Zapdos discussion.

[evillocke]

I have been using zapdos lately and it has caught many off-guard. Special Lando-I is crushed, as well as fighting types.

[Chou Toshio]

Is it fair game to bitch about no Hurricane on Zapdos? I mean... seriously... Zap Cannon? Fuckin' Troll Freak. Hurricane Moltres/Articuno are worthless regardless. They might as well give us the prize... Thunder / Hurricane / Agility / Roost + Lightning Rod in rain sounds hilarious.

[Enguarde]

Originally Posted by Fat Chou Toshio

Is it fair game to bitch about no Hurricane on Zapdos? I mean... seriously... Zap Cannon? Fuckin' Troll Freak. Hurricane Moltres/Articuno are worthless regardless. They might as well give us the prize... Thunder / Hurricane / Agility / Roost + Lightning Rod in rain sounds hilarious.

Of course its fair game haha.

I remember being so mad when I saw Hurricane on the other 2 and Zap Cannon on Zapdos. But its clear why Trollfreak didn't allow Zapdos to get that beautiful combo. And I'd say that the meta and Thundurus is pretty darn grateful it didn't get it either.

[Jcpdragonx]

I think Zapdos fell significantly because it just cant take hits as well, and when it does take resisted hits its usually a U-turn or Volt Switch which wears it down with SR.

It almost useless against stall, KOed by all Sun Sweepers, cant take a hit in the rain, loses to most Pokemon on standard teams (Terrakion, Ttar, Land, Latis, etc).

Zapdos was suppose to keep Lucario, Metagross, Suicune, Vaporeon, Celebi, Breloom, Shaymin, Scizor, Togekiss, etc in check. Most of these Pokemon are very rare now in OU, and the most common of the Pokemon listed can U-turn or Breloom KOes with +2 Mach Punch after SR.

[alkinesthetase]

i think of zd the other way around - rain counter, sun check - but either way @jcpdragonx, it sounds like you're trying to use zd without some kind of way to suppress rocks. kind of not a good plan because it's gonna get worn down like crazy if you do that. the same goes for any SR-weak defensive pokemon.

using zd against most physical threats is also not really a good idea. physically defensive zapdos is a thing in UU, it's not a thing here. its typing is not especially useful against most of them in OU (the electric typing doesn't do much for the physical resistances - barring the occasional bullet punch resist). the #1 utility of zapdos imo is hard countering common offensive cores like torn+gene+dug in a single poke. sending it in on stuff like breloom over and over is not going to work out too well in the long term, zd lacks needed bulk on that side (although, in sun, you can take one hit and take it out with a heat wave)