Tried it once, just use him in Smogon Doubles/VGC, where he can be really good/fucking broken
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
I feel you may be underestimating Incineroar's potential.
Never faced an Incineroar team before. It's just not a singles Pokemon. Not to disparage its kit, which is very unique and effective, but its effectiveness drops off really hard in a metagame where it can only Intimidate one opponent at a time and switching in and out is far more common.
Incin's role in VGC is like that of Great Tusk or Lando. Intimidate is extremely valuable because it hits both opposing Pokemon, plus he has so much utility designed for VGC, as well as a solid stat distribution and a great defensive typing. So, I'd say he isn't broken the same way Lando-T hasn't been.
Those utility moves that are SO good in VGC (fake out, wisp, snarl, parting shot) aren't enough in singles because of just how different the meta games are. In our singles meta game with hazards and knock off everywhere, as well as great tusk being a top 2 mon, and his relatively lower power output and slight passivity means he isn't destined for singles greatness. In singles, I'd compare him to Harcanine more (which I guess I'd also in doubles even though their nieches are different there), but Harc does have a stronger DUAL stab combo (head smash) and rock head to prevent recoil, as well as the great tera normal espeed. Incin can do some work with Flare Blitz and Darkest Lariat, but they aren't quite as effective as Harc's moves in terms of raw damage output. Which leads him back to a support role which isn't enough for a great viablity, especially with how high the current power level is. Gouging Fire is easily the best Fire type rn (imo), and Gambit is still the best dark type, especially with priority sucker punch.
I think speed is the biggest thing that holds Incin back. 60 base speed without a good priority move REALLY holds it back from being effective. Yeah, sometimes the slow pivot with uturn or parting shot is nice, but not feeling comfortable just throwing out flare blitzes or lariats just makes it more worth it to use Gouge or Gambit.
Right, but it can really cripple opponents with Knock Off and Will-O-Wisp. Due to its unique typing of Fire/Dark, it has good matchups into Kingambit, Gholdengo, up-and-coming Meowscarada and it's Icy counterpart Weavile, even Volcarona. Additionally, Deoxys-Speed and to a lesser extent Defense, even Draco droppers Latios and Dragapult fear Incineroar.
World Champ (Incineroar) (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 180 SpD / 80 Spe
Careful Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Parting Shot
Houndoom and chi-yu left the chat
(I know you can't use chi yu in OU, just let me make the joke, okay?)
one is in GU and the other is Ubers
I'll give you the Kingambit matchup. The others, not so much. Ghold could take a chunk from Flare Blitz (chance to OHKO), but Ghold could run focus blast or trick, with the former potentially OHKOing Incin, and the latter almost definitely ruining incin's plan. Meowscarada often runs uturn, so it isn't really afraid, weavile (in the past I believe, I haven't seen it much) can run low kick/sweep (I can never remember), volcarona can set up in its face and tera ground or just bug buzz, deoxys-s survives a flare blitz and 2hkos it with superpower, latios now has flip turn to just not have to deal with incin while dealing super effective damage, and dragapult does 55% or more with specs draco and your incin set, leaving incin too vulnerable.
Furthermore, Great Tusk has a chance to OHKO with cc or headlong rush with 4 atk investment, gougin fire just sits on incin with morning sun, raging bolt kills incin before incin kills it, archaludon has body press which is a 2hko with a stamina boost after the first hit (provided not burned, but it's also a special attacker to do stuff). This meta just isn't great for Incin, and I doubt UU would take him (they already have Harcanine).
This is not a good Kingambit answer. Let's say you're bringing in Incineroar after Kingambit shows up and it gets the free Swords Dance on prediction, giving it a net +1 Atk after Intimidate. Being generous, we'll say only two allies have fainted, so Supreme Overlord is giving only a 20% boost.
+1 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 2 allies fainted Kingambit Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Incineroar: 386-456 (98.2 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
0 Atk Incineroar Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Kingambit: 248-294 (72.7 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
This is max speed Adamant, which outspeeds your Incinceroar by about 20 points. Max Speed Jolly Kingambit outspeeds this set by about 40 points, requiring Incineroar to reduce its bulk further to make up the difference or just pray it doesn't have Low Kick. Not being able to stand up to such a common set is kind of a problem.
It's also not that good at answering Volcarona either. The moth regularly invests in HP and Defense now, and Tera Blast Ground is one of the many options it can pull out.
0 Atk Incineroar Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcarona: 136-162 (36.3 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
As for the Draco droppers and basically everything else mentioned, they are not obligated to stay in against Incineroar and will gladly pivot out instead. Dragon and Dark types are everywhere right now and can eat either STAB, which turns Incineroar into a very mediocre Knock Off user. Great Tusk exists and will ruin its whole day before super-slow Incineroar gets a chance to Burn it. So on.
Also, if you want to use a bulky Fire type with a huge Attack stat and a secondary typing that provides additional defensive benefit, why are you not running Gouging Fire, who's faster, stronger, bulkier in HP and both defense stats, has a much better secondary typing, has options Incineroar doesn't like Morning Sun, and can even still inflict Burn?
I Will-O-Wisp and Parting Shot.
Totally agree, but I will say that that low kick will likely be with a burn, turning it into:
+1 252+ Atk burned Kingambit Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Incineroar: 161-190 (40.9 - 48.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
And making Gambit easier to deal with with the rest of the team
Edit: Ah, faster Gambit, I see.
Max Speed Adamant Kingambit is faster than 80 Speed EVs Incineroar. The only way it's getting burned or inflicted with anything is if it spontaneously decides to Swords Dance again or hit it with a resisted move.
252 SpA Gholdengo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Incineroar: 220-260 (55.8 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gholdengo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Incineroar on a miss: 0-0 (0.0 - 0.0%) -- possibly the worst move ever
Parting Shot
0 Atk Incineroar Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Deoxys-Speed: 258-306 (107 - 126.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
The greatest tragedy of the current metagame compared to the prehome / home meta is that defensive Tusk is no longer good.
This was arguably the case in the home meta too but defensive Tusk was the GOAT against some big threats back then like Chien-Pao with Tera Water and naturally Gambit. It also was an amazing pick vs those Zapdos / Ting-Lu / Gking squads since they had to fish for RNG to beat it and the rocks / Knock progress it generated were useful vs Zapdos and Ting-Lu.
Now you've gotta run Boots + 3 / 4 Attacks Tusk. The amount of stuff defensive Tusk naturally walls is just too low and most Tera-types it can run don't fix this problem.
In fact, I'd argue one of the major contributors to Gambit becoming stronger over time is Defensive Tusk's overall reliability going down.
In the current metagame, it really isn't good into most of the meta Pokemon and even most of the non-meta Pokemon too due to its lower speed and bad spdef. Another general issue is that Fighting / Ground is a really bad defensive typing with 6 common weaknesses that all overlap with the top mons like Meow, Weavile, Ting-Lu, Dragapult, etc. which winds up creating awkward team structs. Granted, offensive tusk has this problem too, but it pairs will with these Pokemon offensively due to its superb coverage.
IDK what it will take to make Defensive tusk great again like it was in pre-home.
This was arguably the case in the home meta too but defensive Tusk was the GOAT against some big threats back then like Chien-Pao with Tera Water and naturally Gambit. It also was an amazing pick vs those Zapdos / Ting-Lu / Gking squads since they had to fish for RNG to beat it and the rocks / Knock progress it generated were useful vs Zapdos and Ting-Lu.
Now you've gotta run Boots + 3 / 4 Attacks Tusk. The amount of stuff defensive Tusk naturally walls is just too low and most Tera-types it can run don't fix this problem.
In fact, I'd argue one of the major contributors to Gambit becoming stronger over time is Defensive Tusk's overall reliability going down.
In the current metagame, it really isn't good into most of the meta Pokemon and even most of the non-meta Pokemon too due to its lower speed and bad spdef. Another general issue is that Fighting / Ground is a really bad defensive typing with 6 common weaknesses that all overlap with the top mons like Meow, Weavile, Ting-Lu, Dragapult, etc. which winds up creating awkward team structs. Granted, offensive tusk has this problem too, but it pairs will with these Pokemon offensively due to its superb coverage.
IDK what it will take to make Defensive tusk great again like it was in pre-home.
Right, but trick is still a problem for Incin
Right, but then you're still dealing with a +1SpD and +1Spe Volc who can continue setting up safely and probably wouldn't have had to tera to deal with Incin, so the other player isn't punished in anyway
Deo-s has pretty thin defenses, this is known and accepted. This isn't exactly a flex in Incin's favour. Rather, the minimum 60% incin takes from Deo-s superpower is an issue and, with all the things you want incin to handle, keeping it healthy isn't an easy task. No, Deo-s won't be at -1Atk b/c of intimidate, anyone staying in on incin after it switches into deo-s isn't playing to win, the situation where they interact will almost always be with deo-s switching into incin. Gouge's morning sun alone gives it so much more of a niche than incin rn.
yes good points, however being able to Intimidate and then switch out hard or via Parting Shot is good team support. Incineroar does require you to preserve its HP and Boots, but if you can, it provides so much value.
I really hate when people come here from the angle of "Give this RU/NU mon a chance in OU here's why it's totally viable". Makes me feel like I'm telling a kid Santa isn't real when I have to argue against it.
I think we may be focusing on the wrong argument here. I don't argue that Incineroar can, hypothetically, do these things, even though a lot of this is ignoring how slow it is or vastly overestimating how good Parting Shot is against setup mons. Here's my question: How is it supposed to do all of this at the same time? If it's checking Superpower Deoxys, it'll be left with too little HP to survive a Draco Meteor. Or Volcarona. Or whatever else. It lacks any kind of recovery other than I guess Drain Punch, so you're never going to be able to do this more than once per game, while any of those things it's supposed to check can just switch out when they see it and try again later. Everything you're saying is predicated on the assumption that it'll do enough damage in return to be worth it, which is far from a guarantee with its awful Speed.
Incineroar is not OU material. Its tier in the past two generations shows that. If you want to use Incineroar in OU, don't just slap the usual set on it and insist it works. Come up with something for it to do. You know why Morkal's sets pop off? Because they actually work, they take the state of the metagame into account and come up with ways for lower tier stuff to reliably function against OU threats, but without saying they should be OU just on their own merits. What you're doing is dragging up a mon that's destined for RU and saying that it's meant for OU's power level.
I think we may be focusing on the wrong argument here. I don't argue that Incineroar can, hypothetically, do these things, even though a lot of this is ignoring how slow it is or vastly overestimating how good Parting Shot is against setup mons. Here's my question: How is it supposed to do all of this at the same time? If it's checking Superpower Deoxys, it'll be left with too little HP to survive a Draco Meteor. Or Volcarona. Or whatever else. It lacks any kind of recovery other than I guess Drain Punch, so you're never going to be able to do this more than once per game, while any of those things it's supposed to check can just switch out when they see it and try again later. Everything you're saying is predicated on the assumption that it'll do enough damage in return to be worth it, which is far from a guarantee with its awful Speed.
Incineroar is not OU material. Its tier in the past two generations shows that. If you want to use Incineroar in OU, don't just slap the usual set on it and insist it works. Come up with something for it to do. You know why Morkal's sets pop off? Because they actually work, they take the state of the metagame into account and come up with ways for lower tier stuff to reliably function against OU threats, but without saying they should be OU just on their own merits. What you're doing is dragging up a mon that's destined for RU and saying that it's meant for OU's power level.
Maybe, but it's so much easier with a mon like Gouging Fire.
I understand and appreciate that you want to win with a Pokemon that you like, and I hope you keep that mentality. If you'll have more fun playing at low ladder with a mon like Incineroar than Gouging Fire, all the power to you. Honestly, I prefer playing with shitmons on the OU low ladder than stressing out trying to make high ladder in any tier with the best team possible. However, if you really want to get to high ladder and win, you'll NEED to reevaluate. If you want to get to high ladder with Incineroar, your best bet is to wait for tier shifts and find the tier where Incin shines and succeed with him there. The December-January shifts will cause a lot of chaos, so if Incin ends up low, he'll have a good time and you could find success. You may have to wait another month or two if he deosn't drop low enough to find a suitable home.
In the meantime, reevaluate why you want to play smogon singles. Once you figure that out, adjust your play and teambuilding. But for now, I'm sorry, you aren't going to win many people over to getting Incin to high ladder. If you or someone else does to spite me, all the power to you, but I highly highly doubt that'll happen.
…hmm, speaking of, i wonder if steel beam has any conceivable niche on ghold. it's the only steel-type with both a high enough spa to make use of the move and access to reliable recovery to help offset the crippling recoil. yes, make it rain is objectively better in nearly every possible scenario because it has perfect accuracy and doesn't half-kill you, but steel beam does obscene amounts of damage and doesn't lower your spa (which obviously still doesn't make it spammable because you die if you click it twice, but does make it possible to click shadow ball right away after using it without being at -1). also, and this is the important part, it's really funny
Steel Beam Gholdengo is cataclysmically funny. It's only a bump of 20 BP, but does that give it any matchups it didn't have before? Lemme run some numbers on that.
And in the current Pokémon format, there are a lot of equally good decks, so you can choose basically what you like out of them.
I don’t agree with you about chess. There are so many viable openings in chess, that it is literally up to what opening you like the best. (Within reason don’t go off playing the grob lol.) The reason Anand and Magnus keep playing the Berlin is that is what they are comfortable with and have the most experience with. Furthermore I also disagree with you about overcentralizing metagames being normal. There are more examples of wide open metagames, like in the Pokémon tcg there have been formats where there were so many good decks that you just chose the one you were comfortable with and stick with it. I think it really comes down to what overcentralizing means. For me, it’s when only a couple mons are good and viable. That’s definitely not healthy. My take is that there is a wide variety of mons that can do well in this format: so the meta isn’t even overcentralized in the first place.
You're right, you sometimes have to accept is that while some mons have a niche, there's a reason they are niche. For example, I've used choice band araquanid in games. Has it won games for me, yes. Is it good? potentially. Is it OU material, hell no. When you have a mon that is not OU or UU, you have to first say that this mon has flaws, and say what those flaws are. Most of the time, it won't be a DPP clefable or nidoqueen situation, that mon still won't be good. However, you should experiment with lower tier mons if you want to, just don't expect them to be the best.
I agree with the fact that there shouldn't be just only a few viable mons, but sometimes having one mon that is so good isn't bad. What I mean by that is a mon that is used a lot and thus the tier revolves around it, but it isn't insanly overpowered. I'm talking about stuff like landorus in previous gens or great tusk. They promote diversity and help keep the metagame healthy. Heck, you could even consider GSC snorlax in that category. It help keeps in check raikou and zapdos, and many teams revolve around enabling it or weakening opposing laxes. Banning it wouldn't be for the best as the electrics would run rampant and nothing would really be gained from the ban, just chaos that could be avoided in a metagame that isn't really that bad. I know that people think GSC is stale, but I disagree, every metagame is cool and should be appreciated. Tangent aside, some centralisation is alright, it's when that centralisation limits options severly, that's when it is a problem.
Incineroar is a vgc type of pokemon, so singles isn’t where it thrives hence why its ru in gen 8 and nu in gen 7 because not everything that makes a pokemon good in vgc makes good in singles and vice versa applies as well, which is why you don’t tend to see toxapex, magnezone and even volcarona alot in vgc because they just aren’t as elite in the vgc metagame, but hey maybe this could be its breakout generation in singles, you never know
p.s new cobalion set just dropped
Cobalion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
Tera Type: fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD /252 Spe
Jolly/Hasty/Timid Nature
- Close Combat/steel beam
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt/steel beam/iron head
suicide lead for hyper offense teams
p.s new cobalion set just dropped
Cobalion @ Focus Sash
Ability: Justified
Tera Type: fighting
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD /252 Spe
Jolly/Hasty/Timid Nature
- Close Combat/steel beam
- Stealth Rock
- Thunder Wave
- Taunt/steel beam/iron head
suicide lead for hyper offense teams
IDef Body Press off of base 129 defense to larp Zama-C