OU A look at the "current meta"

[Borat]

Posted the same thing on PO.

Some quick analysis based on usage statistics, which are pretty cool. Wish they had them when there were more gen 1-2 players.

http://stats.pokemon-online.eu/Past Stats/april-2011/OU GSC/index.html

A pretty good "artificial" meta I've shaped if I do say so myself.

A huge improvement from the garbage "natural" meta that was 2 months ago. But that garbage meta still better than GSC's "prime".

http://stats.pokemon-online.eu/Past Stats/february-2011/OU GSC/index.html

My Vaporeon finally getting its well-deserved due. Raikou is closer to where it should be (albeit still not quite there). Blissey plummeting once the people saw through the skarmbliss nonsense.

Downside though, is that people are definitely being more one sided. Net teaming? Maybe. I took it down now though. A quick look at cloyster would reveal clamp to be the #1 most popular 4th move. Clamp??! Who uses that?! Oh, right. Me. Toxic would be better in an environment with this many Cloysters, just saying. Be creative.

ST Growth vap has become the definitive set. I've recently switched to HP, let's see how long it takes for that to catch on. And really, if people settle, that's where BP/AA vap will begin to shine.

Thunder Zapdos has entirely flipped the script on its tbolt counter part, going from a 42/58 split to a 68/32 preference. Let's see how long it takes for Raikou to hop on the Thunder train as I have. Then I can start using Tentacruels again.

Steelix is almost getting too popular for my liking, and with one "predictable" set now. Explosion steelix "needs" the body slam and rock slide variants to exist to be effective. And Rock Slide vs people trying to sac skarm vs the "predicted" explosion is game breaking.

My distaste for a slower paced GSC game has some pretty negative impacts though. Skarmory almost dropped out of the top 10, which isn't right for a "balanced" metagame. Heracross can probably rape more than half the teams flat out as of now. Skarmory is an important check in GSC for a multitude of things, to ensure than offensive teams can't just "cheat" their coverage by neglecting some specific moves.

No suicune? Mixed sweepers are getting an artificial push. You losing to random "offense"? Use fucking suicune. Either Toxic it, or IB it, Sleep talk or Roar. Take your pick at walling vaps, mixed sweepers to no end.

Forretress. Use it. It's not that bad. In fact, toe to toe, Toxic will always outlast Cloyster, giving you one extra chip to work with. And does Spiking vs Starmie not tickle your fancy?

Misdreavus, stop letting mono-attacking Snorlax ruin your day. Missy forces plays, and you can always cheese it with Attract vs Steelix/Skarm/Ttar phazers.

As aforementioned, Heracross god damnit. Cursetalk wrecks without DP Zapdos (which is completely gone) and skarm (but Stoss variants keep those at bay).

Marowak. Who gives a shit bout HP legends. AND STOP using it in conjunction with Jolteon, learn to use it on its own. Marowak is great independently of Jolteon, probably BETTER and more consistent. Give Marowak some para support and it'll win games on its own. Not like para is bad for other stuff anyway. You'll never pull off joltwak against a good player, but you'll definitely get Marowak to work with stun spores and twaves floating around, even against the best of players.

Rhydon's still good. Vap be switching into Steelix/Ttar all day, but certainly has to think twice about taking 45+ from Rhydon.

Tentacruel. Man, I never thought I'd recommend this again, but shits great. Cloyster top 10, Vap top 10, Thunder electrics everywhere, non-EQ Machamp, this is the PERFECT meta for Tentacruel to dominate in.

Charizard, the old vet favorite, it's never lost effectiveness in any meta. And with Steelix no longer packing RS, Egg being a top 3, starmie falling off the map, and again, thunder electrics, Charizard has barely anything to worry about.

 

[Borat]

Not sure if you know what you're talking about.

Pgon2 never excelled at anything, no surprise there. Clefable was something I tried to hype, and never really caught on. It's honestly not too great if I'm being honest.

Kanga vs Blastoise is on the lower end of the scale, of course you aren't going to get accurate statistics for them (.2% vs .5%?).

Cloy usually dies to cloy/forr or trades with starmie in almost every game. So Steelix is great.

I don't really view SPL as that much higher skill or anything. And BO1 is all about gimmicks and surprise, the exact opposite of what a metagame is. Without a meta (aka the consistency), gimmicks/anti-meta stuff wouldn't even exist. Bo1 is where stuff like HP Flying hera, HP Electric Cloy (which is legit with all the cloys now), HP Bug ttar, EQ/FB/LK/SD lax, etc really pay off.

Espeon is definitely the next big thing though. And quag.

 

[Umby]

I dont know why Dragonite/Scizor and maybe Houndoom have more usage than Espeon (Boss!) or Rhydon, both are still pretty strong (and imo better than DNite/Sciz by far whereas Houndoom is cool vs Misdreavus/Gengar but thats it kinda...)

Tentacruel, Clefable and Porygon2 (wtf low usage???) are kinda underrated too.

And how the fuck did Kangashkan have less usage then Blastoise??? Guess i should have laddered more....

Steelix is kinda eh in the current metagame with Cloyster lurking around every corner but still decent. Heracross underrated big time.

Some things are really weird in this statistic and i dont know if you can take all of it seriously - i guess many of the more experienced battlers dont battle that often (or battle on PO at all).

To be honest you should gather information from SPL to get an accurate view on the metagame (some things like Thunder-Electrics/ST Growth Vap is still right though!).

SPL has a limited scope of players. Granted that scope is *supposed* to incorporate higher leveled players, but being so restricted, it doesn't represent what the actual metagame is.

P2 is underrated just a little, I believe, but I also believe its current usage rate is warranted. People usually go Snorlax for Cursing, so after that it has to shine in the support area to get attention (notably as para support). With Kangaskhan it's a similar deal (as far as Cursing goes), except no one really knows that Curse + Roar is actually really threatening. Combine that with people who don't know what they're doing, and you get stuff like Blastoise and Entei just getting random attention above it.

Not sure how you're thinking about Steelix. Cloyster being everywhere doesn't prevent Steelix performing its roles as a physical wall. It opens up easy access for Cloyster to get in and lay down Spikes...but so do a number of other Pokemon. Forretress and Skarmory are also physical walls and Cloyster will get in on them just fine as well. Tbh, I give preference to the tools Steelix gives over the other two guys (STAB EQ, Explosion, Electric immunity - all are really valuable and make Steelix an actual threat aside from being a wall). If you're not considering that, I'm not sure what you'd be factoring in to where Steelix would be "eh."

 

[Jorgen]

Not to mention that Steelix can roar Kanga after it curses once (though if Kanga is lowering both its IVs and EVs, Steelix has to give up its speed tie with Lax to do that). That shit's legit, it relies a good deal on surprise, though.

Idk about espeon being the "next big thing." The sweeper set is just too slow and Espeon is too frail, and while the BP set is awesome, it too is frail. As a sweeper, people would rather use physical things, or Vap, who has the longevity to special-sweep. As a BPer, Egg and Ttar can give it problems, and again, Growth-passing is a kind of subtle advantage to get off as opposed to and agi-pass. Zap isn't OHKOing left-and-right, though it is 2HKOing left-and-right for the most part.

Quag is definitely awesome, though. Assuming you can find time for it to drum. Which you should, given the sheer multitude of electrics running around. And if HP Grass ever does get big, Nido gets a boost, and Egg can capitalize off of electrics more frequently, instead of just looking to kill them.

 

[Borat]

I assume he means slow setup rather than a literal slow, which 318 obviously isn't. Skarms got 3 phazes in it (assuming you dont fire, but if you do fire, you have ttar problems to worry about, and if you dont care about ttar, might as well pass). Egg needs to be at a certain stage, Snorlax as well, and forr, the odd houndoom/zam dead, like you mentioned kou, Steelix has a couple phazes as well, cune maybe, and you're always dodging statuses (the biggest problem holding back espeon; poison turns everything into 2hko, and a parad espeon blows). I think growth vap and growth jolt both beat it 1v1. You're certainly not the first to notice espeon. I've been trying to find a consistent home (already succeeded with a top tier growthpass team, but I want to use it in a "regular" team) for growth espeon/jolteon for the latter half of this past decade, ever since vap "made it" to the big leagues. They both shine in spurts, but that means absolutely nothing to me.

Oh, growth umbreon too. The three homeless eons.

 

[Jorgen]

I think there has to be some chain element to growtheons in order to really get the most out of them. It doesn't necessarily have to be a whole team devoted to growthpass, either, just 2 or 3 eons that can pass growths back-and-forth until you maneuver yourself into a favorable position. All you really need is one or two good predictions to really see your opponent squirm. The rest of the team can be used to support that, maybe some spikes, a phazer, what have you.

One of the biggest draws to Vap as a standalone is its defensive utility, since it is basically Suicune on the special side. Jolt and Espeon don't really have that degree of defensiveness, so they have to resort to either special sweeping (which is hard to set up well), or BPing (which both are good at, but ultimately, BP has its slew of problems as well, namely being that an effective BPer tends to be on a timer). Growth Umbreon I don't see being able to hit hard enough soon enough to pass very effectively. It might work against specific teams, but not against a wide range of them. And when it does, you might rather have gotten off a ML anyway.

 

[Nitro.]

I think Jolteon is the best standalone offensive growtheon. It's basically hard countered by roar raikou, but thunder turns this into a soft counter (and thunder in general on everything has reduced the amount of roar raikous overall).

Espeon actually has some pretty useful defensive coverages like Gengar and Machamp, or switching into a Nidoking ice beam which can be difficult to cover for some teams. Espeon offensively is not breaking into top tier, tho, as the BPer and the hp waterer both have their gaping flaws.

 

[Umby]

As much as I like Jolteon as a standalone growtheon (I've used Thunder/Growth/Rest/HP Whatever is appropriate to a decent extent), I feel like Vaporeon does it a bit better.

Without typing a tl;dr, it just seems Vaporeon is more self-sufficient in that it can better deal with its counters through simply playing by the book and has the option of attacking from a defensive position through Sleep Talk/Acid Armor. It's got better switch-in options too: Without Rest, Jolteon is vulnerable to Toxic and paralysis (particularly from Thunder(bolt), since that's one of the only two resistances you'll get that you'd be able to switch in on). Vaporeon is often seen with Rest + Sleep Talk, so those are usually non-factors for it. In short, its stats and move options allow it to be a bulky defender vs commonly used moves/Pokemon. The amount of playtime it gets from that allows its to constantly pump out its big offense with little to moderate fear of immediate retaliation (kinda like how Snorlax is a threat. Kinda).

Jolteon, on the other hand, has to play a bit more sheltered to work. He doesn't have the defensive utility that Vaporeon gets and has to play off his team helping him out, just like any other regular sweeper. As a Baton Passer, he gets an edge due to his Speed and typing (with the likelihood that the incoming counter has Earthquake, you can pass Growth to S.Atk monsters like Zapdos and Exeggutor), but if we're treating "standalone" as "self-sufficient," then that award goes to Vappy IMO.

 

[Nitro.]

Vaporeon sucks offensively most of the time. Its defense is also pretty overrated considering that you can make just about anything competent defensively with rest + sleep talk. That said, Vaporeon is pretty fucking good overall, tho I think Jolteon is a convincingly better pokemon considering all moveset possibilities. And again, Jolteon is better offensively as a growther.

Offensively: Jolt > Esp > Vap

Defensively Vap > Esp = Jolt

Overall: Jolt > Vap > Esp

 

[Umby]

How are we defining offensive?

 

[shrapn3l]

how is jolteon better offensively? what switches into jolteon? a non x4 weak ground type that gets in on growth or thunder is going to destroy it. raikou stops it cold. snorlax stops it cold. exeggutor is going to stomp it with psychic if it has hp water. if it has hp ice or...bite? you aren't even going to want to bring it in until steelix is gone. vaporeon is only stopped by raikou (when it's awake) and snorlax, starmie, and exeggutor depending on the movesets of both pokemon. suicune can also roar it. surf has much better coverage than thunderbolt, and vaporeon is going to beat all of its counters well before jolteon kills anything. the fact that vaporeon survives a few hits even from its counters also helps it out. you probably aren't sweeping with growth jolteon, so unless you're baton passing with it you may as well just use raikou and ch snorlax to death. also, for the record, if i were to use an offensive growth jolteon, i'd probably go with hp fire.

i suppose jolteon is a bit more unpredictable, but it has the same counters (roarkou, curselax) no matter what it's running pretty much. i mean, vaporeon is the same way, but it does a much better job of wearing them down. i have never been afraid of jolteon during a battle, but seeing vaporeon always makes me groan.

 

[Electro Gypsy]

The only things that cleanly shuts down the standard Vaporeon are Haze Dragonite (lol) and Suicunes that Roar. Even Lax has its troubles against AA + Rest. To be quite frank, I find Jolteon to be absolute dead weight to a team and its only saving grace is its ability to Baton Pass be it Agility or Growths. Nevermind the fact that Vap can do all of that barring Agility passing while also

A) Providing a safe switchin to TTar and Steelix
B) Outspeeding and ohkoing Marowak
C) Setting up on Curselax
D) Possibly winning against Thunder Electrics
E) Being extremely difficult to phase outside of Cune

And that probably isn't even the extent of what vaps can do. Despite its general predictability, if beating Curselax isn't a priority it can run IB or HP Elec over AA and suddenly Suicune and Egg are no longer safe against it respectively. Heck it can even just go with Hydro Pump over Surf and do huge damage to the electrics.

Vap is always scary, even when you prepare for it. Jolteon is rarely threatening, even when you don't prepare for it. Offensive=/=being faster. Jolteon is probably much better described as a supporter that can attack.

 

[Jorgen]

Jolt v. Vap is probably not the comparison to be making. They're both eons, yes, but Jolt is probably taking over Zap/Kou's spot if it's going standalone.

That being said, Vap is a good pokemon and all, but it's rendered pretty useless in quite a few matches where it needs to get past one or two of its harder checks. Meanhile, Jolt has fewer hard walls, better speed, and can set up on the ubiquitous ST electrics. Has trouble against Lax, which stems from its larger problems of low availability and hit-taking ability (it can't eat a DE the way the other electrics can, so its ability to Thunder Lax to death is suspect). Don't be mistaken: it's Vap's hit-taking ability that pushes it over the edge relative to the other eons. The other eons are probably all slightly better offensively, but Vap is just so much better at sticking around and being available.

 

[Electro Gypsy]

Eh, I guess I setting up on Zapdos is a good enough reason for Growthpassing 2 Attack Jolt or just Sub/Growth/Thunder/HP Slap Your Hard Wall to avoid the Thunder Para. That's pretty awesome now that I think about it honestly, especially when you consider that one of its Hard Walls is really setup fodder without Roar (Raik) and all the others bar Lax/Bliss can be hit relatively hard with the correct Hidden Power. Fire for Egg, Lix. water for Rhydon, Lix, Nidoking, and Marowak, Grass for Quagsire, Rhydon, and Marowak i guess. Probably the better Growthpasser since a lot of them are probably going to try and EQ Jolteon. And seriously, a +1 Zapdos getting in for free is something i'd rather avoid altogether...I guess all my Jolt bashing stems from the fact that I always run Raikou as a phaser, and that Raikou is on all of my teams.

 

[Nitro.]

Jolteon can reliably get in in any game because there will always be an electric on the other team.

Things like Snorlax and Egg can not take Thunders on switch ins for very long.

Roar Raikou will eventually take a par from thunder and/or be forced to rest giving Jolteon time to really setup.

Jolteon does not "replace" Raikou or Zapdos because it's a totally different role. Raikou is largely a defensive special wall and Zapdos is admittedly more similar as an offensive machine but it tends to be used because the team it's on is already weak to ground/spikes so just throwing Jolteon in its place isn't the best substitution.

Starmie does not stop Vaporeon *at all*, in fact, Starmie is one of Vaporeon's prime setup opportunities.

Generally Thunder hp water growth Jolteon is unwallable outside of Blissey and over the course of an entire battle with some chip damage to Lax and Raikou becomes extremely threatening.

Vaporeon is basically threatening to teams that are weak to it but walled hard by many more things than Jolteon and (trust me) ends up doing nothing offensively a lot of the time. Much much less consistent offensively.

 

[Pocket]

Isn't Blissey pure set-up bait for Jolteon? Blissey can't break Jolteon's Substitue with Flamethrower / Ice Beam.

Raikou and Zapdos are a little bit riskier, since their Thunder has a good chance of breaking Jolteon's Substitute, not to mention that Thunder has a 21% chance of paralyzing Jolteon.

There are other things Jolteon can come up on. As long as there are Skarmories, Starmies, Suicunes, Cloysters, and Gengars, Jolteon has plenty of opportunity to come into play.

I do have to agree that Vaporeon is a much more reliable Sweeper than Jolteon is. There are many more Pokemon that can force Jolteon out, and once it's forced out, the sweep ends there. Jolteon can take only 1 hit, whereas Vaporeon can take several, allowing it to successfully set up Growth and Sweep. Jolteon needs more help from the rest of the team to set the stage for its sweep. It is comparable to Charizard.

 

[Umby]

I have to disagree. Jolteon seems a lot easier to wall than Vaporeon, mainly for the reason that Jolteon can't take the same kind of hits that Vaporeon can and the differences in how they attack.

First off when you compare Thunder(bolt)/Hidden Power vs Surf(/Ice Beam), you get generally better coverage with the latter. Jolteon's higher priority is getting Grounds out of the way so it can just toss out its STAB move. For that it needs one of three hidden powers. If it uses Ice, Steelix can stick around a bit longer. If it uses Water, it gives the business to wall Ground types, but leaves it open to Eggy (318 STAB Thunder is nice, but it's not as big as its legendary counterparts). If it chooses Fire to cover Steelix/Eggy, it then loses out to Grounds.

Vaporeon doesn't have to worry about any of that. It can toss out Surf all day, with only Grass being resistant to it as the only type of STAB that would be able to damage it heavily, and the only Pokemon that fall into that department are Eggy/Meganium with moves no higher than base 60. Vaporeon has the HP and SDef to hold them off for a couple of turns if it needs to (and of course has access to Ice Beam). Apply the same to Jolteon. Not only does he have to deal with his attacks being immune to its weakness, but the primary Ground move (EQ) has much more base power than Razor Leaf/Giga Drain and Jolteon has no kind of HP/Def to say (I want to stay in and take this for the sake of doing damage to this Pokemon) and live to tell the tale. Even if you throw in Hidden Power as a factor, that requires setup/prediction/luck/prior chip damage before it becomes an actual threat. As a secondary attacking move, even that falls short to Vaporeon's option for Ice beam.

Honestly I'm more worried about taking damage from Surf than I am about taking it from Thunder(bolt)/Hidden Power. If anything that means when both of us start playing the predicting game, Jolteon starts pumping out HPs to catch a Ground type and instead Snorlax/Raikou are getting in with less damage and without the risk of para.

 

[shrapn3l]

i'm pretty sure starmie with light screen can outstall vaporeon... and if it has psychic or thunderbolt it can possibly straight up beat it. if it has both psychic and light screen for some reason, vaporeon is going to be fucked. the match up is also somewhat dependent on if vaporeon has hydro pump or surf, and sleep talk, acid armor, ice beam, or even hp electric.

furthermore, jolteon can get in on electrics, sure, but it has to be just as worried about paralysis as they do, because once jolteon rests, since it can't really run sleep talk, it is easy to get rid of/kill. jolteon is far more susceptible to status than vaporeon is.

you also have to consider that without sleep talk, thunder's pp is not very impressive. snorlax doesn't even have to come in and hit you. it can just rest loop until you're out of pp. raikou can't really afford that luxury because it isn't as immediately threatening to jolteon. also, the lack of sleep talk, combined with jolteon's frailty, thunders accuracy is also much less impressive, and over the course of a game, it's just as likely to fuck you over when you need it as it is to put the hurting on snorlax on the switch with paras and chs and chip damage + spikes or what have you. don't get me wrong, i would probably still go with thunder instead of thunderbolt, but that's only because i don't think jolteon would have a shot in hell without thunder.

 

[Nitro.]

Oh, yea light screen starmie will outstall but nobody uses that.

I have setup on and destroyed psychic/tbolt starmie with vaporeon at least 100 times. It's free.

People just seem to be complaining about Jolteon's frailty. Thunder/hp water has less coverage than surf/ice beam? Huh?

Surf + Ice Beam is not really realistic anyway because Vaporeon would then gain back new walls for not having sleep talk (drop eggy wall only to gain Starmie wall). Plus Lax is much harder without talk.

Basically Jolteon is going to be potent offensively in absolutely any game. It sets up on electrics for heavens sake. Vaporeon is going to either rape or be shut down, not much in-between (though it will always be useful defensively in every game). The absolute best-case scenario for Vaporeon is to be fighting a team that ONLY has Lax and Electric to stop it. Then you have to worry about stuff like giga/leech grass type, dragonite, roar suicune shutting you down as well.

Jolteon doesn't have to do a ton of predicting if you get some chip damage. Just growth as that damaged ground comes in and now hp water will KO anyway. Jolteon isn't winning games instantly but its a threat that never goes away.

 

[Umby]

That's kinda what we're getting at (and somewhat repeating). Jolteon requires work done before it becomes something that you actually have to worry about immediately. Vaporeon with Surf alone is a constant threat due to the fact that it can get in more frequently than Jolteon AND it's hitting most of its counters Neutral with a STAB move. That's really big when it comes to stuff like Raikou and Zapdos, who have more than just Vaporeon to worry about countering, and when they're worn down, Vaporeon won't mind taking a hit from full health from either of them.

There's also the fact most teams will carry more than just one way of fielding an electric, so that ground isn't the only thing on Jolteon's plate and often forces it to predict if it's trying to help create chip damage so it can set up (Will Snorlax or Nidoking come in? If I don't choose right, I do little or no damage). How all are you going to cut down the damage you take from Vaporeon's Surf? Special walls, waters, grasses, Dragonite. Let's move Dragonite out of the picture. It's uncommon, and if your claim about Starmie is right, Thunderbolt Dragonite won't phase Vap anyway. Only way it shuts down Vap is with Haze, and quite honestly, no one is using that. After that, once you take out all the OU viable waters that can't Roar out Vaporeon or dish out decent enough damage, you're left with Suicune, Eggy, Meganium, Tentacruel and Blissey to be able to defend against it for minimal damage. You could possibly count Vaporeon in that list, but it requires Haze/Roar or to be even/ahead in the Growth race. So that's 5-6 OU/BL Pokemon that completely wall Vap because STAB Surf/Hydro Pump makes it tougher for anything else that might try and counter it to switch into it. Vs. Jolteon who has to put up with several immunities to where it's forced to use a secondary move (thereby presenting a chance for something like Snorlax to get off the hook) I'd say that technically yes - specific to these two Pokemon Thunder/HP Water has less coverage than Surf.

And because it's really relevant to where I like to keep mentioning it, Jolteon sets up on Electrics, yes, but each time it switches in on an attack it risks becoming paralyzed. Jolteon's frailty is really relevant to this because its role becomes severely compromised when it's paralyzed. This is not (necessarily) the case with Vap.

 

[Nitro.]

I've been stuffed by Dragonite plenty of times. It's not THAT uncommon. It runs thunder and basically it needs thunder + thunder + DE to KO Vaporeon. Pretty easy stop considering Vap needs like 6 turns minimum to kill Dragonite.

Kingdra also walls the fuck outta Vap if we're talking about ALL BL/OUs.

I mean, idk what else to say really. If you think surf has more coverage than stab Thunder + hp water, I just don't know what else to say. You listed 5 or so walls that Vap has beyond electric + Lax. That's 5 more walls than Jolteon ever has. :/

Edit: Quagsire is actually a complete Jolteon wall. So he has one. :D

 

[Umby]

I guess what I've been neglecting to mention is that most of what will switch into Vaporeon (that's resistant to Surf) can't really do shit to it. If they don't have the right moves (Roar/Haze/Leech Seed/Giga Drain), forget about whether they wall Vap on first turn - it can set up. Jolteon on the other hand has Ground types to worry about. To be forced to use Hidden Power in that regard allows the opponent some room to move around in defending against it. Rhydon + Snorlax vs Thunder/HP Water Jolt. Prediction/guessing is going to start happening before Jolteon can break through this type of defense. In that I've been silently implying that Ground types are counters in this regard, which to say are obviously more dangerous to Jolteon's health than Suicune is to Vap's.

On an additional note, BECAUSE Jolteon needs Hidden Power, the type it chooses affects how it can deal with ground types. Water is the weapon of choice yet, but base 110 Thunder is just below the mark to where Eggy still plays a good enough role as a wall, especially after factoring in accuracy. So if you opt for Ice to get out of that, you've left more room for Steelix and just a little bit more for Rhydon. If you want HP Fire for Steelix/Egg, then that leaves the rest of the Ground crew unchecked.

That's really the key of my view - Jolteon has to do extra work to become a threat. It has to do chip damage, but because a number of Pokemon take 0 damage from it's main move AND do massive damage to it 1v1, it's up to the player to make decisions to move around that. Vaporeon can sit there and do the most obvious things, and most of what will come in are gradually taking too much damage or can't do anything back to it all.

If it's still unclear what I'm trying to say (I say a lot of ambiguous things, it seems), then think of it like this - Jolteon is a bow & arrow and Vaporeon's a machine gun. Jolteon can kill stuff and is a threat, but the user has to string his bow, draw an arrow from his quiver, and pull back his string before he can fire off. Vaporeon just has to load the cartridge, spray, and eventually it'll hit stuff and kill it.

 

[Nitro.]

Vaporeon will beat poorly designed teams outright, or at least it used to because people underestimated it. Not really anymore. Realistically it runs into random walls, similar to Machamp. It rapes so much stuff, but some stuff shuts it down.

Jolteon is more universally threatening but is frailer so it needs some setup in the sense that some pokemon need to be damaged for it to sweep or break a game open.

Jolteon is a much more consistent threat.

 

[Earthworm]

I haven't tried Growth Jolteon but I'm curious about whether you are using Rest/Sub/BP in the last slot, and whether you use Heal Bell support, because I noticed you haven't replied to the multiple mentions of risking Thunder paralysis when you are switching in on Electric types. Given that it is key to your argument that Jolteon can come in on the very common Electric types, I assume you have some way of dealing with this, since I'm pretty sure it would be quite problematic for Jolteon if it gets paralysed...

Not going to give an opinion since I haven't tried Growth Jolt but I do agree that pretty much every competent team is going to have multiple solid ways to deal with (at least Sleep Talk) Vaporeon, even without going out of their way to specifically dedicate something to it. Though against slower teams Vaporeon can be really effective regardless.

 

[Nitro.]

Sub or Rest + Heal Bell.

You also don't have to play Jolteon instantly on the electrics, so you can wait til they are sleeping to come in which will greatly reduce the odds of you getting paralyzed by thunder.

It's also really not the end of the world for Jolteon to be paralyzed.