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Other The OU Theorymon Project (CLOSED)
- Thread starter alexwolf
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Sadly none of these are that good. I dont think that any of these abilities would raise these pokes to ou. Ghost/Dark banette seems cool, but it still has a lot of problems like 4mss and horrible attacking movepool. Solid rock is better than intimidate on rhyperior imo, because it lets him take one special hit most of the time. The best ones would be bulletproof metagross and competitive azelf, and i prefer azelf, so my choice is competitive azelf.
Maybe it's tankier but without any sort of recover, it should be useless.
My vote goes to, Azelf even if it has no chance to win this turn obviously.
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Better mixed tank with Solid Rock (counting AV as I live by that set), better physical tank with intimidate.
take your pick of what he can do.
None of them particular stand out to me so caught between a rock monster and a 1212.5lbs Super computer. Bulletproof doesn't seem to do that much to whats holds Metagross back. sure immune to shadow ball and Fb are good but somewhat lacking. Flavour wise Leviate Metagross would of been good aswell considering the psychic type and it can float in the anime. but Intimidate Rhyperior has more potential i believe making it a better physical tank, solid rock would be missed for special moves, but AV should patch that up nicely to make it an effective mixed tank just not as effective a solid rock AV Rhyperior on the special side.
Bulletproof Metagross
Only after MEvolving.
Also, i don't get why some people say that Solid Rock > Intimidate in singles. Yeah, tanking a bit better HP Ice or Focus Blast ocasionally is nice, but Rhyperior's primary job is dealing with physical attackers, against which Intimidate helps way more.
A little late to the party, but I'll still vote for Ghost/Dark Mega Banette.
The others sound nice, but a little too niche for me to really get behind. Sad too, because if Levitate and Bullet Proof can't get Metagross back on his feet, I don't know what can.
Edit: I know! Huge Power! Everybody for Huge Power Metagross!
The others sound nice, but a little too niche for me to really get behind. Sad too, because if Levitate and Bullet Proof can't get Metagross back on his feet, I don't know what can.
Edit: I know! Huge Power! Everybody for Huge Power Metagross!
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I don't know bout the others, but for me, I like my guys to be able to deal with myriad of threats and Rhyperior is often one I look to in order to do that, and that usually implies Solid Rock. Don't get me wrong, the idea of him being able to be an even better tank is wonderful, but he is able to take more of a beating from the Sp. side with Solid Rock (I'd love go post calcs, but I'm on my phone) and I think that is really it.
I enjoy the thought, but it just seems an odd fit when he already has something great. Intimidate is always a tricky bet but I think his niche as a bulky Pivot is beautiful. No one does it as well I think.
I'm circling now. I'll just end it by saying its just personal preference.
Competitive Azelf
Huge power on anything with higher than 50 base attack makes it usable. So... yeah.
The votes seem pretty balanced between everything that isn't Competitive Azelf. I agree that Metagross is a bit past its prime, but I'm torn between Ghost/Dark Mega Banette and Solid Rock Rhyperior. Both have their plusses, but I'm gonna go with Ghost / Dark Mega Banette because I like 3rd gen Pokes (bias yay), and Banette always has so much wasted potential to me. Maybe this'll be its saving grace!
Bulletproof Metagross would remove it's crippling weakness to Shadow Ball, one of the only Ghost Type moves being used at all, to basically remove the Ghost Weakness and make it a semi-immunity.
Intimidate Rhyperior could have some uses in Doubles but imo Solid Rock would be better in Singles (have no calcs though).
Competitive Azelf would be amazing if Stat Dropping moves were more common and would only work if your opponent had an Intimitade poke.
Ghost / Dark Banette would remove it's weakness to Ghost and Dark but gains a weakness to Fairy. tbh the coverage isn't really worth it, being Super Effective vs Psychic and Ghost, which Ghost already is Super Effective against.
I'll have to go with Bulletproof Metagross.
Intimidate Rhyperior could have some uses in Doubles but imo Solid Rock would be better in Singles (have no calcs though).
Competitive Azelf would be amazing if Stat Dropping moves were more common and would only work if your opponent had an Intimitade poke.
Ghost / Dark Banette would remove it's weakness to Ghost and Dark but gains a weakness to Fairy. tbh the coverage isn't really worth it, being Super Effective vs Psychic and Ghost, which Ghost already is Super Effective against.
I'll have to go with Bulletproof Metagross.
Bulletproof Metagross all the way although I really like the idea of Intimidate Rhyperior. Metagross with the Bulletproof ability would have an instant immunity to:
- Aura Shpere: A powerful special move which un-Assault Vest Metagross can't take (Although rare in OU now with the ban of Mega-Lucario)
- Focus Blast: Again another powerful special move.
- Shadow Ball: Immuned to the most used Ghost type move in the meta? Yup.
- Searing Shot: Although rare because of Fire Blast and Blue Flare on Victini it's still a nice plus.
- Weather Ball: Sun Sweepers like Victrebell and Venusaur can't touch Metagross anymore. (Except with Earthquake on Venusaur and Sucker Punch on Victrebell)
Out of all those moves you just listed, only Focus Blast and Shadow Ball are commonly used. Everything else is very rarely used in the OU meta. And out of these two moves the pokemon it checks/counters which it hasn't before include the following: Gengar, Aegislash (most variants), Alakazam, and Espeon (variants). These are all pokemon from the viability thread all the way down to the B- rank. M-Gard isn't one because Metagross already checks it somewhat. the Focus Blast immunity is just a reassurance. Now if we compare that to the pokemon who check metagross we get a rather lengthy list seeing as how Earthquake is extremely common and is used as coverage by a lot of physical attackers. There are more than 30 pokemon in B- rank and above who can check/counter Metagross with their common coverage moves. Bulletproof is obviously an improvement like all the ideas suggested here are but it does not improve Metagross' viability in OU drastically. Levitate Metagross would've been much better imo.
Intimidate Rhyperior
I believe its more due to the idea Meta has always had difficulty with Special attacks more than Physical ones. Sure Earthquake is a hindrance, but he often has a large amount of defense/HP to abuse to absorb them.
Will you be investing Defense? No, but most invest in Hp or ones I saw, so again I think its more fixing some of his problem more than the whole.
This is why Bulletproof Metagross would be underwhelming.
Metagross' problem didn't really lie in Focus Blast as much as it did with SE moves, cause it can tank neutral hits. However even if you get rid of one weakness (Ghost), it still has a Ground, Fire, and Dark weakness. Not to mention in Gen 6 these type moves are everywhere. Knock off has greatly risen in usage as Dark type Pokemon such as Bisharp have. Fire has always been a good coverage move finding it's place in several Pokemon's movesets. Not to mention that we now have the charizard forms and Talonflame. and Ground has always been an extremely popular coverage option, and Metagross will often find itself being 2HKO'd or OHKO'd by these coverage moves coming from an offensive pokemon. Sure it does fix part of the problem but that's not a big enough piece of it to make it viable.
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