np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[IcyMan28]

Lanturn also comes to mind as I'm pretty sure he won't be taking too much from grass knot. Good special bulk, immunity to thunder, and a resistance to hurricane should allow him to switch in and accomplish something. He does have the whole issue of having no reliable recovery though.

I have no clue what Lanturn would be running this gen, but for it to not be complete deadweight against other teams I'd assume it has to run the Sub / Charge Beam / Hydro Pump / Ice Beam set, in which case 52 HP / 248 SpA / 208 Speed lets it make 101 subs while outrunning min speed Adamant Tyranitar.

If this is the spread we are using, then Tornadus is hitting it for 44%-52%, which is a 75% chance to 2HKO with Lefties + Hazards. A more defensive Lanturn could work, but I don't imagine that being to viable outside of this purpose.

 

[Benlisted]

If this is the spread we are using, then Tornadus is hitting it for 44%-52%, which is a 75% chance to 2HKO with Lefties + Hazards. A more defensive Lanturn could work, but I don't imagine that being to viable outside of this purpose.

Raikou takes pretty much exactly the same from Specs Tornados Gale, with no defensive investment - and outspeeds the genies. He may have no recovery but the only thing Rain teams typically run that can wall him is Ferrothorn, so he may be worth a shot. FML @ that Rash natured Aura Sphere event Raikou - if he got a +Spe nature he'd be sorted for beating Natt with a CM set.

 

[IcyMan28]

It could work, I guess, but all counters need to keep in mind the confusion and paralysis chance these moves carry. Ferrothorn will be walling Raikou with ease, too, setting up Spikes or Leech Seed.

Hopefully the DW versions of these pokemon come with their recent event moves.

 

[Benlisted]

It could work, I guess, but all counters need to keep in mind the confusion and paralysis chance these moves carry. Ferrothorn will be walling Raikou with ease, too, setting up Spikes or Leech Seed.

Hopefully the DW versions of these pokemon come with their recent event moves.

Aye indeed. The main reason I put him forward is that he can Rest up and be Heal Belled to continue walling the genies if you need him to be, as well as rid himself of status (since he's a tad short on viable moves anyway), but obviously doing so is hard against rain offence. Another possibility is Roar on a reasonably fast defensive set to rack up hazard damage if you have enough hazard support to do so, as the genies will not like SR and Ferro doesn't appreciate Spikes.

I also hesitate to mention it, but if you for whatever reason drastically need a Drizzle counter/Natt lure, HP Fire Sunny Day Raikou is a very gimmicky possibility. It halves the accuracy of the genies STAB moves, Raikou itself isn't something Toed wants to be switching into, and lets you destroy Nattorei. HP Ice gets far better coverage however, which is the main downside.

EDIT: After calcs the latter may not be too viable - Timid HP Fire with Lefties cannot OHKO Nattorei even in Sun without SR+1 Spikes.

 

[shrang]

Eh, why are we trying to theorymon up a counter to two fairly different Pokemon? Just run two counters/checks if you can't do both at the same time, seriously.

Onto the Latios debate, while I do think people are slightly overhyping it, I do think it is a bit more than we can chew. SpD Tyranitar doesn't exactly check it that well o_0. Specs Surf 3HKOs it after SR damage. You'd either Crunch it for the kill and let it escape, which means it'll 2HKO you next time, or go for Pursuit and risk him staying in and 3HKOing you.

Apart from that, I've been playing around with Salamence these days and he is still a complete monster. Right now, I'm using the Mixed Dancer set with DM/Outrage/Fire Blast/DD, and most of the time, I don't even have to Dragon Dance up. It can pretty much do whatever you like, really. You can take Roobushin easily with Mence, break walls open early-mid game and sweep late game with Dragon Dance.

 

[Ace Emerald]

Apart from that, I've been playing around with Salamence these days and he is still a complete monster. Right now, I'm using the Mixed Dancer set with DM/Outrage/Fire Blast/DD, and most of the time, I don't even have to Dragon Dance up. It can pretty much do whatever you like, really. You can take Roobushin easily with Mence, break walls open early-mid game and sweep late game with Dragon Dance.

Not really surprising at all. Salamence may be 'slow' by this metagame's standards, but it hasn't gotten worse from last gen. Still has enormous attack and decent sp attack, it still can switch in with good resists and intimidate, and it still is a bitch to switch into it. Is DD helping your set much? You could just make it a standard mix mence.

 

[BurningMan]

^You only really need EQ for Heatran, but he isn't as common as last Gen and almost always holds a Balloon so EQ isn't that useful. Roost could be an option, but you increase your sweeping chances with DD alot and it also helps to punch holes in the opponents team.

 

[Night Breeder]

Anyone expecting a sweep with Mence should carry a sun counter, Mainly due to Cresselia and moonlight heal boost in sunlight.

 

[masterful]

Anyone expecting a sweep with Mence should carry a sun counter, Mainly due to Cresselia and moonlight heal boost in sunlight.

Ninetales can't switch into pretty much any move mence would be using, and Cresselia is essentially nonexistent in standard Gen V play

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Cress shows up more often than you think, esp. on Sun teams. So far Ive tried DDMEnce and SpecsMencs with a LO and found that all special LO set to be surprisingly powerful. Then I realized Moxie is Dream World exclusive and put on Outrage iinstead. Still worked well.

 

[SJCrew]

Not really surprising at all. Salamence may be 'slow' by this metagame's standards, but it hasn't gotten worse from last gen. Still has enormous attack and decent sp attack, it still can switch in with good resists and intimidate, and it still is a bitch to switch into it. Is DD helping your set much? You could just make it a standard mix mence.

I've used MixDancing Mence before and yes, DD is incredibly useful, for obvious reasons: wreck switch-ins with Draco Meteor and DD lategame, or DD whenever you feel it's safe, and use the speed boost to toss of Draco Meteors and ruin Blissey's day with Outrage.

MixMence has no hope of beating its faster checks unless on the switch, but MixDancer is harder to revenge. This is Salamence 101, basically.

 

[AccidentalGreed]

Salamence isn't so common a threat in my experience, but according to the previous posts, he seems like a good wallbreaker/sweeper in the metagame. Is he that common/damgerous to you guys? With the other apparent "suspects" out in the open, I don't think Salamence is going to have a popular demand at nominations. For DD sets in general, I would rather go Mixed DD than pure DD because of Multi Scale Dragonite's avaiability (I see advantages in Salamence, though!).

As far as suspects go, I'm between the boundary between "no suspects", and "Ban Latios", but I'm mostly a "No suspects" guy. I've been using my own team at a great pace ever since Aldaron's proposal has been passed. I'm moreorless concerned for Latios.

 

[capefeather]

Man, screw this game. Today just hasn't been my day.

Me, too :(

Teams used: Mainly the team I used the first time, y'know, with Landorus and Reuniclus.

Record with said team: 3-1

High-profile enemies: At least one of just about everything except the sand "suspects". Actually, I haven't really seen much Excadrill/Landorus at all. 1-1 against Thundurus, 0-3 against Latios, and 1-2 against Politoed, though :(

Comments:
Yeah, very bad day. It seems that my sand team becomes bad when I use my Landorus/Reuniclus team. I lost both battles with my sand team. (BTW, if you're in want of a bulky SR user in the vein of Swampert, bulky Garchomp seems to do the trick. It can survive a Choice Band Terrakion Close Combat! Beastly.) The three wins mentioned above are quite seriously the only wins I got, other than one; the five other battles were losses. The one win had to do with some guy not being able to handle a stall Dragonite :) But someone else froze said Dragonite despite paralysis turn skipping being more likely :(

Ran into my first rain genie combo, too. I'd just heard about it on IRC, so I was pretty terrified, but fortunately they did a bit less damage than they could have done (there was a crit involved; I'll admit it).

I don't know, I think I just need to improve the other teams that I have, but I can't really think of anything. My sun team is a failure, my rain team is a failure, and the team with Dragonite is a failure. I'm starting to think that maybe using a Chlorophyll user like Venusaur isn't even worth it, and perhaps I should have replace Manaphy with something else, like one of the genies. And I have no idea of what to do with the Dragonite team.

 

[shrang]

Not really surprising at all. Salamence may be 'slow' by this metagame's standards, but it hasn't gotten worse from last gen. Still has enormous attack and decent sp attack, it still can switch in with good resists and intimidate, and it still is a bitch to switch into it. Is DD helping your set much? You could just make it a standard mix mence.

I actually haven't used Dragon Dance all that much, since Draco Meteor pretty much kills everything anyway =D. But yeah, the times Dragon Dance has been used, it hasn't disappointed me.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Actually, can we pronounce Dragonite a bigger threat than Salamence yet? (because it's certainly more popular . . .)

 

[STEELDRAGON]

Sun is almost became the new Drizzle from my experience, Unless you have a weather changer, it is incredibly difficult to beat. Venusaur, Specs Charizard, Growth Tangrowth, Exeguttor, Heatran, and the list goes on.

Among individual threats, Psycho Shock Reuniclus, the Rain Genies, Latios, Wobbuffet are the big ones. I don't find Landorus or Exadril, nearly as threatening as I used to. Volcarona/Ulgamoth has been a little bit a of problem two.

 

[KurashiDragon]

@Chou Toshio

While I'd just luv to do that the real reason why Salamence isnt being used very much is because it's being overshadowed by latios. It's also overshadowing Latias and Hydreigon and many other Special Sweepers and mixed sweepers. I think that once it goes we'll be seeing a large rise in alot of things including Salamence.

 

[Ace Emerald]

None of those can go mixed as well as mence. Dragonite is the only other one who can do a mixed set, but to rival mence it has to be rain so nite has thunder and hurricane to make up for 10 base points less sp attack. I think as a pure physical sweeper, dragonite outclasses mence, but that higher sp attack (and life orb, as nite must capitalize on bulk to be better than mence) make mence a better mixed poke.

 

[ensoriki]

Actually, can we pronounce Dragonite a bigger threat than Salamence yet? (because it's certainly more popular . . .)

Well its more dominant, so yeah in terms of relevancy it's a bigger threat.
The two dragons still butt heads with each other hard despite playing different.

 

[masterful]

None of those can go mixed as well as mence. Dragonite is the only other one who can do a mixed set, but to rival mence it has to be rain so nite has thunder and hurricane to make up for 10 base points less sp attack. I think as a pure physical sweeper, dragonite outclasses mence, but that higher sp attack (and life orb, as nite must capitalize on bulk to be better than mence) make mence a better mixed poke.

I don't understand how you can say D-nite is the better sweeper in NY situation. Salamence literally has better EVERYTHING offensively, and only barely worse defenses (BARELY). Dragonite is a mean threat on stall teams, is a bitch in rain, and can run an incredibly irritating T-wave/Dragon Tail set with multi-scale, but he can NOT be a better sweeper than mence can

 

[Athenodoros]

He could be a better bulky boosting sweeper because of Multi-scale. Nite is hella-bulky with Multi-scale, and can do wonders with a DD/Roost set.

 

[KurashiDragon]

@King Emerald

I wasn't speaking in just the mixed sets. Latios playing the game is actually limiting alot of Special Sweepers. Latias, Hydreigon to just name 2. I think Latios also has more power that warrents it's use over Salamence. If Latios does go there will probably be a lare rise in those 3 and others.

 

[masterful]

He could be a better bulky boosting sweeper because of Multi-scale. Nite is hella-bulky with Multi-scale, and can do wonders with a DD/Roost set.

Yeah but then he has to run lefties, which kinda hampers its effectiveness, and in this meta where absolute power is so important, a +1 lefties D-nite isn't nearly as scary as it might have been before, and it definitely won't be breaking through Nat anytime soon

 

[UnhandledException]

it definitely won't be breaking through Nat anytime soon

???


Fire Blast/Fire Punch say hi.

 

[Athenodoros]

I generally see people running Fire Punch, and the reason that it is effective is that it tends to get to more than +1. Then, even with Lefties it is still doing very solid damage and with a Roost faster than most things you are likely to carry you can struggle a lot so long as it keeps itself at >50%.