Format Discussion Metronome Battle

lighthouse64 · Dec 26, 2019

fwqef said:
Gorilla Tactics no longer makes you struggle. Band Gorilla Heracross is still hella strong though! https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1035423141

Oh, that's good. I realize now that this is also by far the best counter to imprison rng.

lighthouse64 · Jan 4, 2020

I just realized that dynamaxing is quite useful for a certain team style now. Getting sturdy shedinja consistently. You can dynamax your shedinja to get a few free turns for your ally (probably pichu) to die and give you sturdy through power of alchemy. In fact, you don't even have to run focus sash on your shedinja to pull this off consistently. I personally chose to run leppa berry.

Here's the link for my team. https://pokepast.es/6927bdde89e1ae13

So, maybe this team is good now? Nope. It is still terrible. I used it in 15 battles and won 3 of them, meaning it had a 20% winrate (spreadsheet is here). This is due to the fact that shedinja still has a boatload of issues even after getting sturdy.
Issues:

Code:

Issues that cannot be mitigated * shedinja basically has to play 1v2 * shedinja or the ally loses its ability * moves that deal constant damage, such as wrap, infestation, and leech seed (leech seed can rarely be mitigated via defog, rapid spin, or a forest's curse that occurred earlier) * shedinja uses a move that makes it KO itself (Ex. curse, explosion, head smash) * destiny bond * shedinja triggers a jaboca or rowap berry * shedinja loses its item too early, or magic room blocks it at the wrong time * Naturally, Imprison :| Issues that can be somewhat mitigated (in order of how much the issue can be fixed) * the ally doesn't get KOed quickly enough (slight fix: give it a sticky barb) * shedinja gets a status condition that deals damage (1 time fix: give it a lum berry) * the opponent uses something like taunt on shedinja (1 time fix: give it a mental herb OR if you haven't already, dynamax) * perish song (sorta fix: give shedinja the minimum possible speed it can have, and if you really want, give it an iron ball) * shedinja gets pp stalled (usual fix: give it a leppa berry) * shedinja gets damaged by weather (usual fix: give it safety goggles) * shedinja picks up a sticky barb (usual fix: give it an item that doesn't inflict damage)

In fact, sturdy shedinja seems so bad that I now think that unbanning sturdy shedinja would not be a problem, just because it has so many issues. What do you guys think?

oh yeah, there was this one guy who got super triggered at me using sturdy shedinja https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8metronomebattle-1041054710

fwqef · Jan 4, 2020

I don’t think sturdy shed is broken at all. Any weather, status, ability removal, passive damage, or just 1 turn of struggle kills it and even if it doesn’t die for a long time, its attacking stats are bad so it’s not doing much. I’m in favor for unban.

doipy hooves · Jan 14, 2020

Shedinja isn't overpowered but it would be pretty boring to fight. Like evasion, more annoying than powerful. It's already been half-freed for a while so I don't mind whatever happens. Speaking of Shedinja, this post is about yet another counter.

Here's a gimmick I was playing around with and had a good time revisiting today. Just needed a /ds, but I ended up getting my metronome fix.

Gulpone (Cramorant-Gorging) @ Rowap Berry
Ability: Gulp Missile
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

Gultone (Cramorant-Gorging) @ Rowap Berry
Ability: Gulp Missile
Shiny: Yes
Happiness: 160
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Metronome

The team features the usually unusable Cramorant-Gorging. Gulp Missile will activate after any hit on Cramorant and deal 25% damage + paralyze thanks to its Gorging form (-1 Def with Gulping). It doesn't sound like much alone, and being locked to Cramorant is unfortunate. But Gulp Missile is one of the few harming abilities out there, and it's the most reliable of them. I would really even go as far to say that this is a hyper offense team. Gulp Missile puts pressure from the word go, and that can be enough to bridge the stat gap and win the most unlikely of matchups. On average I've seen it do more damage than the activating hit, though strong moves still hit hard. The speed nerf from paralysis helps with 2v1 situations, and Cramorant actually needs teamwork to stand a chance. Relaxed nature patches up Cramorant's weak defence, could focus the superior SpD but I like the balance. Speed doesn't matter too much, especially after the opponent is paralyzed.

The Rowap stacks the damage even further, so if an enemy rolls Swift or something they get hit for 25% + 25% + 12.5% + 12.5% = 75% damage in 1 shot. And that's not even on your turn. Even with just a single target, the opponent falls to ~63% health. Jaboca could probably work too, but the bird's special defence is much better and I feel like most spread moves are special. Shiny Cramorant gives you a funny minisprite on the field.

Weaknesses: Gulp Missile and Rowap Berry can teamkill. The strategy is a one-hit wonder; once the fish is spit it won't come back. There's a slim chance to reactivate it by using Surf or Dive. Some matchups can be bad. Electric types can't get paralyzed, and the -Defense form may not do so well against Defiant. Flower Veilers and Magic Guarders dodge half the effect. Having 2 paralyzers may not work out if one mon hits both, but this team is more for embracing the meme.

It's a hit or miss strat, but I guess it doesn't actually 'miss'. Gulp Missile will start you off running on a strong start, but then you still have to play the rest of the game, and the momentum is all Metronome. Moves and kills are still necessary for the win, but the damage threshold is a bit easier to reach and paralysis allows even more room for error. Endgame can be a struggle to win in, especially against defensive mons like Sableye. I think that the best scenario for Cramorant is a single target focusing all the damage into itself, and moving into a 2v1 early in the match.

To be honest I believe Gulp Missile is actually interesting and balanced for metronome battles. This ability has a unique gameplan unlike most harming abilities would have (letting passive damage add up throughout). Also Cramorant sucks. Water/Flying's resists are decent, but the Electric weakness is hard to deal with. Stats are nothing special, but that's a good thing. Imagine heracross with this. At the least, this team will likely get 1 kill. Even if you get OHKO'd Cramorant still shoots its shot, so it technically has the least worst case performance in the meta.

EDIT: Haven't played this scenario but I believe this should do well against Imposter in theory. -25% from 714 hp is a nice chunk to relieve some of the strain, and I believe that transformed mons can't use species specific abilities.

Ivy · Jan 16, 2020

Quickbanning Gorilla Tactics from the format now that it doesn't actually cause you to Struggle immediately when paired with a band. It's just too broken. You can 2HKO foes with any menial attack using that combination on a strong physical attacker like M-Hera. Kris
Also the teambuilder will soon be set to default to natdex courtesy of Kris as well (it already does the max EVs, which is great; now we're just missing this extra quality of life bit).

doipy hooves · Jan 17, 2020

Ivy said:
Quickbanning Gorilla Tactics from the format now that it doesn't actually cause you to Struggle immediately when paired with a band. It's just too broken. You can 2HKO foes with any menial attack using that combination on a strong physical attacker like M-Hera. Kris
Also the teambuilder will soon be set to default to natdex courtesy of Kris as well (it already does the max EVs, which is great; now we're just missing this extra quality of life bit).

We OU now. Time to run Intrepid Sword!
Thanks in advance for the teambuilder improvements, can't wait to see Alakazam back. Will this include pokestars? Might be too much to ask for Metronome.

Ivy · Jan 17, 2020

doipy hooves said:
We OU now. Time to run Intrepid Sword!
Thanks in advance for the teambuilder improvements, can't wait to see Alakazam back. Will this include pokestars? Might be too much to ask for Metronome.

I don't think those show up even if you select no format for a custom game. Still, you're free to manually type them in as usual

fwqef · Jan 18, 2020

Great. Now for things that need addressing/discussion in my opinion:

1. Neutralizing gas ban

2. Sturdy shed unban

3. Snow warning unban - I talked about this on a previous post but let me explain again. Using snow effectively requires you to use Ice pokemon, but Ice is the worst defensive type in the game making ice types usually unviable so snow warning may give them a niche. It may be too powerful but I think it’s worth testing.

~~4. Ranked ladder unban~~

Rarycaris · Jan 19, 2020

fwqef said:
3. Snow warning unban - I talked about this on a previous post but let me explain again. Using snow effectively requires you to use Ice pokemon, but Ice is the worst defensive type in the game making ice types usually unviable so snow warning may give them a niche. It may be too powerful but I think it’s worth testing.

Safety Goggles and Magic Guard exist -- it's entirely possible to build a viable setup to do a lot of asymmetrical chip damage with Hail without using Ice Pokemon. But more importantly, it's simply against the spirit of the format to have strategies which rely on non-random elements for a large portion of their damage output.

Strongly oppose a Sturdy Shedinja unban too, for much the same reason. It's not a power level concern as much as it fundamentally changes the format by making it wholly binary -- random moves are simply a lot less fun when the vast majority of them are totally negated and the rest instantly win the game.

Lionyx · Jan 30, 2020

I haven't been able to find an answer in the FAQ or in the recent messages of this thread, so here's my question: why are Steel types banned ?
I originally thought that this could be due to them not being poisonable, but I've done a handful of games and rarely came across Toxic or Poison Powder. So is it because of their high Defense stat that could make some games last very long? Or am I missing some important information?

Ivy · Jan 30, 2020

Lionyx said:
I haven't been able to find an answer in the FAQ or in the recent messages of this thread, so here's my question: why are Steel types banned ?
I originally thought that this could be due to them not being poisonable, but I've done a handful of games and rarely came across Toxic or Poison Powder. So is it because of their high Defense stat that could make some games last very long? Or am I missing some important information?

I added the ban reasoning to the 'mon bans in the OP, good thinking.

doipy hooves · Jan 30, 2020

Basically steel types took over the meta and people wanted a change. Today you can use about anything and it can get a win, but back then steels were the best and most consistent options. The ladder spoke for itself with about every top player using the same set of mons. I think fwqef once had an 80% winrate with 2 Melmetals at #1.

Steel types resist almost everything at base, which did make games last long and was why they were superior to everything else. Their stat spreads also usually suited the meta, lacking speed and having great combat performance in all other areas. The popular choices included Magearna, Mega Scizor, Celesteela, and Melmetal. Non-steels existed, but when against a steel they were almost completely outclassed damage-wise, and even type exclusive gimmicks (Flower Veil, Delta Stream) could be used by dual-type steels themselves. The best high ladder strategies became bulky statboost (Defiant, Weakness Policy) for a chance to win through brute force, and even then steels could do it better again. Today I barely consider it, but in that time Tinted Lens was a viable option, its sole purpose to counter steels.

In short, after a year it was clear that steels were overused. They had the best resistances, solid stats and users, and abilities that could patch up weaknesses. Compared to everything else they had a lot of power and little weak points, and managed consistent wins in a RNG format. Without steels there's just more variety and viable choices in the game, though as a result there's also no ladder to compete in.

EDIT: Ninja'd

fwqef · Jan 31, 2020

doipy hooves said:
Basically steel types took over the meta and people wanted a change. Today you can use about anything and it can get a win, but back then steels were the best and most consistent options. The ladder spoke for itself with about every top player using the same set of mons. I think fwqef once had an 80% winrate with 2 Melmetals at #1.

Steel types resist almost everything at base, which did make games last long and was why they were superior to everything else. Their stat spreads also usually suited the meta, lacking speed and having great combat performance in all other areas. The popular choices included Magearna, Mega Scizor, Celesteela, and Melmetal. Non-steels existed, but when against a steel they were almost completely outclassed damage-wise, and even type exclusive gimmicks (Flower Veil, Delta Stream) could be used by dual-type steels themselves. The best high ladder strategies became bulky statboost (Defiant, Weakness Policy) for a chance to win through brute force, and even then steels could do it better again. Today I barely consider it, but in that time Tinted Lens was a viable option, its sole purpose to counter steels.

In short, after a year it was clear that steels were overused. They had the best resistances, solid stats and users, and abilities that could patch up weaknesses. Compared to everything else they had a lot of power and little weak points, and managed consistent wins in a RNG format. Without steels there's just more variety and viable choices in the game, though as a result there's also no ladder to compete in.

EDIT: Ninja'd

Couldn’t have explained it better. The 1400+ elo ladder people were basically all steel type users, with the most popular choices being (post-aegislash and magearna ban) Melmetal, Flash Fire Mega Scizor, Celesteela, and later Mega Steelix. Steel types were simply way better than the other mons, so the community (mostly me lol) advocated for a ban and it was eventually done. I was so hyped to see a variety of choices show up in the ladder that time.

But at the same patch the previous moderator decided to suddenly remove the ladder for some reason and I still don’t understand why it’s gone to this day (current moderator refuses to address it) but oh well. I’m done arguing for it.

lighthouse64 · Jan 31, 2020

On that note... Is there still any possibility of the metronome battle timer getting reduced? 5 minutes really seems like a bit much for metronome battles...

Ivy · Feb 1, 2020

lighthouse64 said:
On that note... Is there still any possibility of the metronome battle timer getting reduced? 5 minutes really seems like a bit much for metronome battles...

Thanks for reminding me of this today. I feel like a good workaround for this would be to simply make the format Blitz by default. Does anyone object to this? Personally, I skip animations for these battles anyways, so faster animations from blitz would help in that regard too.

doipy hooves · Feb 1, 2020

Let's add that VGC timer that plays the game for you if the timer runs out

saltyseahag69 · Feb 3, 2020

I think Blitz might be difficult to keep track of, because the events of a turn are so variable it can be hard to figure out what happened without seeing the moves--and watching the animations is definitely part of the fun for me, anyway. Though a shortened timer, or the VGC one, both sound like good ideas.

Ivy · Feb 3, 2020

saltyseahag69 said:
I think Blitz might be difficult to keep track of, because the events of a turn are so variable it can be hard to figure out what happened without seeing the moves--and watching the animations is definitely part of the fun for me, anyway. Though a shortened timer, or the VGC one, both sound like good ideas.

Blitz still shows animations, just at double speed or so. The reason I'm suggesting Blitz is that customizing the timer length isn't really within the realm of what we can do for the metagame as far as I know.

lighthouse64 · Feb 4, 2020

I'm in agreement with blitz. Double speed animations seem fine, and it would be nice to limit people to 30 seconds to chose between dynamaxing and pressing metronome.

fwqef · Feb 4, 2020

Even if it’s not vgc or blitz timer or something like that, reverting to the old timer would be fine too. Please do something.

Raidx · Feb 18, 2020

did we ever get a clear reasoning for why we havent re-implemented a ranked ladder? there's def enough traffic on the ladder to warrant it + i know im not the only person who's tired of facing boring shit like double magikarp or other unevolved mons. Despite being luck-based it's still way more fun and entertaining when the opponent has an actual team

Ivy · Feb 18, 2020

It was never intended to have a ladder in the first place. However, in the far future, PS is planned to have the option to challenge unranked, ranked, or blitz ranked on every format.

fwqef · Feb 20, 2020

Even if it wasn’t intended to have a ladder, can’t we just implement the ladder? I really can’t think of why not except for pure stubbornness. There’s a good demand for it. It would fix the awful timer too. Also, you said far future so why not implement it in the meantime.

Ivy · Feb 21, 2020

The teambuilder changes have been pushed on the most recent server restart; steel types are filtered out and natdex, CAP, etc. are visible by default now!

doipy hooves · Feb 21, 2020

This is a real Metronome teambuilder. Now I never need to make a [Gen 7] Balanced Hackmons team again. Thanks kris
What I noticed:
1. Every (legal) mon is in, even pokestars. Except wishiwashi
2. Healing items are out
3. Every ability is selectable
4. The only move given is Metronome, not illegal anymore

Now that the teambuilder reflects the meta, hopefully this will inspire more non-vanilla sets to be played. A team is the only factor in the game, and so I think this update will make players about as equal as you can get.

Format Discussion Metronome Battle

lighthouse64

lighthouse64

fwqef

doipy hooves

Ivy

resident enigma

doipy hooves

Ivy

resident enigma

fwqef

Rarycaris

Lionyx

メラミ

Ivy

resident enigma

doipy hooves

fwqef

lighthouse64

Ivy

resident enigma

doipy hooves

saltyseahag69

Ivy

resident enigma

lighthouse64

fwqef

Raidx

Banned deucer.

Ivy

resident enigma

fwqef

Ivy

resident enigma

doipy hooves

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 8)