Resource USUM OU ULTRA Viability Ranking Thread

[DeltaInsurgent]

Sableye-Mega: B+ ——> A-/A

Sableye (M) @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 8 Def / 248 SpD
Calm Nature
- Snarl
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover

After experimenting with Snarl over Protect on Mega Sableye, I found that with it this Pokémon makes for an overall better wall combined with Will-O-Wisp and Special Attack drops from this move. One such example can be found here:

252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 248+ SpD Sableye-Mega: 151-178 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO (Pre-transformation).

After using Snarl:

-1 252 SpA Choice Specs Greninja Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 248+ SpD Sableye-Mega: 102-120 (33.5 - 39.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (Pre-transformation).

This either allows Sableye to force a switch on the example given and heal back the damage it took, or Recover freely and decrease its opponent’s Special Attack further if they choose to stay in. I merely used Greninja as an example because, even before transforming to an extent, it is a deadly special attacker that can easily pick off weakened targets to achieve said transformation and become even more of a problem.

The main flaw here is that this both requires Mega Sableye to be, well, Mega Evolved, or get a free switch into Greninja. However, aother example can be found here:

Pre-Snarl: 252 SpA Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 248+ SpD Sableye-Mega in Electric Terrain: 118-139 (38.8 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Post-Snarl: -1 252 SpA Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 248+ SpD Sableye-Mega in Electric Terrain: 79-94 (25.9 - 30.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

Tapu Koko at -1 does very little damage to Sableye with this utility if it lacks Dazzling Gleam, and risks losing its item or letting Sableye heal. In the best case for its user, they are forced to pivot out or outright switch if they lack a pivot move.

Additionally, the meta is very matchup-dependent, and Sableye can (from my experience) function well against most matchups, whether it be spreading burns first in its base form or being a bulky nuisance after the fact as a Mega. Because of this, I wish to nominate Mega Sableye from B+ to at A-/A Rank.

 

[Thunder Pwoell]

I think this conversation of (mostly) arbitrary arguments has carried on for long enough; Mega Venusaur discussion is now blacklisted.

I think it's time to bring up regular venusaur, obviously ive ran game in sun and I used a slightly mixed set with EQ.

Venu without growth is harder to sweep with but it's pretty powerful and u can ko A LOT of mons with LO solarbeam (+SpA obviously). If you wanna run a non eq set in sun, you can do growth, solar beam, sludge bomb and hp of ur choice (fire or like ground or something random for ur team). thoughts on it's place? sun is really good right now and has always been good this tier but overlooked for some reason?

I wast just bringing it up for discussion but iight ask and you shall receive:


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821446023
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821434735
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821359856
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821301935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821272309
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821100032
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-934324800

 

[Robot7620]

I think it's time to bring up regular venusaur, obviously ive ran game in sun and I used a slightly mixed set with EQ.

Venu without growth is harder to sweep with but it's pretty powerful and u can ko A LOT of mons with LO solarbeam (+SpA obviously). If you wanna run a non eq set in sun, you can do growth, solar beam, sludge bomb and hp of ur choice (fire or like ground or something random for ur team). thoughts on it's place? sun is really good right now and has always been good this tier but overlooked for some reason?

I wast just bringing it up for discussion but iight ask and you shall receive:


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821446023
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821434735
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821359856
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821301935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821272309
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821100032
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-934324800

mostly because sand and rain has been dominating, but yes it's a beast in sun, especially with growth, it's hard to stop. The main problem with sun is there are no viable users besides Torkoal and Yard, but Xard generally brings more to sun than Yard.
But venusaur is obviously heart and soul of sun, so it shouldn't be UR, i'm suggesting C or C+, I think B- is a stretch

 

[Sputnik]

I think it's time to bring up regular venusaur, obviously ive ran game in sun and I used a slightly mixed set with EQ.

Venu without growth is harder to sweep with but it's pretty powerful and u can ko A LOT of mons with LO solarbeam (+SpA obviously). If you wanna run a non eq set in sun, you can do growth, solar beam, sludge bomb and hp of ur choice (fire or like ground or something random for ur team). thoughts on it's place? sun is really good right now and has always been good this tier but overlooked for some reason?

I wast just bringing it up for discussion but iight ask and you shall receive:


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821446023
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821434735
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821359856
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821301935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821272309
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821100032
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-934324800

I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with regular Venusaur being ranked...but I think it shouldn't be unless Torkoal gets put on the VR as well. Koal is often the heart and soul of any sun team thanks to Drought and a surprisingly decent utility movepool. This isn't an official nom, (I'm not good enough at this tier for that) but it's something that could be worth discussing if you ask me.

 

[Thunder Pwoell]

I'm not saying that I necessarily disagree with regular Venusaur being ranked...but I think it shouldn't be unless Torkoal gets put on the VR as well. Koal is often the heart and soul of any sun team thanks to Drought and a surprisingly decent utility movepool. This isn't an official nom, (I'm not good enough at this tier for that) but it's something that could be worth discussing if you ask me.

if u are in high ladder or watch my replays u can actually see that I run a bit of a modest offensive torkal and it's actually pretty good. u laugh at kart bc kart is pitiful and u do like 85% to lando lmao with fire blast (not even max spa either). I ranked it in my own VR, I definitely agree on it being ranked. (u alos live specs surf in sun)

 

[pomfpomfpluff]

Not that it matters at this point, but when using this mon you should have a plan and keep it for late game or an emergencies. removing huge power or scrappy is not a small feat at all, and it can win u the game.

My problem with cofagrigus is that it doesn't do much aside from checking knock off less physical attackers. It gets crippled insanely easily and will usually get chipped to death, which is why I don't see how it counters mega medi. It can only switch in on mega medi 2 times before getting KO'd, which is pretty bad. The fact that there are better physical walls that actually do something else really puts a nail in the coffin for cofagriguses viability.

IS it the best mon in the tier - no, but it deserves recognition for sure. It can wall bulky mons and stop physical sweeps that rely on abilities such as rain sweeps and sand sweeps. Since you have used it, I won't be mean and say a bunch of non sequiturs but I will say that just because you havent had success with it, does not mean that there is evidence of it being bad.

My problem with it is that it's niche isn't really that good. Sure, it can switch into mega medi twice, which is pretty impressive but that and checking knock off less physical attackers is all it does. Beating pert doesn't mean much when ash gren gets a free switchin to do whatever it wants against you for one turn, which could change the game.

And it getting easily chipped and statused makes it useless vs stall, semi-stall and balance, which is a huge disadvantage since both balance and semi-stall are arguably the two most dominant playstyles. Just because it has a niche doesn't mean that it's viable.

My success with it had nothing to do with my opinion of it, as it was already low before I used it. And in my opinion, an extremely one dimensionable mon, that is dead weight against stall, balance and semi-stall, that only walls a handful of extremely ability reliant, non setup mons and that gets crippled by one of the most common physical moves in knock off isn't really something I'd call viable.

 

[silent ghost]

I think it's time to bring up regular venusaur, obviously ive ran game in sun and I used a slightly mixed set with EQ.

Venu without growth is harder to sweep with but it's pretty powerful and u can ko A LOT of mons with LO solarbeam (+SpA obviously). If you wanna run a non eq set in sun, you can do growth, solar beam, sludge bomb and hp of ur choice (fire or like ground or something random for ur team). thoughts on it's place? sun is really good right now and has always been good this tier but overlooked for some reason?

I wast just bringing it up for discussion but iight ask and you shall receive:


https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821446023
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821434735
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821359856
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821301935
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821272309
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-821100032
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-934324800

This also begs the question is reg veno going to be ranked, shouldn't amoonguss? Since they pretty much do the same thing in the sun, it also can run solar beam, and growth+stomping tantrum. And has spore.

 

[Jordy]

This also begs the question is reg veno going to be ranked, shouldn't amoonguss? Since they pretty much do the same thing in the sun, it also can run solar beam, and growth+stomping tantrum. And has spore.

Before anyone else responds, I'll bite. I really don't understand how the comparison between Amoonguss and Venusaur is even made to begin with; Amoonguss is a bulky pivot with Regenerator, while Venusaur is a sweeper under sun. No, they do not do the same thing simply because they share a typing.

Besides that, Amoonguss is already ranked.

To anyone else, please don't respond to this or the above post. Discussion has been going off topic a lot lately and I really don't want to do more about it than we already do.

 

[Solaros & Lunaris]

Time to echo some noms!

to A
to A+

I’m pairing these two together because they have really switched places within the metagame imo. While MegaZam is not terrible by any means, it’s weakness to Spikes and tendency to be crippled by Heatran on switch-in whether by Toxic or a Z-Move (ie Bloom Doom) really holds it back. Meanwhile, Latias is immune to Spikes, and while it can also be crippled by Heatran, it has the bulk to actually Roost to mitigate Toxic. Also, it checks Bulu, Kart (very important) and all three SD Grounds (surviving all of the moves on switch-in unless boosted while slapping with Ice Beam). We’re starting to see Clef+Ferro+Lati builds again, which it does really well on too. Overall, while Zam has been a declining metagame presence, Latias has risen to take its place.

to B+/A-, preferably B+

This. Mon. Is. Incredible. Previously, I wouldn’t have wanted to rank it higher than B+ on account of the fact that Kommo-o needed to be built around, but that is no longer the case. While Z and BD are incredibly threatening sets, SpDef is a set that can fit on several teams, ranging from BO to stall which has quite a few set permutations. For example, Dragon Tail can phase many traditional checks to the standard DP+Tox set, most notably SD Gliscor. EQ+Flamethrower+Toxic hits much of the metagame at large while maintaining its status as a great Rocker. Also, no matter what set it runs, Clanger capitalizes on the many Ferrothorns, Heatrans and Ash-Greninjas of the metagame.

to A-

In a metagame filled to the brim with balance teams, Kyu-B thrives again. If its not guaranteeing a kill once per match, it’s at least going to force a trade. I’ve also been trying out Substitute recently over Earth Power, and I can say it’s pretty good. Being able to turn non-Gyro Ferro or a Gliscor or a Latias into Sub fodder can allow you to avoid status, take a dangerous hit or if you’re really feeling it, fire a nonZ-Freeze Shock. Losing Earth Power doesn’t feel like a big loss, as Heatran and Washtom aren’t really switching in and don’t really like Fusion Bolt, especially when boosted by Electric Terrain.

to B+ (and I guess because its good with it, to B)

Gambitini in the worst case scenario may just Trick a Scarf onto something, but even that momentum drain can be huge for your team. It’s ability to check several attackers, like MegaZam, Kartana, M-Medi or Bulu, can be a huge help in teambuilding. Also, netting 404 HP on a random mon can often mean a gg for the opponent. Also because we’ve seen Tini+Zard+Tran teams, I wanted to mention Zard+Band Tini, which feels almost impossible to check without something like carefully played Tyranitar, as even Toxagod is 2hkoed by Band V-Create in Sun.

and to B+

Last but not least, the two Regenerators. I’m moreso an advocate for Slowbro to rise, so I will explain that first. The lack of a Ground type weakness + Ice Beam makes this a mon that wins the 1v1 vs Gliscor, which Toxapex will never do. Past that, Bro has a decent offensive presence and a decent movepool to at least cripple an incoming check. Checking non-Toxic/Bloom Doom Heatran is also great for a lot of teams (its also something Pex cannot do). Lastly, it checks the Medis and Lops running around rn, and makes avgood partner for the latter since it lures Dark-types in to be taken advantage of. Amoonguss is the other half of Toxapex that Slowbro is missing. It’s a solid Ash-Greninja check and Toxic Spikes absorber, but it has the most broken move in the game: Spore. Barring MVenu (which can’t touch it), Guss threatens most of the Spore deterrents (Grasses and the Tapus are scared of Sludge Bomb, while Ferrothorn can’t eat too many HP Fires), letting it drop the Spore easily for its teammates.

 

[PsyducksChili]

It’s the end of USUM (thank fucking god) so I’m gonna make a big boy post to celebrate the end of this god forsaken gen.

—> C
If anything deserves a place on the VR, it’s these boys. Sun has been seeing more and more usage due to people like Ske and Zaza. All replays will be (mostly) of them, btw.

Replays

weavile sun in action - zaza
typhlo dissects stall - zaza
rain annihilated - zaza
sun eats ttar - ske
sun demolishes veil ho - ske
sun beats sand - hellfire clubb
sun murders standard mons - crapteamalt
sun defeats brainless 6 sweeper team - cleann
bonus salt replay - drake the 6ix god

So, now that the boring replay shit is done, let us get to the juicy part.
Sun shitpumps stall, as shown in the second replay. It does it even better than sand, because Venusaur is way more threatening than Excadrill with growth and chlorophyll (objective). Common stall mons just fall over to any hit from Zard X, as well, but with the help of our good friend, Torkoal, it’s flare blitzes are boosted to nosebleed heights. Here are some calcs to prove my point.

Calcs

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Rotom-Wash in Sun: 204-241 (67.1 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Latias in Sun: 311-366 (85.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 68 Def Landorus-Therian in Sun: 387-456 (121.3 - 142.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Swampert-Mega in Sun: 263-310 (77.1 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon in Sun: 313-369 (96.3 - 113.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

I don’t know about you, but that is fucking absurd. Imagine doing 79.2% to something as bulky as Rotom-W with a resisted hit. After one DD, Zard-X with sun is able to rip through many teams, even ones with Heatrans, Rotoms, Landos, and TTars. Sun is just THAT powerful
Next, lets talk about the fat, annoying, fun to battle Pokèmon that are all over these teams. The first on that comes to mind is Cresselia. This thing is not messing around. It gets 75% healing moonlight, it has 120/120/130 bulk, AND it has a huge movepool, with moves like ice beam, moonblast, etc. Torkoal is slept on. This thing lives all hits. 70/140/70 bulk is okay, but with defense evs, it lives almost anything.
Now, I mentioned Venusaur, but I haven’t talked about him too much. He’s your generic weather sweeper, like TG Mana on rain, SD Drill on sand, even Alola Sandslash on hail. There isn’t really much to say about it, since it’s entire point is to set up growth and hope the opponent doesn’t have anything to revenge it. Still pretty powerful. It also provides a water resistance like Ferrothorn checking grasses on rain teams, or Tangrowth helping eq users from wreaking havoc on sand teams. But all in all, Venusaur is great. Venusaur is a god tier cleaner, destroys stall teams, and with its solid bulk has many chances to set up growth. And once it gets growth, if you don't have something like Heatran or Alakazam, you have a real chance to win outright with Venusaur.
Now, before I end the post, I just wanna show some teams that feature sun that I am a big fan of.

Fini Sun - by PsyducksChili
Pretty generic sun team. Fun to use on the ladder, tho

Alakazam Sun - by ???
Cool sun team. It’s pretty heat, but it’s still nice.

Zard-X + Magearna Sun - by Ske
This is a great team to spam on the ladder. It’s very consistent and can do pretty well in most battles.

Latios + Z Grass Venusaur - by Ske
This team is literally blessed. I’ve never lost when using it. I highly recommend it for newer sun users.

Weavile Sun - by Zaza
This is THE sun team. It represents the playstyle really well and is an overall cool squad.

Semi-TR Sun - by Zaza
Stakataka is really fun on sun. This is one of my fav sun teams, aswell.

Glalie Hazard Stack Sun - by Zaza
If you see this on the ladder, click x. There’s no point in even trying. Fr tho, mad respect to Zaza for creating this beauty. One of my all time favs.

CONCLUSION: Sun is a great weather that has seen more usage lately due to more players using it, and it works in all kinds of situations. All the teams I showed you guys work perfectly in this metagame, and I definitely recommend trying them out. I know it’s the last few weeks of gen 7 and the VR is gonna be filled with shitposts and such, but I really wanted to share this with people before SM ends.

Special thanks to Zaza for helping me write this, too

 

[Zaza]

It’s the end of USUM (thank fucking god) so I’m gonna make a big boy post to celebrate the end of this god forsaken gen.
View attachment 202735View attachment 202737—> C
If anything deserves a place on the VR, it’s these boys. Sun has been seeing more and more usage due to people like Ske and Zaza. All replays will be (mostly) of them, btw.

Replays

weavile sun in action - zaza
typhlo dissects stall - zaza
rain annihilated - zaza
sun eats ttar - ske
sun demolishes veil ho - ske
sun beats sand - hellfire clubb
sun murders standard mons - crapteamalt
sun defeats brainless 6 sweeper team - cleann
bonus salt replay - drake the 6ix god

So, now that the boring replay shit is done, let us get to the juicy part.
Sun shitpumps stall, as shown in the second replay. It does it even better than sand, because Venusaur is way more threatening than Excadrill with growth and chlorophyll (objective). Common stall mons just fall over to any hit from Zard X, as well, but with the help of our good friend, Torkoal, it’s flare blitzes are boosted to nosebleed heights. Here are some calcs to prove my point.

Calcs

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 200+ Def Rotom-Wash in Sun: 204-241 (67.1 - 79.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Latias in Sun: 311-366 (85.4 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 68 Def Landorus-Therian in Sun: 387-456 (121.3 - 142.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Swampert-Mega in Sun: 263-310 (77.1 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+1 252 Atk Tough Claws Charizard-Mega-X Flare Blitz vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hydreigon in Sun: 313-369 (96.3 - 113.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

I don’t know about you, but that is fucking absurd. Imagine doing 79.2% to something as bulky as Rotom-W with a resisted hit. After one DD, Zard-X with sun is able to rip through many teams, even ones with Heatrans, Rotoms, Landos, and TTars. Sun is just THAT powerful
Next, lets talk about the fat, annoying, fun to battle Pokèmon that are all over these teams. The first on that comes to mind is Cresselia. This thing is not messing around. It gets 75% healing moonlight, it has 120/120/130 bulk, AND it has a huge movepool, with moves like ice beam, moonblast, etc. Torkoal is slept on. This thing lives all hits. 70/140/70 bulk is okay, but with defense evs, it lives almost anything.
Now, I mentioned Venusaur, but I haven’t talked about him too much. He’s your generic weather sweeper, like TG Mana on rain, SD Drill on sand, even Alola Sandslash on hail. There isn’t really much to say about it, since it’s entire point is to set up growth and hope the opponent doesn’t have anything to revenge it. Still pretty powerful. It also provides a water resistance like Ferrothorn checking grasses on rain teams, or Tangrowth helping eq users from wreaking havoc on sand teams. But all in all, Venusaur is great. Venusaur is a god tier cleaner, destroys stall teams, and with its solid bulk has many chances to set up growth.
Now, before I end the post, I just wanna show some teams that feature sun that I am a big fan of.
View attachment 202741View attachment 202742View attachment 202743View attachment 202745View attachment 202746View attachment 202748
Fini Sun - by PsyducksChili
Pretty generic sun team. Fun to use on the ladder, tho
View attachment 202750View attachment 202751View attachment 202752View attachment 202753View attachment 202754View attachment 202755
Alakazam Sun - by ???
Cool sun team. It’s pretty heat, but it’s still nice.
View attachment 202756View attachment 202757View attachment 202758View attachment 202759View attachment 202760View attachment 202761
Zard-X + Magearna Sun - by Ske
This is a great team to spam on the ladder. It’s very consistent and can do pretty well in most battles.
View attachment 202764View attachment 202765View attachment 202766View attachment 202767View attachment 202768View attachment 202769
Latios + Z Grass Venusaur - by Ske
This team is literally blessed. I’ve never lost when using it. I highly recommend it for newer sun users.
View attachment 202770View attachment 202772View attachment 202773View attachment 202776View attachment 202777View attachment 202778
Weavile Sun - by Zaza
This is THE sun team. It represents the playstyle really well and is an overall cool squad.
View attachment 202781View attachment 202782View attachment 202783View attachment 202784View attachment 202785View attachment 202786
Semi-TR Sun - by Zaza
Stakataka is really fun on sun. This is one of my fav sun teams, aswell.
View attachment 202788View attachment 202789View attachment 202790View attachment 202791View attachment 202792View attachment 202793
Glalie Hazard Stack Sun - by Zaza
If you see this on the ladder, click x. There’s no point in even trying. Fr tho, mad respect to Zaza for creating this beauty. One of my all time favs.

CONCLUSION: Sun is a great weather that has seen more usage lately due to more players using it, and it works in all kinds of situations. All the teams I showed you guys work perfectly in this metagame, and I definitely recommend trying them out. I know it’s the last few weeks of gen 7 and the VR is gonna be filled with shitposts and such, but I really wanted to share this with people before SM ends.

Special thanks to Zaza for helping me write this, too

To echo some of what he said I would also want to address a few things pertaining to Venusaur in particular and also Sun as a whole. I'll bring up potential counterclaims to potential things said about sun as a whole and Venusaur within this VR post to show you why Venusaur should 100% be on VR and why sun as a whole should be taken a little but more seriously.

1) Sun isn't used in tournament play so it can't be very good.

This statement is completely true as sun in general has barely been explored itself and has just recently just barely gotten any glimpse of traction on even just ladder (not exactly the best representation I'll admit of the meta), but with all of that said, sun has blindly ignored potential in the first place so anyone looking around for ideas likely ignore the possibilities that has to offer in the first place. Sun as a play style on its own as a spam to overwhelm the opposition will lead to inconsistent play if solely relied upon, but its a wonderful aspect to any team in general because of its unique traits against many teams in general like stall, rain, and balance teams that can be common. Balance of course is just utterly destroyed by a wide number of of sun sweepers and breakers, which at the moment is king once more. Sun is notoriously known to dismantle stall to microscopic pieces, leaving a blazed trail of the remains of your poor chansey. Rain teams at first seems like "dude thats such a easy win", but most rain teams have quite the contrastingly different outcome against sun then most people would potentially expect. Sun halves rain's STAB by 50%, has Venusaur who sweeps rain in general, and Torkoal annoys most rain teams hazard setter ferrothorn while luring peli to toxic's and easy rapid spins on ferrothorn. Ferrothorn is likely there only hazard setter, meaning only rocker, you leave sun with 0 fear of hazards your team will get decimated completely in a matter of moments. Other play styles against sun are also things sun can handle, even sand as long as you have something else that doesn't rely on sun to win.

2. Sun is just a worse rain or sand team.

I'll ask you this question to anyone who claims this, do you build sand and rain the same? Most peoples answers are likely to be no, so apply that same logic to sun and you can see what makes sun potentially good once you learn how to build with it. Rain is a worse sun and sand depending on perspectives, likewise with sand is a worse sun and rain, they're just build differently to core of each archetype. For what sun offers in general over the sand and rain, sun has a fire stab thats very easy to spam within games while also offering a great sweeper in Venusaur that deals with certain builds better then stuff like rain who has a hard time with grasses and waters and sand which doesnt get a boosted stab. Sun is a more niche in comparison to rain and sand but sun's flexibility with how you build but yet a very good boosted STAB in fire makes it solid in this meta against a ton of opponents in general. Reasoning for why Hail (veil tbh) isn't mentioned because its objectively inferior to screens or any other weather in general, only a sliver of hope comes when you add Mega Tyranitar with DD on a veil team, not exactly hail.

Onto Venusaur and why it should be on VR.

Reason:
The amount of teams that have real checks are limited in general and Venusaur's traits as a sweeper are extremely favorable in general.

Venusaur has been in solid position in the meta even with the existing Heatran, rising usage of Kommo-o, and Mega Alakazam because of its unique STAB moves, solid coverage options, great speed, and decent bulk. Venusaur at +2 gets a ton of ohko's that make wanna-be checks turn into BBQ such as Zapdos, Non-AV Magearna, Rachi scarf, Celesteela after tiny bit of chip, Toxapex with Grassium Z, Landorus T, Latias Mega with Poison Z, Kommo-o with Poison Z, and plenty of others. Its bulk allows it to tank hits such as Mega Pinsir's Quick Attack after LO recoil, Scarf Greninja's Ice Beam, Avoid 2hko from Banded Bulu 90% of the time uninvested, Sucker Punch into Water Shuriken from Mmaw+Asg Gren after LO recoil, avoid smart strike from scarf tana even after 30% chip damage, and also avoid ohko from Mega Scizor at +2 if defensive after rocks, if 252 adamant, then its a roll around 56% from full. Venusaur also has the unique and helpful utility as a spore absorb and a t-spike absorb, making it extremely effective against bulkier builds.

With Suns' ability to lure a majority of Venusaur's checks, Venusaur might be the best cleaner in OU.

With all the traits listed from earlier about Venusaur and with its alarmingly high speed, it makes Venusaur a prime candidate for being the best in OU as a sweeper as most ways to revenge kill require you to outright wall it and then kill it or you have Mega Alakazam, which both are lured/trapped in many ways that you can use on sun. Venusaur isnt exactly easy to wall either because of its ability to beat most walls by ohko or just winning the 1v1, opening doors for teammates too. Venusaur can act as a wall breaker and cleaner at the same time, like sd drill and mega swampert, but none of those pokemon have the STAB moves or ability to gain HP back to preform both roles in the same game as effectively as Venusaur, therefore I say that Venusaur should be C ranked.

If there are any questions, rebuttals, or anything you think I missed feel free to express that and I'll look into it.

 

[pomfpomfpluff]

I'd like to give my opinion of a few rises that I agree with.

Venusaur UR --> C-/C Agree
I really don't like sun, but the posts above have changed my mind on it. I still don't like sun much as a team archetype, but I do think that venusaur itself is viable as a sun sweeper. The combination of an amazing setup move, amazing coverage and an alright defensive typing is enough for me to think it should at least be ranked in C-.

VictiniB --> B+ Agree
I've always thought that victini was underrated, but only the choiced sets. Z celebrate is still garbage but the other sets are definately underrated imo.

Banded has nuclear amounts of power behind it, V-create is just such a powerful move that can even muscle past resists and when it doesn't do that, Victini's coverage comes in clutch, with Bolt Strike beating every bulky water not named quagsire and U-turn being amzing for momentum.

Scarf has alot of added utility with Final Gambit and Trick being good moves that can ruin a mon if hit sucessfully. otherwis, it pretty much functions as great speed control with amazing power behind it.

Slowbro B --> B+ Agree
With Mega-Medicham being a massive threat to the current meta, having what's essentially a Toxapex that can beat Mega-Medicham is a huge deal. Checking Heatran is also nice and the added offense and coverage is pretty appreciated. Obviously having a dark weakness is terrible with Greninja everywhere is horrible, it's spdef is less than desirable and the psychic typing being pretty bad defensively hurts it alot but I still think that it has the qualities of a B+ mon.

Gliscor A --> A+ Agree
At first I thought that A+ was way too high for what I thought was essentially a worse Landorus, now that I've actually used it I've seen what it can actually do. It's ability to be an amazing Toxapex check while also checking Heatran and some grounds without ice coverage is an amazing quality, and it does this while also being a massive threat with sd or setting up/removing hazards. It's ability to also dismantle stall is also an amazing quality.

 

[Archer Kirby]

Interesting discussion about sun, so I think i'll give my thoughts on it. Firstly I support Torkoal for C- but I don't think it should be any higher. It sets sun for its team which is vital and while it has a niche setting rocks and spinning them for its team, you don't usually want your sun setter that has no recovery to take more hits then it needs to. There are other pokemon such as Uxie which are stuck in C- for the same reason, they set up things for their team, but do little else so I think Torkoal will fit right in. Someone might point out that Cress is C, but Cress has access to recovery and Lunar Dance which are much stronger tools then what Torkal has.

In regards to rain being a better playstyle then sun. I feel that should that should be obvious. There are several reasons why rain is dominant and widely used while sun is barely explored and feels situational to use. The first is that pokemon with Swift Swim such as Mega Pert benefit from not just a speed boost, but also a boost to their stab water attacks while sun abusers have to pick one or the other. Rain also has more abusers that don't just do the same thing, such as Mega Pert, Kingdra, Manaphy, Ash Greninja and on the rarer sides, Torn-T and Koko abusing hurricane and thunder respectively. Sun has Venu, Mega Doom and Victini but other mons don't either benefit from sun directly or are similar such as Victreebel. Sun also has the pleasure of being weak to rocks which is huge considering Torkoal has no recovery, Mega Doom is already killing itself due to sun, and Victini is lowering its own bulk with V-Create. Even Venu can get worn down fast due to LO recoil but at least it has giga drain to compensate. There are rockers like Garchomp which sun does not want to deal with.

Sun is able to nuke stall yes, it's almost GG from match preview but rain is having a rise of Manaphy which does the same to stall teams not running Shedinja or Ditto (Pyuk can also work but is susceptible to drops from psychic/eball), so even that advantage is gone. in terms of spammable stab, Fire Blast is as accurate as Hydro, and V-Create isn't what I'd call spammable though it does hit extremely hard and like I said earlier, sun really wants that speed + stab boost that some rain abusers get. Sun pokemon are also very vulnerable outside of sun whereas pokemon like Ash-Gren and Ferrothorn are still great and Manaphy can even set up its own rain. Sun also sucks against rain which doesn't help, like just pelipper alone hits your main setter and all common abusers with Scald + Hurricane. Pelipper also has Roost for recovery, and a slow Uturn to get its abusers in safely, which is something sun setters don't have. At this point I've went on enough, but yeah, I think sun is definitely worse then rain, not just niche but worse overall.

Onto Venu, it is by far the best abuser on sun imo, it has a lot going for it so I'm not against this mon being ranked especially with how much garbage is in the lower ranks but I don't think its higher then C. I think the main issues with Venu are its predictability, deadweight outside of weather and its horrible 4MSS. People say its not predictable but I fail to see how you look at Venusaur on a sun team, and think its not running growth. Growth giving +2 to both attack and spa in sun is the sole reason people are using this. Venusaur's coverage is also very linear, consisting of HP, Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain/Solarbeam and the occasional EQ. Yet somehow despite having such a small movepool, it still gets slammed by 4MSS since the choice between HP Fire and HP Ground is so hard.

Your options basically are this, do I run HP Fire and give Heatran free sun boosted Magma Storms because venu can't damage it with Giga or Sludge, or do you run HP Ground to beat Heatran, but lose to Ferrothorn which is also common and makes your rain mu almost unwinnable because your main/only grass is hardwalled (will post calcs below) and also lose to Celesteela, Mega Scizor and Skarm which has started picking back up. dropping sludge bomb for EQ also isn't an option since losing the ability to hit Fairies is huge and pokemon like Zapdos and Torn-T would also wall you for free. This choice between HPs means that venu can feel unreliable at times because it can get walled so easily by common mons. Outside of Sun, Venu just sucks, 80 speed just is not enough for a sweeper and growth is back to its pitiful +1. but all things said I do see viability in this mon.

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Ferrothorn: 103-122 (29.2 - 34.6%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball (150 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Venusaur: 178-211 (59.1 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Hidden Power Ground vs. 248 HP / 244 SpD Scizor-Mega: 125-147 (36.4 - 42.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 Atk Technician Scizor-Mega Bullet Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Venusaur: 108-127 (35.8 - 42.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

TLDR; Torkoal carries sun on its back as a setter and should be ranked in C- alongside other setters like Uxie. Venu is best sun abuser and I feel it should be C-/C. Rain is much better then Sun overall with it only getting stronger with players exploring different options to have better matchups.

 

[Robot7620]

Ok one thing Fire Blast is more accurate than Hydro plus has chance to burn
Also does Venusaur not run HP Fire now
You have Xard to beat Tran
just nitpicking some things as I skimmed along

 

[Jordy]

Just as a heads up, the final VR update for SM as the current generation will be soon, so get your nominations in asap. The thread will be locked after the final slate.

 

[Robot7620]

Just as a heads up, the final VR update for SM as the current generation will be soon, so get your nominations in asap. The thread will be locked after the final slate.

Um can u nominate a blacklisted pokemon

 

[Colonel M]

Um can u nominate a blacklisted pokemon

No

(I kept this public so it's made clear).

 

[Thunder Pwoell]

I feel like you don't run sun and havent really used it so lets just address this one by one.

Interesting discussion about sun, so I think i'll give my thoughts on it. Firstly I support Torkoal for C- but I don't think it should be any higher. It sets sun for its team which is vital and while it has a niche setting rocks and spinning them for its team, you don't usually want your sun setter that has no recovery to take more hits then it needs to. There are other pokemon such as Uxie which are stuck in C- for the same reason, they set up things for their team, but do little else so I think Torkoal will fit right in. Someone might point out that Cress is C, but Cress has access to recovery and Lunar Dance which are much stronger tools then what Torkal has.

I've actually used torkoal late game offensively as sun boosted fire blast hits a lot harder than you give it credit for. Also, it only needs to just exist, it's extremely bulky and Ive sat there and killed landos late game bc I’m not afraid of them lmao, EQ does like 60%. This thing laughs at physical attackers and doesnt really need recovery, it does it's job pretty well. It also is a reliable rocker, If you want replays,here is a lot:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-978313720
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977033799
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976991564
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976996141-3p3dha4wr2f3zpvjiayjn9px5l6pjc3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977967062-nn4bfnitbsdzy33sdy525vcgtsj451tpw


NEXT

In regards to rain being a better playstyle then sun. I feel that should that should be obvious. There are several reasons why rain is dominant and widely used while sun is barely explored and feels situational to use. The first is that pokemon with Swift Swim such as Mega Pert benefit from not just a speed boost, but also a boost to their stab water attacks while sun abusers have to pick one or the other. Rain also has more abusers that don't just do the same thing, such as Mega Pert, Kingdra, Manaphy, Ash Greninja and on the rarer sides, Torn-T and Koko abusing hurricane and thunder respectively. Sun has Venu, Mega Doom and Victini but other mons don't either benefit from sun directly or are similar such as Victreebel. Sun also has the pleasure of being weak to rocks which is huge considering Torkoal has no recovery, Mega Doom is already killing itself due to sun, and Victini is lowering its own bulk with V-Create. Even Venu can get worn down fast due to LO recoil but at least it has giga drain to compensate. There are rockers like Garchomp which sun does not want to deal with.

I mean first off, no.

You can run hp fire if you really want and you get solar beam and growths off. It's pretty good; also having hurricane miss is also great. I'm actually shocked you brought up
"in also has more abusers that don't just do the same thing, such as Mega Pert, Kingdra, Manaphy, Ash Greninja and on the rarer sides, Torn-T and Koko abusing hurricane and thunder respectively."
Which while is true that hurricane and thunder are boosted, ignores what fire brings. First off, fire mons get a boost in their already high attacks that water straight up doesnt have and it works out to be stronger than pert in rain (flare blitz) and kingdra in rain (solar beam + item, or growthed attacks).
This community is very group-think-y and very damn near monolithic and feedback loopy. I’m not going to entertain your point of "There are several reasons why rain is dominant and widely used while sun is barely explored and feels situational to use. " because 99% of you dont explore at all, adamantly refuse to explore, and criticize those who do. (do not respond to this point as I will flame you in the dms as this is not something I’m going to give any leeway on)

Sun is able to nuke stall yes, it's almost GG from match preview but rain is having a rise of Manaphy which does the same to stall teams not running Shedinja or Ditto (Pyuk can also work but is susceptible to drops from psychic/eball), so even that advantage is gone. in terms of spammable stab, Fire Blast is as accurate as Hydro, and V-Create isn't what I'd call spammable though it does hit extremely hard and like I said earlier, sun really wants that speed + stab boost that some rain abusers get. Sun pokemon are also very vulnerable outside of sun whereas pokemon like Ash-Gren and Ferrothorn are still great and Manaphy can even set up its own rain. Sun also sucks against rain which doesn't help, like just pelipper alone hits your main setter and all common abusers with Scald + Hurricane. Pelipper also has Roost for recovery, and a slow Uturn to get its abusers in safely, which is something sun setters don't have. At this point I've went on enough, but yeah, I think sun is definitely worse then rain, not just niche but worse overall.

This is just wrong. V-create is VERY spammable lmao, ive never seen someone say that especially in sun. You run up you click it once or twice and get out. Furthermore, in sun you also can run z celebrate which boosts searing shot to okoing specially bulky levels. It's truly amazing.
Fire blast is actually more accurate than hydro by 5% but anyway, sun abusers get boosting moves that arent ran rain, like dragon dance for one ( zard x which is actually not vulnerable outside of sun. in fact most fire mons other than the growth sweepers arent vulnerable outside sun, and even the ones that have growth usually get a kill or 2. Sun ironically beats rain, which is something youd know if you ran sun, as sun can run zard y, and has grass types.

As for the getting in ur abusers safely, considering that pelipper just got drizzle, and that politoad was used since it's inception until now and doesnt have utrun and rain was still here, I’m just going to ignore that point as it's just extremely mute and negligible. Just predict or get better to get it in, it's nto that hard. I legit ran mono fire and was able to get switches in safely. You also can hit hard with torkal a turn or so, it's pretty easy. (YOU ALSO CAN RUN ZARD Y)

NEXT POINT

Onto Venu, it is by far the best abuser on sun imo, it has a lot going for it so I'm not against this mon being ranked especially with how much garbage is in the lower ranks but I don't think its higher then C. I think the main issues with Venu are its predictability, deadweight outside of weather and its horrible 4MSS. People say its not predictable but I fail to see how you look at Venusaur on a sun team, and think its not running growth. Growth giving +2 to both attack and spa in sun is the sole reason people are using this. Venusaur's coverage is also very linear, consisting of HP, Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain/Solarbeam and the occasional EQ. Yet somehow despite having such a small movepool, it still gets slammed by 4MSS since the choice between HP Fire and HP Ground is so hard.

Your options basically are this, do I run HP Fire and give Heatran free sun boosted Magma Storms because venu can't damage it with Giga or Sludge, or do you run HP Ground to beat Heatran, but lose to Ferrothorn which is also common and makes your rain mu almost unwinnable because your main/only grass is hardwalled (will post calcs below) and also lose to Celesteela, Mega Scizor and Skarm which has started picking back up. dropping sludge bomb for EQ also isn't an option since losing the ability to hit Fairies is huge and pokemon like Zapdos and Torn-T would also wall you for free. This choice between HPs means that venu can feel unreliable at times because it can get walled so easily by common mons. Outside of Sun, Venu just sucks, 80 speed just is not enough for a sweeper and growth is back to its pitiful +1. but all things said I do see viability in this mon.

Bro what the hell are you talking about lol. I actually dont even think venu is the best abuser I'd actually say victreebell is a better growth abuser, or victini or darm or zard x is a better sun abuser. maybe even scarf eruption in sun.. Anyway, this is a tier where people click water shuriken and no other move. Waterfall and eq every time, hydro and no other move, and play the exact same koko lucha way every single time. In this near monolithic stale meta... when has predictability EVER, EEEVVVVVEEER, been a problem with a mons viability. LANDO is predictable and you guys worship the ground it doesnt walk on. It's also kinda wrong as sun venu has several sets that are all viable, like I run eq and oko trans. Venu can run hp fire btw, and having solar beam plus sludge bomb when growthed is terrifying. Idk why youre downplaying that but ok. If youre growth eq does more btw.
P.S.
ur aware that Ive made several sun teams right? tran has NEVER been a problem, a lot of fire mons get fighting and earthquake, and tran is pretty easy to kil. Hell shiftry kills tran at +2 knock or hp ground if u have it. What in the world.....

RUN TO THE NEXT POINT

+2 252+ SpA Life Orb Venusaur Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 232+ SpD Ferrothorn: 103-122 (29.2 - 34.6%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

..............................................ferrothorn, a pokemon that is 4x weak to fire, is not a threat to a sun team.

 

[Deleted User 464209]

end of gen trash post comin' through
Raise Me

+2
Every time I make a new team, I think I'm good until I get absolutely blown open by one of the billion viable sets that victini can run. I would want to say there is a premier set or two, but literally all of scarf, band, Z-Vcreate, Assault Vest, Z-celebrate (and all the other sets I'm not mentioning) are disgustingly threatening, but most importantly, they all demand different counterplay. Scarf is pretty basic, until they reveal final gambit and you lose heatran. Band makes you lose a pokemon anytime you send in lele or magearna. Band with sun is just dumb. AV is a do everything mon. Celebrate destroys the pokemon that would check physical sets and is borderline uncompetitive with how easy it is to send in late and how hard it is to revenge if you dont have the team for it.

+1
Fake out+Quick attack sets are quite pleasant to use vs HO and setup spam. You can get away with dropping ice punch. Enjoys M-Ttar being used. A tough-to-punish HJK is proving its worth.

+1
Toxapex is all over the place. You come in on every other psychic bar Lele and have ability to blow hole in any team structure depending on set. Can mega zam say that? I think NP or Band are the best sets right now (and itemless--magician is very underrated). It is at least on par with the higher-ranked Kyurem-black as far as its breaking potential, though of course its frailness and ease of revenging leave something to be desired. Over the gen has distinguished itself from Lele, which had otherwise totally supplanted it as a specs wallbreaker.

+1
Nothing has changed for specs or the weirdo Z-fire sets. They are all walled by Kommo-o anyway. The blacephelon sets that you SHOULD be using is CM-Ghostium. If this gets to +1/+1/+1, there is very little in the meta that can revenge it. Obviously bring, Ttar answer, but otherwise, you cruise past traditional fire checks like heatran, toxapex, chomp and even specs gren. Tramples stall.

Calcs

+1 20 SpA Blacephalon Never-Ending Nightmare (160 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Heatran: 357-420 (110.5 - 130%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 20 SpA Blacephalon Never-Ending Nightmare (160 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Kommo-o: 358-423 (122.6 - 144.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+1 20 SpA Blacephalon Never-Ending Nightmare (160 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Garchomp: 426-502 (119.3 - 140.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Drop Me

-1
Still trashes weather teams, but I'm finding it harder to use. There is more priority and more stuff that is willing to take a psychic without much care. T-wave also the go-to on chansey now, so you can't use CM sets. I think M-Lati is better at clicking CM and sweeping offense. Debatably can maintain its spot for use on psychic spam teams, but I don't think it shines as much there. Prevalence of offensive heatran is also a burden.

-1
Ash gren has centralized things so much that out of all the myriad threats in OU, it is probably the most prepared for. It has a much more difficult time transforming than in the past -- Fini, Bulu, Pex, and now SpD Kommo-O are quite common. Still a borken pokemon, but I don't think you can slap it on a team and instantly patch any speed control issues. Water shuriken sweeps are thing of the past.

Rank Me

C
See post here

C
See post here

C-
With all the discussion of ranking Venusaur as a sun sweeper, I think victreebell also warrants inclusion, albeit as a very niche option. It has the exact same Spa as venu, so I'm not going to try to argue it outclasses in that front, which it doesn't. What it can do that venusaur cannot 1.) Physical sets with weatherball (100 BP Fire) so you dont have to deal with weather mindgames and have more immediate power outside of sun 2.) Run suckerpunch and OHKO mega-zam, if you happen to make your team weak to it. 3. use strength sap on non-growth sets to befuddle some checks. Sets up vs tapus, grasses, pex. Overall, I think it is the stronger growth user. Venu is probably best LO cleaner, as was mentioned earlier in here.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-999636517 -- wins vs cookie cutter OU at preview
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-999703049 -- cleans even after opponent tries to get fancy with intimidate

Random Calcs

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Victreebel Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 637-750 (90.6 - 106.6%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
+2 32 SpA Life Orb Victreebel Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Celesteela in Sun: 411-486 (103.2 - 122.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO yeah that's the one
+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Victreebel Power Whip vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Toxapex: 333-394 (109.5 - 129.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Victreebel Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Alakazam-Mega: 265-315 (105.5 - 125.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Victreebel Power Whip vs. 168 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar-Mega in Grassy Terrain: 390-462 (101.8 - 120.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Victreebel Power Whip vs. 248 HP / 16 Def Tapu Fini: 324-384 (94.4 - 111.9%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO after Leftovers recovery

C
With the recent Sun Renaissance^TM , it's been shown that teams do not need Zard-Y as a setter for drought, opening up avoid which mega houndoom fills quite cleanly. I can't understate how stupidly powerful this thing is under sun. It mandates a flashfire or 4x resist, the latter of which pretty much needs to be scarf. Not much meets these criteria. If you are really cool, you can run modest to straight OHKO max SpD pex at +2 with Fire Blast, but then you lose to a ton more matchups. 115 is a valuable speed tier, creeping past those 105-110 pokemon that usually like to force zard y out. Dark typing and a pre-mega flash fire let houndoom act as a rare offensive check to otherwise scary breakers. Sludge bomb cleanly bops the popular Fini. Still, 80% of its utility comes under sun.

Replays

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-999704973

Other stuff I dont have enough info on, but that feel off:

Too low for how much mawile is running around. Wish+Aggron is pretty cheesy vs most balance. No fire STAB Zpsychic volc plows through commons teams; bulky ones are actual defensive threat.

Why is this not ranked? Majorly being slept on imo.

Walls everything and I hate facing it. Makes me dream for more mag pull distribution. Lando-T at 50% usage or whatever.

+1 Flare Blitz with Roost

I want to say it's bad, but at the same time I see lots of CB kart. Also can pursuit trap the Mega-lati things.

When there's a heatran on every third team, there is something to be said for a reliable trapper or guaranteed revenge.

Lastly, Fight-Z Torn T feels unfair, but I don't see how you could raise it further, given what's above it.

 

[Zaza]

I feel like you don't run sun and havent really used it so lets just address this one by one.



I've actually used torkoal late game offensively as sun boosted fire blast hits a lot harder than you give it credit for. Also, it only needs to just exist, it's extremely bulky and Ive sat there and killed landos late game bc I’m not afraid of them lmao, EQ does like 60%. This thing laughs at physical attackers and doesnt really need recovery, it does it's job pretty well. It also is a reliable rocker, If you want replays,here is a lot:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-978313720
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977033799
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976991564
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976996141-3p3dha4wr2f3zpvjiayjn9px5l6pjc3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977967062-nn4bfnitbsdzy33sdy525vcgtsj451tpw


NEXT


I mean first off, no.

You can run hp fire if you really want and you get solar beam and growths off. It's pretty good; also having hurricane miss is also great. I'm actually shocked you brought up
"in also has more abusers that don't just do the same thing, such as Mega Pert, Kingdra, Manaphy, Ash Greninja and on the rarer sides, Torn-T and Koko abusing hurricane and thunder respectively."
Which while is true that hurricane and thunder are boosted, ignores what fire brings. First off, fire mons get a boost in their already high attacks that water straight up doesnt have and it works out to be stronger than pert in rain (flare blitz) and kingdra in rain (solar beam + item, or growthed attacks).
This community is very group-think-y and very damn near monolithic and feedback loopy. I’m not going to entertain your point of "There are several reasons why rain is dominant and widely used while sun is barely explored and feels situational to use. " because 99% of you dont explore at all, adamantly refuse to explore, and criticize those who do. (do not respond to this point as I will flame you in the dms as this is not something I’m going to give any leeway on)



This is just wrong. V-create is VERY spammable lmao, ive never seen someone say that especially in sun. You run up you click it once or twice and get out. Furthermore, in sun you also can run z celebrate which boosts searing shot to okoing specially bulky levels. It's truly amazing.
Fire blast is actually more accurate than hydro by 5% but anyway, sun abusers get boosting moves that arent ran rain, like dragon dance for one ( zard x which is actually not vulnerable outside of sun. in fact most fire mons other than the growth sweepers arent vulnerable outside sun, and even the ones that have growth usually get a kill or 2. Sun ironically beats rain, which is something youd know if you ran sun, as sun can run zard y, and has grass types.

As for the getting in ur abusers safely, considering that pelipper just got drizzle, and that politoad was used since it's inception until now and doesnt have utrun and rain was still here, I’m just going to ignore that point as it's just extremely mute and negligible. Just predict or get better to get it in, it's nto that hard. I legit ran mono fire and was able to get switches in safely. You also can hit hard with torkal a turn or so, it's pretty easy. (YOU ALSO CAN RUN ZARD Y)

NEXT POINT



Bro what the hell are you talking about lol. I actually dont even think venu is the best abuser I'd actually say victreebell is a better growth abuser, or victini or darm or zard x is a better sun abuser. maybe even scarf eruption in sun.. Anyway, this is a tier where people click water shuriken and no other move. Waterfall and eq every time, hydro and no other move, and play the exact same koko lucha way every single time. In this near monolithic stale meta... when has predictability EVER, EEEVVVVVEEER, been a problem with a mons viability. LANDO is predictable and you guys worship the ground it doesnt walk on. It's also kinda wrong as sun venu has several sets that are all viable, like I run eq and oko trans. Venu can run hp fire btw, and having solar beam plus sludge bomb when growthed is terrifying. Idk why youre downplaying that but ok. If youre growth eq does more btw.
P.S.
ur aware that Ive made several sun teams right? tran has NEVER been a problem, a lot of fire mons get fighting and earthquake, and tran is pretty easy to kil. Hell shiftry kills tran at +2 knock or hp ground if u have it. What in the world.....

RUN TO THE NEXT POINT



..............................................ferrothorn, a pokemon that is 4x weak to fire, is not a threat to a sun team.

Can't have said it better myself.

I want to add to this discussion overall but first I would also like to point out that Shedninja isn't on VR for some unknown reason even though everyone knows shedninja stall has been a thing for a while now and dominated OLT ladder, when was the last time you've seen pursuit Peli, I'll wait...
Now onto some juicy stuff.

Charizard X B+ to A- needs to happen

I'll put it straight to the point:
This pokemon is extremely broken under sun with its bulk, tough claws flare blitz, solid coverage, roost, and access to dragon dance makes it a pokemon that any team will shutter at the sight of it. Charizard X has the ability to ohko Landorus T after rocks 100% of the time after stealth rocks and everything else can't lower its attack and gets hammered by flare blitz. Its bulk lets it become a check to many fire types such as Heatran, Volcarona (soft one), and Victini. If your team isn't a rain team, Mola, or a (very) Physdef Hippo team, you'll run into major trouble vs this thing no matter what because there just isnt any decent switch ins while in the early game or late game. With its unboosted attack being able to act as a wall breaker, have its solid typing, bulk, and recovery make it decent mid game too in a pinch to check something, and then sweep late game with dragon dance, coverage, and blitz being broken while under sun. The cherry on top is that Charizard X doesn't even need sun to be very effective, but it greatly benefits from sun to the point it should make
Charizard X B+ --> A-

If there is something I missed, if you want to refute something, or have any questions, I'll gladly look into them.

 

[LORD SAGIS]

Final VR update huh. Well I might as well go over a few other noms.

S -> A+

I agree with Jordy that Ash Greninja isn't really a S tier pokemon. In my opinion, every team should have to 2 pokemon that can check it and if they don't, they have a bad team. Protean Greninja is far more threatening because its literally the lure machine and bypass any check with its Z Move choice. Toxapex while definitely amazing hasn't really enjoyed the rise of Gliscor who really just abuses it to the fullest. And a lot of teams have been using Slowbro over it because it doesn't have the passivity problem.

A -> A+

Speaking of Protean Greninja. Oh boy what nightmare it is to check defensively. Out of Groundium to nuke Toxapex, Fightinium to nuke Chansey, Grassium to nuke Gastrodon and Seismitoad, and finally Psychium to nuke Amoonguss and Mega-Venusaur. Sure it can't beat them all at once, but facing one gets scary when considering it might have one of these options.

A- -> A

Double priority is a excellent glue for a lot of teams. I have nothing else to really say, it been on a lot of successful teams.

A- -> B+

While its still a good check to a lot of things, other grass types have been competing with it. Both Amoonguss and Tapu Bulu are less passive while Tangrowth kinda relies on super effective coverage and Knock Off to deal with threats.

All the UR I agree with:
All the Ranks to UR I agree with:

Room for thought (These aren't official noms but I would like to bring them up for discussion). Edit: Nah take these as official noms. Even if I'm not 100% convinced.

A+ -> S

With spikes being so amazing right now, and Ferrothorn being the best setter by far. I think a rise can be justified although I'm kinda mixed on this since it can also be exploited in many ways.

C- -> UR

When was the last time you saw this thing? Obviously it has its pros but do those pros really make worth using over other more consistent options?

 

[Archer Kirby]

I feel like you don't run sun and havent really used it so lets just address this one by one.



I've actually used torkoal late game offensively as sun boosted fire blast hits a lot harder than you give it credit for. Also, it only needs to just exist, it's extremely bulky and Ive sat there and killed landos late game bc I’m not afraid of them lmao, EQ does like 60%. This thing laughs at physical attackers and doesnt really need recovery, it does it's job pretty well. It also is a reliable rocker, If you want replays,here is a lot:

https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-978313720
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977033799
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976991564
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-976996141-3p3dha4wr2f3zpvjiayjn9px5l6pjc3pw
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen7ou-977967062-nn4bfnitbsdzy33sdy525vcgtsj451tpw


NEXT


I mean first off, no.

You can run hp fire if you really want and you get solar beam and growths off. It's pretty good; also having hurricane miss is also great. I'm actually shocked you brought up
"in also has more abusers that don't just do the same thing, such as Mega Pert, Kingdra, Manaphy, Ash Greninja and on the rarer sides, Torn-T and Koko abusing hurricane and thunder respectively."
Which while is true that hurricane and thunder are boosted, ignores what fire brings. First off, fire mons get a boost in their already high attacks that water straight up doesnt have and it works out to be stronger than pert in rain (flare blitz) and kingdra in rain (solar beam + item, or growthed attacks).
This community is very group-think-y and very damn near monolithic and feedback loopy. I’m not going to entertain your point of "There are several reasons why rain is dominant and widely used while sun is barely explored and feels situational to use. " because 99% of you dont explore at all, adamantly refuse to explore, and criticize those who do. (do not respond to this point as I will flame you in the dms as this is not something I’m going to give any leeway on)



This is just wrong. V-create is VERY spammable lmao, ive never seen someone say that especially in sun. You run up you click it once or twice and get out. Furthermore, in sun you also can run z celebrate which boosts searing shot to okoing specially bulky levels. It's truly amazing.
Fire blast is actually more accurate than hydro by 5% but anyway, sun abusers get boosting moves that arent ran rain, like dragon dance for one ( zard x which is actually not vulnerable outside of sun. in fact most fire mons other than the growth sweepers arent vulnerable outside sun, and even the ones that have growth usually get a kill or 2. Sun ironically beats rain, which is something youd know if you ran sun, as sun can run zard y, and has grass types.

As for the getting in ur abusers safely, considering that pelipper just got drizzle, and that politoad was used since it's inception until now and doesnt have utrun and rain was still here, I’m just going to ignore that point as it's just extremely mute and negligible. Just predict or get better to get it in, it's nto that hard. I legit ran mono fire and was able to get switches in safely. You also can hit hard with torkal a turn or so, it's pretty easy. (YOU ALSO CAN RUN ZARD Y)

NEXT POINT



Bro what the hell are you talking about lol. I actually dont even think venu is the best abuser I'd actually say victreebell is a better growth abuser, or victini or darm or zard x is a better sun abuser. maybe even scarf eruption in sun.. Anyway, this is a tier where people click water shuriken and no other move. Waterfall and eq every time, hydro and no other move, and play the exact same koko lucha way every single time. In this near monolithic stale meta... when has predictability EVER, EEEVVVVVEEER, been a problem with a mons viability. LANDO is predictable and you guys worship the ground it doesnt walk on. It's also kinda wrong as sun venu has several sets that are all viable, like I run eq and oko trans. Venu can run hp fire btw, and having solar beam plus sludge bomb when growthed is terrifying. Idk why youre downplaying that but ok. If youre growth eq does more btw.
P.S.
ur aware that Ive made several sun teams right? tran has NEVER been a problem, a lot of fire mons get fighting and earthquake, and tran is pretty easy to kil. Hell shiftry kills tran at +2 knock or hp ground if u have it. What in the world.....

RUN TO THE NEXT POINT



..............................................ferrothorn, a pokemon that is 4x weak to fire, is not a threat to a sun team.

Alright, didn't feel you read my post properly so gonna go over a few points while I respond to this post.

Firstly, I have used sun before, it may not be as much as people like Zaza, but I'm just gonna make that clear. Next, I never said Torkoal was a bad SR setter, I just said that you wouldn't want to take unnecessary hits while a different pokemon can take on that job. Having no recovery is huge for a setter unless you are running multiple like with Trick Room, pokemon like Maggron are more bulky then Torkoal (90 more def in fact) and even they can get worn down. It's still bulky yes, but I don't think other people want to switch or stay on a Lando-T like you do to use Fire Blast with no spa which barely does 50% to Lando-T after lefties in sun.

In terms of hitting harder, Fire mons do have stronger physical stabs yes, since rain abusers like pert have to stick with waterfall, but unlike fire abusers, some get swift swim so they don't need to worry about being outsped by threats unless something like scarf serp and that speed + attack boost is much better then slight physical advantage that sun brings.

Also you claim that "99% of us don't explore at all" but that claim is just laughable and untrue. If you had paid any attention at all to the meta, or even look at the past pages of the forum we are on right now, there are plenty of people who innovate and experiment with sets and I don't understand how you are so oblivious to this. While there are players who criticise some sets before they take off, it still doesn't stop most people from exploring new options. I don't care about your spam threat, I'm still gonna call you out when you make ridiculous, untrue and baseless claims.

The reason I said V-Create isn't spammable is for a few reasons. The first is the one I've already mentioned, it lowers your stats and lowering speed is huge. You click V-Create once and now you have pokemon like Lando-T that outspeed Victini and force it to switch. Compare this something like Swampert that while yes, doesn't nuke threats, it still hits them really hard and doesn't have drawbacks on it Stab. Also I'm gonna remind you that in gen 5, weather was permanent so the ability to pivot with your setter wasn't as important since if the other team didn't have their own weather, you just had to lead politoed. Now while this wasn't the case in gen 6, it didn't bring a host of pokemon that gave rain trouble like Bulu,Pex and Fini and instead gave it new toys such as Mega Pert to be more effective in the 8 turns rain was up.

You say Sun beats rain, and if you really believe that, provide points to back that up. I gave reasons why I felt that wasn't the case and you've made no attempts to prove otherwise. You can run Zardy as an option yes, and it is an additional setter which is something I think sun teams should have, but the cost of that is you lose out on other amazing megas for sun, not just ZardX but also Mega Doom which hits extremely hard with that spa + solar power + sun and even outside of sun its still good because 115speed outspeeds alot of threats.

The reason I feel Venusaur is the best abuser is because it has the potential to win games after 1 growth in sun, also due to giga drain, even if it doesn't sweep it could still be at full health to attempt it again later on. While its coverage is flawed as I explained earlier, there still aren't alot of things that can deal with it under sun and part of this is because it can set up on special walls like Chansey which can't kill it due to giga drain. I'm not alone in thinking this, look at the recent discussions and the teams for sun, most, if not all consist of Venusaur. Other abusers exist yes, but they have more hard counters and love to kill themselves with recoil and rocks for darm and zardx. Bulky waters like Slowbro/MegaBro/Mola/Fini can give pokemon like darm a hard time and even Banded Victini using Bolt Strike can lose to the other 3 since they can just tank one hit and switch to their ground (most teams use ground types to avoid voltturn spam) and then force it out. Victini can use Z-Celebrate but walls like Latias-Mega and Chansey still don't care and avoid the 2HKO regardless. I just feel venu is the most consistent and threatening sun sweeper. Also Victree is just Venu but with worse bulk and speed and the same spa, I'm curious to how you think its the better growth abuser.

Also once again, it would help if you don't regard people as just mindless clickers who don't know how to play because it makes people assume you've never been out of low ladder or seen high level play. Being predictable isn't a problem if the pokemon in question can the job well (like toxapex). If you actually read my post, you would have know that I was responding to an earlier comment about someone saying how unpredictable venu is, but I didn't use that as my base for saying venu is bad.

Finally, depending on your team Tran might be an issue, the point was that having venu walled by tran and letting it fire of free sun boosted magma-storms or Z-infernos wasn't great and was a consequence of having to pick between HPs. The same goes for ferrothorn, yes you have other abusers but having your growth sweeper blocked by common steels still sucks.

 

[Zaza]

Alright, didn't feel you read my post properly so gonna go over a few points while I respond to this post.

Firstly, I have used sun before, it may not be as much as people like Zaza, but I'm just gonna make that clear. Next, I never said Torkoal was a bad SR setter, I just said that you wouldn't want to take unnecessary hits while a different pokemon can take on that job. Having no recovery is huge for a setter unless you are running multiple like with Trick Room, pokemon like Maggron are more bulky then Torkoal (90 more def in fact) and even they can get worn down. It's still bulky yes, but I don't think other people want to switch or stay on a Lando-T like you do to use Fire Blast with no spa which barely does 50% to Lando-T after lefties in sun.

In terms of hitting harder, Fire mons do have stronger physical stabs yes, since rain abusers like pert have to stick with waterfall, but unlike fire abusers, some get swift swim so they don't need to worry about being outsped by threats unless something like scarf serp and that speed + attack boost is much better then slight physical advantage that sun brings.

Also you claim that "99% of us don't explore at all" but that claim is just laughable and untrue. If you had paid any attention at all to the meta, or even look at the past pages of the forum we are on right now, there are plenty of people who innovate and experiment with sets and I don't understand how you are so oblivious to this. While there are players who criticise some sets before they take off, it still doesn't stop most people from exploring new options. I don't care about your spam threat, I'm still gonna call you out when you make ridiculous, untrue and baseless claims.

The reason I said V-Create isn't spammable is for a few reasons. The first is the one I've already mentioned, it lowers your stats and lowering speed is huge. You click V-Create once and now you have pokemon like Lando-T that outspeed Victini and force it to switch. Compare this something like Swampert that while yes, doesn't nuke threats, it still hits them really hard and doesn't have drawbacks on it Stab. Also I'm gonna remind you that in gen 5, weather was permanent so the ability to pivot with your setter wasn't as important since if the other team didn't have their own weather, you just had to lead politoed. Now while this wasn't the case in gen 6, it didn't bring a host of pokemon that gave rain trouble like Bulu,Pex and Fini and instead gave it new toys such as Mega Pert to be more effective in the 8 turns rain was up.

You say Sun beats rain, and if you really believe that, provide points to back that up. I gave reasons why I felt that wasn't the case and you've made no attempts to prove otherwise. You can run Zardy as an option yes, and it is an additional setter which is something I think sun teams should have, but the cost of that is you lose out on other amazing megas for sun, not just ZardX but also Mega Doom which hits extremely hard with that spa + solar power + sun and even outside of sun its still good because 115speed outspeeds alot of threats.

The reason I feel Venusaur is the best abuser is because it has the potential to win games after 1 growth in sun, also due to giga drain, even if it doesn't sweep it could still be at full health to attempt it again later on. While its coverage is flawed as I explained earlier, there still aren't alot of things that can deal with it under sun and part of this is because it can set up on special walls like Chansey which can't kill it due to giga drain. I'm not alone in thinking this, look at the recent discussions and the teams for sun, most, if not all consist of Venusaur. Other abusers exist yes, but they have more hard counters and love to kill themselves with recoil and rocks for darm and zardx. Bulky waters like Slowbro/MegaBro/Mola/Fini can give pokemon like darm a hard time and even Banded Victini using Bolt Strike can lose to the other 3 since they can just tank one hit and switch to their ground (most teams use ground types to avoid voltturn spam) and then force it out. Victini can use Z-Celebrate but walls like Latias-Mega and Chansey still don't care and avoid the 2HKO regardless. I just feel venu is the most consistent and threatening sun sweeper. Also Victree is just Venu but with worse bulk and speed and the same spa, I'm curious to how you think its the better growth abuser.

Also once again, it would help if you don't regard people as just mindless clickers who don't know how to play because it makes people assume you've never been out of low ladder or seen high level play. Being predictable isn't a problem if the pokemon in question can the job well (like toxapex). If you actually read my post, you would have know that I was responding to an earlier comment about someone saying how unpredictable venu is, but I didn't use that as my base for saying venu is bad.

Finally, depending on your team Tran might be an issue, the point was that having venu walled by tran and letting it fire of free sun boosted magma-storms or Z-infernos wasn't great and was a consequence of having to pick between HPs. The same goes for ferrothorn, yes you have other abusers but having your growth sweeper blocked by common steels still sucks.

I won't get too much into what you said in general as most of those are your opinions but I will have to bring up "if sun beats rain give me reasons". Well I would like to say that Sun does beats Rain in a 50/50 with just torkoal, if you have a dual setter rain is just hopeless if you make even decent plays. For why sun beats rain:
1) Chlorophyll Sweepers are normally extremely good against rain in general. Normally this is Venusaur which its STAB moves with coverage for steels can do just that. (another reason to rank this mon)
2) Torkoal with toxic+stab outright beats Ferrothorn+Peli, staples on rain. This denies hazards with rapid spin, kills your hazard setter with lava plume, and can hit other switch ins on prediction with toxic.
3) Pokemon who normally support sun are dragon type pokemon, these pokemon are also normally very good vs rain as they can take water hits fairly well.
4) Unless your fire abuser is something like Zard X, even the fire abuser will constantly harass your waters with boosted fire moves. "Go into peli!" then get bopped by coverage.
5) If it really comes down to it, Torkoal can outslow peli every time, set rocks or toxic the bird depending on what you think Peli will do. If you want to avoid this match up at first you'll meet likely a supporting offensive pokemon or a fire type that can potentially force a water in. Every turn is more of a 50/50 in the sun users favor because of this.
With this all stated the best player wins in these match ups and generally speaking the match up is not completely in one person's favor, but I would give the edge to sun because of what I said.

Any rebuttals, questions , or things I missed, feel free to express that.

 

[N_Mareanie]

Blacephalon C+ —> higher (B/B+)

nothing necessarily changed for the clown but it’s just simply misplaced imo. i know its tour succes isn’t that high but u gots factor ik ladder because holy shit.. it can wallbreak like a mf with the specs set, and blacephalon in sun is on another level of strong istg. cm +speed w beast boost can sweep so many offenses and weakened balance teams.. i know mega ttar has gained traction on ladder as well but in any matchup without it ull have a field day. has a decent matchup against stall too esp with shed stall running evrrywherr. rain is kinda sucky but a blaceph behind a sub is always threatening and ko’s weakened swampert w ghost z anyway.. it’s just not on the level of shit like fucking terrak and volcanion lol, even better than alo istg.. at least make it rise out of the trash C rank it’s way better than that

 

[RaikouLover]

Sun usually does beat rain but in my short experience rain is still the better playstyle overall. Sun teams always have a gaping hole to a couple mons that can’t seem to be plugged up (without adding more holes) where as rain has Swift Swim (no Fire types get Chlorophyll so it’s not the same) and priority abusers to get you out of a bind.

I agree Sun should be ranked but for C for both Torkoal and Venusaur. Venusaur really has to get a Growth or have Grassy Terrain support to start packing a punch in battles. It requires a good bit of support to use. Sun teams can be effective but they are very skill based which is a disadvantage in what has become a brainless meta game.