Project ORAS NU Research Week #8

[Evan.]

Taken over from Lord Alphose who took it from Minus's version found here
Approved by Montsegur
Original OP by Mazz

Welcome, NUers and all those looking for an excellent competitive Pokemon experience! A new installment of an old Pokemon game means we've got new Pokemon to research!

Keep the following things in mind during every Research Group:

• Be open-minded, don't just say something is terrible and walk away; look at its stats, movepool, and typing and think something up!
• Feel free to theorymon early in the research period, but make it clear you're doing so. Later in the period though, you will be expected to back up your posts with hard evidence like logs, actual sets, perhaps even teams.
• Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore; it's very likely that something has gone unnoticed.
• Do not post in this thread complaining about the Pokemon I choose and / or suggesting ones we should do for future weeks. Feel free to VM / PM me these suggestions, but don't expect me to always listen to you.

A few things to clarify:

• Early period means the first three days of the research week, so let's keep the theorymoning to a minimum after. The late period refers to the last four days of the research week, where raw evidence and discussion should become the basis of the thread.
• Sign-Ups close Monday nights (about three and a half days of sign-ups), so be sure to sign up before they close!
• I don't have any prizes to give if you win, but your name with be forever in this thread's Hall of Fame
• You must post a ladder ranking in order to win the above prize(s).

This Week's Research Pokemon:

Drifblim| Claydol| Aurorus| Servine​

How useful are these Pokemon in ORAS NU? What sets can they run effectively? What gives them trouble? What advantages do they have over other Pokemon? How well do they work in the metagame? If you have anything to say about any of these Pokemon, please post about them! It doesn't matter if you've used them or have just faced them in battle, anything is fine (but please, do try them). Just be sure to back up your posts with good competitive reasoning. Remember, discussion is not limited to this topic, you are encouraged to talk about these Pokemon in #neverused as well!

The Research Group Challenge:

In order to participate you must do the following:

• Post here with a fresh alt and the name(s) of the Pokemon you will be using.
• Use at least one of the Pokemon being researched.
• Post your experiences with the Pokemon you're using, participate in the discussion!
• Post logs of this Pokemon in action against other teams - don't just tell us, show us!
• At the end of the week, post the set of the Pokemon that you've been using. We'd love to see what creative sets you used and hear how that worked out for you.

The first stage of the challenge will be very relaxed so theorymoning will be allowed as long as its backed up by good reasoning. During the later stage, discussion will be expected to be backed up by hard evidence, such as teams, actual sets, and logs. The winner of the challenge will be the person who has the highest ladder ranking on the Pokemon Showdown NU ladder on the alt they registered at the time the challenge ends.

Past Weeks

Week 1: Ninetales| Tangela| Togetic| Musharna

Week 2: Pawniard| Lanturn| Roselia | Rotom-Fan

Week 3: Bouffalant| Raichu| Swanna| Piloswine

Week 4: Mega Audino| Accelgor| Poliwrath| Gourgeist-Small

Week 5: Jynx| Kecleon| Mr. Mime| Carracosta

Week 6: Gurdurr| Beheyeem| Swellow| Regice

Week 7: Heliolisk| Mawile| Virizion| Quagsire

Hall Of Fame

Week 1: Davon using Musharna with a Ladder Rank of 1506
Week 3: Shuckleking87 using Raichu with a Ladder Rank of 1511
Week 4: Jim E. Russler using Gourgeist-Small with a Ladder Rank of 1471
Week 6: Bowtie Addo using Gurdurr, Beheyeem, and Swellow with a Ladder Rank of 1466

 

[scorpdestroyer]

alt: raichu beatchu
pokemon: raichu

 

[wolfenstein]

Alt: Raic hue
Using: Raichu

I want to see how good nasty plot chu is, its swept me before :o

 

[Bobby REKT]

using Bouffalant
alt: Bobby Bouff

 

[boltsandbombers]

using bouffalant
alt: boltsandbouff

 

[Realistic Waters]

Using: Raichu
Alt: Waters Raichu

 

[fssong]

using raichu
alt: fChu

 

[honchkrow]

using: lord bouff
alt: Jewffalant,,,

 

[Davon]

using: Swanna
alt: dnt u swanna fanta

 

[Bowtie Addo]

Alt: I tie my tie
I'll be using Piloswine.

 

[Syncrasy]

using raichu
alt.raichuu come thruu

 

[snuggles n fluff]

using raichu and swanna
alt : youswannafight
age: 16
location: U.S.
timezone: westcoast
phone number:8675309
dob: 9/17/1998
eye color: blue
hair color: brown
relationship status: single and ready to mingle

 

[Jeffcyberia]

Using : Piloswine
Alt : Brown Piloswine

 

[Shuckleking87]

raichu
chef you

 

[Shuckleking87]

I guess I'll make a post here to maybe start discussion.
I really do not think piloswine serves that much of a role right now. It is interesting that piloswine can run oblivious to guarantee stealth rocks, but since piloswine is a good answer to lead archeops, the primary taunter in the tier (and can also handle qwilfish and liepard), oblivious really isnt need it. Piloswine is also a fair check to strong fire types, but can usually not take two hits (scarf typhlosion fire blast does 40-48%, flame plate pyroar fire blast 48-56, 0 SpA mega camerupt flamethrower 44-52%). I guess you can invest into special defense, but that would really cut into your good but not great 100 base attack. It's average attack combined with a low speed really does not make piloswine stand out in anyway besides a stealth rock user with priority. I would rather use something like seismitoad, rhydon or the two megas as a sturdier stealth rocker that can switch into attack and deal damage. I've tried to use piloswine and I just find it difficult to use it over the previously mentioned 4 pokes.

 

[snuggles n fluff]

I guess I'll make a post here to maybe start discussion.
I really do not think piloswine serves that much of a role right now. It is interesting that piloswine can run oblivious to guarantee stealth rocks, but since piloswine is a good answer to lead archeops, the primary taunter in the tier (and can also handle qwilfish and liepard), oblivious really isnt need it. Piloswine is also a fair check to strong fire types, but can usually not take two hits (scarf typhlosion fire blast does 40-48%, flame plate pyroar fire blast 48-56, 0 SpA mega camerupt flamethrower 44-52%). I guess you can invest into special defense, but that would really cut into your good but not great 100 base attack. It's average attack combined with a low speed really does not make piloswine stand out in anyway besides a stealth rock user with priority. I would rather use something like seismitoad, rhydon or the two megas as a sturdier stealth rocker that can switch into attack and deal damage. I've tried to use piloswine and I just find it difficult to use it over the previously mentioned 4 pokes.

your not mentioning the fact that pilo resists bolt beam coverage and gets ground ice coverage with priority. this makes it not only a great eviolite tank but a great offensive force with priority. and stealth rocks are just an added bonus. never heard of oblivious piloswine but that would be cool to try out.

 

[Karane]

Edit: Swanna under alt Armaldino
My thoughts on Swanna- I believe this burd definitely has potential. Its dual stab is pretty crisp and one major thing I like about is how it breaks the most common core of plume-yama in the ladder. I have seen iplaytennislol use mixed swanna with brave bird which is pretty cool I guess. Specs and Sub-Roost also look pretty good on paper but I doubt they're as good as the standard LO set. One thing that disappoints the most is the speed tier and its frailty. Its defogging is very unreliable because of that. For example- when its vs Vileplume its forced to Hurricane because if it choses to defog its getting killed by Sludge Bomb. It also gets revenged pretty easily. Also in theory, Tauros looks like a good partner; revenges almost all the things that revenge kill Swanna and can Pursuit trap Rotom. Idk thoughts ?

 

[Davon]

I've been messing with a choice specs Swanna and it's pretty cool because Hurricane is spammable right now since the flying resists in NU are weak to water (steelix). Unfortunately Scald is pretty weak on Swanna even with specs, but the way I look at it is you're just spamming Hurricane unless they have a Steelix. Life Orb is probably more conventional since you don't have to predict though.

 

[Cacturne of Events]

using: swanna
alt: rntcaeuc of esvtne

 

[Shuckleking87]

your not mentioning the fact that pilo resists bolt beam coverage and gets ground ice coverage with priority. this makes it not only a great eviolite tank but a great offensive force with priority. and stealth rocks are just an added bonus. never heard of oblivious piloswine but that would be cool to try out.

I did not mention bolt beam resistance because really no poke uses this type of move coverage in nu, rotom would prefer to will-o or even trick piloswine, lanturn with water moves, special electivire run focus blast and physical run cross chop (not that it should stay in anyways), rotom-s with will-o (not that it really should stay either) and raichu isnt that common, but can run surf or focus blast. Earthquake is good move and outpaces non speed invested megas which helps, and ice stab is good coverage move (either icicle spear or icicle crash) to hit stuff like uxie, mesprit, mismaguius, weezing. It does scare archeops and xatu which helps. But in general it does not handle meta that great with abundance of water, fighting and fire pokes, and really cannot switch into top tier threats besides garbodor and audino. It works as a good tank or a good offensive pokemon, but it's not great at either, and usually cannot work as both roles in a match. If this got knock off, I think it would be a lot more usuable (or even a little higher SpA for freeze dry)

Swanna is also very interesting that it can beat the vileplume-hariyama core, though as karane mentioned, it is difficult to get defog off, as well as stealth rock + life orb + bb recoil makes it easy to revenge kill or practically kill off by forcing the switch (just imagine if swanna was just a couple base speed higher). Specs swanna looks really cool with I guess hurricane / surf l scald / hidden power grass / air slash l defog (what would ice beam hit?) as it's not worn down as much and really will only spam first hurricane or surf anyways. though not that bulky, tailwind with either special or mixed attacker would be interesting as you cannot get revenge killed besides fake out and sucker punch (resisting mach punch and aqua jet, even with its low bulk, is helpful)

 

[Evan.]

Sign ups are officially closed for this week. Make sure you post your ladder ranking by the end of the week so we can see who wins!

Feel free to continue discussing this week's mons, there's been some really good discussion so far

 

[snuggles n fluff]

Edit: Swanna under alt Armaldino
My thoughts on Swanna- I believe this burd definitely has potential. Its dual stab is pretty crisp and one major thing I like about is how it breaks the most common core of plume-yama in the ladder. I have seen iplaytennislol use mixed swanna with brave bird which is pretty cool I guess. Specs and Sub-Roost also look pretty good on paper but I doubt they're as good as the standard LO set. One thing that disappoints the most is the speed tier and its frailty. Its defogging is very unreliable because of that. For example- when its vs Vileplume its forced to Hurricane because if it choses to defog its getting killed by Sludge Bomb. It also gets revenged pretty easily. Also in theory, Tauros looks like a good partner; revenges almost all the things that revenge kill Swanna and can Pursuit trap Rotom. Idk thoughts ?

tbh any flying types beat plumeyama and any psychic types beat plume yama. but swanna does have good coverage since two big steel types at the moment being steelix as the premeir mega and probopass as an occasional counter do get beat by water flying coverage. rock obviously being the other resistance to flying gets killed by a quick surf (sadly no hydro for swanna) and electric is... well its electric. its realy only hard walled by lanturn off the top of my head but otherwise it gets neutral hits on alot of pokemon. sadly it cant break through most things it neutraly hits without the use of life orb or expert belt, and with rain sets dying down due to its defog set, its not much of a sweeper anymore. so now it is used as a defoger compared to a rain dancer i guess

 

[Jeffcyberia]

Alright I am still a new player learning out the game so my opinion might no weight as much as you guys but I felt like Piloswine was doing its job almost every battles , Setting up Rocks , Ice shard kills and like previously said , taking a hit from Typhlosion/Pyroar/Magmotar/M-Camerupt and then kill with earthquake.

It might be because I am still fighting in Low tiers but that's part of NU isn't ? :D

Now I do understand why hes not very used as he doesn't bring that much to the team each battle , being weak to water and fire is non forgiving but he was good enough to help me In a good amount of battles.

 

[Shuckleking87]

Alright I am still a new player learning out the game so my opinion might no weight as much as you guys but I felt like Piloswine was doing its job almost every battles , Setting up Rocks , Ice shard kills and like previously said , taking a hit from Typhlosion/Pyroar/Magmotar/M-Camerupt and then kill with earthquake.

I mean this seems like an accurate description of what piloswine can do it can set up rocks pretty easily, can pick off lowered damaged pokemon with ice shard and can take a hit from the previously mentioned 4 fire types. The thing is, the fire pokes cannot kill you at full hp (and most instances even with 1 stealth rock switch in) with their fire moves, so your opponent would have to choose between switching something in or getting a boatload of damage onto piloswine before dying. You also have the upper hand by outspeeding mega camerupt. If you need a poke that fills this role, then swine is a good choice. Carracosta could also fit this description (sr, aqua jet, tanking hit and killing with waterfall), and handles non hp grass pyroar a little better ( but not magmortar), but alot of fires have hp grass so watch out for that.

so now it is used as a defoger compared to a rain dancer i guess

For defog, you also have same typed pokemon in pelipper and mantine (obviously as well as other pokes like togetic, vullaby, archeops i guess), so you would have to chose with sturdier defensive pokes pelipper (physical defense), mantine (special defense), which might have difficulty switching into more offensive teams and can lose you momentum, or the faster swanna that can get a speedier hazard removal and puts more offensive pressure on but cannot take many hits and be unreliable against bulkier teams as it doesnt hit super hard.

 

[marilli]

I've been using Bouffalant and it's a pretty good mon, and there's no safe switch-ins for this guy. If anything, the problem is that Lilligant is not very common on the ladder (It's hard to rely on 75% accuracy moves to try and you will consistently lose games due to misses. I see that Samurott is similarly rare on the ladder: they're good, and it's hard to take care of because you can't bank on a miss, but misses will make them perform worse in the long run.)

I feel that putting Bouffalant into a team is hard because stuff like Lilligant is so rare on the ladder. It's bulky, takes hits, and dishes them back. But there's stuff like Hariyama or Steelix that does the same, with a bunch of relevant resistances! This just makes him not synergize too well on anything other than hyper offensive teams because balanced teams want those resists so they can switch around. On offense he also faces a ton of competition, with his ability to counter Lilligant / Tangela being the most notable redeeming factor over the rest.