Metagame np: Stage 1: New Rules (Vivillon quickban post #173)

Not super interesting but I made a slightly more optimized mixed attacking Scovillain set.

:sv/scovillain:
Scovillain @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 132 Atk / 252 SpA / 124 Spe
Naive Nature
- Flamethrower
- Solar Beam / Giga Drain
- Stomping Tantrum
- Growth

This set is dependent on the Sun, without it you are basically just food.

With the removal of Oricorio-Baile, the only things that can resist Fire/Grass/Ground in the tier are Fletchinder and Noibat.

124 Speed EVs + Chlorophyll is enough to outspeed scarfed Haunter, all +1 Quiver Dancers, etc.

132 Attack EVs is enough to OHKO Houndoom with Stomping Tantrum, that being said I really wish this thing had Rock Slide.

With a Sun boost this set can cover all the top threats of PU including AV Crab, Magneton, and Haunter . A +2 Growth will allow you to OHKO almost everything with a little prediction, but Scovillain will likely struggle to live long enough to get a second chance at a kill if you run into basically any timely defensive Tera.

Let me know if you have any other suggestions!
 
:bw/camerupt:
Camerupt @ Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
Tera Type: Dragon
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earth Power
- Lava Plume
- Stealth Rock
- Protect

Big Fat Camel. Camerupt is a nice mon in this meta, both offensively and defensivelly. He can check the pletora of Electric-types in the tier - watch out for Tera Water or Raichu's Surf - and the other Fire types. His STAB treaten most of the tier except Water- types but the common Quaxwell doesnt like being burned.

In this set i decided to run Lava Plume over Flamethrower bc the dmg diference isnt notable and Lava Plume's Burns sticks like good ol' Scald. Protect is good to scout Choice Locked mons and to maximize Lefties. Stealth Rocks are needed in every competitive team so more roll compresion in one mon.

Tera Dragon make you resist to Water while also maintaining the resist to Fire and Electric to continue checking them if needed.
 
Hi everyone !
After Oricorio's ban, I feel like we still have 3 mons that are completely unhealthy for the tier. The first one is
.
is almost as good as her Flamenco sister. There is one steel type in the tier (2 with Tinkatuff), you can run a Bug Tera to hit both Dark and Psychic mons who are immune/resist to his Psychic STAB and can also take Sucker Punch more easily after Tera.
The typing is the main problem for Pa'u but Tera is helping lot. I feel like Quiver Dance is too much in this tier.

Talking about Quiver Dance,
is also extremely annoying. He can asleep everyone except :
- The Grass types, who are destroyed by Hurricane (Cradily we miss you).
- Insomnia pokemons... Which are
,
,
(Scared of Bug Buzz) &
(Who would rather die than be played Insomnia instead of Prankster). I'm not talking about Scovillain because he's a Grass type.
- Vital Spirit pokemons :
,
&
.

So yeah, if you want to beat this thing without getting asleep, go for Tera Fly
with Safety Goggles lol (I'm joking don't play that it's copyrighted by me).

Vigoroth seems to be the best option, but if you need a Tinkatuff for Oricorio, Vigoroth for Vivillon, and Grumpig for the last pokemon... you're gonna feel restricted.

Last unhealthy pokemon is
. You just need Grumpig so much for Thick Fat and the Fighting resist. Dealing with this mon is annoying. If the Crabominable Tera (Ice, Elec, Ground why not), you can say Bye to the super effective Psychic and Hi to Death.


Are some of you thinking these pokemons are healthy for the tier ? Is there some pokemon I forget who could counter them correctly ?
 
Hi everyone !
After Oricorio's ban, I feel like we still have 3 mons that are completely unhealthy for the tier. The first one is
.
is almost as good as her Flamenco sister. There is one steel type in the tier (2 with Tinkatuff), you can run a Bug Tera to hit both Dark and Psychic mons who are immune/resist to his Psychic STAB and can also take Sucker Punch more easily after Tera.
The typing is the main problem for Pa'u but Tera is helping lot. I feel like Quiver Dance is too much in this tier.

Talking about Quiver Dance,
is also extremely annoying. He can asleep everyone except :
- The Grass types, who are destroyed by Hurricane (Cradily we miss you).
- Insomnia pokemons... Which are
,
,
(Scared of Bug Buzz) &
(Who would rather die than be played Insomnia instead of Prankster). I'm not talking about Scovillain because he's a Grass type.
- Vital Spirit pokemons :
,
&
.

So yeah, if you want to beat this thing without getting asleep, go for Tera Fly
with Safety Goggles lol (I'm joking don't play that it's copyrighted by me).

Vigoroth seems to be the best option, but if you need a Tinkatuff for Oricorio, Vigoroth for Vivillon, and Grumpig for the last pokemon... you're gonna feel restricted.

Last unhealthy pokemon is
. You just need Grumpig so much for Thick Fat and the Fighting resist. Dealing with this mon is annoying. If the Crabominable Tera (Ice, Elec, Ground why not), you can say Bye to the super effective Psychic and Hi to Death.


Are some of you thinking these pokemons are healthy for the tier ? Is there some pokemon I forget who could counter them correctly ?
I had someone use sleep talk (without rest) camerupt to to counter my vivillion lol
 
I had someone use sleep talk (without rest) camerupt to to counter my vivillion lol
I feel like that's not a bad idea at all, but once more... Sleep Talk will still be a bit RNG, you're gonna need to pray attacking with the right move, and pray for this move to kill before the Vivillon RK you. Moreover, Sleep Talk works well with Rest because you know you're gonna sleep 2 turns, but with Sleep Powder, it's 1 to 3 turns, it's not funny to click Sleep Talk the turn you wake up...

Imagine Camerupt with Lava Plume, SR, Earth Power and Sleep Talk. If you type Earth power or SR instead of Lava Plume, that's over. If he put 2 QD while you are attacking Lava Plume or if he Tera... that's over.
 
Managed to ladder up to top 5 and I'm bored so I guess I'll drop thoughts on some mons

1678378459959.png
1678385892728.png

Both of the weather abusers are absolutely nutty under their respective weathers but are held back by the fact that the archetypes outside of them are kind of mediocre. For rain, Beartic is the only real other abuser and even with SS it still gets outsped by every scarfer. Sun is better in this regard but it still just sun-boosted fire attacks from stuff like houndoom and pyroar, which can be played around due to the structure of full sun. However, the power of these mons can make the archetype worth it, and I think there's great potential in semi-weather teams purely to enable these mons.
1678386343660.png



I've really been liking physdef perr in this meta. spdef sucks because every QD is built to counter you, but phys can come in on many threats, and get rocks off, as well as a slow uturn. Also is a good weather setter, so I think it has the potential to enable the aforementioned weather threats.

1678386522630.png

Band/LO flapple is something people are sleeping on imo. If your not a steel, you do not like to come on a grav apple, or a uturn prediction. People forget about the Def drop on grav apple, and lets you pull of some disgusting stuff on ladder lmao. Held back by its poor speed, but it has potential on webs and magnet pull magneton teams.
1678386697655.png


Honestly prob busted with tera but I really do not want to see this thing go, as it is the one defogger that is reasonable to put on a team. Without it, we will be stuck with quax, which while decent, I know from playing NFE that it can get spinblocked to hell.

1678387028498.png

Really good. Tier is reallyground weak and you have a suprising amount of viable options, like sub sd and band. Memento is also a fun tool to enable the setup sweepers that are all over the tier.


1678387151357.png


Sucks, but I've been making it work on my dragmag team as an AV pivot. Spreads para with discharge/static, can dragon tail setup sweepers and packs a slow volt switch. Most of the time just run mag but it can make things work if you want it.


1678387300324.png

Bad rn, but if ori goes webs is something to keep an eye on. Stuff like flapple and nasty plot missy has great potential (although I haven't tested it). Webs are always scary when there's no good removal, and there's a good chance we're getting spidops next shift, giving us a better setter.



Other thoughts: viv is obnoxious to play against unless you are packing really specific counterplay (Av tera water ampharos is my funny option), should prob go. Shroodle is a cool utility mon unless you sneeze on it then it just dies, predicting a rise in gogoat especially after viv and potentially pau go, DD fraxture is good try it out sometime.

Thanks for listening to my unorganized ramblings, here's to a great generation!
 
Last edited:
Honestly prob busted with tera but I really do not want to see this thing go, as it is the one defogger that is reasonable to put on a team. Without it, we will be stuck with quax, which while decent, I know from playing NFE that it can get spinblocked to hell.
I understand the POV, but as someone already said for Oricorio Flamenco, keep such a big threat just because it's our last defogger is a bad idea. In any case, people will use it more offensively with QD, Roost and 2 moves than with Defog.

Carkoal is there, but weak to rocks because you will want to use Eviolite, Delibird is a good option only with Sash + Spikes as a suicide lead, Toedscool is a viable option in my opinion but a bit "Meh" and Quaxwell is clearly the best spinner.
Corvisquire is not a steel type, you will want to put HDB on him, so he will be frail, Fletchinder have the same problem but have more speed...
The only other option is the one I chose : Hattrem.

We lack of Spin/Defog and that's a problem but keeping one threat JUST because of that will be a mistake for this tier.


About all the others mons : Rain/Hail/Sun are not that bad because of Swift Swim users like Golduck, Slush Rush users like Beartic (With def boost) and Chlorophyll with Scovillain.
We have different weather setters with Prankster (Murkrow) for exemple, I think you just, as you said, can't make a decent entire team based on weathers.

Perrserker is the only PU steel type, Magneton and Tinkatuff are good but maybe not as relevant as Perr. It's definitively an amazing mon right now. Pharamp is... Pharamp, AV set is a pretty cool idea, I will try it for sure !
Dugtrio is nice, but I would like to mention the Sash set too, with SR and Memento.

Flapple is really scary and one of the few dragons we have (with Dragonair, Fraxure and Sligoo which are the most other relevant one imo).

About sticky web, I don't have any opinion, I just saw one Sticky HO and it was a bit difficult. A lot of people are using Hattrem, Taunt, Spin because they are scared of hazards.
Note that our only ghosts are Banette, which is... not that good, Spectrum, Drakloak (Pretty average) and Misdreavus (Which is a Haunter, slower, but a bit bulkier, without a double STAB). So Spinblock is not a solution.
Falinks and Spawniard are our only Defiant mons, so that's the same, to counter a Defog/Spin, we don't have that much solutions.
 
Last edited:
One pokemon that I haven't seen many people talk about it even use is Gogoat. I know it's very early in the meta and the ladder, but I've had a lot of success with it. My favorite set is tera water bulk up that essentially turns it into a physical PU Suicune, but with a grass immunity. So effectively when tera'ed it has one weakness that a ground type on the team can easily help out on.

1678400717210.png

Gogoat @ Leftovers
Ability: Sap Sipper
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Horn Leech
- Rock Slide
- Bulk Up
- Milk Drink

Some notes about the set: Sap sipper is MUCH better than grassy pelt simply because reliable grassy terrain does not exist, while also giving you not just a complete immunity to grass even while tera water, but also a +1 to attack. The immunity to sleep powder and spore is also very strong as well. I use horn leech over seed bomb because the extra 5 power on seed bomb isn't really missed, and horn leech gives even more longevity to the goat. Rock slide is my favored coverage choice over earthquake to threaten the common fire types and quiver dancers currently in the meta, while also having a neutral option against most of the current meta game. Milk drink over synthesis for general consistency incase you run across the odd rain team.

With Access to decent coverage options such as earthquake, rockslide, play rough, or even more fringe options such as body slam or leech seed. I don't personally like leech and horn leech because any sap sipper mon walls you.
Although I don't want to act like it's unstoppable. Gogoat needs to be careful of the common fire types, haunter, the quiver dancers, and really only reaches its highest potential when it has tera'ed. Gogoat also needs at least one turn to patch up its rather low defense, and another turn or 2 before it can really start to sweep. Unlike the quiver dancers, Gogoat doesn't have the immediate threat presence that they do, and can have some difficulty setting up against certain pokemon. My set in particular is very susceptible to non-sleep status, but someone crazy enough could run a rest set if the really wanted and just drop synthesis/milk drink.

Here are some calcs for thought:

Probably its most threatening opponent, Oricorio Pa'u
+1 252 SpA Oricorio-Pa'u Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 366-432 (81.3 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 SpA Oricorio-Pa'u Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 183-216 (40.6 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (After tera water)
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Oricorio-Pa'u: 146-172 (50.1 - 59.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Oricorio-Pa'u: 218-258 (74.9 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Vivillion
+1 252+ SpA Vivillon Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 378-446 (84 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Vivillon: 376-444 (124.9 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Houndoom
252 SpA Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 218-258 (48.4 - 57.3%) -- 40.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Houndoom Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 312-368 (69.3 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 320-380 (71.1 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 116-137 (25.7 - 30.4%) -- 1.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (after tera water)
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Houndoom: 188-222 (64.6 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Houndoom: 282-332 (96.9 - 114%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

Crabominable
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 644-758 (143.1 - 168.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Oof)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 428-506 (95.1 - 112.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO (Oof)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 322-380 (71.5 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Tera water)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Thunder Punch vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 214-254 (47.5 - 56.4%) -- 30.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Tera water)
And in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 102-120 (25.6 - 30.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 151-178 (37.9 - 44.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 202-238 (50.7 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Lycanrock-Midnight
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Midnight Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 286-339 (63.5 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Midnight Stone Edge vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 192-227 (42.6 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
And in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Lycanroc-Midnight: 204-242 (65.5 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Lycanroc-Midnight: 306-362 (98.3 - 116.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Squawkabilly
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Brave Bird vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 470-554 (104.4 - 123.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (OOF)
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Facade (140 BP) vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 273-322 (60.6 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Brave Bird vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Water Gogoat: 235-277 (52.2 - 61.5%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And in return:
4 Atk Tera Water Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squawkabilly: 186-220 (60.9 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
4 Atk Tera Water Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squawkabilly: 186-220 (60.9 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

Some teammates I would recommend with the goat:
1678403156373.png

Flash Fire Houndoom to help patch up the goat's initial fire weakness while also being a threatening pokemon by itself. If more utility is needed, then wil-o-wisp can really help to patch up Gogoat's physical frailty, although in this case you may notice your hoondoom damage lacking a bit. Wish-pass flash fire Flareon with wil-o-wisp is also a completely viable option, but is coompletely walled by its common fire type counterpart Houndoom.
1678403420712.png

Toedscool may seem like an odd choice given their shared weakness to fire, and it is. However, help from a flash fire or fire resistant pokemon helps both of them and toedscool with Eviolite has surprisingly good bulk. The reason I like toed is his ground typing for when Gogoat is tera water, but any defensive ground type is going to be good. Access to spikes, knock off, spore, rapid spin, and leech seed provide a lot of utility for the entire team. Toedscool has notable lack of recovery that you do really begin to feel in extended matches however.
1678403949471.png

Indeedee-F is just a generally threatening pokemon by itself, but a scarf set with either trick or healing wish is a strong cleaner and can help to cripple foes with trick, or get Gogoat back onto its feet again with healing wish.
1678404095603.png

Perrserker is the only steel type in the tier, so his defensive presence is highly appreciated and really helps to patch up a glaring weakness to Squawkabilly, while also having access to stealth rock and u-turn to enable any pokemon.

If you have any input or suggestions for Gogoat, please do add in!
 

Attachments

Last edited:
One pokemon that I haven't seen many people talk about it even use is Gogoat. I know it's very early in the meta and the ladder, but I've had a lot of success with it. My favorite set is tera water bulk up that essentially turns it into a physical PU Suicune, but with a grass immunity. So effectively when tera'ed it has one weakness that a ground type on the team can easily help out on.

View attachment 498528
Gogoat @ Leftovers
Ability: Sap Sipper
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Horn Leech
- Rock Slide
- Bulk Up
- Milk Drink

Some notes about the set: Sap sipper is MUCH better than grassy pelt simply because reliable grassy terrain does not exist, while also giving you not just a complete immunity to grass even while tera water, but also a +1 to attack. The immunity to sleep powder and spore is also very strong as well. I use horn leech over seed bomb because the extra 5 power on seed bomb isn't really missed, and horn leech gives even more longevity to the goat. Rock slide is my favored coverage choice over earthquake to threaten the common fire types and quiver dancers currently in the meta, while also having a neutral option against most of the current meta game. Milk drink over synthesis for general consistency incase you run across the odd rain team.

With Access to decent coverage options such as earthquake, rockslide, play rough, or even more fringe options such as body slam or leech seed. I don't personally like leech and horn leech because any sap sipper mon walls you.
Although I don't want to act like it's unstoppable. Gogoat needs to be careful of the common fire types, haunter, the quiver dancers, and really only reaches its highest potential when it has tera'ed. Gogoat also needs at least one turn to patch up its rather low defense, and another turn or 2 before it can really start to sweep. Unlike the quiver dancers, Gogoat doesn't have the immediate threat presence that they do, and can have some difficulty setting up against certain pokemon. My set in particular is very susceptible to non-sleep status, but someone crazy enough could run a rest set if the really wanted and just drop synthesis/milk drink.

Here are some calcs for thought:

Probably its most threatening opponent, Oricorio Pa'u
+1 252 SpA Oricorio-Pa'u Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 366-432 (81.3 - 96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252 SpA Oricorio-Pa'u Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 183-216 (40.6 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (After tera water)
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Oricorio-Pa'u: 146-172 (50.1 - 59.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Oricorio-Pa'u: 218-258 (74.9 - 88.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Vivillion
+1 252+ SpA Vivillon Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 378-446 (84 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Vivillon: 376-444 (124.9 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Houndoom
252 SpA Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 218-258 (48.4 - 57.3%) -- 40.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Houndoom Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 312-368 (69.3 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 320-380 (71.1 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Overheat vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Gogoat: 116-137 (25.7 - 30.4%) -- 1.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (after tera water)
and in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Houndoom: 188-222 (64.6 - 76.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Houndoom: 282-332 (96.9 - 114%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

Crabominable
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 644-758 (143.1 - 168.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO (Oof)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 428-506 (95.1 - 112.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO (Oof)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 322-380 (71.5 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Tera water)
252+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Thunder Punch vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 214-254 (47.5 - 56.4%) -- 30.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (Tera water)
And in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 102-120 (25.6 - 30.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 151-178 (37.9 - 44.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 202-238 (50.7 - 59.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Lycanrock-Midnight
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Midnight Stone Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 286-339 (63.5 - 75.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Lycanroc-Midnight Stone Edge vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 192-227 (42.6 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
And in return:
4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Lycanroc-Midnight: 204-242 (65.5 - 77.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 4 Atk Gogoat Horn Leech vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Lycanroc-Midnight: 306-362 (98.3 - 116.3%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Squawkabilly
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Brave Bird vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 470-554 (104.4 - 123.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (OOF)
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Facade (140 BP) vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Gogoat: 273-322 (60.6 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Guts Squawkabilly Brave Bird vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Water Gogoat: 235-277 (52.2 - 61.5%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
And in return:
4 Atk Tera Water Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squawkabilly: 186-220 (60.9 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage
4 Atk Tera Water Gogoat Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Squawkabilly: 186-220 (60.9 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

Some teammates I would recommend with the goat:
View attachment 498529
Flash Fire Houndoom to help patch up the goat's initial fire weakness while also being a threatening pokemon by itself. If more utility is needed, then wil-o-wisp can really help to patch up Gogoat's physical frailty, although in this case you may notice your hoondoom damage lacking a bit. Wish-pass flash fire Flareon with wil-o-wisp is also a completely viable option, but is coompletely walled by its common fire type counterpart Houndoom.
View attachment 498530
Toedscool may seem like an odd choice given their shared weakness to fire, and it is. However, help from a flash fire or fire resistant pokemon helps both of them and toedscool with Eviolite has surprisingly good bulk. The reason I like toed is his ground typing for when Gogoat is tera water, but any defensive ground type is going to be good. Access to spikes, knock off, spore, rapid spin, and leech seed provide a lot of utility for the entire team. Toedscool has notable lack of recovery that you do really begin to feel in extended matches however.
View attachment 498532
Indeedee-F is just a generally threatening pokemon by itself, but a scarf set with either trick or healing wish is a strong cleaner and can help to cripple foes with trick, or get Gogoat back onto its feet again with healing wish.
View attachment 498533
Perrserker is the only steel type in the tier, so his defensive presence is highly appreciated and really helps to patch up a glaring weakness to Squawkabilly, while also having access to stealth rock and u-turn to enable any pokemon.

If you have any input or suggestions for Gogoat, please do add in!
Gogoat is the goat of Pu

If you dont know using :sv/pokemon name: give you a sprite. Looks like this
:gogoat: pokemon
:sv/gogoat: 3d model

(Gen 1 to 5 can use BW amazing sprites like this :bw/magneton:)
 
Been a little while since we got started so I thought I'd give my thoughts on the tier after laddering a good bit today and chatting with people about the tier. Worth saying that anything I say here is just my thoughts and not reflective of the council as a whole.

I've a few Pokemon in particular that I'd like to discuss individually and will kind of use that as a lens to view the general state of the tier through.


THE BROKENS

The metagame very clearly dances around Pa'u. It fits onto every team, providing easy defog support for teams lacking hazard control or serving as a great ground immune and fighting resist while running dual stabs for better sweeping potential. The pool of defensive answers is very limited, and this gets narrowed even more when tera is considered. Often, the best counterplay is to throw away a defensive Pokemon like Perrserker to force it to tera, and then dealing with the consequences from there once you know what type it's locked into. This is the crux of the problem in my opinion. It's very difficult to consistently answer into a Pokemon like Pa'u when they can change their typing and their main stab, without you knowing when they're going to change or what they're going to become. I often find myself just foregoing the headache and hard switching into my own Pa'u to try and win the set up war, since your own Dancer ability allows you to keep up with their boosting.

The other big thing that separates Pa'u from the other Quiver Dance users in my eyes is the combination of Roost + reasonable bulky by PU standards. This is what makes the answer pool so limited, as you need to be able to survive Pa'u's attacks and hit back for more than 50%, or have some kind of status like Toxic or Encore. The toxic distribution is (mostly) limited to poison types this generation which are naturally weak to psychic, and there's not that many pokemon that are bulky and run encore. Tinkatuff is the main encore mon, but even that loses to tera ground, the most common variant. It really just feels like there's nothing in the tier that truly answers to Pa'u and that you're constantly playing these guessing games against it and sacrificing multiple Pokemon just to slow it down.

I find Pa'u is easily the most problematic element of the tier and am very much in favour of having it removed. Also for the record I think the Defog set is a waste, dual stab is sooo potent to the extent that I'd rather forego hazard control or try and fit on another form of hazard control to allow me to keep Hurricane / Air Slash (Air Slash is better!). It's no surprise that it's on every team on mid to high ladder as there's no opportunity cost to running it and it just wins games.

I definitely feel less strongly about Magneton's place in the tier, but if I were to vote to keep or remove Mag, I'd be choosing to remove it. I think both the eviolite and choice specs sets are simply too much for the tier given the counterplay we have. With eviolite it's incredibly bulky and has an easy time getting in multiple times a game, especially since hazards don't tend to be a problem with it resisting rocks and spikes being rate at the moment. When it does get in it's almost impossible to answer into properly. Camerupt and defensive electrics are the only true answers, but Camerupt comes with its own string of problems and our defensive electrics are bad. Add to that the fact that we only have like 3 ground types making Volt Switch free into most teams means that you're usually just forced to try and trade into it which usually isn't a good deal for you given Magneton's great stats for the tier.

Add tera into the mix and the problem becomes even worse as it allows you to power through would be checks, but also makes it even harder to trade into because you're forced to play the tera guessing game which is difficult when Mag has multiple good options. I've seen ground, water and ice all be used effectively and all this guesswork and extra breaking power just makes a Pokemon that I think is already too much to handle become incredibly unhealthy.

I think specs is a similar story, though I think eviolite is the better set. Scarf is a fine set on certain teams but I feel you're not using Mag to its full potential with it. In short though, I think Magneton's statistical profile and lack of defensive counterplay makes it too much for the tier's current power level.

ON THE FENCE
I haven't really seen or used enough of Haunter yet to be fully convinced of it being broken, but I also don't think it would take that much of an effort to make me lean that way. The big thing for Haunter is its versatility, as well as great typing that makes it very easy to fit onto teams. I haven't seen one set clearly stand out as broken, but I do find it a massive pain trying to figure out midgame what set I'm up against. What I think is especially powerful, and what might put it over the edge for me, are its eviolite two attack sets. Haunter has such a strong support movepool that it can often tailor its sets to get around certain threats, while still maintaining what makes it great, that being its speed tier and powerful dual stab. For example, Will-O Wisp sets can be used to cripple switch ins like Skuntank, making it very easy to wear them down and prevent them from being able to answer you late game. Sub + Disable is always a strong option as it can allow you to abuse defensive pokemon that don't have the tools to hit you in multiple ways. It even gets Toxic Spikes this gen, and I could honestly see some Toxic spikes + Destiny Bond set to take out Skunk being very effective.

That's not to mention Scarf, Specs or Nasty Plot, all great sets in their own rights. There's just so much you can do with Haunter and I think that versatility, along with the general strength of all of its sets might end up being enough to push it over the top.

The big dog himself. A pain to answer to defensively but not impossible like some of the other mons here. The big issue I find with doom is its typing and immunities make it fairly reasonable to get it in and pressure its checks, and then it can just kind of choose when it wants to blow passed its checks with Nasty Plot. It's a tricky one because I don't see it destroying teams that often but I feel like in theory it should be, because when positioned correctly it feels sort of impossible to deal with.

The aspect that I'm most worried about though is speed boosting sets, especially when combined with tera. I've had a lot of success with Nasty Plot + Trailblaze tera grass since you can just Nasty Plot on an incoming Quax and often just autowin as stab Trailblaze plus +2 Dark Pulse nabs the kill, alongside the speed boost. I haven't seen that set being particularly widespread, but that added aspect does make me pretty worried about its place in the tier. Sucker Punch as a last slot to help discourage revenge killers also feels like a good option but I would encourage anyone to try Trailblaze because it's kinda insane.

NOT CONVINCED
Between Lilligant and Vivillon, I think Lilligant is the better choice but I'm still nowhere near convinced it's broken. With how strong Pa'u is the tier is already naturally positioned to deal with Quiver Dance threats and so the Lilligant can't get away with Quiver Dancing once and plowing through unprepared teams like it has in previous generations. There are a plethora of natural answers to Lilli being run on most teams like Tinkatuff, Skuntank and most importantly Oricorio-Pa'u, who not only answers into Lilli but also takes advantage of its boosting moves. Obviously sleep powder adds another layer to it and Lilli can of course tera to help break through its threats, but I think Lilli's lack of recovery and worse speed tier than Pa'u make it a lot more manageable.
VIv is a very boom or bust mon, and on paper I could see the argument, but this Pokemon does nothing in practice. It's hard to get an advantage for it without leading with it, and leading with it usually means committing to an early tera which is never beneficial. It also suffers from the same issues as Lilli, matching into a tier that's prepared for Quiver Dance and being slower than Pa'u. Sure tera ground and the strong hurricane stab is scary, but the frailty of Viv and lack of recovery just make it often not worth running in my eyes and definitely not broken.

Also worth saying on these two that I feel teams really should be running scarfers faster than 93 base speed, that are capable of revenge killing the dancers after one boost. I could see how people are having issues if they're not doing that AND are also not investing in defensive measures for these, but at that stage it's really not the Quiver Dancer's fault if you lose to them.

:sv/crabominable:
I'm only really including this because I've seen it talked about a bit in discord and on some of the personal viability rankings. I really can't see any argument for Crab being broken and I'm not really sure where the notion came from. AV Crab is a good pokemon, but it's tough to fit on teams because you don't really want to switch it into Pokemon so you're working around a slow Pokemon that's not going to give you anything defensively. Its typing also sorta sucks so you're also often committing to using its tera in a lot of games which makes it awkward to pair with a lot of the other strong attackers. I guess if you're trying to run purely defensive teams I could sort of see where you're coming from, but even then something like Grumpig handles it and it's not that difficult to pivot around. Solid like A/A- Pokemon for me but absolutely not something I'd look at banning.

Other Thoughts
Tera
Again just want to point out that these are my own thoughts and ramblings and not reflective of the council as a whole.
I was pretty anti-tera coming into the generation, having played with it a bit in OU and some of the lower tiers. I was hoping that after playing with it a bit more and getting more familiar with the mechanic that I'd come to terms with it a bit but sadly I just got more frustrated, until I reached the state of sad acceptance that I'm at now. I really don't enjoy playing with tera as I feel it takes a lot out of the player's hands, while also making a lot of offensive threats unmanageable. A common theme in the broken Pokemon discussion going on above was the offensive use of tera that allowed for Pokemon to simply overwhelm their defensive answers, as well as create uncertainty with the typing and time of use.

The first point about blowing through defensive answers can sort of be managed by banning the culprits, though it's always going to exist to some degree, but the uncertainty is always going to remain. It feels like a huge number of games I play come down to these key tera 50/50 situations that basically decide the outcome or decide who loses a Pokemon at least. There's nothing more frustrating than clicking Volt Switch just to get met with a random tera ground into immediate death, and in that sense, it feels like tera takes a lot out of the players' hands.

That being said, I think this is a general issue that stems from tera as a mechanic and isn't isolated to PU, so I certainly don't see us taking any action on it, especially given that it wasn't banned in OU. Just wanted to give my two cents on the mechanic since this post is also about general metagame discussion.

Wanted to finish on a positive note with something that I like, and that's the return of the Skunk! I've been spamming this thing on every team I build and outside of the brokens I honestly think it's the best Pokemon in the tier, easy S rank for me. This is the set I've mostly been running, as with near full Sp. Def investment you check a lot of the tier's big threats like Haunter and Pa'u. Toxic is also an invaluable resource due to how limited the distribution is and Skunk's decent bulk and speed tier allows you to stop a lot of sweeps before they happen.

But of course, the beauty of Skunk is as always its set diversity. You've so many options due to Skunk's incredible movepool and balanced stats. It lost Defog but it gained Toxic Spikes, Gunk Shot and of course the ever-oppressive Tera Blast, allowing for it to really put on pressure with its offensive sets. Tera ground is particularly good for bopping evio Mag and Tinkatuff. Special sets are also an option with it retaining Nasty Plot and still having the great Fire Blast coverage. There's just so much you can do with Skunk and I'm really glad we got it back, fantastic mon and I think its overtaken Perrserker as the (balanced) face of the tier in my eyes.
 
I've seen certain people suggest that oricorio pau should also be banned but we would lose another defog whilst we're already really low on viable defoggers and its like not we have tons of rapid spinners either
Because qd sets completely run over opposing teams and entry hazards aren't even a massive issue with a lot of mons wanting to run boots and so very few viable knock off users, a lot of teams can really do fine with just rapid spin or even no removal at all. A complex ban like banning qd entirely is a last resort measure (and arguably the other qd users are not broken to the same extent, if at all) and a qd ban applying only to pau won't solve the problem because it can still get qd boosts with dancer (double boosts with mirror herb).
 

Fragmented

procrastinating...
is a Pokemon Researcher
Hello PU, I made usage stats from the PU Kickoff Tour. I've only played like ten games on the ladder but I'll try to give a brief review.

:oricorio-pau:PU Kickoff Tour Round 1:oricorio-pau:
Code:
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Pokemon              | Uses | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 1    | Oricorio-Pa'u        |   62 |  34.83% |  35.48% |
| 2    | Perrserker           |   60 |  33.71% |  46.67% |
| 3    | Skuntank             |   50 |  28.09% |  64.00% |
| 3    | Quaxwell             |   50 |  28.09% |  56.00% |
| 5    | Camerupt             |   48 |  26.97% |  60.42% |
| 6    | Squawkabilly         |   37 |  20.79% |  56.76% |
| 7    | Rotom-Frost          |   36 |  20.22% |  44.44% |
| 8    | Hattrem              |   35 |  19.66% |  65.71% |
| 9    | Lycanroc-Midnight    |   33 |  18.54% |  48.48% |
| 10   | Gabite               |   30 |  16.85% |  73.33% |
| 10   | Raichu               |   30 |  16.85% |  56.67% |
| 12   | Magneton             |   29 |  16.29% |  51.72% |
| 13   | Golduck              |   25 |  14.04% |  48.00% |
| 14   | Crabominable         |   24 |  13.48% |  62.50% |
| 15   | Houndoom             |   23 |  12.92% |  52.17% |
| 15   | Vivillon             |   23 |  12.92% |  47.83% |
| 15   | Haunter              |   23 |  12.92% |  43.48% |
| 18   | Pyroar               |   22 |  12.36% |  36.36% |
| 18   | Flapple              |   22 |  12.36% |  22.73% |
| 20   | Dugtrio              |   21 |  11.80% |  23.81% |
| 21   | Gogoat               |   20 |  11.24% |  45.00% |
| 22   | Cacturne             |   19 |  10.67% |  42.11% |
| 23   | Misdreavus           |   18 |  10.11% |  66.67% |
| 24   | Falinks              |   16 |   8.99% |  31.25% |
| 25   | Shroodle             |   14 |   7.87% |  71.43% |
| 25   | Stonjourner          |   14 |   7.87% |  50.00% |
| 27   | Wugtrio              |   13 |   7.30% |  53.85% |
| 27   | Grumpig              |   13 |   7.30% |  46.15% |
| 29   | Jumpluff             |   12 |   6.74% |  50.00% |
| 30   | Electrode            |   11 |   6.18% |  54.55% |
| 30   | Indeedee-F           |   11 |   6.18% |  54.55% |
| 32   | Ampharos             |   10 |   5.62% |  50.00% |
| 33   | Leafeon              |    9 |   5.06% |  77.78% |
| 33   | Tinkatuff            |    9 |   5.06% |  77.78% |
| 33   | Dragonair            |    9 |   5.06% |  55.56% |
| 33   | Beartic              |    9 |   5.06% |  44.44% |
| 37   | Frogadier            |    8 |   4.49% |  87.50% |
| 37   | Rabsca               |    8 |   4.49% |  75.00% |
| 39   | Banette              |    7 |   3.93% |  42.86% |
| 39   | Glimmet              |    7 |   3.93% |  42.86% |
| 39   | Rotom-Fan            |    7 |   3.93% |  42.86% |
| 39   | Sawsbuck             |    7 |   3.93% |  42.86% |
| 39   | Carkol               |    7 |   3.93% |  28.57% |
| 39   | Swalot               |    7 |   3.93% |  14.29% |
| 45   | Hippopotas           |    6 |   3.37% |  33.33% |
| 45   | Sneasel              |    6 |   3.37% |  33.33% |
| 45   | Dedenne              |    6 |   3.37% |  16.67% |
| 48   | Oinkologne-F         |    5 |   2.81% |  60.00% |
| 48   | Raboot               |    5 |   2.81% |  60.00% |
| 48   | Sudowoodo            |    5 |   2.81% |  60.00% |
| 48   | Eiscue               |    5 |   2.81% |  40.00% |
| 48   | Flareon              |    5 |   2.81% |  40.00% |
| 48   | Pawniard             |    5 |   2.81% |  40.00% |
| 54   | Luxray               |    4 |   2.25% |  75.00% |
| 54   | Kricketune           |    4 |   2.25% |  50.00% |
| 54   | Scovillain           |    4 |   2.25% |  25.00% |
| 54   | Vigoroth             |    4 |   2.25% |  25.00% |
| 58   | Fraxure              |    3 |   1.69% |  66.67% |
| 58   | Pincurchin           |    3 |   1.69% |  66.67% |
| 58   | Lilligant            |    3 |   1.69% |  33.33% |
| 58   | Slaking              |    3 |   1.69% |  33.33% |
| 58   | Sliggoo              |    3 |   1.69% |  33.33% |
| 58   | Morgrem              |    3 |   1.69% |   0.00% |
| 58   | Pachirisu            |    3 |   1.69% |   0.00% |
| 58   | Wigglytuff           |    3 |   1.69% |   0.00% |
| 66   | Meditite             |    2 |   1.12% | 100.00% |
| 66   | Oinkologne           |    2 |   1.12% | 100.00% |
| 66   | Toedscool            |    2 |   1.12% | 100.00% |
| 66   | Dunsparce            |    2 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 66   | Fletchinder          |    2 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 66   | Mareanie             |    2 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 66   | Slowpoke             |    2 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 66   | Murkrow              |    2 |   1.12% |   0.00% |
| 66   | Surskit              |    2 |   1.12% |   0.00% |
| 66   | Tropius              |    2 |   1.12% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Eelektrik            |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 76   | Glaceon              |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 76   | Mudbray              |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 76   | Persian              |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 76   | Zweilous             |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 76   | Drakloak             |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Foongus              |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Lumineon             |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Rufflet              |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Varoom               |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Wooper               |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 76   | Zorua-Hisui          |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
Vivillon Form Usage
Code:
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Vivillon             | Uses | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 25   | Vivillon             |   14 |   7.87% |  50.00% |
| 55   | Vivillon-Marine      |    4 |   2.25% |  50.00% |
| 68   | Vivillon-Fancy       |    2 |   1.12% |  50.00% |
| 79   | Vivillon-Archipelago |    1 |   0.56% | 100.00% |
| 79   | Vivillon-Icy Snow    |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
| 79   | Vivillon-Tundra      |    1 |   0.56% |   0.00% |
Squawkabilly Form Usage
Code:
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Squawkabilly         | Uses | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 17   | Squawkabilly-Blue    |   22 |  12.36% |  68.18% |
| 25   | Squawkabilly         |   15 |   8.43% |  40.00% |
Sawsbuck Form Usage
Code:
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| Rank | Sawsbuck             | Uses | Usage % |  Win %  |
+ ---- + -------------------- + ---- + ------- + ------- +
| 54   | Sawsbuck             |    4 |   2.25% |   0.00% |
| 60   | Sawsbuck-Winter      |    3 |   1.69% | 100.00% |

:oricorio-pau:Best mon in the tier currently, can flip weaknesses with Tera Fighting or Ground and continue setting up Quiver Dancers. Keter level threat.
:perrserker:Decent rocker, good sponge, has Fake Out to prevent snowballs from forming and U-turn for momentum. Tough Claws kitty, checks the QDers and Squawk somewhat.
:skuntank:Surprised to see it this high, but offers a check to the Pa'u with Sucker Punch, Crunch and what not, Haze if you're willing to be passive. Has the coveted Toxic to make progress against bulky teams, or just set up TSpikes.
:quaxwell:The best hazard removal in PU is a young duck. Good phys def to check phys attackers like Perrserker, and priority Aqua Jet for QDers.
:camerupt:Ground-type that does not completely collapse to Magneton and can spread burns with Lava Plume or Wisp. Somewhat checks Rotom-Refridgerator.
:squawkabilly:Guts > Hustle, better pack a Normal/Flying check.

Other stuff worth mentioning:
:rotom-frost::raichu::magneton:
Not many good Ground-types means Electrics are free to Volt Switch around. Fridge has BoltBeam that works 70% of the time, Raichu has Surf and better Speed than the QDers, Shiny Shocks 3HKOs Camerupt with rocks up and survive hits with Eviolite.
:lycanroc-midnight::stonjourner:
The bird-watching crew. Keeps the Squawk in check. Lycanroc has reliable Stone Edges, Stonjourner has better physical defense.
:vivillon:
Don't be sleeping on this now! Seriously, don't. Keep a bird-check or a bulky Electric around if you're struggling, hope they don't Tera Ground.
:wugtrio:
Quite good despite limited coverage. Helps revenge QDers but hates the existence of Quaxwell, Grasses like Flapple, Leafeon, and Appletun, and Tera Grass mons (which are typically Fire-type originally)
:dugtrio:
Same as above, but can run SD instead and can handle Electrics too. Hates Grass types.
:ampharos::pincurchin:
These could honestly work as decent Flying checks. Ampharos has run Dragon Tail to phase the dancers out, while Pincurchin has hazards and recovery and Zing Zap to hit on the physical side. Also checks the other Electric-types, so Camerupt is less pressured to be the default switch-in.
 
Last edited:
I feel like that's not a bad idea at all, but once more... Sleep Talk will still be a bit RNG, you're gonna need to pray attacking with the right move, and pray for this move to kill before the Vivillon RK you. Moreover, Sleep Talk works well with Rest because you know you're gonna sleep 2 turns, but with Sleep Powder, it's 1 to 3 turns, it's not funny to click Sleep Talk the turn you wake up...

Imagine Camerupt with Lava Plume, SR, Earth Power and Sleep Talk. If you type Earth power or SR instead of Lava Plume, that's over. If he put 2 QD while you are attacking Lava Plume or if he Tera... that's over.
This is the thing that got sleep moves banned in BW... having to use sleep talk without rest to beat sleep mons

also yeah ban oricorio-psychic
 
Personally I still think that banning Quiver Dance is the best solution.
Pa'u :oricorio-pau: and Vivillon :vivillon: are already among the problematic mons and, if they go away, Lilligant :lilligant: would have more freedom in its tera type choice, not having to deal with those two S rank mons.

Moreover Oricorio-Baile :oricorio: would be balanced again and there would be two defoggers in this tier at least
 

wooper

heavy booty-doots
is a Forum Moderator
wanted to do a personal vr but i dont feel like putting that much thought into all of that nuance and theres a lot of things i simply just havent gotten around to using, so i decided to just make a post of meta trends and such! prepare yourself for walls of text

broken
:vivillon::lilligant::oricorio-pau::rotom-frost::magneton::houndoom::pyroar:
these are the mons i find to be just a little too much to handle in the tier rn. i dont necessarily think they should all be banned per se, but that they are certainly hampering my funtimes on the ladder at the very least

1678485776430.png
1678485787407.png

lumping viv + lilli together because they do the same thing. not going to say much that i havent already said here when pompomcorio was banned in nu a few weeks back. but essentially, these need at last two mons to answer them--one to act as sleep fodder, and another to actually take on the dancers themselves. this forces the player on the receiving end into many 50/50 scenarios, especially when considering potential teras, and i think their presence is unhealthy.

1678485824956.png

our only remaining oricorio functions similarly to the two above in that it can be a quiver dance sweeper, but it's slightly different in that it can also be a bulky defog set as our only fully-evolved defogger in the tier. not a great defensive type for the tier that we have presently, but tera ground + revelation dance mechanics alongside flying stab hits everything hard in the tier (minus eelektrik + frostom) even without investment. manageable for sure, but difficult to do at times.

1678485835391.png

this may be unpopular opinion, but i think frostom is kinda busted. access to nasty plot, strong stab in blizzard, few volt switch blockers, tera electric having zero weaknesses thanks to levitate, boots to consistently come in with rocks up, this mon is so hard to answer in my experience. i wouldnt mind seeing it go.

1678485843932.png

mag is another strong electric-type with barely any answers, besides unmons like eelektrik and spdef pincurchin. has multiple item choices between specs, evio, and scarf, and has been ran successfully with things like resttalk, water/ground/flying/ice tera blast, magnet pull to trap opposing mag, etc. i think the threat of a specs-boosted, analytic-boosted modest stab move coming off of base 120 special attack is just far too great for the current power level of pu.

1678485849902.png
1678485856404.png

houndoom and pyroar are alike in that they are both fast, strong special attacking fire-types with access to strong stab moves like fire blast. both are exceptionally good at wallbreaking with nearly-identical base 110 and 109 special attack stats respectively, alongside a decent enough speed tier for the former and one that is exceptionally fast for the latter. houndoom's access to taunt and nasty plot make it a devastating stallbreaker, whereas pyroar's speed and ability to run stab tera blast both before and after tera-ing can make or break a match. both typically like boots as their item, but scarf and specs are definitely also viable, further pushing the envelope on how much they can threaten the opponent. i'd also imagine unexplored sets on both like the addition of trailblaze can make for a scary match-up.
the excellence
:crabominable::skuntank::perrserker::quaxwell::cacturne::haunter::golduck:
these are all just solid picks imo

1678485943628.png

in a similar vein as magneton, in that its attacking traits are extremely potent in a meta in which the power level is much lower comparatively. av is most common and lets it stomach hits pretty well and is able to regain its health with stab iron fist-boosted drain punches. its other stab in ice punch is also iron fist-boosted and threatens the freeze on checks and counters, and it typically runs thunder punch and eq last to hit mons like quaxwell and skuntank, even running tera types to match its coverage to secure stronger hits. sub bulk up is also loads of fun, and crab is also a staple on trick room teams--albeit a niche playstyle--thanks to its low speed, high attack, and ability to be supported by the likes of hattrem with healing wish and rabsca with revival blessing. many are calling for its ban or a suspect at the very least, and although i dont agree with either (i think that there is still counterplay, some underexplored), i certainly understand.

1678485949723.png

skuntank is so, so good rn. it can fulfill a wide variety of roles on a number of different playstyles, and while its movepool isnt the most colorful, it does what it does super well. with options including the new additions this generation of toxic spikes and gunk shot, and the tried-and-true toxic, taunt, haze, sucker punch, crunch, poison jab, and even special attacking options with nasty plot, dark pulse, and sludge bomb, this mon is a powerhouse. it has a fantastic defensive typing, resisting both of haunter's and cacturne's stabs (more on those later), being immune to oricorio's primary stab before tera, absorbing opposing toxic and t spikes and spreading its own, this mon truly can do so much.

1678485955360.png

we should all know what perrserker does by now: it tanks hits and hits back like a truck. i like spdef sets with rocks + iron head + cc + uturn and a -speed nature, which allows you to act as a slow pivot while still outspeeding 0 investment camel, but folks on ladder love to use av with fake out over rocks. it's a decent enough special wall, but still struggles into tera ground corio + viv tera blast + np frostom. cant do much in the face of quax and camel though. still an excellent rocker though, probably one of our most reliable.

1678485974206.png

i did not expect this mon to be so good at what it does. super one-dimensional, but has pretty much all the tools it needs to be good in spin, water stab (i was running aqua cutter for the crit chance but the consistency of liquidation + the chance to drop defensive is just so much better), brave bird or encore + roost. tera grass is neat for flipping its pure water-type weaknesses in grass and electric into resistances while also being able to sponge sleep powders from viv and lilli and brave bird them, forcing damage + preventing them from setting up. tera dragon is also cool for the aforementioned type match-up flip on grass- and electric-types while retaining your resistances to fire- and water-types, but notably is worse into sleep powder. tera poison is another option ive toyed with to absorb tspike (unfortunately doesnt work right away, you have to switch out and then back in) and to still resist grass. overall a solid staple for the meta.

1678485961271.png

was surprised to see this end up in pu considering how well i thought it was doing in nu. lots of viable moves like sd, np, spikes, tspikes, sucker, drain punch, giga drain, leaf storm (which i think is new). notably resists haunter's stabs but it is frail so you kinda dont wanna be switching it in all that often. still a great option nonetheless

1678485987747.png

haunter's set variety is kinda nutty, and you cant really tell what it might be just by seeing it in the team preview. subplot (yay new toys), sub 3 atks with dual stab + options like dgleam, focus blast (yay more new toys), or thunderbolt last, scarf, specs, wisp to chip at skuntank, are all justifiable and this mon just hits so, so hard

1678485995187.png
:psyglad:
thee original water duck is underrated by lots from what im seeing and mostly relegated to a role as a swift swim sweeper on dedicated rain teams, but i think it's great in its own right. np is a new addition this gen, and it has a great movepool with hydro pump, surf, ice beam, and then psychic, focus blast, and tera blast as coverage options, with additional moves like sub, encore, and calm mind. can easily run items like lefties, lorb, specs, scarf, even mystic water. lost access to flip turn from gen 8 to gen 9 but i still love using this friend
and the rest will be rapid fire because this post is getting far too long for what i intended it to be
:dugtrio: sd and rock blast are fun additions to its movepool ! nice natural speed control on a team
:electrode: has a shallow movepool and reliant on tera for coverage, but fastest unboosted mon in the tier
:gabite: im high on this mon rn. unfortunately didnt get spikes like its evo, but still got sd. been loving defensive rocks with dual stab + sd and steel tera to help it better sponge physical hits from the likes of squawk
:tinkatuff: kinda underwhelmed me, i expected it to be ru or at least nu tbqh. still has nice stats, particularly its spdef and a decent speed tier, and a usable movepool, with options like knock, thunder wave, encore, and foul play
:grumpig: criminally underrated and underused rn i think. thick fat lets it naturally check crab's stab moves, and with tera fairy, you become a nice stopgap to houndoom without sludge bomb. great utility moves like thunder wave, taunt, whirlwind, still has calm mind and focus blast, and gained earth power for those pesky steels
:scovillain: sun is strongk
:beartic: rain is too
:raichu: scary to face without a grass type to wall its electric + water moves. even with one, pray it's not tera ice or flying. cool moves like np, encore, volt switch for momentum, etc
:misdreavus: i want to like this mon rn but it's just felt..not great in practice. but i see folks praising it so maybe im just bad. easily our best spinblocker though
:swalot: a downgrade to skuntank but certainly still viable imo! no dark-type to sponge haunter's and cacturne's stabs as easily but has a lot of bulk still and such a huge movepool, and even got sd, gunk, and tspike like skunk did this gen. i like bulky sets with tspike + 3 atks, but ive seen people theorymonning fat defensive wincon sets with like stockpile, rest, body press (another new addition iirc), and toxic

this took me 3 days to put together and is not an extensive or conclusive list of every mon ive used or have opinions on, just an fyi!
 
Last edited:

TTK

Narmaya. That's it.
is a Community Contributor
I don't have much opinions to share of my own rn that I particularly want to share (Fake Out + Last Resort Persian is fun asf) but I do want to respond to Shaneghoul on both Vivillon and Lilligant because the points they present, I just cannot find myself agreeing with them.

NOT CONVINCED
Between Lilligant and Vivillon, I think Lilligant is the better choice but I'm still nowhere near convinced it's broken. With how strong Pa'u is the tier is already naturally positioned to deal with Quiver Dance threats and so the Lilligant can't get away with Quiver Dancing once and plowing through unprepared teams like it has in previous generations. There are a plethora of natural answers to Lilli being run on most teams like Tinkatuff, Skuntank and most importantly Oricorio-Pa'u, who not only answers into Lilli but also takes advantage of its boosting moves. Obviously sleep powder adds another layer to it and Lilli can of course tera to help break through its threats, but I think Lilli's lack of recovery and worse speed tier than Pa'u make it a lot more manageable.
VIv is a very boom or bust mon, and on paper I could see the argument, but this Pokemon does nothing in practice. It's hard to get an advantage for it without leading with it, and leading with it usually means committing to an early tera which is never beneficial. It also suffers from the same issues as Lilli, matching into a tier that's prepared for Quiver Dance and being slower than Pa'u. Sure tera ground and the strong hurricane stab is scary, but the frailty of Viv and lack of recovery just make it often not worth running in my eyes and definitely not broken.

Also worth saying on these two that I feel teams really should be running scarfers faster than 93 base speed, that are capable of revenge killing the dancers after one boost. I could see how people are having issues if they're not doing that AND are also not investing in defensive measures for these, but at that stage it's really not the Quiver Dancer's fault if you lose to them.
I'll start off with Vivillon and I hope I can articulate my point across here but the statements regarding Vivillon are overall quite false and doesn't really seem to get across how Vivillon is one of the most oppressive forces in this metagame.

"This Pokemon does nothing in practice.": It's hard for me to actually see how you got to this verdict regarding Vivillon but what it does on paper is definitely what it's capable of in practice. This is a mon that has near perfect accuracy with its sleep move with one of the best set up moves in competitive singles, it's going to be a menace. Anything slower than Vivillon is at the mercy of just being guaranteed slept and made setup fodder. It is then free to tera into a Ground or Fighting type and bypass its checks with Tera Blast. If its checks won't die in one hit it just sleeps them and 2hkos and the rng element of just waking up in time to revenge kill Vivillon isn't particularly competitive, it's incredibly luck based. That's the issue with Vivillon, you are heavily reliant of sleep turns to handle this pokemon effectively. Very low risk, very high reward to the extent of it's too easy.

"A tier that's prepared for Quiver Dance": Interesting statement here which I find weird to say considering our first ban of the gen was a qd mon we are not equipped to handle. Have we found more checks? Certainly, people are using their special walls and their Thunder Wave but Pa'u is as arguably broken as Baile and in Vivillon's case, you have to take sleep into account.

Now this is not related to your post in particular, but I find the arguments against Vivillon mainly come down to the Insomnia Vital Spirit pokemon we have access to. Let us think of Sleep Powder switchins. You have Grass types, which are immune to powder moves but oh wait, they are weak to Vivillon's STAB Hurricane! Magic Bounce Hattrem can switch in but you most likely are not going to sleep into Hattrem and Hattrem doesn't want to switch into Vivillon anyway. What's left then? The Vital Spirit/Insomnia Pokemon. You have only 7 out of the um 50/60+ usable mons in this tier and half of them are not even viable or reliable answers anyway. Banette is folded by Hurricane, Delibird is a unmon, Lycanroc-Midnight is commonly No Guard and loses to Tera Viv, Murkrow cannot switch in reliably and cannot even paralyse Ground Vivillon and Scovillain is also folded by Hurricane. I've left Hypno and Vigoroth for last here because the former under any other circumstance, is just a worse version of Grumpig but has a decent amount of users willing to give it a shot just for the sake of handling our 2 sleep qd mons and Vigoroth is the most consistent sleep switch-in. Spdef has enough bulk, threatens Vivillon with high dmg due to its weak bulk and only Tera Fighting scares Vigoroth and the common consensus is Tera Ground Vivillon. This mon just isn't something this tier wants to keep if we have to run inferior pokemon/sets to check this mon.

"Teams should be running scarfers faster than base 93 speed": Do you know how many mons are faster than base 93 speed but also have scarf as a set that's actually good on them? You have Sawsbuck, Houndoom, Pyroar, Raichu. Keep in mind this is not every mon faster than base 93 but the ones that a scarf set actually works on them. It is unfair and quite unrealistic to build every team with one of those 4 guaranteed on them just to beat the qd mons. If you put this in your Oricorio section sure I would have no issues with this statement but it is being used as a negative towards Vivillon.

"It's hard to get an advantage for it without leading with it, and leading with it usually means committing to an early tera which is never beneficial.": I don't think you're using Vivillon right. You're not supposed to lead off with it, it's more of a pokemon that can come in on our defensive staples like Gabite, Quaxwell and even just slower pokemon like Perrserker or Magneton, sleep smth, tera accordingly and start setting up. Even in this game vs me here, you led off with it even though you have a mon that's a suicide lead and I possibly had no removal options.

"but the frailty of viv and lack of recovery just make it often not worth running in my eyes and definitely not broken": I think this is just looking at Vivillon in a vacuum instead of thinking of its overall impact in the meta. If I were to say "oh Oricorio Pa'u is not that bulky and without tera, it's not nearly as threatening since its dual STAB kinda sucks and it has common weaknesses.", I am not necessarily wrong in saying that but you then have to realise Pa'u is incredibly hard to switch into, it can afford Roost in its moveslot so it doesn't die as easily. Tera also makes it the most dangerous mon in the tier and its ability to copy opposing QD from opposing Oricorio, Lilligant or Vivillon make it even more dangerous. In a similar vein, to handle Vivillon, you either have to build with the 3 shaky sleep immune checks to not be at mercy of sleep or constantly run the 4 scarfers that outrun after one speed boost. It's not healthy to have to build and play the meta like this and I just find it baffling how some think we'll just adapt to this.

In terms of Lilligant, it's definitely less consistent than Vivillon I think and at this current stage in the meta, it is not banworthy, not while Oricorio and Vivillon remain in this tier. It's the hardest qd mon to set up with, it has the worst coverage of the qd mons. It can still sweep for sure but definitely you have to support it a lot more plus its answers are way more commonplace like Shane mentions: Skuntank, Tinkatuff, Oricorio and the fires. In any case, we should ban Oricorio and Vivillon then see how Lilligant does in a tier without one of the best mons in the tier cucking it all the time.
 
Last edited:
mons 2 share

:Sliggoo:
Sliggoo @ Eviolite
Ability: Sap Sipper
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Acid Spray
- Rest
- Dragon Pulse
- Mud Shot

With Eviolite, reaches 535 Special Defense. Checks common special attackers. Don't care about Sleep Powder. Acid Spray lets you overwhelm + chip QD users into Dragon Pulse range. This absolutely tears through sun teams as well. Mud Shot is primarily for :Magneton:. Ground Tera to deny Volt Switch to make the opponent that much more miserable. You also don't want Fairy cuz then Magneton would beat you. Dragon Tera might be an option to boost Pulse further. If you don't wanna run Mud Shot then Sleep Talk is fine.

:Swalot:
Swalot @ Leftovers
Ability: Liquid Ooze
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 84 Def / 172 SpD
Bold Nature
- Rest
- Stockpile
- Toxic
- Body Press
Workable gimmick. Boost both your defences and then fire off Body Press. It's the only mon the tier with the combination of Body Press + Toxic, allowing it to beat Body Press resists/ghosts not named :Haunter:, who walls this. If Tera'd, you can beat Ori/Psychics. Not entirely sure how to EV it, but the idea is there. Currently balanced between the two defences. The ability doesn't really help but in niche situations. Sticky Hold is likely a lil better but I like denying :Lilligant: Giga Drain.

:Tropius:
Tropius @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Harvest
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Protect
- Whirlwind
- Seed Bomb
- U-turn
Slow pivot king. The main thing this can do that :Perrserker: can't is the ability to come in on :Wugtrio: and :Dugtrio:. It can even take a +2 Stone Edge from Dug before Tera. And heal it off thanks to Harvest. Whirlwind away anything that sets up that you didn't want to just U-Turn on. Protect is mainly to give a second chance to activate Sitrus again if it failed to do so, Earthquake/Leech Seed could also be options. Tera Steel lets you whirlwind away Viv/Ori much more freely, unless they Tera of course. Worth noting that Tera Dragon would allow you to deal with :Houndoom: and :Pyroar: to some extent. Ground could also work.
 
Last edited:

Fragmented

procrastinating...
is a Pokemon Researcher
Spent a couple of hours working on this, might as well share.

PU Kickoff Tour Round 1 Tera Stats
Code:
+----------------------+-------+---------+------------
| Pokemon              | Teras |  Tera % | Tera Types
+----------------------+-------+---------+------------
| Oricorio-Pa'u        |    17 |  27.42% | ['Ground', 9], ['Fighting', 5], ['Fire', 1], ['Ghost', 1], ['Water', 1]
| Squawkabilly         |     9 |  24.32% | ['Normal', 9]
| Golduck              |     8 |  32.00% | ['Water', 8]
| Magneton             |     8 |  27.59% | ['Water', 3], ['Ground', 2], ['Electric', 1], ['Fire', 1], ['Grass', 1]
| Raichu               |     8 |  26.67% | ['Flying', 5], ['Water', 2], ['Ice', 1]
| Lycanroc-Midnight    |     7 |  21.21% | ['Ghost', 3], ['Rock', 3], ['Fighting', 1]
| Gogoat               |     6 |  30.00% | ['Rock', 3], ['Fire', 1], ['Ground', 1], ['Water', 1]
| Dugtrio              |     5 |  23.81% | ['Ground', 4], ['Ice', 1]
| Perrserker           |     5 |   8.33% | ['Water', 2], ['Fairy', 1], ['Flying', 1], ['Poison', 1]
| Electrode            |     4 |  36.36% | ['Water', 3], ['Ice', 1]
| Falinks              |     4 |  25.00% | ['Ghost', 2], ['Steel', 2]
| Houndoom             |     4 |  17.39% | ['Grass', 2], ['Dark', 1], ['Fire', 1]
| Skuntank             |     4 |   8.00% | ['Dark', 1], ['Ground', 1], ['Poison', 1], ['Steel', 1]
| Camerupt             |     3 |   6.25% | ['Water', 2], ['Grass', 1]
| Crabominable         |     3 |  12.50% | ['Electric', 3]
| Hattrem              |     3 |   8.57% | ['Steel', 2], ['Water', 1]
| Quaxwell             |     3 |   6.00% | ['Flying', 2], ['Fairy', 1]
| Vivillon             |     3 |  13.04% | ['Flying', 2], ['Ground', 1]
| Flapple              |     2 |   9.09% | ['Fire', 1], ['Ground', 1]
| Fraxure              |     2 |  66.67% | ['Fairy', 2]
| Gabite               |     2 |   6.67% | ['Fairy', 1], ['Steel', 1]
| Grumpig              |     2 |  15.38% | ['Dark', 1], ['Steel', 1]
| Haunter              |     2 |   8.70% | ['Ghost', 2]
| Jumpluff             |     2 |  16.67% | ['Flying', 2]
| Leafeon              |     2 |  22.22% | ['Fire', 2]
| Pawniard             |     2 |  40.00% | ['Dark', 2]
| Wugtrio              |     2 |  15.38% | ['Water', 2]
| Banette              |     1 |  14.29% | ['Ghost', 1]
| Beartic              |     1 |  11.11% | ['Water', 1]
| Carkol               |     1 |  14.29% | ['Water', 1]
| Drakloak             |     1 | 100.00% | ['Ghost', 1]
| Dunsparce            |     1 |  50.00% | ['Ghost', 1]
| Indeedee-F           |     1 |   9.09% | ['Psychic', 1]
| Liligant             |     1 |  33.33% | ['Rock', 1]
| Luxray               |     1 |  25.00% | ['Grass', 1]
| Pincurchin           |     1 |  33.33% | ['Water', 1]
| Raboot               |     1 |  20.00% | ['Fighting', 1]
| Sneasel              |     1 |  16.67% | ['Ice', 1]]
| Stonjourner          |     1 |   7.14% | ['Rock', 1]
| Wigglytuff           |     1 |  33.33% | ['Steel', 1]
Teras = No. of times terastallized
Tera % = No. of times terastallized / No. of total uses
Tera Types = [Type, Count]

9/89 games where neither side terastallized
25/89 games where only one side terastallized, 16 of which lost, 9 of which won

This is by no means a good picture of the current metagame, but it does at least provide a window into what you can expect.
 

termi

bike is short for bichael
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributor
I could write a lot about this meta and I hope to do a post on potent cores and fun sets I've used or seen so far, but for now I'm just gonna give my thoughts on the potential brokens.

:sv/oricorio-pa

This thing being #1 in usage in kickoff comes as no surprise, since it is unfortunately busted. I had hoped that greater reliance on tera and a worse defensive typing might have allowed it to be balanced compared to Baile, but it still finds too much setup opportunity and wins games too easily to be balanced. As with other Oricorio forms, it can too easily switch up its Tera type to mess with typical counterplay, leading to very unfun scenarios where you have to pray that you're getting a bunch of 50/50s right just to prevent it from cleaning your team. Moreover, it's not that reliant on Tera since the only things that wall its dual STAB are Steel types, which get worn down pretty easily. In general, it's hard to build a team with good longevity in this meta (basically it is the opposite of SS PU in that regard, where longevity is often the #1 priority) so while a bunch of situational counterplay to this mon does exist, said counterplay also has a tendency to get worn down or removed from play, as you often can't afford to keep this or that thing in the back exclusively for Oricorio. Turns out Tera is an especially bullshit mechanic on mons that get broken setup moves and a STAB move that changes with its tera type, who knew. Would prefer to have this banned over the weekend.

:sv/vivillon::sv/lilligant:

These two should obviously be mentioned within the context of an Oricorio ban, as Ori is presently one of the biggest fetters on their viability thanks to Dancer. It is too soon to tell whether or not these two would be broken without Oricorio around, although if both end up being broken I am sympathetic to a ban on Quiver Dance. That being said, I don't know how likely it is that these two will be two much in the near future. I've used Vivillon a bit and found it disappointing even against teams that lacked Ori, as its lack of bulk, good defensive typing, and Roost makes it a mon that gets little opportunity to set up and is fairly one-dimensional compared to the swiss army knife that is Oricorio. Sleep Powder is its one saving grace, but it still will rarely find opportunity to get more than QD in, which leaves it in an awkward position since it's not powerful enough to muscle past specially fat mons without hitting them super effectively. It is also much more of a dedicated Tera user than Oricorio thanks to its poor coverage and defensive typing pre-Tera, which can be pretty constraining during a game if you're actually looking to sweep with it.

Though I have less experience with it, the same thing more or less seems to apply to Lilligant, except Lilli has worse two-move coverage and a less accurate Sleep Powder in return for a higher SpA stat and somewhat better bulk. Tera Water is probably its best bet right now, as it has decent enough coverage and a better defensive typing than Rock or Fire, but obviously it is far from ideal and hard walled by Gogoat.

:sv/magneton:

Magneton is a guy I like, and not one I'm inclined to consider broken. I do get the argument though: Specs Analytic especially has an insane power level for this tier and if it forces something out, it's near guaranteed to do big damage even to resists. On the flipside though, it's not very bulky or fast. Switchin opportunity is therefore limited, and the tier has plenty of common counterplay that at least forces the Mag user to make predictions to not have their sweeper go to waste. Specs Mag also has a built-in opportunity cost because you're running a fake Steel type that doesn't really eat hits from the things you would want a Steel type for. Finally, it should be noted that being locked into its STABs isn't great: locking into an Electric move gives free setup opportunity for SD Duggy or NP Raichu, for example, whereas locking into Flash Cannon gives Quaxwell spin opportunity and opposing Magnet Pull Mag the opportunity to trap you.

The better set is easily Eviolite, though, as it doesn't have problems with bulk or locking into undesirable moves while still retaining plenty of firepower. This set has a ton of flexibility, being able to run as much bulk on either side or SpA as you feel you need, with several Tera types to boot depending on what you need it to do. This can make it difficult to play around, especially if it Teras and hits your Camerupt or whatever with Tera Blast, but here too is a potential opportunity cost as you give up your team's Steel type. While this set is amazing, I don't think it's quite broken. Chip damage has a tendency to rack up very fast in this meta due to the offensive nature of it, the amount of momentum moves, and the relative lack of reliable hazard control. For a Pokemon that lacks any form of recovery beyond RestTalk, this can be very problematic, especially for a mon that often wants to check several mons throughout a match like Magneton. Oftentimes, relying on Magneton early in a match quickly leaves it too whittled to check things later down the line. Much like AV Crabominable, Evio Magneton is quite good at living hits and dishing out a lot of damage in return, allowing it to maybe make some favorable trades, but overall it neither lacks defensive counterplay nor has the sort of staying power in a match to where I'm convinced it's too much for the tier. Moreover, given the utility this mon has, I am happy with its presence in the meta and would need to see a good deal of evidence that it's seriously too much to handle before I'd want a suspect test of this mon.

:sv/houndoom::sv/pyroar:

These two Fire types are very obviously top tier offensive threats thanks to their great dual STABs attached to high Speed and SpA stats, but I think that after the initial hype and claims of brokenness (especially regarding Houndoom) were maybe a bit overstated. Houndoom excels at NP sets, but suffers from frailty in an offensive tier where many things can OHKO it. This can make it a bit awkward to position, since if it doesn't threaten the OHKO it is liable to lose the 1v1, and since without a boosting item it is only so strong, it wants to be able to threaten things with supereffective hits. This is where Tera comes in and complicates its situation further, as many things that are typically threatened out by Houndoom can simply choose to shed their weakness. Moreover, after the initial hype over its more or less unresisted dual STAB, people discovered that there are in fact things that can check it defensively (Spd Quaxwell is the biggest one, but SpD Evio Dragons work as well). All in all, this is just a top offensive threat to me right now, but nothing to get especially worried about as long as the tier stays offensive.

Whereas Houndoom excels at boosting, Pyroar is the superior Choice Specs user thanks to its higher speed and ability to turn the tables on its switchins with STAB Tera Blast. Boots sets also seem cool enough, but I haven't really seen them do anything too crazy as of yet. Specs, meanwhile, is really threatening but also hampered, obviously, by an SR weakness. If it had one STAB that it can just click really freely against most teams, that'd be one thing, but neither Normal immunities nor sturdy Fire resists are in short supply. It is one that is on my watchlist for in the future, because that STAB Tera Blast has the potential to be really silly, but this is also not one I'd really want tiering action on as of yet.

:crabominable::squawkabilly::flapple:

These are some others that are worth mentioning I guess. Crab I already mentioned briefly above, it's certainly a major threat that can easily get 2 or more kills in a matchh, but as others have pointed out, it's not an easy fit on teams due to its questionable defensive typing and slowness. Requires a lot of team support to really get going. BU sets could be pretty rough to deal with though, which is why this thing is still on my watchlist. Squawk is really powerful and decently fast, making it a solid breaker in a tier with few reliable Normal resists, but its longevity is really poor. Thought this might've been more broken for a sec but I'm not too worried about it anymore. Don't run Hustle. Speaking of Hustle, Flapple can be really annoying, though this is another case of a hard-to-fit mon. Hustle sets hit crazy hard but are unreliable and I typically don't see people opting for them, instead going with funny Ripen DD sets which are honestly not bad. They do however lack immediate damage output and only really turn into a problem if they have the right Tera type against your team. I heard some talk about Specs but I don't really see that being an issue at all. Overall this mon is just kinda annoying as per usual, but not one I'm super pressed about as of yet.

I also wanted to say something about Damp Rock and Heat Rock, but I haven't seen enough decent quality weather to make remarks upon them yet. I do think these have the potential to be really annoying though due to the quality of our weather abusers. They're on my watchlist and I could easily be clamoring for a ban on these items within a week, but right now I don't have strong feelings about them.

Overall I'd say this meta is looking sorta balanced despite all the potentially stupid things we have. The fast pace of the meta just sorta prevents a lot of things from getting too much opportunity to get out of hand, I suppose. It's actually quite fun, especially for a beta tier in a dexit gen. I expected things to be way messier, but only QD shenanigans are really something that spoil the fun thus far. Let's ban Ori and see where we go from there.
 
https://pokepast.es/c6ef211e85095756
:oricorio-pau::shroodle::golduck:

I wanted to briefly talk about two things: this semi-rain core, and oricorio-pau in general.

semi-rain
personally, i find semi-rain to be an underrated pick rn, because not only do we have a solid rain abuser in the tier and a great rain setter thats already useful outside of rain too, but the best mon in the tier (in my opinion) heavily benefits from rain thanks to hurricane having 100% accuracy.

The core itself is flexible in what sets you run, but I do think this oricorio set has well-optimized evs. 204 Timid allows you to outspeed scarf rotoms at +1, and this means the main mons that outspeed you are scarf haunter, squawk, weather mons with the weather up, and scarf sawsbuck. If I remember correctly, the special attack evs are to 2hko scarf rotoms/rotoms without hp investment at +2 98% of the time, and to ohko av crab at +1 with hurricane after stealth rocks. It hits a couple other benchmarks that I definitely forgot about now. The rest of evs are in bulk, specifically optimized to live a scarf hustle squawk Brave Bird from full, while putting as many evs into hp as possible to salvage the oricorio mirror.

Golduck is specs here because with Timid specs it maintains a solid level of offensive prowess outside of rain, which is important imo when running semi-rain. Oricorio and golduck are great partners, because between the two of them played well, your opponent's defensive core is going to be broke. I think shroodle is the best setter in semi-rain because you get Parting Shot support to help oricorio set up, a guaranteed rain set-up, while it's typing let's it absorb t-spikes and handle haunter relatively well.

I highly recommend trying out semi-rain, as it is easy to weave into a team and is very viable rn. You get an emergency revenge killer as well with the shroodle rain dance+golduck combo, a solid offensive core, a set-up stopper with Prankster encore, a nice semi-bulky piece for your defensive core if you ev oriocrio to be that way, and you have a lot of creativity for your last three spots with all of that.

oricorio-pau
i just wanna briefly say I think this mon is broken. many people do not use this pokemon well in practice imo, and i think this causes some people underrate it when they watch it die after killing only one mon. When Tera and it's hp is managed well, and when a solid team is backed behind it, you can guarantee it will pop off. It may be somewhat Tera reliant, but it's easily worth the Tera for the advantages it brings. Many would be switch-ins guarantee a+2/+2 sweep if you Tera on them and set another dance up. The amount of games I see go to oricorio vs oricorio is funny, and I've watched games in kickoff that go down to one oricorio winning vs the other bc it hit its hurricanes, or because it was more prepped for the mirror. The meta just feels very oricorio-pau centric in that regard to me, to an extend where mons like vivillon and lilligant aren't even on a lot of people's radar due to the chokehold oricorio has on them. Under rain, your hurricanes are suddenly 100% accurate and this mon feels extra busted in those games. And sure enough, rain is really viable rn too. I just wanted to throw my thoughts on the oricorio debate out there. personally, I think at least a suspect would be worthwhile in the near future, would be happier with qb but I understand others may feel differently.
 
Perrserker @ Leftovers
Ability: Steely Spirit
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head
- Seed Bomb
- Substitute

Perrserker @ Choice Band
Ability: Tough Claws
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Iron Head
- Close Combat
- Seed Bomb
- U-turn

This mon has very few switches. it can easily snowball. u can run tera steel for nuking iron heads or fighting for STAB TOUGH CLAWS cc. both these moves are ludicrously powerful AND spammable. sub sd makes complete use of the popularity of bulky perrserker's prominance and switches it forces sub's and can easily snowball. you can run ph.def to sub sd all ph.def quaxwell.

0 Atk Quaxwell Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Perrserker: 64-76 (18.6 - 22%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 0+ Atk Perrserker Seed Bomb vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Quaxwell: 172-204 (50 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

tera grass is nice too for the extra push it forces over mons like ph.def quaxwell.

but like cmon.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Tera Fighting Perrserker Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Quaxwell: 234-276 (68 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Grass Perrserker Seed Bomb vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Quaxwell: 240-284 (69.7 - 82.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Tera Fighting Perrserker Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Camerupt: 336-396 (97.6 - 115.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Tera Steel Perrserker Iron Head vs. +1 252 HP / 0 Def Tera Ghost Vigoroth: 268-316 (73.6 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

the nuking potential is INSANE. easily on par with stuff like specs analytic magneton. The only thing holding it back is poor speed. It still checks stuff like oricorio and tera flying vivillon-barely.

252+ Atk Choice Band Tough Claws Tera Steel Perrserker Iron Head vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Oricorio-Pa'u: 300-354 (84.7 - 100%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 0 SpA Oricorio-Pa'u Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Steel Perrserker: 131-154 (46.6 - 54.8%) -- 64.5% chance to 2HKO
+1 252 SpA Tera Flying Vivillon-Fancy Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Tera Steel Perrserker: 210-248 (74.7 - 88.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO


drops to common tera's like ground and fighting but if tera has been used it can act as a BARELY fine check.

max hp sd is really solid too.

This mon is slept on so much. People are running support sets which are SO much waste of such a top tier breaker.
 
there's a lot of discussion on things like quiver dance users being broken or not, but i don't really feel like i have much to add in terms of arguments either way. what i do think is more interesting is whether magneton is broken. i think i am definitely leaning towards the answer being yes at the moment. (note that i'm talking almost entirely about evio magneton in this post; i do not think choice items are worth it at all) while it's true that if you try to bring it in throughout the game to check things it gets worn down very quickly, i think using it that way is not letting it live up to its full potential. its natural bulk with eviolite is good enough that if you try to bring it in early in the game off of u turns, double switches, your own mons fainting, random weak moves like quax spin, etc it can often force your opponents without one of the few mons it doesn't just evaporate on the switch to just sack something to it and then send in something to revenge it, only for it to be able to just tera and survive and even take little from its normal checks and severely damage them in return, often leaving them down two mons and you with a still mostly or somewhat healthy magneton. here are some calcs to illustrate what i mean:

252+ SpA Grumpig Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Tera Ground Magneton: 75-89 (24.6 - 29.2%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO
252 Atk Gabite Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Tera Ground Magneton: 90-106 (29.6 - 34.8%) -- 11.8% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Eviolite Tera Ground Magneton: 125-148 (41.1 - 48.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Houndoom Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Tera Ground Magneton: 144-169 (47.3 - 55.5%) -- 76.6% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Raichu Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Tera Ground Magneton: 118-140 (38.8 - 46%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

obviously giving up your steel typing is not ideal, but a lot of the best mons that are of types you would normally want a steel to check commonly run tera ground / fighting / fire or have random ground or fighting coverage, i.e viv / ori, pretty much all the good psychics, sawsbuck, beartic, raichu, etc. the best offensive tera types (ground and water) also happen to be solid to good defensive types themselves, as well as types that are mostly weak to stab from mons that can't switch into magneton at all, so while losing your steel type hurts for some scenarios, it's not even really all that much of a net loss in my opinion. magneton takes neutral moves quite well, so giving up its 4x weakness means that it's very difficult to ohko. almost anything that it can actually ohko a non-terastallized magneton will lose to it 1v1 if it chooses to stay in and tera, because there really isn't anything that can do 75+ to both a non-tera magneton and a ground or water type magneton at the same time. for this reason, revenging a magneton that can still tera will often result in you doing around half to it while losing whatever you tried to beat it with.

the problem with magneton is not that nothing can switch into it safely, but that almost nothing can switch into it without either dying or completely losing momentum. the only volt switch immunity that doesn't just die to flash cannon or tera blast is toedscool, which isn't exactly the kind of mon you can just slap onto teams. because magneton hits so stupidly hard and has stab volt switch, bulky pokemon that aren't weak to one of its stabs like dragonair, grumpig, etc, will most of the time get volt switched and be staring in the face of something that can take advantage of or just ko them.

overall, i really just think magneton is a pokemon that is forces opponents into bad situations way too easily with little risk, while also having a distinct lack of mons that can reliably beat it, making it a bit too good for the tier in my opinion.
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top