Dracovish suspect test in OU

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/np-ss-ou-suspect-process-round-4-fish-out-of-water.3664521/

Honestly, I didn't expect this coming, especially with how annoying Clefable is at the moment. I also thought Dracovish was easily checkable considering how popular Seismitoad is in the tier, but it turns out that it can potentially restrict teambuilding, and banded sets can potentially rip through even very defensive mons. Meanwhile, scarfed sets can outspeed a lot of mons and abuse the power boost Fishious Rend gets from going first, making it very difficult to check.

What are your thoughts?

I'm kind of torn. It's not nearly as threatening as it was during the early SwSh OU meta, but everything you said still holds true. I think the only consistent checks that are also viable themselves are Clefable and Seismitoad. There's a few other bulky Water Absorb mon that can do the job, but they're not exactly at home in the tier.

It was an inevitability. With so many Pokemon missing, it requires such specific team members just to deal with Dracovish.

I think it makes sense for Vish to go to Ubers. If you have to use something niche like water absorb freeze dry Lapras as one of the only counters to it, then I think that's a sign it might be too strong or OU.

Well, I will give my usual comment when Smogon tries to ban something:
"Stop whining and learn to counter something"

Honestly, every time Smogon finds a Pokemon hard to deal with, they ban it, next problem comes up, they ban it too.

11wildy said:

Well, I will give my usual comment when Smogon tries to ban something:
"Stop whining and learn to counter something"

Honestly, every time Smogon finds a Pokemon hard to deal with, they ban it, next problem comes up, they ban it too.

Click to expand...

That isn't how it works, you can't just counter something and it instantly becomes not broken. The closest you can get is to check it with Seismitoad, but that only merely blocks Fishious Rend spam, and Dracovish is free to predict the switch-in and click other moves like Outrage or Crunch. Alternatively if you don't want to run Seismitoad, you're forced to run physically defensive Toxapex or Ferrothorn, but considering you have to invest into Defense, that makes you fall foul to standard metagame fare because you were overprepping for Dracovish. Meanwhile, Dracovish is incredibly spammable, and not much is going to outspeed a scarfed set outside of Dragapult and Zeraora. If a good Dracovish player brings it in, you are going to lose at least one mon to this thing.

Just because something has a check or a counter, it doesn't mean it's not broken.

11wildy said:

Well, I will give my usual comment when Smogon tries to ban something:
"Stop whining and learn to counter something"

Honestly, every time Smogon finds a Pokemon hard to deal with, they ban it, next problem comes up, they ban it too.

Click to expand...

This is not a fair assessment of Smogon tiering policy at all. Top-level players and more casual players alike have already learned how to counter Dracovish. Its presence warps the metagame around it with these extremely specific, generally otherwise deadweight pivots (most are not actually counters, see: Seismitoad, Vaporeon, Gastrodon, etc.). It forces Toxapex, Kommo-o and Ferrothorn to run maximum Defense just to avoid a 2HKO from its banded Fishious Rend (despite their resistance and absurd bulk). It will typically take multiple good predictions to take Dracovish down due to its bulk, leaving a team's defensive core wholly incapable of taking on other metagame threats like Conkeldurr, Kyurem, and Zeraora. This type of constraint on the metagame is not healthy. If anything I think Smogon should have banned it sooner, but I don't mean to call into question their tiering policy, which is generally quite effective.

Maybe I'm biased, because too often Smogon bans a Pokemon I don't struggle so much with, yet overpowered bullcrap like Landorus-T has been legal for how long?

Dracovish can't switch in on most Pokemon unless they are very passive or use a water move that is not Scald. On top of that, priority halves the power of Fishious Rend, Fake out and entry hazards take a big toll each time it comes in. Maybe people should start using Reflect or Tailwind instead of the banhammer :)

Everything technically has a counter or an answer, but for most people who engage in any sort of competition, victory and defeat is supposed to be entirely based on who's more skilled, who's more knowledgeable, who makes the better decisions that time, etc. But when you auto lose at team preview because it's not physically possible to cover everything, what's the point? Sure, you can bring something that makes X 'mon not a problem, but what are you leaving yourself vulnerable to by doing that? You only have 6 team slots to work with, so then the question becomes "can I cover (literally) everything?". My understanding of bans is that they're done to try to make it more feasible to handle everything, to lessen the amount of possible automatic losses at team preview.

Whether or not Dracovish crosses the line though, I don't know, it's getting to be a few years since I've battled.

I only played a bit of OU to start this gen and Dracovish was one of the reasons I haven't in a few months. It's incredibly broken unless you run Seismitoed and even then you have to preserve it which is not always easy to do. Sure it has a good typing and bulk but will eventually get worn down and you'll lose your only counter. Vaporeon can beat it to some success as well but it doesn't offer much else. Not really sure how the meta is going to fare with it gone considering it was a major factor in every teambuild but I am glad it's gone. Gonna try some matches soon to see if I enjoy OU again lol

11wildy said:

Maybe I'm biased, because too often Smogon bans a Pokemon I don't struggle so much with, yet overpowered bullcrap like Landorus-T has been legal for how long?

Dracovish can't switch in on most Pokemon unless they are very passive or use a water move that is not Scald. On top of that, priority halves the power of Fishious Rend, Fake out and entry hazards take a big toll each time it comes in. Maybe people should start using Reflect or Tailwind instead of the banhammer :)

Click to expand...

Smogon has requirements for people to vote in a suspect test so it's not just people who ban it because they played a few games and struggle with it but rather they play the meta with or without a Pokemon and see how its impact is. If it's healthier without the Pokemon, of course they will vote to ban it.

The thing with priority is it's often weak so that's not going to KO Dracovish anytime soon (i.e. Conkeldurr 3HKOs Vish with Mach Punch and that's with a Guts boost). Even if the move were weakened, Dracovish can still do this to the priority user:
252+ Atk Strong Jaw Dracovish Fishious Rend (85 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 186-219 (52.9 - 62.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after burn damage

When you said priority, this was the first thing that popped to mind and others like Weavile and Bisharp don't KO with Ice Shard and Sucker Punch respectively, unless Bisharp were at +2, which is a roll without hazards. Also, why would you use Fake Out? You can only use it first turn you come in and then possibly get OHKO'd by Fishious Rend regardless. As for hazards, people do run hazard control like Defog so it can come in for free after the Defog and the user can sack something to bring it in safely if they want too.

I haven't played OU but I did participate in a Draft League where a team had Dracovish drafted and its K/D is 27/6 brought 13/14 games. Had I not drafted Dragapult (a Pokemon able to check it), I probably would had a bad time with it (even so, I had to sack mons to Vish just to bring Dragapult in safely). Additionally, I had to bring a Haban Berry Appletun with Draco Meteor as a backup in case I lost Pult. Not only that but a fair number of drafts had to resort to using FAs for Pokemon with Water Absorb too, which shows just how powerful Dracovish is.

I will admit that Dracovish is in the wrong tier. In doubles its ok because you can double counter it. However I do a lot of monotype testing on Showdown OU doubles and everytime I see Dracovish I worry. I haven't done singles for a while but what I remember is that if its difficult in Doubles its ridiculous in singles.

It overcentralizes the meta game, thought tbh this could be said of a pokemon like landorus-t in the last generation. While dracovish does have some counters, there are only a few, so your team building is heavily restricted.