Sharpedo is actually a pretty decent mon in Rain, but it's really hard to build around. Rewer used it in the Invitational fwiw.Are Bisharp and Sharpedo viable options on a rain team to counter bulky sand? (not both on the same team btw)
Sorry which match was this, I don't remember seeing it in monai's invitationalSharpedo is actually a pretty decent mon in Rain, but it's really hard to build around. Rewer used it in the Invitational fwiw.
As for Bisharp, it's a mon that doesn't really have good synergy in Rain, so it's not seen often. I suppose it could be decent against some Sand Teams since it's a SDer that actually exploits Lando-T, but I haven't really seen it be put to good use.
Game 2 of Rewer vs Sage in Round 1: https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen5ou-715191Sorry which match was this, I don't remember seeing it in monai's invitational
not to clefableEverything hurts
I wasn't a believer at first, but after trying out a max HP max SpDef Landot in probably ~100 games, I've become a huge fan. In my opinion, the best part is that it retains regular Landot's ability to blanket check physical attackers like Dnite, Scizor, and Terrak, but you become happy to eat random special attacks as well.This thread seems to be getting back on track so I'll share some interesting sets of common pokemon that eden and I tried (not gonna try and claim anything in a meta as old as this) continuing with the mon 4lom was talking about above
Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 248 HP / 20 Def / 64 SpA / 88 SpD / 88 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split
This may not seem that revolutionary at first glance and well it isn't but can be a good example of how just by moving some evs around you can gain some flexibility while still keeping the core traits.
The main reason eden and I tried this was to get was to out speed lo ada sciz to burn or finish it off on a team that was a little weak to it and to give rotom more pressure vs thundy-t. As you can see in the calcs below this set still can be used to check the same thing just requires you to be a bit more delicate and in regards to keld rotom shouldn't be your only check regardless.
Unfortunately this set misses out on the guaranteed thundy ohko but being able to kill after rocks/substitute is still valuable since as we all know thundy can tear open a team quickly. The other benefits of running modest which I didn't realize at the time are being able to always break the niche subtect trans sub all of the time and being able to surprise a cheeky glisc stay in to potentially ohko it depending on their set.
252 SpA Keldeo Hydro Pump vs. 248 HP / 88 SpD Rotom-Wash in Rain: 127-150 (41.9 - 49.5%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Keldeo Secret Sword vs. 248 HP / 20 Def Rotom-Wash: 127-151 (41.9 - 49.8%) -- 26.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252+ Atk Cloyster Rock Blast (5 hits) vs. 248 HP / 20 Def Rotom-Wash: 225-270 (74.2 - 89.1%) -- approx. 6.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Never-Melt Ice Mamoswine Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 20 Def Rotom-Wash: 84-100 (27.7 - 33%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
48+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Thunder vs. 248 HP / 88 SpD Rotom-Wash: 177-208 (58.4 - 68.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
64+ SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 104 HP / 4 SpD Thundurus-Therian in Rain: 283-334 (87 - 102.7%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
64+ SpA Rotom-Wash Volt Switch vs. 8 HP / 100 SpD Heatran: 81-96 (24.9 - 29.5%) -- guaranteed 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
64+ SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 124 SpD Gliscor: 342-404 (97.1 - 114.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
64+ SpA Rotom-Wash Hydro Pump vs. 244 HP / 252+ SpD Gliscor: 272-324 (77.2 - 92%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
Some other sets you could try are:
248 HP / 20 Def / 220 SpA / 20 SpD modest to get the ohko on thundy in rain and still retain the basic defensive capacities while sacrificing pretty much all your spdef
248 HP / 44 Def / 88 SpD / 128 Spe bold which allows you to out speed loom and potentially get a burn on it and live a banded bullet seed to limit how much damage it can do to your team
Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 248 HP / 24 Def / 148 SpD / 88 Spe
Impish Nature
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice] / Stone Edge
- U-turn
- Stealth Rock / Stone Edge / Rock Slide
Im sure most of us have seen spdef lando running around in ss and wondered if it could work in bw, well this was my attempt. This set could be accused of doing to much at once which is honestly fair but its hilarious seeing a lando live a thundy/lati/zam/volc hit. I truely believe this could be made better. I just dumped a bunch of calcs so you could see whats potentially possible.
Hp ice still does decent damage vs lando chomp dnite being able to 2hko all (need sand up for dnite) but stone edge could also be an option as well rock slide if you are really worried about missing vs volc.
-1 252 Atk Choice Band Terrakion Stone Edge vs. 248 HP / 24+ Def Landorus-Therian: 159-187 (41.7 - 49%) -- 19.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
-1 252+ Atk Sand Force Excadrill Iron Head vs. 248 HP / 24+ Def Landorus-Therian in Sand: 126-148 (33 - 38.8%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
48+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Landorus-Therian: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Alakazam Hidden Power Ice vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Landorus-Therian: 320-380 (83.9 - 99.7%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Landorus-Therian: 316-372 (82.9 - 97.6%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Latios Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Landorus-Therian: 232-274 (60.8 - 71.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 148 SpD Landorus-Therian: 306-361 (80.3 - 94.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
0 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Terrakion: 324-384 (100 - 118.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 Atk Landorus-Therian Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 444-524 (122.9 - 145.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
0 Atk Landorus-Therian Stone Edge vs. 104 HP / 144 Def Thundurus-Therian: 222-262 (68.3 - 80.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
0- SpA Landorus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 240 HP / 0- SpD Landorus-Therian: 252-300 (66.4 - 79.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
0- SpA Landorus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Garchomp: 220-260 (61.6 - 72.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
0- SpA Landorus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 94-112 (29.1 - 34.6%) -- 5.2% chance to 3HKO
Obviously these shouldn't replace the standard sets which are the standard for a reason but you should be open to making small adjustments similar to these sets when building to add another dimension to your teams.
Cheers
You cut off the winrate btw :)
| 27 | Clefable | 23 | 7.32%
With the conclusion of Invitational (and classic) I think its time to properly discuss this mon, along with a bit of history of how we got to this point. The uptick of support Clefable this year marks probably the biggest shift in a single Pokemon's usage I can recall in recent memory, to the extent that Clef would be OU ranked if modern BW was based on tournament usage. In Invitational, Clefable saw higher usage than Terrakion, Heatran, Kyurem-B, and even Breloom, which was unthinkable a year ago.
Clef is doing basically the same thing in BW that it does in DPP, just with more focus on specially defensive (due to Latios, bulky waters having Rain-backed STABs, and the power creep of physical attackers meaning they mostly beat you anyway). The go-to set is:
Clefable @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 252 HP / 56 Def / 188 SpD / 12 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Knock Off / Stealth Rock
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
- Soft-Boiled
EVs outspeed support Tyranitar and survives 1 Keldeo Secret Sword, or 2x Heatran Magma Storms.
Clefable is basically just micro-Blissey that deals with residual damage better, meaning you need to recover less and can feasibly run without Rapid Spin support. In a tier dominated by Sandstorm, Spikes, and Scald, thats a huge upside. In a pinch, Clefable is also able to take on many variants of Latios and with Thunder Wave + Seismic Toss can reliably 1v1 a huge amount of the BW roster by just fishing for paralysis and chipping through. Most teams won't have many ways of breaking Clefable - often reliant on something like Excadrill or Keldeo - so the best Clefable set is Knock Off with Spikes support to put these on a timer, but practically this set can be difficult to fit outside of Hippowdon teams.
Pokemon that Clefable can 1v1 - (by tour usage)
along with others, depening on set.
Basically its just straight-up walling + beating most of the other defensive Pokemon in the tier, is a pain to swap into with Knock + Thunder Wave, is an amazing enabler for late-game mons like Reuniclus, and in a pinch can patch-up weaknesses to some of the tier's super strong special attackers like Latios and Alakazam.
Phase I - experimentation
Clefable has always seen 1-2 uses a tournament every year, but generally with cute-but-quite-bad Calm Mind, Cosmic Power, or Life Orb sets and always failing to gain any significant attention or traction. Last summer, support Clefable became a bit of a flavour-of-the-month Pokemon on the BW Discord server, with several users all trying it out and experimenting where it could fit. There were lots of really bad "triple-Psy"-style teams with Tyranitar / Landorus-T / Ferrothorn / Clefable / Latios / Alakazam, where users tried to like-for-like swap out Reuniclus, but the best iterations we came across were 1) Clefable + Reuniclus teams 2) SR Clefable teams that enabled non-SR sets on Grounds like Landorus-T and 3) Clefable Hails This triggered a couple of BW OU Hub posts (1 and 2) along with a classic "no clefable is the only reason I play this tier, now I may as well go back to ADV" quote from Monai. BW Discord was renamed and #clefnation was born. This dense period of community discussion and experimentation with Clefable was the starting point for its rise.
Phase II - the first actual competent teams
It took a few months for Clefable to transition from "use it because its theoretically good" to "actual best option on successful teams". Towards the end of 2022 and start of 2023, we saw proper Clefable usage both on high level ladder and sneaking into SPL courtesy of myself, eden, dice, and Jisoo.
Some of the relevant teams from this period:
Oct-Dec 2022 by peng (analysis here)
Obviously blowing my own horn here slightly, but this is the earliest iteration of Clefable + Reuniclus, though that concept has been optimised a lot further since then. The idea is supporting Reuniclus with Thunder Wave ClefableThunder Wave Colbur Lati@s and Spikes. Clefable ran Stealth Rock and therefore progress vs Excadrill was driven by Rocky Helmet Skarmory, rather than Knock Off. I didn't have the full confidence or vision to go superman-style on this and drop spin altogether, as a second steel to go alongside Skarmory felt necessary but all of them bar Excadrill involved Spikes weakness, Reuniclus weakness, or Scizor weakness. Clefable also gives up a free turn to Lum Cloyster and Lum Volcarona, which this team didn't match-up too well into. As we'll come to, some smart people have fixed all of these issues in the recent Clefable teams.
Jan 2023 by dice (analysis here)
Clefable had been seen in SPL in years prior but without any real success, like I said using some more gimmicky sets. However, this team by dice used vs Sensei Axew in SPL marks the first proper use of modern Clefable in a major tournament. Here, Stealth Rock Clefable frees up Landorus-T to run an offensive Smack Down set, one of the best examples of SR Clefable enabling set diversity on other Pokemon. Lati@s quickly becomes standardised as Clefable's best partner, as the two of them work together to shut down Rain - Clefable completely nullifying the defensive core of Poli/Ferro/Tentacruel and walling Scarf Latios, then your own Lati@s tanking their Keldeo and Thundurus-T.
Jan 2023 by dice (example import)
Knock Off + Thunder Wave had been recognised as probably Clefable's best set, but until this point had been hard to fit. Clefable so often was running Stealth Rock for needed role compression, that it was tough to visualise teams that enabled Clefable to run Knock Off to begin with. Dice and eden pioneered Hippowdon + Knock Clefable, with this particular version from dice seeing multiple uses in SPL in 2023, although he himself would admit it is a bit clunky. Regardless, the first true application of Knock Clefable in BW OU and yet more evidence in favour of Skarmory + Clefable + Lati@s as the de facto Clef core. Jisoo piloted this to success in SPL and its seen sporadic usage since.
Phase III - optimisation
Summer 2023 by Feaniix (example import)
The teams earlier were all competent Clefable builds but felt unoptimised. It was clear that Skarmory + Clefable + Lati@s was a super strong defensive backbone, but it wanted a late-game win condition and ideally wanted Clefable to keep Knock Off, therefore finding Stealth Rock elsewhere. Feaniix's build above fixes the flaws of the earlier teams elegantly, by finding a midground that retains the late-game wincondition of Reuniclus, whilst using Rocks Hippowdon to justify Knock Off Clefable, as well as still being able to go spinless by smartly choosing Bronzong as the secondary steel. Bronzong + Skarmory looks redundant, but it allows the team to have both a physically defensive and a specially defensive steel together which is invaluable, as well as enabling Skarmory to run tech items such as Shed Shell or Mail. The result is by far the most passive of all the Clefable builds so far, with very little offensive outlet and relying almost entirely on gradually draining the opponents resources through Knock Off, Thunder Wave, Sandstorm, entry hazards, and a late-game Reuniclus option. However, this is the the most solid Clefable build by a considerable margin, and unsurprisingly adopted by other top players including Finchinator and SoulWind.
Where next
Its tough to know if Clefable has reached its peak, but the team by Feaniix feels like an almost perfect version of the Clefable + Reuniclus concept. Some ideas for Clefable I think next could be:
Knock Off Clefable + SubCM Latias, maybe on dual lati
Much like Knock Clefable supporting Reuniclus, it also has the potential to support CM Latias in the same way. CM Latias' main issue is it basically never breaks Excadrill, which is probably the hardest Pokemon in the entire tier to wear down. Clefable is great at forcing in Excadrill to cripple with Knock and therefore enable Latias. CM Latias somewhat role compresses the Colbur Lati + Reuniclus slots in Feaniix's team into one, giving you a free 6th slot, so there may be some experimentation here. A build that I keep trying to make work is Tyranitar / TSpike Forretress / Landorus-T / Clefable / SubCM Latias / filler (probably Jellicent or Heatran).
Clefable Hail
I think the synergy of this is obvious but its hard to make work. My personal team with this is Aboma / Gliscor / Forretress / Clefable / colbur Latios / Kyurem(-B) which feels like a starting point with a basically hail immune defensive spine which messes up a lot of the tier's steels, then rounded out with Latios and scarf Kyurem. Even fatter variations of this could work, but its possible that since Abomasnow needs spin anyway then you might as well use Blissey and run variations of ABR's hail instead.
Clefable set diversity
I feel like we've worked out that Knock Clefable is by far the most irritating, but it does have a deep movepool that could enable some unique builds. Ice Beam has seen some usage to beat Gliscor, lure Landorus-T, and punish Lum Dragonite, and watashi has shown off Flamethrower for Ferrothorn / Scizor / Excadrill also. Encore and Wish may have untapped potential too
Checks and CountersKilling Heatran
Heatran is probably well known as one of the tankiest pokés in B&W OU currently. And deservingly so. With great defensive stats (106 base Df. And Sp. Df.), a VERY good ability in Flash Fire, Weak to only 3 types (Ground, Water, and Fighting), and commonly equipped with Air Balloon (makes it inmune to Ground-type attacks until gets damaged by a move), it is way too resistant to pretty much most things. But, we are not talking about that in this post (i think). We are talking about its weaknesses, and how to exploit them.
DISCLAIMER: This post will be talking only about super-effective moves. If i missed any other moves that can reliably kill Heatran, please let me know.
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 214-254 (55.4 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
This method can guarantee a 2HKO against Heatran, but it mandates a Choice Specs wearing Latios. With similar stats and Choice Scarf, it becomes a 99.9 chance to 3HKO. 252 SpA Latios Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 144-170 (37.3 - 44%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Alakazam Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 186-220 (48.1 - 56.9%) -- 39.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Unreliable method, but still somewhat strong.
0 Atk Gliscor Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Heatran: 396-468 (102.5 - 121.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Pretty strong method, unless the Heatran is wearing an Air Balloon
These are just some methods for killing Heatran. It is likely that some of you find more ways. If so, i will add them accordingly with credits.
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Latios: 265-312 (88 - 103.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Starmie: 252-298 (96.5 - 114.1%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
-1 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Ice Punch vs. 240 HP / 16 Def Landorus-Therian: 302-359 (79.6 - 94.7%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 72 Def Tentacruel: 318-374 (87.3 - 102.7%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Reuniclus: 382-452 (90 - 106.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Lucario Crunch vs. 248 HP / 124 Def Jellicent: 504-595 (125 - 147.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO