Scarf Typhlosion, Heat Wave Archeops, possibly Camerupt, Poliwrath, probably some other stuffs. Little counters, if any though.
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Metagame NP: NU (beta): Welcome to the NU Age (Combusken Banned)
- Thread starter Raseri
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Yeah Poliwrath is the big one as Poliwrath can switch into most of it's attacks with ease. The other ones mentioned don't want to be taking too many neutral hits on the switch in.
Doublade is probably the only existent check there is, resisting all of its commonly carried moves, barring the occasional Crunch. Also, virtually any specially attacking scarfer is able to hit Durant on its piss poor Special Defense; things like Typhlosion or Magmortar work well for this.
Defensive Steelix also walls Durant all day, but can do little back if it doesn't carry Roar. It's also worth noting that Durant will always get walled by something depending on which coverage moves it carries. Without Rock Slide, almost every Fire-type can take a hit and destroy it back with their STAB moves; if it forgoes Superpower, then Steel-types like Klinklang and Magneton resist all of its moves. Finally, it absolutely needs to carry Crunch to be able to get past Doublade.
durant has it's fair share of hard checks/counters in NU.
Raseri owned my face in when i tried to argue with him about it (mostly cuz i didn't know half this crap was NU)
Hard Checks/Counters:
- Qwilfish
- Doublade
- Poliwrath
- Rotom
- Rotom-Fan
- most fire types if it lacks rock slide
- Steels if it lacks superpower
Checks:
- The majority of scarfers lel
Durant isn't uncheckable/uncounterable, but the reason I personally think it's so good is because it's Unpredictable. Rotom And Doublade are passed around by Crunch, Rotom-Fan and bulky fires is passed by rock move, and steels are passed by superpower. It isn't initially as obvious as it is with other mons what Item/moves/set it's running by just looking at the team preview, because most, if not all of these sets can fit well on any team type bar stall, whether it be offensive, balanced, or bulky offense. It's sets are all equally good, and it's hard to switch into most of them. I also doubt people wanna run qwilfish/poliwrath on all their teams too. Durant has maybe 2 counters with all of the viable moves it can possibly run though. Durant however does have a bunch of checks, meaning every special scarfer in existence because it's sdef stat is horribad.
Tl;dr- Durant is powr o3o
Scarf/subSalac Durant shits on archeops and typhlosion, +1 Thunder-Fang 2HKOs 252/252+ Poliwrath. and camerupt?
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Camerupt: 191-225 (55.5 - 65.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery Nope.
What about steelix?
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Steelix: 291-343 (82.2 - 96.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Shit. There is no hard counters to Durant, which is what makes it so broken. Depending on the set it can plow trought just about every team. I feel it is almost as sentralizing as Mewtwo was in gen 1 Ubers
In camerupt's case, it can lava plume and OHKO. Poliwrath can circle throw it out as well, I don't see your point. Also life orb hone claws isn't the best set to be running rn :@
while i understand this conversation started because of a discussion on "what should i use to beat durant", i'd like to remind you guys to keep the conversation away from "BAN PLS" since it looks like it's heading in that direction. we could be without durant and others by the shifts anyway, as long as we're doing monthly shifts until NU is official (i'm pretty sure we are).
Thunder fang is only useful for getting past Qwilfish, one of Durant's harder checks. Two superpowers from +1 is easily enough to defeat Poliwrath.
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 251-296 (65.3 - 77%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 169-199 (44 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
As for those calcs with Camerupt, how do you plan on getting to +1 AND hitting it with two rock slides before it kills you?
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 251-296 (65.3 - 77%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 169-199 (44 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
As for those calcs with Camerupt, how do you plan on getting to +1 AND hitting it with two rock slides before it kills you?
It switches in on a hone claws. Rock slide flinches. The next one kills.
A hard counter can come in on any attack and force the opponest out. None of these can. Qwilfish looks like the only exeption atm.
I also figured out this.
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Hustle Durant Superpower vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Camerupt: 303-357 (88 - 103.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
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The Slashed phrase means Hard checks or Counters. Now if we could stop over something so pointless that would be nice
Now I wanted to bring something up.
Scraggy
- Have any of you tried ol scragster out this gen?
- If so, what are your thoughts? How is he good/bad in this metagame.
- This is just something i was interested in because I used him last gen to relative success
Probably not so much now with 4x Fairy weakness. Wait, are there fairies in NU?
There was no reason to. Glaceon himself explained how Durant can handle Doublade, The rotoms and fire-types in general.
But can we leavethis theme for a while please? the entire (Du)rant is taking to much ofthis discussion imo.
Used a simular set to that of last gen with this fella, Knock off is a bitch, since no eviolite makes Shed skin rest more difficult to complete. But it can work.
Scraggy @ Eviolite
Ability: Shed skin
EVs: 4 Spd / 252 SDef / 252 HP
Careful Nature
- Drain punch
- Bulk up
- Knock off
- Rest
Its a cool set. I might post some replays later
Scraggy's something I've been thinking about trying, but it's one of those Pokemon that needs a favorable metagame to be really effective. Right now there are a lot of Pokemon that straight up beat it (Qwilfish, Rotom-S, Poliwrath, Sawk, Durant, etc etc etc). I'd rather run Bulk Up Poliwrath right now, since it gets Circle Throw to phase out the aforementioned Pokemon while they switch in.
I have enjoyed using bulk up poliwrath in NU as well, i was just tryna see if we could pull of an XY Scraggles like in BW Where we could run BU or DD. Speaking of water, how about tht barbaracle. We've prolly already discussed this, but barbaracle is a major thret after a shell smash and it is one of, if not the fastest shell smasher+Tough claws is like hecka strong.
Look's like the Ugly Barnacle finna take off. It didn't kill everyone because it looked bad, it killed everyone because it got to +2. Spongebob's prophecies have been fulfilled *-*
Thoughts?
Definitely a threat but lack of priority makes Barbaracle cry when it needs it the most.
My favourite Pokemon in this metagame is Choice Specs Dragalge :D, its great typing lets it act as a full stop to most Fire-types (not EQ Magmortar or Camerupt, but Typhlosion and Pyroar), it has a really strong Draco Meteor, even without Adaptibility, that makes it really hard to counter with how offensive the metagame is. The current set I'm using is:
Dragalge @ Choice Specs
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 52 Spd / 252 SAtk / 204 HP
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Bomb
- Dragon Pulse
- Scald
The Speed EVs let you outrun 0 speed Base 50s like Piloswine, obviously you can run more creep, but thats the bare minimum you need. This set works by switching on on one of the many things it counters (mainly fire, water, or grass-types) and then throwing off either Draco Meteor or Sludge Bomb. Scald is mainly filler for when I want to go for burn hax, but its also your best way of hurting Steel-types, and you'll make Doublade users mad when you burn them :D. It's a really fun pivot, and one that I really don't see used enough, so go try it out!
Dragalge @ Choice Specs
Ability: Poison Point
EVs: 52 Spd / 252 SAtk / 204 HP
Modest Nature
- Draco Meteor
- Sludge Bomb
- Dragon Pulse
- Scald
The Speed EVs let you outrun 0 speed Base 50s like Piloswine, obviously you can run more creep, but thats the bare minimum you need. This set works by switching on on one of the many things it counters (mainly fire, water, or grass-types) and then throwing off either Draco Meteor or Sludge Bomb. Scald is mainly filler for when I want to go for burn hax, but its also your best way of hurting Steel-types, and you'll make Doublade users mad when you burn them :D. It's a really fun pivot, and one that I really don't see used enough, so go try it out!
I'm probably not the best person to ask, but you should watch out for Durant, Doublade, Archeops, Sceptile, Fletchinder, Virizion, Gourgeist, Dragalgae, Samurott, Uxie, Mespirit, Raichu, Magneton, Sawk, Vivillon, Meowstic-M and Chatot. There are probably some bulky stall mons that I'm missing.
I dont think that Durant has room for Thunder-Fang.Iron Head, Crunch, Rock Slide, Superpower and Hone claws are aöready giving it a bit of a 4mss, so never use thunder fang. Poliwrath isnt exactly common either.
Im just wondering, but is there any dragons worth trying out in the current meta? besides Dragalge (which is good) I've tried out Gabite, Zweilious, Fraxure and Altaria, but none of them seem to work well in this offensive based meta. Any suggestions?
Has weather been brought up yet as we have hippopotas although deadweight lets stoutland wreck you then we have snover for those users of rotom f ice body avalugg to although in hail's defense choice scarf rotom f is a good check to virizion in hail.
252 SpA Rotom-F Blizzard vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 252-296 (77.7 - 91.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
252 SpA Rotom-F Blizzard vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Virizion: 252-296 (77.7 - 91.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes
Weather is right now one of the most underrated aspects of NU that I'm surprised people haven't brought up more/utilized. One of my acquaintances (DMV, you might've seen him here and there on the ladder) uses sand and it's brutal. Rain and sand I believe are the strongest ones, and it's very easy to set up and get the ball rolling.
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