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Last Soul Dew post to realize how strong the soul dew set is. If we treat soul dew Lati@s as mega we would have these stats on 252 spAtk 252+ speed:
Latias 80/80/90/190/204/110
Latios 80/90/80/220/174/110
Last Soul Dew post to realize how strong the soul dew set is. If we treat soul dew Lati@s as mega we would have these stats on 252 spAtk 252+ speed:
Latias 80/80/90/190/204/110
Latios 80/90/80/220/174/110
Soul dew doesn't 1.5x your base stats, it's 1.5x the actual number, or else, latios would be soo broken with soul dew it's not even funny.
For dragalge: As a special wall it's outclassed by chansey, and it's physical bulk is really sad. Also iirc dragalge did not get a new ability this gen. I'm pretty sure their damage output is similar, though I seriously doubt dragalge can hit harder than latios unless it's running specs or something. Not to mention it's slow too, I can't imagine it being higher than C+.
K here are the calcs!
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 438-516 (114 - 134.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 364-430 (94.7 - 111.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
Damage difference is pretty big, but that's assuming Dragalge is running specs.
Soul dew doesn't 1.5x your base stats, it's 1.5x the actual number, or else, latios would be soo broken with soul dew it's not even funny
As a special wall it's outclassed by chansey, and it's physical bulk is really sad. Also iirc dragalge did not get a new ability this gen.
That's what I did. I even mentioned the EV spread, please pay attention.
You've got it all wrong, it is always better to multiply the actual number than the base stat.
That's what I did. I even mentioned the EV spread, please pay attention.
You've got it all wrong, it is always better to multiply the actual number than the base stat.
Oh, sorry I did not see that you posted about the EV spread :]
Also second part:
What you said: "You've got it all wrong, it is always better to multiply the actual number than the base stat."
What I said: "Soul dew doesn't 1.5x your base stats, it's 1.5x the actual number"
also why tf are we talking about Soul Dew in OU e_e do we have nothing to talk about?
Imo even though we shouldnt talk about anything below B-, why is alex restricting us of talking about lower ranks, i mean we are talking about MSarpedo anyways.
I think we should talk about Dragalge. It is p bulky and hits harder than Specs Latios with its new ability, and it has a godly typing. Sadly it is slow and i dont know if it has access to recovery. What rank do u guys think it should be placed?
Why are we even discussing the Soul Dew item in the Viability thread lol?
Anyways, I agree with the notion of keeping Mega Sharpedo in the rank it's at because it's a niche Pokemon but has insanely strong perks, such as Speed Boost and Crunch, and I don't think it really needs to drop.
For those of you with the Japanese games, the special Serial Code distribution has gone live. This gift gives you an Eon Ticket that gives you access to return to Southern Island to capture Latias or Latias depending on your respective games.
Soul dew has been found in ORAS. This should be considered until (well, if, but most likely until) it's banned when discussing the Lati twins non-mega and mega ranks.
I have mixed feelings torwards soul dew staying or not.. I think it might be a little too much in OU for the time being but we have to consiture some things..
Pros:
- Overkill stats
Cons:
- Can't hold another item (particulary scarf which is extremely important in today's greninja, beedrill, and sceptile meta)
- Still completely walled and pursuit trapped by pokemon such as bisharp and tyranitar.
- All their checks and counters seem to still deal rather fine. (Just sylveon but it never was that great at taking LO psyshock anyway.)
- Limits predictability since latios's main advantage was tricking players into thinking it's choiced with expert belt, AV, etc.
I don't know to be honest.. it doesn't deserve quick banned, or to be a suspect test anytime soon but perhaps down the road we may need to reconsiture. If we start seeing things like max SpD latios to deal with two of the above mentioned, then perhaps that'll be the bell ringing be gone.
also why tf are we talking about Soul Dew in OU e_e do we have nothing to talk about?
Imo even though we shouldnt talk about anything below B-, why is alex restricting us of talking about lower ranks, i mean we are talking about MSarpedo anyways.
I think we should talk about Dragalge. It is p bulky and hits harder than Specs Latios with its new ability, and it has a godly typing. Sadly it is slow and i dont know if it has access to recovery. What rank do u guys think it should be placed?
If what you're saying about Dragalge is true, then I say D rank. It's slow speed leaves much to be desired and a lack of reliable recovery means a bulky set wouldn't be so great, thus it'd be relegated to a Specs set. Though after thinking about it, Adaptability alone may warrant a place in C- for it. However, if it does not get the ability, then it should remain unranked.
ok i used dragalge as a joke and it was legitimately good...allow me to explain. apologize in advance if my thoughts are a little all over the place or i ramble/am hard to understand, i'm kind of all over the place today.
dragalge offers a unique defensive typing for a dragon in dragon/poison that has some important ramifications. the biggest one is that it in fact checks as opposed to losting to fairies like clefable, azumarill, etc which are threats to other dragons (still loses 1v1 to gard though for obvious reasons). furthermore, its defensive typing lets it serve as a nice check to the likes of keldeo, zard y, rotom-w, breloom after something is already asleep, mega diancie (tanks an earth power no problem), mega manectric, raikou, clefable, and thundurus. it's a water resist and a fighting resist, two pretty crucial attributes to have on a team, and has some pretty good bulk on the special side, for example it typically lives a greninja ice beam from full health (6.3% chance to kill) and lives a mega sceptile dpulse. its physical bulk is not that great but people are way too harsh on it, as 65/90 isn't that frail and lets it survive some pretty decent hits, including cb talonflame brave bird, +1 return from all-out offensive mega altaria and tanking more common bulky variants pretty decently (avoids 2hko), +2 mega scizor bullet punch, and a drill run from mega beedrill. the examples of living those two rather strong special hits and the examples of cb talonflame/mega beedrill/fully offensive mega scizor with rocks up/prior damage so they may not always work out in practice, but the point is that dragalge isn't really physically frail. backtracking a little bit, the water resist is also useful because dragalge can actually tank a hydro from kingdra decently enough.
talking about dragalge's defensive utility is important because we can throw out calcs all we want that demonstrate its ridiculous power, but the fact that it actually brings some pretty good defensive utility to teams is worthy of note as it becomes much more splashable and usable for the typical player this way. you don't have to build a team around dragalge. it's a rather self-sufficient pokemon that at least from my point of view in building two teams, which btw were hyper offense and bulky offense, seemed rather easy to build with.
with that out of the way, let me just demonstrate specs dragalge's power with a sequence of calcs
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 304-358 (94.1 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 255-301 (93.7 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 136-160 (35.3 - 41.5%) -- 78.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 250-296 (64.9 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 181-213 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 96+ SpD Clefable: 248-296 (62.9 - 75.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 308-364 (78.1 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 168-198 (43.9 - 51.8%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (so no, landorus-t cannot pivot into sludge wave)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 40 HP / 0 SpD Mega Scizor: 191-225 (65.6 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 96+ SpD Mew: 316-372 (78.2 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 382-450 (118.2 - 139.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 146-172 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 270-318 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 226-266 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (it beats rest spdef variants too, though not slack off spdef variants)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 172+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 196-232 (48.6 - 57.5%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO (i picked one of the more spdef spreads and am totally aware that this isn't an optimal spread, i typically run a spread with lower spdef investment, and this is just a power demonstration so who cares)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 254-300 (74.4 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 194-230 (30.2 - 35.8%) -- 38.5% chance to 3HKO (the point is not that this beats chansey but that it forces chansey to heal thus granting a free switch and noting that dragalge can actually finish off weakened chansey)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 254-299 (76 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
i'm not going to bore you with obvious calcs vs stupid things that it can of course ko. the point is that a lot of the standard offense/bulky offense/balance dragon checks (not all of the mons listed are, but i listed a lot of the relevant ones) actually take heavy damage and have trouble dealing with dragalge, as fairies can't beat it and neither can mega scizor/ferro/heatran. obviously there's prediction involved but what i tried to show with some of the calcs is that a lot of these mons actually take some pretty heavy damage just from a draco, as 40ish percent to a defensive mon without real recovery is a pretty damn big dent even disregarding the possibility of predicting a switch. the key thing about dragalge, unlike a pokemon like say crawdaunt, is that it actually gets switch-in opportunities and checks quite a few relevant common mons, so dragalge can actually come in to something and then get a kill. it's very alike to a pokemon like crawdaunt when it comes down to sheer power, but has a worse matchup against defensive teams because chansey walls it, so you need ways of pressuring that significantly or dragalge will have trouble performing in that matchup.
dragalge is not without flaws. its physical bulk though not /garbage/ certainly leaves something to be desired. it's not revenge killed by literally everything in the tier like crawdaunt but on the same token isn't very hard to revenge kill. depending on the matchup and how you need to play it, dragalge can be worn out quickly. it also kind of limits you as having 2x dragons with latios is usually a negative, which is a pretty big deal when you consider how much latios offers to offense. however, if you consider the ridiculous amount of power dragalge brings to the table alongside beating a lot of typical dragon checks and providing some rather useful defensive utility with solid special bulk + fairy neutrality (so can check or at least 1v1 fairies) + resistances to water/electric/fire/grass/bug, then dragalge definitely looks to have some potential.
ok i used dragalge as a joke and it was legitimately good...allow me to explain. apologize in advance if my thoughts are a little all over the place or i ramble/am hard to understand, i'm kind of all over the place today.
dragalge offers a unique defensive typing for a dragon in dragon/poison that has some important ramifications. the biggest one is that it in fact checks as opposed to losting to fairies like clefable, azumarill, etc which are threats to other dragons (still loses 1v1 to gard though for obvious reasons). furthermore, its defensive typing lets it serve as a nice check to the likes of keldeo, zard y, rotom-w, breloom after something is already asleep, mega diancie (tanks an earth power no problem), mega manectric, raikou, clefable, and thundurus. it's a water resist and a fighting resist, two pretty crucial attributes to have on a team, and has some pretty good bulk on the special side, for example it typically lives a greninja ice beam from full health (6.3% chance to kill) and lives a mega sceptile dpulse. its physical bulk is not that great but people are way too harsh on it, as 65/90 isn't that frail and lets it survive some pretty decent hits, including cb talonflame brave bird, +1 return from all-out offensive mega altaria and tanking more common bulky variants pretty decently (avoids 2hko), +2 mega scizor bullet punch, and a drill run from mega beedrill. the examples of living those two rather strong special hits and the examples of cb talonflame/mega beedrill/fully offensive mega scizor with rocks up/prior damage so they may not always work out in practice, but the point is that dragalge isn't really physically frail. backtracking a little bit, the water resist is also useful because dragalge can actually tank a hydro from kingdra decently enough.
talking about dragalge's defensive utility is important because we can throw out calcs all we want that demonstrate its ridiculous power, but the fact that it actually brings some pretty good defensive utility to teams is worthy of note as it becomes much more splashable and usable for the typical player this way. you don't have to build a team around dragalge. it's a rather self-sufficient pokemon that at least from my point of view in building two teams, which btw were hyper offense and bulky offense, seemed rather easy to build with.
with that out of the way, let me just demonstrate specs dragalge's power with a sequence of calcs
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 304-358 (94.1 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 255-301 (93.7 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 136-160 (35.3 - 41.5%) -- 78.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 250-296 (64.9 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 181-213 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 96+ SpD Clefable: 248-296 (62.9 - 75.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 308-364 (78.1 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 168-198 (43.9 - 51.8%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (so no, landorus-t cannot pivot into sludge wave)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 40 HP / 0 SpD Mega Scizor: 191-225 (65.6 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 96+ SpD Mew: 316-372 (78.2 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 382-450 (118.2 - 139.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 146-172 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 270-318 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 226-266 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (it beats rest spdef variants too, though not slack off spdef variants)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 172+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 196-232 (48.6 - 57.5%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO (i picked one of the more spdef spreads and am totally aware that this isn't an optimal spread, i typically run a spread with lower spdef investment, and this is just a power demonstration so who cares)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 254-300 (74.4 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 194-230 (30.2 - 35.8%) -- 38.5% chance to 3HKO (the point is not that this beats chansey but that it forces chansey to heal thus granting a free switch and noting that dragalge can actually finish off weakened chansey)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 254-299 (76 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
i'm not going to bore you with obvious calcs vs stupid things that it can of course ko. the point is that a lot of the standard offense/bulky offense/balance dragon checks (not all of the mons listed are, but i listed a lot of the relevant ones) actually take heavy damage and have trouble dealing with dragalge, as fairies can't beat it and neither can mega scizor/ferro/heatran. obviously there's prediction involved but what i tried to show with some of the calcs is that a lot of these mons actually take some pretty heavy damage just from a draco, as 40ish percent to a defensive mon without real recovery is a pretty damn big dent even disregarding the possibility of predicting a switch. the key thing about dragalge, unlike a pokemon like say crawdaunt, is that it actually gets switch-in opportunities and checks quite a few relevant common mons, so dragalge can actually come in to something and then get a kill. it's very alike to a pokemon like crawdaunt when it comes down to sheer power, but has a worse matchup against defensive teams because chansey walls it, so you need ways of pressuring that significantly or dragalge will have trouble performing in that matchup.
dragalge is not without flaws. its physical bulk though not /garbage/ certainly leaves something to be desired. it's not revenge killed by literally everything in the tier like crawdaunt but on the same token isn't very hard to revenge kill. depending on the matchup and how you need to play it, dragalge can be worn out quickly. it also kind of limits you as having 2x dragons with latios is usually a negative, which is a pretty big deal when you consider how much latios offers to offense. however, if you consider the ridiculous amount of power dragalge brings to the table alongside beating a lot of typical dragon checks and providing some rather useful defensive utility with solid special bulk + fairy neutrality (so can check or at least 1v1 fairies) + resistances to water/electric/fire/grass/bug, then dragalge definitely looks to have some potential.
Out of curiosity what set have you been using? Going by your calcs it looks like Max SpA Specs with 4 Attacks and I assume HP investment (unless you're trying to speed creep Clefable/Azumarill).
Out of curiosity what set have you been using? Going by your calcs it looks like Max SpA Specs with 4 Attacks and I assume HP investment (unless you're trying to speed creep Clefable/Azumarill).
specs draco / sludge / focus blast / hp fire and creeping slower azumarills, it's pretty much the xy nu spread in the calc but with a few evs more of creep.
Basically, the opponent is going to have to make sure to never kill something with Draco Meteor, never use Scarf Landorus-T's Earthquake/Stone Edge/Superpower, never use Keldeo's Hydro Pump/Secret Sword,
That's not exactly what I meant. Mega Gyarados setting up early in a match is not useless, but, it will not result in a sweep. It's only in the endgame where the opponent would have to choose their moves much more wisely.
So I went through the S, A and B ranks of this list and did an assessment of Sharpedo's ability to beat certain Pokemon 1v1 in the end game. This assessment relies on Stealth Rock being up, and has hit the opponent's mon at least once in the match. Sharpedo teams should focus on hazards and keeping them up, every bit of damage counts against the opponent to let it sweep. They should especially be on the field when Sharpedo comes in, and, this is a fairly realistic scenario. SEcondly, another factor taken into account is "ease of wearing down". A regenerator, hazard resistant Pokemon, or leftovers+recovery spamming Pokemon is a lot harder to wear down than something that lacks these attributes. Hitting Greninja for 80% is essentially a guaranteed kill as it is surely going to suffer 1 round of hazards and step on Stealth Rock. Other factors like how likely it is the opponent's Pokemon will be brought out early in the match to take damage is also important. Opposing late game trump cards like say.. a mega Gyarados are unlikely to have taken lots of damage whereas we can be sure a rotom-w has been repeatedly abused through the match. The opponent's ability to damage Sharpedo back is taken into account as it likely has all of its health when it faces something, so surviving a Bisharp's sucker punch is obligatory. Finally the moveslot cost is taken into account, Poison Jab can be a bit hard to justify whereas Crunch is always run.
Anything marked in Green should be a guaranteed win late in the game. These are Pokemon that are OHKO'd before or after Stealth Rock, Pokemon that are surely going to come out early in the game and take that at least 10-20% of damage. Sharpedo IS UNIQUE in that it can be said to "OHKO" something despite only hitting it for 80% damage. This privilege is granted by its protect+speed boost late game cleaner role. It is extremely rare for or almost unprecedented for a life orb attacker neutral to SR to not have taken that portion of damage by the end of the match.
Yellow marked are the Pokemon that Sharpedo can beat late in the game if you have worked for it. Keldeo may have a life orb, it may be used to absorb a Bisharp's sucker punch or Heatran's Lava Plume earlier in the game. We can say that in the end game there is a reasonable chance for these Pokemon to be in OHKO range for Sharpedo.
Red marked are basically counters. They'll rarely be in OHKO range if ever, and can require less useful moves.
Talonflame - OHKO'd by Crunch or Hydro - Sharpedo CAN live up to Sharp Beak Jolly Brave Bird
Thundurus - OHKO'd by Crunch - Obviously Thunder Wave is an issue but it still gets Thundy at least
Venusaur (Mega) - ~60% from Crunch (252hp/0def)
Mega Altaria - Ice Beam (~45%) or Poison Jab (55%) to (252hp/0def)
Mega Diancie - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Dragonite - OHKO'd by Ice Beam, or Crunch (after rocks due to multiscale) - Sharpedo can live CB E-speed
Excadrill - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Ferrothorn - ~50% from Crunch
Gliscor - 80-100% from Ice Beam or Hydro Pump depending on spread
Gyarados (Mega) - 45% from double edge
Heracross (Mega) - ~45% from Hydro Pump
Mega LAtias - OHKO'd by Crunch
Mega Lopunny - ~55% from Hydro Pump
Mamoswine - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Manectric (Mega) - 70% from Crunch - Sharpedo can take out Manectric usually, but intimidate will end a sweep usually
Medicham (Mega) - OHKO'd by Crunch
Rotom-W - 55% from Crunch
Slowbro and Slowbro (Mega) - 50-90% from crunch depending on forme and spread
Terrakion - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Aerodactyl (Mega) - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Diggersby - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump
Jirachi - OHKO'd by Crunch
Kyurem-B - 70% from Crunch
Magnezone - 70% from Crunch
Manaphy - 70% from Crunch
Politoed - 80% from Crunch
Mega Sableye - 65% from Crunch
Mega Sceptile - OHKO'd by Ice Beam and Crunch
Tyranitar - ~40% (hydro pump) ~50% (Waterfall) to support
Mega Tyranitar - ~50% from Hydro and Waterfall to offensive DD
Alakazam (Mega) - OHKO'd by Crunch
Breloom - Mach Punch lol
Celebi - OHKO'd by Crunch
Chansey - 50% with Crunch
Gyarados - 58% with crunch after intimidate
Hawlucha - 80% with Ice Beam
Hippowdon - OHKO'd by Hydro Pump (252hp/0sdef)
Kabutops - 90% with Crunch (outspeeds in rain, when at +2)
Kingdra - 90% with Crunch (outspeeds in rain, when at +2)
Raikou - ~95% with Crunch
Rhyperior - OHKO'd by Hydro
Skarmory - 56% min from Hydro
Starmie - OHKo'd by Crunch
Suicune - lol
Mega Swampert - 66% with Crunch
Tornadus-T - OHKO'd by Crunch
Victini - OHKO'd by Crunch
Alomomola - ded
Amoonguss - 50% with crunch
Beedrill (Mega) - Lol
Mega Camerupt - Lol
Chesnaught - 50% at best with Ice Beam
Crawdaunt - 65% with Double-Edge
Mega Latios - Crunch OHKOs
Lucario - 75% with Waterfall, 70% with Hydro Pump
Mandibuzz - 36% with Ice Beam
Quagsire - 55% with Crunch
Omastar - Pump OHKOs in the Rain
Scizor - Crunch does 65%
Scolipede - Crunch OHKOs
Zapdos - Crunch does 55%
Azelf - Crunch OHKOs
Conkeldurr - Mach Punch
Cresselia - Crunch does 70%
Doubles check 'em - Crunch does over 50%, Doublade does nothing back usually
Empoleon - Crunch does ~75%
Garchomp (Mega) - Ice Beam OHKOs, Crunch does ~60%
Gothitelle - Crunch OHKOs
Houndoom (Mega) - Hydro/Waterfall OHKOs
Staraptor - Crunch OHKOs
Sylveon - Poison Jab does ~60%
Togekiss - Poison Jab does less than 50%
Weavile - Double Edge does 80% Obviously you can not run 5 attacking moves, but all of Poison Jab's targets are marked in Red and a lot of Ice Beam only kills are marked in yellow, so it's not as if this list was made with all of these attacks at once in mind.
So as you can see there is a lot of green and a lot more yellow than red. A lot of the red are rare and stall only Pokemon. A very large portion of the offensive and balance oriented metagame is green and yellow. I think that Sharpedo is a Pokemon that is really dangerous late game, well built teams that force the more common yellow pokemon in and are good at keeping up hazards and forcing the opponent to switch around can make good use of it.
Can confirm that Dragalge is shaping up to be a much better mon thanks to adaptability. Nothing barring the pinck blobs can consistently win 1v1. Like jukain said, it finds plently of switchin opportunities against common offensive mons (ie Keldeo, Scept-M etc) and can threaten to ko many of them. Ive also found that it runs a pretty good Ass Vest set (similar to the one it runs in NU), which allows it to switch in to even more things and hitting stuff slightly less hard than specs (It also eases prediction but thats a different story). Honestly, the only real support it requires is a switchin to Lando, Greninja and Garde, which most balance teams need to have an answer to anyway. Although the fact that all of these require a free switch anyway to ko is testament to its abilities. The biggest issue imo is that its reliant on specs to do a lot of damage, which means it can have issues against stall unless it predicts 100%. Also the draco drop is a nuisance, turning a fair few 2hkos into 3hkos. Id honestly say anything above C is good for it so probably C+ for now.
Catch me a little pissed when OU steals dragalge from NU.
In all seriousness, Dragalge is pretty damn viable (it will be more so when Mence is gone and the meta becomes a bit more slow + bulky offense mons come into play). As a special wallbreaker this thing has a really great offensive and defensive typing, as well as the stats to take a few hits while dishing out some heavy damage of its own. The poison dragon helps it both offensively and defensively, specifically against fairies, allowing it to only take neutral from fairy and drop adaptability sludge wave nukes like it's christmas. It doesn't really need much support to do well either, it can take hits well and just come in and drop some bombs. All it really needs is a few things that can switch into its weaknesses and maybe some healing wish support, since this thing can sustain itself for a long time, so healing it back up to full really helps. It beats a lot of fat mons like assault vest Azumarill, Clefable (even at +1 spdef), physically defensive Sylveon (barely lives sludge if spdef), Skarmory, Rotom, Heatran and will 1v1 things like Conkeldurr, Scizor and even Mega Sceptile. It does suck to be at -2 after dropping a draco, but for the amount of wallbreaking this thing is capable of, it's worth it. I've never managed to find a special wallbreaker quite like this in OU, I love using it and it beats more things than people give it credit for. It gets worn down quickly because it's quite slow, so wish/hwish support works well for this thing (don't think that means it can't take hits though, it really can).
Relevant calcs for people who are sleeping on this monster:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 16 HP / 240 SpD Assault Vest Azumarill: 344-408 (99.7 - 118.2%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 408-480 (103.5 - 121.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Skarmory: 178-210 (53.2 - 62.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 360-424 (118.4 - 139.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Sceptile (mega) Dragon Pulse vs. 184 HP / 0 SpD Dragalge: 254-300 (80.1 - 94.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 36 SpD Sylveon: 432-512 (109.6 - 129.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Venusaur-Mega
I think this mon should definitely drop from A+ ---> B+. It's not as great of a stally mon as it was last gen, because of mega sableye outclassing it as a mixed wall. Also, many of the new megas, such as mega gallade, mega metagross, mega latias, mega salamence mega pidgeot and many more can all completely destroy it. Not to mention there are many other old megas such as mega pinsir, and mega charizard x who can use it as set up bait. As an offensive grass type, it is completely outclassed by mega sceptile, who has a much better speed tier, higher special attack, and better STABs. As a defensive grass type, it is outclassed by ferrothorn, who has better defensive stats and better support moves. Not to mention that mega venusuar uses up your mega slot.
So basically, drop mega venusaur from A+ to B+ or B.
Venusaur-Mega
I think this mon should definitely drop from A+ ---> B+. It's not as great of a stally mon as it was last gen, because of mega sableye outclassing it as a mixed wall. Also, many of the new megas, such as mega gallade, mega metagross, mega latias, mega salamence mega pidgeot and many more can all completely destroy it. Not to mention there are many other old megas such as mega pinsir, and mega charizard x who can use it as set up bait. As an offensive grass type, it is completely outclassed by mega sceptile, who has a much better speed tier, higher special attack, and better STABs. As a defensive grass type, it is outclassed by ferrothorn, who has better defensive stats and better support moves. Not to mention that mega venusuar uses up your mega slot.
So basically, drop mega venusaur from A+ to B+ or B.
Let's go through how Mega Venu stacks up against the new Megas:
Beedrill: 50% chance to win
Pidgeot: Loses
Slowbro: Wins
Sceptile: Wins
Swampert: Wins
Sableye: Loses
Sharpedo: Wins
Camerupt: Loses
Metagross: Loses
Altaria: Wins
Latias: Loses
Latios: Loses
Lopunny: Wins
Gallade: Loses
Diancie: Wins
It literally breaks even on new Megas it beats and loses to. For every new threat that's a pain to for it, there's one it wall that's hard to handle otherwise. It should be A for it's ability to take on the new Fairy Megas in addition to all the other stuff it did before, throw Swampert, Sceptile and Lopunny on top of that and it comes out looking pretty good. BTW, defensive Venu isnt why it's A+ now, the Tank set is. That set is still a great tool for balance teams because it covers such a wide range of threats.
Ehhh idk about venu dropping that much. Venu wasnt really used as a defensive mon except early xy, the most viable set was offensive, which I've seen several good players put to use in oras. It should drop but not to anything below A-.
I would actually like to nominate conkeldurr for B. Imo conk has improved a fair bit in the transition to oras, it beats a fair amount of the new megas and greatly benefits from status spam. It does very well against many common mons. I feel that B- is really underselling what it can do.
Another mon that got a lot better is chesnaught. I made a post a while back explaining why I feel its a lot better but it just fits really well in the meta, even with salamence, and helps wall so many new and old mons alike. Really good mon for balance and stall and id like to see it in A-
I think that Sharpedo is a Pokemon that is really dangerous late game, well built teams that force the more common yellow pokemon in and are good at keeping up hazards and forcing the opponent to switch around can make good use of it.
That's all fine and dandy, but I never said that Mega Sharpedo isn't a good late-game sweeper. Heck, I never even said that Mega Gyarados was necessarily better at that specific role. I specifically mentioned that Sharpedo boosts up more easily against offense, which of course means that it's going to have an easier time sweeping. The problem isn't that Mega Sharpedo isn't a good late-game sweeper, because it is. In fact, the main problem isn't even the fact that it doesn't offer much else to its team. That's actually pretty forgivable, and its sweeping abilities alone could still warrant a B Rank or so. The big question is whether or not it's worth giving up the ability to use one of several other great Megas for a Pokemon like Mega Sharpedo that doesn't do much else besides sweep and toss around Crunches, especially when Mega Gyarados can sweep with similar or even greater effectiveness depending on the circumstances while also offering more defensive utility. That's why I brought up the question earlier about how much we should weigh the competition for a Mega slot when discussing lower-ranked Mega Pokemon. If we're not going to worry too much about that competition, then Mega Sharpedo is fine in B Rank, maybe even B+ if you want to argue for that. However, if we're taking that competition more seriously, then I'm personally inclined to be stricter about its rank, even if it just means leaving it in B- Rank where it is currently.
Let's go through how Mega Venu stacks up against the new Megas:
Beedrill: 50% chance to win
Pidgeot: Loses
Slowbro: Wins
Sceptile: Wins
Swampert: Wins
Sableye: Loses
Sharpedo: Wins
Camerupt: Loses
Metagross: Loses
Altaria: Wins
Latias: Loses
Latios: Loses
Lopunny: Wins
Gallade: Loses
Diancie: Wins
It literally breaks even on new Megas it beats. For every new threat that's a pain to for it, there's one it wall that's hard to handle otherwise. It should be A for it's ability to take on the new Fairy Megas in addition to all the other stuff it did before, throw Swampert, Sceptile and Lopunny on top of that and it comes out looking pretty good. BTW, defensive Venu isnt why it's A+ now, the Tank set is. That set is still a great tool for balance teams because it covers such a wide range of threats.
Mega glalie can beat mega venu by spamming return until it dies, or synthesis runs out of PP.
There are 16 new megas, and 8.5 of them can beat them. I agree it does a great job of walling the new fairies such as mega altaria and mega diancie, but it still has a hard time against old top tier threats, such as talonflame, mega pinsir, charizard x/y, mega heracross...
I believe that my post was a little exaggerated when I said it should drop to B, but it should probably drop to A or A- because it has a pretty big niche of being able to counter most of the new fairy megas.
So instead, A+ ---> A/A-.
Im not a man who likes drastic changes, but Tornadus is just ballsy. First off, it requires Rain support to even abuse its spammable move, plus it needs SR support (but most teams run Lati@s so) and second off, it may have a good ability and shit, but why use this thing if MPigeot just works 10x better. MPigeot only needs Hazard removal and it has basically the same coverage and the same things it kills. unless im missing something Tornadus-T really is only used on Rain, and even then ive never seen him sweep.
Basically the only reason why i want this down is cause of it relies on support and MPigeot kinda does his job better with less support.
Amoongus: B ---> C+
Who even uses this junk. its so bad, the only thing saving it is its ability.
The thing doesnt work on Stall, HO, not even fucking balance. its a ballsy frail POS that doesnt even hit hard and is outclassed by a much better mon, MVenu. With its usage being below 1.000% and being outclassed by MVenu AND the new megas, just demote this.
Well, as an avid supporter of mega pidgeot, I completely agree with you!
Tornadus strongest move is hurricane, however it has the same accuracy of focus blast, which isn't too reliable. It gets great utility moves like knock of, u-turn and superpower, but no sane person will go around spamming knock off and superpower. It can run AV which gives it lots of special bulk, but still, I think mega pidgeot outclasses it, except for the fact that it uses the mega stone. Mega pidgeot gets a no guard hurricane, which for your information is a flying type 110 base power STAB move coming off of base 135 special attack. It gets great coverage with heat wave, and u-turn can be used to grab momentum. Mega pidgeot is a much more reliable cleaner and sweeper. Tornadus is way too reliant on rain, and although rain isn't too bad this gen because of mega swampert and politoed, I still see mega pidgeot as outclassing it.
However it doesn't make any sense because mega pidgeot is currently like C rank, so if mega pidgeot outclasses it, why is it's rank a lot lower?
Either we have to drop torn-t more, or bump mega pidgeot up to B+ or something.
EDIT: For ammoonguss, I think B is okay. It has a niche of countering mega diancie and bellyjet azumarill, and clear smog is pretty cool too (boosting moves? what are those). It's outclassed by mega venu, but mega venu uses up a mega slot. Also btw you can't base your argument completely on "pokemon A loses to pokemon b, c, d, e, f, so let's demote this".
ok i used dragalge as a joke and it was legitimately good...allow me to explain. apologize in advance if my thoughts are a little all over the place or i ramble/am hard to understand, i'm kind of all over the place today.
dragalge offers a unique defensive typing for a dragon in dragon/poison that has some important ramifications. the biggest one is that it in fact checks as opposed to losting to fairies like clefable, azumarill, etc which are threats to other dragons (still loses 1v1 to gard though for obvious reasons). furthermore, its defensive typing lets it serve as a nice check to the likes of keldeo, zard y, rotom-w, breloom after something is already asleep, mega diancie (tanks an earth power no problem), mega manectric, raikou, clefable, and thundurus. it's a water resist and a fighting resist, two pretty crucial attributes to have on a team, and has some pretty good bulk on the special side, for example it typically lives a greninja ice beam from full health (6.3% chance to kill) and lives a mega sceptile dpulse. its physical bulk is not that great but people are way too harsh on it, as 65/90 isn't that frail and lets it survive some pretty decent hits, including cb talonflame brave bird, +1 return from all-out offensive mega altaria and tanking more common bulky variants pretty decently (avoids 2hko), +2 mega scizor bullet punch, and a drill run from mega beedrill. the examples of living those two rather strong special hits and the examples of cb talonflame/mega beedrill/fully offensive mega scizor with rocks up/prior damage so they may not always work out in practice, but the point is that dragalge isn't really physically frail. backtracking a little bit, the water resist is also useful because dragalge can actually tank a hydro from kingdra decently enough.
talking about dragalge's defensive utility is important because we can throw out calcs all we want that demonstrate its ridiculous power, but the fact that it actually brings some pretty good defensive utility to teams is worthy of note as it becomes much more splashable and usable for the typical player this way. you don't have to build a team around dragalge. it's a rather self-sufficient pokemon that at least from my point of view in building two teams, which btw were hyper offense and bulky offense, seemed rather easy to build with.
with that out of the way, let me just demonstrate specs dragalge's power with a sequence of calcs
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 304-358 (94.1 - 110.8%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 255-301 (93.7 - 110.6%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 136-160 (35.3 - 41.5%) -- 78.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 220+ SpD Heatran: 250-296 (64.9 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Heatran: 181-213 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 96+ SpD Clefable: 248-296 (62.9 - 75.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +2 252 HP / 0 SpD Clefable: 308-364 (78.1 - 92.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 168-198 (43.9 - 51.8%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery (so no, landorus-t cannot pivot into sludge wave)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 40 HP / 0 SpD Mega Scizor: 191-225 (65.6 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 96+ SpD Mew: 316-372 (78.2 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 382-450 (118.2 - 139.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 146-172 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragalge Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 270-318 (76.7 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Sludge Wave vs. +1 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Slowbro: 226-266 (57.3 - 67.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (it beats rest spdef variants too, though not slack off spdef variants)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 172+ SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 196-232 (48.6 - 57.5%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO (i picked one of the more spdef spreads and am totally aware that this isn't an optimal spread, i typically run a spread with lower spdef investment, and this is just a power demonstration so who cares)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in Sand: 254-300 (74.4 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 194-230 (30.2 - 35.8%) -- 38.5% chance to 3HKO (the point is not that this beats chansey but that it forces chansey to heal thus granting a free switch and noting that dragalge can actually finish off weakened chansey)
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Dragalge Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 254-299 (76 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
i'm not going to bore you with obvious calcs vs stupid things that it can of course ko. the point is that a lot of the standard offense/bulky offense/balance dragon checks (not all of the mons listed are, but i listed a lot of the relevant ones) actually take heavy damage and have trouble dealing with dragalge, as fairies can't beat it and neither can mega scizor/ferro/heatran. obviously there's prediction involved but what i tried to show with some of the calcs is that a lot of these mons actually take some pretty heavy damage just from a draco, as 40ish percent to a defensive mon without real recovery is a pretty damn big dent even disregarding the possibility of predicting a switch. the key thing about dragalge, unlike a pokemon like say crawdaunt, is that it actually gets switch-in opportunities and checks quite a few relevant common mons, so dragalge can actually come in to something and then get a kill. it's very alike to a pokemon like crawdaunt when it comes down to sheer power, but has a worse matchup against defensive teams because chansey walls it, so you need ways of pressuring that significantly or dragalge will have trouble performing in that matchup.
dragalge is not without flaws. its physical bulk though not /garbage/ certainly leaves something to be desired. it's not revenge killed by literally everything in the tier like crawdaunt but on the same token isn't very hard to revenge kill. depending on the matchup and how you need to play it, dragalge can be worn out quickly. it also kind of limits you as having 2x dragons with latios is usually a negative, which is a pretty big deal when you consider how much latios offers to offense. however, if you consider the ridiculous amount of power dragalge brings to the table alongside beating a lot of typical dragon checks and providing some rather useful defensive utility with solid special bulk + fairy neutrality (so can check or at least 1v1 fairies) + resistances to water/electric/fire/grass/bug, then dragalge definitely looks to have some potential.
My only beef with dragalge is the same as empoleon, its a good tank but it doesn't have any recovery bar leftovers/ Black sludge. You can tank only one real powerful attack before you become fodder in some cases. If it is ran with a wish passer that helps the problem, but it can be troublesome to get it in when its low. I don't know all the calcs so if this is not as big of an issue please do tell me!
