Gen V Balanced Hackmons

[Imanalt]

the problem with that regigigas set is that harvest does nothing to help gigas beat the standard ways to counter bdslaking/gigas. It still loses to rhydon, and unaware mons, and has trouble with imposters if the sub isnt up.

 

[Adrian Marin]

the problem with that regigigas set is that harvest does nothing to help gigas beat the standard ways to counter bdslaking/gigas. It still loses to rhydon, and unaware mons, and has trouble with imposters if the sub isnt up.

Thats true but so does every other sweeper, Regigigas just needs a good amount of support, If you spot an unaware mon just switch.

 

[Arcticblast]

There are several sweepers that don't lose to one or more of Rhydon, Unaware, and Imposter. Unburden Rayquaza beats both Rhydon and Imposter (well it doesn't really BEAT Rhydon so much as Rhydon can't do anything to it). Skill Swap Normalize Gengar can get rid of the opponent's Unaware and set up, and with Spooky Plate Judgment Blissey sure isn't getting past it. Scarf Kyurem-W blows straight through Imposter, isn't afraid of Rhydon, and is powerful enough in its own right to muscle through some Unaware Pokemon.

 

[Adrian Marin]

I came up with another harvest set!!

Mewtwo @ Sitrus Berry
Trait: Harvest
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Timid Nature
IVs: null Atk
- Cosmic Power
- Stored Power
- Leech Seed
- Substitute

The concept is to keep on using cosmic power to keep your substitutes and then attempt to annoy your opponent with stored power and subseeding, this set does not have many counters as mewtwo can beat imposter users and even unaware and prankster mons with leech seed. If they taunt him his stored power will hurt a lot.

 

[verbatim]

Why Harvest? Assuming no sun you're dedicating an ability slot to gain ~25% hp every other turn (as opposed to 12.5% per turn with lefties plus an ability you can use in other instances) ASSUMING you're below half hp, and the recovery does not seem strong enough to justify running Sun.

 

[Adrian Marin]

Yes I am using sun

What makes it so useful is the ease of setting up Cosmic Powers due to sitrus berries outrageous recovery, I am basically invincible without attacks like perish song (perish song is the closest to any true counter)it allows me to use 16 substitutes without losing hp, cosmic power lets me survive almost all hits in the tier. Additionally, Imposter pokemons can't beat him at all because of the lack of Sitrus berry recovery similarly to how Judgement works. Try stating some reliable counters that do not risk getting annoyed to death. Honestly harvest is an incredible ability for BH sun and is a game changer in almost every match.

 

[Imanalt]

Honestly harvest is an incredible ability for BH sun and is a game changer in almost every match.

I dont know what to say other than... no....
firstly im not sure whether or not sun is worth it. I have yet to see a successful sun team, although on paper it looks potentially decent, and ive been meaning to try it. secondly, harvest just doesnt offer that much utility. harvest sitrus berry offers no healing until you're under 50%, and even then it only gets you up to 75% maximum. The healing against imposter is nice, but when you can neither set up nor sweep against things other than imposter, its just not worth it. Your set also has absolutely no way of dealing with whirlwind/roar, and can only take dtails after it has gained a cosmic power, both of which are problems for any bh set up sweeper.

 

[Adrian Marin]

I dont know what to say other than... no....
firstly im not sure whether or not sun is worth it. I have yet to see a successful sun team, although on paper it looks potentially decent, and ive been meaning to try it. secondly, harvest just doesnt offer that much utility. harvest sitrus berry offers no healing until you're under 50%, and even then it only gets you up to 75% maximum. The healing against imposter is nice, but when you can neither set up nor sweep against things other than imposter, its just not worth it. Your set also has absolutely no way of dealing with whirlwind/roar, and can only take dtails after it has gained a cosmic power, both of which are problems for any bh set up sweeper.

Admittedly Sun is hard to fit in a BH team but if done properly, it can work wonders.

Harvests utility is the ability to stall, also you are missing the idea of this set, its main niche is to stall, rack up hazards and attack if it can attack. Provided you already have a counter to Phazers it isn't really
a big deal considering it has a strong stored power with a few boosts. Further more Unaware does not cripple it allowing it to beat most anti setup pokemon. The fact that most are not even prepared for this type of stall set only makes it better.

 

[Arkeis]

Funny enough, I used a Sap Sipper Tyranitar a long long time ago which was meant to beat Spore and Stored Power users, and would definitely beat this. But it wasn't that good in the long run, so I dropped it.

Harvest still isn't a reliable ability though. Any opponent with a weather team that's not Sun (which is most of them) will cut it's effectiveness by half. A better item+ability combo would be Toxic Orb + Poison Heal. You can switch in on Toxic Spikes without worry, you won't have to worry about keeping a Sub up to prevent status, and you'll always restore health regardless of the weather or whether you're below half HP or not.

EDIT: You can even simply do Magic Bounce and Leftovers to beat anything with Roar/Whirlwind/Taunt/Encore. Sometimes the standard way of doing things is just better than trying something less conventional

 

[Adrian Marin]

Funny enough, I used a Sap Sipper Tyranitar a long long time ago which was meant to beat Spore and Stored Power users, and would definitely beat this. But it wasn't that good in the long run, so I dropped it.

Harvest still isn't a reliable ability though. Any opponent with a weather team that's not Sun (which is most of them) will cut it's effectiveness by half. A better item+ability combo would be Toxic Orb + Poison Heal. You can switch in on Toxic Spikes without worry, you won't have to worry about keeping a Sub up to prevent status, and you'll always restore health regardless of the weather or whether you're below half HP or not.

While poison heal is good its not actually better then harvest with sun support admittedlyits not exactly reliable. But other sets like sterdninja are even less reliable, sand is seen seldomly. As long as sun is up it outclasses poison heal in most ways.

Look at how harvest works in ou, Its not reliable because of movepool and stats but with mons like giratina it can destroy teams.

 

[nyph]

TBH harvest is not good on anything except giratina, and then its good for two reasons: curse, and the fact that giratina gets a free switchin if it comes in on any attack that deals less than 50%.

Anyway, heres a interesting set I came up with:

Dialga @ Leftovers
Trait: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Bold Nature
- Snatch
- Dragon Pulse
- Dragon Tail/Substitute/Leech Seed/Recover
- Rapid Spin/Toxic Spikes/Substitute/Leech Seed/Recover

This is a utility dialga and a straight up giratina counter. When you use snatch, the opponent's set up moves and recovers/subs will get stolen and due to magic bounce their status and hazard moves will get bounced. So pretty much the only thing they can do is attack. Dragon pulse hits things hard and even harder if you can snatch a boost. If you run dragon tail you can take advantage of stolen belly drums. Substitute+Leech seed or Sub+status can both be used to damage the enemy while you snatch their recovery moves. Dialga also happens to be one of the best spinners in BH, as giratina cannot come in to block it, so rapid spin is a really good choice. Lastly, recover can be used to increase dialga's survivability.

 

[Imanalt]

I like your dialga set, but i question snatch. It requires you to make some very difficult predictions, and even when you do its barely better than alternatives. The only two common things in bh that are snatchable are substitute and set up moves (although i could be forgetting something). If youre snatching a set up move, theres a 50/50 chance it doesnt help you, and if it does, is it really better than just using dragon tail? Substitute is very helpful to beat, but too situational in my mind

 

[Arcticblast]

Snatch enables the user to steal the target's move and use its effect on itself, instead of the intended recipient. A move cannot be stolen multiple times. This move has a priority of +4, so will always go before any move that can be Snatched. The moves that can be taken by Snatch include: all stat-boosting moves (eg. Swords Dance), all recovery moves (eg. Recover, Ingrain, Recycle), all effect-changing moves (eg. Magnet Rise, Power Trick, Reflect), and certain protection moves. Substitute, Lucky Chant, Wide Guard, and Quick Guard can all be Snatched, but Protect and Detect cannot. Acupressure cannot be Snatched. Imprison can be Snatched, but Taunt and other such moves cannot. Aromatherapy, Heal Bell, Healing Wish, and Lunar Dance can all be Snatched. Helping Hand cannot be Snatched. This move cannot be blocked by Substitute.

Snatch actually copies a ton of things. It's too bad it doesn't copy Taunt though, that would be pretty devastating.

 

[Redless]

Meh, snatch is decent move, and in BH it sure sees some usage, but in general it's a bit situational to really warrant an excessive amount of use, like magic coat or spore have.

 

[DrRobotnik]

Why do people prefer Regirock with Sand Stream as opposed to Rhydon? They have more or less the same defenses (if Rhydon has Eviolite which it should) and Rhydon's attack stat is much higher.

 

[Imanalt]

Why do people prefer Regirock with Sand Stream as opposed to Rhydon? They have more or less the same defenses (if Rhydon has Eviolite which it should) and Rhydon's attack stat is much higher.

rhydon is actually a good bit bulkier than regirock, but the advantage of regirock is that it doesnt have the 4x weaknesses to grass or water, which makes it less likely that a surprise move will kill your weather starter.

 

[Adrian Marin]

Why do people prefer Regirock with Sand Stream as opposed to Rhydon? They have more or less the same defenses (if Rhydon has Eviolite which it should) and Rhydon's attack stat is much higher.

Its probably because Rhydon has crippling weaknesses unlike Regirock.

 

[verbatim]

The thing is, outside of the rare Drizzle teams (grass is nonexistent in nearly every situation), Rhydon's crippling weakness's don't really bother him that much. I suppose you could run Regirock as a means of safeguarding against Drizzle teams. That being said, Regirock is significantly worse than Rhydon against most teams, and even when you do fight rain teams, Surf {I'm assuming Palkia in the Sand} only gives you an extra free turn (Regirock is 2hko'd to Rhydon's ohko).

That being said, since you're using them both in the weather starting position, neither one is going to be staying in on water types, so it'd probably be more important to make sure your team has at least one pokemon on your team that can take the attacks for them.

 

[Adrian Marin]

I came up with a new set that works very well for Rain

Metagross Eww (Metagross) @ Leftovers
Trait: Unaware
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Impish Nature
- Heal Order
- Heart Swap
- Meteor Mash
- Rapid Spin

This works surprisingly well against the common Archeops and Kyurem-B running around the tier. It is also capable of stopping numerous specially powerful sweepers such as Latios and Mewtwo. Additionally it is able to sweep with a Heart Swap boost to great effect. The fact that Metagross applies offensive pressure to the foes team attracts Imposter allowing you to Rapid Spin with no issue.

Sadly it cannot counter Groudon and Rhydon but it doesn't stop it from walling many pokemons in the rain like few can.

 

[Imanalt]

Archeops and kyurem-b common what.... Anyways youre better off using lugia, as kyurem-b still cant muscle through bold lugia iirc, and lugia has better overall typing and bulk and speed. Also any unaware mon needs magic coat to avoid getting taken out of the game by the omnipresent spore

 

[Adrian Marin]

Archeops and kyurem-b common what.... Anyways youre better off using lugia, as kyurem-b still cant muscle through bold lugia iirc, and lugia has better overall typing and bulk and speed. Also any unaware mon needs magic coat to avoid getting taken out of the game by the omnipresent spore

Have you even been playing the metagame these days? Archeops wrecks, and Groudon or Rhydon CANNOT fit in a rain team. No offense, but Lugia faces defeat against Archeops.

 

[doughboy]

I have never understood why it has not caught on, but I would like to address the use of Magma Storm in this metagame. Despite its origins as a tier where both Shadow Tag and Arena Trap were abound, the only form of trapping left has been completely ignored. Understandably, Magma Storm takes up a precious moveslot, but considering how vital it is to lock down your opponent before they can do something unpredictable, I would say it is worth it.

Magma Storm's shaky accuracy can be relieved with No Guard. A Pokemon with this combination can become a teams go-to trapper. While initially I was disappointed that to trap efficiently I would need both one move+ability slot, No Guard synergizes surprisingly well with trapping. Since you want to KO your opponent as quickly as possible with a trap so they can't retaliate or set up, high base power moves with low accuracy are the ideal candidates for the job. Ideally, you want your attacker to have high special attack so that they can deal as much damage as possible. However since there is a danger of running into an Eviolite Sandstream Rhydon, Magma Storm can be shoehorned onto a physical attacker. Here is a Reshiram set that can be used on a Sun team:

Spam Magma Storm, if Rhydon comes in with Sandstream use Hpump. Although you have to watch out for prankster Nature Power :*(

Edit: just realized you can't have sandstorm+prankster Lolz

252+ SpA Life Orb Reshiram Hydro Pump vs. 255 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Rhydon in sand: 421-499 (101.69 - 120.53%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Reshiram @ Life Orb
Trait: No Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def / 252 SAtk+ / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
- Magma Storm
- Thunder
- Blizzard
- Hydro Pump

 

[Adrian Marin]

Just Theorymoning here but you just gave me an idea

Registeel @ Leftovers
Trait: Soundproof
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 252 SAtk / 252 SDef / 252 Spd
Calm Nature
IVs: NaN Atk
- Whirlpool
- Perish Song
- Magic Coat
- Substitute

You think it could be effective?

 

[DrRobotnik]

Why Soundproof and not Suction Cups?

 

[verbatim]

Soundproof gives Perish Song immunity.