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

[Moyashi]

I mean, most defensive fairies handle it just fine.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 164-192 (41.6 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 216-254 (76.5 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Clef is the only fairy that would be able to handle Darkrai. Thunderbolt destroys both Valiant and Enamorus as well as Azumarill.

Assuming it’s running the pretty standard set of nasty plot and hypnosis with 2 attacks, it’s now easily walled by Ting Lu.

Hypnosis isn't standard. It's just what was put for ubers. You don't run it in OU when you threaten common specially frail staples for free set up. Nevermind its use on screens teams making set up even easier.

so you either rely on focus blast, which is not great,

Focus blast high bp makes it very good, especially slamming Kingambit. And please don't bring up accuracy. It's not a balancing aspect that would hold it in check.

 

[Magcargo]

135 spatk is still well above most Pokemon in the tier right now. And 125 speed is faster than everything except Dragapult who for obvious reasons has no interest in getting near it and Zama who Darkrai doesnt like anyway. Nasty plot sets would not only be absurd in terms of answering it defensively, but offensively all but requires scarfers. It would not be a positive or balanced addition for the tier.

Tell me, how has it gotten powercrept? Because, respectfully, people have a tendency to throw the word around.

I think the logic is that we allowed Chien Pao in OU & an argument could be made that it is stronger than Darkrai. Chien Pao has 177 atk & 135 speed, compared to Darkrai's 135 atk and 125 speed & more utility via its strong Priority. If we are gonna retest Chien Pao in thr Dlc (which I doubt) then Darkrai wouldn't be unreasonable to test as well.

Personally, idrc one way or the other on this subject.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I mean, most defensive fairies handle it just fine.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 164-192 (41.6 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 216-254 (76.5 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Which would force darkrai to run sludge bomb. Assuming it’s running the pretty standard set of nasty plot and hypnosis with 2 attacks, it’s now easily walled by Ting Lu.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 109-129 (21.2 - 25%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Ting-Lu Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 127-151 (45 - 53.5%) -- 33.2% chance to 2HKO

so you either rely on focus blast, which is not great, or you run Tera fighting, which make fairies an even better counter. Or you drop hypnosis, but that makes setting up a nasty plot harder.
Darkrai would obviously be great, but I’m not convinced it’s nearly as unwallable as people claim. I also don’t think it “needs” to be suspected, I just think it’s strong points are pretty over blown

i think you're underestimating just how good base 125 speed and a sleep move is. sneasler was halfway through tearing apart the tier with less speed and a lower sleep chance before we all collectively realized that it wasn't named kingambit and therefore does not actually exist

I think the logic is that we allowed Chien Pao in OU & an argument could be made that it is stronger than Darkrai. Chien Pao has 177 atk & 135 speed, compared to Darkrai's 135 atk and 125 speed & more utility via its strong Priority. If we are gonna retest Chien Pao in thr Dlc (which I doubt) then Darkrai wouldn't be unreasonable to test as well.

you're citing the pao drop as though it was the correct decision

 

[kosecant]

Clef is the only fairy that would be able to handle Darkrai. Thunderbolt destroys both Valiant and Enamorus as well as Azumarill.

Okay, so you run thunderbolt for the those two, dark pulse for stab, and sludge bomb for clef, and now you’re hard walled by Ting Lu. Forgetting the fact that valiant can very easily just run booster energy to out speed and annihilate darkrai, so hitting it doesn’t even matter much.

I didn’t even say focus blast was bad, it’s just unreliable, which is objectively true. I never implied that it makes darkrai balanced either, just less consistent against a Mon that it already struggles to deal with.

 

[Karxrida]

If we live in a world where Iron Valiant is considered okay (it has Hypnosis btw), then I don't think Darkrai would be so much of a problem that it can't be tested. The sleep moves it has are incredibly unreliable and eat into its coverage (which it's super reliant on because mono-Dark STAB), so they'd likely be restricted to lead sets that can afford to waste a turn to fish. Might be a decent anti-Samurott-H pick tbh.

 

[Negative Charge]

I’d be more open to a Darkrai test in a Tera-less meta because I do think the general power creep has gotten to the point where it’s not laughably far ahead of things that have at least graced OU for short periods of time like Magearna, Iron Bundle, and Chien Pao if we’re all being honest. I guess I’m neutral-negative on it but the people saying it’s lol tier broken are being hyperbolic. If Valiant was released today in a vacuum alone people would claim it’s lol tier broken (and it kinda is?) but there’s just immense status quo inertia behind Darkrai being Uber at this point.

 

[658Greninja]

I mean, most defensive fairies handle it just fine.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 164-192 (41.6 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Clefable Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Darkrai: 216-254 (76.5 - 90%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Which would force darkrai to run sludge bomb. Assuming it’s running the pretty standard set of nasty plot and hypnosis with 2 attacks, it’s now easily walled by Ting Lu.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 109-129 (21.2 - 25%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Ting-Lu Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 127-151 (45 - 53.5%) -- 33.2% chance to 2HKO

so you either rely on focus blast, which is not great, or you run Tera fighting, which make fairies an even better counter. Or you drop hypnosis, but that makes setting up a nasty plot harder.
Darkrai would obviously be great, but I’m not convinced it’s nearly as unwallable as people claim. I also don’t think it “needs” to be suspected, I just think it’s strong points are pretty over blown

Tf u running Hypnosis for? Just Focus Blast the Ting-Lu. NP/D-Pulse/Focus Miss/Sludge. Legit it only needs these moves to break OU. We have to convince people a thousand times that there is a reason we still haven’t unbanned Darkrai. Its too fast, its too strong, and its not even that frail. Your only method of dealing with it is hoping Focus Blast misses or rkilling it which you can say the same for any broken threat.

 

[Avira]

I mean, most defensive fairies handle it just fine.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 56+ SpD Clefable: 164-192 (41.6 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Sludge Bomb vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clefable: 406-478 (103 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Darkrai Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Corviknight: 279-330 (69.9 - 82.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Defensive fairies far from handle Darkrai just fine. Sludge Bomb annihilates all of them, and all Darkrai needs is Dark Pulse, Focus Blast, and Sludge Bomb, which shits on pretty much all of OU. I calced Corviknight just in case you thought that Corviknight takes Focus Blast well. Just bring Corv down to 70%, and it's pretty much toast.

Can we like blacklist talk about unbanning Darkrai? It's not productive and is a waste of time. Even after the first DLC, there will hardly be any defensive checks to Darkrai with Kommo-o being the ONLY confirmed one with Okidogi and Fezandipiti possibly being checks based on their typing, but I doubt those 2 will be walls. Darkrai has no business being unbanned without massive defensive powercreep, and with Magearna being buffed in Gen 8 to the point that it will never be balanced in OU again, there's very little chance Darkrai would be a fair test in the next 2 or 3 gens despite Gamefreak trying to shove a ton of powercreep (mostly the offensive kind) into the game.

 

[Return to Zero]

If we live in a world where Iron Valiant is considered okay (it has Hypnosis btw), then I don't think Darkrai would be so much of a problem that it can't be tested. The sleep moves it has are incredibly unreliable and eat into its coverage (which it's super reliant on because mono-Dark STAB), so they'd likely be restricted to lead sets that can afford to waste a turn to fish. Might be a decent anti-Samurott-H pick tbh.

Hypnosis blows and Darkrai only needs to run it in Ubers, where the majority of the metagame there is able to take its unboosted hits and it needs the time to set up, whereas in OU it is a minority. Timid Darkrai becomes the third-fastest thing in OU (with the second-fastest that should ostensibly check it being more or less irrelevant by now) and has wide enough coverage to where it can pick and choose which losing matchups it flips. Sleep moves are unreliable to be sure, but, Darkrai kinda just... doesn't need them in OU. It can just run Specs or Nasty Plot + three attacks.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

If we live in a world where Iron Valiant is considered okay (it has Hypnosis btw), then I don't think Darkrai would be so much of a problem that it can't be tested.

i wish i lived in the hypothetical world where iron valiant was ok. can we stop talking about dropping mons from ubers when half of ou already belongs there

 

[Cheryl.]

The only world where Darkrai could be considered okay for Gen 9 OU is the world where people are so hooked on trying to abuse Bad Dreams that they forgo a CRUCIAL coverage move in Sludge Bomb (that makes Darkrai's three move coverage literally perfect for hitting the entire tier neutrally!) for... Hypnosis. 60 accuracy. HYPNOSIS. Please, just run NP 3 attacks with a good Tera type, you will actually lose 100% more with this mon by trying to gamble for sleep turns as setup instead of just using it as the rather busted sweeper it would be. Also don't let this into OU in a Tera meta lol

 

[Hpdsd]

The only world where Darkrai could be considered okay for Gen 9 OU is the world where people are so hooked on trying to abuse Bad Dreams that they forgo a CRUCIAL coverage move in Sludge Bomb (that makes Darkrai's three move coverage literally perfect for hitting the entire tier neutrally!) for... Hypnosis. 60 accuracy. HYPNOSIS. Please, just run NP 3 attacks with a good Tera type, you will actually lose 100% more with this mon by trying to gamble for sleep turns as setup instead of just using it as the rather busted sweeper it would be. Also don't let this into OU in a Tera meta lol

This. The only reason you would ever use Hypnosis is to beat Unaware Clodsire, which isn’t even good right now outside of Stall builds and specific Balances and one of its teammates can easily absorb sleep for Clod. Discussing Darkrai is pointless, that mon is incredibly strong and fast, just don’t.

 

[ant4456]

imma be for real

you could unban landorus i, darkrai, urshifu water, volcarona tomorrow and most teams wouldn't even flinch

wallbreaker? the fuck you mean wallbreaker? this is a tier with baxcalibur kingambit gholdengo

killing hard stall/most balance (run dondozo woooo!!!) is not something that can make you actually broken in gen 9 OU lets be for fucking real

the only crime most of the banned pokemon commit that is too great for this tier is beating offense

chien pao is not that much harder to wall gholdengo baxcalibur, but it's super fast, resists most of offense's priority, and beats opposing offense very quickly

iron bundle is very fast, lives unboosted priority and most hits at least once, and kills everything too

flutter mane less so physically, but it can take one of pretty much all special attacks

the only true crime ubers can commit rn is centralizing the offense metagame by being a fast breaker that also lives one hit by most offensive Pokemon, being bulky enough while still having the strength

darkrai? darkrai who? my free +1 speed iron valiant is coming for that ass

it dies to most offensive pokemon and even can die to +2 gambit sucker IIRC, a lot of the offensive metagame can beat it

sure nasty plot fucks up defensive teams, but why do we even pretend that we care about their well-being forced into the same one or two cores, of which one of the bulky Pokemon has arguably more support to suspect test than fucking gholdengo, because we cannot be allowed to have a defensive Pokemon that makes progress, can we?

HO teams change 0 and they are still prepared for landorus I, darkrai, immediately because frankly a lot of the teams are already not in need of another middling speed breaker or fast cleaner, and several Pokemon are faster and fuck it up

the only reason I'd see lando i get banned again is because it lives a hit from too many of offense's Pokemon, and kills back, but tbh that is also just Ursaluna but faster, as that Pokemon also usually lives one and kills back lol

 

[LoseToRU?]

This bit is nonsense. Much of the list is completely unviable in OU, or so niche as to be ignorable - and that's the point, that defog distribution is terrible and it's not primarily about Gholdengo - but there's a full half-dozen mons there that are viable OU choices, and five of them can reasonably run Defog.

Those six, along with their current ratings on the VR:

Corviknight : B+

Frosmoth : C

Hawlucha : B-

Lilligant-H : B

Scizor : B

Talonflame : C

I also cited Maushold as a removal option, who is ranked at C+.

Your first list had 15 mons and now we're down to 6, I'd say over half could be considered "most" as in "most of these are unmons" but we can break it down further.

Y'know what C+ tier in SV VR means? Mostly RU mons, literally. 2/6 you listed are below C+
The SV meta is mostly B+ and above, which none of the ones you listed are, besides Corv.
There's a reason none of the sample teams have mons below B+

Let's set aside Corv since it's B+ and a viable fogger. You say the other 5 mons are viable OU choices- we can disagree. I'd say they were the mons I was talking about when I said "with few that have an actual niche." RU mons are more niche than "viable OU choices"...
A niche mon is a mon that is often not an optimal pick. They have a high skill ceiling and should only be put on a team by someone who knows what they are doing and can build the support these mons need to even perform their niche role; pretty sure Frost and Talon meet that criteria dude. Where you lose me completely is when you say they can all reasonably run defog. They can't.

So, not sure how you think what I said is nonsense. You had a list of mons, over half of them weren't ranked or below C and the remaining ones are niche picks, like I said.

The removal ranking is this:

1. Cinder
2. Mouse
3. Tusk
4. Corv
5. Treads
6. Quack

This list is heavily factored by Gold. Corv would be #1 without it around. Notice how 1 and 2 spots are mons that aren't stopped by Gold. Tusk and Treads need to watch out for scarf, balloon, tera- basically not a free spin whatsoever with Gold around.
However, if anyone wanted to put Tusk at #2 and Mouse #3 then I wouldn't argue. Anyway.

The interaction between Gold and Corv is a huge reason why hazards are such a problem, less than the defog distribution.
The distribution doesn't help our situation, but Corv comes in and fogs for free vs like 70% of the meta without Gold. Hell, with Tera, Corv fog could technically only be stopped by Taunt, and none of those Taunt mons want to eat a BB, Iron, or get U-Turned on.

If mons could access egg moves and whatnot like in SS then we would have a totally different meta. You can't really say it's a distribution problem when that implies the mons also get Toxic and Scald back if they get Defog back.. Again, distribution doesn't help but in the meta we currently have, with moves that GF wanted these mons to have, the fact that our premier fogger can't do its job is the biggest factor in regards to hazard stack meta.

 

[Furret4ssb]

it dies to most offensive pokemon and even can die to +2 gambit sucker IIRC, a lot of the offensive metagame can beat it

+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 211-249 (74.8 - 88.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock. This is a best case scenario, no way gambit gets to 5 allies fainted also how is it setting up on focus blast Darkrai
The offensive mons are outsped by Darkrai for the most part

sure nasty plot fucks up defensive teams, but why do we even pretend that we care about their well-being forced into the same one or two cores, of which one of the bulky Pokemon has arguably more support to suspect test than fucking gholdengo, because we cannot be allowed to have a defensive Pokemon that makes progress, can we?

What are you suggesting defensive teams should run to beat it

 

[658Greninja]

imma be for real

you could unban landorus i, darkrai, urshifu water, volcarona tomorrow and most teams wouldn't even flinch

wallbreaker? the fuck you mean wallbreaker? this is a tier with baxcalibur kingambit gholdengo

killing hard stall/most balance (run dondozo woooo!!!) is not something that can make you actually broken in gen 9 OU lets be for fucking real

the only crime most of the banned pokemon commit that is too great for this tier is beating offense

chien pao is not that much harder to wall gholdengo baxcalibur, but it's super fast, resists most of offense's priority, and beats opposing offense very quickly

iron bundle is very fast, lives unboosted priority and most hits at least once, and kills everything too

flutter mane less so physically, but it can take one of pretty much all special attacks

the only true crime ubers can commit rn is centralizing the offense metagame by being a fast breaker that also lives one hit by most offensive Pokemon, being bulky enough while still having the strength

darkrai? darkrai who? my free +1 speed iron valiant is coming for that ass

it dies to most offensive pokemon and even can die to +2 gambit sucker IIRC, a lot of the offensive metagame can beat it

sure nasty plot fucks up defensive teams, but why do we even pretend that we care about their well-being forced into the same one or two cores, of which one of the bulky Pokemon has arguably more support to suspect test than fucking gholdengo, because we cannot be allowed to have a defensive Pokemon that makes progress, can we?

HO teams change 0 and they are still prepared for landorus I, darkrai, immediately because frankly a lot of the teams are already not in need of another middling speed breaker or fast cleaner, and several Pokemon are faster and fuck it up

the only reason I'd see lando i get banned again is because it lives a hit from too many of offense's Pokemon, and kills back, but tbh that is also just Ursaluna but faster, as that Pokemon also usually lives one and kills back lol

I’m just gonna say this right now, but early BW OU was way worse balance wise than SV OU is right now. Deoxys forms, Swift Swim, Shaymin-S, Sand Rush Drill, and ofc Darkrai, but even in that chatoic metagame Darkrai was problematic, not even just cause of Dark Void and Gen 5 sleep mechanics, but also cause defensively checking it is almost impossible.

You’re not comprehending how busted its stats are. If Darkrai dropped tomorrow it would be the third fastest unboosted mon in the tier with Top 5 SpA rivaling Enamorus. Darkrai can outspeed and kill most of those so-called offensive threats. Its tanky enough to eat a priority move besides Mach, including Gambit Sucker which you say OHKOs after an SD but quick question, in what scenario is the +2 Darkrai gonna let you click Swords Dance and not just kill the fucking Gambit?

“darkrai? darkrai who? my free +1 speed iron valiant is coming for that ass”

Hey there is this cool move Darkrai can use, its called Switching Out. Valiant switches back out again, now it can’t get that +1 speed boost anymore and Darkrai puts it to sleep (permanently) with Sludge Bomb. You can use that logic for any broken mon under the sun. Chi-Yu? Booster Valiant, ggs. Flutter Mane? Specs Pult. In practice it does not keep them in check cause they can just switch out and come back in to KO another mon. If we went by your logic, nothing would get banned.

As for the others.

+2 252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Cresselia: 173-204 (38.9 - 45.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

No, j..just no.

The difference between Ursaluna and Lando-I is that the former is much slower, much easier to wear down, and has STAB moves that are easier to play around with Flying + Ghost mons. Not even comparable.

Urshifu Rapid Strike…..

Are we gonna ignore the fact Rapid Strike is bulky asf, breaks defensive cores easily with BU/SD + Taunt, has priority Aqua Jet and RESISTS Sucker Punch + Ice Shard. Your Gambit doesn’t mean jack shit.

+2 252+ Atk Urshifu-Rapid-Strike Surging Strikes (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Fairy Kingambit on a critical hit: 345-408 (101.1 - 119.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Volcarona has the same problem with Gambit but worse. You have a big offensive threat that doesn’t need priority to sweep your team. Since its so fucking fast, the only Encore user that can mess it up is Booster Valiant, and in that case, Volc can just…switch out, and the next time it comes back in you just sweep.

Even in this HO focused meta, you still have solid usage of BO, Balance, and even Stall has been seen in OLT + WCOP. Do you really wanna make things worse? Obviously you don’t.

 

[pika pal]

I want to reiterate that when I posted about Darkrai it was more to point out how it seems less absurd this Gen than previous ones relative to OU.

This was, again, not a vote that it should be dropped but more me noting that damn there was a power jump in this Gen. While this guy ain't the fix I wonder at what point GF's "BIG NUMBER" evolution hype and signatures are going to outpace a reasonable tiering approach within Smogon's current approach. I'm reasonably confident if you dropped most of the Gen 9 additions into a game without the old move nerfs they'd still be performing at the S/A rank viability they are now (Tusk would have competition with old-movepool Landorus-T but it set of traits still gets you far).

 

[DuoM2]

sure nasty plot fucks up defensive teams, but why do we even pretend that we care about their well-being forced into the same one or two cores, of which one of the bulky Pokemon has arguably more support to suspect test than fucking gholdengo, because we cannot be allowed to have a defensive Pokemon that makes progress, can we?

This line of thinking encourages some nasty power creep that can push entire teamstyles out of the meta but also kind of ignores a lot of the playerbase's popular opinions. Everyone is aware that this meta has a lot of problems, some high-level players have even spoken out about them in this thread, but that's not a good reason to add more problems that are even worse than the last. The council addressed this by suspecting Kingambit, who they believed was the biggest thing pushing offense over the edge, and the community voted for it to stay. There's not much else at this point that can be done before DLC drops since it'll cause a giant shift in the meta. Very real chance the council would need to immediately revert the results of a suspect test if they think a Pokemon that got banned might be okay again.

I think it's been pointed out already but Darkrai's also the fastest relevant Pokemon in the tier other than Dragapult and boosted stuff, and that's IN ADDITION to being exceedingly difficult to handle defensively across NP + 3 attacks. The meta's definitely gone through a lot of power creep but that alone should not be reason to look into allowing a Pokemon this strong. It's still pretty blatantly broken and I'm fairly confident suspecting it again would just be a waste of time.

 

[ant4456]

This line of thinking encourages some nasty power creep that can push entire teamstyles out of the meta but also kind of ignores a lot of the playerbase's popular opinions. Everyone is aware that this meta has a lot of problems, some high-level players have even spoken out about them in this thread, but that's not a good reason to add more problems that are even worse than the last. The council addressed this by suspecting Kingambit, who they believed was the biggest thing pushing offense over the edge, and the community voted for it to stay. There's not much else at this point that can be done before DLC drops since it'll cause a giant shift in the meta. Very real chance the council would need to immediately revert the results of a suspect test if they think a Pokemon that got banned might be okay again.

I think it's been pointed out already but Darkrai's also the fastest relevant Pokemon in the tier other than Dragapult and boosted stuff, and that's IN ADDITION to being exceedingly difficult to handle defensively across NP + 3 attacks. The meta's definitely gone through a lot of power creep but that alone should not be reason to look into allowing a Pokemon this strong. It's still pretty blatantly broken and I'm fairly confident suspecting it again would just be a waste of time.

i dont think you guys are getting this so im gonna make it clear

i dont want them to unban darkrai lando i and urshifu

im taking the piss out of this meta
because no, I do not think a lot of these Ubers are that much better or more problematic than some of these high tier OU pokemon

the solution is to ban more pokemon, not unban more ubers, obviously

 

[Negative Charge]

Ban Gholdengo and save the meta. I view it in a similar vein to Gen-6 mega Sableye where it isn’t in itself broken but warps the meta and hazard game so severely as to be a net negative to the tier. I don’t really know how this is even debatable at this point, Gholdnego is very close to being a perfect Pokémon. People are constantly whining about boots yet I rarely see anyone argue that the current hazard fiesta meta and extreme difficulty of removal is the reason for boots spam. Gholdengo is the single biggest bottleneck for team building, more so than even Gambit.

 

[bigasschungusboi]

I rep my homie ant this meta is straight dog and their shitposts seem to reflect the current line of thinking when it comes to tiering. So many of ya'll are in here preaching about the most basic shit, having the joke fly over ya'll heads but when it comes down to it ya'll are not showing to the suspect tests and then all of this shit means moot.

 

[awyp]

Ban Gholdengo and save the meta. I view it in a similar vein to Gen-6 mega Sableye where it isn’t in itself broken but warps the meta and hazard game so severely as to be a net negative to the tier. I don’t really know how this is even debatable at this point, Gholdnego is very close to being a perfect Pokémon. People are constantly whining about boots yet I rarely see anyone argue that the current hazard fiesta meta and extreme difficulty of removal is the reason for boots spam. Gholdengo is the single biggest bottleneck for team building, more so than even Gambit.

I definitely echo this, Gholdengo from a statistical build isn't anything super impressive but Good as Gold combined with it's Ghost typing becomes way too dominant as presence and it's forcing people who are not running HO to run a balanced / stall HDB team because (Dengo + Spikestack) is that annoying to deal with on the high ladder.

 

[KamenOH]

I just want Volc

Its got good defensive matchups vs some of the better mons in the tier, like Valiant and Kingambit if you squint, while also forcing the latter into generally a single Tera type: fire. Furthermore, while gambit is punishable in its fire state, volc still has to be wary since unless it just wants to fucking die to the hazard spam, it has to run boots. They are non-negotiable, and as such make it weak to knock off, which is actually somewhat common.
Yes, it is something most players save their Tera for, more than Gambit itself, but in doing so they run the risk of enemy tera ruining their plays, forcing their hands so to speak and denying themselves the opportunity to matchup their moth.
Finally, the oft repeated point id love to repeat: its ban was scuffed, yo. It goes from a 0-vote ban to a 7-2 within a very short time frame, without so much as a notable change in the meta to warrant it. If youre so pressed about the meta, I dont mind waiting until Archaludon comes and resists all but fire, and has the SpD to win, especially since its likely on a rain team anyways and as such fires signature nukes.
My point is, the moth is contentious, and letting shit be settled once and for all come DLC is a wonderful idea to me.

 

[bigasschungusboi]

Ehh i dunno man who exactly is knocking off volc except for like tusk and val that proceed to have just crippled their check for free

 

[ant4456]

great tusk clicking knock on the volcarona switch in only to be burned and become setup fodder

volcarona is absolutely broken with tera but tbh it isnt that much crazier than kingambit so, sure ig if that is the standard