OU's Overrated mons

[Chou Toshio]

Looking at Flygon's fellow OU entraints of last month, Rhyperior and Empoleon are 48 and 40 respectively, barely hanging in the tough popularity race of OU.

At #19, and OU's 10th most powerful sweeper, Flygon is surely a force the metagame is going to have to learn to recon with.

 

[BalancedPower]

So salamence gets paralyzed.How does speed matter when you have ninjask attack? Also Salamence doesnt roll over and die when burned.
Salamence hates stone edge?? I'd rather have a rock weakness then something like ground because of 80%. Name one thing it can do better than salamence or dragonite.

Salamence is not a big threat after paralysis. The fact is he needs to the speed to outrun other threats, because Salamence is fairly weak. Thunder Wave allows for a safe Water pokemon to switch in and use Ice Beam or w/e for OHKO. Blissey/Cressilia 2 common TW carriers, carry Ice Beam, so sometimes no need to switch. Salamence can't switch in very often due to his Stealth Rock weakness, which most teams exploit in the current meta.
Flygon is immune to Ground with Levitate. It resists Rock. It is immune to Lightning. It can scout. It is a great transition pokemon, and unlike Salamence and Dragonite can be sent out more often in battle.

 

[Darklord]

The thing I found about Flygon after using it for a while(and playing against it) is that he works wonders against offensive teams(especially those triple dragon triple steel teams) but if you go up against a stall team, he's dead wait.

Also, U-Turn is very predictable. He switches in fairly easily(especially on Twaves) but you always know what to expect, U-Turn and U-Turn. If your current pokemon doesn't mind U-Turn you can simply predict it and continue what your doing.

Flygon is not Overrated though, he's good to an extend.

 

[wildfire393]

The thing I found about Flygon after using it for a while(and playing against it) is that he works wonders against offensive teams(especially those triple dragon triple steel teams) but if you go up against a stall team, he's dead wait.

Also, U-Turn is very predictable. He switches in fairly easily(especially on Twaves) but you always know what to expect, U-Turn and U-Turn. If your current pokemon doesn't mind U-Turn you can simply predict it and continue what your doing.

Flygon is not Overrated though, he's good to an extend.

Flygon actually isn't great against Triple-Dragon Triple-Steel teams: trying to EQ a Steel allows them to switch in a Flying/Levitating Dragon no problem. Trying to Outrage a Dragon gives them several turns where their steels can do whatever they want. Conversely, against Stall, you can frequently come in on Twaves, you are immune to most of their residual damage, and you hit hard enough to punch holes through a Stall team that's been worn down a bit. Plus U-turn Scouting allows you to sometimes get the upper hand against a wall or two and punch a hole in their defenses.

As for U-Turn being predictable, I usually do not use U-Turn unless I am almost positive the opponent will switch (locked on a Ground/Electric move, 4x Weak to EQ and slower, etc). If it's unceratain whether they will switch or I can predict what they are going to switch in to, a STAB CB EQ or Outrage does a ton of damage.

 

[Darklord]

To be honest, it's exactly the opposite for me. Every time I'm up against a stall team Flygon ends up getting walled by just about everything. Skarmory, Forrtress, Swampert, Hippowdon and even Celebi who's 4x weak to bug because it can easily recover. And well build stall teams always carry protect on 2-3 pokes so it's pretty hard locking your self into a move. And U-Turn is pretty much what stall teams want you to do, switch something into their entry hazards.

However, against those Dragon/Stell teams you can play mind games with U-Turn and Earthquake and leave outrage until extremely late game. Even if you use EQ against a levitator you can switch and come back to revenge kill(if it's something like salamence you better hope to win the speed tie though).

Add in the fact that it can easily save your ass if something like Metagross/Empoleon picks up an agility and you have a good revenge killer against offensive teams.

Obviously I'm referring to the scarf variant

 

[wildfire393]

To be honest, it's exactly the opposite for me. Every time I'm up against a stall team Flygon ends up getting walled by just about everything. Skarmory, Forrtress, Swampert, Hippowdon and even Celebi who's 4x weak to bug because it can easily recover. And well build stall teams always carry protect on 2-3 pokes so it's pretty hard locking your self into a move. And U-Turn is pretty much what stall teams want you to do, switch something into their entry hazards.

However, against those Dragon/Stell teams you can play mind games with U-Turn and Earthquake and leave outrage until extremely late game. Even if you use EQ against a levitator you can switch and come back to revenge kill(if it's something like salamence you better hope to win the speed tie though).

Add in the fact that it can easily save your ass if something like Metagross/Empoleon picks up an agility and you have a good revenge killer against offensive teams.

Obviously I'm referring to the scarf variant

Ah, see, I was referring to the CB version, which packs quite a bit more punch. CB Outrage can 2HKO just about anything that doesn't resist it (including Swampert, though sadly not Hippowdon), which puts stall teams in a pretty tight bind. Fire Punch or Fire Blast as his fourth move keeps things like Scizor and Forretress at bay, as it can easily KO those. U-Turning early game I actually find keeps up the pressure, you can keep Pokemon out who will make it impossible for the opponent to get their entry hazards up, while simultaneously starting to weaken the opponent's walls. CB U-Turn will always OHKO Celebi as well, which makes it a very difficult proposition for the opponent to switch in.

 

[Darkartisan]

I don't see how you can also look at Alakazam and say that it doesn't deserve OU. Sure it's probably one of the frailist OU in the game, but attach a Choice Scarf, lay down some rocks, and this pokemon's set to sweep. Have you taken a look at its SpAtk?

Sure you can start with the obvious weakness (frailness), but have you ever considered attaching a Choice Scarf?

Dual screens? Heard of blissey? And hippowdon? Rotom?

And with Electivire's argument, no shit you can use other pokemon for dual screens. I'm not a moron. Obviously i'm trying to state that Electivire isn't just a standardized sweeper.

 

[reachzero]

Scarf Alakazam is substantially worse than LO Alakazam, IMO. Choiced Alakazam can almost never use its STAB attack for fear of CB Pursuits from Tyranitar or Scizor, both of which are extremely common.

 

[wildfire393]

I don't see how you can also look at Alakazam and say that it doesn't deserve OU. Sure it's probably one of the frailist OU in the game, but attach a Choice Scarf, lay down some rocks, and this pokemon's set to sweep. Have you taken a look at its SpAtk?

Sure you can start with the obvious weakness (frailness), but have you ever considered attaching a Choice Scarf?

This seems like one of the worst routes you could go with Alakazam. Why? Well, it's speed is already very high. In fact, the only unscarfed OU Pokemon that oustpeed it are Ninjask, Weavile, and Aerodactyl. So Choice Scarf only outspeeds those and other Scarfers, which really don't compose that large of a segment of the metagame (generally no more than 1 Pokemon per team). And Scarfed over 100 base speed Pokemon generally function more as Revenge Killers capable of taking down Dragon Dancers, rather than straight sweepers, due to the fact that you're attacking with an unboosted attack score. And Alakazam lacks the movepool for a set like this, as Shockwave and HP Ice are his best options to hit Gyarados and Salamence.

Add this to the fact that his best attack (STAB Psychic) is double resisted by the Steel/Psychic OUs and completely absorbed by Tyranitar/Weavile, as well as the fact that Tyranitar, Metagross, Weavile, and Scizor's Pursuit's will all wreck Alakazam, and you're starting to get a problem. Then take a look at the rampant Priority in the metagame, and Alakazam's speed starts to look massively overshadowed by his immense physical move vulnerability.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Agreed, scarf-zam is fail . . . you loose half the meaning of that monster speed score to start off with.

About flygon U-Turns, the best thing to do with them is use them when the opponent really can't do anything about it anyway. For instance, U-Turn against Starmie or Celebi gives them the choice of either taking a huge hit, or wasting the turn to recover while you bring in something better against them (like Special defensive Scizor). Using U-Turn against opponents who would be finished off by it, as they either choose to die or let you have the advantaga again. Surprisingly, if flygon is on an offensive team this happens a lot against sash leads, ttar, celebi, starmie, other psychics, and weakened pokemon in general. It ain't a pursuit weavile, but U-Turn Flygon does a great job of revenge killing, and is not dead weight at other times.