np: XY OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Ghost of Perdition

[Stoo]

certainly didnt expect to see this so soon after the last suspect but couldnt be happier about it, ive been calling for an aegi suspect for a minute. aegislash is essentially the most centralizing mon in the whole meta. ou revolves around this thing. if you dont believe me, go pick some random team from spl, wcop or some shit and you'll almost always find multiple ways to kill this thing. its the main reason countless mons run knock off for coverage such as CB/ass vest azu, mega scizor, conk, the soon to be departed deo-s, thundurus (also for latis)..its the reason greninja carries dark pulse, gardevoir shadow ball, almost single handedly brought mandibuzz up from NU to OU, its the reason that countless psychics have fallen from grace in OU like jirachi, metagross, slowbro, mew, alakazam, etc. the effects that ghost has had on multiple metas is pretty ridiculous.

BUT aegislash doesnt appear initially as broken as, say, deoxys or lucario because aegislash doesnt sweep teams, doesnt clean up teams. what it does is fill the role of the ultimate tank, able to switch in on countless mons and dish out huge damage. its a defensive pivot switch which also threatens just about any switch in that isnt a dark type. it has the ability to match any offensive mon you'll find on a standard HO team for power, but also has 50/150/150 defenses. thats why aegi is the standard HO glue for teambuilding, because it tanks hits without the need to sack a mon and keeps the offensive pressure up. no other pokemon does this even half as well in ou. some other pivots and tanks which you might see on offensive teams, such as heatran or clefable, have to sacrifice that power to invest in defense. aegislash does not.

if you want to count the number of things in this tier that are powerful enough to reliably OHKO a full health aegislash, ill give them to you:

-landorus-i
-bisharp
-zard x/y (X has to worry about KS on flare blitz, and Y outside of sun isnt guaranteed ohko)
-LO adamant excadrill

after that, theres stuff like max attack landorus-t (almost non-existant), adamant mega chomp, and max attack mega mawile (like a 10% chance to ohko w knock off) which are either uncommon or unreliable ohkos. so, thats 4 reliable ohkos and some other random shit. how many of the mons i just listed can switch into a standard aegi shadow ball? one, and that one is ohkoed by sacred sword. the fact is that offensive teams just cannot ever afford to give this mon free switch ins, and it gets a huge number of switch in oppurtunities. theyre basically forced to run one if not two of these mons to handle aegi, because otherwise it will get a kill everytime.

on top of all this aegi is difficult to wear down, since most sets run kings shield + leftovers which means aegi can easily gain 12% of its health back whenever, and unlike heatran which uses protect for the same purpose, it can actually hurt the opponent as it protects. if aegi opts to run LO instead of lefties, its becomes even more ridiculous to switch into, and if it runs max speed (which is becoming more popular lately) it can even surprise adamant bisharps and then proceed to wreck the rest of your offensive team.


tldr, aegi is broken because it is the ultimate tank, excels in both its defensive and offensive capabilities like no other mon, and centralizes the entire metagame. if you're running offense, theres usually no reason not to run aegi, and every single team bar none has to be prepared for aegislash, or be prepared to lose. peace

 

[Mastoise]

Please name me these "hard counters." Mandibuzz / Hippowdon / Chesnaught lose to SubToxic. Heatran/Bisharp lose to Fast Life Orb. Bisharp can't even safely switch in. Hippowdon loses to Fast Life orb and doesnt like being Toxic'd. Tyranitar can't switch in. Mega Scizor/Conk have to win a bunch of 50/50s to win against it. Chansey/Blissey can switch in and "counter" it but what do they do in return? Absolutely nothing.

Centralizing the Metagame is a bad. You shouldn't have the whole tier revolve around a single popular and still struggle to handle it properly. Aegislash alone dictates tons of Pokemon's viability, movesets, and effectiveness in a battle by its presence alone Pokemon to a greater extent that anything else currently does. Nothing else in the tier comes close to having this effect.

I would definitely vote ban.

Ok, I am wrong. But I will just say that I enjoy the metagame with Aegislash, using it and predicting around it. If it get's a ban then I am just wondering if OU will be a little boring. Honestly it could go either way for me, and I guess this is why there needs to be some sort of test to make sure banning it is not a huge mistake.

 

[sticknotes]

I use aegislash a lot. It is slow but that is a benifit. Say I am fighting a Tyranitar and I am in defense form. Tyranitar uses crunch aegislash can take that get weakness policy off and boost its attack and special attack stats by two stages. Not to mention Aegislash has good coverage making people able to spam sword dances. And its stats are already good. Most of its sets fights back its weaknesses. Like if it gets burned it can use shadow ball. Its also hard to predict. Most of the times my aegislash gets killed is by criticals and checks like mamoswine. I say it should be moved up to ubers. My vote Ban

 

[TheWyvernKing]

Steel is going to lose A LOT of popularity if Aegi is banned. Aegi is basically Steel's only way of checking Fighting. Skarm isn't going to do it. Neither is Mawile-Mega, unless it's behind a screen. The fighting immunity is really important. Just ask Quagsire/Gastrodon on Water, or Gliscor on Flying.

Um steel was fine against fighting last gen and this gen it still has klefki, mega mawile, and doublade. Besides tons of types do well without immunites.

 

[Dread Arceus]

I think the question of Aegislash ban won't come down to people saying "Is this broken or not?". It will come down to what kind of meta they want. Aegislash counters several mons and forces some sweepers to run subpar moves: Mega Gardevoir, Mega Medicham, Mega Pinsir, Mega Heracross, etc. A meta without Aegislash is a very aggressive meta. However, Aegislash's ability to pivot helps a slower meta, from stall all the way up to being a pivot on standard offense, and even some hyper offense teams. As a hyper offense player, an Aegislash ban would really only help me, but I don't feel comfortable with Mega Gardevoir and Mega Medicham having no switch ins.
Choice: No ban
EDIT: tl;dr:

 

[StarkGod]

Aegis should NOT be banned. It's actually doing more help than harm. Viability? Talk to me about viability when offense becomes so insanely dominant that ditto will be on 80% of teams as a result. Aegi is literally the dam of defense that is keeping ridiculous offensive concepts like cmgarde/tran and Medicham/CCpinsir at bay. Mons that have no counters or safe switchins would run rampant as a result and it will be all too easy to build offensive teams that rip apart all other playstyles with minimum difficulty. Really think about the impact this will have.

If Aegis goes, at least 3 other things need to go with it. Aegi is handled the same as any other top threat; determine it's set; then try to deal with it. Is Aegis without toxic? You know what to do. Is Maw (for example) running focus punch? You know what NOT to do. Same concept here.

 

[Subject 18]

252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 307-367 (94.7 - 113.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

What does this show exactly? That Aegislash can be taken out? Every Pokemon in the game can be take out everything from Lugia to Magikarp, posting a calc that shows a Pokemon can beat doesnt prove anything. You know what else can be taken out? Arceus, Groudon, Kyogre and Mewtwo, do we unban those because something can beat it?

While we're posting calcs: 0- Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 332-392 (122 - 144.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Nice switch in!

 

[PKMNtrainerXtreme]

Im surprised that Mega Mawile hasn't been up for suspect yet. but yeah aegislash is very deadly but pokemon like gliscor,hippowdon,skarmory etc etc wall it. only problem with aegi is you need alot of attack boosts in order for shadow sneak to do some dmg

 

[G Herbo]

Ok, I am wrong. But I will just say that I enjoy the metagame with Aegislash, using it and predicting around it. If it get's a ban then I am just wondering if OU will be a little boring. Honestly it could go either way for me, and I guess this is why there needs to be some sort of test to make sure banning it is not a huge mistake.

I like that statement. " will ou be a little boring". I think with aegislash gone more things would be seen and ou and shake things up. I dont believe it should be banned based on that. Its stats and that 50/50 shit speaks for itself

 

[Halcyon.]

252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 307-367 (94.7 - 113.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO

4 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Bisharp: 368-436 (135.2 - 160.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

look mom, I can post numbers too :o

 

[Nuanda92]

Aegislash is strong, but it still has many counter in OU. I do not think he deserves to be banned, its ban, would alter the current metagame and that's it.

 

[Ajwf]

I'm only going to address this point here. You basically allude to saying that "It has 4 move slot syndrome. It can't run all these things at the same time and beat everything." To which I'm going to quote what both BKC and reyscarface said in the last suspect thread






The point there is that it doens't need to run all these things at once. It adjust its moveset according the team's needs, the same exact thing Mega Gengar did when it was OU and the same exact way its doing now in Ubers. Having more options doesnt make Aegislash bad, it makes it better. It gives the tools to beat just about everything it wants to and needs to making more unpredictable and more effective.

So from this point on, can we completely abolish the "4mss" argument when trying to say something isn't broken? It has never truly been good grounds to saying something isn't broken and it never will be. Thanks.

Okay, so I'll start suspecting Head Smash Aegislash every time I see it, right?

| King's Shield 87.632% | | Shadow Ball 77.648% | | Shadow Sneak 74.147% | | Sacred Sword 63.303%

Over 300 of 400% is right here. How am I going to reasonably worry about any other set? It ISN'T making it more dangerous, it's just running the same four moves. And yes, this is the 1825 stats. Sure, Aegi has a ton of lure sets (because there's no way Head Smash is anything but a lure), and the sub toxic set is legitimate, but when your seeing toxic on 14% of moveslots (which should mean, if I'm not mistake, about 3.5% of Aegis), I don't see this as something NOT having an issue with moveslots that, more often than not, runs only one set.

 

[chimpact]

In my view the whole OU already has adapted to the presence Aegislash. Since he assumed the position of Rotom-W usagem teams carry counters him that are not so specific as well, with Heatran, Charizard, Landorus and other on top of the most used do not see it as a major threat (not counting the Knock Off the Defiant and the Bisharp), not to mention that it ends up being predictable by only having 3 full sets and all make use of the King's Shield (and two of them from the Shadow Sneak). I want to vote and I have no intention to ban it, I'll be eyeing the topic to see if someone makes me change my mind (I apologize for the English Google Translation, I still have to adapt to it). :P

heatran, charizard and landorus are not counters. they're checks. and heatran is an awful switchin if you're up against the wrong set.

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 193-228 (50.5 - 59.6%) -- 83.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 111-132 (28.7 - 34.1%) -- 2.1% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
16 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 178-210 (46.1 - 54.4%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 416-490 (107.7 - 126.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Charizard X: 127-151 (35.2 - 41.9%) -- 76.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

I dont know defensive char X evs off the top of my head, but they definitely don't run max max.

With 150 defenses its a very sturdy pivot. you can bring it in on a lot of mons and force them out because of its combination of amazing typing, stats, and ability.
you can't really get a surprise kill on this by slapping on a SE move onto a pokemon like hp ice vs garchomp/lando I and knocking it out because of those defenses.
Its shadow ball is only resisted by dark types and its other main coverage move hits those dark types super effective.

Like someone previously said, building would be much better with it gone. fighting types would only have to worry about fairies, and not run EQ as a garbage coverage move just to hit random poisons and aegislash. Hawlucha, Toxicroak, Mgardevoir, Medicham.

I don't think Aegislash is broken enough to warrant a ban, but it does overcentralize the metagame. It's miserable having to run EQ on a lot of mons that can run a better coverage move just to deal with Aegislash.

 

[Tricking]

Aegislash is strong, but it still has many counter in OU. I do not think he deserves to be banned, its ban, would alter the current metagame and that's it.

That's true but aegi has three viable sets which are difficult to predict and counter. Banning him is the way to get a better OU tier.

 

[Albacore]

Everyone with a f*cking brain runs KS on Aegislash, its the only way to revert to shield forme..

Nope, not at all. Life Orb 4 Attacks Aegi is a set and it is very good, and SD Head Smash isn't actually bad either. That's the thing with Aegislash : it has like 10 different viable sets, so if you expect it to run or not run something, prepare yourself to be dissaponted

 

[Jacks0n]

Oml people are saying it shouldn't be banned because it has counters. Please enlighten the ou meta players as to what they are. Mandibuzz? LO flash cannon. Chansaught? Sub toxic. Bisharp? Secret sword. It's borked as, IMO it's
More borked than the deos were, so shut up about its counters because it has none for all it's sets.

 

[Stoo]

Its getting crazy honestly, Aegi is just a freaking pivot, he tanks some hits and hits back nothing more, no matter how well he might do that, how can something like that be broken?

there are many ways for something to be broken, just because aegislash isnt a sweeper (it can even do that with a wp autotomize lol) doesnt mean it isnt too good at what it does

 

[Fortune]

In my humble opinion, Aegislash needs to go. Let's just think about this for a second. A ghost/steel type, possibly the best typing possible in the game, with essentially base 720 stats. Need I say more? Not only that, it has arguably one of the best moves in the game in King's Shield and a reliable priority that only 2 types of Pokémon resist. It's strongest moves have perfect coverage on the entire metagame (ghost/fighting)... This mon can perform a wide variety of roles-- setup sweeper, mixed attacker, tank, special attacker, pivot... the list goes on.

Don't even try to tell me that this sword didn't shape the meta and that it doesn't restrict team building in any way.

 

[Nuanda92]

That's true but aegi has three viable sets which are difficult to predict and counter. Banning him is the way to get a better OU tier.

It is an exaggeration. It's a matter of not wanting to fight us against. Laziness.

Or is there hope to revive pokemon like Starmie, Alakazam, Metagross, Medicham, Gardevoir, Terrakion etc. Pokemon prevented by his presence?

Currently Aegislash is a key pokemon metagame. With his absence, the metagame would be undermined.

 

[Arcanine is Regal]

Why ban Aegislash? Here's why!: It possesses a pseudo 720 BST. That's even higher than Kyurem-B. And it still has a lot over it. Aegislash has great typing offensively and defensively. Ghost has only one resist and one immunity. And King's Shield makes it impossible to trap outside of Bisharp, which can still be outsped and KOed with a fast Sacred Sword set. While we're talking about King's Shield, King's Shield has a negative impact on the meta by forcing many 50/50s. Aegislash also has many sets that can be run, different sets having different counters at that. So your team has to be stacked to deal with it. Aegislash's presence alone makes many Pokemon subpar or just generally worse than what they could be, while at the same time preventing Rapid Spinners outside of Excadrill from being viable. Individually, each trait doesn't make it banworthy, but a single mon has all of these!

And that's why I'm planning to vote it Uber. Lets see the anti-ban arguments~

I might as well have your post here and just expand on it because I was going to say exactly that.

Things I want to expand on:

Kings Shield: Perhaps the most frustrating move, up there with scald and swagger(maybe not swagger lol), this move lets aegislash completely stop and destroy pokes that would have otherwise been solid checks, and turns the metagame into a glorified game of flipping coins. Pokemon like choice band talonflame, just might as well switch out because a -2 flare blitz only does about 60%, and then it gets killed, which isnt a good trade. This leaves aegislash vulnerable to only three types of attacks, indirect physical moves(sacred fire being the only notable one), ground moves which get blocked by air balloon, and special moves. So pretty much in order to kill aegislash we need to pop its balloon(which is usally a suicide mission, or a nice prediction), or nail him with special attacks most of which are dont hit him super effectively, and he can sponge them up with his 150 SPDEF STAT.

Variety in Sets: As if King's Shield didnt force enough 50/50s, with all of aegislash's sets even the most reliable counters can be reduced to rubble or praying that they win a 50/50. Ill tackle the most common counters and then post calcs about how different aegislash sets can handle them.
Mandibuzz: This was the number 1 aegislash counter for a good portion of the metagame, but then sub toxic aegislash became popular and all of a sudden mandibuzz is irrelevant.
4 Atk Mandibuzz Foul Play vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 66-78 (20.3 - 24%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
sub toxic aegi is free to sub and toxic away until mandibuzz is dead, and aegi comes out of the exchange behind a sub.
Bisharp: While Bisharp was always considered a shaky counter, because switching into a sacred sword was so terrifying, no one could argue that bisharp was an excellent aegislash check, but now there is a common set that runs max speed and is capable of outspeeding and OHKOing bisharp. So now forget about pursuit trapping bisharp has to decide if he wants to sucker punch or knock off and if he chooses wrong that could be the game.
Heatran: Remains perhaps the most common aegislash "counter" because he can sponge up shadow balls with relative ease, but the same set that scares bisharp also is able to outspeed and 2hko heatran, which means even heatran has to know what set aegislash is before he switches in.

Let me point out that these^^^ are aegislashes best switchins, period. (barring meloetta and braviary, but those are gimmicky imo) The reason we banned lucario and now deo-s, is because you had no idea what set it was running and that poke had the ability to run a set that would destroy a poke that countered the common set. This combination is too strong and that is why we ban pokes that possess this quality.

I have more to say but I have to go so this will do for now, Ill just start replying to counter-ban arguments when I get back on. I hope my clear position on wanting to ban aegislash doesn't discourage people to question any of my points, I am open to all viewpoints and reserve the right to change my opinion if there is an argument I find convincing. I look forward to seeing a healthy debate about this pokemon because I feel it has the best chance of staying opposed to the previous suspects.

 

[Arekasune]

If Aegi gets banned, those EQs will just be "forced" to a different coverage move to handle the next "centralizing" pokemon, which will then probably get banned too. As far as having multiple viable sets... I can't fathom how this is really a problem. A LOT of mons have multiple, viable sets that can't be determined until you're in-game and fighting against it. That's the whole point of strategy, tactics, and predictions, which are the staples of pokemon battling in the first place.

My main concern with banning this thing is that A) I don't believe it is warranted based on "psuedo" stats, nor on how many viable sets it can run, B) I find the "restrictive team build" argument invalid because other awesome pokemon will just take its place and then you just get ban after ban after ban.

 

[Darkdevil]

I'm reading stuff about the centralization aegislash brings being bad, as in that stuff like mega heracross, mega gardevoir, mega medicham being "nerfed" I would like to quote Doughboy message about this:

Competivness is the goal, diversity just happens to be a symptom of aiming for that goal. It isn't the other way around (i.e. diversity leads to competitiveness)!

Not only that i believe we should also focus about the "variety concept" we want to achieve
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/characteristics-of-a-desirable-pokemon-metagame.66515/ to quote this thread "too much variety is chaos" and "no one can master a game with too many options"
I'm not entirely convinced about Centralization being bad, and Aegislash presence itself being negative for the Metagame, of course, I'll play on the suspect ladder as i did in the previous rounds, my final opinion might change, but as of now it's this.

 

[trc]

I've been pushing for this suspect for a long long time now, so I might as well get my point across. There's no point in only listing purely objective characteristics of Aegislash, we all know them. We need to discuss thing on a metagame level. This is some of my reasoning towards why I am for banning Aegislash:

• Versatility: Yes, versatility comes up a lot in suspect threads, and yes, it doesn't always mean that each of the separate sets that contributes to its versatility is good. However, thanks to Aegislash's objective characteristics, such as its high power, bulk, and great movepool, at least three of Aegislash's sets are both very viable in the metagame and different enough from each other in that they can somewhat beat solid checks to the other sets. It's been said before, there are no hard counters to Aegislash, yes Mandibuzz / Hippowdon / Chesnaught / Heatran are somewhat reliable against some sets. but Mandibuzz loses to SubToxic variants, Flash Cannon variants, SD + Head Smash varaints, and is SR weak. Hippowdon loses to SubToxic variants. Chesnaught loses to SubToxic and Flash Cannon. Heatran loses to fast Life Orb Sacred Sword variants. Nothing truly "counters" Aegislash thanks to the variety of sets it can run, again, thanks to its objective characteristics.
• Centralisation: Centralisation is something hard to completely define, but I think it is common knowledge that Aegislash centralises the metagame. Its typing and bulk mean it can't just be worn down in conventional senses and then finished off with priority, it is immune or resistant to most forms of priority, resists U-turn, and has the bulk to tank Volt Switches. There are so many Pokemon that would be much better without Aegislash that's for sure, as it walls a very large amount of attackers. People bring up Hawlucha and Mega Heracross, but there are others too. It also severely hinders the viability of most Psychic-types, such as Starmie. Of course, while we can't prove this is entirely Aegislash's fault, we know that it heavily affects these Pokemon's ability to function competitively.
• Objective: This is where I'm just going to say quickly all the stuff we already know. 720 BST, 150 / 150 offenses, 150 / 150 defenses, low Speed helps it tank hits in the forme it wants to tank hits in, great movepool, etc. We typically don't often see Pokemon with great offenses and great defenses.
• 50/50s: This is a big one. Most of Aegislash's supposed "checks" or things that could check it reasonably well, such as say, Conkeldurr, or Weavile, have to face the 50/50 of Aegislash going into King's Shield, which obviously prevents the check from doing a necessary amount of damage. Forcing 50/50s is an extremely cancerous part of Pokemon as it lessens the skill part of Pokemon and turns it into luck.
• Metagame Enjoyment: This is purely subjective but I would definitely prefer a meta where I didn't have to worry about 50/50s and trying to "check" Aegislash.

tl;dr aegi = broken

 

[Celticpride]

I've seen several people mention Mega Heracross in arguments. Mega Heracross will most likely not see an increase in usage as long as Talonflame is around. TFlame is a much larger threat to Mega Heracross then Aegislash. Rock/Bug/Fighting is only resisted by the following things: Nidoking, Nidoqueen, Toxicroak and Aegislash. That fourth moveslot is a luxury. It's not like Mega Heracross is forgoing Pin Missile or Rock Blast to hit Aegi. In an Aegi-free meta, Heracross would most likely run Bullet Seed just to deal with Rotom-W. Aegi is not the largest threat to Heracross by far.

Also, another point about Earthquake and King's Shield, since I have started playing competitively (a few gens at this point) Earthquake has been a staple for many movesets because it hits Steel types. Fire Blast also has similar reasoning. Those moves haven't risen to prominence solely because of Aegi, it's because of Steel types in general. In an Aegi-less world, people will still carry Earthquake and Fire Blast to deal with Scizor, Heatran, Skarm etc.

 

[Mr.378]

After eliminating some of the more obvious threats in the tier right now we reach the elephant in the room. As of right now I am uncertain of whether or not Aegislash deserves elimination from the tier and I will give more detailed thoughts once I hopefully obtain my requirements, but I can definitely see it happening. It is the best, most suspect-worthy threat in the game right now and has near-unparalleled versatility. It can fit on and significantly contribute to any team. It's unique form changing abilities can allow it to be one of the best offensive or defensive pokemon in the game at will. Even though it may have it's shortcomings and a decent amount of answers may exist to its particular sets it is the most threatening pokemon in the meta right now.