Ho-oh – Is it truly an Uber?

[imperfectluck]

The only way to deal with Ho-oh is through rock moves as you illustrated. While perhaps nobody would truly use Ho-oh as a special tank, perhaps some numbers would help clear things up:

Milotic, sitting there with a pretty base 100 special attack compared to its fellow bulky waters, with no EVs invested in Special Attack, using Surf against a 0/0 Ho-oh: 39.66-47.59%. Also something to keep in mind is that Milotic, when burned, will take about the same damage from physical attacks in general as when it is not burned due to the extra 12% loss in HP per turn. Suicune and Swampert, with lower SAtk stats, will be doing even less to Ho-oh. Anything physical that can come in and threaten Ho-oh has to worry about a 50% burn and an 80% accurate move to scare Ho-oh off.

[Jetx]

@ eric: To take advantage of all the things you're listing that Ho-oh has over Snorlax it would need far more than 4 moves. It's very limited and each set is easier than it looks to counter. Ho-oh can't be both a sweeper and a wall, and when it tries to go half way between them it loses so much usefulness (read comment in first post - 0 attack EV Sacred Fire sucks despite Ho-oh's naturally high attack stat). I don't think this would break OU in the slightest and I'm not seeing many strong reasons for it to remain an Uber. I really think it should be tested asap.

Don't underestimate the huge number of things that don't care about Ho-oh. Kingdra with Chesto Berry running dragon dance, waterfall, outrage and rest would probably dominate most ho-oh based teams, but that's just one example out of quite a lot. I'm going so I guess you naysayers can have a party until I get back tomorrow. (:P)

@ipl: You bring up some fine points, but Toxic and a lot of Set-up Water types still do a fine job of countering it too. More tomorrow, I guess.

[Glutexo]

Many people say that Sacred Fire is a very good move for Ho-Oh. But if Sacred Fire is the only reason to keep Ho-Oh uber, couldn't we just ban the move Sacred Fire? Without Sacred Fire, Ho-Ohs best physical Stab becomes Aerial Ace. It would not be like banning Swords Dance and Yache Berry from Garchomp, just to keep it OU, but more like with the Latis, where Soul Dew would be banned if it coud be balanced in OU otherwise. Couln't we do the same thing as we do with the Latis, with Ho-Oh? Compleatly ban Sacred Fire, just like we would compleatly ban Soul Dew?

And it would be wrong to only think about the uber sets for Ho-Oh while discussing this, Ho-OH has a huge movepool, so many new sets could be made.

I support testing Ho-Oh for a month, to se how good it is.

[Little Green Yoda]

Originally Posted by Fat Glutexo

Many people say that Sacred Fire is a very good move for Ho-Oh. But if Sacred Fire is the only reason to keep Ho-Oh uber, couldn't we just ban the move Sacred Fire? Without Sacred Fire, Ho-Ohs best physical Stab becomes Aerial Ace. It would not be like banning Swords Dance and Yache Berry from Garchomp, just to keep it OU, but more like with the Latis, where Soul Dew would be banned if it coud be balanced in OU otherwise. Couln't we do the same thing as we do with the Latis, with Ho-Oh? Compleatly ban Sacred Fire, just like we would compleatly ban Soul Dew?

And it would be wrong to only think about the uber sets for Ho-Oh while discussing this, Ho-OH has a huge movepool, so many new sets could be made.

I support testing Ho-Oh for a month, to se how good it is.

Singular moves will never be banned for the purposes of unbanning a Pokemon. Either Sacred Fire Ho-oh gets unbanned or it stays uber. Nobody wants a bunch of exceptions and stipulations, if possible.

[Chou Toshio]

In general we're not banning moves if pokemon get them legitimately glutexo. I mean we always could have banned swords dance on Garchomp. >>

[Kristoph]

^ also, if you want to get technical about it, Smeargle gets Sacred Fire too, and since it isn't broken we can't blame Sacred Fire for Ho-oh's status, whatever that may be.

Originally Posted by Fat imperfectluck

The only way to deal with Ho-oh is through rock moves as you illustrated. While perhaps nobody would truly use Ho-oh as a special tank, perhaps some numbers would help clear things up:

Milotic, sitting there with a pretty base 100 special attack compared to its fellow bulky waters, with no EVs invested in Special Attack, using Surf against a 0/0 Ho-oh: 39.66-47.59%. Also something to keep in mind is that Milotic, when burned, will take about the same damage from physical attacks in general as when it is not burned due to the extra 12% loss in HP per turn. Suicune and Swampert, with lower SAtk stats, will be doing even less to Ho-oh. Anything physical that can come in and threaten Ho-oh has to worry about a 50% burn and an 80% accurate move to scare Ho-oh off.

how easily will Ho-oh be able to switch in in the first place though? in my mind that will always be Ho-oh's biggest problem once we've become accustomed to it.

[Deck Knight]

Ho-oh can also Roost in the face of a Stone Edge, halving its damage. You can Stone Edge Ho-oh a Maximum of 4 times. Just throwing Protect on Ho-oh allows it to remove 25% of your chances to take it out.

Most Water types cannot get past Ho-Ohs Roost. It can also Thunder them into oblivion. Remmber Thunderbolt and Thunder? Yeah, Ho-Oh has them. And 110 Base SA. This thing is Salamence with infinitely better defenses, especially special defense. And its 106 HP/154 SDef.

Snorlax Special tankiness on X-Act's calculator:

Rank 8: Amazing, 212.

Ho-oh Special tankiness:

Rank 8: Amazing, 219

Oh yeah, and Ho-oh has Immunity to Ground and resists Fighting, and can't be burned, and has a massive movepool. Did you know that Ho-oh can Calm Mind? Unless you think AmnesiaLax will make a comeback... Ho-oh comes in on Earthquake, and Close Combat. Ho-oh comes in on basically every Infernape set, it comes in with ease on HP Ice Heatran. It comes in with ease on basically anything that doesn't have a somewhat powerful Stone Edge on its standard set. Only Stealth Rock keeps it down, and a team with Ho-oh would employ at least 2 spinners.

You want to see Bullet Punch Scizor die off? Let Ho-oh in. He'll take out it and everything else out.

Ho-oh also has Screens and Thunder Wave.

Ho-oh has Base 90 speed, meaning +Speed versions can beat non-natured base 100s.

So yeah, Ho-oh is a monster.

[Wulfspade]

Remeber Ho-oh got Earth Power from Platinum too.

[Kristoph]

Ho-oh can also Roost in the face of a Stone Edge, halving its damage. You can Stone Edge Ho-oh a Maximum of 4 times. Just throwing Protect on Ho-oh allows it to remove 25% of your chances to take it out.

This is obviously limited to pokemon that are neither faster than Ho-oh, nor have a move that exploits Roost (ie Earthquake). Gliscor, for one, can do either of these, and has Hyper Cutter to handle Burning. It's also notable that it's immune to both Earthquake and Thunderbolt itself, but whatever.

Most Water types cannot get past Ho-Ohs Roost. It can also Thunder them into oblivion. Remmber Thunderbolt and Thunder? Yeah, Ho-Oh has them. And 110 Base SA. This thing is Salamence with infinitely better defenses, especially special defense. And its 106 HP/154 SDef.

Snorlax Special tankiness on X-Act's calculator:

Rank 8: Amazing, 212.

Ho-oh Special tankiness:

Rank 8: Amazing, 219

This is all well and good but neither Salamence nor Snorlax lose 50% of their health virtually every time they try to switch in. Salamence is also faster than Ho-oh, has better typing overall, Intimidate, and is just in general a pretty poor comparison. The fact that even Snorlax has trouble switching into several special attacks is pretty telltale as well if you ask me- ho-oh isn't walling anything unless you've managed to get rid of Stealth Rock (which should probably be rewarded anyway).


all you're doing is listing a bunch of different positive aspects of Ho-oh and making it sound really scary, which is fine, but doesn't say anything regarding Ho-oh's status as an uber.

[morning storm]

id rather have stealth rock banned opposed to ho-oh OU

and yes, to a small extent i think they are mutually exclusive..

[Tingaling]

Ho-oh is definately not OU, it's stats are far too good and Sacred Fire is a beastly move. It would completely centralize the metagame, and you never mention that it is as specially defensive as lugia!

[Kristoph]

Originally Posted by Fat morning storm

id rather have stealth rock banned opposed to ho-oh OU

you'd rather remove something from the game than add to it? >_>

[Chou Toshio]

Originally Posted by Fat Blame Game

all you're doing is listing a bunch of different positive aspects of Ho-oh and making it sound really scary, which is fine, but doesn't say anything regarding Ho-oh's status as an uber.

You my friend are only doing the opposite. Not saying that you're wrong, but rather that you're both right. You do have to point out aspects of a pokemon, powerful and not, in order to have discussion. What I don't get is why you're belittling his points, which are valid.

Personally, I think it's extremely impressive that milotic is walled by a 0/0 fire pokemon. -.-

[Olie]

Originally Posted by Fat Tingaling

Ho-oh is definately not OU, it's stats are far too good and Sacred Fire is a beastly move. It would completely centralize the metagame, and you never mention that it is as specially defensive as lugia!

The thing is, Ho-oh has slightly worse typing (stronger weakness to Rock and Water). One advantage I can tell is that it is neutral to ice beam and Shadow Ball unlike Lugia. Not to mention the huge SR weak =/
As well, Rain is the dominant weather in Ubers by far, so Sacred Fire looses power.

Though in the hands op a pro, it's as (or more) deadly as Lugia, but this is like Latios and Latias. They serve similar, but subtly different roles. I'd be all for some testing.

Edit: cool 800 posts ^__^

[ultimifier]

apparently most people did when they banned garchomp... and Ho-oh would centralize OU to no end. every team woluld be FORCED to have a bulky water, a sleath rocker, AND a faster pokemon who can OHKO

[Olie]

Don't most teams carry a bulky water and Stealth rock user anyway?
Doesn't Ho-oh have T-Bolt anyway?
And finding something faster is not all that hard. (base 90?)

[Deck Knight]

Originally Posted by Fat Blame Game

This is obviously limited to pokemon that are neither faster than Ho-oh, nor have a move that exploits Roost (ie Earthquake). Gliscor, for one, can do either of these, and has Hyper Cutter to handle Burning. It's also notable that it's immune to both Earthquake and Thunderbolt itself, but whatever.

Hyper Cutter does not prevent Burn's Attack loss. Wall Gliscor also can't do anything noteworthy, and even less when it is burned. The Swords Dance set with Stone Edge threatens, but of course, nothing Precludes Ho-oh from simply annihilating you with HP Ice or Overheat.

This is all well and good but neither Salamence nor Snorlax lose 50% of their health virtually every time they try to switch in. Salamence is also faster than Ho-oh, has better typing overall, Intimidate, and is just in general a pretty poor comparison. The fact that even Snorlax has trouble switching into several special attacks is pretty telltale as well if you ask me- ho-oh isn't walling anything unless you've managed to get rid of Stealth Rock (which should probably be rewarded anyway).

Snorlax has trouble switching into Aura Sphere and Focus Blast, and thats about it. It also lacks a 50% Recovery move. Salamence does not have a way to detooth its 4x weakness, Roost helps but it can't Roost and attack at the same time. It has no answer to Ice Shard. Ho-oh has none of these problems, and bet dollars to donuts you would use it with a Taunt lead. Taunt leads prevent Stealth Rock from being set up, thereby negating the Stealth Rock argument. There is no standard SR user in particular that would like to eat Sacred Fire bar Swampert, who still doesn't like being burned, and once Ho-oh is in, SR is irrelevant. Setting it up means you expose your pokemon to two attacks, one on the switch and one before setting up SR.

all you're doing is listing a bunch of different positive aspects of Ho-oh and making it sound really scary, which is fine, but doesn't say anything regarding Ho-oh's status as an uber.

An aggregate of "scary" things combined with limited counters, none of which like to be hit by the effect of its primary STAB move, make for an Uber pokemon.

Bulky Waters do not counter Ho-oh. It has Thunderbolt. The standard bulky water most people use is Gyarados, and Gyara is OHKO'd by Tbolt.

[Chou Toshio]

^Well, actually there is an SR used who can take sacred fire and doesn't fear burn-- Heatran. Granted, Ho-Oh can promptly blast the shit out of it with Earth Power/Earthquake, seeing as they are Ho-Oh's most likely secondary offensive moves. Meanwhile heatran can't do anything to Ho-Oh bar exploding.

[chaos 9]

Ok I believe that Ho-oh is OU for many reasons.

Deck Knight in particular, you have never discredited the toxic bulky water argument. This would kill Ho-oh 99% of the time. Sacred Fire is good, but 8 pp and only (lol only) 50% chance make it and iffy move to begin with.

You make it sound like sacred fire is a 200 bp 45 pp move with 100% chance to burn. Your argument is easily applied to sacred fire. "Just add protect" and the pp of sacred fire is depleted.

Ho-oh just suffers from the existence of stealth rock and 4 slot syndrome. If Ho-oh walls, it does nothing to heatran or bulky waters. If it tanks, it is killed by rocks as it switches in and out and by faster rock users. If it sweeps, well, choice users die in 2 switches, or are forced out by either a bulky water or heatran move depending, and if mixed, it dosen't pack enough of a punch to take out any common walls.

This is not and uber pokemon and the only arguments I'm hearing for uberness are not backed with calcs and are all related to sacred fire.

[Chou Toshio]

^Excuse me? Can't take out common walls? Let's see Blissey/Skarmory/Forretress/Celebi/Gliscor/Hippo/Tentacruel switch in and try and stop a non-choice Ho-Oh. If we're talking about a mix set with something like Sacred Fire/Overheat/Hidden Power [Grass/Ice]/Earthquake, bulky waters are about the only thing you can switch in.

Let me ask you honestly, do you really want your bulky water to be facing a 50% chance of burn everytime it has to switch in on Ho-Oh? That's worse than facing veil-hax. I think you're underestimating A burnt Vaporeon or Suicune is not going to be happy trying to do it's normal walling duties witht h 12% damage each turn.

[Kristoph]

Hyper Cutter does not prevent Burn's Attack loss.

I really should have checked that beforehand but oh well >_>

Snorlax has trouble switching into Aura Sphere and Focus Blast, and thats about it. It also lacks a 50% Recovery move. Salamence does not have a way to detooth its 4x weakness, Roost helps but it can't Roost and attack at the same time. It has no answer to Ice Shard. Ho-oh has none of these problems, and bet dollars to donuts you would use it with a Taunt lead. Taunt leads prevent Stealth Rock from being set up, thereby negating the Stealth Rock argument. There is no standard SR user in particular that would like to eat Sacred Fire bar Swampert, who still doesn't like being burned, and once Ho-oh is in, SR is irrelevant. Setting it up means you expose your pokemon to two attacks, one on the switch and one before setting up SR.

Stealth Rock is too flexible a move to just write off like that- if it wasn't then people wouldn't be ludicrously suggesting we make it a suspect. Taunt leads can keep Stealth Rock off the field for a while, but then we're asking the question "how much damage can ho-oh cause without having properly scouted the opponent/caused any real prior damage?" I'm not one to rule out the possibility that the answer to that question could be "an absolute shitload," but I wouldn't agree with that either without some actual testing being done.

An aggregate of "scary" things combined with limited counters, none of which like to be hit by the effect of its primary STAB move, make for an Uber pokemon.

I would probably agree with this if you replaced "Uber" with "Suspect."

You my friend are only doing the opposite. Not saying that you're wrong, but rather that you're both right. You do have to point out aspects of a pokemon, powerful and not, in order to have discussion. What I don't get is why you're belittling his points, which are valid.

I'm not saying Ho-oh is weak, or even fit for OU play in any way. Just that he has some pretty major weaknesses that justify testing in OU. He's kind of an extreme pokemon because yeah he does have a lot of "rape on paper" stuff, but 50% damage almost every time you switch in is such a blatantly huge weakness that I don't think we can just theory it into Ubers (and certainly not into OU of course).

Basically his strengths are huge and in the same vein as DualScreen Deoxys-S there are possibly enough different options with this guy that we're missing something absolutely rape that could be found out after a week of testing that would clearly make it uber. I just think the same exact thing applies to his weaknesses as well though.

[Chill]

Originally Posted by Fat Blame Game

you'd rather remove something from the game than add to it? >_>

I believe he is saying "I'd rather have a move removed from the metagame which allows more pokemon to compete in the OU tier then to have a single uber pokemon moved into OU just to have another pokemon in the OU teir".

Or something like that.

[1059860]

If Ho-Oh is made OU, then that means all teams almost require Stealth Rock and at least 2 Physical Rock typers... That's overcentralizing: (Remember Garchomp? Each team needed at least 2 Ice Users and was very hard to counter. People built teams based around Garchomp.)... Besides, Ho-Oh is even more demanding.

Its mediocre speed allows Punishment to kill off faster Psychic/Ghost threats such as Gengar, Azelf, Starmie and Alakazam, barring any of them carrying HP Rock (or Power Gem on Starmie). As long as it switches into something such as a slow type, such as Bronzong, it can easily finish Zong off with STAB Sacred Fire, and of course, crippling nowadays overused Steels such as Scizor/Foretress. Anything that isn't killed will also likely to be burnt to the high burning chance of Sacred Fire.

Since it has RECOVER and ROOST, it can easily restore the HP that is lost on Stealth Rock if switched in properly. If the team doesn't have Stealth Rock, then Ho-Oh wins. Stealth Rock is almost essential as Ho-Oh's massive Special Defense can take a few Special Attacks from things like Suicune without dying.

Earthquake can be effective against Heatran/Magnezone and other Rock types. Zen Headbutt can be useful in taking Fighting/Poisons, and Whirlwind is there if needed to shoo something away.

Dugtrio can't trap him due to Flying type, and if your Rock users are out, then you're screwed.

He's staying in Uber.

[lati0s]

i'm not completely against testing ho-oh in OU, but i am 99% positive that it will prove too powerful for the standard environment.
even if it has to switch into stealth rocks it can easily roost off the damage.
plus sacred fire is an amazing move, almost nothing can in on it safely, except heatran (who's killed by EQ), guts users(who i will cover later) and bulky waters (who cant touch Ho-oh's crazy sp. def).

its seems that because of ho-oh's awesome special defense it would be ideal use physical attackers against it, however sacred fire's burn rate will severely hurt any physical attacker. well what about guts users, lets take a look at all ou and bl guts users and see how they pair up against ho-oh.
i'll assume adamant 252hp/252attack/4speed on ho-oh and the standard set for the guts pokemon.

Heracross- sacred fire does 152%-178.5% to 4/0 heracross so it is definately not a counter

hariyama- sacred fire does 39.7%-46.7% to 76/252+ hariyama and aerial ace does 48.2%-56.7%. A possible counter if ho-oh doesnt carry a boosting item but if you add life orb to those calcs it is an easy 2ko even with only sacred fire.

machamp- sacred fire does 56.8%-66.7% to 252/0 machamp easy 2ko meaning machamp is definately not a counter

ursaring-sacred fire does 59.6%-70.1% another easy 2k0

as i said earlier i wouldnt completely be against testing him (i wouldnt be against testing mewtwo either) but im pretty sure that we have more important things to do

[umbarsc]

Originally Posted by Fat ultimifier

apparently most people did when they banned garchomp... and Ho-oh would centralize OU to no end. every team woluld be FORCED to have a bulky water, a sleath rocker, AND a faster pokemon who can OHKO

Uh... welcome to the metagame?