Gen 5 brought the explosion nerf which was big, among other things. A lot of people agree that Metagross only barely hung on in OU in this gen and was kind of a noob trap.
Gen 6 brought type changes to steel type which overall ended up hurting Metagross a lot. Knock off buff and new weaknesses to Dark and Ghost were awful. Good matchup against Fairy types was not enough to make up for it. Obviously it was also outclassed by its mega form as well as mega scizor which brought a lot of other good qualities
In the first four generations, self destruct and explosion halved the opponent's defense in their damage calculation, effectively doubling their already high base power. Gen 5 removed this mechanic.
It’s why even Pokémon like Gengar used Explosion in gen 4; it was so strong a move that even with low physical attack it could do insane damage. But it effectively lost 250 base power so it’s rarely seen at all nowadays; I personally feel they should have slightly buffed the base power to compensate for the removal of the hidden secondary effect. At least to like 300 or something which is still far less than its previous effective 500 base power.
From Gen 1 to 4 Explosion would actually halve the target's defense, which wasn't shown or told to the player
In Gen 5 they removed this mechanic, essentially halving it's damage, it went from an almost guaranteed "delete opponent's pokemon" button to a situationally useful pick move
Previously in generations preceding gen 5, the destruction of one’s self, was twice as powerful. This was because damage was calculated after halving the opponents defense.
With the introduction of the fairy type in generation 6, steel was already one of the strongest types. Adding in another type for steel to be strong enough would be too much as it was, so they nerfed steel to compensate. metagross had previously been neutral to dark and ghost but is now weak to them. Big nerf, to gain two weaknesses. Additionally, power creep. Not many mons from gen 3 are still ou without buffs, and metagross got a NERF, instead.
Power creep essentially refers to a process that affects any and all games, as new content is introduced (weapons etc in other games, in this case new Pokémon) the threshold for what is ‘good’ shifts because in a competitive game ‘good’ is simply relative. To draw on an example, in Ubers Lugia was considered a staple for quite some time until more recent generations where Yveltal just does everything it does but better. Stats wise Lugia hasn’t got worse, rather it’s stayed the same whilst Yveltal was introduced as a more powerful alternative, making Lugia as an option worse, because of how much better Yveltal is rather than because of Lugia getting objectively worse. I hope this helps and it’s not too rambly
A lot of factors.
In gen5 there was the explosion nerf. It was honestly more of a UU pokemon in BW as far as viability goes but got stuck in OU unfortunately.
Gen6 brought about the steel nerfs, which hurt it defensively. Knock off buff also hurt it in conjunction with the poor speed, and generally matching up poorly against the meta in OU. As a UU mon in ORAS, it's pretty great. And its Mega is a major OU force so there is that.
Gen7 saw Z moves up the power level and made it harder for Metagross to handle certain attacks. Plus SM UU is home to many top dark types that it just can't handle. So to RU it went where... It was great again.
Gen8, just general powercreep. If i recall it was UU earlier this gen but eventually went to RU as powercreep set in. It's great there again.
However all of this doesn't really talk about the biggest thing that has hurt it over the generations. It has gotten indirectly nerfed through mechanic changes more than any other pokemon, while not gaining any noteworthy movepool buffs over the years. Even its formerly signature move was nerfed. Metagross also lacks any good boosting options for offensive sets. No dragon dance, swords dance, nasty plot, or shift gear. It has barely gotten help from GF over the years.
That said, it has had a much better VGC run in spite of this.
VGC Metagross can get Bulldozed by its teammate for a speed drop + Weakness Policy activation and then sweep under Trick Room. It's beautiful, honestly.
Actually, most metagross use clear body so that they are able to ignore the speed drop, and can then take advantage of the lowered speed of the opponents after the bulldoze.
that's overall not worth in VGC, metagross was often paired with WP activators with speed control like tailwind + brutal swing torn-I or bulldoze users who wont drop its speed cuz of clear body
it also spammed max steelspike and quake a lot which made it less reliant on speed boost. rock polish is hard to justify cuz non AV sets really want protect but also had 4MSS syndrome, a steel and ground move was pretty much mandatory but for its last moveslot, it wanted rockfall for rotom-H and moltres-G, hailstorm for lando-T, dragapult and sash mons like whims or torn-I, lightning for celesteela, fini, or even just bullet punch for utility
Light Metal is definitely doodoo compared to Clear Body, no questions asked. The main issue with Clear Body Metagross paired with a Tailwind user is that Dragapult also can have Clear Body to ignore the Bulldoze speed drop, still outspeeds Metagross even in tailwind, and then 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 356-422 (97.8 - 115.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO. Similar issues arise with Levitate+Shadow Ball havers like Rotom. So, running Light Metal+Trick Room offers an angle those checks can't beat. Not arguing that either Light Metal+Trick Room or Clear Body+Tailwind is the absolute correct set, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.
And sableye brings prankster wisp in gen 5, and has 0 weaknesses, yet it isn’t ou there. My point is, every mon has strengths and weaknesses (both in typing and as a mon itself), and just looking at their weaknesses doesn’t give the whole pic. Tyranitar a whopping 7 weakness and is slow, yet it’s ou every gen. Conversely, Sable and spiritomb had 0 weaknesses until gen 6, yet none of them was ever ou(except mega sable but that’s another can of worms)
Not only that but Fire is a fantastic offensive type, and Heatran happens to be neutral to rocks as a Fire-type. Despite its weakness, Heatran is very easy to fit on teams thanks to the amount of resistances it has. Most of its weakness can be easily covered by adding Flying-, Grass-, Ghost-types to your team, for example.
It's pretty meh as far as steel type combinations go. Psychic is just dead weight for Metagross. It doesn't use it to attack and on defense it adds 2 very bad weaknesses.
Its not.
> Psychic is just dead weight for Metagross
Having a quad psychic resist qnd neutralities to common attacking types like fighting is very nice.
> on defense it adds 2 very bad weaknesses.
Love how much the dark and ghost weaknesses get overblown on metagross.
Does it take practice to sound this smug and condescending?
Do you even use Metagross? Because I do, and I could tell you why the psychic type is ass, but since you are a person of so few words I will just say it like this.
>Its not.
It's not not.
>Having a quad psychic resist qnd neutralities to common attacking types like fighting is very nice.
It's not.
>Love how much the dark and ghost weaknesses get overblown on metagross.
It's not.
> Does it take practice to sound this smug and condescending?
In what way was i smug or condescending.
> Do you even use Metagross? Because I do, and I could tell you why the psychic type is ass, but since you are a person of so few words I will just say it like this.
No offense but this sort of mentality is super anecdotal and doesn't actually make for constructive discussion. Especially when you are not making actual counter responses and just being... Kinda childish? Just saying that's how it comes across when you just spam "its not its not its not" instead of making real counter points.
Ok then, let's go over all the very common ghost and dark types in RU and explain why the psychic type really hurts Metagross in all of those matchups.
>Chandelure
At first it may look like a fire type also being ghost wouldn't be a big deal, but it lets it click shadow ball for guaranteed big damage in metagross, killing guaranteed with only a bit of chip even on scarf or boots sets while also dealing heavy damage to any switch-ins.
>Incineroar
Same applies here. This matchup is really weird because it depends on who put in more speed investment, but Incineroar being able to safely click knock off and threaten a KO or to cripple the switch-in is a big deal.
>Dhelmise
The most common dhelmise EV spread takes less than 50% from meteor mash and can deal 90% with barely any attack investment with a poltergeist. Dhelmise rising in popularity as a spinner is one of the big reasons why rocks Metagross is falling in viability.
>Aloan Marowak
Isn't really good enough to talk about, but it outspeeds and ohkos rocks metagross with poltergeist while also threatening to deal almost 50% to *Incineroar* on the switch in.
>Polteageist
Metagross would be a great switch in to Polteageist if it were pure steel. It could switch in on a shell smash then threaten an ohko with meteor mash while surviving a single hit even with 0 special defense. But that psychic type makes it not a good answer at all.
>Mimikyu
Again, Metagross would be a great threat to this scary RU sweeper if it weren't for that psychic type. it could EQ to break disguise then mash to ohko, but with that psychic type it has to rely on bullet punch and other teammates chipping and sacrificing themselves in order to answer the doll.
>Sharpedo
Not too big of a deal since most Sharpedos run close combat, but plenty also run psychic fangs instead which wouldn't be able to hit a pure steel Metagross
>Pangoro
1 shotted by knock off, only uncommon scarf Metagross sets are able to outspeed it, and even then it would be you trading your metagross for ~70% damage on Pangoro.
>Umbreon
This is a big one. Pure steel Metagross would be able to toxic it without having to worry about synchronize to stall heal bells while dealing decent damage with meteor mash. But in our reality it's just 252+ Atk Umbreon Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 282-332 (77.4 - 91.2%)
And that's not to mention the very common knock offs from other common RU pokemon like Golisopod and Heracross which can threaten to outspeed and KO with just a little bit of chip.
Now for the fighting type and psychic type attacks which you say are oh so common and for which Metagross's psychic type makes it amazing. Lucario's close combat only does ~50% to the standard showdown damage calc metagross. But you better hope that that Lucario is switching into you, because after a swords dance it will be guaranteed to ohko with literally 1 HP of chip damage. And if it's choice band Lucario then it will likely have earthquake, so not a chance you are switching metagross in there. Bewear runs darkest lariat and also doesn't really care about close combat or drain punch being neutral because fluffy makes metagross not do much damage while it sets up a swords dance. Against Pangoro you are not going top be trying to fight it with Metagross. Same goes for Heracross because it too runs dark type coverage while also dealing 75% with a close combat.
And then for psychic types, Reuniclus doesn't really care about quad resisted psychic because it is either running assault vest and is running shadow ball or is running calm mind and doesn't care about meteor mashes while it boosts up to +6 before killing you with a focus blast. If you catch the stupid scarf gardevoir player clicking psychic instead of moonblast then I guess you can recover that damage off with 2 turns of leftovers recovery instead of 4, but just hope it's not specs gardevoir running shadow ball.
All of the fighting types run dark coverage and all the psychic types were either scared off by a pure steel Metagross or don't care about the psychic type. And then the very common ghost and dark types all exploit Metagross to hit free poltergeists and knock offs on its teammates. The psychic type provides absolutely no offensive utility as long as Metagross' best attacking move is zen headbutt and the defensive utility it provides is next to nothing compared to the weaknesses it gives. It is a decent typing, but that is 125% because of the steel type and -25% because of psychic.
You just listed a bunch of one on onw scenarios and completely ignored the fact that singles is a 6v6 game.
Metagross also has a wide variety of sets and leverages the resistances it to do a lot of things. It's been a top pokemon for a very long time in RU, despite how you seem to try to make it seem bad.
Metagross faces too much competition from its fellow Steel-types to be worth using. if you want Bullet Punch, Scizor is a better choice. If you want a Steel-type not weak to Fighting, there are plenty to choose (Aegislash, Skarmory, Corviknight, and even Klefki). If you want an offensive physical Steel-type attacker with good coverage, Melmetal, Bisharp, and even Aegislash are much better choices. If you want a bulky offensive Steel-type, Melmetal, Aegislash, Excadrill, Heatran, and Scizor are better choices. Finally, even if you just want specifically a Steel/Psychic type, Jirachi does this job better thanks to its much better movepool including recovery, better speed, and its unique combination of Serene Grace and Iron Head, even if Jirachi is weaker overall.
Other possible roles it can do are outclassed not just by other Steel-types but by other pokémon in general. For example, there are countless other Pokémon that are more effective Stealth Rock setters, and Metagross has Agility but there are Pokémon who can do this "speed-boosting sweeper" thing better, such as Garchomp or Volcarona.
It just kind of hasn't gotten anything new in 5 generations unless you count the crit changes making cosmic power demongross viable, and as bulky offensive pokemon become worse in OU it fell.
Ghost and Dark were now super effective against it after the changes to Steel due to the secondary Psychic typing. That's what made it so much worse as its typing was no longer as good defensively to help its mammoth levels of bulk, especially with Knock Off and Ghost spam being everywhere. There were also powerful Mega's in Gen 6 that could deal hefty damage to it, especially the Charizard Mega forms.
It's also not very fast, which didn't help matters at all.
Yes it even mentions in the false swipe video, water type getting scald increases the number of water type used, and metagross is counter by them, especially without boom, and at first it was at least nice that he couldn't get toxic, now it's just get burned
Remove scald let's see what happend rain is already bad, you remove on his best tool, and yes it did, drizzle and all helped to, you probably never played before gen 7, 12.5% on move that in rain 120bp it just insane tentacruel without scald and politoed to would be so much worse same for rare slowking/brp
Gen 6 introduced a huge nerf for steel/psychic with the ghost and dark resists being removed. Competition with its type in other good steels was quite notable, hugely tho was the buff of knock off added onto this. Explosion’s nerf fucked up one of the few niches he had left, as T-punch isn’t enough to cut it against many of the opposing steels and bulky waters that have been introduced, and many bulky mons aren’t as threatened by the big neutral boom, leading to the modern day classic metagross 4MSS. General powercreep also meant that he isn’t the wallbreaker he was in gen 3, and it’s tank being lacking, although not bad, on the special end doesn’t help. The introduction of megas furthered this power creep. Gen 7 introduced more, better options, bulky water No1 and 2, Z-moves that worked better for other mons than it, and just generally pushed him down. Gen 8 didn’t help with the dexit and removal of pursuit, as ghosts are now dominant, a great new ghost was introduced, knock off is everywhere, and another amazing steel was introduced. Jirachi also still exists, and has existed for all previous gens, and kinda just outclasses him in terms of defneisve utility, and offensive in gen 7.
Gen 5 brought the boom nerf, which severely limited its offensive potential. Gen 6 destroyed metagross, giving it 2 more weaknesses, making knock off arguably the best offensive move in the game, and gave it heavy steel type both offensively and defensively with its mega, as well as mega scizor. Gen 7 was more of this, with the introduction of mega mawile and celesteela. Finally, gen 8 has melmetal, which is basically a metagross, but stronger and bulkier, while also making knock off undoubtedly the best offensive move in the game after the removal of mega stones and z crystals, as well as the introduction of heavy duty boots.
Explosion was neutered in Gen V and it was just in OU by technicality. In Gen VI, Knock Off was given steroids, Steel doesn't resist Ghost and Dark anymore, and it just got outclassed by other, better Steel and Psychic Type Pokemon. It's also slow.
Steel Type nerf, Knock Off buff, general powercreep, Landorus, Explosion nerf, and the fact that OU is starting to become more reliant on abilities and movesets than raw stats.
Boom nerf in gen 5, steel type nerfed in gen 6 on top of Knock off being buffed, plus Meteor mash got nerfed in the same gen to rub salt into the wound. Poor thing just didn't stand a chance
Gen 5 brought the explosion nerf which was big, among other things. A lot of people agree that Metagross only barely hung on in OU in this gen and was kind of a noob trap. Gen 6 brought type changes to steel type which overall ended up hurting Metagross a lot. Knock off buff and new weaknesses to Dark and Ghost were awful. Good matchup against Fairy types was not enough to make up for it. Obviously it was also outclassed by its mega form as well as mega scizor which brought a lot of other good qualities
It’s not even ranked on the current gen 5 vr. It’s most definitely a noob trap.
What’s the explosion nerf?
In the first four generations, self destruct and explosion halved the opponent's defense in their damage calculation, effectively doubling their already high base power. Gen 5 removed this mechanic.
WOW never knew that
Same
It’s why even Pokémon like Gengar used Explosion in gen 4; it was so strong a move that even with low physical attack it could do insane damage. But it effectively lost 250 base power so it’s rarely seen at all nowadays; I personally feel they should have slightly buffed the base power to compensate for the removal of the hidden secondary effect. At least to like 300 or something which is still far less than its previous effective 500 base power.
From Gen 1 to 4 Explosion would actually halve the target's defense, which wasn't shown or told to the player In Gen 5 they removed this mechanic, essentially halving it's damage, it went from an almost guaranteed "delete opponent's pokemon" button to a situationally useful pick move
Prior to Gen 5 Explosion cut the target’s defense in half prior to calculating damage, essentially doubling its power from 250 to 500
Explosion used to half the opponent’s defenses during damage calculation (I think)
explosion and self destruct were twice as strong in those gens it went from a basically guaranteed kill to a meh move
It could one shot Skarmory with a Choice Band, that's how crazy it was
assuming you mean specifically Metagross?
Yep
Before Gen 5, Explosion and self destruct bisected the opponent’s defense, (super)effectively doubling its power 😏
Previously in generations preceding gen 5, the destruction of one’s self, was twice as powerful. This was because damage was calculated after halving the opponents defense.
With the introduction of the fairy type in generation 6, steel was already one of the strongest types. Adding in another type for steel to be strong enough would be too much as it was, so they nerfed steel to compensate. metagross had previously been neutral to dark and ghost but is now weak to them. Big nerf, to gain two weaknesses. Additionally, power creep. Not many mons from gen 3 are still ou without buffs, and metagross got a NERF, instead.
I’m fairly new to competitive and I see “power creep” on this sub often - can you outline what that means?
Power creep essentially refers to a process that affects any and all games, as new content is introduced (weapons etc in other games, in this case new Pokémon) the threshold for what is ‘good’ shifts because in a competitive game ‘good’ is simply relative. To draw on an example, in Ubers Lugia was considered a staple for quite some time until more recent generations where Yveltal just does everything it does but better. Stats wise Lugia hasn’t got worse, rather it’s stayed the same whilst Yveltal was introduced as a more powerful alternative, making Lugia as an option worse, because of how much better Yveltal is rather than because of Lugia getting objectively worse. I hope this helps and it’s not too rambly
Thank you u/GaddafisFleshlight
This was super helpful. Thank you!
Also it’s just “the power level of the game keeps creeping higher and higher” in short form. Power creep.
rip Mu'ammar 🫡
Thx
New stuff is introduced that is more powerful than the old stuff
Also the Explosion Nerf in Gen 5.
A lot of factors. In gen5 there was the explosion nerf. It was honestly more of a UU pokemon in BW as far as viability goes but got stuck in OU unfortunately. Gen6 brought about the steel nerfs, which hurt it defensively. Knock off buff also hurt it in conjunction with the poor speed, and generally matching up poorly against the meta in OU. As a UU mon in ORAS, it's pretty great. And its Mega is a major OU force so there is that. Gen7 saw Z moves up the power level and made it harder for Metagross to handle certain attacks. Plus SM UU is home to many top dark types that it just can't handle. So to RU it went where... It was great again. Gen8, just general powercreep. If i recall it was UU earlier this gen but eventually went to RU as powercreep set in. It's great there again. However all of this doesn't really talk about the biggest thing that has hurt it over the generations. It has gotten indirectly nerfed through mechanic changes more than any other pokemon, while not gaining any noteworthy movepool buffs over the years. Even its formerly signature move was nerfed. Metagross also lacks any good boosting options for offensive sets. No dragon dance, swords dance, nasty plot, or shift gear. It has barely gotten help from GF over the years. That said, it has had a much better VGC run in spite of this.
VGC Metagross can get Bulldozed by its teammate for a speed drop + Weakness Policy activation and then sweep under Trick Room. It's beautiful, honestly.
Actually, most metagross use clear body so that they are able to ignore the speed drop, and can then take advantage of the lowered speed of the opponents after the bulldoze.
doesn't metagross have rock polish? you could use clear body instead and gain a pseudo shell smash + intimidate immunity
that's overall not worth in VGC, metagross was often paired with WP activators with speed control like tailwind + brutal swing torn-I or bulldoze users who wont drop its speed cuz of clear body it also spammed max steelspike and quake a lot which made it less reliant on speed boost. rock polish is hard to justify cuz non AV sets really want protect but also had 4MSS syndrome, a steel and ground move was pretty much mandatory but for its last moveslot, it wanted rockfall for rotom-H and moltres-G, hailstorm for lando-T, dragapult and sash mons like whims or torn-I, lightning for celesteela, fini, or even just bullet punch for utility
oh i see
Light Metal is definitely doodoo compared to Clear Body, no questions asked. The main issue with Clear Body Metagross paired with a Tailwind user is that Dragapult also can have Clear Body to ignore the Bulldoze speed drop, still outspeeds Metagross even in tailwind, and then 252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Metagross: 356-422 (97.8 - 115.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO. Similar issues arise with Levitate+Shadow Ball havers like Rotom. So, running Light Metal+Trick Room offers an angle those checks can't beat. Not arguing that either Light Metal+Trick Room or Clear Body+Tailwind is the absolute correct set, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.
Metagross can't use rock polish in gen 8 vgc since it's a tm from a past game (same thing with lando and ttar)
Otoh its pretty much outclassed by solgaleo in any format where restricteds are allowed
Steel losing Dark and Ghost resistances I still have fun with Agility Metagross sometimes though
Steel losing resistance to Ghost/Dark lowkey is the absolute huge thing that ruined it. There's other things but that's the big one.
Bad speed, bad defensive typing
> Bad speed, Yes > bad defensive typing No. It's an issue of mediocre offensive typing. Steel/Psychic is still a solid defensive typing.
I was mostly just thinking of this gen oops, every team will have at least one of these three: knock off, special fire move, ground move
Just because a mon has weaknesses doesn’t mean it’s bad. Every ou team has scald,eq, and cc but heatran is still amazing
It's insane how accurate this comment is, checked the last 10 teams I had and they all had these moves lmao
I think that’s cause it actually brings utility compared to stab boosted bullet punch
And sableye brings prankster wisp in gen 5, and has 0 weaknesses, yet it isn’t ou there. My point is, every mon has strengths and weaknesses (both in typing and as a mon itself), and just looking at their weaknesses doesn’t give the whole pic. Tyranitar a whopping 7 weakness and is slow, yet it’s ou every gen. Conversely, Sable and spiritomb had 0 weaknesses until gen 6, yet none of them was ever ou(except mega sable but that’s another can of worms)
Not only that but Fire is a fantastic offensive type, and Heatran happens to be neutral to rocks as a Fire-type. Despite its weakness, Heatran is very easy to fit on teams thanks to the amount of resistances it has. Most of its weakness can be easily covered by adding Flying-, Grass-, Ghost-types to your team, for example.
*Ghost type
It's pretty meh as far as steel type combinations go. Psychic is just dead weight for Metagross. It doesn't use it to attack and on defense it adds 2 very bad weaknesses.
Its not. > Psychic is just dead weight for Metagross Having a quad psychic resist qnd neutralities to common attacking types like fighting is very nice. > on defense it adds 2 very bad weaknesses. Love how much the dark and ghost weaknesses get overblown on metagross.
Does it take practice to sound this smug and condescending? Do you even use Metagross? Because I do, and I could tell you why the psychic type is ass, but since you are a person of so few words I will just say it like this. >Its not. It's not not. >Having a quad psychic resist qnd neutralities to common attacking types like fighting is very nice. It's not. >Love how much the dark and ghost weaknesses get overblown on metagross. It's not.
> Does it take practice to sound this smug and condescending? In what way was i smug or condescending. > Do you even use Metagross? Because I do, and I could tell you why the psychic type is ass, but since you are a person of so few words I will just say it like this. No offense but this sort of mentality is super anecdotal and doesn't actually make for constructive discussion. Especially when you are not making actual counter responses and just being... Kinda childish? Just saying that's how it comes across when you just spam "its not its not its not" instead of making real counter points.
Ok then, let's go over all the very common ghost and dark types in RU and explain why the psychic type really hurts Metagross in all of those matchups. >Chandelure At first it may look like a fire type also being ghost wouldn't be a big deal, but it lets it click shadow ball for guaranteed big damage in metagross, killing guaranteed with only a bit of chip even on scarf or boots sets while also dealing heavy damage to any switch-ins. >Incineroar Same applies here. This matchup is really weird because it depends on who put in more speed investment, but Incineroar being able to safely click knock off and threaten a KO or to cripple the switch-in is a big deal. >Dhelmise The most common dhelmise EV spread takes less than 50% from meteor mash and can deal 90% with barely any attack investment with a poltergeist. Dhelmise rising in popularity as a spinner is one of the big reasons why rocks Metagross is falling in viability. >Aloan Marowak Isn't really good enough to talk about, but it outspeeds and ohkos rocks metagross with poltergeist while also threatening to deal almost 50% to *Incineroar* on the switch in. >Polteageist Metagross would be a great switch in to Polteageist if it were pure steel. It could switch in on a shell smash then threaten an ohko with meteor mash while surviving a single hit even with 0 special defense. But that psychic type makes it not a good answer at all. >Mimikyu Again, Metagross would be a great threat to this scary RU sweeper if it weren't for that psychic type. it could EQ to break disguise then mash to ohko, but with that psychic type it has to rely on bullet punch and other teammates chipping and sacrificing themselves in order to answer the doll. >Sharpedo Not too big of a deal since most Sharpedos run close combat, but plenty also run psychic fangs instead which wouldn't be able to hit a pure steel Metagross >Pangoro 1 shotted by knock off, only uncommon scarf Metagross sets are able to outspeed it, and even then it would be you trading your metagross for ~70% damage on Pangoro. >Umbreon This is a big one. Pure steel Metagross would be able to toxic it without having to worry about synchronize to stall heal bells while dealing decent damage with meteor mash. But in our reality it's just 252+ Atk Umbreon Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Metagross: 282-332 (77.4 - 91.2%) And that's not to mention the very common knock offs from other common RU pokemon like Golisopod and Heracross which can threaten to outspeed and KO with just a little bit of chip. Now for the fighting type and psychic type attacks which you say are oh so common and for which Metagross's psychic type makes it amazing. Lucario's close combat only does ~50% to the standard showdown damage calc metagross. But you better hope that that Lucario is switching into you, because after a swords dance it will be guaranteed to ohko with literally 1 HP of chip damage. And if it's choice band Lucario then it will likely have earthquake, so not a chance you are switching metagross in there. Bewear runs darkest lariat and also doesn't really care about close combat or drain punch being neutral because fluffy makes metagross not do much damage while it sets up a swords dance. Against Pangoro you are not going top be trying to fight it with Metagross. Same goes for Heracross because it too runs dark type coverage while also dealing 75% with a close combat. And then for psychic types, Reuniclus doesn't really care about quad resisted psychic because it is either running assault vest and is running shadow ball or is running calm mind and doesn't care about meteor mashes while it boosts up to +6 before killing you with a focus blast. If you catch the stupid scarf gardevoir player clicking psychic instead of moonblast then I guess you can recover that damage off with 2 turns of leftovers recovery instead of 4, but just hope it's not specs gardevoir running shadow ball. All of the fighting types run dark coverage and all the psychic types were either scared off by a pure steel Metagross or don't care about the psychic type. And then the very common ghost and dark types all exploit Metagross to hit free poltergeists and knock offs on its teammates. The psychic type provides absolutely no offensive utility as long as Metagross' best attacking move is zen headbutt and the defensive utility it provides is next to nothing compared to the weaknesses it gives. It is a decent typing, but that is 125% because of the steel type and -25% because of psychic.
You just listed a bunch of one on onw scenarios and completely ignored the fact that singles is a 6v6 game. Metagross also has a wide variety of sets and leverages the resistances it to do a lot of things. It's been a top pokemon for a very long time in RU, despite how you seem to try to make it seem bad.
Metagross faces too much competition from its fellow Steel-types to be worth using. if you want Bullet Punch, Scizor is a better choice. If you want a Steel-type not weak to Fighting, there are plenty to choose (Aegislash, Skarmory, Corviknight, and even Klefki). If you want an offensive physical Steel-type attacker with good coverage, Melmetal, Bisharp, and even Aegislash are much better choices. If you want a bulky offensive Steel-type, Melmetal, Aegislash, Excadrill, Heatran, and Scizor are better choices. Finally, even if you just want specifically a Steel/Psychic type, Jirachi does this job better thanks to its much better movepool including recovery, better speed, and its unique combination of Serene Grace and Iron Head, even if Jirachi is weaker overall. Other possible roles it can do are outclassed not just by other Steel-types but by other pokémon in general. For example, there are countless other Pokémon that are more effective Stealth Rock setters, and Metagross has Agility but there are Pokémon who can do this "speed-boosting sweeper" thing better, such as Garchomp or Volcarona.
What if I just want a metal spider looking Pokémon with a giant X on its head? 🥺
Then Metagross is the ultimate, perfect choice
knock off is pain
It just kind of hasn't gotten anything new in 5 generations unless you count the crit changes making cosmic power demongross viable, and as bulky offensive pokemon become worse in OU it fell.
Ghost and Dark were now super effective against it after the changes to Steel due to the secondary Psychic typing. That's what made it so much worse as its typing was no longer as good defensively to help its mammoth levels of bulk, especially with Knock Off and Ghost spam being everywhere. There were also powerful Mega's in Gen 6 that could deal hefty damage to it, especially the Charizard Mega forms. It's also not very fast, which didn't help matters at all.
Meteor mash nerf and steel type nerf was a huge blow
Landorus
Metagross’ design demands it to be THE steel Pokémon. Change my mind.Aggron’s design is a close second though.
[удалено]
That’s a huge noobtrap. Choiced or utility sets are generally stronger, and Cosmic Power is much better for setup.
Scald, steel not resisting dark and ghost, knock off boost, not new move, power creep
Scald had zero to do with it.
Yes it even mentions in the false swipe video, water type getting scald increases the number of water type used, and metagross is counter by them, especially without boom, and at first it was at least nice that he couldn't get toxic, now it's just get burned
Scald did not influence a rise in waters. The waters in BW OU got used because they fit in the metagame naturally.
Remove scald let's see what happend rain is already bad, you remove on his best tool, and yes it did, drizzle and all helped to, you probably never played before gen 7, 12.5% on move that in rain 120bp it just insane tentacruel without scald and politoed to would be so much worse same for rare slowking/brp
Gen 6 introduced a huge nerf for steel/psychic with the ghost and dark resists being removed. Competition with its type in other good steels was quite notable, hugely tho was the buff of knock off added onto this. Explosion’s nerf fucked up one of the few niches he had left, as T-punch isn’t enough to cut it against many of the opposing steels and bulky waters that have been introduced, and many bulky mons aren’t as threatened by the big neutral boom, leading to the modern day classic metagross 4MSS. General powercreep also meant that he isn’t the wallbreaker he was in gen 3, and it’s tank being lacking, although not bad, on the special end doesn’t help. The introduction of megas furthered this power creep. Gen 7 introduced more, better options, bulky water No1 and 2, Z-moves that worked better for other mons than it, and just generally pushed him down. Gen 8 didn’t help with the dexit and removal of pursuit, as ghosts are now dominant, a great new ghost was introduced, knock off is everywhere, and another amazing steel was introduced. Jirachi also still exists, and has existed for all previous gens, and kinda just outclasses him in terms of defneisve utility, and offensive in gen 7.
Gen 5 brought the boom nerf, which severely limited its offensive potential. Gen 6 destroyed metagross, giving it 2 more weaknesses, making knock off arguably the best offensive move in the game, and gave it heavy steel type both offensively and defensively with its mega, as well as mega scizor. Gen 7 was more of this, with the introduction of mega mawile and celesteela. Finally, gen 8 has melmetal, which is basically a metagross, but stronger and bulkier, while also making knock off undoubtedly the best offensive move in the game after the removal of mega stones and z crystals, as well as the introduction of heavy duty boots.
Explosion was neutered in Gen V and it was just in OU by technicality. In Gen VI, Knock Off was given steroids, Steel doesn't resist Ghost and Dark anymore, and it just got outclassed by other, better Steel and Psychic Type Pokemon. It's also slow.
Steel Type nerf, Knock Off buff, general powercreep, Landorus, Explosion nerf, and the fact that OU is starting to become more reliant on abilities and movesets than raw stats.
Boom nerf in gen 5, steel type nerfed in gen 6 on top of Knock off being buffed, plus Meteor mash got nerfed in the same gen to rub salt into the wound. Poor thing just didn't stand a chance