Lower Tiers ORAS NU Viability Rankings

[erisia]

Just wanted to re-open discussion on a Pokemon that had a bit of a troubled time in the rankings due to some structural issues we were sorting out with the system at the time. Lopunny is definitely a niche choice for a team but its Cosmic Power + Baton Pass does have a specific and valuable niche that works for certain teams; making receivers so bulky that it's difficult to deal with them outside of phasing or Taunt. Lopunny is by far the best user of this combination due to its good Speed tier, high bulk, and lack of weaknesses, as well as access to Encore and Healing Wish, which can both also be useful in either setting up or getting some extra utility if a pass isn't going to happen due to something like Taunt Pyroar or Taunt Archeops. This isn't a formal nomination since I don't have any ORAS replays atm, but I've used the set extensively in SMNU and it is definitely consistent enough at what it does to be worth consideration. I'll try and add some replays and make a formal nomination if I get any time but I wanted to collect people's thoughts on it regardless since it was a very borderline case for C-/D rank at the time.

Also we are currently voting on any other remaining changes to the VRs.

EDIT: HELL YES this is a nomination for C-, this was a tour final that turned into a complete joke.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-408818159
DOUBLE EDIT: Okay here's the final list of changes that we all agreed on.

Rhydon: A+ > S
Hitmonchan: A > A+
Steelix: A- > A
Clefairy: B > B+
Altaria: C+ > B-
Regice: C > C+

Jynx: S > A+
Archeops: A+ > A
Poliwrath: B > B-
Roselia: B- > C+

Still waiting for votes to come in on Lopunny but apart from that this thread is going to be locked as the tier has more or less settled down and these rankings are ready to be archived. Thanks to everyone for contributing to the discussion, providing replays for based mons, and making Clefairy great again.

 

[erisia]

Xatu: A+ > S

With Baton Pass being banned, Lopunny will unfortunately not be ranked after all. Additionally, this ban is somewhat relevant to Xatu, which had a more or less split vote on whether we should rise it to S rank or not. Since this is an important change and the last that will be made to the ORAS Viability Rankings, and considering that Xatu won the slim majority, we have decided that the best course of action would be to give it S rank after all. Xatu has a huge influence on not only teambuilding through its ability to control hazards without relying on removal moves, but also playing behaviour in general, forcing players to make 50/50 decisions about whether to set up Rocks with their Mesprit or U-turn on the expected Xatu. Although its notoriety as a Baton Pass receiver was impressive, its ability to control the hazard game while also being able to run a multitude of viable sets between a physically defensive pivot, Calm Mind + Roost sweeper, or all-out special attacker make it worthy of the rank in our opinion. Roost and pseudo-status immunity also prevent Mesprit from directly outclassing it despite its overall wider movepool and better stats.

I'd personally like to take the time to thank everyone who's contributed to the discussion in the thread, as well as our excellent Viability Rankings Council, who have done a fantastic job of promoting discussion and sorting out the memes-of-the-week from the rising stars. In particular, I'd like to thank boltsandbombers for all of the hard work and time he put into running this project before I took over from him.

I'll leave the thread open for a few days so that people can post their thoughts on the project as a whole before locking it. :)

EDIT: Also we're going to be revisiting the ranks of many Baton Pass users and deciding on what reranks to make over the next few days so feel free to discuss this too.

 

[Aaronboyer]

Leafeon C ----> Unranked

Leafeon's main niche in NU was being arguably the best Swords Dance passer in the tier thanks to its high base 130 defense stat and decent base 95 speed stat. Throw that out the window now that Baton Pass has been banned. All of its offensive sets were previously outclassed by Sawsbuck due to its higher speed, better coverage in Jump Kick and Wild Charge, and access to normal STAB Double Edge. It cannot perform any worthwhile niche anymore.

 

[erisia]

Leafeon: C > C-

Shedinja: C- > Unranked

Just a quick update to reflect how some mons were affected by the Baton Pass ban. Most of them were ranked for reasons other than Baton Pass or were still deemed effective enough to retain their ranks, but Leafeon's main niche has been removed and Shedinja is now fodder to Pursuit users. We still thought SD Leafeon was decent enough to warrant a rank/set but it was a close call.

 

[Jarii]

A+ --> A
The current metagame is very unfriendly to Rotom due to the popularity of Skuntank / Liepard, Pursuit / Zen Headbutt Tauros and Pursuit Scyther (Hariyama / Lanturn to a lesser extent). All of these mons threaten Rotom big time, Spell Tag WispHex isn't as threatning as it was before thanks to the rise of darks types as mentioned above, as well as Scarf Rotom always having one or two checks on the team without thinking about actual checks to ScarfTom (such as Rhydon / Hariyama which is really common as well as Lanturn). With Spell Tag WispHex not being as common due to its immense vulnerability towards pursuit trappers, Lanturn has become an even better check than before. Colbur was good back in the day when Skuntanks didn't run Crunch but nowadays its quite a common filler move.

 

[erisia]

A+ --> A
The current metagame is very unfriendly to Rotom due to the popularity of Skuntank / Liepard, Pursuit / Zen Headbutt Tauros and Pursuit Scyther (Hariyama / Lanturn to a lesser extent). All of these mons threaten Rotom big time, Spell Tag WispHex isn't as threatning as it was before thanks to the rise of darks types as mentioned above, as well as Scarf Rotom always having one or two checks on the team without thinking about actual checks to ScarfTom (such as Rhydon / Hariyama which is really common as well as Lanturn). With Spell Tag WispHex not being as common due to its immense vulnerability towards pursuit trappers, Lanturn has become an even better check than before. Colbur was good back in the day when Skuntanks didn't run Crunch but nowadays its quite a common filler move.

While this might be true, the playerbase is too low at the moment for it to be worth making changes to the VR now due to recent trends. Thanks for the discussion though. With that, I'm going to lock the thread now. Thanks to everyone who contributed and especially those who ran the thread before I did. I don't do shoutouts because I'm a grinch. :3

 

[etern]

Hi all, doing a fairly thorough update since the rankings were quite outdated and don't reflect the metagame developments ORAS has experienced within the past two to three years, click here if you'd like to see the voting spreadsheet which ranges from Ranks S to B-. The C ranks also received a significant update which was vetted by me, and have been cut down to a more accurate size and scope. Furthermore, I've removed the C- rank similar to the way the SM NU VR was structured in generation 7. The D rank has remained the same as always, and only harbours Pokémon that were NU or NUBL by usage at the time the generation ended and tiers were frozen. I also went through and updated all the sprites because half of them were broken links, not relevant to this but I wanted everyone to know anyway... The ranking changes are as follows.

Rises:

Vileplume rose from A- to S.
Archeops rose from A to A+.
Hariyama rose from A to A+.
Steelix rose from A to A+.
Kangaskhan rose from A- to A.
Liepard rose from A- to A.
Ferroseed rose from B+ to A-.
Mantine rose from B+ to A-.
Kabutops rose from B to B+.
Pinsir rose from B to B+.
Quagsire rose from B- to B.
Poliwrath rose from C+ to B.
Camerupt rose from C+ to B-.
Kecleon rose from C to C+.
Klinklang rose from C to C+.
Kadabra rose from C- to C.

Drops:

Garbodor fell from S to A+.
Rhydon fell from S to A+.
Gurdurr fell from A+ to B+.
Hitmonchan fell from A+ to A-.
Jynx fell from A+ to A-.
Lilligant fell from A+ to B+.
Magmortar fell from A+ to A.
Samurott fell from A+ to A-.
Shiftry fell from A+ to A.
Swellow from A+ to A-.
Audino-Mega fell from A to B+.
Charizard fell from A to A-.
Scyther fell from A to B.
Vivillon fell from A to A-.
Weezing fell from A to A-.
Gastrodon fell from A- to B.
Ludicolo fell from A- to B+.
Abomasnow fell from B+ to B-.
Floatzel fell from B+ to B.
Gourgeist-XL fell from B+ to C+.
Haunter fell from B+ to B.
Miltank fell from B+ to B-.
Mismagius fell from B+ to B.
Regirock fell from B+ to B.
Aggron fell from B to B-.
Carracosta fell from B to C+.
Claydol fell from B to C+.
Combusken fell from B to C+.
Primeape fell from B to C+.
Zangoose fell from B to B-.
Bronzor fell from B- to C+.
Electivire fell from B- to C+.
Grumpig fell from B- to C.
Sliggoo fell from B- to C.
Trevenant fell from C+ to UR.
Cacturne fell from C to UR.
Musharna fell from C to D.
Vanilluxe fell from C- to UR.
Duosion fell from C- to UR.
Pawniard fell from C- to UR.
Simisage fell from C to UR.
Sawsbuck fell from C to UR.

Thanks to everyone that voted, hopefully this resource can be a little more helpful to newer players trying to get into ORAS NU now, enjoy!

 

[Melons-N-Soda]

That jump Vileplume made was huge. Did people just discover its full potential after the metagame got froze or something?

Also Musharna isn't on the VR despite it being listed to drop to D. Its PUBL/BL4 in this gen so I think that's worth correcting.