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

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They usally perform different roles from Volcarona so the term "outclassed" is not completely applicable in this situation. I'm pretty certain that they would be solid pokes if Stealth Rock was non-existent, and I wouldn't say they are "bad to begin with". A free-switching Solar Powered Charizard in the Sun would be one bad ass poke if you asked me, but theorymoning is theorymoning. Almost everything looks good on paper.

yenmega would be a fantastic scout (speed boost is freaking awesome though tinted lens is sexy as well)
specs charizard under sun with solar power is going to die quickly but not until it takes one or two mons with it
 
And really anything with even a 2x weak to SR is a lot less useable than it would be otherwise. I don't personally want to ban SR or anything but I don't think it's fair to say it doesn't make a lot of decent pokemon trash.
You have a real point. People love to point out how Volcarona, Thundurus, Dragonite, and Salamence are SR weak and still do really well in OU but neglect that those are probably the only examples bar Kyurem. The other pokemon weak to Rock have a hard time coming in to the battle. SR's not broken but it's a real pain.
 
Charizard was BL until Gen 4, then he fell to NU. But hey, Staraptor, a good Normal/Flying, with Close Combat, certainly with its problems, but a weakness to SR make him be stuck in BL, IMHO.


While staraptor would become slightly better, things like Salamence, Dragonite, Thundurus, Gyarados and Volcarona would suddenly turn into obviously overpowered sweepers (there's discussion about some of them being broken even with stealth rock!) so i don't think that your urge to use a subpar pokemon justifies breaking an entire tier.
 
Even if a Stealth Rock ban makes the likes of Charizard, Kyurem, and Staraptor useable. It would also cause a lot of pokemon to become broken. Thundurus and Volcorona with freedom to switch in and out? Yes please. Dragonite guaranteed to have Multi Scale in tact on the way in? Yes please... NOT. We'd really just be adding a move and 3 pokemon to Ubers.
 
volcarona does NOT outclass yanmega or charizard.
another stealth rock weak poke?



scyther.

scizor cant outclass it if it is used for choice scarf super fast u-turns.
 
Even if a Stealth Rock ban makes the likes of Charizard, Kyurem, and Staraptor useable. It would also cause a lot of pokemon to become broken. Thundurus and Volcorona with freedom to switch in and out? Yes please. Dragonite guaranteed to have Multi Scale in tact on the way in? Yes please... NOT. We'd really just be adding a move and 3 pokemon to Ubers.

It is obvious that these Pokémon will be hard to counter without SR. But a lot of currently "subpar" Pokémon will become more viable in the teams, thus reducing the bottleneck effect occurring in the metagame.
 
Why would you use any subpar pokemon while you could use the things i already mentioned? If a pokemon is good then he'll be used with or without stealth rock, period. Scyther? Yanmega? Seriously?
 
While staraptor would become slightly better, things like Salamence, Dragonite, Thundurus, Gyarados and Volcarona would suddenly turn into obviously overpowered sweepers (there's discussion about some of them being broken even with stealth rock!) so i don't think that your urge to use a subpar pokemon justifies breaking an entire tier.

The point was that SR makes anything weak to Rock subpar and only allows those who are exceptional on their own to be used with its effects. I'm not agreeing with banning SR but you're missing the point by implying the only thing that makes Dragonite and Volcarona OU is SR. You can't seriously compare Charizard, Yanmega, and Scyther to pokemon that can come in and sweep at half health. Not only do they serve vastly different roles, but Volcarona's well worth the team slot at 50% health!

Even if a Stealth Rock ban makes the likes of Charizard, Kyurem, and Staraptor useable. It would also cause a lot of pokemon to become broken. Thundurus and Volcorona with freedom to switch in and out? Yes please. Dragonite guaranteed to have Multi Scale in tact on the way in? Yes please... NOT. We'd really just be adding a move and 3 pokemon to Ubers.
This post is wrong for the same reason as the other. Thundurus is outsped by scarfers, Excadrill, SR weak, limited offensively by a growing Gastrodon/Lanturn usage(Thundurus counters: Lanturn isn't that big yet but they're around) weak to Sand, susceptible by residual damage, and can be rather easily handled.
Dragonite's kind of a different story, I'm more or less always going to lead towards not banning something but it's defenses (already good) are ridiculous with Multiscale and it doesn't help that it loses weaknesses with reliable recovery. It has STAB on the best offensive type in the game, the best recovery move in the game for its typing, an amazing ability, and access to Dragon Dance, which it will get unless you pack something tailor made to beat it like Mammoswine. And it gets Thunder and Hurricane to tag team with Toed, wtf GameFreak.
 
Un-ban

Blaziken: We're at the point in the B/W metagame where we have learned to build our team to counter or check high powered threats and keep playing. Excadrill, Thundurus, and latios are examples of pokemon who people were initially freaked out about, but then simply learned to carry checks or counters to them.

Why is it then, that we were so quick to ban a pokemon with more checks and counters than any of the above three pokemon I mentioned? I feel as though blaziken should be brought down for a retest, as his ban just MIGHT have been a bit too hasty.

The reasoning for banning blaziken was due to speed boost and the high jump kick buff. Thanks to speed boost, you couldn't revenge kill blaziken as easily while he steamrolled half of your team with a base 130 power attack. It makes sense that you wouldn't be able to easily outspeed and revenge kill a pokemon once he got faster and faster, but...

He only starts off at base 80 speed. And in order to get strong enough to threaten the majority of the metagame after a swords' dance, he needs an adamant nature. After a +1 boost, blaziken is getting outsped and revenged by any scarf user with base 80 speed or more and a speed boosting nature. As far as weather sweepers go, blaziken is outsped by all of them after a +1, and is still outsped by excadrill, lilligant, and the rare timid venusaur.

Now let's say that blaziken is running protect. He comes in on something he can kill or force out, like blissey. He uses swords' dance as you switch to your revenger. Blaziken then uses protect to outspeed said revenger. At this point, you know that he's only running two attacks. Most likely Hi jump kick and flare blitz/coverage move.

With Hi jump Kick and Flare blitz, blaziken is walled by the following OU pokemon: Gyarados, Dragonite, Latios, Latias, Jellicient, Chandelure. If you look to the other tiers, there are options like Slowbro, who was his most popular counter. Of course, blaziken can easily switch out of said pokemon, resetting speed boost and being forced to set up all over again. This is no different then when Excadrill is forced to switch out of Gliscor or a conkeldurr who came in to revenge him.

Another big issue against blaziken is rain. Good rain teams can simply run fighting resistant pokemon to eliminate the threat of blaziken altogether. Gliscor may lose to Mixken (who loses to a ton of stuff), but he will never lose to blaziken in the rain. Of course, one could easily counteract this by running blaziken under sunlight. However, sunlight is much harder to keep up consistently than rain and sand. This is easier said than done. Shame about non-weather teams though, but that is more attributed to sunlight than it is to blaziken himself.

Much like excadrill, the pokemon who deal with blaziken all have application in OU and are not used for the sole purpose of taking blaziken down.

I'm not supposed to argue in the nominations thread, so I'm posting my response to this here.

Sun is hard to keep up without Blaziken. With Blaziken, it's not hard at all. This is what Adamant Life Orb Hi Jump Kick does to specs/scarf Politoed: 113% - 133.2%
And that's before Swords Dance. So Politoed is not switching in to say the least.
If he runs a physically defensive 252/252+ set, which he will be forced to, he takes 64.3% - 76%. So he can switch in once, next time, he's dead.
TTar, is like, 2HKO'd after a 3 layers of spikes and stealth rock obviously.

Now if sun is up, this is what happens to your list of counters. All of these calcs are +2 Adamant Life Orb Flare Blitz.

Gyarados: RestTalk (248/252+): 63.1% - 74.3%. With Stealth Rock, and a bit of prior damage, he's dead.
Bulky DD (156/96): 86.8% - 102.2%. Guaranteed death after Stealth Rock
I'm sure I don't need to show you Offensive DD...
And no, I didn't forget to factor in Intimidate.

Dragonite: Choice Band (0/0): 127.2% - 150.2%. That's without Multiscale, but with Stealth Rock, this Dragonite is pretty dead.
Bulky DD (252/0): 106.5% - 125.6%. Dead after Stealth Rock. This is Dragonite's most physically bulky spread.

Latias: Calm Mind (252/0): 118.7% - 139.6%. Counter of the year.
Latios is frailer so I'm not even gonna bother with that.

Jellicent: Utility Counter (248/216+): 91.6% - 107.7%. Dead after Stealth Rock.

Chandelure: Anything (???/???): 0%-0%. Dead after a full field of hazards switching in twice!!!
In all seriousness though this is the best counter.

Slowbro: 67.8% - 79.7%. Slowbro is a badass. Not a wall, but he does win.

He kills almost all his 'counters'. Without any random coverage moves.

So tldr; Blaziken makes keeping sun up easy since Politoed and Ttar can not switch into him unless they want to die, and then when sun is up he kills everything except for Slowbro and Chandelure. Please don't unban him.
 
you obviously have not used yanmega.
yanmega is a beast.

specsmega's only checks are blissey and snorlax.
it's stabs (with tinted lens) are unresisted and with specs, u hit insanely hard.

it can also clean up teams pretty well with a speed boost set consisting of air slash, bug buzz and hp ground.

yanmega does not suck. at all.

edit: i see blaziken as a suicide bomb. lets say its running life orb with swords dance hi jump kick flare blitz and stone edge.

if the opponent switches in a ghost or if you miss with hi jump kick, you are at less than one half health.

if you use flare blitz and OHKO a wall (i.e. jellicent) you will die the next turn from flare blitz recoil and life orb.

if stone edge misses (most of the time lol) you are done for.
 
Why would you use any subpar pokemon while you could use the things i already mentioned? If a pokemon is good then he'll be used with or without stealth rock, period. Scyther? Yanmega? Seriously?

That really isn't necessarily the case at all. .-.

see: 4th gen yanmega, as i mentioned in my previous post. Good Poke all around, aside from the fact it will be taking 50% on every switch in. Really don't see how "Seriously?" is a reasonable response to using Yanmega in a Stealth Rock free metagame...
 
Why would you use any subpar pokemon while you could use the things i already mentioned? If a pokemon is good then he'll be used with or without stealth rock, period. Scyther? Yanmega? Seriously?

This isn't the point. Of course you can (and probably you will) use the best options in your team. I'm talking about more options. Don't all of you saw, at least one time, someone complaining how the teams are all, more or less, the same? I think Stealth Rock is one of the reasons, intimidating players from use good Pokémon barely because it loses 25~50% of his HP when enter the field. Probably there are others, but IMHO SR is the biggest one.
 
That really isn't necessarily the case at all. .-.

see: 4th gen yanmega, as i mentioned in my previous post. Good Poke all around, aside from the fact it will be taking 50% on every switch in. Really don't see how "Seriously?" is a reasonable response to using Yanmega in a Stealth Rock free metagame...

I don't think we are talking about 4th gen so i don't know why you are talking about yanmega's performance in gen 4.

Currently yanmega is a worse volcarona and woudn't be used with or without stealth rock. Yeah yanmega has speed boost and tinted lens while volcarona has quiver dance, better overall stats and fire stab and is good enough to be used with stealth rock weakness and godly without it.
 
I'm not supposed to argue in the nominations thread, so I'm posting my response to this here.

Sun is hard to keep up without Blaziken. With Blaziken, it's not hard at all. This is what Adamant Life Orb Hi Jump Kick does to specs/scarf Politoed: 113% - 133.2%
And that's before Swords Dance. So Politoed is not switching in to say the least.
If he runs a physically defensive 252/252+ set, which he will be forced to, he takes 64.3% - 76%. So he can switch in once, next time, he's dead.
TTar, is like, 2HKO'd after a 3 layers of spikes and stealth rock obviously.

Now if sun is up, this is what happens to your list of counters. All of these calcs are +2 Adamant Life Orb Flare Blitz.

Gyarados: RestTalk (248/252+): 63.1% - 74.3%. With Stealth Rock, and a bit of prior damage, he's dead.
Bulky DD (156/96): 86.8% - 102.2%. Guaranteed death after Stealth Rock
I'm sure I don't need to show you Offensive DD...
And no, I didn't forget to factor in Intimidate.

Dragonite: Choice Band (0/0): 127.2% - 150.2%. That's without Multiscale, but with Stealth Rock, this Dragonite is pretty dead.
Bulky DD (252/0): 106.5% - 125.6%. Dead after Stealth Rock. This is Dragonite's most physically bulky spread.

Latias: Calm Mind (252/0): 118.7% - 139.6%. Counter of the year.
Latios is frailer so I'm not even gonna bother with that.

Jellicent: Utility Counter (248/216+): 91.6% - 107.7%. Dead after Stealth Rock.

Chandelure: Anything (???/???): 0%-0%. Dead after a full field of hazards switching in twice!!!
In all seriousness though this is the best counter.

Slowbro: 67.8% - 79.7%. Slowbro is a badass. Not a wall, but he does win.

He kills almost all his 'counters'. Without any random coverage moves.

So tldr; Blaziken makes keeping sun up easy since Politoed and Ttar can not switch into him unless they want to die, and then when sun is up he kills everything except for Slowbro and Chandelure. Please don't unban him.
Do you realize how many are barely OHKOes after Adamant, max attack, LO, STAB, Sun boost, Flare Blitzes? And you used Adamant, meaning that a scarfer with at least base 80 speed and a SE/strong neutral move is likely OHKOing you, forcing you out, and proving Alphatron's point. And if you want to show calcs, show a couple in Rain so we know how well Dragonite, Gyarados, Latias (which should have physical investment) or Chandelure/Slowbro's taking that Flare Blitz with Multiscale or under a more common weather effect. Not so dominating after that factored in.
 
I don't think we are talking about 4th gen so i don't know why you are talking about yanmega's performance in gen 4.

Currently yanmega is a worse volcarona and woudn't be used with or without stealth rock. Yeah yanmega has speed boost and tinted lens while volcarona has quiver dance, better overall stats and fire stab and is good enough to be used with stealth rock weakness and godly without it.

I'm talking about gen 4 because you stated that a good Pokemon will be good with or without Stealth Rock weakness as if it were some sort of law of Pokemon, and 4th gen Yanmega is really the best example to the contrary.

I'm not really arguing anything for or against Yanmegas competive ability, just using it as an example to show that Stealth Rock really is a large factor in which Pokemon will be used and which won't.
 
I just saw on the Suspect Test nominations that Queen Kyurem just nominated Sunkern for Ubers and Eternal seconded it. I have no clue if they were serious or not. Could someone please explain to me why Sunkern, among all things is broken.

Love to New World Order :) its based around its in-game height. Sunkern's height is 1 foot which is about equal to 0.3m. Since it is less than 1m PO's programing goes a bit screwy(some glitch asks a techy) the glitch is that it cannot sustain any damage because PO dosen't "recognize" it as a real pokemon but it can still deal damage(thats why the set Queen Kyurem posted has endeavor, most it can do)

Hope that helps

Don't listen to the others this is all true, go check for yourself
 
Do you realize how many aren't kills after Adamant max attack, LO, STAB, Sun boost, Flare Blitzes? And you used Adamant, meaning that a scarfer with a water move is likely OHKOing you, forcing you out, and proving Alphatron's point. And if you want to show calcs, show a couple in Rain so we know how well Dragonite, Gyarados, Latias (which should have physical investment) or Chandelure/Slowbro's taking that Flare Blitz with Multiscale or under a more common weather effect. Not so dominating after that factored in.

Actually the point is he can continue to use Protect. So no scarfer outspeeds him.
I don't see anything wrong with adding Stealth Rock into the calcs. If you're not using Blaziken with team support (and come on, it's Stealth Rock, what team doesn't use Stealth rock?), then of course he's not going anywhere against a team comprised of 6 Pokemon who resist his STABs.

Latias doesn't have physical investment on any of his sets on site *shrugs*

As for the weather thing, I covered that. Once the sun is up and Blaziken is in (and how hard is that...), the weather isn't changing back without the opponent risking the death of his weather starter and losing the weather war, or saccing something. It's perfectly reasonable to assume Sun will be up

EDIT: I like that you bolded how Blaziken deals with Ttar... that was a joke. Ttar is 0HK0'd trust me.
 
No sand or rain player is going to switch their weather starter in to get ohko'd by a blaziken high jump kick. If sunlight is up and I have a shiftry out, are you going to switch politoed into a leaf storm? Or are you going to switch Tyranitar into a low kick? You won't. In the best case scenario for me, you're going to switch in your weather starter after I take out one pokemon and then I'll be forced out as you switch to a counter.
 
Do you realize how many are barely OHKOes after Adamant, max attack, LO, STAB, Sun boost, Flare Blitzes? And you used Adamant, meaning that a scarfer with at least base 80 speed and a SE/strong neutral move is likely OHKOing you, forcing you out, and proving Alphatron's point. And if you want to show calcs, show a couple in Rain so we know how well Dragonite, Gyarados, Latias (which should have physical investment) or Chandelure/Slowbro's taking that Flare Blitz with Multiscale or under a more common weather effect. Not so dominating after that factored in.

The point he was trying to make is that without blaziken banned, sun outright beats rain and sand, as there isnt a single weather inducer willing to switch in to Blaziken, so either you get one poke clean KOd and have your weather inducer "revenge" by switching in and switching right back out, or you lose your weather inducer.

By the way, the TTar line was a joke: +2 252 Adamant LO Blaziken vs. Standard TTar: 520.79 - 614.85%

Yes, that's a KO at +0 through Chople.

===

And on the topic of Adamant Blaziken, anything scarfed, +spe base 69 and up (read: timid scarftoed) can outspeed when it's still at +1...until it protects, at which point you're screwed.

And for everyone advocating Slowbro as a Blaziken check, Quagsire does just a good job...switch in to a protect or a swords dance (or after a kill), and even if Blaziken is at +6/+6 quagsire stops it.
 
No sand or rain player is going to switch their weather starter in to get ohko'd by a blaziken high jump kick. If sunlight is up and I have a shiftry out, are you going to switch politoed into a leaf storm? Or are you going to switch Tyranitar into a low kick? You won't. In the best case scenario for me, you're going to switch in your weather starter after I take out one pokemon and then I'll be forced out as you switch to a counter.

Exactly. Politoed and Ttar can't switch in. Therefore Blaziken's counters have to beat him in the sun. And most of them can't.

Politoed and Ttar can only come in after Blaziken has killed something. But by then he's already killed something. And then he can switch out, and do it all again.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Always wanted to say that.
 
I don't think that SR deserves a ban but to state that it is good to the metagame because it keeps some threats in check is just bold.
The pokemons that get hindered by SR to the point of no longer being viable in ou are much more than the pokemons that would become broken without SR in ou.So ou loses more pokes with SR than without SR,imo of 'course.And that means less variety.

So i think that SR is a strong factor that reduces variety in the metagame.Sure i know that many things centralize and force the metagame to become centered around them but SR seems too easy to put and has very big benefits for just a one turn move.

Of 'course banning it now would be insane because any flying or levitating poke could switch in and out forever with no way of getting punished for the switches.
But a nerf of SR would be the best solution(not by us by GF of 'course).

Imagine how much better the things would be if SR only dealt 25% to 4x weak pokes and 18,5 % to 2x weak pokes?
So much more pokemon could be used while the troubling pokes would still be checked in a good degree(like Thundurus,Dragonite etc).

Finally i also believe that there is no suspect right now.
Excadrill and Thundurus are the closest things right now but not close enough to get banned imo.
Maybe Thundrus but i am not really sure.
But this doesn't mean that there aren't pokes that are hard as shit to deal with and annoy the hell out of you like Rotom-w,Dragonite,Reuniclus and Volcarona.
 
Exactly. Politoed and Ttar can't switch in. Therefore Blaziken's counters have to beat him in the sun. And most of them can't.

Politoed and Ttar can only come in after Blaziken has killed something. But by then he's already killed something. And then he can switch out, and do it all again.

And if Politoed, TTar, or lol Aboma decide to stay in, they eat a fucking Hi Jump Kick, then it is gg.
 
Exactly. Politoed and Ttar can't switch in. Therefore Blaziken's counters have to beat him in the sun. And most of them can't.

Politoed and Ttar can only come in after Blaziken has killed something. But by then he's already killed something. And then he can switch out, and do it all again.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Always wanted to say that.

and even then blaziken doesn't have to switch out - he can just hjk again since ttar and politoed would be suicidal to NOT switch back out lol

oh that's what the guy above me said lol
 
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