np: UU - Can't Touch This

[august]

I do believe stall was viable, but it definitely wasn't dominant or anything like that. Stall didn't figure out how to beat Gallade either, people just stopped using it because they were, for lack of a better word, bored of it. It actually makes sense, since everyone and their mother decided to run offense, and Gallade is nothing "special" versus offense, people just used other Pokemon (like Raikou, FWG cores, Raikou, Raikou, and Raikou).

On the other hand, if there was a way to beat Honchkrow or Gallade with out much trouble - for stall in particular - I don't think they would have been banned.

Stall was viable, but it was much better off in the previous metagames (namely Crobat's metagame). It definitely did not "dominate".

@ Franky: They were running hail stall....with Froslass. That is how they were winning more often than not -_- (and they aren't afraid to admit it iirc). Xiang, Burton, IPL, etc. They were all hail stall. Hail stall isn't even "that good" in my opinion, but it does dominate the ladder for obvious reasons.

Actually if you look at the top 5 from the past week, the recent #1 (Mantis Style) ran straight stall with no hail and 1 spinblocker, and i also ran stall on spring bloom and I40 To California and managed to get both into the top 10 simutaneously while winning over 90% of the games, I fail to see how that isn't dominating, not to brag.

 

[Heysup]

Actually if you look at the top 5 from the past week, the recent #1 (Mantis Style) ran straight stall with no hail and 1 spinblocker, and i also ran stall on spring bloom and I40 To California and managed to get both into the top 10 simutaneously while winning over 90% of the games, I fail to see how that isn't dominating, not to brag.

I'm talking about before the voting requirements were up, because that's when the ladder is most competitive.

However I think we just define the statement "stall is dominating" differently. I take that to mean that "stall is dominating, as opposed to offense, balance, etc", which I don't believe to be true in the least because of how the ladder was previous to the voting requirements being due.

 

[franky]

@ Franky: They were running hail stall....with Froslass. That is how they were winning more often than not -_- (and they aren't afraid to admit it iirc). Xiang, Burton, IPL, etc. They were all hail stall. Hail stall isn't even "that good" in my opinion, but it does dominate the ladder for obvious reasons.

I play offense religiously for the most part of the previous metagame. However, I gave stall a shot recently and it was much easier to win games with it. I hovered around 6th and 7th for the most part until a sudden hit of stall teams started popping in. (hail and non-hail). Point is stall was still dominating the ladder, hail or no-hail. I have two stall teams, one non-hail and the other one being hail. I can easily say that normal stall is better since the need for spinning isn't actually needed that much.

In other news, I think Porygon-Z would do good in this tier. A more dangerous Alakazam if you ask me with Adaptability and the ability to scare out so many frail-mons (it has a nice speed point in this tier compared to ou). Although I predict that the most common sets for Porygon-Z would incude Substitute in it. Porygon-Z will be a threat watch out. People will need to to pack Spiritomb, Chansey, or Registeel to handle it.

Cresselia would be sweet addition on bulky teams. It will be difficult to take down, I can tell you that.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Re: Stall. I was top 10 on the ladder (peaked at 6 this testing period I believe) before computer troubles/life forced me out, and I can confidently say that stall was not anywhere near "dominant". I ran a bulky offense team, and the only stall teams I met which I couldn't consistently beat were IPL's and Xia's hail stall teams (and Xia's bland stall team was a pain too). That's not really an indicator of my skill level, because I'm sure the players above me on the ladder are just better, but it's an indicator of the amount of threats stall had to prepare for this past testing period, which made it much less likely that they'll be able to prepare for the threats on my team. In addition, they generally needed a dedicated spinner and a spinblocker to prevent spikestacking offensive teams with Froslass from completely fucking their team over, and since I had no spinner and my only hazards were rocks, that's basically a waste of two team slots on most stall teams right there. Stall may have still been "viable", and it was certainly the most consistent form of play, but it was definitely not anywhere near dominant. If I had to pick a team style that I would consider dominant, I'd say it was spikestacking offense or semi-stall. Or even Rain Dance, which I had way more problems with than stall.

@ ToF

Yeah I know I shouldn't have been lazy, I already pointed that out. It just irks me that I was misled by the apparent consensus about Froslass' brokenness (just look at the poll in the Ice Queen thread) and decided against submitting paras.

But enough of this. Capefeather is right, there's no point in crying over spilled milk. Let's just look forward to the new metagame. Personally I'm looking forward to using Porygon-Z, who's my third favorite Pokemon in the game (next to Arcanine and Wobbuffet). And I believe that Cresselia will be an interesting addition to stall teams, possibly replacing Uxie as a defensive mainstay (but not as a utility pokemon on offense/semi-stall, obviously).

 

[Bluewind]

but it's an indicator of the amount of threats stall had to prepare for this past testing period, which made it much less likely that they'll be able to prepare for the threats on my team.

Truth. I have to say I had a much easier time getting through stall running a joke team, with which MixMortar and SD Ken would just dismantle 83% of the said stall teams by themselves, than using the team I had most success with (not that it`s the most solid team ever, it`s very far from that and I`ve seen far better teams), and I think that preparing for the most glaring threats, stall just cannot (or couldn`t) afford to cover the ones that see lower usage.

 

[Mrobinson587]

Eh, I can deal with raikou, but I prayed that froslass would leave. This is why I should've written my paragraphs, not that it would have made much of a difference xD.

I am quite sure that Frosslass would have been BL if more people had voted. I would have voted her BL but had too much school stuff going on to bother Pokemon

 

[ToF]

I'm talking about before the voting requirements were up, because that's when the ladder is most competitive.

However I think we just define the statement "stall is dominating" differently. I take that to mean that "stall is dominating, as opposed to offense, balance, etc", which I don't believe to be true in the least because of how the ladder was previous to the voting requirements being due.

Are you really serious? Go look at the tour if you want to know which team type did well. Stall has always dominated UU, whether the leaderboard enforces it or not. If not dominant, at least you know stall will always be out there and ready to give any team-type a fight.

 

[d2m]

I am going to be the one dick that runs Specs Adaptability Hyper Beam Porygon-z just to get a guaranteed kill per game.

 

[Bluewind]

I am going to be the one dick that runs Specs Adaptability Hyper Beam Porygon-z just to get a guaranteed kill per game.

Player X switched in Mismagius.
Porygon-Z used Hyper Beam!
It doesn`t affect Mismagius...
._. (With pursuiters and Duggy there will be another scenario, though...)

On another note, here are the calculations of a +2 Life Orbed Shadow Ball against 252/0 Spiritomb (neutral nature on both Pory and Tomb). 738 Atk vs 252 Def & 304 HP (90 Base Power): 245 - 289 (80.59% - 95.07%)

 

[d2m]

Player X switched in Mismagius.
Porygon-Z used Hyper Beam!
It doesn`t affect Mismagius...
._. (With pursuiters and Duggy there will be another scenario, though...)

On another note, here are the calculations of a +2 Life Orbed Shadow Ball against 252/0 Spiritomb (neutral nature on both Pory and Tomb). 738 Atk vs 252 Def & 304 HP (90 Base Power): 245 - 289 (80.59% - 95.07%)

I'm stupid, but not stupid enough to do that when there's still a ghost alive.

 

[Bluewind]

I'm stupid, but not stupid enough to do that when there's still a ghost alive.

I was actually joking lol... None spams Hyper Beam on the first turn.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

Player X switched in Mismagius.
Porygon-Z used Hyper Beam!
It doesn`t affect Mismagius...
._. (With pursuiters and Duggy there will be another scenario, though...)

On another note, here are the calculations of a +2 Life Orbed Shadow Ball against 252/0 Spiritomb (neutral nature on both Pory and Tomb). 738 Atk vs 252 Def & 304 HP (90 Base Power): 245 - 289 (80.59% - 95.07%)

But Shadow Ball is only 80 base power, and I'd go for Dark Pulse on NP Porygon-Z for the flinch chance. There is no reason whatsoever for Porygon-Z to run Shadow Ball over Dark Pulse.

And Hyper Beam is a gimmick for a reason. It gives something at least one turn of guaranteed free setup and/or a free kill back. At least two turns for a faster Sub user if using Specs.

 

[Godsend]

Cress is gonna be so broken. It's like a bulkier Uxie with recovery. I would say the only things Uxie has over it are SR and U-Turn. Even Uxie's higher defenses won't mean much considering Cress's much better HP.

 

[Bluewind]

Ah I used Sludge Bomb`s base power...

 

[TEA_DEMON]

Far out, Cress and P-Z in UU? I'm kinda excited.

 

[dbcb]

this metagame will never be stable will it... there will be constant testing forever

just waiting for hera to fall...

pz will fit in nice I think

 

[itsbigfoot]

normally i'd say the cresselia hype is overboard, as psychics in UU tend to do badly outside of support, but with honchkrow gone (which I'm actually happy for, he was more BL than all the other suspects) I'm not entirely sure. we'll have to see how a psychic wall does. looks like Absol/Pinsir/Houndoom are going to get some more use

 

[Godsend]

I think it'll have a much easier time in UU just because there's no Scizor/T-Tar, and to a lesser extent Dusknoir and Weavile.

 

[Yuggles]

Wow, that's really weird. Honchkrow was going to BL obviously, but I definitly didn't bank on Gallade going up at all. There's so many counters and checks for it, especially when compared to Froslass and Raikou. IMO I'd like Froslass in BL and I'm indifferent to Raikou..but yeah, really surprised.

As for Cress and Porygon, I'm really interested in trying them out. Thunder Wave Cress ruins all the counters people have though of so far, lol. And Porygon-z is just ridiculous. I think I'll be going for Tri Attack/Sub/Dark Pulse/filler.

 

[Synre]

I was kind of hoping Cresselia would be less broken than I expected, but no, it actually seems to be worse.

In basically every battle I've been in or watched that contained it, it's been one of the last Pokemon standing. It stands out in almost every match. It's almost unassailable. I've personally had to PP stall it to kill it four times already and I only played about thirty games this evening, and I've seen it happen to other people twice more since I stopped playing. Last pokemon Cress in general is pretty funny, too. I hate to use to phrase "ruins the tier" because it's... rather unscientific, but this is by a wide margin the stupidest thing I have ever seen floating around this tier, Honchkrow didn't hold a candle to this. If there's any way we can expedite the process to avoid 6 weeks of this stupid shit I'd be all for it, for sure.

 

[ToF]

As much as I like having Cresselia on my team, I have to agree with Teifu.

 

[Force Majeure]

I was kind of hoping Cresselia would be less broken than I expected, but no, it actually seems to be worse.

Ex. 1: I beat Teifu on the ladder with a CM Cress.

I've been on the ladder most of this evening, and I've noticed some interesting things about our new arrivals to UU:

1) The strange thing is that I've seen Cress used to greatest success as a boosting attacker, mostly because Cress can obviously more easily abuse Moonlight in UU. I suspect that when the ladder statistics come in for this month, we'll see a lot of Charge Beam or Calm Mind sets being used.

2) In my (although limited) experience, a +2 LO Raikou can 2HKO Cress with Shadow Ball, but it's fairly likely that it'll be T-waved in the process, rendering it completely useless for the rest of the match. I've noticed more Spiritomb running around, but Spiritomb is not quite as bulky as many believe and can even be setup fodder for special sweepers like Raikou. Cress also stops Moltres cold, which I find rather disturbing.

3) As a countermeasure, I've scattered some Toxic throughout my team, but dual-screen Cress can still setup screens even when poisoned, making frail sweepers (like Pory-Z, more on this later) much more deadly.

I think Cress might be the elusive Triple Suspect Threat.

4) As for Pory-Z, I don't see it as much of a problem--yet. The difference between Cress and Pory-Z is that the former requires little in the way of team support whereas the latter requires plenty. Interestingly, they seem to work well in concert; especially when Cress has Reflect/Light Screen/Lunar Dance/Filler and Pory-Z boosts via Nasty Plot. Other than this scenario, I haven't seen it as much of a threat as it is fairly easily revenge-killed by the tons of priority that have mysteriously cropped up in the last couple of hours. :p

All of this is simple observation: For all I know, I could be wrong about several things that I have outlined. However, Cresselia leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth as I've had to re-work my team not only to counter Cresselia, but also to have one. It's that centralizing.

 

[franky]

I'll have to agree with Teifu. Although I didn't play a lot of matches, maybe 2, I watched more battles with Cresselia in it. From watching games, Psycho Shift Cresselia was difficult to take down, because it scares away physical sweepers like Scyther, Absol, Venusaur, etc. Thunder Wave / Psychic / Psycho Shift / Moonlight is too invincible from the games I watched.

 

[Cooky]

Sandstorm stall could become more useful, it creates a perfect porygon z counter in Rest Talk (curse optionally) Regirock which also rapes raikou handily and screws over Cresselia's moonlight recovery at the same time, exposing it to repeated hits.
Said PP stalling is not that hard to do against Cress, it has a pathetic 8PP for moonlight, and naturally it loses outright to any calm minder with substitute due to its pathetic base 75 Special Attack. Some pokemon outright beat it in any given situation such as CroTomb or the aforementioned curse Regirock.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I'll go ahead and third or fourth Teifu here and say that CM Cresselia is possibly one of the most broken things to ever grace UU, comparable only to Staraptor in the sheer threat it poses to even prepared teams. I've scattered Pokemon that theoretically "beat" Cress throughout my team (defensive CM Raikou, defensive CM Mismagius, Spiritomb) and I still have problems with it.