This is why Sceptile's niche lies in RU, where all it needs is plus 2 and to get rid of that grass/flying gem and then it's pretty much almost guaranteed a sweep. Leaf Blade/Acrobatics/Earthquake pretty much kills the tier.
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np: UU Stage 3 - We Are The Champions
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This is why Sceptile's niche lies in RU, where all it needs is plus 2 and to get rid of that grass/flying gem and then it's pretty much almost guaranteed a sweep. Leaf Blade/Acrobatics/Earthquake pretty much kills the tier.
This.
Swift Swim Kingdra is basically unstoppable against an opposing Rain team. Most Rain teams rely on super-high powered Water moves to plow through their counters (even those with a 2x resistance), but Kingdra's 4x resistance and amazing versatility make opposing Rain team constantly wary of its presence.
If you're playing Rain against a Kingdra user you come to two options, neither of which are very appealing. The first is to not set up Rain and deal with your Pokemon being slow and weak, and the second is to set up Rain and deal with a double Speed, Water boosted Kingdra that Water moves alone can't break. Add in the fact that Kindgra can sweep with a LO set or one turn of setup and it can be gg right there.
Seeing how sandstorm and hail have started bastardizing UU like the weather in OU, I'm considering using rain dance kingdra (rain dance teams in UU? i'd think uncommon) as an anti weather much how I use hail froslass in OU. I like kingdra's defenses + neutralities, it can take a number of hits before dying. I'm thinking about using dragon dance, because I need offensive power to back up the speed boost. Problem is, kingdra has waterfall and outrage for physical attacks, and not really anything else. How do I deal with Empoleon (common) and Ferroseed (uncommon)?
As you say Ferroseed is uncommon and Empolean you just don't. Empy is one of the hardest checks against Kingdra and there is virtually nothing you can do short of running LO + HP Ground or Elec and its not worth killing a moveslot.
If you were really serious about making Kingdra your focus point you could always run Magneton to trap and kill any Empy's you see, he is still pretty decent in his own right.
If you were really serious about making Kingdra your focus point you could always run Magneton to trap and kill any Empy's you see, he is still pretty decent in his own right.
trap them with magneton
If you can get Kingdra to +2, or like +1 and carry a Life Orb, you can do like ~43% on 252/252 bold empoleon with waterfall, and potentially even flinch. But you prob dont wanna take the boosted scald and possibly get burned. Alternatively, HPump can do up to 48% but both are still 3HKO's.
I personally don't think using both dances on Kingdra is helpful unless you get the dragon dances in first, and then flip the speed... but, using ddance after rain is just wasting precious turns. If you make full use of each turn, Rain can be a pretty effective playstyle.
I personally don't think using both dances on Kingdra is helpful unless you get the dragon dances in first, and then flip the speed... but, using ddance after rain is just wasting precious turns. If you make full use of each turn, Rain can be a pretty effective playstyle.
One of the best things about Kingdra is that Defensive Empoleon's Scald does a pitiful 13.7% - 16.5% to 0/0 Kingdra in Rain. The reason you don't want to have to deal with Empoleon is that is can Roar your boosts away.
I had an idea of uu dragmag featuring flygon/kingdra/zweilious/mamoswine/magneton/machamp
it uh
it didn't work.
it uh
it didn't work.
Also burn > DD Kingdra (unless it has ChestoRest or something).
not a bad idea.. the trouble is empoleon, escavalier, bisharp and registeel are fairly common and magneton is pretty shaky against 3/4 of them
Why is he shaky against 3?
The only one which i can see him having trouble to trap is Bisharp.
Escavalier get owned by HP fire while eviolite Magneton can take every attack he has without being 2hkoed,iirc,Empoleon again can only avoid being 2hkoed if he carries roar or else he just dies and Registeels die before you do from 3 S-Toss.
oh right i forgot magneton is a nfe :p
yeah ok that makes more sense.
what kind of bulk are we looking at with an eviolite magneton? i'm assuming nobody runs magnet rise any more what with steelix being nonexistent.
yeah ok that makes more sense.
what kind of bulk are we looking at with an eviolite magneton? i'm assuming nobody runs magnet rise any more what with steelix being nonexistent.
304HP, 339 Def, 264 SDef using just 252HP EV's and absolutely no defense investment, Magneton also tops out at 372 s.atk with Modest.
Though tbh there probably is better spreads since I have no experience using Magneton, though in theory a simple HP Fire/TBolt/Flash Cannon set would take out most counters.
Though tbh there probably is better spreads since I have no experience using Magneton, though in theory a simple HP Fire/TBolt/Flash Cannon set would take out most counters.
a cockblock here would be specially defensive roserade (ie 75% of them) which lols at hp fire doing maybe 40% and sets up in your face
The UU powwow had an unplanned discussion today and we talked a lot about hippo and stoutland. Basically, everybody agreed that something about sand is bad for the meta except Heysup who apparently is a god at teambuilding and prediction and never has any kind of problems with Stoutland. Basically the argument was that Stoutland powers through most steels and has crunch / pursuit for ghosts so it is very very hard to stop without a Rhyperior. I don't think we're at a consensus for who the main offender is, hippo or stoutland. We also talked a bit about how hippo's stupidly high defenses let it tank almost every physical attacker, and loading up on spdef lets it take on powerful special attackers up to the power level of Alakazam. We invite the rest of you to post your thoughts to help us decide on what to do.
But please no back-and-forth debating that goes on for pages. That ruins a thread.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that there was a brief mention of Roserade as a suspect, but the consensus was to wait for a decision on sand before dealing with Rose. If something about sand gets nerfed, hail usage rises, and Rose becomes more of a liability.
But please no back-and-forth debating that goes on for pages. That ruins a thread.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that there was a brief mention of Roserade as a suspect, but the consensus was to wait for a decision on sand before dealing with Rose. If something about sand gets nerfed, hail usage rises, and Rose becomes more of a liability.
Stoutland is easily dealt with outside of sandstorm, so I don't think it's the main offender here. Hippowdon on the other hand, like you said Snunch, has ridiculous defenses, and is almost impossible to take down without a STAB, super effective, special attack (cuz physical attacks ain't doin shit) or Toxic (Spikes). It also has a decent Attack stat to fire off STAB Earthquakes off of unlike its pre-evo Hippopotas. In addition, if Hippowdon stays in UU, Hippopotas will eventually drop to RU and cause trouble... I don't know about others, but I really don't wanna deal with sandstorm in OU, UU AND RU.....
The issue of whether hippotas drops to RU is not the concern of UU. Also, the argument of Stoutland being easily dealt with outside of sand seems silly. Unless rhyperior is the one setting up a different weather, abomasnow sure isn't going to like switching into a frustration.
What I see in stoutland is a staraptor that just needs sand to be up (and only one of there poke can change that...)
I might say its stoutland that is the problem..The fact that it runs really only 1 set and muscles its way through teams or just easily runs through teams...though team building processes teams will most likely have only 1 or 2 rock/steel type pokes. and most of the time need to be in top condition to avoid a 2HKO from a CB return...we are all aware that it OHKOs and 2HKOs the entire metagame with a rare occurence of being outsped...not only this, but can turn alot of those 2HKOs into OHKOs with the now simplistic ease of setting up spikes and SR and the difficulty of rapid spinning, it has now become UU common battle condition to have spikes and sandstorm on the field..Also Stoutland is no slouch defensively making it actually difficult to take down or revenge kill with priority..85 HP, 90 Def/Spdef...(nearly on par with zapdos though i understand zapdos uses typing for its defense) still that is a poke that is not gonna die from any walls/tank attack while it 2HKOs
I'm not saing that stoutland is broken because i don't believe it is, but this is what everyone is claiming as broken, and personally I dont think anything is wrong with the metagame. I actually don't like the idea though that teams are built so that stoutland can have an easy sweep and are all almost the same... Hippo, Stout, Rose, Zam, filler, filler..but then again maybe that is a problem if you can get to the top of the ladder easily with that team build
I'm not saing that stoutland is broken because i don't believe it is, but this is what everyone is claiming as broken, and personally I dont think anything is wrong with the metagame. I actually don't like the idea though that teams are built so that stoutland can have an easy sweep and are all almost the same... Hippo, Stout, Rose, Zam, filler, filler..but then again maybe that is a problem if you can get to the top of the ladder easily with that team build
If we are placing blame I can say with 100% certainty that Hippowdon is the offender. I can say this because we could use stoutland in sand before hippowdon. In the previous metagames I don't know of anyone considering stoutland broken. Now once hippowdon dropped down the accusations began. Thus the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak must be hippowdon.
The suspect is easily Hippowdon. What is Stoutland without Sand Rush? Just another Normal type with a decent (but not stellar) Attack stat.
I'm also seconding the ridiculous-defences Hippowdon argument. By the time you find out which side of its defences it's invested in, you're main counter is either gone or maimed severely. Even with moderate investment in both defences it still isn't being brought down by anything less than a very strong STAB or SE attack.
I'm also seconding the ridiculous-defences Hippowdon argument. By the time you find out which side of its defences it's invested in, you're main counter is either gone or maimed severely. Even with moderate investment in both defences it still isn't being brought down by anything less than a very strong STAB or SE attack.
Wow, I just tried out Weavile again, and he is pretty damn good. It eases up on prediction a lot knowing that your opponent can't pussy out with weak pokemon thanks to the strong pursuit.
edit: I'm playing a few battles so far and I've found two VERY good sweepers.
-Sceptile. If you can get one swords dance on him and then activate unburdan, Acro+Leaf Blade+EQ just about murders everything. Damn powerful.
-Kingdra. His bulk lets him get DD's off, and if you can get even 2, waterfall + outrage is only stopped by slowbro, empoleon, and ferroseed.
edit: I'm playing a few battles so far and I've found two VERY good sweepers.
-Sceptile. If you can get one swords dance on him and then activate unburdan, Acro+Leaf Blade+EQ just about murders everything. Damn powerful.
-Kingdra. His bulk lets him get DD's off, and if you can get even 2, waterfall + outrage is only stopped by slowbro, empoleon, and ferroseed.
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