(approved by Melee Mewtwo)
Hello everyone, this is going to be a general discussion on Sticky Web and its uses in the Ubers metagame.
Firstly I'll go over what Sticky Web does, for those who may not be aware.
Sticky Web (Bug) 32 PP: Lowers speed (-1) of opposing Pokemon switched in. Does not work on Flying-types or Levitators. Works as an entry hazard. Can be removed with Rapid Spin and Defog.
This thread hopes to help players find viable setters of this useful entry hazard, discuss viable Pokemon that can greatly benefit from the lowered speed of opposing Pokemon, and discuss ways to combat against Sticky Web teams.
Adding some of my own info: Sticky Web is a powerful hazard that can give many teams (especially offensive teams) a lot of trouble due to automatically lowering their Speed on switch in. This in turn also opens up room for massive powerhouses to deal serious damage as their checks and counters have lowered Speed, making it harder for said checks to be effective if they rely on being faster to check them, with examples such as Mega Lucario and Choice Specs Kyogre.
Feel free to discuss! Here are some thought provoking questions to get the thread underway:
What is your opinion of Sticky Web, or teams based around it?
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
Useful posts and information will be edited into the OP.
Orch's post has good info and makes very valid points, shown here:
Edgar gives his insight and shows some replays to back him up:
Malefic adds his views while also giving a perspective of how to build a Sticky Web team:
Hello everyone, this is going to be a general discussion on Sticky Web and its uses in the Ubers metagame.
Firstly I'll go over what Sticky Web does, for those who may not be aware.
Sticky Web (Bug) 32 PP: Lowers speed (-1) of opposing Pokemon switched in. Does not work on Flying-types or Levitators. Works as an entry hazard. Can be removed with Rapid Spin and Defog.
This thread hopes to help players find viable setters of this useful entry hazard, discuss viable Pokemon that can greatly benefit from the lowered speed of opposing Pokemon, and discuss ways to combat against Sticky Web teams.
Adding some of my own info: Sticky Web is a powerful hazard that can give many teams (especially offensive teams) a lot of trouble due to automatically lowering their Speed on switch in. This in turn also opens up room for massive powerhouses to deal serious damage as their checks and counters have lowered Speed, making it harder for said checks to be effective if they rely on being faster to check them, with examples such as Mega Lucario and Choice Specs Kyogre.
Feel free to discuss! Here are some thought provoking questions to get the thread underway:
What is your opinion of Sticky Web, or teams based around it?
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
Useful posts and information will be edited into the OP.
Orch's post has good info and makes very valid points, shown here:
What is your opinion of Sticky Web, or teams based around it?
It's one of worst archetype to use. While it has more merit in ubers, it still suffers hugely from match up issues. And that reason alone, makes me very apprehensive about using sticky teams. Most of good teams carry anti-sticky measures in form of taunt, fast floating mons, or stall. Not to mention that sticky can automatically lose vs other sticky team. I'll expand on the match up issues in following questions. But yeah, my overall view on it is that it's a glorified gimmick that has somehow caught on with prominent players.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
Hard hitting mons, yet sitting at fast-ish speed tiers are definitely the ones that like sticky most. Good examples of these are: Lucario, Medicham, Yveltal, Genesect, and Xerneas. But honestly, from my experience with sticky, the best tactic is probably to rely on the sheer brute force with mons such as CB Ho-oh and Specs Kyogre. Most of their checks rely on speed to crack the powerful mons, but guess what? RIP speed and you get 2hkod, and you're forced to sac something every time it comes in to check it. Arceus-Ghost is probably the best arceus to use on sticky, since it's a spinblocker and either cm or sd sets are very powerful and excellent on sticky. Ekiller is good on sticky too, but return is not honestly. I've ran the calcs, and Return don't really get any notable OHKOs to be better than Extremespeed. Also, by replacing espeed for return, it's significantly easier for opponent to sweep you with geoxern. It's important to pack a reliable xern check! I've tried scarf gene and relying on webs to ensure that iron head hits. I've found this tactic to be ineffective, since there's a long list of stuff that can stop genesect from checking xern. Shadow tag is really good on sticky in theory, but everyone are using anti-stag measures, so it's kinda ineffective honestly lol. And no, Charizard is not good on sticky, stop using this shit.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
Fast floating mons: Landorus-T, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Arceus-Flying, Rayquaza, Shaymin-S, and Gliscor
Geomancy Xerneas: Since many sticky web rely on shaky strats to check GeoXern. So, if you run any form of taunt or/and defog, you can easily expect to win with this.
Rapid Spin: Contrary to popular belief, spin is an excellent move and it fucks over sticky rather bad, since it's not tauntable.
Defog: You can reasonably trade your defogger for 1 defog to ensure the conditions for a mon in your team to sweep.
Ditto: lol. immune to sticky and copies whatever your set up attempt. Seriously, this thing alone makes sticky atrocious to use.
Using slow pokemon: If you don't care about speed drop, then it doesn't really matter then.
Taunt: Delays Smeargle's webs. Shuckle is better as web setter for this reason IMO. Also cockblocks random Twaves from stuff in pathetic effort to stop geoxern. oO
Kangaskhan-Mega: Bye Smeargle
It's one of worst archetype to use. While it has more merit in ubers, it still suffers hugely from match up issues. And that reason alone, makes me very apprehensive about using sticky teams. Most of good teams carry anti-sticky measures in form of taunt, fast floating mons, or stall. Not to mention that sticky can automatically lose vs other sticky team. I'll expand on the match up issues in following questions. But yeah, my overall view on it is that it's a glorified gimmick that has somehow caught on with prominent players.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
Hard hitting mons, yet sitting at fast-ish speed tiers are definitely the ones that like sticky most. Good examples of these are: Lucario, Medicham, Yveltal, Genesect, and Xerneas. But honestly, from my experience with sticky, the best tactic is probably to rely on the sheer brute force with mons such as CB Ho-oh and Specs Kyogre. Most of their checks rely on speed to crack the powerful mons, but guess what? RIP speed and you get 2hkod, and you're forced to sac something every time it comes in to check it. Arceus-Ghost is probably the best arceus to use on sticky, since it's a spinblocker and either cm or sd sets are very powerful and excellent on sticky. Ekiller is good on sticky too, but return is not honestly. I've ran the calcs, and Return don't really get any notable OHKOs to be better than Extremespeed. Also, by replacing espeed for return, it's significantly easier for opponent to sweep you with geoxern. It's important to pack a reliable xern check! I've tried scarf gene and relying on webs to ensure that iron head hits. I've found this tactic to be ineffective, since there's a long list of stuff that can stop genesect from checking xern. Shadow tag is really good on sticky in theory, but everyone are using anti-stag measures, so it's kinda ineffective honestly lol. And no, Charizard is not good on sticky, stop using this shit.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
Fast floating mons: Landorus-T, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Arceus-Flying, Rayquaza, Shaymin-S, and Gliscor
Geomancy Xerneas: Since many sticky web rely on shaky strats to check GeoXern. So, if you run any form of taunt or/and defog, you can easily expect to win with this.
Rapid Spin: Contrary to popular belief, spin is an excellent move and it fucks over sticky rather bad, since it's not tauntable.
Defog: You can reasonably trade your defogger for 1 defog to ensure the conditions for a mon in your team to sweep.
Ditto: lol. immune to sticky and copies whatever your set up attempt. Seriously, this thing alone makes sticky atrocious to use.
Using slow pokemon: If you don't care about speed drop, then it doesn't really matter then.
Taunt: Delays Smeargle's webs. Shuckle is better as web setter for this reason IMO. Also cockblocks random Twaves from stuff in pathetic effort to stop geoxern. oO
Kangaskhan-Mega: Bye Smeargle
Edgar gives his insight and shows some replays to back him up:
What is your opinion of Sticky Web, or teams based around it? I always saw it as a hard to pull and heavily matchup based strategy (but it's XY, most of battles are matchup based anyways). This applies even more on sticky web since you rely on your opponent giving you a good time of not defogging or not using a defensive inclined team which doesn't really mind Sticky Web or its sweepers since everything is "slow" anyways. I've used Sticky Web myself in tournament matches which I'll showcase, which in my opinion, are great examples of what I just stated above.
(Replays are down atm)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-9173 My opponent had a balanced team and got destroyed because he got his palkia switch in trapped by gothitelle and the rest was a piece of cake.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-9328 Papai noel used some Hyper Offense stuff and I couldnt really set up sticky webs at any point, he also had a thundurus, which gave my team a lot of trouble.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web? Mega Pinsir, Mega Charizard X, Zekrom, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Palkia, Kyogre.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams? Geomancy Xerneas, Trick Room users such as Dialga/Victini/Palkia, Defog Ghosts such as Arceus-Ghost and Giratina(O). Stall is also good but you need to be careful vs Gothitelle *sigh*. Thundurus, and Yveltal has a massive advantage against sticky web too.
(Replays are down atm)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-9173 My opponent had a balanced team and got destroyed because he got his palkia switch in trapped by gothitelle and the rest was a piece of cake.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ubers-9328 Papai noel used some Hyper Offense stuff and I couldnt really set up sticky webs at any point, he also had a thundurus, which gave my team a lot of trouble.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web? Mega Pinsir, Mega Charizard X, Zekrom, Ho-Oh, Yveltal, Palkia, Kyogre.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams? Geomancy Xerneas, Trick Room users such as Dialga/Victini/Palkia, Defog Ghosts such as Arceus-Ghost and Giratina(O). Stall is also good but you need to be careful vs Gothitelle *sigh*. Thundurus, and Yveltal has a massive advantage against sticky web too.
Malefic adds his views while also giving a perspective of how to build a Sticky Web team:
What is your opinion of Sticky Web, or teams based around it?
Webs teams have a significant place in this meta. Thing is, plonking 5 offensive powerhouses and a webs setter together is a no-go. Teambuilding with webs requires one to draw inspiration largely from balanced builds as a playstyle. The only similarity webs teams share with hyper offensive ones are that they require a dedicated webs setter, just as offensive builds often employ a dedicated lead. You get to choose from either Smeargle or Shuckle, the latter of which is definitely the more reliable webs setter. The remaining 5 members have several roles to accomplish:
This tl;dr goes to show the teambuilding process behind making a webs team is similar to that of a standard balanced build, just that you take extra care in exploiting the speed advantage that webs give you. Limit yourself to 2 dedicated offensive threats and form a synergetic defensive core with the rest of the team. Pokemon like SpD Kyogre, Mega Tyranitar are great options to experiment with; the former is a blanket special wall while the latter deals with Ho-Oh + Yveltal. Other bulky mons to consider include physically defensive Yveltal and Mega Gyarados.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
This has been sufficiently covered. To add on to what has already been said, some speed creep on defensive mons is very useful to outspeed specific threats. Uninvested base 99s and fully invested base 100s are good benchmarks to surpass. Offensive Pokemon should at least be able to outspeed Deoxys-A with webs active. Don't discount the possibility of running +Atk/SpA natures on Pokemon you would otherwise use a speed-boosting nature on, such as Mega Kangaskhan, Ghost Arceus, and Mega Lucario, as the added firepower can secure certain important KOs.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
In addition to what Orch has, hazard spam is inherently horrible for Shuckle teams to deal with; a Deoxys-S can easily set up 2 layers or more vs a Shuckle lead. Smeargle generally packs moves like Nuzzle and Rapid Spin to make hazard control an easier task. This is why the aforementioned Excadrill is a cool mon to remove hazards on Shuckle webs. Depending on the build, mons that bypass the speed control Sticky Web imposes are generally threatening. Protect Mega Blaziken is a prime example, as is Extreme Killer Arceus for builds lacking Ghost Arceus/Mega Lucario.
Webs teams have a significant place in this meta. Thing is, plonking 5 offensive powerhouses and a webs setter together is a no-go. Teambuilding with webs requires one to draw inspiration largely from balanced builds as a playstyle. The only similarity webs teams share with hyper offensive ones are that they require a dedicated webs setter, just as offensive builds often employ a dedicated lead. You get to choose from either Smeargle or Shuckle, the latter of which is definitely the more reliable webs setter. The remaining 5 members have several roles to accomplish:
- Deal with common offensive threats that are unaffected by webs. Notably, we have Landorus-T, Yveltal, Ho-Oh, and Rayquaza.
- Deal with other key threats like Kyogre and Zekrom. Merely having teammates to outspeed and revenge kill them is insufficient, you need to have Pokemon to switch into these things as you end up saccing mons unecessarily otherwise. Something notable is to be able to deal with a +1 Speed Xerneas; Pokemon like Choice Scarf Genesect and Jirachi can do this.
- Apply pressure to keep your webs up. Taunt is a great way to do so; it's nice to have 1-2 users of the move. Another way to go is just piling offensive pressure on the opponent and forcing trades that put you at an advantage (defogging at the cost of losing one's defogger). A third way is employing a Shadow Tag user (Gengar or Gothitelle) to at worst, force a suicide with the opponent's defog user. Note that trappers don't provide much in the way of defensive synergy, so the remaining build has to to be extra tight.
- Have 1-2 hard hitters that can make the most of the speed control webs provide. These Pokemon should have a decent speed tier that allows them to outspeed common scarfers at -1, have good coverage to ensure they get to hit most threats at least neutrally OR pack sheer power to muscle past things. Finally, these Pokemon should be able to stallbreak decently between them. Again, Taunt helps here; this also ties in with the above point, as good coverage and/or sheer power stallbreaks in itself. Examples of such Pokemon are Choice Specs Kyogre, Ghost Arceus, Yveltal, Mega Lucario, Palkia, Mewtwo, and Mega Kangaskhan.
- Stealth Rock is very important. Having your webs setter set Stealth Rock is often too much to ask for; it will often be unable to set both hazards or sustain them. Bottom line is (I recall this being said by Fireburn somewhere so I'll just quote it)you actually keep rocks up more easily if your webs setter isn't the one setting them. I want to address this because I've seen too many webs + SR Smeargle/Shuckle around. Ground-type SR setters are very useful for webs teams as they offer additional utility in checking Zekrom. Gliscor has access to Taunt, Explosion Landorus-T can set Stealth Rock and boom on support Arceus coming in to Defog, and Groudon can crack teams with its powerful attacks. The former 2 also have a Flying typing that goes a long way in curbing Ground spam. Excadrill is an interesting choice as it also has access to Rapid Spin, which can be very useful; Shuckle webs teams are particularly vulnerable to opposing hazard spam.
This tl;dr goes to show the teambuilding process behind making a webs team is similar to that of a standard balanced build, just that you take extra care in exploiting the speed advantage that webs give you. Limit yourself to 2 dedicated offensive threats and form a synergetic defensive core with the rest of the team. Pokemon like SpD Kyogre, Mega Tyranitar are great options to experiment with; the former is a blanket special wall while the latter deals with Ho-Oh + Yveltal. Other bulky mons to consider include physically defensive Yveltal and Mega Gyarados.
What Pokemon do you deem excellent benefactors from Sticky Web?
This has been sufficiently covered. To add on to what has already been said, some speed creep on defensive mons is very useful to outspeed specific threats. Uninvested base 99s and fully invested base 100s are good benchmarks to surpass. Offensive Pokemon should at least be able to outspeed Deoxys-A with webs active. Don't discount the possibility of running +Atk/SpA natures on Pokemon you would otherwise use a speed-boosting nature on, such as Mega Kangaskhan, Ghost Arceus, and Mega Lucario, as the added firepower can secure certain important KOs.
What are the best ways to deal with Sticky Web teams?
In addition to what Orch has, hazard spam is inherently horrible for Shuckle teams to deal with; a Deoxys-S can easily set up 2 layers or more vs a Shuckle lead. Smeargle generally packs moves like Nuzzle and Rapid Spin to make hazard control an easier task. This is why the aforementioned Excadrill is a cool mon to remove hazards on Shuckle webs. Depending on the build, mons that bypass the speed control Sticky Web imposes are generally threatening. Protect Mega Blaziken is a prime example, as is Extreme Killer Arceus for builds lacking Ghost Arceus/Mega Lucario.
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