Smogon Community - View Single Post - np: RU Stage 7

SilentVerse · Apr 2nd, 2012, 2:34:44 PM

To be honest I won't particularly miss Claydol, since I personally felt that it wasn't really that great in the first place. I guess that it's niche will be hard to replace, but I've always found a combination of Steelix or something + Hitmonchan much better if you need Rapid Spin support and Stealth Rock, unless you really needed to have both in one teamslot, and even then, it's not like Claydol could spin well against any team with a spinblocker. In terms of spinners though, RU has enough of them to make losing Claydol not really a huge loss imo, since Kabutops, Hitmonchan, Cryogonal, Sandslash (hey it can actually hurt spinblockers!) are all excellent choices. I'm going to agree that Honchkrow, Gligar, and Sharpedo can't be replaced, either, though I think Absol and Crawdaunt might be used a bit more as people try to use them to replace Honchkrow and Sharpedo, though Absol lacks Honchkrow's awesome STAB Brave Bird and Crawdaunt is too slow to sweep like Sharpedo. Still, they'll probably be somewhat decent choices, but obviously nowhere near the level of the Pokemon they're replacing.

I'm more afraid that this round is going to lead to a huge rise in Nasty Plot Trick Room Cofagrigus usage, which is going to be a pain to deal with without Sharpedo and Honchkrow. Mandibuzz and Drapion will probably be the best bets to deal with it, though they're actually quite good and they should have more usage anyway. Unfortunately, the problem is that Cofagrigus works stupidly well alongside entry hazards, so Drapion isn't that reliable useless you use RestTalk or something (which is actually really cool though). This round certainly seems like it's going to be interesting though!

Apr 2nd, 2012, 2:34:44 PM	#6
SilentVerse Into the New World Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 645	To be honest I won't particularly miss Claydol, since I personally felt that it wasn't really that great in the first place. I guess that it's niche will be hard to replace, but I've always found a combination of Steelix or something + Hitmonchan much better if you need Rapid Spin support and Stealth Rock, unless you really needed to have both in one teamslot, and even then, it's not like Claydol could spin well against any team with a spinblocker. In terms of spinners though, RU has enough of them to make losing Claydol not really a huge loss imo, since Kabutops, Hitmonchan, Cryogonal, Sandslash (hey it can actually hurt spinblockers!) are all excellent choices. I'm going to agree that Honchkrow, Gligar, and Sharpedo can't be replaced, either, though I think Absol and Crawdaunt might be used a bit more as people try to use them to replace Honchkrow and Sharpedo, though Absol lacks Honchkrow's awesome STAB Brave Bird and Crawdaunt is too slow to sweep like Sharpedo. Still, they'll probably be somewhat decent choices, but obviously nowhere near the level of the Pokemon they're replacing. I'm more afraid that this round is going to lead to a huge rise in Nasty Plot Trick Room Cofagrigus usage, which is going to be a pain to deal with without Sharpedo and Honchkrow. Mandibuzz and Drapion will probably be the best bets to deal with it, though they're actually quite good and they should have more usage anyway. Unfortunately, the problem is that Cofagrigus works stupidly well alongside entry hazards, so Drapion isn't that reliable useless you use RestTalk or something (which is actually really cool though). This round certainly seems like it's going to be interesting though!