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I disagree with the notion that pidgeotite Gengar is inferior to the other pidgeotite abusers. The base 130 speed hypnosis is wonderful, but its main perk is that its coverage allows it to hit a very large portion of the metagame super-effectively, and that allows it to more consistently get hits off before taking damage.
Nominations:
A ---> A-
Unranked ---> A- (Lucarionite, Pinsirite)
Unranked ---> C (Gyaradosite, Pinsirite, Aerodactylite, Charizardite X)
Unranked ---> B- (Pidgeotite, Blue Orb, ??? [give me ideas, I know it is decent])
Feel free to make more, I don't know what to move atm since I haven't gotten to play in a few days. That is definitely going to change, though.
Discuss these nominations. If anything is disagreed with, post about it. If no objections are apparent, the mon will be placed in that rank in 3 days.
Keldeo is the one I really need to explain, but its very simple. Keldeo has a very difficult time fitting on a lot of teams atm because of how common many checks are. It can no longer spam its water stab because red orb is literally everywhere and is able to wall most of its sets pretty easily. Being weak to both aerilate and Pixilate, which are also on almost every team, and also not being able to hit a key user for SE damage (if its already mega evolved), Zygarde, means it is setup bait for Garde and is switched into. For these reasons a drop to A- would be ideal to support how difficult it is to properly use.
I've been using Starmie on my team and it does really well with Sceptilite. Send it in on electric type/electric move user, mega evolve for the Lightningrod boost, and begin sweep. Once it mega evolves, it gets a deadly 416 speed with Timid Nature/252 EV's. It also becomes one of the fastest (if not the fastest) Rapid Spinner in the meta with a great defensive typing in Water/Dragon. Gaining the dragon type instead of Psychic neutralizes pretty much every one of Starmie's weaknesses pre-mega
Yeah, I'm thinking type changing stones like sceptilite are gonna work great on starmie since those can give it more opportunities to spin. I'm interested into trying a few other stones that will give it a change that give it an immunity, such as pinsirite, but there isn't really anything of those it can use, sadly. Sceptilite is good though, and when I add it it will definitely be on the list.
What about Altarianite? With Altarianite, it becomes a Water / Fairy type, with a decent spread of 60/115/105/140/85/115 and Pixilate Rapid Spin (better Defog). It gets Tri-Attack for Fairy STAB, and can run Scald for burning shit. It could also be an ok user of Gardevoirite - it doesn't become a Fairy-type, but it does has Pixilate Rapid Spin and has a solid 135 speed. Manecite also seems decent, although it lacks a pivot move to fully take advantage of Intimidate. \
I guess you could also use Aggronite and Audinite for more bulky sets, but idk - bulky sets don't sount that good, even with higher bulk, due to its low 60 HP.
I'm sure there are a lot more viable Hoopa-U mega stones, but for now, it sure sounds terrifying.
(Thanks to SpartanMalice, Talpr0ne , AllJokesAside and the OM Room for some most of the ideas)
Manectite adds speed, bulk, power, and intimidate, which also helps its mediocre physical bulk. Even though its typing is atrocious, and primary psychic definitely isnt pretty, i still think this is borken beyond reasonable doubt. Dark stab is really good in this meta as there are very few resists, and with nasty plot and those stats, sub-boost sets basically can invalidate stall at team preview. Waiting on ghoul king, but i feel a quickban may be in order. For now, nominating hoopa-U for A and possibly higher given its substantial stallbreaking abilities. Its noticeable opportunity cost precludes a higher ranking, but as with shadow tag, mons dont need high ranks because they may be broken.
Uses the Salamencite to give Aerilate, and a nice boost to bulk and power. I went with the Salamencite because Archeops is already powerful enough and usually the bulk is more handy.
Uses the Salamencite to give Aerilate, and a nice boost to bulk and power. I went with the Salamencite because Archeops is already powerful enough and usually the bulk is more handy.
Scizor @ Blue Orb
Ability: Light Metal
EVs: 248 HP / 132 SDef / 128 Spd
Careful Nature
- Agility
- Swords Dance
- Baton Pass
- Iron Head / Substitute
Pretty self explanatory, turns any physical attacker into an absolute monster. Recipients I'd recommend would be Primal Groudon, Altarianite Entei and Pinsirite Gyarados. EVs let it outrun max speed 130s at +2.
That's a shame, it would be nice to resurrect Baton Pass Scizor. Since Smeargle's been banned from mega evolving, do we still need the Baton Pass clause? I'll give up Stone Edge for Roost, good suggestion.
If Hoopa-U gets banned, its regular form could still be viable:
With the Cameruptite, Hoopa is now slow enough to properly abuse Trick Room (with absolutely minimum speed you "outrun" nuetral base 30s). Its physical bulk is also slightly better, and its special attack sits at an incredible 190, and it gets Sheer Force on top of that! Psychic and Shadow Ball get STAB, Focus Blast gets coverage.
Zap cannon and Dynamic punch have been banned for being uncompetitive and making the metagame hax reliant, especially on notable abusers in Mew and Porygon-Z.
I wanted to bring to the council's attention a Pokémon that in my opinion is more broken than both Zygarde and Lucario, and that is Manaphy.
The thing that pushes Manaphy over the edge in my opinion is the aggravating lack to defensive answers outside of Blue Orb Ferrothorn, Dialga and Ampharosite Jirachi. 140 Special Attack at +3 is enough to pull the sturdiest walls on their knees. You are saying that Venusaurite Celebi, Red Orb Victini and stuff like that can check it? Well, if we're ignoring the fact that Victini doesn't fit on stallier team, this fucker can pull your Celebi, Victini or whatever it is on its knees with a simple moveslot change of Shadow Ball over Ice Beam, showing a worrying degree of versatility. There aren't actually a lot of dragons that Ice Beam hits supereffectively aside of Zygarde, so using Shadow Ball doesn't come with a lot of opportunity cost. Magic Bounce means that you can't paralyze, toxic or burn it outside of lucky Scald/Body Slam/Sludge Bomb or Mold Breaker, making it even harder to check. It can't even be phazed outside of Dragon Tail, which only an handful of Pokémon get.
It may not be as good against offensive teams, but 140 speed still makes it able to revenge a few mons, and its 90:10 matchup vs stall is already enough to ban it.
+3 252 SpA Manaphy Scald vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn in Heavy Rain: 197-232 (55.9 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
loses if it doesn't have Power Whip or if it gets burned and Manaphy wasn't weakened.
+3 252 SpA Absolite Manaphy Energy Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Sceptilite Slowking: 175-206 (44.4 - 52.2%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
only thing it can do back is Dragon Tailing
+3 252 Spa Absolite Manaphy Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venusaurite Celebi: 294-346 (72.7 - 85.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
bop. And most Celebi don't run this much Special Defense.
+3 252 SpA Absolite Manaphy Energy vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Red Orb Hippowdon: 229-270 (54.5 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Gets rekt'd. Its Earthquake, one of the hardest hitting move you might found on a stall, barely 2hkos.
+3 252 SpA Absolite Manaphy Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Red Orb Victini: 512-604 (150.1 - 177.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Nice counter
Blissey walls it a lot harder than you'd expect- this is from experience, not just unbased assumptions. In fact, I'd even say it's far worse against stall than it is against offense, due mostly to its blistering speed. Magic bounce doesn't entirely break stall, as calm mind wars are far more common than toxic and stuff, from my experience. Scald, while honestly a great move, has relatively low base power and very limited super effective coverage. This causes it to struggle against stall, though it destroys offense. I don't think it deserves a ban, not because it is not an incredible sweeper, but because of the omnipresence of groudon, raikou, thunderus, zapdos, and other electric types, especially manectite variants of the first two, venusaurite stuff (though you are right hat shadow ball helps w/ some of these), etc.. Idk, it's very good, however it's power is rather unimpressive, unboosted, it's bulk, while not bad by any means, is still not great, and though it sits at a decent speed tier pre-mega, it's really still not that fast. Again, it's very good, but not ban-worthy, at least not at the moment.
If you're running Altarianite Lucario, you're weak to -atespeeds regardless, and there's not much opportunity cost to being "more" vulnerable to them. In general Altarianite Lucario is going to be leaning on Extreme Speed to wipe out faster, more fragile threats, and Close Combat/coverage for bulkier, slower threats. Not much cost to being Adamant.
There is a lot of opportunity cost to that tho. When all offensive teams basically have at least one Atespeed on them, and altarianite literally grants nothing except for (arguably; I still think it's not as good) typing and a tiny bit of power over Pinsirite, there's no reason that you should run altarianite luc. Not only does it make you slower, you can't even hit half of them for neutral damage, at least w/ your stabs. But concerning its performance relative to the rest of the rest o the meta; your only immunity is to dragon, which you were already resistant to, whereas Pinsirite grants an immunity to ground, to which it is weak in its base form, which helps it to set up easier. Altarianite give no special bulk or speed, has far worse neutral coverage, just for a little bit of power.
Most Steel types are slow. Not all, but the pool of Steel types that will outspeed Lucario pre-mega is pretty small, and several Steel types are so slow that you basically need Diancite to outspeed Lucario even post-Mega.
Not those that are actually widespread in the meta. The slowest offensive steel that is common at all is excadrill, and it's only 2 points slower than luc. Not to mention, exca usually mega evolves early on to punch holes in the opposing team. Also, it usually runs a jolly nature, so it will outspeed you too. Steel types as a whole are slow, but that has nothing to do w/ their functional speed on the competitive level (that's a confusing point, but basically, those that are actually used are usually faster than your average steel).
My point about "catching a switch" is that you can't actually count on such 'mons as checks/counters in an actual match. It's not even about clever use of lures, or about good prediction per se. It's about the risk that the check or counter will be caught before Mega Evolution, at a time you must switch it in or lose the thing in front of Lucario, and end up with it unusable or even dead. This is particularly true of hyper offense teams, which struggle to achieve safe switch-ins against anything but stall. Given our argument thus far has been, essentially, assuming HO vs HO, that's pretty relevant to the point.
Prediction is literally not considered a good argument in any meta. The argument has honestly not been exclusively HO v. HO, it's been any team that is even offensively inclined. Anyways, HO requires sacking things that have already done their job to preserve momentum.
You're engaging in false equivalency on the predictions here. This scenario with Terrakion and Lucario? Lucario can use Extreme Speed and it's always good. Not optimal if the enemy switches in a resist, a Steel type you should've hit with Close Combat, but Extreme Speed is "safe", even if they switch in the resist. There is no scenario where Lucario uses Extreme Speed and the enemy turns this into "and now Lucario's entire team is in big trouble". That's not really equivalent to something like Lucario coming in on a fairly passive wall (Or even an offensive 'mon that has completely the wrong movepool for hurting Lucario) that needs to switch right now, or risk losing the entire match... and then Lucario predicts the switch and kills or cripples your counter, instead of spending the turn boosting like you expected. Meanwhile, if you stay in and flail ineffectually at Lucario, and it Swords Dances, that is really really bad. The 'mon across from Lucario doesn't have any clear, good answer. It has "hope this doesn't go horribly wrong" answers.
The Lucario vs Terrakion example, yes, prediction is relevant, but it's a difference in kind.
My point, in response to both of these, is, Pokemon is a game of calculated risks. In the situation w/ terrakion, say the opponent decides that terrakion has done its job, and therefore they determine that it isn't worth the risk to bring in X steel type to tank the possible pixispeed. The opponent then decides that they will takes the risk; if they switch out they are more likely to lose their check, if they stay in they either kill luc, or mispredict and their check is still safe, then they can come in, mega evolve, then either set up and sweep, or just kill luc if the opponent tries to stay in for some reason. Their are plenty of times when Espeed isn't safe, if it lets the opponent set up and sweep you. This is the basis of competitive battling; it is just a series of decisions based on reward vs consequence, and you need to determine what your opponents next move will most likely be based on what they value the most and make your own decisions based on the same evaluation.
You don't see the point in even discussing how Lucario can punch a hole in something that is shaky as a counter in the first place. (If they don't get that 30% Burn on the first Scald, you may [46%] KO them with Close Combat -you will if they have any prior damage. That's a bit generous to describe as a reliable counter to Lucario, especially when the odds are "Lucario is less likely to be Burned than it is to get its 2HKO") What?
And, again, this is ignoring other sets. 90% of your arguments are implicitly assuming that Pinsirite Lucario is the only Lucario worth talking about, which dismisses my concerns that Lucario is uncounterable more on the basis of ignoring its potential than on the basis of providing provably reliable counters.
And then these "counters" can be defeated by Pinsirite Lucario running the right coverage move.
It can only 2hko at +2, with rocks, so it's not like you're switching in, dealing 50% and finishing them off, you're boosting on the switch, hitting them for 46% at the most, so it can just wish and stall as you lower your defenses. Even discounting the defense drop from close combat, alomomola actually deals nearly as much to luc w/ scald as close combat can in return. That's discluding the burn chance as well, which you are minimizing, which both adds chip damage and cripples luc, so even if luc weren't to die somehow, you're useless after that. And 46% is the absolute most it can do, meaning that the odds of 2hko'ing, even w/ rocks, no burn, and no high roll in return, etc., are really slim. You can't even hope for a crit because of shell armor. And that's assuming you get rocks down at all. It is surprisingly difficult to do so at all against stall w/ all the magic bounce that is on literally every stall team that I've seen. If you want to consistently ensure you have rocks down against stall, you have to run mold breaker. There are other means of getting them down of course, but they aren't as consistent.
So Pinsirite Lucario has little, if anything, that constitutes a full-on hard counter to it, and its checks have a troubling potential to be swept aside without effort, such that even if I'm wrong about any other Lucario build having any validity -which is absurd- Lucario is still fitting to my claim that you can't teambuild to have a reliable counter, or even a reliable check.
I dunno, I'm hearing "Pinsirite Lucario is maybe borked, ignoring all other Lucario builds, and then it has other builds".
Pinsirite is by no means borked tho. It has few if any true counters, I'll give you that. Wait, I lied- latiasite rotom W has a 50% chance to win even at +2 and w/ rocks down. W/o rocks, it wins every time, assuming lucario isn't adamant (again, that's vastly inferior for a cleaner like luc), and even then, it only has a 31% chance to win w/o rocks. Maybe not quite a counter, but a very hard check at the least. Zapdos is nearly a counter, only fearing stone edge, but Pinsirite would rather run EQ for the ability to hit electrics (that it outspeeds), and steels that are immune to/ don't take SE damage from close combat, bulkier fire types like pdon, etc., not to mention accuracy. Anyways, raikou does a decent job in general, with a number of sets. Honestly electric types in general are pretty good.
And? Is there a point to this?
Though in all honesty I can't imagine a reason why Altarianite Lucario would want Earthquake as its coverage. Pretty much everything that walls Fairy+Fighting at the same time and is viable is immune to Ground anyway, like Skarmory, Fire/Flying types (eg Ho-Oh), Crobat, etc. It's not like it lets you break Red orb Hippowdon or Primal Groudon before they KO you. I really can't imagine a good reason to ever run it on Altarianite Lucario. Stone Edge or Thunderpuinch actually hit things you would otherwise struggle with.
You're probably right, however, coverage-wise, thunder punch has better typing, but it's unappealing for its low BP. Ground compliments fighting actually very well; ground, fighting, ice and ghost hits the most types for super effective damage possible of any four types combined. Luc has an unfortunate case of 4mss, and it holds it back quite a bit. Steel, fire, or poison/ Flying will wall any set not running Tpunch, bulky grounds do a good job against any set that isnt running ice punch, faster steels win if they can get in, earthquake is probably not that good I'll give you that, but with out it you really don't stand a chance against Pdon, which is possibly the single most common mon in the meta, etc.. It just literally has one of the worst cases of 4mss I have ever seen. It can't run an AoA set effectively because if it's pathetic speed, so it's more like 3mss.
You're not getting a Magic Bounce "core" that can reliably switch in repeatedly on even stallmons using Diancite. -40 defenses hurts too much. Stall teams can manage it with Sablenite+Absolite, and some do so.
And stuff like Ampharosite Mew pops up to ensure Stealth Rock gets set anyway.
You're right in a way, but say you don't expect X mon to be running diancite. You go to throw rocks down, and now you have rocks down on your side instead. It nukes your rocks layer, then forces you out due to sheer offensive pressure. Now you don't have rocks down, they do, and your hazard setter is crippled. This makes it difficult to get rocks down at all, let alone maintain them.
That's incredibly niche. What you are suggesting is that basically, if you want to control rocks, you need to run ampharosite something. And anyways, even if you do get rocks down, mew is basically dead. Their is little that can tank a diancite Latios Draco meteor reliably, especially w/ ampharosite making you a dragon type. Even gyaradosite stuff isn't entirely safe against that kind of power.
My thoughts on Hoopa:
The only time I have had issues with this is when it has diancite and leads vs my shuckle. But any magic bounce lead can do that. Hoopa is decent, but the speed tier and weakness to pixispeed really hold it back and make it not broken in my eyes. Otherwise, I like the current metagame quite a bit. The only things I have been having trouble with are issues because of my team choices. I'm going to experiment with stall soon and see which threats are super strong in a bit, but offense vs offense isn't as bad as I originally thought it was. Lucario is not an issue at all, and Zygarde isn't too much better. I have changed my mind and I no longer think ate needs a suspect. I wasn't around for Dragonite meta, but that ban probably was justified.
The only thing that needs a suspect is Magic Bounce stones, those obliterate stall and can make your stealth rocks backfire at any point in time. I think that's uncompetitive as hell, and unpredictable. But thank you for banning the hax machine in Zap Cannon/DPunch Mew.
Uses the Salamencite to give Aerilate, and a nice boost to bulk and power. I went with the Salamencite because Archeops is already powerful enough and usually the bulk is more handy.
I actually use archeops w/ salamencite as well, but I prefer head smash > Stone miss (ironically, they actually have the same accuracy), and u-turn over EQ. Sometimes I really miss the coverage, but due to its new and improved defense stat, i have found that it is really great for volt turn cores, especially w/ a manectite user for the other half. It creates ridiculous pressure and the momentum is absolutely insane. Gyarados is definitely a great set, but I think that it would probably rather use Pinsirite/ blue orb, in spite of the weakness to the omnipresent electrics, as they don't lock you into your stab for the three turns. The power that thing puts out is ridiculous though, and honestly it probably just comes down to preference/what role you intend for it to fill. I haven't actually used Gyarados that much though, so idk.
I'm sure there are a lot more viable Hoopa-U mega stones, but for now, it sure sounds terrifying.
(Thanks to SpartanMalice, Talpr0ne , AllJokesAside and the OM Room for some most of the ideas)
This thing is absolutely ridiculous. Base is pretty meh, imo, despite its ridiculous SpA, as it has what is possibly the worst defensive typing aside from psychic/ice, ice/flying, or maybe ice/fire. Hoopa U still has trash typing and is frail AF, but its typing is possibly not quite so awful, except for the u-turn weakness. But I think the biggest problem is that this thing basically singlehandedly invalidates stall. It stuggles against offensive teams due to its poor bulk and speed, but it absolutely destroys common defensive mons like blissey. Nasty plot sablenite Hoopa sounds like the worst thing for stall, ever. It can't be statused, gets focus blast for blissey, suddenly gets bulky somehow, even physically, and is basically as fast as a lot ofthings on stall anyways, even after the drop. Slowbronite seems like hell too.
Despite feeling that it is going to be borked AF, I feel this was the best decision. Due to its nearly absolute lack of any and all defensive pros (I mean like any), i think it just might be manageable. It probably won't be, tbh, but it could potentially be. I'm glad I don't play stall tho.
How about: Aggronite Hoopa-U +Steel type, +Filter
80 / 190 / 110 / 170 / 150 / 80
Now resisting Pixispeed rather than weak to it, and also no longer weak to Bug, and with almost double Def plus Filter, even harder to take down.
Not sure if I was the one who started Aggronite Latias but I did post about her before and from my experience with her she can either one, set up alongside Manaphy and eventually beat it with let's say Thunderbolt? (Unless it carries Sceptilite) so then you have the choice between running Ice Beam for BoltBeam or Dragon Pulse.
Hoopa-U is ridiculous with the ability to hold mega stones. The Diancite, Lucarionite and Metagrossite in particular turn it into an absolute monster. The Loppunite and Mewtwonite X are solid choices too. Please bar it from holding mega stones.
Imagine mega Glalie with 11 more base Speed, 55 more base Attack and Intimidate pre mega. Set up Stealth Rock, then go BOOM before your opponent has a chance to Defog or spin.
Diancie @ Cameruptite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SAtk
Quiet Nature
- Trick Room
- Diamond Storm
- Moonblast
- Earth Power
I like to wonder off the beaten path, and I was wondering why Trick Room isn't more widely used. I tried this set, and was surprised by how good it actually is. It has the same bulk as Deoxys-D, with solid 120/140 attacking stats backed up by Sheer Force. Just bring a strong Fighting type or 2 and you're golden. Looks gimmicky, but trust me it works. Here's a replay of it in action (starts on turn 8).
Hoopa-U has not been quick banned, a suspect test will most likely immense after Lucarios suspect test has been finished, which is most likely today or tomorrow. If you have any finishing words on the Lucario suspect I suggest saying it now. Tagging Slayer95 so he can implant the Zap cannon and Dynamic Punch ban.
