Metagame SS OU Metagame Discussion Thread v7 (Usage Stats in post #3539)

I'll stop after this cuz I guess something I'm saying isn't making sense. Maybe I'm tired.

On a lot of these fat boots+regenerator spam teams, chip damage is not actually something you can reliably do without clicking knock off on a few boots users first. I'm saying the punish for not having knock off on a team is way higher this gen for basically no good reason
 

1LDK

It's never going to get better
is a Top Team Rater
I'm down for item clause tbh sounds fun
Nah, its not 2 mons at the same time in a fast pace game, i think in a item clause meta you would get a meta where you fight for things like a "hdb users" and "life orb/choice users" instead of cores types, too restricting
 
I'll stop after this cuz I guess something I'm saying isn't making sense. Maybe I'm tired.

On a lot of these fat boots+regenerator spam teams, chip damage is not actually something you can reliably do without clicking knock off on a few boots users first. I'm saying the punish for not having knock off on a team is way higher this gen for basically no good reason
Knock off is also good for generally other things. it makes smth that doesn't want to lose its item more wary such as torn-t switching in on kart, ferro, or rillaboom. It is a good progress maker for all the stall haters. THis move has pretty much been on always any team since gen 6 so idk what this is on about?
 
I'll stop after this cuz I guess something I'm saying isn't making sense. Maybe I'm tired.

On a lot of these fat boots+regenerator spam teams, chip damage is not actually something you can reliably do without clicking knock off on a few boots users first. I'm saying the punish for not having knock off on a team is way higher this gen for basically no good reason
the punishment for not having knock off is high, but the cost for using it is also reduced. Knock off isn’t a 20 bp move like in gen 4-5, you can spam knock off without having to worry about mega stones or z-crystals like gen 6-7, and overall is actually a good coverage and STAB move. it’s easy to slap on a team because both defensive and offensive pokemon get it.
 
Nah, its not 2 mons at the same time in a fast pace game, i think in a item clause meta you would get a meta where you fight for things like a "hdb users" and "life orb/choice users" instead of cores types, too restricting
isn't there also a clause for 3v3 singles? yeah it's not as fast as 6v6. I just think it's fun for team building, as was removing hidden power. forcing different solutions than have historically been good is fine by me. I am not gonna campaign for this at all just think it seems fun!
 
Nah, its not 2 mons at the same time in a fast pace game, i think in a item clause meta you would get a meta where you fight for things like a "hdb users" and "life orb/choice users" instead of cores types, too restricting
Having played VGC and 3v3 singles, you still build cores and stuff. Very little of teambuilding is figuring out which items go where. No viability ranking is tiered by the best user of an item. In fact, it usually just doesn't matter. If you want to form a core with Charizard and Groudon, and you put a life orb on your Charizard, you just put something else on the Groudon. Or, if you use your eviolite on a Clefairy, this is probably not the team for Porygon2. It fixes the boots/knock off thing thing, which I'm still not convinced isn't just the most tedious part of gen8 ou, but whatever.

It also creates a dynamic where a pokemon using an item reveals something about the team's structure more generally, and not just that specific mon. For example, if I discover the opposing Lando-T is scarf'd, and the opponent also has a Blace, the likelihood that the Blase is the calm mind set just went way up, because it can't also hold a scarf. Now I can adjust my strategy with this information. But without items clause, discovering the opposing Lando-T is scarf'd... just means it's scarf'd. I haven't learned much of anything about opposing team structure, just that one set.

Idk, this dynamic is really fun in VGC. I don't really see why it wouldn't be fun in 6v6 singles other than the vague notion that "6v6 singles is different than VGC"
 
Having played VGC and 3v3 singles, you still build cores and stuff. Very little of teambuilding is figuring out which items go where. No viability ranking is tiered by the best user of an item. In fact, it usually just doesn't matter. If you want to form a core with Charizard and Groudon, and you put a life orb on your Charizard, you just put something else on the Groudon. Or, if you use your eviolite on a Clefairy, this is probably not the team for Porygon2. It fixes the boots/knock off thing thing, which I'm still not convinced isn't just the most tedious part of gen8 ou, but whatever.

It also creates a dynamic where a pokemon using an item reveals something about the team's structure more generally, and not just that specific mon. For example, if I discover the opposing Lando-T is scarf'd, and the opponent also has a Blace, the likelihood that the Blase is the calm mind set just went way up, because it can't also hold a scarf. Now I can adjust my strategy with this information. But without items clause, discovering the opposing Lando-T is scarf'd... just means it's scarf'd. I haven't learned much of anything about opposing team structure, just that one set.

Idk, this dynamic is really fun in VGC. I don't really see why it wouldn't be fun in 6v6 singles other than the vague notion that "6v6 singles is different than VGC"
But what does adding an item clause do for the health of the meta. It also feels restricting as it would make it so "garchomp is running leftovers to be able to take hits well, but now I cannot fit leftovers on my ferrothorn", just why add it? It just makes teambuilding restricting as now mons that want boots now maybe will be shoved out of the meta since they rely on it, for ex: moltres is a very boots reliant pokemon, you want to run it but all of a sudden you cannot run heavy-duty boots torn-t, geez now who would want to use moltres to take up an item slot for boots. That dynamic can also be generally applied via game knowledge. "Oh the lando-t is scarf, that means it is unlikely they will also have a scarf blace since scarf lando-t should be enough speed control and the blace is most likely CM or specs". The dynamic already exists in the meta, another example is if I discover tapu fini is defog and is not torn-t, we can assume that torn-t is assault vest or maybe another niche item on a NP set like life orb potentially. Like again.. what does this add for the health of the meta
 
It also creates a dynamic where a pokemon using an item reveals something about the team's structure more generally, and not just that specific mon. For example, if I discover the opposing Lando-T is scarf'd, and the opponent also has a Blace, the likelihood that the Blase is the calm mind set just went way up, because it can't also hold a scarf.

This dynamic already exists in singles. Generally speaking when you are familiar enough with a metagame you are able to gleam certain sets on pokemon based on team comp. Some mons you may have to scout for but this is part of the game.

Idk, this dynamic is really fun in VGC. I don't really see why it wouldn't be fun in 6v6 singles other than the vague notion that "6v6 singles is different than VGC"
VGC inherently gets away with it because it has a signicantly longer list of viable, splashable items. And even then, they would lose nothing by ditching the item clause which doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the game imo.

As for singles, all it would do is arbitrarily restrict building.
 
But what does adding an item clause do for the health of the meta. It also feels restricting as it would make it so "garchomp is running leftovers to be able to take hits well, but now I cannot fit leftovers on my ferrothorn", just why add it? It just makes teambuilding restricting as now mons that want boots now maybe will be shoved out of the meta since they rely on it, for ex: moltres is a very boots reliant pokemon, you want to run it but all of a sudden you cannot run heavy-duty boots torn-t, geez now who would want to use moltres to take up an item slot for boots.
I will again argue that metas with an items clause don't work like this in practice. Even in the example you gave, a defog molt with boots can support a torn-t with AV or a resist berry. It's not actually necessary that they both have boots. And a leftovers garchomp can be paired perfectly fine with a rocky helmet ferrothorn. They don't both actually need leftovers and on many teams they already don't both have it.

That dynamic can also be generally applied via game knowledge. "Oh the lando-t is scarf, that means it is unlikely they will also have a scarf blace since scarf lando-t should be enough speed control and the blace is most likely CM or specs". The dynamic already exists in the meta, another example is if I discover tapu fini is defog and is not torn-t, we can assume that torn-t is assault vest or maybe another niche item on a NP set like life orb potentially. Like again.. what does this add for the health of the meta
The obvious difference between what we have now and an items clause format is that you can't actually play like that is a guarantee. If I see a katana and a blace, and the kart is scarf'd, I think maybe the blace is specs instead. And 80% of the time I'm right, but 20% of the time it's just a team with 2 cleaners. So I can't play with the assumption that it's not scarf'd because that's playing with stone edge odds, basically. And the odds are even more shaky for more spammable items like band. If I find out the opposing ttar is band, is the opposing buzzwole automatically defensive? No, actually, there's a solid archetype where they're just both band, so I haven't learned anything. If I knock off leftovers what does that tell me? Nothing. You can make an entire team of just leftovers if you want to.

I think just as some pokemon may be harder to justify because they force use an item, some pokemon may become easier to justify because they have a role on teams that would've just used a more staple mon with a repeat item. Poison types become a little more viable because black sludge gives you a second leftovers. Sand force, hustle, and guts pokemon become a little more viable because it's like having a second choice band. Eviolite users become a little better because they're bulky pokemon that don't use a common item.

"How does this make the meta healthier" a) scouting and information control become much more rewarding, b) team building becomes more challenging in a good way, c) it doesn't actually change things as much as you'd think, since a lot of good teams already have item variety. all the things that make 6v6 singles fun and competitive still apply
 
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I don't think I'll ever see an argument for item clause in my life to address the three above rq, a) just looks like I got beat by double scarf once and I'm mad to me, b) team building becomes worse and more awkward but don't worry it's in a fun way???, c) just not true I've seen one team ever that's got it the closest in my entire builder 500 strong btw is 5 most teams cannot do this or even get close for many reasons limiting certain styles a lot and ofc certain mons like mentioned Moltres and a lot of others

All I see this doing is forcing double choice on every single team; making non scarf speed control incredibly awkward to run and if not that now I need to fit an av user and a pads Mon somehow or give up and use black sludge pex on every team.

Forcing unconventional items that aren't useful on most teams which would be fun for like 5 minutes before it gets tiring.

To summarise like already mentioned elsewhere there isn't the amount of items vgc has their shorter games make it much easier to use one time items the things it's centralized around gives more options for the kind of bs people would only run to prove x pokemon is fine in suspect discussion just comparing it to vgc at all is silly tbh.
 
As someone who once tried to make an argument for item clause. I think on paper it looks like in would be cool, but in execution it could cause some major problems. The lack of leftovers and boots would destroy an already on life support stall. It would have no legs to stand on anymore, and even though I don't like stall, it's a team style nonetheless, and can't be left out to dry like that. Once boots are used up on Shedinja, leftovers are used on Bliss, Black Sludge is used on Pex, and Helmet is used on Corv, you are left with no good items for the other 2 slots, and 2 wasted item slots will ruin a team composition.

The offensive takeover would be disgusting as offensive playstyles have Light Clay for their screens setter, Life Orb, all 3 choice items, leftovers still, Protective Pads, obvious boots, even Air Balloons for offensive Tran, Spell Tags for ghosts, Twisted Spoon Future Sight Lele + Banded Splashifu would probably run rampant. It would be a ridiculous power change that would majorly hurt any defensive playstyle.

The meta is fine as it is. Let SS die on a good point and stop trying to change it at the last second. We found Weavile counterplay, Melmetal got voted to stay, boots are fine, and I feel of any time for the SS meta to be put to the side, a really healthy meta like we have now is perfect.
 
I agree with most of the sentiment people have on keeping the meta the same. To be frank, a lot of the arguments against stuff like Melm, Pex, Boots, item clauses, etc. has been a bunch of wordspew and is plainly wrong in the face of all the evidences we have. All due respect to those more experienced players who participated this way and voiced their opinion, but that's all it is, an opinion. The fact of the matter is that we have a pretty healthy meta and there is almost no reason to touch it. We even have SV coming soon, although OU will be a complete swamp lol.
 
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I will again argue that metas with an items clause don't work like this in practice. Even in the example you gave, a defog molt with boots can support a torn-t with AV or a resist berry. It's not actually necessary that they both have boots. And a leftovers garchomp can be paired perfectly fine with a rocky helmet ferrothorn. They don't both actually need leftovers and on many teams they already don't both have it.



The obvious difference between what we have now and an items clause format is that you can't actually play like that is a guarantee. If I see a katana and a blace, and the kart is scarf'd, I think maybe the blace is specs instead. And 80% of the time I'm right, but 20% of the time it's just a team with 2 cleaners. So I can't play with the assumption that it's not scarf'd because that's playing with stone edge odds, basically. And the odds are even more shaky for more spammable items like band. If I find out the opposing ttar is band, is the opposing buzzwole automatically defensive? No, actually, there's a solid archetype where they're just both band, so I haven't learned anything. If I knock off leftovers what does that tell me? Nothing. You can make an entire team of just leftovers if you want to.

I think just as some pokemon may be harder to justify because they force use an item, some pokemon may become easier to justify because they have a role on teams that would've just used a more staple mon with a repeat item. Poison types become a little more viable because black sludge gives you a second leftovers. Sand force, hustle, and guts pokemon become a little more viable because it's like having a second choice band. Eviolite users become a little better because they're bulky pokemon that don't use a common item.

"How does this make the meta healthier" a) scouting and information control become much more rewarding, b) team building becomes more challenging in a good way, c) it doesn't actually change things as much as you'd think, since a lot of good teams already have item variety. all the things that make 6v6 singles fun and competitive still apply
Yes but it restricts teambuilding in another way since u have to account for which pokemon will have a valuable item, why do that? Like that example is completely valid if u need a defog torn-t but are unable to run it because u decided to run moltres. If they run double scarf that is eaisly abusable as 2 choice locked mons just make the offense MU much better but sacrifice it agaisnt defense so good luck breaking teams with it and scarf kart can be expolitable.

a) u can alr pretty much determine sets of preview, a little scouting can be required for smth such as who is the scarfer or if "x isnt scarf then what is the speed control" so yeah requires a little brain power
b) it becomes shit just to find replacement items... its not like we have so many viable items so it just becomes "how viable is this with a shit item" unless u want to use like the same mons using the same items or similar ones and ur prob gonna see the same 6 items for offense and the same 6 for balance/stall.
c) uh no? most teams are gonna have to drop lefties on a mon, or drop boots, or even drop smth like choice specs when they run smth like specs pult + specs aegi.
 
I think just as some pokemon may be harder to justify because they force use an item, some pokemon may become easier to justify because they have a role on teams that would've just used a more staple mon with a repeat item. Poison types become a little more viable because black sludge gives you a second leftovers. Sand force, hustle, and guts pokemon become a little more viable because it's like having a second choice band. Eviolite users become a little better because they're bulky pokemon that don't use a common item.
Worse/niche pokemon don't suddenly become easier to justify if an item clause exists. We already have poisons in toxapex and glowking for example. They aren't suddenly getting competition. This extends to other random suggestions like sand force or hustle mons.

"How does this make the meta healthier" a) scouting and information control become much more rewarding, b) team building becomes more challenging in a good way, c) it doesn't actually change things as much as you'd think, since a lot of good teams already have item variety. all the things that make 6v6 singles fun and competitive still apply
A) scouting and info control is already rewarding.

B) team building becomes a chore not challenging. A ton of unique and innovative teams become less effective if not impossible to use anymore. The RillaBlaziken team can't be used for example. double ghost teams also are hurt, Melmetal, landoT, Heatran, Garchomp, and many more lefties packing pokemon cannot be run together anymore. This is artificially limiting building.

C) uh... No. A metagame like this you suggest would not be fun. Scrambling for replacements to items or teamslots due to a rule that has no reason to exist... That doesn't make building fun.
 
"How does this make the meta healthier" a) scouting and information control become much more rewarding, b) team building becomes more challenging in a good way, c) it doesn't actually change things as much as you'd think, since a lot of good teams already have item variety. all the things that make 6v6 singles fun and competitive still apply
None of this makes any sense to me. It is all contradictory. If this doesn't change things as much as we think, then what is the point? A clause like this does only restricts team building. While most items have many viable holders, many Pokemon only have 1 or 2 viable items. Want to run Slowking and Volcarona on the same team? Too bad. The idea it improves team building in a "good" way is subjective, though based on responses both top level players and the general public would widely disagree. I say this as someone who falls in the latter category. Most importantly you simply can't argue that it wouldn't fundamentally change the metagame (false) and that simultaneously it would add any worthwhile benefit to the tier (subjective, but almost universally a "no"). This is never going to happen anyway though, so it feels like discussing it is just a waste of time.
 
Hello People of Ou. I would like to introduce you to a mon on paper can destroy stall. [unless they run very phys def tangrowth or know how to predict.]
Now the mon is everybody's favourite rabbit-
For this one you can use knock off + uturn + magnezone to ur advantage.

Diggersby @ Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Mega Kick
- Earthquake
- U-turn
- Knock Off
Now some notable calcs.

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 252 HP / 116+ Def Tapu Fini: 277-327 (80.5 - 95%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 235-277 (58.1 - 68.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 279-328 (70.8 - 83.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 252 HP / 164+ Def Landorus-Therian: 318-375 (83.2 - 98.1%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garchomp: 237-279 (56.4 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Garchomp: 283-334 (67.3 - 79.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 252 HP / 140+ Def Buzzwole: 235-277 (56.2 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Also something which is quite notable since that shit takes a dual wingbeat from defensive dd drag.
Yes nobody runs that much defense but just for the heck of it take the calc.

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 214-253 (54.4 - 64.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [although most bros are hdb or helmet anyway but]


252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 278-328 (70.7 - 83.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 256-303 (65.1 - 77%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 204-240 (48.5 - 57.1%) -- 92.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery [again nobody runs that much defense or non spdef but for the heck of it just take the calc :)]


252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Diggersby Mega Kick vs. 248 HP / 220 Def Zapdos: 343-405 (89.5 - 105.7%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
[ Damn almost guarenteed]
Alright thats the band set. The other set which requires some prediction on whether they go into their unaware mon or if they go into the corv or skarm is the tough one.

Diggersby @ Life Orb
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Body Slam
- Earthquake
- Fire Punch
- Swords Dance

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 312-369 (93.4 - 110.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Corviknight: 411-486 (102.7 - 121.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO you dont even need the rocks for this one

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Fire Punch vs. 152 HP / 0 Def Buzzwole: 413-489 (105 - 124.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO


+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Garchomp: 523-616 (124.5 - 146.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO


+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 338-398 (104.6 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

[For air balloon modest]


+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 116+ Def Tapu Fini: 399-472 (115.9 - 137.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
again my man hits harder than a lot of stuff]

252+ Atk Life Orb Huge Power Diggersby Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Quagsire: 220-261 (55.8 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery so you really dont have to worry about quag too.
This concludes my post. Just saying that this set is actually pretty much unwallable. If you use it on screens or something i can imagine it being good. Have a nice evening/morning/afternoon.
 
c) it doesn't actually change things as much as you'd think, since a lot of good teams already have item variety. all the things that make 6v6 singles fun and competitive still apply
if we take a look at sample teams for a moment, we see that of the 11 sample teams listed as "current", only two of them actually meet item clause, several of these teams run 3 of the same item, and many double up on irreplaceable items such as boots or lefties, saying this wouldn't change things as much as you'd think comes off as a point with no evidence at best, and an untrue statement at worst.
 

Mimikyu Stardust

nyeheheheh
is a Community Contributoris a Tiering Contributor
UPL Champion
Current Sword and Shield OU Meta, Ban Regnerator spam/stacking
(with a side of heavy duty boots)


small disclaimer: english isnt my first languange so please mind the bad grammar

Hello everyone, As the tier is coming to a close as a current gen meta and into the ruins of alph, the meta has been ironed out and optimalized quite well, on whats the best, the good, the bad and the dominant. 2 Things that i feel like have gotten more usage and dominated the meta are two things, Regenerator Spam and Heavy-Duty Boots.

This post is going to focus more on Regenerator spam and in the end i will give some thoughts on heavy duty boots, as the discussion of boots have been done to death and back.

this is a bit lengthy but the most important parts of this post are

Replays and Example of Games
and the brief explanation/Verdict below that and of course my solutions at the bottom, so if you dont have time you can just read that part but i do appreciate you read everything here.

Why I think having more than one regenerator pokemon is unbalanced and deserved to be looked at

Regenerator Spam has been reallty good or even dominating the meta for a while, giving teams amazing defensive backbone without having to invest into a fatter more stall-like build, this has made making progress againts teams very difficult as having 2 regenerator pokemon with 1 or 2 more pokemon with good defensive utility you are forced to always play aggressively and even with one mistake, that can take you back a ton of progress, and if that core is paired with devastating offensive pokemon like :tapu-lele: Tapu Lele or :melmetal: Melmetal, you also have to be more careful as to how you play your defensively and not fall to these great offensive threat like in this game where the regen-spam offense was able to use pex and glowking to switch around and stall out the opponent a bit to regen and do chip damage.

Not only that, defensively it can make teams very hard to break. when mons like :rillaboom: Rillaboom and :garchomp: Garchomp and :melmetal: Melmetal or :heatran: Heatran gets paired with a regen spam core of :tornadus-therian: Tornadus and :toxapex: Toxapex or :slowking-galar:Slowking-G or :slowbro: Slowbro it creates a very tough team to crack with the safety of switching around with regenerations while being able to cripple and chip down the opponent team with status, hazard and future sight like in this replay here. So both bulky offense teams and balance teams are able to use regenerator-spam to their advantage.

Regenrator spam also has a much easier time to succeed in this gen than the last few due to changes like teleport buff and heavy-duty boots. It lets you play even more passively with mons like tornadus and slowbro/slowking able to use boots and ignore hazard damage. This makes chipping them very difficult to deal meaningful damage, while you can use knock off but with mons like clefable or toxapex as knock absorber it will be much harder knocking off heavy-duty boots.

Offense and Balance teams alike can have a tough time dealing with regenerator-spam because how it can invalidate how they play normally.

Offense
requires momentum and breaking huge holes on the enemy team quickly with massive attacks combined with small support from status and hazard and great predictions in which later on in the game you can clean in the endgame with a fast pokemon or a set-up sweeper like in this battle. However, regenerator spam makes it much harder to do, as regenerator pokemon can at least take any 1 big hit or super effective move to scout, and then switch to a different pokemon that can counter. For example, a lot of people runs spdef slowbro, when faced againts a specs dragapult, this slowbro can take the super effective shadow ball first (252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 272-324 (69.2 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) and slack off to scout if the dragapult wants to predict something and then switch out, despite taking 82%, slowbro healed back up to around 70% with slack off and can regenerate the rest back to full in which slowbro can do it all over again later in the game. That's already tough on its own but when 2 regenrator pokemon gets paired together + pokemon with good defensive utility it gets even tougher, a good combo is tornadus + toxapex, where both pokemon are able to take 1 or 2 big hits and then is able to switch into one another, or a different pokemon with good resistance that can create momentum through damage or passive damage. For example, dragapult or even blacephalon againts a torn-pex-weavile which is a common build will have a very hard time to break though. If dragapult is out, pex is usually a safe switch, if the pult uses shadow ball, you have a free switch to weavile to deal damage, if it clicks draco, you can safely switch into torn as it wont take too much damage from draco and can regen it, if it predicts and clicks flamethrower, just stay in. Of course this is just one example of interaction but it shows how stacking regen mons can make it very hard to outplay for offense.

Balance requires slow and safe plays slowly making progress though passive damage, chip damage while preventing that from your opponent with recovery moves, heavy-duty boots, hazard control and magic guard, so in the end game the opponent's team have been crippled enough that you can clean in the endgame with either a fast pokemon or a set up sweeper like in this battle. Regenerator spam completely messes up this interaction. Balance needs to match the passiveness of these regen spam teams with either stacking magic guard/heavy-duty boots or having a regen spam of ur own. This means balance really need to go super passive with at least 1 super strong breaker or set-up sweeper to be able to defeat opposing balance so it wont go to a stalemate, popular mons among those are :melmetal: Melmetal, :reuniclus: set up reuniclus, :dragapult: Hex pult and etc. and since balance is the most popular playstyle at the moment a lot of games can go very long like this battle.

To put it simply,

Stacking 2 or more regenerator pokemon lets you:
Able to create a solid/great defensive core without having to go fat.
Able to play more passively due to passive health gain.
Able to have safe pivots into more dangerous offensive threat.
With additions of gen 8 like teleport, future sight and heavy-duty boots regenerator-spam has a much easier and safer time switching around and dealing damage passively.

There are 13 Fully Evolved regenerator pokemon in which 7 of them are viable, to give a better understanding of viability i will put them in their respective tiers below and explain what they do.

GREAT
S

:tornadus-therian: Tornadus-T :slowking-galar: Slowking-G
A
:toxapex: Toxapex :slowbro: Slowbro
A-
:slowking: Slowking
GOOD
B

:reuniclus: Reuniclus :tangrowth: Tangrowth
MEH
C

:amoonguss:
Very Niche/Bad
D

:audino: Audino :mienshao: Mienshao :eldegoss: Eldegoss

Heres a brief explanation of the 4 best and most common ones do.

:tornadus-therian: Torn-T is a swiss-army pokemon with its many set from being great utility with knock off, u turn, defog, toxic, taunt and its great potential offensive prowess with nasty plot, hurricane, focus blast, icy wind, heat wave, weather ball, sludge bomb, superpower or even using assault vest to be an excellent spdef check to most things and its excellent speed that can beat many common fast offensive threat like :weavile: Adamant Weavile, :kartana: Kartana, :tapu-lele: Tapu Lele, :urshifu: Urshifu and many more.
While it doesn't have the greatest bulk of 79/80/90 it is enough to be able to take some great hits like draco meteor from specs dragapult and it makes up for it in speed, regenerator, the use of heavy-duty boots and utility. it can safely stay in on most choiced attackers, knock them off, and regenerate off its lost HP by u-turning into something that can beat the current threat better, an example is Torn knocking off a scarf lele, and then u-turning off into slowking-g/heatran. Overall its ability of taking any 1 or 2 stray hits, speed control, many sets makes it a really good pivot.

:slowking-galar: Slowking-G is an amazing tank, with its great damage output from its 110 Special attack and great bulk of 95/80/110 able to go both physically and specially defensive depending on the team and set. Its most dominant and common set is :assault-vest: Assault Vest with its unique typing, it is able to beat all of the fairies in OU while taking neutral damage from all the non-ghost special attacker in OU and threaten back with a super effective move or a poison. It can run quite a lot of things from the common future sight, sludge bomb, flametrhower, ice beam, scald to the less common but still excellent hydro pump, earthquake, psychic/psyshock, whirlpool and even some very niche moves like focus blast, eerie spell and power gem. This set is quite weak to physical attackers or coverage moves like psyshock which is why its physically defensive/lure set is also another excellent set, with its decent 95/80 bulk it can take a surprising amount of physical moves and hit back hard as physical attackers usually have poor special defense. It usually runs a trick black sludge set to cripple walls or a weakness berry (usually colbur or shuca) to lure in mons with super effective attacks, survive the hit, and kill it back with something super effective. Overall a great wall that is able to go both side of the defensive spectrum and lure a lot of things.

:toxapex: Toxapex is the face of regenerator, GREAT bulk on both sides, Amazing defensive typing, utility from knock to trapping, and the flexibility of it being able to be in most team style from BO to Stall. Its biggest strenght is in its bulk being able to take more than 2 hits from most strong attacks like scarf blace shadow ball, :kartana: Kartana Leaf Blade and :weavile: Weavile knock off and then able to stall them out with recover or set up tspikes and switch into a better counter while regenning yourself. It's vast array of utility move and its bulk to be able to take a lot of strong hits and pivot out is what makes pex the face of regenerator (albeit not as good as before).

:slowbro: Slowbro is an amazing pivot with teleport and future sight, it is able to both get in any pokemon safely with the -priority pivot teleport while regenerating itself off, and do great damage with future sight and able to support offensive pokemon by hitting their counter in the same time as them with future sight (for example: Future Sight -> teleport to weavile -> attack which can beat weavile's counter like buzzwole, urshifu and toxapex). Slowbro is able to run both physical and special defensive set depending on the team and can be a great lure with sets like colbur berry with body press to lure weavile, ice beam to nail cocky garchomps, flamethrower to hit ferrothorn or even thunder wave to help its teammate. It can also run many items from boots to ignore hazard, rocky helmet to chip or even colbur berry to lure. Slowbro is a very versatile pokemon and it is definetly one of the best bulky waters in SS.

So, now with all that out of the way, i want to give explanations and examples on why regen-spam is broken.

lets say you have :tornadus-therian: Tornadus + :weavile: Weavile + :toxapex: Toxapex + electric immunity immunity (as you should have). That core is quite common and has been used a lot in tournaments. The opponent has a choiced tapu lele and your steel type has been trapped and removed by :magnezone: Magnezone, you can safely go to tornadus, check what item it is based on damage and scout what move its used, if it used moonblast, you have a free toxapex, if it used psychic, you have a free weavile switch to deal damage and pressure the opponent. You can just switch, and regen off the damage by getting tornadus in later on a double to something like :landorus-therian: Lando-T that switched into your pex, letting you heal off 33% each time, but thats just lele, what about other mons like :kartana: Kart or :blacephalon: Blace? you can still switch around from tornadus to pex to weave and your other defensive mon almost infinitely until you can make a safe pivot into your real threat, wittle them with hazard/status or make a good double switch/prediction.

and the even better part about stacking regenerator, the danger of getting caught by a good prediction is reduced by a lot. to give the same example with lele, say you have a lando on the field, your steel type is dead, and the opponent just switched in lele, so you go torn to see what it clicked, and it predicted that by clicking thunderbolt which does a lot, but doesn't quite kill you, now you just go back to lando and your torn has regened half of the damage dealt to it from that double and can try to find another opportunity to regen again so it can soft-check lele again. This cycle of going to regen -> other regen -> counter can go on while you slowly chip down the opponent in an almost endless loop unless you also match them in passivity with either your own regen spam + status knock spam or boots + magic guard spam or have to do many great predictions, double to out heal them with your offense.

Now a lot of balance teams, including regen spam uses :heavy-duty-boots: Heavy-Duty Boots to face of againts hazard and chip damage. Knock off counters that strategy, by slowly knocking off every non magic guard pokemon they will eventually be susceptible to hazard damge and can be worn down to be cleaned off later in the game. While regen-spam teams also use heavy duty boots for mons like tornadus and the slow-twins, they aren't as susceptible to hazard as normal team since they can regenerate off their health and effectively cancel out hazard damage

Now i have some example of games that showcase the strength of regen-spam from tournaments, big and small. (A disclaimer: I am not bashing any of the players that are featured in the replays below, they are incredibly talented players. I am just using their games as an example)

Replays and Example of Games


:weavile::urshifu-rapid-strike::zapdos::tapu-fini::landorus-therian::heatran: VS :tyranitar::slowking-galar::clefable::excadrill::tornadus-therian::rotom-wash:
ewin vs xavgb (SCL Game)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-647178

In this game, its a Bulky Offense team fighting againts a sand balance, the match-up is quite even for both sides, weavile looks threatening from ewin once clefable, excadrill and rotom are chipped.

The match starts off not too great for ewin as their :heatran: offensive heatran gets tricked by :clefable: sticky barb clefable, which makes them unable to lure :rotom-wash: rotom and counter clefable safely, but then caught a break by getting :tornadus-therian: xavgb's tornadus-therian paralyzed from static and tricking clefable a choice scarf from :tapu-fini: tapu fini, at this moment it looks good for ewin as one of :weavile: weaviles counter has been tricked and tornadus can't pivot in and out as safe as before, but then after heatran died, it quickly turns sour. Despite Tornadus being paralyzed, it is still able to check both tapu fini and urshifu effectively, and when weavile comes in, xavgb just goes to rotom and tyranitar. After around 30 turns, xavgb was able to get back into the game by pivoting the paralyzed tornadus into pokemon that beats ewin's current pokemon on the field and repeatedly getting regenerator off and free pivot while slowly chipping down ewin's team and killing zapdos with stray moonblast, u-turn, sand and future sight. After that, xavgb just effectively pivots around with their regenerator pokemon and win with slowking-g spamming furure sight and tornadus-t spamming hurricane.

So in that game, despite :tornadus-therian: Tornadus-T getting paralyzed early, it was still able to check and pivot around everything and chip down ewin's team, and towards the end it was compounded even more with another regenerator pokemon in :slowking-galar: Slowking-G as it switches freely into both tapu fini and zapdos and spam future sight, and switch out to regenerate its health to tornadus-t which can also regenerate and pivot out itself, which makes it incredibly hard for ewin to make meaningful progress.

:garchomp::rillaboom::slowking-galar::toxapex::melmetal::tornadus-therian: VS :clefable::slowbro::scizor::heatran::landorus-therian::dragapult:
SOULWIND vs Raptor (OLT Semi Final's Game)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-656997

In this game, its 2 Balance teams facing off againts each other, Raptor's team relies on spreading status with every pokemon so that :dragapult: specs hex dragapult can dish out massive damage and clean the game with support of aromatheraphy clefable. Soulwind's team relies on its longevity, slowly but surely chipping down the opponent with status, hazard and chip damage from future sight in which later rillaboom can clean.

In this match, it shows how difficult it is for raptor to make progress even after statusing most of soulwind's pokemon making tha dragapult able to 2hko everything, Soulwind is just able to go to a regen pokemon, take the big hit from dragapult, and go to spdef garchomp or melmetal/slowking-g (depending if raptor used a ghost move or dragon move) and heal up later which is much easier with grassy terrain. Soulwind just need to make sure to not let garchomp be toxiced and it is a smooth game (just look at the first 30 turns). Not only that, even if garchomp was toxiced, soulwind is still able to go melmetal on ghost moves and protect to gain back health. After many turns of future sight and small chip damage, melmetal and rillaboom are able to clean in the endgame.

:slowking-galar::skarmory::excadrill::slowbro::tyranitar::buzzwole: VS :keldeo::ferrothorn::clefable::heatran::landorus-therian::dragapult:
Edrala vs Empo (OLT SWISS ROUND)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-646024

In this game edrala uses SpDef slowbro and slowking-g on his sand balance, while empo has a spikestack team with sub cm keldeo which can be problematic.

Empo doesn't have the greatest matchup but what empo does have is keldeo which in theory should win easily, as edrala only has slowbro with future sight to threaten it, and set-up sweepers are regenerator spam natural weakness. However, this game showcases how you can just play super passively until empo's team get chipped down with passive damage, just how edrala can safely stay in on dragapult with slowbro, if empo draco's, just stay in or teleport and if empo shadow ball, edrala can just go tyranitar. Now, another strength of regen-spam that is showcased here is when keldeo begins to set-up, slowbro was able to teleport in and out and keep regenerating on keldeo while using future sight to break sub until keldeo is so low that it can be revenged by excadrill. So despite having a poor matchup, many set-up sweepers can be slowly chipped down by passive damage while the regenerator spam team can switch around between walls and the other regen pokemon until the sweeper is dead whether it be keldeo like in this battle, garchomp, dragonite, etc.



:tapu-koko::urshifu-rapid-strike::ferrothorn::garchomp::tornadus-therian::slowking-galar: VS :tapu-lele::tapu-fini::magnezone::melmetal::landorus-therian::tornadus-therian:
RaiZen1704 vs Dahli (OLT SWISS ROUND)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-646716

In this game, Raizen is using a more offensive version of a regen-spam team and dahli is using a standard lele-zone offense with fini and melmetal.

This game showcases something that regen-spam team can afford doing, staying in on a big damaging move with much less risk than usual, RaiZen can afford staying in landorus-therian potential earthquake with slowking-galar with his physically invested Slowking-G in turn 8 (based on U-turn crit damage) and :melmetal: melmetal's double iron bash with :tornadus-therian: tornadus-therian to be able to knock it off at turn 13 and flamethrower the incoming melmetal for permanent damage, even after torn was hurt its still able to come in on dahli's own tornadus which then gets ejected out into lele, even after making the right read with psyshock, raizen can still go to ferrothorn and heal slowking-g back up again by switching it into torn to essentially full by turn 29 which wins wins raizen the game. The fact that regenerator can let your pokemon go down to near death amounts of hp, and let them still be able to still get their hp back to almost full is nuts.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-649485

:kartana::umbreon::tapu-lele::tornadus-therian::toxapex::hippowdon: VS :ferrothorn::rotom-wash::tyranitar::excadrill::clefable::dragapult:
Meroz vs fatbatman (OURLT Playoffs)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1689689751-mi2guhos677q1tpaefjk34nz35g0w13pw

In this game, fatbatman uses a standard sand balance team while meroz brought an unconvential sand balance with mons like umbreon.

This replay may not be in the same grade of tournament games but it shows everything thats strong about regenerator spam, having 2 regenerator, 2 big walls and 2 strong attackers it really makes the most used of it. In this game meroz didn't have to make much aggressive plays since their defensive core of pex-torn-hippo-umbreon creates an almost perfect counter to fatbatman's team. Meroz took this game slowly with getting rotom toxiced, defogging rocks with torn and brawling with clefable to stall out turns and healing up with umbreon for 30+ turns until rotom gets low and meroz was able to beat the excadrill which is big since it hindered kartana and lele to throw out big hits safely. After that meroz was able to play it safe until they can pivot in tapu lele to finish off the game.

There still way more replay i can show on how great regenerator spam is, but that would make this post WAY too long (and plus, i don't have that much free time) but i hope these 6 games were enough proof on how strong regenerator spam is.

Verdict

now i know its not impossible to beat regenerator spam, there are replays that shows you can overwhelm them with the right team and plays like in this replay here or this one but i do genuinely think its unbalanced letting someone able to make extremely risky plays and be let off easily, it makes predictions way less rewarding for offense team and its hard for balance teams to punish without matching them in regen or having a surprise set-up sweeper, as knocking off lefties/boots and status don't quite have the same effect as they do againts regular balance teams. Not only that, a regen-spam team vs a balance/stall team can easily lead to stalemates and ties due to how easily it is to heal yourself up and switch around, you can just catch your opponent's offensive pokemon on a bad prediction, or if you have a good match up just keep up pressure with hazard and infinitely switch which has happen like in this game.

Overall, regenerator-spam creates quite a boring metagame as it is quite a cheap combo to be able to safely gain a net 66% health just by switching from one regen, to another. Gen 8 has turn into quite a boring metagame with a surge in passive playstyle that mainly abuses regenerator and heavy-duty boots. While boots is often said to be the main culprit of this due to it removing hazard damage, boots is able to create offensive teams work aswell with mons like :moltres-galar: G-molt and :volcarona: Volcarona being amazing. Since even with knock off, regen spam has the tools to prevent them like having an absorber in clefable. Having this 2-mon combo that can invalidate predictions, passive damage, knock off, huge damage and make the game overall slower, able to take extremely high risk with no worry makes the game way less competitive and boring which is what a lot of people think is the problem with generation 8 OU.

My Solutions are.

Ban regenerator as a whole
Limit to ONLY one regenerator per team
Ban Boots

Ive seen a lot of people wanting boots banned but i do feel despite how anoyying it is, its not the biggest problem. Yea, it makes it WAY harder to do passive damage with hazard but it only blocks hazards which goes to show the power of hazard that we want to ban a whole item that blocks the damage, however that discussion has been done to death so im not going to add anything more to it.

Banning regen as a whole, might not be the way to go, regenerator is still dumb but theres still a lot of team where it is perfectly fine and healthy, it can help balance teams to take a hit or help offense teams to pivot, but just one regen pokemon isnt that broken, the broken-ness comes from where you can stack more than one. As i've said before, the fact that you can heal basically 66% health by switching from one to another regenerator pokemon is unfair. You make making progress much harder and take much longer which can lead to a way more boring meta especially combined with gen 8 additions like boots.

So my proposal for Gen 8 ou is Limit teams to only able to have one pokemon with the Regenerator abilities.

due to how passive the meta can be with it

thanks for reading and
:dp/mew: goodbye
 
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So my proposal for Gen 8 ou is Limit teams to only able to have one pokemon with the Regenerator abilities.

due to how passive the meta can be with it

thanks for reading and
:dp/mew: goodbye

sorry but "mimikyu stardusts proposal" doesn't have the same ring to it

jokes aside, this is a great post, while I think that the point of the meta being "boring" is a bit of a poor argument since that's entirely subjective and is more personal preference than anything else, I think that you word things quite well and I agree with your ultimate proposal, while I don't expect this to ever actually happen (at least not anytime soon), I think that if any action is taken, that this is probably the best course of action.
 
sorry but "mimikyu stardusts proposal" doesn't have the same ring to it

jokes aside, this is a great post, while I think that the point of the meta being "boring" is a bit of a poor argument since that's entirely subjective and is more personal preference than anything else, I think that you word things quite well and I agree with your ultimate proposal, while I don't expect this to ever actually happen (at least not anytime soon), I think that if any action is taken, that this is probably the best course of action.
Idk, I think a meta being boring can be a good reason to change things. Core-A has a fantastic video on this concept, where he talks about a competitive game being perfectly balanced has no inherent value because if it isn’t enjoyable to play than nobody would compete (looking at you Street Fighter 1). Gen 8 is nowhere near that level of boring, but my interest in learning the meta has been pretty hampered because I find the current meta really boring. I think that’s what’s causing all the clamering for boots/pex to get looked at, we don’t necessarily want it for balance reasons but for enjoyment reasons

that’s my two cents, no idea if anyone else feels the same as me
 
Right now, I see the discussion 2 different ways.
  • Regen cores are not unbeatable.
  • The counterplay to regen cores is viable even when fighting regenless teams.
  • Regen cores are not inherently luck-reliant.
  • Players are not at an inherent disadvantage for not using regen cores.
  • There are seemingly no proposed changes that have majority support by experienced players.
Those points alone would under normal circumstances be enough to dismiss the idea of making a change regarding the regencore situation. I understand some of these may be debatable but coming from a player who mostly just uses offense/HO, this isn't because of bias.

But...
  • Regenerator cores seem somewhat unpopular, especially coming from people who don't play Gen 8 too much.
  • So restricting them, somehow, might bring more people back to the tier, which I feel would be good.
  • I have heard discussions of individual bans for Torn-T, HDB, or Pex, and a Regen Clause would likely satisfy all of those groups.
  • Regen cores are somewhat restrictive when teambuilding, and limiting them would potentially free up other playstyles. As we have seen with Melmetal, though, "somewhat restrictive" isn't enough for most people on its own.
  • Regen cores are pretty much mandatory to stall teams, and limiting them might make it impossible to build a truly viable stall team.
  • On average, I have more fun fighting regencore-less teams than those that do. I know other people share that opinion.
  • I feel that how fun a format is to the majority of players is something worth considering for a competitive metagame.
  • I feel that the more democratic input the community has on a format, the better. The council has been pretty good with this recently, and the Melmetal test was an example of how we can try things out and get a clear answer from the playerbase so we can move on afterwards.
And...
  • We currently don't know how the meta would be affected by any restriction like this - for example could it cause something like Melmetal, Urshifu or Tapu Lele to become broken in the eyes of the majority of the playerbase?
  • Although I personally don't have fun fighting (or playing) stall, the precendent of "make this change to eliminate this playstyle" without that playstyle being broken or luck-reliant, doesn't seem that great to me.
  • The closest thing to a history of something like this working would be the "2 Ability Clause" in Almost Any Ability, which is probably too far from Gen 8 OU for any meaningful conclusions to be made.
The solution in my eyes would be to start with a community survey as soon as possible, ideally before SV, that gets player's thoughts on the current meta. This survey should include a bunch of proposed solutions to the "regencore problem" and a slider to rate the survey-taker's level of approval for each solution. This should include options to suspect test Item Clause, Regen Clause, Tornadus, Toxapex and Regenerator, as well as anything unrelated like Weavile that people feel might be worth testing. This survey data should be made public as usual and if anything gets significant enough support, I feel the council should consider testing it, and ideally the suspect ladder should include the proposed changes so people actually get a feel of what it's like in practice.

Personally, I feel like Regen Clause as proposed by Mimikyu Stardust would be the best compromise solution, though any changes need to be directly voted in by the playerbase for them to be fair.
 
Current Sword and Shield OU Meta, Ban Regnerator spam/stacking
(with a side of heavy duty boots)


small disclaimer: english isnt my first languange so please mind the bad grammar

Hello everyone, As the tier is coming to a close as a current gen meta and into the ruins of alph, the meta has been ironed out and optimalized quite well, on whats the best, the good, the bad and the dominant. 2 Things that i feel like have gotten more usage and dominated the meta are two things, Regenerator Spam and Heavy-Duty Boots.

This post is going to focus more on Regenerator spam and in the end i will give some thoughts on heavy duty boots, as the discussion of boots have been done to death and back.

this is a bit lengthy but the most important parts of this post are

Replays and Example of Games
and the brief explanation/Verdict below that and of course my solutions at the bottom, so if you dont have time you can just read that part but i do appreciate you read everything here.

Why I think having more than one regenerator pokemon is unbalanced and deserved to be looked at

Regenerator Spam has been reallty good or even dominating the meta for a while, giving teams amazing defensive backbone without having to invest into a fatter more stall-like build, this has made making progress againts teams very difficult as having 2 regenerator pokemon with 1 or 2 more pokemon with good defensive utility you are forced to always play aggressively and even with one mistake, that can take you back a ton of progress, and if that core is paired with devastating offensive pokemon like :tapu-lele: Tapu Lele or :melmetal: Melmetal, you also have to be more careful as to how you play your defensively and not fall to these great offensive threat like in this game where the regen-spam offense was able to use pex and glowking to switch around and stall out the opponent a bit to regen and do chip damage.

Not only that, defensively it can make teams very hard to break. when mons like :rillaboom: Rillaboom and :garchomp: Garchomp and :melmetal: Melmetal or :heatran: Heatran gets paired with a regen spam core of :tornadus-therian: Tornadus and :toxapex: Toxapex or :slowking-galar:Slowking-G or :slowbro: Slowbro it creates a very tough team to crack with the safety of switching around with regenerations while being able to cripple and chip down the opponent team with status, hazard and future sight like in this replay here. So both bulky offense teams and balance teams are able to use regenerator-spam to their advantage.

Regenrator spam also has a much easier time to succeed in this gen than the last few due to changes like teleport buff and heavy-duty boots. It lets you play even more passively with mons like tornadus and slowbro/slowking able to use boots and ignore hazard damage. This makes chipping them very difficult to deal meaningful damage, while you can use knock off but with mons like clefable or toxapex as knock absorber it will be much harder knocking off heavy-duty boots.

Offense and Balance teams alike can have a tough time dealing with regenerator-spam because how it can invalidate how they play normally.

Offense
requires momentum and breaking huge holes on the enemy team quickly with massive attacks combined with small support from status and hazard and great predictions in which later on in the game you can clean in the endgame with a fast pokemon or a set-up sweeper like in this battle. However, regenerator spam makes it much harder to do, as regenerator pokemon can at least take any 1 big hit or super effective move to scout, and then switch to a different pokemon that can counter. For example, a lot of people runs spdef slowbro, when faced againts a specs dragapult, this slowbro can take the super effective shadow ball first (252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Slowbro: 272-324 (69.2 - 82.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO) and slack off to scout if the dragapult wants to predict something and then switch out, despite taking 82%, slowbro healed back up to around 70% with slack off and can regenerate the rest back to full in which slowbro can do it all over again later in the game. That's already tough on its own but when 2 regenrator pokemon gets paired together + pokemon with good defensive utility it gets even tougher, a good combo is tornadus + toxapex, where both pokemon are able to take 1 or 2 big hits and then is able to switch into one another, or a different pokemon with good resistance that can create momentum through damage or passive damage. For example, dragapult or even blacephalon againts a torn-pex-weavile which is a common build will have a very hard time to break though. If dragapult is out, pex is usually a safe switch, if the pult uses shadow ball, you have a free switch to weavile to deal damage, if it clicks draco, you can safely switch into torn as it wont take too much damage from draco and can regen it, if it predicts and clicks flamethrower, just stay in. Of course this is just one example of interaction but it shows how stacking regen mons can make it very hard to outplay for offense.

Balance requires slow and safe plays slowly making progress though passive damage, chip damage while preventing that from your opponent with recovery moves, heavy-duty boots, hazard control and magic guard, so in the end game the opponent's team have been crippled enough that you can clean in the endgame with either a fast pokemon or a set up sweeper like in this battle. Regenerator spam completely messes up this interaction. Balance needs to match the passiveness of these regen spam teams with either stacking magic guard/heavy-duty boots or having a regen spam of ur own. This means balance really need to go super passive with at least 1 super strong breaker or set-up sweeper to be able to defeat opposing balance so it wont go to a stalemate, popular mons among those are :melmetal: Melmetal, :reuniclus: set up reuniclus, :dragapult: Hex pult and etc. and since balance is the most popular playstyle at the moment a lot of games can go very long like this battle.

To put it simply,

Stacking 2 or more regenerator pokemon lets you:
Able to create a solid/great defensive core without having to go fat.
Able to play more passively due to passive health gain.
Able to have safe pivots into more dangerous offensive threat.
With additions of gen 8 like teleport, future sight and heavy-duty boots regenerator-spam has a much easier and safer time switching around and dealing damage passively.

There are 13 Fully Evolved regenerator pokemon in which 7 of them are viable, to give a better understanding of viability i will put them in their respective tiers below and explain what they do.

GREAT
S

:tornadus-therian: Tornadus-T :slowking-galar: Slowking-G
A
:toxapex: Toxapex :slowbro: Slowbro
A-
:slowking: Slowking
GOOD
B

:reuniclus: Reuniclus :tangrowth: Tangrowth
MEH
C

:amoonguss:
Very Niche/Bad
D

:audino: Audino :mienshao: Mienshao :eldegoss: Eldegoss

Heres a brief explanation of the 4 best and most common ones do.

:tornadus-therian: Torn-T is a swiss-army pokemon with its many set from being great utility with knock off, u turn, defog, toxic, taunt and its great potential offensive prowess with nasty plot, hurricane, focus blast, icy wind, heat wave, weather ball, sludge bomb, superpower or even using assault vest to be an excellent spdef check to most things and its excellent speed that can beat many common fast offensive threat like :weavile: Adamant Weavile, :kartana: Kartana, :tapu-lele: Tapu Lele, :urshifu: Urshifu and many more.
While it doesn't have the greatest bulk of 79/80/90 it is enough to be able to take some great hits like draco meteor from specs dragapult and it makes up for it in speed, regenerator, the use of heavy-duty boots and utility. it can safely stay in on most choiced attackers, knock them off, and regenerate off its lost HP by u-turning into something that can beat the current threat better, an example is Torn knocking off a scarf lele, and then u-turning off into slowking-g/heatran. Overall its ability of taking any 1 or 2 stray hits, speed control, many sets makes it a really good pivot.

:slowking-galar: Slowking-G is an amazing tank, with its great damage output from its 110 Special attack and great bulk of 95/80/110 able to go both physically and specially defensive depending on the team and set. Its most dominant and common set is :assault-vest: Assault Vest with its unique typing, it is able to beat all of the fairies in OU while taking neutral damage from all the non-ghost special attacker in OU and threaten back with a super effective move or a poison. It can run quite a lot of things from the common future sight, sludge bomb, flametrhower, ice beam, scald to the less common but still excellent hydro pump, earthquake, psychic/psyshock, whirlpool and even some very niche moves like focus blast, eerie spell and power gem. This set is quite weak to physical attackers or coverage moves like psyshock which is why its physically defensive/lure set is also another excellent set, with its decent 95/80 bulk it can take a surprising amount of physical moves and hit back hard as physical attackers usually have poor special defense. It usually runs a trick black sludge set to cripple walls or a weakness berry (usually colbur or shuca) to lure in mons with super effective attacks, survive the hit, and kill it back with something super effective. Overall a great wall that is able to go both side of the defensive spectrum and lure a lot of things.

:toxapex: Toxapex is the face of regenerator, GREAT bulk on both sides, Amazing defensive typing, utility from knock to trapping, and the flexibility of it being able to be in most team style from BO to Stall. Its biggest strenght is in its bulk being able to take more than 2 hits from most strong attacks like scarf blace shadow ball, :kartana: Kartana Leaf Blade and :weavile: Weavile knock off and then able to stall them out with recover or set up tspikes and switch into a better counter while regenning yourself. It's vast array of utility move and its bulk to be able to take a lot of strong hits and pivot out is what makes pex the face of regenerator (albeit not as good as before).

:slowbro: Slowbro is an amazing pivot with teleport and future sight, it is able to both get in any pokemon safely with the -priority pivot teleport while regenerating itself off, and do great damage with future sight and able to support offensive pokemon by hitting their counter in the same time as them with future sight (for example: Future Sight -> teleport to weavile -> attack which can beat weavile's counter like buzzwole, urshifu and toxapex). Slowbro is able to run both physical and special defensive set depending on the team and can be a great lure with sets like colbur berry with body press to lure weavile, ice beam to nail cocky garchomps, flamethrower to hit ferrothorn or even thunder wave to help its teammate. It can also run many items from boots to ignore hazard, rocky helmet to chip or even colbur berry to lure. Slowbro is a very versatile pokemon and it is definetly one of the best bulky waters in SS.

So, now with all that out of the way, i want to give explanations and examples on why regen-spam is broken.

lets say you have :tornadus-therian: Tornadus + :weavile: Weavile + :toxapex: Toxapex + electric immunity immunity (as you should have). That core is quite common and has been used a lot in tournaments. The opponent has a choiced tapu lele and your steel type has been trapped and removed by :magnezone: Magnezone, you can safely go to tornadus, check what item it is based on damage and scout what move its used, if it used moonblast, you have a free toxapex, if it used psychic, you have a free weavile switch to deal damage and pressure the opponent. You can just switch, and regen off the damage by getting tornadus in later on a double to something like :landorus-therian: Lando-T that switched into your pex, letting you heal off 33% each time, but thats just lele, what about other mons like :kartana: Kart or :blacephalon: Blace? you can still switch around from tornadus to pex to weave and your other defensive mon almost infinitely until you can make a safe pivot into your real threat, wittle them with hazard/status or make a good double switch/prediction.

and the even better part about stacking regenerator, the danger of getting caught by a good prediction is reduced by a lot. to give the same example with lele, say you have a lando on the field, your steel type is dead, and the opponent just switched in lele, so you go torn to see what it clicked, and it predicted that by clicking thunderbolt which does a lot, but doesn't quite kill you, now you just go back to lando and your torn has regened half of the damage dealt to it from that double and can try to find another opportunity to regen again so it can soft-check lele again. This cycle of going to regen -> other regen -> counter can go on while you slowly chip down the opponent in an almost endless loop unless you also match them in passivity with either your own regen spam + status knock spam or boots + magic guard spam or have to do many great predictions, double to out heal them with your offense.

Now a lot of balance teams, including regen spam uses :heavy-duty-boots: Heavy-Duty Boots to face of againts hazard and chip damage. Knock off counters that strategy, by slowly knocking off every non magic guard pokemon they will eventually be susceptible to hazard damge and can be worn down to be cleaned off later in the game. While regen-spam teams also use heavy duty boots for mons like tornadus and the slow-twins, they aren't as susceptible to hazard as normal team since they can regenerate off their health and effectively cancel out hazard damage

Now i have some example of games that showcase the strength of regen-spam from tournaments, big and small. (A disclaimer: I am not bashing any of the players that are featured in the replays below, they are incredibly talented players. I am just using their games as an example)

Replays and Example of Games


:weavile::urshifu-rapid-strike::zapdos::tapu-fini::landorus-therian::heatran: VS :tyranitar::slowking-galar::clefable::excadrill::tornadus-therian::rotom-wash:
ewin vs xavgb (SCL Game)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-647178

In this game, its a Bulky Offense team fighting againts a sand balance, the match-up is quite even for both sides, weavile looks threatening from ewin once clefable, excadrill and rotom are chipped.

The match starts off not too great for ewin as their :heatran: offensive heatran gets tricked by :clefable: sticky barb clefable, which makes them unable to lure :rotom-wash: rotom and counter clefable safely, but then caught a break by getting :tornadus-therian: xavgb's tornadus-therian paralyzed from static and tricking clefable a choice scarf from :tapu-fini: tapu fini, at this moment it looks good for ewin as one of :weavile: weaviles counter has been tricked and tornadus can't pivot in and out as safe as before, but then after heatran died, it quickly turns sour. Despite Tornadus being paralyzed, it is still able to check both tapu fini and urshifu effectively, and when weavile comes in, xavgb just goes to rotom and tyranitar. After around 30 turns, xavgb was able to get back into the game by pivoting the paralyzed tornadus into pokemon that beats ewin's current pokemon on the field and repeatedly getting regenerator off and free pivot while slowly chipping down ewin's team and killing zapdos with stray moonblast, u-turn, sand and future sight. After that, xavgb just effectively pivots around with their regenerator pokemon and win with slowking-g spamming furure sight and tornadus-t spamming hurricane.

So in that game, despite :tornadus-therian: Tornadus-T getting paralyzed early, it was still able to check and pivot around everything and chip down ewin's team, and towards the end it was compounded even more with another regenerator pokemon in :slowking-galar: Slowking-G as it switches freely into both tapu fini and zapdos and spam future sight, and switch out to regenerate its health to tornadus-t which can also regenerate and pivot out itself, which makes it incredibly hard for ewin to make meaningful progress.

:garchomp::rillaboom::slowking-galar::toxapex::melmetal::tornadus-therian: VS :clefable::slowbro::scizor::heatran::landorus-therian::dragapult:
SOULWIND vs Raptor (OLT Semi Final's Game)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-656997

In this game, its 2 Balance teams facing off againts each other, Raptor's team relies on spreading status with every pokemon so that :dragapult: specs hex dragapult can dish out massive damage and clean the game with support of aromatheraphy clefable. Soulwind's team relies on its longevity, slowly but surely chipping down the opponent with status, hazard and chip damage from future sight in which later rillaboom can clean.

In this match, it shows how difficult it is for raptor to make progress even after statusing most of soulwind's pokemon making tha dragapult able to 2hko everything, Soulwind is just able to go to a regen pokemon, take the big hit from dragapult, and go to spdef garchomp or melmetal/slowking-g (depending if raptor used a ghost move or dragon move) and heal up later which is much easier with grassy terrain. Soulwind just need to make sure to not let garchomp be toxiced and it is a smooth game (just look at the first 30 turns). Not only that, even if garchomp was toxiced, soulwind is still able to go melmetal on ghost moves and protect to gain back health. After many turns of future sight and small chip damage, melmetal and rillaboom are able to clean in the endgame.

:slowking-galar::skarmory::excadrill::slowbro::tyranitar::buzzwole: VS :keldeo::ferrothorn::clefable::heatran::landorus-therian::dragapult:
Edrala vs Empo (OLT SWISS ROUND)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-646024

In this game edrala uses SpDef slowbro and slowking-g on his sand balance, while empo has a spikestack team with sub cm keldeo which can be problematic.

Empo doesn't have the greatest matchup but what empo does have is keldeo which in theory should win easily, as edrala only has slowbro with future sight to threaten it, and set-up sweepers are regenerator spam natural weakness. However, this game showcases how you can just play super passively until empo's team get chipped down with passive damage, just how edrala can safely stay in on dragapult with slowbro, if empo draco's, just stay in or teleport and if empo shadow ball, edrala can just go tyranitar. Now, another strength of regen-spam that is showcased here is when keldeo begins to set-up, slowbro was able to teleport in and out and keep regenerating on keldeo while using future sight to break sub until keldeo is so low that it can be revenged by excadrill. So despite having a poor matchup, many set-up sweepers can be slowly chipped down by passive damage while the regenerator spam team can switch around between walls and the other regen pokemon until the sweeper is dead whether it be keldeo like in this battle, garchomp, dragonite, etc.



:tapu-koko::urshifu-rapid-strike::ferrothorn::garchomp::tornadus-therian::slowking-galar: VS :tapu-lele::tapu-fini::magnezone::melmetal::landorus-therian::tornadus-therian:
RaiZen1704 vs Dahli (OLT SWISS ROUND)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-646716

In this game, Raizen is using a more offensive version of a regen-spam team and dahli is using a standard lele-zone offense with fini and melmetal.

This game showcases something that regen-spam team can afford doing, staying in on a big damaging move with much less risk than usual, RaiZen can afford staying in landorus-therian potential earthquake with slowking-galar with his physically invested Slowking-G in turn 8 (based on U-turn crit damage) and :melmetal: melmetal's double iron bash with :tornadus-therian: tornadus-therian to be able to knock it off at turn 13 and flamethrower the incoming melmetal for permanent damage, even after torn was hurt its still able to come in on dahli's own tornadus which then gets ejected out into lele, even after making the right read with psyshock, raizen can still go to ferrothorn and heal slowking-g back up again by switching it into torn to essentially full by turn 29 which wins wins raizen the game. The fact that regenerator can let your pokemon go down to near death amounts of hp, and let them still be able to still get their hp back to almost full is nuts.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8ou-649485

:kartana::umbreon::tapu-lele::tornadus-therian::toxapex::hippowdon: VS :ferrothorn::rotom-wash::tyranitar::excadrill::clefable::dragapult:
Meroz vs fatbatman (OURLT Playoffs)
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ou-1689689751-mi2guhos677q1tpaefjk34nz35g0w13pw

In this game, fatbatman uses a standard sand balance team while meroz brought an unconvential sand balance with mons like umbreon.

This replay may not be in the same grade of tournament games but it shows everything thats strong about regenerator spam, having 2 regenerator, 2 big walls and 2 strong attackers it really makes the most used of it. In this game meroz didn't have to make much aggressive plays since their defensive core of pex-torn-hippo-umbreon creates an almost perfect counter to fatbatman's team. Meroz took this game slowly with getting rotom toxiced, defogging rocks with torn and brawling with clefable to stall out turns and healing up with umbreon for 30+ turns until rotom gets low and meroz was able to beat the excadrill which is big since it hindered kartana and lele to throw out big hits safely. After that meroz was able to play it safe until they can pivot in tapu lele to finish off the game.

There still way more replay i can show on how great regenerator spam is, but that would make this post WAY too long (and plus, i don't have that much free time) but i hope these 6 games were enough proof on how strong regenerator spam is.

Verdict

now i know its not impossible to beat regenerator spam, there are replays that shows you can overwhelm them with the right team and plays like in this replay here or this one but i do genuinely think its unbalanced letting someone able to make extremely risky plays and be let off easily, it makes predictions way less rewarding for offense team and its hard for balance teams to punish without matching them in regen or having a surprise set-up sweeper, as knocking off lefties/boots and status don't quite have the same effect as they do againts regular balance teams. Not only that, a regen-spam team vs a balance/stall team can easily lead to stalemates and ties due to how easily it is to heal yourself up and switch around, you can just catch your opponent's offensive pokemon on a bad prediction, or if you have a good match up just keep up pressure with hazard and infinitely switch which has happen like in this game.

Overall, regenerator-spam creates quite a boring metagame as it is quite a cheap combo to be able to safely gain a net 66% health just by switching from one regen, to another. Gen 8 has turn into quite a boring metagame with a surge in passive playstyle that mainly abuses regenerator and heavy-duty boots. While boots is often said to be the main culprit of this due to it removing hazard damage, boots is able to create offensive teams work aswell with mons like :moltres-galar: G-molt and :volcarona: Volcarona being amazing. Since even with knock off, regen spam has the tools to prevent them like having an absorber in clefable. Having this 2-mon combo that can invalidate predictions, passive damage, knock off, huge damage and make the game overall slower, able to take extremely high risk with no worry makes the game way less competitive and boring which is what a lot of people think is the problem with generation 8 OU.

My Solutions are.

Ban regenerator as a whole
Limit to ONLY one regenerator per team
Ban Boots

Ive seen a lot of people wanting boots banned but i do feel despite how anoyying it is, its not the biggest problem. Yea, it makes it WAY harder to do passive damage with hazard but it only blocks hazards which goes to show the power of hazard that we want to ban a whole item that blocks the damage, however that discussion has been done to death so im not going to add anything more to it.

Banning regen as a whole, might not be the way to go, regenerator is still dumb but theres still a lot of team where it is perfectly fine and healthy, it can help balance teams to take a hit or help offense teams to pivot, but just one regen pokemon isnt that broken, the broken-ness comes from where you can stack more than one. As i've said before, the fact that you can heal basically 66% health by switching from one to another regenerator pokemon is unfair. You make making progress much harder and take much longer which can lead to a way more boring meta especially combined with gen 8 additions like boots.

So my proposal for Gen 8 ou is Limit teams to only able to have one pokemon with the Regenerator abilities.

due to how passive the meta can be with it

thanks for reading and
:dp/mew: goodbye
Limiting abilities like this is not something that there is a precedent for, nor do I think it makes the metagame any healthier. Regenerator is a frustrating ability, but it is not a broken ability or even close to the biggest problem in the meta. There are some great offensive threats that take advantage of these passive builds and aren't forced into the same structures. This isn't Zygarde-era SM OU where you are forced into running a Lando-T and Tangrowth on your team to counter this broken mon. There are a lot of very valid team structures and the meta still carries a lot of fun strategies.
 
I used to be very much against actions against HDB and Regen but I think Mimikyu Stardust has a very good point. Even if they aren't unbalanced, they can get frustrating and make the meta more uninteresting, I think a survey would be great once gen 8 turns into last gen meta
 

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