Resource Simple Questions, Simple Answers Thread (read the op before posting a thread)

So I've been trying this rmt (https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...-sceptile-easy-27-3-to-1-6k-peak-1780.3648539), and I'm wondering why sceptile is never used (heh). It works great, and the unique stab combination lets it blow past a ton of stuff in the meta along with essentially auto-winning whenever your faced with hawlucha offense. What is holding it back in the tier?
Celesteela, Magearna, Chansey, Zapdos, Clefable, Toxapex, Tornadus-Therian, being frail, being weak, and requiring far too much support. Hawlucha is already at a low point. Sceptile is significantly worse than it to begin with. This team is super inconsistent and probably only works on low ladder, basically.
 
While on the subject of terrain seed abusers, what are your thoughts on Misty Seed Haxorus? Being A Mono Dragon type gives it only two weaknesses and quite a few notable resistances. This allows it to set up on Mons such as Specially Defensive Heatran and Rotom while terrain is up. It even allows it to take Moonblast from Clef and Fini with no need for a Spdef investment.
 
While on the subject of terrain seed abusers, what are your thoughts on Misty Seed Haxorus? Being A Mono Dragon type gives it only two weaknesses and quite a few notable resistances. This allows it to set up on Mons such as Specially Defensive Heatran and Rotom while terrain is up. It even allows it to take Moonblast from Clef and Fini with no need for a Spdef investment.
While it sounds cool in theory, you have to keep in mind that this means you need to get Haxorus, a Pokemon that has historically been held back greatly due to lack of natural bulk and a brutally average speed tier, has to get in safely during the limited turns of Misty Terrain. This also means that Haxorus loses the ability to increase breaking power with another boosting item. Overall, the combination of Haxorus being a lackluster pick and circumstances needing to line up too specifically make it more of a cheesy, niche option than anything that would be worth using consistently.
 
Your only STAB move is also weakened in Misty Terrain against Pokemon that aren't Levitating/Flying.
Yeah, totally forgot about that. Thanks for pointing that out

Part of that was mainly do to the fact that I was trying to use this set as a lure to the common Dragon counters in this tier and not for it's dragon spamming abilities.
 
What are the common Toxapex EV spreads used in the current meta and what does each accomplish? I know this mon has a variety of commonly seen spreads going from calm full SpDef to bold almost full phys Def, so I'm mostly interested in the ones in between and what they cover.
 
Is there a viable Mega Gardevoir set in OU, or does Mega Alakazam COMPLETELY outclass it.
Mega Gardevoir is completely outclassed by Mega Alakazam and, more notably, Tapu Lele, since it can do more than it without taking up a Mega slot. The only "viable" moveset is the one its analysis suggests, but even then that same analysis begins with "There is absolutely no reason to use Mega Gardevoir in OU."
 
Mega Gardevoir is completely outclassed by Mega Alakazam and, more notably, Tapu Lele, since it can do more than it without taking up a Mega slot. The only "viable" moveset is the one its analysis suggests, but even then that same analysis begins with "There is absolutely no reason to use Mega Gardevoir in OU."
Thanks for the quick reply. I am still running Mega-Alakazam for my OU team and wondered if Gardevoir had any viability
 
What makes Mega-Gardevoir banned from UU?

Hello,

this might be more of a UU question rather than an Ou question.
But it got banned due to multiple reasons, such as its typing, the decent speed tier, the good coverage of attacks it has and also the pressure it had on physical attackers with a Will-O-Wisp. But I think you get more information about why it got banned in the first place in the UU section of smogon. Pretty sure the people there will answer your question more detailed.
 
Y'know, it just dawned upon me.

In the transition from Gen 6 to Gen 7, Zygarde went from niche to being banned. And as we all know, Thousand Arrows was primarily to blame for this, giving Zygarde a way to cheese past so many regular Ground checks while being a powerful and spammable move in its own right.

With that said, why the heck didn't we just suspect Thousand Arrows? It's not like there are any other good users of this move that would suffer indirectly. Smeargle isn't doing much with it without STAB and its 1st route bug-tier Attack, and Zygarde-10% sucked anyway while his big bro was in the tier and even now he's still a pretty mediocre pick who's just barely clinging on to viability.
 
In general banning a particular broken aspect about a mon to prevent it from being banned is frowned upon, usually its the abuser of the move that gets banned cause its much simpler

Plus thousand arrows itself isnt broken. Its the combination of zygardes insane bulk that allows it to set up on virtually anything, its stupid status options that allows it to get past its counters AND thousand arrows enabling it to run mono stab sets

I guess you could make a case for tarrows being broken on any good ground type (lando, chomp, exca..etc would all be incredibly broken with it) but for now it isnt on any other good mon so its just theorymon so its unfair banning a currently non problematic move just cause zygarde-50 was broken with it
 
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With that said, why the heck didn't we just suspect Thousand Arrows?

It would negatively impact the viability of Zygarde-10% in the tier. While it isn't really very viable on its own as is the council, to my knowledge, doesn't usually like to do stuff like that since it would be a complex ban and complex bans are, well... complex. That would be like banning Protean+Greninja last gen or banning Speed Boost+Blaziken this gen. While I've historically been vehemently against the Zygarde-50% ban it still made a lot more sense to ban Zygarde-50% since Thousand Arrows itself isn't broken on the three things that get it and Zygarde-50% was so good for a laundry list of reasons beyond just having an extremely spammable STAB like Thousand Arrows.
 
It would negatively impact the viability of Zygarde-10% in the tier. While it isn't really very viable on its own as is the council, to my knowledge, doesn't usually like to do stuff like that since it would be a complex ban and complex bans are, well... complex. That would be like banning Protean+Greninja last gen or banning Speed Boost+Blaziken this gen. While I've historically been vehemently against the Zygarde-50% ban it still made a lot more sense to ban Zygarde-50% since Thousand Arrows itself isn't broken on the three things that get it and Zygarde-50% was so good for a laundry list of reasons beyond just having an extremely spammable STAB like Thousand Arrows.
I think it would be more akin to banning just Protean or just Speed Boost. There's nothing "complex" about banning just Thousand Arrows, it just wasn't the call they made.
 
In general banning a particular broken aspect about a mon to prevent it from being banned is frowned upon, usually its the abuser of the move that gets banned cause its much simpler

Plus thousand arrows itself isnt broken. Its the combination of zygardes insane bulk that allows it to set up on virtually anything, its stupid status options that allows it to get past its counters AND thousand arrows enabling it to run mono stab sets

I guess you could make a case for tarrows being broken on any good ground type (lando, chomp, exca..etc would all be incredibly broken with it) but for now it isnt on any other good mon so its just theorymon so its unfair banning a currently non problematic move just cause zygarde-50 was broken with it

We could make the argument that it was one of the reasons Power Construct Zygarde got banned as well

Also Dreadfury didn't they ban the Drizzle/Swift Swim combo a few gens ago?
 
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Zygarde-Complete was broken for a number of reasons. Thousand Arrows was part of it, but the main reason was how insanely bulky it was. With that said, it is not worth wasting our time on pointless, unrealistic hypotheticals.

We ban Pokemon before moves. Unless a specific non-Pokemon element proves to singlehandedly (!!!) break multiple Pokemon, then we do not act on the element, but rather the Pokemon. Zygarde is the only Pokemon this was believed to be the case for. We banned Zygarde. Let's not drag on discussion on this matter in this thread of all places. Thanks
 
Zygarde-Complete was broken for a number of reasons. Thousand Arrows was part of it, but the main reason was how insanely bulky it was. With that said, it is not worth wasting our time on pointless, unrealistic hypotheticals.

We ban Pokemon before moves. Unless a specific non-Pokemon element proves to singlehandedly (!!!) break multiple Pokemon, then we do not act on the element, but rather the Pokemon. Zygarde is the only Pokemon this was believed to be the case for. We banned Zygarde. Let's not drag on discussion on this matter in this thread of all places. Thanks

I just want to ask if there is a thread for discussions like this. It just feels like there's something wrong when every single Zygarde form has gotten a Suspect test
 
Would this work in oras

My goal is to have Blaziken use bulk up, then baton pass into Quagsire. Is this usable or too risky?

Quagsire - baton pass from blaziken
Ability: Unaware (Ignores stat boosts)
EV: 252hp 252def 6atk
Nature: Relaxed

Item: Assault vest (+50% sp def)

Hp: 394
Attack: 207 (621+6)
Defence: 295 (885+6)
Sp Attack: 166
Sp Defence: 166 (249)
Speed: 95

Earthquake (STAB)
Recover (egg move)
Ice punch (grass/flying coverage)
Brick break
 
Would this work in oras

My goal is to have Blaziken use bulk up, then baton pass into Quagsire. Is this usable or too risky?

Quagsire - baton pass from blaziken
Ability: Unaware (Ignores stat boosts)
EV: 252hp 252def 6atk
Nature: Relaxed

Item: Assault vest (+50% sp def)

Hp: 394
Attack: 207 (621+6)
Defence: 295 (885+6)
Sp Attack: 166
Sp Defence: 166 (249)
Speed: 95

Earthquake (STAB)
Recover (egg move)
Ice punch (grass/flying coverage)
Brick break

Blaziken and bp are banned in oras too lol
 
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