Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4

The only way to remedy what you are complaining about is the ban tera, yet the tier is pretty good, and most good players enjoy what Tera brings to the game. I also think it is very unlikely for us to get a suspect for tera as well.
The last tiering survey had a 6.2/10 for competitiveness and a 5.9/10 for enjoyability and the tier has only gotten worse.....if you think the current state of the tier is good please play literally any other gen of ou and you'll be amazed by what actual balance looks like
 
So does Blissey. And if you think Blissey is OP, then you either are trolling, somehow can't beat stall, or forgot to take your meds in the morning.
What are you even talking about? Volc is a setup sweeper. Blissey is a passive, stall only special wall.

The context of this discussion was the amount of prep you need to do to enable a Volc sweep. I shouldn't be having to say completely obvious things like how only one of these mons is an actual offensive threat or how speed control is necessary to deal with speed boosting mons.

The rest of this isn't even worth acknowledging.
 
Volcarona is to Blissey as Zamazenta is to Dondozo. It keeps many of the key special sweepers like Ghold, Darkrai, Raging Bolt, Kyurem, and Iron Valiant in check, while also losing quite easily to many of the special walls like Dirge, Clodsire, Blissey, Toxapex, etc. Its much better at avoiding momentum loss vs offensive teams than blissey the same way zama is better at avoiding momentum loss when compared to Dondozo. In that sense, I am confident its reintroduction would be a good addition to more balanced teams to give them an easier time combatting offensive teams. From what I remember when it was legal, it also completely annihilated Darkspam teams, which may be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.

As I've stated before, I do somewhat regret voting ban on it initially (only voted ban because Gouging Fire wasn't banned) but I'm sure the rest of the community doesn't feel the same way as I do and is fine with the way things are currently. Despite having a fair number of suspects for DLC2, there haven't been too many bans (only 3) so I understand players don't exactly want to undo prior progress. That said, I personally lean on the side that this mon is completely fine without Tera Blast & will be far less versatile in its sweeping capabilities should Tera Blast be banned. I don't believe any of Tera Steel, Tera Grass, Tera Psychic, or Tera Bug will be too overwhelming for the average team to handle, espicially since most of these sets have overlapping checks like moltres.
 
Volcarona is to Blissey as Zamazenta is to Dondozo. It keeps many of the key special sweepers like Ghold, Darkrai, Raging Bolt, Kyurem, and Iron Valiant in check, while also losing quite easily to many of the special walls like Dirge, Clodsire, Blissey, Toxapex, etc. Its much better at avoiding momentum loss vs offensive teams than blissey the same way zama is better at avoiding momentum loss when compared to Dondozo. In that sense, I am confident its reintroduction would be a good addition to more balanced teams to give them an easier time combatting offensive teams. From what I remember when it was legal, it also completely annihilated Darkspam teams, which may be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.
Hamurott feels extremely strong ATM, one of the most powerful mons in the tier which can feel very difficult to play against with fatter teams. Both Darkspam (Hamurott + Gambit/Darkrai/Moon) and the Hamu + Pech teams we're seeing spammed benefitted a lot from Volc exiting the tier (obviously not the only factor leading to their rise, but definitely an important one).

Volc's ban was worse for teams that took advantage of its unique defensive profile rather than just its ability to sweep. The structures it did well against tend to prey on fat and some anti-offense options with similar properties like Moth are locked to HO. Obviously, it's hard to predict exactly how the meta will shift, but I do think that with a TBlast ban the reintroduction of Volc could absolutely help deal with offense without it just being able to randomly fish wins.
 
Awesome, so we are just going to free another cheese mon because of the few defensive benefits it might provide (one's already covered by other pokemon, none the less)? It's embarrassing that gen 9 ou is even in tours in its current state, and the solution to fix it is this? really?
 
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I have no personal interest in unbanning Volcarona.
Volcarona is to Blissey as Zamazenta is to Dondozo
I find the people claiming this or saying Volcarona is metagame saving glue to be off.

You list Valiant, Kyurem, Darkrai, Ghold, and Bolt. It flat out doesn’t check Bolt. Darkrai it needs to be Morning Sun and Darkrai had to not be Trick, NP, or Knock Off. Kyurem has to be SubTect as every other variant either beats Volc or does a ton of damage. Valiant you check CM variants that lack Psyshock, but otherwise risk losing if you swap on SD or taking a Knock Off, leading to you not checking it at any point later.

Volcarona has some defensive merit for sure, but it’s not a metagame saver and this argument doesn’t consider how nasty its offensive presence is, which is why it got banned overwhelmingly. We cannot ignore this — it was one of the more clear bans this generation for a reason.

Zamazenta has wayyyyy more defensive utility than Volcarona and likening the two is unfair.
 
Prior to the ban i ran max defensive one attack volcarona and it was pretty gluey. It's not an automatic unban without tera blast but it is certainly a possibility

But Tera Blast ban has merit with or without moth.
 
I have no personal interest in unbanning Volcarona.

I find the people claiming this or saying Volcarona is metagame saving glue to be off.

You list Valiant, Kyurem, Darkrai, Ghold, and Bolt. It flat out doesn’t check Bolt. Darkrai it needs to be Morning Sun and Darkrai had to not be Trick, NP, or Knock Off. Kyurem has to be SubTect as every other variant either beats Volc or does a ton of damage. Valiant you check CM variants that lack Psyshock, but otherwise risk losing if you swap on SD or taking a Knock Off, leading to you not checking it at any point later.

Volcarona has some defensive merit for sure, but it’s not a metagame saver and this argument doesn’t consider how nasty its offensive presence is, which is why it got banned overwhelmingly. We cannot ignore this — it was one of the more clear bans this generation for a reason.

Zamazenta has wayyyyy more defensive utility than Volcarona and likening the two is unfair.

I think this is a little disingenuous. The threat of QD Moth absolutely disincentivizes Darkrai, Kyurem, Ghold, and Valiant in the teambuilder. NP Darkrai is a setup point for Moth. I know you know this but the counterplay to Moth on offense was very frequently to limit its setup opportunities. Every common Kyu set is beaten by Moth except DD Scale Shot/Terablast so idk what you meant here. Valiant is also only beating Moth with SD if it's Liquidation. Knock on Darkrai and Val (as well as Twave on Darkrai which can nail Gambit and Zamazenta as well) are fair mentions, but Knock Rai and Mixed Val are far less potent in terms of immediate threat to balance. I think dissuading these team choices makes for a more comfortable meta for slower teams.

You're also focusing too much on the special side of Volc's defensive profile. Don't forget that we have a (relatively) new OU staple in Moltres largely off the back of an ability it shares with Volcarona.

Now, all this being said: I agree with you that Volcarona's offensive presence was too much for the tier. However, without tera blast I firmly believe that it would offer valuable defensive counterplay to a wide variety of special and physical threats, on par with Zamazenta as Magcargo asserts. I would strongly implore council to put tera blast on the survey again next time around. I'm aware that it has consistently gotten low scores but I think that not gauging community opinion on an issue with many potential cascading effects wouldn't be in the spirit of valuing community feedback.
 
I think the whole argument about whether or not Volc fits the definition of "meta glue" is fairly irrelevant. We do not tier based on meta benefit, we tier based on whether or not an element is broken.
As a general premise, preserving something because it checks Pokemon is a bad argument. If it’s broken, it should be banned. If not, of course it shouldn’t.
What made Volc broken and uncompetitive was its ability to fish matchups facilitated by Tera Blast. Without that, I don't think it is broken, and I know many others agree.

This is putting the cart before the horse, though. Tera Blast needs to be banned first. Finch has indicated it will be on the next survey, so I hope the score will be high enough that it is suspected. We can discuss freeing Volc/Eleki after.
 
I think this is a little disingenuous. The threat of QD Moth absolutely disincentivizes Darkrai, Kyurem, Ghold, and Valiant in the teambuilder. NP Darkrai is a setup point for Moth. I know you know this but the counterplay to Moth on offense was very frequently to limit its setup opportunities. Every common Kyu set is beaten by Moth except DD Scale Shot/Terablast so idk what you meant here. Valiant is also only beating Moth with SD if it's Liquidation. Knock on Darkrai and Val (as well as Twave on Darkrai which can nail Gambit and Zamazenta as well) are fair mentions, but Knock Rai and Mixed Val are far less potent in terms of immediate threat to balance. I think dissuading these team choices makes for a more comfortable meta for slower teams.
I mean Darkrai is arguably at a low point right now without Volcarona and nobody is calling for its ban anymore, but the argument that Volcarona is anything more than a shaky check to it has always been bad and metagame track records just disprove the logic about incentivizing it. Kyurem can nuke it with specs or at least do enough to where you need to click Morning Sun and then next time Draco still kills — Volc only checks Boots (which has fallen off entirely) and SubTect.

This is all a bit moot as we don’t even tier this way, but the argument likening Volcarona to Zamazenta is and will always be a huge stretch. It’s ok to say something has a defensive presence — which Volcarona absolutely does — without comparing it to an all-time offensive role compression Pokemon like CG OU Zama, which was the point I replied to.
 
However, without tera blast I firmly believe that it would offer valuable defensive counterplay to a wide variety of special and physical threats, on par with Zamazenta as Magcargo asserts.
In a world where Tera Blast is removed, we always try Volcarona again in OU. That goes without saying. Making this a separate post as TB will be on whenever the next survey is and it’s fine to discuss, but we are steps away from this now and also need to be realists.

My point is that Volcarona’s merit defensively isn’t fitting the mold the post I responded to framed it in. It had nothing to do with these other tangents.
 
The only way to remedy what you are complaining about is the ban tera, yet the tier is pretty good, and most good players enjoy what Tera brings to the game. I also think it is very unlikely for us to get a suspect for tera as well.
That may be true but I think it is at least time to ask the playerbase if they think tera being gone could help with how low enjoyment scores are.

We are in the same position as natdex was pre tera ban thus why I say this

So I would say survey both tera and tera blast
 
I think this is a little disingenuous. The threat of QD Moth absolutely disincentivizes Darkrai, Kyurem, Ghold, and Valiant in the teambuilder. NP Darkrai is a setup point for Moth. I know you know this but the counterplay to Moth on offense was very frequently to limit its setup opportunities. Every common Kyu set is beaten by Moth except DD Scale Shot/Terablast so idk what you meant here. Valiant is also only beating Moth with SD if it's Liquidation. Knock on Darkrai and Val (as well as Twave on Darkrai which can nail Gambit and Zamazenta as well) are fair mentions, but Knock Rai and Mixed Val are far less potent in terms of immediate threat to balance. I think dissuading these team choices makes for a more comfortable meta for slower teams.

You're also focusing too much on the special side of Volc's defensive profile. Don't forget that we have a (relatively) new OU staple in Moltres largely off the back of an ability it shares with Volcarona.

Now, all this being said: I agree with you that Volcarona's offensive presence was too much for the tier. However, without tera blast I firmly believe that it would offer valuable defensive counterplay to a wide variety of special and physical threats, on par with Zamazenta as Magcargo asserts. I would strongly implore council to put tera blast on the survey again next time around. I'm aware that it has consistently gotten low scores but I think that not gauging community opinion on an issue with many potential cascading effects wouldn't be in the spirit of valuing community feedback.
I'm not really seeing it with regards to Darkrai. Volc needs to be on even turn pacing with Darkrai to come out ahead, since Nasty Plot does this to the Bulky set if it comes in as Darkrai is boosting, while +1 Fiery Dance fails to OHKO back. This is not an unreasonable amount of chip damage to inflict on a mon people are touting as a new defensive counterplay option to several prominent threats.

+2 252 SpA Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 176 HP / 0 SpD Volcarona: 258-304 (72.6 - 85.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. +1 176 HP / 0 SpD Volcarona: 172-204 (48.4 - 57.4%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO

+1 252 SpA Volcarona Fiery Dance vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Darkrai: 220-259 (78.2 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Moltres also doesn't serve as an effective comparison to Volcarona, having better Physical Bulk against unburned targets and being played as a defensive Pokemon outright compared to Volc being a win-con that leverages its bulk to setup (Volc never runs without Quiver Dance for a reason). There's a lot more to this Pokemon's usage and role than just sharing Flame Body. Volcarona isn't scary because it is sturdy into Physical attackers (or most things it checks in general), it's scary because if it checks the mon it gets in front of even one time, you need an IMMEDIATE out to its set going to +1 or there isn't going to be a "long term" to consider. Whether or not it's too much for the tier, this has always felt like a flimsy parallel to me on the level of comparing Breloom and Amoongus for both heavily utilizing Spore.

Checking things with Volcarona isn't a Stop Gap, it's an Uno-Reverse card, and while removing Tera Blast would narrow the list of things that could work as that +1 answer, it doesn't change what responding to Volcarona amounts to. Slither Wing is closer to a tank Moth attacker than Volc will ever be, playstyle wise. Personally I also don't see it being very productive when one of the contentions with OU is a saturation of high-commitment threats, which Volcarona's match-up fishing reputation would exploit offensively far more than defensively.
 
I think this is a little disingenuous. The threat of QD Moth absolutely disincentivizes Darkrai, Kyurem, Ghold, and Valiant in the teambuilder. NP Darkrai is a setup point for Moth. I know you know this but the counterplay to Moth on offense was very frequently to limit its setup opportunities. Every common Kyu set is beaten by Moth except DD Scale Shot/Terablast so idk what you meant here. Valiant is also only beating Moth with SD if it's Liquidation. Knock on Darkrai and Val (as well as Twave on Darkrai which can nail Gambit and Zamazenta as well) are fair mentions, but Knock Rai and Mixed Val are far less potent in terms of immediate threat to balance. I think dissuading these team choices makes for a more comfortable meta for slower teams.

You're also focusing too much on the special side of Volc's defensive profile. Don't forget that we have a (relatively) new OU staple in Moltres largely off the back of an ability it shares with Volcarona.

Now, all this being said: I agree with you that Volcarona's offensive presence was too much for the tier. However, without tera blast I firmly believe that it would offer valuable defensive counterplay to a wide variety of special and physical threats, on par with Zamazenta as Magcargo asserts. I would strongly implore council to put tera blast on the survey again next time around. I'm aware that it has consistently gotten low scores but I think that not gauging community opinion on an issue with many potential cascading effects wouldn't be in the spirit of valuing community feedback.
truthfully I don't see what volcarona brings defensively that spdef moltres can't already do. Besides, I think it's offensive profile would prove to be far worse for slower teams than any minor benefits they might get from a defensive volc. I still do think it would be worth testing post-tera blast, but I really don't think it is a good idea to unban it.
 
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truthfully I don't see what volcarona brings defensively that spdef moltres can't already do. Besides, I think it's offensive profile would prove to be far worse for slower teams than any minor benefits they might get from a defensive volc. I still do think it would be worth testing post-tera blast, but I really don't think it is a good idea to unban it.
I mean Volc has offensive pressure that moltres lacks so there is that I guess and a unique resistance pool
 
Random Question, Has anything happened with iron valiant? currently in 1600s and every iron valiant i've seen is booster special attack

Is there anything that it can still beat with it? (it ties with thundurus-t iirc)
 
Random Question, Has anything happened with iron valiant? currently in 1600s and every iron valiant i've seen is booster special attack

Is there anything that it can still beat with it? (it ties with thundurus-t iirc)
There are multiple RMT teams that are being spammed that also feature SpA iron valiant. Its better able to handle most of the special walls it struggles with Clodsire, Gholdengo, Slowking-G, etc + has a strong priority vaccum wave for kingambit and Darkrai.
 
Random Question, Has anything happened with iron valiant? currently in 1600s and every iron valiant i've seen is booster special attack

Is there anything that it can still beat with it? (it ties with thundurus-t iirc)
as a user of booster spa val, it hates anything remotely fast without webs, flying type scarfers even with webs (resist vwave asw) and boots variants of pretty much all of the viable mons above that speed tier bc they all pack coverage for it.
 
Random Question, Has anything happened with iron valiant? currently in 1600s and every iron valiant i've seen is booster special attack

Is there anything that it can still beat with it? (it ties with thundurus-t iirc)
Val is a good bit faster than Thundurus-T, actually. 331 vs 364 (notably still higher than stuff like Ogerpon and non-scarf Enam if that even exists anymore). Getting outsped by Cinderace and Moon hurts though, on top of what the other guy said. Typically seen on webs, but I believe I’ve encountered it raw or on veil.
 
Val is a good bit faster than Thundurus-T, actually. 331 vs 364 (notably still higher than stuff like Ogerpon and non-scarf Enam if that even exists anymore). Getting outsped by Cinderace and Moon hurts though, on top of what the other guy said. Typically seen on webs, but I believe I’ve encountered it raw or on veil.

Valiant has to go Modest in order to activate a Special Attack Booster Energy (or 338 Speed Timid but Modest is the variant people use), which does in fact tie with Thundurus-T. Definitely one of the more frustrating things about the set.
 
Why doesn’t heatran see more usage? Shuts down dragapult, non ep kyu, iron moth, ghold, and protect with leftovers makes it an invaluable scout and specially defensive wall.
 
Why doesn’t heatran see more usage? Shuts down dragapult, non ep kyu, iron moth, ghold, and protect with leftovers makes it an invaluable scout and specially defensive wall.
If it had any form of recovery it would see more usage. All of those mons have a move to defeat it also and at the moment everything can beat it with Tera blast ground
 
Why doesn’t heatran see more usage? Shuts down dragapult, non ep kyu, iron moth, ghold, and protect with leftovers makes it an invaluable scout and specially defensive wall.
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For a less shitpost-y response, Tran faces competition as a BO Steel rocker from Tinkaton and as a defensive Fire from Moltres. Its a Steel that insta dies to Kyurem Earth Power and Tran’s lack of recovery leaves it easy to wear down with Knock + hazards which is especially bad when it invites in Ting-Lu, Gliscor, and Samu who are the best Spikers in the tier. Its still fine on some structures since it can check Ghold and Hex Pult, but its a far cry from the OU titan it was in Gen 8.
 
Why doesn’t heatran see more usage? Shuts down dragapult, non ep kyu, iron moth, ghold, and protect with leftovers makes it an invaluable scout and specially defensive wall.
mauled by hazards, doesnt actually check much, can be hard to fit with other steels, not a great tera user, loss of toxic, long-term progress maker with no longevity in fast paced meta with poor hazard removal, magma storm worst move ever
 
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