np: ORAS UU Stage 6 - Slow Hands

Status
Not open for further replies.
I only have about twenty games on the ladder and Crawdaunt has been underwhelming for the most part. As everyone's been saying, Crawdaunt struggles very heavily against most forms of Offense; it's extremely difficult to bring in on anything but the revenge or slow Volt-Turn, and I'm finding being stuck in a 50/50 with Aqua Jet vs. Crabhammer or Knock Off to be REALLY unsavory, because if you goof you could very well lose Crawdaunt and you'll certainly lose most of your momentum, and then you have to move the Earth AGAIN to bring it in safely. I'm thinking of rebuilding with that in mind to make it easier for Crawdaunt to come in more easily.

That all being said, Crawdaunt is MEAN once it is in. The "kill every time it comes in," is certainly an exaggeration, but not much of one. I've cleaned weakened teams with Adamant Aqua Jet, so while the tier is littered with resists to Crawdaunt's moveset, you absolutely need one in order to effectively wall it. I'm looking forward to playing with it in the tier more.
 
I just wanted to post that the difference between Mence, Mamoswine, and Crawdaunt is that Crawdaunt can beat its "counters" You can safely add a fairy for Mence or a bulky water for Mamoswine, you cannot safely add a bulky grass for Crawdaunt because of Sludge Wave and Aerial Ace.

I'll admit Crawdaunt doesn't do as well against offense as it used to unless its Sash, but SD Crawdaunt makes Stall near unplayable. Choice Band And DD Salamence do not.
 

Kink

it's a thug life ¨̮
is a Tutor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I just wanted to post that the difference between Mence, Mamoswine, and Crawdaunt is that Crawdaunt can beat its "counters" You can safely add a fairy for Mence or a bulky water for Mamoswine, you cannot safely add a bulky grass for Crawdaunt because of Sludge Wave and Aerial Ace.

I'll admit Crawdaunt doesn't do as well against offense as it used to unless its Sash, but SD Crawdaunt makes Stall near unplayable. Choice Band And DD Salamence do not.
Salamence can beat its "Counters" too, via Iron Tail.

e: Mamoswine has like 4-5 things that wall it, if that.
 
I think that while crawdaunt has massive wall breaking capabilities its not something that can just run rampant in the tier, even against defensive builds, cos it usually just gets outsped and destroyed, something like a 3hko against a defensive mon isnt that impressive considering it almost always hits last. Also, i think setting up with crawdaunt would be really hard for the same reason, unless Trick Room is on, and even with SD and aqua jet, it doesn't really get many opportunities to sweep, or switch in for that matter. Imo, Crawdaunt is terrifying against defensive sets, but even against defensive sets, i feel i would be pressured to get forced out by many mons that can be used in defensive teams, and would think that people would not just easily set up and sweep with it , so it isn't broken. Something that is broken is something like garchomp in a sandstorm, when people just can't handle it, and in my battles, even though i mainly use a defensive team, i find crawdaunt very handle-able (no homo.)
 
Salamence can beat its "Counters" too, via Iron Tail.

e: Mamoswine has like 4-5 things that wall it, if that.
Iron Tail isn't reliable and its assumed to be on every Mence set these days. Sludge Wave is not. Also, CB Mence using Iron Tail is set up fodder for a lot of mons such as Gatr. I also want Mamo banned just used it as a comparison cause atleast Cune and Momo hardwall it.

Infracted
 
Last edited by a moderator:

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I just wanted to post that the difference between Mence, Mamoswine, and Crawdaunt is that Crawdaunt can beat its "counters" You can safely add a fairy for Mence or a bulky water for Mamoswine, you cannot safely add a bulky grass for Crawdaunt because of Sludge Wave and Aerial Ace.

I'll admit Crawdaunt doesn't do as well against offense as it used to unless its Sash, but SD Crawdaunt makes Stall near unplayable. Choice Band And DD Salamence do not.
Iron Tail isn't reliable and its assumed to be on every Mence set these days. Sludge Wave is not. Also, CB Mence using Iron Tail is set up fodder for a lot of mons such as Gatr. I also want Mamo banned just used it as a comparison cause atleast Cune and Momo hardwall it.
If iron tail is assumed then Fairy types aren't counters to Salamence ?_?

Standard Chesnaught switches into any move + Sludge Wave (or Aerial Ace) and lives + KO in return, Crawdaunt has much harder counters than either Salamence or Mamoswine, and its way slower and has worse defensive typing and bulk. Like I don't play UU that much but how can you say that Crawdaunt can beat its counters more easily than mence because "fairies" when a move which is much more standard and less sub par than Sludge Wave on Crawdaunt is "assumed" and beats the fairies if they switch into that or DD (and aren't Whimsicott, but that also has to watch for fire blast as well). I'm honestly just confused by your contradictory posts?
 

Moutemoute

Error 404
is a Community Contributoris a Top Tiering Contributoris a Tutor Alumnusis a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Past SCL Champion
If iron tail is assumed then Fairy types aren't counters to Salamence ?_?

Standard Chesnaught switches into any move + Sludge Wave (or Aerial Ace) and lives + KO in return
It's not totally true because if your opponent predict your switch, you are in a pretty tough situation. Actually in UU Crawdaunt hasn't a real safe switch because his Movepool allows him to OHKO - 2HKO a big part of the tier.
He can easily be RK but he can easily RK a lot of thing too.
 

august

you’re a voice that never sings
is a Community Leaderis a Tiering Contributoris a Top Tutor Alumnusis a Tournament Director Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis the 8th Smogon Classic Winnerwon the 5th Official Smogon Tournamentis a Five-Time Past WCoP Champion
OGC Leader
yea i've been playing... i want to state that i think crawdaunt is very dangerous to stall. i've been running stall on the ladder and i'd like to for people to realize that a well played crawdaunt can be a very big threat to stall. however, that doesn't necessarily mean that i think crawdaunt should be banned. as someone who has been played for competitively for 9 years now, i'd like to say that there should be competition to stall. there shouldn't be one playstyle that outright dominate the others. and from my experience on the ladder i want to say that crawdaunt is an excellent offensive option for balancing the constant fight between offense and stall (as is chandelure). that doesn't mean that one style will necessarily have a big advantage vs another. i have beaten plenty of teams that run either crawdaunt or chandelier pkmn (and also both), but a well played crawdaunt or chandelure CAN be a big threat to stall. that's the way it should be. look at breloom in 4th gen, there are a good amount of stall teams that struggle against it. there are a good amount of stall teams that could care less about breloom. but it's very presence is enough to force competitive play for stall teams that are weak to it. isn't that what we want? for the game to be competitive? who cares if some players run average stall teams and struggle against crawdaunt because they can't sustain competitive play when they face it? i think crawdaunt should stay. im tired of tiers banning average pkmn just because they can't sustain high level play when they face it.

tl;dr: crawdaunt should stay. i haven't read much of the thread but i have played over 100 battles of UU (on both suspect and pre-suspect) and i think crawdaunt does a good job of balancing the tier. stay tuned for further input when i'm done with finals (and sober)
 
I'm not sure if anyone has done this yet with Crawdaunt's SD set yet, but to see if it could make better use of it's two special coverage moves, I tried coming up with an alternative spread for the SD set, giving it a Naughty nature and slightly edited the EVs to 148 ATK/ 108 SPA/ 252 SPE so that it has a bit more special power. After doing calcs, the coverage moves are still kinda underwhelming even with SpA investment.

108 SpA Life Orb Crawdaunt Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Tangrowth: 299-354 (74 - 87.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

108 SpA Life Orb Crawdaunt Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Chesnaught: 221-260 (58.1 - 68.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

108 SpA Life Orb Crawdaunt Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Chesnaught: 231-273 (60.7 - 71.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

108 SpA Life Orb Crawdaunt Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Tangrowth: 315-372 (77.9 - 92%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

I admit I'm not that great with making alternate spreads and such, so if anyone has a better idea how to make it work..
 
To keep it's physical attack high enough so that it still does a lot of damage with a SD boost.

Like I said, I'm not that great with alternative spreads. : P That's the best I could come up with at the time. Someone could probably come up with a better spread than what I came up with.

Edit: Wow, my head sploded right when I was typing this. What I meant to say was that I gave it that much SpA investment to test if it would do more damage, while keeping the Atk EVs high enough so that it could still do a lot of damage with a SD boost.
 
Last edited:
After laddering with several teams that use Crawdaunt, particularly using a team using a triple dark spam core of Banded Crawdaunt, Life Orb Hydreigon, and SpDef Mandibuzz. I think that Crawdaunt should be Unbanned.

From my experience using it and playing against it, I have noticed that Crawdaunt has a very hard time getting in, and an even harder time setting up (I've used both band and SD Daunt) But when it comes in (which is very rarely) Something generally loses a lot of health or dies. More times than that, however, I have needed to switch Crawdaunt out just so my opponent didn't get a free switch in. I've been playing the test using a bulky offense team, and I have not found Crawdaunt to be very threatening to it. As well as that Crawdaunt generally does nothing but get sacked off each game.

On the topic of drops, has anyone ever tried out Calm Mind Diancie, it gets quite a few set-up opportunities and can get smash special walls with Diamond Storm, and has won many suspect games on its own due to how underprepared people are for offensive fairies.
 
I just wanted to post that the difference between Mence, Mamoswine, and Crawdaunt is that Crawdaunt can beat its "counters" You can safely add a fairy for Mence or a bulky water for Mamoswine, you cannot safely add a bulky grass for Crawdaunt because of Sludge Wave and Aerial Ace.

I'll admit Crawdaunt doesn't do as well against offense as it used to unless its Sash, but SD Crawdaunt makes Stall near unplayable. Choice Band And DD Salamence do not.
Everything with the right moveset can beat its counters/checks.
 
What will happen after this suspect is pretty simple and legit. A majority of players ( not the majority of the good players) hate fat defensive cores and dream of a metagame without fucking stall mon.Seriously, you give the opportunity to all those players to weaken any defensive core on this meta, what are you expecting?

Allowing a mon like crawdaunt is clearly an advantage for offensive build which have without a doubt no difficulties to rekt this frail and slow lobster. Allowing this mon will just change the way of all defensive players to build and play by strongly limited their possibilities ( even for balance ), but who cares about them. It's democracy, i have to accept what the majority wants and it seems that the majority doesnt care if the meta is too much offensive.

When i look at a good part of balance and stall team, they just become useless after the crawdaunt add, do you think that the meta is already adapted to it?
Consequently, I dont see any good reason to play balance or stall after this suspect if the lobster is allowed and i dont want to be forced to play just offensive teams so i will just stop playing uu and wait for the next crawdaunt suspect in x mounth. A lot of balanced/stall player are pretty sad and afraid about what could happen after. I dont think crawdaunt is necessary for this metagame, it will just make some ppl stop playing this tier, i don't think you all want this.

The No ban is legit but is it really necessary, just think about it please, make the good choice.

Infracted
 
Last edited:
What will happen after this suspect is pretty simple and legit. A majority of players ( not the majority of the good players) hate fat defensive cores and dream of a metagame without fucking stall mon.Seriously, you give the opportunitie to all those players to weaken any defensive core on this meta, what are you expecting?

Allowing a mon like crawdaunt is clearly an advantage for offensive build which have without a doubt no difficulties to rekt this frail and slow lobster. Allowing this mon will just change the way of all defensive players to build and play by strongly limited their possibilities ( even for balance ), but who cares about them.A majority of you just dont care about the others, i'm not surprised. It's democracy, i have to accept what the majority wants and it seems that the majority doesnt care if the meta is too much offensive.

When i look at a good part of my balance and stall team in my teambuilder, they just become useless after the crawdaunt add, do you think that the meta is already adapted to it?
Consequently, I dont see any good reason to play balance or stall after this suspect if the lobster is allowed and i dont want to be forced to play just offensive teams so i will just stop playing uu and wait for the next crawdaunt suspect in x mounth. A lot of balanced/stall player are pretty sad and afraid about what could happen after. I dont think crawdaunt is necessary for this metagame, it will just make some ppl stop playing this tier, i don't think you all want this.

The No ban is legit but is it really necessary, just think about it please, make the good choice.
I'm sorry, but are you kidding me? Both stall and balance playstyles have numerous ways to effectively deal with Crawdaunt that are viable regardless of his inclusion on the other team. Here's a list of Pokemon that proactively can defeat Crawdaunt and fit on one of the two playstyles:

Chesnaught, Tangrowth, Infernape, Hydreigon, Salamence, Feraligatr, Whimsicott, Zapdos, Toxicroak, Mega Abomasnow, Mega Sceptile, Roserade, Heliolisk, Amoonguss, Haxorus, Goodra

You are right, not all of them are 100% absolute every time switch ins, but all that encourages on the part of the stall/balance player is that they have to think about their play before making it. Maybe you can't Wish/Protect with an Alomomola 100% of the time until something dies to Toxic because the CB Knock Off coming your way is going to set you back a bit. That's not a bad thing though. I'm not advocating for "hyper stall" with sick ass double switches and predictions, because I know that's not what a stall player is looking to do (the impetus on a balance player to do as such is a bit higher, though of course not at the level of an offense player) but stall has no divine right to be allowed to play passively for 60 turns and eeke out a win on matchup, because a certain particular wall couldn't be broken.

Defensive pokemon are, and have been, less likely to be seen as "broken" since the start of Generation 6. But, from what I can tell, preparing to beat Alomomola, Quagsire, Blissey, etc. with an offensive team is as much a difficult teambuilding constraint as it is to beat Crawdaunt with a defensive team. I genuinely think part of the argument coming from (some) defensive minded players is a complaint that there's essentially no physical version of Blissey, aka something you can't 100% switch into a "nuke" like a Draco Meteor from Hydreigon.

I'd lean toward "no ban" at the moment, it's certainly still up for debate, but acting like there is some mandate that stall (and to a lesser extent, balance) must be able to be played the same way forever forth is silly. Coming from the other perspective, I think it's better to place a bit more emphasis on in game decision making than teambuilding outright.
 
teal6, i never said that balance and stall couldnt adapt for a new meta with crawdaunt, i just think it's not an easy adaptation.Our opinions are different on that way,you think that the adaptation is not that difficult whereas i think a new mon should not force too much adaptation for a playstyle.
By the way i like one of your argument :
But, from what I can tell, preparing to beat Alomomola, Quagsire, Blissey, etc. with an offensive team is as much a difficult teambuilding constraint as it is to beat Crawdaunt with a defensive team.
I totally agree that it's hard for offensive team to consider them and i think offense should have more possibilities but i just consider crawdaunt is not the best solution for this.
 
Last edited:
Adaptation doesn't have to be easy. We're trying to foster an environment that creates the best possible players, holding players' hands like that goes against everything Smogon stands for. Sableye wasn't instantly BL'd for its ability to fuck with offense super hard, nor was Zapdos BL'd for stuffing Cobalion, one of the best Pokemon in the tier.

EDIT: You clearly didn't read my post. Sableye hurts Offense. Zapdos hurts Offense. Neither of them were kept from entering the tier even though they were detrimental to a playstyle.

I'm aware that both can also be used as potent Pokemon on offense, but the fact of the matter is that unless a Pokemon egregiously breaks a playstyle (like Diggersby did for Stall, NOT Crawdaunt) we don't hold Pokemon back from being in a tier. Adapt. Get better. There have been Pokemon that were undiscovered that became popular and extremely good (I'm talking about Cobalion) because someone adapted and found a gem.
 
Last edited:
Adaptation doesn't have to be easy. We're trying to foster an environment that creates the best possible players, holding players' hands like that goes against everything Smogon stands for. Sableye wasn't instantly BL'd for its ability to fuck with offense super hard, nor was Zapdos BL'd for stuffing Cobalion, one of the best Pokemon in the tier.
Thats why i consider this suspect a little unfair, you ask to a majority of offensive players if they want to try a new meta without any drawbacks for them but a lot of restrains for the others.What opinion are you expecting for that type of players? The others have to make all the efforts for the interest of them.I just dont consider that adaptation necessary. This adaptation is possible of course but is this fair and necessary, that is the real question.
 
Thats why i consider this suspect a little unfair, you ask to a majority of offensive players if they want to try a new meta without any drawbacks for them but a lot of restrains for the others.What opinion are you expecting for that type of players? The others have to make all the efforts for the interest of them.I just dont consider that adaptation necessary. This adaptation is possible of course but is this fair and necessary, that is the real question.
Democracy is like 2 wolf and a sheep deciding what to eat for dinner, sure. But what else do you want? Give people who used stall on the ladder 2 votes?

Crawdaunt can be played around even as a stall player I am probably going to vote no ban. In fact I enjoyed owning the Crawdaunts with my stall. Often I could severely damage them with one good play even though stall normally requires many good plays before you get big benefits from them.
 
I would like to support zben here and also give my own opinion.

In suspect tests, I prefer not to focus on the checks and counters of the suspected Pokemon, but rather on the way it impacts the different archetypes of our game.

Crawdaunt is too powerful and will kill bulky builds from stall to bulky balance. If your team is prepared for the Swords Dance set, it wont be prepared for the Ice Beam/Sludge Wave coverage set and this will lead to a loss at preview.

We all know that stall and balance builds need switch-ins to threats and Crawdaunt is obviously no exception.
Chesnaught, Tangrowth, Infernape, Hydreigon, Salamence, Feraligatr, Whimsicott, Zapdos, Toxicroak, Mega Abomasnow, Mega Sceptile, Roserade, Heliolisk, Amoonguss, Haxorus, Goodra
How many of those can actually switch in on both sets?
1) Chestnaught counters the Swords Dance set but dies to the special move coverage set. However, since it lives Knock Off + Ice Beam, we can consider it as a solid check even if some Banded versions have Aerial Ace.
2) Tangrowth dies to the Swords Dance set after Stealth Rock + Leftovers and also dies to the combination of Knock Off + Ice Beam. So that's a very shaky check.
3) Amoongus and Mega Abomasnow die to +2 Knock Off.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Mega Abomasnow: 367-434 (95.5 - 113%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
4) Goodra: shouldn't even be in your list, It can't take a Life Orb Knock Off.
252+ Atk Life Orb Adaptability Crawdaunt Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Goodra: 382-452 (99.4 - 117.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

All the other Pokemon you talked about fit on balance but also can not really switch in on it specially Infernape, Roserade, and Helliolisk. You mainly sited revenge killers and not actual checks or counters.

Anyway, I urge people to think again. Craudaunt will make stall unviable and if not unviable there will be no reason to use it. This Pokemon is killing a play style and heavily limiting bulk in general even bulky balance. It's also a perfect set since Aqua Jet is great versus Offense and Ice Beam + Knock Off + Crabhammer rapes stall. It's a perfect Pokemon that is too good in the UU metagame.
Also if after the vote it stays I would like to assure you it will be suspected again. Time will tell...
DO NOT UNBAN
 
Last edited:

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Thats why i consider this suspect a little unfair, you ask to a majority of offensive players if they want to try a new meta without any drawbacks for them but a lot of restrains for the others.What opinion are you expecting for that type of players? The others have to make all the efforts for the interest of them.I just dont consider that adaptation necessary. This adaptation is possible of course but is this fair and necessary, that is the real question.
It doesn't matter whether or not the adaptation is necessary or not. As long as it is in reach, there is no reason for a mon like crawdaunt to be banned. I think the UU community is making great strides because of the fact that we have gone through some tough adaptations. Shit, idk about you but it was pretty rough getting used to gatr in the tier but we got through it, and the tier as a whole benefitted greatly from it. Even the beginning stages of Salamence's return. There was a lot of controversy aroud it but we got through it and adapted, and once again, our tier has made enormous strides because of that.

It makes us looks good as a community when we do these types of things and I feel like crawdaunt can only help UU down the road. The tier will be fine, don't worry.
 
Crawdaunt hates facing stall. It's about a 1/10 main wallbreaker vs well prepared stall (aka any stall that's ready for gatrs and sharks). That said stall has 0 space to include daunt itself in teambuilding. I cant say there's any real impact here.

Crawdaunt Chews up bad balance/BO and spits it out, but half the tier does that, I still don't get why people think this is a strong playstyle. (Aka balance/BO teams that were intentionally made to be balance/BO without a focused and dedicated wincon). That said well made BO teams love the addition of daunt as another possible wincon/strong prio user/secondary wallbreaker.

HO has the same bipolar relationship with crawdaunt as it does with mamoswine. Everything eats it offensively and it gets 0 free switchins but man can it do damage on a double/RK.

TL:DR Crawdaunt was banned (twice) due to an overfocus on the prevalence of hard counters vs the prevalence of hard checks. Bad balance only exists as a "playstyle" because the previous council put it on full blown life support this gen. Let that garbage die.

Edit: If you really love unfocused balance wait till the potential togekiss retest and show your opinion with a vote there. Eggburd has basically put balance on it's back and hard carried for 3 gens.

Edit again: @ Teal: It's less that building for stall is problematic and more that building for stall while also building for HO vs HO/BO vs BO meta's is a pain in the dick, you'll often feel the shame of losing to absolute garbage with 0 stall/semi/hard balance checks and then immediately seeing them spamlose to the worst stall on the ladder early in the teambuilding process, when the teams balance of utility vs power isn't tuned for that particular ladder yet. (Building for tours is waaaay easier in that respect).
 
Last edited:
Clearly, the central argument of the pro-ban side is that Crawdaunt can KO any Pokemon in the tier with the appropriate set by hitting its counters with the correct move/setting up SD upon switchin.

This may be true, but it doesn't make Crawdaunt broken. The lack of true counters is not at all something that's unique to Crawdaunt. As Hikari showed, the same thing can be said of Salamence: between LO special attacking sets and physical sets, it can 2HKO the whole tier. This also applies to Hydreigon (no guaranteed switchins: it can carry Iron Tail and Superpower!) Mamoswine (only truly countered by Alomomola), and Infernape (can OHKO or 2HKO everything in the tier with the right move), among others. Even Hoopa can 2HKO the whole tier with only three moves, no variability in its set is needed.

These Pokemon don't have ~~~~~true counters~~~~~; however, clearly none of them are broken. Why? Because all of these Pokemon still have reliable checks. All of them pressure stall and passive builds in general, but that doesn't mean we should ban them.
If your team is prepared for the Swords Dance set, it wont be prepared for the Ice Beam/Sludge Wave coverage set and this will lead to a loss at preview.
If your stall team consists of Forretress and 5 things that die to Outrage, or Blissey and 5 things that die to Draco Meteor, you're going to lose to DD Fire Blast / mixed Salamence and LO Superpower Hydreigon respectively. That doesn't make Salamence and Hydreigon broken, it just means it's a bad team because you failed to adequately prepared for two of UU's top threats. If your stall team is Chesnaught and 5 mons that are OHKOd by Crawdaunt, same thing applies. That's what "preparation" means: you have to account for all of a Pokemon's sets when you try to check it. Crawdaunt only has one set with one variable moveslot, unlike stuff like Salamence or Infernape, which are significantly harder to prepare for. I cannot imagine a scenario where a team loses to Crawdaunt "at preview" unless the team is horribly unprepared.

Stall will not become "unviable", it basically only needs two things to account for Crawdaunt: a bulky Grass-type / fat Salamence, and a bulky Water-type. The latter is pretty much ubiquitous on stall teams anyway, fat Grass-types are something that's already used thanks to Mega Swampert / Feraligatr / Mega Sharpedo, defensive Salamence is an amazing Pokemon for stall since it hard counters every Fighting-type and Defogs on many Stealth Rock users. Hydreigon is also a thing we're starting to see on stall and semi-stall (there was a stall team with Hydreigon that was used quite frequently in UU Open) to counter things like Chandelure and Mega Houndoom reliably.
It's a perfect Pokemon that is too good in the UU metagame.
Crawdaunt is FAR from the perfect Pokemon. Its horrible bulk means that its resistances mean literally nothing (252 SpA Chandelure Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Crawdaunt: 114-135 (42.6 - 50.5%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock), severely limiting its ability to safely get on the field. It even fears directly switching into some of the defensive Pokemon it can threate - like Gligar's U-turn, Slowking's Scald, and Doublade's Sacred Sword. It's easily checked by any faster Water-resist (of which there are a LOT given that Crawdaunt's basically the slowest offensive Pokemon available besides like Machamp) and even Water-neutralities like Cobalion and Zapdos. Many other people have covered this but people are still saying "IT HAS PRIORITY IT CAN DESTROY OFFENSE" when this is simply not the case. Crawdaunt isn't even the best offensive Water-type in the tier, let alone best Pokemon.

Do people who think Crawdaunt is broken because it has no true counters think that it's broken in OU too? Seems like the same arguments apply - it can kill Mega Scizor/Skarm/Quag with CB Crabhammers, Ferrothorn with Superpower, Mega Venusaur with CB Crunch. It can 2HKO anything on the switch with the appropriate item and move!
 

ManOfMany

I can make anything real
is a Tiering Contributor
It's not that Crawdaunt will always beat stall, it's that it is highly limiting for the playstyle. If I play stall a lot, I don't want to have to be forced to run Chesnaught or max/max Tangrowth on every team.

Yes, pokemon like Salamence, Gatr, and Snorlax already centralize stall a lot- but that's the thing. We already have so many huge threats to a defensive playstyle- why do you want to introduce another, even more over-the-top one? Crawdaunt may not be broken, but when doing reintroductions from BL4 a pokemon does not HAVE to be broken to be banned. It just has to be unhealthy.

dodmen edit:
From now on I'm going to infract anyone saying shit like "You have to prepare your teams for Crawdaunt, therefore broken".
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To be clear, a pokemon that is unhealthy for the metagame or overcentralizing but does not break the metagame = gen 4 garchomp/Gen 2 snorelax. This is the standard for an over centralizing poke. It's a mon that is SO DAMN GOOD that there is no reason not to run it on every single team. In other words an unhealthy metagame is a metagame where one playstyle/poke forces a homogeneous teambuilding process.

The most recent example of this I can think of was the xy shuckle suspect in RU, that ladder at higher levels was 90% shuckle/hitmon/doublade/2 mooks teams, 5% HO+TR core teams to beat shuckle webs, and 5% stall feeding on the folks that overfocused the webs mirror.

There is a stark well defined difference in this and "I DONT LIKE CHANGE"

Edit: ILY dodmen
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top