Gen 2 GSC OU Viability Ranking Thread V2

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i don't think getting STAB is worth trading electric resistance. lanturn would be much better as a pure electric, but as it stands it has issues walling things electrics are suppose to wall (i.e. other electrics).

zapdos doesn't resist tbolt either, but it's zapdos. he trades that for ground immunity. lanturn has what? stab surf? confuse ray?
Stab Surf and a Water resistance. Yes Confuse Ray too but who cares
 
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Mr.E

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Pure Electric-type Lanturn would just be a bad Ampharos, at least Water typing differentiates it a little bit. It's still worse than Ampharos and generally not-very-good, because it hits like a wet noodle, but it has some purposes such as hard countering Vaporeon.
 
i think 4 posts is 4x too much for a pokemon like laturn.

we should talk about the next candidates to be bumped down: umbreon and misdreavus. to me umbreon is in the same class as blissey, aka a step below miltank.

misdreavus is just very niche. like very niche. unless things have changed?
 
Well, from what I've seen, Missy's viewed as a more reliable spinblocker than Gengar due to increased bulk and a lack of weaknesses, mainly meaning it can actually switch in to Psychic Starmie. The fact that opposing stall usually needs to have a non-Water, non-Skarm phazer to beat its perishtrapping set and that it can easily force the opponent's hand adds on to the former statement to make it a somewhat splashable 'mon on stall teams. Of course, I could be wrong, but that's what I've seen on the subject.

And Borat, you're completely right on your statement, I wasn't thinking that way at all. The lower ranks will most likely sort themselves out sooner or later.

As for Lanturn, all I'm seeing in it is "Electric that beats Grounds", in which case HP Legends still exist. I'd frankly take HP Water Zap/Kou over Lanturn any day, they don't need the water resistance when they're already bulky enough.
 
but in zapdos we have an electric that can switch into grounds. so it boils down to is lanturn better or even as good as ampharos. I believe the answer is no.

yes I'm aware of what missy does, like I said very niche. I don't think thundermissy is the standard set. It's a meta dependent set. You're better off with cray/attract to luck kills, or pain split just to be generally more annoying. does it learn thief?
 

Karxrida

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but in zapdos we have an electric that can switch into grounds. so it boils down to is lanturn better or even as good as ampharos. I believe the answer is no.

yes I'm aware of what missy does, like I said very niche. I don't think thundermissy is the standard set. It's a meta dependent set. You're better off with cray/attract to luck kills, or pain split just to be generally more annoying. does it learn thief?
It does indeed get Thief.
 
On Misdreavus:
The point I was trying to make was that said niche was in fact relatively splashable on defensive teams, since perishtrap + guaranteeing spikes is usually enough offense for a stall team. I think the main place of disagreement here is exactly how useful spinblocking is to defensive teams; Personally, I think it's almost always a good idea on non-Starmie defensive teams, since the spikes are usually your primary source of damage, and a secondary source comes from said spinblocker (gar or missy, though missy is probably more likely) when brought in on said spin, meaning high amounts of pressure on the opposing team. I've seen Missy run Pain Split too, to help with its longevity.

I've always thought of thundermissy as the standard, since it pretty much wins if the opponent has skarm or cune as their only phazer, and I see way too many teams slap on a skarm and think "phazer: done". I frankly haven't thought about it that much, but now that it's mentioned, Confuse Ray seems like the better option if you're not positive that their only phazer is skarm/cune, which in tournaments is all the time.

On Machamp:
From my point of view, Machamp and Marowak deserve to be in the same tier, mainly because they're so similar:
-They both hit very hard.
Machamp with his decent Attack and strong super-effective coverage, and Marowak with raw power. Machamp gets a slightly smaller stick here, since it can't run all the moves it wants, and since Machamp's trainer needs to predict more than Marowak's trainer. The fact that Machamp's only STAB move is inaccurate and has low PP equalizes the fact that said move can OHKO 100% skarm on a crit, in my opinion.
-They can both boost.
Machamp with Curse and Marowak with Swords Dance. Machamp boosts slower but gains some physical bulk, while Marowak punches in the bomb code. Pretty even in this category, though Machamp will need to worry about Para'd enemies outspeeding him after enough Curses (don't currently know the necessary benchmarks for this, but I'm pretty sure it will happen and it will be at least somewhat relevant.)
-They can both run ResTalk.
RT Wak gets a lot of flak from what I've seen, but the longevity is nice and can still nuke a lot of things, just acts as more of a general damage-dealer than as a sweeper or way to finish opposing Pokemon off. Generally the same way Machamp is, though Machamp gets on top here because of Leftovers and getting a way to get around CC's 8 PP.

Speaking of which, the only real thing that Machamp has that Wak doesn't is Leftovers recovery, meaning it can actually switch in on spikes, even without recovery. To me, that's not entirely enough to warrant getting ranked one above.
 

Jorgen

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Re: stoopid Lanturn
fwiw it's in serious contention for the title of "best Vap counter in the game", as Mr.E noted.


Re: Champ vs. Wak
Similar mons, but I'd say Champ is better because it's a little less of a hyper-specialized glass cannon.

Lefties is a pretty big deal.

If you're worried about being slower than para'd mons after cursing with champ, you've already won.

Wak needing to predict less than champ seems wrong. Wak has common things that are immune to EQ and smash it in return (hi zapper), plus it needs to play SD/EQ guessing games against Cune+Skarm stalls. If Champ guesses wrong, he can better afford to stay in and tank a hit to fire off a volley of its own.

Both RestTalk sets are misuses of these mons, but Champ is better at it because of the whole Snorlax/mixed walling thing. Marowak otoh is a "fake" STer that can't tank anything.

Champ might have less raw power and therefore less guarantee that it'll smash through a team, but in general, it lasts longer, actually checks a couple things if you need it to, and at least forces your opponent to run "different" things to check it. Marowak is super frail and most teams check it by accident. Between Zapdos, Egg, Cloyster, Vap, Skarm, Suicune, Starmie, heck even Heracross and Machamp to an extent, you kind of have to try to build a team that can't handle Wak.


Re: thundermissy
It's not instawin versus Cune Phaze because Suicune is a tanky fuck who can get cheeky with Toxic or even MC, maybe even get a miss so it goes unpunished. Not all that many teams should be going "skarm = phaze, am done" (maybe this is the case on the PS! ladder, but my experience tells me it's not the general case). I know for a fact I always try to have a plan specifically for ThunderMissy, whether it's having a backup phazer or counter-trapping with my own Ghost or, if all else fails, running stuff like EQ or Toxic on Lax so it doesn't get any guaranteed free switches. In this case, I don't think there's enough teams weak enough to it to warrant its use over the cheese potential of CRay or Attract.


Re: trappers moving down
They seem a little like black sheep because of how reliable they are in practice, but in theory they have insane game-breaking potential. That's more than Blissey can say for itself. I'd say keep them in B+.


Re: list as a whole
I'm in agreement with M Dragon, list seems pretty okay to me atm. Machamp might stand to move up, some other things might be borderline in their current tiers (e.g., trappers), but those are border cases I could see going either way tbh.
 

Mr.E

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Leftovers is a pretty big deal because Spikes are ubiquitous but on the whole, Machamp doesn't tank shit much better than Marowak. It resists... Tyranitar. That's it. (Okay, it beats Heracross too if you run Fire Blast.) Combined with its asstastic speed and inability to protect itself with tricky bullshit like fellow slowmon Eggy, you can't reliably switch it into anything else. The bulk shows its worth more when you actually do get it in safely, and then you can afford to take a hit or two firing back even harder, but Marowak has a rather handy Electric immunity that gives it a clear defensive purpose despite its glass cannon nature.
 

Roostur

Banned deucer.
why is rhydon good? i've seen him on some teams but he never really does much from what ive seen. what is his goal and how does he acheive it?
 

Jorgen

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He's got a good matchup against Lax and gets a really strong STAB EQ. His limitations would probably not be quite as obvious if people didn't look at him and think he could do Steelix's job but with more Attack. Rhydon should probably be running 3 attacking moves on any given set, or at least 2 attacking moves and status/sub/counter. Only one of Curse/Roar is really necessary to check opposing Snorlax (although Roar certainly offers more peace of mind).
 
My point of "Wak needs less prediction" is mainly that wak can get away with spamming EQ and sliding zap/skarm on the switch. Machamp can't afford to spam CC with its 8 PP, so it prefers hitting stuff with super-effective coverage moves. If CC had more than 8 PP, my argument would be invalid.

I'd have to agree with Mr. E that wak's electric immunity is about on par with machamp's ability to switch into spikes.

Umbreon and missy are two different things, so I'll look at them separately.

Umbreon is the least reliable of the pursuiters, getting boomed on by gar/egg and doing jack shit to missy, although it deals with Surf Starmie the best (albeit still needing a Toxic or a crit to beat) of the three. It's a reliable check to any variant of lax bar the obvious LK and BD ones, but it can't counter lax, whereas Roar TTar at least counters non-EQ variants. What it does do well is stall. It can't switch into most physical attackers, but it checks near all of them with Growl, while tanking special hits with ease. It excels in getting chip damage with Pursuit as said walled 'mon switches out, and fits on stall better than TTar, giving it a strong niche on stall teams by creating a divide-and-conquer wincon. However, that niche is certainly not worth B+ in my eyes, so I support an umbreon drop.

I honestly think people misunderstand missy's niche. It's not perish trapping, although that's easily its best set. It's being a spinblocker bulkier than Gengar and not being weak to Ground and Psychic. Forcing the opponent's hand with PTrap sets are a large boon for stall, acquiring chip damage on whatever phazer the opposing team has or getting a free Electric switch in the case of Skarm. It doesn't need to run PTrap, either: it gets access to Destiny Bond, Pain Split, Rest, Toxic, Growl, Hypnosis, and Thief to play around with, along with its other tools. I'm fine with missy in B+.

Now, other than the current topics of discussion, the VR seems to be solid from ranks Snorlax through C+ to me (less sure about C-, but still relatively confident with their placements). What I want to look at is D rank. A lot of mons in it just don't seem to be worth what they bring to the table. I know I added Ursaring to D when I first made this thread, but I'm honestly having strong second thoughts about it. Some things I could see happening:

Donphan -> Unranked. All it has over Rhydon is a ground neutrality and Rapid Spin, and Golem has Spin. Gets hit just as hard by HP Ice/Water as the rocks, and hates losing a normal resistance.

Entei -> Unranked. I'd frankly rather use Houndoom as a sunnybeamer, beating non-EQ machamp isn't worth a ranking.

Moltres -> Unranked. Worse than entei IMO, at least entei has solar beam.

Ursaring -> Unranked. A cursetalk lax with more immediate power but low bulk and speed, and incredibly predictable.

Quilfish -> D. Basically agreeing with Jorgen's reasoning here.

As for my reasonings why the others should stay:

Ampharos is the one electric that isn't walled by lax, due to Dynamicpunch. It also has assorted stuff like Light Screen and Fire Punch, but those don't really hold that much weight.
Sandslash can switch into spikes, unlike wak, and Substitute is a cool option to use - Skarm's Drill Peck can't break it in one hit, so you can effectively set up on a low-health Skarmory if you want.
Venusaur has a solid footing in D with its growth set, not really much discussion to be had here.
 

Jorgen

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I used to think that about Houndoom vs. Entei myself. Thing is, Entei lives 2 EQs from Lax, whereas Houndoom dies to two Returns. Also, Entei Speed ties Zapdos and is guaranteed to live 2 Thunders. And HP Fighting from Entei does the same damage as a Zapdos Thunder to Lax, which is a possible 4HKO, so a sleeping Lax without ST cannot switch into it entirely safely despite the fact that Sun-boosted Fire Blast is not a 3HKO.

Entei is just wayyyy bulkier than Houndoom in general, and the fact that he's so much easier to get in makes up for the reduced power. I'd say it fits in D.

Moltres is a lot iffier due to the lack of coverage and being OHKOed by Zapdos Thunder. It kinda has a niche vs. teams that don't have a bulky water, but that could also be said of something like Jynx, which is more threatening in that situation anyway and able to pose some kind of threat even in suboptimal conditions. I wouldn't oppose it going unranked.

Ursaring is bad, outclassed by Kanga as a Normal Curse + Roar user due to superior bulk, outspeeding Lax at +1, and of course, access to Sub. Better attack doesn't really help Ursaring that much.

Donphan gets Encore, that's enough for it to stay D.

Qwilfish probably shouldn't be ranked tbh. I know I hyped it up a bit in that thread, but the advantages it gets are minor and unlikely to matter, and its shortcomings are just so much more numerous and likely to make a difference.
 
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Mr.E

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Umbreon is a much more reliable Pursuit user than Tyranitar. Ttar applies a lot more offensive pressure in general but it's less certain at strictly killing the things you generally attempt to prey on with Pursuit: it's weak to Giga Drain, quadweak to potential Dynamicpunch, and Missy is sort of a wash since Toxic owns it anyway even if Ttar threatens more instantaneous damage.

still should do that whole "list the pokemon horizontally instead of vertically" thing

Edit: Since I realized I never said anything about that Venusaur bit before, I don't trust Venusaur to get anything done offensively. Exeggutor is an offensive threat, to say nothing of Explosion here, because Psychic is actually a legitimate attack. Grass STAB isn't and Eggy mostly carries it just to stave off Ttar so it can spam Psychic on everything else. (Turns out it's also pretty useful against Starmie since Rapid Spin > Leech Seed... *ahem*) Offensive Venusaur is walled by way too many things regardless of the attacks it carries, Swords Dance or Growth.

On the flip side, it's a fine defensive mon with minor differences from Meganium (or defensive Eggy) that make it worth using sometimes. Venusaur trades Ground resist for Fighting to shore up a Machamp weakness, and Venusaur isn't much weaker to EQ anyway than Meganium is to HP Bug. It's immune to Toxic and, of course, can opt for Sleep Powder... Roar too if you really care. It still learns Screens if you want them though, I don't think you need a unique moveset to make it work. Venusaur is just fine as an Eggy-Mega tweener, having the Fighting resist but also the Special bulk.
 
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The way I am feeling right now:

Snorlax

Zapdos

Raikou
Cloyster
Exeggutor

Skarmory
Gengar
Nidoking

Vaporeon
Starmie
Tyranitar
Marowak
Machamp
Steelix
Suicune
Umbreon
Miltank

Forretress
Misdreavus
Heracross
Porygon2
Rhydon
Blissey

Dragonite
Jolteon
Clefable
Tentacruel
Muk
Kangaskhan
Espeon
Charizard
Golem
Quagsire
Jynx
Smeargle
Meganium

everything else


Zapdos feels better than Raikou because Raikou suffers from wanting more move slots and because Zapdos is not Spikes weak. Obviously Raikou is still extremely strong.

Cloyster and Exeggutor, although the former is the target of a lot of counter strategies in the metagame right now, stand out as being relatively durable and able to threaten just about anything. Cloyster is also the best Spikes user, and spikes are polarising at the moment.

I don't feel that Gengar is on the same level because of Tyranitar, Umbreon, and lack of utility vs Raikou. Skarmory is really good but in the current meta is feeling less effective as people are more and more often bringing sets that are designed to break through it.

Nidoking is a huge threat and is flexible even with middling damage to a number of threats because it's pretty fast, has great coverage, Toxic & Electric immunity, and has the ability to Sleep things. Thus I think it deserves to be above the others in the below rank.

Vaporeon's durability is limited, especially if Spikes are up. Tyranitar has better defensive capabilities than Marowak and Machamp but nowhere near the offensive ability, so I moved those two up. I'm less certain about my feelings about these. I also moved Miltank and Umbreon up because of how strong they are defensively combined with their status spreading ability. I think Starmie is underrated because Spikes are polarising. However, again I'm less sure about this.

In the tier under that I put Pokemon that can be very effective but have huge problems dealing with one or more of the more popular Pokemon in the meta.

Finally, in the tier under that I put the Pokemon that can be effective situationally but I think you have to plan your team around using them specifically for them to be effective.
 
I agree with pretty much everything here that I believe I'm qualified to have an opinion on. That being said, the VR ranks Pokemon more in batches than individual viability; for example, Zapdos is better than Raikou, but the viability gap between Raikou and A+ is bigger than that between Raikou and Zapdos, thus Raikou stays in S, and so on.

To say that Spikes isn't polarizing in the current meta would be lying, but I think that too many people just slap on Cloyster and figure out if Forry is a better pick after the team's already gone through a full draft, instead of looking at both at the same time and deciding while creating said draft, so Forry isn't portrayed as much as it honestly should. Although it should be mentioned that I don't have any tournament experience to back this up.

If a Pokemon tries to lure Skarmory, it's at a disadvantage to everything else by default. And the only things I'm seeing that don't use Fire Blast to lure it in (HP Fire egg is popular enough for me to not call it a lure as more a coverage option) are Thunder[bolt] Starmie and ZC Rhydon, and Fire Blast can be played around with its 8 PP. And anyways, the omniscient electrics can certainly make skarmory deadweight if played right, and that never stopped it.

Gengar can at least threaten with Hypnosis and Dynamic Punch, and has an easy time luring in Raikou for booming or chain-switching shenanigans, which is sometimes better than threatening it out in the first place, especially if your team already has a ground.

I don't have any meaningful experience with Vap, I'll leave that debate for borat.

Running starmie is essentially agreeing to a spikeless game; you can't set up spikes, but it's a steep hill for your opponent if they want to set them up themselves. I honestly comes down to the ratio of how much your team appreciates spikes vs. how much it hates spikes being set up on its side, at least for the spikes argument. Giving machamp and gengar a really hard time are there too. Agreeing with borat that it should be ranked wherever forry is.

You bring up a good discussion point about C+, in that the Pokemon aren't necessarily worse than the A or B mons, but need just enough support that you /usually/ can't just slap them on a team (oh, Gengar weak? better use Espy!). Most of the time, you need to build with those mons in mind as your starting point, and they usually demand the ball a bit more than players are usually comfortable with, but pull their weight big-time if they're given what they want. For future reference, this is why I think C+ is pretty much solid at this point.
 
Double post, forgive me.

The more I'm looking at the lower ranks, the more uncomfortable I get with them. A lot of the 'mons look like they could potentially be good, but lack either general viability or a solid niche:

I retract my Amphy statement, unrank it. DPunch does 37 to lax, I thought it did 60-something. TWave + DPunch isn't worth it, you lose out on either Rest or Hidden Power effectively making it unviable for competitive play.

Even if donphan runs Encore, it still honestly wouldn't be good enough for any sane person to put on a tournament-championship-caliber team, which are the only ones I'm interested about in this thread. It's a cool option, but honestly doesn't carve out any particular niche for Donphan spinning doesn't count, flat-out loses to cloy and gets toxicstalled to death by forry.

Entei... EEEEHH I guess its fine in D, I can see its stats being high enough to keep it from being true deadweight in a championship-level match.

Sandslash... I have 0 experience for it, I'm really on the fence on unranking it. I need to know how effective the sub set is before I can make a decision.

Alakazam has a lot of potential - 135 off 368 SpA, 338 speed, thunder wave, toxic, screens, fast encore, thief, one-turn recovery, elemental punches - but never really pulls its weight. It's always just too frail, even with recovery + screens, and gets forced into recover loops, to the point where PP Stalling Recover is completely possible. 4MSS is also big here, where it can really only run two of the aforementioned options (psychic/recover/two fillers), thus losing an extreme amount of its potential in practice. It also doesn't hit as hard as you would think: Psychic does 22/26 vs Lax and 31/37 on Raikou, meaning it gets rest-looped and leaves itself in a vulnerable position constantly. I'm actually for unranking it completely.

Meganium is a slightly different case: it holds walling capabilities that make Suicune jealous, holding both screens, access to growl and leech seed, and ability to wall both lax AND both the electrics. The problem is Synthesis' 8 PP, meaning that the time it is able to wall is so pitifully short it cannot be relied on to do pretty much anything concerning defense. Leech Seed helps but it doesn't help enough. Someone prove me wrong, please, this is my favorite starter, but at the moment I have to be supportive of unranking it.

Smeargle should actually move up. it's the sole reason Agipass teams are even good (it's a plus that BP this gen isn't an OP cheese strat like in later gens), and the web set is /just/ viable enough to give opposing players heart attacks trying to play against it, like gengar. I'm thinking B-, C+ would still be too low for such a cornerstone.

On the same note, Jolteon probably deserves a bump to B+. Hits as hard as Raikou, and has Sub, Growth, and Agility in its arsenal to pass around or use for itself. Gives BP teams a strong answer to Skarmory, who is otherwise a hassle to play around, especially if you lack boomlax.

I've also changed my mind on umbry + missy. Missy is extremely powerful but finding its niche - "bulkier spinblocker that doesn't lose to psychic starmie" - is hard, so B- makes sense. Umbry is also stupidly hard to break but gives Sub, drum, and growth users EZ setup, and becomes a pretty big anchor when it's asleep. Also supporting B-.

Of course, if my above propositions happen, I'm for other things dropping, but as it stands they don't really deserve the drops.

Also taking the liberty to Unrank Moltres, I don't think I'll face much opposition on this one.
 

Isa

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meganium should stay where it is because while 8 pp looks little it can prove sufficient with leech seed recovery

alakazam isn't that good yeah but it forces out a lot of the tier if it manages to enter through the power of encore and with spikes and the proper coverage move it deals a ton to most things so it can stay ranked
umbreon and missy should stay in b+

drop the rest
 
^

I dont see smeargle going any higher than C+ honestly, this guy might have the biggest movepool but almost EVERYTHING hits it for more than half of its health, this makes stuff like passing webs / agi / drum hard, spore doesnt mitigate this at all, sleep talkers are still very common.

I dont see smeargle working vs other than a very but very slow-paced team, where a slept skarm could spell the end (assuming the other player was born yesterday and did not absorb the spore with w/e sleept talker is he running)

Smeargle its fine where it is, it could rise up to C+ because if pulled cautiously it can be very rewarding.

Also I would not say that smeargle is what makes AgiPass viable because the phazers threaten it more than it does, and if something is already slept nothing will stop the phaze, ST even trolls it because I've faced ST Roar cune (wich is damn resilient) and ST Roar Kou (not good as suicune imo, but is a thing), if anything Jolteon is what truly makes AgiPass good because it threatens the common phazers to no end bar Kou, Fresh Lix and Fresh Ttar, it deserves the rise.
 

Royal Flush

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Amphy is a slow Raikou who can run both screens. And Fire Punch I guess. It's not that great of a niche but dual screens is enough for not unranking it IMO. Though I don't really care if you guys prefer to drop it.

Meganium has a solid niche for countering Marowak and Vappers pretty decently and being a great mixed wall. Screens + Leech Seed is amazing with spikes. Please don't unrank it lol.

Other than that I agree with the drops. Maybe Alakazam could stay just for shits and giggles but I'm not MrE to defend him.


Also I would not say that smeargle is what makes AgiPass viable because the phazers threaten it more than it does, and if something is already slept nothing will stop the phaze, ST even trolls it because I've faced ST Roar cune (wich is damn resilient) and ST Roar Kou (not good as suicune imo, but is a thing), if anything Jolteon is what truly makes AgiPass good because it threatens the common phazers to no end bar Kou, Fresh Lix and Fresh Ttar, it deserves the rise.
Smeargle is literally why Baton Pass teams are tournament viable, son.
He's frail but nothing can OHKO it bar Machamp, so you can always pop one agility BEFORE putting something to sleep. This is a huge momentum that bpass desperately needs to hold on against GSC standards.
 
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Ampharos is alright enough, I think it'd feel kinda wrong to have it unranked.

Sandslash is cool, refer to this Borat post for the basic idea. I don't know about Sub, wouldn't the only set be EQ/SD/RS/Bug?

Meganium is amazing and definitely doesn't deserve to be dropped, raised if anything lol. Take a look at this rf post. I prefer running an attack on it though (Body Slam, Razor Leaf). Also SD is not at all bad!

Donphan does cute stuff with Encore and can easily lure Cloy with Toxic, I think it's worth keeping even if at the bottom.

What do people think of Omastar? Sandstorm is an interesting strategy, alongside its high Defense it also gets things such as Reflect and Haze a la Dragonite for fucking with Snorlax. Its Surf is also stronger than Vaporeon's.
 

Mr.E

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Zam doesn't hit hard enough; Zam borderline 3HKOs the best non-Snorlax general purpose special wall. (lol) On which note, keep in mind it outpaces Raikou so the dumb dog actually has a rather difficult time switching into it far more than any other special attacker in the game. No other special attacker pulls 70% on Raikou switching in, that's insane. It's not much on the defensive beyond being anti-Gengar, but Encore works as a pseudohazing move and keeps boosters honest. More so Zam applies heavy offensive pressure to defensive mons and defensive teams. Psychic is pretty strong and outside of TTar, resists mostly consist of its own typing so it hits everything pretty hard for a special attacker. Eggy is dangerous for the same reason, not merely because of Explosion. But Zam doesn't even care if you do wall it, it'll just lock you out of recovery with Encore... or into recovery to guarantee a free switch-in opportunity for something scarier, or to waste PP on valuable low-PP moves like Heal Bell. Biggest problem with Zam is Encore's 8 PP max. It's great against the Meganiums and Suicunes of the world that don't hit hard enough to take advantage of its relative frailty.

What do people think of Omastar? Sandstorm is an interesting strategy
bro you're in a Gen 2 thread
 
I'm aware! I'll quote Jorgen, who posted a TSS team on Mt. Silver about 2 and a half years ago, and that's what made me interested in it. James G and M Dragon seem to like the idea of Oma too.
Omastar is the Fire Lax counter, and is great at making Sandstorm and Toxic matter thanks to its strong Surf to keep those Ground/Rock/Steel-types from switching in. It can also scare Cursing Rocks and Grounds out, although it's an iffy switch-in for sure. I use both Toxic and Sandstorm instead of using a support move like Haze or Reflect because, I dunno, I guess I want a minimum of 3 Sandstorms and 3 Toxics on my TSS gimmick team, and Omastar does both exceptionally well. Haze over Toxic is probably better for stalling last-Poke Curselax, though, who otherwise can be a bit of a doozy.
 

Mr.E

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The deal compared to Vaporeon, though, is that Vaporeon can counter all Snorlax with Acid Armor. (Well, not THORlax but then neither does Reflect/Haze Omastar.) Vaporeon is also a credible sweeping threat due to offensive boosting, where for all of Omastar's power it can't actually break Snorlax so much as merely get in the way short of using Rain Dance as a budget single-use Growth. Better defensively in general, too, due to fewer type weaknesses and a bajillion higher Special bulk but I digress. It can't break Blissey or Starmie period. It doesn't threaten to pass its boosts to Zapdos or whatever. Omastar is, much like its fellow fossil Aerodactyl, a piece of crap that can get in the way of Snorlax slightly better than actually good pokémon at the obvious cost of all other viability. (Omastar is less crippled by Fire Blast burn!)

But more so I'm pointing out the lolsandstorm thing. Even Jorgen said it was garbage and the team was a stated obvious gimmick (which he never actually even played with). There's no SpD boost, there are no Focus Sashes to break, there is no perma-rain/sun to remove, no abilities to abuse. Nobody seems to care about Leech Seed Eggy other than me usually; Sandstorm is a half-power Leech Seed that hurts you for the difference, instead of healing, and works on fewer things. Sandstorm is so obviously bad that I would say you've done a very successful job trolling me just making me post about how bad it is.
 
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