Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Cuddly]

Calling Terapagos an obvious ban is incredibly dismissive to the fact that we had no idea about how the Stellar type operated at the time of the decision and still have no idea about how it will play in practice in tandem with factors like Tera opportunity cost and Terapagos’s abstract design in general. If it’s “obviously” broken we will act quickly, just as we did with Regieleki and Magearna earlier this generation. Until we see it in action I would appreciate it if we kept an open mind, thanks

On a brighter note, I’m really excited to try out Hydrapple and Raging Bolt; both of these Pokemon bring interesting offensive tools and defensive profiles into the metagame and I’m personally hyped to try and build with them!

Not waiting until you actually knew how the new mechanics work is 100% OU council's fault. It's not like Metronome being discovered to not work well against protect, or Body Slam not paralyzing normal types, it was an entirely new mechanic you couldn't make decisions on.
And considering this thing's Tera gives it a 100 BST increase and has similar stats to Zygarde-C, I genuinely don't know what you guys were thinking with "yeah let's start this stronger than most Ubers" Pokemon. It's kind of expected that basically everyone will want this thing banned shortly after Showdown updates.

 

[Avira]

i don't think so. there's enough precedent in mega rayquaza that it could be done pretty straightforwardly and i think it would be a move that the vast majority of people would agree with if the stellar stellar form is clearly broken but the regular form is clearly not. part of the reason we didn't ban firepon from teraing was because the whole mon was broken.

The difference is that that was the Uber community's decision, not OU's. It would be breaking precedent in OU to prevent Terapagos from Terastalizing. I do not that see that as being on the table. How can you justify only banning Terastalizing on Terapagos while every other mon in the format is allowed to Terastalize? It makes no sense.

 

[Ropalme1914]

I have no opinion because the tier is not yet playable. Any complaining at this point is silly and pointless like the post I was responding to. We will address it all like we always do.

Just to make sure since there was a talk about it earlier and it commonly comes up in chats about it being a possibility or not, can Terapagos-Stellar be tiered on its own or would it being broken result in Terapagos in general being taken out from OU?

 

[Finchinator]

Not waiting until you actually knew how the new mechanics work is 100% OU council's fault. It's not like Metronome being discovered to not work well against protect, or Body Slam not paralyzing normal types, it was an entirely new mechanic you couldn't make decisions on.
And considering this thing's Tera gives it a 100 BST increase and has similar stats to Zygarde-C, I genuinely don't know what you guys were thinking with "yeah let's start this stronger than most Ubers" Pokemon. It's kind of expected that basically everyone will want this thing banned shortly after Showdown updates.

you are spending more time crying than it takes me to ban it if it is actually broken holy shit lol

the status quo for any new Pokemon is OU that is not like a cover legend and we are happy to act aggressively to remove it

 

[Finchinator]

Just to make sure since there was a talk about it earlier and it commonly comes up in chats about it being a possibility or not, can Terapagos-Stellar be tiered on its own or would it being broken result in Terapagos in general being taken out from OU?

If we ban anything, it will be the Pokemon as a whole -- the whole thing is probably gone. It is not going to be claused/fragmented.

 

[redninjapuffle]

If we ban anything, it will be the Pokemon as a whole -- the whole thing is probably gone. It is not going to be claused/fragmented.

A shame if Terapagos goes then, but the best we can do is wait and see how it shakes up the meta, only time will tell.

 

[Joseph Gomes]

not just the tera opportunity cost (which zygarde-complete did not suffer with), terapagos-stellar is a normal-type mon with no recovery in the generation of entry hazards. no useful STAB (though no lack or even need of coverage either), boots vs no boots dilemma, calm mind and rock polish as its only setup options, the transformation foregoes its incredible souped-up multiscale ability for a souped-up cloud nine instead, etc. zygarde-complete had ground STAB that damaged fliers, useful resistances (including stealth rock), dragon dance, glare, and 58 more base HP than terapagos-stellar after transformation (which did need losing some to trigger, but still). of course it might be too much for an OU tier, but i can see why it's being given a shot.

Don't see any of the above as an issue though. It has only one weakness unlike Zygarde who had 3 (including one quad weakness). Thousand Arrow is broken but Tera Starstorm affects ghosts and unresisted by steel. Calm Mind and Rock Polish is a standard double dance sweeping set for special attackers (same one Miraidon has). The ability in base form resists fighting moves, which gives ample opportunity for setup. As for hazards, it really doesn't need any item aside from HDB (in fact HDB is mandatory to keep Multiscale intact)

It's completely reasonable to test this for formality, but we don't need to pretend it's not broken in OU. If we are, we need better examples for 'why' its balanced.

 

[Ropalme1914]

If we ban anything, it will be the Pokemon as a whole -- the whole thing is probably gone. It is not going to be claused/fragmented.

Is there any reason for it considering precedents like Mega Rayquaza Clause and even just Megas in general (as something like Alomomola with Gengarite is allowed on old gens, only the combination of Gengar + Gengarite is banned and even the tiers' page on Smogon only shows Mega Gengar banned)? I don't want to extend this as this isn't a thread about tiering policy, but I am curious why the path with extra collateral damage is more likely to happen despite precendent from older gens.

 

[Finchinator]

Is there any reason for it considering precedents like Mega Rayquaza Clause and even just Megas in general (as something like Alomomola with Gengarite is allowed on old gens, only the combination of Gengar + Gengarite is banned and even the tiers' page on Smogon only shows Mega Gengar banned)? I don't want to extend this as this isn't a thread about tiering policy, but I am curious why the path with extra collateral damage is more likely to happen despite precendent from older gens.

We aren’t going to institute a complex ban that would create many further ripples in tiering. The Ubers precedent isn’t applicable to OU or its operating procedures; Ubers itself is vastly different in the tiering landscape fundamentally anyway.

 

[Moyashi]

I'm thinking a gold pacifier badge for that and especially if darkrai ends up not in the top 20

I keep checking showdown but the chat is so toxic. People that haven't played a single game calling everything broken.

Ubers UU is surprisingly balanced and OU may end up balanced with many of the things people are doom prophesizing over- it just may not resemble gen 6 7 8 which is EXPECTED.

Talking about mons and theorizing they may be broken is not toxic. And no, we won’t end up with a balanced meta game with broken running around.

And considering this thing's Tera gives it a 100 BST increase and has similar stats to Zygarde-C, I genuinely don't know what you guys were thinking with "yeah let's start this stronger than most Ubers" Pokemon

first of all it isn’t “stronger than most Ubers”. We don’t even know how well it does IN Ubers. And second the comparison to zygC is hilarious because the typings are so different, but also ZygC was ALSO tested first in OU. So…

 

[thebestever543]

I don’t know how good sand is and I’m not here to make any assumptions. However, Excadrill is a highly anticipated Pokemon because it brings hope to revive Tyranitar. Unfortunately Excadrill did not receive Ice Spinner like he had hoped. I still think tera blast electric is a very useful move for beating down pokemon such as corv, skarm and Zapdos without the need of a Z move. This does mean Drill can become tera reliant and therefore seen as less viable but it is the most promising set I’ve discovered. Tera Blast is also non-contact which is worth noting and adamant drill can outspeed Pokémon like booster Val and various scarfers.
Excadrill @ Leftovers
Ability: Sand Rush
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Iron Head
- Tera Blast
- Swords Dance

Here are some calcs I found relevant. I think adamant might be preferred but im missing something and jolly is necessary I thought it’d be a better reference. The biggest downside I think is that tera electric doesn’t offer you any defensive value so it feels like you have to commit once you tera. Anyways, I’m interested in your thoughts and I can’t wait to try out dlc2.

+2 252 Atk Tera Electric Excadrill Tera Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 374-444 (93.7 - 111.2%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Tera Electric Excadrill Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 306-362 (91.6 - 108.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Tera Electric Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Great Tusk: 201-237 (46.3 - 54.6%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Tera Electric Excadrill Tera Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 446-528 (83.5 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[Pokedom10]

You thought Chi-Yu was bad? Gouging Fire is gonna make you wish Chi-Yu was on the unban slate. A Fire/Dragon MONSTER that eats stall for breakfast and bulky offense for lunch, with a healthy snack of yummy cheese stick (Gholdengo).

You're essentially looking at Hisui-Arcanine with one extra point in speed for offense (H-Arc is115/90, Gouging is 115/91), but with access to Dragon Dance/Scale Shot and Dragon STAB instead of Rock STAB. Truly nothing wants to switch in on this. Because Protosynthesis activates in Sunlight, you're effectively putting a Choice Band on it every switch it gets (provided you can set sun, historically not a huge ask but if Terapagos sticks around any longer than three days it might be difficult). Here's just a dumb calc that will make your head spin:

+1 252 Atk Choice Band Tera Fire Arcanine-Hisui Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu in Sun: 498-588 (96.8 - 114.3%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

The plus one might be wrong due to how Protosynthesis would calculate since Gouging isn't in the builder yet, but you get the point. It's gonna hurt. And that's just the raw power of Band. Don't even get me started on DD sets. DD, Flare Blitz, Outrage, Filler. It will pretty much always want to Tera-Fire, because if Chi-Yu taught us anything, bigger numbers make for easier knockouts.

However where Gouging Fire goes from absolutely world breaking to downright unfair is its defense and stallbreaking potential. 101/121/93 bulk with a new Protect that burns on contact is frankly, a little absurd. It won't always fit Burning Bulwark into its sets, but it synergizes so perfectly with the new Temper Flare (double damage if prior move failed) that even sets with minimal investment are going to cause problems on purpose. The set can be DD/ScaleShot, Bulwark, Morning Sun (because of course it also got sustain), Temper Flare with lefties or boots for one of the most unholy stallbreakers this side of Gliscor. Get this thing under sun and it's gonna be EVERYONES problem.

What makes it all the sweeter is the partners that were quite literally tailor-made for it. Walking Wake and Gouging Fire must have been soul-mates in a previous life. Are you really gonna trust changing the weather when Wake has a billion options to kill every weather team out there? It demolishes Sand, works perfectly in Rain, and then Flip Turns to Gouging for Snow. It doesn't even have to switch in Sun, it can just Hydro Steam! Raging Bolt I doubt is going to have the same impact- the statline is just not there (why for the love of Arceus is your attack stat base 73? why is your signature move not just Sun Thunder?)- but being able to have a Water-Fire-Electric core under the Sun is insane. And this is before adding other Sun mons into the mix. The return of Venusaur makes the core Water-Fire-Grass-Electric, which is both easy to pilot and fun to use. Great Tusk is still, well, Great. Roaring Moon got unbanned. If Raging Bolt winds up being trash (likely) you can just pivot to using Sandy Shocks at zero downside. Torkoal being a requirement isn't even that big of an issue seeing as that saves your team a ton in the role compression and ultility departments.

The bottom line is, I'm excited to see how this metagame develops, as well as excited to see just how fast Gouging Fire gets banned. I will feel sad, however. Because Gamefreak knocked it out of the park with the Paradox Beasts. They look just as great as they play! If only every mon was like this.

 

[Vall]

View attachment 580319View attachment 580323

What makes it all the sweeter is the partners that were quite literally tailor-made for it. Walking Wake and Gouging Fire must have been soul-mates in a previous life. Are you really gonna trust changing the weather when Wake has a billion options to kill every weather team out there? It demolishes Sand, works perfectly in Rain, and then Flip Turns to Gouging for Snow. It doesn't even have to switch in Sun, it can just Hydro Steam! Raging Bolt I doubt is going to have the same impact- the statline is just not there (why for the love of Arceus is your attack stat base 73? why is your signature move not just Sun Thunder?)- but being able to have a Water-Fire-Electric core under the Sun is insane. And this is before adding other Sun mons into the mix. The return of Venusaur makes the core Water-Fire-Grass-Electric, which is both easy to pilot and fun to use. Great Tusk is still, well, Great. Roaring Moon got unbanned. If Raging Bolt winds up being trash (likely) you can just pivot to using Sandy Shocks at zero downside. Torkoal being a requirement isn't even that big of an issue seeing as that saves your team a ton in the role compression and ultility departments.

Raging Bolt did NOT become a special kingambit to be treated like this.
It gets signature, electric, special sucker punch, a much better secondary stab than steel, among many things just to be dismissed as "why not walking wake 2".
Sure it might not have the raw destructive power of +2 Supreme Overlord Gambit, but you are certaintly sleeping on it.

 

[1234hjkl]

Wanna say G.Fire and I.Boulder are looking very scary. G.Fire is like a reworked Zard-X which traded Damage for Bulk and a item slot, it's like Tusk were it can work as both a offensive menace and a defensive powerhouse.

Hide

Gouging Fire
Protosynthesis
Jolly 252 Atk 4 Def 252 Spe
Tera: Fire/Grass
Loaded Dice/Heavy Duty Boots
Fire Blitz/Heat Crash
Scale Shot/Dragon Claw
Dragon Dance
Morning Sun/Tera Blast/Earthquake

Gouging Fire
Protosynthesis
Calm/Careful 252 HP 4 Def 252 SpD
Tera: Dragon/Fairy/Steel
Leftovers/Heavy Duty Boots
Burning Bulwark
Lava Plume
Morning Sun
Earthquake/Roar

Boulder is a very scary mon, it's the fastest booster user, but one set I really wanna try is a band one, unlike Moon and Valiant it's in a less crowded speed tier so giving it other items can be worthwhile, band looks very scary with Tera rock only having Defensive tusk as a reliable switch in but SD+Booster sets also look very scary.

Hide

Iron Boulder
Quark Drive
Jolly 252 Atk 4 Def 252 Spe
Tera: Rock/Grass/Fighting
Booster Energy
Mighty Cleave
Close Combat
Sword Dance
Tera Blast/Earthquake

Iron Boulder
Quark Drive
Jolly/Adamant 252 Atk 4 Def 252 Spe
Tera: Rock/Grass/Fighting
Choice Band
Mighty Cleave
Close Combat
Tera Blast/Zen Headbutt
Earthquake

 

[YNM]

Raging Bolt I doubt is going to have the same impact- the statline is just not there (why for the love of Arceus is your attack stat base 73?

Cause... it's a Special Attacker?

Sure it might not have the raw destructive power of +2 Supreme Overlord Gambit

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Zekrom Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Valiant: 255-301 (88.2 - 104.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Protosynthesis Zekrom Sucker Punch vs. 12 HP / 0 SpD Walking Wake: 199-235 (58.1 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Protosynthesis Zekrom Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth: 157-186 (52.1 - 61.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Protosynthesis Zekrom Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 195-231 (57.1 - 67.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
compared to:
252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 200 HP / 0 Def Zekrom: 210-247 (47.6 - 56%) -- 80.9% chance to 2HKO

Perhaps not as strong as Gambit's Sucker Punch on average, but still quite a formidable move.

 

[Pokedom10]

View attachment 580329View attachment 580330
Raging Bolt did NOT become a special kingambit to be treated like this.
It gets signature, electric, special sucker punch, a much better secondary stab than steel, among many things just to be dismissed as "why not walking wake 2".
Sure it might not have the raw destructive power of +2 Supreme Overlord Gambit, but you are certaintly sleeping on it.

I dunno. Kingambit has the luxury of having no Pokemon innately immune to its nonsense, as well as an ability that is always good in every situation. Raging Bolt's main claim to fame is gonna be stopped by a ton of Ground types by default, plus Excadrill is back, which Raging Bolt just hates. It's not all doom. Raging Bolt joins the illustrious club of mons that use Solar Beam unironically, as well as access to Weather Ball. Thunderclap, Draco Meteor, Solar Beam, Weather Ball on a Specs set maybe? That set screams "clean up or go home". Calm Mind is also a fun option, but I fear that it might fall into the "Tera-Eater" trap with a set like that- no matter what you do there will be answers to it. Maybe I am sleeping on it, which is why I am going to sleep on it, and when I awake in the morning I will find the answer to make it work consistently.

Cause... it's a Special Attacker?

It's less "why is your attack so mid" and more "why didn't you do what Gouging did and dump the stat you're not using into speed or more bulk", probably could have phrased that better :p

 

[KamenOH]

If we ban anything, it will be the Pokemon as a whole -- the whole thing is probably gone. It is not going to be claused/fragmented.

Calling it now: there will be a wave of bans because normal terapagos was banned when we couldve just said "terapagos-stellar is banned" and not lose out on a great defensive mon
not saying itll be the first, but it would be the "first" of many.

Like, yeah its 160 base hp, but it has no recovery whatsoever besides leftovers, and if you run that, you lose out on the neo-multiscale due to all the hazards, so you gotta run hdb which means youre gonna get clapped by fast fighting types because for some reason stellar doesnt change your base typing.
Hell, im pretty sure tusk outspeeds it, if not something else more obvious

 

[Ehmcee]

Calling it now: there will be a wave of bans because normal terapagos was banned when we couldve just said "terapagos-stellar is banned" and not lose out on a great defensive mon
not saying itll be the first, but it would be the "first" of many.

If you think regular terapagos is anything but RU material idk what you're thinking

 

[YNM]

Calling it now: there will be a wave of bans because normal terapagos was banned when we couldve just said "terapagos-stellar is banned" and not lose out on a great defensive mon
not saying itll be the first, but it would be the "first" of many.

If Terapagos is the only thing preventing those mons from getting banned, then they're broken regardless.

 

[1234hjkl]

If you think regular terapagos is anything but RU material idk what you're thinking

I hope you're being sarcastic because otherwise that's a very bad take in my opinion. Terapagos has a ridiculous huge movepool with coverage outta it's ass kinda like the Gen 1 mons, the only thing missing is recovery. It can work as special sweeper, a support mon with R.Spin, Hazards, Toxic, and all the coverage moves to punish the usual mons like Ghold, Gliscor, Hamurott, etc. And let's not forget it's ability which is like a better MultiScale which makes all attacks not very effective if at full health so in a pinch it can still save your ass from say a Gambit/Oger sweep. No way something like that goes lower than UU.

 

[Wooloomax]

Spikes:

Oh this meta is gonna be fun.

 

[Return to Zero]

To talk about something other than banning stuff from a metagame that isn't even playable as of the time of writing...

Anyone else think Supercell Slam is kind of a big wet fart of a new move actually? Ground types are omnipresent in every OU and will be moreso with Gliscor and Excadrill back. Some of the most common switch-ins are going to make you take 50% recoil for trying to click it. It's even got 30 less BP than High Jump Kick. Same way Wild Charge has 30 less BP than Flare Blitz. Seriously, who at Gamefreak loathes physical Electric types?

 

[Cuddly]

Talking about mons and theorizing they may be broken is not toxic. And no, we won’t end up with a balanced meta game with broken running around.




first of all it isn’t “stronger than most Ubers”. We don’t even know how well it does IN Ubers. And second the comparison to zygC is hilarious because the typings are so different, but also ZygC was ALSO tested first in OU. So…

it has 700 BST, 160/110/110 bulk, 130 SpA, only stat below 100 is speed, which it's barely slower than 90 Spe benchmark in Ubers, and the only drawback is that instead of Terastallizing something like Roaring Moon to dodge a super effective attack one time and give STAB to a different move you have to Terastallize what is essentially an Uber Pokemon.
And Zygarde-C having been banned extremely quickly only proves the point that Terapagos or its Stellar form at least shouldn't have been allowed to begin with.
Regular Terapagos on the other hand looks fine, which I understand why people would test that and not question it. It doesn't have nearly the same bulk even with its ability (which while setting up Terapagos-S can abuse) and significantly weaker too.

 

[CobsonYaoi]

IT'S COMIN BOYS

 

[Heatranator]

IT'S COMIN BOYS
View attachment 580347