View Single Post
Old Nov 10th, 2012, 11:41:45 PM   #40
Honko
pronounced "Honko"
is a Tiering Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
 
Honko's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 1,023
Default

Yeah I like this meta a lot. Cress is a fantastic add to almost any team, whether as a T-Waving pivot for offense or a reliable wall for semistall. The best part is it doesn't really outclass anything; there are still some teams that will legitimately prefer Uxie or Slowking for that role, and they also have other roles they can fill that Cressy can't. And while a well-played Cress can make life pretty rough for a lot of attackers like Nidoqueen, Sceptile, Medicham, Hitmonlee, and Tauros, it doesn't stop those mons from being viable. They still have their place in the meta. Cress adds a lot of variety and creativity to the tier, and that's just with one set. Almost everyone has been using the excellent CM + T-Wave set, but as Cress settles in I look forward to seeing it in other roles more often, maybe as a weather supporter or SubCM.

Durant is strong and fast but clearly not broken. Also, its power is a bit overstated. Its Attack stat is obviously one of the best in the game with Hustle, but it only has 80 BP STABs to work with. Durant's X-Scissor isn't as powerful as, say, Entei's Flare Blitz or Hitmonlee's Hi Jump Kick. It's actually closer to Primeape's Close Combat or Kangaskhan's Double-Edge. Strong, but not amazingly strong. It really needs to set up before it can smash everything, not just because it wants the accuracy boost, but because it needs the power boost too. And, as anyone who's used Durant recently will tell you, finding a chance to set up is easier said than done. I think it's underused a bit right now because half the players still don't realize it's unbanned and the other half are more interested in using or reliably countering Cress. Once it settles in it should be one of the top 10-15 attackers in the tier, but I wouldn't put it much higher than that. Certainly not so overwhelmingly good that we should keep it banned.
__________________
Honko is offline