
it even have a high usage

I'm going to refer you to my previous post, here. I feel I would be repeating myself if I didn't, since all the information I would need to use is there.

Landorus is far from broken. Frankly, the only reason you would be losing to it is because you didn't account for it in the builder-- that might even be a stretch. You can naturally expect the best team glue of the tier to see high usage.

 

[Nish the Great]

Hey I wanted to share how to somewhat accurately filter out mirror matchups.
Make sure to convert percent to decimal.
basically the formula is: (winrate-[usage^2 /2]) / (loserate-[usage^2 /2])

Basically this formula calculates approximately how likely a mirror match is, (usage^2), divides it in two to avoid double counting games, and subtracts it from the unfiltered winrate and loserate (loserate is just 1-winrate). Lmk if this is incorrect.

Edit: Wait i actually dumb and forgot how what winrate is. the actual formula should be (winrate-[usage^2 /2]) / [winrate-[usage^2 /2]) + (loserate-[usage^2 /2])]
Because winrate is wins/total games, not wins/losses

 

[Finchinator]

Idk should they but landorus-t has been broken for years and they may consider a ban
it even have a high usage

I hate making an example out of an innocent opinion posted in the thread, but in part because there was no evidence supporting this post and in part because this represents a widespread misconception, I want to detail why this is inaccurate.

Landorus-T sees a lot of usage not because it offers an otherwise unobtainable premium offensively or because counterplay to it is so limited it is too good to pass up on. Neither of those things are the case, let alone even close to the case. Landorus-T is used due to defensive role compression. It fulfills all of the following together:

• Defog user or Stealth Rock setter
• Ground immunity
• Electric immunity
• Pivot
• Status inducer or Knock Off user

Virtually every single balance or bulky offensive team is going to have one of each of these. It also is able to do plenty of other less universal things, too.

The fact of the matter is that Landorus-T's usage is more a symptom of what is around it (i.e: strong Ground types or Zeraora and Tapu Koko) than it is indicative of Landorus-T being broken; this is largely a reactionary measure. There is no and never has been a direct correlation between usage and brokenness. There can be an indirect one in some cases as if something is broken, it is more likely than alternatives that are not broken to receive usage. However, Landorus-T being the most common Pokemon or receiving X% of usage does not suddenly make it broken.

If you do not like Landorus-T being so common, I understand. That does not make it broken either and there is no clause in our tiering system for us to prioritize the whim of specific users over prevailing tiering conventions. If we were to ban the most common Pokemon, then suddenly one or a small handful of other common Pokemon could just as well fulfill a similar level of viability -- then are we just going to look into those and cycle through a revolving door of top tier Pokemon being banned due to usage rather than their actual place in the tier? At a point, it becomes clear that the reason's for Landorus-T's usage and the reasons for a ban are vastly different.

I hope this puts an end to any and all talk of Landorus-T being broken. It is not and will likely not be this generation at any point unless things vastly change.