Other XY OU Viability Ranking Thread (V2) (Last update on post #5189)

[Jukain]

man people underrating keldeo, how you can even do this is beyond me

i think keldeo is better than the likes of mega charizard x and landorus, both of which are s rank. it is simply such a good pokemon. requires practically zero support to put on a team while serving as a check to some of the most dangerous threats like bisharp and heatran and ridiculous hard hitter with specs. specs keldeo is one of the most difficult pokemon to switch into in the ou tier, no questions asked. most of the 'good' counters have something to fear from it, whether it be a scald burn or icy wind/hp flying. it winds up that over the course of a battle, these pokemon can easily be pressured, worn down, and eventually finished off. the only counter i would consider entirely sound is slowking, taking into account the different movesets and various in-battle factors that can wear at many of keldeo's other checks/counters. thus, many teams have to run conbinations of checks/counters, or they end up rather weak to this pokemon. it's not even so easy to revenge kill or check as something like landorus-i, which has many more checks due to a lower speed tier, worse defensive typing, and less spammable stabs.

many people will bring up keldeo's supposed lack of versatility as a counterargument, but i don't even know how you can say this. standard specs and scarf sets are very effective in their own right, and have different moves they can run, whether icy wind to cover lati@s/dnite or hp flying to 2hko mega venusaur, or hp electric to ohko gyarados. it's really just changing up one moveslot, but with this you can change rather significantly the pokemon that can counter keldeo/the ones it can check. there's also heavily underappreciated sets like subcm which can be a very effective sweeper, setting up all over many bulky waters and being a perfect crocune answer, which is often a pokemon that is difficult to deal with. there is also subsalac endeavor, which is a nice lure that played well can even allow keldeo to bypass some revenge killers. you can run life orb if you don't like being choice-locked, doesn't even matter. keldeo definitely has some set versatility, and these sets aren't even all that uncommon, though specs is obviously the most common. i'd say keldeo both excels at this one role (specs hole puncher) and can fill multiple different roles effectively (specs hole puncher, scarf revenge killer, subcm sweeper, subsalac endeavor lure), only one of which is required in terms of set effectiveness and versatility for s rank.

what support does keldeo really need? sure, it needs pokemon for amoonguss, mega venusaur, etc, but these pokemon are not exactly hard to pressure and there are tons of pokemon that can fulfill this role. keldeo requires minimal support.

keldeo requires little support, can fill 1 role very effectively as well as fill multiple roles effectively, and can sweep significant portions of the ou tier. on the dot for an s rank.

---

i definitely agree with moving zard x down. it's waaaaaay overrated, mostly by poorer players. it can rarely sweep a competent team at this stage in the ou metagame. way too much sand offense, scarf landt, azumarill, other stuff like thund/quag/hippo/defensive landt/slowbro/heatran/other scarfers that prevent zard x from sweeping in most scenarios. the wisp set is cool, and it's the best set imo, but really not that hard to kill or take advantage of, and is hard to rely on for defensive teams with that stealth rock weakness. zard x has issues in many games as it can't function in the presence of sr, where it may even end up as fodder just because the rocks are so much of a burden. it requires specific support to get rid of these rocks alone, as well as all these revenge killers and defensive pokemon gone to sweep. this is a quite significant amount of support, more than i would expect of an s rank pokemon. it's also very residual-prone, as blitz recoil + priority + other residual eg status, attacks it has to take, weather will often cut its sweep short.

basically everything Tesung said lol...

---

def agree with moving medi up, was gonna bring it up myself. mega medicham is a force. it has like 2 /good/ answers which don't fit into a lot of teams, and basically gets kills every switch-in. unlike hera and gard, which are prediction-heavy from my experience, medi often comes down to click hjk, which tears through even resists and has incredible power, ohkoes phys def rotom ffs. sub and double priority sets are both very threatening to offense. fake out does 35-40% to many faster mons, which is very significant chip damage, and fake out + bullet punch often helps pick off many faster threats and even revenge kill weakened things/in desperate scenarios with sacs. mega medicham should move up because it is an incredible nuke with very few good answers that simply excels in the current metagame.

tired & don't feel like writing more, other stuff i agree with...

mega aero -> b+
megazam -> b+
mandibuzz -> b+
manaphy -> b+
hippowdon -> a-
kyurem-b -> a
ferrothorn -> a+

 

[Karxrida]

zard x isn't s rank because
1. the 4x sr weak is a problem, ik we have defog and exca but fact is it isn't easy to clear hazards against good players, meaning that in many matches it ends up needing to be foddered
2. It has a lot more checks than people give credit, e.g. tran quay alomamola slowbro lando t hippo exca fast scarfers etc. Meaning even if it is able to get in and find that free turn, it isn't unstoppable.
3. It really isn't that versatile, the will-o-wisp set is good and is awesome at giving stall offensive presence, but the fact that it needs hazard control makes it hard for stall to rely on, meaning that things it is supposed check can be a problem if they have an sr user that beats your hazard remover. The only other real set is dragon dance
4. Even if you get sr off the field and the other team doesn't have a good check, a combo of flare blitz recoil/residual/prio makes it so it rarely can truly sweep.

With that said its still a great and deadly mon but just not the best of the best

1. SR is easier to get rid of this Gen than any other thanks to Defog and Excadrill being legal, and it doesn't even need it gone to sweep (especially when it has Roost).
   
2. It can beat its own checks by running different moves. Outrage beats Quagsire, while Earthquake beats Heatran for example. The only Scarfers (that I can think of) that deal with Zard X are Garchomp (needs to use Outrage to guarantee the OHKO against Bulky DD, easy to play around), Excadrill (needs to be Jolly), and Terrakion (has to use Stone Edge which isn't a guaranteed OHKO).
3. How many Pokemon can you think of that can be a sweeper or a Stallmon? That's pretty fucking versatile.
4. It's gonna kill shit with +1 Flare Blitzs and Outrages, and can still clean late-game.

 

[Jacks0n]

I actually agree with moving zard x down. Zard x's main problem is that 50% of offensive teams are literally sand offence, meaning zard x is easily dealt with, and the other half have t-wave thundy which stops it's sweep. Yes, rocks are easilier removed this gen, but rocks are still a nagging problem. Stall always has answers to ddance, such as quag and slowbro. It's best set is the wisp set which is not deserving of S. And yes, sd outrage beats stall, but so do a lot of other Pokemon that require less support and/or don't use a mega and/or require no set up.

 

[Salemance]

zard x isn't s rank because
1. the 4x sr weak is a problem, ik we have defog and exca but fact is it isn't easy to clear hazards against good players, meaning that in many matches it ends up needing to be foddered
2. It has a lot more checks than people give credit, e.g. tran quay alomamola slowbro lando t hippo exca fast scarfers etc. Meaning even if it is able to get in and find that free turn, it isn't unstoppable.
3. It really isn't that versatile, the will-o-wisp set is good and is awesome at giving stall offensive presence, but the fact that it needs hazard control makes it hard for stall to rely on, meaning that things it is supposed check can be a problem if they have an sr user that beats your hazard remover. The only other real set is dragon dance
4. Even if you get sr off the field and the other team doesn't have a good check, a combo of flare blitz recoil/residual/prio makes it so it rarely can truly sweep.

With that said its still a great and deadly mon but just not the best of the best

1. While SR can be an issue, the banning of Aegislash gave us more options of Hazard removal as you aren't forced to rely on Exca in Starmie (able to be fast without a damn scarf if you are not running sand teams) so having them harder to get off doesn't make a lot of sense.
2. Tran is shaky counter if he isn't carrying EQ. Alomamola is pretty damn bulky but will beaten by +1 Dclaw after SR 85% the time after SR, Lando-T doesn't enjoy switching into any Flare Blitz at all (cause its frankly stupid to set up with him on the opponents team and a -1 Flare Blitz is gonna take almost 38-45%), Hippo can counter all non W-o-W variants (a horrible guessing game imo), and Exca can only check it. Some of them may be able to force the damn dragon out, but he is still gonna screw them over immensely if just standard Dance set, not to mention how hard some of them fall if its the wisp set or just by going to attack it one measly time.
3. Stallbreaker, Wisp set, Dance set, Attackers + Roost set, the fact he can bluff a ddance and still fuck you over is pretty damn powerful I believe, not to mention the ability to bluff a Char Y evo. I'm very scared what the hell that Dragon is gonna do cause its never gonna be the same damn thing.
4. If your running not running any bulk, which is not even close to a good Zard set anymore, than sure but Flare Blitz Recoil is manageable via roosting and you don't need to Flare blitz everything when D Claw is more than suitable for doing that. And that can happen to anything if you want to start listing residual/priority so that really is just bud kiss.

 

[Gloating]

Stealth Rock is definitely a problem for Mega Zard X, yeah you can spin/defog them away but you lose momentum by doing that and you will often lose your spinner/defogger if you try to spin them away against Hyper Offense. I feel like stall is more than prepared for it also as I often see them use Quagsire and the only way to beat it is to use Outrage or something gimmicky like HP Grass (yes I've seen it). Though despite this I think it should stay in S because it does get access to Roost and a great typing upon Mega evolving letting it set up on the likes of Starmie and Greninja and can also set up on stuff like Landorus before Mega evolving. It's also a physical attacker that can't be burned and it can work in both offense and stall teams. There's a ton viable sets it can run and has ways to get past it's counters with different movesets. Then there's the chance that it could be Zard Y. I have guessed wrong a ton of times even though I felt like the opposite Mega was a better fit for their team.

 

[Numera]

People are selling Excadrill short by saying that it can't perform without Sand support. Sure, Sand Rush Excadrill can't just be slapped onto a team with no worries, but that's not its only set.

For one thing, Excadrill doesn't need to try to sweep, clean, or even really spin to pull its weight. A simple wallbreaker set set can beat a lot of the things the Sand Rush sweeper set can't thanks to Mold Breaker, and it's much more self-sufficient. The Moled Breaker has a much more manageable set of switch-ins than Sand Rush Excadrill, thanks to its ability to completely ignore Multiscale, Levitate, and Sturdy. The only real surefire switch-ins to Moldy Excadrill are Flying-types that can take Rock Slide and Iron Head. Off the top of my head only Skarmory, Lando-T, Mandibuzz, Bulky Gyarados, and Gliscor really fit the bill, with Mandy and Gyarados being taken care of by SD. Moldquake is amazing offensive utility, and Excadrill uses it very well.

Also, no one seems to have mentioned the AV set. Slapping a vest on something with HP like Excadrill's gives it enough special bulk that it has a chance to survive STAB super-effective ultra-powerful attacks like Flamethrower from Charizard Y and Specs Hydro Pump from Keldeo. It weathers powerful neutral special attacks consistently, and more or less laughs off a whole ten types completely. Like with offensive spinning, Starmie is the only real competition that Excadrill faces as a bulky spinner, and Starmie doesn't have AV Excadrill's special bulk, typing, power, or ability (though recovery and 115 base speed would always be nice). Give AV Excadrill wish support and it's never going down unless you want it to. Don't, and it'll still take plenty of hits, clear away hazards like a champ, and hit back hard before it faints.

Overall, I'd say Excadrill is an extraordinarily useful Pokémon. Its typing, stats, and movepool are solid on their own, and its abilities really sweeten the deal. It managed to make a name for itself among the titans last generation, so it's no surprise that even with a bit of a nerf to its flagship set it stands its full two feet tall in OU this gen. Sand Rush Excadrill is as scary as anything in S-rank, and while that set itself is very support-dependent and can be hard to get into the game, Excadrill also has a mean wallbreaker set, a bulky spinner set, an offensive spinner set, and a revenge-killer set that all have their own merits and are all perfectly capable of pulling their weight. It's not lacking for utility or power, and with the right set it has bulk or speed too. Excadrill is well-deserving of at least A+, and if people are arguing that Excadrill's worthy of S-rank by virtue of its Sand Rush set alone, its deceptive versatility can only bolster that argument.

As I understand it, the only Excadrill sets are Sand Rush, Scarf, and AV. I know there are multiple sets but Sand Rush is the best one.

Sand Rush is Excadrill's full potential, without a doubt. It's faster than the scarf set which hates being locked int EQ or Rapid Spin. While AV Excadrill could work, I still feel it's too slow to be that much of an effective spinner. Sand Rush is both fast and powerful, being able to run LO. Checking well over half the meta this well and being an effective spinner would normally grant a Pokemon S Rank, but that isn't the case here. I'm not saying that Excadrill needs sand to function, it just needs sand to function to its full potential. While some of the S Rank Pokemon need support, you can use them to their full potential without it, just by slapping them on with one of their best sets on a team, given its role is needed (eg me slapping AV azu on a team and it preforming to its maximum potential). With Excadrill, this isn't the case. To have Excadrill preform to its full potential (Excadrill can still be good without, just not as good) you absolutely need Tyranitar. The problem with this is that Tyranitar shares many common weaknesses with Excadrill and isn't easy to slap on a team either. The other problem I have with Excadrill is the popularity of things that outright stop it in it's tracks like Skarm, Lando-T and Ferrothorn.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is you can't slap it on any team and expect it to preform as well as it could like you can with Azumarill and other S Rank Pokemon. As result, while Excadrill's best set performs like an S Rank Pokemon, it can't harness that potential by being thrown on a team alone like Keldeo Azumarill ect and thus cannot be S Rank.

 

[Kyuzeth]

Mega Aerodactyl (B) -> B+ | I've been waiting with this particular move for a bit, just to see which trends have risen and fallen in OU. With the rise of Flying Spam, it's pretty reasonable to put Mega Aerodactyl in B+. It's seriously goddamn fast at base 150 Speed and has a fantastic base 135 Attack; due to its enormous Speed, Mega Aerodactyl prefers to run an Adamant nature to have a lot more power behind its moves. STAB Stone Edge is as great as on every Rock-type and thanks to Tough Claws, it can turn Aerial Ace, a normally useless move, into a decently strong STAB that cleans weakened Pokémon and gets rid of the frailer ones without having to resort to Stone Edge; notably, it hits Mega Venusaur supereffectively. Tough Claws boosts a shitton of its coverage options, the most notable being Aqua Tail for opposing Ground- and Rock-types, Ice Fang to hit Dragon-types and Fire Fang to strike Steel-types hard, mainly Mega Scizor coming to mind here. Earthquake is a great, reliable move, but it's unfortunately not Tough Claws-boosted. Because of its typing, Mega Aerodactyl is one of the best checks to Flying Spam, since it resists Talonflame's Brave Bird and outspeeds every single Pokémon on the team archetype, sniping them all with Stone Edge. Outside of its offensive presence, Mega Aerodactyl has some useful defensive tools, most notably being a Defogger that can set up its own Stealth Rocks to aid its team. It also has access to Taunt to function as an effective stallbreaker. Lastly, Mega Aerodactyl can learn Hone Claws to boost its Attack and accuracy; this is surprisingly helpful, as Stone Edge and Aqua Tail attain perfect accuracy and will hit a lot harder.
Now, what are this mighty pterodactyl's weaknesses? First of all, it has some really common weaknesses, namely Rock, Steel, Ice, Electric and Water. Most of these types are highly common in OU, so that limits its switch-in opportunities. Speaking of which, its second flaw its its sometimes lacking bulk; 80/85/95 isn't bad, but it's nothing sublime either. Lastly, it has somewhat of an opportunity cost as a Mega Evolution, but as I've pointed out before, a Mega Evolution is chosen depending on what the team requires, not to build a core around. All in all, while not the best Mega Evolution available, Mega Aerodactyl certainly has its uses in OU right now and can pull its weight given the right support. Mega Aerodactyl should rise to B+.

Further updates coming later today.

 

[Baharoth]

People are selling Excadrill short by saying that it can't perform without Sand support. Sure, Sand Rush Excadrill can't just be slapped onto a team with no worries, but that's not its only set.

For one thing, Excadrill doesn't need to try to sweep, clean, or even really spin to pull its weight. A simple wallbreaker set set can beat a lot of the things the Sand Rush sweeper set can't thanks to Mold Breaker, and it's much more self-sufficient. The Moled Breaker has a much more manageable set of switch-ins than Sand Rush Excadrill, thanks to its ability to completely ignore Multiscale, Levitate, and Sturdy. The only real surefire switch-ins to Moldy Excadrill are Flying-types that can take Rock Slide and Iron Head. Off the top of my head only Skarmory, Lando-T, Mandibuzz, Bulky Gyarados, and Gliscor really fit the bill, with Mandy and Gyarados being taken care of by SD. Moldquake is amazing offensive utility, and Excadrill uses it very well.

Also, no one seems to have mentioned the AV set. Slapping a vest on something with HP like Excadrill's gives it enough special bulk that it has a chance to survive STAB super-effective ultra-powerful attacks like Flamethrower from Charizard Y and Specs Hydro Pump from Keldeo. It weathers powerful neutral special attacks consistently, and more or less laughs off a whole ten types completely. Like with offensive spinning, Starmie is the only real competition that Excadrill faces as a bulky spinner, and Starmie doesn't have AV Excadrill's special bulk, typing, power, or ability (though recovery and 115 base speed would always be nice). Give AV Excadrill wish support and it's never going down unless you want it to. Don't, and it'll still take plenty of hits, clear away hazards like a champ, and hit back hard before it faints.

Overall, I'd say Excadrill is an extraordinarily useful Pokémon. Its typing, stats, and movepool are solid on their own, and its abilities really sweeten the deal. It managed to make a name for itself among the titans last generation, so it's no surprise that even with a bit of a nerf to its flagship set it stands its full two feet tall in OU this gen. Sand Rush Excadrill is as scary as anything in S-rank, and while that set itself is very support-dependent and can be hard to get into the game, Excadrill also has a mean wallbreaker set, a bulky spinner set, an offensive spinner set, and a revenge-killer set that all have their own merits and are all perfectly capable of pulling their weight. It's not lacking for utility or power, and with the right set it has bulk or speed too. Excadrill is well-deserving of at least A+, and if people are arguing that Excadrill's worthy of S-rank by virtue of its Sand Rush set alone, its deceptive versatility can only bolster that argument.

And what kind of walls do you wanna break with that "Wallbreaker Set"? LO Excadrill barely gets the 2hko on Chansey with EQ (35% chance), pretty much every physical wall in the game laughs about his attacks. You will need +2 or even +4 to break most of them and considering Excas frailty, common weaks and lack of recovery i realy dont see him breaking through any decent physical wall.

The AV set has to sacrifice most of its attacking power and all of its speed just to do... what? Its still easily 2hkoed or even ohkoed by most special attackers in the tier, its not dealing with the likes of Greninja, Keldeo or Scarf Heatran anytime soon. Ok its a somewhat reliable solution for CM Clef and can switch into defensive heatran once but thats pretty much it.

The scarf set ist outright horrible imo. All of his moves are very bad to be locked into, Rapid Spin and EQ beeing the worst but unboosted Rockslide isnt doing anything against even neutral targets and Iron Head is resisted by lots of things.

The only set that comes close to S rank level is the Sand Rush set and imo its the only reason why Excadrill deserves his A+ rank in the first place, however it needs to much support to be S rank. His other sets are hardly even A+ worthy imo.

Regarding Chari X i start to think that some people here are playing without hazard removal on their teams. "Weak to hazards" has already been used to demote Pinsir and Chari Y to A+ and some people even argue for them to fall to A which is laughable considering how powerful and dangerous they are and now you want to demote one of the most versatile mons in the game, a mon that can act as a dangerous sweeper, wallbreaker and Pivot because its got a 2x weak to rocks? Is SR neutrality now a condition to be S rank?

Yes its somewhat annoying having rocks on the field but hazard removal should be on every team anyway so its not like you have to go out of your way and he is still functioning well even with rocks, especially the sweeper sets who arent switching in and out all the time and it hast reliable recovery to heal of the damage anyway. Stay in S.

 

[dadoux]

The AV set has to sacrifice most of its attacking power and all of its speed just to do... what? Its still easily 2hkoed or even ohkoed by most special attackers in the tier, its not dealing with the likes of Greninja, Keldeo or Scarf Heatran anytime soon. Ok its a somewhat reliable solution for CM Clef and can switch into defensive heatran once but thats pretty much it.

AV Excadrill is a bulky spinner, and his job is to...spinn and tank hits, excadrill is not supposed to destroy everything like the LO sand rush. And the careful AV is surprisingly bulky. But anyway he is not that played now that aegislash is banned, it was a good check to it.

 

[Prinz]

I support Aerodactyl going up to B+ rank as well. It's another mon that benifits the ban of Aegislash because it can run other moves in place of EQ, and despite what people could think it can run multiple sets in OU. The all-out attacker one and the Hone Claws and the Roost Taunt in sand are the most used, especially the latter it's a good stall-breaker that works quite good in sand, more or less like an Aerodactyl in the DPP era. It's also extremely fast that can run without any problem an Adamant nature in order to hit harder, and it's moverpool isn't bad either: Aqua Tail, Hone Claws, Fire Fang, Ice Fang, Stone Edge, Aerial Ace are all usable moves. Also looking at the B+ rank, I don't think that things like regular Scizor and Mega Garchomp are better than Mega Aerodactyl, and that's another reason why we should put it in B+ rank.

 

[Baharoth]

AV Excadrill is a bulky spinner, and his job is to...spinn and tank hits, excadrill is not supposed to destroy everything like the LO sand rush. And the careful AV is surprisingly bulky. But anyway he is not that played now that aegislash is banned, it was a good check to it.

Thats my point, he isnt going to tank hits or lets say he has a very hard time doing so. If you look at the common special attackers of the tier you will see that most of them are Fire, Water and Fighting types/use attacks of those types. All 3 of them hit super effectively making it far more difficult to stomach those hits, even if they come from "weak" things like Cune/def Heatran (who can burn him in addition to doing serious damage).

 

[AsynchronousIO]

What makes aquarabbit not S, may I ask? It's just so easy to use and hits so hard and scares a lot of things. AV beats things you'd never expect it to (like Raikou and Thund) and is just a solid glue mon in general. CB takes a bit more support and is a bit more abusable and easier to wear down but is one of the best revenge killers in the game. Azu is a good check to Sand Rush Exca which is all over the place. It hits stupidly hard and is bulky as fuck with one of the best typings in the game. I don't know about Belly Drum, but I think AV and CB are enough to warrant Azu being in S. Azu is the best water-type in OU right now and definitely should've been at S months ago, and I think the shift of the meta to things like ExcaTar + the rise of Magnezone and HP Fire Lati@s to deal with Ferrothorn made it even better. (And hey, if you want, CB Superpower 2HKOs, iirc.)

Zard X I can't really agree with moving down either. Aside from the usual DD and bulky sets, there's SD Tailwind, which is a bit more effective than people would think. SD to break stallier teams, Tailwind to run through offensive teams. The pros of Tailwind over DD is that if Zard is forced out, it doesn't have to lose the speed boost and its teammate gets it anyway, and that faster variants of Zard can outrun Sand Rush Excadrill in one boost which means that Exca isn't a reliable switchin. Then there's still the guess the Zard mindgames that aren't fun for anyone having to play them (especially because Defensive Zard Y is a thing). Zard X isn't nearly as threatening as it was in the DeoSharp meta, and it has lost some luster, but it's still one of the best mons in the game, with a ton of power, usable bulk despite SR weakness + reliable recovery, and a great movepool for what it wants to do, whether it be to stall or sweep. And we can't move down everything that's SR weak--no one's calling for Thundurus to go down, for example.

Excadrill is something I'm on the fence about. LO Sand Rush Excadrill is extremely threatening in this meta. The other sets, not so much. AV doesn't have enough power for my liking and still dies to physical hits and strong special hits, and one of the reasons I would rather use Starmie to spin is because I feel Scarf is ass on Exca--his moves are terrible moves to get locked into.

 

[dadoux]

Excadrill is not supposed to come on heatran, but you could've checked kyube / mixaegislash / thundurus (even if focus blast does a lot, not every thundurus have it) pretty well. But yeah this set is a bit outdated, it was before the ttarExca era.

 

[I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM]

Charizard @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Tailwind
- Swords Dance
- Flare Blitz
- Outrage

keep zard x s pls

srs tho, zard x can stay s. Jukain posted a cool roost+3 atks set in VR, which imo is its second best offensive set. this is its best because it isn't fucked as hard by scarfers and sand offense, and has the raw power to 2hko quag/mola. EDIT:

so jukains set is something like

Charizard @ Charizardite X
Ability: Blaze
EVs: 40 HP / 252 Atk / 216 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Roost
- Earthquake
- Flare Blitz
- Dragon Claw

basically, it functions as a wall breaker, because its just too hard to actually sweep with DD. too much sand, too much scarf land t, too many counters, you know the deal. so basically you should be using either the SD+TW set, or this set on an offensive team. this set has coverage and power, and because dd is common, most players make their plays according to that. so when they see roost, they assume its safe to switch in heatran/azumarill etc and then proceed to get bopped by an earthquake. when this set catches on and people know about it, then i might let zard x drop. but until then, it can stay S.

then there's also the fact that there's a defensive set to worry about, but its easy to pick it out from team preview.

 

[Prinz]

It's a pretty good set, but it can't 2HKO Quagsire Alomomola without using Outrage and Outrage itself almost often fails to 2HKO Alomomola as well, just saying. Some calcs:

252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 153-180 (38.8 - 45.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Dragon Claw vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 159-187 (30 - 35.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 229-271 (58.1 - 68.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Tough Claws Mega Charizard X Outrage vs. 232 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 238-282 (44.9 - 53.3%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[malomyotismon]

To A- from B+

Suicune is an unfortunate case, since 6th gen he is a pokemon that hasn't changed much, but everything around him has and unless your name is bisharp thats not always a good thing. However 6th gen was very kinda to suicune and gave him back his premier crocune set. Thanks to the reversion of the sleeping mechanics, suicune only now sleeps 2 turns instead of ? with rest allowing easy abuse with sleep talk. While 100/115/115 bulk is not what it used to be suicune now has allow the necessary tools to make do with it. 5th gen granted him access to scald, which allows suicunes already good bulk on the physical side, while increasing his mediocre special attack and uninvested but otherwise solid special defence. So the result is a very tanky pokemon capable of taking hits from both side pretty easily while after a few calm minds tears through mons, often acting as an impassible late game sweeper. Thing's like suicune in 4th gen were enough to justify using a perish song or tick user to prevent last turn setup users. He can easily set up and tear through teams with ease, few thing's can stop him at full pelt and with the right support his counters (Mega-Veu) can easily fidn ways around his counters. that's probably one of suicunes biggest draw backs atm, he's predictable and is a largely a mono attacker, which means he requires support to deal with threats like rotom-w and thunderous at times in order to find a place to set up, but i feel the support is equivalent that required of many of the A-ranks to function, as to finding himself on a team, with the loss of deoyxs-d/s, the metagame is much less hyper offensive and more bulky, which suits suicune more. Few pokemon can bost suicunes bulky calm minder nieche, keldeo is not very bulky physically and is easily countered by more fatser physical threats such as "bird spam" or latios, jirachi is just aweful and lando is in a similiar boat to keldeo but his weaknesses and much easier to exploit.

Overall i feel suicunes dangerous crocune set, while predictable, is more comfortably to fit on teams and suicune is more dangerous now with the right support to that of other A- ranks.


ps had more to say but went over time.

 

[Jaguar360]

As I understand it, the only Excadrill sets are Sand Rush, Scarf, and AV. I know there are multiple sets but Sand Rush is the best one.

Sand Rush is Excadrill's full potential, without a doubt. It's faster than the scarf set which hates being locked int EQ or Rapid Spin. While AV Excadrill could work, I still feel it's too slow to be that much of an effective spinner. Sand Rush is both fast and powerful, being able to run LO. Checking well over half the meta this well and being an effective spinner would normally grant a Pokemon S Rank, but that isn't the case here. I'm not saying that Excadrill needs sand to function, it just needs sand to function to its full potential. While some of the S Rank Pokemon need support, you can use them to their full potential without it, just by slapping them on with one of their best sets on a team, given its role is needed (eg me slapping AV azu on a team and it preforming to its maximum potential). With Excadrill, this isn't the case. To have Excadrill preform to its full potential (Excadrill can still be good without, just not as good) you absolutely need Tyranitar. The problem with this is that Tyranitar shares many common weaknesses with Excadrill and isn't easy to slap on a team either. The other problem I have with Excadrill is the popularity of things that outright stop it in it's tracks like Skarm, Lando-T and Ferrothorn.

Essentially what I'm trying to say is you can't slap it on any team and expect it to preform as well as it could like you can with Azumarill and other S Rank Pokemon. As result, while Excadrill's best set performs like an S Rank Pokemon, it can't harness that potential by being thrown on a team alone like Keldeo Azumarill ect and thus cannot be S Rank.

Wait a minute, don't put down Mold Breaker Excadrill now, which requires no support whatsoever and is great for hitting things like Rotom-W/H, Lati@s, Gengar and stuff with Levitate (not that it has a problem with those Pokemon besides Rotom, but the fewer predictions you have to make, the better) and also ignores Unaware on Swords Dance sets. (+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 383-452 (97.2 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO; +2 252 Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 351-413 (89 - 104.8%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock)

I do agree with what you said for the most part about sand support, but putting T-tar (or Hippowdown) on a team isn't so much to ask for as they are both extremely solid Pokemon on their own and T-tar is incredibly versatile and capable of fulfilling a variety of roles on a team, so it's not really that hard to slap it on a team.

I'm not sure where I stand yet on Excadrill's placement, but S-rank is certainly possible thanks to its versatility and importance in the metagame.

 

[Prinz]

Actually, the 90% of the Excadrills you will see in ladder / tournament games is Sand Rush ones, so I wouldn't say that "it has a lot of viable options", the only thing that make Excadrills difference is having Sword Dance or Rapid Spin (even though the majority has Rapid Spin anyways) but that's it, Im not saying that it isn't a good pokèmon (it completely deserves the A+ rank) but it isn't worthy for the S rank because it can't act differences roles but mostly because you can't slap it in a lot of teams and see it working, it really needs sandstorm to be up in order to be a threat. Otherwise if you take in consideration a pokèmon like Keldeo, you can see how versatily it's, how you can slap it in both HO and balanced teams and how it's important at checking threats like Bisharp, Scizor and Gyarados to make some examples. But as I already pointed out in this thread, Tyranitar shares some badly weaknesses with it like water, fighting and ground (Air Ballon is a thing though, but once you popped it...), addited to that, we all can also see an incrementation of usage of things like Rotom-W and Landorus-T (if you get a look on frontier games for example, you will see more and more Rotom-Ws and Landorus-Ts) because of how good they are at checking threats like Talonflame, Pinsir and Excadrill. Because of all these reasons, I think that Excadrill is already ok in A+ rank.

 

[Numera]

Wait a minute, don't put down Mold Breaker Excadrill now, which requires no support whatsoever and is great for hitting things like Rotom-W/H, Lati@s, Gengar and stuff with Levitate (not that it has a problem with those Pokemon besides Rotom, but the fewer predictions you have to make, the better) and also ignores Unaware on Swords Dance sets. (+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 383-452 (97.2 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO; +2 252 Atk Life Orb Mold Breaker Excadrill Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 351-413 (89 - 104.8%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock)

I do agree with what you said for the most part about sand support, but putting T-tar (or Hippowdown) on a team isn't so much to ask for as they are both extremely solid Pokemon on their own and T-tar is incredibly versatile and capable of fulfilling a variety of roles on a team, so it's not really that hard to slap it on a team.

I'm not sure where I stand yet on Excadrill's placement, but S-rank is certainly possible thanks to its versatility and importance in the metagame.

I understand that the mold breaker sets are ok, but can we agree that the Sand Rush sets are the best? Much faster thus very hard to check, can switch moves unlike the scarf set, ect. It's the only set that would ever truly earn it S Rank. However, none of the other S Rank Pokemon need that much support to be used to its full potential. I understand that Ttar is a solid mon, but it shares multiple common weaknesses and checks with Excadrill. Hippo shares less weaknesses, but on a sand OFFENCE team, Ttar is going to be the better choice most of the time.

Tbh, Sand Rush Drill would be the only thing making it S, but the fact that it requires Ttar or hippo support to be used kills the dream. It's not like Azu where I can slap it on a team and immidietly use it's best set without using anything else to make that possible, is it? For Azu, I might have to run some sort of way to beat Mega Venu on my team as support. With Sand Rush Drill, I REQUIRE sand support AND something that handles it's multiple checks and counters. That's far too much for an S Rank mon.

 

[kabbes]

I support Aerodactyl to B+. I've been using it as cleaner/revenger recently, and it does it excellently. It's just so goddamned fast and its stone edge hits beautifully hard.

Its problem is that with no priority and mediocre bulk, it struggles to set up hone claws. And yet without hone claws, the stone miss risk is a heartbreaker. On top of that, without hone claws it generally fails to OHKO Greninja, which is a major downer.

Still a great mon though.

No complaints yet about pure sp def Tentacruel being C-. Someone must surely disagree?

I've been using Rotom-H a lot again and I still think it is worth at least B, several hundred pages later. I've never rated Rotom-W, but the toaster is a check to just so much fairy, steel, bird, electric and bug nonsense. Switch it in and burn things. And it's immune to WoW too, which is nice. This little guy is so often clutch for me.

Yeah yeah, SR weakness. Same as every other fire type then. Fire type has advantages too though, you know. At least this one is immune to spikes. What are your fire alternatives and do any of them outclass Rotom-H?

 

[114]

It's time for Lando-T to move to A+. The 252hp/252def+ set is nearly a must, and you see it spammed on the upper ladder. This is out of necessity almost, since the ladder has become fairly shitty post-aegi.

Impish Lando-T checks/counters: cross, mawile, terrakion, breloom, dragonite, chomp, talonflame, while still maintaining offensive momentum with u-turn.

It's sort of like how upper ladder teams have become to rely on offensive latias as a crutch, because it's the only pokemon to counter/check landorus, keldeo, and thundurus at the same time while still maintaining offensive pressure. That healing wish move too, has become super common to revive a near-dead/statused sweeper.

It's sort of sad how the ladder has come to rely on these two so desperately. Both should be A+ (latias already is).

 

[theV8man]

I support Aerodactyl to B+. I've been using it as cleaner/revenger recently, and it does it excellently. It's just so goddamned fast and its stone edge hits beautifully hard.

Its problem is that with no priority and mediocre bulk, it struggles to set up hone claws. And yet without hone claws, the stone miss risk is a heartbreaker. On top of that, without hone claws it generally fails to OHKO Greninja, which is a major downer.

Still a great mon though.

No complaints yet about pure sp def Tentacruel being C-. Someone must surely disagree?

I've been using Rotom-H a lot again and I still think it is worth at least B, several hundred pages later. I've never rated Rotom-W, but the toaster is a check to just so much fairy, steel, bird, electric and bug nonsense. Switch it in and burn things. And it's immune to WoW too, which is nice. This little guy is so often clutch for me.

Yeah yeah, SR weakness. Same as every other fire type then. Fire type has advantages too though, you know. At least this one is immune to spikes. What are your fire alternatives and do any of them outclass Rotom-H?

I've used Rotom-H before, and I agree that it's good. It can check Zard-Y and handles birdspam pretty nicely. Overheat is super useful for roasting the likes of Ferrothorn/Scizor. Unfortunately, I don't see much reason to use this instead of Heatran if I need a defensive fire, or Rotom-W if i need a pivot :/

 

[Prinz]

I agree that Landorus-T probably deserves the A+ rank (252 hp / 252 def + isn't a good EV spread though, you need some Speed investiment imo), it checks threats like Pinsir, Garchomp, Terrakion, Excadrill, Breloom, Dragonite and everything you already said (bar Heracross that it can't rly touch Landorus unless Fly / HP Flying or some weird things while Heracross can just 2HKO you at +1, however it's also true that you can intimidate it and then send another answer to Heracross). Also, its Choice Scarf set is rly good as well, revenge-killing lot of things like Mega Tyranitar and checking other thanks to Intimidate while maintaining momentum with U-Turn.

 

[114]

I agree that Landorus-T probably deserves the A+ rank (252 hp / 252 def + isn't a good EV spread though, you need some Speed investiment imo), it checks threats like Pinsir, Garchomp, Terrakion, Excadrill, Breloom, Dragonite and everything you already said (bar Heracross that it can't rly touch Landorus unless Fly / HP Flying or some weird things while Heracross can just 2HKO you at +1, however it's also true that you can intimidate it and then send another answer to Heracross). Also, its Choice Scarf set is rly good as well, revenge-killing lot of things like Mega Tyranitar and checking other thanks to Intimidate while maintaining momentum with U-Turn.

Yeah the best it can do is U-turn out, which IMO, is good enough for a threat that is otherwise... completely unwallable? Cross is slow, so switch ins are relatively easy after a u-turn.

Disaster averted, and momentum gained, whie lando stays relatively healthy enough to do it one more time.

Also agree I would personally put enough to reach 263 speed to outspeed bisharp and breloom.

 

[naturalstupidity]

Landorus-T definitely deserves the rise to A+ IMO. Be it the physically defensive pivot set, the Choice Scarf set, or even the severely underappreciated boosting sets, Landorus-T will put in work a majority of the time. Bulky sets are some of the most reliable Stealth Rockers in OU, while also checking/pivoting against a sizable portion of the metagame. The Scarf sets pivot similarly well, but instead of laying Rocks they provide a valuable revenge killer that answers many of the DDers and other formidable physical attackers. Boosting sets are great win conditions and still check what they need to. Lando-T is very effective in basically any role you need it to fill. It's more on the level of Heatran and Garchomp than Mew and Ferrothorn, honestly. Landorus-T for A+.