BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

[NoUserName]

Regenerator Duosin is out!:

http://serebii.net/black2white2/spookymanor.shtml

Regenerator is an amazing ability, but Magic Guard is too hard to give up.

About you were saying about Sandslash, Soft Sand > Earth Plate, the non-Plates boosting type moves are better than Plates, because the Plates have a 90 base power when Flung, the other items have around 10 base power.

Well, is a difference more a curiosity than anything, because in current OU it could happen in 1 of a thousand million of battles, only Gliscor is seen with Thief+Fling or, in lower tiers Lopunny with Switcheroo+Fling, and it is a lot uncommon but in metagames or in a future generation if it would be more common, it is necessary to take into account it.

Also, Soft Sand is cooler.

 

[alphatron]

How to win weather wars; Step 1: Use hazards

Any more advice after that it just fluff. But baiting switches and good prediction are also needed. Also, your weather doesn't need to be up 100% of the time. Switching in Tyranitar or politoed every single time you see an enemy weather setter is a sure way to lose the war,

 

[EonX]

How to win weather wars; Step 1: Use hazards

Any more advice after that it just fluff. But baiting switches and good prediction are also needed. Also, your weather doesn't need to be up 100% of the time. Switching in Tyranitar or politoed every single time you see an enemy weather setter is a sure way to lose the war,

I've noticed that I follow this quite a bit more in BW2 than I did in BW1. Usually, if I'm building a weather team, I a) make sure that the team can go without favorable weather for stretches in a battle and b) try to have something that can bait the opposing weather inducer in (Ebelt Latios with Surf on Ttar for example) and do major damage to it in order to restrict its switch-ins.

 

[Chou Toshio]

You also have to think about the mirror match up. I have seen so many teams (like mine) that are basically Rain Team without Politoed (And sometimes with shit like Kingdra) and 1 or 2 sand abusers that basically are just built to destroy sand / rain in their own weather, and be solid elsewhere.

 

[Marzbar]

Does anyone else think giving Tornadus the regenerator ability was really bad for the meta game? It's a real pain to deal with. I go for the 2HKO but it just U-Turns out first.

Thunderus spamming Thunder in Rain is also annoying. And don't get me started on Breloom.

It kind of feels like I'm forced to use these Pokemon myself, or fill my team with checks and counters, meaning I don't get to use any of the Pokemon I actually like.

And how does a Politoed survive two Megahorns from a LO Scolipede? The damn frog never dies, and his STAB water attacks seem to kill everything that doesn't resist it.

Sad Panda.

 

[Flashstorm1]

Out of curiosity, have any of you had any success running a more defensive team? I feel as if the new threats introduced with the release of Black 2 and White 2 have made running such teams more of a liability given the sheer damage output they can deal. Choice Band Technician Breloom is one such Pokemon that I see defensive teams having trouble with, as pretty much all common Pokemon that are used to switch into Fighting-type attacks, primarily Gliscor, are overpowered by its Bullet Seed.*

Thoughts?

*Celebi is perhaps the only exception to this argument.

 

[2sly4u]

Does anyone else think giving Tornadus the regenerator ability was really bad for the meta game? It's a real pain to deal with. I go for the 2HKO but it just U-Turns out first.

Thunderus spamming Thunder in Rain is also annoying. And don't get me started on Breloom.

It kind of feels like I'm forced to use these Pokemon myself, or fill my team with checks and counters, meaning I don't get to use any of the Pokemon I actually like.

I don't really think any of them are that hard to deal with. Tornadus is frail enough that it's pretty easy to OHKO, and Thundurus is quite slow, making it easy to revenge. Breloom basically forces you to sac something to Spore, but it's always done that. Technician makes it more threatening as well, but it's still very slow and frail, and many things can survive a +2 Mach Punch and KO in return.

Your team should be full of checks and counters anyways. No one does well if they don't have an answer to everything in OU. With that in mind, you only really need to handle five new things in B2/W2: the Therian forms, Keldeo, and Techniloom. It's not that hard to tweak a B/W team a bit to cover them.

And how does a Politoed survive two Megahorns from a LO Scolipede? The damn frog never dies, and his STAB water attacks seem to kill everything that doesn't resist it.

Because it's Scolipede lol.

 

[Arcticblast]

Out of curiosity, have any of you had any success running a more defensive team? I feel as if the new threats introduced with the release of Black 2 and White 2 have made running such teams more of a liability given the sheer damage output they can deal. Choice Band Technician Breloom is one such Pokemon that I see defensive teams having trouble with, as pretty much all common Pokemon that are used to switch into Fighting-type attacks, primarily Gliscor, are overpowered by its Bullet Seed.*

Thoughts?

*Celebi is perhaps the only exception to this argument.

I know Scarfwynaut is running stall, and I'm running a semi-stall team myself. Granted, I often rely on Thundurus or Infernape pulling off a late-game sweep, but that doesn't always happen. The key lies in your core being able to keep itself alive (Regenerator, recovery moves, Wish, Leech Seed, judicious use of Protect, etc.) and picking the best Pokemon to sack to Spore (if applicable). The problem is, the state of the metagame means you almost have to run one of SpDef Jirachi / Bronzong to take on the Therians, although both do a nice job at checking them. EDIT: It appears I forgot about Lanturn... She does a pretty good job as well. Thanks 2sly for mentioning her. I run weatherless, so being able to handle opposing weather is also important.

 

[2sly4u]

The problem is, the state of the metagame means you almost have to run one of SpDef Jirachi / Bronzong to take on the Therians, although both do a nice job at checking them.

Lanturn does a decent job too. He's got good special bulk and is immune to Thunder while resisting Hurricane. Grass knot does next to nothing since it only has 40 BP against him. Lanturn is pretty anti-metagame right now, but you'd probably need to run Wish support for it on a stall team.

 

[doughboy]

Out of curiosity, have any of you had any success running a more defensive team? I feel as if the new threats introduced with the release of Black 2 and White 2 have made running such teams more of a liability given the sheer damage output they can deal. Choice Band Technician Breloom is one such Pokemon that I see defensive teams having trouble with, as pretty much all common Pokemon that are used to switch into Fighting-type attacks, primarily Gliscor, are overpowered by its Bullet Seed.*

Thoughts?

*Celebi is perhaps the only exception to this argument.

My main team for PS! is actually a full stall team! While I don't necessarily want to post my whole team I will tell you that it does incorporate SkarmBliss! While the power of threats has creeped to an unreal height, the metagame centralizing around rain has mitigated that a little bit. People are incorporating many of the same things making very, very similar teams. For example, sun is almost non-existant now and it isn't as important to even have an answer to it compared to vanilla BW stall.

I will say that if you do run a stall team it is very prediction heavy. Knowing when stuff like Tornadus is going to Hurricane vs Superpower is tough. I would say that Tornadus is one of hardest Pokemon to take out for stall teams because it is virtually unaffected by hazards. Techniloom falls into a similar boat, but after Sleep Fodder most looms are so scared of Skarmory they just switch out. I would say Breloom is less annoying to stall then before because it doesn't have a status immunity or hide behind a sub all the time.

I will say this: any type of weather stall is not worth it. You need all 6 of those slots to contribute in some defensive and utility capacity to be successful but the weather starters don't cut it. Yes I would say Hippowdon even falls short. I would also say that if you run stall in OU, you are going to have to incorporate some non-OU pokes and some unothodox sets. Throwing in ALL standard OU defensive stuff isn't going to cover all threats. For example you might need to run Bulldoze with some attack EV's on Ferrothorn to counter SubCM Jirachi. The unorthodox Poke I use is Cofagrigus, who has a number of things about him that are ignored and who has decent recovery with Pain Split.

 

[SlimMan]

It would be +2 on Thundurus-T Slim. ;)

As Ningildo said, I was referring to Scarf Thundurus-T. It's the set I see most often.
Aint nothin gonna out-speed an Agility ThunderBro.

And alright SlimMan, I'll try out the set you used and see how it'll go.
If I don't fail at recalling how to win weather wars...

Yeah, I'll admit that Sandslash is VERY reliant on winning the weather war to be effective, but if you get good at that, Sandslash won't disappoint! :)

@2sly, you seem to share my affinity for Lanturn! :D No one can understand our special love with the adorable little fish! <3

@Pillsbury, I faced you on the ladder earlier today (or maybe it was last night), and you were using a Stall team then. But I don't remember seeing a Cofagrigus on it. Did you add Cofag in today, or did I face a totally different team?

 

[Marzbar]

I don't really think any of them are that hard to deal with. Tornadus is frail enough that it's pretty easy to OHKO, and Thundurus is quite slow, making it easy to revenge. Breloom basically forces you to sac something to Spore, but it's always done that. Technician makes it more threatening as well, but it's still very slow and frail, and many things can survive a +2 Mach Punch and KO in return.

Your team should be full of checks and counters anyways. No one does well if they don't have an answer to everything in OU. With that in mind, you only really need to handle five new things in B2/W2: the Therian forms, Keldeo, and Techniloom. It's not that hard to tweak a B/W team a bit to cover them.



Because it's Scolipede lol.

Scolipede happens to be the fastest Spiker not named Accelgor. He's guaranteed to set a layer of Spikes and then threaten a lot of pokemon with Superpower, Earthquake and Megahorn backed up with base 90 Atk and 112 Speed. Plus he has useful resistances. So lay off Scolipede.

"Your team should be full of checks and counters anyways. No one does well if they don't have an answer to everything in OU."

It's impossible to fit an answer to EVERY OU pokemon in just one team....

 

[doughboy]

@Pillsbury, I faced you on the ladder earlier today (or maybe it was last night), and you were using a Stall team then. But I don't remember seeing a Cofagrigus on it. Did you add Cofag in today, or did I face a totally different team?

I have only been using one stall team so it must have had Cofagrigus on it, maybe I didn't bring it out? Unless you were on CAP playtest the only stall team I had is that one. Maybe it was someone else o.O I have been using Cofagrigus for a long time so I don't know.

What I like about Cofagrigus so much is its access to Haze+Wil-o-Wisp. It makes last man Pokes much easier to deal with and makes Baton Pass rage quit when they get to +6 in some stuff xD Also its bulky as hell, base 145 defenses. Gives Duskclops a run for its money!

 

[forestflamerunner]

@ Marzbar


Scollipede is a useful pokemon. No ones denying that. What 2sly4u was saying is that scollipede cant 2 shot politoed pecause of scollipede's average attack stats. 90 base attack just doesnt cut it in this metagame.

Also, while you cant expect to be able to check every mon, you should be fairly well prepared for the bigger threats. You dont have to have 4 checks and 2 counters to thundurus but you should have a couple of ways of handling it. This shouldnt be a new concept. In the pre BW2 days you needed afew answers to terrakion, dragonite, and rotom W. hell going back even farther that that, you needed several ways of dealing with mence and scizor in DPP. Ultimately, you will always find that certain pokemon will dominate the metagame, and you will need to go out of your way to deal with them im afraid.

 

[wobbahax]

Does anyone else think giving Tornadus the regenerator ability was really bad for the meta game? It's a real pain to deal with. I go for the 2HKO but it just U-Turns out first.

Thunderus spamming Thunder in Rain is also annoying. And don't get me started on Breloom.

It kind of feels like I'm forced to use these Pokemon myself, or fill my team with checks and counters, meaning I don't get to use any of the Pokemon I actually like.

And how does a Politoed survive two Megahorns from a LO Scolipede? The damn frog never dies, and his STAB water attacks seem to kill everything that doesn't resist it.

Sad Panda.

yeah, i find myself having to resort to the therian formes simply because of their sheer power. However, teams can be tweaked to incorparate other pokemon- manoswine ice shard/icicle crash can kill the ever-annoying thundurus-T along with the dragons. Breloom can be countered with lum berry celebi, which take nothing from its STAB moves and use natural cure to its advantage. Politoed has average defenses at best; as someone mentioned above 90 base attack is nothing compared to things like haxorus, breloom, and salamence running around in OU.

 

[2sly4u]

Scolipede happens to be the fastest Spiker not named Accelgor. He's guaranteed to set a layer of Spikes and then threaten a lot of pokemon with Superpower, Earthquake and Megahorn backed up with base 90 Atk and 112 Speed. Plus he has useful resistances. So lay off Scolipede.

"Your team should be full of checks and counters anyways. No one does well if they don't have an answer to everything in OU."

It's impossible to fit an answer to EVERY OU pokemon in just one team....

I never said Scolipede wasn't good, but it's not exactly an offensive behemoth and you asked why it couldn't 2HKO Polly. Base 90 Attack is crap in this metagame.

And it's really not impossible to fit an answer to everything on a team. Heck, Scizor can check half the metagame by itself. It's definitely impossible to have a hard counter to everything, but you should have a way of dealing with every prominent pokemon in the game, be that by revenge killing, hazard damage, walling, etc.

 

[SlimMan]

I have only been using one stall team so it must have had Cofagrigus on it, maybe I didn't bring it out? Unless you were on CAP playtest the only stall team I had is that one. Maybe it was someone else o.O I have been using Cofagrigus for a long time so I don't know.

What I like about Cofagrigus so much is its access to Haze+Wil-o-Wisp. It makes last man Pokes much easier to deal with and makes Baton Pass rage quit when they get to +6 in some stuff xD Also its bulky as hell, base 145 defenses. Gives Duskclops a run for its money!

No, it wasn't that you didn't bring it out. I don't want to seem like a dick, but I know I beat you, so it would've had to come out. Maybe I did face Cofagrigus and I'm just not remembering it. After all, are there any other DoughBoys on the server? haha

In addition to Cofagrigus' movepool, it has extreme bulk. We faced off again earlier tonight, and it survived my CB Tar's Crunch. I was flabbergasted.


Guys, is the ladder on PS! fixed? I think they reset it earlier tonight, didn't they? I really hope it's legit now, because I'm #17 atm and I want it to actually mean something. Of course, by tomorrow night I'll have slid down to like 50 or something, but I can catch that up.

 

[Marzbar]

Yeah I realise 90 base attack is Scolipede's downfall. But he does have his uses. And super effective hits usually score the KO thankfully.

Thanks for the tips on countering some of the big threats. It's still very frustrating though. You say Lum Berry Celebi counters Breloom. Well there's one team slot filled. You say Scizor checks a lot of threats. There's another slot filled. Then there's specially defensive Jirachi to check Thunderus, Tornadus and Keldeo. And Amoonguss to check Rain teams. And Ice Shard/Icicle Crash Mamoswine to answer the Dragons. Throw in a spin blocker or a hazard layer and suddenly there's your whole team filled. A team completely chosen for you by the metagame/Game Freak.

This isn't anything new, as someone pointed out. But it feels good to vent.

 

[Shouting]

In a sense I agree with you there, although your kind of exaggerating a bit. Everyone needs a priority user now a days on their team. If you don't have one, good luck with Thundurus-T, Haxorus, and even some versions of Keldeo. I don't like it now that there are even more "uncounterable" threats. In B/W, I got along just find with a defensive balanced team. Now I have to stick a random CB Dragonite, Azumarill, or Scizor (but a lot of things are resisting bullet punch now) on my team, along with Specs Kingdra to further deal with Rain, and that's two spots right there. Then you find something against Sandstorm, like Scarf Landorus, etc. and maybe a heatran for sun and...that's four spots.

Also, I have been testing Bronzong lately (Screw you Mamoswine!) and it's actually not that bad. It handles Dragons well right now, especially those in rain. It's good because Rotom-W, one of the biggest obstacles to it, are not as common now. Also, it doesn't care about Magnezone because it just OHKOs with Earthquake.

 

[2sly4u]

Yeah I realise 90 base attack is Scolipede's downfall. But he does have his uses. And super effective hits usually score the KO thankfully.

Thanks for the tips on countering some of the big threats. It's still very frustrating though. You say Lum Berry Celebi counters Breloom. Well there's one team slot filled. You say Scizor checks a lot of threats. There's another slot filled. Then there's specially defensive Jirachi to check Thunderus, Tornadus and Keldeo. And Amoonguss to check Rain teams. And Ice Shard/Icicle Crash Mamoswine to answer the Dragons. Throw in a spin blocker or a hazard layer and suddenly there's your whole team filled. A team completely chosen for you by the metagame/Game Freak.

This isn't anything new, as someone pointed out. But it feels good to vent.

Well for starters, in the scenario you listed Mamoswine can check the Therian forms and Amoongus/Celebi can do a good job against Keldeo, making Jirachi unnecessary. It's also pretty easy to tack an entry hazard onto something else. For example, both Celebi and Mamoswine can learn Stealth Rock, potentially freeing up another team slot. You are limited a bit, but I usually find that I have two or three team slots left to make a team feel like my own.

If you really want as many free slots as possible, I find that Focus Sash Alakazam is spectacular as a "get out of jail free" card of sorts. Because of Magic Guard, he can always survive at least one attack and retaliate, meaning he almost always has one revenge kill a game. He's got great coverage as well, meaning he can handle almost every pokemon in OU. Try him out.

 

[Electrolyte]

In a sense I agree with you there, although your kind of exaggerating a bit. Everyone needs a priority user now a days on their team. If you don't have one, good luck with Thundurus-T, Haxorus, and even some versions of Keldeo. I don't like it now that there are even more "uncounterable" threats. In B/W, I got along just find with a defensive balanced team. Now I have to stick a random CB Dragonite, Azumarill, or Scizor (but a lot of things are resisting bullet punch now) on my team, along with Specs Kingdra to further deal with Rain, and that's two spots right there. Then you find something against Sandstorm, like Scarf Landorus, etc. and maybe a heatran for sun and...that's four spots.

Also, I have been testing Bronzong lately (Screw you Mamoswine!) and it's actually not that bad. It handles Dragons well right now, especially those in rain. It's good because Rotom-W, one of the biggest obstacles to it, are not as common now. Also, it doesn't care about Magnezone because it just OHKOs with Earthquake.

Speaking of Mamoswine, I think it's a very good pokemon as it fulfills two (or three) of your metagame wide problems. It has priority, a strong one in fact, at 60 BP after STAB and coming off of a massive base 130 Atk. It's typing also helps it tons against Sandstorm. That's right, I use Mamoswine to counter Sand (I'm currently using a sun team). Ice shard does...
99-118% to all versions of Landorus original (about 95% chance OHKO)
79-93% to most Dragonite sets, a OHKO after SR
70-83% to most Salamence sets after Intimidate (about 60% chance OHKO after SR)
Whereas Earthquake does...
97-115% to offensive Ttar (about 83% chance to OHKO)
90-105% to standard Jirachi (about 33% chance to OHKO)
96-112% to MixedGross (about 75% chance to OHKO)
Remember that even if EQ doesn't OHKO EQ+Iceshard can KO about half the tier.

It can also be used as an offensive pivot as though it doesn't have Volt/Turn it decimates steel types which open up sweeps for the Dragon types that wreck the metagame, and everything else that is annoyingly walled by steel types. It can also set up SR, crippling many sweepers this gen (Volcarona, Tornadus/Thunderus-T)

 

[Shouting]

Yes, but Mamoswine can't switch in on anything that isn't boltbeam (Read: Thundurus-T, but I'm sure Focus Blast KOs). Something has to die (or do a double switch, but those can be risky) to bring it in.

Meanwhile Kingdra can come in on Water and Fire moves with ease, and even Starmie, depending on your spread and literally kill anything on a standard rain team with just it's STABs, the only thing getting in it's way is Ferrothorn.

The way I see it is that Mamoswine is good, yes, but like I said to appears to be one of the pokemon on a team that just has to be there to do x,y, and z, which only a handful of other pokemon can do. It just frustrates me is all I am saying.

 

[ShiryuExcalibur]

grass knot is sometimes good in thundurus-t/tornadus-t because you can predict a switch and grass knot mamoswine, don't know the calcs exactly, but specs torn-t and scarf thund-t grass knots both ohko mamo after rocks..

 

[XcRunner]

@Electrolyte
What item is attached to Mamoswine in your calculations?
I typically use life orb, and that seems to do the trick for me, and if your calcs don't include that, then that makes those potential OHKO's for sure. Even Expert Belt could make those hits much more likely to be OHKO's because those moves are super effective.

 

[Marzbar]

Also, I have been testing Bronzong lately (Screw you Mamoswine!) and it's actually not that bad. It handles Dragons well right now, especially those in rain. It's good because Rotom-W, one of the biggest obstacles to it, are not as common now. Also, it doesn't care about Magnezone because it just OHKOs with Earthquake.

What Bronzong set do you use?