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Urshifu-Rapid-Strike @ Choice Band
Ability: swordsdance
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Surging Strikes
- Aqua Jet
- Close Combat
- U-turn
Urshifu does some crazy damage in this metagame. Pair with a rain dance user and heal bell Blissey for best results. Some calcs...
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Aqua Jet vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight in Rain: 302-356 (75.6 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Aqua Jet vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk in Rain: 520-612 (119.8 - 141%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Aqua Jet vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Toxapex in Rain: 150-177 (49.5 - 58.4%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
Reached the Top 2 of the ladder now so before someone takes my spot hours later here are some Pokemon that I'm currently using (that I'm having fun with):
This mon's hella annoying. This is literally Gen 8 Linked Mew transferred to this metagame. I'm actually surprised by the fact that no one's abusing this mon. As long as you outspeed their mons there's no way they could sweep you if this thing's around. Works very well against Pokemon who have setup abilities such as Bulk Up, Quiver Dance, etc. Pairs well with a Thunder Wave mon or Tailwind mon.
Sandy Shocks @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Metal Sound
Tera Type: Ice
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Thunderbolt
- Earth Power
- Tera Blast
Acts like a support pivot mon that enables your team's special attackers, though it can also stand well on its own, which is very useful, given that the current metagame is currently special attacker-sided because of Will-O-Wisp. Tera Ice for that surprise against Ground types, though you can always click Earth Power if they got Metal Sounded since it will mostly be 2-3HKO from there.
I replaced this one with Haze Toxapex because of Urshifu-Rapid-Strike but this one is a really solid physical defense mon, being able to counter most physical attackers. Kind of inspired by BH here, nothing much to say.
I'd say this meta is pretty enjoyable, though Will-O-Wisp is kind of oppressive as of this moment since there's only Chansey that has Heal Bell so you can't really carry Physical Attackers aside from Lum Berry Urshifu-Rapid-Strike. Hazards as abilities are really powerful as well, especially when put on offensive mons that exert pressure since you're gonna mostly pressure them to switch, activating whatever hazard your ability put in the enemy side.
About to board a flight but I thought I'd share a set on a very special Pokémon that I've found surprising results from.
So... did you know Bellibolt learns Soak?
Yknow... that one status that changes all your opponent's types to mono Water. Yeah, that one.
Well, you can have a pretty interesting attacker of Soak + STAB Electric that can beat things like that doesn't switch or can't hit the already bulky Bellibolt. It naturally gets Slack Off for recovery, can set up its own Terrain to make its Electric-type moves stronger, has coverage in (Surf I believe? I don't remember) Chilling Water, and can pivot with Volt Switch. Soak will also remove STAB EQ from Ground-type Earthquake users. It can take a lot of hits, and you can rely on its strong pivot capabilities by giving it Heavy-Duty Boots, or simply Leftovers or Terrain Extender.
It also pairs wonderfully with other Electric types, especially with Terrain; most notably Agility Thundurus-T with Electro Ball or Will-O-Wisp Rotom-Wash (my own set), or even other things that can't eat EQ well from things like Great Tusk or Clodsire. I've only ever tested this team today before my flight, but it'd be very cool to see Bellibolt get some usage somewhere.
Trademarked is kinda cool to play this gen! There's some things I wished were... removed... thunder wave...but Bellibolt's been a blast to use. Maybe there's a team that it could fit wonderfully onto. Who knows.
urshifu rapid strike is unbelievably broken in this meta, with SD you become nigh unwallable. only unaware don can wall it, and don is susceptible to being chipped down, and with some of the threats in this meta, it has to worry about those too.
urshifu rapid strike is unbelievably broken in this meta, with SD you become nigh unwallable. only unaware don can wall it, and don is susceptible to being chipped down, and with some of the threats in this meta, it has to worry about those too.
Haze Pex and Cotton Guard Jumpluff (which is a thing I have seen) wall it reliably, unless it sacrifices U-Turn for coverage. You can also cripple it with Wisp Pult or T-wave Bro, although Heal Bell Chansey could be in the back. And that's switch-ins; if something gets sacked to Urshifu, there are other mons to revenge/status it with. I can't say whether it's broken or not, but there're more options than Unaware Dozo.
Ting-Lu @ Leftovers
Ability: Spikes
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 200 Def / 56 SpD
Sassy Nature
- Earthquake
- Ruination
- Taunt
- Whirlwind
(you can honestly also just run its normal ability here and slot spikes in to stack em)
Sandy Shocks @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Gravity
Tera Type: Electric / Ice / Ground / Imagination
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Earth Power
- Zap Cannon / Thunder
- Tera Blast / Spikes / Stealth Rock
Gravity is an insanely funny move, if you poke enough holes in the opposition team, Sandy Shocks (or another strong Ground type attack like Lando) is home free to start ripping through common defensive backbones, almost all of which contain Corviknight. Spikes Shocks is better by far, but this is still a good set (if you aren't relying on flying types yourself)
Yeah, I'd like to +1 Basculegion/Last Respects being at least on a watchlist. I feel like vs last mon Basculegion, I need to be up 3 mons just so I can have a chance at winning.
EDIT: Or I dunno, be forced to run last mon Tera Normal Mew with Tansform as Trademark or something.
So it turns out that Last Respects does not get more balanced when you can get a free Agility, or spam Wisp early game, or really anything else. It's gone now.
We have a close eye on status moves and users (Urshifu seems funny), as well as Wisp and Wave spam. If you have thoughts on these, let us know!
Doesn't surging strikes always crit and go through CG? You'd be using Jumpluff's mediocre "bulk" at that point. Eiden made a good point about haze pex, it can get chipped down without regenerator.
It does, but it fails to 2HKO without Tera Water. If you plan to Tera Water Urshifu every game, more power to you. I'd like to point out that I haven't seen anyone do that a single time yet.
Clicking U-Turn invites Will-o-Wisp Trademarks to come in, risking a burn on Urshifu. Also, without Hazards, Jolly Banded Urshifu does a cumulative 5.55% after Lefties, which means you can take 4 U-Turns and two Tera Water Boosted Surging Strikes with Lefties Recovery alone (these are max rolls BTW). If you can keep hazards off, that's 4 potential turns to Status and Rocky Helmet chip the Urshifu. And if you factor in Hazards, it goes both ways; Urshifu can potentially be chipping himself to Spikes every time he comes in.
Eiden: First off, yes, OBVIOUSLY, I mean Haze Trademark Toxapex.
Second, I will admit that I didn't take Tera Water into account, but I would like to point out that you can make anything look un-wallable by stacking enough multipliers. A Max Sp. Def. Toxapex gets clean 2HKO-ed by Tera Fire Specs Modest Solar Power Charizard's Flamethrower in the Sun; would this calc make Charizard too broken for OU (before people discovered AV Pex)? Heck, +2 Specs Psyshock from Tera Psychic Hoopa-U 2HKOs Max Phys. Def. (Non-Iron Defense) Corviknight and Heatran; is that broken too?
Third, I mentioned Jumpluff because it was brought up in this thread and I did encounter it once, where it walled my non-CB non-Tera Urshifu. But fine, conceded.
Fourth, I don't know why you're showing me Slowbro calcs; I literally said you're supposed to use it to cripple Urshifu with T-Wave Trademark. Although it's worth noting that even with Choice Band, Rain and Tera, Urshifu still needs 3 hits to kill Slowbro; so with Rocky Helmet attached, Urshifu is Paralyzed and at half HP, thereby letting you switch in something to take advantage of this. Sometimes that's how you have to play the game, you know?
Finally, look, I'm not saying Urshifu isn't broken. But I'll say that my Urshifu answers are a Revavroom and a Moltres, and I'm managing fine. But in any case, the Calcs are out there; if SD CB Rain Urshifu teams pop up and start tearing up the ladder, I'll be happy to watch it go.
I don't think Urshifu should be the target, action first should be on the strongest trademarks to reduce the overall powerlevel of the format as there are just too many things currently to take account of on the builder, restricting SD and NP should drastically decrease the number of brokens around or at least make Haze/Unaware feel less mandatory for many.
As for WoW and Wave, I think action on WoW should be preferred, between Ground and Electric types there are more stuff immune to Wave, and it doesn't immediately make every physical attacker feel like dead weight, but just having one status less to fear should make this more enjoyable overall.
I don't think Urshifu should be the target, action first should be on the strongest trademarks to reduce the overall powerlevel of the format as there are just too many things currently to take account of on the builder, restricting SD and NP should drastically decrease the number of brokens around or at least make Haze/Unaware feel less mandatory for many.
As for WoW and Wave, I think action on WoW should be preferred, between Ground and Electric types there are more stuff immune to Wave, and it doesn't immediately make every physical attacker feel like dead weight, but just having one status less to fear should make this more enjoyable overall.
Swords Dance and Nasty Plot effectively gave too much boosting power to everything. A Will-O-Wisp restriction is now needed even more to improve the matchup for offense against bulkier teams since, now, at most they can bargain for is a +1 attack boost on switch-in. Hopefully Blissey is now less required as a Pokemon as it was before.
I’m gonna talk about last respects, as I’ve played 80 games in this tier, 95% of those game with my last respects meme team.
Now I am only rated 1151, so I will preface that I am not the best player, I have not played the best players, and the team I used was most definitely not the best team to make use of Last respects, but I have learned what types of things stop last respects. This is mostly to comment on how likely these Pokémon are to be fully allowed at some point
Basculegion ain’t moving, heres why:
The Snapper (Basculegion) @ Life Orb
Ability: agility
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Wave Crash
- Last Respects
- Aqua Jet
- Facade
Basculegion will never have access to last respects in trademarked. The reason last respects was banned in the first place was because Basculegion has access to agility. With a better attack and speed stat than houndstone, and you now have both speed and power. Now the only thing that could make it more broken would be if it had a secondary stab with a 120 base powe- hey wait it does. Yeah stuff like Blissey still got 2HKOed, (252 Atk Life Orb Basculegion Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 417-491 (58.4 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) and while Blissey could get a thunder wave off, there was multiple ways to deal with that. The key thing that make last respects powerful is when you legalize that you don’t have to have 5 dead mons to finally have a good pokemon. Last respects has 150 bp after only 2 dead mons.
252 Atk Life Orb Basculegion Last Respects vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 200-238 (50.1 - 59.6%) -- 82.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
That is an example with only 150bp last respects btw, not 300bp.
now one thing that could stop the Pokémon is faster Pokémon with agility, a tailwind mon that then switches to a faster mon, and paralysis mons. This is where support comes in from other Pokémon. The solution of faster problem gets more complicated when you can have your own paralysis mons and tailwind mons. I even found a solution to the status problem that wasn’t a giant momentum sink called tailwind Enamorus with healing wish. Healing wish even helps deal with the recoil from life orb and wave crash, while also healing off some damage legion might have taken, and legion can take a hit from a dark or ghost type move after Tera and most likely OHKO it back. Enamorus can also deal good damage if needed against physical walls that somehow wall legion.
TLDR: Basculegion will never have access to last respects as it is too fast, too powerful, and too easy to support in this metagame.
Now for the Pokémon with a semblance of balance, Houndstone.
now the first thing to cover about this Pokémon is that it is both weaker and slower the legion. Its best trademarked move is also probably scary face, which is much worse than agility. It also has no secondary STAB, or even that many good moves past last respects. This thing can 1v1 Blissey if it only has seismic toss, but that isn’t that useful when you only 3HKO after the Blissey most likely paralyzed you (252 Atk Houndstone Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 232-274 (32.4 - 38.3%) -- 98.2% chance to 3HKO).
Now I would like to point out the two main reasons given to ban last respects was agility (which houndstone doesn’t have) and wisp spam (which is banned). Most of the talk about last respects being banned centered around how legion was broken, not delving into houndstone. While it seems like houndstone can still benefit from support like legion, because it doesn’t have access to agility it now needs that support to outspeed almost everything in the tier, and even then it still can get outsped by faster agility and tailwind mons, mons legion doesn’t have a problem because with the same exact support it outspeeds the entire metagame. The best support for houndstone is actually sandstorm Garganacl, as it has explosion and can switch in to special attackers to kill or chunk them for high amounts. While a scarf could mitigate the speed problem, if the opponent has a normal type you just screw yourself over because you just aren’t winning that 1v1. The focus sash is there because that’s the only way it’s surviving a hit in this metagame against the other darks and ghost types in the tier. Houndstone has access to damage but doesn’t have full access on how to deal that damage.
Now those are the reasons why houndstone could be allowed last respects, but there are still plenty of reasons that it shouldn’t. The first thing has to do with one of its weaknesses, normal types. While it is true that most normal types win the 1v1 against houndstone, It doesn’t always lead to a good metagame if every team needs at least one normal type in order to stop it. One of the reasons wisp was banned was to hopefully make blissey less common, and that was (to myknowledge) the most common normal type in the tier. And while Houndstone may have much less opportunities to deal out damage, that shouldn’t discount how much damage it can deal, especially with Tera allowed in this tier. With only 2 dead mons and ghost Tera phys def corv has a good chance of being 2HKOed (252 Atk Tera Ghost Houndstone Last Respects vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 192-226 (48.1 - 56.6%) -- 32.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery). When it has access to all 5 dead mons and Tera it OHKOs most relevent offensives and even defensive mons, then even 2HKOs the more niche physically defensive mons.
I am not a good enough player to properly access if Houndstone with last respects would be balanced, but I do think that it shouldn’t just be placed into the tier haphazardly. From what I have seen though, although there isn’t many defensive counters for houndstone, the offensive counters to it are plentiful. Add to this that without a Pokémon to heal houndstone throughout the game you are basically playing a mon down for most of the game, giving you less options to check those offensive mons that beat houndstone.
So why are Healing Wish & Lunar Blessing not restricted? I feel like moves that are basically Full Restores are a bit too strong given that your basically getting it automatically and can't stop them from getting the effect.
So why are Healing Wish & Lunar Blessing not restricted? I feel like moves that are basically Full Restores are a bit too strong given that your basically getting it automatically and can't stop them from getting the effect.
Healing Wish and Lunar Dance trademarks both immediately KO your own Pokemon, so the best you can do with that trademark is switch it in and scout a move/switch while KOing your own Pokemon to heal another.
So why are Healing Wish & Lunar Blessing not restricted? I feel like moves that are basically Full Restores are a bit too strong given that your basically getting it automatically and can't stop them from getting the effect.
Healing wish and lunar dance simply just aren’t good enough to trade an entire mon for. They can be good enough to trade a single move for, but that’s because then it allows wish/dance user to set up support for when they use healing wish or lunar dance. If anything these moves have gotten more powerful as moves because other trademark abilities have given more options to gain momentum off the wish, but that’s it.
will twave be banned from being used as trademarked? Feels very unfair to play against, and you cant even play around it as much bec if your opponents mon is faster than yours, its a guaranteed para if they switch into their twave mon.
Sandy Shocks @ Choice Scarf 
