np: SM UU Stage 2.1 - You're Welcome (Manaphy quickbanned - see post 92)

Status
Not open for further replies.
I think the next suspect should be hawlucha. It feels way too similar to gyarados, salamence, and porygon z in that it is excessively hard to wall after it's speed and attack boosts and is also too hard to revenge kill. The reason it is so hard to revenge kill is that it lives priority moves under aura veil. I have been using alolatales and hawlucha myself and when I can get a swords dance and sky attack off, the sweeps come too easy. I'm also encountering many other players with alolatales and hawlucha and the mirror matchup is very annoying. It's pretty much a race to get hawlucha in under aura veil so that it can just sweep before the opponent gets his hawlucha in.
This game in particular shows how broken hawlucha is: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7uu-613334554
Not to be rude but your point on Hawlucha is invalid. Hawlucha may not be walled by common defensive mons, but it is walled by the likes of Gliscor and Hippowdon. Scarfed pokemon like Xurkitree and Terrakion pretty much force Hawlucha to swap out, it loses 1v1 against both Mega-Aero and Mega Aggron, and unless it's jolly nature, loses to Starmie as well. Also, the replay you show is also invalid to how it's "broken", because it would've been dead if it weren't for the Aurora Veil. So really, that replay shows that Alolan-Ninetails is good in UU, more than how Hawlucha is "broken".
 
Last edited:

dingbat

snek
is a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I agree with the sentiment that Lucha is nowhere near suspect worthy, but I will explain it differently. Unlike last gen, where Lucha had way fewer issues steamrolling through entire teams with Sub SD (which I still think is its best set), it's nowhere as easy to pull that off this generation even with the introduction of Aurora Veil, mainly because this meta has effectively caught up to Lucha in a way that has "balanced" it. On one hand, this meta has become so much more offensive, which would theoretically (and if played correctly, in practice) give Lucha a much easier time sweeping through teams due to the loss of defensive measures against strong boosted attacks. But at the same time, with huge threats capable of either initially outspeeding it or rk-ing it such Scizor, Weavile, and Mega Aero being found on basically all offensive teams, Lucha has a much harder time getting that crucial Swords Dance boost without getting KO'd beforehand. On the opposite front, any competant stall team is also capable of neutering a Hawlucha sweep, especially those with Quagsire as long as they can keep that alive.

Also regarding the next potential suspect test, I'm hoping it's not Manaphy because it just wouldn't make sense to atm, especially if there's still plenty of valid reason for other 'mons like Xurk to be tested.
 

Moutemoute

Error 404
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
I disagree with what you said brodudeguy. Like you said, Hawlucha is broken under Veil but it's the same case for a lot of setup-sweeper. Tbh without the Veil it's OHKO after cheap damages by both Ice Shard of Mamoswine and Weavile :

252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 218-257 (73.4 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 237-281 (79.7 - 94.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 203-242 (68.3 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Without the Veil it's clearly not that easy to play with Hawlucha. Imo the main problem right now is Veil Offense and Xurkitree cuz they are both brainless.
 
Issue is that sub is common on Hawlucha, so it isn't really so simple to revenge. It's also got pretty decent bulk/typing to come in on things that it resists, set up a sub, and keep setting up.
 

Freeroamer

The greatest story of them all.
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributor
Can i ask what the current council stance on veil is? I'm unsure of my own opinion so this is by no means a pls ban post, but the vast majority of the Pokémon that seem to be considered for suspecting benefit enormously from veil support (Manaphy and Xurkitree in particular) and I was wondering that if veils effect on their performance in the metagame might be considered before they were suspected. Veil in itself definitely has an enormous amount of effect within the metagame, as its very difficult to prevent at its source - Very few Pokémon faster than Ninetales run Taunt, the only Pokémon which Defogs comfortably on Ninetales is Empoleon which becomes susceptible to Hypnosis/Encore, Ninetales is just generally fast at getting it up. I guess what I'm trying to ramble on about is whether these Pokémon can be suspected honestly without first considering whether veil is broken or not, otherwise that's going to be a discussion point in every suspect going forwards - is this Pokémon genuinely broken, or does veil make it broken?
 
Last edited:

Moutemoute

Error 404
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
I agree that Veil are kinda a pain to deal with but tbh Xurkitree was allready "busted" before Aurora Veil Offense became hype. But I agree that Veil Offense are real good in the actual metagame but this kind of suspect are difficult one cuz what do we need to suspect ? Ninetales Alola ? Not a huge threat tbh.. So Aurora Veil ? But Aurora Veil on his own is not a problem. It's clearly the fact of Ninetales Alola + Veil which can be a problem.
 
i could see a complex ban of no hail settgin ability + the move aurora veil on same mon if needed, as auroras + sandslash veil is for sure worse and requires two mons, and tales by itself is rather underwhelming.

as for my personal stance I'm leaning towards it warranting a suspect or at least a further look by council, as the styles and mons veil can support are pretty unlimited. literally any set up mon, from xurk to vincune to hawlucha benefit greatly from +2 +2 bulk, and as mentioned its hard to remove the veil as you risk encore from tales or just damage/free setup for the offensive mon abusing veil. the only like risk free option really is mega sharpedo's psychic fangs but thats one move on one mon that can somewhat reliably break veil
 
I disagree with what you said brodudeguy. Like you said, Hawlucha is broken under Veil but it's the same case for a lot of setup-sweeper. Tbh without the Veil it's OHKO after cheap damages by both Ice Shard of Mamoswine and Weavile :

252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 218-257 (73.4 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 237-281 (79.7 - 94.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Hawlucha: 203-242 (68.3 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Without the Veil it's clearly not that easy to play with Hawlucha. Imo the main problem right now is Veil Offense and Xurkitree cuz they are both brainless.
As Nightingales pointed out Sub Hawlucha is most definitely a thing, once lucha is in against something it can beat it either gets a free sub as you switch out or gets a free KO as you use the mon currently in to break it's sub, unless you happen to be running Doublade, Crobat, Chandy, or something unviable like Rotom-Fan. Maybe it's not a ''brainlessly'' easy to use mon, but at the very least I would say it requires more thought to beat then it does to use.
Also let's say veil does gets banned in the future, what's to stop people from just running screens?
I could easily run something silly like say Klefki with Eject Button, toss up a Reflect and then get a safe switch into Hawlucha, leaving Klef alive and lucha's physical checks with the same problem they have now. And that's just one (bad) example of the ways Hawlucha could still be used effectively, people are bound to find more effective methods of getting screens up.

Veil's great and all but there's a very good reason why Hawlucha and Xurkitree are favored over most setup sweepers on those teams. They are low risk high reward mons who just need one opportunity to come in to immediately give the opponent grief, especially Xurk.

And on the subject of Xurkitree, why is it still here? At best people find it annoying, at worst it wins games due to getting lucky with Z-Hypnosis, and the only arguments people have been able to mustard up in it's defense is that things like Mega-Aero, scarf Krook, and Mega-lix beat it, which is baffling to say when Shuca exists, of course veil/screens just shortens the already small list of things that can successfully revenge it.
 

Freeroamer

The greatest story of them all.
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributor
The difference then is that in your situation there, you only have 3 turns with only one defensive stat boosted and that's before you've even set up so any number of scenarios would cut short your sweep - the opp only needs to stall screens before picking you off with priority, with the setup turns for something like Hawlucha they might only lose one mon. You also now get ohkoed by things like florges Moonblast and in general hit a lot harder by special moves making setup a lot harder and pushing you into priority ranges even with reflect up. Screens have always been extremely difficult to pull off and an extremely niche play style in any tier I've ever played so I don't think it's at all comparable to aurora veil in this case lol. Screens Klefki also tends to be a pretty suboptimal mon as any number of things switch into it and do their own thing, while Ninetales is deceptively difficult to switch into thanks to Freeze Dry / Fire coverage backed up by the threat of Hypnosis, as well as Aurora Veil being far superior to singular screens. As a final point, you don't tier by "there's no point banning this cos they'll just use this". You ban an element if it's deemed broken, then if something else is deemed broken you ban that down the line.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top