Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion (Usage stats in post #944)

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The nukes in this gen is pretty absurd. People finally peeping that Dracovish obliterates everything. Literally just click rend and watch things die. With webs support I feel its more impoasible to check than godDarm. It does stupid shit like basically 2hko ferro and pex opening the ops team for you to abuse your other silly sweepers. I really dont think stall has much of a chance thia gen at all. Between dyna, the breakers, and court change its not a possible style atm. Now this may be good in some peoples eyes but I never minded stall when I played real teams as ita generally a knowledge check that you are building a solid team. When a whole playstyle is invalodated just by including one ofa myriad of mons available mons it pidgeon holds builds even further. Not a fan of the direction things are heading. I usually enjoy laddering but every team is so similar is boring. I got like a 80 gxe 90% win rate casually playing and its just dry.



Also lowkey Corviknight is the best non obvious mon in the game. The sub sp def bulk up set 6-0s so many builds with a turn of set up. You have to run like....thunder/fire max sp atk clef to deal with it. Really goofy mon.
 

Thunder Pwoell

Banned deucer.
The nukes in this gen is pretty absurd. People finally peeping that Dracovish obliterates everything. Literally just click rend and watch things die. With webs support I feel its more impoasible to check than godDarm. It does stupid shit like basically 2hko ferro and pex opening the ops team for you to abuse your other silly sweepers. I really dont think stall has much of a chance thia gen at all. Between dyna, the breakers, and court change its not a possible style atm. Now this may be good in some peoples eyes but I never minded stall when I played real teams as ita generally a knowledge check that you are building a solid team. When a whole playstyle is invalodated just by including one ofa myriad of mons available mons it pidgeon holds builds even further. Not a fan of the direction things are heading. I usually enjoy laddering but every team is so similar is boring. I got like a 80 gxe 90% win rate casually playing and its just dry.



Also lowkey Corviknight is the best non obvious mon in the game. The sub sp def bulk up set 6-0s so many builds with a turn of set up. You have to run like....thunder/fire max sp atk clef to deal with it. Really goofy mon.
you gotta understand bro this game is meant for children under the age of ten lol but we try and make it competitive anyway. this generation has gotten to the point where there are so many broken things that its getting the point of non playability. truly goofy
 
Now this may be good in some peoples eyes but I never minded stall when I played real teams as ita generally a knowledge check that you are building a solid team. When a whole playstyle is invalodated just by including one ofa myriad of mons available mons it pidgeon holds builds even further. Not a fan of the direction things are heading. I usually enjoy laddering but every team is so similar is boring.
I completely agree. As annoying as it was to fight stall, stall was just as valid a playstyle as any other, and I think the death of stall/stall-y pokemon will definitely decrease the diversity of teams overall. A dynamax ban could very well be the answer, but I guess we'll see what happens. So far, this gen is even less fun than SM/USUM, which was by far my least favorite gen to play.
 

Matthew

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why do you weirdos care about keeping an obviously fundamentally broken mechanic in the tier just b/c it's the flagship gimmick for a fucking kids game. what is wrong with you stop that shit please. If you're that invested in it just play the actual wi fi games
while i was a vocal advocate for weather in earlier gens i don't think this kind of language is appropriate in the slightest. argue in an adult manner and people will respond in kind.

that being said the amount i've played of gen 8 has been sort of a flip-flop for me. i can see the merit to keeping the dmax, and i think that's kinda cool for a gen 8 meta standpoint but i also see that the no national dex is kind of it's own thing regardless. i would like to see no national dex with dmax as the metagame for gen 8 but i'm by far in the minority -- though i'd also really like to see support with national dex and every other broken thing we've seen (i suppose megas couldn't dmax but maybe they could idk) but i guess that's other metagames, so, eh
 

ausma

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As a side-note, I'm sure this goes without saying, but in the hypothetical situation we banned Dynamax in standard OU, I think it'd probably be best to ban it in the lower tiers as well. It's been shown that there are a myriad of potential sweepers behind the Luchados pair (such as Togekiss or other STAB Airstream mons), and the main thing keeping them in check is Ditto of all things. Ditto will be no doubt an OU Pokemon with how it's in the top 5 in the usage chart, meaning that most likely the other tiers will be without a check (though, it'd probably drop if Dynamax were banned). While I'm still in favor of having Gigantamax for the reasons I and numerous others have already rose, I feel like given how many devastating, overcentralizing options Dynamax itself provides as an inherent mechanic, if it were neutered for OU only, it would body the other tiers. Additionally, Ditto's usage would trickle down to each tier and bring the same issue as with OU, just under a different filter with varying sweepers and the same song/dance.

For Ubers, though, on the other hand, I'm a bit conflicted. Given how many Ubers were snapped this gen and how it's essentially just OU with the Dogs and a Xenomorph, it could be suspected as an Ubers exclusive. Because Zacian/Zamazenta/Eternatus are all incapable of Dynamaxing, it's possible their power levels could align with the conditions provided by Dynamax given the former two's insanely good abilities and busted initial stats (and that's not even taking into mind once Reshiram, Kyurem, Zekrom, Necrozma, Solgaleo, Lunala, and Marshadow release). The main issues I can see with this proposition is the snowballing problem, and how, despite the power level of the three legendaries, the fundamental problem of Dynamax would remain an issue with its unpredictability and necessity for immediate reaction.

Just food for thought, though; it's best we keep our focus on the big picture, and maybe revisit this idea later once the dust settles.
 
Banning Dynamax would be a mistake.

The game has to be recognisable as the one on the Switch, diverging from the official metagame too much is going to cut off the supply of new players arriving here for strategy advice. There's already a lot of jargon here without banning major game mechanics, you don't want the guides here being useless for console play. In a way it really doesn't matter what you guys think, this is the game for this generation.

I've been playing it online and there are lots of counter strategies being developed. For example stalling it with methods from Sturdy/Focus Sash to Protect/King's Sheild to Fly/Dig/Dive. At the very least that needs to play out before considering a ban.

I think a lot of people (including me) have been using the same strategies and pokemon for years, those who are the most upset by Dexit or Dynamax just don't want to change tactics they have mastered. That's the road to stagnation.

The one thing is that Dynamax had to go hand in hand with Dexit, I don't think there should be a metagame with Dynamaxed Pokemon unavailable in Sword/Sheild. Maybe this is causing some frustration as those Pokemon haven't been designed for Dynamax.

I think some of the tiers should be consolidated and renamed. Have a "Unrestricted" tier which is basically Ubers with no Dexit no Dynamax. Have a "Console" tier which is the Switch ladder rules (Dexit, Dynamax allowed, no legendaries or Gigantamax) and is basically OU. Have a "Little Cup" tier which is no Dexit no Dynamax basically UU and has your bans and suspect testing etc. Hopefully that makes everyone happy.
 
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I've been playing it online and there are lots of counter strategies being developed. For example stalling it with methods from Sturdy/Focus Sash to Protect/King's Sheild to Fly/Dig/Dive. At the very least that needs to play out before considering a ban.
You say that as if using two turn moves as anything other than a base for supermoves is a good thing. If something is so centralizing that people are running otherwise objectively bad moves to deal with it, then there's a serious problem.

The game has to be recognisable as the one on the Switch, diverging from the official metagame too much is going to cut off the supply of new players arriving here for strategy advice.
OHKO moves, evasion, and Baton Pass chains are all possible strategies on cart. I suppose we should allow those too?
 

chimp

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Banning Dynamax would be a mistake.

The game has to be recognisable as the one on the Switch, diverging from the official metagame too much is going to cut off the supply of new players arriving here for strategy advice. There's already a lot of jargon here without banning major game mechanics, you don't want the guides here being useless for console play. In a way it really doesn't matter what you guys think, this is the game for this generation.

I've been playing it online and there are lots of counter strategies being developed. For example stalling it with methods from Sturdy/Focus Sash to Protect/King's Sheild to Fly/Dig/Dive. At the very least that needs to play out before considering a ban.

I think a lot of people (including me) have been using the same strategies and pokemon for years, those who are the most upset by Dexit or Dynamax just don't want to change tactics they have mastered. That's the road to stagnation.

The one thing is that Dynamax had to go hand in hand with Dexit, I don't think there should be a metagame with Dynamaxed Pokemon unavailable in Sword/Sheild. Maybe this is causing some frustration as those Pokemon haven't been designed for Dynamax.

I think some of the tiers should be consolidated and renamed. Have a "Unrestricted" tier which is basically Ubers with no Dexit no Dynamax. Have a "Console" tier which is the Switch ladder rules (Dexit, Dynamax allowed, no legendaries or Gigantamax) and is basically OU. Have a "Little Cup" tier which is no Dexit no Dynamax basically UU and has your bans and suspect testing etc. Hopefully that makes everyone happy.
I disagree completely. People play on Smogon metagames to play Smogon rulesets. If they want to play with dynamaxing then they can do so on cartridge, in AG or in a custom game. Smogon's goal is not and has never been to appease the masses, but to make the most competitive game as possible. If people don't like that, there are plenty of other ways to play Pokemon.
 
You say that as if using two turn moves as anything other than a base for supermoves is a good thing. If something is so centralizing that people are running otherwise objectively bad moves to deal with it, then there's a serious problem.
Well in this specific case those Pokemon can Dynamax, giving serious sweeping utility to Fly / Dive etc. And if these moves help you negate the most powerful force in the meta then maybe they're worth using even with the downsides.

Anyhow IMO dynamax is broken but Pokemon as a whole is an awful competitive game so we might as well embrace it for what it is. Just tier dynamax per pokemon similar to megas. Is Gyarados broken? Only when Dynamaxed. Hawlucha broken? Nope only when Dynamaxed. Is Butterfree broken? No not even when Dynamaxed.
 
Dracovish, Dracozolt and Darmanitan are low key uncompetitive. Dracovish might have an average attack stat but its able to spam a 255 bp move (not factoring in stab boost!!) vs balance and stall

They could just be the "flavor of the week" mons but i can really see these mons become oppressive, i already started to see them on every team because they pressure stall insanely hard single handedly because they do not know the meaning of resists

This metagames power and speed level is much lower, kinda reminds me of gen 6 Hoopa unbound and Mega-Mawile where they single handedly invalidate an entire archetype

It could just be me being frustrated and not being able to adapt, so whats the defensive counterplay you guys are using to switch into these mons?
 
You say that as if using two turn moves as anything other than a base for supermoves is a good thing. If something is so centralizing that people are running otherwise objectively bad moves to deal with it, then there's a serious problem.
Well why are they objectively bad moves? That argument could be used against anything that isn't similar strength and accuracy to Earthquake.

Priority moves have very low base power, are they objectively bad and therefore everyone Pokemon should have the same speed stat? I'm seeing more priority moves than two turn moves!

OHKO moves, evasion, and Baton Pass chains are all possible strategies on cart. I suppose we should allow those too?
I've seen those strategies zero times on Sword/Sheild cart and there are moves specifically to counter evasion and Baton Pass. Maybe it's worth looking at again. It is odd that those strategies could be running rampant on cart (they are not) and the Smogon strategy guides don't help plan against them.

I disagree completely. People play on Smogon metagames to play Smogon rulesets. If they want to play with dynamaxing then they can do so on cartridge, in AG or in a custom game. Smogon's goal is not and has never been to appease the masses, but to make the most competitive game as possible. If people don't like that, there are plenty of other ways to play Pokemon.
That's fine, but I've always used Smogon for strategies to use on cart as far back as Diamond/Peral, that's why I'm here now and I bet lots of people do that. The discussion on this forum has been amazing for developing my team.

Banning Dynamax would be the first time that Smogon significantly diverges from the cart meta and it's every guide that's useless rather than the occasionally banned Pokemon. It would be a shame to lose this resource.

You can see with all the team advice threads being posted and locked here that Sword/Sheild are bringing new players here. If growing the community here is undesirable or you want to filter out console players, that's the right of the community here.

I just think it's something worth considering and an easy win for Smogon to cater to everyone playing Pokemon (at least with one tier) rather than a narrow subset.
 
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you don't want the guides here being useless for console play
This has always been the case.

Console players, if they are serious about competitive play, use the ingame rules for ranked battles. 6vs6 singles without item clause but also without cover legends (or anything else remotely resembling Smogon OU) is not really a thing.

Banning Dynamax would be the first time that Smogon significantly diverges from the cart meta and it's every guide that's useless rather than the occasionally banned Pokemon.
This is simply not true, again, cartridge meta has always been very different from Smogon meta. Compare Gen7 battle spot singles and OU for example.
 
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peng

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Singles 6v6 Pokemon is notoriously unbalanced if left alone. There has to be some degree of testing and fine tuning to get to a point where the game can be played competitively.

For any game or sport to be considered competitive, a good player needs to be able to consistently win against a player worse than them. The reason that sports like tennis thrive is that the sport and circuit allow you to prise apart the top players from the bottom. It is incredibly incredibly difficult for a tennis player even in the top 20 in the world to beat somebody in the top 5 (just look at win rates), and for this reason, the game is considered highly competitive. All this is the result of "fine-tuning" the sport around the edges, including introducing standard court sizes, racket sizes / materials, extending more important matches to 5 sets etc etc. These are all iterations that have made tennis one of the most competitive sports in the world.

"Unbalanced" Pokemon is like playing on a tennis court double the size - its impossible to cover all that area at once, so you have to take educated guesses every single turn. It would be significantly harder for top players to consistently win, because every time the opponent hits the ball there's a 40% chance it goes somewhere that you maybe could have reached, but you had to commit to protecting another area of the court instead. In short, long-term planning goes out of the window because your only focus would be on trying to get the ball back. Bringing too many options into a game means that you'll end up with multiple ones that are comparably good, so then there's not much skill in being able to identify good options in the first place. Top players wouldn't be anywhere near as consistent.

Obviously we aren't aiming to get anywhere close to that level with Pokemon, and none of us should be thinking that big. But ultimately, we want to make a game that is both fun and rewarding to play. Rewarding is important - in other words, there should be enough options to pick on a given turn that winning feels like its earnt, but not so many comparable choices that the choices between them become predominantly luck. If you've put more work in and you're better than your opponent, you should win more often that not. If there is a large skill gap between you, you should be able to win much more consistently. If we don't treat this as important, then there's literally no point in hosting tournaments. There's no longevity in a game where being better doesn't give you a significant advantage. Although we're unlikely to ever get there, we should be striving to get each generation to a level where a player ranked #5 is consistently (like >75%) able to win against a player ranked #15, for example.

As it stands, I believe dynamax is a mechanic which detracts from this. From team preview, you can probably limit the Dynamax users to ~3 Pokemon on average. However, you don't know specifically which one, you don't know when it'll happen, and there are many situations where that incorrect guess is a near auto-loss. Temporarily disabling Choice items is such an absurd mechanic that means until your opponent has used their Dynamax, there are basically no "safe" moves to make against offense. The momentum is always with the faster offensive Pokemon even if you've managed to pivot a defensive check into a strong position. Most common example is switching Toxapex into Darmanitan / Dracovish choice-locked into a resisted attack. In every other game since Choice items have existed, the Toxapex user has earnt an advantage state using good play and now the offensive Pokemon has to respond. Now, however, Dynamax provides the option to just blow through Toxapex by switching to a coverage move, which also gives you a stat boost! This means that these offensive Pokemon are in a position to OHKO something literally every single turn should you guess wrong, even if you get yourself into a "winning" position. This is akin to a double-sized tennis court - you can be absolutely outplaying your opponent but every single time they hit the ball, by simply guessing correctly they can position the ball somewhere that is unreachable. This is blatantly uncompetitive.

Regarding Dive and Fly - do we even need to cover this? This is akin to saying that Double Team should be allowed because of Aerial Ace.

I think a good parallel to draw here is Gen 5 Wonder Launcher, which was a mode embedded into WiFi battles which let you use items. It was an absolute no-brainer not to allow this in competitive formats because it meant that every turn you had infinitely more options beyond just attack / switch, and with too many options, skill goes out the window. Whilst I don't think Dynamax is quite so ridiculous as Wonder Launcher, it is nearing that point. Competitive Pokemon thrives on the idea that every turn there are several options that each player can take, and a good player can pick out which of those options in most advantageous each turn - add in too many options, for example having to consider the chance and risk:reward of opposing Dynamax in the back of your head every turn, and it becomes near impossible to seperate several options which all look to be equally advantageous
 
I heard a point about the separation of Dynamax vs Gigantamax that completely embedded me into the side of banning Gigantamax alongside Dynamax if it ever comes to that point.

A main argument about keeping Dynamax that I see on this site often is that Dynamax can be used defensively against opposing Dynamax, for example a physdef Ferrothorn vs a boosting Max Gyarados. However, if we strip Dynamax from the meta but keep Gigantamax, then the pool of mons that can pull a “defensive Max strategy” becomes severely limited. For example, how am I supposed to use a GMax Centiskorch defensively against a GMax Drednaw, especially if Rain is up?
 
I'm not sure if this has been discussed more extensively before, but I'd like to showcase Jolteon as a potential powerhouse for this generation

Jolteon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Volt Absorb
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Shadow Ball
- Hyper Voice / Thunder Wave

EVs and nature allow Jolteon to reach a speed tier of 394, therefore outspeeding +1 Adamant Gyarados, modest Dragapult, Adamant Barraskewda, and Scarf Adamant Dracovish to name a few. The fourth move is a result of Jolteon's admittedly poor move pool. Hyper Voice allows it to sometimes chip Pokemon hiding behind Substitute, while Thunder Wave allows you to inflict status if you feel that Jolteon is not needed anyway.

The only thing that motivated me to play Jolteon is actually the fact that it can revenge kill a Dynamax Gyarados as shown in this:

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados: 780-924 (117.8 - 139.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Here are some more calcs versus some common Pokemon in the tier:

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Hawlucha: 566-668 (190.5 - 224.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darmanitan-Galar: 313-370 (89.1 - 105.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 294-346 (92.7 - 109.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex: 288-342 (94.7 - 112.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 56 SpD Corviknight: 422-498 (105.5 - 124.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

For fun, I wanted to see if Modest Jolteon will allow it to reach some of the KOs without needing Stealth Rock:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 322-380 (101.5 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Toxapex: 320-378 (105.2 - 124.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

The only threatening Pokemon that Jolteon cannot kill is Dracovish, but even against it, Jolteon can deal a chunk after some chip damage has been done.

252 SpA Choice Specs Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dracovish: 235-277 (73.2 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Jolteon pairs well with Seismitoad because Seismitoad can check Dracovish and set Stealth Rock which is critical for some of Jolteon's kills. As a bonus, Seismitoad can also check Ditto should it copy Jolteon.
 
I'm usually fine to just spectate the discussion, but this is such a ridiculous attempt at an argument that I had to call it out.
Well why are they objectively bad moves? That argument could be used against anything that isn't similar strength and accuracy to Earthquake.

Priority moves have very low base power, are they objectively bad and therefore everyone Pokemon should have the same speed stat? I'm seeing more priority moves than two turn moves!
If there is a move that is not only equally accessible to the majority of Pokemon, but also possesses less power, as well as in some occasions, less accuracy, and most importantly of all, takes two turns where the opponent can swap into a counter while you're immobile, then yes, it is objectively bad.

As for priority moves, the very defining factor of them is that they have lower base power than other moves, but bypass the speed stat of both 'mons on the field with their priority attribute. They are literally designed for slower, more powerful 'mons to use to circumvent their lack of speed, and that you would even attempt compare these means you're either purposefully obtuse or don't understand logical arguments.
I've seen those strategies zero times on Sword/Sheild cart and there are moves specifically to counter evasion and Baton Pass. Maybe it's worth looking at again. It is odd that those strategies could be running rampant on cart (they are not) and the Smogon strategy guides don't help plan against them.
Much like a kid who never played hide and seek, you seem content to say that if you can't see it, it must not be. Even children understand object permanence, yet you continue to play peek-a-boo with the actual issue. Alas, since I'm typing this, I'll indulge you. For the very moves designed to beat these strategies, in terms of evasion you have, once again, inferior moves such as Aerial Ace and Swift, or alternatively, moves that the majority of 'mons don't have access to. If one is pigeon-holed into a strategy just to beat something that you've apparently "never seen on cart", it's clearly not competitive in the long run. And on the subject of Baton Pass, which I really shouldn't have to get into, the moves designed to beat it were quite literally circumvented by common Baton Pass users such as Espeon.

I could touch on the last paragraph as well, but it's literally the reason why people are still arguing despite 21 pages of this forum being filled out. I'm all for people having this discussion, but at the very least, keep your arguments informed and well thought-out instead of cherry-picking and straw-manning for a decision you'll likely have no part in making...

Oh and since I'm already here, Arcanine is the truth. Back to your regularly scheduled program.
 
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I'm usually fine to just spectate the discussion but this is such a ridiculous attempt at an argument that I had to call it out.
I was pointing out that the trade off between power, accuracy and utility is a core part of the game.

A class of moves gaining utility so that the power/accuracy trade off is more viable doesn't make the game broken.

Singles 6v6 Pokemon is notoriously unbalanced if left alone. There has to be some degree of testing and fine tuning to get to a point where the game can be played competitively.

For any game or sport to be considered competitive, a good player needs to be able to consistently win against a player worse than them. The reason that sports like tennis thrive is that the sport and circuit allow you to prise apart the top players from the bottom. It is incredibly incredibly difficult for a tennis player even in the top 20 in the world to beat somebody in the top 5 (just look at win rates), and for this reason, the game is considered highly competitive. All this is the result of "fine-tuning" the sport around the edges, including introducing standard court sizes, racket sizes / materials, extending more important matches to 5 sets etc etc. These are all iterations that have made tennis one of the most competitive sports in the world.

"Unbalanced" Pokemon is like playing on a tennis court double the size - its impossible to cover all that area at once, so you have to take educated guesses every single turn. It would be significantly harder for top players to consistently win, because every time the opponent hits the ball there's a 40% chance it goes somewhere that you maybe could have reached, but you had to commit to protecting another area of the court instead. In short, long-term planning goes out of the window because your only focus would be on trying to get the ball back. Bringing too many options into a game means that you'll end up with multiple ones that are comparably good, so then there's not much skill in being able to identify good options in the first place. Top players wouldn't be anywhere near as consistent.

Obviously we aren't aiming to get anywhere close to that level with Pokemon, and none of us should be thinking that big. But ultimately, we want to make a game that is both fun and rewarding to play. Rewarding is important - in other words, there should be enough options to pick on a given turn that winning feels like its earnt, but not so many comparable choices that the choices between them become predominantly luck. If you've put more work in and you're better than your opponent, you should win more often that not. If there is a large skill gap between you, you should be able to win much more consistently. If we don't treat this as important, then there's literally no point in hosting tournaments. There's no longevity in a game where being better doesn't give you a significant advantage. Although we're unlikely to ever get there, we should be striving to get each generation to a level where a player ranked #5 is consistently (like >75%) able to win against a player ranked #15, for example.

As it stands, I believe dynamax is a mechanic which detracts from this. From team preview, you can probably limit the Dynamax users to ~3 Pokemon on average. However, you don't know specifically which one, you don't know when it'll happen, and there are many situations where that incorrect guess is a near auto-loss. Temporarily disabling Choice items is such an absurd mechanic that means until your opponent has used their Dynamax, there are basically no "safe" moves to make against offense. The momentum is always with the faster offensive Pokemon even if you've managed to pivot a defensive check into a strong position. Most common example is switching Toxapex into Darmanitan / Dracovish choice-locked into a resisted attack. In every other game since Choice items have existed, the Toxapex user has earnt an advantage state using good play and now the offensive Pokemon has to respond. Now, however, Dynamax provides the option to just blow through Toxapex by switching to a coverage move, which also gives you a stat boost! This means that these offensive Pokemon are in a position to OHKO something literally every single turn should you guess wrong, even if you get yourself into a "winning" position. This is akin to a double-sized tennis court - you can be absolutely outplaying your opponent but every single time they hit the ball, by simply guessing correctly they can position the ball somewhere that is unreachable. This is blatantly uncompetitive.

Regarding Dive and Fly - do we even need to cover this? This is akin to saying that Double Team should be allowed because of Aerial Ace.

I think a good parallel to draw here is Gen 5 Wonder Launcher, which was a mode embedded into WiFi battles which let you use items. It was an absolute no-brainer not to allow this in competitive formats because it meant that every turn you had infinitely more options beyond just attack / switch, and with too many options, skill goes out the window. Whilst I don't think Dynamax is quite so ridiculous as Wonder Launcher, it is nearing that point. Competitive Pokemon thrives on the idea that every turn there are several options that each player can take, and a good player can pick out which of those options in most advantageous each turn - add in too many options, for example having to consider the chance and risk:reward of opposing Dynamax in the back of your head every turn, and it becomes near impossible to seperate several options which all look to be equally advantageous
I think you are overstating Dynamax as an "I win" button and you can very much play around it. I really like the variety in when it's used and methods to counter it.

I'm beating a Dynamax with regular Pokemon very often and different Pokemon are being Dynamaxed at different points if the battle for a variety of reasons, it's not just Dynamax and auto sweep.

I'm just not recognising the situation you are describing? I'm not far off the top of the console tiers so maybe it'll change when I hit max rank, but again, the meta is still developing so anything could happen. I'm just saying that the meta needs time to mature before bans happen.
 
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Anyhow IMO dynamax is broken but Pokemon as a whole is an awful competitive game so we might as well embrace it for what it is. Just tier dynamax per pokemon similar to megas. Is Gyarados broken? Only when Dynamaxed. Hawlucha broken? Nope only when Dynamaxed. Is Butterfree broken? No not even when Dynamaxed.
Because Dynamaxing occurs entirely within the battle and not within the teambuilder, banning specific Pokemon from Dynamaxing poses a unique challenge: communication.

The situation is similar to a Rayquaza with Dragon Ascent not being able to Mega Evolve. To communicate this, a message appears at the start of every Ubers match that states that "you cannot mega evolve Rayquaza".
mega ray.PNG
(side note: listing things that are stopped in the team validator like evasion seems redundant)

How would you communicate that certain Pokemon are unable to Dynamax? Just saying "you cannot Dynamax certain Pokemon" isn't sufficient, as it doesn't provide enough information. But you also can't list every Pokemon that is banned from Dynamaxing, as that list could potentially take up way too much space. The good option might be to say "you cannot Dynamax these Pokemon" and then provide a link to a pastebin that lists all the banned Dynamaxers for that tier, but even that is a bit unwieldy.

Well why are they objectively bad moves? That argument could be used against anything that isn't similar strength and accuracy to Earthquake.

Priority moves have very low base power, are they objectively bad and therefore everyone Pokemon should have the same speed stat? I'm seeing more priority moves than two turn moves!
Those comparisons aren't remotely valid. While power and accuracy are certainly desireable traits for an attack to have, they are by no means the only things that matter.

U-turn and Volt Switch aren't particularly powerful attacks, but they're still great moves because of their unique traits. Switching through attacking has a ton of practical benefits such as safely bringing in a glass cannon or getting momentum if the opponent hard switches.

Giga Drain isn't a particularly powerful attack, but it's still a great move because of its unique traits. It lets tanky Grass types stay healthy while still dealing at least decent damage.

Scald is actually moderately powerful attack, but it's still outclassed by other attacks in terms of power. However, it's still a great move because of its unique traits. Burning a physical attacker can be game changing, it can't be shut down by Taunt unlike Will-O-Wisp, and it's still threatening to burn-immune Fire types because it's a Water attack.

And yes, while most priority moves are far from powerful, they're still great moves because of their unique traits. By circumventing the speed stat, they're incredibly useful tools for sweeping frail offensive teams after some chip, revenge killing with a super-effective priority move, or even just getting in a bit of chip before fainting.

That brings us to Dig, Dive, Bounce, Fly, and Phantom Force. Even though most of them are outclassed by other moves in terms of power, they're still respectibly strong, and would in theory be decent options on something that lacked those stronger moves. However, their unique traits make them practically unusable. Even though you're (mostly) invulnerable while charging, it still gives your opponent a free turn to heal or boost, and because it telegraphs itself the next turn, there's little in the way of preventing your opponent from just switching to a resist. And that's not to mention that if a Pokemon has Protect (which is admittedly uncommon in Singles, but still provides some utility in stalling and scouting) then these charge moves are completely harmless.
 

peng

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I think you are overstating Dynamax as an "I win" button and you can very much play around it. I really like the variety in when it's used and methods to counter it.

I'm beating a Dynamax with regular Pokemon very often and different Pokemon are being Dynamaxed at different points if the battle for a variety of reasons, it's not just Dynamax and auto sweep.

I'm just not recognising the situation you are describing? I'm not far off the top of the console tiers so maybe it'll chance when I hit max rank?
Admittedly I don't closely follow the console singles formats (I'm assuming you're talking Battle Stadium 3v3 here) but standard formats on Smogon are 6v6 singles.

If you're finding Dynamax comfortable to handle in a 3v3 metagame then thats great, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to the format we're talking about here. Notable differences like the default faster pace, you don't have to bring niche Pokemon every time etc means that Dynamax could well be a different story over there, and it sounds like you have more expertise to comment there. But a lot of things don't translate well to 6v6 - you can't just pack on a super niche Dynamax Gyarados counter with Dive because in 6v6, you're forced to bring that every single game and it will get taken advantage of by stuff that isn't Gyarados.

Similarly, long-term game planning (30 turns +) is a significant part of 6v6 singles, and its this in particular that Dynamax messes around with. Darmanitan-G could switch in 6 times during the game and threatent with Icicle Crash - you're basically forced to go to something like Toxapex near every time. On 5 of those occasions, Darm'll just switch out of the negative match-up, but on one of them it'll Dynamax and EQ for a KO, ripping a hole in your defensive core for another Pokemon to take advantage of. How are you supposed to know which time it is going to Dynamax? There is no consistently good play for the Toxapex user to make here, unless they run something like Toxapex + Rotom-W together and switch to scout for the Dynamax Earthquake every single time, which forces absurd team compositions. Its situations like this that make it really tough to deal with - in 6v6 the games are much longer, Pokemon will come head-to-head with their counters several times during the game, and you just have to guess which time it'll Dynamax to try and blow through you. And this isn't even talking about the set-up abusers like Gyarados, Hawlucha, etc

This might not be as big a part of the fast-paced 3v3 singles metagame, where maybe Dynamaxing at an early, predictable time is optimal in order to avoid getting counterswept before you get another chance? I'll take your word for it that Dynamax is handleable in the console formats, but just a heads up that we have a dedicated subforum for that and your findings aren't directly translatable here.

edit: and just to be clear, I don't think Dynamax is an autowin by any means, because if you do manage to play around it then yeah you can manage it. If you switch Toxapex out of Darm the turn it Dynamaxes then you're in a (compared to the alternative) a good position. The issue is that making that switch probably wasn't all the skillful, more a coincidence that ended up working out for you. For this reason its super hard to be consistent right now.
 
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A main argument about keeping Dynamax that I see on this site often is that Dynamax can be used defensively against opposing Dynamax, for example a physdef Ferrothorn vs a boosting Max Gyarados. However, if we strip Dynamax from the meta but keep Gigantamax, then the pool of mons that can pull a “defensive Max strategy” becomes severely limited. For example, how am I supposed to use a GMax Centiskorch defensively against a GMax Drednaw, especially if Rain is up?
Tbh, at that point I would be questioning why you are using a GMax Centiskorch, of all things, defensively. That makes even less sense than using the Rock typing of Mega Diancie to take a Fire Blast from Mega Charizard Y “better” (pro tip: don’t actually try that!), or like slapping Assault Vest on whatever Pokémon to take on the special attacker of the day.

If you want a defensive Pokémon, you could use stuff like GMax Lapras — which can set up Aurora Veil to tank hits better and has gargantuan bulk — or GMax Corviknight — who can actually setup with Bulk Up and GMax to take more hits, as well as clear hazards. Otherwise, regular Pokémon aren’t worthless against GMax Pokémon — a bulky Grass-type could stall it out until it loses the GMax boost, or straight up attack it with 4x Grass moves.

Really, having some checks for potential GMax Pokémon isn’t much different than preparing checks for specific Mega Evolutions. If all, most GMax Pokémon have the downside of being one-trick Pokémon, with things like GMax Butterfree and GMax Alcremie being glaring examples. Only GMax Gengar could be seen as potentially problematic, but the others should be manageable enough — either because their GMax moves are lackluster (GMax Coalossal’s move) or their base Pokémon plain suck when they lose their GMax status (Butterfree, Charizard), or both things (Pikachu, Eevee, Meowth).

Though, we won’t know for sure until we see that with our own eyes. If Dynamax were to get the boot, I’d like to see how GMax would fare without competition from behemoths like Dyna Gyarados, Dyna Hawlucha and the sorts. If even that proves to be problematic, it would get the axe, too.
 
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Because Dynamaxing occurs entirely within the battle and not within the teambuilder, banning specific Pokemon from Dynamaxing poses a unique challenge: communication.

The situation is similar to a Rayquaza with Dragon Ascent not being able to Mega Evolve. To communicate this, a message appears at the start of every Ubers match that states that "you cannot mega evolve Rayquaza".
View attachment 208349(side note: listing things that are stopped in the team validator like evasion seems redundant)

How would you communicate that certain Pokemon are unable to Dynamax? Just saying "you cannot Dynamax certain Pokemon" isn't sufficient, as it doesn't provide enough information. But you also can't list every Pokemon that is banned from Dynamaxing, as that list could potentially take up way too much space. The good option might be to say "you cannot Dynamax these Pokemon" and then provide a link to a pastebin that lists all the banned Dynamaxers for that tier, but even that is a bit unwieldy.


Those comparisons aren't remotely valid. While power and accuracy are certainly desireable traits for an attack to have, they are by no means the only things that matter.

U-turn and Volt Switch aren't particularly powerful attacks, but they're still great moves because of their unique traits. Switching through attacking has a ton of practical benefits such as safely bringing in a glass cannon or getting momentum if the opponent hard switches.

Giga Drain isn't a particularly powerful attack, but it's still a great move because of its unique traits. It lets tanky Grass types stay healthy while still dealing at least decent damage.

Scald is actually moderately powerful attack, but it's still outclassed by other attacks in terms of power. However, it's still a great move because of its unique traits. Burning a physical attacker can be game changing, it can't be shut down by Taunt unlike Will-O-Wisp, and it's still threatening to burn-immune Fire types because it's a Water attack.

And yes, while most priority moves are far from powerful, they're still great moves because of their unique traits. By circumventing the speed stat, they're incredibly useful tools for sweeping frail offensive teams after some chip, revenge killing with a super-effective priority move, or even just getting in a bit of chip before fainting.

That brings us to Dig, Dive, Bounce, Fly, and Phantom Force. Even though most of them are outclassed by other moves in terms of power, they're still respectibly strong, and would in theory be decent options on something that lacked those stronger moves. However, their unique traits make them practically unusable. Even though you're (mostly) invulnerable while charging, it still gives your opponent a free turn to heal or boost, and because it telegraphs itself the next turn, there's little in the way of preventing your opponent from just switching to a resist. And that's not to mention that if a Pokemon has Protect (which is admittedly uncommon in Singles, but still provides some utility in stalling and scouting) then these charge moves are completely harmless.
Thanks for the substantial reply but you compared the positives and negatives of established situatonal moves with just the negatives of something that could perhaps be useful.

Not saying they are great but it's a strategy worth exploring to counter Dynamax on Pokemon like Gyarados and Dragapult who may have those moves anyway.

Admittedly I don't closely follow the console singles formats (I'm assuming you're talking Battle Stadium 3v3 here) but standard formats on Smogon are 6v6 singles.

If you're finding Dynamax comfortable to handle in a 3v3 metagame then thats great, but it doesn't necessarily lend itself to the format we're talking about here. Notable differences like the default faster pace, you don't have to bring niche Pokemon every time etc means that Dynamax could well be a different story over there, and it sounds like you have more expertise to comment there. But a lot of things don't translate well to 6v6 - you can't just pack on a super niche Dynamax Gyarados counter with Dive because in 6v6, you're forced to bring that every single game and it will get taken advantage of by stuff that isn't Gyarados.

Similarly, long-term game planning (30 turns +) is a significant part of 6v6 singles, and its this in particular that Dynamax messes around with. Darmanitan-G could switch in 6 times during the game and threatent with Icicle Crash - you're basically forced to go to something like Toxapex near every time. On 5 of those occasions, Darm'll just switch out of the negative match-up, but on one of them it'll Dynamax and EQ for a KO, ripping a hole in your defensive core for another Pokemon to take advantage of. How are you supposed to know which time it is going to Dynamax? There is no consistently good play for the Toxapex user to make here, unless they run something like Toxapex + Rotom-W together and switch to scout for the Dynamax Earthquake every single time, which forces absurd team compositions. Its situations like this that make it really tough to deal with - in 6v6 the games are much longer, Pokemon will come head-to-head with their counters several times during the game, and you just have to guess which time it'll Dynamax to try and blow through you. And this isn't even talking about the set-up abusers like Gyarados, Hawlucha, etc

This might not be as big a part of the fast-paced 3v3 singles metagame, where maybe Dynamaxing at an early, predictable time is optimal in order to avoid getting counterswept before you get another chance? I'll take your word for it that Dynamax is handleable in the console formats, but just a heads up that we have a dedicated subforum for that and your findings aren't really translatable here.
That's an excellent post thank you, I understand the opposing point of view much better now.

I don't want to pretend that I've got any sort of expertise but yeah I'm coming from the 3v3 Battle Stadium point of view. So I could be totally wrong about 6v6 Dynamax, but it seems to me that there are people very invested in having defensive checks stay that way because they are used to it.

I just want everyone to be included and articles to continue to mostly be valid for console players.
 
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That's fine, but I've always used Smogon for strategies to use on cart as far back as Diamond/Peral, that's why I'm here now and I bet lots of people do that. The discussion on this forum has been amazing for developing my team.

Banning Dynamax would be the first time that Smogon significantly diverges from the cart meta and it's every guide that's useless rather than the occasionally banned Pokemon. It would be a shame to lose this resource.

You can see with all the team advice threads being posted and locked here that Sword/Sheild are bringing new players here. If growing the community here is undesirable or you want to filter out console players, that's the right of the community here.

I just think it's something worth considering and an easy win for Smogon to cater to everyone playing Pokemon (at least with one tier) rather than a narrow subset.
Dynamax would be banned from Ou, but not from ubers. You could play with Dynamax in Ubers should it get banned in Ou.
To not make this a one liner: I support the council thinking about banning Dynamax but keeping Gigantamax alive. While there are also a few banworthy Gigantamax mons, its far more manageable. It would also divert from gfs move to ban giga but not dyna, and thus give Pokemon players a higher variety of games to choose from.
 
Thanks for the substantial reply but you compared the positives and negatives of established situatonal moves with just the negatives of something that could perhaps be useful.

Not saying they are great but it's a strategy worth exploring to counter Dynamax on Pokemon like Gyarados and Dragapult who may have those moves anyway.
The point is that under normal circumstances these moves are not viable, however the fact that you would use otherwise suboptimal moves in order to deal with a mechanic that can not otherwise be easily dealt with shows how overcentralizing dynamax is.
 
Tbh, at that point I would be questioning why you are using a GMax Centiskorch, of all things, defensively. That makes even less sense than using the Rock typing of Mega Diancie to take a Fire Blast from Mega Charizard Y “better” (pro tip: don’t actually try that!), or like slapping Assault Vest on whatever Pokémon to take on the special attacker of the day.
No shit Centiskorch is a bad GMax mon to use defensively. That wasn’t my point. Naturally, mons like Ferrothorn or Seismitoad would be options to utilize against a GMax Drednaw, for instance. However, both of these mons are easy to pressure and wear down with fellow rain abusers in Dracovish and Crawdaunt, with the former being able to 2HKO Ferro in rain w/ Rend and the latter just clicking Knock Off on both, which can put both of them in range of GMax Drednaw’s Max Knuckle. Keep in mind that in a Dynamax-less meta, you can’t Max either of these mons in an attempt to halt GMax Drednaw’s advance, but if your only GMax mons left are mons that had a bad matchup against an opposing DMax mon, you’re kind of shit out of luck.

Using a GMax Centiskorch “defensively”, or just about any DMax mon for that matter, isn’t something you want to have as a mainline plan. It’s typically a last resort strategy when the non-DMax mons are too whittled down to stop it, or are knocked out.
 
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