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OU ADV OU Viability Ranking and Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter McMeghan
- Start date
Only some of it.
Idk why you're making such a big deal about this. It's banned in all official Smogon ADV tournaments, and this is... erm, Smogon. I'm pretty sure it's also banned on PO ladder (under a wholesale Ingrain ban because the whole complex ban is difficult to implement and nobody uses Ingrain outside of Smeargle anyway), so even outside Smogon, where are people still really playing with Ingrain Smeargle?
Also, D-rank kinda opens the door for everybody to try to squeeze their favorite gimmick onto the list. I was kind of afraid to use it on the GSC tier list because I know just how large it can be, yet it's generally super-tiny on other ranking lists if it even exists at all. I'm actually considering throwing it away, or at the very least severely downsizing it.
Also, D-rank kinda opens the door for everybody to try to squeeze their favorite gimmick onto the list. I was kind of afraid to use it on the GSC tier list because I know just how large it can be, yet it's generally super-tiny on other ranking lists if it even exists at all. I'm actually considering throwing it away, or at the very least severely downsizing it.
This is correct, it was done in early 2012 or 2013 I think, but I know that it has been done.
Only minor nitpicks-
-Zapdos should be much nearer top of A, its too versatile and effective. Its simultaneously one of the best offensive and defensive threats. Too many good options to be that low. Its typing pairs well with a lot of OU mons (mostly Steels, also Pert).
-Celebi and Cune should swap imo, but I think the difference between Cune/Gar/Cele is really trivial.
Other than that I think its pretty much spot on. I was debating whether I should make a point for Doom but he's not exactly a common threat so he's not a B mon. Still I think his niche over TTar is an underrated one.
-Zapdos should be much nearer top of A, its too versatile and effective. Its simultaneously one of the best offensive and defensive threats. Too many good options to be that low. Its typing pairs well with a lot of OU mons (mostly Steels, also Pert).
-Celebi and Cune should swap imo, but I think the difference between Cune/Gar/Cele is really trivial.
Other than that I think its pretty much spot on. I was debating whether I should make a point for Doom but he's not exactly a common threat so he's not a B mon. Still I think his niche over TTar is an underrated one.
If Meta could hit Cune for 4x damage, it'd most defenitely take that opportunity, but you can't.
Agreeing with everything M Dragon says here. I too thought Snorlax was a bit high up, but I feel like I'm not known enough to have my lone opinion considered.
Agreeing with everything M Dragon says here. I too thought Snorlax was a bit high up, but I feel like I'm not known enough to have my lone opinion considered.
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Cloyster does not belong on this list. He is UU, BL at best. I think his inclusion is a classic case of revisionist history, a case of residual impact of the XY generation. I personally Cloyster has perpetually been overrated every single generation.
- Dugtrio needs to be dropped to B.
- Camerupt is another UU.
- Ludicolo is solidly C, top boltbeam/sub seed special wall.
- Kingdra is borderline C.
- Miltank is solidly C, decent cleric
- Jumpluff is C. Prankster of RSE.
- Crobat is C. CB Crobat is a very solid revenge killer.
I dont think their actual tier would matter but whether they have an impact in the metagame or not. (ex: shedinja being usable in ubers)
I could seee ludi and jumpluff being added to the list however they would face competition with sceptile since they all do the same thing more or less. Miltank wouldnt really find a good spot in ou since it doesnt have the power to punch through walls and theres no point in using it as a cleric when there's blissey besides for its speed. Its a similar thing with crobat. Sure you could use crobat, but overall areodactyl gets the job done better and it doesnt get walled by metagross. Kingdra can make for a nice rain sweeper IF it manages to keep rain up although its walls are pretty common so kingdra sounds good for a lowish C. Its a solid argument to say that its fine to have more pokemon on the list since they would be in a lower rank, but unless they have different roles that they dont get totally outclassed in, it would look a bit repetitive imo.
I could seee ludi and jumpluff being added to the list however they would face competition with sceptile since they all do the same thing more or less. Miltank wouldnt really find a good spot in ou since it doesnt have the power to punch through walls and theres no point in using it as a cleric when there's blissey besides for its speed. Its a similar thing with crobat. Sure you could use crobat, but overall areodactyl gets the job done better and it doesnt get walled by metagross. Kingdra can make for a nice rain sweeper IF it manages to keep rain up although its walls are pretty common so kingdra sounds good for a lowish C. Its a solid argument to say that its fine to have more pokemon on the list since they would be in a lower rank, but unless they have different roles that they dont get totally outclassed in, it would look a bit repetitive imo.
Cloy's inclusion on the list has nothing to do with XY or any other meta and I have no idea why you would even think that because its not like any other mon is treated like that, nor will they ever be. Thats nonsense. Its an OU mon because it switches in on things like Pert/Forry/Skarm/Dol and can threaten them out with its decent power STABs (and threatening out opposing spinners/spikers gives you a huge advantage) and it can blow up pretty safely on anything since Gengar doesn't really wanna switch in on STAB moves. Also switches out of Magneton. The only reason its not as viable right now is because Toxic on Skarm, Pert and Flygon became much more popular (and against Subcune its almost insta-lose).
Camerupt is a UU, yes. This thread isn't OU/BL exclusive. Cacturnes on there too, and thats NU. Its still somewhat viable. Camerupt deals with Electrics since its always neutral to their Hidden Power and thats literally the only defensive blessing of its typing and the only way you'll get it in. Steelix does the same but it can be trapped by Mag whereas a Camerupt would have a field day against a HP Fire Mag. Its also hard AF to deal with because its got STAB on two beautiful offensive types and a strong ass Explosion.
Ludi and Jump just don't do much special to not be gimmicks. Especially defensive Ludi. What exactly is it doing better than other sp. walls?
Kingdra doesn't get anything good. Its only set-up is Rain Dance. Woo. Cross that with mediocre stats and no real longevity and you have solid gimmick mon. It just can't do anything to Bliss/Lax/Waters. Cune pretty much comes in and sets up on it for free, thanking it on the way out for the rain.
Miltank just isn't worth using between Bliss/Lax really. Or even P2. Guaranteed free switch-ins for Skarm/Forry because it can't scare them at all with anything. At least lax has FB/Boom. And its not like clerics are in high demand these days.
Crobat is a terribad Aero. Straight up loses to any Steel, and it still can't deal with Pert. Sure you can pair it with Mag but youd've just been doing yourself a favour by saving yourself a teamslot and using Aero. Only good thing about it is it's fairly competent at dealing with Heracross (until they catch on and Rock Slide you). Honestly Nidoking is more viable as a Poison type Bander, its STABs have much better coverage and it has plenty of options for its last slot between Megahorn, Focus Punch, Ice Beam and Fire Blast.
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Where's Alakazam? IMO it should be in either A or B rank... It can mess up just about anything with right move (Except maybe Snorlax) such as the obvious special offense, Encore, Knock Off and Trick but naturally has those horrid defenses and 4MSS to keep it in check.
Zam is like Jynx in that its one of the scariest mons your opponent could bring but it doesn't sweep reliably enough to make up for the fact that it contributes next to nothing to the integrity of the team (cause they can switch in on pretty much nothing), and often their inclusion forces the team to be built weaker because of it.
Other highly reward mons like Hera and Raikou work well because they don't overly compromise the composition of your team defensively, e.g Hera can switch into EQs and status fine and Kou can come in on a weak tbolt or Skarm or Zapdos. With Zam/Jynx you're basically playing with 5 mons until you decide to bring out the whoopass, and those 5 mons are generally going to be more geared around getting Jynx/Zam to work than getting the team to work. In theory they should be great but the meta isn't kind to them and you just have to put in too much work to make them viable.
Other highly reward mons like Hera and Raikou work well because they don't overly compromise the composition of your team defensively, e.g Hera can switch into EQs and status fine and Kou can come in on a weak tbolt or Skarm or Zapdos. With Zam/Jynx you're basically playing with 5 mons until you decide to bring out the whoopass, and those 5 mons are generally going to be more geared around getting Jynx/Zam to work than getting the team to work. In theory they should be great but the meta isn't kind to them and you just have to put in too much work to make them viable.
I disagree with Cloyster's usability in any generation, but concensus rules.
11 years of time doesn't change a pokemon's usability. We have gone through RSE, DP, BW, BW2, and are now at XY. Camerupt was never viable in the RSE OU metagame, and still remains non usable despite the passage of time. Camperupt with his 40 Speed, 70 SpD, 70 HP does not do wall any coverage special attack carried by Bolt/HP Ice-Grass attackers.
Lucicolo outplayers most other top tier special walls, including Regice, Porygon2, Blissey. Most importantly Ludicolo walls all but the gimmicky HP Bug Swampert, who is a predominant pokemon of RSE generation. Most special walls stall each other; Lucicolo forces them out with either sub or toxic seed.
RSE was the golden generation for Jumpluff, who serves as the fasting Earthquake immune Encore user. He was sub seed sleep for utility. Sceptile is marginally faster as a sub seeder, but does not have Encore nor Sleep Powder. One thing to understand that RSE was still part of the stall generation. The best stall breaker, mixed OU threat back then, was either Boah or McGar. Jumpluff certainly fills a much bigger niche than Camperupt, who is on the list.
That is easy to say, except you forget to mention half the metagame that Crocune that walls cold.
I'm really done with the argument that because this pokemon is walled by S/A tier XYZ, it is not usable. Blissey doesn't curse. Lax doesn't milk drink. Miltank can Psych Up Cune/Swampert/Snorlax.
True, Crobat is just about inferior to Aero in 90% of the cases. I was just adding pokemons that belonged on the C tier list, which now includes likes of Camerupt, Rydon, Articuno and Cacturne.
Not very experienced so take what I say with a grain of salt... anyway I see where you're coming from, but unlike Medicham, Alakazam is far from being one-dimensional and has plenty of unorthodox sets to mess up his would-be counters (Trick, Encore, Knock Off and maybe even that iffy Choice Band Focus Punch).
Edit: Then again, Jynx can also Perish-Trap and has Lovely Kiss... when I think about it, they are not very consistent and require quite a bit of team support so yeah, C rank for Alakazam.
Uh Life, saying that ludi walls swampert isnt the best agrument since any grass type will scare it off usually. Also, while what you said is true, I think celebi would do a better job at that role with its better bulk and natural cure while sceptile is still faster if you need speed.
I think Jumpluff differentiates it's self enough from other leech seeders for the reasons you mentioned. So maybe it could be added on but if its placed above Camerupt, I think it shouldnt be too far from it since Jumpluff really needs good prediction to use right because of its low bulk and bad typing while camerupt is a bit more forgiving to switch into grass or electric types on many of their sets.
Miltank is a jack of all trades in that regard but a master at none. Its not a bad pokemon by any means. Its just that there are better pokemon to use for whatever role you want to give it. But at least that gives it some unpredictability.
And those other c rank pokemon do have their own niches that dont make them totally outclassed like crobat is with areo.
I think Jumpluff differentiates it's self enough from other leech seeders for the reasons you mentioned. So maybe it could be added on but if its placed above Camerupt, I think it shouldnt be too far from it since Jumpluff really needs good prediction to use right because of its low bulk and bad typing while camerupt is a bit more forgiving to switch into grass or electric types on many of their sets.
Miltank is a jack of all trades in that regard but a master at none. Its not a bad pokemon by any means. Its just that there are better pokemon to use for whatever role you want to give it. But at least that gives it some unpredictability.
And those other c rank pokemon do have their own niches that dont make them totally outclassed like crobat is with areo.
Well, the point of this thread is to try to rank Pokemon into "power"-based tiers, i.e. ones that don't solely depend on usage unlike the official OU/UU/whatever tiers (at least in theory anyway, non-current gens don't quite have the raw player base for their site-posted tier lists to strictly represent usage). That's not to say that usage doesn't factor into decisions for this thread (only a fool believes power and usage to be orthogonal), but it's not the only thing that matters, and that can lead to discrepancies.
Having a Pokemon seeded in a lower tier doesn't mean it's unplayable in a tier higher than it. The fact that your reasoning for not using cloyster was based solely on tiering is ridiculous. Obviously a Pokemon is seeded lower for a reason but you should've used those reasons instead of just stating cloyster is in a lower tier and thus should not be used in OU.
Are there any S, A, or B rank pokemon that are unranked right now?