np: XY UU Stage 2 - Light Em Up

[KM]

I've been messing with Mabomasnow a lot recently too, since I saw someone post something in an RU thread about SD+Ice Shard (Thanks whoever you are!). It's great in that the set can both wreck stall and clean up offense simultaneously, and it contributes to the wearing process with the hail and potentially leech seed support it provides.

I've tried a bunch of shit with it, I got up to 1600 with a stally support team with Tspikes support to wear down the enemy as much as possible, trying to put everything into a range where Aboma can sweep. I just sort of threw the team together, but it went well enough for a while. I've also been trying it with the Baton Pass Umbreon + Volt switch Forretress + Banded Dugtrio core Kitten Milk posted about, to remove the Steel and Fire types that stand in Aboma's way, but that's definitely going less well, might try a more stally pivot team.
I actually use SD/IceShard/BulletSeed/LeechSeed, because all I'm really going to be hitting with earthquake is switchins and maybe forretress, and leech seeding them lets them be dealt with more easily by the other mons on your team anyway. It also turns Blissey into setup bait, which is always good.

Overall, a nice mon in the current meta.

I'd really suggest running Seed Bomb over Bullet Seed. While Bullet Seed might do more damage on average (only slightly, it's like 82.5 as opposed to 80), not having that reliable damage can really screw you over (e.g. if you get only two hits on a manaphy).

 

[Skankovich]

Its just sort of left over from RU where I used it to beat Omastar leads, and its nice to get past subs, but I'll switch it anyway thanks :)

 

[Prinz]

I don't think that Manaphy would be healthy for the metagame. It has rly solid base statistics of 100 all around, Tail Grow which is a super boosting moves, allowing to get +3 in one turn and the coverage to actually use that boost effectively. Surf, Ice Beam, Energy Ball and Psychic are all good moves. Also, it can also run a set of Calm Mind with Rain Dance and Rest as some people do nowadays in OU and that thing its almost unstopped for any Stall team since even Blissey can't touch it. In summary, I think that Manaphy would be too strong for the UU metagame, being able to deal with both HO and Stall teams well and therefore it should stay in BL imo.

 

[UnicornDemon]

Also, random note, but as far as I know, most people on the council are not for banning Scald. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Serious question: How do you counter scald? There aren't any Pokemon who like switching into it, and the only way I can think of to deal with it is to have a cleric on your team... or to toss out a special attacker and deal with the residual damage from a possible burn.

 

[totoTavros]

Or run a Natural Cure/Guts/Poison Heal (don't know if there's any besides Gliscor, Shroomish, and Breloom)/Aromatherapy/Heal Bell, no idea how well that works.

 

[Pinkin Lark]

Or run a Natural Cure/Guts/Poison Heal (don't know if there's any besides Gliscor, Shroomish, and Breloom)/Aromatherapy/Heal Bell, no idea how well that works.

Poison Heal would only work if you already triggered the Toxic Orb.

Also: Water Veil and Shield Dust prevent the Burn chance as well. With Storm Drain/Water Absorb completely negating it. Or Magic Guard... Rest... Lum Berry...

...There's a few ways around it.

 

[Mahmudkipz]

The fact that the only Poison Heal mon available in UU is Shroomish which is blatantly unviable means that it is out of the question. Basically you deal with scald on offensive teams that can't afford to use clerics by using mons with Natural Cure (Shaymin, Celebii, Starmie, Roserade), Guts (Heracross) or Dry Skin/Water Absorb (Toxicroak, Jynx, Heliolisk, Cacturne). Things outside of this list aren't very noteworthy in UU offense and of course you can use bulky water resistant special attackers like Hydreigon, Rotom Mow or Kyurem ;o

 

[KM]

also fire types can't get burned!!!! so remember to always switch your darmanitan into scald mega-blastoise, hardest counter in the tier

(i really shouldn't be handing my pro tips out like this but yolo)

 

[Explorer]

Serious question: How do you counter scald? There aren't any Pokemon who like switching into it, and the only way I can think of to deal with it is to have a cleric on your team... or to toss out a special attacker and deal with the residual damage from a possible burn.

Don't forget about Storm Drain. The first one that comes to mind is Gastrodon, but if you already have a bunch of Water-types or are running a Sandstorm team, then you can always run Cradily, though this is a more niche option.

 

[GULLY]

why are you guys wasting your time actually talking about scald getting banned.....................

 

[UnicornDemon]

why are you guys wasting your time actually talking about scald getting banned.....................

No one said anything about it being banned. We were merely discussing ways in which it can be dealt with.

Why do you think it shouldn't be banned though? I would not mind a ban at all, personally.

 

[RyanKoopa]

Because theres so many ways of dealing with it (clerics, lum berry, water absorbing abilities, the various mons who aren't too troubled by burns etc.). Plus most of it's users in UU have pitiful Sp. Atk (Swampert, Alomomola etc.) so it's not very threatening to most teams. Users also tend to be slow, so Hyper Offense can deal with Scald by applying offensive pressure.

 

[DiscoDucky]

Because theres so many ways of dealing with it (clerics, lum berry, water absorbing abilities, the various mons who aren't too troubled by burns etc.). Plus most of it's users in UU have pitiful Sp. Atk (Swampert, Alomomola etc.) so it's not very threatening to most teams. Users also tend to be slow, so Hyper Offense can deal with Scald by applying offensive pressure.

Scald is about as annoying as ParaFlinch.

 

[noknuckles]

Because theres so many ways of dealing with it (clerics, lum berry, water absorbing abilities, the various mons who aren't too troubled by burns etc.). Plus most of it's users in UU have pitiful Sp. Atk (Swampert, Alomomola etc.) so it's not very threatening to most teams. Users also tend to be slow, so Hyper Offense can deal with Scald by applying offensive pressure.

Offensive waters like Kingdra, Starmie and offensive versions of Empoleon have the option of running Scald, but choose to run Hydro Pump because Hydro is a better move for their purposes

In other words, you are correct in pointing out that Scald is used more on defensive mons and is thus not very threatening (thus have more ways around it). Threatening waters willingly choose to forgo Scald in favour of a better offensive move so it is for sure not a broken move offensively. It's a really annoying defensive move that threatens a lot, but there are enough ways to deal with it (for both offense and defense) that it's really not problematic. It's gonna be hard to convince me for example that Scald on Slowbro is broken and should be banned

ParaFlinch is way more annoying than Scald. Paraflinch takes control of the game away from the players' hands, while Scald does not restrict player choices in the same way. There's a luck element to it but it's luck that's a lot more controllable and manageable (For example of I switch Celebi into a Scald, I don't really care how lucky you get in most cases).

 

[Kink]

Serious question: How do you counter scald? There aren't any Pokemon who like switching into it, and the only way I can think of to deal with it is to have a cleric on your team... or to toss out a special attacker and deal with the residual damage from a possible burn.

Some of the better strategies have been mentioned, like storm drain/waterabsorb/fire types. Frankly, people have clerics for this situation. You can always run lum berry on pokemon expected to take hits, like haxorus.

To be perfectly honest, the best thing you can do are the little things; set up backup strategies where, if you're backed into a scald corner, you can at least do synchronize burns or something. One of the best anti scald pokemon is umbreon simply because of the dual cleric+synchronize factor which can beat many bulky water pokemon, save Suicune and Slowbro.

 

[Patrick1088]

King UU i have the perfect fire/water absorb counter to scald....

Volcanion! When hes released that is...

 

[kokoloko]

okay so the council decided to take a vote on manaphy because the results were pretty fucking obvious at this point, and to no ones surprise, it was unanimously called BL.

we have 10 days left before the september tier shifts, so we do have time to squeeze one last test in, but i'm kind of at a loss as to what to test next, tbh. alakazite i want to wait on because last time we did that test the metagame was virtually the same and the vote was unanimously BL, zygarde probably is getting a pretty good counter in the form of togekiss come september so it makes more sense to wait, diggersby is a waste of time because its kind of obviously BL, and heracronite is not only obviously BL but OU is taking it anyway, so its pointless.

drought and drizzle are far too meta-defining to test in 10 days, and shadow tag is going to be a council-only test (i'll explain the reasons for this when we actually do it).

that only leaves hawlucha, but i have a feeling we won't be able to make up our minds within 10 days on this one, so i'm kind of not feeling that, but there's nothing else and i kinda wanna save time, so if this does happen to be the case, we'll just continue (or i guess, restart) the test when the new shifts happen.

so yeah, the next retest is hawlucha, have fun!

 

[Ernesto]

GG world.

Also I'm not sure about the retest because we might be losing Slowbro (which is otherwise a good check), so it could've been a better idea to not test anything, but if you think you can live with having Luchamon 10 days + tier shift (so around two weeks), I know I can so it's fine.

Edit: Fuck, I can't RK this one with ma boy Ditto :\ Time to teambuild again I guess.

Edit @ below: I mean, we do have Zam now for offense, as well as Granbull (which can fit on offense) and Fletch rising in usage. I guess Doublade still works too, although it's not as common as before.

 

[kokoloko]

chances are it wont matter lol. its probably broken even with slowbro around and there's a chance slowbro might not leave so yeah.

we'll see .-.

 

[Patrick1088]

Doublade is here to save the world against evil wrestling birds!

But doublade is a counter and we do have a solid check in sash zam. Other than that, i dont think theres much else... intimidate granbull maybe?

 

[Tralf]

Fletch will prolly be used a lot again i guess.

 

[Skankovich]

The rise of emolga is nigh! I never got to see Hawlucha in action first time round, so I'm not really conviced on its borkedness.

 

[Stef0w]

In all honesty, if anything could be banworthy, it the issue that it Can easily destoy offense at +2.

Oh Nice, more shit for mega amph/areo to handle.

We shall see.

 

[Jaguar360]

Physically defensive Mega Ampharos also lives a +2 Hi Jump Kick and OHKOs with Thunderbolt or Volt Switch.
Doublade is the best answer to it overall and does more than just counter Hawlucha.
We also have Extremespeed Lucario and Ice Shard Donphan and Cloyster for priority as well to handle it after it sets up.
Hawlucha has answers, but it still sweeps really well in this tier (especially with SubSD). I'm on the fence as to whether it is broken or not.

 

[Stef0w]

Quick thoughts before the server opens up the flood gates: Do I think hawlucha is broken?

Now I clearly have not played it yet, but From what I can see, every playstyle has the ability to combat hawlucha decently.

Stall has defensive aero, amph, and aromatisse (this thing has risen so hard since last time hawlucha was on visit, all of which easily ko's with a STAB move.

semistall is about the same:

bulky offense has entei who 2hko's hawlucha, and the mentioned mega's. mega aggron can curse in it's face, as long as it isnt boosted

hyper offense has luke's E-speed, which 2hko's (provided SR), sash alakazam, and based god flechinder.

I wouldnt say hawlucha is too toxic so far, just really good, and a huge issue for offense.