NP: UU - Silent Night

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236 Atk vs 199 Def & 370 HP (90 Base Power): 77 - 91 (20.81% - 24.59%). This is 0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs 252/132 Toxicroak. We can see that this is all Toxicroak needs.
 

FlareBlitz

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I'm glad people are understanding the importance of some bulk on Toxicroak. I personally don't use SubPunch Croak, but even on SD variants I sacrifice some Atk and Spe to up its HP a bit. I've never noticed a difference in power (although that might be because my Toxicroak is special) and I have noticed the difference in bulk; not being 3hko'd by the normal bulky milotic and not being 2hko'd by LO Milotic is great. It can also switch into Venusaur with less worry of eating like 70% from a resisted Leaf Storm. Toxicroak's defensive synergy is just really unique and useful, especially due to its ability. I kinda wish it had better defensive stats, but oh well.

I've been using Charge Beam Manectric recently, and it's very underrated. It'll never be as broken as Raikou was, but with proper support (i.e. pursuiter to get rid of duggy/scarfers and something like Mismagius for defensive synergy) it's been very valuable.

I was less impressed with Exeggutor. After using it for a couple of matches I just switched back to Sceptile. The ability to KO Venusaur and do tons of damage to Arcanine with Psychic is really really nice, but Eggy is way too slow to be useful against offensive teams without paralysis support. Getting it in on Milotic without eating an Ice Beam is hard enough, but it's not even guaranteed to outrun the speed creeping fuckers anymore, meaning the most popular bulky water in the tier is not a very safe set up opportunity...
 
236 Atk vs 199 Def & 370 HP (90 Base Power): 77 - 91 (20.81% - 24.59%). This is 0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs 252/132 Toxicroak. We can see that this is all Toxicroak needs.
ice beam has 95 base power. steinhauser's spread of 244/176 is indeed the right spread assuming you want to increase hp as much as possible. however, if you want to free up some evs for attack or speed by sacrificing physical defense, you can maximize sdef and only increase hp enough so that your substitutes are large enough. funnily enough (considering you only got the 132 number based off a typo), that other spread is 132/244 hp/sdef, and it leaves 132 free evs as opposed to 88.
 

shrang

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but Eggy is way too slow to be useful against offensive teams without paralysis support.
He can paralyse things himself, you know. Stun Spore, if you can get over the crappy accuracy (It's the same as Sleep Powder and WoW, so we shouldn't complain too much), is quite a good move to cripple offensive Pokemon and "boost" its own Speed somewhat. If you don't like Stun Spore, you can always use Sunny Day or Trick Room, lol.

I've been playing with SubSalac Magneton and Rotom lately too. If you get the Salac boost, very few things on offense is going to be outspeeding you.
 

uragg

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13 resistances doesn't mean much when you have shit defenses and you don't invest in them because you're trying to sweep. I mean Magneton is 2HKOed by Swellow, come on.
 

Ice-eyes

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Problem with Magneton is you need to invest in HP to take advantage of cool resists and if you do, shit outspeeds you.
 
Well, perhaps it's just my particular team, but when I was trying out Electric-types for it, it was Magneton that stood out the most.

Manectric was good, but it was like "Hi Manectric, oh, you're already dead". Magneton usually lasts towards the end of the match for me. I'm probably just not using Manectric right.
 
iirc, Magneton only needs to invest 128 Spe to outpace everything he normally should. Perhaps it would be more beneficial to throw Ev's into s/defense? Take hits better on one side at the very least.
 

Lee

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Y'know, if we still don't have any suspects to look into we could always start discussing Rain again...still as broken as ever imo.
 

SJCrew

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Yeah, Rain is definitely broken if you forget your Rain checks...looking at my current team, I have three Pokemon bulky enough to take at least one Waterfall and KO/status back, and one of them is Venusaur, so....I think I'm set.

If you want to discuss Rain again, bring something new to the table. I mean, we already know it's offense on steroids, but as it's been discussed before, the team synergy isn't so hot and you can really take advantage of that.
 
Yeah, Rain is definitely broken if you forget your Rain checks...looking at my current team, I have three Pokemon bulky enough to take at least one Waterfall and KO/status back, and one of them is Venusaur, so....I think I'm set.

If you want to discuss Rain again, bring something new to the table. I mean, we already know it's offense on steroids, but as it's been discussed before, the team synergy isn't so hot and you can really take advantage of that.
agreed 100%. start back up the rain thread... but idk what more can be said about it.

Good rain team + your team not having any rain checks = rape.

It only seems broke because any tom, dick, and harry could use a rain team and make it decent.
 

Lee

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It's ignorant of you to suggest that having three Pokemon that can take Waterfall leads to you being 'set' against Rain. Physical attacks aren't even the problem anyway. Between Kabutops, Ludicolo, Omastar, Qwilfish and Gorebyss, Rain can just keep muscling through their checks and counters until there's nothing left. And when the rain finally stops, there's quite a few Pokemon in UU who are just about perfect as transition Pokemon (Uxie for example) who can restart it.

As I've gotten higher up the ladder, I've noticed the rain teams are becoming more and more common (annoyingly so) and I can only imagine that's because they're effective, easy to use, minimise luck and will generally match up well against the teams that dwell at the top of the ladder due to how difficult it is making a team that functions well in general UU play that doesn't have headaches against rain.

I believe the idea of banning Damp Rock was thrown around a lot a few metagames ago and Raikou's dominance and ability to sweep any Rain team once the rain stopped was just about enough to stop the argument from gaining any more momentum.

From the March np: UU thread.

JabbatheGriffin said:
Raikou, for the second round in a row was voted UU. Future attempts to nominate it for suspect will have to rely on special circumstances.

Damp Rock, though talked about quite a bit, seems to draw nothing but apathy from the voters. It was voted UU by a 4-2 vote, the least paragraphed suspect by far (it's always the ones people talk about the most).
One could argue that players were apathetic because they had Raikou at the time and it wasn't that big of a deal. One could also argue that, as a result, the only people truly motivated to gain voting rights were those who used Rain and wanted to vote in DR's favor to preserve their play style. One could also just choose to go 'bleh, 6 voters.'

I think that:

- enough has changed since then that it's worth looking at Damp Rock again.
- the vote last time 'round was far from definitive due to lack of voters
- 'we're not doing anything else atm'

I'd be happy to restart the rain thread dbcb but I'm just throwing this out here to see if it would be likely to generate any interest. If everybody has the attitude of 'pfffht rain teams aren't a problem' that you and SJCrew seem to be exhibiting then there's no point.
 
Well, I haven't had much trouble with rain at all. Simply because, most counters to it have general uses as well such as Milotic and Tangrowth.

Speaking of those two, I've been using them in tandem with Moltres. I'm quite impressed by Offensive sub roost Moltres. When used with Toxic Spikes (yes, I had to forgo Stealth Rocks, but hear me out) it can stall out Milotic and then begin to thrash the opposing team. People thought it was broken with Spikes, and usage died down because of Froslass's disappearance. However, one must look at its other sets, too. Now, with Toxic spikes, it can afford to run a Timid nature (not like before where it had to run Modest to get the 2KO). I'm running Flamethrower only for accuracy issues, as it gets the same KOs/2KOs. Registeel isn't as much of a problem since I'm running Substitute to block Thunder Waves. Seriously, anyone who hasn't tried this out really should. I was amazed when it was sweeping after breaking through Milotic (I had enough trouble sweeping even with Spikes...I was probably using it wrong).

Also, people need to give more credit to Toxic Spikes. It's easy to absorb, but difficult to keep off the field when using Moltres to provide offensive pressure as you have to bring in a poison type after a death (most die to Flamethrower), or use specially defensive donphan (lol).
 

Alchemator

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Rain really isn't a problem for me. Yes I'm using both Milotic and Toxicroak on my teams, but -what MetaGross66 said-

Both Milotic and Toxicroak are good enough Pokémon that you have reason to use them against normal teams.

What asserts my view on rain is that I once faced a really well-played rain team and I still won. That isn't me bragging, it's saying that it takes 2 Pokémon to stop them (maybe one to clean up after rain stops).
 
The problem with Rain is that people haven't tapped into its full potential just yet. I'm talking about the support options.

We all breathe a sigh of relief when Kabutops or Ludicolo goes down, but what if they have 2 chances to sweep? Yes, 2. Healing Wish users like Mesprit and Lopunny (who also helps Rain teams' Mismagius weak somewhat), both have access to the move and Rain Dance so they can actually give Rain sweepers two chances to sweep. I forgot who ran a Rain team like that but it seems like it would absolutely trump most teams on the ladder who get too excited when Rain stops and Ludicolo, Kabutops, or whatever Rain Sweeper are about to be outsped and KO'd.
 

Alchemator

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I don't see Lopunny standing up to much when rain is down - it basically has two turns out of action there.

I mean, don't get me wrong it looks good for a rain team but I don't think it would push rain over the edge at all.
 

franky

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i'm not going to brag but back when rain was receiving fame and over centralizing i was able to climb to #1 with a rain team. its just a strong indicator that it is still a broken style of play even with all the centralizing. the reason why people are not nominating Damp Rock is because it doesn't gain enough support. its a silent killer for sure, i'd rather keep it down low than have it spark up in usage again.

@ thund - there is no "full" potential with rain - there is however several ways to make rain interesting, but there is no full potential with it. in terms of support, you can get really creative but there will never be a full potential with it. that hectic round had some silly Spikes + rain combo (from our resident UU troll FlareBlitz). i'm certainely not bagging on that combo as it was very potent in the hands of a good player. or that healing wish method you just brought up. unfortunately, there is not much pass that point and you can only have so little gimmicks under your belt with rain. the set stone for great rain support comes with having a pokemon that is able to set up rain consistently (uxie is the best user to this and its probably a rain staple - its the best you can get thus reaching full potential with rain support).

needless to say, Rain is beatable! i think i posted a while back but people who view rain as an impossible team to face should take a step back and go back to mere basics:

(1) analyze the team - look at the pokemon setting up the eight turn rain. by nature, it's the first pokemon in the team so eyeball the situation and think. if its uxie, you are not going to one shot it so its best if you hurt it with your lead and take as much percent of as possible.

(2) count rain turns - ya it's p. basic but you're going to need it to sacrifice something at the 7th turn so you can bring in a fast sweeper such as taunt LO missy or venusaur to sweep the opposition. venusaur to a lesser extent since qwilfish lingers around that 85 spe point.

(3) most Rain sweepers linger around the 80 base spe point pre-set up. analyze your team and look for one sweeper that will do the dirty work once the sky clears. i mentioned this previously, missy is the best with this - access to taunt and thunderbolt + np to rip apart teams is the best way to go.

(4) play with switches. don't let a Pokemon faint on like the 4th turn of rain or something. i always try to sacrifice a pokemon on the seventh so i can bring in my sweeper. assuming you're a solid player who is capable of building well-versed teams in terms of covering type attacks, then you just need to play with switches smartly. whether you like it or not, 8-turn rain is very vicious and you are bound to lose a pokemon due to the overwhelming amount of power rain holds. i'm speaking on behalf of offense/balance teams, stall is kinda different so yea.
 

FlareBlitz

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Might as well give my input on this. Again.

I'm pretty sure I had the most successful Rain Dance team in the period of time when we were discussing banning Damp Rock. It peaked at a CRE of 1669, which is fairly low compared to my other CRE peaks (1782 with "standard" bulky offense last metagame), but which is still in the top percentile of the ladder. So hopefully my credibility as far as my understanding of Rain Dance is established in this discussion, for those of you who don't really know me that well.

I specifically mention that because a very common argument against players who advocated a Damp Rock ban was "you never played any good players" or "it's easy to win against teams without rain checks". Regardless of your opinion of the quality of play on the ladder, it is difficult to argue that I got that high without facing, and beating, multiple players who had solid teams and a good understanding of how to play against rain.

Now that we've established that, I'll explain the mechanism behind my team, why it was so successful, and why I ultimately stopped using it.

My Rain Dance team relied on Spikes support from a bulky Qwilfish lead. This was during the Froslass metagame, so that lead was very rare at the time; I used it because it had very high speed (in the rain), good bulk, access to Spikes and Explosion, and good matchups against common leads. Spikes support was one of the many things that differentiated my team from standard rain teams, and it made a huge difference; one layer of spikes support and stealth rock enabled Specs Gorebyss to do silly shit like 2hko Chansey and Milotic 100% of the time with Hydro Pump. It was fully possible to muscle my way through the standard teams at the time with just Gorebyss, which is what resulted in the massive Water Absorber spike (note: at this time Toxicroak was somewhere around 29th in usage, possibly lower). Once that happened, and once people started abusing Raikou and Moltres with more and more frequency (both of which gave rain teams insane trouble) I decided to switch up my team. I kept the Qwilfish lead, but I switched up my rain supporters; I went from Uxie to physical Mespirit, who could break Raikou/Moltres/Mismagius subs, and went from Toxicroak to Lanturn, who could set up Rain against Raikou and Moltres. I also replaced Specs on Gorebyss with Life Orb now that it could no longer 2hko the metagame with one move, and switched from special Ludicolo to physical Ludicolo, which is arguably much more threatening. This is the incarnation of my team that most people remember, especially my Healing Wish shenanigans with Mespirit and Heal Bell hijinks with Lanturn. It was extremely successful, particularly due to my playstyle, and only encountered difficulty against teams that, literally, had at least 5 rain checks...or if I was playing terribly, which could sometimes be the case due to how boring Rain is. Anyway, Tangrowth started gaining popularity at this time as one of the few things that could tank Kabutops while still being useful against other Pokemon, and stall became even more common (stall was the only playstyle that could handle Raikou so it was already fairly common).

The rising popularity of rain checks and the tendency to carry multiple of this in a team, particularly on a stall team, really reduced the impact of rain. It's also very difficult for rain to adapt to these metagame trends because of how one-dimensional the playstyle is; I couldn't do a damn thing about all the Tangrowth/Hitmontop/Milotic/Chansey/Registeel/Omastar teams. This, combined with how boring rain dance was in general, resulted in a lot of players abandoning the playstyle until the Damp Rock vote got that "meh" reception at the very end. It has nothing to do with how broken rain is, because it is certainly very broken. I could, if I were so inclined, start another rain frenzy (I want to make an alt called WhaleBlitz anyway, this would be relevant). But the ultimate problem with rain is that it cannot deal with metagame centralizations, unlike other broken Pokemon. Raikou could switch between SubCM, Shuca, RestTalk, etc. to beat various trends in its counters. Mence could switch from the mixed set to the DD set at any time. Cresselia could run any number of sets that fuck over entirely different sets of would-be counters. Even with addition of random Psychic moves for Toxicroak, Rain is very inflexible, and that is ultimately what resulted in people deeming it "balanced".

Ultimately it comes down to whether you believe an overwhelming playstyle that can easily be adapted to is broken or not. Basically, against a rain player of equal skill, whether you win or lose is determined as soon as the match starts, by the team-matchup.
And regardless of what people may think, "standard" teams these days do a very poor job against Rain. Toxicroak, Milotic, and Venusaur are indeed great Pokemon...but a single Kabutops or Ludicolo beats all of them, easily. It requires the level of centralization there was back during Lass/Raikou meta, a level of centralization which coincidentally was also appropriate towards non-rain teams at the time, in order to have a solid chance of beating rain dance teams. Or it requires that the player be more skilled than the rain user, which is currently what I'm relying on now against the rare rain dance team (although bad predictions still utterly fuck me from time to time...)

tldr read the fucking post you lazy bitches it's informative and took me a while to type out
 
My biggest hatred towards rain is that peoples reaction to it is "Can't beat rain teams? Use so-and-so Pokemon." Wonderful insight, use a single Pokemon (or two) to check an entire play-style. And as previously mentioned, rain teams can be very flexible.

Anyways, Rain is still broken.
 

Meru

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The problem with Rain is that people haven't tapped into its full potential just yet. I'm talking about the support options.

We all breathe a sigh of relief when Kabutops or Ludicolo goes down, but what if they have 2 chances to sweep? Yes, 2. Healing Wish users like Mesprit and Lopunny (who also helps Rain teams' Mismagius weak somewhat), both have access to the move and Rain Dance so they can actually give Rain sweepers two chances to sweep. I forgot who ran a Rain team like that but it seems like it would absolutely trump most teams on the ladder who get too excited when Rain stops and Ludicolo, Kabutops, or whatever Rain Sweeper are about to be outsped and KO'd.
Doesn't Healing Wish only work on pokemon that are still alive?
 

SJCrew

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Doesn't Healing Wish only work on pokemon that are still alive?
Yeah, it does. You can't switch to a Pokemon that's already fainted and if it dies from entry hazards or the incoming attack, they don't get to heal. It's the same deal as Wish.

Thund's theory works assuming Ludicolo or Kabutops take just enough damage from something not to be KOed, can switch out to something else feasibly, and won't be KOed when it switches in again. Kabutops isn't as easy to get into the fray as one might assume.
 

Legacy Raider

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So has anyone tried using Roselia on a serious team? I was looking for Spikers for a team that was testing out some random sets, and I wasn't all that impressed with Qwilfish. For a laugh, I decided to try out Roselia, and I have to say, I was really quite impressed. With a fully specially defensive EV spread, Roselia has very little trouble setting up on the two most common Pokemon in the tier, as well as basically any bulky water, Clefable, Weezing, Chansey, some Rotom, etc. In addition to Spikes, Energy Ball, and Rest, Roselia can use Leech Seed, Stun Spore, Toxic Spikes, or Sludge Bomb (it has the same 100 SpA stat as Venusaur can you believe). 50/45/80 defenses are poor but definitely salvageable (Qwilfish only has 65/75/55), and the 65 base Speed isn't bad for outspeeding a lot of the Pokemon that hang around the 50-65 base speed area. On average, Roselia takes 39% from defensive Milotic's Ice Beam (which after Leftovers might not even 3HKO), and as we know the best defensive Milotic set doesn't even run it. It takes 46% from Venusaur's Sludge Bomb, which is a lot but it's still low enough for Roselia to be of use against it, especially after coming in on a Leaf Storm (18% damage).

Overall it's quite a weak Pokemon and arguably outclassed by Qwilfish, but it's got that ever so handy 4x Grass resistance, better special bulk, and Natural Cure-Rest. It's pretty anti-metagame atm and very effective at it too, and overall really good fun to use!
 
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