np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

IcyMan28 said:

I think you missed my point. The comparison to unbanning Blaze Blaziken is lol because Swift Swim and Drizzle are not parts of the same pokemon, they are separate entities to begin with.

I would much rather undo the proposal entirely so that we can assess Drizzle as it is rather than the nerfed form we have now, but how much support do you think that will garner? Gradually reintroducing the swift swimmers will reach the same end result - to prove once and for all that Drizzle is broken and that instead of nerfing it, we should ban it as a whole.

However, it seems that the nomination thread is accomplishing that purpose as is, so this may not be needed. Here's hoping for a supermajority.

Click to expand...

Drizzle's on the chopping block already. It just needs a majority.

I would just like to point at your first paragraph for a second and say your not seeing it. Drizzle and SwSw are separate entities but to seperate Drizzle and SwSw is the same as separating Blaziken from Speed Boost. Your limiting Drizzle's options to keep it from being broken. Your not looking at Drizzle itself and instead just focusing on what makes drizzle powerful. In this case it would be Swift Swim. It has been proven that Swift Swim isn't broken outside of Drizzle but it is proven that Drizzle is a prominent threat even without Swift Swim. Drizzle is the problem not Swift Swim. Instead of limiting the options of the problem, get rid of the problem.

Otherwise what's the point of arguing against a Blaziken + Speed Boost ban? Even if Drizzle and Swift Sim are separate from each other, the concept is the same.

KurashiDragon said:

Drizzle's on the chopping block already. It just needs a majority.

I would just like to point at your first paragraph for a second and say your not seeing it. Drizzle and SwSw are separate entities but to seperate Drizzle and SwSw is the same as separating Blaziken from Speed Boost. Your limiting Drizzle's options to keep it from being broken. Your not looking at Drizzle itself and instead just focusing on what makes drizzle powerful. In this case it would be Swift Swim. It has been proven that Swift Swim isn't broken outside of Drizzle but it is proven that Drizzle is a prominent threat even without Swift Swim. Drizzle is the problem not Swift Swim. Instead of limiting the options of the problem, get rid of the problem.

Otherwise what's the point of arguing against a Blaziken + Speed Boost ban? Even if Drizzle and Swift Sim are separate from each other, the concept is the same.

Click to expand...

Here's hoping for a majority then.

I disagree with the rest. You will never find a single pokemon with both Drizzle and Swift Swim as their abilities. If I were to propose a Kingdra + Swift Swim ban, now that would be different. Unlike individual pokemon, which are whole entities, abilities are not. They are part of the package. You can battle with a Politoed whose ability is Drizzle, but you cannot battle with Drizzle itself. I don't mean to call anyone out, but I think the community at large is beginning to operate under the assumption that an ability = a pokemon, which is incorrect.

Either way, I agree that Drizzle is the problem. You, others, and myself have realized this, but I think that those that haven't yet come to terms only think Drizzle is OU because we nerfed it to make it acceptable in OU, which never should have happened.

IcyMan28 said:

I think you missed my point. The comparison to unbanning Blaze Blaziken is lol because Swift Swim and Drizzle are not parts of the same pokemon, they are separate entities to begin with.

For the record, I actually would much rather undo the proposal entirely so that we can assess Drizzle as it is rather than the nerfed form we have now, but how much support do you think that will garner? Gradually reintroducing the swift swimmers will reach the same end result - to prove once and for all that Drizzle is broken and that instead of nerfing it, we should ban it as a whole.

However, it seems that the nomination thread is accomplishing that purpose as is, so this may not be needed. Here's hoping for a supermajority.

Click to expand...

After reading through that, I am fine with that. What I thought you wanted to do is prove that something like Floatzzel with politoed is fine (even though I couldn't see him being ran over the big 3).

Too bad I don't think undoing AP will get enough support. It seems like quite a few people don't want any suspects.

IcyMan28 said:

They are part of the package. You can battle with a Politoed whose ability is Drizzle, but you cannot battle with Drizzle itself. I don't mean to call anyone out, but I think the community at large is beginning to operate under the assumption that an ability = a pokemon, which is incorrect.

Click to expand...

QFT. Instead of trying to ban weather inducers like Politoed (which, besides me, nobody is doing) Smogonites want to ban the ability(Drizzle) as if there are multiple pokemon who get the ability and are all broken because of it. If all weather is broken then I agree with banning weather but it's deceptive to try to ban only Drizzle when the real issue is Politoed.

IcyMan28 said:

Either way, I agree that Drizzle is the problem. You, others, and myself have realized this, but I think that those that haven't yet come to terms only think Drizzle is OU because we nerfed it to make it acceptable in OU, which never should have happened.

Click to expand...

Truth. The only reason Drizzle isn't banned is because of the Aldaron Proposal which now exists to ensure Drizzle isn't banned.

I think we should repeal Aldaron's Proposal and just ban Politoed/Drizzle(same thing) since all it does is nerf Drizzle into OU, repealing the darn thing is gaining popularity, and it's painfully obvious what broke Rain as a playstyle in the first place. The Toed needs to go.

Lets make one thing sure, just because your team has trouble beating it doesn't mean it is broken. From my experience (but this is just my experience, maybe the Pokemon I commonly choose are good at countering it) rain is easy to handle since SS was banned as right now it is only Water-, Electric- types and Pokemon that have a weakness to Fire. If we banned the most used Pokemon that means by the time the next generation comes up, there will be like 2 Pokemon in OU. But I do think that Deoxys-E should be banned, as if it didn't have priority it would be easy to handle, but now not even priority can beat it. Deoxys-E is broken, but it has the Salamence story, as it is very overshadowed by another Pokemon in Uber, but in this case Deoxys is completely outclassed. And I agree on Blaziken not being banned. All of it's physical STAB moves have recoil, and it's movepool is fairly shallow. The only set I have trouble with is the uncommon Work Up set, but that is still manageable. A Pokemon that relies on setup isn't a great Pokemon, even if it is impossible to outspeed.

I know that Blaziken has always been a "don't talk about it" topic, but I feel like it's an issue that we brushed aside pretty quickly. Yes, Speed Boost Blaziken is broken, but Blaze Blaziken isn't; the only reason we banned the entire Pokemon overall was to avoid a complex ban. Furthermore, there probably wasn't much rebuttal against removing Blaziken simply because it is yet another Fire/Fighting Pokemon (which is quite outclassed, I might add).

However, I feel that this issue of banning a Pokemon's specific ability might come into play in the near future. With Pokemon like Politoed and Garchomp on the block, they are getting banned for their abilities, not simply for what they are. If we faced an all weather ban, taking Tyranitar completely out of the game would be pretty unfair. It has lots of other attributes that make it a viable member of OU. I know it's a messy subject to make bans on specific abilities, but I believe it will become an issue we'll have to face at some point. Honestly, I think whatever policy we have for Blaziken will determine the fate of other Pokemon being banned for their abilities. So I think discussing Blaziken is an excellent thing to do to better comprehend our metagame.

Yourself said:

I know that Blaziken has always been a "don't talk about it" topic, but I feel like it's an issue that we brushed aside pretty quickly. Yes, Speed Boost Blaziken is broken, but Blaze Blaziken isn't; the only reason we banned the entire Pokemon overall was to avoid a complex ban. Furthermore, there probably wasn't much rebuttal against removing Blaziken simply because it is yet another Fire/Fighting Pokemon (which is quite outclassed, I might add).

However, I feel that this issue of banning a Pokemon's specific ability might come into play in the near future. With Pokemon like Politoed and Garchomp on the block, they are getting banned for their abilities, not simply for what they are. If we faced an all weather ban, taking Tyranitar completely out of the game would be pretty unfair. It has lots of other attributes that make it a viable member of OU. I know it's a messy subject to make bans on specific abilities, but I believe it will become an issue we'll have to face at some point. Honestly, I think whatever policy we have for Blaziken will determine the fate of other Pokemon being banned for their abilities. So I think discussing Blaziken is an excellent thing to do to better comprehend our metagame.

Click to expand...

People are drawing the line somewhere between Ability combination bans and Ability blanket bans. For instance, in the event that people find drizzle to be broken, they'd vote on blanket banning Drizzle, not Politoed + Drizzle. Drizzle would be broken on everything, not just politoed. In my personal opinion, I don't think Sand Veil Garchomp will ever be banned. It'll either be garchomp itself that's banned, a complex Sandstream + Sand Veil ban, or Garchomp won't be banned at all.

I think people are specifically trying to avoid a Pokemon + ability ban. There just doesn't seem like enough of a reason to really justify that kind of combination ban apart from playing favorites. Nobody has really come up with a good enough reason to do this combination ban so there's no point in doing it.

Why are we still talking about Drizzle? The meta-game isn't even centralized by Drizzle, and it's no more powerful than other weathers... I mean the usage stats alone condemn the idea that "Drizzle is still an overly potent threat" when not only are there twice as many Sand Teams as there are Rain Teams, and three times as many other weather teams than Rain, but also FIVE TIMES as many NON-WEATHER teams than there are Rain Teams...

Face facts, Rain isn't as powerful as people make it out to be. It's an effective strategy, but not one that merits talks of banning it... again...

TheValkyries said:

Why are we still talking about Drizzle? The meta-game isn't even centralized by Drizzle, and it's no more powerful than other weathers... I mean the usage stats alone condemn the idea that "Drizzle is still an overly potent threat" when not only are there twice as many Sand Teams as there are Rain Teams, and three times as many other weather teams than Rain, but also FIVE TIMES as many NON-WEATHER teams than there are Rain Teams...

Face facts, Rain isn't as powerful as people make it out to be. It's an effective strategy, but not one that merits talks of banning it... again...

Click to expand...

Seriously, this is exactly how I feel.


Honestly, this whole suspect round was pretty sad and ridiculous, as it was full of useless arguments. The thread bickered back and forth revolving around the same 3 stupid topics of Blaze Blaziken, All Weather Ban, and Sand Veil/Snow Cloak. Garchomp was only really talked about because of Sand Veil. Latios, Reuniclus, and Ferrothorn are the only 3 I can really remember that actually had any talks about it.


Honestly, the only thing I feel BREAKS rain is that damn Thunderus. I feel that he must be dropped first and foremost before even thinking about evaluating Drizzle.

RaRaRabbit said:

Seriously, this is exactly how I feel.


Honestly, this whole suspect round was pretty sad and ridiculous, as it was full of useless arguments. The thread bickered back and forth revolving around the same 3 stupid topics of Blaze Blaziken, All Weather Ban, and Sand Veil/Snow Cloak. Garchomp was only really talked about because of Sand Veil. Latios, Reuniclus, and Ferrothorn are the only 3 I can really remember that actually had any talks about it.


Honestly, the only thing I feel BREAKS rain is that damn Thunderus. I feel that he must be dropped first and foremost before even thinking about evaluating Drizzle.

Click to expand...

People like me want Rain banned because if it were not for the allegedly temporary Aldaron Proposal it would be banned.
Right now, Rain is nerfed and it's not a fair comparison of Rain vs other weathers because they didn't have their sweepers banned.
Edit: And can we please stop bringing up SB+Blaziken?

TheValkyries said:

Why are we still talking about Drizzle? The meta-game isn't even centralized by Drizzle, and it's no more powerful than other weathers... I mean the usage stats alone condemn the idea that "Drizzle is still an overly potent threat" when not only are there twice as many Sand Teams as there are Rain Teams, and three times as many other weather teams than Rain, but also FIVE TIMES as many NON-WEATHER teams than there are Rain Teams...

Face facts, Rain isn't as powerful as people make it out to be. It's an effective strategy, but not one that merits talks of banning it... again...

Click to expand...

The Usage stats aren't an accurate representation of Drizzle's power. For one thing, the Aldaron Proposal is nerfing Drizzle's overall power to keep Drizzle from being broken. Secondly, sand is the anti weather. It's not as powerful as Drizzle but it has two weather starters and ways of beating through both Rain and sun.

What does 5x as many non-weather teams have to do with Drizzle's overall power? There's 3x as much non-weather teams as there are sand. Does that mean Sand is weak? Also why don't you look at weather as a whole compare to how many non-weather teams are being used. Why don't you compare those two?

Edit: I'm with the last 2 guys on the SB + Blaziken argument. Almost nobody want's to do ability bans. There are no good arguments about it and those that do want the ability ban only want it because Blaziken is one of their favorite pokemon. It was banned and it's not coming back without speed boost.

Sir Azelf said:

SmashPassing (Shell Smash + Baton Pass): This is really not healthy for the metagame. Its disgustingly hard to stop. Phazers wont work because of Espeon being common on SmashPass teams, especially now Baton Pass is legal with Magic Bounce. Dragon Tail wont work because of Gorebyss/said passer commonly having Sub. You must resort to using moves like Perish Song, Haze and Clear Smog (even on offensive teams) which to be honest are poor moves which are inferior to other PHazing moves. What is even more insane is that if you lack these moves you pretty much get auto swept with this strat.

Click to expand...

ToF said:

the pokemon are covered well enough. i didn't have time to get voting rights so im not gonna apply for special permissions.

just please fucking ban smash passing. its an incredibly shitty strategy that has ridiculously good payoffs provided you're not an idiot and pass to the right pokemon, which given the amount of offensive powerhouses in bw isn't that difficult. the whole strategy of screens followed by smash passing makes the gliscor pass to metagross strategy absolutely futile in comparison. try facing constant teams of deoxys-s to gorebyss to whatever sweeper (like GARCHOMP). it's extremely difficult to stop, and not only that but its an incredibly cheap strategy that doesn't even encourage any "competitiveness".

that's all.

Click to expand...

Interrupting this absolutely productive and decisive discussion to bring something new to the table.

People are now nominating SmashPassing for being banned. It's already suspect in UU. Why has there been no discussion here?

if this is actually tl;dr then I'll stick with DISCUSS SMASHPASSING.

I'm worried that people just want a rehash of gen 4 by banning a lot of new strategies to OU, like Drought, Drizzle, Smashpassing. I mean Blaziken with his shiny new toy is already banned.

Imwalle said:

I'm worried that people just want a rehash of gen 4 by banning a lot of new strategies to OU, like Drought, Drizzle, Smashpassing. I mean Blaziken with his shiny new toy is already banned.

Click to expand...

The weathers are debatable. In any case, Blaziken had a good reason for people to vote for his banning: Giving something ~base 115 offensive stats with a nature to autoboost speed, and Protect to abuse it... Hmm? It wasn't fun for anyone to play against seeing how you needed to kill it fast before it could get anything going, otherwise it'd probably cut you down. And bulky waters had HP Electric, which still hurt like hell.

As for smashpassing, it's a ridiculously powerful tactic that any schmuck could hit the top of the ladder with provided they aren't a complete idiot. Eventually, if left unchecked, it'd probably get somewhere to the point where a lot of teams either carry a Hazer or some method of phazing/killing Gorebyss and such. See DPPt Garchomp for an example of this crap. I can see this happening.

I'd like to hear the opinions of others regarding my proposal for testing Lugia. Considering i've been working on it for quite a while.

Hide

I wish to nominate Lugia to test it's performance in the current BW OU metagame. After doing an in debt analyse regarding this pokemon's capabilities, i predict they will rather be underwhelming for a 680 base stats pokemon. Probably not as rare as Kyurem but not as omnipresent like Tyranitar (who has about 660-670 basestats in sand), residing somewhere in between.

For this argument, i'll be examining Lugia's performance against the top 20 most used pokemon in this metagame as they form the very core of what we know as the BW OU metagame. Any pokemon who is rarely succesfull against these threaths both defensive and offensive or can provide significant support in the form of permanent weather, cannot hope to achieve the dominate the metagame, or becoming banned altogether.

Summary of Lugia:

- Absurd high walling stats comparable to Cresselia

Lugia's main and only selling point, however as shown by Cresselia's current usage those are clearly not enough for a dominant force in the metagame.

- Vulnerability to Sandstream and all status, weakness to Stealth Rock nullifies the advantages of a Spikes/Toxic Spikes immunity.

Nearly any succesful wall in the fifth generation enjoys near complete immunity to residual damage. Which proves that it is something considered necessary before adding it into the team. The only exception to this is Jellicent who is probably still used for its immunity to Rapid spin, a novelty Lugia lacks as well. Lack of Toxic immunity can be lethal at times, once poisoned Lugia can be determinded as near useless the rest of the game.

- Lack of a reliable resistance spread(Grass, Fighting, Psychic and Ground immunity)

In generation 5 where everything hits ridiculously hard, raw defensive basestats are not enough to take repeated hits. This is clearly shown in the statistics by the popularity of Gliscor, Skarmory, and Ferrothorn who have pretty much the best defensive typings in the game. Grass and Psychic are rather useless resistances while Fighting and Ground isn't enough for reliable walling. Considering the fact that nearly all ground and Fighting types have a move that hits Lugia by super effective damage. In other words Lugia will often have to face full damage from offense taking attacks twice as hard as the other walls who often completely resist a sweeper by their typing alone, essentially nullifiying the base stat advantage.

- Average movepool and ability.

Unlike some fellow ubers like Mewtwo and Kyogre, Lugia is really lacking in this department. Whirlwind, Toxic, Screens, Thunder Wave and Roost are all moves who can be found on nearly any flying type. It can utilize Toxic but it lacks the Fire/Fighting moves necessary to deal with the Steel types immune to it. It doesn't have any entry hazards to make use of the switches it forces, nor does it have Taunt to prevent sweepers from setting up and walls for setting up their entry hazards with little to no fear.

Pressure has the rather limited usage of a PP staller. While PP stalling with Lugia's massive walling stats may seem interesting at first, it unfortunatly lacks the offenses Zapdos has to deal with those who are immune to Poison. Seeing as its Stab's are both resisted by Steel and only has one moveslot to spare for offense. As a result it will only become set up bait for the like of Scizor and Excadrill or for those who set up entry hazards like Ferrothorn and Excadrill.

Defensive Lugia vs most popular threats
(Note: All these matchups take Stealth Rock into account of both sides, considering its presence is such that it has become a part of a common battle condition)

Tyranitar: Lugia 'can' win 1 on 1 if it utilizes a set with the Reflect/Roost/Toxic combination to the fullest. Provided Lugia is facing the more common defensive Tyranitar rather than the still used CB Tyranitar. Needless to say Lugia won't be switching into Tyranitar anywhere soon.

Ferrothorn: This defensive threat can always switch into Lugia with little to no fear. Even the rather orthodox Hidden Power Fire will fail to land a 3HKO. Meanwhile Forrethorn can leech seed to recover damage, lay down entry hazards or cripple Lugia through status.

Garchomp: Garchomp won't be a problem for Lugia as long as it carries Ice beam or to a lesser extend Whirlwind. The only exception is in case Garchomp carries Choice Band and Lugia is unable to outspeed. Another is the notorious 'sand veil' misses however this can be applied to everything.

Scizor: Lugia lacks any moves to prevent the popular SD scizor from setting up in front of it. Even the most defensive of Lugia cannot survive repeated hits of a +6 LO Bug bite after Reflect. Lugia can choose to run Hidden Power Fire instead however, will become set up bait for Garchomp instead.

Gliscor: See garchomp

Latios:Choice Spec's Draco Meteor deals 56.5% - 66.6% damage, which is a swift 2HKO after SR. Lugia would need max SpD/HP investment to ensure surviving the combination of 2 Draco Meteors and Stealth Rock. However this particular investment would severly limit Lugia's ability to defeat Physicall sweepers.

Rotom-W: To beat it 1 on 1, Lugia would need to roost repeatedly to survive repeated Thunderbolts. This can be succesfull provided Rotom never lands a paralyze not a crit. Lugia doesn't make a decent switchin into Rotom however.

Excadrill: Lugia can't do much more than attempt to Whirlwind away its boosts, provided Excadrill switched into Lugia rather than the other way round, in which case Lugia will fall.

Reuniclus: Any non-whirlwind set is set up bait for the CM set. Needless those say who do carry it will only delay the problem towards the end game. After 6 CM's Psychic does enough damage for a 2HKO. Lugia 'can' wall the Trick room sweeper as Shadow Ball only does

Heatran: Neither pokemon can hurt each other which means Lugia will win due to Pressure stalling. Lugia will have to be wary for those who run Toxic or Lava Plume which appear to be more common higher on the ladder and in tournaments.

Jirachi: Lugia is a sitting duck in front of the most popular set(wish/para support). While Jirachi may not be able to beat Lugia, it can still switch in, paralyze and support the team through Wish.

Dragonite: See Garchomp

Conkeldurr: A Poisoned +2 Conkulldur does 54.8% - 64.9% damage with Payback to a max Def/HP Lugia with Reflect. Which means that unless Lugia carries Aeroblast or Psychic it will not be able to switch in and stall it with Poison.

Politoed: A choice Spec's Hydro Pump does 62% - 73.1% which is a swift 2HKO. Lugia does not make a solid switchin to the defensive set either due to Toxic.

Gengar: A LO Shadow Ball does 56.7% - 66.8% damage to Lugia, i suppose this is a no-brainer.

Skarmory: See Ferrothorn

Thundurus: See Gengar

Jellicent: Neither can switch in each other due to the threat of status

Starmie: LO Hydro Pump does 52.6% - 62% damage to 252 HP Lugia. Lugia usually can't touch starmie due to its Ice resist and Natural Cure.

Volcorona:
Offensive: +1 Quiver dance does 65.1% - 76.7% damage to 252 HP Lugia
Chestorest: Lugia can't touch this due to this set's immunity to Toxic.
Defensive Morning Sun: This set is only used in permanent sun which does 62% - 73.1% damage to Lugia with a +1 Fire blast

Summary: Out of the entire top 20 the 'Great Wall' set only reliably counters Heatran, Garchomp, Dragonite and Gliscor. These results are laughable considering Quagsire can do the same and wall several others. Lugia may be able to wall a few others with a different ev spread and moveset however will have to sacrifice the ability to counter those mentioned above.



CM Lugia

Often mentioned as the 'unbeatable calm minder' in arguments that defends Lugia's uber status. However with a closer look one can find a reliable method to deal with this set without having to significantly change your current team. I will spare the reader for another list of matchups and rather write down a summary of how it can be done.

- Any random wall that has Toxic beats this set. Substitude or Resttalk may prevent this but makes it near impossible to sweep due to lack of coverage.
- Tyranitar will always beat the CM set if it doesn't carry HP Fighting. Do note that even HP Fighting does not guarantee winning against a t-tar that switched in. Considering the CB set set can OHKO with SE while HP fighting has a 'chance' to 2HKO after one CM.
- Ferrothorn and Scizor can switch in any set that lacks HP Fire. Ferrothorn cannot defeat Lugia but Leech seed and Sandstorm will make it near impossible for Lugia to sweep. It can't beat Jirachi either even after 6 boosts, Skarmory can whirlwind repeatedly and stack Stealth Rock damage.
- CM Reuniclus with Psychock always wins
- There is pretty much nothing in this metagame where Lugia can easily set up in front of it.


Summary: Despite the insane defensive stats the CM set may not be as difficult to defeat as it seems. It lacks the offenses and reliable STAB's to defeat it's counters after just one Calm Mind. To make things worse residual damage will make its life hell severly reducing its massive defenses. When compared to the current dominant CM'er Reuniclus it appears that Lugia is inferior.



Final conclusion (for the TL:DR amongst you)

Lugia is what one could call a two sided sword. One who has the stats of an uber but the movepool, typing and ability combination of something that belongs in the newfound RU tier. The result seems to be something that balances out, something that will most likely find its spot on several ou teams but not enough to become top tier nevermind being broken.

Perhaps i have overlooked something during this in-debt argument. One cannot possible predict every outcome through theorymon alone in this complex strategy game. However one thing is certain, the total base stats of a pokemon alone are not enough in this metagame to perform well. Kyurem's low usage has proven this and the thought that something with 430 basestats like Quagsire to seemingly wall more than Lugia show this as well.

Any test or experiment should always start from a solid hypothesis. I hope that the hypothesis shown above can prove that Lugia is worth the time and effort for attempting a suspect test

Just chiming in on the fact that Phazers are so so so incredibly common in the current metagame that it isn't even funny, and priority is also ridiculously good against Baton Pass teams, so I really can't even see this as slightly broken. If a team does not have a Phazer/priority out in time to shut it down, something has gone wrong. (Seriously, my team's running three priority users and a phazer. I'm not expecting everyone to have that much, but something, surely.)

As for Sub+SD Garchomp not having any perfect counters, lol ScarfChamp. There's a reason I run this damn thing. Switch in on a Sub, you then break the sub on an SD/attack and outspeed->kill the next turn. If they SD, you just kill the next turn. Most of the variants I've seen run Leftovers, so I imagine it'd struggle with YacheChomp, though. But then, YacheChomp is also a lot more susceptible to most priority and Dragons. Honestly can't say if YacheChomp is broken, I've not used it or seen it much.

Mien: Aeroblast in the current meta? Really? I.. wow. I know I'd hate to see that at least. I notice you didn't mention Aeroblast much - Lugia does have enough SpA to use it, especially given the CM set and the fact that it can survive long enough to boost up easily. Keep in mind that Ubers is a very different environment, and the best set for Ubers won't necessarily be the best set for OU - I imagine Lugia would prefer to run a set similar to CM Latias, which could be hell for a number of top Pokes.

No, I don't want to see Lugia in OU. Have you ever seen trickroom use it in Ubers? I know "Ubers is a different environment", but I'm quite sure Lugia would get it easier in OU.

Aeroblast is a decent move but nothing special in particular. In general its signature move will not improve the CM set by much if any at all.

Also irrelevant but Quagsire with Ice beam is pretty much a perfect counter to Subchomp and Yachechomp(much better than gimmick shit like scarfmachamp?)

No, I don't want to see Lugia in OU. Have you ever seen trickroom use it in Ubers? I know "Ubers is a different environment", but I'm quite sure Lugia would get it easier in OU.

Click to expand...

Whether Lugia is good or bad in ubers has no relevancy for the OU metagame.

I think the worry with AeroBlast is that its hard to wall I guess so CM sets are a bitch to beat.
also nitpicking but

Latios:Choice Spec's Draco Meteor deals 56.5% - 66.6% damage, which is a swift 2HKO after SR. Lugia would need max SpD/HP investment to ensure surviving the combination of 2 Draco Meteors and Stealth Rock. However this particular investment would severly limit Lugia's ability to defeat Physicall sweepers.

Click to expand...

O.k so a non steel type can survive it while DM only does around 66^ tops which Luga then gobbles up 2 PP thanks to Pressure and then Roosts healing you back to full health. That is pretty incredible if you ask me. Also I can kinda see a Sub Roost set or something being a bitch to face, especially with Toxic Spikes support. Basically, I don't really think Lugia should be brought back to OU

ginganinja said:

O.k so a non steel type can survive it while DM only does around 66^ tops which Luga then gobbles up 2 PP thanks to Pressure and then Roosts healing you back to full health. That is pretty incredible if you ask me. Also I can kinda see a Sub Roost set or something being a bitch to face, especially with Toxic Spikes support. Basically, I don't really think Lugia should be brought back to OU

Click to expand...

Lugia can only roost back to health in a one versus one battle, therefore you can't go and use the 252 HP set for Latios countering. Whether it is incredible or not is irrelevant, the fact is that Lugia barely has any usefull resists and therefore usually takes hits twice as hard than most walls who can use their incredible resistance spreads, nullifying Lugia's base stat advantage.

Also good luck at having 'success' with phazing Toxic Spikes in a metagame where 15 of the top 20 pokemon are immune to it(Conkeldurr even likes it). Considering laying down 2 series of toxic spikes isn't as easy as it sounds.

EDIT:

Oh just wait til MS Lugia comes out :naughty: The bugger will be back in his nest in no time.

Click to expand...

Going by your reasoning we should never have allowed Lati twins or Chandelure in OU considering Gamefreak 'may' release Soul Dew or Shadow Tag someday.

There is absolutely no guarantee that it will ever get it's dream world ability during the fifth generation. Therefore it isn't relevant.

Oh just wait til MS Lugia comes out :naughty: The bugger will be back in his nest in no time.

I'd really like to see something happen regarding lugia. Shrang, your "fuck no!" response seems kinda arbitrary. Why wouldn't you like to see it in OU? Mien has just shown that it would be potentially managable. I think it may even end up in BL over time. Let's get an actual discussion going here instead of the usual "ubers in OU? Wtf are you smoking?" dismissiveness.

Yes, I do think that it's overrated. Cresselia is kinda in the same boat as lugia. If it were uber, you'd all be saying stuff like "It has 120 / 120 / 130 defenses! It has recovery! It has a spikes immunity! It resists ground and fighting! It can trickscarf, calm mind, psycho shift ect."

Lugia is cress with lesser bulk, flying typing (3 more weaknesses, bug and grass resistance, SR weakness) and slightly higher offenses (90 / 90 vs 70 / 75.) What does lugia have over pokes like cress, bronzong, uxie, xatu, mandibuzz, latias and gliscor? It's typing is awful for a defensive poke, and it struggles to differentiate itself from everything else.

Also, if it chooses to run max speed (base 110 is pretty good I must admit) and HP it's defenses drop from 106 / 130 / 154 to 106 / 85 / 107.

Oh wow, I just realized something: Lugia does not learn Taunt.


Does anyone else agree that banning drought and drizzle is plausible, but banning sandstream is not? D & D have passive effects like fire/water attacks being weakened and fire/water STAB boosts, as well as boosting attacks like hurricane, thunder and morning sun. Sandstream only has passive damage and rock spdef boost. Any broken factors come from pokemon/abilities like sand veil garchomp and sand rush excadrill.

I believe that sand itself is not broken and should be treated differently than D & D.

Hey, remember SubRoost Zapdos? Lugia can do it too and do it more effectivly. Sub is a good scouting move and pretty much prevents Ferrothorn from seeding it (sure it can set up spikes but if your running Lugia, it would be wise to pack a spinner anyways) Lugia can then start chipping away at Ferros health with multiple Aeroblasts. Sure it might not be quick but considering the fact that his common pool of attacking moves are Power Whip and Gyro Ball, Lugia will have no problem PP stalling him.

Also, on the topic of steels, why not take a page from PKs Dragon team. If someone utilises a Magnezone on their team, Steels are of no question. I know I'm going off track there but I thought it would be something to mention.

Crease also does not have a reliable mean of recovery

Subroost zapdos has base 125 special attack and electric STAB for the steels that are immune to toxic.

Aeroblast sucks people. 95 accuracy and 8 PP? calm mind sets can't use it. Staller sets can't use it either.

Lugia's flying STAB moves:

Aeroblast
Air cutter
Aerial ace
Fly
Gust
Sky attack
Sky Drop

So, is CM lugia going to use air cutter or gust? Or maybe just use psychic/ice beam?