BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

[Lavos]

Oh god that Cloyster set. I've only faced it once so far as I'm aware, but it totally screwed me the hell over when it flinched my Vaporeon with Rock Blast. My current team would be a little better off but still at serious risk.

Speaking of which, said current team is probably going to have to be retired when Gothitelle actually starts getting the usage it deserves. My team is a Regenerator core, so it NEEDS to switch. Gothitelle would destroy both Amoongus and Slowbro and I'd just be flat out screwed. I might actually have to start running shed shell if it becomes a problem...

So yeah, Gothitelle kind of scares the crap out of me and I'm just glad no one seems to realize how dangerous it is yet. Shadow Tag anything is a stall player's worst nightmare, and I've only gotten more and more stall oriented as the fifth generation has dragged on...

haha well that's the thing about king's rock cloyster, you think you have it walled and then surprise your wall just got flinched! great set, sorry about your vaporeon though :(

and yes, i would highly recommend going the dw route and running shed shell amoonguss. dw players do it for st chandy, but imo goth is a huge threat to your team from the two pokes you've listed. or you could just run sand stall and not care at all because pursuit ttar is the best gothitelle counter out there.

 

[X5Dragon]

I have been giving it a thought and I've arrived at the conclusion that maybe Game Freak hasn't neglected Hail or made it underpowered as we may think, maybe it's just made to be a stall oriented weather, as opposed to the other, more offensive siblings of Hail.

I mean, sure, a good argument against that would be that Hail doesn't have the SpD boost that Sand gives rocks, but in general Hail has no speed boosting abilities unlike the other 3, most of its abilities concern either lowering the evasion of your mons or healing under hail, and it hits everything not ice, even steel for passive damage.

Dunno, this is a random thought of mine..

 

[Lavos]

I have been giving it a thought and I've arrived that maybe Game Freak hasn't neglected Hail or made it underpowered as think, maybe it's just made to be a stally weather, as opposed to the other, more offensive oriented siblings of Hail.

I mean, sure, a good argument against that would be that Hail doesn't have the SpD boost that Sand gives rocks, but in general Hail has no speed boosting abilities unlike the other 3, most of its abilities concern either lowering the evasion of your mons or healing under hail, and it hits everything not ice, even steel for passive damage.

Dunno, this is a random thought of mine...

yea, i agree...hail offense is sort of absurd to me actually. i mean, what do you even have? kyurem? ok...maybe mamoswine too, but that's not nearly enough abuse to build an offensive team around. abomasnow's best set is subseed. that alone should speak volumes about how hail is meant to be played. lady bug's classic gen 4 stall team of abomasnow / starmie / blissey / skarmory / nidoqueen / spiritomb was one of the best teams out there for a time, proving that hail stall is definitely a viable strategy, despite rain-and-sand-centric metagames.

hail is still the worst weather, though. i don't think you can really argue against that, because there's so little to abuse. sure, it's very anti-meta, but that only gets you so far. with all the great toys that rain, sand, and sun get to play with, it makes sense that hail is the most neglected and least used weather. it can be used well, don't get me wrong, but it takes a lot more effort and a lot more skill to do it right than it would for rain, sand, or sun teams.

edit: i took a little too much away from abomasnow, it's still a good pokemon and can run a decent offensive set. in addition, it can be tough to switch weather starters into it because it can hit all of them super-effectively with one move or another. however, it can be played around, and some stuff like jirachi just flat out beats it. additionally, with the advent of genesect, it's very easy to beat up on abomasnow, and scouting has never been easily. i still contend that hail is the least effective of the four weathers.

 

[X5Dragon]

Well it's kind of saying "which turtle is the fastest" when talking about the survivability of the weather inducers, because even with Berries/Balloons they would (almost) all die OHKO with the right super effective STAB, while generally struggling to produce the same results offensively except against very frail mons.

Hail is so anti-meta right now that I have replaced Rain Dance as means to wash unwanted weather with the move. I'd think if Chandy were released and more Snow Abusing mons were released/unveiled Snow will definitely get mentioned in the same sentence as the others.

But in general you are right, Hail isn't something beginners or even those like me who can't understand or want to rely on weather want to touch. Yet at the same time I think we should talk about offensive Snow the same way we do about Stall Sun, instead of being the norm it's the reverse.

Edit: Thinking about all the above made me realized how overpowered rain is, you can play it anyway you want and you'll find the tools you need at your feet.

 

[Jimera0]

Well it's kind of saying "which turtle is the fastest" when talking about the survivability of the weather inducers, because even with Berries/Balloons they would (almost) all die OHKO with the right super effective STAB, while generally struggling to produce the same results offensively except against very frail mons.

Hail is so anti-meta right now that I have replaced Rain Dance as means to wash unwanted weather with the move. I'd think if Chandy were released and more Snow Abusing mons were released/unveiled Snow will definitely get mentioned in the same sentence as the others.

But in general you are right, Hail isn't something beginners or even those like me who can't understand or want to rely on weather want to touch. Yet at the same time I think we should talk about offensive Snow the same way we do about Stall Sun, instead of being the norm it's the reverse.

Edit: Thinking about all the above made me realized how overpowered rain is, you can play it anyway you want and you'll find the tools you need at your feet.

This is just to the edit: easy to use =/= overpowered. Overpowered means that you can win, even against experienced and prepared players, on a regular basis, without much skill. Rain requires skill to be able to beat experienced and prepared players reliably. If you are new you might be able to win consistently against similarly expereinced players by using a rain team, yes, but against players who actually know their way around the metagame? You're still just a new player to them. At higher levels of play using rain does not give you an immediate advantage against other teams. That is why it is not overpowered. I stand by my assertion in many other parts of this site that rain is just another playstyle that can beaten just as well as any other playstyle. Contrary to what other people might tell you, you do NOT need to run overspecialized checks to beat rain reliably. If you want to beat EVERY rain team you might have to, but that's the same for every type of playstyle; you can never cover everything.

It makes more sense if you look at rain as a set of abusers rather than a single enitity in and of itself. No rain team can put every rain threat available on their team, and because of that there will always be holes like in any other team. Similarly, you can't expect to counter every single rain abuser, but then again not every single rain team will be using the Pokemon you can't reliably beat (well unless that Pokemon is Politoed I suppose :P). As long as you can beat the vast majority of threats, you'll be ok. That's the way Pokemon has always worked (well at least the past two generations, never played the earlier ones competitively). You've always had to counter the vast majority of threats, but could never be expected to counter all of them. That hasn't changed. It's just because so many threats happen to fall under one umbrella that we start to think of Rain as overpowered.

 

[doughboy]

Still there is the unexplored potential of Exeggutor on sun. Prefer him over Shiftry for that nifty Mach Punch resistance :)

yea, i agree...hail offense is sort of absurd to me actually. i mean, what do you even have? kyurem? ok...maybe mamoswine too, but that's not nearly enough abuse to build an offensive team around.
edit: i took a little too much away from abomasnow, it's still a good pokemon and can run a decent offensive set. in addition, it can be tough to switch weather starters into it because it can hit all of them super-effectively with one move or another. however, it can be played around, and some stuff like jirachi just flat out beats it. additionally, with the advent of genesect, it's very easy to beat up on abomasnow, and scouting has never been easily. i still contend that hail is the least effective of the four weathers.

I have held this idea from the dual weather challenge and the dual weather tourny but Abomasnow acts like a "normal, regular OU" Pokemon more than a weather inducer. Of course this ties into the fact that Hail doesn't have the tools/toys to really "abuse" its weather that was mentioned earlier. When teambuilding for these events, Abomasnow was the most popular choice for a second weather inducer. The teambuilds were like this: "5 slot" rain/sand team + Abomasnow almost as if Abomasnow was just apart of a regular, balanced weather team.

Thing is Abomasnow still behaves like this when building a weatherless balanced team o.O Go ahead and try it! When you startout/incorporate Abomasnow on a team don't think of it as "I'm building a hail team now" rather "OK I'm building a balanced team with a Poke with an SR weakness". What hail really is like is the "clear skies" inducer of OU. Of course Hail will really limit your use of items outsides of Lefties, paticularly LO, but in the end you won't find yourself straying to far off from a regular bulky offensive team. Sandstorm is similar to this, but finds itself having some clearcut abusers (Landorus, Terrakion, and Stoutland).

With this in mind, a Hail Volt-Turn team would actually be very interesting to explore. Volt-Turn utilized Sand's ability to take away Lefties recovery from Pokes so that SR + chip damage from U-turn/Volt Switch really made an impact. Hail would only expand the scope of that chip damage. While Abomasnow does lack Stealth Rock, Landorus or Terrakion can pick up the slack now while Abomasnow can play the role of the bulky-grass type and Dragon slayer on the team (NP Celebi and then Navi Celebi really found its home on Volt-Turn for the bulky grass role). Seriously, Ice Shard is too cool of an option in this metagame to pass up. Abomasnow's Ice Shard + Scizor's CB Bullet Punch and Quick Attack will really cause some headaches. Now you will run into problem's with two 4x Fire weakness' but it is manageable.

 

[Lavos]

I have held this idea from the dual weather challenge and the dual weather tourny but Abomasnow acts like a "normal, regular OU" Pokemon more than a weather inducer. Of course this ties into the fact that Hail doesn't have the tools/toys to really "abuse" its weather that was mentioned earlier. When teambuilding for these events, Abomasnow was the most popular choice for a second weather inducer. The teambuilds were like this: "5 slot" rain/sand team + Abomasnow almost as if Abomasnow was just apart of a regular, balanced weather team.

Thing is Abomasnow still behaves like this when building a weatherless balanced team o.O Go ahead and try it! When you startout/incorporate Abomasnow on a team don't think of it as "I'm building a hail team now" rather "OK I'm building a balanced team with a Poke with an SR weakness". What hail really is like is the "clear skies" inducer of OU. Of course Hail will really limit your use of items outsides of Lefties, paticularly LO, but in the end you won't find yourself straying to far off from a regular bulky offensive team. Sandstorm is similar to this, but finds itself having some clearcut abusers (Landorus, Terrakion, and Stoutland).

With this in mind, a Hail Volt-Turn team would actually be very interesting to explore. Volt-Turn utilized Sand's ability to take away Lefties recovery from Pokes so that SR + chip damage from U-turn/Volt Switch really made an impact. Hail would only expand the scope of that chip damage. While Abomasnow does lack Stealth Rock, Landorus or Terrakion can pick up the slack now while Abomasnow can play the role of the bulky-grass type and Dragon slayer on the team (NP Celebi and then Navi Celebi really found its home on Volt-Turn for the bulky grass role). Seriously, Ice Shard is too cool of an option in this metagame to pass up. Abomasnow's Ice Shard + Scizor's CB Bullet Punch and Quick Attack will really cause some headaches. Now you will run into problem's with two 4x Fire weakness' but it is manageable.

did i just hear somebody say hail volt-turn? because that's what i'm testing on showdown right now and it's destroying everybody.

the lineup is ebelt abomasnow, scarf darmanitan, band victini, life orb mamoswine, sdef rotom-w, and physically defensive forretress. definitely sounds horrible at first glance, but when you really take a look at it i think you'll see it's actually not too bad, not to mention extremely anti-meta. like i said earlier, ebelt abomasnow is incredibly hard to switch a weather starter into (mine doesn't carry eq to check ninetales but it has darm/victini to beat sun). combine that fact with a bunch of hard-hitting pokes and 4 uturn/vswitch users, and you have a serious threat on your hands. i've been playing with this team for a couple hours and it's gone 27 wins 2 losses. not bad for a hail team.

i wouldn't even call this hail offense, this is more like hyper offense + a hail inducer (abomasnow). it's a playstyle all its own, i think, because abomasnow is such the perfect weather counter and when you combine it with a ton of offensive threats it's very hard for the opponent to keep up. yet it's not a hail-centric team; sure, it has snow cloak mamoswine, but that doesn't make the team completely reliant on keeping hail up. abomasnow is more there to annoy the opponent's weather inducer than anything else.

your thoughts? if anyone wants the pastebin i can post that as well.

 

[SpecsX]

Wow. Those are my thoughts. How do you use Abomasnow? As a weather counter solely, or does it do other things for your team?

 

[Lavos]

Wow. Those are my thoughts. How do you use Abomasnow? As a weather counter solely, or does it do other things for your team?

it's mainly for beating other weather starters and/or putting the opponent at a disadvantage in that abomasnow forces them to either go to a certain pokemon or let something die. in that scenario i'll predict what their best option is to beat abomasnow and then switch to the respective offensive threat that beats their abomasnow check, generally victini or mamoswine. i would say its primary use is countering weather though. nowadays with all the rain teams running around that are completely reliant on rain for their 100% accurate hurricanes and thunders and rain dish recovery, abomasnow has never been better. it just flat out unbalances the opponent, generally putting them in a position for one of my offensive threats to do some work. rinse and repeat.

 

[SpecsX]

What if Abomasnow goes down, and they get their preferred weather up? All it takes is a Tornadus-T to predict a switch and Superpower to end Aboma.

 

[Lavos]

What if Abomasnow goes down, and they get their preferred weather up? All it takes is a Tornadus-T to predict a switch and Superpower to end Aboma.

i never switch abomasnow into tornadus-t, that's what specially defensive rotom-w is for. life orb hurricane is only a 4hko, and i can scare it out with the potential of volt switch. your point is valid: the only two losses i've had with the team were when i let abomasnow die and they got perma-rain up, but that wasn't a result of the team being bad, just me playing carelessly.

 

[Ricky Horror]

Volcarona isn't seeing its two new notable moves being abused/used or not to my experience, with Tornadus-T rampaging the meta game with with it's arsenal of Rain followers, should it not have more freedom to spread those wings? Giga drain let's it sap bulky waters dry, not toe to toe of course. Roost should let it become more bulky and obtain the beloved Quiver Dance in numerous amounts, yet it still doesn't par with Dragonite; unless your running some bizarre HP Ice variant. Hurricane Volcarona is the best set IMO. It can gather up a few boosts and hit all it's hard counters bar Heatran(which is why you have a rain team to deal with). Rains grants you a bulky spinner or an offensive spinner: Tentacruel and Starmie. Tentacruel that I have seen shoot up in appearance.

 

[Lavos]

Volcarona isn't seeing its two new notable moves being abused/used or not to my experience, with Tornadus-T rampaging the meta game with with it's arsenal of Rain followers, should it not have more freedom to spread those wings? Giga drain let's it sap bulky waters dry, not toe to toe of course. Roost should let it become more bulky and obtain the beloved Quiver Dance in numerous amounts, yet it still doesn't par with Dragonite; unless your running some bizarre HP Ice variant. Hurricane Volcarona is the best set IMO. It can gather up a few boosts and hit all it's hard counters bar Heatran(which is why you have a rain team to deal with). Rains grants you a bulky spinner or an offensive spinner: Tentacruel and Starmie. Tentacruel that I have seen shoot up in appearance.

hurricane volcarona is pretty great, i agree. the ability to even be able to confusehax your way through some of the biggest special walls in the game comes in handy sometimes. however, i find it does have its drawbacks, the biggest of which being that it's very easy to spot. if you see volcarona on a rain team in the team preview, you're going to automatically assume it's the offensive hurricane variant, right? that's what i don't like about it; as opposed to other volcarona, where you can't tell if it's going to be bulky qd or offensive giga drain or whatever, when it's on the same team as politoed it's instantly recognizable, and that makes it easier to prepare for - overall, less of a threat. true, some teams can't handle it at all, which is nice. but for the teams that do have a means of handling it, the strategy for winning is made that much clearer to them. if they need to keep their specially defensive jirachi above 60% to be able to survive a +1 bug buzz and paralyze it, then they'll know not to let it eat that specs politoed's surf early on. sorry if i'm being a bit unclear, i hope i'm getting the message across...

however, the point you make that volc's #1 check, heatran, is basically rendered void by the rain you bring is a very valid point indeed. it's like i said earlier; some teams just can't handle the presence of offensive hurricane volcarona with rain support.

by the way, i'm curious, what do you normally run in the 4th moveslot of hurricane volc? i know the first three are quiver dance, hurricane, and bug buzz - do you use giga drain? roost? i'd be interested to hear your opinion on that.

 

[Mylo Xyloto]

So i've been using Goth + CB Terakion. Awesome. Goth uses HP ice for Gliscor, T-Bolt for Skarm and CB Tarakion just Sweeps. Using Specs Timid Goth btw.

 

[Lavos]

So i've been using Goth + CB Terakion. Awesome. Goth uses HP ice for Gliscor, T-Bolt for Skarm and CB Tarakion just Sweeps. Using Specs Timid Goth btw.

you might actually want to try a sub-sd or a double-dance set instead of choice band, since gothitelle is removing basically every single wall that could potentially stop a boosting terrakion sweep. heck, it even takes out two of the larger offensive threats to terrakion's success, breloom and conkeldurr. the only thing you'd really need to worry about would be scizor, so yeah, i think a double-dance set in particular would suit your team better.

Double-Dance Terrakion

Terrakion @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

props for the specs gothitelle, definitely my favorite bw2 release as of yet.

 

[emirinho]

Volcarona isn't seeing its two new notable moves being abused/used or not to my experience, with Tornadus-T rampaging the meta game with with it's arsenal of Rain followers, should it not have more freedom to spread those wings? Giga drain let's it sap bulky waters dry, not toe to toe of course. Roost should let it become more bulky and obtain the beloved Quiver Dance in numerous amounts, yet it still doesn't par with Dragonite; unless your running some bizarre HP Ice variant. Hurricane Volcarona is the best set IMO. It can gather up a few boosts and hit all it's hard counters bar Heatran(which is why you have a rain team to deal with). Rains grants you a bulky spinner or an offensive spinner: Tentacruel and Starmie. Tentacruel that I have seen shoot up in appearance.

You are definitely right on that point. However, Volcarona can also be used just to tear wholes into teams just like Hydregion. Hydregion is rarely used to sweep. Of course one can not completely compare Volcarona to Hydreigon but i am just saying that Volcarona can also be effective with the normal set (QD/BB/HPG/FD).
Volcarona can be pretty effective when you have Mamoswine and a rain counter on your team considering that you use the HP Ground set. Mamoswine counters the Dragonites and Tornaduses. While the rain counter mainly should deal with specs Politoeds.

 

[Joeyboy]

@Lavos Spawn

On the fourth moveset for Offensive Rain Volc, I actually use Fire Blast. If I remember correctly +1 Fire Blast always kos Ferrothorn even in Rain. Plus then Volc remains a big threat in Sand and Sun too.

And agreed Specs Goth has, in my opinion, been way stronger than Scarf since its usually taking out slower walls anyway.

 

[Ricky Horror]

hurricane volcarona is pretty great, i agree. the ability to even be able to confusehax your way through some of the biggest special walls in the game comes in handy sometimes. however, i find it does have its drawbacks, the biggest of which being that it's very easy to spot. if you see volcarona on a rain team in the team preview, you're going to automatically assume it's the offensive hurricane variant, right? that's what i don't like about it; as opposed to other volcarona, where you can't tell if it's going to be bulky qd or offensive giga drain or whatever, when it's on the same team as politoed it's instantly recognizable, and that makes it easier to prepare for - overall, less of a threat. true, some teams can't handle it at all, which is nice. but for the teams that do have a means of handling it, the strategy for winning is made that much clearer to them. if they need to keep their specially defensive jirachi above 60% to be able to survive a +1 bug buzz and paralyze it, then they'll know not to let it eat that specs politoed's surf early on. sorry if i'm being a bit unclear, i hope i'm getting the message across...

however, the point you make that volc's #1 check, heatran, is basically rendered void by the rain you bring is a very valid point indeed. it's like i said earlier; some teams just can't handle the presence of offensive hurricane volcarona with rain support.

by the way, i'm curious, what do you normally run in the 4th moveslot of hurricane volc? i know the first three are quiver dance, hurricane, and bug buzz - do you use giga drain? roost? i'd be interested to hear your opinion on that.

That would require me to unveil my own personal set actually lol. Like others said Fire Blast is the most conventual last move slot for the 4x Steel types.

 

[SpecsX]

You could also run HP Water to hit Heatran yourself, or maybe catch Gliscor or Hippodown on the switch.

 

[Mylo Xyloto]

you might actually want to try a sub-sd or a double-dance set instead of choice band, since gothitelle is removing basically every single wall that could potentially stop a boosting terrakion sweep. heck, it even takes out two of the larger offensive threats to terrakion's success, breloom and conkeldurr. the only thing you'd really need to worry about would be scizor, so yeah, i think a double-dance set in particular would suit your team better.

Double-Dance Terrakion

Terrakion @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Swords Dance
- Rock Polish
- Close Combat
- Stone Edge

props for the specs gothitelle, definitely my favorite bw2 release as of yet.

Yeah thanks will try this.

 

[Lavos]

On the fourth moveset for Offensive Rain Volc, I actually use Fire Blast. If I remember correctly +1 Fire Blast always kos Ferrothorn even in Rain. Plus then Volc remains a big threat in Sand and Sun too.

fire blast, eh? not a bad idea, i guess if the opponent tries to switch weather so your hurricane isn't 100% accuracy anymore then you can pull out a nasty little surprise on them

maybe hp ice wouldn't be a bad idea, but i don't really see what it hits that a +1 hurricane won't take care of. +1 hp ice does not ohko standard dragonite through multiscale, but after sr both +1 hurricane and +1 hp ice will ko.

giga drain seems to be like it'll be the best option under rain, since the most threatening thing to volcarona in the rain is powerful water-type attacks. things like keldeo can even ohko volcarona at +2 sdef, which is why it would be important to have giga drain to be able to shut them down before they can hit you with a rain-boosted stab super-effective attack. this could even enable volcarona to be able to run life orb, since taking out full-hp opponents with giga drain would give it plenty of recovery to continue sweeping.

those are my thoughts, take them as you wish.

@Ricky Horror: awww c'mon

@SpecsX: i think +1 hurricane will be doing enough to gliscor that you won't need to worry about it, and hippo doesn't like +1 bug buzz/giga drain/fire blast.

 

[SpecsX]

Eh... Not too many Water-weak mons in OU, so Roost is probably the best 4th move. It's funny how in a Generation where Liquid Ooze would be so useful, Tenta gets a better ability. I still use Liquid ooze on my non-rain teams though.

 

[Lavos]

Eh... Not too many Water-weak mons in OU, so Roost is probably the best 4th move. It's funny how in a Generation where Liquid Ooze would be so useful, Tenta gets a better ability. I still use Liquid ooze on my non-rain teams though.

there are plenty of water-weak pokes in ou, including landorus and terrakion, two of volcarona's biggest checks, so it might be worth it, but probably not, as at +1 scarf landorus is just going to outspeed volc and stone edge anyways, while at +2 volc will outspeed and hurricane it to death. same goes for terrakion.

i'm wondering why you prefer roost, though. any specific reasons?

 

[emirinho]

For me Fire blast would be the best option because you can both surprise your opponent and it would be your last resort move if the rain would go down and you faced a steel pokemon for example. Roost is the second best option as it increases the survivability and longevity of Volcarona. Of course you should have counters and checks to the pokemon that give trouble to Volcarona.

This is just my opinion

 

[SpecsX]

What the guy above me said, longevity. You could use Giga Drain, but that depends on your opponent not resisting Grass. You can also get at least 1 more QD if you play your cards right, which could be the game-changer.