I never played RU before this suspect, but a lot of my friends play this tier, so I decided to try it myself, and I like it a lot, to be honest.
Molk,
galbia,
EonX,
barton, and
Arikado are all awesome people. :)
Yanmega
I find Yanmega very problematic with all of the sets that are popular for it. It has STABs that OHKO a sizable portion of the metagame on their own, and Speed Boost or Tinted Lens expands those offensive capabilities quite a lot. Without question, from my experience, the Speed Boost LO Yanmega set with Shadow Ball (which destroys Doublade) is the most monstrous thing in the entire tier, especially if used with hazards. Even if the other player has a Yanmega of their own, Speed Boost LO is certain to clean up their team as well as make their Yanmega obsolete as long as yours gets in and starts gathering Speed Boost turns first. Even for opposing Zoroark, the Sucker Punch is obvious, and this can be played around and punished by using Substitute. You really don't even need the Specs Tinted Lens set to beat down stall if you have things like Choice Specs Meloetta, Dugtrio, and Reckless LO Hitmonlee (
New Breed's team is absolutely phenomenal), but it is also a very potent set nonetheless if you don't want to carry other stallbreakers or if you want to ease prediction by being able to land hard hits even on resisted targets. The one thing that is almost mandatory if you want to make Yanmega a successful sweeper, though, is Rapid Spin support (NOT Defog, you want your hazards up to facilitate the sweep but not your opponent's Stealth Rock), but a lot of teams carry a Rapid Spinner anyway (some are so outrageously dedicated to accomplishing this that they use Hitmontop so they can Foresight the Doublade switch-in and guarantee a spin lol), so filling in this obligation is not a huge stretch. Yanmega's Bug/Flying grants it a long list of weaknesses that make it very easy to bring down, but this would only be true if it were easy to hit and if its enemies were to have the chance to actually retaliate against it.
All in all, Yanmega easily runs through entire teams with not near enough detriment to balance it out despite its clear disadvantages in its bad typing and 4x weakness to Stealth Rock. I believe it is highly cancerous to the metagame and
should be banned from RU. It is most certainly broken.
Just for fun, I made this set and played around with it for a bit:
Electrode @ Shed Shell
Ability: Soundproof
EVs: 156 HP / 24 SpA / 100 SpD / 228 Spe
Calm Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Volt Switch
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Taunt
It has just enough Speed to outspeed Dugtrio by 1 point, and Shed Shell to escape it if it has to. The high Speed also comes in handy for Taunting hazard layers or stall mons if Electrode finds itself in front of one of those. Yanmega is pretty much screwed by this set, with Bug Buzz being blocked entirely by Soundproof and with Air Slash not even getting a 3HKO. This makes an okay switch-in to Registeel as well if it comes down to that, too. This is a very good switch-in and general answer to Yanmega, but players probably shouldn't be made to resort to something like this to be able to deal with it, though this is pretty cool from my experience with it.
Zoroark
Zoroark, on the other hand, is something I find to be a very good Pokemon but isn't something that difficult to deal with from my experience, though I've heard lots of other players talk about it being a huge problem for them. First of all, its Illusion ability absolutely requires skill to use, especially when considering Zoroark's extreme frailty. Just running Zoroark is a huge risk for any player, because there are a myriad of factors that can totally ruin its disguise:
1. Obviously Questionable Switch-Ins
If you know your opponent has Zoroark, you can already expect what it's going to be used for. Team Preview totally blows its surprise factor out the window. For instance, if you knock something out with LO Dugtrio, and then they bring in something that obviously isn't a smart choice, such as Registeel or Heliolisk, that is a huge red flag that lets you know it's Zoroark planning to Sucker Punch you for the revenge kill. The order of the team has to be very strategically chosen to make absolute good use of Zoroark's Illusion, and this is not easy to maintain throughout games since they are often not linear and the Pokemon you originally wanted to use as the disguise could have fainted, which messes up the whole situation and makes it easier to tell when the Zoroark user is bullshitting.
2. Damage Gauges of Zoroark's Teammates Are Clearly Visible
Zoroark is obviously easier to hide early in the match when not many of its teammates have taken damage. However, as the battle progresses, you can easily make note of the damage each of its teammates have sustained as well as the status conditions they might have been afflicted with. If you KNOW the opponent's Togetic had 58% last time it left the battlefield, it should be a huge red flag to you when all of a sudden it enters the battlefield later with 100% health after not recovering. If you KNOW the opponent's Amoonguss was paralyzed when it left the battlefield, it should be a huge red flag to you when it comes out later free of status when Aromatherapy or Heal Bell was not used. You can hover your cursor over each teammate on Showdown or whatever server you use and check on any of this at any time in case you forget.
3. Entry Hazards All Affect Zoroark Normally
Using hazards as passive damage or to facilitate sweeping is a very common tactic and is one that often ruins Zoroark's disguise, because it is affected normally by all of them. If it tries to disguise itself as a Pokemon that is weak, resistant to, or unaffected by one of these hazards, that is a huge red flag. There is no way Hitmonlee should ever take normal damage from Stealth Rock and there is no way Rotom-C should be damaged by Spikes under usual conditions.
Zoroark is a good Pokemon; it's fast and has good offensive potential, but is very defensively weak and cannot afford to take hits in the vast majority of cases. From my experience, it's not easy at all to hide Zoroark behind the Illusion of a teammate, for the reasons described above, so if it's going to be deemed banworthy, please don't make it because of "50/50s" or that "you never know if it's Zoroark or not", because that's simply not true. All the player has to do is pay attention to what's going on. I don't find Zoroark that problematic and I found it rather easy to work around when I laddered. It might get a kill or something, but it's not anything even close to broken or insurmountable. It takes commendable skill (or a great deal of luck) to be able to successfully conceal Zoroark from an observant player throughout a match. Its mind games are not that troubling.