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Is Toxic Spikes Worth It In Standard OU?

ARandomDude said:
Toxic Spikes are totally worth it IMO. All it takes is one turn (easy to find with Forretress, who can come in on choiced physical attacks EZ, or Roserade, who creates free turns with Sleep Powder), and then some big threats are much easier to handle.
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Probably worth mentioning, though, that if you are using Forry just for Toxic Spikes, then don't use IPL's moveset, which really works best for Heavy Stall, because it gives setup opportunities to EVERY sweeper, and some teams can't afford that. Instead, something like

Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP/12 Def/246 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Light Screen / Reflect
- Earthquake
---

would work better for most teams because (aside from screen support) it at least kinda covers your ass against foolhardy Lucarios looking to get off a Swords Dance. And maybe if you're lucky you can hit Heatran or Infernape on the switch-in. Use Toxic Spikes the first turn unless you think the other dude has Magnezone, in which case Light Screen is the safe choice, because it lets you live the HP Fire against any Magnezone switch-ins, and respond with Earthquake to OHKO. Unless its a Sub/Magnet Rise, but you should be setting up layers against them anyways...

But all this isn't simply an exercise about Forry, it brings up an important point: Toxic Spikes are undeniably useful, but they're quite risky, taking up both time and space in a battle, and the payoff should be worth it.
 
T Spikes check chomp and hinders Blissey as it tries to wall your special attackers.
Natural Cure doesn't help it too much as its statused on switching in.
Grounded Poison types are not *that* common in OU.
 
mtr12 said:
Probably worth mentioning, though, that if you are using Forry just for Toxic Spikes, then don't use IPL's moveset, which really works best for Heavy Stall, because it gives setup opportunities to EVERY sweeper, and some teams can't afford that. Instead, something like

Forretress (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Sturdy
EVs: 252 HP/12 Def/246 SDef
Impish nature (+Def, -SAtk)
- Toxic Spikes
- Rapid Spin
- Light Screen / Reflect
- Earthquake
---

would work better for most teams because (aside from screen support) it at least kinda covers your ass against foolhardy Lucarios looking to get off a Swords Dance. And maybe if you're lucky you can hit Heatran or Infernape on the switch-in. Use Toxic Spikes the first turn unless you think the other dude has Magnezone, in which case Light Screen is the safe choice, because it lets you live the HP Fire against any Magnezone switch-ins, and respond with Earthquake to OHKO. Unless its a Sub/Magnet Rise, but you should be setting up layers against them anyways...

But all this isn't simply an exercise about Forry, it brings up an important point: Toxic Spikes are undeniably useful, but they're quite risky, taking up both time and space in a battle, and the payoff should be worth it.
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I'm going to make this comment in light of the suspect metagame:
I'm running this set:
Forretress@Leftovers
248HP/252Def/8SpD Impish
-Earthquake
-Explosion
-Rapid Spin
-Toxic Spikes
Forretress finds so many things he can set up on- choiced garchomp, metagross, swampert, jirachi, the list goes on. Earthquake does like 75% to Lucario, while a +2SD doesnt OHKO back. Explosion handles Garchomp, Latias, Manaphy, etc to an extent.
Anyhow, my point is, Forretress can easily find free turns, and those free turns can cause huge benefits (imagine someone's SubSalac Garchomp...RUINED :naughty:).
 
Interesting set, but I have a few comments:

1. Why 248 HP? Since 354 is not divisible by 8, you don't hit a Stealth Rock number, and therefore don't need to have an odd number.

2. I dunno, I always get a bit bugged by having max defense on Forry. Max/Max/Impish over Max/Min/Impish gives you 100 * (1.2017-1.000) = 20.2% more Def potential. Granted, this can mean the difference in some crucial KOes, but is it worth losing 40.4% SDef potential, which can let you set up on a greater variety of threats, like Draco Meteors from ScarfLati?

3. If you're in a gambling mood, try Toxic Spiking while Lucario Swords Dances. Then after it fires off a Close Combat, its Defense will be reduced, and your Earthquake will KO easily. Of course, the risk is that the opponent calls you on it and Swords Dances again and sweeps.

I haven't used Max/Max/Impish in a while, so I might just not be used to it. In any case, the wonderful thing about Forretress as a Toxic Spiker is that you can make it do almost anything you want for your stall or balanced team! On the other hand, Roserade and Tentacruel pretty much only have one way in which each of them can work.
 
hhjj said:
Remember, I specifically listed this title as "Standard OU", meaning no Suspect discussion like Garchomp.

Anyways, I believe that Toxic Spikes requires time, but alot of teams end up having lots of Steel, or Flying, or Levitate Pokemon. Toxic as an individual move proves to be better to hit more, and at least it isn't automatic, so for example, you really want to Burn a Tyranitar but it just switches into Toxic Spikes and avoids the burn. Or Paralyze that Scarf Heracross, but end up with a Poisoned Heracross now fast and abusing Guts. Or Sleep that Infernape, but end up with a Poisoned Infernape that not only avoids the Sleep, but can avoid other status moves later.

Also, for Natural Cure's argument, consider Starmie. Recover+Natural Cure+Rapid Spin. Come in, Spin away TSpikes, Recover off damage within the 3rd turn, and let Natural Cure remove Poison.

Starmie also can Ice Beam/Psychic Roserade or Psychic/Thunderbolt Tentacruel, or Hydro Pump/Surf Forretress for some pretty decent damage. I see lots of Rapid Spin Life Orb Starmies, so their damage output is pretty powerful, in addition to Psychic/Surfing/Hydro Pumping the rare TSpikes Nidoqueen. Overall, Starmie can threaten TSpikers, (forcing them out), Rapid Spinning away the Spikes, Recovering off the accumulated damage, and simply switch out.

Natural Cure is a viable answer to TSpikes on Starmie in accordance to Rapid Spin sets.
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In theory, Starmie's combination of Natural Cure, Recover and Rapid Spin helps it clear Toxic Spikes.
However, in practicality, it's not that easy since it's in significant danger from some of the most common spin blockers.

Rotom-A has good Special Defense and the ability to threaten Starmie with either of its STAB moves (and Mowtom even has Leaf Storm, not that it would waste it on Starmie).
Spiritomb also has Calm Mind to buff itself, Pressure to waste PP and STAB dark attacks to clobber Starmie with.
Roserade cannot block Rapid Spin but it resists 2/3 moves Starmie usually carries (they rarely run Psychic) and can be EVd to avoid a 2KO from Starmie's Ice Beam while OHKOing with STABbed Grass Knot if Starmie was even scratched.
It can face off with Starmie and win then lay Toxic Spikes later in the match with the spinner gone.

I messed aroung with probably about 20 matches on the OU ladder using a Toxic Spiking Tentacruel (easily comes in on Internape, Fire Blast locked Heatran etc) with Rotom-A as a spin blocker.
Only one time were the spikes ever absored (by an opposing Tentacruel) and it's surprising how many spinners were scared off by Rotom-A (Starmie, Balstoise, Tenta though it only has to switch in).

So overall, I find that people aren't that prepared to remove Toxic Spikes and it does a good job of wearing down Swampert, Vaporeon and other such bulky annoyances.
This was very useful to me as I had a closing sweeper that disliked bulky waters and Blissey.
 
As someone who wields an Empoleon-based team, Toxic Spikes is absolutely critical for them, and a few things:

- Both Blissey, and Celebi have Natural Cure, a 50% Recovery move (Softboiled and Recover), and Heal Bell. Being able to Remove Toxic Spikes' effects and heal off the damage with moves that are common on their various movesets really hampers your argument that they are screwed over. Especially if they have a grounded Poison or Rapid Spin Pokemon of their own that they can switch to.
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Blissey doesn't run Heal Bell that often, and Celebi practically never uses it outside of total stall. Softboiled is nice, but it's only a delaying measure, as eventually Toxic damage will outdo Recovery damage and they lose. Empoleon is perfectly happy just waiting as they spam Recover only to inevitably lose the Toxic battle.

- Starmie is also a Natural Cure Pokemon with a 50% Recovery move. Although Starmie lacks Heal Bell or Aromatherapy, the Rapid Spin will prevent its teammates from being affected, while Natural Cure will allow it to not be poisoned upon return.
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Uh, spin-blockers exist for a reason, and you should be carrying them if you're using Toxic Spikes. Starmie comes in on Roserade? Retreat to Rotom.

-Suicune, Snorlax, Heracross, many Swampert, and some Machamp are known to run Rest (and possibly Sleep Talk), to not only recover their HP, but cure status effects such as Toxic Spikes' poison, and even to activate abilities, such as Machamp and Heracross' Guts. Again, Toxic Spikes is a hindrance to these Pokemon at most, as long as they carry Rest, and that's if Snorlax isn't running Immunity to begin with. Additionally, they pokemon pack Calm Mind, Curse, or Bulk Up to make their time asleep less of a concern in regards to survival, being able to survive the 2 turns asleep fairly well (especially Suicune).

-Other Pokemon you listed: Hippowdon, and Dusknoir carry Rest and possibly Sleep Talk on some of their movesets over their Pain Split and Slack off. With this in mind, Toxic Spikes seems to really "outstall" many less of those on your list as previously thought.
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A lot of the things you're mentioning are just pretty rare really. I don't see Snorlax, Heracross (who's easy to deal with anyways) and Resttalk Swampert or Machamp really that often, if ever, and I have never seen Resttalk Hippow or Dusknoir. Machamp almost never runs Guts, and while Cune is annoying, I use a Heatran lure to take him out (and Bulky Waters in general). Yeah, there's strategies to beat Toxic Spikes specifically, but most people don't bother as they use a ton of Steels/Flying pokemon anyways - almost all of whom will get destroyed when I manage to get my precious penguin set up regardless.
 
As a general opponent of Toxik Spikes, i can't imagine, that they aren't useful in OU.

In a Tier where many Steel-Types and Pokémon with Natural Cure / Levitate are, they shouldn't be very effective. Sure, in OU there aren't many Poison-Types who can absorb Toxic Spikes (only Tentacruel, not?), but there are also at least as many Pokémon who are immune against - Jirachi, Metagross, Heatran, Scizor, Gengar, Cresselia, Gyarados, Salamence, Flygon, the list goes on.

For what Pokémon in OU do you think, Toxic Spikes can be helpful? Staller of course. But which for? Snorlax often carries Rest, so he can clean the toxic poison, Blissey has Natural Cure, Cresselia isn't even affected because of her Levitate-Ability. The only Pokémon in OU which really hates toxic poison is Dusknoir, i think. All the others don't enjoy, but also don't die on toxic poison too.

Oh, and remember: Do you really want to set up Toxic Spikes to grant Machamp / Heracross Guts-activation on their switch-in?
 
Yeah, there's strategies to beat Toxic Spikes specifically, but most people don't bother as they use a ton of Steels/Flying pokemon anyways - almost all of whom will get destroyed when I manage to get my precious penguin set up regardless.
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I see another Empoleon lover. :p
It's rather underrated and extremely dangerous given half the chance.
And yes, for it Toxic Spikes is a must to break Blissey's ability to wall you.

Support for other Pokemon on your team is one main reason to use Toxic Spikes in OU.
Stall breaking Gliscor also benefits from Toxic Spikes since it is usually able to block Recovery with Taunt and wear walls down.

Toxic Spikes can also help weaken specific grounded threats if they bother your team.
One layer doesn't take long to put down and does 12.5% damage every turn.
When that is combined with Life Orb recoil and maybe even Sandstorm damage it can save your rear from being swept.

So the idea that Toxic Spikes is only useful for stall is not true, IMHO.
It can free some Pokemon from running Toxic, helps some sweepers to beat their counters,
and reduce the number of turns some threatening LO sweepers can wreak havoc against your team.
 
In a Tier where many Steel-Types and Pokémon with Natural Cure / Levitate are, they shouldn't be very effective. Sure, in OU there aren't many Poison-Types who can absorb Toxic Spikes (only Tentacruel, not?), but there are also at least as many Pokémon who are immune against - Jirachi, Metagross, Heatran, Scizor, Gengar, Cresselia, Gyarados, Salamence, Flygon, the list goes on.
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I think you are forgetting that Pokemon like Hippowdon, Celebi, Infernape, Machamp, Tyranitar, Blissey and basically every bulky water except Tentacruel hate being poisoned, so Toxic Spikes are useful in that regard in taking out these Pokemon. They are especially handy when paired with Heatran or Empoleon, as they are generally countered by the same stuff (Blissey, bulky waters).

For what Pokémon in OU do you think, Toxic Spikes can be helpful? Staller of course. But which for? Snorlax often carries Rest, so he can clean the toxic poison, Blissey has Natural Cure, Cresselia isn't even affected because of her Levitate-Ability. The only Pokémon in OU which really hates toxic poison is Dusknoir, i think. All the others don't enjoy, but also don't die on toxic poison too.
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Although Snorlax and Blissey can rid themselves of poison, they get poisoned when they switch back in, so your argument is flawed. As I have shown eariler, there are more Pokemon than Dusknoir that don't like toxic poison, particularly bulky waters, and it DOES ruin them too, so they WILL die on it.

Oh, and remember: Do you really want to set up Toxic Spikes to grant Machamp / Heracross Guts-activation on their switch-in?
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Less than 10% of Machamps ran Guts in September and Heracross is rare in OU these days.
 
roserade destroys starmie, not even talking about spinblockers. If you want to rapid spin, fine you'll get OHKO'd by both leafstorm and grass knot. If you want to ice beam, it's a 2hko at best so you'll still be KO'd.
 
I think it really depends on the team. For some teams, they don't need toxic spikes to win. For example, a team based around lucario probably doesnt want to waste time with toxic spikes. But a team based around say sub-charge rotom, is pretty much always going to want toxic spikes. The main things that rotom needs to get through, tyranitar and blissey are both stalled by toxic spikes. Rotom also likes toxic spikes because it can substitute until the foe has taken enough poison damage to be KOed. Lucario is mainly walled by gyarados and zapdos (idk its mostly gyarados), so SR is much more important than spikes.
 
Toxic Spikes are useful on any team (if it's an offensive team, set down 1 layer cause it does more damage over 2 turns.) Poisoning Hippo is vital against stall. Substistuters like poison slowing wearing opponents down. There's no reasons not to use it.
 
Its useful in cetian strategies.

You cannot say that they are a waste of time in general because they are not in certian strategies, it is a waste to put it randomly on a team but not a watse in a strategy.
 
Use Toxic Spikes, when you
*have trouble with bulky ground and/or water types and especially Blissey
*especially rely on special attackers, as your main counters are destroyed by Toxic Spikes

Even when your opponent isn't affected much (most times at least one Pokémon is affected) Toxic Spikes is a good addition to all teams having Empoleon, or other special sweepers, since it makes their job 1000 times easier.

Maybe there are few Pokémon that Toxic Spikes really hits, but those defensive, nasty threats:

I'm using the October usage list to show them:

#7 - Tyranitar - Rest isn't used enough to be mentioned (Other: 7,3%)
#8 - Infernape
#12 - Swampert - Rest isn't used enough to be mentioned (Other: 7,9%)
#14 - Blissey - Aromatherapy (27,4%) ; Heal Bell isn't used enough
#15 - Starmie - Rapid Spin (54,5% + Natural Cure)
#18 - Machamp - Guts (9,4%) ; Rest (25,3%)
#19 - Vaporeon - Rest isn't used enough to be mentioned (Other: 5,6%)
#22 - Celebi - Rest and Heal Bell aren't used enough (Other: 9,2%)
#28 - Jolteon - Rest isn't used enough (Other: 3,4%)
#29 - Kingdra - Rest isn't used enough (Other: 7,8%)

Yes, only 10 of the 30 most used Pokémon are affected by Toxic Spikes, but you have big defensive threats covered. Though Blissey just can switch out and cure it's poison by Natural Cure, Blissey can easily be stalled out and can't perform her job as a special wall. She also gets in danger to fall to strong special special moves, because strong special moves + toxic damage can actually kill Blissey easily in three turns.

Not enough bulky grounds and waters run Rest (see above), so they become USELESS, because of Toxic Spikes. It also makes Tyranitar look pretty bad.

There are a lot of more Pokémon affected badly by Toxic Spikes. Suicune (only 50% run Rest); Electivire, Weavile, Hippowdon, Snorlax (17% Immunity; 63,5% Rest), Dusknoir, Mamoswine, Smeargle, PorygonZ, Heracross (attention: Guts) are the other OU-Pokémon that are affected by Toxic Spikes.

Now, look at the counters:
-Roserade (#40 - 4,53%) and Tentacruel (#41 - 4,5%) absorb them by switching in.
-Rapid Spin users (alphabetic order, over 1% usage in OU):
Claydol: 1,6% - (77,8% RS)
Donphan: 2.3% - (84,8% RS)
Forretress: 7,3% - (82,6% RS)
Hitmontop: 1,6% - (46,8% RS)
Kabutops: 1,5% - (7,9% RS)
Starmie: 11,7% - (54,5% RS)
Tentacruel: 4,5% - (89% RS)

Actually we have only three OU-RS-users: Tentacruel, Forretress and Starmie and it's not like that you can't switch into a ghost. Also, Toxic Spikes aren't bad, just because they can be removed by RS, so you wouldn't lay down any entry hazards and we all know how important SR is in the metagame. The far worse thing is that Toxic Spikes are removed by switching in grounded poison types, so you really need pay attention to them.

The biggest issue is the following: There are millions of SR-users, but there are very few Pokémon that can use TS. In my opinion it isn't quite hard to fit them in your team:
-Forretress, especially with the mentioned moveset above is quite awesome
-Roserade as status user, annoyer/staller (with leech seed), small special tank, lead or special attacker.
-Tentacruel, as a special tank and RS-user
(and maybe Smeargle....)

It's important to say, that Toxic Spikes are not very helpful for every team, especially when you rely on other status as paralysis or want to abuse Yawn.

=> In my opinion Toxic Spikes are very usefull. As you can see above Toxic Spikes are very usefull, when you have trouble with bulky grounds and bulky waters. When you are relying on special sweepers, Toxic Spikes supports you, as it makes the job of many Pokémon that can be difficult to kill (!Blissey!).

Instead of saying how many Pokémon aren't affected by Toxic Spikes and how useless it is against the majority of the OU-Pokémon, you should note how many threats are destroyed and are becoming useless just because of Toxic Spikes. Although most of those Pokémon can use Rest, abuse Natural Cure, or use Heal Bell / Aromatherapy it isn't used that much. Just look at the statistic.

-0²
 
I would have to say that Toxic Spikes are the most useful on stall teams and it allows a way for the bulky Pokemon to absorb hits and "damage" their opponents. Clearly it doesn't work on Salamence and Gyarados, but that's a different story. The biggest reason to use it, imo, would be for Blissey. Her fatness takes too many Special hits way too easily and with T-spikes, you can limit her walling abilities.
 
Swinging in just to say that at least back when I played a lot and Empoleon was rather viable, just as few Pokemon were affected by Toxic Spikes - and they were ALL of Empoleon's counters. Other than Latias, it's my understanding little has changed since. Other stuff walled by Celebi / Blissey / etc are pretty screwed by it, Empoleon's probably the most potent though.

Perhaps a small note of Gravity + Toxic Spikes, I heard a lot of mons got Gravity recently so maybe Latias won't be such a problem for Empoleon now.

In short there are better things you can be doing in stall, like knocking off items,
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Knock Off sucks... almost every item can be transformed into a benefit for stall (Choice items ease prediction, Life Orb increases residual damage) and it wastes a turn.

hhjj said:
Overall, I guess it depends on the team... But I still find it to rely not just on your team but your foe's team... Are they even threatened by Toxic Spikes? That's what the real question to be asked is.
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No. The real question is if you can deal with things that aren't affected by it, and if you have ways of functioning without them if need be. All teams "rely on your foe's team" in that sense, so they need to be flexible.

Ex: An Empoleon team has little trouble with almost all Pokemon immune to tspikes.
 
When running a team centered around certain Pokemon, Toxic Spikes are definitely worth it to ensure the extra damage. They're useful on stall and bulky offensive teams. I run then quite a bit myself, great entry hazzards to have.
 
Toxic Spikes would really only be useful for stall, as Spikes is generally better in far more situations. If you've got a spare moveslot for it, great, throw it in. But if you don't, then don't.
 
Chris is me said:
Perhaps a small note of Gravity + Toxic Spikes, I heard a lot of mons got Gravity recently so
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But how many teams exactly use gravity? Its not that common as much as I've seen on Shoddy. Even so, pokemon like Gengar and Crobat can switch in to remove Toxic Spikes under gravity nonetheless.

However, Latias does have refresh when it switches in under gravity. So it doesn't have to worry about Poison. If Latias is spec'd and has T-bolt, then it does stand a chance against Empoleon.

Toxic Spikes is a neccessity for Stall and defensive teams. I personally see it as a hindrance for offensive teams.
 
Physical attacks are generally more common, but the special attackers are generally very dangerous, so Blissey is needed to stop them in their tracks. If this is the case hhjj, then Toxic Spikes limits the amount of time blissey can stay in for (if it has natural cure). When it switches back in, it gets poisoned again, once again limiting the time. If its the last, then its days are numbered.

In stall teams, its all about racking up as much 'secondary' damage as possible. SR is about 12%, Spikes is about 25% and T-Spikes add toxic on top of that. It serves to help eliminate some of the most dangerous Pokemon.
 
3 ways Toxic Spikes helps stall.

1: In stall vs. stall, the one with Toxic Spikes usually wins.

2: Infernape, Tyranitar, Offensive Suicune, Crocune (if your team has taunt), Starmie, etc. These Pokemon do a lot of damage to stall, and they all get their lives chopped every turn by Toxic Spikes. (other viable tspike-susceptible threats include Electivire (lol), Calm Mind Celebi (which can shrug off normal Toxic with Natural Cure), Machamp (seriously fuck subchamp a lot), Kingdra (DD variants can rip up teams if you're not ready), so TSpikes handles a lot of offense.) Just because it doesn't hit Salamence/Heatran/Gyarados/Lucario/Scizor doesn't make TSpikes inviable. You use TSpikes to cripple specific opponents that are susceptible to it. You don't exclude it because it doesn't hit specific shit.

3: Did I mention Stall vs. Stall? Often, the biggest problem with stall teams is that they simply cannot do dick to opposing stall, and end up having to sit on their ass and PP stall that Blissey out of all its shit, or get picked apart by Hippowdon, or all manner of other useless shit. TSpikes are the key for stall teams to beat most other stall teams.

EDIT: A good rule of thumb is: One layer against offense, two layers against stall. With one layer up, Toxic Spikes works like a free layer of Spikes that hits anything susceptible once per turn. A Pokemon has to stay in for at least 4 turns for Toxic to work its magic and start doing more damage, and that's rare against offensive teams. You'll find that when you're doing anywhere from 25-50% more damage for one LESS turn, Toxic Spikes become a lot more comfy.
 
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