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NP: UU - Silent Night

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Hey, thanks Flashrider57. I don't even pay attention to those numbers lol
You're welcome, M BLADE! I couldn't ignore how many posts were on this thread. Again, Congrats!

Anyway, just because Pokemon are NU doesn't mean they're useless. Kangaskhan, Primeape, Lickilicky, Venomoth...A lot of Pokemon in NU have potential in UU, but are shunned because of their tier. I believe that we should start testing a lot of NU Pokemon, so this metagame can become more diverse.

Also, M BLADE, about one thing you said:
Of course you can't just throw 6 pokes and call it a day.
I've done that before. It made my fourth-best team out of about twenty-two teams. Seriously. I kinda got lucky with the Pokemon I chose, though.
 
I've used the Encore weather counter Golduck on a couple of teams now and it's way better than it looks on paper. Encore is such a huge boon defensively to any team, and Golduck can pull it of very well with decent speed. Against stall, it screws stuff up with Encore, while against offense it's good type coverage actually allows it to do some damage. It's not bulky, but it's not super frail either, and it can avoid attacks with Encore quite well. Add to that the fact that it bones weather teams, and I'd say it's pretty solid all around.

Also, I have to agree that Venomoth is highly underrated. It's amazing how many teams go "oh shit" when you sleep their bulkiest pokemon, and they realize they have to switch something else into a neutral Bug Buzz. I ran double powders, Bug Buzz, and Roost with an Insect Plate, but as LR said, when you only need one attacking move the options are nearly endless. Insect Plate may sound gimmicky, but it works very well on a less-than bulky mono-attacker with nearly perfect one move coverage. Even without great bulk, Venomoth can definitely find times to switch in with two 4x resists.

It's been mentioned both in this thread and the Smog, but being able to make good use of NU's can be a real advantage. If your team is made up of the 6 most common pokemon, there's a good chance it will run into teams that have a specific plan for every member of your team. Having one of the more obscure UU's or NU's on your team, if you've chosen well, can catch your opponent off guard and upset their "game plan". This doesn't mean any obscure set/pokemon is good, but if you are willing to search for new sets, it can ultimately be very rewarding.
 
I'm guessing Golduck would totally be UU if Milotic were banned.

...

Guys, I think we have a new objective.
 
It's been mentioned both in this thread and the Smog, but being able to make good use of NU's can be a real advantage. If your team is made up of the 6 most common pokemon, there's a good chance it will run into teams that have a specific plan for every member of your team. Having one of the more obscure UU's or NU's on your team, if you've chosen well, can catch your opponent off guard and upset their "game plan". This doesn't mean any obscure set/pokemon is good, but if you are willing to search for new sets, it can ultimately be very rewarding.

This is such an important point I don't think it can be stressed enough. We UU players have limited ourselves to these "standard" UUs that work reasonably well together, and the resulting metagame has become more predictable than UU should ever, ever be. When you have a usable pool of Pokemon like 3x the size of OU, it's quite disheartening to see a similar level of centralization in the tier. I'm not saying don't use your Venusaurs and Milotics... I've always been an advocate of playing to win. But has anyone ever stopped to note how it is very often the players labelled as being "gimmicky" (creative.) that consistently top the UU leaderboard? Players like Thund, FlareBlitz and Bluewind have all brought to light highly effective sets that they were tinkering around with, and right now, with UU at its current super balance state, everyone has the chance to experiment and branch out from this stable foundation.

I think there are still a lot of Pokemon that still have untapped potential and very viable sets. Right now I'm using a team that deliberately has none of the top 10 pokemon in it, and I'm not all that surprised to say that I've probably had more success with it than any other UU team I've tried this round. Having done my fair share of complaining about how stagnant I thought the metagame was, it is so refreshing to actually analyse it and feel like you're making a difference to it by introducing undervalued and unexpected new Pokemon and sets to it.
 
I'm guessing Golduck would totally be UU if Milotic were banned.

...

Guys, I think we have a new objective.

lol I'm starting to get inspired

I honestly think that the main reason Golduck sees almost no usage is because when people make their UU teams they look more upon the bulky Waters who can glue the team together. Running Golduck makes that partcular team much more weak to Fire types unless they run another Water type, leaving them a gaping Electric weakness etc... It is a good Pokémon in of itself, but its lack of walling capabilities and recovery make it more of a lesser option on balanced and stall teams
 
This is such an important point I don't think it can be stressed enough. We UU players have limited ourselves to these "standard" UUs that work reasonably well together, and the resulting metagame has become more predictable than UU should ever, ever be. When you have a usable pool of Pokemon like 3x the size of OU, it's quite disheartening to see a similar level of centralization in the tier. I'm not saying don't use your Venusaurs and Milotics... I've always been an advocate of playing to win. But has anyone ever stopped to note how it is very often the players labelled as being "gimmicky" (creative.) that consistently top the UU leaderboard? Players like Thund, FlareBlitz and Bluewind have all brought to light highly effective sets that they were tinkering around with, and right now, with UU at its current super balance state, everyone has the chance to experiment and branch out from this stable foundation.

I think there are still a lot of Pokemon that still have untapped potential and very viable sets. Right now I'm using a team that deliberately has none of the top 10 pokemon in it, and I'm not all that surprised to say that I've probably had more success with it than any other UU team I've tried this round. Having done my fair share of complaining about how stagnant I thought the metagame was, it is so refreshing to actually analyse it and feel like you're making a difference to it by introducing undervalued and unexpected new Pokemon and sets to it.
Emphasizing this point also. This is really awesome.

The one problem is this: much creativity is limited by Milotic/Weezing/Venusaur. Even though the number of viable pokemon is quite high, the amount of stuff they keep from jumping into the viable range is frightening. I don't know how many times I've gone to use a new Pokemon and then found it worthless because of Milotic alone :\

Other than that though, I've been free to play around with Articuno, Regice, Meganium, Gastrodon, BDLinoone, BDHariyama, Defensive Kabutops, SubCM Uxie, and other pretty weird stuff that now is almost standard.
 
LR said:
ps I have balls :(

That's correlation, not causation :)

I guess I did overreact with my last post because this thread is for everyone, not just the "regulars" who already do what's being talked about :P All I'm saying is that it doesn't "take balls" to use Tauros or Venomoth or Exeggutor or any of that. They're viable on a team, so they're used.

The one problem is this: much creativity is limited by Milotic/Weezing/Venusaur. Even though the number of viable pokemon is quite high, the amount of stuff they keep from jumping into the viable range is frightening. I don't know how many times I've gone to use a new Pokemon and then found it worthless because of Milotic alone :\

You mean like how Scizor prevents stuff from being viable in OU??
 
Kind of like that. It's kind of annoying to think of a fun set then say, "oh wait Milotic walls it. Dang it." Scizor is more like "wow this is a cool offensive set, oh dang it's weak to steel so I can't use it". Scizor has an iron fist through revenge killing, Milotic walls pretty much anything that doesn't carry a boosted or STAB super effective move.
 
I think one of the most effective but underrated NU pokemon to use against the milotic/venusaur/weezing core is charge beam Manetric, if you are able to grab the Special Attack boost he will rip holes into the core as nothing can switch in safetly to him.
 
I tried using manectric one day... ran into dugtrio 7/10 matches and lost him for nothing. Haven't used him since lol
 
I'm loving this talk guys. I've been inspired to find that new set or pokemon and make it shine. I remember when MixVenusaur wasn't expected, but I (kinda) changed that. For all of the milotic/venusaur/weezking teams I think that a CBKanga would be awesome. Sure there are steel types and rhyperior, but with some spikes support I bet that it will be one tough force. It was last metagame and Jabba proved that. I used one with only SR and it was fantastic. Time to search the NU list!
 
Yeah Kangaskhan is a really underrated Pokémon. STAB Return hurts from 95 base attack and it's pretty bulky.

Has anyone tried out Scarf Magneton recently? It's like Manectric with access to Explosion and better resistances. Of course you are locked into one move, but same goes with Specs Manectric. Overall, it's a very reliable counter to Swellow, Bulky Waters (you should try to get in on an ice beam because surf does a lot), Altaria (with HP [Ice]) and whatever else needs revenge killing

I remember playing with a team built around Mix Altaria a few rounds ago and decided to give it a whirl this round, too. It's pretty effective, actually because with some Dugtrio support to take out Registeel you can spam Draco Meteors all over the place. Aggron doesn't want to take a Draco Meteor and Magneton sure doesn't either.

i_altaria.gif

Item:
life-orb.png

Nature: Mild
40 HP / 112 Atk / 92 Spe / 252 SpA / 12 SpD
•Draco Meteor
•Roost
•Fire Blast
•Earthquake

The EVs look complicated, but they serve a purpose. Max Special Attack is obvious, and the 112 Attack EVs are for OHKOing 4 HP Aggron, who, with my 92 Speed EVs, I outspeed by 1 point. The 40 HP EVs give it a little bulk while minimizing LO recoil (301 HP), and the rest were dumped into Special Defense to take Surfs, Flamethrowers and whatnot better.
 
Articuno fly-by shits on Milotic, Weezing, and Venusaur. Even if they have RestTalk you can spam Sub+Roost and eat up their PP. Try not to damage them, or they'll just sleep to conserve PP, but if that happens, just consider it a free switch! It also isn't impressed by Weezing's Fire Blast, which rarely 3HKOes. Just watch out for Registeel. Registeel takes like 8-9% from Ice Beam and is immune to Toxic. I ran SubRoost Articuno on one team effectively, and the rest of my team could OKHO or 2HKO Registeel. And it could still be a pain in the ass.

Also, Stealth Rock is a bummer - you pretty much need a spinner. Donphan and Articuno have good, albeit not perfect, synergy together. Well-spun teams of various types can make use of him to deal with Milotic, Venusaur, and Weezing.

Moltres is better in most respects, but he doesn't perform nearly as well against bulky waters like Milotic.

Exeggutor can also really mess with that core.
 
I think one of the most effective but underrated NU pokemon to use against the milotic/venusaur/weezing core is charge beam Manetric, if you are able to grab the Special Attack boost he will rip holes into the core as nothing can switch in safetly to him.
I agree with Choice Socks on Manectric being a very potent threat to the standard metgame now with a movepool that gives it all the tools necessary to deal with the main UU cores. I would also like to add Magmortar to the list, specifically the mixed attacking one. With a super high Special attack stat of 125, solid base 95 Atk, a great movepool (Especially when you run HP grass to deal with Rhyperior and other random water/grounds), and a unique base speed stat of 83 which allows it to outrun many pokemon in the tier (Such as Timid max speed milotic or Jolly/Timid Feraligatr). Fire Blast and T-bolt have great coverage together, and Magmortar also has Cross Chop to hit Chansey.
 
I took some time to climb the leaderboard today with a completely new team. So far it has a 19/3 w/l ratio. Most of those 19 were ragequits.

Don't really want to give it away, but a lot of people pointed out the absolutely infuriating amount of switches my playstyle forces, so I figured I'd finally try my hand at this spikestacking thing to take advantage of all those switches. And uh, yeah, it's working out pretty well. Still needs refinement because I'm weak to some shit, especially fire-types, although SR and spikes gives them exactly one shot at my team.

It doesn't use any gimmicky Pokemon though, although it does have an NU with a fairly standard set and some unique sets for the Pokemon that can be considered UU standard.

It's also encouraging to see some other people trying out new Pokemon. The ones that really stood out to me was SubCharge Lanturn and LO Manectric. Those gave my team a ton of trouble. Electric-types in general are extremely deadly if they have coverage against Venusaur, so I might try and make a team with an Electric-type oriented core (Rotom, Manectric, Lanturn?) sometime soon.
 
mix altaria

301 HP actually nearly maximizes life orb recoil. on paper, life orb deals 10% max hp recoil, but since the pokemon engine rounds damage down, the actual percentage varies a little. so, what people mean when they say "minimize life orb recoil" is "minimize the ratio of life orb recoil damage to maximum hp".

if you have 301 HP, you lose 30 HP from LO recoil, so the ratio is 30/301 = 0.09966777. if you have 302 HP, you lose the same amount of HP from recoil, but your max HP is higher - therefore, the ratio is lower so 302 HP takes "less" recoil damage than 301 HP. this happens all the way until you get to 309 HP since you're increasing the denominator but not touching the numerator. if you go down to 300 HP, you take the same amount of recoil, but your max HP is lowered, so you take "more" recoil damage.

therefore, if your HP is ABx, where A and B are single-digit integers and x is a variable from 0-9, for any fixed A and B a given pokemon takes the "least" recoil damage when x is 9 (such as 309) and the "most" recoil damage when x is 0 (such as 300). you probably want to aim for 299 (32 EVs) or 309 (72 EVs) on this set to minimize LO.

another way of thinking about this if you don't want to use ratios is to just imagine how much HP the pokemon has left after attacking X number of times.

with 301 HP, it loses 30 HP per turn, so after (X) number of attacks its HP is: (1) 271; (2) 241; (3) 211; (4) 181; ...

with 299 HP, it loses 29 HP per turn, so after (Y) number of attacks its HP is: (1) 270; (2) 241; (3) 212; (4) 183; ... so you can see while this set starts off with less HP, it regains the "lost" HP very quickly, and soon has more HP than the set that started off with the most HP.

this was kinda long but hopefully you understand LO recoil numbers better now!
 
Why are people only starting to get inspired into running NU/NFEs now??

Oh, I've always advocated Monferno as probably the sexiest Stall killer ever. Grab an NP by forcing out Chansey, Venusaur or what have you, then blast your through their team. Base 81 Speed completely gimps Venusaurs thinking they can go "OH SHIT" and Sleep you.
 
The aformentioned team is pretty much begging to be raped by so much stuff (Houndoom, Rhyperior, Scyther with minor support, Dugtrio, SD Venusaur to mention some) that it isn't even funny. A bunch of defensive pokémon randomly thrown together doesn't make a stall team.

And it was franky who first posted about Exeggutor lol, but LR popularized it with his RMT using Leftovers instead of LO.

Well on my team scyther is the MVP who has "minor support" and it honestly didn't make it any easier. I looked up the user and they're pretty high up on the leaderboard so its not just some noob with "a bunch of randomly defensive pokémon thrown together".
 
In terms of NUs, I've been using Magneton, who I really like. Explosion is awesome, it has the highest Special Attack of all Electric types, and it's got a whopping 13 resistances, which is pretty amazing. And I just love it when someone switches in a Pokemon with Earthquake, and I use Electrolevitate on the switch. :D

Although, Magneton used to be in UU, back in the day, it's not doing very well on the usage charts anymore.
 
Articuno fly-by shits on Milotic, Weezing, and Venusaur. Even if they have RestTalk you can spam Sub+Roost and eat up their PP. Try not to damage them, or they'll just sleep to conserve PP, but if that happens, just consider it a free switch! It also isn't impressed by Weezing's Fire Blast, which rarely 3HKOes. Just watch out for Registeel. Registeel takes like 8-9% from Ice Beam and is immune to Toxic. I ran SubRoost Articuno on one team effectively, and the rest of my team could OKHO or 2HKO Registeel. And it could still be a pain in the ass.

Also, Stealth Rock is a bummer - you pretty much need a spinner. Donphan and Articuno have good, albeit not perfect, synergy together. Well-spun teams of various types can make use of him to deal with Milotic, Venusaur, and Weezing.
I've been using Kabutops as a spinner with Articuno and have never regretted the choice since. He pretty well hard counters Arcanine and gets a free spin on him, and he's no slouch at taking down spinblockers either. I run an Adamant nature and enough attack to take down Moltres (and therefore also Houndoom) most of the time after Stealth Rock, then stick the rest in HP and Defense.

To complete the defensive combo I stuck a Meganium on there for the purpose of testing its merits over Venusaur, and I was definitely impressed by its ability to be a cleric as well as a wall.
 
Meganium IS more bulky than Venusaur, and I've been testing out a bulky SD set (Kind of like Dragonite had to use one when Mence was around). Basically:

Meganium @ Leftovers
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 HP/120 Atk/136 Spe
Nature: Adamant
-Swords Dance
-Seed Bomb
-EQ/Return
-Synthesis/Substitute

It can survive a CB U-Turn from Scyther, which is pretty amazing. 136 Spe allows it to outspeed all base 55s like Omastar, if I remember correctly.
 
Why don't people use Porygon2? His stats are pretty balanced, bar Speed, and he's a great status spreader, and can come in for free on Houndoom, Arcanine, Lanturn thanks to Trace (although it requires some prediction).

I used this set:

Porygon2 @ Leftovers
252 HP/216 Def/40 SpA
Discharge
Ice Beam
Toxic
RECOVER

Recover is great recovery, too.
 
301 HP actually nearly maximizes life orb recoil. on paper, life orb deals 10% max hp recoil, but since the pokemon engine rounds damage down, the actual percentage varies a little. so, what people mean when they say "minimize life orb recoil" is "minimize the ratio of life orb recoil damage to maximum hp".

Wow thanks man! That actually helped a lot. I'll be sure to think about this thenext time I make custom sweeper sets.
All of the rest helped, too, but I didn't want to quote 5 paragraphs to say thanks lol
 
things I like using that are slightly less common:
bulky SubDD Feraligatr - surprises a lot of people with its bulk + Sub
bulky Special Attacker Exeggutor - used this on/off for the past three months I've played
LO+Sub Manectric - I didn't find myself caring enough about Charge Beam's +1 and often found myself too easily revenge killed, etc. kind of weak, but I'd rather that than being Sucker Pawnched to the face.
Scarf/Choice Band Primeape - I can never decide if I would rather have this guy using Band or Scarf... I guess it depends more if you want it to sweep or always be scouting.
SubPunch or 4attacks Kangaskhan - kangaroo dinosaur wrecks shit.
SDPinsir - I've used it extensively as a lead and also a sweeper(Stealth Rock vs. Quick Attack) and it's pretty powerful... EQ/X-Scissor wreck shit with Mold Breaker.
 
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