NP: UU - Zero to Hero

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The standard of the ladder atm is absolutely terrible. I mean seriously, do some people deliberately set out to get paddled? UU used to be ultra-competitive and challenging, now its ... pathetic? No joke, at this rate Sunflora will usurp Venusaur as the #1 most used pokemon and all leads will be designed to beat Miltank.
 
I think it has less to do with the competitiveness dropping, and more to do with the fact that everyone who is good is focusing on Gen V right now. I was just playing the ladder today and I faced some of the absolute worst players I've ever seen.

A prominent example I recall is my Missy coming in on a Clefable with a chansey-ish support set, taunting it to keep it from doing anything, then CMing on the switch. I managed to get over 5 free CMs because every time I KOed any other pokemon on the team, they would switch Clefable back in again and try to pass a Wish or something, while being completely oblivious to the fact that I could still taunt. All the while racking up SR damage on everything.
 
I'm not playing real avidly/super competitively (and I lost all my teams in a HD crash), so I doubt I'll make the voting reqs. But I have played with and against Heracross, and the ResTalk set is so utterly broken, it almost always nets 2-3 kills per match. Scarfcross can be dangerous, but I think I'd rather face it than the ResTalker variant.

Oh, and Sceptile is a BAMF, as always. Sceptile + Heracross get like 90% of the ko's on my team.
 
I'm not playing real avidly/super competitively (and I lost all my teams in a HD crash), so I doubt I'll make the voting reqs. But I have played with and against Heracross, and the ResTalk set is so utterly broken, it almost always nets 2-3 kills per match. Scarfcross can be dangerous, but I think I'd rather face it than the ResTalker variant.
I have to agree with this. I have managed to find some time to test Heracross on the ladder recently, and the mono-attack ResTalk set is just ridiculously effective. All the hype and whatnot has forced a shift in the metagame towards packing numerous 90+ speed revenge-"killer"s in an attempt to deal with Hera, but the problem with this is that almost all its effective checks are either SR weak or Spiritomb bait. This makes any Heracross set very easy to support, which in this current metagame trend means that the most effective Hera set ends up simply being the one that lasts the longest in battle. Since defensive Pokes don't have and never will have anything on Hera, especially ResTalk, they don't even come into the equation. Plenty of offensive Pokes get beaten 1v1 or checked by this set too, or even countered entirely. I have briefly tried other sets too, and so far it seems that almost any offensive set can be adjusted to the metagame and be effective, netting at least 1-2 kills per match. However, only one set truly sticks out for me atm.

I cannot speak for Scarf Heracross though, as I have not yet made a team that it fits on and also the fact that it turns the whole revenging trend on its head somewhat and plays differently to every other set. I'll just trust Heysup's interpretation for now.
 
I have to agree with Lemmiwinks, I love the resttalk set currently. I remember I made a post some pages back about how I thought it would fare, especially after running a few calcs. It sets up on your top 2 pokemon currently and is one hell of a stall breaker. I have been noticing a rise in subTres usage though. =/ I may rmt my current team when I get the time, especially since I doubt I'll have the time to make upper reqs this time around. Anyone know when this round ends?
 

Upstart

Copy Cat
Finally broke away from my copy of White Version to play some good old 4th gen UU. First I have to say that the ladder is still ehh. I expected the introduction of Heracross to bring the competitiveness back. Second I found that Hera fits nicely into are UU family. His lack of priority or great speed for that matter make him managable. His typing his good with his bulk but he undermines himself with Close Combats. Broken I am leaning towards not but I still have more testing.
 
Anyone know who 'smizzla' is? Number 1 on the ladder right now with 1920 or something. A good 300 CRE away from most leadboarders.

Just curious ^^
 

SJCrew

Believer, going on a journey...
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
The standard of the ladder atm is absolutely terrible. I mean seriously, do some people deliberately set out to get paddled? UU used to be ultra-competitive and challenging, now its ... pathetic? No joke, at this rate Sunflora will usurp Venusaur as the #1 most used pokemon and all leads will be designed to beat Miltank.
Yeah, I said the same thing two metagames ago and guess what flavor of the month ended up being banned then.

(Hint: Yellow beast with a side of Spikes)

With Gen 5 now upon us, this probably isn't going to matter too much in the grand scheme of things. I'm far more interested in how 4th gen UU will turn out to be over the next few months and with any luck, Pokemon like Heracross (or even Heracross itself) won't be there.
 
The standard of the ladder...terrible? I think it's much much much better than usual. We have good players returning to the tier to play with Heracross and we also have some degree of centralization to play around. Without Heracross the metagame is kind of lame, people use random shit and don't try because there's nothing to vote on and nothing to gain.
 

FlareBlitz

Relaxed nature. Loves to eat.
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I think it's more because no one appreciates a stable metagame...we had one for a couple of rounds prior and all anyone ever did was bitch about how no one was innovating (without, of course, innovating themselves). That said, yeah, I really don't give a shit at this point, everyone cares more about Gen5 anyway and if having Heracross around gives people some amount of pleasure...oh well. They're masochists, but whatever.
 
theres a fine line between stable metagame and stale-ass metagame, the latter being the one we had prior to heracross dropping.

edit: It doesnt help the ladder that the better players spend their time on IRC fucking around theorymoning about gen V. But i suppose there no incentive to ladder since the it hasnt been reset since hera was introduced.
 
The standard of the ladder...terrible? I think it's much much much better than usual. We have good players returning to the tier to play with Heracross and we also have some degree of centralization to play around. Without Heracross the metagame is kind of lame, people use random shit and don't try because there's nothing to vote on and nothing to gain.
First the bolded part: that's part of the reason i don't play UU that much anymore <_<

Second: i guess many of the "good players" aren't really THAT good: it's just that a overwhelming presence like Heracross is so easy to abuse that everything seems more competitive.
Of course there are good players regardless of that; but overall i feel that it's easy to have something to abuse, that's all.

@ Smurf.: i've been there theorymoning the hell out about gen V; i guess you're wrong. Me thinks...

Making jokes of yourself is cool
 
Several thoughts.

About Heracross - I've noticed that Scarf Heracross is both the most common and the most metagamed against set. I've played against several players who have teams that Scarf Heracross simply cannot penetrate ... no matter what move Heracross picks, they have Pokemon who'll handily live the attack and survive (e.g. Megahorn / Stone Edge -> go to Steelix, Close Combat -> go to Rotom, etc). There're also Nidoqueen and Nidoking that resist all of Heracross's common moves. I guess that's why some people think Heracross is UU. The other Heracross sets have been really rare. I haven't seen a single SD Heracross, or maybe they all died before they could SD ... there've been a couple Bulk Up Heracross and one RestTalk LO Heracross, but other than that it's all been Scarf sets.

How does stall work in today's metagame? - I played this team on ladder who dealt with Heracross using Gligar. Scarf Heracrosshas no chance against physically defensive Gligar. Gligar barely takes damage from Stone Edge, even if Heracross sneaks a Guts boost. RestTalk LO Heracross doesn't hurt it hard enough either, and if it uses Close Combat a few too many times Gligar can OHKO back. SD Heracross would break it if it doesn't have Aerial Ace, but I've yet to meet a SD Heracross on ladder, and SD Heracross still dies to Arcanine. Perhaps an Occa Berry SD Heracross would break this defensive core, I'm not sure. This team picked mine up and rolled it over horribly, guess it's past time to update lol.

Ladder - I think one reason the ladder isn't very good right now is because nobody knows when the round is ending, or if it's even started, or what the requirements for voting this round will be. Lots of people have asked, but no response ... anyone know? Reach? Jabba?
 
you probably played me. i've been trying to get back into the metagame, and its pretty simple to win. and guess what kind of team i'm using guys...

i have a two pokemon core that i'll probably reveal eventually when i top the ladder to deal with all variants of heracross. my stall team is really easy to win with on the ladder, but probably would fail in tournaments because of the lack of cohesiveness and a lot of weaknesses to forgotten uu threats (its good for me though, keep on forgetting them!)
 

Erazor

✓ Just Doug It
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After all the hype, I haven't seen a single SD Heracross yet. And I think SJCrew and I are the only ones who used Sub + Status Orb...

Another thing, the typical team structure hasn't really changed from last metagame. Arcanine/Venusaur/Milotic can protect you against Heracross(Arcanine is a great check, Hera takes a chunk of damage to switch in to Venusaur, and Milotic... well, it puts up a fight before dying), and ghosts were already widely used. Pursuit trapping + Spam powerful attacks has already been utilized for a long time. Weezing was on the rise to counter Venusaur already.

Maybe there's a bit more emphasis on keeping your Arcanine alive, but other than that, I'm not noticing any major differences in team structures/cores.


you probably played me. i've been trying to get back into the metagame, and its pretty simple to win. and guess what kind of team i'm using guys...

i have a two pokemon core that i'll probably reveal eventually when i top the ladder to deal with all variants of heracross. my stall team is really easy to win with on the ladder, but probably would fail in tournaments because of the lack of cohesiveness and a lot of weaknesses to forgotten uu threats (its good for me though, keep on forgetting them!)
Are you by any chance using Gligar + Arcanine, Gligar + Weezing, or Weezing + Arcanine + Gligar? That's the only core I can think of
since I doubt you'd use an offensive ghost on a stall team.
 

franky

aka pimpdaddyfranky, aka frankydelaghetto, aka F, aka ef
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i know i havent played a single ladder game but i have tried out the heracross metagame i think 3 weeks ago? i use two pokemon to check all heracross variants as well, but id probably reveal it after next weeks tour passes. it obviously features an arcanine.
 

shrang

General Kenobi
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I use one pokemon that lures in and beats heracross as well as its checks.
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is CM Tanga Berry Uxie (Megahorn resister), which I'm using at the moment. It takes Scarf Megahorn to the face and OHKOs with Psychic. Any other versions of Heracross get outsped and killed.
 
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