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Other ORAS Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter alexwolf
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for those curious i.e. those of you without experience with the Soul Dew
Latias SPD/ Latios SPA hits 398 neutral nature uninvested to 591 beneficial max investment with Soul Dew
The same stats on the megas hit 325 and 460 respectively.
That Difference is MASSIVE
given that the difference i Defence for Latias is 185 Neutral Uninvested for base/SD and 245 for the Mega which is a smaller distance (By a wider margin the more investment you put into the special stats.) you should always Use Soul Dew if you can. And Latios doesn't give a shit about Defense to begin with, no other item should be an option.
as stated above, these things are a non locking Choice Specs with a similar boost to the SPD. isss very busted.
Latias SPD/ Latios SPA hits 398 neutral nature uninvested to 591 beneficial max investment with Soul Dew
The same stats on the megas hit 325 and 460 respectively.
That Difference is MASSIVE
given that the difference i Defence for Latias is 185 Neutral Uninvested for base/SD and 245 for the Mega which is a smaller distance (By a wider margin the more investment you put into the special stats.) you should always Use Soul Dew if you can. And Latios doesn't give a shit about Defense to begin with, no other item should be an option.
as stated above, these things are a non locking Choice Specs with a similar boost to the SPD. isss very busted.
I don't understand why they would bring it back when they are just about to release the Mega Stones. Soul Dew completely outclasses both and makes them not worth using at all.
they are knock off vulnerable, and leave you slightly more frail physically but its such a big boon to the special side and can e run along side a mega so its well worth the trade off.
Just curious, but was it stated where in the game Soul Dew is found?
Southern Island, just like the originals. So you'll need the Eon Ticket.
TBH, to anyone who thinks Protean should be banned rather than Greninja, I completely disagree as everything else that is usable gets it (Kecleon, Frogadier (in a meta without Greninja)) is perfectly balanced. Greninja has no safe switch-ins now that it has gained Low Kick and Gunk Shot as its old checks (Azu - Grass Knot only hits it for 60 BP - same as Hidden Power), Ferrothorn (forced HP Fire variants), Sylveon (untouchable), Clef (to a lesser extent), Empoleon (untouchable outside of shitty HP Electric/Fighting variants, only niche in OU)) are now all easy to deal with (Gunk Shot deals with Azu, Sylveon and Clefable, Low Kick is a great way to deal with Empoleon, as well as an alternate method of hitting Ferrothorn hard).. Its amazing to think how much gaining two moves can improve a Pokemon, and it no longer has a minor case of 4MSS to deal with. IMO this thing needs to get banned.
It's been awhile since I played, but what do you guys think of a physically based greninja?
Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Gunk Shot
- Low Kick
Ice beam is mostly there for things like Garchomp, Mence, and Gliscor, who get easily OHKO'd by ice beam even without invest. STAB U-Turn is great on any fast pivot, and Greninja is one of the better fast u-turners. Low Kick and Gunk Shot hit quite hard with all that attack invest. The best part is that this set really messes with common swap ins, u-turn hits pretty much any lati twin very hard, low kick is great against things like Kyub and Emp, Gunk Shot for fairies, and anything this set can't handle can just be u-turned out of. I've had a great deal of success with this set simply because u-turn is based.
Greninja @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- U-turn
- Ice Beam
- Gunk Shot
- Low Kick
Ice beam is mostly there for things like Garchomp, Mence, and Gliscor, who get easily OHKO'd by ice beam even without invest. STAB U-Turn is great on any fast pivot, and Greninja is one of the better fast u-turners. Low Kick and Gunk Shot hit quite hard with all that attack invest. The best part is that this set really messes with common swap ins, u-turn hits pretty much any lati twin very hard, low kick is great against things like Kyub and Emp, Gunk Shot for fairies, and anything this set can't handle can just be u-turned out of. I've had a great deal of success with this set simply because u-turn is based.
In the Greninja Thread were already some physically based sets, so I guess you can look there at this physically Ninja set: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/greninja.3489907/page-60#post-5844902
After playing ORAS OU for a while, I think Greninja is less broken than I thought. 121 base speed is quite incredible, but I find he can't really afford to run a +speed nature. (Weavile can survive HP fire LoL.) He gets outspeed by new mega evolutions (Beedrill, Sceptile, Lop(?)) And he hates Scarfers, Priority abusers, and T-wave. Yes Greninja is a Pokemon who can change type, which on its own sound broken, but we need to remember; he is a Pokemon who can change type and has 105 base Sp.Att.
PS; T-flame does incredibly against a ton of new megas, now I want him to stay forever.
PPS; Am I the only one who finds Weavile REALLY good now?
PS; T-flame does incredibly against a ton of new megas, now I want him to stay forever.
PPS; Am I the only one who finds Weavile REALLY good now?
It's a bit misleading when you say that Weavile can survive HP fire:
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 224-265 (78.3 - 92.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Weavile: 250-296 (88.9 - 105.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Weavile: 250-296 (88.9 - 105.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
At best it's a 1 for 1 trade, at worst Greninja wins. Also, while it is slower than a lot of the new megas, you'll only ever see one per round, so for an offensive team I'd imagine there would only be two threats that are faster than Greninja: a Scarfed threat and a Mega. So really, I don't think much has changed for Greninja users since it's never really liked Scarfers, priority users or T-Wave. Also, 105 base special attack when compounded with the fact that every attack becomes a STAB means that you can't write off Greninja as a weak hitter. It may not be wall breaking any time soon, but it still hits hard enough to clean well. Lastly, you do have to run +speed or you get beaten by anything with max speed and a base speed of 107 or higher (i.e. Terrakion and Keldeo, plus others I'm likely missing).
PS: Long live Smog Bird
PSS: I never really use it or see it, so I can't really say much for it.
It's not due to his absolute power that a lot of people find Greninja difficult to handle, it's true that on neutral hits he doesn't hit as hard as say Mega Charizard X or like Mega Mawile ever used to, it's the fact that thanks to his wealth of coverage options, he's capable of hitting a vast amount of targets super effectively and his fantastic speed only aids this, in that he can outspeed and revenge kill a large portion of the offensive metagame(minus the megas you mentioned and scarf users) or that any potential switchin has to be able to take 2 hits from him, as the likelihood is that he outspeeds said switchin. When he can carry a move that hits most switchins very hard, you can see how this might be difficult to handle and why there are so few 'true' Greninja counters at the moment. The reality is that he can only wallbreak if he has the right coverage, so in this aspect you might find him a little lacking, as he can't break through Mega Venusaur if lacking Extrasensory, Mew without Dark Pulse, Ferrothorn without HP Fire etc. etc. But as a cleaner he is unrivalled in OU at the moment. Also there is no way you should ever consider running a neutral speed nature on Greninja, as the amount of things you miss out on makes his role as an offensive cleaner/revenge killer pointless (you miss out on Lati@s and the muskateers+Infernape) and tbh, the power isn't all that needed as long as you are clever with your use of it and pick off it's targets well.
tl;dr
Greninja is primarily an offensive cleaner first, a wallbreaker second if he is carrying the right coverage to break said wall.
Never run neutral speed, missing out on 108+ is too costly and the power isn't all that needed.
Regarding PS, yeah I already posted a Talonflame set I love in this thread, it's a great answer to a lot of megas and can be helpful in breaking down stall at the same time.
Regarding PPS, yeah fantastic against offense, and a lot of the threats that he can't outspeed naturally fear his Ice Shard(Sceptile, Aerodactyl) plus being able to revenge the great MegaMence is always a plus.
Yeah. I agree with all of this. The fact is that Greninja's coverage has gotten so good that people need to bring multiple counters to it to reliably beat it, and that is incredibly limiting to teambuilding, as it means that I am forced to bring Ferrothorn and Azumarill on the same team to beat it reliably, and that is not a fun experience as it limits my ability to try out new 'mons that I like such as Mega Glalie, Lopunny and Sceptile, as well as newly-buffed shit like Mega Absol, Weavile, Chesnaught and NEVER SAY NO TO PANDA!, as none of them can come in safely vs its coverage AND outpace it, and those that can (Sceptile on anything other than Ice Beam) need to mega evolve before they can outpace, and that takes a turn to do.
No one is discussing Glalie because Glalie is bad. This threat is for talking about stuff that's relevant to ORAS OU , and Glalie isn't relevant in OU.
I'm in no condition to make a long ass post but saying Greninja is unbeatable is downright false. There are many ways to beat him which I'll elaborate on later when I don't feel like shit.
We've discussed this, and nobody is claiming Greninja is unbeatable. The problem people have is that it is severely restrictive on teambuilding (especially offense) and most of its "best" answers are really niche like P2 or Empoleon (and Empoleon can lose if Greninja decided that today is Low Kick Tuesday).
Just how niche is a Pokémon if its able to stand up to an "overpowered" threat reliably and consistently? Empoleon has always been a good check to other shit like Azu, Heatran, Scizor (bar the new set CBB uses), Clefable, and Sylveon in XY, and the only thing that changed is that Ninja has the option to run Low Kick to get past him now.
Porygon2 is admittedly worse, but he can still check some top tier threats like Latias (and sometimes Latios, depending on rolls), Greninja, Heatran (full counter btw), Azumarill, and Landorus-T. Also remember that these two are in B- and C respectively, meaning that they can't even be considered unviabLe.
Then you have other mons like Tentacruel, which works very well on stall teams in ORAS thanks to countering Clefable and any other fairy not named Gardevoir, while also spinning and burning things with Scald. It even punishes Ferrothorn thanks to Liquid Ooze.
Alomomomomomola also counters non GK variants (and btw GK is bad now so its only used as a lure) with the right EVs, and she passes ginormous wishes to teammates and doesn't die because of regenerator.
Hell even Rotom-W can check him with the right EVs, as he's able to avoid the 2HKO from Dark a pulse with like 154 SDef EVs (don't quote me on the number, idr it exactly). And the funny thing is that it doesn't take away from his bulk like investing in SAtk for Mence. Rotom has the bulk to take on Greninja; you just gotta know how to EV him.
Other mons include the following, as Greninja will always lack a way to reliably beat at least one of these: Ferrothorn, Bulky Mega Scizor, Clefable, Sylveon, Mew, Mega Sableye, Chansey, Slowbro, Vaporeon, Defensive Zard X, and even Heatran.
Yes, I realize that these are defensive mons, and that offense has trouble with Greninja. But travel back in time to a few days after Mega Mawile got banned. What happened to stall? It died. Why? Because 3 megas were absolutely shitting on it. Heracross. Gardevoir. Medicham. They made stall practically unviable for a while. Then came the rise of Mew and Slowbro, which helped save the style and put it back on the radar. Was it still struggling? Yes. Did any of the three megas who made stalls life hell get banned? No.
Now take what I just said, reduce three to one, and replace stall with offense. And that is exactly what is going on with Greninja right now. Greninja got two new toys that allowed him to get past some of his checks. And when an offensive team is facing Greninja, it's gonna be a struggle. Just like. Defensive team facing Mega Gardevoir. Put Greninja up against stall, and he struggles. Put Mega Gardevoir up against offense, and she struggles. The situations are reversed.
From what I've seen about the complaints on ninja is that many players here like to use offensive play styles. Everyone hates stall (including me), so very few people complained about the three breakers. Even so, stall adapted. I already mentioned how so I won't repeat myself, but the bottom line is this: Greninja is not overpowered. He is great against offense, decent against balance, and terrible against stall. Everyone hates stall, and everyone loves offense. So when a mon threatens offense like Greninja does, they complain because their favorite play style is at stake. This is when its time for offense to change.
I'm an offensive player, and already I've found numerous ways to beat Greninja. Hazards is one. Set up rocks and wear him down. Another is the mons on the team. Scarf Lando is the most common scarfer, and he can check Greninja half of the time at worst, and get off a free U-Turn on the forced switch, which only further wears him down. Another great check is Scarf Keldeo, who only fears grass or psychic coverage, which have become all but nonexistent bar lure sets. SpDef TTar can work on Sand teams if ninja lacks Low Kick, and Rush Drill beats him under the sand. We even have Bisharp, who has an insanely strong sucker punch that OHKOes on neutral ninja, and severely hurts dark ninja. Did I mention priority? Because low and behold Talonflame exists and Ninja cannot win 1v1 and loses if he doesn't have Hydro (I guarantee you if rocks aren't up, Greninja has to hit Talonflame with a hydro pump to beat him the turn the bird comes in). Mega Scizor was also mentioned because HP fire is the only way. Ninja will beat him. And I haven't even touched any of the new megas yet.
Lopunny, Sceptile, and Beedrill check him easily post mega, and Lopunny can even win when non megad because Fake Out exists. Swampert absolutely eats Greninja for breakfast, as does rain in general. Hell, even Zard Y can if rocks are off the field and he doesn't come in on a Hydro (rolls are in play here iirc). Metagross can even eat up a Dark Pulse if he's healthy and using a Rock Polish Variant, and Gallade can take one hydro depending on the rolls.
So tell me how exactly Greninja is overpowered when all these things I listed are A) Viable. B) Useful outside of checking Greninja. C) apply to all three of Offense, Balance, and Stall, and D) slight changes in mons for each specific build.
And did I mention that Ninja can't switch into anything and brings literally zero defensive synergy to any team he's on?
You can expect to see a variant of this post in the inevitable Greninja suspect thread.
I don't have time to write up a full post since I need to go out (I'll probably make a full post later), but I want to point out I'm seeing "depending on the damage rolls/coverage" WAY too much.
I will say something about Empoleon, though. It can't really check anything else you mentioned on a consistent basis bar Clefable and Sylveon, (crippled/killed by Azumarill's Knock Off/Superpower and need to get the Scald burn to actually do anything, Heatran is bulky enough to tank an uninvested Scald and offensive variants can have Earth Power, you already mentioned Scizor, you need to be Specs to actually beat CM Clefable otherwise all you can do is Roar and delay it), and it's completely fucked by Magnezone since it's forced to run Leftovers over Shed Shell.
Pokemon.... Pokemon has changed.
If nobody has mentioned this, or noticed this (as I haven't been on Showdown in a while) I think that physical Mega-Altaria will lead to a new abundance of Ferrothorn, Heatran, and Mega-Gross. Dancer Mega-Altaria with EQ, Pixelated Return, and roost/substitute really has the potential to rustle some mad jimmies. roost is literally free health, as it isn't flying type. Even throw in outrage or d-claw in over EQ, it's still effing scary (I think), and checks Mega-Sable like a boss while it's at it.
EDIT: Does MP Breloom or Infernape not beat Greninja, or am I missing something?
If nobody has mentioned this, or noticed this (as I haven't been on Showdown in a while) I think that physical Mega-Altaria will lead to a new abundance of Ferrothorn, Heatran, and Mega-Gross. Dancer Mega-Altaria with EQ, Pixelated Return, and roost/substitute really has the potential to rustle some mad jimmies. roost is literally free health, as it isn't flying type. Even throw in outrage or d-claw in over EQ, it's still effing scary (I think), and checks Mega-Sable like a boss while it's at it.
EDIT: Does MP Breloom or Infernape not beat Greninja, or am I missing something?
Protean lets Greninja change it's typing so Greninja isn't always gonna be mach punch weak.
4MSS is usually a bad argument for most things, but the fact of the matter is that Greninja will always struggle against something no matter what set he runs, because neutral hits can only take him so far. And every comeptent team will have at least one of those mons I listed, guaranteed. I mentioned rolls 3 times, and only twice were they brought up for Ninja, amd neither time did I say that the mon in question was an optional check. Rather, they act as last ditch efforts if you make a team weak to Greninja for whatever reason you can find as justification to do so. The rolls argument has no merit to my post because I did not emphasize them not did I say that was the only way to stop Greninja. I also forgot to mention Mega Gyarados, which actually sets up on Greninja, as Greninja cant touch Gyara bar GK, which, again, is not the greatest option anymore.
And I know you said that you dont have time to make a full post, but I find it very conveninet that you ignored 95% of my post and instead chose to cherry-pick the 5% that was the least relevant to my entire argument.
Azu very rarely runs Superpower on its AV set, as the utility of Knock Off is too good to pass up 9 times out of 10. Defensive variants cant do anything to Empoleon except hope for a burn, and offensive variants take 55% minimum from Scald, and Earth Power is a 3HKO at best. Empoleon cant counter CM Clef, sure, but he takes on every other varient without breaking a sweat.
But I want to believe.
I suppose that depends on whether un-type changed Greninja gets OHKO'd by Mach Punch. Else it OHKO's back.
I just want to show some people why Greninja is so broken as you just aren't getting it. Valiant effort Clone, but at the end of the day, it is not the amount of checks or counters that makes something broken/not broken a lot of the time.
So, apart from having a limited amount of checks and counters (trust me, stall adapting using good mons and responding to Gren with bad ones is completely different, Clone), why is Greninja broken? Easy.
1) Greninja finds it shockingly easy to get free kills.
It's far too easy. Against the incredibly majority of offensive teams, if Gren gets in safely through revenging, momentum from a slow U-Turn or Volt Switch or just prediction, it's getting a free kill every single time. You either switch to your only check (I'll get to that in a bit) probably take a shit ton of damage regardless of what move it goes for and lose the match as a result because now Greninja rapes you, or you sack something, and in this case that might have to be an important Pokemon in that game. Keep in mind Greninja is not going to struggle to do this MULTIPLE times in one game. Whilst you might call out and say "Oh, but many things get free kills easily vs the right team!", the key point is that Greninja does this against nearly every offensive team ever, and when against defensive teams something will take unnecessary damage instead.
2) Greninja severely limits teambuilding and is centralising the metagame.
Thanks to the frog, literally every single last offensive teams has to either run a scarfer like Keldeo, priority like Talonflame OR run one of the faster ORAS megas as a check. Do you know how much of a pain this is? Do you know how much this prevents me from using other, otherwise better Pokemon? It's incredibly annoying to have to do this all the time, and the worst part is Greninja is still getting those free kills even with the check. Another thing is that Greninja checks don't fit well at all, normally meaning you'll have only one or maybe 2 per offensive team. Also Greninja's universal counters (Chansey and P2 ?_?) are either spikes bait or bad outside of countering Greninja, respectively, and being forced to use the latter sucks.
3) Greninja actually doesn't have 4MSS; in fact it's diversity of moves greatly benefits it.
Greninja doesn't actually have 4mss as if you've built a good enough team, it should be able to cover everything well enough to the point where Greninja actually never misses the moves it could be running. But, as a result, because a lot of Greninja's counters are variable on the vast amount of moves it can run, you might have to scout for the moves it does have, which can be a very dangerous task and can lead to unnecessary death. Otherwise, you risk banking on a conditional counter that might just get OHKOed right in front of you. Scary thought.
4) Greninja is a low risk high reward easy to use Pokemon to top it all off.
Self explanatory.
Those are the reasons I could think of.
So, apart from having a limited amount of checks and counters (trust me, stall adapting using good mons and responding to Gren with bad ones is completely different, Clone), why is Greninja broken? Easy.
1) Greninja finds it shockingly easy to get free kills.
It's far too easy. Against the incredibly majority of offensive teams, if Gren gets in safely through revenging, momentum from a slow U-Turn or Volt Switch or just prediction, it's getting a free kill every single time. You either switch to your only check (I'll get to that in a bit) probably take a shit ton of damage regardless of what move it goes for and lose the match as a result because now Greninja rapes you, or you sack something, and in this case that might have to be an important Pokemon in that game. Keep in mind Greninja is not going to struggle to do this MULTIPLE times in one game. Whilst you might call out and say "Oh, but many things get free kills easily vs the right team!", the key point is that Greninja does this against nearly every offensive team ever, and when against defensive teams something will take unnecessary damage instead.
2) Greninja severely limits teambuilding and is centralising the metagame.
Thanks to the frog, literally every single last offensive teams has to either run a scarfer like Keldeo, priority like Talonflame OR run one of the faster ORAS megas as a check. Do you know how much of a pain this is? Do you know how much this prevents me from using other, otherwise better Pokemon? It's incredibly annoying to have to do this all the time, and the worst part is Greninja is still getting those free kills even with the check. Another thing is that Greninja checks don't fit well at all, normally meaning you'll have only one or maybe 2 per offensive team. Also Greninja's universal counters (Chansey and P2 ?_?) are either spikes bait or bad outside of countering Greninja, respectively, and being forced to use the latter sucks.
3) Greninja actually doesn't have 4MSS; in fact it's diversity of moves greatly benefits it.
Greninja doesn't actually have 4mss as if you've built a good enough team, it should be able to cover everything well enough to the point where Greninja actually never misses the moves it could be running. But, as a result, because a lot of Greninja's counters are variable on the vast amount of moves it can run, you might have to scout for the moves it does have, which can be a very dangerous task and can lead to unnecessary death. Otherwise, you risk banking on a conditional counter that might just get OHKOed right in front of you. Scary thought.
4) Greninja is a low risk high reward easy to use Pokemon to top it all off.
Self explanatory.
Those are the reasons I could think of.
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I AM THE JAMAICAN BOBSLED TEAM
formerly Smog Frog
uh have you used glalie, its not bad lol
unless you used a shitty spikes set, then yeah, i can see why you think its bad'
to avoid a deletion, basically it has the absolute strongest ice moves in the game, freeze-dry to invalidate bulky waters as an answer, an explosion than can quite literally blow a big hole into things that arent doublade, and earthquake to beat every steel barring doublade, aggron, and scizor
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TerrorDave I noticed you didn't mention priority at all in your argument. As a frequent Greninja user myself, I can assure you that Greninja outright loses to the majority of priority users in OU. This includes things like E-Speed Dnite, every Talonflame ever, and Breloom, heck even resisted priority hits can chunk him for a decent amount. I have yet to see an offensive team that didn't run at least one and usually multiple priority abusers.
I'm not saying your argument is wrong, but this does need to be addressed.
*edit*
It's also worth noting that Gren fairs quite poorly against weather offense teams, not that that's much of an argument against him, as most revenge killers fair poorly against weather offense.
I'm not saying your argument is wrong, but this does need to be addressed.
*edit*
It's also worth noting that Gren fairs quite poorly against weather offense teams, not that that's much of an argument against him, as most revenge killers fair poorly against weather offense.
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