np: UU Stage 1 - Changes

[Meru]

I actually find manual rain > drizzle simply because i don't have to waste a slot in politoed. Losing klefki definitely made rain take a hit. The immediate hazard setter/ prankster rain was amazing for pert who actually doesnt have a hard time at all running through teams. I'll probably play around with a protect variant more so than 4 atks as getting the speed boost on the next turn for free + scouting for scarf mienshao's hjk is worth it imo. My point is it is still a threat and there are definitely builds that we have not yet explored. Looking forward to expanding on it :]

I was thinking about it and I think the bigger boon for manual rain in UU was that you didn't *really* have to deal with opposing weather setters down here, as Hippowdon and (Mega) Abomasnow aren't really that common. The need for Politoed arises more for combating Tyranitar than it actually being good, as Tyranitar completely takes a dump on manual rain's momentum.

 

[jamashawalker]

I've tested rain in UU last night and this morning. It is amazing!!! Swampert really gave rain a huge boost as it has very little counters in this metagame. My favorite 4th moveslot is Power up Punch. Most of the time is swampert is switching in something is switching out. So nabbing a +1 on their switch makes swampert even fiercer. The only downside is that it can out speed postive natures choice scarf mienshao and hydriegon. Although both can't KO unless you have taken prior damage.

My favorite three rain setters are uxie/(jirachi), tornadus, and liepard. All 3 have the biggest thing needed for rain. U-turn. Also I love liepards low defenses. As it can set up rain and die. Opening a huge door for any of your rain sweepers to come in for free.

Once the hype of m-lopunny and m-gallade goes down( or they get the boot) I see rain as being the next dominant play style

 

[SketchUp]

I agree with rain being pretty damn good at the moment. I made a team really quickly and there definitely need some work on it, because I didn't really look at possible threats and how to beat it. It is just standard rain with Tornadus as rain setter + Celebi to pass substitutes and my switchin for electric attacks + Mega Swampert + Specs Kingdra + Toxicroak to stop annoying grass types and CroCune + Raikou (AV) and I went from 1000 to low 1350s without a lose and with only 1 close game, in the other games Swampert + Kingdra just sliced through opponents teams.
Uxie is indeed a really good rain setter too (I only used it in NU tho) because of its movepool. It can set rain, stealth rocks, gain momentum and helps sweepers because of Memento. Especially Memento is something that puts it over Azelf in my opinion. Klefki would have been a cool rain setter too, because of prankster and useful resistances to grass and flying, unfortunately it is gone.

 

[Hogg]

I made a five minute rain team just to test Mega-Pert, and it was pretty solid, although not as consistently good as Diancie or Altaria. I went with Tornadus/Bronzong/Ludicolo/Kabutops/Swampert/Shaymin (not a lot of thought put into it - it really did take me all of five minutes to make). Still, it was pretty solid, especially against offense. I like Healing Wish Specs Shaymin on rain teams, since it beats opposing rain teams pretty handily, gives you a decent switch-in to grass moves, and gives your rain sweepers a second chance at sweeping.

That said... while it was fun, I found it pretty matchup based. It's fantastic against offense, but without Sableye to help take on bulkier teams and break stall, I found it tough to consistently win against them. That may have just been a result of the team I was using, though.

 

[Meru]

Alright so I've been running a nice Mega Gallade squad so I figured I would post my thoughts on it.

Gallade (M) @ Galladite
Ability: Steadfast
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Zen Headbutt
- Knock Off

I've actually found Galladite to draw a similar parallel to SD Haxorus. It's kind of annoying to put on teams because it has jack shit for resistances, and your most threatening move, CC, has to be used carefully, as its most valuable asset lies in its bulk. Since you have no recovery, any hint of chip damage, even from U-turn, makes you much more susceptible to revenge killing. On top of that, the pre-Mega is below average for an offensive mon, and post-Mega still leaves Galladite outsped by 115s and above, of which we have plenty in the tier. Even worse is that since you're running Gallade as your mega, you have to rely on defensive answers or Scarfers to handle all of the 135-150 range, as no viable 'mons in the tier naturally outspeed those Megas, and Scarfers can lead to inconsistent results in taking those out since a lot of them carry Protect.

If anybody remembers, Haxorus saw quality tournament play in Grand Slam from players such as NEW BREED alongside Tailwind Whimsicott, as that alleviated its problem of being revenge killed, and both of them have good type synergy together. I decided to try something similar, as Whimsicott's most common answers include Empoleon and Nidoqueen, both of whom eat a clean OHKO from Gallade's STABs. With that Tailwind under its belt, it completely crushes more offensive teams with its excellent STABs and Knock Off coverage to bone those overlapping Psychic-types. Thanks to the boost in its defensive stat, even LO Lucario's ExtremeSpeed falls short of 50%. Inner Focus is kind of niche but in this meta it's definitely valuable as it means you can't just stall out Tailwind with Fake Out Lopunnite, and even outside Tailwind, Scarf Jirachi can't just flinch you down from 100%.

It obviously crushes stall unless they have an extremely niche counter such as Doublade or Spiritomb (RIP Sableye), which are extremely terrible in this metagame because of Lopunnite. By extension, teams that have more of a defensive nature to them really don't like to see Galladite, as it 2HKOs even Aromatisse and PDef Florges at +2, both of whom don't OHKO back.

+2 252 Atk Gallade Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Florges: 291-343 (80.8 - 95.2%) -- 56.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Gallade Zen Headbutt vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aromatisse: 276-325 (67.9 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0 SpA Aromatisse Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gallade: 182-216 (65.7 - 77.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Florges Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Gallade: 204-240 (73.6 - 86.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'm still deciding whether or not to ban it, as it did require a decent amount of support to pull off effectively, but altogether, the team is very very strong, and Gallade enables me to give much less care about defensive responses to my team. I'm gonna continue to test with other builds to see if I can get a more informed decision, as Bulk Up with Drain Punch > CC seems like it could be a good win con for balance teams, maybe with Toxic Spikes support or something. Hopefully someone else can post an opinion of that set n_n

 

[glock in my toyota]

So I made a mawile team earlier today, and boy can I say I'm impressed. I didn't think I would like mawile so much, since it has 380 BST, rather disappointing HP even with intimidate + a respectable 85 defense, and not good attacking stats by any standards. It serves a very viable role in the metagame, though. It has an incredible typing, allowing it to check the likes of Hydreigon, Jirachi, Crobat and even Lopunny. It actually hits rather hard because it has access to a 90 base power STAB move and an 80 base power STAB move. And the only physical mons realistically that give the little guy trouble are the ones it can't hurt with its attacks (basically steels) and fire/ground types since those are its only two weaknesses. It's a super nice rock setter that seems pretty anti-meta right now given the top threats. It's definitely worth a chance on your team if you're having any sort of trouble with stuff like Crobat, Mega Aerodactyl, Mega Lopunny and Mienshao.

yeah me and libluc built this team together (albeit mostly him tbh) but mawile is actually quite impressive. it can come in on jirachi with no issues and easily get a free knock off on something on their team, and while it hits weakly, it is a good free utility option to have. mawile is guaranteed to live 2 high jump kicks from mienshao after intimidate, so it can kill it back with play rough guaranteed. while mawile may face some competition from granbull as a good fighting check, mawile's ability to knock off items, being not weak to irn head from rachi, and being able to setup rocks makes it a better option imo. as libluc said, it eats crobat alive, and is guaranteed to live 2 EQs from M-Aero. mawile has put in way more work than i would ever hope/expect, and i find myself being constantly surprised by its versatility and bulk.

 

[Stef0w]

I've tested rain in UU last night and this morning. It is amazing!!! Swampert really gave rain a huge boost as it has very little counters in this metagame. My favorite 4th moveslot is Power up Punch. Most of the time is swampert is switching in something is switching out. So nabbing a +1 on their switch makes swampert even fiercer. The only downside is that it can out speed postive natures choice scarf mienshao and hydriegon. Although both can't KO unless you have taken prior damage.

My favorite three rain setters are uxie/(jirachi), tornadus, and liepard. All 3 have the biggest thing needed for rain. U-turn. Also I love liepards low defenses. As it can set up rain and die. Opening a huge door for any of your rain sweepers to come in for free.

Once the hype of m-lopunny and m-gallade goes down( or they get the boot) I see rain as being the next dominant play style

I played against a guy using accelgor as a rain-setter with damp rock, really annoying, and even more now that sableye's priority taunt is gone :]

 

[Pearl]

It sounds really weird to promote this when Gallade and Lopunny are definitely the main attractions right now, but I have found Mega Absol to be a really interesting Pokemon to run in this metagame (and honestly, not even I thought I'd like it too much)

Absol @ Absolite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch
- Knock Off
- Play Rough

It is now able to run Knock Off + Play Rough on the same set, which doesn't look like a big deal at first but actually helps Absol punching through some Pokemon it couldn't before, doing a nice 73% maximum damage to Florges, 85% to Chesnaught (which isn't really the best Pokemon, but serves as a nifty mention anyways), and killing Zygarde after Stealth Rock damage. Not needing to resort to Superpower's status drops comes in handy a lot of times too. It also has two really interesting abilities, before and after evolving, and although it has a hard time abusing them most of the time due to its low defenses, they still hold some utility. Another good thing about Absol (and probably my favorite thing about it) is that most revenge killers in the tier have a hard dealing with it. Jirachi is unable to scratch it without eating a Sucker Punch. Same for Mega Beedrill, Crobat and most other faster Pokemon. However, some Dark-type resistant revenge killers are bitches to deal with, especially Lopunny and Choice Scarf Mienshao, so you need to play around those through team support. U-turn Gligar is an example of a good Absol partner, being able to check the aforementioned Fighting-types (although it goes wrong sometimes, as seen in the last replay st123 posted), bringing hazard control through either Stealth Rock or Defog, as well as providing opportunities for Absol to be brought in, something it really benefits from.

 

[Schpoonman]

I would definitely say endorsing Mega Absol makes sense gven how dangerous Mega Gallade is and how badly Play Rough and Sucker Punch dent it. I've actually stuck on what to do about it on my team with Mega Lopunny.

 

[DiscoDucky]

I would definitely say endorsing Mega Absol makes sense gven how dangerous Mega Gallade is and how badly Play Rough and Sucker Punch dent it. I've actually stuck on what to do about it on my team with Mega Lopunny.

Cobalion maybe?

 

[Schpoonman]

Cobalion might be able to tank an unboosted Close Combat, but I'm pretty sure Iron Head fails to KO after a defense drop and he's just gonna get all his health back with Drain Punch otherwise.

 

[boltsandbombers]

Cobalion might be able to tank an unboosted Close Combat, but I'm pretty sure Iron Head fails to KO after a defense drop and he's just gonna get all his health back with Drain Punch otherwise.

I'm confused - are you referring to superpower on mega absol? It really isn't that great of a coverage move now that play rough and knock are legal, so idk.

 

[Schpoonman]

No, I'm talking about Mega Gallade and how he's running train on the metagame.

 

[DiscoDucky]

No, I'm talking about Mega Gallade and how he's running train on the metagame.

Use Mega-Absol .-.

 

[Schpoonman]

Okay, I'll make another team. In the mean time, how do I deal with it on a team that has Mega Lopunny? I mean, I've considered CB Spiritomb, but what does that say about Gallade?

 

[preserve]

So what does staraptor have over darminitan? Both are weak to rocks, hit hard as hell and recieve recoil with their moves. Is it the typing?

 

[slated]

staraptor has a better offensive typing, doesn't get walled by bulky waters and hits 100 speed over darm's 95, which is a huge difference. In essence though, yes, it's the typing.

 

[Ununhexium]

So what does staraptor have over darminitan? Both are weak to rocks, hit hard as hell and recieve recoil with their moves. Is it the typing?

Flying is a really spammable stab (hence the origin of BirdSpam). It also has Reckless to boost up its Brave Bird. Although Darmanitan does hit harder, Staraptor also has a secondary STAB and a better Speed tier, allowing it to run a Choice Scarf (and many other sets) well. It even has an amazing coverage move in Close Combat. Also, its normal STAB isn't to be underrated, as STAB Quick Attack can be handy sometimes.

Anyways, that question is better suited for the Simple Questions thread

 

[glock in my toyota]

ok so i think its safe to say that both of these megas should be banned. idk if im speaking biased or what but it seems ridiculous to me that people are steeping to levels such as spiritomb to beat gallade. not only gallade, but people are also having to use strange pokemon to beat lopunny, which in itself almost no pokemon can consistently do due to lopunny's coverage options (sub, encore, ice punch, toxic, etc.). lopunny and gallade, while they are extremely fun and easy to pick up and use, they seem a little too much for the tier atm.

so iirc this leaves like 9 new megas usable in this tier (audino, swampert, beedrill, camerupt, steelix, pidgeot, glalie, sceptile and sharpedo), assuming gallade and lopunny are banned. all of these pokemon seem to have a niche in uu and i would love to see encouraging discussion about them. but i think its air to say that the most dominant of these will be beedrill by a long shot. i cant wait tbh and i really want to be able to use stuff like glalie, mostly cuz fighting spam ruined its chances at viability. sharpedo could even rise in usage and viability with fighting spam gone, who knows? swampert could be decent, but rain took huge hits in klefki and sableye being booted, and i cant really see swampert being dominant. pidgeot is tons of fucking fun and everyone needs to try it. i would just like to see some new talk about these 9 megas and how they can impact the metagame. bye,,,

 

[Stef0w]

I can safely comfirm that using mega beedrill is the definition of sexy...

About the others I guess; Swampert is solid because Rain is really dangerous, sceppy is really fast and hits hard, I kinda feel like steelix is a lesser aggron, audino sounds surprisingly scary with CM and retardedly high bulk, Pidgeot is like sceppy except it's not as cool, and Glalie/Camerupt are basically just the wall-breaker megas of OU with worse typings IMO. Mega is a better sharpedo, unless it gets phazed, in which case it's prolly worse.

Id say Beedrill>Sceptile>Swampert>Pidgeot>Glalie>Sharpedo>Audino>Camerupt>Steelix.

 

[KaiseraAeros]

ok so i think its safe to say that both of these megas should be banned. idk if im speaking biased or what but it seems ridiculous to me that people are steeping to levels such as spiritomb to beat gallade. not only gallade, but people are also having to use strange pokemon to beat lopunny, which in itself almost no pokemon can consistently do due to lopunny's coverage options (sub, encore, ice punch, toxic, etc.). lopunny and gallade, while they are extremely fun and easy to pick up and use, they seem a little too much for the tier atm.

so iirc this leaves like 9 new megas usable in this tier (audino, swampert, beedrill, camerupt, steelix, pidgeot, glalie, sceptile and sharpedo), assuming gallade and lopunny are banned. all of these pokemon seem to have a niche in uu and i would love to see encouraging discussion about them. but i think its air to say that the most dominant of these will be beedrill by a long shot. i cant wait tbh and i really want to be able to use stuff like glalie, mostly cuz fighting spam ruined its chances at viability. sharpedo could even rise in usage and viability with fighting spam gone, who knows? swampert could be decent, but rain took huge hits in klefki and sableye being booted, and i cant really see swampert being dominant. pidgeot is tons of fucking fun and everyone needs to try it. i would just like to see some new talk about these 9 megas and how they can impact the metagame. bye,,,

Ok talking about experience

Mega Sharpedo While the playstyle took a large hit with the death of the Sableye/Frossalass Dual Ghost Hazard Contol Core this thing is going to be big in HO its Strong Jaw Crunch is just completely Jawbreaking and if your team Dark Type Resists have been worn down this is one of the most scary things to deal with in the game and contrary to popular belief its still a really cool mon even if it loses the Speed Boost

Mega Sceptile Prolly the most versatile of the non "can we ban this thing already" megas being able to run a Physical Set with SD and a Special sets with plenty of Options and something completely terifying behind a sub although its literallty more affected by the Zygarde Effect(Aka we need to run ice moves on random shit so this totaly balanced thing doesn`t sweep me) than Zygarde himself lol

Mega Pidgeot How to play/Use Mega Pidgeot 1-Do you outspeed the enemy mon?Click Hurricane,The enemy mon resists Hurricane?Click U-Turn or Heat Wave,Are you annoyed by a mon who you can`t Click Hurricane or Heat Wave vrs?If yes Click HP Water,If no Use this moveslot for a random thing.

 

[YABO]

I've seen some people running SD Celebi pass into Mega Sharpedo and I can say from experience it destroys everything in its path. If you're careless with how you deal with BP Celebi you can easily find yourself just getting clean swept by Sharpedo or even Yanmega if its NP Pass or Weakness pass.

 

[Hogg]

Has anyone else noticed how good TR Reuniclus is in this fairly fast fighting meta? The standard set of Trick Room/Psyshock/Shadow Ball/Focus Blast has been doing some pretty good work against most teams, even without being on a full TR team. It OHKOs M-Lop, and deals 78-92% to M-Gallade, while neither can OHKO in return (even M-Gallade's Knock Off won't do it).

 

[aim]

So i'm on my iphone so no fancy sets/pics but i've been using lopunny a lot lately. While it's a great mon in ou with fakeout dual stab filler, it's most deadly set in uu has to be Sub Encore HJK Return. It forces so many switches and is easily able to get up subs vs krookodile/hydreigon that are forced to switch out. Encore is amazing as well stopping set up sweepers/boosters in their tracks. This thing completely smacks balance and offense and encore is pretty nifty vs stall. I've been testing it with tspikes support + raikou for opposing crobat. It's an amazing top tier mon. Also forcing mega zam to run timid haha. Great poke.

 

[mael]

Fletchinder is really a very usable Pokemon in this metagame, especially against the more offensive teams in this metagame. A lot of people use Mega Gallade, Mega Lopunny and Mega Sceptile, and Fletchinder does a great Job at revenge killing them. But it's really good outside of beating the new megas, simply by burning relevant Pokemon, like Empoleon and other things, and making them easier to wear down. It indeed needs some support, but I found it very very effective, often sweeping teams at +2 and more often getting important revenge kills, when the opponent cannot allow you to get to +2.