Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]

[Axiemeister]

you also see plenty of "amoongus", "goldengho", "ogrepon", "armarogue", "dodonzo", and my personal least favorite misspelling of the gen, "skeleridge"

…i'm now realizing i should have spelled one of them correctly as a joke just to see how many people i could trip up

to be fair if you told me that's what you did with "ogrepon" i'd believe it. it just sounds better that way

also the hypnosis discussion is stupid. it's not like swagger, that makes itself different from other confusion moves beyond accuracy (which, btw, is a good logic to keep yawn imo). it inflicts sleep like any other sleep move. either ban all sleep moves (possible yawn exception) or none.

 

[Itriedtodo]

May I ask why banning only hypnosis isn't considered as an option? It serves as a compromise between completely eliminating sleep and still getting rid off those annoying Darkrai and Iron Valiant sets. The move seems to be uncompetitive and lacks significant enjoyment in the metagame. There are no Pokémon in the metagame that rely solely on hypnosis and would lose their niche if it were banned. It is worth noting that Darkrai and Iron Valiant are not excessively overpowered without the usage of hypnosis. On the other hand, implementing a complete sleep ban would negatively impact the effectiveness of Amoonguss, Breloom, and Toedscruel, since spore is not overly game-breaking for them and useful tool to shut down mons. However, I can understand the rationale behind advocating for a sleep powder ban, but Lilligant-Hisui is a lot harder to use than Darkrai and Iron valiant team building wise, because it requires sun to function well and there being grass types, overcoat mons and safety goggles to counter sleep powder and spore. The only negative of a hypnosis ban would be for Ninetales-alola which use the move without using it to set up immediately but it doesn't have to run it. I get that it would be a weird ban because not all mons are broken with it, but couldn't it be banned in the same vein as sand veil, or bright powder in that it runs on rng too much to be good for the metagame.

 

[Zrp200]

May I ask why banning only hypnosis isn't considered as an option? It serves as a compromise between completely eliminating sleep and still getting rid off those annoying Darkrai and Iron Valiant sets. The move seems to be uncompetitive and lacks significant enjoyment in the metagame. There are no Pokémon in the metagame that rely solely on hypnosis and would lose their niche if it were banned. It is worth noting that Darkrai and Iron Valiant are not excessively overpowered without the usage of hypnosis. On the other hand, implementing a complete sleep ban would negatively impact the effectiveness of Amoonguss, Breloom, and Toedscruel, since spore is not overly game-breaking for them and useful tool to shut down mons. However, I can understand the rationale behind advocating for a sleep powder ban, but Lilligant-Hisui is a lot harder to use than Darkrai and Iron valiant team building wise, because it requires sun to function well and there being grass types, overcoat mons and safety goggles to counter sleep powder and spore. The only negative of a hypnosis ban would be for Ninetales-alola which use the move without using it to set up immediately but it doesn't have to run it. I get that it would be a weird ban because not all mons are broken with it, but couldn't it be banned in the same vein as sand veil, or bright powder in that it runs on rng too much to be good for the metagame.

For one thing, banning hypnosis would only serve to make sleep Darkrai about 20% less consistent, since it would still have Dark Void. Games would literally be coinflips off its 50% accuracy.

This doesn't fix the problem.

 

[Heatranator]

For one thing, banning hypnosis would only serve to make sleep Darkrai about 20% less consistent, since it would still have Dark Void. Games would literally be coinflips off its 50% accuracy.

This doesn't fix the problem.

Counterpoint, Dark Void being used on Darkrai again would be so cool, because putting your opponent in a lightless emptiness is cooler than hypnotizing them to sleep.

 

[Finchinator]

Wait, Sneasler was banned because of Dire Claw and not because of it's coverage of Poison/Fighting OR was it both reasons?
The council must respond to how they ban things. One reason, or multiple.

Sneasler was banned because of the Unburden sets, which didn’t even use Dire Claw all of the time.

And we had dozens of posts explaining things, very much including Sneasler. It was further documented by the ban post and the survey score explained. It’s pretty rude to call the council out for not giving reasoning when it’s there and you just don’t read it.

 

[SwaggySammy44]

I think the best course of action might be to put in a fixed turn limit on sleep. Throw out the 1-7 turns bullshit and make it so that sleep only lasts for like 3 turns or something. This way you can actually strategically play around sleep since you know exactly how long your pokemon is incapacitated for, as opposed to losing games because sleep lasts for 7 turns when you needed it to last for only 2.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Fixing Sleep turns would be the absolute stupidest solution in my opinion. Mods should be avoided as much as it's possible to do and in my opinion the current Sleep Clause mod is already an overreach, fixing Sleep turns would genuinely open the floodgates to all sorts of stupid mod suggestions in an attempt to balance parts of the game that should just simply be banned.

 

[June Heat]

I think the best course of action might be to put in a fixed turn limit on sleep. Throw out the 1-7 turns bullshit and make it so that sleep only lasts for like 3 turns or something. This way you can actually strategically play around sleep since you know exactly how long your pokemon is incapacitated for, as opposed to losing games because sleep lasts for 7 turns when you needed it to last for only 2.

uh, that's how it does work. You sleep for 1-3 turns as is.

 

[SwaggySammy44]

Fixing Sleep turns would be the absolute stupidest solution in my opinion. Mods should be avoided as much as it's possible to do and in my opinion the current Sleep Clause mod is already an overreach, fixing Sleep turns would genuinely open the floodgates to all sorts of stupid mod suggestions in an attempt to balance parts of the game that should just simply be banned.

Could you give some examples of "stupid mod suggestions" that fixing sleep turns would invite? I understand that it would be somewhat breaking precedent, but I think if we make all sleep work the way rest does, it would remove the more uncompetitive, rng based aspects of sleep and allow for actual counterplay.

 

[Axiemeister]

May I ask why banning only hypnosis isn't considered as an option? It serves as a compromise between completely eliminating sleep and still getting rid off those annoying Darkrai and Iron Valiant sets.

because it's not tiering policy to ban one move for the purpose of balancing specific mons. other sleep moves exist and are used for the same purpose, so if more than one mon were to be broken because of sleep, you ban sleep, and the non-broken sleep mons would have to suffer that collateral damage.

also, if these non-broken mons only have a niche at all because of their sleep moves, doesn't it point to sleep being unhealthy? (you know, besides a whole mod existing to make it less unhealthy)

 

[skippergamez]

R8 made a good point in the Gen 8 thread

We are preserving sleep in the first place, so the arguement of “don’t ban sleep to preserve Darkrai” is really not valid, because banning Darkrai would be preserving sleep even MORE. We are aware that sleep is broken, hence sleep clause.

I’m of the opinion that either way the thread shakes out, sleep moves clause should be removed, indefinitely (not retroactively), now if we want to add Sleep Moves Clause, that’s great (and the right direction imo), but Sleep Clause is dumb and should be removed

 

[SwaggySammy44]

I think the best course of action might be to put in a fixed turn limit on sleep. Throw out the 1-7 turns bullshit and make it so that sleep only lasts for like 3 turns or something. This way you can actually strategically play around sleep since you know exactly how long your pokemon is incapacitated for, as opposed to losing games because sleep lasts for 7 turns when you needed it to last for only 2.

Edit: as it turns out, 1-7 turns was in gen 1, and it's been 1-3 since gen 5, disregard everything I said LMFAO

 

[Divine Retribution]

Could you give some examples of "stupid mod suggestions" that fixing sleep turns would invite? I understand that it would be somewhat breaking precedent, but I think if we make all sleep work the way rest does, it would remove the more uncompetitive, rng based aspects of sleep and allow for actual counterplay.

Moody broken? Let's just make it so it always boosts the user's highest stat. Evasion moves a problem? We'll just make it so if you miss on a mon twice in a row, you're guaranteed to hit the third time.

The ideas for game mods that attempt to balance broken or uncompetitive elements of the game are essentially endless and can be unilaterally and categorically rejected because game mods go against the tiering philosophy that standard tiers are based on. If we make an exception for sleep, what reason do we have not to make exceptions for other mechanics?

Better to not open that can of worms altogether and leave modifying the game in the territory of pet mods.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

all this discussion on sleep got me thinking about something. I see a lot of arguments saying "hypnosis isn't broken on drowzee" and using rage fist primeape as an example, in fact I made such an argument myself. But the thing is, we already have a widely-distributed move ban that wouldn't be broken on a few pokemon, OHKO moves. Can you really argue that fissure breaks swinub, sheer cold breaks cubchoo, or horn drill breaks seel? All three even have types that are completely immune to them, as well as sturdy and Focus Sash which means you could theoretically argue they have consistent counterplay.

But of course nobody is arguing that because nobody wants to unban ohko moves. It's pretty much universally agreed that they are stupid fish moves that serve no purpose. But on something like sleep where that distinction is a little less definite, should the argument really hinge on drowzee or shroomish when a lot of other things could be considered broken with them? I don't think so. I think if the vast majority of things are broken with sleep, we ban it, regardless if there are a few things that can use it and aren't broken.

 

[Heatranator]

Moody broken? Let's just make it so it always boosts the user's highest stat. Evasion moves a problem? We'll just make it so if you miss on a mon twice in a row, you're guaranteed to hit the third time.

The ideas for game mods that attempt to balance broken or uncompetitive elements of the game are essentially endless and can be unilaterally and categorically rejected because game mods go against the tiering philosophy that standard tiers are based on. If we make an exception for sleep, what reason do we have not to make exceptions for other mechanics?

Better to not open that can of worms altogether and leave modifying the game in the territory of pet mods.

It's kinda like, "duh, we wouldn't start doing these sort of things", but most people forget an important fact, people are dumb. Casual players especially won't see the difference between evasion or sleep. They only see "x is similar to y" without considering that the whole alphabet is what seperates the two mechanics.
You have to pretend that people don't know what they are doing, while the majority of people on here aren't dumb, the ones that post are in the minority. Heck, the people that even look at this thread are in the minority still, so try to prevent dumb things from happening by cutting the root of the problem most people find with it (though I don't really care that much about cart accuracy), that it is a mod.

 

[Anchor9]

I have a new topic of discussion. Is it just me or is in every other battle?

Also, why is Water Absorb so common now?

 

[Just A Shroom God]

I have a new topic of discussion. Is it just me or is in every other battle?

Also, why is Water Absorb so common now?

water absorb clod beats a lot of the stupid things we have like Valiant, non-setup Darkrai, Bolt, Volc, and rain just by virtue of its typing and massive special bulk. I still think glowking is better because it makes progress a lot better and can check the massively broken kyurem, but water absorb in a tier where toxapex is 2HKO'd by tera water moves is incredibly valuable.

Whimmsicott is probably because of new (returning?) toy syndrome and you won't see it for very long.

seriously, i'd genuinely be 100% down for rebooting gen-next

my favorite part of the thread is this sentence:
"A Pokemon's ability to do things is never removed."
tell that to rotom, scizor, pex, clefable, cinderace, kyurem, Volc, Gambit, tornadus, and the entire concept of dexit.

 

[MegaScizor32]

I think the best course of action might be to put in a fixed turn limit on sleep. Throw out the 1-7 turns bullshit and make it so that sleep only lasts for like 3 turns or something. This way you can actually strategically play around sleep since you know exactly how long your pokemon is incapacitated for, as opposed to losing games because sleep lasts for 7 turns when you needed it to last for only 2.

Bro do you actually play the game?

 

[CobsonYaoi]

I have a new topic of discussion. Is it just me or is in every other battle?

Also, why is Water Absorb so common now?

I'm not seeing Whimsicott or Water Absorb Clodsire in the any matches in the 1500's-1600's range but I swear Scizor is in every other battle now

 

[arnimacarni]

I have a new topic of discussion. Is it just me or is in every other battle?

Also, why is Water Absorb so common now?

WA Clod has always been viable. I used to run it when Walter White was just released with Amnesia and did the same thing as the Unaware set but with an extra immunity

 

[June Heat]

all this discussion on sleep got me thinking about something. I see a lot of arguments saying "hypnosis isn't broken on drowzee" and using rage fist primeape as an example, in fact I made such an argument myself. But the thing is, we already have a widely-distributed move ban that wouldn't be broken on a few pokemon, OHKO moves. Can you really argue that fissure breaks swinub, sheer cold breaks cubchoo, or horn drill breaks seel? All three even have types that are completely immune to them, as well as sturdy and Focus Sash which means you could theoretically argue they have consistent counterplay.

But of course nobody is arguing that because nobody wants to unban ohko moves. It's pretty much universally agreed that they are stupid fish moves that serve no purpose. But on something like sleep where that distinction is a little less definite, should the argument really hinge on drowzee or shroomish when a lot of other things could be considered broken with them? I don't think so. I think if the vast majority of things are broken with sleep, we ban it, regardless if there are a few things that can use it and aren't broken.

It's cute when people underestimate the length people would go to promote degeneracy. I'd argue scoring even one OHKO from a OHKO user is game breaking and polarizing enough that it's just unhealthy/uncompetitive. It would force people to run Sturdy mons or but Focus Sash on at least one of their Pokemon just to not get cheesed out by OHKO strats. You laugh now, but when my Evolite Swinub and Cubchoo under Snow and Aroura Veil are getting free KOs I'll be the one laughing.

With OHKO moves every Pokemon that runs them is deadly within themselves. The same can not be said about Sleep. In fact a Vast Majority of Pokemon with Sleep are not broken, are not uncompetitive, and are not problematic with their Sleep moves. It really is just 1, 2, maybe 3 Pokemon that are contentious with Sleep moves, and if we're talking from a balance standpoint they should be looked at individually first then if more Sleep Sweepers start gaining relevancy, like Gengar, then you can look at a move or the entire mechanic as a whole.

Now if we're going from a policy angle that's a whole other story. I'd like Sleep to be preserved since it is a core part of Pokemon, but if policy wise that's just not feasible than I guess it has to go. Frankly I don't get why people are being so weird with something that works fine and has worked fine for over 2 decades, but I'm just a nameless no one so what do I know.

 

[Soiramio3000]

Replace Reddit with this discussion forum.
View attachment 591577

Wait, so people "don't want" to get the voting requirements?
I thought that they/we just "can't" improve.


Something unrelated, pecharunt is actually an okay pokemon.
I was somewhat wrong about it earlier.
Okay I still have doubts if it will stay in OU but it does have a decent niche.
I love how this pokemon is carried by exactly one of its stats.
Its reliable recovery helps too.

 

[Just A Shroom God]

It's cute when people underestimate the length people would go to promote degeneracy. I'd argue scoring even one OHKO from a OHKO user is game breaking and polarizing enough that it's just unhealthy/uncompetitive. It would force people to run Sturdy mons or but Focus Sash on at least one of their Pokemon just to not get cheesed out by OHKO strats. You laugh now, but when my Evolite Swinub and Cubchoo under Snow and Aroura Veil are getting free KOs I'll be the one laughing.

I think what you're arguing here is that OHKO moves are completely broken on every single pokemon. I beg to differ. How is eviolite swinub under snow different from a more consistent and better strategy than something like SD crawdaunt under screens, besides the fact that 1 has 30% accuracy and loses to ice types? Crawdaunt is effectively using OHKO moves at +2, and is both faster and bulkier than swinub. Nobody's asking for a crawdaunt ban, so how could you think swinub strat is broken?

 

[Anchor9]

This guy is actually a very fine Physical Wall, just not the kind you can rely on to cover everything like Blissey on the Special Side. I’ve found that Gliscor is a pretty good ally for a Hex set, being immune to Ground and helping spread Toxic. Pecharunt can easily pivot to Gliscor

Purple Blob (Pecharunt) @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hex
- Parting Shot
- Toxic
- Recover

Video of Pech play in action:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2034493791

 

[Return to Zero]

Before I end up on the wrong side of history, I'd like to take this time now to clarify the only thing I've argued here has been that Sleep Clause replacements need to be less obtrusive than Sleep Clause itself and not make it so the opponent Encoring you into using a sleep move can potentially make you lose.

I think what you're arguing here is that OHKO moves are completely broken on every single pokemon. I beg to differ. How is eviolite swinub under snow different from a more consistent and better strategy than something like SD crawdaunt under screens, besides the fact that 1 has 30% accuracy and loses to ice types? Crawdaunt is effectively using OHKO moves at +2, and is both faster and bulkier than swinub. Nobody's asking for a crawdaunt ban, so how could you think swinub strat is broken?

OHKO moves are not overpowered. They are uncompetitive. Focus Sash Fissure is a strategy that works 30% of the time with zero interaction or skillful play from either player. This is why in the ranked battles online in SV, you'll see people using Fissure Dondozo to just fish for OHKOs. It works less than it doesn't, but it still works, so they'll do it anyway. You should feel bad about having actually put these words to electronic paper.