Toxic and SR almost entirely invalidate Multiscale.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)
- Thread starter JabbaTheGriffin
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What is this I don't even...
Firstly, Conkeldurr is JUST AS VUNERABLE to hazards as Azumarill, except it takes half damage from SR. Spikes still rips 25% of from Durr's HP. It's still vunerable to T-Spikes too.
Secondly, I was talking about Azumarill as a revenge killer to Excadrill. Conkeldurr cannot do that without severely gimping itself. [CB or Status Orb + Protect] Not to mention Landlos, Thunderus and Volcarona laugh at Conkeldurr's Mach Punches.
Finally, Dragonite... broken? What?
Dragonite is slow, it's ability is killed by SR, or, to some degree, Sand, or even HAIL, and it lacks Mance's power, slightly off Offense, and Sp.Attk is far lower.
If you see Dragonite, do one of the following:
1: Status it as it DD's, because it's not gonna sweep without DD
2: Hit it with an Ice or Rock attack, which will fore it to keep roosting. Especially if SR is up
3: Phaze it
4: Status it
All of those... kinda destroy Dragonite. That's not going into the simple fact that Multi-Scale Dragonite, to have any real hope of sweeping, has to run DD/Roost/STAB/Coverage. Dragonite will often have something that can wall it...
No, Conkeldurr is not just as vulnerable to hazards as Azumarill. Conkeldurr gets Leftovers, a Stealth Rock resistance, Drain Punch to recover its health, and a free Attack boost from Toxic Spikes. Azu gets none of those things and is a one-trick pony with Aqua Jet that has a 0% chance of beating Jellicent in any scenario.
Bulky Gyarados with any combination of 1 or 2 of these moves can deal with Dragonite: Dragon Tail (or Roar), T-Wave, and / or Avalanche.
If you go with Avalanche, you'd want one of the phazing moves to prevent Dragonite from Roost-stalling. Or Gyarados can Taunt Dragonite. Without Multiscale, Avalanche is a clean OHKO when Dragonite attacks (113-133%).
Dragon Tail is great to break Multiscale, but it can really bite when it misses, especially when dealing with more offensive Dragonites with Outrage.
If you go with Avalanche, you'd want one of the phazing moves to prevent Dragonite from Roost-stalling. Or Gyarados can Taunt Dragonite. Without Multiscale, Avalanche is a clean OHKO when Dragonite attacks (113-133%).
Dragon Tail is great to break Multiscale, but it can really bite when it misses, especially when dealing with more offensive Dragonites with Outrage.
...I'm confused. Do you want me to use Superpower as the fourth move so I have mostly redundant coverage only for hitting Balloon Excadrill instead of using Stone Edge / Elemental Fang so I could break its Balloon anyway and have a bit of coverage, or do you want me to forgo Earthquake for Superpower... ?__?
alphatron
Volt turn in every tier! I'm in despair!
No Mario. I don't want you to use superpower at all. If I ever have my edrill die to that again...
I wasn't all too serious about about dnite. I hoped the emergency ban would give it away. I find him troublesome and wanted to hear how people have been beating him.
Never compared azu to conk. Thier jobs aro completely different.
I wasn't all too serious about about dnite. I hoped the emergency ban would give it away. I find him troublesome and wanted to hear how people have been beating him.
Never compared azu to conk. Thier jobs aro completely different.
This is just an idea, but has anybody considered running Safeguard on a team to get Dragonite set up? If status is what ruins him, then give him 5 turns where he has a built in Lum Berry, plenty of time to get behind a sub or DD up, the same would work for Machamp come to think of it, I think that Safeguard actually beats so many checks to pokes in the meta.
Dragonite is definitely one of those Pokemon where if you build a team around, it's unstoppable, with or without SR around on the field. Of course this true for plenty of other dangerous Pokemon, such as Volcarona.
It seems like everyone's just saying how easy it is to beat a DD Bulky Nite as Multiscale is the -only- thing that makes it effective. However, with MS intact or not, CBNite's Extremespeed is so useful. Having an additional check to Thundurus, and even by passing Ice Shard is amazing as it is.
Then I'm sure everyone has faced that annoying Sub/Twave/DTail Dragonite. As prepared as you are, you can never be fully prepared when you get those bad luck multiple fully paralyzes or if Dragon Tail decides to bring out your randomly SR weak things.
And the thing I absolutely hate the most are the rare Substitute/DD/Roost Dragonites. Like most people, I assume Dragonite would have a coverage move, and would probably like to attempt to status it if I can if I have it on my current Poke. That one wasted turn can mean a sweep. Sometimes Dragonite will rape things it's not suppose to with uncommon things (Substitute/Lum/DD+Xspeed) while losing to the thing it'd normally beat. Except that people usually won't try to use those things until it's too late. It's kinda like if you tried using a Giga Drainless Celebi that's only showed 3 moves. You'll still always assume that last move is GD but then it turns out to be Earth Power, you might lose your Heatran before you realize you can wall it with like Quagsire.
But yeah, hazards, Multiscale, weather or not, Dragonite will always be effective somehow.
It seems like everyone's just saying how easy it is to beat a DD Bulky Nite as Multiscale is the -only- thing that makes it effective. However, with MS intact or not, CBNite's Extremespeed is so useful. Having an additional check to Thundurus, and even by passing Ice Shard is amazing as it is.
Then I'm sure everyone has faced that annoying Sub/Twave/DTail Dragonite. As prepared as you are, you can never be fully prepared when you get those bad luck multiple fully paralyzes or if Dragon Tail decides to bring out your randomly SR weak things.
And the thing I absolutely hate the most are the rare Substitute/DD/Roost Dragonites. Like most people, I assume Dragonite would have a coverage move, and would probably like to attempt to status it if I can if I have it on my current Poke. That one wasted turn can mean a sweep. Sometimes Dragonite will rape things it's not suppose to with uncommon things (Substitute/Lum/DD+Xspeed) while losing to the thing it'd normally beat. Except that people usually won't try to use those things until it's too late. It's kinda like if you tried using a Giga Drainless Celebi that's only showed 3 moves. You'll still always assume that last move is GD but then it turns out to be Earth Power, you might lose your Heatran before you realize you can wall it with like Quagsire.
But yeah, hazards, Multiscale, weather or not, Dragonite will always be effective somehow.
If you're looking for a quick and easy way to deal with Dragonite, Haxorus easily outspeeds and can OHKO thanks to Mold Breaker. I haven't run the stats, but Dual Chop Choice Band might potentially tear through the sub on the first hit and then OHKO on the second. Just some thoughts to consider.
That still can't deal with DDnite though. Bronzong is nice as it doesn't care about anything Dragonite can do and can Gyro Ball / HP Ice it. Scarf Haxorus is also good.
And then there's Skarmory which beats all Physical Dnite and I don't see a whole lot of mixed sets.
And then there's Skarmory which beats all Physical Dnite and I don't see a whole lot of mixed sets.
just outrage is enough, even with multi scale...
fire punch is pretty popular. leaves quite a dent on a bronzong at +1
Stall breaker mew also beats dnite handily if wow hits. A +1 dclaw doesn't 2hko before the wisp and after it is burned you can just spam ice beam until it dies. Dragonite troubles teams that have poor SR setters (like throwing it onto something like scarftar or celebi who don't have the time to set it up) because they reliably set it up and it can be spun pretty easily. Scarf mamo can deal with dragonite also.
44 +1 Atk Dragonite Fire Punch vs 252 HP/80 Def Bronzong: 57.4% - 68.05%
so you switch in and ko with HP Ice / Gyro Ball assuming you have Stealth Rock up. Problem?
I forgot about the sub DD Dragonite that people mentioned. That thing destroyed me in one game because I had nothing to break it's sub and ko it with the same pokemon. It's completely walled by steels and such, but it can easily set up on pokemon like Jellicent and do some major damage. Speaking being walled by steels, why are there so many versions of PK Gaming's / JabbaTheGriffin's "Enter The Dragon" RMT on the ladder? I don't think it's effective enough to be used on about half the teams on the ladder.
Woodchuck, Bronzong can't even OHKO with Gyro Ball or HP Ice after Stealth Rock damage, so Dragonite will kill Bronzong. Plus, it can just Roost + DD 3 more times to ensure an OHKO. I am assuming defensive DDnite, because that is what you based your calc off of.
Bronzong with Hypnosis / Trick Room + Explosion would have a chance though.
I may be wrong, but DragMag is not only sufficiently effective to give you good ladder results, but the learning curve is shallow enough to readily start beasting the ladder without any significant testing. It is a thoroughly tested and proven-to-be-effective strategy since Gen IV.
Bronzong with Hypnosis / Trick Room + Explosion would have a chance though.
I may be wrong, but DragMag is not only sufficiently effective to give you good ladder results, but the learning curve is shallow enough to readily start beasting the ladder without any significant testing. It is a thoroughly tested and proven-to-be-effective strategy since Gen IV.
It's also really easy to just copy somebody else's team instead of using your own. I'm pretty sure there were several people who got voting rights last round by copying "Enter The Dragon" or some of the other teams like Kevin Garrett's "Solum's Core". It's always been common for people who can't bother making their own teams to just plug whatever team from the RMT section of the forums most recently had a nice ladder peak into their Teambuilder in the hopes that it would make them less mediocre.
Yea, that, too. But DragMag is pretty much a general strategy. Now that Garchomp is banned, I've seen variations of DragMag teams. They're not totally 100% carbon copies, although they may have initially started as one.
Copying teams has major issues with predictability. A copied team needs to be particularly effective to succeed even after being well-known. Some more clever players would change up moves or items to throw off people, so predictability can also be used as a slight advantage occasionally. People also miss out on the sense of ownership and satisfaction gained through succeeding with their own team. Discoveries of novel defensive / offensive cores comes from experimentation, so people who solely use other player's teams to win games are lagging behind.
Copying teams has major issues with predictability. A copied team needs to be particularly effective to succeed even after being well-known. Some more clever players would change up moves or items to throw off people, so predictability can also be used as a slight advantage occasionally. People also miss out on the sense of ownership and satisfaction gained through succeeding with their own team. Discoveries of novel defensive / offensive cores comes from experimentation, so people who solely use other player's teams to win games are lagging behind.
Unfortunately, our current suspect testing environment actually encourages copying teams since it's all about getting that 1450 rating by any means necessary so that you can vote. Because that rating is the only qualification for voting and there's no way of checking whether or not people actually understand and care about the state of the metagame, there is absolutely no reason not to copy a successful team if you haven't reached the voting requirement at some point before the end of the round.
Besides, if somebody's going to copy a team in the first place, they probably don't care about the sense of ownership part and they'll get their satisfaction from the all-important voting rights, and if they don't succeed with their own teams they won't develop any novel sets or cores and will end up lagging behind the metagame anyway.
The predictability issues are definitely present, but if the player(s) copying the team are going to copy it in the first place, predictability is probably preferable to whatever issues they're having without copying the hypothetical team. There's a difference between using a team for other purposes such as team rating or just because it seems like something fun to try out and using it because you can't succeed any other way.
Anyway, Drag + Mag teams are pretty good but also very one-dimensional and easy to predict around unless you actually face a competent opponent, and most of the time competent opponents are using something different anyway.
On a related subject, is anybody else tired of facing all those teams that constantly spam Choice Band Haxorus in combination with Magnezone? It's easy to beat, but it's really annoying to face. I'm seriously considering running Shed Shell on Skarmory just because every third team I face is one of these. Choice Band is pretty much the only thing that Haxorus can do well, so it's pretty predictable, though.
actually, choice scarf works well too. it still outspeeds an OHKO's dragonite with multiscale and a DDance, and outspeeds lati@s, which normally stay in on it expecting to win speed. it also takes out rotom/gengar with earthquake thanks to mold breaker.
So, how do you peeps deal with Toxicroak?
While Shed Shell Skarmory would escape Magnezone, I'm not too sure if it's all that better at taking on Haxorous so you might be fighting a losing battle anyways. Always taking 12% from SR with no Lefties, and having to take 2 Outrages isn't fun. You'll get out of there alive the first time, but the second time it'll probably be able to just overpower you enough since I doubt you'll be coming in at 100% again. Also Skarmory uses probably forget that Haxorous has Taunt, so if you randomly face a DD one, don't get auto fucked not Brave Birding right away.
As for Toxicroak, Hippowdon does well. Gliscor could work in theory, but between Ice Punch variants and bulky ones that boost it's Def in Rain, Gliscor isn't so ideal. Quagsire also does very well, as does Gengar with Substitute. Everything else you always have to be careful not getting CH'd while trying to stall it out.
As for Toxicroak, Hippowdon does well. Gliscor could work in theory, but between Ice Punch variants and bulky ones that boost it's Def in Rain, Gliscor isn't so ideal. Quagsire also does very well, as does Gengar with Substitute. Everything else you always have to be careful not getting CH'd while trying to stall it out.
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