NP: UU - Silent Night

[Legacy Raider]

Number of counters does not inversely correlate to whether a Pokemon is BL/Uber or not. Let's not forget Alakazam also has quite a number of checks. One great example to compare Alakazam to: Gengar. Gengar pretty much has no counters, but nowhere near Ubers. Reason?? It's pretty much the same as Alakazam, great Speed and power but crap all on bulk, except that it has immunities to switch in with.

I wouldn't quite compare Alakazam to Gengar though... OU is a lot more bulky than UU, and despite that Alakazam hits harder than Gengar (higher SpA plus higher BP STAB move). There are plenty of Pokemon in OU that can be EVed to take on Gengar if your team has particular problems with it. Specially Defensive Zapdos, Specially Defensive Wish Jirachi, CursePert, Specially Defensive Dragonite.... all these Pokemon will win 1 on 1 with basically any Gengar. And let's not forget the increased viability of Pursuit users in OU as well - there is nothing at all like Scarftar in UU.

Alakazam not only hits a lot harder than Gengar, UU doesn't have the same kind of naturally bulky base 100 legends to take these hits. Also, while Gengar can be countered by a lot of these Pokemon as they alternate between setting up and healing, or hitting Gengar and healing, Alakazam has access to and frequently runs Encore. This means you can't do anything in Alakazam's face apart from try to take it out. It is this reason really that things like Calm Milotic can't function as reliable Alakazam counters, because Alakazam is all too willing to outspeed and crap on their face if they try to heal. I agree with Thund - Spiritomb is the _only_ Pokemon that can take it on reliably.

 

[Bluewind]

Because people seem to be insisting...

Choice Band Adamant (otherwise people will kick a shitstorm up saying it has to be Adamant) Aggron's Head Smash vs Defensive Hitmontop: 350 Atk vs 317 Def & 304 HP (150 Base Power): 89 - 105 (29.28% - 34.54%). Not 1, 2 or 3; but 4HKO.

And so far I haven't read a single post that explains why Aggron is broken and Rhyperior isn't. Yeah, Aggron hits harder, but Rhyperior's movepool is infinitely better and he has more than one STAB to work with. I find nothing broken in this metagame, but Alakazam is definitely more BL than Aggron will ever be.

PS: Don't give me a bunch of calcs of pokémons that shouldn't be switching into Aggron to start with. If all of us start trying to counter Milotic with Torkoal you can be sure it'll be banned under the OC.

@Ice-eyes: Yes they do. Milotic just fits any team...
@GOTO2345: If you didn't pay attention and just decided to post random things around, they have a limited list of counters/checks, and the only thing that can 100% beat them is Spiritomb. Drapion, Skuntank and such are checks, but shaky as I have said in my original post.

 

[SJCrew]

Number of counters does not inversely correlate to whether a Pokemon is BL/Uber or not. Let's not forget Alakazam also has quite a number of checks. One great example to compare Alakazam to: Gengar. Gengar pretty much has no counters, but nowhere near Ubers. Reason?? It's pretty much the same as Alakazam, great Speed and power but crap all on bulk, except that it has immunities to switch in with.

You're contradicting yourself all over this post. Gengar does have counters and if it didn't it would be Uber. The major difference is that Alakazam doesn't have any immunities and even worse defenses, meaning it has a hard time switching in on anything. That's where team support comes into play, as U-turn, revenge killing, and incredible prediction are a necessity on this guy.

@ Bluewind: It's a little early to get defensive, as I don't recall anyone seriously considering Aggron to be BL aside from Sir Azelf. Also, I do recall Hitmontop's Rapid Spin set being 252 HP/252 Att Adamant for the longest of times, but I guess it was changed recently.

 

[Bluewind]

Depends on your team just as much as Impish/Adamant Donphan alternate among teams. If you're weak to Aggron, of course, you should run the more defensive spread. I know he's the only one that considers it BL, but what I'm trying to prove is that he doesn't 2hKO the whole metagame, at least not if you prepare; and that even if he did it wouldn't make Aggron automatically broken.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Well I was busy, so it seems I'm too late to address the Crobat issue again (damn you guys are flighty in your discussions). I'll just say that anything that can be said for Crobat "being worse" in this metagame can be said for Staraptor. Steelix, Rotom, Rhyperior (avoids 2hko from CC with 160 HP EVs and a neutral nature) and Donphan (avoids the 2hko even from LO Brave Bird if Impish with > 200 DEF) and Slowbro (avoids the 2hko from LO Brave Bird) all counter Staraptor too, except they don't have to worry about U-Turn. and I don't see anyone clamoring for that fucker to be retested.

I've been thinking about this for a bit, and I think the most important determinant of whether a certain Pokemon is too much for a metagame is if, in addition to have primary checks, it also have multiple secondary checks that can reasonably be fitted on the same team.

Rain Dance, for example, was ultimately deemed not broken (still on the fence about this but anyway) because diverse Pokemon with different niches like Venusaur and Milotic and Toxicroak were able to sufficiently check the playstyle. On the other hand, something like Raikou only had counters that were primarily stall based, with the checks usually not finding more than one slot on an offensive team (due to all of them being fast/frail and a team full of fast/frail pokemon is asking to lose horribly to bulky offense). So it turned out that Raikou was a bit too much for the metagame while Rain wasn't. So it is with Crobat/Staraptor/Yanmega/Cresselia; in order to stand a chance against those you need multiple Pokemon that cover the same niches, which teams reasonably could not do without opening themselves up to other threats.

Well, this turned out to be a lot longer than I initially thought so I'll stop there. Just something I was considering and wanted to share.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Crobat and Staraptor can't really be compared because Raptor hits so much harder. Crobat does decent damage, but anything with even moderate bulk is avoiding the 2HKO.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Yeah I know Staraptor hits harder. The point is that these supposed metagame shifts that make Crobat worse also make Staraptor worse, arguably more so since Staraptor's entire appeal is "2hko's everything", which it no longer does, while Crobat is less offensive and more support oriented, which it still does just fine.

Speaking of 2hkoing everything, what about Honchkrow? Literally no discussion on this guy so far, and I'd rather talk about it than about how Aggron is broken because it hits things that are not supposed to switch into it very hard...

Edit: Just realized how much possible BL dropdowns would screw with analysis writers, heh...

 

[Ice-eyes]

I am not disputing that Staraptor and Crobat have both got worse, but Staraptor is still broken while I'm not sure if Crobat is. The difference between the two is that Staraptor can damage Rhyperior and Donphan significantly, while Crobat can only U-Turn away. Also, many more things can take Crobat's Brave Birds and act as 'secondary checks' than can for Staraptor.

Honchkrow is apart from the crowd of BL flying-types because of that horrifyingly powerful Sucker Punch and ability to go mixed.

 

[SJCrew]

I don't think we're going to get a lot of discussion out of that. Brave Bird/Superpower/Sucker Punch still destroy UU the same way it did last time, even without Froslass's infinite Spikes to rub salt in our wounds. Roost for Round 2 or HP Grass for Rhyperior and it's a wrap.

 

[Leman]

I don't see the point of testing Honchkrow. The metagame is largely the same as when it was banned -Raikou/Froslass/Gallade.

 

[GOTO2435]

Those are all 2hko'd which further proves my point - none of them can switch in at all and all of them are 2hko'd with ease and everything bar Toxicroak and Technitops priority is outsped. Even then id call something really shaky as a check taking that much damage switching in alone.

Donphan has problem with non choiced variants as Head Smash puts it in Aqua Tail range and Magnet Rise set poops all over it.

I thought i had made clear that those calcs were against CB aggron, it doesn´t outspeed any of those pokemon so all of them can actually KO him back, RP aggron will do even less damage to them meaning most can switch into RP, take a hit (or two in some cases) and KO him
@pk gaming below, Milo can run the speed ev´s to kill aggron (not an optimal option but it can if extremely necesarry), top has priority and ok i screwed up on blastoise

 

[PK Gaming]

I thought i had made clear that those calcs were against CB aggron, it doesn´t outspeed any of those pokemon so all of them can actually KO him back, RP aggron will do even less damage to them meaning most can switch into RP, take a hit (or two in some cases) and KO him

Actually your wrong. CB Aggron does outspeed defensive Milo, Blastoise and Hitmontop with 252 Spe EVs + jolly.

 

[Bluewind]

And Slowbro and Donphan. That means out of the 6 mons you mentioned, 5 are outsped under normal conditions and only one of them can fight back before eating a second hit.

 

[Sir Azelf]

Who uses Max/Max Hitmontop ? I mean sure it works as a counter, but wow so few use that spread, just check the usage statistics. Im not against that per se or using it as a "lol max max top" point its just that is an incredibly small amount of them. EDIT : Disregard this, analysis was updated recently for Top so this will prolly catch on i guess..

I thought i had made clear that those calcs were against CB aggron, it doesn´t outspeed any of those pokemon so all of them can actually KO him back, RP aggron will do even less damage to them meaning most can switch into RP, take a hit (or two in some cases) and KO him

Uh it outspeeds all of them with Jolly and still 2hko's them lol o_o

Blowing holes and incapacitating Pokemon =/= Support Characteristic.

Salamence/Latias says sup.

As for the "why is Aggron broken but Rhyperior isnt?" Ill address that.

Firstly Aggron has more resistances, this is huge both with revenge killing and the ability to switch it in. Aggron has less weaknesses to exploit basically.

Rhyperior is pathetically slow it handicaps itself (not being able to break 180 speed is ummm) and its defensive checks like Milotic/Leafeon often don't even need to invest a single point in speed to beat/check it if its non Rock Polish (RP still isnt getting past Milotic and the gang). Aggron outspeeds ALL of its defensive checks even without a RP set. That is huge when checking it. Its the difference between able to drive it away and recover and getting 2hko'd because you're slower. That and Head Smash basically eliminates all would be checks for it, again like Milotic.

Lastly who cares if CB Rhyperior does ~70% to Milotic, when it can just Recover/Rest on the inevitable switch out? If you keep your Rhyperior in to try and outstall Recovers or to get a crit, then thats just idiotic. Wee nice way to lose your Rhyperior for nothing and a valuable T-Wave/Electric immunity and try to rely on hax for wins. Im not even gonna say why that is bad lol.

 

[M BLADE]

I can say Aggron problem:

Almost every poke has a coverage move that can hit Aggron for huge amounts of damage.
Ground and fighting attacks are very common as coverage attacks: Aggron hates both.

Not to say Aggron still has very low sp.def: a powerful resisted special attack is still going to hurt.

Aggron DOES hit very hard once it comes in: but how often it can do that?
Also, Aggron hates Dugtrio. I don't like that >_>

 

[Thund91]

LR: Thank you! I mean if UU had an equivalent to Ttar than maybe it wouldn't be as bad; but it doesn't.

All the threats that can take on Zam reliably are in OU, which means UU doesn't have the necessary Pokemon to take it on.

 

[lati0s]

You're contradicting yourself all over this post. Gengar does have counters and if it didn't it would be Uber.

False. There is no pokemon that can be considered a hard counter to gengar. Blissey loses to pain-split variants and many other would be counters can be beaten by obscure offensive options (like energy ball for specially defensive swampert, or HP ice for dragonite) or the unreliable hypnosis. However gengar is not broken because it has several checks and can't beat everything at once. Having no counters isn't and has never been a qualification for determining if a pokemon is uber, many pokemon lack solid counters.

 

[Rolf]

Firstly Aggron has more resistances, this is huge both with revenge killing and the ability to switch it in. Aggron has less weaknesses to exploit basically.

As M BLADE said, the extra resistances mean absolutely nothing. His special defense is still so abysmal that even resisted special hits do a whole bunch of damage. Aggron gains resists to Bug, Dark, Dragon, Ghost, Ice, and Psychic resistance, along with neutrality to Grass and 2x hit by Water over Rhyperior. Bug is used only on Scyther who runs Brick Break anyways. Dark is carried on Drapion, (EQ) Spiritomb, (WoW or hp fighting in some cases) Absol, (SuperPower) and Houndoom. (Hi, I attack specially) Dragon is only used with EQ. Ghost is always Special and usually carried with Fighting for perfect coverage. Ice is Special. You're not switching in on Jynx. Psychic is potentially useful for things like Uxie and Mesprit (but they have U-Turn if needed to Donphan), but Alakazam tears through you. Rhyperior resists 0x Electric and Fire over Aggron. The Electric immunity actually helps and the Fire resist lets you come in on Arcanine like 75% of the time. (no WoW or HP Grass)

As far as weaknesses go, Aggron is 4x weak to Ground and Fighting along with a 2x weak to Water. It's also for all intents and purposes weak to Special Fire and Grass attacks. Solid Rock is such a large and underestimated fact that you cannot even put Aggron's resistances on par with Rhyperior's defenses. Nope. Rhyperior is 3x weak to Grass and Water, along with a 1.5x weak to Ground, Ice, and Fighting.

Aggron's resistances mean nothing and Rhyperior's actually matter.

Rhyperior is pathetically slow it handicaps itself (not being able to break 180 speed is ummm) and its defensive checks like Milotic/Leafeon often don't even need to invest a single point in speed to beat/check it if its non Rock Polish (RP still isnt getting past Milotic and the gang). Aggron outspeeds ALL of its defensive checks even without a RP set. That is huge when checking it. Its the difference between able to drive it away and recover and getting 2hko'd because you're slower. That and Head Smash basically eliminates all would be checks for it, again like Milotic.

On offense, I don't mind you using CB Aggron. I just sac something and weaken it a little and then kill it with any Special move I have on anybody. Balance nowadays it seems has one of either Intimidate Top or Donphan to come in and scratch you up or spin away entry hazards. Stall also carries one of those two. SubRise Aggron is 10x easier to switch into then CB Aggron so it really makes no difference if its SubRise.

Lastly who cares if CB Rhyperior does ~70% to Milotic, when it can just Recover/Rest on the inevitable switch out? If you keep your Rhyperior in to try and outstall Recovers or to get a crit, then thats just idiotic. Wee nice way to lose your Rhyperior for nothing and a valuable T-Wave/Electric immunity and try to rely on hax for wins. Im not even gonna say why that is bad lol.

I care a lot. That is easily the coolest thing about Rhyperior. It's not relying on a crit to beat it and you're going to outdamage the recover stall. No, the coolest thing about it is that MILOTIC IS DOWN. Sharpedo, Houndoom, Moltres, Kabutops, Feraligatr, Arcanine, Blaziken, and RPAggron, (yes Aggron) are now able to sweep unhindered along with other NUs that I failed to mention. Me and some people are #stark talked about this a while ago. There is but one perfect Milotic lure in UU, and that is Rhyperior. Once it's stuck at 30% (or less if it tries to recover stall) you're free to tear through teams with their glue effectively unhinged.

(Part of the reason I believe Milotic and Rhyperior to be suspect/broken: Rhyperior's only hard counter is Milotic. Milotic walls all that crap.)

 

[SJCrew]

Any time I suggest a Gengar counter, Sub Pain Split is brought into the equation...and I lol because every time I face it with a special tank, it just annoys you for a little bit until it fails to kill you with that final Shadow Ball (woo 80 BP so strong) and then takes one from the special tank, then dies.

The only reason people bring up bullshit about Gengar not having any hard counters because it's too easy to take out with its checks to really go through that much effort..which is understandable since once Scizor/TTar/Weavile use Pursuit, it's a done deal.

But really, have you ever TRIED to counter Gengar and failed because it killed you anyway? I bet you haven't lol. Go ahead and run a Sp. Def tank and watch it take out Gengar. Hell, throw Shadow Ball on your Blissey and you now have a Rotom AND Gengar counter.

EDIT @Rofl: No disrespect but...you don't know what you're talking about. At all.

Bug is used only on Scyther who runs Brick Break anyways.

wat about CB Aerial Ace, Pursuit, or Quick Attack

Dark is carried on Drapion, (EQ)

wat about support sets

Spiritomb, (WoW or hp fighting in some cases)

Aggron is faster and OHKOs with Head Smash

Dragon is only used with EQ

Uh...support Altaria? Resttalk DD Altaria?

Ice is Special.

Right, but without STAB it's still going to do shit damage. You can still switch in on an expected Ice move from a slower bulky Water and KO with Head Smash. Yes, it's risky, but I'm not going to count on them using Surf on a Grass type.

It's also for all intents and purposes weak to Special Fire and Grass attacks.

If the Pokemon using it doesn't have Stab or awesome Sp. Att (IE Clefable), it won't KO. But hey, Head Smash will.

Just stop with these stupid all-encompassing statements, they're embarrassing. Use Aggron for yourself, then judge about how much that Steel type of his helps. As long as there's something slower than him with a move he resists, you can get in and KO.

 

[M BLADE]

Ok, Gengar's nice and all, but this is not OU.

On offense, I don't mind you using CB Aggron. I just sac something and weaken it a little and then kill it with any Special move I have on anybody.

Aggron can switch out too, you know.

PS: Edited because... i don't know what sac is lol

 

[Rolf]

EDIT @Rolf: No disrespect but...you don't know what you're talking about. At all. Fine, but at least I can pretend I do...

wat about CB Aerial Ace People spam CB Uturn not Aerial Ace. If they're using Aerial Ace before they have your team completely scouted they are stupid or else you are coming in on a revenge kill which imo is a moot point since you're just trading 1-1 at that point...

wat about support sets Mkay, since EQ is used more than any other move on Drapion in June.

Aggron is faster and OHKOs with Head Smash Fair enough, it can come in on Spiritomb. Beware of a WoW on the switch still.

Uh...support Altaria? Resttalk DD Altaria? EQ used on 33% of Altaria. Again, fair enough but know you're risking a lot to switch in on Altaria until you know its set.

Right, but without STAB it's still going to do shit damage. You can still switch in on an expected Ice move from a slower bulky Water and KO with Head Smash. Yes, it's risky, but I'm not going to count on them using Surf on a Grass type. What Bulky Water is going to be KOd by Head Smash. Milotic? No, and you risk it being faster. Slowbro? 66% damage max, so it can outstall Head Smash for a miss or just Surf after you switch in on the Psychic. Blastoise? Survives it better then Milotic does. Lanturn? Okay. In general, they're called "bulky" for a reason.

Just stop with these stupid all-encompassing statements, they're embarrassing. Use Aggron for yourself, then judge about how much that Steel type of his helps. As long as there's something slower than him with a move he resists, you can get in and KO. I have, and he's underwhelming. Every time I start using him I always go back to Rhyperior.

Aggron can switch out too, you know.

Okay, since I'm going to run both Swellow and Scyther without Brick Break on offense. Aggron is not getting a second chance to switch in on offense.

 

[Thund91]

Not to mention that defensive Milotic and Alakazam don't tend to mesh well into the same team.

I'm sorry but with saying this I know 100% you've never used Zam. I use Zam on a shitload of teams, and Milotic is one of its best partners because it's an excellent defensive pivot (taking the priority attacks that "counter" Zam), and gives Zam switch-in opportunities because of all the Pokemon Milotic attracts. Milotic is just an excellent Pokemon to put on any team in general.

People need to start using Zam before they say it's too easily handled because they fight someone who spams Specs Psychic.

 

[shrang]

Hell, throw Shadow Ball on your Blissey and you now have a Rotom AND Gengar counter.

And you were berating people about using obscure counters to Salamence just a month ago?? Anyway, Gengar doesn't have solid counters, but has some decent checks. So does Alakazam. He might only one solid counter in Spiritomb, but he has a bucketload of other viable checks as well as crappy defenses so it's hard to switch him in without taking a big hit to the face.

Ok, Gengar's nice and all, but this is not OU.

The same principle applies. Having counters or not is the same for every metagame.

 

[M BLADE]

Okay, since I'm going to run both Swellow and Scyther without Brick Break on offense. Aggron is not getting a second chance to switch in on offense.

So you're saying that you'll sacrifice Swellow or Scyther to be able to switch something in?

Aggron's job is done.

And don't say U-Turn: only stupid people blindly switches Aggron on both. We all know how both pokes love to spam U-Turn.

 

[Rolf]

Aggron is also moot in that scenario because he just lost his switch-in chance. It's just a one-one trade, both pokes get their job done. Overall that benefits offense because it's able to account for that more rather than the bulkier offense/balance that you'll see CB Aggron on generally which wants all pokes alive at all times.