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OU RBY OU Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Enigami
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Question, then. If I wished to continue this discussion, where specifically should I take it?
Other Tiers - RBY Other Metas Hub | Smogon Forums
Is probably most appropriate. There already is a RBY OU + Mew (no complex bans) metagame called Mewbers that has been played before, and the hypothetical complex bans you propose would effectively be a subset of that. It's not listed in RBY Other Metas at the moment but Mewbers is an "Other Meta".
I feel like I should have a really strong opinion on the PR thread from Sabelette but I really don't. I don't have any desire to change RBY in its current state but I'm not opposed to Tradebacks and I think that if we were to start RBY from scratch there wouldn't be a legitimate argument for not including tradebacks. The whole premise of simulators and competitive pokemon is that we have access to every tool available without the use of glitches (theoretically), so it only makes sense that tradebacks should be legal. There were a lot of really bad arguments proposed (imo), but that single argument is enough that I think rby should technically be tradebacks. It's just even though that's how it ought to be, I don't really have any substantial desire to change as I also like the current RBY. So in effect, I'm very apathetic.
The real tragedy is that we effectively only get to pick one version of RBY to be played over all others. Really RBY/tradebacks/Stadium/Stadium+tradebacks are all equally deserving of play and offer their own distinct experiences. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in playing a format where it's only played sporadically and it's hard to build on your skills and knowledge, so I only really bother with RBY. I think this would be a fantastic point of differentiation for any non-Smogon communities that focus on RBY- RBY2K20 was promising but has clearly failed, Pokemon Perfect could consider trying this.
The real tragedy is that we effectively only get to pick one version of RBY to be played over all others. Really RBY/tradebacks/Stadium/Stadium+tradebacks are all equally deserving of play and offer their own distinct experiences. Unfortunately, I'm not interested in playing a format where it's only played sporadically and it's hard to build on your skills and knowledge, so I only really bother with RBY. I think this would be a fantastic point of differentiation for any non-Smogon communities that focus on RBY- RBY2K20 was promising but has clearly failed, Pokemon Perfect could consider trying this.
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This was just a really cool idea that I had the other day. I don’t even think a lot of people know that Slowbro even has access to counter but its been pretty successful on ladder. Nobody really thinks twice about throwing out their body slams and hyper beams at this guy in fear of the dreaded slowbro sweep but this set really takes advantage of that and it can get a pretty sick counter off on Tauros under the right circumstance.
This was just a really cool idea that I had the other day. I don’t even think a lot of people know that Slowbro even has access to counter but its been pretty successful on ladder. Nobody really thinks twice about throwing out their body slams and hyper beams at this guy in fear of the dreaded slowbro sweep but this set really takes advantage of that and it can get a pretty sick counter off on Tauros under the right circumstance.
I have been having decent success running counter chansey in OU. So many pokemon run body slam and hyper beam so counter might be an okay move to go with. Chansey can also heal the damage with soft-boiled sometimes. Counter chansey is at least a reasonable way to deal with tauros, but not too much else. I'm curious to see what other people think of this.
Also slowbro and chansey have the benefit of being slow so they attack second. I don't think a ton people know that slowbro has access to counter, but people know about chansey.
Once counter is revealed, Tauros will always EQ it since counter doesn't work on EQ, so keep this in mind, also counter chansey often drops twave for it so chansey loses it's biggest tool against tauros
Counter has negative priority so you always move second. This is why chansey can use counter vs snorlax
I probably wouldn’t want to risk losing my tauros just so I can bslam the switch instead of EQing it, so I would recommend still EQing here unless you absolutely need to bslam. I don’t wanna sack my tauros just because of one wrong prediction.
I'm not sure about how much Snorlax users were and/or are scouting or not, that depends on who you are playing. One sure thing is that ReflectHB Snorlax or other monoLax variants have nowhere to go and that's the reason that makes you want to use Counter Chansey in first place: stop reflectHB Snorlax from manhandling you without having to use things like Gengar, IceLax and Rhydon (obviously Counter gives you the chance to KO, which is way better than walling, while also being a threat in other scenarios).
Yeah, TW/IB/Counter is fine: most notably it hits Rhydon well and can get freezes (compared to Seismic Toss). On the other hand it has many obvious flaws you have to be prepared for, with Jynx being one. Para'd Starmie isn't the end of the world if you consider you're happy to have your opponent's Starmie paralyzed. MonoIce has a limited role later in the game anyway, however Sing Ice Chansey is good early in the game and Counter Chansey isn't: to make it short, this is why Sing Chansey is common and Counter is a (good) weapon you can use every now and then.
Still, TW/IB/Counter Chansey's game is complete and 3ko Chansey's game is not: if you can get a freeze it will spam ice (while also being at least partially protected from Snorlax), it will use TWave setting Snorlax up if you can't.
So, I feel like Gengar and Rhydon are two really good defensive mons in the meta rn (when it comes to using them to dodge Explosion and Thunder Wave [respectively]). They both work good together, as well. Rhydon, pretty much, checks Alakazam with its physical attacks (the latter being an extremely frail physically defensive mons), and allows for Gengar to get away from TW. Gengar, on the other hand, can be brought in to buffer any special attacks aimed towards Rhydon (Grass and Water, in particular), then allow for follow up. What's a good way to counter this core?
I wouldn't characterise Rhydon as a Zam check, js. It takes a ton of damage from Psychic, so it can't really be brought in safely.
To answer your question though, Exeggutor has great matchups against both of them. Starmie is also solid, as it can theoretically hit both of them super effectively, while having a fast TWave that Don doesn't dare to block. Otherwise Psychic attackers rip this core to shreds and Don can easily be worn down by stray hits from stuff like Chansey. Also they're both weak to EQ lol, so opposing Ground types are a problem, as well as stuff like Taur that can threaten 2HKOs. Both pokemon have significant defensive flaws so there are a lot of options tbh
To answer your question though, Exeggutor has great matchups against both of them. Starmie is also solid, as it can theoretically hit both of them super effectively, while having a fast TWave that Don doesn't dare to block. Otherwise Psychic attackers rip this core to shreds and Don can easily be worn down by stray hits from stuff like Chansey. Also they're both weak to EQ lol, so opposing Ground types are a problem, as well as stuff like Taur that can threaten 2HKOs. Both pokemon have significant defensive flaws so there are a lot of options tbh
What is Chanseys future as a member of the "Big 3" looking like? To me it looks like Chansey is becoming more in line with Starmie (viability wise) in peoples eyes, whether that be because of Chansey being seen as worse than it used to be seen as, Starmie being seen as better than it used to be seen as, or both. What are Chanseyless cores anyway? And how do they avoid losing to Starmie or Zapdos?
Why are we limiting OU move variety so much with arbitrary rules?
At minimum tradeback moves should be allowed in OU and no-tradebacks could replace it as the niche unofficial format for those who want to reminisce the 2,5 year window between 96-99 before tradeback moves were introduced. Some of the players weren't even born before that window, let alone play competitive pokemon at that time. We have had 24,5 years of time to adjust to Gamefreak giving pokemon a bit more move variety. If Showdown was an official game with official Nintendo tournaments, they would obviously not ban us from using these moves. Previous tests have shown that the metagame doesn't drastically change with these moves, and it certainly doesn't change for the worse.
Long time ago people thought that Hypno would be S tier and the metagame would revolve around beating the crazy boosting pokemon, when in reality the best pokemon are still Snorlax/Tauros/Chansey, and Slowbro has even been argued to remain the best Amnesia user by top players. The number of viable pokemon in OU is increased by a few, while no-one really drops out, increasing the variety of pokemon a bit. Snorlax becomes the best pokemon, but its playrate doesn't even increase since its literally 100% already, it just has more move variety.
I'd also like to see OHKO moves allowed given a real test. Frankly, many of the arguments I've seen for keeping them banned seem to revolve around not understanding how they work, fearing that they would be too powerful or being concerned about the RNG aspect, but we have stuff like Chansey/Snorlax freeze wars which are 50-50 coinflips and if anything, that's where OHKO moves could help a bit. OHKO moves might see a bit of fringe play for specifically breaking through the most passive Snorlax and Chansey sets. Rhydon trying to kill a reflect Chansey with Horn Drill is IMO not more BS than Rhydon trying to kill it with FP chains and 7.8% crits. Or keeping it unparalyzed and trying to freeze war it instead. What is more dumb is that pokemon like Rhydon have literally 4 moves worth using, when they could have a viable additional option.
But again, I really don't think OHKO moves would be used much and I assume that their impact would likely be minimal, just increasing variety slightly. I don't think they have been given a real test with good players to see where their usage would end up in practice. Even if it's higher than expected though, the biggest losers are undoubtedly Chansey and Snorlax.
Ideally I would personally also like to see Fly and Dig allowed. Fly might be a viable move for Aerodactyl for example, again increasing move variety in the game a tiny bit. I understand that allowing them is a bit more controversial though. I remember this being debated long ago, and the arguments in favor of banning them are certainly more solid than banning tradeback and OHKO moves. And as always, we decided to limit our options to make the game 0.01% worse when we could make it 0.01% better.
I'd really want the mentality to change from limiting our options as much as possible to increasing them as much as we can.
At minimum tradeback moves should be allowed in OU and no-tradebacks could replace it as the niche unofficial format for those who want to reminisce the 2,5 year window between 96-99 before tradeback moves were introduced. Some of the players weren't even born before that window, let alone play competitive pokemon at that time. We have had 24,5 years of time to adjust to Gamefreak giving pokemon a bit more move variety. If Showdown was an official game with official Nintendo tournaments, they would obviously not ban us from using these moves. Previous tests have shown that the metagame doesn't drastically change with these moves, and it certainly doesn't change for the worse.
Long time ago people thought that Hypno would be S tier and the metagame would revolve around beating the crazy boosting pokemon, when in reality the best pokemon are still Snorlax/Tauros/Chansey, and Slowbro has even been argued to remain the best Amnesia user by top players. The number of viable pokemon in OU is increased by a few, while no-one really drops out, increasing the variety of pokemon a bit. Snorlax becomes the best pokemon, but its playrate doesn't even increase since its literally 100% already, it just has more move variety.
I'd also like to see OHKO moves allowed given a real test. Frankly, many of the arguments I've seen for keeping them banned seem to revolve around not understanding how they work, fearing that they would be too powerful or being concerned about the RNG aspect, but we have stuff like Chansey/Snorlax freeze wars which are 50-50 coinflips and if anything, that's where OHKO moves could help a bit. OHKO moves might see a bit of fringe play for specifically breaking through the most passive Snorlax and Chansey sets. Rhydon trying to kill a reflect Chansey with Horn Drill is IMO not more BS than Rhydon trying to kill it with FP chains and 7.8% crits. Or keeping it unparalyzed and trying to freeze war it instead. What is more dumb is that pokemon like Rhydon have literally 4 moves worth using, when they could have a viable additional option.
But again, I really don't think OHKO moves would be used much and I assume that their impact would likely be minimal, just increasing variety slightly. I don't think they have been given a real test with good players to see where their usage would end up in practice. Even if it's higher than expected though, the biggest losers are undoubtedly Chansey and Snorlax.
Ideally I would personally also like to see Fly and Dig allowed. Fly might be a viable move for Aerodactyl for example, again increasing move variety in the game a tiny bit. I understand that allowing them is a bit more controversial though. I remember this being debated long ago, and the arguments in favor of banning them are certainly more solid than banning tradeback and OHKO moves. And as always, we decided to limit our options to make the game 0.01% worse when we could make it 0.01% better.
I'd really want the mentality to change from limiting our options as much as possible to increasing them as much as we can.
I feel like you’re sorely mistaken if you feel ohko moves wouldn’t be used much. Rby moves at a relatively slow pace and giving something like tauros the ability to ohko cloyster or reflect lax is an amazing quality. It’s not just the obvious ones too: para support can make anything a usable ohko spammer. Lesser used mons like lapras and dnite suddenly can become good wallbreakers by flipping a coin. It’s way way worse than freeze spamming imo.
A couple of other things: rhydon does have other moves (leer/rest) that it wants to run. I’ve played rby for a long ass time and while yeah I can admit tradebacks prob would have implemented today, I haven’t seen any arguments in my 15 years of playing that hypno would be problematic in tradebacks.
rby is a great metagame, and you’re going to run up against a ton of resistance to change that. Just looking at invitational iv and different teams/lines of play have shown that the tier is very much not stale. Hope to see more great play over the years!
I was one of the biggest advocates for testing tradebacks but saying they barely affect the meta is flatly not true. Lovely Kiss Snorlax is a huge change that makes it much easier to spread paralysis early because psychics and chansey can't sleep block it like they can do to gar/jynx/egg/chans. Hypnosis Persian is another physical sleeper and it's faster than Gengar. Elemental punches and Hypno aren't as big, true, but Gengar no longer fears Egg or Rhydon and Zam can totally destroy one of Mie or Egg. I still support a test because I think all things deserve a test before being banned, and TBs never got that, but they do affect a lot, don't minimize it.
As far as OHKO moves, no, this is not at all comparable to freeze. Freeze moves have valid utility outside of fishing for luck, and as much as they're RNG, crits are part of the game. This is not the same as a 30% luck move that makes no progress otherwise. By the way, OHKO moves have about the same chance for 2 consecutive KOes as Freeze has to get a single KO. Would you really like to lose 2 Pokemon to an unstoppable strategy 9% of the time? Let's not pretend "just switch to something fast" is counterplay. Freeze has an actual opportunity cost - you have to not spread paralysis if you want to freeze fish, and Pokemon like Cloyster come in free versus freeze fishing.
Does any really want Tradebacks legalised though? Its switching to an entirely different metagame that is incredibly underdeveloped compared to standard OU which has seen steady development for over 20 years and that tbh, is much worse than standard OU. The fair suspect bell has been rang alot, but thats not enough to actually legalise them.
The comment about the metagame not changing is just straight up false, where did you even get that idea from lol
Please no OU would literally just become OHKO move spam with 0 counterplay whatsoever
I don't play RBY but lurk this thread and wanted to comment on this.
Fly/Dig glitch makes things literally unkillable, and the Paralysis needed to trigger it isn't exactly uncommon. I shouldn't have to explain why something like an invincible Dragonite or Moltres could be a major problem. Making Aero marginally less worthless isn't a good trade.
I think they meant patching the glitch out, like desync clause.
Desynching is a major glitch that no one benefits from and breaks the game. It's an edge case we ignore for playability. Dig/Fly cheese is a potential auto-win button. Not comparable.
Thanks for the comments, appreciate having discussion about the topic. I'll address a couple of the main things here:
I think there is a potential misunderstanding with my wording here, maybe due to me not being perfectly fluent in English:
Previous tests have shown that the metagame doesn't drastically change with these moves
I meant this sentence literally. As in, it doesn't change drastically. I do acknowledge that it changes significantly.
And I don't agree with OHKO moves not having counterplay, I think they have significant counterplay. First of all, remember that they always fail if the opponent is faster. You can switch into a faster pokemon, make the opponent slower, use a substitute or just kill the opponent. OHKO moves also have immunities, Horn Drill to Gengar and Fissure to Flying pokemon.
Fly/Dig glitch makes things literally unkillable, and the Paralysis needed to trigger it isn't exactly uncommon. I shouldn't have to explain why something like an invincible Dragonite or Moltres could be a major problem. Making Aero marginally less worthless isn't a good trade.
Absolutely agreed, but that's not the route that we have to take. The Freeze clause / Sleep clause route exists and has been debated in the past, in other words not including the glitch in the implementation. But as I said, out of these three groups of moves, it's the one that I think has the best reasoning for being banned.
I think there is a potential misunderstanding with my wording here, maybe due to me not being perfectly fluent in English:
Previous tests have shown that the metagame doesn't drastically change with these moves
I meant this sentence literally. As in, it doesn't change drastically. I do acknowledge that it changes significantly.
And I don't agree with OHKO moves not having counterplay, I think they have significant counterplay. First of all, remember that they always fail if the opponent is faster. You can switch into a faster pokemon, make the opponent slower, use a substitute or just kill the opponent. OHKO moves also have immunities, Horn Drill to Gengar and Fissure to Flying pokemon.
Fly/Dig glitch makes things literally unkillable, and the Paralysis needed to trigger it isn't exactly uncommon. I shouldn't have to explain why something like an invincible Dragonite or Moltres could be a major problem. Making Aero marginally less worthless isn't a good trade.
Absolutely agreed, but that's not the route that we have to take. The Freeze clause / Sleep clause route exists and has been debated in the past, in other words not including the glitch in the implementation. But as I said, out of these three groups of moves, it's the one that I think has the best reasoning for being banned.
I meant before desync clause was voted on, moves that could cause desync' were just banned (until it was descovered Counter could cause desync ofc), I'm saying I think they meant to patching out Fly and Dig's invincibility glitch, like desync clause patched out desyncs for Counter and Psywave, Psywave was also banned before desync clause.
Leaving it at this, Also paralysis quarters your speed, so if your paralysed any OHKO move will work on you vs if the opponents unparalysed. And also Gengar and Zapdos being the only two actual counters when they both lose to the like.s of Rhydon isnt that great of an argument tbh
Yeah we seem to disagree quite heavily on this matter. To me it seems like OHKO moves have better counterplay against them than any other move in the game. I do not understand either one of the speed arguments, why isn't switching to a faster pokemon for full immunity not a form of counterplay? It's a free switch. And how is paralysis quartering speed a one-sided factor, when both players can do it? You can paralyze the OHKO move user.
Running more damaging sets in general like dipping into the old 4 attacking move Snorlax (even with Surf if Rhydon really is such a concern?) sometimes instead of the more passive Reflect/Rest sets or even dropping Snorlax/Chansey occassionally for faster and higher damage pokemons would leave your team stronger against any OHKO using pokemon. Or just running the Substitute, but I seriously doubt that it would come to a point where that would have to become a thing.
I can't see how Rhydon could become so ubiquitous when the pokemon has so many strong counters, and I can't see how Gengar and Flying pokemon being immune to Drill/Fissure is the main counter play with all the other stuff. And I can't imagine the meta where teams with OHKO moves take over, what pokemon&moves are you dropping and running to achieve that?