Smogon University PO Statistics — April 2012

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This might be unintelligent speculation, but I think Terrakion is soon going to boost Cobalion's usage. It's not rare to see CB Terrakion, locked into SE (locking into EQ is a very bad idea). Cobalion has a double-resistance to Rock-type, and it can demolish Terrakion with Close Combat. If Cobalion is troubled by EQ, an Air Balloon is always an option.

Damage calcs:

CB Terrakion, Adamant 252 Atk. / 252 Spe locked into Stone Edge:

Cobalion, Impish 252 HP / 252 Def : 10.36% - 12.44%
Cobalion, Jolly 252 Atk / 252 Spe : 16.7% - 19.5%

You know, if this guy's used more, he might just end up in OU.
 

Conflict

is the 9th Smogon Classic Winneris a Three-Time Past SPL Championis the defending GSC Circuit Champion
World Defender
Lol - thats literally all i can say regarding the case of Terrakion. But i guess ill provide some more insight in the matter.

Can we stop bannning shit just because its popular or apparently really good? Yeah Terrakion might not have many useful counters. So what?

Look at Gen5 OU. There are like ~20 broken mons given the right circumstances (applies to Terrakion too he cant dish out attacks if he fears an KO by the opposing mon). SubDD-Dragonite might be broken when it wins 1v4(5) in the endgame same goes for Volcarona and Landorus and Voltturn and etc. pp.

This is BW. This aint ADV or DPP. There are ~650 Pokemons - its literally impossible to account for every single threat out there. Not to mention that many Mons are able to use several different sets (some might not even be listed in the dex).
One of these 650 Mons WILL have the ability to sweep your team. Easy as that.

How do you counter that? You use broken shit yourself. You use TEAM PREVIEW (the biggest change to previous gens) to identify threats and devise a game plan. And then based on your insight gayned by the team preview you play the game and make smart decisions so that threat x doesnt steamroll you.

So let me get this straight: Due to many many possible different options one is unable to counter every single threat in BW. Therefore one uses team preview to know how to play around all these threats.



I dont know why people want to ban shit every 3 month. Is it just for the thrill of banning something, shaking the metagame up?

Do we even have to ban the the best sweeper? There will always be a best Pokemon for each and every metagame. Look at DPP OU - we banned Salamence and Latias (even though Latias had plenty of counters the only check it gained in BW was Ferrothorn pretty much) because we didnt like them and thought they overcentralized the metagame. Well yeah they did, sure - the best Mons will always trigger a response. But now? Now we have Heatran sitting at 35-40% usage. Yeah more than these 2. Should we ban it too because it forces one to carry one or even multiple checks to it (due to its many sets?).
Overcentralization is as bad as an arguement can get. I have never seen Overcentralization since the DP era with Garchomp allowed where people ran HP[Ice]-Scarf-Gengar, Weavile and x other Mons with HP[Ice] just to counter Garchomp who sat at ~50%+ usage.
Are people now forced to use Nidoqueen or Claydol just to counter Terrakion? Guess not because noone uses them. Do you have to go out of your way and design sets for many pokes that allows them to kill or heavily cripple Terrakion? Hmmm? Guess not according to these stats. Are Pokes that are complete set-up bait for Terrakion still used (Blissey, Heatran without Spower, etc. pp.)? Apparently, yes.

Hmmmm somehow i just dont see this overcentralization. Do you?

Im kinda happy that Terrakion is in OU because it promotes thinking and planning from both players unlike the well-known Voltturn-strategy which promotes stupid clicking and requires literally no thought.


(By the way centralization is good for the metagame because it lets you know what are the top threats you gotta prepare for. If you have a great variety - say 150 Mons are all used almost the same amount then it gets way harder to build a team of 6 that does well vs the majority).

tl;dr: Smogon is kinda ban-happy since DPP and it keeps going on. You guys dont understand the good points of centralization and overcentralization because of Terrakion aint happening. You probably just wanna ban something for the sake of it.

(Yup im still not a friend of some BW and even DPP bans by the way - i have the feeling that most of them were made because people were tired of dealing with them. So what does one do? He bans the things he doesnt like even though banning things on the assumption that 'one doesnt like it' implies 'fun' which is a subjective measurement and therefore shouldnt be taken into account for creating metagames. X is fun for me but might not be for the other 10 people in my group.)

/rant end
 

Lee

@ Thick Club
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I also think Terrakion should at least undergo suspect testing. I don't think it's as overpowered as things like Garchomp and Excadrill, but the CB set is ridiculously hard to kill. The SubSD set beats all of its common counters and forces opponents to revenge kill it - there's no chance of even walling it once it sets up.
CB Terrakion is my favourite set - it hits hard as hell - but i sometimes struggle to justify it's inclusion because of the lack of utility. It doesn't have the scouting ability of a Choice Rotom-W, or the super strong priority of a Choice Scizor. It can't trap like Choice Tyranitar or support the team like Choice Politoed. It doesn't have a particular useful ability, like Intimidate, nor can it further boost its power in a particular weather condition like Darmanitan or Landorus (SpD boost doesn't count).

It's literally just STAB attacks + two filler moves that you'll never ever use and that makes for a very one dimensional Pokemon.
 
This might be unintelligent speculation, but I think Terrakion is soon going to boost Cobalion's usage. It's not rare to see CB Terrakion, locked into SE (locking into EQ is a very bad idea). Cobalion has a double-resistance to Rock-type, and it can demolish Terrakion with Close Combat. If Cobalion is troubled by EQ, an Air Balloon is always an option.

Damage calcs:

CB Terrakion, Adamant 252 Atk. / 252 Spe locked into Stone Edge:

Cobalion, Impish 252 HP / 252 Def : 10.36% - 12.44%
Cobalion, Jolly 252 Atk / 252 Spe : 16.7% - 19.5%

You know, if this guy's used more, he might just end up in OU.
at least use a chople berry u fuckin dumbass
 
This might be unintelligent speculation, but I think Terrakion is soon going to boost Cobalion's usage. It's not rare to see CB Terrakion, locked into SE (locking into EQ is a very bad idea). Cobalion has a double-resistance to Rock-type, and it can demolish Terrakion with Close Combat. If Cobalion is troubled by EQ, an Air Balloon is always an option.

Damage calcs:

CB Terrakion, Adamant 252 Atk. / 252 Spe locked into Stone Edge:

Cobalion, Impish 252 HP / 252 Def : 10.36% - 12.44%
Cobalion, Jolly 252 Atk / 252 Spe : 16.7% - 19.5%

You know, if this guy's used more, he might just end up in OU.
Terrakion used CC, It was super effective, Cobalion fainted.
Just No.
A counter to a pokemon does not have a weakness to that pokemons most powerful attack.
 

alphatron

Volt turn in every tier! I'm in despair!
He never mentioned it as a counter. He just mentioned bringing it in when choices terrakion was locked into stone edge (common for me personally, as I run a volcorona alongside cobalion). It still isn't a good idea to run cobalion solely for this purpose though.

I think I'm gonna sit this banning discussion out. I'm starting to think that blaziken shouldn't even be banned anymore. Just look at the dreamworld tier, where the only additional check he has is technician breloom. Maybe the game sequels will give us something that will change up the metagame enough. Or maybe they'll just give us move tutors to boost offense even more.
 
^Thanks for informing these people what I meant. Anyway, most OU teams NEED a Ghost-type. Without it, your team is prey to too many fighting types that are present in OU. If you don't have Gengar, Chandy, or Jellicent (top Ghosts I can think of right now), there is something wrong with your team. Cobalion + Ghost-type can do a decent job in checking Terrakion.
 

ginganinja

It's all coming back to me now
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If you don't have Gengar, Chandy, or Jellicent (top Ghosts I can think of right now), there is something wrong with your team.
Or you could, oh I don't know, run a fighting resist?
Perhapes something like Gliscor or Slowbro, maybe Skarmory (not a resist but a good check to fighters) or like, Reuniclus. Speaking from experience here, but I KNOW that you don't need a ghost to have a successful team, heck, 90% of my successful teams don't run Ghosts (esp cos fuck CB Scizor and Tar and gay ass Pursuits). Seriously, there ARE other fighting pokemon checks you know -_-
 
If terrakion gets suspect tested that is absolutely ridiculous.. Is it a great pokemon. Yes. Is it overpowered. No. See gliscor..
 
lol @ jimerao just lol

terrakion is good but easily checkable on both stall teams and offensive teams, also stop using band, band isnt that good, use scarf if you need a solid revenge killer or sd if you wanna wreck havoc.

anyone that wants to ban terrakion should either learn to play pokemon competently or gtfo it isnt hard to beat a terrakion.
 
Right, it's time to put forward my second argument wich will hopefully have some improvement over the last one. But first

at least use a chople berry u fuckin dumbass
Congratulations you've broken two smogon rules and put your self forward as a petty troll, well done.

With that out of the way, let's get down to serious business. Terrakion is flat out, undoubtedly not broken, as conflict said earlier this just seems like an excuse to go through the banning process again, as until Jimera0 mentioned the possibility of banning terrakion nobody was ever calling him broken. He does hit hard and has near flawless coverage but he is not the only threat in OU as i mentioned in my previous post and to all of you claiming haxourus, dragonite etc weren't as dangerous as him they can all defeat walls that resist their STAB especially haxorus 2HKOing Skarm with a physical resisted attack is a big deal, let's see terrakion manage that.
It's fairly unpredictable but there are issues with each of its sets which will be covered here:

Choice scarf: this is terrakion's most common set , and while it is an amazing revenge killer you don't have to stay in against it you all seem to be saying if terrakion comes in it will revenge something this is just not true as you can switch out to a resistor on an intimidate user, forcing him out thus causing the opponent to lose momentum. Say terrakion has been brought in to revenge a hydregion switching to a fighting type resistor such as slowbro or gyrados (which has a bonus in intimidate) can easily force it out allowing you to set up or paralyze their switch in, hell even scizor can easily switch in and bullet punch him to death.

Choice band: this is largely similar to the choice scarf set but a little trickier to play around due to its high power, but the concept is almost exactly the same, luring it in and switching to a resistor of the predicted move. Hitmontop
easily deals with this set as intimidate neuters it and hitmontop and severely dent it with a STAB move of choice. Scizor also makes a decent switch in as no move KO's it and, bullet punch destroys it. Of course these are by no means the only checks but i think they are the most solid ones. Another issue with CB terra is that every single scarfer in existences outspeeds it, bar stupid shit like scarf shucke, this means that scarf MoxieMence can switch in on close combat and proceed to to hugely dent the opponents team. As Lee said in his post there is very little reason to use CB terra over CB scizor for example as it lacks scouting ability and really just spams STAB moves causing him to very predictable and receives no boost from weather.

Double Dance: I have only encountered this once or twice and I found it very underwhelming, without the attack boost a lot can wall its two attacking options like slowbro, conkeldurr, reuniclus or breloom. If it is lacking the speed boost anything faster can easily come in and kill it with ease to terrakion's less than spectacular bulk, this includes incredibly dangerous pokemon such as scarf mence, starmie, scarf haxorus, the latis or alakazam. If terrakion somehow manages to obtain both boosts there is obviously somthing wrong with your team or you are just playing badly because switching to somthing that can handle an unboosted terrakion isn't all that difficult unless you have the IQ of a potato.

Rock gem: why use this, just why? This is the one set gliscor has issues with as a rock gem stone edge does crippling amounts of damage, but after that they have no item, so no speed boost from choice scarf, no power boost from life orb or choice band and no ground immunity from air balloon (like anybody uses that). This set is bad, killing gliscor is not worth being weaker, slower and easier to revenge. Please don't claim this set makes terrakion worth banning.


I believe that just about sums up why terrakion is not broken. Although i have a few more points to make. As a few other members have said, is over-centralization really that bad? I mean sure the metagame may be a tad stale but you have a great idea of what to prepare for and i bet you would all rather know what to expect than be swept by something entirely unexpected, wouldn't you. I am currently under the impression that this proposal is just so something can happen i have a crazy idea, instead of going on a witch-hunt to find something broken we could actually, you know enjoy the metagame. This case is a perfect example of boredom and and hunger for change, no body was claiming terrakion broken until one user (a fantastic one at that) suggested he might be.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
 
Yeah, I'm not so convinced Terrakion is broken or even "over-centralizing".

I know I'm not that well known in the OU community, but I've been playing the tier more as of late and I guess I just haven't really had a problem with Terrakion. I identified Terrakion as a top tier threat (which everyone should do unless they want to lose a lot), but in no way built my latest team to specifically counter it. If anything, this team is meant to take advantage of the extremely high Tyranitar and Scizor usage and set up on them. Careful playing usually keeps Terrakion from doing any huge level of damage (yeah it probably gets one kill, maybe two, but that is certainly reasonable.) Maybe it was just dumb-luck that my team handles him well (CB is still probably most dangerous), but it honestly didn't take that much team building thought.

Oh fyi, my team uses none of the following:

Skarmory
Scizor
Rotom-w
Terrakion

or any of these
The list of Pokemon that can actually switch-in on CB Terrakion without getting 2HKOed are:
Cofagrigus
Cresselia
Dusclops
Gligar
Golurk
Nidoqueen
Qwilfish (Intimidate)
Shelgon
Tangela

As for the RU trick room team classification
I'm concerned with how Trick Room is being defined as a playstyle, as at present it appears that one instance of the move Trick Room makes that team a "Trick Room team." As can be seen in the RU metagame stats, greater than 40% of teams are currently "Trick Room teams," which any frequent player will tell you is false. Rather, the cause of this outlying data is the popularity of Cofagrigus, the Offensive Trick Room variant, which is in the top 3 most used Pokemon.
I completely agree with Texas, I think the classification of "trick room" team should be two pokemon that have the move and/or 2 (maybe 3) instances of its use in a battle. If Cofagrigus is held up, I might use it to throw up TR again and attempt the sweep a 2nd time
 
This might be unintelligent speculation, but I think Terrakion is soon going to boost Cobalion's usage. It's not rare to see CB Terrakion, locked into SE (locking into EQ is a very bad idea). Cobalion has a double-resistance to Rock-type, and it can demolish Terrakion with Close Combat. If Cobalion is troubled by EQ, an Air Balloon is always an option.

Damage calcs:

CB Terrakion, Adamant 252 Atk. / 252 Spe locked into Stone Edge:

Cobalion, Impish 252 HP / 252 Def : 10.36% - 12.44%
Cobalion, Jolly 252 Atk / 252 Spe : 16.7% - 19.5%

You know, if this guy's used more, he might just end up in OU.
Except Lucario has the same typing, and while its Physical Bulk is nowhere NEAR as high as Cobalions, it's still a 3HKO at best, and can still decimate with Close Combat or set up SD for free from the inevitable switchout. And since Cobalion will likely be more of a wall for you team, you'll likely be outsped anyway. And if it's a Offensive variant, Lucario tends to do it better.

Outside of solely for a Terrakion check, I can't see why you'd bring Cobalion up unless OU starts going away from Fighting types altogether.

Now as for Virizion, maybe the reason people aren't using it is because there's...dissent as to what the best Virizion set is. Both the CM and SD sets seem to have their pros and cons. Guess it depends on what exactly people would define Virizion's best role to be.
 
Terrakion- Not gonna stop till it reaches number one!

But yeah Terrakion is manageable. 90% of the time its choiced, so you can either switch a physical wall in by luring a specific move, or revenge it, as its weak to every non-Espeed priority
 
@ The Qwaz.

Yes, there are plenty of ways to deal with all the viable terrakion sets, however what you do fail to realize is that you have absolutely no idea which kind of set it is.

Lets say you just used a free turn with T-Tar to set up SR. During this setup, your oppenent switched into their devoted Terrakion. Now you have absolutely no idea what kind of Terrakion this is. All you know is that it can easily revenge kill your T-Tar and that you would need t-Tar to be able to check the opponents Latias. Your oppenent now has a huge momentum! Do you switch in your skarm, crossing you fingers for the terrakion to be scarfed? Do you switch in your slowbro, being confident that the opponents Terrakion is choiced, only to face the rare (but viable) SD set? Or do you switch in your defensive Gyarados predicting a close combat, only to be outplayed and hit by a CB stone edge?

It all depends on the Terrakion player. High up on the ladder, you are in a pinch and usually the terrakion player have a much easier time reading the opponent thanks to Team Preview.

"Revenge kill it with scizor", you say? This just turns into a huge mindgame. You'd want to U-Turn to keep momentum over the opponent, but what if your oppenent predicts that and hits your Scizor with a damn powerful close combat?

You can't just put ways on how to check every viable Terrakion set... Because (especially high up on the ladder) you have no idea what you're facing! because there is no 100% counter to Terrakion, every time your opponent switches their Terrakion in, they get a great momentum. Personally, I am positive that this momentum is sligthly unbalancing the tier, and I do therefore agree with Jimera0 and others about Terrakion being worthy a test
 
Amire, of course it is hard to instantly determine what set terrakion is running, but that is the same for nearly every offensive OU pokemon. My main point is that nobody was calling terrakion broken until Jimera suggested a suspect test might be a good idea. I cant help but feel terrakion wasn't broken until somebody said it was, it seems like an unnecessary witch-hunt just to change the metagame because nothing exciting happened with the tier shifts. If we revive sufficient evidence that terrakion is broken and not just wild claims of over centralizing the metagame, then I think as a community we could possibly consider it a suspect. Terrakion's typing is shit defensively as most everything in OU carry's a super-effective move on its common sets this gives terrakion huge issues switching in, while volt-turn does alleviate this somewhat by giving it a free turn, give me one sweeper who doesn't enjoy a free turn, you can't think of one because there isn't one. As a response to your scizor claims, who in there right mind thinks, "okay, my scizor is in against a terrakion, i know i will u-turn"? Bullet punch will either kill terrakion or force it to switch, and guess what that gives you? momentum, which is apparently the most important thing in a pokemon match.
Terrakion has power that is undeniable but is it broken? no, ask your self honestly and i bet you will find that terrakion is not broken.


Anyway it's cool to see salamence so high on the stats.
 
Comments in bold.

Right, it's time to put forward my second argument wich will hopefully have some improvement over the last one. But first


Congratulations you've broken two smogon rules and put your self forward as a petty troll, well done.

With that out of the way, let's get down to serious business. Terrakion is flat out, undoubtedly not broken, as conflict said earlier this just seems like an excuse to go through the banning process again, as until Jimera0 mentioned the possibility of banning terrakion nobody was ever calling him broken. He does hit hard and has near flawless coverage but he is not the only threat in OU as i mentioned in my previous post and to all of you claiming haxourus, dragonite etc weren't as dangerous as him they can all defeat walls that resist their STAB especially haxorus 2HKOing Skarm with a physical resisted attack is a big deal, let's see terrakion manage that. Instead Terrakion does it with an unresisted attack. That's not a good point.
It's fairly unpredictable but there are issues with each of its sets which will be covered here:

Choice scarf: this is terrakion's most common set , and while it is an amazing revenge killer you don't have to stay in against it you all seem to be saying if terrakion comes in it will revenge something this is just not true as you can switch out to a resistor on an intimidate user, forcing him out thus causing the opponent to lose momentum. Say terrakion has been brought in to revenge a hydregion switching to a fighting type resistor such as slowbro or gyrados (which has a bonus in intimidate) can easily force it out allowing you to set up or paralyze their switch in, hell even scizor can easily switch in and bullet punch him to death.

OK easily Terrakion's least threatening set. It's a standard revenge scarfer, nothing more. This set is certainly not broken.

Choice band: this is largely similar to the choice scarf set but a little trickier to play around due to its high power, but the concept is almost exactly the same, luring it in and switching to a resistor of the predicted move. Hitmontop
easily deals with this set as intimidate neuters it and hitmontop and severely dent it with a STAB move of choice. Scizor also makes a decent switch in as no move KO's it and, bullet punch destroys it. Of course these are by no means the only checks but i think they are the most solid ones. Another issue with CB terra is that every single scarfer in existences outspeeds it, bar stupid shit like scarf shucke, this means that scarf MoxieMence can switch in on close combat and proceed to to hugely dent the opponents team. As Lee said in his post there is very little reason to use CB terra over CB scizor for example as it lacks scouting ability and really just spams STAB moves causing him to very predictable and receives no boost from weather.

First off I'd like to say that Hitmontop does NOT check this set. It is 2HKO'd by CC. I know because I actually USE max defense Hitmontop as a Terrakion check. Checks the other sets fine, but not CB. But that aside, you're forgetting one very big thing when you say "a lot of stuff revenges it so it's cool". Just like you say you don't need to stay in on Scarf Terrakion, CB Terrakion doesn't need to stay in on your revenger, and it usually has very little to lose by switching out. And because of it's power, shit like Scizor, Moxiemence, and well just about everything, can only switch into it once, meaning next time it comes out they're dead if you switch in. So you're forced to sack something to get in your revenge killer... who doesn't get to kill Terrrakion again as he just switches out. Then you have to sack ANOTHER mon the next time it gets in to bring out your revenger and... well you get the idea.

Double Dance: I have only encountered this once or twice and I found it very underwhelming, without the attack boost a lot can wall its two attacking options like slowbro, conkeldurr, reuniclus or breloom. If it is lacking the speed boost anything faster can easily come in and kill it with ease to terrakion's less than spectacular bulk, this includes incredibly dangerous pokemon such as scarf mence, starmie, scarf haxorus, the latis or alakazam. If terrakion somehow manages to obtain both boosts there is obviously somthing wrong with your team or you are just playing badly because switching to somthing that can handle an unboosted terrakion isn't all that difficult unless you have the IQ of a potato.

I haven't encountered this much, at least not KNOWING that it was double dance. Rock Polish, btw, is mainly for offensive teams. If it carriest SD, it's just as dangerous as any other SD set, though honestly Sub is much better. An a half the things you listed can't come in on Terrakion unboosted or not. Breloom? don't make me laugh. The idea of a double dance set isn't to get both boosts so much as it is to use the one that benefits you most btw.

Rock gem: why use this, just why? This is the one set gliscor has issues with as a rock gem stone edge does crippling amounts of damage, but after that they have no item, so no speed boost from choice scarf, no power boost from life orb or choice band and no ground immunity from air balloon (like anybody uses that). This set is bad, killing gliscor is not worth being weaker, slower and easier to revenge. Please don't claim this set makes terrakion worth banning.

And here your inexperience really shows, because Rock Gem is probably terrakions most potent set. Sub, SD Rock Gem, Stone Edge, CC... between these Terrakion loses all his weaknesses. Walls are muscled through, he can put up a sub to prevent revenge killing, and then you're really fucked. Used correctly this set is Terrakion's most threatening. Who cares if you have no boosting item once you're at +2 with Stone Edge and Close Combat? Nothing is stopping you then.

I believe that just about sums up why terrakion is not broken. Although i have a few more points to make. As a few other members have said, is over-centralization really that bad? I mean sure the metagame may be a tad stale but you have a great idea of what to prepare for and i bet you would all rather know what to expect than be swept by something entirely unexpected, wouldn't you. I am currently under the impression that this proposal is just so something can happen i have a crazy idea, instead of going on a witch-hunt to find something broken we could actually, you know enjoy the metagame. This case is a perfect example of boredom and and hunger for change, no body was claiming terrakion broken until one user (a fantastic one at that) suggested he might be.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
And for those who said his bevy of weaknesses make him definitely not broken, well those hardly matter if you can never exploit them. Thanks to Volt-Turn getting him in isn't a problem, and besides good prediction can get you in and there are still things that can't really hurt you. The thing is once you get in, very little can capitalize on those weaknesses. Most things are OHKO'd or 2HKO'd by Terrakion, meaning they don't get a chance to actually fire off an attack. Things that outspeed terrakion are few and far between thanks to its fantastic base 108 speed stat, and most that DO outspeed it can't KO it. Remember, Terrakion actually has pretty damn good bulk and can tank things like Conkeldurr's mach Punch from full health.

Again though, I'm just looking for discussion here. It's clear that this is a pretty close debate. So please, don't get mad at me. I only said what a lot of people have been thinking.
 

Codraroll

Cod Mod
is a Forum Moderatoris a Community Contributoris a Top Smogon Media Contributor
As far as I understood Jimera0, what he wanted was to put the discussion spotlight on Terrakion, not necessarily ban it. It isn't ridiculous to advocate its banning, it only promotes healthy discussion. In a functional democracy, even the most extreme views are given "screen time" so that they can be analyzed, picked apart and eventually discarded. I think it's great that we discuss Terrakion's potential bannage, even though I disagree with it.

If it for some weird reason ends up being banned, I'll pretend it is for ugliness, not for being competitively broken.
 
wow, scizor is just unbelieveable. something HAS to knock it out of #1 eventually.
It's gonna have to be something with the same utility and power, while at the same time looking as cool or cooler with a better name than Scizor. I mean, come on, how many Pokes outcool Scizor? I mean, it's the evolved form of the original cool Poke, Scyther. They don't even make cool like this anymore.
 
Right after testing rock gem terrakion is good. But I just feel that this is a witch-hunt to ban somthing, nobody ever said terrakion was broken until you said it may need a test.
 
Personally, I believe Terrakion is manageable. I think Conflict makes a good point in that centralization can be beneficial for a metagame, as it can help it become more competitive. While I do not disagree that Terrakion is perhaps one of the largest threats in today's metagame, being able to 2HKO just about everything with the appropriate move, but several things arise. For example, if CB Terrakion comes in on say, Tyranitar, and your opponent has a Ghost-type on their team. Terrakion has to now guess what the opponent has to do. There is pretty much a 50/50 chance that the opponent will either switch out into the Ghost-type, and you can Stone Edge for the OHKO, unless it's Jellicent, or you can stay in and CC. In either cases, if you guess wrong, there is going to be some consequence. If you CC and they switch in the Ghost, you lose all of your momentum and will be forced to switch; if you Stone Edge and T-tar stays in to be death fodder, the T-tar will be able to live a hit if it's at a good range of health and OHKO you with Super Power or Earthquake. Of course, these are just two examples, but most of the time, it is expected that you have a Fighting / Rock resist on your team. While Jimera0 does bring up good points on how powerful Terrakion is, if your opponent's team has resists to Fighting and Rock (as is expected), with each respective resist being able to take less than half of their HP damage, it's more of a guessing game for Terrakion than your opponent in my opinion. Oh, and Stone Edge has a shitty accuracy.

Likewise, while CB Terrakion will likely force you to switch out a Pokemon and hope it's the right one that you switch into. If you end up sacking a Pokemon to bring in a revenge killer, the opponent's team will also become gradually weakened. In the end, your opponent will likely lose his or her check to your Terrakion revenge killer, along with several other Pokemon due to repeated switch-ins. As Lee pointed out earlier, most of the top-20 Pokemon in OU are able to hit Terrakion with a Super-effective attack if using their standard sets. I think this creates more of a dilemma for Terrakion as once again, it's forced to guess, or be heavily crippled as a consequence for a bad guess. Added to the fact that Terrakion does not have the most excellent defensive typing isn't too helpful either.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
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@ The Qwaz.

Yes, there are plenty of ways to deal with all the viable terrakion sets, however what you do fail to realize is that you have absolutely no idea which kind of set it is.

Lets say you just used a free turn with T-Tar to set up SR. During this setup, your oppenent switched into their devoted Terrakion. Now you have absolutely no idea what kind of Terrakion this is. All you know is that it can easily revenge kill your T-Tar and that you would need t-Tar to be able to check the opponents Latias. Your oppenent now has a huge momentum! Do you switch in your skarm, crossing you fingers for the terrakion to be scarfed? Do you switch in your slowbro, being confident that the opponents Terrakion is choiced, only to face the rare (but viable) SD set? Or do you switch in your defensive Gyarados predicting a close combat, only to be outplayed and hit by a CB stone edge?

It all depends on the Terrakion player. High up on the ladder, you are in a pinch and usually the terrakion player have a much easier time reading the opponent thanks to Team Preview.

"Revenge kill it with scizor", you say? This just turns into a huge mindgame. You'd want to U-Turn to keep momentum over the opponent, but what if your oppenent predicts that and hits your Scizor with a damn powerful close combat?

You can't just put ways on how to check every viable Terrakion set... Because (especially high up on the ladder) you have no idea what you're facing! because there is no 100% counter to Terrakion, every time your opponent switches their Terrakion in, they get a great momentum. Personally, I am positive that this momentum is sligthly unbalancing the tier, and I do therefore agree with Jimera0 and others about Terrakion being worthy a test
Actually Slowbro is a 100% counter to Terrakion, since a +2 Gem boosted SE does 98.48% max, and assuming he used sub as you came in, and then he used SD as you broke the sub, then he will have recovered from the SR damage with Lefties.

Also, to anyone that is worried about Terrakion getting a free switch-in, then don't give it. Apply enough pressure to prevent the opponent from coming easily against pokes that can ohko Terrakion but use support moves as Terra comes in. Stop using SR with your Ttar and nail it on the switch with a Superpower if you expect it to come in. Good players will use Terrakion well, but good players will also give to opposing Terrakion the attention it deserves, meaning that they will attempt to minimize the switch in opportunities that he has, which is not hard to do as most of the meta can severely dent Terrakion with one of it's moves.
 

alexwolf

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Even with SR up, Slowbro has 25% chance to survive. Add in Stone Edge's accuracy and you will find that Terrakion has a 60% chance to ohko if everything is perfect for the Terrakion user (SR will be up, SS will be up, the opponent will not bring his rock resist as you use SE). So in real battles most of the times Slowbro will come out on top, and that's what matters.
 
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