Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [NEW TIERING SURVEY UP]

[NotDaProGamer]

A flawed but partially similar scenario to this whole OHKO moves discussion: Wolfe Glick's Fissure rant. Yes, it's in VGC, and yes, it is completely different but WHAT IS THERE TO STOP BULKY MONS FROM SPAMMING IT AND EVENTUALLY GETTING LUCKY?
To use the above post's example, what is the likeliness that none of the 8 30% chance moves hit? Travelling mathematicians, we need you!

Fun OHKO Interactions!
Hey, also fun thing I learned, Sheer Cold is 20% on non-ice types so I think this is the least likely move to hit paired with confusion, paralysis, attraction and probably some more stuff.

Hey, by the way, if Machamp comes back and OHKO moves are unbanned... (NO GUARD FISSURE LMAO)

 

[Divine Retribution]

Dondozo does generate a ton of free turns and doesn't really have an alternative way of doing damage, so Fissure spamming is probably genuinely broken on that mon, but even on Pokemon who don't have Dondozo's bulk or have better things to be doing than fishing with OHKO moves, the fact that the only counterplay is to run Sturdy mons or switch in a specific type on that move (Ice in particular is not the easiest type to slap onto just any team) makes it very uncompetitive, otherwise it's just a weighted coin flip for you to lose a mon with pretty much nothing you can do about it.

The whole point of building a competitive metagame is to put as much control of the match in the hands of the players as is feasible. OHKO moves, evasion, etc. do the opposite. They put control of the match at the mercy of the random number generator. This is quite literally what is meant when we refer to things as 'uncompetitive'.

 

[Anchor9]

Daily dose of Meta:

Gliscor vs. Gliscor guessing game:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2034428548

 

[TheTraininator]

View attachment 591593

And you were right. Ah well, guess I’ve gotta keep talking about sleep.

Since we’re deep in the weeds talking about “broken” vs “uncompetitive”, I think I’m gonna break it down into finer points:

• Unrestricted sleep is broken AND uncompetitive. Sleep is inherently uncompetitive due to creating a high variance, high impact, RNG-dependent gamestate out of both players’ control. Additionally, singles lacks solid counterplay to the ability to sleep an entire team, so it inherently had to be restricted. Sleep clause aimed to solve both problems by restricting its potency vs an entire team and giving both players agency over what gets put to sleep and when.
• Beyond sleep clause no longer being consistent with how we tier in the modern day, it now fails to solve the uncompetitive problem, (though it’s arguable it ever did to begin with). 3 separate high speed setup sweepers with solid (though not always perfect) 2-move coverage options are all present in this tier that didn’t exist in prior tiers, one because it was banned in prior gens and the other two because they didn’t exist. They only need to sleep what’s in front of them that would otherwise handle them to be able to dismantle a team. In practice, this is high risk for them due to both miss chance and the 1/3 chance for one-turn sleep, and often causes theevens out in wins, but it’s viable enough at flipping certain matchups on their heads that it’s worth running on all three of these Pokémon, and since its success rate is largely taken out of both player’s hands, it’s a very uncompetitive strategy.
• Additionally, though it doesn’t fit into the category above, Red Card Amoonguss has grown popular specifically to avoid the opponent choosing a “designated sleep sack”, dismantling one of the attempted forms of “counterplay” sleep clause was aiming to create.

I didn’t focus on the nature of sleep clause as a mod in this post since it’s been done to death, but the TL;DR is that restricted sleep may no longer be broken, but it still is uncompetitive while being quite viable on all the abusers of its most uncompetitive sets, i.e. the ones that ignore intended sleep clause counterplay.

 

[Ibaragi]

To use the above post's example, what is the likeliness that none of the 8 30% chance moves hit? Travelling mathematicians, we need you!

70% chance to miss each time repeated 8 times, or (0.7^8)*100 = 5.7648%, which is the same as saying there's a 94.2352% chance of hitting at least once. A 1 in 17 chance. Which is also the same chance as hitting Focus Blast 8 times in a row.
[This post is not an statement or an argument, is just being called out by maths]

 

[YubelVT]

ok fuck it, we aren't banning hypnosis because we're cowards, we probably won't ban sleep because we're cowards, we won't remove sleep clause because that's genuinely a dumb idea. How about we do this instead: Stadium Sleep Clause. If someone is asleep on a team, nobody else can be put to sleep by any means, including rest. Sure there's still a parity between console and cart but that's also true with Stadium RBY and Cartridge RBY so just split the tiers again. Somehow the endless circlejerking of legendary drops was better than this

 

[CobsonYaoi]

Daily dose of Meta:

Gliscor vs. Gliscor guessing game:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2034428548

Shortest stall Vs. stall match

 

[SmashMash]

What are the arguments for keeping Sleep? Does Sleep check something in particular that other statuses don't? Or is it just a thing you throw out specifically to cheese the other guy? At least Paralysis has uses outside of cheese in dropping speed.

 

[Anchor9]

View attachment 591917
Shortest stall Vs. stall match

I think the opponent was Bulky Sand Offense. I was very much stall.

 

[NotDaProGamer]

What are the arguments for keeping Sleep? Does Sleep check something in particular that other statuses don't? Or is it just a thing you throw out specifically to cheese the other guy? At least Paralysis has uses outside of cheese in dropping speed.

Uses for all statuses:
Poison/Toxic: Timer (usually defensive)
Burn: Half attack (Usually defensive)
Freeze: Rage inducing
Frostbite: Half Special Attack (we want frostbite)
Sleep: Shutdown (especially for setup sweepers)
I can't explain drowsy so uh uh uh HERE

Confusion: Chip ig
I think there is more...

 

[YubelVT]

Uses for all statuses:
Poison/Toxic: Timer (usually defensive)
Burn: Half attack (Usually defensive)
Freeze: Rage inducing
Frostbite: Half Special Attack (we want frostbite)
Sleep: Shutdown (especially for setup sweepers)
I can't explain drowsy so uh uh uh HERE
View attachment 591939
Confusion: Chip ig
I think there is more...

Confusion: The only instance of it being blatantly uncompetitive was swagger which was banned and now it's an incidental upside on moves like hurricane or locked to terrible status moves

 

[Cuddly]

A flawed but partially similar scenario to this whole OHKO moves discussion: Wolfe Glick's Fissure rant. Yes, it's in VGC, and yes, it is completely different but WHAT IS THERE TO STOP BULKY MONS FROM SPAMMING IT AND EVENTUALLY GETTING LUCKY?
To use the above post's example, what is the likeliness that none of the 8 30% chance moves hit? Travelling mathematicians, we need you!

Fun OHKO Interactions!
Hey, also fun thing I learned, Sheer Cold is 20% on non-ice types so I think this is the least likely move to hit paired with confusion, paralysis, attraction and probably some more stuff.
View attachment 591913

Hey, by the way, if Machamp comes back and OHKO moves are unbanned... (NO GUARD FISSURE LMAO)
View attachment 591914

OHKO moves (if elligable) are averaging 2-3 hits per game (about 2.4 to be exact), and for it to hit 0 times it’d be a 5.764801% chance of happening. But that’s if it’s elligable. OHKO moves can be played around in many ways like with immunities, protect, sub, or simply KOing the Pokemon.
Should they be unbanned? Probably not.
If they were, they honestly would see very rare use because they are kind of bad, especially when more Pokemon are involved. You’d maybe see it on bulk Pokemon like Ting-Lu and Pokemon with movesets mostly having filler like Alolan Ninetales.

 

[TheTraininator]

Hey, by the way, if Machamp comes back and OHKO moves are unbanned... (NO GUARD FISSURE LMAO)
View attachment 591914

That won’t happen because transfer-only moves are dead.

…However, it would happen in Gen 8. You can transfer a Fissure Machamp from virtual console gen 1 up to gen 8, transfer it up to a future game and Ability Patch it to remove its Hidden Ability followed by an Ability Capsule to swap it from Guts to No Guard, then transfer it back to gen 8 because Pokémon HOME remembers moves by gen but was patched so that abilities maintain parity whenever possible even when transferring backwards. So yeah, No Guard Fissure Machamp will be a legal thing exclusively in Sword and Shield the moment Machamp comes back.

 

[CTC]

But that's just not how we do it here. Why is it every other Pokemon we look at their kit as a whole, and make a decision from there? Why is it with Darkrai and Iron Valiant we're just saying "axe an entire mechanic" instead of looking at their whole kit which yes includes Hypnosis. It just seems weird that these mons are getting special treatment when other mons would be perfectly fine in OU if only we banned one of their moves.

First of all who’s ‘we’ lol. In my og post I listed swagger thund as the precedent for move ban because it was abusable on one or a few mons, sound like hypnosis w rai / Val to you? In fact I’m trying to avoid having to axe an entire mechanic, but reading comprehension is hard. Other mons which are usable in lower tiers only if we banned one of their moves? I wonder if you’ve ever heard of houndstone and basculegion. Anyone arguing in this thread should not puff their whole chest while spouting absolutely unsubstantiated opinions. Come with some facts and meta game analysis if you think hypno isn’t an issue on those select mons or if u think sleep as a whole should go. I will provide you numerous examples of why spore, powder, and yawn are essential in phazing and positioning for the entire meta gaming while not being nearly as limiting as facing down full hp rai who has 2 chances to basically ohko ur mon. 60% sleep isn’t even meant to be clicked, just a luxury slot on tales and other utility mons which even then is a bad move if you consider yourself a serious battler. On darkrai this move is boosted to beyond meta defining, shifting the focus from skill to rng.

 

[heileone]

Please just do something about cheap ass darkrai and valiant i dont care what it is just do it asap there literally hasnt been anything this cheap since sneasler every other game on the ladder is lead darkrai with valiant in the back its so skilless and noob. Game has not been this volatile and rng based in a while. at least sneasler was cheap just because it was broken, these mons are cheap because they are a slot machine.

Like this better be sorted out by the time i wake up to play my decay games tomorrow >:(

 

[June Heat]

First of all who’s ‘we’ lol. In my og post I listed swagger thund as the precedent for move ban because it was abusable on one or a few mons, sound like hypnosis w rai / Val to you? In fact I’m trying to avoid having to axe an entire mechanic, but reading comprehension is hard. Other mons which are usable in lower tiers only if we banned one of their moves? I wonder if you’ve ever heard of houndstone and basculegion. Anyone arguing in this thread should not puff their whole chest while spouting absolutely unsubstantiated opinions. Come with some facts and meta game analysis if you think hypno isn’t an issue on those select mons or if u think sleep as a whole should go. I will provide you numerous examples of why spore, powder, and yawn are essential in phazing and positioning for the entire meta gaming while not being nearly as limiting as facing down full hp rai who has 2 chances to basically ohko ur mon. 60% sleep isn’t even meant to be clicked, just a luxury slot on tales and other utility mons which even then is a bad move if you consider yourself a serious battler. On darkrai this move is boosted to beyond meta defining, shifting the focus from skill to rng.

Look man I'm not gonna argue Pokemon history with you. My arguments are flawed sure. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most articulate person out there. I Know you know more than I do. While I'm not sure why you brought up Last Respects as a counter example I think we're more or less on the same page. We agree that Sleep should be preserved in some fashion. We simply disagree on how it should be preserved. Personally I think banning Hypnosis would do very little. Not only would it just cripple the viability of some lower tier Pokemon within OU or their respective tier; let's be real Darkrai would just use Dark Void instead. So you still have the biggest proponent of coin flip match ups, but gutted the get of a whole lot else. I don't see why a Darkrai suspect wouldn't be reasonable, or Iron Valiant suspect wouldn't be reasonable. Maybe without them this whole Sleep thing dies down, or heck maybe we leave things as be and in a months time Hypnosis abuse is a thing of the past, much like the month of Quick Claw Quick Draw.

At the end of the day you're better than be, and know more about tiering than I do. So instead of trying to one up some nobody on the forum use that knowledge and clout to show people why You are right about all this.

 

[ianlazerbeem]

We agree that Sleep should be preserved in some fashion. We simply disagree on how it should be preserved. Personally I think banning Hypnosis would do very little. Not only would it just cripple the viability of some lower tier Pokemon within OU or their respective tier;

Such as? And why should we consider LOWER tiers at all when tiering our flagship metagame? They are lower. They matter less, and honestly not at all. "Nooo I can't use hypnosis Noctowl in WU" as if these metas with 4 ladder players at a time should be considered at all

 

[YubelVT]

Look man I'm not gonna argue Pokemon history with you. My arguments are flawed sure. I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most articulate person out there. I Know you know more than I do. While I'm not sure why you brought up Last Respects as a counter example I think we're more or less on the same page. We agree that Sleep should be preserved in some fashion. We simply disagree on how it should be preserved. Personally I think banning Hypnosis would do very little. Not only would it just cripple the viability of some lower tier Pokemon within OU or their respective tier; let's be real Darkrai would just use Dark Void instead. So you still have the biggest proponent of coin flip match ups, but gutted the get of a whole lot else. I don't see why a Darkrai suspect wouldn't be reasonable, or Iron Valiant suspect wouldn't be reasonable. Maybe without them this whole Sleep thing dies down, or heck maybe we leave things as be and in a months time Hypnosis abuse is a thing of the past, much like the month of Quick Claw Quick Draw.

At the end of the day you're better than be, and know more about tiering than I do. So instead of trying to one up some nobody on the forum use that knowledge and clout to show people why You are right about all this.

...are there any lower tier pokemon viable within OU that actually use hypnosis? Like if you can name more than one I'll concede the point but as it stands hypnosis should be banned as a first measure if we do that route and then we should re-evaluate sleep as a whole if it's still an issue.

 

[BolTingBlazie]

...are there any lower tier pokemon viable within OU that actually use hypnosis? Like if you can name more than one I'll concede the point but as it stands hypnosis should be banned as a first measure if we do that route and then we should re-evaluate sleep as a whole if it's still an issue.

Alolatales on screens obviously, I'm sure there are others too that are lower tier but viable in OU

 

[Just A Shroom God]

OHKO moves are not overpowered. They are uncompetitive. Focus Sash Fissure is a strategy that works 30% of the time with zero interaction or skillful play from either player. This is why in the ranked battles online in SV, you'll see people using Fissure Dondozo to just fish for OHKOs. It works less than it doesn't, but it still works, so they'll do it anyway. You should feel bad about having actually put these words to electronic paper.

Don't worry, I feel bad about almost everything I write on this site eventually

Seriously though, the argument I made at first actually addressed this

But of course nobody is arguing that because nobody wants to unban ohko moves. It's pretty much universally agreed that they are stupid fish moves that serve no purpose.

my argument THERE was addressing how we shouldn't use a small unbroken minority as justification to not ban sleep/ohko moves.

In the quote you responded to I was responding to June Heat to prove that not every OHKO user is broken.

 

[YubelVT]

Alolatales on screens obviously, I'm sure there are others too that are lower tier but viable in OU

I was about to say "UUBL doesn't count" and then I double checked and A-Tales is UU this gen, gen 7 brain strikes again.

my argument THERE was addressing how we shouldn't use a small unbroken minority as justification to not ban sleep/ohko moves.

I think the thing is that if we ban hypnosis and then arguments start about banning a second sleep move, we should just bite the bullet and ban sleep with maybe the exception of yawn. I don't want another baton pass scenario where we get increasingly contrived complex bans just to keep a move/mechanic. If the first and most simple comlpex ban doesn't work, do the hard ban and maybe work backwards from there to find the line.

 

[carbonlifeform]

I don't see why a Darkrai suspect wouldn't be reasonable, or Iron Valiant suspect wouldn't be reasonable. Maybe without them this whole Sleep thing dies down, or heck maybe we leave things as be and in a months time Hypnosis abuse is a thing of the past, much like the month of Quick Claw Quick Draw.

It seems like the level of conversation this has drawn (now and in the past) shows that the topic of Sleep is simmering beneath the surface for a lot of folks even when there aren't notable abusers around. We've gotten used to it because, something close to 100% of the time, sets running non-Spore sleep moves are just fishy bullshit. You run Hypnosis Alotales/Iron Valiant/Darkrai because you want that rush of lulz when it hits, but even with Darkrai, the Hypnosis sets aren't the most consistent, they're just the most obscene when they work.

The reason this gets so much discussion is because of the weirdness of Sleep Clause/Sleep Mod and the way that it creates artificial ways to "counter" sleep, and thereby completely upends with the value of RNG. With no Sleep Clause/Sleep Mod, there is no "sleep sac", so there's no reason to make an otherwise sub-optimal play by switching a less useful 'mon for the MU into a potential sleep-inducing move -- which means there's no upside to having Hypnosis miss, thereby "preserving" your sleep attempt for later.

Because of Sleep Mod, any comparisons between Hypnosis and Focus Blast (or other moves that trade accuracy for power) is meaningless because any other move is allowed to connect more than one time. You don't lose the ability to click Focus Blast on a predicted Gambit just because you connected with one when they switched in Zapdos earlier.

So, basically, folks know in their guts that we're on something of a Slippery Slope Continental Divide*.

On one side, you have "preserving" a mechanic in a way that feels bad no matter what you do -- either letting Sleep run unrestricted and leaving the entire game open to cheese strats or by implementing a rule that fundamentally changes the definition of "good plays", "bad plays", "good results" and "bad results".

On the other side, you have, essentially, the rejection of a long-lived game mechanic due to its fundamental uncompetitiveness and the frustrating questions that come with that decision about other, similar mechanics that are less easy to jettison and the fundamental role of RNG at the heart of Pokemon.

Not gonna pretend I have the "right" answer here, so I'll just echo/expand on something that (I think) DaddyBuzzwole said: if anybody out there wants to make a mod that's the Pokemon equivalent of "No Items, Fox Only, Final Destination" and see how it turns out, please do! I'd be deeply fascinated to see how folks respond to 'mons with massively reduced random element.




*Note, neither of these are actually slippery slopes, the phrase was just too fun not to use. The choice to implement Sleep Mod as it is, setting the precedent of directly altering game mechanics, is the closest thing in this mess to an actual Slippery Slope, and it makes sense that it's something that many people seem to passionately want un-done in some way.

 

[June Heat]

...are there any lower tier pokemon viable within OU that actually use hypnosis? Like if you can name more than one I'll concede the point but as it stands hypnosis should be banned as a first measure if we do that route and then we should re-evaluate sleep as a whole if it's still an issue.

Like A-Ninetales is the big one, but people argue that Veil + Hypnosis. Milotic saw some use in DLC1, but it probably would rather fish for Scald burns than fish for Hypnosis hits. Bronzong is kinda of a meme that gets used some times on Trick Room I guess. Yanmega and Gengar could try, and do what Darkrai and Iron Valiant are doing right now. Honestly the rest are trash, but isn't that kind of the point? 2 out of the what like 29 Pokemon that learn the move are problematic. Why not just look at those 2 individually rather than a knee jerk reactionary ban of a move?

I told ya'll my arguments are flawed

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

...are there any lower tier pokemon viable within OU that actually use hypnosis? Like if you can name more than one I'll concede the point but as it stands hypnosis should be banned as a first measure if we do that route and then we should re-evaluate sleep as a whole if it's still an issue.

there are plenty of sleep abusers on the vr that aren't in the tier proper. smeargle, amoonguss, atales, hilligant, and venusaur have all been mentioned more than once between this thread, the "views from the council" thread, and the policy review thread. sleep isn't a rare status anymore

 

[Shinto7654]

OHKO moves are not overpowered. They are uncompetitive. Focus Sash Fissure is a strategy that works 30% of the time with zero interaction or skillful play from either player. This is why in the ranked battles online in SV, you'll see people using Fissure Dondozo to just fish for OHKOs. It works less than it doesn't, but it still works, so they'll do it anyway. You should feel bad about having actually put these words to electronic paper.

IDK, telling someon else to feel bad about their posts when you seriously tried to say that Diglett running Fissure when it literally couldn't because of OHKO Clause was a reason why it was an issue and banned was super funny lol

I don't think I get it. If Meloetta and Effect Spore are terrible, why ban a move (and by extension, Meloetta's other form locked behind the move) and an ability? When people bring up stuff like Arena Trap and Baton Pass in this conversation, that's because those things were so busted that using shitmons like Focus Sash Fissure Diglett was a functional RNG fishing strategy.