NU Viability Ranking

[ium]

Anyway, Ursaring now has 2 abilities, guts and quick feet, that both do completely contrasting things. One makes him completely OP in attack but also makes him slow. The other one makes him very fast but at the expense of the power from guts. The opponent won't know which ursaring he is until the orb activates (flame orb is guts, toxic is quick feet) and that could be at the expense of one of your pokemon.

you are sacrificing either speed or power. swellow and zangoose do not have to do that. in fact, guts swellow still outspeeds quick feet ursaring who only hits 343 speed with a jolly nature. on the other hand, zangoose only falls a little short of that speed, but does not suffer from that significant loss in power. regardless, swellow and zangoose both have access to quick attack and good speed with their damage-output-boosting abilities; orb ursaring is just outclassed.

Second off is Girafarig.
Yeah, yeah. Fuckin' Kadabra. However, a specsed (?) Girafarig is properly incredible and can 3HKO at least pretty much the whole tier. In fact, I think it does 3HKO the whole tier (provided it uses a SE attack) and like Octillery, the wide array of attacks it gets gives it a good place on a team. I currently run pyschic, thunderbolt, energy ball and signal beam, which covers the majority of the tier. When the opponent has all of his pokemon, who probably shouldn't send girafarig out unless needed (like all choice abusers) but when the opponent has even 4 pokemon left you can come back and win the battle (that was a truly glorious battle).

3HKOs are not ideal because many things in the tier just 2HKO or OHKO back. you need to provide a more sufficient argument for that.

Third is Sealeo, well, more notably, eviolite sealeo.
Eviolite sealeo has bulk. Bulk coming out of his ass! He can survive almost anything. And by that I mean anything. I mean, there was a battle where Musharna calm minded up 8 times with calm mind and Sealeo survived. Albeit with 1HP but he survived! Sealeo has just about the largest amount of bulk in NU and I'd hate for it to go un-noticed in this tier. He actually has a pretty good ResTalk set, surf, ice beam, rest and sleep talk and it works really well. I stongly advise he moves up.

sealeo takes hits and then what? it was just setup fodder for musharna from what you described. sealeo may be able to take hits, but there are many cases in which it will not do sufficient damage in return or will run into trouble with calm mind pokémon. your scenario there showed a reason why sealeo is not worthy of a d rank, and i do not see why that should be used over something such as regice which sports better bulk and access to thunderbolt.

 

[RosebloomNixie]

It does get Encore, Roar and Toxic. Which isn't terrible. However the lack of recovery really hampers it. Especially with Eviolite over Leftovers. I'd still go Walrein over Sealeo.

It is an interesting idea though.

 

[tennisace]

I mean, there was a battle where Musharna calm minded up 8 times with calm mind

calm minded up 8 times with calm mind

stop

please stop

Your scarf girafarig is 100% directly outclassed by basically every Psychic-type in NU, most notably scarf Gardevoir. The only thing Girafarig really has going for it is Sap Sipper with a physical set, or a Calm Mind/Baton Pass set.

Your Sealeo may be bulky but I can name at least 5 other Pokemon that are just as bulky and do something other than die slowly. Regice in particular has a much better Rest/Sleep Talk set and can actually check a ton of special attackers in NU.

Your Octillery set lacks STAB, something that's, you know, generally its most powerful attack. It's also really outclassed by almost every offensive Water-type in the tier.

Solrock is a good lead but you're using it absolutely terribly, Flight Gem Acrobatics with no STAB will do pitiful damage even super-effectively. You don't even have STAB on it, which is sad because Rock is a great offensive type in NU with the large amount of Ice-types running around right now.

And finally, the maximum amount of times a Pokemon can use Calm Mind for it to have an effect is 6, not 8. You should probably research a bit more before posting in a thread like this.

 

[JCM.]

Wow, I've been wanting to nominate this Pokemon for quite some time now. I want to nominate Rotom-F for S Rank. I mean, look at the freezer's Stats. Most of them are over-average, except it's very low HP and usable Speed. Rotom-F can run many viable sets, which include Scarf, Specs, SubSplit or even SubWisp. With Hail reintroduced in NU, he can go back to his old niche, which was spamming power Blizzards. His typing is awesome offensively, giving him STAB on the fierceful BoltBeam combination. Defensively, it's not the best, but his ability Levitate can allow him to switch into Earthquake or another Ground type move and force them out. Imo, his most powerful set is SubSplit, as he can switch into a Pokemon and force them out while Subbing up. From there, you've pretty much got yourself at least one KO, if not two. With all this said, I think Rotom-F fits S Rank perfectly. At least, for the Hail metagame.

Reserved for Pokemon that are amazing in the NU metagame. These Pokemon are usually able to perform a variety of roles effectively, or can just do one extremely well. Their use has low risk involved and high reward exerted. Pokemon in this tier have very few flaws that are patched up by numerous positive traits.

I'd like to nominate Vanilluxe from where-ever he is (Wtf is he doing in E Rank, guys?) to A-Rank or B-Rank. I think he'd better in A, though. I'm going to be straight-forward now: Imo, Vanilluxe is better than Glaceon. ''Nah uh, the loss of power hurts Vanilluxe a lot!''. Yes, yes it does. But what he has more than Glaceon is Speed, a bit more overall bulk, and an amazing boosting move in Autotomize. Just that makes him viable for A-Rank. If you can set it up, with the right Hidden Power, you can barge through teams like never before. He has access to Blizzard and HP Fighting, which I use with Protect and ofc, Autotomize. Once you set up, and eliminated Alomomola and Ice-types, you can sweep an entire team. I use Agent Dell's set, and boy, it works wonderfully. Blizz spam is the best thing it does, as HP Fighting is only used for Probopass, Lairon and other Rock / Steel types. That's why I usually switch-into those and set up Autotomize. I'm not nominating it for S-Rank because the set has a couple of flaws, but nonetheless it still works great! What I also like about this Pokemon is the effect of surprise it causes, as your opponnent usually does not know what the Ice Cream cone runs. With all this said, I think he fits A-Rank perfectly. Just like Rotom-F, at least for the Hail meta. Or he could go B, I dunno. But I think A would be better.

Reserved for Pokemon that are outstanding in the NU metagame and can sweep, wall, or support the majority of the tier. These Pokemon require less support than other Pokemon to be used effectively and have few flaws that can be overlooked when compared to their outstanding traits.

Ok, guys, I feel like I am on a roll here! I'm now nominating Glaceon for A-Rank. I guess you guys guessed the pattern here; I'm only nominating Hail Pokemon :P In this Hail meta, C-Rank just doesn't fit that..... kitty? Anyways, Glaceon is a great Pokemon, really. He's basically the same as the two others I previously nominated in this post: Glaceon loves BlizzSpamming. Glaceon can run two sets effectively, that I know of: Specs and SubProtect. I personally have not tried Specs yet because it requires too much prediction, and anyways, what coverage moves do you get more from SubProtect? Shadow Ball? Meh. So I guess you guessed that I prefer SubProtect. With that set, Glaceon can stall and hit hard. Problem is, he's walled by Rotom-F, and to an extent, Alomomola and other designated Special walls, such as Lickilicky. It still dents everything that doesn't resist it, because of his 130 base SAtk, which can be further complimented by EVs, Nature and Items. Glaceon is actually everywhere, and he's really good. And with all that said, I think he fits A-Rank perfectly, no doubt about that.

Reserved for Pokemon that are outstanding in the NU metagame and can sweep, wall, or support the majority of the tier. These Pokemon require less support than other Pokemon to be used effectively and have few flaws that can be overlooked when compared to their outstanding traits.

Let's continue, I guess? This time, I'd like to nominate Walrein for B-Rank. Some people would come and be like: ''JCM, teh walrus in B-Rank? But he's an awesome staller!''. Yeah, he sure is. He makes you rage quit and such. But the problem is, he's pretty weak to status, especially Poison. Taunt shuts the poor thing down, and honestly, he can't do anything else than stalling. While he can stall teams to death, he'll pretty much walled by common Pokemon such as Duosion, who can just laugh at him with Psyshock. While he has certain flaws, Walrein does not suck. Nah uh. He causes many ragequits, and can run a SubProtect set, or a Stockpile set to make him bulky on both sides. He has huge Defenses, and can take quite some hits and recover health with Ice Body + Protect. With all that said, I think he fits the B-Rank perfectly. And once again, only in the Hail meta.

Reserved for Pokemon who are great in the NU metagame. These Pokemon have more notable flaws than of those above it that affects how they function in the tier. Their positive traits still outshine their negatives, but they require a bit more team support to bring out their full potential.

Hell no, I'm not finished yet! Now, I'm nominating Duosion for A-Rank. The little blob is literally taking Musharna's spot away! On the irc, I see everyone suggesting replacing Mush with Duosion. Yep, that thing is really good. Duosion is a great Pokemon, and cannot be wore down easily. He has a nice movepool, and nice Defenses that are complimented by Eviolite. He's a great check to Emboar, Sawk and Gurdurr who utterly destroy Hail teams. He can run a CM set, or even a Trick Room set, though I haven't seen a TR set yet. The cell get a reliable recovery move in Recover, and extends it's duration in a game. Duosion sweats bulk, literally. Once he's able to set up a couple of CMs, he's invincible, apart from 'dem Crits. It gets even better when you look at his Ability: Magic Guard. This means that he's not decimated by Status, Leech Seed and especially Hazards. Once you start setting up with him, Phazing is normally the best way to beat him. Skuntank can't break through you without Crunch, if you decide to stay in (STAY IN!) and Absol 2HKO'es with Night Slash, allowing you to retaliate with Signal Beam, usually OHKO'ing. I believe he fits A-Rank perfectly, or even S-Rank. For the Hail meta, that is, as outside Hail, he's totally outclassed by Musharna who sports more bulk.

Reserved for Pokemon that are outstanding in the NU metagame and can sweep, wall, or support the majority of the tier. These Pokemon require less support than other Pokemon to be used effectively and have few flaws that can be overlooked when compared to their outstanding traits.

OR

Reserved for Pokemon that are amazing in the NU metagame. These Pokemon are usually able to perform a variety of roles effectively, or can just do one extremely well. Their use has low risk involved and high reward exerted. Pokemon in this tier have very few flaws that are patched up by numerous positive traits.

Well, I'm not finished, but I have to go now, so I'll edit this when I have time.

 

[Scizornician]

Jeez man calm down :P

 

[DTC]

Alright, there are a few changes some people proposed in a relevant IRC chat we had:

Rotom-Frost to S tier

• Amazing offensive Pokemon in and outside of hail

Glaceon to B tier

• Fantastic Pokemon in hail, mediocre outside.

Vannilluxe to C tier

• Great Pokemon in hail, mediocre outside.

Duosion to A tier

• Bulky Psychic-type that isn't severely hampered by hail like Musharna.

Sawk to S tier

• Mold Breaker + Hail benefited it

Snover to A/S tier

• Playstyle defining, but not a very good Pokemon itself.

Regice to S tier

• Walls most special attackers in the tier.

Musharna to A tier

• Moonlight recovery practically shut down by hail.

Golurk to A tier

• Does not perform very well in hail meta (lots of people didn't agree with Golurk being S before hail came along as well)

I encourage you to comment on these potential changes.

 

[Swamp-Rocket]

Duosion should be B-Ranked. Even with an Eviolite, I still find Duosion mostly outclassed by Musharna. Even though it has Magic Guard, Musharna's Leftovers pretty much mean that it was for naught. Musharna has Heal Bell regardless. Even with an Eviolite, Duosion is still quite a bit frailer than Musharna. Other than that its a pretty nice Pokemon and has the advantage with Recover, but A-Rank is too far for it imo. It does have more recovery, but Musharna has a better bulk and is almost always better outside of Hail.

I agree with Vanilluxe at C-Rank, but maybe it should be D? 70 Base Speed is pretty bad, and 110 Base SpAtk is OK, but there are other, better options for hard-hitters. Its a less bulky, way less powerful Glaceon with Automize and 5 more base speed with a movepool that is absolutely atrocious. Vanilluxe is useless outside of Hail unlike Rotom-F. Overall, it is pretty much outclassed by Glaceon or other Blizzard spammers - I see it with a niche with Automize, but a small niche. Also putting it on your team does nothing to help defensively - it gets destoryed easily by Sawk or Emboar like other Ice-types.

I agree with Walrein for B-Rank on JCM's post. It also has an 8x resistance to Ice-moves if it is fat, mind you.

I guess Rotom-F for S, although S-Rank is a little crowded atm.

I agree with Glaceon for B-Rank.

Yeah Golurk should be A-Rank - I never got why it was S-Ranked.

idk about Musharna and Regice. I'm iffy on it's position. S-Rank is pretty freaking prestigous though... I don't know if these two cut it for that high (then again 8/9 Pokemon is quite a bit)

I definetly agree that Sawk should definently be S-Ranked. It just absolutely demolished weakened Hail teams - Scarf Variants are almost full stops when Poisons or Ghosts are eliminated. It's excellent outside of trashing hail regardless.

Snover for A I can agree with, but I cannot accept it for S. Lets be honest - Snover is pretty freaking awful outside of Hail (Water counter? Have fun when Ludicolo uses Rain Dance and ruins your whole strategy or when Samurott Megahorns your face in). It has literally has almost no use outside of setting up hail - it can't defend well, its weak as hell, and it can easily be set-up fodder.

EDIT: You guys actually talked about something relevant on the irc? lol

 

[JCM.]

I fully agree with DTC saying that Musharna should be A-Rank. Without it's recovery, it can be easily worn down by Status. Although it's a great Pokemon outside of Hail, it can't be used to it's full extent with all the weather in the tier now. I also agree with Regice in S-Rank. That thing is so annoying to face, and can even make a great staller in Hail with Amnesia, Toxic, Substitute and Ice Beam. When Ice Body gets released, I'm definitely trying that thing. Here's my comment on Vanilluxe: I agree with DTC and Swamp-Rocket saying that he's utterly useless outside of Hail, but the point is to use him with Snover. I think B-Rank is where he fits well. I don't really agree with Glaceon being B-Rank, but it's true that he can do nothing outside of Hail. I nominated Duosion for A-Rank, so of course I agree with him being there. Sawk is just too good, Band wrecks havoc while Scarf makes him a great Revenge Killer. But here comes the thing that I disagree with: Snover being A/S-Rank. I think he really fits the D-Rank description perfectly:

Reserved for Pokemon that are mediocre in the NU metagame, but are decent enough to justify their use on some teams. These Pokemon are either usable but have no real niche, or are only capable of doing their specific task and fail at doing anything more than that.

Sure sounds like Snover to me. He could be C-Rank to a certain extent, but people only use him to set up Hail, and nothing else.

 

[citro]

I don't think Rotom-F deserves S-rank. Before the introduction of hail it was a decent pokemon, similar to other ice-types - great offensive STABs and decent stats held back by poor defensive typing and a weakness to Stealth Rock. The introduction of hail made it a lot better, allowing it to use a 100% accurate Blizzard over the weak Hidden Power Ice, along with residual damage helping it gain KOs and better utilize Substitute + Pain Split. However, for this to work out, you have to use Snover. Setting aside a teamslot for an arguably useless pokemon is a huge amount of "support", and considering Rotom-F needs Snover to function properly, S-rank just seems too generous to me.

Also, JirachiCelebiMew, Snover isn't like some pokemon in D-rank which only fill a niche role on some teams; Hail is a massive amount of support and single-handedly makes a lot more pokemon viable, as well as others (Musharna) a lot easier to deal with. I'd argue B-rank, I guess.

 

[JCM.]

Yeah, citro, Annoyer just told me =3 My point is invalid, I forgot of how big a niche he had.

 

[ebeast]

I would not say that Snover is useless, since now that it has Snow Warning back you have to look at it as a whole; Snow Warning is not possible without Snover. Hail is awesome for crippling the recovery of Pokemon such as Musharna and Amoonguss as well as making life hard for Zangoose and Swellow with the residual damage. Snover's typing alongside its weather allow it to switch into Ludicolo, one of the biggest threats in the metagame, and get off a Toxic and a few Blizzards off. Leech Seed and Protect even allow it to deal great chunks of damage to Pokemon that would normally be able to switch on it and trouble it such as Emboar, Gardevoir, and Regice and draining health from them with Leech Seed damage and in the first 2 Pokemon's case, Hail buffeting. I feel like a specially defensive set with Leech Seed / Protect / Blizzard / Filler is the best way to use Snover and it works pretty well on its own if you play it right. On the last slot Snover is free to use Toxic or Giga Drain (Toxic wearing down Pokemon faster alongside Hail and Leech Seed, while Giga Drain allows Snover to beat SubSmash Gorebyss)

Of course Hail is not just there to help Snover out as it has a variety of Hail abusers such as Glaceon, Rotom-F, Regice, Articuno, Walrein, and Vanilluxe who can spam Blizzards and deal massive damage to even resists. Glaceon, Walrein, and Vanilluxe in particular have access to Ice body which allows them to keep themselves healthy while Blizzspaming (more so Glaceon and Vanilluxe as they are the more offensive) I would say Snover is B-rank because of the major support that Hail provides to teammates offensively and defensively, crippling opposition by wearing them down or cutting of reliable recovery, and the weather activation that alongside Snover's typing gives the the niche of stopping Ludicolo and Special Samurott.

 

[watashi]

nominating alomomola for a-rank

alomomola is one of the best walls in the current metagame, being able to wall top tier threats such as emboar, golurk, zangoose, cinccino, absol, carracosta, tauros, kangaskhan, and some variants of samurott or braviary. it is one of the best initial switch-ins to sawk, taking only around half of its health from close combat, allowing one to go to a safe resistance or immunity such as garbodor or haunter—whom one normally wouldn't switch in right away due to coverage moves—while alomomola escapes with near max health due to regenerator. due to its awesome ability, alomomola can also pass wishes better than any other pokemon in the tier, since it can heal itself and another teammate in the same turn. this makes it a wonderful addition to every type of team, even offense, which enjoys alomomola's huge wishes. in addition to being a spectacular physical wall, it can also run a mixed defensive set with max defense and special defense to tank hits exceptionally well from the likes of charizard, glaceon, and special samurott while keeping most of its physical bulk.

many people claim that alomomola is set up bait, but most pokemon actually have a hard time keeping a substitute up against it, and therefore are stalled out by toxic. even bulkier attackers such as rotom-f need significant investment to avoid being hit by waterfall for under twenty-five percent. only pokemon who resist waterfall or extremely bulky set up sweepers such as braviary can set up on alomomola, but you can say that for any other wall in the tier. alomomola is actually better off than walls such as lickilicky and regice since it can switch out without having to heal itself first thanks to regenerator, giving you more time to deal with the opponent.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

I fully support FLCL on giving alomomola A rank.

Although momo is always pretty high in usage stats, I think many of the best NU players tend to see it as a bad poke due to it's mediocre offensive presence. However as FLCL said there are few pokes in the tier that actually set up on it easily since waterfall can break many subs. You can usualy cover the pokes that can set up on momo with other defesive or offensive pokes pretty easily. For example, eviolite electabuzz can take on subBU brav, come in on every volt switcher and heal thanks to momo's huge wishes.

To me, momo's only really big downside is it's total incapacity to deal with the most common spikes users, but the switch in is usualy pretty easy to predict. Curse muk is a bit painful too if you're making a defesive team but he isn't a problem to offensive teams.

 

[JCM.]

I fully support FLCL too. It's so true that everyone says that he's a set-up bait, but very few Pokemon can set up on him while not getting statused (Duosion, Bronzor, Kadabra, etc). He puts a full stop to almost every Physical attacker in NU (I don't think I can name any NU physical Pokemon that can OHKO with the right move), and requires a lot of prediction to beat him. AloMoonguss is especially annoying. When I bring my Sawk out, I usually know that the opponent will switch to Alomomola so I predict it and switch out to SubSplit Rotom-F, who can Sub up on the Toxic and start it's rampage. It can work out on a Rain team as a wall, and by spamming Rain-boosted Waterfalls. I only have one thing to say.....Please do not use CM Alomomola. I saw it once on the ladder......Ew.

 

[Audiosurfer]

Using Alomomola as a wall on a rain team probably isn't ideal. First, its water typing is redundant considering how many Rain abusers have a similar typing. Second, you only have 5-8 turns of Rain anyways, so using it to have Alomomola come in and completely kill your momentum while wasting a turn isn't the greatest idea. Third, although I don't have any specific calcs, I doubt that an uninvested Waterfall of a base 75 Attack, even with the Rain boost, while be doing much. Outside of that point, I agree with what's been said in regards to Alomomola and support it going to A tier as well.

 

[Brave Bird spam]

Regice to S tier

• Walls most special attackers in the tier.

I disagree with regice being placed in the S tier.
It has several flaws the limit its potential.
The first is its horrible typing, especially for a defensive pokemon. Its only resist is ice, which doesn’t matter as Rotom-F, a staple an hail teams, can screw it over by volt switching out on the switch, tricking, using subsplit or even subwisp. Rotom-F actually walls regice lacking focus blast more easily than regice walls it! In the November stats, only 17.947 % of regice were running focus blast. Weaknesses to steel, fighting, rock and fire means that pokemon like sawk, emboar, and zangoose can switch in and OHKO it, while probopass and other steel types switch in with impunity and can take down regice with their STAB moves. Golem and Armaldo can devastate regice with rock type attacks or set up stealth rock to wear it down. Speaking of SR, it severely hampers regice’s performance as a defensive pokemon, limiting its switch in opportunities and walling capabilities. This weakness is compounded because Torkoal and armaldo, the tier’s best spinners, share little synergy with regice. Next, it has low speed which prevents it from switching in against opposing special attackers as regice will have to sponge two attacks every time it tries to wall a pokemon. Not to mention stealth rock. And spikes. And Toxic spikes. Low speed makes it much harder for regice to stall something out. Regice lacks support options outside of twave and toxic, and this coupled with its lack of resistances, prevents it from really being an ideal team supporter. This issue is further compounded by the fact that a lot of other walls have wish/ stealth rock/ spore/ spikes/ tspikes. Regice requires team support in the form of rapid spin and/or wish and resistances, but it cannot support the rest of its team in return. No reliable recovery makes regice a much worse sponge than it normally would be, and makes it incredibly easy to wear down when combined with its vulnerability to entry hazards. Like with the issue of regice’s lack of team support options, this issue is made even worse because many of its fellow walls have wish/ regenerator/ both. The final nail in regice’s coffin is that it is setup bait for many threatening sweepers. Most calm mind users and fire types can switch in and set up with ease, set up for free, and attempt a sweep. Regice is setup bait for: CM gargevoir, CM duosion, Flame charge emboar, Shell smash torkoal, Gurdurr, Musharna, Coil Eelektross, Substitute rotom-f. Regice is good but not good enough to be S ranked.

Other than that I'm fine with all the changes

 

[JCM.]

Oh my god? Are you telling me Regice has some counters, such as Fire types? Of course he does. What makes Regice so good is his ability to counter Hail, and wall every common Special attackers, except SubSpecial Emboar, which isn't common AT ALL. Sure, Rotom-F can Volt Switch, but only does less than 15% when Scarfed to max SDef Regice. Regice can run many viable sets, such as TWave + 3 attacks or even the very rare Rock Polish set. Regice isn't a set-up bait for Zangoose switch-ins, as he still has BoltBeam coverage. Sure, it has it's flaws, but it deserves to be S rank.

 

[ebeast]

@Brave Bird Spam

Neither Sawk, Emboar, Gurdurr, Torkoal, or Zangoose can actually switch into Regice at all because they fear Thunder Wave or just taking an attack since Regice has a very nice base 100 Special Attack stat to take advantage of. While Regice's Ice-typing is not the best defensively, it's actually quite decent when you look into the Pokemon that Regice is going to be beating (And not to mention Regice's fantastic 80/100/200 defenses). Ludicolo, Samurott, Gorebyss, Rotom-A, Kadabra, Amoonguss, Tangela, Alomomola, Haunter, Altaria, Exeggutor, Articuno, Seperior, and Glaceon are all easily taken care by Regice and make up a majority of the metagame. The thing that makes so good is not just that it beats the aforementioned threats, but that it also provides a lot of offensive presence. Everytime you let a Regice switch freely into one of your Pokemon you're left to decide what Pokemon you're going to have take the big hit or potentially get crippled by Thunder Wave. Between Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, and Focus Blast, switching into Regice is not an easy task as anything that tries to come in will get hit hard regardless. It's weakness to hazards is taken care of by RestTalk or Wish support, the latter not being too much of a stretch when Alomomola + Regice walls a lot of Pokemon together. Regice even does amazing in the current Hail metagame, where it beats a majority of Pokemon featured in said archetype. In the same way that Regirock can use Psych Up to beat SubBU Braviary, Regice can also use Psych Up and Frost Breath to beat Calm Mind users such as Duosion, Gardevoir, and Musharna if it really wanted to. In my opinion, send the other Regi to S-rank.

EDIT: To get more discussion on this thread, how about we start talking about Piloswine? It has always been an amazing Stealth Rock user and a fantastic tank full of utility, but now it finds itself in a Hail metagame where Ice-type Pokemon are finally getting the recognizion that they have deserved. With Piloswine's Ground/Ice typing and Thick Fat ability it has the ability to deal with the Hail baddies and just has more opportunities than before to wreck havoc. I would definitely be in support of Piloswine for S-rank, but I would like to hear other people's opinions about it.

PS: I also support Alomomola for A-rank for the same reasons as FLCL and SJ.

 

[Annoyer]

I recommend Sawk for S rank. It has always been a fantastic mon threatening every single team. With the release of Mold Breaker, Sawk gained another tool to threaten his opponent and although Sturdy still has its benefits, Sawk can still abuse both (not at once obviously). There are very few Sawk counters out there and he outspeeds many offensive threats such as Samurott, Ludicolo, Emboar, and even Gardevoir. Sawk easily destroys about half or more of an average Hail team and Hail nullifies the recovery of his best counter, Musharna. Honestly, Sawk should have been S rank before but Hail makes Sawk even better.

Even though Hail nullies Musharna's recovery, Hail is not as common since the hype has died down so Musharna should stay S rank in my opinion. There is a huge difference between the bulk of Musharna and Duosion so Musharna is superior in almost every way outside of Hail (or if your opponent got down 3 layers of Spikes and Stealth Rock which would be your fault anyways). Musharna also has the ability to use Baton Pass and Heal Bell on its sets. It also pulls off Trick Room, Specs, or Life Orb better than Duosion.

I also support the bandwagon for Alomomola and Regice for S. (I have more things but posting via phone is a hassle smh)

 

[watashi]

Sawk should definitely be S-Rank. The introduction of hail greatly effects Sawk's most common counter, Musharna. In fact, the only two counters to it left in the entire tier are Duosion and Misdreavus, both of which can be lured in and crippled by Knock Off Sawk. They can be trapped by Skuntank—who is commonly partnered up with Sawk—as long as it avoids switching directly into Will-O-Wisp from Misdreavus. Weezing is no longer a safe switch-in due to Mold Breaker canceling out Levitate.

Personally, I don't think Regice belongs in S-Rank because of its weakness to Stealth Rock and lack of reliable recovery. It's typing makes it easily forced out by the likes of Sawk and Emboar, which racks up hazards damage even more. After Regice is forced out once after taking Stealth Rock damage, it cannot come in again and wall the likes of Ludicolo and Samurott since Hydro Pump will 2HKO it. Although it can find many chances to Rest against Special Attackers, once it does, Regice is going to have a hard time waking up if the opponent keeps up the pressure, which is relatively easy due to Regice's easily exploitable typing and lack of speed.

 

[thesynchrohero]

I think Ampharos should be rank A because it can hit most of B without using all it's moves, meaning a sub+three attacks set is usable.

 

[watashi]

A-Rank is already filled up with Electric-types such as Eelektross, Rotom-S, and Rotom-F. The former has great coverage and power like Ampharos while being immune to Ground-type attacks making it the better bulky attacker while the latter two have secondary typing's and are faster. Ampharos is by no means a bad Pokemon, but it doesn't deserve A-Rank because it is outclassed and fails to find a useful niche in the metagame.

 

[Punchshroom]

Ampharos's niche is that it is bar none the most defensively inclined electric type in the tier, packing moves such as Cotton Guard, dual screens, and Heal Bell, moves which Eelektross does not have. It also boasts decent coverage in Signal Beam, Focus Blast, and of course Hidden Power, meaning bulkier but slower pokemon (most notably Piloswine) may have a harder time dealing with Ampharos than say Rotom-F or -S. It's movepool may be similiar to the much faster Raichu, who has Encore and Nasty Plot, Ampharos abuses Static much better (screw you Braviary).

 

[watashi]

although ampharos has a good defensive movepool, it struggles to wall many top threats due to its fleeting number of resistances and lack of reliable recovery. forget about physical walling, it can't counter any common physical attacker except sub bu braviary due to its average defense stat. as a special wall, it is outclassed in almost every way by regice, who misses out only on fire-types such as charizard and heatmor, both of which still have a chance at 2hkoing it with fire blast after a tiny bit of prior damage. additionally, many defensive sets are easily taken advantage of by the numerous ground-types in the tier since they only carry an electric-type attack. heal bell alone isn't enough to warrant the use of defensive ampharos, let alone push it into a-rank.

offensive sets are generally done better by electabuzz or raichu, both of which have better abilities to use than static and more offensively inclined stats. ampharos will often find itself being killed off quickly due to lack of speed and significant investment in bulk.

 

[thesynchrohero]

Detailed Result:
252 Atk Choice Band Braviary (+Atk) Brave Bird vs 252 HP/20 Def Bastiodon (+Def) : 13.58% - 16.05%
10-14 hits to KO (with Leftovers)

Detailed Result:
252 +6 Atk Life Orb Braviary (+Atk) Brave Bird vs 252 HP/20 Def Bastiodon (+Def) : 47.22% - 55.56%
2-3 hits to KO (with Leftovers)

I think Bastiodon should be atleast C because it can phase out a +6 Bravairy, and Bravairy is a tier S pokémon