BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

With the amount of viable playstyles (Rain/Sun/Sand attached to offense/stall) and maybe Deo-D offense it's kind of hard to overlook anything good but I feel like ScarfTran has been. Sand's more balanced style which is seemingly the best for trying to win weather wars is a great fit for Heatran, not leaving it doused by rain and letting it troll Dugtrio on sun. As long as you can get SR up and spinblock you have the advantage against Sun and handling Rain's threats fairly well puts you at an advantage there too. Blissey-esque walls are only really seen on stall which gives you another great reason to run a spinblocker and Tyranitar. With the ease that it pivots in on Genesect as a bonus I'm really surprised it isn't a popular set.

If I'm completely honest I wouldn't use a different sand offense archetype BW2 is lol- one viable outline for rain offense and one for sun.
 

GatoDelFuego

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Actually, I've found blissey isn't even used that much on stall anymore. So much boosting attackers and keldeo/alakazam running around, on top of taking what, almost half under sun from volcarona? The game is all about halving the damage you take now, resistances are far more important than actually walling something. If you can have stealth rock up and they don't you can win a match this way. Just yesterday I played a match where I couldn't hit a balloon heatran with anything and had to keep forcing it out so it could die from stealth rock over 10 switch ins, lol. Stall is surprisingly effective.
 
Havent really encountered much full on stall teams, considering Genesect and Keldeo rampin around. Keldeo with Secret sword and Genesect with Download + U-Turn. Tornadus-T also has mixed sets giving stall a swift kick to the shits.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Havent really encountered much full on stall teams, considering Genesect and Keldeo rampin around. Keldeo with Secret sword and Genesect with Download + U-Turn. Tornadus-T also has mixed sets giving stall a swift kick to the shits.
Full stall isn't even viable in this metagame. CM Keldeo rips big holes in it, Tornadus-T can break the pink blobs with Superpower and hax special walls to death with Hurricane's confusion chance, Nasty Plot Thundurus-T does over 50% to the pink blobs at +2, and SD Haxorus in Rain does 50% to Skarm with an Aqua Tail. That's absolutely brutal, and also a very good explanation as to why stall isn't being seen very often these days - it simply cannot compete with the plethora of offensive threats that BW2 brought to the table.
 
On the topic of full stall, I've noticed that many of the main offensive threats which many consider to have made full stall nonviable are set up sweepers. Of course there are other things like Tornadus-T and Genesect, but those are actually beatable by defensive pokes, whereas CM Keldeo, SD Haxorus ect are pretty much impossible to wall. That made me think of a Pokemon which has pretty much been forgotten is this meta - Whimsicott. Of course it still has the same old problems with being very prediction heavy and difficult to use, but it seems like it patches up the issues stall is having right now.
 

alkinesthetase

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quagsire also has the potential to be very classy vs boosting sweepers; the problem is that short of their unique toys (prio encore in cott's case and unaware in quag's), they really suck in OU. whimsicott has no recovery short of subseed and quag's bulk is just not that good (95/85/65, cmon man even with recover this is not gonna cut it). this means that they'll suffer against all out attacking mons, who ignore their ability to counter boosters, and in general they don't have the stuff to stick around. there's a reason they're in RU after all.

in addition, as someone else said in another thread (my apologies to the person), typing matters a lot right now, more so than sheer bulk, and neither of them have particularly useful typings. quag's typing is not bad at all, with immunity to electric, but it has water neutrality (not so hot vs rain), fighting neutrality, flying neutrality (cough tornadus) and dragon neutrality (doesn't help that haxorus's mold breaker cracks through unaware). due to its poor bulk all these hits will punish it. whimsicott doesn't have to worry about that as much because its game is basically come in, encore and gtfo, but it still won't last long because its stats are abysmal.

in other words, i feel like they could work in theory, but in practice they just won't be able to stand up to the offensive threats of OU long enough to make a lasting impact for the lengthy games that stall aims to play
 
Full stall isn't even viable in this metagame. CM Keldeo rips big holes in it, Tornadus-T can break the pink blobs with Superpower and hax special walls to death with Hurricane's confusion chance, Nasty Plot Thundurus-T does over 50% to the pink blobs at +2, and SD Haxorus in Rain does 50% to Skarm with an Aqua Tail. That's absolutely brutal, and also a very good explanation as to why stall isn't being seen very often these days - it simply cannot compete with the plethora of offensive threats that BW2 brought to the table.
I've been running full stall lately and it certainly has been a challenge in teambuilding. It is really difficult balancing utility on a team (ex. Rapid Spin, Haze, Toxic Spikes, offensive presence) with the Pokemon who can actually wall the threats in question. On all my stall teams I've been building recently so far, two Pokes are pretty much have to be staple on the team: Latias (specifically Roar CM Latias) and Sp. Def Heatran to an extent. It has come to the point where I need to run these two Pokes.

So why is Roar CM Latias so essential? Part of it has to do with the utility it provides a team: being a great phazer and a good offensive presence to turn the tables. Latias can phaze against a variety of Pokes, meaning it can utilize the entry hazards the stall team provides much better than a lot of Pokes. It's high speed also means it can not be phazed out by opposing stall teams/walls, so you can keep spamming Roar freely until a Taunt user or Toxic user/threatening Poke gets switched in by chance. More importantly, Latias counters/checks pretty much all of the threats that might otherwise rip your average stall team to shreads. Let's take a look at the ones listed above and some other common stall breakres that I added:

  • Tornadus-T - Alright well nothing really walls Tornadus-T well outside of Jirachi/Sp. Def Zapdos (lol destroyed by SR). At least it can tank a Hurricane but U-turn sucks
  • Thunderus-T - Probably the best counter for stall. Can CM to tank a hit (31%-37%@ +1 Sp. Def) then hit with a Dragon Pulse or Recover up some health.
  • SD Haxorus - Outsped and eats Dragon Pulse, weakened by hazards or an attack while setting an SD on its unfornate target
  • CM Keldeo - CM War with Keldeo and Roars it out.
  • SubCM Jirachi Will lose the CM Roar, but can phaze its set consistently to rack up hazards damage and Substitute damage. Cleric support necessary for paralysis
  • CM Reuniclus - CM War and Roar it out. Counter sweep.
  • Technician Breloom - Resist all of its moves and can prey on its low special bulk. Obviously sleep fodder something else
  • Terrakion - Psyshock variants can do much better, but it can at least outspeed to hit it with Dragon Pulse once weakened. Can't do anything against Terrakion besides pack a Gliscor or Claydol [which got pusuit trapped by an accompanying Ttar once :( ]

Since it counters/checks a lot threats that would also break stall, while also giving a good sweeper to cleanup with because of its high speed, it is staple IMO. On Heatran: Heatran resists can not be matched by any other Pokemon. More importantly, it prevents Genesect teams steam-rolling you by just handing matchup right to the other team. More importantly, it is the only stop to the function of Sun teams which now can break past Chansey and Dragonite with the help of Genesect (many now are running HP Ice+Earthquake Saur since Duggy+Genesect remove Heatran quite easily. It also prevents crap like Taunt+Will-o-Wisp Mew and Sabeleye from preventing your team from doing anything.

I think I am getting close to making it work well, just have to utilize a lot of unconventional options

On the topic of full stall, I've noticed that many of the main offensive threats which many consider to have made full stall nonviable are set up sweepers. Of course there are other things like Tornadus-T and Genesect, but those are actually beatable by defensive pokes, whereas CM Keldeo, SD Haxorus ect are pretty much impossible to wall. That made me think of a Pokemon which has pretty much been forgotten is this meta - Whimsicott. Of course it still has the same old problems with being very prediction heavy and difficult to use, but it seems like it patches up the issues stall is having right now.
CM Keldeo most stall teams should find rather easy to overcome. Most stall teams ran Jellicent as a spinblocker which walls Keldeo without HP Ghost. Simply carrying a secondary check like Dragonite (which can be swapped out with Latias as staple) can nail Keldeo down. Sadly for Whimsicott, it faces a lot of competition for a slot to defend/tank against threats even though it provides a lot of utility. Prankster Taunt is great vs Deo-D offense, but you will be better off running Sableye for that niche since it can act as a spinblocker, beat CM Reuniclus, and spread burn.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
But that doesn't matter even a little. Toxic poisoning is nicer, i'll admit, but lava plume still kills him pretty fast. Against a half decent team, politoed shouldn't be staying in two turns anyhow, so burn>Toxic. If you have heal bell all bets are off, but in that case you have CHANSEY IN RAIN so heatran is useless no matter effing what.
What you haven't yet understood is that Politoed does mind burn damage, of course. What I've said with "Politoed doesn't mind burns" is that burn doesn't impede him from OHKOing or 2HKOing your Heatran with Scald/Hydro Pump/Surf because it isn't a physical attacker. It will yes despise the residual damage. That can be said about any special attacker, however.

I bet that a paralyzed Choice Scarf Heracross with Guts would despise the speed drop more than it would enjoy the attack boost, eh? Even a paralyzed Guts Conkeldurr that is slow enough to don't mind the speed drop would still deal with the fact that it can't attack 25% of time. Still, they become more powerful and this makes them harder to check/counter effectively (as you cannot fully rely on luck).

Don't say that Burn is fully detrimental to Politoed. Burn will not impede Politoed from destroying your Heatran, coming latter on battle to summon rain, destroying your other pokémons, or even burning your own Pokémon with Scald. Burn will facilitate, yes, but there are more effective ways to win the weather war. That's why I insist: Having a unreliable way to burn the entire opponent team's apart, especially considering that not all their pokémon will mind burn, RestTalk Heatran is not great against rain. Air Balloon Heatran can at least check their dragons, despite the fact that it still doesn't fare well against rain and the fact that if your opponent is intelligent enough they will not spam Outrage until Heatran is destroyed.
 
The main issue is that Rain has just gotten too many powerful toys for the other play styles to keep up with. Water has always been a fantastic type (you dont hear the term "bulky grass/fire-type" for a reason.) Meanwhile Sand Storm has always remained the same: pretty balanced and flexible. Sun is sun, you really can only go an offensive route (as Sun Stall doesnt even really need sun to function).

Surprisingly however, Hail Offense/Balance is a really good anti-metagame way to play. An Expert Belt Abomasnow has the ability to hit for SE damage on all of the opposing weather inducers (And many common pokes seen in all three styles of weather). And while nothing is stellar about him, his interesting typing and movepool does force a lot of switches. (And STAB Ice Shard off a 92 Atk isnt the worst thing I've seen). The key to hail is that you cant have your team rely on it always being up. In all honesty, you have to build the team as if you were building a weatherless team. Have other checks for big threats, a reliable sweeper, and then use Abomasnow as way to stop that Hurricane or Thunder from having 100% accuracy.
 

Arcticblast

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In my opinion, Donphan is one of the best defensive Pokemon in the game right now. It resists Stealth Rock, has both SR and Rapid Spin, packs priority (rare but useful for a wall) and has some power behind its massive Defense. Its typing allows it to take on many of OU's strongest physical threats - it may not resist Dragon like Skarmory or Ferrothorn, but it also isn't weak to Fighting or Fire, and can even handle Choice-locked or physical Electric types. Sturdy with base 120 Attack even makes it a decent check to some special attackers as well.
 
In my opinion, Donphan is one of the best defensive Pokemon in the game right now. It resists Stealth Rock, has both SR and Rapid Spin, packs priority (rare but useful for a wall) and has some power behind its massive Defense. Its typing allows it to take on many of OU's strongest physical threats - it may not resist Dragon like Skarmory or Ferrothorn, but it also isn't weak to Fighting or Fire, and can even handle Choice-locked or physical Electric types. Sturdy with base 120 Attack even makes it a decent check to some special attackers as well.
Only thing with Donphan is Toxic and Toxic Spikes.. Starmie at least had Natural cure.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Only thing with Donphan is Toxic and Toxic Spikes.. Starmie at least had Natural cure.
Toxic Spikes are the least common hazard right now, and they're being made even less prevalent by the preference of Starmie over Tentacruel as the most common Rapid Spinner. Donphan does a great job against at least some portion of the metagame, being able to threaten out Tyranitar, the most-used Stealth Rock supporter, as well as deal hefty damage to Dragonite (top 5 in usage), Haxorus, Thundurus-T, etc., with a priority Ice Shard. Its stellar defenses and excellent Attack to boot make it a great Rapid Spinner, especially for Sun teams. True, it's weak to status, but unfortunately that can't be helped.
 
Toxic Spikes are the least common hazard right now, and they're being made even less prevalent by the preference of Starmie over Tentacruel as the most common Rapid Spinner. Donphan does a great job against at least some portion of the metagame, being able to threaten out Tyranitar, the most-used Stealth Rock supporter, as well as deal hefty damage to Dragonite (top 5 in usage), Haxorus, Thundurus-T, etc., with a priority Ice Shard. Its stellar defenses and excellent Attack to boot make it a great Rapid Spinner, especially for Sun teams. True, it's weak to status, but unfortunately that can't be helped.

Tentacruel is still seen plenty on Rain teams and Starmie as well, not saying its a bad choice just not my personal choice. It also lacks a source of health. Starmie can run Recover and Tentacruel has Rain dish. Forretress is immune to poison and some people are even running Hp ice.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Tentacruel is still seen plenty on Rain teams and Starmie as well, not saying its a bad choice just not my personal choice. It also lacks a source of health. Starmie can run Recover and Tentacruel has Rain dish. Forretress is immune to poison and some people are even running Hp ice.
You list all the benefits of the other spinners, but fail to mention how Donphan also has benefits that the other common spinners lack. For one, it has priority Ice Shard, which is super-effective on some of the biggest metagame threats as of now, including Dragonite, Tornadus-T, and Thundurus-T. Donphan also has a powerful STAB Earthquake, something that its competitor Forretress lacks. Not to mention, it also boasts access to both Rapid Spin and Stealth Rock at the same time, something that both Starmie and Tentacruel cannot claim. With 90 Base HP, 120 Base Attack, and 120 Base Defense, it can both hit hard and take hard hits, whereas Starmie only hits hard, and Tentacruel mainly takes hits without dishing them back out. The advantages Donphan has over other spinners are massive, and they're certainly good enough reasons to give it a try.
 
You list all the benefits of the other spinners, but fail to mention how Donphan also has benefits that the other common spinners lack. For one, it has priority Ice Shard, which is super-effective on some of the biggest metagame threats as of now, including Dragonite, Tornadus-T, and Thundurus-T. Donphan also has a powerful STAB Earthquake, something that its competitor Forretress lacks. Not to mention, it also boasts access to both Rapid Spin and Stealth Rock at the same time, something that both Starmie and Tentacruel cannot claim. With 90 Base HP, 120 Base Attack, and 120 Base Defense, it can both hit hard and take hard hits, whereas Starmie only hits hard, and Tentacruel mainly takes hits without dishing them back out. The advantages Donphan has over other spinners are massive, and they're certainly good enough reasons to give it a try.
I state them cause like I said before I prefer those qualities over Donphans, which you had already stated in your post before. I know it's merits and does have niche on Sun teams. Seeing as Dragons and hazards are hard for Sun teams to face.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
What you haven't yet understood is that Politoed does mind burn damage, of course. What I've said with "Politoed doesn't mind burns" is that burn doesn't impede him from OHKOing or 2HKOing your Heatran with Scald/Hydro Pump/Surf because it isn't a physical attacker. It will yes despise the residual damage. That can be said about any special attacker, however.

I bet that a paralyzed Choice Scarf Heracross with Guts would despise the speed drop more than it would enjoy the attack boost, eh? Even a paralyzed Guts Conkeldurr that is slow enough to don't mind the speed drop would still deal with the fact that it can't attack 25% of time. Still, they become more powerful and this makes them harder to check/counter effectively (as you cannot fully rely on luck).

Don't say that Burn is fully detrimental to Politoed. Burn will not impede Politoed from destroying your Heatran, coming latter on battle to summon rain, destroying your other pokémons, or even burning your own Pokémon with Scald. Burn will facilitate, yes, but there are more effective ways to win the weather war. That's why I insist: Having a unreliable way to burn the entire opponent team's apart, especially considering that not all their pokémon will mind burn, RestTalk Heatran is not great against rain. Air Balloon Heatran can at least check their dragons, despite the fact that it still doesn't fare well against rain and the fact that if your opponent is intelligent enough they will not spam Outrage until Heatran is destroyed.
I love not seeing this thread for a while, so people can make retarted arguments. Sigh.

Burn doesn't impede politoed from hurting heatran, but he's easy as fuck to wall, even if specced, so who cares? More importantly, i usually WIN THE GAME if he's burned. It's often worth actually dying, because it heavily shortens HO games, lessening predictions, and allows me to break endless stall cycles.

Actually, against MY team, hera might love that para.

Oh yeah, and when was the last time you saw a rain dragon without a water-type attack? Haven't seen that for a WHILE. and i mean a WHILE.

Full stall is plenty viable in this metagame. CM keldeo's not really that big of a deal. NP thundurus has never given me any problems. Tornadus is massively annoying, but possible to deal with with stall. As for SD haxorus in rain, that's still a 90% chance bro, and i haven't even seen that yet. Granted, i'm not on PS, but STILL.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Oh yeah, and when was the last time you saw a rain dragon without a water-type attack? Haven't seen that for a WHILE. and i mean a WHILE.
If you want to know, I rarely see Dragon-types bar Latios (wich uses Water attacks even outside rain anyway) using Water attacks in rain. Dragonite is the most common of them but I still rarely see him using Water attacks. That's why Balloon Heatran is still an effective check to most of these dragons.

I prefer to not continue this discussion since I don't know your team and I'm certain that my team is pretty different and my experiences with the metagame also different.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
If you want to know, I rarely see Dragon-types bar Latios (wich uses Water attacks even outside rain anyway) using Water attacks in rain. Dragonite is the most common of them but I still rarely see him using Water attacks. That's why Balloon Heatran is still an effective check to most of these dragons.

I prefer to not continue this discussion since I don't know your team and I'm certain that my team is pretty different and my experiences with the metagame also different.

If you rarely see dragon-types in rain bar latios (Who in rain outspeeds and probably KOS you), then why were you talking about how it helps check rain's dragons? Not to mention that a massive portion of rain d-nites run waterfall.

I prefer not to continue this discussion because i already won it.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
I said that I rarely see Dragon-types packing Water-type attacks even on rain. Dragon-types are common in rain teams, but most of the time I see them using other moves like Earthquake, Brick Break, Dragon Claw, or even Fire Punch in case of Dragonite (a rather strange option but useful against Ferrothorn, Scizor and Forretress). Heatran checks most of them; it has a hard time against Latios because of what I said above and it can shrug off Hidden Power Ice.
 
What is everyone's view of Infernape in this meta, still capable of breaking SkarBliss though not a common sight with the power creep. It does have new victim to handle, Genesect. It runs in Rain, Sand, and Sun. Infernape can demolish Tyranitar, Heatran, and Genesect common in all these teams. There being many more of course, but just to state a few.
 

Venom

red eyes no visine
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It's still the same lethal Pokemon it was back in DPP. It's best set is obviously MixApe, which can still tear apart teams that aren't prepared. Even with the high usage of Gastrodon this generation, Infernape can Grass Knot the shit out of it. Infernape still does work in the right hands.
 

Dark Fallen Angel

FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
Gastrodon is not really common, though Grass Knot is useful for catching Water-types on switch, but is not sufficient to leave a dent on most of them...

I think that Infernape works better nowadays in sun teams. I've used a Choice Band set on a sun team, and it's wallbreaking capabilities are just monstrous. Believe me or not, I've used the MixNape set on a sand team, it was there just because I had to use it to cover what my team couldn't destroy otherwise, my team was different at this time. But it was capable of leaving holes on the opponent's Pokémon, to leave the rest of work to Landors and Tyranitar. The sandstorm damage is not much of a nuisance since Infernape cannot take a hit anyway. The best way to use Infernape nowadays is as a wallbreaker.

A trivial comment: normally I hate to use Overheat since the sp.atk drop forces me to switch and there are situations that I would wish to have Fire Blast instead. However, Overheat has amazing synergy with U-Turn and MixNape still has it's other moves, Close Combat and Stone Edge/Mach Punch.
 
Gastrodon is not really common, though Grass Knot is useful for catching Water-types on switch, but is not sufficient to leave a dent on most of them...

I think that Infernape works better nowadays in sun teams. I've used a Choice Band set on a sun team, and it's wallbreaking capabilities are just monstrous. Believe me or not, I've used the MixNape set on a sand team, it was there just because I had to use it to cover what my team couldn't destroy otherwise, my team was different at this time. But it was capable of leaving holes on the opponent's Pokémon, to leave the rest of work to Landors and Tyranitar. The sandstorm damage is not much of a nuisance since Infernape cannot take a hit anyway. The best way to use Infernape nowadays is as a wallbreaker.

A trivial comment: normally I hate to use Overheat since the sp.atk drop forces me to switch and there are situations that I would wish to have Fire Blast instead. However, Overheat has amazing synergy with U-Turn and MixNape still has it's other moves, Close Combat and Stone Edge/Mach Punch.
A weakened Gastrodon is still OHKOed, I found not many players prepare for it, so it's tearing up holes for the few matches I've used the Mix set.
 

Arcticblast

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Infernape's Scarf set - whether you're playing it fully physical, fully special or mixed - is just as effective as it has always been at revenge killing. What it has over Terrakion and Landorus-I in this regard is 1) lack of a weakness to Bullet Punch / Ice Shard and 2) brutal efficiency against Sun teams, outspeeding neutral +2 Venusaur. Fire STAB is awesome, and the Fighting STAB is just as good. The only losing matchup for Infernape is against Scarf Lati@s, as it can U-Turn out of just about anything. Unfortunately, it has a bit of 4MSS - You can't run dual STAB, Mach Punch, HP Ice, Stone Edge and U-Turn all in one set. Still, it's an effective revenge killer / scout who has enough power to clean up a weakened team.
 

jrp

Banned deucer.
My issue with infernape is that it's not always powerful enough to sufficiently deal with certain things. True you can solve that with Swords Dance/Nasty Plot, but you can also use things like Terrakion who have way higher offensive stats off the bat that also have access to Swords Dance. On the Special side you have lucario who, while it might not have the speed (or great offensive typing) that infernape has, it has a (slightly) higher special attack stat, as well as a much better STAB special fighting move. It also has better typing defensively, although it still takes resisted hits like tissue paper. Finally, it has a much better Swords Dance set due to access to Extremespeed. Finally, as a Fighting type SD sweeper, Breloom does a much better job than it due to its much higher-powered STAB moves and higher attack, not to mention access to Spore. Sure, Infernape has some incredibly powerful attacks in the sun, but it's pretty difficult to keep Sun active in the current metagame, and unlike other SD attackers, one of its STAB moves is rendered completely useless when Rain is up.

tl;dr, I think that as a whole, Infernape is pretty outclassed unless you're running it on a sun team, and even then it's still outclassed in other scenarios.


EDIT: @Arctic

Sure, Infernape resists Bullet Punch/Ice Shard, but it's MUCH frailer, and it takes neutral damage from SR, which can add up, especially since ScarfApe commonly carries U-Turn. Terrakion on the otherhand is a complete powerhouse from the bat, and it resists SR. As a plus it's also immune to sand, which is another thing that puts a timer on Infernape's already short life. ScarfApe typically carries Flare Blitz as one of its STAB moves, which combined with passive damage can quickly cause it to fall.
 

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