I would run speed over HP on CM + 3 attacks tbh. In that case you outspeed and 3hko's Toxivroak with +1 Ice Beam after it SDs and Drain Punched once. And if that poses an issue you can always run Extrasenory as you have mentioned. Bulky offesnive CMers are always slow so that is not an issue - Slowbro, Reun, they are all slow. Unlike Reuniclus, it isn't weak to Knock Off and has a really good defensive typing in this meta that allows it to boost easily. While it is certain that non-CroCune sets are not as effective due to the lack of recovery making Cune more prone to being worn down, this set has the advantage of not being Taunt bait and having good coverage to wallbreak (Ice + Water have good coverage together, hitting everything but Water types, which you can fix by running HP Grass or just use team support to take out opposing Water types)
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XY UU Viability Ranking Thread
- Thread starter Limitless
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How Suicune and Slowbro fare against Honchkrow is irrelevant to Honchkrow's ranking. I'm comparing how those 2 affect the rest of the meta, compared to how Honchkrow fights the rest of the meta. Cune can beat any team without water absorb while Slowbro can beat any team without toxic. Honchkrow needs quite a few things gone or weakened to be effective because the rocks weakness + brave bird recoil + life orb recoil takes him down very quickly.
Powerful, yes, and played well he can take out a lot of things 1v1. Does he sweep significant portions of the metagame consistently? No. Recoil kills him before he can do that.
I second Honchkrow for S-Rank, nothing in the tier resists the combination of Brave Bird, Sucker Punch, and Super Power. Honchkrow can basically run whatever it wants in it's final slot, most commonly Pursuit, Roost, or Defog but you could even add Heat Wave of Hidden Power Grass to break through some walls. The addition of Defog, good Rapid Spinners, and Dark now being one of the best typings also make Honchkrow one of the biggest threats in the metagame right now.
*looks at list of A rank mons
*sees hippo
*does a calc
Yeah, seconding the nomination for Honchkrow for S rank. You know you've got power when you can pull off this...
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 175-207 (41.6 - 49.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
So if hippo has about 20-ish percent prior damage, honch is pretty much guaranteed a kill every time it gets a free swap in because hippo can't counter anymore. There really aren't any better case scenarios either, as every other decent phys wall in the tier either A lacks reliable recovery and/or is less bulky then hippo (therefore not as good of a counter) or B is hit super effectively by honch and is therefore easily killed.
I realize that being hard to counter alone is not enough to make something OP, however, Honchkrow is relatively unique for a sweeper that not only is it hard to counter, but it punishes teams for not having a counter ready because if you death fodder something, it gets a boost. Combine that with sucker punch and revengeing it is suddenly "borderline" impossible.
As a comparison, lets take banded darm. Banded darm is very similar to honchkrow in that neither of them can swap into much of anything, but if they do get a free swap in, they are almost impossible to counter due to the sheer amount of damage the swap in is going to take (in case you care, banded adamant darm has a good chance of 2hkoing phys defensive jellicent). However, once darm gets that kill, he is very easy to force out. Just send in a faster mon or your other bulky fire resist. Darm cannot take that free swap in and proceed to sweep the enemy team, making him more balanced then honchkrow.
effyouzion
"Slowbro can beat any team without Toxic"
Yeah no, this is blatantly false. First off, slowbro has regenerator, meaning he will be swapping out frequently anyway, so Toxic isn't even that good against it. Second off, what DOES beat it is a strong wall breaker, like this one.
252 Atk Guts Heracross Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 386-456 (97.9 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
*sees hippo
*does a calc
Yeah, seconding the nomination for Honchkrow for S rank. You know you've got power when you can pull off this...
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 175-207 (41.6 - 49.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
So if hippo has about 20-ish percent prior damage, honch is pretty much guaranteed a kill every time it gets a free swap in because hippo can't counter anymore. There really aren't any better case scenarios either, as every other decent phys wall in the tier either A lacks reliable recovery and/or is less bulky then hippo (therefore not as good of a counter) or B is hit super effectively by honch and is therefore easily killed.
I realize that being hard to counter alone is not enough to make something OP, however, Honchkrow is relatively unique for a sweeper that not only is it hard to counter, but it punishes teams for not having a counter ready because if you death fodder something, it gets a boost. Combine that with sucker punch and revengeing it is suddenly "borderline" impossible.
As a comparison, lets take banded darm. Banded darm is very similar to honchkrow in that neither of them can swap into much of anything, but if they do get a free swap in, they are almost impossible to counter due to the sheer amount of damage the swap in is going to take (in case you care, banded adamant darm has a good chance of 2hkoing phys defensive jellicent). However, once darm gets that kill, he is very easy to force out. Just send in a faster mon or your other bulky fire resist. Darm cannot take that free swap in and proceed to sweep the enemy team, making him more balanced then honchkrow.
effyouzion
"Slowbro can beat any team without Toxic"
Yeah no, this is blatantly false. First off, slowbro has regenerator, meaning he will be swapping out frequently anyway, so Toxic isn't even that good against it. Second off, what DOES beat it is a strong wall breaker, like this one.
252 Atk Guts Heracross Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 386-456 (97.9 - 115.7%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
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With the Honchkrow discussion, I would also like to nominate Slowbro for A+. As many of you may have noticed, pokemon like Heracross and Honch on on the rise, both of which tear Slowbro a new one. Furthermore, many teams carry one or two ways to kill CroCune, which transitively can kill Slowbro. I'm not doubting the fact that Slowbro is an aaazing physical wal, but the metagame is quockly shifting out its favor.
Honchkrow can consistently secure more KO's per game than CroCune can, and his wallbreaking capabilities coupled with access to powerful priority make him more valuable for more teams. In fact, I'm yet to see a game where Honchkrow hasn't gotten at least 1 KO, and usually gets more, which means he always pulls his own weight and some. CroCune by nature can be very hit and miss. I've had plenty of games where its Sleep Talks fail and cut its run short before it can do anything useful for the team. That's his main problem: consistency.
The Stealth Rock argument here doesn't hold much water because firstly clearing hazards isn't too much of a problem courtesy of the large number of viable spinners, and it's only a 25% weakness, which is manageable and never stopped Staraptor or any of the other stealth rock weak behemoths like Salamence from going on a running riot, and likewise even with rocks up Honchrow can still easily KO something, then usually take another thing down with another powerful hit or dent/KO a revenger with Sucker Punch. It also has a very usable special attack stat which means it can KO would-be checks/counters like Forretress and Mega Aggron with Heat Wave or other coverage options. And if something can get 1-3 kills before dying on most occasions and can 2HKO practically the entire tier, I'd say that's sweeping a pretty damn good portion.
With weavile gone, honchkrow is arguably one of the best Pursuit users in the tier. It is almost guaranteed to land a pursuit due to how easily it forces switches with threat of brave bird, and the loss of dark resist on steels has only made its STAB moves even more dangerous. Pursuit coupled with life orb deals absurd damage on the switchout, and if it manages to land a kill it is gains to +1, allowing it to abuse a free superpower on against the switch in. Of course due to this it has to forego heatwave for a set of skpch/bb/pursuit/suppwr. At least it can run adamant now.
I nominate honchkrow to be A rank, A- at worst. Also why are we comparing crocune and slowbro with honchkrow...that's like saying the best sword should be able to beat the best shield in the land and vice versa, and either one has to step down if it can't break the other. Totally fucking ridiculous.
I nominate honchkrow to be A rank, A- at worst. Also why are we comparing crocune and slowbro with honchkrow...that's like saying the best sword should be able to beat the best shield in the land and vice versa, and either one has to step down if it can't break the other. Totally fucking ridiculous.
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Being tested atm
While I definitely sympathize with the notion that a good number of things in the metagame that counter Suicune pretty well have recently risen in popularity, I think the fact that one of their main reasons for rising to popularity is Suicune makes Suicune an inherently S-ranked mon.
What I mean by this is that Suicune makes teambuilding rather restrictive. If you lack a cro-cune counter, you are going to lose to it. That's sort of absolutely true. It's not like other scary physical threats that you lack a counter to that you can just wear down with faster things and chip damage; you will get swept. Because of this, teams are forced to run a Suicune counter, or at least a suicune check. This usually manifests itself in the form of a water absorber like Heliolisk, Taunt Jellicent, Gastrodon (although gastro is hardly a counter), and Toxicroak, or simply by running several strong grass and electric type mons and phazing/hazards to deal with it eventually.
Because one of the main reasons for these water-absorbing mons' popularity is Suicune, we can also conclude that without the existence of Suicune in the tier, they would be far less viable. Without Dry Skin, Heliolisk is sort of just an underwhelming offensive pivot - without Dry Skin, Toxicroak is just a paltry set-up sweeper with decent offensive and horrible defensive typing - without Water Absorb, Jellicent is just an average spinblocker. For the 8.71% of people using Suicune on their team (as of the March stats), these pokes are something to work around. For the other 91.29% of people not using Suicune, they reap the benefit of battling these pokes that would be sub-optimal if Suicune didn't exist. As such, Suicune is pretty influential on the metagame and the caliber of pokes being used in it, which makes it easily S-rank imo.
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Reusing this for response to Kitten Milk's post.
Slowbro's CM set has opposite counters to CroCune. CroCune can be worn down with hazards and phasing, and is walled by any water absorb mon. Slowbro can't be worn down by phasing because of regenerator, has psyshock to beat anything with water absorb, and has instant recovery, meaning he's best countered by toxic (which is basically worthless vs. Cune). The fact that Slowbro can run this set in a meta that tries to counter Suicune is pretty awesome.
On top of that, you get the standard pivot set which is great against anything physical not named Hera or mega Absol. Even Honchkrow can be played around:
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 185-218 (46.9 - 55.3%) -- 15.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Just paralyze and spam recovery til he either dies from recoil or can't move.
That unpredictability makes him S rank to me.
Paralyze with what exactly? IIRC, CM slowbro does not have room for any sort of paralyzing moves, and even if he did, he's just asking to get killed the moment he even attempts to do anything other then spam slack off. Also, pretty much anything with dark pulse can dent slowbro pretty darn hard and there are a decent number of wallbreakers in the tier that can discourage any setup attempts. Toxic imo is actually not that great vs most slowbro builds due to regenerator.
Also, FYI, Jellicent craps on both slowbro and suicune. Phys defensive Vap can also phase them both out all day long. Specs jolteon / raiku can dent them pretty hard too.
Ernesto edit: reading comprehension is recommended. He said 'standard bulky pivot' which forfeits CM for T-Wave. And Jellicent lacking Taunt (or Toxic for Slowbro's case) actually lose to CM Cune and Bro one on one.
Nice Venomoth spelling Limitless xD
On a more serious note, I think Slowbro should stay at S rank. Sure, it can have a difficult time with the Knock Offs thrown around in the tier, but its ability to regain health passively through Regenerator makes it a fantastic response to many of the stupidly powerful Fire- and Fighting-types in the tier. Did CB Victini catch you on the switch with Bolt Strike? Just switch out to something that can take it while you heal roughly half the damage you just took. The CM set is a great win-con for stall teams as it WILL beat CroCune 1v1 if it comes down to that thanks to Psyshock. If you don't need a stall team win-con, there's always the traditional pivot set to spread paralysis and burns. Don't need that? It has an AV set to take on some special attackers more easily and Regenerator makes up for the lack of Slack Off. It's one of the easier Pokemon to fit onto teams in spite of the Knock Off buff (which is more manageable now more than ever) and the fact that VoltTurn teams are a bit of a pain. Slowbro is deserving of S-rank because of how good the CM set is, but also due to the fact it can do other things effectively if you don't need that. And to finish the point on CMBro being a superb win-con for stall teams, here's what happens against CroCune:
+6 8 SpA Slowbro Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 228-268 (56.4 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery. Both boost at the same time, but Bro wins cuz Psyshock trumps Suicune's SpDef boosts while Cune has no way to do that against Bro.
On a more serious note, I think Slowbro should stay at S rank. Sure, it can have a difficult time with the Knock Offs thrown around in the tier, but its ability to regain health passively through Regenerator makes it a fantastic response to many of the stupidly powerful Fire- and Fighting-types in the tier. Did CB Victini catch you on the switch with Bolt Strike? Just switch out to something that can take it while you heal roughly half the damage you just took. The CM set is a great win-con for stall teams as it WILL beat CroCune 1v1 if it comes down to that thanks to Psyshock. If you don't need a stall team win-con, there's always the traditional pivot set to spread paralysis and burns. Don't need that? It has an AV set to take on some special attackers more easily and Regenerator makes up for the lack of Slack Off. It's one of the easier Pokemon to fit onto teams in spite of the Knock Off buff (which is more manageable now more than ever) and the fact that VoltTurn teams are a bit of a pain. Slowbro is deserving of S-rank because of how good the CM set is, but also due to the fact it can do other things effectively if you don't need that. And to finish the point on CMBro being a superb win-con for stall teams, here's what happens against CroCune:
+6 8 SpA Slowbro Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Suicune: 228-268 (56.4 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery. Both boost at the same time, but Bro wins cuz Psyshock trumps Suicune's SpDef boosts while Cune has no way to do that against Bro.
And Slowbro is overall a better pokemon than Suicune because it has a much broader and superior movepool and a better ability so its S-rank is a lot easier to justify. That fact is another reason for Suicune to potentially drop, because Suicune faces a lot of competition from Slowbro for the role of a Bulky Water, and Slowbro is much more unpredictable and versatile than Suicune. Suicune can give free switches to a lot of things, whereas with Slowbro, you never know if it's going to cripple your switch-in with T-Wave, start CM'ing, or whether it's an all-out attacker with Assault Vest which has some powerful coverage moves like Fire Blast. And as you said, Regen gives Bro many more opportunities to scout choiced moves like CB Boltstrike, which can cripple Suicune pretty badly, putting him into 1HKO range for a lot of moderately powerful hits from that point onward in the game.
With all the discussion about Honchkrow I feel this is a perfect time to bring up some points about Alomomola a seriously underrated Pokemon. As we all know Alomomola is placed at B- but with all of the recent changes of the tiers I feel it should now be placed at B+ or A-. Alomomola is arguably the bulkiest physical wall in the tier and now that Chansey is long gone it holds the title of passing the largest wishes, these feats alone in my opinion warrant an increase in its rank. Nevertheless while the counter argument towards Alomomola rank is that it possess bad special defence and absolutely no attacking prowess what so ever, its biggest draw over every other wall is knock off. Even without running wish Alomomola is an amazing team supporter but with Knock off it is almost impossible to deny the support it provides to its team-mates.
If we take look at some of the most powerful physical attackers in the tier Mienshao, Victini, Honchkrow etc while their attack stats are high it is their damage boosting item that really improves damage output. While yes Alomomola lacks any real way to do damage and yes it lacks a phazing move, knock off more than compensates for these shortcomings as once it uses it against a physical attacker unless they can boost their stats they have no way of actually beating Alomomola one on one. Take a look at the calcs.
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 226-266 (42.3 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 174-205 (32.5 - 38.3%) -- 2.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 224-265 (41.9 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 172-204 (32.2 - 38.2%) -- 1.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 226-266 (42.3 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 174-205 (32.5 - 38.3%) -- 2.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
As you can see once Alomomola uses knock off its combination of bulk, regenrator and reliable recovery allows it to essential hard wall some of the fiercest physical attackers in the tier and to make things better Alomomola is bulky enough to switch into the life orbed version of these attacks without fear of being KO. All in all I really do believe that Alomomola should be moved up to either B+ or A-
If we take look at some of the most powerful physical attackers in the tier Mienshao, Victini, Honchkrow etc while their attack stats are high it is their damage boosting item that really improves damage output. While yes Alomomola lacks any real way to do damage and yes it lacks a phazing move, knock off more than compensates for these shortcomings as once it uses it against a physical attacker unless they can boost their stats they have no way of actually beating Alomomola one on one. Take a look at the calcs.
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 226-266 (42.3 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 174-205 (32.5 - 38.3%) -- 2.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Life Orb Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 224-265 (41.9 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Mienshao High Jump Kick vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 172-204 (32.2 - 38.2%) -- 1.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Life Orb Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 226-266 (42.3 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Heracross Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 174-205 (32.5 - 38.3%) -- 2.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
As you can see once Alomomola uses knock off its combination of bulk, regenrator and reliable recovery allows it to essential hard wall some of the fiercest physical attackers in the tier and to make things better Alomomola is bulky enough to switch into the life orbed version of these attacks without fear of being KO. All in all I really do believe that Alomomola should be moved up to either B+ or A-
252+ Atk Life Orb Honchkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Alomomola: 226-266 (42.3 - 49.8%) -- 31.3% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
It has a slight chance of being 2HKO'd by Honchkrow after Stealth Rock, but Alomomola does run Protect, which grabs another turn of lefties recovery which helps cancel out the Stealth Rock damage, so that's another good advantage of Alom over the other bulky waters like CroCune, and the fact that it has such a high HP stat means that Honchkrow is going to be taking some hefty recoil damage, which can allow Alom to stall it out with Wish + Protect (it wouldn't need to use Knock Off I don't think and could be risky anyway since Krow could keep spamming Brave Bird regardless). Alom is indeed shaping up to be one of the better bulky waters in the tier for sure, and I definitely agree with moving it up as it undoubtedly has some solid advantages over Suicune, Slowbro and Vaporeon.
It has a slight chance of being 2HKO'd by Honchkrow after Stealth Rock, but Alomomola does run Protect, which grabs another turn of lefties recovery which helps cancel out the Stealth Rock damage, so that's another good advantage of Alom over the other bulky waters like CroCune, and the fact that it has such a high HP stat means that Honchkrow is going to be taking some hefty recoil damage, which can allow Alom to stall it out with Wish + Protect (it wouldn't need to use Knock Off I don't think and could be risky anyway since Krow could keep spamming Brave Bird regardless). Alom is indeed shaping up to be one of the better bulky waters in the tier for sure, and I definitely agree with moving it up as it undoubtedly has some solid advantages over Suicune, Slowbro and Vaporeon.
You're just underestimating Suicune. The meta all but revolves around Suicune and its counters. The second Suicune drops, its counters drop, then Suicune rises up again.
Yeah faced it so many times. Same set always, yet so goddamn difficult to beat without using specific mons....
So that the conversations are more organized and less random, I'll highlight two Pokemon at a time for the community to talk about. Obviously, if you would like to banter about other Pokemon, feel free to do so. However, the bulk of the arguments should be about the specified Pokemon. There will be no specific time duration. When I feel that a solid argument has been made on one side, then I will make the final decision.
The first two Pokemon are:
Houndoom (Mega)
Klefki
Please state the ranking you are arguing for and the argument afterwards.
The first two Pokemon are:
Please state the ranking you are arguing for and the argument afterwards.
I haven't had much experience with Klefki in UU, but I have a feeling it will turn out to be a worse version of sableye without Swagplay, giving it a B+ ranking at best. While it has priority screens, T wave, and good defensive typing, it lacks other essential support moves to make it worthwhile, while having no reliable recovery outside of leftovers, which isn't very good because of Knock Off spam. It's attack prowess is almost non existent, and to make things short, lower tier pokes do it's job better.
Mega Houndoom, on the other hand, should go to A+ rank. Mega Houndoom is a powerful special attacker that have key offensive STAB's to plow through the tier, nasty plot, and some small amount of bulk to take a hit and set up a destiny bond if it's in trouble. However, the dominant fighting types in the tier outspeed and destroy Megadoom, thus giving it some kind of A.
Mega Houndoom, on the other hand, should go to A+ rank. Mega Houndoom is a powerful special attacker that have key offensive STAB's to plow through the tier, nasty plot, and some small amount of bulk to take a hit and set up a destiny bond if it's in trouble. However, the dominant fighting types in the tier outspeed and destroy Megadoom, thus giving it some kind of A.
Prankster T-Wave is still a great thing, and access to Spikes and Screens as well means that it's always going to be useful in some way or another. The lack of recovery is a problem which holds it back a bit, but overall I think it's ok to be ranked in A somewhere, though admittedly I haven't seen it much since it came back so I'm going off my experience with it before it was banned again.
Houndoom is great, but it's not as devastating as I thought it was going to be, surprisingly. He's definitely a strong pokemon, but he hasn't really been centralizing in my experience, and I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about him.
Houndoom is great, but it's not as devastating as I thought it was going to be, surprisingly. He's definitely a strong pokemon, but he hasn't really been centralizing in my experience, and I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about him.
I agree with everything you are saying, but lots of Prankster T wavers ended up in the lower tiers anyway, but with even shallower movepool of support moves, I still don't think it's all that great, but I guess it could be A- or something
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