Resource Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: NU Edition

[NotNova]

NU Sun is generally Hyper Offense with 2 setters and four abusers. The two single best setters are probably Liepard as the Prankster setter and Explosion Regirock. Typically you would lead Regirock to set up your rocks and weather, then explode to get a free switch-in into your sweepers. Liepard comes in later in the game to set the sun again and act as general utility, especially against sweepers you might not be able to handle otherwise. There's little other choices, really; only Volbeat comes to mind, but it's not as good as Liepard.
Premier sun sweepers include Shiftry, Sawsbuck, Victreebel and Exeggutor, while the most common Fire-type abuser would be Pyroar due to being acceptably fast, but Magmortar can work just as well.

While this is the most common and arguably most useful build, you can go a more "balanced" route by cutting back on straight-up abusers and bringing Pokemon with defensive synergy or that would otherwise benefit the team.

 

[Bongo1228]

What are the best NU rain leads? I'm making a rain team, and i just have no idea which of the pokemon are good for said task.

 

[XenoTech N]

What are the best NU rain leads? I'm making a rain team, and i just have no idea which of the pokemon are good for said task.

Rain setters are the best leads. The best one is by far Liepard thanks to Prankster and amazing speed, but pokemon like Volbeat and Relicanth can work too. But mostly Liepard tho.

 

[Jim E. Russler]

What are the best NU rain leads? I'm making a rain team, and i just have no idea which of the pokemon are good for said task.

The best rain leads are the ones that can both consistently set up rain and reliably pivot out. Liepard and Volbeat work very well because Prankster basically guarantees you rain and they can follow up with U-Turn to bring in an appropriate rain abuser.

You could also use a rain setter with a suicide move like Memento or Explosion to guarantee a free switch and prevent the opponent from stalling your rain turns, but the Prankster ones are more reliable leads in most cases.

Either way, don't forget to have at least two rain setters on your team, you'll want to be able to take advantage of rain early- and late-game.

 

[Yambino]

Where is a good forum I can find other NU tier players to battle? I prefer the 3DS copies over showdown when I battle others, but it is near impossible to fight anyone who follows smogon rules.

 

[boltsandbombers]

Where is a good forum I can find other NU tier players to battle? I prefer the 3DS copies over showdown when I battle others, but it is near impossible to fight anyone who follows smogon rules.

This should help:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-nu-battles-here-read-the-first-post.3541101/

 

[The Idealistic]

I noticed that the link to the Viability Rankings thread is out of date on the Never Used format page: http://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/formats/nu/

Is there anybody who can update that page with a link to the new Viability Rankings thread? It's important that the newer Viability Rankings thread is linked there so newer players are more informed on what Pokemon are good or not in the metagame.

 

[shiloh]

I noticed that the link to the Viability Rankings thread is out of date on the Never Used format page: http://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/formats/nu/

Is there anybody who can update that page with a link to the new Viability Rankings thread? It's important that the newer Viability Rankings thread is linked there so newer players are more informed on what Pokemon are good or not in the metagame.

I put in the changes, once someone else approves this everything will be updated. Thanks for the Heads Up n_n

 

[boltsandbombers]

I noticed that the link to the Viability Rankings thread is out of date on the Never Used format page: http://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/formats/nu/

Is there anybody who can update that page with a link to the new Viability Rankings thread? It's important that the newer Viability Rankings thread is linked there so newer players are more informed on what Pokemon are good or not in the metagame.

I put in the changes, once someone else approves this everything will be updated. Thanks for the Heads Up n_n

Merged the changes with the updated links, thanks to both of you for pointing that out and submitting the changes :)

 

[TheKong98]

Hey guys, what EV-spread do you recommend for a Pivot Lanturn and a Tank Rhydon that i'm going to use for Wi-Fi Battles (lvl 50 all)? The spreads the Strategy Pokedex suggests are for lvl 100 battles, and thus not optimal for the lvl 50 all Wi-Fi mode that the games use.

 

[keninblack]

How good/bad is it to have two fighting types on a team?

Hitmonchan/Sawk to be exact, I'm insanely new to this meta so i'm not really hip to how flawed this potentially is. So if its definitely a "one per team" type let me know, thanks!

 

[shiloh]

Hey guys, what EV-spread do you recommend for a Pivot Lanturn and a Tank Rhydon that i'm going to use for Wi-Fi Battles (lvl 50 all)? The spreads the Strategy Pokedex suggests are for lvl 100 battles, and thus not optimal for the lvl 50 all Wi-Fi mode that the games use.

Hey this isn't really the forum to ask for information like that since this forum is dedicated to 6v6 Singles at level 100, but the Battle Spot subforum ( http://www.smogon.com/forums/forums/battle-spot.265/ ) should have what you are looking for so just ask there.

How good/bad is it to have two fighting types on a team?

Hitmonchan/Sawk to be exact, I'm insanely new to this meta so i'm not really hip to how flawed this potentially is. So if its definitely a "one per team" type let me know, thanks!

Two Fighting-types was really a month or two ago when people were running just one fighting resist that was easily overwhelmed, and now people have gotten a bit smarter and started running 2 fighting resists or 1 really solid counter on a team so its harder to pull off, but still viable. Having a pursuit trapper like Skuntank would be incredibly useful on a team like that to remove Psychic / Ghost types, but other than that the core sounds fine and something that would work in the meta.

 

[Kiyo]

How good/bad is it to have two fighting types on a team?

Hitmonchan/Sawk to be exact, I'm insanely new to this meta so i'm not really hip to how flawed this potentially is. So if its definitely a "one per team" type let me know, thanks!

It's not flawed at all. It's quite often a good thing. By using a second pokemon of the same type, especially one that has similar switch-ins, you're pressuring the opponent into using their type-resist pokemon to check two of your pokemon. This can often be overwhelming for an opponent and lead to a sweep by one of the paired pokemon. This idea is essentially why team archetypes built around cores of Pokemon of the same type (normal "spam", fire "spam", flying "spam", etc.) are effective in NU, we have a lot to check and often times people condense rolls to do it all, this leads to them being susceptible to type stacking. Also on the point of chan + sawk, they work really well together cuz chan can spin for sawk so it preserves sturdy!

edit: yeah what meta said is true, the metagame goes through phases where teams are underprepared for certain types and those type-stack teams tend to thrive. normal types are all the rage now, fighting type were last couple months, fire types were huge in xy, etc. but the idea of building a team by type stacking in theory should always work to some extent

 

[kay]

Fighting types are very good in NU so having 2 of them isn't a problem. There are actually teams dedicated to fighting spam where you use multiple fighting types on a team to break down teams using offensive pressure and repetitive coverage. 2 fighting types on a team sin't bad at all if it fits your team and your team still works.

 

[keninblack]

Word, thanks so much!

Yeah Spinner for Sawk is what I was going for for sure, and yeah Skutank fits perfectly with the team good call!

 

[TeslaMouse]

Few questions.

1. Why was Grandbull moved out of NU?

2. What are some very good checks to Sawk and Primeape that can take a knock off predict well? I loved Grandbull because getting a -1 attack drop on sawk really helped and with the ability to teach Grandbull t-wave, could control Sawk's speed when scarfed.

 

[Disjunction]

Few questions.

1. Why was Grandbull moved out of NU?

2. What are some very good checks to Sawk and Primeape that can take a knock off predict well? I loved Grandbull because getting a -1 attack drop on sawk really helped and with the ability to teach Grandbull t-wave, could control Sawk's speed when scarfed.

Granbull rose in usage because RU used it enough. I believe it was because they have a lot of popular Dragon- and Fighting-types, such as Flygon and Scrafty, that Granbull handles really well.

For Pokemon that can take Sawk's Close Combat and Knock Off, Scyther and Garbodor are the first mons that come to mind. We have a couple other nice Sawk checks you can check out in our Role Compendium here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-nu-role-compendium.3524139/ They'll be listed under Fighting-type checks

 

[Stoned M&M]

Few questions.

1. Why was Grandbull moved out of NU?

2. What are some very good checks to Sawk and Primeape that can take a knock off predict well? I loved Grandbull because getting a -1 attack drop on sawk really helped and with the ability to teach Grandbull t-wave, could control Sawk's speed when scarfed.

It left NU because it startes getting usage in RU, and Smogon tiers are based on how much usage a Pokemon gets in a tier.

As for Sawk checks there are options like Colbur Berry Musharna and Gourgeist-Super, and Eviolite Scyther. There are offensive checks like Rotom-fan as well.
You can find a better list in the NU Role Compendium
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/oras-nu-role-compendium.3524139/
Edit: sniped by Dis :[

 

[Mega Ampharos]

What are some good Fairy replacements for Granbull?

 

[XenoTech N]

What are some good Fairy replacements for Granbull?

NU unfortunately doesn't have that many fairies, but Defensive Mawile is pretty close to Granbull.

 

[Jarii]

What are some good Fairy replacements for Granbull?

Depends on what roll you want to use it, if you want to use the Fairy Pokémon as Fighting check I would suggest to search for another type / pokémon like Musharna since all the other Fairy types in this meta aren't able to take a Close Combat from a Choice banded Sawk (unless you want to use Max Def Clefairy then I suggest to use that.). If you want it as a replacement of checking things like Archeops and Tauros I would suggest Mega-Audino since that checks both pretty well. If you want a offensive replacement I would suggest offensive Mawile.

 

[SlickHippo99]

With the new drops, will mega banette be legal or is it banned? If it is banned, will it be retested at any point?

 

[shiloh]

It is banned, and it cannot be retested because with the new tiering, the Mega Stone is in RU, but the mon itself is in NU

 

[Tynoo]

Hello guys, I took a look at the NeverUsed Premier League topics and found it was really good stuff, so I would like to know if you guys would reiterate it ?
(Feel free to correct me if I made any grammatical mistakes)

 

[Evan.]

Hello guys, I took a look at the NeverUsed Premier League topics and found it was really good stuff, so I would like to know if you guys would reiterate it ?
(Feel free to correct me if I made any grammatical mistakes)

im not entirely sure what the question is, but if you're asking about NUPL, it usually runs once a year around April / June. The Smogon Premier League (SPL) is happening soon and that's mainly where competitive NU is going to be focused for the next couple of months.