UU Viability Thread

[DrCraig]

Waiting on Alakazam verdict to update.

Soon.

[Bestfriends]

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by Bestfriends
Updated URL

[DrCraig]

So since the last update:

• Porygon2 and Umbreon moved up to OU
• Rhydon and Dusclops moved to UU
• Alakazam banned to BL

We saw our first UU tourney with no Alakabroken. Let's get to work. Clops and Rhydon need ranks. Shit needs to move. Poliwrath is not S.

Discusssssss

[Tyrone]

Clops A rank

Rhydon A+ rank

 

Clops is the new Special Wall, only one special weakness (shadow ball) and hardly any STAB ghost users in UU make sure it will survive for quite a while.

Rhydon hits like a truck, with good prediction it can cripple enemy team. Sub set is safer and still wears down the enemy.

[gbwead]

Now that UU has Dusclops as a spin blocker, I feel Omastar could be move from B+ to A.

He is also a great check for Swellow that now does significantly more dmg with adamant nature.

 

[hr]

 

Nincada from the void to D-.

Nincada, with his unique typing and surprising def stat, can be a cool gimmick to check Rhydon (if no ice punch).

 

252+ Atk Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Nincada: 59-70 (42.7 - 50.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Nincada Giga Drain vs. 188 HP / 0 SpD Rhydon: 88-108 (43.1 - 52.9%) -- 21.9% chance to 2HKO

[DoubleJ]

Tentacruel to A+. It's an incredible spinner with coverage on omastar (the best spiker) and now rhydon. It is an incredible revenge killer and showed today that it can sweep reasonably well late game. Dual stab + giga drain is unresisted, and ice beam checks a lot.

I agree with the above posts, excluding nincada. Until I've seen one i dont believe in ranking it.

[gbwead]

I agree with the above posts, excluding nincada. Until I've seen one i dont believe in ranking it.

Well to be fair, this is not a usage thread but a viability thread. 

Why would Seviper, Pidgeot, Noctowl, Kecleon, Exploud and Dewgong be ranked if they haven't been seen once in the current meta.

 

I don't wish to start a discussion about nincada lol, but I just thought it could not hurt to throw the information out there.

 

Edit: I disagree about Tentacruel getting moved up. Being a great spinner is not that great when Dusclops is around to spin block. As for revenge killing, nothing new or extraordinary there. 

His bulkiness is actually what makes him interresting imo and his ability to switch on Vileplume is quite useful. Overall, I don't think he deserves to be moved up next to Scizor/Swellow/Vileplume.

Edited August 18, 2015 by lamerb

[DrCraig]

Is that the UU Viability Thread being updated? Craig isn't slacking anymore? Its been a whole month since this thread has been touched?

Yea.

 

I made some changes since it has been a while. I'll list them here and you guys can yell at me.

 

Everybody should know the drill by now; if you do not agree with a ranking feel free to constructively voice your opinion. This is a tool for the community and the better it can be fine tuned, the better it is for the competitive community. Feel free to include general UU discussion also. Here we go.

 

 

Changes to the UU Viability Thread:

• Added Rhydon to S
• Added Dusclops to A
• Charizard moved from A to S
• Scizor moved from A+ to S
• Slowking moved from S to A+
• Crawdaunt moved from A to A+
• Kangaskhan moved from A to A+
• Magmar moved from B+ to B
• Tangela moved from D to C

 

[DoubleJ]

 

Changes to the UU Viability Thread:

• Added Rhydon to S
• Added Dusclops to A
• Charizard moved from A to S
• Scizor moved from A+ to S
• Slowking moved from S to A+
• Crawdaunt moved from A to A+
• Kangaskhan moved from A to A+
• Magmar moved from B+ to B
• Tangela moved from D to C

 

 

Rhydon - A+, while it has S-rank characteristics it is simply limited by the common pokemon in the tier. Nearly every pokemon in UU has a move that can 1 to 2HKO Rhydon and probably half of these can outspeed it. Rhydon has the power, but it just lacks the viability. 

 

Agree with everything else.

[DoubleJ]

RIP Charizard, you'll always be remembered o7

 

[spoiler] 2nd-time banning this thing. Stay gone already. [/spoiler]

[DrCraig]

Charizard has been removed from the list because Charizard has been banned to BL.

fuckin finally, lets go

[RysPicz]

Charizard has been removed from the list because Charizard has been banned to BL.

fuckin finally, lets go

 

[*] I promise I will use you from time to time to take the dust off.

[spoiler]I feel like this Zard is one of the main reasons of ban[/spoiler]

 

Also I feel like Manectric's rank is a bit too low. It's currently our best special attacker in tier and it's seen in almost every single team. I'd personally put it as A+ or even S

[RysPicz]

Pls remove Ride On from the list.

 

Alright, Zam gone, Zard gone, Ride On gone. Time to hop on Slowking

[DoubleJ]

Pls remove Ride On from the list.

 

Alright, Zam gone, Zard gone, Ride On gone. Time to hop on Slowking

 

Can you give reasoning behind Slowking being a possible ban?

[RysPicz]

Can you give reasoning behind Slowking being a possible ban?

You can count on that =) But not now, I'm after a very tough week of work and I need sleep, I'll jump on it in weekend.

[DrCraig]

• Rhydon has been removed because it has been banned to BL
• Slowking has been moved to an S Rank because

[hr]

 

Notice: As people may or may not have noticed already, I have become a lot less active in game because of school, work, gym, and fucking elder scrolls yo. I try my best to keep up reading, but I miss the in game content. As this is a community guide, I will use my judgement and the community input to conduct changes. Community input is highly encouraged. If I'm a bum, any staff member can feel free to slap me. I'll be back one of these days.

[Toast]

damn so dead, but amphy should be bumped up imo, probs B. Pretty decent check to manectric. Could function as a hard hitting cleric but rip reliable recovery. 125 satk w/ tbolt hp signal beam is scary especially with agility.

[Robofiend]

damn so dead, but amphy should be bumped up imo, probs B. Pretty decent check to manectric. Could function as a hard hitting cleric but rip reliable recovery. 125 satk w/ tbolt hp signal beam is scary especially with agility.

 

Also Amphy's a great check to Slowking, especially now that people are running Twave and Amph can abuse it

[Tyrone]

 

So I'd like to ask the community for help on this one: 

 

As many of you have witnessed, UU is extremely stall-heavy at the moment. Almost all of the top-used are walls and all of the top-used sweepers have trouble breaking through cores like Plume/King which are very common in the current metagame. The Tier Council believes UU deserves some more offense but we're not sure of how to do it. Among the current suggestions are:

 

1. Ban Slowking - this is popular but maybe undesirable - Slowking checks sweepers like CB Crawdaunt stuck in Waterfall, CB Scizor and CB Hitmonlee. Banning Slowking might rob the tier of even more offensive pokemon, which means we might end up with just as much stall afterward as we have now. Current annoying sets like Twave or Calm Mind fall to Toxic, while most sets struggle against popular special walls like Clefable and Kangaskhan, who can simply Toxic Stall or heal status before it becomes a problem.

 

2. Ban Vileplume - more common than even Slowking, Vileplume also has great typing to prevent Crawdaunt, Hitmonlee and Breloom from tearing through the tier with their STAB attacks. There is some concern that banning Vileplume would make other top tier sweepers a problem as well, as well as the fact that its limited Synthesis PP doesn't allow it to outstall other common walls that can force it out of play, like Clefable.

 

In either of these cases, it doesn't seem abundantly obvious that either are truly "broken" or even considerably unhealthy. Both are weak against special walls and fail against faster offense like Grumpig, who is not often used, but in theory could set up against either.

 

Other suggestions include:

 

1. Banning Dusclops - the god of spinblockers, this pokemon alone makes Omastar and Tentacruel fail at their jobs as spinners. When used as part of a stall team, Dusclops proves incredibly hard to break. Nonetheless, Dusclops stall teams aren't super common, and it struggles with things like Houndoom, who's not entierly uncommon.

 

2. Bringing down offensive threats from BL - since it's not clear that anything is particularly OP (unhealthy, maybe, but we don't have a lot of true S Ranks), maybe it'd be better if we brought down offensive pokemon that limit these common walls viability. In the past, bans have happened in metas that are different from the one we have now, and the lack of available wall-breakers and mixed attackers in UU is very apparent. Some ideas include:

- Alakazam

- Tauros

- Medicham

- Sceptile

- Marowak

 

While Tauros and Medicham are both theatening as hell without Dusclops to dodge their STAB attacks, others here are less scary. Sceptile can provide good damage output against both Vileplume and Slowking, as well as support its team with SubSeed (which is in turn checked by Plume). Zam has checks like Swellow, Scizor, Houndoom, Dusclops and Kangaskhan/Clefable and its poor defenses can be unforgiving if it needs to switch in multiple times. Marowak, a former top-tier wallbreaker in OU lacks the typing and speed that makes other physical sweepers threatening in UU, but it can easily abuse grounded stall teams by Swords Dancing and breaking through popular cores without getting too afraid of Toxic Damage or Twave. Similar to Rhydon, Marowak struggles to deal with Offense, but it also cannot OHKO Vileplume or Slowking without a boost, thus giving it incentive to set up and switch ins and opportunity to enter battle without taking a lot of damage. It might have trouble entering battle - especially given the lack of Electric and Rock type moves used in the tier today and unlike Rhydon it lacks useful resistances to Normal, Fire and Flying.

 

By no means are these the only options, but I do think it's important that people discuss these various options because there are a lot of different ways the tier can go and having lots of input is usually the best way to make decisions. By all accounts, it seems UU is not a super healthy or enjoyable tier at the moment (almost all of the top 10 pokemon in the tier are walls and we only have 1 option for special sweeper, Manectric) and that we need a way for offense to gain a little bit of viability for the tier to be enjoyable. 

 

I hope this is the right thread to put this in, yolo.

 

 

Copied Robofiend's request from UU Discussion Request thread here for the discussion. The request is fine there, but the discussion should be held in this thread.

 

Toast:

didnt we like, just ban zam though, so what makes it right to bring it back again? (lol third time) i kinda wanted to see sceptile back in UU, I believe it may have been banned a bit too soon. tauros may be a bit too stronk, we don't have much that can take it except for like oma/clops, maybe sciz but idunno.

 

I would strongly disagree with bringing scept back. One of my favorite pokemon, but it's broken af in UU

 

edit: Everything JJ said about sceptile, AND don't forget about the sub/seed set. HP ice puts a huge dent in vileplume to where it basically has to be at full health to come in on a sceptile behind a sub. It also roasts other would-be answers like exegg and crobat.

 

Reply by Gunthug.

 

I guess my point is that we need more things that dent Vileplume- not to mention Sceptile would be hard to get into play without at least taking neutral damage, as a ton of pokemon already carry Ice Beam for Vileplume. That makes getting into play hard, as you will likely try to enter on a Water type move and risk getting picked off if you mispredict - it can definitely revenge kill, but the ability to switch in is important. Even if you get into play against Slowking/Lanturn/etc. it might call your bluff and Ice Beam you while you set up. While it might be ballsy, if your opponent knows you have something it needs to be at +2 to kill then they have every reason to give it a try, especially late-game when a set up means game:

 

252 Atk Sceptile Leaf Blade vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowking: 186-218 (47.3 - 55.4%) -- 15.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

252 Atk Sceptile Leaf Blade vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Donphan: 188-224 (58.5 - 69.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Donphan Double-Edge vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sceptile: 287-338 (102.1 - 120.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Donphan Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sceptile: 179-211 (63.7 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 
Additionally, all of this disregards obvious counters like Vileplume, who isn't afraid of any Sceptile set:
252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Vileplume: 124-148 (35.1 - 41.9%) -- 80.7% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
+2 252 Atk Sceptile Aerial Ace vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 158-186 (44.7 - 52.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery

 

Even in the best cases for Sceptile, Vileplume can come in, Synth off the damage and then threaten you out with Sludge Bomb. Exegg isn't even that afraid:
252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Exeggutor Psychic vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Sceptile: 135-159 (48 - 56.5%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO
 
Hell, even if you have a near full health Breloom you can rekt Sceptile:
252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Breloom: 170-202 (65.1 - 77.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Breloom Superpower vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Sceptile: 277-327 (98.5 - 116.3%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

 

If Sceptile has a sub up than these situations are less favorable, but as I pointed out above, setting up doesn't seem super easy.

 

This argument also disregards Scizor/Breloom/Altaria - while the latter two might be covered by Aerial Ace or Rock Slide (also RIP Altaria for being rare lately), CB Scizor can easily OHKO Sceptile or even pursuit trap it. Even if Sceptile wants to cover Scizor it can't OHKO:
0 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Scizor: 220-260 (78.2 - 92.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
In the worst case, where Vileplume and other Grass types are already gone, Tentacruel can abuse Sceptile's draining moves, Swellow can swap in at least once and kill it (no HP Ice/Rocks, pls) and Houndoom has an ok matchup against any set without EQ and Cradily has mysteriously never been mentioned as a surefire SubSeed check who can pop and hit you for reasonable damage:

 

252 Atk Sceptile Leaf Blade vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Cradily: 114-135 (30.3 - 35.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

4 Atk Cradily Rock Blast (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Sceptile: 111-135 (39.5 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Reply by Robofiend.

 

Comment by Kizhaz:

I think the scariest part about Sceptile is rather its wide variety. It can Swords dance, sub-seed and use its high sp.atk stat. Pokemon like tentacruel cab counter the sub-seed set but then it gets blown away by sd eq.

 

Comment by NikhilR
 

You're forgetting that sub-endeavour set is also a thing Robo and that can cripple any wall in the tier. 

 

Moreover, if you're looking for things to dent vileplume, psychic types like xatu / grumpig and others like misd are some of your best answers but they aren't used because of houndoom. Let's not forget that Houndoom+Breloom combo is broken af.

 

 

Comment by Arimanius:

Well if we're planning to use some bls pokes in uu I'd go for some hariyama in uu, it has fake out, knock off, belly drum set, it's not fast but it's bulky and it has some nice resistences with thick fat or can take advantage of guts, I don't see it too broken atm but any other bl poke mentioned above is just too much. In any case I would rather see slowking saying bye

 

 

Comment by Forfiter
 

M-maybe we can bring back Charizard again

 

Actually rather than creating another problem with bringing down a BL poke, try getting rid of the problematic one, for at least a test ban, imo.

 

E:

 

Hariyama is even worse than Machamp, don't even think about it, only BL poke I see "manageable" is Dodrio but it still would be "S"

 

 

Please use this thread to Discuss Robofiends Request.

[Robofiend]

I'm not so sure about the supposed brokenness of Houndoom+Breloom @Nik - Xatu can win with HP Fight, which isn't a terrible move for it given how popular Fable/Kanga are:

 

252 Atk Houndoom Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xatu: 134-162 (40.1 - 48.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xatu: 270-320 (80.8 - 95.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 252 SpA Xatu Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Houndoom: 190-224 (65.2 - 76.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

Xatu wins, assuming they split the speed tie and both are at full health. Breloom is also checked incredibly well by Vileplume, so again it's a bit "meh" to me - even if it does have advantages over much of the rest of the tier. Also a combo of pokemon can't really be "broken AF" - that brings you back to the "core" argument that two things used together are broken but alone they aren't. You'd be hard pressed to find a lot of people who think either Breloom or Houndoom is the premier threat in UU.

 

Regarding Sceptile - I think what UU needs is some diversity and variability. Every pokemon runs almost the same set on every team because it can - and if the sets are different, it's by one move. Houndoom is the tier's only Mixed attacker, Manectric is the only special sweeper (not gonna count Tenta cuz slow/weak) and nothing in the tier ever even sets up. There's an absence of risk, from what I've seen: you're never rarely to lose from predicting the wrong Crawdaunt attack, if your Plume or Slowking gets maimed by a strong attack you just swap out and wait to recover later, and pretty much everything has a 100% perfect check. I think Sceptile is a great example of something that's scary but clearly not unbeatable, and moves like Swords Dance, SubSeed, Endeavor give it some surprise value that the tier honestly needs. 

 

Removing walls, in my eyes, doesn't seem to be the right thing to do. If we remove Slowking then we no longer have a real Scizor counter, if we remove Vileplume then we no longer have a reliable Breloom/Crawdaunt counter. As such, banning some of the top walls might just equate to banning top sweepers until we just end up with the old UU - which wouldn't be the right thing to do either, imo. I think it makes more sense to bring offense into the tier than to strip away a bunch of not-exactly-broken pokemon because we're not happy with the stall-y-ness.

 

Regardless, this isn't going to happen overnight so yeah, discussions pls

[DoubleJ]

 

252 Atk Houndoom Pursuit vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xatu: 134-162 (40.1 - 48.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Xatu: 270-320 (80.8 - 95.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 252 SpA Xatu Hidden Power Fighting vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Houndoom: 190-224 (65.2 - 76.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

 

What set is this even, 252 HP / 252 SpAtt Timid? And what move do you expect to drop for both HP Fighting and I assume Rest as well? 126 Speed stat with no invest Timid isn't terrible, but you put yourself at risk to a lot of unnecessary attacks once someone realizes you're slow as balls.

 

 

 

Regarding Sceptile - I think what UU needs is some diversity and variability. Every pokemon runs almost the same set on every team because it can - and if the sets are different, it's by one move. 

 

If you want to consider Sceptile for its diversity then you need to consider bringing back Charizard and Alakazam as well. Both of these pokemon though have been discussed countless times and both were deemed broken in UU on two occasions. In both instances Sceptile wasn't even considered to be brought back down because of how broke it is. 

 

• SubSeed almost necessitates Vileplume or Exegg as HP Fire/Ice covers and wrecks other grass-types or checks.  
• Jolly SD necessitates either Vileplume or Altaria, but even then both take big hits (it really won't be that hard to force a switch with Sceptile to get that +2 SD boost)
• Endeavor is scary since UU is moving away from needing priority and Sceptile will be the fastest pokemon in the tier, second to only Swellow. 

 

All in all, UU is a really defensive tier and is growing stale, but I think we just need to unearth some creativity in our own play before we start making drastic changes like bringing broken BL pokemon down to break our currently popular defensive core of Vileplume, Slowking, and Scizor.

 

 

Did we all just forget about Granbull, CM Slowking, SD Breloom, Rain Dance Omastar, Sunny Day Exeggutor, Curse Cradily, Flail Kingler, CM Misdreavus, SubPunch Muk, Pikachu, CM Ninetales, or even Belly Drum Magmar?

 

We have a ton of offensive variety in this tier that can break our current core. You just need to stop copying other players and find the good stuff. 

[Gunthug]

What set is this even, 252 HP / 252 SpAtt Timid? And what move do you expect to drop for both HP Fighting and I assume Rest as well? 126 Speed stat with no invest Timid isn't terrible, but you put yourself at risk to a lot of unnecessary attacks once someone realizes you're slow as balls.

 

 

 

If you want to consider Sceptile for its diversity then you need to consider bringing back Charizard and Alakazam as well. Both of these pokemon though have been discussed countless times and both were deemed broken in UU on two occasions. In both instances Sceptile wasn't even considered to be brought back down because of how broke it is. 

 

• SubSeed almost necessitates Vileplume or Exegg as HP Fire/Ice covers and wrecks other grass-types or checks.  
• Jolly SD necessitates either Vileplume or Altaria, but even then both take big hits (it really won't be that hard to force a switch with Sceptile to get that +2 SD boost)
• Endeavor is scary since UU is moving away from needing priority and Sceptile will be the fastest pokemon in the tier, second to only Swellow. 

 

All in all, UU is a really defensive tier and is growing stale, but I think we just need to unearth some creativity in our own play before we start making drastic changes like bringing broken BL pokemon down to break our currently popular defensive core of Vileplume, Slowking, and Scizor.

 

 

Did we all just forget about Granbull, CM Slowking, SD Breloom, Rain Dance Omastar, Sunny Day Exeggutor, Curse Cradily, Flail Kingler, CM Misdreavus, SubPunch Muk, Pikachu, CM Ninetales, or even Belly Drum Magmar?

 

We have a ton of offensive variety in this tier that can break our current core. You just need to stop copying other players and find the good stuff. 

just to piggyback on this, I wanna highlight this first post about sub/seed sceptile

 

• SubSeed almost necessitates Vileplume or Exegg as HP Fire/Ice covers and wrecks other grass-types or checks.

In reality, it necessitates a FULL HEALTH vileplume or exegg, since HP ice (far superior to fire, imo) damn near 2hkos each, and with spikes it does I believe. On paper this seems feasible, but in practice I can assure you it's not. Robo I think I saw you mention in a previous post scizor/altaria/maybe something else as a counter, but there isn't a single non-grass type that wants to come in on a sceptile behind a sub (bar liquid ooze tenta). Scept might not be able to come in on a ton of stuff, but with its mammoth sp att it threatens a lot of common threats out, and buys its substitute opportunities that way. Even tenta lacks reliable recovery and will be whittled down quickly by those seeds and powerful giga drains, and you have to honor sub/sd/EQ sets until you know for sure what you're dealing with.

 

Yeah sceptile is versatile, but there's a point where versatility becomes harmful to a tier, and sceptile is beyond that point imo. I just don't see why we'd discuss the possibility of making the same mistake for the third time. I know UU is struggling atm but it blows my mind we're even having this conversation (again, for a third time!!)

 

ps: I think robo was showing a 252 hp/252 speed xatu? i say that only because he mentioned speed-tying doom

[DoubleJ]

 

ps: I think robo was showing a 252 hp/252 speed xatu? i say that only because he mentioned speed-tying doom

 

He also calced +1 252 SpAtt HP Fighting, so I guess Robo's Xatu is 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpAtt / 252 Spe Timid. 

 

Great remarks on SubSeed btw, I have nothing further to add on that Gunthug brah. 

 

 

EDIT: Forgot the 4 Def EV's

Edited October 21, 2015 by DoubleJ

[Robofiend]

What set is this even, 252 HP / 252 SpAtt Timid? And what move do you expect to drop for both HP Fighting and I assume Rest as well? 126 Speed stat with no invest Timid isn't terrible, but you put yourself at risk to a lot of unnecessary attacks once someone realizes you're slow as balls.

 

 

 

If you want to consider Sceptile for its diversity then you need to consider bringing back Charizard and Alakazam as well. Both of these pokemon though have been discussed countless times and both were deemed broken in UU on two occasions. In both instances Sceptile wasn't even considered to be brought back down because of how broke it is. 

 

• SubSeed almost necessitates Vileplume or Exegg as HP Fire/Ice covers and wrecks other grass-types or checks.  
• Jolly SD necessitates either Vileplume or Altaria, but even then both take big hits (it really won't be that hard to force a switch with Sceptile to get that +2 SD boost)
• Endeavor is scary since UU is moving away from needing priority and Sceptile will be the fastest pokemon in the tier, second to only Swellow. 

 

All in all, UU is a really defensive tier and is growing stale, but I think we just need to unearth some creativity in our own play before we start making drastic changes like bringing broken BL pokemon down to break our currently popular defensive core of Vileplume, Slowking, and Scizor.

 

 

Did we all just forget about Granbull, CM Slowking, SD Breloom, Rain Dance Omastar, Sunny Day Exeggutor, Curse Cradily, Flail Kingler, CM Misdreavus, SubPunch Muk, Pikachu, CM Ninetales, or even Belly Drum Magmar?

 

We have a ton of offensive variety in this tier that can break our current core. You just need to stop copying other players and find the good stuff. 

 

I really want to see Wynaut + Belly Magmar or SD Breloom rekt everyone's team too. Also yeah idk about that Xatu set, didn't realize I had 252hp on that but you still do live the single pursuit.

 

I'm tempted to believe that we don't actually have enough offensive variety and that's where the problem is coming from. So many of these pokes struggle with Vileplume that it's just a bit depressing. Nik's onto something with Houndoom tho, if you're running a Psychic type you're pretty much immediately done for.

 

just to piggyback on this, I wanna highlight this first post about sub/seed sceptile

 

• SubSeed almost necessitates Vileplume or Exegg as HP Fire/Ice covers and wrecks other grass-types or checks.

In reality, it necessitates a FULL HEALTH vileplume or exegg, since HP ice (far superior to fire, imo) damn near 2hkos each, and with spikes it does I believe.

 

"damn near 2HKO's" - in other words, 0% chance of 2HKO

252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

Even if you switch in with 50% health (as long as you don't come in on HP Fire), Exegg can just synth up until it's ready to scare it out. One other idea that's not very common is using Clefable or Wynaut to Encore Sceptile into Subbing/Leeching forever, but that's not a common set afaik. Unless its some mixed set, like Fire/Quake, Tentacruel can feel ok switching in and abuse Liquid Ooze to keep Sceptile from getting too scary on you.

 

"with spikes it does I believe" - yes, with max spikes and a correct prediction Sceptile wins, but.. idk that's kinda just how offense works.

252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after 2 layers of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Sceptile Hidden Power Fire vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Exeggutor: 160-190 (40.6 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes and Leftovers recovery

 

Scizor, Crawdaunt and Breloom all 2HKO their counters too after 3 layers of spikes, so it's not like this makes Sceptile really special.

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Steel Wing vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Exeggutor: 151-178 (38.3 - 45.1%) -- 75.4% chance to 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes and Leftovers

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Steel Wing vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 151-178 (42.6 - 50.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes and Black Sludge recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Crawdaunt Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 148-175 (41.8 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes and Black Sludge recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Breloom Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 147-173 (41.5 - 48.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes and Black Sludge recovery

[NikhilR]

@Robo - I get that I'm referring to a core when I mention Houndoom-Breloom and that we can't ban things based on a core, but for me it's not a fixed core, if you get what I mean. The vile-blastoise-steelix core (pre split) was a complete defensive core. Breloom's role is for offense while Houndoom's is for support. I guess you can say that this core is analogous to how it used to be in OU where Starmie-Dugtrio core existed to beat teams that relied on lax / bliss as their sp walls, except in this case, the trapping is more or less guaranteed because psychic types without hp fight, do not stand a chance if they want to beat houndoom. The only safe solution in this case would be running diglett alongside and trapping houndoom instead. I think Vileplume is the only viable counter to Breloom since it can withstand all of its attacks. Slowking would be rekt by tpunch or bullet seed while exeggutor gets trapped by houndoom.

 

As much as Breloom helps in taking down the tier's walls, like Kanga / Clefable, I think it's possible for us to find ways to break it without using slightly overpowered things like loom. A specially defensive kanga can't touch a CB Steelix (I ran one in the oceanic vs zeb and imo it's viable if you invest max speed to outpace vile/slowking/exeggutors) , while a Clefable is vulnerable to status or is bait for CM users with rest since it has to give up on either aroma or toxic. Also Misd can set up on this both kanga and clefable since the former runs a spdef set of (toxic / firepunch / return or de / rest) and firepunch doesn't break a bulky misd's sub, and clefable doesn't carry any move to hit ghost types. Unfortunately we can't use a majority of our wall breakers because of how easily they get trapped. 

 

For me, Exeggutor being trapped by Houndoom, is like as if Crawdaunt could learn pursuit and trap Slowking. There are several differences though because Slowking can learn FP to deal with Crawdaunt, although it's unviable, and Crawdaunt has a higher attk than houndoom, and with CB it would probs ohko slowking, but I hope you get the point I'm making. 

 

At this moment, I would lean more on a houndoom ban since that's what is preventing us from using other wallbreakers, not Breloom. 

 

Edited October 21, 2015 by NikhilR