It sucks Kyu wasn’t banned. balance is basically an auto loss against it unless you build for perfect sequencing so Gking+Volc+ground immunity. Even then it’s difficult to counter play it. Really damaged the meta.
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
you shrimply revenge kill and don't get 31.3%'d obviously.
252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyurem: 428-506 (109.4 - 129.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Quark Drive Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Ground Kyurem: 553-652 (141.4 - 166.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
the calculator sucks ignore the struckout calcs I had quark drive on auto, you still kill tho
+2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Ground Kyurem: 426-502 (108.9 - 128.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Dragon Kyurem: 429-505 (109.7 - 129.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
scizor stonks on the rise once again. surely if it beats enough niche threats to completely different team styles it will rise to OU
Is it possible to build balance right now? I saw Finch say spike stack balance was at it worst. Will that change after Arch is gone or are there just too many strong pokemon to make it worthwhile?
No living Population bomb from 15% is the funniest shit ever we really need to send that fucking bridge to quadruple Ubers
No guarantee Arch will be gone (although it should go). The community doesn’t seem to vote to ban much of anything these days.
Arch is comically busted and brainless. If it doesn’t get banned, what will?
Archaludon is almost certainly getting banned. Most of the people who want it stay aren't capable of getting reqs for the suspect test. It clearly has more suppport for a ban than Kyurem did.
i don't think that would be very productive. we'd likely end up banning almost everything that we unban because the only things that are unambiguously not broken without tera but broken with it are regieleki and terapagos. everything else that's been banned to date has had some reason besides tera for it. even the two other instances where tera was the main reason for the ban—volc (who got unbanned anyway) and espathra—they were also doing stupid things outside of tera. let's run down the list of currently banned mons and see how they'd do in a teraless meta, assuming that tera were to mysteriously disappear tomorrow and looking at each mon as though it would be the only one to be unbanned:
still has 135 spa, 135 speed, and one of the best offensive typings in the game. sun, the playstyle where flutter mane fits best, is even stronger now than it was at launch thanks to the addition of the dinosaur trio, so specs protospeed flutter mane would be even harder to deal with. imagine it paired up with gouging fire, for example
i've seen a couple people express the opinion that palafin would be worth testing in a teraless meta, to which i respond: what the fuck are you smoking and where can i get some? it's got a box-legendary base stat spread with a drawback that ended up being negligible and a 60-power stab priority move. the loss of the nuclear power that is tera water wave crash/jet punch doesn't offset how good it'd be on rain, and even the addition of a viable water absorb user in waterpon doesn't move the needle much; not only would waterpon be worse in a teraless meta, she has bad matchups against many of the mons that palafin would naturally roll with on rain teams (notably, archaludon and raging bolt)
even without tera, iron bundle has perfect neutral coverage on its stabs thanks to freeze-dry and the special attack to use it, an obscene speed tier, fantastic pivoting ability, and it would be an excellent mon in both rain and snow—seriously, imagine this behind veil with a defense boost and it becomes even more impossible to revenge-kill. in fact, i don't remember seeing bundle ever tera in any match when it was ou
lmao
this was the first mon where people really started arguing that tera was what pushed it over the edge. the thing about that is, nuh uh. it could use tera fairy or water to get out of a jam and get an extra rage fist boost out of it, or tera fire to avoid a burn, sure. but even in the absence of it, what is any relevant mon doing against ghost/fighting stab, especially when the ghost part gets stronger every time you hit it and it has enough bulk to actually stomach hits? especially since, with the addition of alomomomomola for wish support, stuff like enamorus and hatterene starting to run healing wish, the occasional wish/healing wish jirachi popping up every now and then, we have actual cleric options now that can be used to extend annihilape's lifespan significantly
this one is gonna be contentious considering that many people believe the coverage granted by tera blast to be the only thing enabling espathra to be as stupid as it was. but consider this: you'd no longer be able to tera dark to blank a stored power and kill it, so a tera ban removes one of the best sources of counterplay against stored power sweeps. sure, it struggles a bit more against steel-types, but a strong enough stored power still breaks through pretty much all of them. also, imagine it on psyspam—its stored powers would be even stronger and priority would cease to be an option against it. grassy terrain would be fantastic support for it too, as would aurora veil. and there's probably some undiscovered stupid rng cheese set involving mud-slap that would meme its way to like the semifinals of a major tournament. i just don't see a world where espathra isn't broken or at least infuriatingly annoying and unhealthy, even in the absence of tera
i don't care what you say, tera was not a factor in pao's brokenness. it's still way too fast, obscenely strong with either band or swords dance, and would be even more unwallable without opponents being able to defensively tera. plus, veil/snow support would make it harder to revenge-kill, which is a point i'll bring up with every single ice-type because the existence of atales and glowking makes every ice-type banned before their introduction even more bonkers
popping tera on magearna was actually a bad idea at times because of how ridiculously good steel/fairy is as a typing. be that as it may, it did viably run ground tera blast, but removing tera would only take away one or two of magearna's literal dozens of viable sets. seriously, this thing gets basically every good move
this is still a fully-fledged box legendary with way more bulk than anything that fast should ever have. it also has a fantastic offensive and defensive typing and never really needed to tera at all
i've gone back and forth on this one, but rain is just too damn strong now to possibly consider bringing this thing down even without the ability to tera, and they gave it swords dance. swords dance! what were they thinking?
it'd still be doing the same bullshit it was doing before, just with slightly less powerful earthquakes. defensive tera was a really important tool in fighting against bax, so bax gains more than it loses from a tera ban, like most of these mons
firepon would lose her ability to have pre-nerf intrepid sword, which i think just turns her from "obscenely broken" to "regular broken". her damage output is still just too damn high, mold breaker makes her way harder to wall thanks to unaware and flash fire heatran being no use against her, and of course sun is a much better playstyle than it was in dlc1, which complements firepon nicely thanks to both a boosted ivy cudgel and the possibility of viably running synthesis (which she probably won't end up doing much, but it's still worth a mention). there are more dragon-types around, which does cut into her viability somewhat, but she has better matchups into some of the new ones than waterpon—resisting electric means that raging bolt can't thunderclap her as easily, and she can hit archaludon neutrally without having to resort to coverage. also, the typical answers to firepon almost all burned tera to do it, so removing defensive tera would—surprise, surprise—restrict defensive options
still has wall-level physical bulk, a sp. atk stat that feels more at home in ubers, and the ability to use what is effectively a slightly weaker hyper beam except with perfect accuracy and you get to move during the recharge turn. with no immunities. and recovery. and setup. and priority. and, just for fun, body press with the defense to use it against both of the special walls that otherwise come closest to answering it. i am once again asking who the fuck designed this mon
marginally less cheese because it can no longer boost its own acrobatics while simultaneously blanking ground moves, but still plenty cheesy. its problem was always that it was too fast and hit too hard with everything it did, not just acrobatics. also, even though dire claw wasn't really a factor in the initial ban, it's able to put multiple opponents to sleep now, which gives it some of the biggest cheese potential of any single move
Guys it's official, I'm officially flip-flopping, but after playing exactly three games in ladder after a break and only seeing rain and seeing that fucker being totally unkillable and shit, I bid farewell to my friend-shaped Bridge. Alas, the real arch may have been our backs arching at nights bc we slept so bad thinking about them Stamina boosts. This is really Bridge To Tera-bithia material in the way I ended up completely desolated by the end of the movie and by the end of these games. Get Archaludon OUT OF OU.
i'm stealing the fuck out of that joke by the way
Nooo not London Bridge :(
I keep making the mistake of doubting mons with weak special defense. First it was Bloodmoon, and now this.
In hindsight, I shouldn't have been too surprised, because Electro Shot is comparable to STAB Thunderbolt even before the Special Attack boost, and you can use it over and over again. When Electro Shot was first revealed, I remember people saying that Meteor Beam should also be a one turn move in sand. Well this mon shows why that's a horrible idea.
I think the bad Special Defense was an attempt at balancing the 90 hp and 130 Defense stats to not make Archaludon unkilliable, and I think it worked for vgc at least (from what I've heard). Too bad our metagame seems to be allergic to balance.
In hindsight, I shouldn't have been too surprised, because Electro Shot is comparable to STAB Thunderbolt even before the Special Attack boost, and you can use it over and over again. When Electro Shot was first revealed, I remember people saying that Meteor Beam should also be a one turn move in sand. Well this mon shows why that's a horrible idea.
I think the bad Special Defense was an attempt at balancing the 90 hp and 130 Defense stats to not make Archaludon unkilliable, and I think it worked for vgc at least (from what I've heard). Too bad our metagame seems to be allergic to balance.
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Never getting over the fact that Baxcalibur could defensively Tera in front of whatever it wanted despite probably having a losing MU to it, set up a Dragon Dance and then just cleave through the team from there. Tera's ridiculous.
It didn’t need to Tera. In fact if you Tera’d you’d lose your x3 defense from Snow + Aurora Veil (unless you have Tera Ice). Close Combat would hit you for less than neutral attacks.
252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Baxcalibur in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 142-168 (38.2 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Baxcalibur: 211-250 (56.8 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
You’d only Tera after Snow or Veil were gone or if you needed a KO with Earthquake or Tera Blast.
252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Baxcalibur in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 142-168 (38.2 - 45.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Fairy Baxcalibur with an ally's Aurora Veil: 105-125 (28.3 - 33.6%) -- 0.2% chance to 3HKO
you left out Aurora Veil in that last calc
0 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Baxcalibur in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 91-108 (20.9 - 24.8%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
You could ev yourself to not even take 25% from a bulky tusk cc, which means if you have a sub up, it won't break.
That's kinda insane when you think about it, even though tusk usually isn't running 0 attack investment and bax would prefer not to run max hp and defense, but that a super effective move with 120 bp from 131 attack could do less than a 1/4 hp is mind boggling.
There’s a ridiculous amount of rain in the ladder between 1500-1800 ELO.
I’ve made a silly meme team with no Pokémon over 100 speed, no priority, no scarf. It even has tickle alomolola
and it’s performing quite well against standard rain, so it’s fun. Anyone else been making fun anti rain teams?
I’ve made a silly meme team with no Pokémon over 100 speed, no priority, no scarf. It even has tickle alomolola
and it’s performing quite well against standard rain, so it’s fun. Anyone else been making fun anti rain teams?
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I've tried jolly barra on a non rain team, and while it isn't the best, it is a cool idea. Most barras use adamanat, which means they can be outsped by my own barra in the rain so I can reverse sweep.
I've also used a triple grass team with kyurem as a backup to try to take advantage of rain. The mons are sinistcha, rillaboom and hydrapple. The all can do something against one of the three big rain threats. Sinsistcha handles raging bolt and barra, rillaboom can handle barra, and hydrapple can handle arch and barra. I'm primarily worried about barra because the rest of my team can handle the other rain abusers well. It was my req team, but I might make an RMT about it since it looks like I won't be getting them.
Also, nice tickle alomomola, I feel it and soak could be much better if they had better distribution. Cause only lanturn and bellibolt benefit from soak.
252 Atk Great Tusk Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Baxcalibur in Snow with an ally's Aurora Veil: 109-130 (25.1 - 29.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Tera Fairy Baxcalibur with an ally's Aurora Veil: 82-97 (18.8 - 22.3%) -- possible 5HKO
You still get the same effect with Tera just off of Aurora Veil alone. The fact Snow and Veil reduces it to a 4HKO is still crazy even though you have to dump all your investment into bulk and it'll probably never be actually applicable, but Tera Fairying in front of some poor Specs locked Draco Meteor user when realistically you would blow up outside of Veil even with the -2 SpA drop is practically cheating.
Tera water Gking with chilly reception is a really good balance Pokémon and it betters your matchup with rain and sun.
I wanna take this moment to discuss a core I have been fond of lately.
Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 20 Def / 240 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Chilly Reception
- Sludge Bomb/Ice Beam
- Toxic
Great Tusk @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Poison/Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 64 Def / 32 SpD / 160 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up
- Rapid Spin
(The 32 SpD EVs lets Tusk eat an unboosted Draco from Arch after rocks. 160 Spe hits 250 which lets me outrun Modest Raging Bolt)
It is a very common core, but I wanna take a moment to appreciate the flexibility it provides. Gking covers several matchups like Sun, Volc, Raging Bolt, CM Val, etc while being an excellent pivot. Tusk is Tusk. With Bulk Up it prevents itself from being 1v1d by Tera abusers like G-Fire, Gambit, and Boulder. Tera Poison was the choice to challenge mixed Valiant and also ID Zama. Tera Ground is another option to 2HKO Arch with EQ. This core covers several teambuilding holes. Now you just pair this core with a ghost resist or ghost check.
Gambit tends to be the obvious pick. Checks the ghosts nicely, provides speed control, does well vs almost any matchup, and you could never go wrong with Gambit.
While having two defensive grounds overloads the team with weaknesses, Ting-Lu’s superior special bulk and access to Spikes + SR helps prevent Gking from being overwhelmed too much by special attackers while also handling the ghosts.
More on the offensive side, but Gking + Samu is a classic Home meta core. It matches up nicely into Gholdengo while not being able to pivot into Specs Sballs. Along with a SR setter, Samu could form a nice hazard stacking core.
Flame Body Tran matches up nicely into Pult/Ghold while also patching up the team’s weakness to Weavile and Meow. It has other functions such as being a SR setter and a stall breaker.
This is a niche pick, but I think Mandi has a few valuable traits in the tier. Ghost resist + Ground Immune is a rare combination. A set of F-Play/Knock/Roost/U-Turn with some physd investment and speed for Gambit lets it soft/blanket check half of the physical meta. It matches up well into Tera Flying Moon, SD Gliscor, Dnite, Gambit after clicking Tera Flying, G-Fire, etc. Due to its more passive nature and its vulnerability to Raging Bolt and Clef/Glis Balance, it needs to be on the right team to fit. Mandi + Weav is a great pairing since it could chip Moon into Ice Shard range. Mandi also forms a nice voltturn core with Gking who could check Rbolt and Clef.
Teambuilding is difficult this gen, but this core has given me alot of flexibility.
After the ghost check, the next step is usually an offensive core and filler. Sometimes rocks if I haven’t slotted in that. This formula has helped with constructing some of my builds. To give some examples, here are possible team structures with this formula.
consider this when building any kind of elephant-style team.
Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 248 HP / 20 Def / 240 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Future Sight
- Chilly Reception
- Sludge Bomb/Ice Beam
- Toxic
Great Tusk @ Leftovers
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Poison/Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 64 Def / 32 SpD / 160 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up
- Rapid Spin
(The 32 SpD EVs lets Tusk eat an unboosted Draco from Arch after rocks. 160 Spe hits 250 which lets me outrun Modest Raging Bolt)
It is a very common core, but I wanna take a moment to appreciate the flexibility it provides. Gking covers several matchups like Sun, Volc, Raging Bolt, CM Val, etc while being an excellent pivot. Tusk is Tusk. With Bulk Up it prevents itself from being 1v1d by Tera abusers like G-Fire, Gambit, and Boulder. Tera Poison was the choice to challenge mixed Valiant and also ID Zama. Tera Ground is another option to 2HKO Arch with EQ. This core covers several teambuilding holes. Now you just pair this core with a ghost resist or ghost check.
Teambuilding is difficult this gen, but this core has given me alot of flexibility.
After the ghost check, the next step is usually an offensive core and filler. Sometimes rocks if I haven’t slotted in that. This formula has helped with constructing some of my builds. To give some examples, here are possible team structures with this formula.
consider this when building any kind of elephant-style team.
This is sadly true. In my effort to save Arch while laddering with rain, I have ran into multiple Sub Glare Serps, Water Absorb Clods, SD Superpower Ogerpons, Volcarion + Lando-T, Gking + Kyurem, non-Rain Arch (which is pretty hard for rain to deal with ironically lmao) and have succumbed to tilt on multiple alts. Serp in particular is something I'm finding really hard to deal with on rain. Thinking about running Torn-T or Zapdos for it.
I will continue doing my best, but right now its looking grim.
You could try overqwil for it. It is an amazing mon on rain I've found as it can deal with the grass types that usually threaten rain while being a potent offensive threat itself. And if you slot in aqua jet on it, that means that it isn't completely necessary to put aqua jet on barra, although you do sometimes miss it. I personally run ice fang which screws over most of its counters and can stop any tera shenanigans such as moon tera flying expecting you to cc.
I'm also probably not going to get requirements, but I probably wouldn't change the outcome much.
I'm quite disheartened as well. I haven't posted much recently because I have been slowly losing the interest to play, and not playing the meta much makes my thoughts progressively less reliable as time passes.
After multiple majority losses on suspects with repeated "Kingambit/Kyurem/Arch isn't broken! Tera/Rain is!" arguments, I get the feeling we're stuck on a loop of close DNB suspects in which pivotal voters vote DNB betting on a future suspect that probably will never come.
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