OU ADV OU Viability Ranking

[danilo]

Feeling less lazy. I'll start with why I think Suicune is a bit overrated.

The only Suicune sets that I feel do anything are the offensive sets, generally the non-sub ones, but the sub ones can do work too, and Crocune. I don't think I need to explain why I think that the offensive sets are great. Over the last year, I've felt that Crocune is nuts because it just wrecks normal Suicune answers like Zapdos, Blissey, Regice, Celebi if you play the long game and PP stall the Seeds, and you're gonna wreck most of the tier after a few boosts. Sleep Talk is what makes Crocune way better than the sets that run Roar or Ice Beam over Sleep Talk. Maybe those two options were better when ADV was a much slower paced metagame, but giving your opponent two free turns to switch into whatever they want is not acceptable. That's two turns where you're a sitting duck. With Sleep Talk, you narrow down the number of Pokemon they can switch into your Suicune. They have to play the offensive and try to Whirlwind you if they're playing stall, or bash you down if they're playing offense. Against the offensive teams, Sleep Talking an unboosted Surf against a Salamence or a Heracross, or some comparable threat is huge, especially if there's sand. Those threats are on a timer. Once there time is up, you're in prime position to win the game.

Even though I spent like 200 words praising Suicune there, I still think that Suicune is at the top of A and not S. The offensive sets are stellar, but they require a bit of team support to do much. Against a stall squad, you need to boom or trap or severely weaken their Blissey in order for Suicune to do what it needs to do. Against offense, you're using Suicune as both a switch into their Metagross', their Tyranitar's, and maybe their Mence's. Since Suicune is playing two roles against these squads, it is not going to be lasting nearly as long as the defensive sets. That being said, it doesn't need to be lasting long because if you can set it up on one of the two chances you'll have to put in some work with Cune, then you're gonna be doing major work. But, this lack of consistency is making me lean toward Suicune being on top of A and not the bottom of S.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Megahorn is a big reason, as it has 120 BP, which is gigantic in this meta, and hits neutrally on Bulky Waters like Swampert. (Plus it more or less blows away Gengar and Salamence, two of the most common mons that resist his STAB: Zapdos dies to Rock Slide, Gyarados is annoying but easy to remove and or wear down, no-one uses Weezing (not even ranked lol).).

You appear to be saying that Megahorn blows away Gengar and Salamence. I must confess I am confused by this.

 

[Lord Ninjax]

You appear to be saying that Megahorn blows away Gengar and Salamence. I must confess I am confused by this.

I was kinda half asleep when I posted, I just remembered reading is Mence runs a Defense lowering nature it gets 2HKOed by CB Heracross w Guts up, while let's be honest, Gengar has lame defenses even invested. So yeah, I checked a Damage Calculator, Heracross, if CB w Guts going, 3HKOs Mence with Megahorn after Intimidate, same for Gengar (actually if Guts is going its a 2HKO), and either way Rock Slide gets a guaranteed 2HKO, so all you need to do is BP it a Sub and let it do its Magic.

I also think the viability rankings in the OP should be replaced or at least updated with Triangles' rankings on Pg 5-6.

 

[Typhlito]

I was kinda half asleep when I posted, I just remembered reading is Mence runs a Defense lowering nature it gets 2HKOed by CB Heracross w Guts up, while let's be honest, Gengar has lame defenses even invested. So yeah, I checked a Damage Calculator, Heracross, if CB w Guts going, 3HKOs Mence with Megahorn after Intimidate, same for Gengar (actually if Guts is going its a 2HKO), and either way Rock Slide gets a guaranteed 2HKO, so all you need to do is BP it a Sub and let it do its Magic.

I also think the viability rankings in the OP should be replaced or at least updated with Triangles' rankings on Pg 5-6.

I dont think mence does or should run a defense lowering nature because its counter productive with its ability. If someone is using mixmence, they would probably want to run a sp def lowering nature since ice beam will beat it regardless.

I know it was mentioned before but the C tier is really full. Why isnt a D rank made?

 

[Cowboy Dan]

I know it was mentioned before but the C tier is really full. Why isnt a D rank made?

There are only like 2 pokemon in c rank, donphan and sableye (maybe machamp as well), that i think can be distinguished as bad enough when compared to the other c rankers to actually warrant making a new tier. I don't know if that's really worth it. The differences between the rest of their viability's is fairly trivial. You could maybe add a few other pokemon to the d rank if you really wanted to pull stuff down from c, but it's hard to say which ones would make the cut. Distinguishing between these low rank mons is too difficult to split them into two ranks. I think the c rank is fine as is.

 

[Sharingan]

This is what I don't get.

Great Attack stat: Almost all the fully-evolved Fighting types have similar Attack stats. Blaziken, Breloom, Hariyama, Hitmonlee, Machamp, Medicham... they all hit hard.
Can break Skarmory: It's the Fighting type that makes this possible. All of them can break Skarm.
Decent SpD: Hariyama, the Hitmons, Machamp. Poliwrath too.
Guts: Machamp and Hariyama both get it too.

So what makes Heracross so much better than the rest? Is it, as I previously wondered, Megahorn for Psychics?

all fighting type are slow, heracross has decent base spd, high base power moves and decent defenses, and learns swords dance. heracross has more KO power than tyranitar, for example. all the other one lacks in spd or in defense. the fastest are primeape and hitmonchan (who has decent defense and not good spd as heracross has, but the difference from any other fighting type is that heracross is fucked up by dugtrio and the other ones nope, since they are just wallbreaker and boost defense (like machamp) or great tanks-salamencebait like hariyama.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

The main problem with all of the other fighting types (besides blaziken and medicham which have other issues) is that they have no other strong moves besides their fighting attack. They rely on hidden power ghost, or rock slide for coverage. Heracross has STAB megahorn to ease coverage a bit. While its not the best coverage, hitting a gengar with megahorn on the switch is a lot better than hitting it with a fighting move, and megahorn is a lot less risky to use than hp ghost since it's going to hit most things at least decently hard. This lack of powerful coverage, combined with usually poor speeds, prevents these fighting types from excelling offensively because they take so much more prediction to use. Not to mention that they will be walled by the omnipresent celebi regardless. Heracross on the other hand is ridiculously hard to wall, and takes a lot of prediction to play around. If it wasn't for dugtrio and sand stream, it would just straight up wreck everything.

 

[Sharingan]

lol what are you talking about? machamp OHKOs celebi with hp bug, has guts and the strongest fighting STAB in the metagame (after the 2 turns-hit focus punch) with 25% of ch rate, (wich means a 300bp) and isn't fucked up by dugtrio. it's obviusly a wallbreaker not a sweeper cause it lacks spd, but machamp can crush his counters far better than heracross.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

But what is hp bug hitting besides celebi? megahorn does decent damage to even things that resist it, and a ton to anything neutral. Heracross has way more wall breaking power than machamp.

 

[Alfalfa]

But what is hp bug hitting besides celebi? megahorn does decent damage to even things that resist it, and a ton to anything neutral. Heracross has way more wall breaking power than machamp.

Yeah, honestly Heracross is a better choice than Machamp. The only time I could justify using Machamp over Heracross is a RestTalk set because RestTalk Machamp actually has a chance of beating Zapdos, unlike RestTalk Heracross, but in practice, Machamp is really over-reliant on RestTalk to deal solid damage to Pokemon like Suicune and Swampert, which a drag because Sleep Talk is really unreliable at selecting a particular move.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

Yeah, honestly Heracross is a better choice than Machamp. The only time I could justify using Machamp over Heracross is a RestTalk set because RestTalk Machamp actually has a chance of beating Zapdos, unlike RestTalk Heracross, but in practice, Machamp is really over-reliant on RestTalk to deal solid damage to Pokemon like Suicune and Swampert, which a drag because Sleep Talk is really unreliable at selecting a particular move.

And in that case you might as well just use hariyama. Trade a small bit of attack for more bulk, and a better movepool with cool moves like knockoff and whirlwind.

 

[Sharingan]

But what is hp bug hitting besides celebi? megahorn does decent damage to even things that resist it, and a ton to anything neutral. Heracross has way more wall breaking power than machamp.

who do you want to hit with a 70 bp move when you have such a powerfull stab?

your post is like: heracross has megahorn then heracross hits harder. oO (?)

First of all, i didn't understand why HP bug has to be compared to heracross megahorn since machamp's main stab is a 150 BP moves that can doubles 1/4 of times. (is the same chances to get a fully para, so its a chances worth considering.)

Well, maybe you never used machamp or you never face up his counters after a Bulk Up, i think if you test it you probably change opinion...but...let's talk about this, that's why we are here for after all, exchanging opinions between battlers can only be productive!

After a Bulk Up Machamp can be very hard to wall for the most common counters in OU. the main big differences are that Heracross can't win the 1vs1 with a standard mence, weezing and skarmory, you have to hit them on switch-in, then switch out. Skarmory can OHKOs him and take the hit, even after a swords dance. Machamp after one bulk up is 3HKOed by drill peck, and has big chances to 2HKO Skarmory max sdef even without crit and no residual damage. If machamps crit maxsdef skarmory is OHKOed, and you have your machamp at 70% of health, take an hp flying ddmence and do it 70% with rock slide. Heracross can't do anything of this.

Mence it's faster (or at least, it should be) than hera and KOs him with main stab, machamp can take the hit and can KOs him with a 62-74% of damage with rock slide, (i let you imagine how much time mence can deal with a bulk up machamp, since his main switchs-in are on a STAB that could doubles his base power, or Rock slide and take him in a kill range of slide after 1 switch-in.

Wishmence can't beat Swords Dance Heracross as can't beat Machamp. the latest one takes ridicoulus damage (lol 6HKO by flamethrower) and continues to stat boosting to OHKO him bypassing the wish protect stall, even if he toxic you machamp can beat him and already have the necessary HP to kill the other one sent out. Heracross can beat wishmence taking nearly 60% of damage, both can bypass their counters in this case (if we want to consider wishmence a counter lol).

Weezing is a good counter for heracross since it resist to all his STAB and is neutral to rock, it wins 1vs1 vs swords dance cross 2HKOing him with Fire blast even thought it takes lots of damage by the adamant version. machamp can crush him easily, statboosting in his face since weez can't do anything of dangerous.


Machamp beats always zapdos, not need to run a restalk set lol and heracross too (heracross crushes him even better than champ, without drill peck and without evs spd, but most common zappy set are sdef calm so ok).

Heracross destroys celebi without taking damage, Machamp tank a psychic and KOs him. Heracross is fucked up by dugtrio, endure isn't reliable unless you want to die by sandstorm, so you have to run quick claw/subsalac/ fill a slot with p2 and other dugtrio's bait. Machamp doesn't have this problem and in a team building contest is a curselax counter/check/revengkiller and a tyranitar check-helping hand! You can support him with a Wisher or Reflect, if you want. He will do a good job, trust me ;)

Yeah, honestly Heracross is a better choice than Machamp. The only time I could justify using Machamp over Heracross is a RestTalk set because RestTalk Machamp actually has a chance of beating Zapdos, unlike RestTalk Heracross, but in practice, Machamp is really over-reliant on RestTalk to deal solid damage to Pokemon like Suicune and Swampert, which a drag because Sleep Talk is really unreliable at selecting a particular move.

Machamp hits hard cune with a base power move that sacrifice 30BP to add a 25% chances of becoming a 300 BP. There is more chances to crit than miss, how "it can't hit hard swampert and cune??"



Main reasons to use Heracross > Machamp? Spd and Swords Dance, possibility to sweep a team with a swords dance-subsalac reversal/swarm megahorn set. It's a better sweeper of course, it has spd, not a better wallbreaker since champ can beat his counters (first of all skarmory) easier with easier set up (machamp doesn't even have to be max atk). Ok, we all know that +2 atk +1 spd swarm megahorn heracross crush everything, but, after all, nearly every poké could do something similar in that case.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

my point was that heracross has STAB megahorn AND STAB focus punch/brick break. Yes i know cross chop is more powerful than brick break and more reliable than focus punch, but after cross chop, machamp's moves go downhill, while heracross still has strong stab fighting moves after megahorn. Heracross beats the much more common toxic skarm easily with focus punch or even swords dance boosted brick breaks, as skarm helplessly tries to whirlwind. HP fly skarm is better vs heracross than machamp though i agree. I don't understand how machamp beats weezing though since weezing can just haze away stat boosts and stall champ out.

 

[Sharingan]

machamp's moves go downhill, while heracross still has strong stab fighting moves after megahorn. but worse typing, that is foundamental to win vs their counters. if you want to wallbreak is important to win 1vs1, it is useless to hit with the "main stab move" and then lose against your counter. But i understand what are you saying, Dan. Heracross beats the much more common toxic skarm easily with focus punch or even swords dance boosted brick breaks, as skarm helplessly tries to whirlwind. i don't even know why skarm have to sacrifice STAB for a pretty stupid protect toxic set to get owned by any fighting type of the metagame but np. HP fly skarm is better vs heracross than machamp though i agree. I don't understand how machamp beats weezing though since weezing can just haze away stat boosts and stall champ out. obviously haze is a pain in the ass for that specifical set, but honestly, it sucks so much that i didn't even consider it.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

The reason skarm tends to run toxic is to hit spinners such as claydol and cloyster, meaning the only spinners that can actually directly switch into it are forre and starmie. Since skarm's main job is to spike, this is a pretty big deal. The only thing hp fly really helps against is heracross and gyarados, and i guess wearing down forretress a bit, but a ghost is far more effective at stopping forre. Haze seems to me like almost mandatory on defensive weezing sets, otherwise it just gets set up on, and can't wall things like curselax anymore.

 

[Sharingan]

wisp + taunt wall curselax anyway and is far better than haze

 

[McMeghan]

Hey everyone, I still check most of the RoA threads regularly and I do realize that this thread is pretty active, and it's a shame that I didn't update the rankings/say a word about your propositions since godamn April...

I wanna say sorry to all the ADV enthusiasts who felt like sharing their opinions on the metagame during this time, I hope you will all stick around to discuss some more about the newly updated rankings, as I've indeed got them up to date!

Without further ado, the changes, which I've done based on re-reading the whole thread since the last update, as well as my own opinion of the tier (done based on my games and the one I've spectated for a while):

S-rank

• Gengar moves to the second spot of the rankings, a change everyone has agreed to/proposed in this thread.
• There was a lot of discussion to eventually move down Suicune to A+. However, no definite conclusion has been reached, and to be honest, I still think Suicune is S material, on the other hand, it's now the last ranked Pokemon in the S Rank, and Celebi takes the third spot.

Summary

A-Rank

• Zapdos moves to the second spot of the A-Rank, second only to Snorlax. Not only do I think it deserves that spot, but I also noticed a lot of people vouched for it to move this high in the rankings.
• Aerodactyl is now behind Skarmory and Swampert, it is to be honest that incredible. I'm open to suggetions for a change, but its ability to revenge kill pretty much everything combined to its sheer power makes it one of the most metagame-defining threat of ADV.
• Salamence's moving down a bit. To be quite honest, the DD set is pretty underwhelming, and while CB/Mix sets are really good, I think it doesn't warrant it a better spot in the ranking. I'm open to a change, especially over Dugtrio.
• Jirachi's moving up a little bit. After all, it does have a Rock resist and a Toxic immunity, which is fairly unique for a Calm Minder. It has also seen some usage as a support mon lately, which is pretty hard to wear down and spread a lot of paralysis/burn.
• Jolteon is truely incredible in the current metagame, I hope you guys will agree with me there. I think it's even better than Raikou as it checks plenty of dangerous threats (Raikou, Zapdos, Gengar, etc) and requires minimal support (mostly Spikes) to pull a big amount of work for its team.

Summary

B-Rank

• Starmie returns to the B-Rank. Let's face it, the bulky set has troubles reliably spinning against SpDef Toxic Protect Skarmory and HP Bug Forretress, which should be its main reason to be used. The Offensive set is still really good and pretty destructive, but it does require a good amount of support to work. I still think it's a great Pokemon and am open to a change of its ranking.

Summary

C-Rank

• The C-Rank was getting way too big and has been divided in two parts: the C-Rank and the D-Rank. I think it's pretty clear that some Pokemons in C are actually good and can fit into a bunch of teams without too many problems, while you usually have to go out of your way teambuilding-wise to use the Pokemons listed in the D-Rank (even more than C-Rank one).
• I have restructured the C-Rank a little bit. I moved up Pokemons that fit a more common niche, like Camerupt and Steelix with their unique set of resistances or Smeargle and Regirock for their unique combinations of moves.
• Solrock and Lunatone have been introduced to the rankings.

Summary

D-Rank

• There are probably some changes that need to be done (Alakazam could move up quite a bit, I'd also argue that Marowak and eventually Rhydon could be here instad of C), feel free to propose them of course!

Summary

And that's it! There will probably be many things to discuss now, I'll try to update the thread more regularly in the future
Also, we could try to have subranks like in the other tiers (A+, A, A-, etc), but I'm not sure about them so let's discuss this possibility as well.

 

[thepharside]

I think Scizor at least deserves a mention in the tier, if not even in the B ranking. He has really solid typing which grants him a handful of resistances and a pretty good defense stat, not to mention his great attack stat. I understand one of the reasons he isn't used often is because of his double weakness to fire, even though its not even that common in this generation. I also believe him to be a quite versatile Pokemon able to run baton pass and reversal sets with ease. Especially concerning the reversal set; he is one of the best at it. After using endure he doesn't have to worry about sandstorm damage. After an agility and a liechi berry boost his sweeping power becomes INSANE. Honestly I'm surprised this set alone hasn't bumped him up to more use in OU.

 

[Isa]

I understand one of the reasons he isn't used often is because of his double weakness to fire

nope

How do you get past Zapper? Skarmory? Gyarados? Magneton? If you're a Baton Pass variant, you're never getting past an opposing Roar user, and if you're an offensive variant you're not dealing enough damage with your incredibly limited coverage options.

There's no Technician here, there's no Bullet Punch, 130 base attack is nice but if all you have is SILVER WIND...why bother? That's a 60 BP move for goodness sake. Steel Wind is terrible STAB and Bug/Steel never pleased the market either way.

Scizor might deserve a place on the list, somewhere, but no way near B rank.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

While B rank is way too high, i can definitely see merit to including it in the d rank, the reversal set can be dangerous sometimes. It would probably be bottom D ie the worst pokemon mentioned so not sure if it's worth it, but i've seen it from time to time, and i've even seen it sweep. LC Drake used to put good use to it if i recall.

 

[thepharside]

Another Pokemon worthy of mentioning, where is Regice?

 

[Magcargo]

Another Pokemon worthy of mentioning, where is Regice?

He's already in b-rank.

 

[thepharside]

Yea my mistake, I just saw that. Seems like a pretty good spot too, no complaints there.

 

[Nabilla Benattia]

What do you guys think about Zapdos for S? I think it has all the credentials, being able to fill a lot of roles, from specially defensive to agilipass to mixed attacker, and fills them all quite well. It has a great defensive typing, a very high special attack, great other stats, is reasonably fast, and can be tailored to fit on any team. I think this versatility and reliability in any roll make it a worthy S rank.

 

[Typhlito]

What do you guys think about Zapdos for S? I think it has all the credentials, being able to fill a lot of roles, from specially defensive to agilipass to mixed attacker, and fills them all quite well. It has a great defensive typing, a very high special attack, great other stats, is reasonably fast, and can be tailored to fit on any team. I think this versatility and reliability in any roll make it a worthy S rank.

While zapdos is a very versatile and threatening pokemon both defensively and offensively, it is unlikely that it will be able to break teams without some support. I think its good where it is tbh.