I am not going to use fucking electrode on an OU team. I don't care if foul play consistently kills dragapult.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Suspect]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Just use hisuian version lmao.
252+ SpA Electrode-Hisui Chloroblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Ogerpon-Wellspring: 201-237 (66.7 - 78.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Also funny explosion number
252+ Atk Tera Normal Electrode-Hisui Explosion vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 288-339 (95.6 - 112.6%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
As you can see due to this super amazing mon, waterpon is completely balanced.
Cheryl.
Celesteela is Life
Being nitpicky here but Regieleki would probably be able to fit Spin just fine on its sets because 99% of the time it's only attacking from 3 moves (TBolt/VSwitch/Tera Blast), the only other move I'd consider is maybe Protect to scout Band Rillabooms and maybe like a First Impression Lokix (shoutouts to the Lokix guy keep up the good fight lmao).
I mean, fair, but that's also probably because it doesn't have any other offensive mons to abuse lmao.
Though it does get acrobatics. Hmmmm...
Grassy Terrain Tera blast grass Grassy Seed Eleki with acrobatics as coverage. I like it.
But I think my statement does still hold true, even if it could fit in spin, it would not click it since big damage numbers are better.
I don't think OU is still ready to deal with Sheer Force + Life Orb boosted moves from Landorus, especially now since it gained Nasty Plot so its breaking power is even better than it was
Primarina @ Leftovers
Ability: Liquid Voice
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Def / 8 SpD / 4 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Tera Type: Steel
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic Noise
- Draining Kiss
- Substitute
Have u guys had success with this and can possibly be generous enough to share decent quality replays of it in action? Wanted to try this myself but havent had the time to build a team and play
Ability: Liquid Voice
EVs: 252 HP / 244 Def / 8 SpD / 4 Spe
IVs: 0 Atk
Tera Type: Steel
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Psychic Noise
- Draining Kiss
- Substitute
Have u guys had success with this and can possibly be generous enough to share decent quality replays of it in action? Wanted to try this myself but havent had the time to build a team and play
To add onto this, ever since starting the tier my entire gripe with Paradoxmons is the BE interactions. They don't have to sacrifice power of a turn to get where they are; they are not locked into moves; and in many cases, it has been the reason why so many of these fucking things feel so unfun to play against. I was using Scarf Meow for the longest time to deal with Valiants since that mon is so obnoxious to play against for multiple reasons.
A lot of these mons without Booster Energy feel fair; you might say it would make the faster mons harder to deal with, but as someone who likes usign scarf on non trad mons select things like Scarf H-Samu reliably outspeed Dragapult and OHK's; Scarf Kleavor too. These are good surprise tools to deal with that stupid thing. And are far more interesting interaction wise than getting a free boost off BE. Without the likes of BE, Roaring becomes easier to contend with; Valiant has to actually choose an item; etcetc. It would solve a lot of the issues I have in the tier that come down to "do you wanna mash red card or scarf on fast mons to play the game?" among other things.
Would it fix everything? no, but it would sure as hell go a longer way to make things less stressful on the builder. The power level goes down, and makes dealing with teams of these things substantially smoother.
lets go booster energy suspect, seems like a good idea but those people running the tier are probably nvr gna let that happen 'we want our game to be as close to cartridge as possible guys!!!!"
As the guy running the tier, I just want to note that this post is nonsense; I do not think you know what you are talking about.
Booster Energy’s tiering has nothing to do with cartridge accuracy; item bans happen all the time and aren’t complex at all. We have other singular items banned and, with sufficient evidence, even more can be on an as-needed basis.
Booster Energy is not banned because it lacks sufficient backing as a common thread in causing Pokemon to be banworthy. If more users were to be deemed banworthy or metagame circumstances were to shift, we could have a greater dialogue on it. But for now, that’s not the case.
sry teacher dont give me detention plz ill read the smogon tiering policies more in depth next time (even tho idk where tf to find them) and tbh thats fine w me i dont struggle with be
i love roaring moon!!!
i love roaring moon!!!
They’re here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/tiering-policy-framework.3628026/ — but please just VM or PM me with any questions, I’m always happy to help and contextualize. Rather be transparent and help people than make people do tedious reading lol
obnoxious. i gave ogerpon a 2 on the last survey but if there were a new one today i would give it either a 3 or a 4. granted, it's by no means uncounterable, since it's heavily limited by entry hazards, struggles to find its footing against faster teams and can't even fit every move it wants onto one set. but i find it very concerning that you can never be sure if it has that option that completely neuters either your defensive check or would-be revenge killer, which is made even worse given how resists already get 2-shot by boosted ivy cudgels and power whips. i think it's definitely worth some serious discussion and perhaps even a suspect test later down the line
i have expressed interest in retesting baxcalibur in the past but i am aware that it is a wildly unpopular take (and for a valid reason honestly). at this point in time i personally don't see any merit in retesting it but we'll have to see how the metagame evolves from here
with that being said i think all the other pokemon you mentioned should not touch OU with a 6-foot poll
last time i'll edit this post to reply to another one but what counters earth power/focus blast/NP/gravity landorus-I? all of its would-be checks (gliscor, corviknight, cresselia, zapdos, moltres, lando-T, latias, etc.) now get obliterated by earth power and even pokemon like blissey suddenly have to respect it unless you want it to get obliterated by focus blast. the fact that its only counter is specially defensive slither wing shows that landorus-I is still just as hard for defensive teams to handle as ever. you could retest it on the basis that its speed tier leaves it vulnerable to a lot of the faster pokemon in the tier but if that's the case then why not unban pokemon like chi-yu?
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To echo some stated thoughts, by no means killable or unstoppable. But once it gets going through one of its 79 sets it becomes a nightmare to deal with. Guess wrong and you either get swept or lose 2 mons if you don't have a bulky enough resist. Which due to SD/Unlucky crits, becomes a lot harder to deal with than it should be.
Should be suspected imo, I feel like it'll only get more difficult to deal with over time and require more devotion to answering it as people figure out how wide its potential net is.
Stall, weather teams, and Hyper Offense all lean heavily on either the defensive or offensive spectrum, and thus are easier to have a "good matchup" into. Stall's pitiful speed and lack of offensive power allows terrifying breakers like Ursaluna and Hoopa Unbound to absolutely devastate them, for what normally holds them back (poor typing/lackluster speed) cannot be abused by the stall team. For Hyper Offense, they have a historically poor matchup into stall for similar reasons: they stack a bunch of offensive threats that are fast and (relatively) frail, so fat defensive mons can easily stop these teams in their tracks, leading to mons like Dondozo and Blissey being their worst nightmares.
However, Balance has a mix of defensive and offensive mons, so it should theoretically have at least a decent matchup into anything in the tier. Slow breakers can be beat by the offensive mons that outspeed and threaten them, while the fast sweepers can be checked by the defensive core of the team, or cleaned by the offensive mons of the team. When a mon is strong enough to break through the defensive core while also able to beat its offensive mons, that's a problem, because it's strong and either fast, bulky, or both.
Ogerpon-Wellspring is a blight on this meta that has been wreaking havoc since its introduction, our only brief reprieve was while Arch was legal, but ever since it stopped needing Superpower to succeed it's become a huge problem once again. SD 3 attacks with Play Rough is a ludicrous set, as Finch said the ONLY Pokémon that can safely switch in is useless Shitmoonguss, which is unacceptable from a teambuilding standpoint. Not only is it virtually unwallable without Tera, but another complication with attempting to defensively check it is the access to knock off, the fact that fat teams essentially have to trade Tera and a Mon's life long term to deal with it limits any team that isn't offense to a ridiculous degree. Common Teras DESIGNED to deal with Wellspring such as Dragon and Fighting don't even win vs Play Rough. The Knock access means that no matter which variant of Wellspring you're facing, its mere presence is a huge threat to your defensive core. Cudgel is a very bullshit move as well, the high crit chance can overcome counterplay like defense boosting moves and the lack of contact prevents counterplay like flame body from functioning. While it's true that Pokémon like Pult (if Draco connects) and Roaring Moon (if it's booster speed and that's intact) are good offensive answers to Wellspring, being able to only offensively check a Pokémon as splashable as Wellspring makes teams and gameplay both very one-note. The reliable offensive counterplay is pretty one dimensional too, Waterpon is very tied to the commonality of Rillaboom structures right now, and being part of introducing that sort of cheese is just not healthy because of the lose-lose scenarios Rillaboom presents while it's on the field (seriously name one bad thing that can happen to a Rillaboom user while it's out, shit is basically mini arch)
I remember when Arch made Ogerpon a very risky pick in early DLC2 and teambuilding was very varied, interesting, and balance teams were actually in a pretty good spot, i had fun playing the tier and running different teams, but that all went to shit after Wellspring resurged and we are back in an offense meta. People ask "the tier just feels so chaotic what IS it exactly" and, bar Tera, Wellspring and the dynamics it introduces, which is to say forcing us into a dog eats dog meta where the stronger faster team wins and nobody or nothing has any room to breathe, is the reason.
A Wellspring suspect would have been more worthwhile than both Roaring Moon and Gliscor during DLC1, or Gouging now, it's long long overdue, has made the tier worse for over 6 months now, and really needs to go. I would love to see it banned, and the meta will become a great deal more fun, interesting, and diverse once that's done. Waterpon must go.
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I know you hate waterpon with a PASSION, and I'm not saying that the meta will not become better, but waterpon is not the only issue with this meta. It does not have THAT much of a stranglehold, that's equivalent to sneasler/bloodmoon levels of broken, which it is not.
Also, the meta was in no way in hell diverse during the arch meta, you were forced to run multiple bulky water resists and clod/lando-T/ting-lu. Even then, the rest of your team had to be good against rain, otherwise you were screwed.
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What is the point of this statement?
I've expressed my feelings about W-Ogerpon a few days ago so I won't make a whole essay again but the tldr is that while it's very good it also possess very huge flaws that make it fine : Limited to one Tera, no item so extremely hazard weak (people don't use T Spikes enough in this meta because of all the poison types but W-Ogerpon shines the brightest on teams that can't afford poison types other than Glim or Iron Moth both of which are one time use pokemon 99% of the time); very bad 4MSS, support dependant and only decent speed tier that makes it easily RK.
Now when it's good it's really good but it can also be garbage and I would always vote DNB on match up dependant Pokemon unless they really warp the tier. W-Ogerpon is not even close to the most broken mons in the tier and it being good against one playstyle is certainly not a good enough argument to make me change my mind. Especially when said playstyle can adapt to it with Tera Grass or you know predict, like it's the case against other unwallable pokemon on paper.
On a completely different note, I recently noticed that Quick Claw is still a legal item and I would like to know why ? I know the chance of it activating is laughable but if we are trying to make the game as skillful as possible I don't see why this item was not banned alongside Bright Powder, King's Rock etc... (I almost lost to a 5 dead allies quick claw Gambit and it was terrifying >_>)
Now when it's good it's really good but it can also be garbage and I would always vote DNB on match up dependant Pokemon unless they really warp the tier. W-Ogerpon is not even close to the most broken mons in the tier and it being good against one playstyle is certainly not a good enough argument to make me change my mind. Especially when said playstyle can adapt to it with Tera Grass or you know predict, like it's the case against other unwallable pokemon on paper.
On a completely different note, I recently noticed that Quick Claw is still a legal item and I would like to know why ? I know the chance of it activating is laughable but if we are trying to make the game as skillful as possible I don't see why this item was not banned alongside Bright Powder, King's Rock etc... (I almost lost to a 5 dead allies quick claw Gambit and it was terrifying >_>)
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I’m sorry but the it has 4MSS needs to quit. It does not have bad 4MSS, let alone very bad. Just SD stabs and Play Rough has extremely limited defensive counter play and extra options are just there for flexibility and diversity. The hazard issue is not enough to hold it back , nor is being limited to one Tera type (which isn’t even bad for it when said type is still very good and jacks up Ivy Cudgel to unacceptable levels.
It’s not that support dependent either I’m not sure where you get that. Tspikes also are not common because Glowking is very common on a wide range of teams, Clodsire is on stall and the occasional iron moth soaks them up too. Plus against teams with lots of boots mons, they end up deadweight.
it’s never garbage. Come on now. Unless you’re playing a very fast team which almost never lets it a free turn to come in, it will always put in some kind of work. It’s not a match up dependant mon either. Also Tera grass sucks on a lot of mons using it.
Wellspring has an abnormally large and restrictive impact on the way bulkier teams are built compared to most everything except Kyurem. And this is the result of the power it has that doesn’t come at the expense of speed like other extremely powerful breakers, which causes a bigger strain on building than you seem to believe.
Mmm, no.
It does have 4mss, sure, sd+stabs+play rough can screw over the entire metagame, but that makes it extremely predictable in what it is going to do. If it wants to run anything else, such as knock off or encore, it is making itself quite weak to dragon types, which basically every team has. Sure, they might be able to catch someone off guard, but most of the time its like "oh, I didn't expect that. Guess I can switch to my dragon type" And the hazard issue is definetely a big enough flaw to mention most of the time because not being able to wear HDB constricts it to teams that pack heavy hazard removal, which can be kinda difficult. It won't stop it all of the time, but hazards definetely restrict it. Didn't you say the exact same thing with cornerpon? If so, how is this much different? Finally, not being able to tera out of it's base typing is definetely a hinderance. You know what tera type it's going to be, that means that counterplay is a lot more predictable.
That's the main issue with waterpon, it's predictable, and the few innovations it can do ultimately are niche and don't adress the core issues with it.
Kyurem isn't as restrictive as Wellspring.... Kyurem at least has answers that are useful on their own like Garg, Spdef Clef, Gking, any Tera Fairy (or Ice if you are cool tho that's niche) mon ever on top of a middling speed tier, common weaknesses that leave it vulnerable to to speed control options like Pult, Weavile, Zama etc. an overreliance on Boots (which is a useful pro over wellspring tbf but make it difficult to switch into the stuff it wants to check) etc. When playing balance, there are a lot of points Kyurem is unable to make much progress. The main strain comes from the guessing game of whether its physical or special, which is somewhat similar to Valiant, but even then there are answers that can respond to that. Its annoying for Bulky Offense since its reasonably fast and difficult to switch into, but the Balloon Kingambit / Gholdengo on most these teams or other options like Gking, Volcarona, Iron Crown, and Primarina do fine enough against it. Ironically, the best Kyurem builds tend to run it ON balance with strong pivots like Corviknight and Gking, which makes the arguement that its overly restrictive to balance a bit overblown since its also one of their stronger pieces. I am the biggest Gholdengo defender out there, but I'd argue that mon is more restrictive to balance with its high set variety, greater oppurtunities to come in, better typing, Trick, and stronger ability to make progress (and I will always be a DNB Dengo guy, love my gold lil goblin <3).
Compared to Kyurem, Wellspring is even more limiting since there are very few points where it is unable to make progress, unless you run niche crap like Amoongus (which isn't completely awful but difficult to justify in this meta). In DLC1, I liked Wellspring's presence more since Amoonguss was easier to justify with no Gliscor + Spore access . Wellspring itself kept more cheese in line with Encore (specifically Manaphy, which I actually hate fighting more than Wellspring, even now lol). However, with Wellspring running Play Rough over Encore now risk free, its arguably become the very evil it swore to destroy (Manaphy), with higher initial power to boot. You are mostly checking it through niche Tera usage or positioning Meow / Pult / Zama (which are not able to OHKO it + don't have the longevity to stave it off). The fact its so fast on top of it gives less room to play around it I feel. The teras Wellspring requires are more niche than the ones Kyurem requires too imo.
That's not what 4mss is at all, there is a definition and "has perfect coverage but wants utility too" is not it, it's when a Pokémon can't run all the coverage it needs to succeed, this is not a factor at all, and it's also not 4mss because knock off and play rough tend to serve different purposes, knock is an option specifically if you want to disrupt balance/stall and you have several other wincon options, play rough is far and away the best on wincon waterpon. Claiming a mon that can run an excellent set with perfect coverage has "4mss" because it has other very good options is just nonsense
"waterpon is spikes weak" is also a very surface level analysis that doesn't consider waterpon's function on the battlefield in anyway, with play rough where you're coming in after pult is dispatched of, clicking SD, and winning, how many times are you really coming into where spikes become a problem? Sure it can't be a pivot, but that's not what it does best. However vs teams that don't use spikes, which is a lot of teams especially hyper offense, what difference does it even make? Spike spam is down substantially compared to earlier in DLC2 due to the momentum sink that setting multiple layers is in the high energy meta where every turn matters that we're in right now, sitting around and setting spikes has to be done very carefully unless you're running or playing against stall, and this dynamic in and of itself is due to the pace that Ogerpon forces by completely shitting on non-offense - why do you think Ghold usage has dropped? No one has time to hazard stack! So sure, Waterpon can't avoid taking damage from spikes, but that really hardly matters.
you're endlessly harping on about how "predictable" waterpon is but my question is exactly what difference does it make? When I saw Rillaboom and Sneasler on team preview and Sneasler comes into battle I know exactly what's about to go down but what does that change exactly? Was that a reason to keep Sneasler around? "Oh man I know Ogerpon has the set with 0 switch ins!" Thank god! You are placing far too much importance on "innovation" and "set variety" which does explain some of the... uh... creative sets you've shared in this thread I suppose. Furthermore, the play rough vs knock off variance is an issue irregardless because both are common and essentially have opposite counterplay and very different severe consequences on switch-in
overall every paragraph here is very shoddy reasoning... "mmm, no."
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Scarf actually takes advantage of this thinking and destroys any faster mon. It's extremely powerful because now you have a high powered mon that can outspeed everything in the meta with prediction. Many a time have dragapult's stayed in on my scarf kyurem only to be decimated by modest freeze-dry (modest is to guarentee an OHKO on dragapult, it's a bit annoying, but the speed tier is good enough to the point that the extra power is worth it).
I do think that kyurem is ultimately banworthy, but I think the main thing is the set variety, which pushes it over waterpon in my eyes. At least with waterpon, it's going to mainly be running sd, stabs and play rough, with the occassional encore/knock off which may be a bit scary but ultimately dealable. With kyurem, I think "Oh, my glowking can deal with HDB variants easily", and then gets destroyed by specs blizzard. Or, my special wall thinks its going to wall it, and then it dds and its ggs.
Well, 4mss is defined as (article about it :https://www.smogon.com/articles/ssuu-4mss)
4 Moveslot Syndrome (more commonly simplified as 4MSS) is a situation where a certain Pokémon has multiple good moves but can only pick certain ones, limiting its offensive or utility capabilities.
I would say that waterpon is a mon with 4mss, not to a egregious degree, but stil something to be considered. Sure, does stabs + play rough destroy a lot of the tier, yes, it does, but to try to beat its counterplay, which is something like set-up mons that can take a hit, it has to drop play rough in order to beat them. That means now, that dragon types can switch in. I would think "Having to drop an important move in order to properly defeat counterplay" is 4mss. Again, not the worst case of it, but still 4mss.
Honestly, a lot of times. To truly threaten a team, waterpon needs a turn to sd up, which the opponent will realistically not give you, due to how threatening a +2 waterpon is. That then threatens out the waterpon, which if hazards are down, limits it to 3-4 opportunities to set up. HO teams don't give it the opportunity to get to +2, as they are blasting it with really big damage. Basically every team besides HO has some form of hazards, with 1 layer of spikes going down and stealth rocks being on the field for most of the game. I would say that a mon that has to deal with that constantly is hazards weak. It's only form of recovery realistically (no one is using synthesis on it) is water absorb and maybe horn leech. Horn leech is not used too much, as power whip is much more poweful, so water absorb it is. An opponent with an alomomola is not going to be clicking a water move when waterpon is on the field, so water absorb doesn't come into play as often as it should. Now, water absorb is definetely an amazing ability to discourage such plays, but most of the time you are not going to be getting that recovery.
Predictability is not the be all, end all of a pokemon's viability, I get that. Kingambit basically has one set with two diferent polishes of paint. It's between "I'll hit you REALLY hard" or "I'll hit you really hard, but might get rid of my weaknesses". What is realistically coming in on Sneasler? Or what is stopping it from getting the unburden boost and letting it set up? The diference between the two is how easy is it to stop them. I would say that waterpon is easier to stop then something like sneasler. At least there is decent ways to outspeed it and it doesn't have a defense boost.
Waterpon is really difficult to switch in to, I can agree with that. But the issue is that it finds difficulty switching in itself and once it does, it has to start sweeping. I would compare it to hawlucha in a way, though hawlucha is MUCH easier to deal with. Hawlucha on paper should be the scariest mon in the tier. It can outspeed everything, it has suprising bulk, and +2 acrobatics hurts most things. The thing is, it has one opportunity to do that sweep. If it doesn't, then it will fail. Waterpon is a much less extreme example, but it has a few issues it shares with lucha. Due to hazards, it can't come in that often, and it is threatened out by a lot of faster mons.
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I take issue with the speed part of this being very relevant or OP. 110 base speed isn't even fast in gen 9. You yourself say the impact is on bulkier teams, but those same bulkier teams also tend to be slower than most of the wall breakers like Kyurem, Gouging Fire, or even Hoopa-U in many cases. For the teams where the speed would actually be an issue, 110 speed is nothing. For teams that are vulnerable to wallbreakers, it doesn't really matter that much whether the base speed is 110 or 90ish or even 80ish. It's still probably going to be faster than the walls it's supposed to break.
And if it was about speed tier, something like D-Speed can run a mixed attacking set that is very difficult for most things to switch into. You outspeed the entire unboosted metagame with only a + speed nature. Most people aren't going to call that OP. At least one of the reasons why is because speed on a wallbreaker isn't the most effective ban argument. And before anybody misunderstands me, I'm not even trying to argue about D-Speed being problematic. Just that some of the same standards of speed for a wallbreaker could apply more to other things.
If people want to argue a mon like Wellspring is hard to switch into and this creates too many problems or strain on the builder, I'm cool with that. I even agree somewhat. But increasingly, we are seeing that not be a convincing reason why this community will ban something as mons like Kyurem and Gouging Fire are still here. The standards for a ban seem really high right now.