np: UU - Here It Goes Again

[BurtonEarny]

some things that I have noticed:

CM Missy seems to have become even more popular than before. So much so I had to Re-ev my Altaria to better deal with her.

Absol is basically in every spot where Honchkrow used to be.

Torterra and Drapion have been mentioned alot, and they are showing up alot.
However, I seem to be seeing Bulky Torterra more than RP versions.

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And my say in the argument that is starting on who took the bigger hit at the loss of Crobat:
Both sides lost a valuable tool over the other. I mean the whole reason many people nominated him for BL was because his versatility(with just one set even not counting others) made most teams that lack him better be it offensive or stall.

 

[umbarsc]

With Rhydon being so popular, it makes me wonder why Golem isn't being used. Now that Shaymin is gone, Megahorn is only really useful against Slowbro. Rhydon's relatively minor statistical advantages are sort of offset by Golem's Explosion. And since anything that can take an Explosion is not able to switch into Golem's STAB attacks, Golem is pretty guaranteed to get at least a kill a game, making it a pretty good stallbreaker. I could see something like Golem -> Feraligatr doing some serious damage to a stall team now that Shaymin's gone. Not to mention that Golem also gets priority in Sucker Punch, another edge over Rhydon.

I agree that Rhydon is probably more useful overall, but Golem's advantages certainly can't be overlooked.

 

[lati0s]

The point of testing a suspect-less metagame is to verify whether some of the objective reasons behind them being nominated in the first place were correct or not. It is not to see which metagame is better - it's to see if the suspect truly did what they did to deserve getting banned. If we could tell that when they were around, there wouldn't be a step 2 - they'd be banned on the spot.

Firstly there is no such thing as a completely objective reason in pokemon, there is only subjective and more subjective.

Currently the least subjective reasoning we know of are the offensive defensive and support qualities. These are the qualities that voters should base thier decisions on. please tell me what playing in a metagame with the suspects removed can possibly tell about these characteristics that playing with the suspects could not tell you.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

With Rhydon being so popular, it makes me wonder why Golem isn't being used. Now that Shaymin is gone, Megahorn is only really useful against Slowbro. Rhydon's relatively minor statistical advantages are sort of offset by Golem's Explosion. And since anything that can take an Explosion is not able to switch into Golem's STAB attacks, Golem is pretty guaranteed to get at least a kill a game, making it a pretty good stallbreaker. I could see something like Golem -> Feraligatr doing some serious damage to a stall team now that Shaymin's gone. Not to mention that Golem also gets priority in Sucker Punch, another edge over Rhydon.

I agree that Rhydon is probably more useful overall, but Golem's advantages certainly can't be overlooked.

20 base attack. That's HUGE when you consider the way that Rhydon operates. Golem can't Rock Polish as well because he has less survival and less raw power. On top of that, Megahorn isn't just for Shaymin. There's also Torterra, which walls Quakeedge, Uxie, Umbreon, etc.

Explosion is good, but it isn't 40 points of attack good. Also, Rhydon is ridiculously useful, and the idea of blowing up my Ambipom / Swellow abuser doesn't sit well with me.

 

[BurtonEarny]

Alright... I THINK I was told to post this here.

If you are running stall w/ Chansey and you are running a bulky Hitmontop w/ Foresight, (likely) then you have a built in check to sub cm Missy you may not know about.

Go to missy on the substitute and Foresight as it CM's. Then you can go to Chansey and actually hit it with Seismic Toss. I dont know if its a glitch on Shoddy or if it works like that everywhere. But at any rate it works and I dont think many players know that it does... So, yeah. There you go.

 

[Mattman324]

Recently, I've been finding that the trick room team I made at the testing's beggining is getting better and better. Pory2 is nearly broken in this tier, with quick recovery, trick room to handle it's speed, and boltbeam. Rhydon is Rhydon, he is one of the most powerfull attackers in UU. (although Crobat and Honchcrow leaving hurts it some...) Slowking is a formidible special wall, but it is _slightly_ inferior to Milotic in some aspects. Cloyster is as Cloyster always was, that is a good wall and spiker. Claydol is one of the best mixed walls on the tier (cry your heart out Spiritoum... Umbreon might be better though), and he has good resistances and rapid spin.

But the MVP is Regice. Restalk is a viable stratagy, even with recover. His offensive capabilities are top-notch, with Bolt-Beam. And Chansey (Magnaton, ect.)has to think twice about switching in, since it also gets focus blast.

 

[MegaKick]

Specs sceptile leafstorm kills almost everything. Altaria want's to stop you, no good, fire off your powerfull dragon pulses! Registeel? hah! focus blast! run life orb for more freedom if you want. Even seen some endure-salac for swellow. since swellow can't switch in safely, it has to revenge kill. endure thier hit, then endeavor. (hope no quick attack) the poisen/burn damage kills them after they kill you. You are now up 5-4

 

[WJC3688]

Even seen some endure-salac for swellow. since swellow can't switch in safely, it has to revenge kill. endure thier hit, then endeavor.

Why Endeavor? I'd much rather run HP Ice, that way I might get to keep my Sceptile.

 

[Aerouille]

Specs sceptile leafstorm kills almost everything. Altaria want's to stop you, no good, fire off your powerfull dragon pulses! Registeel? hah! focus blast! run life orb for more freedom if you want. Even seen some endure-salac for swellow. since swellow can't switch in safely, it has to revenge kill. endure thier hit, then endeavor. (hope no quick attack) the poisen/burn damage kills them after they kill you. You are now up 5-4

Umbreon and Chansey wall the shit out of specstile unless he's in Overgrow. Not even Focus Blast is going to break them. And while Registeel won't enjoy focus blasts he's certainly not getting totally wrecked by them either since they don't get STAB and sceptile's sp.attack is not really that amazing, particluarlily since you can't really run Modest effectively. Roserade can also come in on leaf storms like nothing, all she has to be afraid of is HP:Ice/Fire.

However, even before the suspects were removed (all three of which wreck specstile), he served me well, I haven't used him since but I imagine he does very well if you get him into overgrow safely~

 

[Blazebat]

As for the Sceptile issue I find the suspects being removed did not make him a more effective sweeper. Like said many pokemon still wall him to hell. The set that is still very effective however is his subseed set. Without Crobat to out-speed and taunt him and the fact that fewer teams carry grass types because there is no Shaymin. Overall I think that perhaps Sceptile as a sweeper is more viable but is inferior in usefulness to the Subseeding strategy seeing as only Swellow (poses a threat if you have no sub) and Electrode (no lead electrode, chances are no) can naturally out-speed it.

 

[Huntofthelion]

Starting late on this test due to having been without shoddy for about 2 weeks, but I must say it's a lot of fun. So far the best Pokemon I've seen/used is specs Espeon. It outruns a lot with base 110, and specs boosted Psychics dent everything that doesn't resist aside from things like chansey/regice. And it gets trick to screw them over. Surprised I haven't seen more so far, but I have only been testing for a day.

 

[A.P.]

- I've seen so much more variety nowadays, but surprisingly, I've only seen 1 SD Drapion, and 1 RP Torterra only.

- After an initial lull, Registeel and Steelix have returned to the fore (literally, I've seen a lot of Steel leads).

- Ambipom is all over the lead scene.

- I haven't seen a single Arcanine lead, and only 3 or 4 overall.

- Azumarill is also pretty uncommon, although Milotic is attempting (and failing, in the case of my team) to rip shit up with LO. Slowbro's CM set is extremely scary - you don't want to go up against one.

Might put more thoughts up later.

 

[Iris]

i think the most dominant lead is uxie, especially trick-scarf ones

 

[A.P.]

I see next to no Uxie, and most for me are the same old utility leads.

 

[BurtonEarny]

I see next to no Uxie, and most for me are the same old utility leads.

I cant DISAGREE with what you have seen. However, at least for me, it seems Uxie is a fairly popular, very solid lead.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

I see tons of Uxie leads, scarfs and utility.

 

[XenoIncognito]

I've seen a lot of trickscarf leads too, but since that's practically the only uxie lead set, you can see them from a mile away.

 

[Lou Cypher]

Its amazing how many players seem to have troubles punching through Umbreon/Steelix. You'd think more fighters would be on the scene but I ain't seeing them, aside from the odd random Primeape.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

I run two fighters, life is good for them without Crobat. Although I dont see other people using fighters as much as they should be.

 

[A.P.]

Are you kidding? I see Hitmontop all the time. Although, admittedly, the Hitmontop I see are all of the Defensive Variety.

 

[Random Pizzaman]

Oh yeah, I forget about Hitmontop. Although I havent seen any Technitop

 

[Lou Cypher]

Yeah, there's the odd Hitmontop left and right too, forgot about him. However, he comes in and is toxiced 95% of the time, and then to me its a matter of "just add claydol/weezing/whatever else I got to deter fighting types"

 

[Thund91]

Anyone else notice the large ammounts of Lickylicky? Most are specially bulky versions who provide wish support and toxicstall.

I've been running a LO Weezing and it's been doing great. Flamethrower/Thunderbolt/Sludge Bomb/Explosion provides great coverage. Explode on Chansey and you're good to sweep with another Special sweeper.

 

[ELECTRICSOLDIER]

Poliwrath is pretty good in terms of fighters, hypnosis and when they switch get a sub up and start punching. It has a few downsides however, it's slow and hypnosis has shoddy accuracy.

 

[Empress Mobile]

Ludicolo, anyone?

In the rain, outspeeds almost all non-Swimmers. Sounds a lot like most Rain Dancers, which would make it seem like it could easily be dealt with using just another Swift Swimmer. However, those are all beaten by Ludi's Energy Ball/Grass Knot. The Grass-types and Electric-types also fail to strike Ludicolo's weak point as Ludi's Grass type masks that. Ludi, like the other Water types, has Ice Beam to deal with the plants and easily outstalls all Electric types. Its only weaknesses are Poison, Flying, and Bug. All except the former are pretty much null because of Ice Beam/Punch and the lolness of bugs.

The only things that even come close to hurting Ludi are Scyther (can't switch in, outsped in Rain, OHKOd across the board), Crobat (in Limbo currently), Mantine (could outstall but doesn't like STAB Grass Moves, especially not on physically variants), Swellow (outsped in Rain, can't switch in, OHKOd across the board), and some Poison types. (Not all Poison types, obviously) Even with the Poison type as a potential "counter", many have secondary types weak to Water and/or Ice or just plain shitty SpD.

It shouldn't matter, though, as having to carry around a Toxicroak just for Ludicolo is similar to why people were so furious about Aerodactyl in UU.