Gen 6 ORAS Ubers Viability Ranking Thread

[Krauersaut]

While I completely agree that Ho-Oh is a large and shaping part of our metagame, the fact is that by the very definition of S-Rank, its ineligible.

They barely require support, if any, from the team

Now, that being said, I do believe it could be time the whole 'definitions' of each tier was restructured a bit to better accomodate the pace of the metagame and the direction in which its headed - e.g it's extremely clear that PDon is the biggest factor on the metagame as of now, and is as such at the top of the viability rankings - however, one must admit that it requires more team support than, say, Gengar-Mega, who remains ranked below it.

tl;dr - While I believe Ho-Oh deserves a top tier ranking, the parameters of said top tier are too binding, and could use a bit of restructuring.

 

[Lemonade]

I think the guidelines are mostly useful for initial ranking because after stuff is preliminarily decided, it makes more sense to compare the mon in question to the stuff in the tiers it is moving from / to. Obviously you would only compare stuff that is similar in a general role. Like, the guidelines are very vague / general, and comparing Pokemon is slightly more concrete. It's hard to apply the guidelines to certain mons because maybe its utility / power / etc overshadows the support it needs so it's A- instead of B+ (I don't have a specific example in mind btw)

Anyway I don't have too much of an opinion on Ho-Oh, but some things to consider are like is Defog support and / or Magic Bounce considered a lot of support? It somewhat (not by a lot though) limits what you can build, but in general pulling off a Defog isn't too hard, so does that mean in reality it doesn't need a lot of support?

Notes etc. I'm personally not a huge fan of viability rankings but w/e, they are a good resource starting out and it does generate discussion

 

[ApplepieFTW]

ubers was a ban list but became a teir
wouldn't hurt would it?
like having
BL.U
Mega Lucario
mega Mawle
Deoxys N,D
reshiram
Greninja
etc etc

You missed the fact that this tier would contain like what, 10 mons at most? Then the rest of the tier is going to have to be OU mons, right? That gets you only one thing: a very unbalanced tier. You would basicly take the balanced OU meta and make it unbalanced as hell, so doing this is 100% useless lol. You're also not allowed to talk about editing the smogon tier list, so don't.

 

[Rich Homie Supreme]

Honestly, does defog or magic bounce support not count as barely any support? It's quite minimal imo and helps the team as a whole too.

You missed the fact that this tier would contain like what, 10 mons at most? Then the rest of the tier is going to have to be OU mons, right? That gets you only one thing: a very unbalanced tier. You would basicly take the balanced OU meta and make it unbalanced as hell, so doing this is 100% useless lol. You're also not allowed to talk about editing the smogon tier list, so don't.

Correct me if I'm wrong but, didn't he suggest having an ou bl and not another tier?

 

[Hack]

Ho-oh in S-rank is silly. The whole premise of S-rank at the moment is the mons in it being splashable with little opportunity cost and require minimal amount of support. Whatever way you interpret this definition leads to the same conclusion, at least for me, and that is that Ho-oh is a very good mon but most teams I've seen it being used on are very match-up reliant and often loses to physical offense, POgre teams etc. This is due to the extensive support Ho-oh itself needs and is its flaw. Focusing entirely on how to support it and how it should be some sort of "catch-all" check to many special attackers will often create holes in your build that are exploitable depending on match-up. It is a much trickier mon to build an actual good team with than it would seem and therefore it can't be S-ranked.

 

[jackm]

Correct me if I'm wrong but, didn't he suggest having an ou bl and not another tier?

STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS. I don't want to type out why again, so see Minority Suspect's quotation of my argument explaining why this is silly. Besides, this thread is for discussion about Viability Rankings, not tiering. I'm sorry if this sounds angry (I really don't mean to be offensive) but this is really not the time nor the place, and the idea has already been discussed and shot down repeatedly.

Anyways, to make this post relevant, I'll throw my opinion into the Ho-oh discussion.

Hack is right. Ho-oh requires a tremendous amount of support, and while other sources of its troubles exist, I"ll focus on the main one: SR. The arguments that "Defog isn't hard to fit onto your team" are flawed because they fail to consider a serious problem: It is not enough to simply run Defog to support Ho-oh in its struggles against SR damage. In order to succeed, one is required to devote a tremendous deal of care to Defogging, and this will inevitably be made more difficult by the fact that, if your opponent is running a team against which Ho-oh is a powerful weapon, getting and keeping SR up will be one of their primary concerns. You will have to devote a great deal of effort and momentum to stopping them, and regardless of how impeccable your teambuilding and prediction are it's impossible to say that this is not a great deal of support.

 

[DragonAscent]

Guys, I'm kind of sorry for cluttering the chat, but I missed my chance to post this in the OU greninja thread. I know, I know, 'lol slowpoke,' but this is fucking perfect.

In unrelated news, I have a primal groudon named Tina Fey.

 

[byronthewellwell]

Ho-oh in S-rank is silly. The whole premise of S-rank at the moment is the mons in it being splashable with little opportunity cost and require minimal amount of support. Whatever way you interpret this definition leads to the same conclusion, at least for me, and that is that Ho-oh is a very good mon but most teams I've seen it being used on are very match-up reliant and often loses to physical offense, POgre teams etc. This is due to the extensive support Ho-oh itself needs and is its flaw. Focusing entirely on how to support it and how it should be some sort of "catch-all" check to many special attackers will often create holes in your build that are exploitable depending on match-up. It is a much trickier mon to build an actual good team with than it would seem and therefore it can't be S-ranked.

I agree with this post, but doesn't Mega Gengar now have quite a high opportunity cost, as you now can't use Mega Mence or either Mega Magic Bouncer, which are very common, and great additions to teams. So I agree with Krauer, in that the S-rank prerequisites could use some restructuring.

 

[PISTOLERO]

Thanks for the team, man
I don't get why s rank is split up tho. Is it just to highlight how amazing p don is?

 

[Nayrz]

the original comic

cant forget the original

 

[Lemonade]

Nomming Serperior for D because there's nothing else going on. Life Orb Leaf Storm + appropriate coverage move does a lot of damage to like Latis, Ho-Oh, Giratina-O, Yveltal. If all of them take like 20% Serp can theoretically beat them, the issue is finding the turn where you get a free Leaf Storm because you've only got like Kyogre, Mega Diancie, and like Ground and Rockeus (not really last two) that actually care about Leaf Storm, but hence why this is going to D. And unfortunately it's slowish. It can "switch" in to Water moves and Ground moves I guess and has Giga Drain to heal up but otherwise its defenses are mediocre. But it does have situation offensive presence!

 

[Krauersaut]

Nomming Serperior for D because there's nothing else going on. Life Orb Leaf Storm + appropriate coverage move does a lot of damage to like Latis, Ho-Oh, Giratina-O, Yveltal. If all of them take like 20% Serp can theoretically beat them, the issue is finding the turn where you get a free Leaf Storm because you've only got like Kyogre, Mega Diancie, and like Ground and Rockeus (not really last two) that actually care about Leaf Storm, but hence why this is going to D. And unfortunately it's slowish. It can "switch" in to Water moves and Ground moves I guess and has Giga Drain to heal up but otherwise its defenses are mediocre. But it does have situation offensive presence!

seconding serperior for D, it can switch on a defog from support arceus / latiAs and get an evasion boost which allows it to set up much more easily

 

[SuperWumbology]

Nomming Serperior for D because there's nothing else going on. Life Orb Leaf Storm + appropriate coverage move does a lot of damage to like Latis, Ho-Oh, Giratina-O, Yveltal. If all of them take like 20% Serp can theoretically beat them, the issue is finding the turn where you get a free Leaf Storm because you've only got like Kyogre, Mega Diancie, and like Ground and Rockeus (not really last two) that actually care about Leaf Storm, but hence why this is going to D. And unfortunately it's slowish. It can "switch" in to Water moves and Ground moves I guess and has Giga Drain to heal up but otherwise its defenses are mediocre. But it does have situation offensive presence!

I wouldn't necessarily call Serperior slow-ish, since it still gets past most of the faster Megas other than Mence, and LO Leaf Storm still takes a sizeable chunk out of PDon:
252 SpA Life Orb Serperior Leaf Storm vs. 224 HP / 32 SpD Primal Groudon: 203-239 (51.1 - 60.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
It's bulk is also a bit better than Darkrai, so there's also that. The main problem with Serp imo is that its coverage is ech (gets like 3 moves), and the Leaf Storm boost is hard to get unless the opposing team is weakened somewhat. Another nice move it can get is Glare (being able to para PDon is ridiculous) and it seems to be a very effective cleaner, so D Rank does sound like a nice rank to put it in (it is better than Deo-N, so there's that)

 

[Prinz]

I don't really know how Serperior does in Ubers because I have seen it in action just maybe 2 or 3 times, but I guess we can discuss about it.

Also, Im nominating Mega Slowbro for D rank as well. TBH Slowbro isn't as bad as people could think and it has some good niches like checking PDon, Salamence, EK Arceus and Ho-Oh. Obviously the opportunity cost is huge, but that's why we call it D rank, no? Also I think that if Deoxys-N and Arceus Bug are in there while they have almost 0 useful niches, then Slowbro that has some useful ones, can be D rank too.

 

[Worthlessnoob]

Isn't Slowbro huge Yveltal and Darkceus bait? It might be worth a rank, but it looks outclassed by Waterceus and Physically Defensive POgre. Waterceus isn't too great itself so Slowbro's viability looks very dubious.

 

[Prinz]

Ye it's, but it's naturally that a D rank mon has some serious flaws tbh. Also, Waterceus is p bad in ORAS as it's Groudon bait (it's true that it can run Toxic, but there are just better Arceus formes to use anyway), and Mega Slowbro is actually a better answer for all physical stuff like Groudon, Salamence and Ho-Oh than physical def Kyogre (to make an example, CB Ho-Oh's Brave Bird cleanly 2HKOs Kyogre while it often fails to 2HKO Slowbro even if Stealth Rock are up)

 

[ApplepieFTW]

Slowbro is a really bad check to the mons you listed, it's basicly outclassed in evey way and it doesn't really do anything well. The fact that serprior is more useful than slowking says a lot lol

 

[Kebabe]

Slowbro is a really bad check to the mons you listed, it's basicly outclassed in evey way and it doesn't really do anything well. The fact that serprior is more useful than slowking says a lot lol

Can you explain why slowbro isnt a check to the listed mons for me please and what set are you assuming? Slowbro has a p legit movepol fyi. A set with slack off, toxic, D-tail/T-wave, scald/ice beam could be allright

EDIT: so it doesnt learn D-tail but its not that important anyways

 

[Krauersaut]

hehe, i experimented in early OR/AS with a 'crobro' set (Slack Off/Calm Mind/Scald/Ice Beam - I'm sure that isn't optimal but it was more so for fun than anything) and was quite pleased with the results - remember that shrang? ;^]

it's also just fantastic as a physical wall, can help check ho-oh which alone is a massive boost to its viability.

this is no doubt partially just because i love using it, but i'd nominate it for c- as opposed to d

edit: lol it's better than deoxys-defense - that should be justification enough

 

[brokenwings]

Can you explain why slowbro isnt a check to the listed mons for me please and what set are you assuming? Slowbro has a p legit movepol fyi. A set with slack off, toxic, D-tail/T-wave, scald/ice beam could be allright

EDIT: so it doesnt learn D-tail but its not that important anyways

Yeah I've been using a set that's similar to that, Foul Play in the second slot is also nice to further discourage stuff like E-Killer from setting up on you, though it sucks if you get burned. Mega Slowbro definitely isn't amazing or anything, but with a decent amount of team support it can be effective at what it does, which is check some big physical threats. D seems pretty fair to me.

 

[Fireburn]

Remove Charizard-Mega-X, it's an inferior Mega Mence in pretty much every way.

You might as well remove both Zards tbh.

Zard-X: Has to compete with Salamence AND Blaziken now, and Salamence is just...better. Also PDon resisting Fire sucks for it.

Zard-Y: Has to compete with Ho-Oh, PDon resisting Fire sucks for it, now has a 100% counter in POgre, Soul Dew Lati@s walls the crap out of it. It's just bad lol.

 

[Mr.378]

Yeah, definitely remove the Zards. No real reason to use them right now over better megas and mons. Also get rid of Gastro, not much reason to use him now that the main things it walled either aren't used, have better checks, or both.

 

[PISTOLERO]

After reading the posts in this thread, having spent time in the Ubers room discussing many different Pokemon, watching SPL matches and analyzing usage in SPL, as well as reading the various other threads such as Victim of the Week, I have made a significant amount of changes to the viability thread. Some rankings were still XY rankings and have been changed accordingly. Some may seem rather merciless, but bear in mind that it is rather hard to justify using anything that is below B+ anyway, and that there is a reason that many of these Pokemon are not used in high-level play (Arceus formes in particular).


rises

Tyranitar -> B to B+
Clefable -> B- to B
Arceus-Water -> C+ to B
Arceus-Ice -> D to C
Kyurem-White -> B- to B+
Arceus-Rock -> B+ to A-
Tentacruel -> C to C+

drops

Arceus-Ground -> A to A-
Thundurus -> B+ to B
Wobbuffet -> B+ to B
Whimsicott -> B to B-
Arceus-Fire -> C+ to C
Arceus-Flying -> C+ to C
Arceus-Psychic -> C+ to C
Arceus-Steel -> C+ to C
Shuckle -> C+ to C
Smeargle -> C+ to C
Arceus-Electric -> B to B-
Arceus-Poison -> B to B-
Mega Mewtwo X -> A- to B+
Mega Lucario -> C+ to C
Mawile-Mega -> C+ to C
Terrakion -> C+ to C
Victini -> B- to C

all Charizard formes -> removed completely
Gastrodon -> removed completely

Very brief reasoning

Tyranitar -> B to B+ traps Lati@s, checks Ho-Oh, can lure Groudon

Clefable -> B- to B Unaware is good

Arceus-Water -> C+ to B deals with Ho-Oh, Toxic for Groudon

Arceus-Ice -> D to C it's not worse than Arceus-Electric to be honest

Kyurem-White -> B- to B+ hard to switch into, Specs and Scarf are good

Arceus-Rock -> B+ to A- eats Ho-Oh

Tentacruel -> C to C+ Toxic Spikes and Spinning

*

Arceus-Ground -> A to A- special sets are bad, SD is good but it can't switch into Primal Groudon

Thundurus -> B+ to B does anyone actually use this, Primal Groudon bait

Wobbuffet -> B+ to B never see this used which is a shame

Whimsicott -> B to B- does anyone use this

Arceus-Fire -> C+ to C no good player uses this

Arceus-Flying -> C+ to C no good player uses this

Arceus-Psychic -> C+ to C no good player uses this

Arceus-Steel -> C+ to C no good player uses this

Shuckle -> C+ to C Sticky Web is nigh-unviable thanks to Lati@s

Smeargle -> C+ to C Sticky Web is nigh-unviable thanks to Lati@s

Arceus-Electric -> B to B- Primal Groudon bait

Arceus-Poison -> B to B- Primal Groudon bait, eaten by Lati@s

Mega Mewtwo X -> A- to B+ mediocre at best

Mega Lucario -> C+ to C not really viable

Mawile-Mega -> C+ to C not really viable either

Terrakion -> C+ to C sadly Scarf is not so good, eaten by Primal Groudon and faces other problems

Victini -> B- to C Primal Groudon bait

____

I would honestly like to clean out the lower half of the viability rankings, and would like to know if anybody would be opposed to a mass exodus of bad Arceus formes to D-rank. You can argue about how they hold a slight niche but noone will ever use them in high-level play, and it is impossible to build a team where one of the inferior Arceus formes fits better than another one - you should probably look at your build again. Other Pokemon such as Lucario, Terrakion, Reshiram, and Victini are fun to teambuild with but to be brutally honest are not viable in ORAS Ubers, which is a shame. D-Rank is basically for Ubers Pokemon that are not viable

Potential shifts to D-Rank: Arceus-Dragon, -Fighting, -Fire, -Flying, -Steel, -Ice, Mega Lucario, Reshiram, Deoxys-Defense, Giratina-Altered

Potential removals: Terrakion, Victini
​

 

[Prinz]

I agree that we should consider to move all the bad Arceus formes (Arceus Dragon, Fighting, Fire, Psychic, Steel and Flying) in D rank as they are just bad and don't see any use in serious teams as they are outclassed by other Arceus formes. Ice is a bit better than all of them though, so just keep it in C rank imo.

I also think that Reshiram, Deoxys-D, Mega Lucario and Giratina-A are all bad mons that are very hard to fit in any good team and therefore they deserve the D rank and that Terrakion and Victini got very worse in ORAS and if they were somewhat usable in XY, now they are almost useless. Guess Terrakion's only niche is that it can revenge-kill EK Arceus and Arceus Dark but at the same time PDon and Lati twins just eat it alive and it's too difficult to fit in any team anyway so removing it seems fine by me. Victini is also p bad, PDon and Lati twins checks it pretty well and probably it's only niche is to check Geo Xern, but there are around better mon overall that can do it (for example PDon), so removing it as well should be good.

Another thing I'd like to discuss about is dropping both regular ken and Mega ken to B+ rank. I think that they just got worse in ORAS, using Mega ken when there are better megas to use is a bit silly (Salamence is just better overall, and Diancie provides cool support as well), it got new checks / revenge-killer too in ORAS like Salamence, Lati Twins and physical defensive POgre that make things worse than XY for Blaziken. Also, Blaziken tends to run SE instead of Knock Off nowadays that means that Giratina-O can check well it too (and it's another mon that is p common in ORAS). Finally, we shouldn't forget that PDon with its boosted physical defense and its resistance to fire, is a very good Blaziken check as well. tl;dr TBH I think that Blaziken got just worse in ORAS, with the introduction of mons that can check it well, and having competition with other megas that are better than it in most cases. B+ seems fair to me

 

[Fireburn]

Potential shifts to D-Rank: Arceus-Dragon, -Fighting, -Fire, -Flying, -Steel, -Ice, Mega Lucario, Reshiram, Deoxys-Defense, Giratina-Altered
​

None of these Pokemon are bad enough to put into D-rank. D-rank should be reserved for Ubers who have no real niche at all or are just godawful, and most of these do have an arguable niche, however small that may be.