Ninetales

MK Ultra

BOOGEYMAN
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Sets dependent on weather are a big no-no, because of TTar. And unfortunately, our FireFox, I mean fiery fox does nothing to it, barring HP Fight....

I would go with HP Grnd, since atleast it scores some Super effective damage on TTAR.
But Ttar hates Will-O-Wisp. In the event of Ttar and Heatran at the same time, I'd just HP Ground until Heatran is out of the way. Anyway, Ninetales shouldn't really attempt to take on either of those two.
 
Though I don't think Lead Ninetails is an especially good idea (unless your team needs Sun up from Turn 1), Magic Coat would be highly useful, allowing it to function as a true anti-lead. People might not even see it coming thanks to its relative rarity and allow Ninetails to either grab hazards for itself or reflect Taunt/sleep back onto the user.
 
The one thing I dislike about Choiced Ninetales is that it's 100% defeated by a combination of ScarfTar and Shanderaa. The first time, no matter what you do, TTar can simply Earthquake or Stone Edge for a KO. The only thing you can do is switch and let something else take a STAB Stone Edge. The second time you swtich in, you can't even use HP Fighting to beat TTar, because that means you will get promptly raped by a +6 SpA/SpD Shanderaa behind a Sub. Speccing or Scarfing something is just too risky atm, especially if it has to rely on Fighting attacks to beat something.
 
As it seems we're starting with no banlist, these will make solid additions to 5th gen UU. Unless people decide they want to use them over Groudon and Kyogre, though a special Pokemon with Sun certainly looks appealing. Definitely UU material if Ubers becomes OU.
 
Original post renovated. Removed HP fighting in all except the Nasty Plot set (since I personally like the idea of it) and added the specially defensive set.
 
I don't think anyone really expects Groudon and Kyogre to stick around, but it's certainly a possibility.
Yeah, that's true. And even in the unlikely event that Ninetales does end up in a metagame with Groudon, people might find it advantageous to have two Droughters on a sun team, perhaps. I don't know really.
 
I love that one of the coolest pokes ever got one of the best abilities out there.

This generation is going to be interesting. Along with droughttales and polidrizzle, we get the sandstorm speed ability. I just imagine that we're going to have a generation where countering weather/using your own weather will be part of the strategy. I actually think that sunny day may still be rarely used since rain and sand seem to be far more effective (boosting better typed pokes).
 
You know, with the Balloon item, it can really counter Hippowdon since it can easily use a Fire Blast (stronger than Super Effective Solar Beam when STAB+Drought are added), and put Hippowdon into serious KO range.

With Drought removing its Water weakness, and Balloon giving it a free switch in on Ground moves (and if it maintains the Balloon, even longer), Rock types seem to be the only weakness it has left. Pair Ninetails with a strong Grass Pokemon resistant to Rock (like Torterra or that Grass/Steel), and you could really aid Ninetails with some good Ground and Rock and even Water checks since they are all weak to Grass, plus in the case of Torterra, it essentially gains a Water resistance thanks to Drought.
 

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Ninetails is now hands down better than Houndoom at Nasty Plot sweeping. Boosted Fire Blast in the sun is ridiculous. I OHKOed Onokosu with with LO 2+ Fire Blast.
 
This isn't just about Ninetails running Solarbeam, but rather all Sunny day sweepers. They are mostly if not all Grass types that abuse Solarbeam+HP Fire/Weather Ball. That is the problem with Drought Ninetails. Even if it sets up infinite sun, how are you going to abuse it without using Solarbeam? Leaf Storm? Sure it works, but having -2 SAtk isn't the best thing to do when you have to keep switching out, racking on SR damage.

I guess you could run Leaf Storm but the -2 SAtk would be quite annoying. I mean tons of pokes resist grass now, they even have Herbivore which grants an immunity to grass. I'm not sayint that Ninetails has no potential, its just that to abuse the sun, Solarbeam is the best choice, and other weather inducers ruin that.
Well, seeing that many things do resist Grass or cause Solarbeam to be delayed (and now are immune) it generally isn't necessary or wise to spam Solarbeam on any switchin, only when really needed - hence Leaf Storm being usable in many cases. Not to mention the number of physical grass types out there, and Petal Dance(?) now being 120 BP and hence an alternative to Solarbeam.

Barely any Sun sweepers rely soley on HP Fire+Solarbeam in any case. Explosion, lightning fast sleep powders, physical moves ranging from EQ to Rock Slide and many other things are commonly utilised by Sun sweepers. SD users are also common. Essentially, you do not need to run solarbeam to abuse sun - Chlorophyll is by far the best abuse of sun there could be.

You know, with 1 layer of Toxic Spikes support & Protect on Leftovers Ninetails, Ninetails is able to KO any Tyranitar set after a Nasty Plot and a Hidden Power Fighting. Plus Protect can be used for additional recovery when not under Hail/Sandstorm, can be used for scouting (like on a lead), and can overall abuse Toxic [Spikes] through the damage each turn.

All of you think of needing as much power for the switch in, but forgot that Ninetails can simply Protect (especially vs Scarf versions) on Tyranitar with a single layer of Toxic Spikes damage which deals 25% over 2 turns (including the switch in), or 18.75% if Tyranitar is holding Leftovers. Instead of 1 layer of Spikes + Stealth Rock, a simple 1 layer of Toxic Spikes + Protect will do equal damage, and is a little easier to pull off (at least by the 1 less turn necessary to set up).
Additionally, Toxic Spikes has always been used as a way to stop Rain teams, so it should be hard to find a place for it since Toxic Spikes can help conquer other Weather abusers.
I was actually going merely for the speed, and disagreeing with a Modest LO Ninetales in favour of a Timid Lefties one. That is a good idea actually, and may be worth running a T-Spiker for, however, I personally would agree with Murkglow and say that going offensive with Tales is a waste of time given the myriad of other powerful Sun sweepers available.

A set like this would probably be my set of choice for Ninetails. Trying to go offensive seems pointless to me (and puts too much risk on her which isn't a good thing since her biggest purpose is her weather). Will-O-Wisp like crazy and swap early would be my game plan with her.
 
I fail to see how Drought Ninetales wouldn't cut it in OU as purely a support pokemon... somebody explain that to me.

I'm seeing a lot of talk about Tyranitar, and how Ninetales would be maimed in battle with him. How is this remotely relevant to Ninetales setting up sunlight? Ninetales doesn't have to fight or kill anything at all to do its job, let alone KO your opponent's Tyranitar. Breloom or Machamp on a team with Ninetales, and Tyranitar is irrelevant.
 
I fail to see how Drought Ninetales wouldn't cut it in OU as purely a support pokemon... somebody explain that to me.
Umm was there that much talk about her not making OU? I thought the question was if she would get banned to Ubers or not, not if she would make OU (because she most definatly will if she isn't banned).
 
Umm was there that much talk about her not making OU? I thought the question was if she would get banned to Ubers or not, not if she would make OU (because she most definatly will if she isn't banned).
Believe it or not, yeah, there was. Not a huge amount, but it was there.
 
Ninetales @ Choice Specs
Drought
Modest
252 Sp.Atk / 252 Spe / 4 Sp.Def
Overheat / Fire Blast
Solarbeam
Psycho Shock
Hidden Power Ground/Ice

Since Ninetales already has an acceptable speed stat, it makes sense to boost its mediocre Special Attack as much as you can. This accomplishes that without the need for setup with Nasty Plot. Psycho Shock is a new toy that many special attackers have gained in the transition. If you didn't catch its effect in the new move details, Psycho Shock's power is based off the user's Special Attack stat, but damages the target through it's defense stat. That means this set isn't walled by Blissey or any other dedicated special walls. It effectively fills the gap left by Dark Pulse, which is unfortunately incompatible with Drought.
OP needs to be updated. DW abilities are breedable meaning if Dark Pulse is still a TM move, DroughTales COUL still use Dark Pulse.
 
Uber-potential? Never!!! Anyway, if there are too many Ninetales around, I'll just use Dugtrio as my starter - GG, Ninetales. It is somehow weird to see how people completely forget some Pokemon in a counter list, just because they are not seen in OU anymore...
 
I fail to see how Drought Ninetales wouldn't cut it in OU as purely a support pokemon... somebody explain that to me.

I'm seeing a lot of talk about Tyranitar, and how Ninetales would be maimed in battle with him. How is this remotely relevant to Ninetales setting up sunlight? Ninetales doesn't have to fight or kill anything at all to do its job, let alone KO your opponent's Tyranitar. Breloom or Machamp on a team with Ninetales, and Tyranitar is irrelevant.
As a support pokemon Ninetales is of course amazing - we were simply trying to determine whether the best use of it would be to try and counter its biggest foes - the other weather users, or act simply as a support platform.

Again the issue with TTar (and Hippowdon/Politoed) is that Ninetales cannot safely switch into them to setup sun, while they can easily switch into it, altering the weather and posing a threat.

TTar in particular poses a problem with its STAB pursuit, hence the talk of WoW to neuter that or an OHKO with Protect and HP Fight.

could try a trolling spam with your team or a nitro charge sweep like with charge beam
Nitro Charge looks to be an epic move but Ninetales's attack stats aren't really high enough to pull it off - Nasty plot is almost certainly more valuable.

Uber-potential? Never!!! Anyway, if there are too many Ninetales around, I'll just use Dugtrio as my starter - GG, Ninetales. It is somehow weird to see how people completely forget some Pokemon in a counter list, just because they are not seen in OU anymore...
As Ninetales is the fastest weather inducer and matches unfavourably with other Weather inducers, its pretty unlikely that it will become a common lead, especially given its central importance, imo.
 
OP needs to be updated. DW abilities are breedable meaning if Dark Pulse is still a TM move, DroughTales COUL still use Dark Pulse.
TM79 Dark Pulse has been replaced by Ice Breath.

All moves that are tutored or taught by TMs that are not in Black and White are incompatible with Dream World abilities.
 
I can see this going two ways. A full fledged weather team in which you have a bulkier Ninetales. A semi-weather team in which you use offensive sets.
 
Problem is Sun teams are much easier to beat than Rain teams. I might get beaten down with a stick for saying this but yeah. You are relying on UU and NU Pokemon to take advantage of Sunny Day.. you are either using Chlorophyll users whose STAB moves aren't boosted by the weather or Fire types which are merely firing off 1.5x boosted attacks.. and Solar Beam and Fire-typed moves are easily switched into by Sand Stream mons and Politoed.

That's why I think Ninetails is not going to be that hot.
 
Problem is Sun teams are much easier to beat than Rain teams. I might get beaten down with a stick for saying this but yeah. You are relying on UU and NU Pokemon to take advantage of Sunny Day.. you are either using Chlorophyll users whose STAB moves aren't boosted by the weather or Fire types which are merely firing off 1.5x boosted attacks.. and Solar Beam and Fire-typed moves are easily switched into by Sand Stream mons and Politoed.

That's why I think Ninetails is not going to be that hot.
True true... I suppose you could use bulky fire types and the sun will mitigate their water weakness
 
Sun teams , for me, are meant to be balanced, not offensive like Rain.
They can sweep, disable, annoy or stall all in one package, but they aren't as effective as the other weather counterparts (Jack of all trades, master of none).

For me, the traits of weathers are:

Rain: offensive
Sun: Balanced
Hail: Stall
Sandstorm: bulky sweeping

My opinion.


Anyway, i think Ninetales should try to go defensive. Too bad it can't use Pain Split with Drought...
It's risky to go offensive with Ninetales: something could shut it down, and then Sun be replaced with Sandstorm or something.

I'd like to say Cresselia is a very good teammate to Ninetales (you need a way to get rid of Tyranitar. Dugtrio or something takes care of that), having that WTF bulk and Morning Sun curing 66% of it's health.
CM set seems pretty durable.
 
Sun teams , for me, are meant to be balanced, not offensive like Rain.
They can sweep, disable, annoy or stall all in one package, but they aren't as effective as the other weather counterparts (Jack of all trades, master of none).

For me, the traits of weathers are:

Rain: offensive
Sun: Balanced
Hail: Stall
Sandstorm: bulky sweeping

My opinion.


Anyway, i think Ninetales should try to go defensive. Too bad it can't use Pain Split with Drought...
It's risky to go offensive with Ninetales: something could shut it down, and then Sun be replaced with Sandstorm or something.

I'd like to say Cresselia is a very good teammate to Ninetales (you need a way to get rid of Tyranitar. Dugtrio or something takes care of that), having that WTF bulk and Morning Sun curing 66% of it's health.
CM set seems pretty durable.
I disagree with your choice of words that sun isn't "as effective as the other weather counterparts". especially in regards to Generation 4. Whenever I would make a team with Tyanitar in it, I would of course look at the pokemon who could abuse sand the best and I thought the list was tiny and filled with a lot of bad pokemon. The list of pokemon that could abuse hail, I thought was even tinier. On the other hand, when looking at all the pokemon who got godly speed and super powerful solarbeams, even though a lot of them are NU because not a single pokemon can permanently bring out sun that's not banned, I always thought it was almost godly (check out how many of those sun abusers can even work in ubers) I always thought of the versatility factor as a major major bonus, not a weakness in any way. I'm not sure how many people havn't heard this by now (probably not many) but level 1 Kyogre and Groudon were considered too powerful for OU by the people testing him. Those test results are obviously sketchy, but that says a lot about just how good rain and sun are.
 

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