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Zangoose gets the full +15 boost from the tier shift which gives its 130 Attack, 105 Speed, and just enough bulk to take a weaker neutral hit. Toxic Boost increases that base 130 Attack even further and gives it a 140 BP STAB move in Facade, giving it absolutely bone crushing power. Unlike say Swellow, Zangoose doesnt have much trouble with Rock- and Steel-types because of Close Combat, which probably 2hkos the majority of Normal resists at worst given its new Attack stat and the Toxic Orb boost. Zangoose also comes equipped with a decent priority move in Quick Attack, which could be used to pick off frail/weakened Pokemon before they could stop Zangoose's sweep/plow through the rest of the Zangoose user's team. Lastly, Zangoose could even use Swords Dance to boost its Attack stat to astronomical levels when combined with Toxic Boost, giving it the ability to accomplish amazing feats such as OHKOing Cresselia with Facade, although Swords Dance forces Zangoose to choose between priority and the ability to hit Ghost-types, so it might be a lesser option in the end.
Zangoose's Tier Shift stats: Zangoose - Normal | Immunity/Toxic Boost (DW) | 88/130/75/75/75/105 | Low Kick/Grass Knot: 60 BP
Also nominating Basculin
Although its often regarded as average/mediocre even in NU in standard play, the +15 provided by tier shift might be enough to make basculin viable. With the tier shift taken into account, Basculin has a great base 113 Speed stat to work with, as well as a decent base 107 Attack. While 107 might seem unassuming at first, Basculin hits much harder than it looks, as it has Adaptability to boost the power of its STAB moves significantly. Not to mention that Basculin's STAB also gets the rain boost, giving the fish the potential to be a really scary rain abuser in the right hands.
Basculin's Tier Shift stats: Basculin - Water | Reckless/Adaptability/Mold Breaker (DW) | 85/107/80/95/70/113 | Low Kick/Grass Knot: 40 BP
EDIT: ....shit i just finished posting this when the nominations closed ;__;, if these dont end up counting its fine, haha.
Oh shit, descriptions. That definitely warrants addition.
Zangoose in particular definitely looks frightening. Basculin certainly has considerable power behind its attacks, I'll give it that, though "strong water attacks" is certainly not an empty field. Off the top of my head, Azumarill has significantly more punch behind its coverage moves, at the cost of speed a lot of speed (not a huge deal, given Aqua Jet, but of course, Basculin can thus just spam waterfall.) and a bit of power on STABs. Basculin also has inferior (but still decent) bulk.
There's also the fact that Sawk is an exceptionally poor choice for RG. It gains virtually nothing from the boost. It it still killed by the same things it was before...especially given most of the things that killed or are now just boosted Clorophyl Sweepers. It is still walled by the same things, and it is still painfully one dimensional.
It can run LO and CB...it is now outclassed as Scarfer and is in many ways a poor mans Terrakion.
On top of it, its big niche in NU of MB Sturdy SR setters is completely moot in this meta.
So basically it's just a rather poor mono-STAB wallbreaker in a meta with things like Cress which hard counter it even harder than Musharna does in it's real tier.
Now that I'm about 90 points ahead of the second rank person on the ladder, I think I'm qualified to post my opinion here, so a couple of things I wanna say.
Cradily is really good, but not Storm Drain Cradily. Storm Drain Cradily is an awesome pokemon in NU, but if you're not using Suction Cups in OU, you're doing it wrong. Curse Cradily becomes completely scary in the sand, moreso than Cresselia, who everybody keeps talking about.
Charizard is a good wallbreaker, but you have to remember that Stealth Rock in OU is so so easyyyy to set up. This ruins his life, and even if he can outspeed and nuke a lot of things, he gets revenge killed once and he can't come back in ever again.
I ran into someone using Wobb, Alomomola, and CBtar and it was incredibly annoying. One by one, Wobb kept picking off my team using the ginormous wishes that the unbreakable Alomomola gave. Luckily the team was weak to Toxic Spikes so I could still win.
And to finish off this post, I'm gonna repeat what I said before. Don't discount solid OU pokemon, as they're fit to the OU metagame for a reason. And don't forget your Pokemon basics. Hazards don't discriminate against stats, so they're still just as important to put up as they are to keep off your field.
Decided to climb the ladder a bit with my joke team based on PerishTrapper Lapras and this is the result (I'm ERox):
I'm going to share my thoughts on the current situation of the metagame.
PersihTrapping Lapras is broken. Any rain team with one has an incredible advantage against every other weather team. Weatherless teams are almost always a free win. You can find a few replays in the previous page, when I was just messing around (I replaced Articuno with Tornadus and made a few minor changes). Then I noticed how effective it was and it single-handedly brought me up to the top 10.
It baits and removes (among many others) Abomasnow, Ninetales, Starmie, Hippowdown, Amoonguss, Alomomola and Cresselia without fail.
Tyranitar can be worn down with Whirpool and Protect and it must run a CB set to be able to OHKO Lapras.
Despite a type disadvantage, Amoonguss and most Abomasnow sets won't even scratch Lapras.
To give you an idea of how absurdly bulky it is, LO Manectric can't OHKO with Thunderbolt after SR.
Other annoying pokemon like Sableye and Wobbuffet are unable to defeat Lapras as long as its raining; the best they can do is trying to stall it out.
I'm going to take a break from Tier Shift so I'm going to share my team with you so can try Lapras out and see for yourselves. Keep in mind that this was meant to be a joke team that turned out to be better than I expected so don't be surprised if something looks out of place:
Scizor @ Choice Band
Trait: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 Spd
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Superpower
- Pursuit
Anyway, Lapras is so incredibly cheap and effective that I'm nominating it.
By the way, I never found many of these so-called threats to be dangerous at all - every single Ninjask, Charizard, Cresselia and Sawsbuck I have faced so far wasn't that hard to bring down. Cresselia is the only one my team was specifically prepared for, the others were minor nuisances at best.
That's probably because you are using an anti-metagame team?
Obviously Charizard isn't very threatening in the rain....so if you can win the weather war, no it won't be a threat. Same goes for Sawsbuck.
Ninjask is an anti-meta threat not a threat in and of itself, it is meant to check Clorophyll sweepers like Sawsbucks and Exeggutor by outspeeding in sun and hitting with SE X-Scissor.
And obviously Cress doesn't deal well with being Perish Song trapped although it could very easily carry Taunt.
Lapras isn't anywhere near broken.. Dealing with it is similar to dealing with Wobb except you aren't instantly trapped. If you have a boosting sweeper, you can basically get +6 then ohko wobb/lapras and sweep. If you have an item-boosted powerful attack, you can go for the 2hko on switch in. STAB SE attacks can ohko under some conditions. Or you could use baton pass, uturn, volt switch or shed shell. Phazing moves also accomplish that same thing. You could even use something immune to water attacks as there are plenty of options. Heck there are even soundproof mons immune to perish song. Oh plus Taunt!
If whirlpool perish trapping was broken, then it would be used in OU at least A LITTLE bit. The +15 stat boosts don't push it over the top, you were just going up against ill-prepared teams in a new metagame.
It's ability to trap ninetales and also abuse rain is pretty cool though and it is definitely worth a teamslot if not using whiscash or blastoise/whatever as your water type rain abuser.
Edit: because I forgot to bold on the earlier post: Kyurem black I think an OU mon is definitely worth discussion and I put my thought on cube on the page before this. Whiscash
And the only 3 worth discussing off of that list that is running are Cresselia, Ninjask and Amoonguss. Maybe Mandibuzz, but the rest are very niche and generally outclassed
ERox, you are the bastard :( That Lapras set is mean. Also, Moltres is pretty sweet, as it has an easy time beating sun teams, and gets a 640 bst, which is nice. It also has a great 135 SPA which allows it to really hit hard and a 110 attack if you want to try to go mixed (haven't experimented with a mixed set yet.) An so, I would like to nominate Moltres if nominations are still open.
I'm in favor of making a separate thread for RW, that way we can still discuss other stuff not related to RW in this thread without fucking up the RW discussion.
I think we should actually do 1 OU, 1 UU, 1 RU & 1 NU mon per RW, but that's my opinion :).
My nominations: Zangoose, Amoonguss, Mandibuzz & Sawk.
Guys, I just wanna clear everything up as PureQuestion is not here atm and everyone is excited with the concept. First of all, I got permission from Arcticblast to host it so I'm probably gonna be the host. I'm also planning on co-hosting with PQ and explain how I want the concept to go down so expect the Research Week thread soon. Now I'm just gonna make some things clear.
First of all, I have spoken with Arcticblast and we have also considered the concept of having an OU, UU, RU and a NU in the RW. Of course that would require a decent amount of activity but if this gets enough exposure hopefully that would work right. Another thing that can happen (at least what I think has to) is the idea of adding a slight section in the Research Week where people can do a reverse-ish sorta research and find out the best methods of dealing with a specific mon people really have a hard time dealing with (Cress, Smashers). But then again that's probably because I run the LC Victim of the Week. Arcticblast was also kinda unsure about it so it might be implemented given we know enough people are interested. It will probably follow a similar format to the research weeks in other subforums. I just need to work this out more with PQ to make everything clear.
Glad and surprised you guys are rather interested in my idea of a research week and the massive amounts of participation. Thanks to Arcticblast for the suggestions/help and PureQuestion for succesfully giving it attention. I look forward to these research weeks!
Also, what about Shuckle? While 25 base offenses and 20 base speed still suck, they might be just enough to make use of Shell Smash if you combine it with Power Split. It also gets very good coverage from EdgeQuake combo. Still Taunt bait though.
I think Swellow outclasses the both of them. Base 140 speed, and STAB Facade and Brave Bird coming off of 100 base attack (and guts thrown in!) is enough to hurt a lot of things, and almost nothing can straight out wall it. Especially since it gets Roost to potentially heal some damage against walls. (Though Flame Orb thenceafter outclasses Toxic Orb.)
True, but Zangoose is generally preferred for just hitting hard and fast right off the bat, while Ursaring needs a turn to set up. You also have to consider that many of the top threats in this metagame are from lower tiers and as such have their offensive stats boosted, and so that makes Ursaring's increased bulk less impressive. Just as an example, I'm not sure what sets other people run for Exeggutor, but Timid Specs Exeggutor's Leaf Storm is an easy OHKO on 4/0 Ursaring. LO Sawsbuck's Jump Kick also gets close to a OHKO, so that sort of damage combined with Toxic Orb poison will wear Ursaring down very quickly. You'll also find it far harder to sweep with all these Chlorophyll / Sand Rush / etc. users running around. Zangoose, on the other hand, can come in on something it naturally outspeeds and (provided Toxic Orb has already activated) do a ton of damage to a huge portion of the metagame without the need for setup. It also has Quick Attack to give it a defense against some of these fast sweepers, although admittedly it does need some significant damage to come out on top against Pokemon like Sawsbuck.
I think Swellow outclasses the both of them. Base 140 speed, and STAB Facade and Brave Bird coming off of 100 base attack (and guts thrown in!) is enough to hurt a lot of things, and almost nothing can straight out wall it. Especially since it gets Roost to potentially heal some damage against walls. (Though Flame Orb thenceafter outclasses Toxic Orb.)
Definitely nominating a few favourites in Gigalith and Escavalier for raw power mainly. 150/145 attack respectively, Megahorn rarely fails to OHKO/2HKO from Escavalier when banded, and Gigalith can set up rocks, and smash things with EdgeQuake/Explosion when using Custap/Sturdy. Also helps that they have ridiculous bulk.
Also... Do Jynx, Sawsbuck and Cresselia really warrant research? They're already known to be some of the biggest threats in the meta atm... And have really already been put under the scalpel. It would be like if someone nominated Chansey. 9.9
Escavalier is indeed one of the biggest physical attackers in this meta and is a must-have for any TR team imo. I too was surprised by how much a LO Megahorn does to even mons that resist it. There are only a few who can survive 2 Megahorns which means that if you switch Escavalier safely in when TR is up (and that's not hard at all with his typing and defenses) 90% of the time something is going to die.
True, but Zangoose is generally preferred for just hitting hard and fast right off the bat, while Ursaring needs a turn to set up. You also have to consider that many of the top threats in this metagame are from lower tiers and as such have their offensive stats boosted, and so that makes Ursaring's increased bulk less impressive. Just as an example, I'm not sure what sets other people run for Exeggutor, but Timid Specs Exeggutor's Leaf Storm is an easy OHKO on 4/0 Ursaring. LO Sawsbuck's Jump Kick also gets close to a OHKO, so that sort of damage combined with Toxic Orb poison will wear Ursaring down very quickly. You'll also find it far harder to sweep with all these Chlorophyll / Sand Rush / etc. users running around. Zangoose, on the other hand, can come in on something it naturally outspeeds and (provided Toxic Orb has already activated) do a ton of damage to a huge portion of the metagame without the need for setup. It also has Quick Attack to give it a defense against some of these fast sweepers, although admittedly it does need some significant damage to come out on top against Pokemon like Sawsbuck.
Well the thing is, Zangoose is either stronger (if Ursaring is Quick Feet) or faster (If Ursaring is Guts) than Ursaring. Ursaring does have some very nice bulk though, and Burn doesn't wear you down quite as fast as toxic does, so it's hard to say...
Well, let me ask you this, what sort of Pokemon does Ursaring set up on so easily? I haven't had much time to play tier shift lately and I'm not sure what all is common, so I'm legitimately wondering. Two of the common Pokemon from a couple weeks ago when I last played (Exeggutor and Sawsbuck, courtesy of Sun) either OHKO Ursaring or do massive amounts of damage, so I'm curious as to what all it actually sets up on and how it gets past weather sweepers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Ursaring is an absolute monster once it gets going, but I'm concerned with how easily it can actually get going in the first place.
Ninjask
Sawk
Amoonguss
Jynx
Cresselia
Mandibuzz
Zangoose
Basculin
