NP: UU - Silent Night

[Meru]

Seems like it'd only get hazards up against stall and crumble against offense and maybe pull its weight against balanced.

Speaking of its water/poison nemesis, I'm itching for Tentacruel to drop down already. It'd be the first pokemon that can switch into Milotic and rapid spin effectively. It'd probably be the dropdown to push me back into a stall playstyle.

 

[Thund91]

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!

You can use Sleep Powder + Spikes Roselia on Shoddy. ^___^

 

[shrang]

@ Rain discussion:

I love how people are going "Don't use 'Rain isn't broken just use so and so and you'll be fine'" when they themselves go "Rain is broken, ban Damp Rock" and leave it at that. Rain, in all intents and purposes is a high-risk, high reward style of play. You either win easily or you lose easily. Most of the games I've played against rain, I've won at least 4-0+, and if I were to lose, it would be a misplay (Or outplayed) or hax right at the beginning which pretty much sealed the fate of the game. An analogy would be if you were a deer and a cheetah is chasing after you. If you can initially dodge it or outrun it, you've won the matchup. If Rain is to win, it is usually at the start.

Now, if people still think Rain is broken, I would still think the sweepers themselves should be banned before Stealth Rock. I know people don't like me going into OU comparisons, but back when 4drag2mag was hilariously awesome, we banned Latias and Salamence, not Draco Meteor/Outrage or whatever the broken Dragon move was. We banned the sweepers, not the actual "support" or the "move". Now for all of you saying 4drag2mag is a bad comparison because of the small things, I'd like you all to see the big picture. 4drag2mag basically got you to spam Dragon attacks until a Steel type came out. You let your Dragon type die or predict properly get your Mag in to trap the Steel. With Rain, you can virtually spam Waterfall until the "Rain counter" dies. Both situations involve breaking down the so-called counter and sweep with the check removed. There are quite a few Rain sweepers which suck (Floatzel is meh, Huntail is meh, Seaking is lol, Luvdisc is Luvdisc, while Qwilfish, Gorebyss and Omastar being usable). I can only see Kabutops and Ludicolo causing any kind of problems, and if Rain is popular enough to be "common battle condition", then they should be banned under the Offensive Characteristic and not Damp Rock.

 

[FlareBlitz]

We had the "ban damp rock versus ban sweepers" argument in the rain thread. Ultimately it boiled down to the support clause being pointless if we ban like 4 sweepers due to one supporting item.

It would be a good idea if we kept discussion in this thread to discussing arguments that have changed since that time (i.e. no more raikou, not as much centralization around rain, etc)

 

[Legacy Raider]

You can use Sleep Powder + Spikes Roselia on Shoddy. ^___^

You have made my day :D thank you.

 

[Meru]

Some people tried out SD Baton Pass Leafeon w/ Rhyperior and it seemed to work pretty well against my team so I was thinking of trying it. Any input on problems executing it?

 

[franky]

yes i use roselia on one of my serious teams LR! (actually half-serious, i use it to prove folgorio wrong). if you want to maximize on spiking i suggest you pair roselia with a support rhyperior thanks to its ability to draw in milotic (almost 100% of the time!). rhyperior sets up SR, switch to roselia, set up spikes, rinse and repeat. outside of spiking, i had to use toxic arcanine to actually check milotic because roselia was too weak to even damage milotic with energy ball. you are going to need a solid ghost blocker with that because hitmontop can actually spin on this combo quite easily. i used specs rotom with this and it's been working cool in tandem with that core.

@thund - stop abusing illegal movesets on shoddy >:(

 

[Anachronism]

What are the disadvantages of using Grass Knot over Energy Ball? You get 25% higher base power on Milo (and some other shit that doesn't matter nearly as much) and equal base power on Blastoise and Omastar. The only disadvantages I see is 60 base on Hitmontop/Azumarill and 20 on Qwilfish/Mismagius. Am I missing something big here? It does appear to have much lower base power against some things but 25% more on Milotic is pretty alluring.

EDIT: Hmm...pixies and Lanturn...

 

[Random Pizzaman]

What are the disadvantages of using Grass Knot over Energy Ball? You get 25% higher base power on Milo and equal base power on Blastoise and Omastar. The only disadvantages I see is 60 base on Hitmontop/Azumarill and 20 on Qwilfish/Mismagius. Am I missing something big here? It does appear to have much lower base power against some things but 25% more on Milotic is pretty alluring.

It still isn't 2KOing Milotic without any investment, and you hit Lanturn and some others laughably low.

 

[Shnoogle]

Some people tried out SD Baton Pass Leafeon w/ Rhyperior and it seemed to work pretty well against my team so I was thinking of trying it. Any input on problems executing it?

Read this... I think I'm the reason you see that a lot now =)

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76722

It's my RMT but you can get some ideas on how to use that strategy if you want

 

[Lee]

I dunno, most people would just switch Venusaur into Leafeon for the OHKO with Sludge Bomb whilst also making it impossible (or suicidal) to pass to Rhyperior as he'll happily OHKO him too. They also share a weakness to Ice. Nah, not a fan of that combo.

 

[Meru]

I dunno, most people would just switch Venusaur into Leafeon for the OHKO with Sludge Bomb whilst also making it impossible (or suicidal) to pass to Rhyperior as he'll happily OHKO him too. They also share a weakness to Ice. Nah, not a fan of that combo.

Wouldn't +2Double Edge OHKO Venusaur?

 

[Nas]

People are starting to use Leafeon? Well, its about time. Anyways, I had a pretty successful Leafeon BP team back in the day that used Nidoking as a BP recipient. It has a 4x resist to Sludge Bomb, outspeeds Venu and OHKOes it with Earthquake. Add to that priority and great coverage with Stone Edge and Megahorn and you have a formidable sweeper. Arcanine pairs well with this combo for the Fire and ice resist as well, and it should be noted that +2 Jolly Iron Head OHKOes Rhyperior and Regirock for the lolz.

 

[whistle]

@ lee: registeel is by far the most common pokemon that counters leafeon @ life orb + sd leaf blade double edge filler, hence the baton pass to rhyperior. max hp venusaur without defense evs is always ohkoed by double edge after sr.

the two other hard counters i can think of are def tangrowth with hp ice and weezing (sdef isnt ohkoed but obviously def is a better counter), which is why sd bp leafeon is also commonly paired with arcanine. bulky intimidate arcanine "sort of" counters leafeon but d-e deals ~65 which means if you keep rocks on the field, arcanine becomes very shaky.

btw lets not get into who invents combos... i used those exact two pokemon in january/february 2010, rt used a very similar concept almost a year ago, and the only reason i tried it was because i got the inspiration from someone else (not to mention the 2-3 people i saw using it on ladder independently).

 

[Sir Azelf]

I hope people are finally seeing how deadly Leafeon is and why i nominated it as a suspect lol. :/

 

[HiThere]

I'm really liking Articuno at the moment. It's reasonably bulky, and can set up on Bulky Water Milotic and Toxic it. Venusaur can break its subs, but it's not like Venu likes taking Ice Beams anyway. The Stealth Rock weakness sucks, but Ice STAB is pretty cool, and it's not like it sucks compared to Moltres (whose defensive stats aren't as good!).

 

[M BLADE]

That's why i like passing Leafeon boost to Nidoking.
Rhperior is deadly and bulky as hell, but still needs one more turn to Rock Polish or else it will get revenged far too easily.
Nidoking doesn't really need the extra turn, and it has priority to boot. And can get on both Thunder Wave and Toxic, meaning it can come in easier.

The problem is that he gets walled by the same thing Leafeon is (Weezing)...

PS: a +2 Iron Head from Arcanine doesn not OHKO Rhyperior or Regirock, unfortunately. It needs +4 to do that. Good luck with that >_>

Arcanine calcs assuming max attack of course:

+ 4 LO Adamant Iron Head vs 252/0 Regirock: 98.4% - 115.9%
vs 136/0 Rhyperior: 98% - 115.6%

Damn these guys, they need SR to ensure the KO...

 

[Nas]

lol Flash Fire increases damage to all moves on the smogon calc, that's why. My bad.

 

[Chateau]

Some people tried out SD Baton Pass Leafeon w/ Rhyperior and it seemed to work pretty well against my team so I was thinking of trying it. Any input on problems executing it?

I did get the combo from Shnoogle's RMT, but I find passing a Sub more useful, as it ensures a free Rock Polish on Rhyperior. The Speed is way more important than the extra power, IMO.

 

[MetaGross66]

I posted the same combo back a few threads. I also had Arcanine to pass to. It wasn't bad back then. I haven't tried it in a while so it might have gotten better with the decrease in defensive Milotic.

 

[Thund91]

@thund - stop abusing illegal movesets on shoddy >:(

I've never even used Roselia, just pointing it out to the peeps. ^^

 

[Meru]

I'm really liking Articuno at the moment. It's reasonably bulky, and can set up on Bulky Water Milotic and Toxic it. Venusaur can break its subs, but it's not like Venu likes taking Ice Beams anyway. The Stealth Rock weakness sucks, but Ice STAB is pretty cool, and it's not like it sucks compared to Moltres (whose defensive stats aren't as good!).

I've tried out sub roost Articuno and it's pretty much a free ticket for Registeel to come in and start setting up. I suppose you can run it dry of Iron Head PP with Pressure but people would rather use Moltres for the 5 base higher speed and the STAB Fire attacks to ward off the steel and poison types that can't be Toxic'd, hence it being more effective.

 

[shrang]

I'm getting deja vu from all the Leafeon discussion... Maybe it's because there's been at least one Leafeon BP segment in pretty much every megathread I've been playing UU, lol.

EDIT:

I've tried out sub roost Articuno and it's pretty much a free ticket for Registeel to come in and start setting up. I suppose you can run it dry of Iron Head PP with Pressure but people would rather use Moltres for the 5 base higher speed and the STAB Fire attacks to ward off the steel and poison types that can't be Toxic'd, hence it being more effective.

Or you can be cool and run them both o_0

 

[Random Pizzaman]

I'm getting deja vu from all the Leafeon discussion... Maybe it's because there's been at least one Leafeon BP segment in pretty much every megathread I've been playing UU, lol.

This is so true. That, and Rain Dance and Hail too.
Remember when Leafeon + Kanga was the shiz?

 

[Head Smash]

This is so true. That, and Rain Dance and Hail too.
Remember when Leafeon + Kanga was the shiz?

I . . . must do this.

lol, SD Kangaskhan would be an unbeatable superbeast of a Pokemon. ggFWG.