Other XY OU Team's Staples post#61

[I2edShift]

Without Aegislash, we wouldn't even be discussing Ghosts. Gengar is good and always has been, but even 252+ SpA Gengar isn't nearly as offensively powerful as LO SpA Aegislash or even half as durable.

Dragons are still good, but the mix between the few relevant fairys, the high popularity of priority attacks, and Mega Evolutions being more powerful in certain cases doesn't make them as appealing as before.

 

[NotBruceWayne]

Aegislash aside (that thing is good as hell), I see bulkier tanks like AV Goodra, AV Conk and stuff like Mega Ttar running around the metagame. They can absorb a lot of damage (What's Talonflame going to do with a Mega Ttar pls) and setup (DD on Mega Ttar) or retaliate for a load of damage (252HP/252+SpA AV Goodra is nothing to laugh at).

 

[skies]

I feel like something that should be mentioned but wasn't is Bisharp! With Defiant boosts, it acts a Defog block, as nothing wants to stomach a +2 Sucker Punch (or Knock Off!) Even resisted things die most of the time. It has issues with bulk and Speed, but it has a great typing and versatility. It may be just me, but I've been adding Bishar to my team faster than you can even say its name!

 

[JustLetMePlay]

Why is 'Hazard Control' considered a staple? Unless you're using mons that require you to remove SR to function properly (and I'd hardly call those mons essential to any OU team). At least on offensive teams, I'd much rather maintain offensive pressure/momentum than give up a turn to remove hazards and instead use the 'free' turns provided by hazard setters to work towards my own win condition.

 

[SpaceFlare]

It doesn't have to be Defog or Rapid Spin.

So many HO teams out there run Magic Coat or Taunt Deoxys to stop enemy hazard setters.

Prankster Taunters also get the job done. As do Magic Bouncers.

 

[Ropeburn]

I find myself putting rapid spin/defog support on teams that I didn't have to before. Deoxys-S and D, along with Klefki's easy Spikes and Sticky Web are just so dangerous.

 

[Ojama]

I don't really agree with your team's staples in the OP. Here's my point of view:

A ghost type? Besides Aegislash, I'm not sure if I've faced any other ghost type Pokemon. Chandelure and Gengar are the only ones but they both are rarely often used. It's obvious that Aegislash is a fantastic Pokemon and is on almost every Team, but it doesn't mean that we have to use it or that ghost type Pokemon are as much useful as water type or steel type Pokemon on a Team.

An Electric immunity? Here again, I'm disagreeing. An Electric resistance maybe but come on, Thundurus and Rotom-W are the only electric Pokemon used in the current metagame and I don't think this will ever change. On top of that, Rotom-W shits on electric immunities as it burns/pumps them. As for Thundurus, it gets Nplot, Grass knot and HP Ice which means your electric immunity is destroyed. Atm, we bring Venusaur, Lati@s, Aegislash, Heatran and a few others to counter them, but certainly not a ground immunity. This leads to my third point.

Since when dragons are rarely used in this gen? They're still amazing, it's not because there's a new type immune to dragon moves and super effective against them that they lost their impact on the metagame. Lati@s are on almost everyteam because of their great resistances, speed, satk and access to Defog. Garchomp is still fantastic, maybe even more. Salamence and Dragonite are both very good, especially Salamence that I am currently using and trust me it's absolutely fantastic. Goodra and Kyurem-B are both very interesting too. And the last but not least, MegaCharizard X aka the best Dragon in the entire OU Metagame. So ya, Dragons are still amazing, still very often used and maybe even better.

What I think you guys should add on your team's staples is:

- Knock Off user because that's probably one of the best moves now and is so much useful and powerful

- Fire type because it resist to fairy moves and beats genesect. Charizard X/Y, Heatran, Talonflamme, Rotom-H, Chandelure, Arcanine, Infernape. Those are very good and underrated I guess?

- Something for the Aegi/Conk core because they're very very hard to handle especially with an offensive team. That's why people generally use MegaVenusaur, Garchomp, Landorus-T, Mandibuzz...

- Something for SD Pinsir and SD/Nplot Lucario because they're the scariest sweepers of the tier and can set up very easily. That's why people use priority moves or scarfers like Heatran, Genesect, Landorus-T.

Those points are obviously not a "must have" but they're very important and should be taken in consideration during the teambuilding in my opinion. I think that's more important to counter Luke/Pinsir/Aegi than having an immunity to TBolt Thundurus.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

The metagame's changed a bit from when this thread started. The new ghosts are decreasing in usage (even Aegislash) and I don't think we can consider the type itself a staple anymore.

As for the electric immunity/steel type, I think its arguably more about the status immunity than the damaging moves. The steel types are obviously partly because of how good steel types are (Defensively: Skarmary, Heatran; Utility: Ferrothorn, Excadrill; Offensively: Lucario, Genesect, Scizor), but just about every team has something to deal with one or more of the major statuses. Even if its not a dedicated status absorber or cleric like Blissey, most teams have something like a grass type for absorbing spore, an electric or ground type for T wave, a steel/poison type for toxic, or a fire type for WoW. Most teams don't run all of them, but no team can afford to be vulnerable to all of the statuses, and as such most good ones carry one or more. For this reason, I think the real new staple of this gen is a Status Absorber. I can't wait for counter arguments, but its a very broad category (Natural cure, flame/toxic orb aromatherapy/heal bell, magic bounce, type immunities, lum berry, rest users, etc.) and I can't think of a team I've used that didn't have at least one or more of them.

Since for some reason or another, just about every team has a steel type, I'm gonna propose a steel check as another staple. Either a fast fire type or an earthquake user or something like that.

 

[LoDart210]

Undoubtably the three things that stick out most in my experiences so far are...

Dark Type moves - In a similar vein to how common ghost types are, dark type moves, mainly knock off and sucker punch, and to a (much) lesser extent, dark pulse, are rampant. Having a pokemon that resists that is really very helpful. Problem is, two out of the three types that resist dark types are weak to fairy, (the third type being fairy itself), which just goes to show how fairies are more important defensively then offensively (at least, in my opinion. Thing is, no physical fairy walls which absolutely sucks.)

Priority/(Protean) - TFlame's BB, Azu's +6 AJ, Bisharp's Sucker Punch (and to a lesser extent, mega absol), and now Mega Lucario's Vacuume Wave. All this priority running around personally makes me sick but whatever. Also, I not so subtly included protean because of how annoying the type changes can be. Nothing hard to predict, but, it's annoying.

Mega Evolutions - I list this third only because the glut of mega usage is starting to dilute, which is good, and mega usage is becoming smarter and less common.


As for team archetypes

I think a fire resist should go up there, just because of how many more fire stabs are being thrown around in the meta. In Gen V it was just volcarona that played the offensive fire role, but now, Yzard's Fire Nuke, and Xzard's Nuke Blitz, alongside TFlame's respectable fire attacks put a lot of pressure on even pokemon that resist fire.

Phazers and Hazard clearers are more important than ever with Ddance Gyarados and Xzard running around as well as Smeargle making a return, and Scolipede making an entrance, as baton passers.

 

[Mjolnir128]

Status absorber/healer has been the #1 that screws me over when I leave it off my team. With the WoW buff and Rotom-W being one of the most useful Pokes around, it's absurdly common to get burned.

Priority is also required, while we did get some really fast new things like Talonflame and Greninja it's more about counteracting everyone else's priority. You have to be able to beat outrun stuff like Lucario, Aegislash, MKang and Azumarill and if you don't have any priority, you're severely limiting your chances to do so.

Assault Vest Conkeldurr with Guts, running Drain Punch, Ice Punch, Knock Off, and Mach Punch is great burn fodder. A few months back, when either Sashed Spore Smeargle was a common suicide lead, I took to reserving a Specs/Band team Mon move slot for sleep talk, at least one that could afford it. Sleep nerf makes that unecessary, bulky attackers with priority can switch out after being spore'd, and the counter doesn't restart anymore, so usually wake up first-second turn coming back in.

I was tickled pink when Fake Out became more common again, what with my base form special Mega Lucario running Steadfast.

 

[Reymedy]

Okay, I thought that this thing died, suffocating under all the crowd of threads in here but.. seems like it's still alive !


- So yea, as everybody said, Ghosts fall short of being a Staple due to the few number of ghosts actually available. On top of that, we all agree that the buff affects the offensive side of the Ghost typing. However ! It's obvious that

,

and such, don't give too many ducks about that offensive buff.
To put it simply,

is definitely the flavor of the early XY, and for good reasons. Sadly, not enough ghosts can surf on the same wave to turn them into a solid Staple.

- Second thing mentionned is Knock Off. I'd say that, even if a large portion of the teams share this move (because it's that good), it's still not a Staple. At least not yet. I've checked the SPL XY OU games, and half the teams had this move. Funny fact, every game so far was "team with Knock Off vs team without Knock Off", and so far, none of the teams with Knock Off won ! (that's definitely a crappy statement to base an analysis on though).
So I'm not gonna put it as a Staple yet (because it's not on EVERY team), I'd say that it's borderline staple. Which means, that it's strongly up to discussion !

Now, about the three main posts posted since my last recap :

Soulfly 's comment: Prankster are really good, no one would argue against this statement. I don't think that Pranksters will make it to the Staple level though. Beside

and

, you don't see it that much. And still, so far all the teams from SPL used NO PRANKSTER. So I don't see it becoming a Staple, blame it on the pokemons sharing this ability (while few are good, many are decent at best).

Kairyu_Gen1 's comment : Whats left is the Status Absorber and the "Steel check".
So first, I won't put Status Absorbing as Staple as I mentionned before. Unless everybody runs Guts, Natural Cure or Magic Coat. I mean, sure, every team has a way to play around Poison, Burn and such, but it's too vague honnestly and it's more like "pokemon common sense" than a XY OU staple.
About the Steel check, it's too much of a corollary related to the Steel Staple. It doesn't add much honnestly.

Ojama 's comment : Calling into question the Electric immunity is legit and it was probably the most discreet staple from last gen. It's a "have a Ground type" synonym that can be put on the line (like Knock Off). Still, from the SPL team, 5 out of 6 had a Ground pokemon and the only one remaining was able to resist Eletric attacks so easily that it's not even funny (and I want to stress, that it's not about beating Electric pokemons at all, but more about how good having an immunity to something is good and easy to get).
For the Dragons, they should be put on the line aswell apparently. Lati@s are indeed everywhere given how handy the Defog can come, which adds to their initial insane presence during the battle. That's 4 teams out of 6 so far using Dragons (all using Lati@s) and a total of 6 Dragons (with two teams using "Double Dragons"!). It's fucking incredible (excuse me) to notice that so far NO FAIRY pokemon has been seen in the tournament. I find it pretty big.
However, I want to be sure, so I'm asking, aren't Lati@s just the best Defog users ? (at least for Offensive, Balanced teams, which then, goes with the Hazard Control Staple).
Fire types. 5 teams out of 6 have used a Fire pokemon (and the one that didn't lost its game and probably should have used one to win -if you see which team I'm talking about-). So yea, I didn't suspect this one myself, but it seems pretty solid so I'm waiting to see the discussion about it.
The other points are, as you said, not large enough to be Staples by themselves ("have a check to X"), but can be the source of future Staples (because you want a Pinsir check, you need a Fly resistance for instance -I'm just tossing it here randomly, don't get carried about it-).


PS : I'm not tagging you/your posts because I'm starting a conversation. I just take what sounds good (and what has been repeated before), and what could be debatable in order to justify the OP changes.
So yea, don't take it as me replying to you, it's more like me doing the selecting for the OP, opposing everybody's opinions, vetoing/mitigating some points because they don't fit the Staple's definition I want to respect.
PS² : I'll be REALLY trying to add "competitive" input from the SPL, because that's way more solid and impactful than the ladder. These teams are all supposed to be highly viable, so they should be respecting the Staples more than others.

 

[Maestro Arena]

Fire types. 5 teams out of 6 have used a Fire pokemon (and the one that didn't lost its game and probably should have used one to win -if you see which team I'm talking about-). So yea, I didn't suspect this one myself, but it seems pretty solid so I'm waiting to see the discussion about it.
The other points are, as you said, not large enough to be Staples by themselves ("have a check to X"), but can be the source of future Staples (because you want a Pinsir check, you need a Fly resistance for instance -I'm just tossing it here randomly, don't get carried about it-).

Can you specify, please? The only Fire Pokemon I see are Gale Wings Talonflame and Heatran. Gale Wings Talonflame for priority and Ground inmunity, and Hetran because the Fire/Steel combination? I see some Charizards but these are stranger to see. And 1 Volcarona, no more.

 

[Reymedy]

Can you specify, please? The only Fire Pokemon I see are Gale Wings Talonflame and Heatran. Gale Wings Talonflame for priority and Ground inmunity, and Hetran because the Fire/Steel combination? I see some Charizards but these are stranger to see. And 1 Volcarona, no more.

If you want precisions, ask Ojama or reread his post. I'm merely picking his point, and showcasing it as a "possible Staple" in order to orientate the discussions.
As for Fire pokemons used during the SPL games, these were : Volcarona / Heatran *2 / Talonflame *2

 

[muzillu]

My team is made up of Tyranitar, Garchomp, Gengar, Mega Charizard Y, Tentacruel and Ferrothorn, and has virtually all the XY OU staples mentioned. However, two weaknesses of this team is that none of them have priority moves and none of them carry Knock Off. Can anyone offer a suggestion?

 

[nkhlshnd99]

Can you specify, please? The only Fire Pokemon I see are Gale Wings Talonflame and Heatran. Gale Wings Talonflame for priority and Ground inmunity, and Hetran because the Fire/Steel combination? I see some Charizards but these are stranger to see. And 1 Volcarona, no more.

Infernape is still here. Charizard is really good and quite common for me. Ive see a few Chandelure and Arcanine too.

 

[LoDart210]

Can you specify, please? The only Fire Pokemon I see are Gale Wings Talonflame and Heatran. Gale Wings Talonflame for priority and Ground inmunity, and Hetran because the Fire/Steel combination? I see some Charizards but these are stranger to see. And 1 Volcarona, no more.

Well like I stated earlier, unlike in BW where only heatran and volcarona where the only fire type that had presence (and loldarmanitan). Rain hampered their involvement as well.

However, nowadays fire types are more viable thanks to it being easier to clear hazards, the weather nerf, and the rise of mega Charizard and talonflame. Even now, sacred fire entei is starting to make its presence known as a great status spreader.

Plus, and this may just be me, but fire coverage moves are more common as well, with mega garchomp, goodra, and noivern among others, all carrying fire blast and flamethrower.

Not that getting a fire resistant type is hard, it's that fire as a type is becoming more commonplace and dangerous and shouldn't be ignored. It's what, in my opinion, had kept genesect in check and the drop in scizor and ferrethorn usage.

Also, what is SPL? I'm pretty unfamiliar with tournaments

 

[Debury]

Even in Gen V though you were needing some kind of fire type or move to cover those pesky steels short of a powerful EQ. Still even now a fire type Pokemon or move is something you do well to do without

Also, what is SPL? I'm pretty unfamiliar with tournaments

It is the Smogon Premier League. There is a section for it on the website

 

[Nysyr]

I'm sort of on the fence about fire types being a staple of OU teams. The main draw of fire types is to deal with Genesect to prevent it from being able to spam one move and sweep your team if it got the right (or wrong, from your perspective) boost. Fire types make that job easy, needing to worry only about Banded +1 Extremespeeds, or tbolt (which is actually rarer higher up on the ladder, bug buzz is the de-facto) if they are squishy. Heatran falls squarely into that department for example, and Charizard X/Y can really punish choiced genesect.

With that said, taking a fire type does constrain your team a bit as the rest of the team either has to be able to deal with hazards, or not be weak to them at all. With AV conk being more popular, dealing with burn spam and Genesect just isn't as much of a problem anymore.

With Talonflame's popularity on the ladder it might be really to point to fire types as a staple, but it is more of a benefactor of flying spam that has been so gifted this gen. Talonflame is about the only fire type apart from Heatran (okay, the occasional 'Zard) I add to my teams and some of my more successful ladder teams lack a fire type entirely. Fire types do amazing against more offensive playstyles, but I feel they struggle vs bulkier and stall teams (see Talonflame being near dead weight vs stall, but godlike vs HO).

I do say this from a ladder standpoint however. I am not sure how it applies to tournament play where I'm sure things like Genesect are abused to their full potential.

Also, different playstyles have different staples. Balance HO and Stall all learn towards different pokemon.

 

[WhinoTheRhino]

I propose a Dark-type Pokemon as a staple. With Ghost and Dark-type attacks running rampant in OU following their new offensive buff, a Dark-type Pokemon on your team is vital to resist these attacks.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

I propose a Dark-type Pokemon as a staple. With Ghost and Dark-type attacks running rampant in OU following their new offensive buff, a Dark-type Pokemon on your team is vital to resist these attacks.

This has been discussed and I don't believe it is. The only two dark types with significant usage are Greninja (who doesn't really count), Mandibuzz, and Tyranitar, with a couple of others getting some usage, but not enough for it to be a staple

 

[nyczxjay]

This has been discussed and I don't believe it is. The only two dark types with significant usage are Greninja (who doesn't really count) and Tyranitar, with a couple of others getting some usage, but not enough for it to be a staple

I would add Mandibuzz on that list as well.

 

[Mr James Grey]

For this reason, I think the real new staple of this gen is a Status Absorber.

Oh shit yes. I've been carrying around two status absorbers on every single team I have. My personal favorites are Magic guard alakazam for dealing with Rotom-W's will-o-wisps, Starmie and her natural cure+ spinning, and poison heal gliscor/brelloom. Status absorption is essential in today's meta.

 

[Kairyu_Gen1]

Oh shit yes. I've been carrying around two status absorbers on every single team I have. My personal favorites are Magic guard alakazam for dealing with Rotom-W's will-o-wisps, Starmie and her natural cure+ spinning, and poison heal gliscor/brelloom. Status absorption is essential in today's meta.

I personally still think it is indeed a staple, but I can understand how just saying Status Absorber can be dismissed. Not many people run toxic/flame orb pokes, natural cure, hydration, status absorbing abilities are common, but not enough for it to be a staple off of those. Clerics probably don't count because they're more about healing other's status than switching in and taking the status themselves. And just saying a ground type to absorb T wave is too broad. I think something to deal with at leas some statuses is an absolute must for teams, but according to Remedy, it isn't a staple, and he probably knows better than I do

 

[Reymedy]

Yea it's too broad because status is a game mechanism, you need to be ready to face it, regardless of the generation.
I don't disagree with your points though.
But as you said, there are SO MANY ways to deal with status right now that it can't be a sample.