The fact that Zygarde has the capability to be a defensive (SubCoil) or offensive (LO/Lum DD) win con with polarizing checks differentiates itself from other setup sweepers in the tier, like Lucario and Suicune. Both Specs Whimsicott and Noivern are wrecked by +1 LO Stone Edge; Sableye can be screwed by LumDD Outrage; Support Whimsicott/Granbull might be the only catch-all check to Zygarde being able to beat most sets with ease but then again Zygarde gets Iron Tail in ORAS...
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np: XY UU Stage 3 - Calling [Diggersby: BL, Next: Scolipede]
- Thread starter kokoloko
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We shouldn't worry about what happens in ORAS. If an unbroken pokemon in XYUU receives a move that would make it broken in ORASUU, that will be taken care of in ORASUU, not XYUU.
All DD sets can be reliably checked by Hydreigon just like haxorus...
Ok so now that Ive talked about some of Zygarde's great things, I'm gonna bring up some things that make me want to say keep it in UU.
(Disclaimer: I will be talking about the SubCoil set, as it is much more popular and prevalent.)
1. Zygarde is easily worn down by Toxic Spikes
Zygarde's most important attribute is it's longevity. This is common knowledge. Zygarde's entire job is to get up a substitute, and basically stay behind it, gathering leftovers recovery, and forcing opposing mons out, or dealing damage to them. So, what cuts down nearly any pokemon's longevity severely? Well, Toxic Spikes do. Toxic Spikes put Zygarde in a position where he can't risk his own HP on a substitute, and he simply put, cant do what he is meant to do. This means that Zygarde needs support from an extremely reliable Spinner, Defogger, or grounded Poison-Type to help out in clearing the spikes. Spinners are Generally not as longevitous as Zygarde is, and the outcome will generally be the Spinner going down long before Zygarde. Defoggers are primarily Flying-Type in UU (Crobat, Aerodactyl, etc.), and stack an Ice-Type weakness with Zygarde, meaning this will then take some teambuilding support to alleviate the Ice Weakness. Grounded Poison-Types are scarce enough in UU, leaving the only viable one at the moment, Roserade, who stacks Ice Weakness with Zygarde as well.
2. Zygarde has no recovery aside from Leftovers
Probably Zygarde's biggest downfall as a longevitous Titan is it's lack of reliable recovery outside of Leftovers. This means that Zygarde relies heavily on his item to recover the HP he took to make a substitute. If his leftovers are knocked off, this results in Zygarde becoming much less of a threat, as avoiding status with Substitute comes at a much greater cost.
3. Zygarde's checks are healthy for the metagame
Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But Zygarde's checks are things that had purpose on teams before, but must be tweaked slightly to adapt to the ever changing metagame. Stale Meta is no fun, everybody knows this. So with Zygarde here, it puts a nice twist on the meta, leaving some pokemon more useful than they were before, and meaning some sets had to be changed to still be viable in UU. Some notable cases of this include: Crobat running Haze/Infiltrator Toxic, Granbull's jump in viability, Whimsicott becoming a powerhouse, Encore Mega-Alakazam, Stall's decline in viability, Hyper Offense's raise in viability, and many others. Zygarde leaves the UU meta in a strange state at the moment, but when everything settles, The meta will be shaken up in a way such that we get a new era, per se, of UU. Seeing such a shift of successful playstyles gives me hope that Zygarde will usher in a new metagame in which diversity is healthy.
Until then I can only hope.
(Disclaimer: I will be talking about the SubCoil set, as it is much more popular and prevalent.)
1. Zygarde is easily worn down by Toxic Spikes
Zygarde's most important attribute is it's longevity. This is common knowledge. Zygarde's entire job is to get up a substitute, and basically stay behind it, gathering leftovers recovery, and forcing opposing mons out, or dealing damage to them. So, what cuts down nearly any pokemon's longevity severely? Well, Toxic Spikes do. Toxic Spikes put Zygarde in a position where he can't risk his own HP on a substitute, and he simply put, cant do what he is meant to do. This means that Zygarde needs support from an extremely reliable Spinner, Defogger, or grounded Poison-Type to help out in clearing the spikes. Spinners are Generally not as longevitous as Zygarde is, and the outcome will generally be the Spinner going down long before Zygarde. Defoggers are primarily Flying-Type in UU (Crobat, Aerodactyl, etc.), and stack an Ice-Type weakness with Zygarde, meaning this will then take some teambuilding support to alleviate the Ice Weakness. Grounded Poison-Types are scarce enough in UU, leaving the only viable one at the moment, Roserade, who stacks Ice Weakness with Zygarde as well.
2. Zygarde has no recovery aside from Leftovers
Probably Zygarde's biggest downfall as a longevitous Titan is it's lack of reliable recovery outside of Leftovers. This means that Zygarde relies heavily on his item to recover the HP he took to make a substitute. If his leftovers are knocked off, this results in Zygarde becoming much less of a threat, as avoiding status with Substitute comes at a much greater cost.
3. Zygarde's checks are healthy for the metagame
Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But Zygarde's checks are things that had purpose on teams before, but must be tweaked slightly to adapt to the ever changing metagame. Stale Meta is no fun, everybody knows this. So with Zygarde here, it puts a nice twist on the meta, leaving some pokemon more useful than they were before, and meaning some sets had to be changed to still be viable in UU. Some notable cases of this include: Crobat running Haze/Infiltrator Toxic, Granbull's jump in viability, Whimsicott becoming a powerhouse, Encore Mega-Alakazam, Stall's decline in viability, Hyper Offense's raise in viability, and many others. Zygarde leaves the UU meta in a strange state at the moment, but when everything settles, The meta will be shaken up in a way such that we get a new era, per se, of UU. Seeing such a shift of successful playstyles gives me hope that Zygarde will usher in a new metagame in which diversity is healthy.
Until then I can only hope.
While I agree with the conclusion of the first point, saying Roserade is the only viable grounded Poison-type is just silly. The Nidos still exist, Tentacruel is still fairly common, and niche Pokemon that are still UU viable like Toxicroak and Amoonguss can be used. While it can be difficult to provide Toxic Spike removal for Zygarde, saying that Roserade is the only viable absorber is quite the exaggeration.
Yeah you are entirely correct, Idk what i was thinking. But The Nidos are still stacking the Ice weakness, as well as Amoonguss, leaving Tentacruel as the most synergistic grounded poison type for Zygarde. But even then Roserade is heaps more viable then tentacruel.
Just to add to the point of CoilZygarde's must-have grounded poisoned teammate, Dugtrio is a good tool to dispose of those ground types. As after the KO, Banded Dugtrio forfeits much momentum in general and specifically, to the threat in subject, Zygarde. Opposed to it, a LO set could be used instead with Memento to screw with the incoming Zygarde. Although LO misses on Spdef Roserade and both (band&LO) risk getting KO'ed by Toxicroak's Sucker Punch and under-muscles the 2hko on Amoonguss factoring Giga Drain, it seems LO is the better set suited for this particular job - disposing of Zygarde's support and providing the Dugtrio user to get a team-mate and abuse Tspikes (against Zygarde and non-Zygarde teams). (Also, I put Adamant in calcs, as Dugtrio still outspeeds all the poison types in question but it undoubtedly dents it's viability outside of this role)
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Nidoqueen: 377-447 (98.1 - 116.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tentacruel: 320-377 (87.9 - 103.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Roserade: 239-282 (73.7 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Nidoqueen: 377-447 (98.1 - 116.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tentacruel: 320-377 (87.9 - 103.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Life Orb Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Roserade: 239-282 (73.7 - 87%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
Zygarde doesn't beat stall- perish song Celebi can deal with Zygarde and is a great asset to any stall team that needs to beat Sigilyph, Reuniclus, or Crocune anyways.
*edit: Defensive teams without physically Defensive Florges or Perish Song Celebi may have trouble w/ Zygarde. Idk- just pointing out that full stall has an answer to a thing like this.
*edit: Defensive teams without physically Defensive Florges or Perish Song Celebi may have trouble w/ Zygarde. Idk- just pointing out that full stall has an answer to a thing like this.
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Sadly yes, this is a very biased standpoint on Stall. I personally dislike stall, and it shone through on my post, but this wasn't the main point in that category anyway. I was mainly trying to convey the pokemon that had effected the metagame, and I apologize for being so one-dimensional in my views on playstyle.
@_@.
And I'm not trying to say that Zygarde 6-0s stall, UncornDemon2, just that against most stall builds, it can give them extreme trouble in making it past you.
Idk what u guys are saying about Tenta not being as viable as rose. Tenta has the ability to check fightings, switch in on most physical rachis, spin, and get up hazards. Its typing lets it pivot into alot with ease. While rose is more offensively viable by a long shot, it find it self alot of times in bad situations due to its stab and typing. Rose is a free switch in to crobat barring sleep powder, and gers a kill momentum or a defog. Tenta can take on shit like mega blast crobat forry much better and can in some situations come out with the upper hand. I may be bias since i personally choose tenta over rose, but i find that tenta has a better niche than rose.
But then it loses to SubCoil? ?_?
My point is that when your opponent has a Zygarde on field you can't know what set it is until it sets up. But by then it would usually be too late because the "check" you send in might get beaten by a surprise set. Only Granbull (and lol phys def Whimsicott) can truly "counter" Zygarde without getting phazed out or dying to a +1 LO coverage move.
I havent seen any replays of DD Zygarde sweeping. Ive seen SubCoil, but no DD. do you or anybody else have any replays? Honestly now, people keep mentioning DD Zyg is great because of bulk and this and that, but nobodys posted any replays showing how Zyg sweeps with DD. Ive seen plenty of Coil sets replays, but no DD.
I know dudeman's been using DD Zygarde - here are a couple of replays of it sweeping.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-178985054 This one it doesn't actually need a dd to get through GeathDrips' weakened team - note it carries a lum berry so the misplay with sableye towards the end didn't matter.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-178119831 Here it uses its great bulk to set up 2 dds to get past a team that has a hydreigon on it.
That last one Billtodamax posted is an amazing example of how Zygarde could set up and manage to sweep in a scenario in which Haxorus possibly couldn't have. I can definitely confirm that DD Zygarde is a threat.
Here's some more:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-178491157 - DD Zyg is great because of bulk and this and that xDD
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-179080023 - some nice mid-game breaking
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-177768914 - cleaning up a Sub Coil Zygarde
Here's some more:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-178491157 - DD Zyg is great because of bulk and this and that xDD
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-179080023 - some nice mid-game breaking
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-177768914 - cleaning up a Sub Coil Zygarde
To be fair, Whimsi is a huge teammate to Zyg is most of those replays. The suicune/whimsi/mega aggron core is strong and directly compliments Zyg. The only notable thing it did was tank those Acrobatics from Crobat, which Haxorus probably couldnt stomach. Onceyou got 2 boosts and the teams were weakened, its pretty clear it could sweep, but i really dont see how tbis is different from other bulky sweepers. You had to double switch just to gdt Zyg in safely and these double switches and key predictions really were key. Not saying these were bad examples ( i overpredict too much and shoot myself in the foot 99% of the time), but the teammatss helped him shine.
What are you trying to say? No one ever said Zygarde's DD set was any different from other bulky sweepers, or that it can function alone without good teammates, or that it doesn't have to be well-played to succeed. Someone brought up the argument that its two sets are checked by entirely different things, and you questioned the presence of one of the sets, and we showed you replays of the set succeeding. So now it's (hopefully) clear that both sets exist and are viable, which strengthens the argument that Zygarde's checks are, to a degree, dependent upon the set that it runs.
Anyway I don't want to contradict what I just said with the following paragraphs, I just wanted to try to clear up that discussion. After playing pretty extensively with a few of Zyg's sets I've found it to be really good, but not really broken. The emergence of mons such as Whimsicott and Sub CM Suicune (both of which started getting popular even before the retest), in addition to the general bulky offensive nature of the metagame actually makes it pretty difficult for Zygarde to set up in a lot of situations. Sure Pokemon like Vaporeon are easily set up on by its SubCoil set, but you use passive Pokemon like Vaporeon with the knowledge that it's set-up bait for a lot of things, not just Zygarde.
Consider Salamence. One main reason for banning it was how much damage it could do with just one Dragon Dance. You really only needed one Dragon Dance to sweep an entire offensive team. In addition, the other main reason was that it had a myriad of coverage moves to basically pick and choose what countered it. This is true to a certain extent with Zygarde, but to a much more manageable degree. It was impossible to bring in your "dedicated Mence counter" because such a thing didn't exist. It also set up quite a bit more easily in my opinion, because although it had a rocks weakness, it came with resistances to Fire, Fighting, Water, and an immunity to Ground AND Intimidate.
With Zygarde, there are a plethora of options for reliably beating it, even if it comes down to a simple Ice Beam bulky water. And while Zygarde's got really respectable bulk, its only notable resist is Fire. You might argue that running Ice Beam in the 4th slot reduces their utility in other forms, but that's just how Pokemon works (especially with bulky waters). Disregarding Zygarde, Vaporeon has to choose between running BP, Roar, and Heal Bell. That's simply a cost that comes with using Vaporeon, and picking a 4th move on a Pokemon is a big part of risk/reward that every team has to deal with.
Also, Zygarde really doesn't have that many coverage moves to hit its counters like Salamence did, as it's basically limited to Stone Edge and Extremespeed if it wants to go that route. But being able to hit a "counter" with a surprise Stone Edge doesn't make Zygarde broken; in fact, it's an ability shared by Virizion, Mienshao, and Infernape. Almost EVERY offensive Pokemon can run a surprise set to nail one of its checks/counters. But running one set that covers a certain set of Pokemon leaves it open to another set of Pokemon. Infernape can surprise Crobat with Scarf Stone Edge, but that means it'll never beat Crocune; Zygarde can run Life Orb Extremespeed but now it's prone to Scald burns and won't get past Granbull.
My point is that Zygarde is an excellent Pokemon, (and I would surprised if it doesn't attain S-rank if it is voted UU). But the arguments being made towards it being broken don't really hold with me. And after playing with/against many different sets, I can't say that I think it's broken.
All my posts turn TL;DR rip.
Anyway I don't want to contradict what I just said with the following paragraphs, I just wanted to try to clear up that discussion. After playing pretty extensively with a few of Zyg's sets I've found it to be really good, but not really broken. The emergence of mons such as Whimsicott and Sub CM Suicune (both of which started getting popular even before the retest), in addition to the general bulky offensive nature of the metagame actually makes it pretty difficult for Zygarde to set up in a lot of situations. Sure Pokemon like Vaporeon are easily set up on by its SubCoil set, but you use passive Pokemon like Vaporeon with the knowledge that it's set-up bait for a lot of things, not just Zygarde.
Consider Salamence. One main reason for banning it was how much damage it could do with just one Dragon Dance. You really only needed one Dragon Dance to sweep an entire offensive team. In addition, the other main reason was that it had a myriad of coverage moves to basically pick and choose what countered it. This is true to a certain extent with Zygarde, but to a much more manageable degree. It was impossible to bring in your "dedicated Mence counter" because such a thing didn't exist. It also set up quite a bit more easily in my opinion, because although it had a rocks weakness, it came with resistances to Fire, Fighting, Water, and an immunity to Ground AND Intimidate.
With Zygarde, there are a plethora of options for reliably beating it, even if it comes down to a simple Ice Beam bulky water. And while Zygarde's got really respectable bulk, its only notable resist is Fire. You might argue that running Ice Beam in the 4th slot reduces their utility in other forms, but that's just how Pokemon works (especially with bulky waters). Disregarding Zygarde, Vaporeon has to choose between running BP, Roar, and Heal Bell. That's simply a cost that comes with using Vaporeon, and picking a 4th move on a Pokemon is a big part of risk/reward that every team has to deal with.
Also, Zygarde really doesn't have that many coverage moves to hit its counters like Salamence did, as it's basically limited to Stone Edge and Extremespeed if it wants to go that route. But being able to hit a "counter" with a surprise Stone Edge doesn't make Zygarde broken; in fact, it's an ability shared by Virizion, Mienshao, and Infernape. Almost EVERY offensive Pokemon can run a surprise set to nail one of its checks/counters. But running one set that covers a certain set of Pokemon leaves it open to another set of Pokemon. Infernape can surprise Crobat with Scarf Stone Edge, but that means it'll never beat Crocune; Zygarde can run Life Orb Extremespeed but now it's prone to Scald burns and won't get past Granbull.
My point is that Zygarde is an excellent Pokemon, (and I would surprised if it doesn't attain S-rank if it is voted UU). But the arguments being made towards it being broken don't really hold with me. And after playing with/against many different sets, I can't say that I think it's broken.
All my posts turn TL;DR rip.
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Dudeman130498 i shouldve summed it up better, sorry. Your high level replays showed that DD is a legit option on Zygarde, but i think the team support really showed he needed support to shine (whether is DD, SubCoil, etcc) and is probably not broken.
Great replays again though!
Great replays again though!
How do you get on IRC? I always hear about it, but ndver knew how to get on.
So a few interesting things about October's stats, which will likely be a preview of what's to come in December when tier shifts occur:
-Raikou has a significant amount of OU usage, it seems to be almost certain to go up
-Jirachi is another one with a decent upward trend and achieved OU usage this month (just barely, but it's increased pretty steadily since Aegislash was banned)
-Espeon randomly reached the 3.4% mark, I doubt it'll stay up there but it was quite interesting (on a mostly-related note Cottonee's usage was insane @_@)
-Mandibuzz officially dropped below the usage cutoff this month, which would be an interesting addition to the tier, being able to counter Hydreigon with a specially defensive set or checking Lucario with a physically defensive set (it just barely takes a +2 close combat from full health and then ohko's with Foul Play after the defense drop)
-Sylveon didn't officially fall below the cutoff, but the downward trend is steep
I don't know how drastically a week of ORAS taking over as the official meta will affect things, but I definitely expect us to be losing at least Raikou and Jirachi and the Mandibuzz drop seems imminent, all of which will be interesting changes to our meta.
-Raikou has a significant amount of OU usage, it seems to be almost certain to go up
-Jirachi is another one with a decent upward trend and achieved OU usage this month (just barely, but it's increased pretty steadily since Aegislash was banned)
-Espeon randomly reached the 3.4% mark, I doubt it'll stay up there but it was quite interesting (on a mostly-related note Cottonee's usage was insane @_@)
-Mandibuzz officially dropped below the usage cutoff this month, which would be an interesting addition to the tier, being able to counter Hydreigon with a specially defensive set or checking Lucario with a physically defensive set (it just barely takes a +2 close combat from full health and then ohko's with Foul Play after the defense drop)
-Sylveon didn't officially fall below the cutoff, but the downward trend is steep
I don't know how drastically a week of ORAS taking over as the official meta will affect things, but I definitely expect us to be losing at least Raikou and Jirachi and the Mandibuzz drop seems imminent, all of which will be interesting changes to our meta.
sylveon will come down, it doesn't help that when oras comes out it can no longer even check ninja. mandibuzz will be interesting, was really good in ou because of gengar but honestly it isn't amazing at hazard removal. knock off is nice and overcoat means it will probably be the #1 counter to roserade in the tier. Raikou leaving stinks, i liked that thing. Jirachi probably leaving actually really sucks, despite people complaining about iron head hax blah blah blah jirachi is an integral part of the metagame and it leaving will shift the metagame not quite as much as the last tier shift, but it will still leave a huge impact. espeon what??? why is it above the cutoff lol. on another note, azelf looks like it may rise so hyper offense in uu will pretty much just be using lass/aero. bro/cross/mew are clearly solidified in the OU metagame now like they should be, all above 6% usage. Looks like conk/zapdos are not coming, sadness. Mamoswine is super low in usage and only needs to drop 1.2%, which is frankly frightening since it would be instantly BL'd and I don't want to see that thing become in the BL wasteland of weavile and klefki. Just a few notes about usage stats. Obviously things can change in this next month to come.
I highly doubt that Hitachi will break 3.41 simply because ou is so stagnant atm that these would be slight fluctuations
Espeons usage rose due to BP. No legitimate reason to use it outside of the standard BP team since it pretty much sucks in OU for a plethora of reasons. As for Sylveon there has been an influx of Sylveon usage in ORAS OU due to more offensive sets so granted it's early to speak on drops considering it's a month away but it's definitely something to consider before writing it off as being UU soon. Same deal with Rachi in terms of its presence in OU. More of it in ORAS OU with the Scarf/Healing Wish variants but that one does seem a bit more shaky in terms of where it'll end up. Raikou is just good in OU and has been for awhile it just took forever for people to catch on so sorry UU guys and gals =/. Mandibuzz drop was a long time coming cause it doesn't really do much in OU now a days outside of some very specific things but it just seems like UU is the perfect place for it in terms of the utility it can provide against various playstyles.
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