Gen 6 The XY Ubers Viability Ranking Thread [Read Post #1000]

[malefic]

Um, Weakness Policy Aegislash is really not a thing. It's far too situational. The closest set to a offensive Aegislash that is even remotely viable in Ubers is something like this:

Aegislash @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 248 HP / 8 SDef
Adamant Nature
- King's Shield
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head

This KOs Mega Gengar after a round of Stealth Rock damage, while Mega Mewtwo Y takes 73-87%. You still survive any +2 hit from Xerneas, while Iron Head + Sneak kills. Notably, standard Ho-Oh is 2HKOed at +2, as are things like Palkia, Kyogre, and offensive Landorus-T (at +1). It's also quite easy to set up an SD with Aegislash's typing and bulk. Yveltal is everywhere though, and Ground-types are still a huge pain to deal with.

Anyway, Aegislash is fine where it is IMO. It checks most Fairies, albeit being in a bind against SubGeoXern + being wisp bait. Outside of that, it provides utility against Gengar and soft-checks Mewtwo. Still, it accomplishes very little outside of this + being able to emergency Toxic Eleceus + scraping by Mega Luc if using Shadow Ball (lol). Also, Fire, Ground, Ghost, and Dark-type weaknesses mean any of Ground-types, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Darkrai, Blaziken, and Ghostceus can do as they like with it, and this prevents it from rising any higher than B.

 

[JFrost]

who brings in mewtwo on aegislash? fire blast nails aegi switchinand then switches to a resist. then aegi dies
and mewtwo isn't the only thing in the meta

I meant switching in Aegislash when you see a Mewtwo on the field.

And I realize this, but given the fact that Aegislash does so well against three of the 4 S Tier, he should at LEAST be a B+. A- is arguable, IMO.

 

[realiti]

I meant switching in Aegislash when you see a Mewtwo on the field.

And I realize this, but given the fact that Aegislash does so well against three of the 4 S Tier, he should at LEAST be a B+. A- is arguable, IMO.

HOW DOES IT DO WELL WHEN IT TAKES 70% WHEN IT SWITCHES IN AND LOSES TO ALMOST EVERY A+ MON
just stop this and get to a good topic
EDIT: Malefic explained it clearly

 

[JFrost]

HOW DOES IT DO WELL WHEN IT TAKES 70% WHEN IT SWITCHES IN AND LOSES TO ALMOST EVERY A+ MON
just stop this and get to a good topic

Growing angered doesn't prove your point anymore. My point was, we have 3 S Tier mons, and all are dealt with at the hands (or blades, haha) of Aegislash. We can agree to disagree.

 

[Haruno]

Growing angered doesn't prove your point anymore. My point was, we have 3 S Tier mons, and all are dealt with at the hands (or blades, haha) of Aegislash. We can agree to disagree.

It loses to gengar on occasion, situational as fuck and not like it can switch in past the Mevo turn anyhow.
It loses to mewtwo ez because fire blast too strong. It admittedly does well against mmx without eq but eh, dislike mmx as a whole.
ogre destroys it
Geoxern with sub destroys aegis, polopxern uses aegis as setup bait.

So er what?

 

[JFrost]

Um, Weakness Policy Aegislash is really not a thing. It's far too situational. The closest set to a offensive Aegislash that is even remotely viable in Ubers is something like this:

Aegislash @ Spooky Plate
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 248 HP / 8 SDef
Adamant Nature
- King's Shield
- Swords Dance
- Shadow Sneak
- Iron Head

This KOs Mega Gengar after a round of Stealth Rock damage, while Mega Mewtwo Y takes 73-87%. You still survive any +2 hit from Xerneas, while Iron Head + Sneak kills. Notably, standard Ho-Oh is 2HKOed at +2, as are things like Palkia, Kyogre, and offensive Landorus-T (at +1). It's also quite easy to set up an SD with Aegislash's typing and bulk. Yveltal is everywhere though, and Ground-types are still a huge pain to deal with.

Anyway, Aegislash is fine where it is IMO. It checks most Fairies, albeit being in a bind against SubGeoXern + being wisp bait. Outside of that, it provides utility against Gengar and soft-checks Mewtwo. Still, it accomplishes very little outside of this + being able to emergency Toxic Eleceus + scraping by Mega Luc if using Shadow Ball (lol). Also, Fire, Ground, Ghost, and Dark-type weaknesses mean any of Ground-types, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Darkrai, Blaziken, and Ghostceus can do as they like with it, and this prevents it from rising any higher than B.

Can't argue with the points made here, good stuff.

 

[Disaster Area]

Sub Xerneas beats Aegi often, it's Power Herb not White Herb, and you don't need weakness policy to boost its attack to put it into KO range, with Gyro Ball it already KOs, and with Iron Head you're pretty close, taking off like 70% iirc.

Still, whilst JFrost person needs to lurk more, talk in the room more, and ladder less, I was meaning to bring up aegislash myself, although I probably won't suggest a rank change, but it does occur to me that it's the only pokemon to solidly check 3 of the 4 S rank pokemon (solid mewtwo check in my experience, we know it has issues with geoxern but it's alright as a check to it, and if it hs room for pursuit gengar is unhappy about it.. also king's shield checks choice-locked mons' movechoice really nicely tbh which is another bonus). Could be better, but it is certainly okay. Also, isn't standard Aegi EVs Max HP Max SDef Sassy, unless you run pursuit then u run like 88 Atk. So you're taking even less from fire blast, and you resist psystrike really solidly. Imo ur biggest issues is either a fire blast boosted from CM, or EQ from (especially bulk up) mewtwo X. But for a blanket switch-in it's not too bad.

People should use polopxern more tho (my fave variant is Reflect CM ChestoRest cos that's one hell of a sexy motherfucker)

 

[Not2good]

Would a all out attacking blaziken be good?
Blaziken @ Blazikenite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Low Kick
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge

 

[Minority]

Would a all out attacking blaziken be good?
Blaziken @ Blazikenite
Ability: Stance Change
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Low Kick
- Flare Blitz
- Knock Off
- Stone Edge The purpose of this set would be to lure in pokemon thinking you have just Knock Off or Stone Edge as coverage and then surprise them. Let's say your up against a player that has a Ho-oh on their team and they see Knock Off as your one of your coverage moves, they'll think that you won't have Stone Edge and you'll be able to surprise them with it

?????

I've never been able to get passed Darkrai's notorious Dark Fail and as a result I have been bias against it for quite awhile. It does however provide a way to rip through Arceus-Ghost and Giratina without having to resort to Yveltal (Yveltal is great but Darkrai has some other distinct abilities: being able to set up, Taunt faster, heavily damage fairy switch-ins, and of course put something to sleep). I don't really have much of an opinion on this but it's a bit harder for Choice sets to handle their role as sleep fodder than it would appear since they can become Sleep Talk locked and wake up first turn, they take Bad Dreams damage which is really bad for Ogre, and really troublesome is that Dark Fail can miss the turn they switch in making it very hard to decide if to use Sleep Talk or not with something like Band Ho-Oh.

 

[Hack]

I kinda feel that Mid A is a bit too generous for Darkrai, it's a passable Mon but nowhere near as scary as it was last generation. The existence of fairies means that it's forced to run Sludge Bomb which is semi-lame on a Mon that wants to run Dark Void / Dark Pulse / Taunt / Substitute / Nasty Plot / Thunder / Focus Blast already. Additionally, good sleep fodder like Scarf Zekrom, CB Ho-Oh, and SDef Kyogre is prevalent and useful meaning that it's even easier to check since its coverage lacks the raw power to easily dispose of the aforementioned threats while they can take its sleep and threaten it greatly in return (Thunder helps with two of them but like I said that's really a struggle to fit). It's not a mon that's easy to build around or just slap on a team-- its main niche is on Deoxys HO where it can serve as a soft-check to Defoggers and hazard abuser due to access to Dark Void. Even if a build doesn't have sleep fodder, Darkrai still isn't really a challenge to wall or dispose of after something is sacrificed to sleep due to having often predictable coverage, a lackluster defensive typing and frail defensive stats. I think for these reasons it might be better off in Low A or even High B.

still a deadly stallbreaker that holds up well against HO thanks to its great speed. Nasty LO with Sludge Bomb puts massive pressure on bulky fairys and it's not really much of a set back running it considering Dark Pulse has good coverage already. You make the 4MSS sounds really excessive, but in reality it never actually wants Focus Blast/Sub/Taunt and barely needs Thunder anyway. CB Ho-oh is less prevalent this generation in my experience, although sdef kyogre is good it still doesn't pose much of a threat as it has to rely on sleep talk rolls and scald doesn't kill. Scarf Zekrom can use sleep talk but usually likes HP Ice/Draco to damage physically defensive grounds anyway so it's not that prevalent. Any scarfer revenges Darkrai but they won't exactly like taking those LO Dark Pulses to the face. It's good on any balance/HO/bulky offense that needs the edge over CM users/defogers. Sure sleep isn't as good as it was, but it's still good enough on the builds Darkrai fits on, since you aim to finish games quickly, alternatively take advantage of sleeping mons. I think mid A or least low A is fitting enough, it's still a nice mon.

 

[Minority]

I don't need to justify Darkrai's rank or niches over Yveltal when Hack said it all. I don't see how Aegi is going to stop "any CM Arceus" when several run refresh, and if you don't have Toxic I guess you just die. Some CM forums don't even need Refresh when Judgment can just rip through them like Arceus-Ghost and Arceus-Fire (lol).

Stop comparing Yveltal to Darkrai when they have very different purposes and are meant to be played very differently. Deo-A is superior to Deo-N in every way (actually not even) and this is not the nature of the case with the comparison of Darkrai and Yveltal. I beg you to play the tier more and theorymon less.

 

[orch]

Darkrai is amazing and IMO, it's slightly better than most of other A ranked mons, but it's not good enough for A+. Darkrai is able to 1hko to 2hko everything in meta with +2. And, it just needs ONE dark void to pull that off lol. Not to mention that darkrai is able to reliably check cm arceus including refresh variants which toxic everything meta struggles to defeat. Sludge bomb and dark pulse coverage is excellent, just missing out on like, tyranitar? tyranitar is laughably easy to check, so i'm not going to consider that as a con. The suggestion that Darkrai should drop down only shows how much you know about meta, which is nil.

e: klefki too, but klefki is a bastard that makes all dark types cry ;-;

 

[Monte Cristo]

MMaw for B or B- Pls

mmaw is currently good tbh. it checks geoxern, mm2s, yveltal and post void usage darkie.

but that's not the reason to add it so high, it's power in the sub/sd set (sub/sd/sucker/play rough sub over knock off in ubers imo unless ou really can make arceus support fall with some random anti arc mon, if not sub > k-off for WoW arc) is really high. With prior damage it beats ogre,ho-oh,zekrom,dialga,palkia, etc (sub + play rough/+ sucker (sucker only for dia to net the ko instead of leaving it at 40% remaining to fire blast your with)) beats max hp/bulky palk/dia while sd + sucker beats 4/0) with either sub play rough or sd sucker:
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 359-423 (86.2 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Zekrom/Dialga: 282-332 (82.4 - 97%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Palkia: 329-388 (102.1 - 120.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Kyogre: 359-423 (104.9 - 123.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO (bulky specs still loses crucial water spout ohko range dmg through hp loss)
overall athreat to every archetype but it's flaws often make ho-oh/ogre mandatory while using this thing
overall if you play this to it's strengths or play it vs geoxern correctly (switch in on sub or geo, play rough break the sub tank +2 thunder, play rough + sucker to ko it) or both, it's sure to be very useful to you during the coarse of the match

idk why people think this thing is cancer level bad, it's not as good as other stuff in B like mega mom(which imo should be B+ but w/e) but it's still really good at doing it's job and if your groudon switches in once and loses 50% to p.rough, and tries to switch in again, gg,
252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Play Rough vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Groudon: 208-246 (51.4 - 60.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Huge Power Mega Mawile Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Groudon: 246-290 (60.8 - 71.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

 

[Hack]

I don't see the point in using Darkrai over Yveltal unless you absolutely need a dark type that can outrun Arceus. Yveltal is bulkier, hits significantly harder if we assume the same item (or Ygod can use assault vest instead of life orb and still hit for the same amount thanks to dark aura), has a secondary STAB that heals him, and his sucker punch is disgustingly good.

I don't know how Darkrai can be ranked A if Aegislash is only ranked B. I would rather see Aegis at B+ and Darkrai at B.

Darkrai checks CM Arceus and helps preventing defog from support Arceus, courtesy of its speed and void. this differentiates it from Yveltal, as Yveltal can be defog bait for 96 timid Arceus formes with the leftover EVs put in sdef (Water is an example of a defoger that does this). you shouldn't really compare the two, they fill different roles and obviously Yveltal is more viable in the strictest sense, hence why its placement is above Darkrai's.

If you can't understand why Aegislash is worse than Darkrai, then that's really sad. For a defensive mon like Aegislash, having only one target to counter is horrible to for role compression. Although Pursuit can salvage its usefulness on stall, it's still a mon you never want to use on balance and definitely not on offense, where it will rob your momentum and only check what can be checked via offensive pressure+ekiller priority.

Also

I didn't want to go down the dick measuring route, but if you really think I know nothing, look at the ladder. 2 accounts in the top 15. I've played my fair share of games and I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

stop embarrassing yourself dude

 

[Edgar]

Well, sp.def mawile is actually a very decent Yveltal/Xerneas/Mewtwo(X/Y) check and has more switch in opportunities when running such set and still hits like a truck. Have you even played Mawile Haruno because you'd be surprised how many switches Mawile forces, which allows it to Swords Dance. It's not even a matter of one shotting a mon with Sucker Punch but it leaves them at very low range which makes any mon that takes that super easy to revenge kill.

 

[Blim]

I think some people are very mistaken about Darkrai. Yes, it has similar typing to Yveltal, but both are played completely different. Darkrai's two main sets is either as a lead with focus sash or a mid / late game "wallbreaker" or cleaner. His job is, in both cases, is to 1.] sleep something, then 2.] your opponent switches [usually], allowing you to cripple / heavily damage a 2nd pokemon before darkrai dies itself, a 2-1 for trade if you will. That's it, that's whole point of using darkrai, 2 for 1 trades. What makes darkrai unique is it's speed, great offensive typing / movepool, and stat-boosting moves like nasty plot. This is why Darkrai is an A tier Uber Pokemon, it's offensive capabilities and ability to sleep something. Offensive teams [especially HO teams] greatly benefit from Darkrai's ability to sleep one pokemon + heavily damage another before it eventually goes down itself. Darkrai + Deo-S is also a great core combination that's been around in Ubers for awhile.

Of course, this isn't an exact science. Sometimes darkrai ends up sweeping, sometimes it sleeps one pokemon and does nothing afterwards. Somestimes dark void void misses, then you get hokoed and that's it. It's a medium-risk-high reward pokemon, it's game by game performance depends on more factors such as how-well you play + team-match up, but it definitely hasn't gotten worse since last gen. If anything its gotten better thanks to the the typing buff + fall of genesect usage.

More importantly...does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to why Forretress is sitting there at Mid B Rank? Defog is fairly common, spike-stacking is seen less, and there's also sand rush excadrill. So it's niche as a rapid spinner is almost null, and it doesn't really check many threats anymore either...am I missing something here?

 

[Inspirited]

More importantly...does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to why Forretress is sitting there at Mid B Rank? Defog is fairly common, spike-stacking is seen less, and there's also sand rush excadrill. So it's niche as a rapid spinner is almost null, and it doesn't really check many threats anymore either...am I missing something here?

Actually, Defog being more common also helped Forretress out a bit. It hurt it for obvious reasons involving competition but it in turn made Spike stacking more effective imo. Forcing your opponent to Defog will usually buy you 3 free turns, 1 from the turn your opponent Defogs, 2 when the Defog user swaps out, and 3 when they want to set rocks up again. Forretress can also punish quite a few defog Arceus with Toxic whilst supporting a teammate that will more than likely have trouble with said Arceus. Volt Switch is cool for a Rapid Spinner just because it can help minimize the free turns you give to your opponent and it also works well with pokemon like Deoxys-A, Darkrai, Skymin ect who sometimes have issues coming in on their own. Sure Klefki destroys all of these pokemon bug this is where Forretress comes in again since it is one if the few pokemon that makes Klefki cry a river and it can bye momentum off of Klefki with Volt Switch and bring in one of the above threats again. Rinse and repeat and Klefki is gone before you know it and your Deo-A is ready to start tearing stuff apart. It definitely got worse this gen but not bad enough to drop to C imo, I also think Mid B might be too high. I would be fine with it dropping to B-.

I too may be missing something though.

 

[Disaster Area]

lol spike stacking is nowhere near as prominent as last gen.
The trouble I see with forretress is a lack of a true defensive niche outside of checking xerneas. Sure it offers an awful lot to a team but it has really pretty limited moveslots and it can't afford to run as much and consequentially offers less. At a price of poorer defensive synergy (doesn't beat much, bait for ho-oh/blaze) it doesn't offer all that much.

 

[Monte Cristo]

This thread is turning into more of a joke with the darkrai drop arguments and the stupid HO argument with that effyouzin guy. Can we please just make a list of Pokemon illegal to lower rank or discuss like gengar or darkie. We missed out on a potentially good discussion of things like mawile just cause we fell into the hands of a troll.(if he's not a troll I feel bad for him lmao) [posted on mobile so possible inaccuracies in grammar]

 

[Inspirited]

lol spike stacking is nowhere near as prominent as last gen.
The trouble I see with forretress is a lack of a true defensive niche outside of checking xerneas. Sure it offers an awful lot to a team but it has really pretty limited moveslots and it can't afford to run as much and consequentially offers less. At a price of poorer defensive synergy (doesn't beat much, bait for ho-oh/blaze) it doesn't offer all that much.

Um, Forretress is only an emergency GeoXern check at best since it can only do this when Sturdy is active and Xern needs to be at 71% or lower for Gyro Ball to reliably KO. I personally dislike Gyro Ball on Forretress anyways just because of the sheer utility it has and it's ability to pseudo patch some of Forretress's shortcomings. Forretress doesn't have as bad as 4MSS as you make it out to be since it would ideally only want 7 moves really. It can definitely get away with 4 moves using the formula that MM2 gave me when I was writing Forry's analysis (Hazard: Spikes or T-Spikes, Toxic, Rapid Spin, Anti Gengar: Volt Switch, Gyro Ball, EQ) and it can even get away with running Pain Split (for taking on Eleceus and Ghostceus or just for longevity in general) when running T-Spikes as its Hazard. Its defensive niche come in the form of turning good support mons into a liability for your opponent with Toxic ruining support Arceus and it's ability to say no to anything Klefki tries to do whilst turning these into Spikes set up fodder. This isn't much, but it's utility niches help patch up its mediocre defensive presence. Volt Switch softens any argument that it is bait for things like Ho-Oh and what not. A well played Forretress can destroy teams.

I'm going to tag Sweep here since he was one of the bigger helps when writing up Forry's analysis and I'm sure his input will be helpful when ranking Forry.

This thread is turning into more of a joke with the darkrai drop arguments and the stupid HO argument with that effyouzin guy. Can we please just make a list of Pokemon illegal to lower rank or discuss like gengar or darkie. We missed out on a potentially good discussion of things like mawile just cause we fell into the hands of a troll.(if he's not a troll I feel bad for him lmao) [posted on mobile so possible inaccuracies in grammar]

Did you seriously just call Edgar a troll 0_o.......
He is definitely one of the most esteemed Ubers players here and any opinion expressed by him should be respected
Just look at that shiny Stark Sharks banner he wears. If you're gonna call the Ubers player in the winning SPL team a troll..... I just have no words to be perfectly fair :/

 

[Level 56]

Seriously, why is greninja not present in the viability ranking ??

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-91750614

 

[The Fennec Fox]

Seriously, why is greninja not present in the viability ranking ??

I think he may not so good in Ubers, as I remember someone saying that

 

[Haruno]

Wasn't this thing rejected for an analysis?

The basis for rejection was bodouches terrible performance with mega Mawile in spl (hint all it did was intimidate the opponents zekrom and then die). So due to how iffy the basis for rejection was and how spl is not an accurate representation of what a mons true viability in ubers is, I feel a reanalysis could be better. Or replays with Mawile over theorymonning

 

[jbtc10]

New tangential topic: Baton Pass. In short, it's viable as heck in Ubers at the moment, especially since no-one really prepares for it. I made an alt about an hour or two ago and im already 1500+ with it, beating many decent players with decent teams with ease once I got up to the higher ranks. I know that doesn't mean much in itself and you can do that with any remotely decent standard Ubers teams, but believe me when I say it's pretty damn easy to hose standard Ubers teams with it, because they simply have next to nothing for it and there's surprisingly little difference between its effectiveness here and in OU.

The scary thing about BP in Ubers is that Smeargle has access to the dreaded Minimize, which makes beating the team even more of a nightmare than it is in OU, and there's honestly very little you can do once multiple sharp evasion boosts have been obtained as whether or not you can even hit them becomes completely out of your control and it gives them tons of free opportunities to grab free boosts and subs.

To illustrate this, take a look at the replay below. The guy was pretty bad in this replay (I made a new alt to test Minimize Smeargle once I realized I could use it over Ingrain), but that's hardly even relevant here anyway because after the boosts were obtained, it was absolutely insane how many times he missed a normally 100% accurate move and it wouldn't have mattered who was playing that guys team or how 'skillful' they were because all my mons were basically untouchable since the RNG was completely rigged in my favor to a great extent.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-128035384

Ubers is Ubers, so we have to suck this up, all I'm saying here is that the pokemon that comprise the BP team at least appear to be well and truly viable here right now (whether it turns out to be a gimmick that is easy to counter without having to warp your team remains to be seen) and thus they could/should be ranked in some way.

 

[Disaster Area]

The basis for rejection was bodouches terrible performance with mega Mawile in spl (hint all it did was intimidate the opponents zekrom and then die). So due to how iffy the basis for rejection was and how spl is not an accurate representation of what a mons true viability in ubers is, I feel a reanalysis could be better. Or replays with Mawile over theorymonning

It wasn't only rejected on that replay, but also from QC's testing of it. I don't personally feel it's truly viable, but if QCs decide that it is I wish to write the analysis for it.