+1 252+ Atk Mold Breaker Mega Gyarados Ice Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mandibuzz: 186-220 (43.8 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
And not to mention if it runs Taunt then it completely shuts you down...
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Other XY OU Viability Ranking Thread (V2) (Last update on post #5189)
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And not to mention if it runs Taunt then it completely shuts you down...
Yes Scarf Excadrill can also revenge stuff at times. But ask you this, if your only looking for a revengekiller, is Excadrill your first choice? No its not. If its just a Revenger you want you will look at Talonflame, Scarf Chomp or Deo-S. You only resort to Excadrill if you look for a spinner, if that spinner can also be used as an "oh shit" button, fine, but thats not the reason to use it.
Well I do sometimes feel like I am playing another metagame as some other people here. I can count the number of Sand Rush Excadrills I ve seen so far on one hand. I dont know whats going on in the SPL as I dont realy care about that, but playing high ladder (1800+) I havent seen many Sand Rush Drills and the ones i saw werent realy threatening. I agree that if you manage to get sand up AND and Swords Dance afterwards, probably with LO as an item and all priority and all the walls on the opponents side are removed yes in that case Excadrill becomes a serious threat. But there are quite a few and rather big ifs involved in that, especially considering that Excadrill gets ohkoed or at least 2hkoed by almost every common pokemon thats not Chansey. The number of things he can safely set up on is extremly small, most of the time you will have to rely on predicted switches like against Heatran for example and that can backfire badly.
Excadrill is fine where it is! Let's discuss the ones not even in the list: Hydreigon, Gothitelle, Cresselia, Durant, Haxorus, Tornadus, Toxicroak, Zoroark, Umbreon, regular Venusaur, Barbaracle, Reuniclus, Amoongus, Milotic, Exploud, Shuckle, Omastar, Gorebyss, and Hawlucha all have analysis but no rank here. Discuss them! I'd rank Gothitelle B rank, Haxorus B- rank, and Hawlucha D rank.
Again, Excadrill is not S rank. From my experience, Excadrill does the least work in my team(Mega Mawile, Rotom Wash, Talonflame, Excadrill, Greninja, and Gothitelle is my team.). Don't try to argue with me because I won't listen, and this is just my experience, maybe the set I'm running is wrong.
Again, Excadrill is not S rank. From my experience, Excadrill does the least work in my team(Mega Mawile, Rotom Wash, Talonflame, Excadrill, Greninja, and Gothitelle is my team.). Don't try to argue with me because I won't listen, and this is just my experience, maybe the set I'm running is wrong.
The Shellder Smuggler
Banned deucer.
Hydreigon: Cool Wallbreaker, has extreme offensive stats backed by a respectable base 90 speed, but that x4 Fairy weakness is cringeworthy, and is walled to hell and back by Azumarill. I want to say C+ Rank.
Gothitelle: Great Specs user with access to trick and various status moves and the amazing Shadow Tag. I'd give it B Rank.
Cresselia: Arguably the best wall in the whole game. It can boost its mediocre offensive stats with Calm Mind, and has Moonlight for recovery and the awesome Healing Wish for Utility. I'd give it A- Rank.
Durant: Great typing with only one weakness. Truant + Entertainment is hilarious, and Hustle + Hone Claws is cool too. Meh, B+ Rank.
Haxorus: This thing was a beast before the introduction of Fairies, packing an amazing 147 Base Attack Outrage. Poison Jab can counter back I guess, but it lacks great bulk. C+ Rank.
Tornadus: The least used of its trio, Tornadus has good traits including Prankster (Prankster Taunt what), awesome offensive capabilities, and a respectable typing. However, its lack of good movepool hurts. C Rank.
Toxicroak: This pokemon was much more usable when Rain was being spammed everywhere (it's now RU :[) but it still has good attack and speed. Nasty Plot can be used for a surprise set and Black Sludge is nicely paired with Dry Skin. D Rank.
Zoroark: This is an awesome pokemon. Team preview fucks its ability up a bit, but a Dark Pulse coming from a Mega Venusaur is pretty cool. An awesome movepool with Flamethrower, Nasty Plot, and Dark Pulse is really diverse. However, its terrible defensive capabilities even it out a bit, and fairies didn't really help it. B- Rank.
Umbreon: Always a really annoying pokemon with wish and foul play, Umbreon's amazing Defenses and High HP make this thing a complete wall. Wish + Protect is annoying as hell too. A- Rank.
Venusaur: This thing would be awesome with Zard-Y. A Chlorophyll sweeping set with Growth is terrifying. Too bad it has a limited movepool. B- Rank.
Barbaracle: Shell Smash, Razor Shell, and Cross Chop are this things gems. A x4 weakness to grass is totally amazeballs, but it has nice physical defense as well. It has cool coverage, but is outclassed by other pokemon. C- Rank.
Reuniclus: Magic Guard + Life Orb + AMAZING BULK is terrifying. Calm Mind and Psyshock are its main gems. Focus Blast is good for Dark Types. It can also take most hits well. A Rank.
Amoonguss: This is a good wall. 114 Base HP with OK 85 offensive Capabilites. Spore is awesome, and Clear Smog fucks Azumarill up. It has good typing too, but pretty slow speed. C+ Rank
Milotic: It's a good wall with offensive capabilities and good typing. Competitive screws Defog and Sticky Web over. It has a shitty movepool though. C- Rank.
Exploud: Boomburst. That's all. C Rank.
Gorebyss: It has Shell Smash and Baton Pass. So I guess it's OK. C- Rank.
Omastar: Awesome special attack with Shell Smash is really good. B+ Rank.
Shuckle: The premium wall. It has bad everything else though. C Rank.
Hawlucha: It's so outclassed by everything else. D Rank.
Can we please put actual thought into our posts instead of just 15 sentences about random Pokemon, focus your post on one Pokemon to actually create discussion, and actually put effort into researching it and playing with it before you post.
I have to disagree with a lot of rankings here. If you want to rank something, use it.
Hydreigon is surprisingly good and a bit underrated because of the fairies now. Definetly, Hydreigon for B- rank.
I don't know too much about Cresselia, but I do know Psychic is a horrible defensive typing. Knock Off and Shadow Ball are EVERYWHERE. Not A- for sure.
Durant is flat out B- rank because it can do too much and is unique enough to not be C rank.
Toxicroak is bad, but not THAT bad. Toxicroak is C rank.
Zoroak is C rank. Not awesome and easy to spot it is an Illusion.
C+ rank on Venusaur.
Reuniclus is C+ rank. Same reason as Cresselia.
Amoongus is B- rank.
Woah. I cannot believe your rank on this one. Milotic is B rank.
Gorebyss is D rank.
I've used a Omastar but it was not THAT good. Omastar is C rank.
A lot of times what sounds good on paper, sucks in the actual game. I can tell by your rankings you have not used these pokemons.
I agree, this guy used the most faulty reasoning I can think of. But Hawlucha is D rank because it is countered or checked by the most best or most common pokemon such as Aegislash, Thundurus, Talonflame, and Mega Pinsir, it's too frail to sweep in such a priority-heavy metagame, and you'd be better off using some other better physical sweeper. It's not a bad poke, it's just the metagame. It was the most broken BL in UU, but the worst BL in OU.
I don't know if Durant deserves as high as B- Rank.
C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can be effective given the right support, but either have crippling flaws that prevent them from consistently executing their strategy or are typically inferior to Pokemon in the above ranks.
Hustle's terrible side effect leaves Durant unable to consistently sweep the opponent (lowered accuracy) and his special defence is terrible. If he can set up hone claws then sweeping becomes easier, but it's hard for him to find an opportunity. He also doesn't have STAB moves with a base power above 80. But having a higher attack stat than Mega-Garchomp is not something to scoff at, and can be very difficult to wall. He's way too unreliable though, which is why I think C+ Rank is fitting.
C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can be effective given the right support, but either have crippling flaws that prevent them from consistently executing their strategy or are typically inferior to Pokemon in the above ranks.
Hustle's terrible side effect leaves Durant unable to consistently sweep the opponent (lowered accuracy) and his special defence is terrible. If he can set up hone claws then sweeping becomes easier, but it's hard for him to find an opportunity. He also doesn't have STAB moves with a base power above 80. But having a higher attack stat than Mega-Garchomp is not something to scoff at, and can be very difficult to wall. He's way too unreliable though, which is why I think C+ Rank is fitting.
you forgot about roost, and even if it taunts foul play does like 60% so with the rocky helmet damage from ice fang it is not a threat to it.
What is Mandibuzz going to do? Ice Fang -> Roost -> Repeat? Besides, Foul Play at +1 is a 3HKO and Ice Fang is a 2HKO, so it'll go like this Taunt -> Mandibuzz cannot use ____ -> Ice Fang -> Foul Play -> Ice Fang.
Excadrill is good, but not THAT good. He's fine where he is right now.
Also it is easier to fit a Shuckle on to a team than Galvantula. Galvantula's offensive presence is laughable, since he needs Choice Items to actually be offensive, and Sticky Web + Choice is a nonbo. There's a tremendous pressure on Electric types in OU right now as they're expected to be able to check or counter the powerful Flying types in OU, and Galvantula can't do that. Shuckle doesn't promise much, but he does good at his derp-y role of being an annoyer who's annoying to kill.
Also it is easier to fit a Shuckle on to a team than Galvantula. Galvantula's offensive presence is laughable, since he needs Choice Items to actually be offensive, and Sticky Web + Choice is a nonbo. There's a tremendous pressure on Electric types in OU right now as they're expected to be able to check or counter the powerful Flying types in OU, and Galvantula can't do that. Shuckle doesn't promise much, but he does good at his derp-y role of being an annoyer who's annoying to kill.
Conkeldurr: B+ ==> A Rank - With an Assault Vest in tow, Conkeldurr becomes a bulky monstrosity that is almost impossible to take out in one shot. With a great selection of power boosting abilities, Base 140 attack, recovery in the form of Drain Punch, priority with Mach Punch, and excellent coverage moves (elemental punches + Knock Off) I believe that Conkeldurr is a huge threat that any team should prepare for.
Chesnaught: B ==> C Rank - It's very easy to get rid of and it can't accomplish much aside from throwing up one layer of spikes. Spiky Shield is cool, but it's a mild irritation at best. Bulletproof is helpful but it's 100% situational, not to mention that most of the moves it affects aren't even threatening to Chesnaught to begin with. However the biggest problem with Chesnaught, and the one that most people complain about is it's abysmal defensive typing. Grass / Fighting gives it a total of six weaknesses, including a nasty 4x weakness to Flying. The reason why this never hampered Breloom is because of three things: It's an offensive Pokemon, it has amazing abilities, and it gets Spore.
Chesnaught: B ==> C Rank - It's very easy to get rid of and it can't accomplish much aside from throwing up one layer of spikes. Spiky Shield is cool, but it's a mild irritation at best. Bulletproof is helpful but it's 100% situational, not to mention that most of the moves it affects aren't even threatening to Chesnaught to begin with. However the biggest problem with Chesnaught, and the one that most people complain about is it's abysmal defensive typing. Grass / Fighting gives it a total of six weaknesses, including a nasty 4x weakness to Flying. The reason why this never hampered Breloom is because of three things: It's an offensive Pokemon, it has amazing abilities, and it gets Spore.
Woah, hold it there. You are vastly underselling Chesnaught, only looking at its flaws and not its qualities. First off, Chesnaught's typing is definitely not abysmal defensively. Yeah sure, it gets six weaknesses, which isn't exactly great, but it also has a lot of valuable resistances to use as well; Rock, Dark, Ground, Electric, Water, and Grass, to name a few. This means Chesnaught can hold its own against a lot of important threats, such as Bisharp, Landorus-T, Tyranitar, Garchomp, etc. thanks to all those resistances and excellent physical bulk. Bulletproof definitely isn't situational either; with Bulletproof, you wall the standard Crumbler Aegislash as well as Gengar, which is super helpful, and you're also immune to things like Gyro Ball, Seed Bomb, and Focus Blast. Being immune to powder moves is nice too. Chesnaught has a very solid support movepool to back this up, Spikes, Leech Seed, and Roar are some of these, and Chesnaught provides very nice overall support to its team. 107 Attack is very solid for a wall, and with Hammer Arm it can deal a decent chunk of damage against things. Yeah, it gets wrecked by Talonflame and Mega Pinsir along with some other Pokemon, but that's why it's B Rank and not anywhere higher. I think Chesnaught is perfect where it's at, it has a lot of qualities and a very good niche in OU right now.
Conkeldurr was put down a couple ranks awhile back because the metagame adapted to it and it's not as good as before. It's still good, just not AS good. Also, Chesnaught has a niche in walling Aegislash sets that aren't Weakness Policy (people use that, right?) and SubSword or whatever it's called. While its weak to Talonflame and Birdspam, it can still function against them thanks to Spikey Shield.
No and no. Chesnaught is an amazing wall against physical attackers. It resists the dreaded edge quake combo and is one of the best aegislash counters in the game because of bulletproof and makes a great pivot on bulky offense or balanced teams because of its access to reliable recovery, leech seed, and spikes. While it is four times weak to flying, it's job isn't to wall flying types and none of what it does wall has any reason (other than chesnaught obviously) to carry flying coverage except for gyarados who still runs into spiky shield.
Conkeldurr is a great Pokemon, but it really isn't unstoppable due to the relatively low base power of its moves. B+ is a very accurate ranking for Conkeldurr.
Well, Chesnaught may have a bad set of weaknesses, but its typing does allow it to resist Dark, including the EdgeQuake combo, which is really solid. You may say that Bulletproof is 100% situational, but actually, that's the whole beauty of Chesnaught. You know why Gengar carries Sludge Wave instead of Sludge Bomb's better poison chance? If it doesn't, it gets hard-walled by Chesnaught. Bulletproof allows Chesnaught to be immune to Shadow Ball and Focus Blast, and combined with its typing, lets it blanket check a wide variety of OU threats like Mega Gyarados, Tyranitar, Garchomp, Gengar, Excadrill and last but not least Aegislash. That's a good portion of the A and S Rank tier covered by just a lowly starter. It can set up Spikes, isn't completely useless against physical Flying-types with Spiky Shield (Rocky Helmet-esque Protect ftw), Leech Seed, phazing, etc. Also, Chesnaught can actually exert some offensive pressure (not a lot but still). Chesnaught is pretty underrated imo, and I probably only touched upon Chesnaught's utility a little bit. However, most of the flaws that you covered on Chesnaught are pretty much correct, and that's why it's B Rank.
Also, welcome to Smogon!
Conkeldurr used to be A I think but it dropped over time, basically for being pretty easy to check and because most of the stuff it checked fell out of favor. I don't have a strong opinion on it but it'll probably take more than that to convince others it should go back to A.
Your analysis of Chesnaught is kinda amazingly wrong. Bulletproof is not situational when Aegislash is a dominant force in the meta, immunity to Shadow Ball is exactly why Chesnaught beats nearly every Aegislash set (ones that aren't carrying Toxic, Flash Cannon or HP Ice.) Grass / Fighting, despite the weaknesses is a GOOD defensive typing, resisting Rock, Ground, Water and most importantly Dark, which allows Chesnaught to beat many dangerous threats; and with its great physical bulk it doesn't even need to resist their STABs, but it really helps against really powerful boosting sweepers like Mega Gyarados and Tyranitar.
Yeah Talonflame is a bitch but Chesnaught at least has the option to dick with it with Spiky Shield and Leech Seed before switching out. The fact that a lot of popular stuff stomps on it is why it's in B, not A.
Talonflame isn't the only thing that takes care of Chesnaught easily.
Thanks! Well, actually this is my first visit to the forums, I've played with Smogon's rules before. I can see where you are coming from about Bulletproof as mixed Aegislash is a pain, but I don't really see him walling a good portion of S and A rank. Both Mega Charizards, Thundurus, Greninja, Heatran, and Mega Pinsir are all over the place this generation and none of them are getting walled by Chesnaught.
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Every physical attacker with a ground move can beat Heatran, but that doesn't make it a bad defensive Pokemon by any stretch of the imagination.
I always thought Heatran was used as a specially defensive Pokemon or even a scarfer. Besides, I see Heatrans with Air Balloon quite a lot and Heatran has only 3 weaknesses. Not six.
Oh, absolutely.
It does, however, beat most Aegislash sets, Bisharp, some Garchomp sets, Mega Gyarados, Mega Tyranitar, most Dragonite sets, Excadrill, some Gengar sets, Lando-T, and it can check both Keldeo and Terrakion. It can also beat some rare but otherwise extremely dangerous things like Kabutops in Rain and Crawdaunt.
That's pretty good imo. If Chesnaught was only capable of taking on a couple of these things, I might agree with C, but frankly B is a very modest ranking and Chesnaught can beat enough top physical threats to warrant it.
Yup. And Heatran is in A+ while Chesnaught is in B.
Plus Psychic and Poison weaknesses are hardly worth mentioning, especially when Bulletproof removes its weakness to the most common poison move in Sludge Bomb. And Psychic is only used as STAB and is coming from special attackers exclusively, things Chesnaught has no business walling anyway.
Honestly I'd rather have Skarmory. But no disrespect, you make valid arguments.
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You don't bother Roosting (unless you somehow know it doesn't have Taunt). If rocks aren't up, then 2 Foul Plays + Rocky Helmet damage kills Megados, even better for you if he wastes a turn trying to Taunt, and Ice Fang has a low chance of 2HKO'ing (only 11.7%). So it usually goes; DD as Mandi comes in -> Ice Fang with Helmet damage -> Foul Play -> Ice Fang with Helmet damage -> Foul Play.
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Rotosect
Banned deucer.
Looking at the current pokemon in S and A+ rank, can I ask what is keeping Kyurem-B from being promoted to S-rank?
It's the only non-mega pokemon in OU who can act as a wallbreaker against the vast majority of the tier.
Most people play safe and run the Sub+3 attacks set, which is extremely dangerous, though it has issues with Eviolite Chansey, AV Conkeldurr, Sylveon and Clefable.
And then it can run LO or CB and have pretty much zero safe switch-ins.
So let me say this again: Kyu-B is walled by 4 pokemon in OU when it runs its most defensive set. If it decides to go all out then it has no safe switch-ins.
Of course Kyu-B's main issue is its 95 base speed, which is more than enough to outspeed every single defensive threat in OU, but not quite enough to outspeed offensive ones. However, Kyu-B is essentially a one-pokemon solution against most of the annoying defensive threats like Skarmory, Mandibuzz, Mega Venusaur, Rotom-W and Gliscor who can stop a team mate, such as Mega Pinsir, from sweeping.
In this regard Kyurem-B is one of the best forms of support a sweeper could ask in OU, which is compounded by the fact Kyu-B doesn't take up the mega slot and your sweeper of choice could.
This makes Kyu-B not much different from Mega Gengar, whose job was removing key defensive threats to open up the doors for a sweep. The difference here is that Kyurem-B doesn't trap, but it can and will heavily punish anything that switches on it.
Notice that I haven't mentioned its other two issues (SR weakness and annoying weaknesses). That's because they don't prevent Kyu-B from doing its job. The threats it's meant to handle can't really do much against its bulk and rarely carry SE attacks to begin with.
So in short, while Kyurem-B lacks the speed to sweep most of the metagame, it provides a form of "wallbreaking support" while still allowing you to run a mega evolution that no other pokemon in OU can. I believe that's enough to consider Kyu-B for S rank.
It's the only non-mega pokemon in OU who can act as a wallbreaker against the vast majority of the tier.
Most people play safe and run the Sub+3 attacks set, which is extremely dangerous, though it has issues with Eviolite Chansey, AV Conkeldurr, Sylveon and Clefable.
And then it can run LO or CB and have pretty much zero safe switch-ins.
So let me say this again: Kyu-B is walled by 4 pokemon in OU when it runs its most defensive set. If it decides to go all out then it has no safe switch-ins.
Of course Kyu-B's main issue is its 95 base speed, which is more than enough to outspeed every single defensive threat in OU, but not quite enough to outspeed offensive ones. However, Kyu-B is essentially a one-pokemon solution against most of the annoying defensive threats like Skarmory, Mandibuzz, Mega Venusaur, Rotom-W and Gliscor who can stop a team mate, such as Mega Pinsir, from sweeping.
In this regard Kyurem-B is one of the best forms of support a sweeper could ask in OU, which is compounded by the fact Kyu-B doesn't take up the mega slot and your sweeper of choice could.
This makes Kyu-B not much different from Mega Gengar, whose job was removing key defensive threats to open up the doors for a sweep. The difference here is that Kyurem-B doesn't trap, but it can and will heavily punish anything that switches on it.
Notice that I haven't mentioned its other two issues (SR weakness and annoying weaknesses). That's because they don't prevent Kyu-B from doing its job. The threats it's meant to handle can't really do much against its bulk and rarely carry SE attacks to begin with.
So in short, while Kyurem-B lacks the speed to sweep most of the metagame, it provides a form of "wallbreaking support" while still allowing you to run a mega evolution that no other pokemon in OU can. I believe that's enough to consider Kyu-B for S rank.
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