np: XY UU Stage 2 - Light Em Up

[Patrick1088]

Lucario will be a lot more threatening after the tier changes. If both Mew and Slowbro leaves there is really no reason to use crunch over Bullet punch which means you can no longer check it with Sableye, Mega Aero, fairy types.

There's still Chandy....

 

[Sean B.]

Yeah but you won't beat Chandy anyway unless you go Jolly which is too weak imo.

 

[QuietHeatran]

A more subtle change to the meta in response to the decline of Slowbro and the rise of other bulky waters might be a small increase in Toxicroak usage. As one of the most reliable counters to CM RestTalk Suicune and with its resistances to knock off and immunity to water, it can set up on the vast majority of bulky waters remaining in the tier. You might also see poison jab start to be slashed over gunk shot because the only pokemon I've ever used gunk shot for has been slowbro.

If this trend does indeed occur, earthquake or bulky grounds (mostly Hippo and maybe swampy) might become more common, giving victini incentive to run energy ball/grass knot giving Toxicroak another thing to switch in on.

It'll still be somewhat niche, but will be a bit more versatile because it won't have to rely on hax as much and good prediction.

 

[Patrick1088]

Yeah but you won't beat Chandy anyway unless you go Jolly which is too weak imo.

Jolly is still worth running to beat opposing Lucario. It'd be a sham to get to +2 only to be beat by your opponent's Jolly Lucario. Better to speed tie than outright lose every time...

 

[KM]

wow kokoloko nice weakness policy celebi set i've never seen that before


*coughcoughcoughcoughcoughcoughcough


(try it with sharpedo, or dark pulse Lucario, it's pretty cool)

also adamant lucario is way better than jolly, giving up 10% power just for timid chandelure and speed tying is no bueno

 

[Nysyr]

So with Slowbro about to leave, is it worth running Crunch on Lucario over Bullet Punch now? The fair Majority of Chandelure I see are scarfed as it is, and bullet punch can pick off a weakened one while also not being entirely stopped by aero and crippled by Sableye. I guess Iron Tail over crunch is an option too if you don't mind missing seeing as it is around the same Basepower vs everything but Jellicent; Added bonus of destroying faries.

Granted Mew and maybe Cofag are still things worth keeping crunch for.

Who knows, maybe Jellicent will be more popular now. Lack of regenerator is depressing and it can't wincon for stall like Slowbro did sadly though.

 

[Schpoonman]

Mew is also leaving.

 

[Metal Sonic]

lets talk about non-theorymony things for now, yes?

so for the hawlucha test i kinda just spammed ernesto's celebi-pass team (sub sd hawlucha / nidqueen / megastoise / sd bp celebi / assault vest entei / scarf jirachi) but i changed a couple of things around and discovered a couple of cool things. first is flame charge entei is really fucking dangerous if you manage to pass +2 attack to it, and since it doesn't have anything else to use besides sacred fire / xspeed / stone edge, you might as well run flame charge.

the more interesting thing, however, is that while ernesto ran leftovers on his celebi, i decided to try this set:

Celebi @ Weakness Policy
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 240 HP / 132 SpD / 136 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Seed Bomb
- Baton Pass
- Recover
- Swords Dance

obviously you can run timid, giga drain, and nasty plot/calm mind, if you prefer.

before using this set i saw weakness policy as nothing more than a gimmick that didn't really work most of the time... man i was wrong. this thing is incredible. celebi's natural bulk and plethora of common weaknesses make it so incredibly easy to pull this off, especially when the #1 used pokemon in the tier is hydreigon (LO dark pulse does 72.5 - 86.2% and u-turn does a little less). the key to this set is to know how to get weakness policy passed to something else (and to have good recipients obviously). there's two main ways you can do this:

1. because of celebi's tendency to draw in u-turn users, you can pretty easily get this in against whatever it walls, recover or sd on the switch, then click baton pass on the u-turn. they pick what they send out first as you're passing +4 attack to something that hopefully beats the shit out of it. just so you know, celebi tanks even darmanitan's u-turn 100% of the time without SR up and some of the time with it up (flare blitz OHKOs though so its risky, but the point is, it tanks every faster u-turn in the tier lol)

2. you can switch it into something slower using a super effective attack, then click baton pass. this is less nice, because they could decide to stay in and then you're stuck guessing what move they clicked and therefore what mon you should send out unless you have something that completely walls what they have out (but thats unlikely since if that was the case, they probably wouldn't be attacking with it in the first place).

what's really nice about this set is that there's like no reason /not/ not just slap WP on it. leftovers is nice but not exactly necessary for something with recover and natural cure, so the opportunity cost is small while the potential payoff is huge. the idea is to play it like a standard SpD celebi until you get the opportunity to pass, not to actively try to pass, btw.

the nature/EVs are set to be faster than non-scarf heracross, but slower than roserade/lucario. mostly because if you underspeed roserade/luke you can get off a BP on it after tanking a sludge bomb/crunch, and the 40 extra SpD allows you to do stuff like this:

252 SpA Life Orb Roserade Sludge Bomb vs. 240 HP / 132 SpD Celebi: 330-390 (82.2 - 97.2%)
252 SpA Life Orb Infernape Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 132 SpD Celebi: 351-416 (87.5 - 103.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Chandelure Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 132 SpD Celebi: 342-404 (85.2 - 100.7%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Mega Absol Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 354-416 (88.2 - 103.7%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Crobat Brave Bird vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 306-362 (76.3 - 90.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

it goes without saying that you should only let it tank these hits if your pass is going to lead to win/big advantage, don't waste celebi's HP just for the sake of getting the pass off lol

This set is legit; I'm vouching for kokoloko. The Celebi was able to tank a Modest Chandelure Fire Blast and managed to activate Weakness Policy, before Baton Passing to a threatening sweeper (Hawlucha). This shows how bulky and clutch the Celebi set is. Unfortunately, for the reader, it takes very sharp skills in order to handle the timing of the Baton Pass correctly; also it is quite difficult to gauge the amount of damage that Celebi can take (Celebi can't take Darmanitan's Flare Blitz, for example, but for some reason can eat a U-turn ?_?). The advice has been supplied by kokoloko, and I'd like to support it by vouching that this set, although looking gimmicky, DOES work, but please practice with it like you're using a sniper rifle... deadly but difficult to use without the proper practice.

 

[Metal Sonic]

So with Slowbro about to leave, is it worth running Crunch on Lucario over Bullet Punch now? The fair Majority of Chandelure I see are scarfed as it is, and bullet punch can pick off a weakened one while also not being entirely stopped by aero and crippled by Sableye. I guess Iron Tail over crunch is an option too if you don't mind missing seeing as it is around the same Basepower vs everything but Jellicent; Added bonus of destroying faries.

Granted Mew and maybe Cofag are still things worth keeping crunch for.

Who knows, maybe Jellicent will be more popular now. Lack of regenerator is depressing and it can't wincon for stall like Slowbro did sadly though.

You need Crunch to deal with any Chandelure; getting set up on by a Life Orb Substitute Chandy may give you a bad day. Choose what you need that suits your team best.

 

[Sam]

ice punch will be the new standard 4th move. coverage on queen, gligar, togekiss when it drops, among others

 

[Nysyr]

You need Crunch to deal with any Chandelure; getting set up on by a Life Orb Substitute Chandy may give you a bad day. Choose what you need that suits your team best.

Timid Chandy outspeeds Adamant Luke, and like I said most are Scarfed nowadays. Not using Adamant Luke is a huge mistake at any rate since you miss out on so many OHKOs.

Ice punch does indeed have merit vs Gligar but not so much Nidoking; Nidoqeen for sure though. Does leave something to be desired vs Offensive teams with Mega Aero or Sableye though. I think Gligar will be pretty low in usage still since Hera is leaving and he can't even carry defog and Immunity on the same set.

 

[Ununhexium]

Lots of Bandtini, Swampert, and Mega Ampharos running around the tier. I'm excited to see how bulky offense will work out (not to mention Lucario is already good on bulky offense imo).

 

[Choice Banned]

ice punch will be the new standard 4th move. coverage on queen, gligar, togekiss when it drops, among others

as well as slowbro apparently leaving, meaning chandy is the only reason luke needs to run crunch

 

[Machi]

as well as slowbro apparently leaving, meaning chandy is the only reason luke needs to run crunch

Well that will all depend on the popularity of Chandelure as well so predicting how move pools may adjust is too speculative at this point as this requires play testing to make such a call.

 

[Choice Banned]

Well that will all depend on the popularity of Chandelure as well so predicting how move pools may adjust is too speculative at this point as this requires play testing to make such a call.

Chandy is pretty popular atm, but yeah, i see how movepool adjusting is speculative.
As for if slowbro moves up, all i say to that is DEATH TO PINK CORES!

 

[Sage]

Chandy is pretty popular atm, but yeah, i see how movepool adjusting is speculative.
As for if slowbro moves up, all i say to that is DEATH TO PINK CORES!

Pink cores still have Aromatisse, Granbull, Alomomola, and Blissey to work with. Not dead yet, although not as dominating.

 

[Choice Banned]

Pink cores still have Aromatisse, Granbull, Alomomola, and Blissey to work with. Not dead yet, although not as dominating.

premier pink core (saw this all over the ladder and even used it) was slowbro + bliss, sorta like a pseudo-skarmbliss.
Although bitchfish alomomola would be annoying to face, wishpass +regen +scald makes it annoying, especially in a core

 

[QuietHeatran]

Slowbro had way more offensive presence than anything on that list besides granbull - since alo has really low SpA, sub cm chandy can beat it 1v1 and can also do the same to monoattack granbull. Again full stall will probably give way a bit to a more semistall style (which is already FAR more viable in UU)

 

[Metal Sonic]

Be reminded that alomomola is setup bait with its super weak Scalds and only reliance on Toxic -> does not have Thunder Wave like its pink premiers Slowbro Mew and Blissey

 

[GULLY]

Im seeing Pert/Toge becoming a core in the near future, they cover each others weakness well and in tandem checks most of the meta on the physical side. Also with an offensive counter to hydra, what do you guys think the next premier scarfer will be? Don't get me wrong me among other will still use it but i dont like the thought of toge being able to come in a set up every time i try to venge something.

 

[Nysyr]

Togekiss won't do much VS Hydreigon, its weak to rocks so even if it comes in it's still gonna probably get uturned on and take rocks damage. Swampert isn't an end all solution to firespam either, as jolly Banded tini 3hkos pert.

 

[DiscoDucky]

Togekiss won't do much VS Hydreigon, its weak to rocks so even if it comes in it's still gonna probably get uturned on and take rocks damage. Swampert isn't an end all solution to firespam either, as jolly Banded tini 3hkos pert.

I mean Iron Tail's still a bitch, but Togekiss is pretty much a strong counter to all variations of Hydreigon. Mixed Hydreigon usually never runs U-Turn, so Dazzling Gleam is relevant and U-Turning variants still make their teammates take a pretty strong Dazzling Gleam to the face. Besides, in a metagame that has a plethora of Spinners and Defoggers, Togekiss' Rock weakness is less of an issue.

Honestly, I'd try running Togekiss on Bulky offense or semi-stall simply because the amount of Utility Togekiss can bring.

Also, I recommend trying Banded Hustle Togekiss with Extremespeed:

Togekiss @ Choice Band
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Att / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Extreme Speed
- Aerial Ace
- Focus Punch
- Defog/Flamethrower.

Best Wallbreaker NA. I'm imagining that Togekiss' typing and offensive power is going to be forcing a lot of switches in UU, so this capitalizes on Pokemon trying to switch into it (kinda). The set capitalizes on its potential switch-ins, importantly Blissey. This is all just theorymon but here's a fun calc.

252+ Atk Choice Band Hustle Togekiss Focus Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Ampharos: 179-211 (46.7 - 55%) -- 69.5% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Hustle Togekiss Focus Punch vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 808-952 (123.9 - 146%) -- guaranteed OHKO


I know the Focus Punch thing is slightly misleading, but doing that much damage off of an un-STAB'ed attack on a primarily defensive pivot is pretty cool. Also, run Flamethrower because fuck Forretress.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

I'm hoping Togekiss will stay. It relies in hax like Jirachi, has similar roles, and is a great mon. I hope people just don't write it off because it's something new that people have to deal with. This is a UU gen where Blissey, Starmie, and Haxarous are running around, so maybe we should be more open to potential drops instead of crying about it?

 

[Sage]

ScarfRachi could make a comeback and

I'm hoping Togekiss will stay. It relies in hax like Jirachi, has similar roles, and is a great mon. I hope people just don't write it off because it's something new that people have to deal with. This is a UU gen where Blissey, Starmie, and Haxarous are running around, so maybe we should be more open to potential drops instead of crying about it?

How on earth does Starmie compare to titans like Blissey and Haxorus? But anyway, i have to see Kiss in action before i can judge it, because last gen it was borderline broken, and now it has a godly Fairy Flying typing. But it helps with Haxorus, who no one seems to be running for some wierd reason, i guess cause Hydreigon is a thing. It stops double dance really well, along with having NastyPass and defog. It's gonna be S rank / A+ rank if it stays, but it could be broken. Have to get some first hand experience.

 

[Pinkin Lark]

I'm hoping Togekiss will stay. It relies in hax like Jirachi, has similar roles, and is a great mon. I hope people just don't write it off because it's something new that people have to deal with. This is a UU gen where Blissey, Starmie, and Haxarous are running around, so maybe we should be more open to potential drops instead of crying about it?

You say that now.

Then you get ParaFlinched until the end of days.

I'd rather enjoy it in UU as well, but we already have one annoying 60% flincher... Just imagine two.