Problem with banning teleport is that, the move isn’t broken. It’s broken with other moves which is the problem, if teleport was broken, then wouldn’t all other pivot moves be broken, (ik teleport has the no risk negative priority) teleport isn’t banworthy as a move is what I’m tryna say. It’s banworthy with these other moves, that are all banworthy with each other but not alone, which is why I believe a twins ban would be better. On your zama point, nothing is ever banned for something to be unbanned, overall you can’t really ban a move that isn’t broken, because it’s broken with other moves, that’s why I’m more leaning towards a twins ban.
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Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
The problem its the COMBINATION OF INSANE POWERFULL WALLBRAKERS AND DEFENSIVE MONS WITH INSANITY UTILITY. Slowking wasn't a problem in RU and UU before it raised to OU but the fact that this tier is full of the best wallbreakers in the game makes easier for this problem to get bigger.
Its more complex than people are thinking, banning the wallbreakers is always the first thing that comes in mind (see what all the previous banned pokemons have in common) but banning defensive/utility mons needs always a big push since they act differently from what we always had to deal (mega Sableye in gen6, Pex on 7(not banned but extremally controversial)). Those mons are the glue that holds the tier and we can say that right know, no others aren't doing that better then SlowBros.
Future Sight isn't broken, Teleport isn't and Regenerator isn't too (a lot of players will heavily disagree here), Slowbro and Slowking are the only ones that can use those abilities together but are those mons broken, are they making other mons broken, are they being make broken by other mons or are the state of the metagame that allows those abilities when combine to other factors become broken?
The council and the community really needs to evaluate this with careful, i would say that banning the twins would be the best way of fixing the problem, but Cindarece, Spectrier and Ushifu should receive a retest since there bans was influenced by Future Sight (a.k.a Slowbro).
We can always wait, but this problem has been out for more than a year and every time the meta settles those factor become broken again.
Its more complex than people are thinking, banning the wallbreakers is always the first thing that comes in mind (see what all the previous banned pokemons have in common) but banning defensive/utility mons needs always a big push since they act differently from what we always had to deal (mega Sableye in gen6, Pex on 7(not banned but extremally controversial)). Those mons are the glue that holds the tier and we can say that right know, no others aren't doing that better then SlowBros.
Future Sight isn't broken, Teleport isn't and Regenerator isn't too (a lot of players will heavily disagree here), Slowbro and Slowking are the only ones that can use those abilities together but are those mons broken, are they making other mons broken, are they being make broken by other mons or are the state of the metagame that allows those abilities when combine to other factors become broken?
The council and the community really needs to evaluate this with careful, i would say that banning the twins would be the best way of fixing the problem, but Cindarece, Spectrier and Ushifu should receive a retest since there bans was influenced by Future Sight (a.k.a Slowbro).
We can always wait, but this problem has been out for more than a year and every time the meta settles those factor become broken again.
I do agree, my entire point was the things alone arnt broken, but combined they are. I could defo see a fsightless cinderace unban (not keen on spect or urshi tho) but this shouldn’t be a reason to ban them nonetheless. Broken mons typically are offensive powerhouses and people rarely focus on the defensive backbones allowing these “broken” mons to shine. Nothing that slowking has is broken by itself, but it’s the combination that makes it banworthy imo.
I'd like to make something clear regarding FS, teleport and regenerator. If you wish to ban a single one of them you won't succeed, bc there are users of each of those abilities/moves that are not broken. There are also users of combinations of those abilities/moves that are not broken.
FS + Teleport - Alakazam, xatu, gardevoir
FS + Regenerator - Galar slowtwins, reuniclus
Teleport + regenerator however, is unique to slowking, slowbro and slowpoke. I believe it is worth looking into a suspect test for teleport + regenerator bc of how obviously centralising its affect on OU is. Such a ban would not affect lower tiers either, since the slowtwins are both in OU already, and LC has its own ruleset and banlist.
Talk of banning FS, teleport, regenerator or any combination of them besides teleport + regenerator is, in my opinion, misguided and realistically a suspect for those things would not happen bc of the fact that there are users of those abilites/moves that are not broken.
I understand that I have given very little reasoning behind this suggestion for a teleport + regenerator ban, but ppl have expressed my exact thoughts on this thread multiple times over the past few months, so it seems pointless to repeat them.
Edit: You could also argue that Teleport + future sight + regenerator is what's actually broken. And tbh I don't think I could argue with that. The only problem I can see with that is 'complex bans bad'. But the main purpose of this post was to clarify that the individual moves/abilities and some combinations of them are not broken and it's not worth discussing a potential ban for them.
FS + Teleport - Alakazam, xatu, gardevoir
FS + Regenerator - Galar slowtwins, reuniclus
Teleport + regenerator however, is unique to slowking, slowbro and slowpoke. I believe it is worth looking into a suspect test for teleport + regenerator bc of how obviously centralising its affect on OU is. Such a ban would not affect lower tiers either, since the slowtwins are both in OU already, and LC has its own ruleset and banlist.
Talk of banning FS, teleport, regenerator or any combination of them besides teleport + regenerator is, in my opinion, misguided and realistically a suspect for those things would not happen bc of the fact that there are users of those abilites/moves that are not broken.
I understand that I have given very little reasoning behind this suggestion for a teleport + regenerator ban, but ppl have expressed my exact thoughts on this thread multiple times over the past few months, so it seems pointless to repeat them.
Edit: You could also argue that Teleport + future sight + regenerator is what's actually broken. And tbh I don't think I could argue with that. The only problem I can see with that is 'complex bans bad'. But the main purpose of this post was to clarify that the individual moves/abilities and some combinations of them are not broken and it's not worth discussing a potential ban for them.
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I'm unsure the council is thinking about banning anything related to the teleport/regenerator/slowtwins/future sight shenanigans, but if they are, I feel like the only options for discussion are either "ban both slowtwins" or "ban one and see what happens". Banning the moves seems counterintuitive due to how many pokémon learn them and aren't broken (ditto with regenerator), and banning teleport + future sight seems too much of an unnecessary complex ban.
Can’t speak for council, but I personally find Teleport to be one of the worst facets of the metagame.
Not in a position to expand much more, but I think it would make more sense to discuss than the move Future Sight or either of Slowbro/Slowking. I do not think it is likely anything is acted on currently though.
Not in a position to expand much more, but I think it would make more sense to discuss than the move Future Sight or either of Slowbro/Slowking. I do not think it is likely anything is acted on currently though.
I've seen this sentiment of "Teleport is the problem" pop up in various places and it always strikes me as bizarre. Teleport does not seem remotely problematic to me on any mon other than the Slowtwins, as on any other mon clicking Teleport comes with the cost of potentially having to eat a hit without being able to Regen it off. At most, other mons with the combination of Future Sight + Teleport could be deemed problematic as a slow pivot greatly adds to the effect of Future Sight, but having played lower tiers where this strategy was viable for a while on mons like Exeggutor and Beheeyem, I can't really say it struck me as a severe issue in those cases. Would Slowking/Slowbro be significantly worse had they gotten, say, Flip Turn instead of Teleport? I doubt it. If anything it would just mean they can deal some chip damage and ignore Heatran's Taunt. To state that there is something wrong with Teleport in particular would require a lot more explanation than I typically get when people make this suggestion.
To me it seems like it is either the specific combination of Future Sight+Regenerator+pivoting move(+Boots) that is broken, meaning a ban on the Slowtwins would have to be considered - I don't really play OU so I'll leave that up to the discretion of those with more experience - or one of these components (or a combination thereof) is the problem and would require a complex ban. I would argue the combination of pivoting move + Boots or Regenerator (individually or in tandem with Boots) are vastly more problematic as mechanics than Teleport specifically, as it has been demonstrated throughout practically all tiers (and in Regen's case, throughout generations) that it is incredibly free to i.e. click U-Turn with a faster mon or switch a Regen mon out as you don't have to worry about chip damage accumulating over the course of the match. It does not require a lot of skill and is, in my opinion, not particularly competitive as a result. Naturally in Regen's case we have to consider the fact that the upper tiers would likely crumble defensively because power creep makes it harder every generation for the defensive metagame to keep up with the offensive metagame, so I'm not advocating for a ban here (for the moment), but if we're talking about moves/abilities/items that might be deemed unhealthy, it would make a lot more sense to talk about something like this than about Teleport in particular - unless of course you take the stance that pivoting moves as a whole are uncompetitive, which I would personally not agree with unless we are talking specifically about the combination of Boots + pivoting moves. In any case, this position would at least be consistent.
On top of the negative priority, I think the other thing that makes Teleport so good is that, on the right mon, it can't really be punished in the same way as other pivoting moves.
U-turn is resisted by a lot of types and can be directly punished via Rocky Helmet and abilities like Iron Barbs/Rough Skin and Flame Body. Volt Switch can be punished since it can be blocked altogether by Ground types. Flip Turn has the same Helmet and ability weakness as U-turn, plus several abilities that blank Water moves. Parting Shot is shut down by Taunt and can be flipped on the user by mons with Magic Bounce (plus all the mons that get it are niche at best in OU). And then there's Teleport.
The obvious downside of switching out at negative priority is that the opponent basically gets a free hit off; however, all the OU Teleporters have ways to negate this and/or perks that outway this downside. Slowtwins can actively heal off this damage when they switch out, Clefable has both Wish and Soft-Boiled to keep healthy and doesn't have to worry about passive damage thanks to Magic Guard, and Blissey- is Blissey. Also, their typings don't share any weakness (aside from Slowtwins), so many mons that can counter one Teleporter may not be able to do so for the others (Kartana and Bisharp can reliably smash through all 4, but that's kind of it). This means Taunt is the only truly reliable way to punish Teleport as a whole- one move. One move may be naturally harder to slot onto teams compared to "a Ground type" or "a Rocky Helmet user" (also several "punish contact" mons are some of the naturally best in the meta). And from what I can tell, Taunt does not seem to be the most common move ATM- at present Heatran is the only OU mon that seems to commonly run it. And while Heatran can potentially 1v1 all these mons with TrapTaunt, it's not necessarily the most reliable counter to any of them (it is a special attacker relying on passive damage that's weak to Scald).
If there is a problem with Teleport in and of itself, I think that problem is that the rest of the meta is not naturally conducive to countering it. There are more than a few OU mons that learn Taunt, and yet most of them don't use it because they have more appealing options; stallbreaking evidently just isn't popular in the meta right now. Which is odd considering just how many defensive staples are running around; you'd think Taunt would be naturally great in a meta like this (especially with Magic Bouncers being niche at best). So what is it about current OU that makes Taunt so thoroughly unpopular? As for breakers, we have already established that most breakers can't really break all 4 of the abusers reliably; the meta is naturally primed for Clef, Slows and to a lesser extent Bliss to be dominant.
Now, I agree that Teleport itself is not an issue. Rather, the issue is that the mons that viably run Teleport in OU are naturally very good at abusing it, especially the Slowtwins. I'm not really sure what could be done here; sure, Taunt actually getting used might stem this issue that many have, but considering it's one move that probably wouldn't hurt the Teleporters' viability that much. None of the individual parts of Slows are problematic, and as I said in a previous post most of the physical attackers have some way around them, but you may still need to run the right set and get those breakers in at the right time. So, the only suggestion I can think of: run Taunt. Even aside from countering Teleport, I think Taunt is undertested in the current environment, and that maybe we should at least see if it might be a viable strategy on more mons. Even if Taunt has issues, it might at least benefit the meta if we can explicitly determine what those issues are. Because the way it stands, Taunt is probably our best answer for Teleport.
U-turn is resisted by a lot of types and can be directly punished via Rocky Helmet and abilities like Iron Barbs/Rough Skin and Flame Body. Volt Switch can be punished since it can be blocked altogether by Ground types. Flip Turn has the same Helmet and ability weakness as U-turn, plus several abilities that blank Water moves. Parting Shot is shut down by Taunt and can be flipped on the user by mons with Magic Bounce (plus all the mons that get it are niche at best in OU). And then there's Teleport.
The obvious downside of switching out at negative priority is that the opponent basically gets a free hit off; however, all the OU Teleporters have ways to negate this and/or perks that outway this downside. Slowtwins can actively heal off this damage when they switch out, Clefable has both Wish and Soft-Boiled to keep healthy and doesn't have to worry about passive damage thanks to Magic Guard, and Blissey- is Blissey. Also, their typings don't share any weakness (aside from Slowtwins), so many mons that can counter one Teleporter may not be able to do so for the others (Kartana and Bisharp can reliably smash through all 4, but that's kind of it). This means Taunt is the only truly reliable way to punish Teleport as a whole- one move. One move may be naturally harder to slot onto teams compared to "a Ground type" or "a Rocky Helmet user" (also several "punish contact" mons are some of the naturally best in the meta). And from what I can tell, Taunt does not seem to be the most common move ATM- at present Heatran is the only OU mon that seems to commonly run it. And while Heatran can potentially 1v1 all these mons with TrapTaunt, it's not necessarily the most reliable counter to any of them (it is a special attacker relying on passive damage that's weak to Scald).
If there is a problem with Teleport in and of itself, I think that problem is that the rest of the meta is not naturally conducive to countering it. There are more than a few OU mons that learn Taunt, and yet most of them don't use it because they have more appealing options; stallbreaking evidently just isn't popular in the meta right now. Which is odd considering just how many defensive staples are running around; you'd think Taunt would be naturally great in a meta like this (especially with Magic Bouncers being niche at best). So what is it about current OU that makes Taunt so thoroughly unpopular? As for breakers, we have already established that most breakers can't really break all 4 of the abusers reliably; the meta is naturally primed for Clef, Slows and to a lesser extent Bliss to be dominant.
Now, I agree that Teleport itself is not an issue. Rather, the issue is that the mons that viably run Teleport in OU are naturally very good at abusing it, especially the Slowtwins. I'm not really sure what could be done here; sure, Taunt actually getting used might stem this issue that many have, but considering it's one move that probably wouldn't hurt the Teleporters' viability that much. None of the individual parts of Slows are problematic, and as I said in a previous post most of the physical attackers have some way around them, but you may still need to run the right set and get those breakers in at the right time. So, the only suggestion I can think of: run Taunt. Even aside from countering Teleport, I think Taunt is undertested in the current environment, and that maybe we should at least see if it might be a viable strategy on more mons. Even if Taunt has issues, it might at least benefit the meta if we can explicitly determine what those issues are. Because the way it stands, Taunt is probably our best answer for Teleport.
I agree, Teleport is not an issue on mond that don't have regen and/or future sight. Slowtwins are the biggest abuser but teleport in itself is a non-issue, as few pokemon can make use of it as a viable move.
IMO, the slowtwins are totally fine. The power of their future sight+teleport combination, while certainly very strong and meta defining, is nowhere near broken in my view. Teleport and Future Sight, while powerful, are in my opinion completely OK, and indeed are why I enjoy this metagame far more than previous ones.
I think that talking about broken or not broken for defensive Pokemon is kind of off topic, singularly no moves or abilities are that oppressive, at least not like broken offensive ones who can just make holes in a team, here the question is: "are they healthy or not healthy for the game ?" and that comes with so much subjectivity that it's impossible to get a valid reason to ban such things.
Me for example I just hate regenerator, since the boots are here it's just too easy to get a free switch in, leave and heal up, but that's me, some will say it's the boots, some the mon, a never ending debate who leads toward players growing discontent, and that's the core, what players feel and want should be resolved by players words.
I think we should do a "meta suspect test" or something like that, maybe by changing the requirements and maybe on regular basis, and then players would vote on different matters, just like we did with the survey some time ago, I really thing it's the only way to make real choices on these gray area matters and make a meta who fits players wishes.
Me for example I just hate regenerator, since the boots are here it's just too easy to get a free switch in, leave and heal up, but that's me, some will say it's the boots, some the mon, a never ending debate who leads toward players growing discontent, and that's the core, what players feel and want should be resolved by players words.
I think we should do a "meta suspect test" or something like that, maybe by changing the requirements and maybe on regular basis, and then players would vote on different matters, just like we did with the survey some time ago, I really thing it's the only way to make real choices on these gray area matters and make a meta who fits players wishes.
Red Raven
I COULD BE BANNED!
I think banning the regular Slowtwins because of their access to future sight, teleport and regenerator would be a mistake. They're really good defensive staples and banning them would make all the monsters in the tier absolute nightmare. Anyway, I'll give my thoughts on these three individually and then the Slowtwins
Future sight is rather okay. It's actually a move you can get punished if you time it wrong but it does make the added pressure of an incoming attack somewhat irritating. It does have the downside that this leaves the mon vulnerable on the turn it uses the move, meaning it can die then and there. All in all, I don't think it is banworthy. Annoying, yes and I wouldn't mind seeing it go but in how we define banworthy, it doesn't fit
Regenerator, I think it is absolutely needed. Yes it does make someone like Tornadus somewhat ridiculous but in the long run, we need this otherwise the monsters in the tier will just hit you with one strong move, retreat and finish the job at a more opportune time. Entry hazards are still a thing and not all mons use the motherfucking boots, which means that spike stacking can be devastating. While I find playing against regenerator incredibly irritating, it is manageable enough. We have a lot of mons that can brute force their way thru regenerator mons. Garchomp can just double sd to power thru Slowbro or worse yet turn it into scale shot fodder. Tornadus can do the same and ensure that Slowking cannot bother it. In short, we need regenerator or the tier's heavy hitters would just be ridiculous
Teleport, I think this is bullshit. My hot take on this is that it drastically reduces the skill ceiling of the game. I really shouldn't talk about skill since I don't even want to go higher than 1500 elo but even here in the mid ladder, this move is just ridiculous. The only way to punish teleport is with taunt and not every taunt using pokemon can fit taunt in its moveset, not all the time anyway. The ability to just gain momentum unless the mon you're currently facing has taunt is just plain stupid. Unlike volt switch, u and flip turns, these three actually require you to predict what you will do. For example, if a Tornadus uses u turn and the opponent stays, now the Tornadus player has to take a risk because it is possible that the player is sending the next pokemon to its death or be crippled. The same goes for flip turn. Volt switch can even be blocked entirely by ground types. Teleport on the other hand, is near risk free. The only real risk is if the mon you're currently facing off against can kill you on that turn, which doesn't always happen and teleport always forces your opponent to reveal his hand before you do. My biggest issue with teleport and the reason why I say it reduces the skill ceiling is how near brainless it is to click. I mean, when using the other switch moves, you still have to do some deal of prediction like how Rotom has to choose between clicking volt switch or hydro pump but with teleport, there is almost no prediction required because you will see what your opponent plans to do and respond accordingly. Basically it gives one an advantage that they really shouldn't have had or they don't deserve because they didn't play their cards that well. It shifts the switch advantage back to the player lagging behind even if that player was outplayed and sometimes, that one shift might be all that player needs to turn the tide of the battle
Now, all in all, I think we should ban, or at the very least, discuss teleport. Don't get me wrong, this entire combination is stupid but I'm not particularly sure if a complex ban is a good idea. I mean Finch and BKC did say there was a lot of drama after the drizzle and swift swim ban in gen five in their two hour long podcast so I don't think anyone would want drama. If everyone is alright with having drama then by all means, ban this dumbass combination. Nothing would make me happier, except for banning boots, and I'm not being sarcastic. I used to be on the train to ban future sight but after playing for a few more months, it's not particularly bad. I mean, between teleport and future sight, fs has a higher risk in using than teleport and I already gave my thoughts on why banning regenerator would make the tier worse
About boots, you already know what I think of boots so I won't bother with it
If any of the council ends up reading this post, after the Zama suspect, would it be a good idea to have another survey? Not about specific mons but about specific mechanics. Like how do people feel about stuff like knock off or boots or teleport individually
Future sight is rather okay. It's actually a move you can get punished if you time it wrong but it does make the added pressure of an incoming attack somewhat irritating. It does have the downside that this leaves the mon vulnerable on the turn it uses the move, meaning it can die then and there. All in all, I don't think it is banworthy. Annoying, yes and I wouldn't mind seeing it go but in how we define banworthy, it doesn't fit
Regenerator, I think it is absolutely needed. Yes it does make someone like Tornadus somewhat ridiculous but in the long run, we need this otherwise the monsters in the tier will just hit you with one strong move, retreat and finish the job at a more opportune time. Entry hazards are still a thing and not all mons use the motherfucking boots, which means that spike stacking can be devastating. While I find playing against regenerator incredibly irritating, it is manageable enough. We have a lot of mons that can brute force their way thru regenerator mons. Garchomp can just double sd to power thru Slowbro or worse yet turn it into scale shot fodder. Tornadus can do the same and ensure that Slowking cannot bother it. In short, we need regenerator or the tier's heavy hitters would just be ridiculous
Teleport, I think this is bullshit. My hot take on this is that it drastically reduces the skill ceiling of the game. I really shouldn't talk about skill since I don't even want to go higher than 1500 elo but even here in the mid ladder, this move is just ridiculous. The only way to punish teleport is with taunt and not every taunt using pokemon can fit taunt in its moveset, not all the time anyway. The ability to just gain momentum unless the mon you're currently facing has taunt is just plain stupid. Unlike volt switch, u and flip turns, these three actually require you to predict what you will do. For example, if a Tornadus uses u turn and the opponent stays, now the Tornadus player has to take a risk because it is possible that the player is sending the next pokemon to its death or be crippled. The same goes for flip turn. Volt switch can even be blocked entirely by ground types. Teleport on the other hand, is near risk free. The only real risk is if the mon you're currently facing off against can kill you on that turn, which doesn't always happen and teleport always forces your opponent to reveal his hand before you do. My biggest issue with teleport and the reason why I say it reduces the skill ceiling is how near brainless it is to click. I mean, when using the other switch moves, you still have to do some deal of prediction like how Rotom has to choose between clicking volt switch or hydro pump but with teleport, there is almost no prediction required because you will see what your opponent plans to do and respond accordingly. Basically it gives one an advantage that they really shouldn't have had or they don't deserve because they didn't play their cards that well. It shifts the switch advantage back to the player lagging behind even if that player was outplayed and sometimes, that one shift might be all that player needs to turn the tide of the battle
Now, all in all, I think we should ban, or at the very least, discuss teleport. Don't get me wrong, this entire combination is stupid but I'm not particularly sure if a complex ban is a good idea. I mean Finch and BKC did say there was a lot of drama after the drizzle and swift swim ban in gen five in their two hour long podcast so I don't think anyone would want drama. If everyone is alright with having drama then by all means, ban this dumbass combination. Nothing would make me happier, except for banning boots, and I'm not being sarcastic. I used to be on the train to ban future sight but after playing for a few more months, it's not particularly bad. I mean, between teleport and future sight, fs has a higher risk in using than teleport and I already gave my thoughts on why banning regenerator would make the tier worse
About boots, you already know what I think of boots so I won't bother with it
If any of the council ends up reading this post, after the Zama suspect, would it be a good idea to have another survey? Not about specific mons but about specific mechanics. Like how do people feel about stuff like knock off or boots or teleport individually
I’ll bring it up come time for the next survey, but we had two recently, so it may wait a little bit, especially as it’s likely we give the metagame some time to settle once the Zamazenta-C test ends. But yea, I’ll keep an open mind to including anything that isn’t a complex ban in the survey — we already have a PR thread on boots, this thread open for discussion of some other topics, and so on, too. Just know that for sure no complex bans, they will not be happening.
I have to agree. It just lets you bring in whatever pokemon you want safely, risk free. And on mons with regenerator it's even worse. Doesn't mean it's broken or should be banned necessarily, but it definitely lowers the skill ceiling for the game.
I disagree with Teleport being broken - i think its purely the combo with Regenerator. Thats not to say that I advocate for a complex ban, but just an observation.
I've seen Teleport mons such as Arcanine and even Claydol in battle who were far from broken, as Regenerator wasn't there to push it over the edge.
I've seen Teleport mons such as Arcanine and even Claydol in battle who were far from broken, as Regenerator wasn't there to push it over the edge.
positionally, teleport does allow some good momentum from a defensive position. but i think its abit too skilless and easy for players to exploit with regen cores and doesnt reward the players who play with an aggressive style
I disagree with this point, as I feel that FuturePort is most abusable on bulky offense structures, particularly with the duo of Slowking and Urshifu.
We have already established what the Slowtwins do in OU - click Future Sight, then teleport out to bring in a breaker safely and regenerate health back. While this strategy has been seen in previous generations with the "slow u-turn" concept, Teleport takes this further, as even the slowest Pokemon cannot attempt to punish this switch with a status ailment, knock off, or strong attack onto the breaker. Slowking is a great partner for Urshifu, who can tank strong special hits that threaten the bear, and is the most popular Slowtwin variant in OU as a result.
Once the breaker is actually in, it is very difficult for the opponent to position themselves favorably. One strategy I have seen employed to counteract Future Sight is with Protect - while FS does hit through protect, bulky Psychic resists and Dark types take little to no damage from the move, and Protect allows you to avoid taking damage from the breaker's attack. This is useful when paired with a defensive pivot like Toxapex, who does not take FS well but can switch in and check most of the physical metagame with Rocky Helmet the following turn.
Slowking + Urshifu nullifies this, as Unseen Fist causes contact moves to hit through Protect, forcing the target to always take an attack from (usually Choice Banded) Urshifu in addition to a 120 BP Future Sight. This has led to the increased centralization of the defensive metagame towards the Slowtwins themselves, as the only viable Pokemon that can realistically stomach this combination are Slowbro, physically defensive Slowking, and physically defensive Dragonite with Multiscale intact. When you factor in how hard it is to actually punish this sequence of plays (good luck actually Knocking Off Slowking's boots against a competent player), it is unsurprising to me that people are looking at Teleport as the issue.
One Mon I'm surprised I haven't seen much chat about is Unaware Clefable. I think this mon single handedly puts massive strain on the entire metagame and forces teams to run certain mons. When I'm creating a team, I always have to consider how I'm going to beat Unaware Clefable, and to a lesser extent Quagsire. Clef with it's ability to remove status through Heal Bell and boost up alongside, and simply ignore opposing special sweepers is an entirely different animal to the Quagsire and Unaware Clef teams of the past that had to run Wish. Clef fits on non stall teams now too. CM Unaware Clef is even able to overcome ratchet sets like Stored Power Latias, Galarian Slowbro and Reuniclus since it ignores the CM Boosts and just beats them 1v1 with its own Calm Minds.
The Bold 252HP/252Def set with Moonblast/Softboiled/Heal Bell/Calm Mind is able to 1v1 huge swathes of the OU metagame including huge threats like Dragapult, Dragonite, Hydreigon, Garchomp, Hawlucha, Kyurem, SD Rillaboom, Koko, Torn, Volcarona, as well as any non Choice Band or Specs user. If you don't have a super effective move to hit it with - which leaves you with moves like Gunk Shot, Poison Jab and Iron Head it can often just be impossible to beat. It beats so many setup mons, that if you're facing an Unaware Clef with one, you're essentially playing 5vs6 since the Unaware Clef user can always go to Clef to simply Softboiled off any damage and threaten a sweep of its own with Calm Mind. Even special poison types like Gengar and Nidoking can't switch in and beat it if it gets the jump on you by Calm Minding on the switch. Bulkier setup mons like Tapu Fini, Moltres Galar, and Tapu Bulu are just as useless against it.
The days of breaking through stall via a well crafted setup opportunity are well and truly over now that Unaware Clef has Softboiled to spam to beat them. You're left with Steel type physical setup sweepers like SD Kart, Scizor, Bisharp, and Aegislash if you truly want to beat a well crafted stall team now, but it's not like these teams won't be running Iron Defence Skarm/Corv to just switch in and counter you. Other non steel type physical boosting mons just don't cut it.
I'm convinced that Unaware Clef is at least part of the reason why the metagame is now so dominated by Choice Banded and Choice Specs breakers, because what's the point in running Bulk Up Zeraora or DD Dragapult or Clang Kommo-o, or insert any other mon that requires multiple boosts to win a game. If the opponent is using Unaware Clef you will never execute a sweep that you've positioned yourself for, over the course of a long, drawn out SWSH game. I've lost count of the amount of games I've played against opponents who've cocked up, and really deserve to be swept for making poor plays, only for them to be bailed out by Unaware Clef completely negating any progress I thought I might have made. It makes the setup mon you have made pretty useless for the rest of the game too.
I know it has flaws - it can take passive damage and loses to some staples like Heatran, Ferrothorn, Melmetal etc, but that is what your team mates are for.
I would go as far as saying Unaware Clef makes many games pretty uncompetitive, and would be interested to see if anyone else shares the same opinion.
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If Teleport is the issue, then why is it a normal and not overpowered part of like every other metagame? I don't think anything in any other tier has ever gotten banned due to access to Teleport (it could have happened once or twice that I'm not aware of, but it's at least rare). Plenty of mons have access to it, and a good chunk of them never even use it. You'll see Teleport on defensive pivot sets on mons like Arcanine and Porygon2. Beheeyem sometimes uses Future Sight+Teleport. Xatu runs it on screens or sometimes pivot sets. Wigglytuff can WishPort. It exists on mons like Gardevoir and Magmortar and Starmie, which could use it to capitalize on forced switches, but they never run it. Blissey likes to use it. Clefable, one of the best mons in OU, gets Teleport and runs it quite rarely.
What is the common thread between all of these mons? Teleport breaks none of them. If the move is broken, shouldn't other mons that get the move be broken? Shouldn't more mons that get it at least actually run it? It exists as a normal and healthy part of lower tiers and even OU, with the only two arguable exceptions being the slow twins.
If you're gonna ban something, ban the slow twins. The collateral damage of a Teleport ban would be significant, and Teleport is not broken.
Edit: Future sight also exists on a plethora of non-broken mons. Most mons that get it don't even run it. There are even quite a few non-slow twin Future Sight+Teleport users, and none of them are even good, much less broken, even within their own tiers. Don't ban Future Sight either.
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I really think that if we're going by the option that gives the least collateral damage, we should ban Future Sight. The slowtwins are incredible defensive Pokémon that keep some of the top threats in check. Teleport is a really widespread move whose ban would without a doubt hurt a lot of Pokémon. And then there's Future Sight, who is used by around 2 mons without counting the slowtwins, as the combination of Regenerator + Teleport is really neccessary to make full use of the move. It seems to me what should be banned in this situation (if anything should be at all) is clearly Future Sight.
I mean, Slowking-Galar noticeably uses it, plus a plethora of lower tier pokemon, so...
IMO neither of these should be banned, but if they are to be banned the pokemon are the element to be targeted
Longtime lurker here, since late gen 4/early gen 5 (but I only became an ok player in gen 6 lol), I made an account recently to respond to the OU player surveys (I’m super grateful to the council for that initiative by the way, it lets people like me who don’t like posting publicly to contribute to the development of the tier, thank you!). I am a casual player who often dips in and out of Showdown, but I usually manage to play in the 1700-1900+ range on the ladder (I’m not saying this to brag, I know I would probably suck in tourney and you can get away with so much matchup-fishy/gimmicky garbage on the ladder lol, I just want to impress upon you that my opinion isn’t terribly uninformed, despite this being my first public post).
Anyway, I was going to post in the Zama discussion thread since I just managed to get reqs, but I saw this ongoing teleport/slowtwin discussion and I had to weigh in, because I have some strong feelings here and right now there is no clear consensus on what to do.
I actually have been a major fan of the OU tier since the mag/cinderace bans. In fact, while this might be an unpopular opinion, I think the last time I liked the current gen OU meta this much was in ORAS. However, if I do have two complaints with this tier as it stands, it is 1) the often sluggish pace of games due to constant pivoting with regenerator mons and heavy duty boots, and 2) the problematic regenerator+future sight+teleport slowtwin strategies. Of these two, the first point is more about personal preference than something truly being “broken,” I think, but the slowtwin issue is more controversial, as this thread is showing.
As many have noted here, the difficulty with this regenfutureport combo is that it is not clear what the most broken aspect is. A lot of people have already weighed in on this, but I hope you will indulge me if I throw my hat into the ring here:
1) Teleport: I am leading with this because there has been some anti-teleport sentiment here which I disagree with strongly. Throughout DLC2, I have quite enjoyed using teleport on clefable and blissey in the high ladder, despite it being less common, especially on clefable. I think both of these mons present balanced applications of this pivoting option. Especially with clefable, you need to stay at a decently high HP to properly wall attackers, and teleport offers a skillful tradeoff here: call your opponent’s switch/weak u-turn and get a free pivot, but you risk taking a stronger hit that will hurt your defensive viability in the future. Because these guys lack regen, it is a lot more difficult to find an opportunity to heal, since you can’t just call an easy switch and immediately double out, you have to commit to staying in for a turn to use a healing move. Not to mention the rarer beneficiaries of teleport like porygon2 and xatu. Sure some of these guys can be viable but they aren’t broken. What makes teleport annoying on the slowtwins is that it essentially doubles as a healing move due to regenerator.
Additionally, (and this is a small amount of theorymonning here, apologies for that), I also want to reiterate the fact that, as many here have stated, if the slowtwins received a pivot move like flip turn instead of teleport, the same effect would likely occur. Maybe Zapdos might become a better switch in to threaten static on contact, and maybe you would see stuff like storm drain Gastrodon rise as a check, but at the same time the slowtwins would fare much better against heatran and taunt, and would gain the ability to pivot while holding an assault vest if they so chose to enhance their bulk. Also, while much has been made about the negative priority of teleport, given that the only things in OU naturally slower than the slowtwins is ferrothorn, in practice most of the time you use teleport it functionally moves at the time as flip turn would (one other exception to this is on trick room teams but if something is breaking teleport, it’s not trick room lol).
So yeah, I think it is clear that teleport is not in itself a big deal, and on a personal note pls don’t takeaway teleport on clef and blissey they are my teleporting children I beg you lol.
2) Regenerator: In my perfect pokemon world, I would nerf this ability to only heal ~20%, but obviously we can’t do that. I do suspect personally that regen as a whole is not a healthy thing for the metagame. Flexxen has an early post in this thread that convinced me on this, which I recommend reading. It is just so risk free to just pivot in a bulky mon, take a few hits, and find an opportunity to come in relatively risk free later and heal up again. However, while I dislike it, I would not call it broken in the slightest. Many defensive regen mons, while threatening with knock or status, are not terribly hard to switch into, and despite heavy duty boots, several mons (like Pex) opt not to run them or can be feasibly knocked off, at which point good hazard management and aggressive play can handle them. Torn-T is in its own category here, it kinda scares me honestly, but hurricane is the kind of move which is 90% accurate when your opponent has it and 50% accurate when you have it lmao, so I hesitate to call it a broken regen abuser.
3) Future Sight: I don’t really like future sight on principle since it has been buffed. Keeping a 120 BP move waiting in the wings for a combined assault is pretty crazy. That said, galarian slowking is a common but manageable future sight mon, and I have actually seen a cool amount of experimentation with this move, namely on latias and lele, plus there is that Godstall AV reuniclus regen future sight set which I think is pretty cool. These are rare but viable abusers of the move that can catch someone off guard and threaten a KO, but I don’t think they are broken. Obviously, the only problematic users of this attack are the slowtwins, due to the free pivot of teleport.
Ok, with that out of the way, let’s get into the slowtwins themselves. I have gone back and forth on this a lot, because as defensive pivots, I quite like the two of them. It’s future sight that pushes them over the edge. You can argue that what breaks the slowtwins is not future sight but the breakers who abuse it themselves. This is a reasonable stance, given that in the lower tiers, slowking did not present this issue when it was there. Obviously, to make future sight work you need the strong attackers which are mostly housed in OU. Prior to the magearna/cinderace bans, I also followed this line of thought, but because this has persisted past the cinderace ban especially, I think it might be good to do something about this combo in and of itself. OU just has too many powerful but balanced attackers, that inevitably something will abuse the support from the slowtwins, as Zamazenta is showing in this suspect.
Given that this is a unique situation, which I don’t think has much precedence in any previous gen OU (maybe some baton pass stuff, but I would argue that since gen 6, baton pass is just so widely abused by many passers and recipient attackers that it isn’t as comparable, since the only two unhealthy future sight setters are the slowtwins), I wouldn’t be opposed to a complex ban. I mean, sometimes you have very complex, systematic problems, which require complex solutions. If there were ever a time to use a complex ban it would be here (If a complex ban were to occur, I would favor a teleport+future sight ban as mentioned by IBZ earlier). But I totally understand and sympathize with the desire to avoid complex bans, so I accept that this will likely not happen.
In lieu of a complex ban, if one wanted to avoid collateral damage, so to speak, then I think future sight is the clear thing to go, like VTMagno says. If this were to happen, I would not object, but honestly, banning future sight like this is inconsistent with what the tier usually does in these cases. Outside of the very unique case of baton pass, it is difficult to think of decently distributed move that would be banworthy. Future sight is not broken in the general case, so justifying such a ban would come down to focusing on the consequences instead of the principles of the ban itself.
If the goal is to be consistent to tiering philosophy, then the most obvious solution, if you do think there is an issue with the regenfutureport combo, is to ban kanto slowbro and kanto slowking. They are the only pokemon with a unique combination of these three traits, which combines with their natural bulk to result in an uncompetitive and centralizing wallbreaking strategy, which is unhealthy for the tier. We are making so many excuses blaming so many facets of the game which are clearly fine in their own right, which we would not do for any other pokemon. Barely anyone would say that Urshifu-S should stay, just ban wicked blow, or that cinderace should stay, just ban libero. That is essentially what we are doing here when we say to ban teleport/future sight or regenerator, respectively. This is stupid (to be clear, this cyclical argument is, I don’t have any hard feelings towards you if you disagree with me, I think you are cool dear reader, regardless of your opinion here ). Why do this for the slowtwins?
I think the answer honestly is that we are so use to having them around and be fine. It took me a while to accept this, and when Jordy floated a slowbro ban for the first time back in November I thought he was crazy, but I realized eventually that my familiarity with these mons was biasing my judgement here. If you think differently about this, ask yourself this; if the slowtwins had not changed, but a new pair of mons were introduced in gen 8 with this set of attributes, do you genuinely believe we would be having this conversation? You may reasonably disagree, but I seriously doubt it. I think people would rightfully ask for a ban on the offending pokemon.
Now, to close here, I will say that truthfully, I am not personally sure if regenfutureport is broken. If there were to be a suspect today, provided zamazenta stays an uber, I would at this point say it is ok to remain in the tier. But it is on the verge of getting broken, and I could easily imagine it getting worse in a month or so. So my point with this post is less to convince anyone reading to support a ban on this combination in general, but to convince anyone reading that if you want to ban something here, you should ban the slowtwins.
Thanks for reading my novel masquerading as a forum post!
*Also, quick note on unaware clef since I saw something about it above, I love using it, but I don’t think it is broken at all, especially because clef isn’t terribly bulky honestly. Jolly life orb garchomp has about a 28% chance to 2ko max hp max phys def clefable with a boosting nature and leftovers with earthquake, and adamant life orb rillaboom can deal a hefty amount with grassy glide as well. If they are unaware, then either they choose to run leftovers, in which case hazards hurt clef a lot, or they run boots, in which case they miss out on the leftovers recovery. If an HO player sees a clefable on an opposing team, and plays smartly with the knowledge that the clef may be unaware, they can beat it without drastically altering their team, even if it is a hard mon to get through. It’s happened to me a lot (I mean, I’m not the best player in the world or anything but I don’t totally suck either so I don’t think it’s just my fault lololol).
Anyway, I was going to post in the Zama discussion thread since I just managed to get reqs, but I saw this ongoing teleport/slowtwin discussion and I had to weigh in, because I have some strong feelings here and right now there is no clear consensus on what to do.
I actually have been a major fan of the OU tier since the mag/cinderace bans. In fact, while this might be an unpopular opinion, I think the last time I liked the current gen OU meta this much was in ORAS. However, if I do have two complaints with this tier as it stands, it is 1) the often sluggish pace of games due to constant pivoting with regenerator mons and heavy duty boots, and 2) the problematic regenerator+future sight+teleport slowtwin strategies. Of these two, the first point is more about personal preference than something truly being “broken,” I think, but the slowtwin issue is more controversial, as this thread is showing.
As many have noted here, the difficulty with this regenfutureport combo is that it is not clear what the most broken aspect is. A lot of people have already weighed in on this, but I hope you will indulge me if I throw my hat into the ring here:
1) Teleport: I am leading with this because there has been some anti-teleport sentiment here which I disagree with strongly. Throughout DLC2, I have quite enjoyed using teleport on clefable and blissey in the high ladder, despite it being less common, especially on clefable. I think both of these mons present balanced applications of this pivoting option. Especially with clefable, you need to stay at a decently high HP to properly wall attackers, and teleport offers a skillful tradeoff here: call your opponent’s switch/weak u-turn and get a free pivot, but you risk taking a stronger hit that will hurt your defensive viability in the future. Because these guys lack regen, it is a lot more difficult to find an opportunity to heal, since you can’t just call an easy switch and immediately double out, you have to commit to staying in for a turn to use a healing move. Not to mention the rarer beneficiaries of teleport like porygon2 and xatu. Sure some of these guys can be viable but they aren’t broken. What makes teleport annoying on the slowtwins is that it essentially doubles as a healing move due to regenerator.
Additionally, (and this is a small amount of theorymonning here, apologies for that), I also want to reiterate the fact that, as many here have stated, if the slowtwins received a pivot move like flip turn instead of teleport, the same effect would likely occur. Maybe Zapdos might become a better switch in to threaten static on contact, and maybe you would see stuff like storm drain Gastrodon rise as a check, but at the same time the slowtwins would fare much better against heatran and taunt, and would gain the ability to pivot while holding an assault vest if they so chose to enhance their bulk. Also, while much has been made about the negative priority of teleport, given that the only things in OU naturally slower than the slowtwins is ferrothorn, in practice most of the time you use teleport it functionally moves at the time as flip turn would (one other exception to this is on trick room teams but if something is breaking teleport, it’s not trick room lol).
So yeah, I think it is clear that teleport is not in itself a big deal, and on a personal note pls don’t takeaway teleport on clef and blissey they are my teleporting children I beg you lol.
2) Regenerator: In my perfect pokemon world, I would nerf this ability to only heal ~20%, but obviously we can’t do that. I do suspect personally that regen as a whole is not a healthy thing for the metagame. Flexxen has an early post in this thread that convinced me on this, which I recommend reading. It is just so risk free to just pivot in a bulky mon, take a few hits, and find an opportunity to come in relatively risk free later and heal up again. However, while I dislike it, I would not call it broken in the slightest. Many defensive regen mons, while threatening with knock or status, are not terribly hard to switch into, and despite heavy duty boots, several mons (like Pex) opt not to run them or can be feasibly knocked off, at which point good hazard management and aggressive play can handle them. Torn-T is in its own category here, it kinda scares me honestly, but hurricane is the kind of move which is 90% accurate when your opponent has it and 50% accurate when you have it lmao, so I hesitate to call it a broken regen abuser.
3) Future Sight: I don’t really like future sight on principle since it has been buffed. Keeping a 120 BP move waiting in the wings for a combined assault is pretty crazy. That said, galarian slowking is a common but manageable future sight mon, and I have actually seen a cool amount of experimentation with this move, namely on latias and lele, plus there is that Godstall AV reuniclus regen future sight set which I think is pretty cool. These are rare but viable abusers of the move that can catch someone off guard and threaten a KO, but I don’t think they are broken. Obviously, the only problematic users of this attack are the slowtwins, due to the free pivot of teleport.
Ok, with that out of the way, let’s get into the slowtwins themselves. I have gone back and forth on this a lot, because as defensive pivots, I quite like the two of them. It’s future sight that pushes them over the edge. You can argue that what breaks the slowtwins is not future sight but the breakers who abuse it themselves. This is a reasonable stance, given that in the lower tiers, slowking did not present this issue when it was there. Obviously, to make future sight work you need the strong attackers which are mostly housed in OU. Prior to the magearna/cinderace bans, I also followed this line of thought, but because this has persisted past the cinderace ban especially, I think it might be good to do something about this combo in and of itself. OU just has too many powerful but balanced attackers, that inevitably something will abuse the support from the slowtwins, as Zamazenta is showing in this suspect.
Given that this is a unique situation, which I don’t think has much precedence in any previous gen OU (maybe some baton pass stuff, but I would argue that since gen 6, baton pass is just so widely abused by many passers and recipient attackers that it isn’t as comparable, since the only two unhealthy future sight setters are the slowtwins), I wouldn’t be opposed to a complex ban. I mean, sometimes you have very complex, systematic problems, which require complex solutions. If there were ever a time to use a complex ban it would be here (If a complex ban were to occur, I would favor a teleport+future sight ban as mentioned by IBZ earlier). But I totally understand and sympathize with the desire to avoid complex bans, so I accept that this will likely not happen.
In lieu of a complex ban, if one wanted to avoid collateral damage, so to speak, then I think future sight is the clear thing to go, like VTMagno says. If this were to happen, I would not object, but honestly, banning future sight like this is inconsistent with what the tier usually does in these cases. Outside of the very unique case of baton pass, it is difficult to think of decently distributed move that would be banworthy. Future sight is not broken in the general case, so justifying such a ban would come down to focusing on the consequences instead of the principles of the ban itself.
If the goal is to be consistent to tiering philosophy, then the most obvious solution, if you do think there is an issue with the regenfutureport combo, is to ban kanto slowbro and kanto slowking. They are the only pokemon with a unique combination of these three traits, which combines with their natural bulk to result in an uncompetitive and centralizing wallbreaking strategy, which is unhealthy for the tier. We are making so many excuses blaming so many facets of the game which are clearly fine in their own right, which we would not do for any other pokemon. Barely anyone would say that Urshifu-S should stay, just ban wicked blow, or that cinderace should stay, just ban libero. That is essentially what we are doing here when we say to ban teleport/future sight or regenerator, respectively. This is stupid (to be clear, this cyclical argument is, I don’t have any hard feelings towards you if you disagree with me, I think you are cool dear reader, regardless of your opinion here ). Why do this for the slowtwins?
I think the answer honestly is that we are so use to having them around and be fine. It took me a while to accept this, and when Jordy floated a slowbro ban for the first time back in November I thought he was crazy, but I realized eventually that my familiarity with these mons was biasing my judgement here. If you think differently about this, ask yourself this; if the slowtwins had not changed, but a new pair of mons were introduced in gen 8 with this set of attributes, do you genuinely believe we would be having this conversation? You may reasonably disagree, but I seriously doubt it. I think people would rightfully ask for a ban on the offending pokemon.
Now, to close here, I will say that truthfully, I am not personally sure if regenfutureport is broken. If there were to be a suspect today, provided zamazenta stays an uber, I would at this point say it is ok to remain in the tier. But it is on the verge of getting broken, and I could easily imagine it getting worse in a month or so. So my point with this post is less to convince anyone reading to support a ban on this combination in general, but to convince anyone reading that if you want to ban something here, you should ban the slowtwins.
Thanks for reading my novel masquerading as a forum post!
*Also, quick note on unaware clef since I saw something about it above, I love using it, but I don’t think it is broken at all, especially because clef isn’t terribly bulky honestly. Jolly life orb garchomp has about a 28% chance to 2ko max hp max phys def clefable with a boosting nature and leftovers with earthquake, and adamant life orb rillaboom can deal a hefty amount with grassy glide as well. If they are unaware, then either they choose to run leftovers, in which case hazards hurt clef a lot, or they run boots, in which case they miss out on the leftovers recovery. If an HO player sees a clefable on an opposing team, and plays smartly with the knowledge that the clef may be unaware, they can beat it without drastically altering their team, even if it is a hard mon to get through. It’s happened to me a lot (I mean, I’m not the best player in the world or anything but I don’t totally suck either so I don’t think it’s just my fault lololol).
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Just been reading a few posts about future sight or teleport being broken which, they are only broken on slowtwins. Is futuresight broken on slowking galar? Is teleport broken on clefable? The answer is: no. The moves teleport and future sight are broken (imo) on the same pokemon with regenerator and boots. Being able to check a lot of the metagame physically and defensively and have this massive role on denting holes in teams. I believe none of the moves shared before are broken because they only seem broken on slowtwins, which makes the point why not just ban slowtwins.
It's strange to me that anything other than the Slow twins would even be considered for a ban. Teleport Blissey and Clefable are healthy additions to the tier. They are balanced out because there's many times they're pressures to hard switch at the risk of receiving irreconcilable damage that they can't heal off next time they come due to their low speed. While the Slow twins are still slow, they have Regenerator to alleviate this issue. They can even drop Slack Off on many sets, something the former two could never do. If anything outside of these is broken it would probably be Regenerator, which is what every potentially broken part of the metagame evidenced in the last poll (Teleport, HDB, Toxapex, Tornadus-T) abuses in excess. I don't like the downstream impact of going that route though.