SP Shared Power

[Gimlaf]

Whew, now that I took the first place on ladder (for now at least), I might as well post the team I've been using for the latest climb.

Proof, because why not

I've tried to build a Berserk Bulky Offense team for a while, but after playing with some different setups I suppose something just clicked now. Introducing:

Berserk Ogre.

Basically, it's a team that weathers opposing offense through Fluffy and Tablets of Ruin, while being able to fall back on some mons with high natural special bulk, on top of having recovery in Rest + Hydration.
For the team's own damage boosting there's, well, Berserk, but it also makes use of Mega Launcher, which, among other things, turns Kyogre's Origin Pulse into a weapon of mass destruction, even without investment. Scarf Spout Kyogre is cool and all, but a bulky set is a different kind of pain to deal with, lol.

Short mon explanations:

Special tank number 1, and of course the only mon with Berserk available. Hurricane benefits from Rain, Dark Pulse gets amped up by Mega Launcher, and the mon really appreciates having reliable recovery.


pretty much just here to share Mega Launcher, but with Specs it can put some dents into the opponent's team. Just don't rely on it to sweep or anything.


does Houndstone things. With Wisp and Roar it irritates physical attackers even more, and it's another mon that likes having a recovery option.


Special tank number 2. Giga Drain coupled with Berserk is fun, doing more damage with each proc and ideally keeping itself above the 50% threshold. Leech Seed and Knock Off help in whittling down stallier teams, since it does lack immediate damage without a SpA boost or two.


Special tank number 3, this is more focused on hitting stuff hard with Dragon Pulse. With Tera Poison it gives the team a Fairy resist it otherwise lacks.


The Big Boi. Very tough to break, and can set up CM in case it can't get Berserk procs off. Not that it absolutely needs those, it does plenty damage anyways. And of course, it brings the Rain that enables Rest + Hydration shenanigans.

 

[excitedly ava]

So Sun is in a weird spot right now, in my opinion, given the state of Rain teams being so common but also having a ton of strong mons to abuse the many boosts that Sun provides. I wanted to build a semi-Berry team that vnmmv mentioned before.

https://pokepast.es/2eed3a8bb4aea32a
I didn't really do any calcs nor can I test this at the moment so this is purely theory crafting, but Belch is a fun move and I wanted to see if I could do something fun with it.

I'd like to give an update on this little concept I've been building. I've done a couple of ladder games and there are three very obvious problems:

Grumpig is fucking awful, priority spam destroys the team (namely Scizor and Rillaboom teams), and hazards SUCK, even with Maushold to clean them up.

As such I've made another version to better deal with these issues.
https://pokepast.es/17452cadf297f4b8

Explanations

Great Tusk: Rapid Spin + Protosynthesis boosting Attack is great, with good physical bulk to keep it going. Decidueye walls it completely, which is a problem due to how it's becoming more common to answer Fluffy, but other than that it does its job. Spins, maybe picks up a kill or two. Knock Off can replace Supercell Slam, which is probably better, but as I'm typing this I'm too lazy to go make a new Pokepaste.

Indeedee: I'll be honest it was either this + Tusk, or Pincurchin + Treads. Both probably work. Anyways, pretty standard set, mostly just for terrain to make Rillaboom teams a bit weaker. I will say that QD+E-terrain is likely better.

Groudon: Rocks setter and Salac makes it actually pretty damn fast, so most of the time it doesn't even really need a Swords Dance to get a couple of kills. Pretty standard overall.

Grumpig: Unfortunately the best belch user I could fit on the team was between Skeledirge and Grumping, but I went with Grumpig for Gluttony support so that it can still serve a purpose in the scenario that it meets its untimely demise. Its stats suck, its typing sucks, it gets completely walled by most cores with a Steel type, but in the rare instance it works, it WORKS. Belch is crazy strong, Salac makes it fast, and Nasty Plot gives it an offensive presence that would be foolish to disregard. It does kind of really on Tera to stay alive, but that's a price worth paying imo to make a ZU mon have a niche in an OM.

Appletun: Stall-Lord 5000. Pretty self-explanatory, defensive switch in, gets leech seed up, just kinda sits there and says "fuck you" to whatever's in front of it.

Trevenant: Standard Wisp+Sub.

Although finnicky I've had more success with this team than the first draft. I've always had a thing for Belch teams in Standard (Hydreigon and Salazzle my beloveds <3) and I really do think that it's underutilized. Most of the mons that get access to it don't have a berry-boosting Abilities (besides Grumpig, Muk, and Swalot, who all kinda suck in one way or another) which probably contributes, but by god if there's a chance to make it work I am going to do everything in my power to have fun with it.

 

[KaenSoul]

Survey is OVER!
With only 12 answers, we didn't get as many as I wanted, but is still enough to get an idea of where everyone's mind is at.

Kyogre has been the main suspect target for a bit, and it looks like a lot of people agree with that, but many aren't convinced, so we will be suspect testing Kyogre very soon to finally have a decisive answer on the subject

Despite its popularity, most people don't think Scizor is broken, it was in 32.77% of teams last mon at the top of the usage rating, as Technician is one of the best abilities in the format in multiple archetypes, is to be expected that the best donor for it was a popular all across the board.

Not much to say about this one, people seem to be mostly fine with Raging Bolt for now.

Quark Drive being the last viable form of speed boosting has turned it into a big deal, it got a lot of support for action, so expect it to be the next subject after we are done with Kyogre. Depending on if Kyogre stays or not it may be right away, or we will have to wait until the new meta settles a bit.

Magnet Pull got a lot of support to move from banned to restricted, the plan is to do the change after suspect, so we don't have the suspect with a format different from the one we are playing. We will be discussing the others with 4+ votes, but don't expect anything to come from it until the already scheduled events happen.

 

[KaenSoul]

The suspect thread is up!

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/shared-power-suspect-aquarius-kyogre.3742314/

 

[LuffyWasTaken]

with the recent suspect test i was thinking about what could i make to revolutionize the meta, i remembered saying calyrex-ice is not a worthy threat in the meta because i was seeing it only in the concept of lycanroc offense teams and whatnot so i started thinking out of the box and i remembered about hail actually giving a +1 def boost this gen and thats not something being used right now for some reason, so what if we also add Fluffy to the mix? we'd have some very scary threats running free right? so i made an ice spam team and tried to get reqs with it and got a nice 23-2 record with it, could have been 25-0 if i paid more attention to my games but the team works and thats all i care about so ill be posting it here for yall to try it out or maybe even make it better, the idea is there :3


pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/a2a3c0510c33a3ff

team explaination:

this team is a bit weird to pilot because we got alot of abilities we want to active as soon as possible right? leading ninetales into aurora veil is pretty free and gives us an easy time into doing so and also its a good setup chance for sweepers like calyrex and baxcalibur, team is a lil weak to hazards but we got a max HP defog scizor so we should be fine, overall the team is pretty scary as long as we play correctly, team is also slightly weak to heatran so we need to offensively pressure it with our crawdaunt, we can eventually chip it and sweep with bax or calyrex terastalizing infront of it and tera blasting it into a KO

things we can consider to change:

u-turn over knock off on sciz, i like knock off for the switching in heatrans, its not a big reason so u-turn is totally understandable over it
nasty plot over encore on ninetales, i think encore is good to trap setup mons or trap hazard mons and whatnot, its good so we can stay pressing but nasty plot with snow and fluffy support can also make ninetales a scary fast setup mon if needed
crabhammer over liquidation on crawdaunt, i dont like losing cuz of a miss but thats just a personal choice, its true we dont miss those vs no guard teams in case, pick whichever one yall prefer

 

[Raoul Sanchez]

with the recent suspect test i was thinking about what could i make to revolutionize the meta, i remembered saying calyrex-ice is not a worthy threat in the meta because i was seeing it only in the concept of lycanroc offense teams and whatnot so i started thinking out of the box and i remembered about hail actually giving a +1 def boost this gen and thats not something being used right now for some reason, so what if we also add Fluffy to the mix? we'd have some very scary threats running free right? so i made an ice spam team and tried to get reqs with it and got a nice 23-2 record with it, could have been 25-0 if i paid more attention to my games but the team works and thats all i care about so ill be posting it here for yall to try it out or maybe even make it better, the idea is there :3


pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/a2a3c0510c33a3ff

team explaination:

this team is a bit weird to pilot because we got alot of abilities we want to active as soon as possible right? leading ninetales into aurora veil is pretty free and gives us an easy time into doing so and also its a good setup chance for sweepers like calyrex and baxcalibur, team is a lil weak to hazards but we got a max HP defog scizor so we should be fine, overall the team is pretty scary as long as we play correctly, team is also slightly weak to heatran so we need to offensively pressure it with our crawdaunt, we can eventually chip it and sweep with bax or calyrex terastalizing infront of it and tera blasting it into a KO

things we can consider to change:

u-turn over knock off on sciz, i like knock off for the switching in heatrans, its not a big reason so u-turn is totally understandable over it
nasty plot over encore on ninetales, i think encore is good to trap setup mons or trap hazard mons and whatnot, its good so we can stay pressing but nasty plot with snow and fluffy support can also make ninetales a scary fast setup mon if needed
crabhammer over liquidation on crawdaunt, i dont like losing cuz of a miss but thats just a personal choice, its true we dont miss those vs no guard teams in case, pick whichever one yall prefer

I like the team but 2 statements in your first paragraph rub me the wrong way. How is caly- ice not a threat in the current meta as it is the core component for physical HO sweeper teams along with caly itself stopping harvest teams (if as one was shared correctly then the entire team would shut down harvest teams). Secondly caly- ice does not synergize well with lycanroc as glacial lance is not boosted by tough claws.

Either way if it were me caly- ice would be one of the first mons on my list to be suspect tested

 

[excitedly ava]

before the suspect test ends i wanna just share my thoughts on a mon that fits REALLY well on Rain if Kyogre gets banned

Spoiler

Tentacruel @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Clear Body
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off / Toxic
- Flip Turn / Sludge Bomb / Toxic Spikes
- Toxic Spikes / Surf

i'm honestly really surprised this hasn't gotten more usage - decent special bulk, base 100 speed, tons of utility in Knock Off/Rapid Spin along with three amazing abilities in Clear Body, Liquid Ooze, and Rain Dish, all of which complement Rain's archetype beautifully. I really hope to see it more on the ladder since I believe it will honestly be a turning point for Rain if Kyogre is banned, turning it into a more defensive archetype as a whole.

 

[vnmmv]

before the suspect test ends i wanna just share my thoughts on a mon that fits REALLY well on Rain if Kyogre gets banned

Spoiler

Tentacruel @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Clear Body
- Rapid Spin
- Knock Off / Toxic
- Flip Turn / Sludge Bomb / Toxic Spikes
- Toxic Spikes / Surf

i'm honestly really surprised this hasn't gotten more usage - decent special bulk, base 100 speed, tons of utility in Knock Off/Rapid Spin along with three amazing abilities in Clear Body, Liquid Ooze, and Rain Dish, all of which complement Rain's archetype beautifully. I really hope to see it more on the ladder since I believe it will honestly be a turning point for Rain if Kyogre is banned, turning it into a more defensive archetype as a whole.

The speed is nice and so is the utility movepool, but I get hung up on the abilities when I try to use Tentacruel. Dry Skin is an upgrade over Rain Dish, and Clear Body is just okay. I think the most viable option might actually be Liquid Ooze on teams that otherwise struggle against Wo-Chien. Stuff that's vulnerable to chip and wants to stay on the field, like Raging Bolt or SD Groudon, would appreciate the support. It's situational for sure but you could do worse for a sixth mon.

I like the team but 2 statements in your first paragraph rub me the wrong way. How is caly- ice not a threat in the current meta as it is the core component for physical HO sweeper teams along with caly itself stopping harvest teams (if as one was shared correctly then the entire team would shut down harvest teams). Secondly caly- ice does not synergize well with lycanroc as glacial lance is not boosted by tough claws.

Either way if it were me caly- ice would be one of the first mons on my list to be suspect tested

Though I agree with you that the synergy is not great between the two mons, Caly-ice does end up on a lot of teams with Lycanroc. Lycanroc teams are almost always Lycanroc/Scizor/Crawdaunt/Quaquaval/Calyrex/filler. Caly is responsible for doubling the Moxie boost and enabling sweeps that get downhill with just one kill. It also brings some bulk to the team and runs Loaded Dice Icicle Spear. Personally, I have found these teams a little awkward to pilot since every Pokemon wants all six abilities. They're kind of win-more teams, and I think both you and Luffy are right: Caly is really good but kind of meh with Lycanroc. However, the resulting engine of these Lycanroc/Caly teams is undeniably potent. I think that everyone has been swept by one of these teams at some point.

Spoiler

The discussion between Raoul Sanchez and Luffy led me to build a fairly unique team centered around enabling Calyrex-Ice. Caly's bulk is hard to handle without super-effective moves. Filter, Solid Rock, and Prism Armor are clone abilities that reduce super-effective damage, and here's a team that stacks all three. The calculation for super-effective damage works out to be 2*(.75^3) = .84375, so you take 16% less from a super-effective move than a neutral hit. I paired that core with three pokemon that are hard to handle with just neutral damage.



https://pokepast.es/491447855c70595d

The best part of this team is that you can run these gonzo Tera types with weak defensive profiles. You actually want to get hit super-effectively, so Grass or Rock are fine. No one calcs in this mode lol so you end up taking a lot of super-effective hits where you opponent should have clicked a neutral move. The three Filter mons also form a sneaky Trick Room core that goes nicely with Caly. Spin Out under Trick Room is a cheeky tech.


Funny replays of dubious quality:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sharedpower-2122119976?p2
Calyrex teras into Dragon to tank a Fairy move.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sharedpower-2121300619?p2
Calyrex takes 38% from an Adaptability Weavile Tera Dark Knock Off.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9sharedpower-2122115525
Zamazenta teras into Fire to tank a Wave Crash.


I would not try to get reqs with this team, but it's not the worst either and is really fun to use.

 

[excitedly ava]

The speed is nice and so is the utility movepool, but I get hung up on the abilities when I try to use Tentacruel. Dry Skin is an upgrade over Rain Dish, and Clear Body is just okay.

I strongly disagree that Dry Skin is better than Rain Dish. The Water immunity is nice but it's just a hindrance against sun teams, which - I've mentioned before - I believe will gain a lot of popularity if Kyogre is banned. Not only will the main Water spammer be gone but the other main Rain abusers (Arch specifically) don't even run water coverage anyway. If Kyogre doesn't get banned, I would be less strong about this take, however still in favor of Rain Dish, especially for more defensive Rain teams such as Hydration/Rest teams. Also, running Leftovers/Rain Dish gives you the same healing as Dry Skin without any of the drawbacks.
Additionally, Clear Body is the go-to for this mon for HO, as nullifying Webs/Intimidate can prove to be extremely valuable in my opinion. Maybe a little niche, but it serves its purpose and does a great job doing so.
Liquid Ooze is just a great ability anyway that gets very little availability, and it's valuable; however, I find it honestly to be even more niche than Clear Body, as the only common Leech Seed/Giga Drain/etc user in the meta right now is Wo-Chien, which while can be problematic, can be dealt with in other ways.
All in all, the fact that Cruel gets three at least decent abilities alongside a ton of utility is more than plenty to have it be worth a teamslot in my opinion.

 

[KaenSoul]

​

Kyogre is now banned!
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-shared-power-suspect-3-kyogre.3743236/#post-10114970

 

[KaenSoul]

Survey is OVER!
With only 12 answers, we didn't get as many as I wanted, but is still enough to get an idea of where everyone's mind is at.

View attachment 629294
Kyogre has been the main suspect target for a bit, and it looks like a lot of people agree with that, but many aren't convinced, so we will be suspect testing Kyogre very soon to finally have a decisive answer on the subject

View attachment 629297
Despite its popularity, most people don't think Scizor is broken, it was in 32.77% of teams last mon at the top of the usage rating, as Technician is one of the best abilities in the format in multiple archetypes, is to be expected that the best donor for it was a popular all across the board.

View attachment 629300
Not much to say about this one, people seem to be mostly fine with Raging Bolt for now.

View attachment 629301
Quark Drive being the last viable form of speed boosting has turned it into a big deal, it got a lot of support for action, so expect it to be the next subject after we are done with Kyogre. Depending on if Kyogre stays or not it may be right away, or we will have to wait until the new meta settles a bit.

View attachment 629307
Magnet Pull got a lot of support to move from banned to restricted, the plan is to do the change after suspect, so we don't have the suspect with a format different from the one we are playing. We will be discussing the others with 4+ votes, but don't expect anything to come from it until the already scheduled events happen.

Now that the suspect has ended, we have decided to go forward with moving Magnet Pull from banned to restricted!
Format should change a lot now that Kyogre is gone, so we will give it some time to settle, expect the Quark Drive suspect in around a month.

 

[excitedly ava]

Needless to say, I'm ecstatic that Kyogre is banned, despite not taking part in the voting (battling is most certainly not my forte, I'm more of a teambuilding gal). So, here's my thoughts on where I think the meta will go. (This one's very long, be warned.)

speculations n whatnot

Although I'm unable to ladder myself as of right now, I look forward to seeing shifts in the meta - namely Snow and Sun - and what will become the dominant force of the meta. Right now my bets are on Snow, as Caly-I is nuts, alongside a plethora of other sweepers and utility mons that benefit from snow and contribute useful abilities (Mamoswine/Thick Fat, Bax/Thermal Exchange, etc). I doubt Sun will change any time soon, and if anything, it will be less powerful, as Raging Bolt's main benefit was being able to somewhat reliably check Kyogre and other Rain abusers, bar Arch. Sand has also proven to be incredibly strong, however quite two-dimensional, although I will say I have been working on a more defensive Sand team that I intend to post soon if it ends up being usable.

Disregarding weathers, Quark Drive has been on my mind recently, and I haven't seen it as much on ladder as before. This is not to say it's not good by any means; however, I do believe that other strategies that have come forth are either rivaling its power or trumping it altogether. As has been mentioned in previous posts, QD requires two teamslots, one of which is essentially a dead slot (Pincurchin), but those slots give you unparalleled flexibility in your remaining four slots. It can make teams unpredictable or, in some matchups, outright unbeatable.

As for threats that will likely either come forth or drop in popularity, which I believe will be substantial for the meta, I believe that both Fluffy and Long Reach will surge upwards in usage. Now that the main Special spamming Weather is significantly weaker, Physical bulk becomes that much more important - as does Long Reach, by proxy. Similarly to what I said about Quark Drive, this is not to say that Specially oriented teams are weaker than before - Palkia teams can still sweep as easily as Kyogre teams could - this is only to say that the remaining Special attackers are significantly weaker without Rain support. Pelipper does exist and likely will start popping up; however, its lack of bulk and damage output in comparison to Kyogre might mean that Rain becomes a more defensive playstyle, similar to Sun. Either that or it goes all in with Offense, as the loss of an offensive rain-setter in exchange for a passive one will mean that the remaining five slots will need to pull more weight. I'm also kind of hoping that Physstack teams make a comeback, since as brainless as they are, they are kinda funny and extremely satisfying when they work.

Regarding Magnet Pull - I highly doubt this change will cause any real waves in the meta. As has been mentioned in previous posts, the only prevalent steel types either have pivot moves or just don't care (Arch and Heatran, namely). Magnezone has two other abilities that would better suit its purposes anyway, and Probopass is...well, it's Probopass. If I'm using Probopass I'm using it for Sand Force, and even then I'm still not using it.

Anyway, these are just my initial thoughts - I don't doubt that the meta will change drastically, even in ways I can't speculate ahead of time. These are just my opinions. Magnet Pull might turn out to be extremely valuable, or Quark Drive might prove to be broken and worthy of a ban (I think it isn't, but that's coming from a pre-Kyogre ban standpoint). Regarding weathers especially, I'm excited to see how things shift. Things like Grassy Terrain and Psychic Terrain teams might even make risings.

All in all, I think the Kyogre ban was definitely the right choice, and will surely shake up the meta into a whole new ballgame.

Edit: Reading through some of the older posts, Toxic Debris could definitely see some more usage, as Physical oriented teams become more common and Calyrex being vulnerable to chip make it something to consider as a potential threat for sure.

 

[LuffyWasTaken]

yall didnt believe me when i said klawf is an issue, here are my results with a klawf team i made, over 30 wins in separate accounts with no losses

i think klawf is an absolute monster when u pair it up with mons like moltres-galar, a weak armor mon and other boosters like adap, sheer force and indeedee to stop priorities as well, klawf allows for an insane HO team, yall are hella sleeping on that hidden gem

electric terrain is still stupid, i remember testing a physical offense HO and raoul sanchez beat my ass twice with a terrain zamazenta electric seed spam team, no matter if terrain is used in HO teams or defensive teams with eseed support in the end its still not a fair thing to keep in the meta

i would like to discuss tera as well, in my eyes its mostly used to make scary mons even scarier, take for example zamazenta, absolutely busted mon in most matchups and the only way to beat it rn is with an indeedee or a fairy mon right? well all u need to do is tera steel and now these mons are not an issue anymore, iron defense becomes free and u lose the game, the only relevant interact with tera defensively i can think of is tera fairy to stop dragapult from going crazy but thats about it, usually tera just make the threats unkillable and i think the format would be better without

these are some things ive been thinking in this period, what do u guys think? id like to see what the community think about the current format, what should be looked into and whatnot

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Special offense absolutely needs a buff. The three primary special sweepers are Darkrai, Iron Valiant (Quark Drive Electric Terrain), and Raging Bolt, and the only other special sweepers that come to mind are Dragapult, Jolteon (which only I use), and Farigiraf (Weak Armor).

Sweeper Flaws:
Only Iron Valiant has an actual useful ability able to be shared with the rest of the team.
Only Iron Valiant can reliably OHKO Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien without Terastalizing.
Darkrai is outsped and countered by Zamazenta, one of the most popular Pokemon in the tier.
Only Iron Valiant and Raging Bolt get special priority moves, and they are both almost useless against Indeedee teams with Scarf spam.
Jolteon, Darkrai, and Dragapult lose get OHKOed against almost any physical priority move.
Dragapult and Raging Bolt lose to Calyrex-Ice and Baxcalibur cores.
Jolteon loses to any Ground Pokemon and Tera Blast is not boosted by Sheer Force.

Support Ability/Pokemon Flaws:
Flare Boost is stuck on Drifblim, a horrible Pokemon whose best moves are Defog, Curse, and Memento.
Flare Boost requires one turn to set up, which the opponent can exploit to use a setup move and sweep.
Sheer Force's best special attacker is Braviary-Hisui, which is ridiculously slow, and all the other Sheer Force Pokemon are physical.
Technician's best special attacker is Toxtricity, and Technician is only boosting Vacuum Wave (only Iron Valiant) or Water Shuriken (Greninja sucks).
Pincurchin is almost useless besides Spikes, Thunder Wave, and Memento.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams lose to Sheer Force.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams lose to Opportunist.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams teams require the opponent to attack you, and if they just don't (berry stall), then you lose.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams teams require Focus Sash or Endure spam, which easily lose to hazards, simple predicts, or multi-hit moves.
Klawf is not a special attacker.

My experience with my special team has been a rollercoaster. After breaking 1500 and regaining top 10, I fell down to the 1300s. I have not massively changed my special team since replacing Indeedee for Raging Bolt.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

Landorus should be unbanned. It does absolutely nothing against priority spam, is too slow to be a sweeper, and only uniquely provides Ground STAB and Sheer Force to a special team.

Darkrai already covers Psychic and Poison.

 

[KaenSoul]

Special offense absolutely needs a buff. The three primary special sweepers are Darkrai, Iron Valiant (Quark Drive Electric Terrain), and Raging Bolt, and the only other special sweepers that come to mind are Dragapult, Jolteon (which only I use), and Farigiraf (Weak Armor).

Sweeper Flaws:
Only Iron Valiant has an actual useful ability able to be shared with the rest of the team.
Only Iron Valiant can reliably OHKO Ting-Lu and Wo-Chien without Terastalizing.
Darkrai is outsped and countered by Zamazenta, one of the most popular Pokemon in the tier.
Only Iron Valiant and Raging Bolt get special priority moves, and they are both almost useless against Indeedee teams with Scarf spam.
Jolteon, Darkrai, and Dragapult lose get OHKOed against almost any physical priority move.
Dragapult and Raging Bolt lose to Calyrex-Ice and Baxcalibur cores.
Jolteon loses to any Ground Pokemon and Tera Blast is not boosted by Sheer Force.

Support Ability/Pokemon Flaws:
Flare Boost is stuck on Drifblim, a horrible Pokemon whose best moves are Defog, Curse, and Memento.
Flare Boost requires one turn to set up, which the opponent can exploit to use a setup move and sweep.
Sheer Force's best special attacker is Braviary-Hisui, which is ridiculously slow, and all the other Sheer Force Pokemon are physical.
Technician's best special attacker is Toxtricity, and Technician is only boosting Vacuum Wave (only Iron Valiant) or Water Shuriken (Greninja sucks).
Pincurchin is almost useless besides Spikes, Thunder Wave, and Memento.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams lose to Sheer Force.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams lose to Opportunist.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams teams require the opponent to attack you, and if they just don't (berry stall), then you lose.
Weak Armor Anger Shell teams teams require Focus Sash or Endure spam, which easily lose to hazards, simple predicts, or multi-hit moves.
Klawf is not a special attacker.

My experience with my special team has been a rollercoaster. After breaking 1500 and regaining top 10, I fell down to the 1300s. I have not massively changed my special team since replacing Indeedee for Raging Bolt.

There is no real need to preserve special attackers only as a team style, is not something you find in most tiers for a good reason, it shouldnt be that easy to overwhelm special walls, it should be expected to bring both physical and special attackers on your offensive teams to prepare for everything, and is not like special mons are unviable, they are pretty good in the post Ice Scales restriction format, you just cant bring a HO team of 6 special attackers and win that easily anymore, moving away from the stall vs ho format is a good thing.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

There is no real need to preserve special attackers only as a team style, is not something you find in most tiers for a good reason, it shouldnt be that easy to overwhelm special walls, it should be expected to bring both physical and special attackers on your offensive teams to prepare for everything, and is not like special mons are unviable, they are pretty good in the post Ice Scales restriction format, you just cant bring a HO team of 6 special attackers and win that easily anymore, moving away from the stall vs ho format is a good thing.

Mixed teams almost never work in Shared Power. Your opponent can just have a Ting-Lu, Houndstone, or Wo-Chien and then heavily inhibit the offensive physical/special Pokemon on your team.

Furthermore, you can bring 6 physical attackers and still win easily (Technician teams), so it does not make sense that it would be normal for special Pokemon to be unable to do this as often.

The only special Pokemon that can synergize well with primarily physical teams are Dragalge (special wall + pivot), Porygon2, Galvantula (Compound Eyes), and Indeedee.
The only physical Pokemon that can synergize well with primarily special teams are Conkeldurr (Sheer Force + physical wall), Crawdaunt, Basculegion, and Klawf.

is not like special mons are unviable, they are pretty good in the post Ice Scales restriction format

Special teams are not unviable, but they have massive flaws, as stated in #439.

 

[LuffyWasTaken]

Special teams are not unviable, but they have massive flaws, as stated in #439.

just because they might seem flawed it doesnt mean broken mons should be unbanned just to boost the archetype, also i disagree with this statement cuz i had no problems making special quark drive teams or boosting turbo terrain special teams, infact i peaked with a 85.6 gxe with a special team, i think it might just be a you problem here

 

[excitedly ava]

Special offense absolutely needs a buff. The three primary special sweepers are Darkrai, Iron Valiant (Quark Drive Electric Terrain), and Raging Bolt, and the only other special sweepers that come to mind are Dragapult, Jolteon (which only I use), and Farigiraf (Weak Armor).

I truly beg to differ; I've been laddering with a Sheer Force/Psyterrain team and I'm on a pretty good winstreak right now. In fact, none of the sweepers I utilize on this team are mentioned here, so here's the team:

https://pokepast.es/4b23f5b3b2a7023a
ignore the nicknames :3c

relevant descriptions

- Indeedee is, imo, becoming more worthy of being recognized as a threat now that Kyogre is gone, since it was the main check to Scizor-centered teams. That plus a 156 BP STAB+Adap with 475 speed with timid and scarf, and that's not something you can just ignore. Obviously it isn't winning many games on its own, but its damage output early game is respectable.
- Braviary is pretty insane, and when it gets an adap boost it essentially becomes the pokemon that was banned in Pokebilities. Defog support/Roost is nice, but let it be known that I've picked up some pretty insane kills with this thing, most notably on mons such as Scizor, with Psychic 2HKOing it under terrain.
- Basc is great, wicked strong, and has really good neutral coverage. That on top of Libero for permanent STAB on Ice Beam makes it really friggin strong.
- Gengar is nuts on its own, and although it has a dead ability, when it gets Sheer Force it also turns into a mon that was banned in AAA for being overpowered. That on top of psychic terrain, STAB Psychics with Sheer Force are absolutely insane.
also ik its not relevant but Hound is there for rillaboom teams

Not saying that special teams don't have flaws, just saying that there are certainly far more speciall attackers than just those few that you mentioned. Also obligatory Bundle mention.

edit again: imma be real i didnt read the whole post just like the first part and im glad i did because DAMN these are some horrible takes.
wochien/tinglu lack reliable recovery, so OHKOing either is not that important. 2-3HKO is good enough.
Drifblim gets Wisp, Strength Sap, and Hex, so no, Curse/Memento/Defog are not its 3 only good moves. It still isnt doing much, but I do think that saying "drifblim only has 3 good moves" is inaccurate.
Pult teams should be running Indeedee anyway to deal with CalyBax, and so that it doesn't lose to Scizor.
Darkrai teams should also be running Indeedee.
As stated above, running Braviary is not a problem whatsoever.
Zamazenta without tera loses to any Indeedee team.
Zamazenta WITH tera needs to waste a moveslot on Agility which can be risky as well.
Klawf gets up rocks, clicks Knock Off, and dies. It really doesn't matter whether or not it's a special attacker.
Technician is useless on special teams anyway.
Pincurchin gets Scald and Recover, both of which are more useful than Memento, especially on Zama teams.

As far as I'm concerned, the only problem being brought up is Anger Shell teams, which seem to have far more cons than pros anyway.

Landorus should be unbanned. It does absolutely nothing against priority spam, is too slow to be a sweeper, and only uniquely provides Ground STAB and Sheer Force to a special team.

Darkrai already covers Psychic and Poison.

Actually yeah, I do agree with this take, and it's 100% absolutely not because I'm biased towards Sand teams.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

I truly beg to differ; I've been laddering with a Sheer Force/Psyterrain team and I'm on a pretty good winstreak right now. In fact, none of the sweepers I utilize on this team are mentioned here, so here's the team:

For how long?

Not saying that special teams don't have flaws, just saying that there are certainly far more speciall attackers than just those few that you mentioned. Also obligatory Bundle mention.

Gengar is just a worse Darkrai, Braviary-Hisui is extremely slow and has a horrible defensive typing, and Iron Bundle only has two viable moves that get boosted by Sheer Force.

just because they might seem flawed it doesnt mean broken mons should be unbanned just to boost the archetype

How is Landorus broken? The only walls it defeats are Heatran (no recovery) Dragalge (loses to Psyshock), and Goodra-Hisui (was only on rain).

infact i peaked with a 85.6 gxe with a special team, i think it might just be a you problem here

Can you maintain your ELO close to that peak across a few weeks? The current meta is very stable, by the way.

 

[excitedly ava]

For how long?

about a week and a half i think, also this does nothing to disprove any of the points i made :wriggle_looking:

Gengar is just a worse Darkrai, Braviary-Hisui is extremely slow and has a horrible defensive typing, and Iron Bundle only has two viable moves that get boosted by Sheer Force.

Hydro Pump is still 110 base power and i like gengar because he's purple and fat and also cursed body is at least more useful than Bad Dreams

 

[InkyDarkBird]

about a week and a half i think, also this does nothing to disprove any of the points i made :wriggle_looking:

I've been using roughly the same special team for over a month. Play more games, and you might realize the struggle.

 

[InkyDarkBird]

edit again: imma be real i didnt read the whole post just like the first part and im glad i did because DAMN these are some horrible takes.
wochien/tinglu lack reliable recovery, so OHKOing either is not that important. 2-3HKO is good enough.
Drifblim gets Wisp, Strength Sap, and Hex, so no, Curse/Memento/Defog are not its 3 only good moves. It still isnt doing much, but I do think that saying "drifblim only has 3 good moves" is inaccurate.
Pult teams should be running Indeedee anyway to deal with CalyBax, and so that it doesn't lose to Scizor.
Darkrai teams should also be running Indeedee.
As stated above, running Braviary is not a problem whatsoever.
Zamazenta without tera loses to any Indeedee team.
Zamazenta WITH tera needs to waste a moveslot on Agility which can be risky as well.
Klawf gets up rocks, clicks Knock Off, and dies. It really doesn't matter whether or not it's a special attacker.
Technician is useless on special teams anyway.
Pincurchin gets Scald and Recover, both of which are more useful than Memento, especially on Zama teams.

Wo-Chien's SubSeed is extremely annoying, and Ruination with Protect and hazards is dangerous on Ting-Lu.
Drifblim and Pincurchin both have low bulk, so they often are unable to do much before being OHKOed or set up on. At best, you cause mild annoyance and KO the opposing hazard lead.
Running Braviary-Hisui IS a problem, as it almost becomes deadweight with its low bulk and low speed. It cannot even OHKO Calyrex-Ice.
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Braviary-Hisui Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Calyrex-Ice: 328-386 (81.1 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Indeedee is almost deadweight excluding its ability with Ting-Lu, Wo-Chien, Goodra-Hisui, and Heatran going around.
The lack of synergy with Technician shows an example of special teams having fewer abilities to work with than physical teams.

My special team is more oriented towards wallbreaking with the addition of Flare Boost. My team can almost OHKO anything, but loses against Ground, priority spam since I only have Thunderclap and Mach Punch, Baxcalibur, and Dragapult.
When I ran Indeedee on my special team, I completely lost to rain stall, berry stall, and Calyrex-Ice because I did not have a strong enough wallbreaker. I absolutely despised this, so I replaced Indeedee with Raging Bolt.

Your special team is more oriented towards HO. You can defeat most other HO teams, but you lose to stall, Sticky Web (Braviary-Hisui is NOT switching into Galvantula), Dragapult, and bulky offense. My Jolteon sweeps your team.
252 SpA Galvantula Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Braviary-Hisui: 392-464 (92.4 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

My team: https://pokepast.es/133a992cdb21fd64

 

[Raoul Sanchez]

Wo-Chien's SubSeed is extremely annoying, and Ruination with Protect and hazards is dangerous on Ting-Lu.
Drifblim and Pincurchin both have low bulk, so they often are unable to do much before being OHKOed or set up on. At best, you cause mild annoyance and KO the opposing hazard lead.
Running Braviary-Hisui IS a problem, as it almost becomes deadweight with its low bulk and low speed. It cannot even OHKO Calyrex-Ice.
+1 252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Braviary-Hisui Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Calyrex-Ice: 328-386 (81.1 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Indeedee is almost deadweight excluding its ability with Ting-Lu, Wo-Chien, Goodra-Hisui, and Heatran going around.
The lack of synergy with Technician shows an example of special teams having fewer abilities to work with than physical teams.

My special team is more oriented towards wallbreaking with the addition of Flare Boost. My team can almost OHKO anything, but loses against Ground, priority spam since I only have Thunderclap and Mach Punch, Baxcalibur, and Dragapult.
When I ran Indeedee on my special team, I completely lost to rain stall, berry stall, and Calyrex-Ice because I did not have a strong enough wallbreaker. I absolutely despised this, so I replaced Indeedee with Raging Bolt.

Your special team is more oriented towards HO. You can defeat most other HO teams, but you lose to stall, Sticky Web (Braviary-Hisui is NOT switching into Galvantula), Dragapult, and bulky offense. My Jolteon sweeps your team.
252 SpA Galvantula Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Braviary-Hisui: 392-464 (92.4 - 109.4%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

My team: https://pokepast.es/133a992cdb21fd64

Unfortunate thing about flare feet core with sheer force is that you gotta give up maximum sheer force power from life orb to run flame orb which is a worthwhile tradeoff but still disappointing that you can't reach ultimate firepower. I'm with Inky about unbanning Lando-I. The current sheer force options are lackluster seeing how they initially don't matchup well against the meta. Lando-I doesn't fair any better especially if we're keeping Caly-Ice around. As it stands special attacking H.O teams don't really hold a candle to the different combinations available to physical teams. I'm not saying that we must unban chi-yu and magearna to balance it out but I really don't see the harm in unbanning Lando-I or even give it a test run and players vote whether it should stay or go.

Funnily enough I think the strongest special attacking ho team I've seen the last few days isn't even flare feet sheer force. Was adaptability, dragon maw, mega launcher drought walking wake sorry for not remembering the name of the player running the team. Even that team can be bullied by prio spam or pixie spam or just fairies in general.

 

[vnmmv]

I don't think that flare feet falling flat should be taken as evidence of the weakness of special offense as a whole. Flare Boost has serious flaws that, in my eyes, hold it back from being a top-shelf ability. Your mons take 6% chip every turn, whittling themselves into range of a meta infested with priority. Flame Orb not only demands the item slot but also takes a turn to activate, causing mons to either run Protect or spend a turn weak and slow. Jolteon's coverage is famously shallow, so Jolteon is a bit of a Tera hog to salvage some dynamism... and when you run the same archetype for months, your opponents start to know what Tera types are coming. Finally, I just don't think very highly of Drifblim.


I think that special offense is not on par with physical offence but is not exactly on life support, either. The abilities do not stack the same way that physical attackers can, with Technician+Tough Claws and whatever else. However, special attackers have one major thing going for them: There is no special equivalent of Fluffy. Much of the physical meta revolves around responding to Fluffy. Special stuff gets to just slap on STAB and go to town, especially since Adaptability is category agnostic. Frankly, I hope that we do not have to play in a meta where special offence is as good as physical offence is now. Every good non-HO team has to bend over backward already to form a defensive core that can cover just the physical threats.

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Ting-Lu Special Offense
This conversation dovetails nicely into a post that I've been meaning to make for a while about Ting-Lu Special Offense. Vessel of Ruin only affects other Pokemon that do not have the Vessel of Ruin ability. Therefore, putting Ting-Lu on your own team cancels out the opposing Ting-Lu's protection. Without any ability-based opposition, special attackers can fire away.

I built a team as a proof of the concept before the Kyogre ban. It hit number 1, but I think it's more of a good team than a great team. Ting-Lu removes opposing Vessel of Ruin and gains great bulk with Quark Drive. I love the Glimmora + Raging Bolt combination since the TSpikes limit mind games around Thunderclap. That said, this team could probably benefit from slotting in Houndstone, just like every other team in the meta. I think Glimmora is the most expendable.


https://pokepast.es/5b66ea338e3ed15b