np: NU Stage 7 - Free Bird

[Zebraiken*]

Originally Posted by Fat Raseri

I'm really liking hail offense right now, blizzard is really hard to switch into, and the few things that can tank them easily (Regice, Lickilicky, Wartortle?) are pretty easy to wear down with any of the other 4 members you have. But hail aside, I really want to talk about Fire-types.


No one is surprised that Fire-types got better when Hail was introduced, but man are they good. When I think of Fire-types, I generally think of Emboar, Torkoal, and Charizard. But this metagame has allowed others like Camerupt, Lampent and even Rapidash to flourish. Fire attacks are simply really spammable right now, with few resists, and the resists generally not being able to switch in that often anyways.

Scarf Charizard is probably the one that scares me the most, its really fast, strong and rips a lot of offensive hail teams to shreds (my team). I could imagine any fast Fire-type being really good right now tbh.

I could go on and talk about all of them, but I wonder what you guys think of Fire-types right now? Who has a fire in their heart they just want to let out?

i used a faux sun team just before hail dropped and while it was pretty damn fun to play around with, i was blown away by how good specs camerupt was. like, obviously it has a number of flaws, but it tears through just about everything with overheat / earth power / hp ice. it outright ohkoes some of the bulkier stuff in NU even without taking hazards into account, like evio gurdurr, rotom-s, gardevoir... i mean, when you watch it do 65% to alomomola with a resisted overheat, i think you'll be impressed too. i also had some quirky sun supporters with it, and it just obliterated everything not named specially defensive mantine / thick fat grumpig. clean OHKO on mushy? yes please. :)

i'm still pretty worried about SR with most fire-types, though. hail teams give everyone more of an incentive than ever to carry an SR setter and the means to deal with CB sawk, meaning it's going to be hard to keep SR off the field without directly using a spinner. choice scarf zard sounds pretty sweet, but when you take into account that it can switch in -twice- in total and the fact that it has to switch constantly due to the nature of scarf sets... idk, it's probably much better than i imagine it to be, but it seems pretty difficult to actually pull off successfully.

edit @ dtc's post: make sure your specs eggy is timid otherwise you won't outrun scarf rotom-a!! ;-;

[DTC]

Yeah, Charizard does extraordinarily well against hail teams if it finds time to set up. Most hail teams I see these days are totally steamrolled by Sunny Day Charizard and just new a little bit of prior weakening before they flat out lose. The hail teams with Regirock and/or "random" Choice Scarf Pokemon like Rotom-Frost and Sawk tend to be the most annoying for Charizard, but as long as you play smart, you can get past those as well.

Speaking of Sunny Day Charizard, I recommend using the core of Sunny Day Charizard + Choice Specs Exeggutor. They do well in removing each others counters and Choice Specs Exeggutor appreciates the Speed boost gained from sun if Charizard dies after it sets up Sunny Day. You should definitely use Heat Rock > Leftovers on Charizard if you are using this core.

Edit: Camerupt! That is something I have not used in a while. I need to make a team with some kind of Camerupt set later, because it is quite a cool Pokemon. =]

[FLCL]

i've used specs camerupt outside of sun with eruption/fire blast/earth power/hidden power [rock] (which is superior to hidden power [ice] in my opinion because it hits articuno, charizard, swanna, and mantine as well, although the latter takes pitiful damage) and it was extremely powerful, ohkoing pokemon such as eelektross with eruption can completely demolishing the alomomola plus amoonguss core. what i didn't like about specs cameupt, however, was that it was completely open to pokemon such as ludicolo, samurott, or golurk after it had gotten a kill. since i was using an offensive team, i couldn't afford to risk another pokemon, so i often was forced to sacrifice camerupt after it gets a ko. maybe using camerupt on a balanced team is a better idea since you can find many chances to switch it in on electric or poison types and blow something up while being able to retain the momentum through walling the opponent after something goes down.

[JirachiCelebiMew]

Ok, I'll talk about my experience using Hail. It's fun, and frankly, Hail teams are just so rare. Weather itself is very rare. The main threats to my team are Fire-types, mostly Emboar and Charizard, as I can't switch anything on the latter (Except if the opponent goes for Superpower and I switch to Duosion) and Charizard just eats me up for breakfast, as my only counter is Stone Edge CB Sawk, which is frankly unreliable. So Scarf 'Zard takes me down real easily. Another counter to Hail is Pinsir, who is a really good anti-meta 'mon. Duosion can't do much to him, as +2 Pinsir can just spam X-Scissor and Close Combat for the win. BlizzSpamming is very fun, and especially destructive if the opponent has no Ice-resists. Specs Glaceon does a huge chunk to Alo with Blizzard, and can easily 2HKO.

One Pokemon that I really never saw but that scares me a lot is RD Gothorita. Goth has no problem freeing up a moveslot for RD. The Specially Defensive variant can easily switch into Snover, set-up RD, kill it, and hamper the opponent's team who probably relies on Hail to work.

I'll be laddering under the alt of Snowver.

[Sweet Jesus]

I tried hail when it first was released and while it was very effective, it was nothing near broken. Charizard and knock off sawk have been mentionned, but many other pokes deserve a special mention about how well they counter hail. This is mainly due to the fact hail teams often have a very restricted pool of pokemon to choose from if they want to cover the weaknesses snover and one or two other ice types will bring. Duosion garbodor and carracosta are the three main physicaly defensive pokes hail teams tend to carry and r since otom-f is usualy better using sub split than scarf, hail teams often tend to be very slow too.

This opens the way to many non-fighting physical attackers that can do big damage to duosion carracosta and garbodor with thier STAB and coverage moves. While pinsir falls with 1 less speed than rotom-f, he can realy threaten the thre 3 physical walls without even using a choice band or a life orb, swords dance and sub moxie variants can really tear huge holes in those teams. Rampardos is even slower, but a sheer force LO variant can really crush the three walls and golurk that can be quite common on hail teams too. For the ultimate trolls, I could see an offensive eviolite sneasel demolishing hail teams, but it would probably be terrible against most standard teams.

Hail still brings some very nice aspects to the meta reducing the effectivness of 4 of the most metagame defining pokes in NU (zangoose, musharna, amoonguss and ludicolo). It counters many teams that would otherwise wreck the meta and brings some nice variety imo. I definately don't see it as banworthy though, because of the small pool of usable hail pokemon making the teams nearly always weak to the previously mentionned threats. Even a team with no specifc hail counter has a good chance to win with a reliable and durable duosion counter, anythng with big attack and some SR.

On another note, I recently had some great sucess with a standard specialy defensive bastiodon. He has a harder time against hail teams because leftovers recovery is so crucial to his survival, but even then he always gets rocks up against them and can usualy pull off a couple of roars on SR weak teams before dying. In the meta in general however, he turned out to be amazing. His special defence is so good, he can wall even electric, fire and grass types that hit him for neutral damage with only protect and lefties as his recovery. Protect also choice locks many of his most dangerous threats into attacks that become very easy to counter and adds up toxic damage really easily while roar phazes out anything trying so set up on him.

For the vote, my alts are sweep jesus and sweetsweep. I might make another one soon because a few early unlucky games can really limit the laddering capacities of an alt on this ladder, but it should be easily recognizable (I have the rights on every possible alt containing jesus just saying).

[Shuckleking87]

I really enjoy the introduction of hail in this metagame, as it opened up the tier to some more creativity after a time of a somewhat static metagame and no introduction of big threats. Not as they weren't before, but now stealth rocks are an absolute must, especially against hail teams that have at least a couple stealth rock weak mons. With hail teams, I have noticed a heavy decrease in heal bellers/aromatherapy pokes, especially since musharna is not seen as often as it was before (though it can still be effective) and I really haven't seen that many thick fat miltanks surprisingly (use this in ru, but that's besides the point). My last team consisted of a couple t-wave and toxic abusers, which really cripple either fast hail teams, offensive teams in general (t-wave) and hail stall teams (toxic).

Also, even though this little guy might not be around for too long, cb cinccino has really worked wonders in this meta. Especially against hail teams, there are not many pokes that can take a cb rock blast, and it is almost a free move to spam (minus sawks). I believe piloswine is the only poke ice poke that can take rock blast after stealth rocks, and almost kills walrein. The problem with this poke is some ice body pokes carry protect, which further annoys cinccino and racks up damage very quickly, especially since it is so prone to hazards.

Another poke that I really love is specially defensive Probopass, 252/238+/20 speed to outspeed paralzyed ludicolo in rain. Stealth rocks/ t-wave/pain split/volt switch. Can tank choiced locked blizzard spammers, paralyze them, pain split to keep a decent hp, and volt switch for momentum.

I will also be shuckleking__ for all the alts on the ladder

[Zebraiken*]

Nothing against SK87 and SJ, but just briefly to clarify this before others start posting it without actually discussing anything itt: you do not need to tell me what your alts are right now. That is what the Alt ID thread (that I will post in four days) is for. If you fear that you will be entirely unable to make a three-second post over the course of the 23rd through the 26th, you may PM me your alt names before then. Otherwise, just wait for the time to come.

On topic:

I've played some matches with hail, and its biggest problem is the fact that you have to be completely one-dimensional to be successful (or at least, no one's really found a better way to go about it yet!). Basically, the necessities of hail force it to fall into very specific builds or else it falters against most popular threats. Most hail teams you'll probably see are specially defensive Snover / CB Sawk / physically defensive Duosion / abuser (variants of Glaceon or Rotom-F) / Piloswine or Regirock / filler. There are obviously multiple other slight variations you can make, but most successful hail teams I'm seeing are of the bulky offense variety, and they aren't anywhere near as dominant as we might have initially imagined. Let's go into a brief example of the thought process behind building an offensive hail team to explain what I mean by "one-dimensional".

OK step one: you obviously have to have Snover on your team. Unless you're an incredible team builder that can somehow put together an offensive hail team that doesn't need permanent hail, Snover is absolutely essential to your team and it'll need to see the field of play at least once, if not more than that if your opponent has some kind of weather setter of their own (Sunny Day Exeggutor and Rain Dance Ludicolo come to mind, and neither require complete dedication of a team to said weather). Here's the kicker, though: while it does have its own unique traits that make it at least better than useless (example: it's a pretty good check to the aforementioned Ludicolo), it's still a very limited Pokemon whose only purpose is to set up your entire win condition, and its presence is easily taken advantage of. You need to carry a Pokemon that is slow, offensively inept (its Blizzard doesn't always 2HKO physically defensive Amoonguss, let alone things that are neutral to it), defensively challenged thanks to a plethora of common weaknesses including an SR weakness, and still manage to make it a valuable and useful member of your team. Specially defensive Snover is not bad, I'll admit, but it's still much, much more of a burden on a team than it is a boon. Something like Sawk can just double switch into it or just eat a Blizzard for 60% and spam Close Combat / Earthquake and tear through your team (hence the need for something like Duosion or multiple Sawk / Emboar checks). To summarize step one: add a dead weight to your team and hope your opponent isn't good enough to play off of your need to have it in battle at least once.

Step two: if you're trying to use hail offensively, you need to use Blizzard, the only move it actually affects. There are a number of decent Pokemon that can use it to good effect but the most notable ones are going to be Rotom-F and Glaceon. Rotom-F has the whole dual STAB BoltBeam going on, while Glaceon has raw power and that dumb SubProtect set that's quite annoying. Both of these are quite good, which is to be expected - it's why you're using a dead weight like Snover, after all! But the problem is that they multiply weaknesses. Specs Glaceon is fucking awesome, but then you have to deal with SR as well as having issues with the same Pokemon as Snover (Sawk Emboar etc, although obviously they cannot switch in at all). Rotom-F is similar but carries much less power and is incredibly susceptible to stuff like Piloswine, which is enormously popular right now. Of course you could outright avoid stacking weaknesses and not even use any of these guys (or use something like Blizzard Samurott), but then why the fuck are you going out of your way to use hail? Sure, the passive damage is nice, but it really doesn't compensate for the waste of space that is Snover. You can very well just use Ice Beam Samurott and stick something else that will actually do something important for your team in lieu of Snover (hazards, perhaps?)

So basically, you have to use our established dead weight, Snover, along with a Pokemon that shares weaknesses to the same general Pokemon. To not be ripped to shreds completely by Emboar and friends, you essentially need to dedicate the rest of your team to dealing with them, since you're using two Pokemon that are so susceptible to it. Considering that nothing can outright deal with both Emboar / Sawk anyway barring potentially Alomomola & Musharna (both of whom lose Leftovers recovery in hail, and the latter also having Moonlight being cut), you are pressured to have multiple options to avoid losing a Pokemon to them. Let's think it out: you have a Snover out while your opp has 100% Emboar, but you have Carracosta and Garbodor in the backfield. What's the proper thing to do here to minimize your losses?

If you thought "Protect to scout its move", you're probably right. You don't have to take unnecessary risks, right? Except suddenly that Emboar is actually Expert Belt and nukes your Flare Blitz resist in Carracosta. Better yet, it's actually a Sub + Special variant that just Subs on your Protect and proceeds to nuke the rest of your team while you scramble around trying to break its Sub since Snover can't do jack shit to it. Even when you are already pressured to go out of your way to carry multiple checks, it STILL has the ability to overtake an entire hail team. This isn't exclusive to Emboar, either; many other Pokemon have the tools to take advantage of Snover & friends and the options that hail gives you just cannot withstand the pressure.

There's also the issue of keeping SR away. Most hail teams have reverted to using CB Sawk since it puts enormous pressure on SR setters and is honestly excellent in the current metagame, but Sawk can't spin rocks away. Hail teams are crippled by SR more than any other since they have to carry at least two SR-weak Pokemon, if not more, and they can't rely on something like Sawk to keep them off the field unless you can perfectly read your opponent all the time. "Carry a spinner?" Sure, if I want more slow, dead weight on my team that can't deal with opposing Sawk or Ludicolo or whatever the fuck my opponent feels like using. Using Snover alone is a stretch, but when you have to dedicate a third of your team to dismally effective Pokemon, you're more than likely boned against the majority of the metagame. . .

I'll say that hail does exceptionally well against unprepared teams or stallier ones that are built around Alomomola + Amoonguss (when are you people going to grow out of that), but so does other shit like Gardevoir, and that doesn't even need multiple other Pokemon to be successful. I guess I should ask anyone else if they've actually been consistently successful with a different brand of hail, but nothing I've tried has even come close to making up for Snover, and BlizzSpam itself as a strategy is ineffective given that we have so many awesome checks like Regice and Piloswine that are really good atm.

[Wobble]

Originally Posted by Fat Raseri

I'm really liking hail offense right now, blizzard is really hard to switch into, and the few things that can tank them easily (Regice, Lickilicky, Wartortle?) are pretty easy to wear down with any of the other 4 members you have. But hail aside, I really want to talk about Fire-types.


No one is surprised that Fire-types got better when Hail was introduced, but man are they good. When I think of Fire-types, I generally think of Emboar, Torkoal, and Charizard. But this metagame has allowed others like Camerupt, Lampent and even Rapidash to flourish. Fire attacks are simply really spammable right now, with few resists, and the resists generally not being able to switch in that often anyways.

Scarf Charizard is probably the one that scares me the most, its really fast, strong and rips a lot of offensive hail teams to shreds (my team). I could imagine any fast Fire-type being really good right now tbh.

I could go on and talk about all of them, but I wonder what you guys think of Fire-types right now? Who has a fire in their heart they just want to let out?

What advantages does Scarf Zard have over say, Simisear or Rapidash?

It's flying typing makes it arguably much worse to deal with Ice types, and it can actually be damaged by things like Ice Shard.

I've also been bothered by the fact that Zard cannot cleanly OHKO Regice and can be hit back with Thunderbolt.


Rapidash would likely fair much better there with a Flare Blitz, as well as Megahorn being a nice coverage move for the common Duosions that are on Hail teams.

[Sidfrid]

Originally Posted by Fat Wobble

What advantages does Scarf Zard have over say, Simisear or Rapidash?

It's flying typing makes it arguably much worse to deal with Ice types, and it can actually be damaged by things like Ice Shard.

I've also been bothered by the fact that Zard cannot cleanly OHKO Regice and can be hit back with Thunderbolt.

Rapidash would likely fair much better there with a Flare Blitz, as well as Megahorn being a nice coverage move for the common Duosions that are on Hail teams.

It depends on the set you're using. Scarf Zard is a real force to take advantage without any setup, Fire Blast for the common ice types and Air Slash to that Sawk with a pity 85 base speed.

On Simisear, the sub-salac set with nasty plot (that a lot of setup) can be very devasting, but it need a lot of support from your team (double screens anyone?)

On Rapidash (i once owned a Rapidash and named her Sarah Jessica Parker!)
I used a weird set with Hypnosis and an Air Balloon as a counter to choice locked Emboar. But in the new hail metagame, Choice Band Rapidash seems pretty viable, since she don't care about Duosion Psyshock and can retail back with Megahorn. I really like to test rapidash a little more in hail, she is clearly an underrated pokemon.

[Swamp-Rocket]

I finally got around to testing hail a bit, and here is what I think of it.

Other weather teams are somewhat common in NU and hail has generally caused me a few problems. I remember running into a sun team, and while it wasn't necessarily dangerous toward my team, it was still somewhat of a pain to keep hail up. While Specially Defensive Snover can take hits for a while, it won't take the physical ones very well, which comes into the problem of Fire-type Pokemon spamming Flare Blitz. I want to echo a bit on Rapidash - it is a huge threat to a hail team. I remember earlier I was facing a Choice Banded Rapidash... I struggled against it! I thought "hey maybe my Emboar can take a hit..." and it took a whopping 46% damage from Rapidash's Flare Blitz. I haven't seen any rain teams yet, but ironically Snover himself (and Rotom-F to an extent) deal with these teams the best most likely, since Snover takes so little damage from Water-types (and its immune to Leech Seed from Ludicolo).

One thing that I have loved and hated is Walrein. On one hand, yes, it is capable of stalling pretty easily is it can get is streak going on but the problem... is actually getting on the said "streak." What I mean by that is get some Toxic Spikes up, set up a Substitute, and the protect them to death. Walrein probably has the biggest case of 4MSS ever... I want Blizzard for an attacking move, protect is useful for extra healing, Substitute is "free of charge," Toxic is for when Toxic Spikes is absorbed/doesn't get laid down, and Super Fang speeds up the process and makes sure you don't run out of PP. There is even Surf to make sure you aren't just set-up fodder for some Pokemon like Rotom-F. However, you can only have 4 of these moves, and really I find this a problem since for utility purposes Walrein wants all 6 of these moves, but it cannot simply do this. Due to this, Walrein either has succesfully stalled out a lot of a team or just falls short and does nothing but sit there, staying alive but not doing much damage in return.

[JirachiCelebiMew]

Walrein never worked for me, tbh. Sawk just destroys it, and some other common Pokemon too, but when you can pull it off, it works wonderfully.

[Sidfrid]

I found out that the Axis Power conformed by Emboar, Rapidash and Skuntank is very useful and almost unstoppable by Offensive Hail or Hail-Stall teams.

They cover for common pokemon found on hail teams: Emboar and Rapidash for that mounstrous STAB'ed Flare Blitz, and with Skuntank inmunity to Psychock and taking neutral damage from HP Fighting offensely Duosion can't do a thing, and just get taunted, getting rid of Calm Mind and his beloved Recover. In Such position he have two options:
Stay there to be massacred by Crunch or switch out to his partner in crime Sawk and get hit by (a maybe fatal) Pursuit. Not to mention that he is inmune to Snover Toxic and the physically defensive snover is obliterated by Poison Jab.

If Emboar is out and Duosion come in, Rapidash can come in Psyshock (but not in the rare Psychic) by taking half or her HP away and retail back with Megahorn, but to be honest even Choice Banded Rapidash can't OHKO Duosion with Megahorn and since the Magic Guard Duosion is the common one now (i remember a few month ago that the regenerator one was hot stuff), i cannot say things like "after SR damage". Simply Rapidash Can't kill Duosion, neither Emboar.

But the other way is applied too, Duosion can't come in Rapidash Flare Blitz and survive a second assault, while Rapidash can shrugg off the damage with Morning Sun (just be aware of the weather) if not is the Choiced one.
Now the Life orb set need a mention: by switching attacks and by have Morning Sun Rapidash is pretty durable..... if Hail is not up.

I won't talk about Emboar, 'coz by now we all now what Emboar can and can not do, but there are few things he can not do.

That was for the Stall side, now the offensive side: Choice Specs Glaceon is the devil, but his power is his doom. Glaceon is easy to revange kill since to get the kill she need all the power that a choice set provide, a Scarfed Glaceon lacks power and is easily perceived.

Other prominent threat is the now premier revange killer: Rotom-F, neither of the three pokemon i mentioned in this post can come in, but Piloswine was good at stopping Scaf Rotom-S and is good stopping Scarf Rotom-F, but no the SubSplit one. But then again revange kill is the key here, you need to sacrifice something, but that too is a war tactic.

(I don't like Regice, when is DW ability get released, if ever, i may use it, but not now)

[JirachiCelebiMew]

I'm kind of bored here, so I think this is the best time to post my thoughts about Hail in general. Yes, I know I made a similar post, but I was tired, so it wasn't the best.

Lez start with Hail offense. It's, in my opinion, the best way to go with Hail. I have a Hail offense team which is currently 63-11, which I think is pretty good. Hail offense always looks similar. It's always Snover / Sawk / Duosion / Rotom-F / Hail abuser / Filler. Or something like that. It is a very good playstyle, as it will always keep the opponent on his toes. ''Is he using SubSplit Rotom-F or is it Scarf?'', ''Should I switch to Emboar and risk being Toxic'ed?''. It's really cool to play with, because Hail is so hated everywhere. The most important thing for Hail offense, is even though it has the word ''offense'' in it, you need a defensive pillar, and a Fire-resist. Piloswine, Regirock and others are really good in Hail because they hit hard, and they can provide support for the team, such as Stealth Rocks, or even TWave support (Regirock). I use a nice support Pokemon in Regirock to spread paralysis so Specs Glaceon can sweep.

Next is Hail stall. This, I played very few games with it because my team wasn't very successful. I use Tentacool for setting up Toxic Spikes and spinning, and Walrein to stall people to death. Tentacool is actually a very interesting Pokemon. It's extremely bulky on the Special side, and makes a nice counter to both Gurdurr, and Ludicolo. Ludicolo can do literally nothing, as Giga Drain does more damage to him than to Tenta due to Liquid Ooze. Tenta doesn't wall Gurdurr as well, but resists every single of it's move, except the very rare Payback (Why don't people use that more? He's slow, and it still hits Golurk + Psychic types..), can Knock Off it's Eviolite, and can switch into a predicted Drain Punch. Walrein is very bulky, and the SubProtect set is a pain to face, but the real deal is the StockPile set, which can be only defeated by phazing, by a crit, or by CB Rampardos at +2 with Head Smash.

One Pokemon that I want to talk about is Duosion. Duosion can defeat a whole team by itself. It's very easy to switch into a predicted Toxic from Alomomola, and start Calm Mind'ing. Absol does around 55% with Night Slash, so Duosion can kill on the switch or OHKO at +1 with Signal Beam. Only reliable check is really Skuntank, because even at +1, Duosion can't 2HKO with Signal Beam.

To conclude, Hail is a very fun playstyle in NU. It's fun to play with, and a pain to face. It's nowhere near broken, and pretty rare too.

[EBeast]

I wouldn't say that hail teams are always Snover/Duosion/Sawk/Rotom-F...etc, I for one don't use either Duosion or Sawk on my hail team. I however, have found that Alomomola is quite the fantastic addition on these teams because it gives a huge buffer against Emboar that hail teams highly appreciate. Not only that, but the Wish support is amazing for keeping your Rotom-F and Snover alive as long as possible to break teams or cover Water-type Pokemon, respectively. Pinsir has been relegated as one of the biggest threats to hail teams, but I found that Golurk cover it pretty well while also providing a useful Rock-type resist, Fighting-type immunity, access to Stealth Rock, and ability to hit Duosion very hard with Shadow Punch.

Alomomola with Golurk work very nicely to cover a lot of the Pokemon that gives hail trouble, but even so the absolute biggest threat to the hail archetype--and even to teams in general atm-- would have to Special Emboar. Be it Specs, Sub + 3 Attacks, or Flame Charge + 3 Attacks, Emboar puts a hurting on hail teams as they are generally too busy trying to cover Birds and physical Fire-type Pokemon to attempt to fit in a way to beat Special Boar. Even when talking about how Special Emboar deals with teams of different archetypes, the answer will still be that it wrecks. Special Emboar has only 2 counters in NU: Mantine and Altaria. The latter does not do well at all in the current metagame and Mantine is worn down by Stealth Rock and by a lack of reliable recovery. So how does everyone else feel about Special Emboar? Does it deserve more usage and what other Pokemon can actually take in on reliably?

[JirachiCelebiMew]

I think it really deserves more usage. It can sweep a whole Hail team alone, and is pretty good outside of it too. He is also a great lure, as people tend to bring their Physical wall against him, so Emboar can massacre it.

[EBeast]

I was looking into Pokemon that can beat Special Boar and remembered that I used to use Grumpig to beat Jynx and Magmortar back in the day. With Thick Fat and it's Psychic-typing it can easily take on Special Emboar and even wall other special attackers such as Glaceon. (Has to watch out for Specs Glaceon Shadow Ball though) Grumpig has a bunch of support options in Whirlwind, Taunt, Thunder Wave, and Heal Bell as well to not make it complete dead weight, however would it be worth using on a team with all the Absol and Skuntank running around ready to Pursuit it? I would like to try something along the lines of Alomomola + Regice + Grumpig as they cover a lot of grounds together.

Grumpig's primary niche to handle Special Emboar is probably more helpful to Hail teams in particular than to any other kind of team, so I think it could gain some use there. Overall Grumpig is a pretty niche Pokemon, but in the metagame we have right now it can take advantage of its traits to the fullest.

[FLCL]

one of the biggest disadvantages of pig is that you have to sacrifice a teamslot for a psychic-type that cannot counter sawk, which means you'll either have to use a less solid counter like garbodor or stack up on an easily trappable type.

[CBTerrakion]

I have been testing hail for the past few days on the ladder and have found it to be very useful and quite the powerful offensive force, and has made Pokemon such as Duosion and Walrein from forgotten about to highly viable. However, I do not find hail broken due to the fact that it can be easily checked, with it not being responsible for powering up a move type, and with the recent banning of Snow Cloak, hail evasion is no longer a problem. To summarize in one sentence: Hail is a major force and must be prepared for, but isn't so "overcentralizing" to the NU metagame as to make it broken.

[Wobble]

Hail is actually the opposite of overcentralizing as it introduced a huge amount of new threats and viable mons like the aformentioned Walrein and Duosion but also underused mons like Glaceon and Rotom-F, nerfed mons like Musharna which actually did centralize the metagame and changed the physical attacking bias to increase the importance of special walls like Regice along with the slight fall of mons like Amoonguss(which can still run a mixed defensive spread rather decently)

[Cherub Agent]

So we lost hail :/
Stupid RU takes everything: Cinccino, Emboar, Amoonguss, Absol, Snover... the first four are NU icons for the love of god

[Honey boo boo]

Holy crap, nu is gonna change big time.

[Zebraiken*]

New np: thread coming your way soon.