Ability-Based Tiers

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Mr.E

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Gengar is pretty shitty but it does do some cool unique things, like not getting crit PAR Body Slammed switching into Tauros. Victreebel is just bad Eggy with a couple of good gimmicks (Wrap and laughing at Tobybro).

Jolteon outspeeds everything and dunks on bitches with a great STAB that basically gives reason for Golem/Rhydon to exist in the metagame. It would be more #1 than Mordekaiser if Focus Energy worked.
 
Gar is incredibly overrated, and needs luck to do anything. It needs cray trolling to realistically threaten stuff, or it needs to do something like catch an explosion or wall some niche threat like persian, all of which are improbable against good players. It's better to just pick a pokemon who can do its job reliably every battle, rather than a pokemon who does something amazing once every ten battles. I'd only ever pick gar if I was countering a niche pokemon on my opponent's team in a tourney set or something.

The only things bel and eggy have in common are the grass typing. Eggy is a defensive pokemon who sleeps and booms. Bel is a frail offensive pokemon who threatens every switch-in in the game if you include chain-switching. They're not similar at all. Without explosion, eggy is mediocre offensively until the late game where there are less pokemon to switch into it. By that point, it has likely taken a beating or boomed (or even taken sleep, though it shouldn't). Bel has offensive pressure all game, and its main weakness, its frailty, is mitigated by good prediction and wrap switching. Not saying one is better than the other, but they're completely different other than the grass typing.


Jolteon is BL in ability to me. It can do something every now and then, but can be countered be good play and there are better options. It has virtually no offensive threat until lategame when stuff is down, but at that point a lot of stuff has the same rate of success as jolteon. People seem to have this idea that electrics steamroll everything when grounds aren't around, which isn't true at all.
 
Gar is incredibly overrated, and needs luck to do anything. It needs cray trolling to realistically threaten stuff, or it needs to do something like catch an explosion or wall some niche threat like persian, all of which are improbable against good players. It's better to just pick a pokemon who can do its job reliably every battle, rather than a pokemon who does something amazing once every ten battles. I'd only ever pick gar if I was countering a niche pokemon on my opponent's team in a tourney set or something.
Because being a fast sleeper is totally useless, because exploding is totally useless, because being the only real Lapras counter is totally useless, and because the extra layer of mindgames Gar adds to every single turn of a match is totally useless, am I right?

:P
 

Mr.E

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Jolteon is BL in ability to me. It can do something every now and then, but can be countered be good play and there are better options. It has virtually no offensive threat until lategame when stuff is down, but at that point a lot of stuff has the same rate of success as jolteon. People seem to have this idea that electrics steamroll everything when grounds aren't around, which isn't true at all.
Here is a list of OU mons that aren't Ground and resist Electric: Exeggutor.

The whole point is that basically nothing good resists Electric attacks, unlike Psychics who all resist each other. Even better, both Jolteon and Zapdos have attacks that hit Eggy super-effectively. (Jolteon 3HKOs and Zapdos 2HKOs on average, both can OHKO with a crit.) Their physical attacks beat through Zam and do at least reasonable damage to Chansey. If you don't have Golem/Rhydon to switch into them, they're nigh-guaranteed to take down more than their fair share. Jolteon outspeeds everything and Zapdos has a retarded amount of combined bulk and power thanks to its legendary BST.
 
Magic- Being a fast sleeper isn't that good when you risk being crit OHKOd by nearly every common lead, and you aren't a good sleep absorber. The 'extra layer of mindgames' is inferior to a pokemon that doesn't need mindgames to be effective every battle. It has almost no real offence outside of explosion or cray hax, and invites offensive pressure from both the physical and the special side. The things it needs to do in a battle to justify its slot are unlikely to be achieved every battle consistently.

Mr. E.- I have beaten numerous electrics without running a ground, electrics are overrated. The two main problems they have is that theyre vulnerable to paralysis and can't recover properly, and can't threaten both sides of the physical-special spectrum with the one move. This makes them bad revengers and even more vulnerable to paralysis-carrying switch ins. Heck, chansey has a decent shot at beating both of them 2v1, and that's without reflect. They have to be hidden until late game as well, because their offence is useless before that and they're too frail. Apart from the fact that you were 5v6 when you could've used a pokemon that has relevant offence all-game, if you're gonna conceal a pokemon for most of the game you might as well use a sweeper who can use the one move to threaten everything, and outspeed and 1-2HKO any counters to that move.

There's a reason why no one runs pure special sweepers. It's because unlike physical sweepers, they can't threaten everything with the one move and easily KO whatever counters that move. Every staple special can either recover, status, boom, or has bulk and at least soft-counters common pokemon. Jolteon fulfills none of these criterion.
 
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But so can chansey, who is far superior to jolteon. I don't understand why you'd run jolteon when you can already run a top 5 pokemon who hard counters starmie, and you can run other sweepers who threaten starmie whilst simultaneously threatening other stuff a lot more than jolteon does.
 
But so can chansey, who is far superior to jolteon. I don't understand why you'd run jolteon when you can already run a top 5 pokemon who hard counters starmie, and you can run other sweepers who threaten starmie whilst simultaneously threatening other stuff a lot more than jolteon does.
Because those other sweepers don't threaten Starmie as much, and they probably don't threaten "other stuff" all that much more than Jolteon either. STAB Thunderbolt backed with Pin Missile and Double Kick actually hits a lot of things.

It's not the best general-purpose sweeper, or even the second-best, but it's really not as bad as you make out.
 
For jolteon to justify a slot, it has to be threatening somewhere towards the back end of the midgame, where there are still a few healthy pokemon around. At this point, pokemon can come in on the right move and still threaten jolteon in some way. That's the problem, it is forced to predict a lot more than other sweepers like persian or dodrio who can hit everything bar one hard counter hard with just the one move.

The reason why I say late midgame and not the endgame where everything is paralysed and low health is that a million pokemon are threatening at that point. The question is what jolteon offers over other pokemon before that. The only thing it offers is a starmie counter, but cant switch into it safely and you likely already have an even harder starmie counter already.
 

Mr.E

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And yo man, everything is vulnerable to paralysis. ;[ Being slow is only an advantage insofar as you care less about the speed drop, since odds are you were moving second anyway. It still works against you if both mons are PAR, which isn't exactly uncommon in RBY, plus that whole 25% chance to lose a turn nobody likes. You gotta get off the "weak to paralysis" shit.

I hope that isn't your only justification for thinking Jolteon can't switch into Starmie. Why would you use it over Chansey? Probably because they aren't even remotely similar other than both being pretty good against Starmie. Persian, Dodrio? First off, I already pointed out that almost nothing resists Electric in the metagame so they hardly have to "predict" anymore than Normals (only difference is Body Slam has a 30% chance to PAR "Goldon" and Tbolt doesn't). Jolteon also outspeeds Starmie/Zam and isn't 2HKOed by every STAB special attack.

There's a niche for it, just as there is Zapdos who isn't so blindingly fast but has Eggy-level bulk and an offense that shreds through literally everything except those dastardly Rock/Ground-types (Chansey is 3HKOed by Drill Peck too BTW, so it's hardly a bona-fide counter. Jolteon's Double Kick narrowly misses that benchmark, unfortunately.) whose place in OU exists mostly to dissuade everyone and their brother from jamming said Zapdos/Jolteon in their teams.
 
almost nothing resists Electric in the metagame
Egg, Chansey. I mean technically Chansey doesn't but it might as well. Those are two pokemon which are on most competitive teams.

Of course, Jolteon can hit both of them for major damage, but you do have to predict to do that.
 
And yo man, everything is vulnerable to paralysis. ;[ Being slow is only an advantage insofar as you care less about the speed drop, since odds are you were moving second anyway. It still works against you if both mons are PAR, which isn't exactly uncommon in RBY, plus that whole 25% chance to lose a turn nobody likes. You gotta get off the "weak to paralysis" shit.

I hope that isn't your only justification for thinking Jolteon can't switch into Starmie. Why would you use it over Chansey? Probably because they aren't even remotely similar other than both being pretty good against Starmie. Persian, Dodrio? First off, I already pointed out that almost nothing resists Electric in the metagame so they hardly have to "predict" anymore than Normals (only difference is Body Slam has a 30% chance to PAR "Goldon" and Tbolt doesn't). Jolteon also outspeeds Starmie/Zam and isn't 2HKOed by every STAB special attack.

There's a niche for it, just as there is Zapdos who isn't so blindingly fast but has Eggy-level bulk and an offense that shreds through literally everything except those dastardly Rock/Ground-types (Chansey is 3HKOed by Drill Peck too BTW, so it's hardly a bona-fide counter. Jolteon's Double Kick narrowly misses that benchmark, unfortunately.) whose place in OU exists mostly to dissuade everyone and their brother from jamming said Zapdos/Jolteon in their teams.
I never said people considered using jolteon over chansey. My point is that jolteon's true niche, that it beats starmie, is made redundant by chansey, who does the same thing better, and is a better pokemon overall.

And you do have to predict well to deter pokemon from switching in. Almost nothing apart from the hard counters likes taking a slash or drill peck. You can't just click tbolt and expect it to do the same thing. Chansey or even zam can come in on that and threaten it with paralysis. I won't even go into how many pokemon can switch into pin missile or double kick and threaten jolteon. Point is, there are like 3-4 pokemon on a standard non-wrap team that won't mind switching into jolteon and then threaten it. Almost nothing likes switching into drill peck or slash. Jolteon has to guess correctly for a pokemon to not want to switch into it.

Yes it can be threatening when everything is crippled, but so can a lot of other pokemon. You have to ask yourself what it offers over other potential sweepers, especially considering it has a fairly common hard counter, and can lose 1v1 against half a standard team.
 

Mr.E

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You know Jolteon is probably carrying T-Wave itself, right? Jolteon and Zam paralyzing each other isn't a particularly exciting or significant ordeal. That's how RBY works, you just have to accept most of your shit is getting parayzed because if it isn't Zam it's Chansey, it's Starmie, it's Eggy, it's randomly Body Slam from everything else. That was my whole point. You can protect one or two things but you'll have to accept most of your team will be paralyzed eventually.
 
And a zam-jolteon paralysis trade works out way better for zam than it does for jolteon. Zam can function well paralysed under certain conditions, due to being a mini special wall and being able to recover. If it runs reflect, it becomes a mini physical wall as well. Jolteon is frail and can't recover, so paralysis almost always means a KO in any situation where the battle isn't already over.

If you're going to run a frail sweeper who can't take paralysis, I don't understand why you wouldn't just run persian. It has a good match up against tauros, which is much better than beating starmie, which is made redundant by chansey. It's hard counter is probably less common, and likely to be asleep or boomed by the time you show it (although golem could have boomed too). It also threatens the entire meta bar gengar with the combination of slash and bubblebeam.

But of course, the main reason why persian is rare is because it can't take a hit and can't take paralysis. It's a lot better in wrap where it can come in safely and get free hits on stuff before switching out. The same logic doesn't really apply to jolteon because its moves are much easier to switch into if you have the right pokemon, which you probably do.
 
And a zam-jolteon paralysis trade works out way better for zam than it does for jolteon. Zam can function well paralysed under certain conditions, due to being a mini special wall and being able to recover. If it runs reflect, it becomes a mini physical wall as well. Jolteon is frail and can't recover, so paralysis almost always means a KO in any situation where the battle isn't already over.

If you're going to run a frail sweeper who can't take paralysis, I don't understand why you wouldn't just run persian. It has a good match up against tauros, which is much better than beating starmie, which is made redundant by chansey. It's hard counter is probably less common, and likely to be asleep or boomed by the time you show it (although golem could have boomed too). It also threatens the entire meta bar gengar with the combination of slash and bubblebeam.

But of course, the main reason why persian is rare is because it can't take a hit and can't take paralysis. It's a lot better in wrap where it can come in safely and get free hits on stuff before switching out. The same logic doesn't really apply to jolteon because its moves are much easier to switch into if you have the right pokemon, which you probably do.
Persian's matchup against Tauros is no better than Jolteon's. Both outspeed and 3HKO but are 2HKOed by Tauros. And heck, Jolteon's got a better chance of critting and 2HKOing since Slash is already a crit and Jolteon's faster.
 
if you don't want to run chansey because of the vulnerabilities to snorlax that it creates, you can use jolteon. or if you just don't want to use chansey, which you don't have to use, jolteon is something to consider. jolteon also resists electric (and flying), which isn't too important but it is one of the few viable things that offer that. and it can smack slowbro, particularly on rests but it can clutch it out with a crit in dire straights. its speed and crit rate can come in handy in the vein of tauros lategame, although obviously it's not nearly as good as tauros. also, i feel like it is pretty unusual that exeggutor and goldon would be healthy by lategame, especially exeggutor. the only one of jolteon's counters that is fairly difficult to lure and kill/wear down before lategame is chansey. persian is of course pretty good but doesn't provide you as much defensive flexibility as jolteon does and anyway they are really not too comparable.

also, although i'm sure persian is "better in wrap" as you are wont to say about many things because of the possibility of getting free switches, i doubt it gets as much use in wrap because there are 3 more viable pokemon who are better than it and 2 of them already don't provide much in the way of defense, so i doubt you'd be tossing another glass cannon that absolutely can't get paralyzed on your team like persian. and having a better matchup against tauros absolutely doesn't matter if you NEED to beat starmie and are already as good as any average team against tauros. it's not like being better against tauros is objectively 100% more important than being good against starmie for every single conceivable slot on a pokemon team. it is not the only thing in the game you have to worry about beating, and most teams have plenty to beat it with without having to consciously add checks to your team. don't really understand the point of this persian comparison and i don't necessarily see the cogency of any of those related arguments.
 
The comparison was used because they're both frail sweepers who cant take paralysis. I'm saying that if you're going to use one, persian seems better because it threatens a lot more with the one move.

The thing that differentiates persian and dodrio from other frail sweepers in wrap is that they are two of very few pokemon who outspeed chansey and threaten to 2HKO it without committing to hbeam, and threaten everything else with the same move. This allows you to forgo paralysing chansey, giving you the option of freezing it or using it as an offensive pivot. Having a pokemon that threatens a 2HKO on chansey with a universally threatening move is a great way to get free hits and punch holes in the opponent's team.

This is why I don't like jolteon. He's not a sweeper that can do that sort of thing because he doesn't have a universally threatening move. Sure he can be a threat late game in certain situations, but so can other pokemon, whilst also being threatening earlier on and not having to predict as much.
 
Double-edge has a chance to 2HKO. It's not guaranteed, but it'll force chansey out most of the time, and not a lot wants to switch into what is the equivalent of a golem earthquake.
 
Worth noting that Dodrio using Double-Edge will be OHKOed 90% of the time by Blizzard Chansey. Obviously, you can't 2HKO if you're dead.
 
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Lol blizzard chansey.

It's not meant to be a true 2HKO though, in that you don't trade with it at full health. You send dodrio in when chansey is at 50 or just above, and you threaten most of their team from this position. The 2HKO on chansey is the only 'real' reason to use rhydon over golem.
 

Jorgen

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Rhydon does more to Egg with Rock Slide, too, and also gets a very likely 3HKO on Snorlax whereas Golem is quite unlikely to 3HKO Lax. And let's not forget about the possible EQ 2HKO on Starmie and the very likely Rock Slide 2HKO on Alakazam (and EQ 3HKO past Reflect, for that matter). Rhydon's extra damage is useful in so many more instances than just vs. Chansey.
 
rhydon can also kill slowbro on rests. and jolteon doesn't have the most monstrous stab but it isn't BAD, and it has coverage, and it can fill some minor defensive roles while persian and dodrio don't really do that at all. it is more than just a frail sweeper. there are plenty of reasons to use it.
 

Mr.E

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Worth noting that Dodrio using Double-Edge doesn't even require a stiff breeze to kill. Stick to Body Slam and paralyze shit.

Rhydon is pretty much strictly superior to Golem. Explosion isn't even that good in RBY unless you just fucking hate Starmie or something I guess. (Not bad for opening up Slowbro to sweep, I guess.) The only big reason to use Golem is that it beats Rhydon 1-on-1 due to Speed advantage, while otherwise performing the same basic function in a team (cockblocking Zapdos). The Speed matters absolutely nowhere else (well, other Golem) and Rhydon is both bulkier and hits significantly harder.
 
Rhydon does more to Egg with Rock Slide, too, and also gets a very likely 3HKO on Snorlax whereas Golem is quite unlikely to 3HKO Lax. And let's not forget about the possible EQ 2HKO on Starmie and the very likely Rock Slide 2HKO on Alakazam (and EQ 3HKO past Reflect, for that matter). Rhydon's extra damage is useful in so many more instances than just vs. Chansey.
I know that, but those are situational. The chansey MU is something you can reliably force most battles. You can't reliably force any of those other situations (except the extra damage on eggy).

Mr. E: That's why I said you use Dedge when chansey is in KO range, and dont trade at full health. Also, the golem-rhydon MU is so unlikely to happen that it's not really important, especially considering that neither can switch into the other. Explosion is the only real reason you use golem.
 
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