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OU DPP OU Viability Ranking [updated May 2025]
- Thread starter 16bit
- Start date
S1 Tier
In DPP, I think there’s a strong, immovable top 3 made up of Tyranitar, Jirachi, and Latias. Tyranitar brings tons of utility with sand, Pursuit support, great bulk, and an overall versatile movepool. Latias offers speed control, a really easy pivoting option around a lot of major threats, and a powerful Draco Meteor. Jirachi rounds out the trio with its Dragon resist, Iron Head flinch pressure, and a plethora of sets that make it an easy fit on most teams. You can order them however you want, but I think Tyranitar is a bit better after Machamp's ban. Without Machamp around, Tyranitar is a lot safer to run as a lead and it plays a big role as the cornerstone of zap-mie-tran-double steel-Tar type of teams, which used to struggle against Blissey-Machamp paraspam.
Pokemon stronger than before:
Bronzong teams used to struggle dealing with Machamp and instead prioritized Jirachi, a pokemon that both did not invite Machamp in and could revenge kill it.
There isn't as much emphasis on spinbock which makes Starmie more valuable. Probably just a temporary spike though.
Rising alongside Starmie, and it also benefits from Tyranitar being more popular now.
Less stall/semi-stall around makes Celebi better — it checks opposing Ttar and beats Rapid Spin Starmie. It might fall off again if stall teams come back.
Always meta-dependent. It's great against FWG (Fire-Water-Grass) core teams, but struggles against fast Dragon/Steel builds.Pokémon weaker than before:
Gengar is more confortable burning Steel-Types and threatening Latias and Clefable than dealing with a faster Starmie, a fully healthy Zapdos or a Scarf Heatran/Jirachi.
Forry gets destroyed by Heatran/Breloom/Starmie cores. It is completely passive against it, struggling keep rocks off and doesn’t do much in return. It is much better against Dragon / Steel.Overrated stuff:
I don't get the hype. Way too easy to revenge kill with Jirachi, Rotom, etc.
A bit better than it used to be. Still a mon with a terrible winrate, and not just because weaker players are using it.
Well, here is my vr. I won't pretend I am an expert on the tier, but I think this is pretty good. Aside from D tier and obviously the Not Sure tier everything is ranked in order from left (best) to right (worst). Anyway, I would like to share my thoughts on certain pokemon I ranked.
I have never been a huge fan of Heatran in general (both competitively and casually) but this gen is probably its best gen besides gen 7. Despite that, I always thought it was a bit overrated. It is slow, 4 times weak to ground (one of the most common attacking types period), and I have always believed it is a pokemon you respect more on the teambuilder than in battle. However, I am not that good at the game, and I can also see the plentiful upsides of this pokemon such as its other stats, huge movepool, and its defensive qualities as a fire steel pokemon with a complete immunity to fire. Because of that I decided to put it in A+.
If it weren't for the fact that overheat hits slightly less targets than hydro pump and that Heatran exists, I would say both Rotom-Wash and Rotom-Heat are roughly the same level. Both can hit opposing pokemon absurdly hard with their form exclusive moves as well as their stab thunderbolt and shadow ball. They also both have excellent support movepools with moves such as trick, will o wisp, toxic and thunder wave (which aren't used that much but are still there), pain split, etc. They also have the obvious advantages of being ghost types and being electric types that are immune to ground. Overall, they are really good pokemon that are easy to fit and hard to find a reason to not use. On the other hand, there is Rotom-Fridge (I know that isn't the actual name it is just funnier) who has all the same perks as the top 2 Rotom forms but unfortunately has a worse exclusive move in blizzard which is far more inaccurate than hydro pump or overheat which makes it a higher liability. However, I do think it is still really solid as blizzard is an ice type move (which means boltbeam coverage) and with Abomasnow setting up hail, blizzard does become 100% accurate which is great so overall it is still a really solid Rotom form that isn't quite able to do as well as its Wash and Heat brethren. Rotom-Fan is dumb though. It probably doesn't deserve D tier and air slash isn't the worst move in the world but because of that one move it is far worse than its other forms in my opinion since air slash hits far less than any other Rotom form exclusive move. Finally, (as I don't know how to feel about Rotom-Mow) there is regular Rotom who has no exclusive moves and is thus likely unviable as it is outclassed by its other forms. Nothing super important to say here. Just wanted to say choice specs Zapdos is pretty cool.
So, can someone please explain to me why everyone is ranking this pokemon so low? I know there are plenty of fire types and pokemon with fire type attacks that love to murder Scizor and that there are plenty of pokemon that resist bullet punch and u-turn but what really changed in the meta? Machamp getting banned didn't really increase the viability of most fire types (except Heatran) that much and if anything, many fire types got a bit worse because their attacks thud into Tyranitar and Heatran more often. I think Scizor still has plenty to offer with its powerful PRIORITY stab moves as well as its amazing bug steel typing.
This pokemon is weird to me because I kind of don't hear anything about it anymore. It's...a pokemon for sure. It has a great speed tier with ok attack and some solid movepool options, but it just doesn't seem that strong to me. Anyway, I am not a huge expert on this pokemon so I am going to stop talking about it and move on.
Without a doubt, Donphan is the second-best spinner in ou and the third-best in the entire gen (Forretress is actually good in ubers). Not only does it have insanely high defense which allows it to take at least one attack from almost every non boosted physical attacker in the tier but it also has some decent attack which allows it to take on Rotom and Gengar with assurance (which isn't the best move in the world but Forretress has nothing besides hidden power for ghost types so this isn't bad). Machamp getting banned does give it a lot more targets to hit with steel types and Tyranitar becoming more common, but overall Lucario is unfortunately a bit mid which is a shame because I enjoy using it. It has some great priority moves but with the amount of pokemon that resist extreme speed and bullet punch in ou (there are 9 steel types in ou not including Lucario itself) it has a hard time taking kos sometimes. However, it is still a solid pokemon with a great movepool and good stats.
I think this is an underrated pokemon in many respects. Its stats are quite underwhelming, its typing has some pretty big weaknesses, and it is weak to stealth rock. However, it also has the unique role of being the ONLY POKEMON IN THE ENTIRE GENERATION (that isn't ubers, or a previous evo) that provides a weather effect on switch in that isn't sand. There are multiple advantages hail has over sand such as dealing damage to literally every type (except ice types and Clefable) in the entire game whereas before 3 types were immune to passive damage, as well as giving blizzard 100% accuracy which can be taken advantage of by quite a few pokemon in ou. Abomasnow itself also has some underrated resistances to electric ground water and grass which means it is great against pokemon like Starmie who don't have the coverage to threaten the ko on it. It also has some nice options in its movepool such as leech seed, ice shard, and even toxic. Abomasnow is a solid pokemon that I believe should be used/experimented with more.
This is another rather underrated pokemon in my opinion as despite its typing it does have a lot to offer. High defense, high attack, solid movepool, and an ability that makes me really wish Rhyperior was a pure ground type. It isn't the greatest pokemon out there and if you are looking for a specially defensive ground look elsewhere but Rhyperior is not bad by any means.
This pokemon probably isn't deserving of anything above D but I used it once on a mono water meme team and it did pretty well. It has volt absorb so it is immune to electric type moves and it has some good support moves like heal bell and toxic but it has pretty bad stats so it probably isn't worth trying to fit on a team.
Public service announcement: this pokemon sucks. NEXT!
And finally, I would like to give a special shoutout to Azumarill who is probably not viable but does have the combination of belly drum and huge power, so it has to count for something right? I am not good enough to actually test how good it is but it probably isn't.Anyway, that is all of my thoughts on pokemon whose placement I believe might be questioned. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Have a nice night :)
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Alright then, here's my cents:
The winners of the Post Machamp meta:
-Tyranitar's thorn that is Fighters in general (Breloom on top), but Machamp was what gave Tyranitar teams a hard time maneuvering without getting RNG'd thanks to confusion. With Machamp gone did Tyranitar not only saw more usage with Band, but has once again comfortably worked as a lead to deal with Azelf.
-Bronzong was pretty solid even before Machamp got banned, but it was hindered by its abysmal speed stat that ended up being preyed on by SubChamp teams parafusing Bronzong, Bronzong's unique attributes in possessing only 1 weakness thanks to Levitate makes Bronzong a harder wall to crack in all team archetypes; as a temporary wall in offense & balance or even in stall.
-Meta is similar to Zong, but can now invest a bit more into defense to block Latias's Dracos. Custap Meta is worth trying out on ladder along with Iron Ball sets!
-Simply put, Rhyperior hits like a truck & can ruin some teams, you do have to account for T-Spikes from Rose offense or Nido stall (Which is why I like to use Tenta or Rose in Rhyperior teams), but Rhyperior appreciates Champ not Dynamicpunching it to death along with Champ not the face of Paraspam.
-Champ did give Clef teams similarly hard times (Though Nidoqueen is used along with Clef stall), but Clef could at least enjoy 1 less fighter to worry.
As for the rest given the trends:
-Ok, BKC did predict Infernape's rise in DPP OU & I'm surprised in seeing players view Ape positively contrast to 2022-23, it is a bit hard to fit in a teambuilder without major flaws such as T-Spikes, but only time will tell.
-Similar to Ape, Celebi was seen as borderline unviable in 2022 to the point Jirachee even exclaimed that bringing in Celebi is suicide, Utility sets are pretty good at stifling Gyara & Nasty Plot is scary against Paraspam along with Stall even.
-*Sigh*, Ban sleep pls. But in all seriousness, Breloom does miss the Double Fighter teams that Machamp worked on. But Loom is pretty solid with other Fighters too.
-I'm glad to see more Kingdra use in SPL, Water/Dragon is deservingly wicked given Clefable being the norm & Dragon STAB resisted by Steel, with only 1 weakness & giving FWG teams a hard time does SpecsDra terrorize teams on Special offense.
(Which I've gravitated towards, I think offense is better to practice over stall bc it encourages proactivity & critical thinking while stall is too reactive & dull.)
-An honorable mention for being another victory after Machamp's ban, Aboma can take on specially offensive waters not named Kingdra pretty well & makes Swampert cry. A bit interesting to see Aboma not ranked higher, but Aboma's ability to snipe Dragons with Ice Shard & denying Jirachi's recovery is solid.
The winners of the Post Machamp meta:
-Tyranitar's thorn that is Fighters in general (Breloom on top), but Machamp was what gave Tyranitar teams a hard time maneuvering without getting RNG'd thanks to confusion. With Machamp gone did Tyranitar not only saw more usage with Band, but has once again comfortably worked as a lead to deal with Azelf.
-Bronzong was pretty solid even before Machamp got banned, but it was hindered by its abysmal speed stat that ended up being preyed on by SubChamp teams parafusing Bronzong, Bronzong's unique attributes in possessing only 1 weakness thanks to Levitate makes Bronzong a harder wall to crack in all team archetypes; as a temporary wall in offense & balance or even in stall.
-Meta is similar to Zong, but can now invest a bit more into defense to block Latias's Dracos. Custap Meta is worth trying out on ladder along with Iron Ball sets!
-Simply put, Rhyperior hits like a truck & can ruin some teams, you do have to account for T-Spikes from Rose offense or Nido stall (Which is why I like to use Tenta or Rose in Rhyperior teams), but Rhyperior appreciates Champ not Dynamicpunching it to death along with Champ not the face of Paraspam.
-Champ did give Clef teams similarly hard times (Though Nidoqueen is used along with Clef stall), but Clef could at least enjoy 1 less fighter to worry.
As for the rest given the trends:
-Ok, BKC did predict Infernape's rise in DPP OU & I'm surprised in seeing players view Ape positively contrast to 2022-23, it is a bit hard to fit in a teambuilder without major flaws such as T-Spikes, but only time will tell.
-Similar to Ape, Celebi was seen as borderline unviable in 2022 to the point Jirachee even exclaimed that bringing in Celebi is suicide, Utility sets are pretty good at stifling Gyara & Nasty Plot is scary against Paraspam along with Stall even.
-*Sigh*, Ban sleep pls. But in all seriousness, Breloom does miss the Double Fighter teams that Machamp worked on. But Loom is pretty solid with other Fighters too.
-I'm glad to see more Kingdra use in SPL, Water/Dragon is deservingly wicked given Clefable being the norm & Dragon STAB resisted by Steel, with only 1 weakness & giving FWG teams a hard time does SpecsDra terrorize teams on Special offense.
(Which I've gravitated towards, I think offense is better to practice over stall bc it encourages proactivity & critical thinking while stall is too reactive & dull.)
-An honorable mention for being another victory after Machamp's ban, Aboma can take on specially offensive waters not named Kingdra pretty well & makes Swampert cry. A bit interesting to see Aboma not ranked higher, but Aboma's ability to snipe Dragons with Ice Shard & denying Jirachi's recovery is solid.
felt like ranking status ailments:
i.
paralysis - in my opinon the best status in the metagame, it is the next best thing to outright KOing a sweeper
ii. sleep - the next best status, however it is held back from being #1 by the sleep cause. spore is also what keeps this status so high
iii.
confusion - a strong status since it buys free turns, the primary reason behind the machamp ban, greatly penalizes outrage users
iv. poison - has a lot of appilcation for dealing with bulky pokemon, however is held back by natural cure, magic guard, steels, tspike absorpsion
v. freeze - a strong status, however i have it ranked last since it is rare to achieve, no move directly freezes.
edit - ah some of my emojis arent loading after saving the post
i.
paralysis - in my opinon the best status in the metagame, it is the next best thing to outright KOing a sweeperii. sleep - the next best status, however it is held back from being #1 by the sleep cause. spore is also what keeps this status so high
iii.
confusion - a strong status since it buys free turns, the primary reason behind the machamp ban, greatly penalizes outrage usersiv. poison - has a lot of appilcation for dealing with bulky pokemon, however is held back by natural cure, magic guard, steels, tspike absorpsion
v. freeze - a strong status, however i have it ranked last since it is rare to achieve, no move directly freezes.
edit - ah some of my emojis arent loading after saving the post
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So, did all the players in SPL released their viability rankings on Discord?Summary of this year's VR, short of making a long post due to time constraints on my end:
Thanks 16bit for gathering the data.
S1:
S2:
A1:
A2:
A3:
B1:
B2:
C1:
C2:
D:
E:
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My guess is the better stats in other categories make a difference
for me it really comes down to the power differential. i was never huge on magneton and i consider magnezone better than it most of the time, even though magneton boasts better speed w/ scarf. the first thing for me is that magnezone really never fails to kill skarm in 1 shot (unless you face sdef skarm which really isn't all that common atm, and if you're running non-scarf zone then modest tbolt is even better here) and can always prevent that second spike from going up. for some teams that choose to have zone alone as their "hazard control," this can be crucial. this extra power also enables it to catch heatran, scizor, lucario, gengar, jirachi, metagross, and others from slightly higher percentages. magnezone's decently higher bulk also enables it to more easily swap into a draco, or +2 espeed, or hp fire, or a scarf sciz superpower. sometimes that can make all the difference when magnezone already suffered a hit from coming in once prior, and it turns out you still need it for whatever reason. these are the stats differences which make it better than magneton for me.
magneton is good speed-wise for dragmag type teams (or ig any type of mag team) that foregoes another scarfer for an additional breaker and needs an emergency check to ddtar, ddnite, and ddgyara. that is basically the only time i really find it superior to magnezone. the reason for the differential is not based purely on magneton in a vaccuum, but on its relative viability compared to (what i perceive as) a superior option. if on most builds i would prefer to use, and consider magnezone to be, far better in functionality then that depreciates magneton's viability in the tier as their is most of the time a better option.
also clef for s-rank
I’ve been lurking around this thread for a little while now and I have some questions about some of these rankings.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Breloom is a solid Pokémon, but Top 5? Really? Does Poison Heal and also Spore carry this thing that hard? I see the vision- it’s something with a good Clefable matchup, it’s a great sleep spreader, and it tends to hit pretty hard. But I don’t know, man, maybe it’s my inexperience with Gen 4 tiers specifically but I don’t think it plays like a Top 5 Pokémon in practice. Too often when I’ve tried to run it on my teams its average stats (save for that base 130 Attack) let me down. Breloom can synergize well with a lot of other top tier Pokémon in this format and subsequently wins a lot of key matchups, but I also find that, at least on ladder, it can be pretty easy to take advantage of and exploit. I’m not 100 percent sold on that typing yet defensively and overall imagine this might be one of those placements that’s justified because of Breloom’s ability to succeed in tournament play. Which, yeah, that’s fair, I suppose.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The Platinum GOAT himself is all the way down at 24th place like he’s stuck in a Mario Kart World lobby. This… hurts. Unfortunately for my soul, I do actually think this placement is justified. I just… Scizor’s reign of terror back in 2009 was quite some time before I joined the Pokémon fandom, but I remember playing with it for the first time when I did finally have access to Pokémon Showdown in this format and thinking this thing was genuinely unstoppable at times, warping the meta around itself and being one of the strongest reasons for Heatran’s rise in usage especially late into Gen 4’s heyday. Nowadays, though, one of my favorite Pokémon to use in this entire generation feels somewhat one-dimensional and not quite the easiest to fit on specific team structures. This generation having as many stacked Steel-Types as it does really doesn’t do Scizor any favors either in terms of competition. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It’s okay, Scizor, I still love you.
Boy, was I wrong about this Pokémon. I was under the impression that Gyarados’s iconic Dragon Dance + Earthquake strategy was going to take a big hit relative to its Gen 3 OU iteration, seeing as physical Hidden Power Flying is gone and Stealth Rock is a thing here. That, and the offensive power creep of this generation was strong enough to where I didn’t think more specialized defensive Gyarados variants could work either. Physical Water STAB and the fact that… it’s Gyarados were always going to be enough to keep thing from falling to UU or anything like that, but Top 10? Gotta admit, I’m impressed, specifically by the more experienced playerbase that can make rankings like these happen. Again, Gen 4 is definitely not one of the ones I’m the most experienced with, but Gyarados’s combination of offensive threat and utility definitely caught me off guard even though I know me being this surprised over this placement probably looks extremely cringe to the people unfortunate enough to read my posts. (I am so sorry you have to deal with my crap.)
(Rotom-A, of course)
I’ve looked at three physical attackers, so why not end this off with a special attacker? You know what I find funny? If Gen 4 had Gen 6 paralysis mechanics where Electric-Types couldn’t be paralyzed (Rotom is immune to Body Slam at least so that’s something), that alone might raise this Pokémon up an entire sub-tier. I can’t decide if I think this placement is valid or if I think it’s actually a tad bit low. I’ve been of the belief for a few years now that Rotom-A is the best Electric-Type and the best Ghost-Type in this format, and while it definitely has some competition for the Electric-Type crown with stuff like Zapdos and… nope, I was right, it’s just Zapdos I think this competes with for that spot. I really like Rotom’s unique playstyle compared to something like Gengar too- its better defensive profile, while unfortunately lacking a reliable recovery move, is much better set up for Spinblocking and the occasional Explosion bait, and it can get a lot of use in specific team roles like a Speed Control or a status spreader. Losing out on a pivoting move (no Volt Switch here, but Zapdos still gets U-Turn) hurts it a lot here compared to later generations, as does the recovery issue, but I don’t know, I’ve used this thing a lot and it can still make decent enough progress. Question is, how much progress does this Pokémon across all the forms tend to make in bracket compared to on the ladder? Whether or not Rotom’s been doing good in tournaments lately is a mystery to me at this point in time, which kind of sucks because I’ve been trying to incorporate tournament results more into my opinions starting this ongoing year. For context, I used to judge Pokémon almost solely off of ladder stats and matchup spreads.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Breloom is a solid Pokémon, but Top 5? Really? Does Poison Heal and also Spore carry this thing that hard? I see the vision- it’s something with a good Clefable matchup, it’s a great sleep spreader, and it tends to hit pretty hard. But I don’t know, man, maybe it’s my inexperience with Gen 4 tiers specifically but I don’t think it plays like a Top 5 Pokémon in practice. Too often when I’ve tried to run it on my teams its average stats (save for that base 130 Attack) let me down. Breloom can synergize well with a lot of other top tier Pokémon in this format and subsequently wins a lot of key matchups, but I also find that, at least on ladder, it can be pretty easy to take advantage of and exploit. I’m not 100 percent sold on that typing yet defensively and overall imagine this might be one of those placements that’s justified because of Breloom’s ability to succeed in tournament play. Which, yeah, that’s fair, I suppose.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The Platinum GOAT himself is all the way down at 24th place like he’s stuck in a Mario Kart World lobby. This… hurts. Unfortunately for my soul, I do actually think this placement is justified. I just… Scizor’s reign of terror back in 2009 was quite some time before I joined the Pokémon fandom, but I remember playing with it for the first time when I did finally have access to Pokémon Showdown in this format and thinking this thing was genuinely unstoppable at times, warping the meta around itself and being one of the strongest reasons for Heatran’s rise in usage especially late into Gen 4’s heyday. Nowadays, though, one of my favorite Pokémon to use in this entire generation feels somewhat one-dimensional and not quite the easiest to fit on specific team structures. This generation having as many stacked Steel-Types as it does really doesn’t do Scizor any favors either in terms of competition. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It’s okay, Scizor, I still love you.
Boy, was I wrong about this Pokémon. I was under the impression that Gyarados’s iconic Dragon Dance + Earthquake strategy was going to take a big hit relative to its Gen 3 OU iteration, seeing as physical Hidden Power Flying is gone and Stealth Rock is a thing here. That, and the offensive power creep of this generation was strong enough to where I didn’t think more specialized defensive Gyarados variants could work either. Physical Water STAB and the fact that… it’s Gyarados were always going to be enough to keep thing from falling to UU or anything like that, but Top 10? Gotta admit, I’m impressed, specifically by the more experienced playerbase that can make rankings like these happen. Again, Gen 4 is definitely not one of the ones I’m the most experienced with, but Gyarados’s combination of offensive threat and utility definitely caught me off guard even though I know me being this surprised over this placement probably looks extremely cringe to the people unfortunate enough to read my posts. (I am so sorry you have to deal with my crap.)
(Rotom-A, of course)I’ve looked at three physical attackers, so why not end this off with a special attacker? You know what I find funny? If Gen 4 had Gen 6 paralysis mechanics where Electric-Types couldn’t be paralyzed (Rotom is immune to Body Slam at least so that’s something), that alone might raise this Pokémon up an entire sub-tier. I can’t decide if I think this placement is valid or if I think it’s actually a tad bit low. I’ve been of the belief for a few years now that Rotom-A is the best Electric-Type and the best Ghost-Type in this format, and while it definitely has some competition for the Electric-Type crown with stuff like Zapdos and… nope, I was right, it’s just Zapdos I think this competes with for that spot. I really like Rotom’s unique playstyle compared to something like Gengar too- its better defensive profile, while unfortunately lacking a reliable recovery move, is much better set up for Spinblocking and the occasional Explosion bait, and it can get a lot of use in specific team roles like a Speed Control or a status spreader. Losing out on a pivoting move (no Volt Switch here, but Zapdos still gets U-Turn) hurts it a lot here compared to later generations, as does the recovery issue, but I don’t know, I’ve used this thing a lot and it can still make decent enough progress. Question is, how much progress does this Pokémon across all the forms tend to make in bracket compared to on the ladder? Whether or not Rotom’s been doing good in tournaments lately is a mystery to me at this point in time, which kind of sucks because I’ve been trying to incorporate tournament results more into my opinions starting this ongoing year. For context, I used to judge Pokémon almost solely off of ladder stats and matchup spreads.
On the Breloom take, the reason Breloom is ranked high in DPP is bc you need at least 2 Pokemon on your team that could reasonably take on the Loom. Breloom can easily halt momentum on offensive teams since Sleep is annoying. (On ladder, whenever I see a Loom is it SubPunch 80% of the time.)I’ve been lurking around this thread for a little while now and I have some questions about some of these rankings.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Breloom is a solid Pokémon, but Top 5? Really? Does Poison Heal and also Spore carry this thing that hard? I see the vision- it’s something with a good Clefable matchup, it’s a great sleep spreader, and it tends to hit pretty hard. But I don’t know, man, maybe it’s my inexperience with Gen 4 tiers specifically but I don’t think it plays like a Top 5 Pokémon in practice. Too often when I’ve tried to run it on my teams its average stats (save for that base 130 Attack) let me down. Breloom can synergize well with a lot of other top tier Pokémon in this format and subsequently wins a lot of key matchups, but I also find that, at least on ladder, it can be pretty easy to take advantage of and exploit. I’m not 100 percent sold on that typing yet defensively and overall imagine this might be one of those placements that’s justified because of Breloom’s ability to succeed in tournament play. Which, yeah, that’s fair, I suppose.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The Platinum GOAT himself is all the way down at 24th place like he’s stuck in a Mario Kart World lobby. This… hurts. Unfortunately for my soul, I do actually think this placement is justified. I just… Scizor’s reign of terror back in 2009 was quite some time before I joined the Pokémon fandom, but I remember playing with it for the first time when I did finally have access to Pokémon Showdown in this format and thinking this thing was genuinely unstoppable at times, warping the meta around itself and being one of the strongest reasons for Heatran’s rise in usage especially late into Gen 4’s heyday. Nowadays, though, one of my favorite Pokémon to use in this entire generation feels somewhat one-dimensional and not quite the easiest to fit on specific team structures. This generation having as many stacked Steel-Types as it does really doesn’t do Scizor any favors either in terms of competition. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It’s okay, Scizor, I still love you.
Boy, was I wrong about this Pokémon. I was under the impression that Gyarados’s iconic Dragon Dance + Earthquake strategy was going to take a big hit relative to its Gen 3 OU iteration, seeing as physical Hidden Power Flying is gone and Stealth Rock is a thing here. That, and the offensive power creep of this generation was strong enough to where I didn’t think more specialized defensive Gyarados variants could work either. Physical Water STAB and the fact that… it’s Gyarados were always going to be enough to keep thing from falling to UU or anything like that, but Top 10? Gotta admit, I’m impressed, specifically by the more experienced playerbase that can make rankings like these happen. Again, Gen 4 is definitely not one of the ones I’m the most experienced with, but Gyarados’s combination of offensive threat and utility definitely caught me off guard even though I know me being this surprised over this placement probably looks extremely cringe to the people unfortunate enough to read my posts. (I am so sorry you have to deal with my crap.)
I’ve looked at three physical attackers, so why not end this off with a special attacker? You know what I find funny? If Gen 4 had Gen 6 paralysis mechanics where Electric-Types couldn’t be paralyzed (Rotom is immune to Body Slam at least so that’s something), that alone might raise this Pokémon up an entire sub-tier. I can’t decide if I think this placement is valid or if I think it’s actually a tad bit low. I’ve been of the belief for a few years now that Rotom-A is the best Electric-Type and the best Ghost-Type in this format, and while it definitely has some competition for the Electric-Type crown with stuff like Zapdos and… nope, I was right, it’s just Zapdos I think this competes with for that spot. I really like Rotom’s unique playstyle compared to something like Gengar too- its better defensive profile, while unfortunately lacking a reliable recovery move, is much better set up for Spinblocking and the occasional Explosion bait, and it can get a lot of use in specific team roles like a Speed Control or a status spreader. Losing out on a pivoting move (no Volt Switch here, but Zapdos still gets U-Turn) hurts it a lot here compared to later generations, as does the recovery issue, but I don’t know, I’ve used this thing a lot and it can still make decent enough progress. Question is, how much progress does this Pokémon across all the forms tend to make in bracket compared to on the ladder? Whether or not Rotom’s been doing good in tournaments lately is a mystery to me at this point in time, which kind of sucks because I’ve been trying to incorporate tournament results more into my opinions starting this ongoing year. For context, I used to judge Pokémon almost solely off of ladder stats and matchup spreads.
Scizor is still pretty decent on HO, but yea Scizor feeds on metagames that favor offense.
"Unfortunate doesn't begin to-"
The 1 thing that I don't like about DPP OU is the lack of bulky pivoting options compared to later gens, bulky pivots as annoying as they are, does free more space for creativity.