Is it just me because have I not been seeing any of these hazard stacking teams post gliscor ban. You run into hammurot/ ting lu like once every 7 games and when you do they have a much tougher time setting up spikes due to actually being killable. If anything makes ghold broken I feel like its the insane typing + recovery + decent bulk + nasty plot making it a nightmare for less proactive teams to deal with it before it gets to + one million and wins.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
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Now we can agree! I have Only played a couple post Sneasler games, but overall HO seems to be much more prevalent and reliable than spikes stack. And yes these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive (thanks to Samurott) but I'm seeing and being frustrated by a lot more webs and glimmora! The so-called "spikes problem" may have died with Gliscor. Now there is just, spikes. And everything else about Gholdengo is way worse for the reasons you say
since we're on the topic, here's my personal definitions of different team archetypes, in order from most to least offensive:
in-game teams
teams that run 4 attacks on everything and spam starters, box legendaries, and whatever gift mons the plot hands them. built on the philosophy of "lmao what even is a status move". very easy to beat in competitive but work perfectly well in-game.
hyper offenseteams heavily focused on weakening teams with breakers and hazards, then sending in a setup mon or super-fast cleaner to finish things off. currently the most effective playstyle and has been since day 1. usually features 6 offensive mons.
offenseteams with a general focus on aggressive tactics, such as wallbreaking, setup, and hazard stacking. similar to hyper offense, but places more emphasis on stallbreakers to deal with defensive threats than simply trying to punch holes through them. usually features 5-6 offensive mons.
bulky offenseteams with offensive focus, but filled with slower and tankier pokemon than are generally seen on the faster-paced hyper offense teams. runs ting-lu for spikes instead of hamurott. trick room offense is a subset of this, by necessity. usually features 4-6 offensive mons.
balanceteams combining a mix of offensive and defensive roles. typically lean very heavily on momentum, positioning, reactive tera, and just generally being able to get the right mons in front of the right threats at the right time. usually features 2-4 offensive mons.
semi-stallteams that are built more like a stall team than a balance team but still feature a couple of offensive mons, usually of the setup variety, but occasionally a breaker to quickly eliminate the strongest offensive threats on the opposing team. you might also see a "fake stallmon" or two—mons normally used for stall but that can also serve as bulky setup mons, like calm mind blissey, curse dondozo, and stored power clef. this was the thing casuals were whining about being "stall" last gen. usually features 1-2 offensive mons.
stallteams that focus on walling the opponent and forcing progress mainly through residual damage, occasional hazard usage, and defensive setup options such as ironpress and curse. always features 0 offensive mons; anything with an offensive mon is semi-stall or above.
pp stallteams made with spite (both the move and the emotion). they don't even bother trying to wear the opponent down, just throw the fattest pressure mons available at them until they struggle. this never works unless the opponent's team is extremely passive, poorly constructed, or poorly piloted.
blatant endless battle clause violationteams made by people who get legitimately upset when their opponent enjoys themselves. never actually work because the rules get in the way. if someone tells you they play this kind of team, it is not only your constitutional right but your moral duty to slap them.
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My take is mostly based on what type of counterplay a team has when responding to a threat. Offensive counterplay is being able to kill something with a faster mon/ a mon that can tank a hit and kill back. Defensive counterplay is being able to switch in and wall/ threaten out a pokemon consistently over the course of a game.since we're on the topic, here's my personal definitions of different team archetypes, in order from most to least offensive:
feel free to disagree with these definitions, but know that when i post about playstyles or team archetypes this is what i mean when i use these terms
teams that run 4 attacks on everything and spam starters, box legendaries, and whatever gift mons the plot hands them. built on the philosophy of "lmao what even is a status move". very easy to beat in competitive but work perfectly well in-game.
teams heavily focused on weakening teams with breakers and hazards, then sending in a setup mon or super-fast cleaner to finish things off. currently the most effective playstyle and has been since day 1.
teams with a general focus on aggressive tactics, such as wallbreaking, setup, and hazard stacking. similar to hyper offense, but places more emphasis on stallbreakers to deal with defensive threats than simply trying to punch holes through them.
teams with offensive focus, but filled with slower and tankier pokemon than are generally seen on the faster-paced hyper offense teams. runs ting-lu for spikes instead of hamurott. trick room offense is a subset of this, by necessity.
teams combining a mix of offensive and defensive roles. typically lean very heavily on momentum, positioning, reactive tera, and just generally being able to get the right mons in front of the right threats at the right time.
teams that are built more like a stall team than a balance team but still feature a couple of offensive mons, usually of the setup variety, but occasionally a breaker to quickly eliminate the strongest offensive threats on the opposing team. this was the thing casuals were whining about being "stall" last gen.
teams that focus on walling the opponent and forcing progress mainly through residual damage, occasional hazard usage, and defensive setup options such as stored power, body press, and curse.
teams made with spite (both the move and the emotion). they don't even bother trying to wear the opponent down, just throw the fattest pressure mons available at them until they struggle. this never works.
teams made by people who get legitimately upset when their opponent enjoys themselves. never actually work because the rules get in the way.
HO - No defensive counterplay. Its usually better to let your guy in die and send in a new one then to lose a turn switching.
BO - Lots of offensive counterplay with a little bit of defensive counterplay. Think the grassy terrain teams that ran stuff like heatran to switch into some mons like zap.
Balance - A good mix of defensive and offensive counterplay.
Semi stall - One mon that provides good offensive counterplay, like pult, with the rest being defensive counterplay oriented.
Stall - Mostly just defensive counterplay.
Sometimes games are long. It's not a bad thing, it's just part of the game, if you're laddering you should be prepared for the game to potentially be long
This is overall a great quick compendium! But you are underselling PP stall - one of the top stall teams running around right now features pressure Weavile, and one that was pressure gambit/sneas/weezing/corv was pretty good. Also stored power and curse are both pretty rare on stall, most of the current teams favor Moonblast on Clef and RestTalk on Dozo. If Dozo isn't resttalk you autolose to gambit and Clefable is one of the best valiant answers since moon just ohkos and fears literally nothing valiant could do - except Tera calm mind, you have to be calm mind unaware if that happenssince we're on the topic, here's my personal definitions of different team archetypes, in order from most to least offensive:
feel free to disagree with these definitions, but know that when i post about playstyles or team archetypes this is what i mean when i use these terms
teams that run 4 attacks on everything and spam starters, box legendaries, and whatever gift mons the plot hands them. built on the philosophy of "lmao what even is a status move". very easy to beat in competitive but work perfectly well in-game.
teams heavily focused on weakening teams with breakers and hazards, then sending in a setup mon or super-fast cleaner to finish things off. currently the most effective playstyle and has been since day 1.
teams with a general focus on aggressive tactics, such as wallbreaking, setup, and hazard stacking. similar to hyper offense, but places more emphasis on stallbreakers to deal with defensive threats than simply trying to punch holes through them.
teams with offensive focus, but filled with slower and tankier pokemon than are generally seen on the faster-paced hyper offense teams. runs ting-lu for spikes instead of hamurott. trick room offense is a subset of this, by necessity.
teams combining a mix of offensive and defensive roles. typically lean very heavily on momentum, positioning, reactive tera, and just generally being able to get the right mons in front of the right threats at the right time.
teams that are built more like a stall team than a balance team but still feature a couple of offensive mons, usually of the setup variety, but occasionally a breaker to quickly eliminate the strongest offensive threats on the opposing team. this was the thing casuals were whining about being "stall" last gen.
teams that focus on walling the opponent and forcing progress mainly through residual damage, occasional hazard usage, and defensive setup options such as stored power, body press, and curse.
teams made with spite (both the move and the emotion). they don't even bother trying to wear the opponent down, just throw the fattest pressure mons available at them until they struggle. this never works.
teams made by people who get legitimately upset when their opponent enjoys themselves. never actually work because the rules get in the way.
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i'm gonna be honest, i wasn't even thinking of dozo when i said curse, i was thinking of garg. not sure why i put stored power under stall, i think i meant to delete that and it snuck through. and pp stall as a tactic is a very valid and underappreciated thing, i agree, but pp stall as a playstyle just doesn't work except against very passive teams, people who don't know how to properly conserve pp, and people who rely too much on low-pp moves in builder
finally, someone else had the courage to say it out loud
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At what point do we just give finch the power to implement bans. I'm so tired of having to wait like 2 days for the ladder to become slightly more playable after a ban is announced.
E: the mods removed my salt post but I stand by what I said. DNB gambit voters are not worth listening to no matter how good they are at the game of pokemon. Ban this fucker NOW.
E: the mods removed my salt post but I stand by what I said. DNB gambit voters are not worth listening to no matter how good they are at the game of pokemon. Ban this fucker NOW.
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It’s amazing how good Knock Off is. Got Roaring Moon banned, and it has made Weavile viable again. Been having lots of fun with the little weasel. Abusing HDB, knocking opponents HDB, and Ice stab is fantastic right now(I have missed so many ICC tonight). Makes you really realize how stupid busted 
was. Maybe this guy can climb back to OU if it gets more traction.
was. Maybe this guy can climb back to OU if it gets more traction.
Semi-stall is stall apologists way of making it not sound like stall lmao. If I spend the majority of a match switching defensive mons to wear down the opponent, the difference between 5 and 6 stall mons is gonna feel pretty negligible.
I do not give 1 singular fuck if you end the game with a blissey or a Manaphy, if I had to sit through 60 turns of doing no damage to you because you switched between a bunch of stall Pokémon I’m calling it a stall team
I do not give 1 singular fuck if you end the game with a blissey or a Manaphy, if I had to sit through 60 turns of doing no damage to you because you switched between a bunch of stall Pokémon I’m calling it a stall team
i once witnessed a team that consisted of 4 stallmons and 2 hyper-offense wallbreakers and i don't know what to call that besides semi-stall. it definitely wasn't full stall and it certainly wasn't balance
I would call that balance since it has a defensive core alongside clear offensive options.
i dunno, something about it just didn't feel balancey enough to call it balance. there's definitely a subjective element to how these things are categorized
Knock off is a fundamentally broken move. Not by anywhere near enough to do anything about it, but it's one of the few moves that's spammable, offensively threatening kills, and has no clear counterplay because the counterplay is so obscure it's hardly usable. Even stuff like scald which causes singles players to mald has some counterplay - switch in a water absorber or a water-resistant mon that doesn't mind being burned, or even in a pinch you take the 7/10 chance with it. The only real counterplay to knock off is sticky hold (which is useless unless it's literally the only viable ability), consumable items which you would never put on a mon specifically to counter knock off, or taking the knock off and keep switching that mon in to limit it's damage. Technically you could flame body troll it or static troll it, but not only is that inconsistent, most of the mons who that strategy applies to would rather keep their item (read - HDB) than 30/70 a chance on the status ailment.It’s amazing how good Knock Off is. Got Roaring Moon banned, and it has made Weavile viable again. Been having lots of fun with the little weasel. Abusing HDB, knocking opponents HDB, and Ice stab is fantastic right now(I have missed so many ICC tonight). Makes you really realize how stupid busted
Knock off is a great typing with no immunities, attached to mons that can take full advantage of it, high base power, and makes progress most times you click it. Even if Iron Valiant can tank knock offs like a champ, it still doesn't appreciate losing it's 1.3 - 1.5 offensive or speed multiplier.
Y'know, those stored power sweepers would be a lot more annoying to deal with w/o Gholdengoat and its ability to either cripple them with Trick or 1v1 them w/ its Stored Power Resistance, Recover, and NP.
Do we REALLY want to suspect Gholdengo for "potentially being unhealthy" when there are far more sinister elements lurking in the tier that our boy keeps in check? Get rid of Mr. string cheese man and far nastier cheese such as cheese Clef and cheese Cress will be unleashed, ruining our beautiful meta.
With only a month remaining of this metagame, I'd say its the preferable choice to maintain the status quo, especially with the last two bans causing some drastic shake-ups. Lets continue enjoying string cheese instead of throwing it away for some moldy cheese.
Do we REALLY want to suspect Gholdengo for "potentially being unhealthy" when there are far more sinister elements lurking in the tier that our boy keeps in check? Get rid of Mr. string cheese man and far nastier cheese such as cheese Clef and cheese Cress will be unleashed, ruining our beautiful meta.
With only a month remaining of this metagame, I'd say its the preferable choice to maintain the status quo, especially with the last two bans causing some drastic shake-ups. Lets continue enjoying string cheese instead of throwing it away for some moldy cheese.
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Honestly, the thing that shows that knock off did not need to get buffed is that in gens 3-5, it was still a valuable move that saw more use once the power of item removal was fully discovered. Heck, it's part of the reason why clefable is so good in gen 4 OU and most of the reason hariyama is potentially being considered to be ranked OU in gen 3. Items are so important and removing them is so amazing. I bet when an ability that negates held items effects (like corrosive gas in gen 8) is introduced, it will be meta defining.
Nah without it's base power it becomes significantly worse. At 20 base power it's such hardly a threat. Switching a non-resist into Knock Off consistently is a major problem in current gen because it can just kill you, but at 20 bp you can do it all game. It also becomes way less spammable because of the crippling low base damage. Right now setting up in the face of something with dark stab knock off is a little risky, at 20 BP it joins stuff like Stealth Rocks where the effect is good, but you can't just use it in the face of a set up mon.
It's not unviable at 20 BP, but mons like weavile or roaring moon would never use it. It'd be a fringe choice on utility mons at best. It has counterplay at 20 BP. At 65 - 98 BP not so much.
it's true, knock off is one of the moves that are what i like to call "broken-not-broken" or "busted"—moves that are extremely powerful and/or versatile with limited counterplay, but not strong enough on their own to consider action on (or sometimes they're just not on the right mons). like, they're still balanced in the current environment, but they're strong, sometimes meta-definingly or pokemon-carryingly so, and many have the potential to break things. my list of these currently consists of the following:
- knock off
- ceaseless edge
- rage fist
- salt cure
- encore
- freeze-dry
- thousand arrows
- spore
- aurora veil
- quiver dance and victory dance
- population bomb
- fishious rend (not bolt beak because ground-types are all over the damn place)
- u-turn and flip turn (not volt switch because ground-types are still all over the damn place)
- teleport
- protect and variants (doubles only)
- ally switch (doubles only)
- not stored power lmao
- tera blast once dlc2 drops, at minimum; may cross over into "actually broken" territory depending on what type 19 does
"Technically" this would be the 20th type because there is already a 'typless' type. It's what an egg's type is, what curse's type used to be and what pokemon that are pure fire types or pure flying types uses burn up or roost respectively become. But that is very niche so yeah, 19th type woooo!
Yea, this is the fundamental problem with Knock Off. It is both one of the best utility moves in the game while also being the best physical Dark attack. Sure, it can't be used multiple times against the same Pokemon for maximum effect, but even over two turns it still out damages two Dark Pulses. The better the utility of a move the less damage it should output and this breaks that.
Pure Flying types become Normal type when using roost but Burn Up does indeed make Fire types typeless
This forum needs a serious quality improvement. I genuinely can't believe I'm seeing people bitch and moan and whine about stall in a meta so inherently and fundamentally biased against it- the shit people are saying lately is almost literally "smogon love stal!!!!!!11!!1" tier nonsense. Stall is not, will not, and cannot be a dominant force in the current metagame and anyone who's played the tier to get above fucking 1200 on the ladder knows this. Banning the myriad broken offensive threats is not going to create a stall metagame, and, to be blunt, you're an idiot or arguing in bad faith if you believe it will. People on here are literally complaining that they can't just simply OHKO every mon or that a game goes on for longer then ten minutes. This isn't even getting into the clear toxicity a lot of people are exhibiting towards defensive play and treating it as some kind of "fake" or "skill-less" way to play the game. It's exactly what I'm talking about when I call this community HO-brained- so many people, for no reason other than they don't have the patience to sit and play a game for longer than ten minutes, continue to post uninformed and inflammatory takes towards defensive play and the people who play those styles. Some of you need to grow up and realise that just because you don't like to play against a playstyle (that hasn't been good, short of having brief stints in in-between metas, in a very long time) doesn't mean that style or those players are invalid for playing that way.
Can we start requiring a certain GXE to even post here to begin with? I'm sick of seeing uninformed, nonsense takes like "the meta is almost completely stall now!!!!!! don't banned sneasler!!!!". I literally don't even care if it would stop myself from posting here, I just want to see actually informed, useful, and interesting takes on the metagame, and clearly that isn't (and hasn't been) present here for a while now.
Can we start requiring a certain GXE to even post here to begin with? I'm sick of seeing uninformed, nonsense takes like "the meta is almost completely stall now!!!!!! don't banned sneasler!!!!". I literally don't even care if it would stop myself from posting here, I just want to see actually informed, useful, and interesting takes on the metagame, and clearly that isn't (and hasn't been) present here for a while now.
Although I agree with the majority of this, there is precedence for stall being overbearing. Gen 6 OU banned Mega Sableye on the last day because it was so overbearing. So yes, stall can be a dominant force. Though of course, in this metagame, it isn't going to be a problem in a millenium and I actually respect stall players unless they try to pp stall me, which I respect less. There are a lot more opportunities to make mistakes and lose the game, unlike balance or HO (I am not saying either of these styles are zero-skill either, I myself mainly build balance teams).
The GXE thing is honestly not a good idea, but I do think something like having to win a certain amount of games and reaching a certain elo ranking at least once, say 1600 or 1800, would be better. I do believe that new players should be a part of the discussion, but when the spout absolute bullshit like you say, it gets on my nerves.
Overall, you are absolutely right, its getting annoying seeing people not realising that 'maybe', and hear me out on this, a pokemon is not broken if it can take 3-5 hits to kill, not 1-2.
There is precedence, but keep in mind that X&Y was a decade ago at this point. I was also more focused on the current metagame where, as things stand, stall is just never going to be a defining meta staple, and almost certainly won't for the rest of the generation.
This is why I have advocated for the council taking more action without community input. Because bureaucracy is inherently slow, and getting out surveys, doing suspects, etc. will always take time, people (in particular new players) have gotten "used" to the meta being an HO-fest where anything that doesn't die in a hit or two is considered to be broken because they never learned how to play at any slower of a pace. It's becoming a problem, as seen by some people here being entirely incapable of determining the difference between a stall team and a balance team.
I love that "dont banned sneasler" is going to become such a meme now
If y'all don't mind me giving my two cents, I feel like the Stall archetypes in Gen 9 are just not good enough and not varied enough. I have had way more fun and could experiment more with those Semi-Stall structures, Dirge and Clod and Garg and whatnot. If I have to use Alomomola in DLC2 I'm going to kill myself
Worst part is that Sneasler was as much if not a greater threat to HO than Stall. Stall could at least use Sleep Clause mechanics on Showdown to kind of play around Dire Claw more effectively, Balance really couldn't because they typically only ever run a few walls, and Hyper Offense just straight up lost to Sneasler if they didn't run their own or made sure Gholdengo was as healthy as can be. Its the same type of people who don't understand why Stall used to use Dugtrio and that HO used to use Shuckle.
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