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Stealth Rock Less Ladder
- Thread starter ginganinja
- Start date
What? The damage calculator shows that a 1+ Adamant Dragonite would OHKO bulky Starmie (252/32) by a wide margin. However, a 0+ Dragonite (252 attack, Adamant) without any boosting item fails to OHKO Mamoswine (0,0 EVs, 110 HP, 80 Def), allowing Mamoswine to hit it with two consecutive Ice Shards. This could be remedied by a Choice Band though but Dragonite would be somewhat easy to play around locked into Outrage with its low speed during the middle game, but at least Dragonite would be difficult to OHKO with Multiscale*, so any Pokemon that would meet it offensively would have to take a hit after it attacks. However, Mamoswine may be a bad example since it is the exception that proves the rule, since it is a fairly physicially bulky (statistically since it has bad defensive typing) offensive Pokemon.
A 1+ Dragonite Outrage is about 15% more powerful than 2+ LO Bullet Punch from Scizor, assuming that their attacks are not resisted or hit super-effectively... it is quite intimidating. I prefer Swords Dance Scizor though since it has priority and can switch to Superpower when a steel type is trying to impede its sweep.
*I actually did with a Mamoswine using Icicle Crash that was a critical hit. My opponent (might have been the CanadianWifier)said it was a hax (which it wasn't since Icicle Crash does > 200%, but I know this retrospectively), not to mention that he was using a Hurricane team, which provided a de facto 20% chance of a "critical hit" [1 - (.9375*.85)] if he attacks first, and his Dragonite was paralyzed and Icicle Crash has a 20% chance of a flinch (which is 38.5% of paralysis or flinching).
Good game though...
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I just want to test defensive Gyarados in this environment.
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one of the reasons i am using weaville :D
Vocarona and dragonite can be predicted and dealt with then its not hard
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Focus sash spam is really obnoxious regardless of whether youre facing a good player or not. It kinda makes me consider a dedicated spikes lead. I just hope this meta doesnt devolve to mindless spamming focus sash on every single setup sweeper though it seems this is where its heading to.
I haven't really seen tons of focus sash users. It's definitely way more viable, but I think sand, hail, and spikes are enough of a deterrent of focus sash spam becoming a huge thing. Speaking of hail, has anyone had any success with hail stall? I've been considering using it for my next ladder run, but the ideas I've had seem really weak to Moltres and Terrakion on paper.
From my experience with hail stall in the SR-less meta, Lanturn walls Moltres, Thundurus-T, special Dragonite, some variants of Keldeo, and most Water-types and brings Heal Bell support, and Gliscor, Lando-T and Sableye are possibilities for Terrakion.
You would think that at the beginning and try some pokemon like Frosslass and Custap Spikmory and maybe even toxic spikes, until you realize that a lot of teams have 3-4 Levitates and Flying types, at which point you start to wonder why the hell are you even bothering.
I am sincerely hoping that Game Freak nerfs SR in one way or another, otherwise a metagame without SR is just as bad as a tier with SR as it currently stands.
You're right. Focus Sash is unbeatable because sand, hail, priority, multi-hit moves, Spikes, Toxic Spikes, and defensive Pokemon are non-existent. Thanks for reminding me! :)
I never said it was unbeatable...
Give it a week or 2. People are now testing everything under the sun that was SR weak. The paranoia to hazards entry is showing, since the pool of viable mons have increased somewhat, they try to 'hazard-proof' their team to free up the slot blocked by a spinner. A very natural noob tendency, until they realize the old picks are going to work just fine here too. I'm more optimistic about this.
There was this initial burst of creative teams, but I pretty much braced myself for the Dragon-spam and Flying+Levitate teams to come a few days later because people would realize that gives them a more consistent win-rate in these nascent stages, till the general opponent takes enough counter measures like status,defensive synergy etc etc, and then we see some new stuff emerging. That's how the metagame evolves. Especially here, since Stealth Rocks had such a quantum position in competitive battling.
I had a balanced hail team get to 2200 or so. Used ballon Tran with HP rock for Moltres & Volc and Golurk for Terrakion. Also had a scarf Keldeo to take advantage of rain in case I lost the weather war (which I usually did, can't switch Abomasnow into repeated scalds). The only disappointing thing about it was that you can't really use more than one hail abuser if you want to have any chance of beating most teams, so you have to pick between a blizzard spammer or Walrein. I went with a blizzard spammer.
Yea I think the general consensus is that SR could use a nerf, but Smogon stays true to game mechanics.
Hurricane spam teams are pretty ridiculous right now. Dragonite + Moltres + Tornadus is very viable, and Dnite + Moltres also handle a lot of threats defensively, meaning that it's perfectly doable to cover the Rock + Electric weakness with the two remaining slots. The problem with Hurricane spam is not the damage output of Hurricane (which is still ridiculous but can be handled), it's the 30% confusion chance, which will screw over your counters in the long term, especially when those Pokemon are immune to entry hazards and two of them have Roost and excellent defensive typing and bulk. Two Hurricane hits have a 50% chance to confuse the target, and a 25% chance to get a free turn. Multiply this by all the turns that those Pokemon will get to fire off Hurricanes and you have a real problem in your hands. I had SpD Jirachi and SpD Dragonite on my team (some of the best counters to Tornadus / Dnite and Moltres respectively) and i still lost purely due to Hurricane hax.
Gotta figure out how to deal with Moltres when running sun. Even tho hurricane is 50% under sun it still does like 40% clean to Trap Heatran, which is redic. Probably gonna have to put rotom-w on a damn sun team to handle it.
Fucking. This. Seriously.
The amount of sash Terrakion is in the full retard zone.
Fucking. This. Seriously.
The amount of sash Terrakion is in the full retard zone.
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Just finished playing a few games tonight. I think literally every team I played (4-5 games) was rain with a Dragonite. Which is okay in my book because the team I'm using is running Specs Kingdra, but really. It wasn't that much of a problem anyway, since Kingdra outspeeds +2 Adamant Dragonite under rain and I got a Crit with Stone Edge right after one of the Dragonites roosted in front of a missed Stone Edge.
Well, the interesting ladder was nice while it lasted. I wish I could be this successful normally (I'm basically on my way to Glicko2 2000 w/65/55 deviation). I'll just have to readapt this team to regular OU again.
Well, the interesting ladder was nice while it lasted. I wish I could be this successful normally (I'm basically on my way to Glicko2 2000 w/65/55 deviation). I'll just have to readapt this team to regular OU again.
tbh, I think the biggest problem with this ladder is that we don't/can't ban anything as of yet. The diversity is awesome, but there seem to be some threats [people mention Dragonite in particular, and I can definitely see why], which would deserve a suspect test, but hasn't gotten one due to the nature of this ladder being unofficial.
I don't think Dragonite is broken tbh. Good, but not broken. Multiscale isn't that difficult to break, and at +1 it's not tough to revenge with a scarfer. The only pokemon that sticks out to me as broken is Kyurem-Black but it was already kind of broken with Stealth Rocks.
I'd say that Dragonite is on the cusp of broken, but we have too many readily available tools to keep that from happening. Passive damage, super fast Scarfers, priority, it's all there. He's really annoying, and might even be broken if this were DPPt Dragonite with Multiscale but we've gained way too much for him to run train free.
Actually this ladder is so informal that a suspect test would hardly be necessary. This is as theorymon as the ladder will get, there's no harm in banning or unbanning anything on a whim just to see what kind of impact it will make (correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's how some Other Metagames do it.) We'd probably learn a lot more that way than we would if we just let this metagame get stale, which by the looks of recent posts seems to be already happening.
Agreed. The only thing that is anywhere close to more trouble than it's worth is Dragonite and Focus Sash spam, and Spikes completely crushes the latter and a well-built team and smart play deals with the former.
Looking at the Ubers tier, I think there's one poke that could be dropped down, and that's Deoxys-D. Without Stealth Rock, one of his main selling points - guaranteed hazards - is much less valuable. What else can he provide? Dual Screens, maybe, but compared to say, Custap Skarm, I don't think Deoxys would provide enough offensive momentum to make him the broken threat he used to be. Just my 2¢, I think he'd be worth experimenting with but I could be wrong.
I'm finding Fake Out to be pretty useful to break all of these pesky sashes and scout for leftovers.
edit: Regenerator is nothing short of incredible with no SR on the field.
edit: Regenerator is nothing short of incredible with no SR on the field.
This would be better than Custap Skarm js but the gist if your point is valid.
Ok Seriously in my opinion this metagame stinks.
First of all, SR hasn't promoted the huge amount of diversity that I was told to be expect by the pro-ban side of the arguement. The banishment of SR has really only served to promote the powerful threats that were weak to SR in OU, which are some the best Pokemon in the game. I just e-z cruised my way to #11 on the ladder with a dragmag team consisting of politoed - dragonite - tornadus / kube - garchomp - magnezone - and latios. SR puts much more pressure on offensive threats than defensive threats when implemented because the best defensive typings resist or are neutral to rock anyway (steel, ground, water, poison; not ice and fire). It also serves to promote weather because weatherless' best mainstay in HO with hazard leads is gone now. You can chose to run a. sun / rain to preserve your own focus sash's, preserve multiscale, or use offensive fire-type for sun or flying hurricane spammers for rain OR b. Sand / hail to break opposing sashes / multiscale, prevent fire-types/hurricane spam from being out of control, and (in hail's case) use offensive ice-types.
Don't even get me started on Focus Sash. If you want to annoy an opponent to no end...
Archeops (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Defeatist
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd (0 HP IV, 0 DEF IV, 0 SDef IV)
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Endeavor
- U-turn
- Heat Wave
- Quick Attack
Very fast, immune to sandstorm, immune to spikes, and access to priority. Throw this thing out on a free switch to basically guarantee 2KO's in Sand. Force the switch, edeavor = thing one dies. Reveng killer comes in, endeavor that = dead.
Edit: grammar
First of all, SR hasn't promoted the huge amount of diversity that I was told to be expect by the pro-ban side of the arguement. The banishment of SR has really only served to promote the powerful threats that were weak to SR in OU, which are some the best Pokemon in the game. I just e-z cruised my way to #11 on the ladder with a dragmag team consisting of politoed - dragonite - tornadus / kube - garchomp - magnezone - and latios. SR puts much more pressure on offensive threats than defensive threats when implemented because the best defensive typings resist or are neutral to rock anyway (steel, ground, water, poison; not ice and fire). It also serves to promote weather because weatherless' best mainstay in HO with hazard leads is gone now. You can chose to run a. sun / rain to preserve your own focus sash's, preserve multiscale, or use offensive fire-type for sun or flying hurricane spammers for rain OR b. Sand / hail to break opposing sashes / multiscale, prevent fire-types/hurricane spam from being out of control, and (in hail's case) use offensive ice-types.
Don't even get me started on Focus Sash. If you want to annoy an opponent to no end...
Archeops (F) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Defeatist
EVs: 252 SAtk / 252 Spd (0 HP IV, 0 DEF IV, 0 SDef IV)
Naive Nature (+Spd, -SDef)
- Endeavor
- U-turn
- Heat Wave
- Quick Attack
Very fast, immune to sandstorm, immune to spikes, and access to priority. Throw this thing out on a free switch to basically guarantee 2KO's in Sand. Force the switch, edeavor = thing one dies. Reveng killer comes in, endeavor that = dead.
Edit: grammar
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