Metagame np: Stage 2 - Teardrop - Victreebel Banned

[termi]

Just gonna make some points here that I already discussed a bit with some council members. I think too many people here are, as of now, throwing opinions into the arena without keeping any sort of general tiering philosophy in mind. The way I see it, the upcoming ban (assuming something will be banned) simply has to solve one single issue: preventing sun from becoming an unhealthy playstyle in PU. We are under no obligation to keep sun as a viable playstyle (considering it's a very niche playstyle, the "if sun is nerfed too much the meta will lose a lot of variety"-argument is a moot point), nor are we under any obligation to keep any Pokemon (in this case Victreebel) because it's not broken outside of sun (Smogon has never refrained from banning something because one set wasn't broken, and we never will).

First things first, though: should sun be nerfed? This is probably the easiest part of the suspect test. Sun is hard to prepare for, and because it's such a niche playstyle most people wouldn't consciously prepare for it, which leads to an uphill battle for the person who isn't using sun most of the time. Sun is matchup reliant to such a degree that it can't be considered healthy in this meta, and therefore, a nerf is justified.

The optimal way to nerf sun is, in my opinion, to ban Victreebel. The reason why sun is so hard to prepare for as of now is because Victreebel's combination of great power, amazing coverage, high speed in sun, and access to a sleep inducing move to get past its checks make it way too much of a threat. The other sun sweepers, while good, have more defined counters (Sawsbuck and Leafeon struggle vs Tangela, Torterra, Pawniard, Fire-type sun sweepers are troubles by bulky Waters) and as a result, these threats are much easier to prepare for without having to make an otherwise suboptimal choice for your team. Sun becomes way less threatening without Victreebel, and keeping the Smogon tiering philosophy in mind, this means that we should prefer to ban a Pokemon rather than an item/move/ability, and thus we should prefer to ban Victreebel. Victreebel causes sun to be as unhealthy as it is, and not only does that give us a more formally correct reason for banning it rather than any of the other options listed, but it also causes very little collateral damage. Banning any of the other things that were listed would lead sun to be completely garbage (sun without Heat Rock might still be usable, but probably not), whereas banning Victreebel won't make sun bad, but it will make building for sun and using it harder and therefore healthier. The only other collateral damage we experience is that we lose Victreebel, which honestly isn't a considerable threat outside of sun anyway, so the meta is hardly reshaped if we do end up banning Vic. Like I said, we are under no obligation to prevent sun from becoming unviable, but even if we were, I still think banning Victreebel would be the best solution.

If you agree with me that

• Victreebel is the only thing that makes sun worthy of a nerf
• We should prefer to ban Pokemon rather than items/abilities
• "Collateral damage" should be kept to a minimum

then banning Victreebel is simply the superior option.

 

[Rennyjesus]

I am fine with most of your points, except the last one. Why are we talking about Victreebel's merits OUTSIDE of Sun, when the whole point is that it is so overpowering IN the Sun? To repeat a previous question, please explain why we should not ban a Pokemon just because it has non-broken sets? Considering every "broken" Pokemon can carry mediocre sets themselves, should they also be unbanned because they can carry a worse set? I want to see people answer this question before saying something like this.

My point was just trying to explain that Non Heat Rocm sun teams will be MUCH more pressured to keep Sun active to make Victreebel a real threat... Leafeon, Tangela and Sawsbuck all three have real viability outside of sun which means they can be pretty much useful when your sun setters are down or when they are just pressured to set it back, but Vic its a little bit too much reliant on those sun turns... And less sun turns will means that Vic is just not that threatening...

That's why you need to consider Victreebel outside of sun... Because even in sun teams, you will need to do something to keep sun active for a long time (or you might even have to sacrifice a moveslot on Vic to have its own Sun, which means it will need to sacrifice Sleep Powder, a STAB or a coverage move), or have ways to use those pokes without sun... And unless your opponent is just kinda stupid, I'm pretty sure that your team will need more than two Sun setters, and even then, they will be hard pressed to setup sun along the match...

Then, it's different to consider Vic outside of the Sun (since keeping sun active isn't just deppending on you but also your opponent) than using a mediocre set on a huge threat just cuz you like to do funny and weird things...

 

[Magnemite]

Regarding the point about Victreebel's other sets:

Victreebel would not be the first Pokemon we've banned with non-broken sets. A prime example of this is Tauros. No one thought that its Choice Scarf set was close to broken, and in fact it gave the meta a great yet balanced catch-all revenge killer that beat a variety of boosted threats, yet it was still banned along with the broken Life Orb Tauros. There have been other examples as well with some pro-ban Musharna voters believing CM pass was the only broken set, Overgrow Serperior which was a big part of the meta at the time, and other random examples like Choice Band Throh. All of these are examples of non-broken sets that have been banned as collateral damage despite being much bigger parts of the meta than 3 attacks Sunny Day or Swords Dance / Mixed Victreebel have been and would ever be. The main difference with Victreebel and these other Pokemon is that there is an easy way to limit it to only the non-broken sets by banning Heat Rock, which definitely is an option, but because of what I've stated Victreebel's other sets are irrelevant to this discussion, as there is precedent to ignore them. Going off of this, it would be logical to say that the only thing impating the choice between banning Heat Rock and banning Victreebel is whether or not non-Victreebel sun is broken. If it's not, then banning Victreebel makes the most sense by far, and if it is then banning Heat Rock makes the most sense by far.

 

[Kingler]

i'll nitpick the above two posts a bit

Mag :

• The life orb point doesn't really make sense imo because life orb isnt broken on anything else and there isn't really any viable way to keep all other tauros variants banned while keeping scarf.
• Contrary was also not broken on every mon that got it, lol Spinda

from what i understood you seemed to imply that although only certain aspects of a pkmn may be banworthy, the pokemon is banned in a lot of cases; however, there's a clear difference since we're looking to nerf sun as a playstyle. this can be done by banning heat rock which means we can actually "ban the least stuff." Leafeon, Sawsbuck, Onix (?) and Volbeat still have viable sets after the nerf, and so does victreebel. If banning heat rock leaves us with the most diversity while killing the problem and still keeping sun as a usable but mediocre playstyle (like Fagtron pointed out, we are under no obligation to make sure sun is a great playstyle), why not?

Also touching at the Victreebel part, it does in fact matter because there's that much more non-broken stuff you're banning. Bans are supposed to remove unhealthy/broken elements from the metagame while retaining non-broken stuff. This is why complex bans are used in the first place; see: Drizzle + Swift Swim as precedent (yes i know those aren't really comparable, but i'm only hinting at a certain part of that ban here).

@alfons:

Uhh what collateral damage is caused by banning Heat Rock? You yourself said that we are under no obligation to keep sun as a viable playstyle. While banning a mon is generally preferred to banning an item, when the mon in question can run other viable sets that aren't broken, why not ban what makes it broken in the first place? It's not even a complex ban; it's just a simple ban on an item that's easy to understand. Vic may not be a "considerable threat" outside of sun but that still doesn't make it irrelevant to the meta and there IS collateral damage in banning it; like i said above, most sun mons are still used for other purposes.

sorta jumbled up my thoughts a bit but meh

edit: @ remilia:

the extra three turns do make a difference lol pretty much everyone accepts that without heat rock, vic wouldn't be bannable.

 

[Raiza]

Regarding the point about Victreebel's other sets:

Victreebel would not be the first Pokemon we've banned with non-broken sets. A prime example of this is Tauros. No one thought that its Choice Scarf set was close to broken, and in fact it gave the meta a great yet balanced catch-all revenge killer that beat a variety of boosted threats, yet it was still banned along with the broken Life Orb Tauros. There have been other examples as well with some pro-ban Musharna voters believing CM pass was the only broken set, Overgrow Serperior which was a big part of the meta at the time, and other random examples like Choice Band Throh. All of these are examples of non-broken sets that have been banned as collateral damage despite being much bigger parts of the meta than 3 attacks Sunny Day or Swords Dance / Mixed Victreebel have been and would ever be. The main difference with Victreebel and these other Pokemon is that there is an easy way to limit it to only the non-broken sets by banning Heat Rock, which definitely is an option, but because of what I've stated Victreebel's other sets are irrelevant to this discussion, as there is precedent to ignore them. Going off of this, it would be logical to say that the only thing impating the choice between banning Heat Rock and banning Victreebel is whether or not non-Victreebel sun is broken. If it's not, then banning Victreebel makes the most sense by far, and if it is then banning Heat Rock makes the most sense by far.

In precent suspect tests I took part there were no alternative options aside from banning the Pokemon that was suspected to solve the problem. Differently, we got plenty of solutions this time. I won't go too deep again on whether a solution is better than another as we already talked about that a lot and I'm fine with both banning Heat Rock or Victreebel, though, by banning Heat Rock, we will both nerf Sun while keeping Victreebel's other sets, which can be useful in a post ban Heat Rock scenario, intact, which is not a bad thing for sure and fits the banning philosophy PU wants to adopt.

 

[Mistress Remilia]

I'll have to agree that Victreebel is by far the strongest abuser of a Sun Team & What made Sun being suspected:
- While Sawbucks, Leafeon, Rapidash & a bunch of others abusers all work well in Sun, they can get stopped even if they are boosted because a resistance to the abuser's stab & while his coverage might be good, it might end up not doing enough damage. Victreebel isn't exactly affected by that: Its STAB is stupidly strong so only resists & a bunch of relatively bulky on the special side pokemons can resist. So, like for other abusers, send a resistance, like a flying type or just something to handle Solarbeam, that shouldn't be hard to find, right ? Nope, that Sun boosted weather ball & that Second STAB Sludge Bomb will go right through a majority of these pokemons.
- The access to Sleep Powder: Oh, you have one of the rare pokemons who aren't OHKOd by Victreebel, so you can hope to just damage it enough to it will die ? I wish it was that easy too, Victreebel's insane speed provided by the sun allows him to put asleep the few threats who can take a hit & KO back the almighty plant monster. The prorities don't even play in your favor, with only Ice Shard being a decent option vs Victreebel, which Piloswine has, but it won't be enough to OHKO Vic. On the bad side, Sucker Punch is made useless by Sleep unless one of your pokemons is already asleep, which might cost you the game as Victreebel is not alone & still usually has plenty of partners to kill your team. Aqua Jet is a resistance, Mach Punch is non existant, Shadow Sneak won't kill Vic but Vic will put your Dusknoir ( The only user of this move ) asleep. So yeah, most of the time, you can be in situations where you're just helpless.

Overall, the relative ease that Victreebel has to tear appart pretty much any playstyle is absurdly cheap. Ban Victreebel.
Heat Rock isn't the problem, it lets Vic & others more time to shine ( Get it, because it's a SUN!! ), but like, when you OHKO nearly everything, and you can put to Sleep threats that annoy you/just put them to sleep to reset Sun, i don't think Heat Rock is exactly the source of the sweep, but rather, the pokemon.

 

[Magnemite]

I wasn't implying that the fact that other banned Pokemon have had non-broken sets is a reason to ban Victreebel; I was implying that it is a reason to ignore Victreebel's other sets. This is especially true considering that banning Heat Rock instead of Victreebel cripples the whole playstyle of sun instead of just nerfing it but keeping it viable like banning Victreebel does (this is of course if non-Victreebel sun isn't broken, which is something that I implied in my post is still up in the air). Since banning Victreebel has much less collateral damage than making an entire playstyle much, much less viable as banning Heat Rock would do, it makes more sense to ban it instead of Heat Rock provided that both of them nerf sun to a non-broken point.

 

[tehy]

Hey there, not much of a PU player but I thought i'd hop in to give my thoughts after reading through this entire thread

a lot of this discussion revolves around what sun sans heat rock / sun sans Victreebel looks like, i.e. whether or not they are still broken, or even whether or not they are still viable (moreso for heat rock)

looking through the entire thread, there doesn't seem to be anyone who's used sun without heat rock or victreebel; that's understandable, since no one wants to make a purposely inferior team, but for the purposes of this suspect, it'd be really helpful if some of y'all tried it out and reported your experiences

edit:

heh true enough whiteD, let's get this show on the road tho

 

[Raiza]

I wasn't implying that the fact that other banned Pokemon have had non-broken sets is a reason to ban Victreebel; I was implying that it is a reason to ignore Victreebel's other sets. This is especially true considering that banning Heat Rock instead of Victreebel cripples the whole playstyle of sun instead of just nerfing it but keeping it viable like banning Victreebel does (this is of course if non-Victreebel sun isn't broken, which is something that I implied in my post is still up in the air). Since banning Victreebel has much less collateral damage than making an entire playstyle much, much less viable as banning Heat Rock would do, it makes more sense to ban it instead of Heat Rock provided that both of them nerf sun to a non-broken point.

We still don't know if Sun without Heat Rock will be unviable or if Sun without Victreebel will be viable/broken, that's why I'll repeat we need to see how this suspect goes before jumping to conclusions. If we already jump in the first day of suspect with the mentality of banning a Pokemon / Item / Move / Whatever without having tried it out or at least experienced it a bit, we'll just go towards a pointless risk, and I want to avoid retesting things because of mistakes done in precedence. Counting we don't know if Sun will be completely terrible without Heat Rock, I'd prefer banning Heat Rock because we'll go towards a lesser risk differently from a Victreebel ban which can have a lot of different results over the metagame, as Heat Rock ban will keep Victreebel but nerf more heavily Sun teams, which is not that bad, as I doubt people mind about Sun's viability post this suspect, because it will still be a very matchup based and volatile playstyle anyway.

 

[WhiteDMist]

Hey there, not much of a PU player but I thought i'd hop in to give my thoughts after reading through this entire thread

a lot of this discussion revolves around what sun sans heat rock / sun sans Victreebel looks like, i.e. whether or not they are still broken, or even whether or not they are still viable (moreso for heat rock)

looking through the entire thread, there doesn't seem to be anyone who's used sun without heat rock or victreebel; that's understandable, since no one wants to make a purposely inferior team, but for the purposes of this suspect, it'd be really helpful if some of y'all tried it out and reported your experiences

I completely agree with this, but to be fair, this test only started yesterday so no one has had time to test it out significantly and draw accurate conclusions. For now, the notable question is: is Sun as a playstyle broken? We've already gone over the pros and cons of each option for now (some more than others), but this questions can still be explored more in-depth.

 

[mael]

Well, there is always the option to carry more than 2 Sun setters of course, but other than that your point is fine. However, the whole point of this suspect test is to find the most effective way to handle the situation with Sun. Why should we take the timid approach when we are supposed to actually solve the problem now to the best of our abilities?

Of course you can carry more than 2 sunsetters, but that limits your options in other regards and exactly that is what we want to achieve with a heat rock ban; limiting sun. i'm against a more radical option, because that would mean cutting down on variety, which is what makes this metagame so lovely. if a certain aspect is causing problems you don't always have to take it at the root and tear it out as a whole, when cutting off the sick branch is enough.

 

[Akir]

Victreebel @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Sunny Day
- Solar Beam
- Sludge Bomb
- Weather Ball/Sleep Powder

Why don't people use this set more? It is very similar to RD Poliwrath...just trade bulk for more reliance of the weather and vastly superior firepower.

Seriously, I lazily put this on a hazard stack team and watched this thing go. The fact that it does 70% minimum to most of the tier is a great asset and this set makes Victreebel a fantastic lategame sweeper.

"Ok but why post this here?" My point is, Victreebel is still a horrifying monster without even being on a sun team...without needing Heat Rock either. All it needs is 1 turn to Sunny Day (you know, just like Shell Smash and all of those other sweepers that have to set up) and your opponent will be scrambling to stop it.

We, as a tier, really need to sit down and think on WHY sun is so good. If we just push sun to 5 turns by banning just Heat Rock, that only means that Victreebel will murder 3 things instead of an entire team. Victreebel doesn't need your dedicated sun team...it will eat your offense either way.

I will be testing sun without Heat Rock as the week goes on and will post results and any good replays I get at a later time.

 

[XenoTech N]

Here are my initial thoughts after facing a few sun teams this past week:

-Sunny Day alone is not a problem. It's only when combined with Chlorophyll that it's a problem. I think that we should not ban Sunny Day.

-Chlorophyll isn't really the problem either, because every Chlorophyll user has at least a couple of good counters, even in sun (excepting Victreebel, but I'll get to that later). I think no to banning Chlorophyll. Also, we'd have to ban Cherubi lol.

-Banning Heat Rock dosen't help much, because all Heat Rock does is guarantee that sun will last the full 8 turns. Even without the rock, there's still a good chance that sun will still go the 8 turns. Banning Heat Rock will not help.

-Banning Victreebel is probably the best course of action. Victreebel is on almost every sun team for a reason. It hits ridiculously hard, and outspeeds even non-Chlorophyll Jumpluff in sun. Banning Victreebel will limit how damaging sun is without forcing us to ban other weather related abilities or moves. I think Victreebel should be banned.

 

[Raiza]

View attachment 44785
Victreebel @ Life Orb
Ability: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Sunny Day
- Solar Beam
- Sludge Bomb
- Weather Ball/Sleep Powder

Why don't people use this set more? It is very similar to RD Poliwrath...just trade bulk for more reliance of the weather and vastly superior firepower.

Seriously, I lazily put this on a hazard stack team and watched this thing go. The fact that it does 70% minimum to most of the tier is a great asset and this set makes Victreebel a fantastic lategame sweeper.

"Ok but why post this here?" My point is, Victreebel is still a horrifying monster without even being on a sun team...without needing Heat Rock either. All it needs is 1 turn to Sunny Day (you know, just like Shell Smash and all of those other sweepers that have to set up) and your opponent will be scrambling to stop it.

We, as a tier, really need to sit down and think on WHY sun is so good. If we just push sun to 5 turns by banning just Heat Rock, that only means that Victreebel will murder 3 things instead of an entire team. Victreebel doesn't need your dedicated sun team...it will eat your offense either way.

I will be testing sun without Heat Rock as the week goes on and will post results and any good replays I get at a later time.

The set you posted is nowhere unhealthy or broken for the metagame at the moment. You probably managed to sweep through teams with ease because you were facing not competent players, probably on ladder, or teams extremely weak to Victreebel. It isn't similiar to Rain Dance Poliwrath, Poliwrath has enough bulk and an ok typing which allows it to find opportunities to set up Rain Dance more easily, while I could see Victreebel managing to set up Sunny Day only if running Sleep Powder, which makes this not run Weather Ball, therefore walled by a bigger part of the meta, or by forcing a switch, but honestly this is unlikely as this thing isn't scary for almost anything when Sun isn't up. Also even if this manages to set up, it is easily worn down and can be still picked off.

 

[Akir]

The set you posted is nowhere unhealthy or broken for the metagame at the moment. You probably managed to sweep through teams with ease because you were facing not competent players, probably on ladder, or teams extremely weak to Victreebel. It isn't similiar to Rain Dance Poliwrath, Poliwrath has enough bulk and an ok typing which allows it to find opportunities to set up Rain Dance more easily, while I could see Victreebel managing to set up Sunny Day only if running Sleep Powder, which makes this not run Weather Ball, therefore walled by a bigger part of the meta, or by forcing a switch, but honestly this is unlikely as this thing isn't scary for almost anything when Sun isn't up. Also even if this manages to set up, it is easily worn down and can be still picked off.

I don't really play on the ladder seriously, for the above reason you stated, so I spar with other people who also know what they are doing. And yes, it is not unhealthy. I mainly made that post to see what people thought about Victreebel out of the sun but still using the said sun. We have talked a lot about 'other' Victreebel sets, but that could mean anything from the Life Orb Mixed set to the Swords Dance...so here is a Victreebel that still uses sun in an environment where it can be successful. Does this warrant just banning Victreebel, or are both sun and Victreebel broken when used in tandem?

Also a slow U-Turn helps a lot with giving Victreebel time to set up the sun itself fwiw

 

[Venoxio]

Initial thoughts:

Sunny Day isn't that much of a problem. It can be detrimental if there is a Jumpluff or a different Chlorophyll user like Sawsbuck, Leafeon, or VICTREEBEL, or it can be shut down entirely if a another weather condition is brought out. Also, if you don't run Heat Rock, it only lasts a short time. Do not ban Sunny Day.

Heat Rock is very helpful to many sun teams, as it allows them to sweep more easily (with there being 6 mons on a team and 8 turns in Heat Rock, but there are only 5 without rock), but sun, even with Heat Rock, can be stalled out fairly easily. This would also not affect sun too much if it got banned. Do not ban Heat Rock.

Chlorophyll isn't a problem for most teams. Heck, most Sunny Day sweepers (sans Sawsbuck and Victreebel) have decent counters/checks even if it dosen't have Chlorophyll. And others like Sawsbuck have other and better abilities. Do not ban Chlorophyll.

Victreebel being banned is the best choice. You like balance? Well, meet my friend Victreebel here. It can abuse SolarBeam greatly in sun, can setup with Swords Dance or even Growth, can cripple with Sleep Powder, has priority in Sucker Punch, has a Poison-type STAB that obliterates most Grass-types, and even has a reliable Fire move (in the sun) with Weather Ball. HP Fire also works in place of Weather Ball outside of sun. It can destroy almost any strategy pretty reliably, and is just too much. Ban Victreebel.

 

[WhiteDMist]

So after a fun weekend, it's time for me to get back to work.

1.
Why should Sun be nerfed? Why should Sun not be nerfed?

Except for some Council members, I haven't really seen anyone answer these questions. Just because this is a suspect test doesn't mean that we will necessarily ban anything. Do you know why you want to target an aspect of Sun at all?


2.
Now that people have had time to start testing all the variants of Sun related bans proposed, has anyone found out anything they want to share?

 

[Raiza]

So after a fun weekend, it's time for me to get back to work.
2.
Now that people have had time to start testing all the variants of Sun related bans proposed, has anyone found out anything they want to share?

Yeah I had time to try out some Sun variants during this week, both in ladder and room tournaments, so I'm going to share my thoughts about the ones I tried. I basically tried the double physical abuser comp more extensively, I already talked about it in my previous post you can find there, and my thoughts really haven't changed at all after testing a bit more: Sun would of course receive a tweak, and an heavy one too, as I think it will be hard for it to barely break through physical walls such as Tangela(Knock Off from Leafeon isn't enoughto cripple it, as Tangela still carries an high Defense by itself and Leafeon has pity special defense, also Synthesis gets boost under sun) and Gourgeist-Super. Then, I tried a pattern using Weepinbell over Victreebel to see if it would've been a good replacement, and oh yes it was. Weepinbell loses a bit of Special Attack and Speed compared it to its evolution, which can be annoying at times, though it can still outspeed all the unboosted metagame bar Ninjask, but the coverage and offensive movepool still remains fantastic and allow it to break through offensive teams with ease. Unfortunately I only saved one log you can find here, but I can guarantee this is almost lethal as Victreebel. I preferred Weepinbell to others such as Tangela and Bellossom because of Weather Ball, and I didn't regret this choice as it saved my ass a lot of times.
Last but not least, I tried Sun without running Heat Rock on my setters, and I have to say it of course would receive an heavy nerf from this ban option, though I think it's still the best as the playstyle was still borderline viable and playable, though I actually had to not play mindlessly and play more carefully around my Sun setters to clinch wins.

 

[Dundies]

So after a fun weekend, it's time for me to get back to work.

1.
Why should Sun be nerfed? Why should Sun not be nerfed?

Except for some Council members, I haven't really seen anyone answer these questions. Just because this is a suspect test doesn't mean that we will necessarily ban anything. Do you know why you want to target an aspect of Sun at all?


2.
Now that people have had time to start testing all the variants of Sun related bans proposed, has anyone found out anything they want to share?

First off, sun definitely needs to be nerfed. Although sun is really matchup based, it's extremely broken, as its able to easily beat the most common and currently the best playstyles (offense and balance, since stall is basically non-existant). If you are running offense, it's highly unlikely you're beating a sun team, unless you have checks that are usually otherwise less viable than their other sets (Chlorophyll Jumpluff which is worse than Infiltrator with broken sun out of the picture or Scarfed Chlorophyll Sawsbuck which is worse than Sap Sipper without broken sun, just as a couple of examples) or priority. My main target to get the boot is Victreebel, as sun will remain a viable playstyle, but it will no longer be broken, and sun will see change, as maybe even offensive Chlorophyll Tangela may see usage on sun teams. With Victreebel gone, the main Chlorophyll abusers to account for (Leafeon and Sawsbuck) won't require adjustment in teambuilding just to beat these threats, as they are much easier to check and most of their checks are already on most teams.

As for new sun variants, I haven't seen much outside of self-setting Victreebel and the lord triple bell core ( credits to galbia ). I have tested Chlorophyll Tangela a bit to see how it worked in comparison to Victreebel and it is definitely an easier Pokemon to check overall, though it is bulkier than Victreebel, which makes it a decent Growth sweeper along with Sleep Powder.

 

[XenoTech N]

Requirements will be a GXE score of at least 80 and Glicko-1 of 1800 ± 80 or better, on fresh alt. .

What do the reqs equal (roughly) in ELO? Not really good with this stuff.

 

[Kingler]

just touching a bit on the heat rock thing: yes it really really matters, at most your sweeper is getting 3/4 turns of sun without it. this isn't to mention that a lot of sun sweepers are INCREDIBLY hard to hard switch especially if your opp is actively trying to provide counterplay to that. so basically you set up sun w/ onix -> boom. your sun sweeper now has three sun turns left, after which it'll most likely have to switch out. provided that you perfectly predict every single turn, you'll be up like 5-4 but your sun sweeper gets forced out and you lose your entire momentum. this isn't to mention that any check that sorta kinda doesnt crumble to sun basically fucks victreebel over. your individual sun setters aren't setting up sun more than once usually, and shit on sun can't take hits from like anything (uturn pluff, pour, etc. all are huge threats). this is why yes, heat rock is actually an incredible nerf altho it seems like just "3 extra turns."

 

[g]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...r-update-may-2015.3537414/page-7#post-6303955

We lost Togetic guys

 

[Raiza]

The loss of Togetic won't really affect this suspect, but as already mentioned into the Viability Ranking thread, it will influence the effectivity of defensive teams and Dragon-types such as Fraxure, Zweilous, and Dragonair, which are already rising in popularity, with people finally realising how good the typing is and their effectiveness in the metagame. Starting from Dragon-types, they will of course benefit from the rise of Togetic because the metagame will lose a valid Fairy-type, which is one if not the best stop to Dragon-types. I think they will rise even more in usage along with Taunt on Fraxure, though I think Iron Tail, even if it lost the main target, will still be more useful to not be completely walled by the common Clefairy. Regarding defensive teams, this rise surely won't affect them in a positive manner, as they lost one of the already few defoggers. Togetic was a good pick for defensive teams maily because of its access to plenty utility moves such as Baton Pass, Heal Bell, Thunder Wave, which were a big supply to defensive teams along with reliable recovery and good bulk with Eviolite. Its typing also allowed Togetic to be effective because of its immunity to Dragon-type, and resistances to types such as Dark, Grass, and Fighting, which made it a stop to the aforementioned Dragon-types, and also Pokemon such as Mightyena, Poliwrath, and Servine.

 

[MZ]

And suddenly stall got even worse, forced to pick between just two defensive defoggers (vullaby or Pelipper) or run a spinner and lose to a well played spike stack team. Sigh toge was on of my favorite mons in the tier, really underrated as a slow pivot.

I don't feel like there's much more to say about sun except that I'm not convinced that banning Vic keeps it not broken. After seeing experimentation with stuff like Tangela and weepinbell, I'm thinking banning heat rock might be the only good way to nerf it. I'll need to test more but there's been this assumption that banning Vic nerfs sun enough and it still seems like a very volatile playstyle, albeit matchup reliant.

 

[2xTheTap]

Following both Raiza's and Megazard's line of logic, I see Vullaby increasing in usage after Togetic moves to NU, as it's one of the only viable options for Defog other than Pelipper or Swanna at this point (especially if Pelipper/Swanna do not fit your current team due to type synergy). While Vullaby may not have nearly as much mixed bulk as Togetic, its wide move pool that includes useful tools like Taunt, Whirlwind, U-turn, Tailwind, Toxic, Knock Off, etc. can often come in handy. Additionally, it's able to hard counter Jumpluff via Overcoat and its high Defense (while 2HKOing Jumpluff with Foul Play, as I show here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/pu-victim-of-the-week-week-23-sun-sweeper-victreebel.3532587/), and also beats physical threats like Stoutland, Rapidash, Leafeon and Pawniard 1 on 1.

Like Raiza said earlier, I also see Fraxure / Zweilous (and perhaps to a lesser extent, other PU dragons like Dragonair) increasing in both usage and effectiveness since an immunity to Outrage is leaving the tier. Similarly, that means Clefairy / Mr. Mime will have that much more reason to be used on teams, with Steel types like Pawniard / Probopass (especially speed invested Magnet Pull Probopass) / Klang and other offensive checks, like Piloswine becoming more appealing as well. I predict this will change team building a bit more as people will likely include offensive cores based around Fraxure and Zweilous more often, in addition to including a Defensive check/counter to these monsters on each team. This is just speculation on my part, though.

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As far as the sun suspect goes, I think a complex ban of Chlorophyll on Victreebel only could be added to the list of voting options. The reason being is that I think Chlorophyll itself is what puts Victreebel over the edge. At 478 Speed, your best bet in checking / countering Victreebel is to include niche Pokemon like Sleep Talk SpDef Zweilous or Insomnia SpDef Hypno, or Choice Scarfed Pokemon like Dodrio or Snow Warning Aurorus. Without Chlorophyll however, the list of Pokemon that outspeed and beat it 1 on 1 would increase drastically and would therefore make beating Victreebel much more manageable (due to both its inferior bulk and speed) without harming the option of using Sun outside of Victreebel. The issue to me is that its great speed stat under Sun (478), coupled with Sleep Powder to incapacitate its checks and counters, incredible coverage, a SpAtk stat of 328, and the ability to use LO comfortably all at the same time is way too much for a single Pokemon. By taking that doubled Speed away, the smallest change possible to Sun would have been made without possibly limiting the rest of the current PU meta.

I've also been testing other candidates for Sun teams in place of Victreebel, to see what Sun would look like if Victreebel were to be banned. So far, Weepinbell, Tangela, Bellossom and even Ivysaur have been usable. Tangela stood out to me out of all of these options however because of its considerable physical bulk. I have some replays against higher level players where Sun with Tangela over Victreebel still won (in other words, this presents the possibility that Heat Rock may need to be banned as well, in order to limit Sun's overall effectiveness). After all, Leafeon and Sawsbuck with a SD under Sun still wreck most team archetypes, outside of a few choice Pokemon like Torkoal, Avalugg, Intimidate Arbok, Scarf Dodrio (depending on the speed ran by Leafeon/Sawsbuck), and Defensive Tangela, to name a few. (Listing these checks and counters to Leafeon/Sawsbuck is NOT my way of saying Sun isn't broken lol; it is in my mind for sure.)

In order to prevent the unnecessary banning of pokemon/moves/abilities/items/etc, I would advocate the removal of Victreebel's Chlorophyll first, and then possibly ban Heat Rock or Victreebel altogether in a later suspect if Sun still proves to be too much at that time.

However, at the very least, I think it's been already proven beyond a reasonable doubt in this thread that Chlorophyll activated Victreebel is broken in this current meta, so I'd be happy with whatever changes the council makes to Sun.

EDIT: added some replays. watch them!

Sun Replays with Tangela

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-244492803
Tangela Sun vs Optical Reel (1-0)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-245083431
Tangela Sun vs Afro Dizzy Hacks – 1493 rated guy (3-0)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-244003797
(Tangela Sun vs Explosive Chaos' Victreebel Sun)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-244009558
(Tangela Sun vs Explosive Chaos' Victreebel Sun)

Victreebel Sun vs other known PU players

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-230531880
vs Crimzig (1-0)
E: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-246734288
vs Simipour / Dundies (3-0)
E: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-246738674
vs Girthy Wang - 1373 rated guy (3-0)
E: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-246741099
vs Simipour / Dundies x2 (2-0)

Some of my other teams vs Opposing players' Sun teams

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/pu-232271031