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

[pulsar512b]

You guys remember when this thread wasn’t talking about evasion? Was a good time tbh, let’s get back to that. Thanks

but then we were talking about... Zamazenta right? we'll just find another thing to get trapped in endless loops about

anyway

let's talk about Urshifu-RS.

I think this pokemon is a huge benefactor of the current metachanges, as it can take advantage of Slowking and Toxapex being the main bulky waters w/ future sight support. I really think this pokemon is a huge meta threat rn.

 

[Liquidocelot]

You guys remember when this thread wasn’t talking about evasion? Was a good time tbh, let’s get back to that. Thanks

I mean it's a legitimate inquiry Finch.

It's also better than discussing the same 5 points about Zam-C for another 12 pages while waiting for it to be unbanned.

 

[Finchinator]

I mean it's a legitimate inquiry Finch.

It's also better than discussing the same 5 points about Zam-C for another 12 pages while waiting for it to be unbanned.

It is a legitimate inquiry, but it is not a legitimate inquiry that most posters in this thread are capable of coherently arguing about and this was reflected within the posts. I would be happy to discuss this in a PR thread or via PMs where it is contained and quality controlled a little, but I have discretion as a moderator to moderate this thread when it is derailing, posts are getting out of hand, and etc. and I used it here.

The fact that metagame discussion this generation is so open to suspect and ban talk as is largely is because I believe in transparency and read every single post made about these matters, which has never been the case previously. I am happy this is the case, but this is still largely a privilege and it comes alongside checks and rules much like posting in any other thread. I’d like to think this is in line with just about any other moderator asking posters to change topics in any other thread, so there is not much of an issue as far as I’m concerned.

 

[Finchinator]

There are dozens of viable pokemon to discuss. If you don’t want to talk about Zama, there are so many other topics to post about and I can even provide some myself if you guys would prefer. I don’t view the conversation previously focusing on that as an issue or a limiting factor, for what it’s worth.

 

[pulsar512b]

There are dozens of viable pokemon to discuss. If you don’t want to talk about Zama, there are so many other topics to post about and I can even provide some myself if you guys would prefer. I don’t view the conversation previously focusing on that as an issue or a limiting factor, for what it’s worth.

I (and I think a lot of the rest of the thread) would definitely be interested in your views on the metagame at present, particularly what sort of stuff could become more important soon (outside of the fairly obvious ones like Scizor, Kyurem, Lele, etc).

I think these include urshifu-rapid-strike (Already posted about this, tldr is w/ future sight support it takes advantage of pex and slowking) and Terrakion (Haven't used it yet, but in theory, it should appreciate slowbro becoming less popular)

EDIT:
While building a team to check out Terrak, I just realized that Tang is also getting way better nowadays with its ability to check plenty of the things that are getting popular atm.

 

[actuallybad]

Just wanted to use my first ever forum post to say that Slowbro does not matter to Terrakion if you're running Megahorn, which is perfectly fine as coverage unless you're very weak to Aegislash or something, since it's also a guaranteed 2HKO against Tangrowth, OHKO against Latios, and a slightly more accurate move to hit Tapu Lele if you're a coward like me.

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 455-538 (115.4 - 136.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Terrakion's quite the menace; people really don't build to beat it. I've been using it around the 1600-1700s range and it has never disappointed. Sadly, I don't have any replays on me, but, come on, just look at the tier. It's filled to the brim with Terrakion victims, and Terrakion doesn't even need to boost to beat most of them.

 

[pulsar512b]

Just wanted to use my first ever forum post to say that Slowbro does not matter to Terrakion if you're running Megahorn, which is perfectly fine as coverage unless you're very weak to Aegislash or something, since it's also a guaranteed 2HKO against Tangrowth, OHKO against Latios, and a slightly more accurate move to hit Tapu Lele if you're a coward like me.

+2 252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 455-538 (115.4 - 136.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Terrakion's quite the menace; people really don't build to beat it. I've been using it around the 1600-1700s range and it has never disappointed. Sadly, I don't have any replays on me, but, come on, just look at the tier. It's filled to the brim with Terrakion victims, and Terrakion doesn't even need to boost to beat most of them.

Excellent note! IIRC, in aim's video featuring Terrak a bit ago (where I actually played him and lost), he used Megahorn (got a key kill on my slowbro with it).

Also, it's not just LO sets that are good, band, lead, and scarf sets (With band and scarf having no issues fitting megahorn) are very much good options.

 

[Seucra Lockhart]

I mean it's a legitimate inquiry Finch.

It's also better than discussing the same 5 points about Zam-C for another 12 pages while waiting for it to be unbanned.

I legit don't understand how you can argue talking about evasion is a more stupid thing to talk about than unbanning zamazenta.Yeah both are dumb to talk about but that's not a good comparison like at all.Very few people actually give a shit about sand viel garchomp or whatever the evasion arguments are compared to unbanning zamazenta.Either way we don't need to continue the evasion discussion

 

[shadowpea]

I (and I think a lot of the rest of the thread) would definitely be interested in your views on the metagame at present, particularly what sort of stuff could become more important soon (outside of the fairly obvious ones like Scizor, Kyurem, Lele, etc).

I think these include urshifu-rapid-strike (Already posted about this, tldr is w/ future sight support it takes advantage of pex and slowking) and Terrakion (Haven't used it yet, but in theory, it should appreciate slowbro becoming less popular)

I personally have used Terrakion quite a bit and I want to talk about Terrakion's two best sets in the meta (in my opinion): Swords Dance and Choice Band.



Swords Dance

Terrakion @ Life Orb
Jolly Nature
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake / Megahorn / Substitute / Stealth Rock

Here's a challenge for you. Go find an OU Pokemon that counters this monster at +2. Go ahead, I'll wait. Now that you searched in futililty for something that can comfortably take a hit, you can probably see how much potential this set has (especially with FuturePort support!) and how it plays out in battle. Basically, come in and start throwing out attacks like a madman and SD when it is safe to do so. EQ is to crush Pex while Megahorn destroys Slowbro and other bulky Psychics. It is worth mentioning, though, that Terrakion 2HKOes both Pex and Slowbro with Stone Edge, but it really does not want to take a Scald or a status move from them, especially since they both carry Regenerator. Substitute can be run in the last slot to ease prediction and is a huge help against bulkier, status-happy Pokemon like the aforementioned Toxapex, and it can shield Terrakion from revenge killers (especially that annoying Rillaboom). Finally, rocks are rocks, and if you don't have room to fit it somewhere else Terrakion can wallbreak while setting rocks, Garchomp style.

Choice Band

Terrakion @ Choice Band
Jolly Nature
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge
- Earthquake / Megahorn
- Megahorn / Quick Attack / Toxic

This set reminds me of Kyurem: with the right coverage move and correct predictions, almost nothing in the tier can safely come into this (not even Shedinja hahahaha). What do we do with a Pokemon like this? Oh yes, click buttons and blow things up! Again, EQ for Pex, Megahorn for Slows, blah blah blah. Quick Attack might seem strange, but Terrakion is actually quite content with just its STAB moves and only one coverage option and therefore can afford a moveslot for it. This improves its matchup against offense a ton, which is really nice for a Pokemon with 7 weaknesses. Finally, Toxic can be run to cripple Pokemon and allow Terrakion to kill them more easily later, and it eases prediction in the "I know he's going to switch but which move should I click" situations (though Terrakion often does more damage by clicking an attack anyway). This set plays like most choiced wallbreakers (Kyurem), which basically means use the right moves to hit the right Pokemon. I would also add that it is incredibly hard to find a switch in for this thing, especially among the more viable Pokemon in the metagame (i.e. not Buzzwole or Palossand or something like that).

I've also experimented with SubSalac Terrakion. Maybe if I find success with it I'll post about it here.

Team Support

Terrakion (both sets) absolutely loves Future Sight support and slow pivoting, so Slowbro/Slowking are ideal partners for it. Also, throw in something that can take on Rillaboom for obvious reasons. I'll also add that while both Terrakion sets fare better against bulkier teams, it is not helpless against offense thanks to its great base 108 speed and decent 91/90/90 bulk (especially considering the amount of power it offers). Still, Pokemon that can take on offense pretty well makes for good partners. Outside of those, however, Terrakion is relatively self-sufficient, for as long as you manage to bring it in it'll be doing some serious damage. Also, sweepers and cleaners appreciate Terrakion blasting holes in opposing teams for them to clean up.

Terrakion's qualities over other Pokemon

This is going to be a mercifully short section (for me, but if you have to read my content I'd feel sorry for you too) because it is quite easy to see what sets Terrakion apart. The SD set has superior speed to every other SD breaker except for Kartana, who has a much worse offensive typing. Its power is also on par with other SD breakers. The Banded set has a move for almost the entire tier, making it stand out from similar breakers like Urshifu-R It is also faster/stronger than most physical breakers. Finally, both sets pack unparalleled STAB moves in terms of both power and coverage, making it stand out from similar Pokemon like Landorus-T and Garchomp.


This ends my rant on Terrakion and miles of bad humor. I feel that it is criminally underrated (only C+ rank on the VR, what?!) and I think that the thing has potential to make a serious impact on the metagame. That's all I have for now, peace, and if there's anything that I missed/needs correcting just let me know!

 

[TPP]

Don't let this distract you from the fact Finch dodged a discussion about evasion.

 

[ausma]

Hey everyone, I wanted to quickly give my 2 cents on the Sand Veil discussion; both from the perspective of a player and as a moderator of the forum.

As a player: I definitely dislike it. While not broken, it does remove an element of control from the game with a very major, unfair consequence. And also while not as powerful as its past generation incarnations, Sand Veil is still inherently uncompetitive and is something I just really dislike because it takes away control from the game and leaves it in the grasp of something entirely random. I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing a clause for it.

However, as a moderator: I don’t believe this thread is really the place of discussion for it, as specific mechanic clauses inherently involve more than just OU—it trickles down to every subsequent tier. It’s not really our place to enforce policies for the sake of our own experience.

As mentioned prior, there is a PR thread which you can find here to discuss the matter further under a more dedicated medium. The thread has yet to be resolved and appears to be still open for discussion. For the metagame discussion thread, though, I would suggest avoiding further discussion given the circumstances of the clause.

If you have any questions, as always, feel free to let us know!

 

[Jon LoCAPO]

Obligatory disclaimer: I was writing this before Ausma asked to stop, but it took 90 mins to write and I didn't wanna throw away all this work, I'm sorry

I'm surprised Sand Veil isn't brought up more often tbh, it's really the definition of uncompetitive. I've been using this set I've had the idea for from Pais's post in the Policy Review thread:

Clutchomp (Garchomp) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Veil
EVs: 56 HP / 252 Atk / 200 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Substitute
- Swords Dance
- Scale Shot
- Earthquake​

The spread is used to outspeed scarf base 95s (Lele and Kyurem mainly) after a SS. The strategy is quite simple: you enter in sand (preferably on something slower than you), set up Sub and fish for a miss, then SD and usually either autowin or at least take down 2 or 3 enemy mons. Basically, if you can get at +2/+1 with Sub, there is very little your opponent can do. It doesn't fare well against the Steel birds (who usually don't threaten you that much anyway) and cannot do anything to the rare Togekiss. Multiple priority users can also be a problem, as without Sub this thing is pretty frail due to SS defense drops, and Rilla's Grassy Terrain weakens your EQs obv, but you usually want to clean with this set anyway. Another thing to note is that usually people don't expect Sand Veil (even in sand) as it is used by 12% of Chomps, which often in ladder results in ragequits.

Now, getting at +2/+1 with Sub isn't an easy task normally, but because now every move has a 20% chance of missing, you have a lot more leeway in how much you can take on with this set. The chances are at follows for 100% accuracy moves with and without BP as you fish for one miss with Sub. To note is that to get 5 subs with sand on you'll need Smooth Rock on your setter, so

Number of Turns	Probability to miss at least once w/o BP	Probability to miss at least once w/ BP
1	20%	30%
2	36%	51%
3	48.8%	65.7%
4	59.04%	75.99%
5	67.23%	---

What all this boils down to is that you can get to a point in which your opponent thinks they've got you cornered, only for them to miss and lose because your Sand Veil Chomp goes sicko mode at their team and win. I sadly don't have replays save for this one which really undersells how degenerate this set can be when in the hands of a good player (i.e. not me). The thing that strikes me the most about this set is on how much stuff you can set up, sweep, and put yourself in an advantageous position for the rest of the match.

Whether to ban Sand Veil for being the uncompetitive element, Garchomp for being the only good abuser (especially as Gen 8 policy has put greater emphasis on banning mons as opposed to other stuff), or both (lol) isn't really up to me, but waiting until this thing gets used and potentially wins a high-profile tour game is disingenuous on part of the council, especially as this could technically fall under Evasion Clause. On the other hand, Brightpowder on its own isn't especially problematic as it is not nearly as consistent nor as reliable as Sand Veil+Chomp.

In short, Sand Veil Chomp is, while sometimes a bit inconsistent, a mon which can turn the tides of a match by taking the reins away from the better player, which is why I believe it to be uncompetitive.

ausma edit: i will allow it

 

[Tapeworm]

The Most INSANE SSOU Top 10 Ever!?

- Number 6 Will SHOCK You!

​

I decided to try my hand at this whole YouTube thing, except without the YouTube part. I like these top 10s, they're a very clean way to organise very disorganised thoughts without compiling a whole personal viability ranking list. I've been finding a lot that Lando-T + Bird + Slowking + Tran + breaker + speed teams are exceedingly consistent right now for a lot of reasons so that's half of the list covered already, but the last few are mons that have utility on similar structures or either have so much overall utility or are so overwhelmingly good at specific things that they deserve worthwhile mention. I'll cover off some sleeper picks and overrated dong picks later too because there's a fair amount of both imo.

10. Zeraora
The mon on the list on the least amount of my teams is this thing, but it's fucking good. I'm gonna open Zera with a long-winded paragraph about another mon, and that's Regieleki. Specs Regieleki is the most adorable and happy mon Game Freak have ever made and I want to hug it. It is also an absolute sleeper pick that needs to be credited beyond just being a fringe-viable speed gimmick. It being hard-walled by all Grounds and Volt Absorbers is a common argument against it but that justification discredits the fact that it can virtually 2HKO the entirety of the remaining metagame with T-Bolt or Electro Ball with the exceptions of T-Tar and Chansey, so while the things that can come in on it can hard counter it consistently in a purely 1v1 scenario, that's still a limited pool of mons that are virtually required to handle this thing. Couple this limitation now with common FuturePort support and you have a forced 'pick your poison' situation whereby you either sac something to Electric STAB or stomach an FS trying to block that every time and suddenly your counter is now under a lot more pressure, particularly if Knocked Off or Toxiced or whatever else, those consistent counters stop being so consistent now and are actually heavily pressured to do their job. Credit for Regieleki does stop there though as it still does suffer from the typical limitations that one-dimensional button-clickers tend to suffer from. Enter Zeraora who can can abuse FuturePort support to a very similar degree, but with additional benefits of set versatility, and coverage options at the compromise of pure absurd power. Access to CC allows it to also abuse FuturePort in much the same way classic abusers like Fu and Ace used to, access to Knock, the most no-drawback move in the game, is a phenomenal asset for an offensive pivot, Grass Knot allows it to function as a lure for mons such as Hippo and Pert to get good immediate damage and Toxic allows it to catch those two along with Lando, Chomp, Tang, and others to limit their consistency and staying power, and its speed tier is brilliant in allowing it to bypass all relevant non-Scarfers (barring the aforementioned Eleki) and it has the coverage to threaten them effectively. Zera does have enough tools in its arsenal and benefits from common team support options enough to be worth keeping on the radar, even if it has been suffering more and more with each new DLC release.

9. Magnezone
Those who know me know of my Magnezone addiction, and while my running joke has been that I say it's the best mon in the game, it's not. All that said though it's still really fucking good, and while DLC2 did bring with it a whole host of new hardships it has to face in the form of Tran and offensive Grounds, it has also brought with it a massive slew of new opportunities for the Magnet Pulling UFO. Corv is everywhere and Ferro is absurdly popular also, making ID Body Press sets very desirable with specific breakers. RillaZone is the obvious cheap beloved pairing from DLC1, but now options like ChompZone, LeleZone, KartZone, FiniZone, D-NiteZone and others are all on the table now; Corv and Ferro gone can turn the tier into a playground for these things. While I think Specs sets are far from ideal with the sheer number of Ferros that need squashing, one of the main reasons it's probably worth running a Zone so much right now in the first place, it is still a viable option because those Specs T-Bolts and Specs Flash Canons slap. More offensive takes on the ID set have also risen, like Modest Magnet and E-Belt variants being able to OHKO standard Corv from full while acting as a 'mini-Specs' variant to maintain a good strong offensive presence outside of its trapping utility, all while still being able to perform their routine Ferro squashing duties. Couple it with FuturePort support from a generic defensive core and it becomes exceptionally difficult to avoid your metal things being trapped or your non-metal things chipped. It's good.

8. Kartana
Mr no switch ins. I can understand people who believe this falls just short of the top 10 mark, but it's so bonkers with the current support options available that I couldn't leave it off. SD is ludicrous and can manhandle anything defensive, and Scarf and Band are bonkers FuturePort abusers. Scarf is a clean sweeper that can snowball very quickly in the late game and serves as a considerable anti-offence option, though I feel it has stiff competition for being your first choice in that respect. Banded is my personal favourite with its ridiculous immediate power and FuturePort support being able to help it forward with some of its rolls. I've found SD a bit cumbersome to work with, but nothing dismantles fat like it. Grass-spam structures with Rillaboom are also worthy of note because they're still around and carrying their weight, but I think it's a somewhat gimmicky pairing for the most part that serves more utility vs specific teams than being a well-rounded structure in itself.

7. Kyurem
People are calling SpD Scizor good now partly because of this thing, that should say enough. Specs still has the ability to circumstantially 2HKO a vast majority of the meta, but I'm not huge on it right now personally. I'm big on the SubRoost set like most others, that thing is capable of winning some games at preview, Freeze Dry and Earth Power are ridiculously spammable and effective blanket coverage and its bulk is often underestimated. It's well capable of dismantling the common defensive structures around right now, and I'm confident it will consistently remain the premier Ice type of the tier. Scarf is dog shit though, stop using it.

6. Slowking
I lied, this probably won't shock you. I find myself gravitating towards Slowking more because I feel like I have to moreso than I want to, but it's such good compression and utility that it has to be here. Being a good answer to Tran, a passable check to Lele, Water resist, defensive pivot, and FuturePort setter it's a very very desirable package on many teams. I mentioned in my last RMT a functional core extends beyond two mons that just play the 1v1 game given that that relies on your opponent willingly sacing something to you for some reason or you being able to win the battle of attrition of cycling breakers and checks repeatedly; I harp on so much about FuturePort because it helps throw a spanner in that cycle very easily. Future Sight is a really fucking good positioning asset that will force your opponent to make sacrifices they'd otherwise not want to make which is a massive advantage to have in a meta with so many strong offensive titans. Slowking is the best at doing that right now given how well its defensive utilities hold up.

5. Rillaboom
Monke.

4. Dragapult
Ghost resists are limited and Specs Shadow Balls sting. Great support vs Rain and HO, great way to threaten potent breakers like Kyu, Lele, Kart, etc. Really fucking fast. This thing's good, I'm far and away the biggest on Specs and I usually opt for T-Bolt as coverage to lure and catch Mandi which often helps open up complimentary breakers. Speaking of complimentary breakers and going back to FuturePort babble, FuturePort + breaker is a great way to force its checks into provocative positions. Pult's ability to benefit from the support of common team structures as well as offensively handle their threats make it a brilliant choice on a lot of builds, its usage certainly reflects that too. Status Hex sets are also ok, but I think they're a far cry from what they used to be and are just more annoying than anything else, but certainly considerable nonetheless.

3. Corviknight
Premier Defogger of the tier due to its incredible defensive typing and flexibility. Not being susceptible to Toxic or severely limited if Knocked are phenomenal assets to this guy's longevity and it serves as one of the more consistent checks to potent breakers like Rillaboom, Kart, Chomp, Exca, and others while also retaining its utility as a defensive pivot. Its spreads are pretty customisable as well with even max SpD being a considerable option to function as a supportive pivot, albeit a circumstantial one, vs threats like Lele, Kyurem, and Latios, while still being able to decently handle the aforementioned physical threats, albeit also circumstantially. You may be asking if it's worth sacrificing Corv's best defensive utility in its ability to check the named physical threats pretty much all of the time in order to instead check a much wider range of threats some of the time, and the answer is no, no it's usually not worth it and most of the time your main option would be a standard physically-based mixed Def set; but it is an option regardless and just a testament to Corv's potential versatility. Sub/Taunt BU stall breaker options are also worthy of note and do a fine job at what they're intended to, but I've never found myself gravitating towards it personally; the tier is so full of good stall breakers and wall breakers that I have to question just how worth it it is to run the best Defogger in the tier for that particular role instead, but once again it is and option.

2. Heatran
Heatran seriously excels in the tier both offensively and defensively, being able to check threats like Pult, Volc, Clef, and others which can be quite cumbersome to handle otherwise while also being able to 1v1 a good amount of things you'd want to try to check it with like Bro, Blissey, Pex, etc make it crazy good, it's such an awkward mon to deal with generally and is one of the biggest reasons Slowking is so useful. Modest just destroys everything, shit's so dumb. The only four moves it really needs to succeed are Magma Storm, Earth Power, Taunt, and Toxic but other options are abundant; Power Herb Solar Beam is considerable on the right team, you can waste Rocks on it if you're so inclined though it does a fair job as a Rocker too so I can't bash that too much, Protect with Terrain is great, Heavy Slam and Flash Canon are around, it can be very comfortably shaped where needed. I think this list is apparent enough at this point that what I value a lot right now is things that create opportunities, trapping to forcibly remove checks to things and FuturePort + breaker to severely pressure them are two incredibly good ways to do that, especially with the removal of Hidden Power and Z-Moves which were good tack-on options to create lures from nothing in the past, these are the best ways force progress and hold positions now, and it's fun I'm really enjoying the meta playing with these things.

1. Lando-T
I'm not gonna harp on too much about Lando-T. It's Lando-T. Role compression for Electric and Ground immunity, a functional defensive pivot either as a phys Def, SpD, or mixed Def pivot, has Intimidate support to force switches and create positioning opportunities, can effectively run Scarf to function as a scout, revenger, and offensive pivot, has Knock Off utility, Toxic support, can set hazards, can set up with SD, can set up with Rock Polish, can set up with both, can Smack Down Corv and Skarm, can Explode. It's Lando-T. I've personally been using suicide Lead on HO and physically base mixed Def pivot on BO for the most part, but I've got a little bit of everything. I think it serves more utility on a lot of teams right now compared to something like Hippo due to the offensive nature of play right now, Hippo's suited a lot more for longevity and drawing out games and, while it's really fucking good still, that kind of opportunity to fall back on your defensive core so you can curl up in a ball while you get kicked in the back isn't really all that ideal; the combination a good standard bulky Lando can bring in Intimidate, base 145 Atk, Toxic, and U-Turn allows it to very consistently maintain or regain offensive momentum even as a defensive asset, a lot of teams really value that in this meta. It's Lando-T.

Honourable Mentions these are just sleeper picks, not really honourable mentions. I just want to be a YouTuber

Mandibuzz
Dark type Corviknight. It's good, but it's not Corviknight. Susceptible to Toxic and suffer more if Knocked, but being a Ghost resist that's actually useful is nice to have.

Tapu-Lele
Another kill-all breaker. Everyone I spoke to roasted me for liking Kyu more, but it's my list and I do what I want with it. It's good though.

Garchomp
Versatile monster. Endure Tank Chomp can screw over so many things, good support vs physical breakers like Skewda who threaten a lot of teams. Mixed lead is really cool, I've been digging it lately and it might end up on more of my teams. SD Scale Shot is the one though.

Toxapex
Pex.

Rotom-Wash
Staple pick for the last two gens, it'll be back here too. Defensive pivot that can check Tran and Lando while threatening its potential switch-ins with Wisp, maintaining longevity with Pain Split, or serving as a Defogger if you're so inclined. It's good, don't rule it out in your builds.

Volcarona
Still stupid, still capable of choosing its checks, and I've seen this thing break through Trans on more occasions than I ever should have. Pretty brutal on HO, but VolcSharp on any team structure will put in work.

Bisharp
Speaking of, hey show me your Dark resists.

Crawdaunt
I have finally drunk the Banded juice, and it's pretty sweet. Hey, show me your Dark resists.

Terrakion
Run this with FuturePort and thank me later.

Regieleki
I wrote more about this thing in the Zeraora paragraph than I did about Zeraora. I'll reemphasise though that it is incredibly cute. Not a fan of the suicide Screens set though unless it's on very heavy offence, I much prefer Koko for my general Screens needs.

Overrated Picks none of these mons are bad, I just think they're over-credited

Tapu-Koko
This thing is ass as a Boots pivot. It's an offensive pivot but it's not really all that offensive and it doesn't really do anything in general. It hits like a heavy sneeze, has no Knock Off utility, is the very very bare minimum of what I'd consider adequate speed control. Zera at least has a relevant speed tier and the right coverage to make use of it, allowing it to function as a great revenge killer and can be deceptively potent with FuturePort support, it will force progress. Koko doesn't really do anything, it has greater longevity for sure but being able to spend longer in the game doing very little is not a trade off I'd make when I can spend less time doing more. U-Turn is a good asset to have so it can actually pivot off its Ground checks I'll credit it that, but all I see it best as is a Screens setter with Taunt and Terrain setting for Lucha.

Tornadus-T
Similar to Koko above, though I do prefer it as an offensive pivot thanks to Knock Off and Taunt being very free and disruptive. I just think its pivot set lacks in all of offensive utility, defensive utility, and speed control, falling just short of the mark on all fronts; it makes me hesitant to dedicate a whole slot purely for that support alone, it feels more like a mosquito that you can't swat rather than the wolf at the door. Taunt Nasty Plot is an incredible stall breaker if it hits, but it won't so... yeah.

Weavile
This thing isn't bad by any stretch, but I do feel like it's a passing fad. If you want a potent Ice breaker you run Kyurem, if you want a ridiculous Banded Knock Off you run Daunt, if you want a good anti-offence option you run Pult or Zera or Rilla etc, if you want to do multiple of these things then you run those mons together, they gel well enough that it's not much effort to do so. I feel like Weav is a very specific kind of role compression that's desirable in the moment but is ultimately not gonna have the staying power to last through meta shifts the way most of the above will.

Clefable
Gone are the days when this thing was mandatory on all teams. I think without having to cripplingly rely on this thing to check very specific things the meta's opened up with a lot of very effective defensive structures that exclude our little alien friend here. I have not once gravitated towards Clef for its utility set, I considered it as a stall option on some builds, and I have a CM set on one of my more gimmicky teams where it pulls weight but feels often times on the match up fishy side. With the great offensive beasts of the tier freed up nicely, Clef's defensive limitations do start to feel more noticeable now I find. I see it returning at some point, but I don't think now is that point.

Don't forget to SMASH the motherfuckin' Like button!

 

[Finchinator]

I (and I think a lot of the rest of the thread) would definitely be interested in your views on the metagame at present, particularly what sort of stuff could become more important soon (outside of the fairly obvious ones like Scizor, Kyurem, Lele, etc).

I'd like to think that I share my thoughts on the metagame often enough, but here are some Pokemon I feel are underrated right now:

• with Iron Defense and speed investment in order to avoid getting consistently trapped by Magnezone is pretty clutch. It also makes it so that Swords Dance Garchomp, hyper offensive teams as a whole, and the physically offensive Grasses are countered pretty hard when they can get out of hand otherwise with minimal chip or a Knock Off previously.
• with Superpower + Flash Cannon + Draco Meteor + Roost is an underrated lure when paired with Choice Specs Dragapult or Kyurem. Being able to do a great deal to Clefable, Blissey, Heatran, and Tyranitar all in one set while still having recovery is fun. Rather than a one-at-a-time, clunkier sweeper, Hydreigon functions as a mixed wallbreaker.
• with Taunt + Magma Storm + Earth Power + Body Press. Body Press is the key here -- if you pair it with Tapu Lele or Choice Specs Dragapult, then you are able to catch and trap Blissey or Tyranitar, opening the game wide open. This also can help force Roosts from Hydreigon and avoid risking Magma Storm accuracy in certain scenarios.
• is a sneaky good sweeping option when you do not face Toxapex and defensively it can shut down some Kyurem, Clefable, and Rillaboom sets, carving out quite the niche for it. It also checks Weavile, which is a promising recent prospect in the metagame.
• (Rapid) is pretty strong. It needs support -- likely Future Sight or Spikes, but it can absolutely thrive in the right match-up and even with support in less ideal match-ups. I prefer Choice Band to Protective Pads, but both have unique enough niches to generate discussion and warrant usage.
• is amazingly bulky and strong. It does not outright check or counter much at all, but standalone it is great at forcing trades. If you build your team well, you may be able to fit it and work towards making those trades favorable for your teammates. It is not the most consistently worthwhile Pokemon given its speed limitations, but there are still some upsides here.

As for the tier as a whole, I find the metagame to be good, but not great. The quickbans improved teambuilding and the tier as a whole, but at times I find games to be repetitive and even uncompetitive with certain fringe/match-up strategies seeing consistent usage. Before it was not ideal, but we knew what we had to manage and games were arguably won by the better player just as often, if not more. I think the metagame is still developing lots though, so it would be silly to say the tier is in a suboptimal state or stagnant state -- neither would be true. I personally think we should look into retests moving forward as nothing strikes me as too broken in the tier right now and there is no reason to hesitate exploring what could be.

Hope this helps

 

[glava222]

• is amazingly bulky and strong. It does not outright check or counter much at all, but standalone it is great at forcing trades. If you build your team well, you may be able to fit it and work towards making those trades favorable for your teammates. It is not the most consistently worthwhile Pokemon given its speed limitations, but there are still some upsides here.

how would you reccomend using glastrier, with screens,TR(yh I know TR is bad but still), or just by itself?

 

[Finchinator]

how would you reccomend using glastrier, with screens,TR(yh I know TR is bad but still), or just by itself?

It is solid on Trick Room, but maybe 1-2% of teams are Trick Room on a good day, so I was thinking more standalone on balance. We saw it a couple of times in SPL like that. It is pretty limited no matter where you place it unfortunately, but there is a niche and if you build specifically enough, it will pay off.

 

[pulsar512b]

There are dozens of viable pokemon to discuss. If you don’t want to talk about Zama, there are so many other topics to post about and I can even provide some myself if you guys would prefer. I don’t view the conversation previously focusing on that as an issue or a limiting factor, for what it’s worth.

Wanted to note that my note about getting stuck in another loop was mostly just me being cynical.

So this is not a one-liner, I haven't seen the idea of body press heatran before, and it makes sense! Cool tech. Thank you for your thoughts Finch.

Fwiw, I think your actions in the thread were fine.

 

[Red Raven]

with Taunt + Magma Storm + Earth Power + Body Press. Body Press is the key here -- if you pair it with Tapu Lele or Choice Specs Dragapult, then you are able to catch and trap Blissey or Tyranitar, opening the game wide open. This also can help force Roosts from Hydreigon and avoid risking Magma Storm accuracy in certain scenarios.

Hope this helps

What's the ev spread used for this Heatran set if I may ask?

 

[Finchinator]

What's the ev spread used for this Heatran set if I may ask?

Largely team dependent. You do not really need to deviate from the normal spread as you 2HKO Tyranitar and 3HKO Blissey with Body Press after Magma Storm easily regardless. If you do not need the soft check to Wisp Dragapult, Tapu Lele, Tapu Koko, etc., then I go more offensive like:

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 248 HP / 76 Def / 56 SpA / 128 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Magma Storm
- Earth Power
- Body Press

However, standard spread with SDef works, too. This spread assures doing enough vs Blissey with Taunt+BPress spam to always 1v1 as they spam Seismic Toss even if you miss Magma Storm on the switch I believe. Rest in SAtk to help with trapping SDef Toxapex, 1v1 CM + TBolt LO Clefable, and general damage output bolstering.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

As for the tier as a whole, I find the metagame to be good, but not great. The quickbans improved teambuilding and the tier as a whole, but at times I find games to be repetitive and even uncompetitive with certain fringe/match-up strategies seeing consistent usage. Before it was not ideal, but we knew what we had to manage and games were arguably won by the better player just as often, if not more. I think the metagame is still developing lots though, so it would be silly to say the tier is in a suboptimal state or stagnant state -- neither would be true. I personally think we should look into retests moving forward as nothing strikes me as too broken in the tier right now and there is no reason to hesitate exploring what could be.

I'm not exactly sure what uncompetitive matchups/strategies Finch is referring to, so I won't touch on that, but I do agree with SS games feeling too repetitive at times. I think that at times it is just too difficult to make progress in games and games can be long and drawn-out with certain cycles repeating over and over again. I feel like this repetitive nature of SS OU was exemplified in this recent match between TPP and Lord_Enz in OST semifinals. Neither of these teams are stall, and in fact they each have some of the best breaking options in the tier in Tapu Lele, Heatran, and Kyurem, but still neither team loses a Pokemon until turn 181. I want to say that I don't think that it's inherently a bad thing that SS is a different meta in that its games tend to be slower and more deliberate, since it's good to have variety in the tiers, and although I tend to enjoy longer games, I've personally found myself becoming increasingly disinterested in SS. I tend to skip over watching most of the SS games from SPL and I don't play the tier much anymore, and I know that's become true for many other players as well. I think that some of the main reasons why it can be so hard to make progress in SS games is because of the diminished importance of hazards, the prevalence of Regenerator, and how easy/risk free positioning is with Teleport. I know that this thread can be very zealous to jump at the chance to take tiering action against aspects of the tier as a way to try to "fix" SS OU, but I don't really think that anything should or will ever be done to touch those three things. I could perhaps see a suspect test on Boots being warranted, but again, I'm fairly certain that that will never happen. So please don't take it that I'm suggesting that anything is really done about Boots, Regenerator, or Teleport, as they really are a big part of what makes SS unique, but I do want to discuss a little more how I feel like those three parts of the tier in conjunction make SS feel more repetitive to me. I know I've talked about these three things before, but I'm planning on stopping playing and posting much going forward, so I wanted to try to clearly get my thoughts about this out there one more time. I also apologize if this comes across as me just rambling and ranting about a tier, and I don't think that this post will be received too well, since most people who browse this thread probably do so because they enjoy the tier, but I just wanted to express my personal feelings about some frustrating parts of SS.

I sometimes see people erroneously claim that Boots are a good thing because they "fix" the overcentralizing nature of Rocks and use RBY as an example of a lack of hazards not necessarily leading to free switching. I think that both of these arguments are a little misguided. First, it's perfectly fine to think that Boots were a good decision because they make Rock-weak Pokemon more viable, and it's also reasonable to wish that Rocks were never introduced in DPP, but it's disingenuous to act like that's all that Boots do. Many of the biggest abusers of Boots in things like Slowking, Slowbro, Blissey, Zeraora, and Dragapult are not weak to Rocks and it's not like all Boots do is remove Stealth Rocks damage; they negate the impact of all hazards. Not having a consistent source of chip on Pokemon that switch into play can lead to instances where little or no progress is made against teams with solid defensive cores that switch into many threats, and it also prevents players from doing things like making double-switches to repeatedly rack up more chip damage against opposing Pokemon without allowing them an opportunity to heal. I feel like Boots simply removed a lot of the nuance from the game by making it irrelevant to some Pokemon if hazards are up or not. I also think that any comparison between SS and RBY is largely irrelevant, since they are obviously completely different games. Things like abilities (particularly Regenerator) did not exist in RBY, there wasn't as varied of a selection of Pokemon to use, and the crit, freeze, and sleep mechanics, along with some other mechanics, make RBY an extremely different game, and I think it's pointless to draw any comparisons to it. I also want to mention that it's not just Boots that limit the impact of hazards, but also how hazard removal is as easy as it's ever been, thanks in large part to Corviknight. I feel like Corviknight is easily one of the best, if not the best, Defoggers we've ever seen, and it keeps hazards off so reliably that they become an even smaller factor in some games (like the OST one that I linked to earlier).

Regenerator has always been a tremendous ability, but when combined with Boots, it allows Pokemon like Slowking/Slowbro and Tornadus-T to become even more difficult to make progress against. Obviously Toxapex is one of the premier Regenerator users, and Pex is and will always be great, but at least most Pex don't run Boots and can be vulnerable to hazards stacking. It sometimes feels very aggravating just trying to punish or wear down something like Torn or Slowking because they're able to freely come in regardless of how many hazards are up and pivot out to both gain momentum and regain health with Regenerator. In previous gens, hazards stacking was a reliable method to limit Regenerator's effectiveness, but that doesn't reliably work anymore. The pivoting capabilities of defensive Pokemon like Slowking brings me to the third thing that I feel like makes progress difficult to come by in SS, and that's Teleport.

Teleport has been widely discussed in SS since the days when Wish + Teleport Clef was on almost every team. I don't think that Teleport in itself is a problem, but again, when combined with Boots and/or Regenerator, it can make the pivoting of some defensive Pokemon like Slowking and Blissey feel too "free." I've heard some top players refer to SS as the "training wheels" generation and bemoan how easy it is to play. A competitive game being "easy" is always a little bit of a strange concept to me, since if it's easy for one player, it should be easy for their opponent as well, and then it's a level playing field. However, I feel like what is meant by SS being easy is that there are a lot of risk-free ways to position your Pokemon and make the "correct" plays. I already talked about how things like Boots and Regenerator can make switching in Pokemon risk-free, but defensive Pokemon getting guaranteed momentum with Teleport gives SS the easiest example of positioning of any Pokemon game. Things like Slowking/Slowbro and Blissey can switch into many Pokemon, not fear Rocks damage with Boots, regain health with Regenerator or ignore status with Natural Cure, and automatically make the correct switch-in after clicking Teleport. There really isn't any risk or difficult decision to be made by the player in instances like this. Even if the opponent doesn't attack into the Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey directly and opts to make a double-switch, it's not like Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey gets chipped by hazards when switching in, thanks to Boots. This leads to awkward scenarios where in order to force progress, players need to put themselves more at risk to make double-switches, and even then, if the opponent has a sturdy enough defensive core to answer what they double-switched into, they can just switch again without much repercussion. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make progress against defensive cores in SS, but I do feel at times that the risk-reward doesn't feel properly balanced when trying to make offensive progress.

I don't want to get sidetracked here by comparing SS to SM, so I won't spend much time on this, but I did hear ABR say during one of McMeghan's streams about how SS being so defensive is what happens when you remove Z-moves. I used to previously really dislike Z-moves, and I still have my problems with them, but I've grown to appreciate more how they can be used to force offensive progress by blowing holes in opposing teams. With that option being removed from SS, but many of the other strong defensive tools remaining (and some new ones being introduced), it does make sense how it could have added to SS becoming a slower and more defensive game.

In regards to potential retests, I do think that it's a good idea to test things and I don't think that suspect tests can ever really hurt a tier. I said before Cinderace was quick-banned that removing it from the tier could be detrimental, and I do think that testing it again could be a good thing to see how much of a difference Cinderace's inclusion in the tier makes on generating offensive progress, but the combination of things like Boots, Regenerator, and Teleport are still going to be prevalent and give SS its defensive qualities that have become somewhat defining of the tier at this point. However, as I said in the beginning of this post, these defensive qualities playing a huge role in SS is not really a bad thing. It's good for SS to have a unique feel to it, and it's kind of ironic that I'm lamenting the defensive nature of SS since I've also been annoyed before by how many people on Smogon are irrationally prejudiced against stall, but I think that stall isn't the problem in SS. That OST replay that I linked in the beginning didn't include stall teams, and it still exhibited the lack of offensive progress that I've talked about. I feel like often times, some Smogon users don't understand stall and just label anything remotely defensive as "stall," but I feel like the defining defensive attributes of SS are present in the vast majority of games in the tier, not just stall matchups.

So to conclude this, I'm sorry if this post just came across as me rambling or complaining about SS; I didn't intend to pointlessly do so. Instead, I wanted to share my personal perspective on why I've become more disillusioned with the tier. I don't think that the tier is in a bad spot and I agree with Finch's assessment of it being "good, but not great." It's good for SS to have a unique feeling to it and I don't feel like drastic tiering action should be considered to try to "fix" SS. I just wanted to get some thoughts out there one more time in a hopefully more complete manner, since I'm planning on not being too active going forward. I also understand that I'm just some guy and that my thoughts on the meta aren't particularly important, but I thought that I might be able to share sentiments that other people are also feeling or offer a different perspective that some people may not be as familiar with. Thanks to anyone who looked this over, and have a great day everyone!

 

[Indytotof]

Cinderace was quick-banned that removing it from the tier could be detrimental, and I do think that testing it again could be a good thing

To say this simply: No. Let the bunny rot in Ubers for the rest of SS OU.

Last time was a complete waste of everyone's time. Let's not repeat mistakes multiple times.
Cinderace still have no sure checks (both defensive and offensive), it still can be whatever he wants, have one of the best Abilities in Libero, coverages for nearly everything and pivot for free for most of the game thanks to Boots being the best item in the game.

Cinderace is too much for OU. No restest for it should ever happen.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

To say this simply: No. Let the bunny rot in Ubers for the rest of SS OU.

Last time was a complete waste of everyone's time. Let's not repeat mistakes multiple times.
Cinderace still have no sure checks (both defensive and offensive), it still can be whatever he wants, have one of the best Abilities in Libero, coverages for nearly everything and pivot for free for most of the game thanks to Boots being the best item in the game.

Cinderace is too much for OU. No restest for it should ever happen.

Did you read the previous post of mine that I linked to? I didn't deny that Cinderace was extremely good and possibly the best offensive Pokemon in the tier, and I didn't disagree with most of what you said. However, I disagree that Cinderace did not have any checks. As I said before:

If you assume that Cinderace has Pyro Ball and three of U-turn/HJK or Low Kick/Gunk Shot/Sucker Punch/Zen Headbutt, there is a decent selection of already very common Pokemon that can reliably check it, such as defensive Lando, Garchomp, Rocky Helmet Pex (Cinderace pretty much needs a Zen Headbutt flinch to get past physically defensive Pex and it can't afford to fish against a Rocky Helmet), Rocky Helmet Slowbro (U-turn does sting a little but Cinderace gets chipped by Helmet and Slowbro gets Regenerator recovery, provided you have a decent switch for whatever comes in), Hippowdon, Pelipper, and even the less common, but still good, defensive Dragonite (as an aside, I think that the physically defensive set with Earthquake, Ice Beam, Roost, and Heal Bell used by Storm Zone in this SPL game is really cool, even though it doesn't face off against a Cinderace in that game). Moltres and Zapdos aren't the best answers to Cinderace since they really don't like switching into Gunk Shot, but they are also a deterrent to it grabbing momentum with U-turn as well. And yeah, I get that it could run Bulk Up or Electro Ball (which we've seen more recently in SPL, particularly paired with Electric Terrain from Tapu Koko) to get past some of those checks, but I really don't think that either of those sets are as good or reliable as the traditional four coverage move ones. Bulk Up also was only used on 9.386% of Cinderaces in January at 1825, while Electro Ball wasn't even one of the 8 most common moves on it, and running either of those options forgoes the ability to threaten other common Pokemon. So the point that I'm trying to make is that all of those Pokemon that I listed as checks are all valuable in their own right and I think that they would likely be about as common even if Cinderace wasn't in the tier, which I feel like is an important distinction between Cinderace and Urshifu/Spectrier. There are more options to check Cinderace than there were for Urshifu and Cinderace's presence isn't really inflating the use of certain Pokemon as substantially as Spectrier is with Tyranitar, Mandibuzz, and Hydreigon. Cinderace also doesn't really force its checks to run suboptimal movesets that they otherwise wouldn't, like Spectrier does with things like defensive Hydreigon with Snarl.

So yes, I agree that Cinderace is very good and difficult to deal with, but I don't necessarily feel like the meta is better off without it. FlamingVictini is easily one of the best SS players right now and he recently said on ima's stream that he didn't think that Cinderace should have been banned. He said that it required you to play and build differently (particularly using more Rocky Helmet to punish U-turn) but that he didn't consider Cinderace to be broken.

However, I don't want the thread to get sidetracked on a potential debate about whether or not Cinderace is broken, especially since it isn't currently being retested. I think that it's unlikely that Cinderace gets unbanned again anyway, so I don't think that you have anything to worry about. Cinderace was not the point of my post either, so I'd rather not focus on it.

 

[Tapeworm]

I'm not exactly sure what uncompetitive matchups/strategies Finch is referring to, so I won't touch on that, but I do agree with SS games feeling too repetitive at times. I think that at times it is just too difficult to make progress in games and games can be long and drawn-out with certain cycles repeating over and over again. I feel like this repetitive nature of SS OU was exemplified in this recent match between TPP and Lord_Enz in OST semifinals. Neither of these teams are stall, and in fact they each have some of the best breaking options in the tier in Tapu Lele, Heatran, and Kyurem, but still neither team loses a Pokemon until turn 181. I want to say that I don't think that it's inherently a bad thing that SS is a different meta in that its games tend to be slower and more deliberate, since it's good to have variety in the tiers, and although I tend to enjoy longer games, I've personally found myself becoming increasingly disinterested in SS. I tend to skip over watching most of the SS games from SPL and I don't play the tier much anymore, and I know that's become true for many other players as well. I think that some of the main reasons why it can be so hard to make progress in SS games is because of the diminished importance of hazards, the prevalence of Regenerator, and how easy/risk free positioning is with Teleport. I know that this thread can be very zealous to jump at the chance to take tiering action against aspects of the tier as a way to try to "fix" SS OU, but I don't really think that anything should or will ever be done to touch those three things. I could perhaps see a suspect test on Boots being warranted, but again, I'm fairly certain that that will never happen. So please don't take it that I'm suggesting that anything is really done about Boots, Regenerator, or Teleport, as they really are a big part of what makes SS unique, but I do want to discuss a little more how I feel like those three parts of the tier in conjunction make SS feel more repetitive to me. I know I've talked about these three things before, but I'm planning on stopping playing and posting much going forward, so I wanted to try to clearly get my thoughts about this out there one more time. I also apologize if this comes across as me just rambling and ranting about a tier, and I don't think that this post will be received too well, since most people who browse this thread probably do so because they enjoy the tier, but I just wanted to express my personal feelings about some frustrating parts of SS.

I sometimes see people erroneously claim that Boots are a good thing because they "fix" the overcentralizing nature of Rocks and use RBY as an example of a lack of hazards not necessarily leading to free switching. I think that both of these arguments are a little misguided. First, it's perfectly fine to think that Boots were a good decision because they make Rock-weak Pokemon more viable, and it's also reasonable to wish that Rocks were never introduced in DPP, but it's disingenuous to act like that's all that Boots do. Many of the biggest abusers of Boots in things like Slowking, Slowbro, Blissey, Zeraora, and Dragapult are not weak to Rocks and it's not like all Boots do is remove Stealth Rocks damage; they negate the impact of all hazards. Not having a consistent source of chip on Pokemon that switch into play can lead to instances where little or no progress is made against teams with solid defensive cores that switch into many threats, and it also prevents players from doing things like making double-switches to repeatedly rack up more chip damage against opposing Pokemon without allowing them an opportunity to heal. I feel like Boots simply removed a lot of the nuance from the game by making it irrelevant to some Pokemon if hazards are up or not. I also think that any comparison between SS and RBY is largely irrelevant, since they are obviously completely different games. Things like abilities (particularly Regenerator) did not exist in RBY, there wasn't as varied of a selection of Pokemon to use, and the crit, freeze, and sleep mechanics, along with some other mechanics, make RBY an extremely different game, and I think it's pointless to draw any comparisons to it. I also want to mention that it's not just Boots that limit the impact of hazards, but also how hazard removal is as easy as it's ever been, thanks in large part to Corviknight. I feel like Corviknight is easily one of the best, if not the best, Defoggers we've ever seen, and it keeps hazards off so reliably that they become an even smaller factor in some games (like the OST one that I linked to earlier).

Regenerator has always been a tremendous ability, but when combined with Boots, it allows Pokemon like Slowking/Slowbro and Tornadus-T to become even more difficult to make progress against. Obviously Toxapex is one of the premier Regenerator users, and Pex is and will always be great, but at least most Pex don't run Boots and can be vulnerable to hazards stacking. It sometimes feels very aggravating just trying to punish or wear down something like Torn or Slowking because they're able to freely come in regardless of how many hazards are up and pivot out to both gain momentum and regain health with Regenerator. In previous gens, hazards stacking was a reliable method to limit Regenerator's effectiveness, but that doesn't reliably work anymore. The pivoting capabilities of defensive Pokemon like Slowking brings me to the third thing that I feel like makes progress difficult to come by in SS, and that's Teleport.

Teleport has been widely discussed in SS since the days when Wish + Teleport Clef was on almost every team. I don't think that Teleport in itself is a problem, but again, when combined with Boots and/or Regenerator, it can make the pivoting of some defensive Pokemon like Slowking and Blissey feel too "free." I've heard some top players refer to SS as the "training wheels" generation and bemoan how easy it is to play. A competitive game being "easy" is always a little bit of a strange concept to me, since if it's easy for one player, it should be easy for their opponent as well, and then it's a level playing field. However, I feel like what is meant by SS being easy is that there are a lot of risk-free ways to position your Pokemon and make the "correct" plays. I already talked about how things like Boots and Regenerator can make switching in Pokemon risk-free, but defensive Pokemon getting guaranteed momentum with Teleport gives SS the easiest example of positioning of any Pokemon game. Things like Slowking/Slowbro and Blissey can switch into many Pokemon, not fear Rocks damage with Boots, regain health with Regenerator or ignore status with Natural Cure, and automatically make the correct switch-in after clicking Teleport. There really isn't any risk or difficult decision to be made by the player in instances like this. Even if the opponent doesn't attack into the Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey directly and opts to make a double-switch, it's not like Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey gets chipped by hazards when switching in, thanks to Boots. This leads to awkward scenarios where in order to force progress, players need to put themselves more at risk to make double-switches, and even then, if the opponent has a sturdy enough defensive core to answer what they double-switched into, they can just switch again without much repercussion. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make progress against defensive cores in SS, but I do feel at times that the risk-reward doesn't feel properly balanced when trying to make offensive progress.

I don't want to get sidetracked here by comparing SS to SM, so I won't spend much time on this, but I did hear ABR say during one of McMeghan's streams about how SS being so defensive is what happens when you remove Z-moves. I used to previously really dislike Z-moves, and I still have my problems with them, but I've grown to appreciate more how they can be used to force offensive progress by blowing holes in opposing teams. With that option being removed from SS, but many of the other strong defensive tools remaining (and some new ones being introduced), it does make sense how it could have added to SS becoming a slower and more defensive game.

In regards to potential retests, I do think that it's a good idea to test things and I don't think that suspect tests can ever really hurt a tier. I said before Cinderace was quick-banned that removing it from the tier could be detrimental, and I do think that testing it again could be a good thing to see how much of a difference Cinderace's inclusion in the tier makes on generating offensive progress, but the combination of things like Boots, Regenerator, and Teleport are still going to be prevalent and give SS its defensive qualities that have become somewhat defining of the tier at this point. However, as I said in the beginning of this post, these defensive qualities playing a huge role in SS is not really a bad thing. It's good for SS to have a unique feel to it, and it's kind of ironic that I'm lamenting the defensive nature of SS since I've also been annoyed before by how many people on Smogon are irrationally prejudiced against stall, but I think that stall isn't the problem in SS. That OST replay that I linked in the beginning didn't include stall teams, and it still exhibited the lack of offensive progress that I've talked about. I feel like often times, some Smogon users don't understand stall and just label anything remotely defensive as "stall," but I feel like the defining defensive attributes of SS are present in the vast majority of games in the tier, not just stall matchups.

So to conclude this, I'm sorry if this post just came across as me rambling or complaining about SS; I didn't intend to pointlessly do so. Instead, I wanted to share my personal perspective on why I've become more disillusioned with the tier. I don't think that the tier is in a bad spot and I agree with Finch's assessment of it being "good, but not great." It's good for SS to have a unique feeling to it and I don't feel like drastic tiering action should be considered to try to "fix" SS. I just wanted to get some thoughts out there one more time in a hopefully more complete manner, since I'm planning on not being too active going forward. I also understand that I'm just some guy and that my thoughts on the meta aren't particularly important, but I thought that I might be able to share sentiments that other people are also feeling or offer a different perspective that some people may not be as familiar with. Thanks to anyone who looked this over, and have a great day everyone!

Gonna reply to this specifically because it was a very well constructed and explained post that covers probably a good amount of users' grievances with the tier, but not one that I personally agree with in entirety. Not replying to argue and at no point when I make a direct comparison or draw a direct quote am I intending to do so, it's just the best direct comparison I have to air my thoughts.

I don't think the tier as-is right now is as passive as it's often being shown to be. Drawn-out sequences may be around in more than a few games but I often find those sequences are generally positioning sequences or sequences of preparation rather than purely passive ones. If I had to make a point of truly passive sequences then rolling back to the post-Home meta where games often ran well over 100 turns and generally followed the routine of 'my Specs Kyurem and my opponent's Guts Conk died to chip and now whoever's ClefCorvToad core can outlast the other wins' would be an apt one, the power disparity of that meta is long gone and there's a much wider array of offensive options as well as supportive options for those mons, coupled with the assortment of positioning assets and trappers to create offensive opportunities there is a lot more room to play aggressively and still hold an advantage. The OST game cited previously is also not what I'd call a strict reference to the state of the meta as it stands right now, while it's true that neither of those were stall structures, they also really can't be claimed as leaning on the more offensive side either just by virtue of having a Kyurem and Lele on them; TPP's team was certainly the more offensive structure of the two, but, on the topic of Lele, TPP's Lele being caught off by an unconventional Pex and losing its boosting item within the first few turns substantially impacted its overall breaking potential that game. Would the game have drawn out as long as it did were that Pex a typical one and that whole sequence hadn't have happened? Idk, but it's worth considering before using it as a blanket reference. I don't like the idea of defining 'progress' purely by the number of mons left dead or alive, I think that's also a blanket way of looking at things that disregards a lot of the nuance and the value dynamic of play on a turn-by-turn basis; not to deny that a lot of turns can just be filler sequences but there's more to progress in the big-picture scale than just what dies first and what's the flashy play (I know quoted poster is aware of this, once again this is not meant to be a debate-sparker, but it's worth prefacing this clearly now).

I'm gonna cover off my thoughts on Boots as well because I really don't like looking at its impact on the tier as purely a way to limit the way progress is made and enhance the passivity of teams, because I think there's more layers than that. Boots do not limit the ability to make progress, what they do do is change the way that progress is meant to be made; setting hazards and expecting that to immediately put games on a timer did force more aggressive play because more focus was put on taking very direct action in the current turn, as mentioned by quoted poster pulling double-switches and spamming pivots was not as sustainable over the course of a whole game. What Boots do is make game sequences more reliant on the positioning elements of play, looking for opportunities to get your offensive monsters in to do damage to make that progress you want to make, creating frequent and timely set-up opportunities, abusing your trappers and your FuturePort user to guide the positioning battle in your favour. It's fun, at least I think it is anyway, I don't find it any more passive than sequentially cycling chip damage against an opponent with hazards. A good comparison could be in arm-wrestling, the early to mid game being focused on getting a good grip to hold the advantageous position and when the time comes you can comfortably top roll them quite comfortably; progress during the mid game is likely to be more incremental in creating opportunities to get the necessary chip for your win-con to proceed instead of getting cycled hazard chip do half that work for you or playing the game as a 1v1 slap fight (obvious hyperbole, but you get the point). I find it a bit off-putting when Boots is sometimes exaggerated to the degree where it sounds like they act as a stack-on Magic Guard or completely invalidate hazards in general, once again it just changes how things are meant to be done in that respect. Hazard stacking is still a very viable and very effective means of making progress and there is a compromise made in having to run Boots in order to avoid hazard chip and that's at the cost of being able to run anything else, it means no turn-by-turn passive recovery from Leftovers; once again, using Boots on pivots, defensive or offensive, just further emphasises the positioning focus of the tier rather than the focus on turn-by-turn damage, but that doesn't necessarily make a game passive. Add to that that the vast majority of mons used, defensive or offensive, do not use Boots is also a point of note, the meme of having a whole team of Boots users is not a genuine statement, and a team that does load their teams with majority Boots is likely not gonna be very consistent in the current climate; for everything else outside of that bracket, hazards are still as punishing as ever. Finally, item displacement is ridiculously common on a wide range of offensive and defensive mons, I very well will argue that Knock Off is the best move in the game and not one that often involves a lot of opportunity cost to accommodate. Yes the sequence of allowing hazards to have the same impact as they used to is now a bit more round-about, but Boots do not nullify the impact of hazards in the meta nor do I believe they get rid of the nuances of progress but simply re-focus that nuance slightly differently.

Regen I do not like, but that's just a very personal statement that I'll make in any Gen. I think again the prevalence of Boots Regen pivots, or Regen pivots in general, just emphasise the positioning aspect of the game right now. You want to slap those things very hard, relying primarily on chip damage as your means of defeating them, Boots or otherwise, is always going to result in drawn-our sequences. Lure sets and trappers are often times considerable ways of forcing progress as supportive options on offensive cores and there's a good range of these in the tier that can punish or remove these things provided the proper scouting is done beforehand and the right positioning is achieved. Yeah, we don't have Z-Moves to catch them with a pocket nuke when they start getting annoying, but that doesn't in its own right make them now overbearing.

Teleport I don't think I need to get into, I don't even feel it's worth discussing. If every mon running Teleport right now instead had U-Turn, the current 'issues' would still be more or less the same. In conjunction with either or both Regen and Boots yes it can be more than a little annoying, but ultimately they are just fat positioning assets that serve more purpose in allowing one to get their breakers in safely rather than sit out and never die; used well they can just as well maintain or retake offensive momentum rather than play passive for passive's sake.

I'm not sure what the reference to 'fringe/match-up strategies seeing consistent usage' was supposed to mean specifically either (especially in the same post that cited Superpower Hydra and Glastrier as underrated options), but I think in a meta with no particular overbearing issues, a good range of usable archetypes, and room for creativity and experimentation, I'm not all that sure what more to ask for; I at least 100% do not believe the tier as-is needs to be 'fixed'. I'd also be on board with testing some things for a drop for the sake of it, I'm fully on board with seeing Zama get a test and I'd be alright with seeing Ace make a comeback for a week just to get quickly banned again, but there's honestly no issue that needs to be filled here and I personally like the way this tier is focused a lot more on the positioning elements of progress and how effective creative lures and trappers are in this meta, I think it's engaging to play and fun to build for, and I can see it continuing to grow and develop in interesting ways on its own even without any re-tests in the near future. I think it's great.

 

[Goodbye & Thanks]

Gonna reply to this specifically because it was a very well constructed and explained post that covers probably a good amount of users' grievances with the tier, but not one that I personally agree with in entirety. Not replying to argue and at no point when I make a direct comparison or draw a direct quote am I intending to do so, it's just the best direct comparison I have to air my thoughts.

I don't think the tier as-is right now is as passive as it's often being shown to be. Drawn-out sequences may be around in more than a few games but I often find those sequences are generally positioning sequences or sequences of preparation rather than purely passive ones. If I had to make a point of truly passive sequences then rolling back to the post-Home meta where games often ran well over 100 turns and generally followed the routine of 'my Specs Kyurem and my opponent's Guts Conk died to chip and now whoever's ClefCorvToad core can outlast the other wins' would be an apt one, the power disparity of that meta is long gone and there's a much wider array of offensive options as well as supportive options for those mons, coupled with the assortment of positioning assets and trappers to create offensive opportunities there is a lot more room to play aggressively and still hold an advantage. The OST game cited previously is also not what I'd call a strict reference to the state of the meta as it stands right now, while it's true that neither of those were stall structures, they also really can't be claimed as leaning on the more offensive side either just by virtue of having a Kyurem and Lele on them; TPP's team was certainly the more offensive structure of the two, but, on the topic of Lele, TPP's Lele being caught off by an unconventional Pex and losing its boosting item within the first few turns substantially impacted its overall breaking potential that game. Would the game have drawn out as long as it did were that Pex a typical one and that whole sequence hadn't have happened? Idk, but it's worth considering before using it as a blanket reference. I don't like the idea of defining 'progress' purely by the number of mons left dead or alive, I think that's also a blanket way of looking at things that disregards a lot of the nuance and the value dynamic of play on a turn-by-turn basis; not to deny that a lot of turns can just be filler sequences but there's more to progress in the big-picture scale than just what dies first and what's the flashy play (I know quoted poster is aware of this, once again this is not meant to be a debate-sparker, but it's worth prefacing this clearly now).

I'm gonna cover off my thoughts on Boots as well because I really don't like looking at its impact on the tier as purely a way to limit the way progress is made and enhance the passivity of teams, because I think there's more layers than that. Boots do not limit the ability to make progress, what they do do is change the way that progress is meant to be made; setting hazards and expecting that to immediately put games on a timer did force more aggressive play because more focus was put on taking very direct action in the current turn, as mentioned by quoted poster pulling double-switches and spamming pivots was not as sustainable over the course of a whole game. What Boots do is make game sequences more reliant on the positioning elements of play, looking for opportunities to get your offensive monsters in to do damage to make that progress you want to make, creating frequent and timely set-up opportunities, abusing your trappers and your FuturePort user to guide the positioning battle in your favour. It's fun, at least I think it is anyway, I don't find it any more passive than sequentially cycling chip damage against an opponent with hazards. A good comparison could be in arm-wrestling, the early to mid game being focused on getting a good grip to hold the advantageous position and when the time comes you can comfortably top roll them quite comfortably; progress during the mid game is likely to be more incremental in creating opportunities to get the necessary chip for your win-con to proceed instead of getting cycled hazard chip do half that work for you or playing the game as a 1v1 slap fight (obvious hyperbole, but you get the point). I find it a bit off-putting when Boots is sometimes exaggerated to the degree where it sounds like they act as a stack-on Magic Guard or completely invalidate hazards in general, once again it just changes how things are meant to be done in that respect. Hazard stacking is still a very viable and very effective means of making progress and there is a compromise made in having to run Boots in order to avoid hazard chip and that's at the cost of being able to run anything else, it means no turn-by-turn passive recovery from Leftovers; once again, using Boots on pivots, defensive or offensive, just further emphasises the positioning focus of the tier rather than the focus on turn-by-turn damage, but that doesn't necessarily make a game passive. Add to that that the vast majority of mons used, defensive or offensive, do not use Boots is also a point of note, the meme of having a whole team of Boots users is not a genuine statement, and a team that does load their teams with majority Boots is likely not gonna be very consistent in the current climate; for everything else outside of that bracket, hazards are still as punishing as ever. Finally, item displacement is ridiculously common on a wide range of offensive and defensive mons, I very well will argue that Knock Off is the best move in the game and not one that often involves a lot of opportunity cost to accommodate. Yes the sequence of allowing hazards to have the same impact as they used to is now a bit more round-about, but Boots do not nullify the impact of hazards in the meta nor do I believe they get rid of the nuances of progress but simply re-focus that nuance slightly differently.

Regen I do not like, but that's just a very personal statement that I'll make in any Gen. I think again the prevalence of Boots Regen pivots, or Regen pivots in general, just emphasise the positioning aspect of the game right now. You want to slap those things very hard, relying primarily on chip damage as your means of defeating them, Boots or otherwise, is always going to result in drawn-our sequences. Lure sets and trappers are often times considerable ways of forcing progress as supportive options on offensive cores and there's a good range of these in the tier that can punish or remove these things provided the proper scouting is done beforehand and the right positioning is achieved. Yeah, we don't have Z-Moves to catch them with a pocket nuke when they start getting annoying, but that doesn't in its own right make them now overbearing.

Teleport I don't think I need to get into, I don't even feel it's worth discussing. If every mon running Teleport right now instead had U-Turn, the current 'issues' would still be more or less the same. In conjunction with either or both Regen and Boots yes it can be more than a little annoying, but ultimately they are just fat positioning assets that serve more purpose in allowing one to get their breakers in safely rather than sit out and never die; used well they can just as well maintain or retake offensive momentum rather than play passive for passive's sake.

I'm not sure what the reference to 'fringe/match-up strategies seeing consistent usage' was supposed to mean specifically either (especially in the same post that cited Superpower Hydra and Glastrier as underrated options), but I think in a meta with no particular overbearing issues, a good range of usable archetypes, and room for creativity and experimentation, I'm not all that sure what more to ask for; I at least 100% do not believe the tier as-is needs to be 'fixed'. I'd also be on board with testing some things for a drop for the sake of it, I'm fully on board with seeing Zama get a test and I'd be alright with seeing Ace make a comeback for a week just to get quickly banned again, but there's honestly no issue that needs to be filled here and I personally like the way this tier is focused a lot more on the positioning elements of progress and how effective creative lures and trappers are in this meta, I think it's engaging to play and fun to build for, and I can see it continuing to grow and develop in interesting ways on its own even without any re-tests in the near future. I think it's great.

Hey, I just want to thank you for writing out an excellent and even-handed reply! I think that everything that you said was a fair assessment, and I definitely agree that I feel like SS is in a good place. I apologize if my post came across as overly negative of the meta, and I do understand and am glad that many people enjoy it; I have spent a lot of time playing SS OU and had my biggest "ladder accomplishments" with it, so I personally have enjoyed the tier a lot as well. I think that I just was feeling more and more uninterested in playing SS OU, and I wanted to try to articulate why, since I know that some other people have been feeling the same way. As I said in my post, I don't think that anything should be done to "fix" SS, since it isn't broken - it's just different than all of the other metas, but that's a good thing. I completely agree with you that much of playing SS is focused on positioning and the addition of Boots and providing more defensive Pokemon a pivoting tool in Teleport changes how that positioning plays out. I didn't want to act like that aspect of the game should be labeled as "boring" or "bad," since no one can really decide that for other people, but instead that it just wasn't my personal preference. I do also agree with you that building in SS is fun, and I still do enjoy building much more than actually playing. I'll try to wrap this post up as well, since I'm not really good at brevity, but I think that I more just kind of came to a realization that some of the aspects of SS that I have grown to dislike more probably will never change because they're "baked into the bread" of SS. We've seen SS OU go through many different stages with the DLCs and different tiering actions (it is funny to think about at times how everything started this generation with Dynamax) and I think that I kind of kept holding out some hope that SS would eventually warp into a meta that felt close to perfect to me (and I also get that's not realistic but it was just a hope). I've realized that despite the changes the meta has gone through, some of the aspects I particularly don't like have never and likely will never change, but that's also fine, because I acknowledge that SS OU is a healthy meta that many people enjoy, even if it's just not ideal to me. And who knows, the Sinnoh remakes will probably shake up the meta (assuming they're compatible with SS) and it's not like the meta is at all stagnant. People are experimenting and trying new things, which is why building in SS is still pretty fun to me. Even look at how ORAS turned from a more bulky and balance oriented meta to HO-centric like it has recently; I know a lot of people don't like that development, myself included, but it still shows that tiers don't ever really stop changing. So yeah, thanks again for writing a great response and I'm happy that SS OU is in a healthy spot, even if I've had to accept that it's probably just not my particular cup of tea.

 

[Flexxen]

I'm not exactly sure what uncompetitive matchups/strategies Finch is referring to, so I won't touch on that, but I do agree with SS games feeling too repetitive at times. I think that at times it is just too difficult to make progress in games and games can be long and drawn-out with certain cycles repeating over and over again. I feel like this repetitive nature of SS OU was exemplified in this recent match between TPP and Lord_Enz in OST semifinals. Neither of these teams are stall, and in fact they each have some of the best breaking options in the tier in Tapu Lele, Heatran, and Kyurem, but still neither team loses a Pokemon until turn 181. I want to say that I don't think that it's inherently a bad thing that SS is a different meta in that its games tend to be slower and more deliberate, since it's good to have variety in the tiers, and although I tend to enjoy longer games, I've personally found myself becoming increasingly disinterested in SS. I tend to skip over watching most of the SS games from SPL and I don't play the tier much anymore, and I know that's become true for many other players as well. I think that some of the main reasons why it can be so hard to make progress in SS games is because of the diminished importance of hazards, the prevalence of Regenerator, and how easy/risk free positioning is with Teleport. I know that this thread can be very zealous to jump at the chance to take tiering action against aspects of the tier as a way to try to "fix" SS OU, but I don't really think that anything should or will ever be done to touch those three things. I could perhaps see a suspect test on Boots being warranted, but again, I'm fairly certain that that will never happen. So please don't take it that I'm suggesting that anything is really done about Boots, Regenerator, or Teleport, as they really are a big part of what makes SS unique, but I do want to discuss a little more how I feel like those three parts of the tier in conjunction make SS feel more repetitive to me. I know I've talked about these three things before, but I'm planning on stopping playing and posting much going forward, so I wanted to try to clearly get my thoughts about this out there one more time. I also apologize if this comes across as me just rambling and ranting about a tier, and I don't think that this post will be received too well, since most people who browse this thread probably do so because they enjoy the tier, but I just wanted to express my personal feelings about some frustrating parts of SS.

I sometimes see people erroneously claim that Boots are a good thing because they "fix" the overcentralizing nature of Rocks and use RBY as an example of a lack of hazards not necessarily leading to free switching. I think that both of these arguments are a little misguided. First, it's perfectly fine to think that Boots were a good decision because they make Rock-weak Pokemon more viable, and it's also reasonable to wish that Rocks were never introduced in DPP, but it's disingenuous to act like that's all that Boots do. Many of the biggest abusers of Boots in things like Slowking, Slowbro, Blissey, Zeraora, and Dragapult are not weak to Rocks and it's not like all Boots do is remove Stealth Rocks damage; they negate the impact of all hazards. Not having a consistent source of chip on Pokemon that switch into play can lead to instances where little or no progress is made against teams with solid defensive cores that switch into many threats, and it also prevents players from doing things like making double-switches to repeatedly rack up more chip damage against opposing Pokemon without allowing them an opportunity to heal. I feel like Boots simply removed a lot of the nuance from the game by making it irrelevant to some Pokemon if hazards are up or not. I also think that any comparison between SS and RBY is largely irrelevant, since they are obviously completely different games. Things like abilities (particularly Regenerator) did not exist in RBY, there wasn't as varied of a selection of Pokemon to use, and the crit, freeze, and sleep mechanics, along with some other mechanics, make RBY an extremely different game, and I think it's pointless to draw any comparisons to it. I also want to mention that it's not just Boots that limit the impact of hazards, but also how hazard removal is as easy as it's ever been, thanks in large part to Corviknight. I feel like Corviknight is easily one of the best, if not the best, Defoggers we've ever seen, and it keeps hazards off so reliably that they become an even smaller factor in some games (like the OST one that I linked to earlier).

Regenerator has always been a tremendous ability, but when combined with Boots, it allows Pokemon like Slowking/Slowbro and Tornadus-T to become even more difficult to make progress against. Obviously Toxapex is one of the premier Regenerator users, and Pex is and will always be great, but at least most Pex don't run Boots and can be vulnerable to hazards stacking. It sometimes feels very aggravating just trying to punish or wear down something like Torn or Slowking because they're able to freely come in regardless of how many hazards are up and pivot out to both gain momentum and regain health with Regenerator. In previous gens, hazards stacking was a reliable method to limit Regenerator's effectiveness, but that doesn't reliably work anymore. The pivoting capabilities of defensive Pokemon like Slowking brings me to the third thing that I feel like makes progress difficult to come by in SS, and that's Teleport.

Teleport has been widely discussed in SS since the days when Wish + Teleport Clef was on almost every team. I don't think that Teleport in itself is a problem, but again, when combined with Boots and/or Regenerator, it can make the pivoting of some defensive Pokemon like Slowking and Blissey feel too "free." I've heard some top players refer to SS as the "training wheels" generation and bemoan how easy it is to play. A competitive game being "easy" is always a little bit of a strange concept to me, since if it's easy for one player, it should be easy for their opponent as well, and then it's a level playing field. However, I feel like what is meant by SS being easy is that there are a lot of risk-free ways to position your Pokemon and make the "correct" plays. I already talked about how things like Boots and Regenerator can make switching in Pokemon risk-free, but defensive Pokemon getting guaranteed momentum with Teleport gives SS the easiest example of positioning of any Pokemon game. Things like Slowking/Slowbro and Blissey can switch into many Pokemon, not fear Rocks damage with Boots, regain health with Regenerator or ignore status with Natural Cure, and automatically make the correct switch-in after clicking Teleport. There really isn't any risk or difficult decision to be made by the player in instances like this. Even if the opponent doesn't attack into the Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey directly and opts to make a double-switch, it's not like Slowbro/Slowking or Blissey gets chipped by hazards when switching in, thanks to Boots. This leads to awkward scenarios where in order to force progress, players need to put themselves more at risk to make double-switches, and even then, if the opponent has a sturdy enough defensive core to answer what they double-switched into, they can just switch again without much repercussion. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make progress against defensive cores in SS, but I do feel at times that the risk-reward doesn't feel properly balanced when trying to make offensive progress.

I don't want to get sidetracked here by comparing SS to SM, so I won't spend much time on this, but I did hear ABR say during one of McMeghan's streams about how SS being so defensive is what happens when you remove Z-moves. I used to previously really dislike Z-moves, and I still have my problems with them, but I've grown to appreciate more how they can be used to force offensive progress by blowing holes in opposing teams. With that option being removed from SS, but many of the other strong defensive tools remaining (and some new ones being introduced), it does make sense how it could have added to SS becoming a slower and more defensive game.

In regards to potential retests, I do think that it's a good idea to test things and I don't think that suspect tests can ever really hurt a tier. I said before Cinderace was quick-banned that removing it from the tier could be detrimental, and I do think that testing it again could be a good thing to see how much of a difference Cinderace's inclusion in the tier makes on generating offensive progress, but the combination of things like Boots, Regenerator, and Teleport are still going to be prevalent and give SS its defensive qualities that have become somewhat defining of the tier at this point. However, as I said in the beginning of this post, these defensive qualities playing a huge role in SS is not really a bad thing. It's good for SS to have a unique feel to it, and it's kind of ironic that I'm lamenting the defensive nature of SS since I've also been annoyed before by how many people on Smogon are irrationally prejudiced against stall, but I think that stall isn't the problem in SS. That OST replay that I linked in the beginning didn't include stall teams, and it still exhibited the lack of offensive progress that I've talked about. I feel like often times, some Smogon users don't understand stall and just label anything remotely defensive as "stall," but I feel like the defining defensive attributes of SS are present in the vast majority of games in the tier, not just stall matchups.

So to conclude this, I'm sorry if this post just came across as me rambling or complaining about SS; I didn't intend to pointlessly do so. Instead, I wanted to share my personal perspective on why I've become more disillusioned with the tier. I don't think that the tier is in a bad spot and I agree with Finch's assessment of it being "good, but not great." It's good for SS to have a unique feeling to it and I don't feel like drastic tiering action should be considered to try to "fix" SS. I just wanted to get some thoughts out there one more time in a hopefully more complete manner, since I'm planning on not being too active going forward. I also understand that I'm just some guy and that my thoughts on the meta aren't particularly important, but I thought that I might be able to share sentiments that other people are also feeling or offer a different perspective that some people may not be as familiar with. Thanks to anyone who looked this over, and have a great day everyone!

I agree with most of what you said here and feel pretty similar about the metagame, which is why I keep taking breaks from PS this gen.
I don't think the current metagame is in a state where tiering action should be considered against the things you mentioned / discussed.
The IoA-Meta for example was in a way worse state as far as I'm concerned, tour replays from that period were straight up unwatchable imo.
Letting the meta develop more and potentially test Zamazenta is a course of action, I'd definetely support right now.

However if this "defensive" state of the meta keeps getting worse, the first thing I would consider for suspects etc. is not Boots and definetly not Teleport but Regenerator. Boots and Teleport are imo just what made a potential unhealthy aspect, that was there since Gen 5, a lot worse.
With Knock Off being this present and Teleport seeing this little use on mons aside from the Slowtwins and Blissey, I just have a hard time seeing them as potential problems.

The thing is that 6v6 singles has always been an extremely switch-heavy metagame (which is why I think an ability that gives you health on switch has always had the potential to be problematic), it's one of - if not the - central aspect of the game, that is why hazards have always been a key factor as well to limit and punish opposing switch-ins. However you still had to find the opportunities to set up these hazards and stop your opponent from removing them. In general there was always a lot of room during the game and in the builder to adequately deal with hazards and with the introduction of Defog and its increasing distribution it actually improved throughout the last gens imo.

With Regen mons it feels like the opposite, in Gen 7 we got an other very good and extremely centralizing Regen mon with Toxapex and in Gen 8 we got Boots and Teleport. The ways to combat and punish Regen have always been very limited and Boots and Teleport limited even further. The most frustrating part are the more and more common situations where you even know the opponent will switch / Teleport to get Regen but you also know that you absolutely no way of stopping them from doing that. This goes to show that the risk vs reward of this game mechanic is extremely skewed in favour of the Regen user. It's no coincidence that some of the Regen mons will always find their way to the top of OU and it's also no coincidence that we've even seen ppl use Mono-Regen teams, I even recall someone getting reqs with 5 of them + Ditto iirc.

Thankfully there are still things in the tier that give these Regen mons a hard time (like Pex who has fallen off significantly compared to IoA) and these mons ofc also have flaws that hold them back, even if it's just the accuracy of its strongest stab like in Torn's case lol
I still think the mechanic itself is easily borderline unhealthy and definetely has the potential to become problematic down the road.