Updating ADV Analyses (Read Post #11)

Personally, I think many of the ADV Analysis on site give credit to noncompetitive sets that might confuse new players and the set placement is non ideal. I wrote up notes on what's missing or what I think is needed, the point of this thread is for the better ADV players to determine the best EV spreads and how to order the sets. Let's not put this off any longer.

First, I have a change of OU Mons being changed to BL:

OU -> BL
Houndoom
Dusclops
Medicham
Vaporeon

this is just from my experience from watching adv games during tour and spl. being demoted to BL doesn't mean you're not useful. rhydon, dnite, blaziken, etc are all currently BL and can work fine. the reason to move these mons is they just aren't common enough to merit placing them into OU for players to worry about. i know people will for some reason get upset that i'd suggest moving these but in current day adv, im purely talking from experience that you just don't see these often enough to merit being "OU".

remember, OU = usage not power or utility. i'm not sure the exact usage statistics used to place these mons but in a competitive environment, there's no reason to have them placed as such.

OU Pokemon changes: These are just my opinions, if you disagree tell me why. A lot of these changes are harsh because I think having sets that are either useless or not even used are pointless and skew the idea of what OU looks like

celebi
---
add set:
cm
giga drain
hp fire
psychic / recover

perish song doesnt "have" to be used with umbreon - it closes out games and helps vs curselax, cm cune, cm kou, etc

reorder sets:
- offensive calm mind
- perish song / defensive
- cm baton pass
- swords dance

counters section is awful

---
forretress
---
remove rest stalk: no spinning = bad and literally no one uses this

---
gengar
---
mcicegar to bottom

---
gyarados
---
mention double-edge in the DD set
- remove special set
- remove choice band (no one uses any of these 2)

---
heracross
---
order of sets:
- cb
- sd 3 atks
- subsalac

endrev and rest stalk in other options

---
jirachi
---
add set:
timid
4 hp 252 spa 252 spe
cm
psychic / fire punch
ice punch
hp grass

screen support and doom desire to OO

---
metagross
---
remove rest stalk
remove 200 meta

---
milotic
---
remove light screen set

---
raikou
---
just slash roar/reflect
remove rest stalk raikou

---
regice
---
- is psych up really the 1 option for this? seismic toss, sleep talk, and toxic all seem better
- remove curse counter
- remove subpunch

---
salamence
---
- remove hydro pump from dd
- wish to 3rd slot
- remove the special mences

skarmory
---
edit set:
spikes
ww
toxic / rest
protect / stalk / hp flying

- remove choice band
- no, nosepass does not deserve a mention in counters

snorlax
---
edit set:
body slam / self destruct
shadow ball
fire blast
earthquake

- remove rest stalk
- remove subpunch
- remove counterBOOM
- remove fire blast and hp steel on curse lax

suicune
---
- fast cm set
- slash ice beam and roar to combine the first 2 sets
- remove non cm cune (id argue just use milotic or pert)

swampert
---
add set:
sub
endeavor
hydro pump/surf
ice beam

- reststalk to 2 slot
- endeavorpert to 3 slot
- cursepert to 4 slot
- i know endeavorpert is "bad" to some players but the fact is, its used in OU and its had effectiveness. at the very least, an analysis lets players know to prepare for it because as it stands, new players could easily lose to it not knowing anything about it.

tyranitar
---
add set:
pursuit
hp grass
rock slide
fire blast

dd ttar: doesnt mention hp bug...? gonna add that

- special tar 2nd slot
- choice band to 3rd slot
- remove rest and subpunch, is boah relevant in current meta?

zapdos
---
- restalk first
- baton pass 2nd
- offensive set w/ thunder?
- light screen 3rd or 4th
- remove cb, mixed, metal sound, and twave

if you want to volunteer to write up a set thatd be cool but the main goal is for good current adv players to describe the best spreads and movesets for these mons (because i have some undoubtedly wrong im sure).
 

M Dragon

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Celebi => Support set should be the first set, then offensive cm
Gyarados => I disagree with removing CB set
Heracross => SubSalac should be 2nd, SD 3 attacks 3rd, and restalk 4th.
Metagross => I disagree with removing both sets (especially restalk, which is very underrated)
Milotic => Light Screen is good, at least a mention of LS would be nice
Raikou => Dont remove restalk set, its another underrated set
Regice => Psych up is very good
Salamence => I see and use special mence a lot, it shouldnt be removed.
Skarm => Switch Protect and Toxic places. Also add Taunt as an option
Snorlax => I dont like that mixlax set you posted at all. It should have both BS and Boom. Restalk lax is very good, as well as counter boom. Fire Blast and HP steel are not a bad idea at all in curselax, especially the former.
Suicune => Dont remove non CM suicune, its really good as a pressure phazer with spikes support.
Tyranitar => I dont like that mixtar set at all, Crunch or IB (if you really want to hit zapdos) are usually better. Physical subpunch is quite good.
Zapdos => Keep CB, mixed and MS sets
 
Celebi => Support set should be the first set, then offensive cm
Gyarados => I disagree with removing CB set
Heracross => SubSalac should be 2nd, SD 3 attacks 3rd, and restalk 4th.
Metagross => I disagree with removing both sets (especially restalk, which is very underrated)
Milotic => Light Screen is good, at least a mention of LS would be nice
Raikou => Dont remove restalk set, its another underrated set
Regice => Psych up is very good
Salamence => I see and use special mence a lot, it shouldnt be removed.
Skarm => Switch Protect and Toxic places. Also add Taunt as an option
Snorlax => I dont like that mixlax set you posted at all. It should have both BS and Boom. Restalk lax is very good, as well as counter boom. Fire Blast and HP steel are not a bad idea at all in curselax, especially the former.
Suicune => Dont remove non CM suicune, its really good as a pressure phazer with spikes support.
Tyranitar => I dont like that mixtar set at all, Crunch or IB (if you really want to hit zapdos) are usually better. Physical subpunch is quite good.
Zapdos => Keep CB, mixed and MS sets
celebi: k, agreed

gyarados: is cb ever used? the set might be decent but if its not relevant or ever going to be used, we could keep things more relevant by moving to OO

heracross: im fine with your set order, is rest stalk worth it? i've literally never seen it and cant imagine using this hera set.

metagross: absolutely no need to keep a set for 200 gameplay. new users playing adv for tour are going to be clueless about it and it just takes up space. i dont see anyone ever use rest stalk and question its usefulness but since you supported it on irc, ill keep it in

milotic: would mention it in OO

raikou: ok, but the increased vulnerability to dugtrio sucks and i think cm kou just deals with things better (gengar/zapdos/etc). some more explanation of why to keep it would be helpful

regice: are you saying it should be the first option? i don't see it used and am curious of if its the correct first option

salamence: id keep in 1 special mence but i think wallbreaker and elemence are redundant so id be inclined to keep just 1

skarm: taunt has a set already

snorlax: the lax is the set rey posted, we should proly have a discussion on the better set. i never see rest stalk 2 atk lax and question if it has any use in current ou compared to other lax sets.

suicune: cm seems like the major selling point of cune but ill take your word on this for now

tyranitar: k, noted

zapdos: while cb zap can be cool, is it relevant to the meta at all? seems like an easy OO addition rather than its own set

thanks for the input
 

Myzozoa

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As someone trying to learn adv, I don't have suggestions for what should be changed. However, I think a lot of the ev spreads in analysis don't actually reflect what is actually used by players (cloyster analysis for example). It's very frustrating to figure this stuff out without having access to experienced players (i always ask floppy and badass for ev spreads because I don't trust the analyses). Hope this ends up happening.
 

chaos

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we chatted about this on IRC but I really think reflect celebi should get its own set. You can lump it in with "defensive" but I don't think that does it justice. Reflect shuts down hp bug dugtrio and is a great way to handle salamence/ttar/metagross/snorlax switchins (the latter esp. with leech seed)

otherwise I generally agree with your suggestions, my personal pref is for bp zapdos to be first though :)
 

dekzeh

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I don't usually do this stuff, but eh, just trying to help :)

Celebi: Add CM / Attack Move / Leech Seed / Recover as a set. That should probably be first, Offensive 2nd, Defensive 3rd (Perish Song be slashed in this, no point on having its own set), then CM Baton Pass and SD Baton Pass.
I really like CM / Giga Drain / HP Fire / Baton Pass with an offensive spread, that could have a mention somewhere.

Forretress: Remove the Sleep Talk set, I'd say remove Rest from being a slash in the first set even. Also add HP Bug, which should be the main attacking move, and have Earthquake slashed with it.
A specially defensive EV spread is much more common then the on-site physically defensive, though both have merits, so I don't know what you'd want to do with that.

Gengar: I'd just remove McIceGar, all it has is 'historical value'.
Also can we do something about so many slashes in the first set? Right now it can be both Thunderbolt/Ice Punch/WoW/Taunt or Thunderbolt/Ice Punch/Giga Drain/Explosion which are completely different, the set is called status but there isnt even a mandatory status.
Problem is Gengar can choose whatever 2 moves it wants from a huge list and be fine but the analysis should be more professional then that. Also add/mention/whatever bulkier EV spreads, max HP Gengar is really common atm.

Gyarados: Agree with everything here, CB doesn't really have enough merits or popularity, even though it is a fine set. I would move it to OO.

Heracross: 1st CB, 2nd Sub Salac, 3rd SD 3 attacks. Agree with MDragon on keeping restalk, it is a good set, a great check to non-fire punch Gengar, CM Bliss, and a bunch of special attackers in general. It's only held back by Dugtrio.

Jirachi: Superachi should be added but Psychic is a must, set should be CM / Psychic / Fire Punch / HP Grass with Ice Punch slashed with Fire Punch. Agree with Doom Desire and Screen Support to OO. Also, Reflect on CM + Wish, slashed with the coverage moves.

Metagross: Keep Restalk, it is an amazing set. Remove 200, completely irrelevant.

Milotic: Light Screen is good, but probably OO material.

Raikou: You can probably just have two sets here: CM-Thunderbolt-HP Ice/Grass-Substitute/Roar/Reflect. They are all very similar and basically the same but the last move helps with beating different stuff. And Restalk as the 2nd set.

Salamence: Remove Elemence and keep the MixMence.

Regice: Psych Up should be main option, yeah, remove Thunder Wave and Counter from here though. Also, add Restalk as a set, using Ice Beam and Seismic Toss as moves. I would agree on removing both other sets and would like to see a different set added. Ice Beam-Thunderbolt-Thunder Wave-Explosion.

Skarmory: Fine.

Snorlax: Snorlax should have Body Slam/Frustration/Double-Edge in addition to Boom. Not having a strong stab to for example break a Suicune sub is just awful (this should just be a redo of the now called Mixed Attacker tbh, and have it named All Out Attacker or something). The slash should be Shadow Ball/Fire Blast. Keep Restalk, keep Counterboom. Remove HP Steel but keep Fire Blast.

Order should be: Curse Lax, All Out Attacker, Choice Band, Restalk, Mono Attacker.

Suicune: Non CM Suicune is fine, it's an amazing spikes abuser, keep it. Agree with the rest.

Swampert: Fine.

Tyranitar: HP Bug main slash on DD, keep Physical Sub Punch, remove Restalk, remove Boah. Add the Pursuit set. Order should be DD, Pursuit, CB, SubPunch.

Zapdos: Keep CB, mixed and Metal Sound.

And some other stuff....

Flygon: How is Screech first set? That should just be removed. The Choice Band set should be called 'All Out Attacker' and have Leftovers slashed with CB, or you can have two sets using the same exact 4 moves, dunno whats better.
Anyway, that should be the first set (if it's split then Leftovers 4 attacks definitely 1st, then CB). Sub 2nd/3rd set depending.

Jolteon: Should have Roar slashed with the coverage move.


Also a bunch of EV spreads are just terrible :B
 
I agree with removing rest talk on raikou, it simply doesn't make much sense. As for Regice; you'll generally use Regice if you want to counter a sub cm'er (at least from my experience, different people use pokemon for different purposes).

I don't like the tier changes except for Vaporeon. Houndoom is a very solid switch in to fire and enables you to use earthquake on curselax by removing gengar and the likes with pursuit. Fire isn't that common in OU, sadly, as it is generally outperformed by Ice, but Houndoom can take an IB as well and has the speed and damage to retaliate. I really feel like Houndoom belongs in OU.

Medicham... where do I begin, I really, really, really dislike this pokemon. That's probably because I generally play stall-ish teams and swapping anything into a CB focus punch from Medicham is an unpleasant experience. Medicham is pretty hard to switch in though and doesn't have that much speed, I guess Heracross outperforms him in general (especially as Hera can absorb status + use Megahorn, it really grants him more switch-in powers).

Dusclops? Meh. Used to be pretty good until everyone started running hp ghost on Forretress and the likes instead of hp bug. Then again, hp fire Magneton has something to say about that. I'm unsure about this.

Aside from all this, I have a suggestion myself about a tier change of Celebi and/or Mew. I know this used to be a really heated topic back in the day but I feel like we can re-open this discussion.

Celebi is OU whereas Mew is Uber. They have the same stats, but Mew has a vastly greater movepool. In fact, looking over the movesets of both pokemon, Mew has these 'useful' moves (and I turned a blind eye for some moves; i.e. I don't see Surf being effective on any Mew moveset but I've added it regardless):

Counter
Dynamic Punch
Earthquake
Endure
Explosion
Fire Blast
Flamethrower
Focus Punch
Ice Beam
Overheat
Roar
Rock Slide
Seismic Toss
Snatch
Surf
Sludge Bomb
Taunt
Thief
Thunder Wave
Thunderbolt

Many 'unique' moves - some good, some of arguable usefulness - Celebi has too (sword's dance, mimic, metronome, reflect/safeguard/light screen, ...,).

Celebi has Baton Pass, Heal Bell, Leech Seed and Perish Song over Mew - and all of these moves are absolutely amazing.

If we're looking at the typing, Celebi has it quite rough - grass isn't that great. The passive traits are 'different'; it's hard to really say synchronize is inferior to natural cure or vice versa, but I personally find natural cure to be superior.

Honestly, the baton pass, leech seed and heal bell is an amazing advantage. What does Mew really have? From the list above, the only moves I could see myself maybe using on an OU Mew would be:
Counter
Explosion
Overheat
Fire Blast/Flamethrower
Ice Beam
Roar
Seismic Toss
Taunt
Thunder Wave
.................snatch if I wanted to be gimmicky against Blisseys, or just force switches (seems like a poor option in general).

Taunt, Thunder Wave, Roar and Explosion are the obvious 'gg'-moves here, but do these moves + the other moves really hold up against baton pass, leech seed and heal bell?

Aside from typing (psychic > psychic/grass) and arguably an eeny-weeny bit of a better movepool (in my opinion I'd rather have Celebi's movepool, baton pass and leech seed are just too good) they seem similar - yet one is OU and the other is Uber.
 

Jorgen

World's Strongest Fairy
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This thread isn't one for actually meaningful tiering changes, dude. Changes between BL and OU tiers don't actually mean anything aside from what is recommended or frequently used in OU, as opposed to a change between OU and Ubers that actually affects banlists. This thread is more for making ADV analyses more in line with what accurately reflects today's ADV metagame.
 
i also want to note now before it comes up later that im not writing up too much. while i've rewritten or just wrote brand new sets or sections, a lot of what was written was good content already there, just out of date.

so im not taking credit for everything im posting because much of it (like recent swampert) is taken right from the analysis and im just pasting it so we can upload as is from my threads. this is important because i dont want anyone to feel that im trying to take credit for their hard work.

anyway:

written:
swampert
gengar
tyranitar
flygon
forretress

wip:
celebi
regice

lets keep up the good work guys, if you're experienced in #adv or would like to watch the experienced players of adv talk, you really should come. i've learned a lot from these guys and we really have some of the best adv minds working here to help improve these sets.

guys who've been there and helping you guys have been phenomenal and i thank you so much for your help with these sets.
 

JabbaTheGriffin

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This process is going to run very quickly. Here is what's going to happen.

Stage 1: A revamped analysis is posted. If there's not a ton of contention within the first 24 hours, the analysis will be posted on-site. If there is, the analysis will be given an extra 24 hours, changes will be made, and then it will be posted.
Stage 2: The analysis is on-site. At this point, any grammar checks are done.
Completed/Stage 3: The analysis is finished. If anyone wants to add additional substance to the write-ups, they can.

The process is meant to run these through as quickly as possible. The number one priority is making sure we have quality sets on-site. After that's done, we can tweak and tinker.
 
I don't really want to create a new topic so I'll post my question here: is there any chance of Ninjask being revamped soon? One may think that his options are kind of limited, but there are a few things that are not even mentioned in the analysis while I have seen them work marvelously + have used them myself to great effect.

One of them is Thief on lead Ninjask - when you lead with Ninjask, the general strategy is to either substitute or baton pass on the first turn so you can see what the opponent swaps in against your Ninjask (or doesn't swap in; you can bp to an appropriate counter if the opponent stays in). To my knowledge, all common swap-ins to Ninjask carry Leftovers and the majority of them would really like to keep them (Skarmory, Suicune, ...,).

Additionally, there isn't any sort of strategy analysis to baton passing on your first turn, many new players may think that substituting on your first turn is the only thing to do. I would like to see this revamped with some synergies thrown in (i.e. bp first turn --> opponent swaps in Skarmory, bp to Magneton or Smeargle).

It does have a footnote about the early days of adv where Ninjask used protect as its 4th move; while I agree with this being a bad choice, it then proceeds to state that the general consensus is that ninjask is supposed to do damage when it gets the chance - something I very much so disagree with. Although Silver Wind and/or HP Flying are great moves, Thief and even things such as Toxic (against opposing sub leads) are perfectly viable alternatives.
 

Inspirited

There is usually higher ground.
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Hidden Power Rock is superior to Rock Slide on this set as it does more damage;
I ended up finding this gem in the Regirock analysis and unless I am missing something, it is entirely false. 75 bp > 70 bp but it could be some other issue. Surely Rock Slide's accuracy doesn't discourage its use over HP Rock and you get an extra defense IV out of it.
I know Regirock isn't a high priority mon or anything (its bl for very good reasons), but inaccuracy like this has always bugged me. I figured I would ask here before SCMSing it due to me only starting to learn ADV and the potential I could be missing something obvious.

Floppy Cowboy Dan M Dragon Lutra McMeghan
 

Isa

I've never felt better in my life
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75*90 = 6750
70*100 = 7000

That's how the "more damage" statement enters this world.
 

Inspirited

There is usually higher ground.
is a Contributor Alumnus
Hmm, that is technically correct but the fact that it is based off of a theoretical value bothers me. Perhaps an "over multiple uses" statement could be tacked on there? It wouldn't get rid of the theoretical value problem, but it would help communicate to the reader that HP Rock will not out-damage Rock Slide on a single turn use... almost 100% of the time.
 
On slow pokemon like regirock, the lack of accuracy doesn't seem worth it, the flinch chance is what makes rock slide worth using, and it doesn't really matter on a curse user. Maybe it could just be mentioned that the loss in accuracy isn't worth the relatively insignificant raise in power without the speed for the flinch.
 

M Dragon

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World Defender
Yes, that is a mistake
Dan explained it p well, but I will add that rock slide can be better vs phazers like Skarm (because the flinch chance)
 
I haven't been on the forums for so long that I forgot where to post this, but there's an error on Dodrio's RBY page; it can't learn Low Kick.
 
I haven't been on the forums for so long that I forgot where to post this, but there's an error on Dodrio's RBY page; it can't learn Low Kick.
It can, because you can get it on Doduo through event in generation II, which you then can transfer back to generation I
 
It can, because you can get it on Doduo through event in generation II, which you then can transfer back to generation I
As far as I know the supported metagame is not RBY tradeback so it should be removed (just like Snorlax and NIDOKING don't have Lovely Kiss listed)
 
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