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BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Tobes
- Start date
It kind of depends what you mean by 'best' I think. After being away from pokemon for a little while, I recently started laddering again and have gotten in to the 1900s with a sand balance team, which has proven itself to be fairly consistent. Of course, as others have said, it struggles to get past the Landorus-I--Tyranitar--Keldeo core. I've also had a lot of success with sand offense too, though I don't often play offense in general so I can't comment as much on this. What I can say though, is that balance/ offensive sand teams are the most consistent type of team on the ladder, and the least prone to match-up syndrome.
Of course, rain is really threatening, but I find it's a bit more high risk/ high reward, and there are certain team archetypes that it just flat out loses to; for instance, sand stall basically cannot lose to rain stall. Sun is in the same boat; it's really effective against some teams (such as sun offense against rain offense without a trapper), but really struggles against basically any team with Dugtrio in it.
So yeah. Tl;dr - Sand is more consistent; Rain and sun are powerful, but a bit more risky (rain being less risky than sun, naturally).
But that's just what I think ;)
This meta is so blown open, each weather team has advantages and weaknesses depending on how you build it and how offensive and defensive you want to go. I'm really enjoying it. As for what the best team is, that shouldn't really be how we approach it. We all play differently, and like different things. I love offensive rain, it is so much fun to play. There are plenty of really powerful pokemon if you evaluate them in a vacuum, and a lot of wonderful strategies, but I don't think there is anything in OU right now that is unbeatable or that is objectively the best team. I say, just play what you know and tweak that as needed.
HO Dragon (for ladder and againt creative/random teams) and Stall Rain (for tourneys), the first doesn't have any real counter at all apart from Ferrothorn and relies heavly on luck and offensive pressure, but it surely works as hell most of the time, the second is a more "safe" option and can really stall almost everything, but it does have some small counters that can ruin in. Of course, I'm talking about well made teams, as for the general ladder I could just say Offensive Rain and end of the thread. Stall Sand and Offensive Rain also deserve a mention, the first can really works as hell, but it relies on match ups a lot more than Stall Rain, while Offensive Rain is more likely a balance between HO Dragon and Stall Rain, but it's more prone to match ups and still relies somewhat on the luck.
Honestly I feel like any playstyle which can't keep some kind of consistent offensive momentum isn't good at the moment. Between hax and the power of offensive threats, the less hits you have to take the better. Offense isn't the only way to accomplish this, but you need to be a skilled player to do it with a defensive team, which at least partially explains why stall is so much more common higher on the ladder.
I've been thinking and i came to realize that this is the first generation where i can't think of a definitive "king" of the metagame. RBY was Tauros, GSC was Snorlax, RSE was Tyranitar, DPP was Heatran. but who could possibly be considered the king of BW? feels like it would've been genesect had he not been banned.
There's been so much ridiculous broken shit this meta that nothing has stuck around long enough to be the true king.
For me it would be Politoed, but I can see arguments for D-Nite, Terrakion and Keldeo too.
Keldeo is by far the #1 pokemon in BW if you're looking for a king, Lando as #2, everything else clumped together at #3 imo. To put it simply, those two are the only two offensive threats that are so powerful that attempting to counter them with anything but more offense is putting yourself at a disadvantage. Keld don't need any help even from SR to break things like SpD Rotom-W /Tentacruel Amoonguss in rain, and Lando isn't countered in practice by things like Blissey / Rotom-W / Gastrodon etc. (even things like Milotic if you wanted to break out the most raw bulky water possible). By in practice I mean SR and sand damage factored in, which is every game if you want it to be basically.
It almost completely limits your options for those two to those two mons we all know about. There's no such thing as running a random SpD Mew or Milo or something to tank two EPs from Lando, and there's no just using Tentacruel or Gyarados as your backup water resist for Keldeo (Gyara can't even set up on Scarf Keldeo Hydro Pump unless its basically max HP and no investment is just OHKOed by Specs Hydro after SR sometimes). If you have both of these two mons in BW2, you can't counter everything. It's said a lot but it is now the case that you won't be able to directly counter all of the top of the crop threats without relying on guesses / misses against at least one of them, which is different from the usual "this purposely built wallbreaker or uncommon set will pop up to get you once in a while".
The reason Keld is at #1 with Lando #2 is mostly because Keld wins the questionable offensive threat speed war comfortably at 108 (Lati@s aren't on the same page power wise) and Lando joins Keldeo in that tier above things like Terrakion / Garchomp / Latios etc. in terms of ability to whoop ass. All of those 3 can just be stacked against on balance or stall to ensure that it'll be something besides them that beats you, and other threats like Thund and Volc are obviously less spammable than the top two.
In case anyone wants clarity on what I mean by stacking, for any physical threat in BW2 the defensive power creep has probably outcreeped the offense. Lando-T / Quag / Tangrowth / Skarm and other physical walls will synergize with each other to the point where pure physical wallbreakers can't have an easy time against slow teams even if there's a lot of them; you have to resort to mixed stuff or different sets if you wanna try to beat stall teams (if there were any). For Latios it's sufficient IMO to just point out that Sand / Rain / Sun teams are there.
tl;dr meta is permanently offense > defense, Keldeo and Landorus are better than everything else offensive + they are the only individual pokemon that are capable of causing this shift, and Keldeo is better than Landorus.
It almost completely limits your options for those two to those two mons we all know about. There's no such thing as running a random SpD Mew or Milo or something to tank two EPs from Lando, and there's no just using Tentacruel or Gyarados as your backup water resist for Keldeo (Gyara can't even set up on Scarf Keldeo Hydro Pump unless its basically max HP and no investment is just OHKOed by Specs Hydro after SR sometimes). If you have both of these two mons in BW2, you can't counter everything. It's said a lot but it is now the case that you won't be able to directly counter all of the top of the crop threats without relying on guesses / misses against at least one of them, which is different from the usual "this purposely built wallbreaker or uncommon set will pop up to get you once in a while".
The reason Keld is at #1 with Lando #2 is mostly because Keld wins the questionable offensive threat speed war comfortably at 108 (Lati@s aren't on the same page power wise) and Lando joins Keldeo in that tier above things like Terrakion / Garchomp / Latios etc. in terms of ability to whoop ass. All of those 3 can just be stacked against on balance or stall to ensure that it'll be something besides them that beats you, and other threats like Thund and Volc are obviously less spammable than the top two.
In case anyone wants clarity on what I mean by stacking, for any physical threat in BW2 the defensive power creep has probably outcreeped the offense. Lando-T / Quag / Tangrowth / Skarm and other physical walls will synergize with each other to the point where pure physical wallbreakers can't have an easy time against slow teams even if there's a lot of them; you have to resort to mixed stuff or different sets if you wanna try to beat stall teams (if there were any). For Latios it's sufficient IMO to just point out that Sand / Rain / Sun teams are there.
tl;dr meta is permanently offense > defense, Keldeo and Landorus are better than everything else offensive + they are the only individual pokemon that are capable of causing this shift, and Keldeo is better than Landorus.
i think keldeo is the #1 pokemon in terms of power, but politoed has been more influential. i am well aware of the sheer dominance of keldeo, but the fact is rain is still the second most popular playstyle (besides weatherless-lol), and this is nearly entirely enabled by politoed. i think it really comes down to politoed controlling the meta much more than keldeo does. both are influential, but politoed drastically shapes the entire metagame
meh, I don't really want to consider Politoed the king when it's not Politoed that's helpful. politoed's only call is drizzle. to see what I mean, compare Politoed's base stats to Milotic.
Milotic has better stats all around except for the unused attack. not only that but Milotic learns Recover and can even phase with Dragon Tail. yet, Politoed is #3 right now in usage and Milotic sits at #104. why is this? well, it's because Politoed has Drizzle.
not only that but normally when i think of a king, it's something you can fit on any sort of team and use it to get results. with politoed, you put it on your team and it's teammates get results. i guess you could argue for it since rain dominates, but i think this is the first generation where the king was banned in Genesect.
Politoed's Base Stats said:
Milotic's Base Stats said:
Milotic has better stats all around except for the unused attack. not only that but Milotic learns Recover and can even phase with Dragon Tail. yet, Politoed is #3 right now in usage and Milotic sits at #104. why is this? well, it's because Politoed has Drizzle.
not only that but normally when i think of a king, it's something you can fit on any sort of team and use it to get results. with politoed, you put it on your team and it's teammates get results. i guess you could argue for it since rain dominates, but i think this is the first generation where the king was banned in Genesect.
Scarf keldeo will be best. Tyranitar eleminates its and landorus' counters. Keldeo or landy sweep in return.
All gyarados sets do fine just keep SR off the field
latios/latias are really common because they're solid checks to a lot of stuff and can hit very hard with a LO set. a steel is also mandatory, the most common are scarf jirachi/sd acro flying gem or cb scizor. the last slot is usually garchomp/terrakion, since they're very capable offensive threats that can set up sr.
I've seen this, but I thought it was just a one-off gimmick. What kind of moves and spreads does it run? I've always used the faithful 252 hp/atk bp + bug bite + sd + roost set for when I want a sweeping scizor, and it works very well once you weaken their steels since it can set up so easily. But if you're telling me acrobatics scizor has a viable use, then I'm interested in learning about it.
I don't think I'm 100% right on what I'll say later in this paragraph but I'll clue you into a Pokemon who has been by far my favorite in this meta and pulls his weight in every single game: Sash Alakazam. There's just too many variables right now in the meta that Zam is the ultimate safety net and can actually sweep pretty easily against unprepared teams that are not running more than one answer. Going off that, I'd personally say your best bet is an offensive team that focuses on Zam + Keldeo. Breloom/Salamence/Dragonite/Landorus/Tyranitar/Landorus-T/Volcarona/Custap SR and Spikes/Jirachi are usually how my teams are looking atm. It's too easy to sweep teams right now with Zam/Keldeo backing you up, so I'd say go offensive.
The reason I said I wasn't 100% is because Sun teams with Growth Venusaur can be really destructive, it's a real shame no one uses it because I find Venusaur in the Sun more of a threat than Landorus or Keldeo (unpopular opinions)
Well when you mention jolly I guess I have seen it around. I've been bullet punched for sub-band/sub-LO damage quite a bit recently and didn't see leftovers (or LO of course) so I thought people might've been giving scarf scizor a go again... Glad I was wrong?
Sounds like a solid set though, I'll work it into my team and give it a try.
Personally I think Choice Band Dragonite is better than DD Dragonite, but that's an entirely different discussion.
When I use DD Dragonite (which is almost never,) I prefer Lum Berry for a couple of reasons:
1. One-time status avoidance
2. It can potentially get you out of Outrage confusion
Leftovers simply doesn't give you these benefits, and these are both pretty big. The only benefit I can see to Leftovers is canceling out Sandstorm/Hail damage. This is basically a scenario of "What benefits do you want your item to give you, and at what cost?"
lum berry is better on offensive dd dragonite variants. they get kills fast and hard, often needing only one dance, so they appreciate the immediate removal of a potential sweep-stopping status much more than leftovers recovery they're unlikely to use. the sets with roost, however, try to use their bulk to get multiple dd's, so they need leftovers to stick around.
Yeah, I agree; Lum Berry let's you set up on Scald and (lol Wo-Miss / TWave / Jirachi) users much easier since you don't have to worry about status (and laugh as they keep scouting, too; though more times than not they'll only do this if they have nothing else for Dnite. Late sweeping FTW!).
All seriousness though, I just wouldn't use Dragonite in sand (I've tried and found that many other things fit better). Maybe Hail, especially since most have spin support, but that's as far as it goes (Dragonite is good for sun teams on hail, though other things like Heatran can be utilized. Depends on what you're looking for). Dragonite's good on weatherless HO though, like with an Aero lead that prevents rocks from getting up on the field. Lum is always the best way to go, really.
Also, Outrage spamming and recovering from confusion is really just a magical feeling when you have +3 and SR / Spikes against stall. Truly, it is a sight to see.
EDIT: Ninja'ed by BKC
All seriousness though, I just wouldn't use Dragonite in sand (I've tried and found that many other things fit better). Maybe Hail, especially since most have spin support, but that's as far as it goes (Dragonite is good for sun teams on hail, though other things like Heatran can be utilized. Depends on what you're looking for). Dragonite's good on weatherless HO though, like with an Aero lead that prevents rocks from getting up on the field. Lum is always the best way to go, really.
Also, Outrage spamming and recovering from confusion is really just a magical feeling when you have +3 and SR / Spikes against stall. Truly, it is a sight to see.
EDIT: Ninja'ed by BKC
Filler pokemon should be able to check as many threats possible either with great type coverage, very powerful moves or some decent bulk to take hits. The best filler or "glue" pokemon combine all these three factors to cover as many threats as possible that your sweeper/team is struggling with.
Firstly, as BKC said Latias is probably the best filler mon out there since it can work in ANY playstyle and it can do a lot of damage with STAB LO Draco Meteor, with Surf and Psyshock rounding off the coverage. Plus, it contains Roost to take any necessary hits. It also counters pretty much the entirety of Sun and a whole bunch of Rain threats.
Secondly, Starmie is another great filler mon since it can not only spin to make your sweep much easier but with its great 2 or 3-move type coverage it can hit a very nice chunk of the metagame for super-effective damage, which is especially useful considering that Starmie outspeeds nearly every non scarfed or non boosted pokemon out there.
Finally, CB Scizor is probably is the most reliable filler mon out there since it can easily 2HKO any Pokemon with its Technitian boosted STAB Bullet Punch, regardless of its speed. It also has an equally powerful U-turn that can also scout for any switch-ins. Its typing finally gives it a whole load of resistances against many common pokemon and only one weakness.
Honorable mentions go to Latios, Terrakion, Garchomp, Rotom-W, Celebi and even Weavile :O