Resource USUM OU ULTRA Sets Viability Ranking Thread

S Rank
Greninja-Ash
Choice Specs: S
Z-Crystal: A-

Sincerest apologies for the one-liner and/or extremely stupid question, but is the highlighted set even remotely a thing? Literally every single Ash-Greninja set I've ever seen has been Specs barring maybe one a very, very long time ago and I'm fairly sure the overwhelming majority of the sets seen in tournament play, too, are Specs.
 
Rock Polish Lando-T to be added (to A, as a example?)
Double dancer Lando-T to be added (maybe also to A?)

Maybe you would add the Lando-T set of Rock Polish, many people say:"Lando-T is too slow". If someone use Rock Polish, he can boost the speed by two(obviously), and you can also use a double dance set to sweep, because he has got a good bulk, with leftovers to recover HP, and later use his 145 base attack to destroy with a 100 base power stab attack called Earthquake (wow, again, obviously) and Rock Slide or Stone Edge. Here I put the set:

POWER (Landorus-Therian) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Rock Polish
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
Maybe some Pokemons can quit to Lando-T to sweep, but he can function as a late game sweeper and an intimidater.
Maybe this set could work only with Rock Polish and another attack in the part of SD to use the Rock Polish set. I'm not expert on OU, but I tried Lando-T much and I don't like the scarf set, so I tried to use this (no replays sorry).
 

power

uh-oh, the game in trouble
The new update is up: big shoutouts to Jordy and Talah for the insane amount of help ordering sets.

This was rewritten from scratch, so everything should be up to date and reflect the ranking team's current view on the metagame. Feel free to post now!

Please do note that many sets were discussed and intentionally excluded; the sets viability ranking only ranks sets the ranking team deems to be at least C+ in viability.
 
I think that Choice Band Hoopa should be ranked higher. I'll compare it with the Choice Band sets above it (Kartana, Bulu and Tyranitar) in some abstract aspects that I feel are important for a wallbreaker.
Spammable STAB: Dark is one of the most spammable types in the game. In this Meta there are few mons that resist Hyperspace Fury, and most of those are 2HKOed by its raw power anyway. Whereas, it isn't hard to find teams with 2 defensive mons that X4 resist Grass or Steel. As a result Bulu and Kartana rely on predicting which non-STAB move is better in order to break while Hoopa has it easier to mindlessly click its STAB. As a bonus, Hyperspace Fury doesn't make contact (think of Rocky Helmet Zapdos) and bypasses Subsitutes and Protect.
Raw Power: With rocks up, Nothing in OU can avoid the 2HKO from a neutral Hyperspace Fury with Adamant nature (which is more valid than ever now that Heatran rarely runs Timid nature).
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 248 HP / 212+ Def Tangrowth: 199-235 (49.3 - 58.3%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Landorus-Therian: 184-217 (48.1 - 56.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

The most bulky foes from outside:
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Avalugg: 144-171 (36.5 - 43.4%) -- 95.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Aggron-Mega: 150-177 (43.7 - 51.6%) -- 64.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

Coverage / Counters: The only two mons that can take two and have access to realiable recovery are OHKOed by Gunk Shot, and Fire/Fighting coverage covers the two or three things that elude Gunk Shot, making Hoopa unwallable. Depending on the team you could afford Zen Headbutt, which offers useful mid-grounds against cores like Bulu-Pex or Ice Punch to one-shot Lando.
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Bulu: 884-1044 (257.7 - 304.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO (you can kill it thrice lol)
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 442-520 (112.1 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Drain Punch vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar-Mega: 444-524 (115.9 - 136.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Fire Punch vs. 248 HP / 28 Def Magearna: 272-322 (74.9 - 88.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Bulu has to choose between Zen Headbutt for Mega-Venusaur, Megahorn for Tangrowth and Stone Edge for Torn and Bulkarona and is hard walled by Mega Scizor and Skarmory. Kartana (banded, remember) will never break Zapdos, Skarm, Scizor, etc. Tyranitar has problems with Hippowdon and Quagsire, and Stone Edge accuracy can be a problem against things like Mega Scizor or Skarmory.
Stall Match-Up: From the previous aspect is deduced that Hoopa has the best stall match-up among the Choice Band users: knowing no hard wall it can always open holes if you make good predictions.
Speed: The new standard Fini runs speed for modest Heatran, meaning that Hoopa now outspeeds everything actully bulky, but Gliscor (if adamant). Obviously there is no comparison with Kartana, but outpacing modest Heatran and things creeping that certainly gives Hoopa points over Bulu and Tyranitar (that is creeped by a problematic amount of things like Rotom-W, defensive Lando or some defensive Bulus).
What holds it back: Powerful and spammable STAB moves, perfect unwallable coverage and enough speed for the walls is what I think makes a perfect abstract wallbreaker. It suppose that the other Choice Band users are higher because they have better abilities, typing and defensive utility, are those thing mandatory on a wallbreaker?

So, Hoopa is the best Choice Band user as a wallbreaker but lacks some features that don't necessarily belong to a Wallbreaker, are those reason enough to keep it so low?

Choice Band Hoopa for B+

e:
Fixed a mistake pointed below.
 
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tennisace

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Great job guys!
Question: why is there no S rank set on gear? Is it oversight or is there an explanation?
probably because no one gear set is splashable on a wide variety of teams like say, specs ash gren or sr heatran, but magearna in general fits on a wide variety of teams with a wide variety of sets that can be tailored to the specific team & what you want it to accomplish. no one magearna set beats everything, but it can run so many sets it's considered s-rank on the whole as a threat.
 
So, Hoopa is the best Choice Band user as a wallbreaker but lacks some features that don't necessarily belong to a Wallbreaker, are those reason enough to keep it so low?
Yes. It's so low because it's B rank on the VR and we don't rank anything higher than its actual rank. If you're proposing a Hoopa-U rise I'd recommend you to go over to the VR and nominate it for a rise there. You made some solid points for sure and I'd say that Choice Band Hoopa-U is realistically the only set that can be B+, so if it rises on the VR it'll probably rise here as well whenever we get to it.
 
Raw Power: Nothing in OU can avoid the 2HKO from a neutral Hyperspace Fury with Adamant nature (which is more valid than ever now that Heatran rarely runs Timid nature).
-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 112+ Def Landorus-Therian: 184-217 (48.1 - 56.8%) -- 38.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
 
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probably because no one gear set is splashable on a wide variety of teams like say, specs ash gren or sr heatran, but magearna in general fits on a wide variety of teams with a wide variety of sets that can be tailored to the specific team & what you want it to accomplish. no one magearna set beats everything, but it can run so many sets it's considered s-rank on the whole as a threat.
Ah yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for clarifying!
 

MANNAT

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As a general criticism, I think that a lot of these are too specific, and there's a lot of stuff that can be condensed or made more general to make the rankings a bit more accurate.

Some Suggestions:
  • On Kart, Can we just change SD Normalium Z to say just "Swords Dance" and have it encompass all Z-moves? SD Z Fight and SD Z Steel are both great options in their own right to break through Celeteela/Sciz and Tornadus-T respectively while not providing a dead slot after the Z-move has been burnt.
  • Can we just collapse both CM Latias sets into an overarching "Calm Mind" banner? CM Stored Power Surf is a solid option on some balanced teams, so having stored power ranked separately is a bit misleading, and mono attacking SP is hardly used outside of the stray reflect type as is, so I don't really think it's harmful to include them here.
  • I think that DD MegaTar is still a really strong win condition against a lot of the balanced builds in the current meta and having it ranked 3 whole subranks below rocks seems like too wide of a gap, I'd move it up to B+ or A- for sure.
  • Bulky Bugnium QD on Volc really should just say bulky QD because bulky psychium's still good and can be a solid wincon vs pex teams, yet not unique enough to warrant getting its own set.
  • Is curse even usable on Sciz post-Zyg? I'd honestly drop it altogether or at the very least put it at like C+ or something to denote how much worse it is than SD because it's fucking trash rn.
  • I know that Scarf Drill is pretty bad compared to its other sets, but I still think it's decent enough to get ranked here, somewhere around B-/C+ should be appropriate.
  • Both the Lop sets really should be joined together, PuP is more of a filler option that fits better on some teams rather than actually being different enough to be its own set.
  • Speedboosting Specs Clown is fucking trash the only reason why speedboosting CM is good is because you can switch moves and actually sweep/can boost multiple times to offset the power drop, either just put Choice Specs or axe it altogether. I think Scarf is still a neat niche option on some really offensive teams that could fit in around C+ as well.
 

power

uh-oh, the game in trouble
As a general criticism, I think that a lot of these are too specific, and there's a lot of stuff that can be condensed or made more general to make the rankings a bit more accurate.

Some Suggestions:
  • On Kart, Can we just change SD Normalium Z to say just "Swords Dance" and have it encompass all Z-moves? SD Z Fight and SD Z Steel are both great options in their own right to break through Celeteela/Sciz and Tornadus-T respectively while not providing a dead slot after the Z-move has been burnt.
  • Can we just collapse both CM Latias sets into an overarching "Calm Mind" banner? CM Stored Power Surf is a solid option on some balanced teams, so having stored power ranked separately is a bit misleading, and mono attacking SP is hardly used outside of the stray reflect type as is, so I don't really think it's harmful to include them here.
  • I think that DD MegaTar is still a really strong win condition against a lot of the balanced builds in the current meta and having it ranked 3 whole subranks below rocks seems like too wide of a gap, I'd move it up to B+ or A- for sure.
  • Bulky Bugnium QD on Volc really should just say bulky QD because bulky psychium's still good and can be a solid wincon vs pex teams, yet not unique enough to warrant getting its own set.
  • Is curse even usable on Sciz post-Zyg? I'd honestly drop it altogether or at the very least put it at like C+ or something to denote how much worse it is than SD because it's fucking trash rn.
  • I know that Scarf Drill is pretty bad compared to its other sets, but I still think it's decent enough to get ranked here, somewhere around B-/C+ should be appropriate.
  • Both the Lop sets really should be joined together, PuP is more of a filler option that fits better on some teams rather than actually being different enough to be its own set.
  • Speedboosting Specs Clown is fucking trash the only reason why speedboosting CM is good is because you can switch moves and actually sweep/can boost multiple times to offset the power drop, either just put Choice Specs or axe it altogether. I think Scarf is still a neat niche option on some really offensive teams that could fit in around C+ as well.
Great post, just gonna drop a few notes

Kart - agreed

Lati - funny you say this, because Talah wanted to get even more specific and separate cm psyshock from bolt beam. Don't really support combining stored power with boltbeam/ other 2 attack sets because it's not as good (notably bc pex is a huge douche)

dd megatar - i originally had it around b+ but then moved it down at the behest of others, can bring it up again.

volc/ sciz - will bring this up

scarf drill - see ttar, had this at c+ originally

lop- pup encore isnt technically an all out attacker; my favorite lop set in the current meta is fake out + pup, but i decided to separate pup entirely from aoa and combine fake pup and pup encore into a pup set. I'll bring this up

speedboosting specs clown - the three of us who voted on this one pretty much unanimously disagreed, but I can bring it up again. Scarfs a C set, so we left it off intentionally; it's not good
 
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power

uh-oh, the game in trouble
Why are there so many sets with minor changes for Magearna but not for Protean Gren?
Magearna is an S Rank threat, unlike Protean Gren which is in A Rank. We wanted to accurately portray Magearna's multitude of sets, whereas we didn't really feel like that was necessary for something like Protean Greninja. Offensive Protean Gren (ignoring scarf and sash) generally runs 4 attacks or 3 attacks + spikes and we felt dividing these by either physically based (low kick / gunk / beam or uturn / z dig / beam or hydro) and specially based (hp fire + hydro sets) was a good enough distinction.
 
Why does Garchomp not have scarf or mixed as any sets?
Scarf Garchomp is a rather bad Pokemon and is quite one-dimensional as a niche revenge killer. When compared to the more common Scarf LandoT, LandoT can serve as a fast pivot, hazard control, and speed control while Scarf Chomp can only be a speed control.

Mixed Chomp is a set for only Mega Garchomp for surprising its usual checks with Fire Blast and Draco Meteor, but isn't really that good on regular as it has lower special attack and is inferior to its other sets
 
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