I appreciate that you went in detail about the concept of a team losing to X offensive Pokemon if equipped with the right moveset, tera type, or both. It’s a concept I’ve struggled to understand because I always thought “well wouldn’t that make teambuilding more of a headache?” Hearing this from you makes me realize that I should account for factors such as how easy that threat is to get on the field and how often that threat runs the set that demolishes my team.
Sums up my thoughts on Palafin pretty well. Palafin isn't necessarily broken, as every archetype does have viable checks to it, but having to check Palafin along with all of the other threats in the tier will put further strain on the teambuilder and make the outcome of games more dependent on matchup. Not to mention the fact that quite a few of Palfin's checks (Ogerpon, Raging Bolt, Kyurem) are already controversial in their own right, which could lead to a more "broken checking broken" esque dynamic for the tier. Also, some people say that we need Palafin in the tier to check HO, but I don't get that reasoning. As you said in the video, HO is far from the most dominant playstyle, and between mons like Zamazenta, Ting Lu, Dragapult, Moltres, Dragonite, Rillaboom, Lokix, and Scizor, it feels like the tier isn't exactly in dire need of checks to HO
Well-put! I enjoy how diverse and viable HO is, but some want it to be worse, which I suppose is understandable. The extremes (HO and Stall) are quite controversial.
@@TIckTack7777 Not all, stuff like Dondozo can get 2HKO'd by Tera Fighting CC with Band but not always and requiring the tera to do that isn't great, but still gets a 2HKO on quite a good amount of them, except for things like Pex and more i am missing but you can maybe argue with Tera Blast but at that point i'm just questioning that decision, but to answer that properly not really all of them but a good chunk of them do, even more with enough resources
i think pala’s presence limits HO well enough and the BU/band sets are a nice fit on some balance/bulky offense teams. it’s strong but i don’t think it’s broken
Yep. Jokes aside it won't help stall much, since it will probably cause Wellspring usage to spike. Stall will likely get slightly better, still won't be strong though.
Banning things not because they're broke but because they're cringe and I don't like the implications of them on the meta game is always something I can sign up for
Yea, banning something (or especially not unbanning something) for being unhealthy is perfectly valid reasoning, according to Smogon standards. I'm surprised how many people seem to think that a pokemon must be broken to be banworthy/ not unbanworthy.
Knowing what your opinions on mons like wellspring are from your past streams where you can never not vent about them, lol, it was appearant what your take would be on palufin long before you said it. But still, I think your explanations this time was worth it weight in gold. You did a good job at walking the viewer to the conclusion that palifin is an unhealthy addition, and more importantly seperated it from belief that palifin is overpowered is an objective sense, which is a crucial distinction to make. Good video.
Balance gets better with Palafin unbanned. I got reqs with a Palafin balance team and the mon is so good on balance because its priority helps limit nearly every HO threat like Kingambit, Iron Moth, Darkrai etc. Palafin itself is also a good Gliscor check, which is more annoying for balance to deal with.
You may be right! Generally powerful breakers being added cause more harm than the benefit received by having them as an option in the builder, but only time will tell. Still, I don't believe Balance will find this to be a positive development. Bulk Up sets threaten balance more than any other Archetype, and having to prepare for both Bulk Up and Choice Band sets puts a lot of pressure on the builder.
In the suspect forums I see a lot of opinions that are saying they don't like Palafin's influence in the metagame. However, you cannot use such arguments in a Palafin suspect when we haven't seen at all the meta trying to adjust to Palafin post DLC. The suspect ladder clearly has inflated Palafin usage and the picture about the metagame overall is skewed. I agree with your overall assessment on how Palafin affects playstyles but I don't know the extent of that (we don't know how Palafin's usage will look like and potential domino effects). In a couple of months we could hold a second suspect after we determined its effect was negative. For now the only thing we can safely judge is whether there is enough counterplay to deal with the immediate threat of Palafin as a Choice Band user or Bulk Up Tera sets. I think the answer to that is yes.
Ladder certainly has inflated Palafin usage, but to see the metagame impact really doesn't take a genius. Some things are hard to say-- I don't know how much usage Palafin will get, for example, but I do know HO will take a big hit if Palafin is brought into the tier. The metagame adjusting won't change that.
You don’t need excessive time for some thing a to show they’re not a positive force in a tier or meta game. If you have enough knowledge or experience, you can generally make an informed opinion on a mon’s impact and react accordingly. It’s not really any different from making a quick ban decision early on into a mon’s life in a tier: you can tell based on the way the game is evolving around it whether it’ll be balanced or healthy. Something like Wake we saw counter play emerge during the suspect and more beyond it, leading to it settling just fine especially as it was a rather linear Pokémon. But palafin is a Mon that handpicks its counter play and to a degree that realistically isn’t healthy even if individually sets have counter play. And this is also without going into the way it’s making teams prep for it just to end up weaker to other major threats.
What is your opinion on this team? I'm new and don't know how to use pokepaste, otherwise I would have submitted this team in the forms. Ogerpon-W @ Wellspring Mask Ability: Embody Aspect Tera: Water EVs: 4Hp 252 Atk 252Spd Jolly Nature -Swords Dance -Knock Off -Ivy Cudgel -Power Whip Raging Bolt @ Choice Specs Ability: Protosynthesis Tera: Fairy EVs: 4Hp 252Atk 252Spd Modest Nature -Draco Meteor -Thunderbolt -Thunderclap -Volt Switch Skarmory @ Rocky Helmet Ability: Sturdy Tera: Flying EVs: 252Hp 252Def 4Spd Impish Nature -Spikes -Iron Defense -Body Press -Roost Blissey @ Heavy-Duty Boots Ability: Natural Cure Tera: Fairy EVs: 252HP 4SpAtk 252SpDef Calm Nature -Soft-Boiled -Calm Mind -Thunderbolt -Ice Beam Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots Ability: Protosynthesis Tera: Fire EVs: 4Hp 252Atk 252Spd Jolly Nature -Stealth Rock -Rapid Spin -Headlong Rush -Ice Spinner Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots Ability: Infiltrator Tera: Ghost EVs: 4Atk 252 SpAtk 252 Spd Naive Nature -Dragon Darts -U-Turn -Will o Wisp -Hex Why Blissey? With all of the incredibly threatening Breakers/Sweepers in the meta, as well as utility mons that rely on their SpAtk, Blissey gives us the ultimate answer to them and this set allows her to switch in safely(protecting our own breakers/sweepers and keeping them fresh), chip down physical attackers looking to switch in on her(especially if we have a few Calm Minds/we hit super effectively) and even sweep sometimes. She does all of this better than Glowking, at the cost of Pivoting(we have two, but one more would be nice) Regenerator, Future Sight(We don't need help breaking) Toxic, and Poison coverage. I don't think we need all of those things with this team composition, although finding a way to fit them would be nice. The only problem I've encountered with this team is Booster Energy Iron Valiant, with our only(unreliable) answer being Tera Fairy Raging Bolt.
to use pokepaste you go to the website, make a name and put whoever made the team as the author, then paste the team and hit the submit paste button!! pretty simple. Also i dont super like specs bolt, locking into a move isn't great especially if you want to run thunderclap mindgames, personally i use assault vest bolt (there's an 86% chance to be 2hko by ival moonblast, but it gives you something better than just bolt) but booster energy works too if you want more power.
This team idea is cool. You've got 2 heavy hitting breakers here though, probably one of them can be replaced for a support pokemon to make the team more consistent. Something like Moltres over Raging Bolt might work, with Roar. It would also help your HO matchup, which I would guess is not great. Also, I'll copy this into my builder, might feature it on the next episode of team fixing
@@pinkacross2042that would be awesome! If you do, my in game name is usually DoYouWannaTaste(so that my name isn't featured in a YT video).It's not a sex thing(most common response), it's a reference to the show Peacemaker.
rindo berry acrobatics vs ogerpon-wellspring sounds like an insanely good check, especially since most will suspect the BU or banded set and happily come in on a jet punch or bulk up, try to horn leech/power whip, and then get absolutely smacked by acrobatics of course, people will figure this out pretty quick and then adjust, but in the meantime it's a good way to keep rilla or wellspring down
Palafin is OU material but not in this OU. This OU feels cluttered with many pokemons to consider, and Palafin will be another headache to the equation. Waterpon, Kyurem and Darkrai are just insane pokemons
Ive seen one too many comments saying “annihilape less op” …??????? 1. No, annihilape is not less op its 50x stronger and 2. Do you really want ape back its so unfun to play against id rather have xerneas or mega ray in tier bcuz that is how unfun ape is to play against
I mainly don't want Palafin because of the fact that it's checks won't always check it more than once (what i mean is taking a powerful move from CB or maybe a Palafin after a BU, CB Palafin also OHKO's wellspring after Rocks but you have to read that switch in most of the time) and i just don't want more broken mons in OU then there already is, i am open to opinions about an unban (and an unban doesn't sound too bad tbh) and i also respect those opinions but my reasons for keeping it banned will stay, i just don't like taking unnecessary risks . I think the 500K could have been spent to make the tier overall better, not to give it more broken mons to play with in the OU tier, anyways great video you made there
How else would you make the tier better? What even is "better"? It's a very subjective opinion. To me a better OU is an OU that is less centralized and with more variety, reducing the size of the huge OUBL and UUBL list of mons. But for other people a "better OU" is a more centralized one where it's harder to get cheesed because sets and structures are more predictable. To me Palafin doesn't really "kick" any Pokémon out of viability, which means it's a good addition, as it essentially is a +1 for the amount of viable options in OU. However, if you can argue that it will make some pokemon unusable, then I'll agree Palafin should remain banned
@@Jiroscopio_ You bring a very fair opinion and it does depend on the person, generally i am talking about banning some problematic pokemon (one i genuinely despise is Kyurem but there can be cases on other mons) or banning Tera (pretty controversial from what i see in the Pinkacord and with some bans is perfectly fine too), also think a better OU would be what you specified, more balanced and lesss centrilized Again, this is just my opinion, you can agree or disagree freely
Idk, I don’t really want palafin in svou but how on gods green earth is kyurem and rai still around. I build something unique and strong during teambuilding, but I’m always looking how to handle these two Pokémon, palafin would be less problematic imo.
Honestly I feel like unbanning Palafin and banning Wellspring is the way to go here. Without Wellspring there are still a whole bunch of pokemon that can handle Palafin and Wellspring was already teetering on broken. Palafin is innocent here, and if it needs to be unbanned for Wellspring to finally be noticed by the council and suspected, then sure, I welcome it with open arms
I'm surprised I haven't used it on a stream team yet, it's a very good breaker. It definitely will be on a team I use at some point, especially if Palafin drops!
Pink what are your thoughts on a palpin unbanned followed by a wellspring ban? I would not like to see wellspring dominate the meta post Palafin, either but what if that wasn't an issue?
The metagame would absolutely be better if we removed Wellspring and added Palafin-- but I think the metagame would be better still if they were both in Ubers.
Honestly I'd rather take a Pokemon who has an interesting gimmick you have to be cautious about, such as Palafin, over a monster who's just absurd and can be splashed on teams with no consequence, like Kyreum. It's interesting that you mentioned Palafin helping Webs teams, as my first thought was that Palafin itself is incredibly weak to webs itself. It has to first enter the field as Zero form, and as Araqanuid is the premier Webs setter, Zero Form Palafin has nothing that can stop it from setting Webs up outside of maybe an immediate opening Taunt, which would be anticipated as that matchup gets more refined. Second thing was how useful Clear Smog would be as an un-Tauntable move that removes Bulk Up boosts. Amoongus - even without Spore - is still an interesting Pokemon who has a great typing to handle Water / Fighting / Fairy attacks and Regenerator allows it to enter the field multiple times. While people don't like discussing bottom-tier mons, Gastrodon happens to be a Water immunity mon who also has Recover and multiple hazard options while using Clear Smog to not be set-up bait (but would sadly get decimated by Waterpon's grass moves without Tera). So yeah, my priority on bans would be Kyreum first and foremost, then see who would be most troublesome after that, but sad to see a really unique Pokemon like Palafin languish in Ubers because of other monstrosities.
I would trade Kyurem for Palafin in a heartbeat-- but I'd say the metagame would be best if they were both in Ubers. Certainly Palafin would be much more manageable if threats like Kyurem were in Ubers though.
Depends on the set. CB Close Combat 1-shots after Stealth Rock, but some Ogerpon run bulkier spreads. Some Bulk Up sets have apparently been running Acrobatics, so there's that to consider as well. It definitely handles most sets well though.
@pinkacross2042 awesome! I am trying to build a Palafin team, but idk what to put. What I did isn't quite working. But I'm new to building. Can you help me out with it?
I am 99.9% sure that rain teams will still absolutely suck to be honest. Wellspring still exists, and Palafin doesn't help that problem. Raging Bolt is the other major threat to rain, and Palafin isn't helping in that department either. There will be a small spike in rain teams because people like new toys, but it won't be viable. MAYBE Palafin semi-rain will be viable though? Probably not, but it's an interesting idea.
Palafin has a lot of similarities with Floatzel, the key differences being that Palafin is slower and bulkier but with strong priority. The reason I make the Floatzel comparison is because there are A LOT of fast pokemon that can 2HKO resists with a choiced attack. When S/V first came out people thought Floatzel would be good because "LOOK IT 2HKO'S TOXAPEX IN RAIN!" and look how much the meta has changed since then. Palafin was banned during a time when some favourable damage calc was enough to convince people a Pokemon is too much. Damage calcs are such a small part of the picture, if they were actually that important Ramparados would be considered good.
I agree with you that people are putting WAY too much emphasis on CB calcs. To get those wild calcs, it has to switch in and out, use Tera, and, of course, be locked into a move. That's a lot of conditions, it should get crazy calcs. The Palafin Floatzel comparison isn't great imo, Palafin and Rampardos is a better comparison. Floatzel has 105 attack compared to Palafin's 160, that's a pretty huge difference. You do make a good point with Rampardos though, FAR too many people just see Wave Crash calcs and say "broken." As for your claim that Palafin was banned when a favorable damage calc was enough to convince people, that is not true. Palafin was banned due to Bulk Up sets, NOT Choice Band sets. You can read that original ban post here: www.smogon.com/forums/threads/palafin-and-iron-bundle-are-banned-from-sv-ou.3711440/
As someone who mainly plays Draft and Palafin being commonly allowed there and it is still immensely opressive depending on the mu even with the knowledge your opponent has it, I think the dolphin will be too much again, either that or the meta adapts with things like araquanid and pex going up
@@mizuri1884 Why would it force Pex usage up? Pex doesn't really advance the game state in the current meta. Pex doesn't even have a move that keeps your momentum going, like Flip Turn for example. Pex just seems to be a sponge- and not really a viable one at that outside of stall. I feel like there are better checks and balances to Palafin, like Wellspring for example. Hell, even niche picks like WA Clodsire may rise up in usage as a response to Palafin rather than Pex being used. It has access to SR/Spikes/TS. It's part poison making it resist Palafin's CC. Overall I believe Wellspring will be the premier answer to Palafin at the current moment. We'll have to see how the metagame changes overtime to see later on if Pex would be more viable over the other options there currently are to answering Palafin imo.
Rain is unviable, and Palafin won't change that. Palafin is a shiny new toy for rain, but like all the best rain abusers, it gets stomped by Ogerpon-Wellspring. Palafin might even indirectly make rain worse by boosting Wellspring usage.
According to what I understood on the video, it seems that you think band palafin is stronger, which I agree with and is a somewhat rare take. It is much more consistent in this much faster metagame than the first palafin meta, and unless you are running stall specifically, impossible to wall long term (although I think band palafin can break through dondozo with tera + right prediction, setting rocks and knocking its boots; 252 Atk Choice Band Tera Fighting Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 225-265 (44.6 - 52.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock ), as with a single predict you can basically KO ogerpon ( 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 265-312 (88 - 103.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock ), although you only really need prediction and/or positioning vs ogerpon and dondozo, all other checks even if you don't predict, they are 2HKOs or extremely close to it, no tera required to do so ( 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rillaboom: 186-219 (54.5 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery ; 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 185-218 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- 78.1% chance to 2HKO ). Meanwhile the bulk up set is way less inconsistent and is a bit of a tera hog, requiring tera to break through its checks, be it ogerpon or rillaboom, although after beating those in 1v1 I've seen palafin popping off pretty hard, but I think you can force similar amount of damage by using the band set and allowing it to switch in and nuke things as many times as possible, while being more consistent vs teams where BU might be too slow/clunky and that punishes you have less immediate power thanks to different used moves and bulkier spread
Solid analysis, the one correction would be that you overestimate the breaking power of Palafin. Water Absorbers like Clodsire can wall it long-term, as well as solid resists like Alomomola and Hydrapple. Of course, if you get read every time, Tera Fighting Close Combat can get past these pokemon, but pretty much every CB / specs pokemon with Tera and good reads is unwallable long term.
@@pinkacross2042 Ok, I ended up forgetting on clodsire and hydrapple oops, but my personal favorite set is wave crash jet punch ice punch close combat, as usually I see palafin more as a mon I want to be pivoted in than pivoted out, although obviously flip turn has a lot of value, and with ice punch hydrapple becomes way less of an issue and clodsire slightly less so. One thing that I like more of cb palafin over BU is it is less tera reliant as only dondozo pretty much needs tera to be broken through. On every choice user is unwallable with tera and good reads, the question is how easy/often it is to get opportunities to do those reads, and I do think that palafin does that pretty easily, similarly to ogerpon-w, which has a good enough rawpower comparable to some band/specs users while it can come in repeatedly multiple times, the difference being more reliant on its water/grass typing to do so than raw bulk like palafin. Alomomola is a good band fin answer, but when ogerpon usage is even higher and one good thing from BU palafin is that alo is setup fodder vs the bulk up sets and is lured by those makes alo a bit of a tough choice
I find the issue with palafin is that it overcentralizes combating offensive options your opponent can bring, because there is already enough of that as an issue in gen 9
for me the real problem is: palifin is not broken because the tier is total dog shit or because he is fine? I feel like this gen is the gen is the more new tool syndrome, sooo many broken mons is OU, which creates a snowball effect in all tier, for me Unban in this gen is the worst thing that you can do.
Palafin went from broken, to not bad. I honetly think Nintendo should change Slaking's and Regigigas's abilities to function like Palafin's (they function normally until the user swit hes out, then the ability is disabled).
I wouldn't call it broken, in fact there are things more broken and more unhealthy than it like kyurem and tera blast. So honestly I would say drop it down because its the least of our issues
I don't play the tier but saying that there are more unhealthy things in the tier isn't really an argument . You should probably look at the impact it will have like pink did , what does it add to the metagame? Will it make team building more or less restrictive? Plenty of people want it back just because they are bored of the tier but it will eventually get tiring again after a month or 2 , so I think you should consider the bigger picture. Anyway again I don't play the tier so for all I know it could be a healthy presence.
@@EggscellentTreeon one hand yeah, but on the other hand thats what suspects are for, so if it does become more of an issue it just gets rebanned via suspect
I agree that if Palafin were to drop, it would be less of a problem than Kyurem and Wellspring. That doesn't mean we should drop it because it wouldn't be the most broken thing in OU though. If it makes the metagame worse and less fun, it doesn't make sense to unban it, even if it's not as broken as pokemon currently in OU.
I think I’m of the opinion that it’s more broken than your video suggests (which is fine), and I hope we’re all mostly on the same page that Palafin doesn’t really improve the metagame. However, I must ask: if we accept that Palafin really is kinda mid (and again, I’m not there yet, but for the sake of argument), and the main problem with bringing it back is further overloading the tier with threats to consider in the builder thus exacerbating the potential for even well-built teams to have nearly auto-lose matchups, wouldn’t the correct course of action be to unban Palafin and ban the actually broken stuff like Kyurem and Wellspring? Is the logic just that it’d take way too long to let the dust settle with every new change and accurately evaluate the problems with each new iteration of the tier? Because that I’d understand, I don’t want to deal with this tier adding any more ridiculous threats before taking out the existing trash either, and I’d like to see Kyurem and Wellspring get the boot regardless, so we really don’t need Palafin back before we actually deal with the already broken shit sitting in the tier anyway. But if that’s the case, I’m not sure why we’re even bothering to suspect Palafin right now-it doesn’t even have to be broken for people to want it to stay out of the tier in its current state, so why are we even bothering to check how OU fares with Palafin in the first place? Sorry if this was a little ranty, maybe the real answer is everyone’s as confused as I am lol
No worries, ranting is OK and encouraged in my comments section unless it's uninformed. If Palafin was already in the tier, banning it would not be my priority. Kyurem and Wellspring would both be higher priority. Banning Palafin might not even be on my radar. That being said, the standards for banning something and unbanning something are different. For me to want to unban Palafin, I want to see a solid case that it will improve the tier. I don't think it will, so I don't want it to be unbanned. To ban Wellspring or Kyurem, Smogon has decided that the standard is higher, and you must prove that a pokemon is broken or significantly unhealthy. Personally, I think this standard is a bit too high, and has led to a metagame a lot of people are unhappy with after close votes. I think that a pokemon should be banned when the detriments of its presence outweigh the positives, but Smogon doesn't endorse that philosophy in its rules, so I don't often make that argument. To answer your question simply, the logic behind keeping Palafin banned but not banning Wellspring or Kyurem is because there are different standards for each process. Me personally though, I'd love to ban Wellspring and Kyurem, and I'd happily trade them for Palafin. I think the metagame would be better with all three banned, but you're absolutely correct in saying that Wellspring and Kyurem deserve a ban more than Palafin. Does that make sense?
You're absolutely correct. I'd say Kyurem and Wellspring both have a more significant negative impact on the metagame than Palafin does-- but that's no reason to let Palafin into the tier. "We already have a bunch of toxic pokemon in the tier, so we might as well unban another toxic pokemon because it's not AS bad" isn't logical.
Palafin should be banned because ou is a war ground: there's no room for heroes where the warriors rage But yeah I agree with basically all of your points
I think palafin is a bit too strong but I think there's a couple other OU mons that are just as broken if not a bit more so, and if they get to be legal then palafin should be too
I don't agree with this logic. Just because other things are more broken, doesn't mean we should allow less broken but still broken pokemon into the tier. It's like saying "welp we made 2 mistakes so we might as well make a 3rd, less bad mistake."
I just think it’s just going to make gen 9 more gen 9. Gen 9 already heavily favors hyper offense due to Tera providing great opportunities for setup. Palafin’s matchup against these teams won’t be particularly good because of the fact it gives teams that are essentially just 6 setup monsters a free setup turn. It absolutely bullies the few things that aren’t excessively fast paced. So it’s just making Gen 9 more gen 9. It won’t actually be good but the meta it will make will be hell because it will pretty much exclusively bully slower playstyles. The moment people try to play balance people will use it and it will return to setup sweeper spam and most games will feel the same it’s just who gets the setup first. It just makes the tier exponentially more itself. And frankly I don’t even like normal gen 9. I don’t want gen 9^2
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here-- Hyper Offense is quite far from being the dominant playstyle in SV OU, at least at a top level. Palafin also has a fairly easy time getting setup against HO, since Palafin can Flip Turn on most HO hazard leads (Tusk, Treads, Glimmora, etc.) The matchups where it can't Flip Turn on the lead, it can just switch out on the non-threatening hazard leads. Even if the HO user leads with a setup pokemon, 1 free turn of setup doesn't mean the team won't have issues dealing with a 60 Base Power Priority Water move, especially from Banded variants.
@ it would mostly just raise the usage of water resistant Tera on hyper offense. And even then some mons who can ohko once setup like swords dance variants of valiant +2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 400-472 (117.3 - 138.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO aren’t even one shot by jet punch 252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 207-244 (71.6 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. It’s not that strong priority even if it is banded. And I’m not necessarily saying hyper offense is the best in general 9. It’s just the best gen for hyper offense because of how much Tera helps it. And a Mon who needs a free turn to be able to be enabled has significant potential to help hyper offense even when it’s a monster once it’s up. It’s worth leading a setup Mon you think will do a solid amount of damage to take advantage of Palafin if you think it’s getting lead.
@@ultimaterecoil1136 Not being 1-shot is NOT a good justification for something not ruining HO... 70 is a TON, and you forgot Tera. With Tera, Ival has a 75% chance to die from full and a 100% chance to die after rocks. I think you're seriously underestimating Palafin. Try playing some HO games against a solid CB Palafin team, I think your mind will be changed very quickly.
If anything I think Palafin unbanned is less likely to ogerpon to be banned because people will argue "If we ban wogerpon, palafin will be broken" akin to the case of a certain scorpion and a dragon
To be honest I find Palafin pretty mid, it can't beat ogerpon, bolt, dnite, pult, rilla, and all the threats in OU. It can't do much without tera + hit or miss item. The qualified already had several chances to "improve" the meta when they chose to not ban Kyurem, gambit, Gliscor... Palafin is way less busted than Bolt, Gambit, RM and Ogerpon. If it ends up banned again it due to "meta health" will be pure hypocrisy.
I agree that there are bigger problems in OU that people have chosen not to ban, but I don't agree with this argument. It's like saying "Might as well make a fourth mistake because we already made 3 bigger mistakes!"
palafin is fine. unban annihilape and solgaleo next. in fact, unban everything and test out the meta before keeping stuff in ban jail since the start of the gen because smogon are cribabies about power creep. the game has evolved. Smogon has seriously done everything they could so far to prevent the power level on OU to go beyond what gen6 OU was like. a standard gen6 OU team being the standard UU team 3 gens later is NOT harmful to the metagame, keeping every new mon that powercreeps gen6 meta out of the meta is.
This argument is insane. There is a tier with almost everything unbanned. It's called Ubers. Go play it. The whole point of OU is to create a balanced metagame that has many viable pokemon and archetypes. OU looks like what it does to achieve that goal, not because "smogon crybabies" (learn to spell btw) can't handle power creep. We have people playing Ubers. They handle it just fine. Yaknow what they do, though? They use the same pokemon over and over. Check this out: www.pikalytics.com/pokedex/gen9ubers These are the usage rates in Ubers. 79% Koraidon usage. Huh. Look at that. Maybe think or do even the slightest bit of research next time before blaming all bans on "smogon crybabies."
They very much cannot be made for any other pokemon, I spent a third the video talking about how Palafin uniquely threatened HO by having one of the strongest unconditional priority moves in the game, second only to Extreme Speed. Did you even watch it?
Exactly, people want to ban palafin for scenarios that doesn’t really take much game planning to stop. Losing to palafin meant you just played super predictable and didn’t manage your check correctly.
@@pinkacross2042your argument basically ended up being "palafin not good because then we see more ogerpon" like, how generic of an argument is that: if x is present, consider y to stop it. There's plenty of counter play to strong priority move, just like you explained with Dragonite. Personally, I just think all the bans and stuff are for players who are just crybabies and can't play lol.
@@hector_here9790 You're not addressing the impact it would have on HO at all. Did you even read my comment? There is plenty of counterplay to Jet Punch, but not counterplay that HO can afford.
Pala is so mid, in almost every department it’s outclassed by some mon, and some other are straight better than it. No chance anyone thinks that pala has got anything on kyurem, as a mon that can do whatever it wants, or ogerpon as an annoying water type, having to sacrifice 1 turn for a mono water type is not worth imo
I agree that Palafin will probably not be considered as good as Kyurem or Wellspring, but to say its outclassed in every department is false. As a Choice Band user, it has incredible priority, and is one of the best revenge killers in the tier.
Nah ban it completely i don't want to run and see bulky offence all the dam time just for palafin and then the people counter the counter to palafin then they counter the counter the counter to palafin
@ I mean right now that’s what’s happening for kingambit->gambit check->gambit check counter. I think it will be fun to add another centralized meta mon
@@pinkacross2042 I’d think tera restricted mons would be fine if we vote on it, but that’s just me. I’d do it to get volc back, and nerf gambit with it, but that’s just my opinion
2:22 you just showed why Palafin is broken, Killing a Dragonite with a no-effective move is insane. It actually deserve to stay Ubers, both sets are scary (Bulk Up/Choice Band) due to the un-predictable tera Palafin can use.
In all fairness, I did take recoil, and I used a Choice Band with Tera. Great Tusk with Adamant Banded Tera Fighting CC can also kill Dragonite from that range, although it is a roll.
It's not a vote whether to ban it or not. It's a vote of whether to bring it back. By smogon rules, these are very different things with very different standards of proof. Furthermore, many pokemon have been banned for being unhealthy even if they weren't broken, it's a perfectly valid reason to ban something.
Bruh u really wanna deal with annihilape with tera and rage fist u must be insane because even if it's immune to the move it still gets the 50 base power increase and it has a really good typing and can tera and heal with drain punch and leftovers ur out of ur mind 😊
@ I see your point, you could definitely argue that Ogerpon-Wellspring is already broken. It‘s coverage combined with the Wellspring Mask (which no one seems to talk about but is actually a really busted item imo) is definitely too much. It restricts team building so much, it single handedly invalidates so many choices when team building I feel and Palafin will make it so much worse because Ogerpon is just such an easy answer with Water Absorb.
I appreciate that you went in detail about the concept of a team losing to X offensive Pokemon if equipped with the right moveset, tera type, or both.
It’s a concept I’ve struggled to understand because I always thought “well wouldn’t that make teambuilding more of a headache?”
Hearing this from you makes me realize that I should account for factors such as how easy that threat is to get on the field and how often that threat runs the set that demolishes my team.
I'm glad you found it helpful! That was the hardest part of the script to write for sure, but I thought it was important to communicate.
Me when I thought my Ogerpon Wellspring would check the enemy Palafin but then it eats a Rindo Berry and uses Acrobatics
Yea I've heard of that happening to a few people LOL
Sums up my thoughts on Palafin pretty well. Palafin isn't necessarily broken, as every archetype does have viable checks to it, but having to check Palafin along with all of the other threats in the tier will put further strain on the teambuilder and make the outcome of games more dependent on matchup. Not to mention the fact that quite a few of Palfin's checks (Ogerpon, Raging Bolt, Kyurem) are already controversial in their own right, which could lead to a more "broken checking broken" esque dynamic for the tier.
Also, some people say that we need Palafin in the tier to check HO, but I don't get that reasoning. As you said in the video, HO is far from the most dominant playstyle, and between mons like Zamazenta, Ting Lu, Dragapult, Moltres, Dragonite, Rillaboom, Lokix, and Scizor, it feels like the tier isn't exactly in dire need of checks to HO
Well-put! I enjoy how diverse and viable HO is, but some want it to be worse, which I suppose is understandable. The extremes (HO and Stall) are quite controversial.
2hko on every wall haunts my nightmares...
EVERY?
@@TIckTack7777 Not all, stuff like Dondozo can get 2HKO'd by Tera Fighting CC with Band but not always and requiring the tera to do that isn't great, but still gets a 2HKO on quite a good amount of them, except for things like Pex and more i am missing but you can maybe argue with Tera Blast but at that point i'm just questioning that decision, but to answer that properly not really all of them but a good chunk of them do, even more with enough resources
In rain it a 2hko mola and has an almost guaranteed 2hko on dozo like 96% to 2hko. It is actually every wall in rain.
@@scorpion2575 and then u lose to curse yes
In all fairness, a LOT of pokemon can 2HKO (or nearly 2HKO) every wall with a choice item and Tera.
i think pala’s presence limits HO well enough and the BU/band sets are a nice fit on some balance/bulky offense teams. it’s strong but i don’t think it’s broken
Do we want HO to be limited? Personally, I like the fact that HO is viable and has many unique and interesting forms.
Genesect should drop to Natdex OU
Fun idea! Probably broken but dang Genesect is cool, I'd be down for a suspect test
@@pinkacross2042He was unbanned at the start though and download with tera normal espeed was just mowing through teams
@@rejuno1991tera is banned in natdex now but I mean it would almost surely be broken regardless
@@rejuno1991 That sounds hilarious lol, makes sense that it got banned
So in summary, palafin's stall agent
Yep.
Jokes aside it won't help stall much, since it will probably cause Wellspring usage to spike. Stall will likely get slightly better, still won't be strong though.
Banning things not because they're broke but because they're cringe and I don't like the implications of them on the meta game is always something I can sign up for
Yea, banning something (or especially not unbanning something) for being unhealthy is perfectly valid reasoning, according to Smogon standards. I'm surprised how many people seem to think that a pokemon must be broken to be banworthy/ not unbanworthy.
252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon Wellspring: 0-0 (0 - 0%) -- possibly the worst move ever
Yea, Wogerpon stocks are about to go crazy
We need Pinkacross to start playing Gen 3 OU
yes.
yeah feels like the only good tier left after gen 4 OU went to shit this year
No, let him breath in 9 ou ✌️
I'll probably stick to SV OU and NatDex for now, the next thing I'd do is probably VGC.
@powerbolt2846 gen 4 OU has been awful for a WHILE
He should stay in OU honesty
Knowing what your opinions on mons like wellspring are from your past streams where you can never not vent about them, lol, it was appearant what your take would be on palufin long before you said it.
But still, I think your explanations this time was worth it weight in gold. You did a good job at walking the viewer to the conclusion that palifin is an unhealthy addition, and more importantly seperated it from belief that palifin is overpowered is an objective sense, which is a crucial distinction to make.
Good video.
Thank you for the kind comment! I'm glad you liked my thought process!
Balance gets better with Palafin unbanned. I got reqs with a Palafin balance team and the mon is so good on balance because its priority helps limit nearly every HO threat like Kingambit, Iron Moth, Darkrai etc.
Palafin itself is also a good Gliscor check, which is more annoying for balance to deal with.
You may be right! Generally powerful breakers being added cause more harm than the benefit received by having them as an option in the builder, but only time will tell. Still, I don't believe Balance will find this to be a positive development. Bulk Up sets threaten balance more than any other Archetype, and having to prepare for both Bulk Up and Choice Band sets puts a lot of pressure on the builder.
We're eating well today. Happy new year!
Happy new year! :D
In the suspect forums I see a lot of opinions that are saying they don't like Palafin's influence in the metagame.
However, you cannot use such arguments in a Palafin suspect when we haven't seen at all the meta trying to adjust to Palafin post DLC.
The suspect ladder clearly has inflated Palafin usage and the picture about the metagame overall is skewed. I agree with your overall assessment on how Palafin affects playstyles but I don't know the extent of that (we don't know how Palafin's usage will look like and potential domino effects).
In a couple of months we could hold a second suspect after we determined its effect was negative.
For now the only thing we can safely judge is whether there is enough counterplay to deal with the immediate threat of Palafin as a Choice Band user or Bulk Up Tera sets.
I think the answer to that is yes.
Ladder certainly has inflated Palafin usage, but to see the metagame impact really doesn't take a genius. Some things are hard to say-- I don't know how much usage Palafin will get, for example, but I do know HO will take a big hit if Palafin is brought into the tier. The metagame adjusting won't change that.
You don’t need excessive time for some thing a to show they’re not a positive force in a tier or meta game. If you have enough knowledge or experience, you can generally make an informed opinion on a mon’s impact and react accordingly. It’s not really any different from making a quick ban decision early on into a mon’s life in a tier: you can tell based on the way the game is evolving around it whether it’ll be balanced or healthy.
Something like Wake we saw counter play emerge during the suspect and more beyond it, leading to it settling just fine especially as it was a rather linear Pokémon. But palafin is a Mon that handpicks its counter play and to a degree that realistically isn’t healthy even if individually sets have counter play. And this is also without going into the way it’s making teams prep for it just to end up weaker to other major threats.
What is your opinion on this team? I'm new and don't know how to use pokepaste, otherwise I would have submitted this team in the forms.
Ogerpon-W @ Wellspring Mask
Ability: Embody Aspect
Tera: Water
EVs: 4Hp 252 Atk 252Spd
Jolly Nature
-Swords Dance
-Knock Off
-Ivy Cudgel
-Power Whip
Raging Bolt @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera: Fairy
EVs: 4Hp 252Atk 252Spd
Modest Nature
-Draco Meteor
-Thunderbolt
-Thunderclap
-Volt Switch
Skarmory @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Sturdy
Tera: Flying
EVs: 252Hp 252Def 4Spd
Impish Nature
-Spikes
-Iron Defense
-Body Press
-Roost
Blissey @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Natural Cure
Tera: Fairy
EVs: 252HP 4SpAtk 252SpDef
Calm Nature
-Soft-Boiled
-Calm Mind
-Thunderbolt
-Ice Beam
Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera: Fire
EVs: 4Hp 252Atk 252Spd
Jolly Nature
-Stealth Rock
-Rapid Spin
-Headlong Rush
-Ice Spinner
Dragapult @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera: Ghost
EVs: 4Atk 252 SpAtk 252 Spd
Naive Nature
-Dragon Darts
-U-Turn
-Will o Wisp
-Hex
Why Blissey? With all of the incredibly threatening Breakers/Sweepers in the meta, as well as utility mons that rely on their SpAtk, Blissey gives us the ultimate answer to them and this set allows her to switch in safely(protecting our own breakers/sweepers and keeping them fresh), chip down physical attackers looking to switch in on her(especially if we have a few Calm Minds/we hit super effectively) and even sweep sometimes. She does all of this better than Glowking, at the cost of Pivoting(we have two, but one more would be nice) Regenerator, Future Sight(We don't need help breaking) Toxic, and Poison coverage. I don't think we need all of those things with this team composition, although finding a way to fit them would be nice.
The only problem I've encountered with this team is Booster Energy Iron Valiant, with our only(unreliable) answer being Tera Fairy Raging Bolt.
to use pokepaste you go to the website, make a name and put whoever made the team as the author, then paste the team and hit the submit paste button!! pretty simple. Also i dont super like specs bolt, locking into a move isn't great especially if you want to run thunderclap mindgames, personally i use assault vest bolt (there's an 86% chance to be 2hko by ival moonblast, but it gives you something better than just bolt) but booster energy works too if you want more power.
This team idea is cool. You've got 2 heavy hitting breakers here though, probably one of them can be replaced for a support pokemon to make the team more consistent. Something like Moltres over Raging Bolt might work, with Roar. It would also help your HO matchup, which I would guess is not great. Also, I'll copy this into my builder, might feature it on the next episode of team fixing
@@pinkacross2042that would be awesome! If you do, my in game name is usually DoYouWannaTaste(so that my name isn't featured in a YT video).It's not a sex thing(most common response), it's a reference to the show Peacemaker.
I've been using a Rindo Berry Acrobatics set on rain to check grass types that don't expect to be checked
Yea, that seems like it would be frustrating lol
rindo berry acrobatics vs ogerpon-wellspring sounds like an insanely good check, especially since most will suspect the BU or banded set and happily come in on a jet punch or bulk up, try to horn leech/power whip, and then get absolutely smacked by acrobatics
of course, people will figure this out pretty quick and then adjust, but in the meantime it's a good way to keep rilla or wellspring down
Palafin is OU material but not in this OU.
This OU feels cluttered with many pokemons to consider, and Palafin will be another headache to the equation.
Waterpon, Kyurem and Darkrai are just insane pokemons
Yea, another offensive threat is really not what this tier needs.
Do we REALLY need another strong priority mon? I don't think so
Yea, Hyper Offense is viable and interesting for the first time in many generations, I don't want to kill it.
Ive seen one too many comments saying “annihilape less op” …??????? 1. No, annihilape is not less op its 50x stronger and 2. Do you really want ape back its so unfun to play against id rather have xerneas or mega ray in tier bcuz that is how unfun ape is to play against
"Hyper Offense gets worse"
👂✋
i mean it will probably make the metagame worse overall but HSSHSHHHH
If you like Palafin enough that you're OK with HO getting worse, fair enough!
I mainly don't want Palafin because of the fact that it's checks won't always check it more than once (what i mean is taking a powerful move from CB or maybe a Palafin after a BU, CB Palafin also OHKO's wellspring after Rocks but you have to read that switch in most of the time) and i just don't want more broken mons in OU then there already is, i am open to opinions about an unban (and an unban doesn't sound too bad tbh) and i also respect those opinions but my reasons for keeping it banned will stay, i just don't like taking unnecessary risks .
I think the 500K could have been spent to make the tier overall better, not to give it more broken mons to play with in the OU tier, anyways great video you made there
Dumbass take, palafin makes OU a much better tier. He isnt nearly as hard to deal with as he was when gen 9 first dropped.
@@Wormsworth42069ok saying it makes it a better tier is way too far u really want bulky offence to be everywhere
@Wormsworth42069, why do you think Palafin would make the tier better?
How else would you make the tier better? What even is "better"? It's a very subjective opinion. To me a better OU is an OU that is less centralized and with more variety, reducing the size of the huge OUBL and UUBL list of mons. But for other people a "better OU" is a more centralized one where it's harder to get cheesed because sets and structures are more predictable.
To me Palafin doesn't really "kick" any Pokémon out of viability, which means it's a good addition, as it essentially is a +1 for the amount of viable options in OU. However, if you can argue that it will make some pokemon unusable, then I'll agree Palafin should remain banned
@@Jiroscopio_ You bring a very fair opinion and it does depend on the person, generally i am talking about banning some problematic pokemon (one i genuinely despise is Kyurem but there can be cases on other mons) or banning Tera (pretty controversial from what i see in the Pinkacord and with some bans is perfectly fine too), also think a better OU would be what you specified, more balanced and lesss centrilized
Again, this is just my opinion, you can agree or disagree freely
Idk, I don’t really want palafin in svou but how on gods green earth is kyurem and rai still around. I build something unique and strong during teambuilding, but I’m always looking how to handle these two Pokémon, palafin would be less problematic imo.
Agreed, Palafin is less of a problem than things currently in OU. Still, I'd rather have 3 big problems than 3 big problems and 1 smaller problem.
Honestly I feel like unbanning Palafin and banning Wellspring is the way to go here. Without Wellspring there are still a whole bunch of pokemon that can handle Palafin and Wellspring was already teetering on broken. Palafin is innocent here, and if it needs to be unbanned for Wellspring to finally be noticed by the council and suspected, then sure, I welcome it with open arms
I would happily exchange Palafin for Wellspring-- but ideally, they both stay in Ubers.
Idk pink, should it?
he wants to make u think for urself u bot
Personally I'd vote ban.
Pink ive never seen you using wellspring it would be cool to see you pilot wellspring on a team!
I'm surprised I haven't used it on a stream team yet, it's a very good breaker. It definitely will be on a team I use at some point, especially if Palafin drops!
Well rounded and articulated arguments and thoughts. Earned a sub
Thank you! :D
Pink what are your thoughts on a palpin unbanned followed by a wellspring ban?
I would not like to see wellspring dominate the meta post Palafin, either but what if that wasn't an issue?
The metagame would absolutely be better if we removed Wellspring and added Palafin-- but I think the metagame would be better still if they were both in Ubers.
Honestly I'd rather take a Pokemon who has an interesting gimmick you have to be cautious about, such as Palafin, over a monster who's just absurd and can be splashed on teams with no consequence, like Kyreum.
It's interesting that you mentioned Palafin helping Webs teams, as my first thought was that Palafin itself is incredibly weak to webs itself. It has to first enter the field as Zero form, and as Araqanuid is the premier Webs setter, Zero Form Palafin has nothing that can stop it from setting Webs up outside of maybe an immediate opening Taunt, which would be anticipated as that matchup gets more refined.
Second thing was how useful Clear Smog would be as an un-Tauntable move that removes Bulk Up boosts. Amoongus - even without Spore - is still an interesting Pokemon who has a great typing to handle Water / Fighting / Fairy attacks and Regenerator allows it to enter the field multiple times. While people don't like discussing bottom-tier mons, Gastrodon happens to be a Water immunity mon who also has Recover and multiple hazard options while using Clear Smog to not be set-up bait (but would sadly get decimated by Waterpon's grass moves without Tera).
So yeah, my priority on bans would be Kyreum first and foremost, then see who would be most troublesome after that, but sad to see a really unique Pokemon like Palafin languish in Ubers because of other monstrosities.
I would trade Kyurem for Palafin in a heartbeat-- but I'd say the metagame would be best if they were both in Ubers. Certainly Palafin would be much more manageable if threats like Kyurem were in Ubers though.
im interested in how much ogrepon wellspring walls palafin
Depends on the set. CB Close Combat 1-shots after Stealth Rock, but some Ogerpon run bulkier spreads. Some Bulk Up sets have apparently been running Acrobatics, so there's that to consider as well. It definitely handles most sets well though.
@@pinkacross2042 palafin a little scarier than i thought
Are we going to see a Palafin stream Saturday?
Palafin might be gone Saturday, but if not, then yes, I expect you will see a Palafin stream! :]
@pinkacross2042 awesome! I am trying to build a Palafin team, but idk what to put. What I did isn't quite working. But I'm new to building. Can you help me out with it?
What about rain teams? It’s the power of band without the limitations.
I am 99.9% sure that rain teams will still absolutely suck to be honest. Wellspring still exists, and Palafin doesn't help that problem. Raging Bolt is the other major threat to rain, and Palafin isn't helping in that department either. There will be a small spike in rain teams because people like new toys, but it won't be viable. MAYBE Palafin semi-rain will be viable though? Probably not, but it's an interesting idea.
Palafin has a lot of similarities with Floatzel, the key differences being that Palafin is slower and bulkier but with strong priority.
The reason I make the Floatzel comparison is because there are A LOT of fast pokemon that can 2HKO resists with a choiced attack. When S/V first came out people thought Floatzel would be good because "LOOK IT 2HKO'S TOXAPEX IN RAIN!" and look how much the meta has changed since then.
Palafin was banned during a time when some favourable damage calc was enough to convince people a Pokemon is too much. Damage calcs are such a small part of the picture, if they were actually that important Ramparados would be considered good.
I agree with you that people are putting WAY too much emphasis on CB calcs. To get those wild calcs, it has to switch in and out, use Tera, and, of course, be locked into a move. That's a lot of conditions, it should get crazy calcs.
The Palafin Floatzel comparison isn't great imo, Palafin and Rampardos is a better comparison. Floatzel has 105 attack compared to Palafin's 160, that's a pretty huge difference. You do make a good point with Rampardos though, FAR too many people just see Wave Crash calcs and say "broken."
As for your claim that Palafin was banned when a favorable damage calc was enough to convince people, that is not true. Palafin was banned due to Bulk Up sets, NOT Choice Band sets. You can read that original ban post here: www.smogon.com/forums/threads/palafin-and-iron-bundle-are-banned-from-sv-ou.3711440/
As someone who mainly plays Draft and Palafin being commonly allowed there and it is still immensely opressive depending on the mu even with the knowledge your opponent has it, I think the dolphin will be too much again, either that or the meta adapts with things like araquanid and pex going up
Pex is unviable on most archetypes I'd say, without Scald or Knock Off, it's too passive and only fits on stall.
@@pinkacross2042 and even then stall has better water types to use currently, dolphin might still force more pexs, he is just that heroic 🐬
@@mizuri1884 Why would it force Pex usage up? Pex doesn't really advance the game state in the current meta. Pex doesn't even have a move that keeps your momentum going, like Flip Turn for example. Pex just seems to be a sponge- and not really a viable one at that outside of stall. I feel like there are better checks and balances to Palafin, like Wellspring for example. Hell, even niche picks like WA Clodsire may rise up in usage as a response to Palafin rather than Pex being used. It has access to SR/Spikes/TS. It's part poison making it resist Palafin's CC. Overall I believe Wellspring will be the premier answer to Palafin at the current moment. We'll have to see how the metagame changes overtime to see later on if Pex would be more viable over the other options there currently are to answering Palafin imo.
@@MikaleMahoe Just throwing ideas out, the truth is that pex is the only mon that can *wall* palafin, there are viable checks
Nice a cool mon with purity that can be put on rain teams!
Rain is unviable, and Palafin won't change that. Palafin is a shiny new toy for rain, but like all the best rain abusers, it gets stomped by Ogerpon-Wellspring. Palafin might even indirectly make rain worse by boosting Wellspring usage.
To be honest I haven’t had any problems stopping palafin, and neither of my main teams feature a bulky grass type to soak damage from it
How then, are you not losing to CB sets...?
@@pinkacross2042the tera water phys def skeledirge :)
@@Raizekusu That has a chance to die to 2 tera water wave crashes, and with any chip at all, it does die.
It is a good day when Pinkacross uploads
Why thank you! :D
According to what I understood on the video, it seems that you think band palafin is stronger, which I agree with and is a somewhat rare take. It is much more consistent in this much faster metagame than the first palafin meta, and unless you are running stall specifically, impossible to wall long term (although I think band palafin can break through dondozo with tera + right prediction, setting rocks and knocking its boots; 252 Atk Choice Band Tera Fighting Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 225-265 (44.6 - 52.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock ), as with a single predict you can basically KO ogerpon ( 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 265-312 (88 - 103.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock ), although you only really need prediction and/or positioning vs ogerpon and dondozo, all other checks even if you don't predict, they are 2HKOs or extremely close to it, no tera required to do so ( 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Rillaboom: 186-219 (54.5 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery ; 252 Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Wave Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Raging Bolt: 185-218 (47.3 - 55.7%) -- 78.1% chance to 2HKO ). Meanwhile the bulk up set is way less inconsistent and is a bit of a tera hog, requiring tera to break through its checks, be it ogerpon or rillaboom, although after beating those in 1v1 I've seen palafin popping off pretty hard, but I think you can force similar amount of damage by using the band set and allowing it to switch in and nuke things as many times as possible, while being more consistent vs teams where BU might be too slow/clunky and that punishes you have less immediate power thanks to different used moves and bulkier spread
Solid analysis, the one correction would be that you overestimate the breaking power of Palafin. Water Absorbers like Clodsire can wall it long-term, as well as solid resists like Alomomola and Hydrapple. Of course, if you get read every time, Tera Fighting Close Combat can get past these pokemon, but pretty much every CB / specs pokemon with Tera and good reads is unwallable long term.
@@pinkacross2042 Ok, I ended up forgetting on clodsire and hydrapple oops, but my personal favorite set is wave crash jet punch ice punch close combat, as usually I see palafin more as a mon I want to be pivoted in than pivoted out, although obviously flip turn has a lot of value, and with ice punch hydrapple becomes way less of an issue and clodsire slightly less so. One thing that I like more of cb palafin over BU is it is less tera reliant as only dondozo pretty much needs tera to be broken through. On every choice user is unwallable with tera and good reads, the question is how easy/often it is to get opportunities to do those reads, and I do think that palafin does that pretty easily, similarly to ogerpon-w, which has a good enough rawpower comparable to some band/specs users while it can come in repeatedly multiple times, the difference being more reliant on its water/grass typing to do so than raw bulk like palafin. Alomomola is a good band fin answer, but when ogerpon usage is even higher and one good thing from BU palafin is that alo is setup fodder vs the bulk up sets and is lured by those makes alo a bit of a tough choice
@@xaropevic7918 Yes, I certainly agree that CB is the superior set.
Happy new year Pink
Thank you! Happy new year to you as well! :D
Agree 100% with your analysis
:D
Happy new year Pink!
Happy new year! :D
I find the issue with palafin is that it overcentralizes combating offensive options your opponent can bring, because there is already enough of that as an issue in gen 9
Yea, there is a TON of offensive firepower in SV OU, that's for sure.
Unrelated noted but after playing natdex ,ou feels so weird. Like “oh gambit switched into pecharunt, guess it dies to pursuit”
Kids (ghosts) gone too long without daddy ttar keeping them in check, big gambit will cover for tyrannocif
@ assault vest mega tyrannocif is a ghosts nightmare
@@TrishulaDaBestBoi is gen 10 u can hold an item and mega stone? Cool time travel
@@Raizekusu nah you can do it in gen 9, you just need to believe in the power of friendship hard enough
I’m not gonna lie I want him to stay but it’s solely because he’s so good and so fun to use lolol
Yaknow what, that's fair. If it will make the game more fun for you to have Palafin in the tier, that's a totally valid reason.
for me the real problem is: palifin is not broken because the tier is total dog shit or because he is fine? I feel like this gen is the gen is the more new tool syndrome, sooo many broken mons is OU, which creates a snowball effect in all tier, for me Unban in this gen is the worst thing that you can do.
Agreed, we have too many threats in the tier already, unban is the wrong direction
Let’s go! May the Hero return in OU!
I think AV Palafin has potential
AV and HDB sets seem usable and pretty solid, yea.
Palafin went from broken, to not bad. I honetly think Nintendo should change Slaking's and Regigigas's abilities to function like Palafin's (they function normally until the user swit hes out, then the ability is disabled).
Yea, I agree, Slaking and Regigigas deserve a little buff.
i like palafin because strong dolphin man is funny
Can't argue with that.
I wouldn't call it broken, in fact there are things more broken and more unhealthy than it like kyurem and tera blast. So honestly I would say drop it down because its the least of our issues
Right? The dumbasses in this comment thread saying Palafin should be banned are prob okay with Kyurem 💀💀
I don't play the tier but saying that there are more unhealthy things in the tier isn't really an argument . You should probably look at the impact it will have like pink did , what does it add to the metagame? Will it make team building more or less restrictive?
Plenty of people want it back just because they are bored of the tier but it will eventually get tiring again after a month or 2 , so I think you should consider the bigger picture. Anyway again I don't play the tier so for all I know it could be a healthy presence.
@@EggscellentTreeon one hand yeah, but on the other hand thats what suspects are for, so if it does become more of an issue it just gets rebanned via suspect
I agree that if Palafin were to drop, it would be less of a problem than Kyurem and Wellspring. That doesn't mean we should drop it because it wouldn't be the most broken thing in OU though. If it makes the metagame worse and less fun, it doesn't make sense to unban it, even if it's not as broken as pokemon currently in OU.
Kyurem is an issue? I didn't even notice, it's so easy to beat It aint even funny
Hell yeah palafin video 🔥
I think I’m of the opinion that it’s more broken than your video suggests (which is fine), and I hope we’re all mostly on the same page that Palafin doesn’t really improve the metagame.
However, I must ask: if we accept that Palafin really is kinda mid (and again, I’m not there yet, but for the sake of argument), and the main problem with bringing it back is further overloading the tier with threats to consider in the builder thus exacerbating the potential for even well-built teams to have nearly auto-lose matchups, wouldn’t the correct course of action be to unban Palafin and ban the actually broken stuff like Kyurem and Wellspring? Is the logic just that it’d take way too long to let the dust settle with every new change and accurately evaluate the problems with each new iteration of the tier? Because that I’d understand, I don’t want to deal with this tier adding any more ridiculous threats before taking out the existing trash either, and I’d like to see Kyurem and Wellspring get the boot regardless, so we really don’t need Palafin back before we actually deal with the already broken shit sitting in the tier anyway. But if that’s the case, I’m not sure why we’re even bothering to suspect Palafin right now-it doesn’t even have to be broken for people to want it to stay out of the tier in its current state, so why are we even bothering to check how OU fares with Palafin in the first place?
Sorry if this was a little ranty, maybe the real answer is everyone’s as confused as I am lol
No worries, ranting is OK and encouraged in my comments section unless it's uninformed.
If Palafin was already in the tier, banning it would not be my priority. Kyurem and Wellspring would both be higher priority. Banning Palafin might not even be on my radar.
That being said, the standards for banning something and unbanning something are different.
For me to want to unban Palafin, I want to see a solid case that it will improve the tier. I don't think it will, so I don't want it to be unbanned.
To ban Wellspring or Kyurem, Smogon has decided that the standard is higher, and you must prove that a pokemon is broken or significantly unhealthy. Personally, I think this standard is a bit too high, and has led to a metagame a lot of people are unhappy with after close votes. I think that a pokemon should be banned when the detriments of its presence outweigh the positives, but Smogon doesn't endorse that philosophy in its rules, so I don't often make that argument.
To answer your question simply, the logic behind keeping Palafin banned but not banning Wellspring or Kyurem is because there are different standards for each process.
Me personally though, I'd love to ban Wellspring and Kyurem, and I'd happily trade them for Palafin. I think the metagame would be better with all three banned, but you're absolutely correct in saying that Wellspring and Kyurem deserve a ban more than Palafin.
Does that make sense?
@ yup, thanks for the explanation!
I feel like there’s other mons in the meta that affect the it more than Palafin does
You're absolutely correct. I'd say Kyurem and Wellspring both have a more significant negative impact on the metagame than Palafin does-- but that's no reason to let Palafin into the tier. "We already have a bunch of toxic pokemon in the tier, so we might as well unban another toxic pokemon because it's not AS bad" isn't logical.
Oh for sure I agree. Now if there was a Tera ban on the other hand, I feel like there’s maybe more justification. Maybe not for kyurem though lol
@@Wafflefrieslmdh For sure, with Tera ban, the meta would be changed completely, so dropping a ton of pokemon would be quite fair.
personally i think we should bring back espathra
FUCK no
Hell no I don't want to deal with stored power calm mind protect d gleam again and Tera fairy heck no terrible take
Espathra is DEFINITELY broken. If we ban Tera, THEN we can let it come back.
If stored cheese was banned then yeah sure
Palafin should be banned because ou is a war ground: there's no room for heroes where the warriors rage
But yeah I agree with basically all of your points
:D
I think palafin is a bit too strong but I think there's a couple other OU mons that are just as broken if not a bit more so, and if they get to be legal then palafin should be too
I don't agree with this logic. Just because other things are more broken, doesn't mean we should allow less broken but still broken pokemon into the tier. It's like saying "welp we made 2 mistakes so we might as well make a 3rd, less bad mistake."
I just think it’s just going to make gen 9 more gen 9. Gen 9 already heavily favors hyper offense due to Tera providing great opportunities for setup. Palafin’s matchup against these teams won’t be particularly good because of the fact it gives teams that are essentially just 6 setup monsters a free setup turn. It absolutely bullies the few things that aren’t excessively fast paced. So it’s just making Gen 9 more gen 9. It won’t actually be good but the meta it will make will be hell because it will pretty much exclusively bully slower playstyles. The moment people try to play balance people will use it and it will return to setup sweeper spam and most games will feel the same it’s just who gets the setup first. It just makes the tier exponentially more itself. And frankly I don’t even like normal gen 9. I don’t want gen 9^2
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here-- Hyper Offense is quite far from being the dominant playstyle in SV OU, at least at a top level. Palafin also has a fairly easy time getting setup against HO, since Palafin can Flip Turn on most HO hazard leads (Tusk, Treads, Glimmora, etc.) The matchups where it can't Flip Turn on the lead, it can just switch out on the non-threatening hazard leads. Even if the HO user leads with a setup pokemon, 1 free turn of setup doesn't mean the team won't have issues dealing with a 60 Base Power Priority Water move, especially from Banded variants.
@ it would mostly just raise the usage of water resistant Tera on hyper offense. And even then some mons who can ohko once setup like swords dance variants of valiant +2 252 Atk Iron Valiant Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 400-472 (117.3 - 138.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO aren’t even one shot by jet punch 252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Jet Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Iron Valiant: 207-244 (71.6 - 84.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO. It’s not that strong priority even if it is banded. And I’m not necessarily saying hyper offense is the best in general 9. It’s just the best gen for hyper offense because of how much Tera helps it. And a Mon who needs a free turn to be able to be enabled has significant potential to help hyper offense even when it’s a monster once it’s up. It’s worth leading a setup Mon you think will do a solid amount of damage to take advantage of Palafin if you think it’s getting lead.
@@ultimaterecoil1136 Not being 1-shot is NOT a good justification for something not ruining HO... 70 is a TON, and you forgot Tera. With Tera, Ival has a 75% chance to die from full and a 100% chance to die after rocks. I think you're seriously underestimating Palafin. Try playing some HO games against a solid CB Palafin team, I think your mind will be changed very quickly.
It’s okay. Tera Psychic Max Def Water Absorb Clodsire can wall it.
@@luckylucas8596 Tera Flying Physdef Clodsire stocks about to go CRAZY
What's your irl name?
I'd prefer not to share. I probably will at some point, but for now, most call me Pinka or Mr. Cross.
Daddy
Ok but Glowking with Flamethrower? Seriously?
Yes, great for hitting Gholdengo, Kingambit, and Corviknight. It's a stallbuster Glowking.
I hate to be that guy but first comment of 2024 baby
edit: i meant 2025
i might be restarded
uhmm no?
Not even 2024
Good bit
Did you by any chance make a typo? Or are you just trolling? Want to assume the former but this isn't accurate at all to say the least
Bro messed up
for PBF players dealing with palafin is walk in the park 🥱
Well yea, you don't have to teambuild for battle factory lol
He cant do it like he used to I gotta say
Ofcourse you will say uber, predictions only.
Unban Palafin to provide more reason to ban Wellspring tbh
Lowkey yea, part of me wants Palafin unbanned just because I know it will boost Wellspring usage and make it more likely to get banned
If anything I think Palafin unbanned is less likely to ogerpon to be banned because people will argue "If we ban wogerpon, palafin will be broken" akin to the case of a certain scorpion and a dragon
To be honest I find Palafin pretty mid, it can't beat ogerpon, bolt, dnite, pult, rilla, and all the threats in OU.
It can't do much without tera + hit or miss item.
The qualified already had several chances to "improve" the meta when they chose to not ban Kyurem, gambit, Gliscor...
Palafin is way less busted than Bolt, Gambit, RM and Ogerpon. If it ends up banned again it due to "meta health" will be pure hypocrisy.
I agree that there are bigger problems in OU that people have chosen not to ban, but I don't agree with this argument. It's like saying "Might as well make a fourth mistake because we already made 3 bigger mistakes!"
palafin is fine. unban annihilape and solgaleo next. in fact, unban everything and test out the meta before keeping stuff in ban jail since the start of the gen because smogon are cribabies about power creep. the game has evolved.
Smogon has seriously done everything they could so far to prevent the power level on OU to go beyond what gen6 OU was like. a standard gen6 OU team being the standard UU team 3 gens later is NOT harmful to the metagame, keeping every new mon that powercreeps gen6 meta out of the meta is.
No annihilape is definitely broken wtf are you on about
This argument is insane. There is a tier with almost everything unbanned. It's called Ubers. Go play it.
The whole point of OU is to create a balanced metagame that has many viable pokemon and archetypes. OU looks like what it does to achieve that goal, not because "smogon crybabies" (learn to spell btw) can't handle power creep. We have people playing Ubers. They handle it just fine. Yaknow what they do, though? They use the same pokemon over and over. Check this out: www.pikalytics.com/pokedex/gen9ubers
These are the usage rates in Ubers. 79% Koraidon usage. Huh. Look at that. Maybe think or do even the slightest bit of research next time before blaming all bans on "smogon crybabies."
The arguments that are made are just generic and can be made for literally any other mon, should be unbanned and stay in OU.
They very much cannot be made for any other pokemon, I spent a third the video talking about how Palafin uniquely threatened HO by having one of the strongest unconditional priority moves in the game, second only to Extreme Speed. Did you even watch it?
Exactly, people want to ban palafin for scenarios that doesn’t really take much game planning to stop. Losing to palafin meant you just played super predictable and didn’t manage your check correctly.
@@pinkacross2042your argument basically ended up being "palafin not good because then we see more ogerpon" like, how generic of an argument is that: if x is present, consider y to stop it. There's plenty of counter play to strong priority move, just like you explained with Dragonite. Personally, I just think all the bans and stuff are for players who are just crybabies and can't play lol.
@@hector_here9790 You're not addressing the impact it would have on HO at all. Did you even read my comment? There is plenty of counterplay to Jet Punch, but not counterplay that HO can afford.
Pala is so mid, in almost every department it’s outclassed by some mon, and some other are straight better than it. No chance anyone thinks that pala has got anything on kyurem, as a mon that can do whatever it wants, or ogerpon as an annoying water type, having to sacrifice 1 turn for a mono water type is not worth imo
That's crazy saying palafin is mid 160 attack is not mid i get it's slow but it outspeeds kyurem
mans hasn’t played a single game with it unbanned lmao
@@justinterry2790 fax ngl palafin is barreskewda+
I agree that Palafin will probably not be considered as good as Kyurem or Wellspring, but to say its outclassed in every department is false. As a Choice Band user, it has incredible priority, and is one of the best revenge killers in the tier.
I mean, obviously not.
First comment of 2035 here
Do we have flying cars yet? :o
No.
keep it, but tera ban it
Nah ban it completely i don't want to run and see bulky offence all the dam time just for palafin and then the people counter the counter to palafin then they counter the counter the counter to palafin
@ I mean right now that’s what’s happening for kingambit->gambit check->gambit check counter. I think it will be fun to add another centralized meta mon
I agree with banning Tera overall, but if you're saying to just prevent Tera on Palafin, I would oppose that-- customizing bans is a slippery slope.
@@pinkacross2042 I’d think tera restricted mons would be fine if we vote on it, but that’s just me. I’d do it to get volc back, and nerf gambit with it, but that’s just my opinion
Lol ogerpon is buns
WHAT!?
2:22 you just showed why Palafin is broken, Killing a Dragonite with a no-effective move is insane.
It actually deserve to stay Ubers, both sets are scary (Bulk Up/Choice Band) due to the un-predictable tera Palafin can use.
Yes but that's double stab 120 base power cb 160 attack soooooooooooooooo
In all fairness, I did take recoil, and I used a Choice Band with Tera. Great Tusk with Adamant Banded Tera Fighting CC can also kill Dragonite from that range, although it is a roll.
I completely agree, I honestly think the tier is in a bad spot rn due to dexxit and adding another annoying mon makes the tier even worse rn
More options is good, but yea, Palafin will probably lead to fewer options being viable.
HeĻļ nah
If its not broken, its shouldn't be banned, simple as.
It's not a vote whether to ban it or not. It's a vote of whether to bring it back. By smogon rules, these are very different things with very different standards of proof. Furthermore, many pokemon have been banned for being unhealthy even if they weren't broken, it's a perfectly valid reason to ban something.
Annihilape is way less broken
Bruh u really wanna deal with annihilape with tera and rage fist u must be insane because even if it's immune to the move it still gets the 50 base power increase and it has a really good typing and can tera and heal with drain punch and leftovers ur out of ur mind 😊
That's a hot take for sure, I do not agree at all but I'd be interested to hear why you think that.
More importantly why is it so ugly looking? ewwww.
Dawg palafin looks awesome. Don't diss peak fiction like that
Personally I'm not a fan of the design either
@@Gold_Gamer_100 I can't believe I share the planet with someone who believes this (base form cool tho)
I don’t like the idea of Ogerpon-Wellspring getting better. It is barely okay as it is, and I don’t want it to get even stronger.
Personally I think Wellspring is already past the point of OK, but yea, Palafin will be a huge Wellspring buff.
@ I see your point, you could definitely argue that Ogerpon-Wellspring is already broken. It‘s coverage combined with the Wellspring Mask (which no one seems to talk about but is actually a really busted item imo) is definitely too much. It restricts team building so much, it single handedly invalidates so many choices when team building I feel and Palafin will make it so much worse because Ogerpon is just such an easy answer with Water Absorb.