Wanted to discuss non-radar mons since I think everything that can be said about them, has been said. Not saying I have much new to say regardless, but still. I'll start by hyping up some mons I've found handy.
Initially I tried for games on end with defensive sets, lefties and AV and whatnot. I remained extremely unimpressed. Though after watching a recent Blunder live and seeing booster offensive look valuable in literally every MU, I tried it out on a few teams and it definitely is a vast improvement. Its no breaker but vs offence its good at threatening shit around and taking some kills / 2hkoing lower end defensive mons. Good at fast knocks, spin is as valuable as it can be, and it can still soft-check fairies and guys like ghold. Its not super capable of switching into a lot, but its not easy to threaten out with an ohko. Its also really nice vs glowking cores. Good mon and its viability opens up more team styles so we aren't limited to 100% gtusk usage. Be sure not to greedily sack it after bringing it in under the pretence of "and I burned my booster energy its useless now". It sticking around gives good value, trust.
Regardless of no defog this mon is extremely swag. Offensive 3a roost is nice for keeping momentum and it hits damn hard. Not much in this meta really encourages defensive zapdos (except the soon to be banned dogs but w/e), and its not exactly great w/o defog or toxic so max SpA Speed timid is the ideal. Can be good with like 100 defensive tera's, or you can just tera flying and 2hko stuff like landorus or ursaluna. Speed tier is nice as well, outpacing tusk, urshifu (very important), you can speed tie volcarona and tera-hurricane and ohko through the +1 boost. Tera Blast fairy is also a fun one, lets you snipe hydreigon, specs pult as it dracos, dd moon, dd bax, and hit ting lu harder. Give it a try, but be weary of how bad it can abused by Ting-Lu. U-turn zap meta? (for legal reasons this is a joke, just switch to your tusk)
Initially started using it to avoid crying and shitting my pants when Urshifu would come out, but beyond that its provided good utility. There is no real spore absorbers (except this guy himself) especially now that everyones premier steel seems to be Heatran instead of Gholdengo. Checks Lando and Tusk well enough so that you don't need to cripple your torn/zap/enam into being a defensive flying. Toxic variants can be nice into Dragonite, grass knot 2hkos Ursaluna, covert cloak sets beat all Garganacls, you can do stomping tantrum for the heatran punish. Valiant struggles to make progress on you, as does sneasler. You absorb tspikes, you tackle rain, you can take on enamorus. Obviously its ability to do ALL of this in a game isn't realistic but it has great functionality on most teams and I implore you guys to use it more on BO type teams. Truly phenomenal mon.
This thing isn't too outstanding right now, but I wanted to bring up how good I think it will be post bans when meta settles. As of right now, specs in rain remains impressive and its ability to shut down opposing m-basc rains, bothering urshifu (if its +2 you can do some fun tera ghost/fairy stuff to shut it down), and with steam + taunt it can really pressure chilly-glowking teams by forcing a burn + taunting the switch out. Going forward as balance/BO becomes more viable I can only see taunt 3 attacks becoming a progressively better and more annoying breaker. Keep a watchful eye on this mon as I think it will have a nice place in OU.
And next for some mons I either think aren't as good as people are saying OR fell off p hard since home dropped. I DONT THINK ANY OF THESE ARE BAD. Just far from perfect.
Hot topic in the meta right now, people either think this mon is the greatest creation from God or that it is mediocre. I lean towards the latter side. No aspect of this mon is impressive. Defensively it cannot switch into even resists like Heatran or Gholdengo more than once, offensively it lacks power unless you use choice band AND click the right move (lest you Ceaseless into tusk and do 0.0% as they spin the epic progress making spike you put up), and then still suffer due to your speed tier. Scarf has the same predictability problem but now it doesn't do any damage and even from a speed control perspective, it under-speeding mons like booster speed/scarf tusk, dd bax, and volcarona makes it feel very ass (all of these reasons are why started feeling a distaste for scarf gholdengo pre-home). SD sets have the speed issue and are so weak they can't even force out mons like tusk unless you want to run HYDRO PUMP. TL:DR too slow too frail too weak and carried by a "broken" move.
I do think SD sucker punch sets are the best of the options provided. Can semi-speed control without using shit scarf and has some level of power. Still not my favourite mon, but it is what it is.
This pokemon is definitely still good but hard to justify as your go-to steel over say Heatran, and it struggles to KO a lot more now, like lando, heatran, glowking pivoting it, stuff like Volcarona and Gmolt abusing it as fodder, and all while also being outpaced by upwards of 22 important mons, most of which can OHKO it with something. I do have high hopes for stuff like physdef nasty plot though, as it checks a lot like Zama (whichever stays in OU), Sneasler, Valiant, and with shuca/balloon it can also solidly take on tusk, bax, dnite, and luna. Cool mon, but definitely not ideal until we begin exploring it further. Specs could be something cool as well, other offensive sets on ghost-spams with dragapult maybe.
Having to run EP for heatran feels like immense shit, and even then if its like tera grass you're just cooked anyways. Also 99.9% of volcarona's being tera water usually means Skeledirge ends up having to tera to beat it. Enam is a new fairy tool that just breaks past this guy. A lot isn't going dirge's way. He still checks a bunch of annoying ass mons but it is definitely far more abusable than before. Pain.
Initially I tried for games on end with defensive sets, lefties and AV and whatnot. I remained extremely unimpressed. Though after watching a recent Blunder live and seeing booster offensive look valuable in literally every MU, I tried it out on a few teams and it definitely is a vast improvement. Its no breaker but vs offence its good at threatening shit around and taking some kills / 2hkoing lower end defensive mons. Good at fast knocks, spin is as valuable as it can be, and it can still soft-check fairies and guys like ghold. Its not super capable of switching into a lot, but its not easy to threaten out with an ohko. Its also really nice vs glowking cores. Good mon and its viability opens up more team styles so we aren't limited to 100% gtusk usage. Be sure not to greedily sack it after bringing it in under the pretence of "and I burned my booster energy its useless now". It sticking around gives good value, trust.Regardless of no defog this mon is extremely swag. Offensive 3a roost is nice for keeping momentum and it hits damn hard. Not much in this meta really encourages defensive zapdos (except the soon to be banned dogs but w/e), and its not exactly great w/o defog or toxic so max SpA Speed timid is the ideal. Can be good with like 100 defensive tera's, or you can just tera flying and 2hko stuff like landorus or ursaluna. Speed tier is nice as well, outpacing tusk, urshifu (very important), you can speed tie volcarona and tera-hurricane and ohko through the +1 boost. Tera Blast fairy is also a fun one, lets you snipe hydreigon, specs pult as it dracos, dd moon, dd bax, and hit ting lu harder. Give it a try, but be weary of how bad it can abused by Ting-Lu. U-turn zap meta? (for legal reasons this is a joke, just switch to your tusk)Initially started using it to avoid crying and shitting my pants when Urshifu would come out, but beyond that its provided good utility. There is no real spore absorbers (except this guy himself) especially now that everyones premier steel seems to be Heatran instead of Gholdengo. Checks Lando and Tusk well enough so that you don't need to cripple your torn/zap/enam into being a defensive flying. Toxic variants can be nice into Dragonite, grass knot 2hkos Ursaluna, covert cloak sets beat all Garganacls, you can do stomping tantrum for the heatran punish. Valiant struggles to make progress on you, as does sneasler. You absorb tspikes, you tackle rain, you can take on enamorus. Obviously its ability to do ALL of this in a game isn't realistic but it has great functionality on most teams and I implore you guys to use it more on BO type teams. Truly phenomenal mon.This thing isn't too outstanding right now, but I wanted to bring up how good I think it will be post bans when meta settles. As of right now, specs in rain remains impressive and its ability to shut down opposing m-basc rains, bothering urshifu (if its +2 you can do some fun tera ghost/fairy stuff to shut it down), and with steam + taunt it can really pressure chilly-glowking teams by forcing a burn + taunting the switch out. Going forward as balance/BO becomes more viable I can only see taunt 3 attacks becoming a progressively better and more annoying breaker. Keep a watchful eye on this mon as I think it will have a nice place in OU.And next for some mons I either think aren't as good as people are saying OR fell off p hard since home dropped. I DONT THINK ANY OF THESE ARE BAD. Just far from perfect.
Hot topic in the meta right now, people either think this mon is the greatest creation from God or that it is mediocre. I lean towards the latter side. No aspect of this mon is impressive. Defensively it cannot switch into even resists like Heatran or Gholdengo more than once, offensively it lacks power unless you use choice band AND click the right move (lest you Ceaseless into tusk and do 0.0% as they spin the epic progress making spike you put up), and then still suffer due to your speed tier. Scarf has the same predictability problem but now it doesn't do any damage and even from a speed control perspective, it under-speeding mons like booster speed/scarf tusk, dd bax, and volcarona makes it feel very ass (all of these reasons are why started feeling a distaste for scarf gholdengo pre-home). SD sets have the speed issue and are so weak they can't even force out mons like tusk unless you want to run HYDRO PUMP. TL:DR too slow too frail too weak and carried by a "broken" move.I do think SD sucker punch sets are the best of the options provided. Can semi-speed control without using shit scarf and has some level of power. Still not my favourite mon, but it is what it is.
This pokemon is definitely still good but hard to justify as your go-to steel over say Heatran, and it struggles to KO a lot more now, like lando, heatran, glowking pivoting it, stuff like Volcarona and Gmolt abusing it as fodder, and all while also being outpaced by upwards of 22 important mons, most of which can OHKO it with something. I do have high hopes for stuff like physdef nasty plot though, as it checks a lot like Zama (whichever stays in OU), Sneasler, Valiant, and with shuca/balloon it can also solidly take on tusk, bax, dnite, and luna. Cool mon, but definitely not ideal until we begin exploring it further. Specs could be something cool as well, other offensive sets on ghost-spams with dragapult maybe.Having to run EP for heatran feels like immense shit, and even then if its like tera grass you're just cooked anyways. Also 99.9% of volcarona's being tera water usually means Skeledirge ends up having to tera to beat it. Enam is a new fairy tool that just breaks past this guy. A lot isn't going dirge's way. He still checks a bunch of annoying ass mons but it is definitely far more abusable than before. Pain.
