BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

[Vemane]

Great stuff tobes

Anyway Rain Offense in king in this metagame. You got to be real careful what you throw out because it could just become the perfect switch in for Keldeo, Tornadus, or Thunderus. Doesn't mean you can't try some stuff out!

Alright first, Amoonguss is litterally a requirement on every single team. It certainly helps against offensive rain, but unlike stuff like Gastrodon, it can actually pull its own weight against other types of teams as well. Personally I use clear smog over Stun Spore since it has helped me out against certain CM Keldeo's. Spore is really helpful overall since that's one less threat that could potentially OHKO your team gone. Mamoswine is super important now to try revenge everything with Ice Shard.

Roost Poison Heal Gliscor is pretty amazing. I underrated it by a long shot. It could switch in on to a +1 Salamence and proceed to Roost Stall it while it Outraged. Granted it lived by the skin of its teeth, but very few non-steel types Pokemon can claim to do that.

Ice Punch Conkeldurr isn't worth it. The other two options (Payback and Stone Edge) are better coverage and dropping Mach Punch is to handy against faster threats. Your best bet to use Ice Punch is an all-out attacking set with Lefties or a Banded set. I have been raving about it on the forums too much, but Sleep Talk Conkeldurr is really good :o It can survive a Thunderus-T's thunderbolt at full health and can smack it back with a powerful move. He can tank plenty of hits and get some health back while asleep.

Has anyone tried a more tankish Wolfrus yet?

I laddered on dw yesterday with amoongus/bro/insert more rain pokes here.

And amoongus was sent out like twice.

One of those times he was just fodder.

He seems to be unneeded imo. He's decent at what he does, but his job is taken care of easily by other pokes

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I have to agree about Hippowdon, I love the thing to death but in BW2 I am having a really hard time seeing how it can fit onto my stall teams that are worrying about a a bunch of new threats. One of these days Ill have to toy with him to make it fit on a team again, for now, I have to get use to the metagame.

 

[DrunkDemon]

Any opinions on Kingdra in the new meta? It seems like a decent offensive response to the new rain threats.

 

[Lavos]

Any opinions on Kingdra in the new meta? It seems like a decent offensive response to the new rain threats.

Tried it, and you were right, Kingdra sweeps a lot of rain offense teams now that people are forgetting to use Ferrothorn.

 

[San_Pellegrino]

i've been using dual sand very effectively to combat rain offense (5-1 atm), rain certainly isn't the end all be all (although its close).

 

[Lavos]

i've been using dual sand very effectively to combat rain offense (5-1 atm), rain certainly isn't the end all be all (although its close).

Played vs dual sand team and 5-0d with rain offense.

 

[San_Pellegrino]

Played vs dual sand team and 5-0d with rain offense.

guy must have stunk ;p

 

[Dr Ciel]

He clearly must have been bad, since a dual sand team usually handles Kingdra very well.

 

[ss234]

Glad to hear that rain teams have trouble with Kingdra-I just love using Kingdra at the moment.

Does anyone think that Haxorus is going to be banned? It 2HKO's everything in the metagame in the rain, so what are you exactly supposed to do against him? I suppose you would have to be very prediction heavy, but with the right move there is no safe switch in frankly.

 

[Lucario_Guy]

Nah, I don't think Haxy will be banned; he's too easily revenge-killed, imo.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Glad to hear that rain teams have trouble with Kingdra-I just love using Kingdra at the moment.

Does anyone think that Haxorus is going to be banned? It 2HKO's everything in the metagame in the rain, so what are you exactly supposed to do against him? I suppose you would have to be very prediction heavy, but with the right move there is no safe switch in frankly.

He's also not particularly fast or bulky, and he has trouble switching in himself. I don't know if there are any hard counters to him, but pretty much anything that's faster and hits hard can revenge kill him, especially with prior damage.

 

[doughboy]

Being hard to switch in isn't as big of a liability as previous generations. Why? Because with Volt-Turn, or even just ScizorWash alone, you can get free switchin's into a prefered target relatively easily. Just look at Terrakion: he is a pokemon that is hard to switch in but dominates the ladder. He gets paired with Scizor and Rotom-W so often because those two provide free switches to get an attack off. You really didn't have the ability to get free switches like that in DPP without Volt-Switch threatening those who resist U-turn.

So expect Haxorus to paired with Scizor and Rotom-W (who already work phenomenally in rain) a lot for those free switches. Sure Haxorus takes down only that one Poke that gets it the most, Skarmory, since any other path would be two down's for your side instead of one. But you won't be in a good spot dealing with that CB Scizor. This isn't even considering Magenezone who not only can remove steels, but get Haxorus in safely. Having the 3rd slowest (meaning it uses volt-switch last) and hardest hitting Volt Switch out of all of its fully evolved users, it can get it in safely making it a really good partner.

 

[Immoral Wombat]

I'm using Kingdra as well, but I haven't been too succesful with it so far. I'm running a faster, less bulky version of the standard ChestoRest set (adamant, 28 hp / 252 atk / 228 spd) to outspeed scarf Latios at +2 and consequenly anything else.

What sets would be recommended?

 

[Bribery]

I've always been a fan of the Rain Dance Kingdra set. It's great against most weather teams and doesn't require as much setup as the ChestoRest set. It's even better in this metagame because of how common Rain teams are.

Kingdra @ Life Orb
Modest - 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Rain Dance/Hydro Pump/Dragon Pulse/Draco Meteor

 

[Danger Mouse]

Being hard to switch in isn't as big of a liability as previous generations. Why? Because with Volt-Turn, or even just ScizorWash alone, you can get free switchin's into a prefered target relatively easily. Just look at Terrakion: he is a pokemon that is hard to switch in but dominates the ladder. He gets paired with Scizor and Rotom-W so often because those two provide free switches to get an attack off. You really didn't have the ability to get free switches like that in DPP without Volt-Switch threatening those who resist U-turn.

So expect Haxorus to paired with Scizor and Rotom-W (who already work phenomenally in rain) a lot for those free switches. Sure Haxorus takes down only that one Poke that gets it the most, Skarmory, since any other path would be two down's for your side instead of one. But you won't be in a good spot dealing with that CB Scizor. This isn't even considering Magenezone who not only can remove steels, but get Haxorus in safely. Having the 3rd slowest (meaning it uses volt-switch last) and hardest hitting Volt Switch out of all of its fully evolved users, it can get it in safely making it a really good partner.

The problem with Voltturn is it has become too common and predictable, and the pairing of Scizor and Rotom-W is painfully obvious and done to death. Any good team will have a means of dealing with Voltturn (I find Rotom-W is generally easier prey than scizor, but eliminating half of the duo greatly hampers their effectiveness). Terrakion might have a lot of vulnerabilities, but what it does have is base 108 speed, which is pretty damn high, and resistance to stealth rock which helps it get in more frequently. Haxorus will be worn down by repeated switches, and due to its relatively low speed, it will have trouble staying in once it's in or it attacts faster revenge killers.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

For those who say stall is dead, I don't think you've tried hard enough, im a pretty mediocre battler and am doing pretty well interestingly. Admittedly its pretty hard, and even with the best team building your still gonna have some threats, that doesn't make it bad at all though. Its actually a little easier now because everyone is more offensive now with like the same teams trying to abuse the new forms, if you got them square your good.

 

[Ricky Horror]

I'm really enjoying this meta demolishing opposing Keldeo is a sintch. Tho Sun is hard counter to Rain in my opinion or at least for my Rain te of the moment. As water moves are reduced and Venusaur can solar beam/ giga drain Keldeo if the little (BAN ME PLEASE) hasn't gotten greeedy with boosts.

 

[Jaetheho]

I have not seen a single scizor or ferrothorn. Oh gosh.
But I think this incorrectly reflects the meta because people are just trying out new stuff right now

I love the core of specs tornados-t, scarf thundurus-t, and banded Haxorus

 

[alphatron]

I don't think anyone who plays competitively would ever want Kyurem forms to touch OU. You have to grasp just how strong 170 Base is and that's not even counting the bulk this thing has. An awful defensive typing is arguable as well. Resists to Water, Grass, Electric, neutrality to Fire and Ice, and weaknesses to Steel, Fight, Rock, Dragon. If you focus only on the weaknesses you might assume it sucks but realize that resistances to Water, Grass, and Electric allows it to switch-in to many Pokemon in OU without taking much damage when combined with it's bulk.

Watching the metagame turn into "who can spam Draco Meteors faster" + "3 Steels on every team" is not my idea of "deserving of a test".

This is what I, and many other people, thought about Latios back during the beginning of fifth gen. As we can see now, Latios fits in just fine and is handled properly by a number if things. While I don't expect the same things that handle Latios to handle W-Kyurem, it would at least be interesting to see how people handle it. I'm not saying that the pokemon sucks at all. Speculation only goes so far.

 

[Jaetheho]

But you gotta realize, 170 > 130

By a lot.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

170 base Atk and SpA mean nothing when you can't hit the opponent because they just outsped and killed you before you could hit them. However, I don't think that they will be OU for a long time.

 

[complete legitimacy]

I have to say, in the few battles I've played so far, I certainly enjoy this metagame more than than BW OU. BW2 has brought hard hitters, some good utility mons, and a bunch more variety. I don't think I'm alone in appreciating a VoltTurn-less metagame, and hopefully that can continue as long as possible. Right now, I'm finding good cores to build around, and I've already come up with a couple good ones. I play semistall primarily, and having a good defensive core of 4 or 5 Pokemon is essential to my playstyle. I started around the fabled Heatran/Slowbro/Amoonguss core, and added to it. What I find the core appreciates is Wish support, and there are a couple of candidates that stand out so far. Blissey is fantastic as always in this metagame, and helps to counter both Tornadus-T and Thundurus-T. However, I think that Salamence is also a fine candidate that can more easily pass Wishes to Heatran while also having Intimidate for extra utility. Also, on my teams I like to have both a Spiker and a spinner if at all possible. Forretress can accomplish both, and its ability to take Outrages can compensate for using Salamence over Skarmory. Of course, you can't go wrong with adding SkarmBliss either, since they accomplish almost all of the roles that Salamence and Forretress have with remarkable efficiency. It's personal preference, really. The only bad thing about running a stall-based team in this metagame is the lack of good spinblockers, and that deters me from using full stall.

The only Therian that I've got a chance to test out is Landorus-T, and it honestly hasn't fared that well. I tried out a Substitute + Rock Polish set, and it was disappointing really. It didn't have much setup opportunity since it couldn't force anything out, and as a result it accomplished very little. I haven't lost faith in it though, since I think it has much greater potential than I'm currently giving it credit for. I used a simple max Attack and Speed spread with a Life Orb, but I think a bulkier spread would be better with less Speed and Leftovers along with Swords Dance to demolish opposing stall. Other sets that I have in mind are a 4 attacks LO set and a defensive set, and of course there's the obvious Choice Scarf set. I wouldn't use that over regular Landorus, however.

In any case, I'm really excited for this new metagame and look forward to watching it develop.

 

[Eriorguez]

125/100/90 defenses; those guys are bulky as fuck for such high attacking stats. Oh, and the secondary attacking stat is 120. The guy with 170 base attack can run an insanely strong STAB Ice Beam as an afterthoug.

 

[tehy]

Can someone just explain to me what beats either of the kyurem forms? Then, what beats them when scarfed?

I'm guessing that, with proper prediction, they can take down just about anything. Without a scarf, stall is GG. With one, offense gets to sacrifice something each round, assuming that they can take its non-meteor attacks. Which they probably don't. So it might be gg'd too. Run one of each and you win automatically.

 

[Jobes]

For those who have been playing in this new BW2 metagame and testing, which pokémon would you predict will drop down to OU that were previously Uber?