Lower Tiers ADV NU Viability Ranking (found new host)

[Rabia]

Banner by BlueberryBlanket
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S Rank

High

Chimecho
Haunter
Wailord

Low

Flareon
Glalie
Metang

A Rank

High

Bellossom
Hitmonchan
Pupitar
Raticate
Roselia
Sableye

Mid

Cacturne
Dewgong
Huntail
Plusle
Relicanth
Torkoal

Low

Golbat
Murkrow
Octillery
Pelipper
Pikachu
Sudowoodo

B Rank

High

Crawdaunt
Diglett
Kecleon
Pidgeot
Venomoth
Vigoroth
Whiscash

Low

Abra
Arbok
Dunsparce
Kingler
Lickitung
Mawile
Minun
Seadra
Tangela
Tropius
Wigglytuff

C Rank

Delcatty
Dragonair
Graveler
Grovyle
Houndour
Lairon
Ledian
Magcargo
Piloswine
Poliwhirl
Shelgon
Swalot
Togetic
Wartortle
Yanma

 

[Ash Borer]

why is raticate ranked so low? It's the fastest pokemon in the tier iirc, and it hits like a truck with Cb Double Edge. Beyond that it has some versatility being a pretty dangerous reversal sweeper able to feasibly use a liechi due to its blazing speed. I haven't played this meta much, only in testing with some friends, but it seems like RAticate is a real force of nature.

 

[Oglemi]

Raticate is really good, hence the A rank, but it's mostly outclassed by Vigoroth, who can mostly do what it can and so much more. Vigoroth is slightly slower and misses out on outspeeding the birds, plusle, and haunter, but Bulk Up, STAB Flail with Reversal in tow, and an insane stallbreaker movepool just makes it better.

Raticate can probably go up to mid or high A, I don't really have a problem with that, but it's stopped cold by nearly every Rock and Steel like the birds without having a Ground and Spikes immunity and a STAB Flying move to use.

 

[meteor64]

Any reason why Togetic isn't on here? It seems like far from the worst NU mon, although it does overlap with Chimecho a fair bit.

 

[Oglemi]

Nope, just overlooked it, I'll add it in 9.9

 

[M Dragon]

Pupitar could be a bit higher

 

[Oglemi]

I've just been unimpressed with Pupitar because it has so many checks in the tier, like every other Rock. I get for late-game it can be terrifying because it suddenly becomes the fastest Pokemon in the tier while retaining the same relative power as the Choice Band Rock-types at +1, but shit like Pelipper, Bellossom, Tangela, Huntail, bulky Kingler, etc etc all still check it. If it gets to +2 that's a whole different story, but I have yet to encounter a situation where that would be possible outside of screen support from Metang/Wigglytuff.

 

[Disaster Area]

Thanks for the link I'm dumb for missing it..
anyway, I personally feel Pelipper is higher than that, it just puts in so much work checking mawile and hitmonchan that it's just generally invaluable.

Is cacturne really A rank?

I'd move Charmeleon to at least low B, being able to Anti-lead and force out glalie is pretty impressive, which is the major advantage over magcargo. Why are kingler and Torkoal so high up (like seriously, what do they even do? Isn't Kingler like just a worse crawdaunt).. why is Crawdaunt so low? Also with Raticate, I've felt the only true counter for it I've ever seen is lileep, although on balance I guess it can be played around.

Why is swalot soo high up, whenever I've tried to fit it on a team I've just seemed to find no real niche for it? I guess it must just be a really solid hitmonchan check, but it seems like a mon with offensive movepool, balanced stats, defensive typing. I don't actually know what arbok does o.o Lileep should be added somewhere in B or C, the only true counter to raticate, with the ability to have the special bulk to answer almost every non-boosting special attacker bar huntail. Lombre should be mid to low C rank for the fact that it basically hard counters huntail.

 

[Oglemi]

arbok is probably the best offensive switch in to hitmonchan there is apart from chime/haunter, and it doesn't get as fucked over as they do if it switches into the wrong attack thanks to intimidate

swalot is probably the best defensive switch into hitmonchan and is 2hkoed at worst by basically everything in the tier letting it either explode or status dangerous mons like vigo/cb mons like raticate/etc

cacturne has way more offensive presence than either of glalie or roselia as a spiker and has a ton of versatility

idk how you come to the conclusion that kingler is a worse crawdaunt when kingler outspeeds almost every offensive threat in the tier and hits harder with cb double-edge. it takes out the same things it needs to with surf that crawdaunt does. basically the only thing that crawdaunt does better is get passed tangela. kingler also does endure+salac and defensive sets miles better than daunt does

charmeleon could probably be moved up

 

[skup]

Is this still alive at all? It definitely looks interesting

 

[Disaster Area]

yea it's pretty quiet tho, you usually have to ask to get battles (oglemi, adv, myself, and a few others all play it)

 

[ThriceElite]

Please consider putting Clamperl somewhere on this list. With a DeepSeaTooth attached, Clamperl gets a maximum of around 542 Special Attack, turning it into something of a wallbreaker. It's slow and lacks Leftovers (or any form of recovery, really), however.

EDIT: Wartortle has a niche in that it can Rapid Spin, freeing Hitmonchan from Spin duties if you want a non-Spin Hitmonchan. Nuzleaf has Swords Dance, Chlorophyll, and Explosion, and the latter two separate it from Cacturne, but is frailer than Cacturne.

 

[eden]

OK I think this thread needs to be revived imo, Piexplode was willing to play a few games with me which really made me think. This seems to be a quality metagame where skill is of utmost importance. Some things that I have noticed is that Sableye is pretty much the best way to keep spikes down especially considering the fact that Hitmonchan uses HP:Ghost to catch offense's standard spinblocker Haunter quite a bit. We tried a few new things out and one cool team I ended up making is Sableye/Flareon/Huntail/Roselia/Hitmonchan/Pidgeot, which is basically a semistall focusing on turning the screws on the opponent until the stage is set for a Pidgeot sweep. I also had Toxic Hitmonchan innovation so that neither of the ghosts could actually spinblock me hhehebwoi. Here' a replay featuring me and Piexplode going at it for 200 turns n_n. Enjoy!

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3oubeta-213489058

 

[Disaster Area]

note that probably huntail/pidgeot are the most replacable members on the team since you want at least 1 maybe 2 cleaners and then answers to anything else the team is weak to - from my match it's difficult to discern what would make better replacements. Sableye/Roselia is a very good anti-stall core, particularly if you pack aromatherapy. Wish is really good for hitmonchan too (flareon has less overlap with the core than lickitung I think too).

Calm Mind Sableye's an interesting choice since it spinblocks but also acts as a win condition versus stall - the exact set could certainly vary though - shock wave/hp dark/recover/cm deals with perish song dewgong, whilst CroSableye's an obvious choice, although a lot of stuff on offense can 3HKO not 2HKO it, and it can't handle perish song abusers so it might be perhaps an inferior variant. Running recover+rest seems a bit redundant but one offers an improved match-up versus stall's status (although has issues with psong again) whilst the other offers some staying power versus offense. Obviously checking haunter, chimecho, hitmonchan, and spinblocking all in one mon is pretty useful and prevents it being a wasted slot.

If you run stoss/shadow ball/toxic/recover sableye you beat 4/7 of the mons in S rank (with poor matchup against huntail, tangela, and mawile)

 

[eden]

Yeah actually I've been thinking like maybe Vigoroth could do a job over Pidgeot and something like CB Crawdaunt>Huntail? Or actually CB Graveller+CB Crawdaunt sounds pretty good. But I need something fast lol,maybe Raticate seeing as how only Lileep beats it? Also I wouldn't read too much into that game tbh. I basically brought the counter team lmao. :P

 

[Disaster Area]

Actually some sort of offensive mawile looks better on it, since it checks flying types and raticate as well as providing offensive presence - the main issue is perhaps its mediocre speed.

Still this isn't a teambuilding session xD but yeah I think you have offensive weaknesses you can cover with offensive pokemon. I think the point about the defensive core stands up though.

 

[Oglemi]

Moved Sableye up to A-, it fits onto teams a bit better than I initially anticipated and the CM set looks scary. That and being the only bulky spinblocker gives it a hefty niche.

Placed Wartortle at B- to start. I don't see it being much higher than that since it doesn't offer a ton outside of spinning but we'll see.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

Don't have a whole lot of experience in this meta so take what I say with a grain of salt, but from the few games i played I think there could be reason to move sableye up. The spin blocker thing is pretty cool, but more importantly it's just really hard to take down. It's immune to some pretty common STABs, fighting, psychic and normal, also resists poison, and has no weaknesses to take advantage of with coverage moves. This in addition to recover makes for a pretty annoying stall poke. It also has cool options like cm and knock off. It can sorta counter chimecho with shadow ball and hitmonchan can't do to much to it. Just seems pretty solid to me. If i'm wrong, what are the things that keep it from excelling?

Edit- Just saw sabeleye was moved to A-

 

[eden]

It does excel fren! A- is prolly because it kinda has no offensive presence?

 

[Oglemi]

added a couple more NFEs to C rank that have a tiny niche

most interesting to me is Magby (and to a lesser extent Ponyta but not gonna add it), which is basically the "perfect" anti-lead to Glalie (outspeeding + OHKOing)

EDIT: and ye, Sableye has like no offensive presence + relies on Toxic to do anything, hence A- (that and Haunter is probably better in most cases outside of stallier teams)

 

[Oglemi]

Made some changes

huntail s -> s+
swalot a+ -> a
cacturne a -> a-
flareon a- -> a
sableye a- -> a+
dewgong b+ -> a

 

[skies]

A+ Rank -> Low S Rank

Plusle is a very great Pokemon. Between great Speed, great power, and a great STAB move in Thunderbolt, not much cares to switch into Plusle. Looking purely at the rankings, all of the S Rank Pokemon are KOed bar Tangela. A set utilizing Petaya Berry with appropriate coverage and Encore is a great set in itself. Thunderbolt is just really great, and Plusle is just really great. The most solid check is Roselia, but then again it has to watch out for Hidden Power Ice, which will eventually beat through Roselia after Spikes. Due to Plusle's raw power, I feel a bump up a rank would be good.

Here's a replay of Plusle doing things: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-223985397

 

[ThriceElite]

Tangela should not be S rank. I would probably move it down to A- or even B+.

I've tested out the Sunnybeamer set extensively; it wasn't consistently good. It has multiple flaws that prevent it from being worthy of S-rank. Being specially frail/weak to birds means that it either loses or is badly damaged by a lot of opposing late-game sweepers/random shit including Haunter, Huntail, Pelipper, Murkrow, Pidgeot, Plusle with HP Ice, etc. Sleep Powder is also unreliable; you have to land a 85% move, hope that the opponent doesn't wake up the turn that you Sunny Day, and hope that that check/counter that you slept was the only check/counter remaining on his or her team. Tangela also has way too many checks and counters to consistently weaken and/or remove to sweep; I've NEVER swept using this thing. Shit like Flareon, Torkoal, Haunter, Pelipper, Murkrow, etc/etc all check it and it's difficult to remove all of that. At least Haunter can spam Tbolt/Psychic on WishProtect Flareon to fish for para/spc down...

I haven't played with the Physically Defensive variant, though I assume it's also mediocre due to the lack of Synthesis and its frailty on the special side when compared to Bellossom.

 

[Oglemi]

made some more edits

tangela s -> a+
sableye a+ -> s-
dewgong a -> a+
torkoal a- -> a
whiscash a -> a-
venomoth b -> a-
cacturne a- > b+
pikachu c -> b-
abra/grovyle/magby c -> c+

 

[Cowboy Dan]

I was wondering what people think about moving flareon up a bit further. It's one of the most versatile mons in the tier, the offensive sets are so dangerous because you never know if it's going to run physical or special and both are very strong, and it can even run a very reliable defensive set using its great special defense and supporting its team with wish. I think low s rank or at least high a rank is suitable for it.