Conversations about the future of SV OU have been interesting to hear, especially now considering what came about the Kyurem test. There's still a few controversial things in this tier and the topic of Archaludon is particularly fascinating to me, but I think this topic entails more than just the mon itself.
I feel like a lot of the time when Archaludon is mentioned it is almost always brought up with rain as well. Essentially, I think it's important to acknowledge that you can't exactly talk about one without bringing up the other. It's no secret that this mon has been a tremendous boost to the rain playstyle with it's combination of defensive utility and offensive prowess. The conversion about this mon's place in the tier has to include rain's place in the tier as well. Does this controversial issue come down to Archaludon alone or is this a rain issue as a whole? I bring up this question as a non-ou main and purely out of observation, so perhaps others that are more in tune with ou can give their thoughts in this context.
As a UU main I can though offer a comparison for what Archaludon strikes me as similar to within UU and that would be Goodra-h. For as long as it's been in UU in this gen, this particular mon has always been pretty annoying to switch into given that it basically has perfect coverage and can trade pretty well vs a lot of mons; Archaludon seems no different in Draco/Flash/Body Press/Electro Shot can hit just about everything. Either of these being well-played can make for an effective progress maker in any match. However, I think it could be argued that being tough to switch into =/= broken. Similarly to Hoodra, it's especially threatening into slower teams while more offensive teams still have to be conscious about switching into it but can usually overwhelm it, and this for the most part is considered a healthy dynamic within the UU tier. For how crazy speed tiers are in OU the same could be said of Archaludon. These may be different tiers being compared in this example, but both mons do seem to play similarly in my experiences of both these tiers. At what point does being difficult to switch into become unhealthy?
A big part of what enables Archaludon is rain giving Electro Shot a 1 turn hit. Something to consider about both rain and this mon is if Archaludon would be considered banworthy without/outside of rain. As a standalone mon, I imagine it could be argued that it's not as overbearing and would rather just be a solid mon. The complexity of the issue could be narrowed down to rain as the main enabler for what makes it overbearing. Rain as a playstyle does tend to have tough matchups into some mons in general, but is rain as a standalone playstyle overbearing in ou? Would it be with or without Archaludon? If rain as a whole is considered too good, and Archaludon is considered balanced without rain, it could be worth looking into Damp Rock. Ideally, a nerf to rain in this manner would still preserve the playstyle (without having to act on drizzle or pelipper) while making counterplay to Archaludon a bit easier with the limited rain turns. Not to say that Archaludon isn't banworthy, it still very well could be, but I think the conversation on whether rain as it currently exists in ou is considered healthy should be talked about more before deciding on what to act upon. OU seems to have it's fair share of controversial issues beyond just Archaludon/Rain, so in general the playerbase should discuss looking into fixing the current issues before unleashing more ubers into it.
Thanks for reading if you got this far :D
+ Unaware
are a nice double wall for
and
, or
and
with Cosmic Power for
and Tera Ground to wall
to revenge kill
messes with
,
, and
with Prankster to quickly burn
