Resource SM OU Viability Ranking Thread

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TMan87

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I feel like MMawile benefits from some trends in the meta right now, I think.
It pairs really well with Protean Greninja (especially with HP Fire), since the latter threatens everything that could block MMawile's way, such as Heatran, Landorus, Ferrothorn, Metagross, and can weaken Magearna.
Keldeo is rising in popularity right now, and the two of them have good synergy both offensively and defensively.
Gengar being a big threat can also be considered a good point, since although Mawile won't switch in directly (Shadow Ball does a ton), she can pressure Choice sets since she's immune to Poison and threatens to use a SE Sucker Punch, which obviously OHKOes. This can lead to some setup opportunities.

Then again, I'm by no means a good player and I have no replays to prove my point, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
 

FINITOOOO

lolgroudon
I don't have anything to say on the Mega Beedril discussion since I haven't played with it yet. I have my own nom for ya'll to discuss.

Nominating Volcarona to A

Volcarona is seriously so good right now. Its defensive set hard checks Mega Scizor, Mega Metagross without electric terrain, Pheromosa, Mega Mawile, Ferrothorn, and at this moment in time it even checks defensive lando-t since it isn't running stone edge right now (this might change soon because people are switching their zard in on lando-t for some reason like it's a good play or something).

Here is a set I have been using:


Volcarona @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 236 HP / 152 Def / 120 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Roost
- Giga Drain
- Fiery Dance

This defensive set can take any hit from the above mons and retaliate with a fiery dance to hit back hard. Defensive isn't even the only option for Volcarona either. We all know the Inferno Overdrive set we've seen in SPL. That thing is a monster as well. All in all Volcarona is a solid mon to consider on a team, and definitely is a threat to be considered when team building. Yes it's weak to stealth rocks, but that's what the rest of a team is for.

Here is a replay of the defensive set in action.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-547771641

Let me know what you think. I'm not nomming this thing to be S-rank. We know it has flaws, but its ability to act as a steel check is definitely needed right now in this meta.
 

Leo

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I don't have anything to say on the Mega Beedril discussion since I haven't played with it yet. I have my own nom for ya'll to discuss.

Nominating Volcarona to A

Volcarona is seriously so good right now. Its defensive set hard checks Mega Scizor, Mega Metagross without electric terrain, Pheromosa, Mega Mawile, Ferrothorn, and at this moment in time it even checks defensive lando-t since it isn't running stone edge right now (this might change soon because people are switching their zard in on lando-t for some reason like it's a good play or something).

Here is a set I have been using:


Volcarona @ Leftovers
Ability: Flame Body
EVs: 236 HP / 152 Def / 120 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Roost
- Giga Drain
- Fiery Dance

This defensive set can take any hit from the above mons and retaliate with a fiery dance to hit back hard. Defensive isn't even the only option for Volcarona either. We all know the Inferno Overdrive set we've seen in SPL. That thing is a monster as well. All in all Volcarona is a solid mon to consider on a team, and definitely is a threat to be considered when team building. Yes it's weak to stealth rocks, but that's what the rest of a team is for.

Here is a replay of the defensive set in action.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-547771641

Let me know what you think. I'm not nomming this thing to be S-rank. We know it has flaws, but its ability to act as a steel check is definitely needed right now in this meta.
If Volcarona's going to rise (which I doubt at this point after like 4 noms) it shouldn't be for the defensive set, but rather for the offensive one which is its main set and the best one atm. The defensive set is nice but it has a big flaw you can't ignore: Rocks weakness. For a defensive pivot it can't afford to take damage from rocks because it can't beat the mons it's supposed to at half. The current state of hazard removal doesn't help it because you're pretty much forced to run Tapu Fini (no reliable recovery and loses to offensive rocks setters) Zapdos (weak to rocks itself) or Pheromosa (nice spinner but if you predict wrong you lose your hazard removal) so if your gameplan is constantly switching it into Mosa or Gross your opponent will eventually get rocks up and force your Volc in before you clear rocks forcing you to sack something. It's still a cool anti-meta mon but it struggles with Offensive teams due to its rocks weakness. For example in your replay if your Volc was an offensive variant you would've set up on Ferrothorn and won pretty easily
e: I'm not making arguments for Volc to rise because the topic has been discussed in the past already
 
Yes the Mega Beedrill discussion is mostly gone :D
Mega Mawile to A
Mawile is great; it's strong, decently bulky, has a wide movepool, and a great typing. The thing is, there are a lot of times where I have a team with Mega Mawile, decide to change it to Mega Metagross, and profit. I don't find myself needing that extra power a lot of the time. Metagross feels a lot harder to switch in on since for Mawile you just have to guess when it's gonna Sucker Punch while with Metagross you kind of have to guess the moves.
Even with all the pretty resistances and neutralities that Steel/Fairy gets that Steel/Psychic misses out on, there's one thing that the latter has over it; a 4x resistance to Psychic. With Tapu Lele's nuclear Psychic moves flying around this is a lot more useful than you might think. I switched in Mega Mawile on Tapu Lele once and, not knowing that it was Specs, died (bit of prior damage).
At the end of the day Mawile is a lot better than the mostly unused Megas in A- (I mean, how many times have you seen Mega Pinsir or Mega Charizard X on the ladder?) but Mega Metagross feels better for the most part.
Mega Beedrill Unranked
I swear to god if i have to elaborate on this
Mega Alakazam to B+
who even uses this anymore .-.
If you want a Mega to use with Lele, you might as well use Metagross. The difference between the two is that Metagross can operate fine without Psychic Terrain whereas Alakazam can't, as otherwise it will get spattered by priority. While it's true that it is very fast and strong, if it can't kill something it will die. The only reason to use Alakazam is if your team is weak to both sand and rain and only have one more teamslot. If you want an absolute glass cannon then use Pheromosa, which doesn't take up a Mega slot, is one point faster, and has a lot of different sets.
I know my thoughts are kind of cluttered so tl;dr opportunity cost (might as well use Metagross or Mawile instead), super frail, requires too much support, bit outclassed by Pheromosa in the glass cannon department.
 
Yes the Mega Beedrill discussion is mostly gone :D
Mega Mawile to A
Mawile is great; it's strong, decently bulky, has a wide movepool, and a great typing. The thing is, there are a lot of times where I have a team with Mega Mawile, decide to change it to Mega Metagross, and profit. I don't find myself needing that extra power a lot of the time. Metagross feels a lot harder to switch in on since for Mawile you just have to guess when it's gonna Sucker Punch while with Metagross you kind of have to guess the moves.
Even with all the pretty resistances and neutralities that Steel/Fairy gets that Steel/Psychic misses out on, there's one thing that the latter has over it; a 4x resistance to Psychic. With Tapu Lele's nuclear Psychic moves flying around this is a lot more useful than you might think. I switched in Mega Mawile on Tapu Lele once and, not knowing that it was Specs, died (bit of prior damage).
At the end of the day Mawile is a lot better than the mostly unused Megas in A- (I mean, how many times have you seen Mega Pinsir or Mega Charizard X on the ladder?) but Mega Metagross feels better for the most part.
Mega Beedrill Unranked
I swear to god if i have to elaborate on this
Mega Alakazam to B+
who even uses this anymore .-.
If you want a Mega to use with Lele, you might as well use Metagross. The difference between the two is that Metagross can operate fine without Psychic Terrain whereas Alakazam can't, as otherwise it will get spattered by priority. While it's true that it is very fast and strong, if it can't kill something it will die. The only reason to use Alakazam is if your team is weak to both sand and rain and only have one more teamslot. If you want an absolute glass cannon then use Pheromosa, which doesn't take up a Mega slot, is one point faster, and has a lot of different sets.
I know my thoughts are kind of cluttered so tl;dr opportunity cost (might as well use Metagross or Mawile instead), super frail, requires too much support, bit outclassed by Pheromosa in the glass cannon department.
Alakazam has much more coverage compared to Pheromosa and Psychic Terrain benefits Alakazam more because Alakazam can avoid all priority moves while Metagross doesn't care about it because of its high Defense. Alakazam is used as a sweeper in the terrain cause it just spams Psychic/Psyshock all day. Perhaps it's best to keep it in A- for now
 
How can we talk about if Mega Houndoom is bad when the Mega Stone isn't even released yet. We have no idea how it'll be in the OU tier. It's best to not talk about unreleased Megas until they get announced by Game Freak
I think his/her point was that Mega Beedrill isn't as terrible as some Pokémon present in the C Ranks, and as such the Viability Rankings should be updated accordingly, by ranking/keeping unranked Mega Beedrill and/or removing the more useless junk. Like, fine, the bee isn't as splashable as things like Mega Scizor and Mega Mawile, but that would be already reflected by their respective rankings.

I'm finding myself in agreement with what an user had said, and that is that it would be ideal to see some replays when a Pokémon either pulls off its work or it is largely deadweight against some common threats. It's easy to say that X is walled by Y, but this is what its other five teammates are for. I mean, in ORAS Mega Sableye essentially walled Mega Medicham, but that didn't stop it from being an A+ threat, since it offered great offensive support and had other teammates to cover its weak points.

If a Pokémon shows itself to be useful in a sizable amount of high quality matches (so no low level battles or random/lucky gimmicks), then it should be worthy enough of a rank. Otherwise, if it shows many and many times that it simply doesn't work at all, then it can be kept unranked. Seems reasonable enough, don't ya'll agree?
 
Alakazam has much more coverage compared to Pheromosa and Psychic Terrain benefits Alakazam more because Alakazam can avoid all priority moves while Metagross doesn't care about it because of its high Defense. Alakazam is used as a sweeper in the terrain cause it just spams Psychic/Psyshock all day. Perhaps it's best to keep it in A- for now
It has some useful utility moves, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, maybe Energy Ball and Hidden Power if you're feeling quirky. To be fair Pheromosa doesn't get much either, but it can hit a lot of relevant mons for super effective damage.
Yes, Psychic Terrain does benefit Alakazam more but that's the problem; you have to have Lele with it in order for it to be really effective. Without Psychic Terrain, Alakazam is just not that effective. On the other hand, Metagross hits like a train under Psychic Terrain but it's still extremely good without it.
Plus Psychic is a somewhat poor offensive typing and it has to rely on Focus Miss to cover Dark types.
 
I think Mega Beedril should be ranked. It has some similarities to Pheromosa, but also diffrences, like access to knock off, which makes it much better against stall, as it can pressure shed shell users (i have a replay to show this). Mega gyarados and mega garchomp are also ranked even though there non mega counterparts are similar and higher ranked than them.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-548353163
 
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It has some useful utility moves, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, maybe Energy Ball and Hidden Power if you're feeling quirky. To be fair Pheromosa doesn't get much either, but it can hit a lot of relevant mons for super effective damage.
Yes, Psychic Terrain does benefit Alakazam more but that's the problem; you have to have Lele with it in order for it to be really effective. Without Psychic Terrain, Alakazam is just not that effective. On the other hand, Metagross hits like a train under Psychic Terrain but it's still extremely good without it.
Plus Psychic is a somewhat poor offensive typing and it has to rely on Focus Miss to cover Dark types.
I wouldn't say Psychic is a poor offensive typing considering it hits almost everything for neutral damage with the exceptions of itself, Steel and Dark

I think his/her point was that Mega Beedrill isn't as terrible as some Pokémon present in the C Ranks, and as such the Viability Rankings should be updated accordingly, by ranking/keeping unranked Mega Beedrill and/or removing the more useless junk. Like, fine, the bee isn't as splashable as things like Mega Scizor and Mega Mawile, but that would be already reflected by their respective rankings.

I'm finding myself in agreement with what an user had said, and that is that it would be ideal to see some replays when a Pokémon either pulls off its work or it is largely deadweight against some common threats. It's easy to say that X is walled by Y, but this is what its other five teammates are for. I mean, in ORAS Mega Sableye essentially walled Mega Medicham, but that didn't stop it from being an A+ threat, since it offered great offensive support and had other teammates to cover its weak points.

If a Pokémon shows itself to be useful in a sizable amount of high quality matches (so no low level battles or random/lucky gimmicks), then it should be worthy enough of a rank. Otherwise, if it shows many and many times that it simply doesn't work at all, then it can be kept unranked. Seems reasonable enough, don't ya'll agree?
I guess that's a good idea then. Keep it unranked so it'll fall to UU where it'll definitely be A+/S rank there

Subject 18 Edit: Please don't double post and learn how to reply to multiple post or use the edit function.
 
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Srn

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I'm proud of myself for weathering that mega beedrill shitstorm. Also in general mega mawile sounds good in A, lots of reasoning already out there. But I'd like to propose something else:
Tapu Bulu to B+

We were all pretty excited for this thing, looking at choice band calcs and watching even resists like latios just get OHKO'd. But fast forward to the current meta, and grass stab just does not cut it vs common threats like celesteela, mega metagross, ferrothorn, scizor, volcarona etc. There are many more common stuff that can pressure/rk it like greninja, heatran, pheromosa, gengar etc, and while SD fightium-z sets can pressure stall fairly well, it still falls short vs most other teamstyles. Timing the fight-z superpower vs a potential protect on celesteela is especially annoying, and the opportunity cost for a z-crystal is fairly high. It's still a very solid ground check overall, with excadrill dropping off and lando-t forgoing flyinium-z for rockium-z more often, but these benefits don't put it on the level of threats like Mega Pinsir, Volcarona, Zard-X, Magnezone, or Heatran. It's also really painful when you switch into tapu fini's scald, only to burn yourself because you set grassy terrain instead (see Lysergic vs. ABR), and in general you have to risk scald to take advantage of this tier's water types or scout gunk shot from greninja (ash ninja specs hydro 2hko's anyway lol). Sets other than SD fight-z also face problems, scarf is far too slow to effectively RK threats at +1, only really nabbing surprise kills vs offense, and band is very prediction reliant, and even then has a hard time breaking past the fattest steels like celesteela, skarm, and mega scizor. I've never seen defensive leech seed sets in action but I can't imagine they're fantastic or provide more for a team than tangrowth can.

Not only that, its SPL winrate is a miserable 35%, being used 7 times in week 1, but then twice in week 2,6, once in week 3,4,7 three in week 5,8, and even through each week its winrate was NEVER above 50%. It's pretty clear people realized this thing wasn't as good as it was hyped to be early on, and while these statistics might be pretty subjective, they do say a lot about its viability in SM as a whole.

It's still pretty good but its something that tends to be naturally prepared against, as giants like mega metagross are everywhere and force fairly high steel usage on teams as well. It's much more at home amongst pokemon like manaphy, excadrill, nihilego, and serperior, pokemon that can really dominate some common meta trends when they aren't prepared for.
 
--> A+
Despite me not even wanting this aids to move up to A- a few weeks ago it's turned into something that I feel can make balance pretty good again. It reached Top 10 usage in week 8 and achieved a 52% winrate. I don't think that's there is anything that I can say that hasn't already been said. The combination of Toxapex + Scizor + Ground type (usually zygarde) is clearly making a splash.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-256964: Toxapex literally walls his whole team.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-257453: Tox had the potential to get up crucial toxic spikes and would have 1v1ed the Volcarona if it wasn't the dank ass psychic set.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-256628: After Sableye is dead it is able to constantly get up toxic spikes and force the stall to play more aggressively.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-257418: both players have Tox and this shows how game changing Tspikes can be vs fat teams that rely on fat pivots like tang + steel as the backbone.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-257294: Stall
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-257598: After the ground type is dead it walls everything.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-256563: Tspikes are amazing
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen7ou-257476: after Sableye is dead stall cannot kill it.
--> A+ also want to see what people thought about raising this. It's pretty good right now being able to beat Metagross, has shown that the defog set isnt complete trash, and (along with Toxapex) is making Balance good again. Has a huge 61% winrate and reached Top 15 in usage. Its proving itself to be extremely consistent. You'll see it doing a lot of work in the replays I've already posted and I don't feel like going through all those again cause it's midnight so yeh.

EDIT:
--> B+ Agree
 
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UltiMario

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So that we can maybe get some discussion rolling, I propose we shrink C down to something small to discourage low-rank shitposting. Keep mons with a small niche in there, but try to just dump everything else that's not actually used. This is gunna be a lot of "noms" but doing spring cleaning should be inevitable. These descriptions are gunna be rather short since there's so many, but to be fair, it's C rank dropping, there tends to not be much to talk about for specific Pokemon anyways. Regardless, this post is mostly to spark discussion rather than go in depth over each individual nom and explain my opinion in depth since this post is gunna take a long time anyways.

C+ -> C-


A really shitty niche stallbreaker. This Pokemon has substantially more meme value than viability. I can fill pretty similar roles with Protean Ninja or SD Bulu. Unranking it would probably be wrong since it "technically" still fills its role, but it's one of the worst options available when it comes to being a viable stallbreaker.

C+ -> C-

See above, more or less. Replace "Protean Ninja" with "Landorus" and you pretty much have my opinion on Diggersby.

C+ -> Unranked

Want the Fairy/Steel typing? Use Magearna. Want fast Spikes? Greninja. Want Steel Spiker? Ferrothorn. Prankster crippling bullshit was heavily nerfed. But what if you really specifically need a medium-bulk fast Spiker with good defensive typing? That'd be a great thing to have on a team if Klefki didn't suck. This thing was hit way too hard by the gen shift to ever use. Can it.


C+ -> B-

I'm actually not a fan of Muk-Alola in general (I personally think it's massively overrated!) but it's performed much better than anything else down here. It's possibly the best Pokemon available at its tiny niche, where most of C rank is playing second fiddle to greater threats. Considering how much I'm going to be talking about in this post I don't have enough time to really justify my nom here too much, but I do want more discussion to be sparked about Muk so I'm just throwing in 2c.

C+ -> C-

Necrozma actually has a strong niche as a setter for a TR team. Good bulk and access to Rocks and TR (as well as non-irrelevant amounts of power with its good SpA). However, it's terrible outside of full TR and performs especially badly against several common leads like Sableye (making TR's MU vs stall more difficult) and Greninja. I'd never use this Pokemon outside of full TR, but it's strong enough in that role that it it should be ranked to note that it exists (but just barely).

C+ -> C-

I'd read the Necrozma line, but replace "TR" with "one specific stall team." This Pokemon performs on exactly one team, in one role, with (more or less) one set. It's good there. It should be used nowhere else. I'd pretty much say that's a solid definition for a C- rank mon: viable in only extremely specific circumstances.
C+ -> Unranked

Starmie isn't bad in itself per say, but in a meta of Greninja everywhere and Pheromosa available as an offensive Spinner, you shouldn't be using Starmie for any reason. It doesn't meaningfully combine roles in any way that isn't done by something else in a far superior fashion. There is simply always a better option available instead of running Starmie.

C+ -> Unranked

Whimsicott's strengths in the meta are pretty much nonexistent. It used to have a pretty decent role on BP oriented teams, but there's really just not room to slot it in for that anymore. Outside of those teams, Prankster nerfs and the presence of a large selection of strong Fairy types, as well as its previously exclusive typing being stolen by Tapu Bulu, have made Whimsicott irrelevant.


C -> Unranked

I went to read discussion on the ranking of Dragalge and the general gist of the topic was "It checks X and nukes stuff" with replies of "[calcs] actually it doesn't" and then (mods) "stop shitposting or we'll blacklist Dragalge."

I'm gunna go out on a limb and say that we don't need to keep Dragalge ranked. Maybe it'll be worth looking back into if M Meta is banned, but with it legal it's just too hard for it to accomplish anything.

C -> Unranked

I had to ask around to figure out this thing. From discussion on Discord, I could ascertain that this was the only Defogger that beat standard Spikes Gren that wasn't Rocks weak. It has no other role other than that one MU.

We really shouldn't be ranking mons for garbage reasons like that. At least my next nom has better match ups against a whopping like 3 Pokemon.

C -> Unranked

Always use Magnezone over this thing, please. IMO this shits some hot garbage, and when I went to look up discussion for Magneton, it's only ever been used as a scapegoat to rise other things to C+ because it's hot garbage and it's in C. The speed increase is simply never worth having Magnezone for any reason in the current meta. Please remove.

C -> C-

It's a Spinner that doesn't totally get mowed over by Phero I guess. You're not using this over Toxa + Spinner unless you only have 1 slot to do that with, and even then you're not using this over Fini unless you already have like a bunch of Spikes Gren weak shit already. It's just not very good (but Gary's pretty adamant it's not totally useless so I'll roll with it staying over unranked).

C -> C-

I think C- is a good place for the general "one trick pony" type of mons imo, which really is Xurkitree in a nutshell. It's an incredibly strong Baton Pass recipient and nothing else. You shouldn't use it unless you're planning to give it a bunch of speed boosts and a substitute. It's also only be used a scapegoat to try and argue other things to C+ that probably don't deserve to rise, so I'd suggest for it to go down.



C- -> Unranked

You don't need to consume a Mega slot to have a stall counter. Especially not with a mega this bad vs everything else. It's just completely pointless, and only cripples you to use it. Vs most teams you're better off never clicking the mega button (unless you're vs something slower that will KO you that turn). There are better alternatives that don't even require you to waste a Mega slot on your team. Don't use this.

C- -> Unranked


I really don't even know what to say about this one. We ranked Hawlucha. Why did we rank Hawlucha? How did we rank Hawlucha? This Pokemon had to physically be added to the OU list. Was it an ORAS carryover? I really don't know. I really wish I could give some insight beyond "Hawlucha is absolute garbage" but there is none. I'm pretty sure this Pokemon has just accidentally stayed on the list and nobody has questioned it since nobody knows why Hawlucha's on the list, so nobody bothers making posts against it, assuming they're missing something.

C- -> Unranked

Bad speed tier? Check. Middling raw power? Check. Mediocre typing? Check. Extremely easy to counter by any well built team? Check. It need specs to kill anything and scarf to be fast enough to threaten to kill anything. It also needs to be able to switch moves to break any teams. I understand that it's absolutely not the worst Pokemon I'm suggesting to go unranked here, but it's managed to have 0% winrate in SPL despite 4 attempts for a reason. It's just not good enough.
C- -> Unranked

Why did we even rank this it's completely worthless. Even in it's absolutely ideal scenario, Shields Down at 50% with a Shell Smash, it's netting an absolute maximum of 1 kill vs a well built team. It's not even just inconsistent, it's bad even when it goes off.

C- -> C+

Pyukumuku is one of the few Pokemon here to actually perform decently in the SM OU meta. It's performed in actual ladder and tour settings to enough of an extent that it can be seriously considered on a team. That's a lot more than what could be said about every mon above it on this list except Muk.

I would've probably nommed about 5 more Pokemon to drop but on discussion in discord I've found that my definition of unviable is a stricter than pretty much everyone else's, so I cut back a few noms in the interest of not being shit on constantly for my post.

Everything in C I didn't comment on I either think is fine as is imo, or idk enough about the mon to make any comment worth shit about.

For anyone wondering I think most these things should drop:
1. It reduces shitposting.
2. It doesn't lure newer players into using things that they should never be using (even factoring role compression).
3. It removes Hawlucha from the VR.
 
I'm not sure how I feel about de-ranking mons solely to discourage shitposting, seems a bit disingenuous to me. While I do feel like some of the lower ranks need to be updated, I feel like the point about discouraging newer players to use less consistent mons isn't very solid either. For starters, most of the recent shitposting has been about Mega Beedrill, which is understandable cause it's newly released, it's a fan favourite mon, and it got a huge buff this gen. From here on out I feel like all the shitposting will be about newly released megas, and I don't see how restructuring the C ranks will change that. Of course there will be your occasional Decidueye poster or whatever but that's kind of a fact of life. There will always be inexperienced players coming in and posting uninformed viewpoints, even if you blacklist all of the C ranks.

I think the viability rankings are clear about which Pokemon are viable or not. Whenever I'm trying to get into a new tier, a VR thread always helps me out, and I always start by learning and building with the highest ranks first. If you are really concerned about newer players getting false impressions about the viability of lower ranked mons, you can do what certain VRs I've seen done and put a brief description over each ranking describing what each ranking entails, and explaining that C-rank mons are not typically used in the meta but could be justified on certain team styles, and that they are not typically splashable like the higher tier mons. So long as the VR is easy to understand, we shouldn't worry about misleading anyone.
 
I'm not sure how I feel about de-ranking mons solely to discourage shitposting, seems a bit disingenuous to me. While I do feel like some of the lower ranks need to be updated, I feel like the point about discouraging newer players to use less consistent mons isn't very solid either. For starters, most of the recent shitposting has been about Mega Beedrill, which is understandable cause it's newly released, it's a fan favourite mon, and it got a huge buff this gen. From here on out I feel like all the shitposting will be about newly released megas, and I don't see how restructuring the C ranks will change that. Of course there will be your occasional Decidueye poster or whatever but that's kind of a fact of life. There will always be inexperienced players coming in and posting uninformed viewpoints, even if you blacklist all of the C ranks.

I think the viability rankings are clear about which Pokemon are viable or not. Whenever I'm trying to get into a new tier, a VR thread always helps me out, and I always start by learning and building with the highest ranks first. If you are really concerned about newer players getting false impressions about the viability of lower ranked mons, you can do what certain VRs I've seen done and put a brief description over each ranking describing what each ranking entails, and explaining that C-rank mons are not typically used in the meta but could be justified on certain team styles, and that they are not typically splashable like the higher tier mons. So long as the VR is easy to understand, we shouldn't worry about misleading anyone.
Descriptions of tiers went out a while ago as they were felt to go against good discussion. This is as people tend to simply quote a description and say a mon fits that tier, without giving more evidence.

Porygon-z and zygarde 10% to c+
For porygon-z, if it switches after it sets up conversion, it's useless for the rest of the battle. It also uses up a z move, and is outsped by every scarfer. Zygarde, while quick, has no bulk, lackluster attack, and can't to much besides spam thousand arrows.
I wholeheartedly agree with a drop for Porygon-Z - it doesn't seem good enough to me to be ranked in the 'Bs' at all, and is C+ at best, perhaps even worse these days. I posted about this a while back, so won't give the argument in full.
 
So that we can maybe get some discussion rolling, I propose we shrink C down to something small to discourage low-rank shitposting. Keep mons with a small niche in there, but try to just dump everything else that's not actually used. This is gunna be a lot of "noms" but doing spring cleaning should be inevitable. These descriptions are gunna be rather short since there's so many, but to be fair, it's C rank dropping, there tends to not be much to talk about for specific Pokemon anyways. Regardless, this post is mostly to spark discussion rather than go in depth over each individual nom and explain my opinion in depth since this post is gunna take a long time anyways.

C+ -> C-


A really shitty niche stallbreaker. This Pokemon has substantially more meme value than viability. I can fill pretty similar roles with Protean Ninja or SD Bulu. Unranking it would probably be wrong since it "technically" still fills its role, but it's one of the worst options available when it comes to being a viable stallbreaker.

C+ -> C-

See above, more or less. Replace "Protean Ninja" with "Landorus" and you pretty much have my opinion on Diggersby.

C+ -> Unranked

Want the Fairy/Steel typing? Use Magearna. Want fast Spikes? Greninja. Want Steel Spiker? Ferrothorn. Prankster crippling bullshit was heavily nerfed. But what if you really specifically need a medium-bulk fast Spiker with good defensive typing? That'd be a great thing to have on a team if Klefki didn't suck. This thing was hit way too hard by the gen shift to ever use. Can it.


C+ -> B-

I'm actually not a fan of Muk-Alola in general (I personally think it's massively overrated!) but it's performed much better than anything else down here. It's possibly the best Pokemon available at its tiny niche, where most of C rank is playing second fiddle to greater threats. Considering how much I'm going to be talking about in this post I don't have enough time to really justify my nom here too much, but I do want more discussion to be sparked about Muk so I'm just throwing in 2c.

C+ -> C-

Necrozma actually has a strong niche as a setter for a TR team. Good bulk and access to Rocks and TR (as well as non-irrelevant amounts of power with its good SpA). However, it's terrible outside of full TR and performs especially badly against several common leads like Sableye (making TR's MU vs stall more difficult) and Greninja. I'd never use this Pokemon outside of full TR, but it's strong enough in that role that it it should be ranked to note that it exists (but just barely).

C+ -> C-

I'd read the Necrozma line, but replace "TR" with "one specific stall team." This Pokemon performs on exactly one team, in one role, with (more or less) one set. It's good there. It should be used nowhere else. I'd pretty much say that's a solid definition for a C- rank mon: viable in only extremely specific circumstances.
C+ -> Unranked

Starmie isn't bad in itself per say, but in a meta of Greninja everywhere and Pheromosa available as an offensive Spinner, you shouldn't be using Starmie for any reason. It doesn't meaningfully combine roles in any way that isn't done by something else in a far superior fashion. There is simply always a better option available instead of running Starmie.

C+ -> Unranked

Whimsicott's strengths in the meta are pretty much nonexistent. It used to have a pretty decent role on BP oriented teams, but there's really just not room to slot it in for that anymore. Outside of those teams, Prankster nerfs and the presence of a large selection of strong Fairy types, as well as its previously exclusive typing being stolen by Tapu Bulu, have made Whimsicott irrelevant.


C -> Unranked

I went to read discussion on the ranking of Dragalge and the general gist of the topic was "It checks X and nukes stuff" with replies of "[calcs] actually it doesn't" and then (mods) "stop shitposting or we'll blacklist Dragalge."

I'm gunna go out on a limb and say that we don't need to keep Dragalge ranked. Maybe it'll be worth looking back into if M Meta is banned, but with it legal it's just too hard for it to accomplish anything.

C -> Unranked

I had to ask around to figure out this thing. From discussion on Discord, I could ascertain that this was the only Defogger that beat standard Spikes Gren that wasn't Rocks weak. It has no other role other than that one MU.

We really shouldn't be ranking mons for garbage reasons like that. At least my next nom has better match ups against a whopping like 3 Pokemon.

C -> Unranked

Always use Magnezone over this thing, please. IMO this shits some hot garbage, and when I went to look up discussion for Magneton, it's only ever been used as a scapegoat to rise other things to C+ because it's hot garbage and it's in C. The speed increase is simply never worth having Magnezone for any reason in the current meta. Please remove.

C -> C-

It's a Spinner that doesn't totally get mowed over by Phero I guess. You're not using this over Toxa + Spinner unless you only have 1 slot to do that with, and even then you're not using this over Fini unless you already have like a bunch of Spikes Gren weak shit already. It's just not very good (but Gary's pretty adamant it's not totally useless so I'll roll with it staying over unranked).

C -> C-

I think C- is a good place for the general "one trick pony" type of mons imo, which really is Xurkitree in a nutshell. It's an incredibly strong Baton Pass recipient and nothing else. You shouldn't use it unless you're planning to give it a bunch of speed boosts and a substitute. It's also only be used a scapegoat to try and argue other things to C+ that probably don't deserve to rise, so I'd suggest for it to go down.



C- -> Unranked

You don't need to consume a Mega slot to have a stall counter. Especially not with a mega this bad vs everything else. It's just completely pointless, and only cripples you to use it. Vs most teams you're better off never clicking the mega button (unless you're vs something slower that will KO you that turn). There are better alternatives that don't even require you to waste a Mega slot on your team. Don't use this.

C- -> Unranked


I really don't even know what to say about this one. We ranked Hawlucha. Why did we rank Hawlucha? How did we rank Hawlucha? This Pokemon had to physically be added to the OU list. Was it an ORAS carryover? I really don't know. I really wish I could give some insight beyond "Hawlucha is absolute garbage" but there is none. I'm pretty sure this Pokemon has just accidentally stayed on the list and nobody has questioned it since nobody knows why Hawlucha's on the list, so nobody bothers making posts against it, assuming they're missing something.

C- -> Unranked

Bad speed tier? Check. Middling raw power? Check. Mediocre typing? Check. Extremely easy to counter by any well built team? Check. It need specs to kill anything and scarf to be fast enough to threaten to kill anything. It also needs to be able to switch moves to break any teams. I understand that it's absolutely not the worst Pokemon I'm suggesting to go unranked here, but it's managed to have 0% winrate in SPL despite 4 attempts for a reason. It's just not good enough.
C- -> Unranked

Why did we even rank this it's completely worthless. Even in it's absolutely ideal scenario, Shields Down at 50% with a Shell Smash, it's netting an absolute maximum of 1 kill vs a well built team. It's not even just inconsistent, it's bad even when it goes off.

C- -> C+

Pyukumuku is one of the few Pokemon here to actually perform decently in the SM OU meta. It's performed in actual ladder and tour settings to enough of an extent that it can be seriously considered on a team. That's a lot more than what could be said about every mon above it on this list except Muk.

I would've probably nommed about 5 more Pokemon to drop but on discussion in discord I've found that my definition of unviable is a stricter than pretty much everyone else's, so I cut back a few noms in the interest of not being shit on constantly for my post.

Everything in C I didn't comment on I either think is fine as is imo, or idk enough about the mon to make any comment worth shit about.

For anyone wondering I think most these things should drop:
1. It reduces shitposting.
2. It doesn't lure newer players into using things that they should never be using (even factoring role compression).
3. It removes Hawlucha from the VR.
I like the principle behind this post (de-clogging C rank), but disagree with a couple of these.

Most notably, I cannot get onboard a Xuriktree drop to C-. It is so deadly on Scolipass, and can sweep entire teams. As a special wall breaker, it is also good, and can even threaten Chansey with tail-glow and a z-move. It also has other sets that can function quite well (Z-Hypnosis and tail glow can also sweep nicely), and has featured on quite a few top tier teams. Granted, it benefits from teams in which it takes centre stage (either passing it speed, or giving it a Z-move), but on these teams it is really excellent.

170 odd special attack, with decent coverage, is just too good to be ranked at C- (as was suggested), and if anything it could go up to C+.

I will also suggest that new players who see C- mons are more likely to ignore them than they would ignore unranked mons, which they might think were just overlooked by the rankings, and just end up trying out a lot of unviable mons. But this is just my opinion.
 
I agree with the points made above except for the idea of unranking Torkoal. I'll be the first to say that it sucks in almost every way, but it has a niche that nothing in OU does better: sun support. We all know it gets drought. What makes it better over Ninetales, which doesn't merit a rank, is that it can set rocks, spin, explode, and actually has passable bulk. The sun it gives, along with the utility, makes it mandatory on sun teams. We've established that a playstyle is either as good or less viable than its setter, so viewing sun as a whole as C- is reasonable. I don't think it's good at all, but sun can be used to success, and torkoal, being its most important component, should therefore be ranked. Just somewhere low.

Edit: Punchshroom is right. Dedicated sun teams are unviable. Unranking Torkoal/Ninetales is the right call.
 
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Punchshroom

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I agree with the points made above except for the idea of unranking Torkoal. I'll be the first to say that it sucks in almost every way, but it has a niche that nothing in OU does better: sun support. We all know it gets drought. What makes it better over Ninetales, which doesn't merit a rank, is that it can set rocks, spin, explode, and actually has passable bulk. The sun it gives, along with the utility, makes it mandatory on sun teams. We've established that a playstyle is either as good or less viable than its setter, so viewing sun as a whole as C- is reasonable. I don't think it's good at all, but sun can be used to success, and torkoal, being its most important component, should therefore be ranked. Just somewhere low.
Yeah, I'd be hard-pressed to say Torkoal is outright better than Ninetales to deserve a rank when Tales couldn't make it. You talk about all the stuff Torkoal has, but Torkoal's Speed and hazard weakness simply prevents it from doing more than one, if not any of those things. Like you talk about Torkoal's passable (physical) bulk but Ninetale's special bulk isn't that bad for taking the relevant resisted hits (like Giga Drain, Moonblast, even Serperior's Leaf Storm), while the hits Torkoal wants to take come from the most absurdly powerful attackers in the meta, like Mega Charizard X, Tapu Bulu, Mega Metagross, Mega Mawile, etc. that could very well threaten to overwhelm Torkoal at a moment's notice. Ninetales also has the Speed to pull off support roles much better, namely with moves like Will-O-Wisp & Reflect (both of which help to slightly patch up its mediocre physical bulk) and even Pain Split if longevity is a necessity. Meanwhile, Torkoal's support roles usually involve eating some unweakened blow and setting up Stealth Rock only to get threatened by nearly every hazard remover 1v1, or trying to remove hazards when saddled with terrible Speed and a severe hazard weakness, all while trying to stay alive long enough to maintain Sun while doing either of those things (let's be real, you'll never attempt both).

Meanwhile, you said it yourself: you don't think Sun is good at all but it can be used to success. This implies that Sun can technically work, but not particularly something you'd dedicate an entire team to. Which brings me to Mega Charizard Y + Chlorophyll Venusaur, which is pretty much the only real relevant Sun core you'd see today, if they're even seen at all; no one is going to run any more sun setters and sun sweepers than those aforementioned two on a team if they expect some actual consistency out of it (already, this is a bad sign for the playstyle if running just a two-off is more consistent than building the whole team around it). However, notice how Venusaur itself is absent from this list. This indicates that the notion of Sun sweeping is nothing more than a mere gimmick in the OU environment, and YZard receives its ranking on its own merit, rather than supporting a playstyle. On that note, why should Torkoal be ranked at all?
 
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Punchshroom

I agree, I didn't look at it from that perspective. Torkoal is garb. Zard Y is the only sun setter that's actually decent, whereas Torkoal and Ninetales are only options for dedicated sun teams, which are bad. With this I think the best course of action is to unrank Torkoal and Ninetales, leaving Zard Y as the only sun setter worth using (which is true).

If hell freezes over and dedicated sun teams somehow become viable, then I think we could consider those for a rank, but right now it's clear that the playstyle itself (dedicated sun) is unviable. The VR should reflect that by unranking them.
 

UltiMario

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Most notably, I cannot get onboard a Xuriktree drop to C-. It is so deadly on Scolipass, and can sweep entire teams. As a special wall breaker, it is also good, and can even threaten Chansey with tail-glow and a z-move. It also has other sets that can function quite well (Z-Hypnosis and tail glow can also sweep nicely), and has featured on quite a few top tier teams. Granted, it benefits from teams in which it takes centre stage (either passing it speed, or giving it a Z-move), but on these teams it is really excellent.

170 odd special attack, with decent coverage, is just too good to be ranked at C- (as was suggested), and if anything it could go up to C+.
My issue with Xurkitree is that it's arguably the 2nd best pass recipient in the tier (right behind Manaphy) but does nothing else. Unlike Mana, it's standalone boosting sets are totally abhorrent are only barely worked very early on in the SMOU meta when people were still trying to figure out the game. I really want to argue that ranking something above C- means that Pokemon would have its own merit rather than something that's used to fill a very specific niche on a single specific team (ex Sheddy Stall, Necrozma Full TR) which Xurkitree really is, a secondary recipient for Scolipass. To run Xurk, you pretty much need Scoli and Mana on your team already to really justify it, which is why it should be down in C-.

@ the Torkoal discussion above

Torkoal was also on my list of suggested drops to unranked that I cut because people tend to justify "it's a tiny bit better than Ninetales and it's required for Sun."

My logic for wanting it unranked was that Sun is just absolutely terrible and has no real viable abusers even when it's up. Even if a decent Pokemon had Drought (Infernape or something) shit like Venusaur still aren't the best mons ever. It's a weather with a bad setter and weak abusers that still can't deal with the top threats of the meta real well. Torkoal did win the one game it showed up in SPL... but it was on TR Sun with Eruption Tran, and TDK could've lost that pretty easy had pretty much every read not went his way. Definitely not something I'd call consistent or conventional. If people are ok with the idea of dropping Torkoal despite it """having a niche""" then I'd be on that train as well.
 

Gary

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Ninetales is actually complete garbage, like 100%. Outside of Sun support, it literally offers nothing. Torkoal is the best sun supporter because it has massive role compression and frees up like two slots in theory, because not only does it act as Sun setter but it can also get up SR and spin hazards away when shit hits the fan which can be good vs Webs, but yeah it can't spin rocks away that reliably. It's still way better than Ninetales, and Zard Y is great and all but it doesn't offer 8 turn sun which is extremely important for full sun to work obviously, so it can't be depended on.

Not saying full sun is very viable because it's not, and while personally I don't think it's probably enough to keep Torkoal ranked, saying it's equally as bad as Ninetales is just flat out wrong.
 

Punchshroom

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Ninetales is actually complete garbage, like 100%. Outside of Sun support, it literally offers nothing. Torkoal is the best sun supporter because it has massive role compression and frees up like two slots in theory, because not only does it act as Sun setter but it can also get up SR and spin hazards away when shit hits the fan which can be good vs Webs, but yeah it can't spin rocks away that reliably. It's still way better than Ninetales, and Zard Y is great and all but it doesn't offer 8 turn sun which is extremely important for full sun to work obviously, so it can't be depended on.

Not saying full sun is very viable because it's not, and while personally I don't think it's probably enough to keep Torkoal ranked, saying it's equally as bad as Ninetales is just flat out wrong.
Eh, I can get behind this sentiment; just that Torkoal has always been pretty damn shitty at its "role compression" and I'd probably be better off with some SR + Spin Excadrill at that point, and since those roles are covered, I'd still personally incline to Ninetales since it at least has the Speed necessary to do something like annoy or poke the opponent, whereas Torkoal always seemed to be fuking deadweight whenever it's not just Sun setting since it's too damn slow to do anything. Like for real what else does Torkoal even have other than SR + Spin? Yawn and Explosion? (honestly these moves aren't that bad for Sun)

Both suck anyway though
 

bludz

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tl;dr:

Torkoal gives TDK a chubby so it probably wont be unranked.

Also it gets Lava Plume. Between that, Rocks, and Rapid spin, its movepool is a million times better than Ninetales which ends up running total garbage like Hypnosis

Can we move on now?

I agree with Volcarona to A. Theres also talk of Protean Greninja dropping to A+ cuz it has some coverage issues in terms of 4mss and Spikes variants often end up being sacked to get up layers (in my experience). Between Pex and Ferro it kinda wants Extrasensory and HP Fire both but usually doesn't have that room unless you wanna lack the ability to one shot Zygarde or be walled by Heatran. Btw this is not to say Greninja is not a menace but the "on paper" factor of it being strong against teams is much bigger than in practice a lot of the time. unless you have the perfect coverage for the specific team youre facing
 
So that we can maybe get some discussion rolling, I propose we shrink C down to something small to discourage low-rank shitposting. Keep mons with a small niche in there, but try to just dump everything else that's not actually used. This is gunna be a lot of "noms" but doing spring cleaning should be inevitable. These descriptions are gunna be rather short since there's so many, but to be fair, it's C rank dropping, there tends to not be much to talk about for specific Pokemon anyways. Regardless, this post is mostly to spark discussion rather than go in depth over each individual nom and explain my opinion in depth since this post is gunna take a long time anyways.

C+ -> C-


A really shitty niche stallbreaker. This Pokemon has substantially more meme value than viability. I can fill pretty similar roles with Protean Ninja or SD Bulu. Unranking it would probably be wrong since it "technically" still fills its role, but it's one of the worst options available when it comes to being a viable stallbreaker.

C+ -> C-

See above, more or less. Replace "Protean Ninja" with "Landorus" and you pretty much have my opinion on Diggersby.

C+ -> Unranked

Want the Fairy/Steel typing? Use Magearna. Want fast Spikes? Greninja. Want Steel Spiker? Ferrothorn. Prankster crippling bullshit was heavily nerfed. But what if you really specifically need a medium-bulk fast Spiker with good defensive typing? That'd be a great thing to have on a team if Klefki didn't suck. This thing was hit way too hard by the gen shift to ever use. Can it.


C+ -> B-

I'm actually not a fan of Muk-Alola in general (I personally think it's massively overrated!) but it's performed much better than anything else down here. It's possibly the best Pokemon available at its tiny niche, where most of C rank is playing second fiddle to greater threats. Considering how much I'm going to be talking about in this post I don't have enough time to really justify my nom here too much, but I do want more discussion to be sparked about Muk so I'm just throwing in 2c.

C+ -> C-

Necrozma actually has a strong niche as a setter for a TR team. Good bulk and access to Rocks and TR (as well as non-irrelevant amounts of power with its good SpA). However, it's terrible outside of full TR and performs especially badly against several common leads like Sableye (making TR's MU vs stall more difficult) and Greninja. I'd never use this Pokemon outside of full TR, but it's strong enough in that role that it it should be ranked to note that it exists (but just barely).

C+ -> C-

I'd read the Necrozma line, but replace "TR" with "one specific stall team." This Pokemon performs on exactly one team, in one role, with (more or less) one set. It's good there. It should be used nowhere else. I'd pretty much say that's a solid definition for a C- rank mon: viable in only extremely specific circumstances.
C+ -> Unranked

Starmie isn't bad in itself per say, but in a meta of Greninja everywhere and Pheromosa available as an offensive Spinner, you shouldn't be using Starmie for any reason. It doesn't meaningfully combine roles in any way that isn't done by something else in a far superior fashion. There is simply always a better option available instead of running Starmie.

C+ -> Unranked

Whimsicott's strengths in the meta are pretty much nonexistent. It used to have a pretty decent role on BP oriented teams, but there's really just not room to slot it in for that anymore. Outside of those teams, Prankster nerfs and the presence of a large selection of strong Fairy types, as well as its previously exclusive typing being stolen by Tapu Bulu, have made Whimsicott irrelevant.


C -> Unranked

I went to read discussion on the ranking of Dragalge and the general gist of the topic was "It checks X and nukes stuff" with replies of "[calcs] actually it doesn't" and then (mods) "stop shitposting or we'll blacklist Dragalge."

I'm gunna go out on a limb and say that we don't need to keep Dragalge ranked. Maybe it'll be worth looking back into if M Meta is banned, but with it legal it's just too hard for it to accomplish anything.

C -> Unranked

I had to ask around to figure out this thing. From discussion on Discord, I could ascertain that this was the only Defogger that beat standard Spikes Gren that wasn't Rocks weak. It has no other role other than that one MU.

We really shouldn't be ranking mons for garbage reasons like that. At least my next nom has better match ups against a whopping like 3 Pokemon.

C -> Unranked

Always use Magnezone over this thing, please. IMO this shits some hot garbage, and when I went to look up discussion for Magneton, it's only ever been used as a scapegoat to rise other things to C+ because it's hot garbage and it's in C. The speed increase is simply never worth having Magnezone for any reason in the current meta. Please remove.

C -> C-

It's a Spinner that doesn't totally get mowed over by Phero I guess. You're not using this over Toxa + Spinner unless you only have 1 slot to do that with, and even then you're not using this over Fini unless you already have like a bunch of Spikes Gren weak shit already. It's just not very good (but Gary's pretty adamant it's not totally useless so I'll roll with it staying over unranked).

C -> C-

I think C- is a good place for the general "one trick pony" type of mons imo, which really is Xurkitree in a nutshell. It's an incredibly strong Baton Pass recipient and nothing else. You shouldn't use it unless you're planning to give it a bunch of speed boosts and a substitute. It's also only be used a scapegoat to try and argue other things to C+ that probably don't deserve to rise, so I'd suggest for it to go down.



C- -> Unranked

You don't need to consume a Mega slot to have a stall counter. Especially not with a mega this bad vs everything else. It's just completely pointless, and only cripples you to use it. Vs most teams you're better off never clicking the mega button (unless you're vs something slower that will KO you that turn). There are better alternatives that don't even require you to waste a Mega slot on your team. Don't use this.

C- -> Unranked


I really don't even know what to say about this one. We ranked Hawlucha. Why did we rank Hawlucha? How did we rank Hawlucha? This Pokemon had to physically be added to the OU list. Was it an ORAS carryover? I really don't know. I really wish I could give some insight beyond "Hawlucha is absolute garbage" but there is none. I'm pretty sure this Pokemon has just accidentally stayed on the list and nobody has questioned it since nobody knows why Hawlucha's on the list, so nobody bothers making posts against it, assuming they're missing something.

C- -> Unranked

Bad speed tier? Check. Middling raw power? Check. Mediocre typing? Check. Extremely easy to counter by any well built team? Check. It need specs to kill anything and scarf to be fast enough to threaten to kill anything. It also needs to be able to switch moves to break any teams. I understand that it's absolutely not the worst Pokemon I'm suggesting to go unranked here, but it's managed to have 0% winrate in SPL despite 4 attempts for a reason. It's just not good enough.
C- -> Unranked

Why did we even rank this it's completely worthless. Even in it's absolutely ideal scenario, Shields Down at 50% with a Shell Smash, it's netting an absolute maximum of 1 kill vs a well built team. It's not even just inconsistent, it's bad even when it goes off.

C- -> C+

Pyukumuku is one of the few Pokemon here to actually perform decently in the SM OU meta. It's performed in actual ladder and tour settings to enough of an extent that it can be seriously considered on a team. That's a lot more than what could be said about every mon above it on this list except Muk.

I would've probably nommed about 5 more Pokemon to drop but on discussion in discord I've found that my definition of unviable is a stricter than pretty much everyone else's, so I cut back a few noms in the interest of not being shit on constantly for my post.

Everything in C I didn't comment on I either think is fine as is imo, or idk enough about the mon to make any comment worth shit about.

For anyone wondering I think most these things should drop:
1. It reduces shitposting.
2. It doesn't lure newer players into using things that they should never be using (even factoring role compression).
3. It removes Hawlucha from the VR.
Typing is not a good reason to make a Pokémon drop, and Mega Garchomp is OU by technicality so wouldn't it have to stay ranked because it's still in the tier due to regular Garchomp being there. And I disagree with some of these drops. Diggersby naturally hits harder than the other Ground-types due to Huge Power so it's an effective wallbreaker. Xurkitree is a good partner with Scolipede with the speed boosts because it's able to cripple walls by outspeeding common things. 173 SpA is no joke. And how is Hawlucha bad? It's Unburden set is really effective since it outspeeds everything in the tier with maybe the exception of some Scarfers
 
Can someone explain to me why Lando is so high?

I never really got why this mon was so good, whenever I use it seems quite, oh I don't know....underwhelming?

Sure it has a nice earthquake and stealth rocks and such but I don't see how it's S rank, whenever I see one in action I just see it set up rocks, U-turn, maybe earthquake a couple times, then either die to HP Ice or finish off a couple mons, I don't really see it being on the same level as Mega Beedrill but better and X-Wing with a attitude.
 
Can someone explain to me why Lando is so high?

I never really got why this mon was so good, whenever I use it seems quite, oh I don't know....underwhelming?

Sure it has a nice earthquake and stealth rocks and such but I don't see how it's S rank, whenever I see one in action I just see it set up rocks, U-turn, maybe earthquake a couple times, then either die to HP Ice or finish off a couple mons, I don't really see it being on the same level as Mega Beedrill but better and X-Wing with a attitude.
The short answer is that its insanely versatile and it is effective in nearly every role it sets out to fill. Its defensive set blanket checks a ton of 'mons, and its offensive sets have very few decent switch-ins due to Continental Crush backed by 145 based attack + STAB EQ. There's also the Supersonic Skystrike set, both of which can muscle through most of its normal "checks".
 
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