Metagame NP: RU Stage 18: Fuck Me Pumps (Alomomola Remains RU)

[atomicllamas]

** Deadline for Alomomola-less ladder is Wednesday September 14th at midnight and you need 2800 coil with 62 or fewer games played, good luck to those participating. **

The RU council has brought up Alomomola as being deserving of a suspect test. As always, if you'd like to see some in depth reasoning as to why this Pokemon is being suspected, there are some paragraphs below written about why Alomomola in particular was chosen.

The requirements for this test will not be the same as last time. There will be two separate ladders, you have to get reqs on both, one with the current meta game, that will be up for 1 week. On this ladder you will be required to reach a coil of 2700 (the B value is still 9), with a game limit of 60 games (deadline is Monday, September 5th at midnight). For the second ladder, the reqs will be 2800 coil with a B value of 9.0, but you will need to finish reqs within 62 games. You will have 9 days to complete this portion of the suspect test. Some sample values for the second ladder are below. I will know if you reset your win loss, given its determined by GXE, do not attempt to game the system you will be infracted if I catch you, and I will.

GXE N
100 18
90 25
85 32
80 46
78.5 55
77.5 62

for the non-mola ladder

To find out how many matches it'll take for you specifically, take your GXE, and put it into this formula (for the second portion)
N=9.0/log2(40*GXE/2800)
(for the first ladder replace GXE w/ your GXE and 2800 w/ 2700)

Alomomola Reasoning

Alomomola's high HP stat, Regenerator, and access to Wish allows it to excel at supporting its team. It gets plenty of opportunities to switch in with its bulk and pass a Wish that will heal a large portion of its teammate's health. Its bulk allows it to shrug off many neutral hits, and when combined with Regenerator and Protect, Alomomola functions as a proficient pivot in RU, able to switch into attacks, scout moves, and switch out while recovering back damage. This makes Alomomola effective against many choiced attackers. Alomomola also has an arguably strong matchup versus offensive teams as Alomomola can sap their momentum by making use of its unique host of supportive and defensive characteristics. Because of Regenerator providing it with alternative methods of healing, it does not need to use turns healing itself with Wish very often. Although it may be passive and is weak to top tier threats such as Venusaur, it is usually paired with Pokemon that mitigate its flaws and benefit from its Wish-Passing.

tagging The Immortal for a ladder (should be RU current first, same meta as allowed right now), thanks in advance !_!

NP Song:

Rollout Shuckle requested this be the banner, so credits to him for this beautiful drawing

***PSA: Do not shit post. Posts lacking content are subject to be deleted and/or infracted.

also I'm gonna lock this until the ladder goes up to reduce the urge to shit post !_!

 

[atomicllamas]

RU Current Ladder is up afaik! (Thanks ti!)

 

[AmazingAli]

I've been watching so many replays and so many teams just spamming the same "UNHEALTHY" behavior of meta.
Not only offensive teams but also some weather and TR is crippled by this mon. In my opinion, regi-mola is the best core ever possible in RU.
This thing has only 1 set with a base 165 DAMN! HP along with mediocre defense, with the exception of knock off/toxic variation.Breaking momentum the whole time and having very less mons with EVEN LESS sets that can counter this shit! (notably Venusaur, sub pass jolteon, sub mons particularly)
Scouting choice locked items, sets and strategies limit your ways of playing. This adamant mon is threatening
I would still like to use my teams to break this thing no matter what. Hope this suspect goes for good.IMO it looks as if it will be BANNED, but who knows .-.
HAPPY SUSPECT !!!!! :D

EDIT: Yay!! I'm 1st :P

 

[DTC]

All shitposts after this post will get infracted.

If you don't agree with an Alomomola suspect, you should say why with thoughtful and insightful reasoning.

 

[Gatorboy]

I strongly disagree with the mola suspect. It is not broken, just Phat. It has its checks and counters. It really struggles strongly with strong STAB or super effective hits. Mola is very bulky and Wish + Regen is a very good thing, and is what makes is so strong. But that does mean it is indestructible. Mola has its counters like Fletch, Venu, and Viriz do. I usually have either meloetta or Sigi on my team, and they function as a great mola counter, being able to switch in safely, especially sigi not having to fear the burn, and scare it out with very strong special attacks. Sure Knock off is a thing, but its a one time strong attack. Venusaur is also a great counter to it, being able to OHKO offensively with a leaf storm, or it can leech seed and steal a BUNCH of health from mola. Leech seed also wears down Registeel on the switch in. Magneton also beats mola, as does jolteon. Expload blows it back, as does viriz. From a defensive counter Blastoise can toxic it, and refresh the burns and toxic that mola wants to throw at it. Jellicent can also switch into scalds and recover health from scald, and then proceed to taunt and shut it down.

 

[Oathkeeper]

Putting Mola up for a test is fair. It's not overpowering, but it does have that special qualities that can really annoy battlers. These qualities include it's Regenerator ability, possible Mirror Coat attack to send back would be special attacking murders, access to Knock Off, and oh yeah, it's bulk with a base 165 HP. There are many counters to it. Tangrowth was one before it left for OU. 1 Leaf Storm OHKO'd it.

252+ SpA Life Orb Tangrowth Leaf Storm vs. 120 HP / 252 SpD Alomomola: 673-795 (134.3 - 158.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

But now you have others like Special Virizion with Giga Drain after 1 Calm Mind. Not guaranteed, but chances are in your favor.

+1 252 SpA Life Orb Virizion Giga Drain vs. 120 HP / 252 SpD Alomomola: 463-549 (92.4 - 109.5%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO

There is one surprise here. And that's Jolteon. Even with a Life Orb and max SpA w/Timid, 1 Thunderbolt isn't a guaranteed OHKO.

252 SpA Life Orb Jolteon Thunderbolt vs. 120 HP / 252 SpD Alomomola: 424-502 (84.6 - 100.1%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

This shows you how bulky Alomomola is. It can live a strong electric attack!

These are just some counters to it, but having Mola be tested is fair and the right thing to do!

 

[MANNAT]

I'm not really gonna talk in this thread much because I'd prefer to get reqs and let those talk for me, but I'm at least gonna post my opinion here on the thread to get it out there.

Personally, I believe that Alomomola is broken and should be banned. It isn't "because it has no counters" or "because it's impossible to kill" or anything like that because those statements frankly aren't true. Alomomola is broken in that it is very unhealthy for the metagame and is a huge restriction to offensive teams. Yes, are plenty of offensive checks to Alomomola, but the issue is that Alomomola's very high bulk coupled with its fantastic ability in regenerator as well as excellent utility moves in Knock Off and Toxic means that it can outlast its offensive checks, and it offers so much utility and is such a momentum drain against offensive teams that it is a Pokemon that I hate seeing on the other side of team preview whenever I use offense, regardless of what's on my side because most mons on offense hate being worn down by burn, the pivots on those teams despise toxic, and powerful attackers become significantly worse when their damage boosting item gets knocked off.

It can pivot into powerful attackers like Sneasel and Mega Glalie with little to no issues and fire off a scald, knock off, or toxic. At this point, you have already lost momentum because Alomomola hard counters the mon on the other side of the field, has reliable recovery/regen to heal off the damage that it just took, and gets to fire off whatever it wants. At this point, you could swap into say a Magneton as your counter for Alo and have your Choice Specs knocked off, making you pretty much useless for the rest of the game, having to go for Thunderbolt vs Alo because wish actually heals off Volt Switch damage and you now lack the primary item that allows you to threaten many RU walls and means that Registeel doesn't even have to be wary of specs Analytic Thunderbolt pressuring it when it comes in and puts you into a terrible situation because your Alomomola counter is now heavily crippled and you have to become very creative when dealing with it. This is just one of many scenarios where Alomomola can easily outlast and beat its counters because of its unmatched utility and bulk. Another argument for the ban aside from many offensive Pokemon beating it is the fact that Alomomola is susceptible to status and while that may be true in a pure 1v1 scenario, it simply isn't that big a deal because there are quite a few viable heal bell users in RU, so it can easily pass off wishes to teammates and give them enough HP to get rid of its toxic.

Another facet to this is thatAside from outlasting its counters, Alomomola can aboslutely run over many teams because it can form a frightening pair in tandem with Dugtrio because it traps and kills a ton of Alo's counters, leaving your opponent little to no room to make a skillful play to beat it; taking skill out of the game. Dugtrio can trap and kill Virizion with aerial ace, Magneton with earthquake, Sub+BU Braviary with Edge, can take 70-80% from offensive Venusaur with earthquake, meaning that it cant come into Alomomola anymore because Knock Off kills it after rocks and therefore can't reliably check it. These are just a few scenarios where Dugtrio can absolutely annihilate Alomomola counters. This strategy is especially effective and potent because Alomomola is such a big threat and you want to get rid of it as possible, so it is even easier to bait in Alomomola counters and double back to Dugtrio. You could say that Dugtrio is the problem here, but the reason why this strategy works so well is because of how hard Alo baits in its common checks and counters as well as the fact that it has the ability to pressure its checks in a way that they are left vulnerable to other team members as mentioned earlier.

So that's my opinion on Alomomola, ban this shit and get it out of our tier pls.

Tl;Dr: Incredibly hard to wear down, Can pressure its checks, Has ability to outlast checks, When paired with Dugtrio is extremely difficult to beat since Duggie beats so many mons that threaten Alo

 

[col49]

hey everyone, feignsthano importance-o here, the internet's least busy pokemon nerd

so as a bit of a foreword, i'd like to say that i think discussion here should be given some significant contemplation before voicing your opinions or presenting counter-argument to those of others; whether you are for or against this ban, i think it's impossible to act like the influence of this pokemon is not hugely significant, and to consider its presence in the tier properly mandates a ton of forethought on the matter to do so properly. for that reason (whether my opinions coincide w/it or not), i was elated to see a post like double01's in the thread prior, as managed to both exhibit some level of over-arching thought about the matter while doing a nice job at minimizing individual bias. in the vein of personal bias, i think its worth a brief note that this tier is on its final stretch here; to post as someone that just doesn't like playing alomomola in this tier, rather than considering it objectively unhealthy for it, is trvly silly, since it'll be an rupl relic in a minute anyway. this all plays a significant role in the council decision to tighten up reqs requirements, as we felt it important here more than ever to dissuade folks lookin to pick up a tc badge in favor of those that feel strongly about the tier in question. so please, if you really want to spark discussion here, do so! i can't speak for the other council dudes, but i fuckin love to see logical debates pan out in these threads, rather than resorting to detached calc / serebii dex rattling and / or vitriolic rabble-rousing, so lets do everyone else a kindness as a bunch of dudes striving towards a common goal.

bearing that in mind, my thoughts on the matter. i feel as though the most important thing to consider with alomomola and the one that most folks take to, whether it is recognized subconsciously or not, is its place in the echelon of bulky waters this tier retains. to act as though there aren't an excess of pokemon capable of filling such a quintessential role to teams would be blatantly unfair, as would it be to deny that alomomola does not set a rather strong benchmark for them. personally, i have always considered alomomola to be the 'gold standard' of the tier in terms of this particular role, with all others being forced to present significant traits over it in order to exhibit any kind of viability (handling certain fires better, having access to a certain move or unique secondary typing, etc.). so to me, the ultimate question it boils down to is simply "does this high standard it sets in this role affect the tier positively or negatively?", and i've ultimately come to the conclusion that it's impact is largely positive.

the argument of its wish support substantiating defensive cores (ie.regimola, etc.) is not unfounded, but ultimately something i would argue that is not only broadly positive for the tier, but healthy as well. as someone that has made a point of building teams for slam participants in a pretty strictly anti-balance fashion, i will tell you bluntly that the tier is bursting with pokemon, valid techs and synergies capable of exploiting the common alomomola-lynchpinned balances, something that could be confirmed readily by dudes like Arifeen , Kushalos , and Pearl (you don't have to do shit, but u should :p); the abandonment taken by alomomola in terms of damage output can be exploited extensively by various, boosting type-neutrals in such a way that cannot be managed nearly as effectively as by something like a jellicent or a blastoise, and it goes a long way in limiting just how much you can stretch your alomomola. yes, many of the more quickly observed examples are trap bait, be it via dugtrio or pursuit, but fortunately we have a treasure trove more, as well as a variety of sub-sets meant to steadily break down these types of cores (toxic users in conjunction with more conventional boosters can achieve this, for a very general example). furthermore, i think a huge part of why we can maintain a tier where balance exhibits such levels of consistency does too hinge heavily on alomomola's presence. i'd like to think that, with the loss of pokemon like amoonguss, tangrowth, and mega-lix, folks have started to notice that this tier is potentially much squishier than one might come to expect; knock off nets huge value in games b.c 90% of bulkier pokemon rely almost exclusively on leftovers for sustainability, defensive pokemon either run protect or find themselves at risk of being overloaded in a highly consistent manner by proper offenses. as i said, there are almost too many tools at offenses' disposal with which to punish the average balance / [semi-]stall player, and i think alomomola's presence mitigates that in a very controlled fashion. i feel all too many times people quickly leap to arguments against it because it too finds itself highlighting the issues w/moves such as scald and knock off, which (in conjunction w/its own longevity) makes it somewhat of a hot button topic, but realistically i feel that what it does for the tier is simply too meaningful to find itself banned.

happy posting frens​

 

[lighthouses]

Let me just say that alomomola in no way shape or form invalidates offense as a playstyle, its a threat to it(not even the biggest one i think) but it definitely isnt something thats gonna make it flat-out unviable as one. One layer of spikes and it gets 2hkoed by glalie from full, sneasel can knock off its lefties at least making it harder for mola to actually pivot around the things it usually does like specs melo and whatever; and, not only because of mola, you should definitely have something that can take advantage of bulky waters on any ru team anyways, offense included, so sneasel going for knock off on alomomola and 'losing momentum' isnt as big of a deal as people make it out to be. I hate to bring up that argument as it sounds rather silly, but you're using offense, and you're playing a fat team, you gotta be the one on the offensive here, if you play vs sableye stall in ou and just attack whats in front of you then obviously its not gonna go anywhere. Setup sweepers can pressure mola; sd drapion, sd escavalier, nasty plot houndoom among some other things that can force the opponent to use mola as a check therefore either hoping for a burn/sacking it. You can very easily take advantage of molas usual wish recipients like registeel and whatnot, since they are all very exploitable and passive, and the tier definitely isn't lacking ways in which you can take care of mola + its usual partners just by sheer offensive pressure(think abomasnow, aforementioned spikes glalie, that kind of thing); blastoise, which is definitely an option for offensive teams, can use mola to spin away potentionally unwanted stealth rocks or just throw out a burn on the venusaur incoming or toxic something else, if mola has knock off as opposed to toxic then the issue with setup sweepers just becomes more apparent; many of molas common partners are weak to dugtrio which is also something so very easy to take advantage of.
Theres probably more i can say but i just got home and am hella tired, would love to see some discussion though n_n
Atm im leaning towards no ban.

 

[ryan]

im p sure i cant tag 49 so im quoting him as a means to tag him

happy posting frens​

lighthouses as well

as a very strong proponent of banning alomomola and also not nearly as avid of a player of the tier as i assume either of you to be, i'm curious of some examples of things you guys mention.

49: in a donald trump-esque fashion, you mention that the tier is bursting with pokemon, techs, and synergies that exploit alomomola balance. i would appreciate some examples of viable things that exploit alomomola balance. you can mention things that might not be common but work largely because of alomomola, but i would prefer it if you did not include things that are both uncommon and terrible against teams without alomomola (i'm thinking stuff like omfuga's sub pup kangaskhan for the latter). please note the donald trump line was not throwing shade but i thought it was a funny parallel (there are a lot of counterplays, trust me i would know, and they're great counterplays)

lighthouses: you mention that alomomola does not in any way invalidate offense. you might disagree with me here but i doubt it because you are to my knowledge an at-least-fine player with at-least-decent meta knowledge, but offense as a playstyle is inferior to bulky offense and offense with bulky pivots (i.e. mola offense), which don't even always look so different. while i would agree that alomomola is not the sole perpetrator of offense's mediocrity, i wonder if not mola, what?

i think in a metagame where trapping and other defensive behemoths aside from alomomola did not exist, alomomola would be fine. take bw2 nu for example, where it did literally the same exact thing but without commonly using knock off, or bw2 ru, where dugtrio was not a factor and of the many pursuit trappers around this gen, the only ones that spring to mind that were also a part of that metagame were the mediocre drapion and the ??? spiritomb.

some of the examples of taking advantage of mola sound ideal on paper but very often fail in practice. setting up with stuff like sd drapion, sd escavalier, np houndoom, etc. is only effective when 1. the mola doesn't scald burn and/or 2. when the setup user predicts well. for example, if you set up an sd with your drapion as the opponent pivots to flygon, you've immediately lost a turn unless you're shuca. if you attack while they wish, you have not only lost a turn because mola will regain most if not all of the lost health upon switching, but you've also allowed the opponent's check to your threat into the field unscathed because the wish will restore it if not to full, certainly out of range of dying to another hit. normally the burden of prediction is on both players, but with alomomola, that facet is removed nearly entirely. if you predict poorly, you can always bring alomomola in on one of the majority of the pokemon in the tier that pose no threat whatsoever to it and either heal it or heal the appropriate teammate. and to pressure the alomomola user from passing the wish, you must be in against it with something that both can threaten it and can threaten the intended recipient, which means mola has no issue restoring your check to the mola check throughout the entire game. blastoise taking advantage of alomomola is also somewhat silly to me because the alomomola team has the ability to heal up everything while the blastoise is going to lose its leftovers and/or take toxic damage in addition to hazard damage every time it comes in. you can only do this so much before your blastoise is dead, and if you take a turn to refresh, you're giving up momentum as you would while spinning without also removing the hazards.

minor relevant aside, i think alomomola takes skill away from the game. i think this meta is more won in the teambuilder than in the game, not in a "shitty matchup" way but in a "how well does my team dick on mola teams without outright losing to ones without it" way, which should kinda be the idea any time a strategy becomes so dominant in a meta but has been taken to a higher level here in my experience. instead of "how can put myself in a position to win with x pokemon" it becomes "how can i put myself in a position to win with x pokemon without allowing alomomola to undo the work ive put in the entire game" which is something that i feel is done better in the conceptualizing stage than the gameplay stage. this is sorta true with any wish passer, but with most of them, you can either prevent them from passing the wish or kill the wish passer. these things are substantially more difficult with alomomola over other wish passers.

i absolutely agree that checks and counterplay exist to alomomola and the cores/entire teams it supports, but i dont think that there is a wide enough variety of them that allow the tier to be healthy with enough viable pokemon and strategies. after all, if alomomola was unbeatable, it wouldn't be ru.

 

[EonX]

So I've actually been playing Xenoblade most of the day, so you'll have to forgive any parallels I make with it or Smash in this post.

So, I've taken time to think about Alomomola and the suspect thread and I've kind of come to a conclusion on why this suspect is 100% justified. Do note that I have not made any decision on whether to ban or not and that this is just my own opinion of Alomomola as a Pokemon in RU:

I'm sure everyone knows what Alomomola does at this point. It passes massive Wishes to keep teammates alive to either keep checking opposing threats or to keep up pressure on the opposing team. But why is Alomomola able to do this so well in a tier that has Venusaur, Jolteon, Rotom-C, Virizion, SubBU Braviary, and Choice Specs Magneton as top threats? The answer is simple, but you may not see it at first glance because it is of no fault of Alomomola, but rather the construction of the tier around it. That is the simple fact it works so well with the defensive checks to all of these threats (Registeel, Venusaur, Granbull, Diancie, Rhyperior, etc.) With one moveset (Knock Off vs Toxic aside) Alomomola is able to support its team and exert passive pressure on the opponent through Scald burns and the possible removal of items or Toxic poison. So why is this only a big enough deal now to be deserving of a suspect test when Alomomola has not only been RU for the entirety of Gen 6, but also Gen 5 as well? This comes back to the construction of the tier around it. RU has just the right defensive and offensive counterparts for Alomomola to work with in order to hold down the threats to it. Registeel is a fantastic answer to virtually every special Grass- and Electric-type in the tier and has great type synergy with Alomomola. Venusaur can provide a much needed check to Virizion and other Fighting-types not named Medicham (who hates Scald burns) and appreciates not having to worry about Fire- or Ice-types. Granbull and Diancie love the Wish support and can make sure Toxic users don't get the best of Alo with their Heal Bells. Rhyperior doesn't seem like the best idea at first glance considering the shared Grass weakness, but this gets into how Mola can support offensive threats just as well as defensive Pokemon.

Notice how many of the tier's top bulky attackers conveniently have good type synergy with Alomomola? May not seem so at first glance, but look closer. Venusaur, Mega Camerupt, Rhyperior, Escavalier; they all share good synergy with Alomomola and are just very easy to use with it and go from there. It doesn't end there. Even if these bulky attackers are just met with a faster attacker in general that can KO them due to them being around 60-65% HP, do you notice anything? Yeah, outside of Rhyperior, none of them invites Pokemon Alomomola is straight OHKOed by (hint: powerful Grass- and Electric-type moves) due to their natural bulk often being enough to withstand a neutral hit from that range vs faster threats. Much like Mega Steelix before it, Alomomola has more than 1 EV spread it can use too. While many use the ORAS standard 120 HP / 136 Def / 252 SDef Bold / Impish, the old XY 104 HP / 252 Def / 152 SDef Bold / Impish spread can still be utilized if one wishes to better deal with physical attackers (of which, most lack super effective moves for Mola) and can further this by using Rocky Helmet to quicken the demise of such attackers.

Alomomola to me is to RU what Cloud / Mario are to Smash 4 right now; "easy mode". It's incredibly easy to use Alomomola because it's straightforward in what it does, but despite being very simplistic, is incredibly good at it due to what it's surrounded by. Does that mean Alomomola should be banned? Is it too centralizing? That part I'm not sure on yet, and probably won't be until I see the ladder week 2. And that's something I think we should all ask ourselves. Can we really make a judgment right now on a Pokemon that clearly has such a powerful influence on the tier when we don't even know what the tier might be like without Alomomola. Think about it. The best Wish passers after Alomomola are Aromatisse and (Mega) Audino. Do we not use these because Alomomola is just that good, or is it because the current metagame is just that unkind to them? Would removing Alomomola from the tier make the metagame kinder to the other Wish passers, or is Alomomola just a victim of how the tier is constructed right now? As much as we may think we know right now, the fact of the matter is there's no real way of knowing the answer until after we see week 2 of the ladder. Perhaps Alomomola is one of those "necessary evils" we have to deal with in order to keep more defensive teams together. Or maybe it isn't and the metagame would thrive without it. Again, we don't know this and can't fully know this until we experience an RU without Alomomola when the 2nd suspect ladder goes up, so I fail to see how anyone can definitively be for or against an Alomomola ban right now. Defensive suspects are almost always more challenging to fully know the ramifications of simply because they aren't as straightforward as "this just sweeps me." or "x attacker has 0 safe switch-ins period and has no fatal weaknesses." It's moreso "Does the tier need this Pokemon to hold defensive teams together, or are there simply not enough ways to break it." At least, that's just my two cents worth on it. All I know for sure right now is that this TEST needed to happen. Whether it results in a ban or just us discovering ways to get around this powerful defensive force doesn't really matter. It'll only help the tier be better, and isn't that the point of any suspect test for any tier? To make it better. To help us discover whether a Pokemon is beatable with stuff we haven't thought of yet or if it's something that's just too good for the tier to handle.

TL;DR: Alo is "easy mode", but possibly due to the construction of the tier being perfect for it right now. Not leaning one way or the other because I want to see an RU w/o Wishfish and feel it's almost impossible to have a truly accurate / definitive opinion until we see and experience that for ourselves. We don't have a sword that lets us see the future

 

[Patrick1088]

I'm sitting about 2000 COIL with 18 or so games under my belt. While I am still fairly new to RU, it is easy to see how usable Alo is. But, the pro-ban arguments that I am seeing are Alo + Duggy/Rotom/Eel/Venus/Regi are broken.

We go into a match planning to counter/check threats like Emboar, Venusaur, Fletch, etc..., not Alo. I've seen Alo is easy set up bait for top threats like SubBU Braviary, SubSD/CM Virizion, RestTalk Spiritomb. Heck I've even been using Cofagrigus to negate Regen on the predicted Knock Off.

But, really does not every team already have some combination of Toxic + Knock Off?

I can see why it was suspected as it can fit in most teams and support. But, Alo by itself is not really broken.

Although I have seen Alo with Mirror Coat and that is annoying with you expect a special attack to outright KO and it can survive some hits and retaliate hugely.

I am on the fence still, but am leaning towards no ban for now. Honestly my team probably won't change much for the 2nd ladder.

 

[twinkay]

Alomomola, in my opinion, has definitely proven itself to be worthy of a suspect.

There has been plenty of times where a Pokemon is not broken by itself, but is broken in it's ability to support a team. Take the banning of Shuckle, for instance. Another example (although maybe a stretch) is Mega-Steelix. A common thing i think newer players believe is that defensive threats are not as worthy of a suspect as offensive threats. I don't blame them. Alomomola is not directly killing anything, and unlike other defensive threats in the past, is not supporting its team with hazards. Offensive threats are much easier to realize, while defensive threats are sneakier. Mola, however, seems to be a case of a Pokemon that is being suspected because of its support abilities. Mola doesn't kill, it outlasts. Mola can pass huge wishes to teammates, Toxic offensive threats, and it forms amazing cores, including the metagame-defining RegiMola.

Yes, Mola can be beaten. Mola can be set up on. Instead of looking at what can happen, I believe it is better to look at how much it won't happen. Mola can almost never be OHKOed, and it is way harder than it should be to kill without a strong special Grass / Electric attack or a Sub CM / NP sweeper, many of which Mola can pressure with Knock Off. Flashbacks to Mega Steelix, anyone? And Mola is only set-up bait for a select few Pokemon, which often have the normal disadvantages of being a SubSweeper or a RestTalker. The only one I can think of that doesn't have this qualityi s Lum Drapion, because Mola has a good chance of living a +2 Leaf Blade from Lum Virizion.

+2 252 Atk Virizion Leaf Blade vs. 120 HP / 136+ Def Alomomola: 426-504 (85 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

Just because Alomomola isn't broken by itself (but trust me, it can do well even without an obvious core), doesn't mean it isn't broken. Mola glues teams and cores together, providing the ultimate support. It can soak up physical hits while at the same time putting pressure on the opponent by means of Toxic. I believe that this fish should be banned.

TLDR: Shame on you, this wasn't that long.

 

[Bananaist]

Alright, I'm trying to get back into RU after a long hiatus so I hope I don't get anything wrong here. To truly understand what makes alomomola so dangerous I took a quick look at usage stats for alomomola's checks and found jolteon, virizion, magneton, venusaur, in places 2, 16, 15 and 7, respectively. Now I don't want to rely on statistics too much for this argument but simply put, how are people having trouble with this fat blob? If we take a general synopsis of alomomola it's a fat pink fish that tanks everything you throw at it in exchange for statusing the attacker. It also provides a great role of support with Wish and Protect allowing it to be very annoying. I've seen a few people saying that defeating alomomola is easy. There are CLEARLY things to defeat it but I think that is looking at things the wrong way. Whatever you send in to defeat alomomola is also going to have to match up well against another mon. Alomomola holds teams together with ease WHILE managing to preserve itself and cripple opposing attackers. If you take alomomola out of the equation, the longevity of teams that are centered around is greatly shortened, which can be perceived as good or bad. Honestly I don't like alomomola but it depends on who you are. It's much easier to say,"Let me just click Protect and then Wish so that I can see what the opponent will do" because that is a more defensive standpoint making the short-term battle of risk/reward a safer bet. But if I'm the guy who has to say,"Let me switch my venusaur into this thing because it beats it" I know in the back of my mind that you're going to switch into something else or click scald for the burn because you know you can live anything that I dish out. It becomes a matter of offensive playing which generally involves lots of prediction at a good reward or scoping out my opponent and seeing what he does. Alomomola eases into the role of a defensive player with its incredible health and decent defense. Now that being said, I can see a lot of good counterarguments. "It's set-up bait! It's taunt bait! It's way too passive!" But I think the key thing to note is that alomomola is NOT necessarily something that fights alone; it is all about playing long battles while sustaining its comrades. I guess it really comes down to whether you're against defensive play styles and alomomola playing that specific role or if you find it to be the best glue in all of RU. I personally am not going to take sides as I'm willing to adapt to whatever happens.

 

[Complicating]

"Doctor, please... Tell me what the problem is. I can handle it."
"Sir, I'm sorry to break the news to you. There's nothing we can do. Your fish has cancer."

I'm very happy to see our friend Cancerfish (Alomomola) get a suspect test. I agree with several of the above posts, especially EonX's take of Alomomola. I have a lot of trouble building teams in RU atm simply because I know how Alomomola functions. By itself, Alomomola is almost the opposite of a problem/threat; however, when you couple Alomomola with other pokemon... Well, let's just say it ain't exactly gumdrops and ice cream. I've seen it happen time and time again. We've all been through that moment when the preparations for a sweep are finally realized. That moment when you feel victory in the battle because you did everything you were supposed to in order for you to savor the sweep on your opponent. But then you realize, "Oh f****** Christ... Mega Luvdisc..." You watch it come into play and you see its unholy, fat wishes bring everything back from the grave. That's what Alomomola does to teams. I'm not going to call it unhealthy nor am I going to call it healthy. Once we get to see how this tier is without Alomomola, that is when we can truly call it positive or negative in regards to the RU tier. I don't want to repeat anything other people have said either because I agree with a lot of points that were brought up.

As such, I honestly want to speculate what the tier could be like without Alomomola. So imagine that you're playing in the RU tier and Alomomola is nonexistent. Big offensive threats in the tier: Virizion, Venusaur, Fletchinder, Magneton, Emboar, etc. (to name a few).
Common hazard removal: Blastoise, Hitmonlee, Flygon, and maybe Hitmontop.
Hazard setters: Druddigon, Seismitoad, Registell, Qwilfish, Mega Cam, etc. (to name a few that first come to my mind)
Other things you could put on a generic list*
I think that there are two or three pokemon who could pass wishes to the team. Flygon, Aromatisse, and Registeel look great together. Slowking could partner up with Venusaur if I wanted to make a really bulky team or even stall. What if we used Meloetta as a cleric with access to u-turn? I highly like how Mega Glalie looks next to Jolteon or Venusaur. I haven't used Houndoom in a while. Maybe I could build a team around a nasty plot sweeper? My team can handle bulky offense thanks to Virizion threatening both Blastoise and Magneton. And so on and so forth.

I'm not really going to try and go too much into it because that would be bland after a paragraph. So if anyone wants to discuss and speculate those points and whatnot, that'd be fun.

tldr: Alomomola finally gets a suspect test. It kind of sucks on its own. When Alomomola is partnered with other pokemon, you can understand why it is such a solid pokemon that strains team building to an extent. It'd be a great idea to talk about what the tier would be like if Alomomola didn't exist so we can more accurately say whether or not Alomomola is good or bad for the current RU Meta. Discuss.

tldr2: Was this post really that long that you couldn't read it all?

 

[aim]

Hey, i know this isn't supposed to go here but i will be camping and without computer access til probably the 6th, so i wanted to post my reqs here. if an ru mod or anyone can post them in the actual thread that'd be great and obviously i plan to ladder when the other ladder goes up.

Pic

edit: its been a while since ive done a suspect test so forgive me i dont even know if i need to post this since the ladder will have the results D:! anyway i dont find alo ban worthy. it's an amazing pokemon. eats up every hit and passes fat wishes, but it alone isn't all that great. the partners that alo passes to make it a threat as alo can be worn down by toxic or beaten by offense/balances venu/viri/mag etc. half the games i found myself doubling dugtrio into a status'd alomomola (as they would switch out into diancie to healbell) and pick up my kill with eq or 2hko, getting rid of heal bell and making alo less of a threat and extremely manageable. i honestly think the issue is duggy lol. forcing my magneton to spam flash cannon etc but yeah alo alone i don't think is ban worthy and i'd look into testing other mons in the tier such as dug :J

 

[atomicllamas]

Okay time for current ladder is over (although you can play it until it updates!)

tagging The Immortal for RU suspect ladder which should be the current meta game without Alomomola.

Deadline for RU suspect ladder is Wednesday September 14th at midnight and you need 2800 coil with 62 or fewer games played, good luck to those participating.

use luvdisc instead of alomomola, its cuter

 

[The Immortal]

Ladder up!

 

[Take Azelfie]

BTW we got Quagsire which could be cool versus Magneton if you run enough SpD but I'm too lazy to do calcs. For how it's going to impact the meta... I really don't see much but it will be cool for reusing certain stall breakers like Sub BU Bradbury and CM Meloetta. I'll be interested in seeing how either PIF or Dugtrio / Microwave Ovens use Quagsire in there build (mentioning them since they are always using stall and I can't think of any other stall heavy players atm) Also quite coincidental that we get another bulky water almost right after the mola-less ladder goes up so yh, cool drop but definitely won't be amazing.

Would talk about Mola but aim pretty much hit the arrow on the bullseye except I'd like to add on how the metagame is so well adapted against it (but not forcing niche sets to be run) and can be easily lured with Toxic + anything that doesn't already beat it.

 

[Bouff]

this thread is pretty dry, so i guess now's the best time to post.

despite my alt name for the current ladder ive been less inclined towards molas ban now than i have been at the beginning of this suspect, but after some thinking im putting my vote in the ban zone. im not going to go too deep into this but imo the amount of support it brings on defensive teams, although it can pretty much fit on every team, makes it too much for me. unlike a lot of other defensive mons that can fit easily onto most teams mola doesnt cause you to be drained of all your momentum since regen makes it non reliant on wish to keep itself healthy, and there are so many mons that cover the weaknesses that mola has there arent /that/ many answers in the tier that can reliably deal with said cores (not that they are subpar by any means, but they have pretty substantial weaknesses of their own, although i think lo medicham is a bitch for 80% of balance teams unless u carry uxie or granbull which in some cases calls for awk teambuilding, at least to an extent). not to mention that while it obviously cant hit for shit, it has the tools to get by its counters since it has access to scald and knock off meaning that its not overly difficult for mola to take advantage of mons that would punish it otherwise. i dont consider fishing for burns a reliable way to deal with set up sweepers though and if ur using mola u should probably have better ways of dealing with them. alomomola doesnt give players an autopilot mode where u can just fall back and deal with everything mindlessly like some people believe, because mola teams can be very exploitable as mentioned earlier but pinkfish can cripple its answers without much effort while offering a nearly overwhelming amount of support to whatever team its placed on especially since the tier is like tailored to its needs lol

i honestly dont have much to say on the whole duggy thing, mainly because mraldo went into pretty good detail into it already in the previous thread, but yea it does play into molas grip on the tier since there are a good amount of mons that can poop on mola that are duggy bait. sub bu braviary is not one of them though x_x

sorry if my wording is a little weird, my thoughts are jumbled as per usual

 

[dodmen]

I have to agree that Dugtrio is the main problem, rather than Alomomola.

Alomomola is an amazing Pokemon that gives the tier great support with its Wishes and the amount of Pokemon it can check. No other bulky water (or any Pokemon in general) can really give defensive teams the switchin they need to stuff like Sneasel, Mega Glalie, and CB Emboar (and other attackers that can crush defensive teams without Alomomola); Slowking's secondary typing makes it outright lose to some of these threats like Sneasel and makes it reluctant to come in against others like Flygon and Rhyperior; Blastoise (and Seismitoad and Qwilfish) are too easily worn down especially after losing its Leftovers to Sneasel, Drapion, or Escavalier; Jellicent's issues are similar to Slowking and its bulk can't even be relied on to eat hits from a lot of physical attackers anyway. Outside of Alomomola, Wish support (a very good & almost necessary component of defensive/stall teams) can only be found in Audino and Aromatisse, and while both are decent options, have a lot more flaws and don't do the job nearly as well. In this regard, I believe Mola provides a healthy aspect to the tier.

I would also say plenty of ways to beat typical mola balance without being weak to offensive teams without mola, as all it takes it the combination of two or maybe three Pokemon to really apply a ton of pressure to mola defensive cores. Some examples I saw and used were SD Escavalier, SD Drapion, Specs Meloetta, CB Sawk, Spikes Glalie and also bulkier stuff like Curse + Toxic Registeel (I'm not exact sure why Sleep Talk is more commonly run by Curse Registeel to be honest), CM Xatu, and even Jellicent can put some pressure on mola balances with a little bit of support. All of these Pokemon are not essentially useless against offense (like the Sub PUP Kangaskhan ryan mentioned earlier), as they can still be used to check other threats and/or come in and get big hits off due to their bulk/typing/ability.

Dugtrio closes off even more opportunities for offense to break mola and its partners. Virizion, Magneton, SD Drapion, Emboar, Mega Camerupt are limited to at most one kill,provided the Dugtrio user doesn't have something like U-turn Uxie/Flygon or BP Togetic to straight up prevent these Pokemon from doing any damage at all. Even some of the Pokemon I listed earlier (Sawk, Meloetta, and Qwilfish) have to stay near full to not be revenged. Trapping defensive Pokemon like Diancie Qwilfish and Registeel, while more difficult, also throws the game heavily in the Dugtrio user's failure. In this regard, Dugtrio takes way more skill out of the game/presents way more teambuilding & matchup problems than Alomomola (both arguments made itt on the pro-ban side).

In short: Alomomola, though the best support Pokemon the tier has to offer, brings a good number of healthy elements to the tier (namely checking various offensive threats and providing difficult-to-find-elsewhere support to its teammates), but doesn't make its teams unbreakable. If anything Dugtrio is the one that constrains offense from being able to successfully break through mola teams.

 

[DTC]

If anything Dugtrio is the one that constrains offense from being able to successfully break through mola teams.

I would argue Dugtrio is more of a Pokemon that helps enable offense to break through Alomomola teams, because with Dugtrio, you can take out important members of an Alomomola team like Registeel, Diancie, or Mega Camerupt (D01 has been showing just how potent Mola + Mega Camel can be). Killing a member of a defensive team is generally more of an advantage for an offensive team than a defensive team killing a member of an offensive team. Defensive teams tend to rely on a defensive core to deal with potent wallbreakers like CB Sawk, Specs Meloetta, Life Orb Medicham, Sigilyph, etc., and once that core is breached, it suddenly becomes much harder to deal with these terrifying threats, especially when you consider the fact that defensive teams tend to have 1 or 2 primary wincons, whereas offense teams tend to have multiple ways of being able to win.

That said, of course there are a couple of offensive Pokemon that can break past Alomomola that are beaten by Dugtrio, e.g Virizion and Magneton as you listed. There are other Pokemon that can get past Alomomola that aren't trapped by Dugtrio, though. Also you say some Pokemon have to stay "near full" to not get revenged, but that's not exactly true when you consider how weak Dugtrio is; to illustrate this, take Meloetta which you provided as an example, who takes 65% max from Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake (CB 75%), which is pretty far from "near full".

Anyways I don't want to nitpick you too much. I agree with most of your points about Alomomola. I also agree that the relationship between Alomomola and Dugtrio should be evaluated, but I don't agree with the statement that Dugtrio is the factor that is constraining offense. I think there are a few factors that constrain offense, although I won't go indepth in this post about that.


Alomomola + Dugtrio teams, while strong, have some inherent flaws in that it's hard to fit a reliable hazard remover (Blastoise / Flygon have overlapping synergy with Alomomola), and it's also harder to fit a reliable Pursuit Pokemon, leaving you more vulnerable to big threats such as Sigilyph. Dugtrio also overlaps with many common Stealth Rock Pokemon, making Registeel one of the only Stealth Rock Pokemon that fits particularly well with this combination, which in turn makes it a lot harder to use the superior Curse + Toxic Registeel set that is more proactive and better vs threats such as Flame Orb Sigilyph and Leech/Knock Off Venusaur. 49's team, while extremely solid, demonstrates some of the inherent flaws in these kind of teams.

As for my opinion about Alomomola itself, every Alomomola build has some key issue I feel. Alomomola's support is definitely extremely potent, but it has a lot of issues with some key Pokemon such as Venusaur, Jolteon, Sigilyph, Hoopa, Xatu, very powerful Fighting-types, etc. and as a result of its passivity, it is easy to play around through methods such as status (and not so easy to just throw on a Heal Bell Pokemon - Diancie is less durable than Registeel, vulnerable to trapping, is a Fairy-type that can't beat Fighting-types, while Granbull is incredibly reliant on Wish support and is inflexible). While there are ways to patch up these flaws Alomomola. I agree that you can't just use 1 Pokemon to beat Alomomola, and in some ways offense, especially hyper offense is limited by Alomomola, but there are many good Pokemon that can pressure Alomomola while being useful in general in the metagame. It's also worth keeping in mind that many anti-offense Pokemon (Choice Scarf Medicham, Scarf Hitmonlee, Sneasel, Scarf Emboar, among others) are kept down by Alomomola's presence, which indirectly helps out offense teams.

 

[MrAldo]

I think the issue with the Alomomola and Dugtrio relationship goes way beyond just the matchup. They doesnt even have to be on the same team for you to the feel the constraining effect, both being on the same team just make the issue worse (and the headaches worse :V)

I have always said that the main issue is Dugtrio since, while Alomomola support options are absolutely incredible it is definitely a good asset for the tier to have and the tier itself has the Pokemon to properly prepare for it. But when you take into account Dugtrio, the good amount of assets is reduced to such a handful you are basically kind of screwed from the start.

IIRC Blarajan mentioned a phrase regarding Diglett, Pokemon that went through a couple of suspect tests on the LC tier, that was like "Diglett is a Pokemon that already did its job on the teambuilding phase, disregarding the use of certain Pokemon by just existing" and this directly applies to Dugtrio even though the metagames are completely different in how they work. Why? Because they basically function the same way, trapping things usual stuff. The key word here is "disregarding"

When you go build a team for the ORAS RU tier you go to the teambuilder, make a new team, press RU on the format tier and proceed to pick up your favorite Pokemon or Pokemon you want to buid with/use. Now, how does the Dugtrio issue enters here? Easy, when you take into account that your breaker will get trapped and removed from the game, limiting it just to one kill, everytime you see a dugtrio then it is honestly not worth it and you go pick up something else. Now, that would depend on how common "X" partner is and... Dugtrio is sadly really common, averaging 10% in usage. Dugtrio disregards the usage of many mons that ironically could take advantage of Mola, and in general that could handle defensive cores and thats why imo, Mola + Partners it is perceived as "too tough to crack"

And thats just the Pokemon that get removed just from team preview, Dugtrio has the ability to potential remove breakers that arent necessarily weak to it (Think stuff like Sawk, Meloetta, Medicham) and remove them at any given time if they weakened enough. And it can even remove 2 prominent defensive Pokemon too on Diancie and Registeel with proper play (assuming support sets) which are the most common (not assuming they will always run these, but it is to take into consideration. "But you preserve the health of your breakers" Well yeah, but on a Pokemon match it is certainly possible to weaken these breakers through hazards or just through intelligent play. Assuming both are competent players, if one has a team with Dugtrio and you have something like Sawk and Meloetta, Sawk would just need to get its sturdy broke, meloetta to switch a couple of times on Stealth Rock. Or just be put in range for a Pokemon that appreciates Dugtrio support and make it much more of a pain than it should be, think how it can trap weaken Meloetta or stuff like Sigilyph and how it remove most common bird checks, Weaken Registeel for Calm mind Melo in the back, etc, etc. Is just an incredible constraining presence that keeps getting more and more effective, Im yet to see a game where a Dugtrio doesnt trap something successfully either through pursuit, coverage moves or just pressing earthquake.

Ofc Dugtrio has its positives since it allow for a good amount of creative combinations that wouldnt be possible without it. Sub Calm Mind Uxie and stuff like that, lol. But in the end I think the negative influence in the tier heavily outweights the positives it could have. Im 100% convinced that Mola would be 100% more easy to prepare for if we dont take into account Dugtrio but alas we have to, and that really sets back offense or balance which doesnt have the luxury of using too many breakers (in which in any case will be overpreparation) so yeah. Dugtrio is busted.

The reasoning behind Alomomola have been explained really well by many people so I dont feel to just copy paste other individual thoughts but Dugtrio does play a big rank on why Alomomola is heavily perceived as an issue. Mola isnt guilty, Dugtrio is.

Cheers!

 

[FlamingVictini]

I really like that both sides of the duggy aspect are being considered, acknowledging that it both helps beat mola teams by eliminating mons that can be supported by mola (like registeel), while also helping mola teams defeat certain threats to the general archetype (e.g. drapion, virizion, magneton, etc.). It's one of the reasons why I feel duggy should have be suspected before mola, even if people end up concluding that mola is the problem and not duggy (or that both mons are the problem). I know that this thread isn't for discussing other suspect mons but I feel like dugtrio really should be thought about considering how closely it interacts with alomomola, and thus i'll ignore the fact that dugtrio is still a very strong presence against and with non-mola teams as well when presenting my arguments.

While dug both supports mola teams and can also break mola teams, i personally feel like duggy helps mola teams more than it hinders them. Because I feel this way, and also because in my experience I generally have not struggled with regimola (especially if they lack dugtrio), I believe Mola isn't a root problem of the metagame and it shouldn't be banned (atm) and dugtrio should be suspected instead (I would be perfectly open to banning mola if its still a big problem after a theoretical dug ban; while there are obviously some regimola teams that do not use dugtrio and are very good (e.g., Tsunami's regimola team with flygon) I don't believe these teams are as unhealthy as mola dugtrio teams). The reason I feel mola shouldn't be banned right now is because I feel it may have a healthy benefit on the tier (this is something I plan to test myself much more on the suspect ladder, but dodmen certainly had some strong support for his argument).

One team that I feel very strongly displays why dug should be banned before mola is one I built somewhat recently that makes use of the following mons: subcm aurorus / wfall toxic mola / cb suit dug / knock off 16+ sdef defensive venu / physdef hbell defog togetic / shed shell toxic rest regi. For reference, it was used by both aim in a ps live and was also used by me in my own ps live as well as a game for botw vs MrAldo (at the time I hadn't changed alomomola to waterfall > scald). Having used this team for many games now, I feel very confidently that dugtrio is much more essential to the team's success than mola. The amount of counterplay I have to deal with certain threats that weren't even necessarily meant to be dealt by duggy is insane, and it makes it so that I can play this team and win many games even if I am allowing myself to be predicted. While mola is obviously pretty nice and useful, dugtrio makes both mola and the team in general significantly harder to deal with. Nearly every notable threat to this team is in some way heavily limited because of dugtrio (even stuff like lo cham), and by simply not being dumb with dugtrio, I can turn the game into "send out the counter, whether its mola or not" by eliminating whatever the opponent has to deal with me, while not giving them much room for counterplay. I can't remember a single loss with this team and ik aim didn't lose in his live either, and I can guarantee that the team would take much more skill to play without dugtrio (and would just be less solid in general). Furthermore, alomomola isn't necessarily essential since I can choose a different bulky water to beat pretty much everything I'm using mola to beat, and I won't miss the wishpassing support since most of the team is extremely self-sufficient. I've asked several good RU players (including atomicllamas) to try to break the team on paper but they all have struggled (I myself can't come up with much that can consistently beat my team), and I feel like this is because my team utilizes something which is broken and unhealthy (aka dugtrio).

This is just an example, and i'm sure many other people can bring up examples of how dugtrio simplifies the game for the user and removes skill to a certain extent (i'm sure aldo has plenty of anecdotes both involving and discluding mola). I don't think its a very smart move to ban a mon (mola) who's presence is bolstered by another unhealthy mon (dugtrio) and is also potentially healthy for the tier (mola), which is why i'm trying to establish the argument that there is a strong reason to ban dugtrio before mola.

I plan to test the ideas i've brought up in this post by reusing the team i just indicated, but with a different bulky water that has recovery in place of mola (still not sure what I want to use yet), and see how well the team performs. As i've already discussed, however, I feel like the team would still function very well since I found that I was rarely reliant on alomomola, but I certainly rely on dugtrio to help out with a bunch of specific threats. I also plan to further tests dodmen's ideas that mola is actually healthy for the tier by testing a team where mola is objectively the most useful bulky water to go with the team, and instead trying a different one to see if I can still hold up to the same threats (and/or I can also just use a team that is shat on by mola and see how it goes). Obviously there are a lot of dynamics to this depending on the other members of the team so I may do this with several squads and see how it goes. If I have time i'll also probably try replacing teams that have a different bulky water with mola to see how much it overshadows other bulky waters, although i do think nearly every other bulky water like slowking, blastoise, or jellicent has a significantly different use than mola), just to see how centralizing and objectively better mola really is).

tldr: dugtrio is inherently unhealthy and is suspect/ban worthy even if mola is banned, whereas mola is potentially healthy and also will be easier to deal with if dugtrio is banned (and thus won't be around to support it). Therefore, mola should not be banned and dugtrio should be suspected immediately afterwards.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

Urf... Well, this is interesting.

When it's an offensive threat being suspected, I can get a clear idea on how I should vote (usually ban) simply by asking, "is it too powerful for RU?" But when a defensive threat is on trial, I have a lot more to consider. Can Mola wall most of the tier? Maybe, but it still has checks like Venusaur and Virizion that are prominent in the metagame. Is it passive? Aside from Scald burns and Knock Off in some cases, yes. Does it provide an unhealthy amount of support to the rest of its team? Perhaps a Wish coming off base 165 HP is "unhealthy", but that's all it provides. Is it easy to fit on a team? Yes, Alomomola is good on every team that isn't HO (fuck you and your shitty gimmicks, ManOfMany). And finally, the most important factor, "Does it overcentralize the RU metagame?" With balance teams becoming prominent in the meta, it's easy to assume it does. However, balance isn't the only viable playstyle. Stall, while not doing so hot since OU stole Tangrowth and Amoonguss, is still quite a useful option. Offensive teams have actually gotten better despite Mola's presence, Dugtrio being a good example of a strong Pokemon on both offense and balance. So no, I don't think Mola warrants a ban.

Should probably censor that title btw.