np: XY UU Stage 2 - Light Em Up

[Meru]

Mega Aggron is probobly the worst thing to switch into Haxorus because
1. there is no reason to run a Choiced Haxorus to begin with
2. Mold Breaker ignores Filter
3. Outrage-Spam is not relevant since after a boost Dragon Claw and Double Chop do the job fine enough

While that is true, the best defensive answers we're gonna get are probably CM Suicune or PDef Aromatisse, which both take over half:

+2 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 187-222 (46.2 - 54.9%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 211-249 (51.9 - 61.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

If Haxorus has a Lum Berry (which is probably the most viable item on the boosting set tbh) and finds a free turn to SD, then it gets a nice and clean 2HKO on pretty much anything slower in the tier. Like I said, the issue gets complicated by the fact that Haxorus needs Poison Jab to get past Fairies before they OHKO him, while it needs DD to do work against offense, but overall, its really easy to tailor to a team and it's not too slow/frail where it can't pull its own weight against offensive teams. On top of all of this, the fact that it can continually threaten to sweep in the process is scary.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

It cant get past aromatisse with that because it will be ohkoed so i dunno whats that calc supposed to mean. And yes it is too slow and frail to bother offensive teams that much. I am a lot more scared of lucario and infernape than haxorus. Haxorus cant setup on things like fairies, hydreigon, knock off from krook and it lacks a powerful priority move to sweep effectively unlike luke. It also doesnt have nape versatility and speed which makes it an immediate threat while haxorus needs a boost to do anything. koko is right on the spot in that UU is a tier that is severly lacking in setup sweepers which makes monstrous nukes like victini have no problem constantly bombarding the opponent with powerful attacks with little drawbacks. Lucario dropping in june was a great thing because it makes knock off spam more manageable and gives offensive teams a better way to punish scarf hydreigon. Now we have haxorus to punish fire spam. I really dont understand why everyone expects to ''counter'' anything these days, this meta is so full of wallbreakers that its inevitable that it will shift to being more offensive and have a larger focus on checking things rather than directly counter them. I dont see haxorus as being unhealthy for the tier when its easy to check and it can punish the opponent for mindless spam those stupidly powerful fire moves. Btw ditto is a pretty cool mon now that stall is almost nonexistant and we have a dragon dance user in the tier.

 

[KM]

It cant get past aromatisse with that because it will be ohkoed so i dunno whats that calc supposed to mean. And yes it is too slow and frail to bother offensive teams that much. I am a lot more scared of lucario and infernape than haxorus. Haxorus cant setup on things like fairies, hydreigon, knock off from krook and it lacks a powerful priority move to sweep effectively unlike luke. It also doesnt have nape versatility and speed which makes it an immediate threat while haxorus needs a boost to do anything. koko is right on the spot in that UU is a tier that is severly lacking in setup sweepers which makes monstrous nukes like victini have no problem constantly bombarding the opponent with powerful attacks with little drawbacks. Lucario dropping in june was a great thing because it makes knock off spam more manageable and gives offensive teams a better way to punish scarf hydreigon. Now we have haxorus to punish fire spam. I really dont understand why everyone expects to ''counter'' anything these days, this meta is so full of wallbreakers that its inevitable that it will shift to being more offensive and have a larger focus on checking things rather than directly counter them. I dont see haxorus as being unhealthy for the tier when its easy to check and it can punish the opponent for mindless spam those stupidly powerful fire moves. Btw ditto is a pretty cool mon now that stall is almost nonexistant and we have a dragon dance user in the tier.

+2 252 Atk Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 338-398 (83.2 - 98%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

It's supposed to mean that the hardest counter to Haxorus defensively has a chance to get OHKOd after just rocks if it's running the correct coverage and SD. Comparisons to NP ape can be drawn here but there's a slight difference between fire/grass coverage and 108 SpA and 147 Atk with Ground/Poison/Dragon.

I don't really understand why you say that it has no versatility. It may "only" be able to run full wallbreaking and wallbreaking sweeper sets, but there's a tremendous amount of variability in items and moves. Besides the obvious DD / SD split, it threatens having Poison Jab and Outrage - and less common sets can be extraordinarily effective too. I ran a DD set with Endure and Salac Berry as a Hydreigon Lure - if scarf hydra comes to revenge you when you have a boost, you can endure and proceed to outspeed and sweep.

You're positioning a complete inability to play defensive teams / stall teams as a "natural shift in the metagame towards a more offensive, wall-breaky one", and that really isn't fair. As I discussed in the T-T suspect, a suspect being introduced will obviously shift the meta significantly - and this shouldn't be used as an argument for or against retaining it. The Wall-Breaking Meta with set-up sweepers and powerful bandmons (Victini, Alakazam, NP Ape, NP and SD Luc...) is already here whether or not haxorus exists, and it's already far too much of a bitch for defensive teams to even exist. The solution is not to throw our hands up and add yet another ridiculously powerful wallbreaker into the tier to break walls that can't even viably be used together.

In order for something to be healthy for a balanced metagame, it must have checks and counters. Bulky Offense teams that rely on checks rather than counters are great and all, but we can't and shouldn't expect every single person in the entire tier to run one. A good metagame should support viable stall teams, bulky offense teams, and hyper offense teams - and we're just not seeing that right now. Adding Haxorus will only make that worse.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Swords Dance poison jab doesnt exist, the set is double dance with dragon+earthquake coverage, lets not make things up for the sake of an argument ok. If it runs a pure swords dance set it dies to any offensive team (which are the dominant playstyle). Thats why you never see nasty plot lucario, swords dance heracross and stuff like that, because they do nothing except break stall. Moving on, a balanced metagame doesnt mean that every single playstyle is equally viable, this has never been the case in any tier and is completely impossible due to how this game is designed (offensive mons are clearly significantly more buffed each gen than defensive mons are). The point of balance is that battles are determined by the skill of the player, luck is a minimal factor and no pokemon/move/ability is too strong that it lacks a decent number of answers to keep it in check. Haxorus does not fit any of these descriptions due to its mediocre bulk and akward speed that gives it few setup opportunities and is easily checked by scarf hydra, shao, ditto and flygon and can be brought down by powerful priority extreme speed and sucker punch with prior damage (that it IS going to be taken when setuping) and most of the time it wont have any chance to setup at all. The reason people are scared of it is because this is literally the only viable dragon dance user, its natural that it will shake up the meta as theres nothing like it and that people will have to prepare for it. No i do not think that a lot of things in this game are ''fair'' either but we shouldnt go out of our way to try to boost a dying playstyle, specially not when it CAN still handle haxorus standard set anyway. Theres absolutely no point in arguing on how sd life orb haxorus 6-0 stall or w/e because i can easily point out how many other pokemon can use mediocre sets to destroy specific playstyles. Thats simply put how it works, no team can handle every possible threat and if a specific playstyle has so many problems with a large part of the tier then that means the meta will shift to others as that kind of team is no longer effective. Its a natural evolution that we need accept instead of trying to find a scapegoat (haxorus) to blame.

 

[umbarsc]

76/90/80 isn't terrible bulk, especially on the physical side. It takes 54-64% from M-Absol's Sucker Punch, so I'm not sure what priority is supposed to reliably take it down. Adamant Lucario's ExtremeSpeed does 41-48%, and both of these calcs have been with 4/0 Haxorus.

Scarf Hydra is a good revenge killer (you can't really call something a check if it's OHKOed by your STAB move, and that goes for every mon you listed), Scarf Menshiao as well. Ditto and Scarf Flygon are super niche. There just aren't that many viable scarfers above 97. But I think you're missing the point. It's not that we must preserve pure stall, but rather that we shouldn't be forced to rely on prediction or constant offensive presence to stop a Pokemon. 147 attack is just way too strong, along with Dragon Dance and good speed, this should be an easy ban.

 

[KM]

Swords Dance poison jab doesnt exist, the set is double dance with dragon+earthquake coverage, lets not make things up for the sake of an argument ok. If it runs a pure swords dance set it dies to any offensive team (which are the dominant playstyle). Thats why you never see nasty plot lucario, swords dance heracross and stuff like that, because they do nothing except break stall. Moving on, a balanced metagame doesnt mean that every single playstyle is equally viable, this has never been the case in any tier and is completely impossible due to how this game is designed (offensive mons are clearly significantly more buffed each gen than defensive mons are). The point of balance is that battles are determined by the skill of the player, luck is a minimal factor and no pokemon/move/ability is too strong that it lacks a decent number of answers to keep it in check. Haxorus does not fit any of these descriptions due to its mediocre bulk and akward speed that gives it few setup opportunities and is easily checked by scarf hydra, shao, ditto and flygon and can be brought down by powerful priority extreme speed and sucker punch with prior damage (that it IS going to be taken when setuping) and most of the time it wont have any chance to setup at all. The reason people are scared of it is because this is literally the only viable dragon dance user, its natural that it will shake up the meta as theres nothing like it and that people will have to prepare for it. No i do not think that a lot of things in this game are ''fair'' either but we shouldnt go out of our way to try to boost a dying playstyle, specially not when it CAN still handle haxorus standard set anyway. Theres absolutely no point in arguing on how sd life orb haxorus 6-0 stall or w/e because i can easily point out how many other pokemon can use mediocre sets to destroy specific playstyles. Thats simply put how it works, no team can handle every possible threat and if a specific playstyle has so many problems with a large part of the tier then that means the meta will shift to others as that kind of team is no longer effective. Its a natural evolution that we need accept instead of trying to find a scapegoat (haxorus) to blame.

Once again, this is not a case of a natural evolution of the metagame. What it is is a clear case of playstyle bias.

You are perfectly fine with Haxorus having the potential to easily 6-0 stall. To you, this is inherent in the pokemon and shouldn't count against it. It's perfectly fine if a suspect helps make a playstyle completely unviable, that's just a metagame shift. Sounds reasonable, right?

But, what if there were a suspect that made only stall viable? For instance, say we were testing a new Fairy/Water mon with Filter and stats exactly like Blissey's except for massive defense instead of special defense. It singlehandedly contributed to the downfall of offensive teams - there was just no viable way to break through the incredibly strong cores it created. Yet, this pokemon is far less potent against stall - it's easily shut down by taunt, status, and phazing and finds nowhere to use its exceptional bulk and defensive typing. It also fits a lot better in a stall team - and because everyone's using it, the natural progression is that ninety percent of the games in the tier become stall v stall.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? I realize that this is an extreme example in some sense, but it's essentially a mirror of what's happening. The only reason that no one is complaining is that bulky offense has a better rap than stall - in the past, when stall was even close to being the dominant playstyle, there immediately followed an outcry for bans and suspects of pokemon that enforced a natural evolution towards a stall metagame.

We find another perfect example of this bias in the relative lack of interest in the recent banning of Shadow Tag. The only user who even seemed to care about it was hilarious, and it's pretty easy to see why. Gothorita is as cut-and-dry of an example of a pokemon who completely disables the ability to use stall as there is - and given that there's a strong bias against stall being even remotely viable, no one really gave a shit if it stayed. It singlehandedly hard countered and trapped Blissey, Florges, Aroma, Umbreon, Slowbro, and many more massive defensive threats. I see Haxorus as absolutely no different except for one key thing - it actually carries its own weight against offensive teams. That's why in the current meta of 100% offensive teams, you can say "Oh, Haxorus is balanced", because if we do want a meta that is constantly 100% vaguely bulky offense it's not the most broken thing in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for a meta in which 50% of the teams are stall-oriented or anything. I enjoy offense as much as the next guy, but it's not fair to completely shaft players who do enjoy playing a more stall-friendly metagame just for the sake of keeping a pokemon who is neither necessary nor balancing to the tier.

 

[radianthero156]

i think SBB's point is that haxorus doesn't exactly make stall unviable; if haxorus has a lum berry and running SD, earthquake, poison jab and outrage/dclaw, it'll 6-0 most stall teams, this is correct. what happens, though, is that no one runs that set. it is not a good set. any person running that will be literally 5-6 against offensive teams, which are like 80% of the metagame atm. you can argue that if i have a team does well vs most of the metagame except stall and i decide to add that haxorus set i will be invincible, but even if haxorus was banned, there would still be other stallbreakers like sigilyph or CM shadow ball reuniclus, which can singlehandedly 6-0 stall as well, while still not making the playstyle unviable.

i don't intend to sound like i'll easily vote UU on haxorus, though, because haxorus works kinda like crawdaunt; ridiculous power, good coverage and boosting moves make it a huge threat for every team.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

Non DD variants of Haxarous are still good against offensive teams. I don't know where everyone is getting the idea that every offensive threat will OHK Hax before it gets a powerful hit off. Things such as Infernape are the bread and butter of offensive teams, where switch ins do not exist. Unless a mon has a powerful SE attack, Haxarous should be able to KO at least one mon, or at the very least, weaken it.

I think Hax should stay, but that's just me wanting a mon that can beat fat mons by itself, shrugs.

 

[Ununhexium]

What really bothers me about Haxorus is its Speed and inability to run whatever it needs. The Dragon Dance set needs Outrage for power, but I hate using Outrage. Of course, you can use Life Orb to remedy this to an extent, by recoil sucks and you are vulnerable to status. And let's face it, its Speed is really frikin trolly. It is literally outsped by Hydreigon by 1 base point, which is honestly so annoying. You can try to fix this with Dragon Dance, but Hydreigon's scarf set is the most common scarf set in the tier, and any good player won't let you get to +2.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

76/90/80 isn't terrible bulk, especially on the physical side. It takes 54-64% from M-Absol's Sucker Punch, so I'm not sure what priority is supposed to reliably take it down. Adamant Lucario's ExtremeSpeed does 41-48%, and both of these calcs have been with 4/0 Haxorus.

Scarf Hydra is a good revenge killer (you can't really call something a check if it's OHKOed by your STAB move, and that goes for every mon you listed), Scarf Menshiao as well. Ditto and Scarf Flygon are super niche. There just aren't that many viable scarfers above 97. But I think you're missing the point. It's not that we must preserve pure stall, but rather that we shouldn't be forced to rely on prediction or constant offensive presence to stop a Pokemon. 147 attack is just way too strong, along with Dragon Dance and good speed, this should be an easy ban.

Its 76/90/70 actually, which is indeed absolutely horrible, chandelure is bulkier than that. I like how you assume haxorus will be at perfect condition after setuping which is exactly the reason i dislike discussing this kind of things because everyone just assumes a vacuum situation. Almost every offensive pokemon is capable of ohoking or taking over half of haxorus health and in both my experience and watching other players games this has been the case nearly every time or haxorus simply put never comes in the field at all. Theres a reason why the haxorus+lucario core is so prevalent, and thats because lucario is the one that is actually sweeping almost every time, haxorus's role being more or less breaking walls and luring in hydreigon. As i said before i am a lot more scared of lucario and infernape than of haxorus because they are far more consistent at their job. Ditto's niche is making any team with haxorus shit their pants while being able to rkill almost every single threat in the tier, dont diss it.

Once again, this is not a case of a natural evolution of the metagame. What it is is a clear case of playstyle bias.

You are perfectly fine with Haxorus having the potential to easily 6-0 stall. To you, this is inherent in the pokemon and shouldn't count against it. It's perfectly fine if a suspect helps make a playstyle completely unviable, that's just a metagame shift. Sounds reasonable, right?

But, what if there were a suspect that made only stall viable? For instance, say we were testing a new Fairy/Water mon with Filter and stats exactly like Blissey's except for massive defense instead of special defense. It singlehandedly contributed to the downfall of offensive teams - there was just no viable way to break through the incredibly strong cores it created. Yet, this pokemon is far less potent against stall - it's easily shut down by taunt, status, and phazing and finds nowhere to use its exceptional bulk and defensive typing. It also fits a lot better in a stall team - and because everyone's using it, the natural progression is that ninety percent of the games in the tier become stall v stall.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? I realize that this is an extreme example in some sense, but it's essentially a mirror of what's happening. The only reason that no one is complaining is that bulky offense has a better rap than stall - in the past, when stall was even close to being the dominant playstyle, there immediately followed an outcry for bans and suspects of pokemon that enforced a natural evolution towards a stall metagame.

We find another perfect example of this bias in the relative lack of interest in the recent banning of Shadow Tag. The only user who even seemed to care about it was hilarious, and it's pretty easy to see why. Gothorita is as cut-and-dry of an example of a pokemon who completely disables the ability to use stall as there is - and given that there's a strong bias against stall being even remotely viable, no one really gave a shit if it stayed. It singlehandedly hard countered and trapped Blissey, Florges, Aroma, Umbreon, Slowbro, and many more massive defensive threats. I see Haxorus as absolutely no different except for one key thing - it actually carries its own weight against offensive teams. That's why in the current meta of 100% offensive teams, you can say "Oh, Haxorus is balanced", because if we do want a meta that is constantly 100% vaguely bulky offense it's not the most broken thing in the world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for a meta in which 50% of the teams are stall-oriented or anything. I enjoy offense as much as the next guy, but it's not fair to completely shaft players who do enjoy playing a more stall-friendly metagame just for the sake of keeping a pokemon who is neither necessary nor balancing to the tier.

Stall is not unviable, can you please stop this baseless argument. Haxorus cannot ''beat'' stall with its standard set, it needs to forfeit all of its utility against offense (the DOMINANT playstyle) in order to do that which is the reason no one uses it, same with all the other stuff i mentioned in the other post (nplot luke, sd heracross). Gothorita did not forfeit any of its utility by using the rest calm set, it could still do dumb stuff like trapping a choice locked fighting and killing it for free or setuping and fucking up the entire team with zero skill involved. Shadow tag is an inherently competitive ability, dont even attempt to compare haxorus to something like that. Your argument about theorymonning a shift to stall is completely pointless because my stance would still be the same. As long as battles still require skill and everything has a reasonable number of answers to keep them in check i dont care what playstyle or pokemon is the dominant one because the meta would be balanced.

Non DD variants of Haxarous are still good against offensive teams. I don't know where everyone is getting the idea that every offensive threat will OHK Hax before it gets a powerful hit off. Things such as Infernape are the bread and butter of offensive teams, where switch ins do not exist. Unless a mon has a powerful SE attack, Haxarous should be able to KO at least one mon, or at the very least, weaken it.

I think Hax should stay, but that's just me wanting a mon that can beat fat mons by itself, shrugs.

No they arent, haxorus without dd can at best kill something while losing almost all of its health in the proccess or sometimes it gets no chance to come in at all. Stuff like cb heracross or cb victini are far better at nuking offensive teams because of their good bulk and the fact that their strongest stab dont force them to be revenge killed next turn.

 

[Machi]

i think SBB's point is that haxorus doesn't exactly make stall unviable; if haxorus has a lum berry and running SD, earthquake, poison jab and outrage/dclaw, it'll 6-0 most stall teams, this is correct. what happens, though, is that no one runs that set. it is not a good set. any person running that will be literally 5-6 against offensive teams, which are like 80% of the metagame atm. you can argue that if i have a team does well vs most of the metagame except stall and i decide to add that haxorus set i will be invincible, but even if haxorus was banned, there would still be other stallbreakers like sigilyph or CM shadow ball reuniclus, which can singlehandedly 6-0 stall as well, while still not making the playstyle unviable.

i don't intend to sound like i'll easily vote UU on haxorus, though, because haxorus works kinda like crawdaunt; ridiculous power, good coverage and boosting moves make it a huge threat for every team.

Or as we have seen in some replays sub-cm Chandelure has done a pretty good job against the play style too by making the pink core an actual liability due to their inability to reliably break subs once boosted. That said I do agree Haxorus may have a set that can be tailored to be a good counter to stall it does come with very real opportunity costs against other play styles as its lack of boosted speed + damage taken during set up or what not (since offense tends to just outright attack it than status). That isn't to say the lum SD set wouldn't pull its weight in a match against other styles just that clearly it isn't going to be as optimal when most teams tend to carry several mons capable out outspeeding and killing Haxorus on revenge or check.

That said I don't think it would be unprecedented for stall to make changes to handle it since this is just ending up as a very similar case to Reuniclus last gen in OU. Has a very viable set against stall but ends up being less stellar against other play styles.

 

[KM]

Stall is not unviable, can you please stop this baseless argument. Haxorus cannot ''beat'' stall with its standard set.

+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 834-983 (116.8 - 137.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Florges: 382-452 (106.1 - 125.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Aromatisse: 265-315 (65.2 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 364-429 (89.6 - 105.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 208-246 (52.7 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Psyshock does 30%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 146-172 (41.2 - 48.5%) -- 10.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Gyro ball does 38%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Snorlax: 437-515 (83.3 - 98.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (Return does 44%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 200-238 (49.5 - 58.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Scald does 20%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 460-542 (113.8 - 134.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 257-304 (67.6 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Hammer arm does 40%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 255-302 (47.7 - 56.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Scald does 10%)



unless you're counting random scald chances as a haxorus counter I really do not see where you're coming from

or if you don't consider LO Haxorus to be standard, and lum pretty much does the same thing anyway soo

 

[UU ALL DAY]

No they arent, haxorus without dd can at best kill something while losing almost all of its health in the proccess or sometimes it gets no chance to come in at all. Stuff like cb heracross or cb victini are far better at nuking offensive teams because of their good bulk and the fact that their strongest stab dont force them to be revenge killed next turn.

That is what I'm saying...Hax without DD can get a kill. I'm not saying it can outright beat offensive teams, but I am saying that Hax lacking DD is not 100% useless against offensive teams, which seems like what you're trying to say. I'm saying that if a player opts to run either SD or DD, they are totally different in terms of how it's played. SD can destroy most defensive cores, and DD can dismantle many offensive threats without a scarf.

shrugs, I agree with your posts, just not saying hax is worthless against offensive teams.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 834-983 (116.8 - 137.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Florges: 382-452 (106.1 - 125.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Aromatisse: 265-315 (65.2 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 364-429 (89.6 - 105.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 208-246 (52.7 - 62.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Psyshock does 30%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 146-172 (41.2 - 48.5%) -- 10.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Gyro ball does 38%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Snorlax: 437-515 (83.3 - 98.2%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (Return does 44%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 200-238 (49.5 - 58.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Scald does 20%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Outrage vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mew: 460-542 (113.8 - 134.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Chesnaught: 257-304 (67.6 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Hammer arm does 40%)
+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 255-302 (47.7 - 56.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (Scald does 10%)



unless you're counting random scald chances as a haxorus counter I really do not see where you're coming from

or if you don't consider LO Haxorus to be standard, and lum pretty much does the same thing anyway soo

It doesnt run poison jab, the set is dragon+earthquake coverage with double dance which means fairies still counter it.

 

[Ununhexium]

+1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. +1 252 HP / 252 Def Aromatisse: 265-315 (65.2 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

I don't think +1 252 HP / 252 Def Aromatisse is a relevant calc. I believe this is what you were looking for: +1 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Haxorus Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 364-429 (89.6 - 105.6%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

 

[KM]

It doesnt run poison jab, the set is dragon+earthquake coverage with double dance which means fairies still counter it.

That is not standard Haxorus, lol. Most Haxorus that I've seen carry DD (or SD, but much less common) and three attacks. That's the correct set for this meta (especially given that it's so offensive), and that set hard counters stall. You still haven't addressed the main point - even if we allow that Aromatisse can check it that certainly doesn't address the overall issue. Standard Haxorus breaks stall.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

If it doesnt run swords dance then forretress, hippo, slowbro, suicune (ice beam) can all tank a hit and wear it down so were back at where we began. Also gyro ball deals over 60% after a single dragon dance.

 

[umbarsc]

Its 76/90/70 actually, which is indeed absolutely horrible, chandelure is bulkier than that. I like how you assume haxorus will be at perfect condition after setuping which is exactly the reason i dislike discussing this kind of things because everyone just assumes a vacuum situation. Almost every offensive pokemon is capable of ohoking or taking over half of haxorus health and in both my experience and watching other players games this has been the case nearly every time or haxorus simply put never comes in the field at all. Theres a reason why the haxorus+lucario core is so prevalent, and thats because lucario is the one that is actually sweeping almost every time, haxorus's role being more or less breaking walls and luring in hydreigon. As i said before i am a lot more scared of lucario and infernape than of haxorus because they are far more consistent at their job. Ditto's niche is making any team with haxorus shit their pants while being able to rkill almost every single threat in the tier, dont diss it.

I like the jump from "mediocre bulk" to "absolutely horrible", it happened so quickly. And no, I don't assume that. I've seen Haxorus take a hit and still survive priority attacks, because 76/90 physical bulk really is fairly above average. M-Absol does around ~60%, and the only stronger priority attack is Honchkrow, who isn't all that great in this metagame; the rest are quite a bit weaker. If Haxorus is UU because his speed and defenses are supposedly garbage, I want to know how you feel about Crawdaunt with his 55 Speed and whopping 63/85/55 defenses.

You're assuming that the person playing against Haxorus does everything right, because 97 Speed is not bad at all and 147 Attack unboosted is just insane. If Haxorus is out against Roserade, Lucario, Victini, etc., are they supposed to be sacrificed just to prevent the set-up? Not to mention that defensive Pokemon exist, like Blissey and Defog Mew.

But at the end of the day, only two Pokemon have been unbanned, and Pokemon that are far less broken than Haxorus have been sent back to BL. It would be wildly inconsistent to ban Haxorus at this point, so I just don't see it happening.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

What jump lol, mediocre-horrible whatever, its bad bulk. Im not assuming anything, i played the hell out of haxorus and reached #8 with it and i can count on one hand the amount of times it actually did more than kill or scare exactly one thing away. Crawdaunt is absolutely nothing like haxorus, it had a stupidly strong knock off that completely removed the concept of skill from the table and allowed it to basically guarante a kill or take out over half of a mon every single time it came in, not to mention its boosting move+priority combo that made it hard to revenge kill and very easy to sweep with. Haxorus is way out of that league, if you want a better comparison try lucario, which is the closest this tier has to something broken and even then i dont think lucario is actually broken anyway.

 

[effyouzion]

Haxorus has the same bulk as Torn-T, who was just banned for being impossible to kill.

But anyway, the point isn't that Haxorus sweeps teams. I will freely admit that Hax is not even that great against most good teams in this meta (good team meaning a well built hyper offense team). The reason you ban him is because he makes stall unplayable. Whoever made the shadow tag comparison is 100% correct.

 

[Petrico94]

Haxorus has the same bulk as Torn-T, who was just banned for being impossible to kill.

Well... Regenerate had something to do with that. Haxorus has no way to get health back unless someone has tried Leftovers or Shell Bell.

 

[effyouzion]

Well... Regenerate had something to do with that. Haxorus has no way to get health back unless someone has tried Leftovers or Shell Bell.

Obviously. The point isn't to debate Torn-T (although I wouldn't mind that), the point is to show that Hax isn't the most frail thing in the world like people are making it out to be.

 

[RowDog]

I think you guys are seriously bagging on about Haxorus's "atrocious" speed. When it outspeeds so many offensive threats such as: Heracross, Lucario, Krookodile, Chandelure, Nidoking, Porygon-Z, Roserade, Toxicroak, Darmanitan, and the scarf variants of some of the scarfers listed when at +1, it can seriously decimate offensive teams. 97 Base speed really isn't that bad in UU. And with all these slower threats that SD set DOES have viability against Offence.

And so what if ScarfDreigon outspeeds by 1 point? It still isn't switching in on Hax at the fear of a potential Dragon Claw to the face which is almost a guaranteed OHKO without a boost. And Mienshao isn't exactly about to switch in on it either. Furthermore, after Haxorus has claimed its victim there really isn't much stopping it from switching out and coming in back later. Both of these Scarfers get walled to hell and back by Phys.Def Florges and Aroma, as long as Haxorus is placed on a Balance/Bulky Offence team, and then Hax can easily come in later, whereas there are next to no safe switchins to Haxorus, especially if it is running the 3 attacks (which is much more viable than what has been given credit).

Its bulk is also being undersold. It has some quite good setup opportunities against bulky Water-types, especially when holding a Lum Berry. Is good against the Fire-types: Victini, Darmanitan, Entei and Arcanine. Blissey too can get setup all over. And as shown in some of the calcs on the previous page, it takes on priority quite well.

And lastly, it doesn't need a boost to deal damage. 147 base attack is quite freckin' strong people. It doesn't need a boost to KO a lot of Pokemon. I've even been thinking about running a CB set, and will get around to it to see how it works, because I have a feeling it will be rather devastating.

Honestly I find this thing worse than Salamence, and if Mence has to go I'd hope that Hax goes too.

 

[newfren]

I ran CB hax a little and it was super fun 2hkoing a defensive hippo with it, but the DD set is definitely more threatening. It's not super hard to find haxorus a switch-in against something it can scare out.

 

[Patrick1088]

RowDog the only thing i just want to say about the post is that adamant hax just barely outpeeds timid chandy (by 9 points). so, it really doesnt outspeed +speed nature base 85 and up even with a dd boost (or even scarf chandy since most people keep the 120/252/136 adamant spread to keep some bulk and in tha case it is 20 points slower than +speed base 80s). Doesnt change thr fact that he hits hard like nobodys business, but just saying...