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np: UU - Higher Ground

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Thund91 said:
Is it just me, or are physical Venusaur becoming the majority?
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I don't really see why though, since I think Leafeon severely outclasses SD Venusaur in many ways. Leafeon, because of its pure Grass typing and 130 base Defense, gets a pretty much free set up on both Donphan and Dugtrio, both of which are seeing a good deal of use (Donphan in particular). A max Attack Donphan averages 24% with Ice Shard against SD Leafeon, and a Choice Band Jolly Dugtrio's Aerial Ace 41%, so it's quite safe to say that neither of these Pokemon are going to stop Leafeon from getting SDs. Venusaur doesn't have an Earthquake resistance because of its Poison-typing and isn't as physically bulky as Leafeon so it can't set up here nearly as well (both Dugtrio and Donphan 2HKO with their respective EQs).

Leafeon has a higher Attack than Venusuar, base 110 compared to base 82, and has a stronger STAB move: a 90 BP high critical hit rate Leaf Blade compared to Venusuar's 80 BP no secondary effect Seed Bomb. Leafeon's base 95 Speed is also significantly higher than Venusaur's base 80, allowing Leafeon to outspeed and use Return to take out many of the foes that threaten Venusaur - namely Yanmega, Moltres, Blaziken, Magmortar, and other things such as WoW Rotom and offensive Roserade - as long as you provide some reliable SR support. Venusaur's advantages over Leafeon are Sleep Powder (which Leafeon can replace with Synthesis to keep itself alive longer and get multiple SDs, or Baton Pass to give DD Feraligatr or Altaria a very welcome free power boost), Toxic Spikes absorption, and some more special bulk, but I don't think they are nearly enough to justify using a compromise SDer like Venusaur when Leafeon outperforms it.
 
Leafeon also has priority in QA which helps out a lot. Also, I use to see SubPunch Kanga a lot, its all banded now. Same with Yanmega which is now Specs. This thread is changing the ladder.
 
I've found that using things outside the box will bring you success in the ladder. I've been using a Cactrune lead on my Test team and got me 1400+ rating in one day. I've also used Leafeon to pull off too may sweeps due to the fact most physical sweepers are weak to Grass-types
 
franky said:
I've found that using things outside the box will bring you success in the ladder. I've been using a Cactrune lead on my Test team and got me 1400+ rating in one day. I've also used Leafeon to pull off too may sweeps due to the fact most physical sweepers are weak to Grass-types
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Watch out! Most "good" UU players will look down upon you for using things outside the box. :/
 
i don't know what "good" uu players have been saying that...people should be using non-standard pokemon/movesets. uu is a very unexplored tier, there is plenty of unused stuff that works well
 
@ leafeon/venusaur. i've used both (but venusaur relatively more than leafeon) and in the end i think which one you use comes down to a question of which team it's in. leafeon is faster and has more physical bulk which lets it set up on pkmn like donphan, but venusaur's sleep powder + special bulk usually gets it a spot on my team over leafeon.

1. sleep powder pretty much guarantees you take an enemy pokemon out of the battle which is usually either a sd venusaur check (maybe something fast like houndoom which partially neuters leafeon's speed advantage) or a milotic or registeel. it also gets you a free swords dance (although i usually like to return/eq first turn to catch random yanmega or roserade); venusaur gets dances off sleep powder while leafeon gets them based off physical bulk.

2. the added special bulk means you won't get ohkod if you switch into an errant milotic ice beam (or if the milotic user plays chicken and ice beams as you swords dance). even though venusaur is slightly less physically bulky, the fact that he's still relatively bulky on both sides means there's more room for error / mispredictions.

3. the difference between seed bomb and leaf blade is negligible imo because both of these rely on accumulating multiple swords dances. i don't know of any notable KOs +2 leafeon scores that +2 venusaur doesn't get. venusaur's overgrow also somewhat balances this out. the faster speed is definitely useful for roserade but i don't know if i would return / baton pass against a houndoom or yanmega anyways if i had an sd leafeon because speed ties are pretty meh.

4. edit: but baton pass is quite cool yes.

@ yanmega + spinner. the way i read the question was "if yanmega needs a spinner to sweep does that mean it's not BL". so this is assuming that yanmega with spin support is broken and we're seeing if the necessity of said spin support means yanmega can't sweep "with little effort" by itself (which would make it not actually broken). a way to test this is to think about how broken yanmega-with-spinner is to yanmega-without-spinner.

i don't use a spinner on most of my teams with yanmega because honestly i don't know how to spin (that sounds ridiculous but it's true lol). yanmega still usually averages around two kills per match. i don't know how many you get with a spinner but it can't be too much more than that? there isn't much of a difference between killing a third of their team with a sixth of yours and killing half of their team with a sixth of yours (or even a third of yours because donphan has to spin for yanmega) in terms of how broken a pokemon is. yanmega at 1 HP is still just as hard to switch into as yanmega at 313 HP.

tl;dr if we decide that yanmega can sweep through a significant portion of teams i don't think the fact that a spinner helps it perform better means it isn't broken.

in other news, i got swept by a cb slutbunny today :o.
 
the difference between seed bomb and leaf blade is negligible imo because both of these rely on accumulating multiple swords dances. i don't know of any notable KOs +2 leafeon scores that +2 venusaur doesn't get.
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Don't forget Leafeon has 110 Base Attack, which is a huge difference between Venusaur. I like Sleep Powder though, I have to admit but those huge difference in the Attack category is what makes Leafeon better. Also Leafeon takes priority hits better, which is why I've been successful with it. Also the difference is that Venusaur has a slight chance of KOing max HP / max Def Slowbro, while Leafeon has a higher chance.

Also can anyone tell me the set Lopunny is running nowadays? I heard a spike of hobunny's in this ladder and someone had huge success with Lopunny.
 
I always use Venusaur over Leafeon for three reasons. The SpD, Toxic Spikes absorbtion, and the Fighting-type resistance. The added special bulk allows you to more easily take down Mismagius and switch into mispredicted Milotic Ice Beam. Fighting resistance is always welcome if I have to switch in against Hitmonlee or Hitmontop. On "balanced" teams it's great to have a Pokemon that can absorb TSpikes without going out of the way to specifically include a member for that reason.
 
All in all it seems just to be a question of which of them serves your team's purposes better. IMHO there's no best or worst.
As a side note I've seen none mention Venusaur's ability over Leafeon's, as Sun teams aren't really common, but getting overgrow's boost when in a pinch really comes in handy at times; many times actually.

Also can anyone tell me the set Lopunny is running nowadays? I heard a spike of hobunny's in this ladder and someone had huge success with Lopunny.
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Gotta blame that on Thund xP. Most of the Lolbunnies i face carry switcheroo with choice item/ flame orb, encore, substitute and baton pass (Klutz ability), even though the one popularized by Thund ran Return instead of switcheroo (And leftovers/CB with Cute Charm) if I'm not mistaken.
 
Stellar said:
I always use Venusaur over Leafeon for three reasons. The SpD, Toxic Spikes absorbtion, and the Fighting-type resistance. The added special bulk allows you to more easily take down Mismagius and switch into mispredicted Milotic Ice Beam. Fighting resistance is always welcome if I have to switch in against Hitmonlee or Hitmontop. On "balanced" teams it's great to have a Pokemon that can absorb TSpikes without going out of the way to specifically include a member for that reason.
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I find Venusaur being the superior choice too. Sleep powder, higher SpD and resistance to fight are extremely useful in UU. Though I rarely see toxic spikes, honestly.

Venusaur's disadvantage over Leafon is that being part-Poison, Dugtrio's CB EQ are going to hurt a lot, coming close to OHKO offensive variants.

I'm really enjoying the current UU metagame, and I hope that there will be no nomination for BL at the end of the testing period.
 
Another thing that hasn't yet been mentioned is that Venusaur has the extra attacking option of Earthquake, which allows it to 1-2HKO Magneton and Registeel, as well as hit bulky Fire types like Arcanine hard. These are Pokemon that are capable of giving Leafeon a bit of trouble. I actually got swept by an Earthquake variant once.
 
Leafeon only has one counter in UU, which is why I lean towards it also. Its easy to remove Registeel now that Dugtrio is around.
 
@franky: there's also Weezing, who made the UU cut in July. I'm guessing you were only thinking of Registeel. Maybe it will get used more as a Leafeon, Venusaur, Torterra, Donphan, Steelix, Hitmontop, Hitmonlee (I could go all day), physical Toxicroak, physical Sceptile, Hariyama, Scyther, SubPunch Azumarill counter. It can also stall things like DD Altaria and Feraligatr with Haze and burns.

About Yanmega needing Spin support: it really doesn't. The Specs Tinted Lens set usually gets three shots at a team, one when Stealth Rock isn't up/the turn it gets up, at 50%, and at 1%. Everyone knows the frightening power of the this set, in which it can easily tear down Registeel, Lanturn, and anything else not named Chansey or specially defensive Milotic that usually counter other Yanmega sets.

I don't agree that Speed Boost sets make offensive teams obsolete, which is an argument against Yanmega. Offensive teams can utilize pokemon such as Registeel, Steelix, and Altaria for their Yanmega checking needs (also, try Choice Scarf Trace Gardevoir and get it in on anything but Bug Buzz!). And even if these pokemon get torn apart by the Specs set, the offensive nature of offensive teams should mean that Yanmega isn't getting in easily (and the Modest Specs set sits at 289 speed, which is outsped by a decent amount of offensive pokes I guess). Speed Boost sets don't really need Spin support because Yanmega only needs a few switch ins to ruin teams.

The hax coming out of Yanmega is fucking ridiculous though.
 
I guess Leafeon/Venusaur comes down to personal preference. Venusuar's Sleep Powder is a handy move but if you have another sleep inducer elsewhere on your team then I find Leafeon does the solo sweeper job better, whereas Venusaur does some more for the team by sleeping a threat and absorbing Toxic Spikes. I have to say 95 base Speed is a real blessing though; it's like Garchomp's base 102 was in OU, outspeeding everything that really needs to be.

Choiced Normal-type sweepers seem to be extremely effective in the current state of the tier. Perhaps it's because unlike OU the average UU team only has one or two Normal resists, and the simple fact that a STAB Return is a very powerful move as it is. CB Kangaskhan is an absolute monster, getting perfect coverage with Scrappy Return + Hammer Arm and bulldozing its way through the tier. Give it some Spikes support and it quite literally 2HKOs everything. Not only is it an effective sweeper, but its strong Fake Out is a great asset as well. It does massive damage to the things that outspeed it, namely the likes of Houndoom and Mismagius, and can be very useful for wasting Rain Dance, Trick Room or Screens turns as well.

I've been playing about with two other Normal-type Choice Banders, Tauros and Zangoose, and they've both proven to be equally as effective as well. Tauros can sweep better than Kangaskhan if you first remove the foe's Ghost (which can be achieved with its own CB Pursuit or with Honchkrow), being both faster and stronger than Kangaskhan. 100 base Attack and 110 base Speed is excellent for sweeping, especially since 110 base Speed hits that magic 319 speed with just a neutral nature, outspeeding positive base 95s and everything below. Once the Ghosts are down, Return + Earthquake demolish everything. Intimidate is handy too. Zangoose is not quite as fast as Tauros, tying with Kangaskhan at 90 base Speed, but it is quite a lot more powerful. It's 115 base Attack and access to Close Combat make it a very big threat indeed, and it has a powerful Quick Attack for revenging faster threats to boot.

It's quite amazing the different things that work well in OU and UU - Choiced Normal types are little more than novelty in OU, apart from perhaps CB Snorlax, but in UU they can be some of the tier's most threatening sweepers. Similarly, spinning has been shown to be a lot easier in UU than in OU, and as a result the effectiveness of suicide leads and the like in UU is also quite low. Perhaps a discussion of other ways in which the two tiers differentiate from each other, and strategies that are effective in one but not the other?
 
JabbaTheGriffin said:
Yeah it's rare to run into a good player who doesn't have specsmega on their team and for that matter it's just as rare to not seem them using donphan. Yanphan (or Donmega???) is really a great combination. I've heard people say that Donphan (or foresight top) is almost a necessity if you want Yanmega to do well at all.

So maybe a discussion on whether Yanmega needs a spinner alongside and if so, what does that mean for Yanmega and the potential to become suspect?
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I wouldn't say that Donphan is a necessity... it's more just "the icing on the cake", in that it plays so well with Yanmega... the only things setting up SR on a Yanmega is going to be something like Chansey or Registeel... which Donphan comes in on all day long and spins away threatening EQ (the same can be said about Hitmontop and threatening Close Combat, but less so since Hitmontop is much more easily walled by the more common Trick Ghosts / Double Ghost strategies that have been popping up).

Yanmega is more than capable of doing a great job on a team all on its own... and all you really have to do is lead with it. Yanmega keeps SR off the field turn 1 just by OHKOing pretty much any Pokemon that carries the move. And if you're playing with a team that has a secondary SR user (like Registeel or Chansey) you're going to take a Bug Buzz to the face (which means that Registeel is now 2HKOd the next time Yanmega comes back in at 50%) or you've brought in set-up bait Chansey... A 50% Yanmega is in no way something I want to see... even if I have tons of priority. Not to mention that most of the more popular priority (Vacuum Wave / Mach Punch) is resisted 4x by Yanmega... and none of the popular priority users save for Sucker Punch Honchkrow can hope to do 50% to a Yanmega (I might be mistaken in my belief that an Azumarill Aqua Jet can't do 50%, but I'm too lazy to do the calcs myself). Yanmega is still punching holes through teams regardless of Donphans existance... Donphan is just helping it do it even better than it already does.
 
Yeah, I've already seen a few Specs Yanmega leads. I think it is a bit risky though tbh. All it takes is an unexpected Scarfer, Sasher or Mirror Coat user and you lose your attacker / wallbreaker cheaply. Even a random HP Rock from TrickScarf Uxie can end up in an embarrassingly early grave for Yanmega. Then there's mindgames between Fake Out and Pursuit on lead Ambipoms (still a very common lead) which if you get wrong limits you to only one SR switch from the off. IMO, SpecsMega is most destructive in the mid-to-late game against a slightly weakened team, and you know what you're coming in on.

As for SR itself, it should be noted that whilst keeping SR off the field is very beneficial for Yanmega, if anything, keeping your own SR ON the field is even more important. The obvious reason is to ensure certain 1-2HKOs like with any offensive threat, but an equally important reason is to keep Moltres in check (the only 4x Bug resist in UU with decent special defense and reliable recovery, now that Crobat is gone of course).
 
I like that link between OU and UU Legacy Raider made, and I think a lot of why Yanmega is probably "too good" stems from OU. Thanks to the dominance of the dragons and probably Draco Meteor in particular a lot of things that, in another gen, might have ended up in UU and been the natural counters to Yanmega are in OU to combat the big boys and so Yanmega only has to deal with the Regis and a preevolution walling it. Steel types in general are so necessary in OU that Yanmega kinda gets to slide by on the coattails of Salamence... odd relationship, at least by my perception.

I think a lot of why the Normal type sweepers are so strong in UU is much the same principal. With all those steel types getting drafted to OU the natural wall to normal types is gone and they can cause a lot more trouble, only really needing to worry about Rocks and Ghosts (which some of the more intimidating normal threats blow to hell anyway). And with that nice DP Sandstorm Special Defense for Rock-types functionality there's probably less rocks in this tier than there otherwise would be as well... kind of neat how it all comes together.
 
654 Atk vs 234 Def & 313 HP (40 Base Power): 120 - 142 (38.34% - 45.37%), so Azumarill can't OHKO Yanmega at 50% without a critical.
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Is it common for Tinted SpecsMega to run 104 Defense EVs?

Anyway, you're right in that Azumarill can't do 50% to Yanmega with priority. But conversely, Modest Specs Bug Buzz only averages ~73% to standard Azu, meaning that if Azumarill hasn't been previously weakened by at least 25%, it can comfortably survive and KO with Ice Punch 15 out of 16 times. That's even against a Yanmega at 100%.

This really brings up another point which is key to the Yanmega discussion. 116 Special Attack is no doubt strong in UU, but it isn't THAT strong, especially with only a maximum effective base power of 135. A well built bulky offensive team can normally limit SpecsMega to one kill maximum without even carrying a specific counter. On the other hand, 95 base speed is quick, but not that quick, meaning that a good quick offensive team should have no problem making it difficult for Yanmega to get much of a look in.

Having said that, I'm still not sure about Yanmega. Its overall power still feels borderline (not borderline as in BL) at best, but that might still change come voting time.
 
Actually, only Speed Boost runs the 104 Defense EVs, considering that 152 Speed was the required amount to outspeed Crobat with +1 Modest.

Overall, Yanmega is feeling like Specs Latios did in Suspect: It's fast, but not too fast. However, its insane power and lack of actual reliable things that can resist and/or switch into its main STAB (and the only move it should ever run) makes it so ridiculously hard to handle that you can just stick it in a team and open shit up with it.
 
On the Leafeon vs. Venusaur subject don't forget that Leafeon carries Yawn, which practically gurantees a switch giving Leafeon that free SD and lets you know what counter your opponent has. If the opponent stays in a takes the sleep he is very unlikely to KO Leafeon anyway, giving you a huge advantage.
 
speaking of yawn, wish leafeon is pretty damn sweet. it can come in all day long on physical attacks, especially from things like cb azumarill, feraligatr, and donphan. it survives even powerful stab hits from a ton of physical attackers (it can take a lo honchkrow drill peck if you really need it to), can pass wish to teammates, and is able to easily force switches with yawn which can quickly run through a team if you have sr and some spikes down. it works similarly to baton passer in that it has nice synergy with teammates like arcanine or azumarill but instead of passing boosts it passes HP to someone that wants it. it's pretty easy to kill on the special side and it's the definition of yanmega bait (although yawn + sr = dead yanmega), though.
 
I've been playing around with Wish Leafeon too. Its pretty cool to counter some physical threats due to its 130 Base Def.
 
So what major trends have people been noticing recently?

From my experience, Magneton and Kangaskhan have exploded in usage. At this rate I can see them both easily making UU come October, which would be great as they are both excellent and viable Pokemon there. I would be a tad saddened by the former though, as Magneton has won me countless matches singlehandedly in NU.

Due to these trends in particular, I've recently replaced Earthquake with Hammer Arm on my Registeel, and I'm loving it. It can also KO Absol after Stealth Rock damage or Superpower drop, as well as hit Ambipom, Clefable and Chansey much harder. You do lose out on certain things like Drapion, Toxicroak and Fire switch-ins, but I think Hammer Arm is slightly better in this environment, if only for those two up and coming Pokes.

The question is, with the new additions (Donphan and Duggy are certs for UU, as well as Honchkrow again) and the increased usage of many others, what is going to drop out I wonder? Hard to say, but I have noticed an enormous drop in Claydol usage recently. I guess with the introduction of Donphan and Honchkrow's reappearance it is struggling to find a useful role in a typical UU team. I don't think it will drop to NU next time due to its high usage in recent months, but it is one to watch nevertheless.
 
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