Looks like creativity falls to the people willing to "risk" being creative.
I like it better that way anyway :)
I like it better that way anyway :)
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np: NU Stage 2 - Part of Your World
- Thread starter tennisace
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It is, however, the best way to inspire new teams, creativity, and provoke discussion about stuff. Innovation is key to a fun metagame, and even if certain threats are prominent and powerful etc, it's the willingness of the playerbase to try new things that makes a metagame awesome to play and is the biggest reason why I prefer NU over any other meta. A stale metagame could be described as "balanced", but I think it would be more apt to call it "boring", which is something no one here wants.
So, guys, try everything you can to break the metagame. x)
However balance =/= diversity. The metagame is very balanced right now but diversity is starting to die down with half the teams on the ladder I'm seeing are golem/sawk/mesprit/absol/ghost/filler. I think that we need to start getting some lesser used NU's recognized
Heres a list of all the NU pokemon that need to be used more/i really want to try out, just to hopefully get some creativity going.
Alomomola: Massively bulky wishes O__O
Amoongus: spore. will probably get a boost when regenerator comes out
Ampharos: Although a little outclassed by rotom, it isn't stealth rock weak and has heal bell and higher special attack.
glaceon: base 130 power ice beams hurt
Khangaskhan: How is this thing not top ten with scrappy double edge and hammer arm, sucker punch, wish and 101 hp subs?
Tauros: Same as khangaskhan but you sacrifice scrappy, sucker punch and a little bulk for more attack and speed.
Kingler: Base 130 attack, surprisignly fast at base 75 speed, agility, swords dance and perfect 2 move coverage.
Lapras: If it's special with thunderbolt, it is pretty much the #1 bulky water counter thanks to water absorb and a 4x ice beam resist. It can also setup with curse or dragon dance.
Muk: A fighting resist and good sp.def, pain split, curse. A set of curse/shadow sneak/poison jab/brick break can be tough to stop if you can take out missy/mesprit
Musharna: So stupidly bulky
Pinsir: The choice scarf set for this bro is where it's at, base 125 attack with close combat, stone edge, earthquake and STAB x-scizzor? yes please. cant wait for moxie.
Emboar: Slow but extremely powerfull, with flare blitz/superpower/wild charge. Once reckless is released on it...
Rapidash: Faster but weaker emboar. also morning sun and megahorn
Relicanth: While this has horrible defensive typing, it still has 100/130 defense and only a 2x weak to fighting unlike probopass, making him an excellent bird counter. 90 base offenses are high for a wall especially when you have STAB no-recoil head smash.
Slaking: STRONG APE IS STRONG RAWR
Zweilous: STRONG 2-HEADED DOG IS STRONG
Heres a list of all the NU pokemon that need to be used more/i really want to try out, just to hopefully get some creativity going.
Alomomola: Massively bulky wishes O__O
Amoongus: spore. will probably get a boost when regenerator comes out
Ampharos: Although a little outclassed by rotom, it isn't stealth rock weak and has heal bell and higher special attack.
glaceon: base 130 power ice beams hurt
Khangaskhan: How is this thing not top ten with scrappy double edge and hammer arm, sucker punch, wish and 101 hp subs?
Tauros: Same as khangaskhan but you sacrifice scrappy, sucker punch and a little bulk for more attack and speed.
Kingler: Base 130 attack, surprisignly fast at base 75 speed, agility, swords dance and perfect 2 move coverage.
Lapras: If it's special with thunderbolt, it is pretty much the #1 bulky water counter thanks to water absorb and a 4x ice beam resist. It can also setup with curse or dragon dance.
Muk: A fighting resist and good sp.def, pain split, curse. A set of curse/shadow sneak/poison jab/brick break can be tough to stop if you can take out missy/mesprit
Musharna: So stupidly bulky
Pinsir: The choice scarf set for this bro is where it's at, base 125 attack with close combat, stone edge, earthquake and STAB x-scizzor? yes please. cant wait for moxie.
Emboar: Slow but extremely powerfull, with flare blitz/superpower/wild charge. Once reckless is released on it...
Rapidash: Faster but weaker emboar. also morning sun and megahorn
Relicanth: While this has horrible defensive typing, it still has 100/130 defense and only a 2x weak to fighting unlike probopass, making him an excellent bird counter. 90 base offenses are high for a wall especially when you have STAB no-recoil head smash.
Slaking: STRONG APE IS STRONG RAWR
Zweilous: STRONG 2-HEADED DOG IS STRONG
Hey guys, if you haven't tried out Regice yet, you should! It's really specially bulky, and because of that it has the ability to tank strong attacks from the likes of Gorebyss and Jynx. It can even take a Life Orb Magmortar's Fire Blast if it really needs to, but it'll take massive damage.
The set I've been using is this:
248 HP / 252 Special Attack / 8 Special Defense
Modest @ Chesto Berry
-Thunder Wave
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Rest
Basically you can Thunder Wave a bunch of things while having a decent attack stat. Rest is useful for recovery as Regice will get weakened quicklu. The Chesto Berry is also useful for Jynx's Lovely Kiss, but you barely take any damage from Jynx anyways, so it's not much of a threat.
You'd be suprised by how bulky this thing is. It's been doing well so far, and it's certinally an effective Pokemon that really should be used more!
Also, just saying, I love how this tier is panning out! The teams are really interesting, and there are so many different usable Pokemon!
The set I've been using is this:
248 HP / 252 Special Attack / 8 Special Defense
Modest @ Chesto Berry
-Thunder Wave
-Ice Beam
-Thunderbolt
-Rest
Basically you can Thunder Wave a bunch of things while having a decent attack stat. Rest is useful for recovery as Regice will get weakened quicklu. The Chesto Berry is also useful for Jynx's Lovely Kiss, but you barely take any damage from Jynx anyways, so it's not much of a threat.
You'd be suprised by how bulky this thing is. It's been doing well so far, and it's certinally an effective Pokemon that really should be used more!
Also, just saying, I love how this tier is panning out! The teams are really interesting, and there are so many different usable Pokemon!
I can see Gurdurr having a lot of potential. I've been testing it a little, and its much bulkier than I initially thought. Using a 252 HP / 252 SpD spread with Eviolite:
Timid LO Magmortar's Fire Blast vs. Gurdurr: 48% - 56%
+1 Drain Punch in return: 60% - 71% a KO with SR and 1 turn of LO recoil. Just Mach Punch next turn if needed. Gurdurr can't switch into Fire Blast, but it can check Magmortar somewhat consistently.
Timid LO Magmortar's Fire Blast vs. Gurdurr: 48% - 56%
+1 Drain Punch in return: 60% - 71% a KO with SR and 1 turn of LO recoil. Just Mach Punch next turn if needed. Gurdurr can't switch into Fire Blast, but it can check Magmortar somewhat consistently.
Like the guy above me said, getting 2HKO'd doesn't make it a check. Plus, how do you plan on getting to +1 when you're outsped and you're 2HKO'd when you switch in?
Speaking of creativity, I've been testing Scarf Meditite, and honestly, I've been very impressed with what I've seen. Scarf + max speed allows it to outrun everything up to base 115, of which there are very few in the tier bar other scarfers who are faster (Cinccino and Swellow are all I can think of atm).
Before everyone asks "Why not just use Sawk?", I'll say that Meditite has two distinct advantages over Sawk. 1) Higher attack thanks to Pure Power (358 v 349) and 2) Hi Jump Kick. If Scarf Sawk's purpose in life is to spam CC against everything that doesn't resist it, Scarf Meditite's purpose is exactly the same, except with a bigger attack stat and higher a BP move in HJK.
For this reason, Meditite hates bulky Psychic and Ghosts, since it has no way of damaging them super effectively. So pair it with a Pursuiter or Dark type.
Of course its frail as hell, but it usually survives a neutral priority attack (bar ridiculous things like Absol's SP).
Like I said, I've been impressed with it so far.
Before everyone asks "Why not just use Sawk?", I'll say that Meditite has two distinct advantages over Sawk. 1) Higher attack thanks to Pure Power (358 v 349) and 2) Hi Jump Kick. If Scarf Sawk's purpose in life is to spam CC against everything that doesn't resist it, Scarf Meditite's purpose is exactly the same, except with a bigger attack stat and higher a BP move in HJK.
For this reason, Meditite hates bulky Psychic and Ghosts, since it has no way of damaging them super effectively. So pair it with a Pursuiter or Dark type.
Of course its frail as hell, but it usually survives a neutral priority attack (bar ridiculous things like Absol's SP).
Like I said, I've been impressed with it so far.
Additional STAB, but outside of it - absolutely nothing unfortunately (and Trick). Well... it may try doing something gimmicky with Guard Swap, but yeah.
Almost forgot - he also has access to Baton Pass, so he may try to Baton Pass for example Bulk Up. With Eviolite it should be doable, but still nothing really good.
My entire reason for testing it was that I noticed there were no viable users of HJK in the lower tiers, and then I saw Meditite with its Atk bigger than Sawk and decided to try it. So I didn't initially set out to see what it could KO over Sawk but I'm sure there are some.
But just for comparison:
252 Atk Sawk Close Combat V 252HP Eviolite Tangela = 34.1 - 40%
252 Atk Meditite Hi Jump Kick V 252HP Eviolite Tangela = 37.7 - 44.3%
Meaning Meditite can potentially 2HKO after SR damage, and will always 2HKO if Tangela has taken as little as 22% damage prior.
I agree that its defenses are just too pitiful to do anything with. But I did experiment with Ninjask BP'ing SD and speed boosts to Eviolite Meditite who used Sub to protect against status and such. In fact, this may be the most viable way to use Meditite but the set up didn't suit my team so I switched to Scarf.
You could also number the elemental punches along with its additional STAB. It gets Ice Punch to hit things like Altaria for more damage than Stone Edge, ThunderPunch etc.
Anything that hits it hard neutrally, it is frail as hell even with an eviolite.
This is the very reason that Scarf Sawk turns me off: it's not gamebreakingly strong, nor is it fast enough to revenge Timid Gorebyss. It's one of the two slowest scarfers (Braviary being the slowest common scarfer), and its moves have immunities that opposing substitute Pokemon can easily abuse. Substitute Haunter with Sludge Bomb is actually really strong, and I think there's a great reason why tennisace has been trying to hype it for quite a while.
Naturally, that means there should be a rise in CB Sawk rather than Scarf Sawk, since really it doesn't outspeed as much as it used to. It hits hard as hell, especially if you carry something to break those Psychic-types in two.
CB Sawk definitely needs some attention. Because the mons that it would LOVE to outspeed really dent him hard and he isn't really that powerful without boosts, I'm pretty sure CB Sawk nets some gamechanging KO's on mons (SuperJocke showed that it cleanly OHKO's max Defense Glaceon which its Scarf variant can't).
CB Sawk is comparable to CB Flygon. Get's KO's that the Scarfer can't.
Bastiodon and ParaFlinch Dunsparce are cool, though.
Bastiodon and ParaFlinch Dunsparce are cool, though.
Cinccino. It's faster, so disable doesn't work, and it can switch into Shadow Ball for free and snipe Haunter from behind the sub with Rock Blast.
Handling SubDisable users is not that hard, I call it ''switching'', I will let everybody guess how that works because is easy as fuck (unless your opponent is really really good)
@Leethoof: What skuntank set were you using? I mean, even poison jab breaks a haunter sub, and you have taunt to stop disable so I don't get that .-.
Scarf Sawk is so bad... If it outsped gorebyss it would be decent but there's no real reason to use it really.
@Leethoof: What skuntank set were you using? I mean, even poison jab breaks a haunter sub, and you have taunt to stop disable so I don't get that .-.
Scarf Sawk is so bad... If it outsped gorebyss it would be decent but there's no real reason to use it really.
Can I just point out that rain is really fucking awesome in this metagame? I threw together a rain team in about 10 minutes or so, an it's been doing remarkably well on the ladder. I have three rain setters, of which volbeat is probably the most phenomenal, and I abuse Gorebyss, jynx, and something else I can't remember lol. Rain is an awesome playstyle and really fun to use as well! There's just so many ways to make a rain team :)
I intend to try out sun next. With things like exeggutor and victreebel lurking in the tier, it's sure to be quite the adventure :P
I intend to try out sun next. With things like exeggutor and victreebel lurking in the tier, it's sure to be quite the adventure :P
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