Adding to/elaborating on the point that offensive mons are harder to stop than defensive mons are to break, consider this: in order to withstand an offensive threat, you either need to be able to switch into it and blank it, or you need to be able to safely bring in something that outspeeds it and can beat it from there. It switching out doesn’t mean you made no progress: they had to manage to get the offensive threat in, and sponge whatever hit forced that threat out with something else, so they had to concede some resources more than likely. However, if an offensive threat makes you sac something every time it gets in, and it can itself come in on a sac, slow pivot, resisted hit, etc., the wincon of preventing it from getting opportunities to dish out strong hits is very shaky. And that is your wincon against these types of threats: keep the big threat off the field as much as possible. Against defensive mons, on the other hand—especially those lacking recovery like Ting Lu—the wincon is to bring the defensive mon in on hits in order to wear it down. So defensive pieces can be very good at their jobs while still offering a clear path to success against them, while offensive pieces are broken or fair generally based on how much progress is needed for them to break through.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
The moderators of this forum are Finchinator, Ruft, ausma, 658Greninja, kd458, FayaWizard, Shaymin Sky and TPP.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Counterpoint: if you see a low tier mon from PU/NU/RU/UU on your opponent's team and they aren't using dedicated team archetypes it is most likely a defensive mon. They tend to emanate value in higher tiers much better than offensive pokemon can since it's harder for them to get outclassed.
Same with Ting-Lu actually, it is among the very best in AG compared to Pao and especially Chi-Yu, but Lu is the one legal in OU.
Same with Ting-Lu actually, it is among the very best in AG compared to Pao and especially Chi-Yu, but Lu is the one legal in OU.
I believe it matters on a larger scope. For example, Hisuian Braviary and Emboar (PU and ZUBL respectively) are brutal wallbreakers, but can't really perform in OU due to flaws they have and being difficult to justify over tried-and-true ones like for example, Ogerpon-W.
However, the defensive Amoonguss is also a PU mon and yet finds use on bulkier and stall structures even after the sleep ban, and stallcord has been experimenting with other shitmons e.g. Muk and Quagsire, Wo-Chien for fellow PU mons e.g.
also speaking of PU, Amoonguss and Terrakion are two former OU/UU mons (hell the mushroom has a better track record) but PU has adapted just fine to Amoonguss, whereas Terrakion was quickbanned after a few hours
I would offer two main responses:
1) Braviary-H and Emboar aren’t just outclassed, they’re bad at being offensive threats in general. This is chiefly due to their low speed stats even in lower tiers, where they can only eventually become broken when their bulk allows them to take a couple hits and still fire off their own. It’s not that Braviary-H is worse at hitting things in OU, it just doesn’t get to hit things at all. A better comparison in my opinion would be something like Azelf, Hitmonlee, or Noivern—all fast, frail offensive threats that archetypally match what tends to get banned (though I know Annihilape, Archaludon, etc don’t fit this mold—allow it for brevity’s sake), but that aren’t quite strong enough in this archetype to warrant OU, let alone Uber status.
On the defensive end, generally bad defensive mons aren’t bad for their lack of defensive capabilities, the way that offensive mons tend to be bad for their lack of offensive capabilities. Rather, they’re bad because they’re too passive. Passive defensive mons tend to let in strong threats that now need *another* switch-in, such as Amoonguss letting in Gholdengo for free to attack or set up a nasty plot that you now need to respond to. Most teams are too offensive to handle the suite of threats that Amoonguss lets in this way, and if made to sac a couple times in order to stave off these threats, will fall apart shortly after. That’s why stall in particular has such a reputation for being able to tech a defensive shitmon for particular matchups: because the other 5 mons on the team are tailor built to switch into other big threats. Pex and Blissey in Gen 8 were viable on BO and Balance structures because of knock/scald and teleport respectively fixing their passivity; with those gone, they basically only see use on stall now. Mind you, Blissey is the greatest special wall to ever do it, better at taking special attacks than Ting Lu, but the latter is a top 3 mon while the former is RU not because of their defensive capabilities but because ot their offensive ones. Ting Lu has Ruination, EQ, Whirlwind, both hazards, even uncommon options like heavy slam and payback, all coming off a base 110 attack stat. Blissey hits like a squeaky toy. If I have a LO Weavile to bring in, I’ll be a lot more chill coming in on Blissey’s seismic toss than on Ting Lu’s EQ or ruination, the former which does 60-70%.
I think a cool direction for the thread is talking about that new tournament that was posted a few days ago about the rotating old threats. I think its safe to say most aren't OU because they.... aren't good enough, but anyone think that like a month of experimentation with these mons on OU teams could lead to any developing niches or underexplored mons? I know JackRG has shilled for Jirachi in the context of this gen a few times now, and it seems Empoleon discussion has popped up here and there in the viability thread as a spD tank or offensive rocker.
I think most of these Pokemon have some unrealized niche. I am excited to see if there are any developments for Metagross and Slowbro in particular. Metagross is a Knock Off mon that's actually quite annoying to swap into since it has coverage for the usual Knock Absorbers (Ice Punch for Gliscor, Meteor Mash for Clefable) + some other weird utility like Rocks, Psychic Fangs for Screens, an ok-ish typing for Kyurem (though you probably need to run AV). Slowbro, on the other hand, matches up well into a lot of annoying OU Pokemon like Gliscor, (kinda), Tusk, and Zama, while possessing options to cripple its checks with moves like Scald and Thunder Wave. I'm kind of surprised it doesn't even see an ounce of use given its decent qualities.
i’ve used av meta with iron head (mmash and hslam both are less consistent into stect kyu), psynoise, knock, and i think it was eq last to some success, pseudo checks kyurem and owns pech thanks to clear body. i think the main issue with slowbro this gen is kantoking (very underrated mon btw) offering such similar in niche except that one has pivoting and one lacks it which makes it a LOT worse at its job
Kanto Slowking has not much bearing on Slowbro because the two answer opposite ends of the offensive spectrum (and Kanto Slowking being bad, especially when Glowking exists). Slowbro struggles because yes no pivoting can make it drop momentum easily, and it doesn’t check that many physical threats. Like Great Tusk, Zama, LandoT and Cinderace are all that come to mind. And those are checked elsewhere fine while Slowbro also invites in annoying threats pretty easily so it tends to just not be worth it.
As somebody who has used Slowbro, what annoying threats does it even let in? Waterpon doesn't like taking body press, thunder wave or foul play (slowbro can even take a power whip from full). Dragapult doesn't like scald or foul play, Gliscor ig but scald chunks it decently, foul play does solid damage after a boost (it can't even threaten slowbro immensly) and body press does great damage to tera normal variants. Kyurem doesn't appreciate a scald burn and body press does a ton to it. Raging bolt ig, but ting lu is a great partner anyways and primarina also too ig. Like, it lets in a few threats, but the majority don't like a common move.
Take this with a grain of salt because I haven’t experimented with this one, though I’m curious to hear from others. I do think Gyarados is on the cusp of having a niche. Being a flying type neutral to ice, optionally with intimidate, already renders it a decent switch-in to 4 of the best mons in the tier in Tusk, Zama, Lu, and Dnite, while outspeeding the latter two; adamant Gyara at +1 still outspeeds the standard IDBP Zama spread, though by a tiny margin that any speed creep will render moot. While it doesn’t want to switch into Kingambit, Woger, Hamurott, Weavile, etc., intimidate sets are useful in assisting with reining these threats in for others or itself. Its movepool includes many useful utility moves like twave, taunt, roar/dtail, and endeavor; lefties sub/twave/waterfall/phazing move is a (cheesy) set we’ve seen on paraspam teams already. Dragon dance sets with waterfall, eq, and double-edge/tblast flying/tera dragon outrage/scale shot have coverage for everything while either easing setup with intimidate or attempting to snowball with moxie. It handles most priority well, resisting bullet punch, aqua jet, and vacuum wave, while being neutral to ice shard, grassy glide, sucker punch, and shadow sneak and only weak to thunderclap. Raging Bolt is unfortunately a nightmare for it if you’re not tera ground/electric or substitute + eq, as can be Pult if you’re not Jolly tblast flying or outrage, Woger if you’re not tblast flying, tera dragon outrage, or tera normal double-edge, Zapdos if you’re not tera electric, and Dozo, Corv, Pech, and Kyurem in general. Certainly that is enough of a threatlist to satisfactorily explain why it’s not commonly used in OU, with the majority of teams being sufficiently prepared for it naturally at least unless it either takes on a more supportive role or is given significant support for its weak matchups. However, it seems strong enough to me to warrant occasional use on legitimate teams.
i disagree i think that regen mons are a fundementally positive presence on the meta game due to their ability to to switch into wallbreaksrs while simultaniously pressuring them see galarian wheezing into cm iron val, hydraple into wogerpon, alo pressures physical sweapers through burn and they are interactive cause well they are more likely to switch their glowking there so i will go tusk, a defensive mon like toxapex is significantly weaker in this meta game just due to tera plus the insane stat distrobutions i.e tusk
the only thing slightly creative ive done in a long time is running this kingambit set. the team cycled through many different leads utilizing stealth rock / thunderwave like deoxys and jirachi. Deoxys was there for the longest acting as priority if saved. i decided to try something different and its been pretty useful at times. i started a new account to try for a better GXE now that I'm done messing with the team.
Kingambit @ Air Balloon
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
Usually always gets rocks up. Can beat landorus leads. Glim gets toxic spikes up but at least dies without setting up too much. Bee gets webs up but oh well. Love that defiant boost when you get it. Thunderwave everything I can. Pretty useful.
I made a new account a few days ago so I know its low level game but when it works out its fun
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2452524332
Kingambit @ Air Balloon
Ability: Defiant
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Thunder Wave
- Stealth Rock
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
Usually always gets rocks up. Can beat landorus leads. Glim gets toxic spikes up but at least dies without setting up too much. Bee gets webs up but oh well. Love that defiant boost when you get it. Thunderwave everything I can. Pretty useful.
I made a new account a few days ago so I know its low level game but when it works out its fun
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2452524332
i just feel like scarf lando t tblast flying just does the same thing but better gyara, it isnt as kyurem weak due to the avalability of uturn, stab earthquake is always nice, u turn pressures wogerpon and hat i just feel like lando t in general just has a better mu spread and fills a similar niech and if you want a ice type neutral flying type go molt or corv
This reminds me of when I had a similar opinion with salamence a few months ago, mainly due to it having solid resistances, access to dragon dance, having two good abilities in intimidate which allows it to find more chances to set up against physical attackers and moxie which is known for enabling snowballing and having a high attack stat of 135 paired. This was after the ban of roaring moon and gouging fire so I was hoping to make this new dd sweeper work since I was so keen on using a moxie mon that wasn’t quaquavual (I’m sorry, but that mon is basically a double dancer a good amount of the time), I have had some success with moxie sets that have even been able to snowball from a singular use of dragon dance, the main issues with it are that its weaknesses are either too common or too severe for it to be a consistent mon and its often overwhelmed by the tier’s defensive mons.
its fairy weaknesses means that a booster energy iron valiant or a defensive clefable (a max hp and defense clefable only has a 0.2% chance of being 2kho’d by a 1+ boosted dual wingbeat) will instantly force it out, its rock weakness means that it needs to run boots without the, being knocked off and its ice weakness means that anything that can hit it with an ice move with almost always annihilate it (any use of ice shard cancels its sweep) so weavile and kyurem will be hugely problematic. Unlike dragonite, it lacks multiscale or a great movepool to help it with these issues.
These problems are severe enough, but the mons that offensively counter salamence are also accompanied by a variety of defensive mons which have their own ways of throwing salamence out of the game like a baseball (i mean it evolves from a spherical-). Clefable as mentioned before can switch in 0.2% of the time and either chunk it with moonblast or ruin it with thunder wave, ting lu tanks dual wingbeat even after a boost and can use whirlwind to send it flying away (if it were still a bagon, it would be grateful for that), Corviknight completely walls and clicks iron defense whilst salamance racks up rocky helmet damage trying to break through it, moltres avoids a 2hko and threatens to burn it on the spot, gliscor can switch in and use toxic to try and stall out of as much hp as possible (physically defensive sets embarass it especially), Zapdos not only walls it like corvknight but also threatens to para it and end any chance of it doing anything in the game, Alomomola can easily scald burn it whilst shrugging off its boosted attack and dondozo is well, dondozo
.It struggles with alot of these pokemon because of dd sets mainly run dual wingbeat and earthquake with roost due to its dragon stab either being a waste or too risky, so between its main stab being 80 bp in total and outrage being too risky, the sets I used lacked power.A few other issues include raging bolt and kingambit being able to switch in and threaten with priority moves that can pick off a weakened salamence and an overall weakness to priority. Whilst its not the worst, Salamence ultimately didn’t work as I hoped due to these issues.
However, this isn’t to entirely count out gyarados, which has a few traits that can help succeed where salamence may not such as ice neutrality, I hope you can hopefully experiment with it and see how it goes!
Your evaluation of Gyarados feels spot-on. Its combination of typing, Intimidate, and speed tier does give it some unique defensive and offensive utility, particularly in checking or at least pivoting into threats like Tusk, Zamazenta, Iron Hands, and Dragonite. Access to Dragon Dance alongside coverage that pressures many conventional answers also means it’s never completely passive, and Intimidate sets with phazing or paralysis support can serve as functional glue on certain builds.
The main problem is that the current metagame is saturated with Pokémon that either wall it out or offensively overwhelm it—Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Zapdos, Dondozo, Corviknight, and Kyurem being the clearest examples. Even when Gyarados has the tools to circumvent these with Tera or specific coverage, it often demands more support than is practical relative to alternatives. This makes it difficult to justify over other Water- or Flying-types that provide more consistent value.
That said, I don’t think it’s unviable. On the right structures, especially those that can mitigate its bad matchups, it offers a combination of role compression and wincon potential that can punish teams relying on standard checks. While I wouldn’t expect it to ever be common in OU, it’s strong enough to see occasional usage on serious builds and is at least worth keeping in mind during preparation.
The last time I used Gyarados in OU I didn,t even try going offensive with it, instead Restalk + Dragon Tail or Roar and some Spikers, Knockers and Ghosts as teammates. It has an amazing defensive typing and Intimidate. I doubt DD will get far without the surprise factor, its just too easy to either stop or prevent set-up.
(First post as a badgeholder yay!)
Gyarados sounds pretty cool in theory due to its solid speed, intimidate, and that resistance to ice most other flying type sweepers lack in this tier but it is just too weak to Raging Bolt and electric type moves in general. It also isn't as strong as Dragonite and doesn't have priority or multiscale (though intimidate is also a great defensive ability). I am not saying it can't work but I definitely feel like it needs a lot to go right for it to sweep that isn't case for other viable dd sweepers. If someone could make it work on screens/veil though, that could be pretty interesting.
Gyarados sounds pretty cool in theory due to its solid speed, intimidate, and that resistance to ice most other flying type sweepers lack in this tier but it is just too weak to Raging Bolt and electric type moves in general. It also isn't as strong as Dragonite and doesn't have priority or multiscale (though intimidate is also a great defensive ability). I am not saying it can't work but I definitely feel like it needs a lot to go right for it to sweep that isn't case for other viable dd sweepers. If someone could make it work on screens/veil though, that could be pretty interesting.
Does the meta feel more match up fishy than a few months ago to anyone? I feel like loading up any team I just have accept there are going to be quite a few matches that are auto losses at preview.
i've noticed that too. it seems like all of my teams are autolosing to one of like 5 different structures that are currently popular and most of them involve dnite, waterpon, and/or kingambit. hopefully the next survey allows us to remedy one or more of these issues
psst that's your cue finch
Last edited:
yeah with the shear amount of breakers in this tier and the shear set variety its like insanly difficult to build around them all, like you need something to deal with dnite, zama, kyurem, val, wake, wogerpon, kingambit, and a million other threats, and these threats are also just busted so the metagame is just centralized around ho and offense which tend to be much more mu dependent
Gyarados struggles as it boasts a weakness to rocks, the abundance of water types in the tier, along with the better counterpart in dragonite. It could work but not because it contributes in the meta, but because someone wanted to use it as a feature-mon.
also, congrats on the badge man, well deserved
Lol yeah, from personal experience the only way to the avoid this is to use the same recycled Corv / Ting-Lu / removal / speed control / breaker / Woger Answer Core and obviously that cuts down on creativity a lot, and even then there's probably some really fish mon or set that can give this a hard time. Really if you want to run almost anything creative sometimes you are just gonna lose with nothing you can do about it tbh.
Also I hope we get a survey too, but Finch isn't the one to blame here. He's incredibly busy and there's a whole council lol
The meta doesn’t feel very match fishy to me, there are some teamstyles where I’ll note to myself “this could be quite difficult..” but not more match dependant than usual. But I must say that Wellspring is still quite troublesome to me due to how hard it is to defensively answer, so I’m hoping for a survey sometime in the future that will include it.
Kind of a mixed bag. I'd say there are a few new cheesy archetypes like TR and Veil that are decent right now, but other offensive styles like Webs aren't as common (not that its fallen off, just that it doesn't see much use). Bulky Offense does seem like the best archetype still & there appears to be more experimentation with most of the old OU favorites like Rillaboom, Torn-T, Heatran, etc. I think what I've been interested by is the amount of experimentation on mons that have been "solved" like Ting-Lu, since we are seeing sets like Fast Taunt re-appear, Sand Tomb + Ruination do some damage, etc.
I think the MU fishyness does pop a bit when using some of these UU-turned-OU mons like Torn-T, Heatran, etc. since there are a few notable MUs they struggle against which most of these teams kinda don't really account for, but I think that will be optimized over time. And of course, veil / TR expirementing with new options is annoying asw. I was using Ursaluna under veil and it was crazy how quickly it devoured a lot of the stall / balance teams I saw while also being unkillable.