Drought discussion thread

Finally! A tier without the insanity of specs rain-boosted hydro pumps, swords dance Excadrill, and... wait...

Drought Vulpix exists.

The black sheep of weather shows its face in UU, and with very few of its top abusers missing. Plenty of pokemon benefit from chlorophyll, and even more benefit from the boost in fire type attacks and the nerf in water type attacks. In addition, nearly every other weather starter is OU, with the exception of Hippopotas and Abomasnow.

Some of the best sun sweepers include:

Sawsbuck @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Horn Leech
- Frustration
- Jump Kick / Nature Power

You need something really bulky to take this on. +2 frustration will 2hko Celebi and Mew, and with nearly perfect coverage, Sawsbuck is insanely difficult to wall. Priority is one way to take it down, but most priority users cant switch in without taking major damage themselves.

Victini @ Choice Scarf / Choice Band
Trait: Victory Star
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature (+Atk, -SAtk) / Jolly Nature (+Spe, -SAtk)
- V-create
- Zen Headbutt
- U-turn / Brick Break
- Fusion Bolt

With the two best flash fire users, Heatran and Chandelure, in OU for the moment, Victini is free to spam V-Create. There are pokemon that can switch into a sun-boosted V-Create such as Slowbro, but coverage moves take those pokemon out easily. Most thick fat Snorlax can't even switch into a CB V-Create without being 2hkoed. The best way to take out Victini is with pursuit; after a use of V-Create or two, pokemon like Spirotomb and Scyther can safely ohko the fleeing Victini with pursuit.

There are some downsides to using drought, most notably Vulpix (yuck), who might be able to get away with spreading burn or toxic, but not much else. In addition, reliance on fire and grass types means drought teams are going to have a tough time switching in on some threats, and poor offensive typing will limit chlorophyll sweepers. A rapid spin user is mandatory, but new ghost types like Golurk will be a hindrance, and the improved Dusclops will be extremely difficult for most spinners to handle.

Will the global dislike for weather combined with the sheer power of Drought be too much for most players, or will it find a comfortable spot in the tier a la little cup?
 
Don't count on Victini staying in UU, having seen Trick Room V-Create Victini in action even OU can't stand up to that thing let alone UU.
 

Focus

Ubers Tester Extraordinaire
Victini is easily the scariest thing in UU from the looks of it. Look out! My team might go something like this:

Vulpix: set up sun, one-time status support?
Victini: scarfed? wrecking ball
Wobbuffet: trapper/revenger/Wobbuffet!
Sawsbuck: cleaner-upper
Slowbro: tank, with any luck *or* Kyurem: special threat
Donphan: Rapid Spin, Ice Shard + EQ, SR *or* Rhyperior: Stealth rock, lulz
 
Meh, Vulpix is a sucky Pokemon, having 38/40/65 defenses with absymal 65 speed. It can boost it defenses with Eviolite, but I think it'll become an alright sun suicide lead. Too bad it doesn't learn Destiny Bond...
 

Shroomisaur

Smogon's fantastical fun-guy.
Don't count on Victini staying in UU, having seen Trick Room V-Create Victini in action even OU can't stand up to that thing let alone UU.
Yet at the same time, it's interesting to note that UU currently has some of THE most bulky Pokes in Chansey, Deo-D, and even Slowbro.

The huge power creep of this generation has almost turned UU into an "sub-OU", because so many of the current UU Pokemon are completely viable (and even deadly) in OU, but there are simply so many viable choices now that the lesser-used ones fall down to UU.

I still doubt Victini will be around for long, but Sawsbuck is looking very fearsome. Lilligant is also very formidible with Sleep Powder and Quiver Dance. Also, some of the lesser-used Prankster Pokemon, like Murkrow, should prove very useful in supporting a weather-based team if your primary weather-inducer is taken down (Vulpix probably won't last long).
 
Yet at the same time, it's interesting to note that UU currently has some of THE most bulky Pokes in Chansey, Deo-D, and even Slowbro.
With sun up...

Adamant Victini 252Atk w/LO V-Create vs Eviolite Bold Chansey 252HP/252Def 98.4% - 115.9%

Adamant Victini 252Atk w/LO V-Create vs Bold Deoxys-D 252HP/252Def 58.6% - 69.1%

Only Slowbro is getting away in one piece who with full defensive spread can still get away with less than 35% damage from both V-Create and Fusion Bolt.
 
The huge power creep of this generation has almost turned UU into an "sub-OU", because so many of the current UU Pokemon are completely viable (and even deadly) in OU, but there are simply so many viable choices now that the lesser-used ones fall down to UU.
I can almost see BL becoming a separate tier altogether, with its own metagame. There are so many overpowered Pokemon here that most of them are probably going to be shifted up, like Generation 3. Anyone think that might be possible?
 

PK Gaming

Persona 5
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Drought is so ridiculously broken. I don't even know where to start. Between Victini and his "V nukes" Sawsbuck & Tangrowth outspeeding the entire metagame and raping shit, Charizard obliterating you with STAB Solar Power Fire Blast and the rest of the chlorophyll user's, you're fucked.

Snorlax is invaluable in BW UU because he can check Sun teams (whoo). Curse lax with Thick Fat can semi beat most sun teams.
 
sun is so retarded that even pokemon-online banned it. it's beatable but lack of useful weather changers (hippopotas is OKAY i guess) means that it gives every team hell. victini being sent into UU as soon as it got v-create doesn't help either.
 

Oglemi

Borf
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Scarf Abomasnow and Trace Gardevoir are going to be some mighty fine revenge killers this time around.

Also, I can't believe people are forgetting Shiftry under the sun. That shit is going to wreck everything harder than Tangrowth will, and when it's done, it even has Explosion to make your day worse.

Other notable Chlorophyllers:

Exeggutor, Lilligant, Victreebel, Jumpluff
 
Just askin', but would Trick Room be great as an anti-meta form of playing? I'm planning on a TR team, but I'm worried that mons like Heracross, Kyurem and Victini will steamroll me.
 
If you use TR, watch out for Victini. LO Victini will punch massive holes in TR with Sun V-Create.
Hmm, I knew there was something wrong with that. Good thing I was planning to use Slowbro :P

But now I realised half of my team is Pursuit-weak. >_> Thankfully I should only really look out for Spiritomb and Victini(and coincidentally I'm planning both on my team lol).

Is a TR team of Dusclops/Snorlax/Victini/Slowbro/Spiritomb/Aggron any good? I'm worried about this, because I've never really bothered with Trick Room at all.
 

Destiny Warrior

also known as Darkwing_Duck
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I'm no great shakes at TR, but I'm not totally sold on SPiritomb on the team. I prefer TR set up Pokemon that can do respectable damage as well(like Sowbro, Victini) or can spread status while not TRing. Maybe if you went with some other Pokemon that can check Heracross, you would be golden.
 
I'm no great shakes at TR, but I'm not totally sold on SPiritomb on the team. I prefer TR set up Pokemon that can do respectable damage as well(like Sowbro, Victini) or can spread status while not TRing. Maybe if you went with some other Pokemon that can check Heracross, you would be golden.
Gee, thanks.
 
How about Kingdra? I can see him running a defensive DD/Restalk/Outrage-ish set. Though I suppose he won't enjoy being outpaced by Chlorophyllers even after 2 DDances, it might still check Victiny at least.
 

Oglemi

Borf
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How about Kingdra? I can see him running a defensive DD/Restalk/Outrage-ish set. Though I suppose he won't enjoy being outpaced by Chlorophyllers even after 2 DDances, it might still check Victiny at least.
nah, if Kingdra wants to beat sun teams, it's going to have to run its own Rain Dance set. Something like Rain Dance / Waterfall / Hydro Pump / Draco Meteor with a Damp Rock. Maybe throw Ice Beam in there instead of Waterfall or Hydro Pump. Kind of like last generation.
 
Well, I was mostly considering something to come in on Victiny. Kingdra's quad resistance made him a good candidate in my opinion -shrugs-
I might run Dugtrio. Trap and kill Vulpix, then use something like Rain Dance and voila, nerfed sun team.
 
Rotom-H seems like a solid sun counter, much like how Rotom-W was a good rain counter. Most sun sweepers are walled with the exclusion of stuff like Rock Slide Tangrowth and Sawsbuck.
 
Very interested to play Sun in UU, looks fun, we hardly lose any abusers from OU but Heatran, Volc, Chandelure and Venusaur (if I remember correctly). Doubt we'll even need to ban Victini tbh, since it'll probably rise to OU status once it's had a month of having V-Create usable. That said, I can see it proving broken.

Anyway, the real thing that puts me off is Vulpix's horribleness. It took a huge amount of effort to find survivable Tales sets in OU, let alone for Vulpix who has awful stats. Tales at least has the speed to pull of Disable, WoW, Sub etc with reasonable efficiency, but Vulpix is just too damn slow. Anyone have any reasonable sets for it?
 
Just as a note, Max HP/Max Def Omastar takes around 25% from sun boosted V-create, does huge damage with Hydro Pump and can get free spikes, toxic spikes AND stealth rock if you think they'll switch. Scarf Flygon is also incredibly good because It outruns many of the slower Chlorophyllers such as Tangrowth and wrecks them with Sun Fire Blast. Also, CBlax can take +2 Sawsbuck Horn Leech and OHKO with Body Slam. Not reliable as a check though because double-edge/frastration kills you.
 
To everyone.

Don't forget that it's unlikely Victini will be around long. As soon as UU gets recalculated it'll very probably be gone.
 

peng

fuck xatu
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Yeh, perma sun is pretty ridiculous in UU. I've just hit #3 on the ladder, running a pure sun offensive team with Vulpix, Victini, Sawsbuck, Victreebel, Tangrowth and Exeggutor and it pretty much mauls everything. The only problems I've really run into are stuff like random Rain Dance Registeel/Chansey, but as long as I don't lose Vulpix really early they are okay to deal with.

I also just want to say that Victreebel is by far the best Sun sweeper. Growth, Solarbeam, Weather Ball, and Sludge Bomb/HP Ground is crazy good.
 

M Dragon

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When even a 252/252+ Slowbro is 2HKOed in the sun by a physical NVE attack, you know something is wrong
 

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