np: UU Suspect Test Round 1 - Sunny Days

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On the subject of Drought teams being overpowered even without Victini, I noticed an interesting trend among Chlorophyll users: Choice Scarf Gardevoir with Trace and HP Fire outspeeds and OHKOs pretty much all of them with little or no support.

All calcs assume Timid nature* and Sun:

HP Fire vs. 4/0 Leafeon: 116.2% - 136.8%
HP Fire vs. 4/0 Victreebel: 111.3% - 131.1%
HP Fire vs. 4/0 Shiftry: 104.3% - 123%
HP Fire vs. 4/0 Sawsbuck: 98.7% - 116.6%
HP Fire vs. 4/0 Exeggutor: 95.2% - 112%
HP Fire vs. 252/4 Tangrowth: 94.6% - 111.4%
(HP Fire vs. 136/252+ Tangrowth: 64.5% - 76.3%)
HP Fire vs. 252/252+ Vileplume: 48.6% - 57.6%

*She could probably afford to go Modest, as well.

Gardevoir even fares quite well against Drought's other heavy hitter, Charizard, who she also outspeeds with a Scarf:

Solar Power-boosted Timid Psychic vs. 4/0 Charizard: 82.6% - 97%
Solar Power-boosted Modest Psychic vs. 4/0 Charizard: 90.6% - 106.7%
Solar Power-boosted Timid Thunderbolt vs. 4/0 Charizard: 116.1% - 136.9%

(Timid HP Fire also OHKOs 0/252 Abomasnow in Hail: 105.9% - 125.9%)
 
No offense SF, but your opinion reminds me of the way you felt about drought in the past when OU suspect tests began. You thought it would easily prove broken at first, and then you said otherwise. Only difference was that this time I could see where you were coming from.
 
Drought is an extremely powerful playstyle, but so long as you take it into consideration during team building, it becomes surprisingly easier to deal with. Firstly, people let Vulpix die on the very first turn of the battle, meaning that having Rain Dance on some random pokemon mid-game essentially ruins the whole strategy. Secondly, Ferrothorn has pushed some potent Water-types to UU (read: Suicune, Kingdra), making it vastly easier to deal with choiced Fire-type attacks, while Chlorophyll abusers face coverage issues. Thirdly, in UU there are viable pokemon that utterly stomp on Sun teams (Altaria, Golduck, Gardevoir, Arcanine, Snorlax, etc).

Same deal with Chansey, as long as it's taken into consideration during teambuilding, it becomes apparent it's not as hard to take down as is assumed. In fact, anything that gets walled by Chansey can instead beat it by using Substitute + a stat boosting move or Taunt + recovery. Toxic Spikes also make it useless, while every Fighting-type or physical status absorber can switch into it with impunity. It's a threat that needs preparing for, but hardly a ban-worthy defender.

I've found Rhyperior to be a surprisingly good pokemon in the current UU with all the Victini, Chansey, and Arcanine to threaten out and set up Substitutes. Everyone underestimates Rhyperior, which makes him very easy to switch in and start throwing around base 100 STABs. He makes an amazing partner to Trick Room Victini too.

Btw, this is SO much better than OU.
 
alphatron said:
No offense SF, but your opinion reminds me of the way you felt about drought in the past when OU suspect tests began. You thought it would easily prove broken at first, and then you said otherwise.
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I did not change my opinion on Drought in OU. 0_o I still use it, it's my best team, and I practically get free wins against Sand. Ice Shard is nigh-inexistent in OU and Shiftry does not care about Sucker Punch. OU has some very prominent priority users, but UU just has way, way more.

The one type of team I always have a problem with: Rain. Which I also think is broken. Notice how I'm not saying anything about Sand being broken, which defeats the idea of 'weather is broken'. As I've said once before, Sand is extremely passive as a weather effect, and a well-played Drought team should always have the advantage against it. Balanced non-weather teams should be able to pack Gliscor or another good check for Excadrill, a check or two for Garchomp and Landlos, and not have to worry about anything else because Sand doesn't do anything else. If we had Sand as the only weather effect, the metagame would be perfectly balanced IMO.

Also, my doubts are merely a product of play experience with my own Drought teams. It's one thing watching them rip everything to shreds from a spectator's point of view, but speaking as a user, you're going to have to put in a 9-hour shift on teambuilding and laddering to get Sun to do what you want. Definitively broken? To be determined.
 
Not meaning to ofend but my slowbro will f*** altaria (and yeah, i use slowbro in a sun team), ans Bulky altaria with cloud nine is only good vs sun teams, hail teams have blizzard/ice attacks, and sand teams have rock attacks and bulky bastards that can take altaria's attacks all day, rain dance kingdra is the only "common" thing that stops permanet sun (and i make sure kindra is dead when i use victrebeel), scarfed gardevoir is great, but too situational (if you use her as a revenge killer she's ok, but she remains outclassed outside of weather)
 
Gerard said:
Not meaning to ofend but my slowbro will f*** altaria (and yeah, i use slowbro in a sun team), ans Bulky altaria with cloud nine is only good vs sun teams, hail teams have blizzard/ice attacks, and sand teams have rock attacks and bulky bastards that can take altaria's attacks all day, rain dance kingdra is the only "common" thing that stops permanet sun (and i make sure kindra is dead when i use victrebeel), scarfed gardevoir is great, but too situational (if you use her as a revenge killer she's ok, but she remains outclassed outside of weather)
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Even if it's packing Ice Beam, Slowbro misses the OHKO on Altaria even with no EV investment in defense.

Altaria can just DD and Roost (which makes it 2x instead of 4x meaning there's no way in hell it 2HKOs on a Roost turn) away.
 
... and slowbro can calm mind...

Just for you saying you have no problems with sun, does not having problems with sun makes your team underprepared for other teams (Ofensive teams, Stall teams, Hyper Ofense, Balanced, etc...)? Do you loose against other non-weather-related teams? if yes, then you're overprepared and you just prove that drought gives you real trouble and makes you use a poke you would normaly not chose for the job (suspect alarm!) or make you pack too many counters and make your team weaker against regular (non broken) pokes
 
Gerard said:
... and slowbro can calm mind...

Just for you saying you have no problems with sun, does not having problems with sun makes your team underprepared for other teams (Ofensive teams, Stall teams, Hyper Ofense, Balanced, etc...)? Do you loose against other non-weather-related teams? if yes, then you're overprepared and you just prove that drought gives you real trouble and makes you use a poke you would normaly not chose for the job (suspect alarm!) or make you pack too many counters and make your team weaker against regular (non broken) pokes
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Why are you assuming that preparing for sun teams makes you weaker against normal teams? There are a number of pokemon that are very useful against sun and also against normal teams:

- Arcanine
- Altaria
- Liligant
- Moltres
- Houndoom
- Hariyama

And many more. There are solid arguments for why sun may be broken, but "it has no counters" is not one of them.
 
i was asking if, i'm not saying is uncounterable, i'm asking if the ways people have countered it would make no sense if drought wasn't around (altough half the counters you listed are abusers themselves)
 
Gerard said:
i was asking if, i'm not saying is uncounterable, i'm asking if the ways people have countered it would make no sense if drought wasn't around (altough half the counters you listed are abusers themselves)
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If drought wasn't around, Water-types would still be used. Suicune, Milotic and Kingdra are all OU-capable pokemon and they wall the hell out of Sun teams. Even Chansey can wall everything on a Sun team except Victini and the occasional non-defensive Arcanine. Pretty much any Fire-type counters the Grass-type Sun abusers, and those would be common without Drought as well. The fact that Fire-types counter Sun teams AND are useful makes them very appealing right now.

Sun isn't good enough to be broken in UU. There are no good abusers. They're all OU's rejects lol. And you have to waste an entire team slot on Vulpix, who at best will Toxic something.

Victini is pretty easy to deal with. Stealth Rock and those Def/Speed drops make it so that Victini can't stay in for more than a couple of turns at most. It is a good pokemon but it really hasn't taken control of any matches for me. I've never thought "wow, there's nothing I can do to take that Victini out". Fusion Bolt can't even 2hko max max Suicune.

Kyurem is bulky but again Stealth Rock weakness hampers that. It takes something like Chansey or a Steel-type to beat, but that's not too unreasonable.

I really don't think anything needs to get banned this round, but I'm gonna make sure I get a vote because I don't trust you guys! :p
 
jrrrrrrr said:
If drought wasn't around, Water-types would still be used. Suicune, Milotic and Kingdra are all OU-capable pokemon and they wall the hell out of Sun teams. Even Chansey can wall everything on a Sun team except Victini and the occasional non-defensive Arcanine. Pretty much any Fire-type counters the Grass-type Sun abusers, and those would be common without Drought as well. The fact that Fire-types counter Sun teams AND are useful makes them very appealing right now.

Sun isn't good enough to be broken in UU. There are no good abusers. They're all OU's rejects lol. And you have to waste an entire team slot on Vulpix, who at best will Toxic something.

Victini is pretty easy to deal with. Stealth Rock and those Def/Speed drops make it so that Victini can't stay in for more than a couple of turns at most. It is a good pokemon but it really hasn't taken control of any matches for me. I've never thought "wow, there's nothing I can do to take that Victini out". Fusion Bolt can't even 2hko max max Suicune.

Kyurem is bulky but again Stealth Rock weakness hampers that. It takes something like Chansey or a Steel-type to beat, but that's not too unreasonable.

I really don't think anything needs to get banned this round, but I'm gonna make sure I get a vote because I don't trust you guys! :p
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Chansey isn't fond of Sawsbuck's assaults, but I'm sure that you merely forgot to add that in.
 
jrrrrrrr said:
If drought wasn't around, Water-types would still be used. Suicune, Milotic and Kingdra are all OU-capable pokemon and they wall the hell out of Sun teams. Even Chansey can wall everything on a Sun team except Victini and the occasional non-defensive Arcanine. Pretty much any Fire-type counters the Grass-type Sun abusers, and those would be common without Drought as well. The fact that Fire-types counter Sun teams AND are useful makes them very appealing right now.

Sun isn't good enough to be broken in UU. There are no good abusers. They're all OU's rejects lol. And you have to waste an entire team slot on Vulpix, who at best will Toxic something.
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Whilst I agree pretty much wholly that sun isn't broken, you have some of the above reasons pretty wrong. Growth boosts atk and spatk, and every chlorophyller can easily go mixed to beat chansey, let alone that those with giga drain can simply boost to +6 and beat it handily before sweeping your whole team. Zard with specs also 2hkos chansey. Fires in uu are further no issue for them, as many get eq or a neutral move that ohkos at +2.

Also, sun only loses saur, in terms of grasses. Many fires and tales are a hard hit, but nonetheless sun has a mountain of great abusers. Vulpix is damn awful though, I agree on that..

But yeah, vulpix being awful goes a way to balance sun, and I think sj summed up the other disadvantages of sun pretty well - frailty and priority means many abusers have a hard time in uu.
 
I have played the ladder alot recently and have formed some opinions
Weather-I must begin by stating that I do not like weather... Not that it is hard to beat I just don't like the style and the need for weather wars and would be perfectly content with a weatherless UU.

As far as being broken none of the weathers seem to be overly powerful. Each requiring some thought when building a team but imo don't taking away from the teams ability to handle other teams.

Sun is powerful but as many have said Vulpix is a waste and the inability to capitalize on both speed boost and power boost fully (I do relize growth in away does take advantage of this). Growth however is difficult to get on as most abusers are frail.

Sand is relatively that same as last gen for UU with some new abusers. I like that dog thing.

Hail also remained the same bar the new dragon. But no real problem with the playstyle itself. I would hope that Kyruem gets banned as the thing is just rediculous with bulky steels residiing in UU. This isn't helped by the dragon's access to focus blast leaving holes in the so called counters. Verdict BL

Outside of weather Mew is amazing. No particular set has wowed me each good in their own right but none particularly game breaking. Ban worthy I am not sure but versitality though name is mew. Verdicted needs more testing

Celebi has been disappointing for me personally until I came accross the NP set. It just seems that despite Celebi's great bulk their is always a poke taking advantage of his weaknesses. However switching gears and taking the offensive NP Celebi tears things apart. Celebi fits very nicely in UU. Verdict UU

Victini seems to be causing trouble for people but I honestly can't understand why. I realize he hits hard but with all the negatives of V-Create the user risks alot as the speed and def drops are easily taken advantage of while a number of bulky poke can tank a hit. Verdict UU

Zapdos is another OU veteran debuting in UU this gen. WIth a great move pool stats and typing Zapdos plays both defense and offense. From personal experience Zapdos has given me a hard time only because it seems that my opponent has the exact zapdos that my team can't handle properly.

As for other observations Nidoqueen is seeing a rebirth in use which is neat.
 
OK uh, I'm not sure what people are trying to prove against what I said because I wasn't necessarily saying that Charizard isn't legit. I (and I'm sure most people who've considered both) prefer Victini simply because it's much easier to get Victini to switch in and use an awesomely powerful attack more than once. You guys can say "just spin" all you want; this fact can't be changed.

(Also, I said nothing about either Pokémon's base Speed.)

(Also, Moltres has Roost and doesn't take damage just by being out of its Poké Ball. All this adds up. js)
 
What Moltres also doesn't get is that 1.5x Sp. Att boost and all-important 100 base Speed tier. I actually believe that if Drought isn't broken, Charizard definitely is.
 
What always happens to me is I expect SpecsZard, switch in my checks, then it rapes me up the ass because it's actually running Expert Belt and can just Solarbeam my ass or whatever.
 
There's also the matter of Air Slash just destroying things right off the bat even if Flash Fire users are present. Really, Flash Fire users are just minor annoyances when it comes to checking/countering fellow Fire-types; most can just as easily switch moves and KO, yielding no payoff for your prediction.

On this note, since almost everyone is packing some good checks to CB Victini, I'm expecting LO or bluff sets to get a lot more popular.
 
You guys are saying that Victini, Sawsbuck, Victreebel, Arcanine, and Charizard are the problems, not Vulpix?

Get a grip. This isn't Aldaron's Proposal. There is no Swift Swim linking all of these threats together. The only thing they all have in common is Drought, which shouldn't be in UU.

(Frankly, I don't think Snow Warning should be in UU either but that's my opinion)
 
You guys are saying that Victini, Sawsbuck, Victreebel, Arcanine, and Charizard are the problems, not Vulpix?

Get a grip. This isn't Aldaron's Proposal. There is no Swift Swim linking all of these threats together. The only thing they all have in common is Drought, which shouldn't be in UU.

(Frankly, I don't think Snow Warning should be in UU either but that's my opinion)
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Well if you are trying to compare it to OU then you are going about this all wrong. In OU drizzle+Swift Swim is the only banned weather combo while you on the other hand are talking about removing sun (A very big chunk of UU right now) from the metagame entirely.

OU may not have swift swim abusers abusing permarain, but it still has pokemon who abuse it offensively (tordaus, dragonite,thunderus, etc)and why should sun be any different?

Of course pokemon are going to get stronger in the sun and others will get weaker, it's just how weather works.
 
Azure Demon said:
Well if you are trying to compare it to OU then you are going about this all wrong. In OU drizzle+Swift Swim is the only banned weather combo while you on the other hand are talking about removing sun (A very big chunk of UU right now) from the metagame entirely.

OU may not have swift swim abusers abusing permarain, but it still has pokemon who abuse it offensively (tordaus, dragonite,thunderus, etc)and why should sun be any different?

Of course pokemon are going to get stronger in the sun and others will get weaker, it's just how weather works.
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What. This is not what he meant at all. He just said that, assuming those threats are broken, the common factor between their brokenness is Drought. I'm not sure what you thought.
 
Leman said:
What. This is not what he meant at all. He just said that, assuming those threats are broken, the common factor between their brokenness is Drought. I'm not sure what you thought.
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The point is stuff gets stronger in favorable weather, but as we see in OU that is no reason to ban it (It referring to weather) Tornadus is a great example. He would not be a true OU threat if it wasn't for rain, and would most likely be in UU as well.

If we ban some particular things in drought I think we could find a balance like we did for rain in OU, until Kerudio is released that is *shudders*.
 
That has nothing to do with the tiers being usage-based. Even if we switched to some arbitrary definition of power, Toxicroak would still be OU since it performs well there, so it would still be banned from UU.

UU is a side metagame. Of course what happens in OU will affect it. That's kind of the whole point of UU: to get a chance to use the Pokemon you don't see very often in standard play.
 
Rayquaza_ said:
Toxicroak is another pokemon that it's OU because of rain alone.
Try using it in UU with sun and hail everywhere. Obviously it's not going to be nearly as effective as it is in OU.
Why can't I use a pokemon that's clearly not overpowered in UU just because it performs better in OU?

If this doesn't point out the glaring flaw of a usage-based tier system I don't know what it does.
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The whole definition of UU is a metagame where the most used Pokemon are banned.

Toxicroak is one of the most used Pokemon in OU, so it's banned. It doesn't matter how strong it is.

Trust me. A wholly "strength"-based tier system would cause a LOT more problems!
 
SHUCKLE MAN said:
The whole definition of UU is a metagame where the most used Pokemon are banned.

Toxicroak is one of the most used Pokemon in OU, so it's banned. It doesn't matter how strong it is.

Trust me. A wholly "strength"-based tier system would cause a LOT more problems!
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I don't see it that often at all, lol
 
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