Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

I've been trying to build with Specs :Darkrai: with Knock to be a solid breaker into a lot of team archetypes since it hits a lot of special walls hard while also being able to break really bulky teams with hazards and knock. It also is good into Moltres since you can knock on the switch and then get rocks up. Any chance that Specs Darkrai becomes used a lot?
 
Gliscor runs Knock Off on almost every set it has even on non Swords Dance, so it's not like this situation won't happen where Iron Crown ends up taking Knock Off damage. Also in the matchup against Swords Dance Gliscor it will just setup and threaten Iron Crown pretty badly.

+2 0 Atk Gliscor Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Crown: 268-316 (83.4 - 98.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
yeah and then you hit em with the min speed metal burst and-
 
I've been trying to build with Specs :Darkrai: with Knock to be a solid breaker into a lot of team archetypes since it hits a lot of special walls hard while also being able to break really bulky teams with hazards and knock. It also is good into Moltres since you can knock on the switch and then get rocks up. Any chance that Specs Darkrai becomes used a lot?
Why not just use trick at this point?
 
look at fucking hydrapple pls, this shit has as many checks as a *broken* kyurem, this is the only one sa mon that can beat blissey/chansey and i think we should talk about it. absolutely broken moveset+fucking regenerator with tera makes this shit unbalanced
Blissey doesn't actually beat Hydrapple long term because Nasty Plot boost along with chip via Earth Power / Fickle Beam / Giga Drain (use the PP wisely) waste Blissey's 8 Softboil's over time. Albeit it's a long process but Blissey is not a long term answer to Hydrapple for stall teams.

For the record this doesn't mean I think Hydrapple is as broken as Kyurem, was just correcting this
 
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look at fucking hydrapple pls, this shit has as many checks as a *broken* kyurem, this is the only one sa mon that can beat blissey/chansey and i think we should talk about it. absolutely broken moveset+fucking regenerator with tera makes this shit unbalanced
IMG_7507.jpeg
 
Out of all broken Mons that populate OU accusing Hydrapple of being one is insane. Bro has terrible defensive typing pre-tera, terribly slow and very awkward movepool (would definetely like Flamethrower, Flash Cannon or Sludge Bomb, though Earth Power and Body Press are nice).
Moves
Earth Power 97.358%
Fickle Beam 97.088%
Giga Drain 78.509%
Nasty Plot 61.230%
Draco Meteor 33.690%
Leaf Storm 21.527%

Body Press is good on Hydrapple, you are right, also flamethrower for what? Fcannon or Sludge Bomb for what? Very awkward movepool (only Enamorus has no weakness against EP+Fickle Beam+Giga Drain set) im guessing you are trolling
 
Moves
Earth Power 97.358%
Fickle Beam 97.088%
Giga Drain 78.509%
Nasty Plot 61.230%
Draco Meteor 33.690%
Leaf Storm 21.527%

Body Press is good on Hydrapple, you are right, also flamethrower for what? Fcannon or Sludge Bomb for what? Very awkward movepool (only Enamorus has no weakness against EP+Fickle Beam+Giga Drain set) im guessing you are trolling

Awkward doesn,t mean bad, awkward means weird, incomplete. Enamorus isn,t the actual problem. Actual problem is Sdef Corviknight, who not only walls, but also takes 2 PPs and uses STAB Brave Bird. Yes, NP and Recover (+Regenerator) is cool and all, but using Hydrapple is quite hard, since it won,t be able to break the Tier, it will move last 90% of the turns and its almost forced to go Tera, since with 5 weaknesses it will be hit effectively by half of OU. Compared to other contenders to being banned (Waterpon, Gliscor, Raging Bolt, Gholdengo, even Gambit), Hydrapple's case for it is very weak. Its even UU, so most people don,t actually find it useful, let alone broken (even though some UU Mons ended up being banned... but not while they were UU by usage).
 
Awkward doesn,t mean bad, awkward means weird, incomplete. Enamorus isn,t the actual problem. Actual problem is Sdef Corviknight, who not only walls, but also takes 2 PPs and uses STAB Brave Bird. Yes, NP and Recover (+Regenerator) is cool and all, but using Hydrapple is quite hard, since it won,t be able to break the Tier, it will move last 90% of the turns and its almost forced to go Tera, since with 5 weaknesses it will be hit effectively by half of OU. Compared to other contenders to being banned (Waterpon, Gliscor, Raging Bolt, Gholdengo, even Gambit), Hydrapple's case for it is very weak. Its even UU, so most people don,t actually find it useful, let alone broken (even though some UU Mons ended up being banned... but not while they were UU by usage).
Careful:248/0/8/0/252/0 1.817% sdef Corviknight with 1% usage is actual problem, ok
"most people dont actually find it useful"
>15 games on olt with 55+ wr (cant count exactly because a bunch of replays are just not available unfort)
Your ban list is the reason why such discussions are pointless, Hydrapple is broken for me, Waterpon/Gholdengo/Gambit/Zamazenta/Darkrai/Kyurem is not (or imagine Tera Blast suspect, only Iron Moth/Dragonite/band Pult running it)
Gouging Fire with 91% votes was really broken, but you cant say that about Kyurem with 62%.
 
look at fucking hydrapple pls, this shit has as many checks as a *broken* kyurem, this is the only one sa mon that can beat blissey/chansey and i think we should talk about it. absolutely broken moveset+fucking regenerator with tera makes this shit unbalanced

it appears that you are struggling to deal with a bad matchup, my friend. here is a comprehensive guide on how to defensively check hydrapple in SV OU:

step 1 - run brave bird on corviknight
step 2 - ???
step 3 - profit
 
it appears that you are struggling to deal with a bad matchup, my friend. here is a comprehensive guide on how to defensively check hydrapple in SV OU:

step 1 - run brave bird on corviknight
step 2 - ???
step 3 - profit
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Hydrapple: 212-252 (51.2 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Hydrapple Fickle Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Corviknight: 154-182 (38.5 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Hydrapple Fickle Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Corviknight: 309-363 (77.2 - 90.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO (x2 Fickle Beam after min BB recoil)
Is it still a good option? Hydrapple has regenerator btw, remember that.

Yeah, i have played 3 tours in OU room and every game was against Hydrapple, its a little annoying
 
0 Atk Corviknight Brave Bird vs. 244 HP / 0 Def Hydrapple: 212-252 (51.2 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ SpA Hydrapple Fickle Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Corviknight: 154-182 (38.5 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ SpA Hydrapple Fickle Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Corviknight: 309-363 (77.2 - 90.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO (x2 Fickle Beam after min BB recoil)
Is it still a good option? Hydrapple has regenerator btw, remember that.

Yeah, i have played 3 tours in OU room and every game was against Hydrapple, its a little annoying

mind you hydrapple only has a 30% chance to even entertain the idea of breaking past corviknight. even then it can just click roost the next turn and go for another brave bird, or it can just switch in once, u-turn into a dragon resist and simply force hydra to switch out. sure it has regenerator but has it made any progress?
 
mind you hydrapple only has a 30% chance to even entertain the idea of breaking past corviknight. even then it can just click roost the next turn and go for another brave bird, or it can just switch in once, u-turn into a dragon resist and simply force hydra to switch out. sure it has regenerator but has it made any progress
Just name Enamorus, i dont want to try to explain why Hydrapple in balance teams with unlimited heal, 416/256 hp/def stats and "only 30% to ko" always win this 1v1 if Corviknight go for Brave Bird
 
Just name Enamorus, i dont want to try to explain why Hydrapple in balance teams with unlimited heal, 416/256 hp/def stats and "only 30% to ko" always win this 1v1 if Corviknight go for Brave Bird

"always wins this 1v1" unless it's nasty plot + recover (which is not a real set) then no??? even outside of balance this thing has to tera to not get steamrolled by offense so hydrapple is really not broken at all, it's just a good pokemon. it's undeniably a very strong balance breaker but i don't get why you're acting like this is hoopa-unbound and has no switch-ins. air balloon steels also give this guy a lot of trouble, not just corviknight
 
My belief is that Hydrapple down-playing (not Eveeto's criticisms of the 'mon) is a psy-op made by the SV UU playerbase to keep its usage low enough so OU doesn't steal their red-delicious dragon. Though it sometimes backfires and you get strays calling Hydrapple broken cause it shoved their defensive core into locker.

On the subject of Dragon-types, what's with the uptick in people demanding tiering action against Raging Bolt? Sure it makes people mad (myself included) by being fat and hitting like a freight train, but doesn't strike me as egregiously broken or un-competive, at least relative to the rest of the 'mons in the tier.
 
"always wins this 1v1" unless it's nasty plot + recover (which is not a real set) then no??? even outside of balance this thing has to tera to not get steamrolled by offense so hydrapple is really not broken at all, it's just a good pokemon. it's undeniably a very strong balance breaker but i don't get why you're acting like this is hoopa-unbound and has no switch-ins. air balloon steels also give this guy a lot of trouble, not just corviknight
Air Balloon Steels get hit once and then are Earth Powered for the rest of the game. They don’t give Hydrapple “a lot of trouble”. Drapple could just click Giga or Fickle Beam to get some nice chip and break the balloon, switch out, come in later in the game and EP is opened up. Yippee. It’s pretty much only Corv that defensively checks this guy, and at +2, you can just Fickle, and if you get the allout, you can EP on Roost (Corv only has 8 anyway). gg. Also an excellent tera abuser if you don’t need it’s base typing to check Woger.
 
Careful:248/0/8/0/252/0 1.817% sdef Corviknight with 1% usage is actual problem, ok
"most people dont actually find it useful"
>15 games on olt with 55+ wr (cant count exactly because a bunch of replays are just not available unfort)
Your ban list is the reason why such discussions are pointless, Hydrapple is broken for me, Waterpon/Gholdengo/Gambit/Zamazenta/Darkrai/Kyurem is not (or imagine Tera Blast suspect, only Iron Moth/Dragonite/band Pult running it)
Gouging Fire with 91% votes was really broken, but you cant say that about Kyurem with 62%.
buddy hydrapple is probably one of the least broken breakers we have. let me list some of the defensive answers to hydrapple, of varying effectiveness and splashability:
  • :corviknight: even physdef corv can check +2 hydrapple in an emergency—even if it gets a fickle beam proc at +2 on the switch, that's 90% max and you chunk it with bb, die, and send out something that can kill it. even with rocks damage it's a 25% chance to kill after the 30% chance of a fickle beam proc, and that is the only scenario (outside of a simultaneous crit and fickle proc) where any standard hydrapple set unambiguously wins the corv matchup. if it doesn't proc fickle, or isn't at +2, or you're running spdef corv, or they're draco meteor or some different set than np, your matchup turns into a guaranteed win. the only way hydrapple gets the dub without getting lucky is by running tb fire and no one runs that
  • :tinkaton: air balloon tink can switch in on any of hydrapple's moves and force a switch with encore, which gives you a cheap opportunity to do one of tink's many utility things depending on what comes in. if they're at +2 and click their grass move and don't switch after the encore, you do have a little trouble because it does have a chance to 3hko, but you can still click twave or knock or rocks or whatever you have and make some progress before switching to something that walls grass and threatens hydrapple better
  • :iron crown: balloon crown can also switch in on any of hydrapple's moves, though only once. this one isn't super great because the only progress you can really make is chunking it with tachyon cutter, but it's something at least. av crown is a more comfortable switch-in to everything except earth power, so that's another option
  • :blissey: blissey hardwalls hydrapple outside of body press or two +2 fickle procs in a row with high damage rolls. if you're running ibeam you solidly 2hko back, and if not you can just set up calm minds until it can't break you anymore
  • :enamorus: even though enamorus has crap bulk, she's naturally immune to dragon and ground, resistant to grass, and double resistant to fighting, which neatly covers all of hydrapple's good options (and most of its bad ones except tb ice). then you proceed to have a chance to ohko with moonblast, or set up with cm if you're cm because hydrapple can't do much about that
  • :clefable: unaware clefable is a bit of an endangered species these days, but it reliably tanks hydrapple's grass stab or coverage and dishes out big damage back with moonblast
  • :moltres: moltres has trouble coming in on +2 fickle beam, but it can reliably switch into anything else. flamethrower chunks it just fine but if you're a madlad who's still running flying stab (seriously folks you gotta start running hurricane on this guy again) you hit it for a metric fuckton of damage
  • :zapdos: zapdos can also come in on anything besides +2 fickle beam on a proc, and it seriously threatens hydrapple with hurricane, which it carries a lot more than moltres does
  • :articuno: lmao just kidding but could you imagine
  • :scizor: formerly the switchin of choice to kyurem, but it works plenty well against hydrapple too. lives anything except a +2 fickle proc (i'm mentioning this a lot but you have to remember it has a 70% chance to not happen, if the hydrapple's running np at all) and deals quite a bit back with u-turn
  • :gholdengo: oh yeah, balloon gholdengo. how could i forget. this can serve a similar function to balloon tink or crown—switching in and denting hydrapple back with make it rain, paralyze with twave, or whatever
now don't get me wrong, hydrapple has plenty of offensive answers too. these can't absorb an attack from it like the above guys, but they can still threaten hydrapple if you can get them in safely via double-switching, slow pivoting, or sacking something
  • :weavile: this is really the only sorta-good ice-type left, but it's damn good at its job. triple axel solidly ohkos hydrapple or forces tera and does like half anyway
  • :meowscarada: oh right, the other sorta-good ice-type. meow does the same thing with triple axel (even without protean) but also has u-turn as a midground option to do solid damage to base hydrapple and get out of there in case of tera, which makes it a straight upgrade to weavile in this particular matchup
  • :iron moth: sludge wave eats non-av hydrapple for breakfast, including tera fairy, which is far and away hydrapple's most common tera. as a bonus, you can actually comfortably get this in on a grass move, but you have to predict right so don't do this unless you're confident. this is one of the best offensive hydrapple answers on the market right now
  • :great tusk: ice spinner absolutely decimates non-tera'd hydrapple. let me tell ya, not being able to come in with confidence on the most splashable mon in the tier is not a good look for the apple
  • :darkrai: ice beam is the obvious play if tera's out of the picture, and sludge bomb is a great midground if it isn't—with expert belt it does 70 minimum and if you tera poison it's a guaranteed ohko against everything but av
  • :dragapult: threatens to heavily dent or straight-up kill hydrapple with strong dragon stab. if tera hasn't been burned yet, or if it's the dragon darts pivot set, clicking u-turn for serious chip damage is a good midground play in case hydrapple goes fairy
  • :iron valiant: hydrapple is kinda terrified of a moonblast from this thing, and it can come in on fickle beam
  • :raging bolt: forces tera or straight ohkos with booster dragon pulse. for that matter, boots dragon pulse also has an ohko chance. this one's risky if tera hasn't been burned but turns into a very reliable offensive answer if it has
i hope this is a good explanation of how you can easily handle hydrapple offensively and defensively on all sorts of different teamstyles. we've got stallmons that are good into it, balancemons that are good into it, offensemons that are good into it, hyperoffensemons that are great into it, and a wide selection of other mons that are situationally good into it if you position them cleverly or tera them right. i don't think there are any problematic elements of hydrapple except maybe fickle beam and even that is on the very most remote fringes of the definition
 
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Air Balloon Steels get hit once and then are Earth Powered for the rest of the game. They don’t give Hydrapple “a lot of trouble”. Drapple could just click Giga or Fickle Beam to get some nice chip and break the balloon, switch out, come in later in the game and EP is opened up. Yippee. It’s pretty much only Corv that defensively checks this guy, and at +2, you can just Fickle, and if you get the allout, you can EP on Roost (Corv only has 8 anyway). gg. Also an excellent tera abuser if you don’t need it’s base typing to check Woger.

obviously they are not long-term answers but they act as a temporary stopgap to hydrapple on bulky offense teams and can force it out after taking a resisted hit, similar to how air balloon gholdengo/kingambit usage skyrocketed during the first kyurem suspect test. unless hydrapple is at +2 by the time the steels switch in, then staying in to break the balloon -> click earth power the next turn is not an ideal trade for the hydra user. it still struggles to get past corviknight (the physically defensive spread, mind you) without consistent fickle beam procs, and corv is a decently good and common mon on most balance structures anyway; not exactly a reach to say that the tier isn't lacking in solid hydrapple checks. even then i don't see an issue with a balance breaker that uses pokemon like garganacl and ting-lu as entry points. bottom line is hydrapple's rise in viability is a strictly positive development in the metagame and i really do Not agree with the initial post sparking this debate comparing it to kyurem
 
buddy hydrapple is probably one of the least broken breakers we have. let me list some of the defensive answers to hydrapple, of varying effectiveness and splashability:
  • :corviknight: even physdef corv can check +2 hydrapple in an emergency—even if it gets a fickle beam proc at +2 on the switch, that's 90% max and you chunk it with bb, die, and send out something that can kill it. even with rocks damage it's a 25% chance to kill after the 30% chance of a fickle beam proc, and that is the only scenario (outside of a simultaneous crit and fickle proc) where any standard hydrapple set unambiguously wins the corv matchup. if it doesn't proc fickle, or isn't at +2, or you're running spdef corv, or they're draco meteor or some different set than np, your matchup turns into a guaranteed win. the only way hydrapple gets the dub without getting lucky is by running tb fire and no one runs that
  • :tinkaton: air balloon tink can switch in on any of hydrapple's moves and force a switch with encore, which gives you a cheap opportunity to do one of tink's many utility things depending on what comes in. if they're at +2 and click their grass move and don't switch after the encore, you do have a little trouble because it does have a chance to 3hko, but you can still click twave or knock or rocks or whatever you have and make some progress before switching to something that walls grass and threatens hydrapple better
  • :iron crown: balloon crown can also switch in on any of hydrapple's moves, though only once. this one isn't super great because the only progress you can really make is chunking it with tachyon cutter, but it's something at least. av crown is a more comfortable switch-in to everything except earth power, so that's another option
  • :blissey: blissey hardwalls hydrapple outside of body press or two +2 fickle procs in a row with high damage rolls. if you're running ibeam you solidly 2hko back, and if not you can just set up calm minds until it can't break you anymore
  • :enamorus: even though enamorus has crap bulk, she's naturally immune to dragon and ground, resistant to grass, and double resistant to fighting, which neatly covers all of hydrapple's good options (and most of its bad ones except tb ice). then you proceed to have a chance to ohko with moonblast, or set up with cm if you're cm because hydrapple can't do much about that
  • :clefable: unaware clefable is a bit of an endangered species these days, but it reliably tanks hydrapple's grass stab or coverage and dishes out big damage back with moonblast
  • :moltres: moltres has trouble coming in on +2 fickle beam, but it can reliably switch into anything else. flamethrower chunks it just fine but if you're a madlad who's still running flying stab (seriously folks you gotta start running hurricane on this guy again) you hit it for a metric fuckton of damage
  • :zapdos: zapdos can also come in on anything besides +2 fickle beam on a proc, and it seriously threatens hydrapple with hurricane, which it carries a lot more than moltres does
  • :articuno: lmao just kidding but could you imagine
  • :scizor: formerly the switchin of choice to kyurem, but it works plenty well against hydrapple too. lives anything except a +2 fickle proc (i'm mentioning this a lot but you have to remember it has a 70% chance to not happen, if the hydrapple's running np at all) and deals quite a bit back with u-turn
  • :gholdengo: oh yeah, balloon gholdengo. how could i forget. this can serve a similar function to balloon tink or crown—switching in and denting hydrapple back with make it rain, paralyze with twave, or whatever
now don't get me wrong, hydrapple has plenty of offensive answers too. these can't absorb an attack from it like the above guys, but they can still threaten hydrapple if you can get them in safely via double-switching, slow pivoting, or sacking something
  • :weavile: this is really the only sorta-good ice-type left, but it's damn good at its job. triple axel solidly ohkos hydrapple or forces tera and does like half anyway
  • :meowscarada: oh right, the other sorta-good ice-type. meow does the same thing with triple axel (even without protean) but also has u-turn as a midground option to do solid damage to base hydrapple and get out of there in case of tera, which makes it a straight upgrade to weavile in this particular matchup
  • :iron moth: sludge wave eats non-av hydrapple for breakfast, including tera fairy, which is far and away hydrapple's most common tera. as a bonus, you can actually comfortably get this in on a grass move, but you have to predict right so don't do this unless you're confident. this is one of the best offensive hydrapple answers on the market right now
  • :great tusk: ice spinner absolutely decimates non-tera'd hydrapple. let me tell ya, not being able to come in with confidence on the most splashable mon in the tier is not a good look for the apple
  • :darkrai: ice beam is the obvious play if tera's out of the picture, and sludge bomb is a great midground if it isn't—with expert belt it does 70 minimum and if you tera poison it's a guaranteed ohko against everything but av
  • :dragapult: threatens to heavily dent or straight-up kill hydrapple with strong dragon stab. if tera hasn't been burned yet, or if it's the dragon darts pivot set, clicking u-turn for serious chip damage is a good midground play in case hydrapple goes fairy
  • :iron valiant: hydrapple is kinda terrified of a moonblast from this thing, and it can come in on fickle beam
  • :raging bolt: forces tera or straight ohkos with booster dragon pulse. for that matter, boots dragon pulse also has an ohko chance. this one's risky if tera hasn't been burned but turns into a very reliable offensive answer if it has
i hope this is a good explanation of how you can easily handle hydrapple offensively and defensively on all sorts of different teamstyles. we've got stallmons that are good into it, balancemons that are good into it, offensemons that are good into it, hyperoffensemons that are great into it, and a wide selection of other mons that are situationally good into it if you position them cleverly or tera them right. i don't think there are any problematic elements of hydrapple except maybe fickle beam and even that is on the very most remote fringes of the definition
Gj friend, now count the "answers" to Gouging Fire and after that we can unban it
I will help:
:Dachsbun:
:Dondozo:
:Heatran: :Air_balloon:
:Skarmory: (easy alive +6 with sturdy lol)
:Deoxys_defense:
:Regirock:
:Alomomola:
And if you still dont understand what i want to say, we are talking OU 6x6 matches and not about 1v1, Hydrapple just "eats" boosters on your Moth/Ival/Rbolt and then you cry when your >1300 elo opp switches to Glowking (for example).

I would definitely prefer to keep my tera (no), than use it and OHKO your hazards removal (Ice Spinner Tusk) and stay in full hp
Balloon mons)) Iron Crown)))
 
I will say that while i dont find it broken (though its better than kyu fasho lmao) Hydrappl's ability to gamble with Fickle Beam is a bit uncompetitive. Done it plenty of times against Gking / Corv and have been rewarded by running away with the game lmao.

That said I find building teams with this mon to be difficult and think it's reliance on Tera is a massive hinderace. Without investment in bulk it's also not as bulky as I'd like and it's power pre-np boost is a bit weak. I personally still am not seeing the hype behind this mon beyond its good MU into ting-lu.
 
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