Resource ADV OU Roles Compendium

[Didoy75]

~ADV OU Roles Compendium~

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Hello everyone and welcome to the ADV OU Roles Compendium.

Since I started playing ADV OU, I have felt that a Roles Compendium would be an interesting addition to the forum’s resources, especially for new players. I am willing to make the most of this resource, so feel free to propose improvements.
This resource lists the most relevant Pokémon for given roles on a team. It also highlights moves or abilites that have specific utility.

Notes : Pokémon are generally sorted by relevance regarding the given criterion or by usage frequency. E-Tier Pokémon according to the ADV OU Viability ranking thread are shown between parentheses : they should generally be used for specific niche roles and are generally outclassed by other options. The most important categories (that should be accounted for while building any team) are written in blue.
This is not a stand-alone resource for teambuilding and understanding the ADV OU metagame, it is meant to be used alongside other available resources on teambuilding and strategy, creative sets and cores, team sharing, etc.

Spikes and Sandstorm:

Spikes: ()​

Rapid Spin: ()
Spinblocker: ()
Spikes Immunity: ()

Sandstream: ​

Sandstorm Immunity: ()
Weather Clearing: ()

Offense:

Choice Band / Physical Wallbreaker: ()​

Bulky Physical Attacker: ()​

Mixed Wallbreaker: ()​

Special Attacker: ()​

Fast Revenge Killers: ()
Explosion / Self-Destruct: ()
Beat Up: ()
Taunt: ()

Setup Sweepers:
Dragon Dance:
Swords Dance: () / (SD + Baton Pass) ()
Curse / Bulk Up: () / ()
Agility / Speed Boost : / ()
Calm Mind: ()

Note that can also use any of these moves and Baton Pass boosts to teammates.

Defense:

Mixed Wall: ()​

Physical Wall: ()​

Rock Resist: ()​

Special Wall: ()​

Roar, Whirlwind / Haze: () / ()
Intimidate:
Volt Absorb / Water Absorb / Flash Fire : ( / / )
Reliable Recovery: ()
Wish: ()
Leech Seed: ()
Pressure: ()
Explosion / Self-Destruct Immunity: ()

The following expandable section attempts to show which Pokémon are checks to the main threats of the ADV OU metagame.

Threats & checks (WIP)

DD / CB / BKC
Mixed / Pursuit
CB / Agility / Bulky
Mixed
Special
Mixed
DD / CB
Mixed

Disclaimer

Disclaimer : This table is obviously not set in stone and depends greatly on your opponent's set and yours. For instance, defensive Flygon is easily KO'd by DD Tyranitar's Ice Beam, but it is one of its best checks when TTar lacks this move (so, most of the time). Some of these checks are hard checks (they come in over and over reliably and wall - e.g. Blissey vs Jolteon) while others are soft checks (come in once or twice and force out - e.g. Charizard vs Metagross).

Trapping / Pivoting:
Arena trap / Magnet Pull / Trace: / / ()
Pursuit: ()
Mean Look: ()
Perish Song: ()

Baton Pass: ()

Status:
Sleep: ()
Burn: ()
Paralysis: ()
Toxic (frequent users): ()

Poison Immunity: ()
Burn Immunity: ()
No viable Pokémon is entirely Paralysis or Sleep immune. Although ground-types are unaffected by Thunder Wave, they can be paralysed by Body Slam.
Natural Cure :
Heal Bell / Refresh: () /
Guts / Marvel Scale : () /

Miscellaneous:
Knock Off: ()
Encore: ()
Swift Swim: ()

Change log

22/05/2025 : Removal of the most niche Pokémon : all Pokémon but Dusclops that had zero use in the ADVPL V Tournament and that do not appear in the ADV OU Viability Ranking : ; Removal of many categories and of many Pokémon from various categories ; Addition of "Mixed Wall" and "Rock resist" categories ; Added parenthesis for E-tier Pokémon and below.
13/06/2025 : Added better looking sprites, minor other changes. Reduced the introduction of the thread. ; Added Poison and Burn immunities. 09/07/2025 : Minor changes ; Removed the "Work in progress" mention. ; Removed as they just have no real competitive use (they are just as niche as the ones listed above) ; Added the "Weather Clearing" category
30/07/2025 : Added the "threat by threat" checks section

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I hope that this ADV OU Roles Compendium will be of some use for you.
Have fun !

 

[Rambode]

While I do think that a role compendium is sorely missing from ADV OU resources and do think your endeavor is a good one, I feel this is a little too "wide" in it's roles, for example, Omastar showing up as a spiker despite having basically no serious tournament usage, or Medicham under "reliable recovery", when it nearly never runs recover. Also, Body Slam users should probably be included under "paralysis", as BSlam Lax is incredibly annoying to switch into with a sweeper such as agil meta or ddtar

Edit: A role compendium already exists, I just forgot about it: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-ou-teambuilding-compendium.3605392/

 

[Didoy75]

While I do think that a role compendium is sorely missing from ADV OU resources and do think your endeavor is a good one, I feel this is a little too "wide" in it's roles, for example, Omastar showing up as a spiker despite having basically no serious tournament usage, or Medicham under "reliable recovery", when it nearly never runs recover. Also, Body Slam users should probably be included under "paralysis", as BSlam Lax is incredibly annoying to switch into with a sweeper such as agil meta or ddtar

Edit: A role compendium already exists, I just forgot about it: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/adv-ou-teambuilding-compendium.3605392/

Thanks for the reply and the link. I created this page because I could not find another one. I am glad that it exists. As I said, I tried to be extensive and this list was created in order to be improved by everyone's experience.
Let me know if you or someone else has other suggestions, I have no problem modifying this thread. I will edit it by the end of the week with everyone's suggestions.
Similarly, if there is a consensus this thread is not useful, I will remove it.

 

[Rambode]

Thanks for the reply and the link. I created this page because I could not find another one. I am glad that it exists. As I said, I tried to be extensive and this list was created in order to be improved by everyone's experience.
Let me know if you or someone else has other suggestions, I have no problem modifying this thread. I will edit it by the end of the week with everyone's suggestions.
Similarly, if there is a consensus this thread is not useful, I will remove it.

I do think it might be useful, as the thread I linked has a lot of stuff yet to be updated (Mainly, Cacturne and Mr.Mime still being present), but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Siglut]

I don't understand the utility of a resource like this but I appreciate the work that was put into it. My suggestion is to remove solrock, blastoise, celebi, porygon2, and cloyster from the "physical wall" category.

For a roles compendium are the mons within each category supposed to be interchangeable to any extent? It makes sense for some, like "fast revenge killer" or "spinblocker", but I can't imagine myself thinking 'alright I think this team needs a focus punch user now' or wondering whether or not I should replace my snorlax with a breloom.

 

[Rambode]

Ok, so, I will try to list all my suggestions here, though I might miss something, hopefully helping narrow the compendium down to the actually relevant stuff:

- Remove Omastar from spikes (I'd also remove Glalie, as it is a pretty niche spiker, though it does see *some* use, though very little), I'd go as far as to say Roselia is a better spiker than Omastar

- Remove Blastoise, Kabutops, Tentacruel and Smeargle from Rapid Spin, the first three are barely, if at all, used, except for that one Blastoise Slaking team from Blues that topped ladder, and I can't remember the last time I saw Smeargle click Rapid Spin, though it technically has that move

- Remove Banette from Spinblocker, as I've only really saw it being good at all in a single Jolteon team from Kollin

- Remove the whole spikes immunity role, or at least remove everything after Gyarados

- Remove the whole Sandstream category, or at least remove everything after Flygon under Sandstream Immunity

- Remove Rhydon, Tauros, Nidoking, Dodrio, Solrock, Blaziken, Linoone and Scizor from Choice Band/Physical Wallbreaker, as they see little to no use, with the "exception" of Blaziken, which does see a little bit of use as a mixed breaker

- Remove Rhydon from Bulky Physical Attacker

- Remove Sceptile, Nidoking and Shiftry from Mixed Wallbreaker, Sceptile, when it does get used, usually is as a Leech/Sub/Tect or HP/Leaf Blade, while the other 2 are basically never used

- Remove Gardevoir, Typhlosion and Omastar from Special Attackers

- Remove the whole Explosion/Self-Destruct section, or at least remove everything after Registeel

- Remove the Focus Punch section, as Siglut already mentioned

- Remove the Priority/Fake Out section

- Remove the Taunt section, or at least remove everything after Glalie + Aerodactyl

- Maybe remove Smeargle from the whole Setup Sweepers category, as Smeargle doesn't really sweep, so that might be a little confusing for people who might need the compendium

- Remove Charizard and possibly Dragonite from Dragon Dance

- Maybe remove Celebi from the Swords Dance category for a reason similar to Smeargle's

- Remove Rhydon, Sceptile, Kabutops, Jumpluff and Scizor from Swords Dance. Also remove Ninjask from there, since it's illegal to run Swords Dance + Speed Boost + Baton Pass and there is no reason to run Ninjask other than to Baton Pass.

- Remove Venusaur and Rhydon from Curse/Bulk Up

- Remove the whole Belly Drum category, as it's an extremely niche move

- Remove Dodrio, Scizor, Moltres, Dragonite, Arcanine, Jolteon and Aerodactyl from Agility, as they're either niche pokemon, pokemon that don't really use agility or both (Seriously, please don't run agility aero)

- Remove Gardevoir, Solrock and Lunatone from Calm Mind

- Remove Cloyster, Solrock and Blastoise from Physical Wall, Cloyster's defense is a bit misleading with how many physical weaknesses it has

- Remove Cradily and Dusclops from Special Wall, possibly Articuno too

- Remove Salamence, Blastoise, Aerodactyl and Tentacruel from Roar/Haze, as they either don't really use the move or are pokemon that are way too niche

- Maybe add Arcanine in Intimidate, if we're gonna be sticking with including him in the Compendium

- Add Flash Fire with the absorbs with Arcanine and Houndoom as participants, if those pokemon are to be included in the Compendium in general

- Remove the whole Unreliable Recovery category

- Remove Gardevoir and Jynx from Wish

- Remove Shiftry, Exeggutor and maybe Breloom from Leech Seed

- Maybe remove Gardevoir from Trace, as it's a very niche mon

- Remove Mean Look from Umbreon and Smeargle, as they're nearly always Baton Passers and Baton Pass + Mean Look is banned

- Remove everyone from Solrock and below from Baton Pass, as they're either too niche or, in Medicham's case, just doesn't really function as how an usual Baton Passer would, although the move is very useful for pivoting with drypass

- Remove Exeggutor, Gardevoir, Lunatone and Marowak from Sleep

- Remove Gardevoir and Banette from Burn, maybe add Smeargle

- Remove Electrode, Lanturn, Exeggutor, Banette, Alakazam, Gardevoir and Dragonite from Paralysis, add Snorlax to Paralysis (Body Slam OP)

- Remove Salamence, Camerupt and Cradily from Toxic

- Remove Synchronize as a category pair with Natural Cure

- Remove Blastoise from Refresh

- Remove Banette, Kabutops and Alakazam from Knock Off

- Remove the Chlorophyll category

- Remove Omastar and Kabutops from the Swift Swim category

If anyone has anything to add/contest, I'd love to hear it

 

[Didoy75]

Hello everyone, little update after the multiple suggestions. Here are the changes made :

• Removal of the most niche Pokémon : all Pokémon but Dusclops that had zero use in the ADVPL V Tournament and that do not appear in the ADV OU Viability Ranking
• Removal of the "Focus Punch" section on Siglut 's suggestion, as well as the "Belly Drum", the "Priority/Fake Out" and the "Synchronize" sections, on Rambode 's suggestion.
• Removal of many Pokémon from various categories, on Rambode 's suggestion.
• Addition of "Mixed Wall" and "Rock resist" categories (the latter only includes defensive Pokémon, not all Rock resists), by inspiration from the other Teambuilding Compendium.
• Addition of parentheses for E-tier Pokémon, to highlight the face that they should generally not be used.

I have not applied some of your suggestions for now Rambode such as removing Marowak from sleep inducers, I consider that Sing can prove useful in some teams to beat 1v1 Drill Peck Skarm w/ Sing + FP - it will be removed if most people believe that it should not be included of course.
I also chose to keep the Sandstorm immunity and Spikes immunity categories, those being informational for newcomers, Spikes and Sandstorm being central to the metagame. Specifically concerning Spikes immunity, I believe that Superman is a popular strategy so the list should be useful.

As always, I am open to all suggestions in order to improve the list !

Edit : Also let me know if other useful categories should be added

 

[SPFunkM]

The issue with a resource like this is more important than "special" or "physical" wall is "beats dd tyranitar" "beats zapdos" etc. Pokémon is about types, and something like defmie can be fantastic as a moltres zard answer but Terrible when fending off zapdos. It also doesn't really consider many of adv's threats are best handled in a "out gunned" idea or are not real switchins when certain moves are clicked.

Good teams are built in lines and processes. The idea behind I do this in response to x and further this game plan by generally doing y. The only teams who can use such linear design are big 5 and anything slower where blissey actually manages to wall every special attacker (except when it doesn't lmao).

You aren't going to slap together "a special wall" and a "physical wall" and be safe, nor are you getting some "physical" and "special" offensive pieces and suddenly out putting damage. These pieces might have no entry in this "good stuff" mindset of team building.

When you are looking for the role of "rapid spin" because you are running a very switch heavy grounded style there is no "question" and no "role compendium" needed because the question of Claydol, starmie, or cloyster is built into the game plan and wincon.

I understand these guides are for new players but I think longterm new players would be much better settled by being taught the importance of lines and direct in game roles when building teams. Learning zapdug entries to baton and trap blissey is a easy example of the real game lining concepts important to actual games of adv.

 

[Didoy75]

Hello SPFunkM and thank you for your comment and contribution.
I do understand criticism about my approach and I am well aware that it is not a perfect resource.
As you pointed out, teambuilding is far more complicated that just picking randomly six Pokémon that each fit in one of the blue categories on this thread. This should be obvious to anyone that actually takes the game seriously, and thus to anyone that ends up on the forum and on this page.

As you know, there are already plenty of very well made resources on teambuilding and strategy, creative sets and cores, team sharing, etc. This resource is meant to be used alongside those.

Now, you and many others might wonder : what is actually the point of this resource ?
I do believe that it genuinely helps teambuilding. For instance, say that I am building a physical offense but I realize that I am very weak to opposing aerodactyls. The idea is that I'll look at the "Rock Resists" and "Bulky physical attackers" categories and consider the best options for my team. Maybe Metagross is the best fit, or maybe Machamp, Haryama or Flygon would be best. The resource allowed me to easily find a list of potential fits for my team, some of which I might not have thought of otherwise.
It also allows me to verify if I have considered all threats or walls (maybe my team has no reliable Agility Metagross or CroCune answer ?).
It is not meant to provide more than that : the rest is teambuilding and strategy.

About the "threat-based" approach ?
As mentioned in previous comments, I am very open to criticism and want to make the most out of this type of resource.
I have considered a "threat-based" approach (DDTar checks, CM Celebi checks, CurseLax checks etc.) instead of the broader physical, mixed, special walls categories. I chose not to implement it because I thought that it would raise too many unnecessary debate on whether or not Pokemon X should be considered a check to Pokemon Y or not - depending on sets, reliability, spikes, sand, the definition of a "check", etc.
There is a lot of nuance to this concept, many Pokemon are not properly "checking" but are able to come in once or twice, or only with the right prediction, but are able to reliably outspeed and threaten to OHKO back. For instance, Aerodactyl is a terrible DDTar switch-in but it is often used as its revenge killer, effectively forcing it out with banded EQ.
So even if we did take this "threat-based" approach, we would need at least two or three categories per threat : hard check (comes in over and over reliably and walls - eg. Blissey vs Jolteon) ; soft check (comes in once or twice or with accurate prediction and forces out - eg. Charizard vs Bulky Metagross) and revenge killer (outspeeds and OHKOs back from full or almost - Aerodactyl vs Medicham).

I do believe that the broader physical, mixed, special walls categories allow a clear enough vision on what the main options are for each defensive role. Say that you need a Zapdos switch-in on an offensive team, go look at the mixed and special walls and within 10 seconds you have a list of the main options : Bliss, Snorlax, Celebi, Jolteon, Regice (you obviously have to know types interactions and the most common Zapdos sets to do so, but that is fairly basic).

To sum up, this resource is not and was never meant to be a tool to build linear teams by plugging random pieces from each category. This is obviously not a relevant way of using this resource and of teambuilding in general.
I hope that I have made the case that it is rather a compact list of the most viable Pokemon that feature different important roles or have access to specific niches (trapping, inducing sleep, etc.), that it should be used as such.
By the way, it may be useless to the most experienced players that have played for decades, and that's okay too, as long as some people find it useful :)

Last word: I can also rename the thread because the word "Roles" seems to be problematic and confusing for many.
Please provide suggestions if you have any !

 

[Didoy75]

Hi everyone,

Despite my last comment on this thread, I had some time to spare this afternoon, so I added a "Threats and checks" section featuring ~15 of the most prominent threats in the ADV metagame and their main checks (at least according to my modest experience). Please feel free to challenge this new section in order to improve it !
Hopefully this will improve this thread a little bit, despite it still not being the ultimate teambuilding resource for experienced players, as previously discussed.

Still do not hesitate to give insights on what you think should be changed on this resource.

Have a nice day and see you on the ladder !