Not to mention a better ability and no x4 SR weakness and immunity to spikes/toxic spikes.
O and better typing
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2024 Smog Awards!
BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Tobes
- Start date
Not to mention a better ability and no x4 SR weakness and immunity to spikes/toxic spikes.
O and better typing
Ferrothorn and Latios are amazing right now! LO Latios is a very solid Thundurus-T check/counter, and has Recover to stay alive through the match. He hits very hard in rain, and he has awesome coverage. Also Ttar has dropped in usage which is very nice for Latios. He can also check/counter Keldeo very good if he has Psyshock.
Ferrothorn is also very nice because rain teams are everywhere. In rain he doesn't even care about Zone, as he can 2hko him with Bulldoze. Also he is awesome for slapping on the face all these pesky SubCM Haxrachis that are everywhere, and have started getting on my nerves...
I am not going to go in details about Tornadus-T again, but he is one of the best pokes in the meta right now, imo! My favorite set is the Specs with Sleep Talk.
Ferrothorn is also very nice because rain teams are everywhere. In rain he doesn't even care about Zone, as he can 2hko him with Bulldoze. Also he is awesome for slapping on the face all these pesky SubCM Haxrachis that are everywhere, and have started getting on my nerves...
I am not going to go in details about Tornadus-T again, but he is one of the best pokes in the meta right now, imo! My favorite set is the Specs with Sleep Talk.
Yeah but if you run Tornadus-T and Latios in your team, you don't really care about Breloom!
Also Gyro Ball from 92 Atk Ferrothorn (which are needed to always break 252 HP Jirachi's Sub with Bulldoze) does 68.96 - 81.6%% to max Spe Adamant Breloom, so he definitely can't come in for free (and i have Sleep Talk Tornadus for Spore)...
I don't understand why Mods are so offended by speak of banning.... It discourages a player or at least myself from trying to build a team including X Pokemon, since it could get the boot. Although no one knows it precisely. Some players would just rather avoid the chaos of building team after team. It shouldn't be discouraged is my point.
So wait discouraging the talk of banning makes you not want to make teams involving pokemon?
We're saying let the metagame stabilize before we shout "BAN EVERYTHING NEW AND STRANGE." If anything that should encourage you to build a team with said pokemon so you should get an idea of where said pokemon should stand.
We're saying let the metagame stabilize before we shout "BAN EVERYTHING NEW AND STRANGE." If anything that should encourage you to build a team with said pokemon so you should get an idea of where said pokemon should stand.
With thins being said, I know this has been drudged up a number of times already, but it sounds like a good portion of the community by the looks of this thread want to unban old suspects.
Who is in charge of that decision? If so, shouldn't this be a top priority? If Smogon considers themselves a competitive site, I don't see how situational bans for Pokemon like Thunderus and such aren't reverted for such a massive metagame change.
You forget the fact that 1.) Rain is the most dominant weather now 2.) half the pokemon over the 120 are Uber or have HORRID defenses/typing/abilities. All of which he is/does not. A final point would be that off of his high SpA he gets a 100% Accurate 120 BP STAB attack with amazing coverage in rain and the strongest STAB Choice Voltswitch in the game.
The heads of tiering are in charge of making the decision, experienced battlers such as Haunter, Earthworm etc etc. Understand that I believe decisions are being made, however bear in mind that everyone is in the same boat here, new stuff is being released / found every single day, and the heads of tiering need to play the current metagame, and make decisions based on that.
Trust me, Smogon is working hard to make these decisions and stuff, but we just want the metagame to stabalise first (for example, BW2 analysis are not permitted to be written until July 8th, to allow for time for stuff to be tested, and the QC to test new things). If and When are down to the heads of tiering although I am currently in favour of waiting due to a fear of everything bring chucked into one big pile, and then things get banned left, right, and centre (for example some people think this is the reason Thundurus got banned, because Excadrill fucked up speed tiers limiting scarfers which threatened Thundurus). Just hold tight, decisions will be made eventually, everyone is just taking time to learn the new metagame, and make judgements.
Awesome!
That's great to hear that there's at least SOME consideration for it.
Thank you for the quick response! :]
GGanger I'd agree with OU trying out the current Dream World banlist, but I know the probability isn't high. Even though Dream World is becoming more like OU (still not completely!!) they're different enough to the point where talking about merging banlists wouldn't work.
I'm perplexed we're not discussing what is undoubtedly the biggest change in B/W2: Zapdos with Lightningrod and Heat Wave is now legal! Ferrothorns all over the world are shivering with fear!
On a more serious note; have you people found any old or unchanged pokemon that have been doing surprisingly well in this metagame, even moreso than in B/W1? Personally, SubDD Gyarados has been working well for me, setting up on the AmoonBro core and taking advantage of the prominent rain.
Also, is someone else experiencing rapid shifts in the popularity of VoltTurn? I feel like it changes from barely used to fucking everywhere every few hours.
On a more serious note; have you people found any old or unchanged pokemon that have been doing surprisingly well in this metagame, even moreso than in B/W1? Personally, SubDD Gyarados has been working well for me, setting up on the AmoonBro core and taking advantage of the prominent rain.
Also, is someone else experiencing rapid shifts in the popularity of VoltTurn? I feel like it changes from barely used to fucking everywhere every few hours.
Speaking of dream world, outide of Melonota or whatever, and odviousy Chandelure, what other dream world changes do we have coming.
Edit: Holy shit lightning rod Zapdos, ah yeah, although I would like pics. Also, how the hell does sub Gyrados get through Slowbro? Im pretty sure psychic breaks the sub and in the rain even scald, you would have more luck to use swords dance scizor or Heracross to break to Amoonbro.
Edit: Holy shit lightning rod Zapdos, ah yeah, although I would like pics. Also, how the hell does sub Gyrados get through Slowbro? Im pretty sure psychic breaks the sub and in the rain even scald, you would have more luck to use swords dance scizor or Heracross to break to Amoonbro.
I hope no one complains about weather now, since we all had a chance to complain months ago when nothing was done to really hit weather centralization. That said, OU is looking like mini-Ubers now. When I see posts saying we should bring back thunderus and exca and garchomp and co, I see "Broken mons balance broken mons" argument, which is exactly what ubers is.
It seems that people have finally started to not be idiots and have ditched Psychic on Slowbro (I mean, it only hits Conkeldurr and Mienshao much harder, against anything else Scald/Flamethrower/Ice Beam or Thunder Wave/Slack Off is way more effective. I never understood why people used Psychic), and Scald in the rain does 23% max against 0/0 Gyarados. I use a bulkier spread.
In fact, Slowbro with Psychic is the only common (in the past) bulky water who can break the sub, the rest are much rarer: Jellicent with Shadow Ball, Tentacruel with Sludge Bomb and Empoleon with Grass Knot. Slowbro, Jellicent and Tentacruel without the aformentioned moves as well as Gastrodon, support Gyarados, defensive Politoed, Quagsire, Poliwrath, etc. can't break Gyarados's sub.
I would hope nobody is arguing to bring back a broken 'mon to balance a broken 'mon - that way clearly lies madness. The problem is that you're assuming once something is broken it's broken forever, no takebacks, and banning it results in a permanently better metagame.
Garchomp, Excadrill and Thundurus were all broken at the time they were banned, but the Dream World banlist (which is what OU should be tending towards as a result of DW abilities being unlocked) is very small indeed. That suggests to me that we should be retesting things in Ubers as changes occur to the standard metagame until we arrive at the Dream World metagame, not banning things which the Dream World ladder has already proven to not be broken.
Yeah but Psychic lets you beat the pokes you are supposed to and this is why you use it... Without it you can't beat Conk, Gyarados and Terrakion in Sun, which sucks.
Psychic is also pretty useful againt Amoongus, Terrakion, Tentacruel, Cloyster, and to nab Breloom on the switch, and I guess now Gyarados to. Terrakion and Conkeldurr is the main reasons, if you have slowbro you really should have something else for Scizor and Ferrothorn which in my view is the only use for flamethrower/fireblast.
I guess Psychic is defendable on a rain team, but the set I stated before also counters all important fighting threats, and much more beyond that. Psychic limits your total coverage and consequently your utility too much to make up for the slight increase in power against some threats, IMO. Unless, again, your team's rain rules out Flamethrower.
Not really. As said before, the fire move's utility is to hit the Steels on the switch. This is nice to have but not necessary for 2 reasons...
First of all many steels wouldn't immediately switch into Slowbro, such as Skarmory, Forretress and Scizor, in the fear of a burn, which renders them useless (the 2 defensive steels are 2hkoed with the burn, and Scizor is useless if burned).
Also you shouldn't really depend on Slowbro to beat Ferrothorn anyways, as this is very unreliable. You usually should employ other poke to do this, such as Heatran, which pairs well with Slowbro, and gets a free switch-in against Ferro.
Beside the steels, the fire moves don't really have any other purpose. And even outside of rain Psychic still has many uses, such as hitting Tentacruel, Terrakion, Breloom (hits it harder than your fire move of choice), Amoonguss, Cloyster (which Slowbro counters), Conk, Gyarados, Terrakion (Scald sometimes misses the 2hko in sand and is useless in Sun), Keldeo and some others...
So yeah Psychic in general has more utility and helps Slowbro to defeat the pokes it can counter, while a fire move just gives you some utility for pokes that can already be covered easily by the rest of the team (not many pokes can counter Terrakion, Conkeldurr and Cloyster, while many pokes can handle the steel types).
This is also the reason that Psychic is the first slash in the support set.
Hmmm, I guess you're right. I've always had other checks/counters for Conkeldurr and Cloyster (Tentacruel on the other hand is just as important as Ferrothorn, Forretres, Celebi and Scizor, and Terrakion can be handled fine with Scald (it can't miss btw)), so I had no issues running Flamethrower.
My apologies to anyone I called an idiot above, please don't sue me.
My apologies to anyone I called an idiot above, please don't sue me.
So how's TTar gonna deal with the new Rain Offense? If the opponent has Keldeo (which he will) and a Specs Toed, it looks like he's in for absolute hell.
Perhaps support from Celebi and Jirachi. Celebi to take everything from politoed and Keldeo and Jirachi for tornadus.
Fasten up, it's not over yet.
Spooky Manor and Sky has just been broken through. There is much, much more that is undiscovered.
So far, I can confirm Pawniard (eww), Pidove, and Ducklett (hooray for not shitty ability). But I am sure there will be much, much more. I am almost convinced that Litwick is hiding in there now.
Spooky Manor and Sky has just been broken through. There is much, much more that is undiscovered.
So far, I can confirm Pawniard (eww), Pidove, and Ducklett (hooray for not shitty ability). But I am sure there will be much, much more. I am almost convinced that Litwick is hiding in there now.
Won't we be able to tell what pokemon are hidden once the rom comes out?
Speaking of shado tag-Chandelure, id rather have manaphy and Darkria in the metagame than that.
Speaking of shado tag-Chandelure, id rather have manaphy and Darkria in the metagame than that.