Is Politoed really S rank? It's not a sweeper in any way and it's countered by a lot of things Tentacruel, Lati@s, Abomasnow, Blissey/Chansey, Celebi, etc. I also found it hard winning the weather war with him against Tyranitar which could just Pursuit him at low health. And Choice Band Tyranitar is actually a big threat to any Politoed as Crunch 2HKO's defensive versions and Pursuit does a lot of damage to Scarf/Specs variants possibly OHKO's if they try to switch out. Your thoughts?
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Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread
- Thread starter PK Gaming
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It isn't hippowdon's ability as a wall that makes it s-tier (same as with tyrannitar), it is its ability to summon sandstream (ie. like politoed and ninetales, except the weather is slightly worse in exchange for being a better pokemon. And even if the weather is not /as/ beneficial, it is still a HUGE amount of support)
This. Politoed isn't a particularly good mon (it was NU before Drizzle...) and has to slap on some choice specs to be able to do any real damage. Sand Stream is an excellent ability, and Hippow is actually a good mon.
Sand Stream is not an excellent ability. It doesn't power up Hydro Pumps, doesn't cut down Fire Blasts' power in two, and neither does it give 100% accuraccy for a powerful attack, whereas rain enables 2 (Thunder, Hurricane). It also enables a lot of mons to thrive in it (Tenta, Toxicroak, Ferrothorn, Scizor, etc).
Sand kinda just cancels out the other weathers and grants Ttar and Terrakion an SpDef boost. There's only 3 mons that can truly abuse Sandstorm - Stoutland and Sandslash, who are not threatening at all without it, and Sand Force Landorus, who seems to be much better running Sheer Force sets in this meta.
I'll gladly battle a Hippowdon over Tyranitar any day their so much easier to handle and easier to win the weather war with Politoed or Ninetales. Hippowdown might have better physical defense, recovery and not as many weaknesses but it can't deal much damage back at all so it's easy to just stall it out with toxic or hit it hard with special moves until it eventually has to be used as death fodder. EX: on sun teams it can't do anything against Xatu which is common on sun teams and on rain teams it can be handled by Politoed or even Tornadus.
B Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who cannot sweep through or wall significant portions of the metagame, but can properly fulfill a given offensive/defensive niche. Support Pokemon in this category have flaws that prevent them from doing their job or are setup bait for dangerous sweepers. Pokemon who are partially outclassed by a Pokemon in A or S Rank, but are otherwise very dangerous, may also fall into this category.
I think Salamence should be here tbh. Lets break it down.
"Reserved for Pokemon who cannot sweep through or wall significant portions of the metagame"
Salamence fits this description at the moment. Notice I didn't say anything about dragonite. It has a solid combination of bulk attack power and speed, but more importantly a priority move in extreme speed. Speakign of priority moves Dragonite can take one beter thanks to multiscale. Multiscale allows Dragonite to have a much easier time setting up in general. Salamence is just revenge killed so easily. Salamence is also a lot less diverse and more predictble than Dragonite making it easy to wall.
Lets take a look at a lot of the top threats in the S and A tiers. Salamence struggles with them.
Deoxys-D: This one is hit or miss. MEnce can suually set up but people are egtting creative. Some of these run red card and thunder wave which just ruins Salamence.
Politoed: Oh man. Ice Beam. Perish Song. Scald. Alazing Bulk. Salamence hates this guy.
Terrakion: Salamence is no match if it doesn't set up first
Tornadus T: LOL HURRICANE
Breloom: Breloom doesn't threaten mence that much specifically but sash + spore ruins a lot of stuff.
Dragonite: Can usually take a hit from slamence even at +1 thanks to multiscale and KO back
Ferrothorn: Melted with Fire Blast, not really a threat
Garchomp: Faster than mence. Scarf outspeeds +1 mence
Heatran: More than half have air balloon. One of the few pokemon that can outright wall it.
Hippowdon: Stupid bulk. Mence needs to boost 4 times to even dream about getting past this thing.
Jirachi: Mence needs at least two boosts prior to its entry to be able to not get destroyed by hax or ice punch
Keldeo: Faster, hidden power ice.
Kyrurem B: Salamence is faster, so its not a threat.
Landorus: Faster, hidden power ice
Latias: Faster dragon
Latios: Same as above
Ninetales: Speed tie. Match up is hit or miss slightly in salamence's favor because a lot carry hyposis or will-o-wisp and it'll wreck mence, but thing is they're innacurate
Rotom-W: Depends. If Salamence doesn't have a boost it is in trouble
Scizor: Melted by fire blast, BUT if rocks are up wound your team CB Scizor can one shot it with BP
Starmie: Is faster, ice beam
Thundrus-T: ehh hit or miss
Tyranitar: Mence needs a boost to ohko but a healthy amount are sashed.
Approx 90% of the top threats in OU have a way to threaten Salamence and prevent it from setting up one way or another. Moxie is great but what good is it really when so many Pokemon are an immediate threat to Salamence.
I think Salamence should be here tbh. Lets break it down.
"Reserved for Pokemon who cannot sweep through or wall significant portions of the metagame"
Salamence fits this description at the moment. Notice I didn't say anything about dragonite. It has a solid combination of bulk attack power and speed, but more importantly a priority move in extreme speed. Speakign of priority moves Dragonite can take one beter thanks to multiscale. Multiscale allows Dragonite to have a much easier time setting up in general. Salamence is just revenge killed so easily. Salamence is also a lot less diverse and more predictble than Dragonite making it easy to wall.
Lets take a look at a lot of the top threats in the S and A tiers. Salamence struggles with them.
Deoxys-D: This one is hit or miss. MEnce can suually set up but people are egtting creative. Some of these run red card and thunder wave which just ruins Salamence.
Politoed: Oh man. Ice Beam. Perish Song. Scald. Alazing Bulk. Salamence hates this guy.
Terrakion: Salamence is no match if it doesn't set up first
Tornadus T: LOL HURRICANE
Breloom: Breloom doesn't threaten mence that much specifically but sash + spore ruins a lot of stuff.
Dragonite: Can usually take a hit from slamence even at +1 thanks to multiscale and KO back
Ferrothorn: Melted with Fire Blast, not really a threat
Garchomp: Faster than mence. Scarf outspeeds +1 mence
Heatran: More than half have air balloon. One of the few pokemon that can outright wall it.
Hippowdon: Stupid bulk. Mence needs to boost 4 times to even dream about getting past this thing.
Jirachi: Mence needs at least two boosts prior to its entry to be able to not get destroyed by hax or ice punch
Keldeo: Faster, hidden power ice.
Kyrurem B: Salamence is faster, so its not a threat.
Landorus: Faster, hidden power ice
Latias: Faster dragon
Latios: Same as above
Ninetales: Speed tie. Match up is hit or miss slightly in salamence's favor because a lot carry hyposis or will-o-wisp and it'll wreck mence, but thing is they're innacurate
Rotom-W: Depends. If Salamence doesn't have a boost it is in trouble
Scizor: Melted by fire blast, BUT if rocks are up wound your team CB Scizor can one shot it with BP
Starmie: Is faster, ice beam
Thundrus-T: ehh hit or miss
Tyranitar: Mence needs a boost to ohko but a healthy amount are sashed.
Approx 90% of the top threats in OU have a way to threaten Salamence and prevent it from setting up one way or another. Moxie is great but what good is it really when so many Pokemon are an immediate threat to Salamence.
Deoxys: Red Card 18.587%, Thunder Wave 9.453%
Good luck with that
Politoed: 252 +1 Atk Life Orb Salamence Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Politoed (+Def) : 88.54% - 104.17%
31.25% chance to OHKO
I don't think that mence cares, and ice beam is super rare considering 4mss
Terrakion: Well mence certainly is not switching in... But it can set up on choiced close combat.
Tornadus T: LOL SCARFED OUTRAGE
Breloom: I hope you know how rare focus sash loom is (because I sure don't... considering it is listed as 152 checks and counters in the usage stats meaning that finding its stats is stupidly difficult)
Dragonite: Lol rocks lol 252 +1 Atk Life Orb Salamence Outrage vs 54 HP/0 Def Multiscale Dragonite: 122.32% - 143.75%
Guaranteed OHKO
Heatran: If that balloon is not gone by midgame, someone is not playing correctly
Hippowdon: 252 +1 Atk Life Orb Salamence Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Hippowdon (+Def) : 60.24% - 70.71%
2 hits to KO (with Leftovers)
Or just once...
Landorus: Never scarved, outrage
Lati@s: Never scarved/rarely scarved depending on which one. Latios is fine against it, latias is dead.
Ninetales: LOL Wtf no way did you just say that tales beats mence
Rotom-W: 252 Atk Life Orb Salamence Outrage vs 252 HP/0 Def Rotom-W: 81.25% - 96.05%
2 hits to KO (with Leftovers)
I think mence will be just fine actually
Starmie: Lol scarved or +1, mence isn't switching in, starmie is
Tyranitar: Focus Sash 3.865%
What the actual fuck healthy amount
Dark Fallen Angel
FIDDLESTICKS IS ALSO GOOD ON MID!
While it's true that Sandstorm does not cut a type's power, this, depending from your point of view, could actually be considered a good thing. This is because rain teams would struggle so much less against things like Celebi or Ferrothorn if Fire-type attacks weren't cut on half, while if Water-type attacks weren't cut down by sun, the latter would not probably have as much problems against Heatran and some Ground-types as it has.
Also, Sand Force sets are still very viable, I would say as much viable as Sheer Force sets on sandstorm teams. This is not to say that physical Landorus outclass special Landorus on sandstorm, on contrary, you are able to lure your opponent on thinking that you are using a physical set. Not to mention that most of Sheer Force Landorus' counters are actually take down by Tyranitar. However, physical Landorus is actually more powerful under sandstorm, has better coverage, can abuse U-Turn better than special variants, and can still use Hidden Power Ice against threats 4x weak to it.
This is not to say that Sand Stream is an excellent ability. Also, I am not arguing in favor of Hippowdon, actually, I think that neither him nor Tyranitar, or even Politoed, are S-Tier material. I think that while talking about its support capatibilities is relevant, you must also consider the Pokémon itself, and... Politoed is not very good by itself. It would be outclassed by many bulky Water-types like Jellicent or Vaporeon, if it didn't had Drizzle.
Politoed: WTF is 4mss. And fuck you mean ice beam is super rare, I've yet to face a Politoed without one. It's in every moveset in the analysis
Tornadus T: LOL STEEL SWITCH IN
Terrakion: True, but overall Terra beats Mence
Heatran: Or maybe the other guy doesnt send it out until you send out mence
Hippowdon: Still not the OHKO it needs. Ice Fang, lol
Lati@s: Scarf lati@s is faster than Scarf mence. Normal Lati@s is faster than Normal mence. More often than not the lati twins are going to go first
Ninetales: Oh wow. I never said that at all. I said that the matchup is actually in favor of mence but mence is screwed IF ninetales goes first it gets hit with status.
Rotom-W: Then it will get a will-o-wisp or a hidden power ice.
Starmie: Yeah but mence has to get the boost and not be crippled by anything beforehand
4mss = 4 Moveset Syndrom => When a Pokemon have problems to get "all his moves in only 4 slots" for coverage or defensive purpose
On your Lati@s point, I really think you are ignoring the Pokemon Salamence is paired up with. Scarf Latios? Sure, just let me trap your ass with Scizor (who is the most common Salamence partner according to moveset statistics). Hell, I was recently using CBTar with Lum Berry DDMence so Latios was never a problem. Latias? Well, Latias never runs Scarf anyway so Scarfmence or +1 DDMence will always beat it.
Also, I don't know if I'm the only person who realized this, but Hippowdon kind of loses to MixMence. It'll also have a hard time beating last-poke DDMence if it doesn't run Ice Fang. Well, newsflash, Whirlwind is more common than Ice Fang! You also ignore the fact that DDMence often runs Lum Berry, which kind of defeats your status argument. AND, not only was Lum Berry used more than Life Orb according to usage stats, it's also the first item slash on the Dragon Dance set on its analysis! Don't believe me? Go see for yourself.
Also, I'd just like to say that it's not particularly uncommon to see defensive Politoed without Ice Beam. As for your Scarf Terrakion point, well, Terrakion revenge kills Dragonite too, so what's your point? And don't even bring up any "Oh, Multiscale, Multiscale!" bullshit because Multiscale is nowhere near as good of an ability as people give it credit for, often only helping for one turn in the entire battle that more often than not doesn't change the outcome of the battle one bit. Dragonite is also beaten by Choice Scarf Kyurem-B; Salamence isn't. Adamant +1 DDNite (AKA the ONLY DDNite that exists, period) loses to Timid Scarf Politoed; Salamence doesn't.
You argued that Salamence is easy to revenge kill, but in my honest opinion, Dragonite is actually easier to revenge kill, especially since Multiscale is a factor that is so easy to remove. It's revenge killed by everything that revenge kills Salamence and more (Scarf Salamence itself, Scarf Kyurem-B, Scarf Terrakion, Scarf Latios, Scarf Keldeo, Scarf Haxorus, Mamoswine etc.) Of these 7, only 4 reliably revenge kill Salamence. All of them reliably revenge kill Dragonite. Also, don't get me started on how piss-weak +1 ExtremeSpeed is, and no decent player is going to let their revenge killer get weakened to the point that +1 ExtremeSpeed will KO it. That's moronic. As for sweeping, a lot of physical walls like Slowbro and Hippowdon will hesitate to switch in on Salamence due to the mere threat of MixMence, and if you're actually going to throw your Skarmory right on in against a Salamence, you're a fucking idiot and are going to get nuked by Fire Blast (Dragonite needs +1 or CB to 2HKO with Fire Punch, so Skarmory can switch in much more easily).
That being said, both Dragonite and Salamence can sweep easily given the right support, and both can sweep far more easily than, say, Lucario or Toxicroak, who are in B rank. Therefore, both should be A rank.
Toxicroak is pretty damn good in this meta, though. It's so easy to get an SD off Keldeo, Politoed, Jellicent, etc. You'd be suprised how many people switch in their Tornadus, only to die to Sucker Punch.
I wasn't saying Toxicroak or Lucario weren't good; I was merely comparing how easily they can sweep compared to Dragonite/Salamence to give an idea of the latter two's tier placement. Just thought I'd clear that up. For example, while Toxicroak may be able to set up on many common Rain team members, it'll have a harder time setting up against other teams, while Lucario's setup opportunities are rather limited in general.
And on top of this Rain support is greatly needed in order to make Toxicroak more effective. Dry Skin and Leftovers gives it close to a quarter of it's HP back, allowing it to easily stall out certain Pokes such as Heatran packing Fire Blast, or even residual damage if the opponent is burned or Poisoned. Without Rain support Toxicroak is still viable, however if one were to go up against a Sun team and you lack weather support, then Croak will lose a lot of it's health due to Dry Skin.
Landorus-T and Thundurus-T need to switch places badly... Thundurus-T is probably the least overwhelming joke of a threat I've ever seen. If you have a resist or immunity to electric, it is pretty much worthless as it is too frail/slow to sweep with Nasty Plot. It has a lot of difficulty setting up and is easily revenged. Any choiced variant is very extremely super duper easy to play around and ends up sucking the life out of the team's offensive momentum quite frequently.
Landorus-T just counters so much of the metagame. It is like 4hkoed by Donphan's -1 Ice Shard lol which is just an example of its bulk(Garchomp's Outrage does a little less than that). That beast offensive stat is netting you 1hkos with zero offensive investment. It has versatility being able to sweep, defensive pivot, offensive pivot(best job), team support, etc.
The ONLY thing that hinders Landorus-T is the massive presence of Scald users because of rain. Especially bulky Scalders. However, Landorus-T offers just as much as Heatran does and Heatran has an A rank..
Landorus-T just counters so much of the metagame. It is like 4hkoed by Donphan's -1 Ice Shard lol which is just an example of its bulk(Garchomp's Outrage does a little less than that). That beast offensive stat is netting you 1hkos with zero offensive investment. It has versatility being able to sweep, defensive pivot, offensive pivot(best job), team support, etc.
The ONLY thing that hinders Landorus-T is the massive presence of Scald users because of rain. Especially bulky Scalders. However, Landorus-T offers just as much as Heatran does and Heatran has an A rank..
Uh, yeah, Thundy-T is not nearly as bad as you make it to be. It has good ways to get in, its strong as hell, and its tough to revenge if its using Agility or a Scarf. Sure, Mamoswine gets it no matter what, but you can say that about quite a few things. Nasty Plot isn't a sweeper, its a wallbreaker, and it wrecks a ton of things at +2 (Blissey can't handle it, for example).
I agree about Lando-T, though, it is really solid, although its typing is a little lacking right now. Still, solid.
If you want a sweeper Thundy then use it's Agility set. Even without hazard support it can net a ton of KOs especially if it's running Thunder, and it has great coverage as well.
blitzlefan
shake it off!
Also, as far as coverage (being walled) goes, you know the infamous BoltBeam combo does wonders, and a STAB Thunder on a base 145 SpA is nothing to laugh at either. Boosting moves in Agility and Nasty Plot also provide some niche for it as a late-game sweeper/wall breaker. Lastly, base 101 Spe isn't TOO shabby, as though it is outsped by the Musketeer trio (quartet?), it outspeeds the base 95-100 dragon (think Kyurem-B, Haxorus, Hydreigon, and Salamence) while outspeeding the pixies too (Jirachi and Celebi).
Boltbeam coverage isn't even as good as everyone makes it out to be... Dark+Fighting or EdgeQuake is good.
Especially when the beam half is HP Ice -_-
Anything that resists/is immune to Thunder, has moderate bulk, or has priority, etc are all going to laugh off any of Thundurus's attacks... especially at +0
Maybe if Thundurus didn't scream "I'm going to use Thunder or use a boost/sub" every time it came in, then it could be a threat. For example, look at Zapdos. It actually has options. It can Roost, Sub, Heat Wave, Toxic, Roar, Agility then not die from 1 attack. I'm not saying Zapdos is better, but it is definitely not as easy to play around. That's saying something, considering Zapdos is UU.
Especially when the beam half is HP Ice -_-
Anything that resists/is immune to Thunder, has moderate bulk, or has priority, etc are all going to laugh off any of Thundurus's attacks... especially at +0
Maybe if Thundurus didn't scream "I'm going to use Thunder or use a boost/sub" every time it came in, then it could be a threat. For example, look at Zapdos. It actually has options. It can Roost, Sub, Heat Wave, Toxic, Roar, Agility then not die from 1 attack. I'm not saying Zapdos is better, but it is definitely not as easy to play around. That's saying something, considering Zapdos is UU.
252Atk +1 Salamence (Neutral) Outrage vs 252HP/252Def Leftovers Politoed (+Def): 68% - 80% (262 - 309 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO.
Politoed is not a check to Salamence.
Politoed is not a check to Salamence.
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