Thread: Tier Discussion

well, personally I run protect on gliscor to make sure im not facing mixtar or HP ice landorus. It also helps accumulate toxic healing to 25% without damage. Its not always a hard counter, but it usually is, escpecially if they are physically offensive varients whose HP ice is weaknened

Originally Posted by coolking503

Gliscor, as I mentioned, screws over sand teams with standard pokemon like the Land genie and excadrill. mixtar stops their main counter, as well as skarm and ferrothorn, althought really ferrothorn doesn't wall most sand teams at all. (or maybe just mine...)

And without SS, hippo has pretty much no use since its outclassed as a pure physical wall (mostly), and Ttar, while not as bulky, is in the same category as things like rhyperior. Probably borderline OU, since really, what other strong dark types are there? Darkrai is banned, and Zoroark,Absol, And Honchkrow are way too frail.

scrafty? even bisharp is extremely powerfull, especially, in ubers..i like krookodile as well..

Originally Posted by coolking503

Xatu stops it cold. It is slow and resists power whip. It doesnt let it set up, is a great switch in since you may get some spikes, and in only 3ko's. It also has added utility in stopping BP chains to an extent with featherdance, and a 4x fighting resist making a great switch in to conkelldurr, who it does ~70% to with psychic. Also, it stops breloom cold. It cant even spore.

Yeah, this pretty much. I've been trying out a few different Xatu and the best by far is this:

Xatu
Magic Bounce
@ Leftovers
Bold nature

252 HP/252 Defense/4 Sp, Atk

Calm Mind
Psychic
Roost
Thunder Wave/Hidden Power Fighting/Attract

It owns Skarmory, Ferrothorn, Breloom, Chansey, Blissey, Cress, etc.

It can take Porygon2 after a Calm Mind.

It can take Machamp, Conkel, etc. after 2

If you get 3 well you beat all special-based 'mons basically.

If you run Thunder Wave it spreads paralysis like a boss. Hidden Power Fighting hurts those goddamn Dark types and Scrafty. Only things that beat Xatu with HP Fighting are Scizor and bulky Scrafty occasionally, assuming you've gotten a few CMs under your belt.

--

As for weather, Smogon's just being a dumbass. It's happened before and will happen again. I like that gimmickly Licki or Scarf Golduck with Cloud Nine. Or you could be cool and make a team that revolves around weather sweepers, with additional speed than standard sets. Probably would never work, but hey, a team with Ludicolo, Azumarill, Excadrill, Venu, Charizard and filler would be p. unique.

/my 2 cents

The thing is, xatu comes in and out mostly. If you dont have a pokemon to take out xatu, theres something wrong with your team. It is coming in pretty much immediately and unless xatu can get rid of it off the bat its gonna be forced out as well.

@Synthesis, swift swim>>cloud nine..

golduck got swift swim in dw..and it has the same spatk as kingdra and higher speed and decnt attack with a great movepool..what it lacks is a dragon typing but water itself is a good typing..

Originally Posted by coolking503

The thing is, xatu comes in and out mostly. If you dont have a pokemon to take out xatu, theres something wrong with your team. It is coming in pretty much immediately and unless xatu can get rid of it off the bat its gonna be forced out as well.

Well, that's the thing with this set. There are far too many players who try and beat Xatu with phasers like Skarmory, not realising that Whirlwind gets bounced back, or bulky Pokemon with physical or special attackers, like Hippowdon, trying to beat you with Ice Fang... lol. Here's a typical match against Ferrothorn.

Turn 1: Xatu comes in, reflects obvious Spikes, T-wave or rocks.
Turn 2: They either T-wave anticipating a switch or Gyro Ball/Power Whip. Gyro Ball seems to do ~40% on average or like 15% from Power Whip. On this turn you get one Calm Mind.

Turn 2: They switch and you T-wave or Calm Mind, depending on how risky you play/what opponent is likely to do. So, you could have two Calm Minds at this stage or a Calm Mind and a paralysed opponent. Typical switch ins are Heatran, Zapdos, Raikou, Jolteon, Kyurem, Latis and Suicune. Xatu survives even a Draco Meteor from Latis with +2 and can Roost off comfortably.

ANYWAY, point is, it can set up and sweep with a bit of prediction and awareness.

The problem is, that relies on your opponent's ignorance. Against better opponents it wont work as well.

Originally Posted by coolking503

The problem is, that relies on your opponent's ignorance. Against better opponents it wont work as well.

Matter of opinion really. Besides how often does Xatu end up coming in a second time? Your opponent won't repeatedly fall for the same mistakes and rocks and Pursuit just rape the bird.

Actually, if you run a bulkier xatu it can be used more as a wall and you can take advantage of its great ground immunity, fighting resistance, and recovery. If you run HP fire or feather dance, Scizor and slower Ttars aren't actually a problem, and if not it acts as a perfect switch in to nattorei and other entry hazard set uppers, who oh btw, are losing health on every switch in thanks to entry hazards, and may also lose HP from random attacks which they resist but aren't immune to. As for SR, well if its done its job it wont have to worry about that, right?

Originally Posted by coolking503

Actually, if you run a bulkier xatu it can be used more as a wall and you can take advantage of its great ground immunity, fighting resistance, and recovery. If you run HP fire or feather dance, Scizor and slower Ttars aren't actually a problem, and if not it acts as a perfect switch in to nattorei and other entry hazard set uppers, who oh btw, are losing health on every switch in thanks to entry hazards, and may also lose HP from random attacks which they resist but aren't immune to. As for SR, well if its done its job it wont have to worry about that, right?

I found that Feather Dance version was alright, but didn't really appeal to me. Moveslot syndrome ._.

A Psychic/Calm Mind/Featherdance/Roost set could be a great switch-inducer, but gets walled so easily when the opponent learns your moveset.

Update: Garchomp is banned from OU, Thundurus will be an automatic suspect in the next round

Although I feel that Thundurus should have been banned when this round ended, I'm fairly happy with the current decision. Garchomp added an undesirable amount of luck to the game.

Believe it or not, I agree. Now I see why it was banned last Generation. (I wasn't in the competitive scene yet when it first rampaged.) And yay for Thundurus as a suspect!

I'm curious, though... What about Ferrothorn? Is that one even likely to be a suspect?

Originally Posted by SharKing

Believe it or not, I agree. Now I see why it was banned last Generation. (I wasn't in the competitive scene yet when it first rampaged.) And yay for Thundurus as a suspect!

I'm curious, though... What about Ferrothorn? Is that one even likely to be a suspect?

Ferrothorn will never be banned and probably never even be successfully nominated as a suspect. Typically, defensive threats are not nominated unless they somehow manage to wall the majority of an entire tier. Eviolite Chansey is currently the best example of a Pokemon whose defenses alone make it broken in its respective tier.

I'd also like like to add that Ferrothorn's usage is slightly decreasing. It's become significantly less awesome than it used to be now that most players are fully prepared to face it.

Eh, now the choices between dragons will be more diverse. Mence could be coming back.

Right now, I see an influx of drizzle teams, since SS teams lost one of their best sweepers/revenge killers. I would have been happier with a SS+Sand veil ban (along with Snow cloak) since it isnt really broken without sandstorm, but honestly its fine by me. Thundurus, however, isn't really broken. I may make a new team just to test it out, but outside of the fact that is screws over rain teams, i don't think its too hard to cope with. That being said, its top tier OU, but is it really broken? probably not.