This topic needs more Slowbro. Great Tank stats + Slack off. This thing is reverse Snorlax, but with a better move for HP recovery.
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A Look at D/P's Physical Walls
- Thread starter Forsety
- Start date
Physical walls don't exist in my opinion.
Is there anything that can take a neutral Swords Danced Garchomp Earthquake for less than 50% damage? No. You need to predict and switch to something immune to EQ or that takes not very effective damage from EQ in order to take less than 50%.
Is there anything that can take a neutral Nasty Plot Azelf Psychic for less than 50% damage? Yes: Blissey.
So there are no physical walls in the game. And there's only one special wall: Blissey.
The above is also the reason why I hate Blissey, because it's a very unfair special wall, compared to what you're calling 'physical walls'.
Is there anything that can take a neutral Swords Danced Garchomp Earthquake for less than 50% damage? No. You need to predict and switch to something immune to EQ or that takes not very effective damage from EQ in order to take less than 50%.
Is there anything that can take a neutral Nasty Plot Azelf Psychic for less than 50% damage? Yes: Blissey.
So there are no physical walls in the game. And there's only one special wall: Blissey.
The above is also the reason why I hate Blissey, because it's a very unfair special wall, compared to what you're calling 'physical walls'.
Drapion with 70/110, a handful of resists and only one obvious weak to EQ can take physical hits very well. And EQ can be completely handled by a flying type or levitator (and god help you should you not have a flying-type or levitator on your team).
That's to say nothing of his amazing movepool both in support and attack.
Teamed up with a Skarmory/Gliscor, most physical threats are moot (Gyarados still needs a specific counter).
That's to say nothing of his amazing movepool both in support and attack.
Teamed up with a Skarmory/Gliscor, most physical threats are moot (Gyarados still needs a specific counter).
Great Sage
Banned deucer.
You really should at least mention Cresselia; this stigma against "legendaries" is completely irrational. The only physical walls I would be tempted to use right now are Skarmory, Cresselia, Bronzong, and Hippowdon; IMO Swampert and other Waters belong in a different category.
Cradily might not look it, but most pogeys dont have something to smack him around with. And he can proceed to Barrier/Recover or Rest. And has Mirror Coat for surprising Special moves.That's why I name all my Cradily's Tankdily - they can make people mad.
Torterra is the best Tyranitar counter this gen, or close to. It can take a STAB Crunch and with Max HP this is a 3HKO at best barring a CH. It then outspeeds most Tyranitars and with a CB (which it should be using IMHO) easily KOes Tar with Superpower. Also Slowbro deserves a mention with 95 HP/110 Def and Slack Off to boot.
I think most Tyranitars have their Speed ranging somewhere between 180 (to outspeed Max Speed Rhyperior) to 202 (to outspeed Adamant Choice Scarf Heracross after 2 Dragon Dances).
If you want your Torterra to outspeed Tyranitars with these stats, you'll have to focus your EV training a bit towards Speed. You will need 136 Speed EVs in order to outspeed the 181 Speed Tyranitar, and obviously even more to outspeed faster variants.
This limits the EVs you can put in Def to make it survive some of the CB Crunches that T-Tar throws at you.
If we were to assume an Adamant nature and 252 Atk EVs for Torterra (he needs these to deal with things other than Tyranitar effectively as well), and 136 Speed EVs to outspeed the minimum of what Tyranitar will most likely run, we're stuck with 120 EVs for Def, which translates into a 276 Def Stat in level 100.
Now, an Adamant max Atk Choice Band Tyranitar using Crunch vs a Torterra with 276 Def and no HP EVs does 190 to 224 damage, which means 57 - 67 % damage. A guaranteed 2HKO, as you can see. If your Torterra switches in on such a move, you will most likely not do so well the next time it faces a Tyranitar (The Tyranitar can now simply switch out, knowing that you are severely damaged).
If you were to switch in on a predicted Stone Edge from a max Atk, Adamant Tyranitar holding the Choice Band, you would receive 35 - 42 % damage. This means that a CB Stone Edge + a CB Crunch (for when it comes back later in the battle) will most likely 2HKO a Torterra as well.
About the list in this topic: I think it's a pretty solid list as it is now, but I'd remove Aggron and Bastiodon from that list, possibly even Probopass and Magnezone. The first three have a typing that makes them take severe damage from most common physical attacks (say hello, Earthquake and Focus Punch), the last one should mainly be focused on dealing damage, while at the same time making good use out of the fact that he can take some hits before leaving the field. I don't think he should be considered a real physical wall.
I agree with everyone who said Slowbro deserves a spot there, simply because it has a very solid Def stat, and combined with it's 95 Base HP, the possibility to Curse (not the most effective choice though) and Slack Off makes him pretty reliable in my opinion. A Heracross' Megahorn still ruins him though.
If you want your Torterra to outspeed Tyranitars with these stats, you'll have to focus your EV training a bit towards Speed. You will need 136 Speed EVs in order to outspeed the 181 Speed Tyranitar, and obviously even more to outspeed faster variants.
This limits the EVs you can put in Def to make it survive some of the CB Crunches that T-Tar throws at you.
If we were to assume an Adamant nature and 252 Atk EVs for Torterra (he needs these to deal with things other than Tyranitar effectively as well), and 136 Speed EVs to outspeed the minimum of what Tyranitar will most likely run, we're stuck with 120 EVs for Def, which translates into a 276 Def Stat in level 100.
Now, an Adamant max Atk Choice Band Tyranitar using Crunch vs a Torterra with 276 Def and no HP EVs does 190 to 224 damage, which means 57 - 67 % damage. A guaranteed 2HKO, as you can see. If your Torterra switches in on such a move, you will most likely not do so well the next time it faces a Tyranitar (The Tyranitar can now simply switch out, knowing that you are severely damaged).
If you were to switch in on a predicted Stone Edge from a max Atk, Adamant Tyranitar holding the Choice Band, you would receive 35 - 42 % damage. This means that a CB Stone Edge + a CB Crunch (for when it comes back later in the battle) will most likely 2HKO a Torterra as well.
About the list in this topic: I think it's a pretty solid list as it is now, but I'd remove Aggron and Bastiodon from that list, possibly even Probopass and Magnezone. The first three have a typing that makes them take severe damage from most common physical attacks (say hello, Earthquake and Focus Punch), the last one should mainly be focused on dealing damage, while at the same time making good use out of the fact that he can take some hits before leaving the field. I don't think he should be considered a real physical wall.
I agree with everyone who said Slowbro deserves a spot there, simply because it has a very solid Def stat, and combined with it's 95 Base HP, the possibility to Curse (not the most effective choice though) and Slack Off makes him pretty reliable in my opinion. A Heracross' Megahorn still ruins him though.
Rhyperior is probably the most viable Tyranitar counter. With the right spread, he can take less than 50% from all of Tyranitar's non-Focus Punch moves, and yes that's max attack CBtar. I'm ignoring Surf Tyranitar by the way, just so you know.
I also think that heavy grounds are more practical in DP theorycraft than heavy waters. By the way, Swampert is in the middle of that so don't use him to prop up any heavy water arguments. Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Claydol, and Donphan are looking more practical to me than Suicune, Milotic, and Slowbro.
I also think that heavy grounds are more practical in DP theorycraft than heavy waters. By the way, Swampert is in the middle of that so don't use him to prop up any heavy water arguments. Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Claydol, and Donphan are looking more practical to me than Suicune, Milotic, and Slowbro.
I can partly agree with this, however, most of the Ground pokemon you listed are meant to be physical walls (Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Donphan), while Suicune and Milotic tend to deal with special hits better.
I can still see Suicune and Milotic work on the same level as those Ground pokemon you mentioned, if we compare the effectiveness of those Ground pokemon when dealing with physical hits to the effectiviness of those Water pokemon when dealing with special hits.
Suicune with Calm Mind and Milotic with Recover, and possibly Hypnosis or another tech move (the rare Toxic for example) still do the thing they're supposed to do very effectively. They also have the nice addition of being able to learn both Surf and Ice Beam (as do most waters), which allows them, aside from defending themselves from opponent's attacks, to deal some serious damage as well. They can take care of most Dragon Dancers with Ice Beam (barring Dragonite), something that most bulky grounds can't do.
Then again, those bulky Grounds have their own strengths and powers over the bulky waters (bulky Waters can't set up Stealth Rock or get rid of those with Rapid Spin), but all-in-all, I think that the defensive Water pokemon can still prove to be just as effective in what they do as defensive Ground pokemon.
With an Adamant Torterra, you can never be completely sure that CB Crunch from max Atk Adamant Tyranitar 3HKO's you.
Max Atk Adamant, Choice Banded Tyranitar's Crunch vs. Max Def/Min HP (331) Adamant Torterra: 51 - 60 % damage
This means that you'll either have to go with a +Def nature, or you'll need to focus your EVs more on it's HP. However, with an Adamant nature, you will never be guaranteed that a CB Crunch is a 3HKO, because even with Max Def/Max HP, it will still do 43 - 50 % damage. Although you can safely say that it won't happen very often that it will actually get 2HKO'd with an EV spread like this, it is still possible.
However, a spread like the one I showed is probably very unlikely to be combined with an Adamant nature. I could see an Impish (+Def, -SpAtk) nature work on this thing if it's specifically designed to counter Tyranitar, but you can also give it the Choice Band still, to work as a nice Atk boost.
Torterra @ Choice Band
Impish - 252 Def, 144 HP, 112 Atk
- Wood Hammer
- Superpower
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
That could work as a decent Tyranitar counter. With this spread, it can guaranteedly take 2 Crunches from a CBTar and it packs some nice attacking power as well. Superpower OHKO's Tyranitar guaranteedly, which is obviously very nice.
What I'm concerned about is what would work better: A spread that's based on taking 2 Crunches, or a set based on outspeeding Tyranitar so that it only has to take 1 Crunch before it can OHKO the Tyranitar with Superpower?
Anyway, I'm getting way off-topic here, so I'll just stop talking about this now.
I doubt that things like Donphan, Rhyperior and Claydol can stand the immense attacking force that physical Infernape (with Flare Blitz and Close Combat) and the standard Garchomp possess either. One Swords Dance is enough to break through their defenses, just like one Nasty Plot from Azelf is enough to scare of any Milotic by using Thunderbolt. It doesn't take away that Milotic can still function well, as it has access to Hypnosis and it can pull of some nice tricks with ResTalking by utilizing it's Marvel Scale trait.
The two of those pokemon still take huge damage from Draco Meteor, or boosted Thunderbolts or Grass Knots, but the same can be said about most physical walls. Like it said it in the first post of this topic, Skarmory, although it's still a solid physical wall, still gets murdered by Flare Blitz and TTar's Stone Edge.
The reason why I was talking about an Adamant Torterra, is because of the fact that besides countering Tyranitar, you might want to make it so that it has some other uses besides that one.
If you're purely constructing it just to counter Tyranitar and you face a team without it, I doubt it will bring you much good. An Impish natured set with Leftovers surely helps countering Tyranitar, but a Choice Band hold item (and possibly an Adamant nature as well) would make the Torterra able to scare of more things than just the Tyranitar.
This may be just me, but I would rather use a pokemon that can deal damage to a wider variety of pokemon, and perhaps a bit less damage to the one it is supposed to counter (still enough to counter it effectively) than a pokemon that's based totally on countering that one pokemon, making it's effectiveness drop when it turns out you're not even going to have to battle that specific pokemon in a battle.
If you're purely constructing it just to counter Tyranitar and you face a team without it, I doubt it will bring you much good. An Impish natured set with Leftovers surely helps countering Tyranitar, but a Choice Band hold item (and possibly an Adamant nature as well) would make the Torterra able to scare of more things than just the Tyranitar.
This may be just me, but I would rather use a pokemon that can deal damage to a wider variety of pokemon, and perhaps a bit less damage to the one it is supposed to counter (still enough to counter it effectively) than a pokemon that's based totally on countering that one pokemon, making it's effectiveness drop when it turns out you're not even going to have to battle that specific pokemon in a battle.
You should, like, ALWAYS use an Impish Torterra outside of CB, which I don't condone in any way. Torterra's an excellent ground / rock resist, two very good resists to have, and I have been strongly considering using one on a Tyranitar team since TTar loves to have a ground resist to back him up with Gliscor and Hippowdon ruining his fun.
I'm trying to come up with a good EV spread for the guy, I want him to survive a max+ Atk CB Rhyperior's Megahorn or not-attacked Avalanche (both have the same effective BP on Torterra IIRC).
I'm trying to come up with a good EV spread for the guy, I want him to survive a max+ Atk CB Rhyperior's Megahorn or not-attacked Avalanche (both have the same effective BP on Torterra IIRC).
torterra doesnt need to be loading up on attack evs to be usefull to a team..............it still has a support movepool that will make it usefull outside of countering tyranitar...........and as ADH said........the quakeslide resist it has will probaly benefit you every game as those moves are very common...........heck it even beats the crap outta non ice fang gyrados......so as u can see it doesnt have to pump Atk evs to be useful to a team
In my opinion, Choice Band Torterra makes one of it's best options, and therefore I mentioned that an Adamant nature can surely be useful on him.
With a Choice Band it can mess with so many pokemon, and it's already got a great Atk stat.
Therefore my point, that if you're going for an Impish nature with Leftovers and an EV spread based on countering T-Tar, the overall effectiviness of that Torterra on your team might not be as good as when you're going with an Adamant nature and Choice Band. It can then take down a wider variety of pokemon and it can still be able to counter Tyranitar effectively.
Those are the main reasons why I mentioned the Adamant nature over the Impish one, with a set that includes Leftovers as hold item.
EDIT:
A Max Atk Adamant, Choice Band Rhyperior's Megahorn does approximately 81 - 95% damage on a Torterra with an Impish nature and maxed out Def and HP.
True, it can help with support as well by laying down Stealth Rock, and a team can greatly benefit from this.
However, if you're planning on using a Torterra that knows Superpower to counter Tyranitar, wouldn't you want to switch that Torterra out as soon as it has used that Superpower? I sure would, and that's mainly why I think Choice Band makes such a good choice on him, seeing as how he willl leave the battlefield very oftenly by switching out.
Superpower isn't the only reason why it would want to switch out quite often; most of the time, after you've attacked something, your opponent will send in a pokemon with Ice Beam and most Ice Beams, if not all, will OHKO Torterra.
As you can see, Torterra will be switching in and out a lot, meaning that Choice Band can effectively increase it's average damage output, while not hindering it's effectiviness that much, because it already switched out very often to begin with.
I can imagine Torterra to use 3 attacking moves and Stealth Rock as it's fourth move, to support the team. I still believe though that if you could make it more in a way that it can not only take down Tyranitar effectively, but also in a way that it can deal serious damage to a whole lot of other pokemon (through Choice Band and possibly an Adamant nature), it can prove to be much more helpful to your team than when you're aiming solely on countering T-Tar with it. Stealth Rock is a wonderful choice, even on a CB set, but adjusting your nature and hold item just by constantly taking Tyranitar as an example of what it should counter would hinder it's performance IMO.
I'm sorry if I may have given any of you the wrong thoughts with my post, but what I was trying to say is that, like I said in this post as well, a Torterra can do so much more than just counter Tyranitar. It would be foolish to ignore those capabilities; I'd rather put them to good use by adjusting it's moveset accordingly so that it makes more pokemon tremble in fear when they face it.
Not necessary, Choice Band is ATK*1.5, right?
Any +DEF natured Torterra with 212 HP and 238 DEF EV's will guarantee you survival, and put you at a magic 384 HPs, with 50 leftover to play around with.
Now the problem is Torterra doesn't have enough EV's leftover to guarantee that he can outspeed him (Rhyperior would only need 180 EVs into speed)
Torterra CAN threaten to OHKO him with Leaf Storm, but wouldn't be looking too plausible in a Sandstorm.
Rhyperior is such a beast... hope for misses.
According to my calculations, if you're going for 212 HP EVs, you only need 224 EVs in Def to guaranteedly survive a hit like that. That puts you at 332 Def, which is, according to Marriland's Damage Calculator, enough to receive "only" 383 damage from a CB'd Megahorn at max.
Also, if you're not interested in a magic number for HP with Leftovers recovery, an alternative spread could be 180 HP and 252 Def. This way you will still guaranteedly survive a CB'd Megahorn, and you can put 4 more EVs into Speed (this isn't much but might be worth considering).
So, that taken into account, you could use either one of the following EV spreads:
212 HP, 224 Def, 72 Speed
180 HP, 252 Def, 76 Speed
The latter one puts you at 167 Speed, which doesn't really make a big difference, but still. If you're holding Leftovers, obviously go with the first one.
You're still totally right on the fact that it still has not enough Speed to guaranteedly outspeed Rhyperior at max HP and Adamant nature... That really hurts.
Anyway, maybe a bit more on-topic: If physical walls (and Special walls perhaps as well) are going to be more focused on type resistances, could Iron Defense, Acid Armor and Barrier start seeing some more play. I don't remember a lot of pokemon carrying those moves in the Advance Metagame, but now that some pokemon will need to find other ways to improve their defensive skills, could it be possible they are going to use moves like that to make up for their possibly bad typing that could get them killed? Things like Weezing will probably don't need it, but other pokemon like Cloyster could make Barrier worthwhile perhaps.
Tell me if I'm being stupid here though, as I have no clue as to what the reason was for them seeing not much play. It may have absolutely nothing to do with this.
Maybe an Acid Armor-passing Vaporeon will see more play... Ah well, I'm probably just posting trash now, so I'll stop already.
your contradicting yourself here............you stated before that if torterra is adamant it cant withstand CBtars crunches .........you calacs above show its as a 2hko therefore meaning adamant torterra cant switch in and as for barrier and acid armour they still wont be used except for BP teams as to effectively counter a pkmn you have to be able to switch into it and to do this and then use sommething like barrier is asking for a free hit or a set up or something..........imo those moves arent worth it outside of BP teams
When Torterra is <33% HP, Leaf Storm ALWAYS OHKO's Rhyperior. Sandstorm, or not. No EVs and a negative nature, doesn't matter. Overgrow negates Sandstorm.
Torterra really does have a great movepool for taking out Waters and Grounds. Overgrow might normally be meh, but anything that activates it with an "almost OHKO" gets owned by retaliation.
I know it has some bad weaks (hiya Ice, Bug, and Fire), but half the popular stuff that employs it doesn't want to eat a STAB EQ, Wood Hammer, or Leaf Storm.
Torterra really does have a great movepool for taking out Waters and Grounds. Overgrow might normally be meh, but anything that activates it with an "almost OHKO" gets owned by retaliation.
I know it has some bad weaks (hiya Ice, Bug, and Fire), but half the popular stuff that employs it doesn't want to eat a STAB EQ, Wood Hammer, or Leaf Storm.