I'm going to have to agree with Halcyon here; I'm unsure about Kyurem-B being S-Rank. No doubt it has fantastic power and bulk, but it's severely crippled by its Ice typing, leaving it vulnerable to Stealth Rocks and common priority attacks. Obviously any pokemon will lose to their counters, ciaranroy. But the problem is that Kyurem-B is hampered by extremely common threats such as Scizor, which really prevents it from being completely and utterly devastating. Also, I have to question the idea that its ability to 6-0 teams is unparalleled. It doesn't have any way of boosting its power outside of Hone Claws, and no way of boosting its speed bar Choice Scarf. Even though its Substitute set is very effective, its not really fit for sweeping. Even with the protection of a Sub, you'll be hard pressed to flat out 6-0 teams, since most teams carry multiple pokemon faster than Kyurem-B that can break its Substitute and proceed to knock it out. No doubt its a great wallbreaker, but a sweeper of unparalleled power? Probably not. I just don't think its quite cut out for S-Rank.
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Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread
- Thread starter PK Gaming
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I have to agree with moving kyurem-b up to S-rank, but it could stay in top A-Rank. Kyurem-b gets tailwind, which greatly boost its speed. While it is view as gimmicky, a tailwind set could prove to be effective. Kyurem-b is literally the best check to bulky waters. A LO Fusion bolt will destroy almost every single bulky water in the tier. Statwise, kyurem-b's only low stat is his speed, but base 95 speed is still fast enough to outpace Dnite, tyranitar, magnezone etc. Base 170 attack is amazing and base 120 special attack is pretty good in OU. Furthermore kyuem-b is very bulky, as base 125/100/90 defenses are nothing to laugh at. Kyurem-b is the best user of substitute in the metagame because of all the switches it causes. Keldeo and terrakion an no longer check kyurem-b if it under a substitute. The subHC set is very effective at Phazing and after multiple HCs, kyurem-b's dragon tails do massive damage. It deserves low S-rank due to its versatility.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
kyurem-b definitely isn't worthy of being called s-rank. it's really strong, yeah, but a plethora of problems that plague it always manage to prevent it from doing any serious work. its crippling weaknesses to fighting, dragon, and steel - three of the most common types employing for revenge killing - make it extremely easy to pick off, especially when it's locked into outrage. and although base 95 speed isn't bad by any means, it's not great either, allowed kyu-b to be outsped by countless common ou pokemon, including latios, latias, terrakion, keldeo, garchomp, landorus, jirachi, salamence, and even hydreigon. every single one of those pokemon i just listed can also ohko kyurem-b one way or another, and pokemon with priority like breloom and scizor do work on it too. frankly, even when kyurem-b is played well, against an offensive team it's almost never getting more than one kill, and that's not a quality characteristic of a s-rank pokemon. it's clearly middle a-rank.
After al the reasons stated, I guess kyurem-b is a fine High A-Rank pokemon (A well played substitute kyurem-b often nets more than 1 KO against an expert rain team and certain sun teams).
Now, I know everybody is going to disagree with me, but I would like to bump hitmontop back up to Low C-rank. It is just as good as donphan, if not better. Thanks to forsight, hitmontop can garentee a spin and its abiity, intimidate, makes it bulkier than donphan on both sides of the spectrum. You may say that hitmontop is bad because it is weak, but a STAB close combat and stone edge do not make it setup bait for volcarno and ferrothorn. I still think that donphan and hitmontop are equal candidates for rapid spinners for sun teams.
Now, I know everybody is going to disagree with me, but I would like to bump hitmontop back up to Low C-rank. It is just as good as donphan, if not better. Thanks to forsight, hitmontop can garentee a spin and its abiity, intimidate, makes it bulkier than donphan on both sides of the spectrum. You may say that hitmontop is bad because it is weak, but a STAB close combat and stone edge do not make it setup bait for volcarno and ferrothorn. I still think that donphan and hitmontop are equal candidates for rapid spinners for sun teams.
blitzlefan
shake it off!
S Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame with little support, and Pokemon who can support other Pokemon with very little opportunity cost ("free turns"). Also the home of Pokemon who can easily perform multiple roles effectively, increasing their versatility and unpredictability. If the Pokemon in this rank have any flaws, those flaws are thoroughly mitigated by their substantial strengths. If there are suspects, they will come from this rank.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
I think based on the definition of A-rank, that's where Kyurem-B belongs. With its monstrous base 170 Attack, it is capable of sweeping significant portions of the metagame, but there are quite a few things that hold it back. As you said yourself, Kyurem-B does require support, as "its unfortunate hazard weakness can be mitigated with a spinner". Taking 25% on every switch-in as well as a susceptibility to Spikes hurts a LOT. Flaws that keep Kyurem-B from fufilling its role consistently involve (as said before) its poor 95 base Speed, its shallow movepool, and its weakness to priority, namely Bullet Punch from Scizor and Mach Punch from Breloom. Kyurem-B also isn't all that versatile. Though it can run a few sets, the general movesets are the same, usually consisting of just Outrage / Dragon Claw, Fusion Bolt, Ice Beam, and Substitute. It's a good Pokemon though, and deserves its place in high A rank.
Yeah, Kyurem-B is definitely A-Rank. It does great work and is an excellent check to sun, rain, and bulky waters in general, but just isn't fast enough to be up there with Keldeo.
Anyways, it looks like Hitmontop is located in both the C and D ranks. Definitely belongs in D in my opinion.
Other than that, I think that Blissey belongs in B- rank, if only for the fact that it is almost totally outclassed by Chansey. Bronzong and Ditto should also be moved down to B-. The former lost much of its utility with the banning of Tornadus-T, and the lack of recovery really hurts its viability as a tank. Ditto is simply too easy for the opponent to play around. You can't really use it as your only Scarf user, and having to burn two slots for a Scarfer is tough.
Anyways, it looks like Hitmontop is located in both the C and D ranks. Definitely belongs in D in my opinion.
Other than that, I think that Blissey belongs in B- rank, if only for the fact that it is almost totally outclassed by Chansey. Bronzong and Ditto should also be moved down to B-. The former lost much of its utility with the banning of Tornadus-T, and the lack of recovery really hurts its viability as a tank. Ditto is simply too easy for the opponent to play around. You can't really use it as your only Scarf user, and having to burn two slots for a Scarfer is tough.
What move can Jirachi use to OHKO Kyrurem-B?
I definetly disagree with demoting bronzong and blissey. Chansey doesn't outclass blissey because of leftovers recovery. Thats pretty important, considering that sandstorm is everywhere because of ttar. Furthermore, attacks that do 31% or less to chansey, blissey can tank better because of that leftovers recovery. Bronzong is the best check to ground type pokemon in general because it resist ground, ice and dragon. Bronzong, along wth skarmory, is the main reasons that landorus and garchomp run fire blast and focus blast. Bronzong is also a good check to amoongus, some alakazam kyurem-c and many more pokemon. It definetly deserves Mid B-Rank.
Lavos
Banned deucer.
specs flash cannon / cb iron head. didn't say it was common, just said jirachi *could*. and iron head's an easy 2hko anyways, plus 60% of the time kyu-b doesn't get to attack back before it dies.
dunno why you bothered to pick on like one word in my post...it's hardly relevant since the guy who wanted kyu-b to be s already rescinded his opinion.
edit: ok we're cool then, no worries
Dude I wasn't trying to dispute you or anything, I was just wondering. Yeah you are right Band Iron Head / Specs Flash Cannon does OHKO, it slipped my mind because not used to seeing Band or Specs Jirachi.
Kyurem-B does not get Tailwind.... seriously. If it did, you would see it in DragMag teams where it would be spamming Outrage late-game after setting up a Tailwind.
I can live with Kyurem-B not being S Rank, but I think it should be at least A+ rank. At the same time, I would like to nominate Terrakion for A+. Sure, its attack and speed are great, but its Rock typing leaves it vulnerable to Bullet Punch. It has absolutely no mixed capabilities, so Skarmory takes a huge dump on it. It is fairly easy to revenge kill, so I think that makes it a solid A+ rank, as it is still a great pokemon.
Yeah, actually I agree with Keldeo being dropped. Terrakion's absolute counters are found in lower tiers (Golurk, Nidoqueen, Nidoking) whereas Keldeo lose to a plethora of OU Pokemon (Celebi, Lati@s, Tentacruel, Toxicroak, Jellicent, Gyarados, Dragonite, Jolteon to name a few). Seriously, no good team doesn't carry a pokemon that can wall Keldeo. And even with different Hidden Powers, there are certain pokemon it just can't break through. It is very easy to play around too, as a lot of pokemon can take advantage of it's Choice locked STABs. Sure, it ploughs through everything else, but its counters are just too common and numerous to make it a solid S Rank.
Kyurem-b doesn't get tailwind, though i've seen it used with tailwind support whichi is interesting and cool.
Well if we're keeping Terrakion S rank, I see no reason why Keldeo shouldn't be as well. Terrakion only needs two moves to be successful, true enough, but it still has it's fair share of counters (Landorus-T, Gliscor) which can't really be handled with any set. At the very least, Keldeo CAN use a specific Hidden Power to get past any one of it's counters (Bug for Celebi, Psychic for Toxicroak, Ghost for Jellicent/Lati@s). Not only that, but pairing Keldeo with Tyranitar makes it even easier to sweep since he can trap almost all of Keldeo's counters. I used to think that Terrakion was better suited for A rank, but after reading some of the arguments, I'm positive both of them are S rank.
I used to think Terrakion was A-Rank until i started using scarf terrakion with custap forretress. Basically it outspeeds and koes pratically everything. Theres also the lead set which is very effective at setuping rocks and shutting down opposing leads. And the band set is pure wreckage. It suits S-Rank perfectly. Also Keldeo is simply one of the best pokemon in the game. It seems underwhelming now cause everyone overpreprares for it but its really a S-Rank mon. With rain support it doesnt even need specs to sweep and the sub calm set can easily take advantage of the switches it causes. A simple offensive calm mind set is very effective at luring and disposing of would be counters by using the correct hidden power.
It's true that Keldeo can run different Hidden Powers to take care of its main counters, but it can't run them all at the same time. Even then, Specs Hidden Power Ghost fails to 2HKO Specially Defensive Celebi or Jellicent, and the more common Scarf set barely grazes the surface of Celbi, Jellicent or Latias. Not to mention that all three have Recover and Latias can just Calm Mind in its face. I'm not saying Keldeo isn't a great pokemon, I'm just saying that its fairly easy to wall, which makes it A Rank in my opinion.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
Keldeo needs support from Tyranitar to guarantee a sweep (and even then, Tentacruel and Toxicroak still laugh at it). It can't consistently sweep because of its counters and it needs support. It fits the definition of A Rank perfectly.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
Keldeo needs support from Tyranitar to guarantee a sweep (and even then, Tentacruel and Toxicroak still laugh at it). It can't consistently sweep because of its counters and it needs support. It fits the definition of A Rank perfectly.
I'm just trying to draw parallels between Keldeo and Terrakion. Sure, Specs HP Ghost needs some prior damage (i.e., two layers of hazards) in order to 2HKO Celebi and Jellicent, but the CM Keldeo with HP Ghost beats all of those and is only really beaten by Latias. The same can be said of Terrakion. Sub SD can beat Landorus-T, Banded can beat Gliscor. Ones with X-Scissor can beat Celebi, ones with Earthquake can beat Tenta/Nidoqueen. Terrakion can't run all of those sets at the same time either. The two both have their individual ways of dealing with their counters, but both can do it. I think both of them are deserving of S rank for that reason.
ElectivireRocks
Banned deucer.
The bolded part is exactly why Heracross was dropped from S to A rank in the UU viability thread.
And you don't really need to overprepare at all. It's almost impossible to find a standard team in OU without one or more pokemon that doesn't resist Keldeo's STAB moves.
Saying that Keldeo is "the best pokemon in the game" is a huge overstatement.
I don't see how Tyranitar supports Keldeo - in fact with Sandstorm it can't run subCM, arguably its most dangerous set. Its coverage moves suck anyway so it's not like it will be missing them. Pursuit? Since when Psychic types absolutely need Tyranitar to trap them? Scizor, Weavile, and lots of other things can do that.
I agree that Keldeo is A-rank material, but that's not the reason.
Pokemon that counter Keldeo:
Latios
Latias
Jellicent
Celebi
Amoongus (only specially defensive)
Tentacruel (only specially defensive)
Toxicroak
Pokemon that can be trapped and/or KO'd by Tyranitar with Pursuit/Stone Edge:
So only Toxicroak really beats them (Tenta and Amoongus CAN with smart playing though). That is why Tyranitar is so great of a partner for Keldeo, especially the Specs set. You shouldn't run Sub CM with Tyranitar though, so I'm not sure why you mentioned it. You don't have to run CM since Tyranitar beats all the counters anyway, allowing you to sweep without boosting.
Looking at how Toxicroak beats all these pokemon, don't you think it should be A-? It beats Keldeo and Terrakion one on one (not going to mention Tyranitar because every Fight type beats it). I've had problems against it, and while I've never used it it does seem good enough to be A-.
A- maybe, but Toxi only works well in rain. Without it it's counters (almost any decently powered Special move for bulk up sets) or burn will drain it's HP, so it needs additional support. Even in rain, it needs decent amounts of support to get rid of things that ruin it's chances, but to be fair most of this is removal of faster psychics and weather inducers/abusers, which most teams prefer doing anyway.And if the conditions are right with the help of some stallers and perhaps clerics, it becomes a truly powerful and hard to stop sweeper.
nominating ludicolo for d-rank. now i'm aware that filling this list with niche pokemon is not our top priority, but i've been pleasantly surprised by this guy's performance in ou. i've been running it on a ho team with custap skarmory, and with hazards down it finds many opportunities to clean up a weakened team. i'm talking of course about the sweeper set - timid @ life orb w/ rain dance/hydro pump/ice beam/giga drain. the great thing about this set is at least 30% of the time you don't even need to setup as the opponent has bought rain for you, and you can screw over other weather teams by changing the weather. the reason ludicolo belongs in d-rank is because kingdra mostly outclasses it due to higher sp. attack and speed; however, ludicolo gets to use stab giga drain, which negates lo recoil and makes it much harder for bulky waters to check you, and hence ludicolo actually does better vs. rain teams than kingdra. if you're gutsy enough to forego rain dance, you can even run focus blast to 2hko ferrothorn. not only does ludicolo perform excellently as a check to offensive rain teams - it can also sweep most sand teams once celebi has been weakened into 2hko range (after stealth rock + 1 layer of spikes on average). despite being nu, it's up there with kabutops in terms of viability in my opinion. it does have a number of notable flaws, but there is most certainly a niche for it in the metagame if it is given the right support.
Actually, the Keldeo checks that are supposedly "hard countered" by Tyranitar have ways to get around it. Lati@s can run Hidden Power Fighting and 2HKO standard CBTar (+1 252 SpA Life Orb LatiAs Hidden Power Fighting vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in sand: 354-421 (91.7 - 109.06%) -- 50% chance to OHKO). Celebi can simply use Baton Pass. While this is very risky, Jellicent can stay in on Tyranitar and use Will-O-Wisp, then attempt to Recover the next turn. You have to be pretty damn healthy to pull this off though.
252+ Atk Choice Band Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Jellicent: 206-246 (51.11 - 61.04%)
252+ Atk Choice Band burned Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Jellicent: 103-123 (25.55 - 30.52%)
Meanwhile, Amoonguss and Tentacruel can either status Tyranitar as it comes in or simply switch out.
Also, I don't have any objections to Ludicolo going to D-rank. Manual Swift Swim can be pretty scary for offensive teams.
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