Umbreon doesn't really care about the Ground weakness, as the only special attacker that uses Ground moves and can get past Umbreon is Landorus, which could already 2HKO Umbreon with Focus Blast. As for physical Ground-types, such as Garchomp, Excadrill, Landorus-T, Mamoswine, and Diggersby, Umbreon didn't want to switch into those Pokemon before anyway. So basically, with the added Poison typing Umbreon loses all three of its weaknesses and gets a Poison resistance and Toxic immunity for free, which is pretty fucking awesome. Here are some Pokemon that Dark / Poison Umbreon can wall and couldn't before:Axa said:Umbreon is the least interesting personally. It loses its Fighting, Bug and Fairy weaknesses but gains a weakness to Ground. Its movesets likely won't change that much and I'm not sure how much niche it'll have even with the new typing.
This has to be the worst slate flavor-wise. Only Shift Gear Mega Aggron really makes much sense. On to the competitive viability of each of these:
Dark / Poison Umbreon: alexwolf already described why this is really good. Poison is a great defensive typing which is why it was a good addition for Eelektross and Tangrowth and will be a good addition for Umbreon. Shedding its current weaknesses and adding Grass and Poison resists and a Toxic immunity all for a relatively minor weakness to Ground is a great upgrade to it. This will probably get my vote.
Shift Gear Mega Aggron: This sounds good in theory, but I don't think it will be that great. It has serious 4MSS since a lot of Pokemon resist its Steel type STAB. It also faces competition from Mega Scizor which can boost its attack faster, has better defensive typing and special bulk, has reliable recovery and Knock Off for coverage, and has priority which is even better than +2 speed.
Drizzle Noivern: Look what happened the last time we had a super fast Pokemon with reliable Hurricane spam; let's not try this again. Noivern doesn't even need Politoed which makes it even worse.
Tough Claws Honchkrow: Mega Charizard X has 130 base attack. Honchkrow has 125 base attack. Honchkrow gets to use a Life Orb or a Choice Band and doesn't take up your mega slot. In my opinion, this is the definition of a mindless offensive buff. I think OU is better off without Honchkrow smashing everything in sight with Brave Bird and Night Slash while having super powerful priority for faster threats.
Dark / Poison Umbreon makes a lot of sense if you read its Dex entries.
Tough Claws Honchkrow: Mega Charizard X has 130 base attack. Honchkrow has 125 base attack. Honchkrow gets to use a Life Orb or a Choice Band and doesn't take up your mega slot. In my opinion, this is the definition of a mindless offensive buff. I think OU is better off without Honchkrow smashing everything in sight with Brave Bird and Night Slash while having super powerful priority for faster threats.
Drizzle Noivern: Look what happened the last time we had a super fast Pokemon with reliable Hurricane spam; let's not try this again. Noivern doesn't even need Politoed which makes it even worse.
The thing about Honchkrow is that it actually hits hard enough already. If you've ever played against this beast, you know that Brave Bird + Superpower is already smashing everything in the metagame hard enough to put pretty much any team in a tough place. And then there's STAB Suckerpunch, which is... well, it's STAB SUCKERPUNCH.
Plus, Honchkrow has what is arguably one of the best defensive typings in the game (not to mention at all about how vicious both Dark and Flying are a offensive types).
Honchkrow's PROBLEM is bulk and Speed-- it has no survivability. When I talked to Alex, I was actually trying to brainstorm ways to bolster its SURVIVAL stats. If Honch could abuse its defensive typing better, it would be a simply amazing Pokemon because of its raw power and matching movepool.
The trouble is that there's no Ability or Attack that can really do this for Honchkrow. Abilities like Regenerator or Magic Guard for instance wouldn't fix Honch's problem of having defensive stats too weak to really switch in. Prankster would help once Honchk was actually in and works really well flavorwise (Murk has it), but again-- no help on the switch in. Speed Boost has the same problem, plus there was no way in hell I was going to recommend the super broken-ass Speed Boost for no really reason (though I guess there's precedent in Pokes like Blaziken and Sharpedo getting it). Intimidate would be perfect-- helping out Honchk against the physical attackers its typing is well suited to counter, and making perfect sense flavorwise. Only problem-- it would boost up Bisharp, who is a target you REALLY want to be able to abuse Honch's typing against.
Then there's the ability I suggested that Alex picked as the best of the bunch-- Tough Claws.
With Tough Claws, Adamant Honch's ATK comes out to a massive 408 without ANY EVs-- so you're using an attack stat 25 points higher than a fully EV'd Adamant Krow, which as we've discussed, already hits plenty hard with the coverage/attacks it has.
This frees you up to throw all 510 EVs you got into defenses and possibly Speed.
As an example, with Assault Vest and Tough Claws, you can get the following stats:
Adamant 240 HP, 200 DEF, 68 Sp.DEF
Tough Claws
@ Assault Vest
HP: 401
ATK: 408
DEF: 190
Sp.DEF: 235
(with Sucker Punch, Brave Bird, Superpower, and Pursuit)
Some relevant (maybe not so useful) calcs:
252+ Atk Aegislash-Blade Sacred Sword vs. 240 HP / 200 Def Honchkrow: 149-176 (37.1 - 43.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Flash Cannon vs. 240 HP / 68 SpD Assault Vest Honchkrow: 160-190 (39.9 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Iron Head vs. 240 HP / 200 Def Honchkrow: 226-266 (56.3 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO :(
252+ Atk Life Orb Bisharp Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 240 HP / 200 Def Honchkrow: 136-161 (33.9 - 40.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Of course if you go AV plus 252 Sp.DEF, you can get yourself an interesting trapper as well.
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Honchkrow: 247-292 (61.2 - 72.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gengar Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Honchkrow: 115-136 (28.5 - 33.7%) -- 0.7% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Honchkrow: 149-177 (36.9 - 43.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Assault Vest Honchkrow: 157-186 (38.9 - 46.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Leftovers sets with Roost are always considerable too.
Of course, inversely Honch's Damange output remains pretty damn impressive even with 0 investment.
0+ Atk Tough Claws Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Landorus: 250-295 (78.1 - 92.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0+ Atk Tough Claws Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Latios: 366-432 (121.1 - 143%) -- guaranteed OHKO (BB also guaranteed a OHKO after SR)
0+ Atk Tough Claws Honchkrow Sucker Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 216-254 (66.6 - 78.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
0+ Atk Tough Claws Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard X: 210-247 (70.4 - 82.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0+ Atk Tough Claws Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Scizor: 171-202 (49.7 - 58.7%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
Basically anything this guy hits super effective can potentially be OHKO'd or is guaranteed OHKO'd.
So while I do appreciate how massively powerful Tough Claws can make Honchkrow when ATK is invested in, I'd also like you guys to consider what it can mean in terms of patching up Honch's survivability, which is its biggest achilles heal in OU.
Shift Gear Mega Aggron definitely sounds pretty great on paper but if you think about it, it is basically Mega-Ttar with a less balanced defense stats, stronger STAB, and same choice of coverage moves. (STAB + Ice Punch + EQ)Shift Gear Mega Aggron - I don't think people are giving this enough credit. I run an offensive Mega Aggron with 252 HP/252+ Attack and Heavy Slam/EdgeQuake/DTail, and let me tell you, it puts in work. I previously ran Rock Polish on it over Dragon Tail to good effect, and being able to buff Megaggron's already reasonably high power while boosting is definitely a welcome addition. But I agree, regular Aggron would appreciate this more due to the insane power of Head Smash.
Drizzle Noivern is never meant to be spamming Hurricane. Giving any Flying/Dragon Drizzle pretty much makes a really great addition to rain. SR weakness is not that huge considering a rain team usually never needs to set up rain more than 4 times anyway. What really sets Drizzle Noivern apart from Drizzle anything else is a super fast Tailwind, which makes Rain teams fare much better against opposing rain teams, without having to rely on speed ties.Drizzle Noivern - What it is with you guys and perfect accuracy Hurricane? We had No Guard Noivern suggested previously for the same reason. Thinking about it, it actually seems quite underpowered. Escarlata's calc shows that Noivern is not terribly powerful by itself, unlike the successful MegaYard, and with mediocre defenses and a SR weakness, it can't reliably come in to set up rain a bunch, even with a fast U-Turn.
Sub Taunt Gengar runs WoW and Shadow Ball, so a Poison secondary typing makes zero difference when dealing with it. Just saying.With a much better defencive typing it also doesn't lose to sub taunt gengar, one of stalls biggest threats!
Shift Gear Mega Aggron definitely sounds pretty great on paper but if you think about it, it is basically Mega-Ttar with a less balanced defense stats, stronger STAB, and same choice of coverage moves. (STAB + Ice Punch + EQ)HP: 342
Atk: 640
Def: 336
SDef: 276
Spd: 397Mega Aggron seems pretty overshadowed by Mega Ttar in general, who has better mixed bulk, more Atk, arguably more reliable STABs (I just called Stone Edge reliable did I?) (Heavy Slam is weaker than Crunch on anything that weighs more than Venusaur).HP: 282
Atk: 624
Def: 496
SDef: 196
Spd: 398
Drizzle Noivern is never meant to be spamming Hurricane. Giving any Flying/Dragon Drizzle pretty much makes a really great addition to rain. SR weakness is not that huge considering a rain team usually never needs to set up rain more than 4 times anyway. What really sets Drizzle Noivern apart from Drizzle anything else is a super fast Tailwind, which makes Rain teams fare much better against opposing rain teams, without having to rely on speed ties.
Sub Taunt Gengar runs WoW and Shadow Ball, so a Poison secondary typing makes zero difference when dealing with it. Just saying.