Landorus-I Discussion: Evaluating a Potential Suspect

[Spaniard]

The set I find most broken is:

Landorus
@Life orb
sheer force

earth power
hp (ice)
focus blast
u turn

This performs best in a volt turn team (preferably with a pursuit user). Rather than going for a rock polish full sweep you go for gaining momentum and trying to poke hp from the oposition with landorus. When faced by a faster pokemon/bulky pokemon you just switch/u turn and try to gain momentum to keep poking later on.

The problem is that landorus does insane amounts of damage to the whole metagame with little prediction while at the same time, it's counters are very weak to momentum, residual damage and pursuit.

Sure, jellicent can wall it (and still struggles because of crits and you need to be close to full hp to switch in and live a second blow). The problem is that hazards, sand or a predicted u turn to tyranitar/rotom w will be too much to the poor counter. It'll go down unavoidably after repeated switching and then landorus is free to burst the oposition. Same happens with latias, celebi and bulky waters that somewhat counter it.

So as to beat Landorus you have to predict worldclass to not lose momentum. Trying to play arround it is too risky but sadly it's the way to go. The last option is running a team full of very fast paced sweepers so that Landorus has no room to attack (but that's what I call metagame-breaking as one pokemon forces whole team compositions).

Maybe the problem is simply the combination on life orb + sheer force, as most users of the combo can take large portions of hp from nearly the whole metagame. Just to name a few Feraligatr or Nidoking. I'm not saying they are broken, only that they deal absurd damage, but landorus has a few advantages over them that make him overpowered (better coverage, better speed and u turn).

Obviously everything I posted is just my point of view.

 

[Ojama]

This is, if we believe that those Pokemon are broken in the first place. Also SpD Skarmory is not a shitty check, it is a good one from my expereince, as it can switch into anything Landorus throws at it except for Focus Blast, and even Focus Blast will 2HKO only 49% of the time, meaning that most of the time Skarmory will manage to get in and PP stall Landorus of Focus Blast pps.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Skarmory: 186-220 (55.68 - 65.86%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You sure about that ? From Timid Landorus in addition, whatever. I won't even waste my time about your defensive or offensive cores because half of them are wrong and the remaining ones aren't this good.

For example Bronzong + Amoonguss are both 2HKO'd after Stealth Rock so that means you have to make the right predictions against it. Rotom-W isn't a Landorus counter at all lol, even Specially Defensive Rotom-W is 2HKO'd by Focus Blast. I guess I will stop here because it's a waste of time.

I agree about the fact that we only should ban broken Pokemon and this is probably why we're talking whether Landorus is worthy of being Suspect or not. Suspecting it would allow us to see if a Metagame without Landorus-I is better than the current Metagame.

In my opinion, Landorus-I is definitely worthy of being Suspect but I don't think it deserves to be banned though. But we need to know if the Metagame is better with or without it. It's too good to be ignored, and the amount of invalid arguments to prove it's not broken just prove the opposite.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

Actually, I'd like to touch on why priority is a big deal, because Ginga was telling us to bring better info or GTFO, no more "but Ice Shard!" I find it very odd that the most common Pokemon in the metagame is no longer an acceptable answer. I find it very odd the admitted best anti-metagame Pokemon (who ranked at #22 in the "1337" stats for February) is no longer an acceptable answer. Bullet Punch hurts. Ice Shard outright OHKOs. Outrunning Venusaur has mostly stopped being an option, with the only recourse left being to wall him (difficult with multiple Growth boosts) or ignore his speed with priority. What makes Landorus so different? In fact, there are NO priority attacks that OHKO a fully healthy Venusaur, when we've got Mamoswine's Ice Shard RIGHT THERE that cleans out Landorus the vast majority of the time. ESpeed from everything that gets it hurts like hell, and again, we've been using Bullet Punch to stop runaway sweeps since 2008. What makes Landorus so goddamn special?

Yes, Venusaur is a monster under sun. It is impossible to outspeed and the only thing that can wall him (assuming that it runs the standard Giga Drain/Sludge Bomb/Hidden Power Fire coverage) is Heatran. However, this is only as long as sun is shining. Sun is hard to mantain as a weather condition, it is so easy to bring your weather inducer, then predict what Venusaur will use and bring something that will outspeed Venusaur without the sun, and then defeat him. However, Landorus does not have this problem. He retains the speed boost from Rock Polish independent from whether the sun is shining, the rain is falling, etc. That's maybe one of the reasons why special Landorus is very popular even on sandstorm teams, despite the existence of physical sets; not only Tyranitar can ironically get rid of special Landorus' counters, but Landorus also is not affected by sandstorm and retains its power outside sandstorm.

tl;dr: Venusaur is dependent from sun; Landorus is weather-independent. The less dependent the Pokémon is from weather, the better.

There is a big difference between lando and the other suspects in terms of priority weakness, though.
Tornadus: Heals every time it switches out. That "prior damage" needed for kos/even to wear it down with priority itself is much more difficult
Thundurus: Weak to ONE semi-rare priority move.

Hide

252 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Ice Shard vs 0 HP/0 Def Thundurus: 77.26% - 91.3%
2 hits to KO

And that 2x as opposed to 4x matters a lot.
Excadrill: Weak to 2 priorities, both of which were very rare until the excadrill era came around. Not to mention that things like technician breloom were not existant, so the strongest mach punch available was conk which, again, doesn't come close to koing
etc.etc.

Landorus is vulnerable to the most common priority move, will be killed by the second most common, and even has an aqua jet weakness and extremespeed vulnerability to top it off.

There is a clear, undeniable difference.

I am very sure that you will be against unbanning Excadrill nowadays despite Breloom being "omnipresent". Also, Aqua Jet is a rare move to be seen. And as said many times; it will only be 2HKOed by the most common priority move, Bullet Punch. Also, while Thundurus is not OHKOed by Ice Shard, it receives recoil from Life Orb. This means that even if Thundurus is not OHKOed, it will be crippled to the point that Thundurus will not be able to pull off a sweep. Landorus does not have this problem; even if it is at low health, it can still potentially sweep because it will rarely need to resort to Hidden Power Ice, and with a Rock Polish boost, if all priority users have been killed, Landorus can still sweep effectively.

While Tornadus-T was technically vulnerable to passive damage, it could mitigate that with Regenerator. Landorus does not even have to worry about passive damage most of time because it is immune to Spikes, Toxic Spikes, sandstorm damage, and Life Orb recoil (unless, of course, it needs to use Hidden Power Ice).

We also cannot ignore the fact that Landorus does not start off with 550+ Speed like Excadrill - it REQUIRES a turn of set up, a turn of vulnerability. Making the most of this turn is vital.

Excadrill also needs a turn to setup. On its case, however, is a turn to setup and boost its power. This makes it no different from Landorus in this aspect.

It should also be noted that Excadrill is dependent from sand to have this level of speed, while Landorus retain its power on every weather.

-----------------------------------

As a last note, I want to explain why I said earlier that with a Speed boost, Landorus is uncheckable without priority: even with a Modest nature, it has 600 speed after a Rock Polish boost. Nothing can outspeed this, even with a Choice Scarf (unless - lol - Choice Scarf Ninjask) Combine with the fact that Landorus is almost impossible to counter (with Gyarados, SpD Celebi, and Latias, as the most common counters), and you can see why it is scary as hell as a sweeper.

 

[phantom]

Guys, Gyarados, and Celebi lose if Landorus is carrying Sludge Wave, j/s. Now before you discredit Sludge Wave and call it niche option, Sludge Wave can 2HKO almost every Dragon-type in OU after SR; it's just as good as HP Ice, unlike HP Ice, it doesn't take LO recoil making it more appealing. Focus blast and Earth Power take care of everything else Sludge Wave cant. I mentioned this before before, but I feel it needs to be emphasized. Sludge Wave also makes it impossible for Mamoswine to switch in, as it will be OHKO'd.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mamoswine: 344-407 (95.29 - 112.74%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock


Fun calcs:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Celebi: 237-281 (58.66 - 69.55%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados: 161-190 (40.86 - 48.22%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 232+ SpD Rotom-W: 142-168 (46.86 - 55.44%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

+
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 232+ SpD Rotom-W: 113-134 (37.29 - 44.22%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

A combination of Focus Blast + Sludge Wave can potentially beat Rotom-w, and these calcs were done with a timid nature. With modest, rotom-w will almost always lose.

There are only 3 things that can counter Sheer Force Landorus, and that is, defensive Latias, defensive Zapdos, and the blobs. This thing is REALLY, strong. What separates it from Hydra and Mence is immediate power(which lacks repercussions) and Rock Polish which makes it almost impossible to outspeed. For these reasons, and its ability to sweep teams independently, it at the very least, deserves to be a suspect.

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

Guys, Gyarados, and Celebi lose if Landorus is carrying Sludge Wave, j/s. Now before you discredit Sludge Wave and call it niche option, Sludge Wave can 2HKO almost every Dragon-type in OU after SR; it's just as good as HP Ice, unlike HP Ice, it doesn't take LO recoil making it more appealing. Focus blast and Earth Power take care of everything else Sludge Wave cant. I mentioned this before before, but I feel it needs to be emphasized. Sludge Wave also makes it impossible for Mamoswine to switch in, as it will be OHKO'd.

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Mamoswine: 344-407 (95.29 - 112.74%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock


Fun calcs:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Celebi: 237-281 (58.66 - 69.55%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Gyarados: 161-190 (40.86 - 48.22%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 232+ SpD Rotom-W: 142-168 (46.86 - 55.44%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

+
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Sludge Wave vs. 248 HP / 232+ SpD Rotom-W: 113-134 (37.29 - 44.22%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

A combination of Focus Blast + Sludge Wave can potentially beat Rotom-w, and these calcs were done with a timid nature. With modest, rotom-w will almost always lose.

There are only 3 things that can counter Sheer Force Landorus, and that is, defensive Latias, defensive Zapdos, and the blobs. This thing is REALLY, strong. What separates it from Hydra and Mence is immediate power(which lacks repercussions) and Rock Polish which makes it almost impossible to outspeed. For these reasons, and its ability to sweep teams independently, it at the very least, deserves to be a suspect.

The good thing about Sludge Wave is that with a Sheer Force boost, a neutral Sludge Bomb is almost as powerful as a super-effective Hidden Power Ice. The reason why Hidden Power Ice is most of the time the better option is because neither Earth Power nor Sludge Wave immediately dispose of Dragonite, Salamence, and Garchomp. Landorus-I will also miss out coverage against opposing Landorus-I, as well as Landorus-T and Gliscor. It may be probably good if paired with a Mamoswine or Weavile, as they can easily dispose of the aforementioned threats.

 

[kd24]

Sorry Sludge Wave guys, but I just don't see it as very relevant. Landorus-I already has efficient ways to bypass the things Sludge Wave is good for via amazing teammates as we've been illustrating. If you expect Landorus-I to do everything itself, then you might want to consider it but I think Hidden Power Ice is almost mandatory, (if not entirely mandatory) because it just deals with too many things that the above poster pointed out. The fact is, it's never bad coverage and Pokemon is never played purely at 100% HP - counters get weakened over time and Hidden Power Ice picks them off because of its good rounded coverage (redundant statements be damned!)

I understand its usable but I just don't agree that its competitive enough to warrant usage over Hidden Power Ice.

 

[alexwolf]

Your attempts throughout this thread to grasp at straws to find any counter possible are making my eyes bleed. Ignoring the fact that SpD Skarmory is hardly even viable (hint: it's not. If it was, it would've become a thing during the Tornadus-T metagame), Skarmory's response to the threat of Landorus-I is to spam Roost, which does nothing but give free turns to the opponent, as anything can switch in on that. This is in addition to Skarmory having to out-predict the Landorus user. Lol. Rest Talk Gyarados also is not good, as Rest mechanics this generation blow chunks. Zapdos, another pokemon that is barely viable in this meta, also responds to Landorus with Roost spam and shaky prediction methods. Bronzong has no reliable recovery and is nonexistant in this meta, aka why it dropped down to UU.

Really, half of you are suggesting the reason we shouldn't suspect Landorus-I is because we can PP stall it...? And because we can hope for Focus Blast misses??

Well if you believe that Zapdos, RestTalk Gyarados, and SpD Skarmory are not viable Pokemon in OU then it is logical that it seems to you that i am grasping for straws, but you have to see the point from my own view as well. I have used all those Pokemon and i find them plenty viable, so of 'course i will bring them up as potential answers to Landorus. SpD Skarmory in rain is a really good Pokemon, taking care of NP Celebi (big problem for defensive rain teams), provides a check to both LO Tornadus and Sheer Force Landorus, two other dangerous Pokemon for stall teams, counters mixed Salamence and DD Mence, and handles many of the Pokemon that physically defensive Skarmory does. I will not talk about the other Pokemon as we all know what they do by now, so the problem is that our definitions of what a viable Pokemon is are different. Finally, pp stalling a move with 8 pps that will statistically hit only 5.6 times out of 8 is not hard at all.

I will respond to Ojama later, because now my internet is lagging like crazy...

252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Skarmory: 186-220 (55.68 - 65.86%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You sure about that ? From Timid Landorus in addition, whatever. I really don't want to be mean but you really should stop posting alexwolf because this is no longer possible to read your absurd arguments. I won't even waste my time about your defensive or offensive cores because half of them are wrong and the remaining ones aren't this good.

Landorus 2HKOes SpD Skarmory only 49% of the time due to FB's accuracy. Also if you think something is wrong with my cores tell me what it is so we can discuss it.

For example Bronzong + Amoonguss are both 2HKO'd after Stealth Rock so that means you have to make the right predictions against it. Rotom-W isn't a Landorus counter at all lol, even Specially Defensive Rotom-W is 2HKO'd by Focus Blast. I guess I will stop here because it's a waste of time.

While it is true that both are 2HKOed, Amoonguss can act as a good pivot for Landorus due to Regenerator, allowing it to tank an Earth Power every so and then with little worries, as long as it switches out afterwards. Also Landorus will be hard pressed to predict right between those Pokemon, as each one is hit by a different move, while Amoonguss has a lot of room for misprediction as well, and even Rotom-W a bit, due to FB's bad accuracy. So, even if we say that the prediction argument is a coin flip (50-50), the odds go into the favor of the Rotom-W + Amoonguss player due to FB's accuracy (0.5*0.7=0.35%), the fact that Amoonguss can even take multiple Earth Power sas long as it switches out immediately, and because Landorus has to predict correct twice in order to beat any of those two pokemon (first prediction as one of the two Pokemon comes in and second prediction as Landorus thinks whether to go for the move that 2HKOes the current Pokemon, or try and hit the other one with the correct move). And if Landorus doesn't predict correctly both times its team will have to suffer serious consequences, as Spore, T-Wave, WoW, and Volt Switch are all moves that are not so easy to switch into for offensive teams.

Finally, i never said that Rotom-W is a counter to Landorus.

I agree about the fact that we only should ban broken Pokemon and this is probably why we're talking whether Landorus is worthy of being Suspect or not. Suspecting it would allow us to see if a Metagame without Landorus-I is better than the current Metagame. We should stop theorymoning sometimes, like you guys have been doing it these last few days. Stop with your "this core beats Landorus-I" or "Landorus-I is easily revenge killable by Ice Shard" or even "it's bad in 1 vs 1 because it loses to Keldeo etc". This is absolutely different during a game and we all know it, so stop bringing bad arguments please. I'm sorry but even if Keldeo wins vs Landorus in 1 vs 1, do you really think it can still beat it after a Rock Polish ? Keldeo is OHKO'd by Earth Power from Modest Landorus-I after Stealth Rock so this is an invalid argument my dear Marth. Mamoswine only revenge kills it, does that mean Landorus-I cannot switch? Can you switch your Mamoswine in vs Landorus-I? No it's OHKO'd by Earth Power.

Why you think that we are theorymoning? As i have said multiple times, i have tried most of the stuff i am talking about (except for the Dugtrio + Tales + Cress core, which i have heard from many good players that works though). I think it is because for the same reason that you think we bring bad arguments, which is that you are not willing to change your stance about Landorus not even by a little, regardless if the arguments presented to you are good or bad. You just can't have a meaningful coversation like this.

In my opinion, Landorus-I is definitely worthy of being Suspect but I don't think it deserves to be banned though. But we need to know if the Metagame is better with or without it. It's too good to be ignored, and the amount of invalid arguments to prove it's not broken just prove the opposite.

I am ok with suspecting Landorus, even if i don't think that it deserves to be one, because many people think that he does.

 

[FrostFire]

I was just reading over this topic again and just wanted to add something real quick, about Landorus-I being easy to check with priority/ higher speed mons/ scarf. I understand why people would bring this up; I mean, if something is easy to check, then that's one aspect in which it is somewhat easy to handle, leading to people considering it not broken.

But.

If the way you're relying on beating a certain pokemon (like Landorus-I) is by checking it alone, then:

Let me explain. Say Landorus-I is in on something it can easily threaten, like Ferrothorn. Obviously the Ferrothorn user has to switch - fortunately, they have a Mamoswine on their team, which can promptly kill Landorus-I with Ice Shard. But this is the problem:


Landorus-I vs. Ferrothorn

Ferrothorn switched out!

Noob sent in Mamoswine!

Landorus-I used Focus Blast!

Mamoswine fainted!


I know you may all think that this is theorymon, but it actually illustrates my point about checks quite nicely. That is, the whole point of a check is that it can threaten 'Pokemon X', but can't directly switch in on it, without dying/ taking severe damage. That means you need a free switch in order to guarantee Mamoswine's safe entry in to battle, such as after a kill.

The problem here though, is that Landorus-I can now just pick stuff off one-by-one as you try to 'check it' in vain. Example:

Landorus-I kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

Landorus-I comes back in later and kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

Landorus-I comes back in later and kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

etcetera.


The point being that if your only answer to Landorus-I is to check it, then ultimately your entire team is just going to get picked off, while Lando just switches out whenever you bring in your check.

SO, TL;DR, while 'how easy something is to check' is a good point to consider when deciding whether or not to ban something, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. This is because you can only threaten said pokemon with your check either through a lucky prediction or after a kill - and thus, they'll still have plenty of opportunity to wreak havoc on your team (particularly in Landorus-I's case, where it doesn't actually need to set up).

Check =/= Counter

 

[Vemane]

I was just reading over this topic again and just wanted to add something real quick, about Landorus-I being easy to check with priority/ higher speed mons/ scarf. I understand why people would bring this up; I mean, if something is easy to check, then that's one aspect in which it is somewhat easy to handle, leading to people considering it not broken.

But.

If the way you're relying on beating a certain pokemon (like Landorus-I) is by checking it alone, then:

Let me explain. Say Landorus-I is in on something it can easily threaten, like Ferrothorn. Obviously the Ferrothorn user has to switch - fortunately, they have a Mamoswine on their team, which can promptly kill Landorus-I with Ice Shard. But this is the problem:


Landorus-I vs. Ferrothorn

Ferrothorn switched out!

Noob sent in Mamoswine!

Landorus-I used Focus Blast!

Mamoswine fainted!


I know you may all think that this is theorymon, but it actually illustrates my point about checks quite nicely. That is, the whole point of a check is that it can threaten 'Pokemon X', but can't directly switch in on it, without dying/ taking severe damage. That means you need a free switch in order to guarantee Mamoswine's safe entry in to battle, such as after a kill.

The problem here though, is that Landorus-I can now just pick stuff off one-by-one as you try to 'check it' in vain. Example:

Landorus-I kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

Landorus-I comes back in later and kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

Landorus-I comes back in later and kills something!

You bring in Mamoswine: Landorus-I switches out.

etcetera.


The point being that if your only answer to Landorus-I is to check it, then ultimately your entire team is just going to get picked off, while Lando just switches out whenever you bring in your check.

SO, TL;DR, while 'how easy something is to check' is a good point to consider when deciding whether or not to ban something, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. This is because you can only threaten said pokemon with your check either through a lucky prediction or after a kill - and thus, they'll still have plenty of opportunity to wreak havoc on your team (particularly in Landorus-I's case, where it doesn't actually need to set up).

Check =/= Counter

Landorus finds time to rock polish (not all that common, probably only a couple times a match)
Mamoswine comes in (revenge or predicted rp)
Lando can't sweep



Etc.

If we are talking about the u-turn variant, there are much easier ways to kill it, but it that case it isn't trying to sweep anwyays

 

[FrostFire]

^Yeah, but that's not my point though - Landorus-I doesn't need to set up and sweep, unless it's late game. Honestly, the most effective way to use Landorus-I is NOT to try and set up a sweep (at least not early game), but rather to use your Sheer Force boosted attacks to smash your opponent to pieces. I'm not going to bother setting up if I know you have a Mamoswine waiting in the wings; I'm just going to smash something with Earth Power. Do you see what I mean? Landorus has such enormous power that it can just spam attacks and stuff just dies. In other words, Landorus-I is not just a sweeper, but rather doubles as BOTH a Late-Game Sweeper and a Wallbreaker.

Did that make sense?

 

[Vemane]

^Yeah, but that's not my point though - Landorus-I doesn't need to set up and sweep, unless it's late game. Honestly, the most effective way to use Landorus-I is NOT to try and set up a sweep (at least not early game), but rather to use your Sheer Force boosted attacks to smash your opponent to pieces. I'm not going to bother setting up if I know you have a Mamoswine waiting in the wings; I'm just going to smash something with Earth Power. Do you see what I mean? Landorus has such enormous power that it can just spam attacks and stuff just dies. In other words, Landorus-I is not just a sweeper, but rather doubles as BOTH a Late-Game Sweeper and a Wallbreaker.

Did that make sense?

Of course. But then you are relying VERY heavily on prediction without u-turn.

I find that you can either pivot or you can sweep, not both.

 

[FrostFire]

yeah, I can actually see what you mean by that. Like, if your opponent has a Rotom-W, then you can't just spam Earth Power, or you could give your opponent a free switch. But the problem comes when you consider Landorus-I's coverage and power: if Landorus-I selects the correct attack, then something is usually going to die. If the Landorus-I player, on the other hand, over-predicts, then that might end up going to badly for them - BUT, then that just means that the game has degenerated into a luck based scenario where every time Landorus comes in, it's a coin toss. Will he Earth Power, and thus let me bring in Rotom-W unscathed? Or will he 2HKO my Rotom with Focus Blast? This kind of makes Landorus-I unhealthy for the meta, as when it's on the field, there's no longer any skill to the game, and what happens next is all a bit... Chansey.

(...pun, anyone? :p)

EDIT: Just to clarify though - the original point I was trying to make is just that checks are unreliable. Being able to kill Landorus-I with Ice Shard Mamo is all very well, but that's assuming you can actually get him in to battle safely. Ergo, a pokemon can have checks and still be broken: i.e., Thundurus-I is OHKO'd by Mamoswine's Ice Shard after Stealth Rock. So yeah.

 

[ihatesmogan]

I would just like to point out that saying that landorus has no safe switch-ins is not a good reason for saying that it is broken. Lots of things in OU have "no safe switch ins". What pokemon in OU can safely switch into CB terrakion? Chioce Specs Latios? CB Kyurem-B? CHoice specs keldo? Choice specs politoed? The list goes on. There are also a few counters to landorus-i. The first ones are the pink blobs. Standard Wish pass chansey gets 3HKOed by focus blast. It can stall landorus out with toxic. Of course, it should be noted that focus blast only as a 49% chance of hitting twice in a row and 34% chance of hitting three times in a row. A celebi with no defense investment can take a HP ice and KO back with HP ice. Yes, landorus gets u-turn but it is not often seen and will often have to drop another coverage move. The third counter is rotom-w. Standard rotom wash is 2-3 hit KOed by focus blast. Again, the chances of focus blast hitting twice in a row are low. Rotom-wash can KO back with hydro pump. weavile and mamo also counter it. Landorus can't do much to gyra while gyra Kos back with waterfall. Landorus can also be checked by scizor if it has taken prior damage as BP does 55-65%. Scizor can even survive a earth power if nessecary. Depending on the set, landorus can even be revenged by other pokemon.

One thing people are doing in this thread is overestimating Lando's power. Latios can survive a HP ice and KO back with surf, dracometeor, etc. Keldo can also survive. Hell, a lot of pokemon can survive and KO back including vaporeon, gastro, jelli, specially defensive heatran @air balloon, politoed and others. IF it isn't the RP set, pokemon that outspeed can easily revenge it if it has taken prior damage. 101 speed isn't THAT good. EVen if it is RP, once again, many pokemon can take a hit and KO back. Even pokemon like alakazam can check it to an extent with focus sash. A common set up pokemon for landorus is supposedly ferro. Ferro actually does 67-79% to lando with gyro ball when lando is @ +2 and can survive a focus blast.

TL;DR: Lando is not as powerful as many people in this thread believe. Many things can take a hit and KO back. It also has way more than 3 counters.

 

[HardCore]

My keep Landorus-I opinion.

Hide

If Landorus-I Was Banned​

Landorus I is an extremely beneficial Pokémon to the meta game. Although Landours has a surfeit of inundating move sets he also has many key roles in the metagame. His ground typing allows him to allay the sweeping potential that many powerful electric types wish they cannot maintain with a fast and powerful neutralizer. He’s a great electric nullifying pivot with U-turn, scarfed revenger, sweeper, and pretty well balanced wall breaker. A major role he plays is checking Breloom, Conkeldurr, Scizor without boosts, Toxicroak with 1 or no boosts, and an ok Dragonite Revenger. Not only that, but the major priority abusers of the meta game are large threats for Landorus I in all his might to overcome.
Calculations of Priority Users against Landorus I:

Choice Band Scizor: Landorus: 177-208 (55.48 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
LO SD Scizor:+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 305-360 (95.61 - 112.85%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Bulky Toxicroak:+1 132+ Atk Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 123-145 (38.55 - 45.45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Life Orb SD Toxicroak: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Toxicroak Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 235-277 (73.66 - 86.83%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
LO SD Breloom:+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 153-180 (47.96 - 56.42%) -- 87.5% chance to 2HKO
SD Lucario: +2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 240-283 (75.23 - 88.71%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
CB Dnite: 252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 160-189 (50.15 - 59.24%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
DDnite: +1 252+ Atk Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Landorus: 160-189 (50.15 - 59.24%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Keep in mind I've only calc'd priority moves against Landorus, but the manifest, or obvious truth, is those Pokémon can do a lot of damage to Landorus I, KO Landorus with their other moves. Landorus is a good check for most of these Pokémon and without him it'd be that much harder to avoid sweeps.

Face it, without Landorus these mere overpowered sweepers will be a recipe for disaster. Last but certainly not least, Landorus I also is a great scarfed Pokémon to have that competes for defeats the following: Scarfed Jirachi, Scarfed Thundurus, Tornadus I, Salamence, and other speedy Pokémon with or without scarfs like Keldeo, Terrakion, Lati@s, etc. Although this may be a rash statement I believe Landorus I is the “Quintessential Offensive Balancer” of the meta game.

For example: with the large decrease in Sand Force Landorus I, Bulky Volcarona have been able to set up without fear of one of their top checks. Ergo, the potential depletion of this Pokémon would bring a major shift to the meta game that may be literally subversive for the stability of the current BW 2 OU meta game.

Hey I'm sure we can all complain about Landorus I's amazing power or whatever, but I really think we need to focus on the consequences of this decision. I have not seen many for Landorus staying posts and since my post was last on a page for a hot second I don't think many people saw it.

Something new to add: As far as my experience with using and battling Landorus I have found that a lot of his success depends on luck and unpredictability. Sure late game he's seems over barring, but without those consecutive Focus Blast hits, or Hp Ice Critical hits on Sp Def Celebi Landorus I can't break through cores that are made to counter it. Running Uturn also cuts down on Landorus I's RP sweeping because he definitely needs at least 3 attacks.

Ways around Landorus: As I said in my quote Scarf Landorus is becoming quite uncommon, which means that all you have to do is beat 331 speed and not get out predicted. I've been seeing more Scarf Ice Punch Jirachis, Scarf Garchomp, Sp Def Jellicent (really good Landorus counter), Sp Def Celebi, and even Yache Landorus, which are effective and synergetic with the newer teams in the meta game. I guess the question is, " Do we want this meta game or one without a really good ground type where rain is more dominant and priority abusers are as well?"

 

[youngjake93]

How many times am I going to have to read "you have to get Mamoswine in safely"?
You really don't have to.. just having Mamoswine on your team is enough. That essentially removes the option of Rock Polish sweeping COMPLETELY. Also against the U-Turn variant, it forces them out often to take SR damage and LO U-Turn damage. Landorus-I gets worn down fairly quickly this way.
I have no idea why people are saying "yea good luck switching Mamoswine in"... You don't switch Mamoswine into dragons either! But Mamoswine still ruins them.


The way to handle Rock Polish: keep something bulky or with priority for late-game.
The way to handle U-turn+Early Game Landorus: keep rocks up, force it to take LO damage, use prediction

That said... I still think Genesect was way easier to deal with than Landorus-I both early and late game -_- so If Genesect is "broken", Landorus-I probably is.

 

[Gimili]

Virizion

After listening to most of this and doing some damage calcs, I found that Virizion is an incredibly solid answer to Landorus-I. It resists EP, takes ~35% from HP Ice/FB, and can OHKO with an HP Ice of its own(Which just so happens to be a listed move on Smogon). Of course, it is by no means a 100% counter, as Sludge Wave will indeed 2HKO, but it is faster, so it can check it reliably, if needed, and generally Landorus forgoes Sludge Wave for HP Ice. Another plus about using Virizion as a Landorus counter is the fact that it isn't weak to BandTar or Keldeo, common teammates of Lando's. Also, unlike Bronzong/Zapdos, Virizion can actually fit very well into this meta, threatening rain teams and sponging special hits incredibly well. Not saying that our Landorus problems are over, but this should be an eye-opener as to what we should be looking for in terms of something that could make Landorus less of a threat. We should stop relying on Celebi/Latias as its only counters, because they aren't. Being creative, and taking the initiative to actually FIND a Landorus counter can prove very productive. I now use Virizion on my Sand Stall team to have a solid way of dealing with Rain, Landorus, Celebi, Breloom, and more. Below are the calcs to prove Virizion's effectiveness;

252SpAtk Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus (+SAtk) Hidden Power (Ice) vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Virizion (+SpDef): 31% - 37% (122 - 144 HP). Guaranteed 4HKO.

252SpAtk Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus (+SAtk) Focus Blast vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Virizion (+SpDef): 34% - 40% (133 - 158 HP). Guaranteed 3HKO.

0Atk Life Orb Landorus (Neutral) U-turn vs 252HP/0Def Leftovers Virizion (Neutral): 26% - 31% (104 - 123 HP). Guaranteed 4HKO.

252SpAtk Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus (+SAtk) Earth Power vs 252HP/252SpDef Leftovers Virizion (+SpDef): 19% - 23% (75 - 89 HP). Guaranteed 6HKO.

Some things to consider.

 

[ginganinja]

Specially Defensive Virizion might be a nice counter, however, as a whole, the set itself isn't great at all. Heck, its borders on proving my point if you are resorting to using SDef Virizion as a counter to beat Landorus-I.

Furthermore, the actual set itself struggles at doing anything outside of taking on Landorus, it lacks recovery, its exceptionally slow (for instance Landorus-I is going to outspeed, as well as a large number of threats since your running no speed), you lack power, so you risk being set up fodder for many threats. Lastly, you still struggle to find an acceptable niche outside of beating Landorus-I, for instance, rain still can get past you with a simple Latias / Latios / Jirachi / Tornadus / Psychic Celebi / Psyshock Starmie etc etc, so its not even doing amazingly outside of taking surfs. Keldeo can still hit you hard with SS so your not walling it either, while the Breloom you mentioned outspeeds you and Spores if its Jolly, or just Spores / SDs the switch, follows up with a +2 LO / Fight Gem Mach Punch so I would hardly consider it an amazing mon.

Also sorta off topic but id prolly just Focus Blast Virizion (or U-Turn out) and then switch as SR + my attacks will wear you down, and SS negates your leftovers so...

 

[Gimili]

OK, I see your point. Thanks for at least explaining it.

 

[victinivcreate1]

How many times am I going to have to read "you have to get Mamoswine in safely"?
You really don't have to.. just having Mamoswine on your team is enough. That essentially removes the option of Rock Polish sweeping COMPLETELY. Also against the U-Turn variant, it forces them out often to take SR damage and LO U-Turn damage. Landorus-I gets worn down fairly quickly this way.
I have no idea why people are saying "yea good luck switching Mamoswine in"... You don't switch Mamoswine into dragons either! But Mamoswine still ruins them.


The way to handle Rock Polish: keep something bulky or with priority for late-game.
The way to handle U-turn+Early Game Landorus: keep rocks up, force it to take LO damage, use prediction

That said... I still think Genesect was way easier to deal with than Landorus-I both early and late game -_- so If Genesect is "broken", Landorus-I probably is.

Exactly.

Since when has Mamoswine been able to survive an Outrage from Salamence?

252 Atk Life Orb Naive Salamence Outrage vs. 0 HP/4 Def Mamoswine: 313-370 (86.7-102.49%). 93.75 chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock.

Forget all the dragons at +1.

Yet Mamo still beats Salamence, Dnite, and the like all at +1. Ice Shard.

Like youngjake said, Mamoswine GUARANTEES Rock Polish Landorus won't be sweeping anytime soon. U-Turn Landorus is easy to play around, as it takes Life Orb recoil, and is slow (Sp. Defensive Jellicent resists U-Turn, immune to Focus Blast, etc).

 

[kd24]

I assume you're obviously noting the difference in that Outrage locks the user into place, and that Mamoswine to handle dragons was always a shaky answer because at best you give up one Pokemon for the assured chance to revenge with Ice Shard. With Landorus-I, his best moves have no such restrictions, and he is only taking standard damage from Stealth Rock, giving him far more situations to switch in - and out.

The problem with this argument is the false sense of security you're putting into just one Pokemon (nevermind the fact that not every team can afford to use Mamoswine in this role) that can't actually switch into the attacks. So you're losing a Pokemon for the chance to revenge kill something.

Note that Salamence was banned last generation despite Weavile and Mamoswine available, so I'm not sure where this argument holds ground.

Keeping this post short because I wanted to address the flaw in thinking Ice Shard is the one-stop answer. It's a way to keep it in check, but Landorus is still powerful enough to threaten to rip through teams because of a lack of safe switch-ins and his opportunities to come in are much more lenient and forgiving. Combine that with his prowess at shutting down defensive teams completely and you begin to see where my issue is.

 

[Darknut07]

Posters have said "Ice Shard checks it". To which other posters reply "The game doesn't occur in a vacuum". Then some of these posters discuss Landorus as if it were in a vacuum.

Let us consider a situation with my specs Latios. A landorus has just switched in on something that can't handle it. As I have to switch or let something die. I switch in my lati. Landorus can do one of two things: 1 Use RP 2. Use HP ice. Going off the calcs from the front page, Hp ice 2hkos me. RP outspeeds me. Both don't happen at once obviously. So after either dealing heavy damage or wasting a turn setting up Landorus now has to switch out. People at this point say "oh, it can just come back later and sweep". Problem with this is that I have a specs lati on the field, with momentum allowing to mindlessly span DM and kill one of your pokemon.

Hold on here, now when landorus comes back aren't I screwed? NO, because lots of things can take one hit from landorus and threaten to KO back because they outspeed. And I gain momentum from it switching out, just like it inflicts damage!

Obviously in the aforementioned situation, ttar would absolutely destroy me, but its a hypothetical, you can swap lati with a plethora of pokemon, like keldeo for example. On paper, it is very impressive for a pokemon with one turn of set-up to be able to 2HKO the meta-game, but in real life (or simulated pokemon games), it really isn't too difficult to play around. That's why our metagame now isn't reduced to this team format:
Landorus, Ttar, Landorus counter 1, landorus counter 2, Filler, Filler
like it was in the good old chomp days.

Edit: Just for fun
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in sand: 208-246 (53.88 - 63.73%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in sand: 229-270 (59.32 - 69.94%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
I don't know if that takes into account the drop so
-2 252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 180 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar in sand: 115-136 (29.79 - 35.23%) -- 22.75% chance to 3HKO

 

[ginganinja]

Let us consider a situation with my specs Latios. A landorus has just switched in on something that can't handle it. As I have to switch or let something die. I switch in my lati. Landorus can do one of two things: 1 Use RP 2. Use HP ice. Going off the calcs from the front page, Hp ice 2hkos me. RP outspeeds me. Both don't happen at once obviously. So after either dealing heavy damage or wasting a turn setting up Landorus now has to switch out. People at this point say "oh, it can just come back later and sweep". Problem with this is that I have a specs lati on the field, with momentum allowing to mindlessly span DM and kill one of your pokemon.

Ok, so my Landorus-I has gotten in safely, and lets say I use HP Ice (assuming I lack U-Turn). I am (say) Modest, and proceed to do 65% damage to you. You lost (say) 12.5% from Stealth Rock as well as 6% from sandstorm meaning iv done 83% to you, just switching in. It means that (basically), your 100% Latias can come in ONCE, take SR damage, kill something with DM, and now my Landorus can set up a Rock Polish, knowing that I have an excellent shot at OHKOing you with HP Ice. (Worth noting that 65% was a mid damage roll). So you perhapes understand, the problems faced when your "counter" needs to take fuck all residual damage for Landorus-I to win.

But I digress...

Lets say that I decided not to wait for Latios to get into KO range for HP Ice, lets say that I was reckless, or had no other choice but to switch in against soemthing, and I use Hidden Power Ice on the switch and successfully nail that Latios, you have now dropped to below half health, and I can safely know that next time I bring in Landorus-I, I can Rock Polish and sweep.

And lets consider your most favourable scenario, I use Earth Power as you bring in Latios. You take SR and SS damage, and get a free turn to attack me. I have 2 options: I can switch in something like a Ferrothorn, forcing you to take another 6% thanks to Sandstorm, or I can send in my 25% death fodder (or anything really) to die to Latios so that my Tyranitar can then switch in, and trap you.

Note that in pretty much all of these scenarios, you need a second counter / check or a Mamoswine, or you now risk being swept by Landorus. It really doesn't need much in order to have a defining impact on the game which makes preparing for it so dam hard. Its also indirectly why Keldeo + Tar + Landorus-I is such a bitch to deal with since they weaken / trap each others counters but that's a slightly different topic anyway.

Lastly, its also worth noting but your -2 Latios now allows Landorus-I to set up ANYWAY (granted the attack will hurt and I wouldn't be able to use HP Ice a lot but its something I could do if I wanted to sweep late game / take down 2-3 mons before going down) so yea, I sorta can set up if I wanted 2 (obv not if you had a Mamoswine in the wings tho).

 

[haunter]

I added a poll to this thread to see what the community, at large, thinks about this issue.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

I voted 'no' because we could surely waste our time on more worthwhile things when it comes to suspects. Banning Landorus-I ultimately doesn't change that much; the meta will still be centralized around weather and people will just replace it with one of the dozens of available offensive powerhouses. I would personally like to see us test some offensive and defensive Uber Mons, as they could indirectly make powerful offensive mons like Landorus-I less problematic. Theorymon will only get us so far when it comes to defending many of those bans at the moment.

 

[shrang]

Ok, so my Landorus-I has gotten in safely, and lets say I use HP Ice (assuming I lack U-Turn). I am (say) Modest, and proceed to do 65% damage to you. You lost (say) 12.5% from Stealth Rock as well as 6% from sandstorm meaning iv done 83% to you, just switching in. It means that (basically), your 100% Latias can come in ONCE, take SR damage, kill something with DM, and now my Landorus can set up a Rock Polish, knowing that I have an excellent shot at OHKOing you with HP Ice. (Worth noting that 65% was a mid damage roll). So you perhapes understand, the problems faced when your "counter" needs to take fuck all residual damage for Landorus-I to win.

But I digress...

Lets say that I decided not to wait for Latios to get into KO range for HP Ice, lets say that I was reckless, or had no other choice but to switch in against soemthing, and I use Hidden Power Ice on the switch and successfully nail that Latios, you have now dropped to below half health, and I can safely know that next time I bring in Landorus-I, I can Rock Polish and sweep.

And lets consider your most favourable scenario, I use Earth Power as you bring in Latios. You take SR and SS damage, and get a free turn to attack me. I have 2 options: I can switch in something like a Ferrothorn, forcing you to take another 6% thanks to Sandstorm, or I can send in my 25% death fodder (or anything really) to die to Latios so that my Tyranitar can then switch in, and trap you.

Note that in pretty much all of these scenarios, you need a second counter / check or a Mamoswine, or you now risk being swept by Landorus. It really doesn't need much in order to have a defining impact on the game which makes preparing for it so dam hard. Its also indirectly why Keldeo + Tar + Landorus-I is such a bitch to deal with since they weaken / trap each others counters but that's a slightly different topic anyway.

Lastly, its also worth noting but your -2 Latios now allows Landorus-I to set up ANYWAY (granted the attack will hurt and I wouldn't be able to use HP Ice a lot but its something I could do if I wanted to sweep late game / take down 2-3 mons before going down) so yea, I sorta can set up if I wanted 2 (obv not if you had a Mamoswine in the wings tho).

I like how you continue to imply that Landorus is always winning because he has team support, but ignore the team support that the counter is potentially having. Not only that, you're implying that the Landorus user has perfect prediction while the Latios using a noob. You have Landorus + Tyranitar + Keldeo + now a 25% death fodder, while all your opponent has is that damn Latios. Let's just work on your scenario anyway. You can death fodder Pokemon X then trap Latios with Tyranitar. All well and good. Now your opponent switches in DD Gyarados, or SubSalac Terrakion, or SD Lucario, whatever sets up on Tyranitar locked into Pursuit (read: EVERYTHING). Are you now going to introduce more team support to try and support your case? Do you see what I mean?

Personally, I believe a Pokemon should only be suspect worthy or banned is if that the Pokemon can use their broken set, give or take 1 or 2 move / item changes (essentially the set is still the same, except with slight variation), and beat their counter in a significant amount of scenarios, OR if the counters they had were so few and just not very viable at all. Every Pokemon that we banned in BW1 (BW2 bans are where we are starting to push it, but I guess I can try and justify them) had this characteristic, and I don't think Landorus has this.

Deoxys-A: Had no counters to begin with, you could spam Psycho Boost and it would kill everything. No need for prediction, all you did was click one move.
Darkrai: Put counters to sleep, faster than most of the metagame without even needing to boost
Shaymin-S: Good luck trying to counter it with its flinching going on
Moody: Do I need to elaborate on this?
Drizzle Swim: Hydro Pump killed everything and Swift Swimmers outsped everything. See Deoxys-A.
Manaphy: Unkillable
Blaziken: Had a grand total of one counter, whose name was Slowbro. Even then, it wasn't the most reliable counter out there either.
Garchomp: Your counter had 20% chance of failing
Excadrill: Gliscor was the only real counter, and even that wasn't that reliable when facing down Balloon Excadrills since they will flinch you in a significant kind of way. Skarmory lost against last mon Excadrills, and priority couldn't kill it (apart from Azumarill).
Thundurus: If you tried to counter it through revenge killing, you were in for a nasty surprise when it paralysed your Scarfer and you (25% to lose). Changing one move for Focus Blast, that made sure nothing walled it.
Deoxys-S: Nothing stopped it doing what it does
Genesect: RP Genesect had so many potential coverage moves, but the set essentially stayed the same. Unlike RP Landorus, however, it resisted every common priority move apart from Mach Punch. Giga Drain also meant it wasn't the easiest thing to try and kill off through residual damage and priority
Tornadus-T: I personally don't agree too much on this one, but Regenerator made it really hard to deal with, since it pretty much had "switch out for absolutely no cost whatsoever". Eh, I don't know.
Deoxys-D: See Deo-S.

See the recurring theme of either "no counters at all to *insert Uber*'s mindless spam" or "your perceived hard counter loses to it 1v1 1/5 or more times". Landorus lacks that in my eyes.