General Suspect Discussion Thread

[GatoDelFuego]

While most teams may be able to deal with hyper offense, there are little ways to actually deal with Deoxys-D. It can almost always set up stealth rock with ease, and can usually set up another layer of spikes as well. If you have a one-on-one matchup versus deoxys, it will be very difficult to prevent any kind of setup: defensive pokemon can only taunt it, while most being slower and allow it to get up at least one layer, while offensive pokes will still struggle to OHKO it. Most things that CAN ohko it, such as CB tyranitar, cannot outspeed it and allow it to set up more layers. The ease of setup is what I think drives it over the edge. If ferrothorn had a base 90 speed to compliment its defenses, it would be very different.

I think that a lot of "matchup based" arguments are not very good, and I made mine to show that if you don't have a magic bounce user, deoxys will get up hazards, and if you do, it will fall to the rest of a HO team. That's "matchup-based" in my opinion, and though I don't think that's what makes it broken, I think that's very bad for the game.

Also, Deo-D's usage says nothing about it. It has just started to catch on, and I think will be seen in the next month's stats. While ferrothorn and forretress can be used on defensive teams, Deoxys is suited for offensive teams, which that's what the percentages between other hazard layers say to me: Defense is more common than Deoxys-D offense. If you compare it to other "suicide leads", such as aerodactyl and azelf, it's miles above them..

 

[Danger Mouse]

The following Pokemon deal with Deoxys-D either with a OHKO or by taunting/bouncing back its hazards:

1.) Genesect. CB U-Turn is a OHKO at +1. Specs Bug Buzz is a OHKO at +0.
2.) Scizor: LO Bug Bite is a 50% chance to OHKO.
3.) Tyranitar: CB Crunch is a 75% chance to OHKO.
4.) Any of the many other pokemon who outspeed and 2HKO.
5.) Espeon and Xatu, magic bounce, can't be taunted.
6.) Whimsicott, Sableye, Tornadus-Incarnate, prankster Taunt
7.) Tornadus-Therian, Aerodactyl, Azelf, outspeeed and Taunt.
8.) Any rapid spinner can happily spin hazards away, Starmie also beats most common spinblockers without much trouble.

So yeah, there are many ways to either force Deoxys-D out, prevent it from setting it up, outright one or two hit KO it, or just spin its hazards away once it's been eliminated.

 

[Shouting]

Weather is actually ridiculous right now. Rain, Sun, Sand, even Hail makes an appearance and it is literally everywhere. I'm (trying) to run weatherless Bulky Offense / Balanced and it is VERY difficult to work effectively. It seems as though the only way to be successful with weatherless right now is Voltturn or Deoyxs Hyper Offense.

Genesect needs to go in my opinion (or at least get a test) because it makes Sun much more viable. Pair it up with Dugtrio, Xatu/Espeon, and Victini/Infernape and you are almost never able to get Stealth Rock up. Your best shot at getting it up is Landorus-T but it gets demolished by Victini, Infernape, Genesect, and Ninetales. Keep in mind that Stealth Rock was for the most part a big factor in keeping Sun teams at bay but now it is extremely difficult to get it up with the appearance of Genesect. Classic Sun checks like Latias, Latios, Dragonite, Hydregion, that could previously deal with Sun just get Genesect thrown in their faces and are OHKO'd, or things like Heatran which are trapped by Dugtrio and face a 2HKO at worst from Victini / Infernape / Sawsbuck, not to mention that Sleep Powder still exists, making non-hyper offense weatherless struggle when it comes to Sun (I haven't had much experience with Rain/Hail/Sand so I don't know how they fair, but from the posts I see it's still difficult) Sun had a lot of it's problems eliminated when Genesect appeared.

 

[Danger Mouse]

Both Donphan and Forretress can get up Stealth Rock guaranteed thanks to Sturdy. Genesect can't OHKO either one.

 

[GaryTheGengar]

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^how I feel about the current status of this thread

Sun volt-turn is good, but nowhere near as good as you'd think by reading this thread. I've both played it, and played against it, and while it is a strong play style, it is really, really one dimensional. The standard sun team that everyone seems to have issues with would be Ninetails / Xatu / Genesect / Dugtrio / Victini / Venu (or another chloro sweeper). There are plenty of ways to play around this with adequate prediction, but there are also a few ways to basically guarantee yourself a win. One of these would be shed shell heatran. If you can't trap heatran with this kind of team, you're fucked. Shed shell on tyranitar is also very difficult to play against. Special rock polish landlos, which i've noticed is just starting to catch on, is essentially an auto win vs this team. Force out ninetails, or set up on dugtrio, and you can 6-0 the sun team. The last easy fix to beating these teams, is having stealth rock on a non-standard poke. Try setting sr up with terrakion, celebi, landorus-t, mew, really anything that isn't your standard ferrothorn / donphan. Once sr is up, sun is at a huge disadvantage. I've had matches where sr has gotten down, and even though I've won the weather war, my opponent still takes the match.

 

[Shouting]

Both Donphan and Forretress can get up Stealth Rock guaranteed thanks to Sturdy. Genesect can't OHKO either one.

Those Strudy abilities are never intact when U-turns are flying everywhere. Foretress can't do anything to Xatu and it carries heat wave, and Donphan dies to ice beam and is almost always OHKO'd by Choice Band Victini and Xatu actually beats it one on one if it doesn't have Stone Edge.

 

[Shouting]

Edit: Sorry for the double, I thought I was editing my last post x_x

Hide

^how I feel about the current status of this thread

Sun volt-turn is good, but nowhere near as good as you'd think by reading this thread. I've both played it, and played against it, and while it is a strong play style, it is really, really one dimensional. The standard sun team that everyone seems to have issues with would be Ninetails / Xatu / Genesect / Dugtrio / Victini / Venu (or another chloro sweeper). There are plenty of ways to play around this with adequate prediction, but there are also a few ways to basically guarantee yourself a win. One of these would be shed shell heatran. If you can't trap heatran with this kind of team, you're fucked. Shed shell on tyranitar is also very difficult to play against. Special rock polish landlos, which i've noticed is just starting to catch on, is essentially an auto win vs this team. Force out ninetails, or set up on dugtrio, and you can 6-0 the sun team. The last easy fix to beating these teams, is having stealth rock on a non-standard poke. Try setting sr up with terrakion, celebi, landorus-t, mew, really anything that isn't your standard ferrothorn / donphan. Once sr is up, sun is at a huge disadvantage. I've had matches where sr has gotten down, and even though I've won the weather war, my opponent still takes the match.

I've tried Shed Shell Heatran and it is not as good as it sounds, as it cannot deal with dragons as well with no leftovers and it gets 2HKO'd by Victini with Brick Break. not to mention it can still be a victim of Sleep Powder.

Rock Polish Landorus needs to set up to be effective,which you won't always get because it's KO'd by almost every Sun-Boosted attack and it's only one pokemon that can deal with it. Also, you will never OHKO Venusaur (most I've seen use Focus Blast over Psychic) without Stealth Rock and it deals a ton with Life Orb Giga Drain back. When is Celebi going to set up Steath Rock against a sun team? Never, while Xatu walls it to begin with and U-turns and Sun Boosted moves are everywhere.

Terrakion with stealth Rock loses a lot of it's effectiveness against a Sun Team because it can't use a Scarf. Without the scarf it gets out run and trapped by Dugtrio and it's beaten pretty easily by Venusaur. Mew gets hammered by the U-turns and it can be trapped if it's weakened enough (which most U-turns will do) Landorus-T is the best chance but it doesn't like Sun-Boosted moves, and you risk an ice beam from genesect.

My point is that weatherless teams that struggle against this team. If you need to use Weather to combat weather, I really think that's saying something bad about the metagame.

 

[ssbbm]

Without the scarf it gets out run and trapped by Dugtrio and it's beaten pretty easily.

lol landorus can't get trapped by dugtrio! also dugtrio can't do anything to it anyway

Terrakion with stealth Rock loses a lot of it's effectiveness against Sun Rock against a Sun Team? Never, while Xatu walls it to begin with and U-turns and Sun Boosted moves are everywhere.

Stone edge..?

 

[Danger Mouse]

Those Strudy abilities are never intact when U-turns are flying everywhere. Foretress can't do anything to Xatu and it carries heat wave, and Donphan dies to ice beam and is almost always OHKO'd by Choice Band Victini and Xatu actually beats it one on one if it doesn't have Stone Edge.

if the opponent doesn't have xatu/espeon, just lead with forry/donphan and bam, rocks are up. if they do, get rid of the xatu/espeon and wait till something on your side is ko'd to bring in your hazard layer in.

 

[alexwolf]

Pls let's stop talking about Deoxys-D. As mentioned many times there are ways to deal with him if you run a HO team. You don't have to risk the speed tie between two Deoxys-D at all, when you have a HO vs HO game. Just run a set-up sweeper that can set-up on Deoxys-D (there are a lot, and i have already mentioned them) or a faster Taunt user (Azelf, Tornadus-T, Aerodactyl) or Espeon (Xatu can't fit in HO teams).

Anyway now that we are done with this, i just realized something else. Rock Polish Sheer Force Landorus absolutely destroyes the classic Sun team that everybody claims that is broken (Tales, Dugtrio, Venusaur, Victini, Xatu, Genesect) with a moveset of Earth Powr, Psychic and HP Ice. He can easily set-up on Dugtrio, after he traps and kills something. If he doesn't, then fine, no Dugtrio annoyance for your Ttar/Heatran/Tentacruel/Terrakion.

 

[Lavos]

Yeah, Rock Polish Landorus shuts Sun down. At +2 it outspeeds even Timid Venusaur by miles, and it can essentially OHKO every single member of the "classic Sun team" with one of the three moves that alexwolf mentioned. Getting a little residual damage on Genesect before you set up is important, because otherwise it can live Earth Power and kill you with Ice Beam, but other than that it's pretty much a surefire win condition.

the classic Sun team that everybody claims that is broken (Tales, Dugtrio, Venusaur, Victini, Xatu, Genesect)

might as well start calling it Lavos Sun now, I'm doing the RMT this weekend

 

[tehy]

Edit: Sorry for the double, I thought I was editing my last post x_x


I've tried Shed Shell Heatran and it is not as good as it sounds, as it cannot deal with dragons as well with no leftovers and it gets 2HKO'd by Victini with Brick Break. not to mention it can still be a victim of Sleep Powder.

Rock Polish Landorus needs to set up to be effective,which you won't always get because it's KO'd by almost every Sun-Boosted attack and it's only one pokemon that can deal with it. Also, you will never OHKO Venusaur (most I've seen use Focus Blast over Psychic) without Stealth Rock and it deals a ton with Life Orb Giga Drain back. When is Celebi going to set up Steath Rock against a sun team? Never, while Xatu walls it to begin with and U-turns and Sun Boosted moves are everywhere.

Terrakion with stealth Rock loses a lot of it's effectiveness against a Sun Team because it can't use a Scarf. Without the scarf it gets out run and trapped by Dugtrio and it's beaten pretty easily by Venusaur. Mew gets hammered by the U-turns and it can be trapped if it's weakened enough (which most U-turns will do) Landorus-T is the best chance but it doesn't like Sun-Boosted moves, and you risk an ice beam from genesect.

My point is that weatherless teams that struggle against this team. If you need to use Weather to combat weather, I really think that's saying something bad about the metagame.

I've used shed shell tran in place of lefties tran, and noticed very little difference, although i have a skarmory for physical dragons. I don't think that venusaur can KO landorus back either, unless it's got HP ice. Also, some good HO pokes or a plus natured DDmence with plus speed nature rape that shit up too.

Otherwise, though, that team is effing ridiculous and needs to go die in a hole.

 

[alexwolf]

Edit: Sorry for the double, I thought I was editing my last post x_x


I've tried Shed Shell Heatran and it is not as good as it sounds, as it cannot deal with dragons as well with no leftovers and it gets 2HKO'd by Victini with Brick Break. not to mention it can still be a victim of Sleep Powder.

Rock Polish Landorus needs to set up to be effective,which you won't always get because it's KO'd by almost every Sun-Boosted attack and it's only one pokemon that can deal with it. Also, you will never OHKO Venusaur (most I've seen use Focus Blast over Psychic) without Stealth Rock and it deals a ton with Life Orb Giga Drain back. When is Celebi going to set up Steath Rock against a sun team? Never, while Xatu walls it to begin with and U-turns and Sun Boosted moves are everywhere.

Terrakion with stealth Rock loses a lot of it's effectiveness against a Sun Team because it can't use a Scarf. Without the scarf it gets out run and trapped by Dugtrio and it's beaten pretty easily by Venusaur. Mew gets hammered by the U-turns and it can be trapped if it's weakened enough (which most U-turns will do) Landorus-T is the best chance but it doesn't like Sun-Boosted moves, and you risk an ice beam from genesect.

My point is that weatherless teams that struggle against this team. If you need to use Weather to combat weather, I really think that's saying something bad about the metagame.

As i said again Rock Polish Landorus can easily set-up against Dugtrio, after it kills something. If it doesn't then fine, you won the weather war anyway. And of 'course if you want to win against Sun teams you will start using Psychic over Focus Blast. Oh and finally Modest Landorus doesn't even need SR to ko Genesect with EP, so you don't even need SR to be up.

However, sun teams can do something about it... Run Memento on Dugtrio. This would make it really hard for Landorus to set-up.

 

[jc104]

I think that team's Dugtrio kind of needs Stone Edge to stop Volcarona.

Anyway, the flaws of that particular team are not really the point. Lavos's team is clearly not perfect (as teams generally aren't). However, I do not think that the underlying strategy of the team is balanced. Dealing with it usually involves the use of one pokemon, such as a shed shell heatran or something - and when the entire fate of the match can be decided by the presence of such a Pokemon, that's not right.

I gave the team a bit of a spin on the PO ladder (you know, the ladder where it is possible to lose), and found it hilariously easy generally, except for maybe one sand team and a trick room team to which I actually lost. It comfortably defeated a damp rock rain team with a dugtrio, which surely ought to beat it pretty easily. So I want to say I'm no longer just whining about losing, I'm now whining about winning too easily as well!

 

[Birkal]

Sorry to kill the mood, but this thread is now closed. The Overused council now has a pretty good idea on what it wants to test on the suspect ladder in the future; they have a pretty sizable list on what we should test. If they run out of ideas that were suggested and talked about in this thread, along with their own suspects, then this discussion will open again. Thank you for all of your contributions to the tier!

I encourage you to direct your attention to the Garchomp and Sand Veil Discussion thread to continue posting your thoughts on our current suspects in questions. Make sure you're out there on the suspect ladder on Pokemon Showdown! to test the suspects that were discussed in both threads. If you'd like to make more general comments about the metagame, turn your attention to The BW2 General Metagame Discussion Thread. Thanks again for your time!