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Dragonite

Legacy Raider said:
Gimmicky? The very concept of Dragon Dancing in the current metagame is a gimmick. This is one of the few ways that Dragonite can be a team member, by supporting with Safeguard as well as phazing, as opposed to a overzealous one-dimensional wannabe-sweeper which rarely achieves anything by itself.

Also, please try to word your opinion in a slightly more sensitive way (i.e. don't shove it down our throats). We get that you're a Dragonite fan - your avatar, name, and 55 posts in this thread tell us that. Being the OP doesn't mean you need to respond to and pass your judgement on every post someone makes in your thread.

Thanks, have a nice day.
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Dude take a chill pill. I wasn't trying to be insensitive or judgemental. It just looked out of the ordinary which I think is unothodox and gimmicky. Doesn't mean I don't like it. Actually, I've been thinking about how to make a Phasor set ever sense I first made this thread. I just passed it off as gimmicky in the end.

Wow I didn't even realize how much I was coming off as a Dragonite fan on this thread. I made those 55 posts not only cause I'm a dragonite fan but because I try to be loyal to the active threads I make. I was just responding to what people were saying. Also while I'm also on the subject of your remarks towards my fandom of Dragonite, my name actually has nothing to do with Dragonite. I could go into a long and boring story of the origin of my name but really, it's long and boring.

Anyway, onto a point of interest.

Legacy Raider said:
This is one of the few ways that Dragonite can be a team member
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I'm pretty sure you werent trying to say it like that but this is how I see it so work with me here. Dragonite is currently a BulkyDD, Mixed set, Phazor Set, Weather set, Stall set, and a few others I can't think of cause I'm babysitting right now. I can understand that most of these things others can do better but the sooner people realize that this dragonite has remarkable versitility and legitimate sets and support, the sooner and farther it'll increase in usage.
 
This new Dragonite could be a beast on a rain team. I think its at least on par with Salamence at this point.
 
You missed my point, and by team member I thought it was obvious I meant that it was a set that gave something back to the team more than the others that have been suggested. But sorry if I came across as a bit coarse.
 
Legacy Raider said:
I'd run a set of Dragon Tail / Roost / Safeguard / Fire Blast - being immune to status is extremely important, because once Dragonite is Burned or Toxiced, MultiScale is essentially useless. Even a timely paralysis that prevents you Roosting back to full can spell end game. With hazard support this Dragonite is excellent at shuffling the opponent's team around and just not dying, but it needs reliable support in keeping SR off the field. Fire Blast is preferred over Earthquake because you hit everything but Heatran, and hit Skarmory and Nattorei especially hard. Heatran will get worn down easily by Spikes and Stealth Rock, and can hardly do anything to hurt Dragonite in return, while Skarmory can Taunt, lay Spikes, or if its faster Whirlwind you out, and Nattorei can Leech Seed.
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Safeguard is a cool idea, but Dragonite also learns Heal Bell, which is arguably a better move. By Phazing and heal belling, you'll basically undo all of your opponents hard work.

Edit: Well that pretty much messes it up then doesn't it? Definitely not worth abandoning Multi-scale for Heal Bell, since Multi-scale is really his most redeeming quality.
 
Heal Bell is illegal with MultiScale and only has 8 PP, and you need to keep using it repeatedly. Although agreed it has more team utility. Kind of defeats the whole defensive MultiScale point though.
 
Just so everyone knows, I wasn't trying to start a war. It was purely my opinion. I hate Salamemce is all. You can't take my word because I think Bibarel is awesome and Impish Curse/Amnesia/Return/Waterfall Simparel is viable.
 
Celest said:
Just so everyone knows, I wasn't trying to start a war. It was purely my opinion. I hate Salamemce is all. You can't take my word because I think Bibarel is awesome and Impish Curse/Amnesia/Return/Waterfall Simparel is viable.
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Derp beaver is awesome and any set is viable with the proper support. Don't let others brainwash u into thinking certain pokes suc cuz their not commonly used. I hate salamence too
 
There are Pokemon that aren't commonly used because they're bad at everything, and Pokemon that aren't commonly used because their role is either not unique or not needed. Bibarel falls into the camp of the former.
 
There are also Pokémon that are not commonly-used because few people realize the true extent of their power, or because they are incompatible with most people's battling styles. Rampardos and Hitmontop are both examples of that in Generation IV in my opinion. In Generation II, I can name countless examples.

A positive correlation between usage and quality indeed exists, but I'd say that the correlation coefficient of such is far from 1, so I personally don't trust what usage may suggest about quality all that much. Umbreon being in the OU tier in Generation IV demonstrates that perfectly in my opinion.
 
Rampardos's problem has a lot more to do with his effectiveness than battle styles or potential. Hitmontop has strong priority, but Scizor and Lucario also have strong priority and they're much bigger threats to the whole of OU than Hitmontop is.

There's an explanation for most of what usage tells us. It's not arbitrary facts and numbers, it's data on what people are using and what you should be prepared to face in your upcoming battles. A player worth his salt can understand why OUs are OUs. Even Electivire, as ineffective in higher level play as he may be, can sweep an unprepared team.
 
SJCrew said:
187.6% - 221.8%

Ice Punch still OHKOs lol. Bulky Nite is never faster after a DD.

I've seen people try to get a DD on Weavile before. Multiscale is not auto-Jesus, guys.
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Standard weavile is choice band, ice shard, pursuit, night slash and low kick. Between DD and extremespeed, weavile has to shard, or be outsped.

I'm another dragonite fan. ^_^ Soo happy about multiscale + roost! I've made my own set with dragon claw, ES, DD and roost and it's working well so far!
 
Oh ok @JT Swift; how does it fare in wifi battles? I imagine it's ruined by SR - after which, it goes back to being the same old under-par Salamence (IMO).
 
JT Swift said:
Standard weavile is choice band, ice shard, pursuit, night slash and low kick. Between DD and extremespeed, weavile has to shard, or be outsped.
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Extremespeed is +2 priority, Ice Shard is +1. If Dragonite uses Extremespeed than Weavile will never go first.
 
JT Swift said:
Standard weavile is choice band, ice shard, pursuit, night slash and low kick. Between DD and extremespeed, weavile has to shard, or be outsped.
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No, actually, Ice Punch is listed first on Smogon, while Night Slash is listed as optional.

With a standard bulky DD set Dragonite doesn't KO with Espeed after Rocks. You can run more Attack for a custom set if you want, but you'll never guarantee the KO at+1 without max Attack LO. There really isn't much Dragonite can do to beat it unless he catches him on a mispredicted switch-in.
 
Really the standard Weavile is CB? I've never once seen one... I've seen Lead Weavile (what I use, though I don't run counter) and I've seen SD Weavile but never a CB one. Huh...
 
^ This is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Most of the players who use Weavile are the LCDs who use him because he looks cool or has shiny stats and don't know what he's really capable of. I use him a lot, and very effectively at that, but as long as I'm outnumbered by these guys, people will still get their Gengars and Starmies out safely, he'll die to Scizor without a fight, and Gyarados will set up on him.

If you've seen him in a good match with a good player, you'll know this is not supposed to happen. Bulky Grass types should be dying to CB Ice Punches, there should be more predicted Pursuits and CB Low Kicks flying around, sweepers should actually WANT to switch out, etc. It just won't happen as long as the bad players rep him and the good players go "lol Weavile". I mean, fuck, he can KO right through Yache Chomp with CB Ice Punch. Lead and SD can't do any of that stuff.

:/

Sorry 'bout the tangent, touchy subject.
 
Preparing for Weavile is kind of like preparing for Electivire, though; I have better things to do. Dragonite can survive a CB Ice Punch with some defensive investment (the calcs you gave were assuming 252/0 Adamant, without Multi-Scale), and it's not like you can't just bring in say, bulky Shanderaa to kill Weavile stuck on Ice Punch (or switch to Forretress and set up entry hazards).
 
SJCrew said:
Rampardos's problem has a lot more to do with his effectiveness than battle styles or potential. Hitmontop has strong priority, but Scizor and Lucario also have strong priority and they're much bigger threats to the whole of OU than Hitmontop is.
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Not really. The fact that Rampardos's Head Smash attack, despite its huge recoil, can put a huge dent even in many Pokémon that resist it, makes it quite useful, especially on more offensive teams, for the purpose of punching holes through the opponent's team (as even if Rampardos falls to its Head Smash recoil, it would at least have done its job of taking out or at least heavily damaging a key Pokémon on the opponent's team), and I have used it to great effect on one of my teams at the start of Generation IV. As for Hitmontop, its main appeal comes from Technician Mach Punch and Bullet Punch, and being a pure Fighting-type Pokémon definitely sets it apart from Lucario. I don't think we should be discussing this here though, as it's not really the right topic to be talking about this.

SJCrew said:
There's an explanation for most of what usage tells us. It's not arbitrary facts and numbers, it's data on what people are using and what you should be prepared to face in your upcoming battles. A player worth his salt can understand why OUs are OUs. Even Electivire, as ineffective in higher level play as he may be, can sweep an unprepared team.
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Then can you explain why Deoxys-A, undoubtedly one of the best Pokémon, and probably the best lead in OU, is currently ranked 63 according to Pokémon Online's usage statistics?

Ericcc said:
Tense.


Anyway, so has anyone actually tried Multi Scale Drago yet?
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Yes, I have used it countless times on Pokémon Online by now.

Ericcc said:
Oh ok @JT Swift; how does it fare in wifi battles? I imagine it's ruined by SR - after which, it goes back to being the same old under-par Salamence (IMO).
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Since when was a Dragonite without Multi-Scale an "under-par Salamence"? Also, I don't understand why people are so keen on mentioning Stealth Rock in the discussion of the Multi-Scale ability, because if one intends to use Dragonite, I expect that they should have absolutely no reason at all to allow Stealth Rock to be on their side of the field.

As for the Dragonite VS. Weavile discussion, Dragonite wins easily in a one-on-one battle with any Fire-type move (or maybe even Earthquake) followed by Extremespeed. In fact, just for some trivia, Dragonite actually dominates Weavile in Generation V (as surprising as this may be, considering Weavile's type advantage and the fact that this was the other way around in Generation IV), going by the rules of the Pokémon rankings thread from Stark Mountain (as I mentioned once in that thread too).
 
Not really.
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Yes really. OU has much better wallbreakers than Rampardos. Even with his high attack power and 150 BP STAB, he paid the price with a plethora of weaknesses, low defenses, and poor speed. For all of that raw power, there really isn't a whole lot he can scare off on an offensive team because chances are, something is either faster or hits him with a super effective attack, or slower and hits him with a super effective attack. And it will most likely kill because he takes hits about as poorly as Starmie.

and I have used it to great effect on one of my teams at the start of Generation IV
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You do realize that almost four years have passed since then, right? I remember a time when Rampardos was OU/BL, but it's ancient history. We now understand the game better and a clearer idea of what works and what doesn't. Rampardos was washed to the wayside along the sea of change.

Then can you explain why Deoxys-A, undoubtedly one of the best Pokémon, and probably the best lead in OU, is currently ranked 63 according to Pokémon Online's usage statistics?
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Deoxys-A was banned a week ago. He wasn't overly used prior to that, but Gen 5 is still in its starting stages where the new Pokemon are still being put to the test. We're not quite at the level where the good players dominate the ladder and trends are set to where only the best receive top usage.

And yes, I do realize there is no absolute, infallible correlation between usage and effectiveness, which is why I added "most". Please pay attention.

Preparing for Weavile is kind of like preparing for Electivire, though; I have better things to do. Dragonite can survive a CB Ice Punch with some defensive investment (the calcs you gave were assuming 252/0 Adamant, without Multi-Scale)
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93.8% - 110.9%

Sorry, I forgot to halve the damage. I assumed it'd be understood well enough as is.

and it's not like you can't just bring in say, bulky Shanderaa to kill Weavile stuck on Ice Punch (or switch to Forretress and set up entry hazards).
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Fair enough, it happens.

Must be. Don't see why you are so set on Weavile only having one valid set but... *Shrug*
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No, that was not my point at all. I was saying that the reason most players don't realize that CB is his best set (and are therefore not threatened by him) is that most of the players using him are downright terrible. SD and Lead can be useful...in a fashion, I suppose, but they're sub-optimal at best and gimmicks at worst.
 
OK, maybe you're right about Rampardos, as I have indeed stopped using it ever since a long time ago. I just remember it to be an excellent hole-puncher with Choice Scarf when I first started battling in Generation IV, and my opinion about it never really changed much over the years despite the fact that I no longer built teams including it after a while, so these days Rampardos may not be as effective as I may have believed. Part of why my opinion about Rampardos never changed may be because I always seem to be under the impression that people are underestimating the usefulness of Head Smash on it though, because I don't think the massive recoil is anywhere near as off-putting as many others seem to believe, especially in exchange for being more accurate and 1.5 times as powerful as Stone Edge, as I've never believed that longevity is anything Rampardos needs anyway as much as sheer destructive power.

Also, I haven't entered Pokémon Online for a while, so I didn't know about Deoxys being banned. What's going on in the Generation V game seems to be quite hard to keep up with these days...
 
SJCrew said:
93.8% - 110.9%

Sorry, I forgot to halve the damage. I assumed it'd be understood well enough as is.
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It was understood by me, but others might take it out of context, I was merely pointing out the conditions under which those numbers were calculated.
 
Hihidaruma is the new and better Rampardos these days. Choice Band and Encourage Flare Blitz is just plain retarded in damage.
 
Jaroda said:
Extremespeed is +2 priority, Ice Shard is +1. If Dragonite uses Extremespeed than Weavile will never go first.
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I know.

My point was that ES dragonite will (almost) always win.

I've been using said dragon on PO and wow.

Multiscale is really good.

Don't quote me on this, but I think I remember roobushins unboosted payback doing 17% from max health.

A dragon claw/DD/restalk set would be godly. He could probably pull it off better than gyara. *goes to check if set is legal*

EDIT: Hihidaruma? What about ononychus?
 
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