NU Discussion Thread (Mark II)

[Chispy]

It's too bad there's no truly bulky Dragon...that would stop Magmortar in its tracks.

 

[Analogman]

I think we need another Rapid Spinner so we don't have to use Sandslash almost every time. I mean, I like how he sets up both SR and Rapid Spin, but sometimes he just isn't a good fit on my team. Maybe 5th Gen will give us one, because I don't see any Rapid Spinner that would get bumped down to NU.

I use Hitmonchan.

It works pretty well for me.

EDIT: That's the set I use:

Hitmonchan @ Leftovers
Iron Fist
Careful
252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpDef
- Close Combat
- Earthquake
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin

 

[Mazaki Anzu]

Maybe 5th Gen will give us one, because I don't see any Rapid Spinner that would get bumped down to NU.

>Implying Gamefreak has to create a pokemon with rapid spin, good but with stats not like salamence's so it can drop to NU but not being considered "shit" (althought they aren't) like all the other "NU" spinners

Magmortar, Charizard, Typhlosion, Ninetales, Entei, Flareon. Mostly the first four.

And how they take Gastrodon but not Swampert, you missed the most important point.

Hurp der derp, anyone with eyes can see that on the Smogon page.

>Implying what I say it's true
>Implying Smogon page gives right away the stats of the pokemon
>Implying every good player has to look at smogon webpage

ELECTRODE USED TAUNT

>Implying everyone uses electrode
>Implying you won't attack electrode right from the beggining when you see it as lead
>Implying you won't be able to set up SR later in the game

It's both. Looks at Nidoking; immunity to Electric and resistances to Fighting, Rock, and Bug. Oh shit, weak to Water, Ice, and Ground? Urp.

That's why NidoQUEEN it's so good as defensive pokemon, the resistances :}

Oh, you said something about water? I don't care, I got 5 other pokemon you know.

Quagsire used recover!

>Implying Quagsire it's over 50%+ the total of water pokemon.

Physical hits... yeah, those CB Entei and Flareon are such a pain in the ass.

Dunno, I never used Pelipper against them but it was cool taking Gyarados's or choice Jirachi's hits.

No. Furret has a cool movepool. Politoed's moovepool is average, with non-important additions such as Belly Drum and Perish Song. Aside from that, cool moves mean nothing if you can't use them.

>Implying Politoed can't use Perish song and have good results
>Implying Belly drum toed doesn't have surprise value.

And Politoed's movepool is cool. Offensive moves are not the only things that make a movepool great.

Of course. But is it a good option?

I don't know. I haven't seen a non-hail defensive walrein in ages, but Dewgong works so it may work too.

In hail it's obviously a very good pokemon.

Title of the thread

That's why Poliwrath doesnt come useful in this thread

You seem to be forgetting that Magmortar, probably the most popular Fire type in NU, is normally LO'd.

Yeah, that's true. but I dunno if you want to keep your relicanth against Magmortar and why.

Anyways, never said those 2 would force switches against "every" fire type, but they take not much from Typhlosion's Eruption.

It has to be kept in mind that the main role of bulky waters in NU is to counter Fire-types. None of the bulky waters we have can reliably do that, because they lack the defenses on the special side, have a Rock weakness or are quad-weak to Electric or Grass.

Politoed doesn't have any of those problems. It's just that a life orb thunderbolt coming from 383 special attack 2HKO even standard Vaporeon

If you're really that worried about Fire types, use Grumpig or Hariyama and problem solved.

It's too bad there's no truly bulky Dragon...that would stop Magmortar in its tracks.

Shelgon it's quite bulky-physical side

:}

I will say this again, in case someone didn't saw this (I see many of you have problems with fire types and like to talk trash about other water types because of that)

GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG GRUMPIG

 

[wavedash]

lol, calling someone a (BAN ME PLEASE), that's an interesting way to reply.

And how they take Gastrodon but not Swampert, you missed the most important point.

That's not relevant to the discussion. Pokémon A being better / worse at X'ing that Pokémon B is at Y'ing is not important.

>Implying what I say it's true
>Implying Smogon page gives right away the stats of the pokemon
>Implying every good player has to look at smogon webpage

>Irrelevant statements that are a waste of my time

>Implying everyone uses electrode
>Implying you won't attack electrode right from the beggining when you see it as lead
>Implying you won't be able to set up SR later in the game

>Thinking that it is always possible to set up Stealth Rock

That's why NidoQUEEN it's so good as defensive pokemon, the resistances :}

|  135 | Nidoqueen  |   5342 |    0.50

Nidoqueen kind of sucks.

Oh, you said something about water? I don't care, I got 5 other pokemon you know.

Okay, let's make a team of Camerupt / Quagsire / Vaporeon / Mantine / Ludicolo / Walrein. Looks good.

>Implying Quagsire it's over 50%+ the total of water pokemon.

Okay, lemme try to piece together this logic.

You said Mantine has only Rest for recovery and that it's the same most other Water-type Pokémon used. I said Quagsire learns Recover. You then assume that I think Quagsire is the only Pokémon Water-type Pokémon in NU that has a Recovery move, even though you just mentioned Gastrodon a few sentences ago.

Whether you like it or not, Quagsire is one of the best (and by extension, most-used) bulky Waters in NU.

Dunno, I never used Pelipper against them but it was cool taking Gyarados's or choice Jirachi's hits.

>Implying that performance against a select few Pokémon in another tier is the same as the performance in another tier

>Implying Politoed can't use Perish song and have good results

>Implying Perish Song works very well on Politoed without any evidence

>Implying Belly drum toed doesn't have surprise value.

Surprise value is trivial in most cases.

And Politoed's movepool is cool. Offensive moves are not the only things that make a movepool great..

Offensive moves sure help. Gimmicks like Copycat, Me First, and Mimic are nice, but in the long run, it's most reliable moves that work the best.

Politoed doesn't have any of those problems. It's just that a life orb thunderbolt coming from 383 special attack 2HKO even standard Vaporeon

Yeah, to be honest, the only way we're going to get a good Magmortar counter is if Milotic drops down or Magmortar is bumped up.

If you're really that worried about Fire types, use Grumpig or Hariyama and problem solved.

Hariyama is UU, so.

Grumpig is great at countering Fire-types, but the omnipresent Skuntank tears it apart. I dunno, YMMV.

 

[Leman]

I use Hitmonchan.

It works pretty well for me.

EDIT: That's the set I use:

Hitmonchan @ Leftovers
Iron Fist
Careful
252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 SpDef
- Close Combat
- Earthquake
- Fake Out
- Rapid Spin

I tried bulky Hitmonchan once (with something like Sky Uppercut>Close Combat). I still found Sandslash to have more overall utility than Hitmonchan. Besides Skuntank what does Hitmonchan even check? Besides Dark and Rock, I can't think of any other resistances Fighting has, and both of those are usually Physical. Hitmonchan also kinda lures ghosts, so that's not good. That being said I found CC/IcePunch/ThunderPunch/RapidSpin decent on offensive teams. I'm really disappointing he doesn't get Payback, because a spinner that can catch ghosts with that on the switch is really cool. Haunter doesn't usually like to switch into Hitmonchan a lot, but he has real trouble with Dusclops.

 

[shrang]

One admission - I didn't realise Politoed's movepool was as good as it is. I didn't realise it got Encore, which is pretty huge. Thanks for pointing that out.

It has to be kept in mind that the main role of bulky waters in NU is to counter Fire-types. None of the bulky waters we have can reliably do that, because they lack the defenses on the special side, have a Rock weakness or are quad-weak to Electric or Grass. Also, none of them have reliable recovery. Weaknesses are hugely important - it doesn't matter if your counter is 8x resistant to Fire if it takes 50% from Rocks or is OHKOd by <coverage move>. The benchmark for a bulky water is Slowking, and it was perfect - it had fantastic SpD, it wasn't weak to Rock, Electric or Grass, it had access to Recover, and Thunder Wave allowed it to stall out Magmortar. Nothing even comes close.

I think Specially Defensive Walrein/Politoed with Encore/Toxic/Protect/Surf are the best options at this point.

EDIT: Yeah, Pen Ink kinda summed up my points.

Now that I think about it, Heysup's Walrein set is pretty much completely outclassed by Politoed, who can run exactly the same set with about the same bulk but no SR weakness or any other weaknesses that is attributed to the terrible defensive typing of Ice. Politoed's defensive stats are almost as good as Slowking's too, and he's not Skuntank weak :O

EDIT: And holy shit, running through Politoed's movepool gives me even more reasons to run Politoed. It also gets Haze, Hypnosis, Perish Song, Refresh, Seismic Toss

 

[Axa]

Politoed also gets Water Absorb, which is still a darn good ability.

 

[Tag]

The only thing Politoad needs is a more reliable way to heal itself other then Leftovers and Rest.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Modest Magmortar LO Fire Blast + Thunderbolt vs 252/252 Calm Politoed: 79.2% - 93.2%

That's a damn sight better than 76.9% - 90.6% (OHKO with Rocks) on a Walrein with the same EVs, but still it kinda sucks.

To have an idea of how bulky Slowking was: 72.3% - 85.3%

 

[PK Gaming]

The funny thing is that even in UU Magmortar lacks any safe switch in's. Maybe a specially defense Bastiodon... (QUAD weak to EQ sucks but I don't think it'll OHKO)

 

[M BLADE]

Anything with Will-o-Wisp maybe?

 

[wavedash]

Are trying to Burn Magmortar?

 

[Ice-eyes]

Specially Defensive Milotic switches into Magmortar easily enough. The offensive ones are even better at countering it, as they can still take an LO Thunderbolt while being faster than the Chansey-busting mixed ones.

 

[Annoying Old Party Man]

45.2% - 53.3%
2hko with rocks :/

 

[Ice-eyes]

If they're being played by some kind of omniscient deity, many pokemon can 2HKO everything easily.

 

[Annoying Old Party Man]

well, predicting a milotic switch-in isn't exactly the hardest thing in the world to predict.

 

[PK Gaming]

Specially Defensive Milotic switches into Magmortar easily enough. The offensive ones are even better at countering it, as they can still take an LO Thunderbolt while being faster than the Chansey-busting mixed ones.

Come on now, nobody runs a purely specially defensive Milotic because it's not necessary/ you lose out on countering powerful physical threats.

 

[wavedash]

If we take a Garchomp / Salamence approach to Magmortar, one could sacrifice a Pokémon to find out what set it's running, then...

Revenge kill if Life Orb or Specs
Switch in bulky water if Scarf

Solves the problem, kind of.

 

[Lucalibur]

but then he already killed a pokemon and is capable of killing more later if he switch.

 

[Al_Alchemist]

The funny thing is that even in UU Magmortar lacks any safe switch in's. Maybe a specially defense Bastiodon... (QUAD weak to EQ sucks but I don't think it'll OHKO)

Flareon's pretty decent imo.

This coming straight from Magmortar analysis, which, tbh is hardly any different than how it is used in NU.

Magmortar vs. Flareon

damage calcs

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Thunderbolt vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 29% - 34.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Focus Blast vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 36.8% - 43.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Cross Chop vs Wish (252 HP / 0 Def) Flareon: 44.3% - 52.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Earthquake vs Wish (252 HP / 0 Def) Flareon: 88.6% - 104.8%

Choice Specs Magmortar Focus Blast vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 42.2% - 50%

Choice Specs Magmortar Thunderbolt vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 33.5% - 39.5%

Basically only EQ is completely threatening to a wish protect flareon (assuming that there aren't too many weather/entry hazards present) as Flareon can switch in on a Fire Blast, Protect to see what it has or whatever, then react accordingly.

If it needs too it can even switch in on a Thunderbolt, Protect and Wish, while always surviving Cross Chop even with Stealth Rocks, then rinse and repeat.

Of course non +Spe Magmortar is pretty slow as far as sweepers go with a max speed of 265, a lot of Pokemon can out speed and kill it.

 

[Leman]

Flareon's pretty decent imo.

This coming straight from Magmortar analysis, which, tbh is hardly any different than how it is used in NU.

Magmortar vs. Flareon

damage calcs

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Thunderbolt vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 29% - 34.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Focus Blast vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 36.8% - 43.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Cross Chop vs Wish (252 HP / 0 Def) Flareon: 44.3% - 52.4%

Mixed Attacker Magmortar LO Earthquake vs Wish (252 HP / 0 Def) Flareon: 88.6% - 104.8%

Choice Specs Magmortar Focus Blast vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 42.2% - 50%

Choice Specs Magmortar Thunderbolt vs Wish (252 HP / 252 SpDef) Flareon: 33.5% - 39.5%

Basically only EQ is completely threatening to a wish protect flareon (assuming that there aren't too many weather/entry hazards present) as Flareon can switch in on a Fire Blast, Protect to see what it has or whatever, then react accordingly.

If it needs too it can even switch in on a Thunderbolt, Protect and Wish, while always surviving Cross Chop even with Stealth Rocks, then rinse and repeat.

Of course non +Spe Magmortar is pretty slow as far as sweepers go with a max speed of 265, a lot of Pokemon can out speed and kill it.

The problem with that is every one runs Earthquake for that reason. Flareon is also grounded (Spikes), and Stealth Rocks weak.

 

[Axa]

Modest Magmortar LO Fire Blast + Thunderbolt vs 252/252 Calm Politoed: 79.2% - 93.2%

That's a damn sight better than 76.9% - 90.6% (OHKO with Rocks) on a Walrein with the same EVs, but still it kinda sucks.

To have an idea of how bulky Slowking was: 72.3% - 85.3%

It still means that with Protect and Leftovers, a full health Politoed with that spread will always avoid being 2HKOed by Magmortar, barring a predicted Thunderbolt or Spikes.

 

[Chispy]

"always surviving"
You mean surviving 7/8ths of the time. (Cross Chop has HCR)

 

[Ice-eyes]

No self-respecting Magmortar runs Cross Chop - with no Blissey/Chansey, there's no reason to run it over Earthquake or Focus Blast.

 

[M BLADE]

Oh, i misunderstood that. I thought that he said Magmortar doesn't have many chances of switching in, that's why i mentioned WoW.