TG RD is definitely the better set since it plugs stall like no other which is the main reason to use Manaphy, but stall still has Ferro as a somewhat annoying resource against it, but indeed the beauty of the set is that it's self sufficient in that you only need to fish for burns on Ferro on the switch before attempting a sweep, thus still not requiring any external support. But yeah, basically, TG 3 attacks still exists nonetheless and if you're relying on non-Chansey/Clefable counters, you're always going to be having a hard time due to coverage deciding your fate, thus my point was simply that having pink (one or both are on most stall teams by default anyway) + a TG RD counter like Ferro is pretty much the best you can do. They're either running TG RD 2 Attacks or they're going TG RD Scald Rest, and that second attack will be the flavor of the month coverage move (Psychic in XY) but if things like Celebi become more popular and since Venu and Amoong have seemingly fallen in usage quite considerably on stall, that flavor of the month move could easily become something like Ice Beam, in which case Celeb and niche things like Water Absorbers could be potentially useless anyway.
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Other ORAS Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter alexwolf
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I was actually talking to aragorn the king just recently and tbh I think we both agreed that the decreased usage of m-venusaur and amoong like you pointed out doesnt even make psychic my first choice of coverage in most cases. As you said its better to just pick what you beat and cover what you dont as its usually singular threats and is manageable in manaphys case.
It gets mentioned for beating ferrothorn more consistently than anything which is a pretty tough roadblock without ice beam on the tg rd set, after some prior damage and boost or course.
Uh no I think you misunderstood my post. I wasn't asking what Ice Beam hits, but why ppl are saying that Ice Beam is better than Psychic specifically because Amoonguss(and Venusaur but this is beyond my point) is less common, considering that the shroom is weak to both Ice and Psychic.
What they meant was that it hit both of them since Amoong/Venu were basically used interchangeably in XY and most stall cores involved them, but yeah Psychic isn't any better vs Amoong and since the new megas like Eye, Bro and Altaria have been displacing Venu as well as a meta shift that's seen Venu/Amoong cores in general fade, Ice Beam will be the preferred choice.
There's not much of a point of using fully physical Greninja when going mixed does the same thing, but better (unless you have a Jolly Greninja in game and don't feel like resetting for Naive/Hasty). Ice Beam is more useful than Ice Punch 99 times out of 100, as it can 2HKO Skarmory, OHKOs Landorus-T, and hits nearly everything as hard as Ice Punch does thanks to higher base power.
252 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mew: 130-153 (38.1 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mew: 130-153 (38.1 - 44.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Uninvested Ice Beam is doing the exact same damage as Ice Punch with full investment.
Similarly, Waterfall is outclassed by Hydro Pump to an extent, though Waterfall has the merit of higher accuracy. Still, Greninja wants to have as much power as it can behind its attacks and Waterfall being physical doesn't help, as no relevant special walls are hit hard by it that other coverage moves can't handle.
Finally, going fully physical rather than mixed leads you to be walled by most physical walls like Slowbro, Skarmory, Ferrothorn (without Low Kick that is), Mega Venusaur, Scizor. By going mixed, you can beat a lot of these threats with special coverage moves like Dark Pulse for Slowbro, Ice Beam for Skarmory, Extrasensory for Mega Venu, and Hydro Pump or Hidden Power Fire for Scizor.
I'm not going to deny that it can't be effective or fun, but it is inferior to mixed Greninja as a whole. Also, scratch Timid and Adamant since Timid lowers your Attack and Adamant leaves you outsped by things like Keldeo and Thundurus, which isn't good.
No more one liners please, they don't promote discussion at all. If you want to discuss about Greninja, explain how each different move or different EV spread affect its overall performance, what teammates it pairs better with, and against what playstyles this move / spread is more effective against. Saying that Grass Knot hits very specific targets or that physical Greninja is outclassed by specially based mixed Greninja for the most part is something every competent player knows. Leave the simple talk for the simple questions thread.
So it looks like Contrary Serperior and Reckless Emboar (And I suppose Shell Armor Samurott too) are getting released soon. Took a whole generation for them.
I doubt any of them would make an impact. Shell Armour is lol Shell Armour. Reckless is a definite improvement to Emboar no doubt, but honestly I only see that making it more viable in RU and maybe getting a niche in UU. Contrary... while it's hype as hell I doubt it'll have a niche in OU, and if it does not beyond D rank -- it's special movepool is frankly atrocious, coming down to leaf storm, dragon pulse, hidden power and some normal move. They'll be nice for lower tiers but don't expect them to affect this one much.
WHERE'S MY SHEER FORCE GATOR THO
That's pretty much sceptile in a nutshell though. (who takes up a mega slot and can't use items)
Serperior does have the priviledge of being the best offensive screen user. Spammable leaf storm along with screens for the whole team? Yes plz.
It's probably going to be in the same boat as dragalge.. effective on it's own but not really meta defining in anyway. The other two I don't know about.. samurott doesn't have anything going for it.
Except Sceptile also has immediate power and Focus Blast - which is coverage it arguably requires - going for it, not to mention outspeeding almost the entire unboosted tier. I don't think it's fair to compare them.
Sceptile is a sweeper, Serperior would be a wallbreaker. But otherwise they are pretty similar, and I think it just depends wether you wanna do better againt offense or stall.
Really hyped for Serperior, this thing is going to be a solid wallbreaker with a really good speed tier and a nice defensive typing which will let it switch into a few things like Rotom and Keldeo quite well. A couple of things still give it trouble, Heatran and Chansey still wall it completely and birds laugh at it, it's not that bulky, and it really lacks in initial power so it won't really be able to revenge kill things, but I definitely see it being at least viable, probably somewhere around B-/B if not higher. I reminds me a lot of Manpahy but with less bulk in exchange for much more speed and being able to hit stuff while it's up. Also it counters Sableye which is basically an instant niche in this meta.
edit : wait it gets knock off
+6 252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Chansey: 585-688 (91.1 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
so much for hard walling lol
edit : wait it gets knock off
+6 252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Chansey: 585-688 (91.1 - 107.1%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
so much for hard walling lol
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Serperior gets to choose between screwing Heatran and Ferro with HP Fire or Ground. One of them will always counter it though, and Talonflame and Charizard will give it the willies too unless it runs HP Rock. That said, it has the potential to be decent offensive mon. It has Glare to be a pain against offense and cripple something it can't kill before it goes down and cleaning with a Scarfed Leaf Storm sounds fun, especially against rain, as it outspeeds Adamant Kabutops, Swampert, Seismitoad and maybe even standard Kingdra I think and OHKO's most of them, becoming formidable after a contrary boost or two. It has good bulk for an offensive mon and an offensive suicide set that spams Leaf Storm and a coverage move before setting up a screen(s) so that a sweeper can come in afterwards sounds good enough as well.
Assault Vest Sap Sipper Goodra also pretty much counters Serperior too. Takes nothing from everything Serperior learns and can either 2HKO with Sludge Bomb or Fire Blast, (3HKO if Assault Vest Serperior) or just Dragon Tail it out, removing any boosts it has.
It is not a wallbreaker by any stretch of the imagination. A wallbreaker needs immediate power as soon as it's sent out to play that role. Base 75 SpA does not qualify. It's just a setup sweeper with the advantage of being able to deal damage while it sets up.
Not all wallbreakers need immediate power. Manaphy is probably the most difficult mon to wall in ou with tail glow and rain dance but it has to set those things up before it can start slaughtering the opposition.
Not that I am saying Serperior will be as deadly as Manaphy but Leaf Storm with a nasty plot bonus is amazingly potent and even Chansey will be hard-pressed on walling Contrary Serperior once it gets to 6+ and not many things can switch into it.
Serperior's piss-poor movepool is really unfortunate though and doesn't have much other options beside dragon pulse, knock off, glare and hidden power so it will definitely require support to take care of Talonflame, the Zards and Heatran who can easily switch into it depending on it's hp before it starts spamming.
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Serperior would HAVE to take HP Fire simply so defensive mons like Clear Smog Amoongus wouldn't be so comfortable just stopping it from doing anything. Venu has a 4x grass resist as well so he could easily slip in and sludge bomb out Serp. Also, I'd imagine mons like MAlt would give it issues simply by having a grass resist and strong neutral attacks...
What would it run? HP Fire, leaf storm, dragon pulse and something else, right? Take away dragon pulse and you lose a lot of fire types on the switch (or if you scarf?) and mainly bulky defensive ZardX would be an issue.
What would it run? HP Fire, leaf storm, dragon pulse and something else, right? Take away dragon pulse and you lose a lot of fire types on the switch (or if you scarf?) and mainly bulky defensive ZardX would be an issue.
Serperior doesn't need to worry much about Talon and the Zards because all you need for those is Stealth Rock. Zard X will also be dieing to a +2 Dragon Pulse anyway, as will Y after rocks. That lets it concentrate on plugging the other stuff like Ferro and Skarm with HP Fire, or Heatran with Ground.
@AJ; The last move it runs will probably be either Knock Off (goodbye Chansey and Porygon2, removes Shed Shells from Ferro and Skarm for Magnezone support so that you can run HP Ground for Heatran), Glare for random stuff that its other moves fail to do much to, Taunt or Light Screen / Refect.
The extra nuances like getting an evasion boost from Defoggers like Empoleon and Skarm and being an asset against Sticky Web teams doesn't hurt either.
While this is definitely a valid argument, I believe you can not always rely on stealth rock to deal with these mons, as they may very well have a hazard remover that counters your setter, for example Starmie which can spin Heatran's Rocks every time it sets them up.
Oddly, it would have to be Starmie or a rapid spinner, since using Defog would be a liability with the evasion boost from contrary. And while Starmie would outspeed it (without a scarf) you would essentially be sacraficing it to Leaf Storm just to remove Stealth Rock. Tentacruel or Excadrill might work better, depends on how many boosts it has.
My point is that if you have stealth rock and Serperior on the field at the same time, it's going to be a pain to get rid of the rocks. Of course, your point stands since you can either get rid of the snake and then the rocks, or the rocks before Serperior even comes out.
While I haven't run the damage calcs, I think Unaware Clefable is a hard counter to Serperior (unless maybe it packs Hidden Power Poison or Steel, but why would it ever do that?). Without it's boosts, Serperior is pretty dead in the water so it will either switch out or die to flamethrower (or Moonblast or toxic, again I'm speculating without calculations). I guess Serperior could still set up reflect or light screen though, but the overall goal of stopping Serperior is accomplished.
Actually, unaware clefable is not a hard counter. It's only reliable recovery is moonlight, due to soft boil being incompatible with unaware. Moonlight's PP is only 8, meaning it can easily be stalled out. Serperior can simply spam giga drain, and eventually, clefable will have to use moonlight, and then when moonlight's PP is gone, serperior is free to spam leaf storm, which 3HKOes. Following that, serperior will have at least gotten up to +4, and then you might as well say good bye to your team.
252 SpA Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Clefable: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
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