Nominating Dugtrio to B. Dugtrio has gotten so much better, because it can trap and trap for so many new megas, making it excellent team support for sweepers like mega mence, altaria, metagross, and more. However, it is very frail, making you want to run sash, but only CB has the power to knock out necessary targets.
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Other ORAS OU Viability Ranking Thread - Check post #2359
- Thread starter alexwolf
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I do have experience with both mons and agree that Cune is not fully outclassed by Mbro. Another benefit of Cune that you did not raise was that Cune has a high base sdef, which means setting up against special attackers is much easier. I have to be more careful when to set up with MBro, but with Cune I only need to get to +2 to be safe against most special attacks. For Bro its more like +3 at least. So if Cune does drop it should not drop by much, if at all.
Edit. While I am talking about Mbro I think it is worthy of A+. MBro has some elements of MMence in that once it sets up its often gg. Fortunately it is easier to stop and overwhelm it before it sets up. However what I am recently discovering is that even at +1 it can be horrible to face thanks to its base 130 Sattack. I have found that calm mind, scald, slack off and physhock is a great moveset. It can chip away at its switch in counters (and often burn them) until they can no longer counter it. Once that happens go to +1, take out the counter, heal up and begin your slow sweep. Its one of the most dangerous Megas in the game and it should be ranked to reflect that.
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I support S- and S+ ranks now. I know that idea was shot down in the XY ranking threads, but back then, it was just to show the tiniest differences in viability of the S ranks. Now, there's a pretty clear difference because some of the S ranks are really really good (Latios, Charizard X) and some (Salamence, Greninja) are straight up overpowered.
Speaking of Greninja and Salamence, it's no small feat to check/counter both of them with the same pokemon. So I support raises to Mega Aerodactyl, Weavile, and Porygon2. Of course Salamence and Greninja aren't the only newcomers they beat:
Mega Aerodactyl is faster than every new mega, with a Jolly nature. So it can at least get a hit off vs anything. Not only that, but it can check/counter them, because it can both switch in and OHKO back. It straight up counters Mega Beedrill, can switch into Camerupt's stabs and OHKO with Aqua Tail or hurt it bad with Earthquake, can switch into any attack from Sceptile once and OHKO with Wing Attack or Ice Fang, can take a kick from Mega Lopunny and OHKO.
Weavile got Icicle Crash, which is a ~13% power increase over Ice Punch. Since that's its strongest move after Knocking Off an item (or if Knock Off is resisted), that's pretty significant. For example, it can beat CM Mega Latias more quickly. And it's basically the only physical attack that bulky Mega Salamence can't ever set up on. Wait, did I say "ever"?
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 380-452 (96.4 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO (you may recognize that as a 18.7% chance to NOT ohko)
Fuck Salamence, guys.
Finally Porygon2. Less overly powerful wall breakers like Heracross is always welcome, so Porygon2 can stand up to a lot of the new megas just by being bulky as hell and having only one weakness. Specifically, it takes on Altaria, Beedrill, Glalie (and survive its explosion), Latios, Metagross, Pidgeot, Sceptile if it doesn't switch in on Focus Blast, Salamence, Sharpedo, Steelix and Swampert even in their respective weathers. I'll just link the post I made in another thread:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ns-nor-aegislash.3519695/page-82#post-5823902
Another small perk is reverse trapping Magnezone and Dugtrio using Trace.
Suicune is actually the one with the better typing. The CM sets aim to wall everything, and less weaknesses is better. Having a Fighting resist isn't very useful for a CM sweeper, while it gives Slowbro something to switch in on, once it's actually trying to sweep, the opponent will just not use fighting moves against it, and can instead exploit its 3 extra weaknesses.
Suicune is also faster, which is a little more useful than it seems. Against those slower opponents, it allows Suicune to KO or burn opponents with Scald a turn earlier, Suicune doesn't have to anticipate the turn before when it's low on health to recover health, and it can Calm Mind first to reduce damage against stuff like Mega Venusaur.
Finally Suicune is just as viable as ever if you were using a different mega.
Speaking of Greninja and Salamence, it's no small feat to check/counter both of them with the same pokemon. So I support raises to Mega Aerodactyl, Weavile, and Porygon2. Of course Salamence and Greninja aren't the only newcomers they beat:
-1 252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Salamence: 380-452 (96.4 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO (you may recognize that as a 18.7% chance to NOT ohko)
Fuck Salamence, guys.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ns-nor-aegislash.3519695/page-82#post-5823902
Another small perk is reverse trapping Magnezone and Dugtrio using Trace.
No
Suicune is actually the one with the better typing. The CM sets aim to wall everything, and less weaknesses is better. Having a Fighting resist isn't very useful for a CM sweeper, while it gives Slowbro something to switch in on, once it's actually trying to sweep, the opponent will just not use fighting moves against it, and can instead exploit its 3 extra weaknesses.
Suicune is also faster, which is a little more useful than it seems. Against those slower opponents, it allows Suicune to KO or burn opponents with Scald a turn earlier, Suicune doesn't have to anticipate the turn before when it's low on health to recover health, and it can Calm Mind first to reduce damage against stuff like Mega Venusaur.
Finally Suicune is just as viable as ever if you were using a different mega.
Considering how good the current megas are I can't say it isn't a fault against him when it acts more as a luxury as stated earlier than an alternative.
I mean I get it, but come on, two whole ranks down? Isn't that a bit much?
Again I think it is just because the mega slot just got that good. Often losing your mega really weighs down your team considerably as they are too much an asset. Which in this case well MLatios doesn't exactly shine through. But hey if you have a good case for him the viability ranking is still open to discussion, it is still an early meta.
While I agree that opportunity cost should play a role on rankings, this is extreme.
If someone wants to make a team around Mega Latios, which means opportunity cost doesn't come into play since no other megas are competing for a slot, would it really be about as good as the rest of the B-rank pokemons? No, it'd still be much better than them
I would argue him for A- to A personally, but it's hard to make much of a case with Mega Mence hanging around every corner, so I'll save it for another time. Still, Mega Latios has a lot of unexplored potential as a mixed attacker, Dragon Dancer, (you heard me right, it isn't outclassed by Zard X either because Draco allows it to get through threats it would otherwise struggle against, plus Levitate allows it to deal with certain threats better,) and offensive Calm Mind. But again, I'll wait until I can gather more evidence to back my claim, and until Mega Mence... well, you know.
Well right now that is the point his potential isn't exactly making itself apparent to distinguish himself enough, the rest are quite obvious because of their new/unique niches altogether. Of course again it is early so any arguments other than just being befuddled is welcome.
I just forgot to remove them, nothing is in the conclusion reached category as of now.
The latter.
Regarding Mega Latios, it's so down on the list because it's one of those cases where the benefits over the regular forme are very small, meaning that the opportunity cost becomes huge. Latios does almost the same job as Mega Latios and doesn't occupy the Mega slot, a Mega slot which could be spent on absurdly powerful and useful MEvos such as Salamence, Slowbro, and Metagross. So yeah, giving up on those MEvos for better bulk and survivability is worth it sometimes, but not enough for Latios to be anywhere near A rank. Maybe it will rise to B+ if it ends up being worthy and good enough, and even to A- if some very strong MEvos get banned, but until then it's staying in B.
Btw, seeing how hectic things are atm, let's go with a classic process, examining and fixing everything starting from the highest all the way down to the lowest ranks. We will start with S and A+ ranks, and posts regarding other ranks will be ignored. Also, when i say S and A+ ranks, i mean that we will be talking about Pokemon that reside in those ranks, not Pokemon from lower ranks you may want to rise to A+ or S.
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I honestly don't see how to justify Keldeo in S as long as M-Mence is in the tier. If it's choice locked into anything except icy wind or HP ice its set up bait, and I don't think the expert belt and the sub-cm sets are good enough for S. And even if Mence disappears the specs set has lost a lot of viability because of speed creep.
You're forgetting the scarf sets, (which with icy wind u can hinder mega mence btw). Scarf Keldeo is an excellent revenge killer rn, and ebelt+subcm lets it be dangerous and versatile enough to give the answers to specs a run for their money.
Also keldeo is a pretty solid switch-in to ninja right now, as esensory is rare and hp grass is uncommon, and obviously ninja isn't really taking a hit.
Finally we can't really say that keldeo is bad because the pokemon that counters it is obscenely broken. And I'm not saying like mega lucario or mega mawile kind of broken. I'm saying that if we had a scale of 1-10 of brokenness (10 being broken obv) mega mence comes in at 13 (mkhan is 15 imho)
Can we make a Salamence tier for Mega Mence? GSC Viability has one for Snorlax. I'm only half-kidding about that.
On another note, maybe Mew should drop to A? The match-up it thrives against (Stall and Balance) are less popular atm. New metas tend to be more HO heavy, and once things settle down a little bit Mew might become more viable again. Stallbreaking Mew also gained two new counters in Diancie and Sableye. Sableye in being popular on stall in particular makes Mew's primary job much harder. Sub sets of Gallade, Lopunny and Mence are also issues for Mew. So for now Mew to A might be a good idea.
Also, I think Mega Venusaur is fine where it is. It basically breaks even as far as new threats go. Salamence, Latias, Latios and Gallade screw it over. It's tank set, however, it a great answer to MAltaria, MDiancie, MSceptile, MLopunny, MSwampert and MSharpedo. There is a lot of Flying and Psychic spam now, but at least checking all those Megas makes it a nice safety blanket if you forget to cover something. Since Greninja doesn't carry Extrasensory anymore, it's also a solid Gren check. I've found offensive VenuTran (tank Venu and Scarf Heatran) play really well and covers a lot of threats out there.
On another note, maybe Mew should drop to A? The match-up it thrives against (Stall and Balance) are less popular atm. New metas tend to be more HO heavy, and once things settle down a little bit Mew might become more viable again. Stallbreaking Mew also gained two new counters in Diancie and Sableye. Sableye in being popular on stall in particular makes Mew's primary job much harder. Sub sets of Gallade, Lopunny and Mence are also issues for Mew. So for now Mew to A might be a good idea.
Also, I think Mega Venusaur is fine where it is. It basically breaks even as far as new threats go. Salamence, Latias, Latios and Gallade screw it over. It's tank set, however, it a great answer to MAltaria, MDiancie, MSceptile, MLopunny, MSwampert and MSharpedo. There is a lot of Flying and Psychic spam now, but at least checking all those Megas makes it a nice safety blanket if you forget to cover something. Since Greninja doesn't carry Extrasensory anymore, it's also a solid Gren check. I've found offensive VenuTran (tank Venu and Scarf Heatran) play really well and covers a lot of threats out there.
I think Keldeo should drop to A+ not really because of M-Mence being the sole factor but because of the drastic increase in speed that offensive teams now have with M-Sceptile, M-Gallade, M-Gross, etc. Stall teams have been able to build much better defensive backbones with the implementation of Tentacruel, M-Bro, and cores that mitigate the Water/Fighting Coverage. Scarf set allows it to be a solid revenge killer but it's just too weak to break anything outside of extremely frail hyper offense and thus allows an opportunity cost among set up sweepers, think M-Gallade, M-Gross, M-Bro and bulkier archetypes. Specs set still holds some weight against various playstyles but it's become easier to handle for offense just with repeated hazard damage and pressure. I look at Keldeo like I do Lando-I where it's fantastic at what it does but current trends can make it difficult to accomplish.
People keep suggesting that Char-X should drop when there is still plenty of stuff that realistically does not want to be hit by this thing at all. Yeah ok you have M-Slowbro that walls it but you're talking about one of the biggest defensive mons in the tier right now and using that as justification to drop from a stall standpoint I'm assuming. M-Mence is above and beyond in terms of caliber and you can only compare so much when M-Sala is obviously the best of the best in the S rank and tier as a whole and makes everything look like a walk in the park. Char-X has only changed slightly and every time some metagame shift happens it goes on to the next best set that works for it and this shift is generally no different. It's still plenty viable on teams and can run whatever set it suits the team best and itself to handle specific threats or archetypes. Char-X is still a monster keep it in S.
Mew can drop for the time being to A like celticpride said cause it has this poor matchup against your average offensive build, general trends threaten it such as Crunch M-Gyarados, the bulkiness of things such as SubRoot MMence, the power behind SD Knock Off M-Gallade, M-Sharpedo, and so on. The fact that a lot of stall builds are running M-Sableye doesn't help it one bit either and it's hard to justify using this all the time when the traits that it accomplishes can only thrive on older builds that look more like XY than ORAS teams, which people are steering away from.
People keep suggesting that Char-X should drop when there is still plenty of stuff that realistically does not want to be hit by this thing at all. Yeah ok you have M-Slowbro that walls it but you're talking about one of the biggest defensive mons in the tier right now and using that as justification to drop from a stall standpoint I'm assuming. M-Mence is above and beyond in terms of caliber and you can only compare so much when M-Sala is obviously the best of the best in the S rank and tier as a whole and makes everything look like a walk in the park. Char-X has only changed slightly and every time some metagame shift happens it goes on to the next best set that works for it and this shift is generally no different. It's still plenty viable on teams and can run whatever set it suits the team best and itself to handle specific threats or archetypes. Char-X is still a monster keep it in S.
Mew can drop for the time being to A like celticpride said cause it has this poor matchup against your average offensive build, general trends threaten it such as Crunch M-Gyarados, the bulkiness of things such as SubRoot MMence, the power behind SD Knock Off M-Gallade, M-Sharpedo, and so on. The fact that a lot of stall builds are running M-Sableye doesn't help it one bit either and it's hard to justify using this all the time when the traits that it accomplishes can only thrive on older builds that look more like XY than ORAS teams, which people are steering away from.
A couple of minor nominations
Charizard Y==> B+ Apart from the opportunity cost in using this mon, it loses to all the S-Rank Pokemon, is a bit too slow in the current meta, and is 4x weak to SR.
Pinsir==> B Not a bad mon, but its extremely outclassed by Mega Mence due to its worse typing movepool, bulk, and speed. Having a 4x SR weakness is pretty bad too.
Charizard Y==> B+ Apart from the opportunity cost in using this mon, it loses to all the S-Rank Pokemon, is a bit too slow in the current meta, and is 4x weak to SR.
Pinsir==> B Not a bad mon, but its extremely outclassed by Mega Mence due to its worse typing movepool, bulk, and speed. Having a 4x SR weakness is pretty bad too.
Keldeo should drop, though. Greninja's rise has given rise to Tentacruel, who effortlessly blocks out Keldeo. Being slower than mence but for the scarf set, and having to hope it isn't behind a sub/+1 to check it also hurts. And let's not forget scarf gives it a lot less power. Mega Altaria is going to come up as a pretty easy switchin to Keldeo, bar that icy wind. Not to mention MLatis which just shit on keldeo even harder now. Mega Bro is gonna take this thing effortlessly, as well. It just never was a very solid S-rank and ORAS is derailing it pretty badly, making it almost forced to run scarf due to the speed tier creep. Not even sure A+ is a good place for it right now.
I'm pretty sure Charizard-X should drop, also due to speed tiers and Mega Bro's absolute dominance. Mega Altaria doesn't help, either. But his main issue might be that Mega Mence's physical counter, Rhyperior, takes ZardX better than anything else.
I'm pretty sure Charizard-X should drop, also due to speed tiers and Mega Bro's absolute dominance. Mega Altaria doesn't help, either. But his main issue might be that Mega Mence's physical counter, Rhyperior, takes ZardX better than anything else.
Char-Y to B+ is absurd to be honest. It has still has a ridiculous amount of fire power at its disposal, is still a threat to many forms of playstyles, needs general support to function not a crazy amount and this illusion that it's supposably of equal viability to Skarmory is just nuts. I can understand a drop to A due to its matchup against offense and the speed tier increase but B+ is just crazy.
It's a shame to see Char Y drop, even though I'm expecting it to. because Char X is over-rated and I hate it. But I don't want it dropping any farther than A. It is a bit slow, but it's basically the lead of sun teams and it has fantastic wall-breaking capability. It has really good coverage, only being walled completely by Chansey. Sure, it requires a lot of team support, but it's perfectly capable of staying in A.
Yeah Mega Pinsir is pretty inferior to Mega Salamence right now. Mega Salamence is just so much better because it can boost its own Speed with DD, has better overall bulk, and also has Outrage or even a few fun stuff like Fire Blast to work with. It's also naturally faster than Mega Pinsir both pre- and post-Mega Evolving, which is kind of huge. Mega Pinsir is far from a bad Pokemon, but just kind of outclassed right now. It seems kind of silly, but regardless, until Mega Salamence is banned, I guess moving Mega Pinsir to B Rank wouldn't hurt since it's still decent but it's kind of niche.
Mega Charizard-Y on the other hand is probably more A or A- than it is B+. It's still a strong breaker, and it hits super freaking hard and has decent coverage so it still crushes stuff like it always has. It doesn't need that much support, just generic support that any good team should be running (Defog/Spin is needed but most teams should be running a form of hazard removal in OU anyways). Its Speed tier is not shabby and it's honestly still a big threat, I could see it in A- at worst, and A is probably better than A+ right now, but B+ is much too low lol.
I made a post about Mega Metagross earlier and I still think it should be S but whatever lol.
Just a few thoughts.
Mega Charizard-Y on the other hand is probably more A or A- than it is B+. It's still a strong breaker, and it hits super freaking hard and has decent coverage so it still crushes stuff like it always has. It doesn't need that much support, just generic support that any good team should be running (Defog/Spin is needed but most teams should be running a form of hazard removal in OU anyways). Its Speed tier is not shabby and it's honestly still a big threat, I could see it in A- at worst, and A is probably better than A+ right now, but B+ is much too low lol.
I made a post about Mega Metagross earlier and I still think it should be S but whatever lol.
Just a few thoughts.
This is crazy. Idk if it's just Charizard fanboying at this point. Idk how anyone can say it's S in the current meta when you have all this Megas that give it a hard time to find a window to set up. Then you also have sand offense which is quite common with Tyranitar that can soft check it IF it did find the window to set up and Excadrill that revenge kills it easily. In such an offensive metagame there's just a lot of things that prevent from even coming in safely. Greninja, Talonflame, Salamence, Mega Sceptile, Latios etc. Do I even have to mention the 4x weakness to Stealth Rock. Then against stallier teams you have Mega Slowbro or even base Slowbro that it has problems with. Flare Blitz also wears it down quite quickly and a factor to it dying a lot of the time.
Sun teams aren't exactly viable, plus Zard Y also has problems with the Latis (especially with Mega Latias), Tyranitar, Talonflame (actually a pretty good counter if Rocks aren't up), and Rain teams. Mega Gardevoir has the same speed tier, has a better matchup against the S Ranks overall (Mence/Zard X are forced to attack you while they can setup on Zard Y, Specs Keldeo being less viable makes it easier to deal with, you beat Latios, both are fuck by Greninja though), and Mega Gardevoir beats Chansey easily. Gardy should be ranked higher than Zard Y.
Charizards base form has a x4 weakness to SR not Char-X, let's differentiate that first before using that as a crutch towards the argument. Every Zard-X team has an answer to Sand Offense this hasn't changed since XY where it still maintained S rank due to its ability to threaten many key threats in the metagame. Every Zard-X team will have and do have an answer to all these things for those specific threats and Char-X can handle the rest. Sure it's lost a bit of viability but that's all skewed towards a metagame trying to check M-Mence and not towards Char-X itself. I mean if people want to drop it to A+ for the time being fine but don't just assume that from a theorymonning standpoint all of this stuff is always an issue.
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