Format Discussion Super Staff Bros 4 Discussion Thread

HiZo

HiZo

uniquely annoying
is a Programmeris a Top Community Contributoris a Metagame Resource Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a Battle Simulator Staff Alumnus
Thread (originally) approved by HoeenHero . OP stolen and updated to ssb4 from Kalalokki .

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Cool art by Kaiju Bunny ​

What is Super Staff Bros?
Super Staff Bros is a seasonal ladder format featuring random teams made up of Pokémon created by the staff members of Pokémon Showdown. But these aren't your standard everyday Pokémon; these Pokémon have custom abilities, moves, and even items that do not exist in standard formats! From dealing massive amounts of damage to the opponent's team on death to even permanently scrambling a Pokemon's moveset, these custom moves, abilities, and items have a wide variety of crazy functions that are sure to keep you on your toes. In addition to their custom attributes, these staffmons are named after the PS staff member they represent and post witty messages on their staff me in battle, and there is no limit to how many Mega Evolutions a side may use. However, Dynamax is still banned because of the massive power creep it places on the metagame despite how much we can try to restrict it. Other than these changes, it's just a normal Pokémon battle; the first trainer to KO their opponent's team wins! How do I learn more about this? There's a super handy article that shows the entire roster available, as well their sets, moves, and everything that is custom made for this metagame! You can also learn about specific staff members by doing /ssb [Staff Member's name] in the Pokemon Showdown server or via the article.

What's this thread for then?
Basically to discuss the metagame in general. We also want to hear from the community about the metagame in general (and if I get around to doing it, a role compendium and/or speed tiers).

[insert mon here] is broken and should be nerfed!!!
Something that QC and I discussed that we will do is mid-release balance patches. If there is an overwhelming, unanimous cry that certain pokemon are too good or suck a lot we will evaluate those mons and potentially nerf/buff them to even the playing field a bit better.
Tough luck. We finished the metagame, so changes to any sets are EXTREMELY unlikely.

Hope you'll have fun playing, as we put a lot of heart and soul into this! :]
 
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CHANGELOG:

Celestial: Speed Boost -> Speed Control: +1 speed on switch in.

Perish Song: Shifting Rocks -> Stealth Rocks | Earthquake -> Trickery: Ground type attack that gives the opponent a random item.

grimAuxiliatrix: New move set | Bio-Steel -> Aluminum Alloy: Same thing but now boosts defenses and lowers speed in rain or when hit by water attacks | Fuel Leak -> Skyscraper Suplex: A steel type attack that deals double if the opponent has their stats raised this turn.

Aelita: Scyzophoa no longer gets a guaranteed +2 to stats on switch in because of a bug.

Forever Winter Nights: Non-Ice Speed decrease nerfed from 75% less speed to 50% less speed.

Annika: mega's stats nerfed to the same as Mewtwo's | Data Corruption only works on the user's first turn.

HoeenHero: Storm Surge speed debuff is now 50% instead of 75%

Marshmallon: Rawwwrrrrr!: HP regain is now 33%

Naziel: Not so worthy Pirouette: initial chance to nuke the foe/player is now 50/50. Successive uses now make it approximately twice as harder to OHKO the opponent.

Notater517: Last Minute Lag: User no longer recharges if the opponent is killed. | Toxic Spikes -> Toxic Spikes/Recover

INStruct: Soda Break -> Fake Out. | Heavy Duty Boots -> Soda Pop | Z-Move: Satanic Panic: User and the opponent's active pokemon switch sides, both get forced out afterwards.

Kipkluif: Kip Up: Now endures, among what it already does

LittEleven: /nexthunt: now gives +2 to the receiving pokemon

Hydro: Alolachu stats | Hydrostatics: 75 bp. Water type with Electric effectiveness added

Emeri: Draco Voice -> Drake Skin: Dragon type aerilate

Jho: Venomize: now a poison type aerilate

Cake: Ingrain -> Life Dew

Yuki: too much to list, but tl;dr a lot of movesets got a lot of buffs

tiki: right on cue: Has more moves to choose from, and now uses 1-5 of them.

thewaffleman: Cotton guard over Iron Defense

ptoad: croak: now rolls 2 boosts before attacking, but stops getting buffs after 8 positive boosts

coconut: Devolution Beam: If the opponent cannot devolve, then the opponent gets -1 in all stats bar acc/eva

alpha: Blistering Ice Age: 190 BP and special, allows Alpha to get the ability ice age so Heavy Hailstorm is permanent while this Pokemon is out.

Gimmick: Ability is now a true echoed voice. Now has Unburden innate.

Trickster: Soul Shattering Stare: Cost to curse now 25% of max HP.

Nol: Trick Room is now Giga Drain, Mad Hacks: Summons trick room on top of what it already does

Aelita: Rest, Sleep talk -> Leech Seed, Protect

KingSwordYT: Bamboo Kingdom: Pokemon using physical moves against this Pokemon now lose 1/16 of their maximum HP.

Andrew: new moveset: Moongeist Beam, Trick, Pollen Puff, Whammer Jammer

brouha: Flying types no longer get a defense boost in turbulence

lamp: Recover over Strength Sap, Candlewax is now Soul Heart

EpicNikolai: The secondary chance to par/burn is now 25% opposed to originally 100%

phiwings99: Exploit to kill opponent without killing yourself is fixed

grimAuxiliatrix: If someone sets up rain while grimAuxiliatrix is on the field, Aluminum alloy will now activate, giving it +1 def, +1 spd, and -1 spe.

NERFS
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drampa's grandpa: Get off my lawn no longer switches the user out
KingSwordYT: Ability: No more giving damage from damage taken. Clash of Pangoros: No longer heals user
Rach: No more regenerator
Nol: Mad Hacks prority: -7
Blaz: Why worry -> Solid Rock
The Immortal: Watt Up: 75% chance to buff Speed
instruct: Back to soda break, but Last laugh now boosts instruct's moves 10x to opponents already affected by Last Laugh
Hoeen: Storm Surge speed decrease from 50% less to 25% less
Mitsuki: No more solar power
Hydro: stats of Dedenne

BUFFS
----
Mad Monty: Full IVs
Cake: jungle healing over life dew
tiki: Frosmoth stats
Segmr: Price to curse now 25%
Sectonia: Homunculus's Vanity: +1 defenses, opponent gets -1 to highest offensive stat
Aethernum: Lilypad Overflow BP: 60 -> 61
 
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QHpAhAI.png


One note about my set. ripsei is Final Gambit in most aspects but with great buffs. One buff is pointed out, in that it carries +1 priority.

The other buff is hidden and most players will really have to notice in order to figure out, but, if ripsei works and you manage to KO the opponent, the Audino gets KOed last. This means if your opponent's final Pokemon manages to bring you to your final Pokemon and your final Pokemon just happens to be me, odds are you've won the game.

Have a good day :blobuwu:
 
Feeling the urge to point out that Annika is overtuned.

Bolstering its 400 special attack and speed combined with its great coverage, it has proven to be very difficult to switch in to. It is likely that you only have 1 switchin at all and it needs to be healthy. While I thought this was very strong, it wasn't the key point that drove me to make the post.

The custom move data corruption tips it over. You'll find that even though you may have 1 mon that allows you to play around Annika to some extent, data corruption is able to completely invalidate this mon rendering it useless for completely free, as at +3 priority it is almost guaranteed to go first and is guaranteed to flinch giving it absolutely no drawbacks. In my instance, it gave a gardevoir viable moves such as bounce, defog and transform for the whole remainder of the game, making it useless. This is available at any time even if the pokemon has been in battle for multiple turns.

There is an argument that this extremely strong move only has 1 pp so you can switch to play around it, but this does not take away from the fact that you have to get your check in battle in the first place, then back out, then back in again. The moves ability to give your pokemon useless moves renders even the switch in useless, and you still need to get back in your check safely without sacrificing its hp, meaning that it forces a ko since its strong enough that dancing around it is not really an option.
 
Major balance updates from first release:

Celestial: Speed Boost -> Speed Control: +1 speed on switch in.

Perish Song: Shifting Rocks -> Stealth Rocks | Earthquake -> Trickery: Ground type attack that gives the opponent a random item.

grimAuxiliatrix: New move set | Bio-Steel -> Aluminum Alloy: Same thing but now boosts defenses and lowers speed in rain or when hit by water attacks | Fuel Leak -> Skyscraper Suplex: A steel type attack that deals double if the opponent has their stats raised this turn.

Aelita: Scyzophoa no longer gets a guaranteed +2 to stats on switch in because of a bug.

Thats all so far!
 
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If you have a replay of me sweeping teams I would like to see them please :)

Aeonic edit: do not fuel his narcissism
Zodiax edit: if you have a replay of me ko'ing Aeonic, bonus points
Hoeen edit: Happy Birthday Aeonic
Aeonic 2edit: hate y'all
GMars edit: Happy Birthday Aeonic!
Mia edit: h-happy birthday aeoni-chan
 
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Hello new nerfs (e: theyre in now)

Annika: mega's stats nerfed to the same as Mewtwo's | Data Corruption only works on the user's first turn.
HoeenHero: Storm Surge speed debuff is now 50% instead of 75%
Marshmallon: Rawwwrrrrr!: HP regain is now 33%
Naziel: Not so worthy Pirouette: initial chance to nuke the foe/player is now 50/50. Successive uses now make it approximately twice as harder to OHKO the opponent.
 
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I think I'm just qualified enough to give my thoughts for a very early tier list of the mons. This is mostly for fun and based on my experiences playing the tier, but a few of the top ladderers share similar views, bar certain mons. Also this is before the recent nerfs. Mons are not ranked within their tiers.

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imo my mon is D rank if you don't know how to use it. This is fair because it was designed to have some strategy with it to receive good use.

At least B- rank otherwise :blobthumbsup:. This is given my Pokemon has the ability to stop the vast majority of crazy sweeps from occurring and can end games with a win on a 1v1. Otherwise it seems to be a nuisance with its ability to constantly steal stats with Spectral Thief. Many Pokemon will have manual stat boosts in this format so being a scarf Spectral Thief user has great merits on its own already. It also has the ability to restrict the target with trickscarf but how effective this is would entirely depend on the matchup.

Also Naziel now has a 50% base chance to successfully land priority OHKO moves on the opponent and a 25% chance to land it a second time. This alone should make Naziel noticeably above D rank, even after his nerfs.
 
Trade said:
I think I'm just qualified enough to give my thoughts for a very early tier list of the mons. This is mostly for fun and based on my experiences playing the tier, but a few of the top ladderers share similar views, bar certain mons. Also this is before the recent nerfs. Mons are not ranked within their tiers.

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im ok with b rank.... but u put KENNEDY of all people above me??????
 
Ransei said:
imo my mon is D rank if you don't know how to use it. This is fair because it was designed to have some strategy with it to receive good use.

At least B- rank otherwise :blobthumbsup:. This is given my Pokemon has the ability to stop the vast majority of crazy sweeps from occurring and can end games with a win on a 1v1. Otherwise it seems to be a nuisance with its ability to constantly steal stats with Spectral Thief. Many Pokemon will have manual stat boosts in this format so being a scarf Spectral Thief user has great merits on its own already. It also has the ability to restrict the target with trickscarf but how effective this is would entirely depend on the matchup.

Also Naziel now has a 50% base chance to successfully land priority OHKO moves on the opponent and a 25% chance to land it a second time. This alone should make Naziel noticeably above D rank, even after his nerfs.
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I definitely get where your coming from. The ability to stop sweeps in this tier is immensely important with mons like Aelita, Zalm, Frosty, Nikolai, cant say and others in the tier. There are a few issues which makes this mon not function the way it should in the current meta. Firstly, ripsei being Fighting really prevents it from stopping vital sweeps from ghost mons and keeps it a sitting duck against sweeping ghost mons that don't rely on manual boosts. Mons like Iyarito, Andrew and peapod that don't boost don't mind a non-invested non-STAB Spectral Thief coming from a 60 Base mon and are faster/can fire off a relevant move to block trick/predict it with Volt Switch, Aura Sphere and Submartingale respectively. The other issue with this ghost shenanigan is that many times (which has occurred in battle), you could actually lock Ransei by sending in a ghost type (1/5 of the roster, so your chance of having a ghost type on your team is immensely large), and then proceed to get a free move. Not to mention dogknees is a literal full counter.

There are also some minor issues that are caused by having ripsei be plus priority. Because of this, it actually allows a mon to sweep under Psychic terrain, which I've set and have been set on in the past.

The last and honestly its major issue comes from the speed tier it reaches with scarf. It gets 327 speed, which is unfortunate to say the least. It thus cannot revenge Spectral some mons it should be able to spectral from like Non-mega'd Nikolai, +1 Aelita, +1 Lionyx, +2 Gmars, +1 Frosty, +1 Seso, +1 Volco, +1 Zalm, +1 Zodiax, and really most of the boosting mons it aims to outspeed without having to resort to ripsei.

I also want to mention that Trickscarf is a strategy that is vastly improved by a meta where sets are not established beforehand. Knowing that Ransei is a trickscarfer makes it more abusable and turns it to a game of 50/50 (actually a lot less because there are a good number of mons that don't care what move Ransei ends up using). While not compeletely an argument, knowing Ransei will probably pick trick/ripsei turn 1 allows players to switch into mons that are unaffected/boosted by the scarf such as c.kilgannon, Paradise, Abdelraham and all the other stone users, The Immortal and all other Z users to name a small few.

Then there are the 1/6 of the cast that work as support (don't mind sacrificing itself/getting a scarf) and don't care what Ransei clicks. Mons such as INStruct, and Kalalokki pop up quickly to name a few, but mons like Averardo don't mind and sometimes would prefer a scarf.

The last argument is the fact that you need to keep Ransei healthy in order to do its job correctly. This means you can't switch it in to a raw attack. You need to wait for a mon to die from a sweeping mon before you send it in. In theory you could send it in on a boosting move or send it in on an attack, trick, recover, but it's a lot harder in practice.

There is definitely an argument to put it higher, but the tier list was based on the meta and there are just a good number of mons that stop a sweep more consistently. Mons like Aelita, Annika, Dragonwhale, A Quag to the Past, Brandon, phiwings99 to name a small few. And in a fast paced meta like SSB4, you're better off just fighting fire with fire as opposed to stopping a sweep by playing mons like Miyuki, HoeenHero and quadrophenic to name a few.


Kris said:
im ok with b rank.... but u put KENNEDY of all people above me??????
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MGLO LoR is great, but STAB Crit UTurn is just insane.
 
Not that I'm arguing for my mon to be higher here, just curious as to why it's in the C category, since you did a great job explaining your reasoning for Ransei's mon (mine is Dragonite).
Trade said:
I think I'm just qualified enough to give my thoughts for a very early tier list of the mons. This is mostly for fun and based on my experiences playing the tier, but a few of the top ladderers share similar views, bar certain mons. Also this is before the recent nerfs. Mons are not ranked within their tiers.

View attachment 304577
Click to expand...
 
Celestial said:
Not that I'm arguing for my mon to be higher here, just curious as to why it's in the C category, since you did a great job explaining your reasoning for Ransei's mon (mine is Dragonite).
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Yeah absolutely, and I'll preface this by saying I've only played a combined 300 games between alts, so some mons I'm more familiar with than others.

The long and short of it is that Dragonite without the combination of both one SD and STAB from protean is not strong enough to dent the meta. Soft Flex, Aether, Hoeen, and even neutral mons with decent bulk like Mitsuki, Rach, Akir, OM~ among others can all take a hit and pester/kill it with one of their moves. So you need to get both up to really start doing damage. The issue now lies with the lack of bulk investment and the absence of Multiscale on Dragonite. Looking at the cast, 3/4 of the offensive mons can 2HKO/OHKO it and with residual damage such as Hail/Sand/Phantom Plane, Celestial just never finds the time to set both up. And even if it does, the nerf to just giving it a +1 speed boost really makes it hard to get any sweep going. For example, Paradise just literally steals your boosts or KO with Icicle; Gannon pesters you with a faster Soul Siphon; Beowulf is 1 speed point faster and OHKOs with Head Smash.

Protean is also a curse in a sense because historically, Protean was great on users that can come in, do immediate damage and go out. With the sheer amount of revenge killers in SSB4, you need to play Protean correctly to not get revenge killed by something like Miyuki for example, which could mean sacrificing an OHKO in lieu of a 2HKO by using DIB instead of Thousand. So why don't you switch out then? Because you've committed a turn or two for setting up, which makes it a waste.

There is also the argument of randomness in moves, you always want to assume that you can sweep with just DIB and Thousand because you're not prevented from getting a status move from the two moves you originally had. So you might get something as useless as SR mid battle.

TL;DR: The lack of longevity and the need to commit turns to something that can be revenged by a good number of the cast really hinders its performance.
 
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