Salamence would fit a lot more S rank worthy than B rank. It it pretty self sufficient has few things holding it back. It was Ubers for a reason in D/P/P.
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Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread
- Thread starter PK Gaming
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Salamence would fit a lot more S rank worthy than B rank. It it pretty self sufficient has few things holding it back. It was Ubers for a reason in D/P/P.
Magneton is a pokemon we really should not be even bothering to talk about in an OU environment, but now that it comes up, I will say both sides have an interesting argument. Eviolite Magneton is an interesting idea in the OU metagame but, as Lord of Bays said, it has a horrible typing and is probably only going to be used to counter dragons locked into outrage or to handle bulky walls better. However, this gets heavily outclassed by Ferrothorn because in rain, it can take a timid nature fire blast from Heatran at full health. Choice Scarf is the only reason why Magneton should even be used in OU for having a higher speed than Magnezone. However, this choice scarf set is again outclassed by other faster pokemon such as Jolteon. This should mostly be used for trapping, but most of the pokemon that Magneton will be trapping are going to be slow enough for Magnezone to outspeed anyway.
Now to Conkeldurr. I must admit, at the start of BW, I loved the design in both strategy and appearance of Conkeldurr (A buff clown with huge stone pillars has to be considered epic) But, when I actually used Conkeldurr, I found that the only thing that it was good for was its bulk up set because of its bulk. Every other set was too slow and got easily revenge killed. Almost every time I put Conkeldurr on a team, I found myself only using it for death fodder which even Magikarp can do. It simply did not cut it in terms of both bulk and coverage, being horribly weak to special moves and not being able to hit ghosts without payback. So, Conkeldurr should at most stay in C-rank because of its bad coverage and speed.
Now to Conkeldurr. I must admit, at the start of BW, I loved the design in both strategy and appearance of Conkeldurr (A buff clown with huge stone pillars has to be considered epic) But, when I actually used Conkeldurr, I found that the only thing that it was good for was its bulk up set because of its bulk. Every other set was too slow and got easily revenge killed. Almost every time I put Conkeldurr on a team, I found myself only using it for death fodder which even Magikarp can do. It simply did not cut it in terms of both bulk and coverage, being horribly weak to special moves and not being able to hit ghosts without payback. So, Conkeldurr should at most stay in C-rank because of its bad coverage and speed.
Magneton's Choice Scarf set isn't just used to revenge killed, it's more of a two for one. With a Choice Scarf attached, Magneton can not only trap, but also revenge kill. That's my point, he has more then one use. The Eviolite set also isn't as bad as you think it is either, it's one of those situational sets that can be quite effective with the right support, and I've found it much easier to use then Magnezone's Charge Beam set. My point is, Scarfed Magneton isn't JUST for revenge killing, it also fits the role as a Volt switch pivot as well as an effective trapper. Magneton should at the least be D-Tier, because it fills a unique niche that Magnezone can sometimes not fully fulfill.
D Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who have a small niche in the current OU metagame, but have very noticeable flaws that make them more trouble then their worth the majority of the time.
How is this not Magneton? Fills a niche, but is mediocre. It's not like I'm arguing for C-Rank, D-Rank is enough for it.
Give me some logs where EvioTon does work and I'll change my tune. He might take some weak unresisted hits well, but so do half the bulky set-up attackers who don't have a horrible 4x weakness and WAY better set-up repertoires than fucking Charge Beam.
I will give you that Magneton's Scarf set does mix a trapper and a revenge killer, but he does both parts so badly that I don't feel like he needs to be mentioned. Magnezone's success as a trapper is in his power. Positive-nature base 130 Special Attack is going to do a fuckload of damage. Neutral-nature base 120 is doing considerably less. Base 70 Speed does not cut it as a revenge killer. This isn't HGSS where Scarf Tyranitar and Scarf Heatran were monsters and you either got the hell out or suffered the consequences. He's too slow.
He's not relevant (didn't even break .3%, that's 3/1000ths, in February) and he's not good. There's nothing that can be trapped with Magnet Pull that Magnezone does not already handle and Magnezone is more useful in general. We didn't rank Shelgon because he can also run Dragon Dance but with Eviolite, why would we rank Magneton?
I will give you that Magneton's Scarf set does mix a trapper and a revenge killer, but he does both parts so badly that I don't feel like he needs to be mentioned. Magnezone's success as a trapper is in his power. Positive-nature base 130 Special Attack is going to do a fuckload of damage. Neutral-nature base 120 is doing considerably less. Base 70 Speed does not cut it as a revenge killer. This isn't HGSS where Scarf Tyranitar and Scarf Heatran were monsters and you either got the hell out or suffered the consequences. He's too slow.
He's not relevant (didn't even break .3%, that's 3/1000ths, in February) and he's not good. There's nothing that can be trapped with Magnet Pull that Magnezone does not already handle and Magnezone is more useful in general. We didn't rank Shelgon because he can also run Dragon Dance but with Eviolite, why would we rank Magneton?
Perhaps magneton could have claimed outspeeding Tornadus-T with a choice scarf, but those days have passed, and you really shouldn't be trying to outspeed the threats wizarus mentioned with a magnezone anyway.
It might leave if those threats weren't there, but they are there now. As of now, just by slapping a mamo onto a team, you can check a large number of the most dangerous threats in the game. It's job might not be diverse, it can't fit multiple roles or anything, but at what it does (check major threats), it is the best. I know this isn't how these tiers were designed, but I believe the best of any role should be A-rank at worst
I'd like to bring up an issue that may be blasphemous to a lot of people, but how the hell is Terrakion S Rank?
I just don't think Terrakion is that good in the current metagame. If you look at Kd24's stats from the last BW tournament, it was used on like one team.
It's certainly not in the same league as Keldeo or Landorus. Is anyone actually scared to see Terrakion in team preview? I'm generally happy to see it, since I know it will be easy to kill with my Keldeo/Breloom/Gengar/Scizor/ScarfRachi/Lati@s/Landorus-T. Compare this to Keldeo, who is resistant to priority and neigh impossible to wall, or Landorus, who literally is checked by about 5 things after a turn of set up, and you begin to see why Terrakion is just plain inferior. Here's its sets:
Choice Band:
Okay, Choice Band is scary. Being able to 2HKO the whole meta can be a bit terrifying. However, it relies on a lot of prediction to decide between CC and Stone Edge. It is easily revenge killed by a good number of mons, and can actually offer set up opportunities to Keldeo or Landorus once it uses Stone Edge or Close Combat respectively.
Choice Scarf:
This is pretty outclassed by Keldeo in my opinion. Even then, it suffers from the same issues as the Choice Band set to an even larger degree, allowing Lati@s and Breloom free turns on the appropriate move, as well as letting half the steel-types in OU set up hazards or launch an attack on Stone Edge.
Lead:
I would say Skarmory is a better lead for HO teams, but I'll grant you Terrakion is a damn good lead. It's lead set isn't enough to make it S Tier though
SubSalac:
Every team has a priority user, so SubSalac is very difficult to pull off, because you generally won't have a Sub up when you have the speed boost and then even an ice shard can kill you. It really likes Magnezone support to get rid of Scizor. This is a threatening set, but I think that Dragonite and Breloom, and even Scizor to an extent, are both better set-up sweepers.
Double Dance, SD Rock Gem, etc: SubSalac is his best sweeping set.
Overall, Terrakion is a great Pokémon. But when I see Politoed in team preview, I brace myself for the onslaught of water. When I see Keldeo in team preview, I'll kill off mons just to give Celebi or Rotom-W a bit of extra health. When I see Landorus, I will sack half my team to make sure it doesn't set up. Terrakion just isn't in the same league as these threats. I would argue that Scizor is much more deserving of S Tier than this guy. There's no way anyone who actually plays OU would ever argue for Terrakion to be banned, and thus I say it belongs in A-Tier.
EDIT: Sorry if this already came up, it wasn't in the past 5 pages and I don't want to read the whole thread...
I just don't think Terrakion is that good in the current metagame. If you look at Kd24's stats from the last BW tournament, it was used on like one team.
It's certainly not in the same league as Keldeo or Landorus. Is anyone actually scared to see Terrakion in team preview? I'm generally happy to see it, since I know it will be easy to kill with my Keldeo/Breloom/Gengar/Scizor/ScarfRachi/Lati@s/Landorus-T. Compare this to Keldeo, who is resistant to priority and neigh impossible to wall, or Landorus, who literally is checked by about 5 things after a turn of set up, and you begin to see why Terrakion is just plain inferior. Here's its sets:
Choice Band:
Okay, Choice Band is scary. Being able to 2HKO the whole meta can be a bit terrifying. However, it relies on a lot of prediction to decide between CC and Stone Edge. It is easily revenge killed by a good number of mons, and can actually offer set up opportunities to Keldeo or Landorus once it uses Stone Edge or Close Combat respectively.
Choice Scarf:
This is pretty outclassed by Keldeo in my opinion. Even then, it suffers from the same issues as the Choice Band set to an even larger degree, allowing Lati@s and Breloom free turns on the appropriate move, as well as letting half the steel-types in OU set up hazards or launch an attack on Stone Edge.
Lead:
I would say Skarmory is a better lead for HO teams, but I'll grant you Terrakion is a damn good lead. It's lead set isn't enough to make it S Tier though
SubSalac:
Every team has a priority user, so SubSalac is very difficult to pull off, because you generally won't have a Sub up when you have the speed boost and then even an ice shard can kill you. It really likes Magnezone support to get rid of Scizor. This is a threatening set, but I think that Dragonite and Breloom, and even Scizor to an extent, are both better set-up sweepers.
Double Dance, SD Rock Gem, etc: SubSalac is his best sweeping set.
Overall, Terrakion is a great Pokémon. But when I see Politoed in team preview, I brace myself for the onslaught of water. When I see Keldeo in team preview, I'll kill off mons just to give Celebi or Rotom-W a bit of extra health. When I see Landorus, I will sack half my team to make sure it doesn't set up. Terrakion just isn't in the same league as these threats. I would argue that Scizor is much more deserving of S Tier than this guy. There's no way anyone who actually plays OU would ever argue for Terrakion to be banned, and thus I say it belongs in A-Tier.
EDIT: Sorry if this already came up, it wasn't in the past 5 pages and I don't want to read the whole thread...
--i.e weakness to priority and just a bit too slow.
You know what? I actually have to agree with this. I think Terrakion is a serious threat, but I don;t consider him in my team building any more than Dragonite, Salamence, Breloom, or any other major physical threats in the metagame. In fact, I would say I consider Dragonite and Breloom more than Terrakion when teambuilding. And it's not to say that Terrakion isn't threatening, but there are so many different ways to deal with it like Scizor, Breloom, Gliscor, Keldeo, Landorus-T, etc. Not to mention the fact that Lucario can completely set up all over it if it's locked into Stone Edge. I think he could totally go to A Rank and be just fine. He just isn't the powerhouse he was in late BW.
Also, my 200th post :3
Well, Politoed is S-rank for Drizzle and Drizzle alone, so comparing him stat-wise is horribly misleading.
That being said, Rayquaza has it exactly right. Terrakion can run ANY TWO MOVES IN HIS ENTIRE POOL besides his STABs on his Choice sets. You can perfectly tailor him to get rid of whatever threatens to wall him. Several people brought up Breloom as something that can come in an set up on Stone Edge, so I wanted to debunk that, illustrating just how horribly powerful Terrakion is. Choice Band Stone Edge, his WEAKEST standard attack against Breloom does a MINIMUM of 56%. Minimum. Breloom is a check and nothing more. Landorus-T requires very heavy investment to survive more than 2 Stone Edges, and if you carry Hidden Power Ice because Terrakion is just looking for moves to fill his slots, whoops Naive HP Ice does a whopping 51% at worst against 200/0 Landorus-T. Sure, you could risk switching in Scarf Landorus-T, but do you really want to risk it being an opposing Choice Scarf Terrakion?
We've had rain on the mind for so fucking long that we've forgotten just how good CombatEdge is. Yes, Keldeo's Hydro Pump in the rain is stupidly powerful, and yes, Secret Sword opens up the possibility of getting past "conventional" special walls, except we don't see those walls anymore BECAUSE OF Secret Sword and now we're got stuff that switches in on Keldeo all day every day like Celebi forcing some serious Pursuit support. Terrakion requires no such offensive support. He's forced to contend with Bullet Punch and Mach Punch while Keldeo doesn't care nearly as much, but the very act of trying to get either Scizor or Breloom in requires foddering something off, putting the user of Terrakion at an advantage. You click on one of his STAB moves and excepting physically defensive Landorus-T and Hippowdon the switch-in is 2HKOd if it doesn't resist the move used.
Those paragraphs are JUST for his Choice Band set. Oh, and one more thing.
Generalizations like this do nothing but undermine your point and show that you don't fully understand what you're talking about. YOU might always carry priority, but we've got such outstanding Scarfers like Keldeo, Latios, and Terrakion that priority is not always necessary.
Nominating Garchomp and Latios and Tyranitar for S rank. (I'm not greedy, I think they should go there)
Its real easy to see them go to S, as they are the two best dragons in the tier. Latios is a titan of special attacking, and gets an amazing selection of HP, Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Psyshock, Dragon Pulse, and the much feared Draco Meteor. However, a huge plus to Latios is his speed tier. This can allow him to outspeed most of the metagame, bar Jolteon and Alakazam. Garchomp, meanwhile, is so versatile its not even funny. It has good bulk and great coverage, while its speed tier allows it to dodge unboosted Landorus, Thun-T, and anything slower. It also can help cripple a physical attacker with rough skin and rocky helm.
As for T-Tar, nothing needs to be said. As a support, it lays rocks, gives weather and pursuit traps. Lando and Keldeo really appreciate the lack of Celebi, Jellicent, and Lati@s. Sand gives useful chip damage, and allows teams a counter to other weathers!
Its real easy to see them go to S, as they are the two best dragons in the tier. Latios is a titan of special attacking, and gets an amazing selection of HP, Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Psyshock, Dragon Pulse, and the much feared Draco Meteor. However, a huge plus to Latios is his speed tier. This can allow him to outspeed most of the metagame, bar Jolteon and Alakazam. Garchomp, meanwhile, is so versatile its not even funny. It has good bulk and great coverage, while its speed tier allows it to dodge unboosted Landorus, Thun-T, and anything slower. It also can help cripple a physical attacker with rough skin and rocky helm.
As for T-Tar, nothing needs to be said. As a support, it lays rocks, gives weather and pursuit traps. Lando and Keldeo really appreciate the lack of Celebi, Jellicent, and Lati@s. Sand gives useful chip damage, and allows teams a counter to other weathers!
I am going to nominate Volcarona for A rank.
Volcarona has access to the BEST BOOSTING MOVE IN THE GANE (defense drops aren't wanted Shell Smash).
It can run many sets (5 on the official Smogon page, but there are many variations of this that allow it to get past its usual counters like Heatran). Despite its main STAB weakened in a rain infested metagame, it has a Hurricane Set. I do something unorthodox here, which is run HP Fighting. This allows perfect coverage.
It resists the most common priority attacks, Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, and Ice Shard. It can even single handely beat all of the common users with Fire Blast.
Bug/Fire is good offensive typing. Couple that with HP Ice/Rock and you have a sweeper with near flawless coverage. Defensively, Volcarona is amazing as well. 105 Special Defense is nothing to scoff at, and it has an 81.25% chance to survive Life Orb 252 SpA Starmie's Surf (allowing it to get a QD and sweep).
So many teams are swept by Volcarona. Some of the great teams like False Sense' Dark Miracle are TORN TO SHREDS by Volcarona.
A Rank pokemons have the ability to shred a large portion of the Meta but are hindered by a little something.
Volcarona's only issues are
-Stealth Rock Weakness (which many A Rank pokemon have)
-Depending on Hiddden Power, gets walled by something.
(Rain is not an issue via the Hurricane set, which I have used extensively).
Volcarona has access to the BEST BOOSTING MOVE IN THE GANE (defense drops aren't wanted Shell Smash).
It can run many sets (5 on the official Smogon page, but there are many variations of this that allow it to get past its usual counters like Heatran). Despite its main STAB weakened in a rain infested metagame, it has a Hurricane Set. I do something unorthodox here, which is run HP Fighting. This allows perfect coverage.
It resists the most common priority attacks, Bullet Punch, Mach Punch, and Ice Shard. It can even single handely beat all of the common users with Fire Blast.
Bug/Fire is good offensive typing. Couple that with HP Ice/Rock and you have a sweeper with near flawless coverage. Defensively, Volcarona is amazing as well. 105 Special Defense is nothing to scoff at, and it has an 81.25% chance to survive Life Orb 252 SpA Starmie's Surf (allowing it to get a QD and sweep).
So many teams are swept by Volcarona. Some of the great teams like False Sense' Dark Miracle are TORN TO SHREDS by Volcarona.
A Rank pokemons have the ability to shred a large portion of the Meta but are hindered by a little something.
Volcarona's only issues are
-Stealth Rock Weakness (which many A Rank pokemon have)
-Depending on Hiddden Power, gets walled by something.
(Rain is not an issue via the Hurricane set, which I have used extensively).
I'm going to have to disagree with all of these. Latios is cool, but it's best STAB move forces it out everytime it uses it, which can give your opponent a lot of free set-up or spell doom for Latios if your opponent has a Pursuit trapper. That, and I couldn't possibly give Latios S-Rank without giving it to Latias as well, who is, in my mind, better in the current metagame.
As for Tyranitar, again he's cool, but he's mainly a support 'mon. I know the S-Ranked Politoed is also primarily a support 'mon, but the support Politoed offers its team is simply leagues ahead of the support Tyranitar can offer, which is limited to Stealth Rock, Pursuit trapping, and Sandstorm, which has a limited amount of abusers and is generally used as a sort of "anti-weather." Again, it's all quite good support, but it's not S-Rank worthy.
Garchomp I'm indifferent on, but I will at least say his Scarf set sucks, don't use it.
Again, I'm going to have to disagree here. Yes, other A-Rank Pokemon have SR weaknesses, but none are as bad as Volcarona's; Volcarona loses half its health by switching in to Stealth Rock, which means it requires a huge amount of support in order to sweep.
Besides that, Volcarona's other issue is it's middling speed; in a metagame where Scarf'd Terrakions and Scarf'd Keldeos are everywhere, Volcarona has to either get up two Quiver Dances in order to sweep, a daunting prospect in such a fast paced metagame, or again rely on support from teammates to clear the way for it.
Volcarona is an awesome Pokemon, for sure, but these issues are to grave for it to be anywhere but B-Rank.
Everything you've said is 100% true. Terrakion is a great Pokemon, it's deserving of consideration every time you teambuild and all that stuff. Having no counters doesn't make it S-Teir at all though.Pretty much any team naturally prepares for Terrakion by including a scarf user, a Lati, or a Scizor. The choice band set is heavily underrated and can rip apart teams, but honestly I'd rather use Dragonite for his better resistances and priority. Terrakion is very dangerous, and in theory should be an awesome mon, I'm just saying in practice I've never found it as dangerous as Keldeo or Landorus. It's much more in Dragonite and Breloom's league. A great A-Tier threat, but I don't think it belongs in S-Tier.
I'd like to hear some top player's opinions on this actually, cause I was really surprised few of the best teams in the last tourney used it, it was like 29th in usage.
Keep in mind that Terrakion became S-rank in a time in which Deo-D roamed free. At that time, its taunt + SR set was one of the frew mons that could put a stop to it and force it out while retaining offensive pressure.
Nowadays, I would agree with you - he's not as, you could say godly as he was before; but he's still a very powerful and versatile 'mon that only needs two attacks to destroy most of the metagame, really.
Everything in this thread is going in circles, look back 5-10 pages and you'll see arguments against putting stuff in S-rank and whatever.
however
Terrakion for A-rank? That's new, and I definitely agree with it. Lord of Bays definitely highlighted all of Terrakion's great qualities, but I think that all of those qualities define Terrakion as A-rank; keep in mind that A-rank is still full of really great pokemon. It gets great coverage with its two moves, but often the burden of prediction comes down to it whether it can 2HKO some of its counters at best with the right set or just flat out not 2HKO at all. It has a fair number of defensive checks, and even offensive teams have several ways to keep it in check. If it gets both boosts up, I will say it's unstoppable except for priority, but if you have an offensive team and it rock polishes, chances are you will have something that can take one hit from it. If you have a defensive team and it swords dances, landorus or gliscor can still take one hit from it and have a clean KO. Terrakion's coverage is nice, but it isn't that "spammable" like keldeo's hydro pump in the rain and doesn't have the pure power of landorus's earth power with no boosts. I think it fits perfectly into A-rank.
however
Terrakion for A-rank? That's new, and I definitely agree with it. Lord of Bays definitely highlighted all of Terrakion's great qualities, but I think that all of those qualities define Terrakion as A-rank; keep in mind that A-rank is still full of really great pokemon. It gets great coverage with its two moves, but often the burden of prediction comes down to it whether it can 2HKO some of its counters at best with the right set or just flat out not 2HKO at all. It has a fair number of defensive checks, and even offensive teams have several ways to keep it in check. If it gets both boosts up, I will say it's unstoppable except for priority, but if you have an offensive team and it rock polishes, chances are you will have something that can take one hit from it. If you have a defensive team and it swords dances, landorus or gliscor can still take one hit from it and have a clean KO. Terrakion's coverage is nice, but it isn't that "spammable" like keldeo's hydro pump in the rain and doesn't have the pure power of landorus's earth power with no boosts. I think it fits perfectly into A-rank.
Well, in defense of quiver dance: you could leave that white herb and use something else like life orb, leftovers, ...
I dont think there's a right answer to what is the best boosting move of those 2, it's situational as it depends on the pokemon using it and the team it's up against.
Just wanted to say one thing about terrakion.
I think we all put it on S-rank because of how scary it was during the bw1 era when it could get 2 or 3 kills at time, and basically battles often were something like "who kills terrakion first won".
Now battles are not this way anymore. The classic volturn sand consisting of Celebi/rotom-w/scizor/terrakion/landorus/tar is not common anymore. Why am i saying this? because that was exactly the type of team that could let you overkill everything with terrakion.
An example to make it clear: you have celebi in, your opponent has politoed. its probably going to switch out on ferrothorn so you do u-turn with celebi. At this point you send out kion and you have a cb kion against a ferrothorn. You know you have the advantage now, and if your opponent sends out a fight resistor you can cripple it with stone edge 2koing it. It was basically a free kill for you.
now it probably wasnt the best example, but wath i was trying to say is that terrakion was once scary because all those volturn cores let it always have a free switch in, and basically always on a favourable condition for you, letting you decide the game depending on which stab move you click.
Now, those days are gone. This type of team isnt seen anymore. A lot of sand teams prefers keldeo instead of it. Just think about how many tyranitar runs a choiced set nowadays, and guess what? tyranitar always had stealth rocks in the past, now most of the time its terrakion that does this role, because pursuitting ninetales and politoed is more important for tyranitar rather than setting up stealth rock.
The fact is, terrakion its a good pokemon, surely A-rank, but its not as scary as it was before. The Choice band set doesnt work anymore because volturn cores are not that common now, and if you are using it on an hyper offensive team you may be better using a life orb double booster set, because locking yourself into a move can be a loss for you in this metagame. Boosting sets works sometimes, some others not. Terrakion simply doesnt force as many switch as before and his typing isnt the best defensively - it surely has a good bulk, but not many resistance to setup freely a sword dance or something. In top of that, remember that its week to ground, water, fight, psychic and grass moves, which arent exactly as common as poison or steel.
The focus sash set its good, but people needs to realize that it was good for the surprise factor months ago, now if you see a terrakion lead you know for a fact what it will do. And this role its one the best to give to terrakion at the moment, even though it faces stiff competition from azelf and aerodactyl (yes, speed matters)
The choice scarf set its good, probably the best set to use thanks to his stellar speed and the fact you can hit everything for neutral damage, but thats it.
In top of that, breloom and landorus-t drammaticaly raised in usage, which makes things even harder for terrakion to shine.
Now, i want to stress that i do not think that terrakion its trash, i just mean that S-rank is for things that we actually want to be banned, and terrakion isnt really the case.
Ps. i dont know if its just me, but every time i do a sand offense team with terrakion i always end up with terrakion being the "weak link" and i always remove it for something else. it doesnt matter much with his status, though.
Pps. oh, i forgot that it was also one the best offensive check for genesect, which is now uber, maybe this was one of the reason it was so hyped?
I think we all put it on S-rank because of how scary it was during the bw1 era when it could get 2 or 3 kills at time, and basically battles often were something like "who kills terrakion first won".
Now battles are not this way anymore. The classic volturn sand consisting of Celebi/rotom-w/scizor/terrakion/landorus/tar is not common anymore. Why am i saying this? because that was exactly the type of team that could let you overkill everything with terrakion.
An example to make it clear: you have celebi in, your opponent has politoed. its probably going to switch out on ferrothorn so you do u-turn with celebi. At this point you send out kion and you have a cb kion against a ferrothorn. You know you have the advantage now, and if your opponent sends out a fight resistor you can cripple it with stone edge 2koing it. It was basically a free kill for you.
now it probably wasnt the best example, but wath i was trying to say is that terrakion was once scary because all those volturn cores let it always have a free switch in, and basically always on a favourable condition for you, letting you decide the game depending on which stab move you click.
Now, those days are gone. This type of team isnt seen anymore. A lot of sand teams prefers keldeo instead of it. Just think about how many tyranitar runs a choiced set nowadays, and guess what? tyranitar always had stealth rocks in the past, now most of the time its terrakion that does this role, because pursuitting ninetales and politoed is more important for tyranitar rather than setting up stealth rock.
The fact is, terrakion its a good pokemon, surely A-rank, but its not as scary as it was before. The Choice band set doesnt work anymore because volturn cores are not that common now, and if you are using it on an hyper offensive team you may be better using a life orb double booster set, because locking yourself into a move can be a loss for you in this metagame. Boosting sets works sometimes, some others not. Terrakion simply doesnt force as many switch as before and his typing isnt the best defensively - it surely has a good bulk, but not many resistance to setup freely a sword dance or something. In top of that, remember that its week to ground, water, fight, psychic and grass moves, which arent exactly as common as poison or steel.
The focus sash set its good, but people needs to realize that it was good for the surprise factor months ago, now if you see a terrakion lead you know for a fact what it will do. And this role its one the best to give to terrakion at the moment, even though it faces stiff competition from azelf and aerodactyl (yes, speed matters)
The choice scarf set its good, probably the best set to use thanks to his stellar speed and the fact you can hit everything for neutral damage, but thats it.
In top of that, breloom and landorus-t drammaticaly raised in usage, which makes things even harder for terrakion to shine.
Now, i want to stress that i do not think that terrakion its trash, i just mean that S-rank is for things that we actually want to be banned, and terrakion isnt really the case.
Ps. i dont know if its just me, but every time i do a sand offense team with terrakion i always end up with terrakion being the "weak link" and i always remove it for something else. it doesnt matter much with his status, though.
Pps. oh, i forgot that it was also one the best offensive check for genesect, which is now uber, maybe this was one of the reason it was so hyped?
Actually, LO Terrakion CC hits harder than LO Landorus Earth Power with no boosts.
And I'm not quite ready to jump on the Terrakion for A-Tier bandwagon yet. It's still 2HKOing most of OU with 2 STABS that have almost no drawbacks, giving it the option to run SD, SR, Sub, RP, coverage move, hell you could run Quick Attack, and it still does its job. Same thing goes for it's item; it's powerful enough to run almost any item it wants, without losing too much power. It needs almost no team support, you can stick it in anything that's not stall and it will pull its weight, and it's not nerfed at all by weather wars. Since prediction goes both ways, I don't think it should be brought up(Terrakion doesn't take that much prediction to use anyway compared to everyone else).
The only defensive checks I can think of on the top of my head to it in OU are Hippowdon, Gliscor, and Landorus-T, and if it has the appropriate item they go down by +2 Terra after SR. Honestly, I think people think it's A-material because we've gotten used to dealing with it, but I think it's still a S-Tier threat.
Terrakion definetly deserves his spot in S-Rank. Unlike physical landorus and keldeo, Terrakion is not weather reliant and has many qualities that make him S-Rank. CB terrakion can literally 2HKO everything in the game. Thanks to his resistence to SR, he can often switch out and back in. In all honesty, terrakion shouldn't be below the weather reliant keldeo, who can only become super powerful in the rain and has many hard counters. Terrakion only has a few counters and only gliscor and toxicroak are the common ones. Even though deoxys-d was the main reason for its success, Custap skarmory is a fine replacement in aiding terrakion's sweeping potential.
Keep terrakion in S-Rank.
Keep terrakion in S-Rank.
I stand corrected, although who is using LO terrakion without boosting up at first? That's sort of what I was trying to convey, where terrakion takes LO damage and is most potent if it sets up, where landorus just spams right off the bat a bit better. Terrakion doesn't pull off a clean kill on hippowdon either, having only a 6% chance to OHKO. That's without taking stealth rock into account, but assuming you switched in as it swords danced your leftovers will heal the SR damage. Still, I was surprised by that set's power, although most of Terrakion are banded or scarfed usually. Again, that is defensive checks, most of the tier is offensive and stands a better chance against Terrakion imo. I'm a bit less willing to call it A-rank at this point, but I still think it's easier dealt with than the other S-rank threats.
keldeo and landorus arent weather reliant too. Keldeo is used under sand as well as rain, and landorus is used mainly as a special attacker, so it doesnt really care about the weather as well. With this i dont mean they are all S-rank, but just that your statement is wrong.
By the way i think we need to stop talking about his choice band set 2koing the entire metagame; this can be said for almost ANY offensive pokemon.
Keldeo is ran in Sand because TTar is needed to remove its counters, and its STAB is nerfed in sun. Landorus needs support to get past its counters as well. Terra needs almost no support.
The difference is that Terrakion can 2HKO the entire metagame with its 2 STAB moves. This cuts down prediction considerably; you only have 2 choices to make instead of 4, and whatever you choose, you are almost guaranteed not to be punished by it because of SR resistance, sand immunity, STABs with almost no drawbacks, and pursuit resistance.
terrakion's stats and movepool haven't changed; rather, the metagame's reaction to it has. personally i feel that terrakion's still s-rank because the definition clearly implies that we're evaluating the pokemon's potential in the ou tier as opposed to how it actually fares in the current metagame. i recognize how big of a threat terrakion can be, but it's not a big threat for me because i recognize said threat and prepare for it, always having a defensive answer (gliscor, lando-t, hippo, etc.) plus one or more offensive answers (scarfers, breloom, scizor, latios, latias, etc.) meaning i hardly ever lose to it. that doesn't mean it isn't still one of the best pokemon in the ou tier potential-wise, it just means that now people are recognizing this threat and overpreparing for it. it's like when we moved tornadus-t to s-rank: despite the fact that every single team had jirachi or rotom-wash, the rank shift still occurred because torn-t's potential is not affected by jirachi usage in terms of rank. i hope that makes sense.
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