Suspect SV VoltTurn Mayhem Suspect #1: Heart of a Dragon (Dragonite)

[zastra]

​

WHAT:
The SV VoltTurn Mayhem Council has decided to put up Dragonite for a suspect test!

WHY:
Dragonite has cemented itself as an offensive staple in VoltTurn Mayhem due to Extreme Speed, amazing offensive stats, Multiscale, and great coverage. Extreme Speed deserves a special mention, as due to how VoltTurn Mayhem works, you have the option to strike before your opponent thanks to the move's +2 priority, KO or chip them, and switch-out and avoid getting KOed or chipped in return. This in-turn is further made better by Tera, as Tera Normal effectively gave Extreme Speed a 50% power boost. Additionally, Dragonite also has a 150 BP Normal-type move and a 120 BP Dragon-type in Giga Impact and Outrage respectively with no drawbacks like usual, and could tear apart anything that isn't a Ghost or a Fairy type respectively, not to mention both of these moves can be further bolstered by Tera and STAB. Dragonite's primary item in Choice Band gave it a blistering Attack stat, and combined with its amazing movepool, made it an absolute monster. Dragonite's 4th moveslot was usually Earthquake, which let it damage bulky resists like Tinkaton and Gholdengo. While Pokémon with immunities to its moves do exist, they often get melted by Dragonite's other coverage options, making them shaky and prediction reliant in most cases.

However, Dragonite is not without its drawbacks. Protect is fairly common in VoltTurn Mayhem, and hence, players had the option to scout Dragonite's move and switch out into a Pokémon with immunity or resist, which resulted in the Dragonite player losing momentum. Also, Dragonite's damage rolls without Choice Band are quite unimpressive, so it had to run Choice Band in order to overcome the issue. This, however, makes it vulnerable to Stealth Rock, which limits the number of times it could switch-in.

Overall, it can be played around with, but the options to do so are not consistent enough, and hence the council decided to suspect test it.

HOW (Suspect Test Information):

• To qualify, you must play a minimum of 25 games and reach a minimum GXE value of 75.
• You must use an account created after this thread has gone live with the prefix VTDN, such as "VTDN Aggro". Please do not attempt to impersonate other users, as this may lead to an infraction.
• Dragonite will be legal on the ladder during the suspect period.
• The suspect test will be live for roughly two weeks, and will end on Friday, January 27th (10:59 pm GMT -5).
• Please feel free to use this thread as a means of discussing your views on Dragonite when posting. This is however optional- you are free to post evidence of qualification and nothing further.
• You must provide clear evidence of account ownership- please post a picture of your account meeting requirements with your Smogon name featured.

Tagging Kris to implement.
Good luck and have fun!

 

[KaenSoul]

Wanted to finish this quickly, so I just used the broken team I shared last week in the main thread:

https://pokepast.es/f6e5aac9aaf25b50
This team is really easy to use for anyone that wants easy reqs, you need some good prediction when facing people high in the ladder as they most likely have seen it a few times and are trying to counter it, like the one person that prevented this from being a perfect run (Dugtrio is a crazy mon and deserves more usage).
I still believe Dragonite is broken, as soon as the mandatory Ghost-Type from the opposite team dies you are free to spam powerful Normal moves (ESpeed and Giga Impact), and with hazard support it is quite easy to put everyone in OHKO range in this tier, trying to build anything that isn't some bulky balance is quite difficult when this thing has such an easy time fishing for kill against anything remotely offensive, the best alternative is running Protect in most of your mons, so you can scout the moves and switch into an immunity (that works well until you meet a non-choice locked Dragonite and your Fairy is no longer switching into Outrage, CB is the broken set though).
I guess someone could argue that it is Tera that pushes Dragonite over the edge, but I haven't seen the mechanic doing anything bad other than creating this monster.
Corviknight being much worse on this format also helps nite a lot, what's the point on being able to eat the strong moves when you are forced out right away without a chance to heal? walls without regen really hate VT.

 

[RoFnA]

Confirming as VTDN RoFnA99

My Run can be described that way:

I used this Team: https://pokepast.es/3d58e9cd1ea2a1d9
I made KaenSouls Team more viable by adding very cool nicknames. I also made some minor Changes like Air Ballon Hatterene for opposing Garchomps so they can't touch you. Tera Flying over tera Poison Toxapex is also better against trappers like Dugtrio and Gothitelle.

I am leaning towards do not ban.

I don't think Dragonite is broken. Almost every Defensive Mon is running Protect atm and you can easily scout their attack. And without Choice Band Dragonite is just too weak to make significant damage.
Dragonites coverage moves hits basically everything in the tier. But as said earlier without Choice Band the damage output is just not enough. With Choice Band you are weak to Stealth Rock and restricted in your switch ins.

My opinion: I don't think it is banworthy.

 

[ong]

 

[DeepFriedMagikarp]

dunno what i wanna vote, someone convince me
edit: https://pokepast.es/4b16ebc45dac51af team i used
Tink the goat not even joking, hydrei cool

 

[Clementine]

hlelo this is fun

 

[RoyalReloaded]

happy monkey monday everybody

 

[AL]

 

[longhiep341]

Beat Kaen's team consistently but got stomped by my own team, pain.
- Team used

 

[Turtlek]

 

[NoobHereWaddup]

this was way too stressful
anyways, i'm voting ban, just like every choice item abuser mon in the tier, dragonite hits way too hard, to the point where defensive play is very limited. What separates dragonite from all the other choice item abusers is dragonite's insane tera abusing potential with giga impact and most importantly extreme speed.
The very few counterplay that exists can be played around, one way or another:
- The most optimal one, protect scouting. That applies to every choice abuser mon, however after the respective dragonite checks have been taken down, dnite can easily abuse outrage/espeed/earthquake, at that point the best you can do is pp stall. Baneful bunker toxapex isn't much of an issue either as dragonite can use earthquake, and many teams in this metagame don't have a ground resist.
- Choice scarft mons, as well as other priority abusers, can hit all the choice item abusers of the tier safely, but again, extreme speed means thats not possible against dragonite unless you're a ghost type or have some way of blocking priority, so thats one way of counterplay (almost) entirely gone.
- Setting and keeping hazards seems to also be solid counterplay against dnite, forcing tera if it wants to stay around for longer, but thats not always the easiest task when most teams with dragonite also have hatterene, cinderace, or any rapid spinner that can't punish ghost types like great tusk.

 

[diego_yuhhi]

prob voting ban, forcing a fairy + a ghost + a flying + a lot of protect scouting on every team makes 0 sense
https://pokepast.es/7035ce7d1de808d3 goated team
pretty fun suspect after all

duggy is so good btw

 

[zastra]

I'm so terrible lmaooo- But I somehow finally managed to gain suspect reqs. First 15 games, I got lazy to build and spammed samples, where I suffered 6 Ls :(, after which I finally decided to build a viable team. Thanks to Rofna99, DeepFriedMagikarp, KaenSoul and everyone (sry if I forgot someone im bad) for (moral?)support(?). Anyways, here's the team I used (Regardless of my bad run, this team is actually consistent):

Tier is overcentralized, and Dragonite is an unhealthy presence. Gonna vote ban.

 

[memesketch]

This meta is really fun, interested to see how it develops. Dragonite's presence is definitely hindering its development tho, the fact that you need to essentially devote three or more teamslots to check one set on one mon should say enough about how much it warps the metagame. As much fun as I had with Dnite during my climb, gonna vote ban.

 

[UT]

Voting is up, pm with issues!