Slowmons: Macho, Macho, man!

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Porygon2
Conkeldurr
Duosion
Scizor
Aggron
Musharna
Amoonguss
Scraftry
Escavalier
Parasect (in Rain)
Slowking
Slowbrok

...

Macho Brace
is the new Choice Scarf - however without the choice effect.
Curse and Hammer Arm are powerful moves now
 

Arkeis

(づ。◕‿‿◕。)づ
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Offensive Weather teams are going to be interesting

Rain has Slowking, Carracosta, Clamperl, Azumarill, Relicanth, Crawdaunt, basically powerful Water types with a good ability to abuse.

Sun gets V-Create Victini, SOLAR POWER SUNFLORA, and Eruption Camerupt

Sand can actually make use of Sand Force, but the only good ones are Gigalith and maybe Macho Brace Excadrill.

Hail only really has Glaceon, who is not quite slow enough
 

erisia

Innovative new design!
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To be fair, Reuniclus really likes Hail for residual damage against its targets, and Abomasnow becomes a lot better when it doesn't have to invest in Speed.

Also Sun teams get to abuse Quiet Eruption Heatran! Wooo!
 
So there is a real lack of Special mons aside from Reuniclus, Slowpoke and Slowbro. In a meta full of beefy Physical mons grimacing at each other and flexing their massive Attack and Defence, it will be really important to have an answer for these.
On another note, I wonder if Scizor will still be useful. It isn't quite slow enough to outspeed(/outslow?) easily, but it does fine in OU with a terrible speed.
Also, Shuckle is unbelievably fast. Most Pokemon can't outspeed it even at -6. It makes me wonder if there isn't something in a Power Trick set. Terribly priority weak, of course. But a possible late game sweeper?
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Hey, this looks cool. Time to post some potential threats.


70 / 135 / 105 / 60 / 105 / 20

Escav has a huge base 135 attack, which is backed up by reasonable bulk. Not only that, but it's base 20 makes it really fast; it's faster than Reuniclus. It has Megahorn for ultra strong STAB, and Iron Head for slightly less strong STAB. It also has access to Pursuit, allowing it to trap weakend foes. I would call it the new Scizor, but they both play rather differently. Sword Dance might end up become a strong late game cleaner or a strong wall breaker.


58 / 50 / 145 / 95 / 105 / 30

This thing is both bulky and decently strong. It has access to Pain Split for semi-reliable recovery. It's base 30 speed means it's out speeding a lot. It also gets Nasty Plot, which allowing it to overcome it's medicore Special Attack. However, you might need 2 Nasty Plots due to everything running bulk EVs. Also, it has to rely on Hidden Power for coverage. Luckily, HP Fighting and Shadow Ball get perfect neutral coverage.


97 / 165 / 60 / 65 / 50 / 58

Rampardos has the sky-high attack of his, boosted by Sheer Force moves. While base 58 isn't bad, he might have to use a Macho Brace to truly use his power. (If I did my math correctly, Macho Brace outspeeds Reuniclus, assuming both have a -Spe nature and 0 Speed IVs) If that wasn't enough, it also gets Hammer Arm for some "speed boosts" while giving it nice coverage. He also has access to all of the elemental punches, and has Head Smash (although not boosted by SF, 150 BP + STAB is going to hurt something). He also gets Curse, although Sword Dance is probably better due to Rampardos not being able to use the defense boost well and having Hammer Arm to give it more speed. While it might not be the best offensive poke, it's sheer power is nothing to scoff at.


115 / 140 / 130 / 55 / 55 / 40

Alternatively, there's Rhyperior, whom also has good attack and speed. Unlike Rampardos though, he actually has bulk. He also has access to Sword Dance and Curse, and has Megahorn to hit Reuniclus Super Effectively. He has similar coverage to Rampardos up there, but trades Sheer Force for STAB Earthquake and Solid Rock. While it doesn't NEED to run Macho Brace (thus allowing an offensive item to be used), it definitely helps it out.


70 / 130 / 100 / 55 / 80 / 65

While this might seem odd at first, considering Escav has the speed to not need Bullet Punch, Scizor could still be useful. It has a "slow" U-Turn that it can abuse, and it can use Macho Brace + Sword Dance or rely on a Bullet Punch sweep, which still has +1 priority regardless. It's probably not top-tier like it is in OU, but it's definitely viable in my opinion. STAB Bullet Punch is relatively good due to all the speedy Rock-types now.
 
How is it that this is my favorite metagame when I haven't even played it yet?
Edit: Also, dre, you forget the existence of curse. That makes pokemon like carracosta and gigalith much more dangerous than say, rampardos will ever be, and gigalith seems to outclass rampardos due to sandforce, much better bulk and better (worse) speed.
 
So uh.... Musharna? Musharna is now the fastest special attacker in the game, and it's pretty much trading off 110/75/85 Defenses of Reuni and a 125 SpA for 116/85/95 bulk and 107 SpA and being slightly faster. Musharna has Psychic and Shadow Ball, but unfortunately has to run HP Fighting instead of Focus Blast. Signal Beam/Energy Ball can also be used, or you can use choice/Trick or a CM set. It's a pretty good tradeoff for Musharna if you ask me.

Speaking of Choice items, does Choice Scarf now lower speed? That'd be a pretty viable strategy for Whimsicott to Switcheroo a Choice item that makes you slower. Sableye can do it too with Trick.
 
Yup, Trick Scarf is now greatly improved. The 50% speed boost (drop?) isn't quite as crippling as, say, paralysis is in normal Pokemon, but it's still a neat bonus. Speaking of speed drops, are there any good equivalents to Paraflinch/Parafusion? I guess since Escavalier the Swift will be relying on Iron Head as its main STAB we will be seeing a lot of cries of hax.
This is is possibly the most fun tier to theorymon for I've seen. And also, can we advertise this as "Slowmons: The Most Macho Tier ever!"?
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
So uh.... Musharna? Musharna is now the fastest special attacker in the game, and it's pretty much trading off 110/75/85 Defenses of Reuni and a 125 SpA for 116/85/95 bulk and 107 SpA and being slightly faster. Musharna has Psychic and Shadow Ball, but unfortunately has to run HP Fighting instead of Focus Blast. Signal Beam/Energy Ball can also be used, or you can use choice/Trick or a CM set. It's a pretty good tradeoff for Musharna if you ask me.

Speaking of Choice items, does Choice Scarf now lower speed? That'd be a pretty viable strategy for Whimsicott to Switcheroo a Choice item that makes you slower. Sableye can do it too with Trick.
Yes, tricking a Choice Scarf lowers their speed (since their speed is increasing). And yeah, tricking a scarf onto something sounds like it could be dangerous, especially with some thing relying on Macho Brace for speed. However, I think prankster trick is probably the best way of using it, mainly by Sableye. In fact, Trick on Reuniclus or slightly faster pokemon could be useful, steeling away Macho Braces and allowing your team to outspeed it. Reuniclus especially could run Trick Flame Orb to cripple physical pokemon while talking away their potential Macho Braces.
 
I can see Thundy-I staying Uber just due to Prankster IMHO, but Sableye will be an obvious pest useful for stopping things like Reuniclus and Conkeldurr.
 
Imo, you should get rid of the level restriction and just ban endeavor. Being able to sacrifice bulk and power in order to outspeed things would add an interesting dimension to the metagame.
 

Bummer

Jamming to the beat
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The amount of available Curse users is staggering. Imagine what would happen if Dragon Dance had a similar distribution and you'll get what this meta will turn into, so defensive mons, phazers and will-o-wispers will probably be a crucial part of any team, since spreading paralysis is pointless now.

Arkeis said:
SOLAR POWER SUNFLORA
Aww YISSS, finally time for it's unusually pathetic speed stat to shine. Ampharos and Beheeyem would be in a similar boat.
 
What about mister NoWeakness?



85 / 115 / 80 / 105 / 80 / 50

Its movepool is so vast it can fuction as a proper wallbreaker and its 50 speed is no more a problem. Grass Knot is a godsend given the abundance of heavy rock and ground types and it can even U-turn away from those slow (or fast?) bulky psychic types. Flamethrower, Wild Charge, Superpower, Knock Off are all other neat moves to have. A possible moveset would be:

Eelektross (M) @ Macho Brace/Life Orb
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SAtk / 4SDef
IVs: 0 Spd
Brave Nature (+Atk, -Spd)
- Wild Charge
- Grass Knot
- U-turn
- Flamethrower
 
This probably among the most ill-fated ideas ever, but I wonder how Trick Room teams would fare. Badly, I'd assume, since the fast Pokemon in this are also generally the bulky ones but Electro Ball does look like it could be really powerful.
 
I think that the main user of trick room would probably be celebi due to it's ability to hit almost everything with with either giga drain or hp fire, and still have room for recover. Another user I could see is (maybe) jirachi if it gets it, but jirachi is a lot weaker without being able to paralyze stuff.
 
I wonder: how would Trick Room work in this tier? Haha.

I actually wondered about a metagame that didnt especially favor the fast or the slow pokes. A metagame where Trick Room is banned but is automatically played by the game itself after 5 turns, 15 turns, 25 turns,... So that you have 5 turns a fast game then 5 turns a slow game and it alternates on and on and on. That way you'd have to build a team that can deal with both situations.
 

canno

formerly The Reptile
Trick Zoom Alakazam? It has Magic Guard + Focus Sash (or it could run Max HP, since it doesn't need speed EVs + a Life Orb), and then spend 5 turns hitting things hard.

Kyurem-B also seems like a threat under Trick Room, since it can function outside of it due to it's good bulk. However, it's Ice-typing makes it weak to Rock-type attacks from the fast Rock-types that have good defense. It could hit then hard with an Earth Power though, since Kyu-B has usable SpA, and Rock-types generally have low SpDef. Unfortunately, he does not learn Trick Room.
 

Bummer

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Went and looked around at what the slower half of the pokédex has to offer, and with this thread still being in its cradle, I figured I'd bring up two things:

Speedy Sedators



Both Parasect's and Amoonguss' abysmal speed stats are now among the top layer of this meta, which means that their Spores have good odds of putting the opponent asleep before making its move. And while Sleep Powder isn't as accurate as its shroom equivalent, many slow grass mons would appreciate its effect. But while Amoonguss has Spore and 'better' speed, Tangrowth has excellent physical bulk along with Leech Seed to sustain itself, while Exeggutor has less endurance but more firepower to use with its dual STAB. Parasect and Carnivine are honorary mentions, simply because this is their best chance of being useful they'll ever get.


Belly Drummers



Pounding one's guts to reach maximum strength has generally not worked out too well as the users have either been too slow or too frail to survive for long. With this format, one of those issues has now been solved! With a pitiful base 30 speed and a solid 110 attack, Snorlax can cause quite a carnage if given the opportunity, and while Slowbro's (or King's) attack isn't as impressive, they have access to two handy STABs along with Drain Punch to soak health back. The other three are less reliable since their speed isn't THAT low, although Hariyama has Bullet Punch to nail weakened foes while Ursaring and Lickilicky has Hammer Arm to 'boost' their agility even further.
 
Lol @above giving parasect an "honorable mention"
Subseed parasect in rain is amazingly effective. And this is without relying on outspeeding the opponent like most subseeders. Parasect would be ridiculous outspeeding everything! And that's without factoring in spore.. Amoongus would be rubbish in comparison.
 
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