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

[WinstonShnozwick]

Volc does turn gliscor into setup fodder obviously, and a good gliscor wouldnt stay in on that. Unless it's been weakened to where EQ can finish it in 1 hit.

Yes he is very rightfully so a threat, and a very good mon IMO, I've considered using him many times. Not threatening to me unless he gets at least 1 QD in, but then again he's pretty good at doing that.

Actually, how is Volcarona in the metagame right now? He is really good, the stealth rock weakness is a glare, but with support he's ok. And he really threatens after a QD or 2. The chestorest variants are good, just watch out for the morningsun ones on a sun team, those are lethal unless you have a strong physical attacker. :s

 

[alphatron]

To be fair, I've seen teams that run Volc with no spinner at all. Just a tspikes absorber. It works as long as volcorona doesn't get phazed in, as when you start setting up with him, you shouldn't be getting forced out anyway. So you morning sun to heal him up after he forces out a latias or something.

Blissey is also a great partner with wish, ignoring stealth rock. Excluding terrakion and exca, anything that would switch into blissey is murdered by bulkyrona. Like conkel w/o stone edge.

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

To be fair, I've seen teams that run Volc with no spinner at all.

That's pretty ballsy with Stealth Rocks being such a good entry hazard that most teams can't affort NOT to run it.

Also, with power creep in 5th gen, there are 2 great scarf sweepers in Chandelure and Haxorus, I'm wondering if they would make a decent offensive pair? Chandy gets rid of steels that would give haxorus trouble, and he takes out dragons that would cause chandelure trouble.

 

[Virizion]

Sub toxic protect is gliscor is becoming rather common, anyone has thoughts on it?

I thought that was the standard before Taunt/SD was?

 

[Benny in a Jet]

I thought Fling/Protect was the standard? Or that might be going back too far.

 

[Avira]

Fling/Protect was never the standard. It was just popular among noobs.

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

Protect/Fling/Acrobatics/EQ? seems like an older set to me. I think it has partial merit, it's not full stall like sub protect and not powerful like Taunt/SD, but in between. Definatly inferior to full stall or power, but if you're not running a team that's in either extreme, it might work. I don't know, I don't use him though.

 

[alphatron]

It is pretty ballsy, but it can work provided your opponent has no phazer.

I can't advocate scarf chandelure. Modest LO chandy with substitute or flame charge won my heart ages ago. 2hko tentacruel and bulky politoed with shadow ball? Outrunning the latias who switched in expecting to tank the fire attack for Scizor? Spin blocking and then setting up on starmie in sunlight? 2hkoing offensive tran and bulky ttar behind a sub with hp fighting? So glorious...

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

I love chandelure, so I admire that. It seems more risky IMO, because he can be outsped and killed due to his frailness. :(

 

[alphatron]

Gotta love that psp limit.

With three immunities, a bullet punch resistance, a 4x bug resist, and the ability to force three of the top five pokemon to switch out, the oppurtunities for a flame charge or a sub are everywhere. There's blissey and sp. def heatran, but who cares?

Edit: Yeah, he's frail so you have to rely heavily on his typing to get him to work. And although they can't switch in on you at all, scarf landorus and other things of that spd tier still outrunning you after flame charge can...

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

With three immunities, a bullet punch resistance, a 4x bug resist, and the ability to force three of the top five pokemon to switch out, the oppurtunities for a flame charge or a sub are everywhere. There's blissey and sp. def heatran, but who cares?

<3 he deserves more love than he currently gets with his low usage

How often does Ttar run Pursuit? I usually choose HP fighting for the prediction if I've seen a Ttar on the opponents team, but on the times that I don't, I've gotten keel hauled by pursuit or a free escape to my physical wall that can one shot Ttar. So I'm wondering how much I should expect it.

 

[alphatron]

In my experience, he runs it ocassionally on scarf and CB sets. The most common set never runs it. Scarf pursuit is not an ohko if you don't switch out so you can hp fighting it if you wish. I don't even think it kills with SR, but SS damage will.

Oh yeah, jirachi with body slam over twave is setup fodder too.

 

[badabing]

In my experience, he runs it ocassionally on scarf and CB sets. The most common set never runs it. Scarf pursuit is not an ohko if you don't switch out so you can hp fighting it if you wish. I don't even think it kills with SR, but SS damage will.

Oh yeah, jirachi with body slam over twave is setup fodder too.

Nah pursuit has been standard on specially defensive mixtar and choice band/scarf should ALWAYS have it

 

[gorangers]

This is the annoying bastard of the year award set. I'm pretty sure anyone that's faced it hates/should hate it.

Easily the most annoying thing I ever faced. If you can't outspeed it you can't beat it.

 

[WinstonShnozwick]

So it seems half my team is weak to rock :/ Besides the common machamp/conk/meinshao, what are other fighting types that could be used? Any fun ones?

 

[Hauntzer]

So it seems half my team is weak to rock :/ Besides the common machamp/conk/meinshao, what are other fighting types that could be used? Any fun ones?

Scrafty is great IMO. I have been able to sweep at least three times with him with the DD set.

 

[Cold Fusion]

NP Luke is real nice. It throws people off.

 

[The Scarecrow]

So it seems half my team is weak to rock :/ Besides the common machamp/conk/meinshao, what are other fighting types that could be used? Any fun ones?

You could try something like Terrakion... I've found an SD and/or Rock Polish set works very nicely with him. Also, Scarfed or Banded Terrak is exceptional in the metagame.

Or, if you want something rather interesting, I've found that Virizion, and to an extent, Cobalion, are nice for that surprise element and are quite successful as well.

 

[Davy Jones]

Terrakion and Virizion are pretty good Fighting-types. You could even run Hitmontop if you desperately need the things that Hitmontop can do (Massive priority arsenal and access to Technician, Intimidate, Foresight + Rapid Spin, etc.), although you really shouldn't use it unless you absolutely need those attributes. Heracross and Medicham can work well as revenge killers or wallbreakers, but they require good prediction to use successfully. Infernape and Breloom are also pretty good options, depending on the rest of your team. Toxicroak's available if you run Drizzle, but there are better options if you don't. Terrakion, Virizion, and Infernape are probably the best out of these, but it depends on what your team needs.

If all you need is a resistance to Rock-type attacks, Ground-type and Steel-type Pokemon are also options, but I don't know enough about your team to determine whether or not any of those would be effective.

Also, I swear to God that Leaf Storm is trying to become the new Stone Miss. Focus Miss is still an awful move, and I hate not having any better option for certain Pokemon that desperately need the power or coverage it offers.

I don't have any cool sets to talk about this time, so I'll try to come up with something interesting.

 

[AceTrainerJason]

When I see a luke I usually imply that it's a nasty plotter set. I'd rather run SD Close Combat Ice Punch Extreme Speed.

 

[-Tsunami-]

Lucario is available as a Fighting type. It resists Bullet Punch and Extremespeed, so it can set up on CB D-nite and CB Scizor. With Air Balloon, it can set up on Gliscor too and ohko it with a +2 Ice Punch. You could also run a Nasty Plot set, although imo, SD is much more effective. If you have a Pursuit user such as Tyranitar, you can KO the opponent's Ghost types, mainly Jellicent, and make sweeping much easier. Definitely consider using Lucario.

 

[alphatron]

Lead LO medicham was a nice set to use. Couldn't kill/cripple the opponent's lead? No problem. Magic coat thier status/hazards.

Gallade can do this too, but I'd only run MC for phazers when using bulk up. And Gallade's 4mss is already horrible.

 

[Jaetheho]

scrafty and gallade are also excellent bulk uppers. gallade has immense special bulky, scrafty doesnt mind status (shed skin) and gallade has priority in terms of shadow sneak. they both have good coverage and good secondary stab along with ice punch to beat gliscors.

 

[Pocket]

Speaking of Bulk Uppers, Machamp ain't too bad either.

Bulk Up
Dynamic Punch
Stone-Edge
Substitute / Ice Punch

Substitute to ward off status and Leech Seed, and it could help set up Bulk Ups against something that hits like a girl, such as Jirachi (still need 1 BU, though). Gliscor can be a problem without Ice Punch, but otherwise I prefer Substitute to enhance Bulk Up set-up. Wouldn't hurt to take out a little from Atk into Spd and HP / Spdef to outrun stallbreaking Jellicent and have an impenetrable substitute.

 

[Ewil]

I suggest a similar set few pages ago, Machamp can be the new Toxicroak with more ATK, HP, DEF,SDEF but without the Dry Skin Support, well, he have Dynamic Punch that grants a damn good confuse.