Resource ORAS OU Sets Viability Rankings V4 (See Post #229: Page 10)

[bludz]

We should be doing an update this weekend. "Utility" Heatran (what I'm considering renaming Spdef to) should be the top set and A+ rank, this has been overlooked for a while. Expect to see a set for Sub Serperior and removal of dumb things like CM Unaware Clef.

Any other nominations would be appreciated as I feel some aspects of this ranking are still outdated

 

[TURBODERP]

We should be doing an update this weekend. "Utility" Heatran (what I'm considering renaming Spdef to) should be the top set and A+ rank, this has been overlooked for a while. Expect to see a set for Sub Serperior and removal of dumb things like CM Unaware Clef.

Any other nominations would be appreciated as I feel some aspects of this ranking are still outdated

Out of curiosity, Utility Trans is Max HP/Max Speed with some combination of Lava Plume/Taunt/Protect/Toxic/SR/coverage, right? I feel like Max Speed is soooo nice even on this Tran just so you don't worry about outspeeding Mega Scizor/Breloom/etc.

 

[bludz]

Yeah, the name utility would be to cover both speed + bulk trans and SpD trans that run similar movesets containing the stuff you mentioned. The rename is to essentially group them together since the sets play the same, even if the spreads influence their performance against different threats

 

[bludz]

Update

Heatran Utility (rename) A -> A+, top set
Serperior Substitute (new set) Unranked -> A
Magnezone Choice Specs B+ -> A-
Clefable Unaware CM A -> Unranked (this set is almost irrelevant)
Clefable Unaware A+ -> A
Mega Metagross Agility A -> A-
Mega Slowbro Offensive Tank B -> Unranked

Also renaming Bisharp's All Out Attacker set to Pursuit because Low Kick really isn't relevant any more. Can consider dropping this to A since the main draw of Bisharp is SD

Ranks for Kyurem-Black's Choice Band and Choice Specs sets are pending. Making the changes in the OP now

Also thoughts on Torn-T AV to A+?

 

[AM]

Ranks for Kyurem-Black's Choice Band and Choice Specs sets are pending. Making the changes in the OP now

Also thoughts on Torn-T AV to A+?

I'd put Band at A- and Specs at A personally. I think there's just more utility in running Specs while Band sort of functions more as a lure to cushion up special walls like Chansey.

I think both of Torn-Ts sets should stay at S. AV Torn-T is one of the best pivots in the tier and running the bulkier variants provides you a ton of relief to wall-breakers and a team as a whole. Its lack of power in comparison to Life Orb isn't the selling point when people use it as one of the handful of defensive utility options on an offense / bulky offense similar to Rotom-W that doesn't sap momentum. It's a bit less used now with Hoopa-U gone but it doesn't really change its effectiveness and consistency.

Bisharp's SD set is the selling point of Bisharp as a whole. The All Out Attacker set isn't what's threatening in regards to Bisharp.

 

[TerrorthornColt]

What would you guys think about Mega Gardevoir's support set? It may take up a Mega slot but it still has a powerful Pixilate Hyper Voice to boot while still providing Heal Bell and Wish support to other Pokemon. Will-O-Wisp also provides great support to burn stuff like Scizor on the switch and although some may laugh it seeing its considered gimmicky, it seems to be the better set to make use of Future Sight since Support Mega Gardevoir isn't ment to stay in all that often that doesn't make Support Mega Gardevoir gimmicky though seeing as of course Future Sight is not at all the selling point of it. I'm just curious on what you would rank the support set overall though. It's biggest downfall is that it must use its own wish to gain any HP seeing as it cannot hold Leftovers and doesn't have a reliable form of Recovery otherwise.

 

[bludz]

Update of VR + a couple other things

Raikou: Specs over AV
Sylveon: Defensive set removed

Volcanion has 3 sets for the time being, All-Out Attacker, Defensive, and Mixed.

Hoopa-C was given one set, Choice Specs. Haven't experimented with Nasty Plot or Sub or anything yet so can't comment on that viability of that

Things to talk about would be obviously the new additions and also I think it's worth talking about the ordering of Mega Pidgeot's sets since Stallbreaker is a bit more of a unique niche over Torn

 

[Martin]

I've always found Work Up+Refresh Pidge to be much more consistent/able to set itself apart than 3/4 attacks tbh. Like, having Hyper Beam to annihilate electrics is cool and all, but beyond this it is just so hard to understand why you'd use it over the more-powerful/better-coveraged LO Torny-T outside of accuracy--especially considering that it just becomes complete setup fodder for whatever comes in on it after it kills. On the other hand, Work Up just kinda shits on stall and sets itself apart from NP+Heal Bell Togekiss by having a speed stat that allows it to spam Hurricane versus offense and with much more PP on Refresh, allowing it to set up a little more consistently versus status-heavy teams. Due to how it sets itself apart, I think that stallbreaker should go above AoA.

 

[AM]

Refresh kind of sucks because you still have to somehow break Chansey who runs Toxic / Thunder Wave while contending with the fact one of two trappers found on the two popular variants of stall Weavile or Tyranitar will still take you out. Work Up is fine but it's not breaking stall anymore to where Refresh is a good use of its abilities. A stall team not packing those two mentioned trappers or Dugtrio, granted Dugtrio isn't a trapper that can beat M-Pidgeot, I consider mostly inefficient if not outright bad. Stick with two attacks, roost, work up and hurt bulkier balances instead.

 

[MANNAT]

Volcanion's defensive set should be moved up to A imo because while it doesn't blow through teams with its pure offensive firepower like aoa does, it's still has a ton of defensive utility, being better able to check azu, having haze to deal with setup sweepers, and spreading burns with scald. It is definitely a great option for defensive teams and merits an A rank set imo. Also, mixed should probably move down to B+ since im assuming that you are talking about LO superpower since it literally only targets one mon in chansey, lowers its bulk with a negative defensive nature, and gets worn down quickly with life orb, especially if hazards are up.

 

[Punchshroom]

I'm not seeing big appeal to defensive Volcanion at the moment. First of all, it seems to offer some role compression between Heatran and Tentacruel, but it has barely any supportive options compared to either of the two while being slightly less specialized, so it can be difficult to justify the teamslot. What's more, Volcanion is Stealth Rock weak while having no recovery of its own, so it wants further support on that front.

Secondly, it hardly offers any real advantage over offensive Volcanion aside from its use of Toxic and Haze, and I'd hardly believe that offensive Volcanion cannot consider Toxic whatsoever, and I don't really see Haze allowing Volcanion to win any matchups it otherwise could not: most likely Volcanion may just end up getting into stalemates if not still put at a disadvantage against things like Suicune, Clefable, Reuniclus, Mega Altaria, etc. From what I can see, the only real scenario where defensive Volcanion's bulk comes into play is against offensive Mega Scizor, where it tanks the +2 Superpower almost twice as well as offensive Volcanion. Aside from that, defensive Volcanion doesn't really seem to offer quite enough; B+ looks better for it imo.

Also LO Volcanion doesn't really mind the -SpD nature too much since the only special attacks it really wants to be taking are 4x resisted / immune anyway. Plus LO Volcanion retains plenty of holepunching power to be compared to Specs (similarly, CB and Specs Hoopa-U were both S, and Life Orb lingered closely behind in A+).

 

[Ramses]

Can Swords Dance Feraligatr move up to at least B-? I know it was pretty trash when it was first released, but as the metagame progresses the SD set is actually marginally better than the Dragon Dance set, at least in the current metagame seeing as how bulkier teams are starting to return, opposed to the hyper offensive builds that the Dragon Dance set appreciated.

What is the appeal of using Choice Scarf Bisharp? It's always been extremely underwhelming whenever it's been utilized. Unranked?

Sub + SD Garchomp could go to A beside Choice Scarf, or B+ if that's too big of a jump. Criminally underrated, terrifying, and better than Scarf imho

SpD Hippowdon seems to be teetering on the edge of either dropping or being unranked since they're realistically no reason for it to ever be used in today's metagame?

Can Assault Vest Slowking be unranked? It's really bad when you lose out on it's utility options and Calm Mind which is the main draw of even using Slowking a lot of the time and it's just a bad set in general.

Does SubToxic Zapdos overlap with Defensive utility? Although it's pretty bad SubToxic is known to be it's best set for some reason right now, this also stems to Cobalion as well.

Finally, is Choice Scarf Rotom-H an actual set that's used? I honestly didn't know people used it. I'd say it could be unranked.

 

[Martin]

Honestly I don't think that SubToxic Zap overlaps with defensive utillity considering that the two sets aim to achieve very different goals, with utility generally just being a Defogger and SubToxic aiming to PP stall and cheese as well as a few other things.

But yeah, as one of its primary advocators of the set I can say with confidence that this set needs to be top on the basis that it is just disgustingly consistent by comparison to Defog, which doesn't generally do very much besides maybe get off 1 Defog while being SR-weak (not ideal for a hazard remover) and is complete bait for things like DD Lando-T and grounds in general, with it losing to a lot of the key current rockers depending on its choice of coverage and when considering the general rise in Yache Berry on HP Ice's key targets, whereas SubToxic is able to consistently (as in around 90% of the time) put in a solid chunk of work on the opposing team, with it luring out common users of low-PP moves such as Tyranitar, Lando-T, Heatran etc. and stalling them with ease while also just kinda shitting on stuff like Ferrothorn (who literally can't touch it and only uses 8 PP attacks) and beating out any slower utility 'mons with Sub (any slower than SpD Talonflame have their status attacks dodged by this thing, meanwhile it just abuses a lot of them). It just sets up sub on a lot of stuff with ease and can proceed to easily stall stuff for prolonged periods between Sub, Roost, Toxic and Pressure, and unlike the Defog set it really isn't put under pressure by grounds outside of, like, Excadrill (which, ftr, can still be stalled out of a lot of PP and also just drops to variants which carry Heat Wave>TBolt) due to the fact that it can easily cheese them between Toxic and Pressure.

 

[bludz]

I'm not really sure why the thought of a Zapdos without STAB is being entertained but I guess that was more of a side note...

I have no experience with SubToxic Zapdos so I'll refer to the team on that one. If none of us has used it I'll reach out to advocates of the set such as gamer boy and Albacore for teams so I can try it out.

Choice Scarf Bisharp is ass and can probably go. SubSD Chomp should get a set, SpD Hippo is basically irrelevant now but AV Slowking is still retardedly bulky enough to remain ranked even if it's not that good now. As for scarf Rotom-H lol I wouldn't know I haven't used Rotom-H in like a year but I did use Scarf since I think it has a lot more offensive presence than Rotom-W

 

[Kutscher]

Theres almost no reasons to use SD gatr, just use crawdaunt

 

[kek123]

pusuit Bisharp to A/A-

Pursuit bisharp is pretty pointless in my opinion because SD sets are so much better sweeping team is one of bisharp best qualitys also its really hard to pursuit thing like latios and alakazam thanks to bisharp pretty poor spdef stat and quad weakness to fighting types also just being out classed by t-tar in every aspect as far as pursuit trapping goes. also you have sack something if you want to pursuit trap latios because sharp dies to two draco's also defensive non reflect type starmie is only the other think that pursuit sharp can trap and non mega bro

sorry if this is short but I feel t-tar out class bisharp as far as pursuit goes and there no way pursuit is on par with SD sharp in my opinion

 

[MANNAT]

pusuit Bisharp to A/A-

Pursuit bisharp is pretty pointless in my opinion because SD sets are so much better sweeping team is one of bisharp best qualitys also its really hard to pursuit thing like latios and alakazam thanks to bisharp pretty poor spdef stat and quad weakness to fighting types also just being out classed by t-tar in every aspect as far as pursuit trapping goes. also you have sack something if you want to pursuit trap latios because sharp dies to two draco's also defensive non reflect type starmie is only the other think that pursuit sharp can trap and non mega bro

sorry if this is short but I feel t-tar out class bisharp as far as pursuit goes and there no way pursuit is on par with SD sharp in my opinion

you might not wanna drop a pursuit trapper immediately after volc, who loves pursuit trapping, just dropped down into the tier.

 

[kek123]

you might not wanna drop a pursuit trapper immediately after volc, who loves pursuit trapping, just dropped down into the tier.

thats true but imo it still doesn't change that fact that t-tar does the job miles better weather or not there a new mon the benefits from pursuit trappers also the main mon you pursuit trap for volcainion is latios and bisharp cant switch in and trap it you have to sack something then trap it and t-tar can

 

[MANNAT]

thats true but imo it still doesn't change that fact that t-tar does the job miles better weather or not there a new mon the benefits from pursuit trappers

ttar can pursuit the lati twins specifically a bit better, but black glasses/LO pursuit bisharp can still be decent fairy check and can switch into grass and water types without having to risk huge amounts of damage being dished out into it. SD is def the best set, but pursuit shouldn't be dropping.

 

[Expert_Occultist]

I choose Bisharp as my Pursuit trapper because, while it lacks power, it provides a solid swiss army knife of options for offensive teams that other Pursuit users can't. No other mon has Pursuit, item removal, and powerful priority in one moveset and because it's not choiced (Blackglasses anyway) it can preform any of those things at any given time. It also offers a solid check to Clefable which is hard to come by. I could see it dropping to maybe A rank but the only comparable Pursuit user is Weavile in terms of utility (and Bisharp is stronger). Personally, I'd say Pursuit Bisharp stays A+

 

[kek123]

ttar can pursuit the lati twins specifically a bit better, but black glasses/LO pursuit bisharp can still be decent fairy check and can switch into grass and water types without having to risk huge amounts of damage being dished out into it. SD is def the best set, but pursuit shouldn't be dropping.

most water types HOKO it or will risk burn with scald and grass types run hp fire e.g serp mega vena, breloom has mach punch and celbi even gets earth power

I choose Bisharp as my Pursuit trapper because, while it lacks power, it provides a solid swiss army knife of options for offensive teams that other Pursuit users can't. No other mon has Pursuit, item removal, and powerful priority in one moveset and because it's not choiced (Blackglasses anyway) it can preform any of those things at any given time. It also offers a solid check to Clefable which is hard to come by. I could see it dropping to maybe A rank but the only comparable Pursuit user is Weavile in terms of utility (and Bisharp is stronger). Personally, I'd say Pursuit Bisharp stays A+

yes it learns pursuit sucker and knock off but just having pursuit doesnt make it a pursuit trapper and my main point was that t-tar does it better im not nagging on bisharp im saying it just not a good pursuit mon LO get knock off good priority and sets up and often sweeps all you said was correct but LO does that too my point is pursuit is better done by other mons there is no point having a swiss army knife if one of the tool doesnt work if that happen you mays as well remove the tool/part

 

[Eclipse]

I think the problem is that the reason why Bisharp is one of the most threatening mons in the tier is because of SD, as once it gets to +2, it can manage to cheese its way to victory in ridiculous fashion. Forgoing that to use Pursuit is really kind of a waste, as once the Bisharp reveals Pursuit I am far less threatened by it than I would be had it been SD. And yes, there are better Pursuit trappers mainly T-Tar. So overall the problem isn't that Bisharp is a bad Pursuit trapper, rather that SD is simply too good on Bisharp to pass up and is the real reason why Bisharp is so great, so yeah I support a drop for the Pursuit set, A is a fine rank for it.

 

[Expert_Occultist]

ttar can pursuit the lati twins specifically a bit better, but black glasses/LO pursuit bisharp can still be decent fairy check and can switch into grass and water types without having to risk huge amounts of damage being dished out into it. SD is def the best set, but pursuit shouldn't be dropping.

I second the question of, who switches their Bisharp in on water/grass types and expects to profit? Bisharp takes just as much damage if not more than Tyranitar. The Celebi Earth Power thing doesn't really matter tho since it doesn't want to stay in on Sucker Punch or Knock Off since
252+ SpA Celebi Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 52 SpD Bisharp: 226-266 (83.3 - 98.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Pursuit Bisharp isn't meant to be super threatening IMO it's meant to provide diverse offensive support for the rest of your teammates who hopefully are super threatening. I believe better players than me call it "roll compression".

 

[bludz]

I mean Bisharp can still get to +2 on Defiant. But that really isn't reliable and I agree that its Pursuit set is not on the same level as its SD set or Ttars capabilities.

This should have dropped a while ago IMO, so the timing with Volc may be funky but I still think it should happen

 

[Pandamaster4000]

Physically defensive skarmory to A-

Spdef skarm seems to be the superior set currently and I don't think the rankings reflect that. It can switch into a lot of the mons that the phys def spread does, such as excadrill, weavile and mega scizor. It is also able to check threats that the other spread cannot due to lack of special bulk, such LO tornadus-t, Latios, offensive faries, and mega Alakazam, all of which are notorious for being difficult to switch into. This gives Skarmory more opportunities to set up spikes, which can be very nice for balance and stall teams. Phys def does have its perks however, primarily being able to switch in to Azumaril, Mega Pinsir and lopunny more reliably, but the latter two have become less prominent recently while Diancie and tornadus have been on the climb. Additionaly, with CB terrakion and tyranitar on the rise, Skarmory can't be considered the catch all physical wall it once was.