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★ np: SS UU Stage 3: As the World Falls Down (Venusaur banned, see post 110)
- Thread starter Hogg
- Start date
- Status
These people have found the optimum way to play this tier. You may not understand it, but us true competitors do - to be the best, you have to use the best. Every sporting game, whether physical or electronic, has the same respective metagame and if you were versed in the art of competition you would see this a natural course of sport. As you have said, you have never bothered with this tier so...
For what it is worth, I do not think Mamoswine is broken.
if players utilizing the same 4-5 mons in battles is the optimum way to play this tier, then we have some serious fucking issues my friend
ftr oras uu is my main tier and i think it blows dicks as well, but even oras uu isn't anywhere near that bad
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Ok, I finally ended my requs, it took me a lot of time, seriusly, when I was 1 game left my internet died.
Mamoswine has been a threat since the beggining of the metagame, however before Home arrived it had mons that could check it whithout risk, examples are Bronzong, Milotic, Gweezing and Golisopod. However the addition to Knock Off on Mamo's movepool give it a big buff to break those checks, Bronzong gets 2HKO to Knock Off, Golisopod and Avalugg are very dependent on Heavy Duty Boots to come on the field, Milotic can become more easy to 2HKO without item.
Also Mamoswine decent bulk can make it difficult to RK, or switch in on teamates for those checks.
The new drops gave us one mon that can completely check Mamoswine, as it can only be really damaged by Knock Off, Im talking about Rotom Wash, this new addition to the tier made me think if Mamo could still being a problem with Wastom on the metagame, however it relies on Leftis to recover or Pain Split.
After play a lot of games I would vote to ban mamoswine.
Lose Mamoswine will mean lose a really good Rk in my opinion, as it was able to Rk any dragon type, however we still having other options to Revenge Kill like First Impression Golisopod/Sirfetchd, BP Machamp, Scarf Gardevoir and Flygon, and Shadow Sneak Doublade.
It will be more consistent to check Hazard Setters, stuffs like Golisopod, Rhyperior and Gigalith
One of the best checks to this mon is gone,ik that switch in Mamoswine on Tox will be risk, however Mamo is able to act as a pivot or a Rk thanks to Electric inmunity
/ 
/ 
This 3 really enjoy Mamoswine being left, as Mamo could revenge kill them with Ice priority
/ 
This 2 are some of the best SR setters on the tier, and Mamo was able to punnish them with Eq, and Mamo decent bulk allowed it to take hits from this 2.
/ 
/ 
Bulky waters were destroyed by Knock Off, keep their items during the game make them consistent, abviusly the are still stuff with Knock Off like Incineroar or Sirfecthd, but they have more problems to deal with then on a 1v1
Mamoswine has been a threat since the beggining of the metagame, however before Home arrived it had mons that could check it whithout risk, examples are Bronzong, Milotic, Gweezing and Golisopod. However the addition to Knock Off on Mamo's movepool give it a big buff to break those checks, Bronzong gets 2HKO to Knock Off, Golisopod and Avalugg are very dependent on Heavy Duty Boots to come on the field, Milotic can become more easy to 2HKO without item.
Also Mamoswine decent bulk can make it difficult to RK, or switch in on teamates for those checks.
The new drops gave us one mon that can completely check Mamoswine, as it can only be really damaged by Knock Off, Im talking about Rotom Wash, this new addition to the tier made me think if Mamo could still being a problem with Wastom on the metagame, however it relies on Leftis to recover or Pain Split.
After play a lot of games I would vote to ban mamoswine.
Lose Mamoswine will mean lose a really good Rk in my opinion, as it was able to Rk any dragon type, however we still having other options to Revenge Kill like First Impression Golisopod/Sirfetchd, BP Machamp, Scarf Gardevoir and Flygon, and Shadow Sneak Doublade.
It will be more consistent to check Hazard Setters, stuffs like Golisopod, Rhyperior and Gigalith One of the best checks to this mon is gone,ik that switch in Mamoswine on Tox will be risk, however Mamo is able to act as a pivot or a Rk thanks to Electric inmunity / / This 3 really enjoy Mamoswine being left, as Mamo could revenge kill them with Ice priority / This 2 are some of the best SR setters on the tier, and Mamo was able to punnish them with Eq, and Mamo decent bulk allowed it to take hits from this 2. / / Bulky waters were destroyed by Knock Off, keep their items during the game make them consistent, abviusly the are still stuff with Knock Off like Incineroar or Sirfecthd, but they have more problems to deal with then on a 1v1
Voting on Mamoswine is live! If you qualified and posted your reqs, please visit the blind voting thread to vote.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-suspect-process-stage-3-mamoswine.3662195/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ss-uu-suspect-process-stage-3-mamoswine.3662195/
I was hoping there would be a "creative and underrated set thread" but I can't seem to find one. Maybe someone will make one?
Anyways, I wanted to post somewhere about this set Luna Bae (I would tag but I don't know the forum name) gave me for Necrozma.
wdff (Necrozma) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
- Photon Geyser
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Moonlight
I'm not sure if there's a standard set yet for Necrozma but I haven't seen this one around much. 1760 usage stats from March confirm physically defensive sets didn't even register on the stats, although 46% of sets are other EVs and aren't visible. A search of "Necrozma" in the UU forums shows that this set has not been discussed yet.
As for the set details, Necrozma just maximizes defense while creeping some random Pokemon, like 0 Speed Milotic (although FYI you should run 8 Speed Milotic to out speed Adamant Aggron as any DPP player knows). You could switch Defense and HP EVs to be slightly more physically defensive and less specially defensive but it's not a huge change. Morning Sun and Moonlight are competitively the same. Psychic is very noticeably weaker than Photon Geyser but the extra PP is very valuable. Knock Off is extremely important coverage to cripple many Pokemon and target threats like Bronzong but if you already have it, other moves could be considered for your team, like Toxic or Heat wave.
This set is so bulky it's really nice, you can easily shrug off things like First Impression Golisipod and beat them one on one if they do not run Leech Life (over 25% of Golisipod sets do not run Leech Life according to last month's 1760 stats). On defensive teams, it lets Necrozma be a blanket physical wall to check or even counter some Pokemon like Mamoswine and Machamp. For example:
252+ Atk Guts Machamp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Prism Armor Necrozma: 190-225 (47.7 - 56.5%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Machamp Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Prism Armor Necrozma: 127-151 (31.9 - 37.9%) -- 93% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Necrozma: 172-203 (43.2 - 51%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
The utility you provide is really strong too. You're a good SR user since your Photon Geyser and Knock Off combined deters most hazard removal, including Weezing-Galarian, Noivern, Espeon, and Rotom forms - all of them can be OHKOd or 2HKOd and crippled by Knock Off.
While Psychic isn't usually seen as a great defensive typing, the Fighting resistance and STAB you provide happens to let you OHKO a lot of wall breakers that cannot OHKO you in return: Toxtricity, Roserade, Venusaur, and Sir Fetched are some of the most important threats.
Unfortunately, there are three issues (that can still be mitigated with team support):
Anyways, I wanted to post somewhere about this set Luna Bae (I would tag but I don't know the forum name) gave me for Necrozma.
wdff (Necrozma) @ Leftovers
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 236 Def / 20 Spe
Bold Nature
- Photon Geyser
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock
- Moonlight
I'm not sure if there's a standard set yet for Necrozma but I haven't seen this one around much. 1760 usage stats from March confirm physically defensive sets didn't even register on the stats, although 46% of sets are other EVs and aren't visible. A search of "Necrozma" in the UU forums shows that this set has not been discussed yet.
As for the set details, Necrozma just maximizes defense while creeping some random Pokemon, like 0 Speed Milotic (although FYI you should run 8 Speed Milotic to out speed Adamant Aggron as any DPP player knows). You could switch Defense and HP EVs to be slightly more physically defensive and less specially defensive but it's not a huge change. Morning Sun and Moonlight are competitively the same. Psychic is very noticeably weaker than Photon Geyser but the extra PP is very valuable. Knock Off is extremely important coverage to cripple many Pokemon and target threats like Bronzong but if you already have it, other moves could be considered for your team, like Toxic or Heat wave.
This set is so bulky it's really nice, you can easily shrug off things like First Impression Golisipod and beat them one on one if they do not run Leech Life (over 25% of Golisipod sets do not run Leech Life according to last month's 1760 stats). On defensive teams, it lets Necrozma be a blanket physical wall to check or even counter some Pokemon like Mamoswine and Machamp. For example:
252+ Atk Guts Machamp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Prism Armor Necrozma: 190-225 (47.7 - 56.5%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Guts Machamp Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Prism Armor Necrozma: 127-151 (31.9 - 37.9%) -- 93% chance to 3HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 228+ Def Necrozma: 172-203 (43.2 - 51%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
The utility you provide is really strong too. You're a good SR user since your Photon Geyser and Knock Off combined deters most hazard removal, including Weezing-Galarian, Noivern, Espeon, and Rotom forms - all of them can be OHKOd or 2HKOd and crippled by Knock Off.
While Psychic isn't usually seen as a great defensive typing, the Fighting resistance and STAB you provide happens to let you OHKO a lot of wall breakers that cannot OHKO you in return: Toxtricity, Roserade, Venusaur, and Sir Fetched are some of the most important threats.
Unfortunately, there are three issues (that can still be mitigated with team support):
- The PP is really not good on Photon Geyser and Moonlight. I've considered Psychic but that just isn't strong enough sometimes - for example, Psychic OHKOs Venusaur 43% of the time after SR but Photon Geyser OHKOs 100% of the time
- As a bulky Psychic you'd expect to be a solid check to many Poison type attackers but unfortunately you can't afford to invest in SpD and things like +2 Venusaur can pretty easily OHKO you and you're never going to be able to switch into these mons.
- It has most of the problems defensive Pokemon have - weak to status, weak to certain attackers, can lose momentum easily. I just plop him on a team with Heal Bell and other defensive Pokemon
note: i’m writing this on mobile so forgive me if there are any errors.
I would just like to speak about the “problem mons” in the tier right now. Note that this list is subjective based on my thoughts + other people’s thoughts in the uu discord. If you disagree with anything feel free to reply speaking your mind, though i cannot guarantee a reply.
Personal Opinion: Unhealthy
UU Discord Opinion: Unhealthy
Darmanitan is one of our newest drops and also one of the most troublesome. we all know what it does at this point, it flare blitzes, it U-Turns, it kills things. Unlike last generation, not many things directly outclass it like Infernape did, although you could argue incineroar does in a way. Heavy-Duty Boots is also a major buff for Darmanitan, as the combination of Stealth Rock and Flare Blitz recoil made it easier to wear down. Sun teams utilizing this mon have also received complaints due to how brainless it is, especially when running into it on the ladder. Though Sun alone doesn’t seem like a huge deal, when you have several other threats to prep for, it becomes overwhelming at times.
Final Thoughts: Darmanitan is shaping up to be one of our most overbearing mons in the meta, especially in conjunction with Sun and other threats to prepare for.
Personal Opinion: Unhealthy when utilized correctly
UU Discord Opinion: Unhealthy, especially in conjunction with Darmanitan
On the topic of Sun, it’s one of the more dangerous archetypes to face, even without Darmanitan. The combination of Ninetales and Venusaur is especially powerful against non-Gigalith teams, since there’s no Sand to remove Drought. While I believe full Sun is rather mediocre, Semi-Sun with mons to support Venusaur and take advantage of Gigalith while still benefitting from Sun has potential to be a major issue. So, should Drought be banned in the future. I say no.
I believe that Venusaur is the mon that pushes Sun past the edge, not Darmanitan or any other sweeper. Ninetales is a good stand alone mon that deserves more love outside of its Sun and I’d love to see people do more with it. You can make the argument that the combination of Drought and Darmanitan is the issue. However, I believe this would be much easier to deal with if it weren’t for Venusaur.
Final Thoughts: Sun is an issue in our current metagame without even factoring in other things to prepare for. However, if we hypothetically did suspect or have a vote on it, I would be of the opinion that Venusaur alone should go instead of Drought itself.
Personal Thoughts: Don’t Care
UU Discord Thoughts: Varied
DD + Protect is starting to pick up traction, used in all 4 of the Monsters’ SWSH games against the Idols in UUPL Week 3. Sage vs. Ajna is a prime example of how this set works: set up on a mon you force out and wreck havoc, utilizing Protect to screw over First Impression users. Opinions on this mon have been pretty varied in the UU Discord from what I’ve seen. However I’ve yet to take a side in whether or not Haxorus is unhealthy - while I have argued in defense of it, after realizing the potential DD + Protect has, I’m now unsure. Although we got a great check to it in Sylveon, said mon obviously won’t be on every team and is mostly restricted to Balance.
Final Thoughts: Unknown, UU Discord seemed pretty split on this when I brought it up a few weeks ago. I’d have to see more results besides games where there was no Fairy-types and only one Dragon resist (or none in Lilburr vs. TDK’s case).
Personal Thoughts: Potentially unhealthy in the future
UU Discord Thoughts: Healthy, but threatening
BLOODMONEY with Shift Gear + Protect Toxtricity is starting to pick up traction in UUPL, mostly used by the Veterans and once by the Idols. The concept is the same as Haxorus, Protect against First Impression users. The reason why I’m bringing up Toxtricity is because it has real potential to be a big issue. It already shreds bulkier teams (balance, not stall) without Rhyperior and Shift Gear can destroy offense if i ever gets the chance. The few Toxtricity answers we have - Rhyperior, Gigalith, and Bronzong - are all very easy to chip and wear down, especially when paired with Draco Meteor Noivern. I already had concerns about this when it dropped but brushed them aside after playing a few games. My worries are now back that this mon has the potential to be unhealthy in the near future.
Final Thoughts: While Specs is a threat in its own right, Shift Gear is another thing entirely. It has the bulk and typing to survive common priority moves and Protect screws over First Impression spam as speed control. At the moment there are tons of mons to worry about, but in the future I can definitley see BLOODMONEY taking an unhealthy turn.
I would just like to speak about the “problem mons” in the tier right now. Note that this list is subjective based on my thoughts + other people’s thoughts in the uu discord. If you disagree with anything feel free to reply speaking your mind, though i cannot guarantee a reply.
Personal Opinion: Unhealthy
UU Discord Opinion: Unhealthy
Darmanitan is one of our newest drops and also one of the most troublesome. we all know what it does at this point, it flare blitzes, it U-Turns, it kills things. Unlike last generation, not many things directly outclass it like Infernape did, although you could argue incineroar does in a way. Heavy-Duty Boots is also a major buff for Darmanitan, as the combination of Stealth Rock and Flare Blitz recoil made it easier to wear down. Sun teams utilizing this mon have also received complaints due to how brainless it is, especially when running into it on the ladder. Though Sun alone doesn’t seem like a huge deal, when you have several other threats to prep for, it becomes overwhelming at times.
Final Thoughts: Darmanitan is shaping up to be one of our most overbearing mons in the meta, especially in conjunction with Sun and other threats to prepare for.
Personal Opinion: Unhealthy when utilized correctly
UU Discord Opinion: Unhealthy, especially in conjunction with Darmanitan
On the topic of Sun, it’s one of the more dangerous archetypes to face, even without Darmanitan. The combination of Ninetales and Venusaur is especially powerful against non-Gigalith teams, since there’s no Sand to remove Drought. While I believe full Sun is rather mediocre, Semi-Sun with mons to support Venusaur and take advantage of Gigalith while still benefitting from Sun has potential to be a major issue. So, should Drought be banned in the future. I say no.
I believe that Venusaur is the mon that pushes Sun past the edge, not Darmanitan or any other sweeper. Ninetales is a good stand alone mon that deserves more love outside of its Sun and I’d love to see people do more with it. You can make the argument that the combination of Drought and Darmanitan is the issue. However, I believe this would be much easier to deal with if it weren’t for Venusaur.
Final Thoughts: Sun is an issue in our current metagame without even factoring in other things to prepare for. However, if we hypothetically did suspect or have a vote on it, I would be of the opinion that Venusaur alone should go instead of Drought itself.
Personal Thoughts: Don’t Care
UU Discord Thoughts: Varied
DD + Protect is starting to pick up traction, used in all 4 of the Monsters’ SWSH games against the Idols in UUPL Week 3. Sage vs. Ajna is a prime example of how this set works: set up on a mon you force out and wreck havoc, utilizing Protect to screw over First Impression users. Opinions on this mon have been pretty varied in the UU Discord from what I’ve seen. However I’ve yet to take a side in whether or not Haxorus is unhealthy - while I have argued in defense of it, after realizing the potential DD + Protect has, I’m now unsure. Although we got a great check to it in Sylveon, said mon obviously won’t be on every team and is mostly restricted to Balance.
Final Thoughts: Unknown, UU Discord seemed pretty split on this when I brought it up a few weeks ago. I’d have to see more results besides games where there was no Fairy-types and only one Dragon resist (or none in Lilburr vs. TDK’s case).
Personal Thoughts: Potentially unhealthy in the future
UU Discord Thoughts: Healthy, but threatening
BLOODMONEY with Shift Gear + Protect Toxtricity is starting to pick up traction in UUPL, mostly used by the Veterans and once by the Idols. The concept is the same as Haxorus, Protect against First Impression users. The reason why I’m bringing up Toxtricity is because it has real potential to be a big issue. It already shreds bulkier teams (balance, not stall) without Rhyperior and Shift Gear can destroy offense if i ever gets the chance. The few Toxtricity answers we have - Rhyperior, Gigalith, and Bronzong - are all very easy to chip and wear down, especially when paired with Draco Meteor Noivern. I already had concerns about this when it dropped but brushed them aside after playing a few games. My worries are now back that this mon has the potential to be unhealthy in the near future.
Final Thoughts: While Specs is a threat in its own right, Shift Gear is another thing entirely. It has the bulk and typing to survive common priority moves and Protect screws over First Impression spam as speed control. At the moment there are tons of mons to worry about, but in the future I can definitley see BLOODMONEY taking an unhealthy turn.
General thoughts: despite voting DNB, no Mamo will certainly make building a lot easier.
Post-drops, I think Mamo definitely waned as a threat for me. Right now, I think the unhealthiest thing I've seen based on the ladder is sun. Pre-Darm, sun teams could still farm wins but just weren't all that reliable. With Darm, though, they're a whole new beast. I actually haven't had much of an issue with Darm on its own: ScarfDarm isn't that hard to check outside of sun, and while base 95 is a good Speed tier, between Rocks and Flare Blitz chip, it's pretty easy to get CB Darm into easy revenge-kill range. Boots Darm has been pretty cool but it lacks the insane utility offered by Incineroar. All in all it's a decent offensive drop but I haven't found it overwhelming.... until you add sun to the mix. Under sun, all three sets suddenly get dialed up to 11, especially with Venusaur to clean up once Darm breaks some holes.
Gigalith remains a really good sun answer, but running Gigalith is just asking for your team to get snacked on by the OTHER great drop, Sylveon. Wish is an absolute godsend to the tier, but Specs is the real threat. Even with Timid, its Hyper Voice hits even harder than Gardevoir's Moonblast, but unlike Gardevoir it has an excellent defensive typing and good enough bulk to take advantage of a lot of more passive threats (such as the aforementioned Gigalith), and even some more offensive staples like Noivern. Sure, it's slower, but the only relevant threats you actively miss out on between the 284 and 240 ranges are Toxtricity and Chandelure (the latter of which is only a Speed tie anyhow). You can even run bulkier sets with Modest, which completely demolish fatter teams, doing things like having a 100% 2HKO on max/max Incineroar.
Anyhow, if I had to say any single thing was unhealthy in the current meta I'd probably say Darm, especially because of how much it makes Sun teams over-the-top good. After that, I think we probably need to keep an eye on Sylveon and Haxorus, though I could also see other threats like Rotom-W potentially getting out of hand as well.
Post-drops, I think Mamo definitely waned as a threat for me. Right now, I think the unhealthiest thing I've seen based on the ladder is sun. Pre-Darm, sun teams could still farm wins but just weren't all that reliable. With Darm, though, they're a whole new beast. I actually haven't had much of an issue with Darm on its own: ScarfDarm isn't that hard to check outside of sun, and while base 95 is a good Speed tier, between Rocks and Flare Blitz chip, it's pretty easy to get CB Darm into easy revenge-kill range. Boots Darm has been pretty cool but it lacks the insane utility offered by Incineroar. All in all it's a decent offensive drop but I haven't found it overwhelming.... until you add sun to the mix. Under sun, all three sets suddenly get dialed up to 11, especially with Venusaur to clean up once Darm breaks some holes.
Gigalith remains a really good sun answer, but running Gigalith is just asking for your team to get snacked on by the OTHER great drop, Sylveon. Wish is an absolute godsend to the tier, but Specs is the real threat. Even with Timid, its Hyper Voice hits even harder than Gardevoir's Moonblast, but unlike Gardevoir it has an excellent defensive typing and good enough bulk to take advantage of a lot of more passive threats (such as the aforementioned Gigalith), and even some more offensive staples like Noivern. Sure, it's slower, but the only relevant threats you actively miss out on between the 284 and 240 ranges are Toxtricity and Chandelure (the latter of which is only a Speed tie anyhow). You can even run bulkier sets with Modest, which completely demolish fatter teams, doing things like having a 100% 2HKO on max/max Incineroar.
Anyhow, if I had to say any single thing was unhealthy in the current meta I'd probably say Darm, especially because of how much it makes Sun teams over-the-top good. After that, I think we probably need to keep an eye on Sylveon and Haxorus, though I could also see other threats like Rotom-W potentially getting out of hand as well.
Stealing Juuno's idea <3
Gonna do a little bit of thinking about what gets better and what gets worse. This is all in theory - I've not played much since the drops, much less since the ban - so things may not pan out like this in future, but logically it makes sense.
Haxorus
Haxorus gets a LOT better. Ice Shard was one of the main things keeping this monster in check, preventing it from just dropping its ridiculously powerful Outrages without consequence and also punishing Dragon Dance sets if they got weakened while attempting to set up. It should see a massive spike in usage and may potentially become overbearing.
That said, we still have some answers. We recently picked up the wonderful Sylveon, who keeps non-Poison Jab variants in check (don't run pjab). First Impression is as good as ever, though as Juun showed in her post, Dragon Dance + Protect variants have been picking up steam lately. Worth keeping an eye on this, but nothing drastic needs to happen yet.
Toxtricity
Toxtricity loves this shift. Not only was Mamoswine a common way to revenge kill it, but it was also one of a mere three Ground-types in the tier that could block its Volt Switch. Choice Specs sets improve quite a bit now that there isn't the constant looming threat of the pig revenging you any time you get a kill. Shift Gear + Protect sets are also gaining traction and have shown to be threatening late-game wincons.
This thing still faces huge competition. Heliolisk's insane speed tier means that, in most cases, it outclasses Toxtricity as an offensive Electric-type. There's also the newly-dropped Rotom-Wash, in addition to Rotom-Mow. As of right now, I think Heliolisk is on the top of the food chain offensively, but that may change in this meta.
Golisopod
Pod's an interesting one for sure. Despite the fact that one of its main attractions was its ability to check Mamoswine, I think it has a lot going for it as a result of the ban. No longer will it have to have its Boots knocked off every game, and it doesn't have to conserve its HP to exclusively check Mamo.
Protect's everywhere. That alone is making it harder to justify Pod on teams, especially as a sole form of speed control. It's also facing competition from the washing machine, so it's gonna struggle a bit as a water. I think it's still got a lot going for it, though.
Noivern and Flygon
Putting these two together; you'll see why.
The obvious thing is that they both benefit from not getting instantly revenge killed by Ice Shard. However, I think Noivern's actually a tiny bit worse right now, and Flygon's gonna get a lot better!
Noivern is going to receive a LOT of competition in the Dragon slot as a result of -what should be- Haxorus's increased dominance. The Sylveon drop is also nightmarish for it. This means that it won't be easy to just dump it onto every single team ever from now on, though it'll probably still chill at #1 on the usage stats. Flygon, however, is also important - it can beat Shift Gear Toxtricity (as long as it doesn't have both boosts), revenges Haxorus at +1 and is the fastest common scarfer in the tier (though we may see more Inteleon now). These traits, along with the general drop in Weezing usage, make Flygon a lot more attractive. It doesn't like the Sylveon drop either, but it's got a lot of positive traits now.
Cobalion
Not much to say on this one but not having to run Shuca on every single set is nice.
Next up, we have the drops themselves.
Sylveon, Rotom-Wash and Darmanitan
I think these mons are all fine on their own.
Sylveon's a great cleric and Specs sets are strong as hell. It provides a much-needed answer for mons like Noivern and Haxorus that the tier just lacked in the past.
Rotom's a great utility mon that compresses a ton of roles. Being a defogger that beats every rocker's really cool too. The addition of Nasty Plot also makes it much more threatening on its own.
Darm's a threat with like three good sets. I think Scarf is best and Band kinda sucks on its own but Boots is p good. However, it creates a bigger issue that I wanna get into before I end off this post.
Sun
Sun is turning out to be pretty stupid. Between not having Ice Shard to revenge kill Venusaur, a new (better imo) setter in Torkoal (which, by the way, was supposed to drop to RU?? Did nobody else notice this or) and of course, Darmanitan, this playstyle is preeeetty ridiculous. It used to just be a niche option that could farm wins but lacked in some matchups like Hogg said, but now it destroys pretty much everything in its path with some decent play. I don't think this is going to be healthy going forward. Whether it's a Venusaur suspect or a Drought suspect, it's likely something will need to be done.
To end this off I'm just gonna list a bunch of stuff that gets better in some way.
and probably more idk someone else can get the rest hf
Gonna do a little bit of thinking about what gets better and what gets worse. This is all in theory - I've not played much since the drops, much less since the ban - so things may not pan out like this in future, but logically it makes sense.
Haxorus
Haxorus gets a LOT better. Ice Shard was one of the main things keeping this monster in check, preventing it from just dropping its ridiculously powerful Outrages without consequence and also punishing Dragon Dance sets if they got weakened while attempting to set up. It should see a massive spike in usage and may potentially become overbearing.
That said, we still have some answers. We recently picked up the wonderful Sylveon, who keeps non-Poison Jab variants in check (don't run pjab). First Impression is as good as ever, though as Juun showed in her post, Dragon Dance + Protect variants have been picking up steam lately. Worth keeping an eye on this, but nothing drastic needs to happen yet.
Toxtricity
Toxtricity loves this shift. Not only was Mamoswine a common way to revenge kill it, but it was also one of a mere three Ground-types in the tier that could block its Volt Switch. Choice Specs sets improve quite a bit now that there isn't the constant looming threat of the pig revenging you any time you get a kill. Shift Gear + Protect sets are also gaining traction and have shown to be threatening late-game wincons.
This thing still faces huge competition. Heliolisk's insane speed tier means that, in most cases, it outclasses Toxtricity as an offensive Electric-type. There's also the newly-dropped Rotom-Wash, in addition to Rotom-Mow. As of right now, I think Heliolisk is on the top of the food chain offensively, but that may change in this meta.
Golisopod
Pod's an interesting one for sure. Despite the fact that one of its main attractions was its ability to check Mamoswine, I think it has a lot going for it as a result of the ban. No longer will it have to have its Boots knocked off every game, and it doesn't have to conserve its HP to exclusively check Mamo.
Protect's everywhere. That alone is making it harder to justify Pod on teams, especially as a sole form of speed control. It's also facing competition from the washing machine, so it's gonna struggle a bit as a water. I think it's still got a lot going for it, though.
Noivern and Flygon
Putting these two together; you'll see why.
The obvious thing is that they both benefit from not getting instantly revenge killed by Ice Shard. However, I think Noivern's actually a tiny bit worse right now, and Flygon's gonna get a lot better!
Noivern is going to receive a LOT of competition in the Dragon slot as a result of -what should be- Haxorus's increased dominance. The Sylveon drop is also nightmarish for it. This means that it won't be easy to just dump it onto every single team ever from now on, though it'll probably still chill at #1 on the usage stats. Flygon, however, is also important - it can beat Shift Gear Toxtricity (as long as it doesn't have both boosts), revenges Haxorus at +1 and is the fastest common scarfer in the tier (though we may see more Inteleon now). These traits, along with the general drop in Weezing usage, make Flygon a lot more attractive. It doesn't like the Sylveon drop either, but it's got a lot of positive traits now.
Cobalion
Not much to say on this one but not having to run Shuca on every single set is nice.
Next up, we have the drops themselves.
Sylveon, Rotom-Wash and Darmanitan
I think these mons are all fine on their own.
Sylveon's a great cleric and Specs sets are strong as hell. It provides a much-needed answer for mons like Noivern and Haxorus that the tier just lacked in the past.
Rotom's a great utility mon that compresses a ton of roles. Being a defogger that beats every rocker's really cool too. The addition of Nasty Plot also makes it much more threatening on its own.
Darm's a threat with like three good sets. I think Scarf is best and Band kinda sucks on its own but Boots is p good. However, it creates a bigger issue that I wanna get into before I end off this post.
Sun
Sun is turning out to be pretty stupid. Between not having Ice Shard to revenge kill Venusaur, a new (better imo) setter in Torkoal (which, by the way, was supposed to drop to RU?? Did nobody else notice this or) and of course, Darmanitan, this playstyle is preeeetty ridiculous. It used to just be a niche option that could farm wins but lacked in some matchups like Hogg said, but now it destroys pretty much everything in its path with some decent play. I don't think this is going to be healthy going forward. Whether it's a Venusaur suspect or a Drought suspect, it's likely something will need to be done.
To end this off I'm just gonna list a bunch of stuff that gets better in some way.
and probably more idk someone else can get the rest hf
Torkoal didn't drop to RU because we're still technically in the start of the generation and big drops have not been implemented yet - as of now, things fall one tier at a time.
now that I don't have to consistently live in fear of ice shard, its time for talk about what mons get affected by this ban too.
I remember someone else posted about this mon when Venu first dropped (along with broken gyara/prima) and after using it a bunch against multiple sun teams currently, Goodra is a really neat way to screw the playstyle over. For one, you have the obvious fact that it checks unboosted Venu pretty well, and it sits on both sun setters, including Torkoal and now inferior sun setter(Ninetales) which gives it free opportunities to drop a NASTY Draco on whatever comes in. Oh, and did I mention the fact that Mamo getting the boot was a huge benefit for it?
Speaking of pokemon that appreciate Mamo's banning, Gigalith only gets better and better. Back in the day, there was nothing stopping Mamo from coming in absolutely free on it and either killing it with EQ or applying some sort of offensive pressure on its team. Now that it's gone and Toxtricity is likely on the rise because now it can't be revenged by Mamo, Gigalith keeps on keeping on. Although Flygon's resurgence as a pokemon that also benefits from Mamo's ban, beats Toxtricity and dominates Gigalith simultaneously, its a win-lose(sorta) case.
I remember someone else posted about this mon when Venu first dropped (along with broken gyara/prima) and after using it a bunch against multiple sun teams currently, Goodra is a really neat way to screw the playstyle over. For one, you have the obvious fact that it checks unboosted Venu pretty well, and it sits on both sun setters, including Torkoal and now inferior sun setter(Ninetales) which gives it free opportunities to drop a NASTY Draco on whatever comes in. Oh, and did I mention the fact that Mamo getting the boot was a huge benefit for it?
Speaking of pokemon that appreciate Mamo's banning, Gigalith only gets better and better. Back in the day, there was nothing stopping Mamo from coming in absolutely free on it and either killing it with EQ or applying some sort of offensive pressure on its team. Now that it's gone and Toxtricity is likely on the rise because now it can't be revenged by Mamo, Gigalith keeps on keeping on. Although Flygon's resurgence as a pokemon that also benefits from Mamo's ban, beats Toxtricity and dominates Gigalith simultaneously, its a win-lose(sorta) case.
If there's anything I hate seeing in preview or preparing for rn beyond sun, it's Haxorus. DD+Tect is still ridiculously good even with Sylveon here because as many have already said, the fairy's better sets look like being offensive and not that bulky which means they're not even a Hax countermeasure (+1 LO EQ just obliterates). You're sort of limited to a small pool of mons that can eat a hit and threaten back (Escavalier, Milotic, Support Sylveon, Umbreon, Vaporeon, Doublade, Avalugg, Corsola-G) or scarfers that outspeed at +1 (Flygon, Espeon, Inteleon, Celebi, Heliolisk). The priority options in this tier that aren't First Impression are very much depleted, being just Doublade, Sylveon (lol) and a couple of non-STAB BP users which means the list kind of stops there? Someone feel free to correct me if I've blundered somewhere here, it is 2am after all. CB then obviously kicks things up a notch by deleting some of these off the list and varying how you play around an unrevealed Haxorus.
It's quite early to draw conclusions so soon after a meta shift so I'll try to keep an open mind but my current feeling is that a decent number of the mons I listed aren't really very good outside of helping improve your Haxorus matchup, and if you should not run into one, then represent a significant downgrade on what you could be running instead which is something that concerns me. That being said, I'm definitely glad Sylveon dropped and Mamoswine was banned, as these are two changes that I think could really get this tier moving towards a better place and hopefully inspire a bit more variety than we've seen recently. Looking forward to seeing what everyone brings in UUPL the next couple of weeks that's for sure.
It's quite early to draw conclusions so soon after a meta shift so I'll try to keep an open mind but my current feeling is that a decent number of the mons I listed aren't really very good outside of helping improve your Haxorus matchup, and if you should not run into one, then represent a significant downgrade on what you could be running instead which is something that concerns me. That being said, I'm definitely glad Sylveon dropped and Mamoswine was banned, as these are two changes that I think could really get this tier moving towards a better place and hopefully inspire a bit more variety than we've seen recently. Looking forward to seeing what everyone brings in UUPL the next couple of weeks that's for sure.
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I’m just saying having a return of the kokolokoloko method doesn’t sound half bad with how many mons are close to absolutely busted in this tier
however, if we’re just going to focus on 1-2 mons a suspect, I urge UU to focus on Sun or Darmanitan first. While Sun was viable before Darmanitan dropped, it has become incredibly stupid to deal with because it now has the nuking power of all three Darm sets under Sun that has barely any checks ALONG with Venusaur’s cleaning potential late game. Gigalith is a fine check until you realize you have no reliable recovery and will get chipped to death as stated earlier by Hogg. There’s a few other niche Sun checks but honestly if the playstyle forces you to run things like Goodra in order not to just lose that sounds pretty unhealthy to me. Personally I’d like to keep Darmanitan in the tier because it’s a neat revenge killer without Sun but I can see why suspecting it is the wave since it’s the main thing making Sun so unhealthy and broken.
however, if we’re just going to focus on 1-2 mons a suspect, I urge UU to focus on Sun or Darmanitan first. While Sun was viable before Darmanitan dropped, it has become incredibly stupid to deal with because it now has the nuking power of all three Darm sets under Sun that has barely any checks ALONG with Venusaur’s cleaning potential late game. Gigalith is a fine check until you realize you have no reliable recovery and will get chipped to death as stated earlier by Hogg. There’s a few other niche Sun checks but honestly if the playstyle forces you to run things like Goodra in order not to just lose that sounds pretty unhealthy to me. Personally I’d like to keep Darmanitan in the tier because it’s a neat revenge killer without Sun but I can see why suspecting it is the wave since it’s the main thing making Sun so unhealthy and broken.
Sun+Darm is silly broken. Sun+Venu is also really strong, I'd argue unhealthy and overcentralizing given that you gotta run Goodra if you want to have a chance.
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Rhyperior in Sun: 241-284 (55.9 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Darmanitan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gigalith: 274-324 (73.2 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
For anyone who tries to use flash fire as an excuse, all flash fire pokemon get destroyed by earthquake. Band Darm in the Sun is literally uncounterable, it all comes down to a 50/50 between Flare Blitz and Earthquake.
While you can run giga drain for extra recovery, solar beam is MUCH stronger, and will break through some of the most specially defensive pokemon with ease.
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 278-329 (70.5 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I posted that one calc because this is the best it gets, unless you start running sets with lower viability like Assault Vest Reuniclus, Type;Null, and specially defensive Silvallu-Poison. The only priority to revenge kill Venusair is first impression, as it resists the rest or takes pitiful damage from things like Machamp's bullet punch, and your scarfer has to be fast to outspeed Modest Venusair in the sun, (108 speed or higher), and of the pokemon who are fast enough to outspeed Venusaur and strong enough to revenge kill, only two are UU, Inteleon and Noivern, with the latter almost never seen with a scarf. To summarize, sun is pretty busted thanks to these above two pokemon and should be suspected, or you can suspect the above two pokemon but the above two pokemon aren't broken without sun.
The second subject I want to speak about is why Mantine, and bulky waters in general, are pretty bad right now in UU. Some may not agree but I'll explain myself first. Mantine's main purpose is to defog, due to its low defense and weakness to rock it serves as much more of a check than a counter to thing like Cobalion and Lucario. Mantine is unable to do anything against the new drop Darmanitan, and I'm not even talking about sun.
252 Atk Sheer Force Darmanitan Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mantine: 204-242 (54.5 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Darm doesn't even need a life orb to easily, guaranteed 2hko Max/Max Mantine, and as for band:
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mantine: 182-214 (48.6 - 57.2%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO
Yeah, Mantine is useless against Darmanitan. Well, as for Cobalion which is one of the main reasons I think that Mantine is placed on teams, if it runs volt switch you can't touch it and it'll chip you over and over, if it runs stone edge you're one cit away from death, or just a bit of chip, and if it runs SD+stone edge you're useless. Lucario can always one shot you with Thunder Punch if they choose to run it, you can't switch into stone edge variants, and the SD has the same situation as Cobalion. So Mantine is bad at checking the things it's supposed to check, but at least it has defog. However, the main problem with Mantine is that it's passive. This is a problem shared with the majority of bulky waters, but Mantine has it worse than things like Milotic and Vaporeon given that its special attacks stat is so low.
All bulky waters, except two face the problem of being Rotom Wash bait given that he has now dropped. Wash switches in for free and all these Pokemon, with only toxic to fear from most of them, if they carry it. If the Wash player has a cleric then Rotom W doesn't even care for toxic. Once in he can generate momentum for free with volt switch, and if he's the offensive set which I haven't seen very often given how good defensively Rotom W is, but if it's the offensive set he can shoot out very strong Hydro Pumps which decimates teams lacking bulky grass types. This is one of the reasons for the fall of bulky waters, but this situation has existed before, and bulky waters throughout the history of UU have never been this bad. The second reason is the most important one which is Haxorus which sets up for free on any bulky waters who lack ice beam, and Mantine is especially bad due to having that abysmal special attack stat. You don't want to let Haxorus in for free, basically ever and bulky waters do that. The two bulky waters who don't care for Rotom-Wash are Gastrodon and Lanturn, but Lanturn is absolutely garbage since it lacks reliable recovery, has low physical bulk and is weak to ground, all while Wash exists. Gastrodon is an interesting case, as it would be really good if Haxorus wasn't around. Haxorus can switch in basically for free against Gastrodon and Gastrodon can do little about it, although ice beam barely 2hkos Haxorus Gastrodon's final move (Scald, Earth Power, Recover, X) is very important. Without toxic, Gastrodon can't touch Rotom Wash and many other pokemon. Without mirror coat gastrodon lets in powerful special wallbreakers such as Gardevoir, Sylveon and Reuniclus for free. Gastrodon unlike Mantine can take on scarf and LO Darm 100% of the time, and band Darmanitan 95.6% of the time
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 184-217 (43.1 - 50.9%) -- 4.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
which should be long enough for Darm to KO itself from recoil/stealth rocks. It also checks Toxtricitee. Gastrodon is pretty decent but Haxorus really hampers its potential.
I'm done summarizing why I believe Bulky Waters are at their worst in UU (post alpha of course as alpha is almost always meh defensively), but I want to drop another one of my opinions, which is that Arcanine is pretty good. I'm seeing teleport Arcanine all over the place, I believe Boots+Bulk+Typing+Intimidate+Speed really make Arcanine into a solid mon, this is peak Arcanine right now. It checks Gardevoir if and only if Gardevoir doesn't click its psychic stab as specs, (although Arcanine does fine against everything bar specs which is Gardevoirs best set in my opinion), counters offensive Sylveon, and intimidate is simply a great ability for keeping physical wallbreakers in check. UU has gotten significantly better with Mamoswine's departure, but Sun+problem mons is really bad for this tier.
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Rhyperior in Sun: 241-284 (55.9 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Darmanitan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gigalith: 274-324 (73.2 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
For anyone who tries to use flash fire as an excuse, all flash fire pokemon get destroyed by earthquake. Band Darm in the Sun is literally uncounterable, it all comes down to a 50/50 between Flare Blitz and Earthquake.
While you can run giga drain for extra recovery, solar beam is MUCH stronger, and will break through some of the most specially defensive pokemon with ease.
+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Solar Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 278-329 (70.5 - 83.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I posted that one calc because this is the best it gets, unless you start running sets with lower viability like Assault Vest Reuniclus, Type;Null, and specially defensive Silvallu-Poison. The only priority to revenge kill Venusair is first impression, as it resists the rest or takes pitiful damage from things like Machamp's bullet punch, and your scarfer has to be fast to outspeed Modest Venusair in the sun, (108 speed or higher), and of the pokemon who are fast enough to outspeed Venusaur and strong enough to revenge kill, only two are UU, Inteleon and Noivern, with the latter almost never seen with a scarf. To summarize, sun is pretty busted thanks to these above two pokemon and should be suspected, or you can suspect the above two pokemon but the above two pokemon aren't broken without sun.
The second subject I want to speak about is why Mantine, and bulky waters in general, are pretty bad right now in UU. Some may not agree but I'll explain myself first. Mantine's main purpose is to defog, due to its low defense and weakness to rock it serves as much more of a check than a counter to thing like Cobalion and Lucario. Mantine is unable to do anything against the new drop Darmanitan, and I'm not even talking about sun.
252 Atk Sheer Force Darmanitan Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mantine: 204-242 (54.5 - 64.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Darm doesn't even need a life orb to easily, guaranteed 2hko Max/Max Mantine, and as for band:
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mantine: 182-214 (48.6 - 57.2%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO
Yeah, Mantine is useless against Darmanitan. Well, as for Cobalion which is one of the main reasons I think that Mantine is placed on teams, if it runs volt switch you can't touch it and it'll chip you over and over, if it runs stone edge you're one cit away from death, or just a bit of chip, and if it runs SD+stone edge you're useless. Lucario can always one shot you with Thunder Punch if they choose to run it, you can't switch into stone edge variants, and the SD has the same situation as Cobalion. So Mantine is bad at checking the things it's supposed to check, but at least it has defog. However, the main problem with Mantine is that it's passive. This is a problem shared with the majority of bulky waters, but Mantine has it worse than things like Milotic and Vaporeon given that its special attacks stat is so low.
All bulky waters, except two face the problem of being Rotom Wash bait given that he has now dropped. Wash switches in for free and all these Pokemon, with only toxic to fear from most of them, if they carry it. If the Wash player has a cleric then Rotom W doesn't even care for toxic. Once in he can generate momentum for free with volt switch, and if he's the offensive set which I haven't seen very often given how good defensively Rotom W is, but if it's the offensive set he can shoot out very strong Hydro Pumps which decimates teams lacking bulky grass types. This is one of the reasons for the fall of bulky waters, but this situation has existed before, and bulky waters throughout the history of UU have never been this bad. The second reason is the most important one which is Haxorus which sets up for free on any bulky waters who lack ice beam, and Mantine is especially bad due to having that abysmal special attack stat. You don't want to let Haxorus in for free, basically ever and bulky waters do that. The two bulky waters who don't care for Rotom-Wash are Gastrodon and Lanturn, but Lanturn is absolutely garbage since it lacks reliable recovery, has low physical bulk and is weak to ground, all while Wash exists. Gastrodon is an interesting case, as it would be really good if Haxorus wasn't around. Haxorus can switch in basically for free against Gastrodon and Gastrodon can do little about it, although ice beam barely 2hkos Haxorus Gastrodon's final move (Scald, Earth Power, Recover, X) is very important. Without toxic, Gastrodon can't touch Rotom Wash and many other pokemon. Without mirror coat gastrodon lets in powerful special wallbreakers such as Gardevoir, Sylveon and Reuniclus for free. Gastrodon unlike Mantine can take on scarf and LO Darm 100% of the time, and band Darmanitan 95.6% of the time
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gastrodon: 184-217 (43.1 - 50.9%) -- 4.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
which should be long enough for Darm to KO itself from recoil/stealth rocks. It also checks Toxtricitee. Gastrodon is pretty decent but Haxorus really hampers its potential.
I'm done summarizing why I believe Bulky Waters are at their worst in UU (post alpha of course as alpha is almost always meh defensively), but I want to drop another one of my opinions, which is that Arcanine is pretty good. I'm seeing teleport Arcanine all over the place, I believe Boots+Bulk+Typing+Intimidate+Speed really make Arcanine into a solid mon, this is peak Arcanine right now. It checks Gardevoir if and only if Gardevoir doesn't click its psychic stab as specs, (although Arcanine does fine against everything bar specs which is Gardevoirs best set in my opinion), counters offensive Sylveon, and intimidate is simply a great ability for keeping physical wallbreakers in check. UU has gotten significantly better with Mamoswine's departure, but Sun+problem mons is really bad for this tier.
Hi Everyone,
I don't usually post on the forums and I generally lurk, but a few of you will know my account Luna bae on ps. I thought I'd post a stall team that I think is quite fun (subjective, I understand) and became slightly more stable with the mamoswine ban. Additionally, I received requests for this team after pokeisfun took it for a spin, and hopefully this will facilitate that. I haven't seen an awful lot of stall this gen and wanted to put something together that retained some of the themes of the previous gen, while incorporating some of the new options available - in this case it's the familiar double unaware core with the new heavy-duty boots shedinja concept, something which I haven't seen yet.
The team comprises of pyukumuku and quagsire as the unaware core (deal with boosting threats through toxic, spite and counter, rather self explanatory, spite also helps with stall match ups, though these are uncommon) heavy-duty boots shedinja (generally covers what pyukumuku and quagsire cannot, while also providing some offensive presence and coveted priority), umbreon (spdef wall, covered excellently in its smogon analysis), necrozma (the set mentioned in pokeisfun 's wonderful post above) and silvally fairy (defog support and an answer to haxorus). I found that necrozma was a bit of a show stealer and the set really surprised me. I started with toxic over knock off, but switched as knock off support was crucial for the team, plus the implication that this might be a physical photon geyser appeared to throw off the opponent wonderfully, occasionally.
I will admit that I'm a bit of a lurking builder and don't generally ladder, but as said known hero pokeisfun took it for a whirl and the outcome was quite satisfactory. There are weaknesses of course, one clearly being toxic spikes and a competent nature. Rather than listing my own opinions, I would prefer you to make up your own minds on the team, speculatively or otherwise and I've provided a link below:
https://pokepast.es/847503e8f53215b2
Have fun!
I don't usually post on the forums and I generally lurk, but a few of you will know my account Luna bae on ps. I thought I'd post a stall team that I think is quite fun (subjective, I understand) and became slightly more stable with the mamoswine ban. Additionally, I received requests for this team after pokeisfun took it for a spin, and hopefully this will facilitate that. I haven't seen an awful lot of stall this gen and wanted to put something together that retained some of the themes of the previous gen, while incorporating some of the new options available - in this case it's the familiar double unaware core with the new heavy-duty boots shedinja concept, something which I haven't seen yet.
The team comprises of pyukumuku and quagsire as the unaware core (deal with boosting threats through toxic, spite and counter, rather self explanatory, spite also helps with stall match ups, though these are uncommon) heavy-duty boots shedinja (generally covers what pyukumuku and quagsire cannot, while also providing some offensive presence and coveted priority), umbreon (spdef wall, covered excellently in its smogon analysis), necrozma (the set mentioned in pokeisfun 's wonderful post above) and silvally fairy (defog support and an answer to haxorus). I found that necrozma was a bit of a show stealer and the set really surprised me. I started with toxic over knock off, but switched as knock off support was crucial for the team, plus the implication that this might be a physical photon geyser appeared to throw off the opponent wonderfully, occasionally.
I will admit that I'm a bit of a lurking builder and don't generally ladder, but as said known hero pokeisfun took it for a whirl and the outcome was quite satisfactory. There are weaknesses of course, one clearly being toxic spikes and a competent nature. Rather than listing my own opinions, I would prefer you to make up your own minds on the team, speculatively or otherwise and I've provided a link below:
https://pokepast.es/847503e8f53215b2
Have fun!
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In this post, I argue we should immediately suspect the ability "Drought" because three reasons: 1) Sun teams are overwhelmingly strong, 2) Sun teams are uncompetitive because they are heavily match up based, and 3) banning Drought more clearly solves the issue than banning problematic Sun abusers like Venusaur and Darmanitan. After providing support for these three reasons, I conclude why our policy should be suspecting Drought instead suspecting other potentially broken Pokemon like Haxorus and Necrozma.
Sun teams are overwhelmingly strong
Sun teams are uncompetitive
Banning Drought more clearly solves the issue than banning Drought abusers
Why Drought over potentially broken Pokemon like Haxorus and Necrozma?
Sun teams are overwhelmingly strong
When I say Sun teams are overwhelmingly strong, I just mean they have a much better chance of winning than teams using different strategies, like a standard bulky offense. Sun teams are overwhelmingly strong because their sweepers are just too insanely powerful and too insanely fast.
For example, in this replay, there is a fairly atypical Sun team with Leafeon as an atypical sweeper plus two Drought users instead of one. Although the Sun team plays arguably too aggressively in the beginning (for example, why sacrifice Torkoal when Sylveon countered Noivern? Why sacrifice Venusaur for damage on Bronzong?), they still manage to win due to the absurd power of Leafeon. Leafeon handily OHKOs Cobalion with a resisted move. What is really significant is that Leafeon was actually able to set up on the Cobalion. Yes it's true Cobalion could have used SD on turn but frankly the weatherless team was not sure what Leafeon would be running (Double Kick? Dig?) and attacking seemed to be a prudent defensive measure.
In another game, you can see another fairly unusual Sun Pokemon - Heliolisk - which can ravage this tier as Electric immunities are becoming increasingly uncommon with Mamoswine gone. For example, only 8 out of the 24 teams brought in UUPL Week 3 had an Electric immunity other than Mamoswine. Even if Mamoswine replacements are 100% Electric immunities, that would mean 18 teams out of 24 teams would have Electric immunities (Mamoswine had 11 uses but on one team was paired with Togedamaru, an Electric immunity). Even in that unlikely scenario that still means 25% of teams would not have any Electric immunities. Although the Sun team did not win this game, you could easily imagine them winning if they Lava Plumed on turn 19 (which would have correctly assessed Bronzong as the major threat) or got the 50-50 right on turn 29 (if he sacrificed Venusaur there he would have won with Darmanitan later).
These Sun sweepers - Leafeon and Heliolisk - are incredibly fast and powerful but they don't even constitute the major Sun sweepers, which are Venusaur and Darmanitan. Choice Band Darmanitan's power is simply absurd, OHKOing or 2HKOing everything except sturdy resists, x4 resists, and Flash Fire Pokemon. While this isn't a huge problem by itself because it's lack of Speed, the implication that it can practically always get 1-2 free KOs vs stall is unacceptable to me because nothing should be annihilating a playstyle like this.
The so called Sun counter of Gigalith cannot switch in:
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gigalith: 160-189 (42.7 - 50.5%) -- 42.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Additionally, considering how prominent Gigalith is as a Sun counter, nobody has provided evidence why Torkoal cannot simply run Sunny Day to maintain Sun on the switch in...
For example, in this replay, there is a fairly atypical Sun team with Leafeon as an atypical sweeper plus two Drought users instead of one. Although the Sun team plays arguably too aggressively in the beginning (for example, why sacrifice Torkoal when Sylveon countered Noivern? Why sacrifice Venusaur for damage on Bronzong?), they still manage to win due to the absurd power of Leafeon. Leafeon handily OHKOs Cobalion with a resisted move. What is really significant is that Leafeon was actually able to set up on the Cobalion. Yes it's true Cobalion could have used SD on turn but frankly the weatherless team was not sure what Leafeon would be running (Double Kick? Dig?) and attacking seemed to be a prudent defensive measure.
In another game, you can see another fairly unusual Sun Pokemon - Heliolisk - which can ravage this tier as Electric immunities are becoming increasingly uncommon with Mamoswine gone. For example, only 8 out of the 24 teams brought in UUPL Week 3 had an Electric immunity other than Mamoswine. Even if Mamoswine replacements are 100% Electric immunities, that would mean 18 teams out of 24 teams would have Electric immunities (Mamoswine had 11 uses but on one team was paired with Togedamaru, an Electric immunity). Even in that unlikely scenario that still means 25% of teams would not have any Electric immunities. Although the Sun team did not win this game, you could easily imagine them winning if they Lava Plumed on turn 19 (which would have correctly assessed Bronzong as the major threat) or got the 50-50 right on turn 29 (if he sacrificed Venusaur there he would have won with Darmanitan later).
These Sun sweepers - Leafeon and Heliolisk - are incredibly fast and powerful but they don't even constitute the major Sun sweepers, which are Venusaur and Darmanitan. Choice Band Darmanitan's power is simply absurd, OHKOing or 2HKOing everything except sturdy resists, x4 resists, and Flash Fire Pokemon. While this isn't a huge problem by itself because it's lack of Speed, the implication that it can practically always get 1-2 free KOs vs stall is unacceptable to me because nothing should be annihilating a playstyle like this.
The so called Sun counter of Gigalith cannot switch in:
252 Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Gigalith: 160-189 (42.7 - 50.5%) -- 42.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Additionally, considering how prominent Gigalith is as a Sun counter, nobody has provided evidence why Torkoal cannot simply run Sunny Day to maintain Sun on the switch in...
Sun teams are uncompetitive
By uncompetitive, all I mean is it is affected by match ups more than a typical team and it has built in "safety" advantages that a normal team does not have. When I say built in safety advantages, think of something like Regenerator Alomomola in so many of the previous generations - I would consider this uncompetitive because it's defensively brainless and means you don't have to predict versus say a Darmanitan - whether it U-Turns or Flare Blitz, Alomomola is always a safe (and likely correct) choice.
The built in safety advantage I'm talking about is the Speed of Venusaur (and potentially other Chlorophyll users like Leafeon and Choice Scarf Darmanitan) which means you can almost always revenge kill something. For example, even if a Necrozma sets up a Dragon Dance, you're going to have a Scarf Darmanitan that can easily outspeed and OHKO even a 100% +1 Necrozma in the Sun - and even +2 Necrozmas depending on the set. Venusaur similarly outspeeds and does this to UU's bulkiest sweeper:
252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Necrozma in Sun: 214-253 (63.8 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I consider this type of advantages - the fact that you'll have the Speed of at least 1 fast and strong Scarf Pokemon without needing to use a Scarf Pokemon pretty unfair for Sun vs other more typical offensive teams.
Sun is also more match up dependent than most other teams. As stated previously in this thread, Gigalith is one of the only "reliable" checks to Sun - although again, Torkoal could easily run Sunny Day to question this assumption. There are very few parallels to this "we need a single Pokemon for a playstyle" in the metagame - in fact, there are very few instances of "we need a single Pokemon for an opposing Pokemon." One of the more clearly questionable Pokemon, Necrozma, still has multiple checks and counters in Umbreon, Incineroar, Pangoro, and Scarf users. Haxorus has Sylveon and Avalugg defensively and plenty of priority users and Shuca Berry Cobalion more offensively. Nobody really says in the building process "I'm going to bring Pokemon X to check playstyle Y" except when it comes to Sun.
I'm not saying it's impossible to win versus Sun without Gigalith, I'm just saying it's unusually hard to do so.
The built in safety advantage I'm talking about is the Speed of Venusaur (and potentially other Chlorophyll users like Leafeon and Choice Scarf Darmanitan) which means you can almost always revenge kill something. For example, even if a Necrozma sets up a Dragon Dance, you're going to have a Scarf Darmanitan that can easily outspeed and OHKO even a 100% +1 Necrozma in the Sun - and even +2 Necrozmas depending on the set. Venusaur similarly outspeeds and does this to UU's bulkiest sweeper:
252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Necrozma in Sun: 214-253 (63.8 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I consider this type of advantages - the fact that you'll have the Speed of at least 1 fast and strong Scarf Pokemon without needing to use a Scarf Pokemon pretty unfair for Sun vs other more typical offensive teams.
Sun is also more match up dependent than most other teams. As stated previously in this thread, Gigalith is one of the only "reliable" checks to Sun - although again, Torkoal could easily run Sunny Day to question this assumption. There are very few parallels to this "we need a single Pokemon for a playstyle" in the metagame - in fact, there are very few instances of "we need a single Pokemon for an opposing Pokemon." One of the more clearly questionable Pokemon, Necrozma, still has multiple checks and counters in Umbreon, Incineroar, Pangoro, and Scarf users. Haxorus has Sylveon and Avalugg defensively and plenty of priority users and Shuca Berry Cobalion more offensively. Nobody really says in the building process "I'm going to bring Pokemon X to check playstyle Y" except when it comes to Sun.
I'm not saying it's impossible to win versus Sun without Gigalith, I'm just saying it's unusually hard to do so.
Banning Drought more clearly solves the issue than banning Drought abusers
Ultimately, there are two reasons why we should ban Drought over Drought/Sun abusers:
- We simply do not know what individual Pokemon is putting Sun over the top.
- I've already shown evidence that Heliolisk and Leafeon are not only viable, but very good Sun sweepers. Who's to say they won't become more mainstream and broken once Venusaur is potentially banned?
- This is just saying there is more to the playstyle than Darmanitan and Venusaur
- Banning individual Sun sweepers is actually contradicting the complex ban philosophy more than banning Drought.
- If Mamoswine is broken, we ban Mamoswine - not Earthquake with Mamoswine. We know that Mamoswine without Earthquake is likely not broken, but we don't say "we want to keep more of Mamoswine in the tier for diversity", we acknowledge we do not want to get in the rabbit hole of trying to nerf things to make them less broken.
- Therefore we should be trying to ban Drought because the playstyle of Sun is broken and we are not trying to nerf the playstyle by banning parts of it, like Venusaur and Darmanitan.
I'll qualify by saying suspecting Necrozma in particular but Haxorus as well would be preferable to no action. But unlike Haxorus and Necrozma, Sun is a playstyle and therefore almost by definition, more important for the metagame than a single Pokemon. We should ban Drought first for two reasons:
- We should always ban the most important thing for the metagame first. That's because the changes are presumably going to be greater, which could affect other potentially broken Pokemon.
- Drought also happens to be more broken than Haxorus and Necrozma in my view - the set up it requires to get game winning sweeps is already half done simply by switching in a Drought user - and some sweepers like Choice Scarf Darmanitan do not need any more set up at all
I've been thinking about it a lot and I'm also coming to overall agree with this sentiment. At first I was way more inclined to push for a Darm vote, because I didn't find sun overwhelming at all before Darm's drop (even if it was still decent and able to farm wins). But thinking about it more, the meta has shifted in such a way that even without Darm, sun as a playstyle has gotten a lot better. Losing Mamoswine makes Chlorophyl sweepers way more reliable, for one. For another, Washtom and Sylv dropping has presented more opportunities for sun to generate turns. Sun teams have also started to adjust around things like CB Haxorus and specially defensive Incineroar, both of which have otherwise often served as at least temporary stopgaps versus most sun teams. I'm becoming increasingly less convinced that banning Darmanitan would fix the issue.
That being said, one thing that we were inconsistent with in previous gens but that we've been trying to tighten up a lot in this gen is the issue of ability versus pokemon bans. In general, ability or move bans have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher threshold for banning than individual pokemon, because ability bans tend to be a lot more disruptive to a usage-based tiering system (as we saw with oddities last gen like tiers below UU being allowed to use things that were banned in UU). This is especially true for lower tiers. I know that last gen we banned Drought rather than the individual setters, but in this gen such a ban would have to go through a policy discussion, rather than something we could address in a normal suspect test or council vote. That said, we COULD do a test of Torkoal/Ninetales rather than Drought itself if we felt that was a better way to address the issue.
I'd like to see a lot more discussion on this in general, by the way. I think most of the people I've spoken to agree that something should probably be done about sun teams, but I really do not see any sort of consensus on the best way to go about doing that.
Uh, yeah, about that...
I think that there’s significant merit to just banning the ability as opposed to individual Pokémon, and I feel it isn’t too inconsistent with Smogon’s banning policy. The reason we usually don’t ban abilities or moves is that’s usually a measure designed to nerf a specific threat, and, (leaving aside the potential for collateral damage), that gets into complex ban territory. This is why OU banned Galarian Darmanitan instead of Gorilla Tactics; banning Gorilla Tactics actually would have had less collateral damage since no other Pokémon gets the ability and it would leave G-Darm legal in some form in the tier, but it opens up a can of worms of “well if you can do that, why not just make a bunch of other move and ability bans to bring down a bunch of Ubers?”, and it also leads to overly complicated rulesets.
However, weather abilities are different. The strength behind them doesn’t solely lie in how they improve the Pokémon that possesses them in question, but rather, how the mere act of switching in a Pokémon with said ability improves an entire team. This essentially ensures that to a weather team, no Pokémon that has their desired setting ability would ever be deadweight. If the only sun setter in UU right now was Drought Ledian, that wouldn’t make its teammates any less capable of sweeping teams or punching holes. In a metagame where weather becomes overbearing, there is a significant argument to be made that a weather ability is broken on anything that can get it. I mean sure sun teams would much prefer Ninetales and Torkoal to Vulpix, but as long as Vulpix is here, I think sun would still be a potentially broken playstyle in this metagame.
TL;DR: I think the policy discussion is probably the smartest plan, even if it’s more of a hassle. There’s a big difference between something like Huge Power, which buffs the owner of the ability, and Drought, which potentially directly improves every member on a team.
Alright so since I've been pretty quite recently, I'd like to talk about my thoughts on Sun/Darm/Venu which is a pretty spicy topic at the moment.
Since the shifts two weeks ago, and the drop of Darmanitan (and then the ban of Mamoswine), Sun team have become a really nasty and powerful archetype in Underused. Its counterplay or really limited.. Gigalith is probably the best check to the whole archetype but Sun team can play around if well played.. Thanks to their strong figurehead Darmanitan and Venusaur which are really tough to play around once they're under the Sun, sun team can overwhelm a lot of defensive cores as well as offensive cores which are pretty weak to Chlorophyll sweepers like Venusaur. It's been a few days that the council is talking about the way we should look at this issue. Is Darmanitan the issue ? Is Venusaur the issue or is this the fault of our Sun Inducer which provides a support way too good for those abusers... well I think that Ninetales/Torkoal are the issue here. Like in SM with Drought + Mega-Houndoom, Sun is once again under the bright stage lights and it's not a good thing. However this time it's a bit iffy because we can't ban "Drought" because it's agains't tiering policy so we have to choose between the Sun Sweepers or the Sun Inducers. I do believe that while both Darmitan and Venusaur or good, it's the Sun which makes them far too good and unhealthy for the tier. I believe that while Darmanitan is a really scary Pokemon, it's not unhealthy at all without the Sun support and the same applies even more to Venusaur. Torkoal provides a ton of support to its teammates with Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin, Yawn or Toxic while Ninetales is a more offensive inducer which can even run Overheat + Eject Pack in order to bring its teammates on the field. With that in mind, I think that the way to adress this issue is by banning both Ninetales and Torkoal which don't have any kind of utility (let's be honest) outside of Sun teams (while both Darmanitan and Venusaur can be played outisde of this archetype). I agree that if Vulpix become an issue because people start to use it to abuse of Darmanitan / Venusaur potential under the sun, then we'll just have to take care of Vulpix too.
I know a lot of people are complaining about Sun teams right now but be sure that we're not deaf to these complains and that we'll take action in the near futur.
Since the shifts two weeks ago, and the drop of Darmanitan (and then the ban of Mamoswine), Sun team have become a really nasty and powerful archetype in Underused. Its counterplay or really limited.. Gigalith is probably the best check to the whole archetype but Sun team can play around if well played.. Thanks to their strong figurehead Darmanitan and Venusaur which are really tough to play around once they're under the Sun, sun team can overwhelm a lot of defensive cores as well as offensive cores which are pretty weak to Chlorophyll sweepers like Venusaur. It's been a few days that the council is talking about the way we should look at this issue. Is Darmanitan the issue ? Is Venusaur the issue or is this the fault of our Sun Inducer which provides a support way too good for those abusers... well I think that Ninetales/Torkoal are the issue here. Like in SM with Drought + Mega-Houndoom, Sun is once again under the bright stage lights and it's not a good thing. However this time it's a bit iffy because we can't ban "Drought" because it's agains't tiering policy so we have to choose between the Sun Sweepers or the Sun Inducers. I do believe that while both Darmitan and Venusaur or good, it's the Sun which makes them far too good and unhealthy for the tier. I believe that while Darmanitan is a really scary Pokemon, it's not unhealthy at all without the Sun support and the same applies even more to Venusaur. Torkoal provides a ton of support to its teammates with Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin, Yawn or Toxic while Ninetales is a more offensive inducer which can even run Overheat + Eject Pack in order to bring its teammates on the field. With that in mind, I think that the way to adress this issue is by banning both Ninetales and Torkoal which don't have any kind of utility (let's be honest) outside of Sun teams (while both Darmanitan and Venusaur can be played outisde of this archetype). I agree that if Vulpix become an issue because people start to use it to abuse of Darmanitan / Venusaur potential under the sun, then we'll just have to take care of Vulpix too.
I know a lot of people are complaining about Sun teams right now but be sure that we're not deaf to these complains and that we'll take action in the near futur.
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There has been a lot of talk about Sun recently and I am here to share my thoughts. With Darm's drop and Mamoswine's ban, sun got two buffs to it by adding a second abuser alongside Venusaur (Zard/Shiftry are horrible) and removing the most common revenge killer to Venusaur under sun. Here's the team I use:
https://pokepast.es/3775abce4b932a38
Here's a replay of it with me clicking the Fire-type move 10 times https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-491289.
I think Tales/Venu/Darm/Noivern are mandatory on any sun build, leaving the last 2 slots malleable to what you wanna use. These 4 alone are nearly overbearing, with only a few stops to them. However, that's where the last two slots come in. For counters to sun, there's Gigalith, but sun can adapt by running Sunny Day on Ninetales to win the weather war. Chandelure is one of the best offensive stops to Venusaur, but without a Scarf, it is OHKOd by Darm and nearly OHKOd by Noivern. Sun can also viably run its own Gigalith. Also, the team player cat can probably fit on it so you aren't totally set against sun if you use Chandy. Spdef Incineroar is an ok check, but is nuked by both +2 Sludge Bomb and Superpower Darm. If paired with Healing Wish, the sun team easily outlasts the 1 or 2 checks you have to it. For these reasons, I conclude that sun teams need a nerf.
The question is - do we ban the setters or abuser(s)? I lean towards banning Tales/Torkoal, since individually, no one mon is the clear broken one when paired with Drought. Nobody complained about sun before Darm dropped, but good luck building a viable sun team without Venusaur. Vern is also indispensable with its defensive utility and raw coverage with Solar Beam. Banning one of these would be arbitrary, so it is clear that we should ban the setters. And to avoid the can-of-worms of banning Ability vs Pokemon, I want to ban both Ninetales and Torkoal
https://pokepast.es/3775abce4b932a38
Here's a replay of it with me clicking the Fire-type move 10 times https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen8uu-491289.
I think Tales/Venu/Darm/Noivern are mandatory on any sun build, leaving the last 2 slots malleable to what you wanna use. These 4 alone are nearly overbearing, with only a few stops to them. However, that's where the last two slots come in. For counters to sun, there's Gigalith, but sun can adapt by running Sunny Day on Ninetales to win the weather war. Chandelure is one of the best offensive stops to Venusaur, but without a Scarf, it is OHKOd by Darm and nearly OHKOd by Noivern. Sun can also viably run its own Gigalith. Also, the team player cat can probably fit on it so you aren't totally set against sun if you use Chandy. Spdef Incineroar is an ok check, but is nuked by both +2 Sludge Bomb and Superpower Darm. If paired with Healing Wish, the sun team easily outlasts the 1 or 2 checks you have to it. For these reasons, I conclude that sun teams need a nerf.
The question is - do we ban the setters or abuser(s)? I lean towards banning Tales/Torkoal, since individually, no one mon is the clear broken one when paired with Drought. Nobody complained about sun before Darm dropped, but good luck building a viable sun team without Venusaur. Vern is also indispensable with its defensive utility and raw coverage with Solar Beam. Banning one of these would be arbitrary, so it is clear that we should ban the setters. And to avoid the can-of-worms of banning Ability vs Pokemon, I want to ban both Ninetales and Torkoal
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Just for the sake of being communicative with the community I'm making a post rn similar to how these tubs of lard above me have. I don't have an extremely strong opinion on sun but when the ladder is absolutely infested by shit like sun or rain or whatever I think it's almost always a sign that the meta is a bit scuffed. If this post is all over the place it's bc I have an IQ of 2 1/2 combined with the fact that I haven't slept in a week.
The biggest thing for me is to lean towards not banning darm but something else. It is quite debatable that darm is even the primary threat on sun, and outside of sun darm is nothing to be considered overbearing. Darm is definitely the "Paul Pierce" as 2018 vivalospride would say, but it's got all the same issues it's always had with the good but not good enough speed tier to make up for it's lack of defensive stats, weakness to rocks w/ choice items, and lack of immediate power vs common mons like rhyp/gig/etc w/o sun or cb is unfortunate. Killing itself with it's primary source of dmg only makes it more difficult to justify me sitting here and saying "this mon is broken pls ban" bc it can one shot a resist with sun up.
Ofc this isn't against doing something in regards to sun, I just don't think darm should be getting the blame and I think sun would still be prevalent with shit like SD Incin taking that slot maybe :o.
I'm all for kicking tales/the turtle to the curb, as I don't believe UU is in a good state with sun running the ladder. Venusaur/darm on their own are not broken, sun as the archetype is what the issue is. Hitting the roots (the setters) is prolly the best course of action here unless we wanna try shooting for the stars with yet another DROUGHT BAN (prolly not the move).
The biggest thing for me is to lean towards not banning darm but something else. It is quite debatable that darm is even the primary threat on sun, and outside of sun darm is nothing to be considered overbearing. Darm is definitely the "Paul Pierce" as 2018 vivalospride would say, but it's got all the same issues it's always had with the good but not good enough speed tier to make up for it's lack of defensive stats, weakness to rocks w/ choice items, and lack of immediate power vs common mons like rhyp/gig/etc w/o sun or cb is unfortunate. Killing itself with it's primary source of dmg only makes it more difficult to justify me sitting here and saying "this mon is broken pls ban" bc it can one shot a resist with sun up.
Ofc this isn't against doing something in regards to sun, I just don't think darm should be getting the blame and I think sun would still be prevalent with shit like SD Incin taking that slot maybe :o.
I'm all for kicking tales/the turtle to the curb, as I don't believe UU is in a good state with sun running the ladder. Venusaur/darm on their own are not broken, sun as the archetype is what the issue is. Hitting the roots (the setters) is prolly the best course of action here unless we wanna try shooting for the stars with yet another DROUGHT BAN (prolly not the move).
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