OU ADV OU Viability Ranking

[Siglut]

Being spikes weak, incredibly frail to physical moves, extremely slow, and easily switched in on by waters (particularly those with refresh) mean camerupt is very likely to make no progress against teams that have one of its many checks and counters, and even teams that don't don't have a particularly good camerupt switchin usually have some way of pivoting around it. Also, increased spdef Zapdos usage is very very bad for camerupt (sure, fire blast hits reasonably hard, but good luck with four of them). It's not useless but it's a very niche pick that is going to be outclassed on 99% of teams, similarly to rhydon and registeel, which accompany it down there. Blaziken is essentially a matchup fish that does incredibly well against a common teamstyle (classic beerlover has no way to switch into it), so it gets a bit of credit for that.
Perhaps Camerupt should be ranked higher than it is (and a new vr will come out sometime soon so maybe its placement will change) but there's really not much point complaining about where a mediocre-to-bad pokemon is ranked in comparison to other mediocre-to-bad pokemon. Camerupt is ranked higher than Flareon, and only one of those fire-types has seen SPL usage. Also, the ranking of these lower mons essentially has no bearing on anything, as the vr is two things: a reflection of the current state of the metagame and an aide to teambuilding for people who aren't very familiar with the tier. People aren't using much Camerupt, and I wouldn't suggest it to new players either if I had their best interests in mind, so the rankings of most of the mons E tier and below is pretty much just there for the people contributing to the rankings to share ideas and off-meta strategies.

 

[Theasiancp3]

Being spikes weak, incredibly frail to physical moves, extremely slow, and easily switched in on by waters (particularly those with refresh) mean camerupt is very likely to make no progress against teams that have one of its many checks and counters, and even teams that don't don't have a particularly good camerupt switchin usually have some way of pivoting around it. Also, increased spdef Zapdos usage is very very bad for camerupt (sure, fire blast hits reasonably hard, but good luck with four of them). It's not useless but it's a very niche pick that is going to be outclassed on 99% of teams, similarly to rhydon and registeel, which accompany it down there. Blaziken is essentially a matchup fish that does incredibly well against a common teamstyle (classic beerlover has no way to switch into it), so it gets a bit of credit for that.
Perhaps Camerupt should be ranked higher than it is (and a new vr will come out sometime soon so maybe its placement will change) but there's really not much point complaining about where a mediocre-to-bad pokemon is ranked in comparison to other mediocre-to-bad pokemon. Camerupt is ranked higher than Flareon, and only one of those fire-types has seen SPL usage. Also, the ranking of these lower mons essentially has no bearing on anything, as the vr is two things: a reflection of the current state of the metagame and an aide to teambuilding for people who aren't very familiar with the tier. People aren't using much Camerupt, and I wouldn't suggest it to new players either if I had their best interests in mind, so the rankings of most of the mons E tier and below is pretty much just there for the people contributing to the rankings to share ideas and off-meta strategies.

I don't find Camerupt being easily switched in on by waters. EQ backed by choice band does ~50% damage to Milotic/Swampert and OHKOs Starmie (not to mention the threat of explosion which OHKOs all three plus Suicune). By running toxic/RS, Camerupt threatens Gyarados/Mence on the switch. With Zapdos, most players tend to switch out anyways which (with good prediction) lets Camerupt get a free hit on one of its checks/counters. Camerupt may be prediction-heavy but explosion/EQ seriously dents a vast majority of the meta. Camerupt has great matchups against Jirachi/Celebi too, esp after a TWave

I'm not saying it's some top tier pokemon but the vast majority of pokemon C tier or lower have issues. Mentioning that it's extremely slow and frail to physical moves is true but many of the pokemon in the lower tiers have serious issues.

 

[Rchie99]

I love Camerupt too but I want it to be as low on the Viability Rankings as possible. Camerupt is defined by its surprise factor, and establishing that it is barely viable bolsters that. When your opponent switches in camel all of a sudden your gameplan needs adjusting, but in a fun and exciting way. When YOU switch in camel on Gengar or Zapdos or something else its a damn good feeling. Its a win-win for everyone, but its win-ness is dependent on how low Camerupt is ranked so lets please keep it in F. Also Quick Claw Camerupt is one of its better sets (based on first-hand experience) and because of that it is the quintessential F Tier mon

 

[Zokuru]

Do you have any relevant proof of Camerupt being good outside of ladder performance ?

 

[vapicuno]

I would be interested to see the following replays.

1. Making a wrong prediction with CB camerupt still resulted in camerupt helping the team to win. A bit like say CBmence spamming HP Flying with Spikes or CB Metagross blindly mashing.
2. A reliable sequence for getting CB camerupt into Zapdos without it BPing to Dugtrio. In other words a situation that really forces Zapdos to click Thunderbolt; or a CB camerupt team with good Dugtrio counterplay.
3. A reliable sequence for getting CB camerupt in without taking damage throughout the game (it's easy to do it the first time on Gengar wisp, but if you make the wrong prediction the first time, how do you get it in safely again without playing nind games?)
4. Above questions are aimed at the pivoting in part. Alternatively, Camerupt can still be used to immediately explode so it doesnt have to pivot in again. Any way to set up a convincing instant boom trade?

Cheers

 

[Siglut]

I was hoping this might stay civil this time. Seems I was wrong. Anyway, ladder peak really has nothing to do with a pokemon's viability, as mons like scizor have had massive success on ladder and rienarien recently topped ladder with ninjask pass. Anything can do well on ladder. Camerupt can put in some work against special offenses where it can switch into a few mons, but really most of the tier outspeeds it, threatens it heavily, and relatively is not bothered by its hits. You say blaziken is blanked by gyarados and salamence (which isn't really true because it can run toxic/hpice/tpunch) and neglect that, aside from explosion, your choice banded camerupt is as well. Explosion is obviously a good tool, but it is pretty much camerupt's only tool, and as I'm sure you've noticed it means you won't be getting much use out of him for the rest of the game.
Anyway, let's assume we all can read in this thread (everybody's posting walls of text nowadays so it's a helpful skill) and hopefully we can have a good discussion about teambuilding in what I'm sure is all of our favorite tier.

 

[Siglut]

EDIT: I'm done discussing this. It's clear that everyone in this thread already sees me as the "crazy Camerupt lover" and nothing I say will change anyone's mind.

As much as I don't want to stir up this conversation at all, I am actually sorry to hear this. A few arguments in the last page of this thread have been in bad faith (and several of those have been yours), but there's no reason you can't provide reasoning and replays and someday be seen as the sane camerupt lover instead of the crazy one. There's no hidden vendetta against camerupt, and there's no reason you can't do for him what UD has done for steelix or what Hclat has done for jynx.

 

[johnnyg2]

I’ll bite, I believe the reason why camerupt was ranked relatively higher in 2014-2016 was the high usage of restalk zap as a special wall, which it very easily generated free turns off of, as well as gengar being stronger than it is now. Additionally, I would argue that teams camel typically fit on in those days could get away w/o running a general special wall and use their resistances, whereas those teams today (typically spike less offense) would get annihilated by offensive starmie w a spike down among other special offenses.

In the current meta, where your ground really needs to be able to handle tar (or at least take a hit and force it out), as well as not instantly die to zap baton passing to dug, camel doesn’t seem super viable. Camel is also really slow, spikes weak, and let’s waters come in basically for free (I don’t think cb is a good answer to these unless you plan to boom immediately, but by that point, why not run like a snorlax?). I could see it having some use maybe on a boom team or w a ton of support, but it belongs in the tier it’s in

 

[Cowboy Dan]

The pokemon I see as having the most in common with Camerupt is another F Tier, Lanturn. Both are niche answers to electric types with Lanturn having the advantage of being able to answer offensive water types and Camerupt having a better match up vs Gengar as well as being able to check Jirachi and Celebi. They both have the huge disadvantage however of being ohko'd by dugtrio which is a problem for their respective roles as the pokemon they are meant to check are often paired with it and in the case of Zapdos and Jolteon, have the ability to baton pass for an easy switch in to it. This means you can never really rely on these pokemon to do their job as it's very easy for them to be picked off leaving you without an answer to the pokemon you need to check. From a team building standpoint this just makes them really hard to slot on a team as you need to have an additional full answer to those things which is just an inefficient use of your 6 slots. I think both pokemon can do a lot of cool things on a game to game basis but that one flaw makes them so difficult to justify in the builder outside of very specific instances and keeps them low tier.

 

[dhelmise]

Hey, I just had to delete quite a few posts and infract some users for uncivil conduct. Please refrain from name-calling in the future and attempt to keep discussion civil. thanks

 

[Jirachee]

The pokemon I see as having the most in common with Camerupt is another F Tier, Lanturn. Both are niche answers to electric types with Lanturn having the advantage of being able to answer offensive water types and Camerupt having a better match up vs Gengar as well as being able to check Jirachi and Celebi. They both have the huge disadvantage however of being ohko'd by dugtrio which is a problem for their respective roles as the pokemon they are meant to check are often paired with it and in the case of Zapdos and Jolteon, have the ability to baton pass for an easy switch in to it. This means you can never really rely on these pokemon to do their job as it's very easy for them to be picked off leaving you without an answer to the pokemon you need to check. From a team building standpoint this just makes them really hard to slot on a team as you need to have an additional full answer to those things which is just an inefficient use of your 6 slots. I think both pokemon can do a lot of cool things on a game to game basis but that one flaw makes them so difficult to justify in the builder outside of very specific instances and keeps them low tier.

That's an interesting comparison but I think there's a few things you didn't highlight that work in Camerupt's favor over ol' Turner which, in my opinion at least, justify it being in a higher rank.

First of all Camerupt's immune to sand damage. For a thing that is specifically used to blanket something as an offensive pivot, that's huge. You get to recover some of that Spikes damage and Camerupt really needs to health to continue switching into Zapdos or Gengar because it's so damn slow. Lanturn can obviously regain some HP thanks to Volt Absorb but we both know that's not very reliable.

Second, yes Dugtrio can trap Camerupt, but only off a well timed Baton Pass. Obviously a double switch will do too. But the point is that Camerupt one shots Dugtrio with both Earthquake and Fire Blast so once Camerupt's in there's no chance you get trapped, unless you KO something. It's all mind games at that point. On the other hand, Lanturn's discouraged from using an Electric move as a clever Dugtrio user could take advantage of this.

Lastly, Explosion. We both know how good that move is. Lanturn's a liability in games where you just as much as KNOW Dugtrio exists. At least with Camerupt, the user can get even with a clever bomb.

I think Camerupt has more in common with Regice, which is up in E tier. Now, Regice's pretty miserable itself, but it shares that quality with Camerupt of being decent pivot against Electric-type threats (and Gengar), but being taken advantage of by their common partners. They both have very interesting offensive capabilities that could help an aggressive team make progress, but are very rarely worth using. Good Pokémon like Blissey don't share these problems, and that's why I think a measly E rank will suffice for Camerupt.

 

[Rchie99]

 

[Siglut]

VR season baybeee
here's my thoughts on ttar rank down to (in my opinion) b rank
https://pokepast.es/2b21723439bad4a9
beyond those I think there are a bunch of viable mons but it'd be hard to call them metagame staples
tl;dr
pert#3
skarm#5
rachi#8
aero#12
lax#19 (below moltres and heracross)
vap#23 (and it's not going anywhere but up [like, down, the number is getting lower, vaporeon is good])

 

[Triangles]

The fact that Tyranitar isn't at the very least E tier is an absolute joke.

Hilarious that back in 2014-2016, people were considering Tyranitar as a B/C tier pokemon and now it's somehow F tier below BLAZIKEN. Tells me that the bottom of this tier list is a joke.

I've used Tyranitar for over 1500 games and have reached 1600 ELO while beating plenty of 1650+ ELO people in the past. The fact that it's not taken seriously is hilarious.

Rock Slide, ability to switch onto Gengar, takes neutral damage from BOTH HP's (dragon and electric), combination of Earthquake/FB, etc.

The fact that it's below something like Blaziken is even more of a joke.

 

[McMeghan]

I will organize the next update after SPL yep

 

[Theasiancp3]

That's an interesting comparison but I think there's a few things you didn't highlight that work in Camerupt's favor over ol' Turner which, in my opinion at least, justify it being in a higher rank.

First of all Camerupt's immune to sand damage. For a thing that is specifically used to blanket something as an offensive pivot, that's huge. You get to recover some of that Spikes damage and Camerupt really needs to health to continue switching into Zapdos or Gengar because it's so damn slow. Lanturn can obviously regain some HP thanks to Volt Absorb but we both know that's not very reliable.

Second, yes Dugtrio can trap Camerupt, but only off a well timed Baton Pass. Obviously a double switch will do too. But the point is that Camerupt one shots Dugtrio with both Earthquake and Fire Blast so once Camerupt's in there's no chance you get trapped, unless you KO something. It's all mind games at that point. On the other hand, Lanturn's discouraged from using an Electric move as a clever Dugtrio user could take advantage of this.

Lastly, Explosion. We both know how good that move is. Lanturn's a liability in games where you just as much as KNOW Dugtrio exists. At least with Camerupt, the user can get even with a clever bomb.

I think Camerupt has more in common with Regice, which is up in E tier. Now, Regice's pretty miserable itself, but it shares that quality with Camerupt of being decent pivot against Electric-type threats (and Gengar), but being taken advantage of by their common partners. They both have very interesting offensive capabilities that could help an aggressive team make progress, but are very rarely worth using. Good Pokémon like Blissey don't share these problems, and that's why I think a measly E rank will suffice for Camerupt.

Having played with Camerupt for a few games this past week, it's even better than it was when I used it two years ago. It can come in on Blissey's twave and from there it hits everything super hard with either EQ or FB/Overheat. Explosion OHKOs bulky waters like Milotic/Cune/Pert that try to come in on the switch, and Camerupt's CB EQ is significantly stronger than CB Metagross/Mence's EQ (50%+ on defensive Swampert and Milotic, OHKOs Starmie, etc.) . Like you mentioned, Dug can trap Camerupt but it dies to both of Camerupt's STAB sttacks. It can come in on Jolteon/Magneton and if the opponent switches into Skarm/Foretress Overheat/FB is a OHKO as well. I'm not even mentioning the fact that Jirachi/Metagross/Celebi are scared to come in because of Camerupt's STABs.

Obv Camerupt can be a little prediction-heavy and it requires a lot of team support but I really don't see another pokemon in F tier that has the same level of impact as Rupt does.

 

[Dizno]

Having played with Camerupt for a few games this past week, it's even better than it was when I used it two years ago. It can come in on Blissey's twave and from there it hits everything super hard with either EQ or FB/Overheat. Explosion OHKOs bulky waters like Milotic/Cune/Pert that try to come in on the switch, and Camerupt's CB EQ is significantly stronger than CB Metagross/Mence's EQ (50%+ on defensive Swampert and Milotic, OHKOs Starmie, etc.) . Like you mentioned, Dug can trap Camerupt but it dies to both of Camerupt's STAB sttacks. It can come in on Jolteon/Magneton and if the opponent switches into Skarm/Foretress Overheat/FB is a OHKO as well. I'm not even mentioning the fact that Jirachi/Metagross/Celebi are scared to come in because of Camerupt's STABs.

Obv Camerupt can be a little prediction-heavy and it requires a lot of team support but I really don't see another pokemon in F tier that has the same level of impact as Rupt does.

An interesting summation of camerupts qualities. Can we perhaps see some impressive tournament replays or any other kind of reputable attainment that suggests camerupt is ranked too low.

 

[Fakes]

An interesting summation of camerupts qualities. Can we perhaps see some impressive tournament replays or any other kind of reputable attainment that suggests camerupt is ranked too low.

Na, Camerupt sucks.

 

[Theasiancp3]

Na, Camerupt sucks.

Sounds like someone is sad because they lost to one

 

[Lord Ninjax]

don't wanna be the dude nosing in on this argument but truth be told; camel just ain't that. it really ain't. not sure who decided cb is a good set when it can be seen coming from a mile off and locks camel even harder into having to nail its predictions (imagine locking into eq vs mence and having to, uhhhhhh concede momentum) while making it impossible for it to actually check zap / gar / what have you throughout the game (assuming that they don't just nail the bp into dug for the easy trap). even if you run lefties it's incredibly slow and gets jackhammered by way too much (outsped by tar, meta, pert, list goes on) to be able to assert its will outside of a handful of matchups (like idk, cmspams without suicune? forry teams? yea this is a massive stretch lol). the reason that other fires like blaziken are rated higher is bc their higher speed allows them to actually leverage that fire stab and the typing's unique niches for consistent offensive output, where camel can be played around or just flat out hardcountered.

the regice comp that jirachee made is incredibly apt in practice mostly bc camel is a mon that should be able to consistently do things but can't because of how easily abusable it is and how its supposedly deadly offense falls flat in practice most of the time (unless of course you nail every prediction but you can never guarantee that you're not going to eq into a mence or a sdef zap, or fblast into a milo, or waste your slide into a protect and unlike other slower dangermons like cbmeta camel's stabs aren't potent enough on their own to consistently threaten teams with. eq isn't mash lol). there might be a case for it being ranked e but honestly why bother? unranked is much more appropriate

anyways agree that the vrs need a rework when spl is done, will swing back to add some thoughts when I formulate them bc there's a bunch of interesting trends emerging there oo

 

[eden]

imagine spending pages upon pages pondering whether camerupt truly belongs in E vs F tier, literally stop

metagross

this has always been the mon with the highest potential to break games wide open early: the most popular set on zap gross tar style mixed offenses is probably cb, although mixed gross whether it be the psy fire or the tpunch grass variant equally fit well on those for the most part.

I used to think cb gross had the highest upside but it kind of is a glorified boom button for the most part early(running brick break as the filler move on it mitigates this issue somewhat, by giving you a move to hit skarm/catch magneton midgrounds: most common application of cb gross with brick break is probably on teams with a defensive starmie or claydol to reset layers in the long term)

tss teams that are intelligently build should try to incorporate something that can be blindly thrown at metagross early to guard skarm: whether that be moltres/jirachi/magneton etc. just because playing tss without spikes puts you majorly in the hole very early in the game essentially(stuff like protect ttar also plays into the concept of denying turn 1 explosions)

i like the defensive ones for the most part: but you need to make sure you have some good secondary checks to ttar alongside: because defensive gross is both slower than ttar/doesn't kill it in one hit, so if you ever have to switch a chipped defensive metagross into a +1 dd tar you might be in a tight spot. not being able to check ttar without significant chip, when this set is run to have a "reliable rock resist" feels pretty awkward to me. a lot of the time early in a game: your blind switch to ttar is going to be metagross, which can put you especially behind vs teams running fast aggressive tar sets like fire/grass/ice/brick break which naturally pressure the kind of teams i'd expect to see running this metagross variant anyway

a lot of teams alleviate this by running stuff like mence, cune, etc along side it to help give you more room to pivot around threats in game, defensive metagross obviously really appreciates wish support.

tpunch grass eq boom is one of my favorite set: relatively easy way to get zap/cel trades, good vs standard tss teams, but not having mash means there are some scenarios when you have less of an ability to force trades on your own terms, which is also an issue i have with psy/pursuit/fire sets.

i love the attack invested protect metagross sets the most probably. they hit that nice midground between providing defensive utility, but actually having enough attack investment to threaten the stuff that you're suppposed to check in game.

I also really enjoy: mash/eq/rs/boom with enough sp.def to allow you to take 3 zapdos tbolts(been using this on a modest zapdos/hariyama/spin cloyster/metagross/wish blissey/fast fire blast grass crunch suit ttar team), gives you flexibility midgame and allows you to trade with zapdos in a pinch

blissey

I just wanted to say that I find it pretty surprising that I keep reading that zap+beat up dug special offenses "invalidated" teams relying on blissey as a special wall.

dugtrio running beat up is new yes: however dugtrio running ev spreads to ensure that it can reliably trap blissey is not.

adamant bliss killer dugtrio has always been a thing, learning that blissey is not safe to blindly switch vs zap till you at least have a spike down and understanding how to midground around the bp turn until you have that layer are pretty key to avoid losing bliss early vs zap dug special offenses.

other than that everything that blissey can bring to a team is known: the best special wall bar none in the tier, almost single handedly stops most of them barring specialized sets

it even has respectable enough physical bulk to let you burn pert eqs, and stay in vs tyranitar to deny free focus punch turns without losing too much in case it opts to rock slide.

blissey's also pretty great vs mixed offenses post the early meta explosion, mixed offense team members generally can't really switch vs seismic toss with a layer down on a long term basis.

zapdos

zapdos has always been awesome. it's always been my favorite pokemon on offense, because i view it as a playmaker, it sets up situations for you to double your tar/gross in vs the blissey/lax, etc and start applying pressure.

it's the corner stone of the zapdos mixed offenses(of which agi pass zapdos, paired with cm pass cele, possibly form my favorite iterations)

it has just enough bulk to take one hit from just about anything which is huge on those sorts of teams, having a nearly guaranteed one time switch in to stuff is what enables you to look for trades in game

rest zap used to be far more constricting in iterations of the meta where status spread slow burn games were more common place, it's still decent though. I think if you use it, you have to deny ttar it's free turns reliably which is why I think rest zap is most effective when on a dugtrio team.
i've been messing with a rest zap with enough defense to comfortably take focus punch/rock slide/earthquake/hp:bug max attack ttar rock slide and live after sand: this gives me the option of tbolting more reliably vs it early in a game to deny it free focus punches if needed, which adds a ton of flexibility to bulkier teams

superman(spikes based defensive teams with multiple levitating mons) didn't run dugtrio, but I also think those teams aren't great anymore: they are too passive with their layers(especially the gengar versions). the aerodactyl versions were able to abuse their layers far more effectively, but with the caveat that forretress matchups could occasionally feel impossible.(because the last slot was usually between gengar/aerodactyl)

i LOVE mixed zapdos: drill peck zap with spikes down is beastly. i've been running tbolt/grass/dp/roar recently: if you catch bliss coming in with all layers down, then the next time it comes back in it's at 50% or lower, so can't switch in vs drill peck; really potent if you can manage to effectively hold spikes long term with your team and put yourself in the position to abuse them in game.

i love the slower twave bp zap's that have been used on offensive teams too: let's you effectively trade paralysis(frequently with opposing zapdos, which is notoriously problematic in offense dittos), along with letting you easily, repeatedly getting in your major threats like ttar/metagross in. for the most part spikeless offenses seem to trend towards using this variant of offensive zap nowadays.

sub pass is also a very underrated set that people don't really account for while playing anymore, but can potentially set you up for cool stuff like: trapping blissey with dugtrio more easily, free meteor mashes with meta from behind a sub , free focus punches for ttar from behind a sub, free gengar turns(this one in particular is easy to come by: because stuff like blissey after switching into zapdos clicking sub will frequently seismic toss into it, to deny you a free meta/tar behind a sub - so subpass zap paired off with fpunch gar can be a potent pairing)

swampert

swampert has always been way better than flygon.

intelligently switching(getting in a low health swampert off a double switch for exaple) with it effectively gives you 12% back due to protect, so managing to play a layerless game on your side can make swampert seem impossible to remove(can even back it with wish, to make it seem like more of an immovable object)

also worth mentioning that intelligently pivoting swampert vs zapdos is pretty important when playing bulkier teams vs offense: gives you some spots where you can take some risks to get crucial lefties recovery/also lets you avoid giving them a free bp into dug/ttar/metagross etc.

offensive pert majorly changed the tempo of the game, but people are running max speed rash way less, and are instead opting for more of a balanced approach: faster than skarm to allow pert to try to squeeze in some bulk

if you manage to overlap swampert with other bulky waters or stuff like moltres(to give you more of a buffer vs metagross and also to give you a will-o-wisp pivot, which teams running bulkier swampert sets, especially without pursuit tar really appreciate), or metagross itself(which helps vs other metagross/ttar/aero, etc.), then it's defensive qualities truly start to shine because it's not overstretched in game.

i used to be a huge fan of defensive quiet pert, but that set's died down a bit

surf refresh tox is probably one of my most used defensive sets, but the way it opens up a team vs sub cm/wish cm jirachi is untenable when running a defensive team

sub punch is a more off beat offensive set, but has potential; it's completely useless vs milo/cel so I used to pair it with the aforementioned: sub cm jirachi to divide matchups to good effect

gengar

I'm pretty surprised I don't see it as often on spikes builds, people seem to be leaning more in favor of garless tss teams nowadays which is pretty surprising to me considering how taunt wow gar just shuts out some of the defensive teams i see floating around: stuff like cune dug dol skarm bliss jira in particular strike me as taunt wow gar weak long term.

goes without saying hypnosis gar can break games wide open if you're fine with occasionally rolling the dice. gengar being immune to spikes and having key resists is amazing to setup situations where you can fish out multiple free hypnosis turns. Also is fantastic versus claydol teams in a pinch, blocking them from removing spikes/even getting damage on gar is huge when you're playing really fast spikes offenses: i particularly like the classic hypno gar+aero build just because of how out of hand things can get when you're in an advantageous position(if hypnosis cooperates).

It's also pretty good without spikes on zap dug offenses, I'm not sure why its a bit less common on spikes teams really. Less gengar spikes also definitely plays into forretress spiking in popularity a bit, I see skarm teams just as relatively often, just see gar on them less for some reason. It's pretty fantastic regardless.

gengar dug skarm together are insanely restrictive vs offense, with dugtrio ensuring ttar/meta(if the meta hasn't already exploded early in the offense matchup) get no major trades vs stuff like pert, allowing you to keep pert fresh for mence/aero in the end game, alongside having gengar to clean up/pressure midgame with a spike down. offenses that don't have a plan in these matchups are non-starters, and missing that early cb gross boom into skarm(via meeting mag/molt/jira, etc on the boom turn) , having mag get removed by dugtrio before picking off skarm, etc can all be game ending

celebi

i rate celebi above the skarm cune stuff off the basis of its cm pass set(cause you need some turns to pass in the game before they get to spike slow burns/cune end game cleans)

to me that set in particular puts it more in the meta tier of mons(stuff which i see as pushing the game forward very quickly) just because i think the pace cm pass provides is unmatched. it literally pretty much invalidates slow sit around teams without the quick anti bp option in: aero/dug/cb mence etc

i honestly think the agi+cm pass variants of mixed offenses(the zap meta cele/lax ttar pert mence etc kind of ones) are the most conventionally solid/flexible ones both by virtue of giving you proper dug punishes, and by adding flexibility versus blissey which those teams can lack post the early meta boom(lax doesn't really help much on its own versus bliss with a spike down). even just cm pass alone on offense adds massive flexiblity, doesn't necessarily even need agi pass zapdos alongside it

the defensive celebi sets are also good if you are willing to commit to needing to be able to keep layers off long term and are willing to deal with getting gamebreaking freezes/crits while sitting around clicking recover. it goes without saying that even sp.def cele should be evd to take dugtrio bug after sand(at least with layers off)

an interesting set i'm messing around with on the defensive side (that i'm sure someone has used before): is protect leech - lets you scout cbers mid game, and makes it even more annoying to pivot around leech which is really valuable vs more offensive teams, can also let you potentially catch booms aimed at 50% celebi clicking "recover" which can be massive

it's worth noting that celebi is bulky enough to where it can sit in vs cb aero/mence and recover to scout out the move used, but doing that makes damage stick to cele forcing you into some hard decisions down the line potentially, which is just another reason i think tect has decent merit: even it's hard to drop one of celebi's other moves for it(stuff like psychic, heal bell etc all are great fits for defensive cele in particular, even hp:fire has a use case on defensive celebi as spikes denial!)

jirachi

i've always loved jirachi, i've never really been too big a fan of slam/wish sets(even if i think the wish 3 attacks sets are really good), just because i'm acutely aware that this jirachi even though on paper its a one man army versus mixed offense/other speed reliant teams in practice: it's dead to a thunder wave. you WILL get fped on a tect turn or not be able to wish when you need it. So i've never liked it TOO much even though i'm cognizant of how good it can be, paired with stuff like milo cel claydol,etc.

The sets that I do love are:

sub cm tbolt ip(which I think is fantastic in particular with dd grass tar, letting you divide matchups and broadly handle bulkier milo cel builds)

wish cm(thunder ice/fire grass/psy ice/psy thunder/psy fire are all sets i've experimented with on different builds and all of them have different upsides to them, this set also likes having pursuit tar alongside so that gar doesn't trade a will-o-wisp on to it which makes it less of a threat long term vs bulkier teams by virtue of having to click wish way more often+being forced out of winning positions much more easily. it also LOATHES being paralyzed which makes an aroma bliss team a solid fit for it)

super jira: staple on zap dug gar special offenses, probably the most individually threatening of the triad of jirachi/celebi/suicune seen on those teams(barring the variants of those builds which work in cm pass celebi on which celebi is the most threatening mon because of the midgame flexibility it gives you, along with helping the super jirachi possibly get setup safer by passing it boosts instead of having to trade health or status on its own to do it)

4 attacks mixed jira is incredibly mediocre. needs to catch bliss on the switch to push games vs it, need to hit dpunch v ttar in a pinch to block dd. far prefer wish hp:fight with your choice of 2 attacks.

snorlax

i don't believe lax is in the same tier effectiveness wise as dug

i don't think strategies centered around a mon vulnerable to rest looping as lax win long games all that often even if on paper something like claydol magneton pursuit etc makes it "good" vs the traditional sands. because sand has good options to loop lax in rest cycles for long term games; its effective enough at trading one for one(especially in offense games)

it's also awesome when there's no weather up especially vs defensive teams(in fact: i'd say it's best matchups are probably vs sandless defensive teams: they normally have leech celebi which can be pp burned, or roar cune which holds off curse bslam lax, which you in turn can get around by using return as your choice of attacking move to make progress off of each forced roar) unable to chip it reliably without sand up, letting lax setup or trade on its own terms

however vs tss teams, you often have to nail an early fp vs shadow ball turn to not fall massively behind, not to mention the fact that lax on offenses is not really good vs bliss with a spike down, you get to abuse it once or twice max before being engaging in trying to land a good self destruct with it

if i had to pick a favorite lax set it'd probably be curse boom because I know what i'm getting out of it game to game pretty much: trading with meta/tar(which makes it a great pairing with cune: either letting you remove weather reliably later, or removing a mon that has boom which can stifle your end game), or you catch skarm: letting you remove its layers permanently with claydol. So curse boom lax/cune/claydol are pretty brilliant together synergy wise: which makes the mence dol cune gross lax hera team a really intelligently built one to me

other than that one set: i wouldn't hate categorizing lax in the milo/loom/mag tier just because i think it fits the bill of occasionally very good, and occasionally a complete waste of space.

suicune

I think offensive cune is mediocre.

modest crocune is good, has solid game ending potential if sleep talk cooperates with you on phaze turns

sub cm hydro/surf ib is good versus milo cel, can be good vs bliss teams too if you're willing to go ultra slow which would let you pump up the sp.a and use surf>hydro which makes it a lot more reliable

sub cm rd is excellent to reset weather down the line to help support major threats like heracross, while being a massive threat vs blissey tss and milo cel teams

i think however the kinds of builds where I imagine sub rd cune fitting - dug builds/skarm beat down builds resetting layers w dol, can potentially struggle v mence, and this cune set can make the problem worse.

I can also see defensive cele with some offensive tools that are good vs cune once its chipped like mag/aero etc this set can struggle

sub cm roar can be a straight 6-0 or dead weight

cm rest can be amazing when supported well but the games where it does well it usually needs to avoid a bit of luck long term.

Keeping in mind that cm roar rest is pretty frequently seen on mag dol teams: ironically even with the skarm removed via magneton, and the spike removed(which entails winning some turns vs gengar given how frail claydol even on those defensive teams tend to be nowadays), the gengar w sand up can still be trouble, and can necessitate some awkward plays like staying in vs it to burn an extra sleep turn with cune and stuff like that. cm rest roar cune in general needs some good juggling of sleep turns, and the nuance to aggressively burn sleep when needed to not fall behind/get looped, to ensure you wake up and pose a threat.

Keeping this in mind, I'm a major fan of the aroma bliss+cune teams that I've seen floating around. especially the non mag ones: stuff like mence/meta/jira/bliss/dol/cune or even the classic cune/skarm/dug/dol/gar/bliss(can even have weather removal on the dug here!) team come to mind.

I'm never quite sure where I stand on cune because its one of the few mons you can reliably setup to win a game long term due to its fantastic defensive stats, but sand makes them a bit less daunting in practice. Suicune with weather removed however is a monster, so I'm always a major fan of the cune dug defensive builds, long as you have a plan to deal with gar long term(trading hits with it in exchange for burn/damage and resetting its progress via wish/aromatherapy or heal bell are pretty great ways to approach this issue)

dugtrio

strategies centered around dug:

zap dug jira cele mie etc soft of sp offenses are quite effective when they land the bp into bliss reliably(far far more reliable than the classic zap meta tar lax mixed offense style teams which notably are awful v defensive dug builds)

cune dug dol teams meant to kill the mons that loop your win con(tar! lets you reset weather too down the line, nabbing gross robs them of a boom which is massive when trying to solo cune a game)

then you got the milo dug teams being insanely restrictive anti offensive teams

all of the above are great at pushing their game plans because of how dug simplifies things. It provides more passive teams a way to avoid huge problem mons like cm pass celebi/cb metagross/starmie from spinning(when jolly dug)/punishing suicune in a rest loop(when adamant), definitely think its more consistent than mence/lax to a noticeable degree

salamence

i'm also not really high on salamence, i'm not a major fan of cb mence , the cb mence mag dol(barring the meta variants backed by wish bliss, which i think are conventionally very solid barring all the regular issues that playing defensive cune teams bring) sort of teams while sound on paper feel almost fragile in practice sometimes, tacking on cb mence on a team with 5 mons that are bad vs fighters , leads to it getting over relied on and generally means that long term you're really struggling vs those fighters anyway.

I think mixmence is excellent. Mixmence on spikes pushes games really quick, corners sluggish teams, once you get layer advantage, there's one loom mence tss floating around that i think is excellent in particular. you rob your opponent of a defensive piece with spore and then heavily pressure them with mixmence.

I'm a huge fan especially of naughty highly attack invested mixmence, bliss taking 50% or more(genuinely ending blissey off of catching it coming in rather than having it just burn a softboiled)/having a very immediate stop to ttar(doing in the high 80s to 90s range/occasionally even OHKOing frailer variants) is very handy for some of the teams you'll find mixmence on. especially the mence dol cune stuff appreciates the added pressure on bliss/tar(by virtue of usually not being able to fit spikes)

I think dd mence v dug offenses can be game ending but is very lackluster elsewhere, it is not a reliable dug punish vs bulkier dugtrio teams for the most part. dd mence does add a ton of value in matchups vs roar cm cune though, especially late game

sp.def dd mence is decent, once you get the second dd off i guess? I've taken to messing with a brick break ghost rock slide version, the logic being i don't have to drop attack evs to pump up sp.def for gar ice punch, when i can just ko gar held back.

ttar's frequently held back and usually doesn't die to +1 eq especially the kinds that are held back for mence; the team i had it on, ran it with leech fire cel/dd grass tar/eq grass tp meta so i was pretty sure i'd reliably end up with games where gross was gone by the late game, if it was a cb gross i was facing it'd generally have traded off with something long before the end game, and if it was a bulkier one my team had enough stuff to make it come in and take damage reliably.

the other major gripe i have with mence-
especially in matchups vs tss teams is that gar is frequently held back specifically to deal with it:

mixmence on mixed offense provides a spot for the gar tss player to reset tempo(especially if they get a free pivot, even harder to deal with gar if say it's backed by wish)

while dd mence at +1 frequently meets a bulky gengar that's been held back(this is frequently offset by sp.d dd mence/having pursuit tar on the mence gyara lax mag tar dd spam style teams, having to run pursuit tar on those teams vs a more aggressive dd grass set which is an overall better fit is mostly a concession to how dire the gar matchup can be outside of that)

i actually think the mons in the tier below the lax mence tier: milo forre dol etc are pretty good at doing what they are "supposed to".

think people are finally starting to appreciate that the role compression forre provides is quite nice.

I ironically rate mence/lax either in this tier of mons or possibly below them.

I think dug belongs a tier above where it currently is, and mence lax a tier below. Barring mixmence which I think is thoroughly excellent, i'm not really a big fan of either. I also rate aero a tier or two higher than it currently is for whatever that's worth

starmie

I think offensive starmie is pretty good if you're fine w games coming down to hydro cleaning. defensive twave starmie is vastly overrated,

it struggles to spin reliably both due to: occasionally being extremely slow(think hovering in the ~280s range)/skarm gar tar making the life of a grounded spinner that can neither ko tar, gar or skarm+takes toxic damage pretty difficult.

on skarm beatdown styles which reset layers late game, I'd much rather have claydol fill that role.

defensive starmie however occasionally gets matchups where its amazing, sandless games where the high amount of pp it has to burn+being able to pair with bliss/cele to render status ineffective is pretty awesome(notably in defensive milo matchups/letting you totally blunt tox ref pert/making slam or tox jira unable to actually get any game progressing status are all pretty amazing features to lend to a more defensively inclined team)

aerodactyl

disagree a bit with aero so low because i think it always provides you some outs and is fantastic when people are cheating on bulk on even traditionally defensive mons like pert/dol

it also lets you run more sit around teams with aero last tacked on(backed by wish potentially to guard vs celebi giga draining into aero repeatedly) to avoid elongated games where you end up losing to cm pass cele down the line

forretress

i've always been high on forretress as being the best spiker. skarm is an objectively better mon, forretress is better both at setting layers down and at holding them long term on its own. seeing people use it more often to good effect is cool

forretress thrives once games are reduced to situations where the forretress can blindly be hard switched on skarm to ensure you play layer free permanently. backing it up w wish to stop peck skarm from putting you on a timer is pretty good with it too.

people dropping gar on even forre stalls which are traditionally the most slow burn teams, for other options in the last 2 slots on tar/forre/bliss/pert style teams is interesting to me

gar was a fixture on these teams to a point where I used to read the structure as: tar/forre/bliss/pert/gar/x , with x being whichever filler mon you opted for - whether it be moltres/aero/zapdos/dug etc. , but now that people are using gar less tss more think its more appropriate to read it as having 2 flex slots. you gain some options by dropping gar there, but are notably worse in forre stall dittos(especially into the more traditional gar variants).

starmie/claydol, are easier to deal with as spinners even when you drop gengar just because forretress is self-sufficient vs them when it comes to holding spikes.

it's an interesting dynamic though: because even if forretress holds spikes vs both - the kind of teams I associate claydol with - skarm beatdown+claydol/cune dol stuff(with or without mag) matchup quite well vs forre teams as is, so ideally I don't think they'd need to reset the game with spin more than once.

the skarm pressure+dol builds generally trade significant damage vs teams reliant on layers for each layer so they have good pace in game vs even forre builds, so they can afford potentially having to trade hits to get spin off, while cune is just naturally decent vs a lot of forre builds

starmie teams have a bit more variety i think? on off mie tss with or without gengar, starmie's not a roadblock in terms of the hazard game: defensive mie fits on builds similar to where claydol would(skarm beatdown+starmie: meta/star/tar/bliss/pert/mence, meta/zap/tar/star/bliss/aero , yama/cel or bliss/mence/star/jira or gross/tar, etc)

i've seen it on even slower paced tss(sometimes with forre even, usually the starmie is the only one with spin on these teams, but dual spin is appealing too) , the only major difference in structure is that for the most part barring some structures like: zap/star/meta/dug/lax/cune that I've seen floating around you're not going to see suicune paired off with mie for the most part

I bring up the difference in structure because I think even if on paper: both defensive starmie and claydol struggle to spin vs forre potentially, I think in practice a lot of dol structures naturally matchup well vs forre teams(most of this is probably down to its natural synergy with cune/being immune to spikes).

I think the same can't be said for a lot of defensive starmie teams: they're more "sluggish" in game, and kind of focus more on just outlasting the opponent's build, forre thrives in these matchups: defensive starmie not being able to threaten the kind of ttars found on these forre builds(super bulky with crunch, where surf struggles to 2hko, letting tar even on gar less teams play the role of "spinblocker" - this is in sharp contrast to the popular attack invested claydol which reliably 2hko these tars, while being faster letting you get the jump on these teams in a lot of interactions)

defensive starmie taking spikes damage to remove layers/spending far more time clicking recover than rapid spin in practice, also makes it struggle v forre teams which enjoy the slower pace, long burn games

coming to my favored moves on it:

with defensive dol/mie teams bug forre's pretty popular now, but i've always found it hard to drop:

1) eq because being able to kill magneton without having to compromise on its ability to abuse most things for one layer at minimum is a major plus point for forre

unlike skarm: which can run hp:ground sets but trades being able to kill magneton(at least if its not the super bulky anti forre eq spread) for not being able to layer up safely versus waters celebi ttar mence etc. which are traditionally easy safe spots to spike up

you also lose the option of awkwardly staying in against zapdos which is a nice thing to have in a pinch)

2) explosion(having a way to close some end games with bulkier mons like cune/lax out reliably is nice)

bug/counter is an an interesting variant i've been messing with that I think is somewhat effective. dual spin on forre builds is definitely underexplored: having multiple ways to reset layer pressure is an interesting concept: i see people branching out into it with claydol/forre teams now which is cool

claydol

this is the best mon dedicated solely to removing layers. not starmie. defensive starmie occasionally lands amazing matchups, but with claydol you know what you're getting game to game.

the trade w skarm into late game spikes reset/cune teams/milo teams all love having this guy around.

the offensive claydol spreads revitalized this mon and made it more effective, hitting tar really hard with eq and moving before it, along with hitting gar just hard enough with psy to 2hko it, as well as being immune to spikes make it a prime candidate for team styles that need removal to function efficiently

milotic

i've always been a big milotic fan, it's admittedly a pretty passive mon and fits on pretty well explored defensive archetypes: mostly milo cel variants, milo dug dol defense, dual water tss configs(one of my all time favorite teams before was one particular ttar/forre/milo/pert/bliss/gar build actually) etc

surf tox refresh with some speed creep(~enough to hit 210) is my favored variant, to help me out vs niche mons like marowak/machamp in a pinch, there's a trade off in bulk though, the difference in bulk doesn't become really noticeable till you face off vs max attack +1 rs from adamant dd tar. however: most adamant dd tar are not max attack. most of them run bulk for dugtrio/other defensive benchmarks. the set which i do associate with going 252 attack/252 speed is dd jolly tar and that does not ever break you anyway(barring flinches)

milotic teams by default have a number of defensive liabilities-

-bulky dd bug tar can be an issue if milotic health isn't managed well/it gets removed via an explosion or a crit(even the dugtrio ones struggle because dugtrio can't ko these ttar variants from full)

-cm pass can be an issue(often you have to just keep phazing the celebi with skarm if you have it and follow up with a dug trap, if you're a bit more adventurous you can try and catch cm pass celebi on a cm turn/an hp:fire into skarm)

-sub cm jirachi/wish cm jirachi can be a major roadblock to these teams too, the best ones vs these jira sets are the milo teams that run dug but even then the matchup's not great especially vs wish cm jirachi.

In the moltres/loom/hera/magneton tier of mons, I think moltres/loom are the best in that category, I've never really been too big a fan of heracross
and I think magneton is kind of bad. I could see moltres and breloom a tier higher too honestly.

moltres

moltres is great, long as you aren't facing off vs blissey, which you can still pressure with roar/forcing it to softboiled off damage it takes after coming in on will-o-wisp. I've really taken a liking to moltres with protect recently, makes it insanely restrictive v offenses, and lets you fire off free attacks vs teams that probably can't switch vs moltres on a long term basis.

modest moltres is fantastic with sand up. Even stuff like milotic/suicune can't really come in all that safely, there's potential to loop cune/force milotic to spam recover getting you some free crit fish turns which can be game ending.

it has some pretty premium properties on defense too:
- a will-o-wisp midground to ease pivoting vs gengar mid game especially in tss matchups
- a good accompaniment to bulky waters/skarm because it gives you redundancy vs metagross
- a long term way to blunt cm pass.

breloom

I think breloom almost feels better than heracross to me most of the time, heracross does cleave through some more defensive matchups: stuff like hera mag p2 has always been decent in my opinion.

spore is better in almost every other matchup, its even still useful in defensive matchups where even if you meet a bulky celebi, eventually you'll probably catch a bulky jira/dol sleep sack with it.

this coupled with the fact, that on a lot of the defensive teams aformentioned: cb mence can't switch in vs the loom long term with sand up(although this equally applies to heracross barring the spore bit), makes me feel like loom's decent even in matchups where its "covered". sleep with the ability to punish sleep burns with powerful focus punches is a massive upside to using loom.

running mach loom with a pursuiter to guard versus dugtrio traps lets you avoid running hera dug+ other mons that enjoy dug gone(which essentially restricts you somewhat to the zap hera/cel dug jira flavor of spikeless offenses) or hera p2 mag style teams(which even if they are decent generally have massive issues versus some stuff like moltres and other fast special attackers like super jira/i think running p2 is mostly a concession that ends up being made when running a flawed overly dugtrio weak team, usually its not worth giving meta/lax/tar(guess hp:fighting p2 denies the free ttar turns though?) free turns in game.

i'm like running a tad of sp.def on breloom let's you take blissey ice beam, which makes staying in to sky uppercut it much more straightforward which can simplify some games where you absolutely need to have the loom around later

heracross

Heracross feels a bit more specialized. It's way better versus defensive teams than breloom for the most part, and it's salac set makes it a major presence at the end of a game.

Loom on the flipside gives you pretty much nothing late game(barring having mach punch to guard vs dd tar cleaning), while having a major danger factor to it early due to spore.

loom's a bit worse versus defensive teams even if spore's still nice vs them for the most part, while being better than heracross to me in some matchups: noticeably offense dittos(where effectively stealing a kill with spore is amazing).

Breloom also broadly fits on more teams I think, stuff like breloom tss is pretty decent as an example of a more offbeat style where it'd fit where hera probably wouldn't.

breloom on these teams lets you shift gears quickly and get some mileage off your spikes, which is also a sign of people moving towards more actively taking advantage of their spikes in game, instead of waiting for games to get to the point where taunt wow gar, slow burns to a win/waiting for everything to be in the range of your tss filler cleaner mon.

Heracross is obviously still great:

stuff like weather reset with salac hera is awesome late game

hera mag p2 have always been around and cleave through defensive teams

meta jira hera porygon2 spikeless offense is another one i used to enjoy a ton just because of the enormous pressure being applied from everything but the porygon2.

I think cb hera even if its massively destructive occasionally is pretty mediocre versus tss teams too, even if you mag the skarm, spike plus gar along with a fast filler mon on their side will generally be pretty good versus the kinds of teams cb hera's on.

sd salac is a fantastic cleaner, but provides nothing before the end game pretty much.

sd 3 attacks is mediocre, it used to be great versus tss when no attack skarm was the norm but is pretty disappointing for the most part now.

i like 4 attacks with hp:ghost just because you can trade versus most stuff on bulkier teams pretty nicely.

the only reason i feel like looms a bit better is just because it feels like hera's more extreme. you get higher highs and lower lows, and I also feel like even on spikeless offenses breloom is a bit more slappable.

magneton

I think magneton is pretty objectively bad. I don't even think its particularly great vs spikes teams because:

1) forre which is on an uptrend doesn't really care about it

2) if its mag offense, skarm getting that single layer is already a net win: your team is in all likelihood not holding off the zap/molt long term with the layer down+ your opponent doing stuff like doubling skarm out of telegraphed mag on certain structures to give them free attacks with something you can switch in to like once or twice max(think moltres fire blast) makes me feeling like being forced to go to mag on any given turn is a liability

3) if its mag defense(magneton should always be the anti forre eq spread on these imo), facing off vs stuff like cb meta+skarm(which allows you to potentially explode into the mag, freeing skarm down the line)/skarm mag+pursuit/skarm dug, can all play a role in making sure your magneton doesn't meet its intended target.

People overstate how easy leech bp celebi makes trapping, for the most part no one experienced is going to go to their skarm vs the celebi, to give you a completely free trap, magneton is best used to remove skarm on a double switch. I think the only teams its good on are mag dol builds, because the rest of the team has the bulk to offset magneton essentially being a defensive 0/a designated sack post removing skarm.

Even then i'm not a huge fan of mag dol teams given how difficult cune/lax end games can be with sand up sometimes, dragging those games out need you to make your peace with the fact that you're open to critical hits ending your win con, during rest loop cycles(vs stuff like cb aero/focus punch lefties tar notably notably, also those teams with cune asleep especially the non metagross versions are liable to lose to dd tar fishing a flinch on the cune wake up turn.).

i especially agree with cloyster/jolteon/flygon being low

flygon

flygon's always been way worse than swampert to me, even if there was a period when every other dd tar was ib just to account for it.

it just lets in all the wrong stuff pretty much. letting in gar/skarm for free means its always a spot on your team that loses momentum really easily.

I used to like cb somewhat, with magneton+pursuit you can try to reduce games to situations where you can spam eq, but it rarely happens in practice because there are ground immunes other than skarmory/gengar.

3 attacks sub/4 attacks/tect 3 attacks are all decent to varying degrees as the anti-bp slot on more passive builds, but overall yeah pretty mediocre.

I will say sub 3 attacks, can kind of really do a lot of work vs zap mixed offenses(especially with most of them running grass zapdos, and swampert on those teams tending to be extremely frail, they can end up feeling very soft vs flygon) but those teams aren't ones that i think perform all that well anyway, so I don't really value being specifically good in that one matchup

hariyama

i've always liked the hariyama claydol teams, as a pick vs slower tss builds, you timer their spiker, and reset layers down the line: which is a pretty major advantage.

However these slow paced hariyama claydol teams struggle versus faster paced tss ones(stuff like mence loom tss, can keep you in a disadvantaged state all game for example)

it steps on spikes and is a defensive mon, so in the vein of milotic/celebi i'm not using this without claydol/forretress/starmie for the most part.

I think full offensive hariyama with speed is pretty mediocre.

however I do like running hariyama with a ton of attack and sp. def(to tank off cele psy) to allow hp:bug to get past frail celebi(superbi/cm pass bi) this allows slower paced teams to punish or at least prevent celebi from passing with yet another slot which is pretty major.

alternatively you could just run aerodactyl or moltres which are probably good fits as the last slot on: hariyama meta/jira star/dol ttar cele/bliss style teams.

jolteon

jolteon's always been middling.

it is even more middling now that claydol's on the uptick

jolteon tss teams play this really fast paced frentic game which gives you really solid end games v frailer teams(like mixed offenses especially when paired with zap/off mie etc),

which is a trait it shares with some niche offensive options like offensive roar cune(which is excellent v some frailer teams: stuff like mag offense, it's also pretty good vs mixed offense when lax has to take on both it+zapdos in the same game etc).

They're both good, vs teams that are broadly not good in the meta, and so by extension they themselves are just not that good.

the only jolteon teams I really enjoy using: are really fast paced dual electric ones
- zap/jolt/ttar/meta/cloy/pert
- zap/jolt/flygon/gar/tar/skarm
- ttar/skarm/zap/jolt/gar/meta
- ttar/skarm/jolt/gar/starmie/meta(pretty fast paced so i give this one a pass)
- ttar/zap/jolt/starm/tar/meta

i only really believe in jolteon with spikes, although there have been a few successful teams that don't adhere to that

cloyster

cloyster's always been half a mon to me. It's kind of good on really fast paced builds sometimes: stuff like the zap jolt cloy team which I used to love using just because of how fast paced it is, the mixmence meta cloy cele sort of teams also slot it in pretty nicely, but outside of that i've always been unimpressed by it.

There's some cool stuff it can do: like living starmie tbolt to trade with it via boom(somewhat telegraphed considering how awful cloyster teams usually matchup into starmie especially more offensive ones), can also run a fastish cloy with some sp.a invest to reliably 2hko ttar which is cool as a dd denial option on more offensively inclined teams, but overall really been too high on it.

steelix

been building with steelix a fair bit: think its underrated a bit-

been experimenting with a counter tect tar/counter bug forre/slow tect roar molt/tox ref milo/roar lix/tect leech grass cele team - the logic being: you got the molt to prevent cm pass losses which are typically very common when you're trying to run a slower build, you got roar lix to: help with the cm wish jira issue these style of teams usually have+ the counter spam makes the team pretty resilient to those zap dug style offenses which is a plus, team has quite a good match up vs cbers/can push games vs slow cune builds long term/good vs zap dug/has anti cm pass stuff/is really restrictive vs zap meta style offenses/has an out vs wish cm thunder ice jira(barring freeze lol.)

ticks pretty much all the boxes for me as a defensive team.

the tect spam lets you prevent cbers from making progress, dropped boom from lix because i think exploding a key defensive piece is fundamentally unsound usually except to simplify end games;

counter tect tar lets me force meta on offensive teams to either boom for zero or potentially trade w the tar itself, letting me have milo molt unscathed for those zap meta lax tar style matchups;

counter bug forre lets me hold layers effectively+again stops a key member from being dugged(boom forre can boom on it, but countering dug that hard switches on the spike turn to remove forre, letting me keep it and use it for either more layers/a sack down the line is way better in my opinion)

I'm ok with the forre being worse v grass mag teams because grass mag implies a magneton offense build: stuff in the vein of meta lax cel mag mence gyara etc where my moltres in its own right is a long term win condition

teams a bit shaky vs mie spinning so i tried to offset that by running a pretty bulky moltres that tanks off mie hydro/having bug forre/currently juggling between crunch suit last two moves on tar or fire blast suit last two etc.

think these sort of anti offense teams, that seek to reduce games/have layer removal to allow you to long term switch between milo cele and steelix are some of the best fits for steelix and are better than the older mag lix star sort of builds(better than steelix mag offenses too somewhat just because i'm not a huge fan of magneton offense in general).

people overstate the fact that steelix is spike bait: all of defensive pert/bliss/cele/milo etc, all the grounded blobby defensive mons that are forced to switch in to respond to stuff are generally the biggest spike bait mons ever so that issue can be played around by ensuring you try to reduce games to layerless affairs(pursuiting the gar to let you spin skarm layers long term by blindly harding forre on skarm, possibly backing the forre by wish to avoid issues w dp skarm is the approach i took),

that approach of reducing games to allowing you to blind switch between your defensive mons is an approach that's always been around: notably in the milo cel dol/milo mag donphan cel pursuit styles of builds, which are the kind of constricting teams that i see steelix being an excellent fit on

smeargle

i disagree with smeargle being below cloyster, because I think both of them bring negligible value defensively(Smeargle can also do the sp.def investment to live starmie hydro and explode on it, in the same manner that cloy can be evd for starmie tbolt). So i'd rather rate them on the merits of the offensive tempo they bring to a team. It can also do some interesting niche stuff like mirror coating zapdos(even if it can feel slightly telegraphed). I'd quite frankly rather use smeargle as a spiker on most cloy teams, zap forcing in spike bait mons letting you bp to your spiker works with any of the spikers honestly.

And sleep is way more tempo setting/game defining than whatever questionable defensive utility cloyster occasionally brings to the table. One of my biggest fears when using smeargle is that I'll get the lead slept, get a spike and then skarm comes in and trades layers with me so I've taken to messing with taunt and will-o-wisp(to timer skarm). thunder wave in that filler spot is excellent vs offense though so I'm not sure.

Admittedly spikes smeargle lost a lot of its surprise value without opponents having to respect the bd pass set but I think it's still decent on its own merits.

kingdra

I disagree with kingdra so low just because I think the zap dug teams where its a great fit as a cleaner really appreciate the mix of bulk(late game dd mence check!), and cleaning power(its a stronger offensive starmie that needs a turn of setup that provides some actual defensive value)

Ludicolo has the same offensive profile but on the dug offenses where you'd find both I generally think you'd want the dd mence insurance late game far more.

So Kingdra to some extent is straight out better than ludicolo to me even if I think sets like modest leech ludicolo are really strong occasionally. I definitely believe Kingdra's at least on par with stuff like gyarados, flygon and jolteon.

 

[watermess]

Sounds like someone is sad because they lost to one

yo dude, sounds like you've had some real success with the camel, can't say I found it particularly impressive myself in the builder, but since you got to 1600 with it I'd love to see some builds from someone with more experience using the mon, maybe you could share some of your camel teams with us, since Ive never run into you on ladder, I'd love to see what that looks like!

Don't be mean to my friends tho!

:))

 

[adv syndrome]

I don't know that Camer*pt is particularly good at taking advantage of its good match-ups, anyhow. Defensive Gar can feasibly stay in on it and tank any hit, forcing a choice lock, while sub variants of Jolt/Zap very can feasibly stay in and force choice lock there, too, then BP to punish it. C*merupt can't even reliably force or capitalize on switches in these match-ups. It's not clear that you can actually control the tempo of the game without mind-games that aren't even 50-50's in its better match-ups between quake/boom resistance/immunity, so even if you get it in on these guys, there's a better chance of it falling flat than pulling its weight. Maybe it's nice to switch in on predicted Forre/Skarm doubles? Match-up evaluations aren't friendly to Cam*rupt, and beyond that, there is a strain on team-building. Could you elaborate on other qualities or whether I've missed something? I'm not so much interested in C*merupt in and of itself -- moreso the tiering discussion (and the relative value of so-called 'F-tier' mons in the meta which was the focus of your post, if I'm reading it correctly). I tend to think Lanturn, Articuno, Ninjax, etc. are better at controlling the tempo of a game, for one reason or another, and more easily lend themselves to bread-and-butter strategic play and building. Not here to trash R*pt. Interested in the discussion. Thanks!

The fact that Camerupt isn't at the very least E tier is an absolute joke.

Hilarious that back in 2014-2016, people were considering Camerupt as a B/C tier pokemon and now it's somehow F tier below BLAZIKEN. Tells me that the bottom of this tier list is a joke.

I've used Camerupt for over 1500 games and have reached 1600 ELO while beating plenty of 1650+ ELO people in the past. The fact that it's not taken seriously is hilarious.

Explosion, ability to switch onto Gengar, takes neutral damage from BOTH HP's (ice and grass), combination of Earthquake/FB, etc.

The fact that it's below something like Blaziken is even more of a joke.

 

[ed06288]

I wanted to drop in to say that I'm really loving swampert, and I'm not as big on claydol/starmie anymore. Or any rapid spinner really. To be fair, I still really want rapid spin support on a team, but the stats/types/movepools of the spinners leave a little to be desired. I bring this up because usually I'm a big supporter of claydol on these forums, and I understand why some don't like claydol.

 

[Eeveeto]

I have not played Adv in a long time, but have used Camerupt a lot in the past. CB one is BAD (every non Dugtrio and maybe Steelix Ground with CB is bad in Adv). Lefties one however is an amazing Mon that soft checks many dangerous threats: Zapdos, Gengar, Skarmory (well, this one is not hard), Jirachi, non CM Celebi, Magneton, Jolteon and Gengar among others.

Camerupt is slow and not particulary bulky, BUT it also has moves with high power. When it manages to get in, it threatens everything with both STABs and Boom. Boom almost guarantees that Camerupt at least trades with something since Steels and Rocks can,t usually switch-in well on it (Solrock and Lunatone are an exception to this, but almost no one uses them).
The typical bulky waters can,t check Camerupt the same way they check, lets say Tyranitar, Aerodactyl or Salamence, since if Camerupt booms on them, the real Tyranitar, Aerodactyl or Salamence that appears after Camerupt becomes a lot more threatening. And Camerupt doesn,t always has to Boom. Its 4th slot (STABs and Explosion are the 3 must moves to have) its very flexible and can be HP Grass, HP Ice, HP Electric if you really fear Gyara, Toxic, Sub, Sleep Talk and Protect. Camerupt is this type of Mons that don,t do much in most match-ups but almost always do SOMETHING.

Which brings me to the side that wants Camerupt to go up to E (I would even put it as high as D, but lets do one thing at a time). In D Rank we have Mons like Regice (another example of Mon that is slow but has high power special coverage + Boom to threaten special walls), Machamp and medicham (hit very hard, but can,t switch-in on almost anything), Umbreon (decent wisher, match-up fisher with Mean Look + BP), Ludicolo and Kingdra (rain sweepers), Jynx (unreliable but very strong sleep lead) and Raikou (very niche CM sweeper that I would honestly put in G rank if such thing existed). I don,t think Camerupt is that much worse than any of those Mons (and in fact its a lot better than Raikou, though everything in Adv is better than Raikou, that thing is straight up terrible) to be a rank below them.