BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread

[Pocket]

Weather Ball is still a huge asset for Victreebel, allowing it to run HP Ice over Sludge Bomb for better coverage. Alternatively it can use HP Ground 2HKO Calm Heatran (after SR) without sacrificing its coverage on Dragons with Sludge Bomb, but Venusaur can do that better with Earthquake.

~ Swords Dance
~ Horn Leech
~ Return
~ Nature Power / Jump Kick

Where exactly is Wild Charge ever going to fit into this?

It would have to go over Swords Dance, which is not as bad as it seems, since with Life Orb, Sawsbuck finds itself not needing the SD boost anyways. I'd also use Double-Edge for better dragon revenge-killing capabilities.

 

[SpecsX]

My bad. Focus Sash Dugtrio can dispose of most(if not all) Fire-types anyway, preparing the way for a clean sweep. Of course, that's true of most Sun sweepers, which is why they use trappers so often.

 

[Tobes]

Venusaur's special bulk gives plenty of reason to use it over Victreebel, as it's much better at switching into Water-type attacks. Admittedly, Victreebel is very awesome; the issue with it is that it pretty much forces you to go for broke with it, because it doesn't have the bulk to take multiple hits and its offensive niche forces it to forego Sleep Powder. It's a highly effective and efficient sun sweeper, but that's all it is: a sweeper. Venusaur has more use as a pivot, etc. Granted, I've never been overly fond of three attacks + Growth Venusaur, so I'd probably use Victreebel if I was inclined to run that kind of set-up on a Chlorophyll sweeper.

Also: Double-Edge > Return on Sawsbuck imo. It allows Sawsbuck to act as a revenge-killing machine, picking off things like Scarf Salamence after SR. Horn Leech helps to offset the recovery, and it also makes Sawsbuck deadly if you can manage to pull off the Swords Dance. If I recall correctly I've done like 97%ish to a Gliscor with an LO +2 Sawsbuck Double-Edge before. It was very satisfying. Another move I like on Sawsbuck is Synthesis. It makes setting up easier if you're willing to give up your coverage move, since Sawsbuck can actually invest in some bulk due to its base Speed and Chlorophyll, or you can use it with three attacks to give a revenge-killing Sawsbuck some more longevity. Oh, and it also lets SD Sawsbuck beat Power Whip / Leech Seed / Spikes / Protect Ferrothorns or w/e, specific as that kind of Ferrothorn might be lol. Sadly Breloom, Genesect, and Landorus-T make it a bit more difficult to use Sawsbuck, but it's still an awesome Pokemon.

Another thing worth noting about Sawsbuck is its ability to revenge kill most Volcarona fairly easily, something that can be a hassle for sun teams to revenge kill otherwise.

 

[Lavos]

pocket, i believe a moveset of swords dance / double-edge / horn leech / wild charge would actually be functional on sawsbuck. jump kick / nature power aren't that great in the first place; in fact, they're useless bar a couple really situational circumstances. all they're really hitting are heatran and a couple other odd steel-types, which dugtrio can take care of easily. wild charge could be a great idea that I'll start testing immediately.

edit: apparently a sawsbuck +2 lo adamant max atk wild charge has a 7/16ths chance to ohko 252/252 impish skarmory after rocks. (that's 43.75% for you percentage people). damn.

 

[SpecsX]

The fuck? I bring up Wild Charge and you shoot me down, then Pocket agrees with me and you change your mind completely.

In any case, Venusaur is without a doubt bulkier then Victreebel, and thus should be utilized as such. I personally don't even like Sleep Powder on Venusaur, as I find it compounds coverage issues on a mon that reall needs the Growth to sweep.

 

[alexwolf]

@Lavos Spawn

So as you said Victreebel is a better cleaner and revenge killer than Venusaur against Offensive teams, but against Stall and Balanced teams, that have a solid defensive core that you have to break through (which is difficult to do unboosted), as you more often than not have to set-up in order to sweep, Venusaur seems better, as after a Growth it outclasses Victreebel.

Also Victreebel is a shaky check to Dnite as +1 ES does 69.2 - 81.45%, a potential ohko after SR + Spikes or if Victreebel has taken any previous damage. And Venusaur can ohko Mence more often than not anyway, as after SR, a Modest LO Sludge Bomb has a 62.5% chance to ohko Naught / Naive Mence after SR. So Victreebel is only slightly better when it comes to revenge killing, and downright inferior when it comes to sweeping balanced / stall teams.

And while yeah, Dugtrio can trap and kill most fire types there are 3 problems with this:

1. Not all teams use Dugtrio
2. Dugtrio many times won't be able to trap both the weather inducer and the Fire type
3. Stone Edge-less Dugtrio cannot deal with Volcarona

 

[Lavos]

The fuck? I bring up Wild Charge and you shoot me down, then Pocket agrees with me and you change your mind completely.

In any case, Venusaur is without a doubt bulkier then Victreebel, and thus should be utilized as such. I personally don't even like Sleep Powder on Venusaur, as I find it compounds coverage issues on a mon that reall needs the Growth to sweep.

sorry lol, the inner workings of my mind are an enigma. but seriously, i still think skarm beats it unless you can get rocks and +2, which as i stated previously is unlikely. sawsbuck could potentially be a big threat, but in most scenarios it's not.

@Lavos Spawn

So as you said Victreebel is a better cleaner and revenge killer than Venusaur against Offensive teams, but against Stall and Balanced teams, that have a solid defensive core that you have to break through (which is difficult to do unboosted), as you more often than not have to set-up in order to sweep, Venusaur seems better, as after a Growth it outclasses Victreebel.

Also Victreebel is a shaky check to Dnite as +1 ES does 69.2 - 81.45%, a potential ohko after SR + Spikes or if Victreebel has taken any previous damage. And Venusaur can ohko Mence more often than not anyway, as after SR, a Modest LO Sludge Bomb has a 62.5% chance to ohko Naught / Naive Mence after SR. So Victreebel is only slightly better when it comes to revenge killing, and downright inferior when it comes to sweeping balanced / stall teams.

And while yeah, Dugtrio can trap and kill most fire types there are 3 problems with this:

1. Not all teams use Dugtrio
2. Dugtrio many times won't be able to trap both the weather inducer and the Fire type
3. Stone Edge-less Dugtrio cannot deal with Volcarona

stall teams lose to victreebel because it can set up to +6 one-on-one vs the pink blobs and each giga drain will restore enough hp to take it out of seismic toss ko range easily. venusaur can say the same, so there's no difference here.

i strongly disagree with your interpretation of revenge-killing dragonite, as 1) it could be locked into outrage in which case it's a free kill, while venusaur can't kill with sludge bomb and then gets ohko'd by the +1 outrage, or 2) it might not have a boost at all. the point is, if dragonite switches in on venusaur, you get out. if dragonite switches in on victreebel, you laugh and kill it.

also, once again, you're making assumptions about the salamence scenario. rocks are not guaranteed to be up. and even if they are, are you willing to risk the life of your venusaur on a 62.5% chance? i'd rather stick with the 100% chance that victreebel hp ice will ohko.

finally, on your counterpoints to dugtrio,

1) anyone who doesn't use dugtrio with victreebel is not worth our time
2) many times there isn't even a fire-type, and if there is, it's a priority over the weather inducer in most cases, though a sun team generally has some means of dealing with fire types other than dugtrio lol
3) what self-respecting dugtrio does not carry stone edge?

 

[Ricky Horror]

Shiftry anyone? lol Kills Tyranitar, Politoed, kicks Abomasnow on switch, OHKOES variants of Hippowdon. Back to Venusaur and Victreebel, if your offensive based without a worry of Stall cores Victreebel is your mon and vice versa for Venusaur. They both have their merits and seeing as Venusaur is OU it's definitely the more appealing beneficiary of Sun teams.

 

[alexwolf]

@Lavos Spawn

Stall teams don't insta lose against Victreebel, because Hippowdon is always there and cannot be killed by Dugtrio while also making Victreebel lose it's speed boost. Oh and Victreebel also loses its Fire type move in Sand, which means that Jirachi and Ferrothorn wall it. And without the speed boost it can be outsped and hit hard due to his worse speed and defenses than Venusuar. Venusuar wouldn't care so much about Sun not being up, because it would still have a fire move to 2hko Jirachi and ohko Ferro, and it has the defenses to tank hits if the need arises. And don't ask me how would a Hippo switch into Victreebel, as SpD Hippo loses 56.19 - 66.19% from a +0 Giga Drain, and if Victreebel uses Growth, then Ferro / Jirachi will be able to wall it. Also many good stall teams use Shed Shell on Ttar, which means that Dugtrio won't be able to trap it, and so Victreebel would be again forced to lose its speed boost, which sucks big time for it, as mentioned before.

Oh and something else i forgot... Victreebel has to run Timid, in order to outspeed any Scarfer with 97 Base Speed and more, so it will be actually be weaker than Venusaur.

About Dnite and Mence. Yeah you are right about Dnite, i just mentioned that Dnite has the potential to get past Victreebel, as it is so damn frail. And of 'course against Mence Victreebel is safer, but still Venu has a very big chance to ohko, so imo, the only real threat that Victreebel can ohko from the get go and Venu can't is Dnite.

Finally about Dugtrio... A lot of assumptions can be made, the point is that you can't always expect Dugtrio to trap everything you want it to (trapping 2 pokes, meaning a weather inducer AND the Fire type, is not something you can take as a given). And don't say that Sun teams usually have something to deal with Fire types, because then i can say that the team with the fire type can have something that deals with the counters of Fire types and so on. In reality, if you take out Dugtrio of the equation, many Sun teams are weak to fire mons such as Scarf Infernape, Scarf Darmanitan, and Volcarona. And what Dugtrio doesn't carry Stone Edge? Here are some: French Orgy with Belzebuth - Grimm70 , Eruption , and Solar Vengenace just to name a few.

Oh and i find it funny that you say that only an idiot would use Victreebel without Dugtrio, when your team, doesn't use it.

 

[Lavos]

Shiftry anyone? lol Kills Tyranitar, Politoed, kicks Abomasnow on switch, OHKOES variants of Hippowdon. Back to Venusaur and Victreebel, if your offensive based without a worry of Stall cores Victreebel is your mon and vice versa for Venusaur. They both have their merits and seeing as Venusaur is OU it's definitely the more appealing beneficiary of Sun teams.

shiftry is lol, and actually quite decent. i don't know of a single team that 'prepares' for it, and with the proper support in the form of sr + spikes it can do some serious work. wish it wasn't so frail...dragonite is its #1 counter and also like 2nd in usage stats so that's a problem.

what's up with the last sentence of your post though? just because a mon is ranked as ou doesn't mean it deserves it. metagross is ou. victini is uu. metagross can't do anything in this meta, band victini can 2hko just about anything. and you say venusaur is better for stall cores...do you read my posts? lol they're exacty equal when it comes to fighting against stall, they both beat chansey/blissey 1v1 and they are both stopped cold by different threats. stop making assumptions and actually use reasoning to back them up please.

@alexwolf: first, the edited version of "my team" is ninetales/donphan/dugtrio/victreebel/rotom-w/scizor, so uh, lol. i made that team in what, march? wasn't even good then.

i like how you try to source other rmts for dugtrio w/o stone edge, except those teams have either heatran (walls volc) or band victini (destroys volc and lives +1 anything) to check volc so your point is completely invalid.

and what's your reasoning with hippo? are you implying it's going to switch into a lo giga drain and get easily 2hkod? yes because that's a winning strategy...

i'm done trying to prove myself to you, you have your opinion and i'll have mine.

 

[X5Dragon]

Basically what scares most people about Vensaur is that he has bulk (lol Sawbuck and Shiftry), sleep powder (nobody is gonna feel comfortable switching Heatran in without someone else being asleep) and his mixed coverage.

You can pack more than one Cloro user, sure, but Venu takes number 1 for very good reasons.

 

[alexwolf]

i like how you try to source other rmts for dugtrio w/o stone edge, except those teams have either heatran (walls volc) or band victini (destroys volc and lives +1 anything) to check volc so your point is completely invalid.

First of all not all Heatran wall Volc, as HP Ground Volc exists. Second, you are acting as if their Heatran is immortal and can't be trapped by a Dugtrio of the Volcarona user. Same for Victini, Sash Dugtrio can easily switch into V-Create, and then ohko with EQ.

and what's your reasoning with hippo? are you implying it's going to switch into a lo giga drain and get easily 2hkod? yes because that's a winning strategy...

My reasoning is that Hippo + Jirachi / Ferro wall Victreebel, even if you 2hko Hippo. So fine hit my Hippo with Giga Drain, while losing 16% of your health (LO and sandstorm), and if you want to stay in more, then ok, lose another 16% of your health as Jirachi / Ferro comes in, and then good luck bringing Victreebel again with 55% life left (16.25% + 16.25% + 12.5% (SR) = 45%) with such awesome defenses.

i'm done trying to prove myself to you, you have your opinion and i'll have mine.

Yeah i agree we both made our points clear!

 

[Ricky Horror]

shiftry is lol, and actually quite decent. i don't know of a single team that 'prepares' for it, and with the proper support in the form of sr + spikes it can do some serious work. wish it wasn't so frail...dragonite is its #1 counter and also like 2nd in usage stats so that's a problem.

what's up with the last sentence of your post though? just because a mon is ranked as ou doesn't mean it deserves it. metagross is ou. victini is uu. metagross can't do anything in this meta, band victini can 2hko just about anything. and you say venusaur is better for stall cores...do you read my posts? lol they're exacty equal when it comes to fighting against stall, they both beat chansey/blissey 1v1 and they are both stopped cold by different threats. stop making assumptions and actually use reasoning to back them up please.

@alexwolf: first, the edited version of "my team" is ninetales/donphan/dugtrio/victreebel/rotom-w/scizor, so uh, lol. i made that team in what, march? wasn't even good then.

i like how you try to source other rmts for dugtrio w/o stone edge, except those teams have either heatran (walls volc) or band victini (destroys volc and lives +1 anything) to check volc so your point is completely invalid.

and what's your reasoning with hippo? are you implying it's going to switch into a lo giga drain and get easily 2hkod? yes because that's a winning strategy...

i'm done trying to prove myself to you, you have your opinion and i'll have mine.

I didn't say it can't be OU I said its just more appealing and simply more used by a matter of facts and usage based. I also said they both can fulfill each other jobs that is what vice versa means and finally indicated they both have their own merits as in qualities. As for Shiftry it can run HP Ice for Dragonite here's some calcs you dig?

Shiftry (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Chlorophyll
EVs: 140 Atk / 156 SAtk / 212 Spd
Mild nature (+SAtk, -Def)
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Sucker Punch
-Low Kick




Leaf Storm vs. 4/0 Neutral Nature Politoed (144.1 - 170.2%)

Leaf Storm vs. 252/252 Positive Nature Politoed (87.5 - 103.1%) 19.9% Chance to OHKO, but not many people run this set.

Modest Scarf Politoed'd Ice Beam vs. Shiftry (83.5 - 98.4%) Never an OHKO as a lead. Most people think it OHKOs so they stay in.

Low Kick vs. 4/0 Neutral Tyranitar (139.2 - 163.7%)

Low Kick vs. 252/0 Neutral Tyranitar (117.8 - 138.6%)

Leaf Storm vs. 252/0 Neutral Hippowdon (126.2 - 149%)

Leaf Storm vs. 252/252 Positive Hippowdon (97.1 - 114.8%) 83.6% chance to OHKO

Those are the three main weather abusers and it will only lose to prediction, Scarf Tyranitar, or a low damage roll on the lesser used Hippowdon set. Shiftry also works against some top threats even outside of sun.

Low Kick vs. 4/0 Neutral Heatran (76.2 - 89.8%)

Sucker Punch vs. 4/0 Neutral Latios (102.1 - 121.2%)

Sucker Punch vs. 4/0 Neutral Starmie (113.4 - 134.1%)

Sucker Punch vs. 4/0 Neutral Chandelure (107.6 - 126.7%)

 

[Lavos]

well i guess if we're talking about ho now then i'll share my thoughts.

i'm running a ho team centralized around an aerodactyl lead and a king's rock cloyster sweep. i'd prefer not to post the team itself, as it's still in the works, but my main point here is that king's rock cloyster is a boss. there's amazing potential for this thing; it can set up on a variety of ou mons, including but not limited to gliscor, hippowdon, and plenty of choiced pokemon locked into 'not very effective' moves. shell smash raises attack to obscene levels, and icicle spear hits 5 times guaranteed with skill link ability, giving it a base power of 125. add in +2 and stab and that's a hard hitting attack for sure. oh and did i mention with king's rock it has slightly over 40% chance to flinch? that can mean the difference between skarmory whirlwinding you out and cloyster sweeping the opponent's entire team. rock blast is good coverage (gets the same flinch rate too), and ice shard gives priority for low-health scizors and such. the set is below for those who want to give it a shot.

@ King's Rock
Trait: Skill Link
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature (+Spd, -SAtk)
- Shell Smash
- Icicle Spear
- Rock Blast
- Ice Shard

i urge anybody who likes ho to give this sucker a shot.

 

[Pocket]

Shiftry is legit - the only thing stopping it is a Mach Punch from Breloom and Steels.

Genesect has certainly shaken up this metagame, just like when Keldeo, Therians, and Technician Breloom were introduced (Meloetta didn't do much, though xd). I'm surprised there haven't been major meta shift due to the release of Shadow Tag Gothitelle. It seems like a great partner to many physical sweepers :d Plus it's the meanest Trick Scarfer out there - if the opponent was foolish enough to use a non-attacking / non-phazing move against Gothitelle; she has all the leisure time in killing off that mon as its locked into a useless move.

PS: Cool set, Lavos :) I still prefer White Herb to survive some priorities from the likes of Scizor or even Breloom, though.

PS2: Oh wait your Cloyster has Ice Shard, so it dgaf about Breloom xd

 

[Danger Mouse]

shiftry's biggest problem is its weaknesses to common priority (techniloom mach punch, mamoswine ice shard) combined with serious frailty. it has certain advantages over other sun abusers, but as a trade off has certain weaknesses as well.
overall, venusaur is the best...it has the best combination of bulk, utility, and power...that is why it's the only one of the bunch to be in OU. the other sun sweepers, however, all can fulfill specialized roles for your team if you're so inclined.

 

[Lavos]

Shiftry is legit - the only thing stopping it is a Mach Punch from Breloom and Steels.

Genesect has certainly shaken up this metagame, just like when Keldeo, Therians, and Technician Breloom were introduced (Meloetta didn't do much, though xd). I'm surprised there haven't been major meta shift due to the release of Shadow Tag Gothitelle. It seems like a great partner to many physical sweepers :d Plus it's the meanest Trick Scarfer out there - if the opponent was foolish enough to use a non-attacking / non-phazing move against Gothitelle; she has all the leisure time in killing off that mon as its locked into a useless move.

shiftry has trouble with all forms of priority, not just mach punch. again, it suffers from the same problem that venusaur does: if it runs hp fire, it's walled by dragonite, and if it runs hp ice, it's walled by steels.

i agree, shadow tag gothitelle is a fantastic partner to genesect. I'm currently testing a team that consists of scarf genesect / specs gothitelle / sr mamoswine / dragonite / haxorus / salamence and i must say it's rather unfair. gothitelle not only removes skarmory, the tried-and-true #1 physical wall, but also beats gliscor with a specs hp ice, shutting down the 2 biggest checks to dd dragon sweeps. people should use this more.

 

[Thorhammer]

Gothitelle is just awesome; I've been getting especially great results with a Scarf, often grabbing and destroying multiple enemies. I think it's just that not enough people are using it yet for it to have its full impact.

 

[Lavos]

oh before i forget all about this, i meant to ask if you people prefer specs or scarf gothitelle. i've found they both serve different purposes, but i'm leaning towards specs as my personal preference, because then thunderbolt is a guaranteed ohko on skarmory and hp ice is a guaranteed ohko on gliscor. it makes sense to me that if those are the things gothitelle is focusing on removing, you might as well be able to do it in one hit.

 

[Thorhammer]

I've been using Scarf with Psychic / Thunderbolt / HP Fire / Trick. Its main target is Ferrothorn, which I actually have to use Trick to beat, but with the Scarf, it can handle so much else as well. Its power is definitely disappointing, and I haven't tried it with other items, but it seems hard to justify giving up so much Speed on a Pokemon that can lock foes into one-on-one matchups.

 

[Lavos]

I've been using Scarf with Psychic / Thunderbolt / HP Fire / Trick. Its main target is Ferrothorn, which I actually have to use Trick to beat, but with the Scarf, it can handle so much else as well. Its power is definitely disappointing, and I haven't tried it with other items, but it seems hard to justify giving up so much Speed on a Pokemon that can lock foes into one-on-one matchups.

even modest hp fire isn't going to ohko standard ferrothorn...to me it seems that you'd be much better off going with specs, which is a guaranteed ohko even when using a timid nature (this is outside of rain, of course). it definitely depends on your team though...maybe you need scarf to beat gengar and starmie, i don't know what your team is so i can't say. however, i feel that if you're going to use hp fire, specs is the better option.

 

[Thorhammer]

even modest hp fire isn't going to ohko standard ferrothorn...to me it seems that you'd be much better off going with specs, which is a guaranteed ohko even when using a timid nature (this is outside of rain, of course). it definitely depends on your team though...maybe you need scarf to beat gengar and starmie, i don't know what your team is so i can't say. however, i feel that if you're going to use hp fire, specs is the better option.

Trick followed by two HP Fires tends to kill it before it causes much trouble. I feel like it's better to have great matchups against a lot of things than a perfect matchup against just one thing.

 

[Lavos]

Trick followed by two HP Fires tends to kill it before it causes much trouble. I feel like it's better to have great matchups against a lot of things than a perfect matchup against just one thing.

trick and two hp fires means it could set up two layers of spikes or just kill you with power whip...that is not ideal. i know it's nice to be able to outspeed tornadus-t and kill it at 60%, and that's all well and good, but if your primary objective with gothitelle is to kill ferrothorn, in my mind specs would be the superior option. or you could just run magnezone + gothitelle so then you could use hp ice on goth and wreck some dragons too!

admittedly, though, it's way nice to be able to outspeed and kill gengar with a psychic-type. gothitelle has a variety of viable sets and it's up to you how you want to use it.

 

[Thorhammer]

From what I've found, Ferrothorn almost always seem to lock themselves into Leech Seed, which makes sense, since if I went straight for HP Fire, that would be the best scenario for them, setting them up to stall long enough to seriously damage or even kill Gothitelle. But with Trick, it just means they die without doing much at all.

Killing Gengar is nice, but also so much else: if it gets in, it can trap and kill any sufficiently weakened Pokemon that doesn't have a huge amount of Spd. And when paired with Genesect's U-Turn, a lot of things tend to end up sufficiently weakened.

 

[Jimera0]

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...