OU RBY OU Viability Ranking (2013 to 2016)

[shrapn3l]

chansey is literally not at all what makes rby rby. it doesn't really change the type of offense people use, because the special hits it tanks are mostly initial psychics and water/ice types, and gengar but gengar aint shit and you can wall it with plenty of stuff. electrics are walled better by ground types... basically, you can do the same job defensively without using anything extraordinary. and physical attackers are good regardless of chansey being around. chansey is good because it can tank a lot of hits and can absorb para and freeze stuff, and it beats starmie. if anything, i would say chansey is used often because starmie is very good??? if i didn't have to worry about starmie i would absolutely never use chansey because it's lame and can be a sitting duck sometimes. but what's important is you don't HAVE to use chansey to beat starmie, it's just obviously the best bet. but the fact that chansey so dominates starmie also bumps starmie down to B for me because chansey is easy as hell to slap onto a team and everyone does it (lame, lazy, foolish, etc.)

and tauros and snorlax are kinda incredible regardless of what you throw at them. i think snorlax being as good as tauros is debatable (but tauros has the infamous speed and crit rate pushing it) but chansey is far from rank S and has been a lil overrated in rby in this way for like forever, and i don't get it honestly!

 

[Dre89]

Shrapnel touched on something I was going to say.

Chansey is an anti-meta pokemon. It's good because of the dominance of special types. In fact that's why it initially become popular, to counter starmie, who was apparently considered a massive threat at the time. Chansey will suck against a more physical oriented team.

Tauros and lax are not meta-dependent pokemon. They're not very dependent on what the opponent uses to be threatening. Wrappers to a lesser degree are like this too, as they 'threaten' every switch-in in the game if you include chain-switching.

Naturally, non meta-dependent pokemon should be ranked higher. If for example people started shifting towards physical-oriented offensive wrap teams that forgo the defensive security that special pokemon offer, then chansey would be UU at best.

In terms of tauros vs lax, I think lax is better. Tauros can't realisticlally take out 4-6 healthy pokemon, whereas certain lax sets can if the opponent doesn't have its counters or they've been removed. The other thing too is that snorlax has a lot more versatilty, both in strategy and in moveslots, to the point where certain lax sets counter other lax sets.

The thing about zam is that it shouldn't be taking paralysis unless it is running reflect. Stoss is for leadzams who wish to take sleep. Reflect is for zams who wish to accept paralysis mid-game in order to spread paralysis around on their team, or to be saved as a late-game sweeper when their specials are down. Stoss can be run on mid-game zam to try and outright KO specials, but I don't that's too risky/improbable.

Not saying zam is definitely better, but zam offers things chansey doesn't even when it is paralysed. The two main things being that it deters physical switch ins, and that unlike chansey, it can spread paralysis to multiple specials by forcing the other chansey out even if it is paralysed.

 

[Mr.E]

Rhydon is mediocre at best and Golem is just a shitty version of Rhydon that outspeeds it and has Explosion (which is not THAT good in RBY like it is in GSC). They only exist in OU to hedge against the possibility of enemy Zapdos. Otherwise, if you're gonna get 2HKOed by everything you may as well just use Persian/Dodrio who hit hard but aren't slow, Sandslash who keeps the T-Wave immunity but with SD and better Speed, Gengar for Normal immunity and Explosion. tl;dr absolutely don't move them up

On that note, Sandslash is pretty comparable and probably better overall. The lack of Normal resistance isn't a big deal considering all the OU Normals 2HKO Golem/Rhydon with special coverage moves anyway (Snorlax OHKOs with Surf and Chansey isn't using Normal attacks at all). It cleans up better due to Swords Dance and naturally outspeeds Chansey/Eggy. The reason why it's a very distant third in usage compared to Goldon is lack of Flying resist and Rock STAB for Zapdos.

JORGEN MY LIST (totally intentionally *cough*) HAS MORE MONS IN LOWER TIERS !!! What does Gyarados do though? It's almost like Arcanine with a better typing, or Dragonite without Wrap.

Raichu's niche sucks because it doesn't hit hard enough, it isn't fast enough, it's too frail to compete with your everyday OU mon. Yeah cool Rhylem (mixing it up yo) doesn't counter it, too bad it loses to everything else. Its physical side doesn't have the STAB of Zapdos or the type coverage of Jolteon, its Special is too low to threaten everything else with its Tbolt.

also Snorlax is good but I don't really understand why everyone is all over his nuts

Wrap is only considered a niche because it hasn't been played much due to either being banned or it not working properly on the simulators. If both of those issues were removed, wrap would've been far more popular and more than just a niche. Bel, cloyster and dragonite are easily on par with pokemon like starmie and zam, they just offer so much control and pressure. I don't understand how something that many people deemed ban-worthy could only be C tier.

I won't be sucked into this Wrap bullshit again but suffice to say, Wrap just isn't good enough to turn otherwise mediocre mons into top-tier threats. I mean yeah, Wrap Tauros would be fucking nuts but Tauros doesn't get it! The only ones that do are mons you would NEVER EVER USE WITHOUT IT. (Well, Victreebel is still fringe playable.) Wrap is strong enough to make them usable but I don't exactly see too many serious Onix users.

I don't pay attention to what "many people" think. "Many people" is the reason Kyurem-B, a 700 BST Dragon, is OU but one form of every genie is banned in current Gen 5 OU. "Many people" use Donphan and Tentacruel more than said dragon. "Many people" are morons.

 

[Jorgen]

JORGEN MY LIST (totally intentionally *cough*) HAS MORE MONS IN LOWER TIERS !!! What does Gyarados do though? It's almost like Arcanine with a better typing, or Dragonite without Wrap.

It's got Starmie-esque Special-attacking prowess and coverage in addition to a powerful (if non-STAB) Body Slam and Hyper Beam for making Chansey shake in its boots. It gets in scot-free on Earthquakes, too, so it's not like it'll never get a chance to do its damage. It's better than something stupid like Mixed Dnite, too, because it gets STAB HPump for wrecking the Physical Normals and Gengar, and of course is better than Arcanine because its attacking stats are better, its typing is better, and it has a much better movepool. The Tbolt weakness does make it tough to keep in for more than one turn, though.

You're probably right about Gyarados, though, idk. I feel like it's just in an awkward place. It seems better than other D-tier stuff like Dodrio because it's neither frail nor hopelessly hardwalled by something, but then again it's probably not quite as good as other C-mons.

 

[Dre89]

Rhydon is better in wrap, where he is actually useful defensively outside of walling zapdos, and becomes a much bigger threat offensively due to being able to get in for free. Golem less so because you generally don't want to boom your rock until you know they don't have dragonite.

The thing about sandslash though is that it still goes down to 2-3 hits from every pokemon, but doesn't wall as much stuff. I think apart from surf, it still goes down to every special attack that matters in the same amount of turns as the rocks. It's also less threatening offensively, as it can't 2HKO chansey without SD, and doesn't boom. You're going to need to be incredibly lucky to pull off an SD sweep.

The thing about wrappers is that they make their teammates a lot better. They're 'support' or 'utility' pokemon, in that they won't win you the battle themselves, but they allow their teammates to do it.

 

[magic9mushroom]

The thing about wrappers is that they make their teammates a lot better. They're 'support' or 'utility' pokemon, in that they won't win you the battle themselves, but they allow their teammates to do it.

They're boringers, that's what they are!

(cookie for the ref)

 

[Jorgen]

The idea with Sandslash is that it outspeeds Egg. That being said, it does tend to compete with Rocks for a spot on a team, and by-and-large the Rocks will do a better job both offensively and defensively. Meanwhile, Kingler gets Water STAB to threaten an OHKO on Rocks and therefore set up for free against them, lack of Ice weakness and Crabhammer to better fight Tauros, and a +2 Hyper Beam that straight OHKOs Chansey, all at the cost of struggling against Gengar, who isn't super common and takes quite a bit from Crabhammer on the switch anyway. Thus, I think Kingler in D and Sandslash in E is fine even though they work on a similar premise.

 

[magic9mushroom]

If only Kingler didn't get obliterated by special attacks, it'd be awesome. :(

 

[Dre89]

Thing is though, kingler's main counter, starmie, is cockblocked by a pokemon that is likely to be on your team. Eggy is probably the next biggest problem, but by the time you show kingler eggy probably would have already boomed or been severely crippled. Lapras and gengar are problems too, but similar logic applies.

The thing about these niche end-game sweepers is that they need to have good match-ups with tauros and lax if they want to be viable at all. Sandslash loses to tauros pretty easily. He's probably better against lax, but I don't really know that match-up.

 

[Omanyte]

Zapdos, Lapras and Gengar are all better counters to Kingler than Eggy.

 

[Celever]

I thought Golduck was amazing with Amnesia in this gen? Why is it in e?

 

[magic9mushroom]

I thought Golduck was amazing with Amnesia in this gen? Why is it in e?

Slowbro does it better, because Slowbro's so physically bulky and it has the all-important Psychic type.

Psychic type matters a lot to an Amnesia user because it's the only way to resist the move Psychic, and specifically Starmie's and Alakazam's STAB Psychic. Because of their blistering Speed stats, they've got very high chances to score a crit and hit for massive damage despite Amnesia - and they've both got Recover, so they're rather resilient and difficult to remove. It gets even harder to remove them if they are spamming Psychic, because Psychic's 30% chance to cause a Special fall can potentially undo some of your setup.

 

[Jorgen]

Yeah Golduck isn't that amazing. Slowbro's better at setting up because of its bulk, Psychic Resistance, and access to Thunder Wave, whereas Golduck needs to try to find a way to use its Speed advantage over Slowbro, which is a weaker advantage when you consider that Golduck's Speed is still kind of mediocre.

Being in E tier among the "unmentionables" is probably a bit low though. In theory it should be pretty decent, definitely able to at least keep up with the likes of Dodrio and Kingler in D Tier. My guess is just that it isn't as fun a gimmick to use as those two (Golduck is basically just Slowbro with middling Speed, sans physical bulk and other minor features), so Golduck just gets forgotten about.

 

[Dre89]

And also the speed becomes virtually irrelevant once it sets up because it'll likely get paralysed.

Poliwrath at least has gimmicks that differentiate it from slowbro other than being faster than it, and I'd argue that its best set doesn't even use amnesia.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Didnt read this whole thread, but it kinda blew my mind that I actually agreed with just about everything in the OP.

The quibbles I have is sandslash should go up, dugtrio should go down, and I didnt see victreebel, which means if it is there it is in the wrong place.

Hmm.. Ok, I take it back. I think I somehow completely overlooked the C rank.. Yeah, Gyarados is definitely in the wrong place, and a few things are in the wrong place by some distance (like sandslash).

 

[Dre89]

Yeah B and C are really messed up IMO. The wrappers and persian are a tier above the likes of articuno, jolteon and gengar, and gyarados belongs down with the likes of clefable, venusair dugtrio etc.

Honestly kingler may even be better than gyarados, but it could just be an apples or oranges thing.

 

[Jorgen]

Didnt read this whole thread, but it kinda blew my mind that I actually agreed with just about everything in the OP.

The quibbles I have is sandslash should go up, dugtrio should go down, and I didnt see victreebel, which means if it is there it is in the wrong place.

Hmm.. Ok, I take it back. I think I somehow completely overlooked the C rank.. Yeah, Gyarados is definitely in the wrong place, and a few things are in the wrong place by some distance (like sandslash).

Yeah, I think it's fair to move Gyara back down to D. A couple people have expressed doubt at this point, and I myself, while advocating for C, recognized it's a step below the other C-mons.

Sandslash could probably be moved up to D as well, a few players have advocated for him to be higher as well. I'd hesitate to move it all the way to C, since it misses out on defensive advantages of the Rock typing from the Pokemon it generally replaces, and doesn't have the instant power that Golem/Rhydon have, which can be a problem for a Pokemon that will often be forced out by an obvious Ice weakness. In theory, Sandslash's Twave immunity, higher Speed than Exeggutor, and STAB EQ should make it a very dangerous Swords Dancer, especially in the late game with paralysis support (although what attacker wouldn't be threatening in that situation?), but I fear that in practice, Pokemon that need a turn to set up and aren't named Slowbro tend to fall flat in RBY OU.

Also Dre you're abnormally high on Wrap and abnormally low on Gengar. I understand the foundation of your positions, but until somebody else concurs with those changes, I'd say that those Pokemon are exactly where they should be right now.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Sorry I haven't been more active in this thread as of late, I have been on vacation and kind of forgot about it.

Anyway, moving Gyarados down and Sandslash up to D.

Idk about Dragonite, Victrebel, Cloyster, they are pretty borderline to me, at the moment I think they are fine, being kind of the higher end of C, depending on how we treat B, C, and D, or if they get more support, I might start moving them up, particularly Dragonite.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Well, the main issues with Sandslash are that 1) it comes in on fuckall apart from Jolteon (which is hardly common) as most things 2HKO or 3HKO it, 2) once it does come in, it's countered by Tauros, Exeggutor, Starmie, Dragonite, Lapras, and even Jynx. Using Swords Dance means it can't hit-and-run, and if it does hit-and-run it's almost strictly inferior to the Rocks (except when facing them directly) because it doesn't resist Normal, it's got less bulk, and it doesn't hit as hard.

Slowbro's good because it's incredibly physically bulky, and also incredibly specially bulky once it's used Amnesia (its typing also helps on the special side, with resistances to Ice and Psychic), so that there's several OU pokemon that are total setup bait (Jynx, Alakazam, and any Starmie/Chansey/Lapras without super-effective moves; Exeggutor, Cloyster, and Snorlax are forced to Explode), and also a relative dearth of effective counters (Victreebel and Slowbro itself with Withdraw are the most reliable; Starmie's the best at rolling the dice with Thunderbolt but most things don't have good odds).

I suppose the thing about setup in RBY is that a) it's too bulky of a meta for "1 turn setup + sweep" to work the way it does in 4th/5th gen, but also b) it's not bulky enough (no Leftovers yet, no Sleep Talk yet, no non-Ubers get Recover + setup moves) for the "setup + recovery" model that's huge in GSC - the exception to (b) being Slowbro because of its immensely bulky stats and typing and Amnesia being just that good.

 

[Jorgen]

Well, Sandslash can tank Snorlax Body Slams better than Exeggutor, and of course can tank an EQ and threaten to OHKO Rocks in return. Sandslash isn't setting up for free, but there's more than just Jolteon against which it can set up. I think D is a perfectly fine place for it.

Wrappers in C is fine by me as well, it reflects the inconsistency of Wrapping very well. By using (a) Wrapper(s), you're sacrificing defense in some area (unless you're using Cloyster, who's not really too much of a threat in its own right), all for a strategy that works splendidly most of the time but has a significant chance of catastrophic failure.

 

[Dre89]

Jorgen- The reason why I'm higher on wrappers is that I'm probably the only person here who has not only used wrap extensively, but used the same team more or less for an extended period of months. This means I probably (key word, probably) understand the tactical and mechanical intricacies of wrap more than other people, and what to do in X situation etc. Just from speaking to people, or in many cases having people 'speak' at me (putting it mildly there), I can tell most people don't really understand wrap. Most people's conception of wrap is to just paralyse things and just wrap them to death, and I think anyone whos understanding of it is that simple shouldn't have any say in wrap-related discussion.

The reason why I'm abnormally low on gengar is just because it's a bad pokemon. On paper it counters my two favourite strategies, wrap and GSClax, yet I don't fear it because it simply isn't good and I play around it all the time. Outside of explosion, it doesn't have the stats to threaten the majority of the meta unless it gets cray hax, and it is poor defensively. Really, it's main problem is that its risk-reward system is negative for the most part (key word, 'most', I know catching explosion is huge) and just isn't consistent. As I've said before, it can be good for countering teams you know of in advance, but when you're playing blindly it's not a good pick.

 

[Royal Flush]

Did a quick read and I'd say Zam deserves S rank. Aside from this I'm pretty ok with the OP.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Well, I suppose it's true that every team has to run Slowbro or 2 Psychic resists (Chansey counts as one for this purpose) to be safe from a ReflectZam sweep, but on the other hand Psychic's such a dominant type in RBY that Psychic resists are pretty much everywhere anyway. The other thing is that, even behind Reflect, Zam isn't particularly safe, because crits are everywhere.

 

[Dre89]

I used to think zam was crap, but I now think it is probably second or third best pokemon in OU, depending on what your criteria for best is. It's just so versatile. It's probably the best lead and sleep absorber in the game (they go hand-in-hand really). It's one of the best paralysis spreaders in the game, one of the best stallers, one of the best anti-wrap measures, can function as a part-time special wall and can also be one of the most threatening sweepers depending on moveset and team strategy.

If you value consistency or versatility, then it's better than tauros. If you value just sheer threat-potential more than consistency, then lax and tauros are better.

 

[Jorgen]

Alakazam is fine in A tier. It's got a lot going for it and it's easy to just slap on a team much like the other A tier mons, but it's also flawed in that it's consistently stallable or consistently Normal bait depending on whether it runs Reflect or not. Tauros being put on the S tier pedestal above the rest works because, let's face it, no game is over until the bull is dead.