BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
First, you're claiming that Overheat is going to scare away the pink blobs and put pressure on them. Well, that's not true in the slightest. Chansey and Blissey are going to shrug off a pathetically weak Overheat, Softboiled, and you're right back where you started. Hell, they can even take the opportunity to set up SR, use a status move, or Wish while you're busy switching out to recover from your attack that did next to nothing.

Bulky waters aren't going to switch in to Rotom-H, so I have no idea why you're pretending they will and then telling us that Electric is super-effective against Water. The stuff that is actually switching into Rotom-H is going to wall it hard or threaten it out.

Terrakion does not 2HKO Rotom-H, it OHKOs Rotom-H. Have you forgotten about Stone Edge? That's a clean OHKO on the proposed Rotom-H, regardless of whether Terrakion is CB, LO, or Scarf. Not to mention, Rotom can't do squat to it, especially if Sand is up, which gives Terrakion a 1.5x boost in SDef.

From all of this, I still have no idea where you get that Rotom-H puts pressure on the opponent. I don't even see why you'd want to use this thing over another Rotom form. Fire-Electric typing is trash, you shouldn't be weak to Water when that's one of your main targets.

Can we use good Pokemon please?
About Terrakion 2HKOing Rotom-H; sorry, I did meant to say "OHKO".

And Overheat is not going to scare away the pink blobs; I never said that. What I am saying is that Overheat is going to open a massive hole on them. You can just switch out with Volt Switch, but the pink blobs must think twice about giving a free switch to my Terrakion, for example, especially if they don't use Softboiled, as the next time they are going to be 2HKOed by Overheat.

About bulky-Water-types switching into Rotom-H, it's obvious that they are going to do this unless in the most desesperate of moments; that's where you have to lure them. The calculations that I've posted just show that they also take massive damage from Overheat; many bulky Water-types must think twice about switching-in if they aren't specially defensive.

What I want to say is that Rotom-H is like, for example, Choice Specs Politoed, this thing can, with its STAB alone, do massive damage to things that resist its STAB. Of course, Rotom-H can't summon its own sun...

Sorry if I am overestimating Rotom-H, I made a sun team with him a few time ago and I got impressed with the results, Rotom-H is not perfect nor the most powerful sun abuser but I don't like when people say that it isn't good.
 

ginganinja

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Can we use good Pokemon please?
Like Scarf Electrode xD?

Anyway I actually laddered a bit last night with a Dark Horse Sun team, and ran into Rotom-H just a bit. It matched up well against typical sun (aka GeneSun) and I can actually see what people mean. Sure, its Stealth Rock weak and sure, its weak to water attacks but its still pretty good at preserving momentum with Volt Switch, hitting hard with Overheat, crippling something with WoW / Thunder Wave / Toxic etc etc. Sure, my team managed to match up well against it (due to not being standard sun prolly), but I saw enough to understand that he can be pretty neat to use if you give him the right support. Is it top tier? No. Is it an underrated pokemon that can be useful against sun? Yep.

Anyway, what does everyone think about Riolu. The damn thing always makes me wish I had Sand or something, and its just a massive (BAN ME PLEASE) in general with those hazards. Sure, you can set up your own hazards which pretty much fucks it, but then again if it predicts a SR and switchs in your fucked. I just hate how it threatens to turn the match into a fucking minegame and now I have to bring it in mind whenever I teambuild as a possible threat x_x. So lame
 
Riolu is a pain because it's a stupid gimmick akin to FEAR, but one that needs specific counters or else you're just fucked and can't stop it. Sure it's highly unlikely you'd have a team that couldn't counter it but if you lose that he just steam rolls you.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Yeah, it's very humiliating to lose to something as gimmicky as this. Fortunately my main team has sandstorm and thus doesn't bother with Riolu.

Apart from this, I don't know why you should bother with what is peharps the highest gimmick on the game. Apart from priority, considering the existence of Tornadus-T and the fact that it's very hard to get Stealth Rock and three layers of Spikes nowadays, unless your opponent has a team with a big weakness to Stealth Rock, this strategy will never work.

Still, this strategy can punch holes on your team; I hate having to deal with the opponent when most of my team was weakened.
 
Yeah, it's very humiliating to lose to something as gimmicky as this. Fortunately my main team has sandstorm and thus doesn't bother with Riolu.

Apart from this, I don't know why you should bother with what is peharps the highest gimmick on the game. Apart from priority, considering the existence of Tornadus-T and the fact that it's very hard to get Stealth Rock and three layers of Spikes nowadays, unless your opponent has a team with a big weakness to Stealth Rock, this strategy will never work.

Still, this strategy can punch holes on your team; I hate having to deal with the opponent when most of my team was weakened.
If you don't have any priority left it can be really hard to do anything at all to him, whenever I see him in team preview I make sure to play far more aggressively so he never gets a chance to get that copycat to copy his roar.
 
Put bluntly, Riolu's checks are hazards, residual damage, priority from a faster 'mon, and the last Pokemon on your team, to whom he can't do anything to.
Please. Never make the error of not having hazards, residual damage, or priority like I did.
That all being said, Riolu is rather easy to stop with the above. Still, its annoying, and goddamn infuriating if the above things have been removed. Also, if you let this thing switch in against a full stall team, you lose. Its that bad.
 
Simply put there are three things that stop this guy so all it takes is the enemy keeping status away from riolu, running toed/tales and eliminating priority which is usually only like one pokemon to fuck with you. That's why you have to keep the pressure up and never give it an opening.

And yes if you run stall you're fucked.
 

ginganinja

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Apart from this, I don't know why you should bother with what is peharps the highest gimmick on the game. Apart from priority, considering the existence of Tornadus-T and the fact that it's very hard to get Stealth Rock and three layers of Spikes nowadays, unless your opponent has a team with a big weakness to Stealth Rock, this strategy will never work.
Just pointing out, that you don't need 3 layers of spikes and SR to be successful. The not uncommon Deoxys-D is often going to get up Stealth Rock, and perhaps a layer of spikes, which can then easily be abused. Tornadus-T doesn't really beat the strategy either, everything else gets phazed away, until Tornadus-T is left, then you bring in your revenge killer, or Tornadus-T check or whatever, kill it, and win.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Put bluntly, Riolu's checks are hazards, residual damage, priority from a faster 'mon, and the last Pokemon on your team, to whom he can't do anything to.
Please. Never make the error of not having hazards, residual damage, or priority like I did.
That all being said, Riolu is rather easy to stop with the above. Still, its annoying, and goddamn infuriating if the above things have been removed. Also, if you let this thing switch in against a full stall team, you lose. Its that bad.
Yeah that's pretty much it. I always make a point of running Riolu on a Rain team, so residual damage won't happen if I can win the weather war, which I usually do. A team I've been playing around with is Politoed / Dugtrio / Tentacruel / Deoxys-D / Jellicent / Riolu. Like oh my lord that's so unbeatable. Just get hazards up and you can literally say gg right there. Kill the opposing weather starter (unless it's Ninetales, but I usually kill that anyways), remove hazards, and Copycat your way to victory. Only problem is ExtremeSpeed users, generally Dragonite and Lucario. Riolu hits 240 Speed maximum, so it outspeeds max speed Adamant Scizor and Breloom, therefore +1 priority really is not an issue.

Riolu-centric teams aren't a playstyle I'd recommend, but they certainly have their uses. If you're in a tournament, for example, and you know your opponent is going to bring some sort of semi-stall or stall team, this type of team would be an excellent choice.
 

alexwolf

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Don't forget Protect guys. By using Protect you stop Copycat from chosing Roar, as it choses the last used move, Protect. So assuming you already brough it down to its Sash it will be then OHKOed by everyhting.

No serious team should be threatened by it imo. Weather, hazards, Protect, Magic Bounce pokes and faster priority (Extremespeed, Mach Punch from Infernape, Quick Attack from Genesect and Terrakion and even Bullet Punch from Jolly Scizor and Mach Punch from Jolly Breloom) all fuck it up.
 

AfroThunderRule

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Heh, I remember using Riolu once. Sure it has tons of checks like priority and what not but remember you have to safely bring that priority user in and you only have a x/6 chance (x being the amount of priority users you have) for that to happen. Sure you can have that Scizor and Mamoswine on your team but what if they can never come in and you're stuck while the other 4 Pokemon are being shuffled and getting hazard raped, especially that one Pokemon you need alive is getting hazard raped the hardest, your team just took a major blow then.

Also Protect doesn't really stop Riolu, unless if the Protect user is a Pokemon that doesn't normally use Protect (like Terrakion). You Protect but instead of him using Copycat there is the chance that he uses Roar on that turn, I mean it is somewhat predictable which Pokemon carries Protect or not. >.>

Not saying Riolu is good or that it's even decent but I do think it's underrated and somewhat misused.

(PS, sorry for any bad English)
 
You Protect but instead of him using Copycat there is the chance that he uses Roar on that turn
Forgive me if I'm wrong but if you protect you won't get roared out, and if I'm remembering correctly (which 90% of the time I'm not) copycat doesn't copy if a move fails so it will copy protect anyway.
 

Joeyboy

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Like Scarf Electrode xD?
Lol :)

Anyway yeah Riolu seems like too much of a gimmick to me, as it requires soo much team support, afterwards it just doesn't seem worth it. Correct me if I'm wrong but you need to use a phazing move, then send in Riolu, and then use Copycat, right? Plus you need hazards and no sand/hail. With that kind of team support I'd just run a big scary sweeper :) But of course it can have its uses
 

Electrolyte

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Yeah, the hardest part with Riolu is just what you do against the final pokemon. I've seen Final Gambit lefties Riolu in sand, that's pretty annoying, as it wears down non lefties pokemon even quicker. I've also seen Final Gambit Riolu, that does a decent amount to weakened last pokemon.

A good Riolu team needs a strong backbone to deal with aspects of hazards and dealing with the last guy. I almost lost against a team with Riolu until my last pokemon, SubCM Latias, set up and KO'd his whole team. A lot of players make the mistake of simply just adding hazards and a spinner- and forget that the last part is most important. (Though, the preliminary set up is important as well.)

@Joeyboy- no, you just need Riolu to survive one hit as it Roars, and then copycat that Roar during the next ~25 turns.
 

Joeyboy

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Thank you Electrolyte :D I knew I was forgetting something. Still doesn't seem truly worth it in my eyes.
 

Temp V1

Movin' at the speed of life and I can't slow down
Okay, how about we don't let the megathread sit here and die? xD

I want to talk about the drop of Deoxys-D usage from previously being an extremely prominent Pokemon on the ladder to now sitting at #48 in OU usage with a percentage use of less than 5% per battle. That's really low for a Pokemon that has been called for a ban more times than I can count. What's happened to what was once the premier hazard setter in late BW1? Does there still exist a playstyle known as Deoxys-D offense, or has that faded away into the past? Why isn't Deoxys-D seeing any usage this past month? Please, share your thoughts (and revive this massive thread while you're at it).
I think aside from the aforementioned points about there being a generally lower all round level of talent on the PS ladder, which is in no way a bad thing as it shows more and more people are getting interested, Deoxys-D is getting less usage due to no longer being as useful and unique as it once was, that along with new threats since BW2.

As a lot of people have said, there are now new threats which Deoxys has to deal with, such as lead Terrakion, which can outspeed and Taunt a Deoxys not carrying Magic Coat or Mental Herb. With the majority of inexperienced players, if you lead with a Deoxys and your opponent leads wit Terrakion, you're going to assume its going to attack you so you'll either want to set something up, or Recover to scout how much damage its doing to you, it Taunts and Deoxys is useless. Another contributing factor to Deoxys' fall from grace is the introduction of new seriously powerful threats, namely the Therians and Genesect. Tornadus-T can easy outspeed and Taunt, or against a Magic Coat/Mental Herb Deoxys, U-Turn dealing a decent amount and then go into something to promptly deal with Deoxys. Also the fact that there are now so many powerful things running around, mean that Deoxys can be easily 2HKO'd by a lot of common mons, meaning his defenses aren't anywhere near as valuable as they used to be. Sure you're almost guaranteed to get up SR and one layer of Spikes, but what if those hazards do not worry your opponent at all?

An example of why Deoxys has become slightly more obsolete is because of the prevalence of Rain Offense in the current metagame. A fairly standard core of a Rain Offense team can go something along the lines of Politoed/Tornadus-T/Genesect/Starmie/filler/filler, I think after your Sun team Lavos, thats the most common core I've seen in the past 2 months. That core easily deals with Deoxys as it can KO it without any trouble, and then can potentially add a threatening Rapid Spinner to dispatch of any hazards that did find their way onto the field. On the topic of your Sun team; Magic Bouncers have never been as common as they are now. Espeon was always used fairly often, however Xatu has found a new lease on life, meaning that Deoxys can become dead weight as long as the Bouncer is alive. A third, and much less dominant factor for Deoxys' decrease in usage, is that a lot of mons that do similar roles such as Mew, Azelf etc. are starting to make comebacks, as there are new sets that have been formulated to better deal with the current metagame. Unfortunately for Deoxys', it lacks the ability to adapt as well, and as such is getting left behind. Even on HO teams, where Deoxys once reigned supreme, there are now things that do the job better, I know it was Deoxys-S that helped define HO, but Deoxys-D did an adequate job of filling its shoes, for a time anyway.

Back in BW1 it is easy enough to see why so many people wanted it banned when Deoxys-S was eventually banned, however now there is obviously no reason to. Personally when I see a Deoxys-D in the team preview, it makes me happy knowing I effectively only have to deal with 5 mons on my opponents team. That coupled with the predictability with which Deoxys-D cannot break, tend to give me quite an advantage from turn 1. That said, Deoxys-D can still cause serious problems to a team not prepared for it. Example A being the Counter This Pokemon project. In the final matches once the teams were completed, Ginga beat me 2-0 because I had absolutely no response to Deoxys, it walled the hell out of me allowing for the rest of Ginga's team to go to work, and was probably the MVP for both matches. So if a team isn't prepared to deal with Deoxys, it can be a problem, although it is now obviously less common, and so a threat that is less worried about.

@Joeyboy

With Riolu, the basic strategy is get SR up and as many layers of Spikes as possible. Make sure Riolu comes in at 100% with Sash in tact, no Hail/Sand up, and then use roar as your opponent generally brings you down to your sash, then Riolu uses Copycat to copy its own Roar, and voila. A +1 priority phazing move, which can generally win you the match provided you've eliminated Riolu's enemies, priority. At the end of it all, your opponent will be left with one, most likely severely weakened mon, which you have the remained of your team to take out.
 
I wouldn't consider weatherless Deo-D offense a real threat in the meta because Rain vs weatherless is now almost as bad as sun vs weatherless was in BW1. Not to mention the new SR Terrakion, Genesect, and rise of Xatu. There are other reasons but those alone will simply explain the drop.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Yeah, the hardest part with Riolu is just what you do against the final pokemon. I've seen Final Gambit lefties Riolu in sand, that's pretty annoying, as it wears down non lefties pokemon even quicker. I've also seen Final Gambit Riolu, that does a decent amount to weakened last pokemon.

A good Riolu team needs a strong backbone to deal with aspects of hazards and dealing with the last guy. I almost lost against a team with Riolu until my last pokemon, SubCM Latias, set up and KO'd his whole team. A lot of players make the mistake of simply just adding hazards and a spinner- and forget that the last part is most important. (Though, the preliminary set up is important as well.)

@Joeyboy- no, you just need Riolu to survive one hit as it Roars, and then copycat that Roar during the next ~25 turns.

You can just run something bulky with perish song-celebi come to mind;politoed is nice for SS blocking; lapras...has good bulk, not much else.
Or just run prankster perish song murkrow.
 

ganj4lF

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I wouldn't consider weatherless Deo-D offense a real threat in the meta because Rain vs weatherless is now almost as bad as sun vs weatherless was in BW1. Not to mention the new SR Terrakion, Genesect, and rise of Xatu. There are other reasons but those alone will simply explain the drop.
I ran a fair amount of weatherless HO teams in the recent past, and saying they're not a threat is quite exaggerated to me. Of course, handling Therians and Genesect can be a pain, however it's fairly doable to play around them, provided you predict decently and have something that can revenge kill those threats. I always feel more threatening those Venusaur in the Sun compared to the new toys BW2 gave to Rain, since noone of them have absurd speeds and can't be touched unless you're running Scarf Jolteon or Mamoswine, or something like that.
 

Temp V1

Movin' at the speed of life and I can't slow down
I wouldn't consider weatherless Deo-D offense a real threat in the meta because Rain vs weatherless is now almost as bad as sun vs weatherless was in BW1. Not to mention the new SR Terrakion, Genesect, and rise of Xatu. There are other reasons but those alone will simply explain the drop.
By Weatherless Deoxys-D Offense, do you mean Hyper Offense? Or something else? If you are referring to HO I have to agree with ganj4, in that HO is probably one of the strongest team types in the current meta. I recently made and used a Weatherless HO team with great success, and in the process of laddering to the DHP Hall of Fame I beat many, many Rain teams, and Sun teams, and Sand teams. Through moderate at best prediction using a well built Weatherless HO team you can safely have the advantage over almost any other team, so if you are referring to HO by 'Weatherless Deoxys-D Offense', I'd say you're sort of off. If you are referring to something else, my apologies :d
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
I wouldn't consider weatherless Deo-D offense a real threat in the meta because Rain vs weatherless is now almost as bad as sun vs weatherless was in BW1. Not to mention the new SR Terrakion, Genesect, and rise of Xatu. There are other reasons but those alone will simply explain the drop.
I know everybody's attacking this post, so sorry for jumping on the bandwagon, but there are a couple of things I'd like to say.

I agree completely with you in that Taunt Terrakion, Genesect, and the increased popularity of Xatu (np guys) have all contributed to Deoxys-D's fall in usage. However, I'd like to disagree with you on the notion that Rain vs. weatherless is a bad matchup nowadays. I ran a weatherless HO team on the ladder for about a month straight, and every time I saw a Rain team it was like a blessing, because I know that Rain teams in this meta are generally very offensive and do not have great stops for setup sweepers. Since my team was essentially hazards + 5 sweepers, it was always an easy win - incapacitate something, set up, sweep. I'd also like to disagree with you when you say that Deo-D weatherless offense isn't a real threat anymore. For the Dark Horse challenge, I utilized a Deoxys-D weatherless offense team with CroCune, of all things, and it kicked some serious ass on the ladder. I think my better-than-average playing can take credit for some of that, but a lot of the team's success should be attributed to the team itself as well. Deoxys-D, despite the rise of the aforementioned threats, is still the best hazard setter in OU (I say hazard because I think Terrakion does rocks better, but it doesn't get Spikes). Discounting an entire playstyle because of three Pokemon doesn't add up for me. I think Deo-D offense is still something to watch out for in BW2. You'll probably see it less, but it's still out there and still a very real threat to be prepared for.
 

Joeyboy

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Yeah I've gotta agree with Lavos on the weatherless v. Rain offense claim. I too have been running weatherless offense and I too see Rain as a weird blessing. The only thing my team semi-struggles against is Tornadus-T, and thats if I'm handily out-played. Rain offense atm tends to rely a lot on Genesect to revenge kill, and my team is built to abuse opposing Choice Scarf Genesect. When it revenges one thing(if it can) then another sets up. Plus I'm using a few 'mons who aren't revenged by Genesect anyway :)

Specs Keldeo still hurts a whole lot though.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Yeah I've gotta agree with Lavos on the weatherless v. Rain offense claim. I too have been running weatherless offense and I too see Rain as a weird blessing. The only thing my team semi-struggles against is Tornadus-T, and thats if I'm handily out-played. Rain offense atm tends to rely a lot on Genesect to revenge kill, and my team is built to abuse opposing Choice Scarf Genesect. When it revenges one thing(if it can) then another sets up. Plus I'm using a few 'mons who aren't revenged by Genesect anyway :)

Specs Keldeo still hurts a whole lot though.
Agreeing on both counts, Tornadus-T was the biggest threat to my team until I added a support Rotom-W, so now it's not a problem unless mad confusehax. Specs Keldeo is always going to hit hard when you're using weatherless HO, any Specs user usually gets a kill but after they're locked into a move it's pretty easy to set up on them and get a sweep going, so they're both a blessing and a curse at times.
 

Myzozoa

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I have to agree 100% with yee, as someone who plays weatherless almost exclusively, rain offense is a horrible match-up, it is actually worse than Sun used to be because Rain isn't as weak to things like Terrakion or Dragonite, and Ferrothorn walls Latios all day. This combined with Scarf Genesect + another Scarf Pokemon being on every team makes Deoxys-D basically unusable and that makes Weatherless basically unusable.
 

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