Project ORAS NU Research Week #9 [Voting Stage]

[Disjunction]

Taken over from Can-Eh-Dian who took it over from Lord Alphose who had taken it over from Minus's version which can be found here
Approved by Raseri and I guess Montsegur
Original OP by Mazz

EDIT: Some big changes have come to research week! Read this post to see what all has changed!
​

Welcome, NUers and all those looking for an excellent competitive Pokemon experience! A new installment of an old Pokemon game means we've got new Pokemon to research!

Keep the following things in mind during every Research Group:

• Be open-minded, don't just say something is terrible and walk away; look at its stats, movepool, and typing and think something up!
• Feel free to theorymon early in the research period, but make it clear you're doing so. Later in the period though, you will be expected to back up your posts with hard evidence like logs, actual sets, perhaps even teams.
• Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore; it's very likely that something has gone unnoticed.
• Do not post in this thread complaining about the Pokemon I choose and / or suggesting ones we should do for future weeks. Feel free to VM / PM me these suggestions, but don't expect me to always listen to you.

A few things to clarify:

• Early period means the first three days of the research week, so let's keep the theorymoning to a minimum after. The late period refers to the last four days of the research week, where raw evidence and discussion should become the basis of the thread.
• Sign-Ups close three days after nominees are posted, so be sure to sign up before they close!

This Week's Nominees:

Leafeon | Probopass | Ninetales
​

How useful are these Pokemon in ORAS NU? What sets can they run effectively? What gives them trouble? What advantages do they have over other Pokemon? How well do they work in the metagame? If you have anything to say about any of these Pokemon, please post about them! It doesn't matter if you've used them or have just faced them in battle, anything is fine (but please, do try them). Just be sure to back up your posts with good competitive reasoning. Remember, discussion is not limited to this topic, you are encouraged to talk about these Pokemon in #neverused and the Pokemon Showdown NU chat as well!

The Research Group:

In order to participate you must do the following:​

• Each week, I will propose 3 Pokemon for discussion. The community will vote on one of the proposed targets and the rest is up to you for discussing and battling.​
• Please actually use the target. Initial thoughts are fine, but go shouting what you think a Pokemon could do or what your experiences with it were in a previous meta.​
• Post your experiences with the Pokemon you're using, participate in the discussion!​
• Post logs of this Pokemon in action against other teams - don't just tell us, show us!​
• At the end of the week, post the set(s) of the Pokemon that you've been using. We'd love to see what creative sets you used and hear how that worked out for you.​

The first stage of the challenge will be very relaxed so theorymoning will be allowed as long as its backed up by good reasoning. During the later stage, discussion will be expected to be backed up by hard evidence, such as teams, actual sets, and logs. The winner of the challenge will be the person who has the highest ladder ranking on the Pokemon Showdown NU ladder on the alt they registered at the time the challenge ends.

Past weeks

Week 1: Ninetales| Tangela| Togetic| Musharna

Week 2: Pawniard| Lanturn| Roselia | Rotom-Fan

Week 3: Bouffalant| Raichu| Swanna| Piloswine

Week 4: Mega Audino| Accelgor| Poliwrath| Gourgeist-Small

Week 5: Jynx| Kecleon| Mr. Mime| Carracosta

Week 6: Gurdurr| Beheyeem| Swellow| Regice

Week 7: Heliolisk| Mawile| Virizion| Quagsire

Week 8: Drifblim| Claydol| Aurorus| Servine

Week 9: Arbok | Quilladin | Barbaracle | Zebstrika

Remembering the Hall of Fame

Week 1: Davon using Musharna with a Ladder Rank of 1506
Week 3: Shuckleking87 using Raichu with a Ladder Rank of 1511
Week 4: Jim E. Russler using Gourgeist-Small with a Ladder Rank of 1471
Week 6: Bowtie Addo using Gurdurr, Beheyeem, and Swellow with a Ladder Rank of 1466

​

 

[Disjunction]

I'm in as I eat snakes
edit: oh I guess it doesn't matter but for anyone wondering I'm using arbok

 

[Evan.]

in with arbok

alt: m fucking plane

 

[Lord Alphose]

I was tagged. Zebstrika. Lord zebraiken.

 

[Realistic Waters]

in with Quillain
alt: ShaQuilQuil

 

[Norden]

I will try my hand at this. I will be working with Barbaracle, Quillain and Arbok as I feel the three of these have lots of potential to work together as a synergistic trio.

I will be using the name of Dom Pedro on the ladder. I wish all of you gentlemen and ladies the best of luck and hope you find interesting ideas.

 

[Davon]

Arbok
Username: We Gotcha

 

[Syncrasy]

in with quialladin alt aladynn's Quil

 

[bogoljubow]

Going with Zebstrika and Barbaracle.
alt: of men and mice

 

[nada e ninguem]

Zebstrika, Quilladin and/or Barbaracle
alt: whatworth

 

[Disjunction]

ok so I'm going to post my thoughts now because I'm pretty much done laddering.

I got around 15 battles total (which ultimately took a total of like 4 hours because of showdown lag but w/e) peaking at a stunning 1212. Even this low in the ladder, Arbok's weaknesses shone through, having virtually no safe switch-ins, immediate power, or set up opportunities. I tried a SpDef Coil Rest set with Shed Skin, but I lacked important coverage. I tried the Coil three attacks set but I had no set up opportunities with no bulk and was prone to being whittled down absurdly fast. Its speed is nice against slower teams and you can usually get off a nice Gunk Shot versus, say, Hariyama, but that's the extent of Arbok's usefulness, tbh. I've had maybe 2 games where I've thought "hm, I need to keep Arbok alive to check this threat" and that threat was, in both cases, a Mega Audino.

Its coverage is ok at best, sporting cute Poison/Ground coverage along with Sucker Punch and the optional Aqua Tail for Claydol and Sandslash. Coil certainly works great with Gunk Shot so you don't tear your hair out over missing it, plus it boosts your rather lacking Attack stat. However, despite this, Arbok is still very frail after a Coil. You will often lose a large chunk of your HP setting up and more often than not, your would-be set up fodder has switched into one of the many Pokemon that either hard wall or revenge Arbok very easily. The relevance of bulky Psychic-types, common Ground-type coverage, and the general hard hitting nature of the meta in general just don't appeal to Arbok's low speed, poor typing, and sub-par bulk and offenses. It's a cute answer to Mega Audino, but so is Muk, which at least has utility in beating special threats like Mismagius, Rotom, Lilligant and others. I'd love to hear about others' experiences with the snake, though!

edit: oh and 200 posts das cute

 

[Disjunction]

Alright, gang, so due to an extreme lack of interest in this project I've decided to do a revamp with tier leader Raseri's permission.

Changes:

• This will no longer be a competition. If you'd like to challenge yourself and post your scores using these Pokemon, feel free, but ladder achievements will no longer be recorded.
• You are no longer required to make a fresh alt to participate! I understand it can be frustrating working your way up from the bottom each week and it can be a very big time constraint for some people. There will be no restrictions on which or how many alts you can use to participate!
• To promote more focused discussion (or, just, discussion in general) we will only be studying one Pokemon per week! I will choose 3 Pokemon and you, the community, will vote on which one we should research.
• I will be posting periodically throughout the thread asking specific questions about my concerns with the Pokemon, how you have worked around it, and your successes/failures with the research target. The primary goal is discussion so please don't be afraid of posting!
• I will be reopening any previous research week targets. The meta has changed a lot such Research Week's induction and a lot of these Pokemon can be re-evaluated.

I hope this gathers a little more interest than what previous weeks have. With that being said, here are our candidates for this week's voting:

Leafeon | Probopass | Ninetales
​

I haven't seen Probopass or Leafeon at all since Mega Steelix left and I'd like a lot of people to test out what Ninetales is capable of. I'll keep the voting phase open for three days. From there, I'd like to hear some people's initial thoughts and such on the target. Try to persuade your fellow researchers into voting for your pick too! Remember, you can only pick one research target in your post! Have fun, everyone!

 

[Bowtie Addo]

Ninetales hype :D

 

[Pokedots]

Leafeon is cool

 

[boltsandbombers]

Leafeon
I feel it still has a decent amount of potential and natural gift is a great tool to lure in typical checks, and it can pull off a wish pass set fairly well.

 

[MFF]

Probo! Godstach needs more love!

 

[Winter's Howl]

Leafeon because leafs come in all kinds of different colors

 

[ryan]

The problem with all three of these Pokemon is just that they are either too niche in comparison to other Pokemon of a similar role or they just aren't good enough at what they do. Probopass doesn't really check enough defensively to make up for how terribly weak it is. Leafeon is kind of cool because it can act as a bulky pivot with Wish and Baton Pass, but the SD set is really weak unboosted and has poor super effective coverage. Knock Off has good neutral coverage on it, but that isn't really enough because of how weak it is.

Ninetales has Flash Fire, which is really nice, but outside of that, it's just really weak. Nasty Plot + Will-O-Wisp is probably alright, but I can't imagine much else working well. A defensive set would be really cool if it got Morning Sun because it could check Klinklang with Fire STAB + Roar + Will-O-Wisp, offensive Fire-types with Flash Fire, and bulky setup sweepers with Roar, but with Pain Split as its only recovery, it seems really weak. SpDef Flareon can also do all the same stuff that a defensive Ninetales could barring checking Klinklang and Malamar. I actually don't even know if Ninetales could reliably beat those with recovery because its Defense isn't great, but it's still better than Flareon's. Still, I think Ninetales is the best one to research because I think it has more untapped potential than the other two.

 

[Roar of Noob]

Leafeon is fun.

 

[Disjunction]

I'm putting my support behind Probopass because my voice matters !.!
I think it's a really cute special pivot and, even though Holly is right with mentioning how weak it is, deserves another look at due to its great utility options. I'm looking at a faster Taunt set to shut down Mega Audino and other CM Psychics, personally :0

 

[Norden]

I would like to throw support behind Probopass as well, as I feel there is hidden offensive capabilities the mustached statue can offer.

 

[Shuckleking87]

probo

 

[Karane]

leafeon

 

[Syncrasy]

leafeon

 

[Evan.]

leafeon