np: NU Stage 8 - Who Let the Dogs Out

[JCM.]

I don't really find it useful to use Riolu because it's so easy to break it's chain with hazards...I guess Wartortle can work with it to take hazards off the field, but it's a lot of work. High risk high reward, but if you can get it working, your opponent is finished.

 

[Aasgier]

Riolu does not mind hazards on its own side. It needs hazards on the opponents side. That being said, Riolu needs a spinblocker and a bunch of hazard setters as teammates, and a few things that cover weaknesses since such a team tends to get a gaping Ice-weakness, until you copycat (pun intended) Punchshroom's Riolu team.

 

[DragonBorn]

SoundProof Mr.Mime can stop it and set Barriars up on it easily

 

[Aasgier]

Soundproof is a stop to it, but it is pretty rare. You need to run Electrode or Mr Mime, and especially the latter has a better ability, Filter. Electrode has three abilities which each have their merits, but Electrode isn't equipped to abuse Static. Aftermath is somewhat situational but helped by the fact all priority in NU is physical and Electrode's huge speed, but Soundproof is situational as well because most teams don't use sound-based moves at all.

 

[Punchshroom]

This is further helped by the fact that near every pokemon with anti-Riolu abilities (Soundproof and Suction Cups) would look toward their other, less situational ability instead. Mr. Mime has Filter when not Baton Pass-chaining, Electrode can inflict extra damage with Aftermath, Cradily prefers Storm Drain on utility sets, Octillery appreciates Sniper to obliterate unlucky victims, and who uses Soundproof Bastiodon?

 

[DragonBorn]

that is true but it would probably rise is usage do to Riolu CopyCat Roar and Prankster especially Mr.Mime because it CAN make or break a game especially is you dont have priority.

 

[skylight]

that is true but it would probably rise is usage do to Riolu CopyCat Roar and Prankster especially Mr.Mime because it CAN make or break a game especially is you dont have priority.

But Prankster Riolu has been around for ages now, and Mr Mime certainly hasn't risen in usage due to that. :(

 

[Nyara]

Mr. Mime is cool, but he's just there if you plan to use Nasty Plot and/or Baton Pass, as he doesn't have any other niche at all on our current metagame, and stopping Riolu is not a option for a niche as you need priority for other threats whatsover (Endure + Pinch Berry + Flail/Reversal can pretty much means good game without priority), that is just a bonus.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

Mr. Mime is cool, but he's just there if you plan to use Nasty Plot and/or Baton Pass, as he doesn't have any other niche at all on our current metagame, and stopping Riolu is not a option for a niche as you need priority for other threats whatsover (Endure + Pinch Berry + Flail/Reversal can pretty much means good game without priority), that is just a bonus.

b-but Mr. Mime learns healing wish: thé suicide healing move! Ok it sounds terrible, not to mention Gardevoir also gets it.

Though it's true that Riolu is a B to deal with, perhaps it is due to the fact that Riolu barely gets any use, despite the ease at which it can be used. If Riolu became like, Iunno seen every five or so matches, then cries all over the NU forums would come and Mr. Mime might see the light of day. However in the end Mr Mime looks cool on paper but there's just so many psychics around, and Mushrana and Gardevoir do their stuff better.

 

[Aasgier]

I think, that if Prankster spam becomes the NU main standard (Cottonee, Liepard, Murkrow, Riolu), that Prankster is going to be banned as a whole. But we aren't on the level of huge Prankster spam yet, though Liepard is getting common.

 

[Ewil]

I think, that if Prankster spam becomes the NU main standard (Cottonee, Liepard, Murkrow, Riolu), that Prankster is going to be banned as a whole. But we aren't on the level of huge Prankster spam yet, though Liepard is getting common.

That will not happen, simply because getting prepared for those threats is pretty simple.

Cottonee is no-nearly a threat. He's frail and basically any sap-sipper/team with heal bell can win against him.
And he's pretty rare too.

Liepard has a Luck-based strategy (and if you run Own Tempo mons, like Lickylicky with Heal Bell the strategy is basically fucked). I'm not arguing Liepard is a bad poke, absolutely, he's an annoyer or a Sun/(rain ? idk if he knows rain dance) setter. If the confusion fail only one time, Liepard is dead (i princiapally use Icicle Spear Piloswine if i wanna risk against him, so i break the sub if he knows the move).

Murkrow has a good support movepool and can run a good PerishTrap set. Easily counterable with a Rock/Electric/Ice-Type move once you guess if he's physical or special.

Riolu has few chance to get in the battle and use his only strategy. And basically any team run a poke capable of threating him. TraceGardevoir, Ditto, Liepard, faster priority are all good counters.

I don't hide that the idea of a Prankster team can sounds pretty sexy. Does anyone try it ?

 

[Aasgier]

You run into a glaring Ice Weakness if you try it, I did but ended up having four Pokémon weak to ice and no resists. A full Prankster team means you need to run the four above mentioned, and something that sets spikes, something that sets SR to abuse Riolu's phazing, and a pair of things that can sponge hits. That essentially means it is better to forgo one of the pranksters.

And Piloswine is a bad example since it counters all Prankster mons with its movepool, whereas Gardevoir is also pretty dangerous but not all Gardevoir run moves that counter it properly. Substitute + 3 attacks for example (Riolu can still continue the phazing chain with Roar after copycatting the Substitute), or just all Gardevoir sets with 4 attacks.

 

[Ewil]

If Gardevoir use any of her supporting moves, Riolu copycats it and then he continues using it if he uses Copycat. And if he tries to Roar again, he's primaly raped by a psychic from Gardevoir (the survive of Riolu are basically 0% if you opt for the Eviolite one. You can have a chance if you choose Sash and it is intact).
You have only the chance to predict a support move from Gardevoir and not an attacking one (and watch out from Will-O Wisp that puts Riolu on a timer) and Roar instead of Copycat, but is a guessing game depending on your and your opponent's skill.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

Ok so Riolu isn't that 'great', but it's still awful to try and be dealt with...

Alas, seeing as Liepard is awesome, mostly due to prankster. Everyone has pretty much only used one set though, consisting of a slightly defensive EV spread, coupled with T-wave/Punishment/Swagger/Substitute. However, is it really that 'great', I can't imagine Liepard does as great as it can do with that set, relying on luck at least half the time.

But how about this set, created by moi (the moves, not the EV spread)

Liepard @ Choice Specs
Trait: Prankster
EVs: 80 HP/8 Def/252 Sp. Def/168 Spe
Timed Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Encore
- Yawn/T-wave/Toxic
- Trick

This thing is a nightmare when used right: it can basically force at least one pokémon to be rendered useless the ENTIRE match with a trickspecs, specs because scarf can be a pain if given to any offensive pokémon, not to mention that band can be given to the wide section of powerful attackers like Zangoose, Ursaring, Swellow and (mofo) Sawk. Combine this with Yawn (which is preferred, but any status can-do I guess) to force even more switches or force ANOTHER pokémon out of commision, except for a resttalker, but a resttalker who gets slept still isn't the ideal situation for said resttalker: seeing as it basically loses valuable turns and has to rely on sleeptalk early on. This can also draw out the cleric (too) early, making for easy bait.

Encore for wall-trolling and more force-switching, seriously funny when used against a psychic pokémon who thinks it can nail you with a signal beam, or a kanghaskan who has just sucker punched your other pokémon to death. Of course largely relying on one of your other pokémon to have died (or in case of certain moves, a good switch). Alas, defensive behemoths with not a lot of offensive options can rightfully fear this set. Dark Pulse because together with specs and good speed, can be used as a makeshift revenger, and gives good enough hit-coverage together with STAB.

I think this set works best together with at least stealth rock, but with spikes this becomes even better. Though I have to suggest that if you want to try this, to use a somewhat more defensive team to cover liepard's obvious weaknesses.

 

[Ewil]

Actually i think that Choice Scarf + T-Wave can be good since you can cripple a sweeper with a scarf (allowing him only to do one hit) and then, you can paralyze him to render useless the Scarf.
With Choice Specs/Band you can do a favor to your opponent (even with Scarf, but its the least dangerous).

T-Wave/Toxic are better options over Yawn for the Sleep Clause, but, like you said, if you want cause your opponent to do lot of switches that's pretty good.

And Riolu is good if you build a dedicated team that eliminates his counters.

 

[JCM.]

The EV Spread is kind of messed up, as a Specs Pokemon without max investment in SAtk (Hell you don't even have any) is not really good. Your EVs serve no purpose that I can see of. Mono-Dark coverage isn't extremely good in NU (Skunk does it well, but that's another story.) I'm not sure if I would use Liepard over any other Special attackers such as Haunter, SubCM Missy or even Murkrow, as all of them cover the same thing as Liepard. I think it should stick to it's standard sets, not that thinking out of the box is bad.

 

[Ewil]

I think that ZandgaiaX use a choice item without investiments because the idea behind that set is that the first thing that you do with Liepard is to trick the opponent and possibly cripple him.
That's another hard duty because Liepard has few chances to switch to an attack without being hardly damaged due to poor defensive stats.

EDIT: And yeah, i don't see the point of that EV spread

 

[Farobi]

He's not using Liepard as an attacker at all, it's pretty much some sort of support Liepard that cripples the opposing Pokemon. Liepard is damn weak anyway, so going for Dark Pulse is kind of like a last resort option, IMO. His Liepard set is used to give a wall/physical attacker the Specs, then go for T-wave, rendering it almost useless throughout the match.

 

[JCM.]

Ok, yeah, I didn't read the whole set, just saw Specs + Dark Pulse. Well, it still doesn't matter because the EV Spread accomplishes nothing at all.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

The EV spread on his Liepard set is the exact same setup as the very first set in Liepard's on-site analysis. You know, that hax set that made Liepard so famous. It's designed to optimize special bulk, give Liepard enough HP for a Leftovers number and to use Substitute 5 times instead of 4 (granted, his set isn't running Substitute), give enough speed to beat max speed base 95s, and the leftovers are placed into the Def stat.

He said himself that he didn't invent that EV spread. He just got it from this site's analysis.

 

[Punchshroom]

Liepard sits at a very unusual but convenient 106 base speed, which allows it to outpace Rapidash, Kadabra, Charizard, Raichu, the Simis and more pokes between base 105 and 95 speed. The current Liepard analysis optimizes bulk to handle Psychics and Ghosts better while still outspeeding them (except Kadabra) and maintaining a Lefties number. I on the other hand like the idea of revenge killing these frail threats when they least expect it. Of course I lose bulk against Psychics and Ghosts, but Liepard doesn't have much of it anyway, and as long as Liepard doesn't switch in on a coverage move it'll still do fine.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

Actually i think that Choice Scarf + T-Wave can be good since you can cripple a sweeper with a scarf (allowing him only to do one hit) and then, you can paralyze him to render useless the Scarf.
With Choice Specs/Band you can do a favor to your opponent (even with Scarf, but its the least dangerous).

T-Wave/Toxic are better options over Yawn for the Sleep Clause, but, like you said, if you want cause your opponent to do lot of switches that's pretty good.

The choice item can be any really, technically speaking Band is the worst choice out there: sawk, swellow and zangoose whilst not enjoying the one-move limit will gleefully abuse it. Specs is a neutral ground: you can net some suprise KO's with the specs still on in a pinch, and if you at least have a lickilicky those specs will be useless. Except against something like gardevoir or exeggutor, but then both players are doing something wrong: the opponent for staying in/switching in against liepard, you for tricking it unto a special attacker. Scarf is useless if still on liepard: liepard doesn't need the extra speed in a pinch like say specs could give (note the could). And yes you can Thunder-wave afterwards, but this set is not necessarily meant to cripple sweepers, it's meant to screw over walls instead: Shuckle, Probopass, Seismitoad and lickilicky even with special attacks they will not appreciate the specs at all.

Not to forget that scarf can help any sweeper who may or may not switch in, and if your team is slow good luck with that I'm afraid, whilst specs can only help special attackers: most of which are psychics to begin with.

Alas, it isn't difficult to know when to trick. If your opponent has a piloswine or another obvious stealth rocker (other than golem, for the love of god if you have a water or grass type, avoid tricking golem), feel free to use trick immediately to cripple them and force them to switch. With a mediocore defensive set it's possible to survive piloswine's attacks reasonably well, not to mention you get another trick chance with eviolite. Then pick off again with a yawn, forcing another switch, forcing your opponent needing to adapt immediately. Whilst giving you an easier time.

Status depends again, on the team: do you wish to slow sweepers down to help your own? T-wave. Do you want to wear down your opponent/do you lack toxic on any of your pokémon? Toxic. Do you want to force a lot of switches, and render another pokémon on your opponents side (along with a good trick) useless for a while? Yawn.

The EV Spread is kind of messed up, as a Specs Pokemon without max investment in SAtk (Hell you don't even have any) is not really good. Your EVs serve no purpose that I can see of. Mono-Dark coverage isn't extremely good in NU (Skunk does it well, but that's another story.) I'm not sure if I would use Liepard over any other Special attackers such as Haunter, SubCM Missy or even Murkrow, as all of them cover the same thing as Liepard. I think it should stick to it's standard sets, not that thinking out of the box is bad.

I think that ZandgaiaX use a choice item without investiments because the idea behind that set is that the first thing that you do with Liepard is to trick the opponent and possibly cripple him.
That's another hard duty because Liepard has few chances to switch to an attack without being hardly damaged due to poor defensive stats.

EDIT: And yeah, i don't see the point of that EV spread

Ok, yeah, I didn't read the whole set, just saw Specs + Dark Pulse. Well, it still doesn't matter because the EV Spread accomplishes nothing at all.

I am indeed not using Liepard as an attacker, using it as an attacker would be idiotic with such a great ability. It is however true that Liepard can be used as a semi-revenger with it's speed against ghosts like Golurk or Misdreavus or against pokémon with barely any health left, not to mention:

0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 176 HP / 0 SpD Golurk: 186-222 (51.23 - 61.15%) -- 92.58% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 176 HP / 0 SpD Golurk: 282-332 (77.68 - 91.46%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Misdreavus: 116-140 (44.44 - 53.63%) -- 33.2% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Misdreavus: 176-210 (67.43 - 80.45%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Drifblim: 254-300 (57.59 - 68.02%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Drifblim: 380-450 (86.16 - 102.04%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Gardevoir: 138-164 (49.64 - 58.99%) -- 99.61% chance to 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Gardevoir: 206-246 (74.1 - 88.48%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 132 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 218-260 (59.89 - 71.42%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 132 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 330-390 (90.65 - 107.14%) -- 43.75% chance to OHKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 218-260 (55.32 - 65.98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 330-390 (83.75 - 98.98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Musharna: 164-194 (37.87 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Musharna: 242-288 (55.88 - 66.51%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 240 HP / 16 SpD Musharna: 158-188 (36.48 - 43.41%) -- 98.88% chance to 3HKO
0 SpA Choice Specs Liepard Dark Pulse vs. 240 HP / 16 SpD Musharna: 236-282 (54.5 - 65.12%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

That's major without any investment, with or without specs. The only useless calc is against drifblim with unburden, as you don't outspeed it. But then again, neither does scarf Raichu (<,<;). Yes, Calm Mind Misdreavus 'beats it', but you have encore, so you are clearly doing it wrong. Yes, Golurk and Drifblim have a huge chance of 1HKO'ing, but again: you're doing it wrong if you're switching in immediately.
The Psychics are even worse of, the best exeggutor can do is using sleep powder against it, but one has to wonder why they would keep in their exeggutor: an incredible pokémon in NU, against Liepard: especially if it gets locked into psychic by a choice item or encore. Giga drain is annoying, and Leaf Storm hurts, but with a good enough special wall/grass resist what are you complaining about? Gardevoir and Mushrana can indeed use calm mind against it, and then what? Get encore'd, yawned/toxic'ed/tricked and forced to switch out or wait: a perfect time for something like skuntank to clean it up from there. Liepard was and is never meant to be a sweeper, even the nasty plot set abuses prankster for a very good reason.

The EV spread on his Liepard set is the exact same setup as the very first set in Liepard's on-site analysis. You know, that hax set that made Liepard so famous. It's designed to optimize special bulk, give Liepard enough HP for a Leftovers number and to use Substitute 5 times instead of 4 (granted, his set isn't running Substitute), give enough speed to beat max speed base 95s, and the leftovers are placed into the Def stat.

He said himself that he didn't invent that EV spread. He just got it from this site's analysis.

This guy knows it ;), not to mention that that set is pretty much the 'bulkiest' that Liepard can ever reliably run. I can fiddle around with some of the EV's, but since most of Liepard's reliable switches are against walls/psychics, it's reasonable to give it full SpD ev's I think. But I'm not an EV/Calc. expert.

In the end however, Liepard functions best on a defensive team that can cover it's weaknesses (read: a lot of them), and that preferably uses both SR and Spikes. Of course a cleric and a wish-passer are enjoyable, but from personal experience running a defensive team without a wish-passer/cleric is hard.

 

[jake]

a few thoughts on some neat things that i've been using and that you guys should play around with, if you have time:

kangaskhan. no lie, this thing is phenomenal and quite a few other guys have been using it for some time. sure, it's not the biggest and most powerful threat like a few other normals (zangoose comes to mind especially), but it offers an incredible combination of bulk, power, and utility that a lot of balanced teams really need. fake out + sucker punch work wonderfully together to pick off or at least slow down many of the faster threats in the metagame, and fake out is especially nice to wear down the timers on things like swellow, zangoose, and even weather sweepers like ludicolo or exeggutor. in general, kanga is a great weapon against offensive teams, as the combination of priority and speed (it hits an important bracket, outrunning many pokemon of choice for bulky offensive teams like samurott, braviary, rotom-a, gardy, ludicolo, sawk, etc) let it run all over them. i'm not too fond of using LO since kanga has some pretty good bulk, but i'm sure if you guys like the calcs it brings you can certainly use it. a close friend has even complained about subtoxic kanga overrunning his stall team, so it can do that kind of stuff too. don't be afraid to jump in and try kanga!

haunter. i don't think i've seen anyone talk about it in this thread (or anywhere? correct me if i'm wrong though) but haunter is awesome and has been seeing a lot of use in stuff like spl. people have started deviating from the subdisable set after learning that cb sawk still 2HKOes it with struggle, and instead started looking at new, different sets. some of the most popular have been things like scarf (which is really neat, being able to play mindgames with dbond / trick and also revenging everything from ludicolo to weakened gorebyss is great) to lo with hp ground and dbond. it's got a fantastic speed tier and is one of those offensive pokemon that can actually help keep sawsbuck in check with its great typing (watch out for stupid speed ties though).


ehhh i wanted to post a bit more before i had to leave but i suppose this will have to do for now. what have you guys been using / what are your thoughts on these guys?

 

[Agent Gibbs]

people have started deviating from the subdisable set after learning that cb sawk still 2HKOes it with struggle, and instead started looking at new, different sets. some of the most popular have been things like scarf (which is really neat, being able to play mindgames with dbond / trick and also revenging everything from ludicolo to weakened gorebyss is great) to lo with hp ground and dbond.

I'm really liking the Life Orb variants with Destiny Bond, especially when you use it alongside something like Gardevoir or Musharna. Plenty of times people will just toss Skuntank on their team and think that they'll have Psychic and Ghost types covered pretty well. I'll often catch a Skuntank with Destiny Bond as he tries to kill off my Haunter with Pursuit, and that might bring down their best answer to my Psychic sweeper. Once Skuntank is out of the way, Gardevoir and Musharna have a much easier time sweeping through opposing teams. Even if you use Destiny Bond as the opponent goes for Sucker Punch instead, you'll still pretty much guarantee that you'll either switch out safely the next turn or bring Skuntank down with you if it Pursuits.

 

[Celever]

I can't find a Q+A thread for NU, so I will just ask here;

Why do people use return on Slaking instead of giga impact? Giga impact's turn recharging doesn't effect Slaking because he is missing a turn from truant anyway, does it?