Tier Shift Metagame (THIS IS BW)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Okay, so I was able to peak at #4 on the ladder, so I am going to throw out my two cents on the metagame.

Stall is virtually non existant on the ladder. I've seen some rare Sand Stall with Late Game sweeping Regirock, but the meta seems to mainly be oriented around offense.

Sand Offense is powerful, but definitely manageable, which is nice. Stoutland can finally run an Adamant Nature as well which is cool, since it doesn't get out sped by Scarf Terrak anymore.

Sun Offense is fucking borked lol. All of the most powerful sun abusers lie in NU, and they get absolutely monstrous (Sawsbuck and Victreebel are my prime example). Yeah, so don't make the PU buffs please.

I have been running Medicham / Sableye / Magneton / Smash-Pass Gorebyss / Receiver Kyu-B / Bulky Land-T, and they seem to be able to handle almost everything. I'm really tempted on running something like Rain Dance on Sableye or something in order to deal with sun, but I might swap out Land-T for Hippo or T-Tar or something.

Yeah, fun tier!
 
I feel like even with stockpile, tier shift boost and recover for magcargo, there still is no reason to use it over heatran...
 
I feel like even with stockpile, tier shift boost and recover for magcargo, there still is no reason to use it over heatran...
Sure there is. For the novelty of finally getting to use a fire defensive Pokemon that isn't Heatran. It's refreshing. :D
Also, Heatran isn't so great at staying in for a long time. Don't knock recover. I'm not saying Magcargo is amazing, just that it may have use that it's worth testing and sharing results.

Smash-Pass Gorebyss
That thing is so hard to deal with I'm starting to suspect it.

Sand Offense is powerful, but definitely manageable, which is nice. Stoutland can finally run an Adamant Nature as well which is cool, since it doesn't get out sped by Scarf Terrak anymore.

Sun Offense is fucking borked lol. All of the most powerful sun abusers lie in NU, and they get absolutely monstrous (Sawsbuck and Victreebel are my prime example). Yeah, so don't make the PU buffs please.
Yeah, I see almost exclusively Sun and Sand. I'm not sure if this is because they are just better in this tier, or because people are swept up in the excitement of new options and are leaving rain alone for a bit. I do see rain once in a while, but not with the OU top threats like Keldeo and Thundurus T.

Poor Hail... didn't get nearly as boosted as the other weather, lol.
 

ElectivireRocks

Banned deucer.
Poor Hail... didn't get nearly as boosted as the other weather, lol.
Incorrect.
Other than Kyurem, every single powerful Blizzspammer as well as Stallrein is NU.
Jynx and Rotom-F are especially dangerous in hail.
The former gets 130 Sp.Atk, 110 Speed (outspeeding Keldeo, Terrakion and Infernape, while speed tying with the Lati twins), Dry Skin to mess with rain teams, excellent offensive movepool, Nasty Plot, Trick and Lovely Kiss making her unpredictable, while Rotom-F has its great dual STABs, 121 Sp.Atk and trollish 101 Speed to mess with many OU staples like Salamence.
Even Articuno is no joke as it doesn't have a single stat below 100, though I find it to fit better in rain teams so it can spam Hurricane while being much, much bulkier than Swanna (4x SR weakness aside).
Kyurem's new base 100 speed makes it the most consisently powerful Blizzspammer. It also has the bulk to take a few hits.
 
Wanting to throw this out there. Mandibuzz is one of the best walls out there if you keep SR off the field. Especially on sand and hail teams due to overcoat.
 
Sure there is. For the novelty of finally getting to use a fire defensive Pokemon that isn't Heatran. It's refreshing. :D
Also, Heatran isn't so great at staying in for a long time. Don't knock recover. I'm not saying Magcargo is amazing, just that it may have use that it's worth testing and sharing results.
Magcargo's typing is god awful compared to Heatran and has much worse stats even after a boost.
Using it is like using Butterfree over Volcarona because compoundeyes Sleep Poweder makes it easier to set up.

Not to mention that Torkoal, Flareon, Arcanine, Moltres and a few others have niches over Magcargo as defensive fire types, not just Heatran.
 
Wanting to throw this out there. Mandibuzz is one of the best walls out there if you keep SR off the field. Especially on sand and hail teams due to overcoat.

125HP/80Atk/120Def/110SpD/95Spe
DANG. I see what you mean. Excellent bulk, and good speed for taunt.

So I did some calcs, and I'm in the midst of testing it, but Ferroseed seems to be a boss.

With the same EV spread as Ferrothorn and Eviolite, it actually takes just enough damage to account for not having leftovers recovery, BUT it gets more HP back from leech seed thanks to lower HP. The trade off here is a lower attack stat, which can be annoying as I relied on Ferro's Gyroball a lot. It's a survivability or power tradeoff.

Ugh, Cresselia can kiss my ass. That thing should not get +10 to every stat...
I ran into one today... Trick still works on it just fine.
 

biggie

champ
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
So I compiled a spreadsheet updating all of the base stats for Pokemon according to their tier and the subsequent boost. It can be found here.
 
Oh my goodness gracious, fuck Metang with a rake.

Effectively 75 / 90 / 172 / 70 / 142 / 65 stats with Eviolite.

Metang@Eviolite
Trait: Clear Body
EV: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Nature: Careful (+SpD -SpA)
-Iron Defense
-Rest
-Toxic/Meteor Mash
-Light Screen/Protect/Sleep Talk

Maximum Special Defense and an Iron Defense or three lets him shrug off damage from basically everything but special fire sweeper and even those have a hard time 3HKOing. Iron Defense lets this crazy motherfucker take paltry damage from physical attacks. Seriously, even Medicham can only 4HKO with Hi Jump Kick after a single Iron Defense. Aggron's Earthquake is only a very narrow 3HKO, but by then you've used Iron Defense again. Rest is unfortunately the only form of recovery for this guy, so you'll be needing that. Toxic is the best way of dealing damage, but if you already have Toxic Spikes down, Meteor Mash prevents him from being complete Taunt bait. Light Screen helps against special moves, but Protect is good for Toxic stalling and Sleep Talk keeps him from being complete dead weight while asleep. He's bulky enough to handle the damage while sleeping, though.

Time to make me a stall team, hot damn.
 
Oh my goodness gracious, fuck Metang with a rake.

Effectively 75 / 90 / 172 / 70 / 142 / 65 stats with Eviolite.

Metang@Eviolite
Trait: Clear Body
EV: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Nature: Careful (+SpD -SpA)
-Iron Defense
-Rest
-Toxic/Meteor Mash
-Light Screen/Protect/Sleep Talk

Maximum Special Defense and an Iron Defense or three lets him shrug off damage from basically everything but special fire sweeper and even those have a hard time 3HKOing. Iron Defense lets this crazy motherfucker take paltry damage from physical attacks. Seriously, even Medicham can only 4HKO with Hi Jump Kick after a single Iron Defense. Aggron's Earthquake is only a very narrow 3HKO, but by then you've used Iron Defense again. Rest is unfortunately the only form of recovery for this guy, so you'll be needing that. Toxic is the best way of dealing damage, but if you already have Toxic Spikes down, Meteor Mash prevents him from being complete Taunt bait. Light Screen helps against special moves, but Protect is good for Toxic stalling and Sleep Talk keeps him from being complete dead weight while asleep. He's bulky enough to handle the damage while sleeping, though.

Time to make me a stall team, hot damn.
Am I the only one that thinks you should use the 10% nature boost on defense where it would carry much more weight? Possibly even allowing you to set up on CC or EQ users
 

WaterBomb

Two kids no brane
is a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I came across a Cresselia with Rest instead of Moonlight, so it was even more bitchy as Toxic didn't worry it. I think the reason I had particular issues with it was because both my physical attackers (Ursaring and Whiscash) were dead, so I was left trying to wear it down with subpar attackers that just weren't cutting it. I suppose Moonlight works if you can avoid Toxic.
 
Alright, played a bunch of games and saved the last 7 of them. not all of them are wins, some of them should be wins, and some shouldn't be.

This is a Sun Team I made on the fly based on some conversation here and my own experiences. I'll post the final team at the bottom.

List of Games with Annotations:
Vs. Mono-Poison.
A bunch of hax, but eventually I won with a Jumpluff Sweep and a bit of hax on my own part.

Vs. Another Sun team
Some fast abusers, and one annoying Electrode. Charizard is pretty nasty under Sun in this meta with it's newfound Speed and increased power, but Solar Power really can hamper it, as shown by my Toxic Stall (a bit of luck on my end.) Another Jumpluff Sweep here.

Vs. Random Team.
Seems to be based a bit around Power Split Shuckle and it's retarded bulk. I'm a bit stupid on a few plays (not going for the kill on Shuckle, Seeding and not Spiking on Aerodactyl, etc.) and Sawk is surprisingly hard hitting, although not as powerful as it could be I feel. Gallade surprised me with DB though. I had no idea it learned it. More on Gallade later though. Choice Band Azelf with Zen Headbutt and a tiny bit of hax rids me of Chandelure, which otherwise would have wiped me off the map I think under Sun. A third Jumpluff Sweep here, facilitated by Eggy's suggestion of Seed Bomb as my 4th move.

Vs. A Sand SemiStall Team?
Not sure because they quit on me, but I was kind of afraid of that Regirock. I feel it could be a fantastic Sand Abuser with Curse and Drain Punch with EQ and Stone Edge coverage.

Vs. a very interesting team with some Sun.
I doubt the Sun on this team was for Abuse, but more for wrecking Sand/Rain, which I haven't seen a lot of today for some reason. Archeops is a beast. If not for Defeatist, it'd go OU in a heartbeat. It hits so very hard right up until it hits that 50% line. Gallade makes a return here with a SD set that really took me by surprise. It OHKOs both Ferro and Azelf after 1 SD, which is very impressive. I had to resort to some pretty stally/tricky tactics to wear it down, as the Life Orb and Seeding made it wear out pretty fast, which was a plus for me. I get greedy here as well, trying to grab the extra SD on Pluff while Archeops sleeps, but come up short. I lose this game after Charizard 2HKOs my +1 CRESSELIA. Let that soak in. +1 Cress. Charizard 2HKOs in Sun with Fire Blast. That's pretty powerful. I do feel I would have won if I hadn't gotten greedy with Swords Dance. Ninetales puts up a pretty good fight at the end though.

Vs. Sand
This match I SHOULD NOT HAVE WON. Just getting that out of the way now. I should have led with Terrakion here, but that's not important now. Azelf manages to dent what I believe to be a Defensive Hippodown with CB U-Turn, which is nice. Lucky Taunt stops Misdreavus from boosting, which I think could be pretty deadly under the right circumstances. Some bad Flinch Hax here from Rock Slide (probably making up for the first match, but i get haxed really bad next match in return). I get a little status happy around here which proves to be a bad thing later. I also let Skarmory put up a full 3 Spikes, which was really dumb. Landorus here could have done a LOT more damage, but I'm guessing it was Sand Force, not LO+Sheer Force (far superior imho). Sandslash is bulkier than expected here, which makes me upset, because it SHOULD have died, but it didn't. Poor Terrakion. Azelf picks up the slack though. 130 Atk + STAB + Choice Band + Flinch Chance = Good. Azelf is definitely a star of this match I think, but not THE Star, but that's later. The Whirlwind escapades that happened next were ugly, and I thought I was over, but Cress came back to save the day at the end, being able to Wall Skarmory's BB's, take a Surf to the face from Scarf Keldeo, and out last the team, all while CM boosting up and Ice Beaming or Psyshocking to secure the very surprising win.

Vs. A Good Team
This match was SUPPOSED to be a win, but i lose right at the end to a well-timed Trick. Also, that Aggron got lucky at the start.
252+ Atk Choice Band burned Aggron Head Smash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ninetales: 330-388 (94.28 - 110.85%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
Oh well. Thanks to jujubee for being understanding when I DC'd and for playing like a boss. Rotom-H is powerful as fuck, oven out of Sun. Octillery is also a boss with really great coverage moves. Cresselia though. VIP of the Match, killing 4 mons while being Burned and Seeded. Would have won the match if Rotom-H hadn't Tricked me a Scarf when I went for that last CM Boost, expecting an Overheat. Again, greed is my hubris.


All in all, I really like this Tier. A lot of top threats from OU don't keep up very well (like Terrakion) and some NU threats become monsters (like Jumpluff) and even some UUs get awesome (like Azelf and Cresselia).

Team Used:
Azelf @ Choice Band
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Zen Headbutt
- Fire Punch
- U-turn
- ThunderPunch

Cresselia (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Levitate
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
- Calm Mind
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock
- Moonlight

Ninetales (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Drought
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 Def
Bold Nature
- Flamethrower
- Toxic
- Protect
- Will-O-Wisp

Ferrothorn @ Leftovers
Trait: Iron Barbs
EVs: 252 Def / 252 HP / 4 SDef
Bold Nature
- Spikes
- Power Whip
- Thunder Wave
- Leech Seed

Jumpluff @ Flying Gem
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Adamant Nature
- Acrobatics
- Sleep Powder
- Swords Dance
- Seed Bomb

Terrakion @ Focus Sash
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 SDef
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock
 
I came across a Cresselia with Rest instead of Moonlight, so it was even more bitchy as Toxic didn't worry it. I think the reason I had particular issues with it was because both my physical attackers (Ursaring and Whiscash) were dead, so I was left trying to wear it down with subpar attackers that just weren't cutting it. I suppose Moonlight works if you can avoid Toxic.
Completely Agree on this. Cress is so hard to kill without Toxic or something ridiculous like CB Weavile with Night Slash crits, or CB T-Tar Crunch.
 
On a scale of Ferrothorn to Uber, how much do you suspect Cresselia? Truth is, I've been lucky every time I've run into the moon duck. Trick, Toxic, and Perish Song did them all in so I haven't had the experience of an unkillable Cresselia.


150SpA/85Spe
I'd also like to point out that Chandelure's small +5 boost is just enough for it to outspeed Jolteon and other base 130s with Timid nature and choice scarf. I've had a few lower rank players forfeit when I switched it in on a fire move (probably will-o-wisp) and started to Fire Blast for the win.
 
I've been hyping Cress as soon as I heard of the tier, because I ran calcs and the only thing that KO it in the entire metagame is Megahorns from Esca and Heracross. And weird conditional things like Choice Specs Flash Fire Heatran that would rarely happen.

I've been playing quite a bit and honestly there haven't been too many big standouts to me.

Most OU pokemon are still pretty good. The one I didn't care for was Specially Defensive Jirachi due to the power creep and the rise of sun. It's pretty dreadful for me but Choice Scarf and other sets are still fine.

In my opinion Heatran will be one of the defining pokemon of this tier as I find it to be nearly a staple special wall. It does well against most things but in particular checks most sun sweepers including Choice Specs Charizard which is just ungodly at this point.

Without Heatran dealing with Charizard borders on impossible without getting lucky with Fire Blast misses.
 
While not OHKOs, CB Golurk can lay down some major hurt with Shadow punch, and CB Tyranitar can deal 60-70% damage with Crunch. It's also notable that Absol and Armaldo have access to Swords Dance and can thereafter KO with Megahorn or X-Scissor respectively. (Absol can also Sucker Punch or Crunch.) Scolipede can OHKO with Megahorn if Swarm is activated.

CB Crawdaunt actually has a 5.541% chance to OHKO with Crunch. (If it's the 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD nightmare variant.) I assume that's the one you mean, because the fully defensive calm mind set only takes about 80-95% from Heracross' Megahorn.

Cresselia is ridiculous, and it was one of the best members of my failed attempt at a stall team. (Stall is hard in a tier with 140 base attack Golurk and Sawk and friends.)
 
CB Crawdaunt actually has a 5.541% chance to OHKO with Crunch. (If it's the 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD nightmare variant.) I assume that's the one you mean, because the fully defensive calm mind set only takes about 80-95% from Heracross' Megahorn.
I run a max Defensive variant on mine with CM/Ice Beam/Psyshock/Moonlight. After a few boosts, unless you had Toxic, DB or get lucky with Crits, it's gg.
 
I ran a Specially Defensive Gothorita with Rest/Torment/Toxic/Protect.

It's perfect for trapping most walls and killing them with Toxic. It can even beat Chansey due to Torment. It's how I've managed to deal with Cress rather easily thus far. Only problem with it is that it's pretty one dimensional.
 
One of the tricks to using Cress effectively is to save it til you need to regain some momentum after a bad play or two. If you go into the match thinking "I'll sweep with Cress!" and not, "Cress is my trump card", you'll end up losing it pretty early.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top