OU ADV OU Viability Ranking

[vapicuno]

This VR is made from the POV of someone who builds partial BL teams for OU with a slant towards spikeless offense. I recognize therefore that I am biased towards synergetic mons > solo mons, and I am also biased towards offense or the ability to support offense, and will try to calibrate for that. I also prefer mons that have a low prediction/opportunity ratio.

Tyranitar

My main reason for Tyranitar at the top has more to do with setting up sand than anything else. Just the presence of sand already does half the work in maintaining chip against offensive threats like zap/gar/cune/cel and walls like lax/bliss/cel/cune. I believe conventional physical sets like DD/CB are still solid especially with the prevalence of physically weak yolopert/yoloskarm/fast offcune. Unfortunately it stacks weaknesses as UD has said.

Metagross
Swampert

Metagross is a crucial offense enabler with boom (as Asta has mentioned some time back) and due to its typing/stats, has many opportunities to switch in and do damage if you decide to play it that way. Swampert has always been a defensive staple and has become more versatile as McMeghan has mentioned. Interestingly, I do find it kind of relevant to compare Metagross and Swampert because they are to some extent interchangable as rock resists/physical checks (with bulky meta), albeit on more offensive/balanced teams. I'd place Metagross a bit higher than pert because of its multiple functionalities and that there's nothing it really straight up loses to.

Zapdos
Skarmory
Blissey
Gengar
Salamence

Zapdos is here not only because of the obvious speed/power/status/agilipass but also consistency of allowing you to double out to an offensive threat (especially in conjunction with metagross). Unfortunately it is more MU dependent than those ranked higher, and tends to use their support to function well. The meta right now is currently geared towards driving a battering ram through skarmbliss, but I still wouldn't place them any lower. WoW and boom on Gengar are real pull factors even without spikes, but there's always the inconsistency with booming. I think Salamence is generally underrated, especially in a yolopert era. DDmence, especially those with bulky EVs can be a bit underrated -- it can just tear through offense teams. Intimidate is also a useful pivoting ability.

Suicune
Snorlax
Celebi
Jirachi

I think the value in lax lies not just in being a special check but in being a lure (Focus Punch on tar, Counter on Meta, Curse Selfdestruct on Skarm). In general, the CM mons (whether or not they actually use CM) can be a little MU dependent, doing a lot of damage or nothing. Suicune has the strongest offensive presence and you can be ruined from guessing its filler wrong, and offense is the business of this meta, so it's highest on my list. Celebi, while less conspicuous, can be devastating if you lose the set guessing game, and does very well in a supporting role with leech to both provide chips for offense as well as a defensive glue for more balanced teams. Unfortunately, it is very freeze/crit/sand prone. I like Jirachi in theory, and it can be the most annoying mon to face, but it seems to require some degree of support for me.

Dugtrio
Starmie
Magneton
Claydol

These guys with the exception of Starmie play rather niche but important roles in some archetypes. Dugtrio is up there only because I find it more reliable than Magneton due to the mag guessing game being rather risky against a good player, but overall I prefer Magneton for having a really strong thunderbolt that prevents anything from setting up on it, and a free moveslot to clear weather.

Machamp
Jolteon
Heracross
Cloyster
Moltres
Porygon2
Forretress
Aerodactyl
Flygon
Milotic

Ok guys my main contribution to this VR is really in selling Machamp. I disagree that Machamp is a worse Hariyama or Medicham. Lead bulk up champ threatens the most dangerous lead - Tyranitar, and is really good at luring Celebi, Gengar, Zapdos, and chipping lead skarm real hard with cross chop. It can then come in later on a double from a Zapdos or something to get a final chop on bliss/lax. Importantly, guts is a super important ability that helps you switch into/stay in on Gengar (and other random status mons like Blissey/Zapdos), which Medicham cannot boast in addition to being frail and relying on an awkward speed, its speed tier at 209 is just enough to outrun most Metagross, and its attack is just enough to convincingly 2hko Skarm at +1. Importantly, you can't Focus Punch a yoloskarm with Heracross, but you can Cross Chop it.

The rest of this list is made of mons that have some degree of flexibility in fitting on a team (Jolteon, Cloyster, Moltres, Flygon, Aero, Milotic) but not something I'd first consider covering when considering team strengths and weaknesses. Forretress and Porygon2 are somewhere there because they define archetypes but are otherwise rather inflexible.

Gyarados
Marowak
Houndoom
Vaporeon

These things have rather niche roles. Gyarados could actually be ranked higher with Double-Edge and Twave sets being really threatening but I have a bit of issue with the overreliance on mag. Agilipass to Marowak can be really dangerous. Apart from standard Wishtect, Vaporeon can run offensive subpass that hits Zapdos hard or passes a sub on a bliss/lax to something like Tyranitar to cause havoc.

Ampharos
Charizard
Weezing
Steelix
Jynx
Venusaur
Ursaring
Breloom
Umbreon
Regice
Medicham
Hariyama

I'm gonna get lols for this but physical Ampharos with a Body Slam + Focus Punch set can actually be a good electric check on offense teams that nails bliss/lax/tar, and at the same time a pert lure as it survives EQ. It's not so afraid of dug because of the physical moves. Subpunch grass Charizard is actually really threatening with sand up (ironically) and switches into meta/cel/rachi pretty easily. UD has mentioned Steelix's utility already. I think they can fit quite well on a number of teams. Ursaring is like a Machamp, but gets Swords Dance and 100% accurate return in exchange for being worse against Skarm.

Kingdra
Ludicolo

Honestly having these in a VR is kinda irrelevant because you either use it or you don't. Rain teams however actually do quite well against offenses and rely on some prediction (but with a good possibility) to get past defensive ones.

Other stuff:

Swellow - Sub/Endeavor/HP Fighting/Baton Pass with berry boost can pass berries (Starf anyone?) and take out some pretty threatening but slow stuff.
Regirock - Secondary exploder after Metagross with Curse-herb boosted rock slide/EQ for Skarm/Meta/Tar makes it viable for offense.
Registeel - Counter, Explosion and Thunder Wave make for a potent threat on an offensive team that needs a special wall.
Raikou - I think HP Grass Crunch can work to take out Celebi nicely.
Smeargle - Spore, Spikes
Ninjask - Not the lead ones, but the late game ones that scare me.
Donphan - hard hitting spinner under sand probably works.
Dragonite - One advantage over Salamence is the ability to survive even things like 252 Gengar Ice Punch with some amount of defensive investment, and DD Focus Punch to nail Skarmory.
Espeon - Synchronize and pure Psychic typing are things that can give it an edge over Celebi.
Articuno - Uses Heal Bell pretty well. Agility is also available.
Exeggutor - Sun mon, can explode.
Wailord - Entwilight classic. Selfdestruct, Water Spout.

 

[dainghia0510]

May I ask this question. I find in many threads that having a rock resist is extremely important in team building. Why? Is it for not taking sandstorm damage, or to resist rock slide from tyr and aero?

 

[Oldamar999]

May I ask this question. I find in many threads that having a rock resist is extremely important in team building. Why? Is it for not taking sandstorm damage, or to resist rock slide from tyr and aero?

this is not the thread to ask. I would recommend going to the "ask a simple question, get a simple answer" thread.

 

[Deleted User 108547]

May I ask this question. I find in many threads that having a rock resist is extremely important in team building. Why? Is it for not taking sandstorm damage, or to resist rock slide from tyr and aero?

Rock resist is important due to Aerodactyl and Tyranitar being top threats in a prominent archetype as TSS (to a less extent Metagross, Salamence and pretty much every powerful physical attacker with access to rock slide). Take into account the incredible raw power of those pokes and 30% flinch.

Note that the concept of "bulky water" doesn't fit perfectly what a rock resist is. In theory, Milotic, Suicune, and even Vaporeon are possible stoppers for TarDactyl but in practice, with sand denying lefties recovery and a creepy 30% of flinch, you often be in a situation where your answear is no longer an answear.

Tagging Jellicent and asking for merge our messages into Ask a Simple Question thread.

 

[McMeghan]

Update time.
First of all, sorry for the time this took.
Thanks to Triangles zf Gacu Altina thelinearcurve Jirachee Cowboy Dan Alexander. Hyogafodex Stockings UD Sadlysius vapicuno Astamatitos Golden Sun and Gilbert arenas for sending their rankings.

Without further ado, here are the new Viability Rankings:

Hide

S RANK

Tyranitar​

​

A RANK

Gengar​

Metagross​

Swampert​

Zapdos​

Skarmory​

Blissey​

Celebi​

Suicune​

Jirachi​

Snorlax​

Salamence​

Dugtrio​

​

B RANK

Starmie​

Magneton​

Claydol​

Aerodactyl​

Jolteon​

Heracross​

Moltres​

Milotic​

Flygon​

Cloyster​

Forretress​

Porygon2​

Gyarados​

C RANK

Venusaur​

Hariyama​

Weezing​

Raikou​

Jynx​

Vaporeon​

Regice​

Houndoom​

Ludicolo​

Kingdra​

Smeargle​

Machamp​

Marowak​

Breloom​

Charizard​

Steelix​

Umbreon​

D RANK

Medicham​

Registeel​

Donphan​

Camerupt​

Cacturne​

Alakazam​

Regirock​

Rhydon​

Gligar​

Omastar​

Dragonite​

Lunatone​

Armaldo​

Jumpluff​

Blaziken​

Dusclops​

Slaking​

Articuno​

Sceptile​

Exeggutor​

Tauros​

You can consult all the datas by clicking HERE.

Some explanations, informations, etc:

• The first post has been updated with the above ranking.
• I have removed subranks. The reason is simple: I didn't really know where to draw lines based on the datas. So I will use you guys' thoughts in this thread and discord for that.
• Important: As I said in the original post, I have decided to remove outliers out of the equation for the final ranking. That means I did not take into account the highest and lowest individual ranking for each Pokemon in their average, as I felt it'd be a good way to remove bias in general. If two people sent the highest individual ranking of one Pokemon, I of course only discounted one of them.
• If you open the data document, you will notice there are two "R3" pages. The first one has all the datas with the outliers manually removed. The second page has all the datas. You can see each and everyone's ranking there. I have highlighted in green the positive outliers and red the negative outliers.
• In case of a tie, the tiebreaker was their ranking with the outliers.
• I have decided to remove some Pokemons from the Rankings as they didn't receive enough data, showing that truely, not enough players cared for them.

This second group ranking's statistics:

• This time around, there were three people who had the final Top 10 as theirs: Stockings, marcop and myself.
• The outliers played had some influences on the rankings this time around. Celebi/Suicune and Snorlax/Salamence for example had their positions switched.
• If we take the first 20 Pokemons into account, the players with the most outliers are Triangles and Jirachee with 7 each.
• Among the top 20, the most extreme outlier is marcop's Jolteon (29><18).
• The single biggest outlier is Astamatitos' Machamp (63><38).

If you have questions or some remarks to say, go ahead. Please give suggestions regarding where to draw the cutoffs for subranks.

 

[vapicuno]

Hey all,
I decided that if we're going to get quantitative, then it would be a good attempt to try our best to eliminate human biases and do some statistical analysis. I assume that a tier should be defined by mons that are mostly indistinguishable. Statistically, the standard deviation of ratings across contributors should indicate that the difference between a pokemon at the top or bottom of the tier should not be very obvious, but a pokemon in a different tier should be very salient. Thus, representing the data as this visual aid, we get

The two plots are made with/without outliers. Outliers don't seem to make a difference.

Horizontal lines are drawn where there is a clear distinction between the rankings up to the uncertainty, representing tier cutoffs. This is done by eye. The diagonal line y=x serves as a marker for ranking overestimates/underestimates, where it becomes clear that the cross from an underestimate to an overestimate is where a tier shift happens. The two roughly coincide, giving me a bit of faith in my methodology.

At the bottom left corner is Tyranitar, which everyone agrees is #1 and has zero standard deviation, clearly belongs in the S tier.

The next three mons #2-4 are Gengar, Metagross and Swampert, which are really close up to error bars. Zapdos, at #5, is clearly behind #2-4, and is in roughly the same league as Skarmory and Blissey (#6-7). From #8-13, Celebi, Suicune, Jirachi, Snorlax, Salamence, Dugtrio clearly form a tier of their own. This concludes what many of us might be inclined to call the A tier.

#14 Starmie, on the border of the magenta line, is in a strange league of its own, not up to the standards of Salamence/Dugtrio, but clearly more preferred than Magneton. It may be considered B+. Here, the standard deviations start not to cover entire tiers, and the spread is more uniform. From #15-20, you have Magneton, Claydol, Aerodactyl, Jolteon, Heracross, Moltres, which are slightly distinguished from #21-26, Milotic, Flygon, Cloyster, Forretress, Porygon2, Gyarados. #27 is Venusaur, which sits on the border of the black line separating what you may like to call the B and C tier (Hariyama onwards).

To me, these results appear reasonable. For example, Metagross and Swampert are imo up a notch in versatility compared to Zapdos. Skarmory and Blissey come together. The "B" mons Magneton-Moltres all occupy positions on some notable archetypes (Magdol, Aero spikes, Jolt spikes, Heracross phys spam, Molt TSS that can either come with Flygon or Forre), while Milotic to Gyarados have less of a clear presence on teams, with the exception of Porygon2 archetypes (CMspam) that appear to be becoming less relevant imo.

What surprised me was that Dugtrio convincingly belonged to the A- tier, as opposed to tilting over together to the B tier where Magneton was. It's interesting to say the least, though I have some hypotheses.

So here's the tiers based on this analysis

Feel free to leave comments. Thanks.

 

[badabing]

gg

 

[ReadTheMango]

Solid post Vapicuno, love some statistical analysis.

Been lurking in forums for a while, currently trying to get into ADV, hence why I'm here.

Firstly I would like to recommend Starmie be made an A- Pokemon. As Vapicuno points out in his post it lies in a strange place in between A- and B statistically. On its merits as the one spinner to beat Gengar, I would argue it belongs significantly above its B tier counterparts.

I would not be adverse to splitting B, back into B+ B and B- , and having Starmie be the B+ King. If I were to split it on Vapicuno's data the splits I would recommend are

B+ = Starmie through to Moltres
B = Milotic through to Gyarados
B- =Venusaur through to Raikou or Jynx

Suggestion for McMeghan, could you have the ADV smogondex links attached to the names on the first post? I feel it would be easier to navigate for those of us trying to learn ADV.

eg. Salamence and Tyranitar

Thanks for reading.

 

[McMeghan]

Added subranks for A and B tiers based on vapicuno's datas.
Added smogondex links to the Pokemon names based on ReadTheMango's suggestion.

 

[dainghia0510]

I believe the R3 result has no new pokemon compared to R2 right? And also no pokemon got removed right?

C should have sub rank too. Venu to Jynx as C+. Vap to Smearg as C. Champ to rest is C-. How the hell is Medichamp rank that low?

Also consider the fact that most D rank pokemon has 5 or less voters, making it hard to balance the score/ranking even with outliner method or any other type of methods, we should put them in alphabet order

 

[vapicuno]

Ranking Correlations Across Contributors

At the request of UD , I have compiled ranking correlations of all contributors. This is really just for fun, but I promise it'll be a good read. TLDR: Higher number = Brighter color = higher correlation. The correlations are performed separately from S to A-, B+ to B-, and S to B-.

The Kendall tau test is used to determine the ranking correlation. The test compares rankings pairwise, makes a positive correlation (+1) if their order matches, negative otherwise (-1). Then it adds up all pairwise correlations. So for a tier of 15 mons you have 15*14/2 combinations of pairwise correlations to add over. These correlations are then normalized to 1. Separation in rank between mons, as well as relative position does not affect the result. (To be precise, their impact is indirect -- expected to affect correlations by having more slight negative correlations with other mons). That means all these are treated the same way:

Positive correlations
A: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2.
B: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 11 and Vaporeon as 12.
C: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 20.

Negative correlations
A: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 2 and Vaporeon as 1.
B: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 12 and Vaporeon as 11.
C: Player 1 ranks Articuno as 1 and Vaporeon as 2, Player 2 ranks Articuno as 20 and Vaporeon as 1.

The following give a perfect correlation of 1, because the ordering is preserved:
A: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks similarly.
B: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks them as 11 to 25.
C: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks them as 2, 4, 6... 30.

The following give a perfect anticorrelation of -1, because the order is completely reversed.
A: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks them as 15 to 1.
B: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks them as 25 to 11.
C: Player 1 ranks the top 15 mons as 1 to 15, Player 2 ranks them as 30, 28, 26... 2.

Situations B and C may seem absurd at first sight, but they occur when you have non-overlapping ranking numbers for the same set of mons, meaning both players have a different impression of the tier they are working in. Therefore, it is important to restrict analyses to full tiers or combinations of tiers.

Without further ado,

S/A Tier

You read this by finding the square that sits on the names of two people you want to compare. Higher number = Brighter color = higher correlation.

Observations:
In the A tier, Triangles is an Alien. His S to A- VR is on average two to three standard deviations away from everyone else's. To put this in perspective, the current statistics stand at

S to A- with / without Triangles
Mean = 0.67 / 0.70
Standard Deviation (SD) = 0.11 / 0.08

By his sheer presence, Triangles causes the SD to mutate by 30%, and the mean to shift by 40% of a SD.

Sadlysius and Altina, as well as Gacu and Cowboy Dan are secretly the same person. Their correlations are 0.885, which is 2 SD's above the mean. Their VRs don't look that similar number-wise, but the contours of their rankings seem to go the same way. Gengar and Suicune are consistently underrated, while Jirachi, Snorlax and Dugtrio are consistently overrated.

UD and Jirachee (correlation 0.41), as well as UD and Astamatitos (0.49) have the most opposed rankings outside Triangles. Just look at how the single and double digit numbers almost don't appear together.

On to the B tier.
B Tier

Observations:
Triangles gave me a significant headache, but Marcop really wants to make me give up calculating any more statistics. In the B tier, marcop is so contrarian that he achieves 9 negative correlations (-0.2 in fact with linear) in his B rankings, and 3-6 standard deviations away from everyone else. Let's see how that happens. I'll draw a squiggly line that goes to the right for a worse rank and left for a better rank. If I'm just following the average VRs, it should be a straight line.

But marcop's looks like this

This time, Sadlysius and Altina, Gacu and Dan don't look so much alike anymore. Instead, it's Stockings and Sadlysius (0.79), Stockings and vapicuno (0.77), Stockings and thelinearcurve (0.77), maybe Astamatitos and Jirachee (0.74). Somehow, Sadlysius, linear and vapicuno don't have that much in common with each other though. Let's take a look at the visual representation!

I'd say Stockings follows the contours of Sadlysius' most closely. vapicuno has a right bump at Flygon where there should be a dip in Stox's, and linear has this Claydol-Aero kink, but otherwise Stox's ones do fit pretty well. I'd also dare to say that Sadlysius, vapicuno and linear's rankings don't match each other's that well too. What's in common though, is that we see in these four people a shared opinion that Aerodactyl isn't all that great and Cloyster is better than where it is.

Some of the lower correlations in this section apart from Triangles and marcop include some of UD's (opposing Gacu, McMeghan, linear, Dan, vapicuno, hovering about 0.3), and hyogafodex's (opposing Stockings, Sadlysius, vapicuno, Linear, Dan). Let's take a look.

UD and hyogafodex have two features in common: a general trend that follows the average VR, but really topsy turvy. My hypothesis is that these strong (in amplitude) but small-scale (over a few mons) variations may be enough to de-correlate their VRs with those of everyone else.

On to the combined ranking correlations.

S/A/B Tiers

Mostly a combination of correlations above, so not many surprises. However, Astamatitos and Dan, as well as vapicuno and McMeghan seem to have enhanced correlations when the tiers are combined. This likely points to a strong agreement in tiering cutoffs, as well as how one transitions from one tier to the next.

Assuming a cutoff of #14/#15 as in the VR, I highlight ratings 10-14 red and 15-19 green. Note the stark agreement especially between Asta and Dan, where they believe the limits of the tier are Celebi/Aero/Dug transiting to Starmie/Magneton (it's even more remarkable that they both went against conventional wisdom to put Aero at the edge of the A tier). These guys have no mixing between their agreed-upon tiers at all. McMeghan and vapicuno also follow the same logic, albeit in a bit more mainstream fashion so that's not as unexpected.

Conclusions

It can be pretty fun to know who thinks like you, and there's a great deal of interesting stuff that comes out of this analysis. I've attached an openoffice spreadsheet with the statistics, so you can find out for yourself. There are three sheets within the document representing S/A, S/A/B, and B, and within each spreadsheet that's where things get complicated.

The raw correlation matrix is at the top, followed by raw correlations turned into a mean zero SD 1 quantity called a z score. I thought this would be meaningful at first, but Triangles and marcop skewed everything so it didn't make sense. I made a third matrix that converts raw correlations into a z score excluding Triangles and marcop in the calculation of mean and SD.

What that means is, in the third matrix on each tier sheet, the number indicates how correlated a player is with another compared to the average. A number of 1.0 means 1 SD more correlated than the norm, and -1.0 means 1 SD less correlated.

Have fun!

 

[thelinearcurve]

I don't understand why Raikou is ranked above Jynx, Vaporeon, Regice, Houndoom, Kingdra, Ludi.

It's one dimensional, is generally outclassed by Jolteon and fits only on that one team with special spam+dug+p2.

Can someone demonstrate otherwise? Not trying to be rude, I'm wondering what are the arguments for Raikou.

 

[Oxypad]

Raikou has more utility against Jirachi compared to most any of those mons listed.

It at least is a more sensible phazer in general and can get into CM wars when Houndoom really cannot or would not be doing either of those things. (Neither Houndoom nor Raikou make good phazers, who am I kidding, meh...)

God help all those mons listed if sand is up. But if it isn't, then Raikou is great here. It REALLY needs to be gaining Leftovers.

I agree cuz when you think of it, it is generally outclassed by Jolteon, mostly due to Jolteon being fast enough to not care about Dugtrio. Otherwise Raikou and Jolteon are very similar in that they are Electrics that check Gengar and Zapdos. (Arguably Raikou does Gengar checking a bit better but Jolteon does Zapdos better).

But I think that the Jirachi match-up is worth noting and something it actually might have over Jolteon and those listed. Has anyone tried sneaking it in on a Wish and having Subs that Jirachi Body Slam cannot break?

tldr; Raikou can be more of a passable Jirachi check and has CM. That's all I can really think of.

Too bad sand exists.

 

[Bughouse]

Endure Salac Raikou is cool too

 

[Stockings]

I’d argue that endsalac raikou is more than just cool, it’s a solid wincon vs a lot of builds late, though the archetype you’re forced to play it with already leans to being favoured in the lategame anyway so,,

 

[vapicuno]

Crunch HP Grass coverage for Celebi, Claydol and Swampert is something that Jolteon cannot do. I'm also not sure you actually need p2 for Raikou to work. You could also go with something like Hera + Dug to revenge opposing Dug on Hera revenge, tanking an Aerial Ace. In theory you get a 1v1 trade that opens up Raikou. Just my guess, I don't use Raikou all that much.

 

[Triangles]

Modest Hidden Power from Kou OHKO's bulkless dug. So all you need is to be behind a sub and you are safe.

 

[Oxypad]

Triangles where tf is that video you said you were going to make about Raikou, lolol

Raikou just needs too much support, we can't really hype it that much guys c'mon.
Cuz in my mind it needs Sub and CM to make its niche. Which then gets me down a path of Dugtrio and Weather Changer and blah blah the whole team is just tailored to mediocrity.
I just wanted to bring up that if I were to use it in a team it would probably be one of my more decent Jirachi switch-ins at that point, and it is a "creative" Starmie switch-in! (It takes a hit better than a Jolteon coming in, but I bet Hydro Pump still 2HKOS -- thought I'd mention Starmie cuz it's in B+). It's probably pretty chill against Venusaur (top of C rank, haha!) or something like Porygon2 (B-) too; could use them as set-up bait.

 

[Oxypad]

On the subject of the Endure+Salac strategy, which is totally legit and I get why people are bringing up, try giving Scizor a shot: SD/Silver Wind/HP Rock/Endure.

 

[Cowboy Dan]

On the subject of the Endure+Salac strategy, which is totally legit and I get why people are bringing up, try giving Scizor a shot: SD/Silver Wind/HP Rock/Endure.

I used to run into this dude on ladder who ran endure reversal scizor, that thing was surprisingly scary sometimes.

 

[Theasiancp3]

Why isn't Camerupt at the very least C tier?

I have been using Camerupt recently in ADV OU and it is much better than what most people think. Hell, if you just go to the first few pages of this thread, you have many users arguing for Camerupt to be B tier. Looking back at past viability rankings from 2014-2016, Camerupt was seen as a solid C to C+ tier pokemon, but now it has dropped to D tier?

There is no reason why Steelix, Marowak, Donphan, and Registeel should be above Camerupt.

Camerupt is incredibly versatile because it can switch into HP Grass / HP Ice (Which is incredibly common) from pokes such as Zapdos and Jolteon. It can switch into pretty much every single one of Gengar's moves (IP, TB, WoW, Giga Drain, etc.) and then destroy it with Overheat/FB. If the user chooses to switch, it OHKO's pretty much every single pokemon that isnt resistant with Explosion (Which does more damage than Steelix's Explosion btw). Camerupt, despite its mediocre defenses, plays well against a lot of pokemon in the meta, and its versatile/powerful movepool (EQ/Fire move) means it fares well against Jirachi, Celebi, Magneton, Skarmory, etc.

Camerupt took a huge nosedive in the viability rankings in the past 2 years, and I cant find a reason for it other than the fact that the people voting clearly just forgot about its usage. Like why is Blaziken in the same tier as Camerupt? Blaziken is absolute trash in gen 3, and the only reason i can think of is because blaziken is popular and is really good in later gens, so the voters are unconsciously voting for it.

 

[McMeghan]

Your post was making sense until the end where you just went on a dumb tangent lol.

All the voters are active players of the tier, we know Camerupt's strenghts... It's just that its weaknesses cannot be overlooked and that's why it sees so little usage and thus finds itself in the D rank atm.

1) Camerupt is hit by spikes, aka the common partner of everything it's supposed to check. But the real problems are...
2) While the typing is useful to check some special attackers, it just crumbles vs others, especially when stabs are involved, which means you need something to take on Water types or Psychic Celebi. In that case, a lot of offense prefer to use Snorlax which just softcheck all of them in one slot.
3) The typing is not useful and actually quite bad when it comes to dealing with physical attackers. Now, nobody will use Camerupt to actually handle those pokemons, but dying to every Earthquakes means it's hard to get value out of Camerupt in matchups where you are not running into Gar/Electrics. You can't even pivot it against anything unlike say, a Metagross/Salamence.
4) It's slow as balls, which emphasizes the weakness explained in the third point. Being outsped and OHKO'd by Pert is quite asasine for example.
5) Dug

And maybe other reasons that don't come to mind right now. Camerupt certainly isnt awful, just the defensive niche you mentionned + Boom make it usable and you can actually get value out of it in most games if you play it well (though oftentimes, the value will be to get a trade with Boom and then you lost your Gengar/Zapdos check...). But it's not all roses for the camel in the ADV world, and that's why it's where it's at in the rankings.

 

[Deleted User 108547]

Why isn't Camerupt at the very least C tier?

I have been using Camerupt recently in ADV OU and it is much better than what most people think. Hell, if you just go to the first few pages of this thread, you have many users arguing for Camerupt to be B tier. Looking back at past viability rankings from 2014-2016, Camerupt was seen as a solid C to C+ tier pokemon, but now it has dropped to D tier?

There is no reason why Steelix, Marowak, Donphan, and Registeel should be above Camerupt.

Camerupt is incredibly versatile because it can switch into HP Grass / HP Ice (Which is incredibly common) from pokes such as Zapdos and Jolteon. It can switch into pretty much every single one of Gengar's moves (IP, TB, WoW, Giga Drain, etc.) and then destroy it with Overheat/FB. If the user chooses to switch, it OHKO's pretty much every single pokemon that isnt resistant with Explosion (Which does more damage than Steelix's Explosion btw). Camerupt, despite its mediocre defenses, plays well against a lot of pokemon in the meta, and its versatile/powerful movepool (EQ/Fire move) means it fares well against Jirachi, Celebi, Magneton, Skarmory, etc.

Camerupt took a huge nosedive in the viability rankings in the past 2 years, and I cant find a reason for it other than the fact that the people voting clearly just forgot about its usage. Like why is Blaziken in the same tier as Camerupt? Blaziken is absolute trash in gen 3, and the only reason i can think of is because blaziken is popular and is really good in later gens, so the voters are unconsciously voting for it.

From my point of view discussions about C & D ranks and which one should be in top of are useless. Don't get me wrong, all of them are usable and have their niche but what is the point discussing if a mon is usable in 1/50 or 1/75 games? We're in an era where replays, scouting and a huge amount of tools are just a one click away and honestly, while Umbreon, Gligar or Camerupt are cool mons, if you bring them is because previously you have studied your opponent and that single pokemon fits exactly what you want to fix.

E.G. Stats from latest WCUP
Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
| 28 | Breloom | 2 | 2.63% | 100.00% |
| 30 | Houndoom | 1 | 1.32% | 0.00% |

Houndoom is listed above Breloom according to latest version of VR. Does this mean that we should modify the list? Well you can discuss about it ad infinitum because probably in 2020, when Breloom is listed above Houndoom appears another niche mon called Dragonite, Jumpluff, Alakazam whatever and gets better usage stats. At the end of the day, both mons get a residual 2.XX% or 1.XX% which is negligible. In other words, for such a low rank as C & D where the mons are listed is just a matter of personal preferences.

That being said, bring back Raikou to OU.

 

[Theasiancp3]

Your post was making sense until the end where you just went on a dumb tangent lol.

All the voters are active players of the tier, we know Camerupt's strenghts... It's just that its weaknesses cannot be overlooked and that's why it sees so little usage and thus finds itself in the D rank atm.

1) Camerupt is hit by spikes, aka the common partner of everything it's supposed to check. But the real problems are...
2) While the typing is useful to check some special attackers, it just crumbles vs others, especially when stabs are involved, which means you need something to take on Water types or Psychic Celebi. In that case, a lot of offense prefer to use Snorlax which just softcheck all of them in one slot.
3) The typing is not useful and actually quite bad when it comes to dealing with physical attackers. Now, nobody will use Camerupt to actually handle those pokemons, but dying to every Earthquakes means it's hard to get value out of Camerupt in matchups where you are not running into Gar/Electrics. You can't even pivot it against anything unlike say, a Metagross/Salamence.
4) It's slow as balls, which emphasizes the weakness explained in the third point. Being outsped and OHKO'd by Pert is quite asasine for example.
5) Dug

And maybe other reasons that don't come to mind right now. Camerupt certainly isnt awful, just the defensive niche you mentionned + Boom make it usable and you can actually get value out of it in most games if you play it well (though oftentimes, the value will be to get a trade with Boom and then you lost your Gengar/Zapdos check...). But it's not all roses for the camel in the ADV world, and that's why it's where it's at in the rankings.

Your reasons would have been valid if we were discussing Camerupt as a A/B tier pokemon. He is clearly not that.

However, when looking at the other pokemon surrounding Camerupt on the viability rankings, they have just as many, if not more, weaknesses than Camerupt.

Also, the voters might be active players of the tier, but that does not mean they know anything about Camerupt as a competitive pokemon for gen 3. Proof of this is Blaziken being anywhere on a tier list for gen 3 OU, which is a joke and pretty much validates my theory that voters (especially for the lower tiers) are just voting in popular pokemon that did well in later generations.

Again, there is no reason why pokemon like Donphan, Registeel, Steelix, and Marowak should be ahead of Camerupt. Hell, like I said, go back to the first few pages of this thread. People were saying Camerupt should have been a B tier pokemon. But because nobody uses it (Mostly because of bias, unconscious), people don't know how it works at all. I have been using one lately and it has been serving me very well.

From my point of view discussions about C & D ranks and which one should be in top of are useless. Don't get me wrong, all of them are usable and have their niche but what is the point discussing if a mon is usable in 1/50 or 1/75 games? We're in an era where replays, scouting and a huge amount of tools are just a one click away and honestly, while Umbreon, Gligar or Camerupt are cool mons, if you bring them is because previously you have studied your opponent and that single pokemon fits exactly what you want to fix.

E.G. Stats from latest WCUP
Rank | Pokemon | Use | Usage % | Win % |
| 28 | Breloom | 2 | 2.63% | 100.00% |
| 30 | Houndoom | 1 | 1.32% | 0.00% |

Houndoom is listed above Breloom according to latest version of VR. Does this mean that we should modify the list? Well you can discuss about it ad infinitum because probably in 2020, when Breloom is listed above Houndoom appears another niche mon called Dragonite, Jumpluff, Alakazam whatever and gets better usage stats. At the end of the day, both mons get a residual 2.XX% or 1.XX% which is negligible. In other words, for such a low rank as C & D where the mons are listed is just a matter of personal preferences.

That being said, bring back Raikou to OU.

Exactly, you just proved my point.

These so called "expert voters" literally dont give af for the lower tiers, and they are literally just voting in pokemon that they unconsciously like, recognize, or view as good. Blaziken is the biggest example of this. Blaziken is god awful in gen 3 OU, like literally horrible. Yet voters are putting it in D tier because they recognize it as a "good pokemon" due to its play in later gens.

 

[Deleted User 108547]

Exactly, you just proved my point.

These so called "expert voters" literally dont give af for the lower tiers, and they are literally just voting in pokemon that they unconsciously like, recognize, or view as good. Blaziken is the biggest example of this. Blaziken is god awful in gen 3 OU, like literally horrible. Yet voters are putting it in D tier because they recognize it as a "good pokemon" due to its play in later gens.

Probably I explained myself bad. Most people talking and discussing about ADV are experienced players and trust me when I say they always take into account UU & BL pokes for their teams. That Ludicolo who fits perfectly on rain dance team or that Steelix who full stops CB users locked into RS, MM, DE are a proof of how players don't understimate low ranked mons, they've just used them when needed.

I respect your feeling about Blaziken, although I'm against it. Maybe McMeghan could drop it from the rank (I'm against) but that won't change anything because, like I said, there is no appreciable difference between the ranked, let's say Dusclops, used in 1/200 games and the now unranked Blaziken used in 1/250 games.