Gen 6 The XY Ubers Viability Ranking Thread [Read Post #1000]

[Asmodean]

I do not get why Arceus-Poison is high up in A-

Surely there are better mons that are suited to satisfy the roles Arceus-Poison plays (namely, checking Xerneas). It has two very common weaknesses and it is forced to run a mono-attacking set which is walled by most steel types. Arceus-Ghost is a much better mono-attacker and provides important support by being immune to two common attacking types. IMO, Poisonceus does not deserve to be A ranked and should be moved lower. Discuss.

 

[Disaster Area]

imo ur wrong :]

pros
poisonceus doesn't lose to goth
poisonceus checks geoxern
poisonceus offers defog support
poisonceus cannot be poisoned and thus can't be place on a timer by pokemon such as dialga in balance vs balance style battles.
is purple

cons
gengar is kind of a willy especially reflect type shenanigans
mew2 bait is bad idear
walled by steels fo sho and thus spyky bait
opportunity cost that's standard on arceus but w/e
loses to geoxern with hax but I meanc mon fuck hax/geoxern but it can go either way I guess idk

 

[Dillon~]

Talking about Zekrom as if it is one-dimensional is a bad idea also. Mixed Life Orb Zekrom is actually quite scary considering it has tools to OHKO / 2HKO most conventional checks and counters in Landorus-T, Gliscor, Groudon, Ferrothorn, and Excadrill. Tailwind variants force the switches they need to in order to go on wall breaking mini sweeps or end the games all together. I ended up doing this to CarbonTheSecond recently and Fireburn has experienced getting smashed by mixkrom in the not so distant past.

Most Bolt Strike resists also share a problem in lack of reliable recovery with the 3 exceptions being Ferrothorn, Hippowdon, and Gliscor, and they are usually blanketing more than one threat per team anyways. The way Zekrom forces these mons in is amazing for threats that also dislike the presence of Dialga, Landorus-T, Groudon, Giratina-O, Excadrill, or the three I mentioned above. Smacking them with Draco Meteor or Outrage on the switch is sometimes all the damage needed to end the game with another threat like Blaziken, Extreme Killer, Rock Polish or Double Dance Groudon, etc. or have it be the other way around to where one of these mons ends up weakening or KOing the Electric resist and Zekrom sweeps with Bolt Strike.

I think Zekrom is fine where it is tbh.

Yea, it has some big counters, and now that I think about it, it really does kind of have a bigger niche

 

[Thugly Duckling]

"I am too verstile to be dropped down. Built your entire team with only my Choice Scarf set in mind? I've got an even more powerful set that can 2HKO-OHKO your Lando-T/Groudon. Just to troll you, I decided to use HP Fire which can 2HKO your Ferrothorn! Oh, you really think that Ferrothorn can wall me? Here's a Substitute to fiddle with, and I'll raise my attack and accuracy with Hone Claws to become as strong as my Choice Band set! Think I'm too slow to sweep? I can learn the move Tailwind which doubles my Speed for four whole turns! Hell, that is enough turns so I can clean up the remains of a GeoXern sweep! I don't even need Tailwind to tear holes, I only have to kill the slow, bulky walls of your team so my friend can sweep you. Ladder players and teambuilders are just too shrebby to realize how awesome I am when I can switch moves; I can hold other items ya know!" - Zekrom

 

[Golden009]

Arceus-Normal...If it could run five moves, then it would be deadly. As it stands, in this world of four moves and one item, Arceus does have counters. Lum Berry for status? You're gonna have to set up, and that might be painful. Life Orb? Status. However, Arceus is still an extremely valuable pokemon as a late-game sweeper, due to its versatility. It should stay where it is.

 

[Inspirited]

No one ever wanted E-Killer to drop, Edgar was just using it as an example to show just how bad of an idea it was to consider dropping Zekrom when many other high ranked Pokemon have successfully been adapted to.

 

[Hack]

Some thoughts, has been a while since I posted here:


Arceus-Normal: Should it be S-Rank?

Yeah, you are pretty much mandated to run this on any heavily offensive team because of its revenge killing capability. The discussion has been lengthy about this but as it stands it's very consistent and works vs all playstyles due to an array of items and coverage moves that you can pick from to optimize your team (think refresh for stall, overheat to lure ferro/scizor, shadow claw/force for giratina-o, recover for groudon phazing teams). Not being able to use all options at once isn't a particularly big flaw as you just give it miniscule support to overcome the flaw of opportunity cost with a certain move pick. And it will always be a good rkiller since strong priority and countersweeping presence.

Zekrom: Should it drop?

I agree to an extent with both sides in this argument, but as it stands Zekrom is a mon that is involved with too many 50-50s that doesn't even lead anywhere special if you get them right. You are pretty much force to double switch AND have big fairy/ground lures or killers to make it work. As it cleans amazingly well with its strong bolt strike after grounds are removed and that it revenge kills fast shit makes it a worthy candidate for a team, but not an A rank viable mon due to the amount of metagaming that has happened around it. A- seems fine, it's not worse than Scizor or Ray. Also the comparisons to kyogre are pointless. you generally have nothing to lose by spamming a scarf water spout, it will almost always go damage to shit, zekrom is different in this regard as you will get stuck and can't break even weakened counters without prediction as its both STABs have immunes.

Now onto some other mons

Giratina-O for A rank
I think we can all agree that the hate on this mon early meta was a bit harsh- it was always a solid E-killer check and defoger for balance. Sforce is the last piece of the puzzle that makes it strong vs HO as well since it doesn't give Xern free set ups anymore. It's not a versatile mon but a very good mon for what it does. Also very adapated to stag mega as it owns the shit out of gengar and goth (and wob). I simply feel I can use this on pretty much any team nowadays without having to worry about its flaws.

Dialga for A+ rank
Fucking god level mon. Close to S-rank on my list. It's just too solid at setting SR, punishing defog arcs with either toxic from defensive sets or coverage from LO lure sets. Checks Scarf Zek and Ogre as well as some CM Arcs for offense, which is pretty sweet. Never really makes your team worse off against many things, Blaziken weakness is probably the most inherent flaw- your team has to be able to switch into Blaziken which isn't really an easy task and it doesn't synergize too well with Land-T when it comes to role compression. However, Giratina-O is a good partner hehe.

Gliscor for A- rank
In a meta filled with burn and toxic spam, SR+Roost gliscor stands out as a consistent support mon. You get to check most Ho-oh, Zekrom, Lando-T and Groudon and can take a hit from Blaze. It's honestly almost as good as Lando-T, whos advantage lies in a slow U-turn that brings in wallbreakers as well as being a better Blaze check. I personally consider it the second most consistent SR user after Dialga in terms of keeping common defog mons at bay while contriunally setting rocks up. It also has a quite underrated subpass set that I have build some cool teams with.

Ferro, Ttar and Exca to B+ rank
Ferro is incredbily solid for a hazard setter and team supporter in this meta. Being toxic immune is great and it generally annoys switch ins to hell with seed. It is hardly worth putting in the same rank as Aegi, Whims or Deo-D (lol). You also get a solid check non FB xern in rain. it cores up incredibly effectively with sdef ogre and giratina-o.

TTar is specific but does what it needs to do well. For stall it is the most reliable pursuit user and it fuels Excadrill to check Xerneas, something really welcome. Works with a smooth rock on offense and does a nice job of getting SR up, checking Ho-oh/Yveltal and pursuiting misc shit outside Gar. Exca goes in the same boat and needs miniscule support (TTar) with room for more janky shit in your build (like Icy Gar to destroy Lando-T/Gliscor). This is because the combo of Exca+TTar goes a long way in checking some important things that are hard for HO to handle.

Deo-D to C-rank
I don't wanna use this mon seriously.

Kanga for A- rank
Cmon it allows you to emergency check 90 % of the offensive meta. Isn't useless vs stall and only needs a little bit of support in handling burns. Fake Out/Return are given on any set but you are having quite some options to be versatile here. Crunch, Sucker, EQ, Low Kick, Fire Punch (not even joking), as well as PuP (I am 100 % serious when I say it's a move that is so fucking legit i'm not even gonna lie it kills your family). It was NEVER this bad, it's just that some people hated on it for no reason during the development days of this meta.

and finally
Greninja for B- rank
I'll settle for this rank for starters. I personally have a pretty solid ninja team that is like 6-0 in tours now. The set we are talking is Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Taunt/Shadow Sneak. A comparision to scolipede which sits in the proposed rank is a good idea to start:

While pede is a good anti lead to both Deo-S and A, and does resonably well vs Darkrai (but you have to forgo dual spikes for protect then), ninja has some other tools. Taunt and >120 base speed is the main reason to why I find use for this mon. Not only that but sneak turns you into a ghost type so there you go, you pretty much always prevent hazard removal if you want. It isn't a great anti lead in the way scolipede is but some things to note are that Scolipede is prone to set up sweepers with priority (Ekiller). Ninja still does very well vs Deo-A leads thanks to protean sneak.

Toxic Spikes are fucking strong and anything that gets them and can keep them up with momentum is worth a go.

 

[Disaster Area]

Some thoughts, has been a while since I posted here:


Arceus-Normal: Should it be S-Rank?

Yeah, you are pretty much mandated to run this on any heavily offensive team because of its revenge killing capability. The discussion has been lengthy about this but as it stands it's very consistent and works vs all playstyles due to an array of items and coverage moves that you can pick from to optimize your team (think refresh for stall, overheat to lure ferro/scizor, shadow claw/force for giratina-o, recover for groudon phazing teams). Not being able to use all options at once isn't a particularly big flaw as you just give it miniscule support to overcome the flaw of opportunity cost with a certain move pick. And it will always be a good rkiller since strong priority and countersweeping presence. Agree, the utility of this is incredible, I feel S Rank is agreeable.

Zekrom: Should it drop?

I agree to an extent with both sides in this argument, but as it stands Zekrom is a mon that is involved with too many 50-50s that doesn't even lead anywhere special if you get them right. You are pretty much force to double switch AND have big fairy/ground lures or killers to make it work. As it cleans amazingly well with its strong bolt strike after grounds are removed and that it revenge kills fast shit makes it a worthy candidate for a team, but not an A rank viable mon due to the amount of metagaming that has happened around it. A- seems fine, it's not worse than Scizor or Ray. Also the comparisons to kyogre are pointless. you generally have nothing to lose by spamming a scarf water spout, it will almost always go damage to shit, zekrom is different in this regard as you will get stuck and can't break even weakened counters without prediction as its both STABs have immunes. A- with Scizor and Ray seems fair enough, not really sure but I could settle for it being ranked higher.

Now onto some other mons

Giratina-O for A rank
I think we can all agree that the hate on this mon early meta was a bit harsh- it was always a solid E-killer check and defoger for balance. Sforce is the last piece of the puzzle that makes it strong vs HO as well since it doesn't give Xern free set ups anymore. It's not a versatile mon but a very good mon for what it does. I'd kind of disagree.. whilst Dice's set is the best on it, I still feel that other moves such as substitute, earthquake, WoW, and possibly special attacks are all valuable additional tools it has at its disposal. Also very adapated to stag mega as it owns the shit out of gengar and goth (and wob). I simply feel I can use this on pretty much any team nowadays without having to worry about its flaws.

Dialga for A+ rank
Fucking god level mon. Close to S-rank on my list. It's just too solid at setting SR, punishing defog arcs with either toxic from defensive sets or coverage from LO lure sets. Checks Scarf Zek and Ogre as well as some CM Arcs for offense, which is pretty sweet. Never really makes your team worse off against many things, Blaziken weakness is probably the most inherent flaw- your team has to be able to switch into Blaziken which isn't really an easy task and it doesn't synergize too well with Land-T when it comes to role compression. However, Giratina-O is a good partner hehe. Gira-O also helps with the double dance groudon weakness.. Dragon Claw+RP is luckily not really seen and a lot more lacking in utility.

Gliscor for A- rank
In a meta filled with burn and toxic spam, SR+Roost gliscor stands out as a consistent support mon. You get to check most Ho-oh, Zekrom, Lando-T and Groudon and can take a hit from Blaze. It's honestly just as good as Lando-T, whos advantage lies in a slow U-turn that brings in wallbreakers as well as being a better Blaze check. I personally consider it the second most consistent SR user after Dialga in terms of keeping common defog mons at bay while contriunally setting rocks up. It also has a quite underrated subpass set that I have build some cool teams with. Definitely a versatile mon and I feel it's pretty valuable. Same rank as scizor seems fair.

Ferro, Ttar and Exca to B+ rank
Ferro is incredbily solid for a hazard setter and team supporter in this meta. Being toxic immune is great and it generally annoys switch ins to hell with seed. It is hardly worth putting in the same rank as Aegi, Whims or Deo-D (lol). You also get a solid check non FB xern in rain. it cores up incredibly effectively with sdef ogre and giratina-o.

TTar is specific but does what it needs to do well. For stall it is the most reliable pursuit user and it fuels Excadrill to check Xerneas, something really welcome. Works with a smooth rock on offense and does a nice job of getting SR up, checking Ho-oh/Yveltal and pursuiting misc shit outside Gar. Exca goes in the same boat and needs miniscule support (TTar) with room for more janky shit in your build (like Icy Gar to destroy Lando-T/Gliscor). This is because the combo of Exca+TTar goes a long way in checking some important things that are hard for HO to handle.

Deo-D to C-rank
I don't wanna use this mon seriously.

Kanga for A- rank
Cmon it allows you to emergency check 90 % of the offensive meta. Isn't useless vs stall and only needs a little bit of support in handling burns. Fake Out/Return are given on any set but you are having quite some options to be versatile here. Crunch, Sucker, EQ, Low Kick, Fire Blast (not even joking), as well as PuP (I am 100 % serious when I say it's a move that is so fucking legit i'm not even gonna lie it kills your family Now me losing to hundreds of noobs using the set becomes more/less bad. ). It was NEVER this bad, it's just that some people hated on it for no reason during the development days of this meta. Agreeing with ranking.

and finally
Greninja for B- rank
I'll settle for this rank for starters. I personally have a pretty solid ninja team that is like 6-0 in tours now. The set we are talking is Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Taunt/Shadow Sneak. A comparision to scolipede which sits in the proposed rank is a good idea to start:

While pede is a good anti lead to both Deo-S and A, and does resonably well vs Darkrai (but you have to forgo dual spikes for protect then), ninja has some other tools. Taunt and >120 base speed is the main reason to why I find use for this mon. Not only that but sneak turns you into a ghost type so there you go, you pretty much always prevent hazard removal if you want. It isn't a great anti lead in the way scolipede is but some things to note are that Scolipede is prone to set up sweepers with priority (Ekiller). Ninja still does very well vs Deo-A leads thanks to protean sneak.

Toxic Spikes are fucking strong and anything that gets them and can keep them up with momentum is worth a go.

 

[orch]

I agree with most of Hack's rankings, but here's few that I disagree on:

I disagree with Hack's ranking on Gliscor. It should be A+ or Land-t and Gliscor goes A/A- together. They both provide incredible utility and both have slightly different niches which make other better than other on specific teams. Both are good grounds that deserves high and equal ranking.

I think that TTar should be A- or even A rather than B+, since it's a great cm arc check, birds check, SR, sand, pursuit, and antilead. I think that ttar is really underrated now, especially with SForce gira-o being the newest hype. Tyranitar was treated unfairly when I proposed A-. (6 months ago!!)
Mm2 replied and there was no further discussion rip:

Meh, Tar brings a lot of weaks and its a mon that on paper can do a lot but in reality is too fragile to do it all at once. It's a pretty hit or miss mon but a rise to B+ isn't unreasonable.

I think that people thinks that ttar is "fragile" cuz they insist on chople, when lefties is a by far better option for any team that doesn't rely on removing focus blast gengar IMO. Lefties really adds a lot of longevity, just try it. I used to have replays with lefties ttar, and I'd show them but these replays are gone RIP. I really like ttar with toxic too, it punishes common ground switch ins incredibly well and ensures that the utility lasts. Hell, Ttar could reasonably run ice beam to destroy gliscor too...

Kanga belongs in B+ IMO. I agree with Hack's opinion on Kanga, but I think that Hack is misrepresenting how burn prone Kanga is. It doesn't need "a little bit of support", it needs fuckload of anti-burn support. The last good kanga team that I saw was hack's waterceus/kanga/goth/ho-oh/groudon/yveltal team which had a heal bell goth lol. Heal bell on goth is a fuckload of support, especially since goth practically guarantees the heal bell in exchange of Charm/TR.

While I'm talking about goth...
Goth for S or at the minimum, A+. Goth in A- is inexcusable and completely baseless. Charm Goth invalidates stall and balance, and not even Gengar is good enough to do that. Here's some calcs...

-2 0 Atk Toxic Plate Arceus-Poison Poison Jab vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 64-76 (18.6 - 22.1%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery

-2 0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 55-66 (16 - 19.2%) -- possible 8HKO after Leftovers recovery

-6 0- Atk Arceus-Grass Punishment (200 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 80-96 (23.3 - 27.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

-6 0 Atk Klefki Play Rough vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 22-27 (6.4 - 7.8%) -- possibly the worst move ever

-2 4 Atk Tyranitar Pursuit vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 60-72 (17.4 - 20.9%) -- possible 5HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

-2 4 Atk Tyranitar Payback (50 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 74-90 (21.5 - 26.2%) -- 2.3% chance to 4HKO after sandstorm damage and Leftovers recovery

-2 252+ Atk Technician Mega Scizor Pursuit vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Gothitelle: 84-100 (24.4 - 29.1%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Basically, you get to expand your trapping pool AND escapes pursuit trap from 2 best pursuiters in metagame (this is why charm >>>> reflect). Charm goth obsoletes Heal Block Klefki too. I didn't bother listing some of other stuff that Goth gets to trap with Charm, I'm sure that you guys can figure it out yourself.

 

[Mr.378]

I agree that Arceus-Normal should certainly be S-Rank. For having one common set, it is incredibly diverse and versatile a Pokemon. The most important thing that I feel it can do is serve as a revenge killer for offensive teams. It can allow them to check threats that would be very hard to otherwise, and gives a good reason to chip away at them so that Arc can switch in and eliminate them easily and with impunity. Not only that, but it can also run and change it's set depending on what your team needs to check and what you want to set up on. It has one of the best move pools in the game and it can take advantages of it due to it's great bulk and rather uncommon weaknesses. The fact that it is one of the better sweepers and one of, if not the best cleaner give it an edge that I believe set it apart from the rest of the Pokemon in the tier.

In summary, I completely agree with what Hack said and Arceus-Normal should be S-Rank.

 

[dice]

goth should remain a-; against hyper offensive gengar has utility and gothitelle does not. also, by nature of the pokemon, it is much harder to fit gothitelle on a team and it adds much less resistances-wise. if it were more easily able to be fit on teams i would be inclined to raise it, but for now i think its current position is fine.

land-t a+ / gliscor a-: once again, this comes down to being able to fit the pokemon on a team. the best gliscor set is probably knock off / roost / toxic / taunt, but that requires another sr setter and immediately disqualifies using heal bell on a team, so it is very hard to fit. landorus-t is just better because you can use it much more easily; sr gliscor is a very underwhelming set in general and sr landorus fares much better as a stealth rock setter against offensive teams as intimidate lets it more easily check ekiller.

tyranitar is bleh lol. on stall it could run lefties but you're typically inclined to run smooth rock w/ it because of having excadrill as a partner. of course, tyranitar + excadrill isn't obligatory, but if that is the case, it is usually on heavy, heavy stall which isn't that graet in the first place.

i don't really have much of an opinion on ekiller; it's very ubiquitous but the rise of gira-o, rain ferro, and some other mons have hampered its viability. i don't think its as metagame defining as gengar or kyogre so i would leave it where it is.

 

[Haunted Diamond]

Many people decide to run ground types like Lando-T, Groudon or Gliscor as their e killer check because these mons also check zekrom, or think that shaky checks like giratina-o or mega gengar suffice to solve their e killer problems; while actually e killer can get past all of these common checks with little to none support;

Lando T can't do much back to e killer, while the lum berry variants beat it with enough hp to kill 2 or more pokemon,
Groudon is weakened eventually as it phazes e killer out and takes repeated +2 extreme speeds,
Gliscor is dealt with the same as Lando T,
Giratina-O can be a one time emergency check with d tail against any e killer, but then it's useless the next time e killer sets up,
Mega gengar simply loses to jolly e killer unless it has already mega evolved.

On many offensive and balance teams there's not more than one spot available for a dedicated e killer check, and this fact is quite evident in many teams (just take a look at many of the good teams out there). And we all know if your e killer check is down, it's very difficult to revenge e killer because of its priority STAB.
My point? It's quite easy for a smart player to pull off a late game sweep with e killer if they take advantage of the fact that people don't or can't run real checks for e killer. And this + its revenging abilities makes e killer immensely viable in the current metagame so I think S is just fair for it.

 

[orch]

goth should remain a-; against hyper offensive gengar has utility and gothitelle does not. also, by nature of the pokemon, it is much harder to fit gothitelle on a team and it adds much less resistances-wise. if it were more easily able to be fit on teams i would be inclined to raise it, but for now i think its current position is fine.

It doesn't matter that Goth has shitty resistances. Use it with scarf xern or any other anti-HO mons, and then you're solid vs all 3 archetypes with just 2 slots. I realize that this is an oversimplification, but scarf xern/gene/kanga are all 3 potent pairs with goth and are very good vs HO.

land-t a+ / gliscor a-: once again, this comes down to being able to fit the pokemon on a team. the best gliscor set is probably knock off / roost / toxic / taunt, but that requires another sr setter and immediately disqualifies using heal bell on a team, so it is very hard to fit. landorus-t is just better because you can use it much more easily; sr gliscor is a very underwhelming set in general and sr landorus fares much better as a stealth rock setter against offensive teams as intimidate lets it more easily check ekiller.

Quite the contrary, I think that SR Gliscor is the best set because it fits into teams far easier as you explained. It doesn't require other SR'er and is very self-sustaining. Land-t can be easily worn down, so it's best delegated to offense/stall with extensive wish support. While, SR gliscor does everything that SR land-t is supposed to do, but better in these other teams. Both land-t and gliscor are TERRIBLE checks vs ekiller, so I don't see the allure of using land-t over gliscor for ekiller. Ekiller just spam sd as land-t tries 3hko with eq or intimidate spam. While, knock off+taunt is cute for stallbreaking, but like you described, it's pretty bad for team synergy. And, I disagree that having a cleric and gliscor is "impossible". Gliscor almost never get opportunity to switch into stuff that could potentially burn it. (ex: why would you switch gliscor into support arc/mewtwo??) So, you can get toxic orb'd again very easily without any issue. I think that you're underestimating sr gliscor set.

tyranitar is bleh lol. on stall it could run lefties but you're typically inclined to run smooth rock w/ it because of having excadrill as a partner. of course, tyranitar + excadrill isn't obligatory, but if that is the case, it is usually on heavy, heavy stall which isn't that graet in the first place.

I've never tried smooth rock, but that expands ttar's viability. Where do you think ttar belongs?

 

[dice]

you ignored that gothitelle is much harder to fit on teams and provide an anecdote which is completely irrelevant. good luck making a good team with the core you listed.

sr gliscor is popular for whatever reason and is very mediocre. land-t't ability to check ekiller comes into play with intimidate roundabouts which helps partners that don't want to directly switch in or need chip damage from u-turn. you also made an ignorant assumption that knock off + taunt gliscor is bad for team synergy. this tells me two things:

1) you do not know what synergy is
2) you have not tried the set

gliscor + heal bell is such a taboo and i cannot understand why you would want to risk using it. if you use heal bell and there is stealth rock up, you lose a net 25% that turn alone. this makes gliscor much more of a liability against the things it is supposed to check such as zekrom and ho-oh, the latter of which you didn't mention can burn you and gliscor is often a team's switch in to it.

back to sr gliscor: it is very mediocre because you have extreme 4mss and its biggest boon over land-t is checking ho-oh more effectively which it has to do with roost stalling. if you're going to use gliscor, opportunity cost delegates stealth rock to another pokemon.

tyranitar should remain where it is. not using the best set doesn't make ttar more viable; it simply makes your team suboptimal.

 

[Hack]

switching into Lando-T on Ekiller just to pivot to a check leads to an inevitable second swords dance with you only getting some negliable u-turn damage on it. Your other check who you for some reason didn't want to switch in will instead of facing a 100 % +2 Ekiller face a 80 % +3 Ekiller. I wouldn't call that scenario something that favors Lando-T over Gliscor at all- you will still need a real ekiller check. LO explosion qualifies as a check but is very team specific. neither glisc or land-t are good ekiller checks and you should not aim to switch into Lando unless Ekiller is in KO range. I agree with heal bell being taboo with Gliscor- Lando-T fits better on teams with that and checks blaziken better which is a big bonus. I don't mind A+/A- for the pair of these mons, it seems reasonable because Lando-T is easier to use and beneficial with strong wallbreakers thanks to u-turn.

However, no eq gliscor is like saying "hey blaziken take my life." it is very simply put a must unless your team happens to not have mons weak to blaze, which isn't often the case as the only SR user that synergizes well with taunt glisc is dialga so there you go. SR is a great set for the reasons I have given- not only does it outlast practically any defoger in long run but it checks Ho-oh better than any Lando-T set. It's a gross oversimplification from you to call a set mediocre when it has been proven to be exactly the opposite by most players. I have not tried EQ less taunt gliscor but I don't like it in theory at all. I guess this comes down to teambuilding and playing philosophy since I know you are a good player, but let's not argue that and focus on that we at least agree on the rankings.

ttar+exca based teams are strong, actually they are of the stronger archetypes in this meta. individually Ttar isn't too great but I find those teams incredibly viable, which makes ttar viable in itself (although arguments for flawed logic here can be accepted).

 

[orch]

you ignored that gothitelle is much harder to fit on teams and provide an anecdote which is completely irrelevant. good luck making a good team with the core you listed.

Fair enough, but I don't think that the fact that goth requires minimal support from teammates is an obstacle for S rank. And there's plenty of goth teams with Kanga/Gene/Xern. Why are you being so unnecessarily snarky?

land-t't ability to check ekiller comes into play with intimidate roundabouts which helps partners that don't want to directly switch in or need chip damage from u-turn.

What? Ekiller is going to get +3 in that case. Is there any revenge killer that survives +3 espeed? I suppose that this is valid in 1v1 situation, but I'm adhering the assumption that you're using ubers' definition of check which is switching in and stopping mon from doing the thing. Land-t is not checking Ekiller without Superpower.

you also made an ignorant assumption that knock off + taunt gliscor is bad for team synergy. this tells me two things:

1) you do not know what synergy is
2) you have not tried the set

Your words, not mine.

the best gliscor set is probably knock off / roost / toxic / taunt, but that requires another sr setter and immediately disqualifies using heal bell on a team, so it is very hard to fit.

How can you claim that Gliscor is not bad for team synergy right after you said that? Synergy is how well a mon connects with other mons in a team. If it's "very hard" to fit in, then it's inherently bad for synergy.

gliscor + heal bell is such a taboo and i cannot understand why you would want to risk using it. if you use heal bell and there is stealth rock up, you lose a net 25% that turn alone. this makes gliscor much more of a liability against the things it is supposed to check such as zekrom and ho-oh, the latter of which you didn't mention can burn you and gliscor is often a team's switch in to it.

Ho-Oh is not guaranteed to burn, and having a cleric lets you to heal burn in event of that happening... I don't see anyone discouraging the use of Gliscor even though Ho-Oh could potentially burn it on first sacred fire on switch in. You're assuming the worst case scenario and that Gliscor player is incompetent. Gliscor is a tough guy, and it gets roost to offset the 1 turn to get poisoned. Zekrom is required to Outrage in that scenario, which lets your fairy to punish opponent, and Gliscor gets the poison back. And if you're using HP ice zekrom, then it doesn't matter if Gliscor has poison or not, since it's getting raped regardless. And, you have to consider the weigh of the heal- would it help your teammates more than you need Gliscor? Then it's definitely worth it. The battles always vary, and cleric is a clutch move in these situations. It's silly to outright dismiss the possibility of cleric and gliscor on the same team.

back to sr gliscor: it is very mediocre because you have extreme 4mss and its biggest boon over land-t is checking ho-oh more effectively which it has to do with roost stalling. if you're going to use gliscor, opportunity cost delegates stealth rock to another pokemon.

What's the 4mss in this case..? SR Gliscor's goal is to toxic stall and set rocks. I don't see any problem with SR Gliscor's moveset for this purpose. Losing taunt is annoying, but Toxic still beats all defoggers except scizor/poisonceus.

tyranitar should remain where it is. not using the best set doesn't make ttar more viable; it simply makes your team suboptimal.

I don't disagree with that, but it simply adds other option for ttar. And, that makes ttar more viable according to the definition of viability which is how well mons can fit into teams.

 

[Golden009]

No one ever wanted E-Killer to drop, Edgar was just using it as an example to show just how bad of an idea it was to consider dropping Zekrom when many other high ranked Pokemon have successfully been adapted to.

It was asked in post #1000, so I felt obligated to reply, considering that the topic hadn't been brought up yet.

 

[haxiom]

It was asked in post #1000, so I felt obligated to reply, considering that the topic hadn't been brought up yet.

It addresses if it should be s not if it should drop iirc. Speaking of which, I feel like ekiller has a lot of utility as a revenger and still is really threatening so S seems pretty good to me.

 

[MQJinx]

Greninja for B- rank
I'll settle for this rank for starters. I personally have a pretty solid ninja team that is like 6-0 in tours now. The set we are talking is Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Taunt/Shadow Sneak. A comparision to scolipede which sits in the proposed rank is a good idea to start:

While pede is a good anti lead to both Deo-S and A, and does resonably well vs Darkrai (but you have to forgo dual spikes for protect then), ninja has some other tools. Taunt and >120 base speed is the main reason to why I find use for this mon. Not only that but sneak turns you into a ghost type so there you go, you pretty much always prevent hazard removal if you want. It isn't a great anti lead in the way scolipede is but some things to note are that Scolipede is prone to set up sweepers with priority (Ekiller). Ninja still does very well vs Deo-A leads thanks to protean sneak.

Toxic Spikes are fucking strong and anything that gets them and can keep them up with momentum is worth a go.

Supporting for Greninja to be ranked somewhere, as it anti-leads Deo-A and can stack Spikes and Toxic Spikes, I'd say C- Rank at worst, B- rank at best

EDIT: Also Tentacruel for C- Rank. It can lay t-spikes and spin in the faces of every defensive fairy and defsensive Palkia, discourage switching in with Scald, and it can check scarfogre, non-boosting xern, and if it has Scald, Blaziken.

 

[asterat]

Ok, so this whole thread is pretty outdated. To be blunt, a lot of changes need to happen.

--> A- I'm not really sure why Blaziken is in A+, it's really not that good. If you want an offensive fire type on your sun team I find it a hard argument to sell that Blaziken is better than Ho-Oh because the defensive opportunity cost is enormous. Of course you can have Blaziken sun teams, but then you need to find a different way to check all of those special attackers and fairy types in the sun. Using Blaziken makes sun teams inherently weak to Arceus-Fairy unless they run Klefki- even then TurKeys is way better than BlaziKeys. It's just too damn suicidal all the time, it can't really break fighting resists without killing itself in the process. It's a great nuke, but it can't really come in on anything or OHKO things unless it somehow snags a swords dance. Considering how ridiculously common Arceus Normal has become, speed boost isn't all that amazing either. I'm not sure why Blaziken was ever this high up, it definitely can't be classified as better than Ho-Oh in today's metagame. Ho-Oh is literally the main attraction of sun- of course you don't NEED to run it, but choosing Blaziken instead is not a hands down better decision as messaged by this ranking. Of course you could run both this and Ho-Oh, but that makes Blaziken Ho-Oh's accessory, and Ho-Oh is really the star of the show there anyways.

--> A+ To finish my Blaziken argument, we have Ho-Oh. There isn't much of a reason to use Groudon unless you have this on your team. Ho-Oh is probably one of the hardest pokemon to check in the game- even though it has some annoying weaknesses, team support can easily get around them. In addition to being the engine behind sun, Ho-Oh powers a lot of good sand teams. Even though he is mostly feared for his high powered attacks and ruthless burn rate, Ho-Oh is also somewhat of a fire type Blissey. The Special Bulk is monstrous, and the only way to really break it is Electric/Rock Arceus or water attacks outside of sun. I don't know how well I expressed this, but Ho-Oh is a monster that pretty much eats unprepared Ubers teams for breakfast just like Kyogre and Xerneas. He doesn't have the excellent typing of those two, and sports a nasty stealth rock weakness, but has reliable recovery and great bulk to abuse it as well as REGENERATOR. I'm not saying Ho-Oh quite scales up to them (I'm suggesting A+) but to be honest, it's pretty goddamn close. I might suggest the S tier but I think if I suggested a change that radical I'd get labeled a hotheaded fanboy, so I'll start with this.

--> B- What in the fuck is this doing in A-? The literal only reason I can fathom you would use Poison Arceus is to be a toxic immunce CMceus and to check Xerneas. First things first, this is not a miracle answer to Xerneas. Any Xerneas that carries Psyshock just wins vs. it. Thunder 2HKOes physically defensive variants to, and I don't think support arceus is really worth it unless it's physically defensive most of the time. Also, for the time being, meet my friend Gothitelle. Really common amongst high level players, eats this thing alive. The whole poison immune CMceus is pretty misguided as well unless you're facing a Blissey or something. Burns are probably more common in between Ho-Oh and Kyogre anyways. It also removes toxic spikes, but honestly, those are literally used on like one pokemon. In summary, doesn't really beat Xerneas, gets burned easily, Gothitelle's lunch, crappy offensive typing. Of course it can be ok situationally, but I really think it's very overhyped in this thread. To me, this thing is a lot like Amoonguss..

-->B I'm not saying where it is right now is ridiculous by any means, but I don't think Arceus-Ground really has a whole lot going for him. To me, he usually just seems to be another ground type who's only unique in that he takes up your Arceus slot. He doesn't have the sun support of Groudon, the Pivotability of Landorus, or the stallbreaking skills of Gliscor. He might have the highest stats and recover, but this is kind of irrelevant because his stats don't really accomplish anything specific. Groudon has great bulk and power, Landorus-T has some neat moves and intimidate, and Gliscor has poison heal. These other grounds all have a specific purpose they pull off really well because of their uniqueness, while Arceus-Ground is stuck with some blergh Swords Dance + Recover set. It's not awful, but it doesn't do that much because of how common Landorus-T is, and how common scarf Kyogre/Xerneas is.

I'm done for now, but next time I'm going to attack the shit out of the mons donkey dismissed in his guide B tier. Deoxys-D and Giratina-O are not around the same viability lol.

 

[Fireburn]

Time for changes:

Arceus-Normal A+ -> S: More people seem to be for this than against so we're doing it. The Refresh set helps I think since it gives EKiller significantly greater utility against stall.

Zekrom A -> A-: It's still a top Pokemon but more people are prepping for it nowadays with stuff like Ferrothorn and Ground/Fairy cores.

Giratina-O B -> A: Shadow Force set makes this a ton more viable as it is no longer bait for Fairies. Great check to lots of top metagame threats (Blaze, EKiller, Grounds, Mewtwo) and a Defogger that doesn't care about Shadow Tag is very useful.

Deoxys-D B -> C-: Sucks, but still kind of viable since its a bulky Spiker with healing and Knock Off.

Gliscor B -> A-: Was gonna do B+ because it kind of screws you out of running a cleric and it lacks much offensive presence, but it's recovery and ability to handle Ho-Oh better than the other Ground-types sold Gliscor for me. Feel free to disagree though.

Kangaskhan B -> B+: Great mon that checks most offensive threats, not 100% convinced on going to A- because it is still really vulnerable to burns.

Greninja Added to B- Rank: Excellent Spikes lead that can prevent early hazard removal with Taunt + Shadow Sneak.

Tentacruel Added to C Rank: Decent spinner + TSpiker that has a good niche on some teams.

Victini Added to B Rank: I thought this had been ranked the whole time but evidently not. ._.

Removed Abomasnow: Sucks.

I'm not quite fully convinced TTar/Exca/Ferro should rise so I'm leaving them alone for now. tl;dr version:

TTar: Big issues with burns + Ground-types, limited to support sets, keeping up sand isn't the easiest thing in the world. Doesn't wall much outside of Dark-types despite solid defenses.
Exca: Entirely dependent on sand to function
Ferrothorn: Really hates burns and Fire, not being able to check Xerneas reliably kind of sucks (I think Focus Blast is starting to get more popular? that and you're forced to run Kyogre with it so you don't die to HP Fire)

Also, what do you guys think of Dialga? Some more discussion on it would be cool.

 

[haxiom]

For Dialga, I am all for A+. I used to not use it much, but as of a couple months ago I started playing with it and was quite impressed. It's got an excellent typing, checks a lot of things for more offensive teams, while still preventing setup with roar or status and whatever. One of the most reliable Stealth Rockers, and is really nice as sort of a blanket check to all sorts of dragons and miscellaneous mons. Roar means its not Gothitelle bait (except Taunt variants I suppose), and the offensive variants with wide coverage can really mess up stall. Honestly, it's a really great mon in a lot of regards. It's not really something like Ekiller, that is just so good at what it does, but it is more of a multi-functional, solid mon that offers a lot of unique utility.

 

[Mr.378]

Yeah, I would go with Dialga in A+ as well. It's one of the most reliable, splashable stealth rock setters, which is great in this tier. It also has good offenses that can beat and deter a number of it's switch ins and it can run roar to avoid becoming set up bait and also can scout your opponents sets. It also has a number of underrated offensive sets such as it's Specs set which hits very hard and has good coverage. Overall Dialga is good enough right now that i would say that A+ is a fair ranking for it.

Oh yeah, and thank you for finally raising Arc-Normal to S. Its been a long time coming.

 

[Dilwar]

What the hell is MMX doing in S rank? Mewtwo and Mewtwo-Y should be S-Rank, I don't think MMX should be there just because it's the same Pokemon.

 

[Minority]

What the hell is MMX doing in S rank? Mewtwo and Mewtwo-Y should be S-Rank, I don't think MMX should be there just because it's the same Pokemon.

Megas are grouped with their base forme and other megas because they function as different sets of a single mon. Separating MM2X from stalltwo on the viability rankings would be like separating CM Xern from Geo Xern.