Top Tier Pokemon

Hello all, new to the forums, but I've been reading all these articles for quite some time. I am familiar with the ADV OU Threat List by Umby, Triangles, and Shrapn3l (please excuse any incorrect spelling), however when I say top tier, Im referring to 3 pokemon who to me seem as though they are the most powerful and versatile in the metagame: Tyranitar, Salamence, and Metagross (and sometimes Dragonite). I have a lot of questions about this particular group of pokemon, and this is as good a place as any to have them answered, so, here I go.
My first question is why was Hydro Pump removed from the move options for Dragon Dance Salamence? Is there a specific reason it was no longer viable?
I would also like to know what the most effective or efficient way to use metagross and salalemce? They are both incredibly flexible and can hit decently hard both physically and specially, but I would like other players opinions of how they have used these two in particular. Another player was kind enough to answer me earlier, however I would like other opinions, specifically on the merits of dragon dance salamence compared to its choice band variant, or other viable dragon dancers. My success with Dragon dance salamence has been limited at best, while Tyranitar rarely lets me down. I'd like to hear other players opinions or experiences with them.
Thats all for the moment, however I have a ton more questions after a decent discussion gets rolling. Thank you very much.
 
Metagross usually works best as a choice band user, which takes advantage of his massive power and bulk. Meteor Mash/Earthquake/Rock Slide/Explosion is what I like to run. Metagross can definitely do damage once he comes in. Rock Slide only really hits zapdos and gyarados, but hitting them is important. Remember that thunderpunch and ice punch are special and are not effective on choice band sets. Mixed metagross packs a lot less of a punch in general, but it can nuke swampert who is the most annoying mon in ADV OU. I have never found it very good because smart players will notice leftovers and assume HP grass, unless metagross uses agility.

Salamence is pretty awesome and can fill lots of roles. Choice band is really good when paired with a magenton to remove skarmory and water types easily. (I run toxic over thunder wave to cripple swampert lol). Dragon dance is difficult to counter, I usually forgo earthquake to lure out zapdos and skarmory with rock slide and fire blast respectively. MixedMence can take out swampert in the same way that metagross can, but most salamence carry leftovers anyways so HP grass is generally a better lure.

Dragonite is pretty bad in ADV. Before multiscale it was pretty outclassed by Salamence.

Tyranitar runs dragon dance sets most of the time, but he is easily capable of running mixed sets abusing pursuit to get rid of gengar. Dragon dance sets run dragon dance and edgequake coverage (actually slidequake because stone edge doesn't exist). Hidden power bug (or grass) can hit celebi and claydol (or swampert) very hard. Taunt can be used to stop phazing by skarmory or stop perish song from celebi. If swampert needs to roar a well timed taunt can be very effective. Substitute is seen sometimes to block status which is important to inflict on tyranitar because he can sponge super effective moves like weak surf. Mixed sets have huge surprise factor, and subpunch sets are good wallbreakers, but tyranitar can't break every wall with the same set, he always has counters.

I hope this helped, I am not the best/most experienced ADV OU player but I hope I helped to provide insight into the tier.
 
Wow. your answers were awesome to say the least. Why is dragonite so bad in adv? what is it that makes him not a viable threat?
I like to use ice beam as the last move on my dragon dance tyranitar, because otherwise you are completely walled by Flygon, who can kill you with a choice band boosted earthquake.
As for salamence, I have a lot of fun with the choice band variant, however I cant seem to get much done with the dragon dance salamence. I am considering trying out the bulkier build, and I believe that will help me out a lot (I am still playing adv on my gameboy against my friend, we ev train and breed all our own pokemon, so the standard metagame online is pretty different to the one we play. Im literally looking at 3 boxes full of bred and ev trained pokemon -__-).
I have used many variants of tyranitar, and I would like to know how effective curse tyranitar is in this generation. I have only ever seen it listed in other options, and in the D/P analysis,and the GSC analysis, but how effective is it in ADV? I have always wanted to try it, because curse is one of my favorite boosting moves. Dragon dance has proven incredibly effective for me with tyranitar, as has agility with metagross. I tried a choice band on metagross before, and simply preffer using choice band salamence, dragonite, tyranitar, or rhydon. I like to use metagross's very unexpected and incredibly useful special moves, such as pursuit, or thunderpunch and icepunch.
I would also like to know why swampert is considered so annoying and important? I used one for a short while because i needed a reliable rock resist and another bulky water, and he did not impress me as much as my other bulky waters have. My favorite, and perhaps most useful, bulky waters are slowbro and vaporeon. They are amazing, and have a plethora of support options that truly assist any team they are on. That combined with their overall bulk (and slowbro's hilariously diverse movepool) make them far more useful to me than swampert. Hell, I'd rather run metagross as my rock resist and keep the bulky water slot open for slowbro or vaporeon, or even both. Can someone convince me why swampert is as good as or better than the other bulky waters in this generation? (I do value his immunity to sandstorm though, considering how often I use tyranitar)
 
Quick comparison of bulky waters in their defensive roles.

Swampert: Rock resist, so it can switch in against Tyranitar/Aerodactyl more easily and doesn't run the risk of losing to a well-timed flinch. Sandstorm immunity provides passive recovery in the ubiquitous sand. Also pretty much hard walls electrics without HP Grass. Speaking of which, Swampert is very vulnerable to surprise HP Grass on Tyranitar, Metagross, etc. so you will need to scout for that.

Milotic: Has Recover so it isn't as prone to being worn down as Swampert. Very good special defense allows it to take on offensive CM Suicune without Substitute and even Gengar if need be. It's not as physically bulky though so it needs to be at full health to wall powerful Choice Banders.

Suicune: The bulkiest of the waters, and a long-term threat with Calm Mind. Not the best defensively though due to its lack of reliable recovery.

Vaporeon: Like Milotic, except with Wish instead of Recover.
 
Who do you prefer as a bulky water? And why no mention of slowbro? His HP and defenses are just as high, if not higher, than some of the standard bulky waters, and he also has access to valuable support options such as thunder wave, light screen, reflect, and yawn. He also has two special stabs to work with, and just like suicune (although less effective with it) has calm mind and sleep talk. He can even curse, or sub punch if you need him too. I just feel like he gets shafted in this generation, when compared tot he other bulky waters.
 
Bulky water choice depends on the team.

Slowbro is largely outclassed by Suicune. Despite its great movepool, Slowbro really doesn't have room in its moveset for all of them. You need Surf (obviously), Ice Beam (for Salamence), Rest (if you want to have any longevity), which leaves you only one open move slot. Zapdos and Celebi are notoriously resilient, and you aren't going to break them with one surprise move. Lack of reliable recovery, weakness to ghost and bug (the other bulky waters have no physical weaknesses), lack of roar, etc.
 
Even if you do carry other Mence answers (thats not just anything with Ice Beam), Suicune is still better than Slowbro in nearly every way thanks to higher Speed, access to Roar, lack of Psychic typing (being weak to Tyranitar HP Bug is a bad thing), Pressure, and all round greater bulk. Slowbro just hits a little harder and has an additional STAB.

You'd probably benefit a lot more from getting on Pokemon Online and finding regular games with a more diverse range of opponents to experiment and practice with.

Also, the best 4 pokemon in ADV are Gengar, TTar, Celebi and Suicune. The exact order can be disputed but its generally agreed these 4 are by a good distance better than everything else.
 
Dragonite is not really terrible, but most of the things that Dragonite is good at, Salamence can do better. There are things that Dragonite can do that Salamence cannot, but they are mostly niche things. Dragonite has a wider movepool, but Salamence has more speed. Dragonite has better defenses, but Salamence has Intimidate. Salamence gets Wish, Dragonite gets Heal Bell. But most of the time, you'll be wanting a Choice Band or Dragon Dance set, and Mence does this better. There's no reason to use Dragonite when Salamence is available, unless you absolutely need the extra moves.

Ice Beam Ttar is really cool for people that use Flygon to cover you, but you'll be open to being statused or phazed by a lot of Pokemon without Taunt. I have never used Curse ttar, though, so I'm not sure how he plays.

Swampert plays different from other bulky waters because he trades water and ice resists for a rock resist and electric immunity. The rock resist is awesome, but the electric immunity is enough to make some Pokemon that would otherwise be monstrous (Raikou, for one) a lot less useful, because they need to run HPGrass instead of HPIce (or Fire). Ice or Fire are useful against a whole lot more Pokemon, but you run the risk of your opponent having a Swampert, and rendering your Pokemon 100% ineffective. And man, it's really hard to break a wall when it only has one weakness.

Steel types make great Rock resists until you realize that most rock sliders run Earthquake right next to it. Skarmory/Forretress are great, but there's always the Magneton threat. Swampert has the ability to take both of these, AND has two STABs that hit super effective against lots of quakesliders.

Swampert is awesome.



wrt Hydro Pump Salamence, you could run it, but why? What does it hit better than HPFly/EQ/Rockslide? Even on CBMence, I would rather use Fire Blast as a special attack, because again, what are you hitting that you can't hit with your other moves?

And to be honest, I agree about the CB/DD thing. I would rather take CB, because I like Ttar and Gyarados better as DDers.

On Metagross, I guess it's up to you what item to use. I like CB for the immediate power, and it's good for luring out Pokemon that are weak to electric types, due to how ridiculously hard it is to take a CB Meteor Mash.


Also, the best 4 pokemon in ADV are Gengar, TTar, Celebi and Suicune. The exact order can be disputed but its generally agreed these 4 are by a good distance better than everything else.
Really? I agree about ttar celebi suicune, but is gar really that much better than everything else? It's dangerous, fast, unpredictable, and has great immunities, but the low defenses make it pretty vulnerable. It's a great Pokemon, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as the other three.
 
Even if you do carry other Mence answers (thats not just anything with Ice Beam), Suicune is still better than Slowbro in nearly every way thanks to higher Speed, access to Roar, lack of Psychic typing (being weak to Tyranitar HP Bug is a bad thing), Pressure, and all round greater bulk. Slowbro just hits a little harder and has an additional STAB.

You'd probably benefit a lot more from getting on Pokemon Online and finding regular games with a more diverse range of opponents to experiment and practice with.

Also, the best 4 pokemon in ADV are Gengar, TTar, Celebi and Suicune. The exact order can be disputed but its generally agreed these 4 are by a good distance better than everything else.
I play online all the time, however i have only played 5th gen online, I have never played adv. I agree that suicune is better, i have one and i love it, i just feel like slowbro has its merits as well. I use all four of the pokemon you mentioned frequently as well, however as far as raw power goes it really dosent get much better than the psuedo legendaries, from what I have seen anyways. ADV seems to be pretty stall oriented, which is why suicune and celebi could be considered the best, but why Gengar? Yeah he is very good and versatile, but what is it that makes him one of the best? I will definetly not dispute tyranitar, he's obviously pretty OP.
 
Dragonite is not really terrible, but most of the things that Dragonite is good at, Salamence can do better. There are things that Dragonite can do that Salamence cannot, but they are mostly niche things. Dragonite has a wider movepool, but Salamence has more speed. Dragonite has better defenses, but Salamence has Intimidate. Salamence gets Wish, Dragonite gets Heal Bell. But most of the time, you'll be wanting a Choice Band or Dragon Dance set, and Mence does this better. There's no reason to use Dragonite when Salamence is available, unless you absolutely need the extra moves.

Ice Beam Ttar is really cool for people that use Flygon to cover you, but you'll be open to being statused or phazed by a lot of Pokemon without Taunt. I have never used Curse ttar, though, so I'm not sure how he plays.

Swampert plays different from other bulky waters because he trades water and ice resists for a rock resist and electric immunity. The rock resist is awesome, but the electric immunity is enough to make some Pokemon that would otherwise be monstrous (Raikou, for one) a lot less useful, because they need to run HPGrass instead of HPIce (or Fire). Ice or Fire are useful against a whole lot more Pokemon, but you run the risk of your opponent having a Swampert, and rendering your Pokemon 100% ineffective. And man, it's really hard to break a wall when it only has one weakness.

Steel types make great Rock resists until you realize that most rock sliders run Earthquake right next to it. Skarmory/Forretress are great, but there's always the Magneton threat. Swampert has the ability to take both of these, AND has two STABs that hit super effective against lots of quakesliders.

Swampert is awesome.



wrt Hydro Pump Salamence, you could run it, but why? What does it hit better than HPFly/EQ/Rockslide? Even on CBMence, I would rather use Fire Blast as a special attack, because again, what are you hitting that you can't hit with your other moves?

And to be honest, I agree about the CB/DD thing. I would rather take CB, because I like Ttar and Gyarados better as DDers.

On Metagross, I guess it's up to you what item to use. I like CB for the immediate power, and it's good for luring out Pokemon that are weak to electric types, due to how ridiculously hard it is to take a CB Meteor Mash.




Really? I agree about ttar celebi suicune, but is gar really that much better than everything else? It's dangerous, fast, unpredictable, and has great immunities, but the low defenses make it pretty vulnerable. It's a great Pokemon, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as the other three.
I read somewhere on this site that dragonite was amazing if you dont use it as a bad salamence, i believe it was in an interview with an adv player named reyscarface, who uses thunder on dragon dance dragonite to get past Aerodactyl (personally i think thats a great idea, however its not a gauranteed ohko with the ev's listed,and after one dragon dance its not gauranteed that you outspeed him either). Also, as far as swampert goes, he is amazing when you use him for his resistances, but lack of any kind of decent recovery kills him in the end, unless you run him with wish support vaporeon, which even then isnt always easy to pull off. As far as dragon dancers go, what is it that makes you like gyarados more? I have tried him as well and found him far inferior to both salamence and tyranitar, and dragonite on occasion. Could someone tell me what makes him better than other dancers or choice banders? As far as metagross goes, have you ever tried using one of the special or mixed sets? Pursuit is very good on metagross, he forces anything locked into a choice band rock slide right the hell out, and while the pursuit damage may not be major, it certaintly adds up over the course of the match.
Does anyone have any input on curse tyranitar in this generation? Im breeding for one right now to test it out myself, I'd be more than happy to share the results when I have battled with it some.
 
Tyranitar, Celebi, Suicune, and Gengar are the best because they have incredible offensive and defensive utility, as well as a huge variety of viable sets. Gengar is definitely S-tier for its role as the only really viable spinblocker in a spikes-based metagame. If you have spikes, you have Gengar. ADV in its current incarnation is not stall oriented as you say, with tons of Calm Mind offense and physical offense.

Dragonite's gimmicky. You're better off with Salamence the majority of the time. Thunder Dragonite allows you to hit both Aerodactyl and Skarmory, while Salamence has to decide which it wants to beat with Rock Slide / Fire Blast. It ultimately isn't too great though because A) Thunder misses a lot and B) Zapdos walls it and Zapdos is significantly harder to remove than Skarmory.

Swampert has leftovers in sand, which combined with Protect gives it decent longevity. Spikes wears it down extremely quickly though.

Gyarados is weaker than Salamence/Tyranitar and has a worse movepool, but makes up for it by being able to set up on bulky waters. People don't really prepare for it as much, so that's one more thing in your favor. Taunt Gyarados 6-0s DracoMalfoy's team if you weaken Gengar a bit.

Pursuit from Metagross is ridiculously weak and not worth it. If you want to trap Gengar Tyranitar, Houndoom, and even Umbreon are better options, with the former two being better than the last. Choice Band Tyranitar takes nothing from Pursuit and Aerodactyl will only fall for it.

Curse Tyranitar is outclassed by Dragon Dance because bulky waters are even better counters after a speed drop.
 
Pursuit on my metagross was basically only for aerodactyl, and also because I didnt have access to the other pursuit users yet (you have to breed for it, and thats a bit time consuming, im breeding right now in leaf green). I would only use curse tyranitar after bulky waters were gone or significantly weakened, however I see your point. Im sure its inferior to dragon dance in general, however with tyranitars excellent bulk, i figured that if anyone could pull it off, it would be him. Have you ever tried it? Also about dragonite, I feel like he really should have gotten rock slide this generation, that alone could have made him significantly more viable.
 
Dragonite should've got Aeroblast, what a CBer that would be...

At any rate, Gengar is up there with those 3, definitely. Not only is it the only decent spinblocker, it has a bazillion tools at its disposal to screw you up with and you never know which one its going to employ because all his sets look similar at first glance. You send in Blissey or Regice to deal with it? It Explodes. You go for Lax? Will-o-wisp. Calm Mind Celebi? Meet Destiny Bond. Need to Rest? Nope, you're Taunted. Pursuit Tar? Hypnosis sleeps you. And thats not even considering which attacking moves its carrying- one false assumption that it doesn't have Fire Punch or Giga Drain can spell the end of a Forry or Pert. I'm even thinking Psychic may have a small place in the current metagame simply to surprise other Gar...

The sheer unpredictability of Gengar is such that I don't find myself trying to catalogue the opponents Gengars into a set- I literally just want to find out which 4 moves of the many viable ones its carrying. There are a few things that don't go together, like boom and Destiny Bond, but for the most part his sets can be completely superfluous.

And I've not even mentioned how great his resistances are. Immunity to Brick Breaks and Earthquakes with also a 4x Bug resist means Gengar is one of the few things you can reliably throw at a Heracross and completely walls any Forretress hard, and his complete immunity to Explosion and Toxic are great, great tools to have. His defenses may suck on first sight but bulky builds of Gar are invariably difficult to kill without the help of a Pursuiter and even offensive ones can play purely off their resistances/immunities because theres so gosh darn many.

So yeah, Gengar is great.
 
I'd have to agree that gengar is pretty awesome. I like the taunt destiny bond gengar myself, as well as will-o-wisp and explosion. i rarely find myself using hypnosis because if you miss thats pretty much a dead gengar. My only problem with building a gengar to be bulky is that he wont be able to hit as hard as he could or outspeed everything he would have with a more offensive EV spread. Have you ever tried haze on gengar? Or would it not be viable? Has anyone here had an sucess with scizor in generation 3? or is that just as bad as dragonite?
 
A bulky Gengar invariably pairs with spikes- not only does it compensate the loss of offensive power but the bulk aids his ability as a spinblocker and allows him to make use of is support movepool to a much greater degree, which any spikes-centric team will benefit from immensely. Bulkygar mainly invests in HP and Speed so not outspeeding things isn't an issue.

Haze is bad on Gar since everything you'll wan't to Haze can simply beat you down while you waste time Hazing.

I replied to your scizor post in the other thread, but if you wan't me to compare Dragonite and Scizor i'd say DNite is easily better. Scizor just isn't that great.
 
Are spikes really that important in this generation?
I used to use spikes, but my most frequent opponent has a team(s) that is largely immune to spikes, so it felt like a waste of my time and effort to get the spikes out when they were only hurting one or two pokemon.
 
Spikes put your opponent in a catch 22-situation when it comes to using things like DDmence or Zapdos, since most of their checks are grounded- eg, with Mence the idea is you just spam attacks every time Suicune or whatever comes in and it'll be taking ~45% before lefties each time it comes in (assuming 3 layers), so just repeat the process and then Mence is free to DD and sweep. Zapdos on the other hand often runs Tbolt/Roar/Rest/Talk because it easily baits the Grounds it "can't touch" into taking Spikes and with correct prediction simply Roars them away as they come in.
 
I want to say that Dragonite can be used as a teammate of Mence, because it lures bulky waters. They actually have similar counters and DD Mence can sweep easily when the opposite Swampert / Suicune / Milotic has been weakened.
 
I want to say that Dragonite can be used as a teammate of Mence, because it lures bulky waters. They actually have similar counters and DD Mence can sweep easily when the opposite Swampert / Suicune / Milotic has been weakened.
Metagross does the same job without giving you 2 quad ice weaks and 2 rock weaks
 
I also like to use metagross for that job, or a choice band rhydon. And thank you for the information about spikes, i wasnt sure if they were really that important, but obviously they are very useful. I'll have to look into trying to use them properly again, I do have a few phazers i like to use so that could be helpful with letting my dd mence sweep late game.
I have a few questions about breloom:
is sludge bomb a viable attacking option for it in ADV, given that it is physical and not special in this generation? What is the best way to use breloom without substitute or hidden power? And is a swords dance set viable for it in ADV, because I use techniloom in 5th gen, and its simply amazing. Will the lack of technician limit a swords dancing breloom, or can it still sweep decently?
Also, how sueful is leech seed without substitute on Breloom? Is it too frail for that sort of thing, or could it work simply as a way to force switches to get more Focus Punches off?
 
Breloom without Sub is very bad, it really needs it to work. Swords Dance Breloom is kinda eh since it only has one STAB to use and while Sky Uppercut is strong it doesn't really have a lot else going for it. Realistically you're looking at a set like SD/Spore/Sky Uppercut/filler, probably HP ghost- you miss out on Sub and Mach Punch, but theres no room for them anyway since all those moves are important.

And then you realise Heracross is better at SD anyway.

As far as I'm concerned theres one Breloom set worth using, and its not really anything outstanding-
-Sub
-Focus Punch
-Spore
-Hidden Power Rock or Ghost/Leech Seed

But its nowhere near as good as in later gens because restalk is fairly common and celebi is on way too many teams, and Poison Heal doesn't exist.

Heracross is better.
 
I use Heracross a lot more often than I use breloom, usually with a choice band, but sometimes i will use swords dance. I was just reading about it and I was wondering if ti was anywhere near as good as it is in gen 5. Clearly that is not the case, thank you for informing me.My next question is about zapdos: Why is it so frequently used as a special wall, when its defenses are considerably lower than its amazing special attack stat? Is its typing that good that one would eschew a powerful special attacking stat in order to wall certain threats?
 
Electric is a great specially defensive typing to have since it has no special weaknesses and it resists itself. Obvoiusly, the extra Flying type makes it weak to Ice and nullifies the Electric resist, but the benefits are greater since its Spikes immune and not trapped by Dugtrio, which are ultimately what stops Raikou doing the same thing better. Zapdos additionally retains the offensive power to scare off things like Gengar and Suicune even without investment, and with Pressure it will often draw the opponent into earlily wasting Ice Beams (it takes them surprisingly well) they didn't know they needed later in the game. And, as said before, Zapdos has a great Roar to make use of since all its checks take Spikes damage, and also its quite good at roaring things like CMCelebi and Jirachi since they rely on Psychic and its lowish PP to sweep, which Zapdos sucks up eagerly.
 

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