Politoed

[Murkglow]

If Sun and Rain goes Uber then so does Sand so I'm cool with that. Which means Hail defaults to the best weather in OU lol.

Anyway, I like the Encore defensive sets. You don't want to lose your Poli and otherwise it's not something you want to try and leave in to fight anyway with how important his ability is going to be for his teams.

 

[Wafflez]

Well the thing people are overlooking is the potential of permanent rain...Normally you beat rain by stalling out the 8 turns which isn't all too hard but with permanent rain thats completely out of the question...Politoad dsnt need to hit hard or take a hit too well itself as long as it's bringing up the rain which is enough....I mean a standard RD team has like what? 3 Rain inducers and now you can just go with 1 reasonably bulky politoad to get rain up basicly throughout the entire match.And you dont even have to waste a turn to do it...

 

[deluge]

Cloud-Nine Altaria seems to have been created as an anti-weather Pokemon.
With decent defenses, Roost as an Egg move and resistances to some of the common weather sweeping moves (4x grass, 2x water, 2x fire) it may turn into an important response to some sweper sets.

 

[iruchii]

Cloud-Nine Altaria seems to have been created as an anti-weather Pokemon.
With decent defenses, Roost as an Egg move and resistances to some of the common weather sweeping moves (4x grass, 2x water, 2x fire) it may turn into an important response to some sweper sets.

Altaria will work against Sun teams, but against Rain and Sandstorm it will be dealt with Ice and Rock moves respectively.

I'd actually use Golduck if I wanted to stop Rain. Or Erufuun with its priority Stun Spore, Encore and Sunny Day.

 

[Benlisted]

Noob lyf3 pretty much summarised my feelings. People really seem to be underestimating unlimited rain and sun. In many cases against rain, the primary tactic was to weather the first 8 turns (or stop it entirely) then spring back as the new weather inducer prepared to set up the next 8 turns. Drizzletoad eliminates this tactic entirely. Extra moveslots and itemslots will also boost rain drastically.

In terms of countering rain, Having a TTar or Abomasnow come in after sacking something will really take the wind out of its sails, as Poli will have to come in again to setup rain. Cloud Nine pokes never have been that effective at stopping weather users, but Golduck is the best due to encore. Erufuun's status or pseudostatus moves are apparently not priority, but encore will still shut down resisted attacks at the cost of taking a big hit.

 

[iruchii]

Erufuun's status or pseudostatus moves are apparently not priority

Yes they are. I've been testing that myself.

 

[Murkglow]

Erufuun's status or pseudostatus moves are apparently not priority, but encore will still shut down resisted attacks at the cost of taking a big hit.

It has been confirmed they are priority.

Edit: Lol again iruchii. :D

 

[Benlisted]

Haha yeah I just read that in the Erufuun thread myself :P. Calcs would need to be run, but how well would a max SpDef Erufuun be able to take boosted surfs off something like Kingdra?

 

[iruchii]

It has been confirmed they are priority.

Edit: Lol again iruchii. :D

Our hivemind is strong today, haha.

Haha yeah I just read that in the Erufuun thread myself :P. Calcs would need to be run, but how well would a max SpDef Erufuun be able to take boosted surfs off something like Kingdra?

From a quick calcs I ran, Life Orb Kingdra wouldn't be able to 2HKO a 252/252 HP/Sp. Def Erufuun even with Rain Boosted Life Orb Hydro Pump.

 

[revdjweb]

doesn't defog now remove all weather conditions? if so defog is the new rapid spin.

 

[Random Rider]

doesn't defog now remove all weather conditions? if so defog is the new rapid spin.

I don't think so.

 

[revdjweb]

I don't think so.

My bad. I think it is pretty bogus to ban/uberize a pokemon just because it might make it's teammates too dangerous (swift swim, etc.) rather than on it's own merits.
If that is all it takes why not ban all baton passers? sure there's usually more set up in involved but it is the same principle.

 

[Zoom]

Permanent rain is one of the most game-changing elements in Pokémon and therefore Politoed is going to be used a lot. Actually I could write only about Drizzle in this post rather than Politoed, because the ability is more important than the Pokémon itself. But Politoed isn't horrible either, it could be literally worse.

The effects of rain, just for recollection:
(copy - paste from here: http://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/rain_offense)

• The power of Water-type moves is boosted by 50%.
• The power of Fire-type moves is reduced by 50%.
• The move Thunder has 100% accuracy and can hit through Protect and Detect 30% of the time. Note that this only occurs in Diamond and Pearl versions - Protect always blocks Thunder even in the rain in Pokémon Platinum, Pokémon Battle Revolution, and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.
• The move SolarBeam has a base power of 60.
• The move Weather Ball becomes the Water-type and has a base power of 100.
• The moves Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis heal only 25% of the users full health.
• Pokémon with the ability Dry Skin heal 12.5% of their max HP every turn.
• Pokémon with the Forecast ability change their type to Water.
• Pokémon with the Hydration ability heal themselves of status effects at the end of every turn.
• Pokémon with the Rain Dish ability heal 6.25% of their max HP every turn.
• Pokémon with the Swift Swim ability double their Speed.

Basically all RD Pokémon get a free Agility boost (+2) and a boost to their water STAB in rain (+1). That's insane. Quite a lot RD sweepers can outspeed common scarfers in rain while having atk/spa boosting natures and hit hard with their water STAB. Yeah, the only thing you have to do is switching Politoed once into the battle, it doesn't have to be useful, it just has to stay one turn into battle and after that it can just die / or better switch out.

Everyone who played rain dance teams (tbh rain dance teams are bad they just sweep every team that isn't prepared to rain. It doesn't matter whether the player is bad or good) know the advantages that instant rain has over Rain Dance with Damp Rock.

First of all, you don't have to use three Damp Rock users to set-up rain, but that is marginal. More important is the fact that you don't have only eight turns to abuse rain at a stretch. You can remove the weakness from steels to Fire, make Heatran useless, abuse Thunder, Rain Dish and Hydration. You can waste your turns by having a Pokémon in your team that help to deal with common weaknesses in rain teams and go on. You basically don't have to worry about rain ending.


Now to Politoed:
Politoed is for sure not the best Pokémon stat and move pool wise, but it's stat spread is far from bad and it has some good move options. I think you can give Politoed different roles depending on the style of team you are planning to use Politoed.


RD teams:
This team is focused on abusing rain (usually on the hyper offense) and you need to have constant rain. Therefore your most important member is Politoed who you have to be sure to not die before your opponent's Ninetales/Hippo/Ttar/Abomasnow are dead. It's important to eliminate/trap your opponent's weather changers etc.

A defensive set (Hypnosis / Encore / Boiling Water / filler) seems to be reasonable or an offensive that can kill your most common switch-ins (Specs Politoed (w/ Hydro Pump / Focus Blast / Ice Beam / HP whatever is important)). You really want to play this Pokémon conservative to not lose it early.


Weather control teams:
Controling weather seems to be the main focus on the early B/W metagame especially with instant weather starters to offensive weather (rain, sun) like Ninetales and Politoed probably starting in OU and the fact that you can call sand also an offensive weather now.

Many teams will rely on a specific weather their team is built around. Weather control teams with multiple instant weather changers (Politoed, Ttar and maybe Abomasnow) can easily control the current weather and beating heavy reliant weather teams while also being able to abuse it without being to addicted to a specific weather.

Politoed can be played more risky on such teams and abuse it's not that bad base 90 SpA and boosted water STAB and spam Hyro Pumps or Surfs happily. It can still run a support set that can easily be a little bit offensive oriented.

Btw guys. Caterpie with Drizzle would be still amazing and probably game-breaking. It's about instant rain, not about Politoed.

-0²

 

[revdjweb]

• The power of Water-type moves is boosted by 50%.
• The power of Fire-type moves is reduced by 50%.
• The move Thunder has 100% accuracy and can hit through Protect and Detect 30% of the time. Note that this only occurs in Diamond and Pearl versions - Protect always blocks Thunder even in the rain in Pokémon Platinum, Pokémon Battle Revolution, and Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver.
• The move SolarBeam has a base power of 60.
• The move Weather Ball becomes the Water-type and has a base power of 100.
• The moves Moonlight, Morning Sun, and Synthesis heal only 25% of the users full health.
• Pokémon with the ability Dry Skin heal 12.5% of their max HP every turn.
• Pokémon with the Forecast ability change their type to Water.
• Pokémon with the Hydration ability heal themselves of status effects at the end of every turn.
• Pokémon with the Rain Dish ability heal 6.25% of their max HP every turn.
• Pokémon with the Swift Swim ability double their Speed.

While I agree with 100% of what you said the only part of this list that applies to Politoed himself is that his water attacks will be 50% stronger and fire attack used against him are 50% weaker (like that is ever going to happen, he has to worry about Thunder so much more). I am not arguing that Politoed has to be non-Uber but I am advocating for is some consistent principles applied to all the pokemon who make their teammates that much stronger (I mean is Speed Boost Blaziken with Baton pass going to be Uber?)
I honestly hope that NONE of them wind up Uber. If there are multiple 'broken' combinations then really none of them are broken, they are just the top tier of good combinations and should all be allowed.

 

[Murkglow]

Let's not worry about what will or will not be uber just yet (as that's a question that's quite in the air for the time being) and just focus on what we do know which is stats and moves. 'kay?

 

[Sapphire Birch]

Sandstorm and hail also got buffed so I don't see why drizzletoad should be uber. You guys are overreacting to this. We have FIVE(7 if you include snover and hippopatas) weather bringers. It's not going to be hard to change the weather, specially with tyranitar being as common as he is. and maybe now that hail recieved the buff it got abomasnow will show up more, not to mention ninetales even though sunny day is inferior to rain dance.

 

[Murkglow]

I'm fairly sure it's been confirm the Hail didn't get a boost. Unless you mean something like Regiice getting Icebody.

 

[Bombkirby]

Sandstorm and hail also got buffed so I don't see why drizzletoad should be uber. You guys are overreacting to this. We have FIVE(7 if you include snover and hippopatas) weather bringers. It's not going to be hard to change the weather, specially with tyranitar being as common as he is. and maybe now that hail recieved the buff it got abomasnow will show up more, not to mention ninetales even though sunny day is inferior to rain dance.

Hail got a buff? What kind?

 

[revdjweb]

Sandstorm and hail also got buffed so I don't see why drizzletoad should be uber. You guys are overreacting to this. We have FIVE(7 if you include snover and hippopatas) weather bringers. It's not going to be hard to change the weather, specially with tyranitar being as common as he is. and maybe now that hail recieved the buff it got abomasnow will show up more, not to mention ninetales even though sunny day is inferior to rain dance.

How did Hail get buffed? The stuff about SpD boosts was a hoax. Hail is the one weather condition that got hosed.

 

[Random Rider]

Sandstorm and hail also got buffed so I don't see why drizzletoad should be uber. You guys are overreacting to this. We have FIVE(7 if you include snover and hippopatas) weather bringers. It's not going to be hard to change the weather, specially with tyranitar being as common as he is. and maybe now that hail recieved the buff it got abomasnow will show up more, not to mention ninetales even though sunny day is inferior to rain dance.

I disagree. BTW, there are technically 8 weather inducers, Vulpix can bring the sun too.

 

[CWW]

Pokémon who have Water Absorb/Storm Drain/Dry Skin:

Poliwrath
Lapras
Vaporeon
Politoed
Quagsire
Mantyke
Marakacchi
Burungeru
Lanturn
Suicune
Cacturne
Otamaru
Gamageroge
Gastrodon
Lumineon
Cradily
Parasect
Toxicroak
Jynx

Bolded can either Toxic/Yawn/Roar and shrug off or threaten to KO. That's a pretty sizable list and that doesn't even count Pokémon who resist Water x4 and Shedinja.

 

[EvilMario]

Ninetales is actually quite scary, with the Sun boosting its Fire attacks, and Nasty Plot on hand.

Politoed on the other hand is much less threatening itself, but Swift Swimmers are much more powerful in general than any other weather abusing Pokemon.

I hope all weathers can play in OU this generation.

 

[red12345]

Too bad Cloud Nine doesn't de-activate previous weather like Drizzle!

 

[revdjweb]

Ninetales is actually quite scary, with the Sun boosting its Fire attacks, and Nasty Plot on hand.

Politoed on the other hand is much less threatening itself, but Swift Swimmers are much more powerful in general than any other weather abusing Pokemon.

I hope all weathers can play in OU this generation.

Ninetails: NP, Fireblast, Solar Beam & Hypnosis? Looks good to me.
In the past that's been true about Swift Swim. We'll see what Sand Throw has to say about that.
I didn't mean to sidetrack this thread about tiers, I only invoked them because I want consistency in rulings. I will bring them up no more.

 

[Zoom]

I'm not saying Politoed should be Uber, I just wanted to show the impact rain has, especially instant rain from Politoed.

@revdjweb
That was just a list of what rain changes in the game mechanic / damage formula. The 50% damage reduce of fire attacks doesn't bother to Politoed, but several steel types like Metagross kinda lose their weakness to Fire and Heatran is really bad against a rain team.

Baton Pass and Rain are not really comparable. (Baton Pass is not even good, may be a little bit better with Blaziken being able to hit hard and pass speed boosts. Still meh.). Politoed only has to appear on the battle field, it doesn't have to stay to attack to set-up infinite rain and rain has a way bigger impact on the battle than BP ever could have.

__

@CWW
There are way better Pokémon that can abuse rain that Politoed. Politoed's main job is to set up infinite rain for it's team mates have fun to abuse rain. As example most Pokémon on your list are handled by Ludicolo, who is one of the best rain sweepers and totally abuses rain.

Politoed itself isn't scary, that's true. Infinite rain is.

__

I still predict a metagame with instant and infinite rain and sun (and offensive sand) to be very focused on instant weather changers where weather control is key to success.

-0²