Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.

Taka

coastin' like crazy
is a Site Content Manageris an official Team Rateris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
PUPL Champion
Lol I don't find Gholdengo to be broken, at all.

In Generation 8, teams would easily find a way to Defog after lead Mew / Skarmory does its thing, then pivot between 2-3 Regenerator Pokemon until your opponent's garbage offense is dead-- the offense user has no way to make progress without some match-up fish Pokemon such as Crawdaunt or ultra-specific cores such as Future Sight Tapu Lele + Choice Band Urshifu.
While I understand the sentiment, you are genuinely bringing up examples of common wallbreakers, which there are plenty of in the ou tier. HO, while not really the forefront of the metagame, genuinely has some great options and can be considered viable, along with BO, Balance, and Stall to some extent.

The reality of the situation is that people are just salty that they can't mindlessly Defog with their Corviknight, remove hazards, and win vs HO which has been one of the worse archetypes for generations at this point. People need to learn to play with hazards on the field, and they also need to learn how to play more aggressively with fatter builds. This is a breathe of fresh air if anything.
I do understand this sentiment, and it is fair that playing much more aggressively is something many players, myself included, have had to figure out in this new metagame. However, it is impossible to call this merely a breath of fresh air. In a metagame with very few hazard removal options, one of the most promising, and probably the most consistent, would be corviknight. Corviknight cannot progress past Gholdengo to defog, ever. In addition to this, Gholdengo's unique typing blocks Magnet Pull, Rapid Spin, and Mortal Spin, while being immune to Toxic Spikes, status effects, and resisting rocks. It is incredibly hard to force progress on Gholdengo at times, and Gholdengo's very existence means you cannot remove hazards. Everytime it comes in, either you kill it or nothing happens, but hazard removal is not an option until it is gone. Yes, your physdef Tusk can spin on that Tera Flying Roaring Moon if it wants, but would you really risk that? If Gholdengo dies, your opponent can apply more pressure to keep it away by bringing in a new sweeper. You don't have many turns after Gholdengo is gone to remove these hazards, as you have to defend against the onslaught of offensive threats. This doesn't even factor tera type shenanigans (tera Fairy Gholdengo beats Tusk switchins although it loses to Iron Treads).

Removing hazards vs Gholdengo is not impossible. Choice Scarf is by far the most common set-- Iron Treads & Great Tusk force the HO player to pick between keeping hazards or keeping Gholdengo. I've had many games where players sack their Gholdengo to keep hazards up, but because Gholdengo ends up being the only defensive backbone on these type of teams, I can just Moonblast spam with something like Iron Valiant and clean up late-game. Balloon sets have more flexibility, but these sets are nowhere near as threatening compared to Trick Scarf.
This is something I do want to bring up. Scarf is incredibly common yes, but Air Balloon is also similarly very common. Additionally, its not like Gholdengo doesn't have other options like Sub, Twave, Plot, Hex, Tera Blast, etc. Gholdengo even without the ability is a very good mon, maybe not OU, but at least a UU mon. Your point, that sacking Gholdengo to keep hazards up isn't always the right move, is true and on hyper offensive teams where Gholdengo is often the only defensive pivot, losing Gholdengo could mean a fast breaker like Specs Bundle or Booster Valiant can come in and just win. However, this really points to the core problem:

We literally have Chien-Pao, which takes zero hazard damage, and would run Heavy-Duty Boots even if Gholdengo was banned, then proceeds to smash 90% of these mindless offenses with the option of two stab priority moves and great coverage in Sacred Sword.
Ignoring the boots stuff, which I do agree with to an extent, I 100% agree that Chien Pao would smash 90% of offense by itself. In a metagame where we have such crazy offensive presences like Palafin, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Valiant, Roaring Moon, and Iron Bundle, each turn is incredibly valuable. Spending a turn to wipe away hazards instead of attacking is already somewhat risky, but to have those hazards be impossible to remove or to just have to slot your team in such a way that either you only run hazard immune/resistant mons or you slap 6 boots on your team to not face the consequences is not a good set of choices.



With Gholdengo in the tier, fat has to play more aggressively and not just simple ass sequences like "click Dondozo on Chien-Pao" and "click Defog on Stealth Rock." Maybe trading hazards is a better play? Is this an entirely new dynamic to playing fatter builds? What a nightmare!
This is true. Truthfully, I'm not pro ban Gholdengo, and I see what it does for the tier. As players we do need to adapt to an extent to Gholdengo, and I agree that fat teams needed to be forced to make more aggressive plays, but the issue is that in a new metagame where we have clearly broken stuff running around, Gholdengo allows players to abuse these mons to their fullest and generate way too much offensive pressure against other teams. Games will start to come down to 50/50s more often, and the value of each turn is exponentially high. Gholdengo is balanced in a slower metagame like post Home/DLC, where we have more defoggers/spinners and ways to defensively pivot around it, but in the current metagame, every broken threat is able to abuse Gholdengo's ability to the fullest.

I very much appreciate how the OU council is dealing with the metagame so far, especially with how transparent they are and how quick they are to respond to meta threats. Whether Gholdengo will be unhealthy after all the broken mons are gone is still in the air, but at the moment, it just enables too much in the tier.
 
Last edited:
Lol I don't find Gholdengo to be broken, at all.

In Generation 8, teams would easily find a way to Defog after lead Mew / Skarmory does its thing, then pivot between 2-3 Regenerator Pokemon until your opponent's garbage offense is dead-- the offense user has no way to make progress without some match-up fish Pokemon such as Crawdaunt or ultra-specific cores such as Future Sight Tapu Lele + Choice Band Urshifu.

The reality of the situation is that people are just salty that they can't mindlessly Defog with their Corviknight, remove hazards, and win vs HO which has been one of the worse archetypes for generations at this point. People need to learn to play with hazards on the field, and they also need to learn how to play more aggressively with fatter builds. This is a breathe of fresh air if anything.
was gonna type something but glad someone said it better than I could.
The mon literally gets beat by most hazard setters. If people wana cry that their opponent is using an entire team slot to block you from coming in and just clicking defog then slow-turning out and instead actually makes you think about your game strategy and how you need to go about your win condition then thats just a skill issue plain and simple.

Gholdengo is the prime example of a good pokemon that disincentives lazy team building and auto pilot play.
 
Guys I want your opinion on a mon that I feel I severerly overlooked:

:sm/mabosstiff:
Mabosstiff @ Choice Band
Ability: Stakeout
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Tera Blast
- Wild Charge
- Psychic Fangs

This guy has 120 Attack, decent bulk and Speed, STAB Crunch and, most importantly, Stakeout. The movepool is objectively pretty bad but can be somewhat be compensated with Tera (even though the set is by no means optimized). It also appreciates a surpising lack of good Fairy types at the moment. Here I provide some calcs.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Dondozo: 327-385 (64.8 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Dondozo: 490-578 (97.2 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 265-313 (52.5 - 62.1%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 398-470 (78.9 - 93.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire: 399-471 (85.9 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire: 566-668 (121.9 - 143.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 283-334 (70.7 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 424-500 (106 - 125%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 366-432 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 520-612 (120.3 - 141.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 644-762 (125.2 - 148.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
I feel like a big thing people are not taking away from the point about Gholdengo denying hazard removal being a possible net-negative is that not only is it often paired with another potent Ghost in Dragapult meaning in the long term your hazards can still be kept off, but the methods by which Ghosts used to get stopped from spinblocking in older generations(Pursuit) has been removed from the game entirely so you have to deal with a relatively bulky steel immune to non-spikes passive damage with recover and is thus capable of staying alive indefinitely. actively punishing it in the process is quite difficult in and of itself.

I dont quite think it's broken and I want to see Palafins reign of terror end first but to say it is not warping the tier around itself with hazard distribution at an all time high, would be lying the.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
Guys I want your opinion on a mon that I feel I severerly overlooked:

:sm/mabosstiff:
Mabosstiff @ Choice Band
Ability: Stakeout
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Crunch
- Tera Blast
- Wild Charge
- Psychic Fangs

This guy has 120 Attack, decent bulk and Speed, STAB Crunch and, most importantly, Stakeout. The movepool is objectively pretty bad but can be somewhat be compensated with Tera (even though the set is by no means optimized). It also appreciates a surpising lack of good Fairy types at the moment. Here I provide some calcs.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Dondozo: 327-385 (64.8 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Dondozo: 490-578 (97.2 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 265-313 (52.5 - 62.1%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 398-470 (78.9 - 93.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire: 399-471 (85.9 - 101.5%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clodsire: 566-668 (121.9 - 143.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 283-334 (70.7 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Wild Charge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 424-500 (106 - 125%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 366-432 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Psychic Fangs vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 520-612 (120.3 - 141.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Ting-Lu: 644-762 (125.2 - 148.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I've played a lot with the dog and I ultimately just switched it out for Chien Pao. In a slower meta it could definitely see some play as a psuedo-trapper, but as is that speed stat makes it dead in the water. In all games I played with it, it was by far the least impactful team member and I struggle to see a legitimate niche for the hound as long as the metagame is as offensive as it is.

In other news, Scarf Iron Moth has actually been overpreforming for me. I've been playing it alongside physdef Hatt to keep hazards off, and if the field is clear its a very solid team player all around. Surprise kills Iron Bundle and the dolphin (with Grass Tera obv) and generally puts in the work revenge killing most of the meta with that 140 base Special Attack. Unfortunately blows against Dragapult, at least until they Tera into a mono Ghost lol. Try it out if your team can support it!

Iron Moth @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- U-turn
 
Last edited:
I've played a lot with the dog and I ultimately just switched it out for Chien Pao. In a slower meta it could definitely see some play as a psuedo-trapper, but as is that speed stat makes it dead in the water. In all games I played with it, it was by far the least impactful team member and I struggle to see a legitimate niche for the hound as long as the metagame is as offensive as it is.

In other news, Scarf Iron Moth has actually been overpreforming for me. I've been playing it alongside physdef Hatt to keep hazards off, and if the field it clear its a very solid team player all around. Surprise kills Iron Bundle and the dolphin (with Grass Tera obv) and generally puts in the work revenge killing most of the meta with that 140 base Special Attack. Unfortunately blows against Dragapult, at least until they Tera into a mono Ghost lol. Try it out if your team can support it!

Iron Moth @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Fire Blast
- Sludge Wave
- Energy Ball
- U-turn
Definetly see your point, against HO or the more offensive teams going around you might as well be playing 5vs6. I canly see him maybe having a niche in a future where bulkier teams become more popular. I would note however that Chien-Pao definetly isn't a switch-in, especially with Rocks support since HDB Chien-Pao never kills without Tera.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Chien-Pao: 244-288 (81 - 95.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Chien-Pao Sacred Sword vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mabosstiff: 204-240 (67.7 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

edit: my bad I suck at reading, Chien-Pao definetly does better 99% of the time. Only points Mabosstiff would have over in my opinion are Rocks neutrality and the ability to actually deal with Dondozo
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
Definetly see your point, against HO or the more offensive teams going around you might as well be playing 5vs6. I canly see him maybe having a niche in a future where bulkier teams become more popular. I would note however that Chien-Pao definetly isn't a switch-in, especially with Rocks support since HDB Chien-Pao never kills without Tera.

252+ Atk Choice Band Stakeout Mabosstiff Crunch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Chien-Pao: 244-288 (81 - 95.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Chien-Pao Sacred Sword vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mabosstiff: 204-240 (67.7 - 79.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
No I meant I removed the dog on that build in favor of Chien, the superior physical dark at the moment
 
I feel people are missing the real issue.
The real issue isn’t Gholdengo.
The real issue is Defog.

Rapid Spin is a Normal type move.
Players have always tried to deny Rapid Spin by bringing out Ghost Type Blocker.

This is one of the main reasons Defog got introduced into the game.
It is Flying move which can’t be denied by Ghost.

What I don’t understand is why does Defog need to lower evasion -1?
When I use Defog, I am just trying to remove Hazards.

The Evasion drop is worthless and unnecessary.
The Evasion drop in this situation is the real issue because Gholdengo Ability Good as Gold stops status drops which ultimately shuts down a person attempting to clear the field of hazards.

It makes me wonder if all of this has been done on purpose.
Gholdengo is Ghost type denying Rapid Spin.
Gholdengo ability is denying Defog.

Is the game trying to introduce a new Hazard removal move?
Or has an error In oversight been made?

I thought the game was going to fix this.
It seems they are not going too.

Would we classify Gholdengo as the first ever Pokémon in history to create a situation which I would like to name as “Hazard Trapping”.
It does have a nice Ring to it doesn’t it.

Imaging having a conversation with Gholdengo.
Gholdengo speaks: Do you see those Rocks and Spikes near your Pokémon?
We speak: Yeah, what about them?
Gholdengo speaks: They have to stay there.
We speak: But why?
Gholdengo speak: Because I said so and I’m as Good as Gold, Baby!

THE HAZARD TRAPPER!
 
Gholdengo has necessitated the need to run HDB on the majority of the mons who would prefer to use Leftovers.

It's a totally absurd mon, and almost necessitates the need for teams to run two Rapid Spinners.

All Gholdengo needs to do in many games is trade itself for sufficient chip on the Donphans (let's face it, nobody is using any other Rapid Spinners), the Donphans are then too low HP to get off a spin for the rest of the game and the spikes stay up for good. Blocking Defog completely is just silly and clearly a woeful decision from Gamefreak.

Anyone who has played past gens Deo S and Deo D eras, or the Magic Guard spam of Gen 5 knows exactly what the meta is going to devolve into if Gholdengo remains. The only thing that helps with that is HDBs, but it will be super lame to continue to run boots on everything.

I hope the council can look at this.
 
I have been wondering if it could be possible to play around Gholdengo's ability with a move like Worry Seed. Because it could probably make the life of hazard cleaners easier
 
I have been wondering if it could be possible to play around Gholdengo's ability with a move like Worry Seed.
Mon is immune to status moves, so no. But even if it weren't, I don't think that'd be worth it at all, partly because that only helps out Defog mons, but especially considering no OU hazard removal gets Gastro Acid or a clone, and there's no real reason for you to click that on Gholdengo with any other mon, since assuming they haven't switched out already, your switch into your removal would be EXTREMELY telegraphed.

catch me running core enforcer zydog
 
Gholdengo has necessitated the need to run HDB on the majority of the mons who would prefer to use Leftovers.
Uhh, this was the case in gen 8 lol. Boots is a really good item, so good that even stuff like Blissey used it. It takes several turns to hazard stack, and using boots to negate it has been the strategy used for quite a while now. I'm not saying Gholdengo is broken or not, but Boots > Leftovers has been the way to go for several years now.
 
Last edited:

Ema Skye

Work!
I do think Gholdengo is more egregious in the tier than Palafin (not Bundle). Bans for supportive Pokemon are often trickier to see than the offensive juggernauts, but I do think it's there for Gholdengo.

Balloon Gholdengo is incredibly effective at keeping hazards up to the point where it's honestly becoming worth it to just never try to remove them. Running through the removal on the viability list, we can see the following:
  • :great-tusk: Balloon is immune to 75% of its viable moves meaning that unless it gets the Knock Off prediction right, it loses the exchange and Gholdengo severely weakens it to the point where it can't switch into the other 5 teammates to switch again.
  • :iron-treads: Better MU than Great Tusk and Treads is bulky enough to take a Shadow Ball comfortably, especially with AV.
  • :avalugg: Can only touch it with Earthquake and takes a ton from Shadow Ball or Focus Blast
  • :corviknight: Literally cannot touch Gholdengo
  • :scizor: Cannot touch Gholdengo
  • :torkoal: Hits Gholdengo pretty hard but generally can't afford to switch into it when it needs to spin.
  • :glimmora: Can't touch it without Earth Power and it takes a lot from Shadow Ball
  • :maushold: The only way you can actually remove the hazards but you're stuck with a mon that can't really damage it and takes a million from Focus Blast
We're left with really only one mon that can consistently both remove hazards from Gholdengo (AV Iron Treads). The fact that people are running unviable mons like Talonflame to try to deal with it I think speaks to the strangle Gholdengo has on the tier's play. It feels like Gen 6 where hazard setters like Azelf ran Skill Swap to set hazards up on Mega Sableye, or why people flocked to Mold Breaker Excadrill ignore its Magic Bounce (before the ban).

Hazard stack is likely the best structure at the moment and it is solely due to Gholdengo's ability to keep those hazards up all game.

"But spinblocking is part of the game!" - Yes, which is why historically spinners have made moveset developments to be able to deal with the spinblockers. And also why Defog has been valuable in removal as you ignore the spinblocker. Any other Ghost on the viability list (Annihilape, Dragapult, Skeledirge, etc) does spinblock and have more counterplay than just AV Iron Treads.

"But abilities like Defiant discourage Defog!" - Yeah, but the move still goes off. If I can deal with the +2 Kingambit/Annihilape then hey, bring it on and let me remove those spikes. Or maybe I'll punish the switch and not Defog. Unfortunately, Gholdengo doesn't allow for either option because our Defoggers don't actually scare it out, or make it think twice, like they can with the Defoggers (like how Bpress or BBCorv threatens a Defiant mon).

And this whole package is on a Steel/Ghost with maginally worse bulk than Swampert that also gets Recovery. This mon is genuinely absurd. Our hazard removal is so limited outside of the Paradonphans and I don't think having a mon that keeps them up as well as Gholdengo does is healthy for the tier.
 
Wasn't there a pokemon not named Excadrill in the previous gens that made it hard to keep hazards on the field that is also included in the dex? Because we could make good use of it right now
 
Hello everyone,

i want to discuss a point which i havent seen on here yet, regarding full quark-drive teams. While trying to build a team centered around the new mechanic (Electric Surge waiting room...), i noticed a huge problem which might result in quark-drive and maybe even sun teams never being viable.

The general idea of the archetype is great. Having Paradox mons with their boost active, while always having a free item slot, makes them really powerful. The Problem is, unlike most other "weather" abusers, Paradox mons are perfectly fine to use even when they're not boosted by their ability and often prefer choice-items over booster energy anyway. They are so good that most teams tend to run one or two Paradox-mons by default.

This results in teams, intending to abuse said ability with a dedicated terrain-setter, putting themselves at a disadvantage quite often, as the opponent gets their paradox mons boosted for free (Whoops, double scarf iron bundle just came in).

Will the risk of the opponent having two or more Paradox mons on their team ever be worth it? I think this will at least result in Sun and Electric-Terrain being a lot worse than Rain or Snow in comparison. I'd love to hear your opinions about this.
 

1LDK

It's never going to get better
is a Top Team Rater
I honestly think the Goldieboy situation will be fixed with more mons, but i kinda agree that GhOlDengo could promote more whacky teambuilding, sounds fun, this is more of a clef wishport situation where she was broken due to lack of mons, also Heatran will hard counter him
 
I feel people are missing the real issue.
The real issue isn’t Gholdengo.
The real issue is Defog.

Rapid Spin is a Normal type move.
Players have always tried to deny Rapid Spin by bringing out Ghost Type Blocker.

This is one of the main reasons Defog got introduced into the game.
It is Flying move which can’t be denied by Ghost.

What I don’t understand is why does Defog need to lower evasion -1?
When I use Defog, I am just trying to remove Hazards.

The Evasion drop is worthless and unnecessary.
The Evasion drop in this situation is the real issue because Gholdengo Ability Good as Gold stops status drops which ultimately shuts down a person attempting to clear the field of hazards.

It makes me wonder if all of this has been done on purpose.
Gholdengo is Ghost type denying Rapid Spin.
Gholdengo ability is denying Defog.

Is the game trying to introduce a new Hazard removal move?
Or has an error In oversight been made?

I thought the game was going to fix this.
It seems they are not going too.

Would we classify Gholdengo as the first ever Pokémon in history to create a situation which I would like to name as “Hazard Trapping”.
It does have a nice Ring to it doesn’t it.

Imaging having a conversation with Gholdengo.
Gholdengo speaks: Do you see those Rocks and Spikes near your Pokémon?
We speak: Yeah, what about them?
Gholdengo speaks: They have to stay there.
We speak: But why?
Gholdengo speak: Because I said so and I’m as Good as Gold, Baby!

THE HAZARD TRAPPER!
Simple answer,defog pre gen 6 was merely a Hm in gen 4 that only lowered evasion by -1 in battle.
So it's just leftover from it's old function/state.
 
Why are so many post assuming you want to switch your spinner into the spinblocker?^^ It's the other way around! :D

Also there is so much other counterplay to hazards than attacking the incoming spin blocker, e.g. HDB, Magic Bounce, Magic Guard, (Magic Coat), Taunt, Setting up your own hazards, use the free turns while the opponent sets up hazard to set up with a sweeper...

It's really not that hard to prepare for hazardstack, if you don't default to Corviknight which is blanked by Gholdi...
Just embrace the changing metagame, adapt to it, and don't be so lazy ;)
 
I thought EVs only raise a stat by one point for ever 4 points, or am I mistaken?
Thank you for taking the time to point out the EV situation on my Skeledirge.
I am not sure how the odd EV amounts happened.

Truthfully, I haven’t been paying much attention to the EV’s of my Pokémon.
The main reason is because I often like going over the EV’s of my Pokémon with the Damage Calculator.

The Damage Calculator has been down past few days due to the new generation.
It takes time for the Damage Calculator’s to get up and running with all the new Pokémon, Abilities, and other Stuff.

After reading your post, I went to see if the Damage Calculators are up.
To my surprise, They did update the Damage Calculators with the new Pokémon using Blank sets

I was able to get some EV work done to my Skeledirge.
I came up with the following spread:

Skeledirge @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Def / 12 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Slack Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball

The above EV Spread should allow me to check all the Steel Types except a few.
I have seen a total of 10 Steel Types which rival players have used.

1 - Fortress
2 - Iron Treads
3 - King gambit
4 - Klefki
5 - Orthworm
6 - Corviknight
7 - Gholdengo
8 - Lucario
9 - Magnezone
10 - Tinkeraton

The 1st to 5th Pokémon are popular because they can set Hazards.
The 6th Pokémon is popular because he can remove Hazards.
The 7th Pokémon is popular because he can try to stop the removing Hazard Pokémon from removing the Hazards.
The 8th to 10th Pokémon are less popular, but sometimes see play for Niche reasons.

12 Speed EV allows Skeledirge to outspeed Corviknight by 1.
12 Speed EV allows Skeledirge to outspeed all of the above Steel types as well except Iron Trends, Klefki, & Tinkeraton.

A lot of people tell me Skeledirge is bad.
They say Skeledirge is bad because the meta has a lot of Dark, Ghost, & Water types of Pokémon running around.

The problem is they are only seeing half the equation.
It’s true their are a lot of Dark, Ghost, & Water types in circulation, but what is also true and not said by people is many of these Pokémon have dou types which are weak to Skeledirge.

Chein-Po is Dark type and his other type is Ice.
Iron Bundle is Water type and his other type is Ice.

Half of the Pokémon move set is good vs. Skeledirge and the Other half is not.
 
Here's something for you: even if you manage to get them in somehow and correctly predict and win with knock off? Ghold is down but you still haven't spun. And if you don't run boots on your spinner they are already heavily worn down. The opponent can just bring in a mon to force Tusk out before you can spin. Now Tusk can't really come back in easily due to how badly it was chipped. Treads gets by a little better, if only for being tspikes immune. But only just. Still takes a lot from spikes. The kinds of teams Gholdengo enables are built to abuse spikes in a way that pressures the opponent to keep from being able to remove them.
How is this unique to Gholdengo again? Doesn't literally EVERY ghost type cause this scenario exactly? "Lose the mon, but the hazards are still there". Are we now discussing banning ghosts altogether? Because to be clear, every ghost in tier can do this to every hazard remover except Corv. And as we've seen, Tusk is a 35% presence mon.

If you think any ghost could fulfill the role of spinblocker the way Gholdengo does then frankly you missed the point completely. And if you think this is all because people want to be able brainlessly clear hazards at any time, then respectfully, you haven't been paying attention to whatt people have been saying.

The strength of hazards+spinblocking is lopsided in comparison to the strength of hazard removal. When gen5 had this issue with spikes+magic guard psychic teams supported by powerful spinblocking, Excadrill came down to be a reliable spinner. DeoS/DeoD historically have enabled teams based on hazard stack far too effectively to be reasonable, seen in gens 5-6 (and remained banned from the beginning in gen7). What's the key point? When hazard removal became too difficult and thus hazards became TOO strong for one reason or another, something had to be done.

Gholdengo takes the concept of blocking hazard removal way too far, especially when atm options for hazard removal is so scarce. If gen9 hadn't given everything and its cousin spikes, maybe it wouldn't be as bad. But there is too much hazards and not enough ways to remove them.
On the contrary, I'm not missing the point at all. The point here is that everyone wants to run Corv and remove hazards no questions asked. That is LITERALLY the only mon difference in the hazards removal game with and without Gholdengo that's any bit relevant (Unless you really think after like 4 generations, Forretress is ready to make their OU appearance once again on literally 0 buffs vs some 570 BST spinners).

This ENTIRE DISCUSSION is "I think Corvinight should be able to clear hazards any time it clicks defog". I don't really get why we NEED that sort of guarantee for one specific mon when spinblocking has always been a thing and really all that's happened is the reintroduction of it as a mechanic. Especially given that other mons that can have defog CAN clear hazards, this isn't going to be a uniquely "defog-counter" pokemon. So when we discuss "Gholdengo is 'warping the meta' (which holds the connotation that because of its usage, its busted but let me remind you Landorus-T was holding down a nice 41% usage in Gen8OU) its REALLY about deprioritizing one mon in particular, and MAYBE assisting the usage rate in Great Tusk.

Re: Presence of hazards in general, I don't think this is so much an issue of an increased presence but just that in last generation you were wasting so much moveslots/time just to have anything clear it or boots exist. None of the new hazard setters are particularly outclassing old ones, its more or less just added flexibility in teambuilding. And this isn't considering all the ubiquitous setters we lost (Heatran, Ferrothorn, Landorus-T, Clefable, Mew) that more or less were top meta staples in OU. These mons are filling in rather than filling out the ranks right now. Its not like any of these setters are substantially better to crowd out the few from last gen (TTar, Blissey, Garchomp).

Obviously Spikes access on Clodsire, Chomp and Glimmora is a higher presence of spikes than last gen, but part of that is again the investment getting ruined for basically nothing. It wasn't a good trade last gen. Your hazards were not defensible. This generation, they are. To me, that's a quirk of the meta rather than the overbearing nature of one mon. Because if we are saying that Gholdengo is centralizing us into a hazard meta, isn't this saying Corv would centralize us into a meta where hazards aren't worth it? Because there ARE more ghost types in gen that will be OU.

I do think Gholdengo is more egregious in the tier than Palafin (not Bundle). Bans for supportive Pokemon are often trickier to see than the offensive juggernauts, but I do think it's there for Gholdengo.

Balloon Gholdengo is incredibly effective at keeping hazards up to the point where it's honestly becoming worth it to just never try to remove them. Running through the removal on the viability list, we can see the following:
  • :great-tusk: Balloon is immune to 75% of its viable moves meaning that unless it gets the Knock Off prediction right, it loses the exchange and Gholdengo severely weakens it to the point where it can't switch into the other 5 teammates to switch again.
  • :iron-treads: Better MU than Great Tusk and Treads is bulky enough to take a Shadow Ball comfortably, especially with AV.
  • :avalugg: Can only touch it with Earthquake and takes a ton from Shadow Ball or Focus Blast
  • :corviknight: Literally cannot touch Gholdengo
  • :scizor: Cannot touch Gholdengo
  • :torkoal: Hits Gholdengo pretty hard but generally can't afford to switch into it when it needs to spin.
  • :glimmora: Can't touch it without Earth Power and it takes a lot from Shadow Ball
  • :maushold: The only way you can actually remove the hazards but you're stuck with a mon that can't really damage it and takes a million from Focus Blast
We're left with really only one mon that can consistently both remove hazards from Gholdengo (AV Iron Treads). The fact that people are running unviable mons like Talonflame to try to deal with it I think speaks to the strangle Gholdengo has on the tier's play. It feels like Gen 6 where hazard setters like Azelf ran Skill Swap to set hazards up on Mega Sableye, or why people flocked to Mold Breaker Excadrill ignore its Magic Bounce (before the ban).

Hazard stack is likely the best structure at the moment and it is solely due to Gholdengo's ability to keep those hazards up all game.

"But spinblocking is part of the game!" - Yes, which is why historically spinners have made moveset developments to be able to deal with the spinblockers. And also why Defog has been valuable in removal as you ignore the spinblocker. Any other Ghost on the viability list (Annihilape, Dragapult, Skeledirge, etc) does spinblock and have more counterplay than just AV Iron Treads.

"But abilities like Defiant discourage Defog!" - Yeah, but the move still goes off. If I can deal with the +2 Kingambit/Annihilape then hey, bring it on and let me remove those spikes. Or maybe I'll punish the switch and not Defog. Unfortunately, Gholdengo doesn't allow for either option because our Defoggers don't actually scare it out, or make it think twice, like they can with the Defoggers (like how Bpress or BBCorv threatens a Defiant mon).

And this whole package is on a Steel/Ghost with maginally worse bulk than Swampert that also gets Recovery. This mon is genuinely absurd. Our hazard removal is so limited outside of the Paradonphans and I don't think having a mon that keeps them up as well as Gholdengo does is healthy for the tier.
Ok so my question is if your mon outspeeds AND you 2hko, why would you feel the need to click another button on predicting a switch in? Tusk is doing 75-85% damage against most Gholdengo sets and has more speed. There's no need to click Headlong Rush, Gholdengo is dying to your coverage. And yeah 'hits pretty hard" for deals 80% minimum is a way to say it, especially since you can invest EVs in Torkoal and straight one shot the Gholdengo. Like saying there's one mon (Treads) consistently removing hazards is a bit strange to me given these facts that Great Tusks usage reflects it in fact not having too many issues with removing hazards. We should be considering 3 of these mons winning vs Gholdengo, just one on a more specific team than the others.

Like say you run Balloon Skeledirge. Specifically in the overlap for our spinners right now, it holds more or less the same impact. Is it now a problem to those spinners that we get made over the matchup or once again is it literally the Corvinight difference. Torkoal drops off as an answer to Balloon Skeledirge. Skeledirge is also straight up more physically bulky into Tusk and Tread, and has just as effective a trade back pattern to Tusk (2hko, but still losing if you stay in like Gholdengo) and a better one into Tread (can actually just one shot). It even has a good matchup into Corv! Can't stop the defog obviously, but we're clearly winning that one. By and large, Skeledirge has the same matchups going down that list with Balloon, at least as close as any two spinblockers could reasonably be. Dirge has better bulk than Gholdengo too btw.

Yes, there's a slight stretch here in that Skeledirge would generally prefer boots. But it has the recovery, the bulk, a very similar type overlap (water types aren't spinning right now so who cares, and there's no rock moves not attached to a mon already doing super effective damage elsewhere in their spin kit) and a very similar strategy (Torch Song boosting, Shadow ball spam, can even threaten with wisp if it opts that route). So does a Balloon Skeledirge, like Balloon Gholdengo, become too good at blocking spinners that you want to consider a ban? Or can people who want Gholdengo gone just go on record and say that it is literally the difference between Corv removing hazards and not.
 
Last edited:
I honestly think the Goldieboy situation will be fixed with more mons, but i kinda agree that GhOlDengo could promote more whacky teambuilding, sounds fun, this is more of a clef wishport situation where she was broken due to lack of mons, also Heatran will hard counter him
"More mons will be added that check it" isn't a reason to not ban it. Those mons are not here yet and are completely irrelevant to the current metagame and Gholdengo's current status as a broken Pokemon. Waiting for more Pokemon to be added does nothing to fix the current metagame. Heatran is also definitely NOT a hard counter, even bulky sets can't switch in on Focus Blast.

Also promoting "wacky teambuilding" is not neccessarily a good thing, since "wacky" really means "restrictive." If a Pokemon's precense is forcing you to run niche mons, that is the exact opposite of a good thing, as teambuilding strain is very harmful.
 
What’s the best team to run in sv ou rn? It’s a little hard to find teams for people that don’t know how to build them because of the new mons and the banning of other mons
 
Question (probably dumb one):

I was testing arround with Wind Rider :sv/Brambleghast: and, in Wind Moves category, Sandstorm is listed.

Shouldn't Sandstorm/Stream activate Wind Rider at least once? It did not activated. It is actually immune to wind moves, so it shouldn't be damaged by Sandstrom, right? Because it did.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 9)

Top