Except for thinking Raichu and Pikachu can stop Bulky Waters...this may have a point. Of course, it has absolutely no relevance to the argument taking place over the last four pages. I think such arguments over the previous state of UU should be saved for the actual voting...
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np: UU - Six Deadly Suspects
- Thread starter Caelum
- Start date
- Status
It's an interesting point, mainly that we should stop arguing, shut up and play, and talk about what works. I don't see "playing and having fun and getting creative" being mutually exclusive with "healthy debate", however. Still, that's the only time anyone will quote Kung Fu Panda in a serious topic and actually have a point.
Something I've been looking for is a suicide lead, and Solrock doesn't really cut it with Smeargle existing and faster. I'm thinking a Taunt / SR Nidoking would do well, completely crippling the Smeargle lead and getting faux-guaranteed SR as Ambipom can't KO with Fake Out / Return.
Handy tip: The new more Fire dominated metagame would benefit from the use of Hariyama to check it. I have to switch my stall Hariyama to Rest / Sleep Talk to deal with more Fires on a team.
So here are my thoughts on the Suspects at this point:
I think I'm voting Froslass UU to give us more time to work out leads that work around it. I feel that this is akin to banning Aerodactyl a week after the Suicide Lead emerged onto the scene. Wouldn't a faster lead (possibly combined with another fast Pokémon) work around it? I think we need time to find the Scarf Jirachi of UU.
As for Crobat, I never even bought the argument that just setting up weather really well was inherently broken. Then I'd expect to see (1) weather teams that were broken and (2) other weather leads and bulky Pokémon being _very_ prominent. Why would weather teams only be broken if Crobat is the one setting the weather up? Whatever negative effect it had on the metagame, which is minor in my opinion, is counteracted by how horribly useful it is as a decentralizing force, checking Shaymin and other 'mons (including Froslass!) nicely.
Raikou I'm really on the fence about; I never had problems with it but I can see how many would consider it BL. Abomasnow I'm leaning towards BL more strongly because of Eo Ut Mortis's argument _combined_ with the support it gives Walrein, Froslass, and the like. If all it did was make Walrein broken, I would rather ban Walrein. Gallade and Staraptor I don't really want to get into; Gallade is basically impossible to beat with a slower Pokémon, and isn't useless against nonstall teams (I really ouldn't mind it if it weren't for 115 Special Defense), and Staraptor just seems to do too much damage in general.
Also, fuck Gallade.
Something I've been looking for is a suicide lead, and Solrock doesn't really cut it with Smeargle existing and faster. I'm thinking a Taunt / SR Nidoking would do well, completely crippling the Smeargle lead and getting faux-guaranteed SR as Ambipom can't KO with Fake Out / Return.
Handy tip: The new more Fire dominated metagame would benefit from the use of Hariyama to check it. I have to switch my stall Hariyama to Rest / Sleep Talk to deal with more Fires on a team.
So here are my thoughts on the Suspects at this point:
I think I'm voting Froslass UU to give us more time to work out leads that work around it. I feel that this is akin to banning Aerodactyl a week after the Suicide Lead emerged onto the scene. Wouldn't a faster lead (possibly combined with another fast Pokémon) work around it? I think we need time to find the Scarf Jirachi of UU.
As for Crobat, I never even bought the argument that just setting up weather really well was inherently broken. Then I'd expect to see (1) weather teams that were broken and (2) other weather leads and bulky Pokémon being _very_ prominent. Why would weather teams only be broken if Crobat is the one setting the weather up? Whatever negative effect it had on the metagame, which is minor in my opinion, is counteracted by how horribly useful it is as a decentralizing force, checking Shaymin and other 'mons (including Froslass!) nicely.
Raikou I'm really on the fence about; I never had problems with it but I can see how many would consider it BL. Abomasnow I'm leaning towards BL more strongly because of Eo Ut Mortis's argument _combined_ with the support it gives Walrein, Froslass, and the like. If all it did was make Walrein broken, I would rather ban Walrein. Gallade and Staraptor I don't really want to get into; Gallade is basically impossible to beat with a slower Pokémon, and isn't useless against nonstall teams (I really ouldn't mind it if it weren't for 115 Special Defense), and Staraptor just seems to do too much damage in general.
Also, fuck Gallade.
For some reason I thought Nidoqueen didn't get Taunt. I guess it would, huh. Alternatively one could run Protect Nidoking or something for Fake Out.
You'd have to max Speed to beat Smeargle, but you could get away with Taunt + Lum Berry.
I said MAX/MAX Steelix is useless. Without any support options besides Toxic and a slow Taunt, it needs to be able to deal damage and take some special attacks or else you may as well run Registeel in its spot. That means investing in Atk and SpD. Evs, not Def.
Just trying to point out that a MAX/MAX Steelix is overspecialized and has no place in the metagame.
MAX/MAX is a bit riduculous.
However, I just fought an ingenious team taking advantage of rain in a whole new way: using Gorebyss to pass Iron Defense/Amnesia to...Cradily?
In any case, passing that to Swords Dance Cradily proved to be amazingly effective, since Close Combat was dealing 20% damage by the time I figured out what was going on. I did end up winning, but think about it, is this an interesting strategy or what?
However, I just fought an ingenious team taking advantage of rain in a whole new way: using Gorebyss to pass Iron Defense/Amnesia to...Cradily?
In any case, passing that to Swords Dance Cradily proved to be amazingly effective, since Close Combat was dealing 20% damage by the time I figured out what was going on. I did end up winning, but think about it, is this an interesting strategy or what?
But who runs Max/Max on Steelix anyway? The standard set has no defense EVs at all.
Well I assumed that in order for Burzum's Steelix to turn Close Combat into a reliable 3HKO, it would have to run max/max. I wouldn't have dreamt of Chople Berry...
Anyways, I made a huge mistake on the calculations. Let me correct that.
Staraptor's Close Combat vs. max/max Steelix:
372 Atk vs 548 Def & 354 HP (120 Base Power): 154 - 182 (43.50% - 51.41%)
Steelix's Gyro Ball vs. min/min Staraptor after Close Combat:
206 Atk vs 117 Def & 311 HP (150 Base Power): 283 - 334 (91.00% - 107.40%)
So I guess it does work - the type-resist berry just adds insult to injury.
Anyways, I made a huge mistake on the calculations. Let me correct that.
Staraptor's Close Combat vs. max/max Steelix:
372 Atk vs 548 Def & 354 HP (120 Base Power): 154 - 182 (43.50% - 51.41%)
Steelix's Gyro Ball vs. min/min Staraptor after Close Combat:
206 Atk vs 117 Def & 311 HP (150 Base Power): 283 - 334 (91.00% - 107.40%)
So I guess it does work - the type-resist berry just adds insult to injury.
Staraptor doesn't take max damage from Gyro Ball. It isn't THAT fast unlike Crobat...
Yeah that's what I thought. Bringing up these fake calcs out of nowhere and then making flawed arguments with them. And just for the record Chople Berry Steelix countered Gallade as well but I still think Gallade is BL by a longshot. It's job is to set up rocks, wall and hurt frail sweepers or explode. That is why leftovers werent necessary.
Staraptor doesn't take max Gyro ball from 58 speed Steelix or w/e reducing nature with no ivs evs is?
Staraptor doesn't take max Gyro ball from 58 speed Steelix or w/e reducing nature with no ivs evs is?
1 + floor(25 * 299 / 58) = 129 Base Power against Adamant Max Speed Staraptor.
1 + floor(25 * 328 / 58) = 141 Base Power against Jolly Max Speed Staraptor
1 + floor(25 * 328 / 58) = 141 Base Power against Jolly Max Speed Staraptor
In my defense, I wasn't assuming Substitute because U-Turn and Roost were being discussed. But I suppose that's beside the point now.
Well, Slowbro can spam Slack Off and then break the Substitute as Staraptor's health dwindles. Staraptor takes 32% recoil (including Life Orb) and has only a 7.23% chance of 2HKOing Slowbro. Point taken on Steelix, though.
Well, there is still an element of prediction. The Pokemon facing Staraptor could stay in and break the Substitutes. But yeah, that's probably a bit too much to ask considering Staraptor has a lot less to lose.
I don't see where U-Turn fits in the equation. If Staraptor has U-Turn, it loses coverage, healing (which means Brave Bird/Life Orb will eventually kill it) or Substitute, which means my previous argument still stands. Also, the setup of Stealth Rock doesn't necessarily have to occur when face-to-face with Staraptor.
But I do have to concede to LonelyNess's point, which is pretty convincing, and I suppose I will drop my share of this argument at the moment.
Sorry - keep forgetting that nobody runs Iron Ball Steelix but me. =/
1 + floor(25 * 212 / 29) = 183 Base Power against Min Speed, negative nature Staraptor, but it peaks at 150. Also, LonelyNess.
With the end of the testing period approaching, I'd just like to recap the position where the suspects stand. Correct me if I'm wrong:
Abomasnow: Most people think that it's BL, broken 'coz of Hail.
Staraptor: Pretty much unanimous on this one, BL. Pure Power.
Gallade: Also pretty undisputable, BL. Again, Power.
Raikou: Leaning towards BL, more conflict on this one. Speed and setup seem to be pushing him to BL.
Froslass: Probably going to end up BL. Speed, fast taunt, and almost guaranteed spikes going for it.
Crobat: The most debatable suspect. It's about 50/50 with him. Fast Taunt + Weather + U-turn make him one of the best leads.
However, his bulk is not great, and neither is his offensive power.
I think this pretty much sums up people's feelings. Thoughts?
Abomasnow: Most people think that it's BL, broken 'coz of Hail.
Staraptor: Pretty much unanimous on this one, BL. Pure Power.
Gallade: Also pretty undisputable, BL. Again, Power.
Raikou: Leaning towards BL, more conflict on this one. Speed and setup seem to be pushing him to BL.
Froslass: Probably going to end up BL. Speed, fast taunt, and almost guaranteed spikes going for it.
Crobat: The most debatable suspect. It's about 50/50 with him. Fast Taunt + Weather + U-turn make him one of the best leads.
However, his bulk is not great, and neither is his offensive power.
I think this pretty much sums up people's feelings. Thoughts?
As far as I can tell, it's a little less than 50/50 in favor of UU with Crobat, but, like things were with Prop 9 in California, the minority is so loud that it seems as though it's even. Other than that, it seems overall to be a fair summation.
They are not. Or if we're talking rain, Electrode is faster anyways.
Crobat is a bit of an annoyance sometimes, but a good Shaymin counter and a great way to deal with lead Ambipom, who pretty much can do the same thing anyways (fast Taunt + U-Turn, only with Fake Out added in as well). However, I never saw it as "broken" in the least.
Crobat is a bit of an annoyance sometimes, but a good Shaymin counter and a great way to deal with lead Ambipom, who pretty much can do the same thing anyways (fast Taunt + U-Turn, only with Fake Out added in as well). However, I never saw it as "broken" in the least.
Well I said I would contribute my arguments for each of the suspects, so here it is. Although not yet complete, I’m going to offer my opinions so far on 5 of them right now (Staraptor argument coming soon), with a short (ish) explanation as to why (prepares for major controversy):
Abomasnow: BL
Yes, this was the one I was most concerned about for sure, given that it was the only Pokemon I voted to be suspect. To be honest though, I wasn’t completely convinced of its brokenness even at the time. I needed to see how the metagame would change in its absence, but now that I’ve observed said metagame for the last three months, my mind is pretty much made up. It is clear now that Abomasnow-led Hail teams were significantly restrictive on teambuilding decisions, an observation I’ve made from both other people’s teams and my own teambuilding process. I’ve noticed that there were many strategies and other factors that I subconsciously passed over automatically before, and that Abomasnow and Hail was by far the biggest factor in this.
I know that measures of centralization and over-restrictiveness are not by themselves grounds for BL status, and I myself get quite aggravated when people abuse such terms consistently, but I believe that a combination of the consistent pressure Hail itself brings on the typical team, and the degree of inflated effectiveness for a select few pokes that piles on the pressure even further, pushes Abomasnow over the edge in the support department.
Crobat: UU
This particular case really puzzled me, as I was wondering what the hell Crobat did wrong to be singled out. A fantastic lead no doubt, and also a great check for a number of pokes with its blinding speed combined with decent balanced defenses and typing. But on the flipside, not very offensively threatening (Brave Bird the only strong attack off just 90 base) and support restricted to weather and…well that’s it. Big deal. Lots of things can set up weather, and being very good at doing so doesn’t make you broken in any way. Setup weather teams have questionable effectiveness as it is, as they only achieve high win rates against teams that aren’t adequately prepared for them, which doesn’t include the top battlers that’s for sure.
As for arguments about its dominance as a lead, I’m still not getting what the big fuss was. For one thing, there are a good number of viable leads out there that are at an advantage against Crobat from turn one (I’ve used several). But even if you do have an unfavorable match-up against it, there really isn’t much that Crobat can do to punish you for that, unless your team is incredibly weak to weather teams in which case you have bigger problems than just Crobat. Taunt only prevents setups whilst Crobat is out in play, which it won’t be all the time. Poison/Flying is good, but that still leaves four common weaknesses so there really is no shortage of offensive measures available to deal with it. There are in fact many setup/support Pokemon in UU that can OHKO Crobat, so Taunt is by no means a risk-free solution to all potential opportunities. If more people realized this I’m sure that Crobat would end up declining at least a little in popularity as a lead.
All in all, I think Crobat is an excellent Pkemon with plenty of strengths, but does not so much break the metagame as be part of the glue that holds it together.
Froslass: BL
That’s right, I’m considering her as a BL now. I’m actually very surprised with myself on this one as I was sort of questioning its status as a suspect even just one and a half months ago. How things have changed.
What sealed this one was once again comparison between the two metagames that demonstrated the true extent of Froslass’ potential. Unlike Crobat, Froslass is a frighteningly effective supporter, particularly for its Spiking ability. Other Spikers such as Roserade, now the most common form, do not perform their role with anything like the effectiveness that Froslass did. It is almost like Gamefreak decided to custom design a Pokemon with the perfect set of properties for this role. 110 base speed, Taunt and Destiny Bond with GHOST typing (really helps with common priority moves, not to mention any potential spinners) really screws with so much that tries to prevent it from doing its job, or even trying to limit the setup turns it can utilize. And if that wasn’t enough, Froslass just happens to possess the two ideal STABs for discouraging the presence of the majority of Fliers and Levitators that evade Spikes, albeit unable to carry both alongside its ‘holy trinity’ support combination, but Ice Beam by itself usually suffices anyway.
IMO, Froslass’ greatest potential isn’t even as a lead Pokemon, although she obviously can function well in that role. That is honestly quite predictable and carries an unnecessary risk against certain leads that are prepared for it. Lead Ambipoms could easily screw with Froslass completely using a combination of Taunt + Pursuit if they so wanted to, for example. No, I’ve found that Froslass was most potent as an early-to-mid game transition supporter, after some initial scouting has been made. By doing this, Froslass would more often than not find the perfect setup opportunity (again, Ghost typing is so useful for this) and if played right was almost guaranteed to provide a net payoff greater than its own value as one of six Pokemon on a team. This in a nutshell is the reason why I deem her to be broken in this tier. In common battle conditions, Froslass will almost always have at least one opportunity (often several) to guarantee a team contribution of value greater than the required average for a team to win, if that made any sense. I can think of no other Pokemon in this metagame that would also fit that description in the same way. For this reason I have no choice but to deem her BL.
Gallade: UU
Was never convinced about Gallade at all, and I’m still not. The thing about Gallade, at least in the way that he is commonly played, is that he is a lot like the UU Lucario, but with a few obvious differences. Both of them are no doubt excellent wall breakers; SD boosted Close Combats with passable speed backed up by a vast selection of coverage options can really put fear into slow, bulky teams. But here’s the thing: both struggle to cover everything in a single set. Just like with Lucario in OU, there is no excuse for a bulky defensive team to not be adequately covered against Gallade whatever set it runs, whereas more offensive teams should be looking to take advantage of the fact that it isn’t very quick at all. One of the main differences in fact is that, whilst Lucario has powerful priority in the form of Extremespeed, Gallade’s unSTAB’d Shadow Sneak is pitifully weak against anything that is not weak to it. There are very few fast physical attackers out there that are at all bothered by a +2 Shadow Sneak unless they are already at very low health, which makes Gallade easier to check from an offensive perspective. Whilst Gallade has the ability to take the odd special hit, Lucario makes up for this with its extra resistances and special attacking viability. Gallade has a similar quality and range of checks in UU as Lucario does in OU, with the exception of a trapping option, i.e. Magnezone. So whilst Gallade technically lacks a 100% counter, he does not require ridiculous means to deal with.
There’s only so much that a wide movepool can do to make up for a mediocre speed stat, and he requires significant support to get into a position where he can genuinely sweep, which is mostly why I do not believe that he fulfils the Offensive Characteristic. The idea that Gallade is guaranteed at least one kill is completely untrue; it takes skill and prediction like anything else. He performs well against slow, bulky teams the best, but that comes as no surprise given that he specializes in wall breaking, and as mentioned before, he doesn’t walk over such prepared teams effortlessly. Gallade doesn’t make any specific style of play significantly less viable, it’s just that his presence means that such teams have to take him into account and not rest on their laurels. Gallade is not the only Pokemon in UU that exerts that influence, and such a factor does not break the Pokemon in any way.
Raikou: UU
Yeah, nobody who has been following this thread recently is going to be at all surprised by my verdict here. Again, with Raikou I’m still struggling to convince myself that it fits the Offensive Characteristic. The main reason for this is that I’ve never found it remotely difficult to adapt any team I have made to account for Raikou without overspecializing or compromising the team in any way. That automatically means that any claims that you are forced to overspecialize for Raikou are complete garbage. If I can avoid that then so can everybody else if they put their mind to it.
Anyway, my main concern with Raikou as a suspect is that it does not hit hard enough off the bat with any reasonable coverage. 115 special attack is excellent no doubt, but it only has a single STAB from a type that is resisted by a significant number of Pokemon. Now that would not exclude a Pokemon from BL status itself, as it may have excellent coverage options with a suitable amount of power to blitz through any would-be counters, and therefore sweep ’with little effort’. Not so with Raikou I’m afraid. Excluding said STAB options, Raikou has no moves higher than 80 base power, and with such low powered attacks you really need to be hitting as much super-effective as possible, preferably against those types / Pokemon that resist your genuinely powerful STAB, if you want to be a truly dominant sweeper. Well Raikou kind of fails there as well tbh. As far as Electric resisting types go (Grass / Ground / Electric / Dragon), Signal Beam covers Grass types, and that’s about it. Whilst the other moves in its rather limited attacking movepool (Shadow Ball / Extrasensory etc) have situational uses against certain dual-type Pokemon, this in general means that Raikou is heavily reliant on its Hidden Power to provide any reasonable attacking threat, and only one can be chosen at a time. Preferably, Raikou would want to cover Ground types as they are the ones that provide the most immediate threat, but one only covers a handful whilst leaving you open to the majority. The ideal situation for Raikou would be to have 4 Hidden Powers (Ice, Grass, Fire and Ground) for optimum coverage, but that is clearly impossible.
All of that is also ignoring the stuff that beats Calm Mind Raikou in one way or another regardless of the attacks it uses (Chansey, Registeel, Regice, Shuckle etc). Some of these are very common even without Raikou around, and Raikou itself has to specialize somewhat to beat them, in which case they are already doing their job. However, another factor I’d like to mention is the fact that Raikou needs at least 1-2 turns of setup before it becomes somewhat threatening, and does nothing to prevent the opponent from taking whatever measures possible in those turns to deal with the situation. I’m talking about things like Encore, screens, Haze, Roar / Whirlwind, Trick Room, your own stat-up or whatever else. The closest it comes to this is if it carries Roar itself, which only deals with opposing stat-ups and slower PHazers whilst coming at the cost of just two attacks + no status protection. Weather teams also give Raikou somewhat of a hard time, particularly Sand teams.
When there is such a wealth of options for dealing with Raikou, to the point that almost any team can make reasonable alterations to account for it, I fail to be convinced that it can ’sweep teams with little effort in common conditions’, and that it therefore satisfies the Offensive Characteristic. Much of the arguments that I’ve heard against it so far can basically be reduced to ’Raikou is BL because it forces you to run a team that isn’t mowed over by Raikou’, which obviously doesn’t cut it for me at all. Way too general.
That was a bit long, but given that Raikou has caused the most controversy so far I really wanted to make sure that I was selling my argument to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading.
Abomasnow: BL
Yes, this was the one I was most concerned about for sure, given that it was the only Pokemon I voted to be suspect. To be honest though, I wasn’t completely convinced of its brokenness even at the time. I needed to see how the metagame would change in its absence, but now that I’ve observed said metagame for the last three months, my mind is pretty much made up. It is clear now that Abomasnow-led Hail teams were significantly restrictive on teambuilding decisions, an observation I’ve made from both other people’s teams and my own teambuilding process. I’ve noticed that there were many strategies and other factors that I subconsciously passed over automatically before, and that Abomasnow and Hail was by far the biggest factor in this.
I know that measures of centralization and over-restrictiveness are not by themselves grounds for BL status, and I myself get quite aggravated when people abuse such terms consistently, but I believe that a combination of the consistent pressure Hail itself brings on the typical team, and the degree of inflated effectiveness for a select few pokes that piles on the pressure even further, pushes Abomasnow over the edge in the support department.
Crobat: UU
This particular case really puzzled me, as I was wondering what the hell Crobat did wrong to be singled out. A fantastic lead no doubt, and also a great check for a number of pokes with its blinding speed combined with decent balanced defenses and typing. But on the flipside, not very offensively threatening (Brave Bird the only strong attack off just 90 base) and support restricted to weather and…well that’s it. Big deal. Lots of things can set up weather, and being very good at doing so doesn’t make you broken in any way. Setup weather teams have questionable effectiveness as it is, as they only achieve high win rates against teams that aren’t adequately prepared for them, which doesn’t include the top battlers that’s for sure.
As for arguments about its dominance as a lead, I’m still not getting what the big fuss was. For one thing, there are a good number of viable leads out there that are at an advantage against Crobat from turn one (I’ve used several). But even if you do have an unfavorable match-up against it, there really isn’t much that Crobat can do to punish you for that, unless your team is incredibly weak to weather teams in which case you have bigger problems than just Crobat. Taunt only prevents setups whilst Crobat is out in play, which it won’t be all the time. Poison/Flying is good, but that still leaves four common weaknesses so there really is no shortage of offensive measures available to deal with it. There are in fact many setup/support Pokemon in UU that can OHKO Crobat, so Taunt is by no means a risk-free solution to all potential opportunities. If more people realized this I’m sure that Crobat would end up declining at least a little in popularity as a lead.
All in all, I think Crobat is an excellent Pkemon with plenty of strengths, but does not so much break the metagame as be part of the glue that holds it together.
Froslass: BL
That’s right, I’m considering her as a BL now. I’m actually very surprised with myself on this one as I was sort of questioning its status as a suspect even just one and a half months ago. How things have changed.
What sealed this one was once again comparison between the two metagames that demonstrated the true extent of Froslass’ potential. Unlike Crobat, Froslass is a frighteningly effective supporter, particularly for its Spiking ability. Other Spikers such as Roserade, now the most common form, do not perform their role with anything like the effectiveness that Froslass did. It is almost like Gamefreak decided to custom design a Pokemon with the perfect set of properties for this role. 110 base speed, Taunt and Destiny Bond with GHOST typing (really helps with common priority moves, not to mention any potential spinners) really screws with so much that tries to prevent it from doing its job, or even trying to limit the setup turns it can utilize. And if that wasn’t enough, Froslass just happens to possess the two ideal STABs for discouraging the presence of the majority of Fliers and Levitators that evade Spikes, albeit unable to carry both alongside its ‘holy trinity’ support combination, but Ice Beam by itself usually suffices anyway.
IMO, Froslass’ greatest potential isn’t even as a lead Pokemon, although she obviously can function well in that role. That is honestly quite predictable and carries an unnecessary risk against certain leads that are prepared for it. Lead Ambipoms could easily screw with Froslass completely using a combination of Taunt + Pursuit if they so wanted to, for example. No, I’ve found that Froslass was most potent as an early-to-mid game transition supporter, after some initial scouting has been made. By doing this, Froslass would more often than not find the perfect setup opportunity (again, Ghost typing is so useful for this) and if played right was almost guaranteed to provide a net payoff greater than its own value as one of six Pokemon on a team. This in a nutshell is the reason why I deem her to be broken in this tier. In common battle conditions, Froslass will almost always have at least one opportunity (often several) to guarantee a team contribution of value greater than the required average for a team to win, if that made any sense. I can think of no other Pokemon in this metagame that would also fit that description in the same way. For this reason I have no choice but to deem her BL.
Gallade: UU
Was never convinced about Gallade at all, and I’m still not. The thing about Gallade, at least in the way that he is commonly played, is that he is a lot like the UU Lucario, but with a few obvious differences. Both of them are no doubt excellent wall breakers; SD boosted Close Combats with passable speed backed up by a vast selection of coverage options can really put fear into slow, bulky teams. But here’s the thing: both struggle to cover everything in a single set. Just like with Lucario in OU, there is no excuse for a bulky defensive team to not be adequately covered against Gallade whatever set it runs, whereas more offensive teams should be looking to take advantage of the fact that it isn’t very quick at all. One of the main differences in fact is that, whilst Lucario has powerful priority in the form of Extremespeed, Gallade’s unSTAB’d Shadow Sneak is pitifully weak against anything that is not weak to it. There are very few fast physical attackers out there that are at all bothered by a +2 Shadow Sneak unless they are already at very low health, which makes Gallade easier to check from an offensive perspective. Whilst Gallade has the ability to take the odd special hit, Lucario makes up for this with its extra resistances and special attacking viability. Gallade has a similar quality and range of checks in UU as Lucario does in OU, with the exception of a trapping option, i.e. Magnezone. So whilst Gallade technically lacks a 100% counter, he does not require ridiculous means to deal with.
There’s only so much that a wide movepool can do to make up for a mediocre speed stat, and he requires significant support to get into a position where he can genuinely sweep, which is mostly why I do not believe that he fulfils the Offensive Characteristic. The idea that Gallade is guaranteed at least one kill is completely untrue; it takes skill and prediction like anything else. He performs well against slow, bulky teams the best, but that comes as no surprise given that he specializes in wall breaking, and as mentioned before, he doesn’t walk over such prepared teams effortlessly. Gallade doesn’t make any specific style of play significantly less viable, it’s just that his presence means that such teams have to take him into account and not rest on their laurels. Gallade is not the only Pokemon in UU that exerts that influence, and such a factor does not break the Pokemon in any way.
Raikou: UU
Yeah, nobody who has been following this thread recently is going to be at all surprised by my verdict here. Again, with Raikou I’m still struggling to convince myself that it fits the Offensive Characteristic. The main reason for this is that I’ve never found it remotely difficult to adapt any team I have made to account for Raikou without overspecializing or compromising the team in any way. That automatically means that any claims that you are forced to overspecialize for Raikou are complete garbage. If I can avoid that then so can everybody else if they put their mind to it.
Anyway, my main concern with Raikou as a suspect is that it does not hit hard enough off the bat with any reasonable coverage. 115 special attack is excellent no doubt, but it only has a single STAB from a type that is resisted by a significant number of Pokemon. Now that would not exclude a Pokemon from BL status itself, as it may have excellent coverage options with a suitable amount of power to blitz through any would-be counters, and therefore sweep ’with little effort’. Not so with Raikou I’m afraid. Excluding said STAB options, Raikou has no moves higher than 80 base power, and with such low powered attacks you really need to be hitting as much super-effective as possible, preferably against those types / Pokemon that resist your genuinely powerful STAB, if you want to be a truly dominant sweeper. Well Raikou kind of fails there as well tbh. As far as Electric resisting types go (Grass / Ground / Electric / Dragon), Signal Beam covers Grass types, and that’s about it. Whilst the other moves in its rather limited attacking movepool (Shadow Ball / Extrasensory etc) have situational uses against certain dual-type Pokemon, this in general means that Raikou is heavily reliant on its Hidden Power to provide any reasonable attacking threat, and only one can be chosen at a time. Preferably, Raikou would want to cover Ground types as they are the ones that provide the most immediate threat, but one only covers a handful whilst leaving you open to the majority. The ideal situation for Raikou would be to have 4 Hidden Powers (Ice, Grass, Fire and Ground) for optimum coverage, but that is clearly impossible.
All of that is also ignoring the stuff that beats Calm Mind Raikou in one way or another regardless of the attacks it uses (Chansey, Registeel, Regice, Shuckle etc). Some of these are very common even without Raikou around, and Raikou itself has to specialize somewhat to beat them, in which case they are already doing their job. However, another factor I’d like to mention is the fact that Raikou needs at least 1-2 turns of setup before it becomes somewhat threatening, and does nothing to prevent the opponent from taking whatever measures possible in those turns to deal with the situation. I’m talking about things like Encore, screens, Haze, Roar / Whirlwind, Trick Room, your own stat-up or whatever else. The closest it comes to this is if it carries Roar itself, which only deals with opposing stat-ups and slower PHazers whilst coming at the cost of just two attacks + no status protection. Weather teams also give Raikou somewhat of a hard time, particularly Sand teams.
When there is such a wealth of options for dealing with Raikou, to the point that almost any team can make reasonable alterations to account for it, I fail to be convinced that it can ’sweep teams with little effort in common conditions’, and that it therefore satisfies the Offensive Characteristic. Much of the arguments that I’ve heard against it so far can basically be reduced to ’Raikou is BL because it forces you to run a team that isn’t mowed over by Raikou’, which obviously doesn’t cut it for me at all. Way too general.
That was a bit long, but given that Raikou has caused the most controversy so far I really wanted to make sure that I was selling my argument to the best of my ability. Thanks for reading.
"Excluding said STAB options, Raikou has no moves higher than 80 base power."
Last I checked, Raikou gets STAB on electric attacks. Being an electric type and all. ;)
I have to say, most of your arguments are agreeable, but I still don't think Raikou is UU. Who cares if your attacks are BP 70 when your SpAtk is the equivalent of 1500?
I'm sorry, care to explain the bolded part? Calm Mind is not the special equivalent of Belly Drum.
I assume he was refering to how easy Raikou is to set up, which is probably the only reason I would vote it BL.
It's that time of the voting season again, so here's what I've noticed about what people think of the Abomasnow.
Abomasnow - BL - UU is much less of an annoyance without Abomasnow's auto Hail. I don't see anyone missing the inevitable Walrein + Hail stallfest. Stallrein is brainlessly effective with nonstop Hail, so Abomasnow should get the boot. The arguments about Hail tend to be:
Hail isn't as threating without Froslass's Spikes. Omastar and Roserade have taken the role of the Spiker. Omastar resists Fire x4, so Typhlosion can run away and die to SR + Hail. Roserade gets the bonus of absorbing Toxic Spikes that'll ruin a Stallrein.
Use Clefable to beat Hail. Clefable can outstall Hail, so many Hail teams recruited Hariyama to beat it silly. The Thick Fat Fire resist is nifty too. Hariyama has become a staple in Hail teams.
If Snow Warning is the problem, then are you going to ban Snover too? Snover doesn't murder bulky waters like Abomasnow. Snover has much weaker defenses, but it has Snow Warning. Wallrein is still a big problem in Snover's Hail, but using Snover is like playing a 5-6 game off the bat. This leads to some people wanting to ban Wallrein instead of the little cutesy Christmas tree.
So is Wallrein the root of all the Hail evil then? But then there's Sealeo. Should we ban Sealeo too, because be it can still pull off a "Stallrein" set effectively. The chain reaction of bans is getting ridiculous. At this point of the argument, people tend to get bitchy and frustrated. Regardless, I think people can agree that Wallrein is one annoying mofo in the Hail.
My two cents: I won't miss Snow Warning. I feel cheap when I use Stallrein. I don't blame my opponents for leaving when Walrein pops its ugly face.
Abomasnow - BL - UU is much less of an annoyance without Abomasnow's auto Hail. I don't see anyone missing the inevitable Walrein + Hail stallfest. Stallrein is brainlessly effective with nonstop Hail, so Abomasnow should get the boot. The arguments about Hail tend to be:
Hail isn't as threating without Froslass's Spikes. Omastar and Roserade have taken the role of the Spiker. Omastar resists Fire x4, so Typhlosion can run away and die to SR + Hail. Roserade gets the bonus of absorbing Toxic Spikes that'll ruin a Stallrein.
Use Clefable to beat Hail. Clefable can outstall Hail, so many Hail teams recruited Hariyama to beat it silly. The Thick Fat Fire resist is nifty too. Hariyama has become a staple in Hail teams.
If Snow Warning is the problem, then are you going to ban Snover too? Snover doesn't murder bulky waters like Abomasnow. Snover has much weaker defenses, but it has Snow Warning. Wallrein is still a big problem in Snover's Hail, but using Snover is like playing a 5-6 game off the bat. This leads to some people wanting to ban Wallrein instead of the little cutesy Christmas tree.
So is Wallrein the root of all the Hail evil then? But then there's Sealeo. Should we ban Sealeo too, because be it can still pull off a "Stallrein" set effectively. The chain reaction of bans is getting ridiculous. At this point of the argument, people tend to get bitchy and frustrated. Regardless, I think people can agree that Wallrein is one annoying mofo in the Hail.
My two cents: I won't miss Snow Warning. I feel cheap when I use Stallrein. I don't blame my opponents for leaving when Walrein pops its ugly face.
Basically, this. Raikou becomes so threatening after a few CMs, that; with the proper moveset, it's easy for it to wipe out any (p)hazing opposition and hide behind a sub to CM up to +6 if it so chooses.
- Status