OU Simple Questions, Simple Answers (Read the OP First!)

[Gary]

That's not true.
Dual weather teams in Ubers are often build around the weather starters and not only around their abilities, because they are powerhouses on their own.
If Toed & Tales were actually useful for more than just drizzle and drought, they would probably fit on the same team as well.

Of course, but it's still not the BEST idea to have multiple auto weather starters on an Ubers team, because it can sometimes limit what Pokemon you can reliably fit on your team. Drought and Drizzle are so influential to team building, that putting Groudon on a team that already has Kyogre and Manaphy could potentially ruin your own strategy. Besides, this should have been asked on the Uber forum, not the OU forum.

 

[sly101s]

If a pokemon has the Mold Breaker ability, does said ability allow it to pierce Focus Sash the same way it allows it to nullify the Sturdy ability? In other words, If a +1 Haxorus hits a full health Focus Sashed Breloom with outrage, will you get the OHKO?

 

[Ruppy]

If a pokemon has the Mold Breaker ability, does said ability allow it to pierce Focus Sash the same way it allows it to nullify the Sturdy ability? In other words, If a +1 Haxorus hits a full health Focus Sashed Breloom with outrage, will you get the OHKO?

No, because Mold Breaker only works on abilities, such as Sturdy, and has no effect on items. So you would still activate the Focus Sash and the Pokemon holding it (the Breloom in your example) will still live with 1 HP if it would've otherwise been OHKO'd.

 

[Torterragatr]

What happened to the Stealth Rock-less ladder? I never got to try it. :(

 

[luxun2]

I have read the page on landorus-t but it wasn't particularly helpful. How do you guys check or counter landorus t?

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Skarmory completely walls landorus-t and can wear it down with brave bird/phaze it with whirlwind, bronzong can also wall it and kill it with hp ice. If landorus-t lacks hp ice then gliscor is capable of walling it as well and stall it with toxic. Sub disable gengar is also annoying because its immune to quake, doenst care about u-turn and hp ice and can disable stone edge while hitting you hard with shadow ball. Hippowdon can tank hits easily and recover its health with slack off but needs ice fang in order to damage it. Mamoswine and weavile can revenge kill it with ice shard. Faster pokemons with water and ice moves can revenge kill it as well such as keldeo, thundurus-t, kyurem-black and hp ice alakazam.

 

[Gary]

I have read the page on landorus-t but it wasn't particularly helpful. How do you guys check or counter landorus t?

Landorus-T is rather easy to check because of its somewhat lackluster speed. Mamoswine is the best check to it because it can KO it with Icicle Crash. Scarf and Specs Politoed can destroy it with a rain boosted Scald or Hydro Pump. Keldeo can KO it with Hydro Pump or Icy Wind. Kyurem-B can check it with Ice Beam. Basically, anything that has access to an Ice attack or a Water-type move can handle Landorus-T quite well. Countering Landorus-T can be a bit harder because of its high attack stat, but most Landorus-T tend to be the Bulky Pivot sets, which don't invest much in Attack. Skarmory is the #1 counter to pretty much any variant of Landorus-T because it can tank all of its moves and setup on it. Gliscor is a shaky counter, because sometimes Landorus-T has HP Ice. Physically defensive Hippowdon is also a very good counter because takes virtually nothing from EQ and resists Stone Edge. Rotom-W wont like taking a Stone Edge or a Superpower, but it can switch into EQ and burn it with Will-O-Wisp. There are a few more counters and checks to Landorus-T, but I think this is enough.

EDIT: Ninjad.

 

[sly101s]

Probably a stupid question, but how do mons like Forretress and Tyranitar, for example, remain in the OU tier and not Uber.

The reason I ask is that I was told that the tiering system is based on usage, primarily. And that the cutoff was something like 3.42% (can't remember exactly). But if say X is NU, but climbs to 4% usage in RU, then X gets shifted to RU. So back to Forrettress and TTar which are at 12% and 8% usage in ubers respectively. Which rule (or exception) keeps them in OU?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Probably a stupid question, but how do mons like Forretress and Tyranitar, for example, remain in the OU tier and not Uber.

The reason I ask is that I was told that the tiering system is based on usage, primarily. And that the cutoff was something like 3.42% (can't remember exactly). But if say X is NU, but climbs to 4% usage in RU, then X gets shifted to RU. So back to Forrettress and TTar which are at 12% and 8% usage in ubers respectively. Which rule (or exception) keeps them in OU?

Ubers is a banlist first, a tier second. It is similar to how in the past people use to play BL as a tier in itself above UU, what went on in BL has no bearing on UU, its the same relationship for Ubers and OU. For official policy purposes, it is 'just' a banlist that people happen to like playing on.

 

[TyranitarAbuser]

Now that Landorus-I has been banned, what would be a good replacement for its Sheer Force set?

 

[Subject 18]

What happened to the Stealth Rock-less ladder? I never got to try it. :(

The stealth rock-less ladder going up was a miscommunication between a few people. It was meant to go up after the Keldeo Suspect test not before. It should still be going up after Keldeo is tested.

 

[asbdsp]

Well I tried asking this in the metagames forum SQSA, but maybe more people will know the answer here.

Where can I find out about the history of OU? By that I mean not just bans from this gen, but the history of how it developed as a concept way back in the day.

 

[BurningMan]

Well I tried asking this in the metagames forum SQSA, but maybe more people will know the answer here.

Where can I find out about the history of OU? By that I mean not just bans from this gen, but the history of how it developed as a concept way back in the day.

Well you can search through the forums, but there isn't really a History of OU you should find quite a lot stuff about Gen 3 and 4, but before that competetive pokemon was so niche that it should be hard finding much about it in terms of History. During Gen 1 and 2 competetive Pokemon was mainly played with IRC bots, wich means it is text only and that doesn't really attracted a big userbase i don't know if there are still any members on Smogon that played during that day (especially since Smogon was founded after that days IIRC), but maybe you can find someone that can tell you something.
Gen 3 gave us Net Battle wich was the first real Pokemon simulator with Sprites and a decent Team Builder (there might be others at that time, but i only ever played Net Battle and never heard of another one) which attracted a lot more people and competetive Pokemon started to become more popular. Since you asked about OU in specific since the simulators didn't had any way to collect usage statistics back then the tiering was decided by a single person the BL tiers where also a lot bigger back than and BL actually was a real tier and not just a Ban List there also was no RU or NU since UU was rock bottom.
Gen 4 gave us Shoddy Battle wich later got to be Smogons first official Simulator and we started to base our tiers out of usage statistics and not just the opinion of a few select persons and the suspect system was introduced to determine possible Ubers and also added the NU tier wich despite being rather popular at the end of Gen 4 never was a official meta game like OU, Ubers and UU (and LC) oh and the BL tier was cut down to just be a Ban List rather than its own tier in the beginning of Gen 4 there was also a new simulator developed from Cathy just for Smogon however it never really took off in popularity especially since Pokeon Online had Gen 5 support faster.

When BW1 came around Smogon switched to PO as its official simulator for quite a while, the suspect test was a little different back then since every voter who qualified was allowed to put suspects to vote this was effective in the very early stages since it allowed us to ban a lot of broken Pokemon like Shaymin-S, Deoxys-A/N, Darkrai and Manaphy very fast wich were OU in the very begining of BW, but later on stuff like Latios, Dragonite, Volacrona and even Reuniclus were suspected and after round 5 of suspect testing we switched to the council system we currently have.
That was about when BW2 came out and we switched to Pkemon Showdown! as our official simulator and thats pretty much everything up until now that i know of.

However a lot of the things that happend before my registration date are just things i heard of. I am pretty sure there isn't too much wrong, but if there is feel free to correct me. I can't really give you a list of major tiershifts through the Generations if thats what you are looking for and i doubt that there is someone who remembers everything, but with a little searching through the forums you might find soemthing of interest.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

For gen 1-2, the oldest surviving, and still somewhat useful, competitive battle site with forums is azure heights, the arguably predecessor to Smogon.

Before this is kind of gets foggy, and for good reason, before 1999 forums didn't really exist in the modern sense, forums being an evolution between newsgroup sites and irc channels, so information before this time is almost entirely lost to the sands of time.

One nitpick on what Burning Man said, the workings of a Pokemon simulation where already in works before gen 3, an online simulator called Porygon's Big Show existed way back in 2000, however it was mainly just an extension of the IRC bot. There are predecessors to Netbattle that also seemed to exist before it was coded, with similar names.

 

[asbdsp]

Thanks for the very thorough responses. :)

I would think though that something like a history of the community and tiering (which after all is Smogon's main claim to fame), would be something that ought to be compiled and stickied or something for posterity. Other than blind searches of the forum, I wouldn't even know where to start to find such information.

Considering the size and influence of competitive pokemon battling, mostly under some set of Smogon's rulesets, it certainly wouldn't be pretentious to do such a thing.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

The modern ideas of definitions of what a tier is only really came to being in gen 4, before that banlists were fairly arbitrary or obvious, and UU wasn't an official tier. If you want more information about this period, I suggest you read through the Policy Archive there is also a more hidden version of this in the archives. And of course, Stark Mountain stages have the direct discussion on gen 4 teiring.

If you want to investigate this further, I suggest you go to our Ruins of Alph where you can get some anecdotal info on earlier tiering decisions, I can not find any primary source info on teiring <4 gen, aparently some things in the past where highly contested, like Celebi's banning in gen 2, NYC-event moves, not to mention Legendary Hidden Powers weren't un-banned until quite recently in the grand scheme of history.

 

[Soul Fly]

Now that Landorus-I has been banned, what would be a good replacement for its Sheer Force set?

Well there IS a reason it was found unique and overpowered. There really isn't anything that can fully replace it. If you are looking for an effective Sheer Force abuser the closest you can find is Nidoking who shares the same ground typing and movepool options, but at best is a pale shadow of Landorus sadly due to it's lacklusture speed and SpA which is really mediocre by OU standards.
If you're looking for a decent Special attacker, You can utilise Latios who somewhat fills the void, or you can go for a Volcarona, who may at first glance sound Quite ineffective but fills in the slot rather reliably thanks to quiver dance and decent coverage.

 

[MagikaripIsOP]

I have specs politoed, scarf keldeo, flying gem scizor, sub kyurem black (dragon claw,boltbeam) explosion lead mew and can't figure out who to put as my last pokemon. Can you guys help me?

 

[ShootingStarmie]

When I have 5 Pokemon, I usually go through the OU list, and see what I'm most weak too, and add a counter or check to the biggest threats. Quickly going over your team and the OU list I'm seeing a weakness to Thundurus-T. It sets up on Scizor, and KOs Poli, Keldeo, and Kyurem-B (with Focus Blast). I suggest going through out the list, and adding checks to the biggest threats, but for now I'd add LO Latias for the Thundurus-T weakness

GL

 

[Young Gun]

Could I get a list of some sweepers that would benefit from the removal of steels, bulky waters, Gliscor, and Hippowdon??

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Could I get a list of some sweepers that would benefit from the removal of steels, bulky waters, Gliscor, and Hippowdon??

-Swords Dance Scizor
-Dragons: Dragonite, Salamence, Haxorus, Kyurem-B and Garchomp
-Offensive Gliscor and Landorus-T
-Lucario
-Terrakion
-Toxicroak
-Cloyster (mainly bulky waters)
-Infernape (not wall breaking versions!)
-Mamoswine and Tyranitar (if you can really them 'sweepers')
-Gyarados (to an extent)

basically: the physical Pokemon of OU

May I ask what this magical team support you have is?

 

[Young Gun]

-Swords Dance Scizor
-Dragons: Dragonite, Salamence, Haxorus, Kyurem-B and Garchomp
-Offensive Gliscor and Landorus-T
-Lucario
-Terrakion
-Toxicroak
-Cloyster (mainly bulky waters)
-Infernape (not wall breaking versions!)
-Mamoswine and Tyranitar (if you can really them 'sweepers')
-Gyarados (to an extent)

basically: the physical Pokemon of OU

May I ask what this magical team support you have is?

I was wanting to run Mienshao on a team, I kinda just threw those out there before looking in-depth at calcs and stuff, so Idk if he can even remove half of those lol.

 

[PDC]

Using Mienshao + a Pursuiter is a very wise option, as it allows you to Pursuit incoming Ghosts that may want to take a HJK. U-Turn is a great move to use, and Mienshao makes great use of it. Using Mienshao + Tyranitar + Terrakion to break down each others counters goes a long way.

 

[sly101s]

How do you guys tend to deal with a lead breloom?

The specific set I'm thinking of is:

Breloom @ Focus Sash
Trait: Technician
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Spore
- Bullet Seed
- Mach Punch
- Focus Punch

If you happen to match up with a faster Taunt user, things are great.

But barring that...the above set is a major pain. I run it because it tends to work so well. Spore is almost a guaranteed OHKO in the current meta. And focus punch severely dents the switch, even when it's resisted. Add bullet seed when the opponent attacks the first time to break the sash, use mach punch before the finishing attack, and Breloom can very nearly take out 2 mons.

However, thinking about it, I'd have trouble dealing with it myself.

What do you tend to do?

 

[PDC]

That set is very annoying, I hate facing those things. But usually what I try to do is use it's lack of immediate power to my advantage and switch around a bit. if you have Celebi then you won't have too many problems with it. Make sure your only counter isn't slept, because that means you'll have a harder time beating it in the end. Latios with Sleep Talk is also a great check, as usually they don't even recognize it in the first place. Try to use things with Sleep Talk like Latios, Landorus-T and Celebi in order to beat it.