Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3

[awyp]

I can't believe how no one is talking about how Ribombee of all Pokémon is OU.

Yeah but there's not much really to talk about, Hyper Offense is quite dominant and when combined with Ribombee + Gholdengo it could be annoying outside of Cinderace Court Change to get rid of.

Pre-DLC best sticky web setter and post-DLC best sticky web setter is a big difference, bulk is similar but Ribombee is outspeed a majority of the tier outside Booster Energy Mons and Dragapult + Zamazenta. I'm not really shocked at it still being OU, I think it will actually continue to stay OU for the next 2-3 months.

 

[SentSawTooMuch]

I can't believe how no one is talking about how Ribombee of all Pokémon is OU.

Not at all surprising, since its the fastest webber of them all. What is surprising is that Sticky Web was good enough to make it OU

 

[Zanz5798]

For those who have been joking about an UUbers/OUBL category, I gave a look at which pokemon in Ubers got a usage rate this month that would, in a non banlist tier, see them drop down so as to get an idea what we'd be working with. So, OUBL/UUbers would have:
Every Arceus but; Normal, Ground, Fairy, Ghost
Chi-Yu, Darkrai, Dialga, Dialga-Origin, Espathra, Giratina, Landorus, Magearna, Palafin, Palkia, Palkia-Origin, Shaymin-Sky, Spectrier, Urshifu, Urshifu-Rapid-Strike, Volcarona, Zacian, Zamazenta-Crowned

32 different forms
16 pokemon by dex number.

Haven't really played with these, but I'm not exactly sure how enjoyable such a tier would be.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I can't believe how no one is talking about how Ribombee of all Pokémon is OU.

ribombee has always been at least niche in ou because of its ability to set fast webs. throw in every other viable webs user getting cut and a severe lack of hazard removal and you've got yourself a recipe for ribombee in ou

 

[Rootb]

New Toy Syndrome and being an actually good Webs setter. Gholdengo helping to block any removal attempts also gives Ribombee that extra month boost.

Also, it turns out that Quiver Dance + Moonblast is still really damn good. Even a +0 Moonblast lets it take a huge chunk out of both Tusk and Gambit, and Tusk especially isn't going to be able to kill it before it gets a chance to click one.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

but i do have to say, from all the laddering i've been attempting for the bloodmoon suspect, i'm definitely seeing how bonkers gliscor and waterpon are. i wasn't convinced that either deserved a suspect, but having actually used both of them i'm convinced that they both merit a test

 

[TH1N3 H4MM3R]

I can't believe how no one is talking about how Ribombee of all Pokémon is OU.

we live in a cursed timeline...

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

tusk isn't actually influencing the meta at all, its high usage has always been a response to other mons that heavily influence the meta. people need something that can remove hazards and answer gholdengo at the same time? tusk. people need something that can defensively and offensively answer kingambit? tusk. people need something with knock off and an ice move because of gliscor? tusk. great tusk isn't the second most used mon in the tier because it's a problem, but because it's a solution

I think the meta being so centralized that everyone has to run the same mon to get around the other problems is not exactly a good thing.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I think the meta being so centralized that everyone has to run the same mon to get around the other problems is not exactly a good thing.

this is true, i think the hazard meta is centralized around a handful of mons and i don't think that's healthy, but i'm still skeptical of some people's proposed actions against it. specifically, banning gholdengo won't change jack diddly shit except for centralizing the meta around corv instead. i do agree now, though, that gliscor and hamurott both should be suspected, and i think banning those two would cut down on things a lot—that's where we were pre-home in terms of hazards, and they felt a lot less overbearing there. banning ting-lu is a fucking joke though, that's never happening and frankly doesn't need to happen

 

[sims796]

this is true, i think the hazard meta is centralized around a handful of mons and i don't think that's healthy, but i'm still skeptical of some people's proposed actions against it. specifically, banning gholdengo won't change jack diddly shit. i do agree now, though, that gliscor and hamurott both should be suspected, and i think banning those two would cut down on things a lot—that's where we were pre-home in terms of hazards, and they felt a lot less overbearing there. banning ting-lu is a fucking joke though, that's never happening and frankly doesn't need to happen

No c'mon, let me have Gliscor for another 3 weeks at least, I'm not even fighting to keep Ursa I deserve something nice.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

No c'mon, let me have Gliscor for another 3 weeks at least, I'm not even fighting to keep Ursa I deserve something nice.

oh, i'm not advocating for a gliscor test right away, i want it to at least stay until november to get lando down to uu. the memes are going to be glorious

speaking of memes, where are all those "ban garganacl" people? come on out so everyone can point and laugh at your inability to see the future

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

oh, i'm not advocating for a gliscor test right away, i want it to at least stay until november to get lando down to uu. the memes are going to be glorious

speaking of memes, where are all those "ban garganacl" people? come on out so everyone can point and laugh at your inability to see the future

I'm pretty sure Garganacl will come back up once the chaos of the DLC calms (and we hopefully get Tera banned). A lot of this really just comes down to the virtriolic nature of the meta.

 

[Moyashi]

speaking of memes, where are all those "ban garganacl" people? come on out so everyone can point and laugh at your inability to see the future

Lol. Garg largely dropped because BM is a shithead that makes most every good defensive Pokemon bad. People point to Gliscor but that can't even sit on it because Poison Heal gets cut off by Salt Cure and set up Garg can boost in front of it. So it's really BM, and maybe a bit of Wellspring {even though Garg can tech stuff like tera dragon for it).

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I'm pretty sure Garganacl will come back up once the chaos of the DLC calms (and we hopefully get Tera banned). A lot of this really just comes down to the virtriolic nature of the meta.

if tera got banned, garg would never come back up. it relies on being able to dump its shitty base typing more than any other defensive mon (except for the avaluggs, which i don't think count because they have no relevance in the meta beyond super-niche stuff)

 

[Moyashi]

if tera got banned, garg would never come back up. it relies on being able to dump its shitty base typing more than any other defensive mon (except for the avaluggs, which i don't think count because they have no relevance in the meta beyond super-niche stuff)

Lolno. While it would be worse, it would not drop off like that especially as Pokemon similarly couldn't cheat out of matchs ups against it. Garg has shown it doesn't even need to tera during games to put in work as salt cure is immensely broken, and base Garg still has positive match into quite a lot of Pokemon from Zapdos, Moltres, pivot Cinderace, Iron Moth, Volcarona (which would be unbanned), and more. Simple protect sets are able to get a lot done without even having to tera, but boosting sets also still exploit opposing bulky Pokemon which can't hurt it.

If Garg was really THAT much of a tera hog, it wouldn't be so good and easy to build around.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Lolno. While it would be worse, it would not drop off like that especially as Pokemon similarly couldn't cheat out of matchs ups against it. Garg has shown it doesn't even need to tera during games to put in work as salt cure is immensely broken, and base Garg still has positive match into quite a lot of Pokemon from Zapdos, Moltres, pivot Cinderace, Iron Moth, Volcarona (which would be unbanned), and more. Simple protect sets are able to get a lot done without even having to tera, but boosting sets also still exploit opposing bulky Pokemon which can't hurt it.

If Garg was really THAT much of a tera hog, it wouldn't be so good and easy to build around.

yeah, this is about what i expected from you. if i said the sky was blue you'd type up a 5-paragraph essay against that too. i hope that someday you find something to believe in that isn't "the opposite of what the other guy thinks"

 

[Moyashi]

yeah, this is about what i expected from you. if i said the sky was blue you'd type up a 5-paragraph essay against that too. i hope that someday you find something to believe in that isn't "the opposite of what the other guy thinks"

Nice no argument. Mate, I'm all ears for constructive discussion and am open to other opinions. I'm just responding to a claim that I've heard repeated and simply disagree with, both from personal experience and from seeing high level games.

 

[SDK03]

What are people even arguing about again? Yeah, being a Rock type Garganacl would probably drop to UU without Tera helping it out. But it has an ability that gives it immunity to Status conditions and a Ghost resist at the same time along with Salt Cure (not to mention setting Rocks is a nice benefit too), so even if it stays UU it’ll definitely remain a viable pick in OU. Same way that Rotom-W always seems to end up in UU nowadays, but still holds a place in OU with the tools it has regardless.

 

[Cuddly]

Mr. Finch...They hit the second Gen 4 OU staple...
edit: added some art

 

[Ramplestilskin]

Ever since Anything Goes became a legitimate tier where pokemon did get banned into, I have been cooly waiting for the Modest Proposal of an Overused Ubers tier and an Underused Ubers Tier, to seperate the Mewtwos from the Genesects and what not. To ensure a fun and diverse Ubers meta game in what was once the place you banned stuff too strong for OU.

Speaking of which looking at the drops and rises I think OU is completely upside down and Gliscor is becoming the Gliscapegoat for it. Either ice coverage isn't cutting it, or OU has actually been starving for utility tools on pokemon that can actually just keep up with the power creep. Gliscor just happened to keep a lot of the tools that are really hard to find in a pokemon with it's sustain.

To be fair, ever since Uber has been recognized as a competitive tier and AG has been created, I don't even understand (apart from the fact that this is historically what has been done and people want to stay true to a pre-established order and are naturally against big changes) why Uber is still to this day considered as a banlist and not a tier. What I mean is that it "should" and could be the actual OU (given the fact that at this time MRay would have been the banlist of this tiers just like M2 was the banlist in 1G) and then UU would be based on the 4,52% cutoff of this new OU tier.

Obviously it is not advocating for everything to come back in OU (which would almost be the UU of this new way of tiering, minus some really good mons like great tusk and gholdengo if I am not mistaking) as the banlist (UUBL) of this tier could literally be the same as current Uber if it deserves to be like this.

You may be wondering what would be the point, to me it would essentially be homogeneity, every tier treated the same way because currently Uber is an exception. It would really be the natural way of doing things, because currently we just apply the historical way of doing things without thinking twice about it. Also, it would almost prevent the eternal question "do we unban things / do we immediately ban this thing" that is entirely subjective when DLC drops (even though unbans from UUBL could technically still happen) as it would entirely be based on usage stats and quickban could still happen just like they happen in lower tiers.

Yes, I am aware that this new way of thinking OU/UU would lead to completely different metas and that we may not have access to most spinner or defoggers for instance. Just a reminder that this is what lower tiers have to play with and noone is complaining about it (actually they are when they implore OU player to drops some spinner/defoggers) but that would simply mean a different kind of tier that would have to go through a whole retiring once again and reshape the face of OU (rather UU if you followed me), which is neither good or bad, it is just doable.

Seeing as how current UU is now the old OU it is clear that tier are only prone to evolution forever and most likely power creep and current OU could almost be an old Uber, hence why I think treating Uber as the OU would not be that big of a deal.

 

[Avira]

Well IIRC, ABR, who used to be OU's tier leader, Rampelstilskin, did advocate for making the Uber tier into OU going forward at some point after Mega Rayquaza was banned to Anything Goes since, maybe I recall incorrectly, he argued it was OU's jurisdiction to be the highest tier that makes Pokemon bans and because of his conservative approach to tiering. However, I don't think most of OU's playerbase would have appreciated having a ton of very-hard-to-check mons make up the basis of OU especially not now when so many are complaining about the overall power level of OU.

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

To be fair, ever since Uber has been recognized as a competitive tier and AG has been created, I don't even understand (apart from the fact that this is historically what has been done and people want to stay true to a pre-established order and are naturally against big changes) why Uber is still to this day considered as a banlist and not a tier. What I mean is that it "should" and could be the actual OU (given the fact that at this time MRay would have been the banlist of this tiers just like M2 was the banlist in 1G) and then UU would be based on the 4,52% cutoff of this new OU tier.

Obviously it is not advocating for everything to come back in OU (which would almost be the UU of this new way of tiering, minus some really good mons like great tusk and gholdengo if I am not mistaking) as the banlist (UUBL) of this tier could literally be the same as current Uber if it deserves to be like this.

You may be wondering what would be the point, to me it would essentially be homogeneity, every tier treated the same way because currently Uber is an exception. It would really be the natural way of doing things, because currently we just apply the historical way of doing things without thinking twice about it. Also, it would almost prevent the eternal question "do we unban things / do we immediately ban this thing" that is entirely subjective when DLC drops (even though unbans from UUBL could technically still happen) as it would entirely be based on usage stats and quickban could still happen just like they happen in lower tiers.

Yes, I am aware that this new way of thinking OU/UU would lead to completely different metas and that we may not have access to most spinner or defoggers for instance. Just a reminder that this is what lower tiers have to play with and noone is complaining about it (actually they are when they implore OU player to drops some spinner/defoggers) but that would simply mean a different kind of tier that would have to go through a whole retiring once again and reshape the face of OU (rather UU if you followed me), which is neither good or bad, it is just doable.

Seeing as how current UU is now the old OU it is clear that tier are only prone to evolution forever and most likely power creep and current OU could almost be an old Uber, hence why I think treating Uber as the OU would not be that big of a deal.

My problem with treatings Ubers this way is they are Legendaries - they are supposed to be busted and above the level of regular mons. People bring up counterarguments like Articuno and the Regis to say that Legendaries aren't any different to normal mons, but that's because they were made under a radically different design theory for the time (Gen I wasn't even made for PvP!), and like many of the regular mons from that period are now very underpowered in terms of kits. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Legendaries since Gen VI or so have been horribly broken, and I would argue if we just blanket banned them on principle, things would be a lot less of a headache. Because as it stands, the tiers in Smogon are balanced around the Legendaries, rather than them being treated as exception to the rule.

 

[woodgoldtwo]

My problem with treatings Ubers this way is they are Legendaries - they are supposed to be busted and above the level of regular mons. People bring up counterarguments like Articuno and the Regis to say that Legendaries aren't any different to normal mons, but that's because they were made under a radically different design theory for the time (Gen I wasn't even made for PvP!), and like many of the regular mons from that period are now very underpowered in terms of kits. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Legendaries since Gen VI or so have been horribly broken, and I would argue if we just blanket banned them on principle, things would be a lot less of a headache. Because as it stands, the tiers in Smogon are balanced around the Legendaries, rather than them being treated as exception to the rule.

(not specifically related to this i just wanted to get this out there, in hindsight i don't really know why i made this post)
The difference is that the kanto birds and the regis are sublegendaries which usually are not that good unless they have the specific attributes necessary cough regieleki cough

 

[MisogiKurakawa]

(not specifically related to this i just wanted to get this out there, in hindsight i don't really know why i made this post)
The difference is that the kanto birds and the regis are sublegendaries which usually are not that good unless they have the specific attributes necessary cough regieleki cough

No, this is, again, design theory changing. Guys like the Tapus and Treasures of Ruin are comically busted.

 

[woodgoldtwo]

No, this is, again, design theory changing. Guys like the Tapus and Treasures of Ruin are comically busted.

They are not broken by virtue of being legendaries (or sublegendaries in this case) but due to their specific toolkits and stats (otherwise wo-chien would be OU/Ubers) and at that point nothing separates them from normal pokemon other than having high BST (which doesn't matter if the stats are not in the right places)