yea you didn't have to say casual player here the last 2 sentences wouldve sufficed
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
- Thread starter TPP
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My hatred for Zamazenta is immeasurable, am I the only one that clearly sees how stupidly overpowered it is compared to other mons in OU? I understand that power creep in this gen is insane, but goddamn this mon has crazy stats, a ridiculous speed that makes it the second fastest mon in the tier by a large margin, a great movepool and one of the best set up moves for the kind of ability it has (plus the STAB Body Press). The lack of Gliscor in the tier has made Zamazenta even more difficult to deal with in terms of set prediction, and the amount of work needed to check this threat is just absurd. I run Lando, Tusk AND Gholdengo and this mon still manages to make me struggle because of how easily it can spread damage around with no effort at all. Am I forced to run Zapdos, Dondozo or Pex? Hell, even Zapdos has become an unreliable answer considering that you might just switch into it expecting a Sub+ID set, just to get obliterated by a Stone Edge. Amoonguss ain't doing crap to it considering that none of its moves break the Sub, and it gets 3HKOd by Body Press after a single Iron Defense. Unaware Clefable might work until Zamazenta rightly decides to make you fuck off with Tera Steel and Heavy Slam, sending you to the after life with 2 clean hits. Gholdengo has to deal with all of the Sub+Crunch bullshit. Furthermore, the only way to revenge kill this mon is hoping that Infiltrator Dragapult OHKOs with Draco Meteor.
I really think this mon deserves some kind of attention.
I really think this mon deserves some kind of attention.
Physdef ghold beats iron defense sets, as does physdef glowking. Choice band sets are rough they require good predictions but weezing/geezing and moltres give it a hard time. if ghold goes I can see it being an issue. Ultimately if it runs stone edge it misses crunch, if it runs sub it loses heavy slam, I can always find a meta relevant core that handles it since its can't run options for everything.
You know, a few days ago someone told me not to worry about the OU tiering and the hate that comes with it (you know who you are). And it helped a lot. I'm glad you said I was a caring individual. But in the end, you reeeeeally can't separate PB and J without people going against that.
In other news, what's next for OU? I'm aware that something was just banned, but I'm a person with patience. That being said at the time of posting this, the DLC is out in literally a month and a day from now. The DLC has 5 new pokemon being introduced (Dipplin gets an evolution in it that's almost certain) and a new Tera type that could either ruin or help things for all of us. For the sake of me, I will not look at leaks like I normally do and go into this "blind". But whatever happens I genuinely think nothing is THAT overbearing to not be banned a week into DLC 2.
In other news, what's next for OU? I'm aware that something was just banned, but I'm a person with patience. That being said at the time of posting this, the DLC is out in literally a month and a day from now. The DLC has 5 new pokemon being introduced (Dipplin gets an evolution in it that's almost certain) and a new Tera type that could either ruin or help things for all of us. For the sake of me, I will not look at leaks like I normally do and go into this "blind". But whatever happens I genuinely think nothing is THAT overbearing to not be banned a week into DLC 2.
Fwiw, I liked running High Horsepower on Gliscor sets to bypass terrain at the cost of a little accuracy and power, which something like Ting-Lu wishes it had, given its next best option to not get weakened by Terrain is… Stomping Tantrum.
0 Atk Gliscor High Horsepower vs. +1 172 HP / 4 Def Sneasler: 198-234 (57.5 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery
Pretty good damage to force a Tera Flying and all, but this could all be for nothing with some decent positioning, so its not like this is much of a difference.
Honestly I think it's a mistake that Gliscor was banned, at least while Gholdengo was in the meta.
for the record, this calc still lets sneasler get an SD, which is game over
FUCKING FINALLY. People realize how insane Sneasler is but all it took was the best pokemon in the tier being Gliscor. I get a lot of shit for this take on twitter, but Unburden Sneasler doesn't need Dire Claw. There's just no reason to run it when Acro + [Anti Gholdengo Move of Choice] + CC kills basically the entire tier at +2, minus the fat teams that the seed Sneasler set can't handle anyway. You could definitely cut CC for Gunk Shot if you don't want to play Zaptres Roulette, but Dire Claw isn't necessary. Stop trying to hax through fat, it's not gonna happen
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Good post. Echoes what I’ve been saying for months. How many Pokémon do we have to ban to preserve this mechanic? The over under is 30. We will get there soon!
No, you are not the only one my friend. Zamas existence in the tier is just cope for saving Kingcheap. I never understood the reason for dropping 700 bst Ubers down to the metagame when we have hundreds of mons in lower tiers looking for love. Im glad that Darkrai talk got squashed. Want no part of that bastard in OU.
Now, name the Pokémon that would drop because they were banned to Tera... And that list kinda sticks about 3 Pokémon now and maybe up to 5. Way less than your doom and gloom 10+.
Zamazenta is honestly fine in the tier*
*provided Sneasler (+ Rillaboom), Gholdengo, and Iron Valiant are also in the tier
in all seriousness Zamazenta is the obligatory "this pokemon is not broken if like 4 other broken pokemon are in the tier" pokemon of this gen and definitely needs to go.
regarding this, I think the line is iron valiant. Gambit, Sneasler, Ghold, and arguably Waterpon (though that's relatively easy to handle with rillaboom or tera grass tran) are banworthy, in that order. Manaphy I don't think is too bad but I also wouldn't cry if it left. Cress suspect is insane honestly and, again, Valiant is the only problematic booster energy user due to the combination of its speed tier, typing, and having a move that boosts an attacking stat reliably. Walking Wake is handled decently by most special walls (Milotic used Mirror Coat! The opposing Walking Wake fucking died!), Iron Moth is hard walled by Heatran if you don't run the bad tera ground set and all of the pastdox mons have the sun setters on those teams anyway.
Ghold suspect any day now I suppose
Will be interesting to see what OU is like with both glisc and gholdengone.
Will be interesting to see what OU is like with both glisc and gholdengone.
There will be another survey later this week once we have seen some shifts to the recent Gliscor ban. From there, we will determine if there is need for further action and what that action may be.
Personally Zamazenta is both balanced and keeps several top threats in check like Wogre. The selection of Zama checks available to us is wide enough for any playstyle to make use of.
Physically Defensive Ghold is an obvious pick. Avoids a 2HKO from Crunch and threatens with T-Wave.
Mola and Amoonguss have excellent matchups into the Boots 4 Attacks set while being able to contribute to checking the ID sets. Clef blanks ID sets lacking Heavy Slam.
Pult can eat a Crunch and trade itself to burn Zama. Valiant checks non-Heavy Slam sets, especially with Booster + Encore in the equation to punish Iron Defense attempts. Lando-T can switvh into 4 Attacks Boots while being able to slow U-Turn into for example, Dragapult.
With some defense invesstment, Glowking can avoid a 2HKO from Zama Crunch, in return it can para Zama or force an interaction with FS. Or pivot into another check. Pex completely fucks over Zama. There is nothing it can do to get past the urchin, yes it could tech in Wild Charge or Psychic Fangs, but that is giving up more useful options like Heavy Slam for Clef or Stone Edge for the birds. Speaking of which, Zapdos is another good check since the Home meta.
There are also other Zama checks like Cress, Skeledirge, and Sinistcha.
Zama tends to do amazingly into HO due to its high speed and its dmg output shining vs the more frail teams. Zama often isn’t great vs bulkier builds since they have more tools to handle it. Imo Zama is a great cornerstone of the meta, it is a speedy mon with good natural bulk and solid damage which is perfect for checking several offensive threats, most notably Wogre, Dnite, Gambit, SD Valiant, and Manaphy.
As for Valiant. DLC1 gave us more tools to handle it. SD variants have trouble with Clef, Mola, Amoonguss, and other physical walls. Special variants have a big 4mss, wanting Psyshock, Tbolt, Sball, Dbond, Encore, and Focus Miss (for Heatran). DLC1 also saw the return of Grassy Glide Rilla which can rkill Valiant with just a bit of chip and lives any unboosted hit.
Reinforcing my statement that 700 bst Zama was dropped down from Ubers to “balance” a collection of broken OU mons. Rather than just cleaning out the trash and letting the hundreds of lower tiered mons shine, Zama is one more added threat in OU that really has no business existing here. But if it keeps Kingcheap and Ogerbusted at bay, it is good for the tier!
Finch I'm begging you to do immoral things and ban Sneasler without input from anyone else.
In all seriousness the survey should hopefully shed light on problems that most people either aren't aware of or are actively benefitting from on ladder.
Unrelated: A genuinely good bluff is running pivot Sneasler alongside Rillaboom to make the opponent think it's the unburden set and make suboptimal plays in the context of the pivot set, and while mind games are genuinely a part of pokemon, this one feels a bit extreme and is a part of the problem with Sneasler.
Did you have a problem when Kyurem-B was in OU as well? They're both shit legendaries that were dropped because they had a good place in Ubers, not only does Zamazenta check certain key mons in the tier, it's also kept in check by Pex, Dozo, Zapdos and Enam depending on the set, so yes, Zamazenta has a great place in OU
Like others have said many banned mons are broken with or without tera. TBH a lot of the pokemon you mentioned are broken regardless of tera. Cresselia I do not expect to see a ban on in most worlds and at the end of the day this is gen 9 OU. We will have breakers even if Manaphy goes, we have plenty of breakers right now and thats again if we even decide to cut manaphy. But yeah like you mentioned tera does favor breakers. We have always known since before Tera suspect #1 that keeping tera would result in the banning of a few mons that are only broken with tera. But right now? We haven't even banned much due to tera. I think the 'cascade' is much more continuously getting BRR-oken mons dropped on us through gen 9 and dlc. It may be likely that there is an endless cascade of mons banned due to tera but we haven't gotten there yet really and honestly none of us will know truly until we get there.
Side note: Stall can't pick a tera optimally each matchup if they only have one possible tera choice, a Tera Captain if you will :)
Your argument was that Zama is broken and only in the tier to keep “broken” mons in check, yet you are not explaining why it is broken, you didn’t even make any counterarguments to the checks I listed out.
It being a box legendary with 660 bst is irrelevant to its viability. We already had Hoopa-U and Kyu-B in OU regardless of their bst. Kyu-B only got banned cause it got DD and physical Ice STAB in Gen 8.
What is the problem with bringing a former Uber into the tier as long as it isn’t too broken? Look at Gen 5 Drill. After Sand Rush was banned, the idea of testing it was brought up when teams were struggling with Reuni + Jelli Spike Stacking teams since Drill is more difficult to spin on than Starmie or Tenta.
I want you to make an argument without having it come off as baseless.
Kyurem Black was banned as soon as it's flaws (sans ice typing) were solved: lack of reliable ice stab off of its physical attack. It also got DDance which certainly helped. The issue with Zamazenta is that it's both offensively threatening and a defensive pillar while still being really fucking fast, often times at once. Notably, Kyurem White has never been allowed in OU because it's always had STAB moves for its higher attacking stat, so I don't really think the Kyurem Black analogy really works.
TBH Zama is a TON better than Kyurem-B was in OU. Look at Zamas stats and the fact that its not a kinda-slow Ice type. I do think Zam being in the tier almost *requires* a great fighting answer on each team, and even at that rate yeah it is dependant on sets so you have to pray you're not facing the correct Zama set to beat your Zama 'answer'.
I find it a fallacious argument to appeal to the idea that "hundreds of lower tiered mons" would manage to shine in OU (hyperbolic or not) to advocate for Zamazenta's ban whilst arguing the latter as OP for checking several high tier Pokemon in the tier. Even if the Pokemon many are arguing to be unhealthy like Sneasler, Gholdengo, Iron Valiant, Manaphy, Ogerpon-W, Kingambit, were removed from the tier, a large majority of the remaining Pokemon are min-maxed to shit (with or without Tera) and don't give a lot of breathing room for Pokemon without either equally optimized stat spreads or a lot of useful role compression (see Tusk putting Treads out of any OU job despite the latter's arguably better typing for a Spinner role). More to the point, nothing was stopping those lower tier mons from being experimented with beyond people simply not wanting to try them in the Meta, whether they wouldn't work or they simply didn't catch anyone's eye.
Hell, if you're going to cite a 700 BST mon being dropped to "balance" broken OU mons, I can point to actual precedent of Kyurem-B, which spent 3 Generation viable but not dominating OU because it had multiple kit pieces that sandbagged its other useful traits into OU-reasnoable viability likes its movepool, mediocre typing, and awkward speed tier. BST means literally nothing as a citation, which I'm sure you're aware of, but it's the only point you managed to cite in two posts about the mon compared to yNot Mence whom you were following up on at least noting several constrictions they feel on teambuilding that Zamazenta causes them, whether that is unhealthy or a hurdle for how they play in particular. If anything Zamazenta's high BST is the thing holding its less-than-optimized kit together (and the form we kept is 660 BST Hero, the 700 BST Crowned form went for a myriad of other reasons alongside those stats).
More to the point, the tier's not obligated to allow any specific Pokemon to thrive. Zamazenta was dropped into the tier and then not deemed worthy of a re-ban because it wasn't found to be egregious in the tier it was in. If it's pushed for a ban then that needs to be proven in the Metagame where that advocation is being made, not the currently-hypothetical Meta where several things it checks have been banned. Why do any of the unspecified lower tier Pokemon who haven't demonstrated a known niche have more right to viability than Zamazenta, who has not demonstrated a net "Negative over Positive" effect on the game and has, if anything, demonstrated a useful place in team building?
Many people already agree that Kingambit and to a lesser extent Ogerpon-W should be evaluated and possibly banned, so I don't get what this implied ignorance/conspiracy is about Zamazenta being unbalanced but keeping them in check to make it and them "better" for the tier.
The analogy is ultimately referring to Kyurem-Black before those moves were added to its kit, which lasted for 3 Generations. KyuB's eventual ban doesn't really disprove the argument: that the BST alone doesn't define the Pokemon as banworthy and its kit needs to be evaluated Holistically, rather than pointing just to a number. KyuB became banworthy because the additional moves coupled with its other traits became a Sum that was too strong for OU, but obviously we have a number of Dragon Dance users with High BST and good STAB options that are not remotely problematic in that gen or this one, as it included other factors like higher bulk to offset its defensive typing and a useful ability in Teravolt, for some examples.
Took three paragraphs to actually address my point. Why are we dropping 700 bst mons from Ubers to “balance” the tier instead of cleaning out the trash? Some people may want to test Darkrai and other “less broken” Ubers but I find it preferable to just let the borderline mons mess around in Ubers while more lower tiered mons become viable in OU. Power creep directly causes a less diverse metagame.
KamenOH
formerly DynamaxBestMeta
Not addressing any other points, just sayin that gen 8 OU had little power creep come the end of the generation and it was Clefable/Toxapex HELL. Shit wasn't diverse at all, and any power creep by that time happened with pokemon from earlier gens being reintroduced. Still hate that fucking fairy type.
why does this read like a trump tweet
because ou is supposed to be the most permissive tier, which means the council has not only the right but the duty to drop ubers that might potentially be balanced due to meta shifts. of course, this shouldn't be done without a survey, but i can forgive them this misstep because they did suspect it afterwards (and it survived)
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While I do agree that the BST argument fucking sucks (regigigas for Ubers?!?!?!?!1), Zam is arguably too much for the tier and definitely contributes to the indifference many people have about Kingambit. Kyurem-B being good in OU in any gen where scizor was also good is a fucking miracle honestly. To refer to your Ddance point: Zygarde was also banned from Gen 8 OU. It has a much better typing, is unwallable by any steel type, and can also do stuff that isn't ddance. I don't thing DDance alone would have made Kyurem Black banworthy (but it definitely would have been suspect worthy) but Zamazenta is different. It actually has a defensive profile, can do things other than be offensive with its defense, and really only has one truly reliable check in the tier, with another broken mon in Iron Valiant. Don't read that as saying it's un-checkable, but Valiant is the only one that can deal with basically any set so it's easily the most reliable.
I changed my mind on Zamazenta. Its a good addition to the tier as one of few options that teams have for reliable, consistent speed control (the other being Dragapult). As a Pokemon that primarily matches up well into offense, and poorer into bulkier styles, Zama is an excellent tool against more "cheese" styles like Veil and Webs with its Boots set. The bulkier the style Zamazenta goes against, the worse it will be, to the point it feels near borderline useless vs Stall and its usefulness vs balance is also questionable, though its Boots set matches up well vs common checks like Moltres and Zapdos thanks to Stone Edge.
Iron Press can be cheap, but what I've consistently found is that Tera Ghost Pokemon or opposing Defensive boosting sweepers like a well played Bulk Up Great Tusk, ID Corviknight, ID / Curse Tera Garg and even ID Avalugg will consistently give Zama trouble. ID also has issues of no recovery outside of Leftovers and more limited coverage that's also easier to wall due to no attack investment. Boots Zamazenta feels significantly stronger, but vs common cores, it has to risk quite a few 50 / 50s, gets checked by Landorus-T, hates its own Close Combat stat drops ruining its defenses, and relying on contact moves to make progress vs the likes of Gholdengo and Dragapult, which well played cores like Zap + Ghold, Lando-T + Pult, etc. can take advantage of. It does get quite a bit stronger with Gliscor out of the picture, but that opens up the way for other checks like Landorus-T to take the stage, which does well even vs sets like ID because Intimidate Attack drops will weaken the power of Zama's coverage against its teammates.
Players talk about "HO brainrot" and the like plaguing the generation, but the fact is that Zamazenta itself is one of the best tools against most HOes. If we remove it, there would be little stopping HO teams from going more wild than they already are. On the cheapness scale, I'd argue its far lower than various other Pokemon currently & we should be targeting those guys before Zamazenta.
Iron Press can be cheap, but what I've consistently found is that Tera Ghost Pokemon or opposing Defensive boosting sweepers like a well played Bulk Up Great Tusk, ID Corviknight, ID / Curse Tera Garg and even ID Avalugg will consistently give Zama trouble. ID also has issues of no recovery outside of Leftovers and more limited coverage that's also easier to wall due to no attack investment. Boots Zamazenta feels significantly stronger, but vs common cores, it has to risk quite a few 50 / 50s, gets checked by Landorus-T, hates its own Close Combat stat drops ruining its defenses, and relying on contact moves to make progress vs the likes of Gholdengo and Dragapult, which well played cores like Zap + Ghold, Lando-T + Pult, etc. can take advantage of. It does get quite a bit stronger with Gliscor out of the picture, but that opens up the way for other checks like Landorus-T to take the stage, which does well even vs sets like ID because Intimidate Attack drops will weaken the power of Zama's coverage against its teammates.
Players talk about "HO brainrot" and the like plaguing the generation, but the fact is that Zamazenta itself is one of the best tools against most HOes. If we remove it, there would be little stopping HO teams from going more wild than they already are. On the cheapness scale, I'd argue its far lower than various other Pokemon currently & we should be targeting those guys before Zamazenta.
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