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Art by Pipotchi.
In Generation VI, priority was one of the most prevalent things in every OM. However, the shift to Generation VII has introduced a ton of incredible changes.
In Almost Any Ability, better known as AAA, priority was very prominent in Generation VI for the prevalence of -ate Extreme Speed—Aerilate, Pixilate, or Refrigerate on an Extreme Speed user—Gale Wings, and other common forms of priority that you'd see in normal metagames.
-ate Extreme Speed was incredibly common on Extreme Speed users such as Lucario, Entei, and Genesect. Though all three -ates were used in AAA, the most common one on -ate Extreme Speed users was Refrigerate. For Lucario, this provided it with not only a really strong priority move that would be tough to survive but also a way to hit Pokémon that it formerly had no way of dealing with, such as Thundurus, Landorus-T, Honchkrow, Latios, and Zapdos. Entei used Refrigerate Extreme Speed to patch up its lackluster viable coverage movepool, which previously only consisted of Stone Edge and Bulldoze. For Genesect, even though it already had a phenomenal coverage movepool, the extra kick in power to its already strong priority move gave it more reason to run a physically based mixed movepool or even a movepool with a ton of strong Normal-type moves to get boosted by Refrigerate, such as Techno Blast, alongside its exceptional coverage.
Gale Wings users were the second most popular priority users because even though they might not technically have priority, their roles from standard tiering got changed exceptionally. For example, Skarmory, a normally really passive Pokémon that was mainly used for clearing or setting entry hazards, became a setup sweeper and priority attacker that was a top-tier threat due to its wallbreaking capabilities and access to Swords Dance. Braviary, while not as good of a Gale Wings user as Skarmory, was still one of the best Gale Wings users in AAA due to its naturally higher bulk than Honchkrow, its naturally higher Attack than Staraptor, and its ability to hit hard without boosts unlike Skarmory; with all of that, Braviary was able to run a plethora of sets like Choice Band, defensive Bulk Up, and more, giving it an unpredictability factor that further raised its viability as a Gale Wings user. Honchkrow already had access to a priority move in Sucker Punch and had the ability to Pursuit trap Pokémon that were threatened by Sucker Punch, so on top of that, Gale Wings Brave Bird made Honchkrow nigh unstoppable; however, the only things that held it from being as good as the other two Gale Wings users was its lack of bulk, Speed, and setup moves.
Finally, like in any metagame, regular priority users like Doublade and Adaptability Honchkrow are still definitely prevalent. While not holding as much offensive prowess as the other forms of priority in AAA, Doublade was able to take advantage of its access to Swords Dance and Shadow Sneak by replacing No Guard with something valuable like Flash Fire, Levitate, or Regenerator, which allowed it to become a threat to numerous Pokémon and a surprisingly great revenge killer. Honchkrow, while still not having access to any setup moves, could become one of the strongest priority users when using Adaptability Sucker Punch instead of Gale Wings Brave Bird; however, despite its unbelievable sheer power, it could still be easily taken care of due to the negative side effects of Sucker Punch.
All of Generation VI STABmons was filled to the brim with strong priority users to the point where if you didn't have any priority users on your team, you had a really hard time winning.
Fake Out + Extreme Speed was the crème de la crème when it came to priority due to the large number of threatening Pokémon with access to it. Scrappy Normal-types like Mega Lopunny and Stoutland were especially threatening due to their ability to hit every type with Fake Out + Extreme Speed and their coverage move, making them some of the most prepared-for and threatening Pokémon in STABmons; however, while Stoutland might just seem like a bootleg Mega Lopunny, it was a great asset for teams that already had a Mega Evolution but still wanted a Scrappy Fake Out + Extreme Speed user and spinner. Sylveon was one of the more interesting Fake Out + Extreme Speed users due to its harshly low Attack stat. Moreover, with Pixilate and STAB boosts, a Fake Out + Extreme Speed from Sylveon was able to KO almost the entire unresisted STABmons metagame. Ursaring and Snorlax were some more very threatening Fake Out + Extreme Speed users due to their massive Attack stats, as well as their great coverage and phenomenal bulk, respectively; on top of this, they both had access to Belly Drum, which meant that they could hit freakishly hard and tear through almost any Pokémon in the metagame. Ursaring specifically was a huge metagame threat because it could choose between Guts and Quick Feet to either get its Attack or Speed doubled with a Flame Orb, and it had a ton of viable coverage moves, making it highly unpredictable. Another great Fake Out + Extreme Speed user was Braviary due to its Defiant ability that allowed it to deter the use of Defog in risk of giving it a free +2 boost in Attack to further raise the power of Extreme Speed, which meant that it could do something rare in not having to run setup moves to take up moveslots. The final notable Fake Out + Extreme Speed user was Porygon2 because even though it only had base 80 Attack, its ability to run mixed Download + Fake Out + Extreme Speed + Boomburst + Hidden Power Fire (for Ferrothorn and Mega Scizor) made it extremely threatening and hard to handle.
There was Scizor and Mega Scizor, which ran Choice Band and defensive Bullet Punch + Swords Dance, respectively. With their respective boosts, Scizor was able to 2HKO a majority of the metagame with Technician Choice Band Bullet Punch, and Mega Scizor was able to 2HKO the same Pokémon and OHKO more with Technician as well, a higher Attack stat, the ability to get to +6 Attack directly (Choice Band Scizor could only do this from boosts passed from Porygon2), and the ability to use recovery to make it one of the most threatening non-Fake Out + Extreme Speed priority users in STABmons to the point where it was S-rank for a majority of the ORAS metagame. While other Pokémon could run Bullet Punch, none of them came close to the sheer power that Scizor and its Mega Evolution had.
Another threatening priority user was Terrakion. Being the only viable non-Mega physically attacking Fighting-type, Terrakion's ability to use Swords Dance + Mach Punch or Choice Band + Mach Punch made it sometimes invaluable for teams to have. Its ability to set up with Swords Dance and take advantage of its great Speed to KO the Pokémon that didn't outspeed it easily with Diamond Storm and KO the few others that did outspeed it with Mach Punch, on top of its ability to act as a great revenge killer, made it something that teams always had to be careful for, even if it wasn't a top-tier threat like Sylveon.
On top of all of the already prevalent forms of priority in STABmons, the list still wasn't even over. With Water Shuriken being distributed to every Water-type, all physical Water-types, mainly Azumarill and Gyarados, had a new tool to take advantage of that was more useful than Aqua Jet. Azumarill used this on top of its access to Belly Drum and Extreme Speed, giving it the ability to KO a majority of the metagame with priority moves after Huge Power and +6 Attack. On top of getting access to Roost, Dragon Ascent, and other useful moves, Gyarados could now run a bulky setup sweeping set with Dragon Dance, Dragon Ascent, Crabhammer, and either Roost or Water Shuriken to give it the ability to outspeed foes after a boost with Dragon Dance and to KO foes that still outsped it at +1 with Water Shuriken. On top of this, Water Shuriken allowed the aforementioned users to break Focus Sashes on Pokémon like Yanmega, which other priority users couldn't do.
Sucker Punch was one of the least common forms of priority, mainly because only two Pokémon could use it viably: Weavile and Tyranitar. While Weavile already had priority in Fake Out and Ice Shard, that just wasn't enough for it, so it added Sucker Punch to its list of toys to immensely threaten anything that it faced with just STAB Ice Shard and Sucker Punch to outspeed and force out a majority of the metagame. Weavile was one of the best non-Extreme Speed-using revenge killers in STABmons due to its ability to constantly come in, quickly KO a foe with the respective priority move, and switch out without being touched. Tyranitar on the other hand was able to sit in once place and set up with Dragon Dance while tanking hits with ease and use Sucker Punch to KO anything that outsped it. Tyranitar could also use a Choice Band set and use Sucker Punch to make up for the lack of Speed that it obtained on Choice Scarf and Dragon Dance sets, as well as having a strong priority move to easily take care of anything that wasn't removed by Diamond Storm.
Something that was immensely common in almost every metagame was Prankster users. However, in STABmons, having the Prankster ability had a whole new meaning. While the distribution of Prankster was very low, two Pokémon—Sableye and Klefki—were still incredibly threatening. Sableye, on top of its already decent status movepool, got access to Topsy-Turvy to completely cripple setup sweepers as well as Serperior, Parting Shot to pivot out and give teammates an easy switch in, Destiny Bond to "prank" faster attackers into thinking that they can easily KO non-Will-O-Wisp Sableye, and Memento to give Sableye a better one-time use Parting Shot to better support a teammate. Klefki got Magnet Rise to cripple mono-Ground coverage Pokémon and Charm to let it act have a pseudo-Will-O-Wisp to temporarily cripple physical attackers.
Finally, the last type of priority in STABmons was not a move, but a Pokémon. Talonflame was the only Pokémon to get priority Dragon Ascent, which made it an immense threat, only being stopped by Extreme Speed users. It was one of the few Pokémon without any actual priority to stop Serperior, and it could KO almost all Fighting-types with ease.
Even though there were no specific moves in Mix and Mega that centralized the metagame, the Pokémon that used these priority moves did that job instead. Or rather, the Mega Stones that these Pokémon ran did.
Altarianite users such as Zygarde, Entei, and Arcanine were not just good for having high Attack stats and a Pixilate-boosted Extreme Speed—they were further improved by the added Fairy typing that they got to give them a STAB boost. Zygarde would use its Pixilate- and STAB-boosted Extreme Speed alongside Dragon Dance, Earthquake, and Outrage to outspeed and sweep entire teams with ease. Entei and Arcanine would do something similar with Extreme Speed and Howl to sweep; however, they did this with Pinsirite as well. One downside to this was that any -ate Speed user had absolutely zero way of dealing with a +1 Zygarde because it was able to outspeed everything, even opposing priority users, at +1.
Another -ate user that was threatening on its own was Glalitite Weavile. With Glalitite, Weavile could use Refrigerate- and STAB-boosted Fake Outs to act as one of the only revenge killers for Pinsirite Extreme Speed users, as well as other Dragon-types like Zygarde. On top of that, Weavile had Feint to continue to outspeed Extreme Speed users with a, albeit weak, +2 priority STAB move in tandem with its high natural Speed to help revenge kill foes that just avoid the KO from Fake Out. Weavile also had a really good base 145 Speed stat after Mega Evolving, meaning that it didn't have to rely on priority to be fast and strong and could use Return as a third move, as well as an open moveslot after all of its utility and sweeping moves, allowing it to use Low Kick to KO a plethora of threats that resisted its Ice-type moves, mainly Steel-types. Poison Jab could also be used for Altarianite users that resisted Weavile's Ice-type moves, like Entei and Arcanine.
Weavile didn't always run a Glalitite set, though. It also ran a Scizorite set to get a larger boost in bulk (70 / 105 / 105) alongside Technician in exchange for a smaller boost in Attack and Speed. With Technician, Weavile could run Fake Out, Ice Shard, Pursuit, and Swords Dance to form a decent attacking set that utilized priority.
Lastly, the other major users of priority were the Arceus formes. All offensive Arceus formes, namely Arceus-Ghost and Arceus, had some combination of Swords Dance + STAB move + Extreme Speed + either coverage or recovery, making them some of the most threatening Pokémon in the metagame because they were already bulky and strong without needing to Mega Evolve, and their unpredictability at Team Preview introduced another factor.
While Anything Goes was (and is) the only OM that didn't give Pokémon anything special, it was still arguably the most priority-infected metagame. With the ability to use multiple Arceus formes, Klefki, Deoxys-A, you name it, on one team, it was nigh impossible to face an opponent that didn't have a form of priority on their team (barring Baton Pass teams).
The most popular priority users, Arceus and Mega Rayquaza, were immense threats in AG. With 120 / 120 / 120 and 105 / 100 / 100 bulk, respectively, as well as the latter having an ability that removed its Rock weakness and lessened its Ice weakness, the two of them were easily able to function as priority setup sweepers. Arceus could survive a plethora of unboosted hits to get at least one Swords Dance up and continue to sweep with both its STAB Extreme Speed and coverage moves. Mega Rayquaza, on the other hand, ran a near-uncountable number of sets due to its versatility. It could run a setup sweeper set with either Swords Dance or Dragon Dance, a Choice Band set, a mixed Life Orb set, and more. Mega Rayquaza's Extreme Speed was able to sweep entire teams alongside its coverage after either one Swords Dance or Dragon Dance boost, causing it to be infinitely threatening. Deoxys-A, while not as threatening, was still a huge threat with its mixed sets, high Attack, and base Speed that beat Mega Rayquaza's and Arceus's to use a strong Extreme Speed.
Klefki was the most infamous non-attacking priority user. With the ability to sweep teams with somewhat respectable bulk and moves in SwagPlay (Swagger + Foul Play), either Toxic or Thunder Wave, and Substitute, Klefki was a surprisingly huge threat to prepare for. While its meager attacking movepool and still somewhat-lacking status movepool were something to laugh at, Klefki had access to all of the moves that it needed to pose a threat to almost anything. If a player didn't prepare for Klefki with something like V-create or Lum Berry Mega Rayquaza, they'd have to depend heavily on luck to win.
Yveltal was the last common priority user in the form of Sucker Punch. There really isn't much to say about this besides Yveltal had mixed all-out attacking sets that included Sucker Punch that opponents constantly had to be cautious of due to a slight unpredictability factor on the all-out attacker set.
Priority in Balanced Hackmons (BH) was basically priority in STABmons on steroids. A common threat in Fake Out + Extreme Speed was taken a step further to create the threat known as -ate Extreme Speed (-ate Speed). Said threat became so threatening and overcentralizing that a clause, known as -ate Clause, was created to limit the use of any -ate ability to one per team. The most threatening users of Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate were Mega Rayquaza, Mega Diancie, and Kyurem-B, respectively. Mega Rayquaza was not only extremely strong, decently fast, and somewhat bulky already, but with Aerilate, Mega Rayquaza put a new standard on what was threatening, as Aerilate- and STAB-boosted Fake Outs and Extreme Speeds coming off of a fully invested base 180 Attack were quite hard to survive if a Pokémon wasn't extremely bulky, couldn't hold an Eviolite, or didn't have Fur Coat (or some combination of the three). Similarly to Mega Rayquaza, Mega Diancie sported somewhat lower stats while still maintaining the same threat; therefore, a Pixilate- and STAB-boosted Fake Out or Extreme Speed coming from a fully invested base 160 Attack was highly threatening. On top of that, because Mega Rayquaza was faster than Mega Diancie, the former would always win Fake Out + Extreme Speed battles and could deal loads of damage, even from resisted hits. The last -ate Speed attacker, Kyurem-B, was the least common; it was slower than the other two Pokémon, had the worst defensive typing, and had Refrigerate, which had the lowest coverage on its own. Regardless, Kyurem-B was still able to pose a threat with above-average 125 / 100 / 90 bulk, base 170 Attack, and Refrigerate- and STAB-boosted priority moves; in fact, it was able to force out Mega Rayquaza despite the latter being able to win priority battles due to its severe weakness to Ice.
Another role that Mega Rayquaza had outside of an -ate Speed attacker was a Gale Wings attacker. With the introduction of Oblivion Wing and Gale Wings in Generation VI, Mega Rayquaza was able to use both tools to attack fast and constantly restore health. Mega Rayquaza could also use either Spore or Tail Glow (or both) to cripple the foe to give Rayquaza a free turn to attack or to set up and boost its Special Attack to nigh-unbeatable levels.
Prankster was among the most popular abilities of all defensive threats in BH, namely Giratina, Registeel, Mega Audino, and Aegislash. They all used completely passive sets that consisted of Parting Shot to pivot out (or U-turn to prevent them from being Taunt bait), Destiny Bond, some recovery move, and Encore to force foes to switch after being locked into a certain move (or Whirlwind to just outright force them out).
Another form of Prankster that was quite more offensive was Copycat sets. These sets consisted of Substitute, Copycat, an attacking move, and either another attacking move or a recovery move. This allowed Copycat users to use their attacking moves at 1.5x power or take the foe's attacking or setup move. A common user of this was Primal Groudon (before it was banned) with Thousand Arrows.
In Generation VII, Gale Wings's mechanics were changed to where it only gives the user's Flying-type moves priority at full health.
In AAA, this means that all of the previous notorious Brave Bird users can now no longer be used offensively due to the lack of them having a reliable Flying-type move that doesn't give them recoil. They are also all very slow, meaning that they would be outsped and most likely KOed when not at full health.
In STABmons, while Talonflame has access to Dragon Ascent for a strong move that doesn't give it recoil to help it maintain its health, the prevalence of Extreme Speed that exists in this generation as well hampers its usage a ton, and its lackluster Attack stat for such a strong metagame doesn't help either.
In BH, Mega Rayquaza can no longer get priority Oblivion Wing...from Gale Wings, at least, which leads me into the next topic:
A new ability was introduced this generation, known as Triage. For those who are unaware to what Triage does, it gives all healing moves, like Drain Punch, Giga Drain, and Milk Drink, +3 priority.
In AAA, while nothing gets good STAB coverage with recovery moves, the ability definitely has a niche in giving formerly completely unviable Pokémon like Golisopod a slight use as a lure priority attacker with Swords Dance + Leech Life.
In BH, this ability has changed everything. While Mega Rayquaza can no longer get priority Oblivion Wing reliably through Gale Wings, the introduction of Triage makes its Generation VI Gale Wings set wholly more viable. With +3 priority Oblivion Wing, the ability to force foes out and set up with Tail Glow and / or put the switch-in to sleep, and the ability to hit resistant foes with Moongeist Beam, Mega Rayquaza is almost unstoppable without the proper checks or bulk and can even run mixed sets with Drain Punch. On top of that, another decent threat is introduced in the form of Mega Heracross. While it loses to Triage Mega Rayquaza, Mega Heracross has dual-STAB coverage with Drain Punch and the newly buffed Leech Life, as well as the ability to run coverage moves in Horn Leech and the new Ice Hammer. This set is very predictable, however, as it is Mega Heracross's only viable set, meaning that using it comes with a lot of easy predicting on the opponent's part.
Generation VII introduced a new mechanic in priority blocking. This is available in three forms: Psychic Terrain, which prevents all grounded Pokémon from getting affected by priority moves, as well as Queenly Majesty and Dazzling, which prevent the user from getting affected by priority moves as well.
In AAA, Psychic Surge (the ability that summons Psychic Terrain on switch) is the most used ability on almost every Psychic-type, as it is not only able to give the frailer users like Alakazam and Hoopa-U immunity to a common threat in -ate Extreme Speed, but it also gives their Psychic-type moves a 50% boost. Queenly Majesty / Dazzling is also common on frailer non-Psychic-type setup sweepers like Minior to give them the same immunity and the ability to force out said priority users.
In STABmons, Tapu Lele (the only Pokémon that naturally gets Psychic Surge) was the main anti-priority Pokémon but was banned, leaving priority rampant. Now, Psychic-types like Alakazam use Focus Sash + Psychic Terrain to set up the Terrain, but it is the only viable way of using anti-priority and is risky as well.
In Anything Goes, Tapu Lele is sometimes used on Psychic-type spam teams to give its teammates, mainly Deoxys-A, boosted STAB moves and an immunity to Extreme Speed from Mega Rayquaza and offensive Arceus formes. It's especially nice because Deoxys-A is able to perform a lot better without having to worry about getting OHKOed by every priority move.
In BH, Mega Mewtwo Y and Deoxys-A are used as priority blockers to take care of Mega Rayquaza to the best of their abilities with Psychic Surge. On the other hand, Mega Gengar has a set known as "Dazzlegar", which consists of a Focus Sash, Dazzling, Shell Smash, Moongeist Beam, and two coverage moves, which makes it one of the best anti-priority setup sweepers, as it is also able to counter the Psychic Surge users after setting up.
A mechanics change was also introduced to block all priority that came from Prankster. Dark-types are now immune to Prankster-boosted priority, meaning that in every metagame, Prankster users have to look out for all of the aforementioned priority blocking methods on top of Dark-types, making them less difficult to deal with.
While somewhat minor, Water Shuriken was used semi-frequently in all metagames, specifically STABmons. In Generation VII, Water Shuriken became a special move to better match its original user, Greninja, which means that all users from Generation VI like Azumarill lose a high-power multi-hit priority move. On the other hand, though, Araquanid gets a new multi-hit priority move to threaten foes with after being boosted with Water Bubble and Quiver Dance boosts.
Sucker Punch's attacking side hasn't changed, but rather its Base Power. Sucker Punch's Base Power was lowered to 70, meaning that former prevalent users of the move have to be more careful when using it due to its inability to KO as much from a wider HP range.
All of these changes to priority are part of the reason why all OMs have changed a ton since the previous generation. Go try out these new metagames!
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