Suspect SV STABmons Suspect #1: Walking on Sunshine (Walking Wake)

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in the hills

in the hills

spreading confusion
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:sv/walking wake:​

WHY:
With an unanimous 5-0 council vote, Walking Wake is up for a suspect test! Walking Wake is a fairly new introduction to the metagame but since has proven to be incredibly difficult to deal with. Choice Specs and Life Orb sets take use of this power to absolutely crush switch-ins, with Specs often opting for Dragon Energy to blow through Water-type resists- even Assault Vest Toxapex and Slowking can be 2HKOd. Water/Dragon Coverage is nearly perfect in the metagame as well, only failing to hit Azumarill neutrally, which can still fall to Water-type coverage regardless. This is used in conjunction with Sun typically, Walking Wake becomes super charged due to its Hydro Steam signature and Protosynthesis, which is used to boost either Speed or Special Attack. While Sun can be seen as a detriment due to Torkoal's poor qualities and the rise in Tyranitar and rain in the metagame, Walking Wake's impact has single handedly launched Sun into being a viable strategy. Even outside of sun, Choice Specs Walking Wake can be a huge threat, either on Rain or just on regular teams with Dragon Energy spam.

While Defensive counterplay is limited, plenty of Pokemon can tank a Dragon Energy and deal a decent chunk of damage back to neuter its power a bit, especially if Walking Wake is surprised by Fairy Tera from things like Garganacl, Slowking, Rotom formes, and Toxapex. Blissey, AV Slowking, and Toxapex all can be difficult for Walking Wake to play around, as well as Water-immune Pokemon such as Clodsire and Gastrodon. It's undeniable that with limited defensive counterplay, teams will likely opt to try for offensive tools such as faster revenge killers and priority to chunk Walking Wake down, which can be a bit challenging if it opts to boost Speed.

While Walking Wake is not completely fool proof and often relies on Sun to get full sweeps, it has already been a massive threat in the metagame and with unanimous support from the council we believe the community should decide if it should remain in the metagame or not.
​
How (Suspect Details):
During a Suspect test, each player must climb the ladder until they've acquired the GXE necessary to participate in the voting. Primarily, everyone that participates needs to make an alt account following these guidelines:

  • Every game must be played on the official Pokemon Showdown! site and on a new account (creation date no earlier than today, March 8th) with "STABWW [Nick]"--for example, I could create one called "STABWW in the hills" to ladder with. Having the prefix at the beginning of your alt name is mandatory, AKA not in the middle (e.g. The STABWW Man) and not at the end (e.g. The STABWW).​
  • To qualify for voting, your alt must play a minimum of 25 games, and you must have a minimum GXE of 75.​
  • Walking Wake will be allowed on the ladder during the suspect.​
  • The suspect test will go for two weeks and end on Wednesday, March 22nd at 10:00 PM GMT -4.​
  • When posting proof of meeting reqs, feel free to use this thread as a means to disseminate topical opinions regarding whether or not Walking Wake should be banned (Optional)​
  • It is mandatory to provide proof of ownership of the alt account as well. (Post a picture of your reqs with your smogon name featured)​
With that all of that being said, it's suspect time! As usual, the actual voting will take place in the Blind Voting Forum, so posting anything other than proof of reqs and discussion isn't necessary.

Tagging Kris for implementation
 
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Annoyed with myself that I choked one game, I lost to a Tatsugiri. Stupid little sushi :<

Leaning towards ban as under sun WW is a giant problem with very few, if any, safe switchins that will usually force you to burn your tera to safely beat it. The only reason I'm not 100% sold on ban yet is that without sun up it is far more manageable and being forced to run a sun setter (usually Torkoal) and having to make sure you get sun up safely means that you can't just click buttons with WW and win. That being said, it's not that hard to get sun up and then pivot into WW if your team is built around supporting WW and maximizing the work it puts in, though it's a bigger struggle if your opp has Ttar (or even Pelipper though that's less common from what I saw on ladder).
 
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Zoroark is even worse than I usually thought. Glad this thing is gone now.

regarding Walking Walke:
I could handle it decently well with my Tera Fairy Assault Vest Toxapex, but if a mon restricts your teambuilding that much, then i think its not healthy for the metagame. There are only a few switchins to Walking Wake, if played correctly it can break down big walls for other teammembers to clean up. The most consistent strategy against Walking Walke is by getting up rocks or Spikes, which is much easier in Stabmons because of Stone Axe and Ceaseless Edge.
I am leaning towards ban
 
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Not the best GXE but this is my first time playing STAB this gen so I will take it.
:pincurchin::toxapex::ditto::iron valiant::iron moth::iron leaves: - Not the most creative team of mine but I tried refining Electric Terrain and I think this is pretty close to being optimal. Thunderbolt on Iron Valiant dents Pex and Corvi (Knock + Thunderbolt 2HKOs both in Terrain), paving the way for Iron Leaves and Iron Moth. Ditto provides some safety net against boosted threats, notably Armarouge and Azumarill, though I learned the hard way that it doesn't get the Protosynthesis/Quark Drive boost, but it can still at least force speed tie if they get Spe boost or revenge kill when their boost wears off. Originally it was WA Quag since I was afraid of rain but after seeing zero rain and it literally didn't do anything in 10 games (not even sent out), it just had to go. I tried a bulkier variant of Iron Leaves and gotta say it's a pretty good wincon against teams relying on Corvi as switch-in since non-Press Corvi can't really touch it once it Teras in terrain and utilizes Strength Sap to use it as fodder.

As for Walking Wake itself, while I do think it's restricting teambuilding to a degree, it still can be dealt with even in sun with Specs + SpA boost by scouting with RegenVest Pex and Slowking, SpD TTar and Azu (lacks longevity unless you run Recover which is niche) somewhat work as well, technically blobs work but Idt blobs should be considered with how passive and exploitable they are (or just be a god and get predictions right every time). Entry hazards are still the most effective way to cut its damage since Torkoal can't pivot, though Draco still hurts. However, the fact that it can choose to decimate either fat or offense with Protosynthesis boost, not to mention it doesn't even need sun to nuke effectively with its Speed and potential Water Spout set. It's also pretty easy to provide support against Pex (like pairing it with Shocks, Trick Armarouge, etc), and there simply aren't enough reliable answers to it. All in all, while it doesn't restrict teambuilding and options in game as much as RoFna said, Walking Wake still warps things around it more than what is considered healthy for me, so I will likely vote BAN.
 
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Sadly, I had 2 aweful match ups against a weakness I didn't consider (Gyarados) and afterwards fixed it with better answers, and then got hax'd badly for my third loss.

Team was the one I posted the other day in Stabmons thread albeit it will eventually have to have the now banned Zoro-Hisui removed and thus I modified the team a touch. Volcarona is a flexible slot that can be replaced by other Pokemon. The Banned Version is here.
:Torkoal: :Roaring Moon: :Walking Wake: :Great Tusk: :Toxapex: :Volcarona:
^ Updated Team Here ^
I run Head Smash and Tera Electric Walking Wake for Gyarados primarily as it was the reason I lost two.

I pushed for the Walking Wake ban for I feel it is exceedingly difficult to check and heavily warps the meta in an unhealthy manner. Most of the would be checks are either reliant on Tera or niche sets due to it's great dual stab and being essentially Palkia-lite. It is my personal belief that pokemon that absolutely require Tera to handle them are inherently broken or force ham-fist·ed sets like specially defensive azumarill should be removed from a metagame. Ban!
 
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Both Zoroark hisui and Walking Wake have some insane damage outputs atleast zoroark is banned now.

Voting for Ban.
Walking Wake's stabs can threaten the entire meta especially if used in sun as it can get either spattack or speed boost depending on the set former giving its specs set insane breaking power and later set giving it a speed boost makes it harder to revenge kill it. U are forced to run something like tera fairy pex which is extremely passive, ur opponent can just play around it and it also wastes ur tera. Tera also makes wake harder to deal with as it can run several of them to great use like tera water, dragon(for insane breaker power), electric(to kill bulky waters with tera blast) and fairy(it turns the table on opposing wake and roaring moon).
So, I am voting for ban.
 
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Hi ! i'll vote Ban. Even outside of sun team Walking Wake is really annoying and Stabmons give him some really high damage move (Steam Eruption/Dynamax Cannon/Water Spout/Dragon Energy) and Specs sets are really threatening by having a high speed tier and nearly no reliable counter
 
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+6 252+ Atk Huge Power Tera Water Azumarill Jet Punch vs. 252 HP / 208+ Def Tera Water Great Tusk in Rain on a critical hit: 439-517 (101.1 - 119.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
a very fun calc i learned today if that's any indication on how my losses went

:great tusk::rotom-wash::tyranitar::gholdengo::iron valiant::iron moth: here's the team i used for reqs btw, would recommend psyshock>thunderbolt on valiant with as many clodsires i ran into on the ladder
 
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Wow I spent my time in this metagame getting farmed like a well plowed field. Shoutout to in the hills for posting his team, I yoinked it for my reqs. Negative shoutout to in the hills for giving that evil cyclizar/pex/gyarados team to all his boys, because it beat me every single time I queued into it. It killed 2 of my accounts and accounted for 60% of my losses. I had a visceral reaction to queueing into it again today. I came into this metagame bright eyed and bushy tailed and I'm leaving scarred and deformed. Finding games once you get to 1300 is harder than winning them. sad reacts only
 
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I'll might as well share the team i used since i actually like it :toxapex: :tyranitar: :great_tusk: :gholdengo: :houndstone: :rotom_mow:
Can't say anything about walking wake that hasn't been said already. But I do find funny how many people mention running av pex (including myself) to check the funny velociraptor, thats good enough reason for me to vote for a ban
 
Hello :) I am personally leaning towards ban on wake because of how much it constrained teambuilding for me. When I used rain on my main account, I usually found myself using my own wake or Azumarill to check the opposing wake. When I built a new sand team for my suspect account, I still had to use tera fairy water absorb clodsire to be able to reliably answer it, despite my weather disruption. As someone who has used and played against it, I feel like it constrains teambuilding to an unhealthy extent, as pretty much every team I built had to make some concessions just to avoid being run over by wake in team preview.

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