Theorymon Discussion and Viability Ranking

[Kingler]

Volcarona is still walled depending on what coverage moves it runs. It can run HP Ground for Heatran, but then it becomes set up bait for other Volcaronas, since it can no longer hit them with a Fire Blast early on or a HP Rock. Two Volcaronas in a Quiver Dance war turns into russian roulette, except with crits instead. However it's always kinda been this way with the moth, and Flash Fire is still a slightly better alternative to Flame Body, allowing it to potentially grab a boost from Heatran and start setting up.

Lots of cool ideas going on! Which brings me to one of my own...

What if Froslass got Dry Skin?
Hey, maybe she's cold and her skin is all chapped and dried up or something. But anyway, she becomes much better at setting up Spikes in front of water types, especially in rain. She's now able to heal herself from a water attack, and she doesn't take much from common coverage moves such as Ice Beam and HP Grass. She also walls Keldeo as long as it doesn't carry HP Ghost (and Keldeo needs Specs to secure the OHKO), which is awesome, although it admittedly can't do much back to it other than set up another layer of Spikes, or possibly using Destiny Bond. A 2.5x weakness to Fire moves isn't too much of a bummer, as Froslass was already weak to them to begin with, and having an immunity to water outweighs the only negative.

Never thought about the volcarona stallwar. Anyway, I guess duggy(stone miss FTW) could help for that too.
As for dry skin froslass, it will IMO become the next deo-d. It can easily set up spikes. It walls politoed and non hp ghost keldeo(hence i predict the rise of that specific HP) . This means that bulkier froslass spreads wuld be more popular, but it could still be a terrifying lead. Again, I predict rise in HO due to this.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I honestly think Simple Quiver Dance Speargle would be the best. I mean, +2 SpA, +2 SpD, +2SpE with no consequences? Just seems too rad to be true. With that Speed boost, you could even invest some more in DEF to avoid getting OHKO'd by random E'Speeds. Would be sick...

 

[Gary]

What if Froslass got Dry Skin?
Hey, maybe she's cold and her skin is all chapped and dried up or something. But anyway, she becomes much better at setting up Spikes in front of water types, especially in rain. She's now able to heal herself from a water attack, and she doesn't take much from common coverage moves such as Ice Beam and HP Grass. She also walls Keldeo as long as it doesn't carry HP Ghost (and Keldeo needs Specs to secure the OHKO), which is awesome, although it admittedly can't do much back to it other than set up another layer of Spikes, or possibly using Destiny Bond. A 2.5x weakness to Fire moves isn't too much of a bummer, as Froslass was already weak to them to begin with, and having an immunity to water outweighs the only negative.

In the current metagame state, I actually believe that Froslass would become OU. Think about it, one of the biggest issues OU is having problems with right now is rain spam, and Keldeo/Politoed are the biggest offenders as of now. With Dry Skin, Froslass pretty much becomes a much faster, less bulky Jellicent with the ability to setup Spikes in the faces of Choice locked Hydro Pump, Surfs, Secret Sword, Ice Beam, etc. Although Froslass is no where near as bulky as Jellicent, Froslass would still primarily function as an offensive Spiker, but with the ability to wall everything that Jellicent walls on rain teams. I think this would be a fantastic ability for Froslass, and it would give it a new found niche as a much more reliable Spiker. It would give a huge boon to hail teams, as Froslass would be a great hard counter to Keldeo, one of hail's biggest threats (it would still have to watch out for HP Ghost).

 

[Alex Rose]

For Smeargle, you could use Contrary and moves like V-Create, Superpower and Draco Meteor/Overheat/Leaf Storm for stage increases. Get in a little damage while stating up. I suppose a better question would have been "If Smeargle gained the ability to copy abilities as he can with moves, how many abilities would be immediately sent to ubers, and how many would be suspect tested?".

What if regular poison (not Toxic poison) lowered Special damage by half, similiar to how burn lowers Attack damage?

 

[termi]

What if regular poison (not Toxic poison) lowered Special damage by half, similiar to how burn lowers Attack damage?

Not much, really. Most Pokemon that have access to Poison Gas/PoisonPowder, the only moves that guarantee regular Poison, aren't very viable in OU and/or have much better things to do, so all that would happen is that poisoning foes would become a strategy for some mons in lower tiers. Oh, and Toxic Spikes would become much more useful now that you don't need to set two layers up. Tentacruel would become a pretty rad special wall, but that's about it.

I wonder though, how good would Weezing be seeing as he has access to Poison Gas and Will-o-Wisp?

 

[MikeDawg]

I think that the added poison effect would make moves like Poison Powder and sludge bomb more common, certainly. For the most part, steel is not too much of a problem as there are few steel special attackers in the first place. A single layer of tspikes could find itself wreaking havoc amongst the opponent's team, and there would likely be a subsequent rise in poison types to both absorb tspikes and inflict the status itself.

 

[Halcyon.]

Toxic Spikes would become waaaaaaay overpowered. I mean, only one layer and you can halve the Special Attack of powerful Pokémon like Keldeo, Alakazam, Politoed, Starmie, etc? That seems really really good to me. Gravity could be used alongside it to make things like Latios, Hydreigon, and Thundurus-T vulnerable as well.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Hi guys, if you haven't noticed, I have been re-assigned the OP of this thread. I'd like to thank Neliel for starting the thread and taking it through its initial popularization. Neliel has been inactive for a while though, and I have a bigger vision for Theorymon, so I've gotten permission from the mods to take over the OP. Thanks Pocket.

So here's what we're doing (in addition to normal discussion):

Plan: Theorymon OU Viability Experimenting and Ranking

Assuming we can get the usage, from here on out we're going to start experimenting with theorymon ideas in custom games on PS! Not only will we actually use many of these theorymon ideas, but we will use the experience to make a Viability Ranking based on what is found in the OU Viability Ranking thread. Based on discussion in this thread, we will loosely and casually (with a LOT less scrutiny) rank the potential viability of the different theorymons in the S - E ranking system, based on how we think it would actually perform if allowed into OU.

The goal of this ranking is to have fun, so please do not be overly concerned with the accuracy of our rankings, or the reliability of method. We're here to have fun, and these custom games will never have enough usage to get us a perfect understanding anyway. We won't concern ourselves with being too accurate, or with testing multiple ideas at once-- because we will be doing mutiple ideas simultaneously.

Outline of Process:

1) Every Month, I will choose ~10 theorymon Pokes from previous discussion (we're going to start with ideas closer to the beginning of the thread) that will be up for testing and discussion. I'll try to give a mix of defensive and offensive, and support over various weather types.

note: Only these 10 will be up for ranking discussion at a given time. Unfortunately, do to programming limitations, ranked ideas will be limited to added moves moves or abilities that exist in the game.

2) During the month, players will test and discuss the different Pokes rankings. Please use #pokemon or the PS chat to arrange Theorymon Viability battles.

Note: This IS the THEORYmon thread. Opinions based on actual battles will be given greater weight, but theorymon based opinions will also influence rankings (to a much lesser degree).

3) At the end of each month, the 10 ideas will be ranked, before releasing the new 10.

Please note that we will be using the same framework as the OU Viability Ranking Thread, with the addition of one more class-- the Uber Rank:


Uber Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who are clearly so powerful and unbalancing that they would undoubtedly be banned if they were to actually exist in BW OU. Opinions pointing a Pokemon to Uber Rank should be based on tiering philosophy, and those characteristics associated with banning a Pokemon in the real metagame.

Other Ranks:

S Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame with little support, and Pokemon who can support other Pokemon with very little opportunity cost ("free turns"). Also the home of Pokemon who can easily perform multiple roles effectively, increasing their versatility and unpredictability. If the Pokemon in this rank have any flaws, those flaws are thoroughly mitigated by their substantial strengths. If there are suspects, they will come from this rank.

A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
Show Hide

B Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who cannot sweep through or wall significant portions of the metagame, but can properly fulfill a given offensive/defensive niche. Support Pokemon in this category have flaws that prevent them from doing their job or are setup bait for dangerous sweepers. Pokemon who are partially outperformed by a Pokemon in A or S Rank, but are otherwise very dangerous, may also fall into this category.

C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can be effective given the right support, but either have crippling flaws that prevent them from consistently executing their strategy or are completely eclipsed by a Pokemon in the above ranks.

D Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who have a small niche in the current OU metagame, but have very noticable flaws that make them more trouble then their worth the majority of the time.

If you have any other questions, please ask them here.



For the first round, the 10 Theorymons will be:

1. Technician Weavile
2. Hurricane + Lightningrod Zapdos
3. Drought Arcanine
4. Dry Skin + Drill Run Escavalier
(we got to test this thing with Keldeo, because that's its main use)
5. Will-o-Wisp + Recover Cresselia
6. Heal Bell Bronzong
7. Sand Rush Darmanitan
8. Tinted Lens Flygon
9. Harvest Snorlax
10. Shift Gear + Sheer Force Metagross

This first round will go until the end of September so that I can get a feel of how it works and to give people time to get used to finding and playing custom battles for this thread.

I will be moving this to the OP as well. Please excuse while I clean / re-format it to better organize this broader activity that will be happening.

 

[MikeDawg]

I'll be testing metagross+flygon+darm.

Edit: How is it recommended we play the games? Hackmons works, but there's no team preview.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/hackmons-45010908
Metagross is fantastic against more offensive teams

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/hackmons-45011860
Metagross struggles against more defensive teams with multiple checks/counters. Flygon is fantastic against more defensive teams.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/balancedhackmons-45016972
Darmanitan is able to do some serious sweeping


After about 7 games...

Current Standings:
Metagross: B+
Flygon: A-/B+
Darmanitan: A/A+

Metagross is great against an unprepared team, but its counters are so prevelant due to the lack of coverage that it has. It has conkeldurr-esque power, but the coverage really holds it back. Once its few counters are gone, though, it is free to power through the opposing team.

Flygon is very useful against more defensive teams as it is able to do some serious damage to traditional dragon resists with its banded outrage. However, that does not change the fact that it is still being walled by hippo/skarm/tangrowth/slowbro/ferrothorn/etc. because it still only has 100 base attack. This is only further hampered by its speed which leaves it very easily revenged.

Darmanitan functions much better than I thought. Choice band, while strong, made it far too vulnerable (heatran+flying types+ghosts+etc. say hello) due to the huge number of immunities its movepool attracts. With a life orb, though, it still gets a ton of power without having this worry. It's absurdly fast and strong in sand and is only hampered by its weather reliance (though only rain really ruins its day). The priority resistances are sexy too

I think it must also be noted that if these threats actually existed, they would be even better prepared for. Should we account for that in the rankings?

 

[Schpoonman]

Drought Arcanine is without a doubt S rank. Defensively, Arcanine is no slouch, with access to Morning Sun and Will-O-Wisp, and offensively he's absolutely crazy. Arcanine is a VERY solid Pokemon in his own right, but the power to boost Flare Blitz, Flamethrower, Fire Blast, etc. with harsh sunlight is a huge boon, and Arcanine is so much better a Pokemon than Ninetales that it's hilarious. Tyranitar can't switch in, Close Combat. Politoed can't switch in, Wild Charge.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Hmm... yeah, for some reason I thought you could set up your own custom games, but apparently not (unless I'm missing something). I'll ask with some Showdown staff, but for now just use Hackmons.

 

[MikeDawg]

Hmm... yeah, for some reason I thought you could set up your own custom games, but apparently not (unless I'm missing something). I'll ask with some Showdown staff, but for now just use Hackmons.

That's what I had thought too. So far, the people I've battled have been fine with us just posting our teams (or to really emulate, spending the first 5 turns switching to our other mons so that way we can choose what to start with too)

 

[Chou Toshio]

^haha lol, that's a creative way to get around it! I contacted staff though, so hopefully there's a better way to do this.

edit: holy fuck, that first replay where Metagross MAWLS the enemy team-- priceless.

I think it must also be noted that if these threats actually existed, they would be even better prepared for. Should we account for that in the rankings?

Yes. Ranking is all based on hunches, so we want to use our best guess of how well prepared the meta would become. However, it's also a matter of how well prepared the meta COULD become, because potential to become more prepared varies between each theorymon. The meta might have more natural answers to Sheer Force Metagross than Tinted Lens Flygon for instance.

 

[DoABarrelRoll]

What if Solar Power did not remove 12.5% of your HP at the end of each turn in sunny weather?

I personally think Charizard would be a little more viable, if only because it can now switch in twice with Stealth Rock up (with an odd HP number). This way it can do its duties of wallbreaking twice (unless priority gets in the way). I doubt people will start screaming "OMG ZARD IS AMAZING IN SUN I MUST USE IT", but at least 'Zard will suck less.

 

[Gary]

Great idea Chou! This really helps spice up this thread and makes it fun to try out all these great ideas to see if these lower tiers threats would become top tier threats.

I'll be trying out Technician Weavile, because I feel that this thing has a lot of potential when used on teams that need a Pursuit trapper and possibly something to revenge kill Dragon-types. With Technician, Weavile becomes a LOT better at doing both of those things. I'll get back with you on my results.

 

[Lucalibur]

Don't know if this idea was brought up yet, but with the whole Mega Pokemon business coming up in gen 6 and after reading this thread, I started to wonder how good Lucario with Adaptability would be(Since apparently Mega Lucario gets that).

Now, bear with me. When you read that, your mind probably instantly goes 240 base power Close Combat coming off 110 attack, and that is to be expected. That thing's power would be insane, and Pokemon like Hippowdon would no longer be able to counter the SD set properly. While that boost in power of the main STAB move is definitely appreciated, another boost of importance would be upping Bullet Punch's power to match Extremespeed's. Due to that, Lucario would have the option to either have 2 80 base power priority attacks together with his 240 power CC, or trade ES for BP(Allows you to fuck over scarf T-tar, Gengar, etc. at the cost of losing +2 priority and having less neutral coverage) and still run something like Crunch or Ice Punch. Special mention goes to Iron Tail despite shitty accuracy, because its still kind of hot due to suddenly having 200 BP. Does he get Iron Head? If yes then 160 BP with 100% accuracy doesn't sound bad, despite the crappy coverage.

Obviously it would benefit a special set as well, with Aura Sphere gaining a much needed power boost and Vacuum Wave suddenly outdamaging ES due to Lucario's slightly higher special attack, although I still don't think it would be worth running a special set over a physical one.

Thoughts?

 

[Chou Toshio]

That's what I had thought too. So far, the people I've battled have been fine with us just posting our teams (or to really emulate, spending the first 5 turns switching to our other mons so that way we can choose what to start with too)

K guys, I figured out how to get this to work. First, you have to load your team. Then CHALLENGE a player this will pull up the challenge menu. From there, choose Custom Game. This will let you use anything we're testing while still having team preview.

 

[Schpoonman]

I know a big part of the problem with the special set is that he relies on priority for no small amount of Pokemon, and Vacuum Wave is far too weak. However, with Adaptability I feel like the special set would become much more viable. ESpeed has important coverage on stuff like Starmie and Keldeo, but Bullet Punch might make an appearance. But base 80 Vacuum Wave? I can totally believe that, along with base 115 Special Attack, would make Nasty Plot Lucario very effective indeed.

 

[MikeDawg]

What if Mamoswine go Moxie?

Mamoswine is great at killing things, so why not reward it even further for doing so? The opp is frequently forced to sac something to keep mamo at bay, but now that wouldn't be an option. I don't believe this would make mamo broken since it still has such middling speed and defenses, but it would certainly improve him a ton!

 

[klvkboom]

Don't know if this idea was brought up yet, but with the whole Mega Pokemon business coming up in gen 6 and after reading this thread, I started to wonder how good Lucario with Adaptability would be(Since apparently Mega Lucario gets that).

Now, bear with me. When you read that, your mind probably instantly goes 240 base power Close Combat coming off 110 attack, and that is to be expected. That thing's power would be insane, and Pokemon like Hippowdon would no longer be able to counter the SD set properly. While that boost in power of the main STAB move is definitely appreciated, another boost of importance would be upping Bullet Punch's power to match Extremespeed's. Due to that, Lucario would have the option to either have 2 80 base power priority attacks together with his 240 power CC, or trade ES for BP(Allows you to fuck over scarf T-tar, Gengar, etc. at the cost of losing +2 priority and having less neutral coverage) and still run something like Crunch or Ice Punch. Special mention goes to Iron Tail despite shitty accuracy, because its still kind of hot due to suddenly having 200 BP. Does he get Iron Head? If yes then 160 BP with 100% accuracy doesn't sound bad, despite the crappy coverage.

Obviously it would benefit a special set as well, with Aura Sphere gaining a much needed power boost and Vacuum Wave suddenly outdamaging ES due to Lucario's slightly higher special attack, although I still don't think it would be worth running a special set over a physical one.

Thoughts?

Hate to break it to you, but this isn't at all a big change for Lucario. You're forgetting that Mega Luc will need to be holding the new item (Lucarionite), as opposed to what normal Luc commonly holds now (Life Orb).

Now Adaptability makes your STABs 1.5x to 2x, which is 33%. But using the ability means you're in Mega form, which leads to you being unable hold a LO. LO on the other hand gives 30% to ALL of your attacks, albeit with the loss of 10%. You trade a little bit of power and HP, but you get the benefit of boosting all of your attacks regardless of it being STAB.

If normal Luc had Adaptability though, then sure it'll be quite strong since you can use LO with it. But otherwise, it's a simple argument of Adaptability vs. Life Orb. Something that should be noted though is that Mega Luc has a higher ATK stat, meaning your STABs will definitely hit harder than normal Luc w/LO. However, normal Luc's ExSpeed will still be stronger since it gets the LO boost, unless MegaLuc gets some crazy "Haxorus" lvl ATK stat.

 

[Lucalibur]

I was just mentioning Mega Lucario because he made me wonder how good normal Lucario with adaptability would be. I know Mega forms have to hold their special stones, which ruins the possibility of LO, choice, or even defensive sets for many Pokemon. You're probably right anyway in the fact that unless the attack boost is really good(or he suddenly gets enough speed to not have to care about Pokemon like Gliscor anymore) then we're probably better off running normal LO Lucario due to getting a boost in all attacks.

 

[Takion]

I just want to point out that it was confirmed for Lucario's Attack to go up, by how much no one knows.

Personally on MegaLucario set, Id run:

SD
CC
BP
Ice Punch (Dragonites, Gliscors, Bulky Landos, celebis)

 

[Gary]

After a few battles, I've come to a conclusion that Technician Weavile would be an absolute monster. Here's one of the better battles I had. I was using an old hail team that I turned into a standard team by replacing Specs Kyurem with Specs Latios and Abomasnow with Weavile itself. The team functioned like a usual T-Tar + Keldeo core but instead of T-Tar I used Weavile to better handle Jellicent and for revenge killing the Lati Twins.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/customgame-45057987

I was using this set:

Weavile @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Shard
- Pursuit
- Bite / (Testing Beat Up)
- Low Kick

If Technician Weavile existed, this would probably be the best anti-metagame set it could run. Because Ice Shard is so damn powerful when boosted by Technician, there's no reason to ever run both Ice Shard and Ice Punch on the same set, allowing you to fit both Pursuit and another Dark-STAB for different situations. Weavile has access to two 60 base Dark-type moves; Bite or Faint Attack. Although Bite has a chance to flinch, I chose Faint Attack just for the lols, but in most cases Bite would probably be superior for that flinch chance. Unlike Night Slash, Bite is capable of actually KOing physically defensive Jellicent after SR, and Celebi as well. That's huge, because before now, Jellicent could easily live a Night Slash and potentially burn Weavile, leaving it crippled and worthless. Going back to Ice Shard, it is important to note that Weavile can now always KO Latios after SR and sometimes Latias after SR and a tiny bit of residual damage. Although 99% of the time Weavile can just spam Bite or Pursuit on the Lati twins, the fact that Scarf Latios can no longer live an Ice Shard and then revenge kill Weavile, is very impressive and quite important. Pursuit KOs Celebi, Latias, Latios, and does a huge chunk to physically defensive Jellicent when they switch out, which makes Weavile the best Pursuit trapper in OU, even better than T-Tar. Low Kick is for Heatran, Blissey, Ferrothorn, and Tyranitar mostly. All in all, this thing is absolutely amazing, and it would make Weavile one of the deadliest assassins in the OU metagame, capable of ripping DragMag and offensive teams to shreds.

Overall, I think Technician Weavile would be an easy A- Rank Pokemon. It still has to worry about being weak to Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, and SR, along with its ass defenses and huge amount of weaknesses, but Weavile would be so useful in this metagame that the goods would outweigh the bads by a long shot. It would easily be a top tier threat.

Technician Weavile = A- Rank

 

[Aecor]

What if Serene Grace affected both Pokes like No Guard?

No Guard applies to both pokes, as in moves use by both Pokes on the field will have 100% accuracy. Will Jirachi lose its utility if now its opponent has a 100% increase of a side effect happening?

 

[alexwolf]

Gary2344 Beat Up is almost always superior to Bite and Faint Attack on Technician Weavile. Each hit of Beat Up does 17 damage, which is powered up to 25 by Technician. This means that with six alive and non-statused Pokemon Beat Up has 150 BP, with five 125, with four 100, with three 75, with two 50, and with one 25.