Using Tera will just outright turn Protean off. But yeah, seems like a decent anti-meta option although that lack of bulk and low-end Attack stat really hurts it.Given how ultraoffensive the current meta is, I'd like to rescue certain set from gen 7
Greninja @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Ice Beam
- Low Kick
- Gunk Shot
- Spikes/U-turn
At the expense of getting walled by Gholdengo and G-King, physical Gren gets great coverage to hit a good chunk of the new meta, such as A-Ninetales, non-rock Ogerpon, and the resurrected Roaring Moon, which you outspeed at +1, while still hitting Gliscor and Lando with Ice Beam. Uninvested Grass Knot can also be used to hit Dondozo and OHKO Max HP Great Tusk if needed. Tera Poison allows to resist Ursaluna's Vacuum Wave and absorb T-spikes while boosting Gunk Shot (I believe I forgor how Tera+Protean interact). Tera Fighting can also be used to keep resisting Sucker Punch. and boost Low Kick. Life Orb is also really good and it turns many of these 2HKO into OHKOs, but speed control is too important and Protean nerf means you can scout him out and switch around while getting hit by LO recoil.
4 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 348-412 (98.8 - 117%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Ogerpon-Wellspring: 366-432 (121.5 - 143.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 188 HP / 0 Def Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 270-320 (65.2 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
4 SpA Protean Greninja Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 188 HP / 0 SpD Ursaluna-Bloodmoon: 378-446 (91.3 - 107.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO (lel)
252 Atk Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 420-494 (119.6 - 140.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 116+ Def Hatterene: 270-318 (85.1 - 100.3%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
4 SpA Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 330-390 (88.9 - 105.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
4 SpA Protean Greninja Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 440-522 (101.3 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Protean Greninja Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Empoleon: 236-278 (63.4 - 74.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 4 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 313-369 (48 - 56.5%) -- 87.5% chance to 2HKO
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v3
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tbf Webs teams are popular rn and Xurkitree fits those like a glove.
I have started using the galarian-weezing as the "anti-lead" pokemon.
while it is true that hatterene is good against most hazard setters, weezing galar can give you first turn advantage ( or something aproximating that) both against most hazard setters and also the weather setters, also rilaboom, even though I am not sure if it is used as a lead all that often.
I came up with some unorthodox idea for weezing galar: max hp, max def + assault vest.
that's right, make it an all out attacker with no recovery.
it's not like its recovery options are going to save it all that often.
the set I run is:
Weezing-Galar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Bomb
- Strange Steam
- Tera Blast
- Thunderbolt
while it is true that hatterene is good against most hazard setters, weezing galar can give you first turn advantage ( or something aproximating that) both against most hazard setters and also the weather setters, also rilaboom, even though I am not sure if it is used as a lead all that often.
I came up with some unorthodox idea for weezing galar: max hp, max def + assault vest.
that's right, make it an all out attacker with no recovery.
it's not like its recovery options are going to save it all that often.
the set I run is:
Weezing-Galar @ Assault Vest
Ability: Levitate
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sludge Bomb
- Strange Steam
- Tera Blast
- Thunderbolt
- the sludge bomb can deal good damage to rimbombee hatterene rilaboom ninetails alola and clefable, even though I am not sure how often it runs stealth rock.
- strange stream can hit super effectively samurot hisui and ting-lu
- tera ground can hit toxapex, glimmora and torkoal
- thunderbolt is for pelipper.
Unless you have an Alomomola on the team too, this set will not achieve anything worthy in a match. It won't perpetually wall anything without Pain Split and at the same time it won't do enough damage.
The Attack is at least compensated by STAB on whatever it hits with (which is functionally the same as old Gen Scarf sets since you can't change moves regardless of new Protean).
I think it helps that a lot of targets for this set to lure are on the heavy side to make Low Kick viable as a high BP fake STAB (Kingambit is 100 BP so he still takes a 2HKO even if he goes Tera Dark, much less Fairy or Flying which fear the other moves, for example), which kind of helps Greninja pull the Dragapult approach of "my Raw Power's mid but high BP and neutral/SE coverage carries it" to leverage its speed. Gliscor prevalence is great for it since it threatens opposing ones with Ice Beam as a standard on almost any set, while obviously really appreciating the Spikes to get it the chip damage it needs for Cleaning range against the mostly-weak-to-it High tiers like Valiant (2HKO'd after Gunk Shot on a neutral Tera), Dragapult, Great Tusk, Proto-Speed WW, Wellspring Ogerpon. Even still manages to 2HKO Ting-Lu with Low Kick, shows how far high BP coverage can get you even on low stats.
Acid Armour+Take Heart, which is a new move that's basically Calm Mind+Refresh in one. You usually run Scald+Stored Power along with it.
Hey guys I invented the best set ever to exist ever.
Thundurus (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Prankster
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Psychic
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave
Really though this works great for a lead. Psychic to beat tusk and thunder wave to deal with many offensive threats. Usually use it with specs gholdengo and position for an endgame where it can sweep with hex. Been working pretty well.
Thundurus (M) @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Prankster
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Psychic
- Taunt
- Thunder Wave
Really though this works great for a lead. Psychic to beat tusk and thunder wave to deal with many offensive threats. Usually use it with specs gholdengo and position for an endgame where it can sweep with hex. Been working pretty well.
This has a really bad matchup into all the ho leads(except ribombee) though, especially hamurott.
Why wouldn't it work? It should, by all logic.
how does it have a bad matchup against hamurott? it does 97.8% minimum against the standard lead set with volt switch and then you finish it off by pivoting into something with a helmet. seems like a good matchup to me unless the hamurott is scarf, av, or tera ground
Can you let me know which ho leads it doesn’t do well against specifically?
Alolan Ninetales and Grimmsnarl, for starters.
You can't slot helmet on every mon, and you just let hamurott get up spikes for free(and other mons can do the exact same job but better by actually denying hamurott spikes)
Gets killed by atails, gets killed by glimm, doesn't deny hamurott from spikes, you're essentially playing 5-5 against ho instead of 6-5 and its not even a guarentee its a properly shut down against the suicide lead since they all run sash
Assuming power gem glimm but even then you can volt for sold chip into something else. Ninetales is a very bad matchup but you still outspeed and can volt, putting into OHKO range of the entire meta. It’s probably not the best lead but I still think it’s a solid off-meta pick, especially because hyper offensive teams do not want to get paralyzed at all and taunt shuts down setup users that would be using the veil.
(Also sorry for typos and weird wording, I am on mobile)
With Thundurus-I, I feel like the ideal strategy is to use it as more of a disruptor and scout than an anti-lead. Take advantage of the switches it may force and try to predict well with it. You could even run a weather move like Sunny Day or Rain Dance to give a boost to your own threats and screw Ninetales-Alola over. Ruin your opponent’s original plan, scout out what sets they’re running and exploit the weaknesses you find using Thundurus.
I think it is perfectly possible to use it as both, which is how I usually use it in game; mess up a lead, volt out into a good switch then use it to cripple mons throughout the game and capitalize on full-paras
I think with rain dance it would be deadly though, I am crafting.
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You're also setup fodder for gambit and have a pretty bad matchup into bloodmoon
Blood moon does counter it but gambit doesn’t appreciate a volt switch nor a thunder wave. You can also taunt gambit to stop it from dancing.
Also it kind of trades those matchups for good matchups into the other two s tiers, dragapult and great tusk.
You can't taunt or twave Gambit with Thundutus if it's running prankster.
Hamurott does result in trouble if you don't bring a Rocky Helmet for the Sash lead, but if you're using such a weird anti-lead anyway I don't think a helmet in the back is a big second ask to avoid dealing with Spikes throughout the game. Lead Glimmora needs Sludge Wave (2HKO) or Power Gem (OHKO) to hit back which puts it in a 50/50 for Turn 1 to Attack into Taunt vs Stealth Rock into Psychic or fail to set a Hazrad with the reverse. Alolan Ninetales avoids any 2HKO concerns but doesn't OHKO back with Freeze Dry, meaning Thundurus can taunt it out of Veil and survive the encounter to avoid HO having set-up screens off the lead (and given how momentum based such teams are that can matter a lot).
Thundurus has other hurdles as a lead with things noted like Bloodmoon and Gambit, as well as Gliscor and Roaring Moon using it for free turns, but as far as the leads listed it's less a matter of if it can stop their lead shenanigans than if it's worth having a slot just to deal with such, since on HO there is a lot of value in stopping early Hazard/veil to avoid Momentum Snowballing as they aim to do.
I am dumb lol
Playing 5-6 into a ho lead that can still do things after your thundurus goes down is a pretty hard ask, and if they decide to lead moon and start dancing you're just screwed. Imo its just not worth it, especially since dark types are rising in the meta which block its prankster shenanigans.
I think the goal when you are using thundurus as a lead is to disrupt and dip, ultimately where I think thundurus does better over other leads is that it’s high speed + pivot allows it to contribute to the whole game in addition to being an alright lead. I’m pretty sure you can, with most leads get to keep the thundurus for later with a volt. I hadn’t thought of the roaring moon matchup tho, that is tough. I don’t think it always ends up with a 5 v 6, especially with how it can cripple a good couple of common ho mons post lead.
Is Landorus still in meta?
Or is blood ursa better?
Or is blood ursa better?
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