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OU's Overrated mons
- Thread starter TAY
- Start date
- Status
I would like to post some of the less used pokes that shouldn't be in OU. Here are some of the pokes that I haven't seen at all in Shoddy. This is going to be a very long post, beware.
This is my opinion. There might be things wrong with this, but I'm not sure.
This is my opinion. There might be things wrong with this, but I'm not sure.
Overrated? Cresselia happens to be one of the effective walls in OU. It is simply top 3-5. It has good coverage and could take unboosted attacks nicely and boosted attacks nicely. It cripples opponents with Thunder Wave or keeps dragons types in check with Ice Beam. It is a sturdy wall and it's very effective.
It does run that mixed set better/differently, but in my opinion, the more effective
~ Draco Meteor
~ Earthquake
~ Fire Blast
~ Outrage / Roost
set is the best wallbreaker to run nowadays.
I agree that cresselia is a good wall, but the typing and the lack of recover move hampers cresselia a lot though. Not to mention he's not able to do anything when faced with a substitute.
Forget subs, Cresselia can't do it all. If it could phaze moves and have a luxury move pool like you desire, it would be near-Uber by now. Cresselia is a good wall because it keeps pokemon in check and it cripples them. To sum it all up it's always a good slot for a 6-man roster. It's a good team player. The only thing that makes it "iffy" to use is Tyranitar lurking around. In regards to the post "Cresselia being overated" it's defenitly not. It's a "good" wall, I'm not going to start giving it too much credit, it's just a "good" wall and I'll leave it at that.
Cresselia is one of the few pokemon that is not threatened very badly by Mixmence. If Mixmence wants to beat Cressy, it has to forgo max speed; a very big sacrifice indeed.
And who the hell said that Gengar is overrated (kd24). Yeah, we all know that Scizor stomps the crap out of him. However, with a bit of Magnezone support, Gengar is still pretty damn good. And I've found SubPunch to be as good as ever, and running HP Fire with it is a pretty decent choice too, so you can KO Scizor from behind your Sub.
As for some of those on the lists, I basically agree. However, I do find Dual Screen Alakazam to be a total beast in setting up screens as a lead. Though Bronzong is probably the better transition dual screener, since taunt is otherwise pretty rare.
And who the hell said that Gengar is overrated (kd24). Yeah, we all know that Scizor stomps the crap out of him. However, with a bit of Magnezone support, Gengar is still pretty damn good. And I've found SubPunch to be as good as ever, and running HP Fire with it is a pretty decent choice too, so you can KO Scizor from behind your Sub.
As for some of those on the lists, I basically agree. However, I do find Dual Screen Alakazam to be a total beast in setting up screens as a lead. Though Bronzong is probably the better transition dual screener, since taunt is otherwise pretty rare.
Back in ADV there was an interesting team I made centered largely around ninjask.
It was my lead, however, I always went for the turn one baton pass. If my opponent switched to skarmory on the first turn, I'd direct the baton pass to magneton (if I were to remake this, it would obviously be a magnezone now) for a free kill (unreliable now: shed shell exists).
The rest of the team also largely consisted of counters to phasers, and pokemon that would enjoy boosts and make good use of them, but do not need them.
Ninjask/Gyarados/Magneton/...
Is all I imediately remember from the team (one or two pokemon would have been baton pass recievers; magneton was actually also a frequent target of boosts).
It was interesting and fun to play; a very flexible team that could quickly switch around and, while not being focused, deliver speed speed to many pokemon that much enjoy it (and were eved taking speed bosts in mind; all aimed to surpass base 130s back then).
...much like modern u-turn use, in fact.
The problem is, this would probably stil be the only effective use of ninjask, it's just that none of this works anymore:
Shed shell is common now.
Ninjask can't switch in with stealth rock. Actually, I don't even remember how I got it in back then. Predicted earthquakes/using death fodder?
I personally beleive that you are spot on; I didn't have any notable disagreements with anything you stated.
When reading the comments, I was about to have a major disagreement when I saw snorlax's name, but I agree fully with KD24: CBlax is definately an excellent pokemon that probably isn't used enough (while curselax is a different story).
The problem is in deciding a moveset:
Return is given, but after that there are many useful options.
Crunch or pursuit is a big question. Both is hard to afford.
Snorlax often seems to attract metagross and tyranitar, so earthquake appears neccessary.
Selfdestruct is hard to use sometimes, but also very hard to pass up.
And then fire punch is another decent option, but it doesn't appear to do enough against skarmory.
It deals very poorly with latios, however, being 2HKOed by draco meteor.
Flygon is very useful for it's ability to revenge kill very well, often hitting much harder then, for example, scarf salamence due to flygon's great STAB on eq. Just as importantly is u-turn for scouting and maintaining the initiative, and the stealth rock resist.
animenagai, only good with stealth rock + u-turn? That is an odd thing to say. When is stealth rock not present?
...someone who could very well be added:
Dragonite!
One of my favorite pokemon, unfortunately.
He is used poorly. To make it especially clear, I will repeat myself: I'm not saying he is bad, only that he is being used badly.
First of all, lets take a look at the usage statistics:
Nature:
Adamant: 30.1%
Jolly: 20.6%
Rash: 19.8%
EVs:
Special defense:
None: 86.9%
Speed:
Max: 34.9%
High (150-200): 34.5%
None: 11.9%
Moves used (I'm posting moves not in salamence's movepool):
Fire punch: 29.9%
Superpower: 26.6%
Thunderbolt: 18.7%
Thunderpunch: 8.2%
So, let us compare it to salamence, and see how inferior dragonite is unfortunately being used compared to salamence.
Speed:
Over 20% of dragonites were jolly, despite the fact that even a jolly dragonite fails to reach the speeds of an adamant salamence. A jolly dragonite, however, does then lag behind a salamence in attack power.
Special attacking purposes:
I'd have to run some damage calculations to see how many of the important KOs a mixnite can't get that a mixmence can. Superpower is something it does have over a mixmence, however, in that even the second hit would be more powerful then a brick break from salamence. The newly popular outrage/earthquake mixmence, however, has less on the physical end a dragonite can clame superiority over.
The simple 10 base stat points less of special attack are potentially important, but I'd need damage calcs to prove/disprove it.
However, when it comes to wall breaking, dragonite needs significant speed investments to make sure it outruns things such as zapdos and celebi, and even rotom-a has a higher base speed (86 v 80).
This brings about an issue I'll discuss later.
Taking physical hits:
Salamence has 95/80 defense and intimidate, which therefore makes it better at switching into physical threats (other then clear body/hyper cutter pokemon, but better switch ins exist for metagross and gliscor, although dragonite can learn ice beam for the latter) then dragonite with it's 91/95 defenses. Dragonite, unfortunately, "wastes" stats here compared to salamence as it is rendered inferior defensively simply due to lacking intimidate.
Taking special hits:
This is the central point of this section arguing that dragonite is overrated, and where I will bring everything I've said above with speed to a close.
Let us compare defenses of salamence and dragonite:
95/80 for salamence.
91/100 for dragonite.
Dragonite looks like it is ahead.
However, this is an illusion. Why? Because while dragonite could be better, it isn't really in practice.
Let us compare speed vs. special defense in dragonite and salamence.
-------------Sp.Def/Spd
Dragonite:100/80
Salamence:80/100
The stats are simply flipped.
This is of central signifiance.
Now, let me explain...
86.9% of dragonites run 0 sp def. evs.
This means that a salamence of the same nature only has to run 160 sp. def evs (removed from speed, although one can remove from other areas if speed is more important....but if thats the case, dragonite shouldn't have been used in the first place) to essentially render that dragonite obsolete.
Higher base attack and sp. attack would be possessed, intimidate allows it to take physical hits better, while it has the same sp. def, and more hp, meaning it takes sp. def hits better.
What this means is that the bulky DDnite spread posted in the dragonite analysis, if it lacks light screen, is actually better to be ran on a salamence (earthquake should be removed from other options).
Here is the ev. spread recomended for that dragonite:
252 hp/60 attk/196 speed
I decided to subtract 4 from hp and add them to attack, because doing that actually adds 2 attack points (I don't know why they recomended 60 instead of 64 evs when 64 is the free point number).
Therefore I used:
248 hp/64 attack/196 sp. def
For dragonite.
For a salamence to have the same hp, attack, speed, and sp. def it needs to run:
216 hp/56 attack/36 speed/160 sp def
With 42 evs left over, or a total of 10 stat points that can be then added to whichever point to then make the dragonite inferior (other then light screen).
My point is this, for dragonite to be better then salamence at taking special hits, you need to actually invest in the special defense stat and hp. It takes 92 sp def evs for dragonite to match a salamence with 252 sp def evs. If your excuse in using dragonite is because it takes special hits better, then you had better be running 96 or more sp def evs in that case, as well as enough to make up for salamence's advantage in HP.
The thing is, 86.9% of dragonites do not run sp. def evs.
Running massive amounts of speed evs is then only examplifying it/s inferiority to salamence.
Almost 70% run either 150-200 speed evs, or max. I assume most of the rest fall inbetween 200 and max.
Now, let us compare a dragonite running 150 speed evs with a salamence, assuming both are investing 252 evs in the offenses.
If dragonite puts 108 evs in special defense, the result would be that the salamence (as always) takes hits better physically with intimidate.
The salamence could then put 252 evs in special defense, and the remaining 6 (essentially 4) into hp.
The end result is that the salamence has better offenses (base stats higher for both), better speed, and, when it comes to taking hits specially:
Dragonite:
323 hp x 263 sp. def: 84949
Salamence:
332 x 259: 85988
That salamence takes special hits just over 1.2% better. A nearly negligable amount, however, but it still takes those hits better then dragonite.
Takes hits better from both directions-physical and special-has better offenses, and sits comfortably on 3 greater speed points.
For each point more the dragonite adds, the salamence can then add more. However, the dragonite has a limit far below that of the salamence, which can keep going, subtracting points from other stats, to a much higher speed.
This is an advantage salamences use very regularly, as taking special hits really doesn't matter much in the first place. Something examplified by the fact that even the dragonite set eved the most to taking special hits is, based on stats, done better by salamence (only light screen saves dragonite for that set).
When it comes to stats, dragonite can only be better if it, as described earlier, emphasizes it's better sp def by heavy investment, so that it couldn't simply be done better by salamence, or somehow emphasizing it's defense not reliant on intimidate which would make revenge killing (such as by bullet punch, and perhaps ice shard) more difficult.
Again, the above is evidently never desired, as shown by ev spreads for all of dragonite's sets.
Only the movepool exists as an advantage of dragonite over salamence, in that case.
Yet, these evidently aren't used that much.
To show the list again:
Fire punch: 29.9%
Superpower: 26.6%
Thunderbolt: 18.7%
Thunderpunch: 8.2%
I'm not quite satisfied. Some justification:
100-29.9-26.6-18.7-8.2=at least 16.6% of dragonites use none of these moves, which suggests a fair amount utilize these moves. However, how central are they? Do they really make enough of an impact, in such (still) low numbers to make it distinct? How useful/practical are these moves?
These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm actually genuinely interested; I haven't looked into it enough to make real arguments, however my gut tells me that these moves don't really make to much of an impact, except perhaps superpower, to really warrant seperate pokemon. Flamethrower/fire blast appears as it would generally be just as good as the most used of this list, fire punch. This isn't a real argument however, simply my gut.
Overall, it appears dragonite is being used in a very poor manner, and is thus highly overrated.
EDIT:
I used to run heal bell dragonite (heal bell/t-wave/dragon claw/roost), however I eventually switched to a offensively oriented salamence, and haven't regretted it.
What set are you running?
Perhaps I should try building a team in which such a heal belling dragonite fits well, although it seems very gimmicky to build a team around getting to use a support pokemon =/.
Offense would generally prefer offense.
Defensive teams would not want something 4x weak to ice.
Balanced teams...perhaps?
It was my lead, however, I always went for the turn one baton pass. If my opponent switched to skarmory on the first turn, I'd direct the baton pass to magneton (if I were to remake this, it would obviously be a magnezone now) for a free kill (unreliable now: shed shell exists).
The rest of the team also largely consisted of counters to phasers, and pokemon that would enjoy boosts and make good use of them, but do not need them.
Ninjask/Gyarados/Magneton/...
Is all I imediately remember from the team (one or two pokemon would have been baton pass recievers; magneton was actually also a frequent target of boosts).
It was interesting and fun to play; a very flexible team that could quickly switch around and, while not being focused, deliver speed speed to many pokemon that much enjoy it (and were eved taking speed bosts in mind; all aimed to surpass base 130s back then).
...much like modern u-turn use, in fact.
The problem is, this would probably stil be the only effective use of ninjask, it's just that none of this works anymore:
Shed shell is common now.
Ninjask can't switch in with stealth rock. Actually, I don't even remember how I got it in back then. Predicted earthquakes/using death fodder?
I personally beleive that you are spot on; I didn't have any notable disagreements with anything you stated.
When reading the comments, I was about to have a major disagreement when I saw snorlax's name, but I agree fully with KD24: CBlax is definately an excellent pokemon that probably isn't used enough (while curselax is a different story).
The problem is in deciding a moveset:
Return is given, but after that there are many useful options.
Crunch or pursuit is a big question. Both is hard to afford.
Snorlax often seems to attract metagross and tyranitar, so earthquake appears neccessary.
Selfdestruct is hard to use sometimes, but also very hard to pass up.
And then fire punch is another decent option, but it doesn't appear to do enough against skarmory.
It deals very poorly with latios, however, being 2HKOed by draco meteor.
Flygon is very useful for it's ability to revenge kill very well, often hitting much harder then, for example, scarf salamence due to flygon's great STAB on eq. Just as importantly is u-turn for scouting and maintaining the initiative, and the stealth rock resist.
animenagai, only good with stealth rock + u-turn? That is an odd thing to say. When is stealth rock not present?
...someone who could very well be added:
Dragonite!
One of my favorite pokemon, unfortunately.
He is used poorly. To make it especially clear, I will repeat myself: I'm not saying he is bad, only that he is being used badly.
First of all, lets take a look at the usage statistics:
Nature:
Adamant: 30.1%
Jolly: 20.6%
Rash: 19.8%
EVs:
Special defense:
None: 86.9%
Speed:
Max: 34.9%
High (150-200): 34.5%
None: 11.9%
Moves used (I'm posting moves not in salamence's movepool):
Fire punch: 29.9%
Superpower: 26.6%
Thunderbolt: 18.7%
Thunderpunch: 8.2%
So, let us compare it to salamence, and see how inferior dragonite is unfortunately being used compared to salamence.
Speed:
Over 20% of dragonites were jolly, despite the fact that even a jolly dragonite fails to reach the speeds of an adamant salamence. A jolly dragonite, however, does then lag behind a salamence in attack power.
Special attacking purposes:
I'd have to run some damage calculations to see how many of the important KOs a mixnite can't get that a mixmence can. Superpower is something it does have over a mixmence, however, in that even the second hit would be more powerful then a brick break from salamence. The newly popular outrage/earthquake mixmence, however, has less on the physical end a dragonite can clame superiority over.
The simple 10 base stat points less of special attack are potentially important, but I'd need damage calcs to prove/disprove it.
However, when it comes to wall breaking, dragonite needs significant speed investments to make sure it outruns things such as zapdos and celebi, and even rotom-a has a higher base speed (86 v 80).
This brings about an issue I'll discuss later.
Taking physical hits:
Salamence has 95/80 defense and intimidate, which therefore makes it better at switching into physical threats (other then clear body/hyper cutter pokemon, but better switch ins exist for metagross and gliscor, although dragonite can learn ice beam for the latter) then dragonite with it's 91/95 defenses. Dragonite, unfortunately, "wastes" stats here compared to salamence as it is rendered inferior defensively simply due to lacking intimidate.
Taking special hits:
This is the central point of this section arguing that dragonite is overrated, and where I will bring everything I've said above with speed to a close.
Let us compare defenses of salamence and dragonite:
95/80 for salamence.
91/100 for dragonite.
Dragonite looks like it is ahead.
However, this is an illusion. Why? Because while dragonite could be better, it isn't really in practice.
Let us compare speed vs. special defense in dragonite and salamence.
-------------Sp.Def/Spd
Dragonite:100/80
Salamence:80/100
The stats are simply flipped.
This is of central signifiance.
Now, let me explain...
86.9% of dragonites run 0 sp def. evs.
This means that a salamence of the same nature only has to run 160 sp. def evs (removed from speed, although one can remove from other areas if speed is more important....but if thats the case, dragonite shouldn't have been used in the first place) to essentially render that dragonite obsolete.
Higher base attack and sp. attack would be possessed, intimidate allows it to take physical hits better, while it has the same sp. def, and more hp, meaning it takes sp. def hits better.
What this means is that the bulky DDnite spread posted in the dragonite analysis, if it lacks light screen, is actually better to be ran on a salamence (earthquake should be removed from other options).
Here is the ev. spread recomended for that dragonite:
252 hp/60 attk/196 speed
I decided to subtract 4 from hp and add them to attack, because doing that actually adds 2 attack points (I don't know why they recomended 60 instead of 64 evs when 64 is the free point number).
Therefore I used:
248 hp/64 attack/196 sp. def
For dragonite.
For a salamence to have the same hp, attack, speed, and sp. def it needs to run:
216 hp/56 attack/36 speed/160 sp def
With 42 evs left over, or a total of 10 stat points that can be then added to whichever point to then make the dragonite inferior (other then light screen).
My point is this, for dragonite to be better then salamence at taking special hits, you need to actually invest in the special defense stat and hp. It takes 92 sp def evs for dragonite to match a salamence with 252 sp def evs. If your excuse in using dragonite is because it takes special hits better, then you had better be running 96 or more sp def evs in that case, as well as enough to make up for salamence's advantage in HP.
The thing is, 86.9% of dragonites do not run sp. def evs.
Running massive amounts of speed evs is then only examplifying it/s inferiority to salamence.
Almost 70% run either 150-200 speed evs, or max. I assume most of the rest fall inbetween 200 and max.
Now, let us compare a dragonite running 150 speed evs with a salamence, assuming both are investing 252 evs in the offenses.
If dragonite puts 108 evs in special defense, the result would be that the salamence (as always) takes hits better physically with intimidate.
The salamence could then put 252 evs in special defense, and the remaining 6 (essentially 4) into hp.
The end result is that the salamence has better offenses (base stats higher for both), better speed, and, when it comes to taking hits specially:
Dragonite:
323 hp x 263 sp. def: 84949
Salamence:
332 x 259: 85988
That salamence takes special hits just over 1.2% better. A nearly negligable amount, however, but it still takes those hits better then dragonite.
Takes hits better from both directions-physical and special-has better offenses, and sits comfortably on 3 greater speed points.
For each point more the dragonite adds, the salamence can then add more. However, the dragonite has a limit far below that of the salamence, which can keep going, subtracting points from other stats, to a much higher speed.
This is an advantage salamences use very regularly, as taking special hits really doesn't matter much in the first place. Something examplified by the fact that even the dragonite set eved the most to taking special hits is, based on stats, done better by salamence (only light screen saves dragonite for that set).
When it comes to stats, dragonite can only be better if it, as described earlier, emphasizes it's better sp def by heavy investment, so that it couldn't simply be done better by salamence, or somehow emphasizing it's defense not reliant on intimidate which would make revenge killing (such as by bullet punch, and perhaps ice shard) more difficult.
Again, the above is evidently never desired, as shown by ev spreads for all of dragonite's sets.
Only the movepool exists as an advantage of dragonite over salamence, in that case.
Yet, these evidently aren't used that much.
To show the list again:
Fire punch: 29.9%
Superpower: 26.6%
Thunderbolt: 18.7%
Thunderpunch: 8.2%
I'm not quite satisfied. Some justification:
100-29.9-26.6-18.7-8.2=at least 16.6% of dragonites use none of these moves, which suggests a fair amount utilize these moves. However, how central are they? Do they really make enough of an impact, in such (still) low numbers to make it distinct? How useful/practical are these moves?
These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm actually genuinely interested; I haven't looked into it enough to make real arguments, however my gut tells me that these moves don't really make to much of an impact, except perhaps superpower, to really warrant seperate pokemon. Flamethrower/fire blast appears as it would generally be just as good as the most used of this list, fire punch. This isn't a real argument however, simply my gut.
Overall, it appears dragonite is being used in a very poor manner, and is thus highly overrated.
EDIT:
I used to run heal bell dragonite (heal bell/t-wave/dragon claw/roost), however I eventually switched to a offensively oriented salamence, and haven't regretted it.
What set are you running?
Perhaps I should try building a team in which such a heal belling dragonite fits well, although it seems very gimmicky to build a team around getting to use a support pokemon =/.
Offense would generally prefer offense.
Defensive teams would not want something 4x weak to ice.
Balanced teams...perhaps?
Speaking on the Special Defensive-ness of Dragonite, I was quite convinced Dragonite was far better than Salamence at the specially bulky set. After about an hour of coming up with an EV spread, Dragonite could reach the same SpD with fewer EVs (obviously) and could reach the same speed, but was lacking about 3 points in attack. Then there was Intimidate which is a far superior ability making Salamence the superior choice in that situation. Even though it has a lot more SpD, the 20 speed points, 4 addition HP, and 1 in Atk went a some ways.
When sweeping Dragonite is actually able to survive some Ice Shards from Weavile unlike Salamence (since Weavile would be revenge killing).
I'm the only one I've ever seen myself using support Dragonite, and unlike many people think, it would be in my book an OU worthy Pokemon. Heal Bell is such a great move with all the T-waves running around. And unlike Blissey and Celebi, it isn't expected so you pretty much get a free turn to do so, similiarly to Thunder Wave.
It and Porygon-Z are very OU worthy. Both of them have the campability to sweep teams, and even pull off a surprise win. Other such as Donphan, Electivire, and Ninjask aren't exactly worthy of their current tier. I'm not sure about Alakazam. It used to be unique with Trick, but now I don't know.
EDIT: Yeah, on a balanced team.
When sweeping Dragonite is actually able to survive some Ice Shards from Weavile unlike Salamence (since Weavile would be revenge killing).
I'm the only one I've ever seen myself using support Dragonite, and unlike many people think, it would be in my book an OU worthy Pokemon. Heal Bell is such a great move with all the T-waves running around. And unlike Blissey and Celebi, it isn't expected so you pretty much get a free turn to do so, similiarly to Thunder Wave.
It and Porygon-Z are very OU worthy. Both of them have the campability to sweep teams, and even pull off a surprise win. Other such as Donphan, Electivire, and Ninjask aren't exactly worthy of their current tier. I'm not sure about Alakazam. It used to be unique with Trick, but now I don't know.
EDIT: Yeah, on a balanced team.
I agree with the overlooked OU. Surprisingly though, my star team has alakazam problems o.o. Porygon-Z aint that bad either, high sp.att.
Honestly though. I think Yanmega and Tentacruel are most overrated. I barely see toxic spikers these days and this metagame seem to take toxic spikes extremely well. With hypnosis down 10% accuracy, Yanmega is countered way too easily by many teams. The common pokes like Heatran, Zapdos, Salamence, Scizor stops it well.
Honestly though. I think Yanmega and Tentacruel are most overrated. I barely see toxic spikers these days and this metagame seem to take toxic spikes extremely well. With hypnosis down 10% accuracy, Yanmega is countered way too easily by many teams. The common pokes like Heatran, Zapdos, Salamence, Scizor stops it well.
Just adding in that Yanmega gets half of its health chipped every time it switches into stealth rock. I used to favor Yanmega because of its ability as a starter, but because of those weaknesses and the accuracy drop in hypnosis, it lost my favour as a lead.
How can I forget to mention Yanmega in my 3 most overrated OU pokes?
LOL at Misa's Post. Let's go over what's wrong with it:
As for Cress and all you people bashing Cress: Frankly, Psycho Shift Cress is really goddamn useful, as it can beat its counters using that and burn a whole lot of stuff. People really need to try it out more.
No one ever uses Weavile and Crobat, Scizor doesn't like Hidden Power Fire, and Tyranitar does not enjoy Grass Knot, and parahax can be highly irritating. You could say this fact about just any wall in OU - something can come in and beat the living shit out of any wall. And whoever uses Calm Mind Celebi? The standard set for this month was Recover/Grass Knot/Leech Seed/Thunder Wave - and Ape isn't going to like getting paralyzed at all, as well as Heatran.
Once again, can be said about any wall in OU. Blissey hates Scizor and Tar just as much as Celebi, Hippow and Skarm hate special Pokes. And let's not forget the fact that no one uses Celebi as a sweeper for fairly obvious reasons, and no defensive Pokemon can stop everything.
You forgot Reflect and Leech Seed, which are very annoying for both Scizor and Tar, who also frankly are not going to enjoy paralysis too much - there are slow walls that they do try to outspeed, and parahax is never fun. And given the only type that is immune to Thunderwave is not going to switch into Celebi for fairly obvious reasons (yes, there is Jolteon and Vire, but let's not go there), Celebi is all but certain to paralyze something a good deal of the time.
...Quit making shit up. Baton Pass and Heal Bell aren't even listed in the standard possible moves for Celebi. Celebi is far more likely to spam Reflects or T-waves, which is annoying for any sweeper.
Now while I don't like Skarm, it is definitely not overrated or on the same level as Vire or Ninjask. It's not used too much anymore, and it has fallen quite a bit, if I'm correct. But as for this part, two words: Shed Shell.
Like I said, you can't expect a defensive Poke like Skarm to counter every damn thing in the game. Yes, Fire types beat it. Physical pokes beat Bliss, is she overrated? (well, actually she is, but....) But Tar without Flamethrower doesn't, and while I would never switch Skarm into a bulky water, he can stand up to some of them such as Swampert and Gyara without Taunt.
These are all addressed with the same point, which is that you can't expect Skarm to beat everything. It's not going to beat Heatran or Magnezone or Ape. It can beat certain physical threats, set up Spikes, and then wall the living shit out of them or just rack up entry hazard damage with Whirlwind. Defensive Pokemon shouldn't be expected to beat things that they are not meant to wall.
As for Cress and all you people bashing Cress: Frankly, Psycho Shift Cress is really goddamn useful, as it can beat its counters using that and burn a whole lot of stuff. People really need to try it out more.
Mence has all of those moves, slightly better attack, much better speed, much better special attack. The only thing I could recommend Dragonite for is his support set, which runs Light Screen or Heal Bell and often Thunder Wave, all of which Salamence lacks. The only other notable move that he can run is Superpower, which allows for a way to deal with Blissey on a Specs or Mixed build.
As for the likes of Celebi and Cresselia, I think we're getting to the point that a Pokemon is discredited for having common OU counters. Celebi and Cresselia are fantastic Bulky Psychics (And grassers >.>) that can support the team with things like Thunderwave, Screens, Leech Seed and Heal Bell.
Sure, Tyranitar gives 'em trouble. But by that logic I could say Scizor sucks because it's beat by the omnipresent Zapdos and Heatran. But it doesn't, and neither do Celebi/Cresselia.
Sure, Tyranitar gives 'em trouble. But by that logic I could say Scizor sucks because it's beat by the omnipresent Zapdos and Heatran. But it doesn't, and neither do Celebi/Cresselia.
Just like to say that in my opinion, Yanmega is REALLY underrated(but then, it's my favourite pokemon). It has two awesome abilities in Speed Boost and Tinted Lens, and he can be EVed to survive 2 Bullet Punches from our favourite metal bug. Meanwhile, Air Slash 2HKOs the bug. Late game, he owns almost everything with Bug Buzz/Air Slash/Hidden Power Ground/Protect.
And he can destroy Heatran and Magnezone, two supposed "counters".
It needs more love, it's a top tier pokemon. It's even better if you have a spinner.
For those ragging on Flygon, I think you are missing the point when you say "he's not fast enough-- he doesn't hit hard enough." The point is that Flygon is not a straight up sweeper. Flygon has:
a) lots of free/easy switches (comes into ground/electric attacks, including thunderwave, comes into choice-trick, lots of other nice resistances)
b) has u-turn to screw the opponent up (especially celebi and other psychics)
c) scares the crap out of a lot of metagame threats-- it might not "hit hard enough," but it sends ttar, heatran, infernape, lucario, etc. etc. running, and makes stuff like Salamence and Metagross feel really antzy.
d) Has ridiculous endurance with immunity/resistance to sand, spikes, t-spikes and SR.
e) Nice STABs let it clean up well in end game.
The thing about flygon is that it takes a brain to use. Rather than being an "overrated pokemon," it's more like an expert's tool. I guess the sad thing about flygon is that-- well it really has everything. Typing, ability, even a terrific movepool. The only thing it lacks is base stats (and maybe swords dance)-- but then we'd have Garchomp all over again. I can't see how gamefreaks could have done a better job designing this thing.
edit: Though it would be hilarious if he had Tinted Lens as a second ability. Tinted Lens Outrage. lol
a) lots of free/easy switches (comes into ground/electric attacks, including thunderwave, comes into choice-trick, lots of other nice resistances)
b) has u-turn to screw the opponent up (especially celebi and other psychics)
c) scares the crap out of a lot of metagame threats-- it might not "hit hard enough," but it sends ttar, heatran, infernape, lucario, etc. etc. running, and makes stuff like Salamence and Metagross feel really antzy.
d) Has ridiculous endurance with immunity/resistance to sand, spikes, t-spikes and SR.
e) Nice STABs let it clean up well in end game.
The thing about flygon is that it takes a brain to use. Rather than being an "overrated pokemon," it's more like an expert's tool. I guess the sad thing about flygon is that-- well it really has everything. Typing, ability, even a terrific movepool. The only thing it lacks is base stats (and maybe swords dance)-- but then we'd have Garchomp all over again. I can't see how gamefreaks could have done a better job designing this thing.
edit: Though it would be hilarious if he had Tinted Lens as a second ability. Tinted Lens Outrage. lol
This actually could merit discussion, I completely forgot about his access to Focus Punch. Seems to me you switch him in on something likely to switch out (or something that will do <25% to you, which is just as good) and set up a Sub. After that, depending on what they switch in, either Focus Punch or Dragon Dance. Outrage + Focus Punch htis everything for at least Neutral damage, and they are both hideously powerful moves. Alternately to Dragon Dance/Outrage, a Bulkier set could be run with Roost + Dragon Pulse/Draco Meteor/Dragon Claw, or perhaps Roost + Toxic/Thunderwave.
I'm actually rather liking the thought of Support Dragonite, to be honest. Though I don't know why the given set suggests Dragon Pulse/Flamethrower. Seems to me that Draco Meteor is almost twice as powerful as Dragon Pulse on the first hit, about the same power on the second hit, and I don't really see him staying in for more than 2 hits. Running Screen/Bell, Twave, Roost, and Draco Meteor with a heavily defensive spread could be fairly brutal. STAB Draco Meteor off of 100 Special Attack, even with little or no investment will still do some serious damage. Switch in and cripple something, support the team, or take a huge chunk out of something. Roost keeps Stealth Rock from wearing him down too much. For bonus points, pair him with Salamence or Flygon and use him to scout for and paralyze their counters and take chunks out of them while keeping the team free from status or protecting them from special attacks.
Meh. Thing about Focus Punch is that Dragonite doesn't exactly lure things in that are scared of fighting attacks. All the steel types are more afraid of fire blast/earthquake. Salamence at least has Blissey switching into it sometimes (which is why brick break is nice on mix-mence over earthquake).
Misa said:
Celebi, seriously? It's 14th most used. >_> When statistics are available, please don't use personal experience. I never see Flygon, but it's top 20 now. Celebi is everywhere, especially where stall is, and even then it has good roles outside of those teams. It's used more than Jirachi for Christ's sake. I don't believe it deserved mention at all.
Skarmory usage is up on suspect, not sure about standard. Regardless, it's still a good Pokemon and just because another one "beats" it (use shed shell), that does not warrant it being "overrated."
How are the OP Pokemon overrated? Just because they're OU? Nobody is going around "These guys are teh pwn."
This looks like propaganda: "Don't use these pokemon, get them out of OU!"
Fun Fact: stat by stat comparison, Electivire is stronger and faster than Lucario.
EDIT: Electivire is not bad, but not good either. 3 Special + Cross Chop is REALLY hard to wall if you aren't Rotom. Cross Chop nails a solid 2HKO against Blissey, and the rest hit physical walls decently, netting a 2HKO against Zapdos with Stealth Rock. Usage statistics show pure physical sets, which I do believe really needs to end. Look past that set and he's not bad, just not the best.
His biggest problem is that he's fragile; he's a "Glass Cannon" that lacks a big enough boom to make it awesome. He's not bad, just situational. He needs stat up moves >_<
Firstly, I'm really digging the influx of discussion threads TAY!
Just gonna go over some of the Pokemon mentioned in this thread and give my opinion, ok!
Alakazam - Inclined to agree with TAY here. Something that TAY didn't mention in his write up was 'Zam's inferiority complex to Azelf. There are very few things that Alakazam can do better than Azelf and those things are either gimmicky or unreliable (think Focus Blast, Encore, Recover etc). His superior SpA doesn't do a great deal to bridge the gap and the extra 5 Spe is negligible in this metagame...so what if Alakazam is faster than Raikou and ties with Sceptile? Nobody uses Raikou or Sceptile. Starmie never runs max Speed. Dugtrio uses Sucker Punch. It's not a big deal.
Another problem is Scizor. CBScizor can come in relatively easily on Alakazam and OHKO with Bullet Punch or non-switching Pursuit. It's a checkmate position and it's not nice to be that exposed to the most popular Pokemon in the game. Azelf on the other hand can actually survive CB Bullet Punch even after taking SR damage and defend himself with Flamethrower.
And of course, there's the complete reliance on Focus Blast to deal with Darks and Steels which means 30% of the time you're to miss and die. I can't see any reason why a serious player would entertain the idea of using Alakazam in a competitive team. I think, like a few RB Pokemon 'Zam has a certain amount of fanboy support.
Donphan - Think you covered everything here. I think another of Donphan's failings is good old moveslot syndrome. Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Ice Shard / Earthquake is just set-up fodder for anything that can handle Ground attacks and isn't 4x weak to Ice (Gyarados most notably but other dangerous shit like Breloom and Azelf view him as a free switch). Would be nice if he got Payback too as Assurance is a little unreliable.
Electivire - I struggle to accept that 'Vire is overated by virture of the fact that almost every single Smogoner thinks he's a useless piece of crap.
There was a stage in the metagame where he was quite dangerous and some people seem eager to hang on to those memories. Nowadays he's in a situation where nearly everything that uses Electrical attacks can beat him one-on-one so it's difficult for him to get a favorable Motor Drive boost. If you come in on Celebi's T-Wave you'll end up dying to Grass Knot before Celebi dies to Ice Punch (interesting fact - 'Vire takes 100BP from GK). If you come in on one of the Rotom's Electrical attacks you'll be getting hit by WoW and repeated Shadow Balls before you can take Rotom down. It's a sharp contrast to the days when the main Electric attacks came from Thunder-Wave Blissey and Starmies.
I think Vire's saving grace is his ability to counter Zapdos quite well. A lot of offensive teams are weak to defensive Zapdos so they could usually benefit from Electivire's inclusion. He does make for a decent late game sweeper but there are a lot of other Pokemon who are equally as good or better in that situation that don't need to rely on the opponent throwing out a timely Electrical attack.
Ninjask - lol. I guess he's good in BP chains, right?
Dusnoir - Rotom blah blah blah.
Porygon-Z - I disagree.
You list Tyranitar and Heatran as counters. If that were true I'd be inclined to agree with you but both of those Pokemon are slower (obvious Scarftran mention here) and are OHKO'd by Downloaded HP Fighting.
I brought this up in Shoddy chat yesterday so forgive me if you've heard all this before but I think the reason for Porygon-Z's often underwhelming performances is the prevalence of Adaptability. January's stats show that 68.3% of PZ uses Adaptability while only 31.7% used Download. This baffles me because I've played around with both and Download is so much better it's not even funny. Just to clarify because a lot of people are still confused as to how Download works -
To dumb that down even further, if you switch into Skarmory you get +1 SpA. If you switch into Blissey you get +1 Atk. This works just fine for PZ because as a special attacker he's obviously going to be switching into Pokemon with poor SpD. People complain that Download is unreliable but how much more favorable can it get?
Here's something I can't wait to build a team around when I get Shoddying again (taken straight from the analysis).
Porygon-Z @ Life Orb
Modest
Download!
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Agility
- Tri Attack
- Dark Pulse
- HP Fight
Seems to have potential with Magnezone support to get rid of Scizor, Bronzong, Jirachi and Metagross all of whom do a decent job of walling this set. It's a straightforward set so I'll just skip the intro and go straight to damage calcs. All calcuations are going to assume he grabbed the Download boost.
Tri Attack vs 4/0 Salamence = 104% - 122%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Salamence = 87% - 103%
HP Fight vs 4/0 Heatran = 96% - 113%
Tri Attack vs 4/0 Gyarados = 87% - 102%
Tri Attack vs 216/0 Gyarados = 76% - 90%
HP Fight vs 252/0 Tyranitar = 110% - 130%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Swampert = 77% - 91%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Zapdos = 81% - 96%
Dark Pulse vs 252/0 Celebi = 95% - 111%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Vaporeon = 64% - 76%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Machamp = 83% - 98%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Kingdra = 84% - 100%
Dark Pulse vs 252/176 Rotom-A = 101% - 119%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Suicune = 63% - 74%
That's a lot of power right off the bat. Note that he's already faster than the vast majority of the Pokemon there so he isn't completely dependant on Agility but it's nice to block revenge kill attempts.
One last thing!
Welcome back!
Just gonna go over some of the Pokemon mentioned in this thread and give my opinion, ok!
Alakazam - Inclined to agree with TAY here. Something that TAY didn't mention in his write up was 'Zam's inferiority complex to Azelf. There are very few things that Alakazam can do better than Azelf and those things are either gimmicky or unreliable (think Focus Blast, Encore, Recover etc). His superior SpA doesn't do a great deal to bridge the gap and the extra 5 Spe is negligible in this metagame...so what if Alakazam is faster than Raikou and ties with Sceptile? Nobody uses Raikou or Sceptile. Starmie never runs max Speed. Dugtrio uses Sucker Punch. It's not a big deal.
Another problem is Scizor. CBScizor can come in relatively easily on Alakazam and OHKO with Bullet Punch or non-switching Pursuit. It's a checkmate position and it's not nice to be that exposed to the most popular Pokemon in the game. Azelf on the other hand can actually survive CB Bullet Punch even after taking SR damage and defend himself with Flamethrower.
And of course, there's the complete reliance on Focus Blast to deal with Darks and Steels which means 30% of the time you're to miss and die. I can't see any reason why a serious player would entertain the idea of using Alakazam in a competitive team. I think, like a few RB Pokemon 'Zam has a certain amount of fanboy support.
Donphan - Think you covered everything here. I think another of Donphan's failings is good old moveslot syndrome. Stealth Rock / Rapid Spin / Ice Shard / Earthquake is just set-up fodder for anything that can handle Ground attacks and isn't 4x weak to Ice (Gyarados most notably but other dangerous shit like Breloom and Azelf view him as a free switch). Would be nice if he got Payback too as Assurance is a little unreliable.
Electivire - I struggle to accept that 'Vire is overated by virture of the fact that almost every single Smogoner thinks he's a useless piece of crap.
There was a stage in the metagame where he was quite dangerous and some people seem eager to hang on to those memories. Nowadays he's in a situation where nearly everything that uses Electrical attacks can beat him one-on-one so it's difficult for him to get a favorable Motor Drive boost. If you come in on Celebi's T-Wave you'll end up dying to Grass Knot before Celebi dies to Ice Punch (interesting fact - 'Vire takes 100BP from GK). If you come in on one of the Rotom's Electrical attacks you'll be getting hit by WoW and repeated Shadow Balls before you can take Rotom down. It's a sharp contrast to the days when the main Electric attacks came from Thunder-Wave Blissey and Starmies.
I think Vire's saving grace is his ability to counter Zapdos quite well. A lot of offensive teams are weak to defensive Zapdos so they could usually benefit from Electivire's inclusion. He does make for a decent late game sweeper but there are a lot of other Pokemon who are equally as good or better in that situation that don't need to rely on the opponent throwing out a timely Electrical attack.
Ninjask - lol. I guess he's good in BP chains, right?
Dusnoir - Rotom blah blah blah.
Porygon-Z - I disagree.
You list Tyranitar and Heatran as counters. If that were true I'd be inclined to agree with you but both of those Pokemon are slower (obvious Scarftran mention here) and are OHKO'd by Downloaded HP Fighting.
I brought this up in Shoddy chat yesterday so forgive me if you've heard all this before but I think the reason for Porygon-Z's often underwhelming performances is the prevalence of Adaptability. January's stats show that 68.3% of PZ uses Adaptability while only 31.7% used Download. This baffles me because I've played around with both and Download is so much better it's not even funny. Just to clarify because a lot of people are still confused as to how Download works -
To dumb that down even further, if you switch into Skarmory you get +1 SpA. If you switch into Blissey you get +1 Atk. This works just fine for PZ because as a special attacker he's obviously going to be switching into Pokemon with poor SpD. People complain that Download is unreliable but how much more favorable can it get?
Here's something I can't wait to build a team around when I get Shoddying again (taken straight from the analysis).
Porygon-Z @ Life Orb
Modest
Download!
4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
- Agility
- Tri Attack
- Dark Pulse
- HP Fight
Seems to have potential with Magnezone support to get rid of Scizor, Bronzong, Jirachi and Metagross all of whom do a decent job of walling this set. It's a straightforward set so I'll just skip the intro and go straight to damage calcs. All calcuations are going to assume he grabbed the Download boost.
Tri Attack vs 4/0 Salamence = 104% - 122%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Salamence = 87% - 103%
HP Fight vs 4/0 Heatran = 96% - 113%
Tri Attack vs 4/0 Gyarados = 87% - 102%
Tri Attack vs 216/0 Gyarados = 76% - 90%
HP Fight vs 252/0 Tyranitar = 110% - 130%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Swampert = 77% - 91%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Zapdos = 81% - 96%
Dark Pulse vs 252/0 Celebi = 95% - 111%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Vaporeon = 64% - 76%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Machamp = 83% - 98%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Kingdra = 84% - 100%
Dark Pulse vs 252/176 Rotom-A = 101% - 119%
Tri Attack vs 252/0 Suicune = 63% - 74%
That's a lot of power right off the bat. Note that he's already faster than the vast majority of the Pokemon there so he isn't completely dependant on Agility but it's nice to block revenge kill attempts.
One last thing!
Aldaron said:
Welcome back!
allow me to strengthen the argument for yanmega. Even in this metagame full of priority, Yanmega still remains one of the best pokemon to put on the offense, i'm referring to the Yanmega Lead set.
Yanmega @ Focus Sash
Ability: Speed Boost
Nature: Modest
EVs: 104 Def/252 SpAtk/156 Spd
Moves:
- Bug Buzz
- HP Ground
- Air Slash/Hypnosis
- Protect
Speed Boost, Focus Sash and Protect ensure that almost nothing outspeeds it bar priority moves, plus it gives rain teams, and sunny day teams something else to think about since they rely on their speed to stop you. Bug Buzz/HP Ground and Air Slash cover so many things it's not funny. Plus Yanmega packs a whole lot of power, so much so that teams without a Zapdos, Blissey or a strong special sponge to take hits will probably have to play carefully around him. In retaliation to LoveDestiny, well first as you can see, Yanmega doesn't have to run Hypnosis to be annoying. Two, Scizor's Bullet Punch 3HKOs and is 2HKOed by Air Slash and Salamence isn't fast enough to break the sash and kill it before it is also 2HKOed. Heatran is downed by HP, and only Zapdos can truly do something to it. Yanmega isn't only good because of Speed Boost, i mean, it is walled by a lot of things, but sets like these,
Yanmega @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 SpAtk/252 Spd/4 Def
Moves:
- Bug Buzz
- Air Slash
- HP Ground
- U-Turn
this would be hell to switch into for anything except Blissey and special defense oriented pokes.
The point of this talk about Yanmega is i feel even though SR screws it up, even though it's walled by Bliss, etc. (which special attacker isn't) it still remains a fantastic special sweeper, and a great pokemon to start off the battle with.
Yanmega needs more love!
My problem with many of the reasonings of this thread is that it simply seems to be saying "this Pokemon is overrated [perceived as better than it is] because of the following negative aspects of it". Which isn't a very huge step up, if at all, from "Garchomp is not uber since it's Ice weak".
You should also take into account that Pokemon like Donphan and 'Vire only fall into OU because of the way the algorithm works. There's been a thread in Policy Review that this might change in the future, since it doesn't really accurately present what Pokemon are really being used a lot (I believe it is like, seen one in 20 battles right now? the things I would instinctively call OU are those I see at least one in four).
I guess you mean "terrible defensive type" here.
You should also take into account that Pokemon like Donphan and 'Vire only fall into OU because of the way the algorithm works. There's been a thread in Policy Review that this might change in the future, since it doesn't really accurately present what Pokemon are really being used a lot (I believe it is like, seen one in 20 battles right now? the things I would instinctively call OU are those I see at least one in four).
TAY said:
I guess you mean "terrible defensive type" here.
Actually OU's definition is "Pokemon that are likely to be in at least 1 in every 20 teams", not 1 in every 20 battles. :)
Also, contrary to what many people think, OU is not the list of Pokemon that are frequently used (there are only 6 or 7 Pokemon that are frequently used). OU is the list of Pokemon that are not rarely used.
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