But without leftovers hazard damage will start stacking up on an already fairly squishy pokemon.
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Pokémon Donphan
- Thread starter Milkshook
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Its the second most common coverage move after EQ and killing that Air Ballon with Extreme Speed to nail it with EQ afterwards isnt exactly difficult.
If Excadrill is spinning on an Outrage it means that Dragonite is LOCKED quite obviously, so it can spin comfortably even if the Dragonite carries coverage against Excadrill.
Besides, i think that Blastoise is a better comparisation with Donphan because both are very bulky spinners(but Blastoise on both sides) without reliable recovery, the difference is that Blastoise hits very hard. Although Blastoise occupies your Mega slot and most threaths that want rapid spin are Megas, which is an issue. But eh, you can say that Salamence has that kind of advantage over Charizard, this still doesn't make Mence a very good Pokémon.
Only players that are braindead will use Outrage against Excadrill and Excadrill obviously cant switch into an Outrage because it will most likely get 2hkoed from it. The only way to get a szenario where Excadrill gets in against an Outrage locked Dragonite without dying would be when some defensive pivot took the first hit or something died.
I agree that its stupid to compare Donphan and Excadrill but the most common argument here against Donphan is that Excadrill outclasses it so it cant be helped.
I agree that its stupid to compare Donphan and Excadrill but the most common argument here against Donphan is that Excadrill outclasses it so it cant be helped.
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Well it does outspeed Dragonite and ignore Multiscale, but unless it gets a flinch or Dragonite has more prior damage than stealth rocks it won't kill it before dying.
Anyways Excadrill and Donphan outside of both having Rapid Spin, being able to set up rocks and being (part) ground type are very different Pokemon.
Excadrill has a much stronger offensive presence having a decent speed tier, higher attack and access to swords dance to boost this even further.
Donphan has much more physical bulk and access to (very weak) priority as well as better coverage options.
The main reason why I think Donphan got the usage it did in OU is that its one of the few actually bulky spinners in the tier other than Blastoise (takes up mega slot) and Forretress (is slow and has little to no offensive pressure as well as easily KO'd by any special fire move). If you don't want defog and want a bulky spinner, there's not a whole lot of choices in OU and Donphan just happened to be the least awful of them.
To be honest, Donphan is even difficult to use in UU. It has great bulk, but no reliable recovery hurts it to take full advantage of it and its great moveset. OU is already filled with powerful priority so there is that. Excadrill can at least put more offensive pressure thanks to its good speed, abilities and having even access to swords dance.
And with Defog now, a lot of already great pokemon have become able to get ride reliabily of hazards without wasting a moveslot for something like this thing or Forretress.
And with Defog now, a lot of already great pokemon have become able to get ride reliabily of hazards without wasting a moveslot for something like this thing or Forretress.
The drifblim thing is awesome, but I'd like to hear more about that mightyena a strategy XD
In all seriousness I agree that donphan should drop to UU, the tier could use a good heracross resist and a spinner besides the obvious blastoise...
as well as forretress (a much better megahorn resist), tentacruel (actually does stuff) and cloyster (who can threaten a sweep with shell smash).
yeah tbh donphan is just bad atm even in UU (it was kind of average the last time it was in uu since roserade pretty much just shits all over it)
Donphan has priority. That alone gives him something over all the other UU spinners, as well as the vast majority of UU.
Priority is really what makes the difference between UU and OU, and anything which gets it in UU has an advantage no matter what.
I have never ever seen Blastoise use Aqua Jet. As for Hitmontop... yeah, I forgot about that one. My bad.
I personally use AV Donphan with max Atk investement. It actually works pretty well. It's basically a more powerful but less defensive Hitmontop with more utility. (I really wish Hitmontop got Knock Off & Drain Punch...)
at the same time, excadrill gets swords dance, iron head, higher attack, speed, and a typing that effectively covers his lower bulk. and a much more useful ability than donphan.
yeah no i still dont see how would i use this over excadrill
yeah no i still dont see how would i use this over excadrill
Typing covering lower bulk is a bit of a moot point, it all depends on the attacks you want to take.
Each type added has its disadvantages, unless the advantages are without penalty (ie, a pure flying type compared with an Electric/Flying-type (Electric's only weakness canceled out for free), as well as Ghost compared with Ghost/Normal (The Ghost weakness cancelled out for free too). All other secondary typings carry at least one downside, even if some are smaller than others.)
Each type added has its disadvantages, unless the advantages are without penalty (ie, a pure flying type compared with an Electric/Flying-type (Electric's only weakness canceled out for free), as well as Ghost compared with Ghost/Normal (The Ghost weakness cancelled out for free too). All other secondary typings carry at least one downside, even if some are smaller than others.)
I would suggest that you find a method to tier other than usage then, as this move has made it clear that you're not tiering on pure usage, but rather viability. A tier named "overused" would ideally be exactly what it says on the tin: Pokemon that see the highest amount of usage, and nothing more. However, the extreme amount of bias thrown at this thing shows that there's more than that.
Here is an honest question. What happens if under the new "usage" metrics, Donphan STILL makes the OU cutoff? Will you further adjust the metrics, or just accept that people are finding ways to use it and let it be? Come to think of it, this whole bit reminds me of the Street Fighter community. I think in the early stages of SFIV, Seth was regarded as a pretty low tier character, and there weren't to many messing with him. Suddenly, someone in a tournament uses Seth and gets a perfect against one of the highest ranked Ryu players (Ryu being consistently high tier) and everyone's re-evaluating their stance on him.
EDIT: While we're talking about Excadrill, his typing is honestly worse to me than being pure ground IMO. Yeah, stab Iron Head is awesome as is resisting dragon, but steel's weaknesses suck, and there's no getting around that. The very existence of Mega Mawile is ensuring that everyone and their grandma's Delcatty is packing Earthsomething and Fire Blast. It feels like you have really add extensive coverage against his weaknesses and you're probably better off using a defogger or something.
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"What if" he sees a change in usage, and makes it back to OU amounts.
I don't think you're allowed to say a pokemon has to be top 50 used in any tier. If no one uses it, no one uses it. If it turns out to be too good for a tier it gets put into a BL but unless someone trys it out for themselves in UU and gets results to make everyone want to use it it'll just be BL2.
The tiering change wasn't because of Donphan. The tiers were just stupid and messed up, BL was inflated as hell with stuff UU just can't handle and changing the cutoff to 1760 reduced its size by half.
Everything that dropped, such as Forretress, Tentacruel, Salamence, and Klefki, have been known by many people to be ineffectual, outclassed or just not that great in OU. Everything that rose, such as Latias, Zapdos, and KyuB, are all great in OU. The tiering shift is good because it means weaker/outclassed Pokemon can be used in a tier where they could have more impact, and lower tiers don't have to deal with strong pokemon that make have a negative effect on the meta (like Chansey, fuck that thing.)
If Donphan does go back to OU by the 1760, there won't be any jury rigging to make it go back to UU. No one has some personal vendetta against Donphan that made them change the tiers specifically because of one pokemon. The tiers are just better now.
Then that means Donphan has, through some metagame shift or other outside cause, become better suited to the metagame and would then be OU worthy.
Either that or some top player pulls a Molk and plays a fuck ton of games with Donphan even though they know it's bad.
Donphan in ubers? I like the idea hahaha
Maybe they'll finally see how bad it really is
Tbh Blissey in OU is worse than Donphan in OU, since she has literally zero niche over Chansey(why would you keep both in the face of common Knock Off users such as Conkeldurr, Bisharp or Crawdaunt?), unlike Donphan which has a small and not very valuable, but still unique, niche. Yet Blissey is still OU in the 1760 stats and those weren't tailored in order to drop Blissey.
Knock Off is an extremely widespread move thanks to the Gen V tutors. There's really no telling who's packing it for that surprise factor. Using Chansey isn't a risk I'd be willing to take for that reason alone.
252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 252+ SpD Chansey: 100-118 (15.6 - 18.4%) -- possible 6HKO
252 SpA Thundurus Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey: 84-100 (12.9 - 15.3%) -- possibly the worst move ever
Not like special attacks are gonna break Chansey even once the item is gone. Even then, how often do you let your Chansey's item get knocked off? Once every 50 games? 100? That's pretty low risk/high reward considering how much bulkier Chansey is.
Have to agree with Talpr0ne on this one. Really surprised Blissey isn't down in BL right now.
I won't say that it's a fair trade when the special damage difference can be higher than the leftovers recovery(always is when use super effective special moves) and you are not able to take any physical blow.
252 Atk Mega Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey: 360-424 (50.4 - 59.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Mega Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 154-183 (21.5 - 25.6%) -- 0.7% chance to 4HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Mega Abomasnow Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 226-266 (31.6 - 37.2%) -- 85.6% chance to 3HKO after hail damage and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Mega Abomasnow Blizzard vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 127-151 (18 - 21.4%) -- 11.7% chance to 4HKO after hail damage
252 Atk Mega Abomasnow Wood Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 262-310 (37.2 - 44%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after hail damage
252+ SpA Mega Abomasnow Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 186-220 (26.4 - 31.2%) -- 34.4% chance to 3HKO after hail damage
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