Pokémon Pheromosa

[Wob]

i've been watching forums for some time but never really felt the need to post, since i always agreed with the tiers in pretty much all generations, someone did an excellent job all those years

i only have my point of view that of someone who mostly plays aggressive teams and in my opinion Pheromosa is ridiculous:

she can be used as revenge killer and sweeper with minimal opportunity cost, yes she's very fragile and has a few counters but other than that she destroys anything, Beast Boost is a crazy ability, if she kills something, anything she spirals out of control and is able to kill even walls, especially paired with support and some pokemons that counter her counters in my opinion she's unstoppable

even if she's just coming in after KO's to U-turn she's going to do tons of damage, while against other non-bulky sweepers she seems able to one hit KO with unresisted stabs

essentially she's a wallbreaker that can also kill most sweepers out there, even if only a couple of pokemons in your team are soft to her you're going to have some serious trouble

she's supposed to be countered by priority moves but there's also Tapu Lele which is a great pokemon to play even without the obvious synergy with Pheromosa

overall i think that her offensive power is simply too good for the OU meta and therefore i believe that she should be banned

Hey, and welcome to Smogon! This thread isn't for discussing potential suspects/bans. You might want to take a look at the forum rules.

 

[Drillbreaker]

priorities

switch

scrafs

Pherm gets a guaranteed revenge kill on something and gets a Speed boost. gg

marowak

So you're suggesting only two Pokemon that can reliably counter her? Great teambuilding options there. Not to mention that there's 5 more slots for whatever number of checks there may be for those counters.

 

[Siggu]

Pheromosa's stint in OU so far is really curious - from what probably was the most hyped thing ever to being seen as overrated to becoming a sleeper threat and now it's on the spotlight again.

Also, I wouldn't call priority as something that can beat Pheromosa as Bug/Fighting has a nice set of resistances to priority moves, and given those moves' low base power, they struggle to OHKO a healthy Pheromosa unless supereffective (which is limited to Aerilate or Gale Wings attacks) or boosted with something like Technician or Huge Power... and that may not be enough.

252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pheromosa: 255-301 (90.1 - 106.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

The pivot set is naturally easier to bring to KO range, though.

If Pheromosa has an issue, it is that its coverage is not good enough, and the fact it finds running a boosting item quite hard, 137 base offenses can fall short of KOs.

 

[Martin]

Nah, Pheromosa still hates priority.

Going down the list of priority moves (common ones in red):

Super Effective:

• Gale Wings
• Aerilate Quick Attack/Feint
• Triage Draining Kiss

Neutral:

• Water Shuriken
• Extreme Speed
• Quick Attack
• Fake Out
• Aqua Jet
• Bullet Punch
• Ice Shard
• Shadow Sneak

Resisted:

• Mach Punch
• Vacuum Wave
• Sucker Punch

Now, what you see here is that out of the "common" priority moves, it only resists one of them. While, yes, it can take a neutral priority move from full barring particularly strong ones like Battle Bond Water Shuriken, it sure as hell doesn't enjoy taking them one bit and is typically put into range of them with a few SR switch-ins and/or rounds of LO recoil. This means that they really put it in a spot and provide a solid way of offensively checking it in general.

Other ways to offensively check it include Scarfers, Alolan Marowak, Pokemon which resist whatever move it locks itself into if it is Choiced etc. It's pretty nuts as a mon, but it is very much checkable. That said, it always has--and always will--give offense a massive headache for a reason.

 

[professorevilbadpaingiver]

But are Scarfers really supposed to check this thing? Most of them don't appreciate direct switch-ins against Pheromosa, and if you wait for a free switch after it has already gotten a KO, then it's too fast thanks to beast boost. To me, it seems like Priority or Marowak are kinda the only answers (outside of stall teams that is).

 

[Martin]

or it could get a boost to its (special) attack and proceed to be scarf food anyway.

If it's scarf locked it can be taken advantage of, if it's +SpA (or +Atk I guess, but physical Phero is hot arse imo), like it should be the vast majority of the time, it gets revenge killed by a scarfer.

 

[professorevilbadpaingiver]

Outside of scarfed Pheromosa (and Quiver Dance sets which I have only seen a couple of), I've only played people using it's Beast Boost for speed. And that kinda speed is not easy to get around.

 

[pubby]

But are Scarfers really supposed to check this thing? Most of them don't appreciate direct switch-ins against Pheromosa, and if you wait for a free switch after it has already gotten a KO, then it's too fast thanks to beast boost. To me, it seems like Priority or Marowak are kinda the only answers (outside of stall teams that is).

I agree. Choice Scarf doesn't do anything to check +1 speed Pheromosa. However, what a Choice Scarf does achieve is preventing Pheromosa from checking its holder.

Consider Scarf Latios vs Life Orb Pheromosa. Latios cannot revenge kill +1 Pheromosa, but at the same time +0 Pheromosa cannot revenge kill Scarf Latias. Just something to take note of.

 

[vso]

Outside of scarfed Pheromosa (and Quiver Dance sets which I have only seen a couple of), I've only played people using it's Beast Boost for speed. And that kinda speed is not easy to get around.

Actually, quiver dance is pretty much it's best set, just doesn't get the usage on the ladder. There is also specs which generally get a spa boost(sometimes they run + speed, but + spa is more common on specs.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

Currently I'm running shednija stall and I'm struggling to give up something to handle Zygarde,s sub toxic set

I have magma storm heatran that bodies fini/torpex/chansey with taunt/rocks/earth power

But in terms of raw trapping the only really important match-ups duggy helps me with is:tartar, fire moth, heatran,weakened magearna and random kill confirms or PP stalling with baton passing shednija

But I'm sitting here debating on trying focus sash special Pheromosa with ice beam, focus blast, hp rock(moth) and maybe double kick/triple kick if it can kill sash exadrill

It just seems like I could cover a lot more of my bad match-ups with it and the biggest loss would be losing revenge vs tartar(who breaks the sash) but mega sableye should often cripple it worthless

Is there something else I should be thinking about?

 

[Hydreigonfan01]

Now that Pheromosa has been banned shouldn't the thread be locked?

 

[Gary]

No.