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Physical or Special...which causes the metagame the most grief?

Fatal Edge

Well this is a little question I thought about when I was team building. I know the obvious answer would probably be Physical due to Scizor, Salamence and Tyranitar but you can not forget about Heatran, Empoleon and the Rotom formes.

Let's take a little in depth look.

The Big Three. [Physical]

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Scizor-With Base 130 Atk and a STAB Technician boosted priority move I think we all can agree that Scizor is a threat to be reckoned with. Some notable counters are Gyarados, Zapdos and Rotom-H while the best checks are HP Fire Magnezone and Heatran. Magnezone and Heatran get destroyed by Superpower on the switch though and if Gyarados is weakened then SD Bullet punch can possible take him out. Not to mention there is always the threat of Quick Attack.


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Salamence- Salamence is arguably the best physical sweeper out there. It has pretty decent speed and has Base 135 Atk which is the highest of any OU pokemon and is only matched by Metagross. Salamence sports Dragon Dance which boosts Atk and Speed by one stage. After a single dragon dance it can tear apart entire teams with Outrage alone. The only thing that can stop this guy is Bronzong since it doesn't take much from Fire Blast compared to other steel types and it resists Stone Edge, Earthquake and Outrage. Bronzong can then proceed to Gyro Ball. The thing that makes Salamence so good is it's unpredictability.

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Tyranitar- Tyranitar is right behind Salamence in terms of attacking strength. Base 134 Atk means that anything that switches into this guy is taking a severe blow. With the addition of Aqua tail to it's arsenal the small list of counters has become even smaller. Hippowdon and Gliscor are both 2HKOd. Your counters for this guy are Swampert and bulky fighting types such as Machamp. Scizor can also Bullet Punch weaker TTars.

The Big Three [Special]

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Heatran- This guy is obviously first. Heatran is like the Anti-Metagame pokemon with the Steel/Dragon revolution. Heatran beats 'em both with Fire Blast and HP Ice respectively. He can status, revenge kill or function as a special sweeper which is his real shining point. Most bulky waters take down but the notion of HP Grass can make them think twice.

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Zapdos- Zapdos is the most used flying type pokemon. Base 125 Special attack and Base 100 speed makes it a fantastic sweeper and when coupled with Base 90 HP and defenses it also makes a great tank. Blissey and Tyranitar are your best counters for Zapdos. Since most other "counters" depend on Hidden Powers.

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Gengar- Speed and Power. That's what gengar is all about. Base 130 Special Attack and Base 110 speed make Gengar one of the best special sweepers in the metagame. In platinum Gengar gained Trick which means Blissey isn't your best counter anymore. In fact the best counters for Gengar are steel types. Not pure steel types though. Scizor, Metagross, Jirachi and Bronzong are all fantastic counters for Gengar.

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Now think about your experiences in Team Building. Do you try to handle Scizor, Tyranitar and Salamence or do you try to counter Gengar, Heatran and Zapdos. Personally I go for Physical threats but that's just me. What do you think causes the metagame more trouble? Physical or Special?

Scoreboard.

Physical-6
Special-1

Discuss.

This is my first thread in this section. So sorry if it doesn't meet up to the standards.
 
You're missing Gyarados and Lucario, not to mention mixed sweepers such as Infernape. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make 'cause it's obvious that the metagame is physically based. There is no physical counterpart for Blissey and Swords Dance is everywhere while Nasty Plot is rare.
 
When i go about making teams I tend to go countering the special threats as i find it impossible trying to do so with pokemon as versatile as Salamence And Tyranitar.I tend to rely on revenge killing with dealing with them but have set in stone counters for the others since the sets they run are generaly always the same.
 
I've found myself having more pokemon on my teams with +def natures than +sp def even before Platinum. I think the D/P OU metagame has always been physically based while the Ubers metagame is specially based.
 
Ive found physical harder to handle than special. The top 3 physical sweepers can all beat even the most threatening physical walls (scizor 2hkos skarm with sd lo superpower, ttar 2hkos hippo with cb tail, etc)
 
I mostly try and handle the physical side of the spectrum, heavy hitters like Lucario, Gyarados, and Salamence are very common nowadays and I find my self very cautious when building teams. For the special side, well I try to stop them using immunities like Vaporeon, and Mamoswine. But in the end I consider the physical side more important to stop.
 
Well, I do think that it is a bit too soon to assume what is better since not everything was taken into account here, just the more used ones. I do agree that Diamond/Pearl does feel more physical ever since the Special/Physical split, but it goes without saying that both are very important to have.
 
Physical seems more common and I think that's because of a combination of things such as better stat boosters (Dragon Dance, Swords Dance is more common) and the ability to ignore Blissey altogether. However, outside of Blissey and Tyranitar, it's pretty hard to find a very reliable pokemon to take special attacks. On the physical side you've got Bronzong, Metagross, Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Skarmory, the list goes on. So while I think the metagame is slighted towards physical, I also think people are usually better prepared for it and have better tools to deal with it. That said, I actually think special attackers are "better" to use right now and will cause people more fits. Special based teams only need to remove Blissey from the equation and then they can tear through most opponents who bulked up on the physical spectrum.
 
physical..especially with outrages and bullet punches running around. Special attacks are getting less and are basically only fire type moves for Scizor and the increase of steel types.
 
Carl said:
Physical seems more common and I think that's because of a combination of things such as better stat boosters (Dragon Dance, Swords Dance is more common) and the ability to ignore Blissey altogether. However, outside of Blissey and Tyranitar, it's pretty hard to find a very reliable pokemon to take special attacks. On the physical side you've got Bronzong, Metagross, Hippowdon, Rhyperior, Skarmory, the list goes on. So while I think the metagame is slighted towards physical, I also think people are usually better prepared for it and have better tools to deal with it. That said, I actually think special attackers are "better" to use right now and will cause people more fits. Special based teams only need to remove Blissey from the equation and then they can tear through most opponents who bulked up on the physical spectrum.
Click to expand...

Wow that's something I never though of. Good point.
 
Physical is very threatening mainly because it has little to no 'dedicated' physical walls, or rather walls that can pretty much wall any physical move outright. Garchomp, supposedly one of the better physical sweepers, has a fair number of special counterparts, but all of them can be 'dealt with'. For example, Blissey isn't even 2HKO'd by a 'Kazam FB.

And you should stick Lati@s on the special list.
 
Most special oriented pokemon have great difficulty dealing with Blissey, and she is so common nowadays. If you did run the special team Carl the opponent would only have to keep Blissey alive and remove pokeomn that threatens Blissey.

I think that Blissey alone is the main reason special pokemon are less viable, not to mention Snorlax and the other Special sponges.
 
I agree with Carl, at the state of the metagame, a well made specially based team has the potential to beat nearly every team out there.

Physical is definitely more threatening, but more people are prepared for it.
 
Bullshit. Special attacking is so much more deadly than Physical attacking. Things like Specs Jolteon, Nasty Plot anything, Agility Empoleon, Calm Mind Suicune / Celebi / Raikou cause so much grief to an opposing team. All you have to do is blow up on a fat pink whore and the game is over. If you've seen my recent RMT, I abused Specs Jolteon to the fullest. Once Heatran blows up on Blissey there is literally about 5 more turns left in the battle. Thats how potent special sweepers are. A team of Gengar, Heatran, Azelf all with Explosion, then Calm Mind Raikou, Specs Jolt and Agility Empoleon is probably pretty viable and would cause serious mayhem in the current Metagame.
 
Physical Because the physical can boost there power up and actually kill the physical walls.


None Of those special sweepers can boost there special attack high to kill a blissey off..
 
Biglsworth said:
Physical Because the physical can boost there power up and actually kill the physical walls.


None Of those special sweepers can boost there special attack high to kill a blissey off..
Click to expand...
Any Calm minder can set up on blissey if it can make 101 subs or has rest.
 
RaikouLover said:
Bullshit. Special attacking is so much more deadly than Physical attacking. Things like Specs Jolteon, Nasty Plot anything, Agility Empoleon, Calm Mind Suicune / Celebi / Raikou cause so much grief to an opposing team. All you have to do is blow up on a fat pink whore and the game is over. If you've seen my recent RMT, I abused Specs Jolteon to the fullest. Once Heatran blows up on Blissey there is literally about 5 more turns left in the battle. Thats how potent special sweepers are. A team of Gengar, Heatran, Azelf all with Explosion, then Calm Mind Raikou, Specs Jolt and Agility Empoleon is probably pretty viable and would cause serious mayhem in the current Metagame.
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this. pack a few 101 hp sub guys in there like entei or something and then go. seriously, I've gotten onto the leaderboard with a team of 4 subcmers, which is more viable than you'd think, mainly because of the fact that nothing besides blissey can take more than a couple special attacks. and THE most threatening two pokemon in today's metagame, rain kingdra and agility petaya empoleon are both special attackers, just thought i'd throw that out there.
 
Special is definitely the more threatening spectrum. It is also extremely underappreciated - any pokemon that has equal or near equal defenses you will find investing in its physical defense rather than its SpD. Celebi, Jirachi, Zapdos, Spiritomb, Dusknoir, Rotom, Suicune, etc - they all invest in physical defense instead of special defense. Almost every team out there is vulnerable to CM sweeps, and most teams often have to revert to Explosions to get rid of CMers. I agree with Stath that a team of 4 CMers would actually be a very deadly force in todays metagame - I'd like to see any team successfully fend off Suicune, Jirachi and Raikou in the same battle.

On a related note, on the suspect test you can see for yourself how effective a CMer can be. Eliminate the following 3 pokemon: Tyranitar, Weavile and Scizor, and you pretty much have yourself a clean sweep with Latias.

LR.
 
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