np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

I am not allowed to have things skip my mind. I see how it is.

Since when does Skarmory ever set up stealth rocks anyway?

Pwnemon said:

What if your sleeper is jumpluff?

Where is your god now?

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Jumpluff? That's almost as crazy as running exploud.... Oh wait, nvm. All joking aside about how I run the sonic boom lizard, What is virizion's coverage anyways? Giga drain, focus miss, and what else? Hidden power Ice/fire? Sounds like something that volcorona would love to fight against after some quiver dances are up. If virizion is SO powerful, then how come I'm not seeing this thing more often in OU? I thought virizion was brought down to UU BTW. If it is, then that means there should be checks to it.

Virizion's main weakness compared to Celebi is his lack of reliable recovery; Recover on Celebi helps when fighting against stupidly powerful stuff like Specs Hydro Pump -___-. However, Virizion's main niche over Celebi si that amazing Fighting Typing which basically allows you to go unwalled by anything. And you run HP Ice over HP Fire as +1 LO FB OHKOes Scizor after some hazards. Virizion really isn't countered by anything except Psyshock Latios and Volcorona, although even Volcroroa dies with SR up

Master Win said:

Jumpluff? That's almost as crazy as running exploud.... Oh wait, nvm. All joking aside about how I run the sonic boom lizard, What is virizion's coverage anyways? Giga drain, focus miss, and what else? Hidden power Ice/fire? Sounds like something that volcorona would love to fight against after some quiver dances are up. If virizion is SO powerful, then how come I'm not seeing this thing more often in OU? I thought virizion was brought down to UU BTW. If it is, then that means there should be checks to it.

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No, Virizion is far from gamebreaking. But it's a good Pokemon in its own respect, and if it can cover the majority of OU threats aside from Volcarona with its CM set, we can consider it solid as it is. In the event of any troublesome Pokemon, let's say Volcarona, simply pack a teammate to counter it. This pretty much goes for any set up sweeper, especially Lucario (so do I get walled by Jellicent or Gliscor?) and Scizor (his method of usage should be fairly obvious). There really are times when coverage isn't the bigger issue. Which is...why we're talking about Celebi, I guess. Hell, even Celebi runs two-move coverage.

Aeroblacktyl said:

it's seems like you tend to like to only use the advantageous parts of your logic while refusing to acknowledge the possibility of losing. so let's use a little bit of common sense. blissey get's 2hko'd by virizion half the time if we go by the MOST LIKELY COMMON SCENARIO of sr on both sides and:

turn 28
blissey switches in
virizion uses calm mind

turn 29
virizion uses focus blast
blissey uses toxic?

turn 30
virizion uses focus blast
blissey dies

50/50

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Didn't mean to post, but saw this and couldn't resist.

This is all well and nice but what if:

Turn 28
Blissey switches in
Virizion uses Calm Mind

Turn 29
Virizion uses Focus Blast
But it missed!

Or maybe:

Turn 28
Blissey switches in
Virizion uses Calm Mind

Turn 29
Virizion uses Focus Blast
Blissey uses Thunder Wave

Turn 30
Blissey uses Softboiled
Virizion uses Focus Blast (no KO)

Or more likely:

Turn 28
Blissey switches in
Virizion uses Calm Mind

Turn 29
Virizion uses Focus Blast
Blissey uses Toxic?

Turn 30
Blissey uses Protect
Virizion uses Focus Blast?
Leftovers recovery puts Blissey out of KO range

Turn 31
Virizion uses Focus Blast
Blissey takes advantage of the incredibly obvious Fighting move to switch to a Fighting resist (or immune). If this Fighting resist or immune is faster than Virizion, it might be able to threaten a KO, especially after SR + 3 turns of Toxic damage.

Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't look like a 50/50 situation.

your first scenario:

it's why it's a 50/50
if focus blast hits twice, .7*.7, then it wins, if it doesn't hit twice, it loses, already went over this

your second scenario:

if you paralyze it, then the second turn he could just cm again. my scenario is if blissey uses toxic. you obviously play according to how the battle turns out

your third scenario:

it toxics like my original scenario. now it's back to a 50/50 again. if you protect while i focus blast, blissey wins. if i cm while it protects, virizion now has a final 70% chance to win (unless of course you try to protect again which leads us back to 50%)

so nice try but how about you actually learn to battle against someone of any merit because your bullshit illogical fucktard doesn't work when you play anyone that isn't as ignorant as you are because.....

oh gee shit super obvious status move let me switch in my excadrill. yeah wow you mean we just engaged in a pokemon battle?! shit fuck this is harder than playing against myself

also...why would virizion use cm upon waking up? virizion would most likely come into something such as: ferrothorn, gliscor, jellicent, random stall poke that it likes to snack on. it then calm minds on your switch to your SLEEPER, your so called counter. it can now hit w/e mediocre sleeper you sent out as you use that turn to sleep it. if it wakes up on the insuring turn then skarmory is FUCKED. sturdy be damned because both sides can have all 6 layers for all i care and skarmory will still be FUCKED.

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Lol, sorry to inform you but half the usable Sleepers in OU resist Virizion's STABs. And are bulky enough to survive the HP and sleep it in the face, or right out KO it. Of course this is coming from my experiences, and I run a Sun team with Venusaur, who eats Virizion for breakfast.

Embarassed, but Rotom-W - Scizor - Scarf Landorus spamming Volt Switch / U-turns are really bringing my team down. What are some of the ways to stop this cycle? It sucks, because my best absorbers are 4x weak to the other move (specially bulky Celebi / physically bulky Gyarados). It doesn't help that neither of them have healing moves, and that I have no Wisher. I guess I can switch in my CBScizor / Scarf Magnezone / Raikou into those U-turns, but I feel like it's way too much trouble than it should be.

I really don't feel like adding Gastrodon, but that's the only solution I can think of right now, since it totally halts Rotom-W from Volt Switching, and forcing Rotom-W to use shit move like HP Grass.

guys. a friend of mine (Mynism) just found the best chansey/blissey/weather starter killer ever (at least, IMO). Dugtrio. Now everyone knows that duggy's EQ only deals 30-ish% to Chansey. BUT:

Dugtrio@Expert Belt
Arena Trap
252 Atk 4 Def 252 Spe
Adamant (+atk -sp.atk)
IV's: Enough HP to get 201
-Subsitute
-EQ
-Reversal
-SR/Sucker Punch/Stone Edge


bye bye blissey/ttar/politoed/ninetales. I'm not 100% positive if dugtrio can OHKO chansey with reversal. And yeah, this thing can't deal with Abomasnow if you don't use Stone Edge in the last slot

Aeroblacktyl said:

oh gee shit super obvious status move let me switch in my excadrill. yeah wow you mean we just engaged in a pokemon battle?! shit fuck this is harder than playing against myself

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Wait, what? If you're switching Virizion out of Blissey's status move (which, I'll grant, is incredibly obvious) then Blissey just forced Virizion out?

On the other hand if you stay in to tank the status move then Virizion is already poisoned / paralyzed, which makes it easier for Blissey's teammates to deal with it?

If you CM as Blissey Protects (congrats, you just won the first 50-50) you still have another 50-50 to play with "will Blissey switch out or will it stay in" where predicting wrong carries the Toxic counter as a price.

I do not think the entire scenario is 50-50. It is slightly (but only slightly) biased in favour of Blissey, mainly because CM Virizion's moves to beat it are so static and therefore predictable.

But lol, read earlier in the topic and I do agree with this:

using blissey to deal with a fighting poke is most of the time not an ideal situation. at the very least i would have hoped you were competent enough to go with the "i use a stall team and i like to run tspikes, so i can just do random switches to rid of virizion while poison racks up" which is an actual viable way for stall teams to deal with a good number of threats, including celebi, volcarona, terrakion, and scrafty for example.

once again, virizion has plenty of counters, but not all will work against every version

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Blissey isn't an ideal counter to Virizion. It does check it, but it's more of a last-ditch effort that will likely involve switching out to rack up poison damage at some point than a first-choice counter.

I think we can all agree that theorymon isn't the best way to handle these discussions. Actually playing pokemon will yield better results than picture perfect scenarios, since things never actually turn out that way once you try to apply them on the battlefield.

So yesterday, I was playing with that old rain team I made in about five minutes that I put together. If it wasn't for the fact that I wasn't using SR, no steel types, and only two offensive pokemon, I'd be talking about how easy rain is to counterplay. It was probably a mistake to have toxicroak as the only physical pokemon, as I was getting made fun of by generally faster threats, bulky grasses, and celebi. Aside from not being 2hko'd by tornadus' grass knot, gastrodon wasn't an issue.

What do you guys think are the best physical rain pokes? I was thinking of abusing SD Scizor.

CB Swampert, Sub DD Gyara, and Scarfgyara are all good.

alphatron said:

What do you guys think are the best physical rain pokes? I was thinking of abusing SD Scizor.

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Azumarill (provided you have a method to lure/trap Jellicent), Sharpedo, and Gyarados are the best Pokes to spam strong Waterfalls. Physical Non-water Pokes that benefit from rain / fit nicely on many rain teams include Curse Ferrothorn, SD Scizor, SD Virizion, and Metagross, just to name a few.

DD Rest Toxic Lapras is a pretty cool bulky attacker in the rain if you can remove Rotom-W, Toxicroak and Ferrothorn. Set up on and kill anything you can with Waterfall, use Toxic and Rest to stall out anything you can't.

Chieliee said:

guys. a friend of mine (Mynism) just found the best chansey/blissey/weather starter killer ever (at least, IMO). Dugtrio. Now everyone knows that duggy's EQ only deals 30-ish% to Chansey. BUT:

Dugtrio@Expert Belt
Arena Trap
252 Atk 4 Def 252 Spe
Adamant (+atk -sp.atk)
IV's: Enough HP to get 201
-Subsitute
-EQ
-Reversal
-SR/Sucker Punch/Stone Edge


bye bye blissey/ttar/politoed/ninetales. I'm not 100% positive if dugtrio can OHKO chansey with reversal. And yeah, this thing can't deal with Abomasnow if you don't use Stone Edge in the last slot

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Duggy has been running reversal with sash for a while now and im assuming you dont mean he discovered duggy trapping

How is Expert Belt helping Dugtrio beat Politoed?

Also if anyone has any feedback to my question, I'd be grateful Issues with U-Turn / Volt Switch

Use of substitute? Yeah I got nothing.

Really, all you need to do to stop a virizion flat out is have blissey or something else really bulky use T-wave...... Virizion sweep is a no go. With LO damage combined with seismic toss, it's not gonna last long. Or you could toxic it to quicken the process, at the risk of having it sweep.

Pocket said:

How is Expert Belt helping Dugtrio beat Politoed

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Simple: you need to set SR up and make Politoed switch out and in at least 17 times

Master Win said:

Really, all you need to do to stop a virizion flat out is have blissey or something else really bulky use T-wave...... Virizion sweep is a no go. With LO damage combined with seismic toss, it's not gonna last long. Or you could toxic it to quicken the process, at the risk of having it sweep.

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Blissey is not a flat out stop -_-. Aeroblacktyl just said that last page, with clacs to back it up. And paralyising Virizion is actually one of the worst things to do besides burning because Virizion can still take hits and hit back. Hell, half of my Virizion sweeps were when she was paralyzed when I used her.

haven't actually played the game in a while, but on the subject of Virizion, has anybody actually tried using Work Up over Calm Mind? This allows you to use the far more reliable Close Combat over Focus Blast whilst keeping the excellent Giga Drain and, lets face it, it's rare that the +1 SpD boost from Calm Mind is gamebreaking for Virizion.

i'm not sure what the best way to EV it is, but even with 0 Atk EVs, +1 Life Orb CC OHKO's standard Ferrothorn and 252/252+ Blissey. Might be worth throwing in a few Atk EVs to better deal with Scizor (who loses about 75% from CC as it is) but i imagine having to run Hasty/Naive will be a pain.

holy crud, that is an excellent idea.

lee you are a god

Hasty is probably the nature of choice, considering you would probably need something to take surfs and thunderbolts and such. Although a burn from scald is going to hurt. Latios and Latias still wall you hard though.

Why hasn't anybody mentioned SpDef Forry as a switch in? If Virizion is suffering from Toxic Spikes and carrying a Life Orb, while also undergoing Sandstorm, then a Gyro Ball to the face takes out a good chunk of HP. And if Forry has already done his job of winning the hazard war, being able to sacrifice himself to put a huge dent in a sweeper is only a huge plus.

Scarfwynaut said:

Use of substitute? Yeah I got nothing.

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Actually he's using Sub together with Perish Song Politoed.