Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 12 - Moth To A Flame

[Heatranator]

There items that counter it right, protective pads, ability shield and punching glove maybe people can use it

Ability shield would not prevent flame body from proccing, it means that your ability can't be changed at all i.e. a levitate mon cannot be hit by ground moves used by a mold breaker mon. This would not affect the interaction at all, a mon holding ability shield could still get the proc from flame body
Protective pads is a nice item, but its not really good. Outside of flame body, static, rough skin and rocky helmet, its a useless item. Static is mainly for zapdos, who is a B ranked mon. Rough skin is only on garchomp, who is a B- mon. That just leaves flame body and rocky helmet. But even then, its not worth it. Rocky helmet is used on three collective mons commonly, lando-t, corv and skarm. Good mons, but not enough to use the item.
Punching glove is technically better, boosting the power of punching moves as well, but its still not good.
Overall, these two items are not worth it to counter one mon and a few others. So people just have to deal with it. As DaddyBuzzwole said, its a tiny bit overblown, but volc abuses this to great effect. If we started seeing people commonly running these otherwise trash items, then you know shits hit the fan. It's like if we started using covert cloak for garg commonly, that would be a sign of bad things.

 

[waffle04]

I want to do a little write-up on now that I hit reqs. I have been playing OU fairly regularly and did restart my reqs a handful of times (I managed to choke a 28-1 run that turned into reqs in 47 that I also choked :( ) while playing with a new squad everytime. After playing with a couple balance teams and darkspam, I finally got reqs with a different HO team. All of those runs + my experience on higher ladder with pretty much every archetype but stall, not once have I found to just run away with the game, even with the right tera type into the match-up.

relies heavily on its teammates to break down its counterplay to even get in position to sweep. Between all the fast encore pokemon that it might try to set-up on like or , faster taunt pokemon like or , status spreaders like or , there are so many ways to stop from ramping up early on. Mid-late game when its at its scariest, pokemon like , , , and all stop it depending on the tera. Of course, this isn't the whole list of pokemon that can do every role but it features the more commonly seen ones.

I did note that all of the late-game checks rely on its tera type. Ideally, you would want to save your tera reactionarily use it vs an opposing cleaner, whether it be , , or , so the flip doesn't leave you blindsided into a loss. Tera is a vital tool that helps you break through certain structures or helps you not crumble to opposing threats so, if you end up in a 2v1 scenario with tera burned and your opponent has saved it until now then you should play wary, especially vs an opponent who knows what they're doing. However, if you were playing the game cognizant of the opposing in the back, you would keep counters like and alive on stall, any breaker or prioity like or and a bulky pivot like or since this usually forces a tera to either avoid excessive damage or status which lets you break through it. Also, offensive structures also have options for late game . , , at +3, and are all common options that do beat it 1v1.

This potential flip into win is nothing that other common sweepers like the aforementioned or can't do and, having this ability while teching for match-ups is also nothing new or special given that pokemon like "iron valiant" is known for this, along with pokemon like , and which are fairly customizable for certain match-ups and, and deserve special mention if you incorrectly predict the set since these two can run away with games if you played against them as their breaker and pivot sets, respectively.

I think the biggest thing that makes me feel like is OK in SV OU is the fact that its a very rigid and inflexible pokemon. You know exactly what its going to do and you can plan your game around it. You know which pokemon to keep healthy, which ones you play more loosely with and generally play around letting their wincon meet the conditions that let it win. Anecdotal, but the only loss I had over my suspect run that was directly 's fault was when tera blast ground crit my , which lead to not being able to preserve my tera, a sac and focus sash on which beat the last few guys. Even then, I was playing HO which is super volatile, especially late game so that definitely wasn't something I could ever wholly account for. To get back on track, its inflexibility means that its really only sweep since bulky sets lack breaking power and offensive sets lack longevity to do both. Taking a look at the previously mentioned win cons, can break or weaken many popular defensive pokemon early game for its teammates thanks to the strongest knock off in the tier, acrobatics for fighting types and eq for steel types or taunt to stop recovery. can come in to check a pokemon like and either force chip or waste an item/ability on its checks, freeing it up for the late game. can shut down set-up mons, revenge kill, force a KO with destiny bond or wall break with SD sets. plays similar to except its typing + multiscale lets it come in more often defensively and its rainbow movepool lets it bait and hit threats without burning tera. is similar to in its flexibility but trades long term chip for higher immediate power. Lastly, IDPress plays closest to but ime is more reliable at breaking its checks late game with the right tera along with being a fantastic physical check once a game if necessary and has the option to go boots 4a or band to function as a breaker. In comparison, if comes in to check something like or , it does force out these guys but it lets its checks or counters in and it realistically can not make progress on these mons alone thanks to needing to burn an early tera to see notable chip. If it does pop tera early for chip, this makes the game far easier since you can a) play around it far easier and b) if you have tera intact you get set up in a phenominal position since your opponent can't tera anything else to break or check your team. I will say, the emergency ability to check fairies is huge for HO squads since many of them run a few dark types + so having the option to have a pokemon that can come in freely to avoid the 6-0 is nice, especially if is already down or is needed for other pokemon.

I understand people feel strongly about its builder constraints but what is it forcing usage of that isn't already being used for stopping other pokemon? All of the high power physical threats caused , and usage to skyrocket along with , the accessibility of hazards causes to be a common choice, encore rose in popularity to shut down set-up sweepers as well as turning opposing pokemon into set-up fodder, & for , tera fairy phys. def pokemon for darkspam and stuff like tera grass due to are all notable and common builder choices I see to address specific threats in the metagame but what is being teched in solely because of ?

I understand that it can be a frustrating pokemon to play against in a bad match-up but I am not seeing anything it does better than its contemporaries other than be a special attacking option nor its builder constraints that seem to be the more contentious topic. It also lacks the ability to just QD at lead and 6-0 or come in and weaken its checks to clean later like so many other available pokemon even in its better match-ups unless the team is poorly built. Unless I see some heinous 6-0s vs well thought out structures, consistently breaking down a team to sweep like or can or someone points out some notable builder constraints and restrictions either solely caused by or exponentially worsened by , I will be voting DO NOT BAN.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I understand people feel strongly about its builder constraints but what is it forcing usage of that isn't already being used for stopping other pokemon? All of the high power physical threats caused , and usage to skyrocket along with , the accessibility of hazards causes to be a common choice, encore rose in popularity to shut down set-up sweepers as well as turning opposing pokemon into set-up fodder, & for , tera fairy phys. def pokemon for darkspam and stuff like tera grass due to are all notable and common builder choices I see to address specific threats in the metagame but what is being teched in solely because of ?

…huh. that's actually a really good point. i haven't been seeing people running, like, tera fire gambit or any of the other volc-specific stuff they were running in the previous volc era. volc not only has viable answers, it has viable answers that don't have to compromise their normal sets specifically for it

although, in fairness, all of those viable answers do get goobed by some off-meta tera or other. and while it's true on some level that everything's answers can potentially get goobed by off-meta teras this gen and that's just a part of playing gen 9, volc can do it better than just about any other pokemon in the tier

 

[Avira]

I can see the writing on the wall by the way this thread is going. We'll be getting a DNB verdict, and after that, we'll get another survey in a week or two.

 

[Madam Ferix]

Currently grinding for reqs, but I just had a pretty interesting game starring our favorite dancing queen (Warning: I make some bad plays):

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen9ou-2106600365
__________________________________________________________
Jumping to turn 22, we enter the classic matchup of Moth vs Heatran. I'm running the typical bulky setup set, while a later calc confirms that this Heatran was running something more Offensive.

On turn 23, they choose to put up rocks which I'm guessing with the mentality that they would be swapping between Tran and Corv to wall my other two mons once Volc died. However, they also landed a Magma Storm on the previous turn so Volc was already pretty low going into the turn.

In a weird turn of events, Volc manages to win, despite fighting against one of their worst matchups in the entire game. No Tera had to be performed to make it happen and Tran wasn't already weak from the get-go; it was just a steadfast 13 turns of attrition, and boosting faster than they can deal damage.

There's definitely some things that could have been altered to make this play out better for my opponent: They could have been more conservative with Woger to be able to counter Volc later, they could have maybe switched out Gliscor on Turn 9 to try and land a toxic for later, they could have gotten rocks up earlier, etc etc.
__________________________________________________________
This match made me learn something that might be controversial or wrong, but I personally now feel that Volc's defensive profile is the most banworthy aspect about them. This match didn't even talk about the more commonly egregious traits of the mon such as an incredibly strong ability and their near unlimited potential with Tera. I still don't feel like Volc is the most broken thing in the tier, but I think they're now the mon I would like to see gone the most.

For those who are still trying to get reqs, best of luck, and don't give up!

 

[weirdo faye]

I want to do a little write-up on now that I hit reqs. I have been playing OU fairly regularly and did restart my reqs a handful of times (I managed to choke a 28-1 run that turned into reqs in 47 that I also choked :( ) while playing with a new squad everytime. After playing with a couple balance teams and darkspam, I finally got reqs with a different HO team. All of those runs + my experience on higher ladder with pretty much every archetype but stall, not once have I found to just run away with the game, even with the right tera type into the match-up.

relies heavily on its teammates to break down its counterplay to even get in position to sweep. Between all the fast encore pokemon that it might try to set-up on like or , faster taunt pokemon like or , status spreaders like or , there are so many ways to stop from ramping up early on. Mid-late game when its at its scariest, pokemon like , , , and all stop it depending on the tera. Of course, this isn't the whole list of pokemon that can do every role but it features the more commonly seen ones.

I did note that all of the late-game checks rely on its tera type. Ideally, you would want to save your tera reactionarily use it vs an opposing cleaner, whether it be , , or , so the flip doesn't leave you blindsided into a loss. Tera is a vital tool that helps you break through certain structures or helps you not crumble to opposing threats so, if you end up in a 2v1 scenario with tera burned and your opponent has saved it until now then you should play wary, especially vs an opponent who knows what they're doing. However, if you were playing the game cognizant of the opposing in the back, you would keep counters like and alive on stall, any breaker or prioity like or and a bulky pivot like or since this usually forces a tera to either avoid excessive damage or status which lets you break through it. Also, offensive structures also have options for late game . , , at +3, and are all common options that do beat it 1v1.

This potential flip into win is nothing that other common sweepers like the aforementioned or can't do and, having this ability while teching for match-ups is also nothing new or special given that pokemon like "iron valiant" is known for this, along with pokemon like , and which are fairly customizable for certain match-ups and, and deserve special mention if you incorrectly predict the set since these two can run away with games if you played against them as their breaker and pivot sets, respectively.

I think the biggest thing that makes me feel like is OK in SV OU is the fact that its a very rigid and inflexible pokemon. You know exactly what its going to do and you can plan your game around it. You know which pokemon to keep healthy, which ones you play more loosely with and generally play around letting their wincon meet the conditions that let it win. Anecdotal, but the only loss I had over my suspect run that was directly 's fault was when tera blast ground crit my , which lead to not being able to preserve my tera, a sac and focus sash on which beat the last few guys. Even then, I was playing HO which is super volatile, especially late game so that definitely wasn't something I could ever wholly account for. To get back on track, its inflexibility means that its really only sweep since bulky sets lack breaking power and offensive sets lack longevity to do both. Taking a look at the previously mentioned win cons, can break or weaken many popular defensive pokemon early game for its teammates thanks to the strongest knock off in the tier, acrobatics for fighting types and eq for steel types or taunt to stop recovery. can come in to check a pokemon like and either force chip or waste an item/ability on its checks, freeing it up for the late game. can shut down set-up mons, revenge kill, force a KO with destiny bond or wall break with SD sets. plays similar to except its typing + multiscale lets it come in more often defensively and its rainbow movepool lets it bait and hit threats without burning tera. is similar to in its flexibility but trades long term chip for higher immediate power. Lastly, IDPress plays closest to but ime is more reliable at breaking its checks late game with the right tera along with being a fantastic physical check once a game if necessary and has the option to go boots 4a or band to function as a breaker. In comparison, if comes in to check something like or , it does force out these guys but it lets its checks or counters in and it realistically can not make progress on these mons alone thanks to needing to burn an early tera to see notable chip. If it does pop tera early for chip, this makes the game far easier since you can a) play around it far easier and b) if you have tera intact you get set up in a phenominal position since your opponent can't tera anything else to break or check your team. I will say, the emergency ability to check fairies is huge for HO squads since many of them run a few dark types + so having the option to have a pokemon that can come in freely to avoid the 6-0 is nice, especially if is already down or is needed for other pokemon.

I understand people feel strongly about its builder constraints but what is it forcing usage of that isn't already being used for stopping other pokemon? All of the high power physical threats caused , and usage to skyrocket along with , the accessibility of hazards causes to be a common choice, encore rose in popularity to shut down set-up sweepers as well as turning opposing pokemon into set-up fodder, & for , tera fairy phys. def pokemon for darkspam and stuff like tera grass due to are all notable and common builder choices I see to address specific threats in the metagame but what is being teched in solely because of ?

I understand that it can be a frustrating pokemon to play against in a bad match-up but I am not seeing anything it does better than its contemporaries other than be a special attacking option nor its builder constraints that seem to be the more contentious topic. It also lacks the ability to just QD at lead and 6-0 or come in and weaken its checks to clean later like so many other available pokemon even in its better match-ups unless the team is poorly built. Unless I see some heinous 6-0s vs well thought out structures, consistently breaking down a team to sweep like or can or someone points out some notable builder constraints and restrictions either solely caused by or exponentially worsened by , I will be voting DO NOT BAN.

U can get a 6-0 with fat volc tera fairy or dragon vs some ho qding turn 1to3 if no glimmora :) so wrong

Let me just sum this up for u
1. Just don't lose to volc
2. Just don't lose to volc
3. Just don't lose to volc lol 4head

Easier said than done sometimes tbh

 

[weirdo faye]

Real talk tho, I've been back for 2 months after my 5to6 Yr quit, I checked a lot of users at the very top of the ladder to see if they had replays so I could see their teams as a guide to build my own, most ppl private all their games but some of the ppl here who got the reqs saved almost all their replays publicly so I know their teams very well.

Ngl, it's pretty hard to lose to volc when ur spamming turn 1 tera fairy or water garg salt cure + protect + toxic balance for most of your elo. Maybe put urself in other ppls shoes and think of how other regular ppl are getting mad w volc. It's like the rich who never bothered to think how the masses struggle. I think volc is overrated also but btr to ban to it cos its so cancer

 

[waffle04]

Real talk tho, I've been back for 2 months after my 5to6 Yr quit, I checked a lot of users at the very top of the ladder to see if they had replays so I could see their teams as a guide to build my own, most ppl private all their games but some of the ppl here who got the reqs saved almost all their replays publicly so I know their teams very well.

Ngl, it's pretty hard to lose to volc when ur spamming turn 1 tera fairy or water garg salt cure + protect + toxic balance for most of your elo. Maybe put urself in other ppls shoes and think of how other regular ppl are getting mad w volc. It's like the rich who never bothered to think how the masses struggle. I think volc is overrated also but btr to ban to it cos its so cancer

I don't think we should be shaping the metagame around new players when the more experienced playerbase doesn't have issues with a certain pokemon. Blaziken, for example, is very scary for inexperienced players due to how easily it ramps but more experienced players know how to play around it. Eventually these newer players will come around to discovering solutions to these pokemon they have had problems with in the past as they play more.

There's also far more reliable counterplay to volcarona other than garg + burning tera immediately. For my run, counterplay was usually dirge + moon or woger assuming it even got free turns. Personally, I tend to snag well performing teams from the forums and use them to learn and understand the meta before going about teambuilding. That's how I got better and anyone can do the same if they please. A lot of pokemon is just problem solving and deducting how you manage your opponent's threats and there's no way to get better at that than just playing the game with a tried and true team. When I approach teambuilding, which is where I find the pro-ban arguments more convincing, I wouldn't even put it in the top 5 or even too 10 pokemon to account for just because it's checks overlap with other threats that are generally harder to out-position. In game, I find the opposite of what you said to be true, volc is easier contained in game than theoretically just because it's so limited in what it actually does.

 

[weirdo faye]

I don't think we should be shaping the metagame around new players when the more experienced playerbase doesn't have issues with a certain pokemon. Blaziken, for example, is very scary for inexperienced players due to how easily it ramps but more experienced players know how to play around it. Eventually these newer players will come around to discovering solutions to these pokemon they have had problems with in the past as they play more.

There's also far more reliable counterplay to volcarona other than garg + burning tera immediately. For my run, counterplay was usually dirge + moon or woger assuming it even got free turns. Personally, I tend to snag well performing teams from the forums and use them to learn and understand the meta before going about teambuilding. That's how I got better and anyone can do the same if they please. A lot of pokemon is just problem solving and deducting how you manage your opponent's threats and there's no way to get better at that than just playing the game with a tried and true team. When I approach teambuilding, which is where I find the pro-ban arguments more convincing, I wouldn't even put it in the top 5 or even too 10 pokemon to account for just because it's checks overlap with other threats that are generally harder to out-position. In game, I find the opposite of what you said to be true, volc is easier contained in game than theoretically just because it's so limited in what it actually does.

I was not referring to u about the garg part. :) yes chip volc and it becomes in range of sucker espeed gambit and dnite is everywhere and the game should be something the masses can enjoy, gogogo refuse to ban it let everyone quit so u can play ur ideal meta with a 100 player playerbase, doesn't matter for me either way I quit once I can just quit again if I don't like it

 

[waffle04]

I was not referring to u about the garg part. :) yes chip volc and it becomes in range of sucker espeed gambit and dnite is everywhere and the game should be something the masses can enjoy, gogogo refuse to ban it let everyone quit so u can play ur ideal meta with a 100 player playerbase, doesn't matter for me either way I quit once I can just quit again if I don't like it

This reminds a lot of gen 4 being the madhouse now and BKC's video on it tbh. Gen 9, like gen 4, requires intricate metagame knowledge whereas other generations you can coast by on general pokemon skills and gen 3 has a big enough community for information to be easily available. With how fast shifting the metagame is, I can understand the difficulty getting into it plus a lot of high level fame play is hard to access between tourneys being largely for those in the know and high ladder being private games. I know a lot of good players have come out against the match-up fishing that volc causes but ime it feels manageable even in the better match-ups and less experienced players honestly just need easier access to high level gameplay to understand how to deal with threats. This will probably be my last comment in this thread just because this is straying off topic.

 

[weirdo faye]

Looks like I actually need to write an essay...

-volc is actually not that bad, some chip and it faints to the most common priority moves, still the same problems as it always has been from prev gens, 4mss, priority, only thing changed is boots now
-but the issue is why tf was volc tested over other broken pokemon, council decided it and didn't set up a poll for us to vote on few mons that are obviously too strong and suspect test the 1 with most votes on
-if it was just volc with 100speed besides priority common scarfers from old gens can be used to check, although with tera there'll be mind games anyways
-accounting for these threats and then also volc is putting too much strain on teambuilder, on the off chance u get a volc that u couldn't account for cos of the other threats, u get owned
-so I think we just ban volc since these other broken mons aren't going away anytime soon cos of the community :) it just so happens volc also has flame body which is another toxic trait why u should ban it, u can lose to its team due to being unlucky. volc is 1 of those mons that's making the game feel unpleasant to play cos of the broken mons causing snowball effect, alone idt its that big a deal :)
-no it is easy to help people to get into the game I disagree when I just came back to game, I've asked in simple answers and also the vr discussion general teambuilding questions like what to account for in the builder, and I never got any helpful replies despite these threads being so active! Wat an amazing community!
-lastly plz don't bring bkc or old gens into this, I have no clue what yr on at cos I don't play gen 4 nor do I follow him, I'm just a casual now and its my side game believe or not :) if u want to use an old gen as reference sm or oras ou plz I actually played during that time

 

[RoiDadadou]

Looks like I actually need to write an essay...

-volc is actually not that bad, some chip and it faints to the most common priority moves, still the same problems as it always has been from prev gens, 4mss, priority, only thing changed is boots now
-but the issue is why tf was volc tested over other broken pokemon, council decided it and didn't set up a poll for us to vote on few mons that are obviously too strong and suspect test the 1 with most votes on
-if it was just volc with 100speed besides priority common scarfers from old gens can be used to check, although with tera there'll be mind games anyways
-accounting for these threats and then also volc is putting too much strain on teambuilder, on the off chance u get a volc that u couldn't account for cos of the other threats, u get owned
-so I think we just ban volc since these other broken mons aren't going away anytime soon cos of the community :) it just so happens volc also has flame body which is another toxic trait why u should ban it, u can lose to its team due to being unlucky. volc is 1 of those mons that's making the game feel unpleasant to play cos of the broken mons causing snowball effect, alone idt its that big a deal :)
-no it is easy to help people to get into the game I disagree when I just came back to game, I've asked in simple answers and also the vr discussion general teambuilding questions like what to account for in the builder, and I never got any helpful replies despite these threads being so active! Wat an amazing community!
-lastly plz don't bring bkc or old gens into this, I have no clue what yr on at cos I don't play gen 4 nor do I follow him, I'm just a casual now and its my side game believe or not :) if u want to use an old gen as reference sm or oras ou plz I actually played during that time

Okay sorry but:

- Most bulky Rona, which is most often the set winning tournaments, do not. Like, they just don't, and can also reliably remove said cheap through the use of Morning Sun.

- 4MSS is actually reduced immensly when you have Tera Blast backing you up to cover certain things. Turns out, once your six Mon are done, it's not that hard to seek what checks Rona that your team does not handle the best, and slot the appropriate Tera + Tera Blast/Giga/Bug Buzz/Psychic + Fiery Dance + QD/Morning. Even another coverage or just Giga for reco on Morning, for certain sets.

- While I agree that, in my opinion, Wellspring was a far more pressing matter: a Pokémon being less urgent on a subjective point of view from an user does not mean that it's not an issue. This is the key reason why we've struggled to make any progress so far.

- I don't understand your 'common scarfers from Old Gens point', but again, Tera + Bulky Rona, state of the game, hazards y/n, cheap y/n, not as simple as 'we have things to outspeed 100 at +1', obviously.

- It is indeed because Volc puts such a massive constraint on building that it is being considered...

- ... however, it's not about banning Volc 'because these other broken Mon aren't going away anytime soon'. Nor because it has Flame Body, Moltres hell be damned. Yes Flame and Fiery sorta add RNG into the mix. Very strong one at that, +1 SpA or the Attack of the opp being cut down is massive. But it's moreso, like you said afterwards, because Volc makes both the teambuilding (because of its sheer versatility, and countless sets to handle) and in-game (RNG induced, but mostly Tera activation, set scouting, all within a short timeframe because in some matchups only one wrong turn can lose you the game against it) aspects of this Pokémon are too much to handle.

- You came back, as you said. Getting people into the game, with no prior knowledge, is really dependent on both their motivation, but also their experience with Pokémon. If they never played it, the sheer amount of useless data we Pokémon players have stored in our brains as 'normal things to know' (abilities, moves, what they both do, Pokémon, their abilities and movepools, their stats, their typings, what each item does, special interactions between Pokémon) is a massive task to handle. Tho if you're speaking about people not helping new folks out, just remember that three quarters or more of the people discussing in the OU thread are either bad at the game or average at best, and the remaining people have already tried in the past, getting bored of not being listened to, or just don't have the teaching skills/patience to do so.

Hope this helped/answered you in some ways. Just try not to answer/comment on every single post that answers you or tickles your fancy, as this is in no way meant to be OU thread V2. You've not been annoying so far, to me at least, so everything's okay, just seeing a lot of posts from you in here, so thought I'd give the advice, in case it'd bother people. Personally, I usually try to answer everything in one message, or just, you know, keep it in my head, if I deem it not worth making another message upon.

 

[weirdo faye]

Okay sorry but:

- Most bulky Rona, which is most often the set winning tournaments, do not. Like, they just don't, and can also reliably remove said cheap through the use of Morning Sun.

- 4MSS is actually reduced immensly when you have Tera Blast backing you up to cover certain things. Turns out, once your six Mon are done, it's not that hard to seek what checks Rona that your team does not handle the best, and slot the appropriate Tera + Tera Blast/Giga/Bug Buzz/Psychic + Fiery Dance + QD/Morning. Even another coverage or just Giga for reco on Morning, for certain sets.

- While I agree that, in my opinion, Wellspring was a far more pressing matter: a Pokémon being less urgent on a subjective point of view from an user does not mean that it's not an issue. This is the key reason why we've struggled to make any progress so far.

- I don't understand your 'common scarfers from Old Gens point', but again, Tera + Bulky Rona, state of the game, hazards y/n, cheap y/n, not as simple as 'we have things to outspeed 100 at +1', obviously.

- It is indeed because Volc puts such a massive constraint on building that it is being considered...

- ... however, it's not about banning Volc 'because these other broken Mon aren't going away anytime soon'. Nor because it has Flame Body, Moltres hell be damned. Yes Flame and Fiery sorta add RNG into the mix. Very strong one at that, +1 SpA or the Attack of the opp being cut down is massive. But it's moreso, like you said afterwards, because Volc makes both the teambuilding (because of its sheer versatility, and countless sets to handle) and in-game (RNG induced, but mostly Tera activation, set scouting, all within a short timeframe because in some matchups only one wrong turn can lose you the game against it) aspects of this Pokémon are too much to handle.

- You came back, as you said. Getting people into the game, with no prior knowledge, is really dependent on both their motivation, but also their experience with Pokémon. If they never played it, the sheer amount of useless data we Pokémon players have stored in our brains as 'normal things to know' (abilities, moves, what they both do, Pokémon, their abilities and movepools, their stats, their typings, what each item does, special interactions between Pokémon) is a massive task to handle. Tho if you're speaking about people not helping new folks out, just remember that three quarters or more of the people discussing in the OU thread are either bad at the game or average at best, and the remaining people have already tried in the past, getting bored of not being listened to, or just don't have the teaching skills/patience to do so.

Hope this helped/answered you in some ways. Just try not to answer/comment on every single post that answers you or tickles your fancy, as this is in no way meant to be OU thread V2. You've not been annoying so far, to me at least, so everything's okay, just seeing a lot of posts from you in here, so thought I'd give the advice, in case it'd bother people. Personally, I usually try to answer everything in one message, or just, you know, keep it in my head, if I deem it not worth making another message upon.

So...Provide the replays then

In a offense vs offense match how u gna heal off the chip if the opp is determined to stay in and hit u till they faint and bring out the next mon that can rk volc

Volc always walled by smth tera ground means dnite walls tera dragon/fairy means walled by pex/clod if its not 4mss what is it its harder to build teams than u make it out to be, y u think most ppl take teams from tournament dumps or rmts instead of making their own, "just fill the tera according to whatever ur team is weak to lol hurrhurr"

100 speed is bad, garchomp gren terrakion for eg. with a scarf can slap volc there's already the speed control answer for volc before it can snowball too hard, just factor in what tera its possibly packing too before clicking the move. It's cos the mons this gen on offense are so fast this isnt an option and volc is snowballing to be unkillable sometimes cos of this

So ppl can't even answer question like "what shld I cover defensively building my 1st team?" It takes 1-2mins. Ain't no fucking way l0l wdym too tired or no patience to teach

I'm free to reply to anyone as long as I'm not breaking rules of affecting someone negatively. Free to express my own views. U can think whatever u want off me. Just ban me from the site if unhappy.

Tldr ban volc plz

Hope this helped/answered you in some ways. Just try not to answer/comment on every single post that answers you or tickles your fancy, as this is in no way meant to be OU thread V2. You've not been annoying so far, to me at least, so everything's okay, just seeing a lot of posts from you in here, so thought I'd give the advice, in case it'd bother people. Personally, I usually try to answer everything in one message, or just, you know, keep it in my head, if I deem it not worth making another message upon.

BTW this is rly irking me. So what if I'm annoying and its "not okay" to you? Ur not a mod here, so stop acting like 1 by vigilante modding

 

[TMTito]

To be honest I'm not sure whether Volcarona should be banned, but I will vote ban.

In general heavy duty boots gives Volcarona many opportunities to be featured in different kinds of teams, which is great since it's an appreciated answer for pokemon that can make clutch plays, namely Iron Valiant, or some powerful attackers such as Rillaboom and Gholdengo. In general, I see this "splashability" with good eyes.

This is because on it's own, Volcarona is very checkable by a number of pokémon. While it's true Volcarona has quite the nice built-in coverage in Giga Drain, Psychic and Hurricane, carrying one of these moves usually mean giving up an utility move, which is not something Volcarona appreciates. Slowking-Galar for example is a very common pokemon and a solid check, and a known status spreader, so substitute is a good way to prevent that - depending on the team's needs it could be morning sun, will-o-wisp or even some combination of these. Furthermore, even though heavy duty boots will prevent the nasty damage from stealth rocks, it will not prevent Volcarona from receiving lethal or catastrophic amounts of damage from rock-type moves, which can be used by a number of pokémon in the tier such as Zamazenta, Heatran, Landorus-Therian, and even the likes of Kyurem and Kingambit, though these are unlikely to be interested in dedicating a moveslot for that. Due to it's subpar physical bulk, it's also threatened by reasonably strong physical attacks which can come from Focus Sash Samurott-Hisui, Earthquake Landorus-Therian, Brave Bird Corviknight, Dragon Darts Dragapult, etc.

As said before in this thread Volcarona has always chosen which of it's checks to beat, so boots on their own don't change that, but once again, Tera is what makes things different. Many of the pokémon mentioned above might not be able to beat a Volcarona with a different typing at all, even if hitting for neutral type damage, as 135 SpA/100 Spe is not to be underestimated after a boost. To make it worse, not only it boosts Spe,SpA,SpD, it also gains a new STAB move to utilize all that power. It's one thing to prepare for some 60bp Hidden Power, but boy oh boy it's a whole different thing to prepare for 80bp STAB tera blast that is often revealed by resisting or being neutral to the attack that was supposed to threaten it. While I have the impression that it's not very restrictive in the teambuilder, it can be extremely restrictive in resources during a match.

It's true that Volcarona can be universally checked by strong priority users that will (almost) always hit it, such as Tera Normal Dragonite, but Volcarona might be carrying a set that on top of all of the natural qualities mentioned, can outplay this. It may also cripple contact priority users with Flame Body, which can be game-changing - I'm sure my friend Shoot can relate to this

I'm also sure those familiar to the tier have seem some pretty crazy Volcarona spreads here and there, some of which you can't even tell what is for - but they feel like a plug and play, and you might use them just fine even while not being able to tell, because that's how good it is.

But that's not all for Volcarona, you can always have a very powerful setup sweeper with the most vanilla possible set in Swarm Volcarona, which is particularly good for a pokémon that hates status moves used by some of it's checks such as Slowking-Galar, due to Substitute being an efficient way for a fast pokémon to trigger the ability boost.

The big issue as probably everyone figured out already is the guessing game, having a number of good sets to use and not being certain about how to (gameplay-wise) prepare for it can be devastating. Since this leads to random matchup issues, I believe the tier would likely be better off without it. But the same could be said about a number of powerful tera abusers...

 

[flyingtaco]

Just got reqs, and I confidently can say that volcarona does not deserved to be banned.

I used this team: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dark-n-darker-top-5-peak-2000-elo.3740874, which on the surface looks pretty weak to certain teras of volcarona, notably ground, dragon, and water + bug buzz. However, I didn't lose to volc a single time in my suspect run despite facing it 5 times.

I want to focus on how offensive teams can deal with volcarona, which I believe to be volc's strongest matchup. Against balance, the best volc can usually do is tera blast ground to do like 60% to skeledirge, which then can tera back and recover on the next turn, which is usually a good trade for the balance team. Or you run into toxic gliscor or spedef gliscor and you're playing 5-6 from preview. Or even worse, you run into clodsire/blissey and you're actually playing 5-6.

The rest of my post will be going into why volcarona is neither uncompetitive enough, nor broken enough, to meet the banhammer, as pro banners would have you believe.

Uncompetitiveness
For volcarona's matchup into offense, the main argument that ban voters have is that volc could potentially have the right set to beat you always. And while this is true, the likelyhood that volc does have the perfect set to beat you is very low. Because of tera, almost every sweeper above a rank in the vr can win with the right 4 moves and the right tera, but the probability that these mons have the right 4 moves and tera is quite low, making these mons balanced in my opinion. Volc does have many different viable moveset options and tera options, but against a well built team, usually at most 1 combination of these moves and tera options will "win at preview", making volcarona an unreliable win con against offense.

Pokemon is a variance filled game, and volcarona's set variety does not win at preview enough for me to view it as banworthy. Almost every pokemon can have good circumstance completely flip the match into your favor. Ex) Darkrai can freeze your clodsire with ice beam, allowing it to beat its usual counter. In my opinion, there's no difference between the opponent having the 10% chance of having the right tera and moves on their volc that allows them to win on preview vs like darkrai getting the 10% freeze, and winning because of it. Yet, darkrai is almost unanimously regarded as balanced and people hate on volc.

Also, there are way worse matchup fishes in the OU tier that no one wants to ban, for example: alomamola + ursaluna, which 6-0's fat. You can design your team to have a hugely advantageous matchup for any playstyle in the builder with many mons, see ting lu + dnite + moltres vs ho for example. Also see garg with the correct tera vs some offenses. Volc is not unique in its ability to match-up fish, nor is it better at matchup fishing than other mons in the meta. I'd argue that you can tailor your valiant for whatever matchup you want even better than volc, since valiant can actually beat fat. Just because volc sweeps you, while other mons are more subtle in the way they have a good matchup (see garg/ghold/valiant/zamazenta), doesn't mean that volc is more uncompetitive than the previously mentioned mons.

Now that we've gotten the uncompetitive argument out of the way, lets address volc being "broken", or too good.
Broken
Volcarona is not too strong for the OU metagame, and I think most people will agree that volc's strongest matchup is offense. Offense has plenty of counterplay to volcarona, most of which includes just hitting the volc really hard. If you hit the volc hard when it sets up, preferably on the physical side, you will trade into the volc instead of letting it boost and sweep. The main thing you have to think about when facing a volc is that a knocked volc is much less useful, because then it can't use it's tera turn to buy a free turn of setup. A tera'ed volc is also much less scary for the same reason. Offense has many emergency stops that beat all volc sets, like booster + encore valiant, which can switch in on the turn volc qds, then encore. Also dragonite can tera normal and espeed, 2hkoing any volc. Roaring moon can also tera fly and ohko any offensive volc. Volcarona also loses to primarina without tera grass and of course good ol' gambit beats any non-wisp volc, with tera fire allowing it to beat all volc. Another thing to keep in mind is that while volc is a good tera abuser, if it teras, you should be prepared to use 2 mons to stop it, since in the offense v offense matchup, tera is worth about as much, if not more than, a kill.

 

[quacc]

Pokemon is a variance filled game, and volcarona's set variety does not win at preview enough for me to view it as banworthy. Almost every pokemon can have good circumstance completely flip the match into your favor. Ex) Darkrai can freeze your clodsire with ice beam, allowing it to beat its usual counter. In my opinion, there's no difference between the opponent having the 10% chance of having the right tera and moves on their volc that allows them to win on preview vs like darkrai getting the 10% freeze, and winning because of it. Yet, darkrai is almost unanimously regarded as balanced and people hate on volc.

The main reason why Volcarona does not win as many games as you'd think is because it really locks a lot of structures to have multiple answers to the mon while still having a chance to lose. Ice beam freezes, I guess in Darkrai's case, does not necessarily just fish for an ice beam freeze and go for game. You aren't staying in to click ice beam on something that will kill you, because then you throw away a mon for nothing. Volcarona, on the other hand, is never a pure dead slot and can deal chip damage and even get a burn against something in many cases. Also, the argument here is flawed because you're assuming that as soon as Darkrai gets a freeze, you just lose, but is that really the case? Sure, Volcarona may only have a ~10% chance to outright win, but Darkrai freezing a mon, while definitely a bad occurrence, still has some counterplay in revenge-killing it or using a backup check to take it out, with tera and fishing for thaw available in dire situations. Darkrai reall does not have a lot of bulk and has no recovery, so terastallizing to take it out is a lot easier to swallow than terastallizing to take out a Volcarona, when it can recover off damage and still threaten flame body procs and a sweep. Even ignoring all of this, if you tera and go for the kill, which will usually be with a physical attacker, you're going to burn tera and you might end up just wasting that physical attacker because it got burned. While a tera for a mon might be considered an acceptable trade, a tera and a mon for 2 mons and a tera is imbalanced, especially if you're relying on a very important piece against your opponent's team.

Volcarona is not too strong for the OU metagame, and I think most people will agree that volc's strongest matchup is offense. Offense has plenty of counterplay to volcarona, most of which includes just hitting the volc really hard. If you hit the volc hard when it sets up, preferably on the physical side, you will trade into the volc instead of letting it boost and sweep. The main thing you have to think about when facing a volc is that a knocked volc is much less useful, because then it can't use it's tera turn to buy a free turn of setup. A tera'ed volc is also much less scary for the same reason. Offense has many emergency stops that beat all volc sets, like booster + encore valiant, which can switch in on the turn volc qds, then encore. Also dragonite can tera normal and espeed, 2hkoing any volc. Roaring moon can also tera fly and ohko any offensive volc. Volcarona also loses to primarina without tera grass and of course good ol' gambit beats any non-wisp volc, with tera fire allowing it to beat all volc. Another thing to keep in mind is that while volc is a good tera abuser, if it teras, you should be prepared to use 2 mons to stop it, since in the offense v offense matchup, tera is worth about as much, if not more than, a kill.

I agree, tera is a high value mechanic and should be respected as such, but that doesn't justify Volcarona's case here. Volcarona is not just threatening to the mon in front of it, but to all the mons in the back that are at risk., which forces a lot of uncomfortable situations. Offense in general can only hold so many answers to Volcarona as well, where it mainly comes down to Primarina (which is chippable) and some tera types such as tera fire Kingambit, but forcing a mon to tera on something that isn't even clicking tera a lot is something to consider as well. Volcarona relies on tera, yes, but that doesn't always correlate to it using tera because the threat of sweeping alone can sometimes force tera in itself. Teams like this Dark Spam HO by s7a in samples uses tera a lot to handle Volcarona in the form of tera Kingambit. Volcarona does not necessarily have to tera in this case, but it can easily force one here.

Also, the issue here is hitting it on the physical side runs into 2 issues: 1. burn, which is self-explanatory (yes, contactless physical moves do exist, but far more are contact), and 2. it's not switching into a physical attacker then setting up; it's setting up after something has fainted to get a free turn or by switching into something that it can wall, such as an Enamorus. Hitting it hard really does not mean a whole lot in this case. Hell, lots of things can be answered by hitting hard, including Ubers mons such as Archaludon (just hit it on the special side) and Urshifu (just hit it on the special side). All of these ignore the ones that are generally faster and can be hit quite hard (which Ubers has a ton of lmfao), but basically all of these mons can be hit hard but are still overbearing for the metagame, so I don't see why "just hit it hard on the physical side" really contributes to counterplay. Volcarona is debatably harder to hit hard (even on the physical side) because of the risk of flame body.

Edit: Just realized you used the team I'm referring to, but just coming here to state again that beating 1400 elo players does not indicate if a mon is broken or not. I used a team with a pretty weak Heatran matchup and still managed only 2 losses on my reqs run even though I saw Heatran about once every 3 games, but that does not change the fact that Heatran is strong into my team.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

In my opinion, there's no difference between the opponent having the 10% chance of having the right tera and moves on their volc that allows them to win on preview vs like darkrai getting the 10% freeze, and winning because of it. Yet, darkrai is almost unanimously regarded as balanced and people hate on volc.

…what?

no, seriously, what? i'm genuinely confused what you're trying to say here. are you suggesting that matchups are a matter of randomness and percentages like in-battle hax are? the two aren't even comparable. the "10% chance" of a mon running a certain set is a subjective measure of how likely something was to have already happened (i.e. for the opponent to have chosen that set in builder). the "10% chance" of ice beam to freeze is an objective measure of something that can randomly happen at any point during the battle. there's not a 10% chance for volc to randomly change its set to have will-o-wisp or be ev'd a different way in the middle of the battle. matchups are not rng

 

[Shaymin Sky]

Just got reqs, and honestly Volcarona did not give me that big of an issue. I think I am gonna rescind my previous statements, theres definitely ways to deal with it that I didn't account for before so I'll try to give it a more fair analysis.

JK LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOO imagine changing ur mind cus u didn't lose to a mon lmfao but that's what most do insanely enough, yeah this thing is def broken & still does the same damn thing. It's a load of RNG and a load of guessing, and another load of hoping you don't face the 2-3 sets your team loses to. In fact lets give Volcarona the benefit of the doubt, lets say it DOESN'T auto win mu's depending on right tera/set. This thing just fishes for burns, and fishes for Fiery Dance until it gets lucky. In my run I had this guy who had 0 idea what he was doing btw, get FOUR IN A ROW LOL. If I wasn't using Hard Stall with cm bliss + ditto I literally would have lost to a guy clicking fiery dance because the color is bright red and rings alarm bells in their brain, instead of yknow anything that has to do with skill.

Like to beat Volcarona u have to dodge the fucking 30% burn 50% spa boost allegations and like, why? Like even if everyone ever is wrong and that Volcarona can be 'prepped for' consistently without using insane mons like bliss clod...what value does this thing have. defensively like none, it exist to get burns thats the defensive value. It doesn't even counter ival, doesn't even counter kyurem, enamorus isn't a real mon unless u wanna feel special. There is objectively 0 reason to have this thing, and it brings nothing but more dumb rng and uncertainty in an already comically unstable metagame. Advocating for Volcarona is the sub-equivalent of saying Kings Rock is okay LOL.

Just got reqs, and I confidently can say that volcarona does not deserved to be banned.

I used this team: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/dark-n-darker-top-5-peak-2000-elo.3740874, which on the surface looks pretty weak to certain teras of volcarona, notably ground, dragon, and water + bug buzz. However, I didn't lose to volc a single time in my suspect run despite facing it 5 times.

I want to focus on how offensive teams can deal with volcarona, which I believe to be volc's strongest matchup. Against balance, the best volc can usually do is tera blast ground to do like 60% to skeledirge, which then can tera back and recover on the next turn, which is usually a good trade for the balance team. Or you run into toxic gliscor or spedef gliscor and you're playing 5-6 from preview. Or even worse, you run into clodsire/blissey and you're actually playing 5-6.

The rest of my post will be going into why volcarona is neither uncompetitive enough, nor broken enough, to meet the banhammer, as pro banners would have you believe.

Uncompetitiveness
For volcarona's matchup into offense, the main argument that ban voters have is that volc could potentially have the right set to beat you always. And while this is true, the likelyhood that volc does have the perfect set to beat you is very low. Because of tera, almost every sweeper above a rank in the vr can win with the right 4 moves and the right tera, but the probability that these mons have the right 4 moves and tera is quite low, making these mons balanced in my opinion. Volc does have many different viable moveset options and tera options, but against a well built team, usually at most 1 combination of these moves and tera options will "win at preview", making volcarona an unreliable win con against offense.

Pokemon is a variance filled game, and volcarona's set variety does not win at preview enough for me to view it as banworthy. Almost every pokemon can have good circumstance completely flip the match into your favor. Ex) Darkrai can freeze your clodsire with ice beam, allowing it to beat its usual counter. In my opinion, there's no difference between the opponent having the 10% chance of having the right tera and moves on their volc that allows them to win on preview vs like darkrai getting the 10% freeze, and winning because of it. Yet, darkrai is almost unanimously regarded as balanced and people hate on volc.

Also, there are way worse matchup fishes in the OU tier that no one wants to ban, for example: alomamola + ursaluna, which 6-0's fat. You can design your team to have a hugely advantageous matchup for any playstyle in the builder with many mons, see ting lu + dnite + moltres vs ho for example. Also see garg with the correct tera vs some offenses. Volc is not unique in its ability to match-up fish, nor is it better at matchup fishing than other mons in the meta. I'd argue that you can tailor your valiant for whatever matchup you want even better than volc, since valiant can actually beat fat. Just because volc sweeps you, while other mons are more subtle in the way they have a good matchup (see garg/ghold/valiant/zamazenta), doesn't mean that volc is more uncompetitive than the previously mentioned mons.

Now that we've gotten the uncompetitive argument out of the way, lets address volc being "broken", or too good.
Broken
Volcarona is not too strong for the OU metagame, and I think most people will agree that volc's strongest matchup is offense. Offense has plenty of counterplay to volcarona, most of which includes just hitting the volc really hard. If you hit the volc hard when it sets up, preferably on the physical side, you will trade into the volc instead of letting it boost and sweep. The main thing you have to think about when facing a volc is that a knocked volc is much less useful, because then it can't use it's tera turn to buy a free turn of setup. A tera'ed volc is also much less scary for the same reason. Offense has many emergency stops that beat all volc sets, like booster + encore valiant, which can switch in on the turn volc qds, then encore. Also dragonite can tera normal and espeed, 2hkoing any volc. Roaring moon can also tera fly and ohko any offensive volc. Volcarona also loses to primarina without tera grass and of course good ol' gambit beats any non-wisp volc, with tera fire allowing it to beat all volc. Another thing to keep in mind is that while volc is a good tera abuser, if it teras, you should be prepared to use 2 mons to stop it, since in the offense v offense matchup, tera is worth about as much, if not more than, a kill.

Just saying this right now, 'I played against volcarona 5 times and didnt lose' is not a large enough sample size especially for a mon with that many versatile sets?????? like are u telling me u faced majority volcs in the meta in those 5 games, cus I can tell u rn theres more than 5 and last time I checked I can count just fine lmao. Also the whole 'i didnt lose' thing doesn't hold much weight because I and everyone else literally does know how good your opponents were, especially since its reqs lol which means its unlikely. Like you just can't reasonably form entire reasonings off that imo. I also did not lose to volc a single time on my sus run, but does that mean my personal anecdotes with a very small sample size and limited scope of what I think is possible means it applies to everyone else and the entire meta....no lmfao ofc not.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

There is objectively 0 reason to have this thing, and it brings nothing but more dumb rng and uncertainty in an already comically unstable metagame. Advocating for Volcarona is the sub-equivalent of saying Kings Rock is okay LOL.

for context, this is coming from a user named "shaymin-sky" who's known for building hax sets. i, for one, accept slainey's authority when it comes to matters of rng

 

[waffle04]

I guess this seems to be an unpopular opinion but volcarona does seem to be dead weight in a fair bit of match-ups. I have found a less controversial but similarly focused pokemon in IDPress zamazenta to be far better in bad match-ups like vs stall despite the fact that it should be worthless in that match-up. Pokemon like zamazenta are far more accepted and less controversial than volcarona and fulfill a similar role within the meta despite being far more effective, both vs and using it. Once again, I'm not using just the suspect run but while playing in the 18-1900s as experience. No high level gameplay I've seen or played has shown me that volcarona is a) a better cleaner that zamazenta or b) harder to manage than cleaners like cm or sd valiant or the aforementioned zamazenta. I understand the RNG aspect of volcarona but personally the only loss I've had to volcarona directly since DLC2 dropped was a crit on my roaring moon running HO, which hates volatility like that, while every other volcarona loss I've had was due to me not preserving checks to the opponent's win condition.

I get that people dislike the RNG that Fiery Dance causes along with the versatility that half the type chart offers volcarona but, so many checks overlap between sets that it's not hard to stop, especially if you kept 2 general special checks lol. Out-offensing volcarona with faster or fatter pokemon, especially with tera intact, or using strong priority or fatter or unaware pokemon on balance or fatter structures is not an unreasonable ask given the amount of set-up threats available in the metagame that require those specific things to be stopped. There's nothing that volcarona specifically does that a) other notable cleaners don't do and b) can't proactively be accounted and limited by good positioning and offensive pressure, especially on HO structures that supposedly struggle with volcarona. Even high level replays from stuff like SPL or OST don't indicate that volcarona was very specifically a strain for team structures or in game despite being decently popular. It's numbers are also very, very average despite its controversial status. Nothing about volcarona feels out of the norm for what's available and what's good in the metagame right now. I also see people comparing it to rng mechanics like kings rock caused flinched and that's objectively less manageable than out offensing it or sending out a sturdy check that will be prevented from doing anything thanks to bs shenanigans.

 

[Baloor]

villain arc

i swear half of these posts are incredibly surface level and now ill repeat myself from the kyurem thread, don't address the issue the elephant the room but the headache of covering volcarona in builder. as mentioned before volcarona is a very pick your poison pokemon which works for and agaisnt it, on one hand you have the ability to get past particular checks you might come across, on the other you are "deadweight" vs another. for example, grass tera can get past garg but not skeledirge etc...

the issue is, when building a team you don't know what kind of volcarona you are going to face whether that be in a tour game and more so ladder. this leads to stacking checks to a insane degree. stacking checks isnt anything new in pokemon in general but dude, of course you're "not having troubles" when you're running fucking tera fire gambit + shock toxic gking + dnite lol. its an insane level of over compensation that is just dumb.

also saying that volcarona legitimately feels like deadweight just shows a lack of understanding with team building. volcarona defensively covers a ton without needing to qd and is incredibly valuable regardless of its actual performance. i seriously doubt even good players who do not want volc banned will ever tell you volcarona is a deadweight pokemon lol. stall isnt going to have this issue because of blissey and stacking unaware but outside of that you do have to bend over backwards a lot. just because the mon isnt autowinning vs your team with 4 soft checks doesn't really mean squat. tour games can be especially annoying when you can prep for a singular game, allowing you to be more outlandish. sub tera ghost, steel, bug are legitimate sets that can auto troll wins into if you are so hyperfocused on the idea that "volc isnt broken because it doesnt auto win etc...", it quite literally just has too many sets which leads to dumb overcompensation which effects the quality of the tier.

it seems to be a trend where we bitch about the tier but then are like "but a few bans will lead us in the right direction", where is that direction or the intuitive to make the tier better? i only know a handful of people who actually like the tier in its current state and while i respect them as friends and players its just absurd that the community chases its own tail on the problems in front of us. fearmongering about valiant and enam being better was already shut down by finch but i just want to go back to calling that stupid since people don't seem to get the point. we had two metas were volc was banned and neither was banworthy, good yes, but not as close to broken as some of the things we've even voted do not ban on. things do not improve by doing nothing, all that will happen is the cycle of which pokemon fall in and out of favor at any given time, which is not improving the tier at all.

 

[SupaGmoney]

Frankly, I am disappointed in the quality of argument being levied by the pro-ban side. Many on the pro-ban side have simply resorted to baseless theorymon arguments, claiming that Volcarona is somehow winning an absurd percentage of games due to set unpredictability or exerting some mysteriously unquantifiable “pressure on the builder.”

While it may be easy to sweep low-skill players on the Ladder with Volcarona, these arguments are simply not true to high level gameplay in any capacity. A deep dive into the numbers and the actual games themselves reveals something very different.

There really is no better place to look than SPL to quantify the impact that Volcarona has on the metagame at the highest skill level.

Below, I have compiled every single SPL game from Week 1 to Finals where Volcarona was on a team and briefly analyzed the impact Volcarona had on the game.

Replay Analysis

I have further broken this into 3 sections: Games where Volcarona had little / no impact, games where Volcarona demonstrated healthy and balanced qualities, and games where Volcarona demonstrated undesirable qualities.


Little / No Impact

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-759306 Sub swam Volcarona fails to break AV Gking

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-755600 Hard walled by stall

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-755926?p2 Sacked

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-754027 Didn’t come out

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-753251 Sacked

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751476 Volcarona’s teammate used Tera early in the game, meaning that Volcarona could not break after setting up, demonstrating significant Tera dependency

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751451 Did not come out on either side

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748364 Didn’t come out

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748017 Sacked

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748529 Sacked

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748367 Very little impact overall

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746725 Did not come out

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746305 Could not break Skeledirge

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744739 Hard walled by stall

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744218 Forced a defensive Tera, but got paralyzed while attempting to setup and did nothing for remainder of game

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-745095 Could not break Clodsire

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-743047 Didn’t come out

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742696 Ended up being used as setup fodder for Gouging Fire and had to be sacked later in the game, resulting in a loss

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742489 Swapped in one time on Enamorus but compounded a Waterpon weakness, resulting in a loss

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-740891 Swapped into Iron Crown once but could not break Clodsire

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-741260 Used tera early to try to break Gking, but failed. This ends up costing the team significantly as Boots Pult could no longer be checked and ran through the team easily


Healthy Impact

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-753936 Teammates weaken the two checks in Moon and Moth, and Volcarona sweeps the endgame vs Gholdengo and unboosted Zamazenta

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752742 Revenged Manaphy, but ended up wasting tera to the detriment of the team, resulting in a loss

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752628 Did not get the flame body burn vs Zamazenta, resulting in a loss

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752771 Punishes Weavile Axel Spam but fails to make any other meaningful progress

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752624 Myjava’s Volcarona is able to trade against opposing Volcarona, but neither exerted any significant long term pressure

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751505 Volcarona demonstrates it’s valuable defensive profile by forcing Tera on Zamazenta and limiting Gambit. It also punishes mono-Wisp Pult hard, clearing the way for Dondozo to sweep

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751340 Sets up on Hatterene after the team had done most of the work and sweeps in the end

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749828 Abuses Rillaboom to set up, would have broken through Hatterene if not for untimely miss

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749754 Switches into Kyurem and checks it but is unable to set up in the face of Gking

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749739 Swaps into fairy moves, but has no time to set up and is KOd quickly

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749910 Sets up on Zamazenta and wins in an overall good MU on preview vs. double steels after Gking is removed by Darkrai

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749549 One Volcarona uses Tera early to break for Waterpon, while the other Volcarona is sacked. Overall a good MU for Waterpon and opposing team relied solely on Choiced Dragonite to take on Volcarona and Ogerpon, which proved to be a losing formula

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-749292 Volcarona demonstrates it’s valuable defensive profile by limiting Kingambit and Status Spam Dragapult, two very strong Pokémon in the meta

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-747856 Volcarona gets an extremely favorable matchup vs Rillaboom + Veil Cheese, winning with timely setup

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748274 Opponent misplays and sacks their Gking for no reason, allowing Volcarona to sweep. However it still needed tera to break Garg

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746762 Volcarona punishes SD Rilla hard and forces tera, allowing Finch to win through resource advantage

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-745386 Early Volcarona lead softens up primarina to allow for SD Valiant to win. Other Volcarona was sacked in attempt to flame body burn

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744539 Volcarona picks off some weakened Pokémon but is handled effectively by Gking

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744967 one trades with Iron valiant, the other Volcarona did not come out

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-745066?p2 Clodsire, Gholdengo, and Dragapult do all the heavy lifting for Volcarona allowing it to breeze through Ninetales + a weakened Raging Bolt

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744238 Both Volcarona’s force defensive teras and do excellent jobs at limiting very strong Pokémon like Kingambit and Boots Dragapult

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742989 Punishes Weavile axel spam but does not manage to set up meaningfully

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-740320 One Volcarona did not come out, the other was unable to break through Prim or Raging Bolt as it was unwilling to commit Tera, once again showcasing an extreme tera dependency in order to attempt to be a sweeper

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-739968 Punishes Uturn Spam from Dragapult and Rapid Spin from Excadrill but is unable to exert any long term pressure vs Tyranitar + Toxapex


Undesirable Impact

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752058 Frankly, this one is extremely questionable at best. MMQ’s opponent made some very poor decisions, such as sacking their Dondozo which resulted in them having to sack Ting Lu to Samurott later, not using Heatran to beat CM Valiant etc. Ting Lu also dodged some focus blasts from Darkrai which would have significantly weakened a potential Volcarona check. They also chose not to Tera their Heatran for whatever reason in the face of Volcarona. These misplays prove to be too costly to overcome as tera Ground Volcarona sweeps the final 2 mons. I will give the ban side the benefit of the doubt here for argument sake, but this game is frankly not very good proof of Volcarona being broken or using Tera in an unhealthy manner.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742038?p2 Despite carrying only one attacking move, Volcarona is able to find multiple entries vs the double fire weak core and exert tremendous pressure throughout the game after a timely tera.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742734 I find this game to have a mix of healthy and unhealthy qualities, as Volcarona acts as a great punish to Choice Locked Kyurem. The opponent also misplayed by letting their AV Gking get knocked, which otherwise would have checked Volcarona easily. However, Volcarona does end up using tera to break Primarina and force a weakened GKing to tera which results in a Comfey sweep. Once again borderline, but less so than the first.

Here are some graphs illustrating the conclusions reached by my analysis:


............................Volcarona Impact On Game............................... ............... ............Volcarona Tera Usage

I have purposefully not analyzed things such as win rates. As people have pointed out in previous suspects, win rates are not a good metric in these situations for a number of reasons. Therefore, I have focused my analysis solely on the impact that Volcarona alone exerts on the game.


Based on the numbers, it seems quite clear that Volcarona is NOT broken or overbearing. A Pokémon that is sweeping teams outright or exerting an otherwise unhealthy impact only 5% of the time at most hardly qualifies as a banworthy Pokemon. I am sure you could find stronger statistical backing for many other Pokémon in this tier, such as Kingambit, Ogerpon, Dragapult, Zamazenta, etc.

Many of the ban arguments seem to focus on the offensive presence of Volcarona, claiming that it puts "too much pressure on the builder". However, based on the SPL replays, it is clear that Volcarona is neither a consistent nor overwhelming offensive presence. Like Vert said, “Volcarona is very easy to say is broken when you tell me it's running flamethrower, bug buzz, quiver dance, morning sun, tera blast-water, giga drain, fiery dance, tera blast-ground, substitute, tera blast-fairy, psychic, and tera blast-ghost all on the same set.” However, Volcarona is heavily limited by 4MSS, and the vast majority of players had no issues dealing with Volcarona using a wide range of team compositions and defensive and offensive countermeasures, as evidenced by the stats. As shown in the replays, very common countermeasures like Slowking Galar, Garganacl, Primarina, Raging Bolt, Gouging Fire, Dragonite, Roaring Moon, Skeledirge, Clodsire, Ting Lu, and Ogerpon-Wellspring, among many others were more than enough to keep Volcarona in check.

At no point did it seem like teams were struggling to deal with Volcarona, and it did not “cheese” wins with unpredictable teras. In fact, it rarely used Tera at all. The majority of outright losses to Volcarona were due to user error. Volcarona was most effective when it traded with opposing Pokemon, opening up avenues for other Pokemon to make progress, which is a healthy interaction.

Pokémon like Kingambit and Gholdengo had significantly higher Tera rates and were far more successful on average after Tera. Volcarona on the other hand, was often dead weight in non-favorable matchups and even used Tera to the detriment of the team in the long-term.


In response many people might ask, “Well what about ‘Insert X Game’? or 'Insert X Moveset'?" Again, there really is no other compilation of high level replays than SPL replays with sufficient enough sample size to meaningfully analyze. Any one game can be construed to make any one Pokémon look broken in isolation. However, on the whole of SPL, Volcarona’s impact was reasonable and manageable.

As someone once said, “the difference between an experienced ladder and tour gameplay and a theoretical on-paper arguer is that the arguer does not actually apply their theoretical workarounds in game.” Again, while Volcarona can theoretically do a lot and run a lot of sets, very few of those sets are actually useful in high level gameplay, and overall I find that the Pokémon simply does not consistently contribute to success, as evidenced by SPL


What was extremely surprising to me however, was the invaluable defensive presence that Volcarona offers to this tier. I saw countless examples of Volcarona limiting far more oppressive Pokemon like Kingambit, Kyurem, Zamazenta, Boots Dragapult (arguably the best mon in the tier at the moment), and Rillaboom by punishing choice locks, contact moves, and Will-o-Wisp spam and forcing adaptations like Lum Berry, Tera Fire, and Thunder Wave > U-Turn. This in turn drastically reduced the unpredictability of these far stronger Pokémon, allowing for a more consistent meta. For example, Kingambit is much easier to deal with if you know it’s running Tera Ghost or Fire, instead of Flying, Fairy, Dark, Fire and Ghost etc.


In conclusion: I will be voting DNB and hopefully I have convinced some of you to do the same.

 

[Trosko]

I am glad to see that the Volcarona issue has finally been addressed. Anyone who has played at the highest level and understands what the tournament metagame looks like, should be able to see clearly and concisely how impossible it is to prepare for every angle that Pokémon has to offer. I could give you so many examples where a player who has brought a team ready to face Volcarona, played properly to keep their pieces alive, getting into a -theoretically- winning position vs late game Volcarona and yet I can always see a certain set that will win the game. Right there you realize that Pokémon doesn’t belong to the tier. It takes the battle out of the player’s hands and that is the last thing I want to see in a competitive game.

Let’s take a game from SPL finals as an example: JJ09LIE vs Mada. Last mon Volcarona, no one has burnt the Tera yet, while JJ has a full health Dragapult, full health SpDef Leftovers Heatran and full health AV Psyshock Slowking. Is there any other Volcarona check outside of stall? I guess we’re missing Dragonite, who will pray not to face TeraFairy/TeraDragon/not get burnt by a bulkier set while going for ESpeed.

You would think the game is over, right? JJ got to the end game with a huge advantage, keeping all the important pieces healthy vs Volcarona, yet I could see a set that would win the game. Not a standard one, but a viable one. What if Mada was TeraDark+Terablast? Pult drops, Heatran can’t touch it because we don’t even have Toxic to punish it and Slowking will pray for an early Sludge Bomb poison since Psyshock won’t be able to touch it. How fun, right? How balanced!

Not like Volcarona doesn’t have plenty of opportunities to set up thanks to the Heavy Duty Boots and the possibility of using a defensive terastalisation -that you will have to guess before it’s too late!-, all of that added to the fact that even if Volcarona could not terastalise from preview, it would still be a pretty good Pokémon defensively. I didn’t speak a word when Kyurem got suspect tested because it was unclear to me, I didn’t speak a word when Gouging got suspect tested because it was clearly not broken so I didn’t mind about the outcome. But now? Now I’ve gotta speak man. If you think terastal-metagame Volcarona is balanced and belongs to OU, you don’t understand anything about this game. It is the most unfair beast to both play and face in SV and I am extremely positive that if every Gen9 SPL player was asked about it through a poll, my opinion would be supported by a vast majority.

Let’s keep something in mind: the ladder is not the real metagame. Of course, if all you do is running volatile HOs with Roaring Moon, Gouging Fire, Glimmora… you will hardly think Volcarona is broken. But a healthy metagame, by definition, finds its strengths in balance. If you need to consistently run a hazard lead and 5 sweepers as an attempt to beat XYZ broken Pokémon by not giving them ANY room to do ANYTHING but trade damage, you’re not playing a healthy metagame. Every Pokémon in every metagame needs a defensive counterplay that doesn’t require you to waste a thousand resources that could be used to beat the rest of the metagame. And Volcarona doesn’t allow that. Either you accept your loss to a couple of sets, or you end up running a garbage squad that will have poor match ups vs 50%+ of the metagame. All of that to say, again, the goal of tiering is putting the game in the players’ hands. So let’s please all work in the same direction and get back what was yours, a tier where outplaying and gameplanning matters more than “hoping I don’t face XYZ”.

In any case, the moment we decided to keep closed terastalisation as part of the identity of Gen9 OU -that is, being unable to see which are the terastals your opponent has from team preview-, we were accepting that this was going to happen again and again and again. The breaking power that terastalisation gives through coverage via Terablast, opportunities to set up that would never exist without it, or just the raw damage input of an Adaptability boost that every Pokémon has access to, will make broken way more beasts than what we expect. Cause there’s always a common aspect between these broken threats: they set up and they’re not frail. Archaludon, Kyurem, Gouging, Volcarona… That’s going to consistently be a problem that you’ll have to accept: closed team sheet + set up + terastalisation + good stats is waaay too much to handle for a metagame where balanced playstyles are the anchor.

Please, be reasonable and ask the most experienced playerbase about this matter before doing anything about it. Let the metagame progress in the right direction. We’ve got a thousand breaking tools and worries from a team building perspective to the point that Volcarona won’t be missed, the same way it wasn’t a year ago.

 

[Heatranator]

Replay Analysis

While I do appreciate you going through every instance of volcarona appearing, the replays where it doesn't do much, are not all accurate to what you are portraying. I went through some of them at first to see the supposed small impact it had. Thus, I went through all of the lower impact matches and they showed that volc was more impactful then you are saying.

Replay anaylsis

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-759306 On Turn 15, volcarona comes in after dragapult revenge kills dragonite. Dragapult then u-turns on volc into Glowking, while Volc precedes to qd. Volc reveals sub on the next turn, however this does not matter as glowking reveals psyshock. The next turn, volc precedes to qd again, presumably in order to brute force its way through glowking. It fires off two fiery dances, doing 75% in the process. The glowking picks up the ko. I would say that volc specifically is forcing glowking into using psyshock, but sure, volc doesn't do a lot.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-755600 Volc actually does a decent amount in this match, despite being walled by clodsire. Clod is forced to switch in every time volc comes in, as nothing else besides blissey, who needs to be preserved supposedly for the primarina. This is an easy opportunity for air balloon gambit to come in and get chip on the dozo. They do sometimes pivot into mola in order to not be too predictable, but its clear what there gameplan is, to get in clod. It isn't even a safe answer mind you, flamethrower is doing 30% to clod and forcing a recover quite often, as its usually taking two at a time. The prim reveals psychic noise, totally shutting down blissey, as while blissey wins the exchange, it is chipped so low that its essentially ko'd. The clod is now forced to contend with both raging bolt, who reveals tera water, and volc. The stall team does win, but by the skin of their teeth. Clod was basically the only thing holding back the volc, even stall was struggling. It was technically hard walled by clod, but that was the only mon stopping it from sweeping, and it had to stay in pristine condition.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-755926?p2 The volc doesn't do much here, but it isn't simply sacked. It does get a bug buzz off here on the rotom-w, doing 51% to it and decomishining it for the rest of the battle, as its sacked to the prim later. But yeah, not a good showing.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-754027 Didn't come out as you said.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-753251 Yeah, this match it didn't do anything. It gets like 27% damage on bolt and then dies.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751476 Volc doesn't do anything this match, gets a qd off and reveals the mirror herb on zama, leading it to sweep the game.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-751451 Did not come out
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748364 Did not come out
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748017 Doesn't do much.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748529 Also doesn't do much, but funnily enough, this goes against your point of it limiting kyurem, as a presumebly specs draco eviscerates it from 86% hp, which is so high that it isn't consistent. So the volc defensive value point is diminished.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-748367 Doesn't do much and dies to gambit kowtow, though not after ko'ing the opposing lando, forcing the gambit to tera and dealing 56% to it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746725 Did not come out at all.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-746305 You are correct in this one, volc was hard walled by volc.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744739 We only saw it come out twice, once where its walled by clod, and then when it was sacked. But I would say this match showed how volc isn't good into stall.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-744218 You are correct in what you said, the opposing team did well against it.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-745095 Yes, volc is hard walled by clod, but it isn't the worst thing for them. Since they are forced into clod, gliscor gets free entry to do its stuff, which the opposing team does not like at all, the best switchins are a predicted taunt on pult, or switching between clefable and skarmory. On turn 20, volc switches in on pult t-wave, then precedes to qd and get 33% on pult. It does nothing for the rest of the game. So not too good of a performance.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-743047 Didn't come out.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742696 Actually, it kinda ruined the enam, which while it was able to get solid chip on volc, had to take a burn and 33% from it. Also, the gouging never even set up??? The gouging came in on a volc flamethrower and then swtiched out. Idk what you are saying, maybe you are reffering to something else. What actually happened was on turn 16 it came on a booster tusk, took 20% from rapid spin, and then was forced to switch out to lando-t. It switched back in once lando-t set up rocks, but then immediately out. It then switched in on a waterpon power whip, then fainted to a ivy cudgel.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-742489 Volc swapped in on enam, who then swapped to prim, presumably to revenge kill it expecting qd, but was hit by fiery dance. They then had to swap to lando-t to sack it, but was forced out by waterpon. Not the best showing.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-740891 It switched into iron crown, who volt switched into gliscor. Gliscor heavily damaged it with e-quake, but had to take 57% from flamethrower. Then volc was walled by clod.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-741260 It did fail to break glowking, however, it still chipped dragapult and ko'd skarm. Still wasn't the worst match.

While I do appreciate you taking the time to go through all SPL games to find volcs battles, some of your descriptions were not entirely correct. I would also like to point out that yes, volc can't run every coverage move and doesn't contribute so much to every game, this does not show that volc isn't broken. It constrains the teambuilder to force specific pairings, and its tera type is not apparent immediately. You have to keep all of your checks to volc in almost perfect health if they don't have reliable recovery, which most don't. This is not healthy, this is meaning that 2-3 mons on your team are not participating in the match.
Let's say your answer to volc is wellspring and glowking. So, the volc switches in, and they qd, but you switch in glowking in order to psyshock them. But they reveal tera steel and sub up, which means that your sub isn't broken. You can essentially qd up constantly because they never break it, and you have to switch to wellspring. Oops, now the volc is at +3 once you break its sub and fiery dance is a potential ohko, while you don't even ko them back with cudgel. You would have to tera, but that's a big commitment cost. You dealt with the volc, but your wellspring has had to tera and is at low hp, technically a win in the opponents book, but a costly one. Or, you have to let waterpon get ko'd and send in your priority user, while also hoping that your waterpon survived the hit, which is a 25% chance mind you, your team is not packing grassy glide, ice shard or extreme speed, which might not even ko and that your revenge killer isn't burnt by flame body. Now, you might say "oh, why don't you pack d-nite, its a great mon and does well against this set" and to that I would say "You are using half your team to check volc and you need to keep them in pretty good health, that's way too constraining". Yes, you can technically check all volc sets, but that is a large amount of resources to use and you need to keep them relatively healthy. Volc will be paired with partners, like prim and tusk, to pressure your volc check, so volc can find a way to break through.
On its own, these factors aren't too constraining, but combined, the variance of sets which can blow away a supposdly pretty good team against volc and its ability to force multiple checks onto a team which teammates can take advantage of, are way too constraining on the teambuilder.

 

[awyp]

I am glad to see that the Volcarona issue has finally been addressed. Anyone who has played at the highest level and understands what the tournament metagame looks like, should be able to see clearly and concisely how impossible it is to prepare for every angle that Pokémon has to offer. I could give you so many examples where a player who has brought a team ready to face Volcarona, played properly to keep their pieces alive, getting into a -theoretically- winning position vs late game Volcarona and yet I can always see a certain set that will win the game. Right there you realize that Pokémon doesn’t belong to the tier. It takes the battle out of the player’s hands and that is the last thing I want to see in a competitive game.

Let’s take a game from SPL finals as an example: JJ09LIE vs Mada. Last mon Volcarona, no one has burnt the Tera yet, while JJ has a full health Dragapult, full health SpDef Leftovers Heatran and full health AV Psyshock Slowking. Is there any other Volcarona check outside of stall? I guess we’re missing Dragonite, who will pray not to face TeraFairy/TeraDragon/not get burnt by a bulkier set while going for ESpeed.

You would think the game is over, right? JJ got to the end game with a huge advantage, keeping all the important pieces healthy vs Volcarona, yet I could see a set that would win the game. Not a standard one, but a viable one. What if Mada was TeraDark+Terablast? Pult drops, Heatran can’t touch it because we don’t even have Toxic to punish it and Slowking will pray for an early Sludge Bomb poison since Psyshock won’t be able to touch it. How fun, right? How balanced!

Not like Volcarona doesn’t have plenty of opportunities to set up thanks to the Heavy Duty Boots and the possibility of using a defensive terastalisation -that you will have to guess before it’s too late!-, all of that added to the fact that even if Volcarona could not terastalise from preview, it would still be a pretty good Pokémon defensively. I didn’t speak a word when Kyurem got suspect tested because it was unclear to me, I didn’t speak a word when Gouging got suspect tested because it was clearly not broken so I didn’t mind about the outcome. But now? Now I’ve gotta speak man. If you think terastal-metagame Volcarona is balanced and belongs to OU, you don’t understand anything about this game. It is the most unfair beast to both play and face in SV and I am extremely positive that if every Gen9 SPL player was asked about it through a poll, my opinion would be supported by a vast majority.

Let’s keep something in mind: the ladder is not the real metagame. Of course, if all you do is running volatile HOs with Roaring Moon, Gouging Fire, Glimmora… you will hardly think Volcarona is broken. But a healthy metagame, by definition, finds its strengths in balance. If you need to consistently run a hazard lead and 5 sweepers as an attempt to beat XYZ broken Pokémon by not giving them ANY room to do ANYTHING but trade damage, you’re not playing a healthy metagame. Every Pokémon in every metagame needs a defensive counterplay that doesn’t require you to waste a thousand resources that could be used to beat the rest of the metagame. And Volcarona doesn’t allow that. Either you accept your loss to a couple of sets, or you end up running a garbage squad that will have poor match ups vs 50%+ of the metagame. All of that to say, again, the goal of tiering is putting the game in the players’ hands. So let’s please all work in the same direction and get back what was yours, a tier where outplaying and gameplanning matters more than “hoping I don’t face XYZ”.

In any case, the moment we decided to keep closed terastalisation as part of the identity of Gen9 OU -that is, being unable to see which are the terastals your opponent has from team preview-, we were accepting that this was going to happen again and again and again. The breaking power that terastalisation gives through coverage via Terablast, opportunities to set up that would never exist without it, or just the raw damage input of an Adaptability boost that every Pokémon has access to, will make broken way more beasts than what we expect. Cause there’s always a common aspect between these broken threats: they set up and they’re not frail. Archaludon, Kyurem, Gouging, Volcarona… That’s going to consistently be a problem that you’ll have to accept: closed team sheet + set up + terastalisation + good stats is waaay too much to handle for a metagame where balanced playstyles are the anchor.

Please, be reasonable and ask the most experienced playerbase about this matter before doing anything about it. Let the metagame progress in the right direction. We’ve got a thousand breaking tools and worries from a team building perspective to the point that Volcarona won’t be missed, the same way it wasn’t a year ago.

Brother in Christ, this is a great post for the pro-ban side but at the end of the day people have their minds set and if you don’t actually plan on getting Reqs you might be surely disappointed at the results. This has happened multiple times this generation we need actually people who care about the meta to actually get reqs versus expecting a result.