Resource ORAS OU Viability Ranking Thread V3 - Read Post 3451 Page 139

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Can you elaborate how Rotom-W is actually useful against stall? I'd be more inclined to say it's practically useless against it but apparently I'm missing something considering I've had offensive teams be slightly annoyed by Rotom-W but never had a stall team ever care about it.

Pretty sure I'm implying Rotom-W's momentum grabbing capability. I wouldn't use Rotom-W under the guise of power or some illusion that it's a "stall-breaker".
He might be referring to trick, but that's still shutdown by Mega Sableye so his points fall through

Other than that how would you guys think of moving Mega Gyarados to A. It's all around a great pokemon that does its roll well, but I often find myself having a difficult time setting up against offensive teams and Ferrothorn is always a pain to break through. The ability to break stall pretty darn effectively is nice though.
 
Celebi remain A- - Celebi's strengths are in it's ability to take out even would be checks if you want it to. Sub/Thunder Wave makes switch ins like Tornadus and Weavile a liability. Lure sets to better dispatch of things like Bisharp or Heatran can make a game for you. It has Healing Wish, a God send of a move on balance for your bulky sweeper like Mega Gyarados. It also remains one of the best Scald absorbers there is, and specially bulky variants really don't care about Slowking's Fire Blast or Suicune's Ice Beam with Giga Drain and Leftovers. It can also lay rocks if you really need it to. It's also leagues better than virtually everything in B+. Metagame trends may be unfavorable for it, but not enough to drop from A-
 
This sounds like a dumb question, but is Mega Gross still an S Rank worthy threat? I feel like the meta has adapted to it enough for its overall threatening capabilities to not be as lethal as they were in early ORAS. I could be wrong, but I am just curious on other's inputs.
 
Can you elaborate how Rotom-W is actually useful against stall? I'd be more inclined to say it's practically useless against it but apparently I'm missing something considering I've had offensive teams be slightly annoyed by Rotom-W but never had a stall team ever care about it.

Pretty sure I'm implying Rotom-W's momentum grabbing capability. I wouldn't use Rotom-W under the guise of power or some illusion that it's a "stall-breaker".
It's not teched in specifically as a stall breaker, but with the momentum it grabs, pain split, will-o-wisp, etc it generally becomes much better than most Pokemon against stall. Stall breaker might be a misnomer, but it's still quite good against stall.
 

Srn

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....And Rotom-W does jack all to Sab as well. You're point is...?
Dude you're really still not understanding my main point. If mega sab is forced in after rotom-w threatens something out, then rotom-w will vs into something that beats mega sab after that! Come on man.
If a 'mon needs as much help as Rotom-W does taking out like half of the 'mon you find on stall in the tier, it's not a good stallbreaker. That's just plain and simple fact.
Lol you're pretending like threatening half of the mons on stall while being a defensive mon isn't impressive or something. I wanna remind you that its main role isn't even being a stallbreaker, it just happens to be a fantastic one with the usual and correct partners anyways.

Char-X and Celebi... hell, literally everything I mentioned has access to reliable recovery. If you're argument is they can be worn down with burn/SR/Volt Switch, that kinda falls flat when every time you Volt Switch you give them a free opportunity to heal. It's not that I didn't read your argument, it's more that i thought I didn't have to state the obvious. Guess I was wrong.
Damn you still don't understand my main argument and you're hopping around acting like you're the smart ass u_u
Lemme break this down very simply so that you can hopefully understand this.

turn 1:
hippo vs Lando-t.
Lando-t does nothing vs hippo. You switch into your counter, rotom-w

Turn 2:
rotom-w comes in as hippowdon sets rocks.
Hippo is not staying in. You go into your rotom-w counter, char-x

Turn 3:
Char-x switches into rocks as rotom-w volt switches out
Lando-T now threatens char-x out. Into hippo.
Rinse and repeat.

Granted, this was an extremely oversimplified example, and hopefully you don't act smart by nitpicking the details and finally get the big picture.

U-Turn vs Baton Pass is basically preference imo; depends whether you'd rather be taunt bait or pursuit bait. I usually prefer to avoid being taunt bait on stall because most things on stall already hate taunt as is.

Also:

0 SpA Celebi Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 192+ SpD Heatran: 188-224 (48.8 - 58.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

That uninvested Earth Power you're mocking is 2HKO'ing tran all day long. It definitely has its uses, and it's certainly just as good if not better an option than Perish Song of all things if you have major tran concerns.
Or i could just baton pass into my starmie or whatever and not waste a slot on a pitifully weak non-stab uninvested attack that only has any real use against one pokemon that could still outspeed and kill you.
Yup, that's the move i'm mocking!

Okay, I'll give you that my analogy had slight inaccuracies. "By that logic, pretty much anything that beats the stall-oriented Megas that Gothitelle loses to such as Mega Sableye is a fantastic wallbreaker because it's paired with Gothitelle so you won't have issues with Stall." Is probably more apt.

Also I think it's worth noting that if burn cripples a 'mon, it's not a counter to Rotom-W, it's a check. Saying something can beat its counters and saying something can beat its checks are two hugely different things, so you should probably use the terms correctly c:
As far as your analogy goes, yes, you're technically correct, except that there are still some mons that aren't megas that still can beat goth, but for the sake of the argument there's no need to drag this out. You're analogy is correct, but keep in mind that there's really not many pokemon that fit onto stall and also beat opposing stall-oriented megas. It needs to get very specific, and even then, you're hard switching in with no momentum, leaving you prone to prediction unlike with Rotom-w.

As i've noticed several times by this point, you still didn't understand my example, as celebi is clearly a hard counter to rotom-w but in my example, partnered with tran, it is beating it quite soundly. Mvenu, for example, is a counter to rotom-w, and isn't crippled by burn, but that doesn't mean that the passive damage of hazards+burn+vs will rack up as it is repeatedly forced to switch in. I know my terms perfectly fine, you should probably understand your opponent's argument thoroughly before offering a half-baked rebuttal.
 

AM

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Lol if we're gonna create 30 battle scenarios to justify a placement and use the entire team to solidify its placement that seem counter productive in establishing its own merits. Sorry Srn I'm not going to take these scenarios seriously.
It's not teched in specifically as a stall breaker, but with the momentum it grabs, pain split, will-o-wisp, etc it generally becomes much better than most Pokemon against stall. Stall breaker might be a misnomer, but it's still quite good against stall.
Lol you're pretending like threatening half of the mons on stall while being a defensive mon isn't impressive or something. I wanna remind you that its main role isn't even being a stallbreaker, it just happens to be a fantastic one with the usual and correct partners anyways.
I'm still asking what stall is being built to where this legitimately happens in favor of Rotom-W?
 
Lol if we're gonna create 30 battle scenarios to justify a placement and use the entire team to solidify its placement that seem counter productive in establishing its own merits. Sorry Srn I'm not going to take these scenarios seriously.
I'm still asking what stall is being built to where this legitimately happens in favor of Rotom-W?
It doesn't matter what the build of stall is. Let's just say rotom switches in on Skarmory. You have mega venusaur and chansey as switches into rotom. Bam, free volt switch damage. Later in the game, if Chansey dies will-o on the switch and something is crippled. If venu is gone, you can allow damage on rotom and take huge chunks of health off on chansey with pain split. Rotom also hovers over spikes of any kind. Many stall builds don't even have switches as good as those two. I rarely run stall, but out of many of the RMTs I've looked at and teams I've seen on ladder, few have more than one true counter to rotom-w and these "counters" are constantly worn down over time from volt switches or burns.
 
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IMO, the biggest problem with both Srn and mac1275 's arguments aside from the fact that basically Srn is saying that if you build your team around Rotom-W and pair it with a bunch of good stallbreakers it can beat a couple of mon on stall the others might not (and, moreover, that because you can run 5 other mons Rotom-W is better in its own right) is that they both imply that the Rotom-W controller will be able to flawless predict their opponent's moves through the entirety of what is usually going to be a rather long stall match. Eventually, that Hippo is gonna wisen up that you're spamming volt switch and get off a toxic on you, and then the whole argument of "Status + SR will wear it down until it dies" Srn uses for literally all of Rotom-W's counters is suddenly thrown back in Rotom-W's face.
 

AM

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It doesn't matter what the build of stall is. Let's just say rotom switches in on Skarmory. You have mega venusaur and chansey as switches into rotom. Bam, free volt switch damage. Later in the game, if Chansey dies will-o on the switch and something is crippled. If venu is gone, you can allow damage on rotom and take huge chunks of health off on chansey. Rotom also hovers over spikes of any kind. Many stall builds don't even have switches as good as those two. I rarely run stall, but out of many of the RMTs I've looked at and teams I've seen on ladder, few have more than one true counter to rotom-w and these "counters" are constantly worn down over time from volt switches or burns.
It kind of does matter what the build of stall is because if the stall build relies on longevity with Wish support, Regenerator, and or self recovery the repeated Volt Switch damage is minuscule and over time Rotom-W will be worn down considering most games it spends its time trying to not get pressured by resorting to the wrong move at that very moment in most situations where a switch in is about to come in or trying to dodge things like status. If we're assuming semi-stall this means that these stall teams are packing stuff like Clefable or something with higher speed control and or utility to hinder Will-O-Wisp such as Mega Sableyes Magic Bounce, Magic Guard on Clefable and Reuniclus, Mega Altaria, and Char-X. If Hippowdon, Slowbro, and traditional checks to Zard-X are gone Zard-X can sweep. If your teams sole Char-Y switch in / answer is gone Char-Y can clean your team. I think we can sort of figure out and assume that if a check to something is gone said something is going to have an easier time to do its job but here's the kicker. You first have to get to this point before this argument will ever hold any weight. Getting to this point is real nice with the glitter and gloss showing how it exceeds in a certain matchup but who's to say that your opponent is wearing down M-Venusaur to the point Rotom-W is a problem of all things out of the like 30+ things people should be more concerned about? Hell, who's to even say you're gonna see a stall team entirely made up of 6 fat mons that are slow as shit and only know how to sit back and die to almost all the relevant meta-game trends in regards to wall-breaking mons where at minimum one is going to be on your standard team with back up behind it to pressure mons like Rotom-W even more. Rotom-Ws greatest effectiveness in my eyes was around the Mega Pinsir / Azumarill era with the whole Italian offense thing, basically another meta-game in its entirety where it slowed down stuff such as these dominant threats from becoming too absurd. Now a days you have a meta dictated by heavy wall-breakers, a ton of threats it doesn't actually check at all in practice, Mega Altaria / fairies on a bunch of teams suited to a bunch of playstyles, lack of a real way to break defensive cores while being a symbol of momentum when it's momentum is founded on the idea you don't have something that comes in and in that instance turns it into a liability.
 
In addition to all of AM 's exellent points, I think that the rise of contrary you-know-who has really hurt rotom-w's viability, tbh. tbh, giving a free +2 boost to your opponent is never a good idea. WoWing serperior really prevents further status, and none of rotom-w's other moves hurt it very much. (feel free to delete this if you feel it doesn't contribute anything)
252 SpA Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 278-330 (91.7 - 108.9%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Rotom-W: 210-248 (69 - 81.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
 
He might be referring to trick, but that's still shutdown by Mega Sableye so his points fall through

Other than that how would you guys think of moving Mega Gyarados to A. It's all around a great pokemon that does its roll well, but I often find myself having a difficult time setting up against offensive teams and Ferrothorn is always a pain to break through. The ability to break stall pretty darn effectively is nice though.
Mega gyarados is fine in A+. It has intimidate and a cool typing prior to mega evolving which allows it to set up on pokemon like scizor and fatchomp and after it mega evolves it can now set up on stuff like mega sableye. In my experience I have always found setting up with mega gyarados to be pretty easy between two decent typings prior to mega evolving and after mega evolving, intimidate, taunt / substitute which allows it to laugh at ferrothorn without grass STAB, and solid bulk. Moldbreaker as an ability after mega evolving is also pretty fantastic as it can taunt mega sableye turning it into set up fodder, or get past unaware clefable after a few boosts. Setting up against offensive teams is a bit harder but can still be achieved such as against scarf keldeo, scizor, or starmie without thunderbolt.
 
Fact is that Mega-Gyarados most of time really has a hard time finishing as a late game sweeper against offense as they are all running utility priority such as Thunder Wave Thundurus / Klefki or choice scarf / fast user, then even though Gyarados has pretty good wallbreaking capacity stall is not dominating as a playstyle and is really poor given how metagame is aggressive these days in addition to have Altaria, Ferrothorn, Clefable everywhere. That's why i wouldn't be opposed to move Gyarados-Mega.
 

Srn

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It kind of does matter what the build of stall is because if the stall build relies on longevity with Wish support, Regenerator, and or self recovery the repeated Volt Switch damage is minuscule and over time Rotom-W will be worn down considering most games it spends its time trying to not get pressured by resorting to the wrong move at that very moment in most situations where a switch in is about to come in or trying to dodge things like status. If we're assuming semi-stall this means that these stall teams are packing stuff like Clefable or something with higher speed control and or utility to hinder Will-O-Wisp such as Mega Sableyes Magic Bounce, Magic Guard on Clefable and Reuniclus, Mega Altaria, and Char-X. If Hippowdon, Slowbro, and traditional checks to Zard-X are gone Zard-X can sweep. If your teams sole Char-Y switch in / answer is gone Char-Y can clean your team. I think we can sort of figure out and assume that if a check to something is gone said something is going to have an easier time to do its job but here's the kicker. You first have to get to this point before this argument will ever hold any weight. Getting to this point is real nice with the glitter and gloss showing how it exceeds in a certain matchup but who's to say that your opponent is wearing down M-Venusaur to the point Rotom-W is a problem of all things out of the like 30+ things people should be more concerned about? Hell, who's to even say you're gonna see a stall team entirely made up of 6 fat mons that are slow as shit and only know how to sit back and die to almost all the relevant meta-game trends in regards to wall-breaking mons where at minimum one is going to be on your standard team with back up behind it to pressure mons like Rotom-W even more. Rotom-Ws greatest effectiveness in my eyes was around the Mega Pinsir / Azumarill era with the whole Italian offense thing, basically another meta-game in its entirety where it slowed down stuff such as these dominant threats from becoming too absurd. Now a days you have a meta dictated by heavy wall-breakers, a ton of threats it doesn't actually check at all in practice, Mega Altaria / fairies on a bunch of teams suited to a bunch of playstyles, lack of a real way to break defensive cores while being a symbol of momentum when it's momentum is founded on the idea you don't have something that comes in and in that instance turns it into a liability.
Ok what regenerator mons actually beat rotom-w? The most common ones, slowbro and slowking, both don't like it, and amoonguss and tangrowth (the latter of which does not appreciate burn) and both of which cannot rely on slack off for their recovery like slowbro/king can. Stall can only use wish in the first place if you let up pressure somehow, its honestly skill-based at that point, and self-recovery doesn't prevent burns, which still cripple. Self-recovery also means just more recovery from pain split for rotom-w. Never said vs was strong but it's fantastic at grabbing momentum against stall when paired with water stab.

For regenerator mons, tangy/amoong aren't even that common and slowking/bro lose to rotom-w anyways. Mons that avoid passive damage from will-o still aren't free from repeated volt switches. As long as you have something to atleast force it out, you're fine.

who's to say that your opponent is wearing down M-Venusaur to the point Rotom-W is a problem of all things out of the like 30+ things people should be more concerned about?
I don't really get what you're trying to say here. If you're telling me that rotom-w isn't something to be concerned about in comparison to 30+ other things then doesn't that make it all the better for the person using rotom-w? You'd be at an advantage against a stall player who neglected to prepare anything for rotom-w. If i'm misunderstanding something here please tell me lol.
Hell, who's to even say you're gonna see a stall team entirely made up of 6 fat mons that are slow as shit and only know how to sit back and die to almost all the relevant meta-game trends in regards to wall-breaking mons where at minimum one is going to be on your standard team with back up behind it to pressure mons like Rotom-W even more.
Well tell me how stall pressures rotom-w. Through SD+wisp talon? Through SD gliscor? Through bulky SD mzor? Any kind of stall-ish Swords dancer rotom-w has under control too.
On the other hand, Cm users on stall, such as clefable and mega lati, are legitimate ways to not be passive, but I fail to see how rotom-w is pressured by these pokemon.
Now a days you have a meta dictated by heavy wall-breakers, a ton of threats it doesn't actually check at all in practice, Mega Altaria / fairies on a bunch of teams suited to a bunch of playstyles, lack of a real way to break defensive cores while being a symbol of momentum when it's momentum is founded on the idea you don't have something that comes in and in that instance turns it into a liability.
I agree that it performs much worse in practice than on paper against the things its supposed to check, but conversely i'm tryna say that it performs much better in practice against defensive teams than on paper.
You say that its momentum is founded on the idea of it not having something that comes in, but really, how often are you going to see a team with a rotom-w on it but nothing to handle grasses? There's a certain base level of shit that every team has to answer to somehow, and most of the things that come in on rotom-w fall under this certain base level of shit, so more often than not, there will be something on your team to answer to your opponent's answer to rotom-w.

Besides, isn't it nice for rotom-w to be kicking around easily generating momentum for the said wallbreakers that heavily dictate the meta? I'm sure that mega metagross will appreciate the safe switch into mvenu as opposed to risking an annoying leech seed or chip damage in knock off/hp fire.
I'm still asking what stall is being built to where this legitimately happens in favor of Rotom-W?
Any stall team with anything rotom-w can come in on and force out, like slowbro, hippo, megazor, togekiss, talonflame, heatran, jirachi, skarmory, or starmie! Pretty tough to build without any of those huh
Don't forget that if you build with one or more of these, rotom-w is getting me a free switch-in to a heavy-hitter of my choice unless you'd like to risk dead birds or burned steels.

IMO, the biggest problem with both Srn and mac1275 's arguments aside from the fact that basically Srn is saying that if you build your team around Rotom-W and pair it with a bunch of good stallbreakers it can beat a couple of mon on stall the others might not (and, moreover, that because you can run 5 other mons Rotom-W is better in its own right) is that they both imply that the Rotom-W controller will be able to flawless predict their opponent's moves through the entirety of what is usually going to be a rather long stall match. Eventually, that Hippo is gonna wisen up that you're spamming volt switch and get off a toxic on you, and then the whole argument of "Status + SR will wear it down until it dies" Srn uses for literally all of Rotom-W's counters is suddenly thrown back in Rotom-W's face.
Build your whole team around rotom-w when did I ever say that. Don't put words in my mouth bro. I said that mons that people naturally pair with rotom-w already are beating switchins to it! What i just said to AM applies here: all teams generally prepare for rotom-w switch-ins because they're so limited, and thus common.
And if your opponent is intelligent enough to take the risk of keeping hippo in on a rotom-w then bravo to them I really don't know how to respond. You say that its going to be difficult to predict throughout the entire stall match, but its BECAUSE its long that its easier to predict: if people played risky with stall that'd be destroying the point, unless you have a bad matchup and desperately need ur non-passive mon to be a threat. Because its against stall, and that stall has to survive, its easier to predict your opponent. Of course, prediction is a two-way street, so I can't really push this argument but I wanted to point this out.
 
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IMO, the biggest problem with both Srn and mac1275 's arguments aside from the fact that basically Srn is saying that if you build your team around Rotom-W and pair it with a bunch of good stallbreakers it can beat a couple of mon on stall the others might not (and, moreover, that because you can run 5 other mons Rotom-W is better in its own right) is that they both imply that the Rotom-W controller will be able to flawless predict their opponent's moves through the entirety of what is usually going to be a rather long stall match. Eventually, that Hippo is gonna wisen up that you're spamming volt switch and get off a toxic on you, and then the whole argument of "Status + SR will wear it down until it dies" Srn uses for literally all of Rotom-W's counters is suddenly thrown back in Rotom-W's face.
No....actually I made sure to go over why perfect predictions didn't matter in two different separate points. Rotom isn't a stall breaker, but it helps wear down stall with the momentum it grabs and the number of stall mons that it checks and it's spikes immunity. The fact that can easily run things like will-o-wisp, trick, pain split, etc are just icing on the cake. Rotom will rarely if ever take care of stall on its own merits entirely, but the momentum it provides against stall with status, volt switch, and even pain split is invaluable to a team without a dedicated stallbreaker (which just so happens to be the majority of teams).

It kind of does matter what the build of stall is because if the stall build relies on longevity with Wish support, Regenerator, and or self recovery the repeated Volt Switch damage is minuscule and over time Rotom-W will be worn down considering most games it spends its time trying to not get pressured by resorting to the wrong move at that very moment in most situations where a switch in is about to come in or trying to dodge things like status. If we're assuming semi-stall this means that these stall teams are packing stuff like Clefable or something with higher speed control and or utility to hinder Will-O-Wisp such as Mega Sableyes Magic Bounce, Magic Guard on Clefable and Reuniclus, Mega Altaria, and Char-X. If Hippowdon, Slowbro, and traditional checks to Zard-X are gone Zard-X can sweep. If your teams sole Char-Y switch in / answer is gone Char-Y can clean your team. I think we can sort of figure out and assume that if a check to something is gone said something is going to have an easier time to do its job but here's the kicker. You first have to get to this point before this argument will ever hold any weight. Getting to this point is real nice with the glitter and gloss showing how it exceeds in a certain matchup but who's to say that your opponent is wearing down M-Venusaur to the point Rotom-W is a problem of all things out of the like 30+ things people should be more concerned about? Hell, who's to even say you're gonna see a stall team entirely made up of 6 fat mons that are slow as shit and only know how to sit back and die to almost all the relevant meta-game trends in regards to wall-breaking mons where at minimum one is going to be on your standard team with back up behind it to pressure mons like Rotom-W even more. Rotom-Ws greatest effectiveness in my eyes was around the Mega Pinsir / Azumarill era with the whole Italian offense thing, basically another meta-game in its entirety where it slowed down stuff such as these dominant threats from becoming too absurd. Now a days you have a meta dictated by heavy wall-breakers, a ton of threats it doesn't actually check at all in practice, Mega Altaria / fairies on a bunch of teams suited to a bunch of playstyles, lack of a real way to break defensive cores while being a symbol of momentum when it's momentum is founded on the idea you don't have something that comes in and in that instance turns it into a liability.
Speaking of those incredibly viable checks to charizard-X you mentioned...I think you know where this is going. Rotom is a great mon to pair up with fire types which are really useful in the meta. Not much needs to be said here as most people already know this, but it's worth bringing up.

Isn't the fact that wall breakers are so prevalent make the momentum it provides even more valuable against stall. You get a free switch into say mega metagross instead of having to make a risky double. Sure rotom's bulk becomes less and less useful as wall breakers become more prevalent, but it's still really good at checking threats in the meta and can't really be replaced for something better in most instances where you'd currently want to use it.
 
Rotom is useful for sure but definitely not at the level of the other A mons. It simply gets worn down too easily and doesn't have good enough recovery to justify taking on all the threats it tries to. Definitely still good, but fits better with the A- rank mons than A.

I'd really like to see Zam rise, it's great right now and really does well against the more offensively based teams, outspeeding most common mons outside of scarfers and Torn-T/Weavile while also having great support options like Encore and T-wave.
 
This sounds like a dumb question, but is Mega Gross still an S Rank worthy threat? I feel like the meta has adapted to it enough for its overall threatening capabilities to not be as lethal as they were in early ORAS. I could be wrong, but I am just curious on other's inputs.
I'm one of the few people who didn't believe Metagross deserved a ban during his last suspect, but at the same time I'm not of the opinion that he's anywhere near ready to drop from S-Rank. This thing is a bit stronger than Mega Charizard X (I'm not sure how much the higher Attack stat is offset by the difference in their moves' BP), while possessing some of the highest uninvested bulk in the game: Metagross's uninvested bulk is very barely below fully invested Rotom-W, one of the most common defensive pivots in the game, and with a defensive typing that complements it pretty decently.

252+ Atk Landorus-T Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Metagross: 272-324 (90.3 - 107.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO

This is one of the strongest ground type moves you'll see in OU, and it's a roll to OHKO Metagross. On top of that bulk, Metagross is arguably one of, if not THE, Pokemon that set the bar for "offensive speed" at 110 compared to 100 in XY, outpacing what was once the most crowded speed tier while competing with/outdamaging quite a few of its occupants. In terms of speed, bulk, and offensive pressure, Metagross can consistently compete with/outperform virtually every offense oriented mon on at least 2 of these 3 fronts

Metagross also has a fairly complementary movepool for Tough Claws, with virtually every relevant and even lure option bar Earthquake receiving the equivalent of a Life Orb boost. Quite a few answers of his have gained some ground (most prominently Tank Chomp), but he has options to lure most of them (Grass Knot lures Hippowdon and Slowbro, Thunder Punch for Slowking), and barring the Regenerator mons, a lot of Gross's answers are the kind that are worn down due to being blanket or multipurpose checks.

And as far as Meta trends go, mons he had trouble with like Celebi, Landorus, Gliscor, and Jirachi are either being seen less, or at least hurt by the rise of mons like Weavile. Meanwhile, Metagross checks the two S-Ranked Fairies, as well as some other troublesome offensive mons like Diancie and Azumarill.

Landorus is being suspected: should he go, Metagross loses a check while still having the power to threaten balance builds; if he stays, Metagross retains a Wallbreaking partner and goes fast enough to clean up the offensive teams that Landorus has the most issues with. (I hope this part doesn't break any rules, since I wanted to cover how Metagross can benefit in both the current and potential post-suspect metas).

I'd say the meta has adapted around Metagross since the suspect test, but considering many people think he could be tested again, I think it safe to say he hasn't gotten that much worse. Keep Mega Metagross in S Rank.
 
Well tell me how stall pressures rotom-w. Through SD+wisp talon? Through SD gliscor? Through bulky SD mzor? Any kind of stall-ish Swords dancer rotom-w has under control too.
On the other hand, Cm users on stall, such as clefable and mega lati, are legitimate ways to not be passive, but I fail to see how rotom-w is pressured by these pokemon.

You say that its momentum is founded on the idea of it not having something that comes in, but really, how often are you going to see a team with a rotom-w on it but nothing to handle grasses? There's a certain base level of shit that every team has to answer to somehow, and most of the things that come in on rotom-w fall under this certain base level of shit, so more often than not, there will be something on your team to answer to your opponent's answer to rotom-w.
You ask how stall pressures Rotom-W, but do not recognize how your three examples help to contribute to wearing it down! Talonflame has Wil-o-Wisp, Gliscor has Knock Off, and Mega-Scizor has Knock Off. In the short term, you will check all of those threats. In the long run, however, each of them has removed your passive recovery with Leftovers or gives you passive damage with status so by late game you will be dead. Simply put, Pain Split alone is not enough to carry Rotom-W healthy into the lategame, because its recovery is reliant upon the opposing team *not* being worn down and having high health. A smart opponent will switch in low HP pokes into Pain Split. If you consider an optimally played Rotom-W is using Volt Switch a lot to bring your wallbreakers, you also have to assume it taking plenty of SR damage too. Rotom-W can bring in some wallbreakers more easily and it can check certain semi-stall sweepers. But it can not do both jobs at the same time. If Rotom-W tries to, it will end up dead too early. This is especially compounded if the opponent runs sandstorm.

Granted Rotom-W is a lot more versatile than most people expect. People are so stuck that Rotom-W is Volt Switch / Hydro Pump / Wil-o-Wisp / Pain Split because that set is so splashable, but it can do a lot more. Thunder Wave is a secondary option to Wil-o-Wisp to more heavily cripple Dragons (Lati@s, Zard X, M-Altaria). This can be especially awesome to pair with Bisharp, who can now more reliably trap Lati@s and can now get by certain checks by outspeeding them or getting a better chance to disable with paraflinch. Choice Scarf Rotom-W is definitely underrated and in my opinion is a good choice for offensive teams.

Scarf Rotom-W's defining trait is that priority is ineffective to stop it. Aqua Jet, Brave Bird, Ice Shard? 2x Resist. Bullet Punch? 4x Resist. Prankster Thunder Wave? Immune. All common priority users are covered (A- and up) except for Bisharp. The Ice Shard resistance has become especially more relevant with the increase in Weavile usage. So teams that are reliant upon these options to revenge kill are in trouble when faced with a Scarf Rotom-W that can clean up late game. Hydro Pump / Volt Switch / Trick / Thunderbolt is my preferred set, with the move importance in that order. Volt Switch is a really good tool at pressuring Rapid Spinning Starmie for HO to get momentum back while preventing a spin at the same time. Trick is good because it makes sure Rotom-W is not deadweight against defensive teams and most do not expect it. Trick + Volt Switch into a wallbreaker is a pretty nice combo. Trick also makes sure Rotom-W can be used as an anti-lead if you pair it with a Defogger/Spinner + a Rock weak poke. Simply Trick the SR'er --> Volt Switch on the Grass to Latios --> free Defog. Now your opponent has to choice lock themselves into SR again if he wants hazards. I like Tbolt because it gives you a reliable way to clean lategame with a STAB move and a reliable way to revenge kill Substitute DD Gyarados. You can run HP Fire to be a more reliable Sp. Def Scizor stop, but I don't think it is worth losing the ability to cleanup lategame reliably and lose to DD Gyarados for most teams. Hydro can still do like 54%-64% to offensive SD Scizor, which is a good amount and Volt SR+Switch+sack+Hydro is a guaranteed kill. Bulky SD only takes like 37%-44 from Hydro and 54%-65.4% from HP Fire lol so don't give it the chance to setup anyway. Wisp can also be used to dodge Bisharp's Sucker Punch and cripple Scizor / DD Gyarados / Grass-types after Trick but again I don't think it is worth losing Tbolt.

After all that said it is a tough call as to whether or not Rotom-W should be A- or A. IMO Rotom-W should go to A-, but IMO it is a tiny step above the others in A-. Celebi should go to B+ or B. Celebi is so easily exploitable because it is reliant upon a weak Grass-STAB and it has a U-turn / Pursuit / Knock Off weaknesses. Just go through the A ranks and you can see how it totally opens the floodgates for big threats to come in or stuff to steal momentum. Mega-Altaria, Mega-Metagross, Bisharp, Torn-T, Latios, Zard-X etc. to come wreck you; Skarmory, Kefki, and Ferrothorn for Spikes; Scizor, Talonflame, and Lando-T U-turn all over you. Celebi is a huge liability once it enters the field. And all for what? The ability to stop certain water-types and electrics semi-reliably because it is weak to Pursuit / possibly not weak to a coverage move? If it could carry Giga Drain / Psychic / HP Fire / HP Ice / Thunder Wave / Baton Pass / Recover it could avoid being exploited easily but it can't. Since it lacks more than one of those options it always finds itself easily exploited. IMO it is the same as Chansey and maybe should be the same rank as it. Really good at stopping what it, but hugely exploitable by the opponent to the point it becomes a liability when a. the stuff it checks isn't on the opponent's team b. the pokemon it checks have coverage / trappers to maneuver around it. i want to talk about mega-pinsir but i'll save it for another time

tl;dr twave and scarf rotom-w is decently good but A-, celebi is so exploitable B+ probs B
 
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Honestly, I think Rotom-W is like the new donphan of conversation in this thread. Every time he's brought up the thread turns pretty bad.
I love AM to death, but that remark about Rotom's rank (in the huge post about tier opinions) felt sort of snarky and everyone was fine with in it in A rank until that was said. But anyway, Rotom-W is just one of those pokemon that you either love or hate, and your opinion will skew your view of it. At this point, I don't really care where it goes. Its somewhere between A and A- rank, meaning its good, and the people who know how to use him well will keep using him.

TLDR: Wash-God is good, doesn't matter if he's put in A or A- for viability.
Disciples of the Clean Path know that he is Crouching Tiger, Hidden S-Rank.
 

Martin

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Honestly, I think Rotom-W is like the new donphan of conversation in this thread. Every time he's brought up the thread turns pretty bad.
I love AM to death, but that remark about Rotom's rank (in the huge post about tier opinions) felt sort of snarky and everyone was fine with in it in A rank until that was said. But anyway, Rotom-W is just one of those pokemon that you either love or hate, and your opinion will skew your view of it. At this point, I don't really care where it goes. Its somewhere between A and A- rank, meaning its good, and the people who know how to use him well will keep using him.

TLDR: Wash-God is good, doesn't matter if he's put in A or A- for viability.
Disciples of the Clean Path know that he is Crouching Tiger, Hidden S-Rank.
Not arguing against you and I don't mean any offense here (just in case this is at all offensive for whatever reason idk), but to say that "everyone was fine with in A before" is a little assuming of you. I am just going to say rn that I have been thinking about nomming it down for the past few weeks now, but I have never got around to it because it was based around a gut instinct for me and it was hard for me to put any justification on it outside of me saying that it didn't feel on-par with any of the A rank stuff.
 
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AM

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Honestly, I think Rotom-W is like the new donphan of conversation in this thread. Every time he's brought up the thread turns pretty bad.
I love AM to death, but that remark about Rotom's rank (in the huge post about tier opinions) felt sort of snarky and everyone was fine with in it in A rank until that was said. But anyway, Rotom-W is just one of those pokemon that you either love or hate, and your opinion will skew your view of it. At this point, I don't really care where it goes. Its somewhere between A and A- rank, meaning its good, and the people who know how to use him well will keep using him.

TLDR: Wash-God is good, doesn't matter if he's put in A or A- for viability.
Disciples of the Clean Path know that he is Crouching Tiger, Hidden S-Rank.
I've been advocating for a Rotom-W drop with the team for a good month or so now. Figured it was the best time to put it here if I was gonna do a quick check of everything like I did in that comment you were referring to. doughboy covered most of us it in his post anyways so not much else to say.
 
am made this thread cancer

I honestly don't see how saying Rotom-Wash is a 'stallbreaker' is much of a reason to keep it in it's position because Stall is basically dead at this point in time with all the wallbreakers and stallbreakers that are viable like for example, Gengar, Mew, etc. You could argue on those 'mons viability but at least that have some utility outside of it and even then I think the whole Rotom-W is a stallbreaker is pretty Farfetch'd and shouldn't be an excuse to keep this thing where it is as one of it's main other roles (checking birdspam) is also declining and in all honesty Talonflame can get through it, +2 CC from Pinsir hurts, Raptor lol. Standard birdspam stuff can get through it, alonflame SpDef set iirc doesn't get OHKOed by Hydro and can Taunt or Will-o-Wisp it so it either can't recover shit or is chipped down and then what? Oh, you could Volt Switch when Talon is out but that's your birdspam counter there! Oh right, I forgot about VSing after Talon cripples you, it can Roost, it can switch, or you could Hydro and give the possibility of a switch.

Rotom-W can fail in its roles and plus the role it has, countering birdspam, is declining in usage. (I know this isn't all it's role, but I only have time to cover one.) And stall is basically dead so like, what's the point of it in A if it's not up to par with the other As?
 
Rotom-Wash's main niche was to counter birdspam with wilo and pain split and yeah, it could also take few hits but with the influx of all the new megas and the power creep there are better pokemon that fit its role as a bulky pivot,and sometimes do even more than rotom could, for example Defensive Landorus-T. Yes it might lack will-o-wisp and pain split but the benefits which other defensive pokemon now provide outweigh those of Rotom-W's.
And as Mudvayne said, the most common forms of birdspam are able to get past it now.

Therefore it should drop IMO.
 
Not gonna say to much but i promissed DarkNostalgia i would say somthing about rotom-w dropping to a-. Anyways i can agree with this drop. While rotom-w is annoying to take out its not very hard to overwhelm it. Even if its a pivot it gets worn down by other volt-turn users fairly fast and i feel like with the rise of mons such as serperior as well as a few other mons rotom-w is not very A+ worthy anymore. Some of its other flaws are:

1:passive
2:with a lack of recovery its easy to wear down
3:often times can be used as setup bait

I feel like these issues alone warrant rotom-w to drop to a- not to mention most malt variants as well as clefable laugh at it. Rotom-w is a pretty good check to physical attackers and while i do respect that its not hard to overpower our little washing machine when he needs to rely on pain split or chesto rest to heal off damage.(guess there is leftovers recovery) looking at other a- mons i can see rotom-w fitting in much better along with other pivots such as raikou. The biggest problem volt-switch users have is the onslaught of bulky ground types ou has right now. We have hippowdon ,fat chomp , the landos, excadrill, gliscor. All of these mons prevent rotom-w from providing momentum as they stop volt-switch from doing what it does best: Provide momentum. honestly mega mane who sits in A can at least be a threat to most of the grounds as he not passive, Fast, and has flamethrower and hp ice allowing him to scare grounds. Anyways comparing it to offensive pivots is not the best argument but right now av torn-t to me is doing a better job as a defensive pivot then rotom-w right now as its momentum cant be stop'd thanks to u-turn while also having great utility. With that said Rotom-w Should Drop to a-.

Edit: its worth mentioning rotom-w's main job is for keeping talon and torn in check but even then it can get worn down by them over time (especially when vs torn)
 

Clone

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Rotom -> A-: it's the general consensus. Move on pls

Mega Venu -> A+: need a full Azu counter? Keldeo counter? Serp counter? What about {insert fairy type here}? Well, Venu is your man. His great bulk coupled with his great typing and ability make him one of the most reliable moons to run on balance currently, because it alone removes a heavy strain on teambuilding. When ORAS first came out ppl slept on him (including myself), but now that the meta has 'settled', Venu has found himself being used again. For a while now I've seen him as a greater threat than the rest of the A rank, and I feel a rise is warranted due to the fact that he handles so much for the one low payment of one mega slot.
 
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