Disagree with darm, scarf darm is harder to revenge kill because of no speed drop.
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Resource SS OU DLC2 Viability Ranking Thread [SEE: Page 105, Post 2618]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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torn should be s- at least lol. limitless flexibility (seriously it has so many viable sets, each solving key issues for teams in a distinct yet generally-applicable fashion) almost unkillable, great speed, free momentum forever, best knock off user, broken plot sets, no doubt the best fogger, insane blanket check - i struggle to think of a mon as reliable and splashable as torn, other than lando, which speaks volumes. what even are torn's drawbacks? inaccurate stab? cane is a shit set anyway. slower than weav & koko? nobody gives a fuck you still outspeed 95% of relevant mons. rocks weakness? big deal, boots+regen is broken. "waaah more zapdos recently" hmm? nobody cares, use toxic. big ups torn i love u bro, i know times are hard and scary but stay safe keep doing ur thing.
don't really care about much else, though i'll say that melm is not that scary, blace should drop a bit with the uptick in brokentar, volcarona is & forever will be bad, gastrodon is legitimately fucking great, dedicated hail bo is bad, rilla should rise again, blaziken is mega broken, fuck terfs
don't really care about much else, though i'll say that melm is not that scary, blace should drop a bit with the uptick in brokentar, volcarona is & forever will be bad, gastrodon is legitimately fucking great, dedicated hail bo is bad, rilla should rise again, blaziken is mega broken, fuck terfs
I'd say hurricane is more important than ever as otherwise you lose to bulky rillaboom
ur not hitting that
edit: ok less of a shitpost. cane is just not worth it regardless. heat wave kinda makes defensive torn in my opinion - the ability to effectively threaten steels gives you access the rest of the opp's team & prevents deadlocks, allowing you to knock/uturn/toxic/taunt way more stuff. also allows you to defog on ferro which is like, self-evidently crucial i hope. whereas the only merits of cane are like, checking urshifu & bulky rilla? there are way better ways to do that imo
edit: ok less of a shitpost. cane is just not worth it regardless. heat wave kinda makes defensive torn in my opinion - the ability to effectively threaten steels gives you access the rest of the opp's team & prevents deadlocks, allowing you to knock/uturn/toxic/taunt way more stuff. also allows you to defog on ferro which is like, self-evidently crucial i hope. whereas the only merits of cane are like, checking urshifu & bulky rilla? there are way better ways to do that imo
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Hurricane is a much stronger neutral hit on pokemon beyond just threatening bulky Rilla and Urshifu. The latter being a pokemon you want to have a gameplan vs with how threatening it's getting (The confusion it inflicts can also come in clutch at times).
It's been 2 months and we are planning to do so soon.
I think a big part of why heatran is so ahead of the curve in terms of viability, is due to its matchup against all the best utility/glue/pivot Pokémon.
looking at some of the most Used:
tornadus-t
Clefable
Ferrothorn
Corviknight
Glowking
Tapu Koko
Zapdos
And to some extent: slowbro/Slowkin
these Pokémon are very easy to pressure, KO, or force out!
so what ends up happening, is heatran becomes one of the best stealth rockers in the game, due to these pivots enjoying coming in early to set up their own hazards or trying to gain momentum.
this presents numerous opportunities to stealthrock.
let’s assume the standard 3 moves are something along the lines of:
- Magma storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Fourth move is the flex, usually stealth rock.
now if you decide to forego stealth rock, you get a pretty cool list of options for the 4th move:
• Toxic to more reliably break through the ground types that counter heatran, and eases prediction vs stall.
• Protect to add longevity in the eternal dance against the ground/water/Tyranitar type switch in, before they can switch in no more
• flash cannon, or other similar move, to be able to hit balloon heatrans and miscellaneous other situations such as a 100% ko on Weavile or denting Tyranitar a little faster.
it’s kinda fascinating that balloon heatran is one of the best checks to standard heatran, due to the 50/50 it creates with: “will it expect me to switch out and just spam eruption”
Some will argue heatrans usually-neutral matchup with Weavile, and bad matchup against urshifu or Garchomp means that it can’t be that great.. however due to its ability to regularly matchup against the most common switch ins/pivots, heatran is getting lots of opportunities to come in, and consequently wear down these offensive threats and their partners with its magma storm and supporting moves.
what I found the most fascinating, is some of classic heatrans best checks, such as rotom-w (when it’s eventually forced to pain split), defensive Garchomp, slowking (assuming the slack off/teleport are predicted and taunted), are all usually sacrificing momentum with the right predictions/partners.
If the list looked something like Ferrothorn/tornadus-t/clef, it would be a different story (an aside: lando is technically a heatran check, however lando is also an “everything check” + simultaneously a Pokémon that comes in early and takes damage/status from just about everything, so it’s viability as a heatran check specifically is a little less appealing than other Pokémon).
personally, I preferred checking heatran with offensive checks like urshifu or offensive Garchomp, as it feels like you might get less chances to come in, tho you’re also giving the heatran user less chances to turn the momentum back around on you.
looking at some of the most Used:
tornadus-t
Clefable
Ferrothorn
Corviknight
Glowking
Tapu Koko
Zapdos
And to some extent: slowbro/Slowkin
these Pokémon are very easy to pressure, KO, or force out!
so what ends up happening, is heatran becomes one of the best stealth rockers in the game, due to these pivots enjoying coming in early to set up their own hazards or trying to gain momentum.
this presents numerous opportunities to stealthrock.
let’s assume the standard 3 moves are something along the lines of:
- Magma storm
- Earth Power
- Taunt
- Fourth move is the flex, usually stealth rock.
now if you decide to forego stealth rock, you get a pretty cool list of options for the 4th move:
• Toxic to more reliably break through the ground types that counter heatran, and eases prediction vs stall.
• Protect to add longevity in the eternal dance against the ground/water/Tyranitar type switch in, before they can switch in no more
• flash cannon, or other similar move, to be able to hit balloon heatrans and miscellaneous other situations such as a 100% ko on Weavile or denting Tyranitar a little faster.
it’s kinda fascinating that balloon heatran is one of the best checks to standard heatran, due to the 50/50 it creates with: “will it expect me to switch out and just spam eruption”
Some will argue heatrans usually-neutral matchup with Weavile, and bad matchup against urshifu or Garchomp means that it can’t be that great.. however due to its ability to regularly matchup against the most common switch ins/pivots, heatran is getting lots of opportunities to come in, and consequently wear down these offensive threats and their partners with its magma storm and supporting moves.
what I found the most fascinating, is some of classic heatrans best checks, such as rotom-w (when it’s eventually forced to pain split), defensive Garchomp, slowking (assuming the slack off/teleport are predicted and taunted), are all usually sacrificing momentum with the right predictions/partners.
If the list looked something like Ferrothorn/tornadus-t/clef, it would be a different story (an aside: lando is technically a heatran check, however lando is also an “everything check” + simultaneously a Pokémon that comes in early and takes damage/status from just about everything, so it’s viability as a heatran check specifically is a little less appealing than other Pokémon).
personally, I preferred checking heatran with offensive checks like urshifu or offensive Garchomp, as it feels like you might get less chances to come in, tho you’re also giving the heatran user less chances to turn the momentum back around on you.
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I have hardly had time to sleep the last few weeks, let alone update this. I now have a lot more time and am off LoA, so I will update it this coming week.
ratio
You are right but the thread title was never updated since the previous update. 2 months is ok late meta. Thanks for the work you do VR team.
Yeah. You can check the latest edit on the first post where all the viability rankings are listed.
A nomination or two, do not want to comment much on other players' nominations, they are very good in my opinion.
(A-) -> (A)
Over the past couple weeks the metagame has grown, for lack of a better word, increasingly violent. Heatran, Weavile, Melmetal, Dragapult, Garchomp, Kartana, Tapu Lele, Urshifu, Zapdos and even offensive Landorus all hit like freight trains while doing an increasingly insufficient job soft-checking each other; Zapdos 2hko's Garchomp with Hurricane, Choice Band Weavile 2hko's Heatran, Melmetal 2hko's Landorus through Intimidate. Match-ups between offensive teams are starting to resemble bloodbaths between two gangs of berserkers where the side that gets in more hits comes out on top, and Dragonite is one of the few Pokémon that can keep up with the carnage; being both a water and a fire resist with reliable recovery that can fit on offensive teams is a great niche, since Dragapult and Garchomp lack Roost, and Multiscale grants it very good bulk, making it a reliable check to
, 
, 
, 
, 
and even the rising 
. It has also proven that soft-checking it with Will'o'wisp may not be enough to prevent it from sweeping. I imagine it can also successfully run utility sets with Heal Bell, Thunder Wave, Toxic or Defog, a specially offensive one with STAB Hurricane, or maybe even a hyper-offensive set:
Dragonite @ Normal Gem *
Ability: Inner Focus **
EVs: 8 HP / 252 Atk / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dual Wingbeat
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed ***
Something like this?
* +1 252+ Atk Normal Gem Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 242-285 (86.1 - 101.4%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
** Everybody assumes Multiscale anyway, so one can try to capitalize on the Landorus switch-in
*** Psychic terrain only obstructs priority moves by grounded Pokémon
(B) -> lower
This is in my humble opinion the Pokémon that suffered the most the couple months. It had a very unreliable - read: match-up fishy - typing both offensively and defensively to begin with, what with nearly 100% of the tier's teams running both a ground and a steel type, but the recent diversification of ground types, with players starting to explore Garchomp, Gastrodon, Hippowdon, Seismitoad and Excadrill more instead of the standard Landorus. Melmetal's rise to dominance similarly hurts it, as Nihilego is incapable of fitting enough coverage to threaten all of its checks, and two Pokémon notably beat it no matter what offensive set it runs,
and 
. Some teams have managed to utilize it successfully as a fast Toxic Spikes setter, but YMMV on how reliable this is.
(A+) -> keep (A+)
Maybe a week or two ago I would have supported a rise to S-, but currently the metagame is getting too aggressive for it. Offense is in my humble opinion definitely the best way to currently play the tier, and when it gets stuck in match-ups where nearly every opposing Pokémon can 2hko it, it gets quickly reduced to cannon fodder, getting maybe 2 free turns.
Edit: Melmetal's rise is also bad for Clefable.
(A-) -> (A)Over the past couple weeks the metagame has grown, for lack of a better word, increasingly violent. Heatran, Weavile, Melmetal, Dragapult, Garchomp, Kartana, Tapu Lele, Urshifu, Zapdos and even offensive Landorus all hit like freight trains while doing an increasingly insufficient job soft-checking each other; Zapdos 2hko's Garchomp with Hurricane, Choice Band Weavile 2hko's Heatran, Melmetal 2hko's Landorus through Intimidate. Match-ups between offensive teams are starting to resemble bloodbaths between two gangs of berserkers where the side that gets in more hits comes out on top, and Dragonite is one of the few Pokémon that can keep up with the carnage; being both a water and a fire resist with reliable recovery that can fit on offensive teams is a great niche, since Dragapult and Garchomp lack Roost, and Multiscale grants it very good bulk, making it a reliable check to
, , , , and even the rising . It has also proven that soft-checking it with Will'o'wisp may not be enough to prevent it from sweeping. I imagine it can also successfully run utility sets with Heal Bell, Thunder Wave, Toxic or Defog, a specially offensive one with STAB Hurricane, or maybe even a hyper-offensive set:Dragonite @ Normal Gem *
Ability: Inner Focus **
EVs: 8 HP / 252 Atk / 248 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Dual Wingbeat
- Earthquake
- Extreme Speed ***
Something like this?
* +1 252+ Atk Normal Gem Dragonite Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Tapu Lele: 242-285 (86.1 - 101.4%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
** Everybody assumes Multiscale anyway, so one can try to capitalize on the Landorus switch-in
*** Psychic terrain only obstructs priority moves by grounded Pokémon
(B) -> lowerThis is in my humble opinion the Pokémon that suffered the most the couple months. It had a very unreliable - read: match-up fishy - typing both offensively and defensively to begin with, what with nearly 100% of the tier's teams running both a ground and a steel type, but the recent diversification of ground types, with players starting to explore Garchomp, Gastrodon, Hippowdon, Seismitoad and Excadrill more instead of the standard Landorus. Melmetal's rise to dominance similarly hurts it, as Nihilego is incapable of fitting enough coverage to threaten all of its checks, and two Pokémon notably beat it no matter what offensive set it runs,
and . Some teams have managed to utilize it successfully as a fast Toxic Spikes setter, but YMMV on how reliable this is. (A+) -> keep (A+)Maybe a week or two ago I would have supported a rise to S-, but currently the metagame is getting too aggressive for it. Offense is in my humble opinion definitely the best way to currently play the tier, and when it gets stuck in match-ups where nearly every opposing Pokémon can 2hko it, it gets quickly reduced to cannon fodder, getting maybe 2 free turns.
Edit: Melmetal's rise is also bad for Clefable.
This is incorrect btw it obstructs priority moves that target grounded Pokemon.
Are Clef's offensive capabilities considered in the VR currently? I feel like LO CM Magic Guard Clef is an amazing offensive threat and does really well in BO
Not saying that Clef deserves S-, I don't think I know enough about the game yet to judge on that, I just think it's offensive traits are worth considering in this context
Not saying that Clef deserves S-, I don't think I know enough about the game yet to judge on that, I just think it's offensive traits are worth considering in this context
Yes, it’s entire viability is considered and reflected accordingly in how it is ranked
slate time
You know the drill: I will post what rose and dropped. You have 24 hours to post any questions about the slate. I will answer the questions here with reasoning on behalf of the council, but PLEASE DO NOT POST REPEAT QUESTIONS!!!
Rises
Rises
from A+ to S-
from A to A+- from A- to A
from A- to A- from A- to A
- from B+ to A-
from B to B+
from B to B+
from B to B+- from B- to B
from C+ to B-
from C to C+
from C to C+
from C to C+
from A+ to A
from A to A-
from A- to B+
from B to B-- from B to B-
why has gengar rose? curious about sun rise & koko's drop as well
You know the drill: I will post what rose and dropped. You have 24 hours to post any questions about the slate. I will answer the questions here with reasoning on behalf of the council, but PLEASE DO NOT POST REPEAT QUESTIONS!!!
Rises
Drops
Opening the thread for questions now!
from A to A-
What changed in the metagame for Dragapult to rise? Is it its specs set getting better or other sets?
And why was my Porygon-Z nomination rejected?
Why did every Pokémon not mentioned in the previous question rise/fall? Why did every Pokémon not appearing in the update slate not change?
Just kidding. I'm surprised to see Seismitoad having risen. What does it offer that Gastrodon does not already provide, apart from Stealth Rock? And it trades it for reliable recovery, which seems a bad deal to me.
Just kidding. I'm surprised to see Seismitoad having risen. What does it offer that Gastrodon does not already provide, apart from Stealth Rock? And it trades it for reliable recovery, which seems a bad deal to me.
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