Echoing a lot of the general sentiment above, sun is not broken in the slightest and is incredibly beatable in the builder. A lot of the issues people have with sun feel like they are issues that are just because they don't prep for it at all in the builder and then get farmed.
:gardevoir: :noivern: :diancie: :klefki: :entei: :bisharp::flygon::Regieleki::ditto:
Now we'll go over counterplay to sun teams. First, let's look at the options for outspeeding the Chlorophyll Pokemon be it with speed, priority, or Trick Room. Gardevoir is very common and it copies the Chlorophyll sweepers' abilities with Trace allowing it to outspeed them. Choice Specs Gardevoir can reliably OHKO Scovillain with Psyshock but it will only speed tie non-mixed Venusaur in that case. Choice Scarf will outspeed both but it doesn't KO Scovillain and if Venusaur terastallizes it also fails to KO Venusaur. Choice Scarf Noivern with Tera Dragon can reliably outspeed and deal with Scovillain but it only speed ties with Timid Venusaur. Ditto outspeeds both and is great against sun teams generally, although Scovillain can leave Ditto less threatening by weakening itself with Overheat. Diancie with Tera Dragon (or it can just use its Fire resist that it already has) and Trick Room can be a huge very difficult to handle threat for sun teams. Prankster Klefki can paralyze the Chlorophyll sweepers save Tera Ground Venusaur and Shiftry which is immune to Prankster. Other strong priority moves like Bisharp's Sucker Punch, Flygon's First Impression, and Entei's Extreme Speed can threaten the Chlorophyll Sweepers if they're weakened, especially Scovillain as it is a very frail Pokemon. Unburden sweepers like Hitmonlee, Grafaiai, and Sceptile can also outspeed the Chlorophyll Pokemon but Terrain strategies are not very good or consistent. Regieleki can outspeed Timid Scovillain and sun teams sometimes have no Volt immunity but Regieleki is not very good in general.
:noivern: :cyclizar::blissey: :entei: :goodra-hisui: :umbreon: (
:crawdaunt: &
:kleavor: :Focus Sash:) (
:bisharp: Tera Fire)
:mimikyu::maushold::flygon::gallade::chandelure:
Pokemon that can trade with at least one of the Chlorophyll sweepers or Entei. Noivern, Entei, Cyclizar, Blissey, and Hisuain Goodra are all common Pokemon that can trade with at least one of the Chlorophyll sweepers or Entei if not more than one of them. Noivern and Cycliar can trade with all three, Blissey can Thunder Wave non-Tera Ground Venusaur and Scovillain, and Entei can trade with the Chlorophyll sweepers and itself. Umbreon can trade large Foul Play damage against Venusaur. Mimikyu and Focus Sash Crawdaunt and Kleavor can potentially trade with the Chlorophyll sweepers used on sun. Hisuain Goodra can trade with Venusaur and Scovillain as long as the latter does not tera. Tera Fire Bisharp is a decent soft check to sun and it can potentially deal a lot of damage if it grabs a Swords Dance. Various offensive Pokemon like Maushold, Flygon, Gallade, and Mimikyu can trade with at least one of the Chlorophyll sweepers or Entei. Maushold lives any one non-Tera Fire Weather Ball attack from Venusaur, Flygon lives any hit from Venu and resists Fire, Gallade lives any one hit from Venu and can run Assault Vest to be especially good against sun. Chandelure is basically just a niche Pokemon that exists to check sun teams, although it got URd in the last VR update D: A bunch of other Pokemon can also tera to avoid super effective damage to check the sun sweepers a bit like Jirachi and Krookodile but I don't feel the need to go over every single one. Not everything listed here is a good sun check but the point is that a lot of Pokemon are capable of trading with the threats on sun teams, so it's not such a one-sided interaction, the sun team will have to commit resources such as Tera and take risks.
:registeel: :cresselia: :umbreon: :wo-chien: :empoleon: :goodra-hisui::blissey::rhyperior:
Various bulky Pokemon with Tera Dragon can check sun. Really any bulky Pokemon can slap on Tera Dragon to check sun I just listed a few of the ones I have known to be used. These can be more or less effective measures depending on the Pokemon and what it is checking. Some might do good vs Scovillain but still struggle with Entei and Venusaur.
Here's an example with Tera Dragon Empoleon another with
Tera Dragon Registeel another with
Tera Dragon Umbreon being revealed at the end and a last with
Tera Dragon Cresselia even if it didn't work in every game.
I think wallys list is pretty comprehensive (I would have done the same if I didn't sleep in) but I'd like to add a few more.
:chesnaught: :breloom: :muk alola: :porygon z: :yanmega: :reuniclus:
Chesnaught completely walls venu and while yes, venu can click growth to get to +6 and giga drain its way through, chesnaught can not only knock off its life orb (effectively neutering venu since now it struggles a lot more with damage) but stall out sun turns with 75% synthesis and maybe get up a spike or two, which really hurts sun. Breloom can pp stall sun if needed, which is fine enough, while mach punch variants are pretty effective at revenge killing stuff like scov and shiftry (banded tech loom has been popping up more). Amuk can usually tank a hit from a special attacker or can just lead into sun and put immense pressure on a lot of sun builds that lack terrakion. Pz can use agility to outspeed scovillain under sun, while also being able to easily tank a hit from venu at full hp (if it goes timid it can just outspeed, but that makes its rolls worse against it). Specifically speed boost yan murders sun, they don't really have a lot for a pokemon who not only can easily outspeed them, but can also click protect to burn sun turns. OTR Reun is a niche set, but one that also completely wrecks sun. It can pretty easily take a hit from something, setup tr, and then just go ham on it. The fun thing is that it the abusers can't outspeed it, and comfey also can't heal due to psynoise, so it gets one opportunity to try and stop reun lol.
Also disagree with hail being bad into sun, I think honestly its more favoured for the hail user. +6 cetitan can very much easily clean up a weakened team (only needs rocks chip and a tiny amount of chip on scov/ninetales, which isn't hard at all) while being able to threaten out the sweepers. Alolaslash is very easily able to threaten taxel if it gets in safely and knock off isn't something sun likes taking on, while spikes from it ofc chip down sun threats. Other threats like sash craw that feature on hail are also incredible into sun, and even just resetting the weather with stuff like atales (and personally, snowscape) means that sun abusers can't abuse their turns nearly as much.
Half the metagame checks sun, if you are consistently losing to sun, frankly put, that is a massive builder issue lol. And honestly? I think people are making bad choices in the builder. I might make a post in the metagame thread sometime soon, but the amount of times I've seen people load fastest mon noivern or speed control scarf cress is more times then I frankly think is able to get away with (that amount is zero). Something that I've come to learn about RU is that there are a lot of offensive mons, and that trying to not load at least two speed control options (usually prio+scarfer) is setting yourself up to have to play a lot harder games. But also, said speed control options are plentiful and pretty splashable, to the point where fitting them on teams isn't hard. I am fitting something like entei because it is a great garde answer, can break down certain structures with sacred fire burn and has good bulk. I am fitting scarf gengar because shadow ball is a great cleaner, it can check stuff like yanmega in a pinch, and has lots of utility with trick+whatever move it wants to run (i've used perish song of all things, you can deadass put any fourth move on last and it works). A lot of sun complaints I see are "Oh but it does so much damage" but thats what weather in every tier has done. RU Sun is no different, but our offensive revenge killing options are elite and varied. We also have pokemon who can take one hit like umbreon, entei, hoodra etc, and that can be more then enough. If a scov or something isn't OHKO'ing you, its not getting out of that exchange that well.
One thing I will quickly note, but some people are acting like slapping on tera dragon is such a big deal i feel, but honestly? Tera dragon is an incredibly useful tera in this meta.
I posted about tera dragon regi back in jan 2025, so I can assure you, shit is really good regardless. Something like tera dragon blissey is also able to softcheck (read, softcheck, it can usually do okay into it but shouldn't be your main answer) entei and answer bascu-f better (specs ice beam does like 35% max and flip does so little now). Tera Dragon Amuk is great into entei as well while resisting water and taking on various volt switchers like mag and such. Tera Dragon Torterra can utilise it to setup on a lot of attackers while resisting aqua jet and can even do some funny stuff with outrage if you so desire (though usually other moves are better). Tera Dragon Quagsire can do much better into Entei while helping into rain more and being able to endgame a lot easier once something like garde is down. Thing is, you want these other tera types for a multitude of reasons.
Now onto the actual elements of sun.
:pmd/venusaur: Venu is literally the only reason why sun is in the discussion. Every other abuser is secondary. Tspikes absorbing+good bulk+versatility is great for it, but it does have its issues. Firstly, it does really need that growth boost. Neutral attacks from venu aren't exactly threatening to teams. Even most offensive mons can take a hit like maushold, off vern, gallade etc and just fire back at it, preventing it from sweeping. This means that it needs to generate said turn, and while it is effective at doing so, it isn't flawless and thus can simply just trade. Secondly, it can't really flex its tera types often. It really, really needs that boost from either tera fire or tera ground, as otherwise venu can struggle to really muscle through bulky pokemon. Without either, you aren't ever breaking umbreon without taking massive damage in return. Without tera ground for eq, blissey and shuca empo can check you. Point being, a lot of venus power comes from that tera boost. Something like tera dark or tera fairy sounds nice defensively, but it comes at a major cost that venu doesn't really wanna afford. Sure, venu is by far the best sun mon, but it has enough limiting traits to keep it tame. Also as a personal aside, while we don't usually care about tiers lower then us, nuking venu would mean PU/ZU lose a great defensive pokemon, and that would prob feel shit.
:pmd/ninetales: While losing hwish+encore would be annoying for sun, torkoal is also more then enough for sun to do well at a similar level. Rapid spin+rocks is def great role compression for these squads, and its natural physical bulk would help into mons like bisharp and mimikyu. But both of these mons have a crippling rocks weakness, which can be very awkward considering hazard removal for sun isn't exactly the greatest. They also lack pivoting, yes hwish technically can be counted as a pivot move, but you want to hold back on that move for a bit, so they do drain momentum a bit. Not like, undealable, but something to note.
:pmd/scovillain: I think this pokemon personally is complete ass. List all the calcs you want for this mon, that doesn't change the fact that it provides nothing else to the table. Sun is filled with things that blow up shit both immediately and after one turn of setup. I don't need something that does 90% to all its switchins when I have other things that do 70%. All it does is drive home the fact that fat teams without appropriate defensive teras or prio will get farmed. Theres overkill, and then theres scovillain.
The problem comes with how much we actually have to prep for in this tier. Rain, Cetitan Veil and Sun are usable powerful archetypes, though the latter two are significantly better. Combine this with prepping stall, standard HO with Diancie Yanmega stuff, specs yanmega, and even things like Krookodile it becomes a nightmare in the builder to consistently have options even somewhat covered without your team looking like the same Gardevoir Entei Build But I'm Trying Something New This Time I Promise.
Took a look at my own builder, and uh, sure there is a good amount of mons that are shared across them (noivern, krook and gengar mainly) but also none of them are really that same in structure. The mew empo team is completely different from the bascu mowtom team or the regi blissey team or the mag slowbro team. They do share some other mons between them (the last two have 4 same mons) but also if you look at them more closely, they actually are quite different.
https://pokepast.es/4561e920f3e43ba8
https://pokepast.es/095035d470aaec25
The first one has Lorb 3A Blissey (a set I was trying out, but it could easily be switched out for normal blissey if you wanted) alongside poison heal BU loom with scarf krook. The second has banded loom with rocks helm krook and eject slowbro. The first one plays a lot slower then the second one. Point being, I think there is a ton of ability to make different teamstyles even if they share the same mons, and you can still absolutely cover everything in the meta mostly. Its a bit difficult to do so, but I think thats more then fine, you can make standard structures that work, but the real reward is when you either dip your toes into niche mons and support them, or come up with unique comps/sets that solve issues a standard comp might have. Its approachable to newcomers but rewarding to veterans, and thats honestly one of the best things a meta can do.
Overall, sun is fine af, and does not require much to go out of your way to account for it, and even if you do, said techs are generally useful.
