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np: UU - The Boys Are Back in Town

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On Blaziken and Superpower, I'm going to go out on a limb and say his best Fighting move is Low Kick.

I've been using a SD Blaziken as a sweeper with Flare Blitz as the main attack, and Low Kick against anything that resists Fire. Low Kicks hits for base 120 against Registeel(no worries about recoil damage from Flare Blitz), Regirock, Rhyperior, Steelix(again no recoil), and base 100 against Milotic(same damage as SE Thunderpunch with STAB) and Arcanine.

Without Superpower's attack/def drop, SD Blaziken with Low Kick doesn't have to worry as much about priority revenge kills, can break Subs without recoil, and keeps his +2 status for a clean sweep.

The only commonly seen Pokemon who I miss Superpower on are Azumarill switching in, and Umbreon, Clefable, and Chansey, all three of which won't stay in against Blaziken anyway.

SD, Flare Blitz, Low Kick, Rock Slide is the most successful Blaziken set I've had. I actually consider him better than Gallade since Blaziken is immune to WoW, and so easy to bring in on the common Spiritomb for a free SD.

Toxicroak with Low Kick is quite nice as well, since I don't consider Cross Chop a good option. Low Kick has been a far more valuable tutor move to me than anticipated.

Also, can someone define "broken" or "unstable" metagame? These words have been thrown around a lot the past few pages, and I don't know exactly what to make of it.
 
Well, I'm not running into a ton of pursuits and my stall team has been beating honchkrows and gallades all day long. Arcanine is such an amazing check to both of them (arcanine + spiritomb checks gallade).
 
Another problem with Honchkrow that hasn't been mentioned recently is this. Even if you do manage to play around it successfully, perhaps by making sure it has a difficult time coming in, or by making some clever switches to get into a favorable position with little damage inflicted, or whatever, ultimately the hax factor will screw you over more often than with any other similarly threatening Pokemon. Super Luck isn't quite as ridiculous now as it was when glitched, but 1 in 8 (for every move!) is still a fairly high probability for such a gamebreaking side-effect, and has made a huge difference in many of my matches.

Even bulky Arcanine, arguably the safest Honchkrow check populating UU right now (sorry, but Rhyperior is lol) can be screwed over quite often by this. It has happened with my Honchkrow once; Arcanine comes in on SR at full health and then Brave Bird crits for the OHKO. Another time, a near full health Steelix is one-on-one against my low health Honchkrow that can't afford to switch out, then BAM, Superpower crits and OHKOs. Don't get me started on how many times I have managed to get an extra KO on Milotic or other similar bulky Pokemon with recovery just trying to stall out my final recoil reserves.

Now I am certainly not saying that this should be a major factor for making Honchkrow a suspect, and you could rightly claim that critical hits are a part of the game. But in the case of Honchkrow, these incidents occur far more often, to the point where I would consider it to be a 'significant hax factor'. Much like the case with Garchomp and Sand Veil, it is far from the main reason for it being overpowering, but rather the icing on the cake that makes dealing with it even less certain and even more unfair.
 
Honestly, Honchkrow rarely uses Super Luck to start with nowadays, and only LeadKrow has Night Slash.

Everyone wants Insomnia for Venusaur.

Honchkrow really isn't that threatening, IMO.
 
Changing gears here a little...

I've seen a handful of Stall teams out on the ladder. Pretty sure almost every team used Chansey. I still can't comprehend why someone would bother with CHANSEY in a heavily physical metagame. It is beyond me...
 
Exclamation Point said:
Changing gears here a little...

I've seen a handful of Stall teams out on the ladder. Pretty sure almost every team used Chansey. I still can't comprehend why someone would bother with CHANSEY in a heavily physical metagame. It is beyond me...
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Its not heavily physical. Its a good balance. People use Chansey to check CM Raikou you know.
 
Without Chansey, Moltres, special Venusaur (quite common, actually), and other high-power special threats could rape Stall.

It's actually quite annoying to me, and if I lose to Stall, it's because of Chansey.

And Low Kick Blaziken is a nice concept.
 
"Common" Special Attackers...

Alakazam
Raikou
Milotic
Slowbro

Those four warrent Chansey a spot on the team?

Edit:

Didn't consider Moltres, but still...

"And Low Kick Blaziken is a nice concept." I agree.
 
Two of those are walls.

Major UU special attackers:

Alakazam
Moltres
Raikou
Sceptile
Typhlosion
Houndoom
Milotic
Venusaur

It's best not to have a big weakness to any of these. What else would you put there, anyways?
 
Chansey is not just necessary for walling the majority of special attackers, she is often the main Wish-passer too, and perhaps also Cleric. Umbreon is the only one that can even come close to Chansey's utility on stall, but even then you're looking at something like a 40% drop in special hit taking ability. That is enough to put it in danger against a few of the really potent special attackers that Chansey can often shrug off with ease, although it is more useful for offensive Ghosts like Missy and Rotom, and less prone to Duggy and Pursuiters I guess. I really can't see Chansey leaving the typical stall framework anytime soon.
 
At bare mininmum... why not use Clefable.? It can take a special hit... Wish+Cleric+Encore.

Strange how we forgot Mismag on our list...
 
I've seen so many NP Missys run Taunt recently that Clefable is hardly a much better solution than Chansey these days. If you want a good special wall that can reliably beat it, there really is no better option than Umbreon.
 
Vrolok said:
It should be noted Chansey cannot effectively wall Missy, but Clefable can with Encore.
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Lemmiwinks MkII said:
I've seen so many NP Missys run Taunt recently that Clefable is hardly a much better solution than Chansey these days. If you want a good special wall that can reliably beat it, there really is no better option than Umbreon.
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-Note-
This strategy works much better against cm versions in the older uu... but whatever. I found out you could do this by accident and think that it is a glitch, or at least that is what I was told.

run odor sleuth or foresight on your spinner if you have one. missy is most likely to come in on a hitmontop, donphan, blastoise etc that she thinks is trying to spin. Use foresight and then go to chansey (doesn't really hurt to use it on the switch beacuse if tomb is their spin blocker he cant do too much to any of those spinners beyond a burn and you get a free spin, and if you are using chansey then you better have a cleric on the team). Chansey can now beat the non Hp fighting ones(seemingly most of them) with sceismic toss.

However, spiritomb is a much more consistent check for NP missy than trying to do that. I just wanted to bring it up again.
 
Yeah, I wouldn't really try using Chansey (or Clefable) for Mismagius to be honest.

While, yes, it is true that the metagame is now more physically orientated, Chansey still has a place there. Sure, she's not as useful at the moment, but I can comprehend why someone would use it.

I do expect Chansey's usage to decline, however.
 
Chansey is one of the only real Raikou counters in the entire metagame, which is probably why its usage is still so high. Raikou is still a big enough threat to make people use Chansey, even if it is LumGallade Bait.

On another not, I am finding Frosslass, to be extrordinarily underwhelming. It seems as though people are really going out of their way to beat Frosslass. I rarely get more than one layer and a DBond KO. I hope it makes UU this time around. D:
 
Has someone reivented Typhlosion yet?

Because at the moment he isn't at his peak form. Eruption was all he had, and SR and Ambipom leads are really mucking it up.

(remember when Typhlosion was considered to be BL?)
Back when SpecsFlosion wrecked EVERYTHING.


So is their anyhope for Typhlosion? Or is he doomed to slip into NU?
 
PK Gaming said:
Has someone reivented Typhlosion yet?

Because at the moment he isn't at his peak form. Eruption was all he had, and SR and Ambipom leads are really mucking it up.

(remember when Typhlosion was considered to be BL?)
Back when SpecsFlosion wrecked EVERYTHING.


So is their anyhope for Typhlosion? Or is he doomed to slip into NU?
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I don't see how Typhlosion can be reinvented in any way to fit a metagame that pretty much enforces an water resist in any team and in which pokés like Kabutops, Milotic, Azumarill, Omastar (the list goes on) exist. Being locked into a single attack doesn't help either, and when you add that to SR weakness and to the fact 90% of the teams have something that can take an eruption at the 1st turn without any fears, Typhlosion will soon be erupting in NU.
Also when it comes to Sunnybeaming, pokés like Moltres just have more attacking prowess, access to instant recovery and another useful STAB.
Finally, Specs set is also inferior to Moltres for the same reason the Sunnybeamer is: power (of course, forget the recovery part).
 
Leman said:
On another not, I am finding Frosslass, to be extrordinarily underwhelming. It seems as though people are really going out of their way to beat Frosslass. I rarely get more than one layer and a DBond KO. I hope it makes UU this time around. D:
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You want more than 5-5 with Spikes on your opponent's side? I don't understand people's reasoning when it comes to Froslass. One layer of Spikes and 5-5 is an unbelievable start. One layer of Spikes can make a stall team's Gallade counter practically useless (Arcanine coming in with 62.5%...yay!).
 
I was told (perhaps jokingly) not to post about this until I got to #1 on the ladder with it but since (a) that's not going to happen (b) this is such a great gimmick, I'm posting about this now.

Ambipom @ Life Orb (Hasty)
252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Fake Out / Return / Pursuit / Grass Knot

Grass Knot easily OHKOes max/max+ Rhyperior out of Sandstorm (and does at least 70% in sandstorm), Quagsire, Kabutops, and does 89.82% - 106.59% to 252/0 Omastar. all without sacrificing any Speed or Attack. Hasty because Ambipom can be used as a last minute check to Rotom / Missy with Pursuit. Grass Knot hits all the common targets of Low Kick much harder because it is 4x effective instead of 2x effective (which makes up for the gap between 157 SpA and 299 Atk), as well as the tendency for its targets to be more naturally physically bulky and to have Def EVs instead of SpD EVs. the only thing you really lose against is Registeel, but Registeel usage seems to have gone down a lot because Spiritomb and Venusaur have taken over its niches and Gallade and Rhyperior are everywhere.

someone said that Ambipom got Grass Knot earlier in this thread, but I haven't seen anyone else use it.

edit: Rhyperior calcs since I should probably defend my assertions. they are glitched but it's how it works on the battling system we use.

252/252+ out of sandstorm: 157 Atk vs 229 Def & 434 HP (180 Base Power): 345 - 408 (79.49% - 94.01%)
252/252+ in sandstorm: 157 Atk vs 343 Def & 434 HP (180 Base Power): 234 - 276 (53.92% - 63.59%)
252/0 out of sandstorm: 157 Atk vs 146 Def & 434 HP (180 Base Power): 543 - 639 (125.12% - 147.24%)
note that even without the glitch, 252/0 out of sandstorm still gets hit for a nice chunk: 157 Atk vs 146 Def & 434 HP (120 Base Power): 363 - 429 (83.64% - 98.85%)
(Also, the Omastar calc above doesn't depend on the glitch either since Omastar is normally hit for 60 BP by Grass Knot)

double edit: sitting in Physics lecture today when I realized I didn't factor in Solid Rock. Fixed.
 
Min SpA Grass Knot vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD+ Rhyperior
156 Atk vs 226 Def & 434 HP (120 Base Power): 234 - 276 (53.92% - 63.59%)
In Sandstorm (35.94% - 42.86%)

I'm sorry but what?

EDIT: Apparently Technician + Grass Knot is glitched in much the same way that Low Kick + Technician was glitched. It's giving the tech boost even when the base power is >60. That would explain why your Grass Knot is doing such laughably high damage.
 
LonelyNess said:
Min SpA Grass Knot vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD+ Rhyperior
156 Atk vs 226 Def & 434 HP (120 Base Power): 234 - 276 (53.92% - 63.59%)
In Sandstorm (35.94% - 42.86%)

I'm sorry but what?

EDIT: Apparently Technician + Grass Knot is glitched in much the same way that Low Kick + Technician was glitched. It's giving the tech boost even when the base power is >60. That would explain why your Grass Knot is doing such laughably high damage.
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Most Rhyperior don't run that amount of Special Defense. In fact most don't run any....so the proper calc would be:

156 Atk vs 156 Def & 434 HP (120 Base Power): 336 - 396 (77.42% - 91.24%)

That still isn't a OHKO, but it definitely hurts (and can OHKO with Spikes).
 
That sucks.

Typhlosion in NU will mean the end of Charizard rampage. Stupid Water based Metagame.
If only he had T-bolt...
 
This is a bit of a lol post, but Agility Lanturn is beastly.

I was playing against someone, and my Venusaur dies to hax. Next thing I know, the thing comes in, and sweeps half my team.
 
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