Lower Tiers GSC Ubers?

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
Seeing as even when GSC was a bit more widely played I still didn't have any Ubers experience, I'd like to ask if any my old geezers recall what the metagame was like. I can make a few guesses based on the total of 5 battles I've had and some of the analyses on site, but I'd like it if a guide were made/located. I was thinking about making/hyping up a tournament with it soon.
 
Mhmm Ubers in generation 2 sounds fun.
*Suspects*















Obvious suspects for Gen 2 OU lets write up some analysis and get this show on the road. I love Nostalgia :).
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
Entei and Articuno suck. Moltres is worse of in the game than Ho-oh. You'd probably see more use out of Houndoom just for vs Celebi in particular. Dragonite's a strong dude, but I can't see him being much of an impact unless someone does something with it.

I really like Raikou right now. Thunder looks like it'd be a potentially prevalent move, and it has the ability to field it for NVE damage and dish it back out STABed. Having Crunch is also pretty cool for vs Celebi and some reliability against other Psychics when Thunder has gone to work.

Skarmory and Forry are probably worth mention. Who else is going to mess with Snorlax while being relatively safe? Skarmory has an added plus of shutting down Curse Lugia and perhaps physical variants of Mew and Mewtwo. Spikes are also a commodity that Forry can afford, since I'm not liking Cloyster's overall chances of getting in safely.
 

M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
Mew dominates (especially the SD set), lots of Mewtwos (mixed or cursers, i liked mixed much more), Lugia is the best phazer and a really good wall and a good Mew check, Snorlax is a huge threat too (like in OU), lots of paralysis, egg does pretty well in this metagame, zapdos was pretty common (because lugia)
 
Yes, Mixed mewtwo kind of a beast, however Dragonite cannot be completely ruled out due to the fact he is just so powerful in Generation 2 and Uber pokemon might even have trouble killing this beast due to his movepool and exceptional stats.
 

M Dragon

The north wind
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top Dedicated Tournament Host Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis the Smogon Tour Season 17 Championis a defending World Cup of Pokemon Championis a Past SPL Champion
World Defender
I fail to see how dnite could threaten things like Lugia, Mewtwo or Mew (the most used ubers). Dnite can be a beast, but its much worse in ubers.

Also ML + BP umbreon can destroy an unprepared team (many people forget phazers!).
Lugia can take a 999 STAB Double-Edge, it can Reflect, and it can phaze. Its a monster tank, that can wall many things (and its also faster than Mew)
 
I played heavy explosion because nothing dies.

Ttar is overrated; it's only good on paper, as the "ultimate" ubers meta-er. But it's not.

Ho-oh burns; that's it's main asset, and it's pretty useful for it. You can technically curse + phaze with it as well, but burning is such a huge asset to stop mew sweeps, lugia, lax sweeps, etc.

I use Mewtwo with curse + selfdestruct since mixing with it is retarded imo. Mewtwo/mew/lugia/hooh all wall mix mewtwos. Self destruct is the only way mewtwo is killing anything.

Mew is pretty versatile, SD + explosion, but I got away with softboiled only because I was partial to it. Mew's the best pokemon in the game.

I played Zapdos with thunder/twave/rest talk.

Snorlax is also pretty standard imo; I used curse + SD once again, and LK. And I used celebi to bell. You pretty much need a beller because of burn/para. I gave it psong + leech seed + recover + hb cause it's stupid to attack with it.

Lugia phazes for me. I made it a curse phazer though; if you skimp out on zapdos, it's kinda unstoppable from there. Hence, Skarm is kinda important.

Skarm plays like standard skarm imo.

Not sure how good raikou is; seems outclassed by zapdos due to lugia and ability to twave.

Cune seems pretty worthless imo; just outclassed by lugia in every way.
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
Yes, Mixed mewtwo kind of a beast, however Dragonite cannot be completely ruled out due to the fact he is just so powerful in Generation 2 and Uber pokemon might even have trouble killing this beast due to his movepool and exceptional stats.
Well, if we focus Dragonite's damage primarily on Uber Pokemon, Dragonite's strongest moves are Thunder, Fire Blast and Dynamicpunch (not going to count Hyper Beam and Blizzard). Dynamicpunch is out of the question with Ubers being Psychic and/or Flying, so-

Dragonite's Thunder vs:

Mew: 22-25%
Mewtwo: 22-25%
Ho-oh: 31-36%
Lugia: 31-36%

No need to mention Celebi. Ho-oh and Lugia get Recover and there's always that 30% chance to miss. Dragonite's simply not strong enough to scare them off with Thunder.

Dragonite does do a respectable 43%-51% to Celebi with Fire Blast though. I guess that's something.

On the physical side (omitting Dynamicpunch) you have Wing Attack, Double-Edge, Body Slam, or a Hidden Power of your choice. Body Slam/Wing Attack isn't breaking past the 25% mark on anyone and Mewtwo/Ho-oh with the lowest Defense of any Uber are taking 27-32%, and once again they have access to Recover. That leaves you with HP Ghost for doing a decent chunk to Mew/Mewtwo or HP Rock to decimate Ho-oh. That alone would make it AT LEAST a decent Ho-oh counter, save for the face that it has to switch in to 50% burn chance each time.

Edit: As far as power goes, Dragonite doesn't have the moves to break things like Ubers can. I suppose it could have some sort of defensive appeal over Lugia for getting Reflect/T-Wave/Haze for vs Cursers.

Edit 2: What's the opinion on Heracross? Since Psychic is just about non-existant, only Lugia, Ho-oh, an Drill Peck Zapdos look like they'd stand in its way, and for Ho-oh it could hit it with HP Rock.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Not a geezer, so I never really played Ubers when it was around (the inception of GSC, period). But Lugia doesn't get Reflect, Ttar isn't a worldbeater but does have some potential if you keep it basic, Steelix definitely has potential if people don't run many Fire Blasting/Hidden Powering variants of things, and Mew needs a couple of variants to exist if it's going to be the world-beater it's advertised as. Also, mixed attacking is silly, since everything has mammoth defenses and speed, and everything gets goddamn recover.

I feel like GSC Ubers would only be good for the novelty of "hey, I'm playing GSC Ubers." Outside of that, the meta seems really stupid, imo.
 
I don't think heracross is that good either. You listed three pretty common uber pokemon. Psychic, while not common.. you can't exactly rule it out on mewtwo/celebi. And there's skarmory.

Dragonite sucks, why are we talking about it?

Steelix is great, as in pretty good, as in playable therefore automatically top 10ish status. It curses then explodes for 1 for 1 trades; it phazes (sort of). It's a semi skarm alternative, without the standard cursegia coverage.

Mew's not a world beater, just the best pokemon in ubers. Can't touch sd + explosion when shit gets real.
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
Pretty sure Articuno still sucks on its own. It counters 2 common threats (I think Dragonite is unlikely to be common/threatening) and does very little else. I can see it not sucking AS much as it would in OU since it can hit more things with the likely absence of Suicune/Cloyster, but its few options are just not as good as your other choices.

Though looking at the damage calcs, if you assume Lugia carries Thunder (as you are saying), Lugia kills Articuno faster than Articuno kills Lugia, plus it gets access to Recover, so it might not be the most solid answer, depending on things.

Explosion might not be the heaviest influence in the game. At first glance, Explosion just looks like it does in OU; if you plan it well, consecutive/well-planned Explosions can make holes for powerful sweepers.
 
What kind of troll lugia carries thunder...

Explosion is pretty much the only way to break things... lugia mostly. Celebi. Explosion's also the best way to get rid of mews. Basically, you need explosion offensively AND defensively, so yes, it's definitely influential. It's what you need to keep your opponent from sweeping you, and it's what you need to sweep your opponent.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Just a ranking, imo, of things in ubers (a tier I've never really played, but that I have theorymonned). I put spaces in where I feel there might be notable drop-offs, and of course, the lower you go, the less reliable the rankings become. In general, the top 2 "tiers" are the only things that should be seen regularly, the third tier is viable-but-rightfully-uncommon stuff, and the fourth tier is hardcore anti-metagaming shit that, even in the ideal meta, is still kinda mediocre. If future discussion is going to go on in this thread, laying out viable pokes like this might be good to guide discussion away from random things like Articuno and Dnite.

Mew
Lugia
Snorlax
Ho-oh
Mewtwo

Celebi
Zapdos
Skarmory
Steelix
Umbreon
Tyranitar

Blissey
Scizor
Forretress
Raikou
Suicune

Houndoom
Heracross
Muk
Misdreavus
Exeggutor
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
I think Jolteon could potentially join the 4th tier in your list.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Honestly, a lot of stuff could go in that fourth "it kinda sucks but hey it might do something" tier now that I think about it. But each addition requires even more stretching of what constitutes "viable" in Ubers, and I think everything listed up there is pretty much everything worth using more than 1% of the time.

I suppose Growth-passing Jolteon could be okay in a meta where attacks are scarce, Lugia is the primary phazer, and Psong Celebi is nowhere to be seen. But I'm not really feeling it. Even in ideal conditions, it seems like it'd be pretty underwhelming.
 

Umby

I'm gonna bury you in the ground~
is a Contributor Alumnus
Resurrection. It's a good topic for *more* discussion. Has nothing to do with the fact that I'm playing in a tournament where I have to play in the GSC Uber tier.
 
Mew > Snorlax > Mewtwo > everything else.

Mew runs SD and Shadow Ball, then two of Rock Slide, Submission, Softboiled, Fire Blast, and Explosion. If Muk exists at all in the meta then EQ / Psychic are also usable.

Snorlax should be drumlax with LK or EQ or fire blast. I guess Curse can be used but don't expect to kill anything.

Mewtwo runs Selfdestruct and / or Recover with attacks and possibly Curse. It does a reasonable amount of damage to most things (comes close to 3HKOs on most Pokemon if it has the right move for whatever it is) but it is not a super sweeper or anything.

Skarmory and / or Lugia are really necessary to attempt to handle lax/mew/mewtwo without resorting to your own lax/mew/mewtwo. Tyranitar is useful for those that use fire/electric moves.

Zapdos is a pretty solid Pokemon in ubers and still dishes out a lot of damage with Thunder (when it hits).

Celebi is pretty bad. It just sits there doing nothing. For Heal Bell purposes, Miltank is pretty good and I actually prefer it to Celebi since it can paralyse things and wall random Curse phazers pretty much forever (of which there are a lot with instant recovery in Ubers). Skarm + Miltank is still an amazing combination in Ubers.

Growth passers (Vaporeon, Jolteon) can turn Mewtwo or Zapdos into monsters.

Ho-oh is fairly average overall. For some reason, I see people using a Sunny Day set with Sacred Fire, and it is really ineffective since most teams have Heal Bell for the burns and the big three don't take all that much damage from it since they can all recover it off easily.

Spikes doesn't seem common at all compared to OU.

The threat of any of the big three exploding whenever they want is really huge and imposing and can easily turn matches in one player's favour depending on who predicts correctly. It is a very key thing to understand and anticipate if you want to succeed in the metagame. However, it should also be kept in mind that none of them _need_ to explode to function successfully and they do just run recovery sometimes.

@ Jorgen's list: I don't really see Steelix being overly effective. I guess maybe it would be alright with Spikes. Umbreon is kinda setup fodder for Mew/Snorlax but other than that it has some value potentially. Raikou might have some potential with Spikes as well. I suppose Forretress is the spiker / spinner of choice if you were to use that.


The standard ubers team should probably be something like Mewtwo / Mew / Snorlax / Skarmory / Tyranitar / Zapdos with Miltank or Celebi potentially replacing Tyranitar or Zapdos and Lugia potentially replacing Skarmory.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Yeah the list I made then doesn't really align with what I see as viable now. Much shorter, and things like Muk and Heracross are just garbage.

Way I see it:

Tier 1:
  • Mew: It will kill something with SD + Boom.
  • Snorlax: Only viable Sleeper, also use Curse you'll never be able to pull off Drum. Normal resists are easier to deal with here when they even appear, so no need to run coverage.
  • Lugia: This is the main reason you should consider Zapdos as a top-tier mon. Main Phazer in Ubers. Can be really scary in the late game.
  • Mewtwo: It should honestly just be attacking, Curse and Support sets don't play to its strengths.

Tier 2: (had to justify Zapdos' placement here among the other incontrovertible "Top" Ubers, which consist of the OU-banned mons + King Snorlax)
  • Ho-oh: A worse Lugia that can burn things and which boasts a lack of ShadowSub weakness. I see a Curse tank, Sunny Day isn't strong enough given the limited timeframe and poor PP of Ho-oh's STABs.
  • Celebi: Keeps offense honest by resisting Thunder and EQ and is the best (read: only viable) Heal Beller in the tier.
  • Zapdos: It needs to Sleep Talk to not become dead weight. Thunder hits most things hard (even 2HKOing the un-2HKOable Lugia) and has a high para chance. Drill Peck lets it beat Celebi with a lucky crit, though Leech Seed makes crit-fishing without a hit on the switch kind of tricky. Twave or Reflect can also be used for team support, but then you totally give up on ever potentially beating Celebi. It can do a lot, but reliance on Sleep Talk makes life hard for it.

Tier 3: (This is where I really have to start justifying why I think things are viable)
  • Tyranitar: Okay Normal/Flying resist, probably the best you're going to find in all honesty. Is running a boring CurseRoarRest set here, otherwise it can't shake burns and accumulates too much residual damage to be of use. Don't try Pursuit, that Fighting weakness is annoying and the Cats always use Fighting moves, whereas Celebi just stalls you with Leech Seed + Recover. Same goes for a mixed set.
  • Skarm: A bit like Ttar only it fears Special moves more. Also less likely to actually do anything offensively.
  • Steelix: Hardwalls Zapdos and Snorlax better than anything else can, plus it takes Explosions much better than the other resists (it's actually somewhat worth trying to predict Mew's boom with this thing), and can Explode itself for instant offensive impact. It's not sweeping though, it combines Ttar's Fighting Weakness with Skarm's lack of attacking prowess and fear of anything Special (although both are attenuated in Steelix's case). If you want a STAB, go with Iron Tail to hit Celebi and Lugia (albeit still for a pittance). I might rather just use Rest to let it keep tanking Explosions, though, since the only way it's killing something is with Explosion anyway (although an Explosion-only Steelix set might be over-metagaming, you might be better off using Iron Tail to keep 'em honest and switching off between Rest/Explosion in the last slot).
  • Umbreon: When I think about it, since most of the offensive threats can kill anything they want and the defensive mons can tank whatever they want, using ML Pass to get a good matchup might not be that great on its own. You'd probably have to pair it with Psong Celebi to do anything with it, and even then, I see it faltering. Still, I don't like to underestimate this strategy. What's more interesting in Ubers, though, is that Umbreon can always run the Charm set to great effect in Ubers, putting a grinding halt to Lax/Lugia while walling the living hell out of Mixed Mewtwos and putting Mew in an Attack hole when it switches in. Curse setup dominates Ubers more than it dominates Standard, and Charm hits for -2 instead of Growl's piddly -1. I guess a Growth passing set is an option, though I'm fairly convinced that BP is just far too slow for Ubers when Explosion is much faster and Curse is a much easier and safer setup move that everything gets.

Not Viable:
  • Anything Else: Probably garbage. I don't like GrowthJolt's chances, I like GrowthVap's chances even less, Spikes are a waste of a team slot because everything gets Recover and/or flies, and Heracross/Houndoom/Misdreavus, while having good selling points for Ubers niches, ultimately don't have the typing or the stats to succeed. The Dogs do nothing but sit there and wait to die, and are outclassed by other things in Ubers (Zapdos>Raikou, Lugia > Suicune). And I don't know what I thought I saw in Blissey, Muk, Scizor, or Exeggutor, but they're all horrendous in Ubers.

EDIT: As far as teams go. Earthworm's definitely works. You probably can't go wrong with just picking the top 6 Ubers in all honesty, and if you want to change things up toss in Zapdos and/or some Normal resists over something. Mew and Lax are mandatory, though. Umbreon is iffy, it's probably more 4th tier and not as viable as the Normal resists, but it's something to try if you're getting bored with the same 10 Pokemon.

EDIT EDIT: Just played my match. Lugia was even better than I thought, but Zapdos wasn't around. Meanwhile Ho-oh is mediocre beyond belief, although I'm not entirely sure what I expected it to do in the first place. Stall, I guess?
 
I disagree with earthworm on two points.

Lugia is far superior to skarm. I don't even know how skarm could be the default and lugia a replacement for it. No way man, no way.

And celebi is far superior to miltank. The main thing about ubers is that every kill is going to come from setup or explosion. You don't really have an off turn, nor can you afford to just spend a turn doing nothing. Miltank and other passive mons are openings for anything that sets up. Celebi on the other hand have two phazing moves in seed in song that makes setting up on it essentially a wash. Also plays a part in last poke lax or something. There's just not really any real upsides to miltank at all. You can outpace swords dance, and the other two cursers are both exploding anyway. You get an upper hand vs curse lugias, but that's not worth sucking against everything else.

Mew has its own tier.

Then mewtwo, lugia, and snorlax.

Then the rest of the crew. You really only have 2 slots to play with. There's no real reason not to use those 4.

I guess you can send hooh in vs shadow ball submission mews. Steelix/Ttar are the best explosion takers. I like steelix more tbh, Ttar won't kill anything. Zapdos paras shit, which pisses lugia/mew/mewtwo off. It's probably what makes belling a necessity. Especially mew. Mew is a lot less scary if its slow as shit. That and the burn. Which brings me to celebi, the best beller.

So really, you have like 1 slot to play with. I think celebi/beller is mandatory.
 
I like skarm because it walls most Mew better, as well as both SD lax and drumlax. It also takes Explosion pretty well. I concede that I am probably underrating Lugia though.

In my experience Celebi has been a lot worse than Miltank, though most that I see run Psychic instead of Perish Song. Miltank + Skarm is capable of walling basically anything that doesn't run powerful special moves and paralysis is very handy for letting Mew / drumlax break through things or waste heal bell if you are stuck. Trading Miltank for Mewtwo or Snorlax is not such a bad trade imo. It also allows you to cover random Curse Ho-oh / Lugia that might otherwise be able to sweep you under the right circumstances, whereas I see Celebi as a more temporary measure (maybe because I have only faced Psychic versions) and it is also weak to something on nearly every setup Pokemon's set.

Another issue with Celebi is that it doesn't really force Pokemon out immediately. If they stay in while Leeched and/or PSonged then switch on the last or second last turn, they might be dealing a fair amount of damage that you don't want to have to deal with. I know some Celebi have tried to force my Mew out in the past and they usually get the short end of the stick.

Thinking about it more, I can see some potential in just using Steelix to attempt to trade itself for something more valuable.

You talk about Zapdos paralysing things, which Miltank does also, which is one of the main reasons I have found it to be effective.


Another thing I am considering: I actually lost a game to a Curse Tyranitar because I missed a couple of crucial Submissions and I think Miltank got exploded upon earlier. Is there a better way to handle Tyranitar with the standard ubers team than try to kill it with submission? It does seem kind of threatening in theory.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top