RU Stage 14 - Nidoqueen Suspect Discussion - Page 3

SilentVerse · Jan 22nd, 2013, 8:46:28 PM

Ok, since Nidoqueen has been deemed the suspect for this round, this thread will officially be the Nidoqueen Suspect Discussion. Any posts not relevant to whether or not Nidoqueen is broken will be deleted.

Bad Romance · Jan 22nd, 2013, 10:42:10 PM

@people saying Clefable does nothing but counter Nidoqueen

Do you really believe a Pokemon capable of beating the #1 Special Attacker in the tier cannot beat other Special Attackers?

I honestly don't understand how some people claim Clefable is not good in a stall team. Clefable beats a huge portion of the special attackers in the tier, has an amazing supportive movepool, doesn't take residual damage thanks to Magic Guard and it has decent SAtk combined with a nice offensive movepool.

Uxie + Clefable is also really viable, and it does a lot more than just beating Nidoqueen. Uxie has both Stealth Rock and Heal Bell, something every single stall team appreciates. It shits on most Fighting-type Pokemon, something Clefable really appreciates. Uxie can also switch into nearly every Pokemon in the tier without getting 2HKOed, specially with Wish support, and at worse cripple them to the point of making them manageable for the rest of the team.

Uxie + Clefable is a really simple stall core that shits on Nidoqueen, covers a wide range of threats and is capable of proving important team support. The core is not perfect (no core is perfect...), but it works in this metagame.

Do stall teams need to run this core to not have Nidoqueen? No, you could just run one of its counters like Clefable or Musharna.

Do stall teams need to run a counter to not have Nidoqueen issues? Yes, but this doesn't mean it is broken or "overcentralizing", because the same applies to a huge amount of Pokemon like Aggron, Druddigon (go use stall without a Steel type and watch this thing getting a KO every time you let it attack), Gallade, Kabutops, etc

Personally I believe the problem with stall is the sheer number of strong attackers in the tier, not just Nidoqueen. I don't think it's possible to cover every threat in the RU and honestly I don't think that will be possible even if Nidoqueen gets banned.

Nails · Jan 23rd, 2013, 12:12:55 AM

ok so i quoted my post that i made in the np thread on page 1 and no one actually read it so here's the post outside of quote tags so reply to my points now

It doesn't take much from residual damage and is immune to thunder wave and toxic, the two most common status moves, and it does not take life orb recoil so you are forced to kill it with attacks; stalling out nidoqueen is not an option,and you cannot switch around before revenge killing it as with other attackers like moltres, galvantula, and accelgor. It is bulky enough to live supereffective attacks from defensive pokemon that it can 2hko and strong enough to one shot basically everything that is faster than it. Its speed is not incredible but defensive pokemon have no shot at outspeeding it, or must sacrifice large amounts of bulk in cases like uxie. Resistance to rock, bug (uturn), fighting, and neutrality to many other common types (and outspeeding most water, ground, and psychic types while having SE coverage on most as well), and its electric immunity give it many chances to switch in, and if offensive teams give it a sliver of an opening, it's bulky enough to switch in and score a free kill, possibly while absorbing a hit. It happens to be the best user of SR and toxic spikes in this metagame as well, but that's not even really that relevant other than just a display of its versatility. If pokes like clefable and lickilicky were an issue it could run focus blast (which is boosted by sheer force) to completely crush what are considered its best checks, but no one uses focus blast nidoqueen because the checks that focus blast beats are easily dealt with through team support and it would rather run other coverage moves.

Individual pokemon can beat nidoqueen 1 v 1. But it will score a kill if you have a single pokemon that it can get in on, and it doesn't even have to predict much to do it since it is so obscenely powerful.

Ningildo · Jan 24th, 2013, 7:51:07 AM

Okay, so I really dgaf about Queen, as I've used many teams without it and they fared fine.

The question I want to ask, though, is this:

Will you be able to counter/check everything in RU easily if Nidoqueen was banned?

Most people say that countering it is too much, so I really want to know if you can counter Absol/Entei/Kabutops/Lilligant/Omastar etc. more easily, if at all, if Queen is banned. Because if you could counter/check everything (which, according to the pro ban side, is too much), then Stall would be fine, right? Then, in that case, I would love to see a suspect ladder with Nidoqueen banned to see how it works out, instead of just theorymoning about a Queen-free meta.

And if that is too much, give me a team that can handle every single threat in RU (including notable NU pokemon) bar Nidoqueen to an extent without being run over by too many threats, since you guys are saying that Nidoqueen strains teambuilding.

Nails · Jan 24th, 2013, 3:32:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Ningildo

And if that is too much, give me a team that can handle every single threat in RU (including notable NU pokemon) bar Nidoqueen to an extent without being run over by too many threats, since you guys are saying that Nidoqueen strains teambuilding.

team + comments

my 8 minute team that checks pretty much everything in ru except for nidoqueen. let me know if i missed something.

Swamp-Rocket · Jan 24th, 2013, 5:37:43 PM

The above team can actually check Nidoqueen pretty well.

Slowking struggles against Nidoqueen thanks to Thunderbolt but Nidoqueen doesn't particularly enjoy taking a Scald (2HKO) which allows a priority user to finish it off. Entei can OHKO Nidoqueen and outspeed it, while switching into anything that is not Earth Power. Kabutops can OHKO Nidoqueen if it gets a boost while doing a fair amount regardless (55%-65%) without the boost. Spiritomb can cause quite a few problems for Nidoqueen, either Tricking away its Life Orb for a nearly useless Choice Band or 2HKOing it with Sucker Punch while getting 2HKOed in return. While Steelix and Amoonguss lose to it, Steelix can still keep pressure with Earthquake and survive a hit with Sturdy, which allows a priority user finish it off. Amoonguss can survive any hit including Fire Blast, and then paralyze it (which makes it slower than Steelix and Slowking) or put it to sleep. Basically, all 6 team members have some way of crippling Nidoqueen and/or 2HKOing (or for Entei OHKOing) Nidoqueen.

I don't really see how that team stuggles with Nidoqueen.

Nails · Jan 25th, 2013, 12:34:40 PM

nidoqueen outspeeds all but two mons and 2hkoes the entire team, it can come in pretty much for free against steelix and earth power results in a free kill (unless you want to pivot around three times which requires perfect prediction and forces you to take a ton of hazards damage as well as powerful earth powers). and again, "sub queen".

yes all of the pokemon can do something bad to nidoqueen but it will do way more to them in return.

Koinzell · Jan 25th, 2013, 4:47:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Nails

nidoqueen outspeeds all but two mons and 2hkoes the entire team, it can come in pretty much for free against steelix and earth power results in a free kill (unless you want to pivot around three times which requires perfect prediction and forces you to take a ton of hazards damage as well as powerful earth powers). and again, "sub queen".

yes all of the pokemon can do something bad to nidoqueen but it will do way more to them in return.

I really don't get how Nidoqueen can "come in pretty much for free" against something that has STAB Earthquake, maybe you meant Spiritomb ? It's true that if it gets in while you Stealth Rock or something your team is in deep trouble. Still, I don't think Nidoqueen is to blame here, with 3 weaknesses to Ground and no resists, your team is weak to pretty much anything with STAB Ground moves. Let's take the on-site Eviolite Rhydon, he outspeeds your entire team bar Entei and Kabutops, Entei can't touch it and Waterfall-less Kabutops loses one on one. The rest of your team is 2HKOd.

About your Nidoqueen issues, using Sdef Slowking (and PhysDef Amoongus) instead of your current spread would make it much easier to pivot around her and LO Magmortar/Moltres (both break your current core). That would open you a little to CB Entei, but since you have a Kabutops I'm sure you can still deal with it.

I'm sorry, I'm still not seeing how Nidoqueen makes stall unviable.

**DittoCrow** · Jan 25th, 2013, 4:59:08 PM

I don't really get what posting a team is going to prove. No one is seeing it in any battles so all of the arguments around it are based off of theory which is never good, same with Uxie + Clefable being good on stall. Maybe logs would help, but otherwise this is kind of useless.

SilentVerse · Jan 25th, 2013, 6:06:04 PM

I think a lot of you guys are looking at the trees instead of the forest in this case. While Nidoqueen manhandling stall is one part of the argument, I doubt that it has been the entire argument for pro banners. Nidoqueen itself is just incredibly difficult to deal with outside of running offense / bulky Psychics; if Nidoqueen is able to get in, basically every slow Pokemon becomes a liability against it, simply because Nidoqueen is able to 2HKO almost every relevant slow Pokemon in RU, including Aggron, Regirock, Tangrowth, Steelix, and Ferroseed being just some of these. The thing about Nidoqueen though is that while these Pokemon can hit Nidoqueen somewhat hard, if they even give Nidoqueen the slightest chance to switch in for free, whether as they set up hazards or recover (which is why defensive Pokemon are at a significant disadvantage against Nidoqueen), they immediately become liabilities against Nidoqueen; after all, who cares if you can switch these Pokemon in on a resisted coverage attack when they get boned the next turn by another of Nidoqueen's attacks and can't even outspeed it? In this way, Nidoqueen centralizes the metagame around fast sweepers who outspeed it, as really, offensive Pokemon have the best chance against it without having to slap Uxie on your team or devoting half of your team or more to fast mons who resist some of Nidoqueen's coverage. And, in this way, Nidoqueen basically completely invalidates any slow team that isn't ridiculously offensively oriented that could potentially viable in this metagame, because if you even give it an inch to get in with a slow team, it is getting at least a kill unless your opponent is dumb and switches it in on Druddigon's Earthquake or something. Yeah, balance is viable, but the balance teams that I've seen which have been reasonably successful in this metagame, even if they have 2-3 slower mons, have to be absurdly offensively oriented so that Nidoqueen doesn't get a chance to switch in.

Edit: Ok people have compared this to stuff like Moltres on irc, but please don't do that rofl. I shouldn't even have to explain this, but 1) Nidoqueen is significantly harder to wear down than Moltres and 2) Nidoqueen can switch into those Pokemon much easier than Moltres can, taking into account Moltres's SR weakness.

**Pocket** · Jan 25th, 2013, 9:45:43 PM

Quote:

Nidoqueen centralizes the metagame around fast sweepers who outspeed it

With all due respect, this is a hilarious comment, since Nidoqueen aint breaking any Speed tiers, haha. It's average Speed is one of the main shortcomings that makes her so perfectly manageable. Outrunning Nidoqueen to check it is a non-issue. Not to mention there are handful of slow mons that can tank a hit from Nidoqueen and KO back, too.

blarajan had posted in the forums and Oglemi has told me in private that they were able to craft an effective stall team that's not weak to Nidoqueen. Granted, Nidoqueen is a bitch to stall teams, but it's certainly not an insurmountable threat. If I didn't go on auto-pilot and played with a plan, I probably would have had a better chance against SilentVerse's offensive team with my stall team (which didn't even account for Nidoqueen).

So there are numerous Pokemon that can check Nidoqueen in RU. From what I gather, anyone who wants Nidoqueen banned simply cba to cover a top threat

~~cocoon~~ · Jan 25th, 2013, 10:23:24 PM

Pocket, if you don't mind, could you post that stall team so everyone could see it? I want to know a few things about that team. First of all, will stall have to run the same 6 Pokemon to survive? Can the team be tweaked with and still be effective? And if changing anything on that team creates gaping weaknesses, wouldn't that prove the Nidoqueen limits team building, particularly on defensive teams. I'm all for adapting, but if only one type of stall team is viable, I do think that Nidoqueen needs to be banned on the grounds of how much it restricts you to viable options and the lengths you must take to counter it. As I've said before, for offensive teams, there's no skill when using Nidoqueen, in fact it makes offense a little too easy to use, while limiting defensive play styles to either very effective battlers or one type of team. It's going to take more than one successful stall team to convince me that the problem is people aren't adapting.

BossSauce · Jan 26th, 2013, 5:35:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Pocket

Outrunning Nidoqueen to check it is a non-issue.

-_-

That is what we're saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat SilentVerse

offensive Pokemon have the best chance against it without having to slap Uxie on your team or devoting half of your team or more to fast mons who resist some of Nidoqueen's coverage. And, in this way, Nidoqueen basically completely invalidates any slow team that isn't ridiculously offensively oriented that could potentially viable in this metagame

Because simply checking Nidoqueen with faster offensive threats is exponentially easier than trying to counter it with bulky slow pokemon, it centralizes the metagame to one around fast sweepers that outspeed it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Pocket

Not to mention there are handful of slow mons that can tank a hit from Nidoqueen and KO back, too.

There's already been plenty of discussion about this. Slow mons may be able to take one hit from Nidoqueen but very few can take more than that therefore the "handful" you talk about is unable to safely switch into Nidoqueen. Realistically, this either means that those pokes you're referring to are only safely coming in after Nidoqueen has already taken something out (which is the method that offensive teams use to check queen) or on a predicted double switch (keyword predict. The presence of queen forces you to gamble on predictions that are higher risk than the queen user's). This is just assuming slow pokes with enough offensive presence to OHKO Nidoqueen (i.e not common on stall teams). If discussing defensive pokes that do not have the ability to OHKO queen,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat SilentVerse

The thing about Nidoqueen though is that while these Pokemon can hit Nidoqueen somewhat hard, if they even give Nidoqueen the slightest chance to switch in for free, whether as they set up hazards or recover (which is why defensive Pokemon are at a significant disadvantage against Nidoqueen), they immediately become liabilities against Nidoqueen; after all, who cares if you can switch these Pokemon in on a resisted coverage attack when they get boned the next turn by another of Nidoqueen's attacks and can't even outspeed it?

Like SV said it's not just stall pokes that are adversely affected, it's 90% of the pokes under Nidoqueen's speed tier whether offensive or defensive.

Silvershadow234 · Jan 26th, 2013, 5:40:54 AM

I really don't see why powerful but slow wallbreakers that are hard to switch into and beat are being suspected in one tier but not another. I don't see queen as being any different to Hydreigon really, in that it is slow, and has very few counters. There are powerful slow wallbreakers with very few counters in all tiers, such as Emboar before it moved up, Zangoose and CB Sawk in NU, and SD Heracross, NP Togekiss in UU. All of these mons have incredibly few hard counters, in some cases none at all(zangoose and hydreigon namely). Nidoqueen is no different from any of these, as they either have no counters whatsoever and are therefore better wallbreakers, or have reliable recovery and are resistant to hazards(Hydreigon+togekiss, sawk).

Also lol at the fact that queen centralises the metagame around fast sweepers. I don't think kabutops is used because it is faster than queen, but because it is an excellent spinner. Moltres is not used because it is faster than nidoqueen, but because it is an incredibly deadly wallbreaker. Uxie is not used because of the need to check queen, rather it is because it is the best supporter in the tier and sets up rocks pretty much everytime apart from against things like aerodactyl. Sceptile is not used because it outspeeds nidoqueen and can 1HKO with leaf storm-it is used because it is one of the best cleaners in the tier. There really aren't any playstyles that are used because they don't get destroyed by Nidoqueen-offense is used because stall is boring to use, and people don't want to play matches for 30 minutes or more, and balanced can work, people just don't want to use it for some reason.

I agree 100% with blarajan, pocket and others who are against nidoqueen. It is a big problem for stall, but then so is Magmortar, Gallade and other wall breakers. And it does have counters as well that you can use on stall-Clefable, Gardevoir, lickilicky etc, and stall can still work. Molk has made a pretty solid stall team for one, and balanced is absolutely fine in this metagame. For example, a core of slowking, escavalier and druddigon handles queen incredibly well, especially with an Earth Power immunity such as Rotom or Rotom-C, as well as a large majority of the metagame.

Basically, I don't think queen should be banned.

Cherub Agent · Jan 26th, 2013, 6:52:34 AM

OK, I've already mentioned this, but I think that people may have overlooked it. I think that Stall players are forgetting a couple of things when they say that they're having trouble with their playstyle in RU. Sure there's Nidoqueen, but Nidoqueen can be beaten by strong cores, particularly by Pokemon such as Clefable, Uxie, Spiritomb etc. And generally speaking stall should have at least one Pokemon that can outspeed and deal heavy damage to Nidoqueen, such as fast Qwilfish (which also helps against Smeargle). But the premise of my argument is this: Stall teams require good amounts of passive damage to function properly. And this is becoming exceedingly difficult in RU, and it has little to do with Nidoqueen.

Stall teams need passive damage, otherwise they obviously don't work. The problem lies in the fact that Rapid Spinning is incredibly easy to pull off in RU. Kabutops is practically guaranteed to spin, and Cryogonal, beats every Ghost-type apart from Spiritomb, which can be double switched against and the Spiritomb ends up facing something like Choice Band Entei. There is very little that a successful stall team can do to stop Rapid Spinners, and without thei precious hazards, the teams will crumble to the power of some of RU's residents far quicker than their weak attacks can damage them or hazards can take their toll. Toxic Spikes are also more or less an essential tool if one, wishes to enjoy a fully functioning Stall team, but they're incredibly unviable in RU, not because of the Rapid Spinners, but because of the sheer number of grounded Poison-types. Drapion, Qwilfish, Roselia, Amoonguss, Nidoqueen and other are all abundant. Then we have the problem that stall lacks passive weather damage. Sandstream is not available, and Hail stall is very unreliable, as you have to sacrifice one of your precious teamslots to Snover, which brings very little to a stall team in terms of defensive synergy.

Of course, there is also the problem that RU is home to some of the heaviest hitters in competetive Pokemon. Durant and Medicham rival or exceed the power of Kyurem-B, and Aggron and Nidoqueen have almost no safe switchins on a stall team. I think that the stall players need to stop focusing their attention only on Nidoqueen and accept that it is not the sole cause of Stall's difficulty to succeed, but that it is a variety of factors that unfortunately affected every tier in Gen 5. I also like Silvershadow234's comparison of Nidoqueen to Hydreigon: it's a Pokemon that has practically no safe switchins, decent to good bulk, but middling Speed, which means that it can be revenge killed. Hydreigon is obviously not a broken Pokemon, and while OU obviously isn't RU, the comparison between the two is valid.

Nails · Jan 26th, 2013, 12:37:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Silvershadow234

I really don't see why powerful but slow wallbreakers that are hard to switch into and beat are being suspected in one tier but not another. I don't see queen as being any different to Hydreigon really, in that it is slow, and has very few counters. There are powerful slow wallbreakers with very few counters in all tiers, such as Emboar before it moved up, Zangoose and CB Sawk in NU, and SD Heracross, NP Togekiss in UU. All of these mons have incredibly few hard counters, in some cases none at all(zangoose and hydreigon namely). Nidoqueen is no different from any of these, as they either have no counters whatsoever and are therefore better wallbreakers, or have reliable recovery and are resistant to hazards(Hydreigon+togekiss, sawk).

Nidoqueen's difference is that it has extremely good defenses unlike every other pokemon you listed. RU has no special walls and so there is no good switch into it; i'd debate your assertion that there are no good switches for those other mons, but that's not really the point. Every other pokemon there is easily worn down by stall tactics, such as toxic poison... wait a sec. This is feeling like deja vu all over again. I could've sworn I've made this same argument before. Wait a sec...

*sounds of whirring*

ah here we are, seven posts ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Nails

It doesn't take much from residual damage and is immune to thunder wave and toxic, the two most common status moves, and it does not take life orb recoil so you are forced to kill it with attacks; stalling out nidoqueen is not an option,and you cannot switch around before revenge killing it as with other attackers like moltres, galvantula, and accelgor. It is bulky enough to live supereffective attacks from defensive pokemon that it can 2hko and strong enough to one shot basically everything that is faster than it. Its speed is not incredible but defensive pokemon have no shot at outspeeding it, or must sacrifice large amounts of bulk in cases like uxie. Resistance to rock, bug (uturn), fighting, and neutrality to many other common types (and outspeeding most water, ground, and psychic types while having SE coverage on most as well), and its electric immunity give it many chances to switch in, and if offensive teams give it a sliver of an opening, it's bulky enough to switch in and score a free kill, possibly while absorbing a hit. It happens to be the best user of SR and toxic spikes in this metagame as well, but that's not even really that relevant other than just a display of its versatility. If pokes like clefable and lickilicky were an issue it could run focus blast (which is boosted by sheer force) to completely crush what are considered its best checks, but no one uses focus blast nidoqueen because the checks that focus blast beats are easily dealt with through team support and it would rather run other coverage moves.

Individual pokemon can beat nidoqueen 1 v 1. But it will score a kill if you have a single pokemon that it can get in on, and it doesn't even have to predict much to do it since it is so obscenely powerful.

To add something productive to the discussion, Drapion has been nowhere to be found in a metagame filled with bulky psychic types, doesn't that strike you guys as odd?

Cherub Agent · Jan 26th, 2013, 1:28:00 PM

To be honest? Not really. Drapion really doesn't pack a punch, and if it's running a Swords Dance set, it's not packing Pursuit. I'd almost always want to use Absol or Spiritomb over Drapion for my Psychic-killing Pokemon, as Absol packs far more of a wallop and Spiritomb is immune to Fighting rather than neutral to it, as well as priority moves and a far more deadly setup set. Drapion does have Speed and bulk on its side, but simply isn't powerful enough to take down Pokemon such as Uxie, and without priority, falls to speedy and powerful offensive threats such as offensive Sigilyph. The fact that Absol and Spiritomb have access to priority is a pretty big factor to me, as this allows them to revenge kill fast and frail mons like Sceptile, Manectric, Scarf Medicham etc, which Drapion fails to do much against.

And Nails, Hydreigon is bulkier than Nidoqueen, cannot be worn down by Spikes, has key elemental resistances and also has reliable recovery.

alexwolf · Jan 26th, 2013, 1:52:57 PM

Hydreigon is bulkier for OU standards Cherub where stuff hit way harder. Nidoqueen is bulkier relatively to Hydreigon in OU. Hydreigon also has weakness to common priority, which means that even common slower Pokemon can deal with, it can be abused as it has to lower its SpA to fire off its best move, is much is easier to pivot around in general, loses life when attacking, and is prone to Toxic, Burn, and paralyze (and Roost only helps against burn really, and not that much, as taking 22.5% each turn is a lot anyway).

Cherub Agent · Jan 26th, 2013, 2:04:04 PM

alexwolf, RU may be a lower tier, but that does not mean that the Pokmon here do not hit hard. Take a look at Escavalier, Entei, Sceptile, Aggron, Durant, Medicham... a lot of these Pokemon hit hard even by OU standards. Nidoqueen may be a bulky wallbreaker, but its bulk counts for little when the types that it resists are always paired up with types that hit it super effectively (BoltBeam, EdgeQuake, etc) The fact that Nidoqueen has no recovery at all already sets it apart from Hydreigon, and Hydreigon has a good deal more resistances than Nidoqueen (seven and two immunities). But to be honest I find that this argument has little to do with Nidoqueen's tier placement. I've said my opinion, and will add that Nidoqueen is just too slow to steamroll through teams.

**DittoCrow** · Jan 26th, 2013, 7:55:53 PM

Before you jump to conclusions, please read my entire post. Also, please do not argue whether any of these Pokemon in these lists are wrong, that is not the point of this post; please try to respond to the argument and questions instead. I am still undecided on Nidoqueen, so hopefully you guys can answer my question at the bottom as I attempt to sum up the only (seemingly to me) solid argument that pro-banners have.

...

Nidoqueen switch-ins

If you have one of Pokemon in the first list on a balanced team, you pretty much have to have a reliable switch-in or else you are going to be at a massive disadvantage even if you don't lose a Pokemon. Out of the list of switch-ins, only Uxie, Slowking, and Cryogonal are truly overall useful Pokemon, as shown by their viability ranks. The other ones are decent, yes, but you wouldn't really use them to check Nidoqueen instead of Uxie, Slowking, or Cryogonal. Why is this bad?

Well, this limits the options of what balanced teams can do if it wants to use one of the 14 good Pokemon from the first list. These Pokemon are less useful than they once were because of this.

Notice that all of the Pokemon in the first list are slower than Nidoqueen (except for Rotom and unless Miltank runs Speed EVs). This is why offensive teams are the most common and dominant playstyle in RU. Most of the Pokemon on these offensive teams can outspeed Nidoqueen. The metagame favors this playstyle because the above defensive and slower Pokemon are not being used as much, giving offensive teams more room to succeed. This is why RU isn't as balanced as it could be. I feel that Nidoqueen leaving will balance out this problem, but admittedly, this is only a small change. I know that some people feel like RU is balanced at the moment, and to be honest, I don't have any massive complains either. The question is if whether or not this small change to RU is worth getting rid of a Pokemon. This is where I'm stuck.

Meru · Feb 1st, 2013, 8:07:21 PM

Can we cut this comparison of Hydreigon and Nidoqueen? Hydreigon has no counters in the sense that there is no pokemon that can beat every single set. However, there are pokemon that can beat his individual sets, which are far from uncounterable.

This is unlike Nidoqueen, who is not fueled by unpredictability, but instead, is fueled by sheer force.

MicfiJasan · Feb 2nd, 2013, 1:12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Meru

This is unlike Nidoqueen, who is not fueled by unpredictability, but instead, is fueled by sheer force.

A small nitpick here, but I've seen arguments like this a lot. The issue with Nidoqueen is not her "Sheer Force" (although I do appreciate the pun). 95 BP STABs off of an adjusted 112 Special Attack, while good, does not match the power of Moltres or Magmortar, who boast 120 BP STABs off of a base 125 Special Attack (which is only slightly lower in the whole Timid vs. Modest thing).

Where she does excel though, is in her coverage. She can 2HKO so many of her checks with the appropriate coverage move (Cryogonal? Fire Blast; on-site Slowking? Tbolt). She also has just enough of everything else (Speed, bulk, resistance to residual damage, etc) to make checking her much more difficult.

I'm running a hail team right now that happens to have a couple solid checks for her, so I don't mind her too much (everything on my team 3HKOs at worst, the rare problems come when I try and lay Spikes). However, I've heard non-hail teams have a harder time, and since they are a significant majority, I don't feel like I have the expertise necessary to dictate a ban/no-ban.

Meru · Feb 2nd, 2013, 6:15:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat MicfiJasan

A small nitpick here, but I've seen arguments like this a lot. The issue with Nidoqueen is not her "Sheer Force" (although I do appreciate the pun). 95 BP STABs off of an adjusted 112 Special Attack, while good, does not match the power of Moltres or Magmortar, who boast 120 BP STABs off of a base 125 Special Attack (which is only slightly lower in the whole Timid vs. Modest thing).

Where she does excel though, is in her coverage. She can 2HKO so many of her checks with the appropriate coverage move (Cryogonal? Fire Blast; on-site Slowking? Tbolt). She also has just enough of everything else (Speed, bulk, resistance to residual damage, etc) to make checking her much more difficult.

I'm running a hail team right now that happens to have a couple solid checks for her, so I don't mind her too much (everything on my team 3HKOs at worst, the rare problems come when I try and lay Spikes). However, I've heard non-hail teams have a harder time, and since they are a significant majority, I don't feel like I have the expertise necessary to dictate a ban/no-ban.

It was implied that I was talking about her coverage, seeing as how Sheer Force is usually associated with good coverage.

Her lethal ability to strike super effectively is what makes up for the relatively low SpA

Jan 23rd, 2013, 12:12:55 AM	#53
Nails I wanna be a red panda when I grow up Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,253	ok so i quoted my post that i made in the np thread on page 1 and no one actually read it so here's the post outside of quote tags so reply to my points now It doesn't take much from residual damage and is immune to thunder wave and toxic, the two most common status moves, and it does not take life orb recoil so you are forced to kill it with attacks; stalling out nidoqueen is not an option,and you cannot switch around before revenge killing it as with other attackers like moltres, galvantula, and accelgor. It is bulky enough to live supereffective attacks from defensive pokemon that it can 2hko and strong enough to one shot basically everything that is faster than it. Its speed is not incredible but defensive pokemon have no shot at outspeeding it, or must sacrifice large amounts of bulk in cases like uxie. Resistance to rock, bug (uturn), fighting, and neutrality to many other common types (and outspeeding most water, ground, and psychic types while having SE coverage on most as well), and its electric immunity give it many chances to switch in, and if offensive teams give it a sliver of an opening, it's bulky enough to switch in and score a free kill, possibly while absorbing a hit. It happens to be the best user of SR and toxic spikes in this metagame as well, but that's not even really that relevant other than just a display of its versatility. If pokes like clefable and lickilicky were an issue it could run focus blast (which is boosted by sheer force) to completely crush what are considered its best checks, but no one uses focus blast nidoqueen because the checks that focus blast beats are easily dealt with through team support and it would rather run other coverage moves. Individual pokemon can beat nidoqueen 1 v 1. But it will score a kill if you have a single pokemon that it can get in on, and it doesn't even have to predict much to do it since it is so obscenely powerful. __________________ reyscarface: nails unluckiest man alive Eternal: no ghosting Das

Jan 24th, 2013, 7:51:07 AM	#54
Ningildo Join Date: May 2011 Posts: 649 Aruba	Okay, so I really dgaf about Queen, as I've used many teams without it and they fared fine. The question I want to ask, though, is this: Will you be able to counter/check everything in RU easily if Nidoqueen was banned? Most people say that countering it is too much, so I really want to know if you can counter Absol/Entei/Kabutops/Lilligant/Omastar etc. more easily, if at all, if Queen is banned. Because if you could counter/check everything (which, according to the pro ban side, is too much), then Stall would be fine, right? Then, in that case, I would love to see a suspect ladder with Nidoqueen banned to see how it works out, instead of just theorymoning about a Queen-free meta. And if that is too much, give me a team that can handle every single threat in RU (including notable NU pokemon) bar Nidoqueen to an extent without being run over by too many threats, since you guys are saying that Nidoqueen strains teambuilding. __________________ Wild School appeared! School used Homework! Ningildo's activity fell!

Jan 24th, 2013, 5:37:43 PM	#56
Swamp-Rocket Give me the number for 911! Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 539 USA	The above team can actually check Nidoqueen pretty well. Slowking struggles against Nidoqueen thanks to Thunderbolt but Nidoqueen doesn't particularly enjoy taking a Scald (2HKO) which allows a priority user to finish it off. Entei can OHKO Nidoqueen and outspeed it, while switching into anything that is not Earth Power. Kabutops can OHKO Nidoqueen if it gets a boost while doing a fair amount regardless (55%-65%) without the boost. Spiritomb can cause quite a few problems for Nidoqueen, either Tricking away its Life Orb for a nearly useless Choice Band or 2HKOing it with Sucker Punch while getting 2HKOed in return. While Steelix and Amoonguss lose to it, Steelix can still keep pressure with Earthquake and survive a hit with Sturdy, which allows a priority user finish it off. Amoonguss can survive any hit including Fire Blast, and then paralyze it (which makes it slower than Steelix and Slowking) or put it to sleep. Basically, all 6 team members have some way of crippling Nidoqueen and/or 2HKOing (or for Entei OHKOing) Nidoqueen. I don't really see how that team stuggles with Nidoqueen. __________________ kawakimi: UR DUM kawakimi: N WEIRD Completed Analyses: 16 In Progress: 2

Jan 25th, 2013, 12:34:40 PM	#57
Nails I wanna be a red panda when I grow up Join Date: May 2010 Posts: 1,253	nidoqueen outspeeds all but two mons and 2hkoes the entire team, it can come in pretty much for free against steelix and earth power results in a free kill (unless you want to pivot around three times which requires perfect prediction and forces you to take a ton of hazards damage as well as powerful earth powers). and again, "sub queen". yes all of the pokemon can do something bad to nidoqueen but it will do way more to them in return. __________________ reyscarface: nails unluckiest man alive Eternal: no ghosting Das

Jan 25th, 2013, 4:59:08 PM	#59
DittoCrow Moderator Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 1,135 Mentor	I don't really get what posting a team is going to prove. No one is seeing it in any battles so all of the arguments around it are based off of theory which is never good, same with Uxie + Clefable being good on stall. Maybe logs would help, but otherwise this is kind of useless. __________________

Jan 22nd, 2013, 8:46:28 PM	#51
SilentVerse Into the New World Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 642	Ok, since Nidoqueen has been deemed the suspect for this round, this thread will officially be the Nidoqueen Suspect Discussion. Any posts not relevant to whether or not Nidoqueen is broken will be deleted.

Jan 25th, 2013, 6:06:04 PM	#60
SilentVerse Into the New World Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 642	I think a lot of you guys are looking at the trees instead of the forest in this case. While Nidoqueen manhandling stall is one part of the argument, I doubt that it has been the entire argument for pro banners. Nidoqueen itself is just incredibly difficult to deal with outside of running offense / bulky Psychics; if Nidoqueen is able to get in, basically every slow Pokemon becomes a liability against it, simply because Nidoqueen is able to 2HKO almost every relevant slow Pokemon in RU, including Aggron, Regirock, Tangrowth, Steelix, and Ferroseed being just some of these. The thing about Nidoqueen though is that while these Pokemon can hit Nidoqueen somewhat hard, if they even give Nidoqueen the slightest chance to switch in for free, whether as they set up hazards or recover (which is why defensive Pokemon are at a significant disadvantage against Nidoqueen), they immediately become liabilities against Nidoqueen; after all, who cares if you can switch these Pokemon in on a resisted coverage attack when they get boned the next turn by another of Nidoqueen's attacks and can't even outspeed it? In this way, Nidoqueen centralizes the metagame around fast sweepers who outspeed it, as really, offensive Pokemon have the best chance against it without having to slap Uxie on your team or devoting half of your team or more to fast mons who resist some of Nidoqueen's coverage. And, in this way, Nidoqueen basically completely invalidates any slow team that isn't ridiculously offensively oriented that could potentially viable in this metagame, because if you even give it an inch to get in with a slow team, it is getting at least a kill unless your opponent is dumb and switches it in on Druddigon's Earthquake or something. Yeah, balance is viable, but the balance teams that I've seen which have been reasonably successful in this metagame, even if they have 2-3 slower mons, have to be absurdly offensively oriented so that Nidoqueen doesn't get a chance to switch in. Edit: Ok people have compared this to stuff like Moltres on irc, but please don't do that rofl. I shouldn't even have to explain this, but 1) Nidoqueen is significantly harder to wear down than Moltres and 2) Nidoqueen can switch into those Pokemon much easier than Moltres can, taking into account Moltres's SR weakness. Last edited by SilentVerse; Jan 25th, 2013 at 6:30:39 PM.

Jan 25th, 2013, 10:23:24 PM	#62
~~cocoon~~ Banned deucer. Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 33	Pocket, if you don't mind, could you post that stall team so everyone could see it? I want to know a few things about that team. First of all, will stall have to run the same 6 Pokemon to survive? Can the team be tweaked with and still be effective? And if changing anything on that team creates gaping weaknesses, wouldn't that prove the Nidoqueen limits team building, particularly on defensive teams. I'm all for adapting, but if only one type of stall team is viable, I do think that Nidoqueen needs to be banned on the grounds of how much it restricts you to viable options and the lengths you must take to counter it. As I've said before, for offensive teams, there's no skill when using Nidoqueen, in fact it makes offense a little too easy to use, while limiting defensive play styles to either very effective battlers or one type of team. It's going to take more than one successful stall team to convince me that the problem is people aren't adapting.

Jan 26th, 2013, 5:40:54 AM	#64
Silvershadow234 is MANLY Join Date: Jun 2012 Posts: 427 England	I really don't see why powerful but slow wallbreakers that are hard to switch into and beat are being suspected in one tier but not another. I don't see queen as being any different to Hydreigon really, in that it is slow, and has very few counters. There are powerful slow wallbreakers with very few counters in all tiers, such as Emboar before it moved up, Zangoose and CB Sawk in NU, and SD Heracross, NP Togekiss in UU. All of these mons have incredibly few hard counters, in some cases none at all(zangoose and hydreigon namely). Nidoqueen is no different from any of these, as they either have no counters whatsoever and are therefore better wallbreakers, or have reliable recovery and are resistant to hazards(Hydreigon+togekiss, sawk). Also lol at the fact that queen centralises the metagame around fast sweepers. I don't think kabutops is used because it is faster than queen, but because it is an excellent spinner. Moltres is not used because it is faster than nidoqueen, but because it is an incredibly deadly wallbreaker. Uxie is not used because of the need to check queen, rather it is because it is the best supporter in the tier and sets up rocks pretty much everytime apart from against things like aerodactyl. Sceptile is not used because it outspeeds nidoqueen and can 1HKO with leaf storm-it is used because it is one of the best cleaners in the tier. There really aren't any playstyles that are used because they don't get destroyed by Nidoqueen-offense is used because stall is boring to use, and people don't want to play matches for 30 minutes or more, and balanced can work, people just don't want to use it for some reason. I agree 100% with blarajan, pocket and others who are against nidoqueen. It is a big problem for stall, but then so is Magmortar, Gallade and other wall breakers. And it does have counters as well that you can use on stall-Clefable, Gardevoir, lickilicky etc, and stall can still work. Molk has made a pretty solid stall team for one, and balanced is absolutely fine in this metagame. For example, a core of slowking, escavalier and druddigon handles queen incredibly well, especially with an Earth Power immunity such as Rotom or Rotom-C, as well as a large majority of the metagame. Basically, I don't think queen should be banned. __________________ <&imanalt> i woudl fuck my cat, but my dick is bigger than she is iSkylight I think I find ducks sexually appealing idek CherubAgent I got a fleshlight from my friends as a present once CherubAgent I didnt need to share that did i VM or PM me for a BW2 UU / RU rate

Jan 26th, 2013, 6:52:34 AM	#65
Cherub Agent I may be dead, but I'm still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 2,228 intimidatingly cute Mentor	OK, I've already mentioned this, but I think that people may have overlooked it. I think that Stall players are forgetting a couple of things when they say that they're having trouble with their playstyle in RU. Sure there's Nidoqueen, but Nidoqueen can be beaten by strong cores, particularly by Pokemon such as Clefable, Uxie, Spiritomb etc. And generally speaking stall should have at least one Pokemon that can outspeed and deal heavy damage to Nidoqueen, such as fast Qwilfish (which also helps against Smeargle). But the premise of my argument is this: Stall teams require good amounts of passive damage to function properly. And this is becoming exceedingly difficult in RU, and it has little to do with Nidoqueen. Stall teams need passive damage, otherwise they obviously don't work. The problem lies in the fact that Rapid Spinning is incredibly easy to pull off in RU. Kabutops is practically guaranteed to spin, and Cryogonal, beats every Ghost-type apart from Spiritomb, which can be double switched against and the Spiritomb ends up facing something like Choice Band Entei. There is very little that a successful stall team can do to stop Rapid Spinners, and without thei precious hazards, the teams will crumble to the power of some of RU's residents far quicker than their weak attacks can damage them or hazards can take their toll. Toxic Spikes are also more or less an essential tool if one, wishes to enjoy a fully functioning Stall team, but they're incredibly unviable in RU, not because of the Rapid Spinners, but because of the sheer number of grounded Poison-types. Drapion, Qwilfish, Roselia, Amoonguss, Nidoqueen and other are all abundant. Then we have the problem that stall lacks passive weather damage. Sandstream is not available, and Hail stall is very unreliable, as you have to sacrifice one of your precious teamslots to Snover, which brings very little to a stall team in terms of defensive synergy. Of course, there is also the problem that RU is home to some of the heaviest hitters in competetive Pokemon. Durant and Medicham rival or exceed the power of Kyurem-B, and Aggron and Nidoqueen have almost no safe switchins on a stall team. I think that the stall players need to stop focusing their attention only on Nidoqueen and accept that it is not the sole cause of Stall's difficulty to succeed, but that it is a variety of factors that unfortunately affected every tier in Gen 5. I also like Silvershadow234's comparison of Nidoqueen to Hydreigon: it's a Pokemon that has practically no safe switchins, decent to good bulk, but middling Speed, which means that it can be revenge killed. Hydreigon is obviously not a broken Pokemon, and while OU obviously isn't RU, the comparison between the two is valid. __________________ (16:08) <@skylight> BUT I DID NOTHING WRONG (16:08) <@skylight> CHERUB (16:08) <@skylight> i will FUCK YOU (17:20) <@skylight> ill luvdisc your ass

Jan 26th, 2013, 1:28:00 PM	#67
Cherub Agent I may be dead, but I'm still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 2,228 intimidatingly cute Mentor	To be honest? Not really. Drapion really doesn't pack a punch, and if it's running a Swords Dance set, it's not packing Pursuit. I'd almost always want to use Absol or Spiritomb over Drapion for my Psychic-killing Pokemon, as Absol packs far more of a wallop and Spiritomb is immune to Fighting rather than neutral to it, as well as priority moves and a far more deadly setup set. Drapion does have Speed and bulk on its side, but simply isn't powerful enough to take down Pokemon such as Uxie, and without priority, falls to speedy and powerful offensive threats such as offensive Sigilyph. The fact that Absol and Spiritomb have access to priority is a pretty big factor to me, as this allows them to revenge kill fast and frail mons like Sceptile, Manectric, Scarf Medicham etc, which Drapion fails to do much against. And Nails, Hydreigon is bulkier than Nidoqueen, cannot be worn down by Spikes, has key elemental resistances and also has reliable recovery. __________________ (16:08) <@skylight> BUT I DID NOTHING WRONG (16:08) <@skylight> CHERUB (16:08) <@skylight> i will FUCK YOU (17:20) <@skylight> ill luvdisc your ass Last edited by Cherub Agent; Jan 26th, 2013 at 1:44:15 PM.

Jan 26th, 2013, 1:52:57 PM	#68
alexwolf King of Conquerors Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,617 Greece	Hydreigon is bulkier for OU standards Cherub where stuff hit way harder. Nidoqueen is bulkier relatively to Hydreigon in OU. Hydreigon also has weakness to common priority, which means that even common slower Pokemon can deal with, it can be abused as it has to lower its SpA to fire off its best move, is much is easier to pivot around in general, loses life when attacking, and is prone to Toxic, Burn, and paralyze (and Roost only helps against burn really, and not that much, as taking 22.5% each turn is a lot anyway). __________________ Part of the OU QC team, message me for a check!

Jan 26th, 2013, 2:04:04 PM	#69
Cherub Agent I may be dead, but I'm still pretty. Which is more than I can say for you Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 2,228 intimidatingly cute Mentor	alexwolf, RU may be a lower tier, but that does not mean that the Pokmon here do not hit hard. Take a look at Escavalier, Entei, Sceptile, Aggron, Durant, Medicham... a lot of these Pokemon hit hard even by OU standards. Nidoqueen may be a bulky wallbreaker, but its bulk counts for little when the types that it resists are always paired up with types that hit it super effectively (BoltBeam, EdgeQuake, etc) The fact that Nidoqueen has no recovery at all already sets it apart from Hydreigon, and Hydreigon has a good deal more resistances than Nidoqueen (seven and two immunities). But to be honest I find that this argument has little to do with Nidoqueen's tier placement. I've said my opinion, and will add that Nidoqueen is just too slow to steamroll through teams. __________________ (16:08) <@skylight> BUT I DID NOTHING WRONG (16:08) <@skylight> CHERUB (16:08) <@skylight> i will FUCK YOU (17:20) <@skylight> ill luvdisc your ass

Jan 26th, 2013, 7:55:53 PM	#70
DittoCrow Moderator Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 1,135 Mentor	Before you jump to conclusions, please read my entire post. Also, please do not argue whether any of these Pokemon in these lists are wrong, that is not the point of this post; please try to respond to the argument and questions instead. I am still undecided on Nidoqueen, so hopefully you guys can answer my question at the bottom as I attempt to sum up the only (seemingly to me) solid argument that pro-banners have. ... When Nidoqueen gets a free switch in (ie, after something dies), the user of these Pokemon is at an immediate disadvantage since they will usually be switching out. Don't get mad yet this isn't my argument. Steelix Tangrowth Ferroseed Roselia Amoonguss Lanturn Regirock Qwilfish Poliwrath Rotom Miltank Aggron Rhydon Escavalier You will have to switch these mons out if Nidoqueen comes in safely, giving the Nidoqueen user a significant advantage, as there are so little great switch-ins that fit into balance and defensive teams: Nidoqueen switch-ins Uxie - S Rank Slowking - S Mesprit - B Clefable - B Musharna - untested Gardevoir - B Aerodactyl - B Lickilicky - untested Blizzard Cryogonal - A Seismitoad - B Piloswine - B Golurk - B Cradily - untested spdef Altaria - untested Next to these mons are their ranks. You'll see why I put those there next. There's probably more Pokemon out there to add to this list, but they aren't really going to be A rank quality. If you have one of Pokemon in the first list on a balanced team, you pretty much have to have a reliable switch-in or else you are going to be at a massive disadvantage even if you don't lose a Pokemon. Out of the list of switch-ins, only Uxie, Slowking, and Cryogonal are truly overall useful Pokemon, as shown by their viability ranks. The other ones are decent, yes, but you wouldn't really use them to check Nidoqueen instead of Uxie, Slowking, or Cryogonal. Why is this bad? Well, this limits the options of what balanced teams can do if it wants to use one of the 14 good Pokemon from the first list. These Pokemon are less useful than they once were because of this. Notice that all of the Pokemon in the first list are slower than Nidoqueen (except for Rotom and unless Miltank runs Speed EVs). This is why offensive teams are the most common and dominant playstyle in RU. Most of the Pokemon on these offensive teams can outspeed Nidoqueen. The metagame favors this playstyle because the above defensive and slower Pokemon are not being used as much, giving offensive teams more room to succeed. This is why RU isn't as balanced as it could be. I feel that Nidoqueen leaving will balance out this problem, but admittedly, this is only a small change. I know that some people feel like RU is balanced at the moment, and to be honest, I don't have any massive complains either. The question is if whether or not this small change to RU is worth getting rid of a Pokemon. This is where I'm stuck. __________________ Last edited by DittoCrow; Jan 28th, 2013 at 2:02:39 PM. Reason: clarity

Feb 1st, 2013, 8:07:21 PM	#71
Meru Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 599	Can we cut this comparison of Hydreigon and Nidoqueen? Hydreigon has no counters in the sense that there is no pokemon that can beat every single set. However, there are pokemon that can beat his individual sets, which are far from uncounterable. This is unlike Nidoqueen, who is not fueled by unpredictability, but instead, is fueled by sheer force.