Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion

[awyp]

Why is Shed Tail uncompetitive and not just OP? Its hardly comparable to RNG elements that we mostly banned for uncompetitiveness like Sheer Cold, Double Team, Moody, etc. nor does it remove a fundamental element of the game like Shadow Tag / Arena Trap do (though those abilities may just be more of a case of being OP than uncompetitive). Closest analog to Shed Tail is Baton Pass, but I do think Baton Pass had a much greater form of "nuance" to its uncompetitiveness because of full chains being a thing. W/ individual passers like Venemoth, Smeargle, or Scolipede, I feel it was a case of them just being OP because it was extremely difficult to stop them from passing boost due to Protect + Speed Boost or Sleep move + boosting move, which seems to be the case w/ Orthworm, where the issue is that dealing 75%+ damage to it is difficult, making it hard to prevent a Shed Tail pass.

It's because it's actually uncompetitive, its a move that allows a free sub (on a slow switch) onto anything, in conjunction with Booster mons it kind of becomes a very good opportunity to just setup a sweep. As someone mentioned before there's only 1 Whirlwind user and 1 Infiltrator user so your options are limited. Like Shed Tailing from Ortho in front of a Mon like Tusk without Close Combat is taking opportunity of a terrible matchup, it takes no skill to do that it just takes meta knowledge. It's pure matchup fishing that doesn't take much skill on the other hand it takes a lot of skill to get past it if you're the opposition.

 

[tigers jaw]

Why is Shed Tail uncompetitive and not just OP? Its hardly comparable to RNG elements that we mostly banned for uncompetitiveness like Sheer Cold, Double Team, Moody, etc. nor does it remove a fundamental element of the game like Shadow Tag / Arena Trap do (though those abilities may just be more of a case of being OP than uncompetitive). Closest analog to Shed Tail is Baton Pass, but I do think Baton Pass had a much greater form of "nuance" to its uncompetitiveness because of full chains being a thing. W/ individual passers like Venemoth, Smeargle, or Scolipede, I feel it was a case of them just being OP because it was extremely difficult to stop them from passing boost due to Protect + Speed Boost or Sleep move + boosting move, which seems to be the case w/ Orthworm, where the issue is that dealing 75%+ damage to it is difficult, making it hard to prevent a Shed Tail pass.

because it isn’t overwhelmingly strong, rather it mitigates the input of player choice in the outcome of games. in other words, it isn’t “broken”, it just enables other things to be broken in an uncompetitive manner.

 

[The1&OnlyKing]

Bruh I cant wait for Home! So that I can starting using actual ground immunities beside corv. Rotom is soo trash.
252+ Atk Quaquaval Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Rotom-Wash: 141-166 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

 

[KamenOH]

it takes no skill to do that it just takes meta knowledge.

I'd argue that having meta knowledge is a skill unto itself, for it must be had in order for effective plans to be made. You can go places knowing your type matchups and base stats, but unless you know generally what moves are run, and how evs are oriented, amongst other factors like common tera types and recent shifts in said meta of which you are knowledgeable, you will be beaten out by a player who knows such things.
Of course, it isnt the end all be all of a pokemon battle, but as they say, knowing is half the battle.

Then again, why arent you running CC on Tusk these days if Shed Tail is such an issue? At that point you're almost asking to be ran over by an earthworm and their pet Roaring Moon.

 

[Eeveeto]

^ Seconding the above post. In fact, I would go even further and throw another controversial opinion: At least in the current Meta defensive slow Tusks are Bad, regardless of Shed Shell (which btw is probably the last HO tool I would be banning).
Jolly, Max Speed/Attack, EQ/Headlong Rush, CC, Knock Off, Rapid Spin. Item has some freedom (Lefties, Booster Energy, Band, AV, Boots or even LO if you like) as has the Tera type, but in terms of moves and EV Spread, anything that desviates from this specific combination makes Tusk overall worse (it will be better vs some things of course, but overall less consistent).

Tusk is an offensive Mon. It has some defensive value (such as being a solid Kingambit check), but 6 common weaknesses are way too many to run defensive Rocks sets or even Bulk Up ones. This Mon should be clicking moves and doing progress (or removing hazards), let the rest of the team have the bulk, Tusk is not really suited for that.

 

[Savouras]

Espathra gonna be extremely ass without Shed Tail, prove me wrong

also #freecyclizar

 

[ant4456]

IMO the biggest point towards quickbanning Shed Tail rather than a Suspect Test is: The reason we didn't ban Shed Tail rather than Cyclizar to begin with, is

" We have exclusively voted on Cyclizar and not Shed Tail, since the other user of Shed Tail (Orthworn) has not been as intense of a headache to play against as Cyclizar. "

Well, I don't know about everyone's opinion, but I think most could agree that, over time, Orthworm has now become as much of a headache to play against as Cyclizar. Thus, the only reason that the vote was on Cyclizar rather than Shed Tail has been (retroactively, this was relatively uncontroversial at the time) proved wrong.

...

so uhhh shed tail quickban before survey plz ty ty gbye

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Also I kinda miss having a Dragon Normal Type in OU with Support moves and Regenerator. Not sure if it stays OU with no Shed Tail but as far as I am aware we never had the combination of rapid spin + regenerator.

 

[Pyritie]

Also I kinda miss having a Dragon Normal Type in OU with Support moves and Regenerator. Not sure if it stays OU with no Shed Tail but as far as I am aware we never had the combination of rapid spin + regenerator.

eldegoss has both apparently, though it's not in SV

 

[pika pal]

IMO the biggest point towards quickbanning Shed Tail rather than a Suspect Test is: The reason we didn't ban Shed Tail rather than Cyclizar to begin with, is

" We have exclusively voted on Cyclizar and not Shed Tail, since the other user of Shed Tail (Orthworn) has not been as intense of a headache to play against as Cyclizar. "

Well, I don't know about everyone's opinion, but I think most could agree that, over time, Orthworm has now become as much of a headache to play against as Cyclizar. Thus, the only reason that the vote was on Cyclizar rather than Shed Tail has been (retroactively, this was relatively uncontroversial at the time) proved wrong.

...

so uhhh shed tail quickban before survey plz ty ty gbye

If we're going to discuss along this line I think there is the argument to be made that Orthworm, while a Headache, is still not to the agreed-uncompetitive extent that Cyclizar was banned for. People associate Orthworm with a lot of match-up Headaches for sure, but part of that comes down to it being around longer and thus appearing more games/tours to stand out from, vs Cyclizar being much more apparent of a headache on paper and getting axed before it had the same amount of exposure.

At the same time I see the contention with that reasoning in hindsight, because by the same token we did not have any major reason to play with Orthworm and see it make its own Shed Tail problems because Cyclizar was, if not better, much easier to pick up and play with.

Here's something I wonder: were we to test Shed Tail in particular, would Cyclizar be allowed back into the Suspect Ladder to allow a look at both users, or do we still consider case closed on it and the test is just down to the only remaining user (i.e. if an Orthworm-only ST Test results in a ban, THEN Cyclizar drops back into usage-based tiering) for evaluation? Cyclizar's not exactly a huge presence without Shed Tail, but people have discussed it having some specific Utility niches that I could see factoring into the success/failure of at least a couple players such that it's worth an acknowledgement even if not changing the decision.

Curious what the precedent is if anything because I don't know many Suspects in past that consisted of a move/ability shared by individual users being evaluated after some were banned (Baton Pass was a mess from Chains and such), with the closest case I can currently think of being Gen 5's Weather + Speed Abilities which... weren't the cleanest handling in most peoples eyes.

 

[LunaStik]

Curious what the precedent is if anything because I don't know many Suspects in past that consisted of a move/ability shared by individual users being evaluated after some were banned (Baton Pass was a mess from Chains and such), with the closest case I can currently think of being Gen 5's Weather + Speed Abilities which... weren't the cleanest handling in most peoples eyes.

I can’t recall specific examples because I don’t play lower tiers, but I think I remember reading about something like this in a lower tier with an item ban. I think it was heat rock or light clay?

 

[BolTingBlazie]

I can’t recall specific examples because I don’t play lower tiers, but I think I remember reading about something like this in a lower tier with an item ban. I think it was heat rock or light clay?

Light clay was banned from gen 8 uu a couple years ago

 

[LoseToRU?]

Thank you for putting some points I made months/weeks ago but giving validity to them be being a tour player/recognizable name.

My brain literally can't understand how anyone thinks this is a good meta, so I often come off as an asshole, but anyway.

I know exactly how you feel, and just know I 100% agree that your tour performance has a lot to do with how the meta just isn't enjoyable. I find myself just clicking and fishing in the 1800's instead of actually trying.

I don't find the metagame particularly rewarding building-wise as I feel a lot of structures are pretty cookie-cutter at this point.

Building has never been worse.

1) Almost zero reason to not bring Tusk and/or Gambit.
2) Almost zero reason not to bring Val/Volca/Gold
3) Most defensive mons are passive momentum killers

Outside of stall, you don't leave home without 1 or 2 of these mons. Any viable team has one of these five mons. At least 1-if not 2 or 3.

Tusk is tusk no need to go into that.
Gambit- in a tier lacking ghost resists that aren't passive or frail, you need King. Also, the reverse 6-0 shenanigans are comical. No real need to dissect this one either tbh.
Val- In a tier with few special attackers, and even less Fairy resists, Val is wild. Specs Tera Fairy Moonblast has about 3 safe switch ins.
Gold- is the best special attacker- and I mean best as in consistent. There is almost no MU where a team has consistent switch ins to Steel/Ghost or can afford to risk a Trick or a NP.
MU Moth, no need to go into that either. Another well designed mon that was never supposed to have a Ground/Ice/Fairy/Grass STAB.

So you have to bring at least 1 of these 5, and you must prep for them all as well- and all their variants.

Why is offense so prevalent? We have fat af Unaware mons everywhere- pex and corv are back, Garg and Ting are unkillable.
It's because they're also quite passive, but let me provide some insight.

Let's look at gen 8. There were mons that could take a hit, but also threaten you greatly- or at least keep momentum.
I'll name a few:
Zapdos
Buzzwole
Melmetal
Lando
Fini
Clefable
Ferro
G-king

These mons didn't halt all momentum when you switched them in. They weren't one-trick ponies. A lot of our wall mons are literal walls:
Clod
Bozo
Pex
Corv
Ting
Rotom-W
Gargan

These mons get taken advantage of fairly easy.

Not to say we don't have mons like Zapdos or Fini, Tusk is a great example of a bulky mon that can do things back, but they're not as prevalent as they were- and it forces a lot of weight on that single mon instead of spreading it out.

This leaves a strange gap in the meta between Balance and Hyper Offensive. If you go balance, you might as well go semi-stall. If you go offense, you might as well go HO. BO just doesn't have the tools needed to consistently handle HO, or to break super fat. When BO is the most consistent archetype, you know you have a healthy, or at least optimally balanced meta. This is the opposite of SV meta.

There's a lot of aspects of tera that i dont find we can feasibly justify keeping it around long term and i find its part of the reason the metagame feels so plain at the moment even with the lack of mons.

No one dislikes tera more than I do. I won't go over old points others and I have made, so I'll go over something new I realized.
This meta is very much a slugfest. You see less switching than ever. It's a trade-heavy, often brainless meta.
This is just another toxic aspect of tera.
If I have choice locked Flower Trick Meowscarada and they send in Revaroom, why would I switch my Corv into Revavroom?
Normally, as Smogon 6v6 singles was intended to play, corv walls reva. But I can't go into my wall. Reva just going to shift gear then tera fire. So I need some chip on it, most likely for King sucker (Zzzzz) so I just stay in and attack.
Or let's say I have a fat team, and also have a Bozo. So I send in my Bozo, trade, and now my phys wall is crippled and ready to fold to another attacker. I should have been able to keep my wall, send in a counter, gain momentum- aka Pokemon... But now, I've lost all momentum, and my wall. Ty tera, v cool.

I could go on, but instead of giving countless examples, start to notice this as player.

Start to notice how little switching is going on in this meta, even at high levels.

Tera forces you to revenge, rather than counter. There are really no true counters in a tera meta, truly.

Every single wall single-handedly loses to some form of Moon, for example, thanks to tera.
Between Taunt, Sub, Roost, Dance, secondary drops, etc. walls can't handle mons that can tera away their weakness to your wall.
A lot of defensive cores turn into set-up bait thanks to tera.

I won't go over the other terrible aspects of tera: 50/50's, too much variance, teambuilder strain, double STAB boost, impossible to map out a late game win when tera is still in play, losing mons in a meta where we're starved for mons.

I feel like im forced to play something that I don't enjoy which is a first for me on this site and it did effect me mentally through spl. regardless of some of my horrible playing in spl and with all I previously said in this post considered, I don't find SV OU in its current state competitive and find you can play worse by a good margin and still troll your way to win even without hax.

This is what I mean by you can't map out a win condition as we have for decades now. The amount of jank tera causes the late game meta is insane.

I do find this metagame a chore to play and not enjoyable due to various aspects I consider uncompetitive such as the several guessing games in the tier, whether that be tera or the mons themselves, that take a ton of control from one player. There is too many ways to gain position that do not involve playing better than your opponent and personally, that frustrates me.

It's been very difficult to put into words at time why the meta is terrible right now. It's even more frustrating when you have seasoned veterans who are saying it's fun. I'm not sure why're getting out of this. I'm not sure why ppl tell me to play another gen or just not at all when we have an amazing meta right in front of our eyes if we could just fix the issues.

A lot of my friends who are top players can feel this meta is bad.
It's a subconscious thing.
People who play can feel this meta is off, and aren't having fun with it, but can't really explain why.
Thank you for explaining your thoughts on the subject.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
We are actively being robbed of an enjoyable metagame.
Council can't step in and QB Shed Tail and Tera for fear of, idk actually.. random 1100 elo's crying in chat about no tera? I really don't know.
The majority has spoken, and I'm confident Tera will never be banned fully, even with another suspect. They can't feel how bad it is because they just don't have the subconscious expertise to realize something is wrong.
I'm not sure where that leaves players like you and I, and my friends, for the next few years.

 

[1LDK]

When a play style is too problematic, they search in an order to make the play style still viable while getting nerfed, so the order of action is usually something like this

1. Is the combination of a specific mon in this play style what makes it too much? (examples being Venasaur in early gen 8 UU or Quagsire in gen 7 UU), if the problem is solved, then no more action is needed, if this does not solve the problem
2. See if there's enough people in favor of a complex ban, this is where they try to change the least possible, examples being Light Clay or Weather stones
3. if this does not solve things still, they ban the direct cause from the root

The only exception I know for these rules are Mega Stones, since are in 1 possible combination and are separate from the mon, you can just ban the item and call it a day

this sounds like little, buts its a process that has been refined constantly thanks to stuff like GF stupid shit

In the Shed Tail discussion, we are in borderline 3, so if you want Shed Tail banned, just keep moving forward in showing support for the cause you believe in

 

[cosmogii]

hey obligatory orthworm post
i dont have anything to say about the meta, nothing i can input would be of any significance. shed tail is goofy and deserves a suspect at the very least, which is pretty clear. everybody and their grandma has said their piece about it by now, from the looks of it.
but moving aside from the meta, can we talk about how cute he is?? like i wanna hug him

its like an elongated metal quagsire, i would die for him

 

[tr8orsrequiem]

This leaves a strange gap in the meta between Balance and Hyper Offensive. If you go balance, you might as well go semi-stall. If you go offense, you might as well go HO. BO just doesn't have the tools needed to consistently handle HO, or to break super fat. When BO is the most consistent archetype, you know you have a healthy, or at least optimally balanced meta. This is the opposite of SV meta.

Thank you for putting into words what I've been trying to get across for weeks. So many people here and in the OU chatroom are completely unwilling to hear that their beloved braindead HO is ruining the meta, as evidenced by the amount of laugh reacts on people's posts who criticize it but a distinct lack of arguments in favour of the meta as it stands right now.

The meta right now is awful, and if you're not seeing it, you're not looking hard enough. Balance and Bulky Offense suck ass right now, that's pretty much indisputable.

 

[`ShadowTwo]

I think it is imperative to act on Tera when leaving HOME.

However, the Tera remains the main mechanic of the 9G. So, banishing Tera means removing that generation's identity.

The first thing to do is to set up the Tera Preview. This will allow us to know in advance how this or that type can take each Pokémon, and avoid surprises. Also, I saw quite a bit of confusion over the first suspect test, with quite a few people thinking it was a vote to ban the mechanic. Thus, if there is any suspicion, it should relate to the Tera Preview only, to avoid any confusion.

However, this rule will not be enough, because it does not stop the 50/50, so it would subsequently be necessary to limit the Tera to only one pokemon per team (the Tera Preview must obviously be kept).
And we should stop there, the Only STAB Tera being uninteresting as possible and destroying the interest of the mechanics.

 

[AM]

Shed Tail should leave based on it being broken at this point but contrary to the whining of meta people can enjoy things others may not like. Someone out there enjoys SS and I don't, so I just dont play it very simple. The council failing rhetoric that’s thrown around is really tiring to read as an onlooker and not productive at all.

 

[Baloor]

Shed Tail should leave based on it being broken at this point but contrary to the whining of meta people can enjoy things others may not like. Someone out there enjoys SS and I don't, so I just dont play it very simple. The council failing rhetoric that’s thrown around is really tiring to read as an onlooker and not productive at all.

not the purpose of AMs post but this just gave me a thought that I briefly mentioned in my initial post but want to quickly expand upon.

the idea that removing tera, shed tail and other top mons in this current meta is bad idea because people don’t want SS 2 is a very poor and uninformed take. First off, SS is a more than fine metagame and people are simply allowed to dislike what they want to. Did we take some tiering miss steps? Sure, but that’s bound to happen and has happened with every iteration of the OU council since some things are impossible to predict.

secondly, “SS 2” is impossible to reach unless something goes terribly wrong in tiering or gamefreak reverts nerfs and the changes to base mechanics. This generation has the biggest power creep we have ever seen in Pokémon, regardless of tera, alongside some very notable nerfs such as the regen and recovery ones. Toxic, knock and scald are very limited in their distribution as well as the lack of significant annoyances such as clefable and ferro. We are projected to get some annoying Pokémon back in the dlc but I won’t leaks what, but there is some changes that will neuter these from being over the top. A tera less gen 9 meta still has a notable identity and will likely remain offensive but gives some leighway to other structures. This is not a anti tera post but people really need to move on from this “I don’t want SS 2” argument that some people are caught up on since it’s a harmful idea to spread around the community since it’s painfully very very uninformed that may effect future tiering decisions in a negative way.

id love for somebody who full heartedly supports this mindset to respond to this post because I’m curious what the actual argument is behind this. To put it nicely, I think this ss 2 take is utter nonsense but I want to hear the other perspective in a constructed argument.

 

[LoseToRU?]

Shed Tail should leave based on it being broken at this point but contrary to the whining of meta people can enjoy things others may not like. Someone out there enjoys SS and I don't, so I just dont play it very simple. The council failing rhetoric that’s thrown around is really tiring to read as an onlooker and not productive at all.

Fair point which I've conceded to many times. Council is busy. Council has limited power. Things take time.
Understood.

I'm not sure if that's a type when you say "SS". Do you mean "SV"?

If you meant SS, was that during the meta? At what point during it's 3+ year lifespan did you stop playing?
Did you play an old meta, or just another game?

If you meant SV, same questions: did you just switch hobbies?

It may come down to a personality thing, and the fact that some people find old metas irrelevant.
I love gen 7, peaked several times, and I went back to it for a few months in SS meta, but it was just the same 4 players and I battling for top 5.
I don't want to body German111 several times a day.
This is what I mean by old gens feel irrelevant.

As far as personality thing, I mean: some ppl are passive doormats and others are proactive fighters.
If you want to characterize it as whining that's fine, but almost all social and political movements started with someone "whining".

When top tour players come here to say: "This isn't fun. This is beyond my subjective taste and what I personally find fun; there is something fundamentally wrong with the game in its current state". I don't see how that's tiring and unproductive.
When many other people agree with that statement and gather to discuss it online, then you can simply sit out, just like you did with SS.

 

[1LDK]

There are 2 things that I hate on any meta
which are mind breaking defense
and boring offense

Which is why I hate SS and right now I dislike Shed Tail

Because I have to admit that we have a ton of cool options for offense and you guys just stick to the shed tail paper cut cheese that does not reward the user for intelligent play, there's no heat, even my HO has some heat techs like Staraptor for example

As a BO guy, the style still works pretty fine, but having to repel sub after sub is basically having to sleep with a mosquito on your ear, eventually you're just gonna wake up, light the room, hunt the mosquito and burn the little bitch so that he won't lay eggs because that guy ended his rights when he attacked you

So if shed tail gets banned we get a new mon in Cyclizar to re-experiment, HO will either go back to screens or just glimmora spam, or webs just revives, but this is better for everyone

So yeah, ban

 

[AM]

not the initial purpose of AMs post but this just gave me a thought that I briefly mentioned in my initial post but want to quickly expand upon.

the idea that removing tera, shed tail and other top mons in this current meta is bad idea because people don’t want SS 2 is a very poor and uninformed take. First off, SS is a more than fine metagame and people are simply allowed to dislike what they want to. Did we take some tiering miss steps? Sure, but that’s bound to happen and has happened with every iteration of the OU council since some things are impossible to predict.

secondly, “SS 2” is impossible to reach unless something goes terribly wrong in tiering or gamefreak reverts nerfs and the changes to base mechanics. This generation has the biggest power creep we have ever seen in Pokémon, regardless of tera, alongside some very notable nerfs such as the regen and recovery ones. Toxic, knock and scald are very limited in their distribution as well as the lack of significant annoyances such as clefable and ferro. We are projected to get some annoying Pokémon back in the dlc but I won’t leaks what, but there is some changes that will neuter these from being over the top. A tera less gen 9 meta still has a notable identity and will likely remain offensive but gives some leighway to other structures. This is not a anti tera post but people really need to move on from this “I don’t want SS 2” argument that some people are caught up on since it’s a harmful idea to spread around the community since it’s painfully very very uninformed that may effect future tiering decisions in a negative way.

Never implied this. I dont like SS for a variety of reasons. SV isnt going to be SS2 regardless of banI agree with that, my main point is the weekly bashing echo chamber. I know this is like an edit to your original post but wanted to add on.

Fair point which I've conceded to many times. Council is busy. Council has limited power. Things take time.
Understood.

I'm not sure if that's a type when you say "SS". Do you mean "SV"?

If you meant SS, was that during the meta? At what point during it's 3+ year lifespan did you stop playing?
Did you play an old meta, or just another game?

If you meant SV, same questions: did you just switch hobbies?

It may come down to a personality thing, and the fact that some people find old metas irrelevant.
I love gen 7, peaked several times, and I went back to it for a few months in SS meta, but it was just the same 4 players and I battling for top 5.
I don't want to body German111 several times a day.
This is what I mean by old gens feel irrelevant.

As far as personality thing, I mean: some ppl are passive doormats and others are proactive fighters.
If you want to characterize it as whining that's fine, but almost all social and political movements started with someone "whining".

When top tour players come here to say: "This isn't fun. This is beyond my subjective taste and what I personally find fun; there is something fundamentally wrong with the game in it's current state". I don't see how that's tiring and unproductive.
When many other people agree with that statement and gather to discuss it online, then you can simply sit out, just like you did with SS.

There are plenty of old gens that are great even beyond OU, and you can play them constantly by just asking people in variety of rooms instead of complaining about SV every week. I would encourage you to delve into some cause you definitely need to take a break from the SV for a bit and try to indulge in the hundreds of other things this site and related have to offer. Definitely dont want this to feel like an attack but these days Im promoting a bit of peace of mind cause some of you are a bit too passionate and some of you stressed over various pokemon related things and that’s not good lol.

And I stopped SS near the end of gen and took several months off this site and came back beginning of year to answer that part. I was active most of post home meta.

 

[Baloor]

Never implied this. I dont like SS for a variety of reasons. SV isnt going to be SS2 regardless of banI agree with that, my main point is the weekly bashing echo chamber. I know this is like an edit to your original post but wanted to add on.

There are plenty of old gens that are great even beyond OU, and you can play them constantly by just asking people in variety of rooms instead of complaining about SV every week. I would encourage you to delve into some cause you definitely need to take a break from the SV for a bit and try to indulge in the hundreds of other things this site and related have to offer. Definitely dont want this to feel like an attack but these days Im promoting a bit of peace of mind cause some of you are a bit too passionate and some of you stressed over various pokemon related things and that’s not good lol.

And I stopped SS near the end of gen and took several months off this site and came back beginning of year to answer that part. I was active most of post home meta.

Just to clear it up, I mentioned it’s not the initial purpose of your post so I know you didn’t imply it. You simply gave me a thought to expand upon.

 

[LoseToRU?]

There are plenty of old gens that are great even beyond OU, and you can play them constantly by just asking people in variety of rooms instead of complaining about SV every week. I would encourage you to delve into some cause you definitely need to take a break from the SV for a bit and try to indulge in the hundreds of other things this site and related have to offer. Definitely dont want this to feel like an attack but these days Im promoting a bit of peace of mind cause some of you are a bit too passionate and some of you stressed over various pokemon related things and that’s not good lol.

And I stopped SS near the end of gen and took several months off this site and came back beginning of year to answer that part. I was active most of post home meta.

I don't know how else to say it but the "hundreds of other things on this site" are randbats, goofy OMs and dead metas.
Are they fun? Sure ig.
Are they relevant? I don't think so. I wish they were but they're just not.

I play the current gen OU. Whatever that means at any given time- that's the game I log on to PS! to play.

It's easy to say, "Just play another game" and it's hard to put yourself out there and try to enact change.
With SS, it wasn't obvious what was wrong with that meta. Maybe we should have banned HDB? Regen? Not sure since I didn't have a problem with SS, but I can't say it was that fun. Something was/is wrong with it, but it's not clear to me exactly what. I don't care enough to discover it.
But if I logged onto forums and someone had some good arguments what was ruining the meta, I would hear them out.
With SV it's very easy and incredibly obvious what's ruining the meta.

But yeah, I have been taking a break. Playing a lot less.
My last post on the forum was 20 days ago, and only reason I posted today was Baloor's post.

When I see a post by a top tour player post with a lot of positive reaction vs my posts saying the exact same things but getting hate bombed- I'm going to say thank you lol, and add on some additional things I've noticed. The lack of switching and how walls aren't really walls is something I've noticed lately.

As I said in my last post from a few weeks back- I won't attempt another grass roots anti-tera movement until after it passes the 2nd suspect, which it will.
In some capacity I will be playing gen 9 OU without tera, it's as simple as that.
There is a large and growing community of people and we will make it happen.

I appreciate your advice, it is good advice, but just not for me, not at this time.
That said, I can't see myself posting on here until after tera R2. At that point I'll post more about our goal to save gen 9.
Until then it's whatever, really.

 

[ant4456]

Thank you for putting some points I made months/weeks ago but giving validity to them be being a tour player/recognizable name.

My brain literally can't understand how anyone thinks this is a good meta, so I often come off as an asshole, but anyway.

I know exactly how you feel, and just know I 100% agree that your tour performance has a lot to do with how the meta just isn't enjoyable. I find myself just clicking and fishing in the 1800's instead of actually trying.



Building has never been worse.

1) Almost zero reason to not bring Tusk and/or Gambit.
2) Almost zero reason not to bring Val/Volca/Gold
3) Most defensive mons are passive momentum killers

Outside of stall, you don't leave home without 1 or 2 of these mons. Any viable team has one of these five mons. At least 1-if not 2 or 3.

Tusk is tusk no need to go into that.
Gambit- in a tier lacking ghost resists that aren't passive or frail, you need King. Also, the reverse 6-0 shenanigans are comical. No real need to dissect this one either tbh.
Val- In a tier with few special attackers, and even less Fairy resists, Val is wild. Specs Tera Fairy Moonblast has about 3 safe switch ins.
Gold- is the best special attacker- and I mean best as in consistent. There is almost no MU where a team has consistent switch ins to Steel/Ghost or can afford to risk a Trick or a NP.
MU Moth, no need to go into that either. Another well designed mon that was never supposed to have a Ground/Ice/Fairy/Grass STAB.

So you have to bring at least 1 of these 5, and you must prep for them all as well- and all their variants.

Why is offense so prevalent? We have fat af Unaware mons everywhere- pex and corv are back, Garg and Ting are unkillable.
It's because they're also quite passive, but let me provide some insight.

Let's look at gen 8. There were mons that could take a hit, but also threaten you greatly- or at least keep momentum.
I'll name a few:
Zapdos
Buzzwole
Melmetal
Lando
Fini
Clefable
Ferro
G-king

These mons didn't halt all momentum when you switched them in. They weren't one-trick ponies. A lot of our wall mons are literal walls:
Clod
Bozo
Pex
Corv
Ting
Rotom-W
Gargan

These mons get taken advantage of fairly easy.

Not to say we don't have mons like Zapdos or Fini, Tusk is a great example of a bulky mon that can do things back, but they're not as prevalent as they were- and it forces a lot of weight on that single mon instead of spreading it out.

This leaves a strange gap in the meta between Balance and Hyper Offensive. If you go balance, you might as well go semi-stall. If you go offense, you might as well go HO. BO just doesn't have the tools needed to consistently handle HO, or to break super fat. When BO is the most consistent archetype, you know you have a healthy, or at least optimally balanced meta. This is the opposite of SV meta.



No one dislikes tera more than I do. I won't go over old points others and I have made, so I'll go over something new I realized.
This meta is very much a slugfest. You see less switching than ever. It's a trade-heavy, often brainless meta.
This is just another toxic aspect of tera.
If I have choice locked Flower Trick Meowscarada and they send in Revaroom, why would I switch my Corv into Revavroom?
Normally, as Smogon 6v6 singles was intended to play, corv walls reva. But I can't go into my wall. Reva just going to shift gear then tera fire. So I need some chip on it, most likely for King sucker (Zzzzz) so I just stay in and attack.
Or let's say I have a fat team, and also have a Bozo. So I send in my Bozo, trade, and now my phys wall is crippled and ready to fold to another attacker. I should have been able to keep my wall, send in a counter, gain momentum- aka Pokemon... But now, I've lost all momentum, and my wall. Ty tera, v cool.

I could go on, but instead of giving countless examples, start to notice this as player.

Start to notice how little switching is going on in this meta, even at high levels.

Tera forces you to revenge, rather than counter. There are really no true counters in a tera meta, truly.

Every single wall single-handedly loses to some form of Moon, for example, thanks to tera.
Between Taunt, Sub, Roost, Dance, secondary drops, etc. walls can't handle mons that can tera away their weakness to your wall.
A lot of defensive cores turn into set-up bait thanks to tera.

I won't go over the other terrible aspects of tera: 50/50's, too much variance, teambuilder strain, double STAB boost, impossible to map out a late game win when tera is still in play, losing mons in a meta where we're starved for mons.



This is what I mean by you can't map out a win condition as we have for decades now. The amount of jank tera causes the late game meta is insane.



It's been very difficult to put into words at time why the meta is terrible right now. It's even more frustrating when you have seasoned veterans who are saying it's fun. I'm not sure why're getting out of this. I'm not sure why ppl tell me to play another gen or just not at all when we have an amazing meta right in front of our eyes if we could just fix the issues.

A lot of my friends who are top players can feel this meta is bad.
It's a subconscious thing.
People who play can feel this meta is off, and aren't having fun with it, but can't really explain why.
Thank you for explaining your thoughts on the subject.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.
We are actively being robbed of an enjoyable metagame.
Council can't step in and QB Shed Tail and Tera for fear of, idk actually.. random 1100 elo's crying in chat about no tera? I really don't know.
The majority has spoken, and I'm confident Tera will never be banned fully, even with another suspect. They can't feel how bad it is because they just don't have the subconscious expertise to realize something is wrong.
I'm not sure where that leaves players like you and I, and my friends, for the next few years.

so you know my opinions on Tera, I agree on a lot of things in this post (that are uncontroversial) but there are other things I find odd about this post:

1. Saying Volcarona was well balanced. H-e-l-l n-o. There is approximately zero metagames where fighting Volcarona is fun, or feels balanced in the slightest; you either have the right matchup or L. Volcarona has only been remotely balanced in Gen 8, where it was also not balanced, and considered for ban at a time as well.

2. No, Bulky Offense being the best teamstyle is not a marker of a good balance. If anything, having a good variety of teamstyles rather than one definitive is the marker of a good balance. Stall, Balance, Bulky Offense, Hyper Offense, etc. should all be good, honestly. People who don't understand Smogon very well commonly assert (to the memeworthy extent) that Smogon is biased towards stall. I'd say it's biased towards Bulky Offense in an unhealthy way. Especially when Pokemon that are only really good in Bulky Offense teams are more consistently thrown to the top of Viability Rankings even if mostly hot trash in others. Bulky Offense is a valid teamstyle but should by no means be the standard.

3. Dondozo, out of most of those, is actually one of the only defensive Pokemon in the tier that actually can turn the tides. The Specially Defensive variant with a +1 Defense boost after Curse is a genuine menace, especially against Hyper Offense teams in the mid/late game where their options are thin. A lot of teams don't exactly prepare for Dondozo anymore (the bozo, as we knozo), and often just rely on having one or two Special Attackers to simply brute force past it. However, unless you are Teraing Grass or something, with SpDef investment a lot of non-Specs attacks bounce off, and sometimes I feel DonBozo just wins a game if the opponent does not perfectly map their gameplan against Bozo.

Overall I agree with this point about lacking defensive Pokemon that actually make progress, but Dondozo is underrated and Skeledirge goes unmentioned while also being able to make progress. One good Wisp on a switch in and Skeledirge can simply sit on most of a team.

4. I'd argue that, even if you were to say Terastilization is terrible for the tier, the endnote about "lack of switching" (I don't fully see it, but I see the slugfest argument) is more due to Shed Tail and the aforementioned lack of defensive Pokemon that make progress. The Roaring Moon is behind a sub. If you don't threaten it and its sub then it gets likely 2 boosts and takes away the game, or it even gets that with a sub up. So what are your options? Well, the best one is to keep in and simply attack the sub, and keep as much pressure as you can to disincentivizing allowing the Pokemon in front of the Shed Tailed threat to live. Even beyond Shed Tail, Substitute Hydreigon and similar sets have become more common as well.

This gets even worse when now Toxapex is mostly running Assault Vest, meaning really the only good Hazer is now not running it. A lot of that has to do with things forcing AV into being the best option.

Anywho, I don't really hate your post or anything, I think a lot of it is a fairly accurate reading on certain topics, but these things I disagree with.

and that end part about the council and quickbanning the most divided major mechanic iiiiiiiiiis preettyyy criiingeeeeee