Pairing Scarf Mienshao with another Fighting-type is also a decent idea, as they can whittle away at each others' checks and counters, potentially breaking open a sweep for the other. bulk Up or Dragon Dance Scrafty does this well, as its Dark-typing and access to Shed Skin lets it beat out Cofagrigus, Slowbro, and other status checks to Fighting-types.
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Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer - UU Edition
- Thread starter kokoloko
- Start date
Yes it is.
Some questions about Rhyperior.
Firstly, I used to be a big fan of Sub-3 attacks Rhyperior, but he's no where in the updated analysis. Is Sub-3 attacks at all viable?
Secondly, I've been experimenting with CB Rhyperior, but I've found it's hard to find partners for him that don't double up on an Ice-weakness, and all my attempts to circumvent it just leave me with a nasty Grass-weakness. What are some good partners for CB Rhyperior?
Thirdly, in line with my last question, what's a Pokemon with good synergy with CB Rhyperior that can set up SR?
Firstly, I used to be a big fan of Sub-3 attacks Rhyperior, but he's no where in the updated analysis. Is Sub-3 attacks at all viable?
Secondly, I've been experimenting with CB Rhyperior, but I've found it's hard to find partners for him that don't double up on an Ice-weakness, and all my attempts to circumvent it just leave me with a nasty Grass-weakness. What are some good partners for CB Rhyperior?
Thirdly, in line with my last question, what's a Pokemon with good synergy with CB Rhyperior that can set up SR?
I'm using a Substitute Rhyperior myself and I actually like it pretty much. I'm actually using Sub SR (yes it was a brainfart) so I miss out on important coverage, but it is actually fairly easy to get a free sub with Rhyperior, because you either lure in the spinner or at least force out stuff like subCM Raikou and Crobat.
Good partners huh ... Rhyperior would require at least two pokemon to cover more weaknesses. Crobat + Shaymin is okayish, Crobat + Snorlax seems pretty solid (on paper at least, haven't tested that), but I'm not too sure about how well it fares against Froslass and Bronzong.
SR partners that don't share at least one weakness are kinda rare. Azelf comes to mind and so does Mew but I think that's actually it unless I have missed something (well Bronzong maybe it could even set up TR)
Cb rhyperior would do well with choice scarf heracross. Heracross is bulky enough to take the fighting, grass and ground attacks aimed at rhyperior while rhyperior covers the flying and fire attacks aimed at heracross. Once heracross typical counters are gone like crobat and nidoqueens (which both fear edgequake from rhyperior), heracross can proceed to sweep with scarf moxie cross. The only thing that's bulky enough to tank hits from both heracross and rhyperior is cofagrigus, which could be handled by cm meloetta thanks to her great sp def and immunity to ghost attacks.
Personally, I'm using a great core with phys def slowbro/sp def rhyperior/ sp def roserade that is a great defensive core. You'll need a good offensive core to counter heracross, but its very doable.
Flash fire will activate, seeing that it gives the opponent Heatran an immunity to fire type moves (Like you can't toxic a Registeel).
I posted this as its own post and it got deleted and I was directed here, so... here it is.
I haven't read through all the posts, so maybe this has been covered, but a friend of mine introduced me to a Porygon2 set that I think is far superior to others.
Thunder Wave - Swagger - Foul Play - Recover
Ability - Trace
With this setup, you can invest all EVs in Defense, Special Defense, and HP. This, combined with Eviolite, turns Porygon2 into a tank.
I've had tremendous success with this set OU and below, especially when Tracing a good defensive ability. (Multiscale, Unaware, Poison Heal, and Levitate to name a few). And the fact that Foul Play is a Dark type move means it can hit any pokemon.
It may seem like it's pretty luck based, but it works far more consistently than you'd think. It shuts down special attackers, and can cause physical attackers to 1 shot themselves.
Sometimes it does backfire and a physical attacker gets through the parafusion and retains the attack boosts from swagger. I've found that Ditto is an excellent companion to Porygon2. If Porygon2 goes down, you can send out Ditto to copy all of those stat boosts you just gave them. They're usually paralyzed, and often-times still confused, so there is a good possibility of starting a sweep, or at least taking out a couple with you.
I have even swept teams with Porygon2 alone. I hope you all try it out and bring Porygon2 up to OU where it belongs. :D
I haven't read through all the posts, so maybe this has been covered, but a friend of mine introduced me to a Porygon2 set that I think is far superior to others.
Thunder Wave - Swagger - Foul Play - Recover
Ability - Trace
With this setup, you can invest all EVs in Defense, Special Defense, and HP. This, combined with Eviolite, turns Porygon2 into a tank.
I've had tremendous success with this set OU and below, especially when Tracing a good defensive ability. (Multiscale, Unaware, Poison Heal, and Levitate to name a few). And the fact that Foul Play is a Dark type move means it can hit any pokemon.
It may seem like it's pretty luck based, but it works far more consistently than you'd think. It shuts down special attackers, and can cause physical attackers to 1 shot themselves.
Sometimes it does backfire and a physical attacker gets through the parafusion and retains the attack boosts from swagger. I've found that Ditto is an excellent companion to Porygon2. If Porygon2 goes down, you can send out Ditto to copy all of those stat boosts you just gave them. They're usually paralyzed, and often-times still confused, so there is a good possibility of starting a sweep, or at least taking out a couple with you.
I have even swept teams with Porygon2 alone. I hope you all try it out and bring Porygon2 up to OU where it belongs. :D
While that set seems like a pretty cool idea, I think it's generally inferior to Prankster Liepard in the Swagger + Foul Play role. Liepard has Prankster, which means both it has priority on Thunder Wave, Swagger and Substitute, and it also gets STAB on Foul Play, which means it will do 50% more damage than Porygon2. With Substitute, you can stall until a swaggered Pokemon hits itself, and then use Liepard's excellent speed to kill it with Foul Play and keep the sub up, making it much easier to face whatever comes next. Of course, Ditto is still an excellent partner to exploit any Pokemon that does get past Liepard. Liepard's high speed and STAB Foul Play mean it's better able to contribute when you can't get the swagger strategy going; it can actually 2HKO a lot of common Pokemon, especially with hazard support. Priority Thunder Wave is also extremely useful for stopping a rampaging sweeper.
What is holding back Porygon-Z from being a bigger threat? It has access to decent moves, such as Tri-Attack and Nasty Plot, and its defenses and speed are as good as Lucario's. Also, Adaptability and Download both seem like better abilities than either of Lucario's, except for against a select few Pokemon, such as Jirachi. Since it has absolutely phenomenal Special Attack (25 better than Lucario's Attack), is the only issue with it typing? If so, why isn't Conversion more useful? Though it takes a turn to set up, it's pssible to guarantee you have the type you want. I apologize if there is something obvious I'm not seeing, and I thank you in advance for any information you can give.
I honestly think Porygon-Z is awesome, it has some great abilities and all the moves it needs to be a very effective sweeper.
I'd say whats holding PZ back is it's speed and typing. Normal typing gives it no favors at all; no resistances except a Ghost immunity and a weakness to one of the most powerful types of the tier, Fighting. It's base 90 speed puts it behind most of the top threats of UU, and pretty much all of them have no trouble taking PZ out.
That being said, Porygon-Z is still a great pokemon, and in the right hands and right conditions it can do a lot of damage.
I'd say whats holding PZ back is it's speed and typing. Normal typing gives it no favors at all; no resistances except a Ghost immunity and a weakness to one of the most powerful types of the tier, Fighting. It's base 90 speed puts it behind most of the top threats of UU, and pretty much all of them have no trouble taking PZ out.
That being said, Porygon-Z is still a great pokemon, and in the right hands and right conditions it can do a lot of damage.
There are pros and cons to both Lucario and Porygon-Z and I will address them, but remember that just because a pokemon is in a lower tier than another doesn't mean its worse, tiers are determined by usage, not some objective scale.
Anyways,
Pros for Porygon-Z
-huge SpA
-access to two great boosting moves (Agility and Nasty Plot)
-Good coverage with only three moves
Cons for Porygon-Z
-It's defenses aren't that great
-Normal typing isn't doing it very many favors for switching in/setting up
Pros for Lucario
-Steel/fighting is a good defensive type, which aids in set up/switching in
-Access to two great boosting moves (swords dance and Nasty Plot)
-Two usable attacking stats (its special attack is actually higher than its attack
-Priority, speed isn't as much of a factor when Lucario gets Extreme Speed, Bullet punch, and vacuum wave (for special sets)
Cons for Lucario
-It has poor defenses, especially for a base 90 speed pokemon in OU
-Doesn't have good coverage with three moves
Its also important to remember that these two can play vastly different rolls depending on what teams need them to do and are, in general, two vastly different mons.
"What's so great about Lucario? Hmm? Porygon-Z is just as cute as Lucario. Porygon-Z is just as smart as Lucario. People like Porygon-Z just as much as they like Lucario. And when did it become okay for one pokemon to be the boss of everybody, huh? We should totally just stab Lucario!" (sorry your post just made me think of Mean Girls...)
Ah, PTjon7 ninja'd me...
Nah, every contribution is worthwhile. And anyway, you made pros & cons lists!
I'd say what really sets apart Lucario and PZ is priority attacks. Lucario has a great assortment of priority while PZ has none. Priority attacks are a huge deal, especially when their user has access to attack boosting moves.
I'd say what really sets apart Lucario and PZ is priority attacks. Lucario has a great assortment of priority while PZ has none. Priority attacks are a huge deal, especially when their user has access to attack boosting moves.
Probably the normal typing and lack of switch-in opportunities are the only things really holding P-Z back. Even so, it's still pretty damn deadly and infuriating, especially considering if you thought scald hax was bad, tri-attack hax can be far more enraging.
Conversion unfortunately doesn't really work here, as once you change typing, you lose out on STAB tri-attack and adaptability becomes useless to run as a result, which is a massive boost for P-Z, as at this point, there really isn't anything hitting as hard on the special side that doesn't suffer the potential of an ill-timed miss (think fire blast from chandelure for example).
To be fair though, conversion could work with the other abilities though. Download is a bit of a pain to try and obtain these days, as there are good targets, but said targets may not offer good switch-ins (e.g OTR cofagrigus while trick-room is up).
Despite the on-site analysis thinking poorly about analytic, it is important to note that if someone tries to switch out on your P-Z, since the switch happens first, you do get the boost from analytic for moving last, so it's quite possible (in theory), to use conversion to copy the type of the switch-in, force the opponent to switch again, and then proceed to hit the next switch-in ridiculously hard with analytic, possibly with a life orb boost included.
What I'm gathering here is that Porygon-Z's main flaws are Typing and lack of Priority Moves (Extreme Speed would certainly be interesting). Conversion seems like it could fix the first, and do something that mitigates the second.
For instance:
Porygon-Z @Life Orb
Ability: Adapatability
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Nature: Modest
- Tri-Attack
- Conversion
- Nasty Plot / Agility / Thunder Wave
- Dark Pulse / Thunderbolt
With this set, Porygon-Z guarantees becoming either Dark or Electric type, both of which, combined with Normal, get neutral coverage on everything, except Steel types if you choose Dark (I think). Also, Nasty Plot & Dark Pulse boosts Porygon-Z's stab of choice to insane levels, while the Thunder Wave and Thunderbolt set guarantees going first after a turn of set-up. This way, Porygon can be much better at swithing in because of typing, and have access to pseudo-priority.
There are a few problems with this set, because it involves multiple set up moves (Nasty Plot/Conversion or Thunderwave/Conversion) Porygon-Z is going to take a hit. So in general, Porygon-2 would do this better (more bulk). It also takes away one of Porygon-Z's greatest strength, amazing coverage. Fighting/Dark/Normal, will always be better than normal/dark or electric/normal. Usually, you will find conversion to be a waste of a move, because the fighting types that usually counter Porygon-Z still have super effective STAB on Dark, and also carry ground-type coverage for electric (Ground/Rock/Fighting obtains great coverage and is accessible by most fighting types).
Thanks for clearing that up. I think I understand now.
Well firstly, you've got to look at their stats (found here: http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/) and base it off them. For example, you don't want to make a physical sweeper with only a base 60 Attack stat.
Once you find pokemon with good stats you'll need to look at their move pool. On the Smogon Pokedex you are given the most competetively viable sets that pokemon use. I recommend starting off with just going straight with the recommended sets, then once you get to know the game a little more start making sets of your own.
Another good way to figure out which pokemon are good and which aren't as good is by looking at the UU Viability Rankings: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3474024
These rankings order all the pokemon in UU and some in lower tiers from best (S-Rank) to worst (E-Rank). Don't completely write off pokemon in the lower rankings as bad however, as even things in C-Tier can be good if they're used well.
I hope this is helpful to you, and good luck!
Once you find pokemon with good stats you'll need to look at their move pool. On the Smogon Pokedex you are given the most competetively viable sets that pokemon use. I recommend starting off with just going straight with the recommended sets, then once you get to know the game a little more start making sets of your own.
Another good way to figure out which pokemon are good and which aren't as good is by looking at the UU Viability Rankings: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3474024
These rankings order all the pokemon in UU and some in lower tiers from best (S-Rank) to worst (E-Rank). Don't completely write off pokemon in the lower rankings as bad however, as even things in C-Tier can be good if they're used well.
I hope this is helpful to you, and good luck!
What sweepers appreciate the wallbreaking power of a Choice Banded Heracross / Choice Specs Raikou core?
Off the top of my head Banded Heracross can take out special walls like Umbreon, Snorlax, and Porygon2. Specs Raikou can obviously take out bulky Water types. Of coarse they do a lot more than just that, but based off of that it seems to me that something like Rain Dance Kingdra would greatly benefit from having both special walls and Water types out of the way when it tries to sweep.
TPO3
Never practice; Always perform.
I agree with PT, and I think Rain Dance Kingdra would greatly benefit from those two. You might also consider Speed Boost Yanmega, although since it loses 50% of its health to Stealth Rock, it would require a bit more support. Agility Empoleon would probably work pretty well also. Once you've weakened the special walls enough, you can set up Agility, and perhaps even nab a Special Attack boost with a Petaya Berry set, and then just sweep.
As a side note, you might also want to consider Spikes on your team. If you can get spikes up early game, it will make it much easier to wear down walls like Umbreon and Porygon2. Since Raikou lures them in on a consistent basis, they would Spikes damage they take from switching in, and Raikou could use Volt Switch to get CB Heracross in easily. Pory2 and Umbreon aren't going to stay in on Band Heracross, so you will add up the damage very quickly.
As a side note, you might also want to consider Spikes on your team. If you can get spikes up early game, it will make it much easier to wear down walls like Umbreon and Porygon2. Since Raikou lures them in on a consistent basis, they would Spikes damage they take from switching in, and Raikou could use Volt Switch to get CB Heracross in easily. Pory2 and Umbreon aren't going to stay in on Band Heracross, so you will add up the damage very quickly.
TPO3
Never practice; Always perform.
Houndoom has such low usage because most of what it does is just done better by something else in the tier. The only reason I think it hasn't dropped yet is because it can trap Chandelure with Pursuit, and even this is done better by Snorlax. Otherwise, pretty much anything Houndoom done is just done better by something else. As a fire-type switch in with Flash Fire, Chandelure and Arcanine both do this much better, since they are more bulky, and both have ways to heal themselves. As a mixed attacker, Victini will do better since it has higher attack and more powerful moves. As a Nasty Plot sweeper, both Zoroark and Mew will be better due to their superior movepools, stats, and abilities.