Ultra Sun & Moon OU Analysis Discussion

MikeDawg

Banned deucer.
From the greninja analysis:

Waterium Z is used as a nuke to guarantee the OHKO on Pokemon such as Tornadus-T after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tornadus-Therian: 272-324 (75.1 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Ice beam already KOs (and doesn't use up the z slot), so this isn't a good benchmark to show the worth of waterium-z.
 
For the Kingdra analysis: https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/kingdra/ Would Scald be better for the second moveslot? It can punish switchins to Toxapex, Tapu Bulu, and Ferrothorn with a burn. Unless Surf picks up on any notable KOs that Scald doesn't (in the rain) that I am unaware of.

Can we consider making the last moveslot Ice Beam / Toxic instead of a bunch of HPs? Toxic cripples Gastrodon, Mantine and Bulu all in one slot.
This was fixed by curiosity, thanks.

From the greninja analysis:



252 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Tornadus-Therian: 272-324 (75.1 - 89.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Ice beam already KOs (and doesn't use up the z slot), so this isn't a good benchmark to show the worth of waterium-z.
I changed the example to Mega Medicham instead.
 
Hi, I was discussion this a bit on Pokemon Showdown in the OU discussion thread. This is a broader analysis wide question but is significant enough that it warrants discussion.

There needs to be a more mathematical approach to discussion STAB moves that have alternatives. The biggest culprits being Surf vs. Hydro Pump, Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, and the god-awful Hurricane vs. Air Slash.

Bottom line: accuracy must be approached mathematically and considered in all analysis. PP is also another concern. Let's start with the first example:

For the widely used SPECS Greninja set, Surf is mathematically better than Hydro Pump. In fact, Surf should be the preferred move on all water sweepers in Sun Moon because it is the better move:

Surf (90 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (1) = 135 Effective BP
Hydro Pump (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.8) = 132 Effective BP

Due to the commutative property of multiplication, it won't matter how many additional weather or item multipliers you add to this calculation. Surf will always out damage Hydro Pump, the only exception being Z-Move sets. The reason these calculations are important are because math determines your long term expected damage output. For every game Hydro Pump nails you that crucial OHKO or 2HKO that Surf wouldn't, it will lose you more by missing at an inopportune time. The longer one plays pokemon, the closer results will get to that statistical expectation.

For Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, Fire Blast's small bump in accuracy over Hydro Pump makes it marginally better than Flamethrower. This means that Fire pokemon sets the two should be slashed, with preference given to PP considerations (sets with Roost should have Flamethrower, sweepers should have Fire Blast).

Lastly, Hurricane on Tornadus-T is egregious and must be addressed. Like discussed above, Air Slash is mathematically better than Hurricane on all sets except Flyinium Z, with Hurricane deserving merit if the Tornadus-T is on a Rain Team or a team weak to opposing Rain Teams. The math on that is as follows:

Air Slash (75 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.95) * 30% Opponent not moving due to Flinch (1.3) = 139 Effective BP
Hurricane (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.7) * 30% Confusion / 50% not moving due to Confusion (1.15) = 133 Effective BP

This is not to mention the fact that sometimes Torn-T as a pivot may need to just hit a weak opponent and shoudn't have to rely on gambling to do so. Again, the concept here is that if you use both moves thousands of times, Air Slash will be more successful, thus winning you more games.
 
Hi, I was discussion this a bit on Pokemon Showdown in the OU discussion thread. This is a broader analysis wide question but is significant enough that it warrants discussion.

There needs to be a more mathematical approach to discussion STAB moves that have alternatives. The biggest culprits being Surf vs. Hydro Pump, Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, and the god-awful Hurricane vs. Air Slash.

Bottom line: accuracy must be approached mathematically and considered in all analysis. PP is also another concern. Let's start with the first example:

For the widely used SPECS Greninja set, Surf is mathematically better than Hydro Pump. In fact, Surf should be the preferred move on all water sweepers in Sun Moon because it is the better move:

Surf (90 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (1) = 135 Effective BP
Hydro Pump (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.8) = 132 Effective BP

Due to the commutative property of multiplication, it won't matter how many additional weather or item multipliers you add to this calculation. Surf will always out damage Hydro Pump, the only exception being Z-Move sets. The reason these calculations are important are because math determines your long term expected damage output. For every game Hydro Pump nails you that crucial OHKO or 2HKO that Surf wouldn't, it will lose you more by missing at an inopportune time. The longer one plays pokemon, the closer results will get to that statistical expectation.

For Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, Fire Blast's small bump in accuracy over Hydro Pump makes it marginally better than Flamethrower. This means that Fire pokemon sets the two should be slashed, with preference given to PP considerations (sets with Roost should have Flamethrower, sweepers should have Fire Blast).

Lastly, Hurricane on Tornadus-T is egregious and must be addressed. Like discussed above, Air Slash is mathematically better than Hurricane on all sets except Flyinium Z, with Hurricane deserving merit if the user's team is a Rain Team or weak to opposing Rain Teams. The math on that is as follows:

Air Slash (75 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.95) * 30% Opponent not moving due to Flinch (1.3) = 139 Effective BP
Hurricane (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.7) * 30% Confusion / 50% not moving due to Confusion (1.15) = 133 Effective BP

This is not to mention the fact that sometimes Torn-T as a pivot may need to just hit a weak opponent and shoudn't have to rely on gambling to do so. Again, the concept here is that if you use both moves thousands of times, Air Slash will be more successful, thus winning you more games.
it’s not always that black and white though. Here’s an example:
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 32 SpD Hydreigon: 160-189 (49.2 - 58.1%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Surf vs. 0 HP / 32 SpD Hydreigon: 131-154 (40.3 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Ash-Greninja has a 70.5% chance to 2HKO Hydreigon with Hydro Pump. Meanwhile Surf never 2HKOes. While sure in the long run Surf does more damage, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will win you more games. Pokémon has several other factors, and most importantly your goal isn’t dishing out the most damage over a thousand turns, but rather defeat six opposing Pokémon. Ergo, I believe the STAB of choice should be decided by a number of factors, and not only the average damage per turn.
 
it’s not always that black and white though. Here’s an example:
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 32 SpD Hydreigon: 160-189 (49.2 - 58.1%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO
  • 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja-Ash Surf vs. 0 HP / 32 SpD Hydreigon: 131-154 (40.3 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Ash-Greninja has a 70.5% chance to 2HKO Hydreigon with Hydro Pump. Meanwhile Surf never 2HKOes. While sure in the long run Surf does more damage, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will win you more games. Pokémon has several other factors, and most importantly your goal isn’t dishing out the most damage over a thousand turns, but rather defeat six opposing Pokémon. Ergo, I believe the STAB of choice should be decided by a number of factors, and not only the average damage per turn.
You cannot ignore accuracy. Hydro Pump must connect twice. I agree it the two both deserve to be slashed with explanation that Hydro Pump's higher burst damage can secure additional KOs. We just need to acknowledge that it is essentially gambling to use Hydro Pump over Surf. There are situations where gambling can be preferable (usually when you're losing) and situations where it is not (usually when you're winning). It doesn't seem like our analysis reflect that. And the most important point was that if you click Hydro Pump 5,000 times, it will do less damage than clicking Surf 5,000 times. It doesn't care what the target is.
 
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You cannot ignore accuracy. Hydro Pump must connect twice. I agree it the two both deserve to be slashed with explanation that Hydro Pump's higher burst damage can secure additional KOs. We just need to acknowledge that it is essentially gambling to use Hydro Pump over Surf. There are situations where gambling can be preferable (usually when you're losing) and situations where it is not (usually when you're winning). It doesn't seem like our analysis reflect that. And the most important point was that if you click Hydro Pump 5,000 times, it will do less damage than clicking Surf 5,000 times. It doesn't care what the target is.
I'll use Lyd's example of Ash-Gren vs Hydreigon. While there's a chance that you'll miss a Hydro Pump and won't 2HKO, Surf will never 2HKO (barring crits). While Surf statistically will do more damage overall, the higher damage potential of Hydro Pump allows it to achieve 2HKOs and OHKOs that Surf can't, and you can't ignore that. While it is gambling, the extra damage is important for a lot of calcs.

edit @ below: i haven't ignored the accuracy. the point still stands - a chance to 2hko is better than no chance to 2hko. you can't make a blanket statement that the more accurate, weaker version of certain moves are just better, it's entirely dependent on the meta. the people who write and qc check the analyses decide which tends to be the better option as they have the context of playing the tier
 
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I'll use Lyd's example of Ash-Gren vs Hydreigon. While there's a chance that you'll miss a Hydro Pump and won't 2HKO, Surf will never 2HKO (barring crits). While Surf statistically will do more damage overall, the higher damage potential of Hydro Pump allows it to achieve 2HKOs and OHKOs that Surf can't, and you can't ignore that.
You also can't ignore the opportunity cost of using Hydro Pump. The actually shot at 2HKO is lower (about 45%), and 20% of the time you get no damage on Hydra at all, as you are forced out. If the second pump misses you will take an unnecessary hit. This affects decision making both ways, so it's not as cut and dry as Hydro Pump can 2HKO so it is better. And like I said, there will be just as many times where Hydro Pump will lose you the game when you can't afford the miss, or don't get to evolve at all into Ash because you missed. The math just tells us that Surf is more profitable damage wise the more you use both.
 

GMars

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You also can't ignore the opportunity cost of using Hydro Pump. The actually shot at 2HKO is lower (about 45%), and 20% of the time you get no damage on Hydra at all, as you are forced out. If the second pump misses you will take an unnecessary hit. This affects decision making both ways, so it's not as cut and dry as Hydro Pump can 2HKO so it is better. And like I said, there will be just as many times where Hydro Pump will lose you the game when you can't afford the miss, or don't get to evolve at all into Ash because you missed. The math just tells us that Surf is more profitable damage wise the more you use both.
Consider situations where move X can land a guaranteed OHKO on a foe with 80% accuracy, whereas move Y can only 2HKO, though it has 100% accuracy. Your foe can OHKO you, though is slower. Your odds of winning 1v1 versus your foe with move Y (Surf) is ~4%, the chance of a crit. Your odds of winning 1v1 versus your foe with move X (Hydro Pump) is 80%. Consider another situation where the foe has recovery and move Y fails to do more damage than its recovery. The odds of winning 1v1 with move Y (Surf) is around the odds of a crit or a double crit. The odds of winning 1v1 with the inaccurate move are much higher, and the power of the move lets you put more pressure on your opponent’s walls more of the time. Heavy damage on a wall 80% of the time creates a much more important game state than recoverable damage on a wall 100% of the time.

The raw power necessary to pick up OHKOs and 2HKOs can’t be ignored. Remember that these moves are often paired with other accurate STAB or coverage as well. For example, Hydro Pump is paired with Dark Pulse on Greninja. This allows you to still have a 100% accurate option to deal damage in the endgame if you’ve chipped your foes correctly, giving you a consistent option to close well-played games while still enabling your mon to OHKO and 2HKO foes you’d otherwise be unable to, letting you win more games in the long run.
 
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Leo

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Hi, I was discussion this a bit on Pokemon Showdown in the OU discussion thread. This is a broader analysis wide question but is significant enough that it warrants discussion.

There needs to be a more mathematical approach to discussion STAB moves that have alternatives. The biggest culprits being Surf vs. Hydro Pump, Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, and the god-awful Hurricane vs. Air Slash.

Bottom line: accuracy must be approached mathematically and considered in all analysis. PP is also another concern. Let's start with the first example:

For the widely used SPECS Greninja set, Surf is mathematically better than Hydro Pump. In fact, Surf should be the preferred move on all water sweepers in Sun Moon because it is the better move:

Surf (90 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (1) = 135 Effective BP
Hydro Pump (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.8) = 132 Effective BP

Due to the commutative property of multiplication, it won't matter how many additional weather or item multipliers you add to this calculation. Surf will always out damage Hydro Pump, the only exception being Z-Move sets. The reason these calculations are important are because math determines your long term expected damage output. For every game Hydro Pump nails you that crucial OHKO or 2HKO that Surf wouldn't, it will lose you more by missing at an inopportune time. The longer one plays pokemon, the closer results will get to that statistical expectation.

For Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower, Fire Blast's small bump in accuracy over Hydro Pump makes it marginally better than Flamethrower. This means that Fire pokemon sets the two should be slashed, with preference given to PP considerations (sets with Roost should have Flamethrower, sweepers should have Fire Blast).

Lastly, Hurricane on Tornadus-T is egregious and must be addressed. Like discussed above, Air Slash is mathematically better than Hurricane on all sets except Flyinium Z, with Hurricane deserving merit if the Tornadus-T is on a Rain Team or a team weak to opposing Rain Teams. The math on that is as follows:

Air Slash (75 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.95) * 30% Opponent not moving due to Flinch (1.3) = 139 Effective BP
Hurricane (110 BP) * STAB (1.5) * Accuracy (0.7) * 30% Confusion / 50% not moving due to Confusion (1.15) = 133 Effective BP

This is not to mention the fact that sometimes Torn-T as a pivot may need to just hit a weak opponent and shoudn't have to rely on gambling to do so. Again, the concept here is that if you use both moves thousands of times, Air Slash will be more successful, thus winning you more games.
You can't look at the accuracy vs power argument in a vacuum without analyzing each isolated case, I appreciate the effort you've put into your post but this logic simply doesn't add up when it comes to real scenarios and real games. There's a reason mons like Keldeo Torn Gren have run Hydro and Cane since forever and you're gonna find similar examples in about every Smogon tier in every gen. This isn't an oversight or a miscalculation, it's a necessity in most cases and how the game works.
 
You can't look at the accuracy vs power argument in a vacuum without analyzing each isolated case, I appreciate the effort you've put into your post but this logic simply doesn't add up when it comes to real scenarios and real games. There's a reason mons like Keldeo Torn Gren have run Hydro and Cane since forever and you're gonna find similar examples in about every Smogon tier in every gen. This isn't an oversight or a miscalculation, it's a necessity in most cases and how the game works.
Thanks for clearing that up. I honestly didn't realize how necessary the gamble is.
 

Colonel M

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You can't look at the accuracy vs power argument in a vacuum without analyzing each isolated case, I appreciate the effort you've put into your post but this logic simply doesn't add up when it comes to real scenarios and real games. There's a reason mons like Keldeo Torn Gren have run Hydro and Cane since forever and you're gonna find similar examples in about every Smogon tier in every gen. This isn't an oversight or a miscalculation, it's a necessity in most cases and how the game works.
Adding onto this, it's something that I feel is a lot more player preference since we have seen some players choose Surf over Hydro Pump (or Flamethrower over Fire Blast) for some mons for their own various reasons. It depends on whether you want to chance running over Pokemon that otherwise Surf would have to rely on a crit or consistent accuracy. While there's some truth mathematically, you'd also have to look over more practical scenarios in Pokemon where KOing an opponent vs not KOing an opponent can mean a win or loss in either direction (whether missing the move or not being strong enough).

tl;dr - While I appreciate seeing an old face with a suggestion, it's rather difficult to evaluate in a vacuum much like Leo said and is something the player has to look from more practical standpoints since there are times where one scenario overcomes the other and vice versa.
 
The point about walls is well taken. Just looking from the standpoint of the Hydra example, Hydro Pump adds what us oddsmakers call variance. In the case of 97% chance of 2HKO with Hydro Pump, 62% of the time Greninja emerges victorious. 20% of the time there's no damage at all and Gren is forced out. A worse outcome is the ~15% chance that the second Hydro Pump doesn't connect and Gren is dead. Those variable outcomes only come with using a move like Hydro Pump where as Surf the only calculation is does this kill or not kill.
 

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I was looking through the January usage stats and noticed Tapu Koko most used item is Choice Specs again with Choice Specs at 35.254% compared to its second most used item at 14.675%, being Magnet. I wanted to know what coverage moves it was running but noticed only one mention of it, and that was in usage tips of another set
I actually think that specs tapu koko is pretty fucking good right now, the coverage on it tends to just be Tbolt/Volt/Dazzle/HP Ice or HP Fire, but usually Ice.
 

bigtalk

Banned deucer.
Now that Zygarde is gone, should we change the suggested EV spread for Tapu Fini to:

248 HP / 56 Def / 204 Spe

The defense investment helps it take certain attacks significantly better, ie.
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Fini: 168-198 (48.9 - 57.7%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 56 Def Tapu Fini: 161-189 (46.9 - 55.1%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Supersonic Skystrike (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Fini: 300-354 (87.4 - 103.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Supersonic Skystrike (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 56 Def Tapu Fini: 288-339 (83.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
 
Now that Zygarde is gone, should we change the suggested EV spread for Tapu Fini to:

248 HP / 56 Def / 204 Spe

The defense investment helps it take certain attacks significantly better, ie.
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Fini: 168-198 (48.9 - 57.7%) -- 59% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 56 Def Tapu Fini: 161-189 (46.9 - 55.1%) -- 14.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Supersonic Skystrike (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Fini: 300-354 (87.4 - 103.2%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery
  • 252+ Atk Landorus-Therian Supersonic Skystrike (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 56 Def Tapu Fini: 288-339 (83.9 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Tapu Fini is already recieving a revamp
 

bigtalk

Banned deucer.
For https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/slowbro/ou/, shouldn't the recommended spread be a simple 252/252/4? The set details say it lets you live a specs Dark Pulse from Greninja, but I don't see why you would want to stay in on that. The lack of investment in Defense is very noticeable, ie
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 248 HP / 96+ Def Slowbro: 195-231 (49.6 - 58.7%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 172-204 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
 
For https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/slowbro/ou/, shouldn't the recommended spread be a simple 252/252/4? The set details say it lets you live a specs Dark Pulse from Greninja, but I don't see why you would want to stay in on that. The lack of investment in Defense is very noticeable, ie
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 248 HP / 96+ Def Slowbro: 195-231 (49.6 - 58.7%) -- 71.1% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
  • +1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 172-204 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
The Special Defense is particularly nice if Slowbro is running Thunder Wave or Toxic, as it enables Slowbro to cripple Choice Specs Greninja in a pinch. The Special Defense investment also allows it to take a Draco Meteor from Mega Latios quite comfortably and Shadow Ball from Mega Alakazam if needed. Overall, the Special Defense investment has a generally greater impact on gameplay than maximum Defense investment, which really only helps with Mega Charizard X, which can set up on you if you aren't running Thunder Wave or Toxic. Ofcourse, if you really need it, maximum Defense investment can be run.
 
M.Scizor Analysis Other Options:
Alternatively, Hidden Power Fire can be used against Kartana and opposing Mega Scizor. Toxic may be used on Mega Scizor's utility set to cripple common switch-ins like Zapdos and Landorus-T, but Mega Scizor usually lacks the moveslot to fit it in. You can try to outspeed opposing Mega Scizor with this set to potentially 2HKO it before it can recover back its health with Roost.
Fixed.

I'm not 100% if Scizors still run speed, I remember they were getting quite fast at one point, but I think it'd be worth mentioning some investments somewhere, maybe OO, as speed is nice when running Superpower, as you can ko before they hit you.
It's already in Set Details.
 
In xurkitree's pseudo analysis, the item its suppose to use is psychium z, but hypnosis is only an alternative move in its fourth moveslot with energy ball. Energy ball should therefore be removed or placed as an option in another moveslot, like the one with hp ice.
 
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In xurkitree's pseudo analysis, the item its suppose to use is psychium z, but hypnosis is only an alternative move in its fourth moveslot with energy ball. Energy ball should therefore be removed or placed as an option in another moveslot, like the one with hp ice.
Shuca Berry used to be the primary item, which is why Energy Ball was the primary slash. I've fixed this.
 

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