Don't flame me for using the Flame Pokemon! (Moltres Discussion)

[Seven Deadly Sins]

I'd think resistances to Steel, Fighting, and Fire, three big hazards for Ice-types, are probably among the perks.

 

[Objection]

And for those who use Moltres offensively (i.e Scarf and Specs), you're doin' it wrong!

What about non-choiced offence though?

 

[Lee]

Charizard can usually take the non-choiced offence route a little better imo. Despite his lower stats, his access to Focus Blast and Dragon Pulse is massive as it allows him to combat things like Tyranitar, Heatran and Salamence without using a dedicated Hidden Power. So whilst Moltres would be forced to use Hidden Power Fight/Ground or maybe even Ice, Charizard can freely use Hidden Power Grass/Electric without getting walled as easily.

EDIT: Oh yeah, don't forget Blaze.

But yeah, Sarenjii's Moltres is a fantastic set.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Secondly, it's more than just a few UU and NU pokemon that can work well in OU. If you want a list, I can PM you.

I'm interested in this list.

 

[Darkmalice]

Ok, so MetaNite's logs use Moltres in a Hail team, and it is useful in such a team. Could we have some logs outside that? I don't think we want to give the impression that Moltres is only worth using on a Hail team with Rapid Spin support (Donphan in the logs). And considering Abomasnow's tier status, it's safe to say Hail teams aren't common.

 

[mtr]

But it seems like that really IS the place where Moltres would belong: covering weaknesses on a stall team.

Think about it this way: the marginal cost of getting a spinner on an offensive team is high: Starmie could be running Choice Specs rather than spending moveslots and losing power with a spinner set. Or you could ditch the spinner entirely and get an NP Mixape or a BulkyGyara that's giving the other guy hell. But instead you're stuck with a starfish just to enable a Moltres that really should be a Heatran.

The marginal cost of getting a spinner on a stall team is low if not nonexistent, because every stall team worth its salt has a spinner anyways.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I wanted to get some logs for Moltres now that j7r has said that I'm basing everything on theory. This was the first battle where I wanted to get some Moltres logs, not so long ago.

That was a whole log because Moltres pretty much owned throughout the entire thing. I don't care if Zapdos could have done the same thing, Moltres completely destroyed the foe. Toxic Stall is viable. I did get some hax, and we didn't play perfectly. But saying that there shouldn't have been hax and both of us should have played perfectly is the theorymon.

I hope you don't think I was singling you or anybody out, I was just pointing out the fact that nobody arguing on either side was posting logs to demonstrate how the pokemon can be used. 7 pages of theorymon doesn't accomplish anything. You can't expect to win a debate if you don't provide proof! Thank you for clearly demonstrating your points, now the debate can move forward. That hail team was the perfect example of a spot where Moltres can work. Starmie spins and Moltres takes Fire and Fighting attacks that would destroy the Ice-types on a hail team.

And besides...I didn't say that Moltres was an awful pokemon, I just said that Zapdos is better in most battling conditions. Moltres has a very specific niche, and most teams can just "get away" with revenge killing the Pokemon that Moltres is usually used to counter (Infernape, Heatran, Lucario etc). I know that Toxic Stall is viable, I literally just revamped the Toxic Stall Zapdos set in the Analysis Workshop.

I am also wondering if people would ever consider using Moltres on a team without a Rapid Spinner. Now THAT would be convincing, if Moltres didnt actually require that support after all!

 

[supermarth64]

I am also wondering if people would ever consider using Moltres on a team without a Rapid Spinner. Now THAT would be convincing, if Moltres didnt actually require that support after all!

(I posted this on the 2nd page, but many people just glanced over it).

I actually run a lead SpecsMoltres without a Rapid Spinner on a team with 2 other SR weak Pokemon (Dnite runs Roost while Gyarados runs Leftovers), and I've managed to win a decent 80% of my battles. Usually the sheer power of Moltres stops SR users, and sometimes I manage to pull off a sweep with Moltres afterwards.

No logs unfortunately, because I don't keep them and I don't have time to play nowadays.

 

[Hyphy]

This set has worked wonders for me, and it even can fair well with SR up. Albeit it doesn't reach its full potential, but recovery is possible even with SR there. And not to mention that it isn't that tough to support, considering what it can come in on.

I'm sorry if this post seems so out of order, I just felt that it was necessary to share my opinion ;P.

 

[Kietharr]

The one thing Moltres really has going for it is the instinctive 'oh shit what the fuck is that going to do???' response that many less experienced or out of practice players have when they see something not standard. Moltres isn't some completely laughable gimmick like a Farfetch'd, but certainly not seen enough that every player is going to have a reasonable idea of what it will do.

Overall though, I think Moltres doesn't merit higher usage than what it already has. Not saying Moltres is some sort of terrible unusable piece of garbage, but frankly it needs a lot more support than can be justified for such a mediocre pokemon.