np: NU Stage 3 - Riders on the Storm

[pharaohcalvin]

Originally Posted by Fat Envoy.of.Water

Wait, Serperior doesn't get Synthesis or Aromatherapy. Meganium and Vileplume do, and neither of them get Taunt or Glare.

It does, just through an event, that if I recall right, is only hardy.

[kniteowl]

^ I didn't know that, I just saw the moves on the team Builder and just assumed it had the moves.

You can't have Glare and Aromatherapy or Synthesis on the same move set because Glare is a breeding move sadly but you can have taunt and sunny day with them since they're TM moves

So it's a Choice between Glare or Aromatherapy/Synthesis, Both have their advantages

[November Blue]

I've been using Tropius a lot recently, and it's a really, really good physical wall.

Tropius @ Sitrus Berry
Bold Nature
Harvest

-Air Slash
-Substitute
-Leech Seed
-Protect

Yeah, it's a Harvest-Sitrus staller. However, once I started to change how I used it, it became so much better. That is, instead of attempting to set up a stall cycle each and every time I switch Trop in, I tried just using it as a physical wall, attacking with Air Slash more often, and falling back on the Sitrus Berry when I need to use Substitute multiple times. The Fighting-type resistance and Ground-type immunity are great, and Air Slash has decent power. Protect could be replaced with Leaf Blade or Roost, or even Toxic. There are times I really wished that I had a Grass-type move, so I'll try that next.

It's a good alternative to Tangela if your team has trouble with Sawk and Gurdurr, and with the constant HP recovery from Sitrus-Harvest, Stealth Rock damage and multiple uses of Substitute barely matter.

Does anyone else use Tropius regularly? Are offensive sets good?

[Raseri]

so many Armaldo trying to spin.... its so easy to stop and exploit. Oh and guys Golem is still amazing, especially with charizard here now. It's surprisingly difficult to switch into golem

[Furosuto]

Golem is definitely good. I was sorta wanting to use Rhyhorn this tier, since Rhydon is in RU, but Golem actually bests something, so that's nice.

Fire punch on Golem is definitely a must, as it catches the grass types off guard. Especially when you're in the sun and you're getting that fire boost there. Sucker punch is also pretty nice to have.

I would like to make the honourable mention of Kangaskhan though. She needs more love.

Kangaskhan @ Life Orb
EVs: 252 attk, 212 hp, 44 speed
Nature: Adamant
Moves:
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Return
- Earthquake/Aqua Tail

Why Use This Pokemon?

Kanga is quite bulky and with the 212 hp EV investment, her health is brought to a gigantic 404 hp, enough to take numerous hits with ease. Fake out does a healthy amount of damage to any pokemon and can easily wear away at their defences by constantly switching in and out. Sucker punch is a nasty little surprise that a lot of people forget it has, which normal brings them to their demise. Return for STAB obviously, and earthquake and aqua tail provide good coverage against most opponents. I would definitely recommend using Kangaskhan in any battle.

[ChaoticaMortis]

Has anyone seen "The Outsiders Challenge" that the guys in OU have been doing?
Link here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3464555

While I'm not suggesting we set up something like it right now, I think it would be cool to try it out in a few weeks once our new metagame has been fully established. By no means are we as centralized as OU is, but it would still liven up the battling community if things started getting stale. Just a thought.

Also, has anyone seen any weather teams yet? I've played quite a few matches over the past couple of days and I haven't once seen anyone running weather, let alone any of the new Pokemon (ok, I DID manage to see one Charizard, but that's it).

[No Luck Involved]

Lol yeah I've only seen a couple, both of which were obviously quickly thrown together and had no defensive synergy at all. I think maybe most people are being cautious and using their old teams to feel out the new metagame first.

[NatGeo]

So I tried sun yesterday and it's fantastic! Specs Charizard is pretty obvious for a sun team but I've also been using Victreebel as my Growth sweeper. To be honest, it actually can sweep without a boost, since it's so powerful. STAB Sludge Bomb does loads to everything; I mean seriously you do something like 35 - 40% to Lickilicky or something insane like that. Giga Drain / Weather Ball / Sludge Bomb is all the coverage it needs, since it has neutral coverage on the entire tier pretty much. I guess you could run Sleep Powder in place of Growth, but what opportunities i have been able to get off a Growth were glorious; you OHKO pretty much every Pokemon in NU, with maybe the exception of Lickilicky (that's what Leaf Blade is for anyways).

As a note, am I the only one who has thought of using Ludicolo on a sun team? It seems kind of weird, but if you lead with it against opposing rain teams or even regular offensive teams, you can have a lot of momentum going on your side before ludicolo dies. It's probably the best offensive check you can put on a sun team, since it works well even in sun thanks to STAB Giga Drain. I'm using the LO Tank set from the RU analysis atm, with Leftovers over Life Orb. Ludicolo in general makes a great standalone Pokemon for balance and offense, so use it more like that!

[tennisace]

I've also been running just a general sun team, with Charizard/Sawsbuck/Victreebel as my abusers, Volbeat and Probopass as set up, and Absol to clean up the mess. Surprisingly, the MVP is actually Absol, since people forget just how powerful it is after an SD (and Super Luck never hurts).

However in general, people quickly adapted to playing vs sun, and it really doesnt scream broken like some people thought it would be. Charizard in general is very powerful, but the lack of good spinners hurts (and in sun it's outsped by the Chlorophyll users!)

Tomorrow I'm probably going to try a more balanced team with Ludicolo, which I have yet to test but I've been waiting for it to drop sice December.

[Amire]

A great check to sun teams is Choice Scarf Victreebell. Victreebell perfectly revenges every sun sweeper after SR and does also work very well as a late game cleaner without sun support.

This stage certainly looks very interesting and I can't wait to test out some rain teams now that ludicolo has dropped.

[Straw Hat]

hey guys, i have heard ludicolo's offensive tank set mentioned often in the thread and i have a question: how much speed do you run on it? the ru set only has 96 to outspeed Adamant Aggron. is there anything like that in nu? something crucial i need to outspeed?

[Axa]

Generally you'd want to run however much you think you'd need for Samurott and Victreebel, which share your base speed. 148 Speed EVs outrun the SD Samurott, but unless you fully invest or are running Rain Dance you probably won't match Victreebel.

Beyond that, you can run 112 Speed to outrun unboosted Modest Gorebyss, or 192 if you need to outpace Timid ones.

[Raseri]

I run enough for Gorebyss just because its a huge threat to my team and I don't want it to get any chance to set up or hurt me.

also where are all the drop downs? I have seen maybe three sawsbuck, a decent amount of charizard and almost zero Ludicolo. They are all amazing Pokemon in this meta and really need to be abused more. This meta so far has been very diverse; many different styles of teams have appeared and all have shown the potential to be devastating. I personally want to try out a Trick Room team but I feat that all the Absol and Skuntank would make that very difficult

[No Luck Involved]

I was going for #1, 1 more battle to do it, then I lost to a sun team waaaaaaaa and now I've fallen back down T_____T It was pretty well made, had Volbeat, Wartortle, Charizard, Sawsbuck, Eggy and Regirock if I remember correctly. Misplayed a few times and got caught by Volbeat's Encore. Misplayed at the very end too and allowed his Volbeat (tricked Choice Scarf and Paralysed!!!...) to come in one last time to set Sunny Day and it was game. Sawsbuck cleaned up Haunter, Samurott and Bastiodon. I wish I saved that replay... Will cry alone in a ditch now.

On another note, I have a pretty good Sawbuck counter waiting in the wings but haven't had a chance to use it yet cos there's none of them on the ladder! Hopefully more ppl will use Sawsbuck in future :)

[Ewil]

Ludicolo is a tank beast ! He's one of my favourite pokemon and now that he have fallen down in my favourite tier, it's a dream *_*

The Tank set allow him to take several hits and answer with a lot of coverage. I haven't tried Saws & Chari, but the SambaDuck is really amazing and i love him :P

[Endorfins]

Originally Posted by Fat No Luck Involved

On another note, I have a pretty good Sawbuck counter waiting in the wings but haven't had a chance to use it yet cos there's none of them on the ladder! Hopefully more ppl will use Sawsbuck in future :)

I'm surprised that Drifblim usage is still so low, not only is it an excellent Sawsbuck counter, it can also outspeed almost every sun and rain sweeper after Unburden and destroy them with Acrobatics/Thunderbolt. It can also take advantage of weather itself with Weather Ball which has the equivalent of 150 base Power when boosted by Rain or Sun.

[No Luck Involved]

Shhhhhhh you're telling everyone!!!! >:O

edit: Just so this post isn't a complete waste of space, I have in fact been using the Acrobatics Drifblim set and it has been excellent. We all know how few things in the tier can take a powerful Flying STAB and the ones that can are crippled by Wisp so it's really a perfect one time sweeper + supporter. It's not usable as a weather stopper though because it won't be tanking any sweepers apart from Sawsbuck so you kind of have to use it before you expect the weather to start. It's more prevention than cure I suppose. Still cool as hell to use though!

I've been trolling the guy who beat me earlier with it and got revenge twice already hehehe! I'm sorry Brock Lesnar if you're out there...

[Axa]

For Sun teams, wouldn't it be better to use Illumise as a sun-setter? Sure they're both... them but she'd get Growth to pass on and has better Sp. Atk than Volbeat in the first place (even though neither of them should be attacking).

[Raseri]

Originally Posted by Fat Axa

For Sun teams, wouldn't it be better to use Illumise as a sun-setter? Sure they're both... them but she'd get Growth to pass on and has better Sp. Atk than Volbeat in the first place (even though neither of them should be attacking).

growth pass is an interesting idea, volbeat is generally used for tail glow baton passing but lately has been more commonly used using thunder wave, so the only difference between them is their defences

edit: apparently growth and baton pass are illegal together, thats why

[Django]

Yeah, Acroblimp is absolutely amazing. Crippling with WoW and killing something with Acrobatics before taking something down with Destiny Bond almost every match. Oh and it absolutely loves Sawsbuck.

Watch every Sawsbuck become Wild Charge.

[Raseri]

Strangely I have found Charizard almost underwhelming so far this meta. Part of it I can attribute to over-preparation but it also has 4MSS. When I'm not running a Sun team I want to have Fire Blast / Air Slash / HP Grass / HP Ice / Roost / Substitute. The biggest problem is choosing the hidden power type, being walled by Altaria sucks, but being walled by Regirock does too. Now don't get me wrong, Charizard is still a great Pokemon, but with all the work you need to do team building to accomadate him I find Magmortar to do just fine(and he hits significantly harder outside of sun). In sun is another story, but fitting a spinner onto a sun team just to fit Charizard really restricts your options. Seeing as the only decent spinner nowadays is Cryogonal(and maybe Armaldo) they offer little else to a sun team. Armaldo is just outclassed by Regirock, and Cryogonal does nothing but spin. Physical sets have just been lol so far, useless except for getting past other fire types.


Now Sawsbuck on the other hand, is just incredible. Decent bulk for a sweeper, grreat speed, fun dual stabs, recovery with horn leech and baton pass? Great mon in the tier who is really hard to stop.


Also i've been seeing a lot of the nfe dragons this round(Dragonair and Shelgon mainly) and they have been quite effective, Shelgon was abusinbg a restdd set and almost swept me a few times if it wasnt for sludge bomb hax. Is this just a trend or do they really have a lot of potential?

[Zebraiken*]

I'm fairly sure I was the first one to use Shelgon, and I used it primarily because I needed something to check both Swellow and absorb status from stuff like Misdreavus, and it actually turned out fairly amazing and I swept several teams with it, considering that Steel-types can do jack all to it (Bastiodon can only Roar, Probopass does like marginal damage with Power Gem) and it can just sit there and boost repeatedly if you have a way to handle special attackers. So yeah, as a user of it, Shelgon has been great.

I'll post other thoughts later, I'm a bit busy right now and have some things to handle. :(

[Alex_Arthur]

Has anyone tried out Solrock at all? I've found it to be pretty good. It reliably gets rocks up and gets semi-reliable recovery in Pain Spilt. It takes shit all from resisted physical attacks which at the moment include stuff like Rapidash's Flare Blitz , Rock type attacks from things like Sawk and Golem and Brave Bird from Swellow/Braivary. It does take something like 40-50% from the birds U-turn but with Rocks they get worned down nearly as quickly. it can also learn Sunny Day to get Rocks up, if i were to use it in place of Cosmic Power I could safely say it gets a bucket load of oppertunities to set the sun up.

[Raseri]

Originally Posted by Fat Alex_Arthur

Has anyone tried out Solrock at all? I've found it to be pretty good. It reliably gets rocks up and gets semi-reliable recovery in Pain Spilt. It takes shit all from resisted physical attacks which at the moment include stuff like Rapidash's Flare Blitz , Rock type attacks from things like Sawk and Golem and Brave Bird from Swellow/Braivary. It does take something like 40-50% from the birds U-turn but with Rocks they get worned down nearly as quickly. it can also learn Sunny Day to get Rocks up, if i were to use it in place of Cosmic Power I could safely say it gets a bucket load of oppertunities to set the sun up.

the biggest problem with solrock is his lackluster bulk when compared to the other rock types in the tier. I'll lay them out:

Solrock: 70 Hp / 85 Def
Regirock: 100 Hp / 200 Def
Probopass: 60 Hp / 145 Def
Bastiodon: 60 Hp / 168 Def
Golem: 80 Hp / 130 Def

So when compared to the prominent rock types in the tier Solrock is a lot frailer. I think the biggest perk Solrock has is levitate; the only reason i'd consider him is because of that. His special defence is equally bad, being worse than Golem. Pain Split is nice but it doesn't really bring much to Solrock since he can't take many hits anyways(and Rapidash Megahorn does a lot). Levitate is nice to set up for free in front of the other rock types though, and i have used him effectively as a suicide sun setter. But in any other role I would choose one of the other four

[tennisace]

Raseri, I think that we're going to see an increase in set-up sweepers in general once the metagame settles a bit more, because two of the top 3 Pokemon in this metagame (Ludicolo, Sawsbuck, Absol) absolutely wreck Quagsire. In fact, Grass-types are more common than ever, and with everyone throwing around Giga Drains, Quagsire has a hard time coming in and doing anything. It's certainly still a great Pokemon, but it'll be hard-pressed to find teams where it can continually come in on set-up sweepers and wall them with Unaware. I've only seen one Quagsire total in the last week.

What does everyone think the most effective set-up sweeper is in this metagame by the way? SD Sawsbuck? SD Absol? NP Jynx? Something not listed? I'm curious about what people are using right now, since those three all have merits and are excellent Pokemon in their own right.