might as well add to the discussion- broken as shit. no in depth discussion needed. get it tf out. throttles balance to an absurd degree thanks to its switchins being like.... turtonator and rapidash and silv dragon? lmfao yeah no- now this is probably the mon i have the most controversial opinion on, but i don't think this is as bad as the other obvious brokens (raichu and lazzle andand centi). i feel like the choiced sets have the fundamental weakness that all other choiced mons have - it's easily abusable if it clicks the wrong moves. there are a good amount of mons that use its various attacks to gain momentum / take advantage of the opposition - big jah, silv dark, malamar/scrafty, sneasel etc all take advantage of predicted psychic attacks; bulky waters like jelli and gastro can use mystical fire as am opportunity to pop toxics on the opposition; steels and fires have no issue pressuring dgleam usage, and so on and so forth. it's not particularly strong when clicking coverage moves, unlike breakers like the dearly departed pangoro where even if you predicted "wrong" (there is no wrong with scrappy 123 atk cc but let's pretend there is) you get a massive chunk of damage on something; predicting wrong with indeedee coverage usually means a pittance of damage at best and momentum for your opponent. scarf has the issue of being a perfect trick user to not actually wanting to trick its scarf most of the time because it's the fastest mon on the team and it's required to revenge lazzle or skewda or opposing scarfers or whatever, much like garde in sm when it started to drop trick for wisp or coverage. calm mind sets sorta fix this issue, but they have the issue of not having all the moves you want; it's a bit harder to pressure teams when you don't have both psychic and shock. it also has the issue of not having the initial power of specs of the threatening speed of scarf, but it makes up for that by being able to surprise would-be switchins either early or late game. truth be told, i haven't had as much experience with cm as the other two sets, but it definitely comes with it's own pitfalls compared to choiced.it also has pretty minimal defensive value - ghost immunity is pretty cool vs rotom and haunter, but outside of that it's not exactly gonna be making its way on the field without pivoting or skillful doubles. you take like 45 from uninvested plume sludge bomb ffs. if anything that increases the skill gap of the tier - if you use your powerful breaker more skillfully, you will get a higher reward (contrast to lazzle, where you click toxic with literally no thought or punishment and it hits literally everything every time unless it bounces off a xatu EXCEPT YOU DON'T GET PUNISHED FOR THAT EITHER. more on this aidsmon later.) with all that said, indeedee is absolutely a dominant force in the meta, and one that absolutely merits prep (and double prep), but usually that prep pairs well together anyway - for example, steel + scrafty + xatu, which is relatively comfortable vs indeedee and is just a generally solid three mon core. i won't deny that indeedee has sat as one of the strongest mons in the tier since it dropped, and games often do end up coming down to "who played their indeedee better in endgame", but i'm still quite on the fence on whether i'd consider it broken or simply very good. if this does get the boot by the council, i'd definitely want to see it retested in a meta where there's much less threats to prep for.- this mon is dumb as bricks. fuck this pokemon. given the lack of clerics we have, being able to hit literally anything and everything with toxic for free is extremely dumb vs balance if you don't have a rest lax/shed skin scrafty/xatu. being able to smack all ur switchins with toxic for free is literally the perfect setup for np to clean in the late game; it literally sets up its own sweeps with one move that doesn't ever miss, and that is Very Not Okay imo. not to mention, planting toxics on everything is also ridiculously good support to teammates that may need assistance breaking fat mons, like the previously mentioned indeedee, or scarf rotom, or raichu, or vani, or skewda, or... you get the picture. and all that utility just comes from one move. then there's the part where it's the 2nd fastest viable mon in the tier (3rd if you count boltund but i don't bc that mon is dickcheese.) this practically mandates a scarfer to rk it, but you can entirely circumvent that by running tect and scouting anything you think wants to revenge you, in addition to giving you more recovery from sludge (AND racking up tox dmg on whatever it just crippled, forcing recovers more often and granting even more free turns). this shifts momentum even further in the salazzles favor entirely for free once again, letting lazzle dictate the pace of the game with way too much ease. on top of that, poison/fire is actually a pretty baller typing, with a plethora of relevant resistances and relatively few weaknesses, which means it gets far more opportunities to come on the field than a mon with this much power and speed and free utility should. it's also deceptively hard to revenge with scarfers despite its relatively poor bulk, since the vast majority have to rely on coverage to be able to do >70 to it (aka ko it after rocks); only indeedee out of the commonly used scarfers doesn't have to play yet another 50/50 to revenge it. contrast to say raichu, who gets blasted by knock and uturn and ghost stab and grass stab, so it's way more prone to being forced out in high stakes situations.then ofc there's the offense mu where it just clicks all the buttons it wants to bc the only things that count as a switchin to sludge bomb + fire blast that actually fit on fast paced teams are like rhydon, scrafty and cb lax loland this doesn't even get into all the random utility and techs it can run, like sub making it even more ridiculously annoying to kill, knock removing boots/lefties from potential switchins and making them even more susceptible to being worn down / taken advantage by other teammates, or subdisable just being a general pain in the ass. at the end of the day, this thing is way too hard to kill for all the utility and speed and breaking power and cleaning ability it brings to a team vs any playstyle. remove it and never bring it back, thanks- something that bones offense and has limited but solid counterplay on balance that suddenly comes under scrutiny after a shift that makes balance ridiculously hard to run? sounds pretty familiar if you played sm after The Big Shift - zydog became a large object of discussion after offense became the de facto playstyle thanks to how hard it was to reasonably cover it without making yourself weak to something else. skewda has pretty much no permanent switchins on offense and does way too much damage for its onslaught to be sustained in most battles; you basically have to put a grass type and a cc/psyfangs resist and hope you read right more often than not. but vs bulkier squads it's a lot easier to manage simply bc it doesn't ohko half the team; even mons "weak" to it like muds and lix and what have you can take a hit and blow it back thanks to it's piss poor defenses. and to add to that, you can more easily fit stuff like bulky silv water, gastro, broken plume, qwil, etc. personally i wouldn't mind at all if this left bc it's an absolute nuisance to prep for, but i also think it'd be far easier to manage in a meta sans broken fires + raichu where builds are easier to diversify.- people focus too much on np when assessing this thing imo when np isn't the actual problem. 4 atks volt is just way, way, way too free in any given matchup - you're always bloody terrified of bringing in your grounds because they all get popped by either gk or surf, but if you DON'T go to a ground and instead switch to a bulky mon that can actually take a hit or two like rajah, you run the risk of getting pivoted on and stuck in the vortex (or giving free turns to some other busted mon like centi or lazzle or tales or vani or bear or literally whatever suits your imagination.) not only that, but if you opt for double electric stab instead of two coverage moves, volting on all the bulky mons just sets up for your late game sweep that much easier cus you're getting hazard chip and not allowing the opp a chance to recover. 4 attacks is extremely problematic for both offense and bulkier squads thanks to all the pressure it puts on anything slower than it added to the support it provides to the myriad other breakers currently around; np is just icing on the cake. i was originally a bit on the fence about raichu, but after a lil deliberation i think id be more than fine with this taking its leave.p.s.: something i just remembered to touch on with regards to lazzle is how stupidly restrictive it is to have to pack two completely separate fire resists to cover both tales and lazzle, since basically the only thing that covers both is lax and that is definitely not a mon you can just slap on every team. all the salazzle "stops" - jelli, rhydon, gastro, dred, rest scrafty, etc. get absolutely blown back by solar beam or just sheer power, and things like centi or turt that are decent tales answers can't stand up to toxic or lazzles secondary stab. personally i think the best answer to this conundrum is banning both of them bc they're both stupid as shit and tales is about to get a lot better if the speed tier decreases with skewda/lazzle/raichu out of the equation in combination with one less flash fire mon, but we can take it a step at a time - i know future meta speculation is frowned upon.