Other Stall

[Princess Bubblegum]

As long as you are testing out niche Genesect counters, why not AV Hitmontop? It spins, it checks physical attackers (most notably Tyranitar) and can take Genesects hits ok enough, although it will need wish support I imagine.

Also Infernape actually has access to Slack Off believe it or not, so it has recovery.

 

[Ajwf]

So, here's the general look of the team right now... Generally, it's being saved by zard's raw power, though Suicune is appearing to be a beast in a few tests. Solrock can use a sub, badly.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-73586232

Four hours later (And believe me, there was consistent use in this four hour span), I've now got the team working a bit.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-73638369
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-73642358

Having tested now suicune, stunkfisk (wut... Damn did this thing hit/miss), Rhyperior, tentacruel, aegislash and some other weird variants, I just ended up going simplistic... Yuttt was also talking about his team struggling with freaking Bisharp, so I added rapid spin support on my AV blastoise (who, I remember someone was telling me it could tank life orb draco meteors no issue and just about any special attack in the game).

But holy hell, when avoiding the staple VenuTran core, and trying to make this team unique as can be, it gets really, really difficult. However, as of right now there still is no better cleric than Chansey and no better pure physical wall than skarm so I had to keep those two. Still not completely happy, but I didn't want to test tyranitar when I would have literally three pokes relying on chansey.

alexwolf EDIT: Please don't double post.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

The best I can think to avoid the use of Skarmory is to use Rotom-W, as it also checks Mamoswine and Pinsir, while also checking a ton of other physical Pokemon thanks to Willow-wisp.

This might help out your team options a bit, but honestly, I don't think one can escape the Heatran / Pink-Blob / Grass-type necessary for a stall team in this meta, perhaps when and if Genesect gets the boost we may be able to diversify.

Edit: I really do think that Blissey is better on your team currently because of the sand, even the the previews you gave it seems to be a problem.

 

[alexwolf]

Perhaps Charizard X would make a decent member of a stall team after all, his defensive stats aren't awful, his resists are usable and his weaknesses are for the most part coverable, I'll playtest with him in a bit and try to gauge what he's capable of.

That said those replays kind of confirmed what I already suspected about AV tangrowth, it's not that good. Grass is a pretty bad defensive typing, and many pokemon carry something it's weak to. By slapping an AV on it you're covering one of its worst stats, but you're also denying it of spores, synthesis, leech seed, etc which are the best perks of running a grass type in the first place.

Also thick fat Azumarill is an... interesting choice. His defensive typing and stats are pretty good but does he have the movepool to back that up?

This is not true. Does AV Tangrowth suck on stall? Definitely. Its only means of team support for stall teams is Knock Off, making it a magnet for dangerous offensive MEvos that are very difficult to be contained, such as Mega Pinsir, Mega Char Y / X, and Mega Lucario. Now try using it on a bulky offense team and you will see the difference. AV Tangrowth checks a ton of Pokemon, providing a lot of error room for your team, and can form a great defensive core with just one more Pokemon (Rotom-W is a good one), leaving your team free to focus on offense, hazards, momentum, etc. Also, being an incredible pivot that can switch in and out at will is marvelous, as it can provide a lot of free switches to Pokemon that can actually make a difference with one free turn, unlike stall mons.

tl;dr AV Tangrowth sucks on stall but is great on bulky offense.

As for good answers to Mega Pinsir on stall, don't forget Zapdos people, which also has Defog.

 

[Ajwf]

Zap is always shaky given the 25% taken on switch in. Beside that, I don't mind Zap at all. Skarm, though, just has so many useful resistances (mainly dragon...)

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I have used Zapdos a bit and its ok, the main problem with it team building over Skarm is that you are forced to team with Mamoswine right in the next Pokemon which pretty much only can be countered by Skarm (didn't you just used it over this), Rotom-W (shared synergy much), and Slowbro. The problem with Slowbro is that you then have a huge Tyranitar weakness which you can't really solved, because by that point you already have 5 team slots filled + a ton of other threats to deal with.

 

[alexwolf]

Mega Scizor with max HP / max Def is a good counter to Mamoswine, which also has good synergy with Zapdos:

- 252+ Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Scizor: 133-157 (38.6 - 45.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Though i have no idea how good Mega Scizor is on stall. I guess Defog, U-turn, Bullet Punch, and Knock Off are always nice tools, but i have never used Mega Scizor on stall so i am not really sure.

 

[vonK]

I need to test it still, but Gourgeist has pretty decent synergy with resttalk snorlax. Also not going to lie the more I see of zard the more its been impressing me.

This is not true. Does AV Tangrowth suck on stall? Definitely. Its only means of team support for stall teams is Knock Off, making it a magnet for dangerous offensive MEvos that are very difficult to be contained, such as Mega Pinsir, Mega Char Y / X, and Mega Lucario. Now try using it on a bulky offense team and you will see the difference. AV Tangrowth checks a ton of Pokemon, providing a lot of error room for your team, and can form a great defensive core with just one more Pokemon (Rotom-W is a good one), leaving your team free to focus on offense, hazards, momentum, etc. Also, being an incredible pivot that can switch in and out at will is marvelous, as it can provide a lot of free switches to Pokemon that can actually make a difference with one free turn, unlike stall mons.

tl;dr AV Tangrowth sucks on stall but is great on bulky offense.

As for good answers to Mega Pinsir on stall, don't forget Zapdos people, which also has Defog.

I meant specifically for stall, sorry I should have specified.
Also mega-scizor is decent on stall, but I've found Skarmory to do pretty much the same job but better in between the available item slot and the ground immunity. Same with Mega-Zapdos, Skarmory is a better answer to Mega-Pinsir and isn't weak to Rock or Ice. If Zapdos still had Lightningrod it might be better, and I will admit heat wave/thunderbolt is pretty useful, but Skarmory is just generally better at the same role.
Also Princess Bubblegum could I see a few replays of your team? I may be playing it wrong but I've found Tentacruel to be somewhat disappointing overall, in addition I've had seriously problems with Subsplit gengar, who is one of the most common variations I've seen and isn't really threatened by anything except heatran, who is a shakey check at best.

 

[56k]

Try Aegislash as a staller. It still counters MegaPinsir and MegaHeracross and fairs much better than Skarmory vs. Lucario. Skarm can't take the Close Combats at all :( But NP Dark Pulse or SD Crunch can still wreck.

However, Aegis has the extra weakness to ground and dark and ghost, so pair him up with Mandibuzz :)

I also like how Gene can beat skarm with flamethrower OR tbolt, giving him 2 choices. But gene will only beat Aegis with flamethrower, giving you better switch potential.

Finally I want to plug physically defensive Cradily again. It's the one pokemon I know that hard counters Rotom-W AND Talonflame AND reliable recovery AND sets up SR

 

[AOPSUser]

Try Aegislash as a staller. It still counters MegaPinsir and MegaHeracross and fairs much better than Skarmory vs. Lucario. Skarm can't take the Close Combats at all :( But NP Dark Pulse or SD Crunch can still wreck.

However, Aegis has the extra weakness to ground and dark and ghost, so pair him up with Mandibuzz :)

I also like how Gene can beat skarm with flamethrower OR tbolt, giving him 2 choices. But gene will only beat Aegis with flamethrower, giving you better switch potential.

Finally I want to plug physically defensive Cradily again. It's the one pokemon I know that hard counters Rotom-W AND Talonflame AND reliable recovery AND sets up SR

Every Mega Pinsir runs Earthquake (every good one anyways), and Heracross often runs Earthquake too, even on Mega. Lucario is running Crunch more often than not on Swords Dance, while it runs Dark Pulse on Nasty Plot.

Aegislash doesn't have the movepool to stall. In addition, Stance Change basically ruins all its stall options, because it can't even attack stuff like Conkeldurr and Azumarill without being destroyed.

 

[FallenFoliage]

You could use Toxic on it.

Yes, probably the best answer. Although it is commonly paired with an out to Toxic; Florges and Chansey running Aromatherapy is common.
I would imagine keeping rocks up with Lando would present problems for Stall. Starting with the fact it has no reliable recovery aside from Leftovers; it can land a 2hko on max Def roughly 70% of the time when max Atk, so that's worth looking into.

I think Mandibuzz is undoubtedly a huge threat to Stall at the moment. Other big Stall counters you guys can think of?

 

[56k]

252 Atk Jolly MegaPinsir Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aegislash: 136-160 (41.97 - 49.38%)
252 Atk Adamant MegaPinsir Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aegislash: 148-176 (45.67 - 54.32%)

Such a defensive spread could give it a place on a stall team (say, using Toxic and a sandstream user), but sadly can only use leftovers. Headsmash KOs the pinsir but recoil does kill off Aegis so I guess it isn't a counter after all unless you use HP Rock lol. It's also hardly a guarantee that a Lucario has a dark move considering its 4mss. Aegis will also be countering everything that it normally counters when you run into other teams that have different megas and different mons.

I will back off the suggestion though because as you pointed out, AOPSUser, there are too many flaws. I'm just feeling the same frustation that others are: skarm is so often a liability, and many people are running more Magnezones now because Skarm is so crucial to counter dragons, pinsir, and other physical threats. I feel like my attempt to counter those threats is very often punished by players who don't counter the meta but instead go another layer and counter the counters.

Are there any other good physical walls out there that can replace Skarm's special position? Forretress, Registeel, MegaAggron, and Hippowdon are pretty exploitable but obviously no team is perfect and you have to swallow some kind of weakness. I've been using Skarm a lot, a lot, and being just neutral to fighting is just so punishable because once you use your skarm to do it's job, absorb a hit, then you can die to a HJK or close combat from many things. Also, something that has access to super strong fighting spam AND a fire or electric move means you're in a very bad guessing position. The immunity to fighting is why I suggested Aegis as a physical tank.

 

[Wobblebuns]

I think us stall players have all experienced the dreaded stall vs stall matches. This matchup in particular is where I struggle the most because it just takes a lot of patience controlling their hazards and your own as well and keeping your Pokemon at a safe range of health for them to still function effectively. My question is, how can you create a win condition of your own in an easier way? Obviously there are many types of stall but for now, I'm asking for full stall vs full stall situations.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

I think us stall players have all experienced the dreaded stall vs stall matches. This matchup in particular is where I struggle the most because it just takes a lot of patience controlling their hazards and your own as well and keeping your Pokemon at a safe range of health for them to still function effectively. My question is, how can you create a win condition of your own in an easier way? Obviously there are many types of stall but for now, I'm asking for full stall vs full stall situations.

Stall vs Stall is a very annoying game to play. I've seen CM Reuniclus being used on Stall with good results. It absorbs status and doesn't mind any hazards, while setting up easily against Stall in general. I use Stallbreaker Mandibuzz on my stall team personally. Taunt, Defog, Roost, almost impossible to take down for stall. It's a real pain for them. It's really a battle of whose Defogger goes down first, which can take forever or even be impossible because of continuous Wish Support, Roosting and so on. Sableye is also a huge problem for Stall teams that lack Heatran (and even then, Knock Off is a pain). I often just quit when I see stall because I know it won't go anywhere, though that's probably not the answer you're looking for :P

 

[Ajwf]

I think us stall players have all experienced the dreaded stall vs stall matches. This matchup in particular is where I struggle the most because it just takes a lot of patience controlling their hazards and your own as well and keeping your Pokemon at a safe range of health for them to still function effectively. My question is, how can you create a win condition of your own in an easier way? Obviously there are many types of stall but for now, I'm asking for full stall vs full stall situations.

Seeing in the OU room, I get asked to test a lot of stall teams, I actually have played a ton of these. Really, you'll start to notice patterns in the switching and the best thing to do is once you feel comfortable with the plays, start to move a step ahead of what your opponent is doing. I had a game where the opponent kept switching into skarm whenever I brought in Venusaur (I was bringing it in on a Bisharp), so I hard double switched into heatran, which gave me an easy force to put down rocks or even predict his own switch-in (Lanturn). All stall games seem to end up like this. Yuttt and I spent 410 turns trying to beat each other out (He got me around turn 300 by taking out my defog Mandi and then ended up switch stalling me over rocks and wearing my heatran down, who at the time had no leftovers).

One of the best ways to play counter stall is to simply figure out your wincon immediately. I always aim to take out the hazard setter and spinner so I can win the passive damage war. Generally, that requires hitting a skarm, lando-t, Heatran or Deo-D. Mandi, Skarm and Latias are the general defog users and Blastoise-mega, Starmie and tentacruel are the general stall spinners. Rip out the hazards and then just force switches. Once you get into the later game, it's nice to try and start pressuring the cleric by double switching it (usually, it's chansey so having a good physical threat late game is a must). The walls really should just be ignored. They are going to give you passive damage in weaker attacks or maybe bohter you with statuses, but stall still is carrying clerics that will make this irrelevant if the clerics aren't pressured well.

Lastly, if you can't kill the defogger, it is sometimes a good idea to stall it out of defog. The low PP in long stall matches can really hurt and so a rock/defog exchange can really cripple the opponent every time they have to use it.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Recently, I have been playing with multiple Stealth Rock Pokemon on my team and it seems to do a pretty good job at wearing down Defoggers, they just can't take that kind of hazard pressure.

Also, I just have been testing out Foul Play on Amooguss in the last slot over Hidden Power garbage and I have to say its pretty damn good, now at least it can touch Ageislash and damage incoming psychic types hard.

As far a Tentacruel goes, I can't seem to get any good replays, people either throw stuff moronically at it or I end up sacking it. I know its useful from play. If I get any good logs of it in action, I will be sure to post them.

 

[vonK]

So hows this for an interesting Core: Cofagrigus and Umbreon. I realize that Umbreons' been all but cast out from the public eye recently with all the mandibuzz fervor, and lacking knock off really sucks, but he has fantastic bulk (especially special bulk), and a set of weaknesses and resistances that almost perfectly compliment Cofagrigus'. More important Mandibuzz's Ice, Rock and Lightning weaknesses make it sometimes difficult to synergize with, whereas Umbreon's Bug and Fighting weaknesses are far more manageable. While they don't resist nearly the same amount of types that the Venutran combo does I think their interesting movepools and overall solid defensive stats deserve some attention. Their abilities are also very useful, allowing them to neutralize or cripple a large part of the metagame with some good prediction.

I haven't had a lot of time to test out sets in the past few days, but I hope to find some time soon. If they aren't OU worthy they'll certainly be UU worthy, speaking of I can't wait until the OU tier finally settles so that UU fun can begin.

That being said while Cofagrigus is pretty great defensively, his complete lack of reliable recovery means he has serious problems with endurance. I'm beginning to suspect that the best set he can run is RestTalk, which brings me to another question: how viable is resttalk for stall? RestTalk obviously has some problems, such as being easy to set up on and the general uncertainty of what move you're going to pick, but these problems can be partially mitigated with smart use and good movepool, (ie: Scald and Roar) which can't prevent spikes/SR set up but can reduce your vulnerability to set up sweepers.

RestTalk does have some advantages though, recovering full health as opposed to 50% health can be very useful when you're at 25% or under, plus the ability to absorb status is a huge plus and means you won't have to expose your cleric as often as you otherwise have. Because of this I believe RestTalk might be viable in Gen VI.

To be a good RestTalker a pokemon should have enough bulk to withstand a hit or two inbetween rests, a movepool which allows it to put pressure on the opponent even while asleep, and probably a good phaze move. RestTalkers shouldn't have any other consistent healing option either, otherwise running RestTalk is kind of a dumb idea, with the sole exception of Marvel Scale abusers (ie: Milotic).

I'd say the list of viable RestTalkers is:o
-Suicune
-Cofagrigus
-Dragalge
-Milotic
-Snorlax? (Note: good synergy with Gourgeist)

Thoughts?

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

You are forgetting the best RestTalker for stall: Gyarados.

I have already used it this generation and it is fantastic, it checks so much stuff its ridiculous, although it faces stiff competition for a team space with Slowbro, Tentacruel, and Rotom-W as a bulky water sadly.

 

[vonK]

You are forgetting the best RestTalker for stall: Gyarados.

I have already used it this generation and it is fantastic, it checks so much stuff its ridiculous, although it faces stiff competition for a team space with Slowbro, Tentacruel, and Rotom-W as a bulky water sadly.

I didn't realize Gyarados got RestTalk. What attacks would you recommend it run, I want to try that out!

 

[AOPSUser]

I didn't realize Gyarados got RestTalk. What attacks would you recommend it run, I want to try that out!

lol pretty much everything gets RestTalk. Although I'm skeptical of Gyarados on stall. It's pretty bulky though.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Everything gets Rest-talk X)

Anywy, just the standard set: physically defensive ~ Waterfall / Rest / Sleep Talk / Roar or Dragon Tail

Common wisdom says Roar for substitutes, but in play I can't tell you how many times Dragon Tail damage saved my ass.

 

[zachmac]

lol pretty much everything gets RestTalk. Although I'm skeptical of Gyarados on stall. It's pretty bulky though.

I used RestTalk Gyarados last gen. Not on a stall team, but I still used it. I almost made it to the top 100 on PO with that team.

Hide

That was ages ago, but it worked great for me. And this was in 5th gen, in which the sleep counter was reset upon swapping out. Also, no rapid spin support, and it still managed to hold it's weight in the team.

It's even one of the listed sets in the 5th gen analysis. It's listed as one of the best counters for Scizor, Volcarona, and the infamous, wall-breaking Mamoswine.
http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/gyarados

 

[AOPSUser]

A lot of Mamoswine run Freeze Dry nowadays (especially wallbreaking ones), but it does beat stuff like Scizor and Volcarona easily. And yeah, I saw it used pretty effectively last gen.

 

[zachmac]

A lot of Mamoswine run Freeze Dry nowadays (especially wallbreaking ones), but it does beat stuff like Scizor and Volcarona easily. And yeah, I saw it used pretty effectively last gen.

Freeze Dry? Really?

That thing has base 70 special attack. Are you sure? I haven't seen it use that move yet...

 

[vonK]

Very interesting. I also notice that he covers Heatran pretty perfectly also. So anyways I made a team consisting of Umbreon/Heatran/Chesnaught/Gyarados/Cofagrigus/Claydol. Claydol because Rapid Spin + SR resist + Decent Bulk + 2 immunities. Its a weird team for sure, and needs some work but it actually seems to have some pretty solid synergy overall (though Azumarill might be a problem and I might switch Cofagrigus from restTalk to haze/WoW/Pain Split/Shadow Ball. I've been doing pretty well so far, and would have been doing better had I not accidentally gave Gyarados Water Pulse over Waterfall (oops).

Edit:

Freeze Dry? Really?

That thing has base 70 special attack. Are you sure? I haven't seen it use that move yet...

I didn't know Mamoswine got Freeze-dry, if it does though it should absolutely run it, that allows it to hit Rotom, Azumarill, Quagsire, Gyarados, Kingdra etc for SE if not 4x SE damage, thats a fantastic move on it.