ORAS Ubers Viability Ranking Thread (Final ORAS Update - Post #1164)

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Mainly what MM2X does is check EKiller and revenge things. Mega Gengar sets have shifted to being more anti-EKiller than they were initially, thus Gengar has seriously encroached on this niche. Mega Salamence was already in competition with MM2X as an offensive EKiller check to begin with, although you could make an argument that MM2X is a bit more defensively sound in this role as Stone Edge is everywhere and Ice Beam exists. Only other thing MM2X might do is effectively lure something out and smack it with specialized coverage, although certain Pokemon are able switch in with minimal risk regardless.

As for the second question I've got only one squad, an offense team, that utilizes it in a way where it doesn't feel forced.
 
I think, Giratina-A is a bit underrated. Yeah sure, Giratina-O is prefered on all builds (except stall) for obvious reasons but Giratina-A isn't as shit as stuff like Arc-Grass or Fighting. It's biggest issue is probably 4 MSS because it wants to fit resttalk/defog/status move/phazing move and it's passiveness (although you should run solid fairy checks on stall anyways) and that's why it's still terrible but being an SR pdon check which sort of prevents Ho-Oh from clicking sacred fire, doesn't get trapped by Goth or Mega Gengar and can pp stall some shit (looking at sacred fire ho-oh) gives it a legitimate niche. I think a set with Rest/Dragon tail/Toxic/Defog or dual status w/ rest and defog is just fine with aromatherapy/strong wish support. If you're relying on giratina as defoger you're obviously more weak against stuff like Support Pdon (if they manage to force gira to rest and prevent you from clicking heal bell) and SR Diancie but I think because of those reasons I stated before, it can be justified on some stall builds and should be a bit higher. Somewhere in C+ between Mega Aero and Smeargle should be fine I guess.
 
I would not support Mega Mewtwo X rising too much higher because of the reasons mostly already stated. It's just a bit underwhelming to be taking up the Mega slot and is limited in regards to what it can do, mostly only serving as a one-time check to Extreme Killer Arceus while on the flip side it has trouble getting past stuff like Mega Sableye on stall. It's just a bit of a weak return on investment.

Landorus-I is not a great Pokemon in Ubers but it can be hard to switch into and is immune to Ground. It's hard to justify seriously, since there's better Stealth Rock users in the tier, but I think Stealth Rock access + causing some difficulty for teams to switch into at least puts it at a cut above the rest of D rank. It's a bit harder to try to organize borderline unviable Pokemon in general but I think Landorus is a case where it is more usable than other lower rank Pokemon.

Giratina-A I'd have to test a bit, it's quite passive which makes it hard to use and in regards to checking things it seems okay at best. The problem is a lot of the time you can't really do much to the foe and you become bait for something else. Not being able to run everything you want on Giratina is hugely annoying, since you are already passive and just become bait for so much (Giratina needs Toxic for Primal Groudon, Will-O-Wisp for Steel-types, Roar to not be setup bait, Dragon Tail gets past Taunt and at least punishes switches a bit more but makes you vulnerable to Fairies, etc.), the point being that you can be easily taken advantage of. It's not a terrible Pokemon though, just passive which lets offensive teams play around it more easily; consequently, it's quite reliant on its teammates- but I would imagine you could support it and it would be usable.

I think regular Groudon should drop a bit, I don't think it's that bad of a Pokemon but not being able to run Primal Groudon is a massive opportunity cost that's not really worth it in my opinion. I mean yes it's a decently bulky physical Pokemon and I guess lasting Sun is a fun idea but Primal Groudon is too good to not use.

Deoxys-S I wouldn't put in A+, hyper offense is a dominant playstyle but I don't think you'd attribute that to Deoxys-S, but rather to the huge amount of pressure that the 5 sweepers on standard hyper offense impose on teams. Deoxys-S is a reliable Stealth Rock user and I agree that it is a great lead; however, it being a better lead than other leads is not particularly valid to justify a rise since it's already ranked above those.
 
Soul Dew Latios with Grass Knot seems very, very strong to me. One of the reasons Arceus-Water is so good is because of its defensive typing ... the idea being nearly nothing in the tier runs a grass or electric move, especially as coverage. I would argue with the increased usage of Grass Knot that Arceus-Water is not nearly as foolproof as it was 6 months ago. It is still the best defensive Arceus form but I wonder if it deserves to be as high as "mid-A+". (I would also support a Latios increase to A+ for exactly that reason: the ability to heavily pressure the best defogger in the game)

EDIT: Just read haxiom's post. Pressure Giratina-A makes Ho-Oh think twice about clicking Sacred Fire because you lose 2 PP every time (and do very little damage) and Sacred Fires are simply too valuable. That is a HUGE niche satisfied against an S-Rank mon. It probably SHOULD increase in rank.
 
Who is using Arceus-Water as their Latios answer though? They normally have an ok latios switch in in the back in the form of one of the many steel types that are viable that deal with lati and xern and stuff.
 
Nominating Flying Arceus to drop to D rank since it is almost always a waste of an Arceus slot, is almost entirely outclassed by Mega Salamence (the fact that it is a specially offensive Flying-type still kind of sucks when this is such a specially bulky metagame), and, like Dark Arceus, gets decked by Snatch Blissey when it attempts to stallbreak. No thank you. Yes, the Spikes + Toxic Spikes immunity is neat, but it kind of detracts from your bulk when you're taking 25% every switch-in if SR is up (and Dark Arceus doesn't care that much about Toxic Spikes in the first place given that it has Refresh). As it is, it handles Hack stall quite badly anyway when you consider that Tyranitar just laughs at it.

It also loses to the up-and-coming threat Magnezone quite badly unless it is running Earth Power over Refresh (lol).
 
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They are not counters. Arceus Ground risks a burn from Lava Plume and results in a severe lack of defensive synergy, forcing any given team into a rather unreliable route, and Kyogre outright cannot switch in on a Precipice Blades.

Also if you're talking about Judgement Arc-Ground, that set is terrible and loses to so many common things that arguably it being used is a point in Groudon's favour.
 
Here's a new one.

Update List:

Groudon: C+ >> C- (Top of C-)
Giratina: C- >>> C+ (Above Smeargle in C+)
Giratina-O: A- >>> A+ (Below Lugia)
Klefki: A >>> A+ (Bottom of A+)
Arceus-Flying: C- >>> D

Now for a couple things:

Saying a mon should "raise" or "drop" without saying exactly where they should go leaves me in a predicament where I have to place the mon myself somewhere in the area that was mentioned in your posts, which is easy to guess wrong. Be precise or at least acknowledge that if you do not specify, it will be up to myself to place it, which is something that should not have to happen.

Second thing is just a reminder that if there are no counter arguments to a nomination, the fact there there is no council for this thread (not that there should be, this should be mostly run by the community) means that on rare occasions after an update a sudden counter argument against a raise/drop appears. Obviously I can reject the more outlandish nominations such as dropping Primal Groudon or putting Reshiram in A which avoids some of the issue, but I cannot just ignore nominations in updates that I may not agree with personally, else this loses the point of being a community thread. This can be avoided by posting against the nomination while it is up for discussion, that way I don't have to move mons around in a new update just because there was no disagreements the week before. This is mostly aimed at the two new mons added to A+, as there were disagreements re: Klefki before and when mons move around in the higher ranks it tends to come with disagreements. Next update is fine to disagree with stuff in this current update, but now there has been a future warning and there are usually two weeks between updates, there should be no reason for users to suddenly u-turn on a nomination when there can be up to two weeks to do it before. Nominations made close to the end of each cycle will be looked at on a case by case basis. Overwhelming agreement (I do take likes on posts into account) in those 2-3 days = makes next update. Anything else is left to the one after that. Cheers for reading!
 
I think that I'd like to nominate Arceus-Fairy to drop to C or C- rank. I don't see a justifiable reason to run it over Xerneas + another support Arceus that has a better typing for that role. Unless I'm mistaken, Arceus-Fairy also loses to most hazard setters (Primal Groudon, Klefki and Dialga come to mind).
 
nominating klefki to drop to A. While it does provide useful status support, mons it used to cripple and/or check now have ways to deal with it, such as refresh/facade mence and block rest geoxern. Excadrill is also becoming more common, which takes nothing from klef unless it's running Foul Play which is terrible in oras regardless, and can usually get a free rapid spin off. It can also be trapped and neutered by Gengar, which will essentially be rendered useless in the process unless vs stall, and takes next to nothing from PR. In other words, klef usually has to sack itself to check a mon, especially since it doesn't have access to reliable recovery. I don't see how it's ranked higher than rockceus, which offers much more offensive pressure and doesn't give magic bouncers a free switchin. p sure this is obvious to most ppl but esp with pdon so common, most of the time people are clicking spikes or toxic anyway, which can get somewhat predictable. Losing that prediction can render klefki next to useless as a check esp if it's put to sleep or statused, burns just wear it down and paralysis means it won't be able to get off the t-wave 25% of the time
 
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Nayrz said:
Here's a new one.

Update List:

Groudon: C+ >> C- (Top of C-)
Giratina: C- >>> C+ (Above Smeargle in C+)
Giratina-O: A- >>> A+ (Below Lugia)
Klefki: A >>> A+ (Bottom of A+)
Arceus-Flying: C- >>> D

Now for a couple things:

Saying a mon should "raise" or "drop" without saying exactly where they should go leaves me in a predicament where I have to place the mon myself somewhere in the area that was mentioned in your posts, which is easy to guess wrong. Be precise or at least acknowledge that if you do not specify, it will be up to myself to place it, which is something that should not have to happen.

Second thing is just a reminder that if there are no counter arguments to a nomination, the fact there there is no council for this thread (not that there should be, this should be mostly run by the community) means that on rare occasions after an update a sudden counter argument against a raise/drop appears. Obviously I can reject the more outlandish nominations such as dropping Primal Groudon or putting Reshiram in A which avoids some of the issue, but I cannot just ignore nominations in updates that I may not agree with personally, else this loses the point of being a community thread. This can be avoided by posting against the nomination while it is up for discussion, that way I don't have to move mons around in a new update just because there was no disagreements the week before. This is mostly aimed at the two new mons added to A+, as there were disagreements re: Klefki before and when mons move around in the higher ranks it tends to come with disagreements. Next update is fine to disagree with stuff in this current update, but now there has been a future warning and there are usually two weeks between updates, there should be no reason for users to suddenly u-turn on a nomination when there can be up to two weeks to do it before. Nominations made close to the end of each cycle will be looked at on a case by case basis. Overwhelming agreement (I do take likes on posts into account) in those 2-3 days = makes next update. Anything else is left to the one after that. Cheers for reading!
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Could I know why Giratina-O and Klefki rose? I'm just wondering because there was no discussion about it in the thread.
 
migul said:
Could I know why Giratina-O and Klefki rose? I'm just wondering because there was no discussion about it in the thread.
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hyw said:
I don't want to shift discussion too much but Klefki and Giratina-O have been proven to fit a lot easier on teams than other Pokémon in their respective subranks, too, and I think the two deserve to be bumped up a subrank, maybe even two to A+ for Giratina-O. It's true that Klefki is one dimensional but the fact that it so effortlessly keeps so many threats in check, like Darkrai, Xerneas, Mega Salamence, Latios, and Yveltal, leads me to believe that its viability is a notch higher than the likes of the other one dimensional Pokémon in the A rank. Like it's below Latios and Lugia right now and this is a ranking of viability lol.
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Wasn't opposed when it was mentioned so I assumed there was no issues moving them oO
 
Dominatio said:
nominating klefki to drop to A. While it does provide useful status support, mons it used to cripple and/or check now have ways to deal with it, such as refresh/facade mence and block rest geoxern. Excadrill is also becoming more common, which takes nothing from klef unless it's running Foul Play which is terrible in oras regardless, and can usually get a free rapid spin off. It can also be trapped and neutered by Gengar, which will essentially be rendered useless in the process unless vs stall, and takes next to nothing from PR. In other words, klef usually has to sack itself to check a mon, especially since it doesn't have access to reliable recovery. I don't see how it's ranked higher than rockceus, which offers much more offensive pressure and doesn't give magic bouncers a free switchin. p sure this is obvious to most ppl but esp with pdon so common, most of the time people are clicking spikes or toxic anyway, which can get somewhat predictable. Losing that prediction can render klefki next to useless as a check esp if it's put to sleep or statused, burns just wear it down and paralysis means it won't be able to get off the t-wave 25% of the time
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Well I can see where you are coming from but I disagree. I feel the Exca stuff is kinda lame, sand Exca "hype" died hard, and lead Exca has uses but like... It's not much more common anyway? Gengar let's itself get parad and spiked upon if it tried to trap Klefki, which I certainly don't think is a good trade. The thing is that Klefki always does what it is supposed to: being the closest you have to a true Darkrai switch-in, and covering Latios in the process. It is also a crutch vs many more things. Notable weaknesses are of course an issue here but the trade off is in its favor because it always does what it does reliably, and it is very unique in that role. Rockceus comparison seems iffy so I'm not get into that. Anyway, I'm all for Klefki in A+

Anyway, some other opinions:

- I'm honestly not so sure about Lugia in A+, it seems about as splashable as Msab or Latios to me.

- Rockceus down to B+. A-rank is for staple mons in the meta, B have defined niches. I think it's pretty clear to me that Rockceus has a defined niche but it certainly isn't a staple... It is a shitty defoger and the concept of CM just doesn't work.

-Dragceus to A-. Similar but reversed reasoning to above. Arecus-Dragon has an ideal typing for sponging physical attacks in the tier (fire resist and no common weaknesses to physical attacks). Waterceus is overall better because it has less exploitable weaknesses, but Dragceus fits defog easier and has a STAB Judgment vs Pdon.
 
Hack said:
Well I can see where you are coming from but I disagree. I feel the Exca stuff is kinda lame, sand Exca "hype" died hard, and lead Exca has uses but like... It's not much more common anyway? Gengar let's itself get parad and spiked upon if it tried to trap Klefki, which I certainly don't think is a good trade. The thing is that Klefki always does what it is supposed to: being the closest you have to a true Darkrai switch-in, and covering Latios in the process. It is also a crutch vs many more things. Notable weaknesses are of course an issue here but the trade off is in its favor because it always does what it does reliably, and it is very unique in that role. Rockceus comparison seems iffy so I'm not get into that.
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I was basing my info off of February's stats, which ranked exca around 24th while back in December it was 43rd. While this might be a bit outdated, my point was that it's becoming more common, as are other ways to better deal with klefki like resttalk xern. I agree with that it checks Darkrai and lati nicely most of the time, but for the latter that requires you to have a sleep fodder, which could limit teambuilding options. As for the latter, klef takes a huge amount from psyshock and gets 2hkoed by hp fire, yea it can neutralize both but tbh I don't see many people clicking twave, even if said lati or rai is a huge threat, if they see a pdon on the opposing team that could get a free switchin. Then again it'd be pretty iffy to stay in, but my point is it's a bit predictable.
I agree with dropping rockceus, I've honestly never seen it used to defog, it has a niche in checking physical attackers like ekiller and kang, and countering ho-oh and mence, but there are other mons that do this job as well. Likewise I think ghostceus should drop to A-, imo it doesn't check ekiller as well as rockceus and provides little defensive utility other than switching in to normal types as darkrai threatens it out and yveltal hard walls it.
 
agree with lugia dropping. its on the same level as other A mons and mgar being spammed doesnt help it :(


I'd also like to make a couple nominations:

Mega-Gengar to S
this is being spammed atm and one of the the biggest reasons for the less and less usage of stall. its wisp hex protect focus blast set is incredibly good due to being useful against every playstyle and if used correctly, it always does what its supposed to (aka youre getting minimum one kill per game)
it fits on both balance and offense and people are even making use of it in some stall teams recently. removing defoggers while also checking ekiller is just too good. its not even stopped by ttar anymore, as that is just beaten by wisp+focus blast.
and there are even other viable sets like perish trapper gar or 2 attacks + dbond variants. perish song can catch you offguard as you switch hooh in, expecting the wisp set while dbond enables gengar to trade for valuable mons after it already got a kill.
this monster belongs to S, even with the downside of having the little opportunity cost of a mega.

edit: i would rank it above darkrai btw but below it is fine aswell ^^

Bronzong to B+
i was originally gonna nominate aegislash for b- but pomman suggested this change and i agree with it.
bronzongs has a more defined niche than most other B mons, which is why its used more oftenly. it outclasses aegislash most of the time by having access to moves like trick room, stealth rocks and even reflect.
it can compress roles on a team by being a very reliable xern+lati switch that is able to check various other threats (mewtwo, ekiller pdon etc)

Mega-Mewtwo-X to B-
i cannot accept that this mon is in the same rank as mega lucario and mmy.
it suffers 4mss, gets walled by msab and is not particulary good vs any archetype. its niche of checking ekiller is becoming less relevant too, as adamant ekiller became more popular (i dont think its ever been a good check anyway)

i had something else to nominate too but forgot what it was :[
 
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Adding more and more mons to S rank invalidates the rank's purpose. The baseline of comparison has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is S rank. There should be a rule that no more than 5 mons can be in S rank or even no more than 4 since this is the number most VR threads don't exceed.

Since we order this thread by individual mon already, moving Gengar from the top of A+ to the bottom of S doesn't actually do anything other than turn a 5-5 division into a 6-4 division. For the ranks to have any value they either must have near equal distribution or maintain large gaps in viability between them, and I'm not convinced the later is true for this case.
 
Honestly mmx only has its stats going for it, like, its got a useless ability, real bad. Its typing really is quite shit, youre walled by every psychic type and mega memce. It's movepool is also kinda meh, ye you got some nice things but in general you lack a reliable and good fighting move like CC and psychic isnt worth it to run physically. Now what? Eq? Shadow claw c'mon. Being walled by phys def arceus, gira, don, lugia and basically anything fat while alsi la king the coverage to beat something that resisr fighting. If it had clefables stats id be pu/nu
 
idk where people get ideas about Lucario actually having inherent good qualities vs anything but hard stall... Which even then has to be supported correctly break up Lugia/Sab/Waterceus/Groudon. And hit Iron Tails. Yeah HO is probably Lucario's worst match up but by it's not by any means some kind of balance killer just because it actually has a match up it's not outsped by most things and OHKOd by pretty much everything else. MMX is at least faster than OP mon Darkrai, but eh it might or might not be better or worse than Lucario. I think the current rankings for the two are fine.

AllJokesAside said:
Honestly mmx only has its stats going for it, like, its got a useless ability, real bad. Its typing really is quite shit, youre walled by every psychic type and mega memce. It's movepool is also kinda meh, ye you got some nice things but in general you lack a reliable and good fighting move like CC and psychic isnt worth it to run physically. Now what? Eq? Shadow claw c'mon. Being walled by phys def arceus, gira, don, lugia and basically anything fat while alsi la king the coverage to beat something that resisr fighting. If it had clefables stats id be pu/nu
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????

All jokes aside, Chansey should probably be placed on the list? I don't think it's necessarily worse than Blissey. People somehow act like it's still XY around these two, no one runs attacking moves or shed shell on Blissey either so like... Why do we act like it's better vs Shadow Tag (which is the one thing blacklisting Chansey)? Blissey does Snatch better (due to lefties), which is important for stall, but that kinda stall is sadly not as viable as it once was, and after exploring Chansey's options with better physical bulk I can't say that I find it unviable per se. It's definitely not the best mon but eh it's as good as Blissey at the very least.
 
I agree that Chansey should not be blacklisted. I find it ridicoulus that whenever somebody tries to defend Chansey they only receive responses such as Shadow Tag and Pogre. Plus Shadow Tag is not centralizing enough that every Blissey even runs Shed Shell. There is Snatch but it also can be considered a niche. It could even be argued that Chansey walls physical attackers better than Blissey and that not many pokemon run Knock Off in this meta so it can keep it's evoilite. Chansey needs to be seriously discussed instead of being considered a joke everytime it gets mentioned. Chansey is the better blob if you are trying to run a non Snatch or Shed Shell Blob.
 
i agree with lugia to a. tbh lugia only really fits well on stall. a huge problem with running lugia is how u go about checking ghosteus. if u don't run blissey for special variant, u often have to resort to a lugia + ho-oh team, and these are just boned by darkrai hard asf. plus, sd...

also i'd like to nom yveltal to a-. b+ is really underrating it imo. yveltal has a lot of cool options w/ moves like knock off that are now seeing more use (thankfully). it forms a great core with pokes like gar and xern and it has a great defensive niche w/ checking pokes like mewtwo / ghosteus and sucker punch prio is strong af.
 
Although I'm still fairly new to the meta, I feel like Deoxys-S needs to move down to A- and Deoxys-A to A. The reason I think this is because Deoxys-A is able to fill the same roles that Deoxys-S does but only trades off 30 speed for 85 attack and 85 special attack. Yes, it has horrible defenses but in a high power metagame like ubers, I don't think it matters much. Deoxys-S is OHKOed or 2HKOed by almost everything just like Deoxys-A. Another notable trait is that Deoxys-A can be a bit unpredictable since it runs a variety of different moves whereas you always know what deoxys-s is going to do which is try to set up hazards and stop the opponent from doing the same. Anyways, I'd love to hear what the rest of the community thinks since, like I said earlier, I'm still adapting to the metagame.
 
aniravjain said:
Although I'm still fairly new to the meta, I feel like Deoxys-S needs to move down to A- and Deoxys-A to A. The reason I think this is because Deoxys-A is able to fill the same roles that Deoxys-S does but only trades off 30 speed for 85 attack and 85 special attack. Yes, it has horrible defenses but in a high power metagame like ubers, I don't think it matters much. Deoxys-S is OHKOed or 2HKOed by almost everything just like Deoxys-A. Another notable trait is that Deoxys-A can be a bit unpredictable since it runs a variety of different moves whereas you always know what deoxys-s is going to do which is try to set up hazards and stop the opponent from doing the same. Anyways, I'd love to hear what the rest of the community thinks since, like I said earlier, I'm still adapting to the metagame.
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Deo-Attack isnt able to fill the role of Deo-s and visa versa, it fails to get rocks up even with skill swap vs Mega Sableye (dies to fake out + foul play, lacks the bulk to survive hits like deoxys-speed ) rendering it completely useless as a hazards pokemon in this situation. Which is the reason you run Deo-s since you can get hazards up more effectively, Deo-s is probably one of the best leads there is for hyper offense teams, the main reason it is ranked highly in the viability rankings and is the hazards lead for the classic HO, one of the strongest Deo-s Darkrai HO team compositions to exist in the current metagame.

Deo-A has a completely different role and commonly found on teams with a different stealth rock setter such as excadrill and dialga and functions as a fast breaker/revenge killer, the stealth rock set is very matchup dependant and Deo-a has to give up a coverage move for stealth rock and it suffers from 4MSS as it is.

Viability wise, I feel they are fine where they are, especially deoxys-speed
 
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