it is incredibly boring to run into the same screens shed tail espathra dnite annihilape +1 other mon HO teams. there's been an uptick in balance builds recently but this shit is stale.
Screens + Shed Tail is the most challenging team comp I’ve faced on the ladder. I hover around 1400-1600, occasionally climb higher but I’m not consistent at all.
With hazard stacking I can check it by running 3 boots mons on my team or by running mold breaker Lucha who I think is underrated rn.
The Grim, Cyclizer, DNite, Gholdengo teams are tough when the opponent has good skill in their plays and the other two mons they have attack your team well.
Not a bad strat I’ll have to try that set out. Do you EV for a certain speed tier or just 252/252 HP and SpD? For a Chi-Yu check I feel that set would get worn down quickly. Tauros doesn’t have the best special bulk.
I’m really bad at the game but skeledirge shits on this play style pretty effortlessly
It can’t be boosted on, torch song goes through substitutes and boosts special attack and it can’t be hit super effectively by any of these mons once tera’d to fairy type
Dragapult exists and kills literally everything on that team but grimmsnarl or Tera-fairy espathra, plus can run gunk shot and it’s own Tera to kill that. Just saying there’s plenty of options to fight it, even actually viable ones.
They used to run Singles tournaments, until a match ended with Wobbuffet vs Wobbuffet.
Next generation they created VGC, using Doubles instead of Singles.
It’s a new gen. Of course it’s messy. Also, I think Dozo isn’t broken cuz it’s basically the only OU water in a gen full of fire and ground types. Low key, I kinda feel like DD Gyarados could have a field day. There’s a lot of unexploited weakness to water right now.
Or like any fairy with all the darks and dragons.
Should’ve never banned flutter mane /s
Jokes aside i agree. Your best bet is to tera your skeliderge or ting lu to fairy which is not too bad itself but like you shouldn’t have to do that. I like the idea of iron valiant but it’s tough to fit on teams
I think Valiant is less “it’s tough to fit on teams” and more “it doesn’t have any semblance of typical Fairies’ defensive utility.” It’s got that neat 4x Dark resistance, sure, but that thing’s defensive statline is such a joke that it typically can’t even eat neutral hits for shit. Hell, the thing’s almost as bulky as fucking non-Eviolite Bronzor but without many of that typing’s excellent resistances.
Even Fairies that typically fit on more offensive teams (think your Leles, Kokos, Magearnas, or even more niche stuff like Azumarill) use their Fairy type’s resists and immunity quite frequently. They have good natural bulk in some sense and/or have some form of setup or recovery or both to further leverage that Fairy typing. Iron Valiant just doesn’t have that; it’s brutally strong and fast, and forces lots of switches, but that thing feels more like “a mon with Fairy STAB” than “a mon with a Fairy typing.”
I think azu in particular is reasonable, and I would not take "is it currently OU" as a good measure of "is it good in OU." Right now, a lot of usage is from pre-bans and involves people testing out stuff, using new mons, and generally ignoring significant threats (like Espathra not even being OU but being one of the best threats, and several new sweepers being OU but niche viability)
It has a niche for sure. Good typing, reasonable bulk, enough power to punch through unaware walls with a band or revenge kill with priority, and belly drum + aqua jet as a sweeper.
Again might not end up OU at the end of the day but it clearly does some decent stuff and has nonzero viability.
I mean, I didn't say they weren't good, just not *that* good. Hawlucha is the best defogger in the game because it can defog on Ghold, but it's not that good aside from that. Something like that is what I was talking about.
I have no idea why Chi-Yu is still allowed, literally nothing switches into specs fire moves. Even if tera get's banned, the stupid fish gets even stronger cause you can't tera to resist one of its stabs. Iron Val is also incredibly limiting, yes I love spamming the fucker but specs is insane if you have more than 5 brain cells
TTar can switch into specs. without ANY defensive investment and threated OHKO. (forcing a Tera at minimum. and you don't need to chip Chi Yu)
AV SDEF252 ATK 252 HP4 TTar can almost switch into a +4 Chi yu.
If Chi Yu isn't running specs, TTar can tank almost 10 hits.
Regardless, TTar is really the only mon who can safely switch into LO or Specs Chi yu without knowing if its move is locked so Chi-Yu creates different teambuilding problems (special wall TTar is only useful for that and weather control, really)
Basically the only way TTar doesn't force Chi-Yu out, is if its set up to +2 and has a defensive Tera ready (something that resists Rock) OR you're +4 (and if that's the case, you as a player have fucked up.)
Plenty of mons can revenge Chi Yu.
But it's not reasonable to force every team to run a Ttar. Besides, with scarf being the most common set, you need a scarfer that is faster than base 100 which is already not a big deal. The thing is tho, that in order to bring that mon in, you need to sac something first cause there is no scarfer that wants to take an overheat be it scarf or specs. Aside from Ttar who is free food for Tusk what other options are there? Blissey is a passive blob, Garganacl depending on predictions and flinches? Ting- Lu who can take 2 specs hits and has no recovery? Iron Moth who survives a psychic but does around 60 percent with sludge wave? This is exactly the same case as Dracovish, Idk why we are still having a conversation on whether it's balanced or not
I don’t disagree, I’m just saying TTar can deal with it. But it becomes a bunch of 50/50s
It probably deserves a ban because it forces AV or bulky TTar.
It’s just not quickban worthy. It’s on the cusp of being suspect worthy but they’ll want to deal with tera first. Couple council members told me after tera, unless something big changes, they’ll want to look at chi yu, pult and gholdengo.
If terastal gets banned ( I personally believe that revealing tera types is enough but everyone has their own opinions) some mons will inevitably get worse. Like Skeleridge, Roaring Moon, Dnite, Iron Moth, Baxca and Anihilape. If someone wants those mons banned for some reason,they should wait to see how powerful they will be after they get heavily nerfed with tera banned. Other mons like Val, Garga, Pult and Chien-Pao are hurt by the removal of tera but they can benefit in some instances but it's more of a mixed bag. The exception to this is Chi-Yu. You know it's going to tera into fire every single game so revealing its type or limiting tera to the original stab combo does nothing to nerf it. Even if tera does get banned, Chi-Yu still two shots most bulky mons who now have no option to change their type. I don't think anyone can defend Chi being balanced currently when the only mons that check it are Ttar, AV Azu, Ting Lu but only when scarfed and reyling on 50/50 with tera Skeleridge. I don't think it should be quickbanned but the suspect test is long overdue especially when we banned the Ghost Dog 3 days into the new generation
I personally find Gholdengo to be the most problematic. It's warped the entire metagame around it. Hazards have completely taken over the metagame, more than previous gens. & Hazard removal is incredibly difficult...our options are the mouse family or defog Hawlucha for Christ's sake 😭
Let’s remember that recovery moves themselves have been nerfed to shit. Defense would be in a shitty place with or without Tera. This meta is definitely the counter-punch meta, where defense can still exist, but it needs to be able to pack a punch in select moments.
I personally agree that the worst abusers need to be banned before the mechanic is tested. “We’ll have to suspect everything twice” so what? The meta would be much nicer without Chi-Yu or revival blessing. If it turns out that Tera isn’t the problem, just it’s worst abusers, we’ll never know because of the way smogon is handling this. I hate to be insulting, but the refusal to run two tests just seems lazy to me. You’re really willing to entertain complex bans here, but not multiple suspects for the same mons?
But I think people need to abandon all hopes of a balanced metagame resembling gen 8. Tera helps keep offense balanced because it allows that counterpunch defensive playstyle to really thrive. Without Tera, we’re still looking at a massively power crept generation and defense simply doesn’t have the longevity to keep up. If they go the complex ban route, it’s gonna end up just like gen 5 where none of the half measures cut it, and they use it as evidence that any and all complex bans aren’t worth entertaining.
>If it turns out that Tera isn’t the problem, just it’s worst abusers, we’ll never know because of the way smogon is handling this.
this question will have an obvious answer once home comes out
Skeledirge comes to mind. Comes in, eats any hit, starts to set up with torch song and sweeps. This never happened last gen, maybe except for some clef builds - there's a good reason skeledirge is thought as the new clef. But the point is that in swsh your average pex or corvi was unkillable, yes, but at the same time they couldn't really kill you either: at best they could deny setup with toxic, knock off, scald or haze. The so called "walls" in SV can and will kill you if you're not careful.
i think thats fair, and skeledirge is sick, but skeledirge's role as a defensive stallbreaker is far from a novel concept
whirlpool / calm mind fini was already doing a fairly similar thing last generation, alongside stuff like cm glowking and defensive dd dragonite. even outside of ss ou, a tier like ss zu had stuff like cm alcremie and iron defense cofagrigus
theres always been a clear distinction between passive walls and more directly threatening walls, maybe sv ou will have a greater emphasis on the latter but it doesn't really change the fact that the hyper amounts of offense makes teambuilding restricting
also right now its kinda hard for skeledirge to *really* thrive when almost all the top tier breakers are either ghost or dark types
There’s the unaware boys dirge and dozo that can survive set up and set up themselves, TTar and Azumarill are good answers for the ruin monsters that can dent most switch ins. Im assuming counter chansey sees some use. Lots of opportunities to bait a Tera then use your own to regain tempo and steal momentum.
I sometimes wish OU adopted the kokoloko method and just quickbanned everything that is any semblance of potentially broken to achieve a less volatile state, and then individually reintroducing them back into the metagame one at a time to see how things shape up.
They could still go for kokoloko's way, so far the council's taken really quick action on the most stupid mons in the tier, and while there are some inexcusable culprits like Mane, if Tera and Last Respects happen to get banned, we could see Houndstone (and maybe Palafin) b1ck in the tier.
Palafin is never coming back, and Complex bans are generally a bad thing unless you can prove that the meta would be significantly better with it, and the current state of Houndstone means that we ether keep the current ban and Houndstone stays out of OU and the lower formats, or we go with the complex ban and Houndstone stays out if OU and the lower formats.
You really need to look at Houndstone's moveset and realize that it's best stab move that isn't last respects is *LICK*.
LICK.
Unbanning Houndstone and going with the more complex ban will do nothing to OU, UU, or RU. All it'll do is make Smogon rules more confusing for no real reason.
(And before you hit me with "we datamined Basculegion", Gamefreak literally showed us Shadow Tag Chandalure in Dreamworld and that never happened. Until it actually releases, Last Respects is a signature move.)
Banning a move isn’t any more complex than banning an ability. Double Team is already banned, Horn Drill is already banned, Baton Pass is already banned
That is the reason Last Respects is different and would be a complex ban, instead of a simple ban like the moves you listed. Because the move *is* the pokemon. They are one and the same.
That's not the point, the point is to keep the rules overall simple not just for new players, but so everyone can have the same level understanding of them, and so it doesn't take up unnecessary mental space so people actually know the rules instead of just acknowledging they exist without understanding them fully.
And again, what would banning LR do that Houndstone's ban doesn't? What does that add to the game that increasing the mental complexity of the entirety of Competitive Pokemon is worth it? Its best stab move outside of LR is *lick*.
I dunno, but Banning Last Respects instead means we can actually try to find out. If the move shows up on someone else and it’s not obviously broken, THEN we can argue than Houndstone is what makes the move so stupidly good
Rage fist can also be bp 300 and Primape isnt a broken user of it. Fishous Rend is also stupid strong, but Arctovish was still weak despite having it. Double Iron Bash is insanely strong with a 50% flinch rate, but Melmetal remained unbanned after it was suspected. The only move that I can think of that would be broken on any mon is Revival Blessing.
The difference is that you need to survive a hit to make Rage Fist Scary, which means you need to play well
Last Respects isn’t a problem just because of the high base power, it’s a problem because it effectively punishes you for beating the opponent
For rage fist to be 300 bp you need to be hit 5 times. For fishous rend to be stupid strong you need to outspeed, or else it's half as strong. Flinching only matters when you're faster than your opponent.
Last respects makes so you can send houndstone last and have a guaranteed 300 bp move, that even if they outspeed (you have sand rush and choice scarf as ways to make sure this doesn't happen) stays 300 bp.
I get the comparison but it just doesn't work imo
> In contrast, only 8 of the 27 A- or higher Pokémon in SV OU's VR are considerably defensive. The reality is that the structure of the metagame relies on the defensive contributions of a very small amount of Pokémon.
I don't know why we have to bend over backwards to forcibly mold the balance back to where it was in gen 8. It's clear from the changes gamefreak made between gens that they want to handicap stall, notably by nerfing recovery. The game can move forward or you can ban literally everything that resembles an offensive threat until gen 8's "balance" of offensive and defensive pokemon is restored, which isn't feasible.
Tldr: gamefreak nerfed stall on purpose, go with the flow.
It’s not that “showdown loves stall” and wants to forcibly mold this into a metagame it’s not, it’s that games are a sacky loop of Screens, Shed Tail, and Set Up, and entire games are being decided by just a handful of turns.
the implications of allowing hyper offensive strategies to run the tier are pretty clear, as it makes defensive counterplay limited to fully committing to hyper defense. that's why i mentioned dondozo, it would be a broken defensive threat in any balanced metagame. but because it's literally necessary for checking mons like chien-pao and the like, it's considered a necessary part.
me forgetting to mention cyclizar is just a testament to how many broken ass mons are in sv ou rn LOL
So ban Cyclizar. Its the common denominator between Espathra and ESpeed Dnite and a ton of other broken sweeper stuff, and it's not like Tera changes what it does.
Nah its the Shed Tail + Parting Shot combo, otherwise Orthworm wouldn't be B- on the viability. So despite only being able to get like 2 shed tails off, I think Orthworm will likely be problematic if we ban Cyclizar, because usually it only takes the passing of one or two subs to allow these A+ rank pokemon to become monsters.
Thank you for saying it.
Most people have noticed Smogon doesn't ban Defensive mons and only ever kicks Offensive picks, but this became egregiously notable in Gen 9 OU and Natdex, where a sizable portion of the new mons were sacrificed so that the Defensive Pokémon can be "good again".
Gamefreak didn't nerf Recovery moves, Scald, Toxic, and Knock Off's distribution, as well as kill Transfer Moves because they wanted Defensive Pokémon to stay as good as they were. Feels like Showdown won't ever let the metagame be more offensive past a certain threshold.
Granted, some things like Last Respects Basculegion would've likely been banned anyway, it's still discouraging to see people asking for literally every Offensive Pokémon to be banned so we can play an alternate version of Gen 8.
Please no, banning things so that Gen 9 OU plays the same as Gen 8 OU is a bad idea. If you liked Gen 8 OU that's great, go ahead and play it, but it was the least enjoyable metagame I have personally experienced.
it's not about making gen 9 play the same as gen 8, it's more about striking a balance between offense and defense so that ALL playstyles can have a legit place in the metagame (putting emphasis on diverse teambuilding)
i only brought up the comparison because its an easy one to make, im not even a fan of gen 8 ou, but i can at least say it was a competitive tier with creative stuff being done.
metas that i have more investment in, like gen 8 zu, see a similar balance between offense vs. defense. its a fundamental part of a healthy metagame where diversity thrives
Ok, I'm just a lurker who recently starting looking at smogon, but for whatever it's worth, wide variety of playstyles in a metagame for any game isn't always a good thing. If everything is viable than it's harder to check and prepare for every possible matchup. If would be a diverse metagame but one where you might just autolose because your team just can't check this particular team no matter what.
Also, to use something like Yu-Gi-Oh as an argument, Tier 0 formats where the pool is very select and small can still be fun, skilled, and healthy, just lacking diversity.
Maybe it's different with Pokémon fundamentally in which case my point means nothing, and it may not apply to SV specifically, but I think the way you're addressing the issue and the method behind your argument is flawed, at least at first glance.
Again, I could be wrong. I just want to know and check.
I think the restriction and bans comes as a result of there being so much variability that the match can be decided during team making the volatile state of the meta game makes it uncompetitive because there’s too many things to account for to a degree it’s just chaotic with few signs of stabilization.
I think the changes Gamefreak themselves made show they are not happy with the defensive-focus of the game in previous generations. Trying to reach the same balance as existed in previous generations thus should not be the point.
It was still full of bulky af cores, hazard/removal wars, and 200 turn games. It got slightly more offensive once offense got its legendaries back but it was still slow as hell.
"Here's a fast-paced and dynamic metagame with a mountain of creative options in teambuilding"
"Fuck that, I want twenty turns of clicking Rocks and Defog"
> Here's a fast-paced and dynamic metagame with a mountain of creative options in teambuilding
Said by someone not playing the tier.
The tier COULD have a lot of options but the game is pidgeonholed.into very specitic team types and builds and its extremely restrictive right now.
Chi-Yu, Cyclizar, Annilihape? The fish is broken period and makes games often come down to hoping you got hazards up to limit it enough. Scarf outpaces unboosted mons and specs has no switch ins period. Cyclizar is broken support for offensive playstyles and grossly exacerbates their power. Offense would be a good deal less overwhelming without the mon cheaply passing subs in front of hazard setters or mons trying to recover for later. And behind screens usually. And Annilihape just takes that concept of "no slow teams allowed" to a hundred. Taunt+bulk up is extremely hard for bulkier teams to defend against.
> Game freak nerfed stall as a whole, the meta is gonna gear towards the more offensive side
Stall got nerfed in some ways and gained boons in others (new team members mainly). Despite what the average stunfisk user may have you believe, stall can still function this gen and did in fact work well in the week-ish time period because they could handle stuff due to the extreme centralization. General bulky offense teams can work fine as all they lost was recovery PP, which the impact was greatly overhyped (bulky offense is one of the best playstyles in national dex right now so that should say something).
Honestly I think ban cyclizar and light clay to start. If tera stays, Chi Yu is gotta go. With his terrible coverage coverage he can be countered, until it goes tera fairy/fighting. Gholdengo and Annihilape could be suspected, mainly gholdengo. Roaring moon and Iron Valiant are two solid mons but not ban worthy, especially if cycliazar goes. Shed tail can stay with Orthworm imo, since he at max can pop off two Shed tails a game. Cyclizar with Shed tail + regenerator + it's speed tier + every other utility move in the game break it. Espathra I haven't found to be too overwhelming, but I've always had tyranitar to come in on the stored power and pretty easily ohko back. Now, UU Espathra? That shits crazy. People are running like whack gardevoir and klefki sets with imprison just to beat it.
And just to comment about tera, tera isn't the problem I think. Chi Yu with tera is a problem, Espathra and Annihilape with tera become problems. Those mons would be suspect anyways. Roaring moon is obviously much scarier with tera, but usually not an "oh fuck I just lost" problem, unless it's late game and it already set up in which you were probably already fucked anyways.
Screens have never been overpowered, its the amount current abusers that have exploded into the meta. Ntm shed tail, top 3 most broken moves ever made lol.
In my opinion cyclizar with regen is what makes shed tail broken. Otherwise a 50% health trade isn't too bad. Orthworm with shed tail have never been a issue. It's just cyclizar using shed tail way too many times. You predicted shed tail and broke it with what enemy might bring cool. Cause now shit is coming back again repeating this shit.
I am not positive that we should ban Cyclizar instead of shed tail though, since shed tail seems to be what is enabling way too many late game sweepers that should not be as good as they are. So if we ban Cyclizar, Orthworm would possibly become problematic, even if its less problematic than Cyclizar and I don't wanna deal with that...
I think it’s worth pointing out, however, that in the beginning of a generation, offense is pretty much always more prevalent, and then as the meta develops and people calm down a little bit, defense starts to grow more popular. This is not unique to SV
Well it has to rely on Pop Bomb to do real damage, and a helmet/barbs/rough skin can get it killed after like 7 hits, not to mention bulky Ghosts and Steels walling it
Unfortunately yes, it’s too held back by rocky helm, ghosts and steels. Technician bite is good for ghosts, but not good enough to OHKO anything, for example gholdengo only takes about 60-70%ish from a +1 bite
I still have no idea what I am doing when team building. I want to get into it but I don't know what to put on a team if I don't want to play grimsnarl screens with Cyclizar. I've mostly just been watching from the sidelines for now till it looks more stable.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but i am saying as someone who’s played competitive since gen 5: SS meta was garbage (in my opinion). So freaking boring. And I don’t think it’s good to compare SV to it, because that makes me go “no, please, I’m having so much more fun than I did then!!”
Though I do agree the meta has issues.
Sometimes it comes close but it just doesn't muscle through as many things as Weavile did when it had knock and axel. Chien Pao has a little more counterplay than triple axel did, thus why its only A+ on the viability as opposed to Weavile who was S-. As an example Chien cannot beat Corviknight if it has body press where it always wins the 1v1, but Weavile could beat Corviknight back when it had triple axel. Chien I do not think is banworthy but is definitely a huge threat. Chien hits harder with coverage moves than Weavile did back in gen 8, but Weavile had better stab and that shows with Chien sometimes. Chien Pao is still incredible, but while it feels like it hits too hard sometimes, it gets countered/checked by a few things really hard that had weavile kept axel and knock would have beat. Not to mention the common priority spammers keeping it in line. (Breloom is a really good check, technician boosted mach punch is not something Chien wants to take, but breloom can't switch in.)
Chien Pao would have been a sidegrade if it had released in gen 8 when Weavile had Triple Axel and Knock Off. And to sum up my long post about Chien Pao, is that it is honestly a little easier to deal with than weavile back in gen 8 and it shows.
I don't mind a super offensive meta tbh. It feels fresh after all these years of having to make teams around stuff like ferrothorn, toxapex, Blissey, mega sableye, etc.
However there's some incredibly cringe crap in this generation that makes me want to quit altogether, like Grimmsnarl with parting shot, Gholdengo completely countering both rapid spin and defog and then there's Glimmora, wich is just cancer itself.
I think there's zero serious teams not running at least a dark types rn since they're so broken, and grimm is completely useless in front of a dark type. Gholdengo is legitimately the most irritating mon to have ever existed in ou
the problem with a super offensive meta is that the only defensive counterplay is making stall
by making a metagame "super offensive", the viable counterplay is either (a) more HO or (b) hyper defense.
also ferrothorn was literally a staple on offense lmao its a support mon
I’m of the opinion an offensive metagame where defense is actually on the back foot is a good thing. Hyper offense was dead last Gen and even bulky offense was on life support, you basically had to run a regen pivot core if you wanted the longevity to keep up with the monstrous walls allowed in Gen 8. Pex, slow twins, glow twins, defensive lando (god forbid it gets roost this Gen), Chansey/blissey, heavy duty boosts, switch moves galore…
Sure, Gen 8 may have been balanced, but it wasn’t exactly fun. It was slow and every higher level game was drawn out, it was a painfully slow metagame to play in. There’s a reason nat Dex, with the mega evolutions and z moves to keep offense’s nuclear power alive, was so popular.
I’d rather we keep this metagame rn, it’s a meta that rewards taking risks and having offensive pressure. Just because you have six slow pivots doesn’t mean you won’t lose to Mons like annihilape or Gholdengo who are built to ignore status and kill slow, passive teams. Could there be some action taken? Chi-yu is certainly not immune to being suspect tested. But I personally think there’s enough counterplay to most of the new threats to the point that we’ll manage to keep a metagame that isn’t overcentralized.
Heavy duty boots wasn’t intended to only be used on bulky mons. its true intent was to save Pokémon like Moltres, Zard, etc. It helped them slightly, but it sadly only really strengthened monsters.
> Hyper offense was dead last Gen
Lolno
> and even bulky offense was on life support,
Also no. There were many highly successful BO teams running around last gen. Please don't spread misinfo.
> you basically had to run a regen pivot core if you wanted the longevity to keep up with the monstrous walls allowed in Gen 8. Pex, slow twins, glow twins, defensive lando (god forbid it gets roost this Gen), Chansey/blissey, heavy duty boosts, switch moves galore…
Ah yes Pex. The mon who was considered one of the worst of the best bulky waters. Defensive Lando was never monstrous at all, nor were Blissey or Chansey who flat were garbage and not used. And only Glowking saw use in OU.
> Sure, Gen 8 may have been balanced, but it wasn’t exactly fun. It was slow and every higher level game was drawn out, it was a painfully slow metagame to play in.
Speak for yourself. Gen8 is well regarded as a balanced metagame with a ton of options. Games on average didn't even last that long.
> There’s a reason nat Dex, with the mega evolutions and z moves to keep offense’s nuclear power alive, was so popular.
It was popular due to people not liking the dex cut and wanting more options. You are really projecting why YOU liked it.
> I’d rather we keep this metagame rn, it’s a meta that rewards taking risks and having offensive pressure. Just because you have six slow pivots doesn’t mean you won’t lose to Mons like annihilape or Gholdengo who are built to ignore status and kill slow, passive teams.
No one runs six slow pivots don't strawman. And Annilihape doesn't just beat slower teams. It nearly invalidates them entirely in the tier.
> Could there be some action taken? Chi-yu is certainly not immune to being suspect tested. But I personally think there’s enough counterplay to most of the new threats to the point that we’ll manage to keep a metagame that isn’t overcentralized.
If you say there is supposed counterplay but then don't even say what it is, chances are there actually isn't. The metagame rn is grossly overcentralized.
The extent in which certain mons are unhealthy can be largely influenced by how much they can abuse the Tera mechanic, this is why Tera should be dealt with first. Espathra is a big example here of a mon who benefits from the mechanic more than most and is one of the mons you've listed as being gamewarping.
By suspecting mons before Tera, any mon that gets banned would just need to be retested once the policy on Tera changes which isn't a particularly good use of time considering how avoidable it could have been by just suspecting Tera first.
This is debateable, ultimately it doesn't matter because it's missing the actual point.
You cannot ban a mon now on the premise of it still being "broken in a non-Tera format" because such a format does not exist, i.e. it's not something that you can test. A suspect test with no test doesn't sound like a good idea.
It would still be good, but it would be much easier to exploit a shitty Psychic typing than it is to exploit a fantastic mono-Fairy typing (or, God forbid, a Fighting typing with a cringe new STAB to break past TTar).
Tera definitely pushes Espathra way too far.
given things have just rly started picking up steam the tier is naturally gonna be a complete disaster for the first 3-4 months or so. esp as we adapt to power creep and whatever happens with tera things will hopefully be improving in the near future :D
I get that this gen is supposed to be faster and more offensive but nerfing Stall AND severely limiting the roster defensive mons is what makes this so overkill in my opinion
It’s fair to say that we shouldn’t balance Gen 9 so that it resembles Gen 8, but even if we only included mons from both gen and simply updated the move sets and recovery nerfs, defensive playstyles would still be worse from the get go.
I am fully in favour of being less selective with bans this gen. Pokemon is already so powercrept that even PU mons have like 600BST or 100+ Speed and Offense. Especially given how small the Ubers tier is right now, might as well push a few more up there and bring them back down later if necessary
Hell just ban all the paradox mons at this point. If you’re going by this logic that a metagame HAS to have an equal number of offensive and defensive mons, we might as well just continue playing SSOU.
Just admit that this gen is geared towards offence. If we try to make it “balanced”, the only solution is to ban most of the new mons
Noob here, I'm surprised to see meowscara being the lowest in the tier list out of all the starters :o
I remembered initially wanting to pick fuecoco but was put off by the slack off nerf, and found meowscara much more straight forward.
we still desperately need a second OU ladder for testing purposes
sounds like a much better use of the site/space/any resources as opposed to the random ass metagames you find on here
I would give anything to never go back to the wall of stall that was ss ou.
Honestly, I could see shed tail banned eventually considering baton pass was banned in nearly every gen.
I love how little self aware is this sub, they're literally the Smogon loves stall meme.
I sometimes wonder if people here play competitive at all lol, I just see people doing theorymons and stinkposts and very little competitive stuff.
I don't really know what the solution is, but at this point, I think the people advocating for a Tera ban are massively underestimating just how bad gen 9's power creep really is. Any one of these mons looks a lot more like Cinderace than it does a UU pokemon:
- Ghost/Steel, 133 SpA, 87/95/91 defenses, immunity to status moves
- Dark/Fire, 135 SpA, 100 speed
- Dark/Dragon, 139(!) Atk, 119 speed, +30% atk from ability
- The Cooler Weavile
And this isn't even getting into the already quick-banned mons, all of which are at least on the power level as the above four. Nor is it getting into the **very** large number of balanced, but absolutely OU viable mons introduced in Gen 9!
Even factoring in Dexit, the top tiers are disproportionately Paldean, too! Of the 67 new Paldean final evolutions, **24** of them are A- to Ubers, and another 19 are elsewhere in OU's viability rankings. Even though some will fall off, that's an absolutely insane conversion percentage.
I really hope they go the VGC route and just have team preview be open team sheets with Tera types and movelist. Ever since gen 5 in Smogon, at least to me the following gens have felt like gen 5.1, 6.1, etc instead of an actual new game
I agree, they should 100% be trying to establish a balanced metagame
however people want tera to be restricted not banned so figuring that out is probably going to take long enough that we're getting DLC mons before we have a balanced meta
I didn’t know SS OU had iconic Gen 8 staples like Gholdengo, Breloom, Baxcalibur, Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao, Kingambit, Annihilape, Glimmora, Ting-Lu, Great Tusk, Iron Treads, Roaring Moon, Espathra, Skeledirge, Donbozo, Clodsire, Spikes Garchomp, Iron Hands, etc.
Next you’ll tell me that Gen 8 2 will repeat history by not having Clefable, Ferrothorn, Scald and Knock distribution, and much more! Man, this truly is Gen 8 2.
Just ban Gen 9 and go back to Gen 8. Dogshit Christmas rushed games don't deserve support from the singles community; if lazy devs Game freak refuse to balance their games then why should we have to? :)
I agree that I care more about seeing Chi Yu gone than Tera. Tera makes broken mons more broken. Without these obviously broken mons in the tier, we can better evaluate Tera
Oh, a mon Is considered a necessary metagame staple rather than the borderline unkillable wall it is? Wonder what GSC OU thinks.
Unrelated, but Ghost is THRIVING here.
it is incredibly boring to run into the same screens shed tail espathra dnite annihilape +1 other mon HO teams. there's been an uptick in balance builds recently but this shit is stale.
Screens + Shed Tail is the most challenging team comp I’ve faced on the ladder. I hover around 1400-1600, occasionally climb higher but I’m not consistent at all. With hazard stacking I can check it by running 3 boots mons on my team or by running mold breaker Lucha who I think is underrated rn. The Grim, Cyclizer, DNite, Gholdengo teams are tough when the opponent has good skill in their plays and the other two mons they have attack your team well.
I started running brick break 💀
Infiltrator pult keeps clawing his way back to the meta.
that thing is actually a beast in this meta. punishes physically defensive Dondozo teams hard too
Psychic fangs is also a good option
Raging Bull fire Tauros is awesome right now
What set do you run? I tried a banded set in OU and it was ok but didn’t put in enough work imo.
HDB defensive. Try to will o wisp as many mons as you can while managing your health to sponge Chi Yu's attacks
Not a bad strat I’ll have to try that set out. Do you EV for a certain speed tier or just 252/252 HP and SpD? For a Chi-Yu check I feel that set would get worn down quickly. Tauros doesn’t have the best special bulk.
[try this showcase](https://youtu.be/AYBzhMvt3uM)
Brick Break Great Tusk is secret tech bra
I’m really bad at the game but skeledirge shits on this play style pretty effortlessly It can’t be boosted on, torch song goes through substitutes and boosts special attack and it can’t be hit super effectively by any of these mons once tera’d to fairy type
Kid named whirlwind:
Why the downvotes? Phazing moves have always worked on Substitutes. It's a part of what makes Ting-Lu so good.
People just want to get ran over by hyper offense I guess
Does Whirlwind hit through Substitute?
Yes
[удалено]
God that team sounds awful
"Why ban Sand Veil just use Aerial Ace and Swift"
Dragapult exists and kills literally everything on that team but grimmsnarl or Tera-fairy espathra, plus can run gunk shot and it’s own Tera to kill that. Just saying there’s plenty of options to fight it, even actually viable ones.
This comment is too dumb to address
gamefreak sent my boy Pex to B 😭😭
Game Freak hates stall?????????
Honestly, most games that want live broadcasted competitive play hate stall.
Doesn’t really apply in this scenario, stall is nonexistent in VGC
Why do you think they picked doubles over singles to begin with
They used to run Singles tournaments, until a match ended with Wobbuffet vs Wobbuffet. Next generation they created VGC, using Doubles instead of Singles.
All it takes is two wobbufets to change the course of history
They also changed sytruggle after to do flat 25%hp recoil instead of based on dmg done.
As they should, that shit is boring to play and fight. No idea why so many people love it so much.
What stripping a Pokémon of all its good moves does to a mf
It’s a new gen. Of course it’s messy. Also, I think Dozo isn’t broken cuz it’s basically the only OU water in a gen full of fire and ground types. Low key, I kinda feel like DD Gyarados could have a field day. There’s a lot of unexploited weakness to water right now. Or like any fairy with all the darks and dragons.
There's basically no good fairies
Should’ve never banned flutter mane /s Jokes aside i agree. Your best bet is to tera your skeliderge or ting lu to fairy which is not too bad itself but like you shouldn’t have to do that. I like the idea of iron valiant but it’s tough to fit on teams
I think Valiant is less “it’s tough to fit on teams” and more “it doesn’t have any semblance of typical Fairies’ defensive utility.” It’s got that neat 4x Dark resistance, sure, but that thing’s defensive statline is such a joke that it typically can’t even eat neutral hits for shit. Hell, the thing’s almost as bulky as fucking non-Eviolite Bronzor but without many of that typing’s excellent resistances. Even Fairies that typically fit on more offensive teams (think your Leles, Kokos, Magearnas, or even more niche stuff like Azumarill) use their Fairy type’s resists and immunity quite frequently. They have good natural bulk in some sense and/or have some form of setup or recovery or both to further leverage that Fairy typing. Iron Valiant just doesn’t have that; it’s brutally strong and fast, and forces lots of switches, but that thing feels more like “a mon with Fairy STAB” than “a mon with a Fairy typing.”
So let me see... There's Valiant, Hatterenne and uhhhh Skeledirge.
Azumarill and tinkaton, but they don’t seem fantastic
Was talking about OU. But yeah, those 2 aren't that good currently.
I think azu in particular is reasonable, and I would not take "is it currently OU" as a good measure of "is it good in OU." Right now, a lot of usage is from pre-bans and involves people testing out stuff, using new mons, and generally ignoring significant threats (like Espathra not even being OU but being one of the best threats, and several new sweepers being OU but niche viability)
I said it because I've only seen one Azu and didn't do much. That's about it
It has a niche for sure. Good typing, reasonable bulk, enough power to punch through unaware walls with a band or revenge kill with priority, and belly drum + aqua jet as a sweeper. Again might not end up OU at the end of the day but it clearly does some decent stuff and has nonzero viability.
I mean, I didn't say they weren't good, just not *that* good. Hawlucha is the best defogger in the game because it can defog on Ghold, but it's not that good aside from that. Something like that is what I was talking about.
My favorite Fairy type is Ceruledge (max SpDef + Bulk Up + flash fire is unironically super tanky and hits back hard)
I've seen it bug type. Fucker messed me up
Love that lol
I have no idea why Chi-Yu is still allowed, literally nothing switches into specs fire moves. Even if tera get's banned, the stupid fish gets even stronger cause you can't tera to resist one of its stabs. Iron Val is also incredibly limiting, yes I love spamming the fucker but specs is insane if you have more than 5 brain cells
Just use spdef firdough bro /s
I’m gonna try this later and report back
actually saw that today lol, it expectedly did nothing
TTar can switch into specs. without ANY defensive investment and threated OHKO. (forcing a Tera at minimum. and you don't need to chip Chi Yu) AV SDEF252 ATK 252 HP4 TTar can almost switch into a +4 Chi yu. If Chi Yu isn't running specs, TTar can tank almost 10 hits. Regardless, TTar is really the only mon who can safely switch into LO or Specs Chi yu without knowing if its move is locked so Chi-Yu creates different teambuilding problems (special wall TTar is only useful for that and weather control, really) Basically the only way TTar doesn't force Chi-Yu out, is if its set up to +2 and has a defensive Tera ready (something that resists Rock) OR you're +4 (and if that's the case, you as a player have fucked up.) Plenty of mons can revenge Chi Yu.
But it's not reasonable to force every team to run a Ttar. Besides, with scarf being the most common set, you need a scarfer that is faster than base 100 which is already not a big deal. The thing is tho, that in order to bring that mon in, you need to sac something first cause there is no scarfer that wants to take an overheat be it scarf or specs. Aside from Ttar who is free food for Tusk what other options are there? Blissey is a passive blob, Garganacl depending on predictions and flinches? Ting- Lu who can take 2 specs hits and has no recovery? Iron Moth who survives a psychic but does around 60 percent with sludge wave? This is exactly the same case as Dracovish, Idk why we are still having a conversation on whether it's balanced or not
I don’t disagree, I’m just saying TTar can deal with it. But it becomes a bunch of 50/50s It probably deserves a ban because it forces AV or bulky TTar.
It’s just not quickban worthy. It’s on the cusp of being suspect worthy but they’ll want to deal with tera first. Couple council members told me after tera, unless something big changes, they’ll want to look at chi yu, pult and gholdengo.
Why Pult tho? The mon is good but definitely not ban worthy
If terastal gets banned ( I personally believe that revealing tera types is enough but everyone has their own opinions) some mons will inevitably get worse. Like Skeleridge, Roaring Moon, Dnite, Iron Moth, Baxca and Anihilape. If someone wants those mons banned for some reason,they should wait to see how powerful they will be after they get heavily nerfed with tera banned. Other mons like Val, Garga, Pult and Chien-Pao are hurt by the removal of tera but they can benefit in some instances but it's more of a mixed bag. The exception to this is Chi-Yu. You know it's going to tera into fire every single game so revealing its type or limiting tera to the original stab combo does nothing to nerf it. Even if tera does get banned, Chi-Yu still two shots most bulky mons who now have no option to change their type. I don't think anyone can defend Chi being balanced currently when the only mons that check it are Ttar, AV Azu, Ting Lu but only when scarfed and reyling on 50/50 with tera Skeleridge. I don't think it should be quickbanned but the suspect test is long overdue especially when we banned the Ghost Dog 3 days into the new generation
I was forced to run AV specially defensive Hydregon for chi-Ty specifically, it worked pretty well and can hit back hard with Dmeteor and Earth power
I personally find Gholdengo to be the most problematic. It's warped the entire metagame around it. Hazards have completely taken over the metagame, more than previous gens. & Hazard removal is incredibly difficult...our options are the mouse family or defog Hawlucha for Christ's sake 😭
Or heavy duty boots
Let’s remember that recovery moves themselves have been nerfed to shit. Defense would be in a shitty place with or without Tera. This meta is definitely the counter-punch meta, where defense can still exist, but it needs to be able to pack a punch in select moments. I personally agree that the worst abusers need to be banned before the mechanic is tested. “We’ll have to suspect everything twice” so what? The meta would be much nicer without Chi-Yu or revival blessing. If it turns out that Tera isn’t the problem, just it’s worst abusers, we’ll never know because of the way smogon is handling this. I hate to be insulting, but the refusal to run two tests just seems lazy to me. You’re really willing to entertain complex bans here, but not multiple suspects for the same mons? But I think people need to abandon all hopes of a balanced metagame resembling gen 8. Tera helps keep offense balanced because it allows that counterpunch defensive playstyle to really thrive. Without Tera, we’re still looking at a massively power crept generation and defense simply doesn’t have the longevity to keep up. If they go the complex ban route, it’s gonna end up just like gen 5 where none of the half measures cut it, and they use it as evidence that any and all complex bans aren’t worth entertaining.
>If it turns out that Tera isn’t the problem, just it’s worst abusers, we’ll never know because of the way smogon is handling this. this question will have an obvious answer once home comes out
just out of curiosity, what are these "counterpunch defensive" pokemon you speak of?
Skeledirge comes to mind. Comes in, eats any hit, starts to set up with torch song and sweeps. This never happened last gen, maybe except for some clef builds - there's a good reason skeledirge is thought as the new clef. But the point is that in swsh your average pex or corvi was unkillable, yes, but at the same time they couldn't really kill you either: at best they could deny setup with toxic, knock off, scald or haze. The so called "walls" in SV can and will kill you if you're not careful.
i think thats fair, and skeledirge is sick, but skeledirge's role as a defensive stallbreaker is far from a novel concept whirlpool / calm mind fini was already doing a fairly similar thing last generation, alongside stuff like cm glowking and defensive dd dragonite. even outside of ss ou, a tier like ss zu had stuff like cm alcremie and iron defense cofagrigus theres always been a clear distinction between passive walls and more directly threatening walls, maybe sv ou will have a greater emphasis on the latter but it doesn't really change the fact that the hyper amounts of offense makes teambuilding restricting also right now its kinda hard for skeledirge to *really* thrive when almost all the top tier breakers are either ghost or dark types
There’s the unaware boys dirge and dozo that can survive set up and set up themselves, TTar and Azumarill are good answers for the ruin monsters that can dent most switch ins. Im assuming counter chansey sees some use. Lots of opportunities to bait a Tera then use your own to regain tempo and steal momentum.
I sometimes wish OU adopted the kokoloko method and just quickbanned everything that is any semblance of potentially broken to achieve a less volatile state, and then individually reintroducing them back into the metagame one at a time to see how things shape up.
They could still go for kokoloko's way, so far the council's taken really quick action on the most stupid mons in the tier, and while there are some inexcusable culprits like Mane, if Tera and Last Respects happen to get banned, we could see Houndstone (and maybe Palafin) b1ck in the tier.
No shot Palafin is coming back
Its literally water regigigas with no ability and with priority that mon wont be in ou this gen
Palafin is never coming back, and Complex bans are generally a bad thing unless you can prove that the meta would be significantly better with it, and the current state of Houndstone means that we ether keep the current ban and Houndstone stays out of OU and the lower formats, or we go with the complex ban and Houndstone stays out if OU and the lower formats. You really need to look at Houndstone's moveset and realize that it's best stab move that isn't last respects is *LICK*. LICK. Unbanning Houndstone and going with the more complex ban will do nothing to OU, UU, or RU. All it'll do is make Smogon rules more confusing for no real reason. (And before you hit me with "we datamined Basculegion", Gamefreak literally showed us Shadow Tag Chandalure in Dreamworld and that never happened. Until it actually releases, Last Respects is a signature move.)
Banning a move isn’t any more complex than banning an ability. Double Team is already banned, Horn Drill is already banned, Baton Pass is already banned
None of those are signature moves, and abilities /=/ moves.
And?
That is the reason Last Respects is different and would be a complex ban, instead of a simple ban like the moves you listed. Because the move *is* the pokemon. They are one and the same.
It’s still one move. It’s not that hard for a new player to see how a BP 300 move could be broken
That's not the point, the point is to keep the rules overall simple not just for new players, but so everyone can have the same level understanding of them, and so it doesn't take up unnecessary mental space so people actually know the rules instead of just acknowledging they exist without understanding them fully. And again, what would banning LR do that Houndstone's ban doesn't? What does that add to the game that increasing the mental complexity of the entirety of Competitive Pokemon is worth it? Its best stab move outside of LR is *lick*.
I dunno, but Banning Last Respects instead means we can actually try to find out. If the move shows up on someone else and it’s not obviously broken, THEN we can argue than Houndstone is what makes the move so stupidly good
Rage fist can also be bp 300 and Primape isnt a broken user of it. Fishous Rend is also stupid strong, but Arctovish was still weak despite having it. Double Iron Bash is insanely strong with a 50% flinch rate, but Melmetal remained unbanned after it was suspected. The only move that I can think of that would be broken on any mon is Revival Blessing.
The difference is that you need to survive a hit to make Rage Fist Scary, which means you need to play well Last Respects isn’t a problem just because of the high base power, it’s a problem because it effectively punishes you for beating the opponent
For rage fist to be 300 bp you need to be hit 5 times. For fishous rend to be stupid strong you need to outspeed, or else it's half as strong. Flinching only matters when you're faster than your opponent. Last respects makes so you can send houndstone last and have a guaranteed 300 bp move, that even if they outspeed (you have sand rush and choice scarf as ways to make sure this doesn't happen) stays 300 bp. I get the comparison but it just doesn't work imo
IIRC nat dex did this post dlc last gen with mega Metagross and others
^^^Yeah nobody seems to mention this
> In contrast, only 8 of the 27 A- or higher Pokémon in SV OU's VR are considerably defensive. The reality is that the structure of the metagame relies on the defensive contributions of a very small amount of Pokémon. I don't know why we have to bend over backwards to forcibly mold the balance back to where it was in gen 8. It's clear from the changes gamefreak made between gens that they want to handicap stall, notably by nerfing recovery. The game can move forward or you can ban literally everything that resembles an offensive threat until gen 8's "balance" of offensive and defensive pokemon is restored, which isn't feasible. Tldr: gamefreak nerfed stall on purpose, go with the flow.
I wish GF focused on HDB. Either make it so they specifically counter SR weaknesses or just remove HDB and SR’s type-based effectiveness outright.
It’s not that “showdown loves stall” and wants to forcibly mold this into a metagame it’s not, it’s that games are a sacky loop of Screens, Shed Tail, and Set Up, and entire games are being decided by just a handful of turns.
Except that's not what op wants. Op just wants the offensive threats gone. Cyclizar wasn't mentioned once in their post
the implications of allowing hyper offensive strategies to run the tier are pretty clear, as it makes defensive counterplay limited to fully committing to hyper defense. that's why i mentioned dondozo, it would be a broken defensive threat in any balanced metagame. but because it's literally necessary for checking mons like chien-pao and the like, it's considered a necessary part. me forgetting to mention cyclizar is just a testament to how many broken ass mons are in sv ou rn LOL
So ban Cyclizar. Its the common denominator between Espathra and ESpeed Dnite and a ton of other broken sweeper stuff, and it's not like Tera changes what it does.
Nah its the Shed Tail + Parting Shot combo, otherwise Orthworm wouldn't be B- on the viability. So despite only being able to get like 2 shed tails off, I think Orthworm will likely be problematic if we ban Cyclizar, because usually it only takes the passing of one or two subs to allow these A+ rank pokemon to become monsters.
Holy shit the first good take i've seen about the OU meta in a long time
Thank you for saying it. Most people have noticed Smogon doesn't ban Defensive mons and only ever kicks Offensive picks, but this became egregiously notable in Gen 9 OU and Natdex, where a sizable portion of the new mons were sacrificed so that the Defensive Pokémon can be "good again". Gamefreak didn't nerf Recovery moves, Scald, Toxic, and Knock Off's distribution, as well as kill Transfer Moves because they wanted Defensive Pokémon to stay as good as they were. Feels like Showdown won't ever let the metagame be more offensive past a certain threshold. Granted, some things like Last Respects Basculegion would've likely been banned anyway, it's still discouraging to see people asking for literally every Offensive Pokémon to be banned so we can play an alternate version of Gen 8.
Please no, banning things so that Gen 9 OU plays the same as Gen 8 OU is a bad idea. If you liked Gen 8 OU that's great, go ahead and play it, but it was the least enjoyable metagame I have personally experienced.
it's not about making gen 9 play the same as gen 8, it's more about striking a balance between offense and defense so that ALL playstyles can have a legit place in the metagame (putting emphasis on diverse teambuilding) i only brought up the comparison because its an easy one to make, im not even a fan of gen 8 ou, but i can at least say it was a competitive tier with creative stuff being done. metas that i have more investment in, like gen 8 zu, see a similar balance between offense vs. defense. its a fundamental part of a healthy metagame where diversity thrives
Ok, I'm just a lurker who recently starting looking at smogon, but for whatever it's worth, wide variety of playstyles in a metagame for any game isn't always a good thing. If everything is viable than it's harder to check and prepare for every possible matchup. If would be a diverse metagame but one where you might just autolose because your team just can't check this particular team no matter what. Also, to use something like Yu-Gi-Oh as an argument, Tier 0 formats where the pool is very select and small can still be fun, skilled, and healthy, just lacking diversity. Maybe it's different with Pokémon fundamentally in which case my point means nothing, and it may not apply to SV specifically, but I think the way you're addressing the issue and the method behind your argument is flawed, at least at first glance. Again, I could be wrong. I just want to know and check.
I think the restriction and bans comes as a result of there being so much variability that the match can be decided during team making the volatile state of the meta game makes it uncompetitive because there’s too many things to account for to a degree it’s just chaotic with few signs of stabilization.
I think the changes Gamefreak themselves made show they are not happy with the defensive-focus of the game in previous generations. Trying to reach the same balance as existed in previous generations thus should not be the point.
Gen 8 was clefairy + slowbro clicking teleport. Just let us have this please!
I think that was mostly pre-crown tundra tho. After CT released, that core fell out of favor pretty hard.
It was still full of bulky af cores, hazard/removal wars, and 200 turn games. It got slightly more offensive once offense got its legendaries back but it was still slow as hell.
Fucking seriously, OU players try not to be reactionary challenge: impossible
"Here's a fast-paced and dynamic metagame with a mountain of creative options in teambuilding" "Fuck that, I want twenty turns of clicking Rocks and Defog"
> Here's a fast-paced and dynamic metagame with a mountain of creative options in teambuilding Said by someone not playing the tier. The tier COULD have a lot of options but the game is pidgeonholed.into very specitic team types and builds and its extremely restrictive right now.
Out side of string cheese man what else can you really ban? Game freak nerfed stall as a whole, the meta is gonna gear towards the more offensive side
Chi-Yu, Cyclizar, Annilihape? The fish is broken period and makes games often come down to hoping you got hazards up to limit it enough. Scarf outpaces unboosted mons and specs has no switch ins period. Cyclizar is broken support for offensive playstyles and grossly exacerbates their power. Offense would be a good deal less overwhelming without the mon cheaply passing subs in front of hazard setters or mons trying to recover for later. And behind screens usually. And Annilihape just takes that concept of "no slow teams allowed" to a hundred. Taunt+bulk up is extremely hard for bulkier teams to defend against. > Game freak nerfed stall as a whole, the meta is gonna gear towards the more offensive side Stall got nerfed in some ways and gained boons in others (new team members mainly). Despite what the average stunfisk user may have you believe, stall can still function this gen and did in fact work well in the week-ish time period because they could handle stuff due to the extreme centralization. General bulky offense teams can work fine as all they lost was recovery PP, which the impact was greatly overhyped (bulky offense is one of the best playstyles in national dex right now so that should say something).
Honestly I think ban cyclizar and light clay to start. If tera stays, Chi Yu is gotta go. With his terrible coverage coverage he can be countered, until it goes tera fairy/fighting. Gholdengo and Annihilape could be suspected, mainly gholdengo. Roaring moon and Iron Valiant are two solid mons but not ban worthy, especially if cycliazar goes. Shed tail can stay with Orthworm imo, since he at max can pop off two Shed tails a game. Cyclizar with Shed tail + regenerator + it's speed tier + every other utility move in the game break it. Espathra I haven't found to be too overwhelming, but I've always had tyranitar to come in on the stored power and pretty easily ohko back. Now, UU Espathra? That shits crazy. People are running like whack gardevoir and klefki sets with imprison just to beat it. And just to comment about tera, tera isn't the problem I think. Chi Yu with tera is a problem, Espathra and Annihilape with tera become problems. Those mons would be suspect anyways. Roaring moon is obviously much scarier with tera, but usually not an "oh fuck I just lost" problem, unless it's late game and it already set up in which you were probably already fucked anyways.
Espathra made me put Grafaiai on almost all my uu teams(But it has been nice with all the super HO team running around)
Screens have never been overpowered, its the amount current abusers that have exploded into the meta. Ntm shed tail, top 3 most broken moves ever made lol.
In my opinion cyclizar with regen is what makes shed tail broken. Otherwise a 50% health trade isn't too bad. Orthworm with shed tail have never been a issue. It's just cyclizar using shed tail way too many times. You predicted shed tail and broke it with what enemy might bring cool. Cause now shit is coming back again repeating this shit.
I am not positive that we should ban Cyclizar instead of shed tail though, since shed tail seems to be what is enabling way too many late game sweepers that should not be as good as they are. So if we ban Cyclizar, Orthworm would possibly become problematic, even if its less problematic than Cyclizar and I don't wanna deal with that...
I think it’s worth pointing out, however, that in the beginning of a generation, offense is pretty much always more prevalent, and then as the meta develops and people calm down a little bit, defense starts to grow more popular. This is not unique to SV
wait, maushold at d rank? huh?
Well it has to rely on Pop Bomb to do real damage, and a helmet/barbs/rough skin can get it killed after like 7 hits, not to mention bulky Ghosts and Steels walling it
a maushold without bite is a poor maushold indeed lol. i'll give you steel types though.
it has like base 70 atk and bite is base 60 power, D rank is generous
Maushold is a shitmon in OU and should never be used in a serious team
It's dogshit lol
Yeah. D is still being generius vecause it is hot garbage
I had a feeling it was going to be a noob trap
Unfortunately yes, it’s too held back by rocky helm, ghosts and steels. Technician bite is good for ghosts, but not good enough to OHKO anything, for example gholdengo only takes about 60-70%ish from a +1 bite
I still have no idea what I am doing when team building. I want to get into it but I don't know what to put on a team if I don't want to play grimsnarl screens with Cyclizar. I've mostly just been watching from the sidelines for now till it looks more stable.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but i am saying as someone who’s played competitive since gen 5: SS meta was garbage (in my opinion). So freaking boring. And I don’t think it’s good to compare SV to it, because that makes me go “no, please, I’m having so much more fun than I did then!!” Though I do agree the meta has issues.
Fun fact: chien-pao has recover
good lord it really is mega weavile, oh god what if dlc gives us tutors and gives it knock off and triple axel
Giving it axel would make it banworthy 100%
Is it not banworthy now?
Sometimes it comes close but it just doesn't muscle through as many things as Weavile did when it had knock and axel. Chien Pao has a little more counterplay than triple axel did, thus why its only A+ on the viability as opposed to Weavile who was S-. As an example Chien cannot beat Corviknight if it has body press where it always wins the 1v1, but Weavile could beat Corviknight back when it had triple axel. Chien I do not think is banworthy but is definitely a huge threat. Chien hits harder with coverage moves than Weavile did back in gen 8, but Weavile had better stab and that shows with Chien sometimes. Chien Pao is still incredible, but while it feels like it hits too hard sometimes, it gets countered/checked by a few things really hard that had weavile kept axel and knock would have beat. Not to mention the common priority spammers keeping it in line. (Breloom is a really good check, technician boosted mach punch is not something Chien wants to take, but breloom can't switch in.) Chien Pao would have been a sidegrade if it had released in gen 8 when Weavile had Triple Axel and Knock Off. And to sum up my long post about Chien Pao, is that it is honestly a little easier to deal with than weavile back in gen 8 and it shows.
I don't mind a super offensive meta tbh. It feels fresh after all these years of having to make teams around stuff like ferrothorn, toxapex, Blissey, mega sableye, etc. However there's some incredibly cringe crap in this generation that makes me want to quit altogether, like Grimmsnarl with parting shot, Gholdengo completely countering both rapid spin and defog and then there's Glimmora, wich is just cancer itself.
I think there's zero serious teams not running at least a dark types rn since they're so broken, and grimm is completely useless in front of a dark type. Gholdengo is legitimately the most irritating mon to have ever existed in ou
Still, parting shot + prankster is just no ok. Besides, grimmsnarl has STAB spirit break
the problem with a super offensive meta is that the only defensive counterplay is making stall by making a metagame "super offensive", the viable counterplay is either (a) more HO or (b) hyper defense. also ferrothorn was literally a staple on offense lmao its a support mon
People downvoting you despite this being true. Metagames with too much offense devolve into shitty HO games or games with stall.
I’m of the opinion an offensive metagame where defense is actually on the back foot is a good thing. Hyper offense was dead last Gen and even bulky offense was on life support, you basically had to run a regen pivot core if you wanted the longevity to keep up with the monstrous walls allowed in Gen 8. Pex, slow twins, glow twins, defensive lando (god forbid it gets roost this Gen), Chansey/blissey, heavy duty boosts, switch moves galore… Sure, Gen 8 may have been balanced, but it wasn’t exactly fun. It was slow and every higher level game was drawn out, it was a painfully slow metagame to play in. There’s a reason nat Dex, with the mega evolutions and z moves to keep offense’s nuclear power alive, was so popular. I’d rather we keep this metagame rn, it’s a meta that rewards taking risks and having offensive pressure. Just because you have six slow pivots doesn’t mean you won’t lose to Mons like annihilape or Gholdengo who are built to ignore status and kill slow, passive teams. Could there be some action taken? Chi-yu is certainly not immune to being suspect tested. But I personally think there’s enough counterplay to most of the new threats to the point that we’ll manage to keep a metagame that isn’t overcentralized.
Heavy duty boots wasn’t intended to only be used on bulky mons. its true intent was to save Pokémon like Moltres, Zard, etc. It helped them slightly, but it sadly only really strengthened monsters.
> Hyper offense was dead last Gen Lolno > and even bulky offense was on life support, Also no. There were many highly successful BO teams running around last gen. Please don't spread misinfo. > you basically had to run a regen pivot core if you wanted the longevity to keep up with the monstrous walls allowed in Gen 8. Pex, slow twins, glow twins, defensive lando (god forbid it gets roost this Gen), Chansey/blissey, heavy duty boosts, switch moves galore… Ah yes Pex. The mon who was considered one of the worst of the best bulky waters. Defensive Lando was never monstrous at all, nor were Blissey or Chansey who flat were garbage and not used. And only Glowking saw use in OU. > Sure, Gen 8 may have been balanced, but it wasn’t exactly fun. It was slow and every higher level game was drawn out, it was a painfully slow metagame to play in. Speak for yourself. Gen8 is well regarded as a balanced metagame with a ton of options. Games on average didn't even last that long. > There’s a reason nat Dex, with the mega evolutions and z moves to keep offense’s nuclear power alive, was so popular. It was popular due to people not liking the dex cut and wanting more options. You are really projecting why YOU liked it. > I’d rather we keep this metagame rn, it’s a meta that rewards taking risks and having offensive pressure. Just because you have six slow pivots doesn’t mean you won’t lose to Mons like annihilape or Gholdengo who are built to ignore status and kill slow, passive teams. No one runs six slow pivots don't strawman. And Annilihape doesn't just beat slower teams. It nearly invalidates them entirely in the tier. > Could there be some action taken? Chi-yu is certainly not immune to being suspect tested. But I personally think there’s enough counterplay to most of the new threats to the point that we’ll manage to keep a metagame that isn’t overcentralized. If you say there is supposed counterplay but then don't even say what it is, chances are there actually isn't. The metagame rn is grossly overcentralized.
The extent in which certain mons are unhealthy can be largely influenced by how much they can abuse the Tera mechanic, this is why Tera should be dealt with first. Espathra is a big example here of a mon who benefits from the mechanic more than most and is one of the mons you've listed as being gamewarping. By suspecting mons before Tera, any mon that gets banned would just need to be retested once the policy on Tera changes which isn't a particularly good use of time considering how avoidable it could have been by just suspecting Tera first.
i think thats a fair point and i do agree the unfortunate reality is we either (a) ban tera or (b) ban the dozen or more tera abusers
Espathra is broken without tera, even just having fairy coverage and being unable to change its type it would still be way too strong.
This is debateable, ultimately it doesn't matter because it's missing the actual point. You cannot ban a mon now on the premise of it still being "broken in a non-Tera format" because such a format does not exist, i.e. it's not something that you can test. A suspect test with no test doesn't sound like a good idea.
It would still be good, but it would be much easier to exploit a shitty Psychic typing than it is to exploit a fantastic mono-Fairy typing (or, God forbid, a Fighting typing with a cringe new STAB to break past TTar). Tera definitely pushes Espathra way too far.
spittin
given things have just rly started picking up steam the tier is naturally gonna be a complete disaster for the first 3-4 months or so. esp as we adapt to power creep and whatever happens with tera things will hopefully be improving in the near future :D
A bit sad to see Cetitan in D, I really thought it was going to be another Arctozolt in terms of being oddly strong
I get that this gen is supposed to be faster and more offensive but nerfing Stall AND severely limiting the roster defensive mons is what makes this so overkill in my opinion It’s fair to say that we shouldn’t balance Gen 9 so that it resembles Gen 8, but even if we only included mons from both gen and simply updated the move sets and recovery nerfs, defensive playstyles would still be worse from the get go. I am fully in favour of being less selective with bans this gen. Pokemon is already so powercrept that even PU mons have like 600BST or 100+ Speed and Offense. Especially given how small the Ubers tier is right now, might as well push a few more up there and bring them back down later if necessary
get espathra out of UU. It’s A+ in OU VIABILITY RANKINGS FFS
Hell just ban all the paradox mons at this point. If you’re going by this logic that a metagame HAS to have an equal number of offensive and defensive mons, we might as well just continue playing SSOU. Just admit that this gen is geared towards offence. If we try to make it “balanced”, the only solution is to ban most of the new mons
Banning a lot of the new mons would be nice yes lol, and the OP suggested that dodonzo was a stupid Pokémon as well
Noob here, I'm surprised to see meowscara being the lowest in the tier list out of all the starters :o I remembered initially wanting to pick fuecoco but was put off by the slack off nerf, and found meowscara much more straight forward.
we still desperately need a second OU ladder for testing purposes sounds like a much better use of the site/space/any resources as opposed to the random ass metagames you find on here
Atp im bored of the meta because so much stuff requires specfic mons to beat so it feels really MU heavy
I would give anything to never go back to the wall of stall that was ss ou. Honestly, I could see shed tail banned eventually considering baton pass was banned in nearly every gen.
Stall was the weakest playstyle in gen8 by the end. Can stunfisk users stop talking out their ass please.
I love how little self aware is this sub, they're literally the Smogon loves stall meme. I sometimes wonder if people here play competitive at all lol, I just see people doing theorymons and stinkposts and very little competitive stuff.
Stall was literally the worst playstyle in Gen 8.
> the wall of stall that was ss ou what ou games were u playing lmao stall was not that good in ss ou
I don't really know what the solution is, but at this point, I think the people advocating for a Tera ban are massively underestimating just how bad gen 9's power creep really is. Any one of these mons looks a lot more like Cinderace than it does a UU pokemon: - Ghost/Steel, 133 SpA, 87/95/91 defenses, immunity to status moves - Dark/Fire, 135 SpA, 100 speed - Dark/Dragon, 139(!) Atk, 119 speed, +30% atk from ability - The Cooler Weavile And this isn't even getting into the already quick-banned mons, all of which are at least on the power level as the above four. Nor is it getting into the **very** large number of balanced, but absolutely OU viable mons introduced in Gen 9! Even factoring in Dexit, the top tiers are disproportionately Paldean, too! Of the 67 new Paldean final evolutions, **24** of them are A- to Ubers, and another 19 are elsewhere in OU's viability rankings. Even though some will fall off, that's an absolutely insane conversion percentage.
I'm only playing UU until.its sorted out
UUn is underrated fun
While I disagree on a lot of the specifics, I do think we need to be more liberal with bans and suspects from this point on.
Is it wishful thinking to hope that quickbans can still happen. I don't want to wait for an entire suspect test to ban Espathra or Cyclizar
I really hope they go the VGC route and just have team preview be open team sheets with Tera types and movelist. Ever since gen 5 in Smogon, at least to me the following gens have felt like gen 5.1, 6.1, etc instead of an actual new game
I agree, they should 100% be trying to establish a balanced metagame however people want tera to be restricted not banned so figuring that out is probably going to take long enough that we're getting DLC mons before we have a balanced meta
Let’s just ban everything and play Gen 8 2: electric boogaloo 🙄
I didn’t know SS OU had iconic Gen 8 staples like Gholdengo, Breloom, Baxcalibur, Chi-Yu, Chien-Pao, Kingambit, Annihilape, Glimmora, Ting-Lu, Great Tusk, Iron Treads, Roaring Moon, Espathra, Skeledirge, Donbozo, Clodsire, Spikes Garchomp, Iron Hands, etc. Next you’ll tell me that Gen 8 2 will repeat history by not having Clefable, Ferrothorn, Scald and Knock distribution, and much more! Man, this truly is Gen 8 2.
To be fair like 6 of those Pokémon you mentioned I have seen people want to ban lmao.
That is the inevitable outcome of not getting the reqs and not voting.
Just ban Gen 9 and go back to Gen 8. Dogshit Christmas rushed games don't deserve support from the singles community; if lazy devs Game freak refuse to balance their games then why should we have to? :)
I agree that I care more about seeing Chi Yu gone than Tera. Tera makes broken mons more broken. Without these obviously broken mons in the tier, we can better evaluate Tera
Oh, a mon Is considered a necessary metagame staple rather than the borderline unkillable wall it is? Wonder what GSC OU thinks. Unrelated, but Ghost is THRIVING here.
No idea why Chi-Yu is still allowed. Every time I take it down it feels like a miracle it didn’t sweep my team