dark, dragon, and flying are all way too low imo, and rock and electric are too high
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Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...undra-victim-of-the-week.3665831/post-8981326Got a clown question/discussion
How is everyone limiting Blace?
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...undra-victim-of-the-week.3665831/post-8985965
Submission period is now closed, so let's move on to the voting phase. The Victim of the week was the Ultra Beast
Checks
by Katy
by HydreigonTheChild
by avg
by Plushietran
by Windingsss
by D5405
by RaikouLover
by SLDR
by ralts_boy
by InvisibleWater
by Da stall masta 999
by Dawn Greninja
Counters
by powergo1
some counters n checks 4 u. Blace is an offensive powerhouse for sure that def needs to be accounted for during the tb phase for most team archetypes
Electric has single-handedly forced a ground type onto every good team and tyranitar's stone edge has proved itself to me as strong enough that rock can go into the top tier
Just going to leave this here:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon: 196-232 (46 - 54.4%) -- 55.9% chance to 2HKO
Timid Specs with Lele can also do this:
252 SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Expanding Force (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gastrodon in Psychic Terrain: 232-274 (54.4 - 64.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
If we're on the subject of typings, it's honestly incredible to me that Gamefreak has stubbornly stood by its decision to remove a Ghost type resistance (Steel) without adding another one, and pretend that it is a good balance decision. Maybe one day they'll let people who actually play the game provide at least some fleeting input into their game design.
Modest is not a good idea on Blace. The increased SpA is nice, but the cost of being outsped by Chomp, Zapdos, Lele, Nihi and Shifu hurts its ability to clean up lategame.
I've only Modest Specs when I'm running Mind Blown, otherwise Timid Blace all day. That's also why I dropped the Expanding Force calc with the more common nature.
Ghost's type match-ups are about as good as Dragon, with a bit more SE coverage, but the same number of Resistances & immunities. On top of that, the BP of Ghost type's strongest attack is lower than other types like Ground, Water, Fire, etc. Poltergeist is a strong move, but also has the downside of being completely useless against anything that doesn't have an item (which can occur in battle by using Knock Off prior or a consumable item) making it situational.
Generally speaking, I do think the decision to remove Steel's resistance to Ghost was a good decision since most Pokemon (particularly Pokemon like Glaceon) had no way of hitting Steel-types outside of Hidden Power. Ghost being neutral at least lets these Pokemon damage Steel-types rather than being completely walled.
IDK, I think Ghost-type moves are spammable and it is one of the best offensive types in the game, but that's largely a byproduct of most people (myself included) not running any Defensive Normal or Dark-types (or things like Bulletproof Kommo-O that could be ran as counterplay to Shadow Ball specifically). Additionally, it does not help that the best Ghost-type, Dragapult, has the coverage to make things like Weavile and Hydreigon shaky switch-ins at best. Really, I do not think the issue is that Ghost-types are too good, but rather that the counterplay to Ghost-types in the metagame is not good enough like it is for Dragons.
There's a big difference between ghost vs dragon. While dragon has higher BP moves, they have hard stops in fairies which there are plenty of good ones (in the context of OU). And of course steel is still as good as ever. Vs ghost types, which are blanked by normals (which there are all of one viable normal in the tier, and said normal has seen better days in viability), and only two splashable darks. It doesn't really matter that ghosts have lower BP moves, when they can just freely click a move most of the time and not be punished for it if they need to switch out.
Respectfully, I don't think this is a good argument in favor. Even now, barely any Pokemon run nonstab ghost moves as coverage (this is also true of Pokemon and not running nonstab dragon moves). The change didn't help these Pokemon because they aren't suddenly gonna be using these unstab ghost moves against resists to their main stab(s).
Ghost was completely removed from the type relations of steel, dark and fairy. In retrospect it really didn't need to be changed alongside them. We don't run defensive normals outside Blissey (which has seen better days) and we don't run defensive darks outside Tyranitar (who would rather run band sets as defensive sets suck), because there ARE no really splashable choices. It's why so many have resorted to running Spdef tanks who are neutral to ghost to act as "fake resists".
Mandibuzz is sad you don't consider it a ghost check.
Ghost as a coverage type is pretty bad, very niche applications. Ghost as a primary offensive typing is great. I think despite the low amount of ready checks in the tier compared to other offensive types, ghosts in particular can lack 2hko on a lot of common mons anyways, and those forced switches combined with hazards and their innate frailty means unless sturdier offensive types, ghosts need a bit more consideration whenever you bring them in. I'm a bit surprised Gengar hasn't seen more usage. It holds the highest base power Hex available, and a very valuable speed tier in the current meta despite the rise of Weavile. It is an exceedingly difficult mon to predict as well with how many options it has at is disposal.
At the very least it's nice to see Tyranitar rise in usage, even if most of the time I see it on Sand teams.
Ghost as a coverage type is pretty bad, very niche applications. Ghost as a primary offensive typing is great. I think despite the low amount of ready checks in the tier compared to other offensive types, ghosts in particular can lack 2hko on a lot of common mons anyways, and those forced switches combined with hazards and their innate frailty means unless sturdier offensive types, ghosts need a bit more consideration whenever you bring them in. I'm a bit surprised Gengar hasn't seen more usage. It holds the highest base power Hex available, and a very valuable speed tier in the current meta despite the rise of Weavile. It is an exceedingly difficult mon to predict as well with how many options it has at is disposal.
At the very least it's nice to see Tyranitar rise in usage, even if most of the time I see it on Sand teams.
Teleport is only an issue with Regenerator, as otherwise the mon using teleport gets chipped too much by spamming it. And Slowtwins would work the same way with baton pass, u-turn or flip turn. With Teleport becoming competitively relevant this generation, it's the first time slow regen mons have access to a pivoting move, and here's the real problem. So how do you counter that?
- If you have a mon on the field that is passive against Slowtwins, double on the Slowtwin coming in so that it can't click Teleport safely.
- If the Slowtwin came in safely and you're expecting a Teleport, switch in a Pokémon in such a way that the opponent can't bring any threatening Pokémon in via Teleport. Let's say your team is weak to Nidoking and fine against Kartana, then instead of going Koko, which invites in the dangerous Nidoking, go to your Tapu Lele which invites in Kartana instead. In the best case scenario you have a reliable mid-ground play everytime, but it's often not the case.
- Build teams that don't let Slowtwins get free teleports, or that can take advantage from status/knock taken by Slowtwins while Teleporting. That's easier said than done though, especially on bulkier teams. Those have the best defensive backbone though, so they are less impacted by a breaker getting a free entry.
Here's a fresh replay from the goat featuring a few of the things I mentioned:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-629782
Turn 2: Felix immediately punishes the Slowbro with Trick, which makes his Melmetal very threatening.
Turn 3: if he just plays passively and clicks Moonblast on Slowbro, HMNIP could go Kartana which would put Felix in an awkward position, so he goes immediately into Melmetal expecting the Teleport, which works perfectly as HMNIP has nothing safe into Melm to take advantage of the Future Sight, especially since Felix is running protect. Then the Slowbro gets poisoned and has to take SR damage, making it very difficult for HMNIP to click Teleport and Future Sight. After that, his team falls apart to the Melmetal which he has no good way to deal with anymore.
Here's another one from SPL Week 1:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-601660
Turn 3: If Insult goes Koko on the Teleport, bro fist could bring in Heatran or Lele and threaten his team. He brings in Urshifu on the Teleport which is confirmed to be faster than Lele after turn 1, meaning it gets chipped by U-Turn after bro fist brings it in. After another U-Turn from Torn, Lele is in range of Koko so he brings it in a couple times on Slowbro after that and prevents bro fist from gaining too much momentum from the teleports. Thus only letting bro fist click surging strikes twice against a team that's very weak to water.
There are definitely ways to play around Teleport, though the move often allows the one using it to play safe while the opponent either has a good mid-ground and the Slowtin user doesn't gain much out of it, or the opponent doesn't have such luxury and has to make predicts to not let the Slowtwin user be in an advantageous position, while himself not taking advantage of the risk he took. That being said, the Slowtwins often have to be careful around the Pokémon they check/counter and will be punished for teleporting too much.
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So with a rise in Air Balloon usage on Heatran, I'm curious as to how people are game planning with their own Heatrans in return to avoid being hard walled with the usual fire/ground coverage. I've been exploring Heavy Slam, Flash Cannon, and Body Press all to varying affect. If you aren't SpA invested Heavy Slam hits Clefable harder Flash Cannon does, but with even just a +SpA nature and minor investment you quickly even the damage up. Flash Cannon has the advantage of hitting Lando/Chomp reliably hard on the switch, and when offensive invested, gives you the best answer to dealing with the fairies. With 208 defense EVs, Body Press 3hkos Blissey, and obviously hits other Balloon Trans the hardest. A 208 def EV Body Press also out damages a 252 +SpA nature Flash Cannon on a 252 HP/+252 Tyranitar in Sand pretty easily.
Some Fun Calcs:
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 138-164 (34.1 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 272-320 (67.3 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tyranitar: 102-120 (25.2 - 29.7%) -- 39% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 266-314 (37.2 - 43.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 200 Def Clefable: 218-258 (55.3 - 65.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 270-318 (68.5 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 140-166 (36.2 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Fini: 115-136 (33.4 - 39.5%) -- 97.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
If You are not specially invested (even -Atk nature) Heavy Slam will out damage Earth Power on 252 HP/+192 Def Fini by ~3%
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 270-320 (96 - 113.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 254-302 (90.3 - 107.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Landorus-Therian: 120-142 (31.4 - 37.1%) -- 51.2% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Garchomp: 115-136 (27.3 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Garchomp: 93-109 (22.1 - 25.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
(Chomp so tanky!)
I almost think we could have a discussion thread solely on Heatran. Despite suffering from 4mss, it has quite an interesting pool, two great abilities, a plethora of items to choose from, and very customizable EV spreads. It can be tailored to do quite an array of jobs at a high level, and often gets treated as a supporting piece rather than the focus. Other than testing different moves to break Balloons, I've also been trending away from Magma Storm and more towards Eruption and/or Lava Plume as my fire stab(s). After missing so many Magma's I wanted to shift more towards reliable progress and stronger raw breaking power.
Some Fun Calcs:
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 138-164 (34.1 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 272-320 (67.3 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tyranitar: 102-120 (25.2 - 29.7%) -- 39% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 266-314 (37.2 - 43.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 200 Def Clefable: 218-258 (55.3 - 65.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 270-318 (68.5 - 80.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
208 Def Heatran Body Press vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 140-166 (36.2 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tapu Fini: 115-136 (33.4 - 39.5%) -- 97.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
If You are not specially invested (even -Atk nature) Heavy Slam will out damage Earth Power on 252 HP/+192 Def Fini by ~3%
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 270-320 (96 - 113.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tapu Lele: 254-302 (90.3 - 107.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Landorus-Therian: 120-142 (31.4 - 37.1%) -- 51.2% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Heatran Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Garchomp: 115-136 (27.3 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
0- Atk Heatran Heavy Slam (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Garchomp: 93-109 (22.1 - 25.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
(Chomp so tanky!)
I almost think we could have a discussion thread solely on Heatran. Despite suffering from 4mss, it has quite an interesting pool, two great abilities, a plethora of items to choose from, and very customizable EV spreads. It can be tailored to do quite an array of jobs at a high level, and often gets treated as a supporting piece rather than the focus. Other than testing different moves to break Balloons, I've also been trending away from Magma Storm and more towards Eruption and/or Lava Plume as my fire stab(s). After missing so many Magma's I wanted to shift more towards reliable progress and stronger raw breaking power.
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I honeslty believe Magma Storm is an almost fundamental move for offensive Heatran, for the main reason of forcing progress on its targets with constant (often unrecoverable) chip damage on its switch-ins, as well as the ability of crippling and potentially removing many key defensive mons on the opponent's team. Another important aspect is removing the option of double-switching, letting in the appropriate breaker and putting pressure on the opponent. As much as I would like to complain about Magma Storm's accuracy and low PP, they probably are the only reasons this thing is in OU.
What are your favorite UU Pokémon’s that do really well in OU?
——-
I’ve been experimenting a lot with about 8 different “UU All-stars” teams in OU. Where the common theme is all Pokémon’s have to be legal in UU, and the overall team needs to be optimised for OU.
after this experimentation on the ladder.. peaking at about 1980, with various teams averaging from 1600s to 1850s (no team so far averaged higher than 1900s in ELO)… need to make the following comments:
1. The best all stars team used
Aegislash, 
Keldeo, 
Mandibuzz and 
Bulu. This core is shockingly proficient both offensively and defensively. And this is with only Mandibuzz running pure defensive EV spreads! It caused a strong zapdos weakness, hippodown + your choice of rotom could deal with it.
2.
Rotom-H is really good in OU right now.. it harasses common cores and can switch into melmetal, as well as most fliers and even defensive Garchomp, Garchomp is supposed to be a check for it!Just hit 219 speed, 252 HP, invest in your choice of SpD or Def, and use nasty plot + thunderbolt + overheat + pain split
3. running a “breedable” UU all-stars team in OU is really hard.. you basically need a super strong wall breaker like Crawdaunt, and outside of the rotoms, slowking and maybe slowbro-g, good pivots or Pokémon that can be both defensive/offensive are hard to find.
4. No matter the UU all stars team you build, urshifu, dragapult, kartana, heatran, garchomp and the rest of the hard hitting gang will all be a nightmare to deal with. You can probably see why Mandibuzz is essential!
5.
Primarina is disgustingly good when the opponent doesn’t have a Blissey, chansey, glowking or Ferrothorn. It’s always a fun time when toxapex isn’t packing an offensive poison move.
6. UU Allstars rain teams aren’t too bad. Who woulda thunk
moltres could be a rain threat?
7. Speaking of rain teams..
Politoed isn’t too bad, it has 1x unique niche over pelliper, that is access to encore and perish song. It can come in surprisingly handy!
8.
is really fun to use when it works. Unfortunately it’s just the 1000th reason landorus-t is the best Pokémon in OU.
—
it’s shocking this isn’t OU. The main set I used after some experimentation:
- shadow ball
- shadow sneak
- kings shield
- close combat
item is leftovers. Nature and EVs can be flexible, I used 252+ SpA, and alternated between more bulk, or more speed.Your choice of speed EVs depends on the benchmark you wanna hit:
• 0 Spe and negative nature gives max bulk, making you a super reliable lele check, but Aegislash will be weak against stall or very bulky teams.
• between 0 Spe- and 100 Spe, there’s benchmarks like clefable, Blissey, etc. if you’re picking a spot between the two, just benchmark against those switch ins
• 100 Spe and neutral nature puts you in a nice middle ground of bulky Pokémon, where you outspeed switch ins like corviknight, to make it harder to roost stall on you, whilst under speeding Mandibuzz, Incase you can sneak in a close combat on her in the end game.
why is this Aegislash set so good?
it’s because a Pokémon is only as good as it’s ability to either 1. Switch into a challenging threat or 2. Deal with repeated switch ins from Pokémon that check it.
defensively, aegislash is a rare find that can switch into top threats like lele, combo threats like screens + Cloyster, mediocre threats like Hawlucha, out of favour threats like zapdos-g, and fringe threats like Bulu.
kings shield can scout choice moves. It can also be used to recover hp, so for example, when you switch in on a lele, you can actually recover 18.75% before you switch out again (boosted with grassy terrain support)
you can switch into common predicted soft moves, like a toxic, or strong ones like close combat for the quick 6.25% or 12.5% recovery. (Boosted by terrain).
Aegislash shadow ball conveniently 3hkos its most common check: SpD landorus.. so it puts good pressure on it. It also forces out slower switch ins like toxapex or clefable if it is lucky to get a SpD drop or crit (24.8% chance). Shadow sneak is a really cool tool because you’ll notice 2 shadow balls pits most Pokémon into 0-20% HP range, whilst most other Pokémon get into that range from 3 shadow balls.
some examples replays:
Aegislash handles screen supported cloyster quite reliably. Coming in numerous times over a match. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1586161389-5pnv6c6esrhpgbjemvazy7g8ault5q3pw
sometimes choiced Pokémon can be a liability, such as when you’re against an Aegislash. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1585197571-5d827eyc9pjvzjf4n8yfpnoqnopma1mpw
Here’s a really fun 2000s ELO matchup with Aegislash vs Aegislash. You’ll see the opponents Aegislash walls my Bulu, whilst my aegislash tries it’s best to shield against the extremely strong onslaught. Ultimately I lost due to losing momentum far too early against extreme offense. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580951557-dfr3okbsfzo2x7lw861l8pthahmom98pw
Aegislash best counter (to the set I mentioned) by far is Mandibuzz. Here’s a match where I get completely walled, almost effortlessly, due to a very difficult to break defensive backbone. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580705429-4zpw447syo3yfupuq5xm3doty3iwqfupw
Sometimes Aegislash will win in matchups you don’t expect.. like against a magnezone https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580129871-1m1rjd45pg8jpcl00vidvc61d03pyu5pw
——-
I’ve been experimenting a lot with about 8 different “UU All-stars” teams in OU. Where the common theme is all Pokémon’s have to be legal in UU, and the overall team needs to be optimised for OU.
after this experimentation on the ladder.. peaking at about 1980, with various teams averaging from 1600s to 1850s (no team so far averaged higher than 1900s in ELO)… need to make the following comments:
1. The best all stars team used
Aegislash, Keldeo, Mandibuzz and Bulu. This core is shockingly proficient both offensively and defensively. And this is with only Mandibuzz running pure defensive EV spreads! It caused a strong zapdos weakness, hippodown + your choice of rotom could deal with it.2.
Rotom-H is really good in OU right now.. it harasses common cores and can switch into melmetal, as well as most fliers and even defensive Garchomp, Garchomp is supposed to be a check for it!Just hit 219 speed, 252 HP, invest in your choice of SpD or Def, and use nasty plot + thunderbolt + overheat + pain split3. running a “breedable” UU all-stars team in OU is really hard.. you basically need a super strong wall breaker like Crawdaunt, and outside of the rotoms, slowking and maybe slowbro-g, good pivots or Pokémon that can be both defensive/offensive are hard to find.
4. No matter the UU all stars team you build, urshifu, dragapult, kartana, heatran, garchomp and the rest of the hard hitting gang will all be a nightmare to deal with. You can probably see why
Mandibuzz is essential!5.
Primarina is disgustingly good when the opponent doesn’t have a Blissey, chansey, glowking or Ferrothorn. It’s always a fun time when toxapex isn’t packing an offensive poison move.6. UU Allstars rain teams aren’t too bad. Who woulda thunk
moltres could be a rain threat?7. Speaking of rain teams..
Politoed isn’t too bad, it has 1x unique niche over pelliper, that is access to encore and perish song. It can come in surprisingly handy!8.
is really fun to use when it works. Unfortunately it’s just the 1000th reason landorus-t is the best Pokémon in OU.—
it’s shocking this isn’t OU. The main set I used after some experimentation:- shadow ball
- shadow sneak
- kings shield
- close combat
item is leftovers. Nature and EVs can be flexible, I used 252+ SpA, and alternated between more bulk, or more speed.Your choice of speed EVs depends on the benchmark you wanna hit:
• 0 Spe and negative nature gives max bulk, making you a super reliable lele check, but Aegislash will be weak against stall or very bulky teams.
• between 0 Spe- and 100 Spe, there’s benchmarks like clefable, Blissey, etc. if you’re picking a spot between the two, just benchmark against those switch ins
• 100 Spe and neutral nature puts you in a nice middle ground of bulky Pokémon, where you outspeed switch ins like corviknight, to make it harder to roost stall on you, whilst under speeding Mandibuzz, Incase you can sneak in a close combat on her in the end game.
why is this Aegislash set so good?
it’s because a Pokémon is only as good as it’s ability to either 1. Switch into a challenging threat or 2. Deal with repeated switch ins from Pokémon that check it.
defensively, aegislash is a rare find that can switch into top threats like lele, combo threats like screens + Cloyster, mediocre threats like Hawlucha, out of favour threats like zapdos-g, and fringe threats like Bulu.
kings shield can scout choice moves. It can also be used to recover hp, so for example, when you switch in on a lele, you can actually recover 18.75% before you switch out again (boosted with grassy terrain support)
you can switch into common predicted soft moves, like a toxic, or strong ones like close combat for the quick 6.25% or 12.5% recovery. (Boosted by terrain).
Aegislash shadow ball conveniently 3hkos its most common check: SpD landorus.. so it puts good pressure on it. It also forces out slower switch ins like toxapex or clefable if it is lucky to get a SpD drop or crit (24.8% chance). Shadow sneak is a really cool tool because you’ll notice 2 shadow balls pits most Pokémon into 0-20% HP range, whilst most other Pokémon get into that range from 3 shadow balls.
some examples replays:
Aegislash handles screen supported cloyster quite reliably. Coming in numerous times over a match. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1586161389-5pnv6c6esrhpgbjemvazy7g8ault5q3pw
sometimes choiced Pokémon can be a liability, such as when you’re against an Aegislash. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1585197571-5d827eyc9pjvzjf4n8yfpnoqnopma1mpw
Here’s a really fun 2000s ELO matchup with Aegislash vs Aegislash. You’ll see the opponents Aegislash walls my Bulu, whilst my aegislash tries it’s best to shield against the extremely strong onslaught. Ultimately I lost due to losing momentum far too early against extreme offense. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580951557-dfr3okbsfzo2x7lw861l8pthahmom98pw
Aegislash best counter (to the set I mentioned) by far is Mandibuzz. Here’s a match where I get completely walled, almost effortlessly, due to a very difficult to break defensive backbone. https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580705429-4zpw447syo3yfupuq5xm3doty3iwqfupw
Sometimes Aegislash will win in matchups you don’t expect.. like against a magnezone https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1580129871-1m1rjd45pg8jpcl00vidvc61d03pyu5pw
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You may as well drop the pastes, since you linked so many replays. Some of those teams look fun.1. The best all star team used
Drill
and Hippo 
are other two mons in UU that are borderline OU. We know who they are, and we know what they do - the meta isn't overly favourable to them at the moment, but thats not a fault on the mon itself. They'll come back home to roost in OU in future gens.Nihilego
and Nidoking 
are two other UU gems who are an absolute blast to use in OU. Neither appreciate Weavile (among other mons) but they have phenomenal coverage and stats. Some of the most fun special breakers for sure.I feel a lot of people have been sleeping on Rotom-Wash
, especially the Trick Scarf set. Due to its stabs and Will-o-Wisp Lando usually avoids to switch in so it is very easy to trick the scarf onto a Ferro, Clef or BlisseyI wholeheartedly disagree. You've made it sound like Magma Storm is the only thing making it viable despite it being at the top of the tier and people have discussed suspecting it. One move on mon doesn't do that. It's a cumulative total of its great qualities that have kept it at the top of OU since gen 4. The recent influx of Eruption/Lava Plume variants has shown us Heatran definitely can have a successful niche without being a Magma Storm trapper. It also warps the move selection for your set in addition to its accuracy flaws. If you want to get the most mileage out of it, very often you need to pair it with Taunt and/or Toxic just to kill certain mons within the trap time frame. I'd actually make an argument that Earth Power is more required than Magma Storm as Heatran has a number of viable primary Fire stabs, but Earth Power remains its best secondary option.
Really though I'd rather be discussing anti-Balloon tech and their viability, as that was the purpose of my initial post.
by far my fav UU pokemon to use in OU. nido just clicks a button and deals obscene amounts of damage on whoever switches in. he literally just nukes things left and right with his massive damage output and colorful coverage. this heavily limits the amount of pokemon who would want to come in on nido, especially on a predicted hit, bc you can’t tell what coverage he‘s running, so you kinda just have to bring in your bulkiest mon and hope he doesn’t nail you on the switch with SE coverage. so essentially, nido’s only “safe” switch-ins are blissey (gets slammed by LO superpower) and specially defensive corviknight (gets 2HKOed by flamethrower/thunderbolt). shit’s just so fun to use lol
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I may have phrased it poorly, I meant to say that Magma Storm's low accuracy and PP is the reason Heatran is not Uber. Obviusly Heatran has numerous reasons for being top tier, but what I feel it makes it almost banworthy is its ability to force progress in almost any situation.
That makes much more sense haha. As I mentioned prior, I think also in how restricting Magma Storm is as a move on the rest of your slots helps balance it quite a bit as well. If you run it without Taunt or Toxic your list of things you can trap with just Magma+E.Power is very small. There is a lot of value in bulky offense structures to get the switch advantage that Magma provides, that can't be denied for sure. But as someone who spends a good portion of their time trying to come up with new sets, moving away from Magma Storm has opened up a lot of creative possibilities, and sometimes even leads me back to using Magma again.
More than exploring its individual moveset, I feel it could be a good starting point to first define the role you would want Tran to have or, more importantly, its partners. Heatran has the ability to do basically anything with the caviat that, depending on the set, certain mons completely stonewall it, so it could be productive to explore the partners that would best take advantage of the basically guaranteed switch-in.
On another note, how about Rock Tomb? It could help a lot with the match-up against fast pivoters, especially Torn-T.
Rock Tomb isn't one I've tested myself yet, but if you provide some notable calcs (I'm not home atm) we can compare them to the ones I did for the previous three options to expand the discussion.
I think one of the things that hurt offensive Tran was the loss of Hidden Power, notably Ice to catch Chomp+Lando on the switch, which has allowed them to be successful as SpDef checks better. But in the vein of you discussing partners when building around Heatran, Nature Power is one I haven't personally explored that much and allows Tran to not only answer some common checks, but to also break Air Balloons.
0- Atk Heatran Rock Tomb vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Tornadus-Therian: 86-102 (23.7 - 28.1%) -- 88.2% chance to 4HKO
252 SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tornadus-Therian: 268-316 (74 - 87.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The damage isn't much but easily allows to 2HKO Torn on the switch under the right conditions. Also competely forgot of Nature Power as an option, although if using with Koko, Rilla or Bulu I would suggest to use another item other than Air Balloon to make full use of the terrain.
I could see Rock Tomb having merit. With Balloon it means Chomp and Lando are Toxic fodder for you always off the switch, same with Torn if you have enough speed investment. It gives a bit of redundancy vs Volcarona, but also helps directly in the Heatran mirror, especially if you have a Balloon, as if you are offensive you guarantee outspeed and ohko any Balloon Tran that tried to switch into you.
In particular when it comes to grassy terrain I am inclined to agree. Leftovers and a few other items/moves gain a lot of merit when you are getting bonus recovery per turn. Notably Protect and/or Toxic becomes a valuable option, as does Torment (Volcanion being the most obvious exception, a lot of standard sets lack two ways to reliably and significantly damage Heatran on a per turn basis). Nature Power becomes a decent option for Bro and Chomp on the switch, although I think Koko is potentially Heatran's best Nature Power partner.
Edit: Under Grassy you gain additional considerations such as Iron Defense, Body Press, Flame Body as an Ability, Will-o-wisp, Lava Plume, Eruption (since you can recover it's base power), Rocky Helmet, Shuca Berry, Metronome, and more physically defensive spreads.
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