Gen question, why doesn't anyone ever talk about running Close Combats on Iron Hands? I can understand why not Supercell Slam, but Close Combat's base power coming off of an Attack stat that large slams any Ground Types not named Gliscor and Therian Landorus, and Ice Punch is just strong enough to actually threaten Gliscor while Iron Hands is bulky enough to sustain an Earth Power and 2HKO Therian Landorus on a switch
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Close combat is definetely not bad, in fact its pretty good, but drain punch allows iron hands to stay healthy, which means it can stick around longer over the course of a battle. Plus, the bulkiest ground type in the tier that isn't quad weak to ice, in tusk, still takes 40% min from ice punch.
If you are using iron hands on a more offensive team, cc may actually be better, but in any longer game, drain punch's healing will allow you to threaten defensive cores more often.
believe it or not Close Combat actually hits Great Tusk harder
I do appreciate the answer a lot though, I just found the huge Fighting STAB hitting the Ice weak target harder than the Ice move to be pretty goofy
Iron Hands @ Life Orb
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
Ok so here me out. Aside from ground types this weird robot with giant hands probably has the bulk to take on its checks without assault vest. I thought about expert belt because all of these attacks result in a ton of coverage but I decided on life orb instead due to drain punch. Should I change earthquake to something else? (I was thinking fake out.) Should I replace with expert belt after all? Is this set trash that deserves to burn in hell? Please tell me what you think
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
Ok so here me out. Aside from ground types this weird robot with giant hands probably has the bulk to take on its checks without assault vest. I thought about expert belt because all of these attacks result in a ton of coverage but I decided on life orb instead due to drain punch. Should I change earthquake to something else? (I was thinking fake out.) Should I replace with expert belt after all? Is this set trash that deserves to burn in hell? Please tell me what you think
I think you should go AV/Fling for Gholdengo.
(Please don't take this as a serious suggestion.)
(No but seriously of course not lol. I don't even think av weighs that much lol)
Edit: Assault vest has 80 bp with fling. Not using it. Iron ball would be kind of funny though because Iron Hands doesn't care that much about speed and it has 130 bp with fling. Still not using it.
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Maybe you could use close combat with a wish passer (Alomomola for example) but this is hard to fit on a team.
The next suspect is likely to go up today
Good thing I was planning to talk about gliscor anyway. (Warning long post incoming)
What did Scor do aside from lay spikes and be fat and click toxic and poison heal everything back and do SD facade shenanigans and... you know what maybe he's a bit annoying
Disclaimer: This is an extremely long post and though I will try to keep it somewhat entertaining if you want what is basically the short version the last paragraph should work for that (probably). I am also not that good at the game and I have not tested all of this in practice (besides calcs) so take all of this with a grain of salt.
I present to you...
Why Iron Hands Has A Suprisingly Good Match Up Against Weird Ground Flying Bat
Before I start I would like to show the set I have made for iron hands as I will be talking about it and the normally used swords dance set a lot.
Iron Hands @ Life Orb
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
Have you ever been screwed over by gliscor and want your money back? Are you one of the dude's who are screaming in the pokemon showdown ou chat for either a solid gliscor answer or a ban? Well look no further because iron hands has a surprisingly good matchup into gliscor.
The first reason that I believe iron hands is good against gliscor is because all of iron hands attacks (on both my set and the general swords dance set) can hit not only regular gliscor but all of its major teras for super effective damage. Regular and tera dragon gliscor are both hit by the cold shoulder of life (ice punch) tera normal and ice are hit by vamp- I mean drain punch and tera water is hit by thunder punch (or supercell slam if you are a masochist). Though you may argue that gliscor has the bulk to survive the attacks for multiple turns let me remind you that these assorted punches are coming off of a pokemon with 140 ATTACK!
Here are some calcs to make it even more insane:
252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
(This one is a little shocking but I will explain why this doesn't mean too much)
252+ Atk Iron Hands Thunder Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Water Gliscor: 228-270 (64.7 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Dragon Gliscor: 152-180 (43.1 - 51.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal
252+ Atk Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Normal Gliscor: 228-270 (64.7 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
Now these might seem rather underwhelming (which is fair) but in none of these calcs take into account any sort of boost like swords dance choice band or life orb. In fact with expert belt alone iron hands can achieve the ohko on non tera gliscor with expert belt.
252+ Atk Expert Belt Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 365-432 (103.6 - 122.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Now you would think that none of this really means anything since gliscor can probably just kill iron hands with earthquake or tera normal facade which brings us to the 2 calcs that inspired this post in the first place.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 194-230 (43.2 - 51.2%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO
+2 0 Atk Tera Normal Gliscor Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 270-318 (60.1 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Now you might be asking why these calcs are so important? Well for the first calc it is using the ou spikes set and the fact that iron hands can survive 1 (usually even 2) super effective earthquakes without defense investment is kind of insane considering it can immediately kill gliscor back with ice punch. The second calc is with the ou swords dance set and uses a plus 2 tera normal facade that can not only not kill iron hands in one hit even without defense investment but also might not even kill in 2 hits thanks to drain punch (please don't use close combat on iron hands lol). Now you can argue that these calcs mean basically nothing since gliscor could just raise its attack evs but not only can iron hands just raise it defense evs in response (which is basically inconsequential as it barely has any speed) but unlike iron hands gliscor does not like to sacrifice its bulk because then it can't survive the hits that it really wants to. It also should be noted that gliscor shouldn't run earthquake on the swords dance set because if it replaces knock off it can't hit air balloon gholdengo and if it replaces roost it has a way harder time surviving.
In conclusion, not only does iron hands have the means to kill gliscor but it also has the bulk to survive gliscor's attacks and justify the damage it is dealing. What do you guys think of this argument? Do you guys think iron hands is a real gliscor answer? Is there anything I missed in this analysis? Please let me know below. Anyway byeeeeee
I present to you...
Why Iron Hands Has A Suprisingly Good Match Up Against Weird Ground Flying Bat
Before I start I would like to show the set I have made for iron hands as I will be talking about it and the normally used swords dance set a lot.
Iron Hands @ Life Orb
Ability: Quark Drive
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 100 Def / 156 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Drain Punch
- Thunder Punch
- Ice Punch
Have you ever been screwed over by gliscor and want your money back? Are you one of the dude's who are screaming in the pokemon showdown ou chat for either a solid gliscor answer or a ban? Well look no further because iron hands has a surprisingly good matchup into gliscor.
The first reason that I believe iron hands is good against gliscor is because all of iron hands attacks (on both my set and the general swords dance set) can hit not only regular gliscor but all of its major teras for super effective damage. Regular and tera dragon gliscor are both hit by the cold shoulder of life (ice punch) tera normal and ice are hit by vamp- I mean drain punch and tera water is hit by thunder punch (or supercell slam if you are a masochist). Though you may argue that gliscor has the bulk to survive the attacks for multiple turns let me remind you that these assorted punches are coming off of a pokemon with 140 ATTACK!
Here are some calcs to make it even more insane:
252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 304-360 (86.3 - 102.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
(This one is a little shocking but I will explain why this doesn't mean too much)
252+ Atk Iron Hands Thunder Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Water Gliscor: 228-270 (64.7 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
252+ Atk Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Dragon Gliscor: 152-180 (43.1 - 51.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Poison Heal
252+ Atk Iron Hands Drain Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Tera Normal Gliscor: 228-270 (64.7 - 76.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
Now these might seem rather underwhelming (which is fair) but in none of these calcs take into account any sort of boost like swords dance choice band or life orb. In fact with expert belt alone iron hands can achieve the ohko on non tera gliscor with expert belt.
252+ Atk Expert Belt Iron Hands Ice Punch vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 365-432 (103.6 - 122.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Now you would think that none of this really means anything since gliscor can probably just kill iron hands with earthquake or tera normal facade which brings us to the 2 calcs that inspired this post in the first place.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 194-230 (43.2 - 51.2%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO
+2 0 Atk Tera Normal Gliscor Facade (140 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Hands: 270-318 (60.1 - 70.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Now you might be asking why these calcs are so important? Well for the first calc it is using the ou spikes set and the fact that iron hands can survive 1 (usually even 2) super effective earthquakes without defense investment is kind of insane considering it can immediately kill gliscor back with ice punch. The second calc is with the ou swords dance set and uses a plus 2 tera normal facade that can not only not kill iron hands in one hit even without defense investment but also might not even kill in 2 hits thanks to drain punch (please don't use close combat on iron hands lol). Now you can argue that these calcs mean basically nothing since gliscor could just raise its attack evs but not only can iron hands just raise it defense evs in response (which is basically inconsequential as it barely has any speed) but unlike iron hands gliscor does not like to sacrifice its bulk because then it can't survive the hits that it really wants to. It also should be noted that gliscor shouldn't run earthquake on the swords dance set because if it replaces knock off it can't hit air balloon gholdengo and if it replaces roost it has a way harder time surviving.
In conclusion, not only does iron hands have the means to kill gliscor but it also has the bulk to survive gliscor's attacks and justify the damage it is dealing. What do you guys think of this argument? Do you guys think iron hands is a real gliscor answer? Is there anything I missed in this analysis? Please let me know below. Anyway byeeeeee
Iron Hands does appear to be an answer to Gl*scor based off of what you have written here but it is 100% NOT easy to justify using as your Gl*scor answer, there is a reason that it’s not OU proper. It fits exclusively on BO and TR structures and on BO often competes with Ursaluna and Great Tusk (mostly Ursaluna, it’s easier to use Tusk alongside Iron Hands) for the role of “physically fat, specially frail”, and Iron Hands is the only one of those three that’s weak to Earthquake. TR it is easier to justify using Iron Hands but TR is also quite uncommon. IMO on BO it is a necessity to pair it both with some form of hazard removal and something that can sponge up Ground attacks, any of the Roosters in the tier could work well, OR speed control that can outrun and eliminate grounds, like Woger or Darkrai. Like Kyurem it’s a Pokemon that requires extensive support to function but it lacks the versatility and raw BST that Kyurem has, in addition to just being overall harder to use.
TLDR; “Iron Hands is ok I guess” - Pinkacross
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I completely agree. The main point of my post was to show that iron hands, while not great, can be used in ou and that gliscor, while annoying, does have answers that people don't consider and I don't think it should be banned (this wasn't my dnb argument btw so if I decide to make that prepare)
Edit: also gliscor isn't the devil spawn lol stop censoring it
Sorry to "um actually" this post since I do find the match-up amusing (even if not particularly practical to lean into), but I believe Gliscor lost Roost this Gen with the Learnset changes (though I also question if it'd even run it given how hard it is to break on its passive recovery while REALLY wanting that extra move slot)
Iron Hands is kind of stuck in the middle. It offers nice upside and is usually awkward to swap into, but it doesn’t really check anything aside from Kingambit, and even that risks TFairy/Ghost. Meanwhile, it’s pretty Tera reliant firsthand in a tier littered with faster Ground types and faster Wisp users.
On the right team with the right set, it’s an asset of course, but I don’t think it’ll ever be a true A tier Pokemon or used consistently.
On the right team with the right set, it’s an asset of course, but I don’t think it’ll ever be a true A tier Pokemon or used consistently.
Gliscor doesn't get Roost... not in gen 9 at least. It gained spikes in exchange for losing Roost.
Ok but #GiveTorn-TRoost #GiveGoltresRoost #GiveScizorRoost
And next you’re going to say that Clefable should get Soft-Boiled back. I charge you with the crime of Stalling and throw you into the dungeon without a trial.
Speaking of, is it just me, or is Tera Fairy Kingambit coming back? I’m seeing them a lot more often.
GIVE BLISSEY WISH TELEPORT
GIVE TOXAPEX PARTING SHOT
GIVE MOLTRES DEFOG
GLORY TO BIG STALL
MAKE STALL GREAT AGAIN
Anyways glory to stall aside what are yalls opinions on the UU-to-be Deos? Why did it fall off yet again? Is it bad? I'd personally say it's good, yet hard to fit due to little defensive utility, which is why it's falling despite being a good mon.
Idt it ever left. It may be more common now than a few months ago with Rest ID Zama, Tusk, etc. being really good, but it was always very usable.
Rest Zama is overrated imo, the only thing it really does is win endgames against teams that exclusively rely on passive damage to stop it, which is a bad idea and people are moving away from that idea in my experiences.
https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1dyxTn31r5Xg5hB3-3UE7CKWXHj07utOWT7vTBdBNQI8/mobilebasic
Also the stall bible was updated! Top 4 are now Blissey > Gliscor > Dozo > Pex <33 and a lot of other viability placements were shifted!
Rest Zama is absolutely not overrated. It is among the best variants of Zama and needed on a lot of builds.
I heavily disagree. I think it really struggles into many offenses due to those teams usually having ways to OHKO or 2KO Zama and wasting a turn clicking Rest is often ineffective. I also think it struggles into many bulky teams, as all Zama sets do, as the longevity doesn't really help when faced with mons like Toxic Gliscor, Hex Ghold, Scald Mola, or Moltres, who are all okay with statusing it again. It definitely has a place in this metagame and it's a solid set but it's not meta and I don't think it's as good as many others do.
I am sorry I forgot that it was protect but the point of it being irreplaceable still stands lol.
I do think that with enough experimentation with its wallbreaking capabilities it could possibly be like a- purely because it matches up extremely well into stall but probably never ou proper
Most teams do not have ways of ohkoing standard zama lol, neutral tera's like Fire and Dark take many hits in the tier and any pokemon threatening those types of hits are either slower or getting 2hko'd back