Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]

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I mean, vert won with it in tour; and I'm #19 on ladder with it rn. I'd say its not THAT bad either. Don't sleep on my work.
(jk it is probably bad)
Oh yeah to be clear, I dont think Claw Law is anywhere near as bad as some people say - your rise and the rest of the results speak for themselves. But there's plenty of people who don't even think it's good at all.

And like.. if it's not good to begin with, why are you so opposed to just getting it out of the format?
 
'Losing their mind' is a bit excessive, wake up call is more like it. This is something that hadn't been used in this generation when you get to see the full force of it you start to have an idea of how broken the concept is of having priority randomly on vital turns. It's a bunch of bulky mons with Quick Claw so you fix a majority of their deficits and then you put screens on top of that conceptually it becomes a bit difficult to beat (its luck of the draw). People won't stop talking about it because they realize that it is uncompetitive and it doesn't have to be in the meta.
I still fail to see how it is uncompetitive, you trade your itemslot for a very bad form of speed control, which isn't that game breaking like evasion. Evasion is something that deals with every gamestyle, not only offensive mons get screwed if they miss their attacks but also do defensive mons by missing some moves (like clear smog, pex missing toxic if it was forced to tera, an so on or just dozo missing the attacks to get rid of the attackers), that is something that doesn't happen against walls when talking about speed it is mostly irrelevant and in some cases quick claw can be bad (like going first in a turn were you predicted a Zapdos going for roost). Quick claw in that sense isn't different from other rng in the game and the trade isn't worth. Basically is like if instead of WoW somebody would run Flamethrower on Drige only to spread burns, while it can happen, it is way more suboptimal than running what is better. We may not like it, but rng is a part of competitive Pokémon, unless we implement a not crits mod, ban everything that has a secundary effect from mud slap to scald and ban all the not 100% moves then we could call rng uncompetitive (the funniest thing is that even doing that speed ties would still exist). Of course we can't just accept everything, but there needs to be a clear distinction between what is unhealthy and what isn't, evasion and OHKO moves need not explanation of why they broke the game, but honestly quick claw is far from being unhealthy, the team wins because it is good and Delibird Heart uses it very well to no rely on the procs to win, but you put any other 5 shitmons like Rampardos or Luxray the team isn't going to work like that team does in high ladder even with a lot of procs and screens in the favor.
 
I still fail to see how it is uncompetitive, you trade your itemslot for a very bad form of speed control, which isn't that game breaking like evasion. Evasion is something that deals with every gamestyle, not only offensive mons get screwed if they miss their attacks but also do defensive mons by missing some moves (like clear smog, pex missing toxic if it was forced to tera, an so on or just dozo missing the attacks to get rid of the attackers), that is something that doesn't happen against walls when talking about speed it is mostly irrelevant and in some cases quick claw can be bad (like going first in a turn were you predicted a Zapdos going for roost). Quick claw in that sense isn't different from other rng in the game and the trade isn't worth. Basically is like if instead of WoW somebody would run Flamethrower on Drige only to spread burns, while it can happen, it is way more suboptimal than running what is better. We may not like it, but rng is a part of competitive Pokémon, unless we implement a not crits mod, ban everything that has a secundary effect from mud slap to scald and ban all the not 100% moves then we could call rng uncompetitive (the funniest thing is that even doing that speed ties would still exist). Of course we can't just accept everything, but there needs to be a clear distinction between what is unhealthy and what isn't, evasion and OHKO moves need not explanation of why they broke the game, but honestly quick claw is far from being unhealthy, the team wins because it is good and Delibird Heart uses it very well to no rely on the procs to win, but you put any other 5 shitmons like Rampardos or Luxray the team isn't going to work like that team does in high ladder even with a lot of procs and screens in the favor.
because yall ignored it the first time, I literally made a post hours ago that ia a counterpoint to like almost everything in here

And I'd like to stress this extra point:

Quick Claw has won more games than Evasion which makes your point funny like fr, Freedom Cup is just HO + Basculegion/Flutter Mane/Irom Bundle and evasion is a pretty dogshit strategy with no consistency lmao

How is Quick Claw not in the same category as Evasion type RNG? You also have to use up slots on your build to go for it. Hell, with stuff like Sand Veil, you often give up an entirely consistent ability for an inconsistent one.

Ban Quick Claw, ban Focus Band, etc.
 
How is Quick Claw not in the same category as Evasion type RNG? You also have to use up slots on your build to go for it. Hell, with stuff like Sand Veil, you often give up an entirely consistent ability for an inconsistent one.
Evasion potentialy can mess with all the counterplay you can use against a mon, while moving first not always change the income of a turn. Quick and easy example, you have a full health scarf Rotom-W infront of an unboosted Gyadoros with the standard tera flying tera blast set and quick claw, doesn't matter that quick claw triggers in both turns, Rotom-W wins against that Gyarados even if removes is water type because thunderbolt still 2HKO Gyarados and that set can't beat Rotom-W with two moves. However, in that same scenario but with Gyarados using Bright Powder then the thing changes because Gyarados potentially can get enough free turns to boost itself and beat Rotom-W without taking a hit.
That is the difference, evasion potentially can break the game while going first doesn't always matter.
 
Tusk Bait
Brute Bonnet @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 100 Atk / 220 Def / 92 SpD / 96 Spe
Impish Nature
- Spore
- Synthesis
- Crunch/Thief
- Trailblaze
I have experience with this set, works well actually. Crunch is hoped for raw damage, Thief sacrifices 20 BP for item removal, gaining protosynthesis boost while also having an item (preferably leftovers). Speed is just enough to outspeed no investment corv and dirge, Def and Atk are set to make sure Defense gets the boost, but you can make adjustments to boost attack. Rest is poured into SPD for bulk. Trailblaze makes Bonnet a fast sporer. If played right with Tera, Bonnet can sweep with spore and it’s attacking moves. Isn’t great in higher tier, but if you’re making an alt then it works every time in low ladder.
Calc before Proto boost: 252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 220+ Def Brute Bonnet: 294-348 (80.9 - 95.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is a pretty cool set I like.
 

awyp

'Alexa play Ladyfingers by Herb Alpert'
is a Forum Moderatoris a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
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I still fail to see how it is uncompetitive, you trade your itemslot for a very bad form of speed control, which isn't that game breaking like evasion. Evasion is something that deals with every gamestyle, not only offensive mons get screwed if they miss their attacks but also do defensive mons by missing some moves (like clear smog, pex missing toxic if it was forced to tera, an so on or just dozo missing the attacks to get rid of the attackers), that is something that doesn't happen against walls when talking about speed it is mostly irrelevant and in some cases quick claw can be bad (like going first in a turn were you predicted a Zapdos going for roost). Quick claw in that sense isn't different from other rng in the game and the trade isn't worth. Basically is like if instead of WoW somebody would run Flamethrower on Drige only to spread burns, while it can happen, it is way more suboptimal than running what is better. We may not like it, but rng is a part of competitive Pokémon, unless we implement a not crits mod, ban everything that has a secundary effect from mud slap to scald and ban all the not 100% moves then we could call rng uncompetitive (the funniest thing is that even doing that speed ties would still exist). Of course we can't just accept everything, but there needs to be a clear distinction between what is unhealthy and what isn't, evasion and OHKO moves need not explanation of why they broke the game, but honestly quick claw is far from being unhealthy, the team wins because it is good and Delibird Heart uses it very well to no rely on the procs to win, but you put any other 5 shitmons like Rampardos or Luxray the team isn't going to work like that team does in high ladder even with a lot of procs and screens in the favor.
"Very bad form of speed control", yes but that's not where the un-competitiveness comes from its you can have that 20% priority hit multiple times in row and you do not need it hitting at all to win games. Can't really compare it to evasion because there are moves out there with 100% accuracy (a lot actually). If you really wanted to you can have 6 mons on the team to have all 100% accurate moves. RNG is part of Pokémon and I have nothing against it but the point of Competitive Pokémon is to make it Competitive you cannot say a 20% draw in the priority bracket randomized induces any skill. If you can prevent it to keep competition at a high level why wouldn't you do it?

I played Generation 4 OU, Garchomp was banned because of Sand Veil, it is a powerful mon in general and with 20% chance to miss on 100% accurate moves changed the direction of the game drastically. You add Bright Powder to the equation and it starts getting ridiculous. Garchomp was banned because outside of Sand Veil it was a top 5 OU Pokémon. Obviously we're not saying use a bunch of PU mons and put Quick Claw and see if it's broken you obviously need to attach the uncompetitive item with solid OU mons that lack in the speed department. My point is if there is an item that induces luck and we see it plainly getting abused why wouldn't there be any sort of action? it's been done by Smogon historically.
 
rng being a core part of pokémon does not mean that we shouldn’t seek to, where reasonable & feasible, reduce the impact rng has on the outcome of games. the two just do not track.

this is nominally a competitive site, so why do people argue against limiting clearly uncompetitive things?
 
rng being a core part of pokémon does not mean that we shouldn’t seek to, where reasonable & feasible, reduce the impact rng has on the outcome of games. the two just do not track.

this is nominally a competitive site, so why do people argue against limiting clearly uncompetitive things?
probably because multiple people have multiple definitions of what they consider “uncompetitive”. I think Flame Body is really really dumb and luck based, but I don’t think it is “uncompetitive”. Luck is a huge part of Pokemon games, yes, but everyone has a different idea of where they want to draw the line.
 

Srn

Water (Spirytus - 96%)
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Oh my god I tried to stay out of it but the RNG discourse keeps on rolling so it is time for me to make the pain go away.

I will split up RNG shit into 3 broad categories:

High cost & There is counterplay: Discharge, Lava Plume, Scald etc. Taking up a moveslot and using a turn to fish for paralysis/burn/etc is a pretty high cost. Sometimes counterplay can be limited, even in the case of scald, there's lots of special attackers who can take a scald and dont terribly mind the burn like latios, tapu lele, torn-t, etc and burn damage is nerfed to 6.25% so its not as bad as it used to be. Fair and balanced imo! I will not shed tears if scald is banned though.

High cost & There is NO counterplay: Quick Claw, Double team. You need to take up an item slot in QC's case and a moveslot+a turn in double team's case, but there is no counterplay to this. You just hope Quick claw doesn't proc or hope that your attack connects. No reason to keep this stuff, even if they're not that powerful they are uncompetitive. Ban please!

Low cost & There is counterplay: Static, Flame body. Having these as your abilities and not needing to use a turn to fish for status is a low cost. However, you can just not use contact moves, use pads, etc so there is some counterplay. Will not shed tears if these abilities are banned.

Do not lump all of these things into the same category or so help me I will type up an even longer post.
 
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What about sludge bomb, scald, etc ? According to your classification, wouldn't they fall under high cost & there is no counterplay ? (sludge does because of poison/steel types, but scald doesnt really. Besides, there's always iron head and hurricane, and unless you wanna run inner focus or own tempo, theres also no absolute 100% counterplay.)
 

Srn

Water (Spirytus - 96%)
is an official Team Rateris a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributor
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What about sludge bomb, scald, etc ? According to your classification, wouldn't they fall under high cost & there is no counterplay ? (sludge does because of poison/steel types, but scald doesnt really. Besides, there's always iron head and hurricane, and unless you wanna run inner focus or own tempo, theres also no absolute 100% counterplay.)
Sludge bomb has counterplay (poison/steel types as you say), scald has counterplay which I already described in the earlier post, Hurricane is inaccurate and confusion is only 1/3 and rarely comes into play, it's within the acceptable range of RNG imo. Iron Head is punished by rocky helmet, iron barbs, rough skin, flame body, static etc and if you are faster, you cannot be flinched. This is all much more than I could say for evasion.
 
"Very bad form of speed control", yes but that's not where the un-competitiveness comes from its you can have that 20% priority hit multiple times in row and you do not need it hitting at all to win games. Can't really compare it to evasion because there are moves out there with 100% accuracy (a lot actually). If you really wanted to you can have 6 mons on the team to have all 100% accurate moves. RNG is part of Pokémon and I have nothing against it but the point of Competitive Pokémon is to make it Competitive you cannot say a 20% draw in the priority bracket randomized induces any skill. If you can prevent it to keep competition at a high level why wouldn't you do it?

I played Generation 4 OU, Garchomp was banned because of Sand Veil, it is a powerful mon in general and with 20% chance to miss on 100% accurate moves changed the direction of the game drastically. You add Bright Powder to the equation and it starts getting ridiculous. Garchomp was banned because outside of Sand Veil it was a top 5 OU Pokémon. Obviously we're not saying use a bunch of PU mons and put Quick Claw and see if it's broken you obviously need to attach the uncompetitive item with solid OU mons that lack in the speed department. My point is if there is an item that induces luck and we see it plainly getting abused why wouldn't there be any sort of action? it's been done by Smogon historically.
Oh my god I tried to stay out of it but the RNG discourse keeps on rolling so it is time for me to make the pain go away.

I will split up RNG shit into 3 broad categories:

High cost & There is counterplay: Discharge, Lava Plume, Scald etc. Taking up a moveslot and using a turn to fish for paralysis/burn/etc is a pretty high cost. Sometimes counterplay can be limited, in the case of scald, but there's lots of special attackers who can take a scald and dont terribly mind the burn like latios, tapu lele, torn-t, etc and burn damage is nerfed to 6.25% so its not as bad as it used to be. Fair and balanced imo! I will not shed tears if scald is banned though.

High cost & There is NO counterplay: Quick Claw, Double team. You need to take up an item slot in QC's case and a moveslot+a turn in double team's case, but there is no counterplay to this. You just hope Quick claw doesn't proc or hope that your attack connects. No reason to keep this stuff, even if they're not that powerful they are uncompetitive. Ban please!

Low cost & There is counterplay: Static, Flame body. Having these as your abilities and not needing to use a turn to fish for status is a low cost. However, you can just not use contact moves, use pads, etc so there is some counterplay. Will not shed tears if these abilities are banned.

Do not lump all of these things into the same category or so help me I will type up an even longer post.
Replying to both because I still not convinced on my point, evasion is way better than moving first and that changes how the rng affects the game, outside stuff like haze or those moves that doesn't miss (which are too weak or have a limitated distribution like Kowtow Cleave) there are not much options to deal with evation, especially when you combine it with stuff like sub to improve your odds, while with quick claw there are more options and not limited to just priority moves, position yourself in a scenario where the order doesn't matter, just like Delibirb Heart while playing positions himself to no rely on quick claw procs, the person playing against the quick claw team can postition themself to no lose to random procs, just like a player would avoid to touch Zapdos/Moltres with contact moves, something that your rival makes easier by running quick claw instead of other items like flame orb on Ursaluna (so it gets permawalled by Dozo).
What I'm trying to say is that quick claw rng isn't as game breaking as evasion and instead is more similar to random drops/paras, since even then you can play around and don't let the rng decide the game with your own plays, while a lead mon with bright powder can potentially win games alone.
 
So again I repeat, what exactly changed without volc? Nothing positive. Volcarona's pressure on teambuilder was a placebo effect from the start, instead creating an actual negative effect on removal.
Ok sorry I honestly think a ton of the points in your post were fair and it was a well reasoned post but what on earth does this mean? How is volcarona a placebo?
 

KamenOH

formerly DynamaxBestMeta
Ok sorry I honestly think a ton of the points in your post were fair and it was a well reasoned post but what on earth does this mean? How is volcarona a placebo?
Not them, but I think they mean that Volcarona's teambuilder pressure was illusory, imagined from whatever reasons with little actual terror in the builder, and that its removal meant that several mons that were actually pressured by it, like Valiant and Gambit, now have nigh on nothing to fear.
Personally, I at least agree with the fact that Volc was a positive meta influence based on what threats it caved skulls of.

Volccening, by the Smogonler
 
Quick and easy example, you have a full health scarf Rotom-W infront of an unboosted Gyadoros with the standard tera flying tera blast set and quick claw, doesn't matter that quick claw triggers in both turns, Rotom-W wins against that Gyarados even if removes is water type because thunderbolt still 2HKO Gyarados and that set can't beat Rotom-W with two moves. However, in that same scenario but with Gyarados using Bright Powder then the thing changes because Gyarados potentially can get enough free turns to boost itself and beat Rotom-W without taking a hit.
Using a terrible example like this doesn't strengthen your argument, just for the record. The problem with Quick Claw is it enables slow, powerful pokemon to circumvent their biggest flaw which is put in place to balance them, through pure RNG. It activating at inopportune times for the opponent just robs them of agency, as instead of an offensive pokemon threatening to revenge kill a weakened breaker (for example, Iron Valiant threatening a weakened Ursaluna), the RNG can just decide to allow them to go first and invalidate that counterplay.

What about sludge bomb, scald, etc ? According to your classification, wouldn't they fall under high cost & there is no counterplay ? (sludge does because of poison/steel types, but scald doesnt really. Besides, there's always iron head and hurricane, and unless you wanna run inner focus or own tempo, theres also no absolute 100% counterplay.)
With respect to your playing ability, these cannot be compared. With perhaps the exception of scald, moves like sludge bomb, iron head, hurricane and other moves with RNG secondary effects all have ways to be minimized or dealt with without needing to resort to laughably specific counterplay. Sludge bomb has poisons and steels, iron head is something you can easily punish the spamming off by rocky helmet or iron barbs, or even a contact status ability like flame body or static. Hurricane, simply relying on resists is fair enough given the lack of reliable accuracy.

while with quick claw there are more options and not limited to just priority moves, position yourself in a scenario where the order doesn't matter, just like Delibirb Heart while playing positions himself to no rely on quick claw procs, the person playing against the quick claw team can postition themself to no lose to random procs, just like a player would avoid to touch Zapdos/Moltres with contact moves, something that your rival makes easier by running quick claw instead of other items like flame orb on Ursaluna (so it gets permawalled by Dozo).
No offense but if you slap on Quick Claw, you weren't planning on relying on it. You can't. It's pure RNG. That monoclaw team was funny, but it could also probably run other items on its members and still be quite effective. You say positioning to not lose to procs, but this comes across as sort of mental gymnastics. Also the comparison to Flame body and static is just off because those abilities, though somewhat silly at times, still exist with strategy in mind. They exist to punish physical attack spamming and to deter would be threats. Quick Claw solely exists to cheese wins.

Also Dondozo needs to be physically defensive or Ursaluna Headlong Rush pushes a ton of damage on Don. So not even guaranteed at that.
 
probably because multiple people have multiple definitions of what they consider “uncompetitive”. I think Flame Body is really really dumb and luck based, but I don’t think it is “uncompetitive”. Luck is a huge part of Pokemon games, yes, but everyone has a different idea of where they want to draw the line.
i think a decent definition, & the one that i go by, is:

any element or combination of elements that mitigates or wholly negates the importance of player expression in the outcome of games.

i’ll give an example: quick claw allowing gbro to avoid being revenge killed by lando-t, not on the basis of anything either player did, but purely down to a 1/5 chance of quick claw activating that very turn. in such a scenario, the gbro use didn’t deserve to win by their own merit, & they also didn’t deserve to lose. the game has been taken out of the hands of both players.

from here, we can come to general agreement on what is or is not uncompetitive. some people may argue, for example, that scald/lava plume/static/whatever fits this definition, but i think they’d be wrong & couldn’t in good faith maintain that position in the face of well-grounded arguments.
 
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Ban Quick Claw
Ban Static
Ban Flame Body
Ban Dire Claw
Ban the odds of Ice Beam and ice moves freezing
Ban the odds of Thunderbolt and electric moves paralyzing
Ban the odds of Fire moves burning
Ban Poison Touch
Ban Poison moves odds of poisoning
Ban Rock slide odds of flinching
Ban Iron head odds of flinching
Ban any extra odds of critical hit in said moves
Ban Earth Power and Shadow Ball odds of lowering SpDef
Ban Moonblast odds
Ban Liquidation
Ban
 
Ban Quick Claw
Ban Static
Ban Flame Body
Ban Dire Claw
Ban the odds of Ice Beam and ice moves freezing
Ban the odds of Thunderbolt and electric moves paralyzing
Ban the odds of Fire moves burning
Ban Poison Touch
Ban Poison moves odds of poisoning
Ban Rock slide odds of flinching
Ban Iron head odds of flinching
Ban any extra odds of critical hit in said moves
Ban Earth Power and Shadow Ball odds of lowering SpDef
Ban Moonblast odds
Ban Liquidation
Ban
Don't let the council see this man.
 
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