np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

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I've seen one Dragonite with Dragon Claw, out of the many I've fought.

Also, SR is a very VERY shaky way to check Dragonite. Ever heard of Rapid Spin? And I'd like to remind you that Starmie is capable of getting past Jellicent.

The bolded statement is exactly what I was trying to say by saying "find me an offensive counter to Dragonite". It's either you can't or it's really hard to.

@Kefka, Cloyster sucks. Its Special bulk is so bad that Lucario's LO Modest Vacuum Wave OHKOs it without any boosts. While it can beat Dragonite, stopping Cloyster's sweep isn't that hard to do. And I didn't say preserving HO was necessary, but some players prefer to play with a purely offensive play-style (I'm one of them), and quite frankly I believe that players who want to play a purely offensive style should be allowed to. There's nothing that says HO shouldn't be usable.


Then I question how much you've played.

Also, Starmie fails to 2HKO max/max Jellicent with T-bolt and why is it hard to set up SR again? If your Starmie is carrying BoltBeamSurf + RS, it can't constantly switch back into SR + any Attack.

That last paragraph is terrible. You asked for a counter and I gave it to you and you complain when it sucks. That's pokemon.
NO where does it say we NEED to preserve offensive play styles and we shouldn't accommodate things just for a couple players. There's nothing that says HO should be usable.
What about stall teams that want the hard-hitting dragons and Reuniclus gone? Should be do the same thing for them?
oh lolno cuz wii liek offence moar so wii don alowz dem lololol
 
Anyway, what do you guys think about Nidoking now that Excadrill has gone? With its LO and Scarf sets it can be a hugely threatening special attacker, even if it is hard walled by Chansey.

I tried Scarf Nidoking on one of my failed attempts at a sandstorm team, and it really isn't good in OU. It's walled by too much stuff and too easily forced out.

@Above: I didn't say ANYWHERE that offense had to be the ONLY viable play-style. In fact I believe that full offense and full stall alike should both be viable, but it's too hard to do that with all the weather in the metagame.
 
Btw, heavy offense does not try to "counter" threats, such as Dragonite. It's all about offensive pressure, executing your own offensive plan before they can establish their own. Sweep before getting swept. As myzozoa has told me, heavy offense requires a great deal of long-term thinking, to plan a successful sweep for your mon. If your heavy offense team weren't able to cripple Dragonite heavily before it sets up DD (so you can easily revenge-kill), you did something wrong (either in team building or executing your plan).

If you want to play the counter game, heavy offense isn't a playstyle for you.
 
Jellicent takes 120 base power against Grass Knot like Milotic.
Actually it takes 100 base power.

Anyway, what do you guys think about Nidoking now that Excadrill has gone? With its LO and Scarf sets it can be a hugely threatening special attacker, even if it is hard walled by Chansey.
Nidoking still seems kinda "meh" to me. With an LO set, I guess it could give trouble to slower teams but it's just so easily out-sped with more offensive teams. Granted, they'll have a hell of a time switching into its attacks (unless they predict like a beast), but Nidoking isn't hard to OHKO when you have in something faster. Stall might have trouble if they don't run a Blissey or something but I'd say that's about it.

As for Scarf Nidoking, I can see how it would make a good general revenge-killer (at the cost of being so easy to wall once it first attacks), but I'm afraid that I don't see the point in using it. Why should I use Nidoking when I could use Landorus/Terrakion instead? They can revenge a +1 Salamence/Volcarona/Haxorus when Nidoking just can't. He could kill +1 Gyarados/Dragonite, but that's about it. I suppose he's good if you need a check for fast-but-not-boosted Pokemon, but...

I don't know, even with Excadrill gone it's still hard for me to see Nidoking performing that well.
 
I tried Scarf Nidoking on one of my failed attempts at a sandstorm team, and it really isn't good in OU. It's walled by too much stuff and too easily forced out.

@Above: I didn't say ANYWHERE that offense had to be the ONLY viable play-style. In fact I believe that full offense and full stall alike should both be viable, but it's too hard to do that with all the weather in the metagame.

I disagree, he has amazing coverage and good enough speed.
He also handily resists Terrakion's STABs.

Neither did I, but the way you put that paragraph seemed like you REALLY like Offense over other playstyles <,<
 
Personally I haven't used Scarf Nidoking before so the only experience I have with it is though one of Vexatious's warstories.

However, I've fooled around with LO Nidoking before, and am using it on my current OU team and I can say that as long as you have pokemon that can beat those that outspeed Nidoking there are surprisingly few Pokemon in the tier that can wall it outright. Only Chansey and bulky waters such as Politoed are particularly effective at it with my experiences so far.

On the note of underrated Pokemon, I'd like to shout-out to Crobat and Cobalion who, along with Nidoking, are forces on my OU team that has recently climbed to around 1400. Crobat and Cobalion are very effective stallbreakers, with Crobat also functioning as a good revenge killer and great scout, and with Cobalion bringing better defensive typing over Terrakion.
 
I disagree, he has amazing coverage and good enough speed.
He also handily resists Terrakion's STABs.

Neither did I, but the way you put that paragraph seemed like you REALLY like Offense over other playstyles <,<

Yes, I do like offense over other play-styles. I didn't say other people had to. Do you have any problems with that?
 
I see Nidoking as being the Special version of Mamoswine. Both can basically 2HKO most switchins, but they are easily outsped and revenge killed and there is generally only one or two Pokemon that outright wall them. (Mamoswine is walled by Bronzong and Skarmory, Nidoking by Chansey and Blissey.)

As for the debates about offense versus stall, stall hasn't really ever had a chance to shine in this metagame yet. As with basically every budding metagame, stall tends to flourish later on as the more powerful offensive threats are eliminated. I still think stall is probably the most underdeveloped playstyle as of yet; the main stall teams have been rain stall.

And most stall teams can deal with Reuniclus; for one thing, OTR Reuniclus is far more popular than CM, and for the other thing, stall can run Jirachi or even Tyranitar to eliminate the amorphous protoplasm.
 
Suspect Testing was created to remove broken aspects that ruined the metagame, not to remove every threat that you find annoying.

Anyways, there will be no "round 6." The tiering process is being revised, and we are currently at a limbo, as far as I can tell.
 
Suspect Testing was created to remove broken aspects that ruined the metagame, not to remove every threat that you find annoying.

Anyways, there will be no "round 6." The tiering process is being revised, and we are currently at a limbo, as far as I can tell.

Rain stall is all powerful and will kill us all.
 
It's also walled by spdef jellicent, and arguably by spdef reuiniclus.
How so?
SpDef Jellicent gets 2HKOed by Modest LO Thunderbolt.
And I didn't run calcs for Reuniclus, but does anyone even run SpDef on it? I don't think Reuniclus has the movepool to perform a totally defensive role, let alone the stats.

anyone know when round 6 will happen? i want rain stall out of here.
1) As other people explained, the suspect process is undergoing changes.
2) Have you tried to adjust your team to account for rain stall? Y/N
3) How would you propose even getting rid of rain stall in the first place? It's pretty complicated, as no single Pokemon "makes" rain stall, like Excadrill or Garchomp "made" Sand Offense, or like Espeon "makes" Baton Pass.
 
1) As other people explained, the suspect process is undergoing changes.
2) Have you tried to adjust your team to account for rain stall? Y/N
3) How would you propose even getting rid of rain stall in the first place? It's pretty complicated, as no single Pokemon "makes" rain stall, like Excadrill or Garchomp "made" Sand Offense, or like Espeon "makes" Baton Pass.

I have been using sd landorus wich is a pretty good stall breaker, I guess its not broken, just makes the metagame not fun wich i though it was supposed to be.
 
I have been using sd landorus wich is a pretty good stall breaker, I guess its not broken, just makes the metagame not fun wich i though it was supposed to be.

"Not fun" is an extremely subjective metric to go by. This is competitive Pokemon, you adjust to the game or you flunk out. Rain stall is powerful, sure, but it's hardly the end-all be-all. For one, just try running hail on a random water type. Or you could run your own weather. Or you could incorporate a wall breaker like mixed Hydreigon.

Unless you're suggesting rain stall is overly centralizing, I don't see why it should be removed. I don't find it to be, since there's a plethora of ways to deal with it without compromising your own strategy, unlike, for instance, how Excadrill made Hyper Offensive completely nonviable. It's like any large threat in the metagame; you have to account for it to be successful. Just because you have to account for it doesn't make it ban worthy; it's when you have to account for it in very specific ways which make entire play-styles nonviable that it's banable.


And as people already mentioned, figuring out a simple way to remove it is no easy task. You could just ban drizzle but then you lose all the other rain-dependent play-styles as well, which is undesirable since you're losing more than you're gaining.
 
Just saying, Magic Mirror screws with a lot of the rain stall teams that are popping up everywhere, as this was something that was discovered in Ubers when trickroom's Drown All was everywhere. Espeon is a bit on the frail side and has crappy recovery, but Xatu is a real handful for pretty much all rain stall teams to deal with, especially those people copying M Dragon's team. It can easily switch into things like Ferrothorn and Tentacruel to bounce back their hazards, set up Dual Screens and Roosting off any damage taken weak Scalds and Gyro Balls. You can then easily switch out into your sweeper and get free setups with Dual Screens up. If you rain stall lacks decent offense, watch out, because Xatu will completely mess you up.
 
"Not fun" is an extremely subjective metric to go by. This is competitive Pokemon, you adjust to the game or you flunk out. Rain stall is powerful, sure, but it's hardly the end-all be-all. For one, just try running hail on a random water type. Or you could run your own weather. Or you could incorporate a wall breaker like mixed Hydreigon.

Unless you're suggesting rain stall is overly centralizing, I don't see why it should be removed. I don't find it to be, since there's a plethora of ways to deal with it without compromising your own strategy, unlike, for instance, how Excadrill made Hyper Offensive completely nonviable. It's like any large threat in the metagame; you have to account for it to be successful. Just because you have to account for it doesn't make it ban worthy; it's when you have to account for it in very specific ways which make entire play-styles nonviable that it's banable.


And as people already mentioned, figuring out a simple way to remove it is no easy task. You could just ban drizzle but then you lose all the other rain-dependent play-styles as well, which is undesirable since you're losing more than you're gaining.


Rethinking it it is more of an annoyance than broken, but I do believe its centralizing the metagame but not to a point were it is broken. I of to try rain offense since tornadus and dragonite are good in rain. Meh I might just stick to sand, what im best at.
 
"Not fun" is an extremely subjective metric to go by. This is competitive Pokemon, you adjust to the game or you flunk out. Rain stall is powerful, sure, but it's hardly the end-all be-all. For one, just try running hail on a random water type. Or you could run your own weather. Or you could incorporate a wall breaker like mixed Hydreigon.

Unless you're suggesting rain stall is overly centralizing, I don't see why it should be removed. I don't find it to be, since there's a plethora of ways to deal with it without compromising your own strategy, unlike, for instance, how Excadrill made Hyper Offensive completely nonviable. It's like any large threat in the metagame; you have to account for it to be successful. Just because you have to account for it doesn't make it ban worthy; it's when you have to account for it in very specific ways which make entire play-styles nonviable that it's banable.


And as people already mentioned, figuring out a simple way to remove it is no easy task. You could just ban drizzle but then you lose all the other rain-dependent play-styles as well, which is undesirable since you're losing more than you're gaining.

I disagree with the bolded statement. Do you understand how many viable play-styles there are in 4th gen?

I would have to say that you'd gain more play-styles than you'd lose by banning Drizzle and Drought. To handle both, you have to run very specific Pokemon, who almost always suck for anything other than countering Drizzle/Drought. I'm thinking of how rain forces players to use Celebi, who I have used and it quite frankly sucks for anything but handling rain players. As for Drought, you just outright need your own weather starter. Slapping a Tyranitar on some random team will likely harm the other members of the team.

Even so, I've lately been seeing some sun teams with Ninetales paired up with Dugtrio, so it's not that easy to use Tyranitar to counter weather now is it?

For one, I'd like to see Drizzle and Drought banned. It would allow for the viable creation of teams with this thing you may not have even heard of: Team synergy. I'm getting sick of seeing people able to dominate just by slapping together a team with Politoed, Tornadus, Dragonite, Scizor, Ferrothorn, and some random filler. That's honestly what you call a metagame? I have used one Pokemon that can OHKO both Scizor and Ferrothorn in the rain with a Fire-type move: Specs Typhlosion. Don't get me wrong, Specs Typhlosion is amazing and it's just about as easy to see coming as it is to see the Spanish Inquisition coming. But honestly what player is going to use it just to be able to do quite some damage to rain teams? I imagine Specs Heatran could do the same thing, but Heatran's so slow and even with its superior bulk, it's probably not gonna have many chances to live an Earthquake from a Magikarp if Magikarp could learn Earthquake. (lol)

A wallbreaker sounds like a great idea in theory, but the problem is that your example (mixed Hydreigon) is kinda suckish. Try mixed Salamence. Mixed Infernape's performance is hindered by rain. Mienshao is theoretically a good wallbreaker, but let me remind you that Mienshao has to use this move called Hi Jump Kick, whereas rain stall teams like to use this move called Protect.

Sure, whether or not a metagame is "fun" is subjective. But honestly, you've got all the weather abusers and the Drought + Chlorophyll crap and rain-boosted Hydro Pumps and Thunders, and at the same time you wonder why people talk smack about 5th gen OU?
 
In addition to the Nidoking discussion , I also tried a Nidoking , because i tought it was a lesser ( but still effective) genesect. Lets compare both :

Genesect base stats : 71/120/95/120/95/99
Most used set :
Genesect @ scarf , timid , 252 speed/252spa/4def
Moves : Ice beam , bug buzz , flamethrower , thunderbolt

Genesect hits 489 speed with a scarf and a timid nature , just not enough to outspeed base 100's with a scarf and a positive nature. His bug stab lets him hit Celebi , deoxys , espeon , hydreigon ,latios and latias, reuniclus , starmie and tyranitar for super effective damage. If gets the SPA boost from download he basically has 509 Spa.

Nidoking base stats: 81/92/77/85/75/85
To make him comparable to genesect , lets add a scarf:
Nidoking timid @ choice scarf 252 spa/252spe/4def
Moves : Earthpower , ice beam , flamethrower , thunderbolt

Nidoking hits 442 speed with a timid nature and a scarf. His earth stab lets him hit heatran , infernape , metagross , jirachi , magnezone , lucario , tyranitar for SE damage. With sheer force added to all of his attacking moves , he basically has a 357 Spa to work with.

Overall , nidoking is bigtime outclassed ( tough we cant use genesect) and usually not worth it.
 
And because we can't use Genesect yet, that's all completely irrelevant.

What determines whether a Pokemon or strategy is broken is really not the presence of specific counters or even specific checks, but what you can do without resorting to all that. It's really whether or not you can play around it without using those specific answers to it, even if it means sacrificing a Pokemon or two in the process.
 
I would have to say that you'd gain more play-styles than you'd lose by banning Drizzle and Drought. To handle both, you have to run very specific Pokemon, who almost always suck for anything other than countering Drizzle/Drought. I'm thinking of how rain forces players to use Celebi, who I have used and it quite frankly sucks for anything but handling rain players. As for Drought, you just outright need your own weather starter. Slapping a Tyranitar on some random team will likely harm the other members of the team.
Dude, you don't know what your talking about. You know how I deal with rain and sun teams? Chansey, takes almost every single hit they can throw at me. Chansey does more to my team aside from that too. Even traditional weather counters like Gastrodon, Celebi, and Heatran, still do things outside of countering weather. You say Chansey is weak to physical attacks? That’s what I have the rest of my entire team for.
Even so, I've lately been seeing some sun teams with Ninetales paired up with Dugtrio, so it's not that easy to use Tyranitar to counter weather now is it?
Ha, ha ha ha. Tyranitar will always take a hit from even choice band Dugtrio, and KO it in return. Thinking focus sash, how about stealth rocks?
For one, I'd like to see Drizzle and Drought banned. It would allow for the viable creation of teams with this thing you may not have even heard of: Team synergy. I'm getting sick of seeing people able to dominate just by slapping together a team with Politoed, Tornadus, Dragonite, Scizor, Ferrothorn, and some random filler. That's honestly what you call a metagame? I have used one Pokemon that can OHKO both Scizor and Ferrothorn in the rain with a Fire-type move: Specs Typhlosion. Don't get me wrong, Specs Typhlosion is amazing and it's just about as easy to see coming as it is to see the Spanish Inquisition coming. But honestly what player is going to use it just to be able to do quite some damage to rain teams? I imagine Specs Heatran could do the same thing, but Heatran's so slow and even with its superior bulk, it's probably not gonna have many chances to live an Earthquake from a Magikarp if Magikarp could learn Earthquake. (lol)
There is more to team synergy outside of defensiveness my friend, its about how pokemon work together as a whole, so hyper offensive teams to have synergy. Who is going to leave there Scizor or Ferrothorn in on a Typhosion? A switch to Politoed is going to happen.
 
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