General Metagame Discussion

[waterwarrior]

Exactly what Smith said. Was it in UU? No. Was it barely OU? No, it sat comfortably in the tier. Did it affect team building? Take a look at what tier Gastrodon is in. And saying it shouldn't have gone because Gastrodon walls it is a shit argument for two reasons:
1. Grass Knot
2. Kyogre is still an Uber.

 

[shrang]

I still don't understand how something so low on the usage stats like Thundurus managed to be banned. It makes me think that the people who banned it don't have a good understanding of the metagame since the explanation of why Thudurus is overpowered can't account for its position on the usage stats. The best explanation I heard is it having no switch in counters but it actually does have some such as some water/ground pokemon. Besides there are plenty of instances where you can't have a perfect switch in counter for everything. There are also other switch in counters like hard hitting choice scarf users that can come in and outspeed it. Thundurus has the major weakness that it dies too easily so that is why it was never used much. Gengar has a very similar moveset to Thundurus and is higher on the usage stats yet people see no reason to ban him.

Wobbuffet was #46 when we banned him in 4th gen UU IIRC.

 

[NoJohns]

Scarf Kyurem is amazing in this metagame. Ice Beam/Blizzard OHKO's most Dragonite through Multiscale, OHKO's Haxorus (through screens with Blizzard + SR Damage, or just DM), OHKO's TR Reuniclus for people who are stupid enough to bring it in, Dual-Resists Rotom-W's stabs and can perform as an excellent cleaner with Scarfed Dragon Pulse/Blizzard. It can even lure and kill Scizor, TTar and Ferrothorn if you're feeling ballsy with Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fire.

Hail in general is pretty underrated actually. Has anyone else been using it with success?

 

[Cold Fusion]

Scarf Kyurem is amazing in this metagame. Ice Beam/Blizzard OHKO's most Dragonite through Multiscale, OHKO's Haxorus (through screens with Blizzard + SR Damage, or just DM), OHKO's TR Reuniclus for people who are stupid enough to bring it in, Dual-Resists Rotom-W's stabs and can perform as an excellent cleaner with Scarfed Dragon Pulse/Blizzard. It can even lure and kill Scizor, TTar and Ferrothorn if you're feeling ballsy with Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fire.

Hail in general is pretty underrated actually. Has anyone else been using it with success?

I used to use a Hail team, with Scarfed Obama and Scarf Kyurem tailored so that with would just barely outrun Thundurus. I found it to work good against everything but Jirachi. The problem Hail has lacks any good abusers with the exception of Kyurem.

Anyways... So I am slowly convincing myself that Volcarona is a tad too good for this metagame. But I'm not quite there yet.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

Anyways... So I am slowly convincing myself that Volcarona is a tad too good for this metagame. But I'm not quite there yet.

Can someone enlighten me on why Volcarona is even good/effective? I just don't see it. I haven't used it much, but every time I face one, I can handle it fine, regardless of whether I'm prepared or not. Even if Stealth Rock is not on the field, there are ways to deal with it. It's just too predictable, as it's always been.

 

[Jaetheho]

ohgod.

lemme bring out my volcarona love.

there.
let me explain it to you.
you see volcarona on two major teams.

sun, and weatherless (sometimes sand.... never rain)

in the sun, the undoubtedly most popular set is the bulky quiver dancer (either rest or morning sun but mostly morning sun.) with 248/228 bold, your weaker defense is patched up quite nicely. let me tell you that there are only two OFFENSIVE pokemon that beat the bulky quiver dancer. scarf terrakion and scarf landorus. even then, there is a 20 percent chance of you failing miserably (stone edge miss). heatran is handled pretty well as long as volcarona has enough boosts/is the last pokemon/has rest and so is blissey (its 2hkoed by +4 fire dance). other ou physical attackers cant do shit against this guy. lets go one by one. lets start with the face of physical attackers, conkeldurr. NO CONKELDURR RUNS STONE EDGE which means volcarona can easy max out its stats. if it bulks-up along with you, just kill it. it might get lucky with a burn, but still mach punch does shit. now another popular physical attacker... scizor. another set up bait. +2 scizor LO bulet punch fails to 4hko... (i think).. thats pretty sad. so you are wondering "why the hell would you use nve attacks?" wel then. let me introduce you to... gyarados! gues what! in the sun at +1, waterfall cannot 2hko! so you can quiver dance to outspeed the serpent and morning sun spam until gyarados gets burned. thats pretty darn sad. gyarados is another set up fodder. dd haxorus does not ohko at ful health with outrage, which means you can either boost then ko or try your luck with burn hax. BANDED OUTRAGE FROM DRAGONITE doesnt ohko. (does 96 from experience) again. spam morninging sun for some burn hax. (or kill if multiscale is broken and its weakened enough.)

so you are wondering... how about azumarill?
banded aquajet does not 2hko in the sun. and it can get burned. shit.

now, im going to talk about the ease of setting up. it can probabaly set up freely on 2/3 of the metagame. ninetales, bulkytoed, blissey, ferrothorn, forretress, scizor, gyarados, conkeldurr, lucario, latios, (-2), latias, the list is endless. once it is at +2 it outspeds a lot of the metagame except the scarf stone edgers. it can take some asurd attacks with a +1 or +2 like life orb sludge bomb from venusaur.

stealth rock?

it doesnt care if it has morning sun.
(if you are wondering, its really popular)

sure rain and sand dampers its morning sun capabilities, but bug buzz shits on ttar and politoed and their teams anyways, so watever.

volcarona is beast.


that was my love rant.

 

[Choice Socks]

Scarf Kyurem is amazing in this metagame. Ice Beam/Blizzard OHKO's most Dragonite through Multiscale, OHKO's Haxorus (through screens with Blizzard + SR Damage, or just DM), OHKO's TR Reuniclus for people who are stupid enough to bring it in, Dual-Resists Rotom-W's stabs and can perform as an excellent cleaner with Scarfed Dragon Pulse/Blizzard. It can even lure and kill Scizor, TTar and Ferrothorn if you're feeling ballsy with Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fire.

Hail in general is pretty underrated actually. Has anyone else been using it with success?

I do like hail, but it does have a lot of problems. Being weak to steel and fighting in a metagame where scizor and scarf terrakion are everywhere, and competing with 3 other types of weather, makes it very hard for hail to be succesful

 

[Jaetheho]

also. two of the four weather inducers shit on abomasnow, which is bad.

 

[Taylor]

technically speaking abamasnow can shit on the other four remarkably well, and like sand the residual damage makes "getting the job done" easier, especially considering steel-types with leftovers dont restore their hp as comfortable as before.

the sheer fact of the matter is that yes, it just has so much trouble keeping itself in check with a list full of popular threats only a switch/attack away.

 

[alphatron]

I don't know bluemon. I saw a conkeldurr running rock slide of all things last night, And Power swap/overheat ninetales beats volcorona. Calm bulky roar ninetales is a better phazer than heatran for the ones that have hp ground, and once, my volcorona was ohko'd by a fire gem boosted flare blitz from ninetales (I quit immeadiately).

More so than volcorona, who at least has proper switch ins and counters, my issue is with multiscale dragonite. Checking/countering volcorona means that you have to play sand (rain does nothing!) and use great pokemon like landorus or terrakion. Meanwhile, checking the most common dragonite set means that you have to run a blasted scarf haxorus of all things, and scarf haxorus is bad. 40% damage with a CRIT earthquake against cresselia? This pokemon has such narrow application. It also fail to offer any aid if you run into the twave/dragontail set or just subDD. While stealth rock does take care of multiscale, it also takes care of volcorona, whom people still think may be a little over the edge anyway. And with things like lead deoxys running around, who offer it dual screens and a taunt/magic coat to stop hazards, it becomes nearly impossible to stop. Yes, dual screens help every pokemon. However, there is no offensive pokemon in the entire series who cannot be ohko'd by anything from dual screens before it sets up. And defensive pokemon? Much like with volcorona, dragonite can abuse their presence and use them as setup fodder anyway. Cresselia in any weather is a full stop to offensive DD lumnite. But then what is cresselia supposed to do against SubDD? Nothing. Skarmory beats SubDD unless it's the last pokemon. But what does Skarmory do against offensive DD? IT gets 2hko'd by fire punch. You're out of luck if sunlight is up because then you'll have issues switching in on dragonite to begin with.

Moving on from that, I tried to make hail work a while back. Kyurem and mamoswine being the only decent abusers is unsettling, but hail has a few other things going for it too. Conveniently enough, moltres is a good pokemon for hail teams as it resists all the common weaknesses you'll need it to, and unlike heatran, it resists fighting. A pressure stall set can actually work if running a stall/balanced team. It also means that your Abomasnow may not have to deal with SE attacks anymore. The pressure stall set works best with t. spikies support as we all know. And fire spin has been somewhat useful for forcing the common tyranitar/specs toed switch in to stay in and die just from attempting to change the weather.

Although the accuracy sucks, this strategy has made me try out magma storm on specially defensive heatran variants. It forces the opponent to take extra residual damage in addition to poison and whatever weather condition is up. It also keeps the torment tran set from sucking.

Also, sun cresselia isn't that bad.

 

[Jaetheho]

lol fire gem flare blitz.
soon, well see fight gem rock smashes for ttar.

i still think volcarona is surprisngly bulky. it lived a lo boosted flare blitz in sun once. (from infernape)

 

[Eggbert]

There are plenty of ways Ninetales can screw over other weather abusers. I'm interested in what mons can provide good support to sun. Swampert (what is this thing again??) sounds good because it can check Dragonite, counter Ttar and Heatran, and SR / roar. Donphan gets beaten by Heatran and doesn't have the always frustrating scald. I guess rapid spin is better though. I've even used lol Poliwrath as a joke because it can counter ttar / tran and abuse some interesting options.

 

[Razza]

Scarf Kyurem is amazing in this metagame. Ice Beam/Blizzard OHKO's most Dragonite through Multiscale, OHKO's Haxorus (through screens with Blizzard + SR Damage, or just DM), OHKO's TR Reuniclus for people who are stupid enough to bring it in, Dual-Resists Rotom-W's stabs and can perform as an excellent cleaner with Scarfed Dragon Pulse/Blizzard. It can even lure and kill Scizor, TTar and Ferrothorn if you're feeling ballsy with Focus Blast and Hidden Power Fire.

Hail in general is pretty underrated actually. Has anyone else been using it with success?

Scarf kyurem even when modest doesnt ohko otr reuniclus

Abomasnow is a actually very effective although he has slow speed, a lot of weather teams will have trouble switching into the ice/grass combo if you can get him in for free against something slower, especially with hp fire to back it up abomasnows type coverage and reasonable power can cause a lot of pain,

edit @ alphatron

Scarfhaxorus is very good i have found, obviously he doesnt have the same power as band, and therefore cant just spam outrage as a lot of things can take an outrage or two comfortably and ko back, and therefore as to be played differently, but as a general revenge killer or lategame cleaner he is very effective, i find good use for him on my rain team where i lead with him to ohko any rotom-w's with eq

 

[alphatron]

Swampert is...alright for sun.He's a bad heatran counter when you find yourself fighting offensive variants as fire blast will be an unfortunate 3HKO or 2hko if heatran nabbed himself a flash fire boost. He's also extraordinarily weak.

Celebi offers decent clerical skills, a dead end to Scizor/Rotom-W, a check for politoed, and counter to scarf terrakion who don't carry X-scissor.

Scrafty is another. He may not get any sun benefits but he's a counter to non CB T-tar and will often attract attention away from your real sweeper. In the same vain, CM Virizion can do the same against most sand and rain teams and is a nice check to heatran.

 

[Shining_Latios]

@Bluemon: Actually; Substitute, Quiver Dance, Bug Buzz, and Hurricane is used on Rain teams. Also, you're making it sound like you will never lose the weather war and if you do, Volcarona is going to have a difficult time sweeping in the rain. And hazards fuck Volc up, Morning Sun or not so Volcarona is not going to appreciate seeing hazards on the switch in which is why almost everyone team that has Volcarona also has spin support.

@NoJohns: I agree that Hail is underrated and it's pretty fun to use in my opinion, but the new Fighting-type Pokemon in BW just wreck Hail teams unless a ghost is carried. Scraf Kyurem is great for Blizzard Spamming but is completely walled by Heatran which is another huge weakness to Hail teams and a reason Dugtrio is used on most Hail teams, too. Rain right now seems to be the weather of choice and as long as their are Fighting and Steel-types then Hail is going to have a hard time to thrive in the metagame.

 

[Razza]

There are plenty of ways Ninetales can screw over other weather abusers. I'm interested in what mons can provide good support to sun. Swampert (what is this thing again??) sounds good because it can check Dragonite, counter Ttar and Heatran, and SR / roar. Donphan gets beaten by Heatran and doesn't have the always frustrating scald. I guess rapid spin is better though. I've even used lol Poliwrath as a joke because it can counter ttar / tran and abuse some interesting options.

Porygon2 is quite good for sun teams, trace beats dragonite and heatran by stealing their abilities and is a nice bulky wall in general,

By playing with sun i have found cm reuniclus to be a huge problem, the problem with sun is that you cannot manage to check as many threats as other teams because a slot is already lost to the useless slob known as ninetales. Also a spinner/espeon is kind of necessary also and so your team options are further limited.

 

[alphatron]

The combination of a bold cresselia and a choice band dragonite check all problems that sun has across the board. Snorlax laughs at a +1 focus blast from reuniclus and 2hko's back with crunch. He can ohko the trick room variant too.

Cresselia is much better than porygon2 for sun teams because it doesn't give you a fighting weakness and has levitate. Sure, it doesn't like heatran too much, but that's what teammates are for. And thick fat snorlax makes minced meat of heatran.

 

[Fawfulmk-II]

I'm kind of worried about the fallout of a Baton pass ban. I mean, yeah, Espeon would be STFU, but at the cost of neutering Venomoth, Celebi, Huntail, Gorebyss, and Mew. even stupider is if it's banned in all tiers except Uber- because people only mstly use Mew as a BPer, and if BP was only legal in Ubers, then Mew would unconsiously becomean Uber again. damn thing could fall down to RU or NU and it would still pretty much be an Uber...which makes me wonder if most of these bans are just trying to revert everything back to gen 4.

just my 2 cents.

Hail in general is pretty underrated actually

more like Ice type as a whole. I mean damn, except for the mammoth and weavile, everyone avoids ice types like the plauge.they just go like LOL STEEL TYPE STOPS EVERYTHING and not use them.

in dubs and trips they are scary mofos, though.

 

[CommandurrClowncrete]

Terrakion rips apart any hail team. And hail teams already have problems with fire types. It's unlikely, they will ever run scizor.

 

[Shining_Latios]

Terrakion rips apart any hail team. And hail teams already have problems with fire types. It's unlikely, they will ever run scizor.

Terrakion and Heatran are the reasons sashed Dugtrio is run on Hail teams.

 

[CommandurrClowncrete]

^But sash Dugtrio is single use. It can't cover everything.

 

[Aleva]

I had decent success (peaked at 1305) with a Hail team a while ago, consisting of Abomasnow, Raikou, Reuniclus, Swampert, Gyarados, Rotom-F.

Terrakion was never a problem for me because of Reuniclus, Gyarados smashed Scizor, Swampert beat T-Tar, Gyara beat Ninetales, Raikou and Rotom-F beat Politoed.

What's everyone's opinion on Banded Gyara? I've found leading with it against opposing Ninetales and Tyranitar hilarious. For some reason, T-Tar leads tend to set up SR as I Waterfall them for the OHKO, and Bulky Ninetales sets try to status me, letting me EQ them for a OHKO.

 

[Darkvirus]

Terrakion and Heatran are the reasons sashed Dugtrio is run on Hail teams.

with hail up that sounds like a great plan!

 

[doughboy]

Does anyone else feel that Forretress is the best Steel-defensive wall as of now? Hear me out:

• Rapid Spin: Makes it easy to support Volcanorona/Dragonite, keeps keeps entry hazards off your side. Allows you to switch in more easily and switch out.
• With entry hazards of your side you can use sturdy to the best effect with Wish support. Forretress will get a free switch in with sturdy intact with a passed wish.
• Volt Switch: With Volt Switch, Shed Shell is not required a Forretress can safely run leftovers unlike every other steel type. In conjuction with a Relaxed nature and Gyro Ball (no special attack drop and powers up gyro ball), it can actualy do decent damage. Most importantly the most common spinblocker, Jellicent, takes around 17% and in conjuction with entry hazards that Forry lays. It puts Jellicent in a very tough pickle. Either risk taking 17%+entry hazard damage+a free switchin for the opposing team or risking the riddance of their hazards. Unlike every other (decent) steel type he can escape magnezone and create momentum for your team to counter it. Lastly it allows your poke to switch in safely against a myriad of threats because Forry is so slow.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Honus]

Does anyone else feel that Forretress is the best Steel-defensive wall as of now? Hear me out:

• Rapid Spin: Makes it easy to support Volcanorona/Dragonite, keeps keeps entry hazards off your side. Allows you to switch in more easily and switch out.
• With entry hazards of your side you can use sturdy to the best effect with Wish support. Forretress will get a free switch in with sturdy intact with a passed wish.
• Volt Switch: With Volt Switch, Shed Shell is not required a Forretress can safely run leftovers unlike every other steel type. In conjuction with a Relaxed nature and Gyro Ball (no special attack drop and powers up gyro ball), it can actualy do decent damage. Most importantly the most common spinblocker, Jellicent, takes around 17% and in conjuction with entry hazards that Forry lays. It puts Jellicent in a very tough pickle. Either risk taking 17%+entry hazard damage+a free switchin for the opposing team or risking the riddance of their hazards. Unlike every other (decent) steel type he can escape magnezone and create momentum for your team to counter it. Lastly it allows your poke to switch in safely against a myriad of threats because Forry is so slow.

Just some thoughts.

I'd have to agree, although it's primary use should always be Spiking and Spinning, since if a Pokemon doesn't take much damage Forretress's attacks, then it's rendered total setup bait, unlike Skarmory, which can force its opponent out with Whirlwind. Honestly, Skarm doesn't seem to be cutting it at all this gen, the new powerful attackers like Terrakion and even Haxorus, who can rip right through it at +2. Tangrowth is probably the best defensive wall overall, in this generation, while Grass isn't the greatest of defensive typings, it's Physical Bulk is completely unrivaled and can put a ton of pressure on opposing sweepers with Sleep Powder and Leech Seed, and has usable attack stats on both the physical and special sides of the spectrum, so it's very hard to easily set up on Tangrowth.