BH Balanced Hackmons Suspects and Bans Thread

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v-create is the only reason groudon can run so many uniquely viable sets which arent commonly useful at all on other pokemon, for example choice scarf.


The common set which stakeout groudon is said to run
-v-create
-fleur cannon
-ice hammer
-filler

is comparable to a kyogre which runs
-oceanic operetta
-fleur cannon
-seed flare
-filler

meanwhile, a groudon that can only run sacred fire and precipice blades as its strongest stab moves does not force nearly as much switches as a rayquaza (which potentially has boomburst) with
-dragon ascent
-draco meteor
-sacred fire
-filler(maybe something steel or poison for fairies)
and if the opponent switches, stakeout accomplishes all the same thing:
252+ Atk Rayquaza-Mega Sacred Fire vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Registeel: 182-216 (50 - 59.3%)
252 SpA Rayquaza-Mega Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Zygarde-Complete: 444-524 (69.8 - 82.3%)
252+ Atk Rayquaza-Mega Dragon Ascent vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Audino-Mega: 169-199 (41.2 - 48.5%)
all of these without any item and coming off a >100 speed tier.



On pokemon other than groudon, v-create potentially acts like just any other cfz on any pokemon that needs steel coverage, even on something as trivial as mewtwo:
252 Atk Mewtwo-Mega-Y V-create vs. 248 HP / 252 Def Solgaleo: 328-388 (68.7 - 81.3%)
When cfzs were around, people were using SSSSS for the same purpose. In that case, if you predict the move and scout with a ghost resist like you do with any other zmove in any other tier, and if you succeed your solgaleo becomes a full counter to it that can switch in as many times as you want. However, with V-create even with perfect prediction you need to absorb 3 hits to even let the mewtwo's speed drop below that of solgaleo, not to mention the opponent can simply switch out after luring your fire counter in.
252+ SpA Mewtwo-Mega-Y Psystrike vs. 248 HP / 252 Def Solgaleo in Psychic Terrain: 69-81 (14.4 - 16.9%)
252 Atk Mewtwo-Mega-Y V-create vs. 248 HP / 252 Def Solgaleo: 328-388 (68.7 - 81.3%)
which has a nonnegligible chance to ko after rocks even without any boost. the next best things are blue flare and precipice blades, which doesnt even do 50%.

the alleged drawbacks of v-create are that 1. it is blocked by protect 2. it drops speed.
compared with cfzs,
1. only matters when the user is low on hp, and even then a protected cfz also will in most instances fail to ko and stop your sweep anyway. In any other case, the user just switches out and retains the ability to use a base 100 inferno overdrive.
2. only matters, if the move is used in a cfz way, when the user is in a speed tier within +1 of the opponents checks. This is to say if you use it on shell smash or even unburden it usually doesnt matter at all. This also makes it the prime move for contrary users to boost speed.
 

lepton

im fragile, but not that fragile
is a Tiering Contributor
one move I think we should be looking at is shell smash. Any mon with decently high offenses can run a pretty effective dazzlesmash set. while no EV limit makes it easier to check, with the right coverage it can beat any team. I'm currently running a dazzlesmash diancie with moonblast/blue flare/steam eruption and not many teams have an answer. I don't think dazzling is the problem because shell smash is seen outside of dazzle sets, but dazzling isn't.

TL; DR: shell smash has almost no counters, is good in almost any mon

I don't have anything to say about stakeout that hasn't been said already - it's busted

will post my thoughts on spore/sleep later
 
Balanced Hackmons is supposed to be a tier where almost everything is allowed so you can use incredibly powerful threatening stuff, so long as it isn't so broken it takes the creativity out of teambuilding e.g. Huge Power, OHKO moves, Wonder Guard and Chatter.

A banworthy move would be:
  • An attack with either no counters, or unreasonably niche or unusable ones e.g. OHKO Moves
  • A move (attack or status) that removes the emphasis on skill, planning and/or preparation and moves the outcome to forces not in control of the player e.g. Chatter
They would be effective without needing real synergy with the Pokemon itself, its ability, the rest of its moveset, item or any in-game condition
Shell Smash does not fit any of this, and it should not be banned.

no counters, or unreasonably niche or unusable ones
No. Depending on the rest of the set, Fakespeed, Prankster Haze, Prankster Dbond, Unaware, Imposter, Shedinja and Fur Coat (or just a strong wall) with Spectral Thief or Whirlwind can all shut down Shell Smash sweepers. Like imposter and Shedinja, it's become important to teambuilding to have a way to break past stat boost spam (between this, poison heal regi/xern/pogre and contrary), so while it does require that your team provides a way of stopping it, this solution is not unreasonably niche or unusable.

A move (attack or status) that removes the emphasis on skill, planning and/or preparation
Hell no!

-Shell Smash weakens your bulk and gives your opponent a free attack or switch so you have to be tactical not just on what set you use it on, but also when and if you can use it.
-even after that you need to find clever ways to dodge around Imposter, Prankster, priority users and so on as mentioned above.
-you're down a moveslot, so you need to be careful in choosing your remaining moves to actually kill things while still being able to dodge some of your checks. For example, the Yveltal set E4 Flint posted in page one of the metagame thread (isn't bad but) needed Imprison to beat Chansey, so the coverage chosen was Sunsteel + Power Trip. Both of these are resisted by Mega Gyarados, neither are priority so you're weak against registeel and priority users. Unless you get to shell smash twice neither will do any better than 4HKOing FC Zygarde-C and neither will OHKO FC Chansey. It does do well against Giratina and Audino, though, among other things.
-You can't run choice items with it, it won't work. Same goes for Contrary and AV, less importantly.

forces not in control of the player e.g. Chatter
there isn't really any RNG element to Shell Smash.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
No. Depending on the rest of the set, Fakespeed, Prankster Haze, Prankster Dbond, Unaware, Imposter, Shedinja and Fur Coat (or just a strong wall) with Spectral Thief or Whirlwind can all shut down Shell Smash sweepers.
- fakespeed can't stop dazzling
- does prankster haze work on dark types?
- prankster dbond is not a counter because the user dies
- unaware and fur coat can't beat mold breaker
- imposter is a check
- shedinja is beaten by moongeist beam and sunsteel strike

Edit: prankster haze works, so we have ONLY A SINGLE WAY to counter shell smash
 
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RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
Edit: prankster haze works, so we have ONLY A SINGLE WAY to counter shell smash
This is what I hate the most about Shell Smash. Because Prankster Haze is the only way to stop APS (Anti-Priority-Setup) user, the wall has to stay in until the opponent decides to stop spamming Shell Smash and switch out. If one decides to use U-turn on the turn when the opponent decides to setup again, someone has to die next turn. In other words, the passivity towards Shell Smash user makes Prankster Haze a way to stop the sweep, not the way that prevents the potential sweep.

Shell Smash was near useless move with Prankster Topsy-Turvy roaming around; the only way for the sweeper to keep themselves from being shut down is running Magic Bounce, which significantly compromises the power by giving up an ability slot. But this generation, not only APS users do not worry about all Prankster moves except Haze, but they also negate -ate users which are the most common and reliable revenge killers outsides Psychic Terrain.

People say Spectral Thief is the way to stop the sweeper. But if the sweeper has Shell-Smashed beforehand, the wall will be severely dented (meaning it won't be ready to take on another attacker unless it decides to screw team's momentum and stay & recover) or faint depending on sweeper's movepool.

I am not saying Shell Smash has uncompetitive aspect (unlike cough cough Spore), but I just wanted to point out my thoughts; Shell Smash is slappable on nearly every relevant offensive 'mons, limits walls & supports' movepools by forcing them to carry Spectral Thief, and their rampage can't be stopped besides taking them down or temporarily stopping it by sending Prankster user with Haze, which is very passive as I mentioned.
 

lepton

im fragile, but not that fragile
is a Tiering Contributor
I am not saying Shell Smash has uncompetitive aspect (unlike cough cough Spore), but I just wanted to point out my thoughts; Shell Smash is slappable on nearly every relevant offensive 'mons, limits walls & supports' movepools by forcing them to carry Spectral Thief, and their rampage can't be stopped besides taking them down or temporarily stopping it by sending Prankster user with Haze, which is very passive as I mentioned.
This is the main point I was trying to make. While it's not uncompetitive, smash severely limits teambuilding by pretty much forcing every team to run prankster haze, which is often suboptimal, and run spectral on every wall.

Spore/sleep, meanwhile, is both uncompetitive and overcentralizing. It's uncompetitive because sleep rolls often decide games. It's overcentralizing because basically every mon that has a free item slot HAS to run safety goggles, an item that really only prevents spore.
I think the solution to this would be to either ban spore or add a sleep clause
 
I would argue that Haze is entirely sufficient to deal with APS as long as it is paired with back-ups (which you should have in any case). Haze in general is better than any-other sort of targeted prankster anti-setup as the danger of darks always exist (even with AP measures banned) and the extra PP haze has helps with longer games where you need to stall out a few moves. Once again, I'll argue that having some sort of anti-setup on your walls is not a bad thing as giving free-setup to anything is terrible.
 
Man some of theses points are getting tiring. You guys need to stop assuming that any and all shell smash mon will run every ability and move at the same time to get passed every single counterplay in one single set. Role compression is key in BH and as such it's perfectly reasonable to assume a team has several checks to shell smash and ways to prevent it from happening to weave around the various options it can pack.

Dazzling + sash makes mons pretty weak, no boosting item and no boosting ability. Remember if you can't 2hko a mon you can't OHKO it at +2 either and if there's a mon out there that can 2HKO the entire meta without the need of item or ability, than that mon should be banned. But stop acting like a mon at +2 is the end of all days and is just gonna rampage through 6 mons with ease using it's infinite coverage option.

Prankster dbond might be a last resort kind of solution, but it works and it works damn well, dyou think a player will be satisfied with a 1-1 trade that often isn't in his favour? Cause if he is that all good for you, you just got rid of the biggest threat on the opponent's team.

Unaware and fur coat can't beat mold breaker is a vast exaggeration, mold breaker what exactly? Dyou know how many different mons can run unaware / fur coat and how hard it is for an ss mon to beat all of them? Most of them can barely beat zygarde, yet alone every available option.

Imposter is a check, yes, but it's a pretty damn fantastic check, how many shell smash users can actually comfortably beat chansey? Assuming you managed to get exactly 0 damage as you clicked one of the riskiest move in the game in a meta filled with uturn and spectral thief, you're at best tie reliant. But the most likely possibility is that you just lose to chansey bar some few plate mons that ppl know and should account for individually.

Forget sunsteel strike because it's a pretty shit move anyway and nobody runs it, almost all unaware users either resist, are immune to or can easily take a non stab moongeist beam. Saying it beats them no exception is nonsense.

Prankster haze is pretty damn fucking close to "optimal". It removes the boost before the opp attacks and so without considering ability, sub, typing, terrain or w/e the fuck you want and it does so with no drawback. What the fuck do you actually mean "it's sub optimal"? You expected priority spectral thief or some shit? "BuT t0pSyTurvY iS B3tTeR" maybe it was last gen but considering it doesn't actually deal with the problem there's is literally no better option rn, and it's not some water bubble type of shit, you're using one of the best abilities in the game to deal with any, ANY kind of setup, on any mon. It's sub optimal is a pretty fucking dumb way to try and make your argument less stupid and vapid than it actually is.

Oh no you're forcing team to run spectral thief IT'S LIMITING TEAM BUILDING BY FORCING (spoilers, it's actually not, there are other moves with different utility that achieve the same / similar result) TEAMS TO RUN ARGUABLY THE BEST UTILITY MOVE IN THE ENTIRE GAME, SOMEONE PLEASE BAN THIS. Give me a fucking break.
Shell smash doesn't appear out of nowhere, almost every single time someone used shell smash on me I knew damn well what mon was gonna use, guess what, if you have a mon that isn't straight up OHKOd by it, they can't fucking do it, as simple as that.

If you're hazing away like a moron with nothing else to do than watch your opp shell smash endlessly, than consider running a damaging move, fuck why not even try spectral thief? That's an idea that just might work.

There's a tendency with pro ban shell smash arguments to ignore every single limiting aspect like they didn't exist or weren't relevant (proven by ironedsandwich's post being ignored). You're literally wasting a turn to make yourself more vulnerable, and assuming your opp switched into some sort of a counter, you're not going to OHKO it.

Please argue objectively instead of glorifying your own arguments, that just makes the conversation go round in circles.

Ban contrary
 

cityscapes

Take care of yourself.
is a Tiering Contributoris a Community Contributor Alumnus
Man some of theses points are getting tiring. You guys need to stop assuming that any and all shell smash mon will run every ability and move at the same time to get passed every single counterplay in one single set. Role compression is key in BH and as such it's perfectly reasonable to assume a team has several checks to shell smash and ways to prevent it from happening to weave around the various options it can pack.

Dazzling + sash makes mons pretty weak, no boosting item and no boosting ability. Remember if you can't 2hko a mon you can't OHKO it at +2 either and if there's a mon out there that can 2HKO the entire meta without the need of item or ability, than that mon should be banned. But stop acting like a mon at +2 is the end of all days and is just gonna rampage through 6 mons with ease using it's infinite coverage option.

Prankster dbond might be a last resort kind of solution, but it works and it works damn well, dyou think a player will be satisfied with a 1-1 trade that often isn't in his favour? Cause if he is that all good for you, you just got rid of the biggest threat on the opponent's team.

Unaware and fur coat can't beat mold breaker is a vast exaggeration, mold breaker what exactly? Dyou know how many different mons can run unaware / fur coat and how hard it is for an ss mon to beat all of them? Most of them can barely beat zygarde, yet alone every available option.

Imposter is a check, yes, but it's a pretty damn fantastic check, how many shell smash users can actually comfortably beat chansey? Assuming you managed to get exactly 0 damage as you clicked one of the riskiest move in the game in a meta filled with uturn and spectral thief, you're at best tie reliant. But the most likely possibility is that you just lose to chansey bar some few plate mons that ppl know and should account for individually.

Forget sunsteel strike because it's a pretty shit move anyway and nobody runs it, almost all unaware users either resist, are immune to or can easily take a non stab moongeist beam. Saying it beats them no exception is nonsense.

Prankster haze is pretty damn fucking close to "optimal". It removes the boost before the opp attacks and so without considering ability, sub, typing, terrain or w/e the fuck you want and it does so with no drawback. What the fuck do you actually mean "it's sub optimal"? You expected priority spectral thief or some shit? "BuT t0pSyTurvY iS B3tTeR" maybe it was last gen but considering it doesn't actually deal with the problem there's is literally no better option rn, and it's not some water bubble type of shit, you're using one of the best abilities in the game to deal with any, ANY kind of setup, on any mon. It's sub optimal is a pretty fucking dumb way to try and make your argument less stupid and vapid than it actually is.

Oh no you're forcing team to run spectral thief IT'S LIMITING TEAM BUILDING BY FORCING (spoilers, it's actually not, there are other moves with different utility that achieve the same / similar result) TEAMS TO RUN ARGUABLY THE BEST UTILITY MOVE IN THE ENTIRE GAME, SOMEONE PLEASE BAN THIS. Give me a fucking break.
Shell smash doesn't appear out of nowhere, almost every single time someone used shell smash on me I knew damn well what mon was gonna use, guess what, if you have a mon that isn't straight up OHKOd by it, they can't fucking do it, as simple as that.

If you're hazing away like a moron with nothing else to do than watch your opp shell smash endlessly, than consider running a damaging move, fuck why not even try spectral thief? That's an idea that just might work.

There's a tendency with pro ban shell smash arguments to ignore every single limiting aspect like they didn't exist or weren't relevant (proven by ironedsandwich's post being ignored). You're literally wasting a turn to make yourself more vulnerable, and assuming your opp switched into some sort of a counter, you're not going to OHKO it.

Anyway I didn't read this again cause I'm lazy. Not sorry for being rude, you guys are fucking stupid, feel free to attack me I'll be snoozing anyway. Please argue objectively instead of glorifying your own arguments, that just makes the conversation go round in circles.



Ban contrary
ok look man i may know you but that doesn't mean i'm gonna hold back here

first off i would like to say that this is a garbage post, and i am disappointed in everyone who liked it like come on guys. if you've got points to bring up then at least don't be a jerk about it. like really you just called a bunch of people stupid, people aren't stupid, ideas are.

but ofc no one's going to listen to me because i didn't make ompl or whatever. nice

you're saying that the shell smash user needs dazzling/psychic surge to sweep. but that's wrong. when's the last time you saw someone using say refrigerate kyub? it's not a thing because of how it fails to stop the shell smash users who do happen to carry dazzling/psurge. like man kyub can't handle hyper offense teams at all, mmy just sets up on it, dazzling surprise kills it, breakers beat it too. prankster topsy turvy is similarly unreliable and stupid.

but see they're not all dazzling. some people have seen that outside of the uncommon triage ray no one uses priority anymore. good luck handling say shell smash steelworker kartana, or -ate pdon.

prankster destiny bond takes a moveslot and it's dumb too. like you say that you can see when the opponent is going to go for shell smash. but that's a prediction argument, prediction goes both ways and i'm disappointed that you used it. what if they decide that they should click shell smash with their pdon against that innocuous registeel? what do you even do? you click u-turn and sack something else. or you carry spectral thief and you get to choose between giving up haze or u-turn.

mold breaker aps isn't really a set. instead you get to play the matchup game! oh, that mega ray has draco meteor? looks like you lose! yay!

unburden imprison beats chansey, deo a and other frail/optimized (fire lash kartana) stuff beats chansey (tie if its sash is broken). anything that doesn't beat chansey has a 50% chance of dealing a ton of damage to it because of the effective x3 multiplier, chansey loses if it hard switches on shell smash. chansey is a garbage aps check, i know this from experience.

of course sunsteel is a good move, it gives coverage alongside power trip so you can laugh at audinos that thought they had a chance. it works with bonemerang too.

and this argument that prankster haze is "optimal" is disgusting. what happens when your hazer gets 2hkod? what happens when they run contrary and you realize that prankster haze is your setup "check"? what happens when you have literally 0 room for utility moves and you have to cram them all on an audino that just gets set up on? you lose. you lose and there's nothing you can do about it.

yeah honestly if everyone followed this "slap thief on everything!!11" thing this gen is literally recovery/spectral thief/core/u-turn on every defensive mon like seriously guys??? hope you enjoy losing to every breaker ever then lol

oh and thanks for calling out a specific user and saying that they're wrong because no one liked their post. really contributed to the discussion x

sometimes you can succeed in killing the shell smash mon and sometimes you can't. the problem is that it's disgustingly matchup based depending on what your setup answers are. i got to #1 on ladder and my team is magic bounce audino with spectral thief + stakeout mosa + 4 setup checks coooooool

sick of shell smash, can we please do something about it thanks
 
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I'd like to hop on the Shell Smash discussion train. I haven't played BH pretty much a bit before EV limits removal, mostly because I didn't have fun with it anymore, and I believe this move was part of it. However, I have no idea of the state of the meta right now, and I definitely have no intention of giving an actual opinion on what should be done in the end.

What I found really unfun with Shell Smash was that it could basically team snipe anything, even unintentionally. Most common prankster users are registeel and giratina(not sure it's that common for that one). Both will fall to a vcreate or a fleur cannon. SS was frustrating to me because once you're done teambuilding, there is very little counterplay, simply because of the nature of dazzling set up. Even if you play perfectly, you may very well lose to this low-ladder guy with a random fleur cannon vcreate Pdon (a set that actually sounds kinda fun).

Spectral thief really shouldn't be considered as à counter to SS, but more of a check to spam on every mon of your defensive core, and this doesn't work against regigigias, à weakness easy to exploit (dragon tail is arguably better on tina for that reason). While this constraint on teambuilding is not massive, it also means that you have to scout a lot to not lose a mon, and losing it anyway if it turns out to be the wrong set. SS is splashable on any mon, which makes it quite impossible to predict.

Unaware is just like prankster haze:it cannot universally check every shell smasher.

The only argument Id say is flawed on the antiban side is the.one on prankster dbond. Considering it a legit counter to anything is risking losing to its spam, and it is particularly true with SS. But I very well may have misunderstood you.

Of course, I haven't mentionned yet the best answer, which is Imposter. Imposter is obviously a thing, but it means that you risk losing to technoblast/judgment, and it's not like your opponent will lack an answer to its own threat. Imposter is a shaky check to pretty much 3/4 of the sets in BH.

My opinion against SS is that when you lose to it, it's decided in the teambuilder. It does indeed remove a big part of skill in a game for that reason.

Still, what I said is prety much true for every threat in BH: its counters can be played around with adequate moves. This is why SS being ban worthy is meta-dependant in the end: its counters may very well be viable enough to be a sufficient deterrent to it. SS is the face of BH setup,and I believed it was a bit too good about 3-4 months ago, to the point of deserving a suspect. I don't know about the current state, and there sure is bigger priorities. SS may be broken by normal metas standard, but BH has other bigger ban suspect targets. if people want to keep discussing about SS they'll have to provide replays simply because its strength is too complex to be determined on paper.
 
I would like to know what kind of teams you consider to be most susceptible to shell smashers.

All the while I have been running basic 1 dimensional HO, I always carried just 1 (or if you really want to, two if you count my own smasher) dedicated setup revenger for the entire team, and shell smash is always one of the easiest for it to beat. If the opponent managed to setup multiples of them its been almost always that they made better plays throughout.
 
motherlove I know what you're trying to say but... you can't also assume the defending player against a Shell Smasher will have all the tools at their fingertips to deal with the Smasher (or Unburden Drummer, which I personally consider just as problematic) nor that the Smasher won't have the tools to deal with the anti-set-up. I mean, Prankster Haze + D.Bond is good and all, but what if the opponent carries Taunt? You might haze them, but then they'll just Taunt and Smash again, preventing you from Hazing, recovering, OR D.Bonding. What if they have Spore and you don't have or lost your Safety Goggles? What if your Hazer is Registeel and they have, I don't know, Smashed a Garchomp and you nothing you have can take a hit because of hazard/U-Turn damage and you can't switch in Registeel because it'll get KOed?

I mean, yeah, the Smasher/Drummer doesn't have every single move, item, and ability at their disposal at once, but the defending player certainly doesn't either. Its also potentially in the set-up user's favor because spamming set-up intelligently is more effective than spamming anti-set-up. The former works more or less against most team archetypes except heavy anti-set-up. The latter is useless if opponent lacks set-up.


Oh, and in general, Spectral Thief on walls =/= beats set-up user. Here's a replay where my Mega-Ray didn't give a damn about the opponent's Spectral Thief. Or Imposter. Or Unaware. Or Prankster. It's not Shell Smash persay, but similar concept of speed + power boosting and just using it as an example of why Spectral Thief and other anti-set-up is hardly fool-proof. The sweep starts on turn 63.


Kadabrium In my experience, balance/stall have more trouble than offense since, well, offense can just keep attacking to prevent set-up whereas anything with a passive-enough wall can potentially serve as set-up bait to the right sweeper. Balance/stall needs to bring one or two good anti-set-up sets to stop it reliably. You can do so without them but... you have to play really damn well and get a lot of predictions right to pull it off.

Also, more set-ups =/= better play. Otherwise those guys on low ladder who spam Shell Smash on everything including Registeel and do so blindly and poorly should hold the top spots on the ladder instead.
 
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Yep, every team I have has at least three checks to setup spam. And even those can be easily beaten with lure sets opening up the way for something else. I usually use Spectral Thief on my regen-vest mon to check stuff like Smash Mega Gengar except that fails against the entrainment set or if it runs spore. I then have a solid physical wall that can take 2 or 3 Facade and Knock Off hits from a +1 Regigigas, and run Heart Swap, Haze, or Topsy Turvy on that wall in order to keep it under control. Why 2 or 3 hits, because it will almost certainly be put to sleep since Safety Goggles gets knocked off. That still hopes that I wake up after 2 turns of sleep, which sometimes doesn't happen. Finally I have a final setup check: either an unaware user, a prankster haze+dBond user, Imposter Chansey with Eviolite or Earth plate if I am feeling weak to Judgment sweepers, or a bulky mixed wall with Whirlwind. Yet even with all that prep I can be beaten. For example, Simple Shell Smash + Power Trip sweepers beat every unaware user, even Unaware mega Gyarados, since it takes a 260BP power trip and loses 100% health. Unaware fairy types can't survive a Sunsteel strike, and Chansey has to risk a speed tie and if it loses, it also dies. Prankster haze can taken advantage of, not nearly as much now that Gengarite is banned, but it's still a huge momentum drain, and priority moves can still stop it, such as against Triage sweepers. So yeah I do have to agree that it's way easier to just spam setup and win. Playing against setup spam is more about playing the player than the actual team, because you have to predict whether they will be deciding to set up or not, and it sucks.
 
252+ Atk Tyranitar-Mega Power Trip (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Gyarados-Mega: 188-222 (47.7 - 56.3%)
252+ Atk Tyranitar-Mega Power Trip (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Unaware Zygarde-Complete: 349-412 (54.8 - 64.7%)

?
Please double check calcs before posting missinformation.

And this entire discussion is sounding like "setup as a general concept is broken" which I don't even want to get into.
 
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I totally get were u guys are coming from. Pdon is super op and hard to wall, But in my opinion, not impossible to wall. Between shedinja chansey and zygarde there is always a check. Tinted don loses to flash fire. ContrAry don loses to shed. Blah blah blah. I'm not advocating we ignore it, simply that we should focus on more pressing things, namely spore and she'll smash/drum. Those of you who know me know that I have experimented heavily with stall. I have built teams with 3-5 mons intended to check these and yet have still lost an unbelievable amount for someone who teambuilds for specific threats. If I built a team with flash fire ceelestelia, fur coat zygarde, shedinja, chansey, and regen pdon and the omnipresent prankster regi I wouldnt lose to pdon, yet I have built teams with 2 poison heals a bounce and goggles and still lost to spore and similarly teams with unaware, double regen
Built to take Trip, prankster haze, chansey and fur coat AND STILL lost to smash. It seems to me completely ridiculous that a team built to check something should fail so abjectly. I can think of nothing so far this gen that got banned that I so consistently lost to. Innards could be a defensive as well as offensive ability and didn't shift much for me. Wb was usually sketchily imp proofed and won me the battle. And I could handle z moves with double regen pivoting (my record in the zmove suspect was I believe 31-1)
Don't get me wrong, these are all bannable BUT I still had to prep my team to win. What upsets me is how infinitesimal an impact my prepping has on the aforementioned moves coupled with the disgusting lack of skill required to use them that render them bannable. It is my firm belief that if you set out to stop a threat and are subsequently proven unable to completely stop them with ANY combination of mons, you really don't need any more proof.
 
sorry for double posting but I just wanted to bring up an old post I made which some of u might not of seen (albeit with a couple of edits)

I honestly don't think belly drum/shell smash were anywhere near bannable in gen 6. Let me go over what changed.

1) Mons get full evs. I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't. If something can't tank power trip, it isn't gonna tank it after 252 evs. defense evs aren't gonna stop 1000 atk. they just aren't. If something CAN tank it, it would already have 252 evs in hp and defense anyway probably. It is true that these extra Evs can possibly help a mom tank a hit but In my experience the thing that benifits most from evs is the smasher itself. because the shell smash/belly drum mon has 252 evs, extreme speed/other priority usually does a pitiful amount of damage, almost always <50%. That means u can't always revenge kill it. Remember if you fail to revenge kill it that often means you lost the game. Because of these Evs it is now very hard to put pressure on smash mons. If I have a regenerator with spectral thief often the smash mon will just beat the crap out of me with whatever stab moves it has and then smash on the forced switch. Both pdons and ray can take about 6-8 spectrals from weak regen Mons like zy and audino which is no where near enough to put pressure on the opponent

2) Priority Attacks is weakened. This happened in several different ways. First, gale wings was nerfed. For me that means no more d-ascent, which could normally take out 90% on most mons. This leaves espeed. As you guys know, ate was nerfed from gen 6 and mons have more defense, and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill. I've seen damage as low as 30% taken on an espeed. not even enough to kill drummers. In addition, priority has a general bad time of it because of new abilities like queenly majesty phazing them out and making them far less common. Even if you do happen to have one, it doesnt matter much because the opponent will usually have dazzling or terrain up. So basically this check, which SINGLEHANDEDLY put smash in its place in gen 6, doesn't really exist. I cannot emphasize this enough dazzling is extremely toxic to the meta and in my opinion is almost as bad as smash

3) Prankster was nerfed. This means no more encore on dark types and dqm. That REALLY HURTS. that was another of my go-to stops for setup in gen 6. Even without spectral thief/haze the extra turns were still enough to let me get around the threat. well that doesn't really work anymore. D-Bond was nerfed. As someone who doesn't use d-bond too much I'm not at liberty to say much here, except I imagine it can be annoying, especially without the threat of encore looming. Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore. This is pretty big. Topsy turvy was a big hit to setup and you can't really use it anymore because of targeting. And because you can't put any pressure at all on smashers they are free to batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash= u lose another mon. and once they stall out recover (which they will if they made the mon halfway decently) you most likely lose your whole team. Anyway you have to stay in to keep the "threat" of haze alive while your opponent either kills you or they switch and the momentum goes to the opponent.

4) Unaware isn't actually that good. People seem to think unaware is some magic answer but it really isn't. First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option. That means you lose 1 more mon. This is especially true if there is either hazards up, or your wall has taken ANY previous damage. It's important to note that without any passive healing it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls. One for actually walling stuff, and one for stopping stuff like shell smash. Along with the fact that these walls have pretty short lifespans in general, there are new moves like sunsteel and moongeist to give them grief. This rules out notable walls such as Tina, audino, and solgaleo, and reduces many to subpar options like gyarados. To really hammer in just how bad this is, this is damage calc of a popular belly drum set vs gyarados.

252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Bonemerang (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 156-186 (39.5 - 47.2%) -- approx. 32.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
So, Gyarados canț switch in which means often an even 1-1 trade. Even with preparation you still are 1-1. Thats friggin terrible. pdon has now broken even through no demonstration of skill on 1 move. If you make the asinine assumption that you can switch in because everyone knows that its super easy to keep weak ass walls like gyara at 100%, there is still the chance that its running bolt strike. Yes groudon has a lot of attack, but everything that smashes has around 170+ anyway so i don't see it as a big factor. Yes bonemerang is unresisted, but these mons tend to have 3 coverage moves, it isn't hard to find a unresisting move. It's true that this is a stab move but lots of potential drummers (mmx/ray/etc) have stab unresisted and mmx has super effective stab (byi gyara). Also it's important to take in account that bonemerang is by no means some 150 power base move. It has 100 BP, and that isn't that powerful. Lots of moves have the capability to do more than that. This is my most important point: It is important to rmember that this is actually a pokemon battle, not a damage calculator were everything starts off at 100% and stays that way. It is so so so so so so so so so so so easy to deal 20% to a mon in a battle and have it go unhealed. Remember u-turn AND vswitch are super effective. I am tired of people telling me to run gyarados on the grounds that it theoretically checks shell smash. What I'm trying to say is that unaware doesn't work because it's a bad ability that doesn't do much to strengthen a mons ability to switch in/heal in any non HO game, it's a bad ability because two very common moves check it, and it's a bad ability because the niche answers (gyarados) that people purport can stop shell smash really can't. And even if it could check it, you have to stay in to heal
while the momentum goes to the opponent

5) Chansey didn't really get nerfed in any big way but it is very difficult to beat smashers because some have unburden and you usually have to sacrifice a mon anyway to get chansey in. Also, because of defense debuffs, many can outdamage or kill chansey anyway. In my opinion, chansey is just worth more than smashers and I don't regard that as a very even trade. So basically when looking at chansey, you're often looking at best a 1-1 +heavy damage on one of your most valuble mons and at worst a 6 mon sweep.

6) Innards Out is banned. God rest it's soul.

Because I know you guys like hard examples ima give u some.


Player A has a MMX and Player B has team made to defeat smash and a regen Zygarde out at 20%
MMX uses simple shell smash and zygarde switches to fur coat tina
MMX uses stored power
Tina dies
Regi switches in and hazes
Regi dies to close combat.



MMX has taken 0 damage and killed 2 mons. Its sash is unbroken.

lets imagine that they switched into a different check to MMX, something you would never normally do if you donț already know mmx is simple. That mon is unaware zygarde. Now usually with smash teams, terrain is usually up

252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Unaware Zygarde-Complete in Psychic Terrain: 589-694 (92.6 - 109.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
zygarde is in all probability dead given the difficulty of keeping mons at 100%.

Ok kids! that didnt work so lets try gyarados. That will work for sure!

252+ Atk Mewtwo-Mega-X Close Combat vs. 242 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 390-462 (99.7 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Rip gyarados is dead now.

How about chansey?

+4 252- SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. -2 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-X in Psychic Terrain: 3079-3624 (431.2 - 507.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Today is not ur lucky day. Rip chansey (yes i made it the correct HP, but i did ignore eviolite cuz at 500% who cares) even if chan wins the speed tie it dies cuz sash!

You send out aerilate Ray, but since psychic terrain is gay and terrain extender exists, ray is now an endangered species

Notice I have taken 1 mon. Matched it up against ALMOST EVERY SINGLE COUNTER NAMED and won with 3! moves.

That is one mon. The team built specifically for checking Bullshit is now gone because of ONE switch. Talk about a stakeout that continues until everything is dead.

Lets imagine regi has destiny bond and i know that.

Regi used destiny bond!
Mewtwo X used Encore!

rip regi.

Even if regi uses haze, he still dies to subsequent close combats.

If anyone who says that shell smash has checks stopped to think for 5 seconds, they would realize it really doesnt. I can overcome every single damn wall you name with a smasher that would take only a few seconds to think up. I just proved that by taking out a whole team that would have annhilated smash in gen 6. Im not sure why I have to spell it out but shell smash and drum really need to go.

I know this is a hypothetical situation but I have seen the mon described used under conditions similar to this with the same basic results.



So to conclude, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled and this has created a perfect storm in which a centralizing move can be slapped on to most anything and can still be expected to win. Smash comes with no warning, and is not perdictable. Before the ev limit was lifted it was possible to spectral every deoxys you saw and get away with it, but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you. Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey) how is that ok? Basically, it's far too hard to deal with, and we shouldn't have to deal with it anyway. Thanks for your time and please please please ban shell smash and/or belly drum.
 
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Good you mention MMX Shed;
MMX is the best comeback pokemon.
In almost any situation MMX can make a comeback if it wins the speedtie against the Imposter.


Shell Smash is fueling Power Trip and Stored Power the fastest,
Spectral Thief gives you 1 turn only.

Stall is in theory safe from Shell Smash;
166 Speed Giratina steals boosts, if you underspeed 416 Speed MMY will outspeed you even at +3

For Imposter Chansey you need +3 Atk /SpA if its Evolite, +2 if not.
Countersweeping proof means always trapping weak.


Too many persons value walling potential more than sweeping potential.
They mean counterable = wallable.
Using another sweeper beforehand does not count, they are slow thinkers.
 
thank you GMU, may God rest your soul. what a lad

OK so I today I want to look over this post by ShedMiddleFinga about Shell Smash and break it down, describing exactly why I think this argument is flawed.
1) Mons get full evs. I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't. If something can't tank power trip, it isn't gonna tank it after 252 evs. defense evs aren't gonna stop 1000 atk. they just aren't. If something CAN tank it, it would already have 252 evs in hp and defense anyway probably. But because the shell smash/belly drum mon has 252 evs, extreme speed/other priority usually does a pitiful amount of damage, almost always <50%. That means u can't really revenge kill it.
His first point, the introduction of maximized EVs. "I've heard that this "weakens" shell smash but anyone with any brains can see it really doesn't." - This makes no sense, maximized EVs are quite obviously going to help defensive Pokemon survive attacks. This doesn't require discussion. Then. to say "u can't really revenge kill it" is also false, since lots of priority users are able to revenge kill a Shell Smash user, provided Psychic Terrain isn't up:

-= vs. Shell Smash Mega Mewtwo X
=-​
252 Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Mewtwo-Mega-X: 570-672 (137 - 161.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Mewtwo-Mega-X: 522-614 (125.4 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Fake Out vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Mewtwo-Mega-X: 153-180 (36.7 - 43.2%) & 252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Mewtwo-Mega-X: 298-352 (71.6 - 84.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

-= vs. Shell Smash Primal Groudon
=-​
252 Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Fake Out vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Groudon-Primal: 103-123 (25.4 - 30.4%) & 252 Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Groudon-Primal: 204-240 (50.4 - 59.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

(No amount of EVs will allow Diancie to kill it)

252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Fake Out vs. -1 248 HP / 252 Def Groudon-Primal: 109-129 (27 - 32%) & 252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Extreme Speed vs. -1 248 HP / 252 Def Groudon-Primal: 213-252 (52.8 - 62.5%)

-= vs. Shell Smash Mega Gengar
=-​
252 Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Gengar-Mega: 330-388 (101.8 - 119.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Fake Out vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Gengar-Mega: 76-90 (23.4 - 27.7%) & 252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Gengar-Mega: 150-177 (46.2 - 54.6%)

252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Gengar-Mega: 346-408 (106.7 - 125.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

-= vs. Shell Smash Mega Rayquaza
=-​
252+ Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Fake Out vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 159-187 (38.4 - 45.1%) & 252+ Atk Sky Plate Aerilate Rayquaza-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 313-369 (75.6 - 89.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Extreme Speed vs. -1 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 522-614 (126 - 148.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Rayquaza-Mega: 796-940 (192.2 - 227%) -- guaranteed OHKO

-= vs. Shell Smash Zekrom
=-​
(No amount of EVs will allow Rayquaza to kill it)
252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Fake Out vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zekrom: 156-186 (38.6 - 46%) &
252 Atk Pixie Plate Pixilate Diancie-Mega Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zekrom: 306-362 (75.7 - 89.6%)
252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Fake Out vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zekrom: 180-212 (44.5 - 52.4%) & 252+ Atk Icicle Plate Refrigerate Kyurem-Black Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Zekrom: 354-416 (87.6 - 102.9%)

Maxed EVs allowed only 3 of these instances to become a 2HKO rather than a 3HKO (Diancie vs Gengar, Kyurem vs Groudon and Rayquaza vs Groudon). To say you can't revenge kill it is not really true, is it?

2) Priority Attacks is weakened. This happened in several different ways. First, gale wings was nerfed. For me that means no more d-ascent, which could normally take out 90% on most mons. This leaves espeed. As you guys know, ate was nerfed from gen 6 and mons have more defense, and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill. I've seen damage as low as 30% taken on an espeed. not even enough to kill drummers. In addition, priority has a general bad time of it because of new abilities like queenly majesty phazing them out and making them far less common. Even if you do happen to have one, it doesnt matter much because the opponent will usually have dazzling or terrain up. So basically this check, which SINGLEHANDEDLY put smash in its place in gen 6, doesn't really exist.
Admittedly Dazzling and all the other anti-priority abilities do put a hamper on priority attacks, but some of the ways you attempt to brush away priority as a method of checking set-up is odd. For instance: "..and the damage usually isn't sufficient to kill." - A very vague statement disproved by my earlier calculations. Also it's not fair to assume Psychic Terrain or a priority-blocking ability is always active.

3) Prankster was nerfed. This means no more encore on dark types. That REALLY HURTS. that was another of my go-to stops for setup in gen 6. Even without spectral thief/haze the extra turns were still enough to let me get around the threat. well that doesn't really work anymore. D-Bond was nerfed. As someone who doesn't use d-bond too much I'm not at liberty to say much here, except I imagine it can be annoying, especially without the threat of encore looming. Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore. This is pretty big. Topsy turvy was a big hit to setup and you can't really use it anymore because of targeting. And because you can't put any pressure at all on smashers they are free to batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash= u lose another mon. and once they stall out recover (which they will if they made the mon halfway decently) you most likely lose your whole team. Anyway you have to stay in to keep the "threat" of haze alive while your opponent either kills you or they switch and the momentum goes to the opponent.
Prankster not affecting Dark-types is near insignificant. The more viable Shell Smashers aren't even of the type. No, this doesn't really hurt, as you put it. Prankster is still a viable way of containing Shell Smash. Also, to then say that "Topsy turvy can't manage stuff anymore" is also wrong since the amount of Pokemon it truly cannot manage now is very small. They're not free to "batter away at you till they stall recover/ outpredict your switch and smash" because they're at -2 Atk, SpA and Spe after a Topsy-Turvy? What kind of mon is capable of forcing so many Recovers at -2? This entire paragraph is grossly exaggerated.

4) Unaware isn't actually that good. People seem to think unaware is some magic answer but it really isn't. First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option. That means you lose 1 more mon. This is especially true if there is either hazards up, or your wall has taken ANY previous damage. It's important to note that without any passive healing it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls. One for actually walling stuff, and one for stopping stuff like shell smash. Along with the fact that these walls have pretty short lifespans in general, there are new moves like sunsteel and moongeist to give them grief. This rules out notable walls such as Tina, audino, and solgaleo, and reduces many to subpar options like gyarados. To really hammer in just how bad this is, this is damage calc of a popular belly drum set vs gyarados.

252+ Atk Groudon-Primal Bonemerang (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 156-186 (39.5 - 47.2%) -- approx. 32.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
So, Gyarados canț switch in which means often an even 1-1 trade. Even with preparation you still are 1-1. Thats friggin terrible. pdon has now broken even through no demonstration of skill on 1 move. If you make the asinine assumption that you can switch in because everyone knows that its super easy to keep weak ass walls like gyara at 100%, there is still the chance that its running bolt strike. Yes groudon has a lot of attack, but everything that smashes has around 170+ anyway so i don't see it as a big factor. Yes bonemerang is unresisted, but these mons tend to have 3 coverage moves, it isn't hard to find a unresisting move. It's true that this is a stab move but lots of potential drummers (mmx/ray/etc) have stab unresisted and mmx has super effective stab (byi gyara). Also it's important to take in account that bonemerang is by no means some 150 power base move. It has 100 BP, and that isn't that powerful. Lots of moves have the capability to do more than that. This is my most important point: It is important to rmember that this is actually a pokemon battle, not a damage calculator were everything starts off at 100% and stays that way. It is so so so so so so so so so so so easy to deal 20% to a mon in a battle and have it go unhealed. Remember u-turn is super effective. I am tired of people telling me to run gyarados on the grounds that it theoretically checks shell smash. What I'm trying to say is that unaware doesn't work because it's a bad ability that doesn't do much to strengthen a mons ability to switch in/heal, it's a bad ability because two very common moves check it, and it's a bad ability because the niche answers (gyarados) that people purport can stop shell smash really can't. And even if it could check it, you have to stay in to heal
while the momentum goes to the opponent
This one's my favorite. "Unaware is bad. To support this I'll post a calc of a wall getting 3HKO'd then a gigantic wall of bold to prove I'm right". Unaware is definitely viable, IDK where you get off saying it isn't. "First off smashers are usually powerful enough to 2 hit or 3 hit (2 hit especially if it's a subpar wall like gyarados) So switching in often ISN'T an option." Switching in definitely is an option because walls tend to have recovery moves. Which recovers your HP. When used. "..it's almost impossible to maintain a wall at 100% (you can't run leftovers because spore) so you really have to run multiple walls." This is already the meta, this isn't a negative. Then you post your calc of a Gyarados getting 3HKO'd by an attack, as if that proves it can't switch in? Do your Gyarados sets not have recovery? What are you trying to say?

The majority of the bolded paragraph is a bunch of fluff that has no meaning, but the end part has some value: "..because it's a bad ability that doesn't do much to strengthen a mons ability to switch in/heal" - It's easier to switch into a +0 hit than a +2 hit, this is false, "..it's a bad ability because two very common moves check it.." - Sunsteel / Moongeist are by no means reliable ways to muscle past Unaware. A +2 unSTAB Sunsteel vs a Zygarde for instance does nothing, "..because the niche answers (gyarados) that people purport can stop shell smash really can't." This statement is backed up by a calc of Gyarados getting 3HKO'd, so you can forget this as well.

5) Chansey didn't really get nerfed in any big way but it is very difficult to beat smashers because some have unburden and you usually have to sacrifice a mon anyway to get chansey in. Also, because of defense debuffs, many can outdamage or kill chansey anyway. In my opinion, chansey is just worth more than smashers and I don't regard that as a very even trade. So basically when looking at chansey, you're often looking at best a 1-1 +heavy damage on one of your most valuble mons and at worst a 6 mon sweep.
I don't have much to say against this, it's pretty valid. Moving on..

Because I know you guys like hard examples ima give u some.


Player A has a MMX and Player B has team made to defeat smash and a regen Zygarde out at 20%
MMX uses simple shell smash and zygarde switches to fur coat tina
MMX uses stored power
Tina dies
Regi switches in and hazes
Regi dies to close combat.



MMX has taken 0 damage and killed 2 mons. Its sash is unbroken.

lets imagine that they switched into a different check to MMX, something you would never normally do if you donț already know mmx is simple. That mon is unaware zygarde. Now usually with smash teams, terrain is usually up

252 SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Unaware Zygarde-Complete in Psychic Terrain: 589-694 (92.6 - 109.1%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO
zygarde is in all probability dead given the difficulty of keeping mons at 100%.

Ok kids! that didnt work so lets try gyarados. That will work for sure!

252+ Atk Mewtwo-Mega-X Close Combat vs. 242 HP / 252+ Def Gyarados-Mega: 390-462 (99.7 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Rip gyarados is dead now.

How about chansey?

+4 252- SpA Mewtwo-Mega-X Stored Power (260 BP) vs. -2 252 HP / 252 SpD Mewtwo-Mega-X in Psychic Terrain: 3079-3624 (431.2 - 507.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Today is not ur lucky day. Rip chansey (yes i made it the correct HP, but i did ignore eviolite cuz at 500% who cares) even if chan wins the speed tie it dies cuz sash!

You send out aerilate Ray, but since psychic terrain is gay and terrain extender exists, ray is now an endangered species

Notice I have taken 1 mon. Matched it up against ALMOST EVERY SINGLE COUNTER NAMED and won with 3! moves.

That is one mon. The team built specifically for checking Bullshit is now gone because of ONE switch. Talk about a stakeout that continues until everything is dead.

Lets imagine regi has destiny bond and i know that.

Regi used destiny bond!
Mewtwo X used Encore!

rip regi.

Even if regi uses haze, he still dies to subsequent close combats.

If anyone who says that shell smash has checks stopped to think for 5 seconds, they would realize it really doesnt. I can overcome every single damn wall you name with a smasher that would take only a few seconds to think up. I just proved that by taking out a whole team that would have annhilated smash in gen 6. Im not sure why I have to spell it out but shell smash and drum really need to go.

I know this is a hypothetical situation but I have seen the mon described used under conditions similar to this with the same basic results.
TL;DR: Let's invent extremely ideal conditions in which a Pokemon is able to sweep a damaged team with little set-up checks with the perfect moves.

So to conclude, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled and this has created a perfect storm in which a centralizing move can be slapped on to most anything and can still be expected to win. Smash comes with no warning, and is not perdictable. Before the ev limit was lifted it was possible to spectral every deoxys you saw and get away with it, but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you. Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey) how is that ok? Basically, it's far too hard to deal with, and we shouldn't have to deal with it anyway. Thanks for your time and please please please ban shell smash and/or belly drum.
In conclusion: "So to conclude, every possible check to smash/drum has been crippled" This is not true, as I've shown earlier. "..but now we have spectral dealing ~20% to possible smashers and that is just not enough to put any pressure on them, especially since these prospective smashers have 3 attacking moves to choose from while they batter away at you." They're not going to be hurting at +0 Attack. Spectral Thief at +2 is going to be dealing more than just 20%. This is adequate pressure. Why have you failed to mention this? "Any of the ways I listed for dealing with smashers either ends up in your mon dead or momentum going to the opponent (except for chansey)" Most of the good ways of checking set-up you've failed to mention or have stated are bad with little to no or just false evidence.

(Also I like how the single best thing to happened surrounding Shell Smash [Dazzling / Queenly Majesty being introduced] wasn't the main focus of your post...)

TL;DR: Focus on PDon / Stakeout, they're actual pressing threats in the metagame.
 
From my expierence, most Smashers run some kind of Anti-Priority. And even if they don't, if you don't see their ability durin setup (like Simple) trying to use priority against them is extremely risky, as it might cost you a very important mon.

Another problem which strengthens setup is sleep. Back when the EV limit was still in effect, an offensive mon could not invest in its bulk, so that using Spore into Safety Goggles or missing a Lovely Kiss could easily lead to its death. But now, due to their increased bulk without an EV limit, offensive mons can spam sleep much more freely wihtout having to worry about dying to stuff like Giratina's Core Enforcer. This makes easier for setuppers to gain free turns for their Shell Smash, Tail Glow or Belly Drum, and also allows them to turn 2HKOs or 3HKOs in OHKOs by putting the opposing mon to sleep.

The problem with Topsy Turvy is that it not only doesn't affect dark types, it also doesn't affect mons with anti-priority abilities, including Psychic Terrain - so that it is useless in most situations. On the other hand, the problem with Haze is that you have to spam it until the opponent stops spamming Shell Smash.

I suggest the following steps for suspecting:
  1. Setup (Shell Smash, maybe Belly Drum)
  2. Stakeout
  3. Primal Groudon
  4. Sleep Clause
There's already been said all about why Stakeout and Setup need to go, the next things on the list are obviously the Don and Sleep (either banning high-accuracy sleep moves or Sleep Clause)
The reason why I put Groudon only in third spot is because without having access to Belly Drum, Shell Smash and Stakeout, it loses a big part of its versatility - it can no longer lure in the fat dragons and kill 'em with Stakeout Ice Hammers or Fleur Cannons - its best bet would be -ate sets, but they fail in killing said dragons -, it also can no longer shell smash in their face to punish for predicting a physical (stakeout) set, and in general becomes much easier to check.
 

RNGIsFatal

Banned deucer.
At this point, I would really like to step up and say why do I believe that we must narrow our future suspect options to suspecting either Primal Groudon or Stakeout.

While it isn't completely wrong to say Shell Smash just pops out of nowhere and is staple-able on almost every relevant offensive 'mons and Sleep Clause is necessary to eliminate noncompetitive aspect of the game, I don't see any particular reason you would suspect it over:

Primal Groudon, who has been infamous since the beginning of this generation for committing massacre by spamming V-create and punishing its "checks" using mixed lure set,
or, Stakeout, which is the ability limits defensive counterplays further by punishing switchins with unpredictable coverage moves...
... when APS wasn't much of an issue after full EV meta.

About EV limits keeping 'walls from failing to pressure sweepers using Core Enforcer or Spectral Thief', this just makes no sense. As SW mentioned earlier +2 Spectral Thief will do around 30-40% unless you are really passive stuff like Mega Audino, and especially against MMX or MMY, they will most likely be 2HKOed with +2 Spectral Thief when they are -1.

What should be pointed out from the fact that we are now in full EV meta is that attackers are now significantly harder to take out with passive 'mons, meaning they can just wait for the moment when they can switch in threaten a wall and either sit there and spam attacks or punish the switch-in using its coverage. This is where Stakeout enters. Because offensive 'mons are bulkier in full EV, the consequence of missing a prediction is minuscule (at most, taking a Core Enforcer and losing an ability). Say we have MMX out there and they got Mega Audino. MAud's Spectral Thief does like 27% at most this point so they have to switch out before it loses notable portion of HP from Close Combat (which 2HKOs Audino after Stealth Rock) or whatever else it carries. If this MMX has Stakeout and has something to hit fat Dragon-types super effectively, it can just sit there and press Close Combat to threaten Audino and press stuff like Draco Meteor or Ice Beam if the switch becomes blatantly predictable.

When it comes to Sleep Clause, just because you get 3 turn sleeps more than often doesn't mean opponents run it without inherent downsides; Spore is blocked by Safety Goggles and if they mispredict and Spore it on stuff like Registeel or others they basically end up wasting a turn and letting the opponent pivot or set up. Lovely Kiss has 75% accuracy, and although BH players such as Klang mention bypassing Safety Goggles and hitting 3 out of 4 sleep chances is worth it, they are also risking wasting a turn out of every 4 attempts to put opponents to sleep.

Meanwhile, Primal Groudon can for a switch and spam V-create without worrying too much about what happens next...

When you look at Primal Groudon, the first thing that stands out is its fantastic Ground / Fire typing. Both are excellent types and together provides unresisted neutral coverage with Thousand Arrows. On top of this fact, Primal Groudon boasts 100/160/90 bulk that lets it live almost every relevant neutral hits barring attacks like Choice Specs Rayquaza and Kyurem-W with appropriate ability. In addition, monsterous 180 Attack (which proudly is the highest among all Ground-types) is incredibly difficult to handle with its aforementioned STAB combo which is almost always unresisted. With Fire-typing that grants STAB on V-create along with 180 Attack, those who do not resist Fire is likely to lose significant portion of health or be OHKOed outright. STAB V-create assault from this monster becomes even harder to handle when it holds Choice Band and has abilities such as Desolate Land, Adaptability, Tinted Lens or Stakeout. The only defensive walls that are capable of handling this kind of attack are BH behemoths such as Giratina, Zygarde-C, or Imposter Chansey.
... while it can actually lure & eliminate Fur Coat Dragon family using mixed sets or simply press U-turn on opponent that is shivering from fear.

Speaking of what I posted earlier, I am frankly disappointed towards some portion of the community, not because my post didn't end up getting much attention but because of the fact that not many are aware of Primal Groudon's prowess and offensive traits that severely limits the possible defensive counterplays. And they proceed to argue about their own stances while refusing to prove why other suspect options should have more spotlights than others without knowing what those "other stances" are.

Guys, are you going to suspect Shell Smash / Sleep over a red mole which has been problem for at least 6 more months and Stakeout which has its power demonstrated in almost every high ladder games and most OMPL matches? I hope you spend a time to read what other people say (rather than skipping them just because they look like long paragraphs from boring textbooks), and come up with a better decision about next suspect; or, at least come up with a better reason to make counterarguments about other people's stances.

Thanks
 
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While I still agree that one of Groudon, Sleep Clause, or Belly Smash should be looked at next (with a slight lean to Groudon atm), thinking more of it, I'm still not seeing Stakeout, at least as the next suspect. Its a potent ability, but it feels more anti-meta than breaking at the moment, and really more a symptom of a larger problem that is role compression. If it was in Gen V / Early to Mid Gen VI, it wouldn't have changed much I feel. Why? Roles weren't compressed on defensive Pokemon so hard. There were far fewer "must beat!" offensive Pokemon back then and they also had fewer viable variations, so you didn't need your two-three defensive Pokemon to check twenty-thirty + variations. There were also far more viable defensive Pokemon, less so in Gen VI with Megas power creeping offense so hard, so offensive Pokemon were the ones who were having difficulty preparing rather than the other way around.

I think Stakeout is just a symptom. What's the ultimate cause of defensive role compression though? I've only figured it out in broad strokes that's not really appropriate for a suspect discussion because "BAN HALF THE META" is no solution. Trying to pin point one or major sources would be a better idea and could go a long way to perhaps stabilizing things in a healthy manner. (And I think this might be the same source of pivoting being all but mandatory for success right now.)

In other, lesser reasons, I have two: most Stakeout "OMG IS BREAKS EVERYTHING" examples often included a Band or Specs, which, while strong, have their own drawbacks. (Fetch me my cane and slippers someone and lemme remember a time when Specs/Band/LO were considered largely useless.) Second, Stakeout discussion seems to often, if not always, either lead back to Primal Groudon or go way out of its way to avoid mentioning Primal Groudon. (See BH Central discussion which mentioned Stakeout Groudon specifically a few times for an example.) As such, even if just for this reason alone, I think it needs to be looked at more than Stakeout. There's some other really good Pokemon who can out the stakes but none of them have that ridiculous mixed power and STAB combo Groudon has.
 
First of all: Sleep is stupid. Sleep clause would be a great. Also, I feel like banning Spore would be nice but it would just lead to more Lovely Kiss and more annoying hax.

on the stakeout thing: we're in a situation where both stakeout and primal groudon are pretty broken and IMO fall under their respective suspecting policies, but banning one would make the other less broken. Based on that:

-Banning Pdon first would supercharge the viability of Diancie-Mega: firstly, it would then become a strong contender for the best stakeout user. Secondly, it would take away the main reason to run Precipice over V-Create, which is much more powerful and accurate.-Banning Pdon first would open up galvanize sets as a semi-viable option, which wouldn't be that important but might be fun.
-Banning Stakeout first might mean people would have to be creative in choosing offensive abilities. Or perhaps it could lead to everyone spamming Adaptability and Mold Breaker when they don't need an ate or psysurge.
-When one is banned the other would be less egregiously broken probably still bannable.
-that's all I've got.

from this, I believe we should suspect Stakeout first.

I still firmly disbelieve in banning Shell Smash. You still have to be clever in building your set around it. It doesn't dumb down the meta at all. Also, semistall is already viable. With stakeout's much more justified ban it would become more powerful. If we ban Shell Smash, these teams would have more space to run whatever they like.

It's in the nature of anything central to a set, be it a move, ability, item, or pokemon, that all or most of its checks fail against a few of the list every conceivable variations of the set centrepiece, but to answer all of them you would have to make an insane inspector gadget set and you still wouldn't beat everything. You can only run 1 ability, 3 other moves and 1 item. If you have a set that could OHKO every wall including unaware, stop imposter, shedinja including focus sash shedinja, survive or eliminate priority, get past prankster haze, survive everything on your first turn, avoid status and not use the hax lottery while doing so please let me know. (to avoid confusion this is just arguing against "but X doesn't beat Y if Z")

as for Belly Drum, after Primal Groudon is banned IMO it won't be a problematic thing, only something that could be used on fun sets. Even now it's risky to set up and possible to wall or check.
 
-Banning Pdon first would supercharge the viability of Diancie-Mega: firstly, it would then become a strong contender for the best stakeout user. Secondly, it would take away the main reason to run Precipice over V-Create, which is much more powerful and accurate.-Banning Pdon first would open up galvanize sets as a semi-viable option, which wouldn't be that important but might be fun.
Please do not make arguments based on future speculation of what might become broken if we ban something. "Broken checks broken and therefore should stay" isn't a valid point and, additionally, its very hard to predict what might happen as some suspects have led to some unexpected results, such as Gen VI -ate clause forcing the -ates that remained to become even deadlier rather than being nerfed to bearable levels.
 
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