Resource LC Viability Rankings

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Shrug said:
im tapped out bout abra so i will nominate the true lc don:

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a move to A- for this guy would serve as a fitting sendoff to Fiend Hound (Big L rest in peace) as well as something that more accurately represents the true value of Zev Love X in this meta (it's dope if you get it). just quickly popping off strengths:

- Hits the speed tier, which is 17, and also has nice prio to rail things.
- Is very strong, 2hkoing most of the meta
- is the premier sun blaster with vulpix as mambo and berks would attest to
- has cool secondary options such as: Dbond / solarbeam / thief / Taunt, all of which add utility.
- Comes in on a bunch - Pump, Pony sometimes, Abra if used right, grass mons in general - more than you'd expect
- w/ evio is a p solid abra trapper that isnt deadweight against most other shit

there are some negatives - a bit frail, etc - but it's good enough to be A- i think
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I dig it. This thing hits like a truck.
 
anorith.gif


Nominating Anorith for a rise from C- to C+ and maybe later a bit more like B-/B

It's definetly one the best lead in the tier at the moment. It reaches 18 Speed which is very importing since this allows it to outspeed all the other common leads. It can use Knock Off to weaken the opposing team a lot, with Eviolite, it is KOed just by Scarf Magnemite without attacking. Then it has Stealth Rock of course, but it has the same possibility as Drilbur to use Rapid Spin and get rid of hazards, whereas it can deal a lot of damage to Ghost-Type which can block its Rapid Spin thanks to Knock Off. Neither Drilbur or Pineco has this option. Also it can use as its last slot Rock Tomb which helps it deal with faster Pokemon. The majority of the teams aren't prepared for such a fast lead with access to Rapid Spin and Knock Off, so I think it deserves a rise because of its niche which helps it win (or at least remove the item vs Drilbur) against the most common lead at the moment. It also prevents Surskit from setting up Sticky Web.
 
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Tricking said:
anorith.gif


Nominating Anorith for a rise from C- to C+ and maybe later a bit more like B-/B

It's definetly one the best lead in the tier at the moment. It reaches 18 Speed which is very importing since this allows it to outspeed all the other common leads. It can use Knock Off to weaken the opposing team a lot, with Eviolite, it is KOed just by Scarf Magnemite without attacking. Then it has Stealth Rock of course, but it has the same possibility as Drilbur to use Rapid Spin and get rid of hazards, whereas it can deal a lot of damage to Ghost-Type which can block its Rapid Spin thanks to Knock Off. Neither Drilbur or Pineco has this option. Also it can use as its last slot Rock Tomb which helps it deal with faster Pokemon. The majority of the teams aren't prepared for such a fast lead with access to Rapid Spin and Knock Off, so I think it deserves a rise because of its niche which helps it win (or at least remove the item vs Drilbur) against the most common lead at the moment. It also prevents Surskit from setting up Sticky Web.
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OMFG MY FUCKING FAVOURITE LEAD 10/10 RANK S++
 
Supporting houndour's rise to A-. It fits really well on to heavy offense as not only does it provide a lot of offensive pressure including virtually perfect STAB coverage, it checks a lot of things that threaten heavy offense such as pawniard, abra, ponyta (to a degree). Its movepool is also well equipped, being able to pursuit trap sash abra if using eviolite and being able to run taunt to screw things that would otherwise counter it such as porygon (no knock off though :( ).

As for anorith, I'm unsure of its placing in C+. It lacks some of the qualities desired in many other leads, e.g. spikes/taunt+sturdyjuice like onix and dwebble. Also, because of its lack of shell smash or strong STAB coverage and sturdy juice, it is very easy for drilbur and staryu to spin on it, especially given that staryu outspeeds and drilbur resists the only STAB I assume you'll afford to run. Rapid spin is also a bit eh on anorith as it struggles to force out anything due to its lack of offensive presence and resistances not to mention that it has no recovery and a stealth rock weakness which isn't ideal. Knock off with rapid spin is still a niche for SR leads but given its other flaws, I wouldn't call it one of the best.

A nomination I would like to make myself is porygon to S. This is probably quite controversial as it's never been in this rank before and is arguably less useful in this non murkrow+misdreavus era but I think it has a lot of qualities which, after playing with it, mark it a cut above the rest of A+ (apart from possibly ponyta) and more on par with foo and pawniard. My first point is that it can accomplish it has several sets that are among the best walls, bulky attackers and sweepers in the tier respectively. Bulky porygon is probably the one most are familiar with. It is honestly not that easy to switch in on for offensive teams as given its huge bulk and lack of weaknesses, it will almost definitely neuter a threat every game with multiple status options and a strong STAB attack which has few offensive switchins. Knock off has made its life a bit more difficult as it often relies on avoiding the 2hko to recover stall after t-waving them. Its specially defensive set is one of the few things that can boast being able to stop LO gastly, LO abra, and LO staryu (provided SR isn't on the field) as it avoids the 2hko (provided no drops or status) and can give them trouble with t-wave or tri attack/psychic respectively. Furthermore, it has good options for its movepool as it doesn't really suffer from 4mss, particularly in this metagame where it isn't forced to run shadowball. Double status, psychic, or even three attacks for bulky attacker are pretty good options. Secondly, I don't know if this has somehow gone under the radar or something but agility download is such a good sweeper in this metagame. With the download boost and agility boost (not difficult given that it lives pretty much any neutral attack even with BJ), it is really difficult to stop. Abra, the safety net for many teams, can only do max 80% with its sash set. Fletchling can only do 70%, Pawniard can't even do 60% with Jolly eviolite sucker punch. Timburr and croagunk can only do 60% with an adamant mach punch or 15 SpA vacuum wave. 76/156 timburr is OHKOed after a layer of spikes and mienfoo is OHKOed without SR and can't outspeed +2 modest porygon with a scarf either. One of the few things that can actually stop it other than a full health archen with BJ still intact is specially defensive porygon which is a testimony to the strength of both sets. Bulky attacker is the third set which is pretty much the middle ground, carrying the power of agility download but still the bulk to check threats like fletchling and abra. Honestly, I don't think there is any pokemon in LC that can do so many roles that well and so I think porygon is very deserving of S rank.
 
You know, that Porygon nomination got me thinking: maybe it's time for an S- tier. Porygon, from my experience in using it and playing against it, is a fantastic Pokemon, but I don't think I could put it next to Mienfoo or Pawniard. That said, I do think it's a cut above the rest of A+ along with Abra and Timburr. These three Pokemon I feel are not entirely equal to the likes of Chinchou or Ponyta or the other A+ denizens, in that perhaps they are slightly more effective or a bit easier to put on teams, but not enough to make them S. From there we could also move up Pokemon such as Spritzee who have had multiple attempts to move to A+ but was rejected for being just short of the subjective cut-off. I think making an S- has been brought up before and IIRC I was against it, but now after many nominations for Pokemon like Abra, Timburr, and Porygon for S, maybe there's a power difference between them and the rest of A+ significant enough to get their own tier.
 
I'll second Celestavian here. Criteria being S in totality is the best mons in the tier, with regular S being the mons that are both fantastic and tier-defining while S- being great mons that arent omnipresent in lc. The A ranks can simply be fantastic picks in the meta that arent quite as good as the ones above. Preliminarily, I would have:

S:
Foo
Pawn

S-
Pony
Timb
Abra (ban this pls, yayaya more bullshit)
Pory

A+
Archen
Chinch
Fletch
Mag
Spritz
Ferroseed

and i'd bring dig and skrelp up to mid A.
 
It's something I personally need to think on more. I really like the idea of having an S-, but I'm also not totally against just shifting everything down so that A+ means more.

S- is less work though, so I'll support that one.
 
I'll edit in a wall of text later, but basically I support S-, but not with porygon in it. Pony timburr and abra are all better than porygon and porygon fits more among the pokes in A+.

edit:To me, porygon is a pokemon that looks ridiculously good on paper, but in practice is not overwhelming compared to the other A+ ranks. In all my experiences using it and playing against it, I have found time and time again that although it is a very strong pokemon and deserves A (still not sure about A+), it simply does not rise above the rest of A+ nearly enough to necessitate a rise to A+. Just looking at porygon as a pokemon:
+counters chinch if trace
+extremely bulky
+reliable recovery
+can be very difficult to switch into with download
+extremely versatile
(probably more that I can't think of)
-typing doesn't offer valuable resists
-can be broken though
-weak to fighting
-if it's trace it's easy to switch into, if not chinch just V switches
-momentum can wear it down
-knock off
(probably more)
It does have the ability to dish out very strong hits and be ridiculously bulky, but not at the same time (will always be bulky but not to the point that it will tank stupidly strong attacks). The other pokemon that are the top of A+ are all distinctly better than it in my opinion, as timburr is an incredibly difficult pokemon to face as bulk up is extremely dangerous, ponyta can spread burns like wildfire and keep fighters in check, and abra is generally a terror to face, whether it's focus sash or life orb. Porygon is a great mon, fletchling chinchou and archen are every bit as good as it is and it really doesn't warrant a rank above them.

also Merritt all those pokemon should move down but treeko has a great niche in unburden that actually does give it sweeping potential and should stay D
 
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I support S- as its glaringly clear that Abra and Pory (and to a smaller degree less, Timburr and Pony) are a decent cut above the other A+ Pokemon.
 
I propose the opposite, instead of moving stuff up instead things should be moved down. We have rank inflation and an absolutely huge number of mons listed, so maybe it's time to start clearing out the lower ranks and moving stuff down.

One of the arguments that's most commonly seen (and I mean it's everywhere when people nominate movement) is that "X mon is a cut above/below the other Y-rank mons" and use that as the foothold of their argument. While it's better than relying on definitions, it leads very easily to rank inflation when something else proves to be good.

Since we now have LC UU as semi-official, it's much easier to justify unranking things that are really niche/bad who shouldn't be used on a serious team. We should clean out the lower ranks, unlist things and move stuff down to give A rank more weight instead of creating an S- rank in an exact opposite of what Ubers recently did.

I'll start with some nominations of my own.

Azurill, Chikorita, Fennekin, Goomy, Phantump, Psyduck, Sewaddle, Starly, and Treecko to Unranked. Many of these have some sort of niche but that niche is kinda really terrible. Azurill, for example, is a pretty good Trick Room attacker, but has a shallow movepool, oftentimes not enough power in a bulky metagame to take advantage of the limited TR turns, and isn't exceptionally bulky either.

Chikorita has a terrible defensive typing for a defensive cleric and has no offensive presence. Its bulkiness is also limited by the fact that its recovery has extremely limited PP, and in short it's a worse Spritzee if you're using it for Aromatherapy.

Fennekin is shit. With the recent exposure of Power Herb Thief Houndour it somewhat loses its niche, and even then its niche was bad. Its bulk is terrible (especially since you're running Power Herb to use its niche), its special attack is merely decent, and its speed is low.

Goomy is bad and is only possibly saved by its ability. However, this isn't enough to rescue it. While its special bulk is good, its physical bulk is depressing, and in such a physically offensive metagame that's bad news for Goomy. When the first sentence of the overview on Goomy is "Goomy isn't a very good Pokemon in LC." then you know something's up.

Phantump I used a decent amount back in XY and back then was underwhelmed by how inconsistent and bad it was. Not much has gotten better since. Now, as Pumpkaboo has established itself, Phantump is a choice you make to be "edgy" and rely on the unreliable Harvest. Since it doesn't hold Eviolite Phantump isn't bulky at all, Oran Berry doesn't even heal it fully, and being weak to knock off means that you're likely to lose your niche halfway through anyways, assuming you're not OHKOed right away.

Please explain Psyduck. I don't get its niche at all, other than maybe Cloud Nine, in which case it's bad and deserves unranking anyways.

Sewaddle is a Web setter that is the opposite side of the spectrum from Surskit. Sewaddle is defensive and has no offensive presence, but maybe (maybe) can set up webs more than once. But it's underwhelming in its passiveness and has a defensive typing that's absolutely terrible.

Starly I could maybe see staying, but it's slow, frail, and Taillow hits harder. Run another flying type who isn't as frail and slow and kinda weak.

Treecko is another what does it do. Sure, it could work- its stats aren't completely terrible- but why would you run it? Explain it in some sense please.

Even if an S- rank is created I feel at least some of these should be taken off.
 
I don't see why we can't do both: Getting rid of Pokemon that are totally awful as well as making an extra tier. You named 9 Pokemon that are to be dropped to Unranked, and I don't see how that fixes any kind of possible ranking inflation in A or B unless we drop 9 Pokemon from each tier to match. Could we move stuff down from the A tier in to B, and some stuff from B into C? Maybe, but in this metagame I feel like there are a lot of viable choices and moving them down solely because we are trying to enact arbitrary subjective limits on how many Pokemon can be in a rank at a time doesn't do them justice. What would you drop out of A to make it more meaningful? I guess Vullaby could go to B+, and maybe Ferroseed down to A-, but with the way the list is, I don't see much room for improvement unless we drastically retool the list. If anything, an S- tier would help decrease rating inflation in the A tier the best because there have been at least 4 Pokemon mentioned that could join that tier, and while I don't agree with them all (such as Ponyta, I say keep that in A+), that would do more to help clean up the A tier than just dropping Pokemon because there are too many.
 
Merritt said:
Since we now have LC UU as semi-official, it's much easier to justify unranking things that are really niche/bad who shouldn't be used on a serious team. We should clean out the lower ranks, unlist things and move stuff down to give A rank more weight instead of creating an S- rank in an exact opposite of what Ubers recently did.
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Always remember that LC UU is usage-based, so just because it's there doesn't mean we can just disregard D Ranks. If a Pokemon works in the standard LC metagame, then it works, regardless of the LC UU metagame's existence and Pokemon's performance there.
 
We cannot compare LC to ubers, atm and possibly for the entirety of oras will be at the most centralized state it is at. An S- rank is clearly unnessicary when barely anything below B is worth using, eliminating S rank would be a better solution if things must change.
 
Celestavian said:
I don't see why we can't do both: Getting rid of Pokemon that are totally awful as well as making an extra tier. You named 9 Pokemon that are to be dropped to Unranked, and I don't see how that fixes any kind of possible ranking inflation in A or B unless we drop 9 Pokemon from each tier to match. Could we move stuff down from the A tier in to B, and some stuff from B into C? Maybe, but in this metagame I feel like there are a lot of viable choices and moving them down solely because we are trying to enact arbitrary subjective limits on how many Pokemon can be in a rank at a time doesn't do them justice. What would you drop out of A to make it more meaningful? I guess Vullaby could go to B+, and maybe Ferroseed down to A-, but with the way the list is, I don't see much room for improvement unless we drastically retool the list. If anything, an S- tier would help decrease rating inflation in the A tier the best because there have been at least 4 Pokemon mentioned that could join that tier, and while I don't agree with them all (such as Ponyta, I say keep that in A+), that would do more to help clean up the A tier than just dropping Pokemon because there are too many.
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While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I want to clarify my position. My stance is that, instead of creating another subdivision into S rank (which really should be only for exceptional mons, not just really good ones like Porygon, Timburr, ect. Even arguably Pawniard could move down) we should move down several mons. It's not so much reducing the number of A rank mons as it is clearing out the rankings.

What's difficult about the way you're looking at it is that you're working from the top down. This falls into the issue of "X is about as effective as Y so X should stay here" more than going from the bottom up. The less effective mons are taken out so that it's easier to see how the bottom of a rank compares to the better mons in a rank one step down. I feel like I'm explaining this badly, ask me to clarify on any point.

As for only nominating 9 Pokemon to drop, it was more of a I don't want to nominate too many as opposed to this is all that should drop. There are other D rank mons that I think should probably be unlisted (Paras for example) but it's harder to take a nomination seriously when they ask for too many things.

QuoteCS That's absolutely true, and I'm not saying that things should go away because they're LCUU by usage. Instead it's more of saying that mons who have a really weak niche in LC or have an official analysis aren't obligated to have a spot on the rankings. It's also a way of redirecting the uncommon argument of "I don't want to use high ranked X and I found that Y works as an inferior version so it should be ranked at like D" by pointing them at LCUU where maybe Y is viable because X is banned. It's something that really only applies to D rank (maybe one or two C-) anyways.
 
kingmidas said:
We cannot compare LC to ubers, atm and possibly for the entirety of oras will be at the most centralized state it is at. An S- rank is clearly unnessicary when barely anything below B is worth using, eliminating S rank would be a better solution if things must change.
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All that would do is muddy the A+ list even further. If we aren't interested in having at the very least SOME degree of accuracy, then what's the point of this thread?

We need to start pushing some of these mons down, starting from the A list. I'll use this as a placeholder for suggestions
 
Okay, after some thinking this is my proposal.

Split A rank into 4 subsections, instead of 3. The main problem I think is people think A rank mons are better than other A rank mons in the same subrank. Why not just split up A rank more? Open to suggestions of names of them... A*, A+, A, A- (madoka's suggestion)? A1, A2... ?

But yeah I think this is the best solution to accommodate the massive amount of viable A rank mons we have. I like S being 1 tier. S should be the best mons in the tier so S- seems counter-intuitive to me.

This is what I'm thinking, whether we do A* or S-. basically the top mons from each subsection get bumped up just a little bit.

S foo, pawn

S-/A* porygon, timburr, abra

A+ archen, fletchling, chou, magnemite, ponyta, spritzee, ferroseed, drilbur (?)

A croagunk drilbur (?), foongus, gastly, pancham, snubbull, vulpix, omanyte, staryu (?), tirtouga (?)

A- rest of the A tier
 
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Drilbur is my favorite spinner and ground type in general, but it should be A instead of A+. While it can consistently do its job, with a good speed tier and fantastic offensive presence, it suffers from the issue of longevity. Unlike Staryu as a spinner Drilbur doesn't have access to recovery and has only good bulk, all but necessitating that it hold Eviolite instead of BJ if it goes for a supporting role of spinning. It also has some extremely unfortunate weaknesses to Water and Grass and ends up completely walled by the premier spinblocker in Pumpkaboo.

However it's still an incredibly good mon. Ground is a fantastic attacking type, and Drilbur does it extremely well with Mold Breaker to hit through Sturdy or Levitate. Drilbur is very effective in the current metagame, but I don't feel it quite hits A+ levels.

Seconding Tirt to A-

I'd also like to ask about Fletchling to A*. This isn't a formal nomination (or as formal as it can be) but more of an appreciation of how much of an impact the bird has on the metagame. Sure, every team runs a check or counter to it, but that's because they have to run said counter/check. It influences teambuilding more than any other mon, and even if its actual effectiveness is impacted by the sheer spread of answers it still shapes the metagame to the level of the S ranks while also being a damn good mon.

Also can you also move down the D ranks I mentioned earlier to Unranked or at least argue them somewhat? Even though we're going with this compromise those mons should still be unranked or at least have some sort of explaination (looking at Treecko in particular since I still have no clue what its niche is).
 
Merritt said:
Also can you also move down the D ranks I mentioned earlier to Unranked or at least argue them somewhat? Even though we're going with this compromise those mons should still be unranked or at least have some sort of explaination (looking at Treecko in particular since I still have no clue what its niche is).
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everyone complains when azurill is in E because it can use knock off

everything else w/e idc, i'll get round to it at somepoint
 
I like splitting up A rank into 4 different sections because if we dropped all of the slightly less viable A+ Rank Pokemon, A rank would then be just as crowded. Therefore, dropping Pokemon would do nothing but breed more confusion. Splitting A rank into 4 different sections would bring good A rank Pokemon up to A+, and good A+ rank Pokemon to A*. I think this would remedy the problems that we are currently having. I do not see any downfalls to this strategy.
 
Rowan said:
Okay, after some thinking this is my proposal.

Split A rank into 4 subsections, instead of 3. The main problem I think is people think A rank mons are better than other A rank mons in the same subrank. Why not just split up A rank more? Open to suggestions of names of them... A*, A+, A, A- (madoka's suggestion)? A1, A2... ?

But yeah I think this is the best solution to accommodate the massive amount of viable A rank mons we have. I like S being 1 tier. S should be the best mons in the tier so S- seems counter-intuitive to me.

This is what I'm thinking, whether we do A* or S-. basically the top mons from each subsection get bumped up just a little bit.

S foo, pawn

S-/A* porygon, timburr, abra

A+ archen, fletchling, chou, magnemite, ponyta, spritzee, ferroseed, drilbur (?)

A croagunk drilbur (?), foongus, gastly, pancham, snubbull, vulpix, omanyte, staryu (?), tirtouga (?)

A- rest of the A tier
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I really like this idea of 4 A subranks (A*, A+, A, A-) instead of splitting up S, as with most A+ rank mons, there are a few a cut above the rest (Pony, Timb, Abra, Fletch) As I feel those mons are a cut above the rest of A+ rank, but not quite good enough to be S (except for maybe fletch.)

Also, my idea for what the A ranks should look like (my changes in bold)

S: Mienfoo, Pawniard

A*: Abra, Fletchling, Ponyta, Timburr

A+: Archen, Chinchou, Ferroseed, Magnemite, Porygon, Spritzee, Vulpix.

A: Croagunk, Drilbur, Foongus, Gastly, Gothita, Omanyte, Pancham, Snubbull, Staryu

A-: Carvanha, Cottonee, Diglett, Houndour, Larvesta, Pumpkaboo-Super, Shellder, Skrelp, Tirtouga, Vullaby

Will elaborate on my ideas for changes in a later post.
 
Okay, so we're doing A* rank. The definition of which is basically 'Pokemon that are a slight cut above the other A rank Pokemon, but aren't quite at the viability of S.' Sort of like a borderline between the 2.

It'd be sweet if people could post their opinions on the structure, just like -Tynamo- did above. I'll do mine now,

S: Mienfoo, Pawniard

A*: Abra, Porygon, Timburr

imo the ones that really stand out above the rest

A+: Archen, Chinchou, Ferroseed, Fletchling, Magnemite, Ponyta, Spritzee

Most things here aren't that controversial, Spritzee+Ferroseed move up from A, but they are 2 of the best walls in the tier, with the ability to check so many things individually and are the best Pokemon for their roles. Fletchling stays at A+ because it just doesn't have the same usefulness as the other 3 in the current meta imo.

A: Croagunk, Diglett, Drilbur, Gastly, Omanyte, Snubbull, Staryu, Tirtouga, Vullaby, Vulpix

Diglett moves up from A-, because imo it's one of the best revenge killers in the tier, and forces the opponent to play very carefully. Omanyte and Tirtouga are very similar. I think Omanyte is slightly better at sweeping, but Tirtouga has a much easier time setting up whether it's Solid Rock or Sturdy. Vullaby moves up because imo, it's one of the best bulky pivots, can take a tonne of hits which means it can check stuff in a pinch, and with Brave Bird, Knock Off, and U-turn it has a lot of offensive presence.

A-: Carvanha, Cottonee, Foongus, Gothita, Houndour, Pancham, Pumpkaboo-Super, Shellder, Skrelp

The rest of them. Moved Houndour up from B+ by popular demand. Moved Foongus down because after it uses Spore, I think it can be turned into a liability pretty easily. Gothita is worse than Diglett imo, I think it's harder to fit into a team. Pancham goes down because it just faces too much competition from Foo and Timburr, it's kinda slow and all that
 
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I don't think Ferroseed should be A+, sure it has good bulk and typing, but it lacks a reliable form of reovery, which ponyta, spritzee, and porygon all have, which is what makes them truly threatening. Ferroseed relies on its teammates for healing, meaning it's rather reliant on team support, which would make me argue that it's more A or even A- than A+. Also I'm officially nomming Pawniard for A*. Pawniard is quite a threat in the metagame. It has a high attack, good bulk, and cool typing. It is the premier knock off user. However, it has several faults. Like Fletchling, though independent of the meta is very strong and dominating, with Mienfoo and Timburr to a slightly lesser extent everywhere and on every team, it's hampered in its ability to function. Additionally, Pawniard lacks any recovery unlike Mienfoo, which puts Mienfoo on a whole other level from Pawniard, as it is able to damage things, spread knock off, and check things throughout the match, whereas Pawniard cannot. It also has issues switching in on most of the meta, as even things that it could usually switch in on like Foongus after it has used spore often carries hp fighting and can deal about 60% to Pawniard, which makes it unable to check stuff like Fletchling anymore. All in all, Pawniard is an exceptional mon, but, like Fletchling, the meta is not that kind to it.
 
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