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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
me when i take the baitpost seriously
only to get one-upped by an even better baitpost
I personally never found Manaphy an issue and believe the main problem was due to people not being used to dealing with its new sets along with all the new threats in the meta. As you can see now, Mana is not even UU by usage, which shows the problem was mostly new toy syndrome.
Agreeing with Seraphyde on this one (wow, first time for everything) - Hearthflame has a wealth of answers in the current meta like Choice Scarf Great Tusk, Kingambit, Choice Scarf Landorus-T, Moltres, Pecharunt, all the Dragon-types, and even more. It doesn't do anything in a game except throw off an Ivy Cudgel and get forced out to take 25% from Rocks. Hell, even more niche answers like Archaludon and Rillaboom could thrive with this unban. I don't know why all of you are opposed to it.
the environment drastically changed in dlc2 in ways that manaphy—and specifically that stupid ass stored power shitter set that was the thing everyone was taking issue with—really doesn't like. raging bolt and kyurem are around now to provide supereffective offensive pressure before manaphy can set up, meowscarada is somehow ou and can crit through the acid armors after it sets up, sun was really good when dlc2 dropped and that hurt manaphy a lot, serperior was firmly ou at that point, we still had archaludon to do electro shot shenanigans, etc etc etc. so manaphy dropped like a stone, and then it struggled in uu because its matchup spread down there is just kind of terrible and it never gets the turns to pull off any of the nonsense it was doing in dlc1 ou, plus pelipper's banned from uu so it can't even do rain stuff down there. it wasn't just people getting used to it, it was that a ton of answers dropped
Insane amount of Latios in week 1. What was that, like 4 Latios? Including a mirror match. Ting-Lu, Pech, Zama, all at like 70% usage too lol, crazy. I tried out Latios on ladder again and I gotta say, it does feel good. Fun seeing these lesser-used mons in tournament (similar to Slither Wing last time around, one of my new faves to use).
In case anyone couldn't tell, this is a joke post. Dead by Daylight absolutely doesn't agree with Seraphyde on this. Please don't anyone reply as if they're astonished by what he posted.
i dunno what you're talking about man, archaludon and rillaboom are totally legit firepon answers in current meta
I must apologize to Latios. It seems I was not familiar with his game
Fire/Grass is phenomenal STAB, though, especially since there's not a lot of quality defensive Fire types laying around to resist Fire + Grass + Fairy coverage. I mean, take this as a sample calc, factoring in one turn to Swords Dance and then terastalizing for a +1:
+3 252 Atk Hearthflame Mask Tera Fire Ogerpon-Hearthflame-Tera Ivy Cudgel vs. 248 HP / 248+ Def Moltres: 238-281 (62.1 - 73.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
62.1% minimum to bulky Moltres. 90/90 defenses, a resistance, and defensive investment, and you're doing 62.1% minimum. Moltres can't even do much back, since Hearthflame is immune to burn and resists Flamethrower, so the best you can manage is to Roar it out and try not to give a setup turn again.
Assuming a modest level of chip - either from hazards being down or Hearthflame taking a weak hit while setting up a Swords Dance - it still survives Scarf Lando-T, it survives anything Moltres throws at it while landing a 2HKO, it OHKOs Pecharunt with Tera, and it has the brute power to 2HKO the dragons with a resisted move (60-70% to Dragonite, for example, with a +2 Ivy Cudgel) if it doesn't just run Play Rough. Kingambit and Scarf/Booster Speed Tusk both do OHKO after a little chip, but Kingambit needs most of the team to be dead first.
Embody Aspect giving +1 Attack is immensely valuable here, since it allows Hearthflame to just bully through resists in a way that other Ogerpon forms cannot.
lmao, sample size is more than 3 months (Kyurem was unbanned on October 12), SPL stats are just the latest proof that Kyurem is NOT broken (people can still try to ban Kyurem but its not objective)
Winrate/usage stats are a combination of many factors, such as versality, strength in a particular meta and etc, OBVIOUSLY its easier to start from general stats than to try to explain why Kyurem cant be rated above many mons
If something has poor performance, people will stop using it (broken SD Gliscor in SCL/OLT for example)
I mean to be fair Zamazenta had like 80% usage this week, so not exactly a Kyurem-friendly environment.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/sv-ou-tiering-surveys.3711911/page-2#post-10415802 -- survey is out!!!
-- knock yourself out
honestly i think SV OU is the most balanced OU, idc about the old gens (1-6) because old mechanics is cringe but tera is a much more balanced mechanic than z moves in SM OU and SS OU is overall truly uncompetitive tier, so even though SV OU could be better i rated it an 8
You cannot just discard 2/3 of the OUs and claim SS OU is "truly uncompetitive" without any actual reasoning (it is one of the most balanced OUs). This is silly.
wrote in solgaleo
solgaleo stocks are at an all time low, mon sucks trust we will be freeing the goat in 2025
solgaleo stocks are at an all time low, mon sucks trust we will be freeing the goat in 2025
When we banned Kyurem, ZapKingLu definitely took over. No way it didn’t. I was seeing it at the 1000s, the 1200s, the 1600s, everywhere. Zapdos burned itself in my mind. Glowking screamed in my ears every moment. Ting-Lu turned every rainbow I saw to grayscale. The three horsemen of doom, ZapKingLu, rode up to my bedside. But right when I thought I was dead, when I believed I had breathed my last breath of the Galarian Weezing-purified air, the gallant Kyurem showed up, with a lance in his right Heavy-Duty Boot. He dispelled the Zapdos, he froze the Glowking in its tracks, and he shattered the Ting-Lu. The one week of hell was enough to convince me: keep Kyurem in the metagame.
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Mashallah brother free the lion
I FORGOT TO WRITE IN SOLGALEO.... I'M SORRY SOLGALEBROS
at least I got Moon in there...
remember to vote 5 on Woger
at least I got Moon in there...
remember to vote 5 on Woger
this might be the most closed-minded sentence I've ever seen in my life
How are people still complaining about SS in 2025
Everything I am about to say relates purely to ladder play, since I am not a tournament player and will not pretend to have in-depth understanding of tournament planning.
Tera Blast is problematic because it's high variance, and specifically, it's unpredictable variance.
Competitive gameplay requires a degree of predictability - Clefable has thrived for generations, thanks in large part to having a movepool containing virtually every move it could desire, allowing it to adapt to a changing metagame despite unimpressive stats, and having the tools to make use of both of its excellent abilities. Regieleki was UU in Gen 8 due to its poor coverage options, and when Tera Blast solved that problem, it was immediately yeeted to Ubers.
Tera Blast is often compared to Hidden Power, and it's a valid comparison, but the two differences - the degree of commitment and the raw power - mean it serves an entirely different role. Hidden Power had three main use cases: as a STAB move to offset a poor movepool (Gyarados with Hidden Power Flying), to snipe a 4x weakness (Hidden Power Grass to snipe Swampert, Hidden Power Ice to snipe Lando-T), and the occasional use to hit a target that resisted everything else the user could bring. With a maximum of 60/70 BP, it's not strong enough to be more than that; it's a lousy STAB move and - generally - poor coverage; neutral STAB would routinely beat out super effective Hidden Power.
Tera Blast is stronger. 80 BP STAB is an effective 120 BP, or literally twice as strong as Gen 6-7 Hidden Power, enough to be a powerful coverage move. It's also very committal, either you teratsalize the mon carrying Tera Blast, or it's a dead move slot; the only mon that gets anything out of an 80 BP Normal move is Regieleki, and that's solely because it's the best move to hit ground types.
Thus, Tera Blast falls into two categories: valuable coverage move, such as Serperior and Regieleki, or a lure, such as Kingambit sniping Fighting types with Tera Blast Flying or Fairy. The former is unproblematic because you can reasonably expect it, and the mon ends up evaluated by judging the extra coverage versus the commitment required to access it - Volcarona was deemed broken, Serperior fell to UU. The latter is the problem.
It's not just that it's a lure; rather, it's a lure that everything has access to, and is powerful enough that - unlike Hidden Power - it's not relying on targeting a 4x weakness to pay off. Somewhat ironically, if Tera Blast was a better move baseline, if it wasn't an un-move on most physical attackers and lousy on special attackers, it would be more common and less of a problem. You'd expect it, you'd account for it both during team building and during play, and keeping tools in check to deal with a less-surprising Tera Blast would be just another hallmark of skill.
Physical Tera Blast on Kingambit wouldn't be an independently good move, by any means, but you could run it on a SD/Sucker/Kowtow/TB set and click the move to hit Dark resists and not be completely hosed when needing to terastalize something other than Kingambit. In lower tiers, you could run it on Gyarados for that Water/Normal neutral coverage, and turn it into a STAB Flying move if useful to sweep; again, not a good move, but a usable one that offers some value at all times.
By becoming more common, and less of a pure lure, it'd be more predictable, and thus less of a tiering challenge; Kingambit having a move to nuke Great Tusk would be a normal (albeit uncommon) thing, rather than a rare tech that cannot be reasonably expected. As it is, SURPRISE TERA BLAST! isn't something that can be predicted, isn't something that can be reasonably played around, and thus isn't - by the actual Smogon definition of the term - competitive.
time to break out the crystal ball again
behold! the mystical spirits have revealed to me that if waterpon were banned, we would in fact see a significant increase in balance and stall, though neither one would become overwhelming. tera dragon stocks would plummet. rockpon would rise to ou and occupy several of waterpon's offensive roles; rillaboom and meowscarada would also fill in some, though not all, of the void she left behind. moltres, garganacl, ting-lu, primarina, and alomomola usage would skyrocket, though waterpon's niche would be filled well enough that nothing would end up becoming op in her absence. pecharunt would fall back to uu, but it would take a bit of time
On a different topic, given the actual reasons given by voters in the Palafin suspect test, I doubt that Solgaleo has any chance dropping into OU.
Palafin didn't stay in Ubers because the majority found it broken, but because the majority felt that it was one more threat to deal with in a metagame saturated with too many threats already. It's hard to imagine Solgaleo not being voted to stay Ubers for the same reason, as just one more threat to deal with in team building.
Palafin didn't stay in Ubers because the majority found it broken, but because the majority felt that it was one more threat to deal with in a metagame saturated with too many threats already. It's hard to imagine Solgaleo not being voted to stay Ubers for the same reason, as just one more threat to deal with in team building.
I would be surprised to see Solgaleo retested anytime soon. Never say never though