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Let's just say thank god Accelerock isn't a thing, or Volcarona would be sad. The fact Volcarona resists many priority (Bullet Punch, Ice Shard, Mach Punch/Vaccum Wave, First Impression) and is weak only to Aqua Jet says a lot. Sucker Punch nerf helps a lot too.
Well you don't need taunt anyway, all you have to do is put u-turn and knock off on your team and you've countered these defensive cores like Chansey+Toxapex or whatever. Just knock off first to get rid of the rocky helmet he added in teambuilder to try to be cute, then spam u-turn.
I'm going to take a minute to talk about the swift swimmers in this meta; I think a lot of people are stuck in the Kingdra/Kabutops cycle which is fine, but the other swimmers got some subtle buffs this time around. Seismitoad is pretty decent as a swift swimmer especially with M-Pert being persona non grata for the foreseeable future. It's roughly as powerful with a life orb and it gets coverage for fairies via Sludge Wave and psychics with knock off, as well as that special ground STAB that lets it beat Toxapex. It also pairs naturally with Pelipper's typing. Likewise, Ludicolo is actually frightening now if you can get rain and Grassy Terrain up. Both of these mons benefit greatly from a lack of Talonflame.
I don't think Kingdra is as necessary on rain teams as it used to be, mostly because pelipper's typing means that it's easier to use other swift swimmers without stacking lots of grass or electric weaknesses. It's still the best swift swimmer, but it's not like in ORAS where if you are building rain, you must have Politoed and Kingdra.
I wish Kabutops got Liquidation but it's the best physical swift swimmer right now. Aqua Jet is no longer as necessary, freeing up a slot for Low Kick (you need SD + Low Kick for Ferrothorn).
Here's a short list of swift swimmers that you shouldn't use; I've seen these on the ladder and I shouldn't: Mantine (has better things to do; doesn't get hurricane), Armaldo (slow, not a water type, use kabutops), Floatzel (being faster than scarf pheromosa is cool but what?), Poliwrath (I want this to work as badly as you but GF needs to work with us).
I'm not using Tornadus-T on many rain teams at all; it was the go-to pivot for ORAS rain offense but it feels less necessary as Pelipper can pivot (slowly) and Torn-T's typing isn't defensively synergistic with Pelipper's.
Z-Rain Dance opens up the floodgates for a lot of fun water spam. Manaphy is the best user by far. The cool thing about Z-rain dance Manaphy is that you don't have to build a traditional rain setup around it; it's mostly self-contained. The uncool thing about it is that it destroys more/less the entire meta after a Z-RD + TG.
Taunt + CM Tapu Fini's a really good way of dealing with people who use Toxapex with Haze as their Fini counter. It Snowballs really fast and it's often game over after that point, considering a lot of the revenge-killers in the tier are special attackers.
Tapu Fini @ Leftovers
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Taunt
- Calm Mind
- Surf
- Moonblast
Here's the set I run, although it's pretty self-evident. 176 speed's enough to outrun adamant max speed Tapu Bulu.
I like to lead with this pokemon to outspeed and kill scarf genesect, pheromosa and all of the tapus right off the bat. Poison is a great offensive typing now, hitting the glut of fairies running around, and fire stab melts all the steels immune to it. Pretty good match up against aegislash as well and even scarf phero loses because you resist all its moves.
Of course it sucks being a scarfer weak to rocks and its movepool is pretty pathetic, but it does pair extremely well with SpD excadrill which beats most electrics. These two combined are a pretty good stop to the current volt-turn cores. It also gets nasty plot and corrosion possibly has some use. Maybe not so useful once aegi mosa and genesect are sent to the aether but right now a godsend for offensive teams looking to stop these broken ass mons.
stall is quite literally at its worst right now because not only are there a ton of good viable taunt users running around, the amount of mons running around that can straight up power through stall is at its highest because of things like hoopa-u, cm lele, z-mana etc, these mons are near autowin because of how effective they are at breaking down fat teams, and unless you play like a dumbass and let everything get weakened, you're rarely losing the stall matchup.
if you want a list of good taunt users: fini, koko, heatran, mzam, mgyara, lele, and plenty more oddballs. those 6 at the very least are among some of the best mons in the tier right now so you shouldn't have trouble finding any taunt users at all lol, and even then stallbreaking isn't just limited to taunt, you've got a bunch of things like getting your hazards up, abusing double switches, abusing uturn/vswitch to get what you need in, knock off, and in general a shit ton of super powerful attackers that don't really care and just nuke anything they want.
I've not seen a lot of Lele running anything without a choice item. Outside of terrain, is there a reason it's better/different from like a stallbreaker mew in a taunt set? Also haven't seen taunt Koko but I'm assuming it's mostly for chansey?
I do agree though, there's a lot of shit that's just plowing stall. You CAN kinda choose still but last gen you were able to take a lot more % of the meta. Hoopa-U for example just destroys stall right now and I'm pretty much over trying to fit a counter to it. Alohan Muk works but then you're using Alohan Muk (though I will admit it isn't all that bad a CB user... course that's offensive sets). Then again, other attackers like Marowak are surprisingly good vs stall simply because it has fantastic coverage, cannot be trapped and is pretty bulky. I'm not sure if there's actually something that resists the coverage set of ghost/fire/ground.
The one thing I have found success with was a poison/fairy/psychic core set. The one I've used was Tapu Fini/Venusaur-M/Cresselia.
Tapu Fini @ Icium Z
Ability: Misty Surge
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Def / 8 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Taunt
- Nature's Madness
- Haze
Really the main reason was Landorus-I doesn't take anything for Cresselia, Venusaur is really good at guarding off 3 of the 4 tapus and I could control the terrain set with Fini. That's it, that was the entire concept. I'm not sure if it's preconceived notion or not, but having the ability to control the field's terrain is absolutely paramount in upsetting about 60-70% of team strategies. The major issue is Fini, while a controller, is weak to the other 3 Tapus (or really, I just don't want it taking Specs Lele).
Fini in general, though, is very bothersome for stall. Natures' Madness+Taunt is incredibly harmful to almost every stall mon outside a regenerator. Mine doesn't fully explore the counter stall set (I think the best option for that is defog over Haze, or maybe another attack that can drop Mantine permanently) but it was more to counter setup sweepers since I wasn't really able to fit Clefable or Quagsire (wanted Dugtrio (tar/heatran) and Skarmory (tapu lele) instead).
The core itself (Fini/Venu) is probably a better balance core but I've gone through some serious role compression to get it to work with stall. Fini is soo damn bulky and can mostly handle a Heracross-M lacking Bullet seed (Or Buzzswole), for example. With wish support and Haze's potential full heal on activation, Fini normally stays fairly healthy. This bulk allows fini to live +6 Scizor-M's bullet punch (on the standard bulk set), haze it and full heal. It's not necessary because Venu has HP fire, but that's the relative area of bulk. Also with Fini's field, Venu can't be burned. Even though the burn nerf was already a huge viability increase for Venu, completely stopping statuses vs him is amazing. And while non-status field is counter-intuitive for most stall, focusing more on hazards is a viable substitute.
I'm going to take a minute to talk about the swift swimmers in this meta; I think a lot of people are stuck in the Kingdra/Kabutops cycle which is fine, but the other swimmers got some subtle buffs this time around. Seismitoad is pretty decent as a swift swimmer especially with M-Pert being persona non grata for the foreseeable future. It's roughly as powerful with a life orb and it gets coverage for fairies via Sludge Wave and psychics with knock off, as well as that special ground STAB that lets it beat Toxapex. It also pairs naturally with Pelipper's typing. Likewise, Ludicolo is actually frightening now if you can get rain and Grassy Terrain up. Both of these mons benefit greatly from a lack of Talonflame.
Think I mentioned Fightium Z Focus Blast Ludicolo before. It's pretty fantastic. Also instead of Tornadus, I had used a lot of Koko for my offensive pivot. I'm still deciding what I like as a defensive pivot to assist Latias. Been using Decidueye as a long-term keldeo/koko counter (healing wish Latias instead of roost) because it gets U-Turn/Roost combination but am open for ideas there. Swampert's Mega would make rain teams really fantastic right now.
I'm going to take a minute to talk about the swift swimmers in this meta; I think a lot of people are stuck in the Kingdra/Kabutops cycle which is fine, but the other swimmers got some subtle buffs this time around. Seismitoad is pretty decent as a swift swimmer especially with M-Pert being persona non grata for the foreseeable future. It's roughly as powerful with a life orb and it gets coverage for fairies via Sludge Wave and psychics with knock off, as well as that special ground STAB that lets it beat Toxapex. It also pairs naturally with Pelipper's typing. Likewise, Ludicolo is actually frightening now if you can get rain and Grassy Terrain up. Both of these mons benefit greatly from a lack of Talonflame.
I don't think Kingdra is as necessary on rain teams as it used to be, mostly because pelipper's typing means that it's easier to use other swift swimmers without stacking lots of grass or electric weaknesses. It's still the best swift swimmer, but it's not like in ORAS where if you are building rain, you must have Politoed and Kingdra.
I wish Kabutops got Liquidation but it's the best physical swift swimmer right now. Aqua Jet is no longer as necessary, freeing up a slot for Low Kick (you need SD + Low Kick for Ferrothorn).
Here's a short list of swift swimmers that you shouldn't use; I've seen these on the ladder and I shouldn't: Mantine (has better things to do; doesn't get hurricane), Armaldo (slow, not a water type, use kabutops), Floatzel (being faster than scarf pheromosa is cool but what?), Poliwrath (I want this to work as badly as you but GF needs to work with us).
I'm not using Tornadus-T on many rain teams at all; it was the go-to pivot for ORAS rain offense but it feels less necessary as Pelipper can pivot (slowly) and Torn-T's typing isn't defensively synergistic with Pelipper's.
Z-Rain Dance opens up the floodgates for a lot of fun water spam. Manaphy is the best user by far. The cool thing about Z-rain dance Manaphy is that you don't have to build a traditional rain setup around it; it's mostly self-contained. The uncool thing about it is that it destroys more/less the entire meta after a Z-RD + TG.
I really like your breakdown on Rain teams. Alolan-Raichu + Tapu Koko in rain is nice as well given that E-Terrian gives Raichu extra speed plus boosting 100% accurate Thunder, and giving it boosted Surf damage. What are your thoughts on the viability of the unsung weathers with Sun and Hail? I imagine Hail's viability mostly lies in A-Ninetails + A-Sandslash.
I really like your breakdown on Rain teams. Alolan-Raichu + Tapu Koko in rain is nice as well given that E-Terrian gives Raichu extra speed plus boosting 100% accurate Thunder, and giving it boosted Surf damage. What are your thoughts on the viability of the unsung weathers with Sun and Hail? I imagine Hail's viability mostly lies in A-Ninetails + A-Sandslash.
I've been having some fun with A-Ninetails + MegaGyra + Snowslash. Ninetails is just bulky enough to p much guarantee aurora veil will go up (except vs steels), giving mega gyra a very, almost too easy time setting up. MegaGyra's natural bulk coupled with duel screens means you can get to +2 no problem, and from there, if you're not statused and they don't have mach punch, it's gg (or pick your tapu to prevent one of these).
Oh yea, Snowslash. It's just, not enough. A combination of being too slow if you're adamant, too weak if you're jolly, bad defensive typing, and no really great STABs means snowslash kinda can't keep up with the meta. Most matches the extent of what he did was to sac himself to get someone else in.
I really like your breakdown on Rain teams. Alolan-Raichu + Tapu Koko in rain is nice as well given that E-Terrian gives Raichu extra speed plus boosting 100% accurate Thunder, and giving it boosted Surf damage. What are your thoughts on the viability of the unsung weathers with Sun and Hail? I imagine Hail's viability mostly lies in A-Ninetails + A-Sandslash.
This is all really biased because I do much more rain than anything else. About other weathers: GF tried, I guess. Hail's better than Sun right now, which is different. The structural problem with Hail, Sun, and Sand is that these weathers don't boost the power of attacks that get STAB on mons with weather speed boosting abilities. Hail will also hurt your own mons and won't cover up any weaknesses unlike rain. I think the idea here was that ice is a better offensive type than water so gf didn't want to boost it(?)
Ninetales-A is a decent Mon in its own right; it completely dismantles rain cores with freeze dry and can set Aurora Veil. But it can't pivot, it can't recover, and its offensive coverage is pretty weak. I'd compare it to ORAS Politoed; it gets a couple of cool support options, it's necessary for a niche playstyle, and it has enough movepool options to be mildly surprising.
The Slush Rushers are OK but they're not anywhere near the level of Sand Rush Excadrill or Kingdra. A-Sandslash is better but ice/steel is actually pretty bad; ice/ground would have made this a real threat.
Sun's major problem has always been that chlorophyll users are vulnerable to opposing fire type mons under sun, unable to KO these fire types in the sun, and lacking in fire-type attacks to use in the sun. The damage reduction to water type attacks is nice but doesn't mesh as nicely as rain's damage reduction to fire type attacks; the defensive aspect of rain allows rain teams to use things like Ferrothorn (with 2 2x weaknesses) and M-Scizor (which has a sole 2x fire weakness under rain). Sun teams don't have that ease of teambuilding. That being said, all of the chlorophyll mons benefit a lot from the gale wings nerf and I'd love to be proven wrong about sun by some revelation of a Tapu Bulu + Char-Y + Venusaur sun+grass team (or something).
Sand is usually seen as part of a smaller core rather than as a full sand team; it's usually been t-tar + Excadrill because these mons sort of stand on their own; in ORAS sand was usually up at some point because TTar was so necessary to trap psychics. You really only have TTar + Excadrill; building out from that (like with M-Garchomp) usually wasn't worth it over using another offense Mon. Most other Rushers have a fighting weakness as well. It still works but honestly i don't use sand cores often.
I've been having some fun with A-Ninetails + MegaGyra + Snowslash. Ninetails is just bulky enough to p much guarantee aurora veil will go up (except vs steels), giving mega gyra a very, almost too easy time setting up. MegaGyra's natural bulk coupled with duel screens means you can get to +2 no problem, and from there, if you're not statused and they don't have mach punch, it's gg (or pick your tapu to prevent one of these).
Oh yea, Snowslash. It's just, not enough. A combination of being too slow if you're adamant, too weak if you're jolly, bad defensive typing, and no really great STABs means snowslash kinda can't keep up with the meta. Most matches the extent of what he did was to sac himself to get someone else in.
This is all really biased because I do much more rain than anything else. About other weathers: GF tried, I guess. Hail's better than Sun right now, which is different. The structural problem with Hail, Sun, and Sand is that these weathers don't boost the power of attacks that get STAB on mons with weather speed boosting abilities. Hail will also hurt your own mons and won't cover up any weaknesses unlike rain. I think the idea here was that ice is a better offensive type than water so gf didn't want to boost it(?)
Ninetales-A is a decent Mon in its own right; it completely dismantles rain cores with freeze dry and can set Aurora Veil. But it can't pivot, it can't recover, and its offensive coverage is pretty weak. I'd compare it to ORAS Politoed; it gets a couple of cool support options, it's necessary for a niche playstyle, and it has enough movepool options to be mildly surprising.
The Slush Rushers are OK but they're not anywhere near the level of Sand Rush Excadrill or Kingdra. A-Sandslash is better but ice/steel is actually pretty bad; ice/ground would have made this a real threat.
Sun's major problem has always been that chlorophyll users are vulnerable to opposing fire type mons under sun, unable to KO these fire types in the sun, and lacking in fire-type attacks to use in the sun. The damage reduction to water type attacks is nice but doesn't mesh as nicely as rain's damage reduction to fire type attacks; the defensive aspect of rain allows rain teams to use things like Ferrothorn (with 2 2x weaknesses) and M-Scizor (which has a sole 2x fire weakness under rain). Sun teams don't have that ease of teambuilding. That being said, all of the chlorophyll mons benefit a lot from the gale wings nerf and I'd love to be proven wrong about sun by some revelation of a Tapu Bulu + Char-Y + Venusaur sun+grass team (or something).
Sand is usually seen as part of a smaller core rather than as a full sand team; it's usually been t-tar + Excadrill because these mons sort of stand on their own; in ORAS sand was usually up at some point because TTar was so necessary to trap psychics. You really only have TTar + Excadrill; building out from that (like with M-Garchomp) usually wasn't worth it over using another offense Mon. Most other Rushers have a fighting weakness as well. It still works but honestly i don't use sand cores often.
Cool (pardon the pun) assessment of weathers, it is greatly appreciated. Do you think weather-setting abilities will be allowed in lower tiers this time around? Something like a Gigalith-Sandslash-Stoutland sand team could be really cool to try out. Otherwise I'm gonna be sad that one of my favorite gen V mons got a great ability (Gigalith) only to not be able to use it.
I really like your breakdown on Rain teams. Alolan-Raichu + Tapu Koko in rain is nice as well given that E-Terrian gives Raichu extra speed plus boosting 100% accurate Thunder, and giving it boosted Surf damage. What are your thoughts on the viability of the unsung weathers with Sun and Hail? I imagine Hail's viability mostly lies in A-Ninetails + A-Sandslash.
Cool (pardon the pun) assessment of weathers, it is greatly appreciated. Do you think weather-setting abilities will be allowed in lower tiers this time around? Something like a Gigalith-Sandslash-Stoutland sand team could be really cool to try out. Otherwise I'm gonna be sad that one of my favorite gen V mons got a great ability (Gigalith) only to not be able to use it.
Sand stream and snow warning are allowed in all tiers in ORAS (I think?) so Gigalith and Vanilluxe are OK in that regard. I'm very interested in the possibility of unbanning drought and drizzle from UU but Drizzle especially could wreck the tier, assuming that it's anything like ORAS. Because UU is dependant on OU for its ban list it's really hard to tell.
Sand stream and snow warning are allowed in all tiers in ORAS (I think?) so Gigalith and Vanilluxe are OK in that regard. I'm very interested in the possibility of unbanning drought and drizzle from UU but Drizzle especially could wreck the tier, assuming that it's anything like ORAS. Because UU is dependant on OU for its ban list it's really hard to tell.
Drizzle might be a bit much, but who knows? Drought, however, I think would be fine in UU based on how ORAS UU looked at the end. I'm definitely interested in playing around with weather in the mid-tiers.
I'm planning to wait until some dust settles on the games before I start looking into things with much dedication, but I will say the thing I'm most interested in is how weather plays with the Terrains to work off of, particularly the obvious-but-dangerous core idea of Pelipper/Tapu Koko/Alolan Raichu. Alolan Raichu in particular I'm very interested in because it reminds me of Kingdra last gen, in that it requires support to optimize but is a monster given such. The core seems like it's very good at momentum gaining thanks to Volt-Turning and has a massive amount of power behind the team it works with to hold onto such and bowl through stall or defensive teams.
Another thing I'm curious about, even if I know it probably won't go much of anywhere, is if there's any niche for Gigalith? It's certainly an inferior Sand-setter to Tyranitar and Hippowdon unless something major has hurt their viability, but I am a little intrigued if it's gotten anywhere with Sand Stream to make its Special bulk decent and access to Explosion. The latter has me interested since the reliance of Sand Teams on Excadrill as a lategame win condition makes the prospect of free-switching him in off renewed Sand and with the explosion hit seem like there'd be some merit, some on the level of C+ or B- to Tyranitar's A/A+ (at the risk of igniting the viability ranking thread debate).
I'm planning to wait until some dust settles on the games before I start looking into things with much dedication, but I will say the thing I'm most interested in is how weather plays with the Terrains to work off of, particularly the obvious-but-dangerous core idea of Pelipper/Tapu Koko/Alolan Raichu. Alolan Raichu in particular I'm very interested in because it reminds me of Kingdra last gen, in that it requires support to optimize but is a monster given such. The core seems like it's very good at momentum gaining thanks to Volt-Turning and has a massive amount of power behind the team it works with to hold onto such and bowl through stall or defensive teams.
Another thing I'm curious about, even if I know it probably won't go much of anywhere, is if there's any niche for Gigalith? It's certainly an inferior Sand-setter to Tyranitar and Hippowdon unless something major has hurt their viability, but I am a little intrigued if it's gotten anywhere with Sand Stream to make its Special bulk decent and access to Explosion. The latter has me interested since the reliance of Sand Teams on Excadrill as a lategame win condition makes the prospect of free-switching him in off renewed Sand and with the explosion hit seem like there'd be some merit, some on the level of C+ or B- to Tyranitar's A/A+ (at the risk of igniting the viability ranking thread debate).
The EV spread isn't perfect, I just went with Adamant max hp/max attack since that seemed optimal. Rocks are rocks, Edgequake is decent coverage, and Explosion with Custap does its thing. I'd probably use this by using it as a bulky pivot, only attacking when needed, and then be ready to click Explosion when its hp is low enough. However, smooth rock is also very good for sand teams, but unfortunately Gigalith's job in exploding becomes much harder without the berry.
Honestly I don't see it being that great, but if the team really needs something to set up rocks and explode (outclassed by Azelf/Custap Skarm) and also set sand (no longer outclassed, I guess), then Gigalith is your man...rock...thing.
AzureRaptor nice catch, thanks. I'm not sure if it will be made available via pokebank since I don't know how that works. Maybe custap will come eventually.
The EV spread isn't perfect, I just went with Adamant max hp/max attack since that seemed optimal. Rocks are rocks, Edgequake is decent coverage, and Explosion with Custap does its thing. I'd probably use this by using it as a bulky pivot, only attacking when needed, and then be ready to click Explosion when its hp is low enough. However, smooth rock is also very good for sand teams, but unfortunately Gigalith's job in exploding becomes much harder without the berry.
Honestly I don't see it being that great, but if the team really needs something to set up rocks and explode (outclassed by Azelf/Custap Skarm) and also set sand (no longer outclassed, I guess), then Gigalith is your man...rock...thing.
Poison/Flying is actually a really good defensive typing, with quad resistances to Grass, Fighting, and Bug, as well as an immunity to Ground and a resistance to Fairy and Poison. You check/counter all of the Tapus, some of the Ultra Beasts (you live any hit from Phermosa and can OHKO back, and you wall Buzzwole without Ice Punch as well), and generally check or counter most Fairy and Grass types.
Since you sit at 130 base speed, you can speed-tie with max speed Tapu Koko as well, which is very important albeit risky as hell.
Infiltrator is amazing to just get past Subs, which is great if you're trying to Toxic something like Coil Zygarde behind a sub, or hit a SubPunch Buzzwole or a Defensive Leech Seed Tapu Bulu (the latter two of which you can OHKO with your STAB with ease).
184 Atk is to always OHKO Tapu Koko's standard spread with Cross Poison, max speed is to speed-tie with opposing Tapu Koko, and the rest is dumped into HP (which lets you live a 4 SpA Naive Phermosa Ice Beam from full).
Crobat isn't a great OU mon by any means, but at least at this point, I've found it to be useful (and at the very least, quite fun).
Main problem with Crobat is that it hates strong electric attacks which in this meta are really, really common which sucks. Also dislike Ice Beam coming from Pheromosa, which otherwise he would wall. If you don't want to risk speed ties and prefer more bulk, Golbat is perfectly fine alternative and with right EVs can take on Pheromosa / Aegislash in more reliable way (SpD build is good for those) and some fairy types. Physical defensive is fine as well as Tapu Bulu is something that is really hard to wall and x4 grass resistance comes in handy here. Also what I like about Golbat are slow U-Turns, so everything frail appreciated this kind of help. If you run Taunt - prefer Crobat because of his great base speed. What your team more appreciates I guess.
Welp... Aegislash is gone from the tier now. Time to sit back and endure the waves of Pheromosa now having lost its best counter.
Having lots of fun with Mega Gyarados in the meantime. Immunity to Prankster makes it easier to set up and sweep than ever before... it's just that Pheromosa ruins my fun unless I somehow get it out of the way.
Yea - with Aegi gone now, we should discuss how the metagame changes. I'd advise testing things out and getting a grasp on the 'new' metagame prior to posting too much to avoid theorymon or speaking incorrectly as many people have done in the past in post-ban situations, but I'd gather that there will be significant changes (sure, some things that seem obvious will likely come true, but theorymon in general is discouraged and nothing is a guarantee). This means that saying "when do we ban Pheromosa (or insert other pkmn)" right now is not what you should be doing, but, rather, you should be using Pheromosa and, if after using it you deem it's broken, then post why you think it's broken.
This is very good news for Tapu Lele and Magearna, as Aegi was their most reliable switch-in. I'm glad to see Aegi gone because we can now experiment more with the likes of Latios, Marokak-A, and whatever else it hindered.
Pheremosa is going to run wild now, especially if paired with something that can beat Toxipex.
I'm excited to see how the meta changes, hopefully for the better.
What the hell do you even use to fight Pheromosa now? Ice Beam / HJK / U-turn / Poison Jab kills everything sans what, Toxapex? Phero was already very good, now that Aegis is gone it's just completely stupid.
What the hell do you even use to fight Pheromosa now? Ice Beam / HJK / U-turn / Poison Jab kills everything sans what, Toxapex? Phero was already very good, now that Aegis is gone it's just completely stupid.
Yeah your list of real Phero answers are Haze Toxa and Mantine, and Mantine is extremely trivial to wear down.
Theres some meme answers to Phero like Scarf Dugtrio, but if you just run Ada Scarf Phero (imo best set) your pretty much remove all options for your opponent to keep Phero in check outside of Rocky Helm Toxa.
I also don't want to see people suggesting Alolan Wak as an answer, taking like 35% from turn and rocks without any form of recovery is not a counter.
Yeah your list of real Phero answers are Haze Toxa and Mantine, and Mantine is extremely trivial to wear down.
Theres some meme answers to Phero like Scarf Dugtrio, but if you just run Ada Scarf Phero (imo best set) your pretty much remove all options for your opponent to keep Phero in check outside of Rocky Helm Toxa.
I also don't want to see people suggesting Alolan Wak as an answer, taking like 35% from turn and rocks without any form of recovery is not a counter.
Mantine is kinda crap against Pheromosa, Life Orb HJK + Rocks is a death sentence. Aegislash was not only able to wall Pheromosa, but it kept it from spamming HJK. Marowak's ability to stop HJK spam is nice, but yeah, no recovery + rocks weakness is just a band-aid over a large laceration.
