np: UU - Can't Touch This

[Bilaterus]

Disclaimer of sorts: I don't actually play UU, but I use Rain in OU and it destroys things there so I have experience with it.

It seems to me that Rain Teams at the moment are just thrown together in 5 minutes, and still result in success. This is definitely not a good thing seeing as the best teams go through game after game of refinement. I also wonder how powerful Rain can get. A well thought-out team in the hands of an expert = ?

Do you guys think that Rain Teams can get more powerful or is this their "limit" (even though it is pretty high already). And is it healthy for a metagame to have a team style which can assure some success with no thought in its construction?

 

[Vrolok]

I think it's also fun playing against rain dance teams. Their motives are clear within 3 turns of the game, making it a little easier to plan out sacrifices and momentum. I myself use a Lum Berry Ludicolo that sets himself up for 5 (4) turns of destruction. I think using one or two weather abusers, with or without said weather starting move, is a good precaution/step up on weather teams. For instance, Moltres is a pretty good poke, but also happens to be a decent Sunny Day abuser, especially since she resists grass x4. Ludicolo resists Water x4 and is a monstrous one-turn setup sweeper.

It's very hard to find a solid counter to a well thought out Rain Dance team. It's offensive power is far too much for even the best walls. Perhaps Hippo and Snover can serve as soft counters. Priority, imo, is still the only answer.

I actually want to see a ban on Damp Rock for a short testing period. Rain at 8 (7/6) turns absolutely destroy a majority of the metagame. I will bet that even without Damp Rock RD teams will survive just fine.

Can we talk weather? Which ones are most viable, powerful, easy to play with (cough, rain)? Are some weather abusers able to survive on their own in non-weather teams? Is Sandstorm/Hail too much of a commitment?

Oh, and one more question. With Honchkrow's absence, I find it much harder to deal with Venusaur. I'm using Lum Berry Moltres, but without a spinner a good opponent will quickly wear mine out. I miss Honch, he was too good!

 

[-Terywj-]

I think Mixed Primeape could do something about Venusaur, albeit not as well as Honchkrow did, but still. Vital Spirit negates Sleep Powder, and with the right EV's it can scare off Venusaur with Flamethrower / Fire Blast / Overheat.

I've been testing it out, and it's (semi) worth it. It just becomes Cresselia bait without Punishment or U-Turn, though.

-Terywj

 

[SilentVerse]

I think Mixed Primeape could do something about Venusaur, albeit not as well as Honchkrow did, but still. Vital Spirit negates Sleep Powder, and with the right EV's it can scare off Venusaur with Flamethrower / Fire Blast / Overheat.

I've been testing it out, and it's (semi) worth it. It just becomes Cresselia bait without Punishment or U-Turn, though.

-Terywj

Uh, just wondering, but why would you use Flamethrower / Fire Blast / Overheat when you have Ice Punch? Those special Fire STAB's won't be doing much, even with EV's. Max Special Attack with LO doesn't even 2KO support Venu. It would help against SD Venusaur, but again, why would you use Special Fire STAB when you could just use Ice Punch? What thing does it let you beat that Ice Punch or Fire Punch doesn't?

 

[Heysup]

Personally, I think the ONLY thing that should be banned from UU at the moment is Kabutops.

In the rain, it is really the only Pokemon that is nearly impossible to counter because of its Rain Boosted fast priority (fine, Specs Toxicroak works) canceling out most other priority attacks. It's near perfect coverage STAB moves add to this as well, not to mention having it's secondary STAB being an 100 Base Power attack.

Without Kabutops I don't see rain as "too threatening". Qwilfish is good, but it doesn't have the Attack or powerful Stone Edge to pull off sweeps as easily.

Basically, I just think SD Kabutops is broken, not "rain dance" itself. Just imo anyway.

Additionally, I use Scarf Venusaur on 2/3 of my teams as a lead for the sole purpose of it being able to stop Froslass, Electrode, and Uxie from setting up.

 

[capefeather]

Rain teams are like any other very offensive team. You can literally copy-paste a certain template and be successful... in theory. However, rain has mostly the same flaws that hyper offensive teams do.

I will admit that it's significantly harder for an opponent to prepare for rain than for a team builder to make a good rain team. However, that's largely because the opponent's team has to be able to deal with everything else in UU. Rain just seems like a final obstacle to a team before it really becomes "good", or yet another blow to an already bad team. I ran six teams during this test and only two got very consistent results. My "bad" teams also happen to be the ones that get run over by rain, while my "good" teams can deal with them comfortably. One of my "good" teams (the Shaymin-era team I mentioned long ago in this thread) has faced many rain teams and, while sometimes I do get swept because of hax or a very bad misprediction or forgetting just how wtfstrong Gorebyss is, I do typically beat rain teams with it. Even the double switches and pivot switches that one typically ends up doing to waste rain turns become second nature eventually. Once, I even paraflinched an Uxie to death, killing two birds with one stone!

Situations like this are why I believe more and more that the best teams in UU are either the ones who abuse the future BL Pokémon very effectively or the "timeless" ones, the teams that don't care that much about the banlist changes and just do their own thing. I don't care what people say about the UU metagame. There's a certain consistency about all of the metagames that can be exploited quite effectively. I really don't see why rain would be more "broken" now than it was before.

Side note: Do you guys think that it's time I changed my avatar/signature? It seems like most of the Cress hype has died down. I never meant to demean the more reasonable gripes against Cress (in fact I'm not even sure of its BL/UU status), so perhaps if the very people that I've been parodying are "gone" then I should change my avatar/sig before more reasonable people get offended <.<

 

[Bluewind]

I'd honestly much rather run some sort of sleep talker, like Arcanine or Altaria, than Primeape. Nothing stops your opponent from switching out (Honchrow could either Pursuit or Roost on the switch at least, but believing your opponent will keep Venusaur on Primeape is too optimistic) and he's frail as fuck, being (IIRC) OHKOed by Power Whip when switching in.

 

[MegaKick]

The one thing about rain is, its fun because once it goes down, you needs to stop it from going back up. Since I run a very bulky lead plus one other bulk mon, I'll usually just wait until the last turn of rain, sac someone, and bring in something like raikou or moltres with HP grass, and stop them. I've only seen about 7 rain teams, but Ive beaten them all, so I personally don't think theyre broken. And besides, its a lot of fun

 

[ZandgaiaX]

To be fair I don't seen kabutops that powerfull at all <.<;

Registeel is your answer (80% needed though) all you need is to para it, or play around. Kabu is a bit like mence, but only in rain and if Stone Edge hits...

Btw, I use subencore with Dynamicpunch and Rockslide machoke to some good succes lately ;)

 

[Heysup]

To be fair I don't seen kabutops that powerfull at all <.<;

Registeel is your answer (80% needed though) all you need is to para it, or play around. Kabu is a bit like mence, but only in rain and if Stone Edge hits...

Well Paralyzing Kabutops does limit its effectiveness, but it still has half of it's previous Speed (so it's faster than Registeel iirc), and it still has Aqua Jet.

Additionally, being forced to sacrifice your primary Special Wall to beat Kabutops means you are going to get absolutely destroyed by Pokemon like the hyped Specs Gorebyss and even Ludicolo.

In any event, I don't believe "Registeel can paralyze it if it has not taken 20% damage already" is a valid reason for it to be deemed not "all that powerful".

What are offensive teams supposed to do against it? Run Scarf Sceptile (lol)?

 

[Bluewind]

What are offensive teams supposed to do against it? Run Scarf Sceptile (lol)?

That's the question. Saying stuff like "Ok, pack Lanturn, Registeel, Technitop, Defensive Venusaur (offensive is OHKOed by Gorebyss) altogether and rain is piece of cake" isn't helping much when it comes to offensive teams, that 95% of the time find themselves defeated from the start of the match, as there isn't much that can take more and more outrageous attacks for 6-7 turns.

 

[whistle]

offensive checks to rain

jolly kabutops
toxicroak
scarf rotom
raikou
azumarill
lo milotic
ambipom
substitute users

this is by no means an exhaustive list and there are a bunch more pokemon that work on offensive teams but aren't classic "offense" pokemon

if your entire team is ohkoed by a fast surf (okay with the exception of your sd venusaur) then you will have problems with other pokemon and teams as well -- that doesn't necessarily prove that rain is broken. it's true that offensive teams have a bad matchup against rain teams because of the nature of both teams but there are plenty of things you can do to turn the tables against rain.

 

[Thund91]

I've never ran heavy offense so I don't know how they deal with rain, and I actually can't think of any besides priority lol. I guess I guess NPCroak is a decent poke for offensive teams, but other then that the only one I can think of is LOMilotic.

Imo rain is much easier to deal with when you're running stall. The only problem poke is probably Kabutops if you let it get an SD too freely. SD Ludicolo is probably another big threat because everyone expects it to be special, i've gone to Milotic too many times the first turn expecting Surf. ;_;

Also, mixed Sceptile with Rock Slide is a beast.

 

[Alan]

Kabutops is so broken, I mean a Registeel could never use Thunder Wave and EQ/Iron Head it to death then switch to Shedinja to wall the rest of the team...Oh wait, it can. Imo P-Z is more broken than Kabutops. Without Rain Kabutops is just another SDer that can be easily walled. I feel like the whole Rain Dance team itself is a bit broken.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Jolly Kabuptops does not check rain; it gets outrun by Qwilfish and crippled by LO Waterfall (and +2 Waterfall kills obviously). Toxicroak does not check rain, it just checks Omastar (barely, earth power ohkos while vwave requires residual damage to kill) and Kabutops. Gorebyss and Qwilfish still kill it. Scarf Rotom gets outpaced by Ludi, Qwilfish, and Kabutops if Timid, and everything if Modest. Lol at Raikou, dies to any surf or waterfall from any rain sweeper. Azurmarill loses to Ludicolo, Kabutops, Qwilfish, and Specs Gorebyss. LO Milotic loses to Ludicolo, Kabutops, Qwilfish, and Specs Gorebyss. Ambiom means I get to go to rain walls (currently using Cress/Registeel combo), paralyze something, and set up rain again or explode/lunar dance. Sub users get wrecked by Kabutops, but spamming substitute is probably the best way to deal with rain besides that. Edit at the guy above me: Not only did you bring SHEDINJA into a discussion about competitive counters to rain dance, but you did so assuming that it would switch into Kabutops, one of the only rain sweepers who can actually kill Shedinja. You couldn't fail more without putting Damp Rock on Kyogre.

 

[Reaver12]

Flareblitz, you didn't read his post that well. He was saying you could have Regsiteel cripple/kill Kaputops THEN switch in Shedinja to wall the rest of your opponents rain team.

The fact that Shedinja is being brought up in a competitive forum is a testament to how broken rain is IMO.

 

[Banedon]

I agree completely with Heysup that the most dangerous of the rain sweepers is Kabutops - he can Swords Dance, and has a priority rain-boosted attack that negates paralysis. In fact paralysis can even be dangerous to use on him, because he can Swords Dance while you paralyze him. His rock-typing makes him resistant to Extremespeed and Quick Attack as well, although it does weaken him to Vacuum Wave.

That said, there are uses of Kabutops other than in rain. He can set up Stealth Rock, Rapid Spin and revenge kill a bit with Aqua Jet. If he's banned I'd probably shed a tear for him.

@FlareBlitz - eh ... of course Jolly Kabutops is a check to rain. You are faster than many rain sweepers, and every turn they spend switching out sweepers is one less turn of rain to worry about. You also get one free turn and all the possibilities that come with it. Same applies to Toxicroak, except you can use Toxicroak to sponge high-powered Surfs and Waterfalls and Aqua Jets. You also force a non-water type attack, which is certainly easier to take.

 

[FlareBlitz]

@Banedon I wouldn't switch out of Jolly Kabutops. Every one of my rain sweepers can survive unboosted Stone Edge and kill it, and if they're already weakened I'll just sac 'em. If you swords dance on that turn, you're boned. The only thing kabutops does against rain is weaken a sweeper or revenge kill one before dying, and you don't need a kabutops for that.

 

[whistle]

well the point of my post was not to say that "here, stick one of these on your offensive team and you will never lose to rain and you will ohko every one of their sweepers" -- they are just pokemon or strategies that help a lot against rain and can throw them off their normal gameplan. they help nullify the apparently massive team advantage that other people have been referring to, if you will...

Jolly Kabuptops does not check rain; it gets outrun by Qwilfish and crippled by LO Waterfall (and +2 Waterfall kills obviously).

you run jolly qwilfish on rain ?_? also this means you are saccing something to get qwilfish in, while qwilfish *must* waterfall against kabutops which means i get to switch out to a water absorber or resist with pretty high confidence that you're not swords dancing.

Toxicroak does not check rain, it just checks Omastar (barely, earth power ohkos while vwave requires residual damage to kill) and Kabutops. Gorebyss and Qwilfish still kill it.

it checks special ludicolo (2x lo ice beam doesn't ko), non zen headbutt sd ludicolo, sd kabutops, and omastar. considering kabutops and ludicolo are generally considered the largest threats on a rain team, this isn't bad. also once i've revealed a toxicroak you're definitely going to think twice before spamming surf (which i'm sure you know what with your polly escapades, haha) which obviously helps.

Scarf Rotom gets outpaced by Ludi, Qwilfish, and Kabutops if Timid, and everything if Modest.

yeah not the most useful but it can come in on omastar's earth power or gorebyss non-surf (if absolutely needed) and either KO or force them out to a registeel or whatever you're using, which means i'm not getting slammed with +1 lo surfs for a while and lets me set something up instead of switching madly in front of your gorebyss.

Lol at Raikou, dies to any surf or waterfall from any rain sweeper.

set up on uxie or other bulky supporter, can stall rain with substitute, beats special sweepers if it has a calm mind when they switch in.

Azurmarill loses to Ludicolo, Kabutops, Qwilfish, and Specs Gorebyss. LO Milotic loses to Ludicolo, Kabutops, Qwilfish, and Specs Gorebyss.

azumarill is another "set it up on the bulky supporter" pokemon and focus punch / waterfall / aqua jet means its usually killing something while substitute wastes rain. milotic stalls out gorebyss and omastar (um are you using specs hp grass against it...) and ohkos kabutops while it's not ohkoed in return; qwilfish has to boom to kill it.

Ambiom means I get to go to rain walls (currently using Cress/Registeel combo), paralyze something, and set up rain again or explode/lunar dance.

forcing a switch to rain supporters means i get to set up my pocket monsters and also means those coveted "let me use damp rock" turns are getting wasted two at a time, minimum.

You couldn't fail more without putting Damp Rock on Kyogre.

lol

@Banedon I wouldn't switch out of Jolly Kabutops. Every one of my rain sweepers can survive unboosted Stone Edge and kill it, and if they're already weakened I'll just sac 'em. If you swords dance on that turn, you're boned.

calcs assume no defensive investment

stone edge vs ludicolo: 329 Atk vs 176 Def & 301 HP (100 Base Power): 262 - 309 (87.04% - 102.66%) -- ko with SR
stone edge vs gorebyss: 329 Atk vs 246 Def & 241 HP (100 Base Power): 187 - 222 (77.59% - 92.12%) -- ko with 1 LO and SR
rainy waterfall vs kabutops: 329 Atk vs 246 Def & 261 HP (80 Base Power): 222 - 262 (85.06% - 100.38%) -- likely KO with SR
rainy waterfall vs omastar: 329 Atk vs 286 Def & 281 HP (80 Base Power): 193 - 228 (68.68% - 81.14%) -- ko with 2 LO and SR
stone edge vs qwilfish: 329 Atk vs 186 Def & 271 HP (100 Base Power): 247 - 292 (91.14% - 107.75%) -- ko with SR

The only thing kabutops does against rain is weaken a sweeper or revenge kill one before dying, and you don't need a kabutops for that.

considering you never switch out of kabutops, a nearly guaranteed revenge kill on 4/5ths of the common rain sweepers isn't really an "only".

i don't know how i missed ten posts or something the last time i checked this thread, but i agree completely with what banedon says here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2454024&postcount=774. getting rid of damp rock cuts in half the amount of turns you get to sweep, which makes moves that waste turns twice as "damaging" in proportion. most notably, three turns means substitute pokemon can easily stall out an entire rain setup by themselves. also, if you don't predict absolutely correctly, you are probably killing one pokemon max per rain setup (think about how surfing then ice beaming a sd venusaur is just a minor roadbump with damp rock, while that simple maneuver eats up 66% of your rain turns without damp rock), which means you need to set up rain much more frequently and makes you ridiculously vulnerable to setup sweepers. an average rain team sets up rain, what, twice in a match, maybe three times against stall? try setting up rain four or five times against an offense team and having enough pokemon left alive to actually sweep... probably not happening. this also means people will probably have to run rain dance on various sweepers which obviously makes you more vulnerable to specific rain checks without that psychic or earthpower or focus punch, etc.

tl;dr

 

[PK Gaming]

Can someone provide me with a suitable Rhyperior lead set?

For now I'm using standard Rhyperior...as a lead.

 

[Smurf.]

Rhyperior (F) @ Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 120 HP / 228 Atk / 28 Def / 132 Spe
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Megahorn

 

[Ekanselttar]

I'm running a hyper-offensive team right now (probably one of the few non-RD offensive teams out there) and I just want to put in that yeah, rain 100% screws this team over. Not complaining or anything, but Rain Dance is the one style I absolutely cannot beat. Stall and semistall triumph over offensive in this metagame most of the time anyways (another reason Cress should go bye-bye and P-Z should stay in), but I can beat them sometimes. Best I can hope for against rain, though, is KO'ing the lead Electrode (lol). Oh, and I did manage to take Gorebyss down one time with priority. Still no dice on Kabutops. The suggestion of Jolly Kabutops is interesting and I'll look into it, but half my team's weak to fighting already >.<

 

[YaM]

I'm running a hyper-offensive team right now (probably one of the few non-RD offensive teams out there) and I just want to put in that yeah, rain 100% screws this team over. Not complaining or anything, but Rain Dance is the one style I absolutely cannot beat. Stall and semistall triumph over offensive in this metagame most of the time anyways (another reason Cress should go bye-bye and P-Z should stay in), but I can beat them sometimes. Best I can hope for against rain, though, is KO'ing the lead Electrode (lol). Oh, and I did manage to take Gorebyss down one time with priority. Still no dice on Kabutops. The suggestion of Jolly Kabutops is interesting and I'll look into it, but half my team's weak to fighting already >.<

You're running HO, you hit hard and fast, and you're not expected to take hits. It's a no-brainer why Rain would screw you over. You need to outspeed Rain : a) priority: SD Absol / NP Croak or b) Fast Scarfers ScarfZam/Missy/Kou/Rotom. If you can't outspeed Rain, you need to kill/Taunt the setup. If Rain isn't up, you shouldn't have problems killing their team. Doesn't most HO (non-weather) have Dual Screens anyway? That will help against Rain...

SubPunch Poliwrath is a good answer to Kabutops...

 

[Friar]

I agree with Uberiffic, Rain is definitely tough to beat, but unless the rain player is innovative and uses something non standard, an offensive team can usually win if they can survive one bout of Rain. Once the Rain is over, stuff like Raikou, Sceptile, even offensive Venusaur can rip the team apart. To survive the first Rainstorm, I use priority attacks, sacrifice stuff I don't need (like...say.. Rhyperior), and switch around through resistances. Playing Rain just takes a little prediction and long term thinking.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

Well Paralyzing Kabutops does limit its effectiveness, but it still has half of it's previous Speed (so it's faster than Registeel iirc), and it still has Aqua Jet.

Additionally, being forced to sacrifice your primary Special Wall to beat Kabutops means you are going to get absolutely destroyed by Pokemon like the hyped Specs Gorebyss and even Ludicolo.

In any event, I don't believe "Registeel can paralyze it if it has not taken 20% damage already" is a valid reason for it to be deemed not "all that powerful".

What are offensive teams supposed to do against it? Run Scarf Sceptile (lol)?

Yes I agree, it's not that much of a counter. But if you have no choice, it can work which is what I ment...

Anywho

I'm using a lead Machoke (Sub, Encore, Dynamic punch, Rockslide with 252 hp, 252 att, 6 spe lol) to some good succes, winning me momentum and allowing me to set up (I use alot of setup) Sure it'll die fast, but it's actually quite a good one, though maybe screenuxie is better.

I've used Machoke in combination with:
Spikes frosslass (Tweaked leadset, Spikes/T-wave/Taunt/Icebeam)
Registeel (T-wave/Sr/Seismictoss/shadowclaw)
Standard bulky CM raikou
SDferaligatr

Ye and a foresight hitmontop...

So I guess that's much setup, but it works.


And at the moment, I absolutely HATE cresselia. Only answer being a taunt from frosslass together with a setup of either Raikou or with a small change Feraligatr....