Gen 2 GSC Viability Ranking (OU)

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Scyther has Swords Dance and usually has exactly one turn to set it up before needing to Endure to 1 HP (only Thunders from the Electrics and STAB/Marowak Rock Slides OHKO). Its +2 Reversal is significantly stronger than Heracross's STAB Reversal (guaranteeing the OHKO on Steelix and doing a lot more to Suicune/Skarmory), and its +2 HP Bug is slightly stronger than Heracross' Megahorn (and more accurate). It's also significantly faster than Heracross, outspeeding Suicune (which is decent) and Miltank (which is HUGE) as well as a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. And it's immune to Spikes, which is rather nice. I have suffered full sweeps at the hands of SD/EndRev Scyther before; it has a niche. It's not usually worth the trouble, so it should be D Rank, but it does have a tiny niche and should be on the list.
Don't think I ever got a reply to this and it's still not on the list.

To restate, I am referring specifically to Scyther with the set Swords Dance/Endure/Reversal/HP Bug. Its niche is that a) no other Pokemon (besides Scizor and Smeargle) receives both Swords Dance and Reversal, b) it is the fastest Reversal user, c) it is immune to Spikes - more important than usual, for something that likes being at 1 HP - which is also rare among Reversal users, the only others being Gyarados and the awful Yanma.
 

Jorgen

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Reversal is already a massive gimmick on Heracross, and its main selling point is instant OHKOs to make the constant hit-and-run (and struggle to get it to 1HP in the first place) worthwhile. Scyther doesn't get that instant power, instead relying on setup, which you have no time to do at 1HP. SD-Endure-sweep is just not happening either, too much has to go right, and trying to Phaze Scyther to stop BP is not at all an uncommon solution. To me, a mostly inferior Reversal user with a unique advantage or two doesn't really fill a niche, it's just a bad version of something that's already a gimmick, i.e., EndRev Scyther is straight garbage.
 
What do people think of Gengar? I used him way back and dropped him. He just never did much since people are aware of his special moves and his moob lacked power. I see people mention he spin blocks well (can't comment their cuz I ususally don't run spikes) but if starmie is the most common spin blocker then wouldn't gar worry about psychic? I think he looks better in B.

edit: forgot to mention that being completely immune to stalking curselax and lk drumlax is damn useful in this metagame. hmmm ok I'm not too against him in A tier anymore lol, still though....am I alone in thinking he's meh?
 

Jorgen

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You're not alone, but I'm not one of them. You do have to be pretty willing to just blow him up vs. Raikous if you want him to be consistently useful, and that can rub some more defensive-minded players the wrong way.
 
What do people think of Gengar? I used him way back and dropped him. He just never did much since people are aware of his special moves and his moob lacked power. I see people mention he spin blocks well (can't comment their cuz I ususally don't run spikes) but if starmie is the most common spin blocker then wouldn't gar worry about psychic? I think he looks better in B.

edit: forgot to mention that being completely immune to stalking curselax and lk drumlax is damn useful in this metagame. hmmm ok I'm not too against him in A tier anymore lol, still though....am I alone in thinking he's meh?
Gengar spinblocks Cloyster and Forretress rather well (Forry in particular; Toxic immunity), but indeed not Starmie. His offense is pretty useless on its own (ie, Raikou/Snorlax/Steelix wall it), but he excels at removing those walls to open up other stuff. Also he's just so unpredictable - does he Explode? Does he Dbond? Does he Hypnosis? Does he Dpunch? Does he even Mean Look? Getting any of these wrong could cost you a Pokemon. And yeah monolax is sad vs. Gengar, as is any Exploder that gets predicted.
 
hp ghost forretress. i think that should be standard when run alongside missy.

gengar suffers from the same thing as espeon/heracross: there's a set you want to run, and there's the set you have to run for whatever reason. dbond is all around inferior to explosion, firepunch is all around inferior to thunder/bolt/ice beam, and hypnosis is by far the best supporting move to round out the set.

unpredictable? on paper only. kinda like saying cloyster has plenty of moves to choose frrom (hp electric, icy wind, toxic, clamp, ice beam, screech), but in practice, half that shit's gimmick.
 
there's not much to it. you just get your spikes down while preventing theirs (hopefully). in a longer game where stuff isnt threatening to explode on you constantly, you tend to play a spikes mini-game with the opponent. forr can spin vs anything that isn't a ghost.. because that doesn't work obviously. hp ghost does decent damage to ghosts. so if you somehow get stuck in a spin/spikes cycle vs another forr or something, missy can be used to block. missy forces a switch, then you win spikes war.

also forretress has a surprisingly good matchup vs fp-less gengar.
 
Gengar is unbelievably good. Best explosion, can trap, can sleep, can dpunch. You name it, he might be doing it. The best A rank mon imo. He just flat out wins games, especially in a single battle.
 

Jorgen

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Could you explain your reasoning here? I have a hard time following why Missy in particular makes HP Ghost on Forretress better.
The big thing is that if Starmie is doing the spinning, you can't use, say, Gengar to spinblock reliably, or else you might rather use HP Bug to shoo it away.
 
well if you hp ghost on forr, you're committing yourself to the spikes game, as in all other cases toxic/hp bug is superior. and in the case where you're committed to spikes, hp ghost + missy ensures your spikes. alternatively, you can sac hp ghost and run a pursuittar. or even better, do both: hp ghost forr, missy, pursuit tar.
 
well if you hp ghost on forr, you're committing yourself to the spikes game, as in all other cases toxic/hp bug is superior. and in the case where you're committed to spikes, hp ghost + missy ensures your spikes. alternatively, you can sac hp ghost and run a pursuittar. or even better, do both: hp ghost forr, missy, pursuit tar.
How does HP Ghost ensure your spikes? Doesn't it ensure the removal of opposing spikes? Isn't it Missy that's "ensuring" your spikes?
 
missy ensures your spikes.

justification for hp ghost all around is not that strong, but it's not like forretress has so many great moves to choose from anyway. explosion spin spikes whatever (toxic, hp ghost, hp bug, hp fire, and lol rest). out of those, hp ghost as the biggest upside imo, while the rest feel either low impact or gimmicky (hp fire) when you're building a spikes team. hp ghost also gives you a slightly better explosion, although lixes get in for free (but theoretically forretress only makes 1 appearance anyway if they're resorting to steelix), but steelix isn't that great if you're spinning their shit anyway.

gengar is immune to toxic/hp bug (basically), whereas hp ghost is 2hko iirc. you run forretress over cloyster because your game relies on spikes, otherwise cloyster having the better explosion AND an actual attack clearly is more "splashable" of the 2. if you don't have a spiker/spinner, what do you even switch into forretress??????
 
HP Ghost 3 hits gengar for like ~43% average damage. If you run Hp Ghost I don't see why Cloyster can't just stay in and keep re-spiking on you tho. No need to spin block when Cloyster can just sit on you. If you try to fully pp waste spikes you're gonna start eating surfs and die.

I was messing with hp ground forretress for a while (for gengar, nidoking) but shit was still pretty lackluster. Can't switch into thunders and expect to fight back reasonably against either. Prefer to go full gimmick (Giga, HP Fire) cause at least it will actually be fantastic in the games that the matchups will work out in (instead of just being pretty useless consistently).
 
because you have explosion, or at least toxic. there's always that chance to flat out win. if anything enemy forretress is way worse. i actually think spikes vs no spikes is literally game over if both teams dedicate slots to spikes/spin.
 
HP Ghost 3 hits gengar for like ~43% average damage. If you run Hp Ghost I don't see why Cloyster can't just stay in and keep re-spiking on you tho. No need to spin block when Cloyster can just sit on you. If you try to fully pp waste spikes you're gonna start eating surfs and die.

I was messing with hp ground forretress for a while (for gengar, nidoking) but shit was still pretty lackluster. Can't switch into thunders and expect to fight back reasonably against either. Prefer to go full gimmick (Giga, HP Fire) cause at least it will actually be fantastic in the games that the matchups will work out in (instead of just being pretty useless consistently).
because you have explosion, or at least toxic. there's always that chance to flat out win. if anything enemy forretress is way worse. i actually think spikes vs no spikes is literally game over if both teams dedicate slots to spikes/spin.
Made a thread for my confusion about Forretress, to stop derailing this thread.
Can we move the Forry discussion into the Forry thread?
 

Mr.E

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In other news, Gengar is a hell of a lot more unpredictable in practice than Borat seems to believe. It doesn't have to run a god damn thing. I mean, its "standard" already has a filler move slot (Tbolt, Ice Punch, Explosion) in which I've probably put 10 different moves depending on my taste/mood/strategy. The difference between DBond and Explosion is certainly notable and while Misdreavus is a better pure Perish Trapper due to typing, the fact is Gengar can do it competently enough to keep opponents on their toes because it asks for a different response than the standard attacker.

There's no single, consistently good response to Gengar besides maybe Sleep Talk Thunder Raikou and even that still gets Exploded on, which is not infrequently exactly why people use Gengar (to blow up Raikou). Even Zapdos and Raikou can't say that, since there are consistently good answers to both. Snorlax is a given, as is Blissey except for the not-seen-since-I-stopped-using-it TWave/Drill Peck Zapdos. Zapdos also hates Tyranitar and can't explode on Raikou; Raikou gets pushed around by Ground-types and Eggy.
 
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Jorgen

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Raikou is more likely to not run RestTalk/not run a super-effective move vs. Egg, which leaves it more vulnerable. This isn't necessarily the case with Raikou the same way it is vs. Grounds, but it is pretty likely in practice that Raikou is going to be forced out when Egg shows its face. Zapdos, on the other hand, is almost always running RestTalk, almost always running Hidden Power, so while it need not necessarily have an easier matchup vs Egg, in practice it tends to have an easier time. Plus there's the issue where Raikou is generally a very crucial wall for holding your team together, whereas Zapdos is a lot less specific in its role, so you're generally less inclined to risk Raikou getting Exploded on or worn down by Psychics than you are to allow Zapdos to do the same thing.
 
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