All Gens Pokemon Through the Ages: Flygon

Typhlito

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Anywho, nothing can stop this ttar train. It literally has everything it could ever want. Dragon dance with a variety of moves to chose from for a sweep. It can sub punch. It can go special tar. It could go sp defensive with that sweet bulk boost he gets under sand. He has a huge movepool to support what ever role you give it. The only thing it really lacks is priority if it wants to go offensive or reliable recovery if it want to be a tank but ttar can do its job well without these things.

While its typing isnt the best, it does have its perks. A stab pursuit lets it take care of many psychic or weakened pokemon that try to flee. Its pursuit gives many pokemon headaches such as gengar and the lati-twins. While the x4 fighting weakness is pretty bad (especially during bw2 with terrakion and keldeo being everywhere) but since most fighting type moves aim for his defensives side instead of his sp defensive side, it doesnt mind. It could even tank a focus blast if it needs to with the right evs and nature.

In short, its a pokemon that you have to prepare for no matter what.
 

Jirachee

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Just wanna add to what BKC said about BW. Tyranitar is like the ultimate support Pokemon. Sand Stream is a godsend in a tier with Drought Ninetales and Drizzle Politoed, because many "weatherless" teams appreciate the weather removed, and Tyranitar, being an excellent standalone Pokemon, often finds a spot on those teams. Sand can be abused too, as seen in early BW1 with Excadrill (which was probably the most dangerous Pokemon in the tier after Rain + SwSw was gone) and Sand Veil Garchomp / Gliscor. Tyranitar is often seen on those Sand abused teams simply because it fits offensive teams better than Hippowdon. In BW2 the kind of support changed a bit, with Tyranitar's role shifting mainly to being a Pursuiter on "sand" offense teams with Keldeo and Landorus. CBTar + Scarf Keldeo + U-turn Landorus is one of the most well-known and powerful offensive core from the post Tornadus-T era. While the Landorus ban nerfed this core a little, it's still quite strong because Keldeo is a stupidly good Pokemon with the Lati twins removed. Sand abuse teams have also regained a lot of popularity thanks to the resurgence of Stoutland. All in all I consider Tyranitar to be one of the most defining Pokemon in BW because people have found a way to abuse its support qualities since the beginning of the tier.

I also wanna add to what he said about DPP. Tyranitar is responsible for checking a ton of dangerous threats, especially for offense teams. Many rely on it for checking Electrics like Zapdos or Rotom-A which are very hard to check, or fast and powerful attackers like Starmie and Gengar with the Scarf set. Something that checks so many things while still providing one of the most threatening offensive presences in the tier is just a godsend for offenses. Not only that, but Tyranitar is an important 'mon for semi-stalls and full stalls, because things like Life Orb Starmie and Rotom-A are complete dicks to them. Everyone likes Tyranitar, everyone uses Tyranitar, and I think it's just the best Pokemon there is.
 

Bedschibaer

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About GSC tar: Jorgen wrote this thing on the mount silver boards, which i think is a quite accurate "spectrum" of the most popular variations of ttar.

Ttar in GSC is probably the most versatile mon in the whole metagame because of the huge variety of things it can do. Like already mentioned it often fails to perform certain roles as good as things that are dedicated to said role (e.g.: Rhydon is the better rock type to do curse+roar, Nidoking and friends are better mixed attackers, etc). I think what makes ttar so good is that you can combinate those roles, tailor the mon to fix issues of your team and still keep an unpredictability. I don't think any mon in the tier has access to a that big arsenal of actually viable moves, letting it be a snorlax check with curse, a mixed attacker and wallbreaker, the arguably best user of pursuit, which is a rather unique role in gsc, there are even more gimmickier variants of ttar like screech which forces alot switches, full special ttar which is unexpected or the rather luck reliant ancient power. And the thing is that all of those can be put to use with fairly good success, which lets the stone godzilla find a way onto many gsc teams.
 
The physical/special set was one of the biggest blessings for Tyranitar. STAB Pursuit off of 134 attack? Yes please.

The split was significant for a lot of things but Tyranitar benefited more than the average mon.
 

Jorgen

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Ttar isn't really all that versatile in GSC. That would imply it has a ton of really viable sets, but it really only has one good set and a couple mediocre ones.

All things considered it's a pretty bad mixed attacker. STAB too weak, no status moves, ergo too much reliance on SE coverage moves... which, as in the case of Thunderbolt, often aren't even strong enough to do what they're supposed to. Plus, if you are using it as a mixed attacker, you aren't using it as a Snorlax counter, which means you have to run something else to counter Snorlax, which in turn really screws with team synergy.

It's also not a great Curser. Again, it doesn't get a very good STAB, plus it's weak to Toxic, so odds are you'll get worn down before your counters do. Toxic Ttar might help with this somewhat, but it's still a pretty flawed Pokemon.

The only set remaining is the support set: something along the lines of Roar/Pursuit/attack/attack. STAB isn't even necessary, frankly it's probably better if you don't run STAB as Ttar is actually pretty good at killing things with surprise coverage moves (although not being able to beat Zapdos is kind of embarrassing). You need Roar for Lax, and Pursuit to make using Ttar over, say, Steelix worth your while. Steelix is a far better spikes shuffler and Curse sweeper, plus it's actually immune to Thunder and Toxic, so you really need to emphasize Ttar's Pursuit support (which is great, despite my downselling of Ttar) to justify using it as your Snorlax-countering Phazer (and before you say anything, yes, the two tend to compete for a teamslot more often than be used in tandem).
 
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GSCTar is the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none. Give him Roar or Curse and he checks Snorlax. Give him Pursuit and he snipes at fleeing foes. Give him DynamicPunch and Snorlax becomes nervous. Give him Fire Blast to roast Skarmory and Exeggutor. Give him Crunch to punish Misdreavus...and so on. Very difficult to switch something not named Machamp or Suicune into Tyranitar, and even then Thunderbolt can deal some damage to Suicune.
Sleep Talk Vaporeon also hardwalls if Spikes aren't down and is annoying even if they are. Quagsire laughs unless Tar Crunches.

As Jorgen said its best set is Roar/Pursuit/stuff. Its two best attributes are Rock typing and powerful STAB Pursuit; Roar allows it to use that Rock typing.

There is also the gimmicky AncientPower set. If it gets the boosts it can often sweep right there because suddenly it outspeeds everything and doesn't hit like a weenie anymore. AP + 3 attacks, usually Earthquake and Thunderbolt for Raikou and Skarmory/Suicune respectively but the fourth is up to the user (I've seen Crunch suggested since it gets rid of Egg and helps break CurseLax).

Tyranitar's existence handicaps Starmie and Exeggutor because they have to devote the slot they would use for HP Fire or Thunder Wave or whatever to Surf and Giga Drain respectively or be trapped and KOed by PursuitTar. Also makes Espeon cry rivers. Can do some work in Ubers thanks to its widely-SE STAB; the problem is that although they're STAB and SE on everything Rock Slide and Crunch have low enough Base Power that often the Ubers still won't care.

Ttar completely dominates 3 gens and is top 7 in the other.
ADV and DPP I know about. What's the third gen it "completely dominates"?
 
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ADV and DPP I know about. What's the third gen it "completely dominates"?
I don't know if it completely dominates, but Tyranitar is a really big deal in BW as well. It was actually voted 2nd in the Top 10 Titans of the 5th Gen OU Metagame thing a while back if I remember correctly, and Politoed being voted before it had less to do with Politoed being good and more to do with the fact that Drizzle was so amazing and metagame defining. I'd personally consider Tyranitar to be right up there with Jirachi as one of the best all around Pokemon of BW OU. Jirachee made a good analysis on Tyranitar, so I hate to pretty much repeat what he said, but Tyranitar was a great team player with the various forms of support that it offered. As has been mentioned before, Sand was a valuable form of support in BW1 for things such as Sand Veil users, Excadrill, and even Sand Force Landorus (which was later overshadowed by Sheer Force variants). Even in BW2, Stoutland was a pretty cool Sand abuser, and Sand stall throughout the generation generally just appreciated the extra passive damage which helped to chip away at opponents. Heck, you really didn't need to abuse Sand to take advantage of it. Rain and Sun allowed for a group of very powerful weather-based playstyles, and just having the ability to cancel out the opponent's weather with Sand could ruin your opponent's game plan and turn entire matches around. I often found myself slapping Tyranitar on otherwise completely weather-neutral teams just because it helps in matchups against opposing weather teams. Pursuit is also fantastic. Jirachee already mentioned the Tyranitar + Landorus + Keldeo cores and removing the Lati twins, both of which are notable feats, but it also helped a lot in weather wars as well. For example, max HP Politoed is taking an upwards of ~86% from a Choice Band Pursuit on the switch, which will generally either KO or cause it to die the next time it comes in due to hazard damage and such. It probably goes without saying, but Ninetales doesn't do much better even with significant physical bulk investment. The ability to trap the opponent's weather starter and either KO or weaken them to the point where they won't be able to safely come in and set their weather up anymore is fantastic in a metagame where a solid chunk of teams are running one of Rain or Sun. Tyranitar could also act as a your Stealth Rock user, but I generally preferred to put Stealth Rock on something else. Like BKC mentioned, the lead set seemed to sort of lose its luster near the end of BW, but the specially defensive set could generally find ample opportunities to switch in and set Stealth Rock. Besides the support it offers, Tyranitar also has a nice variety of viable sets such as Choice Band, Choice Scarf, and specially defensive mixed sets. It also just had a great combination of raw power and insane bulk under Sand that made it a great tank in general.

So yeah, I'd say BW OU is the third generation where it dominated. Easily one of the top Pokemon in the metagame.
 
My favorite competitive mon. Let's get into it.

ADV Tyranitar was pretty much the best mon, for power and sheer versatility. In ADV, you switch in Flygon, you risk that it may be a special/mixed variant with Ice Beam. Send in Claydol EVed to take a few Crunches and you find out it has DD. Send in Skarm or Pert to Phaze it out and you get hit by CB Focus Punch....to beat Tar in ADV you had to learn its set first and you were guaranteed to lose something learning it. Dugtrio was the closest thing to a true check, because it couldn't switch in and now all T-Tars are EVed to survive CB EQ from Dugtrio....and Dugtrio can't get off a second cause it just died. Literally, this thing was the best. No mistake this thing had the highest ADV OU usage in both SPL and WCoP.....it's just so versatile and good at everything.

DPP it stayed versatile, but now it could abuse Physical Crunch and Pursuit, add a Choice Scarf to revenge kill Starmie, Rotom and Jirachi, three of the tier's top 5. Plus, with the addition of stuff like Stealth Rocks and bulkier Pokemon, Sand Stall became a lot more viable and effective, and Tyranitar was a lot more versatile than Hippowdon, and therefore saw a lot more usage.

BW it kinda fell from top dog status, due to not really getting a lot beyond BW2 Move Tutor Coverage options, while dealing with all the new Fighting Types and other threats: Lando-T, Terrakion, Keldeo, Conkeldurr, plus older ones like Breloom. However, it was still versatile, keeping all of it's DPP options: SR, Scarf and CB, and lastly Special Tank. Tyranitar also found 2 invaluable new niches: Checking the Lati Twins and stopping enemy weather, which were both extremely important, especially in BW2, where Rain Offense and 350 Speed LO/Specs Latios were running amok. Tyranitar trapped Latios and screwed weather based sweepers by turning off their speed and boosted attacks. This thing has been a dominant threat since it came out, solid in GSC, top dog in ADV and DPP, almost top dog in BW, and still extremely powerful in XY even.
 
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Rounding out our look at weather mons, we have Ninetales. UU for the first 3 gens and NU in DPP, Ninetales jumped up to OU in BW after gaining Drought as an ability. So, how did it function (both in the lower and higher tiers) throughout the gens? What were its best sets, counters, roles, teammates, etc.? Everything about Ninetales is up for discussion this week.

 
nasty plot ninetales was fun in dpp uu. shame hypnosis is aids...

in bw it only really uses one set with some variation, usually some defensive wisp/protect/fire stab/roar junk. grimm was the first to introduce sunny day ninetales in bw1 to screw over toed/tar switchins. speaking of bw1, the legendary stone_cold enjoyed sub/nasty plot/fire blast/hp fighting @ fire gem to set up on and destroy deoxys-d leads. lamppost used the set in the immortal tiebreaker against panamaxis except it didnt do shit but die from a uturn out of mew into dugtrio,,,, what a shame
 

Isa

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Ninetales in RBY OU is an incredibly niche anti lead, as it almost OHKOs Jynx with Fire Blast, and can use CRay T1 to get the extra damage needed. Obviously decent matchup versus Exeggutor too, otherwise nothing to write home about.
 

Typhlito

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From the few battles that I played adv uu, I found ninetales to be pretty neat. It is pretty fast and hits hard as well. Since ttar is not in the tier, it is free to abuse sunny day. The thing about this guy is that after 1 calm mind pass, it can effectively wreak most pokemon in the tier with just fire blast/flamethrower and hp grass. It can run quick attack as well since uu was filled with reversal/quick attack users. It can also burn switch ins with wilo wisp which is nice. Too bad it sucks in ou though.
 

Jirachee

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Ninetales in BW OU is the definition of absolute garbage (unlike Politoed which is actually a pretty decent Pokemon) and is in my opinion the sole reason why Sun teams aren't dominant. The only weather starter it beats is Abomasnow (wow!) and the best it can do against the other 3 is... Will-O-Wisp. This is the reason why people usually stack on trappers on Sun teams (and why they almost always carry Dugtrio.) If Ninetales wasn't so bad Sun teams could a lot more possible builds but they just aren't very viable outside of the standard build. On top of that, Ninetales is SR weak and a free switch in to things you usually don't want to let in like Latios. It doesn't check a lot of stuff, but I guess checking most Sun abusers (ironically) is great for Sun vs Sun match ups.

fuck ninetales
 
Ninetales in RBY OU is an incredibly niche anti lead, as it almost OHKOs Jynx with Fire Blast, and can use CRay T1 to get the extra damage needed. Obviously decent matchup versus Exeggutor too, otherwise nothing to write home about.
Yeah, this. It's one of the better Fires since it has a good Special (only Flareon and Moltres are higher) and a good Speed (tied with Charizard, Rapidash is faster but it sucks) along with Body Slam + Confuse Ray. It's the best anti-lead for Jynx since Charizard's weak to Blizzard and Rapidash sucks (there is also Dodrio but it's also weak to Blizzard). Charizard and Moltres are probably still better though since they both have decent setup options and Ninetales doesn't. Flareon's also competitive with Ninetales outside of the lead spot since it's got fuckoff-huge Attack and Special stats, the same access to Body Slam, and Quick Attack. In reality though you're not going to use any Fires in OU since their STAB burns Starmie and has bad coverage (Steels don't exist yet and all the Ices except Jynx are weak to Electric) and they don't have any good resistances either (Fire doesn't resist Ice yet).
 
Ninetales has no place in GSC OU.
In GSC UU it's usually outclassed by Arcanine, who has better attack and special attack and better bulk overall. The only relevant thing Ninetales has that Arcanine doesn't is access to Hypnosis (and Confuse Ray I guess). Not bad but nothing special either.
 

Mr.E

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Ninetales is best RBY OU Fire but that isn't saying much. Since they all get hossed by the Rocks and Waters anyway, Confuse Ray at least gives it the potential to be a huge jerk where Arcanine and friends fail.
 
Ninetales is best RBY OU Fire but that isn't saying much. Since they all get hossed by the Rocks and Waters anyway, Confuse Ray at least gives it the potential to be a huge jerk where Arcanine and friends fail.
The Rocks seen in OU - Rhydon and Golem - are not very effective counters to Fires. They're crippled by burn (and Fire Blast has a 30% burn rate), they're so specially flimsy that they often end up 4HKOed anyway (Moltres can even 3HKO!), and they're slow, which means they can't switch in when they're 2HKOed (which, as I said, is a pretty fair chunk of their health).

Cloyster is also crippled by burn thanks to Clamp's mechanics and is 3HKOed by all STAB Fire Blasts, so it's out too. Lapras can generally beat them but it's not really its typing doing the job there - it rarely runs a Water move and doesn't resist Fire. It's also hardwalled by Chansey if it's burned and doesn't have Rest.

It's Starmie and Slowbro that really laugh hard at the Fires.
 

Mr.E

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Well Starmie and Slowbro are the more popular two. Cloyster is ass anyway and doesn't even resist Fire. Even so, Confuse Ray gives Ninetales a valuable tool other Fires don't have to beat these menaces -- hax. Which is the only way you're killing shit in RBY anyway. I don't even like Wrap shit that much in the first place but Fire Spin is too inaccurate, Moltres is a noob.
 
Well Starmie and Slowbro are the more popular two. Cloyster is ass anyway and doesn't even resist Fire. Even so, Confuse Ray gives Ninetales a valuable tool other Fires don't have to beat these menaces -- hax. Which is the only way you're killing shit in RBY anyway. I don't even like Wrap shit that much in the first place but Fire Spin is too inaccurate, Moltres is a noob.
Fire Spin's accurate enough if you can spread burns. Which Moltres is pretty good at doing.

Toxic on Wrap-heavy teams becomes decent for much the same reason.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
ninetales sucked for 4 gens and then it got drought, but honestly even with drought it's still a shitty pokemon. yet the benefits that permasun grants are so fucking good that an entire team archetype is based off this garbage tier poke. chlorophyll venusaur/victreebel are super strong, cb victini v create kills everything, volcarona can actually deal damage with fiery dance, etc. yet you have to run like 2 pokemon just to support your ninetales so it doesn't die which really says a lot. usually it's dugtrio+spinner/xatu, i have seen many variations though including forry+espeon. sun games are so fucking boring though. the sun player's strategy is protect the ninetales, get guaranteed perma sun, sweep with a broken pokemon of your choice. with swift swim being banned but chlorophyll not banned, it makes the entire sun vs (insert weather) a war between tales and toed/hippo/ttar/aboma until one of them dies and then it's gg. this is why if you are playing anything other than full defensive ninetales you are a bad player. hippo really shits on sun but everything else kinda loses unless ttar can pursuit the tales or toed doesnt get will-o. defensive toed is way better in this situation but it's fallen out of favor in bw2 a little bit, which is why sun still probably carries the advantage. weatherless is fucked unless they have cb dragonite and latias, or some gimmicky shed shell tran set (specifically designed to counter sun and doesn't even beat sun 70% of the time, lol).

ninetales was at its best when genesect was released because the team i made and the team august made were both broken as fuck and had an 80%+ winrate against the best players. genesect uturn heatran into dugtrio, gg volc sweep. scarf genesect really made the team unbeatable as like most every genesect check/counter was raped by victini or dugtrio, you can spam uturn and go to whatever kills the thing they just sent in. too many big threats in one place which is only possible in the first place through the power of ninetales. then sun was probably at its worst after the genesect ban but before the landorus ban. it's not as bad as it was then, i think it's still terrible outside of surprise factor in a bo1 if you're predicting some ttar offense, but some players like sogeking dont think so and continue to use it. i can understand why you would want to play sun in a tournament format where it's a bo1 but other than that, it's a shitty team for ladder and overall i would give it a 35% winrate against a random hyper offense/sand/rain team. end rant
 
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UU for GSC and BW and BL for ADV and DPP, Crobat never really made it to OU. That's not to say it never had its niches, however. So let's discuss those, as well as its best sets, roles, counters, teammates, and anything else about it throughout history. Everything about this cave creeper is up for discussion this week!

 
Crobat in adv has a couple of rather underwhelming sets. The first one people tend to bring up is the choice band set. great speed, flying type to avoid spikes, a workable attack stat. It all looks great until you realize it's just a worse aerodactyl. They have similar counters and are both fast choice banders with workable but not great attack stats. It has a bit more bulk, but loses the sand immunity, has a neat defensive typing to counter things like heracross, but as a result loses out on aero's main asset, stab rock slide. This is is way better than stab sludgebomb. rock slide not only has much better coverage, hitting skarm and forre for neutral, among other things, it also has a much better secondary ability. flinches make or break games, while the poison, although it looks good on paper, can often be a detriment, as more often than not you would rather have something toxiced or burned. outside of the choice band set, it has a couple neat movepool options, that are usually more annoying than effective. It can subtoxic stall, it has taunt, and even confuse ray if you want to be really annoying. It can also haze to put a scary curselax or cune back down to less monstrous levels. Once again, this is more annoying than effective, as you can only do this until the crobat dies, which with less than amazing bulk, and no reliable recovery, won't take long, leaving the cune/lax able to start setting up again. Even if you manage to wear them down before that happens, that's a whole team slot wasted on crobat just to get rid of boosts. All in all you're usually better off without crobat.
 
In GSC OU it's pretty much garbage. Does it have a decent STAB? No, its strongest STAB is Hidden Power. Is it hard to wall? No, the Electrics and Skarmory come in pretty brazenly. Does it have a good defensive typing along with hazing/phazing? It has the hazing and phazing down pat, but its Poison type is largely redundant with Flying and doesn't protect it from the usual coverage moves of the things it resists (ie Rock Slide on Grounds/Machamp and Egg's Psychic), so it's not great at that either - and it's not winning any Roar wars with 130 Speed or taking many unresisted hits with its mediocre defenses. I guess it's a decent wall for Heracross and Muk, but it's not exactly like those are common.
 

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