Project SS UU Research Week - UU RESEARCH - Week 42 Roost Hydreigon and Any sets Crobat - New System !

[Eve]

ok so I didn't actually get around to using Whimsicott this week ;; sorry about that, I'm sure it's a lovely mon


but boy did I use this. Slurpuff is, unsurprisingly, very similar to Linoone. Because of this, they take up roughly the same slots on teams. Linoone doesn't care about opposing priority and can cleave through certain bulky mons Slurpuff struggles with at full health, like offensive Galarian Weezing and Gyro Ball Bronzong, via its coverage or unresisted STAB. However, it struggles a lot with faster Pokemon that can handle a +6 Extreme Speed. Granted, that's not a very long list of mons, but still. Cobalion especially is really popular. This is an issue Slurpuff doesn't have thanks to Unburden letting it outrun the entire unboosted metagame. Slurpuff is also stronger and bulkier, letting it break big tanks from higher %s and compensate for the worse berry. Drain Punch is an absolutely amazing coverage move for it, letting it top off its health and with that take priority on if played well, and Facade can turn stray poison or burns into profit. Like Linoone, it's an easy fit on screens cheese teams, with it either breaking down the opponent for its teammates or benefitting from them for its own sweep. It also noteably often forces in one of its few answers, which all happen to be setup fodder for other team members or an opportunity to set up screens with Espeon again. Lepus made the team I used and it was a lot of fun!

Replays (Slurpuff did important stuff in others, but these are the main showings):
The opponent's Bronzong didn't have Gyro Ball so the game ended as soon as I set up lol
Unconventional team? Sorry, Slurpuff eats those
Flygon is forced to use Dragon Claw to revenge kill Haxorus, resulting in a guaranteed Slurpuff sweep
Slurpuff breaks for its teammates, pretty standard display
Slurpuff forces Bronzong onto the field, letting Haxorus set up and sealing the win
Played your Doublade recklessly? Oops
The lesson here is that Slurpuff obliterates most of those weird ladder teams where you don't know what to expect

 

[DraconicLepus]

Week 6 is now over! Congratulations to Eve for winning!

Whimsicott had overall good results being tested, and was used as mainly a support/utility pokemon for the rest of the team. A set utilizing substitute and knock off to cripple opponents was used by KSt3ve. Substitute is useful for the reason to block weaker pokemons attacks or just to gain a few free turns to cripple opponent with knock off. Knock off can hit common switchins like Toxtricity, Incineroar, and Chandelure and cripple them for the rest of the battle. Pixie plate was also said to improve Whimsicott's mediocore offenses to be a formidable threat under the right conditions. Xilefi used Whimsicott's wide movepool on a trick room team. With access to trick room and memento, it provides utility in being able to get up trick room, but also use memento to safely bring in another pokemon with the opponent at -2 attack and special attack. Along with having u-turn to be able to pivot into another pokemon safely allows it good utility. I'm also going to say a few things of my own as they're not mentioned that I feel are quite important to add. Due to its typing in grass/fairy it proves to be one of the best haxorus checks we have. It outspeeds haxorus just due to its high base speed. Due to resisting both Earthquake and Close combat, along with being immune to Outrage it'd have to run poison jab to beat it at +1. The last boon to whimsicott in terms of its utility is Encore. It allows you to permanently lock a pokemon into a specific move until it runs out, or until the enemy switches out. This really changes how a game could turn out just due to how the move works. A pokemon is setting up? Encore it into the move before going into something else that can kill it. That's just one of the multiple possibilities that Whimsicott has and just really allows for so much utility in one pokemon.

Slurpuff was used by only Eve but she had very good things to say about it. The first thing is its similarities to linoone due to taking up similar spots on a team. It's a belly drum user with unburden, so once it click BD and uses it's sitrus berry it doubles slurpuff's speed. As Eve said, this is the difference between slurpuff and linoone is that not much can outspeed it at +2 speed, while common pokemon like cobalion can resists Linoone's extreme speed. Drain punch is amazing coverage on Slurpuff that not only lets it recover its health, but also hit steel types that could otherwise wall it. Facade was the second coverage of choice, which can turn a status such as poison or burn into its own benefit. It's bulk and typing lets it take advantage of common pokemon especially behind screens, leaving very few pokemon that can check it. Those pokemon being Galarian Weezing, Bronzong [especially if it has steel coverage such as Gyro Ball or Heavy Slam], and Doublade. Overall it preforms it's role extremely well versus teams who don't have one, or a combination of these checks above.

Now we're onto week 7 with two new pokemon to research!

Set

Arcanine @ any item
Ability: any
EVs: any
- Teleport
-
-
-

Set

Silvally-Ghost @ Ghost Memory
Ability: RKS System
EVs: any
-
-
-
-

So the legendary dog itself Arcanine is our first choice! What this pokemon does is fairly well known, but it has a new option in its arsenal. Teleport got a brand new use in being a pivot move with -6 priority. Our favorite fluffy dog gets this move, but the question is.. is it viable on Arcanine? Will it be worth using it over one of the other moves commonly used on this bulky intimidater? And will it have a niche over Incineroar, the newest addition to UU giving it heavy competition?

Our second choice is Silvally-Ghost! We're back to explore one of the many forms of baby arceus. Silvally Ghost is an option as a physical ghost type, the only option other than this being Doublade. Will it's strong STAB in multi attack along with decent bulk and speed be able to set it apart in the current meta? Or will it fail to impress with pokemon like Umbreon and Incineroar being so common?

In order to participate you must do the following:

• Post here with a fresh RW alt (such as SSRW7 Daiyaga or SSRW7 Cake) and the name(s) of the Pokemon you will be using.
• Use at least one of the Pokemon being researched.
• Post your experiences with the Pokemon you're using, participate in the discussion!
• Post logs of this Pokemon in action against other teams - don't just tell us, show us
• The winner of the challenge will be the person who has the highest ladder ranking on the Pokemon Showdown UU ladder with their RW alt at the time the challenge ends. Winners will also receive a permanent spot in this thread's Hall of Fame.

This week will end on Sunday, March 29th at 11:59 GMT -6

 

[platinumCheesecake]

ssrw7 platty reporting for teledoge duty

EDIT: k nvm that user name was taken????? now i gotta be ssrw7 platinum

 

[KSt3ve]

SSRW7 Ouaf

Silvally-Ghost

 

[ramolost]

SSRW7 Saturn
testing both ig

 

[Rawbi]

SSRW7 pkmncrossing

ghostvally time

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

ssrw7 cake

g h o s t

 

[platinumCheesecake]

So I tried Teledoge and i have a few general considerations:

I figured teleport would enable a team to bring some powerful choice breakers like Pangoro and Heliolisk. So I initially tried to run toxic on it to support the team against bulky mons like pyukumuku and fairies. I quickly learned that teleport arcanine variants practically NEED wisp. Arcanine has a horrid defensive typing and can't gain extra hp from leftovers thanks to the boots that are basically mandatory to run. So the way Arcanine stays healthy enough to justify taking all those teleport hits can only be achieved by wisping physical threats to later pivot off of.

It... kind of works? When you get a teleport in you can potentially set up really big with a boosting sweeper or punch holes with a choice mon. The problem is that even with wisp its hard to find opportunities in this current metagame to actually garner momentum. Here's what I think is the key culprit: Teledoge cannot form a defensive core with anything. Without Toxic, it loses to every defensive mon in the tier. Without Wisp, it never comes in on anything more than once. Because of wisp, it needs mons to deal with Incineroar, Mamoswine, Milotic, and Chandelure. I sought to alleviate this problem with a Vaporeon, and found it generally underwhelming. In fact, in the games I won, I found I really hadn't clicked teleport at all and had simply relied on spreading burns and Vaporeon's natural stalling abilities. Monofire is just terrible to build a team around with the idea that mon is repeatedly coming in that you have to play hella aggressive if you wanna make the fullest use of teledoge.

Note: Mamoswine HUGELY impacts arcanine's ability to perform well. I think had this week been delayed till after mamo's ban things would be slightly different in my post. Mamo is just ubiquitous rn.

 

[Xilefi]

I don't participate this time because I have lacked of time to try what I've theorymoned. Though, I'd like to participate in some way and bring my thoughts about Arcanine in particular.

I feel like this research week about Arcanine is more about "How fits teledoge in this meta" than what it can do. I've theorymoned Arcanine like this :

@ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Hp/ 252 Def/ 4 SpA
Nature : Bold/Impish
- Teleport
- Flamethrower/Flare Blitz
- Morning Sun
- Will-O-Wisp/Toxic

Pretty straight forward I would say as Teleport is inherently a slow U-Turn, you want to take advantage of directly checking/countering a mon to lure another threat. To do so, the doge has to be able to tank some hits. But more importantly you want some switch-in, and this is more a matter of the number of time it can potentially happen than a matter of how good Arcanine is. A meta thing in other words. Looking at the UU meta, Arcanine is very good check to Cobalion, Doublade, to Gardevoir with some SpD investment, and non Choice Band Darmanitan. Other than that, Arcanine can't reliably pivot into mons other than passive mon like Bronzong. It's not Uber where Arcanine is one of the best check to Zacian. Though, it can switch into Incineroar but it doesn't like to free lose its Heavy-Duty Boots, so it's kinda a check with out being a mon that Arcanine wants to face : aka awkward.

I won't say Heavy-Duty Boots is as a liability as Incineroar and many other mons rely on it. I do think, but I'm not sure, the main thing which does make Incineroar good and Arcanine not is a coverage move like Knock Off. It's not, correct me if I'm wrong, a Will-O-Wisp meta, neither a Toxic meta, even less a Flash Fire meta. It's not a matter of how good W-o-W and Toxic are, but how a bless is to have a dark type with stab Knock Off. With that many wallbreakers in current UU, a longevity move like Morning Sun is less reliable, moreso with Gigalith being so prominent in the tier, than the natural bulk of an Incineroar.

To me, Teleport would be mandatory if Defensive Arcanine was good in the meta. As we see in OU with Clefable, Teleport is kinda broken but Arcanine is too niche currently to be a true viable option in a meta as restricted as we have right now and as aggresive. The first game I've tried it, it feels like I didn't have time to put Teledoge in work. Furthermore, as platinumCheesecake says, Mamoswine kinda tears almost all cores available you can think apart.

At least, before the April 1st.

+

This core definitly has potential to me that I didn't have time to test.

 

[Daiyaga]

Deadline is approaching btw, so please write something down (at least about Silvally since nothing has been said about it rn)

KSt3ve A Cake Wearing A Hat Slowpoke92i Rawbi

 

[A Cake Wearing A Hat]

I've been using a hyper offensive team with Silvally-Ghost, Polteageist, and Indeedee. Swords Dance + Explosion Silvally-Ghost is extremely efficient at luring in and slapping UU's common bulky Dark-types in Incineroar and Umbreon. Even when those aren't on the team, Silvally-Ghost I've found can just kind of spam its 120-BP Ghost-type STAB move to slap stuff until it dies. It's certainly niche right now given the prevalence of Incineroar and basically needs Explosion, but on the team style I've tried it on (teapot HO), it works well. I could also see it working on Webs, but I haven't tried that. I went with last move U-turn to chip Dark-types that aren't Incineroar and provide momentum.

 

[Rawbi]

Silvally-Ghost @ Ghost Memory
Ability: RKS System
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Multi-Attack
- X-Scissor
- Flame Charge

Tried Ghostvally this week. It's good, but I wouldn't say it's a meta-changing threat. +2 120 bp Multi-Attack hits hard, but not quite hard enough to sweep teams without hazard chip support or another strong breaker to soften up its checks. I ran Earth Power Venusaur to lure Incineroar, the biggest hurdle to Ghostvally and probably the reason why it'll never be more than niche, and that worked well, though more often than not Venu was the one doing the majority of the sweeping, leaving Ghostvally as a very mediocre switch-in due to its bad defensive typing. Even though Knock Off doesn't get the boost as Memories can't be dropped, it still chunks this mon. X-Scissor is for Umbreon. Flame Charge helps it beat faster checks.

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1090119999 -- Venusaur luring and taking out Incineroar so Silvally can sweep. this might've been the highest I got before tilting into oblivion lol

tl;dr not great but not bad either.

also ban mamo

 

[ramolost]

i was pretty busy this week didnt had much time to ladder but i still did a few games so i'll write quick thoughts
ghostvally : didnt really liked it. u just boom on the ghost resist without doing much feel like theres better mons but its still cool on HO so u have an efficient spinblocker which is not poltea. it also breaks hole so mons like necrozma can set up and sweep i'll rate silvally as : OK
RK9 : semmed cool at first but its :| i used full spdef w overheat and toxic w teleport and specs garde w it. intimidate is always cool and RK9 clutched some games, his bulk is impressive but its so easy to wear it down and to switch on it : u give free rocks or free wish pass or free defog so i really didnt liked it. speed tier of spdef is meh but without spdef u get bopped by everything. RK9 could have been cool if the cat wasnt here. cat is just better than it, despite the fact that RK9 checks some other stuffs and have recovery. RK9 could be very cool if it had movepool like knock. too bad friend u will probably drop to RU :-(

 

[platinumCheesecake]

Basically how I saw this week: if you want a teleport user just go with claydol or xatu. They support the team a lot better than doge does. and when you're worse at something than claydol you know you've fucked up.

 

[Daiyaga]

And with this, week 7 is now over. Congratulations to A Cake Wearing A Hat for winning this week !

Silvally-Ghost received some interesting feedback from the researchers. The general consensus was that Silvally struggled to take down the Ghost resists of the tier due to its lackluster coverage coming down to the weak X-Scissor/U-turn, or the one-time use Explosion. It especially struggled against Incineroar because of its Intimidate. However, the high power of Multi-Attack combined with a lack of Ghost resistances makes Silvally solid at breaking down holes when one of the Dark-types previously mentioned isn't in the opposing team and, even when facing those, Explosion guarantees Silvally can at least trade its life for an opposing mon, opening the path for other breakers/cleaners like Polteageist or Necrozma to wreak havoc. Overall a niche but solid pick, that won't fit on any team but will put in work when built around.

Teleport Arcanine wasn't very impressive. Its natural bulk coupled with its typing gives it a good amount of opportunities to switch in against the likes of Cobalion, Darmanitan or Doublade, but the lack of Leftovers for passive recovery and its weakness to all entry hazards if its Heavy-Duty Boots are knocked off means it has to heal a lot with Morning Sun instead of pivoting with Teleport, and its passivity lets a lot of Pokémon like Noivern, Rotom-Wash or Incineroar switch in freely to do anything (setting/removing rocks, firing strong hits, pivoting ... you name it). Arcanine also competes for a slot with one of the best pokémon of the tier, Incineroar, making it hard to justify in a lot of teams. In other words, Teleport is an interesting move on Arcanine, but it usually has to spend its turns on the field healing or spreading status instead of teleporting, making it awkward to use.

Onto next week's picks !

Passimian

Passimian @
Ability: any
EVs :
-
-
-
-

While Passimian didn't receive any direct buff with the new generation, the metagame has shifted around enough to justify giving it a chance. Will it be able to carve itself a niche among the many fighting-types we have, or will it turn out to be a disappointment ?

Sigilyph

Sigilyph @
Ability:
-
-
-
-

Sigilyph is one of those Pokémon that used to dominate the metagame, but have seriously dropped out of favor since. We want you to test it out and see if Sigilyph manages to carve itself a place in this metagame, or if it deserves to stay in the limbo of RUBL.

In order to participate you must do the following:

• Post here with a fresh RW alt (such as SSRW8 Daiyaga or SSRW8 Cake) and the name(s) of the Pokemon you will be using.
• Use at least one of the Pokemon being researched.
• Post your experiences with the Pokemon you're using, participate in the discussion!
• Post logs of this Pokemon in action against other teams - don't just tell us, show us
• The winner of the challenge will be the person who has the highest ladder ranking on the Pokemon Showdown UU ladder with their RW alt at the time the challenge ends. Winners will also receive a permanent spot in this thread's Hall of Fame.

This week will end on Sunday, April 12th at 11:59 GMT -6

 

[ramolost]

excited abt these 2 mons tbh i built sigi like 1 week ago
SSRW8 omavi :) for both
i lost my password :| i'll be SSRW8 goofy then

 

[Luirromen]

Im gonna take both of them, SSRW8 Tryhard

 

[Sickist]

Built a team in my builder that had both sigi and pass, showed it to draco, and then got peer pressured into signing up.

SSRW8 taxman

 

[KSt3ve]

SSRW8 frigo with Sigilyph

 

[Amane Misa]

SSRW8 Misa

 

[ramolost]

Ok so i used these 2 mons and here's what i thought about them :

set D:

Passimian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- U-turn
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Gunk Shot

It's a really cool mon i used it in early uu whats cool with passimian is really the scarf set. We kinda lack of cool scarf users with voltturn and pass is a cool option when u cant fit mowtom / flygon on a team (u can never fit these). It also takes advantage of Incineroar thanks to defiant ,and can be at +3 if you play well with parting shot. I really liked this mon, I don't understand why its B- :-(.
this time i can provide replays so here's a replay where pass sweeps so:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1093211873-00pqa20b7yqoqeimshn2ypnom7mb48vpw

Will it be able to carve itself a niche among the many fighting-types we have, or will it turn out to be a disappointment ?

It def carve itself a niche as a fighting scarfer

set D:

Sigilyph @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Roost
- Air Slash
- Psychic
- Heat Wave

Was kinda disappointed with sigilyph even if i expected that. It has great coverage, a great ability, and a good speed tier, but its 4MSS is crazy; you kinda want to run everything.
You want air slash so u can hit incin but u also want eball to hit rhyp / bulky waters and heat wave for the steels. You also want cm to break / roost for the staying power well u get my point. Its still a cool mon because u can run a lot of sets. I chose this set, but unlike passimian where only scarf is viable, you are a lot more flexible when using Sigi, as it can run 4 attacks LO, specs tinted, scarf tinted, scarf magic guard, CM roosts 2 attacks, CM 3 attacks LO (idk theres a lot to test with this mon, don't run cosmic power tho). However, i still feel like gardevoir is such a good pick and including sigi on teams when u can just run garde will be pretty hard.
a replay against a rabbit where sigi claims kill
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8uu-1094230257-dkqzwnp5rvaqtc0swug6b7b2louz1rzpw

s/o to lucqq for the edit so this doesnt look like a monkey wrote it

 

[fireblastmiss]

ssrw8 ape

I haven't really played much gen8 and always liked passimian, so this looked fun.

I used both band and scarf (and bulk up, but let's not talk about that) sets and both of them were decently impressive. The main flaw about band is, that it is a bit weaker than some of the other fighting type breakers we have in the tier and while it has a better speed tier than most of those, that doesnt quite make up for it in my experience.
Scarf pass is the better set imo, it pairs well with a lot of the tiers breakers like garde, chandelure etc. , provides a fast u-turn/knock off and can reliably revenge kill a decent amount of mons. Defiant can be useful versus webs, incineroar and fog in general, so that's definitely a plus there. The main drawback of using scarf pass is its odd speed tier, base 80 means you tie some more or less common scarfers in garde/chandy, you can't really revenge kill haxorus and shit like flygon/celebi is straight up faster than you. I used to like rockslide in the last slot to reliably 2hko fatter noivern sets, but with the recent drop of sylveon, gunk shot is probably better in the last slot which in turn makes you weaker to the most common fighting resist in the tier.

TLDR:
The mon definitely isn't bad, but I don't see myself slapping it on a lot of teams anytime soon.

Here's the team I used for my rw alt, it went 17-1 or smth, but it's honestly pretty mediocre.

team

Noivern @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Infiltrator
EVs: 176 HP / 80 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Flamethrower
- Defog
- Roost

Roserade @ Life Orb
Ability: Natural Cure
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Sludge Bomb
- Spikes
- Synthesis

Doublade @ Eviolite
Ability: No Guard
EVs: 244 HP / 252 Atk / 12 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Iron Head
- Shadow Sneak
- Shadow Claw

Rhyperior @ Leftovers
Ability: Solid Rock
EVs: 240 HP / 16 Atk / 252 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Rock Blast
- Fire Punch

Passimian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Gunk Shot

Gardevoir @ Choice Specs
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Moonblast
- Psyshock
- Mystical Fire
- Trick

 

[DraconicLepus]

Reminder to Luirromen Sickist Amane Misa and KSt3ve to post your replies. Due to not having enough information to post the next week we are giving until 11:60 GMT -6 Monday, possibly Tuesday for everyone to write their posts.

 

[Sickist]

Mb just trying getting a few more games except I didnt because my wifi just kept dying over and over.

Passimian:

In the few games I used it in, it felt like a basic scarfer that really needed chip to accomplish anything. Base 80 is also super inconvient imo because you miss out on the main issue (Haxorus) as well as other faster mons and dragon dancers. The ONLY thing you really revenge kill is like Ddance Necrozma?

Overall, I dont think this mon is awful, Itz just never gonna be the first scarfer I slap on a team. Its speed tier is just not good enough to justify most times. Its also weaker than you think but also strong at the same time!? Its one of those things where it kills when you dont expect and doesnt when you need it to.

Sigilyph:

This mon and I share a similar trait - disappointing people. I used it for 2 games and it did nothing and I just got sick of it. Perhaps I wouldve come to a different conclusion if I didnt tilt like a smashbros character but I had enough. CM roost sigi just doesnt find that many chances to set up, and you lack coverage to hit something no matter what you pick. I had the coverage to lose to rock types, didnt face any, and still Sigi was dead weight half the time. Yea it absorbs status and doesnt take hazards, but reuniclus can do that and at least it does something slightly more often. Honestly, i dont think anyone should consider sigi above any other psychic mon of the same role because anything does better than it.

Tl;dr

Passimian - too slow, weird power level

Sigilyph - tilt machine 10000, 4mss, outclassed by literally anything

 

[KSt3ve]

I first tested Sigilyph with different sets (lo, cm, Cosmic Power), and I was globally very disappointed by this pokemon. Its bulk sucks, even with the lo, it doesn't hit hard enough. Celebi does the same job, but much better thanks to Nasty plot and with a much better bulk. I think his most viable set in the current meta would be a lo + cm set to break more easily.

Hide

Sigilyph @ Life Orb
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Calm Mind
- Roost
- Heat Wave
- Psychic

team with Sigilyph : https://pokepast.es/22a5d0c06d9657e3


So I tried passimian afterwards, and it was much better. It's a better scarfer + Defiant than Braviary because it doesn't take 25% on the rocks.
Even so, I wouldn't say this pokemon is bad, but it doesn't belong in the Tier UU. It has a very small niche, that of providing momentum.

Hide

Passimian @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Gunk Shot

team with passmian : https://pokepast.es/f4b79cf0ae418785

In conclusion, I will say that these two pokemons each have their own little niche in UU, but overall, their work is better done by better pokemons, who have placed them in UU.