np: UU - Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head

[franky]

Lol you keep dismissing my point: Dugtrio is a liability after it revenge kills a "wall" (which only applies to stall and balanced teams, to be honest) against literally every team style (you don't need me to go through the defensive/stall-based Pokemon that set up on Dugtrio to know this is true).

And you keep dismissing the point of the support characteristic. I'll say it again, I could care less about the liability of Dugtrio after easily taking out your defensive wall, when the true fact is, I eliminated a major check for LO Raikou and LO Mismagius. It is gone forever, meaning I have already helped out my teammates. Its not a hard concept to grasp really.

Sure, you can take out my Registeel or Chansey (lol), but you lose SO much momentum by being locked into Earthquake, your not going to get a chance to set up your Raikou because I'll have a +2 Speed Torterra, or you'll be switching into a 349 SpA LO Fire Blast, or better yet, a SubCM Raikou for balance / semi-stall. For stall, it could be a SubRoost Toxic Moltres, SubSeed Venusaur / Sceptile, Donphan. Stall often carries more than one Raikou "check" as well because one is so easily passable via Dugtrio, Pursuit, Spikes, and double-switching.

Yeah, I feel like echoing my posts. I prepare for this kind of stuff. I'll weed out your scenarios in this post. I have a Tangrowth or a Hitmontop to check a Torterra. I have a Slowking or a Milotic to cushion the hit; no surprise here since a bulky water is glue on every team. How is a SubCM Raikou going to set up on a locked in Dugtrio? For stall, those are nothing absolutely not threatening since they are extremely rare, barring Donphan. And for your information, I can always Earthquake again to take a chunk out of Venusaur and Sceptile. They can't get behind a sub meaning I'll have my LO raikou set up still. Your point here is not valid, I am still able to set up later on in the match with my LO Raikou.

This is exactly why I run Scyther over Dugtrio with my Raikou. Scyther can use Pursuit to fuck with Chansey if it's safe to do so (and also Slowking, which helps with Moltres), opposing Dugtrio, AND Ghosts. It also sweeps, has U-turn to abuse Spikes, and can switch into a surprising amount of shit (like Leaf Storm, Close Combat, etc). Why use such a one-dimensional Pokemon when you can use a much more versatile Pokemon?

Well for one they are completely different Pokemon. Dugtrio is the ultimate trapper via Arena Trap, while Scyther can only trap via Pursuit (A dark-type move). Not to mention the fact that Scyther is ravaged by Stealth Rock per switch-in. Its still one helluva Pokemon though, I will admit that, but its not a better trapper than Dugtrio.

So once again: Dugtrio is a liability after it revenge kills. i.e. You lose to much momentum after it revenge kills something that against a good player you will likely never even set up your LO Raikou.

I've played many good players and I've set up many times after removing their walls. With the prevalence of bulky waters, its not that hard really. Further, Raikou has excellent speed as it can set up on many slow and frail Pokemon. In a nutshell, I have certainly set up many many times after Dugtrio took out a wall.

 

[Erazor]

Anyway....

If Raikou is still UU after this round of voting, then the next thread should be called:

np: UU - Ride the Lightning

For all the arguments about Dugtrio:

Heysup, Dugtrio's only function is to take out a pokemon of your choice(more or less), thus enabling <deadly set up sweeper> to get going. Now, CB Duggy does provide setup opportunities of its own, but if you're using CB Duggy in the first place, then, as a competent player, you should be prepared for stuff like RP Torterra / Moltres / Whatever sets up. Then you can bring in your setup sweeper and have fun knowing that your opponent's counter is dead and gone.

The thing is, Dugtrio provides easy support to so many pokemon, so it has a very good BL case going for it. And LO Dugtrio doesn't even get setup on(as easily as CB).

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

I'm not quite convinced that Dugtrio is BL based on those facts. What about the other LO Raikou checks (mainly Torterra, but also Venusaur, Steelix, and Rhyperior to various extents) whom Dugtrio has difficulty trapping? Furthermore, most teams usually carry multiple Raikou counters (in the loosest sense of the term), so the elimination of a counter via Dugtrio doesn't necessarily ensure an automatic sweep. If anything, I think Raikou is more to blame for this - while the possession of multiple Raikou counters could be in fact due to Dugtrio's influence, I believe it's more to accommodate for variations of Raikou sets and/or because a well played LO Raikou can destroy most normal "counters".

Admittedly this post is more Raikou-centric than anything, but the same arguments can apply to other similar sweepers.

 

[Heysup]

And you keep dismissing the point of the support characteristic. I'll say it again, I could care less about the liability of Dugtrio after easily taking out your defensive wall, when the true fact is, I eliminated a major check for LO Raikou and LO Mismagius. It is gone forever, meaning I have already helped out my teammates. Its not a hard concept to grasp really.

I'm not being "technical" about the support characteristic because it's a guideline. I tried to explain the scenario with Chansey / Blissey, but you dismissed that too :(

If you are going to force me to be technical, the Pokemon Dugtrio is "supporting" won't sweep because it will be at a disadvantage and be forced to set up in a very unideal situation. Taking the characteristics so literally will often result in a double-edged sword simply because of how Subjective (I almost said ill-defined....) they are.

Yeah, I feel like echoing my posts. I prepare for this kind of stuff. I'll weed out your scenarios in this post. I have a Tangrowth or a Hitmontop to check a Torterra. I have a Slowking or a Milotic to cushion the hit; no surprise here since a bulky water is glue on every team. How is a SubCM Raikou going to set up on a locked in Dugtrio? For stall, those are nothing absolutely not threatening since they are extremely rare, barring Donphan. And for your information, I can always Earthquake again to take a chunk out of Venusaur and Sceptile. They can't get behind a sub meaning I'll have my LO raikou set up still. Your point here is not valid, I am still able to set up later on in the match with my LO Raikou.

You are echoing your posts because you aren't addressing the main point over and over: You cannot prepare for all of these threats on a team with Dugtrio + Raikou and still have a successful team that can beat Raikou's other checks (and by then you're better off using Scyther or something else that's actually viable against other Pokemon anyway, in my opinion). You're assuming, falsely, that after you take out the wall then the game magically resets just without your opponent's wall. That doesn't happen! They will have momentum, and even a stall team is going to do very well with momentum, it will do so well that all it need to do is check Raikou with something like Venusaur or one of the other Pokemon I listed. This argument applies even more to NP Missy who has a lot more checks than Raikou.

And as for SubCM Raikou setting up on Dugtrio, I was talking about Dugtrio in general not on Earthquake (I thought it was obvious -_-). SubSeed Venusaur will Sleep you, set up a Substitute, and spam Leech Seed. SubSeed Sceptile obviously won't be able to set up a Sub if you switch out, but it is faster than Raikou and will stall it out if you try to set up.

Anyway....

If Raikou is still UU after this round of voting, then the next thread should be called:

np: UU - Ride the Lightning

Quoted for truth.

For all the arguments about Dugtrio:

Heysup, Dugtrio's only function is to take out a pokemon of your choice(more or less), thus enabling <deadly set up sweeper> to get going. Now, CB Duggy does provide setup opportunities of its own, but if you're using CB Duggy in the first place, then, as a competent player, you should be prepared for stuff like RP Torterra / Moltres / Whatever sets up. Then you can bring in your setup sweeper and have fun knowing that your opponent's counter is dead and gone.

The thing is, Dugtrio provides easy support to so many pokemon, so it has a very good BL case going for it. And LO Dugtrio doesn't even get setup on(as easily as CB).

Do you honestly think it's even possible to prepare for everything that Dugtrio allows to set up? You saw my list right -_-?

I think Eo hit the nail on the head. His name is bold so listen to him thnx. But really, he is basically saying what I am, unless I misunderstand.

 

[Erazor]

Eh, I'm not taking any sides on the whole Dugtrio debate, I'm just pointing out that you can make a good case for it.

Do you honestly think it's even possible to prepare for everything that Dugtrio allows to set up? You saw my list right -_-?

Lol, yes I did read the lists. But just use LO Duggy :)

 

[LoveHate]

Does the round end tonight or did it end when it became Sunday

 

[FlareBlitz]

The reason offensive teams don't typically run Choice users (unless the choice users hit really fucking hard and have few/no immunities on their primary STAB, like my CBArcanine or CBperior spamming Stone Edge) is because offensive teams have difficulty dealing with threats once they're set up. Yay you killed my Jynx with your Dugtrio, now watch as my Torterra gets behind a sub and hits your entire team SE with its attacks. This is exacerbated by the fact that Dugtrio is so fucking weak that it can barely dent things that are even Neutral to its STAB, much less resistant. Add that to the prevalence of substitute and speed boosting moves on levitators and fliers (subcharge 'tom, subCM missy, DDtaria) and you're basically losing two or more Pokemon for every Pokemon that Dugtrio revenges. Life Orb doesn't do much to fix this either, since anything that isn't weak to QuakeEdge can kill it and/or set up just fine. Hell even Mismagius, with its 65/65 defense, can easily live through a Night Slash (much less stone edge, if it hits...) and ohko back. All in all I'd never use Dugtrio on my team unless I also had a Raikou, which should say something about which Pokemon is actually broken.

 

[PK Gaming]

^
QFT


I'd imagine Dugtrio's impact on UU to be far less great with Raikou banned. If Dugtrio were to be banned because of Raikou I would be mad.

If Dugtrio were to be banned and not Raikou, I would be furious.

This is why I hate Raikou. It creates a lose-lose situation for Dugtrio and the metagame.

Possible scenarios:
A] Raikou and Dugtrio were banned.
Verdict: It was a shame Dugtrio had to leave but t was a worthy sacrifice to take down Raikou.

B] Raikou is shipped to BL but Dugtrio is still UU.
Verdict: A rise in SD Leafeon and Mismagius. Not TOO bad of a metagame.

C] Neither are banned.
Verdict: Shoot, back to where we started. Raikou and Dugtrio continue to tear UU apart.

D] Dugtrio is voted BL while Raikou stays in UU.
Verdict: A cruel verdict indeed. Raikou manages to slip away while using poor Dugtrio as a scape goat. Raikou still dominates, has to work harder. Hmm Scyther sounds good.

Anywho...

This why I hate Raikou and Froslass. They bring out the worse in some pokemon. [Dugtrio and Moltres respectively]

 

[SJCrew]

Dugtrio isn't broken, really, there are a lot of things it can't kill and Raikou is mostly to blame for having such shaky counters that Dugtrio can take them out. Dugtrio shouldn't get banned just because Raikou abuses its support, especially since nothing else in UU has such limited checks that they'd set up similar scenarios to the one Raikou/Dugtrio do on a regular basis.

 

[shrang]

How does this matter? This is how it works: use CB Duggy to kill their only Raikou counter. Job done for Duggy. Let Duggy or any better death fodder die to Moltres. Bring in Raikou. Set up. gg.

What about some other scenario like this: use CB Duggy to remove Chansey (Supposedly with EQ or Beat Up). Job done for Duggy. Good work. Now you opponent brings in RP Torterra, RP Rhyperior, Swellow. Let Duggy get death foddered. Cool. Bring Raikou. Sweeper kills Raikou. gg. This is exactly why you need to consider the possiblitiy of your "supporter" being liability. Sure, it can win you games, but they can easily lose them too. This is exactly why something like Life Orb isn't considered to be Uber or something. Sure, LO makes HO devastate, but does that mean it's broken?? Of course not, because HO probably loses just as many games as it wins. Dugtrio is in a similar boat. It can be your game winner, or just as easily your game loser. Both mitigate each other somewhat. This is precisely why I (Although I'm overruled) don't think Specs Latias is broken too, because she let's plenty of things set up. But that's a different story.

And you keep dismissing the point of the support characteristic. I'll say it again, I could care less about the liability of Dugtrio after easily taking out your defensive wall, when the true fact is, I eliminated a major check for LO Raikou and LO Mismagius.

It isn't as simple for this. If this is true, you can pretty ban any good CB/Specs user or Wall breaker. Stuff like CB Gyarados can OHKO Rotom-A. Holy shit. Now Agiligross can sweep. Let's ban Gyarados (Yes, you have to predict, but pretty much everyone switches in Rotom-A into Gyara these days it's hardly a prediction). Tyranitar can remove Latias through Pursuit. Now Infernape can sweep. He can also lure in Gliscor and Ice Beam. Lucario can sweep now. Let's ban TTar. CB Dragonite pretty much dents everything it touches. Sweeper X can now sweep with it's counter dented. Let's ban Dragonite. You cannot just go, well "I can remove Wall A with Supporter B, therefore Supporter B is Uber/BL." It isn't as simple as that.

 

[ToF]

I'm too lazy to read the previous pages of this thread, but if someone can give me a good answer to this you've convinced me that Dugtrio is BL:

Why is Magnezone not considered for banishment if Dugtrio is? They function the same way right, removing something to let something else sweep?

(PS I think its impossible to justify Dugtrio being BL without answering the above question, and since I think the above question will never happen, Dugtrio isn't BL worthy.)

 

[Adeku]

Bleh i'am trying me the reqs right now. My dev raised cause i stopped playing for like 3 days. Just playing heavily to make it.

 

[SJCrew]

Me too. I haven't played for almost a week and I tried to make up for it today. My deviation looks to be a little over 50 as of right now. I hope I can squeeze in some more play time before the cutoff.

 

[Adeku]

yeah I just hit 55 dev on the spot. Going leave it at that.

 

[Erazor]

note: I don't think Duggy is BL

I'm too lazy to read the previous pages of this thread, but if someone can give me a good answer to this you've convinced me that Dugtrio is BL:

Why is Magnezone not considered for banishment if Dugtrio is? They function the same way right, removing something to let something else sweep?

(PS I think its impossible to justify Dugtrio being BL without answering the above question, and since I think the above question will never happen, Dugtrio isn't BL worthy.)

Magnezone can only trap steels. However, I think your implication is that is removes Skarmory and Foretress enabling Salamence to sweep. So:

Magnezone is slow. It needs a scarf to have decent speed, otherwise it gets thrashed by pretty much every other non-steel out there. This is in contrast to Duggy's base 120 Speed. This implies that Dugtrio can be less of a dead weight than Maggy can if your target is not present on the other team, and against offensive teams. Heck, since Dugtrio can trap everything(except floaters), you're probably going to take out something anyway. Again, Magnezone isn't trapping much outside of Skarm/Forry(Metagross is risky, Heatran rapes it, Bronzong... maybe, Jirachi is iffy).

2 cents :P

 

[MetaGross66]

Whatever Magnezone is meant to take out (Skarmory, Scizor, Forretress) usually carries a shed shell or U-turn. Raikou's counters that do get trapped and killed usually don't carry a shed shell because of how important leftovers is to their survival (with all the spikes stacking stuff) or they just can't learn the move. The most common sweeping partner for Magnezone is probably Salamence now (haven't played OU in a while) and because Magnezone usually fails at its job and it's partner is easily revenge killed (bullet punch and ice shard) neither is considered Uber (well, Salamence was, but that still doesn't mean that Magnezone's support isn't faulty most of the time). Either that, or I've been using Magnezone the wrong way....

 

[PK Gaming]

Dugtrio isn't broken, really, there are a lot of things it can't kill and Raikou is mostly to blame for having such shaky counters that Dugtrio can take them out. Dugtrio shouldn't get banned just because Raikou abuses its support, especially since nothing else in UU has such limited checks that they'd set up similar scenarios to the one Raikou/Dugtrio do on a regular basis.

Exactly. Raikou is such a scumbag, using Dugtrio as a proxy. If Raikou gets off scot free I swear, the same thing is going to happen to Scyther.

Whatever Magnezone is meant to take out (Skarmory, Scizor, Forretress) usually carries a shed shell or U-turn. Raikou's counters that do get trapped and killed usually don't carry a shed shell because of how important leftovers is to their survival (with all the spikes stacking stuff) or they just can't learn the move. The most common sweeping partner for Magnezone is probably Salamence now (haven't played OU in a while) and because Magnezone usually fails at its job and it's partner is easily revenge killed (bullet punch and ice shard) neither is considered Uber (well, Salamence was, but that still doesn't mean that Magnezone's support isn't faulty most of the time). Either that, or I've been using Magnezone the wrong way....

Actually, in OU Leftovers are extremely important on Skarkmory and Forretress. But Skarmory is SUCH an important pokemon(Balance and Stall) that many players run shed shell on Skarmory so they can't lose it.

Really, if you want to keep your Chansey/Registeel run Shed Shell. Imagine that Chansey is *useful* with Lefties, but Registeel will take a big hit.

 

[franky]

Alright Twist, you raise a good point. A Pokémon is BL if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep. If we take this to a literal approach, Magnezone can't consistently trap in a situation because it is limited to trapping Steel-types only; therefore, it can't consistently trap them. Dugtrio on the other hand can consistently trap in a situation thanks to Arena Trap, and it is not limited to trapping outside of Steel-types. Many people believe that Dugtrio is only good for trapping Steel and Rock-types, but that's not true since it can still trap several frail offensive Pokemon, weakened Pokemon, and many bulky Pokemon (Steels and Rocks). I've mentioned in the previous posts that a 6% Dugtrio can make a difference at any point in the match because it can trap Pokemon, meaning they can't escape from it, so outside of trapping Steels and Rocks per se, it might have 6% left to help out another team mate by taking out another Pokemon. The difference between Magnezone is that it is limited to trapping to Steels, whereas Dugtrio can consistently trap everything bar levitators. The key word here is consistently. Basically, Dugtrio simply sets up more consistently than Magnezone, making the other Pokemon sweep sufficiently easier. Again, you raise a good point, but I couldn't muster up a strong arguement to this so I had to weed out the characteristics, and take each word literally.

Edit: I missed your entire post Heysup surprisingly :P Anyways, point taken, but I'm not going to go ahead and quote every single thing because our points are completely different, and I don't think I'll ever change your mind, I've already said my points and you've said yours. On the same boat as Erazor, I just want you to acknowledge the fact that you can make a good case of Dugtrio being a BL material. I've already portrayed my points to why I think Dugtrio is suspect material.

 

[Banedon]

Er but if we take the characteristics literally, Chansey is BL for walling a full 1/3 of the metagame ...

Also what you wrote applies equally to OU as well as UU. If Dugtrio is BL, why isn't it Uber?

 

[Demoness]

Er but if we take the characteristics literally, Chansey is BL for walling a full 1/3 of the metagame ...

Also what you wrote applies equally to OU as well as UU. If Dugtrio is BL, why isn't it Uber?

but since the other 2/3 of the metagame destroy Chansey, that would make it not BL

 

[Bluewind]

Er but if we take the characteristics literally, Chansey is BL for walling a full 1/3 of the metagame ...

Also what you wrote applies equally to OU as well as UU. If Dugtrio is BL, why isn't it Uber?

Running Ice Beam on Blissey is actually viable, things like Jirachi have access to Ice Punch/Iron Head to actually hurt Dugtrio, Heatran is commonly seen using either a scarf or a Shuca Berry, Scizor doesn't lose, it's not worth dedicating one team slot just to remove Magnezone, you REALLY don't want to give Latias/Salamence/Gengar a free Draco Meteor/DD/Sub (nothing really counters that), Metagross has Agility, access to Bullet punch and can survive a hit at times; and finally, Dugtrio cannot switch-in. These are only 1/10th of the reasons this is a flawed comparison.

 

[yond]

i made upper requirements of 1779/43 :)!
Anyways, i find Dugtrio to be a BL candidate. If we are going to make comparisons to OU, we can look at Latias. Latias doesn't fit the offensive characteristic of a suspect, but as a supporter it does. Dugtrio functions in the same way as a pokemon that guarantees the removal of annoying walls for destructive sweeps. Magnezone is comparable, but is not the same. If you compare OU to UU with Magnezone to Dugtrio, dugtrio is able to be a suspect while magnezone isnt, because Dugtrio is able to trap in and kill a lot more than magnezone can and can pave the way for a lot more sweepers compared to magnezone. Thats why i consider him a suspect.

 

[Flamewheeler]

Lol, I gave up on upper reqs, hax and enless hours of laddering...just too boring for me. I may end up voting out hoeslass, maybe even raikou, but I don't know. Oh well, going to enjoy my last day of spring break! =) Also, these arguments get weird...too much thinking about a game xD. Oh well, discuss as you will and happy voting!

 

[Heysup]

I would just like to say, unless I'm mistaken (I don't play OU much), that removing a steel-type in OU is far more important than removing Chansey in UU.

Top this off with the fact that Magnezone is actually good for something. It hits like a truck and has an excellent slew of resistances as well as decent defense.

Dugtrio does nothing, I repeat, nothing but trap certain Pokemon.

This is why the Magnezone comparison is fair game and why it simply proves that while being better than Dugtrio it isn't even being considered Uber.

 

[jamashawalker]

I would just like to say, unless I'm mistaken (I don't play OU much), that removing a steel-type in OU is far more important than removing Chansey in UU.

Top this off with the fact that Magnezone is actually good for something. It hits like a truck and has an excellent slew of resistances as well as decent defense.

Dugtrio does nothing, I repeat, nothing but trap certain Pokemon.

This is why the Magnezone comparison is fair game and why it simply proves that while being better than Dugtrio it isn't even being considered Uber.

I do play OU much and i would like to say that magnezone is just like "insurance"...It can be useful when you really need it to be, or it can be just dead weight and a huge waisted slot on a team...

Most OU steels beat magnezone 1 on 1 or just switch out with shed shell(looking at skarmory+Forretress)

Also the steel vs chansey comparison is complete false...taking out chansey on an opponents team opens a huge hole for special sweepers..taking out a steel type is just like taking out any other poke (unless it is scizor and you have a DDmence waiting in the dark) and most teams have 2 steels on their team so not at a huge loss

EDIT: But i defintely agree with you, that dugtrio shouldnt really be considered uber at all, neither should magnezone lol