np: UU - Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head

[Bluewind]

@ Bluewind: Gallade being banned isn't the do all end all. You are talking about Gallade like it was some ridiculously broken beast like Cresselia or Staraptor. Just because it was voted BL dosent mean that people weren't against doing so.

Why do I even start these stuff... for christ sake all I'm saying is: the majority of voters thought Gallade was BL. Heracross is better than Gallade. Logical conclusion: Heracross is even more broken than Gallade; and if Gallade was considered BL obviously Heracross will be. If we banned Blaziken and then Infernape dropped to UU what would be the logical conclusion regarding its brokenness?

Of course it's not my call here to decide whether or not Heracross will be playtested because I'm just another regular player, but so far I see no reason to do so outside of having a metagame in which stall is rarer than Magikarp (that wouldn't be so bad though...).

 

[Vakama3]

Why do I even start these stuff... for christ sake all I'm saying is: the majority of voters thought Gallade was BL. Heracross is better than Gallade. Logical conclusion: Heracross is even more broken than Gallade; and if Gallade was considered BL obviously Heracross will be. If we banned Blaziken and then Infernape dropped to UU what would be the logical conclusion regarding its brokenness?

Of course it's not my call here to decide whether or not Heracross will be playtested because I'm just another regular player, but so far I see no reason to do so outside of having a metagame in which stall is rarer than Magikarp (that wouldn't be so bad though...).

I'm pretty hard tested to decide between having to run a bunch of Hera counters and fight a Heracross every match or never having to play against stall. If Moltres wasn't banned it wouldn't be all that terrible, really (not like Moltres staying is very likely). However, I don't think we need a whole month to decide if it is overpowered or not. Two weeks or so would be just fine for a powerhouse like Heracross. It gives people enough time to formulate counters, but it doesn't force us to try truly insane options if most reasonable counters fail.

Now watch Heracross stay in OU after all this. :)

 

[capefeather]

Wasn't a one-week period considered in PR? I think that one week might actually be better because by the time we get all the "paperwork" done to get the suspect banned, it would probably be two weeks passed already.

 

[Heysup]

Why do I even start these stuff... for christ sake all I'm saying is: the majority of voters thought Gallade was BL. Heracross is better than Gallade. Logical conclusion: Heracross is even more broken than Gallade; and if Gallade was considered BL obviously Heracross will be. If we banned Blaziken and then Infernape dropped to UU what would be the logical conclusion regarding its brokenness?

This is completely incorrect and illogical, as I have stated before (I mean your actual point, I'm not trying to nitpick like Insomniac was). Since this is the place to do so, I will demonstrate why you can't compare two Pokemon like this; it isn't black and white.

We'll start with Gallade and Heracross since it's obviously more relevant.

What do Gallade and Heracross have in common?

• STAB Close Combat
• Swords Dance sets
• uhhh?

What advantages does Heracross have?

• More resistances
• STAB Megahorn for Slowbro / Other Psychics
• Slightly faster
• Slightly better physical bulk
• Guts - Facade
• Pursuit for a scarf set

Impressive, yes, however the key aspect of this analysis is the the next part, Gallade's advantages:

• Better special bulk
• Steadfast (ie beats Ambipom and Technitop)
• STAB Psycho Cut for Venusaur, Nidoqueen, and Weezing etc.
• Better coverage moves (ie Ice Punch)
• Shadow Sneak (Eliminates Mismagius, Rotom, Alakazam, and Dugtrio completely, and allows it to beat Pokemon like Sceptile, Moltres, and Scyther with entry hazards)
• Very few and less exploitable weaknesses (not weak to Fire and not 4x weak to Flying).

Now if you ask me, Shadow Sneak almost outweighs Heracross's benefits alone.

In any event, even if you still think Heracross is better (which I do, in fact), you still cannot draw the conclusion that since Gallade is broken, Heracross is broken. Gallade was banned for different reasons than Heracross would be banned for. I mean this is completely and utterly obvious when you look at their differences vs similarities. They are different Pokemon; one has nothing to do with the other.

Fact: Heracross is revenge killed by Rotom, Mismagius, Houndoom, Alakazam, Dugtrio, and others. Fact: Gallade can set up on more special threats. These alone means that Heracross cannot be banned for the same reason.

Blaziken and Infernape would be similar. They are the same type. Blaziken hits harder, Infernape still hits hard and is faster.

Of course it's not my call here to decide whether or not Heracross will be playtested because I'm just another regular player, but so far I see no reason to do so outside of having a metagame in which stall is rarer than Magikarp (that wouldn't be so bad though...).

Theorymon is theorymon. It's a horrible mindset and only leads to flawed test results. This is because of something called "confirmation bias". This is where people will utterly ignore other arguments and simply search for points that support their case. We all do this, and it's because of people saying stuff like this. It is counter-productive.

 

[IronBullet]

The thing is, we can't really say how broken Heracross is until we actually allow it to drop to UU, if it drops at all. Sure we can theorymon that Heracross has no counters and all that, but atleast give the bug a chance.
Sure stall is going to suffer a huge blow, as Bluewind said, probably more than when Gallade came down, but Heracross is still more prone to revenge-killing than Gallade, among other differences.

 

[Bluewind]

• More resistances
• STAB Megahorn for Slowbro / Other Psychics
• Slightly faster
• Slightly better physical bulk
• Guts - Facade
• Pursuit for a scarf set

Impressive, yes, however the key aspect of this analysis is the the next part, Gallade's advantages:

• Better special bulk
• Steadfast (ie beats Ambipom and Technitop)
• STAB Psycho Cut for Venusaur, Nidoqueen, and Weezing etc.
• Better coverage moves (ie Ice Punch)
• Shadow Sneak (Eliminates Mismagius, Rotom, Alakazam, and Dugtrio completely, and allows it to beat Pokemon like Sceptile, Moltres, and Scyther with entry hazards)
• Very few and less exploitable weaknesses (not weak to Fire and not 4x weak to Flying).

Now if you ask me, Shadow Sneak almost outweighs Heracross's benefits alone.

In any event, even if you still think Heracross is better (which I do, in fact), you still cannot draw the conclusion that since Gallade is broken, Heracross is broken. Gallade was banned for different reasons than Heracross would be banned for. I mean this is completely and utterly obvious when you look at their differences vs similarities. They are different Pokemon; one has nothing to do with the other.

Fact: Heracross is revenge killed by Rotom, Mismagius, Houndoom, Alakazam, Dugtrio, and others. Fact: Gallade can set up on more special threats. These alone means that Heracross cannot be banned for the same reason.

Regarding Heracross's advantages, you very well know that STAB Megahorn isn't limited to breaking through other Psychic-types, but also allows it to beat one of Gallade's main counters, Spiritomb. "Slightly faster" means you get to outspeed the humongous amount of base 80 pokés; including the number one poké on the tier. Guts isn't limited to abusing Facade, it's not Swellow we're talking about here. Heracross has 12 more base HP and 10 more base Def; and as all of us know that Moltres, with its 12 extra base HP and 12 extra base Def is considerably more bulky than Charizard.

Regarding Gallade's advantages: Special bulk, fair enough, even though the difference isn't so huge as Heracross has 12 more base HP. Steadfast-wise, Ambipom would be stupid not to go straight for Return against Gallade, which OHKOes IIRC. Psycho Cut and Ice Punch recieved little usage (27% and 20%), don't fit together because Gallade doesn't have 5 moveslots; added to the fact a neutral Megahorn outdamages a super effective Ice Punch, while a super effective Psycho Cut only outdamages Megahorn by 30 base damage.

Shadow Sneak, of course, is a great asset, but it's trading coverage when beating slower defensive mons in order to beat faster offensive mons. Also, this is a Life Orbed Shadow Ball from Missy: 309 Atk vs 226 Def & 302 HP (80 Base Power): 153 - 180 (50.66% - 59.60%); which means it doesn't absolutely need Shadow Sneak to get past some of them, and isn't nearly as frail on the special side as you make it seem. Finally, regarding weaknesses, Gallade isn't taking a Flying-type attack anytime soon.

Honestly, you still haven't convinced me that Heracross will be no less broken than Gallade, and it still doesn't change the fact Heracross would break stall much harder than Gallade could ever dream of (gets past Tomb, has the potential of hitting Nine harder, loves Burn), as none of the pokés Gallade does better against than Heracross was actually mentioned there; but because you were actually able to put up some arguments that could at least justify a testing for Heracross instead of saying "slap HP Flying everywhere and adapt", I gotta give you some credit here and say you actually got me curious on how a test with Heracross would be, after all I might end up being terribly wrong. However, I just hope in two years from now (when it will actually drops), people don't complain we wasted yet another metagame testing a poké that everyone knew would end up in BL like Cresselia did.

 

[Synre]

While I think a week would be fine unless we get surprised in a hurry(and I think it would have been fine with Cresselia, too - did anyone honestly change their mind in the addition three and a half weeks), I think it would be very dishonest for us not to test Heracross at all if he ends up at the appropriate (non)usage. Like I've said before, I expect that it will not fit in, and I would feel comfortable betting a great deal of money on that. In spite of this, there's still that chance that we're wrong - what if he does work out decently against all odds? I like to be real conservative about my BL votes because it's a decision that is very difficult to take back if we mess up, and not testing at all both sets a terrible precedent and is even harder to revoke - I really don't think it's a good idea.

To play devil's advocate a bit, too, while we're comparing Heracross to other fighting Pokemon, how about Medicham? Heracross is significantly bulkier, obviously, but it's only 5 base speed faster and ends up with a noticeably lower attack stat. It's movepool isn't even much better, with Close Combat being the only significant(and boy is it significant) edge. Medicham, obviously, is not even good enough to be UU this gen, in spite of being fairly interchangeable in ADV OU with Heracross. It might be interesting to see if 5 base speed, Close Combat, Guts, and 20 base HP and SDef is the difference between BL and NU.

 

[Stagnant]

"slap HP Flying everywhere and adapt"

Well, in my original post I was writing/ listing out the similarities/differences between Heracross and Gallade however, I assumed that you were competent enough to be able to distinguish the two so I simply put that Hp Flying/ Aerial Ace is an option. My bad.

Edit:

@Synre

How about a Fighting Pokemon with base 87 Speed, 120 Atk, immunity to paralysis, and Sucker Punch? Of course I'm talkin about Hitmonlee.

 

[Bluewind]

"I suspect that Heracross will end up like Scizor in OU. A powerful threat... but slapping on a random Hp Fire/ Flying or Aerial Ace will keep him in check... no prob."

So yeah, let's slap it everywhere and then problem is solved. You were so saying it's just an option. If you doubt my competence then next time make a post that makes sense at all and don't just digress as you did when I mentioned Latias ran HP Fire to beat one of its counters and not to revenge kill it; so even dumb people like me will understand.

Honestly, Heysup's explanation of the qualities of both Gallade's and Heracross' didn't change a little my opinion about Heracross. I still think it'll be hell broken, make stall not viable at all and introduce us to a Salamence-esque anarchy, but as he was the first one that I saw that actually gave relevant reasons as why Heracross wouldn't be broken (even though the only one that got me inclined is Shadow Sneak, that by far loses to all of Heracross' advantages); it means the players that do not agree Heracross deserves no test at all actually have some embasement; and as I said before: "Really, if someone had ever put up an argument that gave Gallade a considerable advantage over Heracross I'd have shut up way back then and wouldn't have brought this up; but everytime we discussed this no one ever mentioned a relevant fact". I may deeply disagree with Gallade's advantages outweighting Heracross', but he did present arguments.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Medicham would be much better if it got Stone Edge and Close Combat, because Jolly Medicham after a Bulk Up only ends up with slightly lower ATK than Jolly Cross after a Swords Dance. Unfortunately High Jump Kick is a terrible move, because if it misses (i.e. a ghost switches in), you die...and Medicham has no way of getting past Spiritomb (Gallade has Stone Edge, Cross has Megahorn). It really doesn't belong in NU though, that's mostly because people keep running choice sets with it when that's not really the most efficient use of Medicham.

 

[Son_of_Shadoo]

It occurs to me that it's completely pointless whining and bitching about something that hasn't even happened yet. Wait til Hera drops (if indeed it does), THEN start bitching!

 

[IronBullet]

While I think a week would be fine unless we get surprised in a hurry(and I think it would have been fine with Cresselia, too - did anyone honestly change their mind in the addition three and a half weeks), I think it would be very dishonest for us not to test Heracross at all if he ends up at the appropriate (non)usage. Like I've said before, I expect that it will not fit in, and I would feel comfortable betting a great deal of money on that. In spite of this, there's still that chance that we're wrong - what if he does work out decently against all odds? I like to be real conservative about my BL votes because it's a decision that is very difficult to take back if we mess up, and not testing at all both sets a terrible precedent and is even harder to revoke - I really don't think it's a good idea.

Exactly. 90% of the time I'd back Bluewind on the idea that Heracross would be too hot to handle and rape everything in sight, but it's really unfair to the poor bug if we don't even give it a chance.

 

[Stagnant]

I am in the same boat as everyone else, I believe that Heracross would be to much for UU however, if he does drop down to UU I want to give him a completely fair shot at becoming UU. Ultimately, I could care less if he became UU or BL.

 

[Heysup]

Regarding Heracross's advantages, you very well know that STAB Megahorn isn't limited to breaking through other Psychic-types, but also allows it to beat one of Gallade's main counters, Spiritomb. "Slightly faster" means you get to outspeed the humongous amount of base 80 pokés; including the number one poké on the tier. Guts isn't limited to abusing Facade, it's not Swellow we're talking about here. Heracross has 12 more base HP and 10 more base Def; and as all of us know that Moltres, with its 12 extra base HP and 12 extra base Def is considerably more bulky than Charizard.

Yea, but you get outsped by lots of shit that Shadow Sneak compensates for. I don't think the Speed advantage is an argument at all tbh.

Regarding Gallade's advantages: Special bulk, fair enough, even though the difference isn't so huge as Heracross has 12 more base HP. Steadfast-wise, Ambipom would be stupid not to go straight for Return against Gallade, which OHKOes IIRC. Psycho Cut and Ice Punch recieved little usage (27% and 20%), don't fit together because Gallade doesn't have 5 moveslots; added to the fact a neutral Megahorn outdamages a super effective Ice Punch, while a super effective Psycho Cut only outdamages Megahorn by 30 base damage.

Ok I realize I was completely unclear on some things. I should have mentioned that Ambipom and Ice Punch were meant to be arguments for a Scarf set. That's when the difference would be. Heracross does have Pursuit, but I'm not trying to prove that Gallade is better, I'm proving that Gallade =/= Heracross.

Shadow Sneak, of course, is a great asset, but it's trading coverage when beating slower defensive mons in order to beat faster offensive mons. Also, this is a Life Orbed Shadow Ball from Missy: 309 Atk vs 226 Def & 302 HP (80 Base Power): 153 - 180 (50.66% - 59.60%); which means it doesn't absolutely need Shadow Sneak to get past some of them, and isn't nearly as frail on the special side as you make it seem. Finally, regarding weaknesses, Gallade isn't taking a Flying-type attack anytime soon.

Mismagius and Rotom can come in and finish Heracross off after its intense LO recoil or Burn damage without HP Flying, but fuck it I'm going to use HP Flying anyway.

And yes, Gallade can take those flying-type attacks (he actually has a small chance of surviving Moltres' Air Slash). You can't just stick HP Flying on something and deal with Gallade like you can with Heracross.

Honestly, you still haven't convinced me that Heracross will be no less broken than Gallade, and it still doesn't change the fact Heracross would break stall much harder than Gallade could ever dream of (gets past Tomb, has the potential of hitting Nine harder, loves Burn), as none of the pokés Gallade does better against than Heracross was actually mentioned there; but because you were actually able to put up some arguments that could at least justify a testing for Heracross instead of saying "slap HP Flying everywhere and adapt", I gotta give you some credit here and say you actually got me curious on how a test with Heracross would be, after all I might end up being terribly wrong. However, I just hope in two years from now (when it will actually drops), people don't complain we wasted yet another metagame testing a poké that everyone knew would end up in BL like Cresselia did.

Well the point wasn't to convince you that Heracross is any less broken than Gallade. I was simply saying that they aren't the same Pokemon. You can't say x>y unless you also say x = y + 1. With this situation, we can't the second formula for Gallade/Heracross because you simply can't compare their advantages as being better or worse; they are different.

If you banned Mismagius for using a Specs set with Tbolt, Shadow Ball, HP Fighting, and Trick, you could then possibly ban Gengar, because it 100% outclasses Mismagius. This isn't a case like that.

To play devil's advocate a bit, too, while we're comparing Heracross to other fighting Pokemon, how about Medicham? Heracross is significantly bulkier, obviously, but it's only 5 base speed faster and ends up with a noticeably lower attack stat. It's movepool isn't even much better, with Close Combat being the only significant(and boy is it significant) edge. Medicham, obviously, is not even good enough to be UU this gen, in spite of being fairly interchangeable in ADV OU with Heracross. It might be interesting to see if 5 base speed, Close Combat, Guts, and 20 base HP and SDef is the difference between BL and NU.

Swords Dance????? I don't even think Medicham would be UU with Swords Dance. That's what makes Gallade and Heracross better than Medicham, Close Combat is just a bonus.

 

[Synre]

Swords Dance????? I don't even think Medicham would be UU with Swords Dance. That's what makes Gallade and Heracross better than Medicham, Close Combat is just a bonus.

It was mentioned indirectly before, but with 252 EVs in Attack in all cases, Jolly Medicham after Bulk Up only has 41 less attack than Jolly Heracross after SD(698, 657) and 46 when both are Adamant(766, 720). Pure Power scales pretty extraordinarily - outside of situations where you're statting up more than once(which is probably a good sign your opponent is retarded) there isn't much difference between the two after a stat-up, since even 46 attack isn't a huge gap when the stats are getting that high.

 

[yond]

Changing the subject now ,so heres a thought, Say Raikou and Froslass leave the tier. This could lead to Milotic being broken. What do the rest of you think? It would lead to a few grass types in the tier (who generally are easy to stop) being the most reliable way to defeat Milotic. If a team lacks any of these or if an enemy team can get rid of them easily, Milotic can effectively wall out most of the metagame.

 

[Bluewind]

Milotic was pretty tame before Raikou and Froslass dropped to be honest.

 

[shrang]

"Making Stall unviable" is a terrible argument, IMO. Would it be so difficult for a Stall team to just stick something like SubRoost Moltres on their team (If you really hate Heracross, use the Air SlashSubRoost set with 248 HP/44 Def/216 Spe)?? Don't give me crap like "Oh, but Hera forces a Stall team to use Moltres", uh well, it sort of does, but it's not like running Moltres on a Stall team would be a terrible idea anyway. Infernape forces pretty much every OU Stall to run Gyara/Latias/Tentacruel, and out of the three, Tentacruel would be the only one I'd associate with Stall. Gyara and Latias are bulky, but their stats still suggest "sweeper" rather than "wall". Oh crap, let's ban Ape from OU because he forces Stall to run Gyara/Latias/Tentacruel!! The same thing happens with Heracross. Don't tell me Moltres can get OHKO'd by Stone Edge too, you're going to have to predict that, and that isn't reliable (Latias can get boned pretty hard by something like CB U-Turn from Ape then going straight to TTar for the kill as well).

Shadow Sneak is a quality that Gallade has over Heracross, and it is a major one. There is absolutely no way that Hera is going to get past Alakazam if he wants to sweep with an SD set, nor is he going to get past something like Aerial Ace Dugtrio. Gallade can get past them and continue sweeping when Hera isn't.

To all those who go "Heracross is clearly broken", remember Alakazam?? Remember Rhyperior?? Remember when everyone went "HOLY SHIT THEY ARE CLEARLY BROKEN LET'S NOT TEST THEM"?? What happened then?? Exactly the same process should be available to Heracross.

 

[Thund91]

Moltres is a fine "counter," until you get hit with Stone Edge on the switch in.

 

[connoisseur]

Heracross is not even poised to come down to UU. It has stayed around 45th for at least 3 months - half a year consistently (I believe you must be 50th to drop down), and actually experienced sizable gains in usage in february and march. If it had to drop, it should have done so already. Arguing about what it would do is pointless until it actually drops to UU (unlikely in my opinion).

 

[Bluewind]

First, before you turn on your beautiful caps lock to talk about things that weren't said by myself read my previous posts. Gallade was banned because it broke stall way too easily. It wasn't me who said that, as I didn't even vote that round, the majority of the voters did. Heracross' assets allow it to undeniably break stall much more easily.

 

[shrang]

@Thund:

Don't tell me Moltres can get OHKO'd by Stone Edge too, you're going to have to predict that, and that isn't reliable (Latias can get boned pretty hard by something like CB U-Turn from Ape then going straight to TTar for the kill as well).

@Bluewind:

I know you didn't make the argument about Stall being broken too easily, but it was made all the same, and it sucks, to be frank. I've said it before, breaking Stall is an effect, not the sole reason why a Pokemon is broken.

 

[Bluewind]

Stall could give less of a damn about CB Ape when it has pokés to sponge everything it may throw.

 

[Thund91]

It's not that hard to predict that, at least imo. Anyways if I was abusing Heracross I'd run a sub + 3 attacks set, which means that your Moltres is boned if it switches in. Not to mention Moltres won't like switching into CC/Neutral hits from a Scarf set when it's taking 50% coming in. Moltres just isn't that useful on stall. Why would you run it when there are so many better options. It's not spinning, it's not setting up rocks, it's not curing status, and it's not absorbing status. It does nothing.

 

[M BLADE]

So franky showed me this set while we were testing shit, and i really have to say that it is not only one of the most fun pokemon to use in this metagame, but it's really deadly. I'd say that the only things that stop it are a) sleep b) fast shit revenge killing it and c) registeel. a and b apply to all sweepers anyway, so i mean it's mainly registeel. Here's the set

EXEGGUTOR @ Life Orb
252 Spa / 220 Spe / 36 Hp
Modest / Chlorophyll

- Leaf Storm
- Psychic
- Sleep Powder
- Synthesis

It looks a lot like lo roserade, and that's how it functions, but with less speed and more physical bulk, plus an arguably better secondary STAB. 383 special attack is amazing, especially with awesome coverage and power moves and a life orb. It loves coming in on torterra, dugtrio, donphan, IB-less milotic, blastoise, etc. It actually beats chansey through psychic -> sleep -> psychic -> leaf storm. Leaf storm deals 60% to max/max careful umbreon and 40% to max/max calm chansey. When you get it in, just spam psychic to nail those moltres / venusaur for a solid ohko to the face. the speed evs beat out defensive venusaur and milotic, and that's all you're going to be outrunning. It's roserade + torterra in one package pretty much; roserade's power and coverage, torterra's great bulk. I'll put up exact calcs on a lot of stuff tomorrow, but i highly recommend this set. If you want a bulky grass that smashes faces in, and rips stall apart, i suggest exeggutor. Once again, franky's set, not mine.

About the set: almost the same as mine: just switch Synthesis for Trick Room. Speed problem is gone for 5 turns.




About the discussion: whatever, Heracross isn't coming down. Jeez.