np: RU Stage 2 - Dancing Queen

[November Blue]

I think Honchkrow is fine. As Nails said, its counters don't have Gliscor syndrome (does nothing but counter X threat) and it can be played around if you know what you're doing.

Honch is a slow glass cannon. Between Life Orb damage and Brave Bird recoil (and Stealth Rock too), it almost KOes itself if it tries to sweep. This is easily fixed by using Roost though, but that just gives you a free turn to break its Sub.

SubShift Klinklang is one of the best counters to Honch, and it can actually countersweep if it pulls off a successful revenge kill. Molk's standard Klang has enough bulk to check Honch even if it switches into Brave Bird, albeit before it has any Moxie boosts. It takes about 28% - 35% from an Adamant LO Brave Bird with 132 HP EVs, and, if it has Leftovers, will have HP to spare if it needs to Sub up on a predicted Sucker Punch.

If you want another check to Honch, just use something fast that has Substitute. It takes prediction to work around Sucker Punch, yes, but the honch player has to predict just like you do. Cinccino is pretty good at this, as it can break the Krow's subs with Tail Slap or Rock Blast.

 

[Molk]

I think Honchkrow is fine. As Nails said, its counters don't have Gliscor syndrome (does nothing but counter X threat) and it can be played around if you know what you're doing.

Honch is a slow glass cannon. Between Life Orb damage and Brave Bird recoil (and Stealth Rock too), it almost KOes itself if it tries to sweep. This is easily fixed by using Roost though, but that just gives you a free turn to break its Sub.

SubShift Klinklang is one of the best counters to Honch, and it can actually countersweep if it pulls off a successful revenge kill. Molk's standard Klang has enough bulk to check Honch even if it switches into Brave Bird, albeit before it has any Moxie boosts. It takes about 28% - 35% from an Adamant LO Brave Bird with 132 HP EVs, and, if it has Leftovers, will have HP to spare if it needs to Sub up on a predicted Sucker Punch.

If you want another check to Honch, just use something fast that has Substitute. It takes prediction to work around Sucker Punch, yes, but the honch player has to predict just like you do. Cinccino is pretty good at this, as it can break the Krow's subs with Tail Slap or Rock Blast.

yeah, Klinklang makes a good check to honchkrow, the one issue is that if the Honchkrow has Superpower/Heat wave, Klinklang is as good as dead. So Klinklang is really only a check, You can run more HP evs if you decide outspeeding scarfed base 100's isnt important so honch's BB doesnt even break your sub (dont know if this is possible) Basically anything faster with the move substitute can check a Honchkrow (which is my issue with using it ARGH!!!!) i definatley think that Lilligant is broken. if you dont have a bouffalant/sawsbuck/ insomnia Krow you are basically dead as lilligant can sleep potential counters/revenge killers. Bouffalant is a good poke in his own right, but i dont want to be forced to use him just to check lily. i mean seriously, Lilligant can sweep even a well made team if given the chance. (happens to mine a lot, because my checks to it always end up asleep).

what i really think is broken about weather down here is HAIL, i used a hail team and ended up in the top 40 (and 20) within a few hours, if that isnt ridiculous i dont know what is. I basically breezed by in both RU and NU with a hail team, with rain and sun i have tried rain, and faced sun and never had a problem with either of them being broken ESPECIALLY due to the lack of drought and drizzle in the tier.

 

[November Blue]

One other thing, if Aerodactyl is due to drop to RU it might be a good idea to hold off banning Honch, as Aero could be quite a good check.

 

[Molk]

One other thing, if Aerodactyl is due to drop to RU it might be a good idea to hold off banning Honch, as Aero could be quite a good check.

wouldnt sucker punch KO aero though? thats the issue with aero, its frail, and probably wont be able to take a sucker punch.

 

[De0x1]

"252Atk Life Orb Honchkrow (+Atk) Night Slash vs 4HP/0Def Aerodactyl (Neutral): 74% - 88% (225 - 267 HP). Guaranteed 2HKO."
And that is when he is at +0 with Moxie it is quite easy to get an extra kill and get +1 attack which makes it an ohko and if it switches in on like 3/4 of the standard MoxieKrow set (BB, Sucker Punch, Sub/Roost, Nightslash/Sub) it is screwed because after one Nightslash or BB he isn't easily destroyed by Sucker Punch :| Hardly a check at all... (also if he subs easily gets 2 hits off) So only real way to check it is if it has Sub.. which like none of them do :(

EDIT: Ohhh just looked at Smogon and saw defensive set... This would make it a decent check (check it out, http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/aerodactyl)
But with that ev spread with 0 ATK Ev's it fails to OHKO with Rock slide.....

 

[November Blue]

Aero has a Flying resistance. It has enough speed to run an Adamant nature, and possibly a bulky set. The point is to use Substitute while Honchkrow Sucker Punches, then easily take it out with Rock Slide or Stone Edge. Even if it's behind a Sub, you have a good chance to beat it.

Edit: Brave Bird deals 65% - 76% to 0/0 Aero. If you can keep SR off the field, and give Aero Leftovers (SubHone set?) it looks pretty good.

Also, 800th post. That was quick...

 

[Honko]

I'm against banning Lilligant or Honchkrow. They both have plenty of checks. People are always gonna wanna ban something, but I think RU is actually pretty balanced right now.

Honchkrow is beaten by anything faster that has Substitute or priority or resists Dark; if you let it get a few boosts it's going to be extremely difficult to stop, but that's true for just about every Pokemon. Great Pokemon, not broken.

Lilligant is beaten by Bouffalant and the other Sap Sippers, but also by Scarf Primeape and Insomnia Honchkrow, and depending on how you play it, probably some other weird Vital Spirit/Insomnia mons like Electivire as well. And if you don't have one of those, then you should have something that can revenge kill or phaze or otherwise beat a +1 Lilligant. Yes it will probably put one of your mons to sleep (75% of the time, which definitely isn't "guaranteed") but that alone isn't a reason to ban it, or we'd be banning Scarf Butterfree too. Special walls like Munchlax can easily phaze it out at +1, and Scarf Primeape / Typhlosion / Moltres can all still outspeed and OHKO. And then you have things like Gallade that can tank a +1 Giga Drain and OHKO back on Lilligant's weak physical Defense. There are plenty of solid RU Pokemon that check Lilligant. If you don't carry one, you will lose to it, but again that is definitely not an excuse to ban it. Great Pokemon, not broken.

 

[Prankster]

yeah i dont find krow and lilligant broken either. Krow is kinda slow, and even with sucker punch, a lot of pokes can still beat it. besides, kro doesnt get a lot of opportunities to set up subs anyway, except against uxie and such. Lilligant is meh, but entei, the most used mon on the tier, can easily handle it.
But seriously, what i find broken in ru is smashpass. I mean, weve seen it done in ou and it defines hyper offense, and baton passs teams. People have been calling it broken in ou already, and its sitting in ru??? dang.
Of course, there are less receivers then there are in ou, but it is difficult to handle without quagsire or something.

 

[November Blue]

besides, kro doesnt get a lot of opportunities to set up subs anyway, except against uxie and such.

What are you talking about? Honchkrow has plenty of opportunities so set up a Sub, be it forcing a switch, or faking out a Sucker Punch (i.e. Sub while the opponent predicts the punch and uses a non attacking move).

Setting up easy Subs is part of what makes Honch so deadly, it certainly doesn't struggle to find free turns.

Played well, its low Speed is barely noticeable.

 

[waterwarrior]

yeah i dont find krow and lilligant broken either. Krow is kinda slow, and even with sucker punch, a lot of pokes can still beat it. besides, kro doesnt get a lot of opportunities to set up subs anyway, except against uxie and such.
As said by November Blue already, Honchkrow gets a TON of opportunities to set up.

Lilligant is meh, but entei, the most used mon on the tier, can easily handle it.
Lilligant used Sleep Powder! Entei became set-up fodder and is KO'd! That and Entei isn't the most used. In fact, I havn't seen many Enteis at all lately.

But seriously, what i find broken in ru is smashpass. I mean, weve seen it done in ou and it defines hyper offense, and baton passs teams. People have been calling it broken in ou already, and its sitting in ru??? dang.
Actually, its sitting in NU, just to show how "broken" it is. And what HO teams have you been facing in OU? The definition of HO is Deo-S + 5 sweepers. And just because a few people call it broken and it fails epically in the suspect voting doesn't mean it is. People called Jirachi for being broken, which is blatantly untrue.
EDIT: I was wrong about it failing in the suspect test: it was never made suspect

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Waterwarrior, try laddering before talking, SGV currently sits at #1 on the ladder by a large margin from using a SmashPass team. I was tilting badly yesterday so i copied his team and returned to my original top 15 position. Yeah, its pretty fucking powerful and in my opinion too much for a tier without walls good enough to stop it.

Also, Lilligant sucks. HP Rock loses to Ferroseed, HP Fire loses to any Fire type, HP Ice likewise. Also there's these awesome things called "team preview" and "sleep fodder" that makes Lilligant useless. I can honestly say i haven't seen a single player high on the ladder use Lilligant.

Or Honchkrow for that matter and while I think its the best mon in the tier I dont think its broken which I've expounded several times on irc.

 

[gali]

SmashPass and Snover need to go. There are too many abusers of both and not enough counters to them.

 

[Furosuto]

I beg to differ with the statement that hail is broken. Sure, snover gets hail up. But it can't do much after that. It's pretty much like hippopotas. Useless after that weather.

While blizzspam is good, hairyama has thick fat and can counter these threats easily with it's arsenal of fighting attacks. Many of the fighters in RU can take on blizzspammers, depending on if they are scarfed, or have that delicious priority.

Stall can face troubles when you have qwilfish using toxic spikes.

 

[marilli]

C'mon, if you're trying to make the "Oh there's one really really specific counter that mostly counters hail so it's not broken!" argument, at least do it right with Cryogonal. One counter doesn't exactly mean it isn't worth banning. I've gotten okay results on the ladder with my hail team, and I've beaten teams that even had both Cryogonal and Slowking--and the opponent wasn't stupid, either. If you don't think those two are the right mons to combat Hail, then I've also won vs a team with multiple Fighting types. Also, my all variant of my Hail teams carry at least two sturdy fighting resists / immunes for that very reason (people who stick scarfed fighters and call it a day). Most of my experience with Hail has been with me on the hail users' side, so I'm not sure if I can provide the full picture here, but hail--both hail stall and blizzspam--are actually good if you have a well built team. I mean good =/= ban but if that lets me get that high on the ladder it actually might be worth talking about.

Oh, and final two things. Don't call Snover useless because stuff like Lanturn (blizzard absorber) will be hard-countered by Snover unless you carry Fire Blast Slowking. It also serves as an okay check to Rotom and all that. And don't call Hariyama hairiyama because tbh that really isn't a pleasant image you're giving there.

edit: @Texas: iirc Upstart used Honch in his team to get to 2nd place (and shortly 1st)

 

[lars]

Smashpass is good, I'd say on par with Lilligant in terms of strength. But, like Lilligant it does have counters and weaknesses. Namely taunt and hazing/phazing of course.

I'll still maintain that rain, followed by sun, are the most borderline broken things in RU.

(My opinions) A list of relative strength in RU

Awesomely good...........very good..............usually very good............good
"borderline broken"
Rain, Sun..................Honch, Hail..............Lilligant, Smashpass........Gallade

The definition of HO is Deo-S + 5 sweepers.

Never seen this before anywhere. So Hyper Offense can only happen in Ubers? Yeah... Any team with 6 (heck I'd even consider 5) purely offensive (and generally frail) Pokemon is HO.

 

[EonADS]

The biggest problem with Honchkrow is the ubiquitous Moxie SubRoost set. If you get a boost under your belt, especially with a Sub up, your opponent should be prepared to lose at least one more Pokemon if not half their team or more. However, it has a very simple and obvious check: Steelix. A great defensive pivot and SR setter, it fits into offensive teams fairly well, much like Slowking. It also phazes Honchkrow with Roar, breaks its subs easily with Gyro Ball, and scoffs at both Sucker Punch and Brave Bird. Yes, MixedKrow does pose a threat to the iron snake, but it's not nearly as dangerous as its Moxie counterpart overall, and is thus infinitely more rare. The mixed set is also fairly easy to dispatch using Pokemon like Primape who resist Sucker Punch, or just have a faster Pokemon throw up Substitute and you're home free. I'm a user of the SubRoost Moxie set myself, and half the time Honchkrow doesn't even gain a single KO, case in point my match with Texas Cloverleaf yesterday. Not a single sturdy Dark resist on his team, and yet Honchkrow still got walled to hell and in the end barely racked up a KO's worth a damage overall.

Lilligant is barking up the same tree Venusaur was in UU last gen, the only real differences are that Liligant has godawful coverage and weak defenses while Venusaur lacked a setup move that increased its speed. They both carry Sleep Powder, outspeed much of the metagame, and hit hard. Unlike Venusaur however, Lilligant is easy to phaze and there are plenty of Pokemon that are immune to sleep (amely Primape and Scarf Honchkrow), and Lilligant can't deal with Sap Sipper Pokemon once it has already used Sleep Powder. Not to mention that it has hard counters no matter what Hidden Power you pick. In addition, what Texas Cloverleaf said about team preview and sleep fodder essentially applies to every team. It's not hard to do unless your opponent saves Lilligant for the endgame, but if you know its there you might as well keep a check or two around, am I right? Hell, my current team is incredibly weak to HP Rock Lilligant and I have few problems playing around it. Frankly, I find Sceptile more difficult to beat than Lilligant :/

See, the reason many people are complaining about Honchkrow (and a lot of other things, i.e. Lilligant, Smashpass) is that most of the best Pokemon in the teir (and thus, the majority of teams) are offensive to a fault. Pokemon like Honch and Lilli are "anti-metagame" because they ruin offensive teams. Rain and Sun are threats for the same reason. It's just that the common teams are too offensive.

For more reference, look up Honko's post. He hit pretty much every nail on the head.

...also, whoever said that Snover is useless clearly has no idea how to use it. Try acutally using it instead of theorymonning out your ass and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Yes, Snover is actually incredibly useful with the right set, by running defensive EVs its extremely difficult to take down.

A simple set of Substitute, LEech Seed, Protect and Blizzard is almost impossible to beat without a super-effective move to back it up.

 

[Molk]

Yes, Snover is actually incredibly useful with the right set, by running defensive EVs its extremely difficult to take down.

A simple set of Substitute, LEech Seed, Protect and Blizzard is almost impossible to beat without a super-effective move to back it up.

yes, i tried hail for a while and 6-0ed two players due to snover's antics, it was absolutley hilarious looking back, with an eviolite snover reaches the equivalent of 60/115 on the speacially defensive side, thats nearly as bulky as gallade! how can that be bad? it also has very useful resists to take advantage of that special defense, and its defense isnt bad either. Snover is pretty good in its own right.

 

[Furosuto]

As I continue to play with hail teams, I have realized that snover has his uses. Guess it just takes a little while for me to get used to him.

But I guess what I was meaning to say was, that hail isn't broken. Slowking and cryogonal are reasonable counters, and as I mentioned earlier, fighting types and mons with thick fat can stand a chance....Of course, this is assuming we're talking about blizzspammers.

I don't know how stall is this tier, but if I remember my previous battles with the likes of them, stallrein is definitely something to watch out for. Despite being stealth rock weak, it can just heal of the damage in two turns with ice body and leftovers.

 

[Oglemi]

And that's the round folks! The Alt ID thread will be up momentarily!

 

[Molk]

just wondering, what did people think of wynaut this round? imo Wynaut is an excellent pokemon and one of the best supporters there is. I used one to help linoone sweep on one of my alts. Wynaut makes it very easy for pokemon to set up. Klinklang, the previously mentioned linoone, crawdaunt, and feraligatr. are good examples of pokemon that benefit form wynaut.

I can see why wynaut was made uber last generation, it either scores a free kill or makes a pokemon sweep if played correctly, i just want peoples opinions on this.

sorry if im not supposed to post here anymore.

 

[marilli]

If you're gonna talk about an otherwise overlooked but incredibly deadly Pokemon, Sharpedo has to be it. I loved this guy on a Spikestack offense team, and he got me big wins all the time against non-stupid people, which I've been struggling to do until recently.

This thing is beastly with little support in Spikestack teams. Of course, I'm talking about the Mixpedo, which as enough power to KO stuff like Tangrowth. With spikes up, it's incredibly hard to check him by the virtue of it going to work as soon as the opposing team members sharpedo can't hit super effectively falls around 50%, and Spikes+ SR get you half-way there already. If you have multiple layers, it's incredibly easy to abuse that. Things like Swellow (who also work brilliantly on Spikestack teams) can lure out Rhydon, Steelix, etc so that Sharpedo can fire off a devastating attack on the switch. If he switches out, then you have access to free +2 speed. Seriously, this breezes through any team without Ferroseed or Priority unless the opponent plays smart and makes every layer of hazard cost.

But all that's just musings, and really imo I maintain my position that nothing's broken. It still fails to do a lot to things like Lanturn (which finally gets more usage that it rightfully deserves), and if you see a Sharpedo, you should keep your priority user alive or don't let them get the full set of hazards. Sharpedo needs a team built around and even then is a high-maintenance sweeper because it needs to switch out every time the opponent can tank a hit, so you need some defensive backbone unless you wanna start sacking really early in the game. Predicting people's protect is another thing but prediction goes both ways. IMO if you let the opponent get that many hazards you deserve to lose.

 

[Molk]

If you're gonna talk about an otherwise overlooked but incredibly deadly Pokemon, Sharpedo has to be it. I loved this guy on a Spikestack offense team, and he got me big wins all the time against non-stupid people, which I've been struggling to do until recently.

This thing is beastly with little support in Spikestack teams. Of course, I'm talking about the Mixpedo, which as enough power to KO stuff like Tangrowth. With spikes up, it's incredibly hard to check him by the virtue of it going to work as soon as the opposing team members sharpedo can't hit super effectively falls around 50%, and Spikes+ SR get you half-way there already. If you have multiple layers, it's incredibly easy to abuse that. Things like Swellow (who also work brilliantly on Spikestack teams) can lure out Rhydon, Steelix, etc so that Sharpedo can fire off a devastating attack on the switch. If he switches out, then you have access to free +2 speed. Seriously, this breezes through any team without Ferroseed.

But all that's just musings, and really imo I maintain my position that nothing's broken. It still fails to do a lot to things like Lanturn (which gets more usage that it rightfully deserves), and if you see a Sharpedo, you should keep your priority user alive or don't let them get the full set of hazards. IMO if you let the opponent get that many hazards you deserve to lose.

yeah, sharpedo is an incredible sweeper with the mixed set, gets good coverage, and i s hard to revenge outside of priority. I used a sharpedo for a while and it was excellent, especially with hazards. it does breeze through a lot of teams, and i always get a little scared if i see someone using him right. Hydro pump is incredibly powerful, seriously people, stop using physical sharpedo, it is inferior in every way to mixpedo.

 

[lars]

Yes Mixpedo can take down most common walls in RU. Physical Sharpedo will fail against anything that has decent physical bulk and isn't weak to one of its STABs. The reason why Mixpedo shines is because there isn't a ton in RU with both decent Phys bulk and Spec bulk.

Two battles that I had not too long ago (and occurred very close to each other) I was in a position where I knew that I had lost if the opponent's sharpedo was mixed. In both instances it wasn't... I even told them during the match that they should switch to the mix set as it will require much less team support to sweep end game. The response was "physical is cooler." In any case, Tangrowth walled them and OHKOed with Giga Drain. Something it can not do vs the mix set.

 

[marilli]

Now that the suspects are announced (Honchkrow, Lilligant, Smashpass), I have one logistical question: how is the Smashpass ban going to be implemented?

I mean, I don't know about other people, and they might say, "Hey, the tiny details don't matter--as long as the tier is balanced, I'm happy!" But for me, I'm principally against complex banning. IMO, we're getting into dangerous territory if we say anything along the lines of 'Smashpass Gorebyss is banned but Shell Smash Sweeping Gorebyss is not banned'. We're getting rid of Gorebyss's best set for heaven's sake! If we could ban super boosting move + baton pass combinations only, Venomoth might have not gotten banned, but that's a whole different story--back to the point.

There's three ways to get around a smashpass ban:
1. No Shell Smash + Baton Pass on same set, but no specific Pokemon is banned. You can still use your Amnesia-pass Gorebyss, SR + Spikes Smeargle, what have you.
2. Any Pokemon that can legally get Shell Smash + Baton Pass on the same set is banned.
3. Ban Gorebyss, Huntail, and Smeargle. (Difference between 2 & 3 is that if more mons can Smashpass due to an event move or something, then 2 instantly bans those as well)

TL;DR: So Oglemi, which one were you thinking when you put Smashpass as one of the suspects? Or are we just gonna not worry about this until it actually gets voted?