MythTrainerInfinity said:A "gimmick" that completely undermines a number of her counters. Flame Orb Cressy is the most useful Cressy set I've seen and I'm quite eager to play with Flame Orb Latias. With Roost/Recover Latias would not be burdened by three turns of Rest unlike Cresselia.
I've had a lot of experience with Flame Orb Cressy and she's a beast, one can only wonder how Latias will do.
When the Flame Orb is gone she can act as a good status absorber being able to Psycho Shift things right back at the opponent. Also... Flame Orb is really the only item that can pretty much keep all Trickers in check. If they Trick it, they get burned and do less damage to you if they are physical based. After all is said and done if you have Trick and are done with Psycho Shift you can Trick it to a Blissey, Celebi or another one of their walls to make life difficult for them. Since Latias is fast she will be able to outrun things like non Scarfed Mence and hit them before they do anything. Not to mention if you have to switch something on Breloom and your Psycho Shifter is already burned you can send that in. The only thing that'll really give you problems whilst Psycho Shifting is Heracross, but still it doesn't like taking 12.5% per turn and if you've got decent prediction you'll do fine. It seems very gimmicky on paper, but its a solid startegy that will provide long term benefits in battle. PS Cressy has never failed to qualify me for the suspect qualifications, I can't wait to use PS Latias in Standard.
Latias needs to be careful though since she is not as bulky as Cresselia she might not be able to survive as long spreading the burns around. In such an offensive metagame Bold might be needed. I mean you want to survive things like Ttar's CBed Crunch after you burn it.
Alright, here's why it's a gimmick. Even though it works, it has some serious issues with today's metagame.
1) Clerics. Now matter how many times you screw over a Physical Sweeper, a single move from Blissey will undo that. In fact, 1 out of every 3 Blisseys have Aromatherapy, as well 25% of all Articunos have Heal Bell, 11% of all Celebis, 42% of all Shaymins, etc, etc, etc.
2) The Blaring Obvious Notice: "Pokemon X has been burned!" Any good trainer that realizes this will think one of two things: Send out my Blissey and stall it forever with Natural Cure, Thunder Wave, Ice Beam, or Seismic Toss, OR send in a a Special Sweeper to kick Latias' @$$.
3) The Non-Existant Element of Surprise. Okay, maybe they weren't prepared of it. But now that they see this, their strategy is going to change drastically. They will realize that status move should be used with caution, and will know what to do once they see Latias again. The surprise facter is gone after the first use. A good Pokemon can maintain the element of surprise throughout the battle. For example, using Crunch on DD Mix-tar until a slot opens for a late-game sweep.
4) What are the advantages? WoW does this 100 times better. It's straight forward. Not need to burn yourself, lose some Attack Prowess and lose HP, and you don't need to give up the Leftovers.
On top of that, there are NO adavantages of this set over Cresselia. Okay, maybe it has access to Surf and superior Speed, but apart from that, none. In fact, Latias has even less bulk, so this set is a total gimmick. OO.