np: UU Stage 1 - Changes

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Machi said:
Look on the bright side guys we may not have gotten any good drops but... We get Contrary Serperior in a few days so that is at least something to play with.
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When exactly are we getting that? And will all other Mons with unreleased hidden abilities receive those abilities as well?
 
Calloflochie said:
Hey, so things are a bit quiet around here so here is something to spice it up.

Zygarde and Alakazam have both been banned.

Zygarde combines absolutely fantastic bulk, typing and move options in order to become one of the most effective sweepers not only through Sub + Coil but also when equipped with Dragon Dance. Zygarde has the potential with just two sets to be able to completely dismantle almost every playstyle, where stall struggles immensely with Sub Coil, while Offense struggles against Dragon Dance due to the bulk that means Pokemon such as Mienshao and Krookodile can't even revenge kill it. If Zygarde manages to get behind a sub or set up a DD, there is almost nothing in the entire metagame that can go toe to toe with this monster, so with that Zygarde is heading to BL.

Mega Alakazam sits on its perch as one of the most terrifying wallbreakers/revenge killers/sweepers to ever grace UU. It's absolutely mind blowing offensive stats with 175 Special Attack and 150 Speed (making it tied for the fastest UU Pokemon in the tier alongside Mega Aerodactyl) means that this thing is not only hard to switch into but also hard to revenge kill as well. It's combination of moves in Psychic/Psyshock, Focus Blast, Shadow Ball, Dazzling Gleam, Energy Ball and Calm Mind mean that Mega Alakazam can pick and choose the mons it wants to eliminate keeping in mind that just Psychic/Ghost/Fairy coverage hits almost the entire tier for at least neutral damage. Alakazite has finally proven to be too strong for UU and will be returning back to the realms of BL.

Happy UU'ing! :toast:
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Well, I'm going to be honest, these bans were kinda unexpected at this time, I was thinking they were gonna happen after rachi moved up. I think after jirachi and maybe suicune leaves I will be happy with the tier
 
RyanKoopa said:
I still don't understand why Mega Zam was brought out of BL in the first place; but I'm so glad to see it go. Zygarde I'm a bit bummed about, since I don't feel it's nearly as broken as MegaZam was.
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Zygarde... that thing just set up with a ridiculous amount of ease and generally punch holes into teams, decisive ones. I think King UU was one of the guys who really noticed how much this thing stood out as it was simply frightening once behind a sub, sub-coil was easily its scariest set since it becomes a straight up win condition. Either way if I saw decisive moves being won in good games it was primarily hinged on Zygarde punching holes and it did so with far too much ease.

I am actually more iffy about Megazam than Zygarde as I always found the threat of sashZam much scarier than Alakazite. But I guess with the boost in speed tiers, thanks to the new megas, being able to run Timid and essentially be a quick solution to the new Megas could push it back into BL. Though I do find this one more contentious.
 
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Don't really use Zygarde. Having to replace Mega Alakazam is a bit of a pain, but frankly it's a lot easier to do so than to change teams that had Zygarde as a central piece. The biggest shakeups will be if Jirachi or Suicune move, but as of now I don't see the current shift changing all that much in UU.
 
Well dang, the King is dead. And now begins the reign of a new tyrant, Coil D-tail Milotic!

I have mixed feelings about MegaZam going. On the one hand, yeah, it is obviously insanely good. It has great coverage, the best possible Speed tier, and the ability to 2HKO the vast majority of the tier. On the other hand, it was fun, both to use and to play against. It was a major threat but not so centralizing that you had to dedicate overly specific counters; for the most part strong offensive checks were enough. It was a big deal, but maybe not in a bad way? I don't know. I liked it, but I'm not going to try to pretend it wasn't one of the tier's biggest threats.
 
Zygarde was even better than you guys thought because I swear it could run an effective Rest Talk set with purely defensive EVs on EITHER side (or both sides) to counter/check on stall to almost everything offensive that didn't have a Dragon or Ice move.

RIP :(

Mega Zam ban not even good for stall imho because LO Magic Guard Zam is even more effective since the speed loss is barely relevant for stall unless you are using a Crobat or Mega Aero on stall (which I personally do but I know its not /that/ common). The power difference is minimal and Magic Guard is very good against stall to avoid Scald burns and Toxic and hazards.

bad day for stall IMO.

I think you guys should be trying to use defensive Mega Swampert now to replace defensive Zygarde

Rest Talk Zygarde's pros and cons (i swear this was a good set please believe me)
~Very good defensive stats, especially defense although special defense would be invested in for Chandelure
~Can counter Fire types 90%+
~Volt Switch immunity
~Dragon Tail for phazing
~Few weaknesses, important resistances


~Big time Ice and Dragon weakness (Nidoking is a threat)
~No good instant recovery

Rest Talk Mega Pert pro's and cons
~Very good defensive stats as well, no base stat bias but special defense would be invested in for Chandelure (Subcm)
~Can counter Fire types kind of sort of (Grass Knot Ape, Energy Ball Chandelure, CB Darm are all problems)
~Volt Switch immunity AND can switch into Mega Ampharos
~Scald for hax
~One weakness, important resistances

~Big time Grass weakness (Energy Ball Alakzam)
~No good instant recovery or even Leftovers

If we want to look at this more in depth I would say Zygarde is better for sure still but now being able to counter Nidoking is a big time plus though. You do now lose to NP Infernape that elect Grass Knot, Energy Ball Chandelure (which is not used in conjunction with Sub CM though), Alakazam that elect to use Energy Ball. I think it is hard to measure the difference in usefulness of Dragon Tail versus Scald but I also think everyone would agree Dragon Tail is much more useful in terms of reliability. However Swampert is also a much better counter to Hydreigon which has to count for something since it can literally run a set like Superpower / Flash Cannon / Dark Pulse / Draco Meteor that could normally dismantle a stall team. I have to say Swampert is a little worse than Zygarde for defensive purposes but on the bright side we also have to consider that with no more use of Zygarde comes no more opposition Zygarde: no more sub coil!

edit: and if contrary serperior /does/ come out very soon the grass weakness is going to be a much bigger deal i suspect. still its nothing my calm 252spdef shouldn't be able to handle.....
 
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I tried out RestTalk Megapert on a stall team for research week last week, and it was decent but wildly outclassed by Zygarde and, to a lesser extent, Mega-Aggron. The few niches it had over Ziggy were usually easy to cover with the rest of the team.

It's decent... but I still find it hard to give that mega slot to anything other than Aggron or Ampharos on most stall teams.

That said, Ziggy being gone means I can finally stop sticking Toxic Crobat on all my teams...
 
Hogg said:
I tried out RestTalk Megapert on a stall team for research week last week, and it was decent but wildly outclassed by Zygarde and, to a lesser extent, Mega-Aggron. The few niches it had over Ziggy were usually easy to cover with the rest of the team.

It's decent... but I still find it hard to give that mega slot to anything other than Aggron or Ampharos on most stall teams.

That said, Ziggy being gone means I can finally stop sticking Toxic Crobat on all my teams...
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It cannot possibly by outclassed by Meggron because the Fire weakness and huge special defense difference means Chandelure with Sub and CM can roll over Aggron. Zygarde is a non-issue now I only put him in my post because I wanted to show a comparison. Not to mention NP Lucario is a threat covered by specially defensive pert. usually when building a stall team now I try to pair Blissey with another special defender to beat 90%+ of all the special threats in the tier and specially defensive Mega Pert and Blissey work quite well. Mega Ampharos is sort of nice of stall but the problem I had with it is that if you use it to counter Crocune or CM Chandelure you generally lose because the lack of offensive investment means Thunderbolt is really weak after a couple CMs (and they outspeed so they will be at least at +2 if they CM on the switch). Heal Bell is really fantastic though.

Volt Switch immunity is important for stall teams if they want to use a bulky water or anything weak to electric because if they do not have the immunity they will almost always lose time the moment they put out a water type because the threat of volt switch. Coupled with even just SR this is very bad for the defenders and might easily decide a game. Aggron obviously isn't immune to Volt Switch nor is Ampharos.

And just overall Water/Ground is very different from Steel which means again Meggron cannot really outclass Mega Pert.
 
Can we expect any retests soon? Things like Thund-T and Weavile seem to be the least recent tested and they might be able to be welcomed back. Weavile has more of a chance imo since it has less variety in its sets, while Thund-T can decimate several different playstyles with it fat movepool which points to broken. Even though its kinda of a joke around the PS UU room with the #FreeVile movement, there is some good merit in it. Every play style has viable checks to this thing, while it might and probably will be centralizing there is no hurt in just testing it out imo.
 
I'm most excited about seeing a Drizzle/Drought retest. I expect them to still be pretty much busted, but I'm still interested to see how they shake things up with all the changes since they were last allowed.
 
When council did the retest battles for both Weathers and Shadow Tag they we pretty unanimous in saying that they were still broke, idk if that counts as an actual retest but they bring it up kinda recently.
 
Thats pretty unexpected...

But, ziggy and zam were pretty easy to spam and hard to check. Ziggy made things more interesting, but will probably kead to a more balanced UU.

Oh snap Mega Aero is one of the top new megas again with thr ability to check mega bee, scept and pidgeot
 
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