Metagame National Dex Metagame Discussion

[1234hjkl]

If you haven't heard, Darkrai is now legal. How do yall feel? Are we coping or are we hoping? also drop some cool sets so i can stop using specs

edit: my 666th post which feels weirdly appropriate here

With my limited editing skills here's a comemorative pic. Pic is from The Sasquatch gang, watch it.

Some Sets.

Darkrai Sets

Basic Unga-Bunga
Darkrai @ Life Orb
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Poison/Fighting/Fairy
Timid Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Sludge Bomb/Ice Beam/Tera Blast

Annoyance/Utility
Darkrai @ Heavy Duty Boots
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD/ 252 Spe
Tera Type: Poison/Fighting/Ghost
Hasty/Timid Nature
- Knock Off
- Dark Pulse
- Sludge Bomb
- Will-O-Wisp/Thunder Wave

Scarf
Darkrai @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Poison
Timid Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Sludge Bomb
- Focus Blast/Trick
- Ice Beam

Sub-Hex
Darkrai @ Leftovers
Ability: Bad Dreams
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Tera Type: Ghost
Timid Nature
- Hex
- Substitute
- Will-O-Wisp/Knock Off
- Thunder Wave/Ice Beam/Focus Blast.

 

[Ineros]

If you haven't heard, Darkrai is now legal. How do yall feel? Are we coping or are we hoping? also drop some cool sets so i can stop using specs

edit: my 666th post which feels weirdly appropriate here

Yep. Definitely appropriate.

Honestly, because I haven’t laddered much recently (aside from the ladder games I’ve done attempting reqs [and failing]) I haven’t seen much of Darkrai. Even in room tours where my main play comes from I have barely seen Darkrai, so I may be theorymonning a bit here.

Darkrai seems very threatening, but as shown through the suspect results it appears to not be broken. Definitely a good mon, but not up to the brokenness that me and others had anticipated of Darkrai. Of course specs is a good set and for someone who plays BO like me I feel it can fit there and other styles like some offenses. On HO (both hazards and screens can work) Nplot fight z is probably the best set there as it can use the astonishing power and almost unresisted coverage (only okidogi and toxicroak resist it lmao) to take full advantage of hazards/screens. Not to mention it’s throwing off insanely powerful z moves with a +2 base 135 spatk which is nothing to be passive around.

Darkrai @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Taunt
- Nasty Plot
This is a set I came up with while making this post. Its idea is simple; because spdef Toxapex can comfortably best Darkrai normally, taunt is used to offset haze and toxic from it while also still denying rocks/spikes and defog from things like tornt zap Ferro heatran and Garg. It can probably do decently at being annoying against Tera fairy Glisc asw. I see it working on offense but for teams that can’t break pex in general it can probably work.

 

[1234hjkl]

Darkrai @ Fightinium Z
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Focus Blast
- Taunt
- Nasty Plot
This is a set I came up with while making this post. Its idea is simple; because spdef Toxapex can comfortably best Darkrai normally, taunt is used to offset haze and toxic from it while also still denying rocks/spikes and defog from things like tornt zap Ferro heatran and Garg. It can probably do decently at being annoying against Tera fairy Glisc asw. I see it working on offense but for teams that can’t break pex in general it can probably work.

I recommend you switch FightZ for DarkZ and switch out Focus Miss for sludge bomb. Fairies will laugh at this set even something frail like Valiant can still stop you, even at 2+, with SB those fairies can't switch for free and BHEclipse stills annihilate Heatran, Pex, Thorn and Garg after a NP.
+2 252 SpA Darkrai Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 212 SpD Ferrothorn: 394-465 (111.9 - 132.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Darkrai Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Heatran: 382-451 (98.9 - 116.8%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Darkrai Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Assault Vest Toxapex: 262-310 (86.4 - 102.3%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252 SpA Darkrai Black Hole Eclipse (160 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Garganacl: 415-489 (102.7 - 121%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[Epicgamergod69]

If you haven't heard, Darkrai is now legal. How do yall feel? Are we coping or are we hoping? also drop some cool sets so i can stop using specs

edit: my 666th post which feels weirdly appropriate here

Fucking hell.... Oh boy another thing that hugely restricts building.... Hooray....
No one liners so uh
Here's a few more lines
This is probably enough lines

 

[bigasschungusboi]

Gee i hope that darkrai doesn't influence the council to start talks on sleep!?!?!?


Forshadowing ensues.

 

[buayagator]

If you haven't heard, Darkrai is now legal. How do yall feel? Are we coping or are we hoping? also drop some cool sets so i can stop using specs

edit: my 666th post which feels weirdly appropriate here

Good to know, darkrai is very balanced at the current metagame level, my favorite set is psychium-z hypnosis, even though it is unreliable, once hypnosis hits, its very easy to setup nasty plot, plus bonus passive damage for bad dreams

Darkrai @ Psychium Z
Ability: Bad Dreams
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Dark Pulse
- Sludge Bomb
- Hypnosis
- Nasty Plot

 

[Sulo]

Gee i hope that darkrai doesn't influence the council to start talks on sleep!?!?!?


Forshadowing ensues.

I don't know if you posted this here because of the discussions going on in SV OU, but this is probably not going to happen.

In ND, many offensive threats or walls that you'd think could viably use sleep aren't really as good as you'd think or would prefer to use a lot of other options. I'll take a few Pokemon from the thread this discussion was happening in within the SV OU forum:

- Admittedly, Darkrai is probably the strongest abuser of sleep as a whole (surprise, surprise); many would presume it to be even better here due to Z-Hypnosis forcing uncomfortable situations against defensive checks and attempting to power through teams (if the move lands). However, there's huge opportunity cost irt dropping a coverage move in Focus Blast or Sludge Bomb in this tier; if you lack Focus Blast, you do much worse into Fighting-weak / neutral Dark resists or other targets like Mega Tyranitar, Heatran, and Mega Mawile, among others, while dropping Sludge Bomb renders you useless against stuff like Clefable. This is not to mention that Hypnosis is still Hypnosis; you are banking on the fact that you actually land the move to pull anything off, which is the reason that not many players have turned to this set, and have instead been using more consistent options like Nasty Plot + 3 attacks or Choice Specs.

- Putting these together for their similar qualities; both are able to (kinda) check Ogerpon-W and pivot into certain physical attackers + spread status with paralysis, poison, and of course, sleep. However. both Amoonguss and Tangrowth have more flaws than others of their nature and haven't seen consistent tournament usage at all (Amoonguss absolutely hates Gliscor being everywhere and is a Grass-type that can't actually check Ground-types that reliably, while Tangrowth doesn't actually have notable flaws but is just generally less used for something like Ferrothorn for its ability to spread item removal / status / pivot into Ogerpon-W, etc.). As such, trying to justify a sleep ban off the basis of these Pokemon existing is a paper argument imo.

- HO feels just okay rn and Aurora Veil offense is similar in that regard; I don't think sleep really plays a huge role in why you'd pick Veil over other forms of HO, since hazards are equally as valuable and easier to keep up with how much pressure teams like these exert (and also this thing has basically nothing else to run really lol). Its typing isn't really geared towards fishing for Hypnosis either because of the prevalence of stuff like Mega Scizor, Garganacl, Iron Crown, etc. Don't think this would really play a huge factor in consideration of a sleep ban either.

Unrelated, but I'd appreciate it if we stopped posting one-liners too.

 

[R8]

In my opinion (not speaking on the behalf of the council - I am not part of the council), if SVOU decides to remove sleep clause part because it is an archaic & not reasonable way (since it's a mod) to deal with the mechanic, national dex should strongly consider following the example and remove sleep inducing moves altogether. I don't care if it's bad/unreliable (most sleep cheese stuff are bad), I just don't think there is enough competitive interest to this mechanic to the point you want to mod it for the sake of preserving it, in current gen at least, aside from sleep powder tangrowth and spore amoonguss (very minor casualities). Sleep Clause is a relic of the past and should be treated as such, and I'd happily see it go with any kind of hypnosis nonsense.

 

[Epicgamergod69]

In my opinion (not speaking on the behalf of the council - I am not part of the council), if SVOU decides to remove sleep clause part because it is an archaic & not reasonable way (since it's a mod) to deal with the mechanic, national dex should strongly consider following the example and remove sleep inducing moves altogether. I don't care if it's bad/unreliable (most sleep cheese stuff are bad), I just don't think there is enough competitive interest to this mechanic to the point you want to mod it for the sake of preserving it, in current gen at least, aside from sleep powder tangrowth and spore amoonguss (very minor casualities). Sleep Clause is a relic of the past and should be treated as such, and I'd happily see it go with any kind of hypnosis nonsense.

NOOOOO we can't ban the sussy
Anyway sleep clause helps discourage sleep spam degenerate strategies, if we remove that it will result in a huge reduction in the quality of games overall.
Removing sleep clause doesn't do anything positive for the metagame it only makes unhealthy interactions and insane hax even worse, no one and I mean no one in their right minds should want to have 3+ mons put to sleep.

 

[R8]

NOOOOO we can't ban the sussy
Anyway sleep clause helps discourage sleep spam degenerate strategies, if we remove that it will result in a huge reduction in the quality of games overall.
Removing sleep clause doesn't do anything positive for the metagame it only makes unhealthy interactions and insane hax even worse, no one and I mean no one in their right minds should want to have 3+ mons put to slee

if SVOU decides to remove sleep clause part because it is an archaic & not reasonable way (since it's a mod) to deal with the mechanic, national dex should strongly consider following the example and remove sleep inducing moves altogether.

 

[Aesiro13]

Imo sleep isnt even the most broken status in the game

How can it be when Frozen exists? it's such a bullshit status that it effectively just gives you a free KO on the mon afflicted.

 

[1234hjkl]

Changing topics a bit, what are your thoughts on Momotaro Pecharunt? I been using it as an pivot and I been liking it a lot, still playing around a bit with it's Tera.

Pecharunt @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Hex
- Recover
- Parting Shot
It outspeed Tusk and can live a HaR from full even if uninvested, haven't tested offensive sets yet but a pivoting one looks nice.

 

[CappyThePulpy]

Changing topics a bit, what are your thoughts on Momotaro Pecharunt? I been using it as an pivot and I been liking it a lot, still playing around a bit with it's Tera.

Pecharunt @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 8 SpD / 248 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Hex
- Recover
- Parting Shot
It outspeed Tusk and can live a HaR from full even if uninvested, haven't tested offensive sets yet but a pivoting one looks nice.

I have been running a defensive pivot with chain over toxic. 100BP move with a 50/50 to toxic+confuse ray feels a lot better with added bulk making clicking it less punishing.


Pecharunt @ Leftovers
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Malignant Chain
- Recover
- Hex
- Parting Shot

This set has good bulk on both physical and special side allowing for the use of a very interesting defensive typing. Hex feels weird on this set and I almost never click it.

 

[Aesiro13]

Changing topics a bit, what are your thoughts on Momotaro Pecharunt? I been using it as an pivot and I been liking it a lot, still playing around a bit with it's Tera.

I personally find it could be a valuable toxic setter that's able to severely cripple physical sweepers like Ogerpon-Wellspring before they get going. However, it doesn't have much value beyond that due to its limited utility and lackluster offense. It also has a mediocre speed tier with a base speed of 88, meaning it gets outsped by quite a few threats, and it absolutely cannot touch Steels. Overall, a fairly average balance mon that could provide some meaningful support in both the short and long term, but is ultimately outclassed by other mons with more utility and better all-around bulk.

 

[Oculars]

Imo Pecha is an A+ tier or S- mon, thing has very limited counterplay and almost all of it can get haxxed, by the toxic + confusion from the broken 100bp move. The counterplay that doesnt get haxxed by the toxic confusion effect (poisons, steels) are super obvious switch ins and can get exploited by simply pairing pecha with a strong fighting mon like moistshifu or even better mega medicham. This thing offers up free doubles into mega medicham every game ive used them together which basically claims a mon or forces tera every time the sequence happens since like 95% of teams have no mega medicham switchin. People are also underestimating how bulky this thing is, 88/160/88 and immune to tox is not weak bulk for reference clefable is 95/70/90 and everyone knows how chunky clef can be, for reference this thing can come in and 1v1 spdef gliscor despite it having super effective eq.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Pecharunt: 114-134 (30 - 35.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Ev spread is to outspeed after and 2hko easily with +2 0 spa hex
+2 0 SpA Pecharunt Hex (130 BP) vs. 244 HP / 244+ SpD Gliscor: 219-258 (62.2 - 73.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
Imo this mon is incredible, easily enabled other team members and will be meta defining at some point in the future

EDIT: Other people were right this mons like a B tier, I was just getting super lucky games where it was enabling fightings very easy

 

[CappyThePulpy]

Imo Pecha is an A+ tier or S- mon, thing has very limited counterplay and almost all of it can get haxxed, by the toxic + confusion from the broken 100bp move. The counterplay that doesnt get haxxed by the toxic confusion effect (poisons, steels) are super obvious switch ins and can get exploited by simply pairing pecha with a strong fighting mon like moistshifu or even better mega medicham. This thing offers up free doubles into mega medicham every game ive used them together which basically claims a mon or forces tera every time the sequence happens since like 95% of teams have no mega medicham switchin. People are also underestimating how bulky this thing is, 88/160/88 and immune to tox is not weak bulk for reference clefable is 95/70/90 and everyone knows how chunky clef can be, for reference this thing can come in and 1v1 spdef gliscor despite it having super effective eq.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Pecharunt: 114-134 (30 - 35.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
Ev spread is to outspeed after and 2hko easily with +2 0 spa hex
+2 0 SpA Pecharunt Hex (130 BP) vs. 244 HP / 244+ SpD Gliscor: 219-258 (62.2 - 73.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
Imo this mon is incredible, easily enabled other team members and will be meta defining at some point in the future

You are arguing that pecha is an S- mon based on the fact that mmedi has no switch ins. There are many mons who can force switches or pivot into medi. From your story I would rather say medi is the amazing mon while replacing pecha with a lele would force more switches.

I agree that chain is an amazing move and pecha has good bulk while its typing offers some unique niches. I would say its main walling problem is weakness to spikes and questionable matchup vs gliscor

 

[Oculars]

You are arguing that pecha is an S- mon based on the fact that mmedi has no switch ins. There are many mons who can force switches or pivot into medi. From your story I would rather say medi is the amazing mon while replacing pecha with a lele would force more switches.

I agree that chain is an amazing move and pecha has good bulk while its typing offers some unique niches. I would say its main walling problem is weakness to spikes and questionable matchup vs gliscor

Beats any non sd gliscor 1v1 easily, sd loses if you tera and you can run boots no problem for spikes, its not just medi but the structures that fit around pecha in general are very strong could be Lop, ival, zama, magnezone, urshifu R or many other mons. Its switchins are limited and very predictable forcing plenty of 50/50s throughout a match.

 

[Red violet blue]

About sleep, there is another difference between National Dex OU and gen9 ou:
- In National Dex, there is Tapu Koko, so the electric surge protects mons from sleep inducing moves. It's not in every team, but it's a nice way to deal with sleep stuff.

 

[R8]

About sleep, there is another difference between National Dex OU and gen9 ou:
- In National Dex, there is Tapu Koko, so the electric surge protects mons from sleep inducing moves. It's not in every team, but it's a nice way to deal with sleep stuff.

One of the reasons why people want to remove sleep clause is because it breaks the mechanics of the game by being a mod, and imo is a reason why National Dex should consider just banning sleep moves instead

hey I just wanted to ask since i was curious: has mega sceptile been affected by shed tail at all? I didn't see it on its singular analysis, but I imagine it would help it get out of obvious steel-type switchins and serves a similar purpose to u-turn.

Shed Tail is banned, so unfortunately not

 

[Epicgamergod69]

One of the reasons why people want to remove sleep clause is because it breaks the mechanics of the game by being a mod, and imo is a reason why National Dex should consider just banning sleep moves instead

Dang guys
Remove endless battle clause bc it's a mod!!!!!
Edit: because some people took me seriously this was a joke if it wasn't clear

 

[R8]

Dang guys
Remove endless battle clause bc it's a mod!!!!!

... it's not? It's literally an agreement between the two players. Unlike sleep clause, it does not create new battle mechanics impossible to replicate on cart

 

[Oculars]

... it's not? It's literally an agreement between the two players. Unlike sleep clause, it does not create new battle mechanics impossible to replicate on cart

I don't remember agreeing to EBC when I load funbro or revivecats. If it was an agreement between players they would have to ask you at the start of the match (like open team sheets does)

 

[CEO_of_Piss]

Removing sleep clause would just be making the game worse for weird pointless dogmatic reasons. Who cares if it's technically a mod, it's good because it makes the game better. I really don't have anything else to say about this part tbh

Assuming sleep clause stays, there's really no basis for banning sleep due to it being overpowered (I don't think anyone was actually arguing this though, I'm just covering the possible reasons), so the only real reason I can see to consider banning it is if you think it is uncompetitive due to the randomness

Moves like spore and yawn aren't really any more random than other game mechanics like paralysis or move accuracy or critical hits, but the low accuracy of hypnosis combined with the random length of sleep does mean that games where hypnosis is used are influenced by rng more than usual

Personally I think that it isn't that big of a deal because this game already has a ton of randomness in it, so no action on sleep is necessary. But I could understand banning just hypnosis (and maybe dark void too ig) if you're concerned about them being uncompetitive

 

[UltraxBlade]

I don't remember agreeing to EBC when I load funbro or revivecats. If it was an agreement between players they would have to ask you at the start of the match (like open team sheets does)

The agreement is implicit in both choosing to play a format called NatDex OU with an agreed-upon set of rules that ban those sets.

The point being argued is that "thing is not allowed to be used at all" can be replicated on an official copy of the game by both agreeing not to use the banned element, as can nearly any other element of standard Smogon rulesets (legality, level, species clause, etc.), but Sleep Clause can't -- specifically, the part of Sleep Clause where if you try to use a sleep-inducing move on a second Pokemon the move outright fails. This causes minor but meaningful differences between Showdown and cartridge play. On Showdown, with Sleep Clause enforced, you can click a sleep move against a sleeping target to try to sleep them again in case they stay in and wake up, and if the opponent switches, the move just fails on the switched-in Pokemon. It stays awake, and the match keeps going, due to a mechanic that doesn't exist in the actual game. Do the same thing on cartridge, and the switched-in Pokemon is put to sleep, violating Sleep Clause, and since there's no way to undo it, the best approximation for enforcing the rule is usually instant game loss for the person who broke it. While a relatively uncommon scenario, this potentially results in different plays being made depending on whether you're playing on Showdown or cartridge.

Now, we are in a format that can't ever be played on cartridge because our full list of Pokemon, moves, and items isn't in the actual game, but NatDex tries to otherwise emulate standard tiering practice as if those things could be used in the game. Standard metagames adhere to cartridge behavior and avoid implementing any rules that can't be replicated on cartridge. Sleep Clause is the one exception that's stuck around, and some people think it should be removed for violating this philosophy. I don't have strong feelings on the matter myself, but this is the argument being made.

 

[Kin+ak (✧∇✧)]

So pecharunt just arrives and people are hyped. Yay a fruit, we already got an Apple, hyper but Still, Well, low-quality material. Pecharunt, firstly, has bad stats. 88 is lame, Except defense, colossal, 160. it's funny to take hits but 88 sPA is just lame and nastyplot won't help since it has not that good spécial bulk 88/88 and bad speed(88). Malignabt chain is Fun, but in a tier whith the likes of Lele, megatar, and hooopa-U i dont see it shine At all. It sure is better here than reg OU, they have kingambit and/or gholdengo, but It's just a counter/check to zama. Niche, maybe B/B-, but far from A+/broken.

Sleep clause is a way of playing competitively on a large basis. Why remove It cause It's different? Look At me in the eyes and tell me every random guy on the serv has a Shiny EV'd Minted Zamazenta. Not to mention that Ingame You just use caly-s and win lol