Resource RU Viability Ranking Thread: Abomasnow and Slowking Discussion

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Back to make a nom of my own :)

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Mega Banette down to C
Mega Banette is a paradox. It has REALLY high attack, but it also has Prankster, which wants you to use non-attacking moves. Outside of Prankster, it's quite slow, meaning outside of Prankster, it's very easy to Revenge kill it if it does manage to kill something. On top of that, it's HP and defences range from Pitiful to Mediocre at best, which, compounded with a low speed stat make it very easy to kill.
Welcome to Smogon! Just notifying you, it's best to prevent double-posting by merging your comments into one.

That aside, you've made a valid nomination in dropping Delphox to B+. Despite being the fastest Fire-type in the tier, Slowking is a huge problem for Delphox and can usually take whatever the fox throws at it. Houndoom's simply got it better now that Slowking is back, since it's got the niche of being able to take on the RU veteran and make switch-ins riskier. It's also quite vulnerable to the aforementioned Houndoom, which doesn't really help. In other words, drop Delphox to B+.

Once again, welcome to Smogon and thank you for contributing to the forums!
 
I agree whith dropping banette While it has a niche as one of the best pokemon to help keeping hazards on the field it has a speedtier which isnt good combined whith no good STAB option its Attack isnt too high. Its bulk is pretty mediocre too. It has a good niche as a spinblocker and priority taunt user but thats tge only niche it has. A special set that could work is the sub disable set but that isnt the greatest. It has priority dbond and taunt combined with zhe ghost type good attack and priority while it is slow and frail.

Another thing is that i think scrafty should drop to B. It has a good offensive typing but it is just too slow to sweep and it is weak to priority too. While the dd set is already not that good the bu set is completly outclassed by malamar. It is still pretty good versus bulky teams but its not a top tier threat.

think delphox should drop to b+. Whith some pursuit support it can punch holes in both defensive and balanced teams. with the correct support it is able to be extremely threatening. It still has many problems whith many mons that are played often like slowking and flygon. It is good but it needs much support. I think houndoom is actually better but delphox has the niche that it is faster. Thats why i think it should drop to B+.
 

phantom

Banned deucer.
updates:

Delphox down to B+

This thread has been pretty dry lately....

Discussion points:

Mega Abomasnow up to S or stay in A+
Abomasnow up to B or stay in C+
Fletchinder down to A or stay in A+
Slowking up to S or stay in A+
Houndoom up to A+ or stay in A
Drapion up to A or stay in B+
 

MrAldo

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Drapion to A seems pretty reasonable since it got a ton better after slowking and mega aboma dropped. Metagame shifts are favorable for it, mega steelix being its main counter and suffering from more competition for the mega slot with mega aboma. Slowking being a staple on many teams let this mon pull off a lum swords dance set really damn well and thanks to lum berry it doesnt fear scald burns that much. solid psychic check virtue of its decent overall bulk, important bulk to get over the likes of meloetta. Can run shuca berry to beat opposing checks 1v1 like flygon and rhyperior, etc. Overall it got better and it should reflect this, a rise to A is fine.

Life Orb Abomasnow is actually really fantastic, the speed advantage comes into play a lot of times since it can outspeed a great amount of mons mega abomasnow cant like tangrowth and seismitoad while not risking getting hit by a focus blast and sludge bomb respectively. It kind of need some support like defensive pivots (flygon, uxie) but being a solid wallbreaker with an important speed tier that let to aim to outspeed pretty relevant targets. Thats some really good luxury if you want to run another mega, I would nom to B+ but lets not get to ahead of ourselves, B sounds good.

Slowking could be S but dont have much experience with it ironically, gonna abstain on it for now.

Spirit edit: not everything's viability has to do with the suspect, let's keep discussion of the suspect out.
 
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eren

je suis d'ailleurs
Mega Abomasnow up to S or stay in A+

Why?: think Mega Abomasnow should raise to S. While utility that M-Lix provides for offensive teams is so great, and allows for a solid immunity to fend off Jolteon, a nice check to Sneasel and Glalie, and also sets up rocks for the team. While Abomasnow is supposed to be a more offensive mon, its more geared to bulky offense. Even with this competition, all of its sets are very threats to all of the archtypes and thus the viability rankings should reflect this. The AoA Special set threatens offense a ton as well as more bulky play styles. Similarly, the SD set, while aimed to beat more bulky teams, can beat more offensively based teams if the opposing team is weakened and Aboma gets to +2. Overall Aboma is vwey threatening to all of the archtypes currently, and without a solid ice check, you surely will a mon every time it comes in

Abomasnow up to B or stay in C+

Why?: Very similar to its Mega counterpart, yet has some differences. Base form Life Orb Aboma actually hits harder than Mega Aboma and is faster. The luxury of a higher speed allows you to outspeed Seismitoad and Rhyperior without as much speed investment. Another luxury associated with this is allowig you to run another Mega, which Mega Snow does not.

Fletchinder down to A or stay in A+

Why?: Fletch is so gopd in the current meta, I cant really see a good reason to drop it, especially with tge Trum suspect going on. However, lets focus on a meta with Trum in it. Fletch is still very good, and while there are a ton of flying resists in the tier, being able to just wisp most of them while they are in front of you is pretty huge. If you can also catch Trum on the switch in with a wisp, you have just made your game much much easier. Because many of these flying resists do not have recovery, wisping them and just weakening them (barring Mola) allows you to click SD end game and sweep. Also, the priortity is so good versus offense. I would definitely keep this A+.

Slowking up to S or stay in A+

why?: Its so good, checks a shit ton of stuff and can be a win con, av user, or a nuisance with twave or even twave cm. Hell, even lo tr is great with mega snow or base form snow. Raise it.

Houndoom up to A+ or stay in A

why?: the drops were a godsend to Houndoom. It brought two things that Lo Houndoom chews as well as took out one thing it fears. Furthermore, the rise of opposi g fire types has helped houndoom significantly because houndoom chews most of the fire types too. I would raise this

Drapion up to A or stay in B+

why?: because what Aldo said is good
 
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Lord Death Man

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Drapion up to A: So many teams rely on a single fat ground to blanket check a bunch of things, and Shuca Drapion can completely kill your opponent's ability to play against them. So few teams are prepared for SD sets of any kind on this right now and 95 is a fantastic speed tier that's just a step above so many common offensive mons, and most of the mons faster are unable to KO it. It lives a hit from almost everything faster than it, bar Flygon and Dugtrio. Lum sets absolutely destroy balance teams that don't have mega steelix, though those are really rare right now. Drapion will use Shuca essentially every battle it's in (if it doesn't that means the opponent was already incredibly Drapion weak), which helps prevent Shuca SD from being a waste, unlike a few other resist berries (Chople Scrafty comes to mind).

I have no opinion on anything else really, I think Fletch is A+ material but I sort of understand the rationale behind it dropping and don't mind either way.
 
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Houndoom Up to A+: What hurt Delphox helps Houndoom a lot, as Houndoom continues to outclass every fire type in the tier as well as having a strong STAB that's ready to take out Slowking without having to run coverage. [*cough* Delphox *cough*]
 

EonX

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I oddly have worked with a few of these mons despite not playing a ton (seriously at least) lately:

Mega Abomasnow: With two fantastic set in Mixed (tho primarily Special) AoA and SD, Mega Abomasnow is a mega that any team with remote offensive aspirations should consider using. The Mixed set is devastating and just hits hard right off the bat while the SD set can be terrifying for defensive teams to have to stare down. Mega Abomasnow doesn't have a lot of major issues and has a lot of favorable match-ups against top Pokemon in the tier. Its ability to fit on most offensive builds and pull its weight with very little support outside of hazard control is a big deal. Snow Warning can hurt teammates a little bit, but considering Escavalier and Sigilyph can support it well and avoid Hail damage does help to mitigate this. I think Mega Snowman can work at S rank

Abomasnow:
I actually have more experience with normal Abomasnow than I do Mega. Normal Abomasnow's Speed is a huge deal imo. It needs very minimal investment to outspeed the likes of Jellicent, Seismitoad, and Alomomola, which are bulky Waters that can leave Mega Abomasnow with a nasty parting gift or deal extra damage to it before they go down to a Grass-type STAB. Life Orb Mixed is really about the only way to go with it, but normal Abomasnow is definitely not something you should take lightly. The higher Speed stat is a really big deal and its able to maintain a lot of its mixed power thanks to only needing 40-80 Speed EVs (depending on which benchmark you're needing to hit) which allows you to pour the rest in your offenses and run a Special Attack boosting nature. The big downside is the fact that normal Abomasnow doesn't really have the luxury of running Wood Hammer due to extra Life Orb recoil and lower bulk which is one of the scary things about Mega Abomasnow's mixed set. That said, normal Abomasnow has the extra Speed going for it which allows it to play a little differently from its Mega counterpart and could cause you to use it over Mega Snow even if you don't plan on using another Mega. Give it B rank

Slowking: Ok, Slowking needs to be in S rank. Defensive CM, Specs, Nasty Plot, OTR, and Mixed Defensive are all great sets on Slowking that work for varying plastyles. I've seen pretty much every set in action and have extensive experience with the Choice Specs set, which makes for a fantastic offensive pivot that can still check the shit it resists most of the time. What's more is that any offensive set can still make use of Regenerator to provide its team with defensive utility early and mid-game (looking at Defensive CM especially) before really doing what it sets out to do. It has a fantastic typing for offense and defense in Water / Psychic and a great movepool to make use of. If Slowking had one major flaw, it would be the Dark-type weakness it has, but even then you can just let it run a Colbur Berry on a more defensive set to help get around this considering Slowking has Regenerator and will often be using Slack Off unless it's a Choice Specs set. Great typing, great ability, great movepool, great stat distribution. Slowking was amazing in BW. It was a god in BW2. It was very good in XY. It's still fantastic in ORAS. Slowking has everything you want.... except for maybe some Speed and a lack of a Dark weakness, both of which you can work around without having to give it direct support.

My thoughts on Drapion and Houndoom have already been covered, but I do agree with moving both of them up. I haven't used Fletchinder much at all, so I'll refrain from talking about it at all one way or the other.
 

lighthouses

Inordinary
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Fletchinder should not drop. It puts in work against every single playstyle and it's going to be useful on every single game you use it, regardless of the opponent having checks to it or not, only reason it's not S in my opinion is because hazard removal on this tier is ass, but even then, it's not like being forced to run something as good as flygon for example alongside it will be a disadvantage to you at all.
 

fran17

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Houndoom up to A+;
I think right now most teams are unprepared for him and he can be really difficult to play around when he gets a switch on the field, because nothing can really switch on both of his stabs, and special sponges just lose to the Nasty Plot set, with some exceptions. It can also check and trap threats like Meloetta, Delphox and Sigilyph, which all give problem to more offensive teams, and unlike Spiritomb it isn't really passive as he doesn't rely only on Pursuit and Sucker Punch as offensive moves, which are pretty easy to play around. He's also able to check all the S rank mons and many other A+/A mons.

Fletchinder stay in A+;
Another really threatening mon, a 110 BP stab with a priority is really difficult to stop, and Fletchinder also has a good typing, a decent bulk and a decent movepool, which includes Swords Dance, Will-O-Wisp, Roost and Taunt, all moves that can be useful in many situations. WoW allows Fletch to lure some of his switchins like Rhyperior or Tyranitar, both mon that hate getting burned. Taunt allows him to shut down mons like Alomomola that usually try to stop him with Toxic because Scald is too weak. Offensive teams usually have only a check to this, which can be Tyrantrum or Jolteon, both mons that are really easy to wear down through recoil and some hits that usually they have to take.

Also Hariyama and Vileplume to C+;
Although this isn't a discussion point I'm sure both these mons deserve a raise in the rankings. Hariyama is a decent mon right now being able to compress in a single set a fire, dark and ice check, a tyrantrum check, a special sponge and a priority user. Also Heavy Slam does a good amount of damage to Fairy mons, which can check the usual Fighting/Dark coverage fighting mons have.
Vileplume is another good mon right now. He can easily check almost every fighting type bar Gallade, and can support the team with Aromatherapy. Like the other grass/poison types of the tier (Amoonguss and Roselia) it has a particular niche which is the access to Moonblast, which allows him to check more easily Scrafty and things like Tyrantrum and other dragon types.
 

EonX

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Going to bring something else up myself as there's one Pokemon in particular that I started using just for fun, but actually kind of like in this meta:

Zebstrika: Ok, so I know a lot of you probably just gave me that weird "how high are you?" look. But let me explain. Zebstrika is something that a lot of people cast aside with the likes of Jolteon, Rotom-C, and Eelektross in the tier. So why would you want to use a Pokemon with only base 80 Special Attack and a Speed stat that's lower than Jolteon? The answer isn't as simple as you'd think. For starters, Zebstrika's Speed stat is still really good for RU. Base 116 sets it in front of Sneasal, Virizion, Durant (broken asf btw) and many more. In fact, the only 3 mons in RU capable of outspeeding Zebstrika without a boost are Accelgor, Jolteon, and Dugtrio. Otherwise, Zeb outspeeds everything unboosted. Next is Overheat. As everyone knows, Fire-type coverage is amazing for Eelektross and anyone who played BW RU knows how difficult this can be to deal with on a fast Electric-type (hello Manectric. Hope to see you soon next month) With Overheat, Zebstrika is able to hold its own against the likes of (Mega) Abomasnow, Tangrowth, Mega Steelix, and Rotom-C with little fear, which is something that Jolteon and Rotom-C can't exactly do. The last, and perhaps biggest quality for Zebstrika is its ability, Sap Sipper. Sap Sipper is a godsend for Zebstrika. In fact, I would go as far to say that without Sap Sipper, there would be no way to use Zebstrika in RU. With Sap Sipper, Zebstrika can switch into Rotom-C with no fear, dominate Smeargle leads, switch into baited Grass moves in general (great against snowmen, Tangrowth, and Virizion) and proceed to respond with Overheat or Volt Switch. Zebstrika shouldn't be your first choice for an Electric-type, but it does have some really neat qualities that can make it relatively useful. It can absorb Grass moves, break down defensive Grasses and Steels (huge since Mega Lix is such a fantastic mon) and even sweep late-game with its great Speed if faster threats are eliminated. I think it's good enough for C+ / C rank. For anyone wondering how many of the top tier mons that Zebstrika fares decently well against, then this post should explain it fairly well.
 
updates:

Discussion points:

Mega Abomasnow up to S or stay in A+
Fletchinder down to A or stay in A+
Slowking up to S or stay in A+
Houndoom up to A+ or stay in A
Drapion up to A or stay in B+
Mega Abomasnow is one of the best wallbreakers in the tier. The only downside is that it's super slow, but there isn't much that can switch into it especially for offensive teams. Definitely an S rank threat.

Fletchinder is still very good in this meta, will be even better if Tyrantrum leaves. I've been using it with Taunt and it shits on anything trying to Toxic it like mola, zong, and steelix. I see no reason for it dropping.

No comment on Slowking yet. I feel like Dark-types have been gaining popularity especially since it dropped so it's not too difficult to take down. It's definitely one of the best mons in the meta though, so I can see it being in S.

Houndoom should stay in A in my opinion. I find it a bit underwhelming to be honest. There are a lot of threats that can check it such as Alomomola, Flygon, Emboar, Gurdurr, Scarf mons, etc. and it's frailty and weakness to Stealth Rock hurts it a lot. Should definitely stay in A.

Drapion should move up to A. He became a lot more threatening with Slowking being more common and I find the SD set to be pretty good in this meta.

@ above: Zebstrika is pretty cool, it should definitely be ranked. It reminds me of Manectric back in BW RU
 

freezai

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I think that Mega-Abomasnow should be A+ not S rank. It's low speed is extremely crippling for a wallbreaker/sweeper and this means that it often has to sacrifice bulk in order to ev itself to outpace other similar mons in the speed tier like Mega-steelix and Mega-Camerupt. Furthermore it has so many weakenesses most notably weakeness to fighting and fire types which can either switchin easily on a Mega-Aboma(still has to be wary of earthquake) or revenge it even more easily. It is also weak to stealth rocks and toxic spikes (any type of status for that matter)which make it tough to sustain longevity for the course of a match. Don't get me wrong, Abomasnow is still a huge nuke with a lot of versatility and can punish a lot of passivity, but with all the pros and cons weighed in I think it should be A+ rank.
 

mael

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i do think mega abomasnow should move to s. it has been said quite a few times already, but it's stupidly hard to switch into this pokemon, which means you probably wouldn't want to give aboma any switch ins. this means so much in regards to some pokemon which i would love to use, but i have to consider twice or more, simply because i might have to oppose one mon. alomomola, slowking, seismitoad, jellicent, tang, almost any electric etc. while those might have ways to hit abomasnow for big damage, it's not gonna be enough to kill abomasnow, but in return abomasnow can giga drain health back or simply kill. so you either have to let one pokemon die to get enough damage on aboma, so that it can't get off a second kill, or you have to switch out, which as said often enough most likely means something is dying (and makes the game a lot more prediction based). now it might be true for quite a few pokemon that they don't have a solid bunch of switch-ins, but mega-aboma has the advantage, that those pokemon, which allow it to get off a hit, are very vital in this metagame, often a keyfactor in the match-up, 'cause outside of letting abomasnow in, they are really valuable. alomomola and slowking, for instance, are often the backbone of a team, and important for handling several pokemon. so it's either let them die, or let something else die and maybe give abomasnow another shot at attacking.
even against offensive teams, it has quite some opportunities to attack most of the time. so they also have to pick a fodder usually, or predict perfectly, which kind of doesn't count. so it's in most cases at least trading a kill, in case of the opponent having an electric, or flygon which is forced to defog, it's probable that aboma does more than just that.
my point is, when teambuilding you will very often find yourself in a situation where you are forced to decide if you really want to use a certain pokemon, which even though it's great otherwise, allows abomasnow to attack, or you'd use something else, that most likely will make your team less effective. abomasnow is such a huge factor while teambuilding, it makes use of quite a bunch of top-pokemon, that it perfectly fits in s-rank. i don't think any other pokemon has such a huge influence on the metagame (especially teambuilding) as abomasnow has.
 

phantom

Banned deucer.
updates:

Abomasnow (Mega) up to S
Abomasnow up to B
Drapion up to A
Slowking up to S
Meloetta down to A+ (a change I forgot to make last time around, and this was discussed on irc to move down for some time as well)

Annnd that's the last of the updates for now. A new VR thread will be posted in one week (give or take a few days) following the conclusion of the suspect and the highly anticipated tier shifts. Locking.
 
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