BH Balanced Hackmons

[cityscapes]

Nuzzle can be countered by Poison Heal, Zygarde, Regieleki, Zekrom or Heal Bell
Belly Drum can be countered by Extreme Speed with -ate bonus, Choice item-forced Trick, Prankster, Unaware (not all the time) or Haze (Taunt makes it unavailable, Magic Bounce is the way to go)

Almost all the time I use Choice Specs Eternatus or Choice Scarf Palkia as a lead and when I sense a Belly Drum user first thing I do is tricking. If you manage to deal damage to BD Regigigas before he uses the move, AFAIK Mild Xerneas can take %25 HP of Regigigas with ExSpeed
Regigigas is also a nice counter to Nuzzle since if you know which mon can use Nuzzle, you can play around of it most of the time or double switch to gain advantage.

This is called meta. It shifts, if you are struggling against a move, produce a "creative" countermove. Hyper offensive mons with Trick also do good against passive mons, even if you manage to give Prankster Giratina/Registeel a Choice Scarf you can at least have your hazards for few turns.

Both of the solutions I mentioned above synergises beatifully with other team compositions (I know Trick doesn't fit to stall teams but Topsy-Turvy with Magic Bounce works, moreover it can be unpredictable sometimes, wasting enemy's Taunt move and learning about and I want you to remember, I topped BH ladder twice last year.

TL;DR: A composition is giving you trouble? Generate an answer that doesn't mess up with your team organisation.

this is what happens when you treat bh as a single player game. this guys more interested in gloating about how good he is than actually making points about the metagame.

PICTURE THIS: you're a game developer making a 2d platformer. your playtesters are complaining about the game's physics being inconsistent and not making sense at points, however the levels are generally pretty easy so they can eventually get through them. fixing the physics is probably a good idea, but it isn't exactly mandatory for a good game.

now let's say you're adding a new mode that allows for anyone to submit their own levels. some of these are gonna be really difficult, others are gonna be really creative. without a consistent and dynamic physics engine, this game is dead in the water. if you have a good foundation, players will naturally build incredible stuff on top of that.

the bh ruleset is the physics of the game. high level play and creative teams are the user-created levels. sorry, dude, but i don't really care if you find flimsy, duct-tape workarounds for the physics that straight-up doesn't work on certain levels. do you want a medal or something? is the game even good if everyone's using your workarounds? wouldn't you rather be crisply gliding across every level as the game responds perfectly to each of your inputs?

rugged individualism applied to game design is lame as hell. yeah dude i lost to fuckin imprisonform normalize simple triple para acupressure three times today, but THAT'S HOW IT IS AND EVERYONE'S JUST GOTTA ADAPT LIKE I DID. stop playing singleplayer bh. games only get better if there are a lot of people having fun playing them. if you want something to satisfy your ego play a visual novel, and i have a feeling that is what you want because neither you nor the many similar people that came before you ever played in a tournament on here.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

Pardon me for interrupting the absolute WAFFLE FEST that is this thread rn but I thought i'd post something that isn't complete infighting and also helps newer players

Tea's Improofing Guide

(If you're experienced in the tier, you can basically disregard all of what I'm saying here, the majority of it will be irrelevant/known to you.)

TL;DR - Dealing with Imposter mons. Some sets can Self-Imposter-Proof, the majority you'll need to use teammates for. Signs of a good Improof include limiting Imposter's utility, limiting it's recovery, living it's hits easily and the Improofer being good outside of Improofing. Avoid bad/no Improofs as much as possible, unconventional ones can work but generally aren't the most reliable. I am aware I can get into a very unnecessary level of detail, so i've bolded the important takeaways.

(The TL;DR should tell you the basics, the massive text blocks should tell you the details.)

What is Improofing?



Chansey (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Imposter
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk

Short answer: dealing with this. Imposter Chansey is one of the most common mons in the tier and Improofing (Short for Imposter-Proofing) is the act of gearing your team to deal with it.

• Imposter works by copying the target's moves, ability and type - it does NOT copy the base HP or the item. What this means is that, given Chansey's 250 base HP and access to Eviolite, what ends up happening is that Imposter Chansey transforms into your mon, but has 250 base HP (for a HP stat of 704) and the Eviolite boost (50% higher defences).
• Note the above - items still apply when transformed, and for mon-specific items, these use the base mon rather than what you're transformed into. This is why Eviolite works when you're transformed into something that wouldn't normally gain the Eviolite boosts.
• Because Chansey is copying your set, you have complete control over what it's able to do - this is the core of Improofing and also what makes Improofing completely different from other forms of threat management.
• The typical setup is Chansey with an Eviolite, but other options such as Shed Shell/Toxic Orb (on Chansey or Blissey), or Imposter Pikachu with a Light Ball.
• If you send out a mon with Imposter into a mon that's transformed into something else, you don't transform. This'll be important later. (Say, I send out my Imposter Chansey into the Enemy Chansey which is currently transformed into my Eternatus, my Chansey doesn't transform.)

Why is Improofing important?

Improofing is mainly important due to how common Imposter is - without proper Improofing, it can become trivially easy for Imposter to use either it's infinite PP supply (even though a transformed mon only has 5PP on all it's moves, these refresh each time it transforms) or absurd bulk to wear teams down long term or threaten to reverse sweep by copying a dangerous offensive mon. Proper Improofing means that you reduce the amount that stolen sets can damage you as much as possible and so minimize these risks.

How do I Improof?

There are 2 primary ways you can go about Improofing that you can weave into team structures:

• Self-Proofing - the act of having a mon that can Improof itself
• Improofing via Teammate - having a mon on your team that can improof another mon

There's also some criteria that you can use to gauge how good an Improof is at a surface level:

• Can the Improofer (the mon doing the Improofing) easily live the stolen mon's hits?
• If Applicable, does the Improofer deny the stolen mon's utility? (eg. Knock Off, Hazards, Pivoting)
• If Applicable, does the Improofer limit the Imposter user's Healing? (think of the stolen mon's ability as well as moves)
• Is the Improofer useful outside of being an Improof (ie. what else can it be used for/is it good at doing)

Self-Proofing

Self-Proofing: Trapping

The majority of these sets will operate a similar way, regardless of the trapping move, ability or objective of the set - the user will attempt to trap Imposter in via it's trapping move (most commonly Anchor Shot or Thousand Waves), and live the Imposter's attacks until Imposter runs out of PP and begins to kill itself via Struggle recoil. Using the above set, you'd try and catch Imposter with an Anchor Shot, live it's 5 Low Kicks (with each Low Kick doing at most 34%), and wait for it to kill itself, removing it from the game. In addition, there's no utility that needs to be blocked and you also work outside of the self-proof as a standard Fur Coat wall. The important thing to make sure of here is that you can easily live Imposter's attacks (consider Crits when judging this), and don't compromise your set too hard to get the trap to work.

Here's another example - you trap with Thousand Waves, live Imposter's 5 Core Enforcers and force it to Struggle. You're also a utility denier with Magic Bounce and a slow pivot with Volt Switch (VS is used specifically so Imposter can't pivot out of being trapped).

PROBLEMS: as stated above, you might need to compromise your set to make the trapping work. Using the Zama-C as an example, this type of self-proof means you're never able to run Thunderous Kick, a pretty desirable STAB option. You also probably need to at least consider the possibility of Shed Shell Imposter stuffing these with it's trapping immunity, so shouldn't crutch on this as a catch-all Improof for everything on your team.

Self-Proofing: Held Item

Gen 8 gutted this form of self-proofing with the removal of Judgement, so it's not particularly common as the only options are Genesect Drives + Techno Blast (limited by the small number of Drives) and Silvally Memories + Multi-Attack (limited by the small amount of viable users). However, the set above is the most common application in the current meta with NormPult - the use of Ghost Memory + Multi-Attack means that you have a reliable Ghost STAB which Imposter will not have as it lacks the Ghost Memory and therefore will be stuck using Normal-Type Multi, irrelevant of Normalize (as Multi isn't affected by move-type-changing abilities like Pixilate). This means that Imposter is unable to damage you, whilst you can hit Imposter super-effectively. NormPult also acts as a great tool for annoying the enemy with it's utility.

Here's another application - whilst Zekrom isn't immune to Normal-Type Multi, it's able to fire back with Dragon-Type Multi-Attacks further boosted Adaptability. This means that, due to the held item, Zekrom has the advantage against Imposter and will likely win 1v1 or otherwise get free Dragon Dances in front of it. This set has fallen mostly out of favour but still serves as a decent wallbreaker.

For reference, this is Gen 7 Item Self-Proofing. You can see that this will be significantly more potent offensively and also can't be stalled out by Strength Sap like the Zekrom can be.

Improofed by it's item (or lack of), Unburden procs when you eat your Sitrus Berry after drumming, meaning that you've got doubled Speed that Imposter won't have as Unburden won't have procced for it. This, in combination with Wicked Blow and purposefully reduced defence, means you will 100% outspeed and 100% instakill Imposter. Loses to Prankster, non-Zama-C FC Steels and bad sets like Unaware Steels, otherwise it will instakill basically anything in front of it.

PROBLEMS: The main issue with this is that, obviously, you're dependent on the item (a removable resource) to self-proof, so if your item gets removed by Knock Off, Trick or Corrisive Gas then you and the Imposter will likely be left doing little, if any, damage to each other. The amount of sets that can self-proof this way is also very small and will often have to give something up in order to successfully self-proof / transition to a self-proofing set (eg. If Triage Celesteela wants to self-proof with a Shock Drive, it has to give up it's Life Orb and subsequently will have a weaker Oblivion Wing.)

Self-Proofing: Winning 1v1

Probably the most blanket statement available, this basically means that, without any specific prep, a mon is able to win 1v1 against it's Imposter. This Regigigas set is a good example - Imposter (assuming it's Eviolite) will not be able to recover HP, lacks boosted Facade damage, is at the threat of losing it's Eviolite and can also get Pivoted / Spiked on if it stays in. These mean that, unless Imposter has a massive relative HP advantage, you should always either win 1v1 against it or threaten it out.

Here's another example, where Xerneas can click Thunder Cage once and then spam QD whilst Imposter takes chip, eventually winning out barring a crit. The important thing to note is that the majority of these 1v1-winning sets are Poison Heal as this prevents the enemy Imposter from healing, whereas sets with manual healing or Regenerator can end up with Imposter leaving with more HP than it entered even if it does still leave.

This set uses it's Steel typing to resist Imposter's Oblivion Wing whilst setting up, and uses the fact that Imposter has a higher max HP to gain a higher proportion of HP back with Leech Seed. It also serves as a great late-game cleaning tool thanks to the self-sustain and Triage's priority.

PROBLEMS: The big one is Toxic Orb Imposter, which has good odds against the Regigigas and should always beat the Xerneas. Generally, PHeal Improofs crutch on Imposter not having any healing and so denying this can shut down the Improof. Sets with manual recovery usually will also probably need to carry trapping moves or other utility in order to not give completely free healing. Since you're trading hits, Crits can also determine the outcome of the matchup.

Improofing via Teammate

This is the big one - whilst the amount of sets that can consistently self-proof is small, teammate Improofing allows for much greater flexibility with what the sets can run. The key here is Role Compression - making sure that your Improofs overlap with important roles on the team, usually walls but also sometimes hazard control or offensive threats. There's less of a set-in-stone list than self-proofers, but i'll run through the general idea:

• If you have a mon's set, the Improof is normally one of said set's best checks / one of the checks it's unable to beat. This minimizes the risk of getting reverse-swept. There is the risk of running into this check on the enemy team (which your mon is intentionally not able to beat), so you'd have to accomodate for this risk.
• Teammate Improofs will usually compress walling the mon, it's recovery, it's utility and serving another team purpose within the same slot. This is so that you don't end up with dead team slots in order to accomodate for powerful mons, which would create a very top-heavy team structure that doesn't play out well in practice.
• Teammate Improofs will usually aim to minimize how passive they are - this is so that the Improofer can both limit Imposter and not be a weak point for the rest of the enemy team.

The best thing that can be done is provide some good examples, since 95% of the Improofing you're going to be doing is with this method and I can't feasibly tell you everything.

Improofing Xerneas is something that virtually every team is going to have to deal with - Chansey is useful in this role due to providing minimal Sap recovery, threatening a slow pivot or a Nuzzle, and easily tanking Boombursts. This links in to the point I made at the start, where Imposter won't activate against a transformed mon, and is also why the Imposter mon's moves matter. In return you've got the best mon in the tier, the Improof to said mon and access to Imposter crammed into 2 slots.

Using Fairy Memory Multi-Attack, you can abuse the fact that Imposter will only have access to Normal, Fire and Water-Type attacks by using Giratina as an answer, which'll eat any hit and threaten Imposter with Nuzzle or the switch-in with Nuzzle, Hex or Core. The Zacian also has no utility or recovery needing to be prevented, and both function well as a late-game cleaner and general purpose physical wall respectively.

Whilst the Zygarde will self-proof as discussed above, it also Improofs the Regigigas by blanking Nuzzle and Spikes, easily living Facade (even against Toxic Orb Imposter) and threatening to chip away at the 0-recovery Imposter or to slow pivot on it. The only downside to this is that U-turn is unblockable, though running Volt Switch Regigigas exists as an option and you still generally have the upper hand as Regigigas so can stay in if you suspect a U-turn.
Note: Blockable pivoting will often be a factor if using Groudon or Zygarde-C as a way to both Improof and block Imposter's Volt Switch, but these usually come with costs such as giving large amounts of HP away through Strength Sap.

There are some examples, as I said above listing everything's going to be impossible. You can probably get the general gist - your Improof needs to be good at Improofing, but also needs to serve some other purpose on the team in order to not be dead weight and also should be good at keeping momentum when Improofing. It's mostly up to you as a builder to find what works best within your structure.

What if a standard Improof won't work?

This is a circumstance you can find yourself in particularly when working with offensive mons - what you might find is that you're unable to fit in an Improof for the mon without heavily distorting the structure of the team. This is most commonly seen with Kyurem-Black and Palkia, whose sets typically leave them with minimal walls, which also means that there's probably not a wall that can easily be slotted onto your team. Generally, if you're in this situation then you're probably leaning away from a "standard" team, so to fill roles the sets will have to be a bit jank and the consistency might not be there. From this point there's 3 main options:

• Changing the mon to something you can Improof - pretty self-explanatory, but will make having a fully-Improofed team easier and in general will probably mean the team's more reliable. You'd be most likely to do this on balance teams where good Improofing is at it's most important.
• Using an unconventional Improof - using a mon or set not commonly seen in order to Improof. This probably means trying a whole new set or mon, so I can't fully recommend it if you're new to building or want a fully reliable team (what you'll find is that these tend to be dodgy against the meta but safe against non-meta picks like the mon you're needing the improof for).
• Using a bad Improof - not usually recommended. Usually, bad Improofs lack safety or aren't very useful outside of Improofing. Often complete bandages for team weaknesses.

Just a forewarning, changing the mon is usually both the easiest and most effective way to end up with a consistent structure.

Unconventional Improofs

Once again, i'm not able to come up with every possible example for an unconventional Improof, since the whole idea is that they're non-standard and only chosen because they fill a specific niche. Arguably the most important thing with an unconventional Improof is making sure that they aren't dead weight outside of Improofing, which I say is the most important since you're probably not working with the ideal Types or Base Stats, so you need to check your moves carefully.

Don't get me wrong - Nihilego is incredibly flawed. Rock Type means it hates every coverage move bar V-create and the PhysDef is appalling. However, the unique combination of Rock/Poison, High SpDef and low Attack means that this can cover the Rayquaza pretty safely - in addition, Sand Stream makes it almost impenetrable and means your team can abuse Shore Up's boosted healing in sand, Poison Type and the low attack means you easily stonewall any non-Rend Xerneas, and you aren't overly passive with sand chip, Volt Switch and Nuzzle. This is a good example of an unconventional Improof as it both does Improofing well and can fill another niche as a Special Wall.

Type: Null makes up for it's incredible passivity by stonewalling everything this Blacephalon wants to do to it, making up the passivity with Nuzzle and Knock. It's not perfect, but it's probably the single strongest FC wall in terms of pure survivability and has a necessary overlap between Improof and other role (even if this does border on a bad mon just based on the Improofing).

Bad Improofs

As the name suggests, these Improofs lack certain factors and so should be avoided whenever possible. Normally, these are bad because the mon doesn't do much or the Improof itself is high-risk.

Despite having a fairy-neutral Ice Scales mon that can hit back with Sludge Bomb, this Eternatus isn't a very reliable Improof since you've got no way of stopping Imposter from spamming QD and blowing past you with Boombursts. In addition, Sludge Bomb comes with the unfortunate side effect of Poisoning Imposter, which might be useful in some circumstances but detrimental in others as it can now benefit from Poison Heal and can't be paralysed.

In order to Improof this Palkia, you need to use this atrocious Fini set which is completely passive, exists solely to not die to the Palkia, gives completely free entry to Regigigas and isn't a good Prankster user as it's comparatively frail when considering other Prankster users. This is probably the clearest example of "change the set" since having Shift Gear as an option isn't worth basically loading a mon down for.

This is one of the very limited instances where you can get away with a bad Improof - on Hyper Offence. The idea is that, given the low time frame you're aiming for, the Improof being bad shouldn't come in to effect quick enough to severely hinder you and there simply isn't space for a better Improof. As such, this Suicune would be a sufficient Improof for the team style, but not necessarily a good one overall.

Should I Improof my Defensive Mons?

Short answer: absolutely, Improof everything you can. Improofing Defensive mons is important to minimize the progress that they can deny, the utility that they can turn against you and the chances that they get to freely recover (stopping recovery is huge as any threat is significantly more manageable if it's on a timer and also means it's a lot easier to overpower). Whilst many team structures are able to completely starve Imposter of healing by using multiple Strength Sap users and a low-attack Improof, you aren't necessarily tied down to this and you can choose to punish it for healing rather than preventing it from doing so. This'd be best done through Knock Off, Nuzzle or Trapping.

What about Pikachu?



Pikachu @ Light Ball
Ability: Imposter

Pikachu functions differently to any other Imposter. As a result of it's unique access to Light Ball (which doubles Attack and Sp.Atk), when transformed Pikachu becomes your mon but with 35 base HP (a stat of 274) and doubled Atk/SpA. Pikachu's entire purpose is to Reverse Sweep you with it's boosted offences, which aim to invalidate your Improofs through sheer damage output. Often, in order to maximise the chances that a reverse sweep will happen, Pikachu will usually be on a Paraspam team that aims to Paralyze the threat Pikachu will be copying, so that Pikachu always win the speed tie against it and be in a position to safely deal damage. Pika's uncommon enough to the point where you can forgo a robust gameplan against it, but the general idea against it is to play slow and careful with your offensive threats to avoid unnecessary Paralysis and to also remember that it's very frail and entirely dependent on it's item for offensive presence.
Note: Give Pikachu an actual set, the chances that it'll ever see this are basically 0 but you never know.

Do I have to Improof?

Realistically, yes you do. Imposter is so common that you have to prepare for it - if you choose not to Improof a mon, then you might be at an advantage in a matchup with no Imposter but against it you'll likely be never using that mon until Imposter is a non-factor. (which brings up the concept of opportunity cost - if this mon did nothing but sit in the back until Imp is irrelevant, is it worth having over something I could use throughout the game?)

Ivar57 gave me permission to share one of his teams that has one such non-Improofed threat:



Kyurem's +2 Glacial Lance is able to 2HKO Zama-C after some minor chip, so it's basically not Improofed due to how sketchy this'd be to try and get away with (specific range is 40.4 - 47.9%). As +2 GLance does at minimum 42.6% to Eviolite Imposter, what this means is that, in a matchup with Evio Imp, Kyurem's basically unusable until Imp is both Paralysed and below 57.4% (as Imposter's GLance is near guaranteed to instakill, always after Life Orb recoil). Whilst you can choose to play this matchup fish and simply deal with the consequences if you don't land right, having to play 5-6 for the majority of the game mightn't be a desirable team structure - so, if you're looking for consistency, then having an Improofed threat is the better choice.

What's the bottom line? ("you've spoke too much")

• Improofing is something you're going to be doing with basically every mon on every team.
• Sets can Self-Proof, but you'll often have to detract stuff making them do this unless they're already Self-Proofing / designed to.
• The majority of your Improofing will be done by using other mons to Improof.
• Improofs should, as much as possible, be safe, limit utility, limit recovery and be useful outside of Improofing.
• You should Improof your defensive mons as much as offensive ones, in order to not let them recover / get utility off for free.
• Improofs should account for the different item choices that Imposter has, even if the standard is Eviolite.
• Unconventional Improofs can be used, but straying too far from the norm can be unreliable and you need to ensure that these aren't dead weight outside of Improofing (usually, this is them being too passive).
• Avoid bad Improofs as much as possible, unless it's Hyper Offence and you literally don't have another option.
• Not Improofing is an option, but you need to be prepared to be 5-6 down for the majority of the game against teams with Imposter.
• When deciding if something's a good Improof, assuming the worst case damage rolls / that you might be chipped can help.
• Improofing will differ for every team structure, so it's down to you to come up with.

this took the best bit of 4 hrs to write tf
ban drum you melts

 

[Lotus]

The post above basically says everything necessary to know about improofing but just to add a few more personal thoughts:

Imposter allows Chansey to copy the opposing Pokemon's typing, moves, and stats minus HP, while retaining its greatest assets in its huge HP stat and Eviolite boosts, allowing it to act as an all-purpose check to almost any Pokemon, as it will always be bulkier. Imposter also inherits the opposing Pokemon's stat changes and, when coupled with its preserved bulk, allows Chansey to be a formidable check to nearly every setup sweeper in the metagame. Therefore, Imposter Chansey puts a huge strain on teambuilding, as teams must carry checks to their own Pokemon to avoid losing multiple Pokemon or, in more extreme cases, the game entirely to a Transformed Chansey.

- Once again I would recommend anyone new to read the above post but for those who prefer brevity, above is BH Imposter in a nutshell (sauce).
- Scarf Imposter is def worth keeping in mind because for offensive teams that intend to overcome Imposter by forcing it to go through multiple duels against boosted 'mons this won't work because Imposter will always strike first barring cases like Unburden and can play a hit-and-run strategy
- Lucky Punch is niche but can still be dangerous because this can flip the tables against PH sweepers using Quiver Dance through crit hits ignoring through boosts. The reason why this is normally not seen and is possibly not covered in the above post is the fact that experienced players are aware of such possibility and don't tap QD more than twice until opposing Imposter is fully identified / weakened / gone. This is a pretty minor stuff to point but it won't hurt to develop such habit if you like to slap PH xern / ogre in your teams (does anyone actually use ph ogre anymore to begin with though)
- Another way of Imposter proofing is using a 'mon that OHKO its 'copy' on switch. In older gens band Mega Tyranitar used Close Combat to hit Steel-types and Imposter and the latter got one shot after minor chip or with ttar itself running a reduced investment. Same goes for banded Kartana using V-create and Blacephalon clicking Astral Barrage against Imposter on switch.
- In addition to above what I have been personally trying out as a semi Imposterproof set is this:

Eternatus @ Life Orb
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Wave / Sludge Bomb
- Earth Power / Blue Flare

If we were to disregard the fact that I could be biased about this set that carried me in Nuzzle suspect I think running Draco or other stat-dropping attack could be a possibility of improofing. Of course dropping your own stat can be bothersome in cases where your opponent tries to switch around to resisted threats and you are therefore forced into mind games but as I climbed to higher ladder I figured that players have their teams well-built to the point where an Eternatus at +2 outright wins the game at the spot so I thought a hit-and-run strategy with +2 Draco Meteor is nice since with Modest and LO you OHKO ph gigas / fc lunala / imp. If you kill something with draco then your stat is lowered which softens the matchup against imminent imposter switch against whatever the fat steel you are using to imposterproof the set. If you run Simple you'll probably be forced into situations where improofing this set will involve using Unaware 'mon which gets 2HKO'd by other mons in this day and age where -ate users and V-create/Glance spams are running rampant anyway.
Flare Boost is probably better in cases where a third move to threaten OHKO on -spd pixilate xern or hit fat steels aren't necessary but that will just depend on the rest of the team.

 

[XxLazzerpenguinxX]

BH Updates

Post Nuzzle Suspect Results:
Following the Nuzzle suspect, it was voted for Nuzzle to remain in the metagame, thus Nuzzle will not be banned.

On Belly Drum...

Following up on intensive discussion of Belly Drum in the forums and discord, BH council decided to hold a vote for belly drum. The outcome of the vote can be seen below.

BH council (2-0-1) has voted to ban Belly Drum.

The reasoning for a Belly Drum ban can be seen in many of the posts prior to this, but it largely comes down to very specific counter play to not lose to Belly Drum being necessary, which is often more on the passive end, along with any amount of small misfortune against Belly Drum eccentric teams often resulting in an immediate loss. Tagging Kris to implement.

Now that Belly Drum is banned, where do you think the metagame will shift to? Will it become more stally since, stall teams have less threats to deal with, or will balance take over, now that Prankster might become less necessary on teams, allowing for more progress makers to be used. I'd love to hear your thoughts here!

 

[Tea Guzzler]

who gives a shit if i did a massive post 20 hrs ago

What does Drum Ban mean for the tier?

Stall
Drum ban generally means that Stall builds will improve, as explosive tools used to eliminate key mons (the chief one being DrumGambit ZygC, but others such as Triage Kart) or run over walls before they can react become unavailable. This means that the majority of mons that threaten stall will be clicking unboosted breaking moves, which makes playing against these threats more predictable - in addition these also have to be prepared to weather longer games, which is where stall's inherent focus on longevity gives it an edge. Not much else to say here.

Balance
Balance is generally going to improve. No Drummers means that loading balance into HO is less of a death sentence than before, and there's also less of a need to carry Prankster or Imposter so there may be more variety seen on teams. The option of loading regular balance + drummer as a finishing tool is off the table, though this isn't majorly impactful as it's not particularly common and there's also alternatives which can achieve a similar effect such as the SD/SB Kyurem in my last post. There's not really a direct buff / change, you're probably just going to be seeing greater matchup consistency / fewer painful, braindead matchups.

Offence / HO
This is the biggest change since Drum is primarily a HO tool used to run over teams. Drum is a unique HO tool as, unlike other options, it allows you to choose which of Prankster and Imposter to beat, which other tools such as Simple or MoldyGear don't have the luxury of. What this basically means is that post-ban sets on HO will have much more trouble getting past Imposter + Prankster cores as other boosting methods are significantly less explosive and often need the ability slot to compensate, limiting the options for self-proofing or beating Pranksters.
I expect that SNR Lunala is likely to become a staple on these teams due to it's strong matchup into Prankster (threatening to Gambit) and Imposter (if opting for a Sash), with other options such as unboosted breakers like Xerneas and pre-existing setup monsters like KyuB and Eternatus in tow as alternative threats - Imposter is likely to also be in much more of a "hit it until it dies" state against these teams, as opposed to a "run a set that will always beat it" one IMO. Because you're running less self-proofing sets (mainly attributed to no DrumBurden), fitting all the Improofing needed onto these teams might be harder too. There is a silver lining, in that the fall of drum will reduce the need for Prank/Imp on the average team and so you're more likely to load a gold matchup, but don't count on it.

SNR (Simple + No Retreat) Lunala. Notice the reduced SpDef (down to 201) to always OHKO Eviolite Imp with Astral Barrage (though you could just run 252/31 SpDef and Improof with a Yveltal), and Gambit to deal heavy damage to / Eliminate Pranksters. Offers similar explosive power with 220BP +2 Stored Power after 1 turn, which is why I think it'll likely be the most popular replacement.

 

[MAMP]

Prankster is not a necessity on balance teams, especially now that Belly Drum is banned. Having effective setup checks is important, but Prankster isn't reliable against many of the most popular forms of setup: Triage outprioritises it, Nasty Plot Eternatus removes it with Core Enforcer, and Poison Healers have good tools to make progress against it. Haze is an awful, momentum-sapping move. It feels miserable having to waste a moveslot on it and feels even worse having to click it in games. It's a free turn for your opponent to switch, set hazards, Nuzzle, whatever. I hate it. I prefer to deal with setup by building teams that are threatening enough to make it difficult to set up, that have defensive cores bulky enough to handle boosted threats (Fur Coat + Ice Scales cores are particularly good for this), with measures like Imposter and strong priority just in case. Not needing to make up for the momentum that Prankster sacrifices grants a lot of flexibility in building, which I appreciate. Prankster is the most effective counterplay to the kinds of setup that kids on the ladder like, Simple + No Retreat type stuff, but these are still manageable without it. I really dislike seeing teams that have Prankster + 5 mons that suck against setup, it's a lazy and ineffective way to build teams imo. There's only a few Pranksters I like on balance and bulky offense. Groudon is probably the best one, and I don't mind certain Prankster Steels. Ho-oh is ok, but I think guys like Giratina, Tapu Fini, and other similar passive nonsense is pretty awful on the style of teams that I generally build.


Groudon @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Precipice Blades
- Glacial Lance
- Will-O-Wisp
- Swords Dance

Recently I've found it quite important in teambuilding to have offensive threats that can repeatedly switch into Zama-C and force it out. I've been experimenting with a variety of Groudon, Ho-oh, Reshiram, and Zekrom sets that can achieve this, and I've found myself really enjoying this Groudon set. It has the bulk and longevity to come in on a variety of Steels to get free Swords Dances, and with a boost there's very little that can reliably deal with it. +2 Glacial Lance almost OHKOs Giratina and easily 2HKOs Ho-oh and Celesteela. Wisp is an underrated move that gives Groudon a lot of utility and dissaudes Imposter, Palkia, and Kyurem-Black from switching in, all of which could give it some grief. It's helpful for chipping down Fur Coat walls like Giratina and forcing them to recover, which you can abuse with a teammate, and it can be used to get through Pranksters: they can't just spam Haze as you SD, because the burn damage will eventually force them to recover, creating 50/50 scenarios that are in your favour. Wisp is also far easier to Imposter-proof than other options like Nuzzle/Glare or hazards, which would force you to run something like Golisopod to reliably handle Imposter. I've Imposter-proofed this with Fur Coat Celesteela and with Fur Coat Giratina-O (with +speed and Spectral Thief).

Here's some replays of it in action:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1610558420 In this ladder game against Commander Niall, Groudon gets a free turn against Zama-C to boost up, and knocks out a slightly weakened Giratina. Later, it comes in on a weakened PH Xern as it Quiver Dances and forces it out, allowing me to take down Ho-oh. My opponent has Prankster Scald Suicune, which matches up well against Groudon, but I'm able to burn Suicune to force it to use recovery more often, and I can take advantage of its Hazes and Strength Saps to get Regigigas in to set Spikes.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1610515059 Against SlightlyAngryKevin's stall, Groudon pushes through an opposing Prankster Groudon with the help of Glare from a teammate. A bold decision to stay in and Knock Off with Zama-C early in the game puts the fear of Purify in me, which limits my ability to bring Groudon in later in the match.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1606496994 A ladder match against Tanny89k. Early in the game, Groudon forces out Zama-C as Tanny goes to Giratina to Spectral Thief, giving my Xerneas an opportunity to Nuzzle the Zama-C on its way back in. Later, Tanny makes a risky play to stay in with Zekrom to Dragon Energy against Groudon and forces me out, but Groudon heals up on a free switch against Zama-C, burns and forces out Prankster Groudon, then takes down a weakened Giratina, Groudon and Xerneas. Zekrom forces me out as I miss Will-O-Wisp, but his team is too weakened to prevent my Xerneas from cleaning up.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1605962793 Against Redflix, Groudon repeatedly forces in Prankster Giratina to use moves like Haze and Recover, which lets my special breakers come in safely to make progress. Redflix is unable to make much progress with hazards, as Rapid Spin Xerneas gets to come in easily to spin on Giratina. The burn puts Giratina in an awkward position and Redflix sacrifices it to keep Groudon at +0. Don't watch the endgame, it's really embarrassing.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8balancedhackmons-1611171009-iojsojb3jzb0bbdomf06i4e7wd7ux6cpw Wisp comes in handy in the endgame against thermp's Zamazenta here, and Groudon is able to clean up his last few Pokemon. Don't ask me what I was thinking on turn 59, I genuinely do not know.


I'M YIIKING OUT (Kyurem-White) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Volt Switch
- Trick
- Blue Flare

I think Kyurem-W gets too much hate these days. Nuzzle's popularity has brought Groudon, Zygarde-C, and Zekrom to prominence, which are all Pokemon that Kyurem-W can exploit. With Xerneas and Eternatus so thoroughly monopolising the special attacker market, most special walls are tailored to deal with those two. This has led to a rise in Pokemon like Ho-oh, Celesteela, Ice Scales Groudon, and Ice Scales Eternatus as popular special walls, and all of these fare worse against Kyurem-W than Xerneas. Nowadays Zama-C is often Magic Bounce or Fur Coat to better deal with Regigigas, another trend that favours Kyurem-W. It's not original, but I think Choice Specs is still the best set on this mon. Its biggest flaw as a breaker is that it can't come in that often, so it has to do as much damage as possible every time it does. Choice Specs enables that, and the extra damage output lets it force out Ho-oh and Regigigas at much higher HP, increasing its utility. Not an amazing Pokemon, but if it's given the tools it needs it's very capable of putting serious holes in teams. Spikes + Nuzzle + Flip Turn Gigas is a great partner for it, as it can paralyse and chip down Zama-C and give Kyurem-W free switches against Giratina and Zygarde-C and similar guys. Final Gambit Eternatus is another cool partner, but I haven't been able to build a team with the core that I like yet.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

shadowpea bet

How to choose moves

This is one of the key factors when building a team that you need to consider - which moves you run, and on which mons they go. It's also important to identify whether a move is worth it (ie. can it easily be Improofed), and which move of your options you're going to be getting the maximum utility out of.

TL;DR - there's no point in putting a good move on your mon if it won't fit well, and you shouldn't lock yourself to using good moves only if there's another alternative. Usually, deciding between moves depends on how easy they are to Improof and how much they aid the rest of the team.

Good moves vs. moves that are good in the situation

This is mainly a newer player issue that I find - there is a discrepancy here, as moves that are themselves good mightn't be well suited to the situation - similarly, a move mightn't be one of the best moves available but might still be good for your mon. Grasping this concept can help your move selection in general, as you shouldn't be locking yourself down to the "good moves" and doing so will probably lead to either repetitive sets across teams and a general lack of variety.

Long list of the "Good Moves"

These are generally the strongest moves available, and the ones you'll likely be using often. I'll provide a short explanation and use case for each. This also isn't exhaustive, but is the majority of what you'll be seeing.
Damage moves (in no particular order):
Fishious Rend - 170BP if you go before the target, 85BP otherwise. Palkia/Barraskewda's STAB, Xerneas/Zacian's Fire coverage.
Wicked Blow - 80BP, always crits (thus 120BP, ignores Def boosts and Reflect). Yveltal's STAB (rare), usually Regigigas' anti-Lunala move.
Dragon Energy - 150BP, BP falls as HP drops. Mainly used on Palkia and Dragon's Maw Eternatus as STAB, sometimes on Reshiram/Zekrom.
Precipice Blades - 120BP, 85Acc. One of Groudon's main STABs, Kyu-B and Regigigas' anti-Steel option if not using V-create/to hit PSea Steels.
Thousand Arrows - 90BP, knocks down Flying/levitating targets. On knock-down hit, always deals neutral damage to Flyers regardless of other type, Levitate/MagRise users have standard type effectiveness on this hit. Immensely spammable, Groudon's main STAB.
Thousand Waves - 90BP, traps the target. Groudon and Zygarde-C's main trapping tool and Zyg-C's main STAB.
V-create - 180BP, 95Acc, drops Def/SpDef/Spe by 1 if it connects. Ho-Oh's main STAB on most sets, general purpose Fire coverage seen on almost every mixed/physical attacker.
Boomburst - 140BP, Sound Move. If you're using an -ate ability, basically always your main STAB. SimplePlot Spectrier's second attack.
Core Enforcer - 100BP, silences the target's ability if you move after them. General purpose Dragon STAB on basically every Dragon type.
Extreme Speed - 80BP, +2 priority (so it goes before Prankster, but after Triage). Always on Aerilate Rayquaza, sometimes on Pixilate Xerneas.
Glacial Lance - 130BP. Kyu-B's STAB, general purpose Ice coverage that Regigigas likes to run.
Astral Barrage - 120BP. One of Spectrier's STABs, almost always seen on Simple Lunala.
Sunsteel Strike - 100BP, ignores abilities. Kartana and Necrozma-DM's STAB, sometimes also seen on Zama-C.
Moongeist Beam - 100BP, ignores abilities. One of Spectrier's STABs.
Photon Geyser - 100BP, ignores abilities, uses the higher of the user's 2 attacking stats. NDM's main STAB, sometimes also seen on Mewtwo and Calyrex-Ice.
Thunder Cage - 80BP, 90Acc, traps the target for 4-5 turns, deals 12.5% chip at the end of every turn. Always seen on Poison Heal Xerneas to trap and eliminate Imposter, sometimes seen on Triage users like Yveltal.
Mind Blown - 150BP, takes half the user's Max HP. Seen as Blacephalon/Heatran's STAB on Magic Guard sets.
Steel Beam - 140BP, 95Acc, takes half the user's Max HP. Seen as Dialga/Heatran's STAB on Magic Guard sets.
Doom Desire - 140BP, hits the target 2 turns after casting. Uses the caster's SpA and STAB when it connects (meaning, if used as Imposter and you switch out, it goes off of the mon with Imposter's SpA rather than what you transformed into), can benefit from the currently active mon's Steely Spirit. Usually seen on RegenVest Dialga + Steely Spirit Kartana structures.
Multi-Attack - 120BP, type changes based on held memory. Sometimes seen on Zekrom, Zama-C or Marshadow, can also be used as Regigigas' main STAB with Life Orb/Tough Claws.
Fire Lash - 80BP, lowers target's Def by 1. Ho-Oh's Fire STAB if not using V-create.
Thunderous Kick - 90BP, lowers target's Def by 1. Usually Zama-C's Fighting STAB.
Anchor Shot - 80BP, traps target. Ran by basically every Steel type, preferred over TWaves for trapping if no STAB on either.
Blue Flare - 130BP, 85Acc, 20% burn rate. Used as general purpose Fire STAB if not running V-create (mostly for Special Attackers)
Bolt Strike - 130BP, 85Acc, 20% para rate. Used as general purpose Electric STAB.

Utility (no particular order):
Volt Switch/U-turn/Flip Turn - 70/70/60BP, deals damage, then switches the user out. If no damage is dealt, no switch. Mostly seen on Xerneas and Regigigas, but can be used on basically everything.
Haze - removes all stat changes on the field, no target. Basically always seen on Prankster mons as a way of controlling setup.
Topsy-Turvy - inverts the target's stat changes. Often seen on Prankster/Walls to control setup, gets blocked by Bounce / Prankster Topsy-Turvy can't stop Dark Types unlike Haze.
Parting Shot - lower's target's Atk/SpA by 1, the switches user. Often seen on Prankster mons as a pivoting option.
Strength Sap - Target's Attack stat = the amount you heal, lowers Attack by 1. Provides the largest amount of healing in the shortest amount of time, mainly used as offensive mons' recovery tool like Xerneas or Palkia.
Nuzzle - 20BP, always paralyses. Speed control that basically anything can run, always on FC Lunala/RegenVest mons.
Spikes - sets hazards. I might do a whole post on why hazards are fundemental, but for now just know that they are and that anything can run Spikes as a method of making progress.
Rapid Spin - 50BP, Clears hazards and boosts Speed. See the above, normally run on -ate sets or on bulky walls/RegenVest users.
Knock Off - 65BP, removes item and 1.5x power if the target has an item that can be removed. Often seen on Yveltal and Regigigas as a way to cripple walls.
Aromatherapy - cleanses the user's status. Conflicts with Poison Heal, but otherwise is an anti-Nuzzle tool used to protect fast threats.

What you see bolded above is also important - if a move is good, this doesn't automatically mean it's going to benefit you greatly. Here are some examples:

This one should be pretty obvious, but Groudon already has a 180 Base Power attack (Precipice Blades after STAB), meaning V-create is basically redundant as there aren't any good Grass types to hit - otherwise, they do the same thing. You'd change V-create to something like Glacial Lance here if you wanted to hit as much as possible.

Slightly less obvious, but Doom Desire isn't the best fit as it doesn't synergise massively well with Boomburst, and Doom Desire -> something else to force both an attack and DD on the same turn is risky as there's no switch move here. Anchor Shot might be preferrable as it can be used to trap and eliminate Imposter, rather than being a source of free Spin / Recovery for it.

This is one I see often, people see funny high-powered spooky move and ram it on a choice breaker, when in reality Ghost doesn't really hit anything that Energy wouldn't be hitting, similar to the Groudon set above.

You can probably see these are pretty obvious, but it's pretty easy to see when you're using a move because it's a good move, not because it fits the set. The second bolding is also pretty similar - a move doesn't have to be "meta" to fit on a set and do well (even though it's harder to justify or fit):

Explosion's probably the best example of this, as it's a phenomenal way to make instant progress yet is barely ever seen as it only fits on Hyper Offence.

In general you should avoid Body Press (it's low damage compared to Close Combat/Low Kick/Thunderous Kick and doesn't benefit from Fur Coat's increased Defence), however this set makes decent use of it as it's the safest of the 4 Fighting moves for self-proofing and is the only one able to self-proof safely whilst also remaining safe against Kartana.

Deciding which move is better

This is probably what you'll be spending most of your time doing, since the above 2 are generally just new-player guidelines and should themselves be obvious if you look carefully. Normally, when you're torn between move choices it'll be your last moveslot and you're trying to decide not only which you'll get the most use out of but also what you're going to be able to Improof most easily and how much you each option benefits the team. Regigigas is a classic example, because you can have the dilemma with both utility and damaging moves:

This has loads of options that can go in the last slot, and each has it's own merits and drawbacks:

• U-turn allows you to Spike for free on Fur Coat trappers and turn Magic Bounce switch-ins into free momentum. However, this works both ways as with Imposter you'd need to accomodate the risk of them either taking Spikes or turning your Bounce Improof into their momentum.
• Dragon Dance / Swords Dance gives you a the chance to set up and pose a damage threat with Facade, Nuzzling anything that doesn't drop and Spiking on threats that don't care about either. Toxic Orb Imposter poses a severe problem to this set and Bounce Giratina is a really rough matchup.
• Knock Off further augments the amount of mons you can harass, hitting targets such as Bounce Zyg-C that'd normally be checking you, and also means that you can get rid of Imposter's Eviolite, which other mons can benefit from. Again, T-Orb Imposter is pain and so is Bounce Giratina (which has Griseous Orb, which when held by Giratina can't be knocked off).

You can see that most of these have something to do with Imposter, and this is a large part of the decision making - which moves you can select whilst still maintaining reasonable Improofs (ie. you don't end up with a really bad Improof just to fit more utility). Typically, the toss-up between Nuzzle and Spikes is very common with Regigigas specifically, and this'll ultimately be down to the rest of your team structure to determine more than anything as both serve a similar purpose - gradual progress making tools that teammates can benefit from.
Using a damage set:

Because you've got 2 slots left open (let's say you're trying to use this Gigas as purely a damage dealer), each different combination of attacks will be checked by different things and so you'll need to accomodate for this in the builder, normally by having the thing you can't kill as the Improof and having other mons on your team able to aid in beating that mon if it appears on the enemy team. Some examples of coverage:

• Precipice Blades + Glacial Lance is able to beat most things by raw SE damage, but will likely need Paralysis support and you'll likely be locked down to FC Lunala to Improof it.
• Precipice Blades + Nuzzle builds in the Paralysis support so you can solo threats like Zamazenta and Solgaleo, but exchanges that for needing help against Zygarde-C. Nuzzle also benefits the team through slowing down threats such as Xerneas or Eternatus for the team to benefit from, however Improofing this is basically locked down to FC Don/Zyg-C in order to not have Nuzzle turned against you.
• Wicked Blow + V-create makes Ghosts a non-factor whilst maximising the Steel types that can be KOd after slight chip, but V-create's Speed drop necessitates Paralysis support and also locks you down to Ground types for Improofing.

Again, the dominant factor here is Imposter. The key to this is where in the team you're building the mon that needs the decision - if you're building this mon early in the team, you have the other slots to be able to Improof and so you have more chances to define the structure of your team around the threat/to fit in the Improofing. However, if you're slotting this in late, you likely aren't able to change what you can use as Improofing as easily and so you're much more likely to be locked down to certain options.

Shorthand for the above: If you're stuck between moves, Improofing's probably the driving factor, though there is the argument of if one option's simply better than the other in some situations (eg. you use a "worse" move to ease improofing, such as Knock Off -> Corrosive Gas to Improof via Bounce even though you run into Bounce yourself). Whether you value good move but sketch improof or "lesser" move and safer improof is up to you.

 

[MAMP]

We're doing mini analyses again, starting with the S and A ranked mons on the VR (that's Xerneas, Regigigas, Eternatus, Chansey, Zamazenta-C, Ho-oh, Giratina, Groudon, Lunala, and Zygarde-C). Come help out! Here's the thread where you can reserve an analysis: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/om-analyses-reservation-thread-read-the-announcement.3659599/

 

[Glubbfubb]

I am trying to get into this tier, I have been watching hackmons battles for a while, so I am trying develop a team. I would like to ask what is the status and viability of Technician, what would be the best Technician users of both the physical and special side in your opnion?

 

[Tea Guzzler]

I am trying to get into this tier, I have been watching hackmons battles for a while, so I am trying develop a team. I would like to ask what is the status and viability of Technician, what would be the best Technician users of both the physical and special side in your opnion?

to keep it brief, technician's pretty niche. this is mainly due to limited abusers and also that there aren't really any special technician users (to which technician is the best ability, ie. making triage magearna into tech just for the sake of having tech). probably the only technician mon you'll ever encounter is Kyurem-Black, which carries Shift Gear, Triple Axel, Dragon Darts and Bonemerang - this is mainly due to the 170 base attack combined with a potential 180 base power STAB. however, even technician here is mostly redundant as Kyurem would usually much rather Mold Breaker - Glacial Lance is a directly better STAB option due to not missing and not proccing helmet with every hit, the anti-steel option actually gets an upgrade with V-create, other move options such as Bolt Strike become available, and Mold Breaker is generally a stronger tool for dealing damage as you ignore your main form of counterplay in Fur Coat. if you want to use technician, that's probably the set you're defaulting to. other options like tech bullet punch kartana can sometimes be seen on ladder but aren't that good because better options exist that aren't using 60bp moves.
tl;dr - whilst Technician isn't bad, it's pretty outclassed.

 

[tzaur]

what would be the best Technician users of both the physical and special side in your opinion?

It's a very niche ability, but Pheromosa is a neat user of it and IMO the best one.


Pheromosa @ Choice Band
Ability: Technician
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Storm Throw
- Triple Axel
- Gear Grind


Triple Axel OHKOs pretty much any Ice-weak Dragon you can think of as long as you look out for Fur Coat. Gear Grind is a nice "delete Xerneas" button, but you obviously have to also look out for E-Speed. Best to catch on the switch or when you've scouted its moveset. Storm Throw becomes a nice no-drawback 135 BP move after Technician + crit multiplier, so Steel-types usually kneel before it. Even though U-turn does not interact with Technician, having the hardest-hitting U-turn is a plus. Excellent speed tier that allows it to outrun the overwhelming majority of the VR even with an Adamant nature.

Unfortunately, Phero overall is pretty niche, however--even with the fancy calcs. Even though it's the best abuser of it, it's still inconsistent albeit more explosive compared to something like MGLO + HJK, Glance. If you don't land all 3 Triple Axels vs. something that gets OHKOd by it, Phero is done. If Gear Grind misses Xern, it's done. Moreover, as mentioned, it also has to watch out for things like -Ate E-Speed from enemies such as Xeneas, Zacian, Yveltal, or Rayquaza or Triage Oblivion Wing from targets such as Yveltal, Rayquaza, Lugia, or Celesteela. Could also fail to KO something/miss a Taxel kick then eat a Nuzzle to the face making it much easier to pick off. Constantly needs to scout for Fur Coat. It's also quite difficult to build around and must be played very carefully on top of that.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Yeah I'm gonna have to say for any new player, it's probably best you don't run any pokemon that's faster than Eternatus. At least not until you learn the metagame. They are not only extremely difficult to build around, their performance in general is dodgy to the point of where I consider even Zacian a noob trap. There is a good reason people opt for paralysis and priority over outspeeding the main two mons I brought up in my last post. A lot of these pokemon are niche and can rarely find opportunities to get progress, and it's not unusual to see them falter without having made much progress in your games. Zacian is probably the best 130+ Speed mon, and even then its sets are really matchup fishy. Sometimes Zacian wins games on the spot, sometimes it does absolutely nothing. That goes for all pokemon, but the fastest ones often trade offenses and/or defenses to attain that speed and usually end up the latter unless on an exceptionally well-built team. Pheromosa is rarely used in Gen 8 BH for that reason.

Technician boosts inaccurate moves, and often the best players opt for consistency for their main offense. Pheromosa happens to be one of the most consistent, but nonexistent bulk leaves much to be desired as tzaur said. With Gen 8 BH being the stalliest, longest metagame on average, the more you miss, the more opportunities your opponent gets to advance the game in their favor. Rocky Helmet and accuracy are genuinely the main reasons Technician isn't used, but tzaur and Tea Guzzler both brought up individual concerns. Other stuff is usually better on top of being more consistent. Bonemerang is rarely worth using over V-create, usually reserved for hitting Primordial Sea Steel-types. I want to say Triple Axel is primarily liked for PP; Glacial Lance only having 8 PP makes it dodgier for sets such as Pheromosa. Gear Grind is better for non-STAB since otherwise Anchor Shot is perfectly acceptable offensively despite its somewhat mediocre base power.

The main reason I posted this though, I don't want a new BH player to get caught in a very common noob trap. Faster pokemon are generally not better. Niche sets on top of that may also reduce your overall success in this metagame. Technician Pheromosa works, but it's absolutely not something I'd recommend to a new player.

 

[Glubbfubb]

Yeah I'm gonna have to say for any new player, it's probably best you don't run any pokemon that's faster than Eternatus. At least not until you learn the metagame. They are not only extremely difficult to build around, their performance in general is dodgy to the point of where I consider even Zacian a noob trap. There is a good reason people opt for paralysis and priority over outspeeding the main two mons I brought up in my last post. A lot of these pokemon are niche and can rarely find opportunities to get progress, and it's not unusual to see them falter without having made much progress in your games. Zacian is probably the best 130+ Speed mon, and even then its sets are really matchup fishy. Sometimes Zacian wins games on the spot, sometimes it does absolutely nothing. That goes for all pokemon, but the fastest ones often trade offenses and/or defenses to attain that speed and usually end up the latter unless on an exceptionally well-built team. Pheromosa is rarely used in Gen 8 BH for that reason.

Technician boosts inaccurate moves, and often the best players opt for consistency for their main offense. Pheromosa happens to be one of the most consistent, but nonexistent bulk leaves much to be desired as tzaur said. With Gen 8 BH being the stalliest, longest metagame on average, the more you miss, the more opportunities your opponent gets to advance the game in their favor. Rocky Helmet and accuracy are genuinely the main reasons Technician isn't used, but tzaur and Tea Guzzler both brought up individual concerns. Other stuff is usually better on top of being more consistent. Bonemerang is rarely worth using over V-create, usually reserved for hitting Primordial Sea Steel-types. I want to say Triple Axel is primarily liked for PP; Glacial Lance only having 8 PP makes it dodgier for sets such as Pheromosa. Gear Grind is better for non-STAB since otherwise Anchor Shot is perfectly acceptable offensively despite its somewhat mediocre base power.

The main reason I posted this though, I don't want a new BH player to get caught in a very common noob trap. Faster pokemon are generally not better. Niche sets on top of that may also reduce your overall success in this metagame. Technician Pheromosa works, but it's absolutely not something I'd recommend to a new player.

Naw I get it, I was mainly going to do an experimental set where I was going to do a very niche idea of Ancient Power + Techinician which when boosted becomes a 90 base power move then when I get the omni-boost use Baton Pass, my original plan was Volcarona + Silver Wind but I didn't realize Silver Wind was not in Gen 8 so I am trying to do a different strategy, I was just wanting to try a unique strategy that sounded better in my head, I am looking at the metagame and I do think I should prioritize countering Enternatus, any good counter suggestions?

 

[Storm Eagle]

Baton Pass is equally a noob trap. Don't even bother building with it. I consider it completely unviable, although some players have made use of them. I just largely have no idea who those players are offhand. And they're unlikely to share anything that you can use with much efficacy. With how much setup checks there are, many people will not allow you to get progress period with Prankster Haze. As for Ancient Power, remember what I said about consistency. That is a 10% chance move.

You don't counter Eternatus. You don't counter anything. There is no countering in BH. Look at it from how hard you can check said thing. But always keep in mind the idea that even mons you check can beat your mon of choice. You would think Xerneas loses to Ho-Oh, but Xerneas runs Diamond Storm and Fishious Rend for that reason. Some sets can check Eternatus. Not all of them can check all sets. Consider this: Eternatus is both defensive and offensive. Sets that would normally break defensive sets could get Dragon Energy to the face, while sets that can take on offensive Etern sets have absolutely zero use vs something like Regenerator or Ice Scales.

And well, I brought up the idea of suspecting Eternatus a week or so ago for one of many reasons: Final Gambit. It is uncommon for ladder to run this, but any check I provide you will flat out die to Final Gambit. You will lose games to anyone who carries Final Gambit Eternatus until you can reasonably scout for it and predict it. Maybe they won't have Final Gambit. Most likely they won't. But it's worrying enough to bring up.

Assuming you are aware of this, here are some pretty standard Eternatus checks:

Zamazenta-Crowned. Ice Scales is as close of a counter that exists for Eternatus, but most sets can threaten Eternatus through either walling its coverage (Primordial Sea) or paralyzing it with Nuzzle. Eternatus will usually be forced out by Zamazenta-C because Anchor Shot and Thunderous Kick can break even bulkier sets.

Magearna can check most Eternatus sets reasonably well with Primordial Sea or RegenVest, but loses to coverage. It is offensively less capable of taking down Eternatus than Zamazenta. It usually runs Metronome (the item) to boost Pixilate Boomburst so it can break bulkier targets.

Any Eternatus carrying Earth Power typically isn't going to be able to significantly damage Celesteela outside of Simpleplot. Even Simpleplot can be beaten if Celesteela packs Topsy-Turvy. Celesteela is pretty similar to Magearna. It runs Primordial Sea and Aerilate, but unlike Magearna, it runs Triage (no, Triage Magearna isn't viable, I've seen some people try it). Prankster should work reasonably well for it.

Imposter Chansey doesn't like taking super effective Dragon STAB from Eternatus, but Eternatus dislikes it even more. Scarf Chansey removes the speed ties entirely. Chansey has a higher chance of baiting Eternatus to stay in than Blissey, because everyone expects Eviolite on Chansey. Just be wary of sets you can't check, and you'll have good judgement very quickly on that. Specs Etern against Eviolite Chansey is obviously a very dodgy matchup.

Note: Do not use Chansey without Imposter. It checks Eternatus, but is very bad. People will take advantage of your Chansey to get momentum, and Chansey has zero offensive presence without Imposter.

Dialga @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Core Enforcer
- Rapid Spin (can be anything, really)
- Nuzzle
- U-turn

Regenvest Dialga has an advantage against Etern 1v1, and even Specs Etern fails to OHKO it. Nuzzle and Core Enforcer both are extremely threatening to Eternatus. This set threatens any defensive Eternatus well and can wall an attack from most offensive sets. It's a pretty loose check, but one worth mentioning.

There are more checks to Eternatus. Ho-Oh exists and can Glare Eternatus, but Ho-Oh doesn't resist any of Eternatus STAB, and Prankster can be threatened through Core Enforcer. Ho-Oh also doesn't really run any defensive abilities to better its matchup against the more offensive Eternatus sets. Solgaleo and by extension Dusk Mane can get a good matchup against Eternatus, but the former is very passive and the latter doesn't seem very good in this current meta. There are a lot of pokemon which can set up to outspeed Eternatus like Regigigas, but I would absolutely not call Regigigas an Eternatus check. You will usually need to have already boosted to win that matchup. Any other mon I mention is gonna be either a bulky Steel, or a niche mon which needs a very specific environment to work. Paralysis and priority, usually Triage, is king against Eternatus. With Belly Drum banned, Unburden is now unviable and one of the methods people used to get past Eternatus is gone.

I'm mainly answering you because you responded to my post, but I know that other players will have more creative and more helpful advice than I would. I'd like to help more, but I'm not terribly confident in my own advice. Checking Eternatus is extremely difficult. It is the best pokemon in the metagame without a doubt. It's one of the reasons I had so much trouble trying to improve at Gen 8 BH over the past few years. It really would serve you well to have two checks for it if possible, given how ubiquitous it is. Hopefully someone else posts and can provide additional advice.

 

[Tea Guzzler]

following on from the current convo on abilities, I realized that whilst i've been saying what abilities are good, i've not really elaborated much on why, nor does an existing resource exist for judging how good an ability is without making up sets and seeing what sticks. thought i'd put together a bit of a tier list on what (generally) i'd say is viable or not.

NOTE: To an extent, the tier list is ordered, though ordering abilities with completely different use cases (eg. Magic Bounce, Fur Coat, Adapt) isn't exactly definite. The easiest way to use the list is to gauge how close an ability is to the start and end of a group, rather than the positions relative to other abilities. The list is also a guideline first and foremost, as I am aware I lack experience with all of these and so abilities in niche and below may be debatable.

Each of the dropdown lists has the abilities in that tier, along with the same icon as the list above, so for example indicates Sniper. Whilst this gives you a general idea of what abilities are good or not, nothing can substitute for gameplay. Some abilities have explanations, but the majority will assume you know how the abilities work.

Poison Heal & Imposter

IMO, these are the 2 best abilities in the tier. They have by far the most defining presences and completely shape the metagame.

I personally believe that Poison Heal is the better of the 2, and therefore the best ability in BH. This is for a few reasons - you have completely free recovery at the end of every turn (regardless of whether you've been on the field for the whole turn or not), aren't dependent on an item beyond getting one safe turn, have an immunity to status conditions, and Imposter is unable to benefit from your recovery (unlike Regenerator) unless they specifically run Toxic Orb (at which point they are crippled against anything else). In addition, this recovery is infinite, meaning that in drawn out games you're never at risk of being starved of recovery, which is very important in BH as everything is massively bulky and games take significantly longer than most other tiers. The fact that answers to common PH users like Regigigas and Xerneas are basically mandatory, as well as sets going out of their way to be bad in order to counter PH (Knock + Purify, Entrainment specifically for PH, non-STAB Core Enforcers), also speak to it's dominance.

Imposter is a close second. To address the elephant in the room, Imposter has a significantly more defined presence than PH, to the point where teams are built with all 6 mons having accounted for Imposter in the builder. It's ability to throw around it's obscene bulk to completely change the flow of games cannot be ignored, and with the various item choices in Eviolite, Shed Shell, Toxic Orb and Light Ball it can mix up what it wants to disrupt, on top of having limitless PP through transforming. To add on to this, Imposter users won't transform into a transformed target, so in many cases you have access to a Chansey that's never running out of PP, which you can use for various means (mostly being a free way to Improof your own mons). I think Imposter's slightly lower than PH mainly due to the fact that Imposter is completely in control of the other player, and so with good Improofing you can sometimes find that Imposter becomes mostly deadweight bulk - even though being completely deadweight is an unlikely situation, the enemy can still heavily limit what this can do. Imposter also has the disadvantage of hating item loss more than anything in the tier (excluding Toxic Orb Imposter), whereas PH in most instances isn't bothered.

Very Viable

These are all abilities that heavily shape the meta and need to be accounted for in the builder. Mons running these can be expected to perform well and can usually fill multiple niches on a team.

Pixilate makes all Normal-type moves into Fairy-type moves, and then gives them a free 20% Base Power boost - what this means is that Pixilate Rapid Spin becomes unblockable and Pixilate Boomburst has 168 base power BEFORE STAB and also only has 1 fringe drawback (being a sound move means it can get blocked by Soundproof). When the singular most defining meta threat runs this ability (Pixilate Xerneas), it's definitely worth this spot. Compared to the other -ate abilities, Pixilate's the best simply because Fairy is a completely busted type, especially in BH where the massive majority of the high-BST threats are Dragon-type, there are 2 usable Poison types (one is part-Dragon and the other has 0 physical bulk), 2 usable Fire types (of which 1 is part-Dragon) and the Steel-types tend to be slow and passive.

Magic Bounce thrives in BH specifically due to the greater emphasis on hazards compared to any other tier. Having the ability to completely reverse the enemy's attempts (often their primary way of doing so) is by itself great, but then you also account for the fact that Magic Bounce reverses other status moves too, including Glare, Parting Shot, Strength Sap and Worry Seed, to name a few. Bounce's main application as an anti-hazard tool works extremely well into Spikes-oriented balance (a large part of current meta) and bulky Bouncers such as Zygarde-C and Ferrothorn can make life hell for these teams if they don't prepare specifically for these.

Adaptability turns the STAB boost from 1.5x to 2x, which basically means that running Adaptability makes your STAB moves 33% stronger. This is excellent as the obscene power of STAB attacks from mons like Palkia and Blacephalon is further increased, to levels as silly as Adapt + Life Orb Blacephalon being able to OHKO Regigigas from full with V-create. Unlike other options, such as Tough Claws, Hustle or the now-banned Intrepid Sword, Adaptability also benefits every STAB move, not just moves on one side of the spectrum - this means that Adaptability is the go-to choice for Mixed Attackers, which themselves are excellent for having built-in workarounds for Fur Coat and Ice Scales / RegenVest. Simply put, Adaptability is as high as it is due to the massive damage buff it provides to already-excellent attackers.

Renegerator jumps on the same bandwagon as PH in terms of a passive recovery ability - you effectively gain the item slot and higher instant recovery in return for not being able to heal without switching (regen mons don't normally run recovery moves), being easier for Imposter to exploit and being vulnerable to status. Regen also has a notable advantage over PH in that it isn't dependent on poison, so immunities like Dialga and Eternatus can benefit. Mostly, if you're using Regen, then you're using it on something which can't run PH but wants passive recovery, or you give it Regen specifically to be a slow pivot (creating what is known as RegenVest - Regenerator + AV). Passive recovery in general is busted, which is why this and PH are so high.

Fur Coat is pretty simple in how it can be used, as it just straight doubles Physical Defence, and so if you're running Fur Coat then your main intention is being a physical wall. With the massive attack stats running around in BH (such as Kartana, Kyurem-Black, Regigigas and Groudon), having a way to effectively halve these mons' damage output is phenomenal, and is often the sole reason why they sacrifice other damage-boosting abilities like Adaptability in order to ignore FC with Mold Breaker. The only real issues with Fur Coat are that, against these Mold Breaker threats (or Kartana with Sunsteel Strike), Fur Coat is basically useless, on top of most Fur Coat mons being relatively passive (not helped by the fact that Fur Coat doesn't boost Body Press' damage). Still, great ability.

Simple is the main form of explosive setup now that Belly Drum is dead, and enables some very fearsome threats to start causing havoc with their boosted hits. SimpleGear, SimplePlot and SNR (Simple + No Retreat) are the main 3 you'll all be seeing, and these all use their massive attack increases to punch through walls and completely destroy targets that aren't walls. Additionally, Unaware is uncommon (as you'll see later) and Prankster is less necessary after Drum ban, so Simple is only really held back by most users' vulnerability to paralysis and the Imposter matchup. The power of instantly getting to +4 Sp. Atk and dropping whatever's in front of you cannot be understated, especially unlike Drum where you can do it multiple times.

Triage gives healing moves +3 recovery - chief of these moves is Oblivion Wing, enabling flying types like Yveltal, Rayquaza and Celesteela to boost with Nasty Plot and then use an attack that always outpaces Extreme Speed and any Prankster-boosted moves like Haze. The main purpose of Triage attackers is as a cleaning tool, since you'll always be attacking first and so you can pick off targets before they can recover or strip your boosts. It's worth noting that Oblivion Wing, despite the seemingly-low 80BP, is actually very strong after a boost, further augmented by Life Orb. However, since Drum was banned, Triage lost one of it's best abusers in TriageDrum Kartana (Horn Leech/Drain Punch) and Prankster is less common, so the niche of going before it might be less important than before.

Magic Guard blocks all indirect damage, including that of hazards and status effects. In such a hazard-laden metagame, where indirect damage has such a big impact, having an immunity to this is great. Notably, Ho-Oh is excellent with Magic Guard as not only does it benefit from being immune to Stealth Rock but it also can use Brave Bird without any recoil - Life Orb also doesn't give recoil, meaning with Fire Lash and Brave Bird, Ho-Oh can break past a large amount of walls. There's no real disadvantages to Magic Guard, but the pool of mons that both can run it and want to run it (ie. they don't prefer another ability) is fairly slim, mostly capped at Ho-Oh and Zekrom.

Prankster is a hot topic lately after Drum's ban. Prankster is by far the best glue in BH, with Prankster + Haze making for setup control that's easy to fit on teams and is relatively reliable (emphasis on relatively - Triage out-prioritizes it, Core Enforcer silences it and it doesn't help against unboosted threats). However, an issue with Prankster is that the majority of Prankster users tend to end up as highly passive mons, notably things like Giratina, Darmanitan-Zen, Tapu Fini and the like - this is significant to a point where Prankster users are often chosen based on how non-passive they are, with Groudon being the most common as Thousand Arrows is excellent. This passivity is the limiting factor of Prankster, which is why it's not nearer the top of the meta, but is still an important factor that needs to be addressed during the builder.

Ice Scales halves incoming special damage - this isn't the same as doubled Sp. Def, as taking halved special damage also means that your ability can't be "ignored" by Psystrike and Secret Sword (because Fur Coat doubles PhysDef, these moves also run into that). Ice Scales is similarly simple to Fur Coat, in that anything you give Scales becomes a special wall. Most often, you're using Scales to help with walling Xerneas and Eternatus, the 2 primary special attackers (more niche ones like Rayquaza or Spectrier either hit with mixed attacks or, in Spectrier's case, ignore Ice Scales altogether with Moongeist Beam). This is still good, though due to there being multiple options for special walls (whether being through natural bulk, like Ho-Oh, or through RegenVest) there's less of a need to run it, so it's lower than Fur Coat.

Viable

These are abilities that will likely perform well if you run them, and all have their own use cases, but may not offer the same consistency or impact as abilities in the above tiers.

Aerilate is similar to Pixilate, in that it's a good offensive type that likes to abuse Boomburst. However, Aerilate isn't as good mainly due to the users - Yveltal, Celesteela and Rayquaza are the primary choices and tend to be harder to use than Xerneas or Magearna. Celesteela is a Steel-type but it's also slow and not massively offensive, whilst Yveltal is mostly locked down to Boots if it wants to be a Xern reskin, and mixed attacking Ray/Yvel are both defensive liabilities. The Spikes immunity can help in the hazard control department, but the worse typing is why it's a tier lower (Flying's weak to common physical options like Bolt Strike and Glacial Lance, whereas Fairy is only really hit by Eternatus and weak Anchor Shots it can Sap/Pivot on).

Desolate Land removes all Water-type moves from existing and boosts Fire damage by 50%. It's mostly an offensive application, as the amount of offensive Water-types that DesLand can check is relatively low (Palkia probably kills whatever's running it and Barraskewda with 0 anti-Fire coverage is asking for a MU fish), and usually you'll be seeing it on Ho-Oh as a way to make V-create deal absurd amounts of damage whilst also functioning as a Palkia "check" with the immunity to Fishious Rend. Other applications include Heatran, which just clicks Lava Plume and Anchor Shot, and Reshiram which just clicks Blue Flare and something else, I don't know. DesLand is good for overriding Primordial Sea and for the Fire damage increase, but basically only as an offensive tool because Water attackers will have ways around, limiting how effective it is.

Mold Breaker is one of what i'd call "anti-counterplay" abilities - these don't really aim at making the user any stronger, but focus on limiting the opponent's capability to respond to you in some way. Mold Breaker/Teravolt/Turboblaze (they're the same) is one such ability because it's primary use case is to snuff Fur Coat, Ice Scales and Flash Fire, in order to allow offensive threats to do as much damage as possible. This is most often used on Choice Band attackers like Kyurem-Black to basically ensure that, if the enemy doesn't predict your attack, something takes 90%+, though also sees some use on Nasty Plot Eternatus as a way to run Blue Flare and still kill Flash Fire users. Running Mold Breaker basically means you want to limit counterplay to your threat as much as possible, and as you're giving up a damage-amping ability these threats need to be sufficient without one such ability. Mold Breaker also sees limited use to ignore Magic Bounce, but only on offensive spikers like Groudon and Eternatus. (DO NOT RUN MOLDY HAZARD LEADS, THIS IS NOT GEN 4 UBERS, YOU DO NOT HAVE A DEOXYS-SPEED THAT CAN SET PERMANENT SPIKES.)

Tough Claws is a pretty standard damage amp ability: 30% BP to contact moves. It mainly sees use on sweepers like non-PH Regigigas and Zacian as these have TC-boosted STABs which allows them higher damage output, compared to other things like Kyurem-Black (Glacial Lance isn't contact) and Kartana (probably wants Steely Spirit or Tinted Lens) who have enough raw power, particularly with Choice Band, to drop things regardless and so would usually prefer anti-counterplay abilities. It's worth noting that, despite TC affecting a wider scope of moves than Adaptability, it's only affecting contact moves and Adaptability's damage boost is slightly higher, so if something doesn't need non-STAB coverage or wants to run a special STAB move, Adapt is stronger.

Primordial Sea removes Fire-type moves and increases Water's damage by 50%. Compared to DesLand, PSea tends to be used in a much more defensive profile as the Fire immunity is significantly more valuable because V-create is on so much (there is the exception of Barraskewda who uses the damage boost to make Fishious Rend unfairly strong, but this is basically the only offensive application). A notable use of PSea is the PSea Steel, which takes Steel type's great defensive profile and adds a Fire immunity, which also can't be ignored by Mold Breaker (this is because PSea sets a weather condition, whereas Flash Fire is tied directly to the user and so gets ignored) and some users like Zamazenta-C can threaten the Ground types that still look to be effective with rain-boosted Fishious Rends. Generally, though, PSea Steels tend to be passive defensive mons used as Improofs to high-power threats (usually Eternatus) so are limited in this regard, similar to Prankster.

When posting this the first time, I disregarded that FF doesn't announce itself and forgot that it still beats DesLand users if they switch in to you. Both are similar enough to where they can share the same tier placement, though i'd always personally opt for PSea since I tend to use Mold Breaker more than average and so get paranoid about it more.

Tinted Lens doubles the damage of not-very-effective moves, effectively meaning that you get to ignore 1 resistance on the target. This is another anti-counterplay ability, but tends to be used as a way to ease predictions since "clicking a move that's NVE against the target and losing damage" isn't a thing that happens - you can't "predict wrong". It's most commonly seen on Kartana, who already basically has Mold Breaker due to it's STAB Sunsteel Strike, so it can use a Banded 100BP STAB move that ignores both Fur Coat and a resistance. Outside of Kartana, however, it's mostly "just another ability you'd see on a band breaker" and as these don't have access to STAB Moldy Moves (Moves that ignore abilities - Sunsteel, Photon, Moongeist), these tend to opt for Mold Breaker or Adaptability, limiting how high this can go.

Niche

These are abilities that have their use cases, but only really work well on one mon or team structure. Usually, these play predictably, have significant flaws and don't offer as much consistency as other options, but are still effective when used right.

Normalize turns all of the user's moves into Normal-type, and gives them a 1.2x boost. The most common setup is Dragapult with Normalize, Entrainment, Ghost Memory Multi-Attack and 2 filler moves used to disrupt the opponent, creating NormPult. Normalize is in this tier as NormPult is it's only good application, plays predictably and doesn't have significant room for mix-ups, though it's presence still needs to be respected and it can completely dominate teams that forget to bring checks for it such as a bulky Magic Bounce user.

Dragon's Maw is almost exclusively an Eternatus tool - there's one thing you're using it for, being to make Dragon Energy deal as much damage as is physically possible. SpecsMaw Eternatus, despite it's inflexibility, has obscene damage output that must be respected, with sacking the Specs for something like Dragon Fang barely leaving you dry for power. It's one note, but that note is dealing 100% in one hit on something that's usually going first, so whilst the inflexibility holds it back the threat of SpecsMaw alone puts it here.

Yet another ability you basically only see on Kartana, Steely Spirit boosts the mon's team's Steel Type BP by 50%. The emphasis on the user's team is important as, not only does Kartana gain a 50% stronger Sunsteel, but it also allows teammates to benefit - most commonly, this is RegenVest Dialga's Doom Desire, which can create some nasty setups that can mow through almost anything in front of it. Steely has this one singular application, but it's such a good application that it's this high up the list.

Mostly a Kyurem-White tool, Refrigerate is used to make it's Ice STAB as powerful as possible, using it's base 170 Sp. Atk to break past even resists. It helps that Ice is a great attacking type, teams tend to only run 1 or 2 resists and the ubiquity of Nuzzle means that most teams like using Ground-types to block it, meaning lots of targets. FridgeSpin can technically exist on things like Calyrex-Ice, but these have the same Rocks weakness as Aerilate users and Calyrex doesn't really have a Fridge-boosted physical option outside of the low-PP Extreme Speed which isn't massively strong unboosted. Overall, it has it's own niche as "the Kyu-W enabler" and can be used to great effect in the right structure.

No Guard is a tool used to abuse the strong but inaccurate moves like Zap Cannon, Magma Storm, Blizzard and Focus Blast - it's essentially used as a way to try and mix in spreading status whilst being a special attacking threat (there aren't very many physical moves you'd want to use, Dynamic Punch is about the only one and confusion isn't that good). The main issue with No Guard is that you're putting it on mainly to abuse Zap Cannon, but there's the issue of "what if I just ran a bulky Nuzzle user like a RegenVest mon", and the fact that No Guard users tend to diminish in how useful they are as the game goes on. Typically ran by Mewtwo.

Flare Boost increases your Sp. Atk by 50% when burned - this is useful as the thing you're running this on (usually a fast special attacker like Eternatus or Spectrier) can't get para'd, which is huge, but also that Imposter isn't able to benefit from Flare Boost unless you've burned them. The power of Nasty Plot + Flare Boost is equal to that of Simple + Nasty Plot (3x boost to Sp. Atk), so it's an alternative that lets you block status. However, Flare boost means you need to ditch the item slot, meaning either Eternatus loses Black Sludge for recovery or Spectrier loses Life Orb to get guaranteed OHKOs on basically everything - in additon, you either put yourself on a permanent timer or stint your coverage to fit a recovery move, which isn't an ideal choice to have to make.

Basically used by Mewtwo and only Mewtwo, PsySurge blocks priority from hitting grounded targets, increases Psychic's damage by 30% and boosts Expanding Force's power. M2 normally runs either a Specs set or a Nasty Plot set with EForce and Photon Geyser in order to abuse the terrain, which is also useful as it prevents Extreme Speed and Triage from being used as revenge-killing tools, and stops Prankster + Parting Shot spam from cutting your damage. PsySurge is mostly a mid-tier ability because Psychic just isn't a very good type and Mewtwo's the only good abuser, and the anti-priority niche isn't perfect as Haze doesn't target the foe and so Prankster Haze still works normally in terrain.

Sheer Force is an excellent ability, but in BH it's mostly limited by a lack of abusers. Physical attacks are often non-SF boosted and stronger than SF-boosted counterparts, and there aren't too many special abusers with Eternatus and Mewtwo being the main ones. Mewtwo in general is underexplored but Eternatus doesn't benefit from SF on it's Dragon STAB. Could see this rising with more experimentation and is still worth considering, but a lot of the common moves in BH with dodgy secondary effects like Core Enforcer aren't boosted.

Soundproof blocks all sound moves - you're basically always using it to block Xerneas, if you have a team structure that for some reason can't find an Ice Scales user. The most common users, Zygarde-C and Groudon, are capable of completely nullifying Xerneas as they're able to block the ubiquitous Volt Switch as well as being immune to the main STAB (Groudon is more offensive but is vulnerable to Fishious Rend coverage), on top of helping check random threats that might be problematic such as mixed Rayquaza or Specs Kyurem-White. However, Soundproof is fairly limiting as it's almost useless outside of checking -ate users and the common users of it tend to give up lots of healing through Strength Sap, so they limit Xerneas' damage but in turn give it HP.

Lumping these 2 together as they play the exact same role - rain teams. Rain teams are niche in that you'd require the entire team to be built for rain in order for it to work as well as it can, and with weather in general it's usually a case of "it works brilliantly" or "it doesn't work at all". I think rain as a playstyle has the more "works well" matchups than sun or hail, mainly due to how absurdly powerful Swift Swim Palkia is under rain (there basically isn't a thing you can't OHKO), but also how easy it is to shut down with priority like PixiSpeed can't be ignored. These 2 rain abilities are probably the most successful of the weather abilities (which outside of primal weathers are all niche), so that's why they're above sun and Snow Warning.

Liquid Ooze works by damaging the target for anything they'd heal from you - the main reason you'd be using this in BH is to punish Strength Sap spam, which is ran by the mjaority of offensive threats as the instant recovery is unmatched. With a high Attack user, typically a Steel-type such as Necrozma-Dusk-Mane or Melmetal, a Sap into these often spells death for the healing target, and they get to abuse status moves more than they should as they can purposefully Sap into Magic Bounce users and force damage on them, leaving them hesitant to switch in. There isn't really a use case outside of meming on Sap spam and Magic Bounce users, but it's funny none the less and can be effective in matchups where the enemy needs Sap to heal multiple mons.

Lightning Rod's good because you get to completely forget Nuzzle exists, and instead use it as a way to set up (Lightningrod's +1 SpA is more valuable than Volt Absorb's recovery or Motor Drive's +1 Spe). Lightningrod also benefits from Electrify, which can force the target to activate your ability, not damaging you in the process. Calyrex-S used to run it back when it was freed, but in current meta you'll only really see it as an Eternatus ability due to it's high speed and bulk, shown best in this thread (week 6). Electrify is nice because it also pierces Magic Bounce. It's not ideal because Glare is Normal-type and so isn't blocked, and without the threat of boosting to oblivion there's not tremendous punishment for the enemy spamming status moves and not activating your ability.

Sniper exists in 2 forms - Focus Energy + Scope Lens, or Shift Gear + Autocrit moves. The SG sets are probably the weaker of the 2, as the mons that have STAB on them (the Urshifu forms) don't have stellar base Attack and the mons themselves are frail defensive liabilities. Scope Lens sets are almost always an Eternatus, which runs Focus Energy, Draco Meteor, Sludge Bomb and Overheat - the main idea is that, after a Focus Energy, you have 100% crit rate meaning that you're a "setup" Eternatus that is immune to Topsy-Turvy and Haze (Haze doesn't remove Focus Energy crit buff), with Imposter additionally only having a 50% crit rate. However, the main issue with this set is the complete dependance on the item and lack of recovery, whilst also only having a 2.25x damage modifier so some Ice Scales Steel-types can stall out Overheat.

Guts is odd, because you see the massive physical profile of the meta and you'd think that having 50% stronger moves'd be great, 50% is the Gorilla Tactics boost and that got banned. However, the primary issue with Guts is that you give up both the item slot and ability slot for 50% power, which isn't as much raw damage as other alternatives (eg. Life Orb + Tough Claws is a 69% boost). It still has it's niche use case due to lower chip than Life Orb, affecting all physical moves and blocking status, but other item/ability combinations simply do more damage and so are usually preferred.

Dazzling/Queenly Majesty block priority from connecting with you. It's like PsySurge, except you trade the Psychic damage for the infinite duration of the effect, it's generally not excellent but you're mostly going to be using it for counter-teaming in a tour setting as running actual ladder teams with Dazzling isn't very effective. Blocking Priority attacks like Extreme Speed and Triage isn't massive as they're not really common enough to run a dedicated check for, plus since you lack a damage-amp ability you're not normally able to punish the bulky attackers running these abilities like Xerneas and Yveltal.

Competitive gives you +2 SpA if you have a stat lowered. It's main use is to help limit Parting Shot spam, as you get a net +3 SpA, whilst also being able to switch in on and punish other stat-lowering tools such as Thunderous Kick and Fire Lash. This is another mostly-Eternatus ability as it has the speed and power to be an offensive threat without being completely reliant on Competitive going off, and it has the bulk and typing to allow it to switch in on stat-lowering attacks. The interaction with Defog isn't as important as it is in standard play due to Defog simply being the lesser-preferred hazard clearing option. Defiant's not included here because I think it just doesn't have the abusers necessary to be good.

Hustle boosts physical damage by 50% but cuts accuracy by 20% - basically, you'd be using this if you want to run Choice Band Hustle in an attempt to regreate Choice Band Gorilla Tactics, with the drawback of missing. Generally, you'd be running Hustle Kyu-B, after which point it's another case of "why would I not use Mold Breaker and kill everything by ignoring Fur Coat", and turning every move to Stone Edge isn't that desirable a trait given Band Kyu-B already basically OHKOs everything anyway. Super-powered moves like V-create, Glacial Lance and Wicked Blow also only have 8PP so running out can be a genuine risk.

Very similar to the above in that you'd be using Download to try and replicate a banned ability, this time Intrepid Sword. Download also has the benefit of being able to raise Sp. Atk, meaning you can use it on mixed attackers like Palkia to gain a slightly larger boost than Adaptability for certain attacks, and can also Baton Pass this boost to a teammate. However, Download's main issue is that you can't actually control which stat the boost goes into without throwing yourself into risky situations, meaning that if you're using it as an ISword substitute then it mighn't actually do anything (if the enemy is a physical wall, you don't get the +Atk to help blow past). Furthermore, in order to benefit from both boosts you need to run it on mixed attackers, to which point you're basically only clicking STABs so Adaptability is normally preferred.

Sand Stream has a very limited use spread, as only Nihilego, Tyranitar and Diance can make use of it (all of which are incredibly niche). Sand Stream is useful as it boosts the Sp. Def of these by 50%, allows sand chip to dig into anything on the field, and allows you to benefit from boosted Shore Up healing by spamming it across multiple mons. Sand chip works both ways, however, so unless you're Ground/Steel spamming you're going to be taking some chip too, and these Rock types themselves are pretty niche so you don't get many chances to work with Sand. Stream is the only Sand ability here as the other 2 aren't worth running at all (Sand Force is bad, Sand Veil is bad).

Unaware is an odd one. Theoretically, in a tier with as much setup spam as it has, you'd think Unaware'd be a godsend as you can simply ignore anything that these monsters want to do. However, Unaware is massively limited because outside of setup it's completely redundant (and can actually harm you as you can't benefit from atk/def drops on the enemy), and it's usually pretty obvious that you're running Unaware after the first run-in with a setup mon, so they can simply decide not to set up and exploit your otherwise lack of an ability to make progress. It can offer you some free turns if the enemy doesn't know yet / realise, or if they're too reliant on setup as a means to make progress, but generally you'll struggle to get a lot of use out of it.

Lumping these all, same as rain - sun teams generally don't offer the same power as rain teams due to V-create and Fishious Rend being similar in power, yet V-create is significantly less spammable and there are few Fire-types that are explosive as rain abusers. Sun seemingly has even less longevity due to a Stealth Rocks weakness (which you probably aren't running Boots spam for), and Solar Power's constant chip digging into already-frail mons especially given Life Orb. Overall, sun is fringe and IMO worse than rain but it can still work if you don't load a hell matchup.

Corrosion can be used to poison Steel-type users; it's primary use is on Eternatus, so you can use a Toxic that won't miss and put the Steel-types on a timer so other teammates like PH Regigigas can have an easier time breaking through them. You risk poisoning Imposter and giving them an Eviolite-boosted, 704HP PH Regigigas which can somewhat limit how much use you get out of Toxic, and there's also the conflict between running Corrison x and being able to use a different ability x / being able to use Nuzzle more easily, to which the Nuzzle route is normally easier as Steel-types still dislike paralysis. It hasn't been seen in a while, but still has it's niche and is nowhere near as bad as the stuff in the tier below.

Snow Warning is used exclusively as a means to activate Aurora Veil - halving how much damage your team takes sounds like it's an excellent ability to run, however it has it's drawbacks of hail chip digging into your team, Imposter being able to steal your screens unless you run other weather users and the setter (which typically needs to be something really fast) not being that useful outside of setting. Additionally, simply running dual screens is a viable alterative that doesn't sack the ability slot and Veil in general doesn't fit many team structures as the window to abuse it is typically very small (whereas screens can handily fit on a Prankster user in the 2 free slots after haze/recover).

Transistor is significantly less applicable than Dragon Energy because there's not any super-powered STAB to exploit, Bolt Beak is banned and Bolt Strike can miss / only has 130BP. It does have it's uses, namely on Zekrom who's able to OHKO a large amount of targets after a Shift Gear, but other than that you don't really have a use case for it. Transistor Xurkitree technically can be used but this mas major issues with speed and flexibility.

Klutz has one singular application, which is AV + Klutz + Trick. This works as Klutz turns off your AV, meaning you can Trick it where you normally wouldn't be able to - the main target for sending the AV to is the enemy's Prankster, so you can more easily spam setup and get away with it. However, the strategy by itself is flawed as the mon using Klutz is basically useless outside of this one tech which mightn't actually go off correctly, and some mons like Prankster Giratina can carry untrickable items such as Griseous Orb, meaning if you load a bad matchup you can basically be down 5-6 at preview.

Pressure stall has only ever worked once, and it was from cityscapes' demonic team that can be found in this thread (week 1 team). With Pressure and Lunar Dance support you're able to stall out the PP of the enemy's important moves, namely Haze which is the unfortunate fate I experienced. However, outside of this one team (from the tier's best player none the less) i've never really had issues with pressure-stall structures as these need the entire team oriented around them and playing optimally over the massive game duration pressure stall requires can get difficult after a while. This barely borders bad/outclassed, here based on city alone.

Bad / Outclassed

These aren't recommended for use at all. They're either decent but other options are simply upgrades, or they don't really have any use case at all and shouldn't be used unless you want to specifically use them. I've refrained from putting every non-above ability in here just because the ones listed here are ones I see somewhat regularly on ladder.

Misty Surge'd be so much better if, like every other terrain, it increased damage output. Instead of increasing Fairy-type damage it instead halves Dragon-type damage and blocks status from happening, except it doesn't actually block Toxic Orb from going off since this attempts to activate status after terrain expires (evidence). Whilst theoretically you can use it as a means to nullify Nuzzle, you also can't benefit from it and the duration is too short to use it to end games by completely voiding paralysis (even with extender).

Levitate seems good because Ground is a great typing in BH, until you realise that Thousand Arrows is spammed by Groudon (the best Ground-type) and not only does TArrows hit through Levitate, it grounds you AND Levitate means you take Ground-type damage rather than the always-neutral damage you take if you were Flying-type.

Speed Boost has basically one application - Swords Dance + Speed Boost Kyurem-Black. To be honest, it's mostly fringe just because Simple + Shift Gear is basically the same, but with SD/SB you get to spam V-create without having your speed dropped. Other than this it's outclassed, and with SimpleGear you still get to V-create twice before you're at neutral speed. TTTech thinks it's better than Simple so ask him for more info.

Flower Veil prevents Grass-types from having their stats lowered and from being hit with status. There's only one good Grass-type, in Kartana, though Flower Veil actually synergises well with it because you can't get burned and paralysed (which'd limit 2 stats Kart is dependent on). However, it's only applicable on Kartana (who might prefer other abilities to deal damage like Steely Spirit) and, whilst it stops the Attack drop from Strength Sap, it doesn't actually stop the recovery.

Comatose seems nice because you're completely immune to status and it can't be removed by Entrainment (so the user can block NormPult), but there's ways of blocking paralysis that are significantly better (see PH) and blocking Entrain isn't reason alone to use this.

Technician was outlined in my post a couple days ago, but generally it's just outclassed as the primary moves it boosts (Triple Axel, Dragon Darts, Bonemerang, Storm Throw, Gear Grind, Draining Kiss) have stronger or similar-power alternatives achieveable by using other abilities that can have more of an impact. Technician also barely exists for special attackers, Kyu-B is basically the only physical Technician user and Band Pheromosa exists to do STAB Storm Throw I guess but it's Pheromosa so it keels over to literally anything.

Skill Link is just unnecessary. Of the moves it boosts that you'd use (Bullet Seed, Tail Slap, Icicle Spear, Rock Blast, Water Shuriken, Scale Shot, Pin Missile), moves that are similar in base power exist for these even before any ability boosts (Glacial Lance, Multi-Attack, Steam Eruption/Fishious Rend, Dragon Darts/Energy), or are just bad attacking types (Rock, Bug, Grass).

Mega Launcher sees some limited use on Palkia because Dragon Pulse and Origin Pulse are boosted, but 1. Adaptability Palkia is just better and 2. there are 3 whole usable moves to choose from in DPulse, OPulse and Aura Sphere. Offensive Kyogre'd much rather Sheer Force + Steam Eruption or Poison Heal + Quiver Dance, and both of these are just better than ML Ogre too.

Bulletproof is a meme. The only common move you block is Eternatus' Sludge Bomb, to which 1. just use a Steel-type and 2. your mon is completely invalidated if it uses Sludge Wave instead. The only other instance is if you use SimplePlot Spectrier with Shadow Ball and use Bulletproof to Improof, but then you don't have Moongeist and so are asking to miss kills.

Liquid Voice isn't good for the reason that other options like SF+Steam and Adapt+Rend are just better, but also that it only affects Boomburst (not Rapid Spin) and doesn't give the in-built 20% boost to affected moves that -ate abilities do.

I want to like Neuroforce so much, but having it just be Expert Belt as an ability isn't enough as 20% is just too low to only apply to super effective hits. Maybe if it was 33% then it could be considered over other damage-ampers like Tough Claws, but otherwise it's irrelevant.

Punk Rock cuts incoming sound damage by 50% and raises outgoing sound damage by 30%. Theoretically you can use this on Normal-types like Porygon2 to both sponge Boomburst form things like Xerneas and also deal high-ish (it's a P2) damage in return, but generally Ice Scales is simply superior as it walls every special attack, not just Boomburst. and the damage output isn't stellar even after the 30% boost because it's not STAB on anything good,

Serene Grace is a cheeser's best friend, but in reality it accomplishes basically nothing. Most often, you'll be seeing it on Regieleki in an attempt to flinch-hax it's way past threats, but the fact is that it's clicking a weak move and not actually doing anything to progress the game. Using SGrace to use Sacred Fire with 100% burn rate also isn't worth it just because burn is comparatively low-value in BH.

Dauntless Shield is worse Fur Coat. Whilst you could justify it as a PhysDef-boosting option that can limit Mold Breaker and also boosts Body Press, the extra defence offered by FC and also not having the boost removable by Spectral Thief or Haze makes this basically irrelevant.

Scrappy's main use pre-Drum-ban was either on Belly Drum + ESpeed Regigigas, or on Scrappy + Scarf Final Gambit. ScrappySpeed is dead and GambitSpam is pretty easy to counter if you know what you're doing / have any priority (especially PixiSpeed), so Scrappy in general doesn't see any good use. Scrappy SubPunch Zama-C has been used once I hear but nothing else.

Merciless gives you 100% crit rate against poisoned targets (PH users), whilst always critting against PH Gigas/Xerneas seems cool the reality is this is the only application of the ability and other things like Fur Coat + Entrainment also deal with PH whilst doing other things. Poisoning everything to benefit more from Merciless also means you can't spam Nuzzle for free progress and speed control, which is also a disadvantage.

Limping these all here as "stat-on-kill" abilities. These are all generally bad, gaining a boost from a kill usually isn't enough to snowball into a kill chain unless you've basically already won and so you're almost always running with a dead ability. As One is the highest because it can't be removed by Entrainment and the like, but this isn't reason to use it.

Effect Spore seems like a nice way to activate the now-banned sleep, but the restriction of contact moves only combined with the 30% activation chance (also combined with the chance to give the target a non-sleep status) hold it back from being useful. You're basically only connecting this with RegenVest users or Magic Guard Ho-Oh.

Stamina is like Dauntless but you actually need to get hit to get the boost. Not useful as a physical walling option, if you want to spam Body Press then just use Cotton Guard as Prankster, Spectral Thief and Ghost Types limit how useful DefencePress can be to begin with.

Harvest + Sitrus Berry can *theoretically* net you 25% recovery every turn by recycling your Sitrus Berry, which sounds good as it's double what PH recovery. However, the chance for it to activate is only 50% (meaning you can get completely screwed by RNG), and if your berry is Tricked or Knocked Off then the ability fails for the rest of the game. You also don't get a status immunity or boosted Facade unlike PH.

Truant + Skill Swap exists to where you use Skill Swap to give the target Truant, trap it in, use Protect to be immune to damage and aim to kill it off (usually with indirect damage such as Infestation). The issue here is that you completely fall flat against Magic Guard, non-Sap recovery, Teleport and simply by switching the turn after you recieve Truant as, to not suffer a lost turn, the Truant user has to Skill Swap first.

Sap Sipper gives a Grass immunity and then raises your Attack by 1 if you get hit by one, which theoretically sounds nice as Strength Sap is a Grass-type move, however Grass is a really bad, and thus uncommon, attacking type (Kartana's the only relevant Grass-type and it almost never runs Grass STAB). Most Sap users also have the raw power to simply kill the thing in front of them, and Magic Bounce is more effective as a Sap blocking tool as you get Sap recovery from the user instead.

Strong Jaw boosts biting moves by 50%. The only biting move you're ever using is Fishious Rend, and in this case Primodial Sea is strictly better as it can be used to override Desolate Land's Water immunity, provides a functional immunity and other Water attacks like Flip Turn also get a boost.

Banned

These are too good for the tier. I'll give some reasoning as to why they aren't balanced, some like Huge/Pure Power and Wonder Guard'll be pretty obvious but some aren't as clear. If you're after more information as to each, you can look in old OM suspects to gather people's reasonings.

Trapping is usually seen as uncompetitive in a game so oriented around switching (particularly BH, to which the games go on for ages and so more switching tends to be done than other tiers), so having a way to automatically trap and eliminate targets is peak uncompetitive as it's unreasonable to force everything to run Shed Shell or pivoting.

Contrary is banned because moves like V-create, Fleur Cannon, Draco Meteor and Overheat are free and available on everything. Contrary Kyu-B spamming V-create and Eternatus spamming Draco is not balanced at all, whereas in standard play it's limited by it's users being slow and having access to not that many moves.

Gorilla Tactics is banned because 2 Choice Bands is completely unfair in terms of raw damage output, mandating Fur Coat on every team as a complete bandage check that barely even works well isn't balanced, especially with the physical monsters in current meta like Kyurem-Black, Kartana and Groudon.

Simply put, having doubled Attack isn't balanced. Huge Power + Choice Band gives you a functional +4 Attack instantly and does not result in good gameplay as the user can literally drop everything on the field in one hit.

Illusion is banned because, in a tier with as much offensive potential as BH, having this be disguised and forcing you to guess between not only if the target is an illusion or not but also what it is if it has Illusion isn't balanced. Illusion also blocks Transform/Imposter, meaning that a disguised setup mon not only hides what it is but also completely eliminates one of the most common forms of setup control, potentially also invalidating the other in Prankster because it doesn't know what attacks it'll be expecting to run into.

Innards out is banned because of Chansey and Blissey. In a meta where poisoning the enemy is reletively low-value, having to constantly play against what is basically an instant Destiny Bond doesn't create balanced experiences as they can be hard to wear down with indirect damage and physical attackers have to risk instant death in order to actually do damage.

Intrepid Sword offers too much power to physical attackers. Realistically, it's basically the same as Gorilla Tactics except harder to Improof as it activates again when Imposter copies you. Similar argument to GTactics in that having Fur Coat mandatory on every team doesn't result in very inventive gameplay nor a fun tier.

Having every attack being STAB isn't balanced given the absurd power of the moves available, and unlike GTactics and ISword can be abudes by special attackers as well as physical, so a Protean metagame becomes heavily offence-dominated because every attack deals ridiculous amounts of damage.

Banned under Smogon's Moody Clause. Otherwise, it's another element of complete randomness that isn't healthy for the game. Basically mandates Prankster and/or Spectral Thief spam on every team in order to handle it easily, as SubPass teams'd be common beneficiaries and Substitute blocks Imposter.

Neutralizing Gas isn't like Mold Breaker - instead of ignoring abilities when you attack, NGas simply turns off every ability. What this means is that every ability used to accomplish anything simply ceases to exist, which is notable with Shift Gear attackers as every response to these (Fur Coat, Prankster, Imposter, Unaware, Primal weathers) simply doesn't activate. In a meta where the ability defines the set so much, completely removing this aspect of the game is completely unbalanced.

Parental Bond is unbalanced not only for the functional 25% damage increase it provides but also for the fact that it procs secondary effects twice, meaning that Fire Lash/Thunderous Kick drop Defence twice, Ancient Power threatens a boost twice, Sludge Bomb becomes a poisoning machine, and the like. Nothing's really switching into offensive Parental Bond Zamazenta-C outside of omega-passive Giratina, also I didn't know this but Nature's Madness does 75% so yeah.

In a meta where switching is so important (with BH, the thing switching in to you is usually threatening to eliminate you and so you need to switch yourself), instantly doubling your damage against anything switching in isn't balanced as it completely invalidates switching as an option, further backed by you not knowing if the enemy actually has Stakeout or not.

It's like Huge Power but only affects water moves. Even still, having Fishious Rend be a functional 340BP move, especially boosted by Palkia's Lustrous Orb, is absolutely unfair damage output. Water Bubble also blocks burns so you can't even Will-O-Wisp the user to cut it's damage, and also provides a Fire resistance so switching into V-create becomes even easier for Barraskewda.

Wonder Guard is completely busted, having every damage dealer needing Mold Breaker or a Moldy move isn't balanced. Shouldn't need much explanation, if you aren't convinced how centralising this becomes then look as Pure Hackmons which has a completely separate VR for Wonder Guard users.

If there's anything that isn't on this list, then chances are it's not recommended for use or has never been seen to be successful outside of one specific use case. There are a couple with theoretical use cases that almost made the list, like Galvanize, Water Absorb and Iron Barbs, but I don't think that these are good enough to be here.
yo i spent far too long writing this, i wrote the first half friday and it didn't actually safe anything after regen so i am mad lucky i copied this into some random word doc

 

[Glubbfubb]

This is all good information, might not be for me, but its all good information

following on from the current convo on abilities, I realized that whilst i've been saying what abilities are good, i've not really elaborated much on why, nor does an existing resource exist for judging how good an ability is without making up sets and seeing what sticks. thought i'd put together a bit of a tier list on what (generally) i'd say is viable or not.

NOTE: To an extent, the tier list is ordered, though ordering abilities with completely different use cases (eg. Magic Bounce, Fur Coat, Adapt) isn't exactly definite. The easiest way to use the list is to gauge how close an ability is to the start and end of a group, rather than the positions relative to other abilities. The list is also a guideline first and foremost, as I am aware I lack experience with all of these and so abilities in niche and below may be debatable.

View attachment 437186
Each of the dropdown lists has the abilities in that tier, along with the same icon as the list above, so for example indicates Sniper. Whilst this gives you a general idea of what abilities are good or not, nothing can substitute for gameplay. Some abilities have explanations, but the majority will assume you know how the abilities work.

Poison Heal & Imposter

IMO, these are the 2 best abilities in the tier. They have by far the most defining presences and completely shape the metagame.

I personally believe that Poison Heal is the better of the 2, and therefore the best ability in BH. This is for a few reasons - you have completely free recovery at the end of every turn (regardless of whether you've been on the field for the whole turn or not), aren't dependent on an item beyond getting one safe turn, have an immunity to status conditions, and Imposter is unable to benefit from your recovery (unlike Regenerator) unless they specifically run Toxic Orb (at which point they are crippled against anything else). In addition, this recovery is infinite, meaning that in drawn out games you're never at risk of being starved of recovery, which is very important in BH as everything is massively bulky and games take significantly longer than most other tiers. The fact that answers to common PH users like Regigigas and Xerneas are basically mandatory, as well as sets going out of their way to be bad in order to counter PH (Knock + Purify, Entrainment specifically for PH, non-STAB Core Enforcers), also speak to it's dominance.

Imposter is a close second. To address the elephant in the room, Imposter has a significantly more defined presence than PH, to the point where teams are built with all 6 mons having accounted for Imposter in the builder. It's ability to throw around it's obscene bulk to completely change the flow of games cannot be ignored, and with the various item choices in Eviolite, Shed Shell, Toxic Orb and Light Ball it can mix up what it wants to disrupt, on top of having limitless PP through transforming. To add on to this, Imposter users won't transform into a transformed target, so in many cases you have access to a Chansey that's never running out of PP, which you can use for various means (mostly being a free way to Improof your own mons). I think Imposter's slightly lower than PH mainly due to the fact that Imposter is completely in control of the other player, and so with good Improofing you can sometimes find that Imposter becomes mostly deadweight bulk - even though being completely deadweight is an unlikely situation, the enemy can still heavily limit what this can do. Imposter also has the disadvantage of hating item loss more than anything in the tier (excluding Toxic Orb Imposter), whereas PH in most instances isn't bothered.

Very Viable

These are all abilities that heavily shape the meta and need to be accounted for in the builder. Mons running these can be expected to perform well and can usually fill multiple niches on a team.

Pixilate makes all Normal-type moves into Fairy-type moves, and then gives them a free 20% Base Power boost - what this means is that Pixilate Rapid Spin becomes unblockable and Pixilate Boomburst has 168 base power BEFORE STAB and also only has 1 fringe drawback (being a sound move means it can get blocked by Soundproof). When the singular most defining meta threat runs this ability (Pixilate Xerneas), it's definitely worth this spot. Compared to the other -ate abilities, Pixilate's the best simply because Fairy is a completely busted type, especially in BH where the massive majority of the high-BST threats are Dragon-type, there are 2 usable Poison types (one is part-Dragon and the other has 0 physical bulk), 2 usable Fire types (of which 1 is part-Dragon) and the Steel-types tend to be slow and passive.

Magic Bounce thrives in BH specifically due to the greater emphasis on hazards compared to any other tier. Having the ability to completely reverse the enemy's attempts (often their primary way of doing so) is by itself great, but then you also account for the fact that Magic Bounce reverses other status moves too, including Glare, Parting Shot, Strength Sap and Worry Seed, to name a few. Bounce's main application as an anti-hazard tool works extremely well into Spikes-oriented balance (a large part of current meta) and bulky Bouncers such as Zygarde-C and Ferrothorn can make life hell for these teams if they don't prepare specifically for these.

Adaptability turns the STAB boost from 1.5x to 2x, which basically means that running Adaptability makes your STAB moves 33% stronger. This is excellent as the obscene power of STAB attacks from mons like Palkia and Blacephalon is further increased, to levels as silly as Adapt + Life Orb Blacephalon being able to OHKO Regigigas from full with V-create. Unlike other options, such as Tough Claws, Hustle or the now-banned Intrepid Sword, Adaptability also benefits every STAB move, not just moves on one side of the spectrum - this means that Adaptability is the go-to choice for Mixed Attackers, which themselves are excellent for having built-in workarounds for Fur Coat and Ice Scales / RegenVest. Simply put, Adaptability is as high as it is due to the massive damage buff it provides to already-excellent attackers.

Renegerator jumps on the same bandwagon as PH in terms of a passive recovery ability - you effectively gain the item slot and higher instant recovery in return for not being able to heal without switching (regen mons don't normally run recovery moves), being easier for Imposter to exploit and being vulnerable to status. Regen also has a notable advantage over PH in that it isn't dependent on poison, so immunities like Dialga and Eternatus can benefit. Mostly, if you're using Regen, then you're using it on something which can't run PH but wants passive recovery, or you give it Regen specifically to be a slow pivot (creating what is known as RegenVest - Regenerator + AV). Passive recovery in general is busted, which is why this and PH are so high.

Fur Coat is pretty simple in how it can be used, as it just straight doubles Physical Defence, and so if you're running Fur Coat then your main intention is being a physical wall. With the massive attack stats running around in BH (such as Kartana, Kyurem-Black, Regigigas and Groudon), having a way to effectively halve these mons' damage output is phenomenal, and is often the sole reason why they sacrifice other damage-boosting abilities like Adaptability in order to ignore FC with Mold Breaker. The only real issues with Fur Coat are that, against these Mold Breaker threats (or Kartana with Sunsteel Strike), Fur Coat is basically useless, on top of most Fur Coat mons being relatively passive (not helped by the fact that Fur Coat doesn't boost Body Press' damage). Still, great ability.

Simple is the main form of explosive setup now that Belly Drum is dead, and enables some very fearsome threats to start causing havoc with their boosted hits. SimpleGear, SimplePlot and SNR (Simple + No Retreat) are the main 3 you'll all be seeing, and these all use their massive attack increases to punch through walls and completely destroy targets that aren't walls. Additionally, Unaware is uncommon (as you'll see later) and Prankster is less necessary after Drum ban, so Simple is only really held back by most users' vulnerability to paralysis and the Imposter matchup. The power of instantly getting to +4 Sp. Atk and dropping whatever's in front of you cannot be understated, especially unlike Drum where you can do it multiple times.

Triage gives healing moves +3 recovery - chief of these moves is Oblivion Wing, enabling flying types like Yveltal, Rayquaza and Celesteela to boost with Nasty Plot and then use an attack that always outpaces Extreme Speed and any Prankster-boosted moves like Haze. The main purpose of Triage attackers is as a cleaning tool, since you'll always be attacking first and so you can pick off targets before they can recover or strip your boosts. It's worth noting that Oblivion Wing, despite the seemingly-low 80BP, is actually very strong after a boost, further augmented by Life Orb. However, since Drum was banned, Triage lost one of it's best abusers in TriageDrum Kartana (Horn Leech/Drain Punch) and Prankster is less common, so the niche of going before it might be less important than before.

Magic Guard blocks all indirect damage, including that of hazards and status effects. In such a hazard-laden metagame, where indirect damage has such a big impact, having an immunity to this is great. Notably, Ho-Oh is excellent with Magic Guard as not only does it benefit from being immune to Stealth Rock but it also can use Brave Bird without any recoil - Life Orb also doesn't give recoil, meaning with Fire Lash and Brave Bird, Ho-Oh can break past a large amount of walls. There's no real disadvantages to Magic Guard, but the pool of mons that both can run it and want to run it (ie. they don't prefer another ability) is fairly slim, mostly capped at Ho-Oh and Zekrom.

Prankster is a hot topic lately after Drum's ban. Prankster is by far the best glue in BH, with Prankster + Haze making for setup control that's easy to fit on teams and is relatively reliable (emphasis on relatively - Triage out-prioritizes it, Core Enforcer silences it and it doesn't help against unboosted threats). However, an issue with Prankster is that the majority of Prankster users tend to end up as highly passive mons, notably things like Giratina, Darmanitan-Zen, Tapu Fini and the like - this is significant to a point where Prankster users are often chosen based on how non-passive they are, with Groudon being the most common as Thousand Arrows is excellent. This passivity is the limiting factor of Prankster, which is why it's not nearer the top of the meta, but is still an important factor that needs to be addressed during the builder.

Ice Scales halves incoming special damage - this isn't the same as doubled Sp. Def, as taking halved special damage also means that your ability can't be "ignored" by Psystrike and Secret Sword (because Fur Coat doubles PhysDef, these moves also run into that). Ice Scales is similarly simple to Fur Coat, in that anything you give Scales becomes a special wall. Most often, you're using Scales to help with walling Xerneas and Eternatus, the 2 primary special attackers (more niche ones like Rayquaza or Spectrier either hit with mixed attacks or, in Spectrier's case, ignore Ice Scales altogether with Moongeist Beam). This is still good, though due to there being multiple options for special walls (whether being through natural bulk, like Ho-Oh, or through RegenVest) there's less of a need to run it, so it's lower than Fur Coat.

Viable

These are abilities that will likely perform well if you run them, and all have their own use cases, but may not offer the same consistency or impact as abilities in the above tiers.

Aerilate is similar to Pixilate, in that it's a good offensive type that likes to abuse Boomburst. However, Aerilate isn't as good mainly due to the users - Yveltal, Celesteela and Rayquaza are the primary choices and tend to be harder to use than Xerneas or Magearna. Celesteela is a Steel-type but it's also slow and not massively offensive, whilst Yveltal is mostly locked down to Boots if it wants to be a Xern reskin, and mixed attacking Ray/Yvel are both defensive liabilities. The Spikes immunity can help in the hazard control department, but the worse typing is why it's a tier lower (Flying's weak to common physical options like Bolt Strike and Glacial Lance, whereas Fairy is only really hit by Eternatus and weak Anchor Shots it can Sap/Pivot on).

Desolate Land removes all Water-type moves from existing and boosts Fire damage by 50%. It's mostly an offensive application, as the amount of offensive Water-types that DesLand can check is relatively low (Palkia probably kills whatever's running it and Barraskewda with 0 anti-Fire coverage is asking for a MU fish), and usually you'll be seeing it on Ho-Oh as a way to make V-create deal absurd amounts of damage whilst also functioning as a Palkia "check" with the immunity to Fishious Rend. Other applications include Heatran, which just clicks Lava Plume and Anchor Shot, and Reshiram which just clicks Blue Flare and something else, I don't know. DesLand is good for overriding Primordial Sea and for the Fire damage increase, but basically only as an offensive tool because Water attackers will have ways around, limiting how effective it is.

Mold Breaker is one of what i'd call "anti-counterplay" abilities - these don't really aim at making the user any stronger, but focus on limiting the opponent's capability to respond to you in some way. Mold Breaker/Teravolt/Turboblaze (they're the same) is one such ability because it's primary use case is to snuff Fur Coat, Ice Scales and Flash Fire, in order to allow offensive threats to do as much damage as possible. This is most often used on Choice Band attackers like Kyurem-Black to basically ensure that, if the enemy doesn't predict your attack, something takes 90%+, though also sees some use on Nasty Plot Eternatus as a way to run Blue Flare and still kill Flash Fire users. Running Mold Breaker basically means you want to limit counterplay to your threat as much as possible, and as you're giving up a damage-amping ability these threats need to be sufficient without one such ability. Mold Breaker also sees limited use to ignore Magic Bounce, but only on offensive spikers like Groudon and Eternatus. (DO NOT RUN MOLDY HAZARD LEADS, THIS IS NOT GEN 4 UBERS, YOU DO NOT HAVE A DEOXYS-SPEED THAT CAN SET PERMANENT SPIKES.)

Tough Claws is a pretty standard damage amp ability: 30% BP to contact moves. It mainly sees use on sweepers like non-PH Regigigas and Zacian as these have TC-boosted STABs which allows them higher damage output, compared to other things like Kyurem-Black (Glacial Lance isn't contact) and Kartana (probably wants Steely Spirit or Tinted Lens) who have enough raw power, particularly with Choice Band, to drop things regardless and so would usually prefer anti-counterplay abilities. It's worth noting that, despite TC affecting a wider scope of moves than Adaptability, it's only affecting contact moves and Adaptability's damage boost is slightly higher, so if something doesn't need non-STAB coverage or wants to run a special STAB move, Adapt is stronger.

Primordial Sea removes Fire-type moves and increases Water's damage by 50%. Compared to DesLand, PSea tends to be used in a much more defensive profile as the Fire immunity is significantly more valuable because V-create is on so much (there is the exception of Barraskewda who uses the damage boost to make Fishious Rend unfairly strong, but this is basically the only offensive application). A notable use of PSea is the PSea Steel, which takes Steel type's great defensive profile and adds a Fire immunity, which also can't be ignored by Mold Breaker (this is because PSea sets a weather condition, whereas Flash Fire is tied directly to the user and so gets ignored) and some users like Zamazenta-C can threaten the Ground types that still look to be effective with rain-boosted Fishious Rends. Generally, though, PSea Steels tend to be passive defensive mons used as Improofs to high-power threats (usually Eternatus) so are limited in this regard, similar to Prankster.

Tinted Lens doubles the damage of not-very-effective moves, effectively meaning that you get to ignore 1 resistance on the target. This is another anti-counterplay ability, but tends to be used as a way to ease predictions since "clicking a move that's NVE against the target and losing damage" isn't a thing that happens - you can't "predict wrong". It's most commonly seen on Kartana, who already basically has Mold Breaker due to it's STAB Sunsteel Strike, so it can use a Banded 100BP STAB move that ignores both Fur Coat and a resistance. Outside of Kartana, however, it's mostly "just another ability you'd see on a band breaker" and as these don't have access to STAB Moldy Moves (Moves that ignore abilities - Sunsteel, Photon, Moongeist), these tend to opt for Mold Breaker or Adaptability, limiting how high this can go.

Niche

These are abilities that have their use cases, but only really work well on one mon or team structure. Usually, these play predictably, have significant flaws and don't offer as much consistency as other options, but are still effective when used right.

Normalize turns all of the user's moves into Normal-type, and gives them a 1.2x boost. The most common setup is Dragapult with Normalize, Entrainment, Ghost Memory Multi-Attack and 2 filler moves used to disrupt the opponent, creating NormPult. Normalize is in this tier as NormPult is it's only good application, plays predictably and doesn't have significant room for mix-ups, though it's presence still needs to be respected and it can completely dominate teams that forget to bring checks for it such as a bulky Magic Bounce user.

Dragon's Maw is almost exclusively an Eternatus tool - there's one thing you're using it for, being to make Dragon Energy deal as much damage as is physically possible. SpecsMaw Eternatus, despite it's inflexibility, has obscene damage output that must be respected, with sacking the Specs for something like Dragon Fang barely leaving you dry for power. It's one note, but that note is dealing 100% in one hit on something that's usually going first, so whilst the inflexibility holds it back the threat of SpecsMaw alone puts it here.

Yet another ability you basically only see on Kartana, Steely Spirit boosts the mon's team's Steel Type BP by 50%. The emphasis on the user's team is important as, not only does Kartana gain a 50% stronger Sunsteel, but it also allows teammates to benefit - most commonly, this is RegenVest Dialga's Doom Desire, which can create some nasty setups that can mow through almost anything in front of it. Steely has this one singular application, but it's such a good application that it's this high up the list.

Mostly a Kyurem-White tool, Refrigerate is used to make it's Ice STAB as powerful as possible, using it's base 170 Sp. Atk to break past even resists. It helps that Ice is a great attacking type, teams tend to only run 1 or 2 resists and the ubiquity of Nuzzle means that most teams like using Ground-types to block it, meaning lots of targets. FridgeSpin can technically exist on things like Calyrex-Ice, but these have the same Rocks weakness as Aerilate users and Calyrex doesn't really have a Fridge-boosted physical option outside of the low-PP Extreme Speed which isn't massively strong unboosted. Overall, it has it's own niche as "the Kyu-W enabler" and can be used to great effect in the right structure.

No Guard is a tool used to abuse the strong but inaccurate moves like Zap Cannon, Magma Storm, Blizzard and Focus Blast - it's essentially used as a way to try and mix in spreading status whilst being a special attacking threat (there aren't very many physical moves you'd want to use, Dynamic Punch is about the only one and confusion isn't that good). The main issue with No Guard is that you're putting it on mainly to abuse Zap Cannon, but there's the issue of "what if I just ran a bulky Nuzzle user like a RegenVest mon", and the fact that No Guard users tend to diminish in how useful they are as the game goes on. Typically ran by Mewtwo.

Flare Boost increases your Sp. Atk by 50% when burned - this is useful as the thing you're running this on (usually a fast special attacker like Eternatus or Spectrier) can't get para'd, which is huge, but also that Imposter isn't able to benefit from Flare Boost unless you've burned them. The power of Nasty Plot + Flare Boost is equal to that of Simple + Nasty Plot (3x boost to Sp. Atk), so it's an alternative that lets you block status. However, Flare boost means you need to ditch the item slot, meaning either Eternatus loses Black Sludge for recovery or Spectrier loses Life Orb to get guaranteed OHKOs on basically everything - in additon, you either put yourself on a permanent timer or stint your coverage to fit a recovery move, which isn't an ideal choice to have to make.

Basically used by Mewtwo and only Mewtwo, PsySurge blocks priority from hitting grounded targets, increases Psychic's damage by 30% and boosts Expanding Force's power. M2 normally runs either a Specs set or a Nasty Plot set with EForce and Photon Geyser in order to abuse the terrain, which is also useful as it prevents Extreme Speed and Triage from being used as revenge-killing tools, and stops Prankster + Parting Shot spam from cutting your damage. PsySurge is mostly a mid-tier ability because Psychic just isn't a very good type and Mewtwo's the only good abuser, and the anti-priority niche isn't perfect as Haze doesn't target the foe and so Prankster Haze still works normally in terrain.

Soundproof blocks all sound moves - you're basically always using it to block Xerneas, if you have a team structure that for some reason can't find an Ice Scales user. The most common users, Zygarde-C and Groudon, are capable of completely nullifying Xerneas as they're able to block the ubiquitous Volt Switch as well as being immune to the main STAB (Groudon is more offensive but is vulnerable to Fishious Rend coverage), on top of helping check random threats that might be problematic such as mixed Rayquaza or Specs Kyurem-White. However, Soundproof is fairly limiting as it's almost useless outside of checking -ate users and the common users of it tend to give up lots of healing through Strength Sap, so they limit Xerneas' damage but in turn give it HP.

Lumping these 2 together as they play the exact same role - rain teams. Rain teams are niche in that you'd require the entire team to be built for rain in order for it to work as well as it can, and with weather in general it's usually a case of "it works brilliantly" or "it doesn't work at all". I think rain as a playstyle has the more "works well" matchups than sun or hail, mainly due to how absurdly powerful Swift Swim Palkia is under rain (there basically isn't a thing you can't OHKO), but also how easy it is to shut down with priority like PixiSpeed can't be ignored. These 2 rain abilities are probably the most successful of the weather abilities (which outside of primal weathers are all niche), so that's why they're above sun and Snow Warning.

Liquid Ooze works by damaging the target for anything they'd heal from you - the main reason you'd be using this in BH is to punish Strength Sap spam, which is ran by the mjaority of offensive threats as the instant recovery is unmatched. With a high Attack user, typically a Steel-type such as Necrozma-Dusk-Mane or Melmetal, a Sap into these often spells death for the healing target, and they get to abuse status moves more than they should as they can purposefully Sap into Magic Bounce users and force damage on them, leaving them hesitant to switch in. There isn't really a use case outside of meming on Sap spam and Magic Bounce users, but it's funny none the less and can be effective in matchups where the enemy needs Sap to heal multiple mons.

Lightning Rod's good because you get to completely forget Nuzzle exists, and instead use it as a way to set up (Lightningrod's +1 SpA is more valuable than Volt Absorb's recovery or Motor Drive's +1 Spe). Lightningrod also benefits from Electrify, which can force the target to activate your ability, not damaging you in the process. Calyrex-S used to run it back when it was freed, but in current meta you'll only really see it as an Eternatus ability due to it's high speed and bulk, shown best in this thread (week 6). Electrify is nice because it also pierces Magic Bounce. It's not ideal because Glare is Normal-type and so isn't blocked, and without the threat of boosting to oblivion there's not tremendous punishment for the enemy spamming status moves and not activating your ability.

Sniper exists in 2 forms - Focus Energy + Scope Lens, or Shift Gear + Autocrit moves. The SG sets are probably the weaker of the 2, as the mons that have STAB on them (the Urshifu forms) don't have stellar base Attack and the mons themselves are frail defensive liabilities. Scope Lens sets are almost always an Eternatus, which runs Focus Energy, Draco Meteor, Sludge Bomb and Overheat - the main idea is that, after a Focus Energy, you have 100% crit rate meaning that you're a "setup" Eternatus that is immune to Topsy-Turvy and Haze (Haze doesn't remove Focus Energy crit buff), with Imposter additionally only having a 50% crit rate. However, the main issue with this set is the complete dependance on the item and lack of recovery, whilst also only having a 2.25x damage modifier so some Ice Scales Steel-types can stall out Overheat.

Guts is odd, because you see the massive physical profile of the meta and you'd think that having 50% stronger moves'd be great, 50% is the Gorilla Tactics boost and that got banned. However, the primary issue with Guts is that you give up both the item slot and ability slot for 50% power, which isn't as much raw damage as other alternatives (eg. Life Orb + Tough Claws is a 69% boost). It still has it's niche use case due to lower chip than Life Orb, affecting all physical moves and blocking status, but other item/ability combinations simply do more damage and so are usually preferred.

Dazzling/Queenly Majesty block priority from connecting with you. It's like PsySurge, except you trade the Psychic damage for the infinite duration of the effect, it's generally not excellent but you're mostly going to be using it for counter-teaming in a tour setting as running actual ladder teams with Dazzling isn't very effective. Blocking Priority attacks like Extreme Speed and Triage isn't massive as they're not really common enough to run a dedicated check for, plus since you lack a damage-amp ability you're not normally able to punish the bulky attackers running these abilities like Xerneas and Yveltal.

Competitive gives you +2 SpA if you have a stat lowered. It's main use is to help limit Parting Shot spam, as you get a net +3 SpA, whilst also being able to switch in on and punish other stat-lowering tools such as Thunderous Kick and Fire Lash. This is another mostly-Eternatus ability as it has the speed and power to be an offensive threat without being completely reliant on Competitive going off, and it has the bulk and typing to allow it to switch in on stat-lowering attacks. The interaction with Defog isn't as important as it is in standard play due to Defog simply being the lesser-preferred hazard clearing option. Defiant's not included here because I think it just doesn't have the abusers necessary to be good.

Hustle boosts physical damage by 50% but cuts accuracy by 20% - basically, you'd be using this if you want to run Choice Band Hustle in an attempt to regreate Choice Band Gorilla Tactics, with the drawback of missing. Generally, you'd be running Hustle Kyu-B, after which point it's another case of "why would I not use Mold Breaker and kill everything by ignoring Fur Coat", and turning every move to Stone Edge isn't that desirable a trait given Band Kyu-B already basically OHKOs everything anyway. Super-powered moves like V-create, Glacial Lance and Wicked Blow also only have 8PP so running out can be a genuine risk.

Very similar to the above in that you'd be using Download to try and replicate a banned ability, this time Intrepid Sword. Download also has the benefit of being able to raise Sp. Atk, meaning you can use it on mixed attackers like Palkia to gain a slightly larger boost than Adaptability for certain attacks, and can also Baton Pass this boost to a teammate. However, Download's main issue is that you can't actually control which stat the boost goes into without throwing yourself into risky situations, meaning that if you're using it as an ISword substitute then it mighn't actually do anything (if the enemy is a physical wall, you don't get the +Atk to help blow past). Furthermore, in order to benefit from both boosts you need to run it on mixed attackers, to which point you're basically only clicking STABs so Adaptability is normally preferred.

Sand Stream has a very limited use spread, as only Nihilego, Tyranitar and Diance can make use of it (all of which are incredibly niche). Sand Stream is useful as it boosts the Sp. Def of these by 50%, allows sand chip to dig into anything on the field, and allows you to benefit from boosted Shore Up healing by spamming it across multiple mons. Sand chip works both ways, however, so unless you're Ground/Steel spamming you're going to be taking some chip too, and these Rock types themselves are pretty niche so you don't get many chances to work with Sand. Stream is the only Sand ability here as the other 2 aren't worth running at all (Sand Force is bad, Sand Veil is bad).

Unaware is an odd one. Theoretically, in a tier with as much setup spam as it has, you'd think Unaware'd be a godsend as you can simply ignore anything that these monsters want to do. However, Unaware is massively limited because outside of setup it's completely redundant (and can actually harm you as you can't benefit from atk/def drops on the enemy), and it's usually pretty obvious that you're running Unaware after the first run-in with a setup mon, so they can simply decide not to set up and exploit your otherwise lack of an ability to make progress. It can offer you some free turns if the enemy doesn't know yet / realise, or if they're too reliant on setup as a means to make progress, but generally you'll struggle to get a lot of use out of it.

Lumping these all, same as rain - sun teams generally don't offer the same power as rain teams due to V-create and Fishious Rend being similar in power, yet V-create is significantly less spammable and there are few Fire-types that are explosive as rain abusers. Sun seemingly has even less longevity due to a Stealth Rocks weakness (which you probably aren't running Boots spam for), and Solar Power's constant chip digging into already-frail mons especially given Life Orb. Overall, sun is fringe and IMO worse than rain but it can still work if you don't load a hell matchup.

Corrosion can be used to poison Steel-type users; it's primary use is on Eternatus, so you can use a Toxic that won't miss and put the Steel-types on a timer so other teammates like PH Regigigas can have an easier time breaking through them. You risk poisoning Imposter and giving them an Eviolite-boosted, 704HP PH Regigigas which can somewhat limit how much use you get out of Toxic, and there's also the conflict between running Corrison x and being able to use a different ability x / being able to use Nuzzle more easily, to which the Nuzzle route is normally easier as Steel-types still dislike paralysis. It hasn't been seen in a while, but still has it's niche and is nowhere near as bad as the stuff in the tier below.

Snow Warning is used exclusively as a means to activate Aurora Veil - halving how much damage your team takes sounds like it's an excellent ability to run, however it has it's drawbacks of hail chip digging into your team, Imposter being able to steal your screens unless you run other weather users and the setter (which typically needs to be something really fast) not being that useful outside of setting. Additionally, simply running dual screens is a viable alterative that doesn't sack the ability slot and Veil in general doesn't fit many team structures as the window to abuse it is typically very small (whereas screens can handily fit on a Prankster user in the 2 free slots after haze/recover).

Transistor is significantly less applicable than Dragon Energy because there's not any super-powered STAB to exploit, Bolt Beak is banned and Bolt Strike can miss / only has 130BP. It does have it's uses, namely on Zekrom who's able to OHKO a large amount of targets after a Shift Gear, but other than that you don't really have a use case for it. Transistor Xurkitree technically can be used but this mas major issues with speed and flexibility.

Flower Veil prevents Grass-types from having their stats lowered and from being hit with status. There's only one good Grass-type, in Kartana, though Flower Veil actually synergises well with it because you can't get burned and paralysed (which'd limit 2 stats Kart is dependent on). However, it's only applicable on Kartana (who might prefer other abilities to deal damage like Steely Spirit) and, whilst it stops the Attack drop from Strength Sap, it doesn't actually stop the recovery.

Klutz has one singular application, which is AV + Klutz + Trick. This works as Klutz turns off your AV, meaning you can Trick it where you normally wouldn't be able to - the main target for sending the AV to is the enemy's Prankster, so you can more easily spam setup and get away with it. However, the strategy by itself is flawed as the mon using Klutz is basically useless outside of this one tech which mightn't actually go off correctly, and some mons like Prankster Giratina can carry untrickable items such as Griseous Orb, meaning if you load a bad matchup you can basically be down 5-6 at preview.

Pressure stall has only ever worked once, and it was from cityscapes' demonic team that can be found in this thread (week 1 team). With Pressure and Lunar Dance support you're able to stall out the PP of the enemy's important moves, namely Haze which is the unfortunate fate I experienced. However, outside of this one team (from the tier's best player none the less) i've never really had issues with pressure-stall structures as these need the entire team oriented around them and playing optimally over the massive game duration pressure stall requires can get difficult after a while.

Bad / Outclassed

These aren't recommended for use at all. They're either decent but other options are simply upgrades, or they don't really have any use case at all and shouldn't be used unless you want to specifically use them. I've refrained from putting every non-above ability in here just because the ones listed here are ones I see somewhat regularly on ladder.

Sheer Force is an excellent ability in regular play, but it's mostly outclassed in BH as, on the physical side, the super-powered attacks like V-create and Glacial Lance aren't boosted yet are still stronger than their SF-Boosted counterparts. On the special side, whilst you can use it, generally you're only going to be using it on Eternatus and even then SimplePlot is just better because you have actual recovery and don't need the extra power when unboosted because Core Enforcer already exists to stuff Prankster. SFLO Xurkitree with QD exists I guess?

Misty Surge'd be so much better if, like every other terrain, it increased damage output. Instead of increasing Fairy-type damage it instead halves Dragon-type damage and blocks status from happening, except it doesn't actually block Toxic Orb from going off since this attempts to activate status after terrain expires (evidence). Whilst theoretically you can use it as a means to nullify Nuzzle, you also can't benefit from it and the duration is too short to use it to end games by completely voiding paralysis (even with extender).

Levitate seems good because Ground is a great typing in BH, until you realise that Thousand Arrows is spammed by Groudon (the best Ground-type) and not only does TArrows hit through Levitate, it grounds you AND Levitate means you take Ground-type damage rather than the always-neutral damage you take if you were Flying-type.

Speed Boost has basically one application - Swords Dance + Speed Boost Kyurem-Black. To be honest, it's mostly fringe just because Simple + Shift Gear is basically the same, but with SD/SB you get to spam V-create without having your speed dropped. Other than this it's outclassed, and with SimpleGear you still get to V-create twice before you're at neutral speed. TTTech thinks it's better than Simple so ask him for more info.

Comatose seems nice because you're completely immune to status and it can't be removed by Entrainment (so the user can block NormPult), but there's ways of blocking paralysis that are significantly better (see PH) and blocking Entrain isn't reason alone to use this.

Technician was outlined in my post a couple days ago, but generally it's just outclassed as the primary moves it boosts (Triple Axel, Dragon Darts, Bonemerang, Storm Throw, Gear Grind, Draining Kiss) have stronger or similar-power alternatives achieveable by using other abilities that can have more of an impact. Technician also barely exists for special attackers, Kyu-B is basically the only physical Technician user and Band Pheromosa exists to do STAB Storm Throw I guess but it's Pheromosa so it keels over to literally anything.

Skill Link is just unnecessary. Of the moves it boosts that you'd use (Bullet Seed, Tail Slap, Icicle Spear, Rock Blast, Water Shuriken, Scale Shot, Pin Missile), moves that are similar in base power exist for these even before any ability boosts (Glacial Lance, Multi-Attack, Steam Eruption/Fishious Rend, Dragon Darts/Energy), or are just bad attacking types (Rock, Bug, Grass).

Mega Launcher sees some limited use on Palkia because Dragon Pulse and Origin Pulse are boosted, but 1. Adaptability Palkia is just better and 2. there are 3 whole usable moves to choose from in DPulse, OPulse and Aura Sphere. Offensive Kyogre'd much rather Sheer Force + Steam Eruption or Poison Heal + Quiver Dance, and both of these are just better than ML Ogre too.

Bulletproof is a meme. The only common move you block is Eternatus' Sludge Bomb, to which 1. just use a Steel-type and 2. your mon is completely invalidated if it uses Sludge Wave instead. The only other instance is if you use SimplePlot Spectrier with Shadow Ball and use Bulletproof to Improof, but then you don't have Moongeist and so are asking to miss kills.

Liquid Voice isn't good for the reason that other options like SF+Steam and Adapt+Rend are just better, but also that it only affects Boomburst (not Rapid Spin) and doesn't give the in-built 20% boost to affected moves that -ate abilities do.

I want to like Neuroforce so much, but having it just be Expert Belt as an ability isn't enough as 20% is just too low to only apply to super effective hits. Maybe if it was 33% then it could be considered over other damage-ampers like Tough Claws, but otherwise it's irrelevant.

Flash Fire is worse PSea. This isn't gen 7, where you'd be boosting Kyogre-Primal's damage and Mold Breaker isn't common, so in current gen there's no real reason to run FF as Water-type attackers (namlely Palkia and Barraskewda) are basically still OHKOing you anyway and FF means you get cucked by Mold Breaker.

Punk Rock cuts incoming sound damage by 50% and raises outgoing sound damage by 30%. Theoretically you can use this on Normal-types like Porygon2 to both sponge Boomburst form things like Xerneas and also deal high-ish (it's a P2) damage in return, but generally Ice Scales is simply superior as it walls every special attack, not just Boomburst. and the damage output isn't stellar even after the 30% boost because it's not STAB on anything good,

Serene Grace is a cheeser's best friend, but in reality it accomplishes basically nothing. Most often, you'll be seeing it on Regieleki in an attempt to flinch-hax it's way past threats, but the fact is that it's clicking a weak move and not actually doing anything to progress the game. Using SGrace to use Sacred Fire with 100% burn rate also isn't worth it just because burn is comparatively low-value in BH.

Dauntless Shield is worse Fur Coat. Whilst you could justify it as a PhysDef-boosting option that can limit Mold Breaker and also boosts Body Press, the extra defence offered by FC and also not having the boost removable by Spectral Thief or Haze makes this basically irrelevant.

Scrappy's main use pre-Drum-ban was either on Belly Drum + ESpeed Regigigas, or on Scrappy + Scarf Final Gambit. ScrappySpeed is dead and GambitSpam is pretty easy to counter if you know what you're doing / have any priority (especially PixiSpeed), so Scrappy in general doesn't see any good use. Scrappy SubPunch Zama-C has been used once I hear but nothing else.

Merciless gives you 100% crit rate against poisoned targets (PH users), whilst always critting against PH Gigas/Xerneas seems cool the reality is this is the only application of the ability and other things like Fur Coat + Entrainment also deal with PH whilst doing other things. Poisoning everything to benefit more from Merciless also means you can't spam Nuzzle for free progress and speed control, which is also a disadvantage.

Limping these all here as "stat-on-kill" abilities. These are all generally bad, gaining a boost from a kill usually isn't enough to snowball into a kill chain unless you've basically already won and so you're almost always running with a dead ability. As One is the highest because it can't be removed by Entrainment and the like, but this isn't reason to use it.

Effect Spore seems like a nice way to activate the now-banned sleep, but the restriction of contact moves only combined with the 30% activation chance (also combined with the chance to give the target a non-sleep status) hold it back from being useful. You're basically only connecting this with RegenVest users or Magic Guard Ho-Oh.

Stamina is like Dauntless but you actually need to get hit to get the boost. Not useful as a physical walling option, if you want to spam Body Press then just use Cotton Guard as Prankster, Spectral Thief and Ghost Types limit how useful DefencePress can be to begin with.

Harvest + Sitrus Berry can *theoretically* net you 25% recovery every turn by recycling your Sitrus Berry, which sounds good as it's double what PH recovery. However, the chance for it to activate is only 50% (meaning you can get completely screwed by RNG), and if your berry is Tricked or Knocked Off then the ability fails for the rest of the game. You also don't get a status immunity or boosted Facade unlike PH.

Truant + Skill Swap exists to where you use Skill Swap to give the target Truant, trap it in, use Protect to be immune to damage and aim to kill it off (usually with indirect damage such as Infestation). The issue here is that you completely fall flat against Magic Guard, non-Sap recovery, Teleport and simply by switching the turn after you recieve Truant as, to not suffer a lost turn, the Truant user has to Skill Swap first.

Sap Sipper gives a Grass immunity and then raises your Attack by 1 if you get hit by one, which theoretically sounds nice as Strength Sap is a Grass-type move, however Grass is a really bad, and thus uncommon, attacking type (Kartana's the only relevant Grass-type and it almost never runs Grass STAB). Most Sap users also have the raw power to simply kill the thing in front of them, and Magic Bounce is more effective as a Sap blocking tool as you get Sap recovery from the user instead.

Strong Jaw boosts biting moves by 50%. The only biting move you're ever using is Fishious Rend, and in this case Primodial Sea is strictly better as it can be used to override Desolate Land's Water immunity, provides a functional immunity and other Water attacks like Flip Turn also get a boost.

Banned

These are too good for the tier. I'll give some reasoning as to why they aren't balanced, some like Huge/Pure Power and Wonder Guard'll be pretty obvious but some aren't as clear. If you're after more information as to each, you can look in old OM suspects to gather people's reasonings.

Trapping is usually seen as uncompetitive in a game so oriented around switching (particularly BH, to which the games go on for ages and so more switching tends to be done than other tiers), so having a way to automatically trap and eliminate targets is peak uncompetitive as it's unreasonable to force everything to run Shed Shell or pivoting.

Contrary is banned because moves like V-create, Fleur Cannon, Draco Meteor and Overheat are free and available on everything. Contrary Kyu-B spamming V-create and Eternatus spamming Draco is not balanced at all, whereas in standard play it's limited by it's users being slow and having access to not that many moves.

Gorilla Tactics is banned because 2 Choice Bands is completely unfair in terms of raw damage output, mandating Fur Coat on every team as a complete bandage check that barely even works well isn't balanced, especially with the physical monsters in current meta like Kyurem-Black, Kartana and Groudon.

Simply put, having doubled Attack isn't balanced. Huge Power + Choice Band gives you a functional +4 Attack instantly and does not result in good gameplay as the user can literally drop everything on the field in one hit.

Illusion is banned because, in a tier with as much offensive potential as BH, having this be disguised and forcing you to guess between not only if the target is an illusion or not but also what it is if it has Illusion isn't balanced. Illusion also blocks Transform/Imposter, meaning that a disguised setup mon not only hides what it is but also completely eliminates one of the most common forms of setup control, potentially also invalidating the other in Prankster because it doesn't know what attacks it'll be expecting to run into.

Innards out is banned because of Chansey and Blissey. In a meta where poisoning the enemy is reletively low-value, having to constantly play against what is basically an instant Destiny Bond doesn't create balanced experiences as they can be hard to wear down with indirect damage and physical attackers have to risk instant death in order to actually do damage.

Intrepid Sword offers too much power to physical attackers. Realistically, it's basically the same as Gorilla Tactics except harder to Improof as it activates again when Imposter copies you. Similar argument to GTactics in that having Fur Coat mandatory on every team doesn't result in very inventive gameplay nor a fun tier.

Having every attack being STAB isn't balanced given the absurd power of the moves available, and unlike GTactics and ISword can be abudes by special attackers as well as physical, so a Protean metagame becomes heavily offence-dominated because every attack deals ridiculous amounts of damage.

Banned under Smogon's Moody Clause. Otherwise, it's another element of complete randomness that isn't healthy for the game. Basically mandates Prankster and/or Spectral Thief spam on every team in order to handle it easily, as SubPass teams'd be common beneficiaries and Substitute blocks Imposter.

Neutralizing Gas isn't like Mold Breaker - instead of ignoring abilities when you attack, NGas simply turns off every ability. What this means is that every ability used to accomplish anything simply ceases to exist, which is notable with Shift Gear attackers as every response to these (Fur Coat, Prankster, Imposter, Unaware, Primal weathers) simply doesn't activate. In a meta where the ability defines the set so much, completely removing this aspect of the game is completely unbalanced.

Parental Bond is unbalanced not only for the functional 25% damage increase it provides but also for the fact that it procs secondary effects twice, meaning that Fire Lash/Thunderous Kick drop Defence twice, Ancient Power threatens a boost twice, Sludge Bomb becomes a poisoning machine, and the like. Nothing's really switching into offensive Parental Bond Zamazenta-C outside of omega-passive Giratina.

In a meta where switching is so important (with BH, the thing switching in to you is usually threatening to eliminate you and so you need to switch yourself), instantly doubling your damage against anything switching in isn't balanced as it completely invalidates switching as an option, further backed by you not knowing if the enemy actually has Stakeout or not.

It's like Huge Power but only affects water moves. Even still, having Fishious Rend be a functional 340BP move, especially boosted by Palkia's Lustrous Orb, is absolutely unfair damage output. Water Bubble also blocks burns so you can't even Will-O-Wisp the user to cut it's damage, and also provides a Fire resistance so switching into V-create becomes even easier for Barraskewda.

Wonder Guard is completely busted, having every damage dealer needing Mold Breaker or a Moldy move isn't balanced. Shouldn't need much explanation, if you aren't convinced how centralising this becomes then look as Pure Hackmons which has a completely separate VR for Wonder Guard users.

If there's anything that isn't on this list, then chances are it's not recommended for use or has never been seen to be successful outside of one specific use case. There are a couple with theoretical use cases that almost made the list, like Galvanize, Water Absorb and Iron Barbs, but I don't think that these are good enough to be here.
yo i spent far too long writing this, i wrote the first half friday and it didn't actually safe anything after regen so i am mad lucky i copied this into some random word doc

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

Why am I seeing sets with Dragon Dance over Shift Gear?

 

[shadowpea]

Why am I seeing sets with Dragon Dance over Shift Gear?

you get twice the pp over shift gear and outspeed p much all relevant mons at +1 anyway (this is assuming mons around the 90-100 speed tier like groudon and gigas)

 

[MAMP]

Specifically, the extra PP on Dragon Dance means you can’t get PP stalled by Strength Sap, which has 16 PP. This is relevant for PH Regigigas against Pixilate Xerneas, for instance. It’s not a huge benefit overall as getting stalled out by Strength Sap isn’t all that common of an occurrence, and the upsides of Shift Gear are still pretty notable: outspeeding boosted opponents, outspeeding Regieleki (this one matters a lot on the low/mid ladder), and still being fast after a speed drop from Sticky Web or V-create. Most of the time either move is a reasonable choice; some players will argue that Shift Gear isn’t worth running, but I don’t think that’s the case at all.

 

[a loser]

Although a new generation is on its way soon, I wanted to share some thoughts (complaints) on the current meta. Yeah, I'm still semi-retired from BH but I play occasionally in room tours and am in the seasonal.

While the meta is fairly balanced at the moment, I find that building right now is terribly stale. The stranglehold that Xerneas, Regigigas, paralysis, and to somewhat lesser extents Eternatus and Zamazenta-C have on teambuilding has pretty much killed any motivation I have to build new teams. Building in BH has always kept my intrigued, wanting to innovate more and try new things out to see what sticks. But lately I've just been reusing teams that range from several months to over a year old because I find that almost every team revolves around the same dynamic.

Games these days generally consist of spreading paralysis via RegenVest Nuzzle, Poison Heal Nuzzle, or Prankster Glare, stacking Spikes, and pivoting around until a breaker, usually one of the good ones like Xern, Regi, Etern, can come in and take advantage of the chip damage and slower opponents. Don't get me wrong, this is an effective strategy and can help you rake in wins on the ladder, but it just makes for very boring gameplay in my opinion. I'm not even really hating on para spam in this instance. It is mainly the mons taking advantage of the para spam and hazard stacking that I feel are bringing the meta down.

It's funny that nowadays innovation in building looks like Nasty Plot Xerneas, Swords Dance + Oh They Are Using That Coverage Move Regigigas, and Lum Berry Nasty Plot Eternatus. Sure, I'm down for exploring sets past the standard, accepted moves, but this type of "innovation" just tells me the meta is stale.

I personally don't think that removing any of these mons from the meta would be a good decision. On the other hand, I think that releasing currently banned parts of the meta could be beneficial. I'm not trying to suggest anything too crazy here, so don't freak out just yet. Three things I would suggest looking will be discussed next.

Court Change
I voted not to ban this back almost a year ago when it was quick banned. Part of the argument for banning this move was that Court Change users unfairly took advantage of the opposing team's momentum by swapping all their hard work back under their feet. This is indeed how it works, and there was never anything in Pokemon like it before, but I thought it made hazard management much less of a daunting task.

hazards on defensive mons come back into fashion, and are counterbalanced by magic bounce
ph mons can freely run hazards again, making paraspam worse and less necessary

This was stated as speculation right before the ban took place, but funnily enough para spam got worse because everyone just paralyzes the Magic Bounce mon and kills them and proceed to get their hazards up anyway. Court Change by itself isn't that great in terms of keeping hazards off the field. When paired with Rapid Spin and/or Magic Bounce, it becomes very good. But I don't think that the move was uncompetitive or unhealthy for the meta.

DGZ
The last time we saw DGZ, Intrepid Sword and Bolt Beak were still around and so was its partner in crime, Calyrex-Shadow. Sure, DGZ would still be very, very good without Intrepid Sword and Bolt Beak but it definitely wouldn't be quite as good as it was. Not having one of the most broken special attackers we've ever seen by its side would also make things slightly better.

I think a reintroduction of DGZ in the meta would bring a welcome check to its current titans, Xern, Gigas, Etern, and Zama-C. With DGZ around, Fire-types like Reshiram, Darmanitan-Zen, and Victini as well as Water-types like Kyogre, Palkia, and Tapu Fini have more of a place too. Perhaps it would need to be watched closely, as its insane Attack and Speed stats along with STAB on V-create and Glacial Lance would be very threatening. Bolt Strike is definitely not Bolt Beak, but it's a good move nonetheless.

Rusted Sword
Back when we banned this in the middle of OMPL, the council's stance was that we'd see how the meta looks for the rest of the tournament and then revisit Zacian-C after it ends. As far as I remember, it was never revisited. Similar to how paralysis rose to prominence as the best status after sleep moves were banned, Xern, Regi, and Etern rose up as the best mons in the meta after Zacian-C disappeared. Zacian-C is able to check and/or pressure each of these mons but can also be outplayed by each of them depending on the set.
I know Zacian-C still had a ton of variety in sets despite being locked into one item and ability and was still the best mon in the meta, but honestly Gen 8 BH hasn't felt the same without it. Similar to DGZ, Zacian-C would bring (imo) welcome checks to the current best mons around.

I will suggest banning one thing though, and that's Glacial Lance. RIP the failed suspect test but honestly the move is so stupidly strong and spammable (despite low PP) and provides excellent STAB / coverage that the above two mons took advantage along with many other mons. Of all the super strong moves that are currently available, I think Glance is the worst for the meta by far.

Maybe I'm just too old for this now or my love for BH is finally fading, but I wanted to share these thoughts regardless.

 

[stephen78548]

it is sad to hear love for this meta is fading and maybe it does need to be shaken up a little as the format does feel fairly solved but seeing as it the end of the format i dont mind it to much there will be tones of innovation in gen 9 basically playing with terastlization till its banned lol

which i guess brings up my next point why is dnyamax banned and why are we looking at the new gimmick before its even gotten a chance to preform in the metagame. i get that dyanmax caused rps but why wasnt zmoves looked at past the cfz's i get megas being allowed but why are we banning the regional gimmicks that separate this format from previous iterations of the format (i get that z-moves were like gems on crack but still it doesnt seem right to ban the gimmick outright)

 

[Tack]

which i guess brings up my next point why is dnyamax banned

because it made the metagame a complete cesspool while it was legal, i dont feel like grabbing old tour games rn but watch 1st bh open this gen and you'll see many a game swung by dyna being completely absurd

 

[cityscapes]

Although a new generation is on its way soon, I wanted to share some thoughts (complaints) on the current meta. Yeah, I'm still semi-retired from BH but I play occasionally in room tours and am in the seasonal.

While the meta is fairly balanced at the moment, I find that building right now is terribly stale. The stranglehold that Xerneas, Regigigas, paralysis, and to somewhat lesser extents Eternatus and Zamazenta-C have on teambuilding has pretty much killed any motivation I have to build new teams. Building in BH has always kept my intrigued, wanting to innovate more and try new things out to see what sticks. But lately I've just been reusing teams that range from several months to over a year old because I find that almost every team revolves around the same dynamic.

Games these days generally consist of spreading paralysis via RegenVest Nuzzle, Poison Heal Nuzzle, or Prankster Glare, stacking Spikes, and pivoting around until a breaker, usually one of the good ones like Xern, Regi, Etern, can come in and take advantage of the chip damage and slower opponents. Don't get me wrong, this is an effective strategy and can help you rake in wins on the ladder, but it just makes for very boring gameplay in my opinion. I'm not even really hating on para spam in this instance. It is mainly the mons taking advantage of the para spam and hazard stacking that I feel are bringing the meta down.

It's funny that nowadays innovation in building looks like Nasty Plot Xerneas, Swords Dance + Oh They Are Using That Coverage Move Regigigas, and Lum Berry Nasty Plot Eternatus. Sure, I'm down for exploring sets past the standard, accepted moves, but this type of "innovation" just tells me the meta is stale.

I personally don't think that removing any of these mons from the meta would be a good decision. On the other hand, I think that releasing currently banned parts of the meta could be beneficial. I'm not trying to suggest anything too crazy here, so don't freak out just yet. Three things I would suggest looking will be discussed next.

Court Change
I voted not to ban this back almost a year ago when it was quick banned. Part of the argument for banning this move was that Court Change users unfairly took advantage of the opposing team's momentum by swapping all their hard work back under their feet. This is indeed how it works, and there was never anything in Pokemon like it before, but I thought it made hazard management much less of a daunting task.
This was stated as speculation right before the ban took place, but funnily enough para spam got worse because everyone just paralyzes the Magic Bounce mon and kills them and proceed to get their hazards up anyway. Court Change by itself isn't that great in terms of keeping hazards off the field. When paired with Rapid Spin and/or Magic Bounce, it becomes very good. But I don't think that the move was uncompetitive or unhealthy for the meta.

DGZ
The last time we saw DGZ, Intrepid Sword and Bolt Beak were still around and so was its partner in crime, Calyrex-Shadow. Sure, DGZ would still be very, very good without Intrepid Sword and Bolt Beak but it definitely wouldn't be quite as good as it was. Not having one of the most broken special attackers we've ever seen by its side would also make things slightly better.

I think a reintroduction of DGZ in the meta would bring a welcome check to its current titans, Xern, Gigas, Etern, and Zama-C. With DGZ around, Fire-types like Reshiram, Darmanitan-Zen, and Victini as well as Water-types like Kyogre, Palkia, and Tapu Fini have more of a place too. Perhaps it would need to be watched closely, as its insane Attack and Speed stats along with STAB on V-create and Glacial Lance would be very threatening. Bolt Strike is definitely not Bolt Beak, but it's a good move nonetheless.

Rusted Sword
Back when we banned this in the middle of OMPL, the council's stance was that we'd see how the meta looks for the rest of the tournament and then revisit Zacian-C after it ends. As far as I remember, it was never revisited. Similar to how paralysis rose to prominence as the best status after sleep moves were banned, Xern, Regi, and Etern rose up as the best mons in the meta after Zacian-C disappeared. Zacian-C is able to check and/or pressure each of these mons but can also be outplayed by each of them depending on the set.
I know Zacian-C still had a ton of variety in sets despite being locked into one item and ability and was still the best mon in the meta, but honestly Gen 8 BH hasn't felt the same without it. Similar to DGZ, Zacian-C would bring (imo) welcome checks to the current best mons around.

I will suggest banning one thing though, and that's Glacial Lance. RIP the failed suspect test but honestly the move is so stupidly strong and spammable (despite low PP) and provides excellent STAB / coverage that the above two mons took advantage along with many other mons. Of all the super strong moves that are currently available, I think Glance is the worst for the meta by far.

Maybe I'm just too old for this now or my love for BH is finally fading, but I wanted to share these thoughts regardless.

i’m unconvinced. your reasoning mostly seeks to prove that these threats wouldn’t be unmanageable if added into the metagame, but says nothing about what would actually happen. to be uncharitable, it reads like you’ve seen too many people using stresh teams in seasonal and want everything to be chaotic again.

here are some angles that i think you could tackle to strengthen this post:

• gameplay beat patterns: to vastly oversimplify things, zacc and darm play meaningfully differently than the current ph + etern crew. against zacc darm your gameplay alternates between defending and attacking because they easily force your guy out, while ph mons crescendo into a winning position if they can force the opponent to defend (without a fortunate hard counter). which of these is better? why?
• innovation: you claim that innovation in the modern era is mostly slapping fast paced moves on good mons to create demons. how would your proposed metagame be any different? what examples of innovation from when these mons were legal are particularly inspirational to you?
• hazards and paralysis: i really want to see you dive deeper into these topics, not just because we don’t see eye to eye on them (i wouldn’t touch court change with a ten foot pole lol) but also because they’re super helpful for illustrating ideas about gameplay. one good example of this is how you say your issue is mostly with abusers of para/hazards. first of all, how are zacc/darm not just better abusers that benefit the side with better hazards/para? secondly, instead of hazards or paralysis, what do they center the game around? is this new center conducive to good gameplay?
• playstyles: i’m reluctantly putting this in because i don’t believe that playstyles are a very useful tool for metagame analysis (at least as they’re conventionally used). how will building change as a result of your proposed changes? which styles will be easier vs harder to make work? what can you conclude about these styles?

you don’t have to go thru all of these, just some ideas. i may create a more thorough post regarding the current meta as soon as i get home in a couple days and actually build some teams for once.

 

[stephen78548]

because it made the metagame a complete cesspool while it was legal, i dont feel like grabbing old tour games rn but watch 1st bh open this gen and you'll see many a game swung by dyna being completely absurd

no dont get me wrong ive seen clips from then and briefly played then i kinda get the meta when dyna was legal but outright banning the reginal gimmick feels wrong to me is what im saying

 

[Tea Guzzler]

haven't done a non-guide post in a while huh

bunch of sets

Kyurem-White @ Choice Specs
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst
- Blue Flare
- Core Enforcer / Volt Switch
- Trick / Volt Switch / Nuzzle

specs kyuw is weird. on paper it's damage potential is absurd, however idk if it's just me getting mad unlucky but the amount of losing matchups you can load is high for a choiced breaker which will likely be your team's main wincon. protect annoys every choice locked mon, but scales steels and kyogre especially give this thing a hard time. it doesn't help that, on a surprising amount of targets, it barely misses out on important 2HKOs whilst also mandating a regenvest ogre structure (imp works ig if you aren't running nuzzle) to improof, and unlike other breakers (such as kyub and don) is reliant on fridge to exist, meaning you can't have moldy. it also doesn't help that soundproof simply exists (despite it's rarity), meaning not running core risks your entire primary gameplan just failing.



pagan hunter (Volcanion) @ Life Orb
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Steam Eruption
- Blue Flare
- Blizzard

i've messed around with volcanion for a while, due to gen 8's distinct lack of bulky waters. spoiler alert: this ain't it, it can eat xern boombursts fine but you're sort of in "why not use ho-oh territory", and the physical bulk is servicable but not stellar + fire typing means weakness to common coverage like blades. water/fire has 3 quad resists (fire, ice, steel), offers some great STAB options in rend, v-create, steam eruption and blue flare and hits most of the tier for neutral (main exceptions being etern, gira and ogre). special sets can go sheer force and run whatever in slot 4, phys sets can do tough claws/adapt with shift gear, rend, v-create, glance/axel. fun to use but likely not the best option in most cases.



dog (Suicune) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nuzzle
- Knock Off
- Spectral Thief
- U-turn

following on from the above, the bulkier water. 100/115/115 makes you a good mixed wall, and water type lets you sponge every v-create and glance in the tier. suicune's mostly let down by it's typing being mono-water, which doesn't offer it many resistances to throw around it's bulk with (most notably not resisting normal and fairy), and it's passivity isn't ideal in a metagame so dominated by progress-obsessed balance, however if you're looking for a btec waterceus then this is it. ogre is better at being a special wall and less passive, however if you're specifically after the phys bulk (say, improofing kyub) then this works.



super dog (Zamazenta) @ Life Orb
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Triple Axel
- Strength Sap

super dog is legit. gigas cound only dream of owning zama-c this hard, cc straight up OHKOs and you have SD to easily boost past fur coat sets. ice/fighting is great coverage, and whilst you have to rely on axel accuracy to play the game, this combo lets you OHKO basically every non-fc mon (ones that resist cc and aren't weak to axel, like xerneas, can live but need to be high HP). i've had good success pairing this with sd gigas, namely wicked/glance, as this can pretty easily remove every common fur coater (bar zama-c, but it already gets eaten). you can also do poltergeist/glance and have itemless lunala improof both. good bulk lets it set up without the threat of instant death against most sets, compared to tc zacian it can heal and has better STAB damage in return for a worse STAB type. watch out for para and pixispeed/triage owing.

ps: guts can also work, giving you a built-in nuzzle immunity and your ice move (glance) won't miss, but the damage is lower.



Mewtwo @ Life Orb
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Expanding Force
- Blue Flare
- Strength Sap

mewtwo is cool but annoying to build around. specs sets tend to be inflexible, predict-heavy and sometimes matchup-dependent (as well as imp resisting your main STAB), so naturally you move to plot sets, which are somehow even more infuriating to improof as you're after a special wall that can handle +2 psy-terrain expanding forces or sheer force psychic/blue flare (fun fact: +2 exp. force does more than etern's +4 core). being mono-psychic is annoying for wallbreaking, tying/threatening out etern and outspeeding zama-c are useful assets tho.



Palkia @ Lustrous Orb
Ability: Adaptability
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Dragon Energy
- Zap Cannon / Volt Switch / Spikes / Nuzzle / Glare
- Strength Sap

palkia is still excellent, fini has all but vanished. rend/energy are a busted STAB combo, the things that check it tend to be highly exploitable (fini, ferro, fc steels), you can 2HKO basically the entire tier. i find most often that rend/energy/sap is definite, and that i'm trying to use the last slot for snuffing counterplay, usually targeting fini and being improofed by ferro. volt switch turns these walls into fodder for teammates, zap cannon really annoys the steels and heavily injures fini (if you want, transistor zap cannon does upwards of 80). other options mostly depend on your improof, spikes/glare/nuzzle work well but you'll probably need bounce ferro. only use fini/ferro for improofing, changing abilities to fancy shit like no guard or trying to force the gimmick move is usually a detriment.



Calyrex-Ice @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Glacial Lance
- Low Kick
- Will-O-Wisp

massive ball of stats. 100/150/130 bulk, attack higher than gigas and ice STAB are all great assets, has a variety of sets which it can all do well like ph, fc, regen, adapt and simple and since you don't see it much it's a lot less telegraphed. it's big issues are the speed (fixable via shift gear / paraspam) and the fact that it's trying to use it's bulk whilst also being an ice type. kyub is the better ice type for breaking, caly is the better ice type for basically everything else (kyub's dragon type is a liability). above set self-proofs via burn, other times you're probably using whack like golisopod.



poisson fang (Barraskewda) @ Choice Band
Ability: Primordial Sea / Strong Jaw
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Fishious Rend
- Toxic / Poison Fang
- Trick / Glacial Lance / Diamond Storm
- U-turn

poison barra theoretically lets you break past things you'd get hard-walled by like fur coat dragons, however every time i've loaded this ive ran into palkia or ph gira which both don't really care and just play the game as if you didn't have poison. the idea is that, after poison/slight chip, rend 2hkos walls or forces them to int to slow you down with something like nuzzle, after which a teammate like sd gigas can pick up the slack. forces you to use fc steels to improof which isn't ideal, there's probably easier ways to exploit the shit barra doesn't break like fc dialga/gira/zygc. the fish itself has a pretty good matchup spread in the current meta, so as long as you watch for paras it can perform extremely well.



Eternatus @ Life Orb
Ability: Simple
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Nasty Plot
- Core Enforcer
- Blue Flare
- Final Gambit

gambit to take out pranks, life orb to OHKO xern with flare (meaning you don't need to use a slot on sludge bomb). HO in general is in a really weird place right now, where as far as i can tell the standard "5 offensive mons, 1 prank to improof/not die" more often than not falls flat. paraspam also does not help, as dodging nuzzle whilst running the above set is a nightmare, and running lum on everything is probably unreasonable. even non-5/1-structures, like nihil's sample, still hate nuzzle being on virtually every team and have to play absurdly careful to not instantly lose any momentum.



Doin up Twix (Regigigas) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Facade
- Spikes
- Glacial Lance

this guy is a real bastard. sd/facade/any +2 can realistically work and do well, you can just win on matchup because the enemy physical walls drop to broken coverage or can't stop getting spiked on. nuzzle/blades can bully fc steels, wicked/glance beats basically every fc except zamac, you get the idea. improofing spikes sets get annoying, however you have the option of just attacking imp and probably still winning the 1v1 (sure, it's one layer of spikes, imp has taken 40 and you have not been hit). you can also do the old strat of running coverage to kill every fur coater except 1 or 2, and have some other threat in the back that breaks these.

thoughts on current meta:
building feels optimised to regixern paraspam, and has done for a while. i don't want to say it's boring, but there's little reason to build anything other than this except specifically to get away from regixern. frankly i don't know if freeing stuff is the solution (because i did not play when the stuff to free, like dgz/rusted sword, were free) to mix up playstyles, "glance theory" of glance being gone to buff the nuzzle sponges exists but to me isn't compelling. nuzzle ban is probably the most straightforward route, "there was already a nuzzle suspect 2.5 months ago" is meaningless when the entire suspect was drumspam and people farming drumspam.

case for banning nuzzle: defensive mons make significantly less progress, paraspam is harder and requires more investment to pull off. stall and offence worry less about full paras costing them long-term and speed control being everywhere, respectively, and assets for speed control still exist in webs/zap cannon/glare but aren't as braindead easy to use and have an actual opportunity cost. i think nuzzle being gone opens up a lot more in the builder, both for teams that now don't need to worry about paraspam as much and for teams that previously relied on it to find new ways to progress.

there's also the whole argument of if the meta actually needs fixing, to me it's stale but idk if other people think this way.