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[OU Discussion] Conkeldurr


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Ultimately, this decision is just going to come down to our handy-dandy tier council. Considering this thread was even posted means that they have been bickering about this thing behind the scenes at least to some small extent. There seems to be arguments here for and against, but none of which are really proving that Conkeldurr meets the criteria for a ban; either Offensive Uber or Unhealthy.

  • A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.
  • An unhealthy pokemon is one which makes the metagame worse with its presence, by stagnating the metagame in a large, negative way. 

Not surprisingly, Conkeldurr actually meets both criteria to an extent. With Bulk Up + Drain Punch, Conkeldurr has the raw power to break through the majority of our current OU tier and can even heal up with one click of a button. Add in Mach Punch and suddenly you can damage something on a switch and outspeed it with Mach to get the kill, all without even taking a hit. The 4th moveslot is there simply for coverage, but the majority of damage comes in the way of its two STABS. Now, the argument against this being Uber is that Conk does need some support to be successful, which would define it more as an "S-Class". You need to remove any faster Psychic type, avoid Hurricane, and set up Stealth Rocks so any flying-type doesn't cause it much trouble. If Gliscor is on the field, you need to be wary of Acrobatics the entire time. 

 

Regarding whether it is "unhealthy" or not, Conkeldurr certainly shits on the game. To be successful, each competitive player typically has to carry at least two pokemon with coverage against Conkeldurr just to avoid being beaten by its coverage move. That's been proven through the discussion here, although there are other pokemon that require that as well; namely Reuniclus. Secondly, Conkeldurr is borderline "too good not to use" based on its raw power, bulk, and typing. It can threaten so much. This is an age-old tiering question, but should we ban something for being simply "too good" that nearly every player should "use it" at some point in competitive play? 

 

 

tl;dr Conk is damn good, borderline offensive uber and borderline unhealthy; "too good not to use"; tier council it's on you. 

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It would be helpful to have stats of how often certain moves are used since when talking about it people have to remember it has two moveslots for rock slide, thunderpunch, payback, bulk up, and ice punch.  My guess would be  a lot some of these combinations are exceedingly uncommon.  If you build a team with gliscor and reniclus as your conk checks are you really ever going to run into an ice punch payback conk without some serious scouting by the opponent?  Doubt it.  Conkeldurr simply can't beat every threat at once and only a few sets actually do well over a large portion of the tier.  Its not like its set up beyond repair once you scout it either because of its speed stat being so low.   

 

 

Basically, I'd like to see explanations of why its too hard to scout when a lot times battles rely on scouting the opponents moves in similar ways.  Being forced to do it instead of hard walling might be unpleasant, but its a common situation that I don't see differs here.

 

A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

 

The "in common battle conditions" is the key phrase there and my answer is no it cannot.  There are plenty of combinations of common checks that together produce one poke that walls the vast majority of conks.

 

Then the "little effort" part comes in because even if a really shaky style of bulky volc/starmie style of checking runs into the exceedingly rare thunder punch rock slide conk, then the conk still has to predict which mon is coming is or it just gets koed.  I just don't see it.  I get if you put every move on it at once it beats most things and that it takes a turn or two to figure out its set, but its not just sweeping through teams.  If you want to reliably play against conkeldurr without getting creative with the teambuilding, run reniculus and one other check.  

Edited by Aard
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22 hours ago, PeterParquet said:

252+ Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor Aerial Ace vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 178-210 (98.3 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after burn damage

I've neither seen Aerial Ace Scizor, nor a 4HP / 0Def Conkeldurr... ugh... 
Maybe you wanted to refer to Flying Gem Acrobatics build?
252+ Atk Flying Gem Scizor Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 188-222 (95.9 - 113.2%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after burn damage
you can consider it guaranteed OHKO if you are checking it anyway, it will have 6,2% damage taken almost guaranteed no matter how heavy it's previous Drain Punch hit.


yes, it is an effective check, there are multiple checks for it and a few counters majority of them being unorthodox without any practical use other than Conkeldurr countering.

I've seen many clueless Conkeldurr users these days with the rise in popularity. Switching into heavy special attacks or +1 physical attacks, etc. We are not assuming Conkeldurr user is completely clueless about it's usage in this discussion. My previous point stands about it's counters and checks being less effective in 6v6 scenarios and at worst cases it can break bones of multiple mons alone before going down, causing more damage/pressure than a healthy non-setup, non-choicelocked, non-fragile, status immune mon should.

You should spectate some matches of higher ranking players, or casual matches above 600BP rating to get an idea about what's going on. I'm not assuming you are inexperienced because you have posted a weird calculation, I'm just asking you to have different perspectives of Conkeldurr in different realistic scenarios happening in the tier. Your own team might be receiving a Conkeldurr well while lacking in many aspects required to handle different teams/situations in the tier (Oh, hi Cofagrigus) so please give it a try.

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+2 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Grimer: 80-94 (42.7 - 50.2%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Grimer: 107-126 (57.2 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Grimer: 107-126 (57.2 - 67.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Payback (50 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Grimer: 71-84 (37.9 - 44.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
 
Grimer eviolite haze rest new meta
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3 hours ago, DaftCoolio said:

u cant actually think cofagrigus has no practical use outside of countering conkeldurr right

I'm not thinking, I'm observing....

 

Edit: I felt the need to add more constructive things from my "observings" though.
Cofagriguses are being pounded up and down or being used as setup fodder everywhere, making you wonder if it's even worth countering Conkeldurr.

On another note, as the metagame adapts itself, some of the things gbwead said earlier makes sense now. There are more Acrobatics users around probably due to Flying Gem working properly and Conkeldurr usage creeping up. Yet we have a lot of mons in OU now with incredible utility, walling potential or raw power and only checks/counters that include names but not moves, roles and strategies. To name some of them, Guts Conkeldurr, Taunt Hydreigon, Calm Mind Reuniculus, Egg Sisters, etc.... you all know the names. You can't fit all the counters/checks that include some names (such as Cofagrigus... lol) to deal with powerhouses in 6 slots, so you just stick with running them yourself.

Healthy teams show so little variance in order to be competitive that what you see around is either a rain team or a powerhouse team. Feels like effective OU roster is cut in half right now (not literally, but you got my point) almost as if OU is like 2 different tiers in itself, perhaps that split itself is actually the bar between OU and Ubers for our MMO standards that we refuse to admit and stick to Smogon standards as it would remove many of the player favourite mons or make us return to pre-unova wallfest. Is this an ok metagame, that's really beyond me or this thread since actual BW metagame was not that healthy itself, causing a new type to be born and stuff in later generations.

Resulting from all of those, I also started thinking any decision for Conkeldurr still might be a bit too early. It feels like an issue for whole tier that caused by lack of some mons in mmo and lack of Hidden Abilities, and some mechanics being missing. Acrobatics users were great recent examples for that. 

Edit 2: I think Sniper Kingdra deserves a place in those lists too and pachi approves but.. meh okay, fine.

Edited by PrincessDia
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Copying what @MaatthewMLG says in their calcs, I have a better option
+1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 85-101 (59.8 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 63-75 (44.3 - 52.8%) -- 25% chance to 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 85-101 (59.8 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Payback (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 113-134 (79.5 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
If Conkeldurr gets +1 for fome reason, Ekans can use haze
Calcs with intimidate:
-1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 39-46 (27.4 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
-1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 39-46 (27.4 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
-1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 29-34 (20.4 - 23.9%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
-1 252+ Atk Guts Conkeldurr Payback (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ekans: 51-60 (35.9 - 42.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Now I'll calc a offensive mov vs Conkeldurr
4 Atk Ekans Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 49-58 (23.1 - 27.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after burn damage
A nice set imo for Ekans:
0WZnfsY.png
Ekans > Conkeldurr ????
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Before the recent update, Conkeldurr was just a regular poke, what should be done to keep it in the tier is to complex ban flame and toxic orb on conkeldurr, kinda similar to Hydreigon's case.

Once Conkeldurr uses 1 bulk up and its flame orb activates. It is ready to sweep with such little effort, of course some conditions have to be met, such as trapping ghost pokes earlier to make it even more easier for conkeldurr to sweep.

Edit:, Once we get HA's, all the legendaries, and all the remaining gen4 pokes, we can have Draco Hydreigon and Flame/Toxic orb Conkeldurr back, right now, it is pathetic to be forced to run hex Cofagrigus, or any other pathetic alternative poke mentioned above.

 

Edited by Lazaaro
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1 hour ago, Lazaaro said:

Before the recent update, Conkeldurr was just a regular poke, what should be done to keep it in the tier is to complex ban flame and toxic orb on conkeldurr, kinda similar to Hydreigon's case.

Once Conkeldurr uses 1 bulk up and its flame orb activates. It is ready to sweep with such little effort, of course some conditions have to be met, such as trapping ghost pokes earlier to make it even more easier for conkeldurr to sweep.

Edit:, Once we get HA's, all the legendaries, and all the remaining gen4 pokes, we can have Draco Hydreigon and Flame/Toxic orb Conkeldurr back, right now, it is pathetic to be forced to run hex Cofagrigus, or any other pathetic alternative poke mentioned above.

 

Don’t say complex ban hydregion....it is apparently not a “complex” ban because it was never “given” the move. but I agree on the complex ban. Either the orbs go on it or the coverage punches go. If we can keep hydregion, we can keep Conkeldurr.

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3 hours ago, Impulse5095 said:

Don’t say complex ban hydregion....it is apparently not a “complex” ban because it was never “given” the move. but I agree on the complex ban. Either the orbs go on it or the coverage punches go. If we can keep hydregion, we can keep Conkeldurr.

Dont you see the issue with what you're proposing? How many days, weeks!, of argument will it take to determine which particular move or item on conk needs to be banned? And how can we even have that discussion while the issue of "is conk actually broken?" Still hangs in the air? What if we ban thunderpunch and conk still ravages OU? Do we ban another move? Go back and unban tpunch and ban the orb? 

 

The answer is, we shouldn't do any of that. We should continue to use complex bans only as a last resort, and keep the discussion focused and clear 

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36 minutes ago, Gunthug said:

Dont you see the issue with what you're proposing? How many days, weeks!, of argument will it take to determine which particular move or item on conk needs to be banned? And how can we even have that discussion while the issue of "is conk actually broken?" Still hangs in the air? What if we ban thunderpunch and conk still ravages OU? Do we ban another move? Go back and unban tpunch and ban the orb? 

 

The answer is, we shouldn't do any of that. We should continue to use complex bans only as a last resort, and keep the discussion focused and clear 

So basically you want a clear quick answer? With legends and ha around the corner why not try to get through this with complex bans before just instant banning things, especially when you guys let hydregion slip. The only thing that seems to powerful are conks coverage moves as of right now. And that is one thing everyone can probably agree on. Get rid of the elemental punches on it and you have a quick answer that could solve the issue and still keep Conkeldurrs presence in ou.

 

there is no real safe correct answer from what I see, obviously it’s on you guys to decide. But I would rather not start the whole banning mons things again for however along it takes for dungeons to be implemented. But like I said to me what makes Conkeldurr op is the coverage. Which limits the checks and counters. And the same should have been warrented for hydregion, but we got he answer to that which was not giving Draco. To me it’s the same principal.

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25 minutes ago, RysPicz said:

How about a month (or 2 month) long test ban. I'm aware that the test bans are usually used when a pokemon is deemed as "unhealthy", but the opinions are split to a degree that it surely is going to be difficult to make a decision. Maybe a test ban can be a solution in here?

For a two months test ban to mean something, we need to wait probably an equal amount of time with conkeldurr in OU for comparison.

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Just now, gbwead said:

For a two months test ban to mean something, we need to wait probably an equal amount of time with conkeldurr in OU for comparison.

Fair point, you're right. The flame orb Conk is here for too short to warrant a test ban, I guess this kind of solution would need to wait if ban for offensive uber characteristics won't happen.

 

3 minutes ago, Impulse5095 said:

With legends and ha around the corner

Where did you get this information from? Do you have an inside-info on what devs are working right now?

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5 minutes ago, Impulse5095 said:

The only thing that seems to powerful are conks coverage moves as of right now. And that is one thing everyone can probably agree on. Get rid of the elemental punches on it and you have a quick answer that could solve the issue and still keep Conkeldurrs presence in ou.

I can't even comprehend how you can say things like this unironically. Maybe you and I have been reading different threads, or participating in different discussions, but even amongst the people arguing for a complex ban on Conkeldurr you're the only person I've seen advocating for the ban of the EPunches on it. I've seen people say to get rid of Drain Punch, so it'll have less survivability. I've seen people argue to ban some combination of Guts + Orb, because that was what pushed it over the edge. I've even seen talks of banning Mach Punch, so it doesn't have a strong priority option and is stuck as a slow, bulky threat.

 

It's very obvious that, no, this specific opinion that you have is not something everyone can agree on, and the fact that there's so much division on what would even be banned on Conkeldurr is itself a good reason to stray away from it. This thread is not to discuss potential Conkeldurr complex bans, or anything equally absurd. This is to discuss whether Conkeldurr deserves any kind of action. How that is implemented, whether it's a flat ban, or even the unlikely circumstance it somehow is a complex ban is not what is up for discussion here, that would be a decision for the TC. The discussion is should something be done at all about Conkeldurr? Is it that big of a problem?

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13 minutes ago, Senile said:

I can't even comprehend how you can say things like this unironically. Maybe you and I have been reading different threads, or participating in different discussions, but even amongst the people arguing for a complex ban on Conkeldurr you're the only person I've seen advocating for the ban of the EPunches on it. I've seen people say to get rid of Drain Punch, so it'll have less survivability. I've seen people argue to ban some combination of Guts + Orb, because that was what pushed it over the edge. I've even seen talks of banning Mach Punch, so it doesn't have a strong priority option and is stuck as a slow, bulky threat.

 

It's very obvious that, no, this specific opinion that you have is not something everyone can agree on, and the fact that there's so much division on what would even be banned on Conkeldurr is itself a good reason to stray away from it. This thread is not to discuss potential Conkeldurr complex bans, or anything equally absurd. This is to discuss whether Conkeldurr deserves any kind of action. How that is implemented, whether it's a flat ban, or even the unlikely circumstance it somehow is a complex ban is not what is up for discussion here, that would be a decision for the TC. The discussion is should something be done at all about Conkeldurr? Is it that big of a problem?

I am pretty sure the reason this thread was even made was because it is a problem and everyone knows it.

 

How is drain punch even an issue when you have reunclus running everywhere? And the same thing with Mach punch? 

 

What does stopping its stab moves actually warrant that to be a better option than banning the coverage moves?

 

and because everyone runs flame orb conk, sheer power conk isn’t an equal problem? 

 

thats why I said about the elemental punches because that’s what stops some of its potential checks and counters. 

 

But yeah never in one way was I trying to be hostile and You act like I’m the only one suggesting a complex ban when someone else just did before me. But sorry for suggestions.

 

and like I said earlier, the reason why this thread is still open is because it’s an issue. The only thing that is decently good at stopping at is config and reun. 

Edited by Impulse5095
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