Other Stall

[StairFall]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up for me. And I agree--I'm highly anticipating Volcanion. The typing synergy he brings to the team is unreal--FWG core in 2 mons? He'll work nicely with defensive grass types, too, by threatening Fire types and Bird Spam with Steam Eruption. The fact that he also hard counters CroCune is a huge boon. Having a Scald immunity is really awesome--something that got Gastrodon the call on a few of my teams a while back.

EDIT: Sergeant Spooky you can Toxic stall it if you conserve your toxics.

Volcanion is really just a suped up water type. Water types resist fire, ice, water, and steel. Volcanion quad resists fire, ice and steel and is immune to water. Yet at the same time you're now giving your water type a weakness to both rocks and Earthquake. It's less of a combination of fire and water's benefits to a FWG core, and more doubling down on water's benefits while gaining fire's shortcomings. I agree he's likely going to be great for stall, but not any sort of earth shattering change to the traditional FWG core set up nor is he reducing a FWG core to two pokemon.

This is all theorymon though, so whatever I could completely eat my words.

 

[Ajwf]

You're forgetting that absolutely godly fairy resist as well as the fact that you'll never be walled by a grass type again. For waters, one is only available by empoleon and Tentacruel, and the other simply doesn't exist... Azumarill countering is rather nice, you know?

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Hm I was bored so I decided to make a long post about stall. As any stall player knows its impossible to wall every threat. Thus the purpose of this post is basically to rank every threat to stall on how important they are to wall. This will be based on usage as no use walling pokemon that aren't used and overall strength of the pokemon.

The Must be Walled

These are the most threatening pokemon to stall. If you don't have an answer to them you will easily lose. They all have very high usage.

You Should Probably Wall These

These are very good offensive pokemon that have high usage. Not walling them is very bad, but not necessarily completely horrible.

You should wall as many as these as possible

Powerful pokemon with decent usage, but not quite as high and are a bit easier to wall. I try to beat as many of them as possible, but its impossible to beat them all.

The Threatening but Low Usage

Very good stall breakers, but thankfully aren't around that much, so usually I ignore them when teambuilding

The Offensive Pokemon That aren't so Offensive

These are pokemon you can wall without even really trying

Thoughts on list? Would you move anything up or down? Which pokemon are you most troubled by?
Did I miss any notable pokemon?​

 

[Rotosect]

Kyurem-B definitely belongs to the "must be walled" list. It was known as the bane of stall in Gen 5 for a reason and not even the fairies were enough to put a full stop to its rampage in XY.
The Sub+3 attacks set is easy to handle (unless Chansey is down - at that point Kyu-B can easily sweep the rest of the team by itself), but the LO set is definitely not. Even the less common Choice Band set with Outrage/Iron Head/Fusion Bolt/Ice Beam is extremely hard to handle for stall and is almost guaranteed to take something down.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Kyurem-B definitely belongs to the "must be walled" list. It was known as the bane of stall in Gen 5 for a reason and not even the fairies were enough to put a full stop to its rampage in XY.
The Sub+3 attacks set is easy to handle (unless Chansey is down - at that point Kyu-B can easily sweep the rest of the team by itself), but the LO set is definitely not. Even the less common Choice Band set with Outrage/Iron Head/Fusion Bolt/Ice Beam is extremely hard to handle for stall and is almost guaranteed to take something down.

Thing is, I'd much rather have a Kube weak team then a aegis, lando, or thunderus weak team. Also Kube is not even on 5% of all teams per 1825 usage stats. Losing less than 1/20 of all games because it may have a life orb or band. Also its really hard to wall anyway.

 

[Zekrenzo]

Aren't the zards things that you have to wall, especially X?
Also delete the hide tags with nothing inside(yes I know it's a bug but you can edit it out)

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Aren't the zards things that you have to wall, especially X?
Also delete the hide tags with nothing inside(yes I know it's a bug but you can edit it out)

I used to think so, but
18 | Charizard | 11.95872%
Charizardite X 68.277% | | Charizardite Y 31.536%

Atm the zards aren't getting that high of usage. As such if you so chose you can have a zard weak team. I don't recommend it, but a team can still be weak to zard, but still be successful. Especially now that many zards are more defensive. Offensive zard only on about 10% of all teams, thus if you think you can win more games by forgoing covering zards for other things, go for it. Lastly, zards can be somewhat dealt with via SR and checks.
Will-O-Wisp 18.313%
Roost 73.411%

I have deleted them, but they keep reappearing

 

[effyouzion]

AV Torn-T is a monster with proper defog support. I just had a stall vs stall battle where he completely dismantled the other team -- only the ladder broke halfway through so I can't upload the replay.

The other team was a standard Venu/Tran/Chansey/Skarm/Qug/Gliscor stall. Ended up wearing down Heatran pretty early with knock off, getting rid of rocks and then stalling out Gliscor with switches. The rest fell pretty easily after that with Torn-T pivoting in every other turn.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

Hmm, not so sure about Hydreigon being easy to wall. Unaware clef isn't really a reliable answer, as it gets 2hko'd on the switch if SR is in play.
252+ SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 182-214 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery(ok not quite a guaranteed 2hko but close enough). Sylveon is literally the only reliable answer to this thing I can think of, which isn't really that used on stall. Also, chansey isn't a good counter either:
76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 335-395 (47.5 - 56.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
(76 atk is leftovers from running enough speed to jump KyuB)

As for reliable answers to this thing, Gliscor gets worn down by Draco Meteor, if not straight up KO'd:

252+ SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 184+ SpD Gliscor: 274-324 (77.4 - 91.5%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

So yeah, the only reliable answer to this thing on stall is either Sylveon or Azumarill, and if you run stall azu spread, it can't really even hurt it much. Just be thankful this guy has to run 4 attacks to be as efficient as possible. This should go in "threatening but low usage".

 

[jbtc10]

Hydreigon gets an Atk drop if it uses Superpower on Chansey, which then means it wont do enough damage to be able to to 2HKO it, so Chansey can just Life Orb stall it by spamming Softboiled (unless it has Roost, but then that gives Chansey an opportunity to hit it with Toxic). Superpower also only has 8 PP, so even if it has Roost (which is rare AF on offensive sets anyway), PP stalling it is also a very real tactic, and once the PP is gone, Hydreigon is useless. This is one of the reasons why Chansey was so much better than Blissey back when it was legal in UU, as it could handle Hydreigon pretty damn well.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Yeah I could see hydregion moving up in.

Its not real scary due to very low usage
100 | Hydreigon | 0.42647%

hm yeah i would say it threatening, but low usage.

 

[The little peanut man]

Yeah, Hydreigon should move up to "threatening but low usage". with a little prior damage(think like 25%~, which is a very likely scenario on a play style as passive as stall) it can very well 2hko:

76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 335-395 (47.5 - 56.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes(spikes are accounting for prior damage)

so thats a minimum of 31% health left, which after it KOes:
-1 76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 221-263 (31.3 - 37.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes

this isn't even factoring in the fact that 252 252+ chansey is an inferior spread to 4/252+/252 chansey(allows it to take lando after knock off)

76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 335-395 (52.1 - 61.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

-1 76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 221-263 (34.4 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

so at a minimum, it took 98%~ damage trying to take hydreigon with this spread. this is only factoring in stealth rock damage, which hydreigon can easily apply the pressure to keep up because skarm can't defog on it. so yeah, i support hydreigon moving up.
sorry if this is a slightly biased argument, the prior damage is definitely a factor that must be taken into consideration.

 

[Sun King]

Hmm, not so sure about Hydreigon being easy to wall. Unaware clef isn't really a reliable answer, as it gets 2hko'd on the switch if SR is in play.
252+ SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 182-214 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery(ok not quite a guaranteed 2hko but close enough). Sylveon is literally the only reliable answer to this thing I can think of, which isn't really that used on stall. Also, chansey isn't a good counter either:
76 Atk Life Orb Hydreigon Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 335-395 (47.5 - 56.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
(76 atk is leftovers from running enough speed to jump KyuB)

As for reliable answers to this thing, Gliscor gets worn down by Draco Meteor, if not straight up KO'd:

252+ SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 184+ SpD Gliscor: 274-324 (77.4 - 91.5%) -- 25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

So yeah, the only reliable answer to this thing on stall is either Sylveon or Azumarill, and if you run stall azu spread, it can't really even hurt it much. Just be thankful this guy has to run 4 attacks to be as efficient as possible. This should go in "threatening but low usage".

Seeing as Chansey and Sylveon wall hydreigon and are on essentially every stall team, I really don't think hydreigon is going to be breaking much. I, for one, have never had a problem with it when I've come across it.

 

[The little peanut man]

Seeing as Chansey and Sylveon wall hydreigon and are on essentially every stall team, I really don't think hydreigon is going to be breaking much. I, for one, have never had a problem with it when I've come across it.

Hmm, Sylveon is common on stall? I though different clerics were used. Anyways, 76 atk LO hydreigon only needs a some prior damage to kill chansey on the switch, and stealth rocks are kept throughout the match because hydreigon forces too much pressure onto defoggers. So, I wouldn't really call chansey a reliable answer since it needs to be kept in tip-top shape throughout the match to counter Hydreigon. Sylveon, I'll give.

 

[NocturnalQuill]

So I'm fairly new to stall, and I'm trying to figure out how to start. What are some of the staple stallers I need to be looking at? What are some good stall cores that you guys like? How should I go about putting a stall team together?

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

So I'm fairly new to stall, and I'm trying to figure out how to start. What are some of the staple stallers I need to be looking at? What are some good stall cores that you guys like? How should I go about putting a stall team together?

Mega Venusaur/Heatran/Quagsire/Clefable/Skarmory/Chansey. There you go.

 

[Ajwf]

Alright.... so I'm going to basically assume the more likely banning of aegislash. I spent a good 150 matches playing stall and came to the conclusion that stall is in for a rough time. But, I did find counters to Gard and Medi that were perfectly acceptable... Heracross, however, seems more than unstoppable at this point.

The only accepted counters for Hera where Gliscor and Aegislash depending on the variant. Now SD rock blast will pummel Gliscor and doublade is the best option. Skarm definitely can't survive: +2 mega hera is probably 200% stronger than Pinsir esp when considering what they chase down on stall. In short, I think Fighting/Bug/Rock is the coverage to worrk about. To that end, I know NOTHING that can take that.... Well, Golurk has the typing but 90/80 isn't enough to stop a monstrosity 185 att. I doubt we have any true counters. Then the fact that it can just switch out after taking a life makes me wonder how to combat it... I even got a burn on one today, only to get crushed when a healing wish lati came in and completely revived it.

I have 0 idea on what to do about this thing... flying types obviously seem like the best choice on checks but they will not work. You have to remember that hera is only taking 12% on switchin so you're getting nailed for far more every time. Same with fire types not named heatran. It could be just a lack of adaptation to this point but I am almost certain after my time on the suspect ladder that this thing is about to be a bigger bane for stall than mega mawile ever could be.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Alright.... so I'm going to basically assume the more likely banning of aegislash. I spent a good 150 matches playing stall and came to the conclusion that stall is in for a rough time. But, I did find counters to Gard and Medi that were perfectly acceptable... Heracross, however, seems more than unstoppable at this point.

The only accepted counters for Hera where Gliscor and Aegislash depending on the variant. Now SD rock blast will pummel Gliscor and doublade is the best option. Skarm definitely can't survive: +2 mega hera is probably 200% stronger than Pinsir esp when considering what they chase down on stall. In short, I think Fighting/Bug/Rock is the coverage to worrk about. To that end, I know NOTHING that can take that.... Well, Golurk has the typing but 90/80 isn't enough to stop a monstrosity 185 att. I doubt we have any true counters. Then the fact that it can just switch out after taking a life makes me wonder how to combat it... I even got a burn on one today, only to get crushed when a healing wish lati came in and completely revived it.

I have 0 idea on what to do about this thing... flying types obviously seem like the best choice on checks but they will not work. You have to remember that hera is only taking 12% on switchin so you're getting nailed for far more every time. Same with fire types not named heatran. It could be just a lack of adaptation to this point but I am almost certain after my time on the suspect ladder that this thing is about to be a bigger bane for stall than mega mawile ever could be.

Unaware Clefable anyone?

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 175-210 (44.4 - 53.2%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

That's the absolute worst case scenario. Now if Mega Hera gets a crit on a single one of those hits its over, but its still a solid counter.

 

[Ajwf]

Not really, because every time Heracross attacks, it has a 31% chance to land at least one crit... That's cutting it very close and you also only have 8 recovery moves at best.

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Not really, because every time Heracross attacks, it has a 31% chance to land at least one crit... That's cutting it very close and you also only have 8 recovery moves at best.

Cofagrigus is prob one of the best options, it can burn mega hera, remove skill link resists both stabs.

 

[dwarfstar]

Adding to what Ajwf said, if Stealth Rock is down, that 0.4% chance to 2HKO jumps considerably, making Clefable a shaky counter (really, it's closer to a hard check if SR is down).

 

[Lil YoshiXD]

Adding to what Ajwf said, if Stealth Rock is down, that 0.4% chance to 2HKO jumps considerably, making Clefable a shaky counter (really, it's closer to a hard check if SR is down).

most unaware clefable do carry protect tho so that helps quite a bit.

 

[Sun King]

For me, Stall teams make the game much less fun. I even know some players will simply forfeit if they see a stall team because of just how boring it is to play against. It stall ever becomes the mainstream way of playing, then that's when I stop playing.
I'm sure people are bound to disagree, but Stall is like playing a game of Smash Bros., getting a slight lead, and running away for the rest of the match.

Or, you know, you could try to find a way to outplay the stall team? Seriously--unpredictability or one of those god-forsaken wall breaking megas is the key to taking down any stall team. I, for one, am excited by a challenge; when I see an opposing stall team, I never think "oh shit, I'm in for 200 turns. I should just quit.". I think to myself, "Ok, how am I going to dismantle my opponent's core?"

 

[Red Cat]

Alright.... so I'm going to basically assume the more likely banning of aegislash. I spent a good 150 matches playing stall and came to the conclusion that stall is in for a rough time. But, I did find counters to Gard and Medi that were perfectly acceptable... Heracross, however, seems more than unstoppable at this point.

The only accepted counters for Hera where Gliscor and Aegislash depending on the variant. Now SD rock blast will pummel Gliscor and doublade is the best option. Skarm definitely can't survive: +2 mega hera is probably 200% stronger than Pinsir esp when considering what they chase down on stall. In short, I think Fighting/Bug/Rock is the coverage to worrk about. To that end, I know NOTHING that can take that.... Well, Golurk has the typing but 90/80 isn't enough to stop a monstrosity 185 att. I doubt we have any true counters. Then the fact that it can just switch out after taking a life makes me wonder how to combat it... I even got a burn on one today, only to get crushed when a healing wish lati came in and completely revived it.

I have 0 idea on what to do about this thing... flying types obviously seem like the best choice on checks but they will not work. You have to remember that hera is only taking 12% on switchin so you're getting nailed for far more every time. Same with fire types not named heatran. It could be just a lack of adaptation to this point but I am almost certain after my time on the suspect ladder that this thing is about to be a bigger bane for stall than mega mawile ever could be.

Mega Heracross may not spike in usage as much as you think since Mega Gardevoir and Mega Medicham will probably get more popular if Aegislash is banned along with other Mega Heracross checks like Staraptor and Mega Pinsir. Like you said, Doublade could work especially since most people will no longer run the coverage on Mega Heracross and Mega Medicham to beat it. Really, Aegi's ban could be a big boon for stall if everyone starts running Close Combat on Mega Pinsir and stuff like that because Doublade could counter a lot of shit that it couldn't before when everyone prepared for Aegi (this is assuming it actually gets banned). Other than that, Mega Heracross is a lot like Gothitelle, there isn't much stall can do about it, but it struggles against faster offensive threats so it doesn't see that much usage. This is just one of the realities stall has to face (just remember that the auto-losses stall teams face are usually balanced out by ragequits and the sweet satisfaction you get by outstalling your opponent)

 

[Eeveeto]

Hello Smogon! I was following this thread for quite a long time and this is what I came up with looking for a Mega-Heracross counters and checks on Stall:

1: Smogon Weezing: Survives 2 Rock Blasts AFTER SR and Burns. If there are not SR, it WILL survive a third ( burned) Rock Blast and use Pain Split.

2: Cofagrigus: It can also survive 2 Rock Blasts after SR and can Burn and heal itself if there were no Rocks. However, it can be killed by a combination of Knock Off and Rock Blast. Not all Hera carry Knock Off though.

3: Defensive Nidoqueen with Flamethrower: Can check it if it hasn,t EQ:

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Pin Missile (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Nidoqueen: 120-140 (31.2 - 36.4%) -- approx. 0.8% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

4 SpA Sheer Force Nidoqueen Flamethrower vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Heracross: 128-152 (42.3 - 50.3%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO

Will lose against EQ versions and even if winning, will be quite weak in any case. Shaky check.

4: Clefable: As Ajwf said earlier, will lose if a single Rock Blast crits. Good check if that doesn,t happen though.

5: Physically defensive Arbok: Can survive any hit of EQ less versions and paralize it with Glare. Yeah, I know its useless vs the rest of OU.

6: Arcanine: Will at least burn slow versions of Heracross. Nearly always loses vs faster ones. Very Shaky check.

7: Physically defensive Gengar with Max HP/ Max Def: Strange set but I saw some people using it. Burns and wins any Hera thats hasn,t Knock Off. Loses miserably if Hera has Knock Off.

8: Dusclops: I know this poke is crap, but it counters Hera if it doesn,t have Knock Off.

9: Dusknoir: Same as Dusclops:

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dusknoir: 115-140 (39.1 - 47.6%) -- approx. 0.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

10:Physically defensive Infernape: Outspeeds most versions and Burns. Can do some damage with his Fire STAB. EQ still can KO it:

252+ Atk Mega Heracross Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Infernape: 280-330 (78.6 - 92.6%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

11: Granbull: Might have some niche in OU because of this. Can check some other staff with his awesome typing and ability. Needs Rest though.

-1 252+ Atk Mega Heracross Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Granbull: 115-140 (29.9 - 36.4%) -- approx. 41.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

12: Aerial Ace Gliscor: Kinda sucks slapping a shit move because of just one poke, but seems that it has to do it in order to counter Hera.

13: Tornadus-T: Outspeeds and OHKOs... but OHKOed by Rock Blast. Bad accuracy STAB moves, but Rock Blast also has that.

14: Landorus-T: Resists everything and Intimidates... but can,t do can,t do much damage to Heracross, has low Accuracy Rock Moves and will be eventually worn down.

And that is. Just 14 Pokes. Out of them I consider Weezing ( good), Cofagrigus ( good), Nidoqueen ( shaky), Clefable ( shaky), Infernape ( check), Granbull ( good, but with limitations), Arcanine ( very shaky), Gliscor ( useless move but good) Landorus-T ( doesn,t do damage) and Tornadus-T ( shaky check) to be viable in OU. I actually do not consider Doublade being good vs Heracross, as is weak to both Earthquake AND Knock Off.