Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread

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in my opinion i think Ttar should be B rank just because of Genesect, i mean half the time genesect is spamming U-turn, so what Ttar wants to come in on a U-turn. The only real reason i use Ttar is to pursuit kill Lati@s
and Other pokemon such as Gengars that i find annoying.With all the Genetrio core Hippo doesn't have to worry About getting trapped. Also i love it when a ttar comes in on my Bulky toed and gets burned hax by my scald, essentially makes Ttar Useless only to setup weather while my sweepers use him as Setup Bait, while Hippo can just roar them away -_-
 
Volcarona deserves to be A rank.It can get a quiver dance against lots of pokes.Once it gets one it outspeeds lots of things.It can sweep a lot with Fiery Dance and Bug Buzz.Now in BW2 it can also beat Gastrodon one of its biggest counters.This thing should be in A rank.

I also agree with Sayonara about Lucario.
 

Chou Toshio

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I find Lucario deserves to be A-ranked. It's just an absolute beast, and it can sweep the majority of the metagame with little support. It just needs to find an opportunity to set-up a Swords Dance, which can be accomplished by setting up on a Choice Scarf Genesect locked into Ice Beam,
And then what, you get to kill off some death fodder before Genesect comes back in and destroys you with Scarf Flamethrower as it laughs at your boosted Ex-Speed/Bullet Punch?

It sounds to me like you're using Bullet Punch (as many luke do recently), which means you're basically powerless against Gliscor and Landorus-T, who are still quite prevalent. Not to mention all the hippowdons now.

Rain teams it could destroy, except that there's little nothing it can set up on besides Ferrothorn... I don't know; I think Luke's best where he is-- acknowledged to be a potentially destructive threat, but honestly, a Luke sweep is no where near as common, consistent, or dangerous as it was in 4th gen.
 
Ttar is B for sure. Especially since it's just setup fodder for Terrakion now - even giving Kion boosted SDef. Mix-tar also isn't as good as it used to be.

I always find Hippowdon to be more useful on Sand Teams these days. Not to mention SR+Yawn creates lots of lols.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Is Hippowdon useful on offensive teams? Where it can only serve as a reliable SR user and to stop setup-sweepers that can't hit him extremely hard or for super-effective damage?

Oh, and I know that offensive teams aren't the only playstyle out here. But most teams are offensive.

Also, Hippowdon can also risk giving Terrakion a free SDef boost, and if it is specially defensive, it is 2HKOed by Close Combat, whereas if it is physically defensive, it isn't as useful against Genesect and sun teams.
 

elodin

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Am I the only one who feels that Jirachi should be on the S Rank? It's the best counter to Tornadus-T (which is a pretty strong force in the metagame), can sweep with SubCM with a simple rain support, can provide Stealth Rock and Wish support, has a nice typing and an amazing ability in Serene Grace. Jirachi is better than ever these days. It is also an amazing counter to most special dragons (Hydreigon, Lati@s, etc) and it can also function as nice check to some Fighting-types when running a defensive oriented spread, specially Breloom and Terrakion.

Not to mention that it also has an incredible movepool, which contains U-turn, Thunder, Calm Mind, Elemental Punches, Thunder Wave, Body Slam, Trick and even some underrated options, like Doom Desire, Cosmic Power and Gravity*. And it has 100 Base Stats all around, which is great. I don't know if this was already discussed, but I'm posting it now because people are really wasting time discussing this Tyranitar / Hippowdon deal lol.

*I'm not saying these options are awesome, I'm just saying they can work.
 
Terrakion doesn't really want to stay in with Hippowdon since it'll eat an EQ. At least Hippo's got that going. Tar HAS to switch out or it will die.

The thing about setup sweepers is that most will destroy Tar, whereas Hippowdon may actually be able to do something about them. Not to mention Hippowdon isn't as set-up foddery as Tar these days. Especially with 3/4 Pokemon in our beloved S-tier being able to hit it for SE damage.
 

alkinesthetase

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no rak should ever be staying in on hippo lol, whoever does that is seriously not using rak properly (unless they've already boosted up and the hippo is within kill range, but that's a sign of a poorly played hippo). if it boosts it gets phazed and if it just tries to beat it down it starts eating earthquakes at -1 def (fatal), then hippo heals it off. hippo will take any unboosted rak close combat without dying and the earthquake is definitely going to end rak's life. the thing about hippo is that even when it's specially defensive, its physical bulk is really not bad - you have a harder time walling boosted physical threats, definitely, but you're still made of pretty tough stuff.

hippo honestly fits fine on offensive sand. it fits fine on most sand - just like tyranitar does. not all offense teams are so lacking in bulk that they have no reasonably durable team anchors. moreover, from what i have seen hippo has much better synergy with stoutland (one of sand's premier assailants) than tyranitar does. it's a matter of team choice, so i think it would be an oversimplification to say hippo works better on defensive teams on tyranitar, or that ttar works better on offense than hippo.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Is Hippowdon useful on offensive teams? Where it can only serve as a reliable SR user and to stop setup-sweepers that can't hit him extremely hard or for super-effective damage?

Oh, and I know that offensive teams aren't the only playstyle out here. But most teams are offensive.

Also, Hippowdon can also risk giving Terrakion a free SDef boost, and if it is specially defensive, it is 2HKOed by Close Combat, whereas if it is physically defensive, it isn't as useful against Genesect and sun teams.
Well, setup sweepers are usually stopped by offensive teams in general. But, it can roar almost all of them;it's only really stopped by CM keldeo-even NPlebi isn't guaranteed to KO.

Also, of course it risks giving rakion a spdef boost, but only CB or LO 2hitkos with cc with SR down, and LO is exceedingly rare. Seeing as CBrakion tears everything u anyhow, that's not such a big deal, and if SR isn't down, he can take a CC, then run to anything that doesn't care, and possibly take 2 CB stone edges later, although that's not 100% guaranteed.

Oh yeah, and rachi is not S rank. it's great defensively against some pokemon, but it's not walling a large portion of the metagame. Meanwhile, any offensive set it runs is easy to hard-wall. The haxiness is awesome, but still. A is great for it.
 

elodin

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Sorry, but it totally disagree with you. Jirachi is probably the Pokémon that walls most part of the OU metagame*, and it's not Taunt weak like other walls, such as the pink blobs. It is also the most versatile Pokémon in OU, being able to effectively run SubCM, Specially Defensive, CM + Wish, Choice Scarf, Offensive CM with 3 attacks, Mixed Attacker and the Subs + Paralysis sets. All of these work incredibly well, making it way more unpredictable than all the 4 S ranked Pokémon. And seriously, the only hard counter to the SubCM / CM + Wish set is Gastrodon, everything else struggles a little bit because of hax and coverage.

*I'm too lazy to list everything it counters / checks.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Well of course you are, because it's not that much(Special dragons, Tornadus-T, some grass-types, and psychics.). It's versatile, but CM with 3 attacks, mixed attacker, and sub+para sets, as well as CM wish, are all not that good. I find SubCm to be hilarious, as a pokemon is literally immune to its most-used moveset. And no one really uses choise scarf anymore. Now, the things it does counters are extremely important, and it's great that it can counter them. That's why it's an A pokemon. But really, most of its sets are not that great, it's specially defensive and SubCm that are used most of the time.
 
Well of course you are, because it's not that much. It's versatile, but CM with 3 attacks, mixed attacker, and sub+para sets, as well as CM wish, are all not that good. I find SubCm to be hilarious, as a pokemon is literally immune to all of its moves. And no one really uses choise scarf anymore.

The things that it counters are extremely important, and it's great that it can counter them. That's why it's an A pokemon. But really, most of its sets are not that great, it's specially defensive and SubCm that are used most of the time.
Choice Scarf Rachi has become pretty popular since Genesect's release and is very effective in this metagame because it outspeeds a lot of key threats.

I have no idea how much you've used Jirachi, but all of the sets you've mentioned are effective and all can be excellent depending on what your team needs. It is the easiest Pokemon to fit onto any team because of its versatility/typing/greatness.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
hippo honestly fits fine on offensive sand. it fits fine on most sand - just like tyranitar does. not all offense teams are so lacking in bulk that they have no reasonably durable team anchors. moreover, from what i have seen hippo has much better synergy with stoutland (one of sand's premier assailants) than tyranitar does. it's a matter of team choice, so i think it would be an oversimplification to say hippo works better on defensive teams on tyranitar, or that ttar works better on offense than hippo.
Give me examples please, as I can't see how Hippowdon can fit on an offensive sand team, and Tyranitar can fit on a defensive sand team either. What I am seeing here is that the only reason why many people here prefer Hippowdon over Tyranitar, is a certain brown three-headed mole that thanks to a certain ability, can trap and mercilessly kill many threats weak to its STAB.
 
My post won't change anything anyway but I believe the tiers aren't set up right at all. Tier B should be splitted in at least 2 tiers. I would propose move half of tier B to C, move C to D and Metagross to E. I mean I can't take a tiering system serious that places really really good OU pokemon like Lucario and Gliscor in the same tier as Alakazam and Jolteon ( Just examples). This pokemon don't belong to the same tier at all, the problem is Tier B is just too large.
 

elodin

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Well of course you are, because it's not that much(Special dragons, Tornadus-T, some grass-types, and psychics.). It's versatile, but CM with 3 attacks, mixed attacker, and sub+para sets, as well as CM wish, are all not that good. I find SubCm to be hilarious, as a pokemon is literally immune to its most-used moveset. And no one really uses choise scarf anymore. Now, the things it does counters are extremely important, and it's great that it can counter them. That's why it's an A pokemon. But really, most of its sets are not that great, it's specially defensive and SubCm that are used most of the time.
Ok, so you're saying that SubCM is funny because Gastrodon (which was in #51 usage in September's ranking) is imunne to its two most used moves, but this is a very poor argument. SubCM Jirachi is a massive force for most teams to face, and Water + Electric is a beast coverage to have. The stuff that resist Thunder and Water Pulse can barely touch Jirachi (Celebi, Ferrothorn, etc) and they'll often lose to it. Choice Scarf is an incredibly nice set, and it can do stuff that Genesect can't (aka outspeed some pokés because of 100 Base Speed and Trick, not to mention Iron Head flinches and the ability to switch in better into dragons). Specially Defensive is an amazing wall, it fully stops Tornadus-T, special dragons, some Water-types (considering that we're under Rain and we're running Thunder, which is common) and can support the team with Wish and Stealth Rock. CM + Wish is a really underrated set that works incredibly well, being able to win against common Jirachi checks, such as Dugtrio (this was even showed in Eriatarka, a team made by Iconic). Mixed Attacker is beastly unpredictable, and can get pretty useful stuff by surprise, like Gliscor, Landorus and Slowbro (as shown on ShakeItUp's team, Arcana Force XXI -The World-). Subs + Paralysis is the classic Jirachi set and it still works out pretty well, even though is not as good as the other ones (the same can be said about CM + 3 attacks).

I'm sorry, but to me it seems you're just trying to point out some pretty stupid flaws (uh, it's stopped by one of the least used Pokémon) to negate that Jirachi deservers to be S Rank due to its versatility and ability to wall a huge part of the metagame.
 

alkinesthetase

<@dtc> every day with alk is a bad day
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DFA: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4400382#post4400382
this post from yee with the "standard" sand balance is rather old but both formulae he lists are balanced

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3470509
undoubtedly a sand stall team in form with the sand provided by CB tar. it's not as if this is new stuff; tyranitar has been a fixture of sand stall for a long time now, as much as and possibly even more than hippowdon

and as for offense with hippowdon, the answer is "every sand team that has ever used stoutland", eg http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3473714
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Give me examples please, as I can't see how Hippowdon can fit on an offensive sand team, and Tyranitar can fit on a defensive sand team either. What I am seeing here is that the only reason why many people here prefer Hippowdon over Tyranitar, is a certain brown three-headed mole that thanks to a certain ability, can trap and mercilessly kill many threats weak to its STAB.
Examples? Hippowdon does what it does-sets SR, checks things, uses roar to never cede any momentum. Did we mention that surprise factor lets you get the drop on a lot of things, and that it's a great catchall check when you don't know a set, or when it might be zoroark? It's either a damn good physical wall or a damn great mixed wall.

And that's actually kind of a massive deal-if you can be trapped and pwnd, then you can't fulfill your primary purpose.

Oh and hey, it beats living hell out of SubCM rachi. Kind of a big deal. It also stalls out thundurus-T.
Listen, any time i can say "I'm weak to something, oh wait let's 100% wall it", it's a problem. Also, you didn't really mention stuff like Kyurem-B, latios, latias, so on. It's really weather dependent, but it's really easy to switch the weather on it. Wish+Cm is all right, that's about it. Same goes for mixed attacker. Scarf is a nice set, it's rarely used for a reason.

Point is, most of these sets are rarely used;the ones that are used can be 100% walled. Even if it's low usage, the fact is any pokemon that can be hard walled easily has problems. No S rank kind of problems.
 

elodin

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Sorry, but your arguments fail. You mention Kyurem-B, he is Uber. You mention Latios and Latias, they both lose to Jirachi. In fact, one of Jirachi's main selling point is countering them, lol. SubCM is not even completely defeated by Gastrodon since some people decide to run Psyshock over Water Pulse, even though it misses a nice coverage. And it's not totally weather dependent, since it can work with Thunderbolt although it loses a lot of nice points.

If you're saying that Jirachi shouldn't be S Rank because it's 100% walled by Gastrodon than you're being stupid. Any Terrakion set is 100% walled by Hippowdon, Gliscor and Slowbro (it envolves predicts, but still) so why is he on the S Rank again? Because these flaws are obfuscated by its great selling points. Seriously, Jirachi is more versatile, has a better movepool and can win against some counters / checks depending on the set it runs, like Gliscor with Mixed Attacker and Dugtrio with CM + Wish.

And by the way, Deoxys-D is 100% countered by Xatu (and to a lesser extent, Espeon), Politoed is 100% countered by Celebi (and lots of other Grass-types), Terrakion is 100% countered by Hippowdon, Gliscor, Slowbro and Tangrowth, and Genesect is 100% countered by Heatran. So please, stop saying that Jirachi doesn't deserve to be S Rank only because it loses to something that has such a small usage. Of course it has its counters, everything does.
 
Mew for S Tier.

It can do anything. Setup sweeper? SDance, RPolish, CMind, BUp or NPlot away! Need a wall? It has access to healing, hazards in Private Earth, and more! Need a scout? Thankfully enough, it has both scouting moves! Want a shuffler? Mew's your guy! Need another Choice user? Have fun! I could go on.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
And that's actually kind of a massive deal-if you can be trapped and pwnd, then you can't fulfill your primary purpose.
I don't think that this is sufficient to justify that Hippowdon should always be used over Tyranitar. First, because "if you can be trapped and pwnd, then you can't fulfill your primary purpose" also apply to Heatran. Still, people use it because it is almost the only counter for Genesect, and to solve this problem, people use Shed Shell on Heatran. Why they don't do the same with Tyranitar? Because Leftovers would be missed? People used Chople Berry and don't seemed to miss Leftovers recovery many times, but the benefit of being capable to take one Fighting-type attack was a big deal. They could do the same with Shed Shell.

There is also another point. If were for this argument, then people should use other physical walls like Slowbro and Tangrowth instead of Skarmory, as the latter can be trapped by Magnezone. Before you say that Magnezone is a shitty pokémon or that it is not a big deal nowadays and that Dugtrio is extremely popular, lets say to you something: Dugtrio by itself is a massive problem for Tyranitar, but even in BW1, and start of BW2, people still used Tyranitar over Hippowdon on most occasions even considering the existence of Dugtrio. The guilty for Dugtrio's popularity now is Genesect, wich also happens to handle Tyranitar easily. As Dugtrio can handle most of Genesect's counters, and the latter is extremely popular, almost a staple on OU teams, Dugtrio by itself also becomes popular, and Tyranitar is indirectly hampered by Genesect because of this.

So Genesect is the reason, althoug is an indirect one, to why Tyranitar is receiving few credit here. Unlike some people in favor of Tyranitar being A, I am not saying that Hippowdon is effective. In fact, it is very effective for handling Dugtrio and sun teams easily. But Tyranitar is just as effective.

Mew for S Tier.

It can do anything. Setup sweeper? SDance, RPolish, CMind, BUp or NPlot away! Need a wall? It has access to healing, hazards in Private Earth, and more! Need a scout? Thankfully enough, it has both scouting moves! Want a shuffler? Mew's your guy! Need another Choice user? Have fun! I could go on.
Although Mew can do anything, this doesn't mean that it can do anything better than everything. Even the set cited above by Tabuu, Nasty Plot, I can see as having some sort of competition from Celebi, wich boasts a better tipying and has a secondary STAB that is great and in fact, makes you not worry about having to use a Psychic-type STAB in favor of a option with better coverage (but using Psychic-type STAB is still a great choice). Although Mew is not outclassed.

Mew, on my opinion, is B-Tier. It is actually amazing. Can stallbreak, can Nasty Plot, can Baton Pass... Its uses don't even end here! I've used it on my team, that had problems with SR setters and stall teams. Done; I never had problem with them again.
 

alexwolf

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I don't think that this is sufficient to justify that Hippowdon should always be used over Tyranitar.
I don't think that anyone said this, just that Hippo is usually better than Ttar in this meta. Being better than something else doesn't mean what you said.
 

Stone RG

Megas are broke
Are you seriously saying hippo wins more weather wars than tar does? Well, first of all, EVERY single rain abuser shits on hippo with little help, torn t does a fuck load with hurricane, thundy demolishes it with grass knot (a move that i personally always carry on thund t), tenta (actually wins in the stall war just by hitting him with toxic on the switch or if a scald burn then u got 2 layers of TSpikes up and a spin if necessary), keldeo (really need to explain?), ferro uses it as set up fodder, so no, it doesnt help against rain.

Sun is something a lot of people is using to justify using hippo over tar, just because of dugtrio, now no person that knows what the hell hes doing is sending in ttar on xatu's u-turn. Second, most important sand threats destroy tales, namely terrakion and lando, whos LO set shits on entire sun teams. And finally, with some prior damage, ttar wins easily against tales with a combination of crunch/stone edge + pursuit (only the first move needed if using CB).
 
infernape for B tier

pros:
it is a great scouter with u-turn

scarf sets beats and non jolly/timid sand rush or chlorophyll user that is base 80 or lower. which beats venusaur which is annoying. not to mention is a great check to lead gene.
also helps against lead terrakion which is usually wont have a scarf.

both stabs are very useful to deal with steal types

has a large move pool and has 104 base atks so its not like it cant surprise the opponent.

can check about 3/5 of b-tier and about 1/3 of A tier just with his stabs.

cons:
rain makes him a wet monkey that cant do as much.

he has mediocre def.

falls to the rain abusers easily.

entry hazards make quick work of him.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
I think that the cons are enough to not make him a B tier, especially as rain nerfs him. Lati@s wall him hard and it has a hard time trying to come in on battle due to its frailty. Unlike Breloom, Infernape doesn't have the tipying and moves to compensate this.
 
There should be an additional tier above S. S+ Tier. And Genesect should be in it. And then we should get the Pentagon to ban that thing.

Honestly, Terrakion check? Hello Zen Headbutt. Nothing is safe from Genesect. NOTHING. Genesect outclasses all the S Tier Pokemon by a mile.

Rotom-W is actually really good. From bulky to scarfed, they all perform really well and glue many teams together. Maybe suspect S Tier?
 
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