Gen 5 The OU Viability Ranking thread

[ShootingStarmie]

Funny how SSB is even more annoying on Showdown

Okay that was actually pretty funny, but please stop de-railing the thread

Anyway, onto topic, I can see Conkeldurr rising, but I haven't had much experience with it yet to give a detailed opinion on the matter. It should rise in the ranking thread because the new set has made it much more viable.

 

[Homeslice]

It already rose from its Sheer Force set, check a couple pages back. I'm not inclined to see it rise past B, as it still is probably the most outclassed fighting type in OU. I don't see it being more useful in a team slot than that of Amoonguss or Reuniclus, both of which are B Rank so I don't think it should rise. It may be a bulky attacker, but it's still too slow to get a full-on sweep without relying on priority, which can be stopped by anything that is immune or resists Mach Punch.

 

[Soul Fly]

Stop replying to this individual. (PKGaming, can you please SERIOUSLY consider a blacklist system)
---------------------

Anyway, onto topic, I can see Conkeldurr rising, but I haven't had much experience with it yet to give a detailed opinion on the matter. It should rise in the ranking thread because the new set has made it much more viable.

The Sheer Force set already caused it's ranking to bolster a few pages back. Right now it is pretty fairly placed imo.

Gengar is fine where it is. Best offensive spinblocker and a great offensive Pokemon in general are what he has going for it, and he is good at both. He is also versatile enough to get rid of counters with small moveset changes, which just adds to the level of danger Gengar poses to any team. For example, while usually SpD Jirachi and SpD Hippo wall Gengar and are some of its best counters, WoW leaves them crippled for the rest of the game and makes them much easier to wear down. Gengar can fit WoW on either a SubWisp set or on all out attacking set, as with perfect neutral coverage with just two moves, he has plenty of slots to use unconventional moves. Taunt is in the same boat and completely shuts down the blobs, as well as Hippowdon, which once again, are some of the best answers to Gengar. Some other semi-rare moves that help Gengar get past usual checks and counters and are effective are Destinty Bond and Trick (the latter obviously on a Choice set). While Gengar is not the strongest Pokemon around, it deserves its ranking thanks to the utility it brings to a team, mainly important immunities/resistances and spinblocking ability, its good neutral coverage which makes it hard to outright wall, great Speed, and lastly good versatility.

But Starmie.
We can have all the goodstuff, but at the end of the day, Gengar's job is being a spinblocker that fits offensive teams. Starmie completely shits over it, who is the most viable non-weather spinner in OU right now. While this may not take away much from Gengar on a a more broad level analysis of it's assets, let's be honest. 99% of the time people use a Gengar on their OU team, it's for offensive spinblocking. Other roles if any are certainly outclassed by other pokemon (read: Sableye)
So while there is no question of it rising, I can certainly see a few fair causes for it to drop if it's niche wasn't as vital as it is for OU right now.

 

[Arkian]

I have a suggestion :o (these emotes are so over exaggerating ;/)

Infernape from B- ==> C: Infernape is just really outclassed in this meta, almost every Fighting- or Fire-type is better than it. While it is very versatile, it isn't all that powerful, as it gets walled by common threats such as Lati@s and Jellicent. The Lati twins avoid a OHKO from the incredibly rare Ice Punch (get hit hard by U-turn though), are faster than it, and they OHKO back with Psyshock. Jellicent walls the shit out of it, although it has to watch out for Grass Knot on NP sets. Not just these two, every Pokemon with somewhat decent bulk are capable of taking a hit and OHKOing back. Switching directly into it can be troublesome, but really, once you've figured out what set it's using, you can play around it with relative ease. Sure sun bolsters the power of its Fire-type STAB, but it does the same for other Pokemon such as Volc, Darm, and even Victini, and because of their better bulk or power (in Volc's case, both), they're better options 90% of the time. I'm not saying it's terrible, I'm just saying that it's really outclassed (and somewhat weak) and therefore underwhelming in the current metagame.

Oh and I support Conkeldurr moving up because of its ridiculous power coupled with good bulk. Drain Punch makes it even harder to take down. It also destroys everything under TR.

Sorry if some of what I'm saying is utter nonsense, I wrote this up very late at night and need some sleep ~.~

 

[TUO]

I don't see Gengar as a staple in this metagame, like the Pokemon in A-rank are. Gengar is pretty much stuck to offensive teams and is pretty bad on balance and god not stall. It's 100% bias to offensive teams, and has a specific affinity towards Hyper Offensive teams. It can function as the best hyper offensive spinblocker, and as a safety blanket vs Landorus.... Oh wait, Landorus is gone, while Hyper Offense drops a bit since it loses its best stallbreaker in U-Turn Landorus. Gengar doesn't do much vs the current metagame, and only fits in a select few team archetypes. It is pretty damn good at what it does, and holds a decent chunk of these offensive teams together, but it really doesn't do much outside of "Offensive utility spinblocker for hazard based offensive teams" While it's not really that niche and definitely has its own merits, that's practically what Gengar offers to the table, something that is lackluster enough to have it drop to B+.

On that note, I would like to see Venusaur drop down to B+ Rank. It holds together Sun just about as much Dugtrio does (who is in that rank) and Dugtrio can be used in teams outside of Sun (read: Tornadus-I Rain) and Venusaur can also have competition with other Chlorophyll sweepers, while something that is stuck to a specific team archetype (Sun sun and more sun), while sun's viability in question to some people (i'm definitely not one of them, I love sun but there are people that neglect how well it can perform) I don't think Venusaur can be considered such a staple that the A-Rank offers

 

[Alter]

I'd like to nominate Cresselia for a shift from C → B- / B.

120 HP / 70 Atk / 120 Def / 75 SAtk / 130 SDef / 85 Spe

I'm not going to lie: the C tier is a massive mess right now. I highly recommend that Cresselia be moved from this tier above the others due to its stellar defensive capabilities. For this I'm pretty much solely referring to its Defensive Sun set (the main on-site one).

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.

That is the description for Pokemon in the B rank. This description fits Cresselia very well; Cresselia has one of the best defensive stat compositions in the game which is compounded by its ridiculously massive walling potential under its preferred weather. Cresselia can restore a gigantic 66.7% health under sun using Moonlight. There are few things that can reliably take Cresselia down without boosting before hand. Below are examples of common, powerful OU attackers which fail to destroy Cress with their best attacks.

252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Cresselia: 273-322 (61.48 - 72.52%) -- guaranteed 2HKO -- This damage is easily restored with Moonlight. While Cress can be ruined by Trick, this is purely an example of the damage it takes using a physically defensive set from special behemoths such as Latios.

+1 252+ Atk Dragonite Outrage vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 210-247 (47.29 - 55.63%) -- 19.92% chance to 2HKO -- a +1 Atk DDNite fails to be able to defeat Cresselia which showcases its ability to wall a plethora of physical threats similar to it which are abundant in the recent physically hyper-offensive craze. Furthermore, Cresselia is not a sitting duck for Pokemon such as Dragonite, being able to utilize Ice Beam and a Hidden Power of its choice.

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor U-turn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 240-284 (54.05 - 63.96%) -- guaranteed 2HKO -- Practically the most common set found in OU fails to murder Cress despite a super-effective, CB boosted attack. This is an example of where Cresselia's massive defensive stats really shine and stop Pokemon from being able to "kill it with a super-effective hit and move on".

Of course these are just a couple of calcs that I chose which showcase Cresselia's awesome defences. This coincides with the B rank's description of a Pokemon being able to fulfill a given defensive niche. For Cresselia, this is being arguably the best defensive Pokemon available in OU under Sun.

"Support Pokemon in this category have flaws that prevent them from doing their job or are setup bait for dangerous sweepers."
In this scenario, while Cresselia isn't necessarily outclassed in terms of being able to take standard hits, its typing is a bit of a curse granted the weakness to Pursuit and lack of resistances to F / W / G types which flourish under the ever-present OU weathers. Also, Pokemon that don't care about Toxic (for example, Substitute DD Gyarados) or that take pittance from her weak, unboosted and uninvested moves can simply set up on Cresselia.

Another example of why Cresselia deserves a promotion is her great ability which not only grants her an immunity to Toxic Spikes (which would otherwise screw her over), but also helps her tackle key offensive threats in OU, such as Garchomp, Terrakion and Landorus-Therian. These Pokemon are all headaches for sun teams in general, so the support Cresselia provides under sun is near unmatched. Moreover, with 120 / 120 / 130 defences, Cresselia can take hits from both sides of the spectrum very well. Obviously Cresselia shouldn't rise above the B ranks due three main limitations:

- Cresselia's main healing move, Moonlight, is severely weakened by the very common Sand and Rain weather conditions. Furthermore, Moonlight has only 8 PP in comparison to other moves like Recover which have plenty more.
- Cresselia is limited to sun teams or teams using Dual Screens due to her typing and inability to cope in other weathers.
- A barren movepool which in tandem with low offensive stats means that Cresselia struggles to kill threats compared to other Pokemon. This means Cresselia is sometimes set-up bait.

Nonetheless, these flaws are overcome by Cresselia's amazing defensive capabilities under a specific weather condition which can halt teams that can't eliminate the weather or have a direct counter. I'm interested in hearing what other people have to hear on this.

Edit: By the way, just to clarify I'd like to point out that I'm recommending this change after months of using Sun Stall and discovering Cresselia's capabilities and limitations; although, that is not one of the reasons it just be moved up. Rather, just clarification to where my ideas are coming from.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

Looking at the two posts above I think Venusaur and Cresselia should be placed in the same rank (or, at the very least, Cresselia should be placed just a rank below Venusaur) because they're both excellent sun abusers but spectacularly poor in other weathers.
Therefore I'd like to nominate Venusaur for B+ rank and Cresselia for B rank.

 

[PK Gaming]

For about the thousandth time: it'd be nice if people could stop replying to trolls in this thread. It's partly my fault for not moderating that guy's posts in time, but regardless I urge you guys to exercise discretion and ignore users like him.

Stop replying to this individual. (PKGaming, can you please SERIOUSLY consider a blacklist system)

Just to reiterate, if I come across a bad post it'll be "moderate first, ask questions later." Thus far, I haven't found the need for a blacklist, but if the needs arises i'll definitely implement it.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Venusaur has no competition from other clorophyl users lol. He is the best of them and is the reason you wont see the others often. Also who cares if he is exclusive to sun? Tornadus-T was exclusive to rain and look where he is now. Venusaur completely shits on weatherless teams and once the weather war is won he also shits on other weather teams. Venusaur only real flaw is its depedence on weather but other than that he is a ridiculous scary sweeper thanks to its power, bulk, speed and coverage plus access to sleep powder. Should stay in A-Rank.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

I wouldn't call Venusaur "the face of sun teams" considered that almost 1/3 of them don't run it, even in the 1850 stats.
Venusaur has a nasty case of 4MSS - it needs HP Fire to deal with steels, it needs EQ to beat Heatran (and without it it exacerbates sun teams' notorious weakness to Heatran), it needs Sleep Powder to put something to sleep and it needs Growth to sweep.
Even if it puts something to sleep it still has its fair share of checks such as most dragons.
On top of that it's entirely outclassed by Sawsbuck as a physical sweeper and considering that many sun teams run Volcarona as their special sweeper of choice it's not hard to see why many players would find Venusaur redundant.

 

[Gary]

The only Chlorophyll sweeper that gives Venusaur ANY competition is Victreebel, but even than Venusaur is still the better sweeper due to its much better bulk and the ability to outpace Scarf Latios without full investment. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, sun teams are nothing without Venusaur, because it's such a huge boon to sun teams that there's really no reason not to use it. It shits on weatherless teams, it shits on rain teams once the weather war is won, it shits on offensive sand teams, stall teams etc. Due to its decent defensive typing, it can setup in the face of a lot of Pokemon, like Ferrothorn, Forretress, Breloom (once something is spored), Keldeo, Thundurus-T, Tentacruel, etc. There's no reason for Venusaur to drop a rank, because it threatens so much of the metagame. All in needs is sun support, which isn't even THAT much support. Solid A Rank.

 

[Soul Fly]

The only Chlorophyll sweeper that gives Venusaur ANY competition is Victreebel, but even than Venusaur is still the better sweeper due to its much better bulk and the ability to outpace Scarf Latios without full investment.

Venusaur would be ready to sell Baby panda souls for Weather ball.
/js

 

[alexwolf]

The only Chlorophyll sweeper that gives Venusaur ANY competition is Victreebel Sawsbuck

Fixed it for you!

 

[MikeDawg]

Fixed it for you!

Sawsbuck is so easily dealt with, though.

Skarm walls it, lando-t can wall it, almost all priority kills it, etc.

That isn't to say that I don't give an "oh shit" when I see it in team preview, but it often ends up falling a lot easier than I expected

 

[TCTphantom]

Anyone thinking Jirachi for S rank?

With Landorus gone, Jirachi no longer fears as many special threats, with only Keldeo in the rain proving a threat. Jirachi is fantastic at its main job, support. Spreading paralysis is a huge boon, as it allows slower threats in rain like Feraligatr or Toxicroak to sweep easier, and allows them to preserve their bulk for the instance where they miss a OHKO. Stealth Rocks are so good, it's not even funny, and on a wall like Jirachi who forces out so many Special Attackers, it has multitudes of times to set them up. Jirachi also can throw out a wish, allowing almost anything to come back in and recover up to 202 HP, which for most of the meta, is over half their health.

Jirachi can go offensive in the forms of SubCM and Scarf. With Landorus gone, Jirachi no longer has to fear being useless to revenge kill Landorus after a Rock Polish, and with its nice 100 speed, it can revenge kill several threats in the meta at +1, including a multiscale broken Dragonite, one of the metas common sweepers. SubCM now is harder to break, and has more breathing room to set up, use thunder, and net plenty of KOs against several teams due to its typing and move pool. Thoughts?

 

[MikeDawg]

I feel like the only thing still holding rachi back from S is keldeo, as it simply can't perform its (in my opinion) primary role as a special wall with keldeo's attacks coming at it, meaning you also have to run celebi/etc.

Once keldeo is gone, I won't have many reservations about rachi (besides having to rely on hax being a bad idea)

 

[Halcyon.]

Honestly, sometimes I think someone a long time ago just said "Venusaur is the standard Chlorophyll sweeper" and it just sorta stuck. People always build their sun teams with Venusaur in mind instead of, say, Sawsbuck, Victreebel, or Lilligant, but that's not to say that these Pokémon aren't viable as well. Each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses that Venusaur doesn't, so when you build a team with them, you have to think a bit differently, that's all. So while I wouldn't call it "unfair" to say that Venusaur outclasses Venusaur (because it does in some ways), I would say that other Chlorophyll sweepers can be fantastic assets to any sun team that plays to their advantages over Venusaur (Sawsbuck being physical, Victreebel having Weather Ball and better offenses, Lilligant being faster and having Quiver Dance).

That being said, I would absolutely call Venusaur the face of sun teams, and I honestly can't believe anyone would disagree. You don't know fear until you're staring down the barrel of a +2 Venusaur with your weather-less team. Because of this, I think Venusaur definitely deserves its place in A rank.

EDIT: Also I agree with MikeDawg that Jirachi's main role is hindered by the fact that it can't wall the premier special attacker of the tier, Keldeo. We should revisit this idea if Keldeo gets banned, though.

 

[Schpoonman]

Victreebel cannot outspeed Scarf Latios. He hits a max of 524 and Timid Latios is 525. Venusaur is without a doubt the best Chlorophyll sweeper. Liligant is far more frail and prone to being revenge killed by priority and isn't as powerful (Growth in the sun, yo), Victreebel is also much more frail and like I said cannot outspeed Scarf Latios, Sawsbuck is completely shut down by Skarmory and is vulnerable to Mach Punch. Venusaur can run HP Fire for Skarmory or Jirachi, Earthquake for Heatran, Sleep Powder for whatever it damn well pleases. I've used Liligant with a Sunny Day set to decent effect on weatherless teams but as far as dedicated Sun team sweepers go, Venusaur is king by a mile and a half.

 

[Halcyon.]

I never said that Venusaur didn't outclass them, I said each of them is viable if you build a sun team outside of the standard cookie-cutter way. Sawsbuck can easily take down Heatran and Latias, two huge threats for most sun teams. Also, I wouldn't exactly say Skarmory is a problem for sun teams, would you? Neither is Breloom, really. So Sawsbuck can fit onto certain sun teams really well; you just have to make sure your team plays to its advantages and covers its weaknesses (like you would with any viable sweeper). Again, I'm not saying Venusaur isn't better than Sawsbuck or other Chlorophyll users (most of the time it is). I just don't think its fair to say "these Pokémon get almost no usage which is proof that Venusaur is a million times better," because I don't think that means anything other than people aren't willing to try other Chlorophyll Pokémon.

 

[alexwolf]

Sawsbuck is so easily dealt with, though.

Skarm walls it, lando-t can wall it, almost all priority kills it, etc.

That isn't to say that I don't give an "oh shit" when I see it in team preview, but it often ends up falling a lot easier than I expected

The point with Sawsbuck is that it's the best revenge killer available to sun teams, under sun obviously, as it can actually revenge kill troublesome Pokemon for sun teams, such as Volcarona, Lati@s, and Kyurem-B. So, as long as you make sure that you win the weather war, which is a priority for most sun teams, you have an excellent cleaner and an excellent revenge killer all in one, unlike Venusaur which usually needs one turn of setup in order to become threatening.

 

[Schpoonman]

They're certainly usable, but they're all outclassed in some way. Think about it, why would Sawsbuck or Victreebel be NU if they were almost as good? There's a tremendous enough gap that Venusaur is OU while the next closest is Liligant in RU.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

I don't disagree with you Lord of Bays, but a Pokemon's placement in other teirs has no place for discussion in this thread, even as support, Amoonguss is RU yet is B teir here.

Other sun Pokemon have uses are secondary sun sweepers, particularly Sawsbuck which as a Normal type physical sweeper can distinguish its self from Venusaur enough for a team slot.

Isn't this discussion originally made to increase Venusaur's rank? Lol. I don't have much of a problem with that since Ninetails is already there, and overall they go hand in hand for the most part

Also, Forretress walls Sawsbuck hard, just wanted to point that out.

 

[MikeDawg]

The other sun sweepers are NU because outside of OU they have no use.

Just like how Stoutland is PU but is great in OU because of sand.

If there was sun in UU, they would be borderline, etc.

If gastrodon fell to UU, it would keep falling to NU (I believe that's what happned before)

Lilligant is only ru because it doesn't need sun (quiver dance)

 

[Chou Toshio]

The real trouble with other chlorophyll users is that most sun teams only want one chlorophyll user. Sun teams have to work really hard in Ou to win the weather war, AND win the hazard war (at least keep SR off the field). By the time you've added your trapper, and your spinner (or bouncer, or both!) and ninetales, you don't really want to double up on chlorophyll abusers, especially since they have so many weaknesses, are super reliant on sun, and you need at least one more slot for an offensive fire type like volc, victini or heatran. So when you've put so much effort and resources into keeping sun up, you want to get a lot of bang for your buck in your sun abusers. Alex describes sawsbuck as a great revenge killer in sun, but a great revenge killer isn't enough return on investment for most sun teams. For that one valuable chlorophyll spot I worked so hard to make work, I don't want a simple cleaner-- I want an absolute beast sweeper that can rip through teams. I want something that rolls through the enemy, not something that only picks off an enemy here or there, and potentially has to be switched in and out to get more kills.

Now in a meta game where keeping up sun is a lot easier (like round 1 uu testing, where drizzle was gone and vulpix sun teams had a huge advantage over sand or snow), you would run MULTIPLE chlorophyll users and fuck shit up. Sawsuck + Venu would probably be the most popular. Sawsbuck + Victrebel was insane first round of UU. When you've got a tough weather war where sun isn't dominant, and most teams put a lot of investment into just making the one chlorophyll user work-- the other users besides Venusaur just aren't that viable.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

As I said, if you're already running Volcarona as your special sweeper of choice in a sun team, dont assume that Venusaur is automatically the best Chlorophyll sweeper to put in that team. Volc already has the special side and fire attacks covered, so wht exactly is Venusaur bringing to the table other than a sleep move? Sawsbuck has a physical movepool Venusaur would kill for, better speed and the ability to get past common sun counters such as Latias. Add the fact that Ninetales is specially based and most sun counters are specially defensive mons and you'll see how a physically based Chlorophyll sweeper can be more valuable to such teams.