This is going to be a huge post because I am going to reply to a bunch of questions I have seen asked throughout the thread, and give some thoughts on the Pokemon I used during the run of US I did.
Wasn't Popplio S-tier for SM? What drops it down?
It's still likely very solidly A Rank, it just loses the ridiculousness of Scald from Lv 15 onwards. It does however gain Icy Wind which could be a lot of fun and helps out with debuffing. Debuffing is very important I found within USUM and can easily change the tide of matches far more often than I have seen in other games.
so are we merging the SM tier list?
Nope. This is a totally new list for Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Different mon availability and a vastly (at leas tin terms of levels) different story are the reasons for this
- Are Tutor Moves fair game? They are incrdibly easy to obtain in this game. Hnestly they are comparable to "out-of-your-way" TM's
- Exp Share yes/no? Tending o yes because I was never overleveled in the game
- Shift or Set Battle Style? Especially in this game due t Enemues carrying vrazy moveset coverage, this one might be important
- Zoroark: Due to its niche invalidating Necrozma..., well the whole Nec. fight, how does it affect Ranking?
Tutor moves are entirely fair game. BP is an "Easy" grind with Mantine Surf (even being terrible gets you 4-10 BP per run). I would say they are even easier to get than the "difficult" TMs.
XP Share I would agree with YES. Consider this with your tiering. With it on I was barely keeping pace with the levels of opponents, and I only ended up overlevelled right towards the end of the game.
Shift or Set is down to personal preference, but I think we should always lean Shift. In USUM, it doesn't really matter because everything has seemingly
insane coverage.
We treat Zoroark the same as any other Pokemon. It does have a
fantastic niche in being able to beat on Ultra Necrozma easily which will help out its ranking.
I don't get the sudden Oricorio hype at all. Its stats may be okay the moment you get it but get only worse as the game progresses. Its movepool is extremely shallow with Revelation Dance coming far too late, and it actually gets worse since S/M because Acrobatics is available only two islands later. It's got nothing going for it, and the type changes are but a gimmick with no offensive versatility to accompany the defensive type changes. Seems like a C at best. It's complete dead weight in a run without Exp Share.
I used these guys on my only run so far, with my approximate tierings:
Hawlucha - S
Zorua - B at best
Smoochum - A/B
Remoraid - B/C
Mawile - A/B, probably latter
The traded Hawlucha was a baller, as everyone here would agree. Relied on him a lot and he overlevelled, kicking ass until the end.
Zorua was mediocre to okay throughout, with no good moves (including dark-type STAB) for a long time. It speaks volume when I used it for flying-weak targets with Z-Bounce much of the time.
Smoochum/Jynx was actually good with Choice Specs, but couldn't take physical hits very well. You basically get an inaccurate Ice Beam from the tutor after the 2nd trial, too.
Remoraid was disappointing. Complete crap before evolution with no defence and nothing to compensate for it, and Octillery failed to win its good matchups by being 2HKO'd by just about any real threat.
I liked Mawile, surprisingly, despite its lack of mega evolution. It's got a great typing, and Intimidate let it weaken difficult opponents in an Exp Share-less run when my team couldn't handle it, but it's slow and it has a long period of lacking an effective STAB move which is a big deal. I was thankful to its contributions against the last two trials - Kommo-o and Ribombee. Hardly optimal though, and Magnemite is much better most of the time.
Oricorio is fast and decently powerful. The lacking of Acrobatics is more than made up for by the early access to Flynium Z. It absolutely stomps 3 totems and does plenty of work vs some of the others too. Feather Dance is a brilliant move for it, often outspeeding and negating the powerful attacks from Totems in particular; but often helping out in other tough spots. Air Slash is more than powerful enough to carry you to Revelation Dance (which I admit really does help) and you do get Hidden Power (mine was Water, so YMMV). From what I have heard from other users, Smoochum isn't that great simply because of its frailty and the sheer number of Pursuit/Bug/Other Dark Move users in the earlier sections of the game. Whilst I can only rank Sandygast from where it is captured, I was ending up in a lot of matches (even with its comparitively good physical bulk) being trapped by Pursuit incredibly often.
Don't forget the early Z-Flyium ! It makes our little bird MUCH stronger ! And the Water totem is Bug/Water, so Flying type is a must ! Our Electric/Flying bird is so strong for Hala, Araquanid, Lurantis !
Agreed. Oricorio really stood out on my team and keeping it even as its default "Pom Pom" style gives you Electric/Flying typing which is extremely good defensively.
So does Hawlucha. Does Oricorio win in any kind of relevant matchup Hawlucha does not win in? I can't think of any.
Probably not. Hawlucha is outright one of the best Pokemon in the game. Gets more speed, but its moves are actually slightly weaker than Oricorio's. Bounce at 32 vs Air Slash at 36 seems to be the biggest difference, both give fantastically powerful Super Sonic Sky Strikes early on with 60BP Attacks in Aerial Ace/Wing Attack and Air Cutter. Flying Press seems to be the biggest positive for Hawlucha, having a strong fighting type mixed attack which bonks on a considerable number of foes.
I also used Araquanid/Incineroar/Palossand/Shiinotic and Lycanroc Dusk (Alongside Oricorio Pom Pom). Araquanid was great at nuking things and put in work throughout the game, I'd probably lean B?A for it because its movepool is worse for the loss of Scald early on. Bubblebeam with the Water Bubble ability is still retardedly powerful even off you're rather lacking Special Attack. Infestation is also great with the changes to trapping moves as well.
Incineroar was actually pretty "okay". Tanked hits left and right which he had no right in taking (random Earthquakes and Stone Edges etc) and slapped back with powerful moves of his own. I totally forgot Fire Punch existed from the Tutors (Fire Fang and Flame Charge worked for the most part). Kinda annoying he gets slow when he evolves, but Darkest Lariat ignoring stat changes helped out a bunch.
Shiinotic was hilarious. It was both fantastically good and awfully terrible at the same time. I'm not sure I have ever trained a Pokemon like it. Strength Sap lets you entirely wall Physical attackers while healing off all the damage you've taken, then you can send them to sleep with Spore and then just Giga Drain/Moonblast them to death. However one huge issue is its speed. Even in Alolan terms, Shiinotic is
slow as molasses. You WILL be moving second, and it took me off guard many times when it did invariably move first! Lots of weaknesses for Grass which don't help it, and quad poison weakness is not great in a game filled with the Zubat/Ekans lines. Probably lower down on the ranking, but it definitely had niches.
Palossand was just "OK" as well. I traded over an egg so I could use it early, but regretted that decision when all the dark moves appeared. Ranking it from its "true" place at Hano Beach (which is still relatively early) doesn't help all that much. You stone wall Olivia with it, but apart from that it's no overly helpful. Evolves late and doesn't have that good of a moveset. Which sucks because I absolutely love its design. The only noteworthy thing mine really did was tank Photon Geysers after using an X Special Def in the ultra Necrozma fight and eventually land a Toxic.
Whilst Lycanroc D isn't going to be tiered, I feel its almost similar enough to rank it alongside normal "Day" forme. Stats are very similar, the only difference is ability. Which... To be honest doesn't get procced that often as you spam Rock Slide everywhere anyway. I feel it might have been better because I felt like I only used it when I was in trouble and needed something fast to grab a quick KO. Probably didn't give it as much use as it deserved.