np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 9 - Rock You Like a Hurricane

[Rayland]

Not everyone runs standard CB Scizor despite what you believe, just saying.

If you aren't using CB Scizor, then you're even more likely to lose in that situation. Just saying.

I'm pretty sure you're just theorymoning like crazy because this analysis is so flawed it's not even funny. Do you have any idea what happens when Tornadus-T sees a Scizor? Usually it's when it's taken a bit of damage, LO or otherwise and it's got a kill with with less than 70% life left. Basically It's never going to voluntarily stay in to take a bullet punch. Hell it's not going to stay in even if a pursuit is coming 100% of the time. It's either going to go down to LO or remain with like 10-15% before regen best case making it basically useless if rocks are up.

Your pursuit calculation is wrong btw... because it does more if it switches out.

I assumed that both had just taken SR damage. If Tornadus-T has 70% left, it still wins in that situation by switching out, because a BP will kill it.

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-T: 173-204 (57.85 - 68.22%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Boosted Pursuit will still fail to kill, allowing Tornadus-T to switch out and regain health.

+2 Hi Jump Kick after rocks OHKO's 0/0 dragonite and gyarados. Mkkay? Excadrill can OHKO pretty much anything after +2, it just has speed issues. Anyway this isn't about discussing two ubers, this is about Torandus-t. Who is largely much weaker in power level, when compared.

According to you, you can't have Stealth Rock in that equation. Stealth Rock qualifies as support, but you want to look at just the Pokemon. Blaziken fails to OHKO any of those Pokemon without Rocks, Mkkay?

 

[Lavos]

Anyway this isn't about discussing two ubers, this is about Torandus-t. Who is largely much weaker in power level, when compared.

Actually, that's false. Tornadus-T's Hurricane is comparable in power to Blaziken's Hi Jump Kick. They both have around the same base offensive stat, the moves have a difference in power of 10 base points, and they're both STAB-boosted as well. The only difference is that Blaziken can generally get off with running an Adamant nature, because of Speed boost, whereas Torn-T needs a Speed-boosting nature to be effective. Excadrill's Earthquake also just barely edges out Torn-T's Hurricane in terms of raw power, but Hurricane hits a lot more stuff for better damage than Earthquake does.

Also, Bri has a point, though I'm not sure how "predicting the U-Turn" changes anything, Torn-T is still getting out of the way of whatever check you chose to bring. It's generally pretty obvious when the U-Turn is coming anyways. (Though, if you're referring to the Specs set, prediction is certainly much more important on the defensive end of things.)

 

[dice]

I mean predicting the U-turn likeee..

for example your team has a loom and a spdef rachi while they have a tornadus-t.

they aren't going to want to spam hurricane while you have a rachi , so you predict the u-turn as you have loom out.

 

[RaikouLover]

Theorymon will make our brains hurt. Why is it Uber again? I fail to see how it is sweeping a large majority of the metagame or supporting another pokemon to sweep a large majority of the metagame. My bad....

 

[Lavos]

I mean predicting the U-turn likeee..

for example your team has a loom and a spdef rachi while they have a tornadus-t.

they aren't going to want to spam hurricane while you have a rachi , so you predict the u-turn as you have loom out.

If they're the Life Orb set, they probably don't have a problem going with Hurricane right off the bat, then U-Turning out of Jirachi into their check to that specific 'mon. Besides, that's a really shaky way of dealing with Tornadus-T. Staying in with Breloom on Torn-T is extremely risky, but if you have the balls to predict around it then be my guest. If you're playing an extremely high-level opponent, though, they will likely expect you to predict around the Hurricane and go ahead and Hurricane anyways because they're overthinking it a step further than you are. Not saying this is a likely scenario...it's just that any proposed method of dealing with Torn-T that involves prediction is probably not a good one for the majority of the people that play OU.

 

[hotcoldyay]

I mean predicting the U-turn likeee..

for example your team has a loom and a spdef rachi while they have a tornadus-t.

they aren't going to want to spam hurricane while you have a rachi , so you predict the u-turn as you have loom out.

Or it could hurricane to confuse jirachi or kill breloom (depending on whether you switch or stay in), and then proceed to u turn out and send out the appropriate pokemon.

 

[RaikouLover]

Or it could hurricane to confuse jirachi or kill breloom (depending on whether you switch or stay in), and then proceed to u turn out and send out the appropriate pokemon.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that Hurricane's 30% confusion rate is actually 100% when discussing a suspect.

 

[thebrownie]

I assumed that both had just taken SR damage. If Tornadus-T has 70% left, it still wins in that situation by switching out, because a BP will kill it.

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Pursuit vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tornadus-T: 173-204 (57.85 - 68.22%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Boosted Pursuit will still fail to kill, allowing Tornadus-T to switch out and regain health.

When do you think you'll see a Scizor vs a Tornadus-T when it has >70% health. Lets say I grant you that it does have >70% health and it takes 60% damage. Oh cool you have a 45% Tornadus-T before Stealth rocks. That's so crippled it's not even funny.

I'm not talking about eliminating Tornadus-T early game. I'm talking about when it's taken some damage and ideally ready to be picked off with scizor. You should always have a counter like say Jirachi on your team to sponge hits and maybe sack a pokemon with low health to get scizor in to eliminate Tornadus-T.

 

[Rayland]

Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention that Hurricane's 30% confusion rate is actually 100% when discussing a suspect.

Didn't people do that with Skymin? That whole 60% = 100% arguement? Actually, you just mentioned it a couple of posts ago.

Hey genius. When do you think you'll see a Scizor in vs a Tornadus-T when it has >70% health. Lets say I grant you that it does have >70% health and it takes 60% damage. Oh cool you have a 45% Tornadus-T before Stealth rocks. That's so crippled it's not even funny.

Anyways, so you're saying Scizor is a check as long as Tornadus-T has taken enough damage? Pretty generic check to me. That's the same as saying "Hydreigon can sweep an entire team as long as everything the opponent has is weaker than it and there are 3 layers of spikes and SR on their side of the field." You originally judged me for Theorymonning, but now you're doing even more Theorymonning.

 

[superbadd]

You don't get it do you? SR is on everything.Drizzle and dugtrio are both on one selective pokemon that's the difference. Get it? You can make a team, and odds are 2 or 3 pokemon can set up SR. Seriously, i'm not going to argue on tangents anymore. It's clear you know you're wrong, but don't want to admit it. Mkkkay, baby?

Edit@ below: read my full post, when you understand and are willing to admit you're wrong, let me know.

 

[Rayland]

You don't get it do you? SR is on everything.Drizzle and dugtrio are both on one selective pokemon that's the difference. Get it? Seriously, i'm not going to argue on tangents. It's clear you know you're wrong, but don't want to admit it.

You're still contradicting yourself. Choose one side of an argument and support it. Got it memorized? You can't pick and choose what support you want a Pokemon to have.

I don't even realize the point of this little argument. It's not like Hurricane has 0% accuracy outside of rain. Theoretically, rain could not be up and Tornadus-T could still be just as efficient (like Hurricane hitting every time).

 

[superbadd]

Just to clear things up, the fact that almost everything has access to SR, doesn't really make it support, in the sense that you have to go out of your way to make a teamate. Btw, if tornadus-t didn't have 100% hurricane it wouldn't be as viable. I mean, seriously how can some people be stupid enough to not get that. That's what makes it so threatening.

 

[Bossness]

By your logic, Drizzle hardly constitutes as support as Politoed is the most common Pokemon in Ou,

It doesn't matter anyway, because you are contradicting yourself. You want to look at individual Pokemon and ignore support, but you just admitted that SR, a support move, is always factored into damage calculation. Weren't you talking about Rotom-W being 3hkoed by Hurricane after Stealth Rock?

Support is going to have to be a factor when discussing these two Pokemon. Mkkkay?

You are wrong. From experience: Stealth Rock is used by all good team(nearly 100% usage). Even if a team did not have Blaziken, that team would likely have access to Stealth Rock anyway. When you are using Politoed(about 20% usage) to boost Hurricane's accuracy, by definition, you are supporting Tornadus-T. Get it?

You are right, Hurricane does not have 0% accuracy outside rain. Do you know what makes Tornadus-T good? Speed and Power; not bulk. Theoretically, you could miss just one Hurricane and Tornadus-T is dead. That is the difference between hitting 100% of the time and only 70% of the time.

 

[Neliel]

what you guys are missing is that talking about counters and checks for these two pokemon is useless, this is not the reason why they are suspect, its just to nerf a playstile (rain offense) which is too good for the ou concil. Thats it. keep in mind that they unbanned garchomp and kyurem-b, so a discussion about counters and checks for keldeo and torna-t doesnt make sense anymore, considering how counterless kyu-b and chomp are.
Just consider that Tornadus-t completely rely on a weather to do something and it does not have any move like DD or Np that can make you lose 6-0 if you let it setup. Torna-t fails to ko even offensive things with great bulk like terrakion, i mean obviously there are no reasons to ban it at all. If it gets banned, well, just dont think about it when you do a team anymore.

 

[doughboy]

My thoughts on Tornadus-T

Man this is going to be a pain to post from a phone.

I outlined my general problem with Tornadus-T in this post from the general suspect thread from awhile ago (August) and I really reccomend you read it. I still retain the points I made in that post, but I have some additional new thoughts on him as well. As concisely as possible (since if you make too long of a post people ignore everything within it), here is what (in my opinion) makes Tornadus-T Über in certain capacities:

• Offensive: I think a lot of the people here are truly underestimating the power of Hurricane. First of all, Tornadus-T's Flying-STAB has less Pokemon that resist it than Dragon in the OU tier, which is a testament of how truly great it is. Combined with 120 base power fighting attack that it could use from either spectrum to offer coverage, the list that can take really take him on is small. Sp. Def Jirachi, Sp. Def Rotom-W, Sp. Def Zapdos (k), Max Def+ Chansey (k), Lanturn (k), and Chople Tar. However each of these "counters" have a pitfall that Tornadus-T can use to get around them. Jirachi falls to spikes stacking and Dugtrio; Sp. Def Rotom falls to repeated U-turns+Huricanes+ (possible) SR since it lacks reliable recovery, Zapdos falls to SR+U-turn, Chansey falls to Life Orb Taunt+Superpower (Taunt is the most popar option on the Life Orb set), and Chople Tar will limit your ability to win the weather war, gets hurt by repeated U-turns and will fall to a predicted Superpower+next round of checking Tornadus-T. Notice that most of these circumventions involve the use of U-turn, which brings me to my next point.
  
• Consequence for Switching (and lack thereof): This is my main gripe with Tornadus-T and what I think ultimately makes him über. The unfortunate reality you have to face that even if you DO counter Tornadus-T, you must recognize it has no consequence for switching out. Why should the Tornadus-T user feel at a lose when you have countered it and it switches out or uses U-turn? Because of Regenerator, Tornadus will take the opportunity happily to switch to regain health. In addition, the Tornadus-T user has forced your hand to some of it few viable counters which its teammates will gladly take advantage of. At no point when you counter Tornadus-T you are dictating the flow of the match, you are merely the foil of its huge momentum grabbing power (which is made worse by U-turn. This is what makes these cookie cutter rain teams with Tornadus-T+Tentacruel+Ferrothorn so damn effective. Tentacruel (the best damn spinner in OU) makes sure Tornadus-T retains the "lack of consequence for switching out" by making sure it retains the majority of health gain with Regenerator. Meanwhile, Ferrothorn (which is one of the hardest things to remove in the tier when in rain) makes sure you feel damned/consequences for switching in/out to counter to Tornadus-T with its awesome spikes stacking against all its counters (Rotom-w, zap, Jirachi, Chansey are helpless!!!). This is what I get from when people say Tornadus-T counters often become a fruitless endeavor against it.

I could post more. But these two points ultimately serve to illustrate how Tornadus-T fucks with every team in the tier.

Now to address points made by others in this thread:

• Requires Rain Support/Usability Outside of Rain: First of all I find it ridiculous that people are acting like utilizing rain is a chore. Heads up: using the best damn support in the game is not. With that out of the way, opposing weathers ARE NOT as big of an obstacle to Tornadus-T that many of you are saying. The battle for Tyranitar, Hippowdon, and Ninetales to come in to change the weather is an up hill battle. All of them are susceptible to the water types attack utilized by Politoed and friends, as well as the hazards used by Ferrothorn. More importantly, Tyranitar and Ninetales are both susceptible to Dugtrio, which has become a facet to the standard rain team. This means that both are unlable to come in and "counter" Tornadus-T without facing a U-turn to get trapped. Basically, carrying your own weather mitigates Tornadus-T's ability to play marginally, because the weather war is so much damn harder to win.
  
  Now even when Tornadus-t does lose the weather war, it still has the chance to do work. A 70% chance at that, which if iirc, has been an acceptable standard chance used by Gengar, Alakazam, Reuniclus, and others for awhile now. Compared to Venasaur/Stoutland who have now have their ability to function taken away due to being outspeed by a large amount of the tier, I say "completely unusable outside rain" is crap.
  
• Status: Tornadus-T is actually one of the most status resilient Pokes in the tier. Residual damage from burn and Toxic can be healed with Regenerator. Burn does not affect it's beat attack stat with hurricane, while Toxic damage will be reset often due to the incentive of happily switching out so often (regen). Its specs set is actually one of the most popular Sleep Absorbers in the tier. It truly only fears paralysis.

Well that is what I have to say so far. Btw don't flame others and little secrets by passion pit is a great song

 

[Silenced Melody]

I have to say I agree with ThePillsburyDoughBoy's points. Tornadus-T has one of the fastest U-turns in OU which provides the person's team with momentum and, of course, we can't ignore its strong STAB Hurricane.
I personally think that we need to take rain into account when we're talking about Tornadus-T because it's not often that you'll see it outside of rain. Sure you can win the weather war and neuter its effectiveness, kudos to you, but not viewing rain + Tornadus-T as a package is kinda... eh. When I used sun teams, most rain teams that had Tornadus-T never even used Hurricane against me and only used U-turn / FB / HP Ice, putting me under constant pressure.
Switching in your weather starter into a Life Orb / Specs Hurricane is also kinda risky if you lose the coin toss and lose the weather war, just saying.

Also, in my opinion, the best counters to Tornadus-T are pokemon that take absolutely nothing from U-Turn / Hurricane and have reliable recovery. Specially defensive Rotom-W still doesn't like taking too many Hurricanes / U-turns despite being a counter to Tornadus-T.

Nitpick: Pursuit trapping ANYTHING with a CB Scizor will usually lead to another threat setting up.

 

[MMII]

After reading a couple pages I'm wondering if the definition of a counter should be revised. For example, Jolteon is technically a counter to Torna-T as it fits the textbook definition of a counter. However, we can almost all agree that, in practice, Jolteon feels more like a shaky check since it can only switch in once which isn't enough for something that will last the entire game like Torna-T. I think a revised definition of a "counter" should look something like this:

"A Counter must be able to both switch into the Pokémon it's supposed to counter, with little to no risk to itself, as often as needed and also pose an immediate threat to said Pokémon"

(Pardon me if it doesn't look elegant, I just copy-pasted a defintion I found on google and threw in "as often as needed")

I think the reason this didn't need to be mentioned before is that we really haven't had an offensive mon with Regenerator before. Regenerator is a new ability that has been given almost exclusively to defensive Pokemon. These guys already have giant bulk and/or reliable recovery while posing little to no offensive threat. You didn't really need to count how often you could switch into them since just about anybody could. Exceptions, like Mienshao and Ho-Oh, are either so unimpressive that they weren't talking about or suffered from a heavy SR weakness that outdid the healing from Regenerator. So, in general, just about any counter could switch into what it's is supposed to be countering as often or as little as it was going to. Torna-T changes all this. He poses a significant offensive threat while healing off any hazard and minor switch-in damage with Regenerator. This is why stuff like Jolteon just doesn't really cut it as a Counter, it is only going to be around to deal with it a handful of times early game whereas Torna-T is probably going to be one of the last Pokemon to be knocked out.


Anyways, I just want to mention that hax is a fairly viable argument with Torna-T since he has almost infinite times to roll the dice for that 30%. The reason why it doesn't count for Jirachi is because Jirachi just doesn't pose much of an offensive threat and the hax only helps to make up for that.

Speaking of Jirachi, without Protect he isn't as reliable as one would like. By the time Jirachi has set up a Wish, the Torna-T will have already gone to a hard counter and Jirachi will have to switch out before it can benefit from it and heal up. Plus, after a few times switching into a Hurricane there is a chance of Confusion hax to rack up more damage and deny setting up a Wish. (51% to Confuse after two times, 34.3% after three)

 

[shrang]

I personally think we're getting a little ban-happy in our suspect tests. I don't think either of these two Pokemon are anywhere near broken (I didn't think Genesect was broken either, but we're not going debate that here, obviously). I don't think anyone here has yet to put a definitive reason WHY either of them should be banned so far (or at least what I think should be an acceptable argument). I personally think these are both two excellent Pokemon, but I think we need to learn the difference between a broken Pokemon and merely a very good one. Let's look at them in more detail (Just Torn-T for now):

Tornadus-T

So far, after what I've experienced, I'm probably leaning about 25 : 75 ratio of Uber : OU. Yes, Tornadus-T is an excellent Pokemon. Yes, it is very hard to deal with. STAB Hurricane is excellent, it is ridiculously fast, and it has U-turn. However, none of these point to a broken Pokemon. I know we dispensed with the old "characteristics", but they are still useful to judge a Pokemon's strength. In my opinion, Tornadus-T does not fit either the offensive, defensive or support characteristics. It cannot sweep teams with little to no support (Firstly, it needs Rain, secondly, powerful as it may be, it cannot OHKO half the metagame without hazard support, thirdly, it's still relatively easy to revenge kill). I'm not even going to bother with the defensive characteristic. That leaves support, and while yes, Tornadus-T is pretty good at softening up or killing things, it doesn't really support the team in really significant ways. It can't set up hazards with no effort at all (Deoxys-S), it can't break specialised walls that may allow other Pokemon to sweep (eg Jirachi, Chansey) and it can't Baton Pass a ridiculous set of boosts (DPP Mew). Plus, Tornadus-T has very solid counters in OU, we don't have to go look down the trash pile to find hard counters. Jirachi, Chansey, Metagross, specially defensive Rotom-W in OU at the very least counter it in pretty much every sense of the word "counter". If we're willing to go down to lower tiers, we can find Zapdos and Raikou, both of which have niches in OU. After that, we can go to his checks, which gets ridiculously bloated. Most good Scarfers easily stops Tornadus-T. Salamence, Garchomp, Kyurem-B, Heatran, Rotom-W, even Politoed can kill Tornadus-T without much problems at all. We also have Jolteon and Weavile which both naturally outspeed Tornadus-T and can OHKO it with their STAB attacks (Jolteon is severely underrated and Weavile is getting increased utility with all the Dragons, Gengar, Starmie and genies running around). Mamoswine also puts it out of commission easily. You may think Regenerator "nullifies Stealth Rock", but you have to remember that with it up, you're facing Tornadus-T with 75%, not 100, which makes revenge killing it much easier. On a similar topic, Tornadus-T, while bulkier than Tornadus-I, isn't exactly bulky. It has Regenerator, but it's not something you can switch into like half the metagame and still pose a huge threat to (hi Garchomp). Another thing is that the metagame has become faster and more offensive, while being bulkier. Tornadus-T can kill less things as easily while being easier to be killed. So what can Tornadus-T do that makes it that broken? I can't really see it. Let's just compare him to the other Pokemon we've banned in Gen 5 so far and see how Tornadus-T fares:

Deoxys-N / Deoxys-A: Practically NOTHING can switch into these two things, 150 Speed and 150 (180) Atk / SpA completely shits on 121 / 110. Deo-A was able to do shit like 2HKO Scizor with Psycho Boost and ExtremeSpeed, 2HKO bulky Steels (their "counters"). Destroyed most of the metagame with one set.
Darkrai: Faster than Tornadus-T, has an accurate Sleep move, access to a boosting move (Nasty Plot), and boasts similar coverage. Single-handedly demolishes most stall teams. Unlike Tornadus-T, it could completely incapacitate potential counters without needing another Pokemon's support. Destroyed most of the metagame with one set.
Shaymin-S: Even faster than Darkrai, has flinch hax, higher Special Attack and a STAB move that -2's your Special Defense 80% of the time. Also has Leech Seed and a STAB that fucks up all Leech Seed immunes. Also has a boosting move in the sun in Growth. Makes Tornadus-T look like a joke.
Swift Swim / Drizzle: Kingdra / Kabutops / Ludicolo / Qwilfish / Omastar were all threats in the rain that makes Tornadus-T look like Politoed when compared to Kyogre.
Blaziken: Very difficult to revenge kill, pretty much nothing could stand up to its high power STABs (apart from like... Slowbro/king). Swept teams with ease.
Sand Veil Garchomp: Could potentially skirt past potential counters since you had a 20% chance to fail most of the time. It was also very bulky for a sweeper and had numerous switch-ins. Immune to Thunder Wave.
Excadrill: Pretty much caused Hyper Offensive teams to fold by itself. It was practically impossible to revenge kill, was decently bulky with numerous resistances, immune to Thunder Wave and Toxic. Swept most of the metagame with one set.
Thundurus-I: Practically impossible to wall, while having Prankster Thunder Wave to potentially fuck up your counters.
Deoxys-S: Sets up hazards / screens so ridiculously easily that there was pretty much no real feasible way of stopping it. It was also able to run an offensive threat that revenge killed half the metagame and swept if need be as well.
Genesect: Rock Polish Genesect was very difficult to revenge kill (in this, I mean WAY harder than Tornadus-T) while having excellent type coverage to kill pretty much anything that it needed to. When it wasn't doing that, it was probably the most versatile revenge killer to have ever existed.

So what can Tornadus-T do in comparison to these heavy weights? Oh, and just a pre-emptive counter to "U-turn to counter" arguments: Just because Tornadus-T can U-turn to a counter (or Dugtrio) does not make it broken. Think about it. When you say "U-turn to a counter", your are automatically involving another Pokemon. You cannot logically prove that Tornadus-T is broken when you add another Pokemon into the mix.

By the way:

Let's wrap it up by judging it against standard smogon banning criteria:

1) Predictability: Scout, Scarf and Standard Rain Abuser. You won't be fretting at how to counter him. 2/10 on danger scale.

2) Counters: It's counters and measure of counter acting include strong priorities, scarfers and special walls, which aren't many to begin with and you might end up tossing something before you can wear it down, especially with SR. No usual OMG THIS THING IS IMPOSSSIBLE LET'S PROMOTE THE NICHE SON OF A NICHE OF A PU POKEMONG TO KILL IT! 6/10 on danger scale.

3) Overcentralizing: Offensively nobody contests this thing is a beast, and rain isn't exactly lacking in partners or quick fixes to his mentioned problems, it is obvious that Rain is the dominant weather with it being the super star and the core of most offensive rain teams. 8/10 on danger scale, and only because you still need the support to push the dominoes.

When have we EVER used these criteria as the "standard banning criteria"? We don't have definitive banning axioms any more. What we used to have, were the three characterisitics (Offensive, Defensive and Support).

 

[Django]

Plus, Tornadus-T has very solid counters in OU, we don't have to go look down the trash pile to find hard counters. Jirachi, Chansey, Metagross,

Wait Metagross isn't on the trash pile? Since when. Also I wouldn't call taking 33% minimum from Life Orb Hurricane a "solid" or "hard" counter, especially when Metagross has no recovery at all. The rest of your argument seems to hinge on the fact that Tornadus-T can be revenged killed, which while true, doesn't necessarily mean it is balanced. The vast majority of the revenge killers can switch in once maximum, and others mentioned like Weavile and Mamoswine are OHKOed as they switch in. This forces you to make sacrifices every time Tornadus-T comes in, and puts you at an immediate disadvantage despite "preparing" for it. Unless you're running Chansey, SpDef Jirachi / Rotom-W you have basically nothing to switch into Tornadus. It should also be noted that Regenerator means Tornadus-T has a massive amount of freedom to switch out of revenge killers, despite its SR weakness. Most of these revenge killers can also easily be handled by top OU Pokemon such as Ferrothorn.

I'm not categorically saying its broken, I just don't see how revenge killing is really relevent when a) it can switch out almost for free and b) there are ~3-4 Pokemon that can actually switch into it.

 

[shrang]

Wait Metagross isn't on the trash pile? Since when. Also I wouldn't call taking 33% minimum from Life Orb Hurricane a "solid" or "hard" counter, especially when Metagross has no recovery at all. The rest of your argument seems to hinge on the fact that Tornadus-T can be revenged killed, which while true, doesn't necessarily mean it is balanced. The vast majority of the revenge killers can switch in once maximum, and others mentioned like Weavile and Mamoswine are OHKOed as they switch in. This forces you to make sacrifices every time Tornadus-T comes in, and puts you at an immediate disadvantage despite "preparing" for it. Unless you're running Chansey, SpDef Jirachi / Rotom-W you have basically nothing to switch into Tornadus. It should also be noted that Regenerator means Tornadus-T has a massive amount of freedom to switch out of revenge killers, despite its SR weakness. Most of these revenge killers can also easily be handled by top OU Pokemon such as Ferrothorn.

I'm not categorically saying its broken, I just don't see how revenge killing is really relevent when a) it can switch out almost for free and b) there are ~3-4 Pokemon that can actually switch into it.

My point is that Tornadus-T cannot either 1) sweep most teams with little to no effort, 2) wall most teams with little to no effort, or 3) easily provide a condition in which another Pokemon in the team can easily sweep. Basically, the three Uber characteristics we used to look at, which are still relevant to our metagame today, even though we don't officially use them any more.

PS And yes, while I do think Metagross is trash, it's still an OU Pokemon (sigh) therefore relevant to our discussion.

 

[MMII]

I think it kind of offers a mix of Support and Offensive by being able to come in and out with ease while blasting off powerful Hurricanes. It may not 6-0 from starting from turn 3 but it is definitely a pain in the ass that is going to weaken your team so that it can sweep late game (it's got Tailwind) or give the opportunity for something else to sweep. Not sure if it is at Ubers level yet but it is definitely worth considering.

 

[alamaster]

The biggest problem with Tornadus-T is that while you can force it out with a few shaky counters and a Scarfed pokemon (who can only come in after something is KOd), thanks to Regen is switches out with no drawbacks and can easily come back in to terrorize the opponent. Let's face it: there may be other hard checks such as Metagross and Jolteon (lol) but they aren't relevant because they aren't used. Why does Torn-T care if Metagross can take a Hurricane if nobody uses it? Its not like Gross is good enough to be used for any other reason, so it'd basically be a one trick pony, forcing Torn-T out twice then dying from the third switch in. The only way Metagross could win is if it uses Pursuit, which is even more rare. If you can make Metagross work for you, then more power to you. It just seems like people are really reaching for counters when they go that far down the list of usage.

 

[superbadd]

Metagross and jolteon are still ou. That's not "far down the list", they're both perfectly viable. You're also acting as if Tornadus-t will always be in a favorable position to kill something while not being susceptible to status or a powerful attack, which is never the case. If its burned, chansey, heatran, and blissey wall it. If it's paralyzed/asleep, it's dead weight. If it's poisoned, you can spam protect and make it weak enough to be picked off. Most pokemon can take a hit and OHKO back, it's not a one shot sweeper, it's more so a wallbreaker/cleaner. Lucario, dragonite, mamoswine, scizor are all pokemon that can revenge kill a weakened tornadus with powerful priority. Hell, even cloyster, toxicroak and ambomasnow can threaten it. The list goes on, there's so many way to deal with it.

 

[alamaster]

How are you planning to status Tornadus-T without using Body Slam on Jirachi or Thunderwave/Will-o-Wisp on Rotom-W? Tornadus-T rarely switches in unless it has an absolute safe way to get in. The problem is that once its in its incredibly hard to force it out.

 

[superbadd]

Thing is, Tornadus can hardly switch into anything. I'm looking at the entire list of ou pokemon and everything can threaten it one way or another. Best way to get it in is through prediction or after something dies. It's equally as threatening as it is threatened. Common status users Tornadus may switch into include celebi, breloom, deoxys-d, and the blobs. It isn't even that difficult to force out as you claim, A strong scarfer, something faster, or priority after SR damage is more than enough to force it out.