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Hippowdon

blasphemy1 said:
Stockpile Hippowdon just seems pointless, imo. Hippowdon is great for stall, but without Stealth Rock it doesn't bring anything to the table. Swampert is better for any other style of play, imo. Obviously both have access to Stealth Rock, but Swampert has a decent special attack stat and a better typing for pairing up with stuff like Shaymin or Heatran. Stockpile Hippowdon loses miserably to Gliscor (Taunt + Toxic), Skarmory (faster Whirlwind), and Gyarados (Taunt, Roar, or Dragon Tail), and Dragonite (Dragon Tail). Not to mention it doesn't do much damage and can't set up on much (still loses to Toxic, anyway).
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I don't know, how about sandstorm? :/

Swampert has no reliable recovery and has less defense. Stall as a whole loses to Gliscor. Swampert can't beat Taunt Gyara and Skarm without a lot of freezehax. Dragonite will never (rarely?) run dragon tail, with negative priority, low bp, etc.

Also, Hippowdon's Earthquake has four more attack points behind it.
 
what is better for hippowdon, swallow or spit up? and i havnt tried this yet, so i may be wrong, but sand tomb traps. btw that and the sandstorm, i would say hippowdon would be a great stall DOT.
 
neither, Hippow can make use of stockpile but loses the defensive boosts if he uses spit up. Why the hell would anyone use swallow when he get slack off?
 
In any case, Hippowdon is still an excellent choice, being able to check quite a few physical threats like Excadrill, Garchomp, Scizor, Tyranitar, etc. I'd still make an argument to run Ice Fang over Roar since Balloon Excadrill and Garchomp are way too common and you don't want to be setup bait for either. Ultimately your choice on running phazing vs checking Garchomp and Balloon threats.

He might be overshadowed by Tyranitar in terms of beating more things, but if you need a weather changer with some good physical bulk, look no further than our hippo.
 
Recently, I have been using a Curse Hippo to great success. With Curse, he doesn't need any Defense investment, so is much bulkier specially, laughing at things like T-Tar using Ice Beam. Also, after he gets a Curse or two, not only can it wall many common threats, but it can one or two hit KO back. But even without a boost, he still has enough physical bulk to solidly check guys like Excadrill. This set might stray from what people usually see in Hippo (Rocks and Roar), but it still checks the same, if not more Pokemon, while being a threat in its own right.

It's true T-Tar might overshadow it, but at least for me, I'd rather win with a Hippo.
 
Dude Hippo can wall gengar. Ttar cant

Hippo can wall 130 SpA assuming they uses at most 80 BP as their main STAB(gengar) giving me a good enough reason to use it.

Its funny to think at the beggining of BW HIPPO OVERSHADOWS TTAR

yeah how time flies
 
JSND said:
Dude Hippo can wall gengar. Ttar cant

Hippo can wall 130 SpA assuming they uses at most 80 BP as their main STAB(gengar) giving me a good enough reason to use it.

Its funny to think at the beggining of BW HIPPO OVERSHADOWS TTAR

yeah how time flies
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Oh, you could certainly say it is better, but I would never say it overshadows it. T-Tar is just too versatile for Hippo ever to truly overshadow it.
 
JSND said:
Its funny to think at the beggining of BW HIPPO OVERSHADOWS TTAR
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Ahahaha early BW is so funny looking back now. Anything that could stop Dory was a godsend XD

Hippo is still a hell of a lot better than Ttar for some teams. It doesn't have all the painful weaknesses that Ttar does, and the weaknesses that it does have are common special move types, meaning it still serves as an excellent physical wall. It also has reliable recovery in Slack Off, which means it can stick around a lot longer than Ttar (and as such hopefully wear down the opponent's weather starter). I almost always use Hippo over Tar just for that recovery, it's better than unpredictability any day.
 
To those dont really understand this is how early gen 5 even in DW server of PO goes

- Dory is broken. COUNTERRRR HIMMMMMMM
- Fighting metagame + dory ? fuck i wont use Ttar !!!!! HIPPO FTW !!!!
- Virizion sucks dicks. Terrakion is awesome (now it still is) Cobalion is trash
- WHats that genie over there ? Its slow ? fuck off
- Rain ? Dory is broken i dont care
- Gliscor need ROOST MORONNNNNNNN dont use Poison Heal for crap sake


NOW compare to current and round 2 metagame. It take a cold people to not laugh
 
JSND said:
To those dont really understand this is how early gen 5 even in DW server of PO goes

- Dory is broken. COUNTERRRR HIMMMMMMM
- Fighting metagame + dory ? fuck i wont use Ttar !!!!! HIPPO FTW !!!!
- Virizion sucks dicks. Terrakion is awesome (now it still is) Cobalion is trash
- WHats that genie over there ? Its slow ? fuck off
- Rain ? Dory is broken i dont care
- Gliscor need ROOST MORONNNNNNNN dont use Poison Heal for crap sake


NOW compare to current and round 2 metagame. It take a cold people to not laugh
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i wouldve laughed so hard if we still had drizzle + swift swim (or manpahy)
 
Yeah thats what we call metagame shift.
Not even a year have pass and the metagame have changed this much

And those were the time where we only play DW(with rain and manaphy no less). so yeah...
 
I do, however, see terrakion as overall the best of the musketeer trio.
Don't forget to add another point to your previous post though.

-HOLY SHIT ONONOKUSU HAS 147ATK + DD + SD + 97 SPEED?! TROLL SPEED BUT WHATEVER TOO GODLEIK :O NOWAI GAMEFREAK
 
I'm thinking as of now, Hippowdon has finally found its place in OU over Tyranitar. Terrakion is pretty much the #1 offensive threat in OU and Hippowdon is one of the best switchins to it. Life Orb and Choice Band do a lot more damage, but I think Choice Scarf is the most common set:

Choice Scarf Terrakion: 30%-36%
Choice Band: 45%-53%
Life Orb: 39%-46%

Gliscor definitly counters Terrakion better, but Hippowdon has much better recovery to ward Terrakion off and a stronger Earthquake. This also shows that he can switchin on a whole lot more than Ttar ever could. Another good example would be Toxicroak. Rain teams that use it give you pretty much a free oppurtunity to set up weather since even Toxicroaks Ice Punch won't take it down in one shot. Hippo can pretty much come in almost any physical attacks and set up weather. Being the only weather starter with reliable recovery and resistant to SR doesn't hurt either.

Hippowdon can actually fit in a defensive core pretty well too. The combo of hazard+recovery+phazing normally exclusive to Skarm the hippo has too. Ferrothorn+Hippodown+Special Filler makes an awesome core. Meanwhile Ttar is "just there" for sand teams who doesn't really have much purpose other than setting SR/sand and maybe fighting off the Lati's
 
Just weighing in here. Specially defensive is the awesomest suicide lead SR layer/whole-game mixed wall ever. (It does either of those things, depending on what you need.) Stockpile hippowdon is a massively awesome baller, but the proliferation of rotom-w and ferro mean it's either getting tricked/wow'd, or leech seeded, which really f's it up. Gliscor also screws it pretty hard. If you can find a team without all of those, it's great, but i don't see that happening any time soon. It was incredibly beast in 4th gen though, and i'll always miss that.
 
After reading this thread I went and tried Hippo on a sand team I literally threw together and found it not only to be an awesome physical wall that can deal with dragons, but also a massively under-rated threat.

Definitely one to watch on the usage stats.
 
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