np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

[DetroitLolcat]

Slowbro is pretty much a 100% Blaziken counter. It can come on a Swords Dance, assuming Blaziken is even RUNNING Swords Dance (there are Protect ken and MixKen, too), and Slowbro can come in, KO with Psychic, and then leave, getting 33% of its HP back. Jellicent counters it too bar a sun boosted +2 Flare Blitz, and it will sill end up as a tie with recoil.

Blazken busts holes into the opponent's team. But it's not nearly broken. It's like DDMence in Gen 4 without the threat of MixMence. Tough, but it has its counters.

 

[Meru]

Jellicent loses to +2 Adamant LO Shadow Claw, which seems more common now. It loses to Wobb support if it's not running Taunt.

Slowbro also loses to Wobb support. Slowbro can also lose if Shadow Claw crits, which isn't too bizarre of a concept considering Shadow Claw has an increased crit chance. Obviously 12.5% isn't a big deal, but if it does happen, your team can be pretty screwed. I also heard Slowbro loses to mix sets or something like that. Whoever said Blaziken doesn't have the "threat of a mixmence set" obviously hasn't seen Blaziken's 110 SpA stat.

 

[Arc Tech]

To elaborate as towards how mixKen beats Slowbro:

252+ sp atk Blaziken's fire blast versus 252/4 Slowbro out of sun: 37.8%-44.7%
252+ sp atk Blaziken's fire blast versus 252/4 Slowbro in the sun: 56.6%-66.8%
252+ sp atk Blaziken's HP grass/electric versus 252/4 Slowbro: 58.9%-69.5%

Even out of sun, Fire Blast + HP grass/electric is a 2hko to a slowbro switching in 100% with SR, and most of the time without. If you try to run Sp Def slowbro or slowking, then +2 shadow claw ohko's with SR, and 76% of the time without.

 

[voodoo pimp]

Those numbers are misleading, though, because Blaziken never runs 252+ SpAtk unless it's running a special set for some reason.

 

[badabing]

Slowbro is pretty much a 100% Blaziken counter. It can come on a Swords Dance, assuming Blaziken is even RUNNING Swords Dance (there are Protect ken and MixKen, too), and Slowbro can come in, KO with Psychic, and then leave, getting 33% of its HP back. Jellicent counters it too bar a sun boosted +2 Flare Blitz, and it will sill end up as a tie with recoil.

Blazken busts holes into the opponent's team. But it's not nearly broken. It's like DDMence in Gen 4 without the threat of MixMence. Tough, but it has its counters.

There's no such thing as a 100% Blaziken counter.

@voodoo: Mixken maxes SpAtk, so those calcs are legit.

 

[voodoo pimp]

@voodoo: Mixken maxes SpAtk, so those calcs are legit.

Really? I was under the impression that they usually use a +Speed nature.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Almost nobody run +Speed nature since the common reoccurring logic is "well i'm going to out-speed everything with Speed Boost anyways so why bother"

 

[badabing]

Not many Blaziken run a +Speed nature. Usually they're just EVed to hit certain benchmarks after two boosts, especially in standard Mixken's case because it runs Protect.

Didn't see you there, Aero...

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

To be fair, if Slowbro gets hit by HP Electric/Grass on the switch and sees that it's Mixken, he can switch out to recover a bit of health back and then be used to check him instead of counter.

 

[Mishra]

Alright, honestly?

I am still missing the argument for keeping Blazekin in when we just acknowledged that the one solid counter to him, becomes nothing more than a check in the face of his mixed set. and earlier, it seems like the only way blaze really gets koed is either by recoil or missing hi-jump kick.

@Benlisted: your response was awesome (by the way, looked at the sun team in your sig). Comparison to hazards was also pretty spot on, and my only argument and complaint for it would be that there is no poke that brings in a hazard on the switch. Rapid Spin, bare minimum, will at least trade 1 turn for 1 turn, and more if they set up spikes of course. Playing your own weather means that you have to be playing against an opposite weather (boy would it be awkward if you carry rain dance to find sandstorm, and then run into a rain dance team), AND they can switch in their weather inducer to essentially, rapid spin your weather on the switch.

My argument would be that if there was a poke that could remove SR and spikes on the switch, would hazards be played at all? Which is why I don't think running your own weather to counter is a healthy suggestion.

 

[Showsni]

Some of these nominations are pretty wild... I mean, Zoom Lens? Really?

And what's with all the nominations for Brightpowder/Lax Incense, without also nominating Focus Band and Quick Claw? If you miss due to Brightpowder and they KO in return, surely that's hardly different from them moving first due to Quick Claw and KOing or surviving due to Focus Band and KOing. But really, the hax items? They're not very good. That's why they haven't been banned. If Brightpowder were really broken, don't you think everyone would run it over Leftovers/Focus Sash/anything?

Similarly for Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. I think people are mainly nominating them just because they're annoyed their 100% chance to win has dropped to 80% because of the opponent's item/ability choices. Well, tough luck. Try playing in RBY were every single move has a chance to miss. (Except maybe Swift.)

 

[Benlisted]

@Benlisted: your response was awesome (by the way, looked at the sun team in your sig). Comparison to hazards was also pretty spot on, and my only argument and complaint for it would be that there is no poke that brings in a hazard on the switch. Rapid Spin, bare minimum, will at least trade 1 turn for 1 turn, and more if they set up spikes of course. Playing your own weather means that you have to be playing against an opposite weather (boy would it be awkward if you carry rain dance to find sandstorm, and then run into a rain dance team), AND they can switch in their weather inducer to essentially, rapid spin your weather on the switch.

My argument would be that if there was a poke that could remove SR and spikes on the switch, would hazards be played at all? Which is why I don't think running your own weather to counter is a healthy suggestion.

Thanks for looking at the team lol! Anyway, you make a valid point and one that to be fair I hadn't considered. I suppose that my response would be that in order to stop hazards permenantly, you have to eliminate the setter as well as spin - the same is true here. Weather and hazards are different in effect, but the same applies here to an extent. Instant removal of no weather is an issue, but if you conceal the move you can take out the inducer then clear the weather. Alternately, you can use the instant induce against them - put it on something ttar weak and use it as it switches in - forcing 2 switches at least and making ttars re-entry predictable. The choice of which weather to use depends on what your team can cope with, and what benefits you can abuse.

There are difficulties, but I believe that there are benefits to be explored too, I guess.

 

[Mishra]

Some of these nominations are pretty wild... I mean, Zoom Lens? Really?

I must have missed that one, that does seem silly.

And what's with all the nominations for Brightpowder/Lax Incense, without also nominating Focus Band and Quick Claw? If you miss due to Brightpowder and they KO in return, surely that's hardly different from them moving first due to Quick Claw and KOing or surviving due to Focus Band and KOing. But really, the hax items? They're not very good. That's why they haven't been banned. If Brightpowder were really broken, don't you think everyone would run it over Leftovers/Focus Sash/anything?

A valid point, but I assume because going first isn't the end of the world, and won't cost the game, neither will getting knocked down to 1 hp (unless it still works that focus band can work more than once, I never use it or no anyone who does so I am not sure how that works), but a straight up miss hurts a lot. And keep it mind, this was banned last gen.

Similarly for Sand Veil and Snow Cloak. I think people are mainly nominating them just because they're annoyed their 100% chance to win has dropped to 80% because of the opponent's item/ability choices. Well, tough luck. Try playing in RBY were every single move has a chance to miss. (Except maybe Swift.)

I was liking your post a lot until this. Did you really just justify sand veil and cloak by comparing them to the mechanics of gen 1? And your reffering to the 1 in 252/256 I assume. That was also a format were razor leaf worked like Ice breath and sleep could potentially last forever. Bottom line, 'tough' seems like a horrible argument.

Thanks for looking at the team lol! Anyway, you make a valid point and one that to be fair I hadn't considered. I suppose that my response would be that in order to stop hazards permenantly, you have to eliminate the setter as well as spin - the same is true here. Weather and hazards are different in effect, but the same applies here to an extent. Instant removal of no weather is an issue, but if you conceal the move you can take out the inducer then clear the weather. Alternately, you can use the instant induce against them - put it on something ttar weak and use it as it switches in - forcing 2 switches at least and making ttars re-entry predictable. The choice of which weather to use depends on what your team can cope with, and what benefits you can abuse.

There are difficulties, but I believe that there are benefits to be explored too, I guess.

That is true, especially with team preview showing the weather user that I don't have one an inducer of my own. They might play their inducer more recklessly as a suicide lead, rather than preserving it, knowing that I 'seemingly' can't change the weather. The problem with that is that now I am playing with the hope that they play more reckless.

Btw: I noticed an oversight with my argument. Although it doesn't happen often in the mirror, weather can help the opponent as well (e.g. I am not a sand team, but I run garchomp with sand veil), where hazards only hurt and never help except in incredibly narrow circumstances not even worth mentioning. My ideal meta for OU is more variance and less weather, but if the majority like it as is, I can only speak my grievances and hope for the best, and if it means that I may have to run hail or something on a slot to do well, so be it.

 

[Bugbot]

So far, people have been nominating Excadrill, Reuniclus, Latios, Thundurus and Blaziken.

Excadrill is a fast hard-hitting douchebag.
Reuniclus is stallbreaking and sets up WAY too easily.
Latios is Draco Meteor. lol
Thundurus gains the title of the new Garchomp. Trollish Base Speed, horrible but perfect movepool (it has everything it needs!), no solid counter, can cause frustration in weather (Thunder...), can run multiple powerful sets (which forces the player to sack a Pokémon to figure out the set) and has a good typing. Wow.

Blaziken... I don't understand this one. People use Infernape more often than Blaziken (according to PO's statistics), so why is Blaziken getting all the hate all of a sudden? Sure, Speed Boost is a fantastic ability, but it still requires one turn to set up, while Infernape needs none. There is a HUGE difference between 1 and 0. Also, Flare Blitz lets Blaziken kill himself (Life Orb also) and Hi Jump Kick can be really disappointing. Stone Edge is Stone Edge, it's unreliable as well. Special Blaziken don't really exist: who wants to rely on Focus Blast for STAB?

TL;DR: Why is Blaziken nominated so much all of a sudden?

 

[DetroitLolcat]

PO's statistics are lol.

Blaziken doesn't go special, he goes MIXED. With both Physical and Special moves. I say OU for him, but he still uses Hi Jump Kick on the Mixed set.

 

[Benlisted]

That is true, especially with team preview showing the weather user that I don't have one an inducer of my own. They might play their inducer more recklessly as a suicide lead, rather than preserving it, knowing that I 'seemingly' can't change the weather. The problem with that is that now I am playing with the hope that they play more reckless.

Btw: I noticed an oversight with my argument. Although it doesn't happen often in the mirror, weather can help the opponent as well (e.g. I am not a sand team, but I run garchomp with sand veil), where hazards only hurt and never help except in incredibly narrow circumstances not even worth mentioning. My ideal meta for OU is more variance and less weather, but if the majority like it as is, I can only speak my grievances and hope for the best, and if it means that I may have to run hail or something on a slot to do well, so be it.

I guess the thing with evasion items etc is that they don't really add anything and since they're luck based are things we inherently dislike as a community. Personally I think they may as go but don't really care either way. What it does tell me is that the meta is pretty balanced if people are thinking so much about such a miniscule aspect of the game.

Anyway, in terms of weather, the comparison can only get us too far. The major4ty as always should dictate, which is partly why I worry that there has been so little discussion of the weather abilities here where the masses really do have a say. More variance is an ideal for me too, but I see this in terms of team archetypes as well as mons, I guess.

 

[TLK]

Blaziken... I don't understand this one. People use Infernape more often than Blaziken (according to PO's statistics), so why is Blaziken getting all the hate all of a sudden? Sure, Speed Boost is a fantastic ability, but it still requires one turn to set up, while Infernape needs none. There is a HUGE difference between 1 and 0. Also, Flare Blitz lets Blaziken kill himself (Life Orb also) and Hi Jump Kick can be really disappointing. Stone Edge is Stone Edge, it's unreliable as well. Special Blaziken don't really exist: who wants to rely on Focus Blast for STAB?

TL;DR: Why is Blaziken nominated so much all of a sudden?

Flare Blitz lets Blaziken kill himself, I agree. But if Blaziken kills itself, that means its taken down essentially 3 Pokemon. Finding a free turn for Blaziken to set up isn't too easy but given how common Nattorei is, it's not too bad. It's hard to check, it's even harder to counter unless you're running Slowbro.

While HJK and Stone Edge don't have perfect accuracy, you can't rely on a miss to claim he's not broken.

Mixed Blaziken doesn't even require setup, it just goes out there and destroys everything that beats the SD set (although it loses to some Pokemon it would otherwise beat, such as Swampert).

 

[Showsni]

(unless it still works that focus band can work more than once, I never use it or no anyone who does so I am not sure how that works)

Yes, Focus Band can activate multiple times. In fact, coincidentally I just faced someone using it on the Smogon server: My Espeon used Psychic. His Muk survived with Band, and used some odd move (Focus Blast, I think.) I Psychic again. He survives with Band again, and Explodes. (Espeon survives because I got Reflect up earlier.) Not really broken in that situation (his Muk was also using Endure earlier... I've no idea what he hoped to accomplish, to be honest). But it certainly has the potential to be as annoying as Brightpowder.

I guess it comes down to how happy we are with hax in the game. There's always going to be some hax (that's the nature of the game). We can limit it (no double teaming, for instance). It really comes down to where exactly we draw the line, which is obviously different places for different people. Reaching a consensus is probably going to be nothing more than a majority vote, rather than convincing any one side whether it is or isn't broken. You might have a minority who are fine with double team, brighpowder and sand veil all on the same Pokémon (also using confuse ray! And attract!), and another minority who want to mess with the programming to remove critial hits and ban everything with serene grace. Where we draw the line is probably an individual choice; some people can live with brightpowder, some can't. So I guess the suspect test will just end up showing what most people want, which is good enough. (To be honest... I don't really mind either way.)

 

[Bugbot]

Thanks for the reply, but I have to point out the flaws in your logic. Ace Attorney Style...

Flare Blitz lets Blaziken kill himself, I agree. But if Blaziken kills itself, that means its taken down essentially 3 Pokemon.

Life Orb has a role here. It also depends on the dead Pokémon's current HP. Fire is an easy move to resist in OU (Bulky Waters, Dragons, Heatran...), so it shouldn't be too hard to switch in a Bulky Water or something to stop Blaziken. Common Bulky Waters are Vaporeon, which has Protect at all times with Wish, Milotic, which has Haze and Recover, Tentacruel, who completly shuts down Blaziken, Gyarados, who can intimidate Blaziken and then switch out on the Stone Edge, Starmie for being ultra-offensive and resisting the STABs and Slowbro for being having the same typing and better defenses. I just named the most common Bulky Waters, there still are Dragons and Flash Fire Pokémon who can take it down. No team is weak to Fire, so Blaziken can never wreck that much havock.

Finding a free turn for Blaziken to set up isn't too easy but given how common Nattorei is, it's not too bad.

Smart players will use Team Preview to their advantage to lure Blaziken out and make a double switch to either scare it off or kill it.

It's hard to check, it's even harder to counter unless you're running Slowbro.

Read the list of common Bulky Waters who can take care of it with ease above.

While HJK and Stone Edge don't have perfect accuracy, you can't rely on a miss to claim he's not broken.

Point taken.

Mixed Blaziken doesn't even require setup, it just goes out there and destroys everything that beats the SD set (although it loses to some Pokemon it would otherwise beat, such as Swampert).

Like you said, Pokémon like Swampert can take care of it with ease while not being total deadweight.

Not trying to sound like a douche, really. All I am doing is understand why such an easy-to-wall Pokémon can become Uber. I understand Thundurus and Garchomp (Gen IV), but Blaziken makes no sense.

 

[alphatron]

^Starmie is ohko'd by a +2 Hi Jump Kick from Adamant LO Blaziken. So is Milotic. In the sun, I have always gone with Blaze Kick on Vaporeon. Why? They either protect on it, allowing me to HJK next turn, or Blaze Kick does a ton of damage, while it does nothing back to me outside of roar.

Tentacruel dies to both Hi Jump Kick and sun boosted flare blitz/blaze kick. Unless you're running physically defensive tentacruel, which not only does nothing back to Blaziken in the sun, but does nothing for any team at any time. Swampert dies to a +2 Hi Jump kick or the uncommon hp grass on MixKen (which was used for Quagsire). Gyarados can't reliably switch in to either MixKen or Sd Ken.

Blaziken is hardly easy to wall by any means. Hippowdon takes 89% minimum from
+2 Hi Jump Kick. Bulky Waters get knocked around. +2 Hi Jump Kick ohkos Lati@s after hazards. Yes, I'm going to keep naming pokemon who get destroyed by Blaziken's resisted attacks.

Do the calcs for 252/252 impish gyarados against +2 sun boosted flare blitz with a life orb. Seriously, DO IT. He's not going to switch in willy nilly and just switch out afterwards.

Edit: Dragons? What dragons. Fully defensive Salamence and multiscale dragonite?

Here. I'll list all of Blaziken's checks for you. The ones not named Slowbro. The ones that still manage to be checks should sun light be up. The only pokemon who can do something back to Blaziken regardless of weather or worrying about whether or not he's mixed or purely physical.

Steelix @ leftovers
Evs: Whatever the heck
-Earthquake
-Roar
-Protect
-Filler

Switch in after Blaziken kills something. Unlike Skarmory, you 4x resists stealth rock. Protect to heal the SR damage off and have 100% of your hp for sturdy. Either roar Blaze out or kill him with EQ.

That's it.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Do the calcs for 252/252 impish gyarados against +2 sun boosted flare blitz with a life orb. Seriously, DO IT. He's not going to switch in willy nilly and just switch out afterwards.

Should be +1 due to Intimidate and the calc will be:

+2 in the Sun with a LO Adamant max attack Flare Blitz - 83.76% - 98.48%

+1 - 62.94% - 74.11%

 

[IcyMan28]

Yeah, Blaziken has few checks and only scarved pokemon with base 108 speed and higher can outspeed neutral Blaziken at +2.

 

[Arc Tech]

Should be +1 due to Intimidate and the calc will be:

+2 in the Sun with a LO Adamant max attack Flare Blitz - 83.76% - 98.48%

+1 - 62.94% - 74.11%

He can still only "revenge" not counter. And he's only coming in to intimidate once before dieing to SR.

 

[Benlisted]

To bring back a point I made a while ago - does anyone who believes Drought is broken have reasons for that? Drizzle as well? With things like Thundurus and Blaziken being prime nominees too, it seems wise to wait upon their verdicts to reevaluate the abilities, but since they've already been nommed I'll put this out there.

From playing with Sun a lot, I can say that it feels very strong - like say a solid SS team - but not broken. When I advance up the ladder it's mostly because I outplay the opponent, not because my team outmatches theirs (unless it's hail or something lol), and when I fall it's sometimes because I run into a Chandelure or SubTran or something but mostly because I am outplayed. This is a very rudimentary analysis, but it really just doesn't feel like I'm storming through matches due to bad team matchups like I was when DroughtTales was released and I was the first to use it. Also, has Sun actually got anyone voting rights this time around, as I've yet to hear of a Sun team hitting the leaderboard (since I'm co-writing the OU Sun article we've been looking for one - to include as an example)? Surely that'd be a reasonable indicator of its strength at least - of if it's actually capable of advancing that high. I may, admittedly, be biased, but surely there's at least some logic in this?

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

He can still only "revenge" not counter. And he's only coming in to intimidate once before dieing to SR.

Well, I never said he was a good counter(I never even mentioned him), but hey, Rest Talk Max/Max Gyarados CAN counter SD + Protect Blaziken in the Sun even after SR thanks to Intimidate.

Too bad no one uses it.