Gen 6 General XY Ubers Metagame Discussion

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Because Aegislash doesn't have enough offensive presence and Ho-oh bait.
>complaining about not having enough offensive presence
>uses defensive fireceus
>thinks it isn't ho oh bait.

Am I the only one confused here?
0 SpA Arceus-Fire Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 104-124 (25 - 29.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

lmao
 
>complaining about not having enough offensive presence
>uses defensive fireceus
>thinks it isn't ho oh bait.

Am I the only one confused here?
0 SpA Arceus-Fire Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 104-124 (25 - 29.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

lmao
I know I may have put thunderbolt on Fireceus in another thread, but please note that I have stone edge here. But yeah, I have used Fireceus a bit more and it doesn't seem to work too well.
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I know I may have put thunderbolt on Fireceus in another thread, but please note that I have stone edge here. But yeah, I have used Fireceus a bit more and it doesn't seem to work too well.
You can't ohko with stone edge
Band ho oh makes you cry hard with eq since you can't switch fireceis in at all since you're 2hkod by both brave bird and eq and then forced to either wait for recoil damage or pp stall eq, neither of which is an effective way if dealing with ho oh. I'd suggest sticking to either defensive water or rockceus to check Ho oh since they'll do a far more effective job and are much better defensively than fire
 
Simply put, at it is right now there are no mons able to check Ho-oh and Xerneas at the same time.
Maybe, you can try Aegislash with head smash, it naturally checks the deer and you actually have somethig to kill a switching in phoenix.
 
Nothing can safely check both at the same time as is now. But Xerneas only gets one chance at sweeping anyway if it uses Power Herb Geomancy, you only need to keep your Xerneas check alive (away from Ho-Oh) and your golden. I pack 2 checks for Ho-Oh on my team with Aromatherapy support for burns from Sacred Fire and also Toxic as Ho-Oh seems to pack Toxic a lot nowadays in my experience.
 
doesnt physically defensive ho-oh sorta check both? It definitely walls ho-oh but i'm not sure it can 2hko the deer while avoiding the 2hko
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
doesnt physically defensive ho-oh sorta check both? It definitely walls ho-oh but i'm not sure it can 2hko the deer while avoiding the 2hko
It is not avoiding the 2hko from deer if it has rock slide

76 Atk Xerneas Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ho-Oh: 224-268 (53.8 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

In addition it can't even 2hko uninvested xern
4 Atk Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Xerneas: 169-201 (42.8 - 51%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO

So ho oh isn't beating lure xern or geoxern without having whirlwind.

It can't last long enough against band Ho oh to win

252+ Atk Choice Band Ho-Oh Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ho-Oh: 249-294 (59.8 - 70.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

It does alright vs life orb variants I suppose since recoil + Lo would wear it down faster but sub roost variants make you cry. Overall ho oh can barely soft check but it in no way walls deer/ho oh and it especially needs defog support to function.
 
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Speaking of Rock Slide Xern, why is it used over HP Rock? Why not simply invest specifically in SpA instead of splitting offensive EV's? I mean, I know Ho-oh is weak Defensively, and there's a 15 BP boost, but is it really worth turning into a pseudo mixed-Xern? Not to mention that Rock Slide is Stone-Edge's little brother in terms of missing at the most crucial times...
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
Speaking of Rock Slide Xern, why is it used over HP Rock? Why not simply invest specifically in SpA instead of splitting offensive EV's? I mean, I know Ho-oh is weak Defensively, and there's a 15 BP boost, but is it really worth turning into a pseudo mixed-Xern? Not to mention that Rock Slide is Stone-Edge's little brother in terms of missing at the most crucial times...
Because hp rock is weak shit and you mostly only have it for one target and rock slide outdamages it by a good amount.
 
Because hp rock is weak shit and you mostly only have it for one target and rock slide outdamages it by a good amount.
I kinda' understand, but Rock Slide is usually meant for only one target as well (the same target), unless I'm missing something.

Also,

252 SpA Life Orb Xerneas Hidden Power Rock vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 234-281 (56.2 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

While this is admittedly not as strong as Rock Slide (by a good sized margin, I grant you), it, like Rock Slide, does not let the bitch-bird switch in for free whenever it pleases.

For the sake of fairness, I will post this calc, displaying that Haruno is correct about the massive damage of Rock Slide vs. Ho-oh:

100 Atk Life Orb Xerneas Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 421-499 (101.2 - 119.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
 
I kinda' understand, but Rock Slide is usually meant for only one target (the same target as HP Rock) unless I'm missing something.

Also,

252 SpA Life Orb Xerneas Hidden Power Rock vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 234-281 (56.2 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

While this is admittedly not as strong as Rock Slide (by a good sized margin, I grant you), it, like Rock Slide, does not let the bitch-bird switch in for free whenever it pleases.
Why would you want to use weaker move and forces you to forgo Fire HP?
 

Haruno

Skadi :)
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I kinda' understand, but Rock Slide is usually meant for only one target as well (the same target), unless I'm missing something.

Also,

252 SpA Life Orb Xerneas Hidden Power Rock vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 234-281 (56.2 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

While this is admittedly not as strong as Rock Slide (by a good sized margin, I grant you), it, like Rock Slide, does not let the bitch-bird switch in for free whenever it pleases.
Rock slide does 40-50% damage to ho oh (factoring the recovery from it switching out) as opposed to the pitiful 20-30% that doesn't discourage Ho oh from returning later on
 
Why would you want to use weaker move and forces you to forgo Fire HP?
I was just curious as to the reasoning that incentivized people to use Rock Slide > HP Rock. The splitting of offensive EV's down the middle for Ho-oh alone just seemed a bit strange since without full SpA investment, the majority of Xerneas' attacks are noticeably weaker.
 

shrang

General Kenobi
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Max speed aegiash migh check both. if it outspeeds ho-oh, that is.
Ya, Jolly Aegislash is the best. You outspeed slower Ho-ohs and wreck them with Head Smash. Faster Ho-ohs (>100 Spe) will still outspeed you, but most Ho-ohs run less than that. Even if they run 100 Speed, forcing it to run that much is still a small win at that
 
So, after like half a year of not battling (whoops), I've decided to kind of battle in the Ubers tier again. It's my favorite metagame, unsure why...last gen it gave me quite a thrill because I felt the metagame was more or less hugely based entirely on getting rocks/spikes up, especially utilizing the former as one of the only means to stop ho-oh, otherwise you're more or less fucked. @_@ And for me, it was quite fast-paced, and it was easy for me to get the hang of things after a few months of laddering.

One small question I'm curious about: Is skymin still just as much of a threat this gen as it was last gen? I'm debating about building a team around it to see if it'll be just as effective, but I'm unsure at this point. Last Gen, it was pretty easy because I had a Drought team built around subGrowth skymin and it was pretty awesome, but since the weather nerf, I'm unsure whether this is still viable.

Apologies if most of this doesn't make sense. Another set I've tried is Scarf Shaymin-S, but that really only worked as a surprise gimmick on deo-s as well as other potential scarfers, but I think it was kind of meh-ish otherwise? but yeah. xD

Would have been better asked in simple questions, simple answers but I can't move posts so... ~MM2
 
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So, after like half a year of not battling (whoops), I've decided to kind of battle in the Ubers tier again. It's my favorite metagame, unsure why...last gen it gave me quite a thrill because I felt the metagame was more or less hugely based entirely on getting rocks/spikes up, especially utilizing the former as one of the only means to stop ho-oh, otherwise you're more or less fucked. @_@ And for me, it was quite fast-paced, and it was easy for me to get the hang of things after a few months of laddering.

One small question I'm curious about: Is skymin still just as much of a threat this gen as it was last gen? I'm debating about building a team around it to see if it'll be just as effective, but I'm unsure at this point. Last Gen, it was pretty easy because I had a Drought team built around subGrowth skymin and it was pretty awesome, but since the weather nerf, I'm unsure whether this is still viable.

Apologies if most of this doesn't make sense. Another set I've tried is Scarf Shaymin-S, but that really only worked as a surprise gimmick on deo-s as well as other potential scarfers, but I think it was kind of meh-ish otherwise? but yeah. xD
Skymin is useable, and annoying as always, and the defog buff made Skymin both stronger and weaker. One one hand, It no longer loses 1/4 HP whenever it switches in. On the other hand, Ho-oh also gets popularized. I wouldn't try a SubGrowth, as it would be very difficult to pull off, due to the weather nerf. SubSeed Should work pretty well though. ScarfMin is an annoying little s#!% foe to face, but Skymin's firepower is a bit lacking. It's kind of "meh" ish otherwise.


It will be nice to see you play ubers, especially since you sometimes went in the Ubers Lobby and just "stood" there.
 
Something to note is that Kyogre, a key threat that Skymin could take advantage of last gen, has experienced a pretty big fall from grace. It's still usable, but a big part of what made it excellent last gen is no longer as important as it was.
 

Duck Chris

replay watcher
is a Pre-Contributor
Recently Arceus-Dark and Arceus-Ghost have been making a bit of a run in usage, due to the steel nerf. While most teams are either finding a way to deal with Xerneas (or hoping they don't run into it), most teams aren't packing as many checks to CM or SD Arceus-Ghost, simply because there aren't many. Mega-gengar + CM Ghostceus is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Xerneas checks seem to go in waves, with early popularity focusing on scizor and recent shifts towards klefki and even Clefable.

Another thing to note is how huge status is in XY Ubers. Thunder wave, will-o wisp, and toxic are everywhere and the rise of Aromatherapy Xerneas is a good way to combat that.

It seems like this meta has a lot less relevant threats than BW did, simply because you can't fit that many different pokemon on a team without being 6-0'd by Xerneas and Gengar. Time will tell how many things find ways to adapt and how many get passed up every time a new team is built.

(also Tank Weezing 2 gud)
 
Something that I'm seeing less of is dragon usage. We've obviously got things like AV Palk and Zekrom, but the ones like Rayquaza and Dialga I haven't been seeing as much of. Probably due to the rise in fairies, but like ChrisTehAwesome mentioned there's so many standard threats and counters that teams have only so much unique-ness to them now. Are we likely to just see a continual drop in unique teams into standard threats and counter threat teams?
 
Something that I'm seeing less of is dragon usage. We've obviously got things like AV Palk and Zekrom, but the ones like Rayquaza and Dialga I haven't been seeing as much of. Probably due to the rise in fairies, but like ChrisTehAwesome mentioned there's so many standard threats and counters that teams have only so much unique-ness to them now. Are we likely to just see a continual drop in unique teams into standard threats and counter threat teams?
Rayquaza isn't a bad Pokemon. It's just outclassed this gen. It has awesome offensive stats, V create, and Extremespeed. My only problem with it is that it's secondary STAB sucks and it's 4x weak to Ice as opposed to 2x or neutral like Zekrom, Palkia, and Dialga. I feel mixed Rayquaza is probably the best set it has this gen. SD is ok too. DD isn't what it used to be.
 
All of the discussion above about ray was pretty much pointless. You really should not run ray on a stall team lol. It's good on offensive team where you need one-time water spout sponge with strong priority and stallbreaking capability. It's not outclassed or anything like that. It's just that there's much less need for Ray's niche in the current meta. Especially since, there's a trend for offensive teams right now, which makes Ray kinda lame. However IMO, the best set is DD ray atm. Since, the speed benchmark is is rather high, and Ray just hates missing the chance of outspeeding supportarc and whatnot. With DD, it's able to punch holes on faster bulky mons and deal with offensive threats better. DDray is more viable due to the lack of scarfers above 90's (yvel/xern/gene are uncommon scarfers).

IMO, ray is fine where it is at.
 

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