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

pulsar512b

ss ou fangirl
is a Pre-Contributor
Without a comment on if Melmetal is healthy or unhealthy, I think you should re-phrase or tweak this argument to focus on a lack of consistent counterplay via checks. As my awareness goes, Smogon has had mons in the past who lacked counters entirely (that is, no Mon that could switch-in and win 1-v-1 vs the Pokemon in question without extensive existing knowledge of what the opponent ran). Counterplay still existing is what kept these mons from becoming too much of a problem, with things like fast attackers and aggressive momentum generation still giving offensive wallbreakers trouble for example. By comparison, more than a few banned mons had counters, but the ability to play against them was too narrow for a healthy Game even with those.

So I think I see what your Melmetal argument is more focused on, but there's a way to phrase it that better encapsulates why Smogon policy would be inclined to look it over.
Some examples of counter-less pokemon, using current gen OU for a source could be tapu lele (particularly specs) and choice band tyranitar. While there may be no formal 'counters', there is plenty of counterplay to both of them, and nobody's calling for a ban on either. Two examples of Ubers pokemon that undoubtedly had counters would be Dracovish and Spectrier (particularly the latter!).

I would also like to note Magnezone and other ways of luring/breaking problematic steels such as corviknight (tapu lele) as ways to clear melmetal's way even further. It is not great that magnezone in particular stacks weaknesses, but it's not a fatal flaw. In general, I think melmetal is maybe not broken but definitely deserves a suspect.
 
View attachment 424820
Chapter 1: The Fire and the Flames

:ss/silvally-fire:


Welcome back to the Silvally Files. A smogon chain where I look through every Silvally form to see if any of them could have OU Viability.
To see the Prologue where I discussed my thoughts before experimentation, go here:
Yay this isn't dead! Took me a while to truly get the ball rolling, but through random draw up first is Silvally-Fire!

Disclaimer: I am not a high ladder player, so my opinions may not be 100% correct and are just my observations from usage. If you like the project, I welcome anyone to experimenting and report your own findings!

When tasked with using Silvally-Fire, theres really only 1 archetype where I felt it had a place, Sun!
So in combination with Torkoal and some sun mons I used this moveset:

Silvally-Fire @ Fire Memory
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Multi-Attack
- Psychic Fangs
- Flame Charge / Parting Shot

Now I know it seems weird to use Flame Charge AND Multi Attack, seeing how I could use this slot for another offensive move like Crunch, or utility like Thunder Wave, and while those options worked perfectly fine, I went with Flame Charge due to the sweep potential once set up in Sun. Parting Shot is obvious and can swap around when Tran comes in. For a review of what I thought before the test:

"Pyro Ball before Pyro Ball, Silvally gets access to a very powerful fire STAB able to wipe the floor with things like Corviknight and even can OHKO Clef at +2! If it's Unaware Clef it gets 2HKOd after rocks. It CAN 2HKO Pex with Adamant +2 Thunder Fangs, but thats a high roll so watch out for Pex. As always Lando's Intimidate can cause some issues for you, but SpDef Lando can still be 2HKOd by Ice Fang. This was almost a yes, but just a few checks that worry me that pretty much require an SD to handle."

So when writing that, my moron brain forgot that it got Psychic Fangs, so the Thunder Fang point with Pex is irrelevant due to Psychic Fangs just being better. With +2 Psychic Fangs the 2HKO is no longer a high roll needed, and is a clean and easy 2HKO even with Black Sludge. Otherwise this ended up being on the nose. See the big problem with Silvally-Fire is even though it puts huge pressure on the opponent with literally Pyro Ball, it suffers from the complete lack of Heatran coverage. Unless you wanted to use Reversal which... no, Silvally has to use Psychic Fangs to do a solid 14% to Heatran. Parting Shot can help with this, but on a Sun team it was more about utilizing Lando or any others to weaken it enough to be in range of Psychic Fangs.

Sun boosted Multi Attacks are deadly, even at +0 it applies such incredible offensive pressure, making up for its lackluster 95 Attack with Sun Boosts and literally Pyro Ball to 2HKO a lot more than you think you can, and whatever you can't 2HKO usually can be set up on like Slowking. Once Silvally is +2 ATK +1 SPE its over. It shread everything barring Heatran in the sun like its nothing. Resisted Multi Attacks still OHKO Pult at +2, and even if you don't get to +2, just coming in on Ferrothorns applies huge pressure the same way Victini can, forcing progress in the game with strong Multi Attacks. Overall Silvally is a decent sun user.

Its magnum opus is being a extremely good blanket check to Weavile. As Knock Off is its strongest move and it is a roll to 3HKO. Flame Charge in the Sun is an easy OHKO and it uses it to gain momentum to weaken another mon or maybe KO something. Banded Weavile CAN be a problem, but 100% vs 100%, Silvally wins every time without fail.


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572664547 Silvally cleans up against Demon Registeel and Rillaboom
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572670354 Gusty predictions nets 2 kills for Silvally
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572710600 Silvally uses Slowking to setup and OHKOs Pult.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572722085 Only 62% from Lele Psyshock.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572725964 Big Offensive pressure, although Thundo was 100% MVP :)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572735617 Silvally clutches.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1572741429-4fx0mg1iyu1dkfjgl9tkl8r98noy3bupw Multi-Attack spam + gutsy predictions wins the game

Overall, it has its faults, but as a Sun user Silvally runs a really strong Sun Boosted Pyro Ball able to apply massive offensive pressure over the course of a game and claim a few kills. Since no other Silvally has been reviewed, obviously this takes the top spot with a solid B tier, fun niche, probably not worth ranking in the full viability rankings.
(The tiering will be in relative to each other, not the overall metagame)

(will post viability chart later, but its kinda worthless to do it with just 1 mon lol.)

I had thought about using a defensive set kind of like how people run Arcanine sometimes, but without good recovery and Intimidate, it just feels lackluster looking at the calcs other than the Weavile calcs and I ended up not going through with it. If you're interested I'll put the set here and you can see if you can prove me wrong.

Silvally-Fire @ Fire Memory
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Flamethrower
- Defog / Thunder Wave
- Parting Shot
- Rest / Thunder Wave / Defog


As a fun treat, I'll post the RNG and show what to expect in Chapter 2:
View attachment 424824
Thanks for reading this installment of The Silvally Files!​
Hello, super late reply but I’ve decided to test out Silvally-Fairy since I was making a team and I thought it might be able to fit well. Basically I thought my team could struggle with Dragapult and weavile and decided to add silvally to deal with them instead of Clefable, because clef didn‘t really suit my team/playstyle and struggles with using teleport (At least in my experience). I am low ladder and not extremely experienced but Silvally works really well. I use Multi attack, parting shot, thunder wave, and flamethrower with a relaxed nature with the same EVs as in your post. Flamethrower is there since when I had toxic Silvally would always be forced to pivot out when facing steel types like ferro. Silvally works excellently as a pivot, weakening the opponent and draining their momentum while boosting your own. You can fall back on it if your in a bit of a pinch. I think it’s like clefable but for offence. I also named mine Silvally Psychic hoping I could get someone and it actually worked. Something I wanted to say was that I don’t think rest is very good on silvally at all. It’s merits over Clefable are that it doesn’t sit there like a blob and I think really relies on offensive teammates to finish the game before it’s lack of recovery shows. I’ve really enjoyed using Silvally and I would definitely put it on future teams. Anyways here‘s pokepaste in case you were curious
 
Clefable can also pivot, and I don't know about 'more utility'. The only thing Silvally gets over Clefable is Parting Shot. Clefable is easily better in like 99% of scenarios, but Parting Shot is a broken move for creating set-up opportunities for sweepers like Volcarona and SD Weavile to capitalize on, so I can see that being something to build around in some cases. I wouldn't necessarily say that's enough to call Silvally viable in OU. There are plenty of Pokemon who have hyper-specific niches in OU who don't even make it onto the VR thread.

You really have to abuse the fuck out of Parting Shot in order to justify using Silvally-Fairy over Clefable, though. There's essentially nothing else it gets that sets it apart, and you're giving up recovery, access to rocks and Knock Off, Magic Guard, your item slot, a guaranteed slow pivot with Teleport... In other words almost all of the things that let Clefable succeed despite its mediocre stats.
 
Clef is a bulky wincon, but Silvally can pivot and has more utility so it really depends on your team needs
I thought a bit about your post and I think very similarily to Divine Retribution, however, I do believe that the combination of Multi-Attack with Flamethrower, parting shot and one utility move would actually do give it a proper, but tiny, purpose over Clef

Maybe if more people tried it out we could find a place for it in C-? Don't have much time for Showdown currently, would try it out myself otherwise, as it does make me somewhar curious what this mon could accomplish, if anything
 
No man they're gonna test ally switch

Btw, I personally don't struggle against Melm as I believe that pure steel is a very exploitable typing. Fighting, Ground and Fire move types are on many mons. I think the biggest problem with Melm is the variety in its sets, depending on which moves or items it's running, your Mon that might be able to stop it just falls victim to its strength. If that is uncompetitive by itself, idk, guess I gotta look into the discussion once the suspect is going

I also think that the meta is in a really good state right now. I fear that banning Melm might put things outta balance. But I again, I have to get into the matter more to have a full opinion
 
Please guys stop shitposting, this is a serious forum.

:ss/toxapex:
Okay but this answer is just not-shitposty enough for me to actually question if it's a joke for a second.

Am curious to see what it is since the only 3 things I can maybe think of have been talked to death in the past
 
With all due respect, if it has no counters, it should be considered broken and there should at least be a real discussion of the ban hammer. Having a check isnt enough for a lot of threats, especially since there are basically no universal checks to melmetal, its set variety let's it fish for what matchups it wants to be favorable and unfavorable for, and with proper team support stopping melmetal can get really hairy.

Look at this team for example: https://pokepast.es/f72a4d3a7fa1e272

I peaked at 1959 with this team (I was trying to make an RMT but I don't know how to post the mon gifs that other people are doing), and it while it has issues it definitely is a sturdy team against a lot of the meta, particularly heavy physical offense. Now in theory it has some decent melmetal checks, buzzwole eats DIB and gets good chip on it, mandibuzz and hippo should generally be able to check some sets, and volcanion can blow it up and dracozolt being able to do over 60% with bolt beak, but I have been finding that melmetal is still very useful against this team, cuz there are too many goddamn sets to account for.
I said in my post that i find melmetal to not be banworthy atm, but i certainly respect a pro-ban stance as well as a suspect ( and as confirmed today, there will be a suspect, and i'm willing to bet it is in fact a melmetal suspect).


As a few others discussed, not having counters is a common trait of a broken pokemon but is not the end-all be all. A few of the closest parallels to melmetal offensively are things like Band Ttar, and specs lele, which with their coverage and power have no counters either, but are only held back in comparison by the low accuracy of stone edge and focus blast respectively, and while they are faster than melmetal, they don't have as much overall bulk.

Even looking at your team, something like CM lele can be threatening even if rare.

However, melmetal's sheer bulk, defensive typing, ability to be heavily supported by grassy terrain and abilitiy to flinch allow it to be a more consistent breaker overall than those 2 with its only disadvantage being low speed which can be compensated easily on t-wave sets, but the tradeoff is that DIB gets heavily punished if you click it at the wrong time and with no pads on.



And while melmetal's set is extremely difficult to scout early on, it's not always as difficult as one might think when a lot of melmetal's splashability also comes from its immense defensive utility, providing offensive and BO teams a switch in for things like pult, lele ( and from the dmg calc there are ways to tell if its av or pads, and lefties is self explanatory) , and weavile, and in the lattermost case you often end up having to switch your
melmetal into a knock off.

Recent metagame shifts have certainly favored melmetal though, but the checks to its most common sets still exist and are useable. it's often the case that just when we think a threat is starting to be too overbearing, the metagame starts shifting to use these checks. it's just a matter of time to see what happens, and only the truly broken threats are able to warp the tier around them and force overly-constraining adaptions that defy all reason and compromise. So I guess we will stay tuned.
 
Clefable can also pivot, and I don't know about 'more utility'. The only thing Silvally gets over Clefable is Parting Shot. Clefable is easily better in like 99% of scenarios, but Parting Shot is a broken move for creating set-up opportunities for sweepers like Volcarona and SD Weavile to capitalize on, so I can see that being something to build around in some cases. I wouldn't necessarily say that's enough to call Silvally viable in OU. There are plenty of Pokemon who have hyper-specific niches in OU who don't even make it onto the VR thread.

You really have to abuse the fuck out of Parting Shot in order to justify using Silvally-Fairy over Clefable, though. There's essentially nothing else it gets that sets it apart, and you're giving up recovery, access to rocks and Knock Off, Magic Guard, your item slot, a guaranteed slow pivot with Teleport... In other words almost all of the things that let Clefable succeed despite its mediocre stats.
I know Silvally has heavy competition with Clefable, but from my experience clef finds it extremely hard to use teleport, maybe I am just using the move wrong but it seems like the opponent is forever forcing clef out with stuff like kartana and melmetal and I just can’t use the move. Clef also has 4MSS, but it‘s more manageable than many other pokes. But maybe silvally‘s niece is more specific than I thought.
 

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