if by "sickest" you mean "it makes me vomit", i agreeDarkrai has been one of the sickest additions to the tier and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.
if by "sickest" you mean "it makes me vomit", i agreeDarkrai has been one of the sickest additions to the tier and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.
I think that’s Sludge Bomb’s 30% poison chance talking.if by "sickest" you mean "it makes me vomit", i agree
darkrai was not the main reason sleep got banned, iron valliant was the worst offender by far> Immediately shed a light on sleep after getting introduced to the tier and caused it to finally get banned after years of making us play a modded game to keep it around
> Its presence in the tier caused unprecedented adaptation, allowing for cool Pokémon like Tinkaton and Fezandipiti to gain viability without pushing anything out of the tier
> Has been a huge thorn in the side of Gliscor, a previously banned and still contentious Pokémon this generation
Darkrai has been one of the sickest additions to the tier and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.
Immediately shed a light on sleep after getting introduced to the tier and caused it to finally get banned after years of making us play a modded game to keep it around
I'm honestly not sure whether darkrai should get the boot or not but there are much bigger priorities rn imoI think it would be nice and more productive if people tried to argue against the best apposing argument instead of the worst, which seems to be popping up a lot. For example,
TheTraininator never claimed that Darkrai was the main reason sleep got banned, just that it made people realize in general was broken/uncompetitive. Furthermore, and I might be wrong, the chief part of their argument seems to be less about the current state of Darkrai and more about the effect it has had on the tier. Personally, I wouldn't mind a Darkrai ban, but I think it has had a positive effect on the tier as well, especially in getting sleep banned.
It can be true both that adding it to the tier was the right choice at the time and that later suspecting it and/or banning it is or will be right too. Darkrai did have a lasting positive effect on this generation whether or not it gets banned at some later date.
So I had been screwing around a little, and I realized that Roaring Moon could potentially run a Tera Dragon Outrage set kind of like Gouging Fire does. In the process, I made a few interesting observations. First, Moon is actually more powerful. Even a Jolly Roaring Moon can have more attack than an Adamant Gouging Fire. So under the same items and maybe field conditions, the raw power would be a bit in favor RM. Second, Iron Head coverage could potentially be used to deal with Fairies that would resist Outrage and Knock Off. I don't know if this is optimal, but it is interesting. The third observation is that Outrage is not an expected use, giving it a decent surprise factor. I have not done all the calcs on every wall or check, but I think many could be chunked hard based on Gouging's calcs and Moon's superior raw power.
Gouging Fire obviously has advantages with bulk and Burn immunity. Moon is much easier to RK with priority. I would say that RM is more bulky than some realize, particularly on the special side. Obviously, it isn't the same. The speed tier is much better, though, making you only need 1 DD against most teams to outspeed everything that isn't priority.
In the right team concept, it seems possible that this kind of RM set could thrive. Create a team that destroys Fairy types. Maybe have a trapping Heatran set. I really want to play around with it.
Gouging Fire and Kyurem are used on high ladder and not low ladder because if you have more than 30 IQ, you can climb the ladder pretty easily with those mons.I'm surprised the obviously broken mons don't get abused more by low ladder players, cause most of the top mons have relatively low usage low ladder, like I've barely seen where i am on the ladder even though it is kinda insane, or for that matter. Also I swear you see the dumbest strats ever down there, if I see scale shot without a toxic orb one more time I am gonna lose it. (can you tell im barely still low ladder rn?)
I'm surprised the obviously broken mons don't get abused more by low ladder players, cause most of the top mons have relatively low usage low ladder, like I've barely seen where i am on the ladder even though it is kinda insane, or for that matter. Also I swear you see the dumbest strats ever down there, if I see scale shot without a toxic orb one more time I am gonna lose it. (can you tell im barely still low ladder rn?)
Gouging Fire, especially, isn't an engine of destruction without the Proto boost. It's weak to Stealth Rock, so it'll accumulate significant chip switching in and out; 115 Attack is no longer anything special, so it can't wallbreak nearly as well; and given that lacking power and accumulated chip, the number of answers goes way up.
Low ladder tends to tunnel vision into dealing with the current situation, and skimp on long term planning. A low ladder player is more likely to waste the Booster Energy, and thus get much less out of Gouging Fire.
Kyurem is somewhat similar, with the severe hazard weakness and being less effective after the initial usage, though with Kyurem it's because the set is likely identified.
A gentleman and a scholar.I've become an assault vest Ursaluna believer. Attack and SpD EVs with adamant and guts. Thanks to the people who suggested it ages ago in this thread.
It is an absolute nightmare for Hex users as it switches into basically any progress move they might click. It's bulky enough to shrug off mixed dragon darts and strong enough to trade with draco meteor or make it rain.
It also switches in on glowking freely. Immune to thunder wave, resists sludge bomb and doesn't mind being poisoned. And gets to click a big headlong rush or body slam to make progress. I had one trick a choice scarf, but that just meant they couldn't chilly reception anymore with their new vest and I now outsped their gambit.
For boots Darkrai it shrugs off basically anything, including focus blast and crushes with drain punch. Life orb and expert belt are tougher if they get their prediction right but still a good spot for you. Ursaluna also isn't the easiest to predict as a SpD switch in.
Kyurem you obviously have to Tera, but tera fighting drain punch outheals anything except specs, tera ice, ice beam.
For Primarina your headlong rush is a coin flip to ohko. Moonblast on the switch in and a follow-up surf always fails to kill.
Raging Bolt and Iron Crown are also both easily switched in and favourably trade on.
Pair it with any bulky water to make ice beam, surf and make it rain harder to click for your opponent, then flip turn into Ursaluna. I personally use Mola. It also lets you flip turn on turn 1 Glimmora lead and poison your Ursaluna if you like. Glimmora can't hurt him in the slightest.
Headlong Rush and Drain Punch are mandatory. I like body slam as 30% para chance gives a good progress move to click. Last move I had fire punch for the steel birds, but a lot of them are Iron/Press and will crush you anyway. I'm on ice punch now because Lando-T is the most common switch in and it lets you threaten Sinischa and Zapdos.
ANOTHER TO THE CAUSE.I've become an assault vest Ursaluna believer. Attack and SpD EVs with adamant and guts. Thanks to the people who suggested it ages ago in this thread.
A gentleman and a scholar.
I personally prefer Earthquake, but the raw power of HR may actually be superior. I'm not a fan of my defensive mons lowering their defenses, but you can't be hit back if they're dead.
I also dropped Drain Punch for a combo of Fire/Ice Punch , along with Body Slam. Nothing gets to switch in for free. With Alo, she handles healing, but Drain will allow self sustainablity of course. I simply wasn't clicking it enough for my taste, but I can always punish Ghold with Fire, no matter how many balloons it holds. And Corv. And Skar.
One minor tidbit, Ursaluna learns Crunch and Throat Chop for moves with secondary effects and the same BP as Tera Blast, because I can see the value in Dark Coverage and this doesn't require Tera to deal it (given how hard Luna can hit, it might be enough). Niche benefits on Throat Chop maybe stopping a stray Psychic Noise Primarina or a snowballing Skeledirge (since it also can't burn you and 252 SpD AV eats Torch Song while 2HKOing with Neutral STAB).EDIT: Before I forget, as one more piece of forbidden tech I've found Tera Dark with TB to also be very good at dealing with some team comps. I haven't tested it enough, but being able to utterly demolish ghost switches and resist Sucker still is a very fun thing. I need to try it thoroughly.
Extremely embarrassing that despite using this guy forever now I have failed to realize he has access to fucking Crunch. I've experimented with Throat Chop off and on, back when Dirge was more popular it absolutely demolished the average sets it used to massive success. I'll have to experiment with Crunch instead and forgo Tera Dark for Fighting or so on; Dark/Fighting coverage is awesome to have in a meta volatile as this.One minor tidbit, Ursaluna learns Crunch and Throat Chop for moves with secondary effects and the same BP as Tera Blast, because I can see the value in Dark Coverage and this doesn't require Tera to deal it (given how hard Luna can hit, it might be enough). Niche benefits on Throat Chop maybe stopping a stray Psychic Noise Primarina or a snowballing Skeledirge (since it also can't burn you and 252 SpD AV eats Torch Song while 2HKOing with Neutral STAB).
I always like "Trade Mons" because I have a bad habit of building teams that are "good except when THIS GUY shows up", so a mon that's versatile enough to go down taking THAT GUY out is always convenient and satisfying
I find assault vest users (without regenerator) aren't really traditional defensive mons. You don't really wall things and then recover, even with Alomomola. You will be quickly chipped down and then no longer check your target. The only thing they care about is their attack as the opponent switches out. I think maximising this is important, hence adamant headlong rush. Ursaluna is also pretty trivial to revenge kill whether your defense is dropped or not.
I hadn't considered dropping drain punch since it seems like your best tool against Kyurem. If they sub on your switch in, having the recovery is nice. Although admittedly a direct switch in is awkward pre-tera anyway.
Fire punch vs balloon Gholdengo only really seems useful when they nasty plot on your switch in. Any other move and you have a spare turn to ice punch the balloon. Maybe I should give it another chance anyway.
Exactly! And these discussions really shines light on it's very expansive movepool. It has enough raw power that even Body Slam chunks Great Tusk on the switch, it's ground moves hurt no matter what you decide to use (even Dig is useful, if you ever need to tank your own elo), so the rest is literal coverage. No, it's "how would you like your bear today"?A large part of the reason I've played with various Ursaluna sets is due to the fact it works as a perfect inbetween answer of "I need something to check a certain type of Guy". It works against my Valiant weak teams, it works vs many flavors of Darkrai, etc. It's served me well!
I don't think AV ursaluna is supposed to be a defensive mon lol, moreso a bulky attacker than can take hits and threaten big damageI find assault vest users (without regenerator) aren't really traditional defensive mons. You don't really wall things and then recover, even with Alomomola. You will be quickly chipped down and then no longer check your target. The only thing they care about is their attack as the opponent switches out. I think maximising this is important, hence adamant headlong rush. Ursaluna is also pretty trivial to revenge kill whether your defense is dropped or not.
I hadn't considered dropping drain punch since it seems like your best tool against Kyurem. If they sub on your switch in, having the recovery is nice. Although admittedly a direct switch in is awkward pre-tera anyway.
Fire punch vs balloon Gholdengo only really seems useful when they nasty plot on your switch in. Any other move and you have a spare turn to ice punch the balloon. Maybe I should give it another chance anyway.
I have been momentarily distracted from my usual testing agenda by band Pult. It allows me to get around two things I don't believe in: Boots spam and Lando-T.
Let me elaborate:
Clear Body stat drops from ignores webs and Intimidate, giving you a physical attacker that doesn't really care as much about conditions on the field. Combining Pult with one decent priority mon means you can get away with kinda ignoring webs. Add a grounded Poison like Glowking, and suddenly you don't need to worry about T-spikes. So that leaves just rocks and Spikes.
As long as you don't introduce any hazard weak mons, you don't really need to focus on hazard clear much if at all. This got me thinking about team structures with both no hazard clear or boots whatsoever. I have tried a couple and they seem to work ok, so long as you are using a faster paced style like HO.
Then there is Dragon Darts. This move doesn't care about most non-Fairy sash or sub abusers. It's also only resisted by two types. I used to be wary of focusing too much on Dragon STAB (outside of a stray Draco or three) because of how common Fairy and Tera Fairy is. Back before the Fairy type was introduced, Dragon spam used to be very strong. But there are maybe ways around this. The recent development of Tera Dragon Outrage Gouging Fire has had me look deeper into other possible Dragon spammers like Moon and Pult. I think you can do it with the right teams.
As an anti-lead, Pult has good matchups into mons like Hamurott, Glimmora, Rillaboom, and Lando-T. Although the speed tier isn't good enough to outrun a possible scarf Hamurott or Glimm, you can live a hit from scarf sets. Tera Dragon takes away the Dark weakness from a potential scarf Ceaseless Edge or Sucker Punch, while you KO it back with darts or chunk it with U-turn. Maybe even U-turn into a helmet mon. Against Glimm, you naturally resist Poison STAB, so the highest damaging move it could do in 1 turn is Power Gem for about 52.3-62.8%. It can't be anything like herb Meteor Beam because that wouldn't outspeed you in turn 1. And you an use your grounded Poison mon to deal with any T-spikes from your physical attacks. What this means is you have a pretty good chance to minimize hazards from most suicide leads.
There are a few notable downsides. First, Pult's speed tier is only great. It isn't enough to outrun a lot of scarf or +1 mons unboosted. Second, the coverage is pretty lacking, particularly on the physical side. Third, Pult's typing is a mixed bag against priority. It excels against GG, E-speed, and Thunderclap while losing to Ice Shard, Sucker Punch, Lokix First Impression, and probably Bullet Punch. This means you may need to hard switch a lot, which can prohibit you from spamming this mon as much as you might otherwise like.
Another downside of Tera Dragon is that you don't really have a good physical Ghost move. Most physical Pult sets run Tera Blast as the Ghost move. But I didn't like this. So I put Phantom Force. While it isn't ideal, it can be useful when used sparingly. Like 99% of the time, I am clicking Dragon Darts or U-turn anyways. So it is really just about filling out the set. Let the team deal with Steel and Fairy types.
For the 4th move slot, I have been messing around with Curse. I know, I know. Choice Band Curse probably seems like a meme. How often do you get into a situation where there is this one mon that is preventing you from tearing through the opposing team with something on your team? Or how often is the last mon on your opposing team a bad matchups for the mons you have left? Curse gives you another way to possibly force progress or guarantee a close out. I simply find this more useful than whatever else I would put in the 4th slot. Just don't try to use it after clicking Tera Dragon.
Other options include Tera Fire, which allows you to avoid Burn and hit Steel types, Tera Fighting to beat Gambit, or a priority move like Quick Attack. But so far, I haven't preferred these things.