I don't think it'll have much of an impact on the meta. Mostly because Toxapex only takes around half from earthpower at +1 and can just haze away your boosts.now that celebrate shaymin is out it seems like we can talk about it
at first i thought it was just a tiny gimmick but after looking into it it seems like it can actually have a decent niche in the meta so i wanna see what people think about it
what else can I do on sick days other than post giant posts?
So I wanted to basically talk about my personal favourite mons in the meta, because I really wanted to hear other opinions on the matter. So with that being said -
At this point, you may be thinking that zygarde's niche as a dragon dancer is its amazing offensive typing, speed tier and its good offensive stats, but there's one thing that you may have overlooked - its astronomical bulk. Its bulk allows it to defensively check the tier's biggest threats including - and not limited to - heatran, volcarona and tapu koko while possessing a fantastic offensive presence. One set that truly capitalises on this is the unique specially defensive rest sleep talk dragon dance set, which trades the sheer power of other dragon dance variants and trades it for sustainability and possesses an equally potent matchup against most playstyles, although stall is slightly shakier due to the presence of quagsire and clefable. This set grants zygarde the ability to set up on a large majority of the tier - most notably being able to freely setup on the entirety of the S ranks sans Kartana as well as the vast majority of the upper ranks, including volcarona, clefable, heatran, pre-transformed ash gren and common hp ice users including trangrowth and venusaur.
holy shit did I say small paragraph
part 2 coming soon
If anything becomes meta, then people will adapt to it. Problem with any Z-boost move is that any mon with whirlwind or roar will just make your z-boost move become useless. So it will still be ok at best, but won't do much to the meta, cause of roar and whirlwind.now that celebrate shaymin is out it seems like we can talk about it
at first i thought it was just a tiny gimmick but after looking into it it seems like it can actually have a decent niche in the meta so i wanna see what people think about it
Problem with this logic is that Hippo is the main phazer, which Shaymin beats (please don't talk about Skarmory it's trash). Though Toxapex and Mantine will be problems more than anything.If anything becomes meta, then people will adapt to it. Problem with any Z-boost move is that any mon with whirlwind or roar will just make your z-boost move become useless. So it will still be ok at best, but won't do much to the meta, cause of roar and whirlwind.
The only thing in OU that roars/whirlwinds are Suicune (gets blown back) Hippowdown (also gets blown back) and Skarmory (takes too much from HP Fire) and is pretty irrelevant in OU because of how good Celesteela is. If anything I'm worried about Pex and Mantine hazing it.If anything becomes meta, then people will adapt to it. Problem with any Z-boost move is that any mon with whirlwind or roar will just make your z-boost move become useless. So it will still be ok at best, but won't do much to the meta, cause of roar and whirlwind.
Yeah the set is ridiculously hard to beat. There are some Pokemon that beat it outright, such as Mega Slowbro, Buzzwole, Unaware Clefable, Unaware Pyuku, Alomomola, but they're all pretty niche. Your best and most common way to deal with it is probably gonna be a combination of Clefables Moonblast into a Landorus' HP Ice. This is one of the reasons why I think Zygarde should possibly be suspected - it's so difficult to beat all of it's sets.How does one beat Weakness Policy Zygarde? I've been losing to this shit on the ladder all day, and I legitimately can't think of any reasonable counterplay to it -- it seems like I would have to activate its WP and then phaze it out, with Dragon Tail for example.
I'm not going to say Zygarde is 'broken' or 'suspect worthy' because I think those terms are very loosely defined, but I find it damn near impossible to account for the majority of this mon's 5000 different sets when team building. Under veil/screens (which have been increasing in popularity lately) it automatically 6-0s most standard builds that aren't made to counter this specific strategy. Going up against this thing is always a pain in the ass because unlike most mons that have multiple different viable sets, you cannot 'scout' against Zygarde. It's a late game sweeper that only comes out in the late game, and you only find out what set it is when you try to counter it -- you will only find out that it's WP after you've activated it, or that it's Z-Iron Tail after it's killed your clef, and at that point you're probably going to get swept. There are many offensive threats in USM OU that severely restrict team building, but right now I feel like this is the worst offender of the bunch.
/rant
one of the soliddest zygarde checks in general is tangrowth, which has the ability to completely wall zygarde unless its dragonium which is a mediocre and uncommon set or has toxic spikes up. mons like mega latias and latios with ice beam or draco meteor are really good weakness policy zygarde checks. im not trying to say that i dont believe that zygarde is broken, but im trying to say that cores like clefable + mega latias or tangrowth + clefable or even clefable + scarf bulky landorus-t have a solid matchup against zygarde. in more offensive teams, you do not want to allow zygarde to set up and stalls have unaware users like clefable quagsire and pyukumuku in addition to potentially a rocky helmet tangrowth. curse scizor or even sd scizor also are really good zygarde checks.How does one beat Weakness Policy Zygarde? I've been losing to this shit on the ladder all day, and I legitimately can't think of any reasonable counterplay to it -- it seems like I would have to activate its WP and then phaze it out, with Dragon Tail for example.
I'm not going to say Zygarde is 'broken' or 'suspect worthy' because I think those terms are very loosely defined, but I find it damn near impossible to account for the majority of this mon's 5000 different sets when team building. Under veil/screens (which have been increasing in popularity lately) it automatically 6-0s most standard builds that aren't made to counter this specific strategy. Going up against this thing is always a pain in the ass because unlike most mons that have multiple different viable sets, you cannot 'scout' against Zygarde. It's a late game sweeper that only comes out in the late game, and you only find out what set it is when you try to counter it -- you will only find out that it's WP after you've activated it, or that it's Z-Iron Tail after it's killed your clef, and at that point you're probably going to get swept. There are many offensive threats in USM OU that severely restrict team building, but right now I feel like this is the worst offender of the bunch.
/rant
IMO people slapping lando/clef on teams is not lazy, it's a product of the metagame. In this meta, there are a million different offensive mons that will shred your team unless you prep for them: tapu koko, ash-gren, kartana, volcarona, hawlucha, zygarde... the list goes on. That's why role compression is valued so highly in this meta, and it's why a mon like gastrodon is thriving right now -- it's able to reliably check multiple top threats in a single team slot. The same is true of lando-t and clef: people don't use them just to check zygarde, they're used to check a multitude of different mons, and this also makes them the most popular zygarde answers. While I agree that mew and tangrowth are generally great zyg checks and are by no means 'niche', you still have to consider the opportunity cost of using these mons over lando/clef/gastrodon: mew completely relinquishes momentum against the likes of heatran, ash-gren and most other special attackers, tangrowth hates getting knocked off, gets volt switched on and has no way to cripple set-up sweepers like lucha and volcarona. Bulu and scizor are complete setup fodder for coil sets, which are some of the most common now. Hippowdon is cool, I've used it before and it is a good stop to zygarde, but it's really passive and can't provide much support other than stealth rocks.I havent been playing ou for a while either but did u really just mention Pyukumuku/Buzzwole and not mention Mew, Tangrowth, Mega-Scizor, Hippowdon or Tapu Bulu? I know the former two have fallen off a bit and a lure set for bulu rised a bit but still, steelium z is no where near common that bulu cannot counter it consistently. Scizor/Hippowdon is also a pretty consistent counter to most sets
Weakness policy is just so good right now only because it punishes the lazy slapping of lando/clef on a team to patch weakness to zygarde and get swept once they activate weakness policy, i think its just more of a flavor of the month thing personally
- EV spread is also customizable; for example, a set with SD + a Careful nature can be used to live Magma Storm from Heatran and beat it with Fightinium Z if the team needs a last resort answer vs. it:
- 4 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 104 HP / 0+ SpD Tapu Bulu: 258-306 (84 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery and trapping damage
- 252 Atk Tapu Bulu All-Out Pummeling (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 396-466 (102.5 - 120.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery
- 252 SpA Heatran Magma Storm vs. 248 HP / 68+ SpD Tapu Bulu: 288-342 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Grassy Terrain recovery and trapping damage
- 188 Atk Tapu Bulu All-Out Pummeling (190 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 376-444 (97.4 - 115%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery and Grassy Terrain recovery