Metagame NP: RU Stage 11: Dernière Danse (Medicham up to OU and Abomasnow and Slowking back in RU!)

[atomicllamas]

We got Smeargle (yay) and Gothitelle (lol) !_!

After the most recent tier shift, the RU Council has been discussing the state of the meta game, and pretty much everyone agreed that we should probably hold another suspect test. As for what we're suspecting, we decided to go with Venomoth this round. Venomoth is a strong independent set up sweeper that don't need no man. As always, if you'd like to see some in depth reasoning as to why these Pokemon are being suspected, there are some paragraphs below written about why these Pokemon were chosen, whether or not you agree with the reasoning is up to you, however.

The requirements for this test will be the same as last time, given the extremely large number of voters we have had in previous suspect tests (as many as OU in some cases), the reqs will be 2800 coil with a B value of 9.0 and the suspect test will end/voting will begin exactly two weeks after the date this post was made. Some sample values are below.

GXE N
100 18
90 25
85 32
80 46
78 58
75 91
72 222

To find out how many matches it'll take for you specifically, take your GXE, and put it into this formula

N=9.0/log2(40*GXE/2800)

Venomoth Reasoning

Venomoth is being put up for suspect due to its outstanding potential as a setup sweeper. With base 90 Speed, decent defensive typing, and access to Sleep Powder, Venomoth finds several opportunities to attain a Quiver Dance boost. On top of this, Venomoth is an extremely effective sweeper after a single Quiver Dance, thanks to Tinted Lens giving itnear unresisted coverage in just one STAB move, Bug Buzz, making it significantly more difficult to check than other boosting sweepers, and the Speed boost makes it very hard to revenge kill outside of specific Choice Scarf users such as Delphox and Durant or Fletchinder's priority Acrobatics. Due to STAB Bug Buzz deterring Grass-types from switching in, there are few Pokemon capable of absorbing Venomoth's Sleep Powder, which doesn't just make it easier for Venomoth to find opportunites to sweep itself, but makes it exceptionally easy for Venomoth to support teammates with similar checks. On top of all of this, Venomoth is a very customizable sweeper; in the 4th slot, it is capable of running additional coverage moves such as Sludge Bomb, giving it perfect neutral coverage in conjunction with Tinted Lens, Giga Drain, or even Roost, which allows it to easily set up against defensive teams.While Venomoth's poor defensive stats may make it seem manageable, stopping it is a lot more difficult than it looks thanks to Sleep Powder granting free turns for set up, Quiver Dance boosting both SpD and Speed, and Venomoth's immunity to Toxic.

sample sets

Venomoth @ Life Orb
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Quiver Dance
- Sludge Bomb
- Bug Buzz
- Sleep Powder

tagging The Immortal for a ladder please !_!

The NP song for this meta is Dernière Danse, which is French for "Last Dance", this is self explantory.

Spirit edit: this is the gayest song yet llamas omfg

 

[atomicllamas]

There are 4 deleted posts in this thread already, one more one liner and the post gets infracted + this thread gets locked. I know its exciting, but please stop shit posting .-.

 

[rau]

So just to say a few things:

Although not as powerful as LO, Substitute is also a viable option for Venomoth seeing that it makes setting up on Status Inducers even easier. Regarding Goth, I find that competitive will be pretty chill against stuff like Defog users and Qwilfish and Hitmontop (Intimidate). Even Webs will seem like something that should be thought of carefully with Comp Goth. Maybe I'm overreacting but, speaking of web abusing:

Contrary tho

 

[Vileman]

Ok so the little time ive been playing ru i can already tell how ridiculous venomoth is, his power granted by tinted lens is insane as a simple set consisting of sleep powder quiver dance bug buzz + filler (ive run sub and it just rolls through most teams) can put on some solid work with quite ease, as to be an effective counter you must have a quad resist to bug buzz (thx tinted lens!) and most of the teams pack at max 2 of those which 1 is sent to sleep and the other, well, you have other 5 mons to take care of it but usually the best options are togetic who is set up fodder under a sub or fletchinder who is cuad weak to rocks so its easy to wear down. I hope i get some time to actually get the requirements to vote for moth's ban.

0 vv 0

 

[Molk]

Sorry there was a bit of a delay in starting this guys, i *really* wanted to wait until the stats came out before we started the test, just to see if anything important quickrose or quickdropped before the test started.

Speaking of quickdrops if you didn't see the new usage stats, Smeargle and Gothitelle have both quickdropped to RU as of tonight. I'm not sure how viable Gothitelle will be without Shadow Tag (Competitive *might* be able to edge out some kind of niche, especially because of fellow drop Smeargle and its ability to set up hazards, but outside of that it's pretty outclassed as a Psychic-type by say Mesprit, Sigi, and Meloetta imo), but Smeargle is almost definitely going to carve out a niche as a Sticky Web suicide lead in my opinion, almost certainly not on the level of Shuckle, but still a very solid option nonetheless due to its ability to squeeze Sticky Web and Stealth Rock into one teamslot, its access to Spore, and the plethora of moves that it can use in the last moveslot to ensure that it can do its job as effectively as possible (talking on irc, some potential options include Explosion, Memento, Whirlwind, Nuzzle, Taunt, Magic Coat, and as crazy as it sounds, Technician Icy Wind with Special Attack investment to take out Flygon!).

As for Venomoth, i definitely believe that it deserves to at least be looked at, if you want to know my reasoning, the paragraph llamas and i typed up in the OP pretty much has it all :).

Anyways, to kick off this thread, i'd like to ask a few questions to start some discussion.

1) Where do you think Venomoth is in the current metagame? Do you agree with its suspect test? or do you disagree? Why or why not? How do you usually go about dealing with Venomoth?

2) What do you think of RU's two newest additions, Smeargle and Gothitelle? How viable do you think they'll be? Any sets in particular you think will be effective?

Looking forward to getting reqs this round :)

 

[DKFirelord]

Omg thank You <3333 Venomoth has honestly made this meta just very bleh to me the fact it can just QD even once and sweep makes it a pretty skillless mons though o do realize it has probleams setting up on offense but other playstyle like Stall and Balance are become not as good of Moth tbh my vote is mostly likely going to Ban but I will try and have an open mind about it

Edit : My opinion on the drops Goth:trash nothing else sorry goth :[

Sneargle on the other hand pretty cool sticky webs + Spikes + Rock + Spore seems like a pretty cool set or Edvevour or Magic over the other moves can't wait to try it out :]

 

[TheBulletInMyHead]

Venomoth Suspect: I've never really had trouble against Venomoth and when I used it, it usually did seem fairly underwhelming. I think the Sub,QD,Sleep Powder, Bug Buzz set with Tinted Lens was probably its best and it could usually set up on something like Alomomola and Amoonguss lacking HP Fire, so it would usually do well against stallier teams, but often against offense, it was dead weight in my experience. Like, I would never have a dedicated answer to it and I would tend to do okay against it. I know it's S-rank right now but I really always thought it should be like A or maybe even A- (although that may be a stretch)

Smeargle: Pretty lame without dumb GeoPass and stuff but like I guess it can hazard stack, although I kind of like Omastar for that role instead, but I reckon if your team desperately needs Sticky Web, it can kinda work. Other than that, I don't see it getting much use unless I break out an old Belly Drum, Spore, Extremespeed, crunch set me and a friend mad at the beginning of XY as a joke lel.

Gothitelle: Oh man this thing. To be honest, I had never even looked at this thing's stats before writing this. I knew its speed, but that was it, and it actually looks kinda... okay...ish? Like it can work on hazard stack teams maybe as a way to discourage defogging with competitive and maybe do some work. I don't know, it's a little hard for me to theorymon on this on right now, but I think I'll have to try it out.

 

[Ping_Pong_Along]

I definitely agree with Moth's suspect test. Its list of checks and (lol) counters is tiny, which makes building a moth team easier. On the flip side, building against Venomoth is really tough. Like Vileman said, you often need 2 checks for Moth. This wouldn't be so bad if it's checks / counters were really common or really powerful, but that's generally not the case. I've started using a fully specially defensive Xatu with Psyshock as a dedicated check to Venomoth, which has been doing surprisingly well for me since Psyshock OHKOes back. I have to make sure to keep Xatu healthy though and it hates pursuit trappers.

Ah, artist doge has arrived. I don't know how effective this guy will be. As a stall player, the thing that worries me about Smeargle's Sticky Web set is not the webs themselves, but Exploud becoming more common. I'm sure many of us remember what a monster it was during Shuckle meta. I think it'll really come down to how good of a setter Smeargle turns out to be.

As for Gothitelle, I'd like for Competitive Gothitelle to be... competitive, but I don't see it even with a web meta. It's so outclassed by Meloetta. Meowstic-F does pretty much the same thing except it's more frail and a lot faster. It's also lacking in coverage, so I think Goth's niche is going to be quite small.

 

[Senpai D.M]

Moth was totally S for a reason it tore teams apart and still does if sleep powder doesnt miss. It sets up really easy and not being so weak to rocks helps. At this point it can feel underwhelming because teams are slighty more prepared or need 2 mons just to check it. It also has a few sets it can run, making it harder to check.

Smeargle is going to freshen up the tier imo hazards and filler. Giving ho a nice adventage but also I wanted to mention TR can really see a comeback and Goth is another tr user with decent stats. Dont sleep on Goth pls -_- all playstyles feel viable rn thx to smeargle. (Ofc if Moth leaves)

 

[Serperior for Uber]

Venomoth is looking to get banned by a big margin imo for all the reasons listed by everyone else that I don't need to rehash. Is there a real argument for people who want it to stay?

Smeargle looks very interesting for a HO team. I've found hazard removal to be mediocre in this tier at best which means that sticky webs could tear apart teams as it has a number of targets to slow including emobar,durant, and virizion. In fact there are a lot of grounded mons which will cry because of the sticky web support that smeargle can provide. Smeargle also has magic coat to make it not taunt bait which is honestly my biggest concern for it. I feel the biggest influence that smeargle will have on the tier is its ability to set webs. All the other stuff it can do is pretty cool, but nothing will match what webs can do for HO teams.

 

[Kingler]

personal feelings

YES YES YES FUCK MOTH

Alright, so having wanted this thing suspected since I dropped, I know how ridiculous moth is. Tinted lens bug buzz basically destroys half the tier in conjunction w/ SR which isn't very hard to maintain on the field like, at all. Giga Drain just fucks with quaggles further which makes this thing even more annoying to deal with. Fletchinder is 4x weak to rocks and dies to a sludge bomb (or full health sb + psn bops it anyways), togetic is fodder for everything ever, mega steelix has to rely on a 50/50 AND a favourable sleep talk roll to beat moth (unless you wanna sleep fodder -> sac something -> megalix which is just lol), roost means that it can start that cycle all over again although losing a bit of offensive prowess. Delphox has been brought up as a great revenge killer for venomoth; however, it absolutely despises actually switching in so one wrong predict and you have pretty much a dead phox. Durant is also a kinda neat revenge killer for this thing but takes about 80 min from a NON LIFE ORB MOTH. Registeel can't really beat roost moth reliably and sleep powder + boosted moth really puts the hurt on it. Golbat is an excellent counter to moth; HOWEVER, it is also the defogger on the teams it's run on, so sleep powder -> something that destroys it can chip it down enough so that your opp loses the hazards game. And this I feel is the underlying problem of venomoth: it's so fast and strong that basically you're forced into either a really passive counter that can get worn down easily, or an offensive check that could get destroyed by one wrong predict. I would definitely vote to ban it.

Venomoth makes building/playing in RU incredibly annoying and arguably worsens the RU metagame, so there's that too.

Also, Smeargle seems really interesting! Webs offense might be much better again thanks to not having utter garbo mons like Leavanny and Krick and Smeargle just provides cool utility with moves such as SR, Spikes, Spore, U-turn, Webs, Endeavor, etc. lol gothitelle though this thing is 10000% outclassed by every other psychic :(

Also, llamas, that song is bad and you should feel bad.

EDIT- I'm a dumbass and forgot esca was a thing, but that gets chipped etc. as well, non-AV variants can be KOed after a little prior damage (like 20%ish or 2-3 SR switchins) but it's a very good check to it; however, it's easily stopped by Mega Steelix and the like and can be forced out a lot so yea veno user can just hard switch easily and rack hazard damage.

 

[Twix]

Venomoth is honestly one of, if not the scariest threat in the tier. Due to its ability, Tinted Lens, it's able to take on Pokemon such as Steelix, Escavalier, and other bulky Pokemon which resist its attacks pretty well. In addition, it can utilize Sleep Powder, putting a foe to sleep if it hits and allowing Venomoth to set up pretty much freely, bar against an Overcoat Pokemon or opposing Grass-type, although it can hit the latter with its attacks. I've honestly had so much problems with building around Venomoth that I decided to take a break from the entire tier just because of how much harder building is. At this point, I'm leaning towards ban.

Smeargle is also an interesting Pokemon in the tier as well, and seems like a pretty reliable hazard setter with access to Sticky Web + Rocks + more support moves. Gothitelle looks like ass, but you never know.

 

[eren]

Love the song atomicllamas

Personally, Venomoth is way too powerful. Taking common shit such as Alo, Mega Lix, Qwilfish, Tangrowth, and anything that cant OHKO it as set up fodder is insane. Furthermore, having Tinted Lens to remove resistances is even more insane, being able to 2hhko most things after a quiver, and usually the things that can take two are set up fodder for sub moth. Overall, its a ban for me

 

[Venoxio]

Welp there goes my best RU team

I fully agree with this suspect, Venomoth is a big thing in the meta and can dismantle teams with little effort. STABs are also great being only resisted by Steel (I think), and it has a good typing. Not to mention Tinted Lens allows it to even take on it's RESISTS. I think a ban would be sufficient.

Smeargle will be a great edition to the meta as a suicide lead. Webs especially will be better now that we won't have to resort to stuff such as Leavanny or Kricketune. Spore/Dark Void will be good aswell. Don't have any Goth opinions at the moment.

 

[Rollout Shuckle]

I'm not going to rehash the arguments that have been made so far, but I just wanted to post a replay showing how ridiculous Venomoth is:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/rususpecttest-267235379

Even with poor teambuilding and playing on my part, I still managed to set up and sweep with Venomoth. Right now I'm kind of leaning towards ban since Venomoth restricts teambuilding a lot.

Gothitelle seems to be kind of useless at this point but you never know. Also, Smeargle will be a nice addition to Sticky Web / hyper offensive teams as soon as the ladder is updated.

 

[P is For Penguin]

Ty based council, moth has been a pain to deal with since its drop. Im glad that we are actually suspecting it, its strong and somewhat versatile making it a very strong and hard to deal with threat. Also i think smeargle will be great and things like webs will start to see more use.

 

[Lord Death Man]

Veno is easily one of the best set-up sweepers, but it's also very underused relative to other set up mons (it was 16 in last months usage, for example). Hopefully this doesn't lead to people voting on theorymon rather than play, even though I think theorymon trends are matching up with play right now.

Smeargle is a cool-ish HO hazards lead and a much better sticky web lead than anything we have, but it also has some very serious issues that *might* hold it back. Flygon is on a lot of offensive teams and Sticky Webs not only don't affect Flygon, but Flygon can pretty easily remove them, making Smeargle less reliable.

Goth seems useless unless Smeargle Webs really catch on, because trick room competitive goth could be cute. It just kind of sucks even with a +2 boost because it's sort of weak and has a not too great STAB and is even sort of fast for trick room without the drop.

A mon I see being really cool is Xatu, since it deters Venomoth from using Sleep Powder just by existing and completely shuts down Smeargle - I believe Ojoni? was using a Scarf set which has a pretty cool set of features that might make it useful, while LO sets have always had the advantage of shutting down a lot of hazard leads. It's pure theorymon but I expect it to be useful-ish at the very least.

 

[B. Katarn]

After the most recent tier shift, the RU Council has been discussing the state of the meta game, and pretty much everyone agreed that we should probably hold another suspect test. As for what we're suspecting, we decided to go with Venomoth this round.

I have no issue with this suspect test of Venomoth. But....
The way this is phrased makes it sound like suspecting has become a scheduled undertaking we do rather than a necessity when something(s) become too far removed from the meta as a whole. And that this suspect was for some Pokemon, but there was no specific issue that caused the suspect. That Venomoth just became the target after a talk of who would be a likely one to try, not a needed one.

I suspect (no pun intended) that this was just phrased wrong and the test had reason to come about. Just wanted to voice how this sounded.... problematic.

 

[miltankmilk]

I don't per-say have an issue to suspecting venomoth, its a very powerful set up sweeper and with its access to sleep powder, it's very hard to beat 1on1. That being said, with things like durant, scarf-medicham and gallade in the tier, i can definitely understand the argument to keep it in the tier. I think there are other things that pose more of a problem, ie Tyrantrum. Since it's being tested, it'll be interesting to see what the meta looks like without veno, most likely shifting a lot toward stall.

Edit: The moth needs to go. Sub QD with webs support is too strong

 

[MrAldo]

First I will like to apologize for that last post, I was too happy lol (I know it is pointless to apologize but is something I do since my little child days, is part of me, ok?)

Venomoth is easily the most threatening setup sweeper the tier has right now. Between quiver dance, one of the best boosting moves in the game, an ability that let it neutralize or reduce 4x resists to 2x resists and efficient neutral coverage it is incredibly to deal with and even a pain to switch into. LO Venomoth has solid wallbreaker potential thanks to Tinted Lens. Playing around sleep powder is incredibly annoying and really difficult since you basically need to bank on sleep talk, and thats pretty unreliable since you need for to go on your favor or certain scarfers like delphox and emboar so you just dont die to it. Some of its checks just cant switch into it (fletchinder) or get worn down really easily (escavalier or mega steelix)

In the end is an incredible teambuilding constraint, it can take advantage of many mons either with sleep powder or thanks to its typing depending if it is the LO set or the sub QD set. Mons like qwilfish, tangrowth and alomomola just give it free turns depending of set.

Looking forward to participating in this suspect test, and looking forward to see teams overprepared for venomoth that wont let me run it.

 

[PinoyTater]

Venomoth is def a great setup sweeper thanks to QD and can deal w/ a lot of the metagame pretty well, therefore I agree with this suspect test. With Sleep Powder and Tinted Lens Bug Buzz, switching in to it can be a risk. It isn't unstoppable, as there are a few revenge killers like Delphox and Durant to deal with it. Won't really go too into this topic as I'm sure most are aware of its presence in the tier anyway, no need to regurgitate.

Smeargle on the other hand has been pretty fun to use! Before the drop, I haven't seen much Sticky Web use in the tier, so I think the addition of Smeargle will change things up. I've been using it on a cool HO team using Webs and Rocks and it's been a nice change of a pace (though that's because I don't use HO teams that much). Regardless, it seems like a nice addition to the tier.

 

[Kingler]

I have no issue with this suspect test of Venomoth. But....
The way this is phrased makes it sound like suspecting has become a scheduled undertaking we do rather than a necessity when something(s) become too far removed from the meta as a whole. And that this suspect was for some Pokemon, but there was no specific issue that caused the suspect. That Venomoth just became the target after a talk of who would be a likely one to try, not a needed one.

I suspect (no pun intended) that this was just phrased wrong and the test had reason to come about. Just wanted to voice how this sounded.... problematic.

What's wrong with that? Tier leaders are working on actively balancing out all the ORAS tiers while it's still the main gen and they garner more activity. It's a "suspect" for a reason; we determine whether something is broken or not; it's not like it's an autoban or anything. We just want to actively balance out our tiers as much as possible. Regardless, for more stable metas there is less frequent suspect testing so I do disagree w/ what you're interpreting here.

 

[pokemonisfun]

B. Katarn Kingler12345

Except "suspects" more or less have been autobans (or wait 2-3 weeks then ban). You can double check the records but I'm fairly certain every single RU suspect this generation has resulted in a ban except one which wasn't even a suspect but a quick decision. This could mean our tier leaders are very good at picking suspects but it could also mean the community here just loves to ban which is extremely "dangerous" (for lack of a better word) when in conjunction with B. Katarn's concerns. That concern being we are merely suspecting for the sake of it or to increase activity.

All that said however, I am fine with Venomoth being suspected, it's probably the most broken Pokemon right now (although that doesn't mean it is broken) and deserves the test because nothing else has its sweeping capabilities in the tier and the unpredictability of Sleep Powder makes most of its checks shaky.

 

[pokemonisfun]

I don't have an issue with trying to increase activity with suspect tests if that's just a peripheral effect and you're right I don't see any reason to believe it's not just a side effect.

I also don't have an issue a 100% ban rate for our suspect tests if the decisions came up with thoughtful deliberation.

But this is my concern: if we're suspecting for the sake of it and we have a history of banning everything tested then I'm afraid we will merely go on witch hunts to find the next broken Pokemon even if it's not broken, even if it's just the best or most notable Pokemon - which it could be without being broken.

You could ask me if this so called witch hunt mentality even happened yet and I honestly couldn't be sure it didn't. Already in this thread there has been about a 10:1 ratio of proban or leaning ban to leaning no ban. This happens in other RU suspect threads as well when they are first posted and while no ban crops up more later, ultimately there is never any momentum shift to no ban.

I also am concerned about how you seem to imply having a majority of people vote ban means the ban is good and reasonable. If that was the case then we wouldn't bother having any discussion or suspect thread. Because you would be saying the vote justifies itself, which isn't the case, and its not hard to see how this can promote the witch hunting.

 

[Mikael]

am i the only one who see the NP song pointless? :P
as for moth,on paper,looks ridiculous. sleep powder + quiver dance can be very monstrous. and tinted lens just puts pressure on mons who would resist its moves.
as time goes on,i'm going to have more elaborated opinion on it.
will goth ever have a niche here?