[OU Discussion] Heracross

[Toast]

Gengar comes in and can ohko. Arc can flame then espeed it. And arguing one attack that nobody is really gonna spam to stop gengar only really puts it at risk. Same with spamming rock slide when steels can conpletky wall it.

Team building is becoming harder and harder with more bans and making things more centralized.

Heracross is now one of the best sweepers we have and offensive team building you almost have to include it.

But any steel type can reliably come in and force it out. Seeming you can't spam eq due to gengar threat.

I honestly don't see how it can be banned. It can run multiple sets, yes but it's still only hitting on the physical side. Making anything that has bulk can usually come in and force it out.

That's imo. I've been using a heracross and yes it's good but steels gengar all cause issues. And if their setting spikes it makes it ten times harder to bring heracross in. It's bulky but spikes hinder it.

i love heracross but saying any steel type can reliably come in and force it out is just.. no. good luck sending a steel type in on a brick break or low kick, and forretress? good luck forcing it out.

[OldKeith]

Gengar comes in and can ohko.

No, it can't ohko.

 

Arc can flame then espeed it.

When EQ 2-shots it.

Team building is becoming harder and harder with more bans and making things more centralized.

How?

But any steel type can reliably come in and force it out.

Skarmory is alright although it does not like banded brick breaks. Forretress cannot touch it, Metagross can get 2 shot by Megahorn, what other steel types are you talking about? Steelix and Aggron are terrible.

I honestly don't see how it can be banned. It can run multiple sets, yes but it's still only hitting on the physical side. Making anything that has bulk can usually come in and force it out.

Try doing some calculations to see how damaging Heracross can be.

[Excelimpulse]

Gengar comes in and can ohko.
No, it can't ohko.

Arc can flame then espeed it.
When EQ 2-shots it.

Team building is becoming harder and harder with more bans and making things more centralized.
How?
But any steel type can reliably come in and force it out.
Skarmory is alright although it does not like banded brick breaks. Forretress cannot touch it, Metagross can get 2 shot by Megahorn, what other steel types are you talking about? Steelix and Aggron are terrible.
I honestly don't see how it can be banned. It can run multiple sets, yes but it's still only hitting on the physical side. Making anything that has bulk can usually come in and force it out.
Try doing some calculations to see how damaging Heracross can be.

Psychic doesn't ohko????wat

Again spamming eq ends up bad for heracross. It never happens you spam the stab first. We should all know that.

And like I said previously zard can even come in and ohko. But if we're gonna play the what if game when one move can do serious damage when it isn't stab and your forced to switch out if predicted wrong we should start looking at every offensive threat. It's not like any of those moves are stab. Bb is but then gengar has free switch in. Edited February 23, 2015 by Excelimpulse

[DaftCoolio]

Psychic doesn't ohko????wat
 

252+ SpA Gengar Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heracross: 118-140 (76.1 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

 

And like I said previously zard can even come in and ohko. 

rock slide

Edited February 23, 2015 by DaftCoolio

[Gunthug]

Psychic doesn't ohko????wat

Again spamming eq ends up bad for heracross. It never happens you spam the stab first. We should all know that.

And like I said previously zard can even come in and ohko. But if we're gonna play the what if game when one move can do serious damage when it isn't stab and your forced to switch out if predicted wrong we should start looking at every offensive threat. It's not like any of those moves are stab. Bb is but then gengar has free switch in.

Unless you're not running a choice band set. I'm telling you, swords dance + 3 attacks is insanely powerful

[Shaniqualela]

Skarmory does not like low kick at all. +2 low kick can 2hko skarm and fort and fort is set up bait

[DrCraig]

It sounds like the Heracross you guys use have like 8 moves, I think that's why it is sweeping the tier.

[Shaniqualela]

It sounds like the Heracross you guys use have like 8 moves, I think that's why it is sweeping the tier.

Swords dance
Megahorn
Low kick
Rock slide

Master race

[DrCraig]

Swords dance
Megahorn
Low kick
Rock slide

Master race

Gengar shuts it down then.

You need to run 5 moves.

[Robofiend]

Even though it may not seem like heracross has a lot of wiggle room in what it can run, it still is very versatile in the evs and movesets and abilities it can run, all of which pose immediate threats and seem to be dominating the team building process of many players. (I don't know how to use multiple paragraphs)

 

I don't think anyone would be running Swarm over Guts on the off chance that Weezing's not going to try and Wisp it, just seems like a little too much reverse psychology. The Guts boost can be really scary, but CB Hera regrets losing 1/8 of its HP each turn. After 1 turn of burn Flygon can take it out with Fire Punch/Dragon Claw and after 2 turns it's going to die to Gengar. The more it loses HP, the less useful it is in tight situations where its bulk really counts. It obviously has the same problem with switching in and taking Spikes damage.

 

I think this argument is also assuming a bit too much predictive power on the Heracross user: sure, theif snags Gengar, but if you mess up Hera's going to be toast (note Jolly nature, not adamant, but calcs are similar):

 

252 Atk Choice Band Heracross Pursuit vs. 188 HP / 104 Def Snorlax: 118-139 (23.2 - 27.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Heracross Rock Slide vs. 188 HP / 104 Def Snorlax: 147-173 (28.9 - 34%) -- 99.3% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Snorlax Body Slam vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Heracross: 127-150 (42 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

 

Like all CB'ers, Hera's gotta live with the pains of predicting as all of its common moves are stopped by one of more OU pokemon:

 

Megahorn - Gengar, Gyara, Arcanine Skarmory, Weezing, other Heracross

Brick Break - Gengar, Gyara, Weezing, Arcanine, other Heracross

Rock Slide - Swampert, Weezing, Flygon, Rhydon

Theif - only covers Gengar, useless otherwise

Facade - Skamory, Forretress, Gengar

 

So yeah, "nothing counters Heracross" - but that's true of a lot of Gen IV+ pokemon. Gen III seems to be the last gen where you can just send in a counter and expect it to wall all of the possible sets that an opponent is running. Even so, Heracross seems to have a healthy pool of options that can stop it from sweeping more than one time.

 

Of course, your Hera blocker can get screwed by a surprise set, but like I've been saying throughout this thread, surprise sets are everywhere in pokemon. And some of the surprise sets (SD or End/Rev) cover a lot more of these counters, but are stopped more definitively by Arc/Weezing/Gengar. I know that you know this, but the existence of counters is unimportant when it comes to bans. Imagine the uguu-ing that'd go on in discussion thread for Gengar:

 

 

"Does anything really counter this thing? It runs FP for Special walls, Sub/Disable to stop monoattackers/Pursuiters, Thunderbolt for Skarmory, Will-o-Wisp for Metagross, Giga Drain for Swampert, and Psychic to take out Fighting types. Oh yeah, and it's got Pain Split, Taunt, Perish trapping, Destiny Bond and Explosion."

 

Remember the "Offensive Criteria" for being banned: "A pokemon is Uber if it can sweep a significant portion of the metagame with little effort". In all honestly, Heracross only really kills Bliss/Vap/Lax with little effort.

 

But any steel type can reliably come in and force it out. Seeming you can't spam eq due to gengar threat.

 

It's like you're actually trying to be wrong:

 

252+ Atk Choice Band Heracross Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Skarmory: 267-315 (79.9 - 94.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Heracross Brick Break vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Skarmory: 135-159 (40.4 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Heracross Brick Break vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Steelix: 212-252 (59.8 - 71.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Heracross Brick Break vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Forretress: 110-132 (31 - 37.2%) -- 79.2% chance to 3HKO

 

 

Of these, Skarmory is the only one that actually has a chance of hurting Hera, the others just swap in and get blasted.

Edited February 23, 2015 by Robofiend

[Kizhaz]

Megahorn, brick breack/low kick, rock slide, earthquake, thief, swords dance, endure, reversal. I can see how heracross cab be a threatening pokemon if you dont know its moveset, and chances are by the time you figure it out something has taken a heavy hit or quite possibly fainted, however where heracross has moves for one counter he loses moves for another. The 3 move you would see on most heracross are 2 stabs and rockslide for the birdies, leaving the last slot to set up, coverage on ghosts or coverage on k9. Speaking of k9 you said it cant ohko with flamethrower, he can however ohko with overheat, and being your only special atk its not a bad move (also helps with metagross)

 

Left out Facade

Edited February 23, 2015 by Kizhaz

[NikhilR]

I still can't believe ppl don't think Heracross deserves a ban. I went into 2 straight OU official finals because of that thing and dugtrio. Dugtrio helps in killing banded ones with Aerial Ace and I'm willing to sack one pokemon to Heracross rather than an entire team. The only reason I lost in the final is because my heracross was slower than a starmie and hence I mispredicted the sub and got killed by my opponent's Dugtrio. If both finalists are running a banded dugtrio, it means that taking out Hera/Metagross and a few others, are more important than taking out blissey/snorlax.

 

More importantly with it's high insane attack stat and good enough speed, it can set up for sub reversal with so much ease and proceed with a sweep. That's one of the beauties of it, since you can hide it throughout the match and then finally reveal it.

[codylramey]

 If both finalists are running a banded dugtrio, it means that taking out Hera/Metagross and a few others, are more important than taking out blissey/snorlax.

This isnt necessarly true. Banded dugtrio is used to take out almost everything while reversal dug is a nitch set that is only used to support spcl attackers.

[Excelimpulse]

I still can't believe ppl don't think Heracross deserves a ban. I went into 2 straight OU official finals because of that thing and dugtrio. Dugtrio helps in killing banded ones with Aerial Ace and I'm willing to sack one pokemon to Heracross rather than an entire team. The only reason I lost in the final is because my heracross was slower than a starmie and hence I mispredicted the sub and got killed by my opponent's Dugtrio. If both finalists are running a banded dugtrio, it means that taking out Hera/Metagross and a few others, are more important than taking out blissey/snorlax.

More importantly with it's high insane attack stat and good enough speed, it can set up for sub reversal with so much ease and proceed with a sweep. That's one of the beauties of it, since you can hide it throughout the match and then finally reveal it.

So making it to an official based on dugtrio support makes heracross ban worthy? Beyond confused with that logic. Sounds like you just built a good team with a strategy set in place and it worked. But I can tell you that's why I have been running superman teams.

Running gengar and skarmory really hinders that strategy.spike support plus spin blocker and access to willo to support your own physical cb pokes.

and like robo said. The days of full on counters are over. If we base every ban on what the poke can do for coverage we will have 20 pokes in uber. If heracross runs one of them it usually is missing another coverage that shuts it down completely. heracross has good speed but it's not that fast. A lot of pokes are faster. And if we're basing bans now off of coverage moves, think blaziken. It has more options. And can go mixed.

heracross is great now but can be stopped and needs a lot of support. Rather it's trio,the magnet, or spikes . It needs support.

[NikhilR]

This isnt necessarly true. Banded dugtrio is used to take out almost everything while reversal dug is a nitch set that is only used to support spcl attackers.

 

Running Aerial Ace on dugtrio is solely for Heracross. Your ordinary sub reversal dugtrio doesn't ohko it. Banded dugs are nice to take out things when you have done certain damage to it. This doesn't apply to Heracross though because of it's 4x weakness. 

 

 

So making it to an official based on dugtrio support makes heracross ban worthy? Beyond confused with that logic. Sounds like you just built a good team with a strategy set in place and it worked. But I can tell you that's why I have been running superman teams.

Running gengar and skarmory really hinders that strategy.spike support plus spin blocker and access to willo to support your own physical cb pokes.

and like robo said. The days of full on counters are over. If we base every ban on what the poke can do for coverage we will have 20 pokes in uber. If heracross runs one of them it usually is missing another coverage that shuts it down completely. heracross has good speed but it's not that fast. A lot of pokes are faster. And if we're basing bans now off of coverage moves, think blaziken. It has more options. And can go mixed.

heracross is great now but can be stopped and needs a lot of support. Rather it's trio,the magnet, or spikes . It needs support.

 

You know what, you honestly know nothing. I don't care what teams you have been running because unless you put your so called theories to a test or practice, it's not worth listening to.

 

Robo has pointed out that gengar and skarmory are not counters, yet you selectively choose what you like from it. It has enough speed to hit salac and sweep and enough attk stat to tear through walls especially with access to swords dance. Your faster pokemon like Aerodactyl, Jolteon, Starmie don't have moves that increase it's power by a factor of 2 so they can't actually sweep. 

 

I used trio to STOP other Heracrosses, not support it. Heracross doesn't need support, it's pretty insanely powerful on its own. 

[Excelimpulse]

Running Aerial Ace on dugtrio is solely for Heracross. Your ordinary sub reversal dugtrio doesn't ohko it. Banded dugs are nice to take out things when you have done certain damage to it. This doesn't apply to Heracross though because of it's 4x weakness.



You know what, you honestly know nothing. I don't care what teams you have been running because unless you put your so called theories to a test or practice, it's not worth listening to.

Robo has pointed out that gengar and skarmory are not counters, yet you selectively choose what you like from it. It has enough speed to hit salac and sweep and enough attk stat to tear through walls especially with access to swords dance. Your faster pokemon like Aerodactyl, Jolteon, Starmie don't have moves that increase it's power by a factor of 2 so they can't actually sweep.

I used trio to STOP other Heracrosses, not support it. Heracross doesn't need support, it's pretty insanely powerful on its own.

Wow I wasn't even hostile. And my team isn't a theory. What you did with trio is a strategy and what I do to prevent it is a strategy. There not theories lol.

And I just said what robO said, that counters do not exhist basically after gen 3 so get over the fact that yes it can sweep but so can every other hard hitter.that is not picking anything I want to hear from that.

Picking apart from what herscross can do is basically what he said about gengar. Heracross can sweep but needs salac to activate. And 1 layer of spikes really screws endure rev or the chance of salac activating because then you can go for the ko without worry.


So good luck in trying to get it banned. I'm not even gonna acknowledge you if your just going to rip me apart with insults. Superman team is a theory rofl.

[NikhilR]

Wow I wasn't even hostile. And my team isn't a theory. What you did with trio is a strategy and what I do to prevent it is a strategy. There not theories lol.

And I just said what robO said, that counters do not exhist basically after gen 3 so get over the fact that yes it can sweep but so can every other hard hitter.that is not picking anything I want to hear from that.

Picking apart from what herscross can do is basically what he said about gengar. Heracross can sweep but needs salac to activate. And 1 layer of spikes really screws endure rev or the chance of salac activating because then you can go for the ko without worry.


So good luck in trying to get it banned. I'm not even gonna acknowledge you if your just going to rip me apart with insults. Superman team is a theory rofl.

 

I'm sorry if I was being hostile, I'm usually openly blunt and I have a very low tolerance towards stupidity. If you call trapping a strategy, then your definitions of strategy are different from mines. Strategy is something that involves thinking and planning and more or less there are risks at times. There is no huge thought process of using Dugtrio and me using it is basically me abusing it while I can. Just like how people did with Dragonite but still used it because it was too good to not use.

 

If your counters do not exist, then what was the point of mentioning gengar and skarmory? You said they hinder the strategy so I don't know what else you mean by it.

 

Are you telling me no one runs a pokemon below 137 speed in a team? Because if they do, all Heracross needs to do is come in and continue to sub till it reaches salac. How fucking hard can that be? Your one layer of missing spikes means nothing when you still have access to swords dance which makes a lot of difference. 

 

Your superman team lol, the name itself is bad, can't imagine how much worse the team could be. 

[ThinkNice]

Superman team is a name for a team that uses a lot of Levitaters and Flying types Nik.

[Excelimpulse]

I'm sorry if I was being hostile, I'm usually openly blunt and I have a very low tolerance towards stupidity. If you call trapping a strategy, then your definitions of strategy are different from mines. Strategy is something that involves thinking and planning and more or less there are risks at times. There is no huge thought process of using Dugtrio and me using it is basically me abusing it while I can. Just like how people did with Dragonite but still used it because it was too good to not use.

If your counters do not exist, then what was the point of mentioning gengar and skarmory? You said they hinder the strategy so I don't know what else you mean by it.

Are you telling me no one runs a pokemon below 137 speed in a team? Because if they do, all Heracross needs to do is come in and continue to sub till it reaches salac. How fucking hard can that be? Your one layer of missing spikes means nothing when you still have access to swords dance which makes a lot of difference.

Your superman team lol, the name itself is bad, can't imagine how much worse the team could be.

Did I say dugtrio is a strategy? No but your overall goal, is for trio to take out pokes that threaten heracross. That = a strategy.

And No offense again but you made yourself look pretty stupid thinking I made up the term "superman team". With access to flygon,gengar,gyardos,skarmiry,aerodactyl, pretty sure with those alone that team wouldn't suck. all of them threaten your so called op heracross in so many ways it's not even funny.

My work here is done, if you can't see the synergy in those pokes, then youR on your own.

Don't laugh at me for thinking I'm a noob or whatever when you don't even know common strategies.

[Robofiend]

I'm sorry if I was being hostile, I'm usually openly blunt and I have a very low tolerance towards stupidity. If you call trapping a strategy, then your definitions of strategy are different from mines. Strategy is something that involves thinking and planning and more or less there are risks at times. There is no huge thought process of using Dugtrio and me using it is basically me abusing it while I can. Just like how people did with Dragonite but still used it because it was too good to not use.

 

This is aside, but i'd say trapping is a form of strategy: you're betting your opponent will have something that is grounded and worth revenge killing with Dugtrio. In the case of banded Dugtrio, that means you're betting your opponent will have non-Reversal Heracross, Metagross, Blaziken, Medicham, Magneton or a couple other pokemon for you to pick off with Trio. Similarly, purposefully sacking a pokemon to send in Dugtrio is also highly strategic. CB Trio used to also run HP Bug for one pokemon - Celebi. I think you'd have some trouble convincing people that ADV Celebi was broken. It just so happens Dugtrio has access to moves which are really useful for eliminating a select few threats and one thing it's good at picking off is Heracross.

 

I still can't believe ppl don't think Heracross deserves a ban. I went into 2 straight OU official finals because of that thing and dugtrio. Dugtrio helps in killing banded ones with Aerial Ace and I'm willing to sack one pokemon to Heracross rather than an entire team. The only reason I lost in the final is because my heracross was slower than a starmie and hence I mispredicted the sub and got killed by my opponent's Dugtrio. If both finalists are running a banded dugtrio, it means that taking out Hera/Metagross and a few others, are more important than taking out blissey/snorlax.

 

 Well, a lot of other people probably used Heracross and didn't go to the finals. I'd be willing to bet that it's not Heracross carrying you to the finals, you're actually just good at pokemons :). As for Banded vs. Non-Banded Dugtrio: it's probably true that killing Hera/Meta is more important than killing Bliss/Lax. We all know that the Subtrio set is pretty shaky against Snorlax, because if you miss a Screech you can easily end up facing a +6 full health Curselax. Otherwise, Spikes might screw up one of your few chances to sub down. On the other hand, Metagross and Heracross get kills really well, so they are easy targets for Trio.

[Shaniqualela]

flygon,gengar,gyardos,skarmiry,aerodactyl

If you duel excel make sure you bring your hp ice jolt and spellcheck.

[Excelimpulse]

flygon,gengar,gyardos,skarmiry,aerodactyl

If you duel excel make sure you bring your hp ice jolt and spellcheck.

Who says I don't carry pursuit lax? Who says I carry gyardos? I'm just stating a team that works well based on superman. We don't have a flying levitate poke that works well for a special Wall so....

That's off topic, but honestly heracross is not a major threat. Your forced to spam stab right off the bat because of risks of not doing any damage. And heractoss has decent speed but a lot of things outrun it or force it to run if they predict wrong. Even if heracross isn't cb. It can have bulk but taking a stab psychic or flying or fire is not worth the risk. Done voicing my opinion on heracross until someone can voice a legitimate argument. The only thing I see is sub reversal but that set is risky itself.

[NikhilR]

Superman team is a name for a team that uses a lot of Levitaters and Flying types Nik.

 

Where is the super in Skarmory? :P  But fair enough I honestly didn't know about that and though Xcel gave his own team a cool name. 

 

Did I say dugtrio is a strategy? No but your overall goal, is for trio to take out pokes that threaten heracross. That = a strategy.

And No offense again but you made yourself look pretty stupid thinking I made up the term "superman team". With access to flygon,gengar,gyardos,skarmiry,aerodactyl, pretty sure with those alone that team wouldn't suck. all of them threaten your so called op heracross in so many ways it's not even funny.

My work here is done, if you can't see the synergy in those pokes, then youR on your own.

Don't laugh at me for thinking I'm a noob or whatever when you don't even know common strategies.

 

Fair enough on the strategy, And that superpower team is terrible, I could still set up on a flygon that is locked to EQ. I reach +2 or sub and gengar tbolt is a 3hko and shadowball probably a 2hko putting myself in salac and swarm range. Of course I could always make sure your gengar is damaged by running any pursuit user  and then put you at a health where gengar could die from megahorn. An aero or flygon locked into EQ could even set up a bellydrum zard and the whole team gets rekt by a jolteon. In a general basis, that team is bad, really. More importantly, you're running an entire team just to stop Heracross? If your team has another purpose or so then let me know. (apart from taking spikes dmg)

 

This is aside, but i'd say trapping is a form of strategy: you're betting your opponent will have something that is grounded and worth revenge killing with Dugtrio. In the case of banded Dugtrio, that means you're betting your opponent will have non-Reversal Heracross, Metagross, Blaziken, Medicham, Magneton or a couple other pokemon for you to pick off with Trio. Similarly, purposefully sacking a pokemon to send in Dugtrio is also highly strategic. CB Trio used to also run HP Bug for one pokemon - Celebi. I think you'd have some trouble convincing people that ADV Celebi was broken. It just so happens Dugtrio has access to moves which are really useful for eliminating a select few threats and one thing it's good at picking off is Heracross.

 

My mistake then Robo. I'd term it more in a way as a skill-less strategy. Imo sub reversal has a lot more options sometimes for eg, it helps in taking out almost any spdef wall ranging from Ludicolo to Blissey and takes out pokemon locked into superpower with ease. It probably won't work for Heracross but it works vs Metagrosses locked into Tpunch since they spam that to take out vapo/slowbro. So I guess depending on your strategy as in if you want to take out strong threats in general or take out the spdef walls and then use some calm minders or rain dance teams to sweep. But I guess this is off topic so best not to discuss this further I guess.

 

 

 Well, a lot of other people probably used Heracross and didn't go to the finals. I'd be willing to bet that it's not Heracross carrying you to the finals, you're actually just good at pokemons :). As for Banded vs. Non-Banded Dugtrio: it's probably true that killing Hera/Meta is more important than killing Bliss/Lax. We all know that the Subtrio set is pretty shaky against Snorlax, because if you miss a Screech you can easily end up facing a +6 full health Curselax. Otherwise, Spikes might screw up one of your few chances to sub down. On the other hand, Metagross and Heracross get kills really well, so they are easy targets for Trio.

 

Imo banded Heracrosses does it's job of taking out a pokemon one at a time, that is when it comes out, something is surely gonna die or take a massive hit. But it doesn't sweep, so in that sense it isn't nearly as powerful as a reversal one. 

 

Also shoutout to Arcanine for helping me ease past all the gengars without having to get mindfucked by its set :P

 

Who says I don't carry pursuit lax? Who says I carry gyardos? I'm just stating a team that works well based on superman. We don't have a flying levitate poke that works well for a special Wall so....

That's off topic, but honestly heracross is not a major threat. Your forced to spam stab right off the bat because of risks of not doing any damage. And heractoss has decent speed but a lot of things outrun it or force it to run if they predict wrong. Even if heracross isn't cb. It can have bulk but taking a stab psychic or flying or fire is not worth the risk. Done voicing my opinion on heracross until someone can voice a legitimate argument. The only thing I see is sub reversal but that set is risky itself.

 

Which is exactly my point Excel. All you do is simply state things without any actual proof of practice. Like how you said Gengar psychic kills Heracrosses, Arcanine isn't a counter to Gengar. Most people run a standard counter for a particular pokemon, not an entire team. If you ask me for some counters for most pokemon, I will give it to you. 

 

Stopped reading the rest of your post when you said heracross isn't a major threat.

Edited February 23, 2015 by NikhilR

[JSTUD]

#FreeSalamence

[ThinkNice]

I have been meaning to post here for a while but I at least wanted to accumulate some experience using it and seeing it in practise for myself. I'll be making an argument with the help of two recent posts here:

 

I don't think anyone would be running Swarm over Guts on the off chance that Weezing's not going to try and Wisp it, just seems like a little too much reverse psychology. The Guts boost can be really scary, but CB Hera regrets losing 1/8 of its HP each turn. After 1 turn of burn Flygon can take it out with Fire Punch/Dragon Claw and after 2 turns it's going to die to Gengar. The more it loses HP, the less useful it is in tight situations where its bulk really counts. It obviously has the same problem with switching in and taking Spikes damage.

 

I think this argument is also assuming a bit too much predictive power on the Heracross user: sure, theif snags Gengar, but if you mess up Hera's going to be toast (note Jolly nature, not adamant, but calcs are similar):

 

*snip calcs*

 

Like all CB'ers, Hera's gotta live with the pains of predicting as all of its common moves are stopped by one of more OU pokemon:

 

Megahorn - Gengar, Gyara, Arcanine Skarmory, Weezing, other Heracross

Brick Break - Gengar, Gyara, Weezing, Arcanine, other Heracross

Rock Slide - Swampert, Weezing, Flygon, Rhydon

Theif - only covers Gengar, useless otherwise

Facade - Skamory, Forretress, Gengar

 

So yeah, "nothing counters Heracross" - but that's true of a lot of Gen IV+ pokemon. Gen III seems to be the last gen where you can just send in a counter and expect it to wall all of the possible sets that an opponent is running. Even so, Heracross seems to have a healthy pool of options that can stop it from sweeping more than one time.

 

Of course, your Hera blocker can get screwed by a surprise set, but like I've been saying throughout this thread, surprise sets are everywhere in pokemon. And some of the surprise sets (SD or End/Rev) cover a lot more of these counters, but are stopped more definitively by Arc/Weezing/Gengar. I know that you know this, but the existence of counters is unimportant when it comes to bans. Imagine the uguu-ing that'd go on in discussion thread for Gengar:

 

 

Remember the "Offensive Criteria" for being banned: "A pokemon is Uber if it can sweep a significant portion of the metagame with little effort". In all honestly, Heracross only really kills Bliss/Vap/Lax with little effort.

 

*snip counter argument*

'Nothing has counters' isn't necessarily true, even from gen III onwards. I think the difference is that a lot of Pokémon in gen III got countered by the same Pokémon regardless of its moveset. From gen IV on though - I'd argue that a counter is based on the moveset, not on the the Pokémon itself. We have come to the point that this is true for a lot of top tier threats in OU. Heracross does have counters, they are just based on its moveset. Just like Metagross and even things like Blaziken. That being said, Heracross still does have two hard counters. Skarmory and Weezing both have the tools to completely stop any Heracross set. However, Skarmory does not counter a Reversalcross if it is the last Pokémon with no, or 3, Spikes on the field, which is a pretty specific scenario.

 

Of course, you could argue that Skarmory does not like Choice Banded Focus Punches:

252 Atk Choice Band Heracross Focus Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 204-240 (61 - 71.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

But a Choice Bander is a different story, clicking Focus Punch on a Bander has a high risk to it, so its only fair that it gets a high reward from it. Other than that Skarmory shits on Heracross, taking advantage of an early setup SubSalac set by laying spikes or just threatening it with the OHKO.

 

As for using Flamethrower on Weezing, you could also use:

4 SpA Weezing Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heracross: 158-188 (52.6 - 62.6%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

- b-but, miss chance? Oh yeah and Megahorn misses too. I'd say in theory it's pretty likely that your Fire Blast will hit. Flamethrower still does the job though as Weezing isn't really threatened by Heracross.

 

I still can't believe ppl don't think Heracross deserves a ban. I went into 2 straight OU official finals because of that thing and dugtrio. Dugtrio helps in killing banded ones with Aerial Ace and I'm willing to sack one pokemon to Heracross rather than an entire team. The only reason I lost in the final is because my heracross was slower than a starmie and hence I mispredicted the sub and got killed by my opponent's Dugtrio. If both finalists are running a banded dugtrio, it means that taking out Hera/Metagross and a few others, are more important than taking out blissey/snorlax.

 

More importantly with it's high insane attack stat and good enough speed, it can set up for sub reversal with so much ease and proceed with a sweep. That's one of the beauties of it, since you can hide it throughout the match and then finally reveal it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you are acting like taking out Blissey/Snorlax is a higher priority than taking out things like Heracross/Metagross. That Dugtrio now chooses for a CB is not centralizing because Heracross is around now. CB Dugtrio does a lot more things. That being said Heracross and Metagross are both very high threats in the metagame, much bigger threats than that Snorlax or Blissey are in this physically orientated metagame, both are maybe worthy of the S rank, so using a Dugtroi for that does not really prove how banworthy Heracross is. It has a lot more uses.

 

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Heracross is a truly strong Pokémon. But it does have its counters and it does have its fair amount of checks. The calcs have been done so I'm not going to repeat those. Based on the metagame its fair to say that any Heracross that doesn't run Salac should run Jolly. Which is great because it dims its offensive power somewhat, but in return its harder to outpace. The SubSalac set has a lot of counters/checks on its own. Skarmory shits on it as long as the criteria I mentioned before aren't met. Weezing can take on a fully setup one, Arcanine picks it off and even defensive Gengar can prevent the setup. It can break the Sub and prevent the SD with Taunt on the right time so it doesn't get threatened at all (everyone who runs defensive Gengar without a little speed is pooped):

252+ Atk Swarm Heracross Megahorn vs. 196 HP / 252+ Def Gengar: 40-47 (25 - 29.3%) -- guaranteed 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

That being said I think the least threatening Heracross set is actually the Choice Band set. It is really prone to Spikes and it likes to come in a lot because of its pretty massive bulk - for such a good attacker. His main STABs are actually really easy to abuse if it is locked into them, they are easily tanked too. The combination of Fighting and Bug can be pretty deadly, but with CB we are not talking about a combination of moves, it can only use one and that is really its main flaw - like any other CBer. What makes a CBer really good is if it has a spammable STAB move, Fighting and Bug are not spammable at all compared to Dragon Claw or even Rock Slide.

 

The most threatening Heracross are the ones that carry SubSalac, SD + 3 attacks or SubPunchers. I say this with my experience in both the OU we had before, ADV OU and the OU we have now. They all have their own flaws and Heracross is not nearly as obviously overwhelming and centralizing as the big three. Not that I say that is a criteria for it to be banned. But some make it out ot be some kind of cancer, which it is not. I could also argue that I got to a final of a tournament without a Heracross, but seeing as this is irrelevant I don't see why I shou- whoops I did it anyway.

 

It is really strong, it is a top tier pick. But it does have a fair amount of checks and even some counters. Is it banworthy? Maybe, I don't know yet. I'm not convinced yet, as I still believe Heracross does not have the sweep potential of an Uber and I don't believe it is making the metagame unhealthier on its own. It's really stronk doe