Hydreigon Discussion: Viability in BW2

[Lork]

Although Hydreigon is definitely still a big threat to almost any team, the faster, more offensive metagame takes a significant hit on its viability. Despite lacking Superpower + Roost, I'd argue that Hydreigon was more effective in the BW1 metagame because everything was slower and bulkier, meaning its base 98 Speed was more of an asset, and could tear through teams lacking one of the pink blobs with its Sub + 3 attacks set or even its 4 attacks set. It was an amazing answer to the dominant Volt-Turn teams of the time. Nowadays, there's far less it can come in safely on, especially with so many Fighting attacks being thrown around. Of course, once it gets in, it's still a monster, but it just doesn't have the same impact it once had, and has to tread carefully in this dangerous new metagame. It also has competition from Kyurem-B (and Garchomp to an extent) as a wall breaker, though not being SR weak and having a less predictable movepool still gives it an edge. Hydreigon can be tough to use, but can still be incredible on balanced teams which need something to break down defensive cores with ease. It isn't so useful on HO teams though, nor does it match up particularly well against them.

i also use a stall (or semi-stall) team and for those ridiculous mons that i can't always wear down easily hydreigon does just the trick. it suits a slower-paced team definitely.

 

[Gokuzbu]

What about U-turn on the mixed attacker set? Get in, draco meteor and get out. Might try it out.

 

[Gary]

Wastes a valuable moveslot for coverage. I guess you could use it over Roost/EQ, but the coverage or reliable healing will be greatly missed.

 

[Lavos]

specs hydreigon beats i think every single team bkc has made in bw2

seriously though it owns sand stalls, celetran sdef core is wrecked by fb/ep. try it out

 

[Gary]

specs hydreigon beats i think every single team bkc has made in bw2

seriously though it owns sand stalls, celetran sdef core is wrecked by fb/ep. try it out

Hmm...I haven't used Specs Hydreigon in a LONG time since I prefer the versatility of the mixed set, but I just might have to give it a go. Do you run the same set in the OP, or something different?

 

[Lavos]

hydreigon @ choice specs
trait: levitate
evs: 252 satk / 4 sdef / 252 spd
modest nature
- draco meteor
- earth power
- fire blast
- u-turn / surf

is what i run. mainly to nuke stuff and then get out, i run it to target specific things (mainly sand stall/rain offense playstyles) which is why i roll with earth power over focus blast to guarantee a ohko on sdef tran. hitting ttar for ohko doesnt matter a ton anyways since it cant pursuit hyd like it can lati@s. uturn is cool for momentum but surf really nails sdef hippo which is cool. i dunno how similar this is to the on site set but i prefer this over mixed because of the power it offers and the versatility i can still have with its great movepool. life orb gives you the ability to predict a little less at the expense of what i feel is a significant amount of power, and i'm confident enough in my prediction that i think specs is the better choice for me but you can do whatever works really!

as a side note i only realized hyd was even good at all after heist wrecked me with a specs set in a bw tour semifinals. thanks heist

 

[Vert]

I find Choice Specs Hydreigon the most effective set in this metagame. Life Orb is good, yes, but Choice Specs doesn't have to be prediction reliant, suffer recoil, and can just nuke something right off the bat. It also use two consecutive Draco Meteors to the most full extent (i.e Steel-types are almost always 2HKOed by it and U-Turn is for momentum) Fire Blast or Surf, depending on the weather you use, gains psuedo-STAB which is very useful late-game when you don't want those Special Attack drops). I've never liked LO, even if your getting KOs all the time, I think it is more useful to be able blow up early-game and annihilate the opponents late-game, which is more effective in general.

The LO set struggles with either its poor longevity when using 4 moves, being walled by something with U-Turn or weather ex. can't get past Skarmory in rain

Substitute has interested me. I am only theorymoning, but it seems non-prediction reliant, avoid status and can KO threats while the break the Substitute.

Well, this is my personal opinion the Choice Specs is better, but I think LO is much better for netting KOs, not ripping holes in the opposition, but ripping holes aids late-game for something like Choice Scarf Keldeo to sweep, but gaining KOs keeps healthier teammates more suitable to defeat or force out Hydreigon. Breloom can come in after Metagross was KOed and force Hydreigon out hile it gets a Swords Dance and sweep the team. Choice Specs can be like "ha, I got no recoil from LO so I don't be risked KOed by Mach Punch since my defenses don't suck and go for the second Draco Meteor and OHKO either if it sets-up or Mach Punches. Priority isn't a big problem for Choice Specs since there is no LO recoil to add up to Mach Punch / Ice Shard / Bullet Punch, blah's KO.

 

[Gary]

All of Hydreigon sets require some kind of prediction due to Hydreigon's average speed and terrible defensive typing, but out of all the sets, the Substitute set is probably the easiest to pull off. Hydreigon is a master at forcing switches with its incredible coverage and power, which makes it easy to use Substitute.

 

[Vert]

terrible defensive typing

Unlike other dragon-types, Hydreigon's sub-typing gives it a nice resistance to dark-type moves, but also doesn't spoil dragon-type's great resistances to Grass-, Water-, Fire-, and Electric-type moves and gains the benefits of ground immunity with Levitate. Heatran is weak to Fighting-, Ground-, and Water-type moves, all of which are super common, but Hydreigon is weak to common typings too. Heatarn has a great defensive typing, but Hydreigon is actually good enough to pull off a support set too. Its typing isn't "terrible" as you describe, but average. Surely, Hydreigon would be better without the sub-typing, but it doesn't hurt it too much to be unviable.

 

[Gary]

Unlike other dragon-types, Hydreigon's sub-typing gives it a nice resistance to dark-type moves, but also doesn't spoil dragon-type's great resistances to Grass-, Water-, Fire-, and Electric-type moves and gains the benefits of ground immunity with Levitate. Heatran is weak to Fighting-, Ground-, and Water-type moves, all of which are super common, but Hydreigon is weak to common typings too. Heatarn has a great defensive typing, but Hydreigon is actually good enough to pull off a support set too. Its typing isn't "terrible" as you describe, but average. Surely, Hydreigon would be better without the sub-typing, but it doesn't hurt it too much to be unviable.

Other then its average speed, Hydreigon's Dark-typing is part of the reason why it's so hard to use. It's weak to common priority, weak to Fighting-types, and most importantly, U-turn weak. Sure, it may have a decent amount of resistances because of its Dragon-typing, but so do a lot of other Dragon-types in the tier. Also, Heatran and Hydreigon are almost incomparable. Heatran may be weak to common types as well, but it's resistances and bulk highly outweigh Hydreigon's. Heatran is a great counter to one of the most prominent threats in the tier, Scizor, and can also come in on Dragon-type attacks as well. Finally, it's an amazing sun team counter. Hydreigon isn't built like Heatran, and they are polar opposites in terms of viability.

Also, I want to see some solid evidence that Hydreigon can run a successful support set. I've tested it out before, and it's garbage. I'd rather be using something else with more useful resistances and better bulk.

 

[Schpoonman]

Let's not pretend Hydreigon's Dark-typing does it any favors. It doesn't, at all. I like to think I covered the subject pretty well in his Overview. It doesn't improve STAB coverage at all (Jellicent is the only one hit noticeably harder than Draco Meteor, and even Mixed Hydreigon 2HKOs after Rocks. Also don't even talk about Celebi, you've got Fire Blast for that), doesn't take care of its Ice- and Dragon-weaknesses, and gives it really ugly Fighting- and Bug-weaknesses.

Weaknesses to Dragon and Fighting pretty much exclude Hydreigon as a defensive Pokemon. As an offensive Pokemon, Hydreigon shines because of his high Special Attack and incredibly diverse movepool, not because Dragon/Dark is some sort of Jesus STAB like Fighting/Rock.

 

[silenced]

Please bear in mind I'm still trying to test this (let alone get the team balance right in general, since OU is not the main tier I play), but I finally got around to testing my manual weather hydreigon I came up with

Hydreigon @ draco plate
Levitate
Modest 252 SpA, 252 Spe, 4 HP
-Draco Meteor
-Fire Blast
-Sunny Day
-U-turn

The concept of this was that hydreigon matches up pretty well against all opposing weather starters, in the sense that they will switch out rather than risk losing the weather war, so I decided this would be a good way to turn the weather match-up for sun, since only scarf variants of either tyranitar or politoed will dare risk confronting hydreigon (even then, that's a maybe). Outside of that, the few walls that will dare to take on hydreigon I will U-turn out of, either to dugtrio in order to trap them, or to sawsbuck in order to set up on them/eliminate them with coverage.

Dragon/Fire is pretty good coverage in OU anyway, with the only resistor of both types in heatran would be very hesistant to switch in for risking being trapped by dugtrio. Draco plate is to power up the Meteor since fire blast should be boosted by sun, while not wearing out hydreigon too fast from LO recoil.

Other notes
-Using a move over U-turn such as EQ or Tailwind may help more, as sun can be a little slow, or if you want to kill opposing ninetales straight up rather than have them roar out a sweeper later on (may require some EV changes to do that).
-In terms of team-mates, dugtrio is good simply due to trapping heatran (though it might help me more if I used venusaur over sawsbuck, since sawsbuck is already accomplishing roles hydreigon is trying to do). A Set-up sweeper that fares well against walls such as the blobs, jellicent etc would also be a good way to take advantage of hydreigon as well.

Like I said, this is still being tested (asides from questionable team-mate choices, I'm also facing a large amount of weatherless/opposing sun on the low end of OU's ladder rather than rain/sand), but I guess this is a potential support set, while still being able to send mons running in fear.

 

[Neliel]

The only successfull set i've used is the standard one with life orb, draco meteor, fire blast, superpower and tailwind instead of roost. Imo this is the only set that hydreygon can run to not be outclassed by other dragons, (even tho latios and salamence have tailwind too.. at least you can use them both) and its better used in tailwind teams rather than just is it alone. The other set i used was a stallbreaker one, with taunt, roost, dragon tail and thunder wave (?) or flametrower, again its the only dragon that can taunt and its not weak to pursuit (reason to use it instead of latias) and not weak to stealth rock (reason to use it over fat mence). Its defenses are very good if invested, so a bulky set is viable.. the problem is that its also fight weak which means you cant switch into keldeo/landorus/breloom whereas a mence/latias can... in conclusion i think you need a strong reason to use it, otherwhise there are better things.

 

[Lavos]

i disagree entirely with neliel. it's completely unjustified to say that hydreigon's only viable set is one so very limited. hydra can fill a ton of different niches, from a choice specs nuclear weapon to a life orb momentum builder to a substitute utility attacker. in addition, the set neliel lists (draco/fblast/superpower/tailwind) actually misses out on a lot of great coverage that hydra is so well known for, including the ability to 2hko jirachi in rain, the most common special wall around, and ohko sdef heatran, another integral pokemon. hydreigon's true strength lies in sticking around for a while and wreaking havoc due to the opponent's inability to safely switch into it. i don't think tailwind accomplishes this, especially when each of hydra's turns are so critical, and burning one to set up tailwind hurts too much, too often. there are better users of tailwind, anyways - you pointed them out yourself.

if i had to rank how good each hydra set was in the current meta i'd say

1. life orb roost
2. choice specs (close second)
3. substitute
4. tailwind

tl;dr don't use tailwind, use lo/specs

 

[Neliel]

How do you actually spam specs dmeteor when hydreygon is outspeeded by almost every offensive pokemon ? I know it destroys stall teams but they arent even that common compared to offensive ones. everytime i use a non-sub or tailwind hydra set i feel like hydreygon wont be that usefull because of its mediocre speed, and this is where tailwind makes the difference. You are probably right about the coverage moves though, i didnt really care about that when i was using it, just using draco meteor against everything and die to let something else attack with tailwind. Of course hydra it has "no switch in" but its not like there are better things that have no switch in too, after all this is bw.

 

[Gary]

Yeah I've never found Tailwind to be relatively useful. It was pretty situational, and since Hydreigon is primarily either spamming Draco Meteor or a coverage move, Tailwind seems kind of useless to me because after the -2 SpA drop, Hydreigon can only reliably use its physical attacks. If you were to run Dragon Pulse over Draco Meteor, then it's too weak. I've had a lot of experience with Hydreigon, and I've never figured out why people seem to think that the Tailwind set is so good. Looks good on paper, but it's really hard to pull off and too situational for me to use over something like Roost or EQ. Specs and LO Mixed are definitely the best sets in this meta right now, as they both heavily abuse Hydreigon's greatest role in OU; Wallbreaking. Tailwind turns Hydreigon into more of a late game cleaner or a fast jihad. Problem is, Hydreigon isn't supposed to be used like that. I'm almost even curious to see if someone has successfully pulled off a Tailwind set. I've yet to see anyone do good work with it. Every time I face one, I laugh at it with priority.

 

[Lavos]

How do you actually spam specs dmeteor when hydreygon is outspeeded by almost every offensive pokemon ? I know it destroys stall teams but they arent even that common compared to offensive ones.

you're right in saying that full stall teams aren't nearly as common as offensive ones. however, in this metagame, even most offensive teams have a pokemon or two that is outsped and threatened by hydreigon. things like jirachi, jellicent, celebi, scizor, hippowdon, landorus-t, gliscor, lucario, toxicroak, feraligatr, and politoed are all common pokemon that appear on offensive teams and are severely threatened by specs hydreigon, forcing switches that often allow you to nail something important with a coverage move. in addition, hydreigon can always come in on something locked into a move, like scarf keldeo locked into surf or cbtar locked into crunch. hydreigon's defensive typing isn't the best, but a couple key resistances really make this even easier than it sounds. with the right team surrounding it (u-turners and paralysis support always help), getting hydreigon in to wreak some havoc is never difficult.

 

[Neliel]

ok, but what you get from being specs instead of life orb? tailwind hydreygon can wreck those things you mentioned too (bar jirachi i guess) but it can also allow you to outspeed some offensive things with tailwind thanks to those key resistance you mentioned and provide a nice support for the following sweeper. I know it has its flaws , but this is also the reason why hydreygon's niche are so limited that you have to rely on this set to use it. Of course its just my opinion, you dont have to agree with me or anything, im just not confident with the specs and Lo roost set.

 

[Gary]

Specs is just for nuking purposes. Hydreigon isn't completely outclassed by Specs Latios because of its access to great coveraging moves that Latios would only dream of having. I do agree that the LO Mixed set is usually preferred for maximum coverage and wallbreaking capabilities, but Specs Hydreigon hits so damn hard it's often difficult to pass up on.

 

[Vert]

Specs is just for nuking purposes. Hydreigon isn't completely outclassed by Specs Latios because of its access to great coveraging moves that Latios would only dream of having. I do agree that the LO Mixed set is usually preferred for maximum coverage and wallbreaking capabilities, but Specs Hydreigon hits so damn hard it's often difficult to pass up on.

Latios has:

• • Pursuit Weakness
  • Inferior Coverage
  • More Weak to Priority Moves

Just give Hydreigon some Paralysis support and it can run pretty efficiently without Latios's flaws. The problem is that that is hard to pull off, but with Rotom-W's Thunder Wave Choice Specs Hydreigon is a nuke.

In this metagame, I run 188 Speed EVs since Heatarn is all I need to outspeed.

 

[Punchshroom]

Now that I look at it, doesn't Hydreigon possess all the tools it needs to eliminate pretty much all of Keldeo's switch-ins? The only one it cannot safely switch into would be Toxicroak, but aside from that Hydra can switch in and wreck their face(s).

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Now that I look at it, doesn't Hydreigon possess all the tools it needs to eliminate pretty much all of Keldeo's switch-ins? The only one it cannot safely switch into would be Toxicroak, but aside from that Hydra can switch in and wreck their face(s).

Yes, except that latios and latias still beat hydreigon. Thats why ttar is used as a partner for keldeo since it can eliminate the biggest checks to keldeo. However i suppose a hydreigon+ttar+keldeo core could theorically beat all of keldeo checks/counters and sweep.

 

[Neliel]

ttar+keldeo+latios is already a well known core.. no need to make your team even more breloom/thundurus/landorus weak.

 

[RabidChipmunk]

Latios has:

• • Pursuit Weakness
  • Inferior Coverage
  • More Weak to Priority Moves

Just give Hydreigon some Paralysis support and it can run pretty efficiently without Latios's flaws. The problem is that that is hard to pull off, but with Rotom-W's Thunder Wave Choice Specs Hydreigon is a nuke.

In this metagame, I run 188 Speed EVs since Heatarn is all I need to outspeed.

First of all, no, Hydreigon is more priority weak than Latios. Latios is only weak to Ice Shard (and I Sucker Punch, apparently), while Hydreigon is also weak to Ice Shard, Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave (although no one really uses Vacuum Wave, but it's still a thing).

Second of all, no, Hydreigon needs all 252 of those speed EV's. In addition to Heatran, he also needs to outspeed Mamoswine, Dragonite, Rotom, Lucario, Landorus-T (U-turn does a shitload), fucking Kyurem-B (!), and the occasional Haxorus.

 

[Gary]

[Latios] is more Weak to Priority Moves

.....what..??? Latios is only weak to Sucker Punch and Ice Shard, Sucker Punch being rare in OU anyway. Hydreigon is weak to Mach Punch and Ice Shard. Will you look at that? They're both weak to two forms of priority. Sadly, Mach Punch is MUCH MUCH MUCH more common then Sucker Punch, so Hydreigon still fails in that department. Not being Pursuit weak and having a ton of coverage does have its advantages over Latios though.