Palafin Suspect -- Qualified Discussion

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ausma

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is a Site Content Manageris a Top Social Media Contributoris a Top Artistis a Community Leaderis a Top Community Contributoris a Metagame Resource Contributoris a CAP Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogonis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Champion
OU Forum Leader
Palafin has been suspect tested from SV OU, which you can see here. This thread will be used as "qualified" discussion per the decision made here!

This means that if you qualified for the Gliscor suspect test here, Kyurem suspect test here, or qualify for this suspect test, you can post here (and/or in the public thread if you wish). If you have any questions, PM me; if you post, but do not qualify, your post will be deleted and you will be infracted. Here are some prompting questions to get the ball rolling:
  • Do you think Palafin deserves a ban in SV OU? Why or why not?
  • What sets do you think put it over the edge if you think it is broken?
  • What checks or counters to it are sufficient if you think it is not broken?
  • Have there been any new developments pertaining to using or facing Palafin that helped shape your opinion? If so, what are they?
  • If you are undecided, what are your overall thoughts on Palafin and what are you looking at to reach a conclusion?
Please note normal suspect posting rules do apply here.
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  • No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
  • No discussion on other potential suspects -- if you wish to discuss another Pokemon, we encourage you to do so in the metagame discussion thread, but this thread is strictly to discuss if Palafin is banworthy or not;
  • No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes testing Gliscor vs other potential suspects;
  • You are required to make respectful posts;
  • You are required to read this thread before posting.
  • Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
  • Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
    • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
    • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
    • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
    • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
    • This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message the OU Council, PM our Tier Leaders, Finchinator and Ruft, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

The suspect reasoning, directly from Finchinator's OP, can be found below:
Palafin is a unique case as the base form is a liability and mandates maneuvering around, but Zero to Hero turns Palafin into a juggernaut. Mono-Water is a historically superb defensive typing and it plays well with Tera compliments; this allowed for a Taunt + Bulk Up Palafin with a defensive Tera type to ravage the infant SV OU metagame. Jet Punch provided priority to circumvent revenge killing attempts, Drain Punch provided coverage and healing, and Taunt was able to thwart opposing attempts to status it while Bulk Up made the most of free turns. On the flip side, there are offensive variants of Palafin which can be strong, but limited, when used. While the aforementioned Bulk Up variant thrived off of Palafin's great natural bulk, let's not forget it has 160 base Attack and 100 base Speed, granting the dolphin some breaking potential. The offensive sets were not what broke Palafin initially, but times change and applications of any Pokemon will vary as the generation transpires.

Speaking of times changing, there is a lot of hope within the community that Palafin will not be as problematic. If this means it is still broken or not will be up to the jury -- the voters -- to judge of course, but there are many more potential checks and counters to Palafin in the metagame. Since the initial ban of Palafin, SV OU has added Ogerpon-Wellspring, Kyurem, Raging Bolt, Zamazenta-Hero, Sinistcha, Rillaboom, Walking Wake, Serperior, Alomomola, and other Pokemon that may match-up favorably with Palafin. However, one of Palafin's best traits is using the appropriate and timely defensive Tera type to circumvent certain offensive counterplay, which could feasibly lead to it defeating various offensive Pokemon listed above if the circumstances line-up properly. There is a lot of give-and-take to that dynamic, which will make metagame response (and Palafin's potential counter-response, etc.) one of the most interesting components of this retest!

In terms of defensive counterplay, the metagame will be able to withstand even the most potent possibilities from Palafin like Choice Band Wave Crash simply due to the abundance of resists and immunities to a single STAB Pokemon that takes a lot of recoil alongside the negative possibilities of locking into coverage in offensive game states. However, the combination of this with the finnesse variants of Palafin like Bulk Up and potential new applications of Palafin will be at the forefront of discussions throughout this retest. It is easy for an Ogerpon-Wellspring to catch a single Jet Punch or Wave Crash, an Alomomola to sponge any single attack with ease and pivot out, or offensive resists like Raging Bolt, Dragonite, or Kyurem to hold their position once or twice over while forcing their own progress, but Palafin brings so much more nuance than linear attackers due to its bulk, set-up prospects with defensive Tera options, and priority Jet Punch, which can let it circumvent typical revenge killing mechanisms.

With everything considered, Palafin's retest is likely to be one of the most exciting suspects of the generation and I hope we get a lot of participation both in the vote and threads. It was undoubtebly broken when initially freed during SV OU's release in 2022, but it has been over two years and so many new Pokemon, which can potentially serve as counterplay, are now prominent in the metagame! Palafin has immediate drawbacks due to a lackluster base form, but goes from Zero to Hero literally and figuratively with much increased bulk and power upon reentering battle. While it does not necessarily thrive as a STAB mashing breaker always, this is still an option and Bulk Up serves it incredibly well alongside Jet Punch. Can the metagame withstand these options and adapt to potential new applications or will Palafin be too much once more? We will have to find out with this retest!
VIEW VOTER REQS HERE
 
Palafin in the current meta is not overwhelming to handle. I can't really pretend otherwise. This tier managed to adapt to broken ass wellspring so palafin just isn't that much worse: offense has zama, bolt, pult, wellspring, dnite, primarina etc and BO/balance has alo, water garg, sinistcha, dnite, pult, zapdos, physdef twave hex ghold, dozo etc. You were probably fitting 2 checks into a team anyway, and you were probably going to play 50/50 guessing games with other wallbreakers of the tier too, so cb palafin isn't exceptional. BU sets just don't have the immediate firepower to snowball out of control with 1 free turn and various tera types like GF could. The speed boost of DD is much better than jet punch. It's pretty balanced, for now.

It would be a fool's errand to try and argue that palafin is broken and should stay ubers for that reason. I will instead try to argue that palafin is not necessary for SV OU, and only serves to worsen the tier.

***

I was using hard HO for my reqs, same team that I used in oupl semis with some minor adjustments for palafin. I was 1 win away from qualifying and then proceeded to lose 6 games, running into a combination of webs, lu+dnite teams, certain palafin squads, and other hax-related bullshit that made me switch to a garg BO instead, which gave me 10 straight wins and struggled a little more to qualify. I got reqs with a horrible 58-20 record (no resets), which is much worse than my previous runs. Obviously this is a small sample and a personal anecdote but as a builder too, I feel like hard HO is not that good right now.

Perhaps this is an unpopular take, but I think that between obstacles like webs, veil, and BO staples like garg, dnite, ting-lu, zamazenta, zapdos, and tspikes/stall, etc I feel like building a consistent HO with outs vs all of these is extremely difficult. Lily posted the best DNB argument so far, and said "I think knocking these teams [Hard HOs], which have been dominant and somewhat brainless throughout SV's history, a little further down the totem pole would be a good thing." I couldn't disagree more. BO is easily the most dominant and consistent playstyle, and anybody who builds+uses hard HO regularly is all too intimate with the numerous obstacles it faces. Palafin is not only unnecessary, it also adds a large extra obstacle for HO to contend with while strengthening the already strongest playstyle, BO.

DNB proponents have assured me that Palafin's priority will help curb iron moth and darkrai but who was actually struggling with these mons? We already have so many tools for these offense staples that already require good positioning and often tera+hax to get anything done. I've also been told that it helps with kingambit but that mon can just run tera grass and flip the MU like it always has, nothin new here. Ival is similarly not anywhere close to dominant or difficult to handle for any playstyle, palafin is not necessary to contain it.

I want to again remind you of the relevant tidbit in the tiering policy framework:
  • If a proposal is made to ban or unban a Pokemon, ability, item, or move, the side suggesting this must demonstrate why this is necessary and how it affects the ladder and the tournament scene, as well as provide evidence for both.

Palafin is both an unnecessary addition to the tier and serves only to make dominant BO teams stronger and struggling HO teams worse, which will only make the meta more stale and affect the ladder scene negatively. We need to have more consistent and good playstyles than BO.

The onus is on the DNB crowd to provide evidence to the contrary and show how palafin is both necessary to the tier and improves the meta. Until I see it, I will be voting to KEEP PALAFIN BANNED and I would encourage readers to do the same.
 
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After getting reqs for Palafin (Courtesy of JackRG for their excellent team), I think I have enough experience to make a comment on it. I was initially hesitant on letting this Pokemon back in. Its no secret that SV's water resist are quite poor compared to past metagames due to Pokemon like Slowbro and Toxapex being nerfed to the ground, as well as others like Ferrothorn and Tapu Fini being dexited. This is why a mon like Urshifu-RS is banned atm (though I personally am skeptical of it being broken) as well as why Ogerpon-W and Samurott-H can feel a bit oppressive. I was entering this suspecting expecting Palafin to be quite similar to the likes of Gouging Fire, where it can run an endless number of Tera-types to surpress counterplay.

However, after extensively playing the tier with Palafin, running a bunch of different teams with it, I am finding it to be a quite healthy presence in the tier as an anti-cheese mon akin to Tera Normal Dragonite and Choice Scarf Enamorus. This Pokemon's powerful priority is a fantastic tool at keeping many of the annoying cheese sweepers you may find on various archetypes like Latias, Iron Moth, Darkrai, DD Tera Kyurem, DD Tera Roaring Moon, and Kingambit in check, which is a fantastic tool for balance and bulky offense teams to keep up against the faster pace of HO teams.

I didn't quite have a handle on using the bulk up set - which I found I bit clunky to maneuver since you have to switch it out and switch it back in, while this set also didn't have quite as big of an initial punch. I largely made use of the more pivot-based sets during my suspect run with 3 water moves + CC using either CB, Mystic Water, or Heavy-Duty-Boots. These sets are better able to play around the drawback of Palafin's ability imo and have arguably greater utility with Flip Turn. All of these sets, I find to be a nice addition to the metagame on bulky offense and balance teams alike due to their strong priority helping keep many of the dangerous sweepers found on HO teams in-line. I think my favorite quality about this Pokemon is that it is a fantastic Tera punisher. Its no surprise that it can feel very easy for a fair number of sweepers like Tera Roaring Moon or Tera Fairy Raging Bolt to just run away with the game once they set up on the correct Pokemon. What's so nice about Palafin is that its strong, RELIABLE priority helped keep a lot of these Pokemon in line & makes the decision to Terastalize far riskier, since they would then be prone to a Palafin revenge kill later. This also applies to other checks such as Sinistcha or Hydrappl, which are more inclined to withold Terastalizing in order to continue checking Palafin. From my point of view, such an interaction is healthy & more additive to the tier, as it increases the risk of mindlessly Tera'ing against certain opponents.

On some level, I do agree that HO being worse in a Palafin metagame while Bulky Offense / Balance being better may be a bit of a downside, given all the natural roadblocks HO already runs into between entry hazards, Ting-Lu, Lokix, etc. That said, it is also important to consider that for most of the average players, HO is still extremely difficult to contain in SV compared to most other tiers given all of its potential variations between Webs, Screens, hazards, as well as the high set variety of many of the Pokemon commonly featured on HO such as Roaring Moon, Dragonite, etc. Therefore, I do think having a more streamlined option to help contain HO isn't neccisarily a bad thing.

Of course, its not all sunshine and rainbows for our Dolphin friend. While it can definetly be contained by Balance teams, I do think the power of its Wave Crash can be a bit much. As mentioned before, OU does not have many good Water resists, with mons like Alomomola and Dondozo being exploitable, and others like Slowbro and Toxapex being nerfed to the ground (though I do believe these two could make a resurgance after the suspect). I feel that a large reason Palafin is more easily contained is Terastalization, as Tera Water Pokemon like Garganacl, Pecharunt, and Ting-Lu are quite annoying for it. As I stated in another suspect test, I also don't think 2 weeks is really enough to gain a full scope of what exactly Palafin is capable of doing

I still have not come to a finalized stance yet, as I have not made use of the Bulk Up set too extensively. Seeing the amount of variations on this set may sway my viewpoint, but so far I think Palafin is alright. Currently view it on a similar calibur to a mon like Zamazenta. That said, I am open to being swayed to the opposite direction as well.
 
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Forgot about this thread existing when I made my initial post so will just link the post HERE

That post will be my reasoning to vote BAN and hopefully is enough to convince you to vote ban as well,don't just look at palafin as solo on not being broken enough which itself is pretty skewed viewpoint right now with new toy syndrome,it has so much versatility in set's along with being such a good enabler of already top tier pokemon like kyurem and raging bolt making them push over the edge on how incredibly effective they are with palafin if palafin alone wasn't enough.

Overall this pokemon will be an extremely unhealthy addition to the tier,restricting builder immensely and undoing all the progress of the tier that we have done in the past couple months. While saying a tier had gotten pretty good and stable maybe subjective, I have seen this sentiment among many different players and I don't see any benefit of adding this pokemon to the tier as I am very sure on it's negative effects to a tier that was in a really enjoyable and stable state with lot's of possiblities.
 
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Disagreeing with what I've seen in the other thread, feels like Palafin is an unnecessary addition that I'd say is more harmful than helpful to the tier based off what I've seen of him so far, and I do think I'd consider it broken. I think Pais said it best, this mons versatility is pretty amazing in my eyes, being able to utilize various different sets that work on most archetypes. I think the ones I've found most annoying to fight, as well as the ones I've had the most success with, are the variety of different bulk up set combinations Palafin has access to. Jet punch and drain punch are of course locked moves alongside bulk up, but between the last move choice (ice punch/some tera blasts/sub/encore, taunts an option too although I think it's pretty bad in the current meta, could always change though I guess but that leans more towards theory anyways) and the tera options (fighting/poison/fire/fairy/electric/steel/ghost/grass/maybe a few others, prob some unexplored ones too) make it a pretty reliable and consistent wincon on the offense/bulky offense/offensive balance type teams in my eyes.

While there may be some concerns with the form changing ability and how much of a momentum drain it can be, I don't think I've found it to be the worst or hardest drawback, it definitely does have its moments where it can be annoying/hard to get off in some positions/games, but I think the types of teams BU sets naturally fit on are able to support the drawback well enough, whether through the use of some phazers or pivots, to the point where at least in a good amount of games you won't truly be held back. I think the reason people are feeling like the ability is a huge drawback for bulk up sets is because they are being overused on Hyper Offense, being unable to take momentum losses as well as BO and Balance can, making Palafin really hard to make work on HO. Honestly there's some other interactions where Palafin base form revenges a low hp mon with jet punch and then switch out on the entry into a pivot/phazer that are also nice ways to get off the form change if you need to later in the game (can be earlier or sacked too, depends on a lot), and from my experience at least it's not the most uncommon situation to run into, definitely wouldn't call base Palafin dead weight 100% of the time or anything, even if it is weak.

Item wise I've ran/seen a few personally (lefties/cloak/punching glove/some balloons although I think that one isn't great). Can't really go wrong with any of these although atm my favorite is punching glove. Felt like these sets can set up vs a lot just given Palafin's natural bulk is solid, and it has various usable defensive teras at its disposal to aid in it setting up, leading to some mini snowballs or just a lot of good progress made/value gained. I think people really are undervaluing how strong and fat this mon is after setting up, and how well it abuses this via its prio stab move and potential drain recovery turns. In most of my games that I've used these Palafin sets in, I've never really considered it a detriment and just saw it as one of the better mons on my teams and vs my opponents. Even in the games where I didn't see it setting up and claiming a few kills or cleaning, just having a nice priority move was useful, especially in late/endgames, and never made me think the mon was actively hurting my team.

The counterplay people have been talking about has not particularly seemed appealing to me either to be honest, stuff like Dondozo isn't splashable and I feel like only really consistently fits on stall, Wellspring loses to Palafin if it tries switching in on a bulk up turn since the Palafin can tera, some phazers like Ting-lu and dtail Dragonite lose to it for clear reasons, Zapdos can get owned by the tera electric sets/punching glove sets can't get staticed anyw (+1 jetpunch w max atk does almost half anyways), just a few examples off the top of my head.

I've always thought that the mons with the most versatility tera/set wise + access to boosting moves were always pretty frustrating for the meta to have, Gouging, Volcarona, and Kingambit (not banned but I think is fair to put under this category) being some examples I can think of. I'm not a fan of the idea of introducing another one of these types of mons into the tier, not that Palafin is a 1 to 1 comparison to those guys or anything, but the premise is similar to me. There are definitely some benefits to Palafin dropping, mainly thinking about a strong priority that doesn’t rely on sucker punch or thunderclap shenanigans, but it doesn’t quite do it for me as I feel that the positives are clearly outweighed. Based on my personal experience and the upside that Palafin can reach, I believe it’s a negative presence in our tier. This isn't even mentioning that it has other sets outside of bulk up, the CB and boots Pivot sets definitely hit like a truck and pivot around well, a correct cc play into the face of Wellspring can kill its ability to deal with Palafin, and other water resists struggle to come in well/can be hit by Pala's coverage, besides the super defensive mono water types like Dozo and Alo (again, not the most splashable mons).

Will definitely be voting to KEEP PALAFIN BANNED during this suspect, and hope others will read this and agree. Also hoping that others decide to post in this thread, regardless of what position they have on this suspect.

(sorry if my post is messy, not great at writing, ty to the people who helped clean it up a bit, will edit if I notice I messed something up, also if anyone knows how to add indents to posts, lmk, I really can't figure it out)

Side note:
This is a cool set GXE showed me that I've fallen in love with after testing, if any1 wants to try messing and building with it feel free, the ev spread can be bulkier in exchange for speed, it only really has to outspeed modest Rbolt, current spread outspeeds max speed addy Rilla but definitely not something necessary. (Can also always change tera, there are a million viable ones)

Palafin-Hero (F) @ Punching Glove
Ability: Zero to Hero
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 120 HP / 252 Atk / 136 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Jet Punch
- Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Bulk Up

Some cool calcs with this in specific:
252+ Atk Punching Glove Palafin-Hero Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 294-348 (92.7 - 109.7%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Punching Glove Tera Fighting Palafin-Hero Drain Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 301-355 (100 - 117.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
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ngl it’s been a few days since letting the mon back in the tier and idk if it should stay tbh. I’ve played a lot of games with palafin rn and have soloed so many of the so called counters. It def punches a lot of holes in the opp team if given the chance, but the main problem is guessing the Tera type. Rn I’m running Tera poison BU, and with sub and it’s destroying the counters it has. What do you guys think of the Mon so far? Am I over exaggerating or is it broken?
 
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agree with 90% of what hellom said so I will try not to repeat exactly what he said too much and give further reasoning as to why I don't think palafin should be freed.

first of all, to reinforce what hellom said, I believe the argument that the ability costs you a turn is greatly exaggerated. This point is irrelevant for pivot/cb sets, as these typically fit into bulky offense or balanced structures that naturally include other pivots to facilitate palafin's entry onto the field.

additionally, I think babyfin is much better than people give it credit for, at least in the context of pivot/cb sets. It's still reasonably bulky and its priority move is strong enough that even babyfin can come in on a weakened threat and secure an easy revenge kill. it can easily switch in on a resisted or weak neutral hit and pivot out with its decently fast Flip Turn.

the only situation where the form-changing ability becomes a real downside is when you try to use palafin on hyper offense teams. These teams can't afford to waste a turn on Palafin, and they aren't particularly effective in the current meta. The presence of Palafin negatively impacts the playstyle both when you use it as part of an HO team and when you face one with an HO team. In my opinion, it's a detriment to HO teams while being a complete nightmare for them to face, due to its strong priority move.

to finish up this post ill add a small paragraph about bulk up sets, which are also really threatening and the plethora of tera types / ev spreads / items make it a complete nightmare to both prepare for and face once you see it, all the turns you wouldve gotten from palafin having to change forms at the beginning of the game will just go back to your opponent the second you guess the last move / tera type / ev spread wrong on bulk up. went zapdos to get an easy pivot / get a free static with nothing really threatening you? get 2hkoed for free by punching glove ice punch. go garg to tera water and salt cure to wall it? or mola to scald it and pivot? face the beautiful covert cloak or sub leftovers variants. encore wetpon cuz they cant ohko you with jet punch? welcome mental herb acro. and before you say im trying to invent weird sets that would see no use ever outside of making this point, id like to mention that ive seen all of those in the last 4 days, which are coincidentally the first 4 days since palafin arrived. if we give it more time on the playground than the 2 weeks of this suspect god knows what monstrosities we will get to see.

before wrapping things up completely ill just add a small sentence that acknowledges the fact that counterplay exists, but it is just too tedious and completely unecessary to add a threat like palafin to the plethora of mons that have checks but can completely run away with games if you give them a turn with the right set.

all in all, that thing should stay in ubers, it is completely unecessary to have in OU and even the positive traits that it brings like a strong priority that is not sucker punch or thunderclap are not worth the headache. please KEEP IT BANNED.
 
Hello, i wanted to explain my stance on palafin, because i believe that it should stay in ubers, but not exactly for the reason that you think, my reasoning is as follows:

- It causes a domino effect on the metagame, when palafin was released in the ou tier, people began running more water resists in general, we saw an increase in raging bolt usage, rillaboom, tera water zapdos, dragonite , tera water garganacl, dondozo, hydrapple, sinistcha, which on paper seems good so far, but its indirectly buffing other threats due to the oppressive bulk up sets, or the not so oppressive band rain sets forcing these on teams to not suffer an immediate loss to palafin, and as a result, the following pokemon were indirectly buffed:

1. Kyurem - substitute protect kyurem is disgusting in the current metagame due to the effects of palafin lowering glowking and iron crown usage, the extra water resists teams now have make it super easy for Kyurem to have its way with specs or subtect, and tear apart palafin meta teams sometimes from preview, we saw this a bit with gouging fire, where people kept running alomomola, which indirectly buffed waterpon and raging bolt, and we cannot have those on every team, this is a very unhealthy dynamic that we sometimes cannot see unless the meta progresses over time.
2. Raging Bolt - an already high usage pokemon, becoming even better by being the best palafin check out there, second to none, adds onto this pokemon's already oppressive attributes, which maybe even pushes it into suspect territory
3. Ogerpon-Wellspring - any meta where tera water mons are forced, will buff this pokemon due to the nature of its strong stabs and diverse movepool, you need to have the freedom of tera choice to check this while having the freedom of tera choice to check palafin, which cannot happen under these circumstances, we have a strong water forcing tera grass and dragon which loses to ice punch palafin and one forcing tera water which loses to waterpon, and having to choose between losing to waterpon, and losing to palafin, is an unhealthy dynamic.
4. Dragonite - Use this as the most notable example as its the only one on this list that wasnt controversial before, with everyone running tera water now, and lots of water resists, this buffs dragonite even further, possibly breaking it, due to its already insane offense matchup, being able to check palafin now takes it a step further, possibly shifting it to suspect territory.

When a pokemon is released into a metagame, and its buffing or breaking already existing mons upon its release, its a negative contribution to the tier, and should not be voted in under any circumstance, it would be like trying to cure a growing cancer by adding more cancer to treat the existing cancer, which leads to a worse and more poisonous cancer, it would make very little sense logically.


- The Rain set with choice band flip turn, paired with a dragon like raging or kyurem stated in the point above, acts as a metagame warping style of play, you take a sweeper out damaging gouging, trade the speed boost for one of the most powerful priority moves to have ever existed, forcing immediate water resists on every team , indirectly buffing raging bolt and kyurem further as stated above, which transforms the rain archetype from one of the weakest in the metagame, to one of the strongest, similar to how archaludon did it, but arch never had a priority move this disgusting, and it never achieved higher power levels than gouging fire WITHOUT a protosynthesis boost, which is uber levels of power, people always discuss the bulk up set but they never acknowledge the rise in oppressive activity that the choice band set brings to rain, mind you these already indirectly buffed threats kyurem and raging bolt, are already buffed by rain both getting weather ball, this type of oppression is too much for an already dynamic metagame where u already need teras for certain things, it would be a threat overload, standalone, these threats may be fine, but if theyre all legal at the same time, the metagame becomes more of a matchup coinflip, you choose to lose to palafin rain or kyurem, or you prep for both with full stall + extra water resist, or unconventional stuff like bronzong + ghost volcanion + clod, and lose to waterpon/gambit.

- The bulk up sets are still clearly the most oppressive due to the bulky nature of palafin and the fact that it has many teras to wall or defeat its checks, and some offensive sets even have punching glove to hit with jet punch harder, some sets even arose that werent there the first time, like balloon acro, mental herb , tera fairy taunt etc, limiting Offense and HO to an insane degree, and destroying balance completely. Yes there are many checks for palafin, but only a few safe ones, like raging, sinistcha, waterpon, and if palafin has the right tera, these safe answers are neutralised, and u automatically lose to it, its similar to the gouging fire breaking swipe set, except instead of swipe dropping your attack, you get taunted and your defense is boosted instead, while having powerful priority to make it even more oppressive, and i know there were checks to swipe gouging but those dont account for the many other gouging sets, palafin displays similar activity in this instance, except it may be even more powerful, with more weapons like jet punch and taunt in its arsenal, it may not share gouging's bulk but its close enough to be similar.

- The non choiced 4 attack sets are dangerous as well, flip turn jet punch drain punch/cc, ice punch, they run either boots or punching glove, and if theres good removal, the punching glove one is unstoppable, add hazard stack onto that and its disgusting vs every archetype, ting lu + palafin + glowking alone, like the blim structure , with extra tools like hydrapple, very disgusting styles of play rising from this set, and the boots set is crazy on boots spam aswell, giving longevity and a free pivot (+ free hero activator turn cuz of flip turn), to serve as a hit and run threat on bulkier structures, and this set deals with all its checks long term, so between this set, and its other sets, this makes the metagame very badly unhealthy, taking it into a disgusting direction.

- The Shuffle Effect: a single pokemon rearranging the heirarchy of viable playstyles, rain becomes one of the top styles with palafin + kyu/raging, HO becomes one of the worst styles, palafin's jet punch limiting darkrai, glimmora, tusk, valiant, kingambit, iron moth, and even roaring moon with a tera, makes HO significantly less viable than it once was, BO remains on top because it has these threats, raging, kyurem, waterpon, Offense becomes weaker due to all 3 of palafin's sets limiting it to account for all 3 of those + other threats, and sun rising to the top again bc of wake and venusaur, stall becomes better because it has tools for palafin and the dragons, and webs becomes crazy which i will explain later. So we went from something like this:

BO - HO - Offense - Stall - Webs - Balance - Weather

To this:

Webs - BO - Weather - Stall - Balance - Offense - HO

Ranked from best to worst playstyles, this is the definition of a metagame warp, where a single pokemon changes the activity of an entire metagame, and this is the most unhealthy thing that can happen, you may not feel it now, but you would feel the cancerous after-effects over time.


- The final point is its buff to the playstyles sticky webs, and hazard stack, lets look at the limitations of webs and hstack:

Webs: rapid spin mons like tusk, boots spam, sometimes boots spinners, court change
Hstack: boots spam, spinners, boots spinners, boots knockers, utility, encore mons, strong coverage mons like valiant, taunt, court change

They both share very similar limitations, boots, spinners, and court change, now lets look at palafin's impact:

Palafin has jet punch in its arsenal, which directly limits cinderace, the only court change user, and it limits every spinner and fogger in the tier with either the bulk up set or the band set, and it just happens to have the perfect speed tier, the perfect setup move(bulk up), the perfect utility move to block defog (taunt), and the perfect priority to eliminate the limitations of both styles, which buff them to an insane degree, this is one of the most unhealthy things i've ever seen 1 pokemon do to a metagame, and i dont believe that this should be fine under any circumstances.


To conclude my post, i believe that palafin is one of the unhealthiest re-additions to a metagame, that i've seen in recent memory, i do not believe that this pokemon should stay in ou, the limitation of the switch out turn absolutely does not outweigh the limitations that its causing upon the metagame, i will be voting ban on palafin without hesitation, it feels like the only right option in my eyes.
 
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This mon is at minimum incredibly unhealthy and within a week of development already looking broken. palafin is incredibly constricting forcing you to run a water resist that specifically handles palafin like sinistcha mola or dondozo. I've seen a lot of discussion say how pult waterpon dnite etc are already common and check palafin but this is just false. None of these mons switch in twice and in dnite's case just raw lose to all bu sets as an added bonus. sz brought up how mons like kyurem bolt abuse the shit out of the water resists forced and it extends to a myriad of obnoxious mons that should be punished like garg zap pex mola being rewarded making them signficiantly harder to handle than usual in the builder.

I think this mon is also just flat out broken Lol every mon that is not dondozo or mola drops to two cb tera water wave crashes. The counterpoint is that there are plenty of mons on that level power-wise but the difference is that they don't have a 60 base power stab prio move which easily cleaves most neutral frail targets or chipped resists, waterpon (which is also absurdly broken ftr) at least is gonna consistently be slower than a ton of the metagame without trailblaze boost and still slower than val scarfrai + vulnerable to gambit bolt which palafin does not have to contend with. Your pult can take a palafin hit like flip turn quite easily and next time it's fucked as a rk option for a common example. It's hard to say how bu sets will develop but tera blast sets felt pretty broken in testing, they take a lot of support+investment but are absurdly bulky+flexibile+immediately strong making them pretty obnoxious to reliably account for without dondozo (shit mon off stall).
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 174-205 (50.2 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 20 HP / 236 Def Alomomola: 232-274 (48.7 - 57.5%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 209-246 (39.1 - 46%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (p much invalidates mixed or av mola as an option)
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 318-375 (100.3 - 118.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO (good resist)
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 135-159 (44.5 - 52.4%) -- 20.7% chance to 2HKO (physdef pex is pretty poor, especially off stall, but even vs max def pex immediately loses to a bad roll it has to take or any chip)
252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 226-267 (52.3 - 61.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
I've seen a lot of resistance to the above calcs as if you have multiple water resists losing one is much more manageable but how is that reasonable to expect for every single team, stacking mons like sinistcha dozo mola apple (fake ass mon btw) leaves you super vulnerable to some aftermentioned nightmares like garg zap which are notoriously hard to handle in a single slot without significant cost and overall makes building more predictable and as people push the tier more there will be some more consistent punishes to the ting sinis or random dozo bos that have been popping up in response to palafin.

This mon doesn't need more than CB and Boots/Gloves sets to be an awful presence for the tier. The difference it has from other breakers is how strong its Flip Turn is meaning you are forced to make a ton of momentum losing plays or lose a mon and that it threatens an endgame threat just by clicking Jet Punch on top of being at a relatively good speed tier for what it wants to do. It breaks for itself and others with clean play, getting it out of its baby form is not an issue for any competently built team mons quicker than it and able to actually threaten it (secretly bulky mon) is fairly short (pult cinder threaten wisp but invite a bunch of dickheads in like garg ting molt mola depending).

I didn't mean for this post to go on for so long but this is one of the most broken mons allowed in OU this gen. I will be voting Ban.
 
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The best option for the SV OU tier to to unban palafin. A lot of people are using circumstantial calcs to try and write if off as broken like this is any different from wellspring. Its abundantly clear we don't have enough anti offense options (thus why balance is barely viable) and unbanning palafin would be a way to have strong priority to deal with stuff like gambit as well as punish moon from using tera. Also why do people think that palafin being unbanned helps kyurem lmao, its slower and gets one shot by CC. Also Kyu and wellspring are way more broken than this shit lmao. It's time we actually make a change in this tier
 
The best option for the SV OU tier to to unban palafin. A lot of people are using circumstantial calcs to try and write if off as broken like this is any different from wellspring.
Saying that palafin calcs are circumstantial because of how wellpsring does the same thing doesnt sit right with me because of how imo if something else is unhealthy (wellspring) doesn't mean that you should unban something else that is also unhealthy (palafin).

Also why do people think that palafin being unbanned helps kyurem lmao, its slower and gets one shot by CC. Also Kyu and wellspring are way more broken than this shit lmao. It's time we actually make a change in this tier
It is not about how palafin beats kyurem, it is about how Palafin changes the meta to the point that teams are now weaker to kyurem than they were before teams needed to worry about palafin.
 
Currently, I think Palafin should be UNBANNED and find early posts to be disingenuous and not representative of its true impact on the meta, but this is an issue with how suspect tests proceed possibly.

People have been yapping and shitting their pants at the idea of the Special Defense + Bulk Up + Taunt set BEFORE the test even started.. and guess what? That set is terrible. Super unviable. This is direct proof that speculating isn't enough. We need to be able to have things such as rotating suspect ladders and tests more frequently in order to truly gauge a Pokemon's impact on the meta. It's so funny seeing Srn (no offense lol) complaining in East about how Spdef BU Taunt will control the entire meta and then the set just completely falls flat on its face. I beat every single team with it on ladder with Water resist Dragapult. So, I just wanted to say that You can't predict anything or be perfect in speculation. You can make informed judgments and explore different mindsets or reasonings, however. If you do not approach a suspect test by ever considering pro's for the opposing view, then you're not really looking out for the Meta's best interest, but for your own personal interest.

Now, we have seemingly moved on to other sets such as Max Attack tera Fighting Drain Punch or Boots or any other set without giving the meta any time to adjust or react to new sets being made.

Right now, Wogerpon is using 3-4 Attacks with Spikes or SD as the non-Attacking move, but Encore was also commonly used in the past and would now make a resurgence in the face of something like Palafin. Saying that you can just Bulk and Tera into a Woger is an extremely incorrect take that most experienced players should actually not be banking on. Imagine you go for this Tera Fight and they Encore your bulk... now what? You wasted Tera and now exposed Palafin to many weaknesses in the future. But, then people can say, "What if I'm Mental Herb?" Well, this is a valid concern tbh, but now Palafinna lose to Dragapult Wisping or Zapdos.

The point is that people act as if Palafin is so damn linear in completing what it does, that is unga bunga BULKS UP or CB WAVE CRASH/JET PUNCHES all day when this is completely not the case at all. I'd have to see many replays or experience it myself where people don't fold to a Palafin through blatant greed or misplays, which is the case of any sweeper in the entire game such as Zama and Gambit. Palafin users would need to be INCREDIBLY lucky in order for their set to have a match-up into you in which Palafin is basically a free win or close to it if both sides are playing optimally. To me, it's the same as Vert inventing Tera Elec Zama into a team with only Zapdos as an ID Zama counter, or him doing the same with Tera Fire into a Moltres team in the exact way. Sure, one-sided wins are possible, but how much of that is due to specific preparation and skill expression? I understand that people hate being swept by seemingly random sets that feel like specific counterteams, but this is how many, many SV OU games unfold. Great prep, great techs, great skill win games.

Anyways, to address why this is a Healthy addition to the meta. The most obvious is that it's a new Pokemon with a specific niche and capabilities that brings something new to the meta. Palafin is not broken to the extent that every single team will have it or even that most teams would have it (my personal guess). It's not going to be a 100% addition to every HO squad because, something else I disagree with immensely, the ONE WASTED TURN as Baby Palafin is such a big damn deal. People claiming it isn't need to have an incredible amount of experience in backing this claim with replays and proof. Wasting an entire damn turn in SV OU is basically shitting the bed and giving up an enormous momentum swing. I think of Lando's clicking Taunt in the mirror and the opponent doubling to their Sub Kyurem on Taunt. Wasted turn, enormous cost vs. benefit battle of Taunt vs SR/U-Turn. Similarly, imagine leading Baby BU Palafin into any form of Sweeper (Raging Bolt) or major threat (Some choiced guy). You are giving something up in a game that is critical, and one turn in SV OU is a huge deal that cannot be understated. Baby Palafin can stay in and flip vs. maybe three things in the meta, and those are obvious mons that it can beat such as Iron Moth or Cinderace (?), which can do enormous amounts of damage to you, burn you, or U-turn so maybe it is never that free.

Kind of got side-tracked, but back to why it actually contributes Positively to SV. The tug-of-war between Palafin being useless vs. being GOD into offensive teams is very interesting. You give up an important ass turn to become Big Mode, but you also completely shut down some of the most ridiculous threats we've had for a while now in Tera Ground bulky Roaring Moon & Tera Ground Kyurem. You cannot deny how strong these guys have been in the meta lately as Tera Ground is such a great Tera typing in order to boost strong ass Ground moves and also nullify or neutralize some of their Weaknesses, overall being a strong typing due to not having that many Waters that both pretty much lose to them anyways. This is already a big positive for me, cuz those sets have stolen many, many games (through Skill Expression and Techs I will add).

It's another Bulky pivot potentially and is extremely dependent on having a specific Item aside from Boots (which is still solid, but many sets posted above are specific items that would have extremely minimal impact if switched to boots), which I think supports being a healthy mon. Fitting a similar niche as Lokix is great and overall being good into Sweepers (Teraing second usually will let a Palafin win a trade vs a DD/SD'er) is an amazing niche that cannot be underutilized. I had a hilarious end game where my opponent expended their Tera vs. me and thought they had the win Zama & Nite vs Palafin-Hero. I turned Fairy and used Draining Kiss to sweep them both as they could not break me down with attacks or set-up fast enough. There are numerous times in which players will defensive Tera to respond to a major threat, and surely this cannot be considered a bad thing? I predict that more often than not, people will defensively Tera Palafin in order to stop giga-threats rather than go for a sweep with it.

People shit their pants at the idea of change and most are remembering Palafin for how he was during the Chien-Pao/Chi-Yu meta in which Jet Punch actually was Jesus Christ for a move and there seemingly was no counterplay. This is a new era of SV, however, and we have so many damn Dragon Types and the Pons which are plastered on so many teams, that people need to approach the meta from a new lens. I urge people to attempt building and seeing for themselves how often Palafin really puts them in an otherworldly difficult situation, or if it's all in your head as trauma from your Pao/Chi-Yu being checked by it. I understand that people think it's a terrible addition and it might be too much. To be completely honest, I might be wrong and might eat my words. We'll see how it unfolds if it gets banned, but right now through a lot of experience and speculation, I think it can be freed.

FREE PALAFINE
 
I'm not convinced that SV OU would be a better tier with Palafin in it, therefore as of now I believe it should remain banned. I agree with pretty much most of what Srn, Pais and Storm Zone posted.

First, i'll take a closer look at Palafin. The dolphin has a massive attack stat (160) and respectable bulk in Hero form (100/97/87) and it can absolutely use it for full effect. Priority 60BP stab Jet Punch on paper is very rewarding offensively while it's bulk allows it to live a few revenge killers. I've compiled some calcs below against the some of the fast, non-booster bullies and my impression in these matchups (all calcs done with jolly nature, so do consider the adamant variants including the aforementioned Punching Glove adamant set):

(vs Ogerpon-Wellspring): Good old woger is a reliable check and should force things out. While it hates tera bulk-up and will rarely switch into it blindly, it gets the job done or prepares it for someone else
252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 265-312 (88 - 103.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Horn Leech vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 284-336 (83.2 - 98.5%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock


252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Trailblaze vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 188-224 (55.1 - 65.6%)
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Play Rough vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 114-135 (33.4 - 39.5%)

(Approx. 88-104 roll)

252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Power Whip vs. +1 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 306-360 (89.7 - 105.5%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Wellspring Mask Ogerpon-Wellspring Ivy Cudgel vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Poison Palafin-Hero: 189-223 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

(vs Dragapult): Decent check, Pult cannot reliably OHKO it even with specs but it should have the upper hand in every scenario except against banded ice punch
252 Atk Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Tera Ghost Dragapult: 288-340 (90.8 - 107.2%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

+1 252 Atk burned Palafin-Hero Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragapult: 181-214 (57 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Dragapult Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Palafin-Hero: 297-351 (87 - 102.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Ghost Dragapult Tera Blast (80 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 252-298 (73.9 - 87.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

(vs Darkrai): Wisp darkrai (and sometimes nasty plot) is a decent bully but should rarely beat it one on one, and it hates the banded set
+1 252 Atk Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 112 HP / 4 Def Darkrai: 186-220 (60.1 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 252 Atk Palafin-Hero Drain Punch vs. 112 HP / 4 Def Darkrai: 312-368 (100.9 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 112 HP / 4 Def Darkrai: 186-220 (60.1 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 112 HP / 4 Def Darkrai: 248-294 (80.2 - 95.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Darkrai: 250-296 (88.9 - 105.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Palafin-Hero: 153-180 (44.8 - 52.7%) -- 22.7% chance to 2HKO

+2 140 SpA Darkrai Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Palafin-Hero: 280-330 (82.1 - 96.7%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

(vs Zamazenta): To no one's surprise, IronPress will beat it unless it's somehow encored and out-boosted. In reality though every good player will have a reliable Zamazenta check as racking hazards damage and forcing it to take hits while unboosted wins games, so while IronPress does count as a counter of sorts (as it does to pretty much any other physical attacker not clicking tera flying acro or tera blast), this weakness will realistically be covered. The AoA sets do not appreciate any of Palafin's sets as it hits too hard and has good enough bulk to live and jet punch another day
252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. +1 252 HP / 40 Def Zamazenta: 99-117 (25.5 - 30.1%) -- 29.2% chance to 4HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 252 HP / 40 Def Zamazenta: 147-174 (37.8 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. +1 252 HP / 40 Def Zamazenta: 132-156 (34 - 40.2%) -- 93.3% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Choice Band Tera Water Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 252 HP / 40 Def Zamazenta: 196-232 (50.5 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

+1 40 Def Zamazenta Body Press vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 154-183 (45.1 - 53.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+3 40 Def Zamazenta Body Press vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 256-303 (75 - 88.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. +1 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta: 102-121 (31.3 - 37.2%) -- 83.4% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zamazenta: 153-180 (47 - 55.3%) -- 71.9% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Zamazenta Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 189-223 (55.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 Atk Zamazenta Crunch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 85-100 (24.9 - 29.3%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO

(2hko from double CC, approx. 79-94 roll from Crunch+CC), should be what a 50% roll with rocks or something like that

Against these in particular, it seems like a decently balanced fight where Palafin needs support or significant gameplay (or resource advantage) to obtain an edge, which makes me understand pro-Palafin stances; It doesn't feel broken against the guys that (at least sometimes) feel broken, as there's a least a few ways to check it offensively.

Obviously, +1 Palafin will be a big threat to the booster Pokémon that raise their speed except maybe base typing Roaring Moon. One layer of spikes give it a very good roll to OHKO Iron Valiant and it's stellar against Iron Moth, Iron Boulder and decent against Tera Flying Roaring Moon (considering the recent trends of more bulk in it).

It's also naturally a bully of pretty much everyone not called Amoonguss (and even this sometimes) who's slower than it. Both +1 punch moves and banded Wave Crash will make significant progress against anything that isn't a wall resisting it.

On paper, it seems like a fast, heavy hitting guy much like a bunch of others we already have in SV OU, with a huge drawback of needing a setup turn of sorts to do anything (including properly setting up). It's absolutely a good balancing factor and it does mitigate a lot of the threat that Palafin poses against bulkier, yet aggressive teams.

My biggest problem with Palafin is that it is indeed broken, but most importantly, it's extremely unnecessary. It is broken because realistically at high level it will both greatly constraint team building; It'll also lure checks and hurt them much more than the usual early Kowtow Cleave/Iron Head, Ivy Cudgel or Will-o-Wisp. In fact, I believe Palafin is more broken than Kingambit will ever be because Kingambit only does insane damage after 2-3 Fallens, which take at least (unrealistically speaking) 2-4 turns, while palafin always needs only two at worst (setting up the ability and actually getting in).

The issue is that it's access to strong priority and a pivot move in Flip Turn doesn't really discourage it from getting things going during a game; Ogerpon-Wellspring does not exactly appreciate eating Choice Band Close Combat even from zero forme; Remember that palafin has 5 teammates and it's prey to Ogerpon, so realistically it's making progress anyway if it sneaks in, even zero-formed. It's also chipping common rocks setters in Garganacl, Great Tusk, Landorus-T, Clefable, Ting-Lu for a decent amount, making the punishing hazard-setting path not at all that punishing.

What bothers me most: I'm sure SupaGMoney will make a better post about how it also warps the meta to a pivot-centric thing where everyone is clicking chilly reception and volt switch trying to bring Palafin in, but since day 1 I focused on something Storm Zone has addressed: Palafin buffs existing centralizing threats and does not promote healthy/creative use of bulky Pokémon (it really just reinforces the notion of having a strong, or punishing enough water resist).

Kingambit hates Palafin as much as it hates Raging Bolt, but Raging Bolt absolutely love all the Palafins and Alomomolas around. The exact same can be said about Ogerpon-Wellspring; Freeing Palafin is just buffing the guy that knocks, u-turns, encores and fishes crits when needed. To a lesser extent, Roaring Moon does not care that much about it; Freeing Palafin is nerfing the Tera Ground set which further improves Raging Bolt in the tier. I just don't see how Palafin is doing anything good for the tier as the top offensive threats actually benefit from it being around, not to mention it's faster than both the most common ground-types unlike Kingambit and Raging Bolt, and threatens a OHKO immediately while also potentially packing a Choice Band set that can punish most switchins.

For all these reasons, I will vote ban on Palafin as I believe SV OU is a significantly better tier without Palafin in it.

edit: had dark aura toggled for a Zama calc rofl, fixed
 
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if palafin doesn't get freed, what is the plan to help keep offense in check? I know well if this doesn't get freed, we are going to go months without any suspects or tiering action. Kyurem and gliscor are safe for the foreseeable future so what other options do we have to keep them in check? Will we ever ban wellspring?
 
I know well if this doesn't get freed, we are going to go months without any suspects or tiering action.
Just want to note we are having a tiering survey after the first week of SPL (early-mid January) regardless of this result and a suspect is somewhat likely to follow that.

There is a recent push in Policy Review to jumpstart another Kyurem suspect test and other topics like Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Tera Blast warrant discussion as well. We have had more suspects on a rate basis this generation than any other generation and it’s not particularly close, so I implore you to not think this way and/or be close-minded in general.

I will post my thoughts on Palafin after I get voting reqs — expect it early next week. Have happy holidays!
 
Just want to note we are having a tiering survey after the first week of SPL (early-mid January) regardless of this result and a suspect is somewhat likely to follow that.

There is a recent push in Policy Review to jumpstart another Kyurem suspect test and other topics like Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Tera Blast warrant discussion as well. We have had more suspects on a rate basis this generation than any other generation and it’s not particularly close, so I implore you to not think this way and/or be close-minded in general.

I will post my thoughts on Palafin after I get voting reqs — expect it early next week. Have happy holidays!
okay thats my bad, I suppose recency bias has clouded by judgement a little bit. I hope wellspring gets suspected, that thing is easily the most oppressive mon that hasn't been tested yet
 
What do you guys think about the Mon rn, I already stated my opinion on it earlier, but after playing more high ladder battles it starting to feel a lil more tameable. But my issue with this Mon in the tier is that tier feels more water absorb and dragon reliant. Especially now Ogerpon, feels more troublesome. I lover Ogerpon but if we add palafin in the tier idk if Ogerpon will stay. This could also lead into a spiral of other suspects and maybe leading into another palafin suspect. The main reason I wanted it banned was bc how healthy and diverse the tier was before. Ofc we had mon like kingambit, kyurem and Zama you had to respect previously. But adding palafin makes it feel more constraining to team build forcing you to run a dragon or water absorber. What do you guys think about this, I’m pretty conflicted, but prob voting ban due to health of the meta game:
 
What do you guys think about the Mon rn, I already stated my opinion on it earlier, but after playing more high ladder battles it starting to feel a lil more tameable. But my issue with this Mon in the tier is that tier feels more water absorb and dragon reliant. Especially now Ogerpon, feels more troublesome. I lover Ogerpon but if we add palafin in the tier idk if Ogerpon will stay. This could also lead into a spiral of other suspects and maybe leading into another palafin suspect. The main reason I wanted it banned was bc how healthy and diverse the tier was before. Ofc we had mon like kingambit, kyurem and Zama you had to respect previously. But adding palafin makes it feel more constraining to team build forcing you to run a dragon or water absorber. What do you guys think about this, I’m pretty conflicted, but prob voting ban due to health of the meta game:
I mostly feel the same way I felt initially. Bulk Up sets still feel clunky to use, though there are glimpses of it perhaps being very potent here and there, while Pivot sets are strong but manageable. I haven't really found Ogerpon-W anymore troublesome now than it was previously (at least so far) since a lot of the mons you will be using to check Palafin also do fine enough vs Ogerpon-W like teapot, Raging Bolt, Dragapult, Hydrapple, random Tera Grass / Dragon mons (which are more popular now with Palafin) etc + it same weaknesses of getting worn down a bit fast via hazard chip. The main thing I've noticed is that a lot of these Pivot spam teams have gotten better (i.e. teams with Zapdos, Dragapult, Slowking-G, Corv, Pecharunt, Cinderace, etc.) which of course may be a good or bad thing depending on who you ask.

For balance / bulky offense, I don't feel Palafin has really affected building too much quite yet, which I feel is moreso a result of the suspect format not giving much time to consider it in the builder. I've personally been running more Tera Water / Dragon / Grass Pokemon, which do well vs Palafin and some of the mons it incentizes the usage of like Ogerpon-W or Dragapult. Been finding Palafin itself to help account for a fair number of threats like Darkrai, Iron Moth, and Kingambit, while also disincentivizing Tera usage from other mons like Raging Bolt or Roaring Moon, which IMO is where is big cut of their threat level comes it. So far, I hear HO is hurting a bit rn, but I do feel like it can also adapt in the future, perhaps with more anti-water teras on mons like Kingambit.
 
Song should have been:

I've finally gotten my reqs after playing around with various teams with and without palafin. I overall found palafin to be very manageable and honestly a little bit underwhelming, and will be voting to UNBAN palafin.

First, I'd like to ask whether major DLC releases count as status quo changes, since the tiering framework says:
  • The status quo can be changed in certain cases, such as new game releases. This is the situation with Hoopa-U in ORAS, which started directly in OU, unlike other 680-BST legendaries, which start in Ubers and then potentially get suspected to drop to OU.
Maybe I'm unsure about what constitutes a "change in the status quo", but to me 2 DLC releases and 2 years of metagame development seems like a pretty big change in the "status quo". Therefore, it seems like we should be evaluating Palafin based on whether or not it's broken, not based on whether it's necessary.

I went into the suspect test expecting Palafin to be broken. However, as I laddered more and more, I found Palafin's weaknesses quite expoitable, which caused me to lean more towards the DNB side. In my experience laddering (~100 games on both low and high ladder), I mostly faced two flavors of palafin sets, choice band and bulk up. I will address why each of these sets are not broken.

To ensure that I wasn't overcompensating for Palafin, I did most of reqs run with a pre-Palafin era team, using the exact same team I used during the second Kyurem suspect (https://pokepast.es/3897cbeaf1998df3). This team features 2 frail water resists, Latios and Ogerpon-grass, and Ting-lu and Moltres are easy entries for CB palafin to put in work. So, you might say that this team is quite weak to CB Palafin. Despite this, I never lost to CB Palafin once due to its requirement to switch in twice to do meaningful damage, meaning limiting its entries through proactive play was enough to limit Palafin. I will admit that the team is quite strong against BU Palafin, and I also never lost to BU Palafin in my entire reqs run.

First, choice band: While choice band is a strong wallbreaker, it's a lot more manageable than the calcs would seem to imply. This is because wallbreakers are generally supposed to be used in the early to mid game, and Palafin's ability means that the first time it hits the field, its basically useless and has to either flip turn out or hard switch out. Most wallbreakers can only get a few chances to hit the field to make progress, and while Palafin in hero form might make more progress/turn than an OU caliber wallbreaker, this is balanced out by the fact that its first switch in is low-impact.

Next, bulk up: Bulk up Palafin, in my opinion, has higher highs and lower lows than CB Palafin. First, we must note that Palafin's ability greatly hinders the team structures that bulk up Palafin are on. In my experience laddering, bulk up Palafin mostly fit on BO or HO, and losing one turn switching Palafin in and out is quite impactful for these offensive teams. Bulk up Palafin is quite a selfish pokemon, in the sense that it you are rewarded for a strong wincon for the price of your team getting reduced momentum, which will often put the Palafin user behind in the endgame when Palafin starts to set up to potentially sweep.

Even though BU Palafin is a strong win-con, it is definitely not unstoppable. Every Palafin set has multiple splashable checks depending on what you're missing from your moveset. Drop ice punch and you lose to hydrapple and sinistcha. Drop drain punch and you lose to gambit and kyurem. Drop taunt and you lose to metal birds. There are still universal counters as well, such as Dondozo and Physdef Pecherunt. BU Palafin is very Dragonite-esque in the sense that it's a bulky setup sweeper with utility in strong priority and the ability to utilize its wide moveset to hit many of its checks. However, we haven't banned Dragonite for this property, so we shouldn't keep Palafin in Ubers either.

Palafin is good for the meta:
I don't think that the Unban side should need to argue this in the first place, we should only need to prove that Palafin is not broken or uncompetitive. However, a Palafin unban would be good for the meta by keeping cheese in check and increasing metagame diversity.

CB or some kind of boots/mystic water pivot set gives balance and BO teams a strong, reliable priority move to check HO threats like Iron Moth and Valiant. Like many others have said, Palafin provides the meta with an anti-cheese option, making covering a wider array of threats easier. Palafin can even run encore on pivot sets. Given how encore is one the best anti-cheese options in SV, I believe that adding Palafin to the meta will bring more stability to the meta. Having such a strong, reliable priority user would also somewhat free up teambuilding because you can slap a Palafin on the team and blanket check many offensive threats, which allows more niche mons to be used that might have lower defensive utility than OU staples.

Palafin would also increase the viability of currently struggling teamstyles, primarily sun and rain, which increases metagame diversity.

Metagame shifts are not inherently bad:
One argument I've seen against banning Palafin is that it centralizes the meta around its checks like Wellspring and Raging bolt. However, this is not really a bad thing; the presence or absence of every top tier pokemon would drastically change the meta. For example, Zamazenta's presence increases the amount of ghost types and tera ghosts in the metagame. Imagine we were suspecting Zamazenta down from Ubers right now, and people said that you needed a ghost type otherwise you're weak to Zama. It would be very hypocritcal to not allow Palafin into the metagame because it would influence the meta while every other top pokemon influences the meta to at least the same extent, if not more, than Palafin.

Forcing a sturdy water resist on every team is also not something that is unseen in other metagames as well. Ash-gren in gen 7 OU, for example mandates a sturdy water resist on every offensive team, otherwise you're gonna get shuriken'ed to death. In fact, old Ash-gren is quite similar to Palafin. They both share a weak early game, strong, unresisted 60 BP water type priority, and they are both keep offense in check by preventing them from being too greedy in the teambuilder and forgoing a water resist. If SM OU can manage Ash-gren, SV OU can manage Palafin.

Power level of OU:
How do we define the power level of OU? Historically, OU has been created by first banning all the cover legendaries, then banning the remaining broken pokemon or unbanning the non-broken Ubers ala Kyurem-Black in gen 5-7 and Zamazenta this gen. Because of powercreep, the power level of OU will naturally rise and people that want to go back to the power level of gen 8 should just play that tier instead. Palafin can be treated the same way as Kyurem-Black in gens 5-7 or Zamazenta this gen, where it's an "Uber" that fits into the power level of OU, and thus should be unbanned.

We need a hero :Palafin-hero:
UNBAN PALAFIN
 
Just want to note we are having a tiering survey after the first week of SPL (early-mid January) regardless of this result and a suspect is somewhat likely to follow that.

There is a recent push in Policy Review to jumpstart another Kyurem suspect test and other topics like Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring, and Tera Blast warrant discussion as well. We have had more suspects on a rate basis this generation than any other generation and it’s not particularly close, so I implore you to not think this way and/or be close-minded in general.

I will post my thoughts on Palafin after I get voting reqs — expect it early next week. Have happy holidays!
a 3rd kyurem suspect in less than a year is not democratic at all. the people have already voted to keep it in twice - if you keep suspecting it again and again, you might eventually get the result you want, but how is that fair?

i know the response will be “well theres been a huge amount of feedback from the playerbase on kyurem lately and we are just listening to the people”, well theres a ton of OTHER mons that we’d like to look at too! people have been complaining about Zamazenta for well over a year, but we wont get a chance to vote on it unless the council says its ok. if the council thinks its balanced, and never puts it up for a suspect, then it will just stay OU forever. nothing we can do, right?

and as long as im complaining, why is it that the do not ban palafin side has to prove that palafin is *needed* in OU? that has never been the case. if a mon needs to leave ou, its because it is too strong or constricting for the tier - not because we dont “need” it. why should it be any different to go from ubers to ou than from ou to ubers? the same logic should apply.

i think a lot of my frustration with these tiering procedures can be summed up with the way palafin was reintroduced in the first place. hyping this mystery announcement up on twitter to be “the craziest thing ever!!! we’re gambling the future of OU guys!!! woaaaah hope the tier doesnt crash and burn!!’” and the announcement turns out to be one (1) suspect test of a fairly reasonable pokemon, with a ridiculously large like score barrier in the first place, and also the council has to approve it anyway first. lol. clearly, there are some people who really do not want the community to have more influence over the game they play.
 
i know the response will be “well theres been a huge amount of feedback from the playerbase on kyurem lately and we are just listening to the people”, well theres a ton of OTHER mons that we’d like to look at too! people have been complaining about Zamazenta for well over a year, but we wont get a chance to vote on it unless the council says its ok. if the council thinks its balanced, and never puts it up for a suspect, then it will just stay OU forever. nothing we can do, right?
Zamazenta has consistently received low scores on tiering surveys, its hardly just the council who thinks zama is fine. Same logic applies with kyurem, if its still getting high scores, that implies the support for a suspect is still there
 
and as long as im complaining, why is it that the do not ban palafin side has to prove that palafin is *needed* in OU? that has never been the case. if a mon needs to leave ou, its because it is too strong or constricting for the tier - not because we dont “need” it. why should it be any different to go from ubers to ou than from ou to ubers? the same logic should apply.
I don't think that the Unban side should need to argue this in the first place, we should only need to prove that Palafin is not broken or uncompetitive.
This seems to be a recurring question so I'll address it again:
The reason why tiering policy wants you to explain why a palafin unban is necessary is the same reason why it wants you to explain why a gouging fire ban was necessary: you want the status quo to change, it's on you to tell us why. Suspect tests have always been about why the ban or unban is necessary to improve the meta as opposed to the status quo.

Ideas like "oh we should have more mons in the tier if they're balanced" are purely personal preference. Voters might value this preference highly when casting their votes, but it has no grounding in tiering policy.

Every prior suspect test I've had to argue why X mon needs to be banned to improve the meta. Trying to flip the status quo isn't easy! The dnb crowd has never had to do it this generation, so it feels like you shouldn't have to this time either and shouldn't have to argue why palafin is needed in OU. But you do, because you're the ones trying to flip the status quo now.

CB or some kind of boots/mystic water pivot set gives balance and BO teams a strong, reliable priority move to check HO threats like Iron Moth and Valiant. Like many others have said, Palafin provides the meta with an anti-cheese option, making covering a wider array of threats easier.
No argument thus far has really done a good job of why we need palafin. I've heard it's anti-cheese, but is cheese really running rampant on the ladder? How much consistent success are you really getting by spamming webs or hard HO? From my experience, not much.
It revenge kills iron moth and iron valiant, but was anybody having trouble with these mons? Neither have been even remotely problematic enough to even be mentioned on tiering surveys.
Palafin can even run encore on pivot sets. Given how encore is one the best anti-cheese options in SV, I believe that adding Palafin to the meta will bring more stability to the meta. Having such a strong, reliable priority user would also somewhat free up teambuilding because you can slap a Palafin on the team and blanket check many offensive threats, which allows more niche mons to be used that might have lower defensive utility than OU staples.
What does encore palafin bring to the table that encore wellspring doesnt? A worse defensive profile that drains momentum for you earlygame in exchange for some mediocre prio? It's a downgrade to encore wellspring in most cases and wouldn't improve the meta in any way. I also fail to see how losing a valuable ground resist (to check tusk) and water immunity (to check weather) would be freeing up your teambuilding so much that we can suddenly start using shitmons in OU (has never been the case).

Palafin would also increase the viability of currently struggling teamstyles, primarily sun and rain, which increases metagame diversity.
Imma also tell you rn that sun and rain are still ass lol palafin is not saving either of these playstyles. In order to be consistent, these playstyles need to cover defensive bases that are impossible to cover (checking opposing wellspring with your rain or checking opposing bolt with your sun) while also not being so passive that glowking can easily come in and reset your weather. Palafin contributes nothing and is little more than a barraskewda upgrade for rain teams that need smth like archaludon to actually be viable.
 
a 3rd kyurem suspect in less than a year is not democratic at all. the people have already voted to keep it in twice - if you keep suspecting it again and again, you might eventually get the result you want, but how is that fair?
You do realize you have a badge and you are perfectly capable of weighing in on the discussion here rather than shooting the messenger and derailing an unrelated topic, right?
 
and as long as im complaining, why is it that the do not ban palafin side has to prove that palafin is *needed* in OU? that has never been the case. if a mon needs to leave ou, its because it is too strong or constricting for the tier - not because we dont “need” it. why should it be any different to go from ubers to ou than from ou to ubers? the same logic should apply.

I’m just gonna make a short reply to this because you basically answered the question yourself with the way you phrased things.

you are 100% right, if a pokemon needs to leave OU it’s because it is too strong or constricting or restrictive or any other synonym in the books you can think of. needing or not needing a pokemon has never been a valid argument when it comes to presenting reasoning to an existing OU pokémon suspect test. However, this palafin test is completely different, as palafin was not an OU mon to begin with but it is being introduced in OU from Ubers, and the reason why the necessity argument is a lot more compelling than it would be if it was the other way around is because we only have 2 weeks to experiment with a pokemon and i think we can all agree on the fact that 2 weeks is not a long enough period of time to make a fair and completely informed decision solely based on how strong it is for the tier. therefore, how necessary it would be to introduce this mon back in the tier, and to put it in other words, how worth the effort and the headache palafin is definitely becomes a question that both the keep banned and unban side should argue.

Now the tiering system may be flawed but no one’s forcing you to do anything. you don’t have to argue for palafin’s necessity if you don’t find that piece of information relevant, just like you can’t be going around and complain about people from both sides arguing in good faith about things they do find relevant.
 
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