np: RU Stage 15 - At Last

[ss234]

Moltres @ Choice Specs
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
- Flamethrower
- Hurricane
- U-turn
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Specs Moltres is an absolute monster in this metagame. Hurricane with specs straight up destroys anything that doesn't resist it, 2HKO ing defensive slowking, and 1HKO ing entei, druddigon and bulky nidoqueen after rocks, as well as tops after rocks and 1 layer of spikes 95% of the time iirc. Flamethrower is also incredibly powerful, and serves as a much more reliable stab option, 1HKO ing the vast majority of electric types that may try to take a hurricane as well as every steel type in the tier. HP Grass finishes the set, 2HKO ing Lanturn after rocks as well as rhydon. U-turn is also a really cool move on moltres, as the majority of moltres's counters(rhydon, lanturn etc.)are very easy to wear down, and can be taken advantage of with a grass type such as Sceptile.

Although this set doesn't have roost, I have found it surprisingly easy to keep SR off the field. Kabutops beats every single ghost type with ease, so its very difficult to keep sr up against kabutops, and I'm also running Smeargle to prevent bulkier leads such as piloswine and steelix from getting sr up straight away and provide spikes to wear down rhydon, lanturn and other molt counters enough so that molt can break through defensive cores much more easily. Obviously, grass types such as sceptile also really benefit from moltres, as u-turn allows them to come in much more easily and moltres can straight up smash druddigon with specs hurricane as well as esca with flamethrower, giving them a much easier time cleaning up.

Although roost+3 attacks and sub roost are great sets, I've found the ridiculous power of specs to be very useful, and hasn't dissapointed in any match so far(except when Hurricane misses at a crucial moment and you lose because of it). So what do you guys think about specs moltres?

@Pocket: I still think that Lilligant is one of the best set-up sweepers in the tier. Escavalier and Druddigon, although very common, are rather easy to wear down if they are CB variants, which most are, with hazard damage, and escavalier's cb megahorn is sometimes easy to take advantage of with the likes of subroost moltres or aggron, while if drudd locks itself into outrage then it is much easier to kill as it can't switch out, and if it isn't locked into outrage then it is significantly weaker. Lilligant can also do quite well against hail, as it outspeeds the common hail scarfers and can set-up on hail staples such as slowking, regirock and poliwrath, so even though the metagame is very anti-grass atm, lilligant and other grass types are still great imo.

 

[Boingo]

I too love Specs Moltres, but I go for Air Slash over Hurricane for accuracy and flinch chance in a pinch.

Also, use goddamn OVERHEAT over U-Turn. U-Turn, imho, is a waste when you can just nuke stuff with Overheat.

 

[Hugin]

U-turn on a Specs attacker that's 4x weak to SR? Yeah, I don't see that going well. MAYBE if it was LO.

I could see going with Roost or Sleep Talk in that 4th slot, as well as Overheat. Switch in, tank a hit, Roost while they go to their counter. It's a great way to bluff a non-choiced set, though you have to be damn careful not to overpredict. Sleep Talk, well, there's plenty of Grass-types in the tier who love Sleep Powdering your guys, and Moltres has a 66% chance to OHKO any given Grass with Sleep Talk.

 

[ss234]

Remember that 95% of the time, they won't have a solid moltres counter, so you can simply spam Hurricane / Flamethrower. U-turn is just useful for when they have a solid moltres counter, but also a strong grass resist(which most teams will have because otherwise you get raped by lilligant / sceptile). Obviously, you're not going to be using it that much at all since you're STAB's are just so strong, but it is helpful for situation's where they have a counter and something that can take a choice locked hp grass. There's nothing else you can really use in the last slot anyway tbh, as HP Grass / hurricane / flamethrower 2HKO's the entire metagame anyway.

 

[Windsong]

Remember that 95% of the time, they won't have a solid moltres counter, so you can simply spam Hurricane / Flamethrower. U-turn is just useful for when they have a solid moltres counter, but also a strong grass resist(which most teams will have because otherwise you get raped by lilligant / sceptile). Obviously, you're not going to be using it that much at all since you're STAB's are just so strong, but it is helpful for situation's where they have a counter and something that can take a choice locked hp grass. There's nothing else you can really use in the last slot anyway tbh, as HP Grass / hurricane / flamethrower 2HKO's the entire metagame anyway.

Which is why you use U-Turn over HP Grass and then put Overheat in the fourth slot.

There are literally two things that you're hitting with HP Grass. Slowking and Lanturn. You can try and tell yourself that it has some use against ground and rock types or w/e but barring like, Regirock, which is by no means even remotely significant right now, they're all 2HKO'd easily by Flamethrower/Hurricane.

And let's consider the scenarios where you'd actually use HP Grass over Hurricane / Overheat / Flamethrower - on a predicted Lanturn switch-in, and on a predicted Slowking switch-in if you're super paranoid about Hurricane missing. Against Lanturn, sure, you get to do a bit of damage to a Moltres counter. A mediocre Moltres counter that you'd wear down by midgame with repeated specs STAB moves anyways. Against Slowking, again, HP Grass only has use if you're super paranoid about Hurricane missing, and is always going to be the inferior choice since Slowking will just pivot out for Regenerator and to exploit the fact that you're locked into a 70 BP Grass move.

So basically use Flamethrower (or Fire Blast) / Hurricane / Overheat / U-Turn

 

[Pocket]

yea, windsong is right - there's really no reason to use HP Grass when Hurricane decimates Slowking and Lanturn / Rhydon are worn down easily.

Thanks, Trop, for your response on Lilligant! Seems like I haven't paired it with the right teammates :|

Do you guys know what the "best" EV spread for Uxie nowadays? I assume most people are using a more offensive-based spreads than defensive ones? I believe ALL Uxie (even defensive ones) should be faster than Nidoqueen, though.

 

[Molk]

Alomomola @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SDef
Impish Nature
- Wish
- Protect
- Waterfall
- Toxic / Healing Wish

I think Alomomola is quite the underrated Pokemon at the moment, while she recieves competition from most of the other bulky Water-types in the tier such as Qwilfish, Poliwrath, and Slowking, she has a few distinct advantages over all of them that make her worth the teamslot. For one thing, Alomomola is by far the most physically Bulky Water-type available in the tier, being way bulkier than Poliwrath and being almost as bulky as even the mighty Tangrowth, the pinnacle of physical bulk. Because of this Physical bulk Alomomola can check a myriad of physical attackers in the RU metagame such as Entei, Emboar, Klinklang, and Hitmonlee. Perhaps the best thing about Alomomola is her Access to the somewhat exclusive Wish, which when combined with her massive HP stat makes her an excellent team player, passing 267 HP Wishes to all of her teammates over the course of the match, and almost always healing more than half of their HP in the process. While she shares the ability with Slowking, Regenerator is still a huge boon for Alomomola, making her much harder to wear down than Qwilfish and Poliwrath. Regenerator also means that Alomomola doesnt need to stay in to heal herself, minimizing the amount of time to opponent has to take advantage of Alomomola's low offensive presence as she only needs to stay in for 2 turns max to do her main job: keeping her teammates healthy over the course of the match. Of course Alomomola still has her flaws, while shes incredibly bulky on the physical side, she isnt nearly as bulky on the special side, having a measly base 45 Special defense, making it slightly easier to take her down by preying on her weaker defensive stat. Also, Alomomola still struggles with being set up bait despite not having to stay in for multiple turns to heal herself. Threats such as Sceptile, Lilligant, Qwilfish, Roselia, and Sigilyph can switch into Alomomola with near impunity and often get a free turn to do whatever they want, meaning the Alomomola user needs ways to get past these Pokemon if they want Mola to function to her full potential. Nonthenless, while Alomomola does recieve some competition from the other Bulky Water-types in the tier and has her flaws, she is still a very viable option in the RU tier with a definite niche in my opinion.

So do any of you have any experience with using Alomomola? If so, how did she do? Was she good at supporting the team? How did you get around her low offensive presence? and What kinds of teams did she work best on?

 

[col49]

Agreeing that Alomomola is pretty cool if played well, being able to toss up such big Wishes and remaining so self-sustaining is really cool imo. Personally, I've found it best used on bulky offense teams requiring a quick pivot into physical attackers, since they usually appreciate the Wish support and can smash most of the 'mons that try to capitalize on 'Mola. My favourite Pokemon to pair it with are Escavalier and Druddigon, both of which really love the Wish support (being some the biggest examples of being worn too thin by their ability to switch in on so much) and can generally take on everything the tries to switch into 'Mola, with it's ability to eat Entei Flare Blitz's and choiced Blizzards (with some SpDef investment) among other things being just another nice bonus =)

edit: also rocky helmet is a really cool item for it :]

 

[Nails]

Do you guys know what the "best" EV spread for Uxie nowadays? I assume most people are using a more offensive-based spreads than defensive ones? I believe ALL Uxie (even defensive ones) should be faster than Nidoqueen, though.

Short answer: 252 HP / speed to outrun queen / whichever defense you need the most

Long answer: It's team dependant, you should only be running speed if you forsee it being crucial that you get one extra hit on nidoqueen before going down. Personally I love slow bulky uxies because of the slow u-turn and if you use defensive rather than SpD evs you become really tanky on that side which teams are not as prepared to deal with. It's all personal preference in the end but there is no "best" spread, pretty much anything you want to use is good if you're using it right. And because Uxie is an awesome pokemon who can do anything.

 

[Molk]

Sorta late but agreeing with Nails that there is no real "best uxie spread", the spread Uxie runs depends on what set its running and how it has to support its team. the standard defensive set along with some of the weather setters will want the spreads Nails posted or a varient of it(252 hp / enough speed to outrun Nidoqueen and co. / whichever defense you need the most). Certain sets such as Dual Screens and the occasional Trickscarf will probably want to run way more Speed to get their job done is efficiently as possible, while still others such as Lum Berry and SubCM Uxie will want to run more offensive spreads to get the most they possibly can out of Uxie's modest base 75 Special Attack stat. As Nails said above, in the end it really depends on the users personal presence and what the user needs Uxie to accomplish, It's a pretty versatile Pokemon that can fill a ton of roles and run a lot of EV spreads effectively.

 

[ss234]

Ok so I've been using hail quite a lot recently, and have come to think that it is a bit too over-powered for ru.

Firstly, there is the 6.25% damage taken from hail every turn. Although it may not seem like much, when combined with Stealth Rock it becomes incredibly easy to wear down pokemon such as expert belt magmortar, lanturn, offensive spiritomb and rotom-c. If the opponent is holding a Life Orb, it becomes even easier to wear down, as every turn they are losing just over 16% of their health. Defensive pokemon also struggle from having no leftovers recovery, lanturn for example has absolutely zero recovery whatsoever in hail. This makes wearing down both offensive threats and defensive threats much more easy, especially if you have toxic spikes, which work brilliantly with hail since queen is easily dealt with by cryo / scarfed ice type, considering the damage from just one layer of toxic spikes is netting 12.5% to pokemon with leftovers, and 18.75% to pokes without leftovers every turn.

Then there are the abusers themselves. Subtect Glaceon and Walrein are able to stall out entire teams with ridiculous ease, and with toxic spikes support become incredibly difficult to deal with, as you're losing a huge amount of health each turn from hail. Even without tspikes, if you lack leftovers recovery both can still wear you down till you hit zero and then it can just begin again. Any offensive pokemon not able to deal upwards of 75% risks being stalled out very easily by these two, and thanks to their great bulk, even though they have a poor defensive typing this is not an easy task. These pokes can also run toxic to help deal with walls such as cryogonal and slowking, and glaceon still has a very powerful blizzard to hammer frail pokemon with ease.

Offensive glaceon however is a completely different beast, one that with tspikes has virtually no counters. With toxic spikes up, defensive slowking is straight up 2HKO'd by specs blizzard. Against offensive teams, glaceon can often take a hit due to its good bulk and hit back ridiculously hard, for example it can take a scarf rotom leaf storm without sr up, which is often a possibility due to how well cryogonal and kabutops fit on hail teams and that they beat every common spinner except cryo loses to spiritomb(which is incredibly easy to wear down on hail if it is an offensive set). All the while glaceon is unleashing ridiculously powerful STAB's, it is restoring health from ice body, giving it more opportunities to use specs blizzard.

There's also rotom-frost. Subsplit rotom-frost has incredibly few counters, with magneton, lanturn and piloswine being the only ones really. All three lack recovery in hail, and lanturn and piloswine are incredibly easy to wear down with toxic spikes. Magneton is a bit trickier, but if it is scarf then it is still hit hard by blizzard and its health is continually being sapped by hail damage. Due to the huge amount of switches this thing forces with its great offensive typing and good speed for ru, it can easily set-up a sub on the switch, pain split against bulkier mons, and then blizzard or tbolt for the KO. With tspikes, hail and pain split damage pretty much every single mon is significantly weakened till tbolt or blizzard off LO can 1HKO.

I'm not saying that there aren't counters to glaceon / rotom-f / other hail abusers, although they do cause a major impact on your teambuilding as they can be very difficult to deal with, forcing you to run at least two solid ice resists, and they do have very few solid counters. The problem is that these checks become ridiculously easy to wear down with hail, making late-game cleaning very easy to accomplish. Instead of just having sr to deal with, gallade and emboar other hail counters etc. have to deal with hail and potentially toxic spikes damage as well as sr damage, and still have to deal with the powerhouse ice types with your health being sapped every single turn. I get that this is the point of semi-stall teams, to wear down pokemon with entry hazards until one poke can easily clean up, but hail is able to wear down threats so quickly and so easily, and the abusers are so powerful on their own, and it restricts team building to such a large degree that I think it could be suspected.

sry if this post makes no sense I am tired ;-;

 

[speed ghilliesniper]

I'm not afraid of hail being broken right now, ironically I'm afraid when something that already loses to hail leaves it will make hail better: Nidoqueen. The number one reason is that when the most popular Poison type in the tier leaves Toxic Spikes will get much, much better. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to be broken, I'm just pointing out that many of Silvershadow's points on being worn down by T-Spikes will become much more relevant and deadly when the best way to quickly eliminate them and pose a hug offensive threat in the process goes away. By the same fate though Hail will lose their best option of laying T-Spikes while retaining offensive punch, so who knows for sure. Something to consider though is that according to the usage stats it seems the better players are seeing that Hail is good faster than the rest of the players, so I' very curious how perma weather fares in RU in the upcoming stages after being overshadowed in the suspect discussion with juggernauts like Cresselia and Nidoqueen taking so much attention. Stats:
Regular stats:| 50 | Snover | 5.44748% |
1850 stats: | 33 | Snover | 7.27271% |

 

[Molk]

k Oglemi, Silentverse, and I talked on irc and decided that we should make a new np thread!

heres a link to the new one: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3481785