Threat Elimination aka "Wall Breaking"

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Tangerine

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I think by this point to think of a Pokemon as a "Wall Breaker" is self defeating. Rather than thinking of something as a "Wall Breaker", isn't it much better to think of it as something that eliminates certain defensive threats?

Then we see that "Wall Breaking" is really just a form of "Defensive Threat Elimination" - an action done in order to open up threats for your sweeper.

In this sense, it is self-defeating to think of a Pokemon simply as a "wall breaker", as in to come in and "break walls", since this vague and general approach hardly considers synergy. Rather then it is more efficient to use things such as Lures or things that may remove specific threats.

Then let's get started!

Suicune is currently one of my favorite Pokemon that can eliminate certain threats. Offensive Suicune, after a CM will outspeed Defensive Zapdos and KO it with Ice Beam, along with crippling most Celebi. Suicune also doubles as a "Gyarados counter" in an offensive team, a one time Heatran Switch in, etcetera, making it a very viable option in offensive teams.

Lucario is of course, never forgotten. Sword Dance LO Lucario has a variety of options other than Close Combat/Extreme Speed to help eliminate certain threats that enjoy switching into it, such as Zapdos or Gliscor (With Ice Punch) or Rotom H (With Crunch). It makes an ideal partner in crime with Scizor, of course.

Metagross is never to be underestimated. Explosion from a Base 135 Attack, along with Meteor Mash means that it has a great chance of eliminating a threat you want gone. Of course, Metagross lost its prowess after the introduction of Rotom A to the metagame :(

Discuss, the concept itself and any "wall breakers" you actually found effective.
 
meta with 140 base would be great

also has anyone tried extremespeedless lucario?! =] great bluff as people dont even both sending out infernapes/azelf etc thinking they could save it for something else, which means ice punch+crunch is awesome.
 
sd nape is good i've found. people usually have gyarados as their infernape counter but then it gets totalled by thunderpunch. people are unprepared for it so its good at sweeping
 
Any salamence/dragonite/tyranitar set really open holes in your opponents team for other sweepers do I always try to incorporate one of them on my teams, suicune is sweet as you said, and I guess SD Scizor with SD/X scizzor/superpower or brickbreak/pursuit is a nice one as it koes max/max rotom with pursuit after a SD.
 
CB Scizor is a great "wall eliminator." Just U-Turn on the switch to their wall, dealing decent damage and go straight to a Pokemon that forces said wall out. If Zapdos tries to come in to a U-Turn with SR on the field, he loses up to 50% of this health. Then you can just go straight to say...Tyranitar and force Zapdos away meaning he'll be on 25% health next time he comes in (doesn't always work so well but it sounds great in theory). Pursuit is also very useful against stall teams for obvious reasons...a lot of the heavier stall teams don't pack Overheat on their Rotom-H's but WoW is still a concern. It can also nab a Celebi on the switch and do enough damage to put him in DDGyara's OHKO range or whatever.
 
CB Scizor for massive U-Turn and Pursuit damage is nice and all for teams with just a few walls. However, when it comes to full blown stall, CB Scizor ends up being dead weight. With ample Protects to go around, switching to the appropriate counter becomes easy. Also, most Celebis on stall have Reflect, meaning Pursuit will not be a huge threat, allowing Celebi to not have to do the guess work when trying to switch out. That coupled with the fact that Scizor takes full entry hazard damage with no means of recovery (CB variants) makes him ineffective vs. stall. On the other hand, I love to abuse CB Bullet Punch vs. offensive teams. No DDer bar Kingdra can get away w/ a clean sweep as long as I got CB Scizor waiting to revenge.

Also, lol, I wish Meta was at base 140.
 
I generally agree with the OP: as long as we're talking semantics, "defensive threat eliminator" is a much more accurate way to phrase what these Pokemon do. There are very, very few Pokemon which are generally good at beating walls. The only one that comes to mind is Mixed Salamence, and even that set is horribly overshadowed by the superior Dragon Dancer set.

The way to approach wall breaking is not to say "hey I have trouble against defense, I'll add Mixmence!"; nor is it "Hey Choice Band lets me beat every defensive threat!" What I do (and what I'm assuming many other players do as well) is test out my team and see what it has trouble with. Then I can create a sort of "targeted assault" on whatever specific pokemon I need to take down. Most of my weird creations have come from this method: Sub / Toxic Heatran to beat Gyarados and the Bulky Waters; using U-Turn on SD Scizor to help get through Zapdos and Rotom for a later sweep; CB Heatproof lead Bronzong to wreck Heatran; not to mention more commonly used things like Explosion Magnezone and Gengar to get through Blissey. Honestly things like this are just as reliable at taking down certain walls as Magnezone is at beating Steels - you just have to take the time to think them up.

For something to truly be a wall breaker it really has to beat what it is intended to. If your offensive team has trouble with Blissey then you will get through it much more easily by adding Heatran or Gengar than you will by adding Machamp, since no one in their right mind will leave Blissey in on Machamp. This gets back to Aldaron's idea of lures, which in my opinion are really the only effective way to beat walls.

To sum up, there is no such thing as a general "wall breaker" (except maybe mixmence); specialized pokemon intended to take out a specific threat are much more useful.
 
I agree whole-heartedly with what TAY said, a lure is infinately better when playing offense than a "counter," which defeats the entire object of an offensive team in the first place. You want to be one step ahead, rather than one step behind. If you can lure Blissey out with your SubPunch McGar, you can immediately open up a sweep for something like a Nasty Plot Azelf. You could even double up this idea should you wish to, if you lure out and kill Blissey you open up more chances for SpecsMence to function well as a secondary wall breaker, leaving even more of your opponants team battered for a late game sweep.

Forgive me for using an example from one of my teams, it's just that they are the ones I'm most used to playing with ^_^ In UU at the moment I am running an odd Steelix. It runs a Passho Berry and max attack. This way I can lure in bulky Waters, such as Slowbro and Milotic, and can explode on them. Generally I Stealth Rock on the switch, absorb an attack and then explode, opening up a sweep for Azumarill or Specs Typhlosion, which ever fits the criteria of that particular battle well. I do have a back up for this in Shaymin however,k which at least forces bulky waters out, should the Steelix plan go wrong for some reason.

There are two ways to go about wall breaking, one is the element of surprise, feinting a Choice item, well placed Type resist berries or odd Hidden Powers. The other way is sheer power, Jumpmans "Specs Mence" is an excellent example of this, as was SpecsLuke in early DP. SpecsLuke is an interesting example in todays metagame, as it fits both the critieria, that of "surprising" and that of "Powerful," although it is greatly overshadowed by SDLuke. It might be worth digging up Lee's topic again and giving it another go.
 
Yes, I like what TAY said a lot. Lures are the best way to set up for a sweep. For example, use your Metagross to blow up a bulky ground or Zapdos or Gyara so that your Lucario can sweep later on without them blocking you. Or CB Scizor to wear down the Zapdos/Gyara switch in so that Lucario can easily SD up and sweep. Lucario is one of the best pokemon to set up for because his counters are pretty definite; you counter him or die.

Of course, a very easy way to eliminate defensive threats is simply to trap. Eliminate those steels with Magnezone, then start DDOutraging away with Salamence. Get rid of that Blissey with Dugtrio, or maybe Pursuit with Scizor or Tyranitar and then let your special sweeper rampage.

In a sense LO Cune is a lure as he is meant to bring in those Celebis and Zapdos. Both of them can be 2hkoed by an Ice Beam without any boosts
 
I'll copy and paste what I wrote in the locked thread:

DD Salamence w/ Life Orb -

Yeah this is meant to be a lategame sweeper, but I prefer to use it early game to open up massive holes in the opposing team for something like SD Lucario to sweep. The fact that every pokemon in the game is 2HKOed by this means that even if you have to sacrifice it, it may open up the other team to a threat that they previously had covered.

CB Tyranitar -

An oldie but a goodie, I prefer to use it with Aqua Tail over Earthquake. This means that pretty much every pokemon barring Registeel is 2HKOed by one of its moves, including former counters such as Hippowdon. Choice Banded Pursuit is great for mindgames, it can either nail Blissey or it can "scare" it into staying in only to be hit by a Crunch. This is great at opening up sweeps for my special sweepers, and its boosted defense and great coverage makes it one of the best early game offensive weapons imo.
 
In my experience the best wall breakers usually contain one of three characteristics:

1) The move "pursuit"

2) They both specially and physically based moves (ie. mixed sweepers)

3) The move explosion.

Pursuit:
Pursuit is a great move and is great for destroying walls as it prevents the opponent for getting their counter in for free. What good is having a counter for a pokemon if you cannot safely bring it in?

An example of a good pursuiter is Tyranitar. Tyranitar has an easy time coming in due to the special defense boost it recieves during sandstorm and can easily scare pokemon such as blissey and celebi into switching out. Conversely if the pokemon chooses to stay in they are risking taking huge damage from its other high powered moves.

Countering Pursuit:
Most users of pursuit are choice banded. The move protect allows the pokemon to scout if the opponent is using pursuit, or attacking with another move. Protect provides a safety net, so pursuiting should not be a problem if the opposing pokemon is choiced.

An example of a good user of protect is blissey.

Mixed Sweepers
Mixed sweepers are one of the best wall breakers in the game due to the lack of pokemon that have high special defense and defense stats.

Examples of good mixed sweepers include Infernape and Mixed Salamence.

Countering mixed sweepers
Countering mixed sweepers is one of the hardest things to achieve. As there is a lack of pokemon with high stats on both ends of the spectrum the best choice is to have your counter resist their primary STAB.

Cresselia is one of the best counters to mixed sweepers in the game due to its high special defense and defense stat. Suicune is another great example with high defensive stats on both ends of the spectrum.

Explosion:
The highest powered move in the game, although it costs the life of your pokemon to execute this move. Explosion is insanely overpowered and a timely explosion can open up gaps in walls so your other pokemon can attempt a sweep.

This process is commonly known as a lure. Lures are pokemon that are designed to remove counters to your other pokemon, so that they can sweep.

An example of a lure is a metagross - DD salamence combo. Metagross shares a lot of counters with salamence and commonly lures in bulky ground types such as hippowdon and swampert. Once the bulky ground is removed, salamence can have a greater chance at sweeping through their team.

Due to explosions insane power, pokemon often do not need to invest much into attack to KO a pokemon.

To give you an idea of its power, a choice banded snorlax has a chance to OHKO skarmory after Stealth Rock damage.

Countering Explosion:
The best counter to explosion are ghost types, being completely immune to this attack. Protect can work too if you have good prediction skills. After ghost types, you best bet at countering explosion is to have a pokemon that resists the normal type and has high defense. An example of such a pokemon are foretress, skarmory and regirock.
 
Tyranitar @life orb
I veered away from the analysis on this and just pumped loads of evs into attack and special attack i think i chose mild but also had a sizabe investment in hp as i thought it was taking a bit to much damage.

Crunch
Fire Blast
Ice Beam
Ston Edge

This is ridiculously good able to wreak havos upon stall teams. Ice beam is a very solid 2hko on hippow ohkos gliscor. Fire blast destroys skarmory and forretress. Crunch is a reliable stab option beating the likes of cresselia and celebi. And stone edge destroys zapdos and blissey.

My other favourite wallbreaker is just so cool.

Salamence @life orb
252spe 240spatk/16atk

DD
Draco Meteor
Outrage
EQ/Fire Blast

this set is just awesome feign mixmence set in the midgame and then just outspeed everything in the late game.

These set on these pokemon really dont see enough usage but they are absolutely fearful in the right hands.
 
My favorite "Defensive Threat Eliminator" is Rhyperior. Especially in Sandstorm. Most of the defensive walls like Bliss can't muster up enough damage to break his sub. Then he can rampage through teams with SD+EQ+Stone Edge.
 
Best defensive threat eliminator? Read.

[SET]
name: Rain Dance (Mixed)
move 1: Rain Dance
move 2: Waterfall
move 3: Hydro Pump / Surf
move 4: Draco Meteor
item: Life Orb
ability: Swift Swim
nature: Naughty / Lonely
evs: 252 Atk / 16 Spe / 240 SpA

[SET COMMENTS]

<p>This set is arguably Kingdra's most destructive set, capable of smashing through even the games most defensive Pokemon. It plays much like the Dragon Dancer; bring Kingdra in on a Pokemon that it can force out like Heatran, Rain Dance on the switch, and start sweeping. Waterfall is your primary STAB, and with the a rain boost it hits with the same power as a Dragon Danced Waterfall. Hydro Pump is the real selling point of the set, as it significantly outdamages Waterfall and demolishes the physically based OU metagame. Surf can be used as well, but it doesn't pack the sting that Hydro Pump does. Draco Meteor rounds out the set by allowing Kingdra to deliver a powerful hit to Grass and opposing Water Pokemon that resist your Water STAB.</p>

<p> The EVs generate enough Speed to outrun Modest Choice Scarf Porygon-Z and Timid Choice Scarf Heatran in the rain. Additional Speed can be used to beat specific Scarfed threats, but Salamence and Flygon are the only faster Scarfers capable of revenge killing a Kingdra in good health. </p>

<p> As always, this Kingdra benefits from rain support from its teammates allowing it to get an additional hit on its switch-ins. However, it is perfectly capable of operating on its own.</p>

<p>To illustrate the efficiency of Mixed Kingdra, a few damage calculations have been listed below</p>

<h3>Damage Calculations</h3>

<pre>
Waterfall vs. Max HP Bronzong: 54-64%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP / 98 SpD: Bronzong 72-85%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Celebi: 38-45%
Draco Meteor vs. Max HP Celebi: 59-69%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP / Max SpD + Forretress: 85-100%
Draco Meteor vs. 216 HP Gyarados: 62-73%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Jirachi: 76-89%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Metagross: 91-100%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Skarmory: 100%
Waterfall vs. 160 HP / 136 Def Snorlax: 60-71%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Suicune: 34-39%
Draco Meteor vs. Max HP Suicune: 52-62%
Hydro Pump vs. 240 HP Swampert: 82-98%
Hydro Pump vs. Max HP Scizor: 100%
</pre>
Click to expand...

If your not Vaporeon... good luck stopping it.


Other than that, I'll go with Explosion as the other best wall-breaker.
 
Two "Wall Breakers" that haven't been mentioned I've found effective are Hariyama and Magmortar.

Magmortar tends to attract Blisseys, Tyranitars and Heatrans, who can be handled with a well predicted Focus Punch/Cross Chop. Heatran/Tyranitar can also be killed by Focus Blast on the Specs set. And it's not that hard to predict, seeing as how almost every team has one of them.

Hariyama, on the other hand, has a great "wall-breaking" set in Substitute, Focus Punch, Payback, and Stone Edge/Ice Punch. Easily switches in to Tyranitar/Blissey, and gets a sub up. The reason I mention this as a wall breaker, is that Fighting types like Hariyama lure out ghosts, who can be handled with Payback, allowing a rapid spinner to, well, spin. Granted, it usually loses against Celebi, but otherwise is very effective.

I can post some logs of both of them in action later.
 
something I've found to work really nicely on high-offense teams is to go all-physical or all-special. this way when playing against defensive teams you often can sacrifice one thing to get past their dedicated physical wall and then rip the rest of the team apart. for instance, if you have a team of azelf/lucario/kingdra/gyarados/salamence/locune, blissey is going to be really annoying every single time the locune comes out, but if you switch out the locune for something like, say, an infernape, suddenly blissey becomes cake for the team and can't come in anywhere.

so in reality, with the abundance of insanely strong attackers everywhere, it is quite easy to break stall with a little bit of smart teambuilding. most of the time, lures aren't even needed, but they are a nice way to speed up the defense-breaking process. my opinion on lures is that you shouldn't put one into a team for the sake of being a lure for something your team has trouble with, but if it does that's a big advantage for said candidate pokemon.
 
Many teams dont have a reliable switch into fully offensive gyarados. With sr support this can often destroy teams through the various flinches and crits that stone edge ice fang and waterfall all working all provide seeing as most its counters are 2hkoed. Its also excellent for causing switches and a great scouting pokemon too.
 
suicune vaporeon slowbro pretty much are great switch ins to fully offensive gyaradoses. gyara probably has moveset syndrome as well. most likely wf and se are guarantee, now if you dont have IF, you're not likely to beat celebi but if you dont have EQ, meta/jira can switch in on dd, survive easy WF and tbolt/punch it
 
I'm pretty sure Tyraniboah hasn't been mentioned yet. Even now, Boah is one of OU's finest wall breakers, and has held that title since Advance.

[SET]
name: Boah
move 1: Substitute
move 2: Focus Punch
move 3: Dark Pulse
move 4: Ice Beam/Thunderbolt
item: Leftovers
nature: Quiet
evs: 252 HP, 52 Atk, 176 SpA, 28 Spe

Dark Pulse 2HKOes most Cresselia, Celebi, and Rotom-A. Ice Beam easily 2HKOes Hippowdon and OHKOes Gliscor, while Thunderbolt will dispose of Gyarados and Skarmory, as well as hitting Suicune a lot harder than your other moves. Any Blissey that tries to come in gets greeted with a 101 HP Sub and subsequently gets 1-2HKOed by Focus Punch, depending on her EV spread.
 
Meh, Boah suffers terribly from four moveslot syndrome. If you don't have Focus Punch, Blissey and opposing T Tar wall you. I guess Dark Pulse isn't totally necessary, but having STAB is nice. No Flamethrower means Scizor/Forry/most steels wall you, no Ice Beam means bulky grounds beat you, and no T Bolt means bulky waters can beat you too.

So overall, I don't think Boah is as good as he once was, because there are only so many things he can really handle.
 
Mix Snorlax is definetly underrated as a wall breaker. Mix Mence seems to be doing a damn good job in the metagame as well right now
 
From my experience, TyraniBoah is less effective now than it was in early DP (all my teams then were Boah weak lol) It's typically best against balanced teams; it's not quite as useful against offensive teams obviously as the other sets (CB/DD) and it's not great against full stall anymore either. Assuming you definitely run Focus Punch and Dark Pulse (or you'll be walled by Blissey/Celebi/Rotom-W/etc) most stall teams have a pretty solid answer to Boah once they've found out the fourth move.

Without Ice Beam, you're walled by all the bulky grounds that are present on pretty much every stall team; namely Hippowdon, or potentially Swampert (which is even worse unless you run HP Grass) All stall teams will either run a bulky Ground or Machamp/Hariyama, and they beat you whatever third move you run. Without Flamethrower, you'll be walled horribly by the Spikers that are also pretty much omnipresent on Stall teams; either Skarmory or Forretress. I guess that Boah has some value against last-Pokemon Skarmory, but otherwise it can't do much. Going without Thunderbolt leaves you pretty much helpless against Suicune/Tentacruel/Vaporeon/Gyarados, the former three in particular who are very common on stall teams. Then, of course, there is the fact that any good stall team is going to carry Toxic Spikes somewhere, and that really neuters Boah, more so than any other TTar set as Toxic really cuts down how many Substitutes you can get up.

It certainly was an effective set, but now the metagame has changed; now Heracross isn't the be-all and end-all of everything people actually use Toxic Spikes when stalling. Most stall teams have a decent answer to TyraniBoah, and now CBTar has Aqua Tail which allows it to get through pretty much everything with a Choice Band/DD set and some prediction, personally that would be my choice over TyraniBoah as a stallbreaker.
 
Everyone says Nape is a 'wall breaker' but they mean SkarmBliss who is never used outside of stall teams. Nape does jack to Cresselia and Dusknoir.

The term wall breaker has been whored so much by noons that it means 'SkarmBliss counter' now. I like your definition a lot more.
 
Cresselia and Dusknoir are rarely used.

Ape can also beat Celebi, Swampert, Bronzong, and Suicune/Hippowdon if it predicts right.
 
IMO the best way to break a Pokemon is to force switches in such a way that the opponent takes more residual damage than you. Prime examples of Pokemon that cause switches are Heatran and Scizor. The trick with Scizor is to abuse U-Turn which really does add up to Scizor's counters after they take SR damage.
 
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