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- Thread starter reachzero
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I've had some fun with Mantine, who is an extremely underrated special wall, though that's probably because of Chansey. Still, massive special defensiveness is nothing to sneeze at, especially with immunities to water and ground. SR weakness hurts, though. Moveset I'm using is Rest/Slep Talk/Toxic/Confuse Ray, which gets shut down hard by Taunt or Substitute, but has caused a ragequit or two.
Flash Fire is only useful IF you grab the boost (which it's somewhat hard to do), and only if Arcanine is attack minded.
Otherwise Intimidate is the better trait.
About Hitmonlee: Spiritomb walls it to no end... as does the not-so-common-anymore Slowbro. And those are often on stall teams. You'll need more than just Hitmonlee to plow through stall (that applies to every poke so far).
Otherwise Intimidate is the better trait.
About Hitmonlee: Spiritomb walls it to no end... as does the not-so-common-anymore Slowbro. And those are often on stall teams. You'll need more than just Hitmonlee to plow through stall (that applies to every poke so far).
Intimidate might be more common, but Flash Fire is certainly not inferior. After a Flash Fire boost and with a choice band, Arcanine 2hkos nearly everything in the metagame with Flare Blitz (exceptions: Slowbro, Rock/Water pokes, Flash Fire pokes). Additionally, Flash Fire lets you switch into boosted Fire Blasts from Houndoom and 2hko (or ohko if you're using a band) with Extremespeed; otherwise Houndoom would beat you with Fire Blast -> Dark Pulse. I'd choose that over the ability to take less damage from physical attackers.
Why don't you try the pursuit trapper set a try? It's actually pretty awesome. I hope you run EQ along side with Aqual Tail or your hard walled by Aggron.
Edit: 4MSS screws things up here. If you run EQ, Torterra stomps on you, while Aggron wins if you use Ice fang.
Are you using this moveset by the way?
-Swords Dance
-Night Slash
-Aqua Tail
-Earthquake / Ice Fang?
(CB set is a nice surprise)
Sounds like you guys ALL use Bulky Arcanine, or I wouldn't be hearing any of this Intimidate > Flash Fire nonsense. If your really look at it, nothing about Arcanine's stats or typing suggests it should be taking hits, but rather dishing out damage. This is why when I run Arcanine, I almost always run the LO sweeper set. That shit is beast. Watch, go ahead and use it in tandem with Venusaur or Steelix, then tell me the Flash Fire boost is hard to get. Then watch Milotic come in and get 2HKOed by Flare Blitz.
I can't think of any physical hits I want Arcanine to switch into besides Venusuar or Tangrowth's Power Whip, but I can think of plenty of Fire Blasts or Will-o-Wisps I'd like it to come in on and proceed to rip through the opposition. I swear, Arcanine was way more broken than Moltres last round with Spikes support, yet no one seemed to notice. Try the sweeper set and I guarantee it will not fail you.
@ PK: Speaking of which, CB was the set I used to stop Cresselia and Mismagius two rounds ago. They had absolutely no chance unless they were support variants. Night Slash/Brick Break/EQ/Pursuit is the best set, since it give you a little something to hit everything, while also allowing you to break any screens that are up.
I can't think of any physical hits I want Arcanine to switch into besides Venusuar or Tangrowth's Power Whip, but I can think of plenty of Fire Blasts or Will-o-Wisps I'd like it to come in on and proceed to rip through the opposition. I swear, Arcanine was way more broken than Moltres last round with Spikes support, yet no one seemed to notice. Try the sweeper set and I guarantee it will not fail you.
@ PK: Speaking of which, CB was the set I used to stop Cresselia and Mismagius two rounds ago. They had absolutely no chance unless they were support variants. Night Slash/Brick Break/EQ/Pursuit is the best set, since it give you a little something to hit everything, while also allowing you to break any screens that are up.
Speaking of Slowbro, what happened to him? He's such a good poke. Psychic/Surf/CM/Slack Off hits most of the tier for super effective, and all of it(except Shedinja) for neutral. He has enough bulk to switch into Moltres Air Slash or Fire Blast, and stops generally a ton of stuff. I don't see why he isn't used as much.
Intimidate lets you beat opposing Arcanine. I don't really like using Flash Fire because I don't like relying on my opponent being dense and not predicting switches. Plus, once you reveal Flash Fire your opponent is typically on to it. Intimidate screws over their opposing 'mon always.
You can't plainly say one is more/less inferior though. If you can justify your choice, then whatever.
Just saying.
You can't plainly say one is more/less inferior though. If you can justify your choice, then whatever.
Just saying.
Slowking sucks. "Yay I get 2hko'd by Rhyperior's unboosted Earthquake and CB Arcanine's Flare Blitz!" And this is calcing it with a spread of 252 HP/212 DEF with a Calm nature, which is optimal for countering Moltres while not sucking at countering physical attackers; most people on the ladder run 252/252 SDEF Calm, which dies horribly to anything physical (but does a nice job of walling Jynx >_>)
If Slowking can wall out Moltres + a handful of other Pokemon (doing its job)... why is being 2hko'd by Rhyperior relevant? He shouldn't be used as a do-all wall...
In regards to Arcanine, I always play that if it's running Intimidate it is using +Atk Nature and if it is running Flash Fire I always assume +Speed. So if Intimidate Arcanine switches in on a LO Hitmonlee Close Combat it may be worth attempting a Stone Edge (risk vs reward).
In regards to Arcanine, I always play that if it's running Intimidate it is using +Atk Nature and if it is running Flash Fire I always assume +Speed. So if Intimidate Arcanine switches in on a LO Hitmonlee Close Combat it may be worth attempting a Stone Edge (risk vs reward).
Slowbro isn't much better. Sure takes on CB (not the best K-9 set imo) and Rhyperior but still loses to CBperior. The metagame needs a special bulky water over a physical one at the moment due to the prevalence of Moltres. Slowbro was it it's prime when physical threats infested the ladder but now...
Speaking of Arcanine I don't really like Intimidate on it to be honest. A fire type shouldn't even bother taking hits (especially with that stealth rocks weakness) unless Arcanine is bulky. I'd much rather use Flash fire on Arcanine if I'm running an offensive set.
The metagame will always be more physically inclined, at least as far as Slowbro/king's typing goes. If you want a specially-oriented bulky water just use Milotic (100/125 > Slowking's 80/110 or whatever)
95/125. But yeah I don't bother using Milotic as a mixed wall anymore, I just run Rest-talk with a lot of SpD/HP, Speed, and Special Attack (but I won't reveal the spread). ;) When it's resting it can still handle weaker physical hits anyways. Pairing Milotic with Tangrowth forms a good enough defensive core because he handles the physical grassers, Kabutops, and other hard hitters that Milotic can't.
Milotic is 95/125, and Slowking is 95/110.
Just for the heads up.
Slowking has more options than Milotic (Thunder Wave is valuable against offensive teams), while the physical defense is about the same as Milotic (1 point higher...).
Though Psychic typing is more of a nuisance on a special tank like Slowking.
Thanks for the corrections guys. But yeah, I think people forget that the only reason anyone used Slowbro was to counter the hard-hitting banded fighting types that were all over the place at one point (who all 2hko Milotic). Special Fighting is not that common (I guess Toxicroak...) and Milotic handles Alakazam and company just fine anyway without a Psychic resistance...and in return, milotic gets the ability to wall Houndoom, one of the most dangerous special attackers in the tier. Simply put, if you're using slowking don't do it because it's "like slowbro but now with more SDEF" because slowking's typing is just not that useful on a special wall, and typing is really the only reason (besides twave) to use it over Milo.
Fixed because prediction works both ways. If I predict you predicting me predicting you then shit just gets confusing and in reality, you don't know what's going to happen, especially when it's two equally good players going at it.
Besides, Flash Fire is not "dependent" on anything, it just gives you a useful immunity on something you resist and awards you with a power boost if you predict properly. Intimidate is going to be doing exactly the same amount of nothing to the Fire types you switch in on, so you might as well try to get a boost out of it.
Besides, with Intimidate, you don't get to switch in on anything safely but weak physical walls. Sweeper sets should always run Flash Fire, since getting just one is probably all you need hurt your opponent's team pretty badly, possibly sweep if you can get any Spikes up. If your opponent already knows you have it, then it's back to predicting games. Unless you're suggesting I spam Air Slash on Registeel/Steelix so that Arcanine doesn't screw me over.
Well, I just completely screwed up my chances of getting upper reqs and even leaderboard. 1801 when I began today, 1586.5 now D: I just suddenly started to suck. It doesn't help that my rain and hail teams are retarded now so I have only like two good teams.
I primarily used non-weather today. I switched to weather teams a couple of times in hopes that I'd break my streak that way.
Has anyone noticed a sudden insurgence in encore teams? Its pissing the hell out of me with all these Clefable + Poliwrath teams >____>. Why must everyone UU ladder player read this thread and use all the ideas.
What I really came here to say is that the most effective strategy so far since the new round, for me, is running Offense. If you can build a team with near perfect synergy and all your sweepers complement each other in some how its easy to pull off wins quickly and easily. To be honest it's not even that hard to make either. On the downside theres encore teams to piss you off and I have noticed that a;most all the teams I have been playing are become more and more defensively oriented compared to before when every team we saw was running Dugtrio + Raikou + Moltres.
What I really came here to say is that the most effective strategy so far since the new round, for me, is running Offense. If you can build a team with near perfect synergy and all your sweepers complement each other in some how its easy to pull off wins quickly and easily. To be honest it's not even that hard to make either. On the downside theres encore teams to piss you off and I have noticed that a;most all the teams I have been playing are become more and more defensively oriented compared to before when every team we saw was running Dugtrio + Raikou + Moltres.
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