Lower Tiers ADV NU Viability Ranking (found new host)

I guess that's fair, I can definitely see it dropping, it's definitely not a mon that hardly ever puts in work though. It puts in a lot of work if used right, but you're right, it's not splashable.
 
tbh i agree with giving mawile a drop, albeit only to s-. i think its a lot weaker than chimeco, and honestly on about the same level of influence as flareon or haunter; so yeah s- is where id like to see it. its got a lot of great resistances, and alongside intimidate, mawile can create a lot of set-up oppurtunities, and it has baton pass to become a great team supporter aswell as a strong attacker (once boosted). despite these perks, the recent rise of fire-types, combined with the sky-fuckin-high usage of hitmonchan, easily being worn down, shitty spdef, and a lacking overall movepool... yeah, the meta just isnt really the playground it used to be for maw.

anorith could be ranked, probably d+. this handsome fish is a really cool glalie antilead, carving out a niche with an explosion resistance and spin. im not saying ANORITH IS OUR NEW GOD but its atleast more useful than trash like ditto or luvdisc so o3o rank pls

yanma should go c+ imo. really cool cleaner with a sexy ~80% accurate hypnonsis, that has great offensive synergy with both of s+. both hitmonchan and huntail can bust holes in the opponents team, while beating the rock types (and mawile) that fuck yanma, while yanma fucks up the psychic and grass types that respectively wall them. not a god tier mon but the hypnosis set (not the reversal one) makes it a step up from the rest of c-
 
Can somebody tell me why Seadra is ranked so high? I really don't see what niche it has, as it doesn't have Swift Swim to take advantage of Rain Dance, and even with Agility I still don't see why you would use it over Huntail or any other Water type tbh.
 
Can somebody tell me why Seadra is ranked so high? I really don't see what niche it has, as it doesn't have Swift Swim to take advantage of Rain Dance, and even with Agility I still don't see why you would use it over Huntail or any other Water type tbh.
It's simply due to its initial speed being higher than any other viable water type in the tier. Base 85 is pretty decent.
 
Can somebody tell me why Seadra is ranked so high? I really don't see what niche it has, as it doesn't have Swift Swim to take advantage of Rain Dance, and even with Agility I still don't see why you would use it over Huntail or any other Water type tbh.

It's like playing with a huntail that doesn't need to set up before being threatening, and yes that base 85 is actually huge in the tier where the major speed tiers are 95, 80, and 55
 
did some shuffling since i think it's been 2 nupls since i last updated it

sableye s- -> s
relicanth a -> a+
glalie a+ -> a
murkrow a+ -> a
plusle a+ -> a
vigoroth a+ -> a
metang a- -> a
raticate a- > a
arbok a -> a-
golbat b+ -> a-
swalot a+ -> a-
wailord b+ -> a-
abra b -> b+
cacturne a- -> b+
graveler a -> b+
lickitung a -> b+
pikachu b -> b+
whiscash a- -> b+
togetic b- -> b
machoke b+ -> b-
minun b+ -> b-
yanma c+ -> b-


Hogg Pearl Megazard Disjunction Shuckleking87 any other thoughts?
 
flareon.png
Flareon S- --> S
It brings everything to a team. Wallbreaking, tank, etc. I think it's easily the third best mon in the tier and you can see that with the results from this past nupl. It's also arguably one of the most terrifying mons in the tier to fight because of how much it can change to support a team. Physical, mixed, full special, wishtect, protox, etc etc. If Huntail and Hitmonchan weren't so clear cut powerful, I would say Flareon deserves S+, but it should really be below these two for now.

volbeat.png
Volbeat C+ --> B+/A-
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen3ou-308551
tail glow pass is ridiculously good.

whiscash.png
Whiscash B+ --> A-/A
Whiscash is super easy to slap onto a team to patch a lot of lingering weaknesses without sacrificing offensive presence. It's a soft Normal-, Bird-, Fire-, and Water-type check that beats Pikachu and the offensive Rocks consistently. RestTalk with the combination of Ice Beam and Earthquake has great neutral coverage that threatens a large portion of the tier too.

Everything else looks p good. I could get real nitpicky if I wanted to and try and get more precise about more accurate placement, but I don't think it's worth wasting effort over. The list does a good job representing the meta as is and I doubt there would be much heated discussion over whether or not a Pokemon should rise or fall a subrank lol.
 
Only thing I'd change other than Disjunction's stuff (idk about Whiscash tho, would definitely prefer A- to A) is bumping Shelgon from B- to B/B+, it's really weird to see it next to the likes of Shedinja and Wartortle and Dunsparce (I don't even think those got used at all in NUPL?) after its fairly decent performance recently. It might face a lot of competition from Pupitar, but its use on dual DD teams alone would be enough to warrant a raise to at least B imo.
 
Bumped up Flareon, Whischash, Shelgon, and Volbeat. Not gonna go higher than B with Volbeat tho cuz it's incredibly useless outside of passing tail glow, even at +2 its Tbolts are only hitting at the same power as Plusle's Tbolts unboosted (and that's assuming you're bad and using 252 SpA on volbeat)
 
Some changes I'd make...

Roselia to S-: Roselia definitely feels out of place in A+, and I consider it consistently more useful than pretty much everything else in the list. Frankly I end up using it more than Haunter or Mawile. It's probably the most reliable Sableye switch in the tier, manages to blanket check a whole swath of threats (including almost single-handedly limiting the viability of things like Plusle), fits reliably on everything from offense to stall and most importantly of all manages to get Spikes up almost every single game. The latter is especially huge, as there's one viable Rapid Spin user in the tier and two fantastic spinblockers.

Wailord to A+/Dewgong to A-: I think these two need to be swapped. Wailord has better overall bulk and lacks some important weaknesses that Dewgong unfortunately sports, preventing Dewgong from acting as a secondary check to important threats like Hitmonchan and Pupitar. While Dewgong admittedly has better Special bulk, and access to Encore and STAB IB are neat, Wailord's bulk is still sufficient to beat Huntail, and Wailord has some other major advantages well: that HP stat means it can effectively run a SubToxic set that completely destroys Sableye balances, a superior Speed in general is especially helpful against the weather users, and Roar is huge in this meta.

Tangela to A/A-: I like Tang but I think its ranking is really inflated here. On paper it should be really good, but in practice I find it hard to fit on a team. Bellossom is specially chunky enough that even offensive sets can serve as a defacto check to offensive waters, while Tang's terrible special bulk forces you to stack answers to Waters if you use it its SunnyBeam set. Its physically defensive set is neat, and is easily the best Pupitar counter in the tier, but that's really not worth an A+ placement in my opinion, especially when the opportunity cost of not running Bello or Rose is so high. I'd put this in A- personally.

Kecleon to B+: I think Kecleon is super overrated. Its ability is really easy to take advantage of and leaves it with no reliable STAB, and its lack of recovery means it isn't even that consistent at countering offensive threats like Huntail, which is like the only reason you should use it.

Vigoroth to A+: I consider Vigoroth by far the best of the Normals, and it has so many great sets. CB and SubFlail are obviously both very good, but one set that a lot of people haven't really touched but that I think is probably its best is SDef Bulk Up. It has just about perfect stats with above average Attack and Speed and great bulk, it has just about the best movepool in the tier, and it's incredibly unpredictable, running everything from an anti-lead set to a breaker to a lategame sweeper. Frankly I don't think it would be out of place in the S ranks, and even if that seems a bit far, it's unarguably as good or better than everything in A and a good chunk of A+.

I also am not sure I agree with the Flareon rise (it's good but I think mostly it was just anti-meta this NUPL, which is overinflating it a bit). Glancing over the rest of the list I also think that Plusle, Swalot and Kingler could stand to shift down a bit (Plusle and Pika should probably be at the same rank), but I don't really have strong feelings about those.
 
Last edited:
I agree with Hogg on Tangela and Vig. Don't like the idea of dropping gong, but I'm not so passionate about it that I would argue against it.

The main reason I'm posting, though, is that the entirety of d rank should probably just be removed or at least heavily condensed. Nosepass, Ditto, Unown, Luvdisc, Beautifly, Butterfree, and Delcatty all sound like they were included out of obligation. These go beyond just "needing additional support" to the point of just being plain unviable. Everything I didn't mention could probably make up the rest of the d rank, but I don't think any of it is particularly usable with the exception of maybe corsola.
 
I mean if you're being really, really technical, Delibird has Rapid Spin that's immune to spikes. It also has Vital Spirit and a grass resistance, meaning it hard counters things like spdef bellossom and some (most?) roselia. Still obviously D rank, but it's really the only D rank mon that has any kind of niche that will be useful in any reasonably percentage of matches.

I could see keeping Delibird and Corsola around as C- and just dropping the rest of D.
 
where an i go to view some matches listed in this tier in one place? I find dated stuff on youtube but would like to see more recent stuff from this group.

I am an active cartridge player in third gen.
 
Capt Forest Right now all of the older showdown replays are not working right now, here is a match on Raseri channel between 2 good players

Hey thank you. I actually just found this online by googling disaster area. In this match it bothered me that raseri did not hit quick attack with ponyta at 3:49 and just let it die. If you watch you will see what I mean.

I am attempting to build a sableye i dont have a good idea on what to do with it from this point.

:sableye:
-Calm mind
-Recover
-Hp Dark
-?? (i want another offensive move here; possibly t-punch, psychic, i-punch or f-punch)

I am thinking bold nature with 252 ev in hp.

This is as far as i have gotten, i am stumped from here. I know that i want it to be offensive, but i am not sure what to do with the rest of the evs.

Any advice on this build would be great.
 
Capt Forest

ADV NU is so full of toxic that a slow building CM sweeper like Sableye won't work consistently unless you go the CM Rest Sleep Talk HP Dark route.

If you insist on using CM Recover, then the best 4th move is going to be something that lets you beat Dark resistances in the tier. Mawile and Hitmonchan are the two most notable, so Fire Punch is the best bet. Psychic could also work to immediately take on Hitmonchan if you have Diglett to trap and remove Mawile.
 
Capt Forest

ADV NU is so full of toxic that a slow building CM sweeper like Sableye won't work consistently unless you go the CM Rest Sleep Talk HP Dark route.

If you insist on using CM Recover, then the best 4th move is going to be something that lets you beat Dark resistances in the tier. Mawile and Hitmonchan are the two most notable, so Fire Punch is the best bet. Psychic could also work to immediately take on Hitmonchan if you have Diglett to trap and remove Mawile.

Hey i appreciate the quick response. I did notice a ton of toxic protect shenanigans going on in the games i was able to get my hands on. That is a fair point. Lets assume i continue the build posted above with either f punch or psychic. I think that hp fire might be the safest bet due to mawile being able to resist both psychic and dark.

What would you spread the remaining 258 evs into?

i am not sure if i should invest into the defenses equally or add some to SpA, or speed?

alternatively what if i went with chresto rest?
calm mind
rest
hp dark
fire punch
252 hp and then bring the defenses up to even and stick the rest in SpA?
That would deal with toxic and then allow me to boost up then rest off the damage and get back to hitting things.
 
Last edited:
Lefties Recover will probably be better than Chesto Rest.

I'd try the following EV spreads:

252 HP / 124 Spe + some mix of SpA and Defense. Can go all the way from 132 Def Bold to 132 SpA Modest. This spread lets you outrun 0 speed Chimecho, Flareon, Roselia, and virtually all Mawile.

252 HP / 228 Def Bold + 32 Spe or SpA (this spread can take on CB Hitmonchan and Murkrow. So even though it takes a slower approach to winning, it can't be easily revenged or forced out by common physical threats.)
 
Hi, just been thinking about this beautiful metagame again recently and had some scattered thoughts

I'm way more inclined to agree with Hogg on the suggested changes in his previous post.

Rose is a metagame defining force and is, at the very least, at or above the level of Sableye as it's far and away the best Spiker because of its ability to exploit the omnipresent waters of the tier. S- is perfect for it.

Tang sucks cause it isn't a real water resist. Its only real niche is as a good check to Ground-types since most Grass-types are either specially bulky or don't even resist Ground (rose) but it's not an especially relevant niche because strong grounds aren't especially common and there's other stuff like Wailord that can do the job efficiently enough while compressing other roles. Not to mention how stuff like Pilo and Whiscash can potentially beat it anyways with Ice Beam. I think B+ is appropriate.

Wailord is the face of this tier now, by the way. I was skeptical when Hogg brought it up in his original post, but I've played with and against it a ton and it's amazing. Wailord covers for all of the threatening Fire- and Water-types in the tier and its existence puts a very real opportunity cost on what used to be a very low cost sweeper in Huntail. What bolsters its viability well above the ceiling of Dewgong is its access to Roar which is completely invaluable in the Spikes-centric metagame that is ADV NU. Not instantly dying to chan helps as well. I know it has a lot of other deadly sets aside from the resttalk set, such as sub toxic and even curse. Wail should be A+ minimum or even S- I think it's that's amazing for the tier.

252+ SpA Deep Sea Tooth Clamperl Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Roselia: 261-308 (85.8 - 101.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Deep Sea Tooth Clamperl Hidden Power Electric vs. 0 HP / 252 SpD Wailord: 289-340 (60 - 70.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery
Clamperl is far more viable than some garbage like Machoke put it in like B-. Sub three attacks has the ability to dismantle just about every defensive core by exploiting mons like Sableye, Chime, and Wailord.

What's Pelipper doing so high again? I don't think it's especially threatening in a tier saturated with more powerful Waters. The defensive resttalk set is cool as a hitmon check, but I think there are more splashable hitmon checks that offer more for a team than resttalk peli.

Agree with Vig in A+ too. I think it's far more difficult to prepare for than something like Pidge as it seems to have a set to beat just about every one of the traditional Normal checks sans like Reli/Sudo. Also agree on Kec dropping. On paper the spdef set is cool cause it can soft check a whole lot, but in practice you'll probably find that most stuff will outlast you and, at the absolute worst, just trade with you.

Pika and Plusle should just outright swap positions (I think someone on this page said that but I don't remember). Pika is a very reliable source of front loaded damage for a team and it's not like Plusle is really offering much in the way of defensive synergy over Pika. Plusle is just so much weaker that it's hard to justify it nowadays in a tier where stuff like Rose and Flareon are so powerful. The only significant niches it has over pika is outspeeding Murk/Pidge (useful for more offensively inclined teams for sure) and BP, which I think can be done better by bulkier passers.

And man, I don't want to really go in depth on the lower ranks, but it feels like even stuff at b and below is really messed up. Maybe we could organize some guys to get together to just completely redo those at some point because damn stuff like Quilava, Dustox, Spinda, Ledian, and just the majority of the ranked stuff there does not seem like it should be. EDIT: It might actually be a better representation of the metagame if we just UR a ton of shit and then restructure the list like how the ADV OU list does it without any subranks. I actually think we're at a stable enough point in the metagame where we could rebalance the list to correctly represent this. It just feels like the current version of the list is trying to include too much and it does a lackluster job of representing the current meta as a result. Would be cool to hear opinions on that.

Gonna add an Oglemi tag at the end here since it's been a while since this thread has seen any love.
 
Last edited:
ok then I made an update since most of my nominations were just things from hogg's post which had been sitting for a while. I shifted another few things around so if anybody if opposed to what I changed, feel free to talk about it I'm always open to reversing decisions.
Code:
Rises:
Roselia A+ --> S-
Vigoroth A --> A+
Wailord A- --> A+
Pikachu B+ --> A
Clamperl C- --> B-
Dragonair C- --> B-
Trapinch D --> C

Drops:
Plusle A --> A-
Dewgong A+ --> A-
Pelipper A --> B+
Tangela A+ --> B+
Kecleon A --> B+
The entirety of D rank --> UR
Dragonair is the only defensive dragon in the tier and access to twave + bolt beam + shed skin rest is neat enough. It is also something I consider better than just about everything in the B- rank, but making huge changes never sits well with me. I also rose trapinch out of D before I killed the rank because it has a niche over diglett for its bulk and much higher output for damage. Specialized spreads can be made to trap sableyes, metang, and even roselia. Quick Attack is also cool too. It's relatively untested, but it deserved a spot so there it sits.

I would like to make a big overhaul to the thread, but I'm not going to do so by myself. With NUPL just around the corner, it's probably best to wait and see how the metagame changes. I'll talk with the adv players afterward and see where everyone stands on certain changes.
 
Thing is there's 8 mons in S rank which seems like an awful lot and I dont necessarily think all of them are must haves or close to must haves. I would personally drop Chimecho, Flareon, mawile and maybe haunter a subrank lower than they are, and i can give more input later as to why if yall really want it. Also think that raticate and diglett should move up higher than what they are.
 
Back
Top