Discussion The Case for a Typhlosion Drop to GSC UU

[Celebiii]

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Introduction
Typhlosion has been known for quite a few Pokemon gens to be sadly sitting in the shadow of its Fire-type starter predecessor in Charizard. Typhlosion has the exact same stats as Charizard, with the only relevant competitive differences being in movepool and secondary typing. Charizard makes use of its secondary Flying-typing and access to Belly Drum in particular to carve itself out a niche in GSC OU as a dangerous Ground-immune sweeper featuring the excellent QuakeSlide physical coverage alongside Fire Blast to tear through most of the tier after a Belly Drum. Typhlosion, on the other hand, did not receive Belly Drum, and only has Thunder Punch as well as an Electric neutrality and 1x Rock weakness to compensate for these shortcomings. Charizard itself is a fairly rare sight in serious GSC OU games, and with Typhlosion offering even less than Charizard, Typhlosion is essentially never seen in OU games, or even in UUBL games for that matter. As such, we should consider whether Typhlosion would be an appropriate and beneficial addition to GSC UU.

Strengths
Typhlosion presents some attractive qualities for the tier; its Base 100 Speed is much more impressive in UU than in OU, outspeeding many important Pokemon already considered fast for the tier, like Haunter, Mr. Mime, Gligar, Pinsir, Gyarados, Blastoise, and Nidoqueen. Typhlosion would be able to back up its threat against these Pokemon with its excellent combination of STAB Fire Blast, great special coverage in the form of Thunder Punch and Hidden Power Grass, and mixed attacking potential via Earthquake and Dynamic Punch. Additionally, Typhlosion's decent bulk for the tier could allow it to stomach an attack to set up Sunny Day instead of running a coverage move, which could amp up its Fire Blasts to levels that make even resists think twice about switching into it, reduce the threat posed to it by the tier's many Water-types, and even support teammates by reducing the accuracy of enemy Thunders. Typhlosion's decent bulk and Fire STAB could give it an important defensive role in checking the Bug-types of the tier as well; Scyther is at high risk of dropping to Fire Blast in one hit, while Pinsir is always OHKO'd by it. Meanwhile, Typhlosion always survives even a +2 Hidden Power Ground or Double-Edge from both Bugs. Defensively, Typhlosion's mono-Fire typing doesn't seem like it would offer too much else, but the neutralities the type offers means that Typhlosion could be used to switch into Pokemon like Hypno, Mr. Mime, and Haunter relatively safely if the situation calls for it - perhaps even the tier's Electric-types in a pinch as well.

Weaknesses
Typhlosion presents a number of issues for any UU player trying to place it on a team, however. As mentioned above, GSC UU is filled with Water-types, and fairly bulky ones at that. Typhlosion's fellow starter Pokemon Blastoise in particular seems like it would be its greatest roadblock; Thunder Punch and Hidden Power Grass do relatively little to Blastoise and require prediction to land on the switch. Blastoise in turn sports STAB Surf and RestTalk to make progress difficult for Typhlosion. While other Water types in the tier seem like they would be less solid checks, being more fearful of Typhlosion's coverage and power, they would likely still make Typhlosion think twice about using Fire Blast. This would be a huge detriment to a Pokemon that would likely be quite difficult to switch in safely and one which might have difficulty running a RestTalk set of its own, compromising its longevity. Beyond Water-types, the tier's infamous bulk might make it harder for Typhlosion to make progress than it would seem, especially against Pokemon like Nidoqueen, who packs STAB Earthquake and Moonlight, and Hypno, who could conceivably frustrate Typhlosion's attempts to KO Hypno with inaccurate Fire Blasts via RestTalk. Finally, there is the issue of trying to fit Typhlosion on a team, given its lack of defensive qualities mentioned above. GSC UU builders are crafty and might find ways around this, such as using Typhlosion in the lead slot or fitting it on Swords Dance + Baton Pass teams, but the lack of resistances and many weaknesses to popular attacking types would probably still limit the amount of teams Typhlosion could function consistently on.

Possible Sets

Typhlosion @ Leftovers
Hidden Power: Grass
IVs: 6 HP / 28 Atk / 28 Def
- Fire Blast
- Thunder Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Earthquake / Dynamic Punch

This is the most straightforward application of Typhlosion, as a mixed attacker with high power on STAB Fire Blast and excellent coverage. Thunder Punch and Hidden Power Grass threaten every Fire resist in the tier, while Earthquake provides a stronger hit on Electric- and Poison-types, particularly those with good special bulk. Dynamic Punch could be run instead of Earthquake for physical coverage to hit Chansey if the team is less worried about Electric-types like Ampharos and Lanturn. This set's primary issue would be lack of longevity due to no recovery. It might also struggle to threaten some bulkier Pokemon if Spikes can't be maintained. This could be an issue against stall teams in particular, which pack Blastoise and Pursuit trapping to make keeping Spikes up difficult, as well as Shuckle, which is not 3HKO'd by Fire Blast.


Typhlosion @ Leftovers
IVs: 6 HP / 28 Atk / 28 Def
- Sunny Day
- Fire Blast
- Thunder Punch / Hidden Power [Grass] / Dynamic Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass] / Thunder Punch / Dynamic Punch

The Sunny Day attacker. This set would trade some coverage for the power and Water damage-reducing ability of Sunny Day. Checks like Nidoqueen and Hypno would be easier to break through, in exchange for dropping coverage against some of Typhlosion's other checks like Gyarados, Quagsire, and Chansey. Just like the above set, this Typhlosion suffers from lack of longevity, although it has somewhat less of an issue with this when Sun is reducing the power of incoming Water-type attacks.


Typhlosion @ Leftovers
- Fire Blast
- ???
- Rest
- Sleep Talk

Could a RestTalk set work on Typhlosion? I honestly don't know. The ??? moveslot is hard to figure out. Perhaps Roar for shuffling around the threat of Typhlosion's Fire Blast, or one of Thunder Punch / Hidden Power Grass for coverage? This set would mitigate Typhlosion's longevity issue, but would reduce its offensive capabilities. Typhlosion seems to me most effective when it is taking advantage of its Speed and coverage, so I am somewhat doubtful about a set like this, especially when you consider that RestTalk Arcanine has not been a successful set in GSC UU despite its higher bulk. Who knows, though!

Conclusion
At the moment, we don't know how good Typhlosion would be in GSC UU or whether it would be a healthy addition to the tier, and I believe it is the next UUBL Pokemon after Aerodactyl and Muk that should be put through serious tests to see if it is worth dropping to UU. This thread will act as discussion for this idea, where we can make arguments about Typhlosion in GSC UU and back them up with solid evidence of Typhlosion teams and replays. I'm looking forward to what we find!

 

[Melbelle]

I'm curious as someone not in the loop about anything GSC related; with the amount of mons in UUBL, why not just scrap UUBL and retier like RBY did long ago when it also had a laundry list of UUBLs from like over a decade ago?

 

[BigFatMantis]

I get the idea behind this, and I’m all on board for trying out new stuff, but the thread focused really heavily on analyzing Typhlosion in the metagame. I think the bigger question here is: why drop it, and how would it improve the metagame? It’s obviously hard to say since it’s not dropped, but I think the preface of dropping something here would be to improve the current state of the metagame we have, and that would be more relevant than analyzing if it would be “ok”. The answer to this might be that there’s lots of benefits to dropping it - I just want to make sure they’re being laid out so people can understand the reasoning here.

 

[Celebiii]

I get the idea behind this, and I’m all on board for trying out new stuff, but the thread focused really heavily on analyzing Typhlosion in the metagame. I think the bigger question here is: why drop it, and how would it improve the metagame? It’s obviously hard to say since it’s not dropped, but I think the preface of dropping something here would be to improve the current state of the metagame we have, and that would be more relevant than analyzing if it would be “ok”. The answer to this might be that there’s lots of benefits to dropping it - I just want to make sure they’re being laid out so people can understand the reasoning here.

You are absolutely right. My intent with this post however was to begin a discussion on Typhlosion, not necessarily to say that it would improve the metagame for sure. I want to know what the community thinks of the idea, and for this to be a place for the idea to be discussed and replays to be posted. I chose to mark this as a Discussion thread rather than a Proposal one for that reason. If it ends up that there isn't enough interest in pursuing a drop to UU or the community doesn't think it would be beneficial, there's no need to push for it. I myself really don't know if it would improve the metagame at this point - I've played very few test games so far so I can't really say. Just wanted to get the discussion started formally!

 

[BeeOrSomething]

I'm curious as someone not in the loop about anything GSC related; with the amount of mons in UUBL, why not just scrap UUBL and retier like RBY did long ago when it also had a laundry list of UUBLs from like over a decade ago?

GSC does not have the player base nor interest in doing this to be able to do this effectively, myself included. Completely tearing down our current tiers and taking not months but years to redo everything for little reason beyond sentimentality over the existence of BL or a disagreement with how our tiers came to be is largely a waste of time and mostly destroys any standing our tiers have, especially with regards to inclusion (such as UU in UUPL). Our current system for testing BL pokemon has been working perfectly fine.

As for Typhlosion, I am open to it. I don't swing too strong either way but it's at the very least worth testing for a tournament or two.

 

[LpZ]

I've been away of the tier as player for a while, but there is a difference between the Aero and Muk drops that happened 2 years ago (I think?) and dropping it here because it most likely wouldn't be broken, If we followed that logic Venusaur should've already gotteb the same treatment, but it ends up on the same question, what would it do to benefit or impact the tier (It is almost certainly dogass)?
Also Arcanine is real, let my dog grind in peace and do not steal its niche :/ . Talking about Arcanine, I think it and Typh are similar enough to the point that there is no uniqueness to be seen with that test and it falls exactly under Venus case.

 

[leoperi]

Imo testing Typhlosion could be cool. fire types are rarely good in uu already and i think typh could maybe make the tier better , i belive we might have enough checks for it to not be broken or annoying for the metagame . my main concern with it is that may be hard to revenge kill since it has decent bulk , alot of waters arent great on the special side exceptions being blastoise , slowking . its a bit similar ish with gyarados in someway in the way youd handle it aka ( having fast things to check it or bulky waters. but at same time ig that could also make fire types in general good at checking each other . anyway i think it would def be interesting idk i dont enjoy alot triple water teams on the meta , i think that could maybe shake up things just a little?