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[blitzlefan]

Although Forretress does discourage the usage of entry hazards while it's in play, it very rarely provides "pressure", seeing as it has rather mediocre offensive stats and is rarely used in an offensive manner. Also, Deoxys-S, Deoxys-A, Dialga, and Groudon all have moves commonly used to effectively beat Forretress, namely Fire Punch, Hidden Power Fire, Fire Blast, and Fire Punch/Fire Blast/Overheat, in that order.

It forces your opponent to switch into their spin blocker aka applying pressure. But then again you don't understand the concept of defensive pressure. Those mons that you mentioned rarely run those moves and if they did a combination of sturdy + custap berry still allows the forry user to get ahead.

I'm going to ignore the condescension and simply going to reply with usage statistics to solve this. Before you make claims like the one you made above, you should probably check the most recent usage statistics first.

Groudon:
A good 40% of all Groudon have a Fire-type coverage move, and Fire Punch / Fire Blast is sun-boosted, meaning Groudon can beat Forretress a decent amount of the time.

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| Earthquake 98.350%|
| Stealth Rock 63.780%|
| Stone Edge 53.548%|
| Thunder Wave 40.284%|
| Fire Punch 38.710%|
| Dragon Tail 34.735%|
| Rock Polish 12.904%|
| Dragon Claw 12.770%|
| Roar 11.818%|
| Swords Dance 10.941%|
| Fire Blast 3.567%|
| Other 18.592%|

Deoxys-S:
Taunt, Magic Coat, Fire Punch, and HP Fire cripple Forretress and render it useless. Taunt / Magic Coat are run on the vast majority of Deoxys-S, and about a quarter of them have a Fire-type coverage move.

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|Stealth Rock 92.637%|
| Spikes 83.459%|
| Taunt 67.707%|
| Magic Coat 29.884%|
| Fire Punch 23.000%|
| Psycho Boost 13.060%|
| Ice Beam 12.862%|
| ExtremeSpeed 11.923%|
| Light Screen 8.662%|
| Hidden Power Fire 8.293%|
| Superpower 7.862%|
| Reflect 7.845%|
| Shadow Ball 6.502%|
| Thunder Wave 4.139%|
| Trick 3.659%|
| Other 18.505%|

Deoxys-A:
Admittedly, a fewer number of Deoxys-A have a Fire-type coverage move, but a fifth can reliably beat Forretress.

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| ExtremeSpeed 70.211%|
| Psycho Boost 68.908%|
| Superpower 65.271%|
| Ice Beam 42.738%|
| Thunder 22.508%|
| Thunderbolt 19.157%|
| Fire Punch 17.433%|
| Shadow Ball 15.472%|
| Stealth Rock 13.641%|
| Hidden Power Fire 7.081%|
| Spikes 5.918%|
| Grass Knot 5.650%|
| Psychic 4.602%|
| Zen Headbutt 4.201%|
| Ice Punch 4.136%|
| Focus Blast 3.462%|
| Dark Pulse 3.212%|
| Low Kick 2.767%|
| Psyshock 2.545%|
| Taunt 2.541%|
| Other 18.545%|

Dialga:
Fire Blast is the most commonly used move on Dialga, and over half of all Dialgas haev a Fire-type coverage move.

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| Fire Blast 54.014%|
| Draco Meteor 53.197%|
| Dragon Pulse 49.301%|
| Stealth Rock 48.707%|
| Thunder 40.219%|
| Aura Sphere 37.108%|
| Roar 21.977%|
| Dragon Tail 11.517%|
| Thunder Wave 11.102%|
| Thunderbolt 10.498%|
| Flamethrower 9.593%|
| Outrage 8.069%|
| Bulk Up 6.554%|
| Sleep Talk 5.530%|
| Ice Beam 4.920%|
| Rest 4.270%|
| Earth Power 3.506%|
| Other 19.917%|

Lastly, what exactly is defensive pressure? I've never heard of this term before now. Can somebody explain it to me please?

Edit: thanks

 

[MMII]

I've no clue what he was talking about when he said defensive pressure but Haruno did get the general idea of Forry right. The threat of a Spin (when given the chance) is really good at luring out the spin blocker which you can spike on as it comes in (and probably again as once it's in as spin blockers nowadays don't run fire moves) that'll help wear it down. It's why Forry is cool for Ho-Oh not just cause it can Rapid Spin but because it lures out Tina (like Ho-Oh on a fair amount of teams) and softens it with hazards damage. (so that Ho-Oh can muscle past it later)

 

[moonbase]

I have a question for a sun team i am editing. What are some really good partners for paradancer groudon??

 

[faint]

I have a question for a sun team i am editing. What are some really good partners for paradancer groudon??

Other mons with para support / mons that work on all sun teams / giratina lures

Ho-Oh, Palkia, Forry, Arceus-Water (hard for me to say this because it's naturally shit, but it can help with what you need) / Arceus-Ghost

 

[blitzlefan]

Assuming Swords Dance / Thunder Wave / Earthquake / Stone Edge,

Skarmory, Ferrothorn, and Forretress will all be annoying, as they can Toxic Groudon to severely hamper its longevity, and they can stall while laying hazards. Giratina and Giratina-O will probably be a hassle as well.

Dialga could probably work well, as it
A) has a fairly low speed, so it benefits greatly from Paralysis support,
B) is a stronger special attacker which complements Groudon's physical prowess,
C) is immune to Toxic, and
D) can deal with Steel-types and Giratina forms with Fire Blast and a Dragon STAB, respectively.

 

[Shiruba]

what are some good partners for the defensive calm mind set on latias? i've had some good success with the refresh variant, but are roar/substitute better overall? i've not done enough testing with either of them to be sure.

 

[Chirac]

I think Sub Versions are not so defensives, since you should run a lot of speed not to be crippled by fast toxic users (Lugia the first).
But assuming you run Recover/Roost with your actual set, i guess you thought about steel-types who can attempt to break your rush.

So, whatever the 4th slot you use (Refresh/Sub/Roar), you basically should have solid counters to these things:
- Genesect for his steel-typing and U-turn which does a lot of damages, even on physically defensive Latias
- Sand Teams, especially because of Excadrill and Tyranitar.
- Arceus forms, because they could make you some troubles, even if you run Roar. The minder ones always run a super effective move against Latias, the SD ones are often played with Shadow Claw or Shadow Force (or Outrage for the mighty DracoCeus)
- Scarfed Zekrom and Dialga, who ohko it with their stabbed Outrage.

So if you are actually checking out about solutions for this, I think you can consider your weather inducer: Kyogre or Groudon. They are both good to deal with SS, Groudon is superior against Ttar, while Kyogre can easily deal with Hippowdon. Defensive Groudon takes care of Excadrill tanking its EQ with ease, and max speed Kyogre makes a good RK for it.
The special mention goes to Groudon, because Latias will take hits from opposing Kyogre, and it will be a decent switch in for scarf Zekrom.

Then, for the Arceus "problem", all you can do is building like another Uber team, since Arceus is everywhere. Darkrai might be a nice choice to deal with GhostCeus (which is very popular). Also, if you play the Roar Latias, the support of Entry Hazards is self-eplanatory. And the Toxic Spikes will often do the job against Arceus. (Assuming there is no Toxic-type in your oppenent's team)

Finally, for Genesect, you can try a Ho-Oh if you decide to pick Groudon, and keeping the SR away will be enough to take down the alien bug with your own hazards.

Hoping it will help you.

 

[moonbase]

I honestly think Garitina O is a shit pokemon. I have never had trouble with it, it is extremely easy to counter, and honestly garitina A is a better defensive poke, and arceus ghost is a better offensive poke for the job as a spin blocker.

Can any of you guys give me a replay or some kind of reasoning why it is used so much? It would really help me to get some appreciation for this guy.

 

[Hack]

Giratina has many advantages as a spinblocker over both Arceus-Ghost and its alternate forme. It is by no means an inferior spinblocker (in many cases it works much better). Some niches are:

Priority: It really is nice revenge killing weakened Lati@s, Mewtwo and other very weakened mons like Arceus-Ghost.
Levitate: Spinning is nigh impossible in the tier and hazard resilient Pokémon are great to have on heavily offensive team that can't afford to fit a momentum depriving spinner.
It still has good defenses: It's not like a bad check to E-killer, Groudon and many other physical attackers. It is easily worn down, but when used on offensive teams it will usually need to check something only once. It can also use a dual-shuffling set with Rest to provide some staying power.
Opportunity cost: Although using Arceus-Ghost isn't hardly an issue, you might want to consider another Arceus forme for an offensive team.
Stallbreaker: With its sub-shuffling set it can deal huge amounts of damage through hazards and Dragon Tail, which Arceus-Ghost and Giratina-A can't (ok Giratina-A can shuffle good but lacks the priority and the strong Dragon Tail).
It is better at spinblocking Excadrill than Arceus Ghost: Yeah, especially Sand Rush variants. Keep in mind that most of the time Arceus will have to rely on weather dependent moves or Focus Miss to keep Excadrill at bay.

There are of course other advantages I probably missed.

 

[Shiruba]

sorry for taking so long.

you mentioned groudon and kyogre as good partners - however, is running latias on a sandstorm team any good, or does the progressive damage just do more damage than the potential partners involved?

also, i was wondering if running some speed on my latias would help it do anything? probably not, but i'm just curious.

 

[blitzlefan]

@moonbase

In addition to the points that Hack He Must made (they did a really good job), there are some other things Giratina-O does too. It can beat a lot of weather abusers, such as Excadrill and Kabutops, which is amazing for weatherless teams (I'm referencing the current CCAT here). Also, it has a few great utility options such as Dragon Tail and Will-o-Wisp. Both allow it to check Arceus-Normal, and Dragon Tail allows it to act as a bulky phazer which is extremely useful in preventing set up and abusing the hazards that Giratina-O so conveniently protects as a spinblocker. Being immune to ExtremeSpeed while packing Shadow Sneak also allows it to beat Deoxys forms, limiting the damage done by Deoxys-A and the hazards spread by Deoxys-S.

 

[Chirac]

I've never considered Latias in a Sand team, due to her lack of leftovers recovery. But I can't affirm it doesn't work at all. In fact, her ability to be a decent check to most versions w/o T-Wave of both Groudon and Kyogre could be helpful if you want to use a sandstorm team with Tyranitar.
But as she can't handle these T-wave versions (and also the mighty banded Groudon, rare but powerful), you will have to choose another partner for this; and then your Latias does half the job, so I think Latios is a better choice here.
However if you really want to use Latias in sand team, it's possible. But it seems obvious you can't run the SubCM set (due to SS damages, you will have to Recover too many times).

Now, consedering the speed spread, it really depends of what set you are playing. Assuming you're running Calm Mind + Recover (I guess it's the case), here's an non-exhaustive list:
- 2 offensives moves (Dragon Pulse + Grass Knot/[HP Fire]/Thunder/Surf), the speed tiers are the followings:
204 [208] EV neutral nature (307), it allows you to outspeed all non-scarfed Kyogre and Dialga. You'll also outspeed Excadrill without sand rush boost.
136 [140] EV Timid (319), makes you faster than Jolly Rayquaza. It's cool, but pretty useless if you don't run a lot of defense and HP evs. (+2 LO Ray ohko Latias 0/0 with Extreme Speed). The deal with this spread is that you will be faster than Rayquaza yea, but also than the previous things mentionned for the 307 Speed version.
192 [196] EV Timid (334), you begin faster than non-scarfed Garchomp. Yea it's rare, but it's useless to speak about 330 Speed versions of Latias, because if you want to invest this kind of speed, 4 more points never are in excess. With this you will also be threatening for Genesect and Palkia (assuming they are non-scarfed, obv, and that you run HP Fire for the former).
252 EV Timid (350 [349]), you will outspeed or at least Speed Tie most of the other Lati@s. We can mention Banded Terrakion, even if it's non-existent. All neutral speed nature Arceus will be slowers too.
- Dragon Pulse + Roar: I think you haven't to run a lot of speed since you have to be bulkier than faster with this kind of pokemon. Maybe 84 Speed EV to outspeed Defensive Arceus without any speed investisment.
- Dragon Pulse + Sub: It's basically the same things than the two offensive moves one. But the OU version, with 252HP/252Speed, seems the better choice here, since you will be enough bulky and you will Sub before the majority of statusers.

 

[blitzlefan]

Regarding bulky Arceus-Ghost, what EV spreads are optimal if you want Arceus to tank hits well without being too weak? I've always just run 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 Spe with a Timid nature on Arceus-Ghost, but are there more efficient spreads? I guess this can be applied to any Arceus form. (I've used the same spread on Arceus-Fighting, and I'm curious if there are any better spreads on that too.) This is for the CCAT by the way.

 

[Shiruba]

i actually run cm + roost - people think that it removes the levitate ability, but it doesn't, so i can surprise some people. fun fact.

can't handle the t-wave versions, huh? what if i run refresh? something like...

dragon pulse/calm mind/refresh/roost?

 

[Hack]

@ Blitzlefan: You can always check the speed tiers for relevant numbers. Usually max speed isn't needed if you aren't planning on going into CM wars a lot. 176 speed is for max speed Lat@s, which is usually cool, that way you can invest more in bulk. I you want to drop even further we have 96 speed evs for Palkia and so on. Just find out what you want to outspeed before going max speed, and then use more evs in bulk.

@Shiruba: Running Latias without Hidden Power Fire these days may give Kyogre's most common partner Ferrothorn free spikes everytime you check Kyogre. Just be wary of that. Refresh works great otherwise, I used it with some success in the beginning of BW2.

 

[Chirac]

@ Blitzlefan: You can always check the speed tiers for relevant numbers. Usually max speed isn't needed if you aren't planning on going into CM wars a lot. 176 speed is for max speed Lat@s, which is usually cool, that way you can invest more in bulk. I you want to drop even further we have 96 speed evs for Palkia and so on. Just find out what you want to outspeed before going max speed, and then use more evs in bulk.

I agree with this. I just think we can add a mention for the max speed spreads. It's usually useful only if you want to cripple Sword Dance versions of Arceus (especially Ghost and Dragon here, the Normal is always Adamant) with a Speed Tie. A desperate Perish Song against a CM Arceus who got too many boosts too, but with this set you often need more special bulk.
In fact yea, for CM versions, I think the more useful spread is still the 176 Speed Evs (Timid) to outspeed Lati@s as it was said.
And for the defensive with Perish Song or T-Wave, 16 Speed EV (neutral nature) is enough to outspeed Kyogre, Groudon, Dialga and Gira-O max speed with neutral nature.
An exception is for Steel Arceus, you really need 56 EV (Timid) or 168 EV (neutral) in Speed at least, to outspeed Jolly Rayquaza. (But here up to 96 Timid for being faster than Palkia too seems pretty legit)

@Shiruba: Running Latias without Hidden Power Fire these days may give Kyogre's most common partner Ferrothorn free spikes everytime you check Kyogre. Just be wary of that. Refresh works great otherwise, I used it with some success in the beginning of BW2.

Yea the Refresh one is surprising, but it works only vs full-Stall based teams. The fact is that T-Wave Kyogre is always paired with very strong sweepers like SD Rayquaza, and as Hack He Must said, Ferrothorn.
In fact you doesn't really need HP Fire on Latias, since it's a defensive pivot, and then it's inclued in offensive teams with other answers to Ferro.

 

[Go10]

It's not a matter of "do i have to run hp fire or not" with Latias, the thing is this shitty move is a clean 4hko on something being able to recover with Leech Seed, protect and leftovers; never run hp fire, really, unless you are sure you can keep the sun up, something I highly doubt.

Arceus's spread depend about three things : your type, your team, your set. If we assume you're CM, then we can remove the last. Ghost need the speed since he's broken as fuck with his stab + judgement, he don't need any extra bulk. The steel variant NEED to be bulky, his stab is bad, he has to take advantage of his resistance by going full bulky (well ofc you need some speed, faster than Chomp is enough). Anyway, don't talk about CM spread as if Arceus was only one pokemon. There is too much condition for using X instead of Y spread to be resumed like you guys are doing.

 

[AwesomeChrisBosh]

Why is it Ubers(suspect test) what is being suspected?

 

[jackm]

To my knowledge, the Moody testing simply hasn't gone down...too lazy to check, but if you put something in with Moody and it lets you use it, it hasn't gone down. If it doesn't let you, I can't help you.

 

[Secondhand Work]

Question about Tank Pokemon.

What legendary Pokemon can be used as a tank type of Pokemon? Is there any legendaries that can operate as a tank? If not, what other good stat Pokemon can serve as a tank?

 

[jackm]

umm yeah tons...That said, Ubers isn't only legendary pokemon. Keep it in mind.

Some options:

Any Arceus
Kyogre
Groudon
Dialga
Ho-Oh
Giratina-O

Those are the ones I can think of off of the top of my head. Hopefully I've helped.

 

[Go10]

Ho-Oh isnt a tank when SR's up, however Lugia is.

 

[Kebabe]

Ho-Oh isnt a tank when SR's up, however Lugia is.

Well, Lugia isn't a tank either as it cant hit back other than phazing/ status.

Tank
A Pokemon intended to take either physical or special attacks and hit back, but does not have to do so consistently over the entire course of a match.Bronzong is a very potent tank. With Gyro Ball, Explosion, and massive defenses, it can hit enemies hard and take many hits effectively over the course of a match.

 

[Go10]

Lugia can be used as a Special sweeper, the only thing which refrain people for using it is Ferrothorn. So yeah, Lugia is a tank.

 

[Kebabe]

lol, any pokemon could be used as a sweeper as long as it has a boosting move. However since lugia cant come in and hit back without boosting (not just one but it needs many to not just scratch its opponents) it's not a tank. Its a wall and you could MAYBE use it as a CM sweeper. It's simply not a tank.

Its main set is even called "Great Wall" just saying