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I know, I know, it doesn't learn uturn, which is incredibly stupid both logically and functionally, so it can't really be a true pivot. But it still forces switches like a mother, then does heavy damage with low sweep and outspeeds and kos the next turn. Low sweep also eases prediction on ghosts, and, as they know their dude is about to die, it often forces double switches for even more damage.
TheEpicBro: Medicham's typing and speed make it a lackluster sweeper, and there's nothing that monstrous attack stat can do anything about it. There's a reason why you don't see manaphy on every team sweeping even with a move as ridiculous as tailglow. Base 100 is not that good. Being taken down by the most common priority users, and easily revenged by any team that isn't full stall makes it a bad sweeper. You don't need a dedicated cham check, you just need something that is faster that hits hard. Not hard to find. Also, everything you mentioned to help set up megacham helps mawile too, not too sure why those things wouldn't help mawile set up.
All that being said, I like MegaCham. I think he can be extremely potent at one of the pokemon archetypes I like the most, which is as a wallbreaker.
TheEpicBro: Medicham's typing and speed make it a lackluster sweeper, and there's nothing that monstrous attack stat can do anything about it. There's a reason why you don't see manaphy on every team sweeping even with a move as ridiculous as tailglow. Base 100 is not that good. Being taken down by the most common priority users, and easily revenged by any team that isn't full stall makes it a bad sweeper. You don't need a dedicated cham check, you just need something that is faster that hits hard. Not hard to find. Also, everything you mentioned to help set up megacham helps mawile too, not too sure why those things wouldn't help mawile set up.
All that being said, I like MegaCham. I think he can be extremely potent at one of the pokemon archetypes I like the most, which is as a wallbreaker.
Your points are rather solid, but something I'd like to point out are: MMawile can't actually utilize things like Paralysis on every threat, as one of the things most MMawile run is 252 HP. Without that, it isn't as durable as before, but for the most part, you are correct.
It's weird though, I mean, I've used this thing as a late game sweeper and it worked amazingly. Or maybe not. My strategy is normally to analyze what pokemon Mega Medicham don't outspeed, and either KO/ cripple them with thunder wave (easier said than done, of course), and let Medicham sweep the rest of their pokemon, often OHKOing them, even if its their first turn on the field. If late game is supposed to mean after all of the opponents pokemon are weakened, then its no contest, there are better sweepers. But by slowing them down, it opens up a pathway for a sweep that doesn't rely on wearing the entire team down (provided priority and such are dealt with, once more, easier said than done).
Overall, i dunno, the way I like to use him, kind of like a split between the two, something that has the utility of being able to wall break and sweep.
Its probably an inferior/wrong way to use him, I'm probably incredibly stupid for thinking this, but....meh, he's worked out the best for me like that.
Yeah, I've never felt like I needed to support Mega-Mawile with thunder wave, but that's because I play her very much as a wallbreaker. Actually, Mawile needs exceedingly little support to be a monster, which is something I appreciate in a poke. That doesn't mean anyone should instantly shy away from any pokemon that does need a little more love, as that search for support can end up creating a lot of powerful synergy and understanding.
I got to thinking about Mega Medicham's characteristics and what that meant to me in terms of what it means to be an effective wallbreaker or sweeper.
-100 Base Speed: This is a tough speed tier. It allows Cham to outspeed any defensive pokemon I can think of outside of AV Tornadus, which is not common, and threaten the rash of slower offensive threats that are seeing use. Cham's speed match up against bulky attackers is often a moot point though with the prevalence of priority. 100 bs has a nice benefit against dedicated walls who often benefit from outspeeding physical wallbreakers. This speed definitely isn't good for sweeping offensive and balanced teams, but I could see proper speed support and lure/trap use as ways to mitigate that. Cham also gets Bullet Punch, but I've never used it so I can't say as to it's effectiveness at dealing with faster foes.
-Psychic/Fighting Typing: I can only see psychic as a detriment to Cham unless it's used for stab coverage. Being able to prey on mega-venasaur and other poison types is not something many other fighting types can claim. Mega-Venusaur is definitely picking up steam as a popular bulky pivot with the abilities to be run extremely defensively. Honestly I feel like hitting him is reason enough to run psychic stab, but maybe I'm a little mega-saur paranoid. Excellent Coverage and power definitely makes up for any qualms that the typing may leave offensively.
Defensively however, psychic/fighting sucks. Real bad. Especially with the rebirth of ghost, and the introduction of gale wings . A dedicated sweeper doesn't mind this too much (well maybe the gale wings, but that threatens so much to begin with). A wall breaker does mind this however. Especially, with 60/85/85 defenses. It doesn't have any good resistances, besides fighting and rock, and I don't know about you but I never feel too keen on switching in cham on any of the popular fighting types. Or anything that's throwing a stone edge at me for that matter. This really limits its potential to switch in multiple times throughout a battle and do its thing. The one boon is it's resistance to SR, so there's that.
EpicBro, I would never tell you you're lying about your experiences with Medicham as a sweeper so there must be merit to its abilities to clear through multiple pokemon. Even if it doesn't finish off the opponent entirely, if a pokemon can run through 2-3 pokemon consistently before being taken out, I feel like I can call it a sweeper. I'm definitely interested in your use of it as both a hole puncher, and late game cleaner. I feel like Cham has some clear strengths as both a wall breaker and sweeper, but other key weaknesses that keep it from being as effective as other pokemon of those roles. I could see Medicham finding a place amongst a lot of slow volt-turners to give it the free switches it and it's trapper buddy (Tyranitar maybe?) need to work a team over.
I know, I know, it doesn't learn uturn, which is incredibly stupid both logically and functionally, so it can't really be a true pivot. But it still forces switches like a mother, then does heavy damage with low sweep and outspeeds and kos the next turn. Low sweep also eases prediction on ghosts, and, as they know their dude is about to die, it often forces double switches for even more damage.
-100 Base Speed: This is a tough speed tier. It allows Cham to outspeed any defensive pokemon I can think of outside of AV Tornadus, which is not common, and threaten the rash of slower offensive threats that are seeing use. Cham's speed match up against bulky attackers is often a moot point though with the prevalence of priority. 100 bs has a nice benefit against dedicated walls who often benefit from outspeeding physical wallbreakers. This speed definitely isn't good for sweeping offensive and balanced teams, but I could see proper speed support and lure/trap use as ways to mitigate that. Cham also gets Bullet Punch, but I've never used it so I can't say as to it's effectiveness at dealing with faster foes.
Yeah, the 100 base speed line is rather crowded, and it isn't what it used to be anymore. It got a massive boost from its normal form, that's for sure, 80-100 is quite good. It isn't fast enough to catch some of the more popular sweepers, but it can still outspeed most walls and such.
An interesting thing I'd like to say, is despite the massive amount of priority, Mega Medicham is only really scared of one type (the bloody bird Talonflame) of priority, and as you said below, Tyranitar covers for that quite nicely. Also, one another observation I'd like to make is that anything that Mega Medicham can't OHKO (not many things can boast that if not running 252/252 HP/DEF+), cant really hit it back very hard, because most defensive pokemon dont have an extremely high attack stat or whatnot to do significant damage, not even for a revenge kill with priority from some of the more common ones e.g BD Azumarill, SD Crawdaunt come to mind. About Bullet Punch, it's an extremely useful move to have, but you will be kicking yourself when MVenausaur walls you.
-Psychic/Fighting Typing: I can only see psychic as a detriment to Cham unless it's used for stab coverage. Being able to prey on mega-venasaur and other poison types is not something many other fighting types can claim. Mega-Venusaur is definitely picking up steam as a popular bulky pivot with the abilities to be run extremely defensively. Honestly I feel like hitting him is reason enough to run psychic stab, but maybe I'm a little mega-saur paranoid. Excellent Coverage and power definitely makes up for any qualms that the typing may leave offensively.
Defensively however, psychic/fighting sucks. Real bad. Especially with the rebirth of ghost, and the introduction of gale wings . A dedicated sweeper doesn't mind this too much (well maybe the gale wings, but that threatens so much to begin with). A wall breaker does mind this however. Especially, with 60/85/85 defenses. It doesn't have any good resistances, besides fighting and rock, and I don't know about you but I never feel too keen on switching in cham on any of the popular fighting types. Or anything that's throwing a stone edge at me for that matter. This really limits its potential to switch in multiple times throughout a battle and do its thing. The one boon is it's resistance to SR, so there's that.
Nothing really to say, it's typing is quite bad, but at least it suits it... right?
That's pretty much it, its strengths and weaknesses. Also, I know how great MMawile is, it's a monster when used midgame or when it gets the opportunity to SD, its one of those Megas that require virtually no support to function very well. Oops, wrong thread :P
I know, I know, it doesn't learn uturn, which is incredibly stupid both logically and functionally, so it can't really be a true pivot. But it still forces switches like a mother, then does heavy damage with low sweep and outspeeds and kos the next turn. Low sweep also eases prediction on ghosts, and, as they know their dude is about to die, it often forces double switches for even more damage.
I don't think it's worth the loss in coverage. It's much better to predict a switch and OHKO it with a coverage move on the switch-in than just lower its speed.
Outspeeds and OHKOs:
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 1284-1512 (179.8 - 211.7%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Cloyster: 422-498 (174.3 - 205.7%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 1070-1260 (295.5 - 348%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 422-498 (119.8 - 141.4%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Goodra: 475-559 (123.6 - 145.5%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 674-794 (174.6 - 205.6%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mamoswine: 852-1004 (200.9 - 236.7%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Mawile: 292-345 (96 - 113.4%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 334-394 (109.8 - 129.6%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 354-417 (102.9 - 121.2%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Smeargle: 1574-1854 (501.2 - 590.4%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 1308-1540 (323.7 - 381.1%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Breloom: 458-542 (141.3 - 167.2%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 398-470 (96.1 - 113.5%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 240+ Def Tentacruel: 362-428 (99.4 - 117.5%
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Multiscale Dragonite: 284-336 (87.6 - 103.7%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 340-400 (96 - 112.9%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Trevenant: 342-404 (91.4 - 108%)
-1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Gyarados: 444-524 (133.7 - 157.8%)
OHKOed (speed tie or common scarf users):
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard X: 324-382 (108.7 - 128.1%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Genesect: 411-484 (145.2 - 171%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Jirachi: 354-417 (103.8 - 122.2%)
-1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 400-472 (125 - 147.5%)
-1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Salamence: 488-576 (147.4 - 174%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 336-396 (112.7 - 132.8%)
OHKOed, but outsped (bold indicates possible OHKO):
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Alakazam: 331-390 (131.3 - 154.7%) -- OHKOs with Life Orb Shadow Ball 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Espeon: 267-315 (98.1 - 115.8%) -- OHKOs with Life Orb Shadow Ball 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Greninja: 984-1158 (344 - 404.8%) -- possible OHKO with Life Orb Hydro Pump
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Lucario: 950-1118 (338 - 397.8%) -- Adaptability Flash Cannon does a maximum of 95.7%. Medicham also outspeeds if Lucario hasn't mega evolved.
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 774-912 (239.6 - 282.3%) -- Banded Earthquake does a maximum of 84.2%
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Gengar: 576-680 (219.8 - 259.5%) -- OHKOs with Shadow Ball 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Infernape: 506-596 (172.6 - 203.4%) -- OHKOs with Life Orb Flare Blitz
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Galvantula: 288-340 (102.4 - 120.9%) -- Life Orb Thunder does a maximum of 99.2%
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Garchomp: 568-672 (158.6 - 187.7%) --OHKOs with Life Orb outrage or Earthquake 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus: 596-704 (186.2 - 220%) -- OHKOs with Life Orb Earth Power 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios: 328-388 (108.6 - 128.4%) -- OHKOs with Draco Meteor
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Thundurus: 366-432 (122 - 144%) -- Life Orb Thunderbolt does a maximum of 96.9%
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Starmie: 312-368 (119.5 - 140.9%) -- possible OHKO with Life Orb Hydro Pump 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 362-426 (100.5 - 118.3%) -- BRAVE BERD
2HKOed:
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Donphan: 303-357 (78.9 - 92.9%) (OHKOs with Life Orb EQ)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 201-237 (56.7 - 66.9%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Klefki: 271-319 (85.2 - 100.3%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mandibuzz: 246-291 (58 - 68.6%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 204-240 (61 - 71.8%) (OHKOs with Brave Bird)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Scizor: 264-312 (76.7 - 90.6%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 271-319 (68.7 - 80.9%) (OHKOs with Pixilate Hyper Voice)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 320-378 (87.9 - 103.8%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Volcarona: 271-319 (86.8 - 102.2%) (speed tie, Volcarona can OHKO with Life Orb Bug Buzz)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Pinsir: 234-276 (86 - 101.4%) (M-Pinsir is faster, OHKOs)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Togekiss: 284-336 (75.9 - 89.8%) (OHKOs with Air Slash)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 328-388 (81.1 - 96%) (OHKOs with Play Rough)
3HKOed or more:
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 96-114 (29.6 - 35.1%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 168-198 (42.6 - 50.2%)
252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Sableye: 130-153 (42.7 - 50.3%)
So, in the new-official-subject-to-change-OU list, there are about three counters (but plenty of checks.) Defense-invested Pinsir can come in if rocks aren't up. Lower tiers have some counters too, like Cofagrigus.
And this is all only one movest: HJK, Psycho Cut, Thunder Punch, and Ice Punch. It can also drop Thunder Punch (which gives the least amount of coverage) and run Fire Punch to 2HKO Aegislash. It could even run Poison Jab for Clefable, but that's definitely not worth it. And for Sableye, it has, uh, Foresight.
Thunder Punch is easily its least useful coverage move, only truly useful for Gyarados and Yzard. At least on this list, I guess. It's still necessary to not get walled by Slowbro/king, which is commonly seen on stall teams. But it can be replaced with Bullet Punch for Priority, Substitute to prevent revenge kills, Fake Out to not get screwed over by base 80 speed on the turn you mega evolve, or Drain Punch for some survivability.
Further looking into its movepool, there's the aforementioned Low Sweep, which can lower the speed of any switch in (of which Medicham causes many.) It also gets Rock Tomb. Low Sweep gets stab and will do more damage, but Rock Tomb will hit ghosts and OHKO Mega Pinsir. If your opponent has, say, scarfed Lando-T, Gengar and scarfed Genesect and you can't predict the switch, you can just use Rock Tomb to lower the speed of whatever they switch to and then OHKO with a coverage move. I do advocate just predicting the switch instead of not running Thunder Punch, however it can be hard sometime and Rock Tomb/Low Sweep can ease some of the burden in predicting.
There's also Acupressure if you have a deal with RNJesus. +2 Speed Medicham is just GG.
And this is all only one movest: HJK, Psycho Cut, Thunder Punch, and Ice Punch. It can also drop Thunder Punch (which gives the least amount of coverage) and run Fire Punch to 2HKO Aegislash. It could even run Poison Jab for Clefable, but that's definitely not worth it. And for Sableye, it has, uh, Foresight.
You can always run a GUTS or Flash Fire pokemon for Sableye. Sableye can't kill Chandelure, and nothing likes switching into a Specs Flash Fire Fire Blast.
-------------
The amazing thing about the 2HKO list, is how close to OHKOing Mega Medicham really is. With a single Bulk Up, Mega Medicham can OHKO almost everyone on the 2HKO list except Forretress. He'd even OHKO Skarmory if it weren't for sturdy.
+1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 232+ Def Skarmory: 306-360 (91.6 - 107.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mandibuzz: 369-435 (87 - 102.5%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
+1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham Psycho Cut vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Sylveon: 406-478 (103 - 121.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
If you lay down some stealth rocks, then even Forretress is OHKOed.
+1 252 Atk Pure Power Mega Medicham High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 301-355 (85 - 100.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
MegaMedicham is a broken Pokemon vs defensive or slow teams. It can beat everything but it's so slow and it need the support of a lots of hazardz, especially Sticky Webs.
It has a great base speed of 100 (Like Salamance, Mew, Manaphy, Charizard-X and Y, Megardevoir) and one of the higher atk in all the mg... and it's cute :33
So when I use this I am running sub, drain punch, pys cut, and bullet punch (not sure if bullet punch makes sense but i wanted priority). Anyway I am really liking sub and drain punch, and very few things in the game dont mind switching in on this guy when he is in a sub.
Having use regular medicham in 5th gen and knowing its power i would say MegaCham is pretty great. I do think he would apprecite rocks/web to outspeed some things but imo the best sets are wallbreakers or sub+3attacks
I don't think it's worth the loss in coverage. It's much better to predict a switch and OHKO it with a coverage move on the switch-in than just lower its speed.
Rock tomb is a very valid move for several reasons. If you're being forced to predict, you've lost control of the match. MegaCham can't switch in numerous times thanks to those lovely 60/85/85 defenses, and at many points a mispredict can cost megacham its life. If you're trying to seriously ladder, you want to minimize risk; you don't want to lose a match on a crappy misprediction. Eliminating prediction helps guarantee victory. Rock tomb essentially provides a +1 speed boost to a 100 base speed mon along with checking threats like the aforementioned mega-pinsir and, if used in OU, hitting the Talonflame dumb enough to try to switch in before it can absue gale wings. By eliminating this prediction, you're not only gaining an advantage over potential switch ins, you're making the most of MegaCham's time, since you most probably won't be able to predict switches 100% accurately. The other major niche rock tomb gives is a nice neutral hit on ghost types and a super effective hit on flying types (the two most common switch ins) that can put them into a range where they are possible to KO with other coverage moves. While the damage output from rock tomb isn't great, the damage from rock tomb + a coverage move is almost always superior to the damage from just a coverage move (in the rare case where they have leftovers, black sludge, etc. and rock tomb does less than 1/16th... fortunately, most of the bulkiest rock resists are fighting weak).
I ran HJK/ice punch/sub/drain punch pretty effectively. Sub eases prediction, and drain punch is a reliable alternative to HJK that has the added benefit of healing off your sub damage. I feel like that drain punch is necessary. HJK missing vs. Tyranitar or something you should easily beat can cost you the game.
Detect isn't worth running on anything. Detect is 100% outclassed by Protect; both moves do the same thing, but Protect has more PP, and everything that learns Detect also learns Protect.
Detect is functionally identical to Protect but has less PP.
Also you're better off running Fake Out (for the turn you mega evolve, since you still has 80 speed that turn, as well as all subsequent turns you switch it in) or Substitute.
Rock tomb is a very valid move for several reasons. If you're being forced to predict, you've lost control of the match. MegaCham can't switch in numerous times thanks to those lovely 60/85/85 defenses, and at many points a mispredict can cost megacham its life. If you're trying to seriously ladder, you want to minimize risk; you don't want to lose a match on a crappy misprediction. Eliminating prediction helps guarantee victory. Rock tomb essentially provides a +1 speed boost to a 100 base speed mon along with checking threats like the aforementioned mega-pinsir and, if used in OU, hitting the Talonflame dumb enough to try to switch in before it can absue gale wings. By eliminating this prediction, you're not only gaining an advantage over potential switch ins, you're making the most of MegaCham's time, since you most probably won't be able to predict switches 100% accurately. The other major niche rock tomb gives is a nice neutral hit on ghost types and a super effective hit on flying types (the two most common switch ins) that can put them into a range where they are possible to KO with other coverage moves. While the damage output from rock tomb isn't great, the damage from rock tomb + a coverage move is almost always superior to the damage from just a coverage move (in the rare case where they have leftovers, black sludge, etc. and rock tomb does less than 1/16th... fortunately, most of the bulkiest rock resists are fighting weak).
I guess you're right. Loss of Thunder Punch will mean you'd need an answer for Slowbro, though, should you ever get a full stall team that uses him.
Now that Mega Medicham is officially UU (which is insane and it'll get banned,) you can drop Ice Punch if you use it there. Ice Punch gives just about zero coverage... except against Latias who is ALSO UU.
If you think of using medicham in vgc as I may protect would be mandatory. I personally use it for my rotom to thunder wave it the enemy then out speed it next turn.
If you think of using medicham in vgc as I may protect would be mandatory. I personally use it for my rotom to thunder wave it the enemy then out speed it next turn.
Okay so I will admit this May have already been mentioned but I do not believe it was. Mega medicham in a volt turn team with fake out can really change the tides of a battle. Fake out is +3 priority on the first turn out and will go before virtually every single pokemon. If they don't switch then they will flinch and you can switch out to someone like rotom-w who could take a hit from talonflame or another pokemon that had regenerator ability and u-turn or volt switch. In this case medicham is not only a viable option but can force switches because of the guaranteed flinch from fake out.
It hits crazy hard but it has a lot of shortcomings, like its poor typing, poor bulk and only decent speed.
And while it's extremely hard to switch into, it's not hard to check.
I can't wait for Mega Lucario to be banned. It will open up so many choices for the Mega slot. Because as is, why would you use this guy over Luke? You wouldn't ever, that's why.
Medicham is great. He's just hopelessly overshadowed by the more overpowered and unbalanced megas.
I can't wait for Mega Lucario to be banned. It will open up so many choices for the Mega slot. Because as is, why would you use this guy over Luke? You wouldn't ever, that's why.
Medicham is great. He's just hopelessly overshadowed by the more overpowered and unbalanced megas.
Who says that Mega Luke will be banned or put on suspect?
Also, I feel like Medicham will have a better time in the lower tiers anyway. Its able to take out so much without the threat of Talonflame looming over it in OU.
