Delphox should be moved up to B+: I've used this on a team as an experiment, and it worked out very well. It's arguably one of the best choice users in the entire tier, as you can build your stats around the choice item you put on and even invest in some special bulk (which it does not lack in btw). It has good neutral coverage in fire/psychic STAB moves (except for houndoom... *sigh*) and if it gets bored of being choiced, it can switcheroo its item to something that doesn't want it e.g. CM reuniclus, cresselia, spiritomb, etc. and it can run one coverage move. Most people recommend grass knot for Rhyperior but that is seeing less use atm bc of all the mega steelixes running around. I recommend dazzling gleam for actual damage to houndoom, which is able to 2HKO if specs, and for the ever more popular tyrantrum. (it was also used for Pangoro as well but that left lol.) Also, it has become one of the best special attacking fire and psychic types in the tier, respectively, sitting at a nice 114 special attack. It also has an awesome speed tier, allowing it to outspeed houndoom and do damage to it with dazzling gleam before it 2HKO's with dark pulse, and outspeed base 100's like Mega Glalie as well. Delphox should be moved to B+.
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Resource RU Viability Ranking: ORAS Edition
- Thread starter Molk
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You can only invest so much into Special Defense before you waste its good speed tier or hit substantially less hard. Not saying Fox doesn't have respectable Special Defense, just don't expect the affordable investment to make a difference.
If you want to hit Houndoom, use a Hidden Power (preferably Water) instead of Gleam, especially from unboosted Fox. That said, Houndooms have been known to carry Sucker Punch + Pursuit, so even if Fox hits Doom on the switch it is not guaranteed to come out on top.
I'll just elaborate on Houndoom's advantages over Delphox. First off, Houndoom's STAB combo is superior to Fox's, given that Houndoom pretty much needs no coverage while Delphox does. Nasty Plot also allows Doom to dish out way more damage than Fox could. Even defensively, Doom sports outright immunities to Fire and Psychic as opposed to Fox's resistances. Finally, Houndoom can be less susceptible to Dugtrio should it carry Sucker Punch, while any Fox that isn't Scarfed gets instantly picked off.
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I support a slight rise for Jynx from B- --> B rank. Though it does face some competition from other psychic types of the tier, Jynx has quite a bit to differentiate itself from sigilyph, meleotta, reuni, etc. One is ofc access to lovely kiss and combined with great offensive presence and some pretty good coverage options like focus blast and shadow ball on top of pretty solid STAB allows Jynx to perform especially well against slower teams and makes it pretty difficult to pivot around it. Furthermore, Jynx does well in beating and preventing hazards from most HO hazard leads with a combination of lovely kiss and good offensive typing. Access to dry skin allows Jynx to switch in on bulky waters like mola or toad with relative ease as well. I find these factors to make Jynx comparable to other B- ranked threats.
Going to continue my pattern of nominating unranked stuff to be ranked again (Huntail, Garbodor)
Unranked --> D
Despite looking like total crap from stats alone, Jumpluff can actually put in some good work. It holds a good speed tier in 110, can easily clean/sweep with a SD under its belt (and it has Sleep Powder to help it set up, on top of setup fodder, so it can save the Sleep for something that's actually a threat), and has decent abilities (it can get past subs w/Infiltrator). A simple set of SD/Sleep Powder/Seed Bomb/Acrobatics (itemless) can easily perform this well. It has some competition from Shiftry and Virizion as a Grass-Type SD Sweeper, and it doesn't hit hard without a SD up, so it shouldn't go any higher than D.
I totally agree with this. After testing out jumpluff it was actually surprisingly effective and it put in a fair amount of work. Not only is 110 a good speed tier but it can force a surprising amount of switches with the threat of sleep and the threat of it attempting to clean. It even has encore to help it set up. In fact I'd push it to C- or even C but C seems to generous so I'll go with D or C- for now.
iirc regular Steelix was ranked during XY (I think like C+ or C ?, idk it had an analysis) so I'm not opposed to adding it to the list at all. But I'm pretty curious why you want it to be ranked so highly when it is pretty situational at best. I mean realistically you will never use it over Mega Steelix when given the opportunity, and since there are only 4 megas worth using in RU including lix (maybe even 3, I think Camel is trash, but that's just me, lol), so it's rare that you would ever need to use regular Steelix. The only Archetypes that regular Steelix fits on are Mega Glalie balance (where Glalie is a wallbreaker, Regular Lix doesn't "fit" that well on offense) and Mega Abomasnow Balance/Bulky Offense, Mega Camerupt and Regular Steelix have redundant roles (and bad synergy) so I don't see myself pairing them. Basically I'm not opposed to adding Regular Steelix to the list at all, but given its very marginal niche in the meta game and the fact that it is mostly outclassed by its own mega, I'd see it as more of a C / C- Pokemon and not really anywhere near the A ranks.
Only thing that really sets alomomola back is that it's set up fodder for like half of the tier.
That is a really bad thing tbh. It's a really good pivot but I can't see it going that high with such a big downfall. I think it's fine where it is due to all of these set up sweepers.
I'd say it's fine where it's at
Edit : what does it do that I'm missing besides kill momentum , be a good pivot , and wish pass?
Basically, it's another option to use on mega abomasnow builds for switching into tyrantrum. It misses the 40 attack but it's pretty much the same bulk physically, has leftovers which let it keep sturdy up after rocks, and just make it more physically bulky than mega lix. It's not a knock off sponge but it's basically a more physically bulky, easier to counter version of mega lix that lets you run mega abomasnow. I think it's niche but it's probably very effective if you pair it with the right teammates.
It clicks scald and knock off and this is gen 6. I don't think it needs to do anything more than that.
Also, saying that it's set-up fodder is overstating it, because it can wish pass to a counter to whatever's trying to set up and your counter gets in and then is healed to full hp. If you're super worried about set-up then whimsicott is a great partner who loves wish passing and blocks set-up pretty hard.
As an aside Houndoom + Alomomola is an incredibly powerful combo since it can switch into grass types who like to come in on mola (hint: run early bird houndoom, flash fire is super useless atm) and fire off free shots. It can also switch into stuff like qwilfish because
0 SpA Qwilfish Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Houndoom: 128-152 (43.9 - 52.2%)
120 HP mola's wish heals it for 86% which covers rocks, scald damage, and a layer of spikes or a turn of life orb recoil. And it comes in for free (wish a wish pass) on shadow ball reuniclus, cm cresselias, basically tons of things that would like to set up on mola. And mola covers emboar, the only good houndoom switch.
Basically, mola doesn't kill momentum, giving your sweepers free switches in and a heal to full hp provides a ton of offensive pressure. Shout outs New Breed the #1 fan of mola offense.
yeah, momo could stand to be a+, i think; blanket checks the bast majority of vanilla (ie.non-boosting) attackers, passes wishes w.o out having to receive its own is sick (also minimizes the point about exploitability a fair amount a la nails' post), and provides gr8 team support. i'm hesitant to drop it in s, in part due to the momentum drain it establishes (not inherently bad for all builds, but it does require consideration for the more offensively-geared builds it will get slapped on from time to time) in tandem with the fact that it doesn't really shift the dynamic of building in the manner that the other s ranks do (ie.you have to actively build so as not to be to be duggy / reuniclus weak, but momo's just another bulky water, albeit a really good one).
'lix is one i feel should be ranked, but you're overselling it on a- / b+ i think haha. like, 100% agree that it w/m-aboma is solid, and should by no means be shot down as a concept, but that's a very particular angle you go for when you build, and that narrowness is what makes me hesistant to put it down with pokemon of much more broad application. kinda would lean towards a b- myself, maybe a b, but i'm no good at putting letter grades on these things e_e
'lix is one i feel should be ranked, but you're overselling it on a- / b+ i think haha. like, 100% agree that it w/m-aboma is solid, and should by no means be shot down as a concept, but that's a very particular angle you go for when you build, and that narrowness is what makes me hesistant to put it down with pokemon of much more broad application. kinda would lean towards a b- myself, maybe a b, but i'm no good at putting letter grades on these things e_e
Something that niche like regular Steelix is C rank max, especially since the archetypes it's apparently used on aren't even that common. I'm all for ranking viable non-mega base Pokemon, see: normal Abomasnow, but the opportunity cost towards using Megas in RU is so incredibly minute that I wouldn't place any of them above C rank, let alone A-. Their Megas are pretty much better and since the "competition" for Mega slots barely exist, I'd prefer not to rank their non-mega counterparts very highly if they overlap or function similarly, different cases can be made as seen by Audino. In the case of regular Steelix, implying that it's almost as good as its Mega is factually untrue. Normal Steelix has to pick and choose whether or not it wants bulk or power, whereas Mega gets both because of its stats, this is the key difference here and is what makes Mega Steelix so good. So even if there exists an RU where the Mega Slot is highly coveted, I'd still place normal Steelix well below its Mega.
I am albeit curious as to why m-camerupt is A instead of A-. I like m-camerupt and its combination of relatively solid bulk, power, and its abilities as an offensive pivot and check to the likes of Houndoom, durant, whimsicott, escavalier, garbodor, and friends is nice especially for spikestacking offense and balance/bulky offense but I find it to be rather easy to exploit, especially with lack of reliable recovery that makes it harder for m-camerupt to consistently check the threats it wants to and unlike m-steelix is not as much of a blanket check to the variety of threats in the metagame, weakness to the ever prevalent ground and 4x weakness to water that appears to be more prevalent than before, and competition for the mega slot from the likes of m-steelix, who does some of what m-camerupt does better in a good chunk of cases, m-glalie who I find to have better wallbreaking potential despite also being rather easily worn down too due to speed and ability to better cripple some of its answers other than just toxic or maybe yawn, etc. I'm mainly just curious as to what warranted m-camerupt's rise to A is all.
Mega Audino from B- to B
Mega Audino is pretty decent and is really splashable. Its really solid bulk, good coverage options, and great supportive options make it B rank imo. It has access to stuff like Healing Wish, Heal Bell, Encore, and Thunder Wave, all of which I've tried on separate occasions and all have been extremely useful at one point or another. It has Hyper Voice (meh), Dazzling Gleam (no Moonblast, rip), Fire Blast for Steel-types and Amoonguss, Surf for Rhyperior and probably a few other mons I'm forgetting, and Psychic for Qwilfish and Garbodor (hope I'm not forgetting something important here). Fire Blast is the most important coverage move here imo, hitting Steel-types is really important. There are some bulky Pokemon it can't break like Alomomola, but this is where Calm Mind is great. I prefer Mega Audino over Aromatisse for Calm Mind because Fire Blast is awesome and it has more immediate bulk. Talking about bulk, Mega Audino has a lot of it. It takes about 90% from Adamant Choice Band Tyrantrum's Head Smash, and while this is a lot, keep in mind that this is a neutral hit without any investment in Defense from the strongest attack in the tier (calc'd Adamant LO Medicham's HJK, Adamant Choice Band Emboar's Flare Blitz, and Modest Choice Specs Exploud's Boomburst and they all did less lol). Being able to pivot around with Regenerator pre-mega is fun too. Mega Audino is a really cool blanket check to a lot of the tier and that is why I think it should move up from B- to B.
Mega Audino is pretty decent and is really splashable. Its really solid bulk, good coverage options, and great supportive options make it B rank imo. It has access to stuff like Healing Wish, Heal Bell, Encore, and Thunder Wave, all of which I've tried on separate occasions and all have been extremely useful at one point or another. It has Hyper Voice (meh), Dazzling Gleam (no Moonblast, rip), Fire Blast for Steel-types and Amoonguss, Surf for Rhyperior and probably a few other mons I'm forgetting, and Psychic for Qwilfish and Garbodor (hope I'm not forgetting something important here). Fire Blast is the most important coverage move here imo, hitting Steel-types is really important. There are some bulky Pokemon it can't break like Alomomola, but this is where Calm Mind is great. I prefer Mega Audino over Aromatisse for Calm Mind because Fire Blast is awesome and it has more immediate bulk. Talking about bulk, Mega Audino has a lot of it. It takes about 90% from Adamant Choice Band Tyrantrum's Head Smash, and while this is a lot, keep in mind that this is a neutral hit without any investment in Defense from the strongest attack in the tier (calc'd Adamant LO Medicham's HJK, Adamant Choice Band Emboar's Flare Blitz, and Modest Choice Specs Exploud's Boomburst and they all did less lol). Being able to pivot around with Regenerator pre-mega is fun too. Mega Audino is a really cool blanket check to a lot of the tier and that is why I think it should move up from B- to B.
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