Politoed

[-Eddie-]

I haven't been following the entry hazard debate too closely, but after skimming a couple articles, it seems like it will be harder than ever to keep hazards on the field. So... maybe Shedinja?

On a slightly less gimmicky note, what about Omastar? If you haven't looked yet, I recommend reading the shell break article. In the rain and after a shell break, it will have 580-ish speed without ANY speed EVs. And I don't think I have to say how powerful +2 SpA Boost AND 115 Base SpA AND rain boost is...

 

[Sapphire Birch]

I'm not even talking about counters! I'm talking about how tyranitar being hella common will slow rain down.

 

[Wishy]

Tell me please how many Surfs and Waterfall can a Tyranitar take from Kingdra, Kabutops, Ludicolo, Qwilfish and many others?
You are saying that every OU team must run Tyranitar in order to beat DrizzleToed based teams and that once it is KOed it's gg for you.

Yeah...Politoed is going to be BL and Tyranitar is going to be everywhere...

Tyranitar is awesome stats, movepool, the whole package. Politoed is fairly "meh" (Sorry Politoed, you're an awesome but your stats aren't that great) in turns of attacking or defending in a prospective OU filled with Pokemon with much better stats. You'd have to play very carefully with Politoed or else he'll be KO'd fast (Same logic applies to Ninetales) and then your opponent is free to swap the weather to something else, etc. I don't see a problem with random support Pokemon carrying stuff like Sunny Day just to cancel a weather out (It's not centralization, it's adaptation).

@Sapphire Birch: Tyranitar doesn't hinder Rain, what are you talking about dude? It can just switch in, take ONE hit and switch out. You lose one Pokémon and the opponent can simply switch in Politoed again, summon infinite Rain and sweep your team. Do you carry Water Absorb Pokémon? How many of them can shrug off Energy Ball from Ludicolo, Draco Meteor from Kingdra, Stone Edge from Kabutops, Explosion from Qwilfish?

?_? Tyranitar does hinder rain...What are you talking about? lol. No active rain = No sweep. Yes you you can switch Politoed back in, but what if I switch Tyranitar into Politoed? TTar will be slower and get Sand up, and Politoed can't do squat with the +SpD boost from Sand nor can he risk trying to attack, or else face TTar's Stone Edge / Crunch. And if he switches, Pursuit will hit him hard and he'll have trouble coming back in.

Yes rain is good, yes Politoed will be useful, but no it's not nearly as WHOAMG as amazing as you try to make it out to be.

 

[Random Rider]

I haven't been following the entry hazard debate too closely, but after skimming a couple articles, it seems like it will be harder than ever to keep hazards on the field. So... maybe Shedinja?

The only thing that weakened entry hazards is that defog clears your opponent's entry hazards now (meaning no more spin blockers) and Stealth Rock is no longer a TM. (meaning no Gen.5 pokemon get it and no pokemon from any Gen with egg moves will have it) Entry Hazards will still be commonly used as far as anyone can tell, especially Stealth Rock. It's just too good.

I'm not even talking about counters! I'm talking about how tyranitar being hella common will slow rain down.

Yes, it certainly will. This August, 18.77% used Tyranitar. That is a lot, but if 81% of teams are getting destroyed by rain, I think that is a problem. Also, just having Tyranitar in no way gaurentees you the win against a rain team, I think the reasons for that are obvious. Furthermore, being forced to use a weather inducer of your own to counter rain is in itself a problem IMO. Even in this Generation's UU, you didn't need to do that and tons of people were still screaming about what a good strategy it was use it, even though it had an effective 7 turns for every use and forced your opponent to have at least one pokemon use the item damp rock and waste a move to help others.

 

[revdjweb]

It's like smogon created the 'support' UBER characteristic for politoad, but in all seriousness, we aren't even going to be able to see if politoad is too good for OU untill after Kyogre has been banned and by that time most teams will prbably already be able to deal with constant rain a little better so that might help politoads chances of staying OU.

Probably teams running both, Politoed as backup weather control. Which means if they both ultimately wind up in the same tier Rain is going to be worse than ever.

 

[Pit[y]Lord]

Politoed cant setup his own SR, so it's either faster rain or faster SR on the field, meaning that Shedinja can be a viable counter to most Swift Swim sweepers.

Some people here say how rain is broken, but fail to notice that Sandstorm is now the ultimate weather. Sandstorm works good with 3 pokemon types instead of the common 2 types that rain synergizes with, many new pokemon have the awesome Sand Throw and Sand Power abilities, making the weather not only good for stall but also for speedy and bulky offense.

If Politoed and Ninetales are to be banned for the abilities, I think Tyranitar and Hippowdon with Sandstream's would have to go also.

 

[Random Rider]

Probably teams running both, Politoed as backup weather control. Which means if they both ultimately wind up in the same tier Rain is going to be worse than ever.

I don't see why you'd run both Kyogre and Politoed on the same team. Sure, there will be plenty of situations where Kyogre will get KOd and your opponent would bring in a weather inducer ending your so-called permanent rain, but at some point you've got to realize you only are allowed to a mere 6 pokemon and have a backup strategy when your opponent is prepared (perhaps overprepared) for rain.

 

[Zoom]

The beauty of infinite rain is that you are not forced to run ~3 Rain Dance users and three HO rain sweepers like in GenIV. You can easily waste your turns and one or two spots to Pokémon that can help to deal with rain's weaknesses.

Furthermore rain gained new Pokémon with Swift Swim and now that rain is infinite you can use rain abusers that aren't water type / don't have Swift Swim or simple: Pokémon that just work in rain.

Anyway, just a list with the new Swift Swim users (Atk/SpA/Spe):

Hide

Gamageroge - Water / Ground
85/85/74

Golduck - Water
82/95/85

Poliwrath - Water / Fighting
85/70/70

Armaldo - Bug/Rock
125/70/45

Abagoora -Water / Rock
108/83/32

Tsunbeaa - Ice
110/70/50

Note that Abagoora and Omastar now have access to Shell Break (+2Atk/+2SpA/+2Spe/-1Def/-1SpDef), what is really decent.
EDIT: Huntail / Gorebyss too thanks to Clamperl prevo.

@Tyranitar
Tyranitar is a big problem for RD teams, while it can't really switch in safely it changes the weather to sand and when your Politoed is dead your sweepers are really mediocre now. Even when Poiltoed is still alive it slows down rain teams.

@Nattorei / Burungero
Yeah, this is a hard duo to deal with HO rain teams. Luckily you are not forced to run only Swift Swim users and the typical rain abusers from last generation. Even when you don't have the right answer to this duo you can try to overpower Nattorei, because it lacks reliable recovery.

However, you can also adapt to this duo. Kabutops can run Low Kick for Nattorei, Poliwrath, Armaldo and Tsunbeaa can overpower Nattorei. As I said before you can use Pokémon that enjoy rain, but are not first choices for RD teams. SD Lucario and SD Scizor can easily wall Nattorei and get a free SD, Magnezone w/ Substitute/Thunder/HP Fighting/filler traps Nattorei and walls it, while it can kill Nattorei and deal heavy damage with HP Fighting to Ttar.

Nattorei and Burungero are good choices for weather control teams by the way and the former is an excellent choice for rain dance teams. Both can work in sand and rain and deal with the weather abusers.

-0²

 

[revdjweb]

I don't see why you'd run both Kyogre and Politoed on the same team. Sure, there will be plenty of situations where Kyogre will get KOd and your opponent would bring in a weather inducer ending your so-called permanent rain, but at some point you've got to realize you only are allowed to a mere 6 pokemon and have a backup strategy when your opponent is prepared (perhaps overprepared) for rain.

i think it allows for more sweep attempts by kyogres. i attempt to sweep with kyogre, you bring in a weather counter. i switch & sacrifice politoed but re-establish rain. now i either bring in the counter to your weather guy (forcing you to switch), i bring in another sweeper (like kingdra, scizor, whomever) or i bring back kyogre & set up with calm mind.

 

[Uncommon Madness]

?_? Tyranitar does hinder rain...What are you talking about? lol. No active rain = No sweep. Yes you you can switch Politoed back in, but what if I switch Tyranitar into Politoed? TTar will be slower and get Sand up, and Politoed can't do squat with the +SpD boost from Sand nor can he risk trying to attack, or else face TTar's Stone Edge / Crunch. And if he switches, Pursuit will hit him hard and he'll have trouble coming back in.

Yes rain is good, yes Politoed will be useful, but no it's not nearly as WHOAMG as amazing as you try to make it out to be.

What are you talking about dude? Tyranitar switches in Kabutops/Qwilfish Waterfall and gets OHKOed or Ludicolo/Kingdra Surf and gets 2HKOed (69% - 82.5% to offensive sets). You don't want to switch in Tyranitar? You lose another Pokémon anyway.. yeah... good job Tyranitar...

And AGAIN, Politoed bulkiness is fine, it doesn't need to remain turns and turns on the field, it just sets up Rain and stays alive. Also if someone really thinks that DD Kingdra or SD Kabutops are mediocre without Rain support he should get out of here.

If you could manage to get at the top of the Standard leaderboard with a Rain Dance team that lacks Drizzle support... everything is possible with a DrizzleToad.
You just need to be a skilled player.

 

[CWW]

No they mean switching into POLITOED which means no speed boost and double STAB.

 

[Not Scicky]

Yeah Tyranitar can switch into Ninetales and Politoed with no care in the world and threaten to absolutely wreck them.

But max SpAtk Politoed can do 87.7% - 104.1% to Tyranitar with Focus Blast, and he always get's Hypnosis so he could run a wide lens set. :C

 

[Darkmafagafo]

Meh just play serious and you'll see rain wont be that game breaking. I mean its not only politoed who got its new toy, if u wanna kill rain you just need running a SINGLE counter to it and boom rains gone. There are many pokes that can arguably counter rain back, if you guys are really scared about rain just put a max speed jolly cb kingdra in ur team and spam outrage. Scarf a Jolteon and put thunder on him.
Personally i dont see rain being much of an issue in a stabilished metagame. Of course its good but in like 15 weeks we'll only get to see things like jolteon, cacturne(SD + SP and now gets water absorb), tyranitar and water absorb/storm drain stuff in top usage due rain

 

[DrLemure]

While Politoed isn't the greatest when comparing his stats to other weather inducers, the issue is that water is the dominant type when weather comes to mind. Water has supereffective hits on Fire, Rock and Ground while dealing neutral damage to Steel and Ice types (reduced in the case of Ice/Water and Aboma). :/

Politoed can don the powerful Focus Blast which (with max SpAtk) can render a 2HKO on a max HP/SpDef Tyranitar. And after entry hazards OHKO a Tyranitar w/o any HP/SpDef investment. Just for kicks I ran the calcs on a max Atk Politoed @ Choice Band using Brick Break vs a 0 HP/Def Tyranitar, clean OHKO. Or rather than run CB, it will Belly Drum on the switch and maim you. Looks like Tyran might get bulkier? :P

I really fear the implications Drizzletoed will have in Doubles/Triples, where rain sweeps are common due to Surf hitting everything. There's also possibility that Politoed can just protect or swap to a Water Absorber while its Kingdra companion wipes the opposing team off the battlefield. There's no stalling out of it like you might try with Trick Room or the rare Tailwind. You have to have either a damn good water type stopper or a weather inducer that will benefit your team. Or both.

But yeah, no metagame yet, so we'll see how this turns out.

 

[Scorekeeper]

Ttar can't take two hits from LO Kingdra's Waterfall.

 

[Lee]

Hi guys, some nice discussion going on here and everything but can I remind you of two things.

- Please, please don't start condemning things as Uber before you've even played the game.

- This is a Politoed discussion. Not a Rain Dance discussion. If you'd like to continue discussing Rain, please take it to the dedicated Weather thread here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79005.

 

[Wishy]

What are you talking about dude? Tyranitar switches in Kabutops/Qwilfish Waterfall and gets OHKOed or Ludicolo/Kingdra Surf and gets 2HKOed (69% - 82.5% to offensive sets). You don't want to switch in Tyranitar? You lose another Pokémon anyway.. yeah... good job Tyranitar...

And AGAIN, Politoed bulkiness is fine, it doesn't need to remain turns and turns on the field, it just sets up Rain and stays alive. Also if someone really thinks that DD Kingdra or SD Kabutops are mediocre without Rain support he should get out of here.

If you could manage to get at the top of the Standard leaderboard with a Rain Dance team that lacks Drizzle support... everything is possible with a DrizzleToad.
You just need to be a skilled player.

!_! man did you even read my post, I said Tyranitar switching into Politoed. And say x Rain Dancer KO's y Pokemon, oh look TTar gets a free switch in to change the weather and then you can switch him out and what not.

@Bold: If everyone starts packing anti-rain-[/sun] then Politoed will have to continuously come in and out to reset the weather. He's going to take a beating trying to get it and yeah, his bulk is good but it's not great.

Politoed is happy that he has Focus Blast. Do Swimming Goggles exist or not? I heard they don't, but people are still saying they do. If they do He can run Focus Blast / Hypnosis / Hydro Pump / something to max up for lack of high base stat power, and the speed and acc boost.

 

[Mastadi]

Wouldn't a set like this work?:

Politoed @ Muscle Band/Life Orb
Hasty
252 Attack/4 Sp.Attack/252 Speed
Brick Break
Earthquake
Hydro Pump
Substitute/Hypnosis/Encore

This is a very specific set, made specifically to deal with all the other currently OU (or lower) auto weather set uppers.
Brick Break is there for Tyranitar and Abomasnow, which are both promptly outsped (aside from scarf sets) and 2HKO'd. Hydro Pump hits Hippowdon's weaker defense, although a 252/252 spread has a shot at not being 2HKO'd, unless rocks are in play. Earthquake is there for Ninetales, who is OHKO'd most of the time with rocks in play (73.9% - 87.1%). I would recommend Substitute in the last slot, primarily for scouting for alternative counters and scarf on TTar/Abomasnow, however, if you feel like it, you can either use hypnosis or encore, both of which prevent Politoed from being a set up fodder, as aside from the other weather set-uppers and a few similar pokemon, it cannot do much to most opponents in standard play. Life Orb is an alternative to muscle band, which ensures the OHKO on Ninetales (87.1% - 103.1%) as well as non-SR'd 252/252 Hippo. However, if you decide to use LO, it is recommended that you either use Hypnosis/Encore in the last slot or have wish support from your team mates (or both).

Also, stop saying about him being too weak to abuse Drizzle. While we don't know exactly how powerful rain will be in 5th gen (although there's not much evidence to prove it will significantly weaker), Drizzle (alongside with Drought) was found to be a very, very potent ability, even on a pretty much useless otherwise level 1 Kyogre

 

[XxSaiyanxLordxX]

you should just call this thread "drizzle in ou" considering that a lot of people don't know of politoeds dream world ability yet also thats what this thread is about.

Politoed of course will generate a lot more rain dance teams just as droughTales will do for sunny day teams. I never really liked going against either one, I just built a team with ttar on it though so he will help a lot against weather teams.

 

[norelationstojfk]

Wouldn't a set like this work?:

Politoed @ Muscle Band/Life Orb
252 Attack/4 Sp.Attack/252 Speed
Brick Break
Earthquake
Hydro Pump
Substitute/Hypnosis/Encore

This is a very specific set, made specifically to deal with all the other currently OU (or lower) auto weather set uppers.
Brick Break is there for Tyranitar and Abomasnow, which are both promptly outsped (aside from scarf sets) and 2HKO'd. Hydro Pump hits Hippowdon's weaker defense, although a 252/252 spread has a shot at not being 2HKO'd, unless rocks are in play. Earthquake is there for Ninetales, who is OHKO'd most of the time with rocks in play (73.9% - 87.1%). I would recommend Substitute in the last slot, primarily for scouting for alternative counters and scarf on TTar/Abomasnow, however, if you feel like it, you can either use hypnosis or encore, both of which prevent Politoed from being a set up fodder, as aside from the other weather set-uppers and a few similar pokemon, it cannot do much to most opponents in standard play. Life Orb is an alternative to muscle band, which ensures the OHKO on Ninetales (87.1% - 103.1%) as well as non-SR'd 252/252 Hippo. However, if you decide to use LO, it is recommended that you either use Hypnosis/Encore in the last slot or have wish support from your team mates (or both).

Also, stop saying about him being too weak to abuse Drizzle. While we don't know exactly how powerful rain will be in 5th gen (although there's not much evidence to prove it will significantly weaker), Drizzle (alongside with Drought) was found to be a very, very potent ability, even on a pretty much useless otherwise level 1 Kyogre

I dunno about that set, considering Politoed gets Focus Blast, and Ninetales is weak to water moves anyway. I can see the merit of this set when the weather is not in your favor, though. Adding to the original post, along with some editing of the text to further respect the Mod's wishes.

 

[Upstart]

I think that a bulky rest sleep talk set is should be put in the first post just to keep rain on the field.

 

[norelationstojfk]

I think that a bulky rest sleep talk set is should be put in the first post just to keep rain on the field.

Right, will do that too :)

 

[Mastadi]

I knew I forgot something... changed the nature to hasty on the Anti-Weather Toad, lol... it needs it to outspeed Jolly Tyranitar while still achieving the KO's I've mentioned

Sorry for the inconvenience :(

 

[Thorhammer]

The only thing that weakened entry hazards is that defog clears your opponent's entry hazards now (meaning no more spin blockers) and Stealth Rock is no longer a TM. (meaning no Gen.5 pokemon get it and no pokemon from any Gen with egg moves will have it) Entry Hazards will still be commonly used as far as anyone can tell, especially Stealth Rock. It's just too good.

Defog does not clear away entry hazards set by your opponent.

 

[norelationstojfk]

I knew I forgot something... changed the nature to hasty on the Anti-Weather Toad, lol... it needs it to outspeed Jolly Tyranitar while still achieving the KO's I've mentioned

Sorry for the inconvenience :(

NP, will change that now :)