I generally liked your post; but did you mean to say Bulk Up or Swords Dance where you accidentally put "Brave Bird over Taunt or Wisp"?Stallbreakers:
Stall is always prepared for common stallbreakers like Mega Gardevoir and Mew, but stall nowadays is kinda weak against some common stallbreakers. We all know Mega Heracross, Gothitelle and Manaphy can beat stall very easily, but they don't fit on every team. Some other stallbreakers fits very well on offensive teams. I'm mainly talking about Talonflame and Keldeo
Talonflame's XY Stallbreaker set (Roost, Taunt, Wisp, Brave Bird) has arguably gotten worse because of Mega Sableye. The decline of the stallbreaker set really helped stall because the set was always annoying af to deal with. Now stall is less prepared for Talonflame, Talonflame flies back to the stall with a little change in its set. With Brave Bird over Taunt or Wisp, it can set up on Mega Sableye easily and OHKO it after it boosted. If Mega Sableye tries to boost alongside Talonflame, it fails to do more than 50% at the end. Pokemon like Alomomola, Chansey and Skarmory are shut down by Taunt and can only to little damage with Scald / Seismic Toss / Brave Bird. At the end of the day Talonflame often kills itself with all the Brave Bird damage, but it can often take a few pokemon down.
SubCM Keldeo is another set that is becoming more common and stall often only has 1 or 2 answers to it. Amoonguss can stall it out with Clear Smog as it doesn't give a damn about the Scalds or Secret Swords. Clefable wins the CM war or just beats it if it's Unaware and Gothitelle can counter it. After these pokemon have been eliminated, Keldeo can just set up on stuff like Mega Sableye or Alomomola and boosts its stats. At +1, Chansey is already OHKO'd and Skarmory dies to a +1 Scald.
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Other ORAS Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter alexwolf
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Thanks for noticing. I meant Swords Dance because it can boost way faster than Bulk Up, so it can win much easier in situations against Mega Sableye.
Can confirm that Suicune is pretty potent these days. Damn thing just does not die. Despite the fact that it only really has one effective set that it can run, the sheer durability of it means that it can be useful at just about any point in a match. As either a late game sweeper, or a bulky emergency button, manage to get him out there safely, and he's pretty much stuck in.
That said, his one dimensionality really does end up biting him in the ass. Despite all he brings to the table, in a vacuum, Suicune is probably one of the most predictable pokemon in the game, and getting too careless in throwing him out can turn him into a liability at times.
That said, his one dimensionality really does end up biting him in the ass. Despite all he brings to the table, in a vacuum, Suicune is probably one of the most predictable pokemon in the game, and getting too careless in throwing him out can turn him into a liability at times.
I'm pretty sure you lose to variants running Foul Play if you opt for Swords Dance over Bulk Up. CM Sableye is definitely more common though
Bulk Up/Taunt Talonflame is pretty much the only Talonflame that beats the combination of Mega-Sableye and Toxic Heatran, which is pretty common on stall. Without Taunt it loses to Toxic Heatran, and without Bulk Up it loses to Foul Play Mega-Sableye. With SpDf investment the Bulk Up version even beats CM Sableye.
To be honest a lot of teams especially balanced minded ones aren't that well suited to handle Mamoswine and Gengar, especially both at once without playing around them at times. Gengar has been around for awhile and even now it's maintained itself as a pretty anti-meta mon cause it has a bunch of tools at its disposable. Mamoswine was always anti-meta to begin with cause a well-played one can be a pain in the ass to fight sometimes unless the opponent makes some decent double switches. Also agreeing that if you're using TFlame to help with M-Sableye Swords Dance isn't the way to go. You run the risk of getting a Foul Play to the face and there goes that. SD obviously has other purposes but don't use that as your sole M-Sableye answer. Also lol at the Dog category, not bad at all.
The thing with Gengar in the current metagame is the massive popularity of Scarftar on these balanced teams. In many cases, it will get one kill max and just be trapped by Scarftar, which limits it from doing as much as it could otherwise. I wouldn't exactly say Gengar can stallbreak as effectively anymore, either, as Scarftar is seeing some usage on high-level stall teams and specially defensive Gliscor as well as Mega Sableye completely counter it, and both are extremely good in the current metagame.
imo gengar has barely any concrete switchins and finds it easy to break through teams lacking a scarftar or Lando. This is obviously because of Ghosts unparalleled coverage, but there is one hurdle gengar cant overcome which is the reason why gengar isnt as common as many other mons, despite being a great mon itself. What I feel is the reason for lower usage than gengar deserves is the fact that his role as a fast special attacker competes with Lati@s, not in terms of exact roles but instead the gaping weaknesses it leaves. Latios is a necessity for many offensive teams and although gengar breaks through a lot of mons, putting both on the same team makes you extremely weak to pursuit trappers. If you forgo Latios for gengar, you lose defog support, which is not ideal.
I don't think its that Gengar competes for Lati@s spots, although they have similar attacking patterns via strong STABs and offensive stats, they hold completely different roles. Gengar has Stallbreaking utility, although not as strong currently, while Lati@s are able to find a spot on teams, for like you said, Defog support, but that doesn't mean that Defog is mandatory on the respective mons. Personally, I feel that Lati@s are easier to form cores / have synergetic partners compared to Gengar. It's easier to slap Lati@s on teams whereas for Gengar's case, it can be difficult to teambuild with Gengar despite it's wide move pool of strong special attacks and utility. Ultimately, its niche hurts its usage. So, it is not that Gengar has glaring weaknesses but comparing the three so similarly undermines the strengths of each respective Pokemon.
I don't think Flamer meant Latios and Gengar having the same role or comparing the two/three, but more like players tending to avoid stacking too many dark and ghost weaknesses, since in Gen 6 they are a bit more harder to cover coupled with the fact that Latios/Latias are the most common slappable Defog users, so majority of teams tend to prefer them.
If that is the case it would create redundancies regardless as the value of having them both doesn't really achieve much because they themselves don't have offensive synergy, I don't remember Lati@s and Gengar played on the same team in BW (at least I think that's what you are referring to as dark weakness).
I dont think you quite got what i meant. I didnt mean that Latios and gengar should be put on the same team, in fact quite the opposite, I meant that Latios has more utility in the meta compared to Gengar and because having them on the same team isnt ideal, Gengar sees less usage than it should.
Is it just me, or is Azumarill a beast with almost no switch ins? Almost nothing resists the dual STABs bar Ferrothorn, Empoleon, Tentacruel and Venusaur. And M-Venusaur is really the only reliable switch-in because Tentacruel doesn't have a recovery move and the steel types can get rocked by Superpower. I think a few other massively bulky things like Skarm can take a hit too but jeez...
If I know it's Belly Drum Azumarill, I want to damage it as much as possible from the getgo unless I have a dedicated counter I can switch into. Otherwise I wanna bring in something that can take either a Waterfall or Play Rough against CB / AV. The problem is if the set hasn't been revealed and I end up switching into something like Mega Slowbro predicting a CB Play Rough only to see Belly Drum.
It is slow of course but once it's inside it can be quite difficult to handle
If I know it's Belly Drum Azumarill, I want to damage it as much as possible from the getgo unless I have a dedicated counter I can switch into. Otherwise I wanna bring in something that can take either a Waterfall or Play Rough against CB / AV. The problem is if the set hasn't been revealed and I end up switching into something like Mega Slowbro predicting a CB Play Rough only to see Belly Drum.
It is slow of course but once it's inside it can be quite difficult to handle
well I think that the majority of players tend to play around it, Azumarill is of course really threatening but, as mons like Manaphy (that is dangerous, too), is outclassed by others "broken" (don't wanna discuss about this word, with it I meant something very powerful) threats and it is slow too, although sometimes you need to sack something due to the fear of drummer set (as you said)
The problem with azu is that it is very prediction reliant with cb (it's best set atm) as most teams have at least two resists to water, fairy and fighting, so it really isn't that hard to deal with for Competent balanced teams, and offensive revenges it pretty ez with its low speed (it's still a very solid Mon however, just not as good as you pointed it out to be)
Well I wasn't trying to say it's OP or even S rank, I think it's as good as most people think it is (very good not incredible). The thing is most mons have a greater number of reliable switch-ins that don't require prediction. When you're forced to predict it means you're risking more on that move. My post was intended to highlight that with slower pokemon or faster threats that cant ohko Azumarill, you're often put in a very bad position because the wrong decision can cost you a pokemon - whether you switch into a waterfall expecting play rough or stayed in expecting BD just to get ko'd by another variant.
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i think you forget a couple of things than can improve Mamoswine's and Talonflame's roles: the first can use Superpower to consistently defeat Ferrothorn, Air Baloon Heatran and some others while keeping a good move to hurt rotomW and prey on his lack of reliable recovery. and Talonflame, you mention that the main drawback of his stallbreaker set is that he usually OHKOes istelf if he tries to sweep, specially if he attacks Chansey. This tiny problem can easily be fixed. I'm pretty sure Talonflame won't miss Leftovers (the most common item for bulk up variants) or even sky plate/sharp beak (on the SD variant) too much and Acrobatics has nearly the same base power of Brave bird if you remove your item. It could be at least considered for a more consistent sweep. On any SD talonflame, a single layer of Stealth Rock and a bit of help from your wallbreaker of choice usually does the trick to get past the few mons you miss the KO with the sligtly lessened damage output, especially now that the tipically most prominent pokémon you loose the secure OHKO if you run acrobatics, greninja, has just been banned.I've been playing OU a lot past few weeks and a few things really stood out.
Wallbreakers:
When building teams I always look for solid checks or counters for offensive threats like Landorus, Talonflame, Azumarill, Keldeo and Bisharp and when laddering in OU I feel like many balanced teams also have solid answers to this threats, but what I am seeing is that they are often lacking switchins for these 2 threats:
The sets I am talking about are the All-Out Attacker LO Mamoswine set and the LO 3 Atks Gengar set. These two pokemon slice through many balanced teams very easily because there is basically nothing that wants to switch in. Of course they have many good checks or counters like Keldeo and Mega Scizor (against Mamoswine) and Conkeldurr and Bisharp (against Gengar) but they can only switch in once. Below are some calcs against the 10 most common OU pokemon at the moment
-1 240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Icicle Spear (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Landorus-T: 312-374 (97.8 - 117.2%) -- approx. 87.5% chance to OHKO
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 801-951 (208 - 247%) -- guaranteed OHKO
16 SpA Life Orb Mamoswine Freeze-Dry vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 143-172 (47.1 - 56.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 88 Def Ferrothorn: 156-185 (44.3 - 52.5%) -- 21.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Icicle Spear (2 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 266-312 (88.9 - 104.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 231-273 (71.5 - 84.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 281-331 (43.7 - 51.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 160 Def Clefable: 224-265 (56.8 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Icicle Spear (4 hits) vs. 120 HP / 0 Def Talonflame: 284-344 (86.8 - 105.1%) -- approx. 12.5% chance to OHKO
240 Atk Life Orb Mamoswine Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Sableye: 133-156 (43.7 - 51.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 207-243 (64.8 - 76.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 192+ SpD Heatran: 250-294 (64.9 - 76.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Rotom-W: 144-172 (47.3 - 56.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 168+ SpD Ferrothorn: 237-281 (67.3 - 79.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latios: 312-369 (104.3 - 123.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Keldeo: 220-261 (68.1 - 80.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Focus Blast vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Chansey: 263-309 (40.9 - 48.1%) -- 66.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock (without eviolite)
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 96+ SpD Clefable: 361-429 (91.6 - 108.8%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Sludge Wave vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Talonflame: 274-324 (92.2 - 109%) -- 50% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Gengar Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mega Sableye: 110-133 (36.1 - 43.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
Definitely some pokemon that can win you the game against balance, while also having amazing wallbreaking power against stall.
Dogs:
Raikou is very popular on the ladder at the moment. The other 2 dogs are 2 pokemon I've had many fun with
We all know Suicune for its CroCune set. CroCune fits very well in the current metagame as it can set up on threats like Landorus-T and Heatran. Suicune wins CM battles against Clefable and Sableye because of Pressure which is a very good niche. It can also take on Mega Metagross surprisingly well, only 4HKO'd by Zen Headbutt and having a 30% for a scald burn really helps. It can also take hits from Mega Lopunny and Azumarill very well so you often have a nice switchin in the back if something goes wrong.
Nothing wants to switch into a Sacred Fire from Entei. The banded set made it to S rank in UU because a banded Sacred Fire + burn chance is very hard to switch into. However, in OU I think the Assault Vest set is a better set because it is a solid counter to Gengar, Mega Gardevoir (without rocks) and Volcarona, who can be huge threats to some teams. Even without the band, Sacred Fire is annoying to switch into because of the huge burn chance. It also gets priority and good coverage to help defeating things like Talonflame. The reason I think Entei is not very effective is that Stealth Rocks are everywhere and with rocks up it can't even switch into Gengar comfortably.
Stallbreakers:
Stall is always prepared for common stallbreakers like Mega Gardevoir and Mew, but stall nowadays is kinda weak against some common stallbreakers. We all know Mega Heracross, Gothitelle and Manaphy can beat stall very easily, but they don't fit on every team. Some other stallbreakers fits very well on offensive teams. I'm mainly talking about Talonflame and Keldeo
Talonflame's XY Stallbreaker set (Roost, Taunt, Wisp, Brave Bird) has arguably gotten worse because of Mega Sableye. The decline of the stallbreaker set really helped stall because the set was always annoying af to deal with. Now stall is less prepared for Talonflame, Talonflame flies back to the stall with a little change in its set. With Swords Dance over Taunt or Wisp, it can set up on Mega Sableye easily and OHKO it after it boosted. If Mega Sableye tries to boost alongside Talonflame, it fails to do more than 50% at the end. Pokemon like Alomomola, Chansey and Skarmory are shut down by Taunt and can only to little damage with Scald / Seismic Toss / Brave Bird. At the end of the day Talonflame often kills itself with all the Brave Bird damage, but it can often take a few pokemon down.
SubCM Keldeo is another set that is becoming more common and stall often only has 1 or 2 answers to it. Amoonguss can stall it out with Clear Smog as it doesn't give a damn about the Scalds or Secret Swords. Clefable wins the CM war or just beats it if it's Unaware and Gothitelle can counter it. After these pokemon have been eliminated, Keldeo can just set up on stuff like Mega Sableye or Alomomola and boosts its stats. At +1, Chansey is already OHKO'd and Skarmory dies to a +1 Scald.
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2015-01/ou-1825.txt
Wow, amazing, Latias surpassed Latios.
Last month she was "only" 18°, now 6° surpassing its brother.
It seems Healing Wish has become much more useful for heavy/bulky offensive teams lately.
Btw another fun thing:
Bisharp as a check/counter to Latios:
(42.1% KOed / 42.0% switched out)
Coinflip indeed, lol
Other stuff includes Mega Metagross having an usage rise (well, had to be expected after Greninja's ban) albeit not that high, and Mega Sableye losing usage, from 13° to 28°. well that's a bit strange, has the metagame adapted to it (for example I'm seeing Mega Gardevoir much higher on the usage this month)?
What are your thoughts from the newest Usage Stats?
Wow, amazing, Latias surpassed Latios.
Last month she was "only" 18°, now 6° surpassing its brother.
It seems Healing Wish has become much more useful for heavy/bulky offensive teams lately.
Btw another fun thing:
Bisharp as a check/counter to Latios:
(42.1% KOed / 42.0% switched out)
Coinflip indeed, lol
Other stuff includes Mega Metagross having an usage rise (well, had to be expected after Greninja's ban) albeit not that high, and Mega Sableye losing usage, from 13° to 28°. well that's a bit strange, has the metagame adapted to it (for example I'm seeing Mega Gardevoir much higher on the usage this month)?
What are your thoughts from the newest Usage Stats?
I blame sabeleye drop due to Sub CM keldeo, clefable, gliscor, SD talonflame, and mega gard.
No real radical drops or gains.
Funny how quagsire is few slots from ou status, but is nu tho
Healing Wish seems to be really popular these days, not very unexpected. Healing Wish can bring back bulky Pokemon from the dead basically, and can stall out games sometimes. I've seen lots of Latias Healing Wish, switch in to Chansey/Azumarill.
I just went on the global link and can confirm what Aquaslash said. Custap Berry and the other 3 are indeed available now atleast from the pokedoll Game. The return of Custap to the metagame game wonder what impact that'll have?
Ok we will be able to use Custap Skarmory again but now we also have two very viable Magic Bounce users in Sableye and Diancie to stop it completely :[
It may have some uses on niche stuff like Wobbuffett (with Destiny Bond) but I don't see it having a significant impact on this metagame.
It may have some uses on niche stuff like Wobbuffett (with Destiny Bond) but I don't see it having a significant impact on this metagame.
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