Yeah I'd rather much destroy and blast away at key opponents rather than play around with U-turn. If anything, Focus Blast or even Substitute gives a better chance at survival.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)
- Thread starter JabbaTheGriffin
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My favorite Hydreigon set is actually specs. 383 Special Attack compared to Latios' 359 AND flamethrower instead of HP Fire is too good to pass up. I run modest, 252 / 252 Draco Meteor, Flamethrower, Dark Pulse and U-turn.
The thing is that Hydreigon doesn't need to run Focus Blast or Earth Power. You just U-turn to a fighting type like Mienshao or Scarf Terrakion, and you have a potent offensive core in two pokes. He has such good coverage with his three staple moves.
I don't think that I've ever seen a Hydreigon use Focus Blast or Earth Power. They all run Dragon / Fire / U-turn, and maybe Surf.
Does anyone else think that it's hilarious how Hydreigon has completely overshadowed Latios? I can't remember the last time I saw one; The top Dragons are now Hydreigon, Latias, Haxorus and Dragonite. Latios and Salamence are nowhere to be seen.
The only things Latios has on Hydreigon are speed, Calm Mind, Trick, and Recover. He's Pursuit bait, has awful four moveslot syndrome, and has been usurped as the king of SpecsMeteor spam.
It doesn't help that Hydreigon has very few flaws and a list of pros that stretches from here to the moon.
I'd replace Dragon Pulse with Dark Pulse. The super effective hit on Psychics and Ghosts, plus the flinch rate are extremely useful. I'm assuming that you're running Draco Meteor with Dragon Pulse.
The thing is that Hydreigon doesn't need to run Focus Blast or Earth Power. You just U-turn to a fighting type like Mienshao or Scarf Terrakion, and you have a potent offensive core in two pokes. He has such good coverage with his three staple moves.
I don't think that I've ever seen a Hydreigon use Focus Blast or Earth Power. They all run Dragon / Fire / U-turn, and maybe Surf.
Does anyone else think that it's hilarious how Hydreigon has completely overshadowed Latios? I can't remember the last time I saw one; The top Dragons are now Hydreigon, Latias, Haxorus and Dragonite. Latios and Salamence are nowhere to be seen.
The only things Latios has on Hydreigon are speed, Calm Mind, Trick, and Recover. He's Pursuit bait, has awful four moveslot syndrome, and has been usurped as the king of SpecsMeteor spam.
It doesn't help that Hydreigon has very few flaws and a list of pros that stretches from here to the moon.
I'd replace Dragon Pulse with Dark Pulse. The super effective hit on Psychics and Ghosts, plus the flinch rate are extremely useful. I'm assuming that you're running Draco Meteor with Dragon Pulse.
Eh; the problem with u-turn is that hydreigon has a terrible problem with residual damage; so i prefer to just go on a killing rampage. Specs is by far its best set,though.
Gengar is a beast in OU this gen. Aside from being able to outrun most of the dragons and put them to sleep, he can decimate ferrothorn and ttar with focus blast, and maybe even KO excadrill, seeing as excadrill's only move it can use for neutral damage is rock slide. And I run a gengar with a sash, so once exca KOe's one of my mons, i send in gengar and KO. Of course, you gotta watch out for entry hazards. Plus, with sash he can get specs latios with shadow ball.
Gengar is very good but sash gar is pretty crap. Subsplit and subdisable are the best sets to use, don't use hypnosis because the 60% accuracy will screw you over a LOT. With just shadow ball and focus blast you get perfect coverage anyway. If you are behind a sub you beat latios and you can also go for a speed tie and they may be running a hidden power as well. Also you lose to excadrill with sash anyway because Sandstorm will finish you off if rock slide flinches and focus blasts crap accuracy don't.
I find a lot of people tend to go "gengar is crap it can't take a hit" but if you can get a sub up it's going to cause a fair amount of damage and annoyance to the opposing team.
lets talk about excadrill ... dont delete my post
there are just so many sides to this pokemon that you can identify one factor of it and think "ok well this is feasible enough to stop right now" but then you see what else it can do and realize "ok shit maybe i need this to beat it too" and then you realize "crap this thing is too good"
or you can just use a gliscor and "tangrowth"
but since when did having a shutdown counter equal "no uber" status? kyogre is walled pretty hard by gastrodon but im not clamoring for it to be unbanned despite how common gastro is ... in fact, kyogre is obviously broken. so why is excadrill afforded the obvious luxury of people naming a few pokemon that can wall it and say "well hey done for the day" without realizing what other effects it would have on the meta.
ps i hate the "this uber is walled by ___" defense arguement but im only using it here to show that excadrill is indeed hard countered by a pokemon ... im not going to be an idiot who tries to say "well you can predict the protect and sd again, maybe get a rock slide flinch and then hit it with +2 or +4 frustra-" stop, lets just accept gliscor is a pretty solid all around counter to it.
excadrill is unhealthy for the meta, it brings 2-3 key parts of pokemon into one mon that completely dominate how a team runs. first off, it is easily a top 5 sweeper and considered by many to be number 1. this isn't any reason to ban a pokemon and dont try and say "oh so because hes the best sweeper, you want to ban him?". thats not what im saying - i just want everyone to accept that excadrill is one of the very - if not the best - sweepers in the entire game. because it is - high hp, good speed doubled by one of the best abilities, amazing attack, swords dance, and stab earthquake.
but its not just a sweeper - it combines the idea of end-all revenge killer with a strong sweeper. do you remember a few years back when deoxys-s was banned? no i don't mean the second trial run where it was basically just sr/spikes dominant - i mean where a lot of people found it took the fun out of the game because it could revenge kill entire offense teams and helped make setting up completely obsolete. excadrill is the deoxys-s of this generation. because of exca, most people give up on it completely. why bother trying to make a set up happen or attempt an end game sweep when excadrill is just going to come in and revenge.
so excadrill allows you to easily revenge kill almost every pokemon with its lo adamant set (this will be the set i talk about for future reference) and then set up an end game sweep with excadrill himself at the end of game. and he is the best revenge killer and a top 5 for sure sweeper ... exca performs two high quality roles with ease and does them both excellently
does this mean its broken? im not sure, but it certainly brings him much closer. its requiring you to dedicate a team member but probably two to excadrill. this isn't always bad - when you counter a number 1 sweeper, you are countering a lot of other sweepers and pokemon by default. it works out that way and it is helpful. but its a situation where exca still has the advantage as many of the answers to kill it can't switch in and the answers to stall it can't do much back. which leads me to exca's third role: rapid spin
spinning is so key in pokemon and maybe even more in b/w. there are just too many quality spikers and reasons to spike/sr (volcarona, thund, etc) that for most teams, there is no reason not to carry hazards. and what does excadrill do? he laughs at pretty much everything. he throws out rapid spin easily as his counters come in so at worst exca is losing 10% and at best gaining 6% from lefties depending on which set you prefer. again for the sake of what i think is most broken, exca loses 10% from its lo at the cost of spinning away entry hazards which could be worth 30-40% per pokemon. if a ghost wants to come in ... its not going to last long. excadrills earthquake and rock slide combination pretty much dominate all ghosts and if the ghost really wants to risk coming in on swords dance, then they are at a serious disadvantage because they are likely going to die. their only choice is to switch back to their exca counter where exca is going to wallop them with rock slide or just hit the spin.
so we have probably the best spinner in the game, the best revenge killer in the game, and arguably the best sweeper in the game ... all on one pokemon.
but kd, the counters and checks!!!! - well first, exca doesn't really have checks but i guess you can include scarf poli and ninetales - exca is taking 3% from sr they are taking 12-25% ... and they cant switch in - so if they are checking exca, then it means you are already at a serious disadvantage because it means something was just sacced to get them in safely. you can argue conkeldurr and breloom are both checks but to be fair i consider them more along the lines of counters because i feel they both do a great job of switchin in and threatening exca out.
second of all, excas counters are limited - he probably has more than any pokemon nominated for ubers but he certainly doesnt have "many". and i dont think we ban pokemon by comparing them to other ubers - we ban them on their current effect on the metagame for which they are in. so can you counter excadrill? sure, but the problem is they all basically have a weakness of not being able to do much damage to other pokemon. bronzong, azumarill, skarmory, gliscor, "slowbro" - these all have obscene weaknesses to so many common partners of excadrill (particulary rotom-w but there are certainly others like jellicent) without being able to dent them too much...so rarely does a competent excadrill player ever have to power through its counters except when it has a clear ko.
leftovers excadrill is something else to talk about, i wont get into it too much but it still has obscene power backed by the ability to spin much more comfortably, especially on skarmory. its just a set that you have to take into consideration, and especially think about how skarmory isnt a full proof answer to exca at all
ok im really tired now but the point is - excadrill is the best early-game mon, mid-game mon, and late-game mon that there is and in turn it hurts the meta and makes it revolve around him while he still performs these tasks easily - he spins easily, he finds time to come in and revenge (especially with a steel typing and 2 immunities), and sweeps end games. he forces teams to bring counters that while are good, are still being doubled up and taken out pretty easily with his teammates since they have trouble dealing a lot of damage to many other pokemon. he completely renders choice scarf pointless for revenging and sweeping when nothing hopes to beat excadrill. and he has the most powerful earthquake in ou and one of the highest attack stats.
am i opening up the discussion for is exca uber again? yeah, because i want to just discuss with people about him. im not going to try and make you look dumb (which in turn would make me look dumb, im not exactly the most coherent with words hehe), flame you, or try to pick apart only certain weak parts of your argument. im just openly inviting you to post reasoning and i will simply counter with my opinions on it.
there are just so many sides to this pokemon that you can identify one factor of it and think "ok well this is feasible enough to stop right now" but then you see what else it can do and realize "ok shit maybe i need this to beat it too" and then you realize "crap this thing is too good"
or you can just use a gliscor and "tangrowth"
but since when did having a shutdown counter equal "no uber" status? kyogre is walled pretty hard by gastrodon but im not clamoring for it to be unbanned despite how common gastro is ... in fact, kyogre is obviously broken. so why is excadrill afforded the obvious luxury of people naming a few pokemon that can wall it and say "well hey done for the day" without realizing what other effects it would have on the meta.
ps i hate the "this uber is walled by ___" defense arguement but im only using it here to show that excadrill is indeed hard countered by a pokemon ... im not going to be an idiot who tries to say "well you can predict the protect and sd again, maybe get a rock slide flinch and then hit it with +2 or +4 frustra-" stop, lets just accept gliscor is a pretty solid all around counter to it.
excadrill is unhealthy for the meta, it brings 2-3 key parts of pokemon into one mon that completely dominate how a team runs. first off, it is easily a top 5 sweeper and considered by many to be number 1. this isn't any reason to ban a pokemon and dont try and say "oh so because hes the best sweeper, you want to ban him?". thats not what im saying - i just want everyone to accept that excadrill is one of the very - if not the best - sweepers in the entire game. because it is - high hp, good speed doubled by one of the best abilities, amazing attack, swords dance, and stab earthquake.
but its not just a sweeper - it combines the idea of end-all revenge killer with a strong sweeper. do you remember a few years back when deoxys-s was banned? no i don't mean the second trial run where it was basically just sr/spikes dominant - i mean where a lot of people found it took the fun out of the game because it could revenge kill entire offense teams and helped make setting up completely obsolete. excadrill is the deoxys-s of this generation. because of exca, most people give up on it completely. why bother trying to make a set up happen or attempt an end game sweep when excadrill is just going to come in and revenge.
so excadrill allows you to easily revenge kill almost every pokemon with its lo adamant set (this will be the set i talk about for future reference) and then set up an end game sweep with excadrill himself at the end of game. and he is the best revenge killer and a top 5 for sure sweeper ... exca performs two high quality roles with ease and does them both excellently
does this mean its broken? im not sure, but it certainly brings him much closer. its requiring you to dedicate a team member but probably two to excadrill. this isn't always bad - when you counter a number 1 sweeper, you are countering a lot of other sweepers and pokemon by default. it works out that way and it is helpful. but its a situation where exca still has the advantage as many of the answers to kill it can't switch in and the answers to stall it can't do much back. which leads me to exca's third role: rapid spin
spinning is so key in pokemon and maybe even more in b/w. there are just too many quality spikers and reasons to spike/sr (volcarona, thund, etc) that for most teams, there is no reason not to carry hazards. and what does excadrill do? he laughs at pretty much everything. he throws out rapid spin easily as his counters come in so at worst exca is losing 10% and at best gaining 6% from lefties depending on which set you prefer. again for the sake of what i think is most broken, exca loses 10% from its lo at the cost of spinning away entry hazards which could be worth 30-40% per pokemon. if a ghost wants to come in ... its not going to last long. excadrills earthquake and rock slide combination pretty much dominate all ghosts and if the ghost really wants to risk coming in on swords dance, then they are at a serious disadvantage because they are likely going to die. their only choice is to switch back to their exca counter where exca is going to wallop them with rock slide or just hit the spin.
so we have probably the best spinner in the game, the best revenge killer in the game, and arguably the best sweeper in the game ... all on one pokemon.
but kd, the counters and checks!!!! - well first, exca doesn't really have checks but i guess you can include scarf poli and ninetales - exca is taking 3% from sr they are taking 12-25% ... and they cant switch in - so if they are checking exca, then it means you are already at a serious disadvantage because it means something was just sacced to get them in safely. you can argue conkeldurr and breloom are both checks but to be fair i consider them more along the lines of counters because i feel they both do a great job of switchin in and threatening exca out.
second of all, excas counters are limited - he probably has more than any pokemon nominated for ubers but he certainly doesnt have "many". and i dont think we ban pokemon by comparing them to other ubers - we ban them on their current effect on the metagame for which they are in. so can you counter excadrill? sure, but the problem is they all basically have a weakness of not being able to do much damage to other pokemon. bronzong, azumarill, skarmory, gliscor, "slowbro" - these all have obscene weaknesses to so many common partners of excadrill (particulary rotom-w but there are certainly others like jellicent) without being able to dent them too much...so rarely does a competent excadrill player ever have to power through its counters except when it has a clear ko.
leftovers excadrill is something else to talk about, i wont get into it too much but it still has obscene power backed by the ability to spin much more comfortably, especially on skarmory. its just a set that you have to take into consideration, and especially think about how skarmory isnt a full proof answer to exca at all
ok im really tired now but the point is - excadrill is the best early-game mon, mid-game mon, and late-game mon that there is and in turn it hurts the meta and makes it revolve around him while he still performs these tasks easily - he spins easily, he finds time to come in and revenge (especially with a steel typing and 2 immunities), and sweeps end games. he forces teams to bring counters that while are good, are still being doubled up and taken out pretty easily with his teammates since they have trouble dealing a lot of damage to many other pokemon. he completely renders choice scarf pointless for revenging and sweeping when nothing hopes to beat excadrill. and he has the most powerful earthquake in ou and one of the highest attack stats.
am i opening up the discussion for is exca uber again? yeah, because i want to just discuss with people about him. im not going to try and make you look dumb (which in turn would make me look dumb, im not exactly the most coherent with words hehe), flame you, or try to pick apart only certain weak parts of your argument. im just openly inviting you to post reasoning and i will simply counter with my opinions on it.
At this point in the game, I'm still on the fence as to what an uber actually is. At first I thought that it was just a pokemon that dominated the metagame to the point where there were barely any options you could use against that pokemon aside from using it. But at the same time, it could also just be a pokemon whom the community does not like having to face and banned.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that if we didn't ban Shaymin-S back in round one, or Manaphy in round 2, that they'd be getting the same treatment as Excadrill is now. I'm almost certain that if we didn't ban blaziken, then the original scare factor that came with him being "unstoppable" would have passed as almost every team would carry CB E-speed dragonite or something else to pick him off, giving us the feeling that he isn't broken anymore, now that the metagame has fully prepared for him.
Since the metagame can fully prepare for and work around most pokemon in the game, it's hard to say when this train of thought can stop to be honest. Is excadrill broken? I never once thought so. Then again, I've always played in the fifth gen metagame by making teams that were never really bothered by him.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that if we didn't ban Shaymin-S back in round one, or Manaphy in round 2, that they'd be getting the same treatment as Excadrill is now. I'm almost certain that if we didn't ban blaziken, then the original scare factor that came with him being "unstoppable" would have passed as almost every team would carry CB E-speed dragonite or something else to pick him off, giving us the feeling that he isn't broken anymore, now that the metagame has fully prepared for him.
Since the metagame can fully prepare for and work around most pokemon in the game, it's hard to say when this train of thought can stop to be honest. Is excadrill broken? I never once thought so. Then again, I've always played in the fifth gen metagame by making teams that were never really bothered by him.
Mm... That's the same mindset with which I made this post. I'm not so sure about Shaymin-S, but it would be an interesting experiment either way.
It's probably worth noting that I didn't play once during Round 1, though, so I can only speak based on what I've heard. Also, this is not to say that I agree with the re-definition of an uber, rather that this is how to avoid that problematic re-definition.
Aside from not having ice-type, and not having a low speed/special defense/special attack/defense/attack/hp, and not having a lame movepool, Lugia has the same problems as delibird. And it's uber on top of it.
Seriously;Those are the problems that bar latios from being AMAZING. With those removed, hydreigon is a boss.
I think on the contrary that we need to re-define the definition of an Uber. For me it's the only way we have to be sure that no one complaint about the ban or not of a pokemon. If everyone (or a majority) agrees about the definition of Uber, we can't say anymore that the voters choose to ban something they don't like.
If you're allowed to make a lugia to deliberd comparison against latias and hydriegon, then I should be allowed to bump that old topic I had where everyone thought I wanted to bring Ho-oh down to OU.
My problem is not with Hydriegon at all. I've been using him since the beginning so I can't really say that he's replaced Latios on any of my teams at all (Latios actually replaced him on my rain team). My problem is with specs hydriegon itself. Sure, less will want to switch into you and you don't get punished by Tyranitar for using Draco meteor. Focus blast is also a great addition. I just prefer LO/EB sets. The freedom to switch moves is way better than having to switch constantly and take residual damage on top of residual damage on top of residual damage. It hits hard and has a better movepool and can nab a nice handful of free switchins. But it probably won't be forcing out as many pokemon as specs latios will.
I've tried using Latios before, and I was just... underwhelmed by his performance. Maybe it is the set that I ran, an LO set, but I found that he doesn't hit hard enough and his coverage is worse than Hydreigon's.
Or am I just going crazy?
Just like round 1, I STILL build my entire team around excadrill. As in, When picking a pokemon to build a team around, I still need to ask myself if it can beat excadrill. And even today, I need either a Conkeldurr, Gliscor, or Azumarill on every team, or else I will be raped. Excadrill is unhealthy
kd24 has an excellent point concerning excadrill. For a while now I've been having similar thoughts concerning it.
It's the best sweeper. It's the best spinner. It's certainly on of the best Rapid Spinners, and functions well at any time in the battle. But why isn't it uber? Because it can be hard countered. The ultimate Pokemon can be countered, which is a little... strange. One must keep in mind though just how easy it is to remove its counters on Sand teams. Landorus is the perfect example. It brings everything that counters/checks excadrill into KO range for the mole, apart from skarmory, who can easily be trapped by magnezone, or forced out by stuff like rotom. Regarding Kyogre, it really is technically uncounterable, since it can simply run hp grass for gastrodon :)
It's the best sweeper. It's the best spinner. It's certainly on of the best Rapid Spinners, and functions well at any time in the battle. But why isn't it uber? Because it can be hard countered. The ultimate Pokemon can be countered, which is a little... strange. One must keep in mind though just how easy it is to remove its counters on Sand teams. Landorus is the perfect example. It brings everything that counters/checks excadrill into KO range for the mole, apart from skarmory, who can easily be trapped by magnezone, or forced out by stuff like rotom. Regarding Kyogre, it really is technically uncounterable, since it can simply run hp grass for gastrodon :)
No, i agree, expert belt sets are great. I just love the sheer power of specs, and i feel he outperforms latios on just about any team because you can use him more than once.
Seriously;using latios is immensely stressful, because you constantly have to watch out for being pursuited, and often you will be randomly killed for no good reason. Hydreigon lacks this problem, and has fire blast to remove other special walls. All latios would need to be a massive threat is those two things-oh yeah, and STAB dark pulse for jellicent/reuiniclus.
i thought every good skarm ran shed shell...
meh, I'm a massive fan of specs hydreigon. It can afford to use modest, meaning he hits a good deal harder than latios, but what makes him so useful is his INCREDIBLE movepool. Focus blast, fire blast and dark pule are simply perfect. Not to mention his excellent typing, allowing him to resist pursuit
The main thing bugging me about Excadrill is that almost every team in OU packs an Excadrill counter, a weather changer, or a strong check to it like Conkeldurr. There is no other reason why Bronzong, Skarmory, and Gliscor are part of everyone and there mother's defensive cores. It's also a huge reason why there are Balloon Terrakions running around.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that although Excadrill is hard countered by any one of around 3 pokemon (coincidentally on almost every OU team) the logic doesn't stand up to the precedent. It has a couple counterd didn't hold up in 4th Gen UU when Yanmega tore through everything. Chansey was around, and it countered it, but that didn't stop the rest of the tier from getting wrecked by it. Even Arceus can be countered, but that doesn't stop it from being Uber.
I think I've made my piece but I'd just like to mention that we'd probably still have Blaziken, Garchomp, and Manaphy in OU if we went through the trouble of countering them as much as we have Excadrill.
Skarmory counters many other pokemon, as do gliscor and bronzong.
Besides, blaziken's counters are MUCH sparser, especially in its beneficial weather. Garchomp's sand veil and sheer power, as well as a yache berry set, make this true as well. Manaphy is hard a hell to kill and/or wall. You can revenge it, but it also has massive bulk.
Besides, blaziken's counters are MUCH sparser, especially in its beneficial weather. Garchomp's sand veil and sheer power, as well as a yache berry set, make this true as well. Manaphy is hard a hell to kill and/or wall. You can revenge it, but it also has massive bulk.
yeah, you're right. The annoying thing is that excadrill may have its fair share of checks, you've normally got to run at least one, possibly two on your team, eating away a team slot.
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