-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
Resource SV UU DLC 2 Viability Rankings- Update at Post #85
- Thread starter Monky25
- Start date
Fair enough. But there are plenty of examples. There’s Hydreigon who’s been a UU staple since Gen 6, now power crept by the new Dragons and the two big Fairies (also Lokix eats this alive). Infernape, Krook, and Feraligatr are now outclassed and irrelevent to UU. Also the fact that Staraptor went from UUBL 4 generations only to not even be strong enough to cut it in NU. Power creep has been crazy this gen.
Powercreep or not the reality is that we have a lot more Pokemon these days than we used to. Tiers can only hold 40 or so Pokemon and we have about 500 of those, albeit not all in the game. Yes Pokemon have gotten stronger over time but also our tiers havent gotten bigger, OU can hold only so many Garchomps so some of them will fall and cause a domino effect for lower tiers.
Yes this generation has powercreep and is pretty special all things considered but also I think the whole powercreep talk is an uproductive distraction. I think its a lot better to accept it and think about UU as how it is rather than "how it should be".
We will be getting new Pokemon in the future still, that was never going to change and UU would eventually start looking like OU of older generations.
Tornadus-T is metagame king again with Zapdos around the corner, nature is healing...
Yeah you can not try and rewrite history. It has had a history of success in UU. BW, early XY (replaced by Mega in ORAS), SM/USUM and various periods of SS.
Anyways I'm curious. What made Zarude rise?
Pretty sure they were referring to gen 9 when it comes to pert, where yeah it never was particularly good
as for zarude, it’s been seeing some usage as a scarfer that provides a ground resist while packing knock and u turn, which makes it a nice speed control option for teams that want more workarounds for excadrill.
The DLC added 2 generations worth of Pokemon into the game.
If you added 2 generations worth of Pokemon to any generation, it would drastically change the meta game.
Last edited:
A bit surprised tinkaton didn't rise. I felt that it was extremely good game after game with its great defensive profile while not being passive and great support move pool while also having good set verity between baloon and lefties..
I interpreted them as talking about kleavor not swampert, could be wrong. Kleavor was never that good, it only stayed in uu so long cuz ladder loved it.
The UU tier has always seemed to me to be the niche closest to the standard competitive model but with the greatest possibility of adapting the game to your tastes, and considering that they would not normally be used for a specific role and without altering your winrate. The game has changed and pokemon that previously bordered on the uber line now drop in productivity, but the viability of adapting a team to your tastes remains, and it does not feel like there are only four pokemon breaking the meta as usually happens in OU.
Changing the subject, isn't Hisuian Arcanine very high up, or does it just seem that way to me? No one doubts his potential as a Wallbreacker/Revenge Killer, but it seems to me that his moveset tends to be very predictable, almost dependent on the choice items, and that he suffers a lot against mon that surpass him in speed.
Actually there's a little more depth to Arcanine-H with heavy duty boots. It just outspeeds almost all the steel types in the tier, even excadrill, naturally so it's pretty easy to bluff a choice flare blitz into a resist before slamming the switch in with head smash, which i believe nothing can resist both. And being able to freely use Extreme Speed at a moments notice can be the difference of winning and losing if you keep it healthy long enough, like catching a low health lokix, azumaril, greninja, or halucha off guard. Also even without choice band, terra normal E-speed does crazy damage to those previously mentioned.
Of course this set has plenty of flaws, it doesn't hit neutral targets as hard as you want, and even on a good match up your sometimes relying on rock-head's frustrating accuracy, but that's nothing new for Pokemon.
The only real moveset changes I would make to the HD set would be to drop morning sun for coverage because there is almost never a moment I want to spend a turn healing on a really frail mon on anything that's not a predicted switch.
Last edited:
Not to be that guy but rock and fire isn’t an unresistible combo. Rhyperior, Kommo-o, Keldeo, Quaq, and every water ground resist both.
I also want to add stealth rock as a good 4th move on boots sets. It frees up other mons’ movesets, like Tink being able to run twave and encore, and Drill being able to run sd. There are very few situations where you’d be clicking a coverage move anyways cuz stab head smash is so strong.
I will say, in terms of things that resist rock/fire, thats it. besides terrakion, you named all the viable mons that resist the combo. That's 7 mons on the viability rankings that can actually switch-in to arc(maybe add hippowdon to that since it can take harc's hits with investment, but you get the point, there's not many switch-ins)
Also to add to the list of good 4th moves, I'll suggest will-o-wisp. harcanine is one of the few mons in the tier with it, and it allows it to cripple mons on switch-in
7 mons on the VR that resist it’s stabs isn’t actually that low. For comparison only 4 ranked mons resist Azu’s stabs, and only 2 resist Mamo’s.
In comparison it isn't too low, but 7 is still a low number. Azu has issues with its speed outside of aqua jet, meaning more things resist it in practice but Mamo is sometimes more threatening
Also to add onto the fourth move for Harcanine, wild charge. This is really good in this rain meta and can help with bulky water types in general.
Wild charge is probably the best coverage option, but it doesn’t help with Rhyp or Kommo at all which are it’s 2 best counters.
I prefer psyfangs as an option, as it hits most of the resists for SE while also bringing additional screen breaking utility