Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

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ant4456 said:
I wanted to make a set for my favorite Pokemon of all-time, and astralydia helped me out.

Espeon @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 68 HP / 248 Def / 192 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Morning Sun
- Dazzling Gleam
- Thunder Wave

the goal of this set is to deny glimmora/great tusk/garchomp hazards against a fat team allowing leftovers to be... playable

this set outspeeds even max speed chomp and while it wont win the 1v1 if it has attack invest, you can weaken it and make it very hard to come in

garchomp is the worst case scenario but thankfully it's not as big a deal as glimmora, which it pretty much dominates

psychic has a very good roll against great tusk unless it is invested mostly into spdef

0 SpA Espeon Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 404-476 (93 - 109.6%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

if you want a guaranteed OHKO against tusk, you can decrease the bulk and get that with:

88 SpA Espeon Psychic vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 434-512 (100 - 117.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

glimmora's only potential problem for espeon is getting a poison off via the spin move, but as long as espeon isn't necessary to counter other pokemon on that team.you'll be completely fine

some other things espeon can do:

obviously, it can revenge breloom, locked or not. also obviously, it can't really jump in the way of grass attacks, or you will be down a pokemon

it is able to revenge kill annihilape if it has 30% of damage, but it's only really a check

it will 2HKO at 0 invest even a 252/252 HP+SPDEF Annihilape but you shouldn't be counting on it for that

clodsire, non-quark speed iron valiant, there's a general lack of fast Psychics in the tier and Espeon can be a soft check to a lot of these Pokemon, but this set is moreso to help protect fat teams

is it that good?

not exactly, but I think it's an interesting choice to consider on fat. I also might experiment with espeon as a Bad Tapu Lele in this limited meta, but with so many dark types that's a tough challenge

maybe in a lower tier

oh also, twave is filler, you can go a more offensive option or a bunch of things. i considered yawn to be annoying but meh
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Have you considered just using an offensive Choice Specs set?

Espeon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 40 HP / 28 Def / 252 Sp Attack / 192 Speed
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Trick

EVs guarantee survival of a 252 Attack Garchomp Earthquake while maximizing mixed bulk. Speed outruns Garchomp and conveniently there's nothing else in OU right now from 102 to 110 speed except Iron Treads at 106 so you don't lose much by not running max speed. Max Special Attack lets it deal damage, 2HKOing all Garchomp (you can OHKO max HP Chomp by going Tera Fairy) while OHKOing all Great Tusk except some AV sets, and shattering Glimmora, 2HKOing all Clodsire, and even having a chance to OHKO max / max Annihilape after Stealth Rock.

The main issue is Dark types being so common so maybe you've got the right idea using a bulky set after all.
 
As a disclaimer, I'm a mostly inactive player who comes from primarily an SM background and I haven't played too much SV, but I've also watched a fair share of higher level games in the tier and wanted to quickly share some of my thoughts. I feel like Revival Blessing isn't very good - or rather, the option of using it isn't great because it's tied to Pawmot and Rabsca. Revival Blessing at the moment has felt more like a gimmick to me, tied to Pokemon that otherwise wouldn't ever be considered for OU play. I've seen mainly Pawmot and it's felt super underwhelming, and I could see Rabsca maybe having a higher ceiling with Trick Room teams, but Trick Room has always been a fringe option anyway. It kind of feels to me that by using Pawmot or Rabsca, you're choosing to use almost 5.5 OU Pokemon anyway, so the ability to revive a fallen Pokemon to half health seems kind of balanced. I get that isn't a perfect analogy because it's not like you're literally using fewer than 6 Pokemon, but I'm trying to say that there is an opportunity cost to using Pawmot or Rabsca in a tier filled with so many powerful options, and Revival Blessing doesn't appear to me to outweigh that cost. I also understand that Revival Blessing is brand new and people will likely find better ways to utilize, but I've seen a lot of people trying to revive Annihilape and go for a Rage Fist sweep or something along those lines (and to be honest, I don't even know what the Rage Fist interaction is with being revived, although I'm sure that's already been discussed). Annihilape also feels somewhat gimmicky to me (although not as much as Revival Blessing does) and I haven't found it hard to play around the Annihilape-Revival Blessing tactic. I think that using something like Hatterene to Healing Wish is probably just a better and more effective form to achieve something similar to Revival Blessing, and Hatterene seems to have a place in OU at the moment regardless.

As a whole, I feel like there is a lot of theorymoning traps that people often fall into at the start of a generation, and Revival Blessing feels like a prime example of that. In particular, I've seen some discussion of Rest-Talk Revival Blessing, and that truly sounds horrible to me. I think that over time and as the tier settles, we'll see "traditionally good" mons like Great Tusk, Iron Valiant, and Chien-Pao rise to the top and we'll look back on the discussion around things like Revival Blessing from a very different vantage point. Again, I could easily be wrong and I admit that I haven't read much of this thread or played much of the tier, but these are just some thoughts that I've had.

As an aside, I don't feel like everything that has historically been a more fringe playstyle is just a gimmick in SV that will eventually fade. Sun in particular seems legitimately good, but that's because it is tied to Paradox Pokemon that are obviously extremely strong in their own right. Dual Screens HO also seems to be a legitimate playstyle and Grimmsnarl has certainly been buffed, but I'm less optimistic about it remaining as viable going forward. I think that Gholdengo dissuading Defog (Defog being less widely-distributed may actually be the bigger culprit, although Gholdengo preventing Corviknight from Defogging is massive enough on its own) is also one of the reasons why Screens HO is benefiting. I know there’s been some talk about Talonflame being able to Defog against Gholdengo, but I don’t think that Talonflame is really a good option at all. Similarly, Maushold can remove Screens/hazards against Gholdengo with Tidy Up but Maushold does not seem good either. The main impact that Gholdengo has on the hazard dynamic is really being a Spin blocker while also, and more importantly, stopping Corv from Defogging. Gholdengo (and mostly because of Good as Gold) feels to me like it's warped the tier more than anything else, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. SV feels unique and fun to me (I'm not saying that it's perfect either or won't require more tiering action), and while I think that the tier would likely still feel that way without Gholdengo, it's hard for me to say either way whether I think that Gholdengo's presence improves the tier - that's also obviously something that can't be decided without copious amounts of examination, and even then, you really ever only know how you answer subjective questions like that in hindsight, but I'm just kind of thinking out loud here.

I've started to ramble but I'll end this meandering post with two more random, unrequested thoughts: Dragapult seems really good to me, especially if Screens HO does become an established playstyle in the metagame (thanks to Pult having Infiltrator) and/or if Terastallization remains in the tier, since physical Pult benefits from it a lot. I think that Pult is being overshadowed by new toy syndrome but will reclaim a very prominent spot in the metagame in time. Similarly, I feel like while Glimmora will always be a solid lead hazard setter, I think that it will fade from how prominent it currently is in time and other hazard setters, like Garchomp, will overtake it. Anti-Glimmora techs have already become more common, like under-speeding it with Great Tusk so that you can Spin to remove whatever hazards it sets (including the Toxic Spike from Toxic Debris, since Rapid Spin's removal happens after Glimmora's ability is triggered) and then becoming faster from the Spin boost to threaten Glimmora out. Iron Treads also seems very good to me and kind of underrated at the moment, and it destroys Glimmora as well. Hazard stacking as a whole is and will always remain good, but the meta is already adapting to the aforementioned influence of Gholdengo. Treads and Tusk run Knock more to hit even Balloon Gholdengo, but my stream of consciousness has probably started to overstay its welcome a while ago, so I'll end this post now with a summary of my main views: when the dust settles, I think it will be the "old reliable" and "traditionally good" Pokemon and strategies that form the tier, so I don't think that people should get too wrapped up in or concerned about the "weirder" and newer strategies/Pokemon that feel more relevant at the moment. That isn't a groundbreaking thought and again, I very well could be misinformed or incorrect about all of this, but I felt compelled to get some of my thoughts out there. Thanks to anyone who read this; I hope you're all having nice days!
 
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MrHands said:
Have you considered just using an offensive Choice Specs set?

Espeon @ Choice Specs
Ability: Magic Bounce
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 40 HP / 28 Def / 252 Sp Attack / 192 Speed
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Shadow Ball
- Dazzling Gleam
- Trick

EVs guarantee survival of a 252 Attack Garchomp Earthquake while maximizing mixed bulk. Speed outruns Garchomp and conveniently there's nothing else in OU right now from 102 to 110 speed except Iron Treads at 106 so you don't lose much by not running max speed. Max Special Attack lets it deal damage, 2HKOing all Garchomp (you can OHKO max HP Chomp by going Tera Fairy) while OHKOing all Great Tusk except some AV sets, and shattering Glimmora, 2HKOing all Clodsire, and even having a chance to OHKO max / max Annihilape after Stealth Rock.

The main issue is Dark types being so common so maybe you've got the right idea using a bulky set after all.
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as I said at the end I have, but also I 'unno, unlike say Tapu Lele there's sooo many Dark Types you have to predict on to make any progress

I do like the idea of Tera Fairy, but with a Specs set that still doesn't eliminate the need for prediction of the turn of, generally.

Of course you could just not click it, but in general I just think a Specs set is not worth running

If I were to use it however, I'd rather consider a Tera Fighting Espeon, because it has arguably more offensive potential with Tera Blast over Shadow/Gleam.

Dark-Types by Usage currently:

Chi-Yu
Chien-Pao
Roaring Moon
Kingambit
Lokix
Meowscarada
Ting-Lu

Fairy also hits other Dragons such as Dragonite, yes, but I'm pretty sure Dragonite wins either way with Tera Normal.

If not Tera then yes, Fairy Espeon wins, but mmmm.

Fighting also hits Scizor neutrally, Orthworm (though I haven't been seeing much of that one recently frankly), Iron Treads, Tyranitar is hit much harder, and Corviknight is chunked more significantly. Garganacl can also be pretty good to hit harder, and an important note: Tera Fighting still allows for easy switch-ins on Glimmora.

Fairy hits 4 of these for super-effective damage, Fighting hits 6 of these for super-effective damage, only missing Lokix which I think you still beat anyways.

There are quite a few defensive utilities of Fairy, but most of them that really effect Espeon, a very frail Pokemon, Fighting shares (Knock Off resist, U-Turn resist, neither immune to any notable status, and while Fairy has more resistances overall? I feel like Fighting dishes out more damage and actually establishes Espeon as more worth it, compared to many Tera Fairy competitors, and Sylveon being a great Pokemon in OU (in my opinion).

Not to say Espeon and Sylveon are similar, but there's just a lot of competition on that front. There isn't any fast Psychic-type that can also use that glorious fighting coverage.

But that's just my opinion of course; feel free to let me know what you think.
 
Mythra said:
How do you imagine Charizard would do in this meta? Terastallization gives it yet another way to get around its SR weakness (and its default Tera Type of Dragon gives it a great STAB combination), and I imagine it may have good synergy with some of the Ancient Paradox mons on sun teams. Granted, if Tera is banned then it'll head straight to the lower tiers again.
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Well, Sun seems to be pretty solid at the moment, what with Torkoal cracking OU this month and having all the Protosynthesis mons and Chi-Yu (and Scovillain to a lesser extent) to abuse, Charizard probably fits in pretty nicely. Solar Power Specs Sun-boosted Fire attacks are gonna be lethal alongside all the other abusers, so it'll definitely have a spot in the meta once it comes in.
 
Outhman said:
Sure, you could ban Ape and Espathra, but then Volc, Roaring Moon, Dragonite or Chien-Pao take their place (though they're already present lol), or even literally any good setup mon. Do we ban those too?
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Here's the thing: I believe that these are problems by themselves and would still be busted without Shed Tail and without Tera

Okay Ape, Volc, Moon and Nite I don't think are broken, but Chien Pao, Chi Yu and Espathra are really fucking strong without a sub and without a type change. Weavil last gen was already a monster, now there's Weavil with basically Adaptability, better speed, mechanic changes that disadvantage defensive mons and far less defensive options due to dex cuts. I really don't think that banning Shed Tail or bike would make Pao balanced all of a sudden
 
I read that there is a charizard raid battle right now in the games and it is actually possible to capture the charizard, soooooo does that mean that charizard will now be included in pokemon showdown?
 
alephgalactus said:
You can tell the meta is screwed up when Dragapult gets a physical Ghost move with double STAB and that’s not even in the top ten list of things people are talking about
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I’d actually say dragapult is definitely top 10 (not usage but viability) at the moment. I also expect his usage to rise even if nothing were to be banned from now on in time. Though I expect things to be banned and all that in the near future. It's extremely underrated and underused for how good it is. It's underrated in a sense that it's not being as mentioned for how good it is relative to other top-tier OU mons. New toy syndrome affects discussions, sure, but I also think people are giving spotlight to other older mons (e.g. dnite) even though I believe pult to be better than most, if not all (you can agree to disagree, which I'm fine with).

edit: I actually think it's a top 3 mon along with gholdengo and chi yu. Its sets alone may not as inane as some of the other mons' best sets. But it has various sets that are fantastic (subhex, specs, cb, dd, etc). It's an amazing tera user (specs, DD, and CB benefit amazingly from tera).
 
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Bold School said:
I honestly have no problem with Gholdengo. I've been trying various teams with Talonflame, generally offensive sets that need Stealth Rocks to be clear, and I've had no trouble dealing with it. Even had a team with Corv as my Defog option. Corv gets hard countered by it, but the combination of U-Turn + a couple attackers that beat or threaten Gholdengo makes it not a problem. It's really not that hard to play around and I still don't see how it is ban worthy. People need to stop crying about it and learn to account for it in the team builder.

I have come to the opinion that Shed Tail is the problem, not Cyclizar. Whenever I run a team that has Breloom, I don't get any problems with Cyclizar or Orthworm. Orthworm is generally easier to deal with, but both really punish a decent amount of passive mons. Like if you switch into a check for an offensive threat and they U-turn or Double Switch whatever into one of those two, the sub pass is nearly impossible to prevent. Whenever I have a team without Breloom that somehow let's one of those things gets a sub off, it's very problematic if it's given to a set up sweeper like Roaring Moon or Espathra. Doesn't always mean a loss, but usually means multiple sacrifices to break the sub and then get damage. And it's really hard to prevent a good player from getting up a Shed Tail in the first place if you are anything but HO.

Espathra is weird. On one hand, I suspect priority is being very underutilized right now outside of a few like E-killer Dragonite. Outside of subs, I don't have a problem with its speed boosting on teams where I run enough priority. On the other hand, it's very scary behind a sub and the thought of pairing this thing with Psychic Terrain would invalidate that strategy. I've not yet seen Espathra on a team with Psychic Terrain, but I've seen plenty with Shed Tail and I definitely agree that at least the combination of the two is too much.

Roaring Moon is something I generally don't mind too much, with two exceptions. The first trying to guess which Tera type. Because it's so deadly with a single Dragon Dance, getting it wrong means you are sacrificing like half your team trying to get it under control or just straight up losing in a turn. The same effect happens with Shed Tail because the sub always let's it get the free set up and take multiple hits before dying. It just makes it so much harder to revenge kill. I really don't think Roaring Moon would be so problematic without those two factors.

Chi-Yu is scary under sun with Fire Tera, but honestly, I think you can play around it otherwise. It's a glass cannon and its fairly predictable what it is going to do. Even Azumarill can often switch into it multiple times without even having the Thick Fat ability or AV.

Chien-Pao, on the other hand, is problematic. It's nearly impossible to switch into unless you have Dondozo or a dedicated stall team. It's also nearly impossible to bank on out speeding it with +1 priority or stat boosting moves and abilities because of the insane 135 base speed. You also don't know if it's going to be Sucker Punch and/or Ice Shard, or not, so you basically have to assume you can't out speed it with anything. Weavile is far easier to deal with. A lot of things that could deal with Weavile just flat out lose to Chien-Pao, especially if you are trying to switch into it.
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accounting for the gholdengo in a vacuum isn't the problem, accounting for the suicide hazard lead and the gholdengo without stretching your team thin enough for the other 4 setup sweepers on their team to punch through you is. when mons like espathra and dragonite can end the game off of a single unpunished boost, you simply can't afford the time it takes to bait in the gholdengo, kill it, then get rid of the hazards. I've found exactly two reasonable answers to it if you don't want to give up and run the exact same team yourself in a mirror match. Talonflame, and 5-6 HDB across your whole team. tusks and treads can sort of check it, but they can get chipped down really easily and with no recovery any damage they take is permanent, so I haven't found them to be reliable at keeping hazards away in the long run.
 
Parrot6632 said:
accounting for the gholdengo in a vacuum isn't the problem, accounting for the suicide hazard lead and the gholdengo without stretching your team thin enough for the other 4 setup sweepers on their team to punch through you is.
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And now you also have to account for the Pawmot that switches in on your Defog after you finally manage to kill Gholdengo, outspeeds your Corv, and brings Gholdengo (or the hazard setter) back.
 
Thoughts on who the most viable/best Pokémon are right now?

my opinion is Chi Yu is currently the best Pokémon in OU, and due for Ubers soon. Specs or scarf boosted fire/dark attacks can easily go unchallenged by so many teams, due to most teams only having pokemon that resist one stab or the other, but rarely both.

the fire attacks in particular are so strong that with choice specs and a modest nature, it 2hkos some defensive behemoths that resist it . If you add sun, specs overheat/fire blast/flamethrower in the sun will OHKO nearly everything, and 2HKO only the most stalwart resists.

it’s inability to deal with hazards and weakness to Mach punch only mildly hold it back, as it’s otherwise strong defensive profile (stats and typing wise) give it an easy time coming in. It’s also a mainstay on “high pressure offense”, these types of teams don’t even give the opponent turns to set hazards.

As an example to demonstrate how OP Chiyu is, I used a meme team with sunny day + tailwind murkrow and a tailwind corviknight. Hatterene rounds out the core to deny hazards in a pinch. Chi Yu comes in after tailwind and/or sunny day and pulls down 1-2 threats each time. Often if the opponent leans more offensive, sunny day isn’t needed, and a simple Tera fire typing can get the extra oomph required.

Gholdengo might fit more teams, however chi yu is easily the most effective Pokémon right now.
 
Ctann said:
Thoughts on who the most viable/best Pokémon are right now?

my opinion is Chi Yu is currently the best Pokémon in OU, and due for Ubers soon. Specs or scarf boosted fire/dark attacks can easily go unchallenged by so many teams, due to most teams only having pokemon that resist one stab or the other, but rarely both.

the fire attacks in particular are so strong that with choice specs and a modest nature, it 2hkos some defensive behemoths that resist it . If you add sun, specs overheat/fire blast/flamethrower in the sun will OHKO nearly everything, and 2HKO only the most stalwart resists.

it’s inability to deal with hazards and weakness to Mach punch only mildly hold it back, as it’s otherwise strong defensive profile (stats and typing wise) give it an easy time coming in. It’s also a mainstay on “high pressure offense”, these types of teams don’t even give the opponent turns to set hazards.

As an example to demonstrate how OP Chiyu is, I used a meme team with sunny day + tailwind murkrow and a tailwind corviknight. Hatterene rounds out the core to deny hazards in a pinch. Chi Yu comes in after tailwind and/or sunny day and pulls down 1-2 threats each time. Often if the opponent leans more offensive, sunny day isn’t needed, and a simple Tera fire typing can get the extra oomph required.

Gholdengo might fit more teams, however chi yu is easily the most effective Pokémon right now.
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Chi Yu is lowkey one of the most broken wallbreakers in modern OU (going back to Gen 6). You need extremely specific counterplay (a flash fire + tera dark resist) or it is getting a kill every time it comes in. I find it harder to switch into than Gen 6 Hoopa because fire stab is just so nasty. It's just on another level of power that feels out of place in OU, nothing else generates nearly as much immediate pressure just by clicking its stabs. It's a clear bottleneck in the development of several playstyles and definitely needs to go.
 
Alright so after playing a handful of games on the ladder there are just some things I wanna express about the state of the metagame.

- Revival Blessing is...really fucking funny, to tell the truth. I've been using a TR team with Rabsca as one of my setters and the amount of times just resurrecting one of my key 'mons has saved me games is honestly pretty ridiculous. Now, I myself haven't actually faced any Revival Blessing 'mons, but I can see why it's controversial. Just at a glance, though, Pawmot and Rabsca are two pretty average mons, by themselves. Pawmot only hits so hard even with Punching Glove (not to mention it's wholly inferior to Iron Hands without Revival Blessing), and Rabsca slow and, while it goes have a phenomenal matchup into Great Tusk, it's still not really that good otherwise. Sure, I personally think it's better than Pawmot at supporting a team, but Rabsca really only comfortably fits on like TR teams. Overall, I haven't really developed any strong opinions about Revival Blessing yet, but it's undeniably a skill-less move with little to no counterplay. I wouldn't mind a ban.

- Shed Tail, oh boy... Y'know out of all the stupid shit we've gotten this gen, this has to be the single most infuriating. The ability of Cyclizar and Orthworm to take advantage of any loss of momentum and potentially win a game on the spot is beyond braindead. I think everyone in this thread has had at least one game where Cyclizar passed a sub to something like fucking Dragonite or Espathra and they were left helpless to stop them. Now I'm not saying there's zero counterplay to Shed Tail - there's definitely ways to beat it. But the combination of Cyclizar's speed and its Regenerator and the laundry list of stupid 'mons it facilitates makes the meta unbelievably lame. It's one of the biggest contributors to the dominance of cheese in the meta and creates an environment where balance teams simply cannot exist. I would be in full support of Shed Tail being banned, or at least Cyclizar.

- Grimmsnarl and his Screens are everywhere, and for damn good reason, too. Like Shed Tail, Screens and Parting Shot are able to create situation where you really can't stop whatever stupid sweeper Grimmsnarl wants to subject you to, thus allowing to set up as it wishes and promptly win a game with little to no counterplay. I'll go into who I think the biggest offenders here are later, but what I will say is that Screens and Shed Tail are just a lethal combination. Dealing with one of them is already a pain in the ass, but both of them together is just absolutely stupid. Overall, I think that Shed Tail is way worse for the metagame, but if push came to shove, I wouldn't be opposed at all to banning Light Clay, or just Grimmsnale if we don't want any collat.

- Espathra and Dragonite are far and away the two most oppressive sweepers in the tier right now. Dragonite does the same HDB+Multiscale thing it did last gen, but now it has free subs to hide behind and screens that have never been easier to set. Espathra falls into the same boat here, in which it receives the screens and sub and just starts setting up. Tera almost certainly makes these two worse, but the fact that they can so reliably abuse the support they're given coupled with the fact that they can boost speed (unlike something like Annihilape, for example), makes them incredibly difficult to stop. For the record, I believe that the sheer amount of support that these 'mons receive from Grimmsnarl and Cyclizar is the main factor behind their stranglehold on the metagame, and I would much rather see them banned or at least limited before we ban any of their abusers.

So yeah, those are some of my thoughts on the metagame right now.
 
Parrot6632 said:
accounting for the gholdengo in a vacuum isn't the problem, accounting for the suicide hazard lead and the gholdengo without stretching your team thin enough for the other 4 setup sweepers on their team to punch through you is. when mons like espathra and dragonite can end the game off of a single unpunished boost, you simply can't afford the time it takes to bait in the gholdengo, kill it, then get rid of the hazards. I've found exactly two reasonable answers to it if you don't want to give up and run the exact same team yourself in a mirror match. Talonflame, and 5-6 HDB across your whole team. tusks and treads can sort of check it, but they can get chipped down really easily and with no recovery any damage they take is permanent, so I haven't found them to be reliable at keeping hazards away in the long run.
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I was never talking in a vacuum. I literally said I used Defog Corviknight (which is hard countered by Gholdengo) in a team with offensive Talonflame that can't take rocks, not defog Talonflame and it had no boots, and I was able to make that part of it work fine because I had multiple attackers that were super effective against Gholdengo and one or two more that were neutral. Even though Corv gets hard countered by Gholdengo, it's not too hard to U-turn into something that threatens it out and keep it at bay. Find multiple fire, ground, dark, and/or ghost type attackers. Not too difficult.

There are also several other solutions you can employ. The first is to use a hazard clear pokemon that can scare Gholdengo out, such as Talonflame or the paradox Donphans. Even something like Toedscruel can beat it.

The second is to simply build a team that is less vulnerable to hazards in the first place. This also isn't hard with all the good steel, ground, flying, poison, and maybe fighting types you have to choose from plus the option of Heavy Duty Boots. Nearly every viable team is gonna have a ground and a steel on it anyways. A poison and a steel type on the same team minimizes the impact of toxic spikes.

And if it's still really that much of a problem, there is also the potential to add a secondary clear option where your opponent might not expect it.

So really, Gholdengo is a team builder problem. You have a few different viable choices you can take to address it. I don't understand why anyone complaining about Gholdengo hazard stack wouldn't be building teams meant to beat it.
 
Bold School said:
I was never talking in a vacuum.
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Of course you weren’t, if you talked in a vacuum no one would be able to hear you. (And you wouldn’t be able to breathe, but that would be true in a vacuum even if you weren’t talking.)

As for the rest of your post, none of those are really concrete Gholdengo solutions. The Donphans either lose to Gholdengo’s Air Balloon set or have Knock Off and get ratio’d by Dragonite instead, Talonflame is so bad that it’s already dropped to UU despite being a Gholdengo-threatening Defogger, Toedscruel is arguably worse than Talonflame, running Boots on everything puts you severely behind in terms of longevity and damage and you still lose once the Knock Off Tusk comes out, and stacking Pokémon that aren’t bothered by hazards is what everyone is already doing. The reason that the people complaining about Gholdengo aren’t building teams meant to beat it is because their teams are already meant to beat it and it’s still a major problem.
 
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Bold School said:
I was never talking in a vacuum. I literally said I used Defog Corviknight (which is hard countered by Gholdengo) in a team with offensive Talonflame that can't take rocks, not defog Talonflame and it had no boots, and I was able to make that part of it work fine because I had multiple attackers that were super effective against Gholdengo and one or two more that were neutral. Even though Corv gets hard countered by Gholdengo, it's not too hard to U-turn into something that threatens it out and keep it at bay. Find multiple fire, ground, dark, and/or ghost type attackers. Not too difficult.

There are also several other solutions you can employ. The first is to use a hazard clear pokemon that can scare Gholdengo out, such as Talonflame or the paradox Donphans. Even something like Toedscruel can beat it.

The second is to simply build a team that is less vulnerable to hazards in the first place. This also isn't hard with all the good steel, ground, flying, poison, and maybe fighting types you have to choose from plus the option of Heavy Duty Boots. Nearly every viable team is gonna have a ground and a steel on it anyways. A poison and a steel type on the same team minimizes the impact of toxic spikes.

And if it's still really that much of a problem, there is also the potential to add a secondary clear option where your opponent might not expect it.

So really, Gholdengo is a team builder problem. You have a few different viable choices you can take to address it. I don't understand why anyone complaining about Gholdengo hazard stack wouldn't be building teams meant to beat it.
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you missed the entire point of my post, coming up to answers with gholdengo isn't especially hard, despite his great typing and ability he's relatively frail and vulnerable to a lot of the common attacking types. However gholdengo is never by himself, he's always paired with a team that is meant to facilitate hazards, and counters to that teambuilding strategy right now are extremely few and unreliable. As you said, pretty much the only option right now is to run teams that can ignore hazards, either because of HDB or because of good typing. While I do think talonflame is better then people give it credit for, running Moltres-At-Home in a meta with so many ridiculous threats going around can be rough. And the donphans can sort of work, but as I mentioned in my original post they're very vulnerable to chip, especially from the hazards they themselves want to spin away, and have absolutely no way to recover hp. Not to mention because tusks and treads are so common, pretty much every team is packing multiple answers just in case.
 
alephgalactus said:
Of course you weren’t, if you talked in a vacuum no one would be able to hear you. (And you wouldn’t be able to breathe, but that would be true in a vacuum even if you weren’t talking.)

As for the rest of your post, none of those are really concrete Gholdengo solutions. The Donphans lose to Gholdengo’s Air Balloon set, Talonflame is so bad that it’s already dropped to UU despite being a Gholdengo-threatening Defogger, Toedscruel is arguably worse than Talonflame, running Boots on everything puts you severely behind in terms of longevity and damage and you still lose once the Knock Off Tusk comes out, and stacking Pokémon that aren’t bothered by hazards is what everyone is already doing. The reason that the people complaining about Gholdengo aren’t building teams meant to beat it is because their teams are already meant to beat it and it’s still a major problem.
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Well, it wasn't my intention to start a massive argument after the community already had it for pages awhile back. So I'll be brief. The chip versus air balloon argument was already had. So was the semantics of Gholdengo needing to switch into you to block clear, meaning you can in fact dictate it to some degree.

I also didn't suggest putting boots on everything. I suggested having some good typings for hazards and suggested boots as an option, which is very doable with a single boots pokemon. I didn't specify how many boots, so I'll take some blame for being a bit unclear on that I guess.

As for the individual pokemon, that was just one of a few team building answers I suggested. A lot of the arguments lately seem involve focusing too much on what people think is OU right this second in this volatile meta instead of looking for out of the box solutions. A lot of that is still in flux.

The final thing I'll say is this: If Gholdengo is really that much of a problem to you that it is ban worthy, why aren't you willing to devote a team slot to something that counters it? If it's on like a quarter of everyone's teams and it's so problematic, constricting yourself from a pokemon because it's UU by usage and not OU seems a bit strange.
 
Parrot6632 said:
However gholdengo is never by himself, he's always paired with a team that is meant to facilitate hazards, and counters to that teambuilding strategy right now are extremely few and unreliable.
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I know this. This was taken into account with what I told you. Did you really have a team with multiple attackers that can threaten out Gholdengo? The point is Gholdengo has to switch in to actually block hazard clear, so you can dictate the play by having a team that is tough for it to come in on.

Parrot6632 said:
As you said, pretty much the only option right now is to run teams that can ignore hazards, either because of HDB or because of good typing.
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I'm pretty sure I gave you at least 3 viable solutions to choose from. Running teams that can ignore hazards or at least aren't as impacted by them is only one of the things I said. If you aren't willing to do the other two, for whatever reason, that's your choice. It doesn't make them unavailable to you. And if you don't like Talonflame, use something else. I'm pretty sure Rapid Spinners are under explored so far.
 
to be honest, a good shed tail and its gg lights out, since im low ladder horrible human trash, i know for a fact these goblins will lead cyclizar and i can just OHKO with *[industrial secret]* but when the guy uses 1% of his brain and waits untill he can properly pass to his Roaring Moon, its over, honestly, its kinda like pass where the user is kinda fast and not really punishable by many means, it can still be beatable, but it can go all wrong all too easy, kinda like Gholdengo, its beatable for sure, but its still frustrating as fuck

if theres a suspect about shit tail and gholdengo, ill vote ban on tails and no ban on dengo, but im still holding grudges untill im dead
 
Skeledirge is so strong (and fun) in OU!
It is especially useful with full def.spe. investment: able to absorb Iron Valiant, Volcarona and even Gholdengo hits efficiently while also being able to tank physical hits very well (before depositing a gentle will-o-wisp). Only gets 40% from Extreme Speed Tera Dragonite for example.
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And it's so pretty with a cute bird friend!
You should defenitelly try Big Croc!
 
The other thing with Gholdengo is that Annihilape being such a threat in the meta amplifies its effect on the meta even further. Yeah, Balloon Gholdengo gives the Donphans a tough time, but it still does not appreciate a Knock Off on the switch at all, and there's no other hazard control in the meta bar Talonflame that has a prayer of spinning/Defogging against it, so they each have a crucial role in the meta (plus, they can each deal with Glimmora while conceding a single layer of hazards, and Treads doesn't even get poisoned while doing it). Obviously they do other things too, but their niche of hazard control that doesn't get completely shut down by Gholdengo is super valuable.

The problem is, though, that Annihilape also exists, and is (obviously) really good too! The result is that Annihilape + Gholdengo team structures are something you have to be prepared for, which puts the Donphans in a tough position. Neither of them are going to break Annihilape down, and worse, if they throw out an EQ/Headlong Rush/Knock Off to catch the Gholdengo, then they run the risk of just doubling Rage Fist right there and not really getting much in return. The BEST case here is that you either double to an option that covers both of them (good luck) or to Spin into one of them, thus not risking the Rage Fist boost, and then switching into whatever answer you have for each of them.

Either way, though, the Donphans aren't gonna get the spin off against this structure. You can come up with other forms of hazard control too, but you're not gonna find a spinner that does better, and Defoggers also have the brutal choice of either getting stuffed by Gholdengo or feeding Ape a Defiant boost. (unless you run Talonflame)

I think it's fair to point out, though, that just because we're used to hazard removal being mostly free for the past three generations doesn't mean it necessarily has to be, and I definitely think that in this pre-Home meta there's clear counterplay for the hazard setters themselves. The setters I see on ladder are basically Glimmora, Chomp, Ting-Lu, and the Donphans; four of them are definitely manageable with reasonable options for counter-leads that deny hazards, while Glimmora...hope you led with your Treads/Tusk/Corv. And of course, Boots makes conceding the hazard war and playing with them on the field easier than ever, especially with reduced Knock Off distribution.

To me, the big problem is whether the current state of hazards is making it too difficult to run counterplay to the meta's many busted threats, making it too matchup-fishy. I do think that the current meta is too matchup-fishy for my taste, but the hazard meta, Tera, and the general power level of new gen 9 mons all play a role in that. So...some combination of things should probably be banned, but who knows which it should be?
 
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