Resource SV OU Indigo Disk Viability Ranking Thread - (update on post #643)

Wait. Explain Quagmire. Wtf?
My main man Quagsire is an Unaware wall with good typing that has access to Recover and Toxic/Stab EQ combo. With access to hazards he becomes much less of a progress drain when enemy Gliscor switches in. Recover instead of Rest (his competition Dozo's option) generates way less free turns for the enemy.

That, and the Quag can hard counter most Zama variants, as well as being decent insurance to non-Black Glasses/Tera Dark Kingambit BS.
 
with that being said i do have to wonder why hatterene rose to A- rank. is sun more viable now because of or in due part to hatt, or can her rise be attributed to something else?

I personally voted Hatterene to stay in B+, but Hatterene is definitely helped by the uptrend of sun and the value of Magic Bounce in general.

I'm still very surprised Lokix is as highly ranked as it is. How is a one-trick pony that good? I'm also assuming Irons Moth and Crown are rising largely due to Kyurem, since it's Kyurem is...what it is...Lastly, what is Jirachi doing to rise to D? I've faced it less than even some ZU mons. What kind of niche does it bring to the table?

Like I said it's not really as much of a one trick pony as it seems due to U-turn and Knock Off, but yes Choice Banded First Impression is that good.

Iron Crown's viability appreciates Kyurem's more felt presence in recent weeks, but the rise is more reflective in general of how potent all of its sets are at their jobs in the current metagame, between Choice Specs, AV, and Booster Energy sets.

Iron Moth's rise is mostly reflective of just how much it brutalizes offensive balances and offense teams in general, since most offenses that don't run Ting-Lu or Slowking-Galar have an incredibly hard time actually answering it and buffering Fiery Dance due to its crazy coverage, good STAB combination, and access to a reliable Tera Blast. It struggles more into bulkier teams but even then it can put in work since it isn't as reliant on Booster Energy in these matchups, and Fiery Dance can just cleave hard if you remove its checks. It's just a stupid good offense Pokemon that fits a lot of compositions and has a lot of ways to mix and match how it approaches its checks.

Jirachi is a Wish user that has a Speed tier and typing that lets it respond well to Kyurem and Pokemon like Iron Valiant. It's very niche but it can fit compositions in need of its specific talents.

Wait. Explain Quagmire. Wtf?

Glenn Quagmire (born Glenn Quagglechek) is the sex-crazed, perverted neighbor of the Griffins. Quagmire is a former ensign of the U.S. Navy, where he met Peter Griffin. In "Meet the Quagmires", it is established that he already knew Peter and his future wife Lois. He currently works as an airline pilot.
The serious answer is that it has seen success on a stall team that peaked top ladder, with its unique typing with Unaware making it a pretty competent blanket check to most Physical attackers. It also has the coveted combination of Toxic + EQ and unlike Clodsire can actually do something to Air Balloon Gholdengo.

Why did Chesnaught drop? Mon is still a big annoyance whenever I see it due its decent gambit + ogerpon MU, recovery. Spikes, Knock, etc. I don't see why it was unranked given it's decent general match-ups into the higher ranks.

Chesnaught is pretty badly outclassed as a Grass-type wall by Sinistcha and Hydrapple and in general, and thuds pretty badly into Pokemon like Iron Moth and Gholdengo which take advantage of its presence for the most part. It's less that it has a niche but more that for the most part if you're using it, that it's being put into positions better filled by other Pokemon on a game-to-game basis.
 
One day more people will start waking up to Chesnaught's role compression qualities. Until then I'll leave you with a very lazy edit to get your minds rattling.

20240923_041318.jpg
 
One day more people will start waking up to Chesnaught's role compression qualities. Until then I'll leave you with a very lazy edit to get your minds rattling.

View attachment 671462


Non ironically in the current Meta (aka with Ghosts, especially Gholdengo and Tera Ghosts being everywhere), I am way more likely to include Chesnaught on my teams than Skarmory. At least Chesnaught can hit them with Knock Off, while Skarmory is helpless and set-up fodder.
 
C+ still very low, but I'm surprised to see Reuniclus on the VR at all. What does it do?
Haven't tried it this Gen, but I see 3 uses based on movepool and abilities alone, not even factoring in the tera types:
1. CM sweeper with Magic Guard. Can use Stored Power to break Unaware Mons, though vs everything else regular Stabs are better.
2. Offensive TR setter, both abilities work for this.
3. Regenerator AV Mon. Unlike Glowking, has Knock Off, which is a broken move.
 
Haven't tried it this Gen, but I see 3 uses based on movepool and abilities alone, not even factoring in the tera types:
1. CM sweeper with Magic Guard. Can use Stored Power to break Unaware Mons, though vs everything else regular Stabs are better.
2. Offensive TR setter, both abilities work for this.
3. Regenerator AV Mon. Unlike Glowking, has Knock Off, which is a broken move.

I'll try these out for sure, for the first 2 I feel like hatterene is probably better though. AV knock is a good idea. Sample set is some stall breaker set which I'm using rn and is quite interesting.
 
C+ still very low, but I'm surprised to see Reuniclus on the VR at all. What does it do?
It is a decent pokemon on the hazard stacking boots spam styles that aim to minimize passive damage with Pokemon like Skarmory, Clefable, and Boots Ting-Lu. To my knowledge, it is mainly known for its use on one common team, but that team is quite good. It is also a good progress maker itself with Psychic Noise and Knock Off and has decent 1v1 MUs into several defensive Pokemon.
 
:meowscarada: B -> B+

Meowscarada is one of the tiers most reliable balance breakers in the tier, and that's mostly due to a few key traits. First off balance as a playstyle as it is right now doesn't use much immediate speed, and Meowscarada's speed tier usually allows it to outspeed everything on the field barring Choice Scarfed Pokemon, Booster Energy Speed paradox's, or Dragapult/Zamazenta. There is HDB Darkrai too but this option is more seen on Bulky Offense as traditional balance and fat balance is pressed for slots. The point though is Meowscarada is basically never going to get outsped unless either Dragapult is revenge killing Meowscarada or somehow gets pivotted in, OR Zamazenta comes in which is leveraging it's 1 time Dauntless Shield Boost and it really likes to keep it's time / Flower Trick Damage which is non-negligable for the dog as seen here
252 Atk Meowscarada Flower Trick vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Zamazenta on a critical hit: 127-150 (32.7 - 38.6%) -- 99.4% chance to 3HKO

This means to deal with Meowscarada for almost all Balance Comps is going to be defensively. Which, uh, there aren't many ways of doing so without taking several risk. First Choice Band Meowscarada doesn't have answers besides Corviknight, and Moltres who can't afford knock off. In terms of the former Corviknight is a bit more complicated specifically with the Rocky Helmet variants. Corviknight is always 2 hit KO'd to Triple Axel after Stealth Rocks, so it's moreso baiting in the Corviknight to Knock it Off first which isn't too difficult since there aren't other natural switch ins to Choice Band Meowscarada.

252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 185-219 (46.2 - 54.7%) -- approx. 2HKO after Stealth Rock

At this point you can see how a well played Banded Meowscarada can get in and spread Knock Off before committing to very strong Protean boosted Triple Axels, breaking through Stalls, Balance and some Bulky Offenses.

There's still other Meowscarada sets, for example Choice Scarf who while not able to break reliably on it's own, it can threaten very well with Trick Scarf. However this does work against the idea of Knock Off spam so you'd have to first spread Knock Off to all of the relevant Pokemon you think you can Knock Off before you want to time your Trick, so that you won't have to knock off afterwards and risk knocking the opposing scarfer. It's important to mention that this set is particularly better against offensive teams due to Meowscarada's base speed tier, along with Trick being a key anti Setup option against Pokemon like Kingambit. You can genuinely rely on Trick Meowscarada as a late game kingambit check without risking any Sucker Punch 50/50 nonsense, and that's such a valuable trait to have atm.

Lastly there is the HDB Meowscarada sets and while I think these are the currently most underwhelming since the role for HDB pivot is so competitive, it's worth stating. There's a lot of value in having a long term U-Turn + Knock Spreader, and combing Meowscarada's coverage of Triple Axel this long term staying power is something a lot of fatter team's can't handle. The HDB aspect negates the previous issue of the other 2 sets hazards. See the main problem is without proper hazard control you cannot properly abuse Meowscarada's fast or strong U-Turn depending on whatever Choice Item you choose. HDB gives Meowscarada the freedom to be used on a lot more team compositions which I do think adds value to the Pokemon. Against Bulky Offense teams especially I think HDB Meowscarada does very well as a common problem with Choiced Meow is after getting the kill it lets in Pokemon like Kingambit for free which can be a pretty big problem depending on the situation. However HDB Meowscarada lets you get kills while being able to U-Turn still on whatever comes after, there's also the aspect of having all coverage at once furthering it's offensive potential in certain matchups.

Now in comparison to the rest of the B tier list, a lot of these Pokemon are either super specific to an archetype like Manaphy on HO, Ribombee for webs, Pelipper and Barraskewda for rain. I feel like Meowscarada doesn't fit into this idea. While yes those Pokemon define small niche subsets, Meowscarada has the versatility to be used on several Bulky Offenses, and less often but still seen on Offense or Balance archetypes. Meowscarada has enough unique options in moveset to be used for whatever is necessary of the team / teammates needs, and it routinely does well against Balance and Bulky Offense both playstyles which are pretty meta defining as of now. This is all to say Meowscarada isn't niche, it's not a hyperfocused mon specifically for 1 playstyle, it has the variety in possible options/sets to be personalized to what the team needs, and it has routinely an exceptional matchup against 2 very prominent playstyles. This is stuff I cannot say about....barraskewda...or Ninetales-alola

some 1800/1900 games of Meowscara doing well into stalls/Balances/BO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2208696426-t1o85yxz9aes71310imzc93y8emb74vpw Stall game where I got a big triple axel into clef, proceeded to pressure everything else with Knock Off and they didn't really have an option against it

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2208684928-6g4qa7knh2crop5xzr15tdlkyphqmnqpw?p2 Similar idea above but first I baited in Corv with Meow to get the knock, later forced a similar situation with corv coming into meow but I triple axel to threaten 2 hit ko. Get up rocks and force damage on corv to where it can't roost and from there meow flower trick + Knock is pretty much un-answerable

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2209377915-u0gm1svsx8yy2phw5odbvtup4dlf765pw Here I was able to track Meowscarada's damage output for Moltres by forcing it in and getting the 2 hit KO with Knock Off, this later down the line really helped my Great Tusk who got some major value.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2207895867-2gm93dsqrx4oiiae273k54wketsalhspw?p2 Literally everytime it came in something was heavily pressured by knock Off, and even though they did tera fairy the garg but knocking off garg leftovers is still insanely valuable.
 
:gliscor: -> S-Rank

SD was already an easy set to win with before and the only Ice-attackers recent departure has made it an easier Pokémon to slot onto teams than ever before. Terastalization makes it very easy for it to beat most of its counterplay, whether it be itself, Darkrai, or other ice attackers like weavile and Meowscarada. It has many viable Tera types as well like Normal, Ghost, and water, making it hard to pin down. Support sets are a bit more strained now compared to DLC1, but are still potent for their progress making capabilities.
 
:Ursaluna: B+ -> B

This one is a bit surprising to me as Ursaluna neither completely defines a niche, or is above average on it's own. I'll be going over how Ursaluna fits neither of these categories but I'll explain the former first.

Is Ursaluna that valuable to Trick Room to warrant B+ / Is Trick Room that valuable to begin with in the current meta?:
We see in the B+ tier that it's Pokemon like Ninetales, Torkoal, stall Pokemon like Clodsire as well that are there because they define a niche that are pretty metagame relevant. Those niches being weather and stall along with other less common and impactful niches of rain, webs, and arguably Trick Room via Hoopa-Unbounds placement being farther down. In my opinion Trick Room isn't central or super relevant to the metagame and people rarely think of it when building as is. While Ursaluna is important to the Trick Room niche as a progress maker, ultimately it's over-reliance on Healing Wish from other Pokemon gives it significant enough drawbacks to where I wouldn't say it's the main star of the show. I think pokemon like Hatterene, Slowking-Galar, Cresselia the major setters and healers for progress makers are the central driving force to why Trick Room is even Possible. Ursaluna while valuable could be easily replaced, requires a lot of support from other allies to even be functional, and it's not the most important Progress maker of the archetype either. You could argue Hoopa-Unbound is more important since it functions as a setter + pivoter + progress maker for the playstyle. Yet Hoopa-Unbound is in B rank, and Hoopa-Unbound has even more options outside of Trick Room than Ursaluna has? This isn't to say Hoopa-Unbound should be higher but in terms of contributions to the playstyle of Trick Room I don't see how Ursaluna does much better than Hoopa-Unbound, if it does the job any better to begin with. You could also argue Iron Hands is more important than Ursaluna as it has self healing with Drain Punch while, while dealing similar damage after a Swords Dance, and is one of the few Pokémon on the playstyle capable of defending against Kingambit. . Also I just don't think a Trick Room abuser let alone setter is that important in the metagame to warrant a placement along the same tier as a Sun Setter, a much more potent playstyle atm.

Is Ursaluna on it's own merits, a good enough Pokémon to warrant B+ especially compared to the Pokémon of that rank?
lol a resounding no. You can literally argue Ursaluna needs the most support of all viable Pokémon in OU, and not because it sucks but because it loses so much HP over time. For one you take 6% every turn since it uses the Guts ability, which makes it's long term potential immediately very limited. Even outside of that so much Pokemon have ways to stall, whether it's Gliscor Protect or Iron Moth Substitute that you are likely to take even more damage overall. Another issue is Ursaluna is extremely slow so unless you have Trick Room up you are taking a hit, which admittedly it has great bulk but this problem tacked with the 6% damage every turn means you'll rack up damage very quickly. The defensive typing of Ursaluna is also pretty shit so the hits you do take when you're attacking are likely to be pretty big hits. It gets even worse when you realize hazard stack strategies are at an all time high, moreso for balance teams which Ursaluna is supposed to do best against. In fact the only other team comp that Ursaluna is usable on besides Trick Room are those semi-stall Alomomola+Ursaluna teams, but those have been getting less and less usage as the metagame evolves. Because Ursaluna takes so much damage whenever it tries to do anything it requires Healing Wish support or Wish support every time it's used, even on Trick Room teams where it's supposed to move first before getting hit. Wish and Healing Wish support isn't plentiful when it comes to options either as it's just Alomomola, Hatterene, and Cresselia currently. A Pokémon that needs THIS much support that can only be done by three Pokémon, shouldn't be and quite frankly isn't on the same level of viability of other Pokémon like Rillaboom, or Ogerpon-Cornerstone.
 
:hydrapple: from B+ --> A-
The banning of Kyurem means one less mon to prevent it from setting up and sweeping. Hydrapple has become even better at feasting on balance and fat teams and stall if paired with a knocker like Darkrai or Clefable. Physdef sets are good stopgaps against offense teams since it can actually switch into Samurott and check Woger. NP Apple is by far the best set tho, being able to break balance cores lacking Corviknight open effortlessly due to its great physical bulk+Regen, giving it multiple opportunities to 6-0 if it wasn't able to do so the first time. Tera Steel was good for Kyurem and is still good at walling Weavile, Rillaboom, and Meowscarada while also being a great defensive typing in general, but I've been liking Tera Poison recently since the Ice resist isn't as important nowadays, you keep the Toxic immunity, and you don't sacrifice the matchup against Fire and Fighting types like Cinderace and Iron Moth. There's a lot more Hydrapple being ran on ladder and many top players agree this mon is legit, so I believe it's due for a rise.

:gliscor: from A+ --> S
Much like Hydrapple, SD Gliscor now has way more setup opportunities due to Kyurem's departure. I've been facing this mons dozens of times and it never stops being obnoxious. Ever since Nascor started popping up, Lando isn't a good answer anymore since it's able to get an SD up before it can get Taunted. Tera Normal is amazing since it boosts Facade and removes the pitiful quad weakness to Ice, and doesn't mind burning Tera unlike Spikescor since it's meant to stay in and sweep. Knock Off lets it win the long game against bulky walls like Dondozo, Zapdos, and Moltres by removing their boots and forcing them to take hazard damage. Zapdos isn't even a good check since SD Scor runs spdef majority of the time, which doesn't even take half, and even if it gets too low, it can Protect for a free 13% health recovered back, and that's not even mentioning Hurricane's miss chance. Corviknight's the only mon who can truly beat SD Scor especially after it Tera Normals due to Pressure PP stalling Knock and Facade, but it can be easily exploited by Gliscor's teammates like Raging Bolt, Gholdengo, and Dragapult.
 
:meowscarada: B -> B+

Meowscarada is one of the tiers most reliable balance breakers in the tier, and that's mostly due to a few key traits. First off balance as a playstyle as it is right now doesn't use much immediate speed, and Meowscarada's speed tier usually allows it to outspeed everything on the field barring Choice Scarfed Pokemon, Booster Energy Speed paradox's, or Dragapult/Zamazenta. There is HDB Darkrai too but this option is more seen on Bulky Offense as traditional balance and fat balance is pressed for slots. The point though is Meowscarada is basically never going to get outsped unless either Dragapult is revenge killing Meowscarada or somehow gets pivotted in, OR Zamazenta comes in which is leveraging it's 1 time Dauntless Shield Boost and it really likes to keep it's time / Flower Trick Damage which is non-negligable for the dog as seen here
252 Atk Meowscarada Flower Trick vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Zamazenta on a critical hit: 127-150 (32.7 - 38.6%) -- 99.4% chance to 3HKO

This means to deal with Meowscarada for almost all Balance Comps is going to be defensively. Which, uh, there aren't many ways of doing so without taking several risk. First Choice Band Meowscarada doesn't have answers besides Corviknight, and Moltres who can't afford knock off. In terms of the former Corviknight is a bit more complicated specifically with the Rocky Helmet variants. Corviknight is always 2 hit KO'd to Triple Axel after Stealth Rocks, so it's moreso baiting in the Corviknight to Knock it Off first which isn't too difficult since there aren't other natural switch ins to Choice Band Meowscarada.

252 Atk Choice Band Protean Meowscarada Triple Axel (120 BP) (3 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 185-219 (46.2 - 54.7%) -- approx. 2HKO after Stealth Rock

At this point you can see how a well played Banded Meowscarada can get in and spread Knock Off before committing to very strong Protean boosted Triple Axels, breaking through Stalls, Balance and some Bulky Offenses.

There's still other Meowscarada sets, for example Choice Scarf who while not able to break reliably on it's own, it can threaten very well with Trick Scarf. However this does work against the idea of Knock Off spam so you'd have to first spread Knock Off to all of the relevant Pokemon you think you can Knock Off before you want to time your Trick, so that you won't have to knock off afterwards and risk knocking the opposing scarfer. It's important to mention that this set is particularly better against offensive teams due to Meowscarada's base speed tier, along with Trick being a key anti Setup option against Pokemon like Kingambit. You can genuinely rely on Trick Meowscarada as a late game kingambit check without risking any Sucker Punch 50/50 nonsense, and that's such a valuable trait to have atm.

Lastly there is the HDB Meowscarada sets and while I think these are the currently most underwhelming since the role for HDB pivot is so competitive, it's worth stating. There's a lot of value in having a long term U-Turn + Knock Spreader, and combing Meowscarada's coverage of Triple Axel this long term staying power is something a lot of fatter team's can't handle. The HDB aspect negates the previous issue of the other 2 sets hazards. See the main problem is without proper hazard control you cannot properly abuse Meowscarada's fast or strong U-Turn depending on whatever Choice Item you choose. HDB gives Meowscarada the freedom to be used on a lot more team compositions which I do think adds value to the Pokemon. Against Bulky Offense teams especially I think HDB Meowscarada does very well as a common problem with Choiced Meow is after getting the kill it lets in Pokemon like Kingambit for free which can be a pretty big problem depending on the situation. However HDB Meowscarada lets you get kills while being able to U-Turn still on whatever comes after, there's also the aspect of having all coverage at once furthering it's offensive potential in certain matchups.

Now in comparison to the rest of the B tier list, a lot of these Pokemon are either super specific to an archetype like Manaphy on HO, Ribombee for webs, Pelipper and Barraskewda for rain. I feel like Meowscarada doesn't fit into this idea. While yes those Pokemon define small niche subsets, Meowscarada has the versatility to be used on several Bulky Offenses, and less often but still seen on Offense or Balance archetypes. Meowscarada has enough unique options in moveset to be used for whatever is necessary of the team / teammates needs, and it routinely does well against Balance and Bulky Offense both playstyles which are pretty meta defining as of now. This is all to say Meowscarada isn't niche, it's not a hyperfocused mon specifically for 1 playstyle, it has the variety in possible options/sets to be personalized to what the team needs, and it has routinely an exceptional matchup against 2 very prominent playstyles. This is stuff I cannot say about....barraskewda...or Ninetales-alola

some 1800/1900 games of Meowscara doing well into stalls/Balances/BO

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2208696426-t1o85yxz9aes71310imzc93y8emb74vpw Stall game where I got a big triple axel into clef, proceeded to pressure everything else with Knock Off and they didn't really have an option against it

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2208684928-6g4qa7knh2crop5xzr15tdlkyphqmnqpw?p2 Similar idea above but first I baited in Corv with Meow to get the knock, later forced a similar situation with corv coming into meow but I triple axel to threaten 2 hit ko. Get up rocks and force damage on corv to where it can't roost and from there meow flower trick + Knock is pretty much un-answerable

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2209377915-u0gm1svsx8yy2phw5odbvtup4dlf765pw Here I was able to track Meowscarada's damage output for Moltres by forcing it in and getting the 2 hit KO with Knock Off, this later down the line really helped my Great Tusk who got some major value.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2207895867-2gm93dsqrx4oiiae273k54wketsalhspw?p2 Literally everytime it came in something was heavily pressured by knock Off, and even though they did tera fairy the garg but knocking off garg leftovers is still insanely valuable.
Seconding this. However, with how favorable the post-Kyurem ban meta is for :meowscarada:, I think Meowscarada should rise further than B+ Rank, to at least A- or A Rank. The kyurem ban unsurprisingly saw a rise to ice-weak or freeze dry-weak pokemon, as well as greedy builds stacking up to 4 of them at once, which :meowscarada: easily takes advantage of thanks to Protean and its coverage hitting most of those Pokemon for STAB super-effective damage. At the same time, Meowscarada fits perfectly into the style of passive balance teams that Kyurem has been holding back thanks to being one of the most reliable progress-makers in OU. It is shaping up to be a mainstay of the OU meta, so I believe its rank should reflect that.
 
:Ursaluna: B+ -> B

This one is a bit surprising to me as Ursaluna neither completely defines a niche, or is above average on it's own. I'll be going over how Ursaluna fits neither of these categories but I'll explain the former first.

Is Ursaluna that valuable to Trick Room to warrant B+ / Is Trick Room that valuable to begin with in the current meta?:
We see in the B+ tier that it's Pokemon like Ninetales, Torkoal, stall Pokemon like Clodsire as well that are there because they define a niche that are pretty metagame relevant. Those niches being weather and stall along with other less common and impactful niches of rain, webs, and arguably Trick Room via Hoopa-Unbounds placement being farther down. In my opinion Trick Room isn't central or super relevant to the metagame and people rarely think of it when building as is. While Ursaluna is important to the Trick Room niche as a progress maker, ultimately it's over-reliance on Healing Wish from other Pokemon gives it significant enough drawbacks to where I wouldn't say it's the main star of the show. I think pokemon like Hatterene, Slowking-Galar, Cresselia the major setters and healers for progress makers are the central driving force to why Trick Room is even Possible. Ursaluna while valuable could be easily replaced, requires a lot of support from other allies to even be functional, and it's not the most important Progress maker of the archetype either. You could argue Hoopa-Unbound is more important since it functions as a setter + pivoter + progress maker for the playstyle. Yet Hoopa-Unbound is in B rank, and Hoopa-Unbound has even more options outside of Trick Room than Ursaluna has? This isn't to say Hoopa-Unbound should be higher but in terms of contributions to the playstyle of Trick Room I don't see how Ursaluna does much better than Hoopa-Unbound, if it does the job any better to begin with. You could also argue Iron Hands is more important than Ursaluna as it has self healing with Drain Punch while, while dealing similar damage after a Swords Dance, and is one of the few Pokémon on the playstyle capable of defending against Kingambit. . Also I just don't think a Trick Room abuser let alone setter is that important in the metagame to warrant a placement along the same tier as a Sun Setter, a much more potent playstyle atm.

Is Ursaluna on it's own merits, a good enough Pokémon to warrant B+ especially compared to the Pokémon of that rank?
lol a resounding no. You can literally argue Ursaluna needs the most support of all viable Pokémon in OU, and not because it sucks but because it loses so much HP over time. For one you take 6% every turn since it uses the Guts ability, which makes it's long term potential immediately very limited. Even outside of that so much Pokemon have ways to stall, whether it's Gliscor Protect or Iron Moth Substitute that you are likely to take even more damage overall. Another issue is Ursaluna is extremely slow so unless you have Trick Room up you are taking a hit, which admittedly it has great bulk but this problem tacked with the 6% damage every turn means you'll rack up damage very quickly. The defensive typing of Ursaluna is also pretty shit so the hits you do take when you're attacking are likely to be pretty big hits. It gets even worse when you realize hazard stack strategies are at an all time high, moreso for balance teams which Ursaluna is supposed to do best against. In fact the only other team comp that Ursaluna is usable on besides Trick Room are those semi-stall Alomomola+Ursaluna teams, but those have been getting less and less usage as the metagame evolves. Because Ursaluna takes so much damage whenever it tries to do anything it requires Healing Wish support or Wish support every time it's used, even on Trick Room teams where it's supposed to move first before getting hit. Wish and Healing Wish support isn't plentiful when it comes to options either as it's just Alomomola, Hatterene, and Cresselia currently. A Pokémon that needs THIS much support that can only be done by three Pokémon, shouldn't be and quite frankly isn't on the same level of viability of other Pokémon like Rillaboom, or Ogerpon-Cornerstone.
Just wanted to point out the love for Assault Vest Ursaluna that was being passed around here fairly recently. It's a pretty heat set, and wears the vest very well. Trades the ability to be a cheesy one shot gimmick to bring able to turn the tables on many sp.attackers.

I'm not arguing with anything said though. It needs much the same support, and somehow everything you mentioned as a flaw for Burnbear counts for AV Luna.
 
:sv/necrozma:
C -> UR

Gonna rant here, so apologies but it needs to be said.

Why the fuck is this goofy ahh geometrical head ahh still in the UR?

Genuinely, what does this shit do?

Meteor Beam + Stealth Rock?

:sv/glimmora:
We have a mon like that with the same SpA as Necrozma but with a better speed tier and STAB on Meteor Beam.

Calm Mind?

:sv/primarina: :sv/raging_bolt: :sv/hatterene: :sv/latios::sv/iron_valiant: :sv/iron_crown:
Its not like we have a billion Calm Minders in the tier that have better stats/defensive typings/movepools.

Trick Room?

:sv/cresselia: :sv/hoopa_unbound: :sv/hatterene: :sv/diancie:

Trick Room is not ideal in this meta, plus you’d much rather run these guys, including Diancie who also has SR + Meteor Beam.

Dragon Dance?

:sv/dragonite: :sv/roaring_moon:

There’s no instance where I’d use DD Necrozma over these two unless I was making a full DD team.

Necrozma offers no offensive or defensive niche that can’t be accommodated by much better mons in the tier. Pure Psychic does Necrozma no favors. Even with Prism Armor it’s getting destroyed by the mirage of Dark and Ghost types. Even just random U-Turns are a major issue. It has Heatran-levels of bulk but feels frail as shit. The only thing it can switch into is Zama which isn’t unique to Necrozma at all.

Throughout the whole year from SPL to WCOP to OLT to SCL, Necrozma hasn’t done anything of note.

To give a perspective on how bad Necrozma is, I believe Ampibom has a more legit niche than Necrozma. Too outclassed, too slow, bad typing, and a slog of other mediocre traits.

I propose that we finally get Necrozma out of the VR.
 
:sv/necrozma:
C -> UR

Gonna rant here, so apologies but it needs to be said.

Why the fuck is this goofy ahh geometrical head ahh still in the UR?

Genuinely, what does this shit do?

Meteor Beam + Stealth Rock?

:sv/glimmora:
We have a mon like that with the same SpA as Necrozma but with a better speed tier and STAB on Meteor Beam.

Calm Mind?

:sv/primarina: :sv/raging_bolt: :sv/hatterene: :sv/latios::sv/iron_valiant: :sv/iron_crown:
Its not like we have a billion Calm Minders in the tier that have better stats/defensive typings/movepools.

Trick Room?

:sv/cresselia: :sv/hoopa_unbound: :sv/hatterene: :sv/diancie:

Trick Room is not ideal in this meta, plus you’d much rather run these guys, including Diancie who also has SR + Meteor Beam.

Dragon Dance?

:sv/dragonite: :sv/roaring_moon:

There’s no instance where I’d use DD Necrozma over these two unless I was making a full DD team.

Necrozma offers no offensive or defensive niche that can’t be accommodated by much better mons in the tier. Pure Psychic does Necrozma no favors. Even with Prism Armor it’s getting destroyed by the mirage of Dark and Ghost types. Even just random U-Turns are a major issue. It has Heatran-levels of bulk but feels frail as shit. The only thing it can switch into is Zama which isn’t unique to Necrozma at all.

Throughout the whole year from SPL to WCOP to OLT to SCL, Necrozma hasn’t done anything of note.

To give a perspective on how bad Necrozma is, I believe Ampibom has a more legit niche than Necrozma. Too outclassed, too slow, bad typing, and a slog of other mediocre traits.

I propose that we finally get Necrozma out of the VR.
:Necrozma:: C -> UR

I couldn’t agree more, this thing is so unfathomably bad that ZU benchwarmer BELLOSOM has had more competitive success then it this Gen. Let that sink in. This thing is a legendary and has less usage then BELLOSSOM. Any potential niche it can fill is taken up by mons that can do the role so much better and more along with it, from Trick Room to Meteor Beam to DD, any set you can think of for this mon is done comically better by something.

:Araquanid:: C -> B
:Ribombee:: B -> C

Look, I’m gonna be completely honest, if you asked me a couple of weeks ago which was the better web setter, I would’ve answered the bee with no hesitance. But now? I’ve used both in the current meta and I’ve come to the conclusion based on thorough experimentation that the water spider is noticeably better the bee as of this post being written. Not only does it have a significantly better matchup into the tiers hazard blockers, most notably Corviknight, Cinderace, Iron Treads, Glimmora, Great Tusk, and, most importantly, Lando. Furthermore, it is significantly harder to anti lead against the spider as well in order to fully prevent webs, as Hatterene is cleanly 2HKOd and former webs haters Iron Crown, Weavile, Mewoscarada, and Iron Moth can’t do anything back to it. It’s become very apparent that the current meta is just way to hostile towards Ribombee as a webs setter, to the point where teams don’t even have to consider their webs matchup to completely stuff any attempt it has at setting them up. The only thing Ribombee has over Araquanid at all is Stun Spore, which backfires against common switch ins like Hatterene and Gholdengo, can’t even do its job against Sub Iron Moth, and worst of all, doesn’t work 1/4th of the time. So, in order to reflect this shift in the webs style as a whole, I think it’s only fitting that we swap the place of these two. Although I don’t think the bee is unusable, it is at this point noticeably the worse option as a webs setter and should shift tiers with the water spider to reflect this.
 
this thing is so unfathomably bad that ZU benchwarmer BELLOSOM has had more competitive success then it this Gen. Let that sink in. This thing is a legendary and has less usage then BELLOSSOM.
i know what you're trying to do here. caught in 4k. exposed
IMG_5986.jpeg

but while we're on the topic of necrozma, i'm going to weigh in with my expert and invariably flawless opinion and support necrozma's drop to unranked. i tried this guy out on a whim when i saw it on the vr because i do like trying out niche stuff just for funsies to see if i can make it work, but necrozma is just pathetically outclassed at literally everything it does, occasionally by mons that are themselves not good. even the hyper-specific niches it's outclassed in. you want a pure psychic-type dragon dance user with access to earthquake and knock off? use mew, it's bulkier and way faster with only 7 base attack less. you want a trick room setter that has stealth rock and meteor beam and you want it to be crystal-themed because you have a very specific cool name for it? go ahead and load diancie, that gets stab on meteor beam. you want a calm mind mon that has a powerful psychic move that can ignore unaware and at least base 125 spa but you also want to not take a billion trillion damage from every dark move ever? cool, we actually have two of those because prim and hatterene both get stored power. you need to start narrowing your niche down to absolutely ridiculous levels before you can justify slotting in necrozma over anything. this mon is nothing. it serves zero purpose. you should take it off the vr, NOW
 
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