[UU Discussion] Rhydon (Banned to BL)

[DoubleJ]

 

 

Common Sets Include:

 

Choice Band

Item: Choice Band

Nature: Jolly

Ability: Rock Head

EVs: 252 Attack / 4 Defense / 252 Speed

• Earthquake
• Rock Slide
• Megahorn / Crunch
• Double-Edge

Swords Dance

Item: Leftovers

Nature: Adamant

Ability: Rock Head

EVs: 188 HP / 68 Attack / 252 Speed

• Swords Dance
• Earthquake
• Rock Slide
• Megahorn / Substitute

 

As described by a fellow Tier Council Member, Rhydon is a physical nuke that can force nearly any wall in the UU tier to switch out, allowing it to use Swords Dance or just chip away with Choice Band-boosted attacks. Aside from its devastating power, Rhydon also has a unique speed which is perfect for out-speeding "walls" and its defensive typing gives it the opportunity to switch in on many common attacks as well. While this seems like the recipe for an uber offensive specimen, Rhydon still has major drawbacks. Its typing also leaves it 4x weak to Grass and Water attacks, and its base stats make it pretty frail to nearly any special attack. From the outside looking in, Rhydon may or may not be banworthy, but we, the UU council, would like to hear the community's perspective on this pokemon in order to make an adequate decision on its status in UU.

 

Offensive Characteristic

A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

 

So with this in mind, do you consider Rhydon to fit the Uber Offensive characteristic and if so why? If not, why not?

 

[Liberalisme]

I don't think Rhydon should be banned. It is risky to come in on special attacking pokemons. It also has 6 types of moves that is super effective on it. 

Edited August 10, 2015 by Liberalisme

[JonazDK]

can someone tell me which pokes in the tier which is best to sent in against a rhydon?

[OrangeManiac]

I don't think Rhydon should be banned. It is risky to come in on special attacking pokemons. It also has 6 types of moves that is super effective on it. 

Using this analogy you couldn't ban Tyranitar from anywhere.


Anyways, Rhydon is a bit problematic case. Rhydon primarily is a wallbreaker, not a sweeper due to its laughably low speed. The UU metagame is going slowly towards highly offensive (especially specially offensive) and in this metagame Rhydon cannot really do anything against them. Hidden Power Grass is oftentimes a go-to Hidden Power to pretty much any special attacker due to Quagsire as well as overall amazing coverage of it. Looking at the top used UUs more often than not they have a good coverage move on Rhydon.

The biggest problem of Rhydon is that when it's facing something that is slower than Rhydon then something is gonna get faint unless some insane prediction. This may encourage of a speedy UU metagame. I guess you could argue this kind of an effect is more of "unhealthy" than Uber characteristics, I guess. But the way Rhydon punishes the slow Pokemon is just really something insane so despite Rhydon cannot sweep, it's still a really insane force to be dealt with.

[DoubleJ]

can someone tell me which pokes in the tier which is best to sent in against a rhydon?

 

Claydol is arguably the best. Sure CB Megahorn/Crunch really hurt it, but once you feel out the moveset you can start to play around with it. Rhydon also really doesn't like spamming Rock Slide's, or even Double-Edge until late game so why not bulky Altaria?

 

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Altaria: 42-49 (23 - 26.9%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Altaria: 84-99 (46.1 - 54.3%) -- 8.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Rhydon Earthquake vs. Altaria: 0-0 (0 - 0%) -- aim for the horn next time

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Altaria: 156-186 (85.7 - 102.1%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

 

And for the really dedicated...

0 SpA Altaria Hidden Power Grass vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rhydon: 148-176 (82.2 - 97.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[BurntZebra]

I disagree. Rhydon definitely spams rock slides early game because most of rhydons answers rely on being immune to earthquake such as altaria/gligar. I think anything that isn't hit by earthquake, can be ohko'ed by a coverage move of rhydon. Rhydon gets plenty of switch ins as well, with some useful resists in rock/normal/flying/electric/fire and generally nice physical bulk, allowing it to take hits from weaker physical attackers very nicely. In addition to coming in vs some fairly common resists, if a rhydon ever comes in on a double switch, say vs slowking, slowking literally has to switch out because it is at risk of being ohko'ed by rhydon. But slowking has surf. No, rhydon ohkos it before slowking can do anything. Rhydon also can force out vileplumes that are in the 60-75% range of hp due to its sheer power and being able to ko threats before they can even move. 

 

Oh and to top off the ability to do at least 65% to ANY pokemon in the tier, literally nothing resists its dual stabs+megahorn, meaning its pretty damn hard to predict around what rhydon is going to do. Oh and it has the nifty option to run any other coverage move it wants to hit weird gimmick "counters" like breloom or gligar. Claydol, exeggutor, slowking are all ohko'ed by megahorn from rhydon, the first 2 are the only ones that can reliably take earthquake and rock slides. 

 

If rhydon stays UU miraculously, then we better move down other threats such as hariyama/marowak/machamp because they are not even on the same level as rhydon in terms of offense. 

 

I believe in you UU tier council, that the right decision will be made 

[gbwead]

Alakazam, probably the best sweeper in UU.

Rhydon, probably the best wall breaker in UU.

 

It is riddiculous that all the thing that counter Alakazam (swellow/houndoom without grass move/kanghakan) are all baits for Rhydon to set up.

 

Alakazam and Rhydon work so well together. Is there anything that can stop them from walking all over UU?

[TheRealPhatiman]

can someone tell me which pokes in the tier which is best to sent in against a rhydon?

[spoiler]Jolly banded

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 96-114 (48.7 - 57.8%) -- 50.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 36-42 (18.2 - 21.3%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 38-45 (19.2 - 22.8%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 77-91 (39 - 46.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Adamant banded

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 105-124 (53.2 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 39-47 (19.7 - 23.8%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 42-50 (21.3 - 25.3%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 85-100 (43.1 - 50.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Adamant swords

252+ Atk Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 70-84 (35.5 - 42.6%) -- 91.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Rhydon Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 26-31 (13.1 - 15.7%) -- possibly the worst move ever

252+ Atk Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 28-33 (14.2 - 16.7%) -- possible 9HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Rhydon Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 56-67 (28.4 - 34%) -- 98.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Jolly swords

252 Atk Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 64-76 (32.4 - 38.5%) -- 3.1% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Rhydon Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 24-29 (12.1 - 14.7%) -- possibly the worst move ever

252 Atk Rhydon Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 25-30 (12.6 - 15.2%) -- possibly the worst move ever

252 Atk Rhydon Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 51-61 (25.8 - 30.9%) -- 6.7% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

0- SpA Poliwrath Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rhydon: 268-324 (148.8 - 180%) -- guaranteed OHKO


with encore it shuts set up sets down,also completely messes with crawdunt..
would seem like a solid check on paper
[/spoiler]

Edited August 10, 2015 by TheRealPhatiman

[gbwead]

Jolly banded
252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 96-114 (48.7 - 57.8%) -- 50.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Adamant banded
252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Poliwrath: 105-124 (53.2 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

would seem like a solid check on paper

How can this be a solid check? 

 

Poliwrath is slower, gets 2HKO and got no recovery moves. You can't safely switch in Poliwrath on Rhydon.

 

Encore won't be of any use if you are slower and it is completly useless against choice band anyways.

[RysPicz]

I can see Swellow's usage (and viability) going down because of the Dino. OR, Swellows carrying Steel wing. It's definietly one of the strongest pokes we currently have and will punish badly anything that will get locked into Thunderpunch or any weak physical attack. I see SD set being the most scary- +2 atk on a poke with base 130 and dual stab on Quake Slide is nothing to laugh at. Another thing is, Ride On's speed and influence on the tier. I fear it might become the Gengar of OU- you have to carry a solid counter or even two, and obv, carry it with yourself. I remember the old meta days where almost all pokes ran 102+ speed just to outrun Jolly Rhydon. Sounds like very centralizing for me.

Looks like a good try but let's be honest, our UU isn't prepared for the horned Dino.

Edited August 10, 2015 by RysPicz

[Liberalisme]

I am just wondering but isn't CB Donphan a good counter against that Rhydon? I think a CB EQ can do a lot against that Rhydon.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Liberalisme

[TheRealPhatiman]

How can this be a solid check? 

 

Poliwrath is slower, gets 2HKO and got no recovery moves. You can't safely switch in Poliwrath on Rhydon.

 

Encore won't be of any use if you are slower and it is completly useless against choice band anyways.

I did say it would seem like a solid check,didnt say it outright was(I'm bad,I apologize)...also with cleric support it does have rest to fall back on but thats not considered a reliable recovery move..

very good points on your part.

Edited August 10, 2015 by TheRealPhatiman

[Liberalisme]

I gave away a secret fk

[BurntZebra]

I am just wondering but isn't CB Donphan a good counter against that Rhydon? I think a CB EQ can do a lot against that Rhydon.

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Donphan: 121-144 (72.8 - 86.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

 

donphan is pretty much forced to run 252 speed if it wants to outspeed all rhydons, leaving it with 14-28% breathing room after taking one earthquake. Donphan can only really come in vs rock slides realistically, taking over 50% from rhydons coverage moves like megahorn/superpower/double edge/ice punch. 

[Liberalisme]

252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Donphan: 121-144 (72.8 - 86.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

 

donphan is pretty much forced to run 252 speed if it wants to outspeed all rhydons, leaving it with 14-28% breathing room after taking one earthquake. Donphan can only really come in vs rock slides realistically, taking over 50% from rhydons coverage moves like megahorn/superpower/double edge/ice punch. 

Donphan is faster then Rhydon what means that it only has to take one hit. CB Donphan EQ is a guaranteed OHKO when Rhydon only can 2HO Donphan.

[BurntZebra]

Donphan is faster then Rhydon what means that it only has to take one hit. CB Donphan EQ is a guaranteed OHKO when Rhydon only can 2HO Donphan.

unfortunately we don't have air balloon so donphan isn't magically switching in for free vs rhydon. And obviously rhydon won't stay in vs donphan either if you pull off a double switch predicting the rhydon. 

[DoubleJ]

Until Rhydon says "dueces" and simply swaps out to Claydol, or literally anything with immunity to a ground attack. Donphan is OP, but that CB EQ is just so easily evaded. Then the Donphan dies to any attack Rhydon can throw at it on the next turn. 

 

We all know Rhydon is easily revenge killed, it's the scary attack power it yields when it comes in against a favorable opponent that will either faint to an attack or switch and put something else at risk. 

[Liberalisme]

Btw how long does it usually take until someone is going to make a decision if something will get banned or not?

[BurntZebra]

Btw how long does it usually take until someone is going to make a decision if something will get banned or not?

It depends on when the UU tier council can get together and decide a verdict. Not to call anyone out but someone has been relatively inactive lately and I hope either a) they are active again so we don't delay a decision or b ) if the two more active members both agree, then technically it doesn't matter about the 3rd vote.

 

I assume tier council is going to wait for at least another UU tournament, preferably one that isn't a summer ball, so I can enter and abuse the shit out of rhydon, to see how rhydon is used. 

[Liberalisme]

It depends on when the UU tier council can get together and decide a verdict. Not to call anyone out but someone has been relatively inactive lately and I hope either a) they are active again so we don't delay a decision or b ) if the two more active members both agree, then technically it doesn't matter about the 3rd vote.

 

I assume tier council is going to wait for at least another UU tournament, preferably one that isn't a summer ball, so I can enter and abuse the shit out of rhydon, to see how rhydon is used. 

Let's hope the UU Council's will make the right decision and that is to ban this thing. We have nothing to really stop it...

[DoubleJ]

It depends on when the UU tier council can get together and decide a verdict. Not to call anyone out but someone has been relatively inactive lately and I hope either a) they are active again so we don't delay a decision or b ) if the two more active members both agree, then technically it doesn't matter about the 3rd vote.

 

I assume tier council is going to wait for at least another UU tournament, preferably one that isn't a summer ball, so I can enter and abuse the shit out of rhydon, to see how rhydon is used. 

 

In my opinion, and I don't speak for the rest of my team, but I would definitely wait for at least one more tournament to see how it plays out. That would effectively give players two weeks to build a Rhydon or two and attempt to exploit it, if it's truly a "broken" uber. 

 

Honestly though, this decision isn't really that easy. From what I saw, Rhydon was pretty shit, but with a little experience under a player's belt, they may turn this thing into a monster. 

 

Additionally, further discussion in this thread will help the UU Council come to a conclusion, especially if discussion is fairly one sided for or against a ban. So please, continue. 

[Arimanius]

I would prefer at least two tournaments to ban it if that's the case, first so people use it a lot and show the damage it can do and second so people try to build a team to stop it and see if that's possible

[Toast]

-1 252+ Atk Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Granbull: 55-66 (27.9 - 33.5%) -- 89.4% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

-1 252+ Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Granbull: 81-96 (41.1 - 48.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

-1 252 Atk Choice Band Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Granbull: 75-88 (38 - 44.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

-1 252 Atk Rhydon Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Granbull: 51-60 (25.8 - 30.4%) -- 0.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

4 Atk Granbull Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Rhydon: 78-92 (43.3 - 51.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

kizhaz pls respond

[OrangeManiac]

I don't think you can instaban Rhydon though. I'm a little bit repeating myself now here but whatever.

In my opinion whether Rhydon belongs in UU tier or not is mostly about how viable fast hyper offense is in the UU tier. Against a fast Hyper Offensive team (especially ones containing a lot of special offense) Rhydon will do absolutely nothing against them. It might not even get a hit off. So if there is a reason, an actual reason outside of Rhydon's existence to run speedy offense in the UU tier this actually makes Rhydon balance things if anything. It isn't a sure shot to bring Rhydon in your team because you may face a lot of teams that will beat Rhydon like it's nothing. I think it should be reflected that how well does fast offensive teams work against Rhydonless teams. If highly fast offense outside of Rhydon's existence is unviable then the way Rhydon punishes the bulky side of the meta is just ridiculously insane. But we can't ban Rhydon under offensive characteristics of "sweeping with little effort" if the actual UU metagame is something that can outspeed Rhydon and not getting swept by it at all due to the lack of its speed. I'm aware Rhydon can help its sweeping with stuff like Substitute but honestly if you don't have any coverage move on Rhydon in order to break the Sub then you're bad and if you get predicted then it's a bit of a "get gud" then.

I hate to quote Smogon too much here but Rampardos has been NU in every Smogon's tier ever since it was made and it has 165 base attack and 58 speed and arguably one of the best abilities in the game. So banning just something offensively due to just attack and not speed isn't just right.

[Robofiend]

I don't think you can instaban Rhydon though. I'm a little bit repeating myself now here but whatever.

In my opinion whether Rhydon belongs in UU tier or not is mostly about how viable fast hyper offense is in the UU tier.

 

I hate to quote Smogon too much here but Rampardos has been NU in every Smogon's tier ever since it was made and it has 165 base attack and 58 speed and arguably one of the best abilities in the game. So banning just something offensively due to just attack and not speed isn't just right.

 

On the flip side, if Rhydon is single-handedly making stall unviable then it's not right to keep it. A prime example of this would be Gen VI Greninja, who threatened offensive teams so much that it was no longer viable to run them. As a result, the viability of stall was artificially inflated to the point of being the dominant playstyle, and it was mainly because you needed to bring Chansey to stop Greninja from running over your other walls.

 

Also, you're just wrong when you say:

 

Against a fast Hyper Offensive team (especially ones containing a lot of special offense) Rhydon will do absolutely nothing against them. It might not even get a hit off. 

 

Rhydon can switch in on offensive as well as defensive threats without fear (especially the bulky variant) and proceed to land attacks. Any Normal/Flying Choice Bander (mainly Swellow, and mainly to deal with Alakazam, another hard-to-check poke for fast offense teams) is going to bait Rhydon super hard. Other bulky/offensive teammates like Kangaskhan are really useful to prevent the rest of your offense from getting rolled by Zam or Manectric, but they're also Rhydon bait. Even Houndoom, who's extremely useful for offense, can't really do anything to Rhydon without HP Grass or Dbond, neither of which have much utility outside of checking Rhdyon.

 

If you build a team that's comprised of something like Xatu, Alakazam, Manectric, Omastar/Walrein, Donphan, fast Exegg (or something) you will give Rhydon few chances to sweep, but you'll sacrifice a lot of protection against other common threats (DD Crawdaunt, Opposing Calm Minders, etc.) - making it questionable if you should even run such a team in the first place because it's overly specific to dealing with Rhydon. Similarly, Rhydon's obviously overcentralizing if:

 

you don't have any coverage move on Rhydon in order to break the Sub then you're bad and if you get predicted then it's a bit of a "get gud" then.

 

Is insinuating every poke on your team needs to have a move to break the sub and prevent Rhydon from setting up, while somehow also being unafraid of the CB set.

 

I rest my case.