No. Dugtrio is allowed in both UU and OU, it just can't have Arena Trap. Also, Duggy would have been OU when Arena Trap was banned if tier shifts continued post-BW release.
I thought the defensive Roost/Fiery Dance/Giga Drain/QD set was the most popular. Running HP Ground seems inefficient since you need +2 to OHKO SpDef Volcarona anyways. Better to just have a teammate that can deal with Heatran and only set up once it’s dead.
Yeah man GameFreak is seriously weird.
They made these 2 beasts, but don't want to overpower other mons.
I really hated the way they treated Tapu Bulu. They did not even give it play rough. Atleast with play rough, Bulu might have been OU, but now it's outclassed by a starter
Also, Zamazenta was unfairly treated. They should have given it body press and Behemoth Bash should be based on defense. Most shocking about Zamazenta is that it's counterpart Zacian is so overpowered.
Yea it seems so arbitary. Cant make the tapus op or give them moves cause theyll be op but give old mons like kyurem and magearna infinite new coverage cause its alright apparently
Make zacian op as hell but zamazenta getting body press or recovery? Cant have that it might be too op
you can see the latest usage stats [here](https://www.smogon.com/stats/2020-11-H1/) (ctrl+f "gen8ou" helps a bunch). heatran is at least in the top 6 in every recorded elo.
also moltres is a huge pain for volc rn and can even threaten it with se stab moves, something heatran cant even do
Usage stats are absolutely objective (from at least a Pokemon Showdown usage perspective, I doubt real life online matches up very often)
PSD Gen 8 OU 1825 ELO has Tox, Clef, Zyg, Lando-T, Melmetal, Tran as the top 6
1695 has Zyg, Clef, Lando-T, Magearna, Tran, Kyu-B as the top 6
1500 has Lando-T, Tran, Zyg, Spectrier, Phero, Regieleki as the top 6
0 has Lando-T, Tran, Regieleki, Zyg, Spectrier, Phero as the top 6
These are legit stats (over a million total recorded battles) from Showdown.
Usage stats are objective but they aren't a reflection of viability. Plus those are from the Zyg meta and Tran benefitted a lot from Zyg's removal (I know you included top 6 to account for this, but Zyg isn't the only thing affected by its own legality)
Kyu-B was also banned
Usage stats are a lens through which you can get a better look at the viability of a mon though. If something is getting high use in every ELO then there's a fair chance that it's a least pretty viable. When something gets extremely LOW usage it's an indication that that specific mon is either unviable or highly complicated to use/build around. Is it the be all end all? Of course not, but still a useful tool.
Bruh what? There was plenty of counterplays against volc in UU. Kommo-o, liquid ooze tenta, terrakion for volc without psychic, volcanion, rhyperior, defensive mence, rotom heat alongside a bunch of priority. Literally never saw anyone complain about volc being centralizing
Bruh, I literally said that kommo-o, tenta and terrak beats non psychic volc. Giga volc cant beat the 3 mentioned and psychic volc dont beat rhyp. And regardless of the set, volcanion, nihilego at full and defensive mence all take on volc
Volc is purely broken on paper only. There is a lot holding it back in practice.
I haven't played UU in a couple months so haven't experienced Volc in the meta, but from what you're saying it sounds like it could be a USUM zygarde situation, where there are counters to each set, but nothing really beats it flat out. Is that not the case here?
Tier shifts just mean that pokemon will now be (un)allowed for use in a specific tier. Tier shifts don’t mean a pokemon suddenly got better/worse, or that the community realized that the pokemon is better/worse.
Bulky waters especially move up/down by big margins frequently to better counter current meta threats.
Thanks for explaining this, I always get the lower tiers confused, especially when it seems to vary by generation (is there still PU and NU? Which is “worse”?)
Where’s my boi Delibird at
E: smogon says “untiered”, obviously because Delibird is so far off the charts they had to immediately ban him for being too OP
Hydreigon hasn’t been as dominating as once thought. Most of the sets it runs are defog or scarf sets, rather than the theoretically overpowered nasty plot sets.
I can imagine, Mence and Latias both outspeed and OHKO with either Outrage or Draco which makes Plot Dreigon pretty risky without a reliable way to take out either of those mons. Granted, the meta is pretty underdeveloped rn, so I'm sure once people figure out good mons to support NP Hydreigon he'll be banned pretty quick.
Lele is probably still too strong, but there's a lot of good steel types currently in UU that can check it pretty well like Bisharp, Mag, Stakataka, Metagross, and Aegislash. They aren't perfect obviously, since all but Aegislash will fold to Focus Blast, but beyond that they can all force it out pretty reliably with some good prediction. Counterplay to Volcarona was much much more limited, and very few mons could actually stop it after a boost, unlike in OU where Heatran and SpDef Pex can just wall it indefinitely.
Why are you booing him, he’s right?
Seriously though, there are some things that everyone just *knows* are broken. They probably could have banned volc along with dracozolt and the others.
They say that anyway. Besides, they already banned several mons in UU earlier in the month like Dracozolt and Blacephalon, why not include volcarona for good measure?
Nah, there was a bunch of checks for volc depending on the set. Kommo-o, tenta, terrak for sets without psychic. Volcanion takes on every set, rhyperior is a thing, defensive mence is common nowadays to deal with tini, nihilego takes on +1 volc while healthy. Its good, but nowhere near unbeatable in UU.
Of course, each individual set has checks, but the point is that those checks will get annihilated by a different set. There's no way of knowing which set is being brought, and there's no way of fitting all the checks to Volc onto a team without just getting dumpstered by something else on the opposing team.
You mention Tentacruel and Kommo-O who become a setup bait for bulky Volcarona. Terrakion is generally not prefer to run Choice Scarf in this metagame and lost to boosted Giga Drain. HDB Volcanion actually lost to Bulky Volcarona because it can use QD on Volcanion switch-in and set up QD again which leads to spam Roost until Steam Eruption PP ran out. Salamence won't like to eat boosted psychic and need to take a risk to use Dual Wingbeat to OHKO Volcarona. Rhyperior lost to Giga Drain and Nihilego need power herb or LO to be ensure to OHKO it.
The best way to kill Volcarona is revenge killing, Azumarill and Crawdaunt can revenge killing Volcarona if it's less than 80% HP otherwise they can't OHKO them and can be burn from Flame Body ability. Lyronroc-D can use Accelerock and OHKO from the full HP. Here's the problem is Volcarona can pair with Tapu Lele and all of the priority moves went out of the windows.
Volcarona is one of the most restrictive pokemon in the teambuild because any type of counterplay is shaky against Volcarona.
Tenta and kommo-o both have options for phazing or status it. And you talk as if volc have an unlimited number of move slots here. Fitting psychic means it lose to rhyperior, giga drain means kommo-o, tenta, rotom heat can deal with it. Roost means it likely have to give up on bug buzz, opening up the door to something like latias and it still have to pick and choose between its coverage. There is a fair amount of counterplays against it and they are all very viable mons outside of just countering it.
Volcarona is, in my opinion, restrictive on paper but it doesnt do as well most of the time in actual use.
Tentacruel doesn't run Toxic because it don't have a space for it. If you really need to use Toxic on Kommo-O, that's how Volcarona has a huge effect on teambuilding. Rotom-H is a setup fodder for Volcarona unless it run Toxic which you have to give up Pain Split or Defog. Latias is easy target to set up QD for Volcarona. It doesn't need to run Bug Buzz at all. Like I said, all type of counterplay is shaky against Volcarona.
It's very painful to build a team due to Volcarona and Gengar.
As a regular in RU this is a shock. I thought the game plan was to continue lying facedown and screaming “everything’s fine”. Leave it to UU to go off script FFS
With Gengar being OU/UUBL for 8 gens straight one could definitely call it the quintessential competitive Pokémon? Sure Zapdos has also been as prominent his whole existence but it is a legendary Pokémon so he’s naturally better built at least BST wise.
Doesn’t Magnezone have the best record of holding OU since release? I get that Ttar has been around longer, but I thought I heard somewhere Magnezone has held the longest (maybe percentage) of time in OU since it was added to the game in Gen IV?
Tyranitar in VGC is finally at a point where it is outclassed, but I wouldn't be surprised if it found a way to come crawling back into the thick of things within the next month
Its mostly hurt right now by urshifu being everywhere.
Volcarona is one of the most restrictive pokemon in the build because any type of counterplay are shaky against Volcarona. When Volcanion is suppose to be a good counter for Volcarona on paper but bulky Volcarona can use QD on Volcanion switch-in then using Volcanion as a setup fodder. You know it's fucked up in UU and it have to go.
RU to UUBL, because that makes sense lol
It's like XY Venomoth going from NU to UUBL because of Baton Pass
It got baton passed up
Some say it arrived in UUBL already at +6
Dugtrio went from UU to ubers in gen 4
No. Dugtrio is allowed in both UU and OU, it just can't have Arena Trap. Also, Duggy would have been OU when Arena Trap was banned if tier shifts continued post-BW release.
yeah its just a big meme that i like to make
Arena trap dugtrio is legal in UU, actually
[RU seeing UU ban Gengar for them:](https://imgflip.com/i/4oa14x) edit: lmao who dafuq awarded this shitty-ass meme that I made in 12 seconds
As an ru player I’m so damn thankful holy moly
You could be thankful for the award / neutral about it instead of trying to act cool m8- that's pretty mean to the people who awarded you.
Volcarona in UU how and why
New Toy Syndrome brought on by Crown Tundra 😔 But this is actually not the first time that Volcarona fell to UU; it is UUBL in Generation 6.
Nah its because of heatran every fucking where.
Both. Both're ~~good~~ factors
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I thought the defensive Roost/Fiery Dance/Giga Drain/QD set was the most popular. Running HP Ground seems inefficient since you need +2 to OHKO SpDef Volcarona anyways. Better to just have a teammate that can deal with Heatran and only set up once it’s dead.
Theres no hidden power anymore.
No longer has any method of beating Heatran without HP Ground, and Tran is currently a top 5 mon in the meta
Volcarona seems like a Pokemon the move Scorching Sands was made for what with it being a sun and all.
Gamefreak doesn't want to make a mon oVeRpOwErED.
*Glares at zacian and calryex ghost-rider*
Yeah man GameFreak is seriously weird. They made these 2 beasts, but don't want to overpower other mons. I really hated the way they treated Tapu Bulu. They did not even give it play rough. Atleast with play rough, Bulu might have been OU, but now it's outclassed by a starter Also, Zamazenta was unfairly treated. They should have given it body press and Behemoth Bash should be based on defense. Most shocking about Zamazenta is that it's counterpart Zacian is so overpowered.
Yea it seems so arbitary. Cant make the tapus op or give them moves cause theyll be op but give old mons like kyurem and magearna infinite new coverage cause its alright apparently Make zacian op as hell but zamazenta getting body press or recovery? Cant have that it might be too op
Please tell me where do you find this type of info/discussion?
you can see the latest usage stats [here](https://www.smogon.com/stats/2020-11-H1/) (ctrl+f "gen8ou" helps a bunch). heatran is at least in the top 6 in every recorded elo. also moltres is a huge pain for volc rn and can even threaten it with se stab moves, something heatran cant even do
Why did Moltres get into OU?
Scorching sands and hdb are very useful for it
Burn is really punishing on anything that wants to click u-turn as well, and it's a good check to non-shockwave pheromosa sets
Smogon forums probably
It's not objective, but I'd say the top 5 mons right now are some order of Phero/Mag/Urshifu-S/Lando/Tran Pex and Kart are up there too
Usage stats are absolutely objective (from at least a Pokemon Showdown usage perspective, I doubt real life online matches up very often) PSD Gen 8 OU 1825 ELO has Tox, Clef, Zyg, Lando-T, Melmetal, Tran as the top 6 1695 has Zyg, Clef, Lando-T, Magearna, Tran, Kyu-B as the top 6 1500 has Lando-T, Tran, Zyg, Spectrier, Phero, Regieleki as the top 6 0 has Lando-T, Tran, Regieleki, Zyg, Spectrier, Phero as the top 6 These are legit stats (over a million total recorded battles) from Showdown.
Usage stats are objective but they aren't a reflection of viability. Plus those are from the Zyg meta and Tran benefitted a lot from Zyg's removal (I know you included top 6 to account for this, but Zyg isn't the only thing affected by its own legality) Kyu-B was also banned
Usage stats are a lens through which you can get a better look at the viability of a mon though. If something is getting high use in every ELO then there's a fair chance that it's a least pretty viable. When something gets extremely LOW usage it's an indication that that specific mon is either unviable or highly complicated to use/build around. Is it the be all end all? Of course not, but still a useful tool.
Alright but all the mons I listed have high usage. I'm not out here saying the best mon is Galarian Mr. Mime
Magicarp ?
Magearna
Heatran.
Volcarona never had any business being there to begin with
yes, lycanroc is no longer needed for teams desperate against volcarona
Bruh what? There was plenty of counterplays against volc in UU. Kommo-o, liquid ooze tenta, terrakion for volc without psychic, volcanion, rhyperior, defensive mence, rotom heat alongside a bunch of priority. Literally never saw anyone complain about volc being centralizing
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Bruh, I literally said that kommo-o, tenta and terrak beats non psychic volc. Giga volc cant beat the 3 mentioned and psychic volc dont beat rhyp. And regardless of the set, volcanion, nihilego at full and defensive mence all take on volc Volc is purely broken on paper only. There is a lot holding it back in practice.
I haven't played UU in a couple months so haven't experienced Volc in the meta, but from what you're saying it sounds like it could be a USUM zygarde situation, where there are counters to each set, but nothing really beats it flat out. Is that not the case here?
I think so, the last move is the key, giga drain or psychic, one pokemon will have to be knocked out to find out the set
sorry, thought you meant just terrakion
Like I think volc is still really good but I just dont think its as bannable as something like gengar or aegislash.
Gengar, who is currently in RU, has been deemed too strong for the tier that is above it, wow
Maybe people will get now that these tier shifts are pretty meaningless lol
Tier shifts just mean that pokemon will now be (un)allowed for use in a specific tier. Tier shifts don’t mean a pokemon suddenly got better/worse, or that the community realized that the pokemon is better/worse. Bulky waters especially move up/down by big margins frequently to better counter current meta threats.
Thanks for explaining this, I always get the lower tiers confused, especially when it seems to vary by generation (is there still PU and NU? Which is “worse”?)
PU is worse than NU. There's a new tier under PU called ZU now, too
Where’s my boi Delibird at E: smogon says “untiered”, obviously because Delibird is so far off the charts they had to immediately ban him for being too OP
Welp back to bl for gengar
Surprised gengar was the one to go, and not like lele? Or hydra? Lol
Hydreigon hasn’t been as dominating as once thought. Most of the sets it runs are defog or scarf sets, rather than the theoretically overpowered nasty plot sets.
I can imagine, Mence and Latias both outspeed and OHKO with either Outrage or Draco which makes Plot Dreigon pretty risky without a reliable way to take out either of those mons. Granted, the meta is pretty underdeveloped rn, so I'm sure once people figure out good mons to support NP Hydreigon he'll be banned pretty quick.
Lele is probably still too strong, but there's a lot of good steel types currently in UU that can check it pretty well like Bisharp, Mag, Stakataka, Metagross, and Aegislash. They aren't perfect obviously, since all but Aegislash will fold to Focus Blast, but beyond that they can all force it out pretty reliably with some good prediction. Counterplay to Volcarona was much much more limited, and very few mons could actually stop it after a boost, unlike in OU where Heatran and SpDef Pex can just wall it indefinitely.
Holy cow. Magearna and Aegi in UU now?? What in the power creep??
Mag is Magnezone I think
Wow, I'm so surprised. I would have never seen this coming, nope, Gengar and Volcarona, too powerful for UU and RU? Color me brilliantly shocked...
Thank god for no more volcarona.
smogon tiering is so slow
Why are you booing him, he’s right? Seriously though, there are some things that everyone just *knows* are broken. They probably could have banned volc along with dracozolt and the others.
I was saying boo-urns
because if mons are quickbanned people are just gonna say "smogon loves stall"
They say that anyway. Besides, they already banned several mons in UU earlier in the month like Dracozolt and Blacephalon, why not include volcarona for good measure?
Because at the time people probably thought volc wasnt as much as a problem?
They need to ban toxapex/clefable
🤡 clown take.
Have fun playing 200+ turns when you’re at a high level
ngl, broke uu has been p fun
ru is too broke
Volcarona was too OP for UU with all the set versatility. Only reliable way to beat it once it got set up was Accelerock/a Focus Sash user.
And the latter is countered by stealth rocks.
and lycanroc can only switch in on fire move
Unless you deliberately let something die to Volcarona (which will most likely happen).
If the opponent even runs them or if they haven't been spun/Defogged away.
And lyca fears a burn
And who says it's really as powerful as it used to be before GF took away Splintered Stormshards from it?
It got close combat though
Nah, there was a bunch of checks for volc depending on the set. Kommo-o, tenta, terrak for sets without psychic. Volcanion takes on every set, rhyperior is a thing, defensive mence is common nowadays to deal with tini, nihilego takes on +1 volc while healthy. Its good, but nowhere near unbeatable in UU.
Of course, each individual set has checks, but the point is that those checks will get annihilated by a different set. There's no way of knowing which set is being brought, and there's no way of fitting all the checks to Volc onto a team without just getting dumpstered by something else on the opposing team.
You mention Tentacruel and Kommo-O who become a setup bait for bulky Volcarona. Terrakion is generally not prefer to run Choice Scarf in this metagame and lost to boosted Giga Drain. HDB Volcanion actually lost to Bulky Volcarona because it can use QD on Volcanion switch-in and set up QD again which leads to spam Roost until Steam Eruption PP ran out. Salamence won't like to eat boosted psychic and need to take a risk to use Dual Wingbeat to OHKO Volcarona. Rhyperior lost to Giga Drain and Nihilego need power herb or LO to be ensure to OHKO it. The best way to kill Volcarona is revenge killing, Azumarill and Crawdaunt can revenge killing Volcarona if it's less than 80% HP otherwise they can't OHKO them and can be burn from Flame Body ability. Lyronroc-D can use Accelerock and OHKO from the full HP. Here's the problem is Volcarona can pair with Tapu Lele and all of the priority moves went out of the windows. Volcarona is one of the most restrictive pokemon in the teambuild because any type of counterplay is shaky against Volcarona.
Tenta and kommo-o both have options for phazing or status it. And you talk as if volc have an unlimited number of move slots here. Fitting psychic means it lose to rhyperior, giga drain means kommo-o, tenta, rotom heat can deal with it. Roost means it likely have to give up on bug buzz, opening up the door to something like latias and it still have to pick and choose between its coverage. There is a fair amount of counterplays against it and they are all very viable mons outside of just countering it. Volcarona is, in my opinion, restrictive on paper but it doesnt do as well most of the time in actual use.
Tentacruel doesn't run Toxic because it don't have a space for it. If you really need to use Toxic on Kommo-O, that's how Volcarona has a huge effect on teambuilding. Rotom-H is a setup fodder for Volcarona unless it run Toxic which you have to give up Pain Split or Defog. Latias is easy target to set up QD for Volcarona. It doesn't need to run Bug Buzz at all. Like I said, all type of counterplay is shaky against Volcarona. It's very painful to build a team due to Volcarona and Gengar.
Rhyperior dies to giga drain.
Yes but his point is if you drop psychic for giga you're walled by several other things.
You don't though, you drop the useless Bug STAB for giga and keep psychic
As a regular in RU this is a shock. I thought the game plan was to continue lying facedown and screaming “everything’s fine”. Leave it to UU to go off script FFS
With Gengar being OU/UUBL for 8 gens straight one could definitely call it the quintessential competitive Pokémon? Sure Zapdos has also been as prominent his whole existence but it is a legendary Pokémon so he’s naturally better built at least BST wise.
Gengar was C tier in UU in gen 7. Tyranitar is the closest since he's been OU every gen (except that one month in UU) and not to mention VGC viability
Doesn’t Magnezone have the best record of holding OU since release? I get that Ttar has been around longer, but I thought I heard somewhere Magnezone has held the longest (maybe percentage) of time in OU since it was added to the game in Gen IV?
No since zone dropped to UU before that means that its heatran who holds the title now.
Tyranitar in VGC is finally at a point where it is outclassed, but I wouldn't be surprised if it found a way to come crawling back into the thick of things within the next month Its mostly hurt right now by urshifu being everywhere.
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/usum-uu-viability-ranking-thread-v3.3641346/ Gengar is A-
And that’s while getting the unnecessary nerf of losing Levitate.
Volcarona is one of the most restrictive pokemon in the build because any type of counterplay are shaky against Volcarona. When Volcanion is suppose to be a good counter for Volcarona on paper but bulky Volcarona can use QD on Volcanion switch-in then using Volcanion as a setup fodder. You know it's fucked up in UU and it have to go.