Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread

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That Aqua Jet calc is also straight-up false.

Honko: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Torrent Feraligatr Aqua Jet vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios in rain: 218-257 (72.18 - 85.09%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Kalashnikov: 252Atk Life Orb +2 Torrent Feraligatr (+Atk) Aqua Jet in Rain vs 4HP/0Def Levitate Latios (Neutral): 71% - 84% (216 - 255 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

These are both with Life Orb, so trying to "abuse" Torrent is right out.
 

LilOu

PO poopyhead
That Aqua Jet calc is also straight-up false.

Honko: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Torrent Feraligatr Aqua Jet vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios in rain: 218-257 (72.18 - 85.09%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Kalashnikov: 252Atk Life Orb +2 Torrent Feraligatr (+Atk) Aqua Jet in Rain vs 4HP/0Def Levitate Latios (Neutral): 71% - 84% (216 - 255 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.

These are both with Life Orb, so trying to "abuse" Torrent is right out.
I don't recommend to use LO when abusing Torrent. You have low health and, therefore; you can only attack 2-3 times depending on the situation.
 
My bad. Thought Torrent was like a +1 boost so I just did +3 when doing the calc. Still though Feraligatr is atleast C-rank. Also Splash Plate or Mystic Water > Life Orb.
 
IMO kabutops and feraligatr are equal aqua jet abusers. Kabutops has STAB rock attacks while feraligatr has torrent. They also have very similar bulk. I would say feraligatr belongs in D-Rank with kabutops, they're equal swords dance/ aqua jet users. However, once it DOES get sheer force, it belongs in B-Rank with gyarados, but for now, it deserves D-Rank.
 

Gary

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Sure Azumarill may pack more of a punch, however more often then not Azumarill will be running a Choice Band set, meaning that it's forced to be locked into one move. Gator on the other hand, has the freedom of spamming Aqua Jet and its coverage moves. They both play completely different roles; Azumarill being a wallbreaker, while Feraligator is a sweeper. They're comparable, but I don't think it's a valid argument in saying that Azumarill outdoes it because of a more powerful AJ.

Also, I think the best item for Torrent abusing Gator is Mystic Water, since it still gets a STAB boost without the loss of health.
 
Feraligatr in B? I really don't see it, he's not really awful but it should probably stay as a top C anyways not to cluster the B ranking too much. I mean, with its versatility, speed and good offensive typing Weavile is struggling to rise into B rank, I don't see Feraligatr niche as anything nearly as important -until Sheer Strength is released anyways, I'd probably wait until that point to add it at all-.
 

Deluks917

Ride on Shooting Star
Azumarill (Cb) is another water type hard walled by Jellicent. Rain has alot of those already. Feraligator with crunch crushes jellicent.
 
I think Feraligatr basically teeters on the border between B/C rank.

On one hand, it resides among the best priority sweepers; Aqua Jet generally has superior neutral coverage than Mach Punch or Bullet Punch, and all of the viable ExtremeSpeed users don't get STAB on the move. Given Feraligatr's good but not outstanding bulk, most strong attacks in OU will put it into Torrent range from full health. Factoring in Torrent and rain, its Aqua Jet is actually the strongest priority move in OU, possessing a whopping 135 BP with STAB, which can be boosted further by holding a Splash Plate.

On the other hand, it requires extensive team support to work since there are many things that can check it. Most teams have at least 2/3 Water resists, almost of all of which can comfortably take a +2 Torrent-boosted Aqua Jet in the rain at full health. You have to work hard to weaken these as a smart player will almost certainly try to keep his main Feraligatr check healthy at all costs. Stealth Rock support is absolutely mandatory for this set to work, though Spikes are recommended too - at least 2 layers is ideal. You also need to remove faster priority users - Breloom, Lucario and Dragonite can all easily revenge-kill Feraligatr. Also, depending on whether you opted for Crunch or Superpower, different things will hard wall you so you need to plan the rest of your team carefully so that these things (i.e. Ferrothorn, Jellicent etc) can be dealt with. You could run both, but Waterfall is very useful for breaking through slower, bulkier Pokémon as it hits like an absolute truck with rain and Torrent taken into account (it's as powerful as Victini's STAB V-Create). It can even be used as the main sweeping move with some Thunder Wave and/or Tailwind support, as at +2 it OHKOs everything bar the bulkiest Water resists (though not to replace Aqua Jet's moveslot, mind you).

Based on my own experience, although Feraligatr can sometimes be difficult to use, and requires you to build a team around it, I think it can just about make that push into B-rank as it does have a definite niche that has been recognised by some of the top-level players. I don't mind if it ends up in C-rank though.
 
I think hippowdon should be high b rank, or at least low A. Although it can set up sand and has great physical bulk, it lacks good special bulk and can easily be forced out by things such as latios. Although it fits better on some sand teams over t-tar, Tyranitar usually does serve the better job, and although they can be great together, as Tyranitar can kill lati@s, I feel t-tar can more reliably set up sand and overshadows hippo.
 

Ojama

Banned deucer.
Hippowdon has a good special bulk what are you talking about. The Mixed Wall is almost unbeatable and even Latios has a hard time against it thanks to Slack Off : 252 SpA Life Orb Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Hippowdon: 289-341 (68.8 - 81.19%) -- guaranteed 2HKO.

Gengar and Heatran can't 2HKO it for example so yeah I really don't see how Hippowdon lacks good special bulk. Hippowdon is definitely A Rank and I'd say high A Rank because it's definitely one of the best stallers of the game. Tyranitar and Hippowdon are 2 different Pokemons, they just have their ability in common but they totally have a different job. Tyranitar is an offensive Pokemon and works well to trap things like Latias, Latios etc while Hippowdon is more destined to take hits on both sides. Hippowdon can't be trapped by Dugtrio which helps if you're Sun weak. I even remember that Hippowdon was more used than Tyranitar in Sand Offense Teams during a moment because of its ability to handle threats like physical Landorus-I, Landorus-T, Terrakion, Dragonite etc. Hippowdon is a real monster, don't underestimate it, really. Definitely high A Rank.
 
Yeah honestly I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote this, I guess I was almost looking for ways to talk about how hippowdon is bad. Hippowdon has great bulk, especially in the sand, I was only surprised that it was A rank when I is clearly overshadowed by t-tar in the usage, but that’s why this is a viability thread. Hippo should see more usage
 
i might get a bit of disagreement, but I propose that we add swampert to D-Rank.

Swampert's CB set is pretty good in the current metagame with rain running rampant. He has a pretty nice STAB combo in Waterfall and EQ, which is only resisted by grass typing. Almost every grass type can be dealt with superpower and ice punch. He might face competition with garchomp, but his ability to abuse rain should not be ignored. As a wall, he is outclassed by garchomp and gastrodon, so you really should only use him as an attacker.

I'm also bringing the old discussion of moving gastrodon up to low B-rank.
I'm gonna bring this back up since almost nobody has talked about it.

I personally think that feraligatr deserves Top C-Rank ATM. While he is a good aqua jet spammer, thats basically all he's good for since he is very slow. Also, Feraligatr will always be walled depending on its its coverage moves. Without Ice punch, dragonite walls him. Without crunch, jellicent and other bulky waters wall him. Without superpower, ferrothorn walls him and without return, toxicroak walls him. Another flaw is that activating torrent can be a bit tricky with entry hazards and super powerful attacks from common attackers like latios and terrakion. The worst flaw is that anything that is faster and resist aqua jet, like celebi, will usually force feraligatr out unless it has a swords dance boost.
 
You need rain, need to be at +2, and need to be at Torrent Range, which you have no way of reliably activating in order to make Feraligatr worth the trouble. There are quite a bit of pokemon that resist Aqua Jet that are faster than Feraligatr in OU(Rotom-W, Lati@s, Starmie, Keldeo, Celebi, Kyurem-B, Dragonite, Salamence, Haxorus, Hydregion, Toxicroak, Venasaur, etc.) If it runs no speed, that number is increased. It also has 4MSS and is always going to be walled by something.

It's not B-Tier at all, I don't even know if it's C-Tier.
 
You need rain, need to be at +2, and need to be at Torrent Range, which you have no way of reliably activating in order to make Feraligatr worth the trouble. There are quite a bit of pokemon that resist Aqua Jet that are faster than Feraligatr in OU(Rotom-W, Lati@s, Starmie, Keldeo, Celebi, Kyurem-B, Dragonite, Salamence, Haxorus, Hydregion, Toxicroak, Venasaur, etc.) If it runs no speed, that number is increased. It also has 4MSS and is always going to be walled by something.

It's not B-Tier at all, I don't even know if it's C-Tier.
Thank you someone gets it. Idk why there is discussion about ferraligator. Is he good? Absolutely. Is he outclassed? Absolutely. That's the issue with this, and Azumarill outclasses the heck out of it.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
feraligatr's role is that of a setup sweeper that abuses rain and torrent in conjunction with aqua jet to turn what used to be a very mediocre pokemon into quite the threat. in no way can azumarill be compared to it, unless you're running cb gatr, which is definitely outclassed by azu but nobody's talking about that because it sucks. azu can't set up and doesn't have access to crunch, two key components necessary for a gatr sweep (or superpower>crunch if you prefer but that kinda sucks). you're comparing apples to oranges and it doesn't make sense. the only pokemon in the entire game that even sorta does what gatr does is samurott, which gatr outclasses in almost every way (samurott does have slightly better bulk, but less movepool depth and lower attack/speed. that's why gatr is so good at what it does, because nothing else does it better. people kinda shunned gatr for a long time because it was automatically perceived as bad due to being a johto starter without much thought, but guys like marth made it popular again with extremely successful teams in bw1, and that success has extended well into bw2 (see spl/ost for reference).

it's definitely a solid B-RANK pokemon
 
I feel like the naysayers haven't even used Feraligatr at all. Trust me though like Thunderblunder said it it's pretty damn bulky so it often goes into Torrent mode. Also you don't always have to be in Torrent mode at +2 it can still sweep a weakened team with ease. A +2 Splash Plate rain boosted non Torrent Aqua Jet is more powerful than a +2 Extremespeed from Life Orb Lucario and water is a better offensive typing than normal. From my experience, Feraligatr has a ton of set up opportunities and setting up 2 Sword Dances isn't all that rare either. Feraligatr is one of the few Pokemon who's more effective in practice than on paper.
 
I have used Feraligatr, that's why I'm saying it's not B-Tier. It's actually the other way around; it's good-on-paper poke, but in practice, it just doesn't work that way. Everything is outspeeding Feraligatr since you have to use 252 HP to prevent it from being OHKO'd by a random move after rocks, which means it's HEAVILY dependent on Aqua Jet. Anything that outspeeds and resists Aqua Jet with decent bulk and health is going to force it out, especially if Torrent isn't up.

Also ES is a way better priority move than Aqua Jet in OU. There are only 3 non-scarfed pokemon in OU that resists ES that outspeeds Lucario: Terrakion, Gengar, and Jirachi. Bullet Punch can take care of the first 2 and most variants of Jirachi can't reliably beat Lucario anyway. Splash Plate Feraligatr's Aqua Jet also hits slightly harder under the rain without Torrent than Lucario's ES. Seriously, the damage difference is so minute, that it won't make a difference in most cases.

Feraligatr is a cool pokemon but let's be honest here; Torrent Aqua Jet is the only reason why anyone should be using Feraligatr in OU, and Feraligatr has no way to consistently activate Torrent. It even has competition from Samurott in OU, because Megahorn and Aqua Jet gets great neutral coverage, and Megahorn acts as a pseudo secondary STAB.
 
I personally think that Chandelure should be an A-rank pokemon.
-It has ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY FIVE base special attack.
-With a bit of prior damage, choice scarf Chandelure can easily get 3-4 pokemon sweeps.
-It has immunities to fire, normal and fighting.
-It has an incredibly good movepool, and can be a valuable asset to winning weather wars when carrying energy ball.

(this isnt my replay, this is my friend who I had basically just told about pokemon and given him a team to use, he has no idea what he was doing, anyway http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-14516084 lol)

this one would be awesome too except fire blast misses, but you still get the point
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-14427897
 
I personally think that Chandelure should be an A-rank pokemon.
-It has ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY FIVE base special attack.
-With a bit of prior damage, choice scarf Chandelure can easily get 3-4 pokemon sweeps.
-It has immunities to fire, normal and fighting.
-It has an incredibly good movepool, and can be a valuable asset to winning weather wars when carrying energy ball.

(this isnt my replay, this is my friend who I had basically just told about pokemon and given him a team to use, he has no idea what he was doing, anyway http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-14516084 lol)

this one would be awesome too except fire blast misses, but you still get the point
http://www.pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-14427897
No. Just no. Chandelure really isn't that good. Your replay, I'm afraid, isn't that good of an example, since the only reason Chandelure was able to pull that off was thanks to Wobbuffet Encoring that Nidoking, and the fact that your opponent was running Mono-Poison, so he had nothing to take a Fire attack.

There isn't a whole lot of reason to use Chandelure, honestly, since there's Heatran and Gengar who are better Fire and Ghost types, respectively. Actually, I'd be willing to wager that you could have slapped Heatran in place of Chandelure and have gotten the same results. It may have a huge amount of fire power, but it's somewhat slow, has an annoying Stealth Rock weakness, and just doesn't contribute as much as Heatran or Gengar could. It's perfectly fine where it is.
 

Alter

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Definitely not A rank but I think it's worth considering a push from D to C consider how amazing it is at abusing sun.
 

PK Gaming

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update

Gengar up from B-rank ==> A-rank (duh)
Feraligatr added to B-rank
Roserade up from C-rank ==> B-rank
Weavile up from C-rank ==> B-rank
Wobbuffet up from C-rank ==> B-rank
Staraptor up from D-rank ==> C-rank
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
yeah ranks are always subjective to change. and speaking of which, i'd like to petition wobbuffet to be moved back down to c-rank where it belongs. honestly there's no room for wobb in the current metagame. while back in dpp it used to be really good and was banned to ubers, that's back when attacks were less powerful and choice items used less often. nowadays it's like anything in the top 10 of usage stats can 2hko wobb or render it ineffective. scizor's at the very top of the usage stats and it's arguably the pokemon that wobb can do the least to. other stuff like keldeo in rain, latios, specs politoed, tyranitar, and breloom can either 2hko wobbuffet as it tries to switch in, or incapacitate it and finish it off from there. plus there's the whole element of having no attacks and when placed in a 50/50 scenario i.e. will this breloom bullet seed or swords dance, it's basically a coin flip as to whether you're even going to kill ONE of the opponent's pokemon or not. so yeah sure, wobb's kinda good at killing momentum, but there's better options available outside of wobb's extremely limited niche. overall the metagame has grown too fast and too furious for something that jesse uses in the tv show.
 
yeah ranks are always subjective to change. and speaking of which, i'd like to petition wobbuffet to be moved back down to c-rank where it belongs. honestly there's no room for wobb in the current metagame. while back in dpp it used to be really good and was banned to ubers, that's back when attacks were less powerful and choice items used less often. nowadays it's like anything in the top 10 of usage stats can 2hko wobb or render it ineffective. scizor's at the very top of the usage stats and it's arguably the pokemon that wobb can do the least to. other stuff like keldeo in rain, latios, specs politoed, tyranitar, and breloom can either 2hko wobbuffet as it tries to switch in, or incapacitate it and finish it off from there. plus there's the whole element of having no attacks and when placed in a 50/50 scenario i.e. will this breloom bullet seed or swords dance, it's basically a coin flip as to whether you're even going to kill ONE of the opponent's pokemon or not. so yeah sure, wobb's kinda good at killing momentum, but there's better options available outside of wobb's extremely limited niche. overall the metagame has grown too fast and too furious for something that jesse uses in the tv show.
If you're switching Wobbuffet into any non-resisted Specs/Band move you're doing it wrong. No one willingly switches Wobbuffet into those hard hitting moves.

It used to be a coin-flip, before Custap came out. You can freely use Encore now against most pokemon when Wobbuffet is relatively healthy. And when Wobbuffet is in the red, use Destiny Bond. If it dies from an attack, Wobbuffet takes that pokemon with it. If your opponent uses a set-up move, use Encore next turn, since Destiny Bond lasts 2 turns because of Wobbuffet's low speed, and your opponent will be forced to use the non-damaging move again if he/she wants to keep that pokemon. Prediction has been cut down considerably ever since Custap came out.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
so in essence, wobbuffet's job is to kill choiced pokemon...that it can't switch into.

i see. what the fuck
 
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