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np: RU Stage 4 - Deck the Halls
- Thread starter Oglemi
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Ive been using an incredibly powerful Sun team with Charizard. People seem to always underestimate Charizards sheer power. Even with a Scarf, Charizard OHKOs Qwilfish and 2HKOs Kabutops after spikes with Fire Blast. Not to mention that Lilligant is still incredibly powerful, especially in the Sun. It just shows that with the banning of instaweather, manual weather setting is going to become way more powerful.
Weather isn't overly powerful when it isn't permanent, as the majority of good players will be able to make a team that dominates the ladder without necessarily resorting to weather. Of course, it doesn't hurt to prepare for weather, as it is and will continue to be, a popular playstyle thanks to the plethora of viable weather sweepers. What I'm really finding useful right now is Qwilfish. Intimidate is just awesome, and a Fighting resist is just amazing to have. Not to mention it is decently fast, has Taunt, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and more. Qwilfish is quite the team player.
Yes,I'm glad about this since most of the top people in the leader board have just been copying the team...
Since, theres no more auto-weather starters in RU anymore, I expect alot more rain dance/sunny day teams. I wonder what will become dominant, rain or sun. Exeggutor,Charizard, and Tangrowth are the big sun abusers while Kabutops and Ludicolo are the rain. Its easier to set up weather also with prankster pokemon such as murkrow and volbeat. Uxie is also a good weather starter b/c it has sufficient speed and great defenses to come and set up weather around again and again
^ Everyone expects that after like every change, and it never gets a signifficant change. Even when hail existed, any well buildt rain/sun team could easily get around it, and by the end of the day, a well built RU team with good defensive/offensive cores will nearly always serve you better.
I've currently been testing sun, and while charizard is damn good, he is still very manageable, espesially if you have SR (which definately should be your first priority to get up when facing an obvious sun team.) Honchcrow, Lilligant (with clorophyll), Sharpedo, Unburden hitmonlee/sceptile and munchlax gives me a lot of problems and having to run a check for all of them to succeed kinda limits my team.
Every rain sweeper is overrated atm except for Ludicolo and it's pretty easy to get build around them. Specially defensive Hariyama beats omastar, Mandibuzz can wall specially based ludicolo, Tangrowth/Tangela beats phsysically Ludicolo and Kabutops (just a few examples)
As long as honchcrow stays in the tier (which it definately should), I doubt either rain or sun will proove themselves broken, but we'll see. At least it's for the better that hail is gone.
I've currently been testing sun, and while charizard is damn good, he is still very manageable, espesially if you have SR (which definately should be your first priority to get up when facing an obvious sun team.) Honchcrow, Lilligant (with clorophyll), Sharpedo, Unburden hitmonlee/sceptile and munchlax gives me a lot of problems and having to run a check for all of them to succeed kinda limits my team.
Every rain sweeper is overrated atm except for Ludicolo and it's pretty easy to get build around them. Specially defensive Hariyama beats omastar, Mandibuzz can wall specially based ludicolo, Tangrowth/Tangela beats phsysically Ludicolo and Kabutops (just a few examples)
As long as honchcrow stays in the tier (which it definately should), I doubt either rain or sun will proove themselves broken, but we'll see. At least it's for the better that hail is gone.
I feel once again that I must promote the awesomeness of Archeops. My last team with him peaked at #11 and the redesign might make the the top five. Seriously, he's rapidly becoming my favorite Pokemon in RU for his ability to play a useful role in every match when provided with the right support. Plus, late-game cleaning is incredibly easy with him provided Scarfers and priority abusers are crippled or gone. I'll make an RMT for it later.
awesome, I like the look of archeops, but have no experience. a RMT would be great
i agree that archeops is very underrated in this metagame, another user and i built a team around it. inspired by youngsterkeiran, we decided to give it support from a healing wish lilligant (yeah, screw you lilli counter now you have to deal with archeops). giveing archeops a second chance to sweep, rapid spin is also very important, to prevent stealth rock damage from weating archeops into the defeatist range.
@Molk: Yeah... my team is nowhere near that well thought-out. Mine is more of a self-sufficient team that uses Archeops to take shit out. I tried designing it around Archeops to start and eventually just developed it into a full team effort kind of thing. But hey, it works, you saw it yourself yesterday, Molk. That team I would've beaten you with if I hadn't stupidly switched Rotom-C into Thunder Wave?
@alexwolf:Double Rock-, Ice-, and Electric-type weakness is a problem there.
Yes, Entei has a large number of viable sets; everything from Sunny Day to SubCM is open season for him, not to mention his signature Physical Attacker set. However, Entei has several counters for every single one of his sets, or is outclassed by other Fire-types (coughMOLTREScough) or other users of the same strategy.
As I've said before, "this argument basically boils down to 'because Pokemon X doesn't always run the same set and thus doesn't have the exact same counters every time, it deserves to be banned.' Newsflash: this goes for every major threat in RU, or in any teir for that matter. Hell, it goes for most Pokemon in general."
@alexwolf:Double Rock-, Ice-, and Electric-type weakness is a problem there.
No. This is so false it's almost painful.Asterat said:
Yes, Entei has a large number of viable sets; everything from Sunny Day to SubCM is open season for him, not to mention his signature Physical Attacker set. However, Entei has several counters for every single one of his sets, or is outclassed by other Fire-types (coughMOLTREScough) or other users of the same strategy.
As I've said before, "this argument basically boils down to 'because Pokemon X doesn't always run the same set and thus doesn't have the exact same counters every time, it deserves to be banned.' Newsflash: this goes for every major threat in RU, or in any teir for that matter. Hell, it goes for most Pokemon in general."
This can be said about TONS of pokemon in the metagame..
To be honest, Entei is one of the less versatile mons in this tier.
Talking about sun teams, I found Heat Rock Lilligant set along the lines of Sunny Day / Sleep Powder / Solarbeam (alliteration!) / Healing Wish to be pretty darn good with max special attack and bulk investment. Another set I found useful was (not on the same team but) is Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Sunny Day sash Smeargle because of the massive SR weakness Sun teams tend to have. Claydol, the only other mon capable of doing so, is so pro at losing momentum.
Of course, the conventional choice in Uxie is pretty good / borderline requirement. I found that everything that gives sun teams a huge issue (CB Entei, Krow, etc.) tend to have a SR weakness, so SR helps them out even more than it does a conventional team.
Talking about sun teams, I found Heat Rock Lilligant set along the lines of Sunny Day / Sleep Powder / Solarbeam (alliteration!) / Healing Wish to be pretty darn good with max special attack and bulk investment. Another set I found useful was (not on the same team but) is Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Sunny Day sash Smeargle because of the massive SR weakness Sun teams tend to have. Claydol, the only other mon capable of doing so, is so pro at losing momentum.
Of course, the conventional choice in Uxie is pretty good / borderline requirement. I found that everything that gives sun teams a huge issue (CB Entei, Krow, etc.) tend to have a SR weakness, so SR helps them out even more than it does a conventional team.
I was messing around with Shedinja today and its actually not that bad, Rapid Spin support is obvious(I use Cryogonal) but its actually a great switch in to a lot of threats like Sawsbuck and Claydol. Sure its not the best Pokemon out there but if you want to have a little fun on the ladder I highly reccomend you try it out.
Also, SD Gallade is amazing, everytime it comes in it seems to get a kill if the opposing team lacks Slowking
Also, SD Gallade is amazing, everytime it comes in it seems to get a kill if the opposing team lacks Slowking
are you vault 102? He's been using a shedinja. In anycase SD Gallade is a beast. he can get by Slowking if it SD's on the switch, and packs night slash
My question is "why are you not running at least 144 Defense EVs on Slowking?" Full Specially Defensive Slowking is a terrifically bad idea in my opinion.Omicron said:
My second question, to Raseri, is "why are people using Slowking to counter Gallade?" Cofagrigus is much better in that regard while faster Ghost-resists like Krook are great checks. Switching Slowking into Gallade is stupid anyway because the Bulk Up set uses Slowking as setup bait.
Hey, Cofag can be even worse if you play it right, particularly to setup sweepers and scarfers. WoW and Haze cause major problems for just about all of the physically based ones. Tbh, I've always found Slowking to be a hindrance on my own teams, but you're right that it's annoying as hell to take out.
Tbh though Cofag's lack of solid recovery really hurts its chances: for a bulky Ghost-type, I'd be more willing to use Dusknoir just because of the fact that he is capable of at least Pain Splitting, and that it has more balanced bulk. Lack of a legitimate attack outside of Shadow Ball also means that it is helpless against the likes of Sub Bouffalant something that Cofag is actually supposed to check because of his typing and role in a team. I think +2 Night Slash should do a lot with Spikes support (which isn't hard with Qwilfish around. Use him while he's around, people!)
While SD and TR Gallade variants are great offensively, I like Bulk Up Gallade for a simple reason: it checks so many specially based things that are incredibly hard to check otherwise. Stuff like Shell Smash Omastar, Agility Porygon-Z, and even Ludicolo and Lilligant (after the sleep clause) fail to break Gallade with boosted attacks while he just munches on the opponent's health. Yeah, Bulk Up's a bit easier to deal with in terms of just counters, but Bulk Up Gallade just provides a lot more staying power, utility, reliability, etc. to a team.
While SD and TR Gallade variants are great offensively, I like Bulk Up Gallade for a simple reason: it checks so many specially based things that are incredibly hard to check otherwise. Stuff like Shell Smash Omastar, Agility Porygon-Z, and even Ludicolo and Lilligant (after the sleep clause) fail to break Gallade with boosted attacks while he just munches on the opponent's health. Yeah, Bulk Up's a bit easier to deal with in terms of just counters, but Bulk Up Gallade just provides a lot more staying power, utility, reliability, etc. to a team.
Fact is that Dusknoir has problems walling some of the stronger Physical attackers because of its balanced defenses (and its craptastic HP stat). Cofag works better if you can spare the proper support, Wish or Heal Bell (should it run Rest). Hell, even without it Mummy is hilariously useful against certain Pokemon. Swellow in particular gets pretty screwed up by it. Plus with the current physically defensive bias and the way most spinners are EV'd, Cofagrigus does more damage on average even with its lower offensive stat.
Hidden Power Fighting is run on about 1/3 of Cofagrigus sets and it hits fairly hard even without investment. I sometimes run it over Haze if I lack a good response to Bouffalant.
W-o-W. Of course Night Slash does a lot, but if Gallade gets burned it will be effectively crippled should your opponent lack a Heal Bell or Aromatherapy user.
Bulk Up Gallade is awesome; I just prefer to use other Pokemon to fill that Fighting-type slot on my team.
I liked the idea of Shedinja ever since it was first created, but i still don't know how to fit it into a team. I guess it's a person to person basis. I really couldn't see it as a physical sweeper, and any mixed pokemon would kick his ass... but that's just my perspective. What did you pair it with?
Now,i wouldn't recommend it as the Honchkrow check to end all Honchkrow checks, but i've always enjoyed using Chatot on Honchkrow. Honchkrow won't be hitting it without Sucker Punch, and Chatot can just Encore it into the move, Nasty Plot away, and kick some ass. Heck, it could even stall out Sucker Punch completely with Encore if your so inclined. Again, not the check to end all checks, but a fun little way to tell your opponent "Screw you"
Bulk Up Gallade works well on balanced teams rather than Hyper Offense teams. It also works well with paralysis support and Toxic Spikes support. I personally love Gallade in the current RU metagame, as it functions well against most Special Attackers; not being OHKOed by boosted monsters such as Gorebyss and Lilligant is amazing. Shedinja can definitely work, but the plethora of Fire-, Flying-, Dark-, and Ghost-types, and entry hazards make it difficult for Shedinja to function effectively without tons of team support.
Despite my previous post regarding weather teams, I actually haven't seen that many around here. I've seen more balanced / HO teams (rarely stall), and that seems to be the way to go. Also, I think people have forgotten about a few awesome mons. Nobody seems to use Typhlosion anymore (I obviously do) and it's still ridiculously good. The only things that hard counter it are SpD Lanturn and Slowking. Choice Scarf Eruption is very deadly and comes in handy quite often. Lilligant is also an excellent set up sweeper, and poses an immediate threat. I honestly haven't seen to many of those either, but Sleep Powder + Quiver Dance is as dangerous as ever. Not to mention Lilligant's great base 90 Speed stat.
My opinion of the current RU metagame is that it is balanced. In my opinion, there isn't a need for any more suspects. With hail being banned from UU (and obviously RU / NU), the metagame is relatively stable. Although Honchkrow is an auto-suspect for this round, I feel that it should not be banned - it's hardly worthy of being banned. Sure, Moxie is cool, but it gets walled by Steel-types. Honchkrow is also quite slow, and often relies on Sucker Punch to hit faster opponents, which can be very risky. I feel like I'm beating the dead horse here with regards to Honchkrow, but nevertheless, my opinion is that the RU metagame should stay as it is.
Despite my previous post regarding weather teams, I actually haven't seen that many around here. I've seen more balanced / HO teams (rarely stall), and that seems to be the way to go. Also, I think people have forgotten about a few awesome mons. Nobody seems to use Typhlosion anymore (I obviously do) and it's still ridiculously good. The only things that hard counter it are SpD Lanturn and Slowking. Choice Scarf Eruption is very deadly and comes in handy quite often. Lilligant is also an excellent set up sweeper, and poses an immediate threat. I honestly haven't seen to many of those either, but Sleep Powder + Quiver Dance is as dangerous as ever. Not to mention Lilligant's great base 90 Speed stat.
My opinion of the current RU metagame is that it is balanced. In my opinion, there isn't a need for any more suspects. With hail being banned from UU (and obviously RU / NU), the metagame is relatively stable. Although Honchkrow is an auto-suspect for this round, I feel that it should not be banned - it's hardly worthy of being banned. Sure, Moxie is cool, but it gets walled by Steel-types. Honchkrow is also quite slow, and often relies on Sucker Punch to hit faster opponents, which can be very risky. I feel like I'm beating the dead horse here with regards to Honchkrow, but nevertheless, my opinion is that the RU metagame should stay as it is.
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