why does this matterLooking back, without Drought, Mega Houndoom would be near-unviable, only being usable on niche Sunny Day teams.
like at all
why does this matterLooking back, without Drought, Mega Houndoom would be near-unviable, only being usable on niche Sunny Day teams.
It would have problems breaking past stall teams. Quite a few would use Blissey and the only way to break past is +2 in sun from something with Heat Rock Sunny Day (50% chance to OHKO, with rocks becomes guaranteed 100% chance to OHKO)Well it begins to touch on the logic behind the ban a bit. Basically pointing out that they play upon each other and as such you have to take out one element to balance the other. If x makes y broken, y makes x broken, and neither are boken without the other then how should you approach banning? In this case, seniority seems to have been the deciding factor, but it's perfectly reasonable to argue that consistency in limiting weather abilities fits smogon's past policy. Although I will say he was likely underselling houndoom's strengths outside of sun. Great speed tier, boosting, options for priority, etc.
I'm going to skip the whole discussion about Houndoom and share my thoughts on the more interesting Weavile. For the record, I've played around 60 games on alts with different Weavile teams with varying success.
The sets I've been playing are Band, Icium SD and LO 4 attacks. First, SD is ass: Weavile’s bad defensive typing and terrible bulk make it very hard to set up, and sweeping even harder. Band Weavile is definitely a better set, but still has been rather underwhelming in my games: while it was the most appealing item at first, maximizing Weavile's immediate power with no recoil, it locking Weavile into a move is a huge drawback. Ice and Dark, while being good offensive types, are individually resisted by many Pokémon and are much easier to play around if you can’t switch from one stab to another (especially if using Ice Shard or Pursuit). So LO 4 attacks is the best Weavile set in my opinion, as it still gives Weavile a needed boost in power but also lets it switch moves and potentially lure switch-ins with coverage moves like Low Kick.
Moving on to Weavile’s viability in general, I haven’t found it to have any broken aspect in the current metagame. As a pursuiter, it gets big competition from Muk-A, which was often more useful than Weavile on my bulky teams thanks to its better typing, bulk, utility and reliability; but it differentiates himself from Muk by having a really useful speed tier that lets it easily revenge kill stuff, although it really wishes it had a bit more power to turn some 2HKOs into OHKOs. The worst things about Weavile, though, are that it is easily walled by various Pokémon depending on its coverage move (Cobalion and Sharpedo if no Low Kick, Primarina if lacking Poison Jab, Buzzwole unless running Aerial Ace) and easily stopped by faster Pokémon and common priority users (thinking about Scizor and Conkeldurr), making it very tricky to use sometimes, if not deadweight. Add to this a pitiful defensive typing and bulk, and you have a Pokémon far less threatening than some make it out to be.
Don’t get me wrong, Weavile’s still a good mon, and I don’t see it being ranked under A- on viability rankings, but it definitely doesn’t deserve to remain banned from UU any longer.
Okay, you forgot the part about how 80 speed is really shitty for an offensive mon with subpar bulk and rocks weakness, it's scarf set is outsped by mega aero, which isn't good especially for a scarfer and it's kind of dead weight vs offense in this super speed meta. I also question why run HP on Chandelure when it fails to live hits either way. SubCm does break stall sure but there aren't better mons who do the same thing and aren't so matchup dependent (I.e. Togekiss, Xurk) and 2HKOing hydreigon is irrelevant since A. The SpA drop is crippling and it just forces you out with dark pulse or draco,and if you're gonna run chande, max speed max SpA timid is p much the only way to go lest you're forced to click energy ball every time if there's a mega blastoise, which is disadvantageous since grass has so many resists.I know this is kinda off-topic, but I want to give you my thoughts on Chandelure.
I've been using Chandelure since I first started playing UU and it has been a staple in most of my teams. It has a lot going for it:
Chandelure can have main three roles: A wallbreaker (sub cm), a hard hitter(specs) and a revenge killer(scarf). I think the latter one is no really the best right now. It's not really fast and it would be slower than a Xurkitree with +1 speed, which is the main reason almost all teams have a scarfer.
- High special attack
- Nice STAB moves (Fire is nice and ghost has few real resistances)
- Its typing allows it to hard counter a lot of mons and setup/fire off strong attacks, as I will cover later
- It's a nice rapid spin blocker (at least against Forretress and Tsareena)
- Flash fire gives makes it counter more mons, possibly being a win condition against a choice locked Infernape or Entei
The first one can start setting up in a lot of mons -Cobalion, Buzzwole, Blissey, Tsareena, bulky Scizor,Forretress- making it, with Buzzwole and Crawdaunt, the best way to counter stall. If played well, it just wins against it. Blissey (the main answer to any special attacker) won't be able to touch you unless it's running shadow ball, but most stall players don't like the idea of giving up on a move slot for that. Haze Tentacruel can be a problem, but most stall teams run it with mixed defenses and somewhat speed, and having no reliable recovery makes it not really a counter. Against other playstyles, even if there's no chance to set up, it is still a mon with 427 spA (modest nature). This is my set for this:
Chandelure @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Calm Mind
- Flamethrower
- Shadow Ball
The specs set is kinda overlooked, but it is really nice. It gets a powerful attack almost everytime one of the mons listed above come in. It is also a nice Hydreigon bait (!), doing 63.3 to 74.7% with overheat. Running trick also helps against walls, although not being as effective as the sub CM one. Here is my set for this one:
Chandelure @ Choice Specs
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 72 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 180 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Shadow Ball
- Overheat
- Trick
- Energy Ball
Downsides to Chandelure are:
This is my first analysis post here and I would love to know what you think about it. Feel free to agree/disagree with it. Thank you for reading.
- In some games it will be just a sack
- Pursuit trappers (mainly AV Alolan Muk)
- You may have to bait some of the mons listed above to check if they aren't using a set with uncommon moves (like Earthquake Buzzwole or bulky Knock Off Scizor)
Hi MasterAmpharos, I'm gonna try to answer your points here:Okay, you forgot the part about how 80 speed is really shitty for an offensive mon with subpar bulk and rocks weakness, it's scarf set is outsped by mega aero, which isn't good especially for a scarfer and it's kind of dead weight vs offense in this super speed meta. I also question why run HP on Chandelure when it fails to live hits either way. SubCm does break stall sure but there aren't better mons who do the same thing and aren't so matchup dependent (I.e. Togekiss, Xurk) and 2HKOing hydreigon is irrelevant since A. The SpA drop is crippling and it just forces you out with dark pulse or draco,and if you're gonna run chande, max speed max SpA timid is p much the only way to go lest you're forced to click energy ball every time if there's a mega blastoise, which is disadvantageous since grass has so many resists.
Hope you have read this and learned something, and realize I don't mean to be a dick if I sound like it here
Toge gets more setup chances due to its bulk, reliable recovery, and twave.Hi MasterAmpharos, I'm gonna try to answer your points here:
- I agree it is not a nice scarfer right now and is a dead weight in some matches, as I said in the original post
- The way I use the choice specs one is to team it up with some bulky mons (like AV conkeldurr, sylveon, or scizor), and after hitting something really hard I switch to them. This spread allows you to outspeed most of the things that you would want, and I even agree with running max speed, but I really prefer modest over timid on this mon. I run some HP because it makes me feel more comfortable with using it in this role this way.
- I usually run hazard control to help it switch in more easily
- My point about hydreigon is it can't come in twice. If you switch to some wall chandelure is free to fire off some other attacks, which your opponent probably doesn't have much for besides hydreigon, and it will think twice about switching in again.
- I disagree: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Chandelure Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blastoise-Mega: 207-244 (57.1 - 67.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Sure, it won't come in when mega blastoise is out on the field, but that's not when it should come. It should switch in when your opponent has one of those other mons (like forretress) and then proceed to fire off big hits on everything. If your opponent tries to save their forretress or cobalion by going into mega blastoise, hydreigon, primarina, volcanion or krookodile they will be dead soon. This is why I prefer running the specs set with some bulky mons support.252+ SpA Choice Specs Chandelure Overheat vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blastoise-Mega: 167-197 (46.1 - 54.4%) -- 57% chance to 2HKOBy no ways I feel you're trying to be a dick, I think it's nice if someone disagrees with me because that's the whole point of the forum. Feel free to reply again or pm me (I'm usually in the happy place with the name of darksafadao or safadaomaster4(or some other number)). Thanks for replying.
- I prefer sub CM chandelure over xurkitree and togekiss for wallbreaking because it has more chances to setup during non-stall matches because of its typing. (I also hate these mons on a personal level but I don't think it matters in this discussion).
Toge gets more setup chances due to its bulk, reliable recovery, and twave.
Good players will predict your chandelure to come out if they have a something like forretress out themselves.
You may get some benchmarks on 2hko with modest but timid is better as we both agreed. Specs Hydreigon and Prima has better coverage and are generally better at using Choice Specs.
Overheat leaves you crippled because of the drop.
And on a last note, hazard removal in UU doesn't have reliable recovery outside of Lati/Starmie and they're all easily worn down, so it's a struggle to keep rocks off the field.
You hit the nail on the head, that is where we disagree. I don't see a reason to let Weavile remain in BL because there is a possibilty Buzzwole could get banned later on. The departure of Buzzwole is entirely hypothetical so that alone means we shouldn't take any decision based off something that might not even happen. And even if Weavile does turn out to be broken without Buzzwole (I still think we can handle Weavile just fine without Buzz but let's assume I'm wrong) nothing prevents the council from just banning it again. I personally don't think suspecting one pokemon multiple times is an issue as long as the decision taken ends up being beneficial for the metagame. I agree that building good teams has gotten harder but Offense is probably the playstyle that suffers the least from the amount of threats we're currently dealing with. All those threats brings new restrictions to Offensive teams, however they also provide them with fantastic new options. On the other hand, the only thing that bulkier styles have gained is Steelix Mega (you could also argue that Buzzwole can be used on stall but it can be used absolutely everywhere so each playstyle gain a new option, same for pert mega), other than that those styles have to handle a bunch of new powerful threats with the same pokemons which makes building viable Balanced and Stalls harder than ever. I'm not sure how to go about making building more diverse (other than removing Xurk which is a no brainer to me) so yeah that is something the council will have to work on. Regardless, I don't think unbanning Weavile will restrict teambuilding nearly as much as you seem to think.I agree that I exaggerated Weavile's offensive capabilities to a point. However, I mostly just think you're going about this the wrong way around. I believe the next step you guys will go is to look at Buzzwole based on peoples' posts and ban it. I'm not saying this is a bad thing as the meta does need to change as building offense is stale as of now, but, after going to Buzzwole and banning it, I feel you'll really see what Weavile is able to do as a mon, regardless of its poor defensive typing, unless metagame shifts happen with drops that really shake up the game. I'd rather just snip a problem in the bud than go back and look at it later when its become a full problem, but I guess that's just thinking too far ahead and you'd rather take it one step at a time or I could be completely wrong. (I don't have time to write another post like that to argue it and weavile is not getting banned no matter what I say here). I also still stand by my thoughts in the first post that I don't think its healthy even with buzzwole here as the current metagame just isn't that enjoyable teambuilding wise.