There's nothing special about 100% accuracy 120BP moves. There are already moves that do that and the genies are still getting walled by special walls like any special attacker. The moves are also more than likely to be dead weight with all the sand and possibly even sun this time round. It's always funny to switch TTar into zapdos when it tries to fire off a thunder in rain.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?
- Thread starter Philip7086
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The REAL problem with rain is the boosted water type attacks. Water is already an exeptional attacking type. Rain, furthermore, eliminates the entire concept of countering those attacks with resistances alone and necessitates packing immunities or a weather changer in order to not be completely pummeled by countless assaults from Hydro Pumps. Hell, if you thought Specs Kingdra was bad, just look at Specs Rotom-W. It may not have the speed, but it's immunity to ground and Electric STAB makes it a force to behold. LO/Specs Starmie is also ridiculously strong. All I can say about Manaphy is I'm glad it's gone, else people would start realizing that it is crazy powerful and it would be abused to the upmost extent, since, in the rain, all you really need is CM/Boil Over/Energy Ball/Rest to tear everything up. Since nothing technically "Resists" water in the Rain, you don't really even need to worry about things like Nattorei eating up your water type attacks.
The question is are super powerful attacks broken if the pokemon can be outsped and revenge killed? It's not uncommon for OU to have stuff that hits really hard. Fire attacks in sun arguably can hit way harder than water attacks in rain but was restricted by general lack of speed unlike rain. Now rain has the same restriction. Even just things with ridiculously high attack stats can pull off damage fairly close to a rain boosted hydro pump.
I think if the past has shown us anything, pure power does not always equate to broken. Just look at something like rampardos or probably more relevant ononokusu who is both strong, fast and a dragon to boot.
Predications for Round 3:
Starmie isn't slow, in the Rain, without SS, there are only a handful of non-scarfed pokemon who outspeed it. I'm not liking the idea of Double STAB Hydro Pumps from Starmie.
Offensive Gyarados isn't slow after a DD
Emploeon isn't slow after an Agility
Fire types tend to be slow, and have no real way of sorting out this problem, with the exception of Speed Boost Blaziken, and possibly DD Charizard and Agility Moltres, amoung OU viable options. Water types have several ways of boosting their speed. Some get Agility, some get Dragon Dance, some get Shell Break. And they have far better defensive typings, and bulk, to allow them to pull this off as well.
- Sand domination, as Rain Offense is no longer as prevelant to stop it, Dory wasn't Ubered, and Ninetails cant switch in on Sand attackers
- Rain Stall will attempt to survive, only to fail, because Rain Stalls major miche was walling Rain Offense with Dry Skin. This will show Drizzle should have been outright banned, not given a special exception for it.
- Rain Offense will still find a way, through abuseing things like Offensive Gyarados, Starmie, and Emploeon, with boosted STAB attacks. Might also start using Electric types for the 100% Thunder. It just won't be as Noob Freindly. Expect more Rotom-W too.
- Azumarill's useage will skyrocket, as it revenge kills both Landos and Excadrill, and it no longer has to worry about there being so many Water-types.
- Latios will continue to Nuke everything. Until people start running Scarftar again <_<
- Rankurusu will continue to take the metagame sideways, and will do so as long as the metagame is dominated by pokemon with Agility Boosts.
- 5th Gen OU will be only slghtly less chaotic
- Stall might survive be playable now that it dosen't have to check Rain AND Sand, but every stall team will carry 2 or 3 anti-sand pokemon, and something to stop Ranku.
Starmie isn't slow, in the Rain, without SS, there are only a handful of non-scarfed pokemon who outspeed it. I'm not liking the idea of Double STAB Hydro Pumps from Starmie.
Offensive Gyarados isn't slow after a DD
Emploeon isn't slow after an Agility
Fire types tend to be slow, and have no real way of sorting out this problem, with the exception of Speed Boost Blaziken, and possibly DD Charizard and Agility Moltres, amoung OU viable options. Water types have several ways of boosting their speed. Some get Agility, some get Dragon Dance, some get Shell Break. And they have far better defensive typings, and bulk, to allow them to pull this off as well.
2 of the pokemon you listed requires 1 turn of setup. Lots of things are fast + strong after 1 turn of setup. Starmie also isn't much stronger than kingdra, can actually be outsped by things and has a plethora of weaknesses to exploit.
I'd say BD Ulgamoth or Speed boost blaziken in sun are way more dangerous.
I forgot about Ulgamoth, IDK how.
Emploeon, on the other hand, has a plenthora of Resistances to exploit, to allow him to Agility. I was running an offensive rain team without SS or Manaphy last round as a test, and it worked somewhat well. It wasn't pure Rain abusers either, it had a couple of other pokemon to balance the team, like Celebi, who was actually quite good last meta, resisting Earthquakes, Surfs, and having a rather useful STAB type. Calm Mind Celebi was great.
Now that there's not as many Swift Swim and/or Manaphy abuseing teams, which stopped my team cold, and Sand may run less Nattorei because of the nerf to rain teams, teams using things like Agility Emploeon could be useful still, especially if you run rain, and thus, can stop Dory form outspeeding you.
All I'm saying is don't count Rain Offense out yet. I for one, am going to give it a fair run without Swift Swim and Manaphy, unlike many people, who will just go to Sand.
*Waits for the new metagame, so he can change avatar and sig to match the state of it.*
Emploeon, on the other hand, has a plenthora of Resistances to exploit, to allow him to Agility. I was running an offensive rain team without SS or Manaphy last round as a test, and it worked somewhat well. It wasn't pure Rain abusers either, it had a couple of other pokemon to balance the team, like Celebi, who was actually quite good last meta, resisting Earthquakes, Surfs, and having a rather useful STAB type. Calm Mind Celebi was great.
Now that there's not as many Swift Swim and/or Manaphy abuseing teams, which stopped my team cold, and Sand may run less Nattorei because of the nerf to rain teams, teams using things like Agility Emploeon could be useful still, especially if you run rain, and thus, can stop Dory form outspeeding you.
All I'm saying is don't count Rain Offense out yet. I for one, am going to give it a fair run without Swift Swim and Manaphy, unlike many people, who will just go to Sand.
*Waits for the new metagame, so he can change avatar and sig to match the state of it.*
Don't get me wrong. I'm not discounting rain offense without SwSw at all. I'm just saying it probably won't be broken because hitting really hard isn't everything. That's one of the reasons I wanted drizzle to stay without SwSw because I believe it will still allow rain offense to be used without being broken. I'm hoping it will be good enough to be competitive but not broken so we can have more variety than just sandstorm teams.
Even if the genies actually cared all that much about Blissey (neither of them really do since they have Taunt, great attack stats, and access to Hammer Arm), consider the plethora of other things that just get brushed onto the wayside simply by giving them access to their stronger moves. +2 Voltolos can outright 2HKO Blissey with Thunder. If you try to check me unboosted, I can probably just Taunt you and get an NP anyway, or set up on something different later so that Blissey can't check me at all.
Special walls other than Blissey don't even have such minimal hope to speak of. Which ones are you thinking of anyway? Slowking? Nattorei? Sp. Def P2? Voltolos and Tornelos beat them all without breaking a sweat.
Tyranitar is no threat to them whatsoever unless he's scarfed and even if he tries to get a quick switch-in, ignoring the Focus Blasts that a lot of players cannot stop switching into, they can just as easily U-turn right off of his face and right back into Politoed or something. Keep in mind that if that Tyranitar of yours dies, you're very likely to lose the match. And you want to try and switch it in on two Pokemon that kill him very easily. Well, good look with that.
Now imagine taking that Zapdos you mentioned, giving it way more speed, slightly less defense, and a movepool to beat almost everything in one set. Now we have the genies! This is basically a preview of what Zapdos could have been in 4th gen if he were offensively relevant.
I have to say that I completely agree with the above posts. I've always thought that Latios was OU material even in Gen IV.
Also, I believe that keeping drizzle in OU was a very wise choice as I think that it will keep the metagame balanced not giving sand sweepers (Dory-Landlos) the complete dominance over the metagame.
My prediction for the next round is that rain offense will not die. Many water Pokemon (Empoleon, Gyarados, sniper-Kingdra) can still be deadly with the 1.5 boost to their water attacks while also having moves (agility-dragon dance) to boost their speed. If anything, the drizzle+swift swim ban will bring more diversity in the metagame.
I'm not going to argue theorymon with you. You can test it and find out how good it is. I'm not sure what people use to deal with voltlos normally but I'm pretty sure +2 thunderbolt 2HKOs everything +2 thunder does with the exception of maybe blissey. The only thing I foresee using thunder does is making you unnecessarily weather dependant in a weather dominated metagame. But prove me wrong. Show me double genie is broken.
It's really hard to "show you" anything since most of your arguments have nothing to do with play experience. I've spent basically all of last round testing Voltolos, Tornelos, or any combination thereof on random Rain teams and the account I did mostly all of my testing on is in the voting reqs screenshot, just short of the requirements. I did my work, and if you want to refute my arguments, do yours.
I have yet to use the word 'broken' to describe the playstyle either, but I know for certain you're going to see a lot of clouds next round and I'm not talking about Drizzle.
I have yet to use the word 'broken' to describe the playstyle either, but I know for certain you're going to see a lot of clouds next round and I'm not talking about Drizzle.
If you're not saying it's broken then I really have nothing to refute. I was under the impression you thought 100% accuracy thunder/hurricane made rain broken.
rain stall's main niche was never counter rain offense.to make great use of rain stall the only thing u must do is put politoed and tentacruel in the team!and one poke that can effectively stall(like hydration vappy,subseeders,tormentran:yes he can be used in rain teams 'cause he can fuck over opposing sun teams and most of the time he is behind a sub so it doesn't matter).tentacruel is more awesome than ever restoring 1/8 of its health each turn,laying down t-spikes and spinning away very easily.remember what was the problem with tentacruel 4th gen?that it didn't have reliable recovery...guess what now it does!!!you can use a set of t-spikes,rapid spin,boil over and protect,the lattest is for scouting,toxic stalling and for recovery...also his typing is awesome making him a very good check to some top threats.
for example ulgamoth the biggest sun threat for rain teams is handled very well from tentacruel...most ulgamoth i have seen in sun teams carry fire/dance/fireblast,bug buzz,bd and morning sun.so if you alrdy have t-spikes up you can slowly stall him out or you could even have toxic on tenta for fliers,levitators or if t-spikes aren't up...
anyway sry fro babbling so much...
my point is that rain stall doesn't have to be politoed,1 water poke with hydration,1 dry skin user,1subseeder,nattorei and something else...my semi-stall team consists of politoed,tentacruel,hydration vappy,zapdos,nattorei and denchura!
denchura and zapdos are there to outspeed some offensive threats and give me some power with their powerful thunders.zapdos is a mix between offense and stall 'cause he has hp and thunder for attacking(with max sp.atc)but he also has subroost for toxic stalling!the other pokes are pretty much for stalling but you got my point...
i have 4 stall pokes and 2 offensive powerhouses!i consider my team as semi-rain stall and it works wonders 'till now...
rain stall is very very viable and competitive these days!
I think water spam is more deadly than fire spam. Sure fire has soem great move such as Flame dance which is absurd but as a whole, we cant argue that water is probably the best overall type in the whole game. Because while if we compare by theory fire has better coverage both SE and resist, they are weak to water and ground, posibbly two most used offensive type in teh game. Water however is an insane type on both side(i ask you have you heard about actualy good defenisve fire except heatran and ho-oh ?), so much that even after the gen 5 huge nerf to water type(best defensive pivot in gen 5 meta is immune and resist water and good as pair) Rain is still broken with swift swim. Im not saying rain buff is broken. Im just saying IMO water spam > Fire spam alll day
Latios & special Dragonite should love this metagame.
Specs Thunder from Latios all day baby. Scizor can't take Specs surf...actually he can't take specs dragon pulse either. Was dealing 52% to the bug.
Agilitynite's Hurricane & Thunders are boss. 1 of the genies gets Thunder, other gets Hurricane, Dragonite tells them to both gtfo with having both...and it's beautiful.some constant speed threats getting nerfed, Dragonite can come in and drop a surf into everythings face.
Hydro pump salamance hits harder on the water & Dragon side, but who cares, STAB Hurricane baby.
Bulky waters should take this. Sure you could use high power hydro pumps & what not, but the bulky waters will also hit harder & be more reliable.
With Manaphy gone, all remnants of what was deemed broken are essentially gone. Shell breakers will still clearly be annoying if they set up 1 against you.
Specs Thunder from Latios all day baby. Scizor can't take Specs surf...actually he can't take specs dragon pulse either. Was dealing 52% to the bug.
Agilitynite's Hurricane & Thunders are boss. 1 of the genies gets Thunder, other gets Hurricane, Dragonite tells them to both gtfo with having both...and it's beautiful.some constant speed threats getting nerfed, Dragonite can come in and drop a surf into everythings face.
Hydro pump salamance hits harder on the water & Dragon side, but who cares, STAB Hurricane baby.
Bulky waters should take this. Sure you could use high power hydro pumps & what not, but the bulky waters will also hit harder & be more reliable.
With Manaphy gone, all remnants of what was deemed broken are essentially gone. Shell breakers will still clearly be annoying if they set up 1 against you.
That's kind of ironic, coming from you.
HP Fire / Surf / Psycho Shock / Draco Meteor @ Specs.
It's unfortunate Deoxys-N got voted Uber once more but well, time to move on, then. I feel it deserved a "fair test" but we really have more important issues now than it.
I've been messing around with Swift Swim-less Rain ioffense using Shell Smahs-Hydration Gorebyss, Specsmie and Torenolos, and it definatley still is viable. Hydro Pump from Starmie does something like 40% to Chansey and Blissey, and Flying is a really great offensive type since there arn't too many Pokemon who resist it around. Gorebyss has been doing ok. It can HydraRest and set up but not nearly as well as Manaphy.
Ya, i feel like this round will be really fun. I've built a team that should effectively counter the metagame ( hoping to get 1400 with it). For this round everyone needs to make sure they have a dory counter, a landlos counter, and a pursuiter for latios since nothing really wants to come in on a specs draco meteor. I'm glad that aldarons proposal went through it will hopefully bring a lot of diversity this round. Last round was god awful with an abundant amount of rain and sand teams, i just hated it.
Yay stealth rock, and have fun HydraResting at -1 or -2
As far as a counter to latios/latias, what about umbreon?? How much damage does a careful umbreon take from specs draco meteor??
most gorebyss run a white herb, which restores the stat loss.
You want a Dory/Landlos counter? Use Drizzle. Specs Starmie and other abusers are about as good as Swift Swimmers.
Landlos isn't really countered by drizzle as it still tears stuff apart without sand power.
Modest Specs Latios w/ 252 SpA EVs using Draco Meteor on Careful Umbreon w/ 252 HP EVs and SpD EVs = 57.36% - 67.77%
So, at least Umbreon isn't OHKO'd by it. The question is, what can Umbreon do back? Since 504 EVs are already in HP and SpD at this point, Umbreon's Attack can be 167 at most.
Same Umbreon's Sucker Punch on 0 Def EV / 0 HP EV Latios = 49.83% - 58.47%
...Wait, how is an Umbreon doing that much damage? Anyone want to double check this? And how reliable?
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