BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

[Ricky Horror]

Infernape's Scarf set - whether you're playing it fully physical, fully special or mixed - is just as effective as it has always been at revenge killing. What it has over Terrakion and Landorus-I in this regard is 1) lack of a weakness to Bullet Punch / Ice Shard and 2) brutal efficiency against Sun teams, outspeeding neutral +2 Venusaur. Fire STAB is awesome, and the Fighting STAB is just as good. The only losing matchup for Infernape is against Scarf Lati@s, as it can U-Turn out of just about anything. Unfortunately, it has a bit of 4MSS - You can't run dual STAB, Mach Punch, HP Ice, Stone Edge and U-Turn all in one set. Still, it's an effective revenge killer / scout who has enough power to clean up a weakened team.

4MSS has never stopped it before; regardless that's where team support takes action. Overall still a good Pokemon, that isn't seeing it's deserved usage. Anyone have a few Pokemon that they want to point the finger to? lol Besides Tornadus-T, of course.

 

[Venom]

My issue with infernape is that it's not always powerful enough to sufficiently deal with certain things. True you can solve that with Swords Dance/Nasty Plot, but you can also use things like Terrakion who have way higher offensive stats off the bat that also have access to Swords Dance. On the Special side you have lucario who, while it might not have the speed (or great offensive typing) that infernape has, it has a (slightly) higher special attack stat, as well as a much better STAB special fighting move. It also has better typing defensively, although it still takes resisted hits like tissue paper. Finally, it has a much better Swords Dance set due to access to Extremespeed. Finally, as a Fighting type SD sweeper, Breloom does a much better job than it due to its much higher-powered STAB moves and higher attack, not to mention access to Spore. Sure, Infernape has some incredibly powerful attacks in the sun, but it's pretty difficult to keep Sun active in the current metagame, and unlike other SD attackers, one of its STAB moves is rendered completely useless when Rain is up.

tl;dr, I think that as a whole, Infernape is pretty outclassed unless you're running it on a sun team, and even then it's still outclassed in other scenarios.


EDIT: @Arctic

Sure, Infernape resists Bullet Punch/Ice Shard, but it's MUCH frailer, and it takes neutral damage from SR, which can add up, especially since ScarfApe commonly carries U-Turn. Terrakion on the otherhand is a complete powerhouse from the bat, and it resists SR. As a plus it's also immune to sand, which is another thing that puts a timer on Infernape's already short life. ScarfApe typically carries Flare Blitz as one of its STAB moves, which combined with passive damage can quickly cause it to fall.

Yeah Terrakion is a far superior physical sweeper than Infernape, but Infernape brings something to the table that Terrakion doesn't: Versatility. Lucario doesn't exactly do this either. Infernape is only mostly walled by a bulky water, and Quagsire and Gastrodon aren't even safe because of Grass Knot. HP Ice is just a really good filler on Infernape, it outspeeds the Dragons and even Genesect. You can even run Close Combat and Overheat and wreck shit. It's just about using Infernape at the right time. It's a fragile sweeper. I don't think you're giving it much credit.

 

[Pocket]

Grass Knot is good against physically-defensive Gastrodon and physically-defensive Jellicent. Against the likes of Politoed, Vaporeon, specially-defensive Gastrodon, Close Combat does more.

I'd personally prefer either ThunderPunch or HP Ice as its coverage move. ThunderPunch hits Politoed, Vaporeon, and specially-defensive Jellicent harder than Grass Knot, while also hitting Tentacruel and Gyarados for super-effective damage. Close Combat is a 2HKO on Gastrodon anyways. ThunderPunch is nice to also nail Tornadus-T in the rain.
HP Ice comes in handy against physical dragons, Landorus, Gliscor, and the therians.

Maybe if Slowbro, Suicune, and Swampert were more popular Grass Knot would be more legit, but in the current meta it's use is rather limited.

 

[/B/utterfree]

Hm. Perhaps Wobbuffet should be carefully examined as well? I mean, with new allies like Gothitelle, perhaps its utility will still be rather potent for the likes of the OU metagame. Wasn't the only reason for not instabanning Wobbuffet to Ubers something like an Encore nerf, last I recalled? Who needs Encore when you partner with Trick users? Who needs Encore when you partner with the other Pokes that use Shadow Tag? Who needs Encore when VoltTurn guarantees the presence of not only Wobbuffet, but also of Gothitelle?

 

[chimpact]

It wasn't just the encore nerf, BW brought in a lot more threats that wobbuffet just couldn't handle. And team preview helped you play around it as well. Additionally Encore is necessary in locking your opponent into a move. Wobbuffet is a simple pokemon, if they go for the attack go for Mirror Coat or Counter, and if they don't attack you switch out to something that can threaten their team immediately or start setting up with something like Volcarona, Lucario, etc.

 

[alexwolf]

So what are you guys using to deal with the standard Volt-turn Sun team right now? I have been using SpD Hippo with SpD Aero, and those 2 together can handle most sun threats such as Volcarona, Genesect and the Chloro sweepers (Hippo can switch into any unboosted Chloro sweeper in a pinch to take away their speed boost). But i still have trouble with CB Victini and Sunny Day Ninetales / Venusaur, so sun teams are always dangerous to play against.

 

[SpecsX]

Hippodown loses to Giga Drain/Power Whip from Victreebel, and Aero loses to HP Ice from Victreebel if not under Sand. CB Victini is as close to uncounterable as you can get, I suppose.
What would a standard Voltturn Sun team be? I've never run into Voltturn Sun on the ladder.

 

[alexwolf]

Hippodown loses to Giga Drain/Power Whip from Victreebel, and Aero loses to HP Ice from Victreebel if not under Sand. CB Victini is as close to uncounterable as you can get, I suppose.
What would a standard Voltturn Sun team be? I've never run into Voltturn Sun on the ladder.

Victreebel never carries Power Whip and LO Giga Drain does 61.76 - 72.94% to 252/252+ Hippo, so as i said i can tank one hit in a pinch. When Aero faces Victreebel he will always be under Sand so no big deal.

And the standard Volt-turn team would be Ninetales / Genesect / Dugtrio / Xatu / Victini / Chloro sweeper.

 

[SpecsX]

That's a 2HKO. And Hippo is slower than Victreebel, even after Sun is removed. I predict that Sun Voltturn will be the new standard for Sun, if it isn't already. What do you think about a Rain/Sun ban?

 

[Ricky Horror]

SUN, this shit is annoying, I tested a few variants, alongside with a few different Volcaronas. Modest Lum berry can two shot Blissey with Fire blast, after a single Quiver. That to me a huge LOL; regardless I hate how Hippowdon teams can beat Sun rather effortlessly... Hippow is just so bulky, and usually takes two Pokemon to kill that bitch ._. Since Sun is so offensive.

 

[Arcticblast]

As long as you have a decent Chlorophyll abuser - Venusaur, Victreebel, Sawsbuck, Lilligant, etc. - no Hippowdon is really going to want to switch in. They all hit it hard with super effective STAB, and all Hippowdon has in return is a relatively weak Ice Fang.

 

[G-Von]

I've been trying as hard as i could to run a non-weather team now and it really hasn't been working all that well against weather teams. When i face non-weather I feel like I do not have much of a problem. The only time I am ever able to handle a weather team is when I fully set up with my AgiliPlot Lucario. He has been a monster every time he has set up. It has the STAB fighting attack every special attacker could every dream off: Aurora Sphere. Along with Shadow Ball, it has neutral coverage and it ready to take down anything.

 

[Shouting]

Yes, weatherless is difficult if you're not using hyper offense or volt-turn. Stall and Balanced are really struggling right now, and it's a shame since Weatherless bulky offense / balanced has to be my favorite playstyle. Even Stall is hurting with stuff like Nasty Plot Thundurus-T.

 

[Jimera0]

I disagree that stall and balanced are really struggling. They're not as common because they're not as braindead easy to put together as the more dominant team archetypes but if you're willing to make the time and effort to build a decent stall or balanced team you can pull it off just fine. You just have to not give up when the first itteration of your team fails. Go back, patch up your weaknesses, try again. Sooner or later you'll end up with a good team. It just doesn't have as formulaic an approach so everyone seems to assume it's worse.

I'm talking WEATHERLESS teams btw here. Shoulda made that clear at the start.

 

[Ricky Horror]

As long as you have a decent Chlorophyll abuser - Venusaur, Victreebel, Sawsbuck, Lilligant, etc. - no Hippowdon is really going to want to switch in. They all hit it hard with super effective STAB, and all Hippowdon has in return is a relatively weak Ice Fang.

Yea, some have some attack investment, that will dent all these Pokemon, since a lot of them aren't the bulkiest things around. Aslo switching into is more of the problem, along with it's reliable recovery move. It can really hinder your Chloro sweepers, if they are having to switch in a few times.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I disagree that stall and balanced are really struggling. They're not as common because they're not as braindead easy to put together as the more dominant team archetypes but if you're willing to make the time and effort to build a decent stall or balanced team you can pull it off just fine. You just have to not give up when the first itteration of your team fails. Go back, patch up your weaknesses, try again. Sooner or later you'll end up with a good team. It just doesn't have as formulaic an approach so everyone seems to assume it's worse.

I'm talking WEATHERLESS teams btw here. Shoulda made that clear at the start.

I agree with this. Although stall teams aren't that hard to make once your use to them and they follow a general formula (full stall):

Special Wall 1 (Blissey / Chansey 90% of the time)
Special Wall 2 (Jirachi, Tyranitar, Latias, Heatran, Gastrodon)
Rapid Spinner (Tentacruel, Forretress)
Physical Wall 1 ([usually a steel]: Hippowdon, Skarmory, Gliscor, Ferrothorn, Slowbro, Quagsire, Bronzong)
Physical Wall 2: any of the above
Glue: (Politoed, Ferrothorn, Sableye, Jellicent, a scarfer, Celebi, Amoonguss, Latias, Roserade, Gastrodon)

Kinda vague but their is usually some sort of general structure, its not that hard to make a decent stall team, its hard to make a good stall team using pokemon in a specific way to synergize with one another.

 

[chewyourfood]

I disagree that stall and balanced are really struggling. They're not as common because they're not as braindead easy to put together as the more dominant team archetypes but if you're willing to make the time and effort to build a decent stall or balanced team you can pull it off just fine. You just have to not give up when the first itteration of your team fails. Go back, patch up your weaknesses, try again. Sooner or later you'll end up with a good team. It just doesn't have as formulaic an approach so everyone seems to assume it's worse.

I'm talking WEATHERLESS teams btw here. Shoulda made that clear at the start.

Agreed. I've played around with rain and drought, but quite frankly I find them too tiring; weather wars are draining to the point that I ctrl+w after only one or two battles. It's not as if weather teams are superior to non-weather teams. I've been using an alt playing a balanced (non-weather) team these last few days, getting up to around 90 or so on the leaderboards. Needless to say, I've beaten a good number of weather teams, reason being one, weather teams aren't superior, or two, the "ladder sucks." IMO, it's 75% reason #1 and 25% reason #2. Oh, and I've found non-weather/balanced teams to be THE funnest teams to play with; it's reminiscent of Gen 4 OU.

It's already well-known that non-weather success comes with having efficient ways in dealing with rain/sun/sand threats (AKA Tornadus, Venusaur, Volcarona, Landorus, etc.), and it can go beyond using a team of Gastrodon/Heatran/Skarmory. Just make a team, see what you're weak to, and tweak, tweak, tweak.

But I do feel that non-weather stall is inferior to weather stall. Just look at undisputed and M Dragons's rain stall teams, or Ojama's toxic stall steam. Their success speaks for themselves. (I realize Tabloo is weatherless, but I consider his team balanced/semi-stall anyways, not full stall.)

 

[Ricky Horror]

Weatherless is just hard pressed against overpowered weather moves, I think that discourages most players from using it. Why try to sponge Keldeo specs hydro pump, when you can be doing it yourself is probably the mind set of most players. I peaked #13th with a Weatherless semi-stall myself, and it's frankly a challenge to cover major threats as well as major threats WITH boosted moves. Weather teams don't have to worry too much to cover every threat as they can pound through with their boosted moves, or stall out teams with their weather benefiting abilities. For example Rain Dish,Tentacruel.

 

[Zacchaeus]

It's already well-known that non-weather success comes with having efficient ways in dealing with rain/sun/sand threats (AKA Tornadus, Venusaur, Volcarona, Landorus, etc.), and it can go beyond using a team of Gastrodon/Heatran/Skarmory. Just make a team, see what you're weak to, and tweak, tweak, tweak.

That isn't non-weather, it's anti-weather. I've used a lot of anti-weather teams in the past and the thing about those is that they have a good chance to beat teams that rely on weather, especially if it's just 1 weather, but those teams can't always hold up against non-weather teams. You could use a Pokémon like Cloyster which operates well in Hail or Rain and just hope that your opponent uses something other than Sandstorm, or you can use Swift Swim Kingdra and be carrying dead weight unless your opponent runs a Rain team. (Kingdra isn't entirely useless without Swift Swim but it's outclassed outside of Rain)

 

[chewyourfood]

That isn't non-weather, it's anti-weather. I've used a lot of anti-weather teams in the past and the thing about those is that they have a good chance to beat teams that rely on weather, especially if it's just 1 weather, but those teams can't always hold up against non-weather teams. You could use a Pokémon like Cloyster which operates well in Hail or Rain and just hope that your opponent uses something other than Sandstorm, or you can use Swift Swim Kingdra and be carrying dead weight unless your opponent runs a Rain team. (Kingdra isn't entirely useless without Swift Swim but it's outclassed outside of Rain)

So you're saying having an answer to weather threats makes a team anti-weather? In this metagame, every team NEEDS to have some kind of method to defeat a rain-boosted Hydro Pump or a 2x fast Venusuar. But that doesn't mean that every non Politoed/Ninetales/TTar/Abomasnow team is anti-weather.

I guess I wasn't really clear. My point is that there are teams that can be created that function well in the current Gen 5 OU metagame that are just regular, balanced teams. I myself do not use an anti-weather team, I use a balanced, non-weather team; I don't use swift swim Kingdra to deal with Tornadus-T, I use a combination of Tentacruel, Focus Sash Mamoswine, and EB Genesect to deal with Torandus-T.

 

[alkinesthetase]

So you're saying having an answer to weather threats makes a team anti-weather?

i guess it's that there is a line between running a) a team that can answer or hold its own against weather, or b) a team of mons whose primary purpose and metagame popularity is for countering weather (kingdra for example). i agree that that would be a very difficult line to define

 

[alexwolf]

As long as you have a decent Chlorophyll abuser - Venusaur, Victreebel, Sawsbuck, Lilligant, etc. - no Hippowdon is really going to want to switch in. They all hit it hard with super effective STAB, and all Hippowdon has in return is a relatively weak Ice Fang.

All those pokes are usually late game sweepers. Hippowdon can come into the most popular Chloro sweeprs (Venu, Victreebel and Sawsbuck), to remove their speed boost, and make them easy to handle. The plan is to just send in Hippo for one turn, and then immediately switch out. Usually if you stop them once, you have stopped them for good, as SR, ss damage and LO damage rack up fast, and they won't get another switch in opportunity if you play good.

 

[Lavos]

All those pokes are usually late game sweepers. Hippowdon can come into the most popular Chloro sweeprs (Venu, Victreebel and Sawsbuck), to remove their speed boost, and make them easy to handle. The plan is to just send in Hippo for one turn, and then immediately switch out. Usually if you stop them once, you have stopped them for good, as SR, ss damage and LO damage rack up fast, and they won't get another switch in opportunity if you play good.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Venusaur/Victreebel's Giga Drain is a 2HKO on any Hippowdon, and Sawsbuck's Horn Leech is a 2HKO on any Hippowdon. Sure, the Chlorophyll sweeper takes 16% damage from Life Orb + sandstorm, but that's probably not going to be enough to deter it from switching in later, whereas Hippowdon is forced out with the threat of losing your weather inducer. Sure, Hippo can't be trapped by Dugtrio very well, but it's hard to switch into any Chlorophyll sweeper, and even Ninetales at times, fearing Will-o-Wisp. There's no perfect Sand inducer against Sun; Tyranitar gets killed off by Dugtrio, Hippowdon is threatened by Sun's most common sweepers. The only surefire way for Sand to beat Sun is to use both Tyranitar and Hippowdon on the same team - Ttar can switch into Ninetales and Chloro sweepers, and having Hippo in the wings removes the fear of losing your weather to a well-timed Dugtrio switch.

Alternatively, you could use Dugtrio yourself...

 

[alexwolf]

I never said that there is a perfect Sand inducer against Sun. I just mentioned that Hippo is a very good check to them, from my experience, for reasons already explained. And it's not only 16% residual damage as you said.

First of all, you assume that the Chloro abuser will always use Giga Drain against the poke they force out, which is not the only common case. Sometimes they set-up, they use Sleep Powder, or they threaten out your steel/grass/dragon type with HP Fire / HP Ice / Weather Ball. So Hippo can many times come in losing much less than ~66%. Also if they try to hit Hippo after he comes in, then they will lose another 16% as you go to your Jirachi / Ferrothorn or whatever that can easily handle thos pokes in sand, so in total they will have lost 32% of their life. So coming in another time and setting up won't be as easy, especially if you pressure them a bit. And all those assuming you don't have SR on the field (yeah i know Xatu, blah blah, but guess what, Sand teams can use SR setters that Xatu actually doesn't want to switch into, such as Landorus-T, Landorus and Terrakion). Add SR and then the damage the Chloro sweepers will have taken after landing 2 attacks and switching into SR twice adds up to 56%, meaning that they will be left with 44% the second time they come in. Pretty sweat!

 

[Lavos]

You're right, I can't always assume that the Chlorophyll user will make a decent prediction, but I'm willing to bet that it'll be harder to take the risk of switching your standard Hippo into a LO Venusaur when you know Giga Drain could be incoming. Also, you really can't assume that you'll have rocks up against a Sun team, since the #1 priority of most Sun teams is keeping rocks off the field. I know Xatu doesn't beat every SR user, but it beats most of the common ones. Besides, if you're using Hippowdon, why would you not have rocks on it? :/

Pretty sweat!

heh