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- Thread starter Shellnuts
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Adding my VL, tiers kinda ordered, but only roughly
Rest in peace tentacruel, Hypno and Lapras coming back as well as Wrap being banned not to mention Slowbro dropping was absolutely catastrophic for our former number 1 mon. Swords Dance Hyper Beam Surf/Hydro Pump and like Ice Beam just won't hit the same. It's so sad to see a legend fall off like this.
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lapras and hypno being legal was terrific for tentacruel, bro dropping would've also been neutral at worst if we saw play with it and wrap legal. slow top mons is a major boon for tentacruel
wrap ban is the only real catastrophic thing and yeah tent wasn't gonna survive regardless of lapras/hypno/bro's legality without wrap
Posting mid tour!?
She's lost her mind surely. But no I truly think this is just too fun of a post to not make now that ive thought of it.
Like with most rby tiers it goes without saying that Leads are, very possibly the most important part of a game. In this post I plan to discuss them in parts as I feel these pokemon have put themselves into factions in a way.
Faction one, which i find to be widely centralizing. Potentially even moreso than in OU but definitely less so than NU.
Is SLEEPERS
To break these into even more parts
(
) hypno.
(
) common and strong sleepers.
(
:) the other guys.
Why does hypno get his own section?
Well because like in everything else hypno is leads above his competition in this role.
A big part of why mons like haunter and venomoth see use is because of how important being fast enough to sleep hypno really is. Hypnos downfall is that it uses hypnosis and can kinda struggle to break mons like kadabra or slowbro.
These 2 cling to their speed more than anything. With venomoth taking advantage of sleep powders higher accuracy to compensate for a significantly worse typing and 5 less base speed. Haunter has other useful tools like explosion and Thunderbolt to threaten the tiers powerful waters and quickly pivot out.
3 sleepers who
1. Outspeed hypno
2. Underspeed the previous 2 sleepers
3. Are handicapped heavily by their typing.
Victreebel is honestly a fine pokemon in UU, doing great into slower teams even without wrap. But in the lead its speed and typing leave alot to be desired, as yes it makes a mockery of electric leads. But the psychic and flying weakness without added gimmicks of outpacing mons like dnite and gyara or threatening special drops with psychic can be quite damning.
Poliwrath is a mon with alot of potential that unfortunately just needs too much to go its way. To start, it outspeeds hypno which is good but much like hypno its relying hypnosis to put mons to sleep. This raises issues as its one miss away from not just being slept by hypno but threatened with significant damage.
It's other issue is despite its great pool of tools it can struggle to really do much damage. Getting past lapras without boosts or submission is a struggle.
And finally venusaur is just..faster vic but no stun spore. And its that lack of stun and the fact the bonus speed kind of does...nothing? Like it ties dragonite but thats hardly a big selling point. It does get to use the better sleep move atleast. Venusaur is probably not worth the time In my opinion.
The next group is the TWAVERS
Yet again these can be broken up into mini groups.
() This asshole again...
(
) Solid consistent choices
(
) other twavers with uses.
Gonna keep this "brief" because I already talked about him but surprise surprise.
The best mon in the tier and most successful sleep lead is also the best twave lead for a few reasons.
It's got good bulk, spammable stab, freedom to fit rest when needed, ur gonna use one anyway lol. This isnt to say hypno is just far and away the best lead in the tier as its got issues like shaky kada mu as mentioned before. But its really just so excellent idt having it as the #1 lead is crazy at all.
While im grouping these together they aren't inherently that similar, electabuzz and kadabra share that coveted 105 speed tier which causes them to be compared a good bit. Personally I believe electabuzz to be better but i digress. The positives of electabuzz as well as its impact are pretty interesting. Electabuzz scores a faster speed tier than dodrio, something raichu doesn't get which is why raichu lead is nearly nonexistent. Electabuzz also packs a respectable attack stat and body slam(unlike electrode) to threaten switch ins like dugtrio with big damage and para, and others like golem and tangela with para without risking twave doing nothing into golem. Electabuzz also has a pretty noticeable bulk difference from kadabra.
Kadabras positives are harder to take advantage of but nonetheless impressive.
Kadabra obviously packs stab psychic, significantly threatening the 2 fastest sleep leads and making it a general pain to switch into for many teams trying to preserve their hypno. Speaking of hypno another claim to fame for kadabra is of the para leads its the best at cheesing through hypno. Kadabra is held back by its frankly terrible bulk, falling to stray hyper beams from most leads that run it. Clefable takes a pretty different approach as its speed is actually its biggest problem. Underspeeding not just haunter and veno, but hypno aswell. What clef does have going for it is a great offensive movepool, no weaknesses.
These 2 have nothing in common they're just the fringest lead twave picks i think are viable. Electrode aims to work somewhat as a bad electabuzz with a few key differences. Most notably its faster than dugtrio and has explosion. While dugtrio is scarcely ohko'd by non-crit explosion, dugtrios presence on a team almost guarantees no golem. Albeit the odds of haunter are relatively unaffected. So it can be suggested that luring in dugtrio increases the chance their team doesn't exactly like taking boom. Dragonite however plays somewhat like clefable, using its mixed offenses and great bulk+twave to mess with a whole bunch of things. Dragonite I must admit has been kinda just a me thing to this point? Atleast in tours. But I have enough faith to put it here.
Next im gonna touch on quickly are what i view as breaker/phys leads. What this means can be kinda confusing but honestly its just using the already powerful normals in the lead position.
(
)
(
)
The popularity of these pokemon in the lead slot can vary greatly between meta shifts and this one has so far greatly favored one over the other 2 and that is unsurprisingly lead dodrio. Lead dodrio in my opinion is the closest thing to an overpowered lead this tier has. The explosive power and inconsistent rng provided by its slams is enough, but being one crit away from invalidating all sleep leads bar hypno is certainly something aswell. Lead kangaskhan is significantly less common as its lower power and speed often put it in awkward lead situations but its better movepool and bulk can help it. Lead persian seems isolated to a few people and im not one of them but the theory seems to be based mainly on the incredible speed and power of persian.
Look out for haunter however as thats probably the most one sided lead mu I can think of.
Lastly I think its always good to touch on the fire types that may pop up in lead.
(
)
(
)
Three fire types, three somewhat different gameplans.
Ive gone over these 2 before however at the time I was a firm believer rapidash was simply, much better. My eyes have been opened to the uncompetitive plague that is confuse ray and now im not so sure.
Lets go over the positives of each one first.
Rapidash boasts a better speed tier, tying kadabra and electabuzz and outpacing dodrio. However the trade for this is a lack of really uh...any viable 4th move now that spins gone. Ive seen stomp and sub tried as 4ths but really ur just spamming slam and fire blast. Wheras ninetales obviously has access to the ever infuriating Confuse ray and has even opted to drop hyper beam for substitute in recent memory. Making it much harder to switch around and deal with.
Great mon, really not so impressive as a lead imo. It's 90 base speed is fine for the disgusting back breaker its known to be but much like kangaskhan its often insufficient in lead mus. It's added power is fine but it comes at the cost of absolutely all rng. Seriously 0 rng its pure honesty.
Overall I believe moltres is underexplored but lead is super not my preferred way to explore it.
Because shitting on moltres is a lame way to end this post ive decided to hastily throw together a lead VR.
She's lost her mind surely. But no I truly think this is just too fun of a post to not make now that ive thought of it.
Like with most rby tiers it goes without saying that Leads are, very possibly the most important part of a game. In this post I plan to discuss them in parts as I feel these pokemon have put themselves into factions in a way.
Faction one, which i find to be widely centralizing. Potentially even moreso than in OU but definitely less so than NU.
Is SLEEPERS
To break these into even more parts
(
) hypno.(
) common and strong sleepers.(
:) the other guys.Why does hypno get his own section?
Well because like in everything else hypno is leads above his competition in this role.
A big part of why mons like haunter and venomoth see use is because of how important being fast enough to sleep hypno really is. Hypnos downfall is that it uses hypnosis and can kinda struggle to break mons like kadabra or slowbro.
These 2 cling to their speed more than anything. With venomoth taking advantage of sleep powders higher accuracy to compensate for a significantly worse typing and 5 less base speed. Haunter has other useful tools like explosion and Thunderbolt to threaten the tiers powerful waters and quickly pivot out.
3 sleepers who
1. Outspeed hypno
2. Underspeed the previous 2 sleepers
3. Are handicapped heavily by their typing.
Victreebel is honestly a fine pokemon in UU, doing great into slower teams even without wrap. But in the lead its speed and typing leave alot to be desired, as yes it makes a mockery of electric leads. But the psychic and flying weakness without added gimmicks of outpacing mons like dnite and gyara or threatening special drops with psychic can be quite damning.
Poliwrath is a mon with alot of potential that unfortunately just needs too much to go its way. To start, it outspeeds hypno which is good but much like hypno its relying hypnosis to put mons to sleep. This raises issues as its one miss away from not just being slept by hypno but threatened with significant damage.
It's other issue is despite its great pool of tools it can struggle to really do much damage. Getting past lapras without boosts or submission is a struggle.
And finally venusaur is just..faster vic but no stun spore. And its that lack of stun and the fact the bonus speed kind of does...nothing? Like it ties dragonite but thats hardly a big selling point. It does get to use the better sleep move atleast. Venusaur is probably not worth the time In my opinion.
The next group is the TWAVERS
Yet again these can be broken up into mini groups.
(
) This asshole again...(
) Solid consistent choices(
) other twavers with uses.Gonna keep this "brief" because I already talked about him but surprise surprise.
The best mon in the tier and most successful sleep lead is also the best twave lead for a few reasons.
It's got good bulk, spammable stab, freedom to fit rest when needed, ur gonna use one anyway lol. This isnt to say hypno is just far and away the best lead in the tier as its got issues like shaky kada mu as mentioned before. But its really just so excellent idt having it as the #1 lead is crazy at all.
While im grouping these together they aren't inherently that similar, electabuzz and kadabra share that coveted 105 speed tier which causes them to be compared a good bit. Personally I believe electabuzz to be better but i digress. The positives of electabuzz as well as its impact are pretty interesting. Electabuzz scores a faster speed tier than dodrio, something raichu doesn't get which is why raichu lead is nearly nonexistent. Electabuzz also packs a respectable attack stat and body slam(unlike electrode) to threaten switch ins like dugtrio with big damage and para, and others like golem and tangela with para without risking twave doing nothing into golem. Electabuzz also has a pretty noticeable bulk difference from kadabra.
Kadabras positives are harder to take advantage of but nonetheless impressive.
Kadabra obviously packs stab psychic, significantly threatening the 2 fastest sleep leads and making it a general pain to switch into for many teams trying to preserve their hypno. Speaking of hypno another claim to fame for kadabra is of the para leads its the best at cheesing through hypno. Kadabra is held back by its frankly terrible bulk, falling to stray hyper beams from most leads that run it. Clefable takes a pretty different approach as its speed is actually its biggest problem. Underspeeding not just haunter and veno, but hypno aswell. What clef does have going for it is a great offensive movepool, no weaknesses.
These 2 have nothing in common they're just the fringest lead twave picks i think are viable. Electrode aims to work somewhat as a bad electabuzz with a few key differences. Most notably its faster than dugtrio and has explosion. While dugtrio is scarcely ohko'd by non-crit explosion, dugtrios presence on a team almost guarantees no golem. Albeit the odds of haunter are relatively unaffected. So it can be suggested that luring in dugtrio increases the chance their team doesn't exactly like taking boom. Dragonite however plays somewhat like clefable, using its mixed offenses and great bulk+twave to mess with a whole bunch of things. Dragonite I must admit has been kinda just a me thing to this point? Atleast in tours. But I have enough faith to put it here.
Next im gonna touch on quickly are what i view as breaker/phys leads. What this means can be kinda confusing but honestly its just using the already powerful normals in the lead position.
(
)(
)The popularity of these pokemon in the lead slot can vary greatly between meta shifts and this one has so far greatly favored one over the other 2 and that is unsurprisingly lead dodrio. Lead dodrio in my opinion is the closest thing to an overpowered lead this tier has. The explosive power and inconsistent rng provided by its slams is enough, but being one crit away from invalidating all sleep leads bar hypno is certainly something aswell. Lead kangaskhan is significantly less common as its lower power and speed often put it in awkward lead situations but its better movepool and bulk can help it. Lead persian seems isolated to a few people and im not one of them but the theory seems to be based mainly on the incredible speed and power of persian.
Look out for haunter however as thats probably the most one sided lead mu I can think of.
Lastly I think its always good to touch on the fire types that may pop up in lead.
(
)(
)Three fire types, three somewhat different gameplans.
Ive gone over these 2 before however at the time I was a firm believer rapidash was simply, much better. My eyes have been opened to the uncompetitive plague that is confuse ray and now im not so sure.
Lets go over the positives of each one first.
Rapidash boasts a better speed tier, tying kadabra and electabuzz and outpacing dodrio. However the trade for this is a lack of really uh...any viable 4th move now that spins gone. Ive seen stomp and sub tried as 4ths but really ur just spamming slam and fire blast. Wheras ninetales obviously has access to the ever infuriating Confuse ray and has even opted to drop hyper beam for substitute in recent memory. Making it much harder to switch around and deal with.
Great mon, really not so impressive as a lead imo. It's 90 base speed is fine for the disgusting back breaker its known to be but much like kangaskhan its often insufficient in lead mus. It's added power is fine but it comes at the cost of absolutely all rng. Seriously 0 rng its pure honesty.
Overall I believe moltres is underexplored but lead is super not my preferred way to explore it.
Because shitting on moltres is a lame way to end this post ive decided to hastily throw together a lead VR.
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would like to add some mid-tour thoughts myself as well
Fast Sleepers In Lead and Short Term Advantage I consider the fast sleepers to be somewhat underwhelming in the lead slot. I will certainly be running these in the lead sometimes, but haunter and venomoth have poor bulk and defensive typing. When faced with a paralysis spreading lead(
) they either have to attempt to land sleep in spite of the paralysis that's about to hit them or usually have to switch hypno in to protect them from paralysis, exposing it to status + damage early instead, and given how much a hypno can do by itself the switch is often not worthwhile.. This means when faced with a faster thunder wave lead, they'll likely take paralysis even if they land sleep, allowing for the opponent's own hypno to muscle through them with damage and push sleep onto something more valuable, thus evening out the battle back into something closer to a 4v4 scenario.And this is for the best case scenario for these two! Haunter relies on 60% hypnosis and most leads WILL punish misses effectively with 2HKOs: even slower pokemon like clefable and hypno can throw out a thunder wave to punish misses. Arguably haunter has more value attempting to click hypnosis in front of something that will punish a miss poorly or on a forced switch(
) , pokemon not usually found in the lead slot.Nonetheless, they are both somewhat demanding pokemon to switch into after sleep has landed: thunderbolt from haunter is very painful to switch into and often leads to hypno being exposed to damage to protect teammates, same with venomoth's stun spore + psychic critdrop special, and is not a bad idea for a hypno removal gameplan
Keeping Em Honest This lead is the definition of annoying for the opponent.
hate being paralyzed immediately and getting nailed with psychic right away, and hypno is prone to taking some damage + paralysis when trying to disable it, and the pokemon that punish it in lead(
) both allow dangerous pokemon to come in earlygame. REALLY hates this, and most pokemon in the lead slot will at best speed tie it, most likely being paralyzed first , which gives it decent odds to snowball and land plenty of chip before being taken out or simply landing one thunder wave and abusing the 25% chance to bail out and have something else punish the paralyzed mon: it really doesnt have to commit unless it takes paralysis itself. Not a huge change from old UU, hypno stands out as a pokemon that will most likely give up its hp and status to disable it, and while hypno is pretty important to a team , it is an option nonetheless Im Slow And OHKOd By So Many Crits And Noncrits I havent seen Golem in too many games in this new UU, but it has really sucked in the games ive seen. And I dont mean to say this pokemon is bad or unusable: its just a terrible endgamer:
slower than everything but
no thunder wave or status moves
hits pretty hard, but often nets 3hkos and has a low critrate because of that bad speed
you can go to showdex and find like 10 pokemon in the tier that ohko it with or without critical hits
it really gains most of it's value early in the game when explosion is the least likely to be caught with a low hp sack or a sleeping mon and when there are the most mons to protect it and allow it to switch in more than once and force damage or kos. PLEASE use this guy more expendably and earlier in the game, i genuinely think
is more capable in endgames and she does no damage. is the one endgame pokemon golem can comfortably save you from, but how often is dodrio closing out a game instead of something like
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theres no way hypno is the best lead. putting the #1 mon who runs the tier at risk turn 1 is so, so bad and i don't think it solidly wins enough matchups to be the best lead.
lead hypno = no back hypno which has some pretty obvious, pretty bad downsides
if hypno matches into a sleep lead, you literally lose the best pokemon in the game immediately instantly more often than not (switching has its own issues ofc, arguably may be preferable than losing your #1 mon instantly)
if it matches up into kadabra it's largely RNG and what % HP remaining when hypnosis lands counts as a "win" is variable based on matchup. the chance to take 3-4 stosses isn't a tiny margin for what it's worth, i am just not sure if gambling your hypno immediately is better than say, mirroring with own kad, slamming with buzz, or being immediately threatening with dodrio.
instant land (twave taken, 0 damage taken) = ~45.06%
1 FP/miss (from here on FP/miss count also equals Stosses taken count) = ~24.76%
2 FP/miss = ~13.60%
3 FP/miss = 7.47%
4 FP/miss (death) = ~9.11%
*this also assumes hypno continues to go for hypnosis every turn and never pivots to waving after say, 2 stosses taken
1 FP/miss (from here on FP/miss count also equals Stosses taken count) = ~24.76%
2 FP/miss = ~13.60%
3 FP/miss = 7.47%
4 FP/miss (death) = ~9.11%
*this also assumes hypno continues to go for hypnosis every turn and never pivots to waving after say, 2 stosses taken
for saying "surprise surprise" and making it seem obvious, i actually would disagree with both these classifications. venomoth is the best sleep lead imo because leading with venomoth means you retain back hypno
i think haunter is also hella overrated and wins very few matchups. id call dodrio* and kadabra losses for crits killing. buzz is also probably a loss due to twave and ninetales is a little tricky to say and depends on if they have confuse ray, and if so adds a lot of its own rng in the equation. bad start to analyzing haunter matchups.
because 60% accuracy sleep as well hypno and clef are very high variance, likely still wins overall, but consider that if in the case hypnosis lands and the opponent instant wakes haunter just goes for hypnosis again, it's only about 56% to land and stick for at least 1 turn. that is 44% to take twave and a hit due to being slower, which is a very bad outcome and this doesn't consider the chance of the opponent going for more than 1 waking turn. still willing to say this is likely a win for both, losing hypno instantly is catastrophic even if hypno has considerable odds to just KO haunter at no cost, and cleffy even with psychic isn't quite as threateneing (psydrop, psy is a range only, crit never ohkos).
besides, its still >50% albeit ignoring odds of t2 wakes which are impossible to account for.
tldr hypno is broken and not the best lead because no healthy back hypno is bad, haunter is bad and its winning matchups tend to rely on 56%s
*: i did the math, you can argue dodo is ADVANTAGED for haunt? (kinda)
nocrit, land: (412/512)*(153/256) = ~48.1%
crit, no ko, land (100/512)*(8/39)*(153/256) = ~2.39%
total odds to lands sleep = (412/512)*(153/256) + (100/512)*(8/39)*(153/256) = ~50.49%
make of ~50.49% to land sleep what you will. slightly higher since 255 miss for drill peck not accounted for.
veno still has ~59.6% and 60.3% sleep odds vs dodo/kad if you're looking for a sleep lead who stays vs these guys t1.
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