np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Skarmory usually runs taunt, so it isn't forced out by out by forry. On thatmatter, leech seed + spikes ferrothorn will try to get forretress to kill himself off of residual damage from spinning (including the few who use ocky helmet...causing you to lose 1/4 of your health just for trying to spin away hazards).

I've actually run torkoal before and he just doesn't work. Forcing out ferrothorn doesn't pay off for being Sr weak, taking toxic spikes poisoning, being slow as hell, being weak as hell, being scared out of the field by pokemon who lay down stealth rock anyway, being a free switch in for Rotom-W, etc.
 
Skarmory usually runs taunt, so it isn't forced out by out by forry. On thatmatter, leech seed + spikes ferrothorn will try to get forretress to kill himself off of residual damage from spinning (including the few who use ocky helmet...causing you to lose 1/4 of your health just for trying to spin away hazards).
That's true however, i'd gladly sacrifice a portion of my Forretress health if it grants me a position under which i can switch freely without entry hazard damage while my opponent has to endure both SR and Spikes.

Naturally you will have to ensure that your opponent does not get the opportunity to get his spikes back in again.
 
mien said:
Also i'm not sure why you are complaining about the lack of spinners in this generation. It was a lot worse in late Dppt when entry hazard/scarftar/rotom stall was the norm. In comparison i'd say spinning has become quite a bit easier now.

I don't think it's fair to compare the two generations like that. Firstly, the period you speak of didn't have Deoxys-S (or to a less notable extent, Deoxys-D) and obviously didn't have Ferrothorn so Spikes weren't anywhere near as common as they are now and, when they were used, they were normally limited to stall teams but the aforementioned Pokemon make it convenient for offensive teams to have access to Spikes (and abuse them alongside shit like Choice Specs Drizzle Hydro Pump and Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor to 2HKO 'counters')

Secondly, in my experience it was much easier to fit a Spinner onto your team because defensive Starmie was a decent Pokemon for much of the generation and 'the ultimate set-up bait' Forretress wasn't quite as much the liability he is now due to the lack of shit like Volcarona, Excadrill, Thundurus etc all salivating as soon as they see Forry in Team Preview.
 
Take gliscor for instance. [...] Now that people are actually getting smart and using adamant LO with frustration, gliscor takes 60-70% after switching into SD. Meanwhile standard EQ does 86-102% which is not close to a guaranteed OHKO.

Just wanted to point out that 86% - 102% is a guaranteed OHKO after SR + LO.
 
Secondly, in my experience it was much easier to fit a Spinner onto your team because defensive Starmie was a decent Pokemon for much of the generation and 'the ultimate set-up bait' Forretress wasn't quite as much the liability he is now due to the lack of shit like Volcarona, Excadrill, Thundurus etc all salivating as soon as they see Forry in Team Preview.

Well, as far as Rapid Spin Starmie goes I think the LO attacker set was and is more relevant than the defensive set, which was weak, still had mediocre defenses, and was complete pursuit bait. The offensive set could ravage spin blockers and TTar/Scizor on the switch in, or simply spin away hazards against something like Blissey. The defensive set is obviously defunct now, but Ferrothorn is a huge impediment for the LO set this gen, since its worn down very quickly by Hazards+LO+Iron Barbs and walls its attacks while being able to setup hazards again.
 
Also we can't forgot that some people choose to run X-Scissor over Frustration, which makes Gliscor even more of a hard counter. Though I have been seeing less and less X-Scissor variants over good old Frustration.
 
Latios is frustrating >.<

I'm trying to find good counters and I get:

Scizor - Good, but Sp.Def Scizor frankly sucks ass.

Escavalier - Also good, but too slow and walled by too many things

T-tar - Great, but my team doesn't enjoy sand

Jirachi - Good, but getting a legit-rachi in-game would be tough, for PO, it's great though.

Blissey/Chansey - I never really liked them...they just scream "Conkeldurr! Scrafty! Fighting types! Come and set up :D!!!"


Doesn't help that LO CM Latios pretty much curbstomps 3 of them and Specs Latios can screw them ALL up with Psyshock, HP Fire, or Trick.

>.<
Residual damage doesn't help since the damage he deals stupidly out weighs the damage he takes.
For example, Max/Max Scizor still takes a huge chunk from Specs Meteor and using Roost cuts into his already small coverage.

I don't mean to bitch about it, but damn.
 
I think specially defensive Empoleon and Heatran with Toxic / Roar are also notable. Granted Empoleon is probably worse at tanking special hits than Jirachi, but it doesn't really give a crap about Latios's auxillary moves, namely HP Fire and Surf (HP Fighting or Thunder(bolt) in the other hand...). Heatran in sunshine can wall Latios reliably I'd imagine.
 
Anyone else have the idea of using a sun team with cm LO Espeon? Sets up all over blissey with morning sun and bounces back SR. Here's the real kicker, it can OHKO ttar with HP fighting after a little residual damage or weaken it enough for anything else on a sun team to finish it off.
 
Specs toed is so brutal. It will eventually KO my Rotom since all Rotom can do is pain split the Ferrothorn for a little health and volt switch out. I don't know how sand teams with only Rotom for the resist do it. I have to run recover Latias to switch into the thing. Even Latias was OHKO'd by a crit hydo pump in the rain once. Without SR. Latias is also excellent but it just gets terminated by ttar, especially when other Rotom volt switch to ttar.
 
Just wanted to point out that 86% - 102% is a guaranteed OHKO after SR + LO.

OK granted but the main problem is that you still have to keep your gliscor at above 70% at all times while trying to wall crazy stuff like terrakion, lucario etc with only semi reliable recovery. Not to mention the random things that just love to carry surprise HP ice/insert ice attack here. Even if it doesn't kill, it takes you to like 30% and god help you if they find a chance to bring in their excadrill after that. Also 1 crit or 1 untimely flinch and you're basically clean swept.

I hate the fact that you carry a supposed hard counter to something and it can still get beaten and you get swept with no way to stopping it without carrying a second counter or a very specific revenge killer. It happened with blaziken, it happened with kingdra and it happens with excadrill.

I guess if you play rain or sun you have less of a problem with it unless of course you lose the weather war. But honestly, running scarf politoed on a sand team? That's the definition of overcentralization because there's no other reason to gimp your own sand strat other than to stop opposing excadrill.
 
I did mention that even if anything else somehow gets past its counters it can still be prevented from sweeping your entire team by something faster. The problem isn't so much that it can crit you or whatever, the problem is that if it does, there's no good way to stop it afterwards unlike with most other things that can be checked with any decent scarfer not just a select group of priority users.
 
Lee said:
I don't think it's fair to compare the two generations like that. Firstly, the period you speak of didn't have Deoxys-S (or to a less notable extent, Deoxys-D) and obviously didn't have Ferrothorn so Spikes weren't anywhere near as common as they are now and, when they were used, they were normally limited to stall teams but the aforementioned Pokemon make it convenient for offensive teams to have access to Spikes (and abuse them alongside shit like Choice Specs Drizzle Hydro Pump and Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor to 2HKO 'counters')

Secondly, in my experience it was much easier to fit a Spinner onto your team because defensive Starmie was a decent Pokemon for much of the generation and 'the ultimate set-up bait' Forretress wasn't quite as much the liability he is now due to the lack of shit like Volcarona, Excadrill, Thundurus etc all salivating as soon as they see Forry in Team Preview.
The addition of Deoxys-S and Ferrothorn made Spikes far more frequent however that does not necessarily mean spinning has become much more difficult. Considering Deoxys-E rarely carries any coverage outside Ice Beam and Superpower, Forretress/Starmie can usually switch in everytime to spin the hazards away. This was simply much harder to do during generation 4 when Ghosts were at least twice as common as they are now(just look at the amount of ou teams having a ghost in the RMT archive)

Forretress is just as much set up bait as it always has been, offensive boosters abusing it have become more powerful but the same goes for defensive threats who can stop them proportionally(Evo stone, Explosion nerf, Ferrothorn, Jellicent ,Wish buff, Sturdy buff, Rainstall, Regeneration, Poison heal Gliscor, ..etc).

Offensive spinning(like Starmie used to do) is still possible this generation, Excadrill's running Rapid Spin instead of Sword Dance aren't given enough merit i believe. Its double resist to SR, multiple resists and Toxic/T-wave immunity, which grant the versatility to switch in many times, are often ignored to attempt a one time sweep with SD. Spinblocking Excadrill is very difficult as the Adamant version 2HKO's standard Jellicent after SR damage. Naturally, like offensive teams have always done in the past, you can built your team in such a way that setting up entry hazards is very difficult to achieve due to the pressure brought by repeated powerfull attacks(like PK Gaming's Enter the Dragon). Or you can limit the total damage done by the hazards by only running those who resist SR and/or are immune to Spikes like in KG's Solum's Core

I did mention that even if anything else somehow gets past its counters it can still be prevented from sweeping your entire team by something faster. The problem isn't so much that it can crit you or whatever, the problem is that if it does, there's no good way to stop it afterwards unlike with most other things that can be checked with any decent scarfer not just a select group of priority users.
The situation you describe is extremely rare as intelligent battlers won't sacrifice their Excadrill just to do 60%(47% after Poison Heal recovery) damage to Gliscor, considering how easy it is to get it back to full health with 12.5% HP recovery every turn. Not to mention that it is completely ridiculous to say that a pokemon should be banned because it sweeps after landing a critical hit.
 
The situation you describe is extremely rare as intelligent battlers won't sacrifice their Excadrill just to do 60%(47% after Poison Heal recovery) damage to Gliscor, considering how easy it is to get it back to full health with 12.5% HP recovery every turn. Not to mention that it is completely ridiculous to say that a pokemon should be banned because it sweeps after landing a critical hit.

Nowhere did I say they were going to sacrifice excadrill to deal 60% to a gliscor. I said that there's a really heavy burden on gliscor to stay above 60-70% at all times while trying to fight off some really strong threats throughout the whole game. Because the minute it's even slightly weakened, it's no longer countering excadrill.

I also stress that being able to use multiple threats to break a wall obviously doesn't make it broken as someone will no doubt point out at some point. It's that fact that there's no good way of stopping it after it has broken past the wall without severely limiting team building that's the problem. I mean, you can use a combination of terrakion, landorus, lucario etc to break past their common counters as well but it doesn't make them broken because it's relatively easy to stop their sweep with any number of commonly used pokemon afterwards. It's not the case with excadrill.

And as far as the critical hit thing goes, perhaps it's not so much the crit as the rock slide flinch hax. You're saying it's ridiculous to ban a pokemon because it can hax past its counters and sweep? garchomp begs to differ. And again, while many pokemon can hax past counters at one point or another, they're not actually 100% guaranteed to sweep afterwards due to revenge killers. Excadrill is.
 
Please let's try to get over this broken\non broken argument, we've been discussing about the same things for like 3 months and at this point it's pretty obvious that both the sides have good arguments to support their stances. There's no need to repeat the same things again and again.

Let's just try to discuss on the metagame. This thread was interesting before the "Excadrill is broken" argument was brought back.
 
Anyways. As far as I am concerned, Trick is the absolute greatest thing in the current metagame. Pretty much nothing wants to be holding a Scarf right now, and so many things are holding items that are really situational (Toxic Orb, Black Sludge, Rocky Helmet, Air Balloon) so Trick can be used repeatedly to great effect. Seriously, the only things I've seen that deal with Trick are things like Deo-S' Taunt and SubDisable Gengar.
 
I never said Spinning was especially difficult - if you can fit a spinner into your team then it's usually quite easy (sans the Ferrothorn example I mentioned at the top of this page). The observation I initially made was more about my frustration at the huge imbalance between the Spikers and the Spinners in this metagame. The Spikers (namely Ferrothorn, Skarmory, Deoxys) are excellent Pokemon that are easy to fit into a team whereas the Spinners tend to be subpar UU/RU Pokemon or, in the case of Starmie and Forry, huge liabilities. I just find it to be a very noticeable and distasteful balance issue in what is supposed to be a competitive game.

I admit I've never actually tried Excadrill with Rapid Spin and I have my doubts about it due to the fact that he's quite hard to switch in and usually has better things to do with a free turn but it would be hypocritical for me to bitch about this and then dismiss him so readily. I'll give it a try - I suppose you can move some Spe EVs into bulk since, with Sand Rush, he already outspeeds all OU non-Scarfers with 0 Spe EVs and it'd be nice to use Leftovers on him for once hehe.
 
I'm actually finding Defensive Starmie with Offensive EV's to be very solid on a rain team. The attaack EV's allow Surf to break things and Ice Beam to take out Dragons/Breloom while Rapid Spin and Recover allow it survival and support. With the Rain boost to Surf LO isn't necessary at all and the offensive pressure ironically allows you more oppurtunities to spin without becoming a defensive liability. The only issue for Starmie defensively is Jellicent who either a) gets hazards set up on by Ferrothorn or b) runs when Rotom arrives.

On another note I'm really hating Scarf Rotom, what is the typical EV spread used? When I ran Specs I ran max HP/SpA and loved it but with the current max SpA/Spe the thing can't take a hit. Suggestions?
 
Ferrothorn and Gastrodon are always good check for rotom-w, the last, even tricked can attempt to toxic it. Trick is a double-edge weapon. I run in many opponent that tricked me a scarf and then, they don't have any answer to outspeed and shut my scarfed mon, it's a question of prediction in most of the cases, in my opinion.
 
Texas Cloverleaf, you can give Rotom-W just enough Spe EVs to reach 245-6 Spe, which would give you enough Speed to outrun Starmie, Scarftar, and Bulky Gyarados at +1 Spe. That will give you ~100 EVs to invest on defense. Granted this pales in comparison with Max HP, but that's considerable amount of bulk compared to the standard Scarfed Rotom. Perhaps you want to make its nature Bold or Calm. If you want Modest to pack more punch you can possibly divert up to 36 SpA EVs into defense.
 
Even when I use Skarmory and spikes, I've found Rotom to be much better than Jellicent. Jellicent is excellent for stallbreaking with taunt toxic, but it just doesn't have the speed and levitate to switch into hazards and attacks and the electric neutrality rotom has the just so much more useful. Rotom can just switch in on stuff like Gliscor, and volt switch the impending ferrothorn / latios racking up spikes and chip damage. Force the ferro / lati out and repeat whenever they bring in Gliscor. the only common ground type who ruins this is Gastrodon as the others get shot down by hydro pump. The crit I mentioned earlier was just to show how powerful specs toed is.
 
I admit I've never actually tried Excadrill with Rapid Spin and I have my doubts about it due to the fact that he's quite hard to switch in and usually has better things to do with a free turn but it would be hypocritical for me to bitch about this and then dismiss him so readily. I'll give it a try - I suppose you can move some Spe EVs into bulk since, with Sand Rush, he already outspeeds all OU non-Scarfers with 0 Spe EVs and it'd be nice to use Leftovers on him for once hehe.
Balloon Excadrill is a very effective spinner. It is great at forcing switches so finding time to spin isn't hard, and if you sd on the switch it can ohko every spin blocker. An added benefit of Balloon is you are immune to spikes, so combining that with a TS immunity and a 4x sr resistance, you can switch in basically for free to spin.
 
I think Excadrill is best stopped by a ninetails or a toed switching in
but then its more weather centralization
can we just ban auto weather inducers
well i guess we could spare hail since it has significant drawbacks
but whatever
its been five rounds of messing around with this
 
I was actually very surprised to see a stall player like Meru complain about beating something as simple as Rotom-W, since the the best it can do for recovery is Pain Split, and hitting it with Toxic is essentially game over.

Rotom-W switches in onto bulky waters, like Vaporeon, Jellicent, Slowbro, and Milotic, and forces them out with Volt Switch. If you switch, you suffer hazards damage and you lose a buttload of momentum, and you usually have to switch in to something that Scizor, his #1 partner, manhandles with a U-turn. If you don't switch, your bulky water risks eating a Thunder/Thunderbolt

Rotom-W also avoids Spikes, T-spikes, and has a good tendency to get burned by Scald. He's probably the most anti-stall of any of the bulky waters, so I'm not really sure why me being a stall player complaining about Rotom-W is surprising. He's one of the main reasons why I took Slowbro off my team and put in Tangrowth. Constantly losing momentum to that resilient dishwasher was annoying.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top