Hi, not an OU player, but unfortunately we do not control the speed at which mons drop in usage. If that were so, Tyranitar would've been in UU right now, same with Swampert. I do agree with the nom, as Pert probably struggles in a metagame where Heatran just chips you into oblivion and you can't recover off any of the damage because you're Swampert. Maybe I'm wrong, cuz I don't play this tier, but who knows.
B ------> B- or C+
Ok, I know this mon has been talked about to hell and back but I think its time we settle this once and for all. Swampert is in no way fit to stay in OU in its current state. This is one of the worst Ground in the tier and rarely sees use in high level play. Its lack of a recovery option aside from Leftovers make its longevity piss poor compared to its other water bretherin like Pex/Fini/Slow Twins. It is a horrendous Heatran check as it can only switch into it so any times before Magma Storm or Toxic cuts into it like a knife through butter. Swampert's sluggish speed and low damage output also lets in a number of breakers like Lele/Kart/Rilla/Kyu.
Credit where credit is due, it is decent on GrassSpam as its a grounded rocker and it provides another form of passive healing. GrassSpam is general is extremely hard to use with all the Weavs, Torns, and Hail running around. Swampert on paper looks like a decent check to the popular Arctozolt, altho if Zolt clicks Freeze Dry Pert is in a pickle.
Swampert isn't really terrible but its not really good and should drop to UU immediately. It still being OU baffles a lot of people, me included. Its new VR placement should reflect how painfully mediocre this mon truly is.
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Resource SS OU DLC2 Viability Ranking Thread [SEE: Page 105, Post 2618]
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I'm starting to get the feeling that Charizard remaining in the vr is just meant to troll us since Heatran and Victini can do its sun breaker job much more lethally and they don't have that big of a weakness of choosing between survivability and damage
This is one of the more amusing vr updates for me. I love how the explanations aren't hardcore serious and includes a bit of fun in it. Although I'm still surprised that Clefable of all things actually dropped lmao. I got a couple questions tho
Was Nidoking talked about? What niche does it have that it still shares the same rank as Blacephalon or Victini? Also, don't take this the wrong way and no offense, but shouldn't Haxorus' explanation be written so that it is easily accessible?
Great update though. There are one or two things I'm surprised about that didn't rise or drop but that's just nitpicking
This is one of the more amusing vr updates for me. I love how the explanations aren't hardcore serious and includes a bit of fun in it. Although I'm still surprised that Clefable of all things actually dropped lmao. I got a couple questions tho
Was Nidoking talked about? What niche does it have that it still shares the same rank as Blacephalon or Victini? Also, don't take this the wrong way and no offense, but shouldn't Haxorus' explanation be written so that it is easily accessible?
Great update though. There are one or two things I'm surprised about that didn't rise or drop but that's just nitpicking
USELESS TRIVIA INCOMING
There are currently 4 ice types from the S to A- ranks. This number is actually only surpassed by dragon (5), flying (5) and steel (8). Reminder that all five members of the dragon type squad have a minimum of 600 BST whereas 3 out of the five flying types r legends/pseudo legends. (Fun fact: if we dont take account of the A- rank, its only second to steel)
This is pretty much unprecedented across the generations.
There are currently 4 ice types from the S to A- ranks. This number is actually only surpassed by dragon (5), flying (5) and steel (8). Reminder that all five members of the dragon type squad have a minimum of 600 BST whereas 3 out of the five flying types r legends/pseudo legends. (Fun fact: if we dont take account of the A- rank, its only second to steel)
This is pretty much unprecedented across the generations.
The power of the offensive ice typing is coming to the front. Both weavile, and kyurem gained big boons this generation in new moves to abuse their ice stab in triple axel and freeze-dry respectively, and arctazolt has arguebly the stab combination of the coverage gods. this is topped off with ninetails mainly for arctozolt being the catalyst with access to instant hail and aura veil to bolster the defence of the team and it makes up for ice tpes rather pathetic defensive typing. Having new moves, new powerful ice types, old faces with old tricks that work solidly now, the ice type is facing a meta that it's great against and gotten better assets for it's previously powerful monsters.
Did you forget that HDB also helped them take care of their nasty Rocks Weakness? Also, addition of a great defogger like Corviknight also helps
Swampert ain't THAT bad, man
B ------> B- or C+
Ok, I know this mon has been talked about to hell and back but I think its time we settle this once and for all. Swampert is in no way fit to stay in OU in its current state. This is one of the worst Ground in the tier and rarely sees use in high level play. Its lack of a recovery option aside from Leftovers make its longevity piss poor compared to its other water bretherin like Pex/Fini/Slow Twins. It is a horrendous Heatran check as it can only switch into it so any times before Magma Storm or Toxic cuts into it like a knife through butter. Swampert's sluggish speed and low damage output also lets in a number of breakers like Lele/Kart/Rilla/Kyu.
Credit where credit is due, it is decent on GrassSpam as its a grounded rocker and it provides another form of passive healing. GrassSpam is general is extremely hard to use with all the Weavs, Torns, and Hail running around. Swampert on paper looks like a decent check to the popular Arctozolt, altho if Zolt clicks Freeze Dry Pert is in a pickle.
Swampert isn't really terrible but its not really good and should drop to UU immediately. It still being OU baffles a lot of people, me included. Its new VR placement should reflect how painfully mediocre this mon truly is.
Its tools are extremely valuable in spite of its well-known limitations. It's a great defensive pivot for more bulky offensive teams because on those team it isn't meant to be as durable. What it does is setting up rocks and generating momentum with yawn and flip turn while checking an important but specific pool of pokemon with its good typing and bulk. It's deceptively durable in grassy terrain as well, albeit not as much as we'd like. It's nowhere near the A ranks, but definitely not C as well. It's niche but is quite good in that pocket. B/B- is fine for me, even in the case that it drops to UU by usage.
As for the Ice types, Ice has always been busted offensively and this meta has given some tools to already good pokemon + the magic timberlands. I'm not surprised by the viability of ice types. Also hail chipping every mon but ice types is a very strong asset and finally we have effective ways to abuse this previously bad weather. Finally one of my favourite types is being respected.
well it is indeed a thing for alot of pokemon especially stuff like moltress would be unviable without the item.
B+ -> A-
I am baffled as to why Tapu Bulu hasn't risen out of the B ranks. It has a horrifying offensive presence with LO + Swords Dance variants, with the added benefit of Stone Edge to threaten Flying-type switch-ins (Zapdos, Corviknight (2hko'd by CC anyways), Torn-T). It has little to no switch-ins right now, unlike its fellow terrain-setting SD sweeper Rillaboom. It also has great bulk, letting it check the likes of Urshifu-RS, and Landorus-T, another thing Rilla doesn't do nearly as well as it. Although it has a lower Speed tier than Rillaboom, it's generally enough to outspeed fatter stuff like Corv. Overall, despite its flaws (unimpressive defensive typing, no secondary STAB, somewhat slow), Tapu Bulu is definitely fit for A- status at the moment.
I am very curious on the rationale behind Volcarona coming down.
particularly curious because bulky variants are very very dominant against trendy hail teams.
This is in addition to Volcarona being a dominant wincon in any game that doesn’t have heatran.
The rain matchup and the heatran match up is poor, however if that’s very important, there are partners that can lure and weaken heatran (like lele) that synergise with volcarona!
perhaps the votes were focused on the offensive variants of Volcarona? These provide little utility in matchups against rain/heatran.
At least bulky variants can absorb banded close combats from barraskewda/urshifu and to be honest I rarely see rain past 1900, it’s more of a 1600-1800 trend.
particularly curious because bulky variants are very very dominant against trendy hail teams.
This is in addition to Volcarona being a dominant wincon in any game that doesn’t have heatran.
The rain matchup and the heatran match up is poor, however if that’s very important, there are partners that can lure and weaken heatran (like lele) that synergise with volcarona!
perhaps the votes were focused on the offensive variants of Volcarona? These provide little utility in matchups against rain/heatran.
At least bulky variants can absorb banded close combats from barraskewda/urshifu and to be honest I rarely see rain past 1900, it’s more of a 1600-1800 trend.
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IMO, s+ should only be reserved for pokemon that are required for any viable competitive team,
Questions 8/27
1. Why didn’t Melmetal rise? OP Pokemon comparable to Heatran. Saw a lot of usage in OLT. Corviknight cant be considered a check because thunder wave thunder punch.
2. Why didn’t Kartana rise? Dangerous breaker. Hard to check. Comparable to Weavile and Urshifu-R.
3. Why didn’t Garchomp drop? Cant beat electric types like Tapu Koko. Easy to wear down with hazard chip. Sweep chomp has been adapted to with toxic Landorus-T and stuff. It also has annoying matchups against things it’s suppose to check like Heatran who takes advantage of protect/rest being the only recovery. Many mons that hate rough skin chip just kill it anyway like Urshifu -R.
1. Why didn’t Melmetal rise? OP Pokemon comparable to Heatran. Saw a lot of usage in OLT. Corviknight cant be considered a check because thunder wave thunder punch.
2. Why didn’t Kartana rise? Dangerous breaker. Hard to check. Comparable to Weavile and Urshifu-R.
3. Why didn’t Garchomp drop? Cant beat electric types like Tapu Koko. Easy to wear down with hazard chip. Sweep chomp has been adapted to with toxic Landorus-T and stuff. It also has annoying matchups against things it’s suppose to check like Heatran who takes advantage of protect/rest being the only recovery. Many mons that hate rough skin chip just kill it anyway like Urshifu -R.
I'm not gonna speak for all of Chomp's sets but there are a bunch of reasons why I think Garchomp shouldn't drop at all. I mentioned here about its strengths. After playing a bit more, I wanna add on to that post that at this point, Garchomp's greatest strength does not lie within its ability to be both a sweeper and breaker nor is it with how it can manfight all of its own checks and feasibly beat them. It's greatest strength is in its ability to adapt to the meta. As shown in the replays I put in, one simple change from the standard leftovers set completely changed how to beat it. Snowtales and Weavile become shaky checks if Garchomp has yache berry. Hail isn't even an issue for it since Garchomp is one of the most dangerous hail abusers. If sand veil on it is dumb, aurora veil is even more lethal with the guaranteed damage reduction. Against hail, that is where the yache berry comes in as shown in one of the replays
Also, this is only just one item that allowed it to beat its own checks. Chomp can even go lum berry if it doesn't have to fight the ice types to manhandle the toxic users or pair up with Fini for protection. There are probably more items that haven't been tried on it yet so there's room for experimentation
While I did mention all of Garchomp's strengths, it does have some major flaws. Every ou mon does from Lando being somewhat easy to overwhelm or Heatran's weakness laid (is that the right word?) typing or Weavile and Dragapult not being able to break thru Pex on their own without rng nonsense. In this case, Garchomp's flaw is that it in exchange for being able to reasonably beat all of its answers, it is easy to slow down, and I do mean easy. That's probably the reason Garchomp didn't rise because slowing it down is far too easy especially if you're like me who is too greedy. But that's just it. Trying to stop it completely when you know what you're doing or are just having a good day is a lot more difficult
Finally, this is just offensive Chomp. Someone who uses those utility Garchomp sets can probably add more reasoning but I don't use them because I find tankchomp pointless without soccer bunny to bully around
B- Rank
Blaziken
Mandibuzz
Moltres-Galar
Zapdos-Galar
going to make an easy joke, B- for BIRDZ.
now that the joke is done why is
I have a lot of stuff to do today, but let me ask before I nominate. Why has no one nominated @Braviary ? Or Pangoro? I’m going to nom both but very curious
because nobody has considered them or used them. i remember playing vs braviary once tho it was sorta annoying ig
pangoro feels like sorta arguably outclassed by other darks too
Could you explain the Volcarona drop? If anything I thought it was gonna rise?
People, simply, have adapted most of their teams to Volcarona. On paper it’s really strong but with a rising use of Heatran, specially defensive Ground-types able to overwhelm it with Earthquake and/or consistently land Toxic, as well as a wide array of Dragon-types and bulky Water-type options that can check it, its value from game to game can be incredibly polarized especially depending on Volcarona’s set itself. It can still be an amazing win condition and even provide some defensive utility with its bulky QD set, but its value in certain matchups is strictly defined by the kinds of Pokemon it runs into, especially considering how very few there are that it can consistently overload.
I used both with success, sometimes on the same team. But you will see
Braviary I don't think is good enough to warrant a spot vs galar Zapdos, other than being able to switch in on shadowball from dragapult and kill Koko. It's just weaker and slower than Zapdos, beyond those areas. It's usable but outclassed
Pangoro definitely should be ranked, though. It's the best thing to use with future sight, if you ask me. Made a post in heat thread that show what is can do.
I will say this since I’ve been told this before. Not only are their attacks stats comparable, braviary is bulkier and functionally bulkier as it’s not weak to fairy or brave bird which is super important. It also gets the slide
I don't know if you can claim that braviary is functionally bulkier when it's weak to stealth rock, unlike zapdos-g. i think they have pros and cons but zapdos requires less support overall and has greater stab combination and a crucially higher speed tier. braviary does have roost, though. braviary needs to play differently to gapdos to stand out and it's niche doesn't arguably repay the amount of support needed.
pangoro looks a lot better to me with sd mold breaker eating stall alive or cb scrappy + fsight. it's really slow so maybe paraspam can help it as well. that being said, stall isn't prevalent at all in this meta and the speed issue is crippling. urshifu and gapdos are better choice banders and sd mold breaker is not the most splashable way to cook stall, but it's definitely it's strongest niche even though haxorus also has that combination but with better attack, higher speed to begin with and means to boost its speed.
i'm also surprised at melmetal not rising/mentioned at least. it's a decent check to zolt hail that also doesn't outright lose to magnezone, with a proper set. I feel like acid press or simply chople berry are underexplored and great ways to withstand hail + zone. also it's just good in general with an av set against many prominent special attackers and is creeping up as a cornerstone of bulky offense. i'm interested to hear people's opinions on melmetal atm
I've seen some replies to the Pert post and yes I may have overreacted a bit as Pert isn't that doodoo but yeah B- is about right. It is a bit annoying to kill sometimes and slow pivoting is great, however a lot of what I said in the post still stands. I'm also aware that we cant just drop it but its still funny that its OU.
honestly as far as the pert discussion goes people have literally been nomming it down repeatedly for the entirety of the DLC2 meta but there’s a reason it’s never dropped- literally nothing has changed for pert as far as the role it serves in the tier goes so B remains appropriate. It’s done the same thing it’s always done to the same degree of effectiveness since October. Compare it to something like Moltres (no, I’m not saying it’s competing with moltres or anything like that lol, just hear me out) where Molt’s traits have become less valuable or relevant as the meta has evolved- Molt was good for beating Pheromosa, Genesect, Heatran, etc but two of them were banned and better Heatran counterplay was used instead. Things changed for Molt and it lost relevancy. Pert has always done exactly what it still does just as well so therefore nothing has happened to make it worse. Even trends like the rises of SpD Hippo and SpD Lando and even SpD Gastro that supposedly compete with pert aren’t necessarily changes for what pert fulfills because they don’t fit better than pert on the teams that pert best fits on (ie gterrain offenses). tldr pert is still same old pert and b or b- is fine.
This is fair.
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