np: UU - Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head

[Heysup]

Registeel gets Earthquake...it's definitely not a shaky counter if it has that, which most do.

It is not a permanent counter. It has no way of recovering, and if Raikou is at +1-2 Registeel is 3-2HKOed by Thunderbolt.

People dismiss this, but I'll still say it for whatever reason.

With a mere 8 Atk EVs and a neutral nature, Lanturn's Aqua Tail will always break 4/0 Raikou's substitutes, making it the hardest counter possible to non HP Grass / Ground Raikou. On a less... endearing note, it takes 124 EVs for that same Aqua Tail to break a 252 HP sub, but I have no idea how common 252 HP Sub Raikou is (probably not very), so take that with a grain of salt.

People say "i would lol if a lanturn aqua tailed me" but then that makes me lol as Lanturn mercilessly rapes the SubCM Raikou that they previously thought was safe. Aqua Tail / Discharge / Heal Bell / (move, probably Rest) Lanturn can be decently legit, though it loses its ability to put the hurt on Rhyperior... but it's not hard for Rhyperior to outrun Lanturn anyway, so w/e. Pair it up with Wish Leafeon and you'll find that it's easy to get Lanturn in on the Ice and Fire attacks coming at Leafeon while Ground and Grass attacks are covered by Leafeon.

I would probably lol.

This is a prime example of centralizing a Pokemon who does basically nothing else besides beat Raikou. Lanturn is viable as a bulky Water and it has certain important advantages. Aqua Tail is not one of them.

As for RP Torterra, it's got the same hilarious checks that it's always had. Leafeon and Torterra are essentially impossible for it to break, it can be beaten through pivot switching between something like Hitmontop to intimidate it and Altaria to take the STABs, it's hard to set up without taking damage, it's got a crippling ice weakness, and in order to do its best damage to crucial foes it has to take a fuckton of recoil. I love RP Torterra to death, but it's no automatic rampage machine.

No it doesn't. It used to have Crobat, Yanmega, and Shaymin (namely Shamin) as checks, and now since Gass-types are fairly uncommon / banned (besides Venusaur who is part Poison) Torterra has much less checks. Not that it is a "rampage machine", but it is definitely harder to stop in this metagame than the previous ones.

 

[umbarsc]

Speaking of Grass-types, has anyone tried Meganium as an alternative to Venusaur or Tangrowth? I saw one used the other day, and it actually makes a fair bit of sense in checking certain threats. Advantages over Venusaur is its superior typing which gives it an Earthquake resistance, making it a solid Rhyperior check, while being more physically bulky. Over Tangrowth, it has much more SpD, allowing it to better take on bulky waters. It also has the ability to check Alakazam and LO Raikou, which neither of the others can do very well due to Psychic weakness or low SpD.

However, it gives Moltres and Scyther completely free switch-ins, so it might be worth it to run HP Rock just for that. (Too bad it doesn't get status moves or Roar)

 

[ZandgaiaX]

No it doesn't. It used to have Crobat, Yanmega, and Shaymin (namely Shamin) as checks, and now since Gass-types are fairly uncommon / banned (besides Venusaur who is part Poison) Torterra has much less checks. Not that it is a "rampage machine", but it is definitely harder to stop in this metagame than the previous ones.

And so, the new beast awakes.

 

[MapleSandwich]

The effective defensive pair of Quagsire (one example could be Curse, Waterfall, Earthquake, Recover) and Venusaur (Energy Ball, Sludge Bomb, Synthesis, Roar being the set I use) counters Raikou completely. This also counters rain offense, most fighting types, non-HP Grass Moltres...throw Altaria in there (who can also be either defense or offensive) to counter your Grass and Fire type threats, and you have a threesome of versatile Pokemon, all of whom can be offensive, defensive, and support, who are capable of beating just about every offensive threat in UU right now bar Swellow.

While I'm not saying every team ever needs to run this, this is one example of a non-limiting, non-centralized team of Pokemon who can work together to provide an impossible barrier to most of the UU offense metagame. You can use these for offense with Wish and Altaria's heal bell Support using Curse Quagsire and SD Venusaur, team it up with Froslass to provide Spikes suppot and use Roar on Venusaur with defensive Altaria and Toxic on Quagsire to play stall, or use any of them interchangeably as a support too to provide for the rest. This is not the only example of Pokemon working together to provide synergy to comprehensively beat threats where one Pokemon cannot.

Oh, and on that note, Specially Defensive Venusaur is a hard counter to Raikou, since it can absorb a +1 HP Ice (assuming it has that over Grass) and Synthesis it off after Roaring Raikou out and leaving it at the mercy of entry hazards. That plus Toxic Spikes (from whatever other source you please) makes CM Raikou pretty limited in sweeping capability. If you choose not to include Pokemon able to handle BoltBeam, then you're probably going to get swept anyways; Raikou just makes it even more apparent, and that's not its fault, it's yours as a team builder, and banning Raikou will not resolve that.

Speaking of Grass-types, has anyone tried Meganium as an alternative to Venusaur or Tangrowth? I saw one used the other day, and it actually makes a fair bit of sense in checking certain threats. Advantages over Venusaur is its superior typing which gives it an Earthquake resistance, making it a solid Rhyperior check, while being more physically bulky. Over Tangrowth, it has much more SpD, allowing it to better take on bulky waters. It also has the ability to check Alakazam and LO Raikou, which neither of the others can do very well due to Psychic weakness or low SpD.

However, it gives Moltres and Scyther completely free switch-ins, so it might be worth it to run HP Rock just for that. (Too bad it doesn't get status moves or Roar)

That was probably me trying it out on my team with mostly NUs...though I feel bad about using it after all the years I've been touting it as the "worst starter by a large margiin"...It can be EV'd to live through Jolly RP Rhyperior's Megahorn (albeit barely), and it will easily absorb CB Rhyperior's Earthquakes and the like, OHKO'ing back with Leaf Storm. It's a shaky counter, but with Rapid Spin support it's a hard counter.

 

[capefeather]

FlareBlitz:

The differences between Yanmega and Raikou are rather numerous and decisive, actually.

The main difference that's relevant to this discussion is that Yanmega requires zero setup. Raikou's need for setup means that it always has a window of one or two turns in which the opponent can set up whatever to check it. It also means that it loses quite a bit by running from a revenge killer; in particular, it has to come back in and setup again, providing the window of opportunity once more. If it tries to predict a switch and launch an attack, it goes away without doing much if it's wrong. In contrast, Yanmega loses nothing by switching out other than half its HP, and even there you have Yanmega's bestest buddy Donphan, as well as the old saying that Yanmega needs only three switch-ins to pwn half your team. Yanmega poses a threat throughout the game because getting it in early is not only feasible but quite effective. Finally, STL Yanmega basically clicks "Bug Buzz" and watches as whatever happens to be on the other side gets nuked.

Another major difference is that Yanmega has an alternate ability to abuse that brings out an entirely different threat. Speed Boost opens up so many avenues for Yanmega to pursue: LO, Reversal, Lead, you name it. I had a Wide Lens lead that scouted out the opposing lead and then came back later to sweep. SB Yanmega also laughs at the concept of revenge killing since it's quite feasible to run some bulk to take priority even at 50% HP. Finally, Yanmega's "setup move" is Protect, which means that it can do something while setting up +1 Speed.

I would definitely say that Raikou is one of most ferocious sweepers in UU, if not the most ferocious sweeper, once it gets going. However, it does have to get going.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Why does Raikou require set up? LO Thunderbolt hits Registeel harder than LO Bug Buzz. Hell, it hits nearly as hard as Specs Bug Buzz:

Yanmega's Specs Bug Buzz against Registeel: 32.4% - 38.2%
Raikou's unboosted LO Tbolt against same Registeel: 29.1% - 34.6%

That's a massive 3% difference in damage.

Any other checks resistant to Thunderbolt can be covered by the appropriate coverage moves. And as I said earlier, it doesn't particularly matter to me that Raikou can't sweep through ~40% of the metagame that has a Pokemon which can handle its HP choice if it sweeps through the significant portion of the metagame that doesn't.

And if you're saying "well Yanmega's massive SR weak can be covered by Donphan" then I could just as easily say "Registeel/Chansey/Venusaur can be weakened/removed by Dugtrio". Note that all Raikou's checks, regardless of Hidden Power, need to be dropped into KO range is one hit from CB Duggy, which is a lot easier than spinning (especially now).

Speed boost is a factor, but it wasn't all that relevant to Yanmega's ban. It gives it more versatility, yes, but any stall team could now easily handle it, and even offense had a ton of Pokemon available who could take a hit from Yanmega and kill it (rotom, mismagius, moltres, and multiple others). I'd easily say that Raikou gives me way more trouble than Speed Boost Yanmega ever did, and though it probably gives me slightly less trouble than Specs Tinted Lens variants, I'd still say it's broken.

Edit: Speaking of Torterra, I've been trying Sub Swords Dance Torterra on one of my lol teams...and it's been working really well. Against offense, Torterra walls many Pokemon, so you can easily come in, set up a Sub, and hit whatever comes out really hard with Wood Hammer/Earthquake, basically working like a Subperior. But Stall is really where this set shines. If the opponent doesn't have Weezing or Altaria, they will have a VERY difficult time stopping Torterra, because almost every physical wall in the tier is weak to Grass or Ground.

 

[Synre]

I think there's an important thing to note in your amazing comparison there in that Registeel is resistant to Bug. That's the absolute low damage Yanmega is doing, which is the real main reason it was banned - even when it is resisted it is doing more damage than LO Tbolt, which is just how ridiculous that set was because of Tinted Lens. It didn't need any prediction and as you so conveniently illustrated, even resisting Yanmega was basically irrelevant. Obviously Yanmega is getting a bigger boost in exchange for not being locked into one move and for taking recoil damage (which, accompanied with the fact Raikou isn't resistant to most priority like Yanmega was, makes him much more vulnerable to dying to priority himself), though with Yanmega there was basically no reason to use anything but Bug Buzz unless you wanted to U-turn to scout or were worried your opponent was carrying fucking Mr. Mime (and boy was there a decent amount of them for a while, there). Yanmega had Hypnosis to play with, too, which was awfully annoying if it caught you off-guard or just forced play in that direction.

Raikou has a lot more trouble with many of the Pokemon who resist his attacks, and isn't putting out comparably devastating damage until pops a CM, which leaves him vulnerable. Electric having an immunity and his coverage being far from ideal (his coverage moves, if nothing else, are not of very good BP, and HP is available to basically everything... his movepool always did suck) makes it a lot harder for him to just head smash his way through teams the way press Bug Buzz to win the game did.


On a vaguely related note, I was fucking around with Hyper Offense on and off today mostly to make sure I actually agreed with what I was saying before. I haven't been getting very challenging draws, but Raikou has actually been among the least of my worries - it can't come in on any of my Pokemon, and three of them kill it very easily. Dealing with revenge killing is just part of the playstyle, he's barely even threatening as far as stuff that totally shuts me down.

Really not sure why you would even try to run HO without one or more of the Pokemon faster than him anyway, btw. Especially with great Pokemon like Alakazam and Swellow available...

 

[PK Gaming]

I think there's an important thing to note in your amazing comparison there in that Registeel is resistant to Bug. That's the absolute low damage Yanmega is doing, which is the real main reason it was banned - even when it is resisted it is doing more damage than LO Tbolt, which is just how ridiculous that set was because of Tinted Lens. It didn't need any prediction and as you so conveniently illustrated, even resisting Yanmega was basically irrelevant. Obviously Yanmega is getting a bigger boost in exchange for not being locked into one move and for taking recoil damage (which, accompanied with the fact Raikou isn't resistant to most priority like Yanmega was, makes him much more vulnerable to dying to priority himself), though with Yanmega there was basically no reason to use anything but Bug Buzz unless you wanted to U-turn to scout or were worried your opponent was carrying fucking Mr. Mime (and boy was there a decent amount of them for a while, there). Yanmega had Hypnosis to play with, too, which was awfully annoying if it caught you off-guard or just forced play in that direction.

Seems so. Why did people even RUN Speed boost though? Yanmega seems extremely annoying.

Really not sure why you would even try to run HO without one or more of the Pokemon faster than him anyway, btw. Especially with great Pokemon like Alakazam and Swellow available...

Meh, Alakazam isn't that reliable if Raikou's got 1+. True, Swellow can potentially destroy Raikou, but if it's behind a sub your forked.

 

[Synre]

So where exactly is it getting this sub/CM from against an offensive team anyway? That's the whole point of the style; you don't let it do that. LO Zam is still about 45% average on a +1 'Kou, though I can't imagine winning many games letting it do that...

Unless the Zam has encore? lol.



Generally people didn't use Speed Boost unless they wanted to do something tricky, but the fact the option was there made it that much harder to play against. Specslens was so strong that you almost _had_ to play as though that was the opponent or you'd get devastated, so if it turned out not to be it had some leeway it wouldn't have had otherwise.

 

[Thund91]

Ok. I run Subtorterra as well (3 attacks) and Sub Hitmonlee with 3 attacks also and they've been sweeping through teams so easily. They always believe I'm running a choice item so they just give me a free KO. I really do believe sub attackers are pretty deadly (like LO Zam as well).

Oh, and Scarfken lead is actually pretty effective....lol

 

[GMLW]

I'm confused. Yesterday, it was me and shrang for UU versus everyone else for BL. Now it's Heysup, FlareBlitz, and PK Gaming for BL versus everyone else for UU. What happened? And now we're talking about Yanmega. That is SO three metagames ago.

This is a prime example of centralizing a Pokemon who does basically nothing else besides beat Raikou. Lanturn is viable as a bulky Water and it has certain important advantages. Aqua Tail is not one of them.

Overcentralizing does not equal broken. Want an example? Scizor. Why the fuck do you think Blissey uses Flamethrower? And this is the same thing as your Kyogre example. Lets just pretend there is a tier above Ubers. You say Kyogre is overcentralizing because people have to use Ludicolo. But does that mean it is too good? No, it means one of its best counters is not used often. However, if Ludicolo has the niche of being the best Kyogre counter (Latias, Palkia, and Blissey are crying) it means it isn't actually that shitty, not to mention it's a great SubSeeder with Rain Dish and the rain that the Kyogre it just countered brought. Quagsire has the niche of being a good Raikou counter, and is also a great defensive Pokemon, yet you're complaining that teams have to run shit like Quagsire, yet it isn't actually that shitty. I bet that offensive will find a good Raikou counter and adapt.

 

[PK Gaming]

I'm confused. Yesterday, it was me and shrang for UU versus everyone else for BL. Now it's Heysup, FlareBlitz, and PK Gaming for BL versus everyone else for UU. What happened? And now we're talking about Yanmega. That is SO three metagames ago.



Overcentralizing does not equal broken. Want an example? Scizor. Why the fuck do you think Blissey uses Flamethrower? And this is the same thing as your Kyogre example. Lets just pretend there is a tier above Ubers. You say Kyogre is overcentralizing because people have to use Ludicolo. But does that mean it is too good? No, it means one of its best counters is not used often. However, if Ludicolo has the niche of being the best Kyogre counter (Latias, Palkia, and Blissey are crying) it means it isn't actually that shitty, not to mention it's a great SubSeeder with Rain Dish and the rain that the Kyogre it just countered brought. Quagsire has the niche of being a good Raikou counter, and is also a great defensive Pokemon, yet you're complaining that teams have to run shit like Quagsire, yet it isn't actually that shitty. I bet that offensive will find a good Raikou counter and adapt.

lol what game are YOU playing. Over centralization is the very definition of broken. Chomp over centralized the metagame. Latias is doing the same with her Choice specs set.

Attention OU Shoppers, now for a limited time only, a metagame of STEEL STEEL STEEL

And don't forget if Raikou runs HP Grass, then your Raikou *counter* is done.
And Blissey rarely run flamethrower due to it being a wasted moveslot. It faces competion with seismic toss which is infinitely better.

So where exactly is it getting this sub/CM from against an offensive team anyway? That's the whole point of the style; you don't let it do that. LO Zam is still about 45% average on a +1 'Kou, though I can't imagine winning many games letting it do that...

Unless the Zam has encore? lol.

Fair enough.

Generally people didn't use Speed Boost unless they wanted to do something tricky, but the fact the option was there made it that much harder to play against. Specslens was so strong that you almost _had_ to play as though that was the opponent or you'd get devastated, so if it turned out not to be it had some leeway it wouldn't have had otherwise.

Sounds like an awfully difficult metagame to play in.

 

[shrang]

lol what game are YOU playing. Over centralization is the very definition of broken. Chomp over centralized the metagame. Latias is doing the same with her Choice specs set.

Now I ask which game are YOU playing. Overcentralisation is not a definition for being broken. Overcentralisation, just like the "Pokemon X beats style Y" argument, is an effect, not a cause of something being broken. I dare you to say that on main Stark Mountain forum on any topic you feel appropriate and watch yourself get shot down in flames. Garchomp was voted Uber because while it overcentralised the metagame, it was still too powerful. Latias was the same. Scizor, on the hand overcentralises the metagame, but is not too powerful, therefore it isn't Uber.

Here's some posts in the Stage 3-4 thread:

It has been already stated multiple times that centralization means nothing. If centralization was something relevant to evaluate the uber status of a given Pokemon, then Scizor would have been moved to ubers a long time ago.

Again, the centralization determined by certain Pokemon doesn't make them uber (because you're still talking about centralization in your post) and to be honest I find pretty hard to beleive that people are sweeping teams "with little effort" using Latias.

Although "overcentralizing" is not something that is officially used as evidence for Uber status, many voters still see it as something that needs to be avoided through tiering.

First of all, I don't know how many more times we're going to have to say this, but "centralization does not necessitate uber status".

 

[supermarth64]

lol what game are YOU playing. Over centralization is the very definition of broken. Chomp over centralized the metagame. Latias is doing the same with her Choice specs set.

So wrong it's not even funny. Scizor and Tyranitar are #1 and #2 respectively, but are either one of them broken? Hell, the metagame is definitely centralized around them but they definitely aren't broken. Wobbuffst wasn't even widely used before it's ban to ubers, also showing that it isn't centralization that bans a Pokemon.

 

[Heysup]

I think you guys are confusing the terms "centralization" and "overcentralization". The difference is that "over" implies that there is too much centralization going on. PK Gaming said "overcentralizing" (though I don't agree with his post much).

Neither should be called "concrete" evidence, but if a metagame is overcentralized to the point of being unable to win without a) using the Pokemon itself or b) overcentralizing for the Pokemon, then that should definitely be a contributing factor for tier status.

 

[umbarsc]

See, the problem is that overcentralized means "too centralized". Implicitly: "more centralized than I want the game to be". A bit problematic for using it to justify tiering.

Neither should be called "concrete" evidence, but if a metagame is overcentralized to the point of being unable to win without a) using the Pokemon itself or b) overcentralizing for the Pokemon, then that should definitely be a contributing factor for tier status.

Circular reasoning?

 

[PK Gaming]

I think I misused the term. >_>

Anywho Heysup covered what I mainly wanted to say...

 

[FlareBlitz]

Syrne, it doesn't matter WHY Yanmega did x amount of damage against Registeel, that fact is that it does, and Raikou does similar damage. My point was that the whole "Raikou doesn't need to set up to do damage" thing is false; it's just that it can SET up. If Yanmega got Calm Mind I bet everyone would have run that too. And regarding the "centralization" issue, centralization itself does not mean brokenness; when building a team, worrying about Milotic and not, say, Gastrodon is an example of centralization, but that doesn't make Milotic broken. However, overcentralization is often a sign that the metagame in imbalanced. Using Mr.Mime/Specially defensive Electrode to counter to Yanmega is an example. Teams having to run Registeel and one of the four viable Pokemon in the tier which outrun Raikou (all of which lose to it under certain common conditions) just to not get pound into the dust by it is another example.

 

[SJCrew]

Overcentralizing does not equal broken. Want an example? Scizor. Why the fuck do you think Blissey uses Flamethrower? And this is the same thing as your Kyogre example. Lets just pretend there is a tier above Ubers. You say Kyogre is overcentralizing because people have to use Ludicolo. But does that mean it is too good? No, it means one of its best counters is not used often. However, if Ludicolo has the niche of being the best Kyogre counter (Latias, Palkia, and Blissey are crying) it means it isn't actually that shitty, not to mention it's a great SubSeeder with Rain Dish and the rain that the Kyogre it just countered brought. Quagsire has the niche of being a good Raikou counter, and is also a great defensive Pokemon, yet you're complaining that teams have to run shit like Quagsire, yet it isn't actually that shitty. I bet that offensive will find a good Raikou counter and adapt.

lol, I hate how people zero in on the word "centralize" and completely ignore the context in which it's used.

Heysup's example outlined the fact that using generally impractical Pokemon and stat spreads for the sole purpose of countering a single Pokemon is not a strong enough counterexample to the hypothesis that the Pokemon in question overpowering the tier. A physically oriented Lanturn is ultimately useless and has no place on any serious team, offensive or otherwise, not to mention a Raikou with HP Grass will ultimately defeat it, so it's not even really a counter. Ludicolo runs along the same vein in your example; it's not good for anything other than countering Kyogre and it will probably fail to do that if the Kyogre has CM or a non-Water type move on its set.

I think both you and PK Gaming are both ultimately missing the point: overcentralizing in this case refers to the impact Raikou has on the metagame. There's definitely something wrong with the picture if we have to resort to adding otherwise useless Pokemon to our teams to make sure we can stop it. I will not say for certain whether or not it's BL, but it's pretty damn close and I can see why people would want it banned.

So wrong it's not even funny. Scizor and Tyranitar are #1 and #2 respectively, but are either one of them broken? Hell, the metagame is definitely centralized around them but they definitely aren't broken.

The OU metagame is definitely not centralized around Ttar and Scizor, lol, dunno where you got that idea. They're basically everywhere for a multitude of different uses, including countering key Pokemon, stopping sweepers in their tracks, scouting, and revenge killing, but they're both really slow and have a massive, glaring weakness that's easy to exploit even if you haven't given any actual thought to countering them.

If anything, the OU metagame is centralized around Mence and Latias, as they're the two absolute biggest threats right now and no other Pokemon can even compare to the ease with which they've destroyed teams.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

Syrne, it doesn't matter WHY Yanmega did x amount of damage against Registeel, that fact is that it does, and Raikou does similar damage. My point was that the whole "Raikou doesn't need to set up to do damage" thing is false; it's just that it can SET up. If Yanmega got Calm Mind I bet everyone would have run that too. And regarding the "centralization" issue, centralization itself does not mean brokenness; when building a team, worrying about Milotic and not, say, Gastrodon is an example of centralization, but that doesn't make Milotic broken. However, overcentralization is often a sign that the metagame in imbalanced. Using Mr.Mime/Specially defensive Electrode to counter to Yanmega is an example. Teams having to run Registeel and one of the four viable Pokemon in the tier which outrun Raikou (all of which lose to it under certain common conditions) just to not get pound into the dust by it is another example.

Yanmega was banned due to the fact that it needed little prediction to abuse. All it needed to do was spam Bug Buzz, with the occasional Air Slash or U-Turn, to ravage almost everything in UU, sans mostly Chansey and Registeel. Raikou, however, does not have the luxury of Tinted Lens, and it therefore cannot spam one attack, as Thunderbolt will be likely met by Venusaur or various Ground-types. Additionally, this means Raikou must greatly rely on coverage moves - Yanmega did not have to as much. Essentially, Raikou is not comparable to Yanmega in this regard.

 

[PK Gaming]

If anything, the OU metagame is centralized around Mence and Latias, as they're the two absolute biggest threats right now and no other Pokemon can even compare to the ease with which they've destroyed teams.

Which is why the metagame is extremely steel based.
Anyway, enough about OU let's talk about UU.


Let's say hypothetically ALL of the suspects are removed, what would the state of the metagame be? Will it truly and finally be balanced?

 

[FlareBlitz]

Yes, I know that Yanmega was banned because Tinted Lens made it unnecessary to predict, but my point is that Raikou can do just as much damage to its "counters" as Yanmega can do to its counters. Venomoth gets Tinted Lens too, but no one wants to ban it because it just doesn't hit that hard, so Tinted Lens isn't necessarily the sole issue here. The real question is can Pokemon x can get in, hit hard, and sweep once its counters have taken very little residual damage and with very little support? If it can, then it's BL. That was the reason I compared Yanmega with Raikou; they can both do that.

 

[Smurf.]

Let's say hypothetically ALL of the suspects are removed, what would the state of the metagame be? Will it truly and finally be balanced?

No. It would essentially be a stallwhore paradise. Even without froslass, there are more than able spikers in Cloyster and Omastar. It must be said though, spinning would be far easier. From the offense side, banning Moltres and Raikou would render the special side of offense effectively useless, although some other pokes still fill that niche i.e Mismagius. You wouldnt even need Chansey on stall, and that certainly says something.

 

[Thund91]

No. It would essentially be a stallwhore paradise. Even without froslass, there are more than able spikers in Cloyster and Omastar. It must be said though, spinning would be far easier. From the offense side, banning Moltres and Raikou would render the special side of offense effectively useless, although some other pokes still fill that niche i.e Mismagius. You wouldnt even need Chansey on stall, and that certainly says something.

Highly unlikely. Raikou causes more trouble to offensive teams then stall which always has a Chansey. Milotic is also a common Pokemon on stall and these two together make Moltres a pathetic threat. These two are much bigger threats to offense than stall.

And stall not needing Chansey? Then I guess Alakazam, special rain sweepers, Specstile, NP Croak and others aren't reason enough to run Chansey. Not to mention Chansey is the go-to Pokemon on stall teams for Pokemon like Milotic, Slowbro, Weezing and Lanturn who would otherwise be a nuisance.

Anyways, anyone else noticing a ton of Psychic Spiritomb around? Are teams really that weak to Toxicroak?

 

[FlareBlitz]

Seconding what Thund said about Raikou/Moltres. My special offense team doesn't use either Moltres or Raikou and it can get past Chansey and other special walls just fine.

And you can blame me for the Psychic Tombs. I swept a couple of stall teams with NP Croak early last week and now it's getting increasingly hard to do so because of all the Psychic tombs running around. I've even ran into a Psychic/Shadow Sneak/Rest/Sleep Talk one >_> (for my Jynx/Croak offensive combo)