[UU Discussion] Houndoom -Banned to BL1

[Champlooo]

4 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

knawledge

ah ok thought so, thanks for that clarification

[DoubleJ]

5 minutes ago, Champlooo said:

ah ok thought so, thanks for that clarification

Got you brah

[Robofiend]

I'm going to go ahead and do the devil's advocate thing here: Houndoom doesn't need to be banned because we have options for it. In particular, these options are useful for dealing with other threats that the metagame has in store.

 

Things that deal with Doom:

- Cradily: already a mainstay, Cradily has the wallpower to sponge Houndoom attacks for defensive teams. While Scizor and Breloom both punish it, Dilly's defensive synergy with Vileplume is pretty awesome unless the enemy is packing a CB EQ user like Donphan.

- Miltank: Miltank's solid defenses and instant healing make it a natural Doom slayer. Another pokemon that synergizes amazingly with Vileplume, as it covers Fire/Ice well and can run Heal Bell to prevent Toxic from taking its defensive teammates down. Its overall favorable stats, access to Curse and cleric abilities, and useful ability are underrated, imo.

- Altaria: Super underrated imo, as it can deal with Fire, Ground, Fighting, Grass, Water and status without support. NC lets it abuse Rest, EQ covers Fire and Electric types, and Fire Blast gives it some recourse against other common walls. Status is another useful option, as Toxic/Fire Blast is a pretty effective combo in UU. Hidden power Ice is pretty much never-used on Houndoom or other special sweepers because it opens your team up to Quagsire or Omastar, both of whom are pretty useful.

- Diglett: While currently rare, it does two three really well with Scarf attached - trapping Doom, Tentacruel and Manectric. Memento gives it a last ditch option to neuter other sweepers to give teammates a setup opportunity and these 3 OHKO's are reasons to consider it on a team. Nonetheless, its papery defenses mean it's only going to be around to revenge-kill, which definitely hampers it.

- Shuckle: Imo this thing is pretty bad, but its stallpower is useful now that it can abuse LO recoil. enough defense to handle pretty much anything but outside of rocking Encore, it totally fails keep setup sweepers at bay.

- Magcargo: while this thing is also rare, it has a sure niche in the tier. 30% burn chance from Flame Body is a solid way to keep Dodrio from spamming its way to victory and its defense is high enough to withstand repeated assault from Swellow, even with a Guts boost (though Dodrio's Low-Kick can be damning). Other Normal sweepers like Zangoose (who often just runs Fire/Normal) have little hope against it and even Scizor can fall victim to a well-timed swap-in, if the burn rubs off. It also does a good job of stalling out Miltank, barring the relatively uncommon EQ, and with the myriad of Pokemon that we have to handle Water type attacks, it can effectively pair up with other walls for defense.

- Torkoal: Similar to Magcargo without the cool ability or instant healing, but overall not that great outside of EQ and Rapid Spin.

 

I think the main thing that is making Houndoom look really broken is that the tier hasn't had enough time to adapt - people would rather politic for a ban than give one of these pokemon a chance (which I don't blame them for). I just listed options, however that have utility against the metagame if used properly.

 

Again, just playing devils advocate here, but I did just list a more than a few things that give Doom a run for its money.

[DaftCoolio]

57 minutes ago, Gunthug said:

It's not that it simply has a type advantage on a certain subset of pokemon (plume can't 1hko fighting types as they switch out against it, btw, same goes for ground v electric types)- it's that the mere possibility of this thing has psychic types bending over backwards to MAYBE not get killed by it. The fact that a psychic type would even consider running hp fighting/ground for houndoom with scizor in the tier shows how centralizing houndoom has become. This kind of "tough decision" might even be a good thing, if it weren't for the fact that hound/scizor have nice chemistry. Personally, my worry is that scizor will continue to plague psychics like jynx, grumping, and exegg if we were to test the meta without doom. But I do think it's worth a test - it's entirely possible that scizor is a problem all on its own

A psychic type running a move (Hidden Power Fighting) to hit its biggest counter (Houndoom) is bending over backwards? Just seems logical to me. The fact that Scizor is so centralizing it forces almost every pokemon to run a fire move, usually hidden power fire, has allowed Houndoom so seem so strong. 

 

Still doesn't restrict team building to the unhealthy degree you described before, still isn't ban worthy. 

 

@Robofiend Poliwrath as well which I think yetto mentioned on page 1. 

[Liberalisme]

Doesn't Hitmontop stop Houndoom aswell?

[DoubleJ]

Just now, Liberalisme said:

Doesn't Hitmontop stop Houndoom aswell?

It doesn't like them fire moves

 

32 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Hitmontop: 72-85 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 6.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Hitmontop Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Houndoom: 84-102 (56 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[Liberalisme]

I also think that Dodrio is a bigger problem then Houndoom tbh. Only counter Dodrio has is Omastar. Dodrio can just normal spam and take out a lot of pokemons.

[Liberalisme]

2 minutes ago, DoubleJ said:

It doesn't like them fire moves

 

32 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Hitmontop: 72-85 (45.8 - 54.1%) -- 6.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 Atk Hitmontop Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Houndoom: 84-102 (56 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

Does more then expected, thx for calcing bro.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Liberalisme

[DaftCoolio]

Lapras can counter/check

252 Atk Life Orb Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lapras: 58-70 (24.4 - 29.5%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

0 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 75-90 (31.6 - 37.9%) -- 0.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

There is probably a more ideal spread in there balancing spdef and def but you get the picture.

 

Blastoise, The OG UU wall

252 Atk Life Orb Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blastoise: 51-60 (27.4 - 32.2%) -- 53% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

0 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Blastoise: 73-88 (39.2 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Once again probs a more ideal balance than max def.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2016 by DaftCoolio

[Gunthug]

8 hours ago, DaftCoolio said:

Lapras can counter/check

252 Atk Life Orb Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Lapras: 58-70 (24.4 - 29.5%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

0 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Lapras: 75-90 (31.6 - 37.9%) -- 0.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

There is probably a more ideal spread in there balancing spdef and def but you get the picture.

 

Blastoise, The OG UU wall

252 Atk Life Orb Houndoom Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blastoise: 51-60 (27.4 - 32.2%) -- 53% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

0 SpA Life Orb Houndoom Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Blastoise: 73-88 (39.2 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Once again probs a more ideal balance than max def.

 

 

 

 

Ok, so we've established that houndoom isn't offensive uber. I get that. Just because something is unhealthy for a tier doesn't necessarily mean it has no checks/counters. The problem with a lot of these houndoom answers is that, in order to get them in on doom, there's a good chance you're losing something like a frail sweeper or a psychic type to a strong, stab LO pursuit, or a LO crunch/overheat if you risk staying in. Plus, let's not forget that while the mixed LO set has been the most popular, doom has the versatility to make you at least RESPECT the specs set

 

252+ SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 56 SpD Lapras: 148-174 (62.4 - 73.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

252+ SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Blastoise: 112-134 (60.2 - 72%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

252+ SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Cradily: 104-124 (53.8 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

252+ SpA Choice Specs Houndoom Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Shuckle: 73-87 (57.9 - 69%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

The threat of specs leaves miltank and altaria as two bonafide counters, sure. But like I said, doom's job is to remove strong and bulky psychic types or frail sweepers and let its team do the rest. I will 100% admit that our metagame usually takes a little more time to adapt to huge threats, and we're still not that far removed from when LO/scarf/specs came in, so keeping an eye on houndoom for a while longer is fine by me. The scope of our discussion should be on whether it centralizes the metagame in a negative way, though - not just which pokemon have a water/ground/fighting attack that can kill it on paper

[DaftCoolio]

10 minutes ago, Gunthug said:

I will 100% admit that our metagame usually takes a little more time to adapt to huge threats, and we're still not that far removed from when LO/scarf/specs came in, so keeping an eye on houndoom for a while longer is fine by me. The scope of our discussion should be on whether it centralizes the metagame in a negative way, though - not just which pokemon have a water/ground/fighting attack that can kill it on paper

Couldn't agree more. I don't think we have adjusted to the increase in offensive power, most peoples run the same mons and expecting the same results. 

 

As for whether its centralizing, it is restricting 1 maybe 2 viable psychic types, Egg and Grumpig. There really isn't much more to it than that.  

[Tyrone]

The Tier Council believes Houndoom shows signs of fitting the unhealthy ban criteria in UU, and therefore Houndoom will be test banned for approximately 1 month or 3 UU official tournaments.

 

During this period, the TC expects to see some major developments in UU; psychic/ghost type pokemon can breathe a little easier and see more use, checking powerhouses such as Scizor/Breloom/Hitmonlee should be easier and some special attackers should become more threatening. Overall, we hope UU won’t be as centralized around the same pokemon as it used to be and that there will be more diversity in the tier.

 

We fully realize that some of you are sceptical about what will come of this test ban. Be assured that Houndoom is not condemned to leave UU, this is nothing more than a test. If Sneasel, Scizor, Absol and others still prevent Psychic/Ghost type from being effective in the tier, if Scizor/Breloom/Hitmonlee remain as difficult to check or if some unhealthy cancer cores start to appear, the test ban will be reverted and Hound will stay in the tier.

 

-Thanks gb and Gunt for write-up

[DaftCoolio]

1 minute ago, Tyrone said:

Psychic/Ghost type from being effective in the tier

 

what a joke

[ShadowGary]

GOTTEM @BlackJovi @DoubleJ

Edited June 12, 2016 by ShadowGary

[BlackJovi]

when houndoom isn't even op and you still ban him @DaftCoolio

[DaftCoolio]

12 minutes ago, BlackJovi said:

when houndoom isn't even op and you still ban him @DaftCoolio

its stopping all the viable psychic types like spoink and abra, makes them unplayable 

[SweeTforU]

Exegg :]]]]

[pachima]

252+ Atk Life Orb Exeggutor Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Houndoom: 151-179 (100.6 - 119.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Not even hard for exeggcutor.

[pachima]

2 hours ago, DaftCoolio said:

its stopping all the viable psychic types like spoink and abra, makes them unplayable 

252 Atk Life Orb Abra Focus Punch vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Houndoom: 169-200 (112.6 - 133.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

What are you talking about? Doom no match for abra.

Edited June 12, 2016 by pachima

[Argorok2017]

Any thoughts on if Rapidash could fit into UU now as a mixed sweeper?

[pachima]

2 minutes ago, Argorok2017 said:

Any thoughts on if Rapidash could fit into UU now as a mixed sweeper?

It will get walled by altaria if hp grass or quagsire if hp ice. Tentacruel and miltank also doesnt mind most of its attacks. (Barring hypnosis ofc)

[Argorok2017]

Just now, pachima said:

It will get walled by altaria if hp grass or quagsire if hp ice. Tentacruel and miltank also doesnt mind most of its attacks. (Barring hypnosis ofc)

And yet they did the same thing to Houndoom, so that's not really what I was looking for.

 

Can Rapidash do an at least ok job filling the role that is now void due to Houndoom being gone? I understand it cant negate Psychic moves, but with Rapidash being able to learn Megahorn it can be scary to psychic types.

[OrangeManiac]

I'm fine with this but guys please let's not postpone Dodrio ban because of this 1 month "test period".

[pachima]

1 minute ago, OrangeManiac said:

I'm fine with this but guys please let's not postpone Dodrio ban because of this 1 month "test period".

Yeah, honestly, I think dodrio is more banworthy than doom is.

[BlackJovi]

Honestly dont know why so much whining about doom, they just wanna spam exegg on every team now