there still isn't a guarantee that megas will be in gen 10. i want them to be, it'd make sense for them to be, it'd be a monumentally stupid move for game freak to not include them, but this is game freak we're talking about, monumentally stupid moves are like breathing to them. hell, i still think it was a monumentally stupid move to take megas away in the first place and i'm pretty sure they did it just because they were too lazy to program two buttons at once
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v4 [Volcarona Banned]
- Thread starter TPP
- Start date
Man, I hope Dhelmise comes in Gen 10, gets a Mega Evolution, and to top it all off gets Last Respects.
I wonder why you want mega Dhelmise?
In other news, give Heatran a mega cowards.
mega buzzwole gonna go crazy in gen 10, trust me
(the design is that it's unchanged but it gets a stand that's just a second buzzwole)
(the design is that it's unchanged but it gets a stand that's just a second buzzwole)
They're not though. Only a small handful have proven such and they've been since banned. Only one existing paradox mon is at all contentious and everything else is perfectly fine in this tier.
Regardless of how one feels about the Paradox mons, Booster Energy doesn't need to be banned, in spite of all the crying from some posters about needing to ban that item to balance OU.
Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle never needed Booster Energy to begin with, and Booster Energy's really only contentious on Roaring Moon. The item is fairly tuned since it's only a one-time boost to a stat and costs an entire item slot.
For those saying only one paradox mon is contentious or BE is fine, I disagree. The bigger problem is not how one mon in particular may or may not be broken, or how BE may or may not in a vacuum be broken, but how BE completely warps speed tiers for the entire metagame. Priority is nearly mandatory for most team types due in part to BE's existence. Choice Scarf was also much easier to prep for than BE speed. You don't need to point to any particular mon to see how much BE has contributed to power creep. It's a lot more constraining on the teambuilder if you think about it.
As far as the actual brokenness of paradox mons, Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle were two of the most overpowered things we have ever seen. For current mons, both Gouging Fire and Roaring Moon should be gone from OU. I know a lot of folks disagree with one or both of those, but to claim only one paradox mon left is even contentious just isn't true. Moon was even already banned once before. So there are at least two that are contentious. Valiant also survived because of Sleep ban.
And to claim BE is fine because Moon was the only one of those four that BE speed is maybe problematic on misses the point that it makes them even worse. Iron Bundle and Flutter Mane also had crazy speed tiers in the mid 130s. Running BE speed on them would be much faster than even Iron Boulder. It's an outrageous speed tier that things with that power level simply shouldn't have.
Even if you want to argue that BE isn't what makes those mons broken or at least debatably so, it certainly doesn't help. We have several factors in gen 9 such as Tera that enhance the threat level of all the borderline threats. Since Tera isn't going anywhere, there is an argument to be made for BE being the thing to ax. Since Boulder is trash, Moon has the highest speed tier of remaining viable paradox mons. This adds to the problem, but it does not necesarrily go away if you ban Roaring Moon. The next fastest viable Paradox mon would take its place. Although, I do think Iron Valiant is a much healthier mon for the tier. And so maybe banning Roaring Moon could maybe help that problem a bit.
As far as the actual brokenness of paradox mons, Flutter Mane and Iron Bundle were two of the most overpowered things we have ever seen. For current mons, both Gouging Fire and Roaring Moon should be gone from OU. I know a lot of folks disagree with one or both of those, but to claim only one paradox mon left is even contentious just isn't true. Moon was even already banned once before. So there are at least two that are contentious. Valiant also survived because of Sleep ban.
And to claim BE is fine because Moon was the only one of those four that BE speed is maybe problematic on misses the point that it makes them even worse. Iron Bundle and Flutter Mane also had crazy speed tiers in the mid 130s. Running BE speed on them would be much faster than even Iron Boulder. It's an outrageous speed tier that things with that power level simply shouldn't have.
Even if you want to argue that BE isn't what makes those mons broken or at least debatably so, it certainly doesn't help. We have several factors in gen 9 such as Tera that enhance the threat level of all the borderline threats. Since Tera isn't going anywhere, there is an argument to be made for BE being the thing to ax. Since Boulder is trash, Moon has the highest speed tier of remaining viable paradox mons. This adds to the problem, but it does not necesarrily go away if you ban Roaring Moon. The next fastest viable Paradox mon would take its place. Although, I do think Iron Valiant is a much healthier mon for the tier. And so maybe banning Roaring Moon could maybe help that problem a bit.
I also want to clarify that I'm not "crying" about BE so much as pointing out an alternative to help balance the tier where we can't seem to agree on what to ban. It isn't my first or second choice to solve it this way. But what are you going to do if you can't ban any mons? Shouldn't you look at mechanics and limit power creep a bit?
Banning Booster Energy has even less support than an outright ban of Tera, which should say it all regarding the feasibility of banning it to save the metagame.
Only an extremely small portion of the playerbase even remotely considers it an issue with it mostly being those who don't main OU who bring up Booster Energy.
The best course of action is to ban more mons broken by Tera since we're past the point at which Tera can be banned with the appetite from the playerbase just not being there.
Maybe something like Volcarona or Roaring Moon will eventually emerge to be a serious problem and get the votes to be banned, but now is not that time.
I am not buying the “booster is warping speed tiers” argument. The only strong users of booster speed past 110 speed are Valiant, Moth, and sometimes Moon. (Boulder is dogshit and you cannot convince me otherwise)
The rest such as Tusk and Treads, are not warping the speed tiers. Also disregard the argument that Booster killed Scarf usage, because we still see some usage of Scarf Ghold, Enam, Meow, and Rai. Scarf is actually worse in slower metagames like Gen 9 because the 1.5x boost from Scarf doesn’t help when you’re thrown against 4 walls. The direction of SV OU is also slowing down a bit due to Balance rising.
Furthermore, Booster Energy is only one-time, so if they’re forced to switch out, they lose it. Teams have also gotten better in forcing Booster usage and punishint them with options like Red Card, phazers like Dtail Dnite, or just using checks to offensive threats like a normal person.
I also don’t buy Moon being broken. It’s certainly a strong pick, but one that can be accounted for with team synergies and its easy to chip down into range of Sucker, Shard, etc. Moon also finds it harder to sweep with cores like Corv + Weav or physical wall spam. Its not like you’re forced to run these structures, you run them because they’re strong cores that help with several matchups. I used to be a big ban Moon bandwagoner, but my opinion has changed drastically.
Arboliva is decent in lower tiers because of its ability and access to coverage and recovery
While I do agree with the rest of the post, seriously valiant is fast even without booster it has a 116 speed stat, moon is most definitely broken. People just aren't experimenting with it enough. For example, corv is completely walled by tera ghost sets. You can tack on sub if you are worried about gambit sucker punch if you decide to opt for tera ghost. Moon has so many more options that people are not exploring. It's such as great mon with just one set, imagine if you can't predict what set it could be. While predictablity isn't a defining trait of brokeness, it sure does help. And moon can easily take advantage of that.
OU council will leave it banned
Seriously, I've run into some really funky moon sets that have felt downright vile. That mon is much more than a Acrobatics set even if it is the most brainless variation, and I presume the longer it stays in the meta the more we'll see the variable underused ones raise up in response to a variety of things. FFS I saw a Tera Fairy set with Terablast and bulk with coverage moves flip a match to absurd lengths due to the sheer utility it can bring. And I don't like it!
As per usual, I think the removal of BE would do a lot towards making the Meta less violatile. A lot of these Paradox mons having absurd boosts right out the gate with Tera to supplement a turn to get boosts or necessary counter checks feels ridiculous a lot of the time. I think the necessary usage of having to use terrain or weather is fine, annoying sure but not impossible. BE alone just rubs me the wrong way, especially if your phasing option has to be well used for other purposes due to the 78 possible threats you might require it for.
Man, I'm so tired of lack of support type arguments. At some point, we need to ban something in this powercrept, threat saturated meta. I still have yet to see any pokemon, mechanic, or otherwise that the player base could agree on being banworthy since Arch.
You can say maybe something emerges all you want. But the longer time goes, the more skeptical I am when consenses seems no clearer by the day. If we as a community are going to cherry pick what we have an open mind about to this extent, how can we really expect to come to any conclusions about how to fix the meta?
As for your suggestion, the idea of looking at Moon and Volc makes a lot of sense to me under this context. But I don't think many other players see it that way. So it's a similar problem to Tera, BE, Wellspring, or whatever else people want to bring up. Fact is it's at least easier for the OU council to ban an item like BE, if they deem it necesarry, than it is for them to ban a pokemon through a suspect of wishy-washy players. Yes, Finch already said that won't happen unless something changes. But what happens if nothing changes for a long time?
I will give you that there is an argument to be made about Iron Valiant as the fastest BE mon maybe being a lot healthier for the meta. I really do think Valiant is a healthy mon for OU and has been the whole time, aside from that little mishap with sleep. That includes BE speed on it. So I sort of get what you are saying. It still warps speed tiers, though, even if you think it's maybe in a healthier way.
Yes, I 110% agree that Iron Boulder is trash. Boulder being underwhelming does not mean the speed tiers can't still be warped by its presence. Again, this argument isn't about what is broken. It's about what is fast.
BE's one time use is an amazing trade off to not be locked into moves. You basically get a free choice item without being locked in. Yes, teams have gotten better at forcing mons out. No, this doesn't mean there is no pressure on the builder from it. A lot of these mons are so offensive that they only need one opportunity. It is a far more punishing meta.
Moon's entire existence makes certain team building strats and playstyles unviable just from a matchup perspective. You can adapt to it just like you can with Wellspring, Kyurem, or any number of other borderline threats in this meta. But you cannot adapt to them all. Every adaptation restricts what you can do a bit. Some mons like Moon restrict you more than others.
It doesn't though. It's a strong speed option, but it's an overexaggeration to claim that it distorts things. In fact it's quite nice to have as emergency speed control in a tier where very few good scarfers exist, and no that wouldn't change if BE was banned. There simply aren't many this gen. BE's one time effect also means that being forced out once is enough to limit most abusers, and most abusers in the tier aren't that hard to chase out with a competent team if played well.
Neither Flutter nor Bundle ran it as the best item. It was just one of many and it certainly didn't break them by itself.
No there really isn't an argument. Moon is the sole contentious abuser, and at the moment it's still more containable than before. If you did ban Roaring Moon, nothing else comes close to it on a level of speed. Iron Valiant has more than enough counterplay that chasing it out and removing its boost is not difficult for a good team, while Iron Moth actually brings great positives to the tier and for bulkier teams, again, chasing it out isn't hard.
Greninja says it best honestly. People have grown plenty used to handling booster mons by now, and the super broken mons that could use it are already gone at this point.
Again, you're exaggerating how potent these mons are. Strong yes, but they aren't so strong that they can just claim games with one opportunity. If that was really the case, we would've kicked them out some time ago. It's not nearly that simple.
No, Moon does not invalidate playstyles. As someone whose played in the 1800s and fought some 1900s players, along with analyzing some SPL/OST replays, I can ensure you that Balance, HO, BO, Stall, and Weather are viable at a high level.
Despite Wogre’s dominance, Balance is looking to be really popular due to recent adaptations. I actually think this is the most creative period of SV OU we’ve seen in a while. Options like Moltres, G-Weez, and Volcanion have been explored more. Custap has been seeing usage. The top mons are so flexible that you could afford to tweak sets and EVs more easily. Amazing glues like Lando, Gambit, Pult, Tusk, Mola, and Zama free up slots for fringe options. Even G-Fire, the mon I’d argue should’ve been banned, doesn’t invalidate any playstyles. The only teams Moon invalidates are poorly built ones.
The only reason Moon is so good is because of the booster tera flying set with the only real unknown being taunt or earthquake. Anything else is just not as threatening. In your example, Moon already struggles with Gambit and tera ghost sub would get annihilated by it. The argument in general that a mon is broken because of some set versatility that it doesn't have or isn't even used doesn't make sense. Moon will never be on the level of something like Valiant where you can't predict what set it is.
Bet.
Yeah, I created 12 new roaring moon sets just to show how moon isn't linear. It has a lot of set versatility that people have not explored. Only two of these sets are gimmicky, the rest are something you could run if you wanted to surprise the opponent while still being great standalone.
The reason I brought up sub ghost moon, is that it destroys people who use corv as a counter to moon. And it can use e-quake to destroy gambit while still blanking sucker punch because sub protects it from gambit's sucker punch.
It is exactly because BE is superior that we have so few viable Choice Scarf mons. Something like Valiant could be a good scarfer, but nobody would ever run that over BE. This is classic cause and effect and you are using it to whitewash the core issue.
From the very quote you responded to with this:
"And to claim BE is fine because Moon was the only one of those four that BE speed is maybe problematic on misses the point that it makes them even worse."
"misses the point that it makes them even worse."
How many times in general do I need to say that the core BE argument about warping speed tiers isn't about what is specifically broken from it? It's a level of power creep that constrains the teambuilder. You are saying a bunch of things that are beside the main point. You can disagree with that point. But fast Paradox mons + BE absolutely does warp speed tiers a lot. And it's still a totally different dynamic than Choice Scarf.
People are used to all the threat saturation mons by now. At least on an individual level. On the whole, the problem everyone has said with this meta is there are too many threats to account for in the builder. The whole "you just aren't building properly to account for that" argument can technically apply to any of the borderline threats or power creep inducing mechanics. Not all at once. There are a number of mons or mechanics we can target to address this, none of which particularly have enough support from the community for a ban.
Moon invalidates Psychic Terrain. This was a borderline style anyways, but still. It invalidates certain balance structures that might otherwise be viable. It has a heavy grip on speed tiers. It can be a sweeper and a wallbreaker.
I also reject the idea that Moon only invalidates poorly built teams in a threat saturated meta where you cannot actually account for all the threats in the builder. No, Moon rejects poorly built teams AND certain ways of building that would be completely viable without it in the tier. Same for several of the borderline threats, honestly. Get good and adapt has a limit with threat saturation.
If you want the tier to adapt to Moon, you have to take from elsewhere. Diversity becomes lower. Someone just awhile ago talked about how they need to use like the same 3 balance structures or it doesn't work. Sure, there has been some innovation. But there are obviously limits to this while power creep and threat saturation are this high.
Roaring moon can’t beat everything with just one set. It wants all of Knock Off, Acrobatics, Brick Break, Earthquake, Taunt, Outrage, Tera Blast, etc. Its much like Iron Valiant where it has the capability of beating much of the metagame but is limited between choosing 4 moves. It has to choose what it can beat.
oh it doesnt have acrobatics, then Tusk beats it. Oh no eq?, then Gambit beats it, oh no taunt? then the metal birds beat it.
Heres are some mons in OU alone that straight up check or counter RM.
tera
balloon/tera
breaking swipe/tera
No acro or tera
No acro or tera
band
(if it teras to anything unresisted or has lots of chip)We even have fringe options like
or tera wisp/darts 
Its not uncommon to run at least two of these on a team naturally since they are all OU.
That's not the point. The point is to beat some of its checks/counters that normally beat it, while still being a great mon. Again, the tera ghost set destroys the metal birds since they can't do meaningful damage to it and Dragonite is much worse as well against it. The tera fairy roost set annihilates mons that try to chip moon and does well against multiple of these mons.Roaring moon can’t beat everything with just one set. It wants all of Knock Off, Acrobatics, Brick Break, Earthquake, Taunt, Outrage, Tera Blast, etc. Its much like Iron Valiant where it has the capability of beating much of the metagame but is limited between choosing 4 moves. It has to choose what it can beat.
oh it doesnt have acrobatics, then Tusk beats it. Oh no eq?, then Gambit beats it, oh no taunt? then the metal birds beat it.
Heres are some mons in OU alone that straight up check or counter RM.
tera
balloon/tera
breaking swipe/tera
No acro or tera
No acro or tera
band
We even have fringe options like
Its not uncommon to run at least two of these on a team naturally since they are all OU.
Sure, can it beat everything with just four moves? No. But can it reverse it's usual counterplay while still being great on its own merits? Yes. The point of the post was to show how moon isn't linear, it has multiple different sets it can use and people haven't experimented.
Bro this is a Tera metagame almost every mon can reverse the script on their counter play.
Yes, but again, the point of the post was to say "Moon has a lot of options in it's movepool, people aren't experimenting". The only moon set that is around is the acro tera flying set. I am saying, look beyond that, dig a little deeper into it's movepool. The roost set still does great against teams that try to chip it down, even without tera'ing. That's just a bonus that further makes it broken. But you also have to go "how viable is this set?" Sure, any mon could reverse the script, but it should independently work. That's the difference between a lure and an actually good set. The sub set still works wonders, even if corv is not on a team. You can still sub up and dd on the switch, giving you a free turn. Now something like gambit, which would normally beat it, can't. What can Garg do? Id up and pray.
Choice Specs Ampharos 1 v 1s with Tera Fairy and Dazzling Gleam.
It also beats
(Sometimes with no damage since it OHKOs and often baits out Dragon Pulse), , 
(Sometimes with no damage because every Val player is like, “I want to setup Swords Dance / Calm Mind), 
(Sometimes with no damage because Roaring Moon is like, “Who does this sheep think it is?! Dragon Dance time baby!”, and .
Tera Fairy
= OP
with Tera Fairy and Dazzling Gleam.It also beats
(Sometimes with no damage since it OHKOs and often baits out Dragon Pulse), , (Sometimes with no damage because every Val player is like, “I want to setup Swords Dance / Calm Mind), (Sometimes with no damage because Roaring Moon is like, “Who does this sheep think it is?! Dragon Dance time baby!”, and .Tera Fairy
= OPPeople did used to run scarf Valiant. But stopped because it's just not that good (way too prediction reliant and easy to steal momentum from, plus lacking power). That's just the core of it. There still exists some viable scarfers, and BE isn't hurting them. Not a lot, but there are a couple.
Different dynamic? Yes. Unhealthy or overly restricting? No. Booster being only short term speed control makes it a lot more reasonable than you're trying to make it out to be.
Outside moon, no other Booster mon is contentious and is perfectly reasonable to account for. They only would get even easier to handle when borderline stuff gets kicked out (and those BE mons aren't the borderline mons). There are things to work on, mons to look at, but you're trying to pin an issue with the metagame on the wrong part of it.
I don't find Moon the most pressing issue, but come on now. If we applied this kind of logic universally, we wouldn't be banning nearly as many things because technically a ton of stuff can check random things in a pinch. There's better arguments than this.