np: NU Stage 2 - Part of Your World

song here (though I mean if you don't know this song you're way too young for Smogon)

Hi there.

So by a large margin, Gorebyss is back. So what does this mean? Well, Gorebyss can't be nominated next round unless there is an extremely significant metagame shift (doubtful). This doesn't mean other suspects can be nominated, but since we didn't ban anything, it seems that the metagame is... balanced?

You may ask: now what? Post about the metagame in this thread. Talk about current trends; what's hot, what's not. I know right now people are starting to figure out how powerful Dual Screen support is, and they're starting to abuse bulky attackers more than just pure sweepers.

What you shouldn't do is turn this thread into a witchhunt. We did that last time and look what happened: Gorebyss is still a part of our world.

This is definitely going to be a fun metagame now that we've deemed Gorebyss not broken. Given that some metagame shifts started to take place as Gorebyss was nominated it didn't make much of a difference in justifying the decision. I look forward to a meta where we try to set things up beyond Swords Dance, Smash or Guts. I want to see people trying Dual Screens Ampharos and Quiver Pass Masquerain. Let's make the potent threats even more dangerous and actually break down this metagame. We have 200 mons to use and abuse, let's make work of it.

There are tons of Pokemon in this metagame that are extremely powerful, and are seen on nearly every team. Magmortar, Rotom-S, Sawk, Gorebyss, and Absol are among the most popular, to name a few. I think the best part about NU is that there is simply so much that is viable, and it is easy to be creative with loads of different Pokemon. The only thing I'm slightly annoyed with is the fact that Stall is an impossible playstyle in NU, thanks to the multitude of powerful sweepers like the ones mentioned above. Hyper offense seemed to be very popular last round, and will certainly, without a doubt, be quite popular this round as well.

Omicron said:

There are tons of Pokemon in this metagame that are extremely powerful, and are seen on nearly every team. Magmortar, Rotom-S, Sawk, Gorebyss, and Absol are among the most popular, to name a few. I think the best part about NU is that there is simply so much that is viable, and it is easy to be creative with loads of different Pokemon. The only thing I'm slightly annoyed with is the fact that Stall is an impossible playstyle in NU, thanks to the multitude of powerful sweepers like the ones mentioned above. Hyper offense seemed to be very popular last round, and will certainly, without a doubt, be quite popular this round as well.

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Stall is also obscenely difficult to pull off because of:

The lack of viable hazards setters. Your best options for Spikes are Cacturne and Galie. Toxic Spikes? Sashed Beedrill?

There is naturally a lack of good stalling pokemon compared to offensive pokemon. As there are more tiers, those few pokemon with good defenses, recovery, and a decent typing get snapped up. By the time you get to NU? This pool is dried up, while loads of outclassed but powerful attackers have found their way down here, because of the sheer number of offensive pokemon.

Anyway, I'm actually slightly dissapointed that 'Byss wasn't banned. It has only a handful of checks, each of which are worked around with an appropriate Hidden Power [Fire for Jynx, for example]. Not to mention Jynx is Persuit Bait, and most of the other checks are shaky at best.

All you have to so is remove 'Byss' checks, which are not exactly diverse, and then 'Byss can sweep.

I mean, besides Jynx and Lapras... what else checks 'Byss? Bearing in mind both are SR weak, one's Persuit Bait, and the other flees in terror from Sawk.

Scarf Rotom-S does very well against Gorebyss, outspeeding it even at +2. There are a number of checks to Gorebyss, which is the main reason it wasn't banned. It was definitely overhyped at the beginning of the round, and proved to be not broken after people got settled into the metagame.

mmm, I kinda wish Gorebyss had been banned as well. On the one hand, it has checks, yes, but it can use stuff like HP rock/fire to get past jynx, and lapras is kinda bad in my opinion. Other stuff that have counters have been banned from tiers, like Excadrill, and Gorebyss on a rain team is just ridiculous. It can soften up its checks early-game under the rain without SSing, and go for a sweep later on.
Actually I'm surprised that neither Absol nor Magmortar were suspects either (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read that Gorebyss was the only one). Both are obscenely powerful. I'm not that great a player, but I've simply thrown a team of the powerhouses mentioned above together, with SubCM Mesprit, Tangela, and Regirock, and maintained a near constant win record. I really believe that Gorebyss, and to some extent Magmortar and Absol, dominate the metagame.

Oh nice, Gorebyss stayed like I wanted. Not that it was unstoppable anyways.

Well, I for one, looks forward to testing new stuff this round. I wonder what gems can be discovered, like Omi and Steamroll pointed out, under the time that pasts. Sure, the same Pokémon will be the center of attention as last time (Gorebyss, Absol, Jynx, Sawk, Rotom-S, Mesprit), but that's just part of the fun. Maybe we find something that completely shuts them down...

Omicron said:

The only thing I'm slightly annoyed with is the fact that Stall is an impossible playstyle in NU, thanks to the multitude of powerful sweepers like the ones mentioned above. Hyper offense seemed to be very popular last round, and will certainly, without a doubt, be quite popular this round as well.

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Raikaria said:

Stall is also obscenely difficult to pull off because of:

The lack of viable hazards setters. Your best options for Spikes are Cacturne and Galie. Toxic Spikes? Sashed Beedrill?

There is naturally a lack of good stalling pokemon compared to offensive pokemon. As there are more tiers, those few pokemon with good defenses, recovery, and a decent typing get snapped up. By the time you get to NU? This pool is dried up, while loads of outclassed but powerful attackers have found their way down here, because of the sheer number of offensive pokemon.

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Hi, just pointing out that stall is indeed not a dead art. User Karpman is currently #3 on the ladder with nothing but a stall team. Also, Garbodor has access to both layers of Spikes and is probably the best setter atm.

Also worth pointing out that while the Spikers aren't great, the Rapid Spinners are even worse in RU. Cryogonal is probably the most worthwhile one.

Going to go ahead and point out that unless someone came up with some ground-breaking sets in the past day, this round is exactly the same as last round. If nothing gets banned, and nothing is added, then the community as a whole needs to start shaking up their strategies to keep the meta from going stale. I'd prefer to see more weather teams, Trick Room teams, and more use of the other 250 or so Pokemon in this tier, but I doubt that's going to happen.
I claimed Gorebyss could be broken in rain last round, might as well give it a shot myself.

I was actually dicking around with an offensive baton pass team with members like Floatzel, Leafeon, etc. and I can't say I'd recommend it- it's night impossible even at +6 to clean out the entire tier with just one Pokemon. Everybody is so paranoid about all the good physical sweepers that you need to soften up the opposition first.

A good Pokemon I HAVE used is SubDisable Haunter- it totally messes up a lot of good threats in the tier, like Sawk, Throh, most normal types, and especially wish + protect walls. With Sludge Bomb's chance of poisoning, you can really mess up some teams. Very underrated Pokemon.

Still disagree with the lack of ban, BUT, I shall grin and bear it.

Now to discussion. I see a really big spike in Gurdurr usage as Absol moves up in usage. The +1200 stats are very telling. For example, Absol is amazing atm, Sawk isn't the beast that people think it is, it's good but not amazing.

Also maggy is interesting. It has a wide variety of counters. However every single one of them maggy can beat on its own BUT not all at the same time. So I'm thinking it's likely that people will catch on to the Altaria + Quagsire core because together that provide very good around the board coverage and compliment each other well with the added bonus of Maggy not being able to beat both with the same set. Combine them with perhaps something for Jynx and you're perfect. Specially defensive Altaria is really, very underrated.

Smith said:

A good Pokemon I HAVE used is SubDisable Haunter- it totally messes up a lot of good threats in the tier, like Sawk, Throh, most normal types, and especially wish + protect walls. With Sludge Bomb's chance of poisoning, you can really mess up some teams. Very underrated Pokemon.

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This is so true, I've been playing around with it, and it's a stellar pokemon across the board. I feel another overlooked poke is Tauros. Awesome base stats great movepool, great ability I'm not to sure why it doesn't see more use. It's probably due to the omnipresence of rock types thanks to the birds, but it's still an excellent mon. Mismagius seems like a complete stop to it, but a random sub 3 attacks set could easily fix that, and turn the tables on the bulky spinblocker. All in all I'm glad gorey didn't go.

Is funny to see a ''new'' round, considering it's basically the same, the metagame hasn't changed at all lol. SubDisable Haunter is pretty cool, when I have time to get on playing again I will make a team with it definitely.

Tauros is really underrated, is one of the best sweepers I have used in NU, and is not walled by misdreavus, as it doesn't need 4 attacking moves (sub is so better than 1 attacking move more). I told brammi last week about Sub Tauros and I think he used it in the ladder ^^

Btw, Magmortar is ridiculous. I'm not implying is broken, but it has very niche counters (why anybody should be using deffensive altaria in this metagame for example), it can switch into a lot of mons (common grass types and jynx mostly) and is really threatening.

Has anyone been using an ASS core? CB absol + CS Sawk + Toxic Orb Swellow. Not only are these some of the best offensive pokemon in the tier by themselves, they have great synergy together. Absol can pursuit ghosts and psychic which are pretty much the only thing that can stop sawk outside of scarfers, none of which can come in. Swellow can u-turn to sawk so it can get some free close combats on steels, and absol can eliminate steels with a choice band superpower with a little prediction. Absol and swellow both have priority as well for eliminating scarfers that threaten sawk.
Sawk in general is a beast though, it's nearly impossible to win in this meta right now without a bulky ghost or psychic.

MegaKick said:

Has anyone been using an ASS core? CB absol + CS Sawk + Toxic Orb Swellow. Not only are these some of the best offensive pokemon in the tier by themselves, they have great synergy together. Absol can pursuit ghosts and psychic which are pretty much the only thing that can stop sawk outside of scarfers, none of which can come in. Swellow can u-turn to sawk so it can get some free close combats on Rocks, and absol can eliminate Rocks with a choice band superpower with a little prediction. Absol and swellow both have priority as well for eliminating scarfers that threaten sawk.
Sawk in general is a beast though, it's nearly impossible to win in this meta right now without a bulky ghost or psychic.

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Fixed.

Also, I completely love that post.

EDIT: In response to the post below me, is Shelgon really that bulky? That's actually pretty impressive. And it gets Toxic to help stall out the attacking Pokemon.

MegaKick said:

Has anyone been using an ASS core? CB absol + CS Sawk + Toxic Orb Swellow. Not only are these some of the best offensive pokemon in the tier by themselves, they have great synergy together. Absol can pursuit ghosts and psychic which are pretty much the only thing that can stop sawk outside of scarfers, none of which can come in. Swellow can u-turn to sawk so it can get some free close combats on steels, and absol can eliminate steels with a choice band superpower with a little prediction. Absol and swellow both have priority as well for eliminating scarfers that threaten sawk.
Sawk in general is a beast though, it's nearly impossible to win in this meta right now without a bulky ghost or psychic.

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USE SHELGON! This thing stalls out all the physical attackers in the tier. Here are some calcs. (Wish-Protect)

Shelgon can switch into all of them and spam Wish-Protect forever.

ahhhhh I've been meaning to try out Shelgon but the issue is that I always want a GOLBAT. WHY DOES NOBODY USE THIS. It is so bulky it's ridiculous and it just has a fantastic movepool to boot. Taunt, Toxic, Roost, Super Fang, Brave Bird, Whirlwind, there is just no reason to say no. Pair this guy up with a Quagsire and you're basically set for life in the defensive department, save for Magmortar I suppose. The lack of lefties is pretty meh but he's pretty impossible to kill with physical attacks- to give you an idea, he tanked a +4 Ursaring Facade with 3% left and after the battle I realized I FORGOT EVIOLITE. Such a good mon, truly xtra has revolutionized our meta.

EDIT: maybe "ASS" isn't such an appropriate name, try "SAS" due to its sassy way of frustrating your opponents or even "SSA" for the dyslexic adversary

so, ive been trying out NFE pokemon to see what i can make work, after a bunch of testing something that stood out was scraggy, its not the strongest pokemon out there, and it only has 321 speed after a DD, but with some prediction and screens support, life orb DD scraggy actually can sweep! STAB HJK is going to hurt no matter how low your attack is, it also has access to drain punch for a bulkier set. Ive actually swept with it fairly often, and it is a legitimate threat behind screens. if you predict a sawk or swellow coming in, you can HJK for the OHKO (and get an attack boost) and set up behind your screens.

249 Atk vs 186 Def & 291 HP (130 Base Power): 244 - 288 (83.85% - 98.97%) <--- sawk
249 Atk vs 156 Def & 261 HP (130 Base Power): 289 - 342 (110.73% - 131.03%) <-swellow

those are the main threats to scraggy, and they can be beaten with prediction

both calcs are with LO

now after a DD, scraggy outruns up to base 97's (not sure if anything has base 97 speed) which means it outruns most of the tier after a DD and everything faster takes a ton from HJK on the switch. maybe not the best pokemon but it /can/ sweep with proper support.

only issue is it eiher cant take a hit, or loses a considerable amount of power, not the greatest, but a cool gimmick, not really worse than scrafty in OU.

tl;dr, scraggy is cool with the right support, but like pikachu or trapinch hard to use effectively

/me puts up flame shield

edit: tried bulk up and it was pretty cool, 304/266/394 defenses are pretty cool

RATICATE not sure if anything else is base 97.

Brammi you know you can just go to the strategy dex, click NU and sort by speed right? That said the only thing with the same speed tier as Raticate is Luvdisc so no worries.

I like the idea of BU Scrafty a lot better- even after a DD he's slow as shit, and I'd rather invest in his pretty excellent defenses than his crappy speed. With Eviolite and some pretty unique typing, he can be a good way of dealing with more bulky psychics, Haunter, etc. That said, I'd usually rather use a Throh over Scrafty unless you really want that psychic immunity (and crippling fighting weakness that makes you unable to counter Absol like every other fighting type).

scraggy is still somewhat slow after a DD, true but the main benchmark is like what? base 85? scraggy has the equivalent of base 97 speed after a DD, more than enough to outrun most of the tier (including jynx, which other than cincinno and persian is the fastest non scarfer you will see in my experience).

i tried bulk up as well, and it was excellent, at +2 it can tank guts boosted swellow brave birds and takes special attacks quite well

@smith throh is ohkoed by adamant +2 LO superpower after rocks D:

Smith said:

Brammi you know you can just go to the strategy dex, click NU and sort by speed right? That said the only thing with the same speed tier as Raticate is Luvdisc so no worries.

I like the idea of BU Scrafty a lot better- even after a DD he's slow as shit, and I'd rather invest in his pretty excellent defenses than his crappy speed. With Eviolite and some pretty unique typing, he can be a good way of dealing with more bulky psychics, Haunter, etc. That said, I'd usually rather use a Throh over Scrafty unless you really want that psychic immunity (and crippling fighting weakness that makes you unable to counter Absol like every other fighting type).

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I know, but isn't being a know it all dick more satisfying? I know it is for me.

Smith said:

The lack of lefties is pretty meh but he's pretty impossible to kill with physical attacks- to give you an idea, he tanked a +4 Ursaring Facade with 3% left and after the battle I realized I FORGOT EVIOLITE. Such a good mon, truly xtra has revolutionized our meta.

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+4 252 Jolly Quick Feet Ursaring's Statused Facade v 252/252 Bold Globat with no Evolite:

174.57% ~ 205.36%

Don't tell blatent lies.

Unless the user was a moron using Burn Orb, in which case it is:

87.28% ~ 102.68%

Which is still a OHKO with Rocks.

And if they're using Burn Orb it's not exactly a good comparison.

Yeesh, what's with the hostility in DST in the last couple days?

ChaoticaMortis said:

Going to go ahead and point out that unless someone came up with some ground-breaking sets in the past day, this round is exactly the same as last round. If nothing gets banned, and nothing is added, then the community as a whole needs to start shaking up their strategies to keep the meta from going stale. I'd prefer to see more weather teams, Trick Room teams, and more use of the other 250 or so Pokemon in this tier, but I doubt that's going to happen.
I claimed Gorebyss could be broken in rain last round, might as well give it a shot myself.

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A stale metagame is a balanced metagame. Trying to force a change on a stable tier isn't exactly a smart idea.