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32 turns of stall in the Hail: Walrein

I've gotta give you props Dragontamer, shortly after you revealed this set I came across one shortly after. 3 days after the fact and I've come across well over 10+ users who've had a Walrein on their team; some of them even using it on a team that doesn't contain a hail'er!

Definitely looks like you've got the crowds attention with this one.

EDIT: Thanks for the little warstory too!
 
And I remember back when we got the list of base stats, everybody was like

"Uber style agressivness!" "Stalling will be impossible!"

But this... this is... just perfect!
Really good job finding this out.

You deserve a cookie!
 
How is this relevant to Walrein's offense?

Neither Walrein and Skarmory have much of an offense (at least not this particular Walrein). However, Skarmory usually just blocks X physical threat for a couple turns, forces them to switch and then switches out itself. However, this Walrein plans to sit there for a hundred years being an annoying whore. It needs to pose some sort of threat to the opponent. "Half the rest of my team sets up the threats for me while I just spam Roar which many other pokemon can also do" is not the right type of threat .

If a powerful sweeper comes in play (IE: GUTS heracross, Starmie), I sub/protect till they die of Toxic. Even with infinite attack, a Heracross would not break through the combo and will die to toxic.

If a powerful slow-sweeper comes into play (IE: Special Attack Magnezone), I wait for hail to kill them down. I substitute on the switch, protect on their first attack, Surf while they break the sub, and then Sub/Protect till their death.

That's all fine and dandy for the Heracross thing (and other Choice sweepers), but Starmie? Not only can it Recover, but it can Rapid Spin away your (Toxic) Spikes support and has Natural Cure. Starmie can force you to switch out simply be taking away the support that makes your Roar a danger in the first place.

And why do you assume Hail can just chip away at everything? Most teams still pack 3-4 Leftovers users, whom Hail won't damage. Not to mention you act as if you have perfect prediction and your opponent is just going to sit there doing nothing. I'm sure it can still prove to be a deterrent to the usual Water/Ice-weak and be an annoyance in general against a more experienced player, but single-handedly beating random newbies with it doesn't prove a whole lot.

That's crazy. Who would expect Walrein to be such a beast?

Not much different from Lapras, a UU beast not unusable in standard play. Like Tentacruel.
 
BTW: I'm starting to see "StallRein" all over now. Why? WALrein already has a perfect name for this set... but call it whatever you want >_> I'm sticking with Wallrein, or Walrein for short. I also edited this message into the first post.

It's your invention so you get to decide the name :) ... there changed it in my sig.

Oh and thanks for the huge reply to my question.
 
That's all fine and dandy for the Heracross thing (and other Choice sweepers), but Starmie? Not only can it Recover, but it can Rapid Spin away your (Toxic) Spikes support and has Natural Cure. Starmie can force you to switch out simply be taking away the support that makes your Roar a danger in the first place.

Just chiming in to point out that since this Walrein will primarily be on a Hail team, it's likely to carry Weavile, which will end the Starmie threat very quickly.
 
This is even more brilliant now than before you posted a log. People can speak of counters all they like, but you still have three other pokemon on your team that aren't even involved in your set-up, but instead can be streamlined to deal with serious threats you may face. Bravo!

I still think any Hail team should consider Specs Glaceon, but who am I kidding? You don't even need it.
 
I've been thinking about glaceon too. But I don't think it's moveset is any good. Ice Beam / Blizzard, Shadowball, Aqua tail...that's it for special attacks.
 
That's all fine and dandy for the Heracross thing (and other Choice sweepers), but Starmie? Not only can it Recover, but it can Rapid Spin away your (Toxic) Spikes support and has Natural Cure. Starmie can force you to switch out simply be taking away the support that makes your Roar a danger in the first place.

Step 1: Protect. You're doing it anyway.

Step 2a: If they rapid spin, switch to weavile/frosslass. Frosslass to block rapid spin and thunderbolt back, Weavile for the sure kill. (Hail + toxic + pursuit == surely dead)

Step 2b: If they attack, wait for them to die to hail/toxic. Even with recover, toxic will catch up eventually and _they_ will be forced to switch out.

Starmie's case has been handled quite easily with a good team. There are a lot of smart players out there who have already tried this on me.

And why do you assume Hail can just chip away at everything? Most teams still pack 3-4 Leftovers users, whom Hail won't damage. Not to mention you act as if you have perfect prediction and your opponent is just going to sit there doing nothing. I'm sure it can still prove to be a deterrent to the usual Water/Ice-weak and be an annoyance in general against a more experienced player, but single-handedly beating random newbies with it doesn't prove a whole lot.

Roar away leftover users... while this thing beats BulkyGyara without Subsitute / Protect combo. Roar asap. If they taunt then Surf / Blizzard for the 3/8 hit KO. You'll kill gyara before they kill you unless it packs stone edge.

Its not like you can just sit there the whole time. You have to think obviously.
 
Here are a few things that seem like counters that haven't really been mentioned at all in the thread yet, but are mostly viable enough that they can exist on their own without the express purpose of messing this set up.

In general things that can deal enough damage to break a sub and have priority moves can counter this set to some degree (this was mentioned earlier with the case of a slow, bullet punching Metagross but there are other users of this type of moveset as well).

The selfish SD scizor mentioned in the second post of its analysis thread works to a certain extent; it is slower than Skarmory and therefore slower than this set, can easily break a sub with brick break, either SD or brick break during the first protect (an SD stands a good chance of getting roared out if you realize what set it is, but it also makes it that much more painful if you play it safe and protect), then quick attack before you can sub again. A life orbed quick attack before SD only does about 18-21%, but an SD boosted quick attack does 35-42% and an unboosted brick break does 44-52%, so if you mispredict during the "protect" stage you could be hurt pretty badly. Unfortunately this Scizor runs life orb which means it can probably only afford to do this a few times before it kills itself. That is potentially enough time to stop this set though if it makes the right choice during the protect turn. (I know that roost Scizor was already mentioned but I figured I'd mention this set too).

Another user of this type of combination is Breloom. The Anti-Starter (Spore/Seed Bomb/Protect/Mach Punch) variety can be EV'ed with no speed, or alternatively 4 speed. The former will always go after walrein, while the latter ties Walrein but is able to guarantee going ahead of Skarmory (which is probably more realistically useful in the general sense and as I'll mention in a minute isn't really so bad anyway in this specific case). Breloom has the nice advantage of being able to heal even in the hail, as well as being immune to Toxic Spikes. However, it has the decided disadvantage of being OHKO'd by Blizzard, so it's really only a counter to the Surfing variety of Walrein. Nonetheless, Mach Punch does a respectable 27-33%. Furthermore, since it ties exactly with Walrein in speed, half the time its Seed Bombs will be going first, and half the time they'll be going last, which means if the Breloom user is feeling lucky they can Seed Bomb instead of Mach Punching when the sub is down and end up doing 54-64%.

Speaking of Breloom, another counter, or set of counters really, are sub-punchers that are faster than Walrein. In general, they can basically do the opposite of what slower priority move users do, which is break your sub with Focus Punch and then hit you with their other attack while you're unprotected. Really, any sub-puncher with reasonable special defense will work alright, but some are better than others:

Sub-punching Weavile and Abomasnow heal off damage in the hail, so they'll be regenerating substitutes eventually as long as Toxic Spikes is spun away. It may not be the most immediately obvious option when building a set for him, but I don't really see any reason why sub-punching weavile wouldn't be viable, especially with his STAB attacks covering most of the types that resist fighting so well. Somehow though I doubt that Abomasnow will see OU play except in hail teams.

If not though, there's always Breloom again. As long as it's carrying Stone Edge and not Spore, it can Focus Punch away subs and then either Stone Edge or Leech Seed once they're down. In this case, it may even be able to counter the Blizzard variety as long as it isn't killed on the switch, because Breloom can sub 5 times in a row even if its subs are killed each time, which would be a real strain on Blizzard's PP. Plus, chances are it will get at least one sub up successfully before the Walrein user knows what set it's running anyway.

Finally, the set that once you look at it seems like it was just MADE to counter this Walrein: the Toxicroak subpunching set. Not only is it immune to toxic spikes, it changes the weather by the very design of the set, and just to add insult to injury it is actually healed by Surf. I know you've already mentioned that rain dance teams mess up your strategy, but the nice thing about this set is that's it's viable in its own right on a non-rain dance team (well... maybe. I haven't actually used it. But it seems like it might be).

By the way, I'm not trying to question the effectiveness of your set here, I'm just hopefully bringing up a few ideas on how to counter it.

Edit: wow I should have previewed this before I posted; I didn't realize how tl;dr it is. Maybe I'll make it look nicer tomorrow.
 
Neither Walrein and Skarmory have much of an offense (at least not this particular Walrein). However, Skarmory usually just blocks X physical threat for a couple turns, forces them to switch and then switches out itself. However, this Walrein plans to sit there for a hundred years being an annoying whore. It needs to pose some sort of threat to the opponent. "Half the rest of my team sets up the threats for me while I just spam Roar which many other pokemon can also do" is not the right type of threat.

I used Skarmory as an example because you said:

In this case, so does anything with Roar/WW.
Skarmory and Hippowdon seemed to be the only two that used Roar to the same degree as this Walrein (and some Hippowdon run Stealth Rock over Roar, anyway), so I used Skarmory to demonstrate that Spikes/Roar can be used as a primary source of damage. That's all. The comparison ends there. I never implied that Walrein was a physical wall, and so most other comparisons with Skarmory would be hopelessly flawed.
 
Vaporeon @ Leftovers
Aqua Ring
Substitute
Protect/Surf/Ice Beam
Roar/Baton Pass

It works well athough the loss of a moveslot hurts. It works well with the other Eons, all of which learn Sub/Protect and are great at forcing switches. (Yawn, Charm etc..) It also gets wish which could be interesting. Aqua Ring would be interesting if Baton Passed to Walrein.

Edit: I think I messed the posting up.
 
This set is completely owned by status or faster Whirlwinders. I personally run Yawn on my Jolteon for stuff like this. It hasn't failed me yet. Always a free Sub or Wish, too. A sleeping subber is a dead one.
 
I've battled Dragontamers team twice now. I got utterly owned by this Walrein once, though I did manage to win once as well. I have to say, he has the best hail team I've encountered so far, and this Walrein is REALLY annoying.
 
This set is completely owned by status or faster Whirlwinders. I personally run Yawn on my Jolteon for stuff like this. It hasn't failed me yet. Always a free Sub or Wish, too. A sleeping subber is a dead one.

1. If you get Jolteon when I don't have a sub, you won, and I'm switching out to Weavile, who's pursuit can deal some 50%+ damage when you're not switching out (and Ice Punch deals more than decent damage to you)

2. If Jolteon comes in when I do have a sub... which is significantly more likely (I'm careful about brining in Walrein. I mean, I bring it in vs your Blissey or something else like that), Yawn will fail as it doesn't go through substitutes when substitute is up.

3. Name a decent phazer that is faster than Skarmory, and I will nearly guarantee you that the slow guys do it better except against this set. Roar/Whirlwind has a -priority, so if you have a more fragile guy like Raikou phazing, it is literally _only_ useful against this Walrein.

For this reason, Skarm, Donphan, Swampert, Hippowdon and so forth are the key roaring pokemon. You need high defense, and generally that implies low speed. If you have fast speed, the -Priority in the attack pretty much negates the advantage.

Its kinda like Magic Guard Clefable. Sure, it is a counter, but I don't see it doing anything useful outside of countering this specific Walrein.
 
Here are a few things that seem like counters that haven't really been mentioned at all in the thread yet, but are mostly viable enough that they can exist on their own without the express purpose of messing this set up.

In general things that can deal enough damage to break a sub and have priority moves can counter this set to some degree (this was mentioned earlier with the case of a slow, bullet punching Metagross but there are other users of this type of moveset as well).

I've been thinking about that set a bit, and I was looking along the lines of Hammer-Arm + Bullet punch. With Hammer-Arm, you can lower your speed at will, so you can be the 252/252 Atk/Speed Metagross, or really any EV spread.

The selfish SD scizor mentioned in the second post of its analysis thread works to a certain extent; it is slower than Skarmory and therefore slower than this set, can easily break a sub with brick break, either SD or brick break during the first protect (an SD stands a good chance of getting roared out if you realize what set it is, but it also makes it that much more painful if you play it safe and protect), then quick attack before you can sub again. A life orbed quick attack before SD only does about 18-21%, but an SD boosted quick attack does 35-42% and an unboosted brick break does 44-52%, so if you mispredict during the "protect" stage you could be hurt pretty badly. Unfortunately this Scizor runs life orb which means it can probably only afford to do this a few times before it kills itself. That is potentially enough time to stop this set though if it makes the right choice during the protect turn. (I know that roost Scizor was already mentioned but I figured I'd mention this set too).
I like this Scizor better . With roost it will be strong enough to take a few hits and the hail. However, Scizor has been giving me problems already (immune to poison, roost away the hail). So I'll probably be roaring away Scizor as it more or less walls this set anyway.

But certainly, it is a certain counter... or at least a certain phaze / loss of sub for Walrein.

Another user of this type of combination is Breloom. The Anti-Starter (Spore/Seed Bomb/Protect/Mach Punch) variety can be EV'ed with no speed, or alternatively 4 speed. The former will always go after walrein, while the latter ties Walrein but is able to guarantee going ahead of Skarmory (which is probably more realistically useful in the general sense and as I'll mention in a minute isn't really so bad anyway in this specific case). Breloom has the nice advantage of being able to heal even in the hail, as well as being immune to Toxic Spikes. However, it has the decided disadvantage of being OHKO'd by Blizzard, so it's really only a counter to the Surfing variety of Walrein. Nonetheless, Mach Punch does a respectable 27-33%. Furthermore, since it ties exactly with Walrein in speed, half the time its Seed Bombs will be going first, and half the time they'll be going last, which means if the Breloom user is feeling lucky they can Seed Bomb instead of Mach Punching when the sub is down and end up doing 54-64%.
Ick... I'm not liking this one. Breloom is good because it is more or less... the fastest pokemon who can decently use spore in the game. This seems far too specific a counter, although I can agree that it probably will work.

Speaking of Breloom, another counter, or set of counters really, are sub-punchers that are faster than Walrein. In general, they can basically do the opposite of what slower priority move users do, which is break your sub with Focus Punch and then hit you with their other attack while you're unprotected. Really, any sub-puncher with reasonable special defense will work alright, but some are better than others
Slow guy using quick attack works. But this one is too easily prevented as I can just surf / blizzard you on that turn.

Sub-punching Weavile and Abomasnow heal off damage in the hail, so they'll be regenerating substitutes eventually as long as Toxic Spikes is spun away.
No they don't. Only Walrein and Glalie regenerate in the hail. Weavile and Abomasnow just live in the hail... not regenerate in it.... unless you are counting leftovers. But leftovers Weavile seems sub-optimal as Life Orb is sitting right there. Abomasnow probably can utilize leftovers well though.

It may not be the most immediately obvious option when building a set for him, but I don't really see any reason why sub-punching weavile wouldn't be viable, especially with his STAB attacks covering most of the types that resist fighting so well. Somehow though I doubt that Abomasnow will see OU play except in hail teams.

If not though, there's always Breloom again. As long as it's carrying Stone Edge and not Spore, it can Focus Punch away subs and then either Stone Edge or Leech Seed once they're down. In this case, it may even be able to counter the Blizzard variety as long as it isn't killed on the switch, because Breloom can sub 5 times in a row even if its subs are killed each time, which would be a real strain on Blizzard's PP. Plus, chances are it will get at least one sub up successfully before the Walrein user knows what set it's running anyway.

Finally, the set that once you look at it seems like it was just MADE to counter this Walrein: the Toxicroak subpunching set. Not only is it immune to toxic spikes, it changes the weather by the very design of the set, and just to add insult to injury it is actually healed by Surf. I know you've already mentioned that rain dance teams mess up your strategy, but the nice thing about this set is that's it's viable in its own right on a non-rain dance team (well... maybe. I haven't actually used it. But it seems like it might be).

By the way, I'm not trying to question the effectiveness of your set here, I'm just hopefully bringing up a few ideas on how to counter it.

Edit: wow I should have previewed this before I posted; I didn't realize how tl;dr it is. Maybe I'll make it look nicer tomorrow.
NP, I don't think there is much doubt about the effectiveness of the set. Clearly, none of these "counters" are typical in the current metagame. I mean really... low/no speed Breloom and Focus Punch Weavile are not exactly popular choices at the moment.

Closer to the current metagame are the Metagross set (anything on a metagross is more or less scary) and possibly the Toxicroak set. No one uses toxicroak... but if someone did they would probably use the standard rain dance set.
 
Sorry for double post, just thought of this as I was about to leave- What if each player had a walrein left as their last pokemon and hail was going? Wouldn't that just be retarded stalling until stuggle comes along and then getting caught in that endless and retarded loop? How does one deal with this?
 
Ick... I'm not liking this one. Breloom is good because it is more or less... the fastest pokemon who can decently use spore in the game. This seems far too specific a counter, although I can agree that it probably will work.

Yeah, it does seem pretty specific but it is mentioned on the analysis page and Spore is always nice regardless of what other moves Breloom is running.

Slow guy using quick attack works. But this one is too easily prevented as I can just surf / blizzard you on that turn.

If you Surf/Blizzard then they can use their secondary attack against you instead of subbing. Not to mention that unless you plan on automatically attacking anything that can learn focus punch instead of protecting, they're going to be getting a sub down at least once, so you're going to be getting damage from this at least once, and unless you're psychic probably more than that.

No they don't. Only Walrein and Glalie regenerate in the hail. Weavile and Abomasnow just live in the hail... not regenerate in it.... unless you are counting leftovers. But leftovers Weavile seems sub-optimal as Life Orb is sitting right there. Abomasnow probably can utilize leftovers well though.

I'm talking about leftovers recovery because I think that just about anything that is running sub-punch is a reasonable choice for leftovers, even something as frail as Weavile. It's much less likely than usual to be OHKO'd thanks to its fast substitute so it can afford to try to stick around rather than go out in a blaze. I'm not denying that life orb is a viable option on subpunch Weavile though.

NP, I don't think there is much doubt about the effectiveness of the set. Clearly, none of these "counters" are typical in the current metagame. I mean really... low/no speed Breloom and Focus Punch Weavile are not exactly popular choices at the moment.

Closer to the current metagame are the Metagross set (anything on a metagross is more or less scary) and possibly the Toxicroak set. No one uses toxicroak... but if someone did they would probably use the standard rain dance set.

You're certainly right that they're not typical in the current metagame, but I'm just mentioning them because, with the probable exception of Abomasnow, all of them seem pretty USABLE in the current metagame, and not just for countering this set.
 
I was just wondering what are you going against a starting Tyranitar. Can you please walk me through it?

Well, it mostly depends on how bad things are going for me. If the Walrein is set up in his typical place, here's the plan.

1. Subsitute _should_ be up when T-Tar comes in. Either way, I use protect this turn. T-Tar takes 6% damage from Toxic.

2. I create a new Subsitute to check his speed. If T-Tar is faster, the new subsitute comes down. Else, he breaks the subsitute. Walrein is down to 75% health if the sub broke, still 100% if the sub is alive, T-Tar is down another 12% health from toxic. If he has leftovers, he is only down 6% right now, else he is down 18%.

3. Protect to continue the stall. T-Tar drops 18% because of toxic. That means he is either at 36% health, or down at 18% health (with leftovers).

4. I Surf/Blizzard. This does ~30% damage + Toxic damage (25% damage).

5. I sacrifice Walrein, or some other guy, and T-Tar dies to toxic or switches out. If T-Tar is out, I go back to Abomasnow. If T-Tar somehow survives, I switch to Weavile and Brick Break him.

5b. Or if Weavile is dead, I go to Frosslass who can dink him with T-Bolt (which should be enough for a kill by now) or Desteny Bond if for some reason T-Tar isn't low enough health to kill yet.

If T-Tar comes out before then... I'm screwed. Lol.
 
I comprehend how you can beat Tyranitar like that, but I was wondering how you would handle it on turn 1. As in a starting battle.

Abomasnow is sent out.
Tyranitar is sent out.

Do you have just try to sacrifice something and attempt to bring out Weavile to Break Brick him?
 
T-Tar has a higher base Speed than Abomasnow, so it's liable that Hail will override Sand Stream first turn anyway.

3. Name a decent phazer that is faster than Skarmory, and I will nearly guarantee you that the slow guys do it better except against this set. Roar/Whirlwind has a -priority, so if you have a more fragile guy like Raikou phazing, it is literally _only_ useful against this Walrein.

Suicune, who's also one of the few pokemon that still commonly carries Rest.

And Clefable rocks, okay.
 
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