OU DPP OU Metagame Discussion Thread

[Zephir]

Third, watch these replays and admire Gyarados power ( I'm ofc missing some so if you suggestions tell me so I can edit later ) :

Only from R5 of DPP Cup :
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1922245022-9kbqz7o1bnwn1xmyvegilihg1bes184pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen4ou-709208
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1920476214

Ofc Jirachi can do the same but I don't think ONE IHead flinch can end the game like Waterfall can so you need more flinches and so more you try to flinch more your opp will have a higher chance to use a super effective move / TWave etc.

Nothing personal ofc but please everyone stop comparing Waterfall to Iron Head cause it's not comparable : not on the same mons which don't have the same roles, not the same typing, not the same flinch chance so they're not the same moves.

Let's look at that first replay :
Sheik playing an offensive team feels that Jirachi is so annoying to deal with that the best plan is to stay with a full health Tyra (paralyzed admittedly) and try to get some damage / prevent sub even if the odds to do something significant is not great. Jira gets the para and gets the kill for 12% of his health. Then Sheik feels his best option is to use Azelf explosion just to break the sub, even if it's likely that Jira will just re-sub for 25%. Metagross comes in, eats a fire punch to break the sub and avoids the 20% burn where Jirachi would have essentially solo'd 3 pokemons.

Sheik sends in Gyarados against the perfect setup fodder, then gyarados crits the primary response, and the water resist can't hit it because thunder wave + jirachi is just that good, then gyara double flinch swampert causing the death of swampert + tyra. Anyway, the 69% Jirachi was annoying.

99% of the time this replay is Jirachi + twave dominating an offensive team.

Second replay:
Ok so Zapdos is his best answer to the monowater set (Breloom may have been better after sub+tw revealed) then breloom is sac'd on waterfall. Of course with the more likely 2/8 para turns there's probably nothing to write home about.

Third replay
Bro are you for real there is again a crit along with the flinch

If these are the most impactful replays you have in mind about Gyarados ((para)flinch) strength in a meta which does not seem too concerned with neutralizing gyarados, they don't make the top 1000 of Jirachi best bullshits

 

[DazzlingCream]

I may not be the most experienced player out there, but I'd like to give my two cents about Jirachi. I've been laddering extensively on dpp in the last year and have been on the top a few times, be it cheesy teams or serious laddering, and I have to say the amount of times I have lost a game (and entire teams) to a fast jirachi is very uncomfortable. Playing offense, the moment you see an opposing jirachi the momentum just drops off a cliff. Here are some examples:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1925059588
As you can see, I am three spikes up and 2 mons up, Jirachi *alone* costed me two whole mons and a boom just to take it out reliably (and I could've entirely just lost right then and there if rachi gets any luckier with the flinches on metagross), even though I am massively ahead by virtue of better playing for the first half of the game. All I needed was one turn to damage / paralyze rachi, but the dice just wasn't letting me, leading to an uncomfortably close game even though I'd say I am playing significantly better than my opp in this match. Jirachi pretty much invalidated my progress and not even to the merit of the player using it, just because of luck with the dice.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1930033571
Here, Jirachi with some luck incapacitated my entire team and forced me to a losing endgame even though I am significantly ahead (I won, but I definitely should've lost). If one singular mon can turn an entirely losing game upside down there is something wrong. Dragon dancing wincons are one thing, but a defensive glue mon really shouldn't be a "wincon". The fact that Jirachi is randomly able to do that is a testament to it being an issue as a mon.

Now, I think something should be done about Jirachi, but I do think the collateral damage of banning it or IH is sorely understated. That said, it is a very uncompetitive aspect of the metagame imo, so I would really want it to go, or at least suspect test and see what would happen if either one were to be gone. I understand that rachi being gone would potentially lead to an unstable metagame, or other mons being broken as a result (latias, for example, even though I am of the opinion that latias do not belong here even with rachi), so I feel like a suspect test to gather more of the playerbase's opinions is a good solution.

On banning IH vs rachi:
In my opinion, banning 20%+ flinch moves is the more pragmatic approach to solving the fundamental issues of the metagame, and it really only hurts 2 relevant mons in rachi and gyarados (now without a 100% accurate main attacking move). Banning rachi helps, as it is the single most influential abuser of flinch in this tier, so I'd be happy with either, as long as some form of action is done. Gyarados is also a huge issue, as any given defensive check would just fall to one lucky flinch, sometimes ending the game on the spot on one singular 20% roll (like le don said, a gyara flinch can be much more significant than a rachi flinch, though I argue that it can potentially be because players gameplan with rachi flinch in mind, but not necessarily with a 20% waterfall flinch chance in mind, esp since gyara can function as an endgame sweeper). The player using gyara generally do not account for getting the flinch either, except if they're pulling for a hail mary. Therefore something like banning flinch move would also remove this unhealthy aspect and really helps making dpp a more competitive metagame, imo.

Now, as mentioned I believe the collateral damage of banning either is sorely understated. Namely, banning IH doesn't just "make rachi unable to flinch everything", it also flips the rachi vs tar matchup on its head, with the former no longer able to semi-reliably 1v1 the latter anymore, as it loses its hardest hitting move. This one interaction, imo, is more significant than any other collateral damage with banning IH, as these two are two of the most influential mons in the metagame, where in any given game there is a very high chance you'll be seeing both or at least one of them. Other notable interactions include rachi being unable to (reliably or unreliably) take on twave-recovery walls, most notably latias and clefable, esp with sets that incorporate lum berry just to up the consistency of doing so. Banning IH would probably, for example, make tar dominate the metagame and significantly alter how you teambuild or gameplan in the tier. However, this leads to a problem of tiering philosophy: it has become whether the magnitude of change of banning IH vs banning rachi is acceptable or not. If banning rachi "changes the tier too much", then is banning IH justified because it "doesn't change the tier as much", yet is a very significant change still? It can really be argued that rachi itself is broken and should be banned.

On banning Spore:
On the topic of banning spore, I do think it would be a lot more manageable if it was consistently, say, 2 turns instead of randomly being 4~5 turns and just making you lose (sometimes your only) breloom check when it can deal with loom "under normal circumstances". In this vein, it's quite similar to rachi randomly getting say 5 flinches in a row and beating its check like gliscor. That said, it is an integral part of breloom's kit and really helps dealing with some of the overwhelming mons in the tier such as clefable. I would be fine with keeping or banning it, namely because it's not something I have to deal with nearly every single game unlike something like rachi IH, which imo warps the metagame due to its omnipresence (it's "too good" and everybody uses it).

I especially hope this post would call to less experienced players and make them reconsider their opinions and whether their call to ban something is sufficiently justified.

 

[mael]

I may not be the most experienced player out there, but I'd like to give my two cents about Jirachi. I've been laddering extensively on dpp in the last year and have been on the top a few times, be it cheesy teams or serious laddering, and I have to say the amount of times I have lost a game (and entire teams) to a fast jirachi is very uncomfortable. Playing offense, the moment you see an opposing jirachi the momentum just drops off a cliff. Here are some examples:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1925059588
As you can see, I am three spikes up and 2 mons up, Jirachi *alone* costed me two whole mons and a boom just to take it out reliably (and I could've entirely just lost right then and there if rachi gets any luckier with the flinches on metagross), even though I am massively ahead by virtue of better playing for the first half of the game. All I needed was one turn to damage / paralyze rachi, but the dice just wasn't letting me, leading to an uncomfortably close game even though I'd say I am playing significantly better than my opp in this match. Jirachi pretty much invalidated my progress and not even to the merit of the player using it, just because of luck with the dice.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen4ou-1930033571
Here, Jirachi with some luck incapacitated my entire team and forced me to a losing endgame even though I am significantly ahead (I won, but I definitely should've lost). If one singular mon can turn an entirely losing game upside down there is something wrong. Dragon dancing wincons are one thing, but a defensive glue mon really shouldn't be a "wincon". The fact that Jirachi is randomly able to do that is a testament to it being an issue as a mon.

Now, I think something should be done about Jirachi, but I do think the collateral damage of banning it or IH is sorely understated. That said, it is a very uncompetitive aspect of the metagame imo, so I would really want it to go, or at least suspect test and see what would happen if either one were to be gone. I understand that rachi being gone would potentially lead to an unstable metagame, or other mons being broken as a result (latias, for example, even though I am of the opinion that latias do not belong here even with rachi), so I feel like a suspect test to gather more of the playerbase's opinions is a good solution.

On banning IH vs rachi:
In my opinion, banning 20%+ flinch moves is the more pragmatic approach to solving the fundamental issues of the metagame, and it really only hurts 2 relevant mons in rachi and gyarados (now without a 100% accurate main attacking move). Banning rachi helps, as it is the single most influential abuser of flinch in this tier, so I'd be happy with either, as long as some form of action is done. Gyarados is also a huge issue, as any given defensive check would just fall to one lucky flinch, sometimes ending the game on the spot on one singular 20% roll (like le don said, a gyara flinch can be much more significant than a rachi flinch, though I argue that it can potentially be because players gameplan with rachi flinch in mind, but not necessarily with a 20% waterfall flinch chance in mind, esp since gyara can function as an endgame sweeper). The player using gyara generally do not account for getting the flinch either, except if they're pulling for a hail mary. Therefore something like banning flinch move would also remove this unhealthy aspect and really helps making dpp a more competitive metagame, imo.

Now, as mentioned I believe the collateral damage of banning either is sorely understated. Namely, banning IH doesn't just "make rachi unable to flinch everything", it also flips the rachi vs tar matchup on its head, with the former no longer able to semi-reliably 1v1 the latter anymore, as it loses its hardest hitting move. This one interaction, imo, is more significant than any other collateral damage with banning IH, as these two are two of the most influential mons in the metagame, where in any given game there is a very high chance you'll be seeing both or at least one of them. Other notable interactions include rachi being unable to (reliably or unreliably) take on twave-recovery walls, most notably latias and clefable, esp with sets that incorporate lum berry just to up the consistency of doing so. Banning IH would probably, for example, make tar dominate the metagame and significantly alter how you teambuild or gameplan in the tier. However, this leads to a problem of tiering philosophy: it has become whether the magnitude of change of banning IH vs banning rachi is acceptable or not. If banning rachi "changes the tier too much", then is banning IH justified because it "doesn't change the tier as much", yet is a very significant change still? It can really be argued that rachi itself is broken and should be banned.

On banning Spore:
On the topic of banning spore, I do think it would be a lot more manageable if it was consistently, say, 2 turns instead of randomly being 4~5 turns and just making you lose (sometimes your only) breloom check when it can deal with loom "under normal circumstances". In this vein, it's quite similar to rachi randomly getting say 5 flinches in a row and beating its check like gliscor. That said, it is an integral part of breloom's kit and really helps dealing with some of the overwhelming mons in the tier such as clefable. I would be fine with keeping or banning it, namely because it's not something I have to deal with nearly every single game unlike something like rachi IH, which imo warps the metagame due to its omnipresence (it's "too good" and everybody uses it).

I especially hope this post would call to less experienced players and make them reconsider their opinions and whether their call to ban something is sufficiently justified.

i appreciate the post and input (and also the very interesting teams featured in it!) but i do have to comment on it

both of these replays are in no way showing anything broken about jirachi but rather what happens when you don't prepare for it in the builder. replay 1: if you don't drop earthquake on metagross for whatever reason that game is a different game and the best thing rachi does is paralyze metagross and repeatedly take hazards damage.
replay 2: if you had a lum berry on either of your mons, hit the overheat with blaziken and/or didn't let nape die so early the rachi in the second game was not a problem at all, even with a less than optimal team that includes blaziken of all mons. this fragile offense type of team (which are not a metagame favored type of team for several reasons, jirachi being one of them) is jirachis favorite match up and still it required a miss, twave > body slam and an early sacrifice of nape to do work.

this is kind of precisely what i mean with people complaining about jirachi but not taking the right measures to play against it and what i consider to be the biggest reason of jirachis overstated "brokenness" and the issues people have against jirachi. i get that people want to maybe use fun teams with subpar mons and compositions but if you do that you do run the risk of losing vs the better mons. that is a characteristic of a somewhat centralized metagame (which is a good thing cause it means there is consistently good compositions and mu fishing is less of an issue)

 

[DazzlingCream]

i appreciate the post and input (and also the very interesting teams featured in it!) but i do have to comment on it

both of these replays are in no way showing anything broken about jirachi but rather what happens when you don't prepare for it in the builder. replay 1: if you don't drop earthquake on metagross for whatever reason that game is a different game and the best thing rachi does is paralyze metagross and repeatedly take hazards damage.
replay 2: if you had a lum berry on either of your mons, hit the overheat with blaziken and/or didn't let nape die so early the rachi in the second game was not a problem at all, even with a less than optimal team that includes blaziken of all mons. this fragile offense type of team (which are not a metagame favored type of team for several reasons, jirachi being one of them) is jirachis favorite match up and still it required a miss, twave > body slam and an early sacrifice of nape to do work.

this is kind of precisely what i mean with people complaining about jirachi but not taking the right measures to play against it and what i consider to be the biggest reason of jirachis overstated "brokenness" and the issues people have against jirachi. i get that people want to maybe use fun teams with subpar mons and compositions but if you do that you do run the risk of losing vs the better mons. that is a characteristic of a somewhat centralized metagame (which is a good thing cause it means there is consistently good compositions and mu fishing is less of an issue)

Thanks for the response, while I fully admit that the teams in the replays were suboptimal, I was just having fun on the ladder instead of something like playing in a tour. If I were building a serious team, I would never consider something like dropping eq on meta or blaziken at all. However, I don't think this defeats the point I am trying to make: Jirachi is uncompetitive. The fact that Jirachi is able to do this with no merit to the player using it reflects an issue with the mon. In fact, the fact that Jirachi is able to invalidate a team style just because I can lose to lucky flinches and therefore should account for it in the builder is a sign that it is potentially overbearing. Now, for replay 2, I think this precisely demonstrates how Jirachi "interferes" with gameplans and how it interacts with some of the most prominent mons in the meta. The reason I saced ape to deal damage on Machamp early is because this gives me the best chance to pull ahead. Ape is the only one with a good chance to ohko a bulkless machamp if not for it running bulk (or sash) and ohkoing it would bring me cleanly up one mon. Ape is also the choice there because I have a "mirror" in blaziken (which was the entire point of the team in the first place, having two apes) and also because people don't expect blaziken. I anticipate that latias would be among an offensive team like this, and my blaziken is running night slash + quick attack to bait and destroy it, so I figured ape was the choice to make here (because it was running gk and can't do much to latias). The reason why I don't have lum on scizor is because it was banded. I was planning to u-turn the rachi so that I could rk it with dragonite without taking a para. If my scizor was a lum set, the damage might not have even stuck enough for nite to be able to rk (band u-turn + band fire punch just barely 2hkos physically defensive rachi after rocks and lefties). It only required that much to bypass my team because I was ahead and made progress due to better play, and if it were an even playing field I would've lost even more quickly and also because I was building with rachi somewhat in mind (the gengar was there partially because I was accounting for body slam variants of rachi). My gengar was not lum bc I want it to deal with defensive latias with lo. So having to account for rachi limits my other options / other outs. I think this just comes with the territory of teambuilding and not really due to my failure to account for rachi as a whole. So overall, I think the fact that players are actively discouraged towards certain styles just because "they can be unlucky" is a sign the rachi itself is a problem.

 

[DazzlingCream]

Maybe that gross didn't have EQ, which I find hard to believe. Otherwise it is a serious error because it was the play that called for that situation.

See how difficult it is to use an offensive team with several mons with Lum Berry like Blaziken, Nite or even Gengar and in the end you don't have any. However, the best here is Nite since with the inner focus there is no risk of flinching and so you don't lose Scizor, Blaziken or Gengar.

I agree with Mael, I don't see rachi abuse either, just bad decisions.

The metagross is mixed. If I come up with reasons not to use mixed metagross, Jirachi wouldn't be my first. Nite is my wallbreaker and I don't want it to take para, seeing there is a hippowdon and tentacruel and some sort of wall would probably be the last. If it is something like swampert, I literally just lose if my nite gets paralyzed. My nite is also choiced. If it locks into fire punch, gyara comes in and dds, I have a good chance to just lose. Scizor to u-turn the rachi to rk with blaziken is objectively the best play there. I certainly didn't account for a full para on scizor after twave + 6 turns of paraflinch in a row.

 

[Slayer2911]

I love fire types and more specifically I love fire/flying types. I really want to explore Moltres and Charizard as I think that specifically Charizard has some interesting things to bring to the table. I'd also like to preface by saying that I'm relatively new to this format and still have a rough time exploring the tier and playing the ladder outside of some pretty cookie cutter teams.

My question is what specifically Moltres does and if there are hidden gems in UU or even NU worth exploring more?

 

[george182]

I love fire types and more specifically I love fire/flying types. I really want to explore Moltres and Charizard as I think that specifically Charizard has some interesting things to bring to the table. I'd also like to preface by saying that I'm relatively new to this format and still have a rough time exploring the tier and playing the ladder outside of some pretty cookie cutter teams.

My question is what specifically Moltres does and if there are hidden gems in UU or even NU worth exploring more?

Moltres has a very annoying sub roost set with toxic and flamethrower. It's got great stats for it, an excellent defensive typing, it's ability lets it PP stall moves like stone edge and hydro pump. It can be a scary win condition against some teams.
Obviously it takes 50% from stealth rock, which is a bit of a problem and sandstorm is very annoying for sub roost set.
The rise of Clefable and Empoleon also isn't going to help.
You've also got to find a reason to use it over sub roost Aerodactyl or Zapdos. But Moltres has some strengths and I've definitely lost to it before.

While Moltres is difficult to use, Charizard is near impossible. Special attacking sets are outclassed by every other fire type in the game. Dragon dance sets are outclassed by Gyrados and Dragonite. It's only gimmick in OU is a belly drum set with salac berry. Substitute and salac berry take up two of your moveslots, so you only get 2 moves to sweep with. There are loads of ways to revenge kill it, it dies to sand and you'll be surprised how weak a +6 fire punch is. But you will look cool doing it.

 

[WAZZUPYOSHI]

I love fire types and more specifically I love fire/flying types. I really want to explore Moltres and Charizard as I think that specifically Charizard has some interesting things to bring to the table. I'd also like to preface by saying that I'm relatively new to this format and still have a rough time exploring the tier and playing the ladder outside of some pretty cookie cutter teams.

My question is what specifically Moltres does and if there are hidden gems in UU or even NU worth exploring more?

Moltres is probably fine but I haven't really seen anything super cool with it lately. Defensive sets are prolly where it's at, any offensive sets I think you'd just want Zapdos way more.. Charizard seems like complete noob bait, at best I could see it as shitty Infernape that mandates Spin support.
As for other mons...normal Rotom is technically faster than the altered forms so that could be a funny RK, don't see it doing anything otherwise. Banded Drapion might be an almost OK Pursuit trapper but its offensive stats seem too low to work with. Omastar is the only mon in the game with rocks, spikes, and an actual offensive presence so it might be decent role compression on some offenses. Someone more skilled than me will have to clarify/correct where needed.

Regarding Jirachi, this mon is absolute cheese but I do think it's a necessary evil in the tier "as is". There's no real way to fix what the issue is with Jirachi in a satisfying way without major collateral damage for the rest of the tier. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

 

[togaquest]

i was just thinking that if jirachi got access to knock off it would be so lit

 

[Jeong]

I want latios in OU so I can use a monocolor team.

 

[togaquest]

Wish list:
101 subs for abomasnow
magic guard for zapdos/moltres/articuno
slack off for empoleon

edit also CM rotom

 

[Slayer2911]

add rocky helmet to dpp ou that would fix rachi problem

 

[Rubiaa]

Hi everyone! It has been a few months since SPL ended and we got our first solid glimpse of the DPP metagame without Dugtrio. In light of the new generation subforums in Ruins of Alph, the timing is perfect to start a new general discussion thread on the metagame. This is a great place to discuss thoughts on a wide range of things DPP OU, from teambuilding to metagame trends to personal thoughts on the metagame's health, strengths & weaknesses, etc.

Note: No one-liners. Don't post basic questions that can be easily answered with minimal effort or ones that may belong in the main forum's SQSA thread.

Some prompts to get you started:

• What do you find strong in the current metagame?
• Any unique trends you've noticed?
• What are some nice anti-meta Pokemon right now?
• Do you enjoy the current metagame, and do you think it's in a good/balanced place? Why or why not?

I enjoy the current metagame because of honestly how balanced it is and how u can innovate in the tier, and nothings really broken so i enjoy the tier a lot

 

[Taliheim]

literally just made a post about it in the VR, but it's a testament to the positivity of the current state of the tier that little to no people complain about matchup fishing being forced a la ORAS, yet overall perceived viability of all non-niche pokemon are in such dispute that quantifying it to a confident degree is just out of reach

 

[Excal]

hi dpp friends, happy december! i wanted to talk about a pokemon i've explored over the past few months, what kind of teams it may fit on, and why it's viable and worth more consideration in teambuilding:

inspired by twash using this against emeral in jdi, i saw a lot of potential value in a strong, bulky fighter with guts as its ability. i tried to figure out what the best combinations of evs, items, sets, etc were and went through several different phases. i used guts custap/lum bulk up 3 attacks for a bit, and even loaded this against le don in jdi as well, but found it to be pretty inconsistent. i had bad evs (slower than clefable) and no lefties meant sand + attacks were chipping it far too much. i ended up settling on the following to be the most effective set:

Hariyama @ Leftovers
Ability: Guts
Adamant Nature
- Bulk Up
- Close Combat
- Payback
- Ice Punch

imo, the most comparable pokemon to hariyama is machamp, who has the same typing, and more attack and speed. if you want a guts fighter, why not use machamp > yama? the main reasons are the bulk (yama is significantly bulkier), as well as the hp stat, which lets it tank seismic toss from clefable much more easily. yama is able to set up much more easily against defensive teams (think bulky latias, rotom, clefable), which makes it a more potent defensive breaker than guts machamp. when you think about defensive structures in dpp, pretty much nothing walls hariyama, and being able to do major damage to structures with skarm, rotom, latias, etc is extremely valuable in the current metagame.

followup question: so what types of teams would hariyama fit on, and how do i ev it?

before getting into all the different team structures i've experimented with, i want to also talk about a synergy i've loved recently:

lead scarf healing wish latias + donphan

+

Latias (F) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Levitate
EVs: flexible for team needs
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Draco Meteor
- Thunder Wave
- Healing Wish

Donphan @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: flexible for team needs
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Ice Shard/Head Smash/whatever filler you want
- Odor Sleuth
- Rapid Spin

i've been using this core to a lot of success recently. the idea is that you can use trick latias to lock azelf/aerodactyl into stealth rock. then, fearing a strong draco meteor, the opponent is extremely likely to switch in a steel type or tyranitar, which gives you a very free switch into donphan to remove the rocks. using the core of offensive odor sleuth + healing wish user gives you a really strong offensive hazard control. you don't care that much oftentimes about taking a defensive rotom's wisp to trade for spin, especially considering the likelihood that you have a trapper on the team (mag) and healing wish. i found that this core was really good all around against heavy offense and defensive rotom teams, which i consider to be some of the most dominant styles in the current meta.

this donphan needs to support a strong breaker to actually defeat stall, and even though it spins vs rotom, it still needs something to deal with rotom's will o wisp. so i've found the perfect pairing for it:

odor sleuth offensive donphan + bulk up hariyama + healing wish lati mag offense:

having two scarfers, a strong antilead against azelf/aerodactyl teams, a trapper, and two strong breakers in hariyama and gyarados maximizes this team's matchups against the heaviest offenses as well as the sturdiest, most hazard-resilient defensive cores. something i found in testing is that hariyama is extremely good at forcing damage/breaking skarmory, resttalk rotom, defensive reflect latias, and gliscor, which i haven't been able to find in most other pokemon as consistently at the moment. as a result, i had games where i would break with hariyama and end up cleaning a defensive team with my offensive donphan (which outsped clefable). will link those once replays are back up.

main synergies with hariyama: rapid spin (in the form of donphan or starmie), healing wish (mainly in the form of latias, potential with mesprit, shaymin, etc. it really benefits from healing wish bc stall can maybe fend off one yama, but two is much more challenging), lefties magnezone, magneton, paralysis support, and one that i'm currently exploring further as a result of my tests: hariyama + offensive grounds

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i could see hariyama having really strong synergy with any of these offensive grounds. a lot of them struggle with defensive latias, resttalk rotom, gliscor, and skarmory, which hariyama puts significant pressure on in defensive matchups. the fact that i was able to clean several games with donphan of all pokemon shows me that there's a lot of unexplored potential with the other combinations. mamoswine in particular would be great to pair hariyama with because it especially despises skarm and defensive rotom, which are often the most forced for yama to deal with.

hariyama can also switch decently into tyranitar from full (all variants), so some pokemon who especially dislike tyranitar can pair well:

azelf offense, using hariyama as a secondary status absorber/abuser, ttar switchin for heatran and latias, and breaker:

i originally had machamp on both the listed teams over hariyama, but found defensive latias/defensive rotom to be too annoying to deal with. hariyama fits better on both imo.

wip and example: hariyama + lefties magnezone + offensive ground of choice

this 6 definitely has some issues but this is one of the ways i'm trying to facilitate hariyama with another offensive ground (using starmie to spin and lefties magnezone to trap jirachi, scizor, etc). lots of different structures/flexibility depending on which ground you choose and which ways you want to support yama breaking stall.

now for how to ev it: depending on the team and support, you want to outspeed different things and have different amounts of bulk. i'd always use adamant nature and at minimum 16 attack evs. i think yama should always try to outspeed clefable (so set the speed to what you feel comfortable with there). with no spinner (like on the azelf team), i recommend trying to speed creep skarmory. with spin + mag it doesn't seem as necessary to do that. i like a lot of special defense to help eat hits from latias/rotom/gengar (especially since as you bulk up, the need for pdef evs is a bit lessened, although some can be considered to fortify yama against ddtar.

i didn't list my evs specifically because i want to encourage more independent exploration. those who i've used this against in recent time (kristyl, student of sinnoh, etc) can vouch for yama's strengths.

hope you enjoyed the read and that this inspired a bit of teambuilding. thanks again to twash for unveiling that insane yama team and for using stuff that's completely against the grain, as that's what inspired my hariyama explorations. peace :)

 

[AngryPidgeon]

literally just made a post about it in the VR, but it's a testament to the positivity of the current state of the tier that little to no people complain about matchup fishing being forced a la ORAS, yet overall perceived viability of all non-niche pokemon are in such dispute that quantifying it to a confident degree is just out of reach

I would personally contend that Jirachi is in that position. A lot of my best teams struggle against Jirachi. "Its a team building issue", ya somewhat yes. But Jirachi is versatile and its ability to spread statuses to just about everything is unparalleled. Oh you think max phys def skarm can wall a steel type? NOPE, you're burned and getting flinched to death. Rhyperior OHKOs it with one EQ great, except I cant get a move in. Bronzong comes in on Slam/Iron and sets a Trick Room. Now jirachi stalls out my TR with protect. Its a dumb mon and it is Volcarona-tier in its team building limitations.

 

[BIHI]

The DPP Council is gonna revisit the Baton Pass ban to allow Drypassing before SPL starts. Before making a policy thread i'd like to gauge the playerbase's opinion on the matter. We already expressed our desire to allow drypassing earlier this year and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive among tournament players. We're going to use the same system that was used by the BW Council last year (a ban list that will include the full list of moves banned in combination with Baton Pass).
I'm making this post so everyone can voice their opinion on the matter before we officially revisit the ban and while the banlist is pretty clear we're still unsure about allowing Substitute in combination with Baton Pass.

 

[Kristyl]

I support allowing sub pass too, I think it gives offense some fun tools that could help with playing around status/clef. If it ends up being stupid then we can just revert it anyway. At least worth testing imo! Also I would like to see trapping moves + bp banned, rather not deal with that.

 

[grayblood]

I 100% support drypassing as a test, in BW OU it has had no negative effect on the metagame, drypassing will allow mons that have fallen off due to either not being able to afford to u-turn vs pursuit mons and mons that have no phasing moves to be more appealing.

For subpassing I agree with the councils hesitance, it could cause some pain for sweepers who already can usually go one for one, as a gyarados, tyranitar and dragonite.

Hope these changes help bring my boy Jolteon back to actual niche status even if he was already kinda not good beforehand.

 

[Excal]

neither subpass nor jolteon are particularly useful options. freeing drypass is inconsequential and doesn't change much of anything, provided that degenerate strategies like ingrain pass, charge beam/ancient pass, or trap pass don't fall through the cracks.

mostly indifferent about bp altho i think bending our backs in absurd ways tiering policy-wise to accommodate for this move in all our gens points at a lot of hypocrisy and flaws in our current tiering system. so for those outside reasons, gun to my head, and bc i don't think bp with all of these complex bans in place would be used very much at all, i'd say just keep it as is.

 

[Oatmon]

The DPP Council is gonna revisit the Baton Pass ban to allow Drypassing before SPL starts. Before making a policy thread i'd like to gauge the playerbase's opinion on the matter. We already expressed our desire to allow drypassing earlier this year and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive among tournament players. We're going to use the same system that was used by the BW Council last year (a ban list that will include the full list of moves banned in combination with Baton Pass).
I'm making this post so everyone can voice their opinion on the matter before we officially revisit the ban and while the banlist is pretty clear we're still unsure about allowing Substitute in combination with Baton Pass.

I can only speak from the perspective of someone who is not partaking in SPL and will only be in the audience. However, as a viewer, I would be more enthusiastic about watching games without drypass unbanned, because the strategies used in them would be the accumulation of a whole years worth of testing, honing, and theorymoning the metagame in its current state. A lot of new ideas are kept secret for big tournaments like SPL, and I think it would be a shame if we didn't get to see the result of the contestants hard work throughout the year. If drypass or subpass are unbanned, then different strategies will appear in SPL, and some of them will be without a lot of testing because of the new development.
Ultimately though, I believe the decision to include it in SPL should lie with SPL contestants.

---

Outside of SPL, I would love to see drypass unbanned. Subpass I am not so sure about, the concern is something like sub zapdos passing to machamp as it lures in a ttar on paraspam. However if there is some sort of insurance that the unban can be reversed easily, then I'm happy with subpass being unbanned too.

To summarise, I think drypass would be a healthy addition to the metagame, and subpass might be worth testing too, but subpass might be a bit risky. I do not believe that it would be beneficial for baton pass to return to DPP before SPL, but this is only for personal reasons.

 

[Taliheim]

Tournaments have always been about the players more than the spectators, I don't really mind if a change makes for a worse spectating experience since that should never really be a factor in the first place.

Also, if something's competitively impactless yet fun to build and pilot, why NOT bend our backs over for it? What are we gaining from not doing so, other than to stick to an arbitrary set of principles mainly set up to help handle grey areas where subjective measures fail and/or can't be trusted? And if it is impactful, if it's a negative impact, it'll be just as easy to revert, while a positive one would want to be kept, soo... I'm not seeing much of an argument for not going ahead with at least a test, using policy as an argument feels like hitting ourselves in confusion tbh.

Legalizing BP and subpassing sounds like the best idea to me (tho not for SPL if the players make it known they don't wanna deal with such a close rule change)

 

[Agammemnon]

Hey Smogon,

I have just realized this thread exists and I would like to formulate my dinosaur's opinion (I have been playing DPP on and off since its release).
I might not be the most relevant person in Today's metagame since I have been on a long break, but I have been playing a fair bit of DPP recently to [wishful thinking] try to be relevant for the upcoming SPL, and mostly to have fun again playing a game I love so much. Old gens have always been my favourite and I've historically performed quite well in those, so maybe my antiquated views are not THAT irrelevant. Anyhow, let's chip in the discussion. I will go over a few points discussed hereabove and give my opinion on those and whether they are problematic or not.

I. Latias or "The draconic Swiss-knife of pain"
The first Pokémon I would like to give my opinion on is Latias. What I dislike about it is its versatility and ability to check even its counters with the right set. In a lot of cases, a healthy metagame is defined by its Rock-Paper-Scissors nature, such as [hypothetical example] Stall beats Offense but Offense beats Bulky teams but Bulky Teams beat Stall, which can be peppered by the inclusion of specific counter-moves to remedy the situation such as Taunt in the case of offense, or Knock Off in the case of Stall. That being said, Latias is always relevant, and its predominance is to me mostly checked by Jirachi's presence in the case of offensive variants. Other bulky steel types are also a solution, but not every team can include them, as opposed to Jirachi pretty much.
Then what? Because if you are not running Jirachi or a bulky specially defensive steel - which Latias forces you to do if you do not wish to lose on the spot-, you need to run a Pursuiter such as Tyranitar, but then even if you are choicebanded and thus suited to nuke Latias because you are a "counter" (props to Tyranitar's bulkiness in Sand and advantageous Dark type), you can still be checkmated. For example, a typical situation in a generation without team preview is a gamble on an incoming Latias. If it is specs'd, you trade about 80-90% of your check's healthbar to 2 DMs, and you end up killing it and having an unhealthy Tyranitar. If it is the defensive reflect variant and you get T-Waved on the switch in, you find yourself in a situation where you HAVE to click Crunch to dent it (51-61% + ss - lefties on the standard set). If you clicked Pursuit, the move you intended to click originally, then congrats, you get walled and become a setup fodder. And if you are scarfed, enjoy your low-bulk slow Tyranitar that cannot kill Latias by any means now.
I however enjoy the offensive sets of Latias and their relevance, but also the fact that they CAN be countered/checked. Regardless, the Pokémon is too versatile and strong in my opinion and deserves a suspect of some sort. Ask yourself the question, what would the metagame look like without Latias? I am not sure if it would be better or worse, but it's still nice to interrogate ourselves on it because of how polarizing its presence is.

II. Clefable or "What have they done to the wind?"
*grandpa voice* Back in my day, we used Blissey as a special wall [yells at clouds]. Humor aside, Blissey was strong because of its innate bulk (You don't say.) in conjunction with Natural Cure, which let it ignore some status or partially negate it. Its downsides were a lack of tools to counter certain teams/choices, and it could be a setup fodder "somewhat easily" because of its innate lack of offensive capabilities and predictable movepool. What a surprise it was when I discovered that next-gen strats dripped into DPP and made us realize how incredible Clefable is in DPP as well. Too incredible maybe? Magic Guard is just 100% broken, Clefable's bulk is quite incredible as well and more balanced than Blissey's, and its movepool makes it outrageous to face. Being immune to hazards and some status, not being paralyzable, having better offensive capabilities than Blissey with the same typing and a more balanced bulk is truly something to witness. But then having access to SR itself, Twave, a reliable recovery move, Wish, Knock-Off, Encore, etc. on top of it makes it very infuriating to face.
While I am glad that this monstrosity had not been discovered "back then" when the metagame was too young for us to come up with solutions to break it, I really think it is a bit too much for Today's metagame. I cannot understand how this mixture of bulkiness + versatility and power are allowed to exist on a single Pokémon and it somehow reminds me [perhaps this is a bad comparison but it rose to my mind] of SV Gliscor - it can do it all, ignore what you are doing, and help its teammates while walling and chipping you in the mean time.
Why is this allowed to exist in its current state? I do not know.

III. Jirachi or "The Serene Grace Incident"
Summing up Jirachi to Iron Head spam would be a terrible shortcut. It is however how most people are acquainted with this spawn of Satan when they start the tier and get on the ladder. It is so interesting to feel powerless versus a bulky AND fast AND offensively relevant Pokémon that can ignore whatever you think you were doing and haxx you to victory /s. This move alone forces you to bring dedicated counters and is over-polarizing because it can win games on its own that would be 100% lost otherwise. Truly disgusting if you ask me. But this is not Iron Head's fault ; the problem lies in its existence alongside Serene Grace. Continuing with my constructive sarcasm, do you know what would be fun on a Pokémon with 60% chance to prevent you from taking your turn? Giving it a wide, WIDE movepool of haxx-inducing moves to either further prevent you from playing through paralysis (applied with a higher chance than for other Pokémons) or double-burn chance moves that can allow Jirachi to even win against Magnezone, its "natural enemy" AND while still being relevant against steel-resists. Yeah, having your HP bar chipped by burn + IH is not very fun when you are supposed to be a decent or good answer to Jirachi. On top of it, having the enemy Jirachi regain health thanks to its Leftovers and running away with victory is even more infuriating.
Another issue branching from that is the fact that even if you get one Pokémon haxxed to death (which happens and is... ok? Not quite, but let's pretend it is for the sake of discussion), you better have another strong answer/bulky enough Pokémon that can kill Jirachi in 2 hits or you are in deep trouble. And it needs to avoid being fully paralyzed, and it needs to be able to bulldoze its way through tremendous 100/100/100 defenses. Really?
That's one part of the problem.
The other part which is also why the Pokémon is interesting, is its versatility. With 100/100 offensive stats, it is a powerhouse with access to CM, and anyone who says otherwise is straight lying to themselve. However its good typing and again WIDE movepool make it interesting to build around and navigate against. The root of the problem again is Serene Grace, with aggravating odds of getting paralyzed while a very bulky Pokémon is throwing special nukes at you. The issue to me, again, is the lack of team preview in this gen - when Jirachi switches in, if it is early enough in the game, it is hard to evaluate whether it is going to haxx you on the physical or special side of the spectrum. Fun.
It can also run more dedicated defensive sets such as the dreaded wishtect one. So. Much. Versatility.
My opinion for tl;dr purposes is that Jirachi is a Pokémon that does it all and is way too versatile for its own good and the sake of the metagame overall. It is both an offensive and defensive creature that cannot be reliably checked unless you bring very specific counters and thus potentially impede your own teambuilding process. I believe it congests the metagame because of how relevant it is in virtually any situation and although I am personally biased towards a ban, I could conceive a Suspect round being a reasonable middle ground. I am not for banning the Pokémon overall but rather Iron Head or Serene Grace which are the root of the issue - however, knowing the policies against specific or complex bans, I truly believe it is way too powerful and versatile to be left running around because of its powerlevel. Thus, I am strongly advocating for a suspect round on either Jirachi itself (the problem being that it also encompasses its special sweeper niche), the Iron Head/Serene Grace combination, or Serene Grace overall.

IV. Spore or "The perfect sleep issue"
While it is true that a perfect accuracy sleep move is problematic and uncompetitive in itself - leaving no choice for the opponent beside either having Sleep talk on a Pokémon that can retaliate, or Lum berry (Chesto, anyone?) + a way to nuke Breloom out of this plane of existence, and while it is also true that this is unfun to face, Breloom in itself can be checked by a few Pokémons and unless it becomes as prevalent as Jirachi/Latias, I do not have a strong opinion on this matter. This is already a lengthy post anyway.

V. Complex Bans or "The war against policies"
I do not intend to fight against the policies in place which make Smogon what it is - the most competitive environment for Pokémon players and a great place overall. However, I would love to see a discussion on whether this is debatable in the case of DPP OU and if we could at least consider a one-time change regarding this, for the healthiness of the metagame. One particular discussion I would like to see arise is a ban around Jirachi's Serene Grace/Iron Head, and whether we can bypass it "as a one time thing".

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. A one sentence summary would be "Dear community, please consider a suspect round on Pokémons that are unfun to face, too versatile and can either fulfill the role of powerhouses or incredible walls while polarizing the meta so much, and while ignoring what you are doing - making some games terribly uninteractive."

 

[Bloodfox]

Hey, why just dry pass? Leave trappass legal as well please. Perishtrap is a bad team, what's the harm with giving it a boost?

 

[afterburn]

The DPP Council is gonna revisit the Baton Pass ban to allow Drypassing before SPL starts. Before making a policy thread i'd like to gauge the playerbase's opinion on the matter. We already expressed our desire to allow drypassing earlier this year and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive among tournament players. We're going to use the same system that was used by the BW Council last year (a ban list that will include the full list of moves banned in combination with Baton Pass).
I'm making this post so everyone can voice their opinion on the matter before we officially revisit the ban and while the banlist is pretty clear we're still unsure about allowing Substitute in combination with Baton Pass.

Please for the love of God, address Jirachi. These side quest bans and unbans can wait.