np: RU Stage 11 - Bark at the Moon

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Oglemi

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Sup RUers,

So we're doing something quite a bit different for this stage. The council has decided to drop Cresselia and Durant into the metagame for a round to see how they fare! At the end of the round the council and the rotating council will vote to determine whether Cresselia and Durant should stay in the metagame.

Things should be shaken up pretty nicely with these changes! Will Durant's newly-acquired access to Superpower prove to make it still-broken even with the major shift in the metagame since its departure? How about Cresselia? Will its bulkiness finally make Nidoqueen and Moltres counterable without breaking the metagame? Or is its SubCM set going to prove too much with Honchkrow and Sharpedo no longer in RU to check it?

This Stage will end on November 11, at 11:59 pm EST at which time the Alt ID thread will go up.

Keep the discussion civil and remember that you can become a member of the Council by making great posts here, so get cracking!

Let's get this party started yo!

And here's the song from the title (yes I know it's about a werewolf-like creature but Durant kinda fits the bill too).

[youtube]Jfso3CiHwN8[/youtube]
 

Pocket

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Awesome, definitely gonna test out Durant for sure! We need a Pokemon to stop the recent surge of TanKing combo >:)
 

Molk

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Im personally more excited for cress than for Durant, i think Cresselia will fit into this metagame very well, RU was very fast paced in the previous few rounds thanks to nidoqueen, but with the addition of cress, nidoqueen (and multiple other threats), are hard countered the mighty Cress. Meanwhile, cress doesnt seem to be lacking in counters, there is a multitude of dark types and steel types that can all check cress in the correct circumstances, Cress needs multiple boosts to get even close to sweeping thanks to its low special attack, Durant is also a good check, and we just dropped that for a retest! Im pretty excited to see how people will beat cress

Use Taunt SD drapion to beat every cress set 100% of the time, js
 
Argh is Cress coming back to RU again? Spam those bugs and darks guys! Durant is pretty interesting to use though. Im defenitely trying that. But Cress ugh. Like RU stall isnt good enough.
 
Awesome, definitely gonna test out Durant for sure! We need a Pokemon to stop the recent surge of TanKing combo >:)
What's the Tan part of TanKing?

Anyways, Durant seems to be a decent Cressie counter, which is rather hilarious. Honestly, I think they might help the meta progress; really, the only thing that isn't chaotic right now is Ubers, and even then, there's quite a bit of debate about what makes something Uber vs. OU, so it's not entirely left out of the drama.

Sorry for the tangent. Anyways, one thing that might limit the amount of Cressie is the high amount of Bug-types in RU and NU, so that's something to keep in mind.
 

Yonko7

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What's the Tan part of TanKing?

Anyways, Durant seems to be a decent Cressie counter, which is rather hilarious. Honestly, I think they might help the meta progress; really, the only thing that isn't chaotic right now is Ubers, and even then, there's quite a bit of debate about what makes something Uber vs. OU, so it's not entirely left out of the drama.

Sorry for the tangent. Anyways, one thing that might limit the amount of Cressie is the high amount of Bug-types in RU and NU, so that's something to keep in mind.
Tangrowth.

I think Cress will fit in, as mentioned before, this metagame is too fast paced.

However, Durant I think will just unbalance it again.
 
Tangrowth.

I think Cress will fit in, as mentioned before, this metagame is too fast paced.

However, Durant I think will just unbalance it again.
Point taken. Oh well, hoping Cressie will be back, at least. Can't wait to make some stall with her! OU needs a Cressie to save it, though. Too bad. I guess we'll just have to save RU.

And then #FREEFLYGON happens and everything goes to hell.
 

ebeast

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Sweet deal and great song choice! I haven't played RU in a really long time but I think I can get into it with Sailor Moon (Cresselia) back. Durant seems kind of iffy, but I'm not a fan of quickbanning so I would rather have it get enough time for people to adjust before saying anything.

Being a predominantly NU player I kind of wanted to try a similar core to the popular Musharna + Gurdurr + Skuntank core but fitted for RU. I was thinking SubCM Cresselia + SD Taunt Drapion + RestTalk Shuffler Poliwrath. Poliwrath would deal with Dark-type Pokemon and Durant so that Cresselia has a much easier time going through an opponent's team. Drapion deals against opposing Cresselia and beats Psychic- and Ghost-type Pokemon so that Poliwrath can freely shuffle with Circle Throw. I really wanted to throw in Spikes with that but not really too keen on the RU Spikers. (Maybe Roselia could work) If anybody with more RU experience (most people here) can follow this up with suggestions it would be cool to hear.
 

Pocket

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If you want Spikes, you can try Qwilfish, Scolipede, or Crustle. Qwilfish provides you awesome Intimidate support and can set up Toxic Spikes, too. Scolipede also has Toxic Spikes and can do major damage to Tangrowth, Slowking, Uxie, and Cresselia with Bug Gem Megahorn. Crustle apparently fares well against most lead match-ups with Lum, Sturdy, & Rock Blast to break Smeargle & Aerodactyl's Focus Sash.
 

Windsong

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Hi for anyone who's missed it so far, I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Anyhow, as being one of the people partially responsible for the initial Durant ban, I'm not really happy to see it come back. It didn't have a great effect on the meta at the time when it was originally banned (and we were damn close to a perfectly balanced meta in which all playstyles were equally represented in the stage immediately following the durant ban but prior to Nidoqueen coming into the tier). I don't think that it'll necessarily prove broken, but it doesn't bring anything good to the meta either in my opinion. Cresselia on the other hand I couldn't be more happy about and have already been quite vocal in expressing my opinions about on IRC. It slows down the meta slightly, gives bulky offense and semistall teams a greater presence in the meta, and in general cuts down on the speedy "hit fast hit hard" playstyle that's dominated RU recently. Yes the meta might revolve around cressy for a bit, but I don't think that will be permanent should we decide to let the moon duck stay.
 

Honko

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Hi for anyone who's missed it so far, I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack.
welcome back ilu :heart:

Anyhow, as being one of the people partially responsible for the initial Durant ban, I'm not really happy to see it come back. It didn't have a great effect on the meta at the time when it was originally banned
but I completely disagree with this. The meta was great after P-Z was banned. In fact it was so balanced that people were struggling to think of any legitimate suspect at all. Durant was finally chosen because (for whatever reason) we really wanted to have another suspect round even though the meta was fine, and then a few people theorymonned themselves into banning it. It was a very strong mon, excellent on paper and very good in practice, but it certainly wasn't ruining the meta in any way. Most people felt the meta was very balanced before it was suspected, and Durant itself wasn't even in the top 30 in usage -- for a fast, powerful, easy-to-use offensive Pokemon, that's telling. I'm glad it's getting a second chance, and I look forward to seeing whether or not it fits in this new meta with Superpower added to its arsenal.

As for Cress, I agree that it will be nice to slow down the current meta a little bit. We might get some interesting Rock-Paper-Scissors games between Cress, Queen, and Drapion.

Now we just need Krook back. :naughty:
 
Now we just need Krook back. :naughty:
I'm working on it with several UU Spam teams. I can PM them if people wish to copy them to accomplish the same thing. However, even with 25+ games played per day in UU I'm not sure I'll be able to get Krook down here to help balance RU (next time, don't say "Dusknoir for UU/OU lgi" and expect me to john that kind of challenge - although I'm also working on Scolipede, who's pretty good and a good Baton Pass recipient/partner).

Speaking of balance, I've never seen the RU metagame as balanced (and thusly I disagree with a lot of people - excuse me for having an alternate opinion). I might be some inherently pessimistic nutjob, but PZ was only the beginning of acknowledging of how offensively-oriented RU had already become. Durant and Sharpedo were heavy hitters, and the former was rightfully banned and hopefully stays the fuck out of my tier. Sharpedo, on the other hand, was not banned. So people forced it out of RU by jamming it in UU games. While the metagame did get a lot better, it also took some of our decent walls with us, Gligar and Claydol. So the metagame wound up being less balanced than it was previously.

I may not be fond of Cresselia dropping to RU, but if it helps balance the metagame then that is a begrudgingly acceptable drop, even if the reasons for it seem particularly paradoxical. I'd rather just employ more tanky Pokemon rising to RU, such as Torterra and Musharna, to try and accomplish the same thing without taking previously-broken Pokemon out of BL2. However, I'm fine if Cress helps balance an unstable metagame.
 

Double01

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After playing a bunch of games and testing both cresselia and durant, I think that Cress is a much more burden of a burden on team building then durant is. The cress set that I've been using is...

Cresselia @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 hp / 200 def / 52 SpDef (on phone so don't know exact Evs)
- Thunder Wave
- Moonlight
- Calm Mind
- Psychic

This set is extremely dangerous as it can support your team early game by walling and paralyzing stuff. While also becoming a late game Sweeper at the end of games. Once you get rid of all the opps mons that can toxic it or is a dark type it's pretty easy for cress to sweep. I'm not sure if it's broken or not but it sure seems like cress is overcentralizing the meta right now.

Edit: Forgot to add that Cress makes stall more then viable right now which is a nice change of pace I guess.
 

Molk

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After playing a bunch of games and testing both cresselia and durant, I think that Cress is a much more burden of a burden on team building then durant is. The cress set that I've been using is...

Cresselia @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
Calm Nature
EVs: 252 hp / 200 def / 52 SpDef (on phone so don't know exact Evs)
- Thunder Wave
- Moonlight
- Calm Mind
- Psychic

This set is extremely dangerous as it can support your team early game by walling and paralyzing stuff. While also becoming a late game Sweeper at the end of games. Once you get rid of all the opps mons that can toxic it or is a dark type it's pretty easy for cress to sweep. I'm not sure if it's broken or not but it sure seems like cress is overcentralizing the meta right now.

Edit: Forgot to add that Cress makes stall more then viable right now which is a nice change of pace I guess.
Ive used this cress set quite a bit, and its really, really good! I think its one of the best if not the best cress set possible in this meta. Ive also tried out sub/CM/psyshock/moonlight with some speed a bit, once you remove cress's initial counters and checks it can just come in and just wreck house, but its very hax prone because of how long it takes to set up ;_;.

Im also very excited to try out some of cress's support sets, with its bulk and access to both moonlight and lunar dance, it seems to be an exceptional weather and dual screens setter, but Uxie still has stuff like Stealth Rock and Memento over cress, so im not sure which one will be better at the job tbh, lol.

Ive been trying to test durant a bit, and from what ive seen its a great pokemon, but hustle is sooooo annoying sometimes, it always misses at crucial points for me. That said, with hone claws it can temporarily fix these accuracy problems while boosting its attack through the roof at the same time.

I cant really say anything about either pokemons standing in the metagame because i honestly havent used either of them enough to form an opinion (i mean, its only been a day, lol). But im very excited for this new metagame, i want to see what its like =).
 
I'm really loving the metagame right now. Before, it was so simple to build teams by using a F/W/G core, a Uxie lead, and a sweeper or two. If you wanted to get creative, you really had to think outside of the box because most of the best offensive teams at the time were built by the simple formula shown above. Now, however, since Cresselia is able to deal with about half of the most popular offensive Pokemon, I feel that teams are going to get a lot more creative. Cresselia also makes the two forgotten playstyles, stall and balance, somewhat usable, and maybe even good again. This is because Cresselia can play many roles, so it opens up team slots for those defensive teams. Before Cresselia dropped, I feared that it would be too difficult to take down and thus would not bring RU the balance that it needed. However, with Durant now in the tier, I believe that offensive teams are going to be great, which will make Cresselia somewhat less of a threat. Durant, though, barely has any counters and just tears through defensive and balance teams. This might just be because the ladder is unprepared for Durant, however, so I'll give it some more time to give a proper opinion on these two. The best thing though, is that these BL2 Pokemon are giving the tier some much needed versatility, and it is much more fun to play since every playstyle can now strive.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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SV is a poop

So I've had a fair amount of ladder battles in the last couple days with a new team involving both Cresselia and Durant so I'm going to talk a little bit about my initial thoughts on the metagame with the two suspects in it.

First, Durant. I had some experience with Durant from the Shaking Up RU tournament where Durant was disappointing, and in the present metagame I've found it to be decent but not as gamebreaking as you might think. I've been running a reasonably standard Hone Claws/Iron Head/X-Scissor/Superpower set, because my team handles FIre-types well, and I've found Durant to be quite effective at a hit and run type of strategy thanks to its massive strength. Unfortunately, Hustle is a major hindrance, Durant misses quite a bit at very inopportune times, meaning that if it wants to sweep it must set up. However, Durant's bulk is not terrific; it will only be able to set up on physical attacks or switches, and only once if it is on an attack. Furthermore, if you manage to set Durant up it can be revenge killed reasonably easily by Archeops and faster or by common Choice Scarf users. That said, Durant can easily and quickly threaten more defensive Pokemon, and its a useful revenge killer to offensive threats like Gallade itself, its accuracy being the only drawback. With how little use I've seen for hone claws in teh short run i've considered switching to a 4 attacks set, although the constant accuracy issues are concerning.

Moving on to Cresselia, we find what I believe to be easily the best and most useful Pokemon in the tier, one that in its initial impact on me leads me to be most wary about its presence in the tier. I have been running the should-be-standard CM/Psychic/TWave/Moonlight Cresselia and it is hands down the most useful defensive Pokemon you can add to a team. The list of Pokemon it counters is massive and it patches up so many weakness for balanced and stall teams alike in a single slot it is incredible. In the early game Cresselia acts as a general check and wall for my team, spreading paralysis with ease and keeping itself healthy. It checks physical and special threats alike with its bulk and can threaten them away with boosted psychics. In the late game, once darks are removed, Cresselia can sweep with little difficulty.

I forgot what i was saying so I'll just conclude with Cresselia is the one to watch as a suspect, if anything will be broken its her.
 

SilentVerse

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Moving on to Cresselia, we find what I believe to be easily the best and most useful Pokemon in the tier, one that in its initial impact on me leads me to be most wary about its presence in the tier. I have been running the should-be-standard CM/Psychic/TWave/Moonlight Cresselia and it is hands down the most useful defensive Pokemon you can add to a team. The list of Pokemon it counters is massive and it patches up so many weakness for balanced and stall teams alike in a single slot it is incredible. In the early game Cresselia acts as a general check and wall for my team, spreading paralysis with ease and keeping itself healthy. It checks physical and special threats alike with its bulk and can threaten them away with boosted psychics. In the late game, once darks are removed, Cresselia can sweep with little difficulty.

I forgot what i was saying so I'll just conclude with Cresselia is the one to watch as a suspect, if anything will be broken its her.
Hmmm, I kinda disagree with this. Yeah, Cresselia makes a fantastic utility counter for balance and defensive teams, but really, I have actually found that a lot of times, Cresselia has done nothing but sponge hits from things like Slowking. A lot of the time, against well-built offensive teams that prepare for Cresselia, there's just not a lot of time to really set up and sweep with Calm Mind, and Cresselia will basically only be able to spam Thunder Wave, which is still very manageable. Just using one of Absol, Drapion, Escavalier, Durant, Crawdaunt, Sigilyph, or Spiritomb is enough to make Cresselia manageable if you play them well enough, and there's still quite a few alternative ways to deal with Cresselia in my opinion. Even against slower, defensive teams that let Cresselia set up easily, Cresselia has so many issues breaking through most common walls; anything that has recovery and resists Psychic such as RestTalk Escavalier, Slowking, Sigilyph, and other such Pokemon will be able to wall even Cresselia at +6 unless it uses maximum Special Attack investment, which makes it much easier to wear down. Yeah, it's kinda a pain to have to use those kinds of Pokemon to deal with Cresselia, but remember, defensive teams have had to use things like Lanturn and Regirock on every team so they didn't get swept by Moltres, so I don't think being forced to use one of those Pokemon is asking too much.

That's just my initial thoughts on Cresselia anyway. It's been a week into Cresselia and Durant's retest; what do you guys think of them and their impact on the metagame? Does Cresselia cripple offense too badly, or does Durant make defensive teams difficult to use? Feel free to discuss these things in this thread guys; remember that people who make excellent posts in this thread will be considered when Oglemi and I decide on the rotating council!
 

panamaxis

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putting cress on your team means you wall/check like half the tier, destroy offense and threaten late game sweeps vs a ton of teams.

cress = DPP garchomp in that it's clearly the best pokemon in the tier and you really should be running multiple checks to it on every team. twave/psychic/cm/moonlight that everyone already mentioned works great, toxic > twave is cool too

durant is meh, I would never use a pokemon that's best acc. moves are initially 80% at best. Then again i've been using poliwrath so that may be why it's been underwhelming to me...

but yeah cress's supporting power is ridiculous, i'd even go so far as to say that if you're not running pure offense, cress should be on your team.

i don't know if cress is broken yet since it has a ton of checks but it's definitely the #1 RU pokemon
 

Pocket

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Idk, there are quite a few RU Pokemon readily available to check Cresselia. Escavalier is a solid counter to Cresselia lacking HP Fire. Drapion is rising in usage for cock-blocking Cress. Spiritomb pretty much forces Cresselia out all the time and may even set up free NPs. Golurk's Shadow Punch makes quick work of Cresselia. SD Gallade with Shadow Claw can set up on Cresselia with ease. Entei's CB Flare Blitz is an easy 2HKO against max HP / max Spe Cresselia. If all else fails, status ruins Cresselia.

That said, it certainly made RU Offense much harder to pull off. Hitmonlee & Medicham is pretty much out of luck. Pokemon like Tauros, Aerodactyl, and LO Sceptile may not be able to accomplish much as long as Cress is around. It's certainly possible, though.
 
Idk, there are quite a few RU Pokemon readily available to check Cresselia. Escavalier is a solid counter to Cresselia lacking HP Fire. Drapion is rising in usage for cock-blocking Cress. Spiritomb pretty much forces Cresselia out all the time and may even set up free NPs. Golurk's Shadow Punch makes quick work of Cresselia. SD Gallade with Shadow Claw can set up on Cresselia with ease. Entei's CB Flare Blitz is an easy 2HKO against max HP / max Spe Cresselia. If all else fails, status ruins Cresselia.
This is why Poliwrath is such a great teammate to Cresselia. It beats all of the Pokemon you listed, aside from Gallade which can possibly run Zen Headbutt. Cresselia can also paralyze Gallade by the way, since +2 Shadow Claw only does 60.81 - 72.07% with Life Orb (non-LO Adamant Gallade only has a 15.23% chance to 2HKO). Since Cresselia can deal with so much of the metagame, it can form great cores with Pokemon besides Poliwrath such as Steelix, who takes care of Dark-types and Escavalier, and Qwilfish, who can handle many of the above Pokemon and set up Spikes. This makes the balance playstyle really strong in my opinion, because it allows you to have a strong defensive core and some hard hitters. Speaking of Qwilfish, both the blowfish and Spikes are really good right now. Escavalier, Drapion, and now Durant are all becoming popular and they make it hard for Cryogonal to spin. Rotom is more popular as well, making it tougher on Kabutops to spin. I've been having some trouble fitting spinners on my team, so hazards have taken a toll on my recent teams. Additionally, Qwilfish is great at spreading paralysis and is one of the few Pokemon that can check or cripple Durant. Cresselia really brings a lot more versatility to the tier—I've seen a lot more variety in teams nowadays which makes RU really fun to play.

The only playstyle that I personally haven't experimented with yet is semi-stall. I would imagine that Cresselia is a great teammate on those teams too. How are the people who are using semi-stall teams enjoying the metagame?
 

Windsong

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Well, SV has wanted me to post my thoughts here for a while, (and I enjoy flaunting the results of my mass laddering attempts!!!) so here we go. Durant's clearly not an issue at this point. In the original metagame in which it was banned, everything was much slower paced and more defensive as a whole. I disagree with Honko; I still feel that Durant was a problem when it was banned. It wasn't as widely known about as it could have been, and it didn't possess the raw power of any of the other suspects of the time, but it was very bad for the tier. Admittedly, borderline, but still a bit overpowered in my opinion. Right now, however, the drastic offensive shift of the meta that Nidoqueen caused makes Durant all but obsolete.

Cresselia, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. The metagame revolves heavily around it, and the popularity of several otherwise relatively average/mediocre mons such as Escavelier and Spiritomb has increased significantly in accordance to its arrival. However, Cressy returning has done one damn good thing for RU. Prior to Cresselia reentering the tier, offense was the best damn playstyle out there bar none. Nothing compared. As I mentioned earlier today on IRC, balanced and stall teams were viable but they were by no means good. The metagame was hugely offensively centered. Cresselia coming back has greatly expanded the variety of the game, and has increased the playability of a huge number of Pokemon at the cost of making other mons necessities. This is mainly because Cresselia does one hugely important thing: it hard counters Nidoqueen.

Maybe it's because last metagame was so offensively oriented that people didn't realize it, but Nidoqueen, though perhaps not directly broken, has a hugely limiting effect on the meta, especially without Cresselia. Fullstall teams are essentially unviable (to this point, having logged over 100 RU games in the last few days I have still only encountered 1 successful full stall team), because Nidoqueen can break every wall in RU. Cresselia keeps it somewhat balanced at this point, but upon Cresselia's likely removal from the tier, the entire meta will shift back to pure offense yet again. This is, in my opinion, an extremely unhealthy metagame. At least in the game currently, with the hugely centralizing and somewhat overpowered threat of Cresselia, there are multiple playstyles that are completely effective, and personally I believe that Cresselia should not be banned from RU unless Nidoqueen is auto suspected (and hopefully banned) next round.

oh and
 

ss234

bop.
I might as well post my thoughts on Durant and Cresselia.

I haven't played or been against Durant all that much, but it never struck me as broken. The Hone Claws set is incredibly difficult to set-up, thanks to its terrible special defence stat, and is very easy to revenge kill. This means that in an offensive match, it will only get one chance to set-up. Against defensive teams, Hone Claws Durant is a little better, but again it struggles to set-up. It can't even set-up on Cresselia, since cress should be carrying either Thunder Wave or HP Fire. Choice Band Durant is probably the most dangerous set to defensive teams, but even then it is very easily checked. Poliwrath and Nidoqueen are two examples of this. Durant kind of reminds me of Nidoqueen before the cress metagame, in that it doesn't really have any hard counters, but it is easily checked by faster mons on offensive team, and defensive mons on defensive teams like Poliwrath.

I've used Cresselia quite a lot, and I really like what Cress is doing for the metagame. I agree with SilentVerse in that sometimes, Cress does absolutely nothing apart from wall things and use Thunder Wave. Very rarely am I actually able to sweep with Cresselia, but paralysis is still really useful to cripple things such as Drapion that try and set-up on you. Cress has also made RU a much more balanced tier, thanks to its ability to counter so many threats in the tier. I personally think that semi-stall is the best playstyle at the moment, since offensive teams have a lot of trouble with the Cresselia and Poliwrath defensive core, and semi-stall teams carry a powerful wall breaker to help beat full stall teams. However, Cresselia is far from broken in my opinion, since it is very easy to counter. Escavalier, Drapion and Spiritomb are just a few. I find Spiritomb to be the best, since it stops cress from just switching out and going to Poliwrath like with the other two. This of course is only if Cress is using the CM+TW set, but the SubCM set lacks recovery and can still be forced out by tomb. Cresselia hasn't actually given me any troubles at all lately, as Spiritomb is such a good counter.

Overall, neither Cresselia or Durant has been overpowering at all, and they have only made the tier better IMO.
 
I have tested a bit the suspectes and these are my initial thoughts.

About Durant, before the retest I think that this thing was overpowered for RU; Hustle boosting 50% his moves in combination with a very good Attack and a superb Speed to outspeed a half metagame such as Moltres, Rotom, Drapion or Sigilyph makes it too goo for RU. But after testing a bit it and against it I found that isnt that great in this metagame: RU offensivily nature makes a lot of diffucult using it. I started testing Choice Band and Scarf Durant and I found that are pretty dissapointed, Hustle is really good but has a dark face: Attacking with a 80% accuracy or low is pretty, pretty bad; Durant misses a lot, and when misses mostly means that it will die because of his mediocre overall defense, or take a lot of damage repercuting in his durability. Also isnt that difficult to check Choice Band version because its easily to check since there a lot of things that can resist his STABs like Entei, Moltres, Poliwrath, Escavalier or Emboar. Choice Scarf is good against offensive teams but lacks raw power that Choice Band has and make it much more susceptible to miss. Because I found that Choice set isnt a great idea, I tried Hone Claws set. Hone Claws is by far better but has important flaws, its incredible difficult to set-up, thanks its horrible Special Defense. Also, Durant struggles a lot against offensive teams because these teams have ways to deal with; Durant is pretty easily to Revenge Kill, since most of those teams has a fast sweepers that can prevent it like Sceptile, Tauros, Swellow or Aerodactyl, priorities are in the same boat since Pokemon like Kabutops or Basculin can easily 3HKO it with Aqua Jet, or even things like Choice Band Spiritomb can 3HKO it with Sucker Punch. Furthemore there are Defensive Pokemon that can still check Durant such as Poliwrath, Steelix or Qwilfish, and those fits very well in defensive oriented teams.

Cresselia is at the moment the best Pokemon in RU without any dude. After testing it a bit I found that Cresselia bring back Balance for RU; Cresselia is a pretty fantastic Pokemon to Balanced, Semi-stall and Stall teams and fixes one of the most important problem that those teams have in the past: Cresselia hard counter Nidoqueen, and makes those playstyles good another time. Cresselia also can check, with correct evs spread, huge threats like Moltres, Kabutops or Sceptile, and mostly most of the standard offensive teams, that bring back to RU creativity and versatility.

I only use the Thunder Wave + Calm Mind set and its pretty good, spread paralysis very easily and checking a lot of things in early and mid game, and can even sweep in late game thanks to Calm Mind; but I have found that is pretty easily to check, carry a Pokemon like Drapion, Spiritomb, Escavalier or Crawdaunt is enough to keep it away, and even with partners like Poliwrath, Cresselia needs much more support to sweep. Cresselia is not only force to use Thunder Wave + Calm Mind, can also use SubCM, Dual Screen or even Weather Support.

Overall, I think that the retest bring back a good metagame with much more versatility and makes RU better.
 
I completely agree with windsong about Cresselia. Cresselia is very centralizing and often requires 2 Pokemon to take it down. However, its presence in the tier makes a huge difference, but a good one from what I've seen. RU teams in this stage have so much more variety, and many users have been discovering some great underrated threads such as Pinsir. This creativity may be a direct result of Cresselia. This is because Cresselia counters so many threats that it basically gives any team an open slot. In the last metagame, for example, some teams needed 2 Pokemon to counter both Nidoqueen and Sceptile (for lack of a better example). Now, Cresselia covers both of those, meaning that there's room for another Pokemon which can fill a different role. This is exactly what's making almost every playstyle viable. I still haven't faced many Cresselia so I wonder if it's too hard to take down on full stall. You can essentially keep Cresselia alive for the whole game with enough support from teammates such as Poliwrath, and wear down opponents with hazards due to the strong core being able to force so many switches. This is just theory, though, but Cresselia can possibly be over-centralizing and thus detrimental to the metagame. I don't think that we have discovered its full potential yet.

Despite this, I do not want to go back to Stage 10 under any circumstances. That metagame was absurdly boring and not fun to play. You saw the same offensive teams everywhere, boring F/W/G cores, and nothing too creative or exciting. The cause of this, like windsong said, may have been Nidoqueen, who undoubtedly limits defensive teams. Cresselia certainly brings balance to the tier, but it may be too powerful if people start to make more full stall teams. I think that it deserves another round of testing so we have more time to build teams with Cresselia.
 

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As someone who has used full stall with Cresselia for most of the round so far, I still feel that Cresselia is not broken. Yes, on full stall you can create an immensely powerful defensive core with Cresselia, but it still suffers from a lot of problems that make it manageable; it basically just sits there and spreads Thunder Wave / Toxic, and can be setup on pretty easily. Actually, I'd say that it's a lot like a glorified defensive Slowking pre-BW2; it's a fantastic utility counter for a lot of the tier's problem Pokemon, but it's still easy enough to deal with via things like Pursuit, or simply keeping the momentum up against it with moves like Volt Switch / U-turn and just gradually weakening it until it can no longer take those Fire Blasts or Hurricanes from Moltres or Choice Specs Typhlosion. Honestly, saying that you need two Pokemon to effectively beat Cresselia is kind of stretching it; it's very difficult for Cresselia to deal with things like Escavalier, Drapion, Spiritomb, Absol, and the like because it just can't do much to them with its pathetically weak coverage moves. I've actually found that if the opponent has just one of those Pokemon on their team, it becomes very, very difficult for Cresselia to actually wall things to its heart's content simply because those Pokemon can switch in so easily against it.

Anyway, what've been some cool Pokemon to use in this metagame guys? I know earlier this week that Honko found that Swords Dance Pinsir was an awesomely anti-metagame Pokemon, and I've had a lot of fun using Swords Dance Leavanny, but have you guys found anything else that works well in this metagame?
 
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