RU Stage 6 - np: Renegade

[Oglemi]

And with that I think we can claim that RU is balanced! At least for the most part anyway.....

With the votes, Durant is now banned from standard RU play, while Sharpedo still swims the dangerous waters of RU.

With the introduction of the RU Senate, there will be no deadline for this stage. This stage will simply end when the tier shifts occur, or when major metagame shifts happen due to the introduction of a DW Pokemon.

Keep the discussion civil and pertinent to the metagame!

Also, don't forget to come hang out in #rarelyused and participate in zdrup's #rarelyused challenges.

 

[Cherub Agent]

ah, so Durant was banned. I was initially against it, but in a way I'm glad; it's one less dangerous threat that doesn't need to be prepared for.
Off to build my Archeops and Carracosta team

 

[Steamroll]

[youtube]ZXhuso4OTG4[/youtube]

it was originally going to be this because we're now stuck with a black-water pokemon or this because it relates to Durant, but either way I got to choose the name ^_^.

I'm really looking forward to get back into the tier now, I don't see the harm in banning something that destroys the most physically defensive of mons and forces everyone to pack a Steelix of all things @_@. Looking forward to Durant weak mons making a nice rise in usage again and I'm really going to enjoy spamming Choice Specs Leaf Storms from Rotom-C and also trying my luck with Eggy in the tier, who's even more deadly with those insane looking glasses strapped on.

 

[BLINGAS]

I like that song steamrolla

Steelix shall still reign.

Also fuck Earthquake Sharpedo and max speed clefable

 

[November Blue]

Wow, Spiritomb is really annoying. I'm seeing so much of that Pursuit / Sucker Punch / Shadow Sneak / Will-O-Wisp or Trick set, and it's really good. Double STAB priority is more powerful than I thought (base 92 Attack), and the lack of weaknesses plus two immunities and good bulk are great for a Choice Bander.

How commonly does Foresight Hitmonchan check Spiritomb? I haven't seen any yet.

 

[complete legitimacy]

I used Choice Band Spiritomb at the end of last stage, and it's really good at its job of trapping Ghosts. If you bring it in on something like Rotom or Golurk, they will both 2HKO, and they outspeed. Since they think that you don't have another switch-in (which I usually don't), they'll go for the second attack. They then die to Sucker Punch, and Spiritomb sticks around to revenge kill something else.

Also, absolutely nobody uses Foresight Hitmonchan, since it's really not that good. It lacks the power for an offensive spinner, and Mach Punch is way too good to lose. Ice Punch gives it crucial coverage against Gligar and Roselia, the latter not even expecting it. I can't tell you how many times Roselia have come in try and wall it, only to die to Ice Punch.

 

[November Blue]

I thought so. Foresight feels so unwieldy.

Anyway, with Durant banned, I can see Rotom-C being extremely useful. Timid Choice Scarf sets outspeed almost everything, and can check dangerous stuff like the Shell Smashers, Aerodactyl, and ... well, almost everything really. Oh, +1 Sharpedo too!

Volt Switch Leaf Storm and Trick are all great moves, and Rotom-C has a super effective hit on so many Pokemon. Trick handles walls, obviously.

What about the fourth slot though? I tried Hidden Power Fire, but it was too weak, and I never found myself using it. Toxic is working well so far, but maybe something like Pain Split would work, kinda like the ChestoRest set?

EDIT: My point was that with Durant banned, Non-Scarf variants of Rotom-C will be really viable now.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

I always used WoW, to keep all around utility after Trick

 

[Pearl]

Yeah, RU is near perfect now IMO. While there's nothing overly powerful, we still have some offensive presence in form of Sharpedo, Rotom-C and others. Oh, and speaking about Rotom-C: I really want to try Choice Specs Rotom-C (or even Expert Belt)! There's still some stuff that has the potential to be broken, but lets just give them time to adapt. I'll try to do my best on RU senate.

 

[MegaKick]

epic song

anyway, are the mass amounts of fighting types in the tier that are becoming common (everything from medicham to hitmonchan to primeape) going to drop now because steelix/magneton/steel types aren't on every team, or are they going to rise because durant doesnt threaten to bowl them over anymore? Cause I was gonna start using golbat and exeggutor for the #RU challenge but if fighters are going down...

 

[November Blue]

Wait, Medicham is in RU?! I could have sworn it moved up to UU. Wow. Why don't I ever see it? Some guy was using Sawk earlier.

Rotom-C does have a few good resistances, and I think that a set I liked using with Rotom-W might work for it:

Rotom-C @ Choice Specs
Modest
252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA

Leaf Storm
Volt Switch
Trick
Will-O-Wisp

It has an amazing combination of bulk, utility, and power. Some extra Speed might be useful, but this is just the basic set. With Durant banished this is much more viable.

 

[spuds4ever]

I think durant's ban is being overstated. While, yes, he was a huge potential threat to the meta, he wasn't being used much. It wasn't that common when we had the "oh, crap" moment when we saw him in the team preview to be honest. He still sat at a lowly 28 in the january usage stats.

I think the largest change will be that steelix will be majorly neglected, and tangrowth will dominate the physical walling department along with his bestest buddy, slowking, making the regenarator duo a fearsome defensive core that will be causing a lot of frustration I think. Shame really, I always loved steelix, much more than the green tangle of noodles that calls itself a good pokemon :/. Gligar may be get some usage, though, to hard counter the fighting types.

I think this round will be quite a lot more of the same, largely, though.

 

[MegaKick]

Do I need to quote the usage does not determine banlists thing? After all, when wobbufet was in gen4 ou it was like #60 in usage, but I don't think anyone will argue it wasnt completely broken.
N_B, as for medicham, it's listed as RU on it's strategy dex page, although I haven't a lot for some reason. And yeah, I saw a sawk earlier to, probably the same guy considering sawk is completely outclassed.
I've been having a lot of succes with spiritomb, both the choice band priority version and a bulky version with pain split/WoW/dark pulse/hp:fighting. He just stops half the metagame in their tracks.
Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, hone claws aerodactyl is awesome with that stonequake and aqua tail for claydol. I also saw someone using a subroost protect pressure staller that was surprisingly effective, it stalled my claydol out of ice beams, turning it into complete setup bait for anything that wasnt hit by earth power.
Oh and with the dropping number of steels in the tier, entei's CB e-speed is becoming that much more awesome

 

[DTC]

So Durant was banned. I'm interested to see what changes in the tier because of its banning. I predict that balanced teams will start seeing more use as they now don't have to worry about packing a Choice Scarf user or Steelix/Magneton/Poliwrath. Speaking of Magneton, I think that its usage will dramatically fall. It isn't that useful outside of trapping steels, most of which can threaten Magneton. It can mess up Regenerator cores (Slowking / Tangrowth / Audino) with a SubCharge set which is pretty interesting, though.

I'm interested to see what will become of Sharpedo. Sharpedo likes balanced teams, especially if they carry Slowking / Tangrowth, however it's just not strong enough to KO things without entry hazards, so its restricted to late-game sweeping unless it manages to come in against something using Psychic or setting up hazards. It also eats up offense teams without priority, but most are carrying a ton of priority these days, so Sharpedo might be restricted to luring priority attacks than switching to NP TR Cofagrigus to abuse them until late-game. Moltres is still really threatening. If more balanced/stall teams start appearing, SubRoost Moltres will be a lot more effective, and I'm interested to see how people deal with that variant of Moltres. Moltres is incredibly annoying to beat if SR isn't up.

For anyone participating in zdrup's RU challenge, what do you think of your dark horse Pokemon? Are they useful? Would you use them on other teams? Right now I'm looking into Torterra; it's very versatile and I'm sure Choice Band and Rock Polish Torterra can be effective. It's also an impressive tank and has dual screens, so it should be interesting to use. I wonder why it's all the way down in NU, but honestly I'd rather it stay there. xD

Also, Medicham is quite effective! Choice Band Medicham does incredible damage to almost everything; however, it's quite slow, so Choice Scarf is usually better. It still hits pretty hard without a Choice Band.

 

[Sabinfrost]

I've become so used to seeing the big threats of the tier such as Sharpedo and Sceptile they hardly register anymore. The tier has quite a few good physical walls like Confagrius able to shut them down physical sweepers like Sceptile.

The only Pokemon which has me scratching my head a bit is Sharpedo, the mixed set has never felt like an RU Pokemon to me and it gets decently represented in higher tiers (just not enough to move it by default). I'm not certain it's broken, but it's my suspect no.1 in a relatively balanced tier.

 

[spuds4ever]

Do I need to quote the usage does not determine banlists thing? After all, when wobbufet was in gen4 ou it was like #60 in usage, but I don't think anyone will argue it wasnt completely

I didn't say it wasn't broken, I just said it won't have a huge effect on the meta game as it wasn't being used much, whether it was broken or not. It wasn't common enough to drastically change the way teams were being played was the point I was making.

@DTC, in my short experience of using torterra in RU, I found that choice band sets were more effective than rock polish sets seeing as there are still quite a lot of stuff that can tank his hits fairly well, wasting his RP boost.

@sabin, you're not the only one scratching your head, which is why he was suspect before this round. Sceptile is more dangerous though, in my opinion, dispatching pretty much everything with relative ease using his very hard hitting special attacks and can sweep late game arguably better than sharpedo with unburden. I think these are the two reasons why teams pack a lot of priority (especially offensive ones), I don't know if it's very healthy for the meta-game...

 

[A Fhaol Bhig]

Choice Band Bravairy has been a godsend to my team in smashing through pretty much everything. Does anyone else have experience with him? If so what did you use him for, or seen him used for? I've seen lots of scarfed ones.

 

[spuds4ever]

*spuds Do you even think before you post? I hardly think your team applies to everyone else...I don't think anything needs to be banned, nothing is really upsetting the metagame. You don't always have to point your finger at something... Moving on, Choice Band Bravairy has been a godsend to my team in smashing through pretty much everything. Does anyone else have experience with him? If so what did you use him for? Also Rock Head Relicanth with Head Smash=Love.

Having a different opinion to you doesn't mean I don't think before I post, I'm just saying sceptile and sharpedo are very strong offensive threats, is there something wrong with that? Maybe it's a healthy metagame, maybe it isn't, that's why I said I don't know.

Anyway, back on topic, braviary is awesome, I will agree. I personally like tailwind sets. They are surprisingly destructive and offer an interesting way to get around his lackluster speed other than a choice scarf. I can't see how relicanth isn't completely out-classed by aggron when it comes to headsmashing myself. Only advantage he has is x2 weakness to fighting and ground over aggron's quadruple but that can be countered with magnet rise.

 

[RUisSerperior]

I am actually very shocked that durant was banned, and 7-2 vote no less! i rarely ever saw any, and hustle really is a hamper to its abilities. The rare occasion i did see one, it was never a problem, manectric laughed in its face when i packed one of those, cofagrigus took away its great ability, steelix walled it, lanturn burned it with scald, and magneton destroyed it with HP fire. Steel and bug also dont create a very good offensive STAB combination at all. I think a much more viable suspect wouldve been typhlosion or even sigilyph.

With the durant ban, the defensive core of tangrowth and slowking has become all the more potent, and if there is anything i can see hampering the RU metagame, it is that defensive core.

 

[complete legitimacy]

I don't think so. There are still a lot of things that break through it. Most special attackers with either Grass/Fire or Electric/Fire really give it a hard time. Manectric, Rotom-C, Sceptile, and Magneton are good exmaples of those. Also, you can take advantage of the fact that they share a weakness to Bug. Scyther and Scolipede are both good for exploiting this.

 

[DittoCrow]

First off congrats to those who made the senate! You guys all deserved your spots, well done. RU is going to be really fun this round, especially with things like the #ruc and CTP. Another project will also probably be made within the next month ;p

Anyways, after the Dark Horse month I'll probably start to build serious teams again. Right now I'm using Jynx, and so many teams are unprepared for it that I'm getting a 6-0 every other game lol. I've even beaten Entei and other common checks with it. I hope people realize this and use Jynx more. Anyways, I've been hearing some talk about Moltres being really powerful. I'll probably test out Choice Scarf Moltres. Hopefully I'll find more cool Pokemon to use this round :p

 

[Full2Half]

I am actually very shocked that durant was banned, and 7-2 vote no less! i rarely ever saw any, and hustle really is a hamper to its abilities. The rare occasion i did see one, it was never a problem, manectric laughed in its face when i packed one of those, cofagrigus took away its great ability, steelix walled it, lanturn burned it with scald, and magneton destroyed it with HP fire. Steel and bug also dont create a very good offensive STAB combination at all. I think a much more viable suspect wouldve been typhlosion or even sigilyph.

I beg to differ. I agree that durant is broken, dispite rarely, if ever my seeing it. Ive been using the hustle/HC set in uu after i heard this, and it has swept MULTIPLE times in a period of just a few hours.

Also:

don't have to worry about packing a Choice Scarf user or Steelix/Magneton/Poliwrath.

Again, i beg to differ. Even tho i agree steelix may go down, wrath i can see going up as it is a hard counter to sharpedo, able to circle throw [or if ur like me, focus punch]
to oblivion. Magneton also may go up, as it can take any hit from pedo [barring banded EQ] thanks to eviolite, then tbolt it etc.

 

[zdrup15]

While I can't say I agree with Durant's ban, I'm happy there's almost a general consensus that the metagame is finally balanced. There are many viable playstyles from stall to offense and that's how it should be. Now it's time to just enjoy it and have fun using stuff such as Work Up Tauros and Specs Eelecktross.

Also, thanks everyone who congratulated me, I'll try to do a good job.

 

[Double01]

zdrup im sure we will be able to find some poke to be broken. (looks at cofag)

 

[sheniqua]

I love how RU is becoming more and more favorable to stall. If only Cofagrigus would get banned, I could have the perfect stall team!