Why Weezing should be your physical tank in Platinum

[Bourbon]

Usually when people think "physical tank" they think Gliscor, Hippowdon, Skarmory... stuff like that. But in Platinum, new upgrades to physical sweepers like Scizor and Lucario make these pokemon pretty useless as far as physical walling goes. Here is why.

Gliscor
Defenses: 75/125/75
Useful Resistances: Fighting, Ground, Bug

Positives
-Best Heracross counter in the game
-Becomes resistant to Rock when Roosting
-STAB Earthquake helps against Tyranitar and Lucario

Negatives
-4x Ice Weakness
-Water Weakness


Hippowdon
Defenses: 108/118/72
Useful Resistances: Rock

Positives
-Toughest Physical wall in OU
-Excellent CBtar switch-in
-Good PHazer due to sturdiness

Negatives
-Weak to Water and Ice
-Vulnerable to Toxic Spikes


Skarmory
Defenses: 65/140/70
Useful Resistances: Dark, Ground, Steel, Dragon, Bug

Positives
-Excellent Spiker
-Roost makes it resistant to Rock
-Immune to Toxic

Negatives
-Does not resist Fighting
-Low damage output


Now that Swords Dance Lucario got Ice Punch, it can rip through all of these walls fairly easily. Gliscor no longer walls it, while Hippowdon and Skarmory are OHKOed after a bit of residual damage.

Scizor isn't fazed by any of their attacks, and has Roost so it can actually turn all these walls into set-up fodder. Can 2HKO them all after a Swords Dance. The only thing they can do is Roar it away.

These Pokemon are all Gyarados bait as well, with two of them being weak to Water, while Skarmory can't do anything outside of Whirlwind Gyarados.



This is where Weezing comes in.

Weezing
Defenses: 65/120/70
Useful Resistances: Fighting, Ground, Bug

Positives
-Immune to Ground and has no weakness to Rock either
-Has a diverse Special movepool to hit the Pokemon it is supposed to be walling
-Immune to Toxic
-Has but one weakness, which is not at all common coming from physical sweepers

Negatives
-Abysmal Special Defense
-Takes damage from Sandstorm
-Pain Split is useless at times

Weezing @ Leftovers
Bold
252 HP 216 Def 40 SpA

Flamethrower
Will O Wisp
Hidden Power Ground / Thunderbolt
Pain Split

Hidden Power Ground vs 4/0 Heatran: 54-63% (2HKO)
Thunderbolt vs 4/0 Gyarados: 75-88% (OHKO with SR)
Flamethrower vs 4/0 Lucario: 59-70% (2HKO)
Flamethrower vs -1 Def Lucario: 89-105% (OHKO with LO)
Flamethrower vs 252/0 Scizor: 87-102% (OHKO with SR)
Flamethrower vs 4/0 Scizor: 106-125% (OHKO)

All the following are with Adamant natures, 252 Attack, and Life Orbs.

+2 Lucario Close Combat vs Weezing: 48-57%
+2 Scizor Bullet Punch vs Weezing: 54-64%
+1 Gyarados Waterfall vs Weezing: 52-62%



As you can see from the above calculations, no matter what action these Pokemon take, they will never get the jump on Weezing. Weezing resists Fighting, and is not weak to any of Swords Dance Lucario's other moves. It has Fire attacks to leave a nice dent in Lucario, snagging a OHKO if Lucario uses Close Combat, 2HKOing if it has not launched an attack. Weezing can take hits from Gyarados too, and can retaliate with Thunderbolt. Scizor can't kill Weezing before it too meets a fiery doom.

Hidden Power Ground can be used to 2HKO Heatran, who would just love to switch in for a free Flash Fire Boost. Thunderbolt is for the aforementioned Gyarados.

Weezing's only letdown is the lack of reliable recovery. However, Pain Split isn't all that bad, and can keep him healthy enough to chase off these Pokemon several times.


As you can see, packing Weezing gives you a fairly safe answer for the top physical threats in Pokemon Platinum. The only letdown is the lack of Recovery, however, paired with a Wish Blissey, it should be fairly easy to keep around.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Weezing makes a great Fighting counter, but thats pretty much it. It's useful attacks dont have STAB or much power behind them, so even though you may be able to counter a few useful threats you are still harmless overall.

Sure, you are forcing them out, but Weezing itself is also very easy to counter.

At least things like Skarmory and Forretress have strong attacks like Brave Bird and Gyro Ball. Also, Weezing can't even learn Stealth Rock! Weezing will see less use than things like Bronzong and Tentacruel because on those turns where Weezing forces the pokemon out, it can't do anything. Using all those free turns to set up Stealth Rock or Toxic Spikes is very helpful for a team, but Weezing just throws out weak ass non STAB Flamethrowers instead.

 

[Scofield]

Great, very well done. I used to love using weezing, but I've dropped it since it is unable to use SR or many support options outside of WoW. Maybe I should try using it again...

Although Rotom-h pulls this off pretty well, getting stab on tbolt and has overheat. It also has WoW and is immune to fighting. Only thing weezing has over it is pain split, which isn't that reliable, although it is better than nothing.

 

[Syberia]

Weezing lacks reliable recovery (Pain Split is in no way reliable), which is something Skarmory, Hippowdon, Celebi, and Gliscor can all do. It cannot even lay any form of Spikes, which makes Forretress semi-usable.

It's true that it doesn't share a Pursuit weakness with Rotom, but it also cannot use Trick and cannot take any type of hit from the special side of the spectrum.

 

[the pugilist]

Weezing has a great typing and ability, with a decent offensive movepool. However, what it does lack is a supportmovepool =/. Still, I like Weezing since he's pretty solid, so here we go!

Weezing makes a great Fighting counter, but thats pretty much it. It's useful attacks dont have STAB or much power behind them, so even though you may be able to counter a few useful threats you are still harmless overall.

This statement really stood out to me, as it is rather false. While Weezing has few tricks up its sleeves, Will O Wisp and Haze at least allow it to help neuter some threats. Weezing's lack of recovery may be a weakness but with access to Expslosion, it can at least blow itself up, causing massive damage - far from harmless. He's not the best but not harmless.

Although Rotom-h pulls this off pretty well, getting stab on tbolt and has overheat. It also has WoW and is immune to fighting. Only thing weezing has over it is pain split, which isn't that reliable, although it is better than nothing.

At Weezing doesn't keel over and die whenever Band Tar makes an appearance with Pursuit.

 

[Scofield]

In response to Puggy:

1. Weezing does only get 4 move slots, you'd be hard pressed to fit in explosion and haze while still being able to counter gyarados, scizor and the ilk. You'd have to give up any form of recovery for sure and maybe even drop WoW.

2. Rotom can burn tar, just like weezing. And other than that, weezing really isn't doing much to tar, except letting it get in a dd or sub. Of course, if you opt to go with haze, you could stop it cold. But again, the listed set didn't have haze,which is what I was basing my response off of. For the record, the listed set is exactly what I used when I used to run weezing.

 

[MetaNite]

Persnally, I think Dusknoir may be the best physical wall. 45/135/135

Immune to fighting, resists bug, has got Will-o-Wisp to pow around with, type coverage similiar to Weezing's (only with punches), and if you come in on a Lucario and it turns out to be special, you've still got 135 SpD backing you up for awhile.

 

[Anti]

Needs more emphasis on crap recovery, a mention of Explosion and also a lack of SS immunity.

 

[HotPocket]

Persnally, I think Dusknoir may be the best physical wall. 45/135/135

Immune to fighting, resists bug, has got Will-o-Wisp to pow around with, type coverage similiar to Weezing's (only with punches), and if you come in on a Lucario and it turns out to be special, you've still got 135 SpD backing you up for awhile.

I was wondering why Dusknoir wasn't included.

Dusknoir seems to be a better Weezing with a decent movepool (Elemental Punches, Earthquake, etc.). Although they are both lacking in support options. Dusknoir is pretty much always going to see play over Weezing, and the fact that Lucario doesn't use Crunch on many of his sets is a nice bonus.

 

[Mekkah]

Conveniently forgets about Weezing's problems and focuses on the ones of other walls. :( Never mind that according to those calcs, Weezing is easily 2HKOed by +2 attacks, and depends on an OHKO (which he won't be getting), WoW missing (25% failure) and obviously not getting CHed or, in Waterfall's case, flinched.

 

[TDS]

Honestly I would rather use Nidoqueen for it purpose, its washes away toxic spikes has STAB EQ, sets up toxic Spikes, and Posion Point comes in handy sometimes

 

[ace15]

Like other poeple said, those calcs just show that if a 75% accurate move misses or they get a crit your physical wall is gone. I personally would just not use Weezing because of Pain Split's unreliablity though. And anything not weak to Flamethrower or Thunderbolt won't be going anywhere fast.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

This statement really stood out to me, as it is rather false. While Weezing has few tricks up its sleeves, Will O Wisp and Haze at least allow it to help neuter some threats. Weezing's lack of recovery may be a weakness but with access to Expslosion, it can at least blow itself up, causing massive damage - far from harmless. He's not the best but not harmless.

It's not "rather false", look at the whole post in context...you really picked the worst part of the post to just highlight and discuss. This is just a matter of semantics that you pointlessly picked out of my post instead of seeing the overall message =\

I said that even though Weezing does have a nice movepool, it doesnt have the SpAtk stat or STAB to work with in the damage dealing department. It simply can not do a lot of damage to an opposing team, but it can be very effective against a select few threats. It's more of a niche pokemon than a usable physical wall like this thread is suggesting.

Notice how you said "it can neuter some threats" and not "it can beat things". If my statement was false, you seem to agree with it an awful lot.

Sure, it does have a FEW neat moves but overall since you can't set up rocks there really aren't many useful things for Weezing to do. Weezing is easily walled, and even if you can't wall it most threats in OU are strong enough to power through Weezing's lack of recovery.

If Explosion is the only move you have that makes you not "harmless", you aren't a very potent threat to much =\

 

[stvn]

yeah, you didnt put the disavatages of Weezing, as said before >_>

- no reliable recovery (Pain Split is really bad)
- no immunity to sandstorm
- overall worse physical defense than the others
- has no chance against ANY special attacker (Skamory can take Skymin somewhat if no HP Fire, Heatran doesnt force Hippo out etc).
- the thing about free turns that Weezing does nothing while the others setup entry hazards / Roar / Taunt / U-turn

And what, Ice Punch Lucario doesnt make Hippo less of a counter since CC does more.

 

[Cynthia]

Like many Pokemon, Weezing can fit on some teams better than others. If you want to try and cover Lucario, Gyarados, Scizor, and Heracross all with one Poke Weezing's a good choice, but it's inferior to many walls for reasons listed above.

 

[twash]

I have always found Weezing has nothing to do when it comes in. Three of the other common physical walls you mentioned can all perform other things: Hippowdon has Stealth Rock, and Roar to compare to Haze. Skarmory has Spikes, Stealth Rock, Whirlwind, and Roost, and Gliscor has Stealth Rock, Baton Pass, Knock Off, Roost, and U-turn. Weezing has Haze, Will-o-Wisp and the rather unreliable Pain Split. All the other three walls can perform better on a team consisting of Sandstream; Gliscor even benefits from it through Sand Veil. Hippowdon can keep using Roar over and over to rack up entry hazard damage, but it isn't like Weezing gets anything from using Haze over and over.

We all know Pain Split isn't a great option, as it also depends entirely upon the opponent's state of play. It's useful in certain cases, probably moreso that Roost or Slack Off could be, but nevertheless it is a rather unreliable choice. Hippowdon and Gliscor have a nice Earthquake to use with STAB, Weezing has to struggle on with Sludge Bomb. I will admit Weezing gets nice moves in Thunderbolt and Flamethrower though.

Max SpA SpecsTran OHKOs the Weezing listed. Even Timid ScarfTran with a Flash Fire boost will, and lets face it your going to have to use Will-o-Wisp to deal with such threats as Tyranitar (unless it carries Substitute, in which case your really screwed).

Basically, as j7r said, Weezing can take hits but can't seem to do much in the meantime. I would never run Explosion on a defensive Weezing, unless for some reason you want to open up an opponent's sweep. I possibly would on a more offensive set; but I fail to see why you would Explode your physical wall.

Oh, and Gliscor / Hippowdon / Skarmory didn't become useless in Platinum too.

 

[Green Mage]

As much as i've loved reading what Skiddle has to offer, this article doesn't live up to his (her?) usual usefulness.

Unfortunately everything has already been said, but to summarize: crap recovery, "do nothing" syndrome, relatively low defensive stats, set up fodder for special attackers, etc etc.

I'm also not sure how an easy 2HKO doesn't qualify as 'getting the jump' on a pokemon.

 

[Kabuto Mushi]

Fighing on Shoddy, I've found dealing with the occasional Weezing pretty tough. However, this is mostly because I usually only carry counters for the more common Gliscor, etc. for my fighting types. And I usually use alot of stuff Weezing likes to cripple with WoW. AND I don't like Heatran abuse. There's really no arguing that in the right place Weezing is a very potent wall.

My opinion on Weezing: Not really up to dealing with alot of threats in platunum OU, but still too cool for school. ;p

 

[Garganator]

Well... Reflect +Def Cresselia or even Uxie easily takes on Lucario, when it doesn't have Crunch. And thanks to Reflect stuff like Tyranitar or Weavile won't trouble you too much. Well, Moonlight is not that reliable on Cressy like for example Slack Off on Hippo, but it works most of times. And Cressy and Uxie (well, Uxie need Wish support though) has much better Special Def to also handle if neccesary stuff like ScarfTran, when Weezing will almost always switch out. As much as I like Weezing, many people pointed here many usefull points for example with that lack of supporting moves, which makes it worse then most physical walls. Heck, I used in a few teams Nidoqueen and she made her job quite well, and thanks to Toxic Spikes and ability to absorb them, she has some important niche in my stall teams. And Nidoqueen has a solid chance to survive even +2 Ice Punch from Lucario and easily KO it with STAB Earthquake. Also when I can imagine switching on Nidoqueen with full health on stuff like MixApe, I can't see Weezing in countering anything with mixed attacks. It's good wall, but too niche for me in OU to be really effective. But that's for me. Cheers.

 

[phalanx]

weezing was one the gems in my old UU team (before platinum) used it against OU's often, you can burn a physical sweeper with WoW then remove it with whatever its fun.

 

[Steinhauser]

While we're discussing walls, Slowbro.

95/110/80, resists Fighting, Fire, Ice, Steel. One of very few physical walls to resist Water. Reliable recovery and decent (100) special attack.

My favoured EV spread is Bold/Relaxed, 252 HP/200 Def/56 SpA

Switch it into Lucario as it SDs, and even with +2 Life Orb Crunch (which is rare) it'll hit for 78-93%: guaranteed survival with SR and leftovers recovery. You can proceed to kill it with Flamethrower. (There's a chance Lucario won't die, but Life Orb recoil will kill it.) Most of the time, of course, Crunch will not be an issue.

Slowbro can't switch into Scizor but is great for dual switches/U-turn, and also seems to lure Scizor. If you're up against an unboosted or CB Scizor there's no way it can kill you before you kill it with a fire attack, barring critical hits. (beware CB U-turn.)

If you want to give it HP Electric it makes a fine Gyara counter. Toxic also works if Gyara doesn't try to Sub/Taunt. Unlike Weezing, Slowbro can take a +1 Waterfall flinch or two.

Also, it's the best Machamp counter in the game, resisting STAB and immune to confusion. Even Thunderpunch is only doing 38% max. Most other counters (including Weezing) will be rendered 50% counters.

 

[ViVi]

Weezing works on stall teams, thats basically it. It cant function without something else to setup Spikes and Rocks, and it really isnt usefull without Wish support.

It also needs to have things around it that can take hits from what will be switching into Weezing, hence the stall team.

 

[E.A.]

Honestly, I see your point of view. It does look good. However, because it is a poison type, it is weak to all of the Psychic special sweepers (Azelf, Alakazam, Espeon), and because it does not have the HP stat of Hippowdon or even Gliscor, it will get smoked. And once again, the lack of an unreliable recovery move strikes again. Its stats are also not quite as good as Skarmory's, Gliscor's, or Hippowdon's. I also do not think Weezing should be used as a Heatran counter unless it is a Choice Specs or Choice Scarf locked in on Earth Power. Heatran might actually get a Will-o-wisp or Flamethrower to activate Flash Fire. I am using Swampert as my main physical wall now, but I may consider Weezing when Platinum comes out.

 

[Bourbon]

I know Weezing isn't without flaws (by a long shot -__-) but you have to admit, it does a MUCH better job at countering the three Pokemon I have listed here than Gliscor, Hippowdon or Skarmory do.

Gyarados is the most threatening, and I probably shouldn't have included it. I just wanted to point out that Weezing doesn't just keel over and die when Gyarados shows up.


Cress makes a good Lucario counter IF it doesn't have Crunch. Gliscor, Salamence and Zapdos make good Lucario counters IF it doesn't have Ice Punch.

Weezing is a good Lucario counter no matter what mix of moves it is using.

 

[MetaNite]

Weezing is a good Lucario counter no matter what mix of moves it is using.

You failed to mention physical. What if it's running Specs Psychic? :naughty: Weezing'll die from most special hits anyway, while other walls have a "safety net" of not being OHKO'd by Lucario's special moves (save Gliscor and HP Ice).