Metagame Full Potential

I think I found a 'mon that's normally bad, but is hilariously anti-meta here:

Anti Meta (Claydol) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earthquake
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin / Stone Edge

Beats any A-Raichu without Knock Off. Has ridiculous coverage on most of the meta. Good check to ElectroSpam.
 
I think I found a 'mon that's normally bad, but is hilariously anti-meta here:

Anti Meta (Claydol) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Earthquake
- Psychic
- Ice Beam
- Rapid Spin / Stone Edge

Beats any A-Raichu without Knock Off. Has ridiculous coverage on most of the meta. Good check to ElectroSpam.
But can it survive Hawlucha? If not at this rate I'm thinking nothing can stop it.
 
Okay, I just want to take some time to talk about an amazing rain nuking glass cannon for this meta...Luvdisc.

Luvdisc.png

Luv Hurts (Luvdisc) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Agility
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Heart Stamp/Draining Kiss (if you're ballsy)

If you can get off one Agility boost, while in the rain, with full EVs and IVs, Luvdisc gets a Speed stat of 1288. While lacking any true coverage, as long as it stays alive this thing will demolish plenty of mons as long as they don't have anything like priority or anything named Volcanion. Some damage calculations:

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn in Rain: 292-346 (82.9 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 686-808 (212.3 - 250.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Serperior in Rain: 400-472 (137.4 - 162.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mantine: 195-230 (52.1 - 61.4%) -- 96.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Florges in Rain: 407-481 (113 - 133.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Volcanion basically shits on it:

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Volcanion: 92-109 (30.5 - 36.2%) -- 59.1% chance to 3HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Volcanion Steam Eruption vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Luvdisc in Rain: 315-371 (108.9 - 128.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

So if you can manage to keep Luvdisc alive for one turn to set up, you can potentially sweep entire teams with it. It finally has a use other than Heart Scale farming and I love it.
 
I think we should REALLY look at Tapu Koko/Raichu-Alola cores, as they are almost everywhere, Raichu-Alola access to Extreme Speed and the fact that it's not abusing a weather just makes it superior to almost every other type of "double-speed-field-effect".

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Raichu-Alola Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Floatzel: 357-421 (95.4 - 112.5%)

It also has access to Surf to break ground-types, and its main stab is boosted under Electric Rain, which can last as long as other weathers thanks to Terrain Extander.
IMO, just ban Swift Swim, Chlorophyl, Sand/Slush Rush, Surge Surfer and Unburden. They just make certain pokémon way too powerful.
 
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I agree that those abilities need to go as it overpowers a lot of Pokémon, but let's be patient towards their decision as they've taken at least Unburden in consideration, as Kris mentioned in his post.

Unburden is an issue but it is susceptible to priority moves, which everyone can abuse in this meta.
Not always the case. For example, take a look at Accelgor, who has Water Shuriken as its own priority (which also potentially breaks through Sturdy/Focus Sash) and Hawlucha, who doesn't even need to work around a Focus Sash as a STAB Sky Attack, in a meta so flooded with SpDef bulk mons, can effectively remove a threat away.

Speaking of which, it makes me wonder if the Unburden boost in Speed takes action as soon as it is triggered (thus making Sky Attack even more fearsome) or if it only happens after the turn is over.
 
I feel like people need to calm down with all the calls for quick bans and suspects. Admittedly I've only had like 5 games thus far but it's so early in the month that I think we can spend at least another day or two trying to actually adapt to and get used to the meta as opposed to bat off a list of things we need to cull.

Sure Electric Terrain, Rain and Sun cores are all very threatening, but I feel like checks and counters are kinda unexplored at this stage as everyone is just throwing together teams of whatever they can make the fastest or bulkiest+TR and trying to face stomp.

I mean maybe I'm uninformed and their immense power is just able to overwhelm everything, but I'm looking at it and thinking E-Terrain boosts Electric, Rain boosts Water, Sun boosts Fire and Chlorophyl sweepers use Grass. Dragons resist Electric, Water, Fire and Grass. Surely there is a Dragon type out there that can run AV to act as a blanket check to most of these top threats?
I mean Goodra is the obvious one, but then there's also Dragalge, Latias, Guzzlord, maybe Kommo-O. I even remember using SpD Kingdra in Gen 6 Inheritance to counter Primal weather abusers so maybe that has some merit here to counter some weather abusers.

Sure Trick Room is hard to deal with for some of you because everything is stupidly bulky and stupidly hard hitting plus all your focus on speed is put to waste. But maybe people will soon start remembering that Taunt and Phasing exist to prevent it from being set up. Or maybe balanced build will start having a couple slow mons of their own, one perhaps even being a counter TR setter.

I don't wish to state that any of my suggestions are at all viable or relevant as I haven't tested them, I'm just showing how we can use thought and logic to at least attempt to solve problems as opposed to complain about them. I'm not saying that any of these things definitely aren't broken or ban worthy. But the fact is that nothing is gonna be done about it for at least a bit while Araquanid is being suspected. So how about instead of everyone saying the same pointless thing about (possibly)broken mons and strategies, we start talking about how to counter and adapt to said things and get some semi intelligent discussion on this thread.
 
I think we should take a look at Assault Vest. Currently Av is basically gen 6 Soul Dew that you can put on any specially defensive mon and it will be better than any other item it's actually funny. The only drawback is you can't use status moves but that's a minimal drawback when you consider you basically have an AV, Choice Specs and Choice Band on at the same time, all while being able to switch up moves. When I built a team I can hardly justify NOT using AV on a specially defensive mon because it's that powerful. I personally think maybe an item clause should be implemented but at the same time AV is so good that I can argue for a ban.

Edit: I also got the reqs http://m.imgur.com/CqZTVOG

Currently sitting on ban araquanid
 
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RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
I think we should take a look at Assault Vest. Currently Av is basically gen 6 Soul Dew that you can put on any specially defensive mon and it will be better than any other item it's actually funny. The only drawback is you can't use status moves but that's a minimal drawback when you consider you basically have an AV, Choice Specs and Choice Band on at the same time, all while being able to switch up moves. When I built a team I can hardly justify NOT using AV on a specially defensive mon because it's that powerful. I personally think maybe an item clause should be implemented but at the same time AV is so good that I can argue for a ban.
While it is a Soul Dew, it is easily crippled by Knock Off and they are usually vulnerable to Physical moves because they usually invest heavily into Special Defense to have maximum damage output.

It might be a considerable suspect option, but I am currently having Ferrothorn with Thunder Wave, Knock Off, Giga Drain, and Stealth Rock as a lead, and it deals with both Agility users and Assault Vest users quite well.

Eviolite users such as Chansey, Porygon2, and Dusclops seem impossible to KO due to their absurb bulk with Eviolite but they are easily countered after they lose Eviolite. I think it will work the same way with Assault Vest.
 
While it is a Soul Dew, it is easily crippled by Knock Off and they are usually vulnerable to Physical moves because they usually invest heavily into Special Defense to have maximum damage output.
I think this is not a good argument why AV is completely fine. Any mon is crippled with knock off, and even though knock off counters soul dew, it was still banned anyways. Secondly, you don't even need to fully invest in SpDef to use assault vest. Hell, you can run offensive assault vest nihilego and it would not only be a tank, but a fast special attacker as well. Sure you might say "why would you run av when you can run choice scarf" but you should consider that assault vest lets you switch moves and make you very bulky. Also keep in mind in general special defense is higher than speed. Eg the fastest mon is electrode, with 150 base speed. There are plenty of defensive mons that exceeds that, like toxapex, tyranitar, regice, etc.

Also keep in mind most of these very fast mons are usually frail, so they usually run sash. And if they do run scarf, even with max hp they will die easily to any mon with assault vest and even a relatively low SpDef like ~120 or so.
 
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RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
I think this is not a good argument why AV is completely fine. Any mon is crippled with knock off, and even though knock off counters soul dew, it was still banned anyways. Secondly, you don't even need to fully invest in SpDef to use assault vest. Hell, you can run offensive assault vest nihilego and it would not only be a tank, but a fast special attacker as well. Sure you might say "why would you run choice scarf when you can run av" but you should consider that assault vest lets you switch moves and make you very bulky. Also keep in mind in general special defense is higher than speed. Eg the fastest mon is electrode, with 150 base speed. There are plenty of defensive mons that exceeds that, like toxapex, tyranitar, regice, etc.

Also keep in mind most of these very fast mons are usually frail, so they usually run sash. And if they do run scarf, even with max hp they will die easily to any mon with assault vest and even a relatively low SpDef like ~120 or so.
I agree with you entirely, just meant to say Knock Off doesn't completely cripple AV users bc usually they deal nuke damage first prior to that happens.
Also physical attackers are one of the ways to counter them, etc.
 
Finally made reqs. Proof of reqs: http://imgur.com/a/h8ae5

On the topic of Araquanid. The meta is going to look completely different by the time we finish banning everything (scarf, AV, swift swim/chlorophyll/sand rush/slush rush + appropriate weather at the very least all need to go), and i'm undecided. While it does hit incredibly hard, it's physical bulk simply isn't enough, and it loses to common threats, such as Tapu Koko and Alolan Raichu. As of now, it probably shouldn't be banned.

Okay, I just want to take some time to talk about an amazing rain nuking glass cannon for this meta...Luvdisc.

View attachment 78798

Luv Hurts (Luvdisc) @ Life Orb
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Agility
- Surf
- Ice Beam
- Heart Stamp/Draining Kiss (if you're ballsy)

If you can get off one Agility boost, while in the rain, with full EVs and IVs, Luvdisc gets a Speed stat of 1288. While lacking any true coverage, as long as it stays alive this thing will demolish plenty of mons as long as they don't have anything like priority or anything named Volcanion. Some damage calculations:

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn in Rain: 292-346 (82.9 - 98.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 686-808 (212.3 - 250.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Serperior in Rain: 400-472 (137.4 - 162.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mantine: 195-230 (52.1 - 61.4%) -- 96.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Florges in Rain: 407-481 (113 - 133.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Volcanion basically shits on it:

+4 252+ SpA Life Orb Luvdisc Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Volcanion: 92-109 (30.5 - 36.2%) -- 59.1% chance to 3HKO

252+ SpA Choice Specs Volcanion Steam Eruption vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Luvdisc in Rain: 315-371 (108.9 - 128.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

So if you can manage to keep Luvdisc alive for one turn to set up, you can potentially sweep entire teams with it. It finally has a use other than Heart Scale farming and I love it.
While this is cool, it has to setup first, and before then there is no reason to use it over Kingdra or Seismitoad. Also, I think Sash > Life orb, as it doesn't really need the extra power, but it needs to guarantee the setup to not be outclassed.

Unburden is an issue but it is susceptible to priority moves, which everyone can abuse in this meta.

Weather team can be countereplayed by sandstorm or others.
So you counterplay broken weather by running broken weather? How does that help?
 

RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
So you counterplay broken weather by running broken weather? How does that help?
To be more specific, common weather-changing supports such as Tyranitar or Torkoal can somewhat alleviate this issue, although I do not deny the fact that things become a nuke under the rain, such as Floatzel, Luvdisc, or Seismitoad.

Probably it is another considerable next suspect option after Araquanid.
 
To be more specific, common weather-changing supports such as Tyranitar or Torkoal can somewhat alleviate this issue, although I do not deny the fact that things become a nuke under the rain, such as Floatzel, Luvdisc, or Seismitoad.

Probably it is another considerable next suspect option after Araquanid.
The problem with TTar is that it doesn't stop sand teams, which are also broken.

There really shouldn't be suspecting. By the time we theoretically finished a weather suspect, the month would already be over.

Edit: In response to the above post, it changes both.
 
So how about instead of everyone saying the same pointless thing about (possibly)broken mons and strategies, we start talking about how to counter and adapt to said things and get some semi intelligent discussion on this thread.
So, how exactly do you plan on countering Floatzen in Rain? Using other broken stuff? Because if:

+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Waterfall vs. 248 HP / 232+ Def Slowbro-Mega in Rain: 140-165 (35.6 - 41.9%), also:
+2 252+ SpA Choice Specs Floatzel Surf vs. 248 HP / 28 SpD Slowbro-Mega in Rain: 386-455 (98.2 - 115.7%)

Water immunities or resists?
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Volcanion: 213-251 (58.5 - 68.9%)
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mantine: 449-529 (120 - 141.4%)
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lapras: 278-328 (59.9 - 70.6%)
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Guzzlord: 351-414 (54 - 63.6%)
+2 252+ Atk Choice Band Floatzel Waterfall vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Kommo-o in Rain: 183-216 (51.6 - 61%) (best Def on dragon that resists water) (also, people use Ice Beam)
Goodra just dies obviously.


You can deal with it by: Changing the weather (not like Tyranitar or Torkoal enjoy switching in tho), using lures like Water Absorb Araquanid or priority (mostly Raichu-Alola's Extreme Speed, or Fake-Out+Quick Attack, considering Floatzel is choice-locked, cause it has access to Aqua Jet too). (You could use Jellicent, but some people also run Crunch so be careful). If one thing that is so powerful that it requires so specific counterplay is not broken, I don't know what is. When I said these things should be banned, I never meant that it was impossible to beat them, because if that was the case, they should be quickbanned instantly. But something doesn't need to be unbeatable to be broken. Certainly Swift Swim and Surge Surfer are better than the other stuff I mentioned, but I don't see the reason for these things to stay in the tier, they are super fast, super powerful, and althought they can be dealt with, they're not healthy and have an obvious and unfair advantage, imo. I hope this satisfies your urge for "semi intelligent discussion". (Sorry if I missed something or if there are too many grammatical errors, english is not my first language).
 
I think most people are less scared of Scarf Excadrill then they are of Scarf Kindgra. Excadrill is a little faster, but it has worse moves in which to be Choice-locked, and its EQ is weaker than Kingdra's Hydro Pump, and maybe stronger than its Waterfall.

If you have something to take care of priority, Luvdisc actually could be a legitimate threat. Its movepool is a little barren but it hits so fucking hard that it's mostly inconsequential. It's pretty outclassed by Floatzel (18 base stat points faster), though, and possibly every other SSer due to much better coverage.

EDIT: And they both can combined overwhelm each other's checks. It's the same principle as weather wars and any HO team (throw shit at your opponent until they can't wall it), but okay.
 
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I came up with this really trolly set and a good team member in general:

Klefki @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Toxic
- Thunder Wave

Set up reflect and light screen + light clay. Thunder Wave is there to cripple the really fast mons (Ninjask, Accelgor, Electrode etc.) Foul Play is the trolly part and uses the opponents attack (which is probably enormous) and it should kill the ones that don't have huge defense. Foul Play doesn't work in this. I replaced it with Toxic to make sure those sweepers don't stay in too long.
 
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So how about instead of everyone saying the same pointless thing about (possibly)broken mons and strategies, we start talking about how to counter and adapt to said things and get some semi intelligent discussion on this thread.
Becasue there is no room for adaptations that doesn't require you to follow a specific pattern, thus hindering teambuilding. You have nothing against Swift Swim, Chrolophyll, Sand Rush or Slush Rush unless you bring out your own weather activator Pokemon, but depending on your team it might actually do more harm than good (example: bringing a sun setter when one of your Pokémon relies on Dry Skin to save others, or a sand team when you have a Focus Sash holder, so on); you can only stop Surge Surfer by bringing out another Pokemon that activates other terrains, but said weather can destroy your own strategy too if you rely on Ground moves or priority attacks; you can only stop an Unburden target with priority if it relies on Focus Sash activation (but if it has a priority attack as well, like Accelgor with Water Shuriken, you're left with either a dead team or having to rely on ExtremeSpeed), because if it's one that can make use of other tactics to activate their abilities, like Power Herb Sky Attack Hawlucha or King's Rock Fling Sceptile, unless you have something that is somehow able to check their movepools, that's game. While teambuilding efficiently so as to not fall prey to common threats can be defined as rule of thumb, the threats mentioned demand you to reserve one or more slots in your team to specifically deal with them (and hope they actually work and won't just get shut down by the-counters-of-the-counters), and such hinderance is considered one condition to support a suspect and ban.

Also, I do not mean to sound offensive, but while you suggested "semi intelligent discussion", you yourself admitted about your lack of knowledge regarding the current state of the meta yet continued to refer to the (many times mentioned at this point) abilities as though they could not be possibly that strong. I believe you understand where I'm getting at.

I came up with this really trolly set and a good team member in general:

Klefki @ Light Clay
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Toxic
- Thunder Wave

Set up reflect and light screen + light clay. Thunder Wave is there to cripple the really fast mons (Ninjask, Accelgor, Electrode etc.) Foul Play is the trolly part and uses the opponents attack (which is probably enormous) and it should kill the ones that don't have huge defense. Foul Play doesn't work in this. I replaced it with Toxic to make sure those sweepers don't stay in too long.
I would suggest Play Rough instead of Toxic. Keep in mind that, due to Gen 7 mechanics, Prankster does nothing against Dark Types and should work particularly well against AV Tyranitars where otherwise you would be forced to switch.
 
I would suggest Play Rough instead of Toxic. Keep in mind that, due to Gen 7 mechanics, Prankster does nothing against Dark Types and should work particularly well against AV Tyranitars where otherwise you would be forced to switch.
Yeah didn't think of that. Also Toxic doesn't work when you already have Thunder Wave.

I was looking through some Araquanid sets when I remember that Florges has higher Special Defense (though she doesn't have the OP Water Bubble ability) so I'm putting a set out here:

Florges @ Assault Vest
Ability: Flower Veil
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpD / 252 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Energy Ball
- Psychic
- Return
 
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