Other ORAS Metagame Discussion

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Karxrida

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Eh it doesn't always need HP Ground nor Giga Drain. It's defensive set can set up on a lot of bulky waters, and Heatran can't really do anything to it unless it has Ancient Power/Stone Edge. Rotom-W is set up bait, provided Rocks aren't up and he doesn't get a crit as Volcarona can easily take a Hydro Pump, Quiver Dance, and then take only 50% max from another Hydro Pump. Considering it's measly accuracy, you can PP stall/bank for a miss by constantly using Roost.

And you'll be faster than him so you will get at least 1 Dance off before he Taunts. Fiery Dance is the preferable option, especially for bulkier sets. This set really covers just about everything you need really, and best used mid-late game when it's checks/counters are weakened. That said, you can even send it out early to do some serious damage with Fiery Dance, even uninvested it still packs a punch from base 135 Sp.Atk. This set works best for me:


Gwyn (Volcarona) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 248 HP / 240 Def / 20 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Fiery Dance
- Bug Buzz
- Roost

Outspeeds max base 70s and Honchkrow, can take hits well due to max investment in bulk and finds easy set up opportunities due to Roost. Also punishes weaker physical attackers hard with Flame Body.
Giga Drain is mandatory for Water-types, especially Keldeo and Azumarill since they resist both STABs and you don't want them to set up on you. Whether you use HP Ground or Bug Buzz is dependent on if you have an answer to Heatran or not.
 
''don't ban megagross fairies will dominate''
how about no

Amoonguss @ Black Sludge
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 136 Def / 120 SpD
Bold Nature
- Spore
- Giga Drain
- Foul Play
- Clear Smog

Godly Mushroom Amoonguss is a very cool pokemon in this metagame because it can switch into many offensive threats and annoy them to death.
Some situations versus common pokemon not including Spore, which helps Amoonguss even more

Vs. Mega Diancie
16 Atk Mega Diancie Diamond Storm vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Amoonguss: 168-198 (38.8 - 45.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Amoonguss Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Mega Diancie: 146-174 (60.5 - 72.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
*Amoonguss comes in on a Diamond Storm, takes 45%, goes back to 61% because of Black Sludge. Diancie Diamond Storm = 16% Amoonguss, Amoonguss Giga Drain and restores 20% of his health and gets back to 42% of his health with Black Sludge. Diancie needs 3 high rolls + predict the switch to win.


Vs. Keldeo
252 SpA Choice Specs Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss: 140-165 (32.4 - 38.1%) -- 0.9% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Amoonguss Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 152-182 (47 - 56.3%) -- 81.3% chance to 2HKO
*Amoonguss comes in and because of Black Sludge gets to 68%. Giga Drain restores 21% and 2HKOs Keldeo. So after 2 turns Keldeo is at 45% and Amoonguss is at 57%. Versus SubCM Keldeo, Amoonguss can get it out the sub with Giga Drain even at +2 and can Clear Smog the SpD boosts if needed to


Vs. Assault Vest Azumarill
252+ Atk Huge Power Azumarill Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Amoonguss: 131-155 (30.3 - 35.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Amoonguss Giga Drain vs. 240 HP / 16 SpD Assault Vest Azumarill: 114-134 (28.4 - 33.4%) -- 0% chance to 3HKO
*Amoonguss takes max 36% on the switch in, and after that only takes 25% makes with Play Rough (Knock Off goes back to 65 BP)


Vs. Banded Azumarill
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Amoonguss: 197-232 (45.6 - 53.7%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Amoonguss Giga Drain vs. 88 HP / 0 SpD Azumarill: 170-204 (46.8 - 56.1%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO
*Amoonguss goes to 47% on the switch in versus Knock Off and loses 36% the next turn. So Amoonguss is at 17%. After giga drain it restores 24% and it 2HKOs Azumarill.


Vs. Belly Drum Azumarill
*Azumarill OHKO's with +6 Knock Off, but without Knock Off it fails to OHKO and Amoonguss removes the Belly Drum boost.


Vs. Dragon Dance Mega Altaria
192+ Atk Mega Altaria Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 136+ Def Amoonguss: 104-123 (24 - 28.4%) -- 97.3% chance to 4HKO
0 SpA Amoonguss Clear Smog vs. 64 HP / 0 SpD Mega Altaria: 92-110 (29.9 - 35.8%) -- 32.3% chance to 3HKO
*While Altaria can win 1v1 because Amoonguss doesn't have recovery outside of black sludge and Altaria has Roost, Amoonguss can keep pivotting out and remove the boosts. It wins the PP war against Mega Altaria because of Regenerator + Clear Smog + Spore


Vs. Clefable
0 SpA Clefable Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss: 130-154 (30 - 35.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Black Sludge recovery
0 SpA Amoonguss Clear Smog vs. 252 HP / 96+ SpD Clefable: 84-102 (21.3 - 25.8%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
*Same situation as versus Mega Altaria. Amoonguss can remove boosts with Clear Smog and wins the PP war because of Spore + Regenerator + Clear Smog
Massive nitpicking here lol, but give it a 0 Attack IV to maximize Foul Play damage and minimize Confusion damage. Other than that it's a great set!
 
Massive nitpicking here lol, but give it a 0 Attack IV to maximize Foul Play damage and minimize Confusion damage. Other than that it's a great set!
Minor nitpick to your massive nitpick, but Foul Play just uses the opponent's Attack stat, not the difference between yours and the opponents. So minimizing your own Attack is literally only for minimizing opposing Foul Plays and confusion damage.
 

p2

Banned deucer.
Minor nitpick to your massive nitpick, but Foul Play just uses the opponent's Attack stat, not the difference between yours and the opponents. So minimizing your own Attack is literally only for minimizing opposing Foul Plays and confusion damage.
That's the point, to reduce damage that you take from Confusion and Foul Plays
It's a small difference, especially on Amoonguss but it never hurts to minimize Confusion and Foul Play damage
 
That's the point, to reduce damage that you take from Confusion and Foul Plays
It's a small difference, especially on Amoonguss but it never hurts to minimize Confusion and Foul Play damage
I know. That's what I advocated. I mainly posted to educate on on how Foul Play works. Of course I'm saying to minimize the Attack IV, but by his wording, he had the mechanics of Foul Play wrong, thinking the common error that it's the difference of the two different stats.
 

p2

Banned deucer.
I know. That's what I advocated. I mainly posted to educate on on how Foul Play works. Of course I'm saying to minimize the Attack IV, but by his wording, he had the mechanics of Foul Play wrong, thinking the common error that it's the difference of the two different stats.
Oh, I see where I misread the post
 
As far as partners go, RP Mega Diancie is a great one. RP Diancie primarily has issues with bulky Steels (along side bulky Venusaur). Volc is capable of handling virtually every Steel type short of Heatran... who Diancie takes care of with Earth Power. Volc on the other hand has issues with Fire types (if running Fire Blast, Giga Drain and Bug Buzz, which it should). Well, Diancie is a great check to Char-X, Talonflame and most other common Steels in the tier. The only issue is the core is very Water weak, and has trouble with fatter teams. From there, Thundurus, Keldeo, and certain Latios make excellent teammates, as they can break Stall and resist Water. I believe AM posted a core along these lines in the Good Cores thread, so I'd go check that out.
I'd like to mention Manaphy as well, paired with Volc/Diancie it's a monster. Atleast from my experience, though your core is solid.
 

SJCrew

Believer, going on a journey...
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It's allowed. I gave Gatr a go earlier this afternoon. I didn't play much, so I can't tell you how good it is, but I will say that much of my grievance came from its absolutely ass speed. We're talking Bisharp-with-no-Sucker-Punch levels of ass.
 
It's allowed. I gave Gatr a go earlier this afternoon. I didn't play much, so I can't tell you how good it is, but I will say that much of my grievance came from its absolutely ass speed. We're talking Bisharp-with-no-Sucker-Punch levels of ass.
It's bulky enough to set up a Dragon Dance and then proceed to outspeed the majority of the non-scarfed metagame. And if you're worried about priority you could always run Aqua Jet.
 

boltsandbombers

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It's bulky enough to set up a Dragon Dance and then proceed to outspeed the majority of the non-scarfed metagame. And if you're worried about priority you could always run Aqua Jet.
Something that was brought up in the Feraligatr thread, what does it actually set up on? For example, many people have been comparing gatr to gyarados, and the major differences is that water / flying is significantly better than monk water, setting up on the likes of Keldeo and Landorus.
 

AM

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Tbf I was talking with Trinitrotoluene while building a team around it with him and it really doesn't set up on anything lol. I mean sure it can set up on stuff that doesn't threaten it but that can be said for just about any set up sweeper. The only benefit is that you have a higher speed tier so you're actually threatening stuff like Celebi and Gliscor at a glance. It's pretty much just a hybrid of Crawdaunt and Gyarados and I don't think it's actually particularly fantastic as people hyped it up to be besides the fact it's not total garbage now that it has Sheer Force.
 
Tbf I was talking with Trinitrotoluene while building a team around it with him and it really doesn't set up on anything lol. I mean sure it can set up on stuff that doesn't threaten it but that can be said for just about any set up sweeper. The only benefit is that you have a higher speed tier so you're actually threatening stuff like Celebi and Gliscor at a glance. It's pretty much just a hybrid of Crawdaunt and Gyarados and I don't think it's actually particularly fantastic as people hyped it up to be besides the fact it's not total garbage now that it has Sheer Force.
I don't really get your argument, do you think you can elaborate? When you say "it can set up on things that dont threaten it?" Isn't that exactly what a sweeper does, isn't that exactly what Mega Salamence did?
 

AM

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I don't really get your argument, do you think you can elaborate? When you say "it can set up on things that dont threaten it?" Isn't that exactly what a sweeper does, isn't that exactly what Mega Salamence did?
there was a mention in an earlier post that because of its bulk it has the ability to set up and go for the sweep, which is sort of silly to think that this is a trait that is found on feraligatr alone. Also its really not that bulky so i was addressing the exaggeration that has been presented lately for gatr.
 
In my honest opinion, I think SF LO Gatr would work a lot more better in rain than as a standalone sweeper in teams. With access to things like SD/Agility and the ability to hit hard with rain boosted attacks, it can be a real trouble to face on a rain team. The biggest question is how more viable than Kabu (MSwamp is abit irrelevant because imo it's a shitty rain abuser) is Gatr. The main thing that Gatr has over Kabu is better bulk and higher initial power. It's typing is arguably worser in OU because Rock typing leaves kabu less vulnerable to burd spam ending your rain sweep but it gives Gatr more set up opportunities in the rain. I would think that a combination of (DD or SD both may work) Gatr + Omastar would really work since Gatr has a lot of initial raw power and doesn't have to lock itself into a move for it to pack a punch. Of course LO Kabu can hit hard too, but usually you need Low Kick to get pass Ferro whereas for the case of Gatr, if you can get an SD up, it still has a good chance to 2HKO ferro after rocks. MHera/Specs Keld would work interestingly with the core.

I'll see if I can get some replays of this when I get my team up and running. I just don't think Gatr is threatening enough to be a standalone sweeper but it might actually work a lot better as a rain wallbreaker. [:
I doubt it. Kabutops outclasses Feraligatr as a rain sweeper, resist birdspam, duel stab ect
 
As someone who uses Rain a lot I'm not really interested in Feraligatr (on rain at least, SD wallbreaker set looks legit imo).

You're already, at minimum, going to be using three water types (Politoed, 2x swimmers) unless you go for a more balanced build which would only use Toed+pert or toed+King. Feraligatr's typing and bulk doesn't really offer anything to these teams. Otherwise, I really don't want more type redundancy than a rain team would already have, it's more important to add things to handle Rain checks as well as a secondary rain setter to ease pressure on Toed.

Also Feraligatr is not a substitute for a swift swimmer. The entire allure of swimmers is that they hit hard as fuck AND they're almost impossible to revenge kill, which isn't the case for Feraligatr due to its underwhelming speed. You just can't compare a pokemon with 280 speed to one with over 500 speed, even if the 280 hits much harder.
 

MANNAT

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I just want to share my opinion on a terrible strategy that needs a ban immediately: geopass. For those who do not know what geopass is, it is a strategy where people use several turns in the beginning of the battle to set up several moves that make it easy for the main culprit of geopass to set up geomancy and help the sweeper in sweeping the opposing team such as; tailwind, light screen, reflect, and memento because it has to run an item over focus sash to set up geomancy. After these moves are set up, smeargle comes in puts the opposing mon to sleep so that it can set up geomancy and possibly cotton guard depending on the set. Then, smeargle passes off to a special sweeper; usually one with stored power such as espeon or clefable. The mon then goes and sweeps the opponents team with the given boosts and a couple of coverage moves. If there are direct problems for that sweeper, then a trapper (which is also pretty borked but that's a discussion for another day) comes in and eliminates that mon. As you can probably tell, this strategy is very broken and needs to be banned very soon. This new replay, which was against a player with a very good team, consisting of exclusively S and A rank mons who ended up defogging away my screens, shows how geopass is executed, and how you can still sweep a team with it regardless of how skillful the opposing player is if you aren't a completely incompetent player. Geopass is a broken strategy and flat uncompetitive because it requires little to no skill to click the hazard then support move buttons that are required to execute geopass. The sweeper only has to click stored power and/or its coverage moves after it gets a geomancy handed to it. For those that say. "Don't worry about geopass, no one uses it anyways!" the reason why basically no one uses geopass is because it is so broken that most players vow never to use it and we shouldn't decide not to ban something because of usage because broken megas are used less than they could be as a result of the opportunity cost of not being able to use other megas, but they are still broken. Under that logic, Landorus-T, Heatran, and Keldeo need to be tossed from the tier while MMetagross, MSableye, and MSlowbro don't need to be suspected or considered for bans at all. Geopass requires little to no skill to use, and the unhealthiness and uncompetitive nature of the strategy rivals previous OU titans such as Greninja and Mega Lucario. As you can see from the replay that I provided, you can screw up, make misclicks and misplays, and you can still win with geopass due to how unhealthy and broken it truly is. On top of that, geopass teams that can win north of 60% of their games take all of five minutes to whip up and no thought about synnergy or perfect EV spreads is required because of how broken the strategy is, let alone the teams that have optimized EV spreads and sets that have been worked on for a half an hour or more. You can adjust for strategies such as phasing and dragon tail by simply using a magic bouncer such as espeon and give it a move to "dodge" dragon tail such as substitute. Many of these small variations can make a geopass team that is basically impossible to beat. The combination of all of these things shows why geopass is such a cancerous and terrible strategy that should be banned from the OU scene as soon as possible. My Preposition for a ban is to ban Smeargle+Baton Pass, banning Smeargle as a whole, or banning Geomancy from OU. A straight ban of Smeargle wouldn't really affect the lower tiers because Smeargle is a BL Pokemon anyways (complex bans are usually unnecessary anyways).

Here are replays of a few different matches with a geopass team on the laddder:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215088389 - it's a random ladder match against a player using a could be better team
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215182377 - this replay isn't against the most skilled player, but it shows how geopass works even when everything doesn't go according to plan.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215183484 - This replay is against a decent player that is using a pretty good team and I ended up getting into a position where it was basically impossible for me to lose, and the opposing player forfeited as a result of this. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215187556 - another match against a mediocre team that could be much better
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215317662 - Here is a match against a more skilled player and shows how it was ridiculously easy to set up geopass even against a decent player.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215320977 - A very decent team on the ladder that I faced and easily swept despite it having several mons and strats that would usually tear apart a HO or fast and frail team.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-215326560 - This is a replay against my friend MuhFugginMoose showing how you can even baton pass off to a slower mon and still sweep with geopass because of how OP the defensive boosts that you get from it are as well as the offensive boosts.
 
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blinkie

¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯ dank meme crew
I just want to share my opinion on a terrible strategy that needs a ban immediately: geopass. For those who do not know what geopass is, it is a strategy where people use several turns in the beginning of the battle to set up several moves that make it easy for the main culprit of geopass to set up geomancy and help the sweeper in sweeping the opposing team such as; tailwind, light screen, reflect, and memento because it has to run an item over focus sash to set up geomancy. After these moves are set up, smeargle comes in puts the opposing mon to sleep so that it can set up geomancy and possibly cotton guard depending on the set. Then, smeargle passes off to a special sweeper; usually one with stored power such as espeon or clefable. The mon then goes and sweeps the opponents team with the given boosts and a couple of coverage moves. If there are direct problems for that sweeper, then a trapper (which is also pretty borked but that's a discussion for another day) comes in and eliminates that mon. As you can probably tell, this strategy is very broken and needs to be banned very soon. This replay shows how geopass is executed, and how you can still sweep a team with it regardless of if you make several misplays in the game like i did. Geopass is a broken strategy and flat uncompetitive because it requires little to no skill to click the hazard then support move buttons that are required to execute geopass. The sweeper only has to click stored power and/or its coverage moves after it gets a geomancy handed to it. For those that say. "Don't worry about geopass, no one uses it anyways!" the reason why basically no one uses geopass is because it is so broken that most players vow never to use it and we shouldn't decide not to ban something because of usage because broken megas are used less than they could be as a result of the opportunity cost of not being able to use other megas, but they are still broken. Under that logic, Landorus-T, Heatran, and Keldeo need to be tossed from the tier while MMetagross, MSableye, and MSlowbro don't need to be suspected or considered for bans at all. Geopass requires little to no skill to use, and the unhealthiness and uncompetitive nature of the strategy rivals previous OU titans such as Greninja and Mega Lucario. As you can see from the replay that I provided, you can screw up, make misclicks and misplays, and you can still win with geopass due to how unhealthy and broken it truly is. On top of that, geopass teams that can win north of 60% of their games take all of five minutes to whip up and no thought about synnergy or perfect EV spreads is required because of how broken the strategy is, let alone the teams that have optimized EV spreads and sets that have been worked on for a half an hour or more. You can adjust for strategies such as phasing and dragon tail by simply using a magic bouncer such as espeon and give it a move to "dodge" dragon tail such as substitute. Many of these small variations can make a geopass team that is basically impossible to beat. The combination of all of these things shows why geopass is such a cancerous and terrible strategy that should be banned from the OU scene as soon as possible.
Your opponent was using a mono electric team with Jolteon(blacklisted in viability rankings) and Galvantula(trash besides for web, and he didn't even lead with it) and a bunch of other dubious sets such as Balloon Magnezone which tbh is a gimmick for Excadrill. So tbh the replay kind of proves nothing...your opponent obviously didn't know what he was doing and beating a team like that doesn't really show how BP is bad for the metagame.

edit: tbh gatr and scrafty are bad in OU
 
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MANNAT

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Your opponent was using a mono electric team with Jolteon(blacklisted in viability rankings) and Galvantula(trash besides for web, and he didn't even lead with it) and a bunch of other dubious sets such as Balloon Magnezone which tbh is a gimmick for Excadrill. So tbh the replay kind of proves nothing...
The replay was supposed to provide a basic explanation on how geopass worked, and you could see that I made several misplays and was still able to easily win the game, but I will go out and get a better replay for you since you are so inclined.

Edit: better replay edited into post
edit: tbh gatr and scrafty are bad in OU
First of all, SD Gatr is actually a niche wallbreaker set in OU at the moment and is deserving of at least C- rank imo, and scrafty was the only unviable mon on his team among A and A+ rank threats such as Heatran, Thundurus, Ferrothorn, and (hopefully) mega altaria. Do you want me to go and ladder for 10-15 with a team as cancerous as geopass until I find a team with mons that are all B- rank or higher in the viability ranking thread?
 
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-gizmo-

Smogon's Kingpin
Shoutouts my buddy daftmau5 for being part of the e-belt jirachi club since day one and innovating the nichze moonblast

I find expert belt jirachi to be a great asset for offense in the current meta game. It lures in what you'd lure in with many other lures/trappers that many people would come to scout for/ play too unpredictably/safely/aggressively for you to catch the Pokemon you're trying to trap.


Jirachi @ Expert Belt
Ability: Serene Grace
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 92 HP / 252 SpA / 164 Spe| 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Mild/Hasty Nature
- Icy Wind
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Iron Head
- Moonblast/Thunderbolt

The first spread forgoes power over speed, doing more damage, and clinching ohkos on certain pokemon the hasty set fails to, while the hasty set outspeeds other neutral base 100s, hitting Pokemon like zard y after rocks, unexpectedly killing it off when they usually think rachi is a chance to roost(body slam para chance aside) I prefer the faster set myself.

This set lures in and takes big chunks out of common switchins like:
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Skarmory: 262-310 (78.4 - 92.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 202-240 (57.3 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Hidden Power Fire vs. 248 HP / 176 SpD Mega Scizor: 221-264 (64.4 - 76.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Moonblast vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Sableye: 185-218 (60.8 - 71.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 172 SpD Mega Slowbro: 194-230 (49.2 - 58.3%) -- 98% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Keldeo: 228-269 (70.5 - 83.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Hidden Power Fire vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 175-209 (64.3 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO(attempt if bisharp gets low, as it by nature gets worn quite quickly. Chances are they won't sucker you if they're unsure of your set.)
252 SpA Expert Belt Jirachi Icy Wind vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 293-346 (91.8 - 108.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO(you outspeed in the next turn)

of course you can run the mild set for higher damage output, it's preference really.

E-belt rachi is a strong lure, giving under-loved pokemon the chance they need to shine in this metagame. So far i've used it with mega gallade and beedrill, and it's been successful in removing checks and counters for both, and i'm sure it has other uses i haven't found yet.
 
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The replay was supposed to provide a basic explanation on how geopass worked, and you could see that I made several misplays and was still able to easily win the game, but I will go out and get a better replay for you since you are so inclined.

Edit: better replay edited into post

First of all, SD Gatr is actually a niche wallbreaker set in OU at the moment and is deserving of at least C- rank imo, and scrafty was the only unviable mon on his team among A and A+ rank threats such as Heatran, Thundurus, Ferrothorn, and (hopefully) mega altaria. Do you want me to go and ladder for 10-15 with a team as cancerous as geopass until I find a team with mons that are all B- rank or higher in the viability ranking thread?
We're asking you to face a good opponent on high ladder, almost anything can sweep on low ladder.
 
How viable is the Rocky Helmet Counter Skarmory set right now? It's probably the best counter to Megagross because it doesn't have to just sit there Roosting and taking Hammer Arms, and is a great way to wear down bulky pivots.
 
it depends on how badly you want to get trolled by magnezone because a single counter at the wrong time and you are dead. i have seen many counter skarmorys and they always end that way, fryed alive with my magnezone (the only difference, it's dragonite what they are trying to Counter).
if you rely on counter skarmory to check megagross, better run shed shell. in fact, rocky helmet already wears him down in six hits so simply spamming roost or WW is enough. counter is not really neccessary for megagross in my experience
 

SketchUp

Don't let your memes be dreams
Because this topic is also meant to discuss metagame trends am looking at the usage stats of february and compare them with december


Garchomp's usage went up from almost 9% in december to 15%/17% in february (different stats because of suspect test)
Especially the use of defensive Rocky Helmet went up from 29% to 57% (!!) previous month

Chansey went from 16.8% to 6.8% / 11.6%, Sableye went from #13 to #31 in the suspect test and Cresselia went from 5% to 2%. These stall pokemon all decreased in usage and this is probably because of the increasing usage of some stallbreakers
1. Gliscor went from 7% usage to 12% usage, but the set that increased the most was SD. 2 months ago only 5% used Swords Dance, now it is 50% / 57%.
2. Landorus usage went up when stall became common and the rise from 5.9% to 9.7% shows that. Mega Gardevoir also doubled in usage.
3. Some pokemon changed sets to prepare for stall. Substitute on Keldeo went from 25% to 37% and Azumarill runs Belly Drum 1.5x more often.
4. As a response on that, other stallbreaker such as Gothitelle (7.8 -> 4.7) went down in usage

Others metagame trends:
1. Volcarona went from 1.1% usage in December to 2.4% usage in February
2. Tornadus-T went from 1.5% usage to 5.5% usage
3. Tyranitar now holds a choice scarf 48% of the time, instead of 28% in December and he gained 5% usage in the past 2 months. The other sand setter, Hippowdon also gained a lot of popularity with his 1.3% usage rising to 7.8%. Excadrill didn't go up in usage, but Sand Rush went from 33% to 56%, which is a pretty big chance
4. Other pokemon that went much up in usage: Victini (2% to 5.6%) Jirachi (3.7% to 6%) Diancie (3.8% to 6.5% / 8.2%) and Starmie (3% to 10.7%) Note that this usage was also pretty low in january, so it is not completely due to Greninja's ban. For example Starmie's usage after the first week after ninja's ban was still only 4%
 

-gizmo-

Smogon's Kingpin
quagback2qc

Well, magnezone seems to be seeing less use at the moment. Most times it can just be a liability as outside of its niche role of trapping steels, its just a sub par scarfer, and not the best offensive steel you could run on offense.Though even with all of that said, seeing as skarm is probably very vital to whatever team it is on, (being the difference between losing to gross or getting up/removing hazards, or just being your only immunity/resist left to ground etc. ) I'd say still run shed shell. As long as it still has counter it beats metagross.
 
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