SV UU Suspect Process Round 8 - Hey, Soul Sister

[Lily]

​

Hey y'all, we're back again with a suspect test for Kommo-o. Normally I'd write up a bunch of yap and arguments in favour and against, but that has already been done for me this time, so enjoy this OP courtesy of Monky25!

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Hello UU, we’re here with yet another suspect test, this time featuring everyone’s favorite sweeping Dragon-type Kommo-o. Based on the results from the most recent survey, we’ve decided to test Kommo-o due to the amount of support within the community for action on the Clanger, netting roughly a 3.7 average on the tiering survey. While a quick ban using this result isn’t unheard of, with the likes of Ceruledge and Galarian Moltres hitting similar levels, as the former had an 80% ban majority and the latter was quick banned earlier this year, the UU council noted that there was no real reason to really bother with a quick ban since no other Pokemon got enough support in the survey for action, with the runner-up in Hydrapple yielding an ok 2.7 average while doesn’t reflect a need for immediate action. Note that average values were Zapdos getting a 2.4, Excadrill a 2.2, and Tornadus-T a 2.0 which all show the majority of the community finds these Pokémon to be balanced elements of the tier.

Enough about survey results, let’s talk Kommo-o. Anyone who’s been playing recently knows how formidable Kommo-o can be, with its useful typing, bulk, coverage, and a variety of setup options all lending to its high success on both ladder and tournaments. With natural defensive utility against many foes like Excadrill, Tyranitar, Cobalion, and Lokix in tandem with Drain Punch, Kommo-o can function anywhere from an early to mid-game breaker as well as a late-game cleaner with its potency as a sweeper. The main set of Dragon Dance + Drain Punch + Taunt (for status circumvention) + Thunder Punch + Tera Electric to set up on Tornadus and Zapdos alone is a pretty difficult set to really answer, but the issues with Clanger isn’t that it has just one powerful set, rather it has a multitude of dangerous sets that can potentially end games. Clangorous Soul + Poison Jab, Dragon Claw + Drain Punch, Substitute + Tera Steel + Rock Slide, Thunder Punch + Ice Punch, and Clangorous Soul or Dragon Dance + 3 attacks are all arguably viable movepool options that make answering Kommo-o extremely difficult to determine on preview. Sending in the likes of Hydrapple against Thunder Punch variants fail to mean much if the Kommo-o pulls out Poison Jab or Dragon Claw, whereas something like Toxapex can mess with Poison Jab variants but fall flat to Thunder Punch sets. The sheer variance of Kommo-o has often had many games where it outright sweepers, resulting in proponents of a ban citing Kommo-o to be an unhealthy presence that truly feels difficult to answer without a Skeledirge, who while good, also suffers from splashability as of a late, and even then this isn’t accounting the rather niche but still viable Special Soul set.

However, Kommo-o is not without its flaws. A lot of natural barriers exist in the metagame that keep its unpredictability to be more on paper than in practice, being that it vastly needs to be physical, run Drain Punch, have some form of status circumvention in Taunt or Substitute, and especially largely end up running Tera Electric due to Static Zapdos being a large issue otherwise. This only really leaves the last coverage move up for guessing, but Kommo-o still has plenty of all-around soft-checks and outs like max Defense Hydrapple, Skeledirge, Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Metagross, Okidogi, Sinistcha, and Pecharunt who all generally can put a stop to the vast majority of Kommo-o sets, with a lot of these Pokémon taking advantage of the fact that Kommo-o burns it’s Tera often against the omnipresent birds. With other Pokemon like Latios, Azumarill, and Toxapex handling a good amount of variants, it can be argued as well that Kommo-o itself needs to pull the right matchup to sweep and can be dead weight in certain games as well. Still, players on the receiving end have to tiptoe around the danger of Kommo-o and how it could potentially have the right set that could end the game before it even begins.

All in all, Kommo-o has dominated the discussion around tiering action for the last month, and while most of the council personally doesn’t find the Pokemon banworthy, the amount of support within the community only makes it fair for Kommo-o’s fate to be decided in the form of a suspect test

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The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 78 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 78 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 82. As always, needing more than 50 games to 78 GXE is fine.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
78	50
78.2	49
78.4	48
78.6	47
78.8	46
79	45
79.2	44
79.4	43
79.6	42
79.8	41
80	40
80.2	39
80.4	38
80.6	37
80.8	36
81	35
81.2	34
81.4	33
81.6	32
81.8	31
82	30

The test will operate as always. There will be no suspect ladder. Instead, the standard UU ladder will remain open. Those who wish to participate in this suspect test will instead use a fresh, suspect-specific alt. All games must be played on the Pokemon Showdown! UU ladder on a fresh alt with the following format: "UU8MO (Nick)." For example, I might register the alt UU8MO Lily to ladder with. You must meet the listed format in order to qualify.

Participants will have until Sunday, June 9th at 7:00 PM GMT -4 to meet voting requirements and post in the Alt Identification Thread. PLEASE DO NOT POST YOUR CONFIRMED SUSPECT RESULTS HERE - there is a dedicated thread for identifying your suspect results. Happy laddering!

 

[lydian]

shit for a moment i thought y'all would be suspecting down latias, given soul dew, and that it's a sister (to latios).

y'all should have picked this song instead

also please ban this thing, thanks

 

[mintwinter]

while it does manage to deal with it most of the time, even skeledirge isn’t a solid counter to kommo-o

252 Atk Kommo-o Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Skeledirge: 194-230 (47 - 55.8%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Kommo-o Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 195-229 (47.3 - 55.5%) -- 76.6% chance to 2HKO

also, dirge can’t touch tera normal soundproof kommo-o except for will-o-wisp, which is slow af, or earth power, which is pretty niche

i appreciate how kommo-o helps the tier with its defensive sets, like forcing stuff like ogerpon to run play rough to avoid getting walled. However, i think that counterplay to offensive sets is too inconsistent

 

[udongirl]

while it does manage to deal with it most of the time, even skeledirge isn’t a solid counter to kommo-o

252 Atk Kommo-o Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Skeledirge: 194-230 (47 - 55.8%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO

also, dirge can’t touch tera normal soundproof kommo-o except for will-o-wisp, which is slow af, or earth power, which is pretty niche

It seems a bit unfair that epower dirge is niche but eq kommo-o causes a problem for dirge.

 

[Tree69420]

while it does manage to deal with it most of the time, even skeledirge isn’t a solid counter to kommo-o

252 Atk Kommo-o Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Skeledirge: 194-230 (47 - 55.8%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Kommo-o Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 195-229 (47.3 - 55.5%) -- 76.6% chance to 2HKO

also, dirge can’t touch tera normal soundproof kommo-o except for will-o-wisp, which is slow af, or earth power, which is pretty niche

i appreciate how kommo-o helps the tier with its defensive sets, like forcing stuff like ogerpon to run play rough to avoid getting walled. However, i think that counterplay to offensive sets is too inconsistent

nobody runs eq kommo bro the bigger issue is taunt kommo letting you play 50/50 mindgames but even then the dirge is clearly favored, kommo isnt broken because dirge can fail to beat some set but because there isnt good consistent counterplay outside of dirge

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

I feel like a Kommo-o ban would just be an attempt to solve an issue with the metagame that either doesn't exist to begin with or that will persist whether it's there or not depending on how you view it. Let me explain.

First of all, we have to establish this: No Kommo-o set is broken by itself. If that was the case, it would've gotten action on it much, much earlier. Anyway, due to often being forced into multiple similar-ish moveslots (Drain Punch, Taunt/Sub, DDance/ClangSoul) in order to be a consistent sweeper, it's left with very few options for variation among its sets, resulting in limited coverage. As such, you end up with sets using Thunder Punch as coverage getting walled by the likes of Latios, Hydrapple and even more niche options like Sinistcha and Pecharunt, Dragon Claw gets you ruined by Azumarill or literally any Tera Fairy and Poison Jab struggles to damage any Poison or Ghost types. As such, the counters to it are pretty clear and very sturdy and this means that whether or not you predict the set correctly, if you have one of the many answers to its set, you'll probably be fine even if it gets an extra boost or two. In general, Kommo-o is also relying on low BP moves off of not the greatest Attack stat, so even if you get hit by an unexpected coverage move, you probably can survive it. For example, against a +1 Kommo-o, Hydrapple can survive a Dragon Claw and Azumarill can survive a Thunder Punch, meaning in both cases, Kommo-o would need to tera in order to continue its sweeping attempt. Anyway, due to sometimes having trouble getting 1HKOs, it can be reliant on its natural bulk and access to Drain Punch to prevent itself from being worn down and killed. Fortunately, you can abuse the hell out of that. Ghost types such as Skeledirge, Pecharunt and Sinistcha are especially good into it, not only because they can naturally beat a few of Kommo-o's most common sets, but also because you can use them to wear it down into priority range as Kommo-o cannot properly heal against them. Even just Fighting resists such as Okidogi and Zapdos can force it to lower health benchmarks than it'd like and you can definitely use Tera Fairy and Tera Ghost to essentially render it helpless. Taking advantage of the moves Kommo-o is relying on is pretty easy and, when paired with its natural answers and semi-reliance on tera, it opens a lot of room for counterplay.

There are also more gimmicky sets for Kommo-o like Special Clangorous Soul, Wallbreaker and Belly Drum that are just bad matchup fishes or reliant on your opponent not hitting you for meaningful damage. I'd just like to point out how mediocre Kommo-o was until Drain Punch became its main tool and how relying on other options leaves you with an overall B-tier mon that can win against bad teams or players that don't play around it properly to begin with.

I also think banning Kommo-o will not make any positives change about the metagame. The main thing that stands out to me is that a lot of the sweeps I see from it can be replicated by other mons, ones that can arguably do it even better. There are two notably dangerous roles Kommo-o fills: Dragon Dance sweeper and Bulky Drain Punch sweeper. Let me introduce you to a few mons that I've felt could be able to replicate these roles were Kommo-o to be banned.


Here we have an unkillable BU user with STAB Drain Punch. In a majority of cases where physical ClangSoul sets would win, I think Okidogi would too. You might argue the Speed and SpDef boost sets Kommo-o aside, but honestly, while Clanger kinda needs those, Dogi makes up for it by wearing down fast special attackers through the midgame using extremely powerful Gunk Shots and spreading poisons. This also highlights another issue I have with Kommo-o which is that it lacks midgame utility, meaning it pretty much has to go if it wants to make any progress at all. If you're struggling with a mon that has to commit as soon as possible, imagine dealing with the one that cripples your entire team before committing.


Bulk Up Ursaluna is also just awful to deal with as its bulk is absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't have a high damage Drain Punch to spam to stay healthy, but it more than makes up for it with its sheer stats. While Kommo-o will tend to run into quite a few walls, preventing it from sweeping, Ursaluna can just run through anything without much resistance. Again, in cases where you struggle to take out Kommo-o, you'll also struggle to beat other bulky attackers such as Ursaluna and, at best, end up losing 2-3 mons which can easily lead to a loss.


As for more offensive Kommo-o sets such as DD, sometimes, you really are just in a position to get overwhelmed by something that can boost its Attack and Speed. In cases where your team is too slow to revenge-kill Kommo-o, it would be for most other sweepers, including Salamence. This is not a high tier mon, but I've seen replays calling Kommo-o broken when any other DD sweeer would have done the same.

Considering the above mons, I don't believe Kommo-o to pull off many unique sweeps and, as I said before, I don't think its versatility in theory changes a whole lot about how you handle it. As such, not only do I think it's not broken or unhealthy, I also think banning it would just cause similarly dangerous options to rise in usage and pull off similar sweeps.

Here's a brief summary of the main points that I believe do not make Kommo-o banworthy:
- None of its sets are broken in a vacuum, they all have answers and flaws.
- The impact of its set variety is somewhat minor as, even if given extra turns, its good answers will still be able to deal with it. Furthermore, a majority of its sets are rather gimmicky and inconsistent.
- It's unable to make progress midgame and is pretty much required to setup to get any permanent damage done. Unless you are able to wear down its counters some other way, Kommo-o will not properly beat them.
- Other pokemon can be similarly dangerous sweepers, even possessing certain traits that Kommo-o lacks, for example Okidogi can much more easily make progress midgame and Salamence is much more capable of 1HKOs.

There are also arguably certain aspects of Kommo-o that make teambuilding a bit more convenient as it's pretty good team compression between defensive utility and a win condition for BO teams. It also leads to Ogerpon-Cornerstone wanting to use Play Rough, making Steel-types such as Cobalion more reliable answers to it. HO is struggling with consistency currently and Kommo-o is an important part of those teams, so removing it would be leaving the playstyle even worse off than it already is, especially considering Iron Crown might rise to OU next shift. Finally, sets such as Substitute force otherwise dominant Regenerator cores to be a bit more careful, de-centralizing the metagame a little. I don't think any of these aspects are major, but they make me believe keeping Kommo-o in the metagame would be for the better as I think the positives to banning it are very minor to me.

 

[gulch]

I also think banning Kommo-o will not make any positives change about the metagame. The main thing that stands out to me is that a lot of the sweeps I see from it can be replicated by other mons, ones that can arguably do it even better. There are two notably dangerous roles Kommo-o fills: Dragon Dance sweeper and Bulky Drain Punch sweeper. Let me introduce you to a few mons that I've felt could be able to replicate these roles were Kommo-o to be banned.


Here we have an unkillable BU user with STAB Drain Punch. In a majority of cases where physical ClangSoul sets would win, I think Okidogi would too. You might argue the Speed and SpDef boost sets Kommo-o aside, but honestly, while Clanger kinda needs those, Dogi makes up for it by wearing down fast special attackers through the midgame using extremely powerful Gunk Shots and spreading poisons. This also highlights another issue I have with Kommo-o which is that it lacks midgame utility, meaning it pretty much has to go if it wants to make any progress at all. If you're struggling with a mon that has to commit as soon as possible, imagine dealing with the one that cripples your entire team before committing.


Bulk Up Ursaluna is also just awful to deal with as its bulk is absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't have a high damage Drain Punch to spam to stay healthy, but it more than makes up for it with its sheer stats. While Kommo-o will tend to run into quite a few walls, preventing it from sweeping, Ursaluna can just run through anything without much resistance. Again, in cases where you struggle to take out Kommo-o, you'll also struggle to beat other bulky attackers such as Ursaluna and, at best, end up losing 2-3 mons which can easily lead to a loss.


As for more offensive Kommo-o sets such as DD, sometimes, you really are just in a position to get overwhelmed by something that can boost its Attack and Speed. In cases where your team is too slow to revenge-kill Kommo-o, it would be for most other sweepers, including Salamence. This is not a high tier mon, but I've seen replays calling Kommo-o broken when any other DD sweeer would have done the same.

Considering the above mons, I don't believe Kommo-o to pull off many unique sweeps and, as I said before, I don't think its versatility in theory changes a whole lot about how you handle it. As such, not only do I think it's not broken or unhealthy, I also think banning it would just cause similarly dangerous options to rise in usage and pull off similar sweeps.

Here's a brief summary of the main points that I believe do not make Kommo-o banworthy:
- None of its sets are broken in a vacuum, they all have answers and flaws.
- The impact of its set variety is somewhat minor as, even if given extra turns, its good answers will still be able to deal with it. Furthermore, a majority of its sets are rather gimmicky and inconsistent.
- It's unable to make progress midgame and is pretty much required to setup to get any permanent damage done. Unless you are able to wear down its counters some other way, Kommo-o will not properly beat them.
- Other pokemon can be similarly dangerous sweepers, even possessing certain traits that Kommo-o lacks, for example Okidogi can much more easily make progress midgame and Salamence is much more capable of 1HKOs.

Very, very much agree with this post, please read the whole thing, but a good point Mossy brought up here that I want to expand on is that a lot of mons can do very similar things to Kommo-o and even have traits that make them better in some cases. Here are some more that I'd like to bring up:


Zarude is faster, stronger, has access to Knock Off, and can also prevent status attempts through Jungle Healing. The 25% HP restoration is also effective at helping it stay healthy over the course of a game, and while being 4x weak to U-Turn is unfortunate at times, it can make very effective use of Tera to solidify some defensive matchups and is much better than Kommo-o at making progress midgame thanks to being more immediately threatening with a better base Attack and stronger STABs.


Fallen off a bit lately thanks to the presence of Zapdos, but sd bpbpbpbp is still a real threat. Similar to Kommo-o, Scizor has a decent defensive profile in addition to its offensive presence, and while its Speed leaves something to be desired, it's much less of an issue when the STAB you're clicking isn't that much weaker than Kommo-o's and has priority, meaning you're much less prone to revenge killers after a boost. You struggle with Zapdos, but DD Kommo-o does too, so that's not really a point in Kommo-o's favor for this comparison.


Faster, stronger, better STABs (seeing a trend?), and also has a lot of set variations to let it pick and choose its checks. Spiky Shield to help with Lokix, Play Rough to hit Kommo-o, and Low Kick to hit Cobalion and Tyranitar are all great options, and it can even use Horn Leech to restore HP in a manner similar to Kommo-o while also re-upping Sturdy to give it more defensive utility. Functions great on Sand teams and Webs HO too and is much stronger at making immediate progress without setup.

 

[Lizzie]

All of the comparisons to other mons here are frankly bizarre as none of them even vaguely fulfil the same function as kommo o. If you seriously think bu dogi and ursaluna are comparable mons then idk what to tell you. Referencing cornerstone is honestly laughable. Calling dogi and luna unkillable does not make it so and I would encourage anyone who thinks this to either quit mons or learn how to play. In particular I'd recommend paying attention to the speed stat. Thanks.

 

[qways]

None of these mons have the same traits as Kommo-o since none of them have clangorus soul, which boosts all its stats simultaneosly and allow kommo-o to have multiple diffrent sets that can win on the spot depending on mu and according to uu open replays are capable of doing so.
Maybe those mons could replace some of the sets kommo-o runs but none of them could replace the whole variety of kommo-o sets and thus would be easier to prepare for.

 

[Peum]

All these mons are not even comparable to Kommo-o, the trait that Kommo-o has is variance, Clangorous Soul 3 Attacks, Dragon Dance Taunt Drain Punch, Mixed Clangorous Soul, Specs, Bulky Rocks, Bulky DD, Tera Sub DD/Clangorous, if you're fighting a Kommo-o you dont really know what set it's using until he uses it, switching in Hydrapple on a Clangorous Soul Kommo-o could make you lose the game, Switching in a Torn on a Tera Elec DD Kommo-o could make you lose the game, all of the mons you have listed can be switched in, Kommo-o depends on if you guess the unpredictable set correctly.

 

[Mossy Sandwich]

I think people misunderstood what I was trying to say when comparing Kommo-o to mons like Okidogi and Salamence. It's not that they're exactly the same, but that a majority of replays I've seen where Kommo-o sweeps could've been replicated by different mons as the losing teams generally just struggle against setup sweepers in general, not just Kommo-o. I've also stated in my post why the set variety is not as big of a deal as a lot of people are stating as Kommo-o doesn't really get much out of extra setup turns if you have proper answers on your team and play properly. Clangorous Soul is rarely coming down to both Bulk and Speed as the Defense boosts also come at the cost of its health which will remain low if you play around Drain Punch properly, something that I already explained is pretty realistically done in my previous post. If you can't prevent Drain Punch keeping it healthy, you would similarly lose to Okidogi (at least long-term) and if you're overwhelmed by it offensively, you would lose to mons like Salamence. As your team is clearly unable to take any kind of assault from a fast mon.
Basically, what it comes down to is that I don't think Kommo-o's traits are so unique that it heavily changes how you build or play a team. Teams that are weak to Kommo-o are also weak to other mons for similar reasons. It's just the main pokemon people consider because it's much more common, but getting rid of it will not solve issues that arise from teams or players that are weak to the different forms of setup it has.

 

[Lizzie]

In uupl, which is the only recent tour with easily available usage stats as far as I can tell, kommo-o appeared a total of 37 times, while ursaluna appeared 9 times, and salamence and okidogi did not appear. Those statistics don't exist in a vacuum, there are kommo-o sets that aren't relevant to ban discussions, okidogi usage has picked up a bit since then, ursaluna usage picked up towards the end of the tour. Regardless of that, its pretty clear that for the most part no one is using salamence right now, because its much worse than kommo-o, and kommo-o is far more common than ursaluna and okidogi. No one is disputing that set up sweepers win games sometimes but all other set-up sweepers have far more healthy dynamics in the tier. If you think kommo-o is a healthy presence in the tier then that's fine but comparing it to mons that are clearly not as good as it to make that point is just bizarre.

 

[udongirl]

Given how low the use of these pokemon is, it is difficult to consider Kommo-o healthy with these pokemon. In the first place, you are stuck with taunt.


Personally, it is not only the most reliable check when it comes to safety but also useful when dealing with teams without Kommo-o. However, it is still not a general check, and I will remain the only one who uses it as a utility mon for multiple teams.


Can we call a check something that can only be won if the opponent uses tera elec?


On the other hand, this one cannot win even if it has earthquake in the case of tera elec.


Although better as a check, it still forces hydrapple to a somewhat skewed set, and latios fear any set other than the common 2-attack set.

 

[BigFatMantis]

Kommo-o is a really cool pokemon. I don't think it should be banned because it is great. Here's why:

1) Kommo-o did nothing wrong. Most pokemon get banned for criminal activity, like robbing another pokemon or DUI. Kommo is a soul-blazing fighter though. It fights from the heart, and has a soul pure as scales. We shouldn't be banning pokemon like this, but instead should look up to them and ask ourselves how we can be more like Kommo-o.

2) Kommo-o is the healthiest pokemon in SV UU. It provides the metagame with so much variety that is unlike anything any other pokemon has ever done for us. Really, when the world was created, and all of came onto this earth, we arrived with little purpose. But then Kommo-o arrived in SV UU and showed us a new way of life - multiple ways actually. With the right set of tools, you can tailor it to fit any need on your team.

3) There are pokemon far worst than Kommo-o for the tier that are getting away with this, and I think it's possible they may be mind controlling some of us. I have resisted though so that I can reveal the truth to everyone. And truthfully, Iron Crown is a nuisance that provides no positives and has a stranglehold on tier development because of its one-dimensional - yet one-sided and oppressive presence. Excadrill may seem nice as a utility spinner, but once you realize it can actually just 6-0 in Sand without needing spin, you can realize that this mon just has to go too. Finally, Ogerpon-Cornerstone has committed so many crimes that it has to hide behind a rock solid mask. Encore as we all know is one of the most broken moves since Generation 2, and this beast has almost no resists to withstand its onslaught. Except for mons like Kommo-o, that is.

Kommo-o is the righteous warrior that will save the tier and bring us to the promised land. Please don't ban it. If it ends up leaving the tier, it's possible that this will be the beginning of a dark age of UU, one that could last for centuries. But I will remain strong in my faith in Kommo-o. I will stand besides it. I hope others will join me so that we can save the world.

 

[udongirl]

I think I have said that I want to ban kommo-o, but I am considering not banning it because recently I have been able to win almost without fail by throwing okidogi, and have rarely been defeated by earthquake or other techniques. The reputation of okidogi among players is currently quite high, and if other sets besides bu become known to be powerful enough, okidogi will become as common as rhyperior against zapdos.
I don't think it's too late to ban it until general counters die easily or many of the counters are eliminated from the meta.

 

[LennyFielding]

Given how low the use of these pokemon is, it is difficult to consider Kommo-o healthy with these pokemon. In the first place, you are stuck with taunt.


Personally, it is not only the most reliable check when it comes to safety but also useful when dealing with teams without Kommo-o. However, it is still not a general check, and I will remain the only one who uses it as a utility mon for multiple teams.


Can we call a check something that can only be won if the opponent uses tera elec?


On the other hand, this one cannot win even if it has earthquake in the case of tera elec.


Although better as a check, it still forces hydrapple to a somewhat skewed set, and latios fear any set other than the common 2-attack set.

Tbh that's something that's always seemed very shoddy to me. It feels hard to determine something a "check" if it is purely reliant on its tera to provide the adequate counterplay to the mon in question; it effectively forces you to NOT use any other tera to adequately cover the mon. It still provides the role of a check, but... really limits your options in the process

 

[udongirl]

Tbh that's something that's always seemed very shoddy to me. It feels hard to determine something a "check" if it is purely reliant on its tera to provide the adequate counterplay to the mon in question; it effectively forces you to NOT use any other tera to adequately cover the mon. It still provides the role of a check, but... really limits your options in the process

I'm not sure which part you are talking about: if it is okidogi, tera is almost completely unnecessary, and if hydrapple also assumes that the other set is a generic 2atk, then tera is still unnecessary.