Kangaskhanite Tiering Discussion [+Demographics Poll Added to OP]

[PenguinKnight]

You missed the point, reread the last couple pages.

Yes yes, I get it, people are trying to ban it for the wrong reasons, yada yada. I completely agree with whatever you've posted previously, my point was that comparing it to DPP Gyarados is just plain wrong. I have played both gen 4 and gen 6 OU, and really, there is no comparison.

 

[silfan]

Khan will be banned, not because of centralization, (thats not why we ban mons) but because of these reasons:

A.) Its speed tier is 100, severely limiting what would counter outside of priority, meaning that what would counter it has to faster than it, requiring a scarf or priority to survive.
B.) The above, combined with it's bulk and sheer power means that a lot of frail fast mons that out speed it, such as Keldeo, can't 0HKO it thanks to it's bulk, and are destroyed when it hits back. Its power and bulk, combined with it's speed make to too much to be revenged easily, or even just taken down.
C.) To revenge it, you mush sacrifice something to do damage, then finish it off with priority, or switch in one of it's counters, Confagrious, dusclops, or whatever, because it will kill them with ease if the don't switch in safely. To remove it from the game literally requires you to sacrifice something. Even with the rocky helmet sets (which have been around forever, seriously, do some research) you still have to sacrifce a mon to kill it, with something ferrothorn, dying so khan can take a bunch of damage from hitting thorn, then being finished by priority.
D.) For example, one can pack a threat that is checked by the same things a M-Khan, and once say, Rocky helmet G-Chomp is dead along with Khan, that threat can sweep and win.

M-Banette's prankster destiny bond is awesome, cause i can pick and choose a mon to kill. Just gonna say it, even if this is the Khan thread.

And you a have a khan whos attacks BOUNCE off the def ghost, because of Khans terrible attack outside of Mega form. Normal Khan sucks, its attacks can't break ghost type walls like Dusclops, sableye and confagrious. Boing. Now your burned.

And that is not over centralization?
Over centralization means one pokemon force player to be constrained to very few choices in team building.
Your argument basically sums up that there is very few pokemon that can check Mega Kangaskhan and some of them requires you to sacrifice a pokemon and some of the rest are just sub-optimal choice if Mega Kangaskhan does not exist => Very few reliable counter/check
I definitely think this is called centralization, but please enlighten me if I'm wrong.

 

[LordRandomness]

The only Pokémon who would run Flame Body are all OHKOed by an unboosted Return, which means you're sac'ing a mon to inconvenience Mega Kangaskhan.

If the Flame Body user is faster than Mega Kanga it can threaten a dangerous attack. And even if it is not, it can simply switch out again to something like Rocky Helmet Ferrothorn which will take a pittance from unboosted Return and leave Mega Kanga severely damaged and burned. (Also I'm not gonna pretend that Rocky Helmet Volcarona is a good idea, but it sounds completely hilarious)

Problem with Destiny Bond is that it pressures Mega Kangaskhan to swap out; it doesn't actually stop Mega Kangaskhan, per se. It's off the field, yeah, but it can come right back and be its usual wrecking ball self whenever it feels like.

You're forcing it out without taking any damage yourself though (assuming we're going with Gengar and you switched it into a Normal/Fighting/Ground attack) which means you get free damage on the opposition's team. If you keep this up enough you can eke out an advantage against them until their whole team is at a disadvantage. Plus, they'll need to bring in Mega Kanga again which tends to result in it tanking an attack for something or coming in on revenge: In the former case you're wearing it down, in the latter you've KOed something.

Phazing's great, but it's the same problem as with Destiny Bond. Sooner or later, you have to tackle it head-on, which very rarely works out well for you.

Only the second point applies to this one, but they do still need to bring MK back in and that gives you an opportunity to hurt it.

This is really the best (and, IMO, the only viable) way of taking out Mega Kangaskhan. Anything faster that can take a +2 Sucker Punch and OHKO, or anything slower that isn't OHKOed by +2 Return and can OHKO in return.

There is also the option of something that can't take a sucker punch but can predict one and outspeed with another priority move (or Extremespeed)

 

[Ranevski]

Dealing with Dragon Dance Gyarados was always possible, and never required any shitty gimmicks that were otherwise useless. Why? Gyarados had no priority. Gyarados had a 4x weakness to electric moves.

??? DPP Gyarados didn't need priority because it consistently had a dance or two and I don't know why you even think this matters. My post was articulating that DPP Gyarados was a very similar beast to MegaKangaskhan and it was never banned. The way you beat both of them is by making an all-round strong team that is good against the majority of OU and predicting well against them during the match. If we didn't ban DPP Gyarados why should we ban Megakangaskhan?

In before more replies about it having no counters and similar meaningless drivel

 

[Srn]

Imo people shouldn't be writing off cofagrigus so quickly. Sure, its ridiculously niche, but it's cool in a way too, it has a purpose outside of completely countering the most physically threatening attacker in the tier.
Switch in on talonflame, get rid of gale wings
Switch in on mega pinsir, get rid of aerilate
Switch in on mega lucario, get rid of adaptibility
Switch in on mega gyrados, get rid of mold breaker, making rotom-w a safe switch in.
The list goes on.
Basically, ANY PHYSICAL ATTACKER THAT USES CONTACT MOVES AND RELIES ON ITS ABILITY TO SWEEP/WALLBREAK IS CRIPPLED BY COFAGRIGUS.
that's sorta cool

 

[LordRandomness]

Infernape is mediocre and Noivern hasn't ever done any significant damage to any of my teams either. Gengar can switch in to get Sucker Punched to death as soon as it tries to attack? Also flame body aside, Volcarona is so frail on the physical side, switching it in on Mega-Kang seems like a bad idea in theory.

Gengar can Destiny Bond guaranteeing that it will one-for-one with your opponent's Mega slot, which keeps it completely safe from Sucker Punching unless your opponent wants to take that trade, at which point your team is allowed a mega and theirs is not. (Sucker Punch won't hit it if it Bonds, and if it Sucker Punches the turn after Bond it'll hit before Gengar acts and therefore die with it. Ditto if it just Crunches you after Bond). Gengar also threatens with Focus Blast, meaning Kanga can't just tank an attack and Crunch back. Volc can be switched into PuP which it resists, meaning despite frailty it still won't take much damage from an overall 35BP hit. I wasn't aware Infernape was mediocre now, but Noivern's usage stats seem to indicate SOMEone is doing alright with it.

EDIT: Also I know I'm going to get laughed out for even SUGGESTING this, but Chilan Berry is technically a thing. I don't REALLY think it's a good idea but it's amusing to think about.

 

[farranpoison]

Imo people shouldn't be writing off cofagrigus so quickly. Sure, its ridiculously niche, but it's cool in a way too, it has a purpose outside of completely countering the most physically threatening attacker in the tier.
Switch in on talonflame, get rid of gale wings
Switch in on mega pinsir, get rid of aerilate
Switch in on mega lucario, get rid of adaptibility
Switch in on mega gyrados, get rid of mold breaker, making rotom-w a safe switch in.
The list goes on.
Basically, ANY PHYSICAL ATTACKER THAT USES CONTACT MOVES AND RELIES ON ITS ABILITY TO SWEEP/WALLBREAK IS CRIPPLED BY COFAGRIGUS.
that's sorta cool

Cofagrigus is cool.

Problem is, it has no reliable recovery. So all that tanking powerful hits will kill it in no time flat. The opponent will hit it, see that its ability is gone, and switch out.

 

[Zetta_SlowSA]

I play almost exclusively pokebank, and Mega Khan is still an absolute destroyer. First off, None of those things actually counter, as a counter is defined as a switch in that can survive hits and deliver heavy damage/cripple said pokemon. All three of those get wrecked by +2 crunch, as more people are carrying non-priority sets. Lucario is a great CHECK, but can't switch in on EQ or PuP

You're 100% correct. I've seen Sucker Punch way more often than Crunch however, but you made some great points. Any switch-ins pretty much die, Cofagrigus being the one central counter that will almost always work on switch in, also Skill Swap/Trace Users can lay her out. The ban is going to happen, and I don't doubt that about 50% of the mega-stones will be banned within next month, maybe we can see some changes when Pokebank is out and everyone is playing it.

 

[Prosecutor Godot]

Gengar can Destiny Bond guaranteeing that it will one-for-one with your opponent's Mega slot, which keeps it completely safe from Sucker Punching unless your opponent wants to take that trade, at which point your team is allowed a mega and theirs is not. (Sucker Punch won't hit it if it Bonds, and if it Sucker Punches the turn after Bond it'll hit before Gengar acts and therefore die with it). Volc can be switched into PuP which it resists, meaning despite frailty it still won't take much damage from an overall 35BP hit. I wasn't aware Infernape was mediocre now, but Noivern's usage stats seem to indicate SOMEone is doing alright with it.

..That goes back to "having to run niche sets to deal with Mega-Kang since it's nearly impossible for most of the metagame to take head on" argument. What other reasons would someone want to run Destiny Bond on a Gengar?

 

[SuperMeep]

And that is not over centralization?
Over centralization means one pokemon force player to be constrained to very few choices in team building.
Your argument basically sums up that there is very few pokemon that can check Mega Kangaskhan and some of them requires you to sacrifice a pokemon and some of the rest are just sub-optimal choice if Mega Kangaskhan does not exist => Very few reliable counter/check
I definitely think this is called centralization, but please enlighten me if I'm wrong.

I, myself think thats not centralization, because priority fighting types are everywhere already, and the point was with a normal team, or even a anti-khan one, if khan gets a safe switch in, powers up, and takes some damage, you literally have to sacrifice a mon to get your finisher in, otherwise your checks/ counters die on the switch in. Its bulk prevents you from outright priority Koing it, its attack prevents you from switching in something without it dying that can procede to kill it, and it's speed prevents a plethora of checks from being used, as they are forced to run scarf to outspeed it, and therefore, thanks to it's bulk, lacking the power to 0HKO it without something sacrificing it to do damage to it previously, rocky helmet or flame body or not. It allows you guarentee a kill of the counter mon, say, ferrothron (regardless of rocky helmet) to sacrifice itself so say, conkledurr can revenge Khan, otherwise Khan survives, and OHKOs back. Even if you do bring it down, if the opponent is packing something that has the same counter as Khan (which just killed itself to ensure khans death) can now sweep with impunity.

 

[DaiGuren]

I think this thread needs some cleaning up :o

On topic,

Another reason on why MegaKhan (and hopefully MegaLuke as well) needs to be away from OU is because the amount of gap they have against other megas in terms of power is huuuuge, leading to an over-centralization of the mega spot in every team. This is something that is only experienced this gen, so it's not easy to swallow. However, if MegaLuke and MegaKhan continues to stay in OU, they will most likely monopolize the mega spot in every team, which will reduce diversity and overall competitiveness, imo.

 

[LordRandomness]

..That goes back to "having to run niche sets to deal with Mega-Kang since it's nearly impossible for most of the metagame to take head on" argument. What other reasons would someone want to run Destiny Bond on a Gengar?

Because it's fast and prone to being injured? It's listed in the B/W "Other Options" paragraph several times in Gengar's analysis, and it's an entirely reasonable choice against anything using Sucker Punch (traditionally a huge threat to Gengar) because it foils it in the same way I mentioned above just as well against other Pokemon. Additionally it can be used to take down other dire threats (doubly so if it's unexpected) or to pseudo-scout or potentially PP stall or play mind games. I don't seem to remember Gengar having massively bad 4MSS either, meaning it's not eliminating essential coverage or anything. It's not like it's just there for Kanga.

EDIT: Plus if your Gengar is Sashed, it can give it something useful to do once it's on 1HP and has taken down a target (obviously not Mega Kanga, although the Destiny Bond trick assumes Gengar will be OHKOed regardless of HP so it's fine to use even if something else has triggered your Sash). And yeah it can catch things intending to force Gengar out by surprise, acting as a lure to potentially draw out and kill key opposing Pokemon (Like Mega Kangaskhan!)

 

[SuperMeep]

You're 100% correct. I've seen Sucker Punch way more often than Crunch however, but you made some great points. Any switch-ins pretty much die, Cofagrigus being the one central counter that will almost always work on switch in, also Skill Swap/Trace Users can lay her out. The ban is going to happen, and I don't doubt that about 50% of the mega-stones will be banned within next month, maybe we can see some changes when Pokebank is out and everyone is playing it.

What?! I can only think of 4 mega in total that would be in question and they are:
Why these mons should (or shouldn't) be banned.
M-Gar: Thats settled
M-Khan: I listed it already, BANNED. READ MY POSTS.
M-Luc: has solid, non niche counters in existence, and frail enough and slow enough to be killed back, or just not get a kill, not banned.
M-Banette: Iffy, but priority destiny bond is why wynaught and wobbuffet were banned for a while, and Banette has a 165 base attack too.

 

[MagicMissingno]

Juuuuuust for fun let's see how Kang does against something with the most possible bulk (base 255 HP and base 255 defense)

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 96-114 (13.4 - 15.9%) -- possible 7HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 190-225 (26.6 - 31.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 190-225 (26.6 - 31.5%) -- 45.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

Yeah, serious attacking power.

 

[SuperMeep]

Juuuuuust for fun let's see how Kang does against something with the most possible bulk (base 255 HP and base 255 defense)

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 96-114 (13.4 - 15.9%) -- possible 7HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 190-225 (26.6 - 31.5%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 190-225 (26.6 - 31.5%) -- 45.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

Yeah, serious attacking power.

Out of curiosity, is that thing a steel type?

 

[PenguinKnight]

??? DPP Gyarados didn't need priority because it consistently had a dance or two and I don't know why you even think this matters. My post was articulating that DPP Gyarados was a very similar beast to MegaKangaskhan and it was never banned. The way you beat both of them is by making an all-round strong team that is good against the majority of OU and predicting well against them during the match. If we didn't ban DPP Gyarados why should we ban Megakangaskhan?

In before more replies about it having no counters and similar meaningless drivel

How exactly are you supposed to run "an all-round strong team that is good against the majority of OU" when you have to run crap like Rocky Helmet Garchomp and use Cofagrigus/Destiny bond banette to deal with it? As plenty of others have said, you need to use things that are ridiculously niche to take Khan out, and even then it's often a one-for-one trade, meaning you have to sacrifice at least 1 poke to take it out. You seem to be the only one around here that thinks you don't have to do niche things to take Khan out. You may be especially enlightened, in which case please tell us how.

As for "predicting well", sure. That's obviously a key skill to have in competitive Pokemon. However, at the end of the day "predicting" is just a word for "educated guessing", which is still a guess. A smart player will still predict your prediction, and change plans accordingly.

 

[RockStarFish]

If the Flame Body user is faster than Mega Kanga it can threaten a dangerous attack. And even if it is not, it can simply switch out again to something like Rocky Helmet Ferrothorn which will take a pittance from unboosted Return and leave Mega Kanga severely damaged and burned. (Also I'm not gonna pretend that Rocky Helmet Volcarona is a good idea, but it sounds completely hilarious)

The only Flame Body user faster than Mega Kangaskhan, without using a Choice Scarf, is Rapidash.

There is also the option of something that can't take a sucker punch but can predict one and outspeed with another priority move (or Extremespeed)

Which limits your choices to Talonflame (struggles to 2HKO without LO/CB), Mega Absol (Sucker Punch struggles to 2HKO), Ambipom (Fake Out does 1/3), or Infernape (which needs a CB Iron Fist Mach Punch to threaten).

As for ExtremeSpeed, your options are Dragonite (CB ExtremeSpeed fails to 2HKO), Arcanine (CB ExtremeSpeed fails to 2HKO), Lucario (ExtremeSpeed fails to 3HKO), and Togekiss (good luck with that).

 

[Goodbar]

??? DPP Gyarados didn't need priority because it consistently had a dance or two and I don't know why you even think this matters. My post was articulating that DPP Gyarados was a very similar beast to MegaKangaskhan and it was never banned. The way you beat both of them is by making an all-round strong team that is good against the majority of OU and predicting well against them during the match. If we didn't ban DPP Gyarados why should we ban Megakangaskhan?

In before more replies about it having no counters and similar meaningless drivel

How exactly is DPP Gyarados comparable to Mega Kanga? It relied way more heavily on having to set up and had more than one hard counter to it (which were not niche Pokemon like Cofagrius). I don't see how that is similar at all - being ready to kick ass right away is a really important quality that helps break Mega Kanga in my opinion.

 

[farranpoison]

What?! I can only think of 4 mega in total that would be in question and they are:
Why these mons should (or shouldn't) be banned.
M-Gar: Thats settled
M-Khan: I listed it already, BANNED. READ MY POSTS.
M-Luc: has solid, non niche counters in existence, and frail enough and slow enough to be killed back, or just not get a kill, not banned.
M-Banette: Iffy, but priority destiny bond is why wynaught and wobbuffet were banned for a while, and Banette has a 165 base attack too.

Luke Skywalker, maybe. But Mega Doll? Please. That thing has one of the worst 4MSS in history. It is super frail, and priority DB is a waste of a Mega Slot. Not horrible, but nowhere near in need of a ban.

 

[Chaoswalker]

I don't get the argument that the ways you stop Megakahn are not niche. Neither was the way you stop Blaziken. Plenty of things had decently strong priority or resist the fire/fighting combo. It also had to set up to do its job right. Really frail with a manageable 120 attack.

 

[MagicMissingno]

Out of curiosity, is that thing a steel type?

It's a normal type. I just ran custom and put the maximum stats in. Here's how it's EQ would deal with a Steel type.

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 126-150 (36.9 - 43.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 249-294 (73 - 86.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Yeah, a steel would fare worse unless it had a way to damper EQ. Now a neutral EQ!

252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 63-75 (18.4 - 21.9%) -- possible 5HKO
+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def (custom): 124-147 (36.3 - 43.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Remember this is base 255 HP and base 255 defense.

 

[LordRandomness]

The only Flame Body user faster than Mega Kangaskhan, without using a Choice Scarf, is Rapidash.

Volc speed ties and threatens Quiver Dance on a Sucker Punch, meaning keeping Megakang in is a risky proposition. Additionally, double-switching is completely reasonable. (Also technically Talonflame is a Flame Body user, but lol)

Which limits your choices to Talonflame (struggles to 2HKO without LO/CB), Mega Absol (Sucker Punch struggles to 2HKO), Ambipom (Fake Out does 1/3), or Infernape (which needs a CB Iron Fist Mach Punch to threaten).

As for ExtremeSpeed, your options are Dragonite (CB ExtremeSpeed fails to 2HKO), Arcanine (CB ExtremeSpeed fails to 2HKO), Lucario (ExtremeSpeed fails to 3HKO), and Togekiss (good luck with that).

You don't need to be able to actually KO with the outspeeding priority: If you go before Mega Kanga then the Sucker Punch fails, meaning you effectively dealt free damage. If Mega Kanga doesn't use Sucker Punch, you can use a regular move to outspeed and KO. The main point of the outspeeding priority isn't to KO Kanga directly, it's to make it so you have a way to nullify Sucker Punch at will that still chips away at it (Additionally several Mach Punch users DO threaten it with priority anyway). Although I'll admit to being surprised at how difficult it is to Mach Punch it dead, there are some additional Scarf options (Scarf Toxicroak, lol)

 

[Antibiotic]

I think you run into the main problem with a pokemon when just about every check to the pokemon can be defeated by a slightly different, yet not gimmicky, moveset with said pokemon. Generally, you have to get predict perfectly (which honestly just comes down to luck when you can't know for sure what the thing is packing) to limit the KO's this thing gets to just 1. That's assuming things go well, because if you misplay against this thing, or your "check" can't actually check it, then Kanga is going to go on a rampage against your team. As long as the Kanga player isn't stupid, he is basically guaranteed anywhere from 1 kill at the worst, up to a sweep.

However, the checks to him are pretty scarce, and so when every team becomes pigeon-holed into running one of these pokemon, and making sure they stay healthy for him, then you start restricting the metagame. Many pokemon are as capable of sweeping as Kanga is, but I can't think of any that are as likely to do so or to do as much damage as Kanga will. I personally believe that forced restrictions to the metagame, like what you have to do to make sure Kanga can be checked, limits diversity and becomes unhealthy for the meta.

 

[Ranevski]

How exactly are you supposed to run "an all-round strong team that is good against the majority of OU" when you have to run crap like Rocky Helmet Garchomp and use Cofagrigus/Destiny bond banette to deal with it?

A smart player will still predict your prediction, and change plans accordingly.

I already answered this in my original post: you don't need to run stuff like Cofagrigus, your team isn't meant to have a counter for every pokemon in the game. Also predicting doesn't work like that, you speak as if the MegaKangaskhan pilot always gets it right and you always get it wrong. I gave two examples in my earlier post of common scenarios where you have a chance to play around MegaKangaskhan.

How exactly is DPP Gyarados comparable to Mega Kanga? It relied way more heavily on having to set up and had more than one hard counter to it (which were not niche Pokemon like Cofagrius). I don't see how that is similar at all - being ready to kick ass right away is a really important quality that helps break Mega Kanga in my opinion.

Not sure if serious? I already articulated that due to its bulk, typing, etc, it could come in on a number of pokemon that it's not scared of. It would often DD for free (much like PuP) and then sweep or Taunt and DD again. Even if they had a very solid check to your Gyarados you could do stuff like not DD and Return instead to hit the Scarf-Starmie switching in, crippling it. Then swap out and next time you come in you can sweep from there. Please list these hard counters that didn't exist.

 

[Plasma.EXE]

Been seeing posts about using Destiny Bond against Kangaskhan (or prankster Bannette Destiny Bond). I don't care how effective it is, it's not an ideal way to take it out (especially since you lose a pokemon too).

The fact it can easily set up on Gliscor or Hippowdon of all things with power-up punch and threaten them with a neutral hitting physical move like Return is pretty insane (also having Jirachi/Celebi like defense stats).