S Tier
Compared to last time, I like dd sets a whole lot more. Sand's still broken and sandless adv still sucks. Suittar doesn't seem as good as it was, or at least the balances it fits on (forre teams specifically). In my experience, suittar is better at trapping claydol for spikes teams than gengar for forre teams.
S- Tier
I've come around on spikeless Gengar teams. Still works best on spikes, but who doesn't really. Hypnogar is extremely strong with spikes or Dugtrio, and regular wisp gar is still impossible to switch into. Most Gengar sets are at worst a 50/50 or a good double switch away from winning the suittar interaction, which makes this guy just so hard to cover defensively. Don't try to spinblock except against forre unless you're good enough to know you have to. Was gonna put him at the top of A+ but honestly gar just feels so much stronger than everything else in there,
A+ Tier
Swampert @ Leftovers
Ability: Torrent
EVs: 248 HP / 124 Def / 40 SpA / 44 SpD / 52 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- Earthquake
- Protect
would be here alone. Other sets are icing on the cake. I do not like monopert, but with roar (and maybe focus punch) it's definitely pretty good.
Same guy he was before. Zapdug sux but this thing's such a beast as an offensive pivot. Max HP and mixed sets are just as great as they were before, and I'm no longer a whore for restzap but resttalk is pretty awesome if you can keep spikes.
Extremely versatile as always, agiligross is particularly nasty if you have another plan to get rid of waters OR another mon that sweeps when waters are gone. Pairs really well with fire types for that reason, and provides a really scary skarm punish. CBGross clicks its 2 moves like nothing else can and I am personally very fond of mixed sets with hp grass.
Super easy and consistent to pilot. Skarm teams only really have one bad matchup (magdol) and that's both a bad fish and not even a guaranteed win. Skarm offense should run Gengar, balance doesn't need it but really appreciates the help. Being able to spike at least once on just about anything is super good and one of the reasons Skarm's so much better than forre, but I'll get to that more in the forre bit. Try out phazeless skarm with taunt, it's really good (either protox taunt or peck tox taunt. Especially the second one.)
A Tier
EXTREMELY versatile, but I haven't felt too good about spdef sets recently. Not actually switching in safely on any special attackers finally caught up to it, I guess. FEARRachi is really good. SubCM is flavor of the month right now, and is also incredible if you run psychic on it. Ice punch is good for freezing pert and all, but psychic/tbolt or hp water is just too good to pass up on imo. Superachi is as good as ever and beats bliss an uncomfortable amount of time for both the bliss and rachi players.
Might be the number one victim of people using bad sets and then complaining about it being bad. Most people use bad sets and then still say it's good though, which I guess is a point in its favor. Use modest with special attacks and toxic (or a third special attack or... subcm) and you will not regret it. Wish stoss stuff has a time and a place but is overused (in a literal sense) in my opinion.
Mixmence is still really good, but kinda lackluster without spikes UNLESS it's very attack invested, which is a good set in itself. DDMence is another flavor of the month thing, but much like subcm rachi I think it's here to stay unless the meta goes in a completely weird direction. Thanks to vapicuno for unlocking the dragon dance DLC for us.
A- Tier
I've used like 1 defensive Celebi recently and it's pretty good if your team doesn't just fold to starmie/offcune aside from it. Superbi goes crazy like always. Run modest on it and it's just so goddamn strong at +1. Heals itself a ton with giga, too. CMpass is good under the right circumstances but cm 3atks is much better in general.
UDCune doesn't hit as many 6-0 matchups as it did at one point, but it's still a nasty set. I've finally made a modest crocune squad that I'm happy with, but I'll keep it under wraps until I use it in tournament I think. Defensive crocune is pretty bad. Roarcune is good if you use it offensively and as a water check or just get it traded with metagross. Offcune is really, really good, but run surf on it not hydro.
I've lost to subliechi aero a bit too often to think of it as just an sdpass recipient, that thing is a total menace for offense to face. CB is incredibly strong as it usually is. Doesn't really need spikes but is probably the 2nd or 3rd best abuser so you feel the drop in power without them pretty heavily.
B+ tier (really big gap here)
Really really bad if you aren't running attack investment, seriously don't even try to do that, at least when using the standard eq/spin/psychic/boom set. Using this thing as a check to attackers is kinda painful, but boom is its saving grace and spin can be invaluable on some teams. Claydol's pretty good to just throw on a team as your last mon, and it'll put in some work.
I'm higher on lax than I was last time, he's not entirely terrible. Curseboom is so expected now that I think it's not worth using at all, but fpunch+boom generally does a pretty good job at trading itself for all/a big chunk of skarm. 4mss is a real bitch for lax though, and most lax teams don't really have a choice except trading a burn on lax for maybe 60% on gengar, if you even have shadow ball to begin with.
Dug teams just get absolutely victimized by the setupspam that's been everywhere on the ladder, but we haven't seen as much of that in tours. Pairs well with rachi. Dug special offense seems to have mostly fallen by the wayside, or at least teams that rely on dug trapping your opponents' blisseys. It's much better at killing tar and metagross anyway to set up for your rachi in the back. Very difficult to make a dug team that isn't very weak to skarmory.
Offmie is due for a comeback, what with the offense that's running the tier right now. Still pretty hard to fit on spikes, unfortunately, although Kerts's classic team is still quite good. Bold sets are alright too, and one of the best ways of shielding your more important defensive mon from metagross.
B- Tier (pretty big gap between these two)
Knock is really good and fighting type attacks hit really hard. Doesn't do as well against offense as it does against fat, but is one of the only ways that lame teams can make progress against other lame teams. Rest isn't entirely terrible, but resttalk is.
Super threatening, especially behind spikes. I'm a big fan of beat up on this too, although opposing bliss is probably to scared of focus punch to switch in anyway, but with beat up and brick break you're much more free to spam fire blast than you would be if you were running focus punch. Zard is also pretty consistent at getting pert to stay in and trade getting hit with an hp grass for the kill, which helps out a lot if you're running ddtar and/or agiligross behind. Pretty unique in that it does really heavy damage to both physical and special walls, and it's one of (if not just) the strongest skarm punishes in the tier.
Gets OHKO'd by everything and its mother and needs to win 50/50s vs just to get a spin off. Suittar losing to gengar is an increasingly common sight and that interaction just keeps favoring gengar more and more by the day, so running this alongside another spinner feels almost necessary, especially due to how spikes-weak forre itself is. Once you're doing that, spin feels like a waste of a moveslot, and anyway skarm+spinner is quite good so why people run forre+spinner is confusing to me. Zap cannon helps this thing. Main problem is the guys that punish forre (fires, mixed attackers) are a lot harder to switch into than the guys that punish skarm (electrics) and forre has less room to stay in on mixed attackers than skarm does, meaning they are less inclined to actually click fire blast and more free to guess at your switchin. Milo solves those issues but this isn't the time or place to write about why I think milo forre is not a good structure.
Gets more 6-0 matchups than anything else, 85% of the time. Maybe this is the place to write about why milo forre sucks.
Subpassing is still strong, pairs pretty well with dug even. Works much better on physical offenses than special offenses. When using it try not to get too caught up in subpassing and try to spam some water moves, cause vap's strong as shit.
Really strong lategame and sleep's broken as per usual, kinda fizzles out earlygame though and lacks much defensive utility. Please don't go hard into this thing on tar t1 lol. Basically needing pursuit or being a slot with very low value against gengar teams really hamstrings him, because offensive loom squads would probably like to run ddtar instead of suit. SD isn't as great as I thought it was, just trying to get 1.5 kills lategame once you've traded down to 3vs3 is loom's best application.
C Tier
Really a lot better against opposing gengar than suittar is, and also has a really good matchup against cm users. Allowing you to run dd/phystar alongside your offensive fighters is extremely nice. Surprisingly customizable, alongside your fire move and crunch and suit, roar wisp hpgrass and even beat up are all good in the last slot depending on the team. Houndoom is the kind of mon that makes members of its team look really good, even if it only does a couple things over the course of the battle. I'm extremely high on doom and I think it should see a lot more usage.
Asta's ghost gyara is really neat. Gyara's nice on teams that beat up skarm and leave it low, although I think mag offense is not that great. Of course, gyara likes mag support if you can fit it, but it's good that it isn't necessary. Pairs well with other setuppers, which is really nice.
Just fine, I don't have much to say about it despite trying to use it several times. Getting a spike or three and blowing up is strong. I've tried spin with wish support, but it kinda sucks unfortunately. Ice beam is good.
Physical offenses don't need it and mag spin is pretty bad, so I am not very high on mag. Can be pretty annoying for some teams, and can act as a pretty decent half-measure to zap and aero, especially because you don't mind saccing this once it's done its job. Aero locking into eq against a good mag team is suicide anyway.
Another one that's just fine. I like hp ice on it. Kerts joltspikes is good but this thing seriously has one team.
Not necessarily worse than Zapdos on all teams, but it's so much less customizable. Beats up phys offense, but not quite as well as offmie does. Protect is cool.
Actually beats up phys offense even better than offmie! Sometimes. Really restrictive on the types of team that it fits on (basically requires dug, unfortunately) but pairs pretty well with heracross like other offensive waters do. Run sub on it.
D Tier
Just use Suicune, if Suicune isn't sufficient defensively then milo probably wasn't going to be either. Absolutely 0 offensive pressure sucks. Loses hard to opposing spikes unless you're running like milomagdol.
Really cool. Hard to think of roro's cb regice as anything more than a gimmick that won't ever work again now that it's revealed, but gee that was pretty neat. Modest boltbeam twave boom is hellish for special offense but pretty bad into other teamstyles.
Probably the most efficient beerlover matchup fish, other than that it's not great.
Countertrapping dug is aight and helps to not get swept by some of the good physicals in the tier. Hp fight boltbeam is the only one I've really used much recently.
Massive beast, unfortunately held back by 4mss and crippling weakness to waters. Boom is nice but you have to predict to get it on cune bc you get outsped and ohko'd. Iron tail is nice to deter some switches.
Kinda fallen out of favor with me, physical sets are cool and wisp+spikes immunity is great but unfortunately this is the 3rd best mon in the tier with wisp and a spikes immunity.
Gotta be my least-used OU by far, even less than p2. Henz's subliechi one was cool but needs too much support. Gets around the extreme pain of locking into EQ, but flygon's just not strong. Defensive sets have some merit but it's just so, so much worse than pert.
I mean it's not that bad. Not quite as good as jynx in the lead position, but has some merit as a cleaner in the back.
Fine lead but idk if I've ever seen it out of that slot. If you need tar gone so badly that you're willing to give up a mon and the immediate momentum that dug gives your opponent, then go right ahead. LK turn 1 into tar is suicidal, you're just asking to be down 6-4 right off the bat against dug bulk ddtar.
Technically usable Tier (half starless nights half paraspam)
Fun, hpfight is cool, tox is nice, but this thing struggles
annoying in rain but it's not as strong as kingdra and has a worse defensive typing
pass recipient and paralysis abuser, probably worse than rhydon at the second thing though
kinda fucks up some teams but super prediction reliant and frail unfortunately
This is pretty much every mon I've used on a non-meme team over the last 6 months, and one mon I haven't (flygon). Houndoom is super good, and really opens up the game for fighters. Don't try to directly switch your pursuit mon into Gengar unless you know its set because you're going to lose.
tl;dr