Thread: Weavile
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Old Dec 17th, 2012, 10:42:23 PM   #20
alkinesthetase
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i was thinking about substitute vile but i see a few problems off the bat. firstly, you're probably only gonna get one shot at the sub in the entire game. SR weakness + life orb + sub means your health will be slipping away fast. after performing the substitute play once successfully you will be at less than half your health. another SR switch in means you will not be able to use sub again, perhaps not even attack.

this ties in with another problem - if you could predict your opponent was going to give you the substitute, you could have pursuited them and, against most offensive pokemon, vile's stab neutral doubled pursuit will be an OHKO. yeah that requires some godly predictions, but that's part of the game when using pursuit =/ putting your opp one mon down is an immediate return. if they stay in and attack you as you sub up, sure you've bought yourself one turn, but you're a quarter down on health and you have to make the same gamble again - pursuit them or hit them expecting them to stay in and attack a second time? if you go and substitute again, chances are weavile will not even be coming in a second time; you'll have half your health or less. it's made even harder by the fact that substitute forces you to sacrifice an attacking move; there's not a lot of wiggle room on the moveset when you already need pursuit+ice stab to even justify using weavile in OU.

on top of that, there are a lot more things that wall vile than just fighting-neutral steels. a lot of generic bulky waters can go toe to toe with it. just as one random example,
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Politoed: 122-146 (31.77 - 38.02%) -- 0.63% chance to 3HKO
most of them don't have recovery so the damage will add up, but it'll add up even faster on weavile, who's packing SR weakness, life orb and possibly your substitute. the substitute makes life a bit easier if your opp switches to one of these pokemon since they can't hit you right away, but you're not gaining much in the exchange. you can't just take out steels, sub up and start squeezing most offense teams - weavile has a lot more counters than that.


i don't really see any alternative moves like substitute or swords dance opening up new directions for OU weavile. they don't really change how it fares against the things it's used to beat, and if you're concerned about anything other than those things, you really shouldn't be using weavile at all
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