Research Week #2: Darmanitan, Chandelure, Kyurem

[SkullCandy]

Research Week - Week 2
April 26th - May 6th​

Research Week's premise is simple. It serves as a place to discuss Pokemon that, although somewhat unorthodox, have the potential to be interesting choices in the OU metagame. Be it through; stats, movepool, ability or support capabilities, these Pokemon all have the chance to shine through this thread. Throughout the week, anyone who acheives a high enough ranking on the ladder using one or more of the featured Pokemon gets a mention, depending on their ladder ranking.

Feel free to post which sets have served you well and especially why! Theorymoning is fine (try to use them though), but when the end of the week nears I would rather have people posting which sets they actually used and how good/bad they were.


Rules:

• Be open-minded. Don't deride a Pokemon just because you think it's bad. Test it (and the others) out and at least see what it has to offer.
• Don't just use the standard sets posted on the analysis pages (if the Pokemon has an analysis page, that is). Feel free to explore any other options it has available.
• Don't suggest Pokemon in this thread, PM me or VM me or find me and maybe I'll include it in the next one!
• Don't get too off topic with your posts. It's fine to make one post explaining why X Pokemon is outclassed by Y Pokemon but don't keep reiterating your point!

To make this thread a bit more competitive I'm going to change the awards up a bit. Just to make this a bit more of a competition than Dark Horse I am only going to give awards to the top three users (for each Pokemon). At the end of the week, the users with the highest amout of ladder points for each Pokemon will get a Gold award, the second highest gets a Silver award, and the third receives a Bronze. Also, you can only be considered for an award if you get a ranking of over 1300. As the week develops more and more people will be chasing that No1 spot so, if whoever claims it first wants to keep their top spot, remember that you're going to have to keep laddering lest someone overtake you!

On to the Pokemon! This Research Week's title is...

OverRated!
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Darmanitan, Chandelure and Kyurem. Before Black and White were finally released it's fair to say that there was a fair amount of hype surrounding these three. Whilst the former two possess one attacking stat of 140 as well as decent bulk and Speed, the later got a STAB boost on two of the best attacking types in the game, as well as having the physical bulk of Skarmory, the special bulk of Latias and similar attacking stats to Rayquaza. What could possibly go wrong? Basically they all have Rhyperior syndrome. Good stats, movepool, abilities but...shitty typing. Anyway that's enough from me, go out and...research!

What effect do these Pokemon have on the metagame? What sets can they run effectively? Which Pokemon counters them/is countered by them? That's for you to discover!

Go ahead and post the teams you used for your endeavors as well as you PO alts (EDIT: and battle logs!) (these must be new and not a previously solid alt). And don't forget to post screenshots of your ladder climbing acheivements to prove your greatness!

And finally, to quote Tobes:

Just going to mention that intelligent contribution to threads like these could lead to rewards in the long-run, so don't lose motivation!

Darmanitan alts and award holders

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alts: FIN (The QWAZ), Go Rangers! (TrollFreak), BurningFireMonkey (Soulous), SirSpiketrap200 (MrCookie), jc104 (jc104),

Chandelure alts and award holders

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alts: drakon16 (drakon136), Orochinagi (Saitsuofleaves)

Kyurem alts and award holders

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alts: Red Sox Sux! (TrollFreak), Staraptor Eye (Sound), Glacial F (Psychopathic Genius), Point of No Return (Max212), NovaResearch (Novaray) Pino, (pinoklin)

 

[The QWAZ]

Sign me up i will be using darmanitan
ALT: FIN

 

[Saitsuofleaves]

Damn it, I have two different teams for Chandelure and Kyurem...idk which one to use...

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

You forgot to mention that their quite low speeds mean they are often consider inferior to other pokemon, as such scarf/sub sets will probably be the most successful (obviously don't use substitute on darmanitan)

 

[Helias]

Alrighty then. I'll be using Chandelure, under the alt drakon16.

 

[TrollFreak]

Darmanitan

Alt- Go Rangers!

Kyruem

Alt- Red Sox Sux!

 

[Saitsuofleaves]

Alright, since I've already used Kyurem a decent amount, I guess I'll do Chandelure.

Alt: Orochinagi

 

[Soulous]

Darmanitan
Alt: BurningFireMonkey

 

[jc104]

I'll be using Kyurem. Prepare for extremely cheap ice dragon spam.

Alt (or rather not an alt): jc104

 

[Sound]

I'll be using Kyurem, the coolest of the three (que a flurry of heat based puns for Darmanitan/Chandelure supporters).

Alt- Staraptor Eye

 

[ginganinja]

I prolly won't "officially" ladder but having used and seen used many of these pokmeon, I think ill weigh in.

Darmanitan as we all know, hits the a nuke under sunlight, and is IMO one of the best cleaners Sun has in its arsenal. Whenever you play Darmanitan, its always a mindgame since if you mispredict, thanks to its massive power, something gets KOed. Iv had a match where I was up 3-2 and then Darmanitan just wrecked me when I made a wrong prediction so I know first hand just how much of a bitch it is.

Chandelure

I personally, havn't really used it much, but I know its an excellent spinblocker for hail teams, especially as it can lure out and KO Tyranitar (and I GUESS Heatran tho I doubt you OHKO off the top of my head) with HP Fighting, or it can run Sub Split which is fairly annoying with Toxic Spikes support. I saw a really awesome RMT featuring that strategy and now I cannot find it but I do know that Chandelure can be a real problem provided its used right.

Kyurem

Yea this thing is great. Delko, myself, and a heck of a lot of others have used Sub Kyurem just to destroy things under hail and its just amazing at the damage it does. Specs Kyurem is outrageous with Blizzard since it just wrecks everything. Scarf is also pretty decent since quite a few things are Ice Weak (all the dragons, Gliscor, Landorus, Virizion, Celebi, Breloom). I gave Kyurem a spin on a rain team I owned and it served pretty well at tanking hits as good as Latias tho the lack of recovery does suck. That said, it hit a lot harder than Latias with Draco Meteor, and it did pick up that Fire resist under rain which was nice I guess.

Lastly, I tested Sub Hone Claws Kyurem a while ago, and it was not actually that bad. I think I can something like Sub / Hone Claws / Dragon Tail / Ice Beam cos I was Celebi weak but those subs were damn hard to break. I assume with Protect over Ice Beam, it would be even more of a bitch with Toxic Spikes support. Basically, Substitute + Leftovers + Protect + Pressure is SUCH a bitch and you can switch into Rotom W, take BULLSHIT from Hydro Pump UNDER rain, force 2 PP to be wasted, set up a Sub on the switch, and go to town. Dragon Tail was used cos I had spikes and after a few Hone Claws boosts it would hit pretty hard. Toxic Spikes would wear everything else down as well as I subbed. Dragons also were forced out every time for fear of getting nailed by a super effective STAB.

Just my 2 cents, srry if this post was a bit of "stating the obvious" or something, just thought id weigh in

 

[Saitsuofleaves]

Specs Overheat in the Sun from Chandelure annihilates anything standing in front of it. You better be resistant to Fire AND have good bulk to live.

I swear, so many kills just from nailing a single Overheat. And god forbid someone activates Flash Fire on it.

 

[MrCookie]

I am going to have to say darmanitan. I will be SirSpiketrap200

 

[Psychopathic Genius]

I'm going with Kyurem as "Glacial F."

I've used him before, good choice user imo, interested in what people will come up with.

 

[bubbly]

I already got a Kyurem team to number 11 about two weeks ago lol :( Guys thinking of using it, try running it in a Rain semistall or offense with its Substitute set.

 

[Explorer]

Chandelure was my main Fire-type in Pokemon White, so I think I'm going to go with it. It has many possibilities!

 

[SkullCandy]

My initial thoughts on the three.

Darmanitan -

This guy is excellent but he dies waay too quickly, which is why he isn't much use as a scout. I mean sun-boosted Flare Blitz hurts like a bitch but after recoil, SR damage, Life Orb recoil and potentially Sandstorm damage you aren't left with much of a Pokemon. Also defensive Rotom-W and Dragonite pretty much hard counter it.

Chandelure -
The weakest of the three. He's great if you can get him in on a Fire attack because something will probably die to his Flash Fire boosted Overheat. Unfortunately to use Chandelure well you need free turns because, without them, Chandelure won't be able to fire off an attack, ever. Also, like Darmanitan, he takes so much passive damage it's not even funny and is pretty much hard countered by Tyranitar.

Kyurem -
My favourite of the three! Frozen Chicken hits so hard from both ends of the spectrum. I tried a variety of sets out, from mixed to sub to Specs and the results were very varied. My favourite was probably special Glaciate. It looked like this:

Kyurem @ Life Orb
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
-Glaciate
-Ice Beam
-Draco Meteor
-Focus Blast

This gets rid of the probelm of Kyurem's low Speed. After Glaciate's Speed drop nothing unboosted can outspeed Kyurem. This means that switching out your Pursuit-locked Scizor / Tyranitar to SpD Latias to absorb the Focus Blast isn't going to work anymore.

Also Ice has great neutral coverage and Glaciate still hits reasonably hard thanks to STAB and full SpA, so even if you have to switch out it's not a waste. This is also great to screw with Scarf Tyranitar who can try and switch in on the Ice Beam or something and Pursuit on the switch or be quicker and Stone Edge.

Anyway, I know it's a bit gimmicky but I don't feel like being another person telling you how powerful STAB Blizzard is or something/.

 

[bubbly]

Something else which looks interesting is using Sub Kyurem in Sun (in place of the fairly common Hydreigon). The main benefit is that now you can hammer Jirachi and Scizor with HP Fire (and of course your Fire typed team mates benefit from those two being drawn in). Compared to Sub Hydra, you're SR weak, but unlike Hydreigon can actually set up against Politoed with Ice Beam, aren't weak to U-turn, wall Starmie and other Bolt Beam attackers, and importantly, have a good shot at beating Chansey.

 

[jc104]

I've changed my mind here; I'm going to ladder with Darmanitan instead, as I already have quite a lot of experience with Kyurem. I haven't started yet so I'll be using the same alt.

We all know how powerful Darmanitan is in the sun, but I am actually wondering whether it really needs Sun to function. Its Flare Blitz is already the most powerful move in OU outside of sun. I mean, how much power do you really need?

By the way, defensive Rotom and Dragonite are not good counters to Darmanitan at all. Life Orb Darmanitan Flare Blitz 2HKOes all but the very bulkiest (max/max bold) Rotom-W, while Choice Scarf Darmanitan can 2HKO standard variants. Dragonite is comfortably 2HKOed by any move + Rock Slide, and is comfortably 2HKOed by even a Choice Scarfed Flare Blitz if SR is up. None of this is in the sun.

Bearing all this in mind, I think I'm probably going to give Life Orb Darmanitan a shot outside of sun, probably on a sand team with spin support, or perhaps weatherless. The issue for Darmanitan is avoiding rain and residual damage rather than actually having the extra power. I don't think it's necessary at all.

 

[ginganinja]

We all know how powerful Darmanitan is in the sun, but I am actually wondering whether it really needs Sun to function. Its Flare Blitz is already the most powerful move in OU outside of sun. I mean, how much power do you really need?

Ran into one of these today (or maybe it was the day before...) and it didn't do tooooo badly. I actually remember using it out of weather, with spikes (just to abuse that massive power) and it was very effective although the team was CB Scizor weak so id didn't work out to well. I do kinda feel that your limited to CB (or a boosting item) tho outside of sun since you lose a lot of power and its harder for you to break through fire resists .I still think Scarf Darmanitan under sunlight is the most threatening Darmanitan set since its just an amazing scouter, cleaner etc that packs boatloads of power but yea, that residual damage just kills it really quickly which is such a shame :(

 

[jc104]

I'd agree that scarf darmanitan in sun is extremely effective. I think we already knew this.

I wanted to see if there was a way to use Darmanitan outside of sun so that I didn't have to build a typical sun team every time I wanted to use it. Ninetales requires an awful lot of support. Additionally, there are a lot of sweepers that can perform well under sun, many of which are significantly more durable than Darmanitan.

 

[Knight of Cydonia]

I once used a Sunny Day Heatran alongside Scarf Darmanitan. It's effective because the opponent won't care too much about their weather inducer if it appears you are running a weather less team, and once it is out of the picture you reveal Sunny Day and Darmanitan promptly snaps their walls in two. This setup meant I could basically run a normal team in the other four slots.

 

[The QWAZ]

life orb darmanitan is powerful, really powerful it has more power than the CB set and has move switching ability, it is awesome just awesome

 

[Lee]

life orb darmanitan is powerful, really powerful it has more power than the CB set and has move switching ability, it is awesome just awesome

might be a bit rusty on my game mechanics but pretty sure CB is stronger than LO!

if I wasn't using Scarf, I always preferred CB on Darmanitan because 99 times out of 100 I was clicking on Flare Blitz, denting something and then being forced out out OR just U-turning right off the bat. The ability to switch moves was rarely helpful - he doesn't have the coverage for that - so in using LO I was just sacrificing power for very little return. The main advantage was that you could rack up a little bit of extra damage on the opponents bulky Fire resist by Blitzing it on the switch and then U-turning out but that just caused an extra 10% of passive damage which wore him down even quicker (anybody who has used Ambipom in the past will know what I'm talking about).

 

[The QWAZ]

might be a bit rusty on my game mechanics but pretty sure CB is stronger than LO!

Sheer force and life orb combine to a bigger boost than CB ( unless you are using superpower or u-turn)