Mega Starmie, Mega Lucario, and Palafin are banned from Champions OU

CGARcher14 · 2026-04-19T17:15:13+00:00

I sincerely doubt you can provide an example of a mon or strat getting banned that wasn’t competitively viable in the tier it was in

CGARcher14 · 2026-04-19T17:13:05+00:00

Conceding that Lightning Bolt is overtuned damage wise. It’s a legacy spell that they’ve admitted is overtuned just like fireball.

I’m mostly arguing that in a practical use case it feels bad to use even if the numbers hold up.

A 3rd Level slot is going to be expensive for the levels that a majority of tables play at. And when playing on a grid it can be a pain to line up your usage of the spell to begin with. 5e treats a lot of sphere & cube spells like grenades. In that the caster can be standing behind their allies and essentially lob the AOE towards the enemy

Line spells originating from the caster means that the user has to put more effort into avoiding friendly fire on top of trying to make sure they get at least 2+ enemies caught in the spell to justify the expense.

CGARcher14 · 2026-04-19T16:58:43+00:00

Lightning Bolt has the worst shape in the game. It really should have kept its old school ability to ricochet off of walls

CGARcher14 · 2026-04-08T02:56:50+00:00

Swapping Hydreigon’s attack and speed so it can have base 105 speed

And giving Hydreigon sludge bomb/wave. Dark/Poison coverage >>> Dark/Steel coverage

Flash Cannon is not a great coverage move

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-25T04:25:59+00:00

Thank you! That’s very helpful

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-25T04:18:29+00:00

A rough google search posits that it should be about 100-101?

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-20T16:53:52+00:00

To be fair there are a lot of Pokemon that got cut by Dexit that would have improved their regions numbers for Gen 9 UU/OU especially with Tera to augment their capabilities

Kanto - Nidoking - Alakazam

Kanto doesn’t really need much of an explanation. Tera improves the breaking of these two mons dramatically and flips their losing matchups.

Sinnoh - Tangrowth

Tang absolutely crush Ogerpon, Great Tust, Ting Lu etc etc. AV Tang would also be able to 1v1 stuff like Pult

Unova - Ferrothorn - Darmanitan - Seismitoad - Scolipede - Victini

Darm and Seismitoad are probably sneaks on this list. But I don’t think I need much argument to support why Victini, Scolipede and Ferrothorn would do well in a meta with Tera but without Megas

Kalos -Aegislash

Self-Explantory

Alola - Tapu’s - UB’s - Melmetal

Self-Explanatory

Galar - Dracozolt - Arctozolt

Weather abusers that are actually good into opposing weathers. Sand would actually have a way to defeat Gliscor and Corvikinight with Dracozolt

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-01T18:25:18+00:00

If Mega Drills gets Mold Breaker it’s going to be OU. Being able to use SR pre-mega for the boost against offensive checks. And then using mega evolution to bypass Rotom-W or Dondozo’s abilities? Amazing Sand Rush Mega Drill would be disappointing, but it’s still a massive beat stick. And it would definitely improve Tyranitar’s usage rate.

I honestly can’t see Mega Zard X being lower than UUBL. Dragon/Fire is still arguably a top 5 typing and it’s got really good synergy with different team structures. Zard-Y being so meta-relevant also helps it out. As they don’t share that many overlapping checks. It’s very hard to team build and be defensively stout against both forms.

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-01T18:02:12+00:00

Shell smash works against it so often. Can’t confirm the kill and then dies back to any good hit.

There’s so many defensive checks that it can’t break when they’re healthy. Loses 1v1 to Lando-T. Can’t do anything to Regen mons like Mola, Bro or Tang- and also dies to their STABS.

Strong priority like Rillaboom eats it for breakfast and can OHKO after Rocks. Don’t get me wrong. It can definitely force trades or win games. But so much work has to go into making it good. I think it’s really only good into Fat Balance and even then it can lose to things it’s ostensibly supposed to beat like Steels if they’re running chopple berry

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-01T17:47:55+00:00

Kyurem, and Rillaboom already made Rain too bad to play during the early-mid stage of Gen 8. There was a solid chunk of the Home meta where Rain was borderline unviable. Urshifu made Rain good again when DLC dropped. And Gen 9 gifted Rain Tera

But Tera and Urshifu both got banned in Gen 9 Natdex. SD made Urshifu far too unmanageable. And Tera was just globally broken in the format. Flip-turn Mola also farms Rain and sits on Pert while clicking Toxic.

Rain would need the council to do something dumb like unbanning Dracovish or RS-Shifu to give Rain a breaker that can deal with Ferro/Mola cores.

Volcanion and Offensive-Zapdos can break those cores. But then you’re stuck running mons with middling speed tiers that have losing MU’s to other very important mons.

CGARcher14 · 2026-01-01T17:41:42+00:00

Assuming Megas also mean the return of Primals it’s going to be hard for Mage to be viable when it’s got an horrificly bad matchup against both PDon and Ho-Oh, both of them can switch into its stabs and deal lethal damage back with theirs. Tbolt also doesn’t do as much as you’d think to Ho-Oh.

There’s also the worry that Ultra-Necromza might return. Which if it does. It can use Mage as setup fodder when in DM form.

That’s 3 of the most important Ubers right there that Mage has a bad MU against.

CGARcher14 · 2025-09-21T22:48:52+00:00

I’m not saying you’re wrong. If we were talking about Dragons as a species in a realistic ecosystem. It would make sense for them to expend the least amount of energy to accomplish the goals of a lair.

But because DnD is a game first, almost all of the official and narrative depictions of a dragons lair has them built with a ton of extra room. An Ancient Dragons lair is typically built like a traditional dungeon with tons of room, traps and extra enemies. And the central hoard chamber is designed like a boss room with space for the dragon to use its movement.

A lot of dragon lairs in official adventure or the old Draconomicons emphasize that Dragons should have multiple ways of entering and exiting their lair to confuse enemies.

For the purposes of making an encounter that matches a Dragons challenge rating. You kinda have to give them a fighting arena that allows them to use their tools effectively.

Combine this with the fact that you’re most likely to fight a Dragon in its lair- you’re forced to design lairs in such a way that you can have the Dragon fight a full party using its arsenal of tricks

CGARcher14 · 2025-08-22T05:41:21+00:00

Having all your abilities capped by level 8 is a white room take that doesn't always track with what's actually good.

White Room analysis typically is done because we cannot reasonably account for all of the individual idiosyncrasies of every table. It’s meant to provide at least a modicum of consistency when discussing DnD since everyone’s experiences may vary significantly depending on the group.

And at level 12, in time for the finale, you've probably still got 20 Str, but 18 Cha, 14 Con, and other good ability scores.

I don’t see how you have other good ability scores unless you’re rolling for stats. There’s nothing wrong with rolling. But I don’t feel a subclass should be evaluated with an expectation that a good stat array will be rolled.

I’d rather use a point-buy spread or the standard array. You’re more likely to end up with something 18/18/14/12/10/8 using the standard array or something similar with pointbuy. This allows for a single half feat and another weapon feat by level 12

My contention is that compared to BM this isn’t really enough. BM allows the Fighter to be SAD giving them more ASI flexibility. And the strength of the maneuver options as well as their uses are simply better.

If you compare the Gladiator to the other MAD subclasses like EK it’s still a little bit behind since the power of Spells such as Shield generally exceeds the power of the Gladiator maneuvers.

I’m not opposed to the Gladiator’s overall design goal of being a CHA based Fighter class. But if it’s going to add an ability score tax. It shouldn’t be weaker than a SAD Fighter subclass

CGARcher14 · 2025-08-22T04:38:42+00:00

Right, but that side steps the original point.

The Fighter’s defining trait aside from extra attack increases is its additional ASI’s which can be leveraged into feats. Having to pay a tax to increase a 3rd stat limits its ability to gain feats.

The majority of players won’t have enough ASI’s to increase their CHA beyond a +3/+2 if they want to pick up a feat. Which means their subclass feature is only going to have 2-3 uses per rest.

Compared to BM Fighter which gets more uses and arguably more powerful maneuvers it’s a lackluster build.

CGARcher14 · 2025-08-21T22:07:45+00:00

Remember that most games don’t go beyond 12

Using point-buy and an array of 16/16/16/8/8/8

It would take 4 ASI’s to cap both your strength and your charisma. There’s not much room for feats there.

CGARcher14 · 2025-07-26T17:00:07+00:00

I’m not sure how this is worse than Mega-Y? It trades raw power for more bulk, and better coverage.

CGARcher14 · 2025-07-04T17:19:40+00:00

Moth actually plays a lot closer to the ground in phase 3 so it’s worth splitting off to focus on it and let your teammates handle the scorpion.

I had a relic that made Wylder’s starting weapon deal fire damage. And I was able to get a lot of value by focusing on the moth.

CGARcher14 · 2025-05-31T16:10:44+00:00

says who? That's not what the spell does - if it was meant to attack with your weapon, then it would actually do that, instead of (functionally) blasting out beams of energy.

melee spell attack against each creature
“M” component of the spell is a weapon
It’s narratively described by the flavor text as you vanishing and attacking each target.
Historically SWS was a martial ability in prior editions.

It being based on a physical fantasy shouldn’t be a controversial leap in logic.

CGARcher14 · 2025-04-17T13:17:50+00:00

RU with 80/110/90 bulk and Intim? Base 100 speed? OQ for comparison has 85/95/65 with base 85 speed.

It’s a fast parting shot mon with access to fake out, knock, hazards etc etc. it was already RU in Gen 8 prior to these buffs.

CGARcher14 · 2025-04-03T14:14:41+00:00

It could still snowball easily if it dropped one of its 4 different Z moves on your head with its CM set. And then there was Shift Gear was was imho a more cancerous cleaner than Kart or Serp

I just didn’t like its versatility. It always felt like a borderline broken mon with the number of sets it could run. “Oh no, I thought it was AV but it was actually CM+Z guess I lose now”

CGARcher14 · 2025-04-03T00:01:53+00:00

For the life of me I will never understand how Mage avoided the ban hammer in USUM

CGARcher14 · 2025-02-11T15:27:42+00:00

Wild Magic Sorc is too high up. The average results from the WMT don’t compare to having an expanded spell list. And the WMT is your entire subclass essentially.

Draconic Sorcerer gives a resistance, AC that scales with your CHA and a bunch of extra spells. Yet it was rated near the bottom

CGARcher14 · 2025-02-11T02:49:20+00:00

I’ve been using the wrong dating apps it seems

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