Resource VGC 2017 Viability Rankings (Currently Outdated)

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I know my opinion probably doesn't count because no one knows me but I will say my piece anyway

Mimikyu: C -> B
For every reason everyone else has said, it is a capable Pokémon and can function as a Trick Room setter or a Fast Mode mon.
 
Why is Pheromosa so low? Her moveset and stats can easily ohko most threats in the metagame and with the z move it can kill Ohko most pokemon even when at -1
Should be at least B+, if not A.
 
Pheromosa is extremely flimsy which is typically a very bad thing in doubles. She is situationally useful mostly due to the lack of good fighting types in this meta (Buzzwole and Hariyama are basically the other reasonable options and both are less independent than Pheromosa), she can be used to power through defensive threats like Porygon2 in particular. But her primary STAB is unreliable and can get her killed if you use it into a protect. The Z-move can similarly be wasted into a protect or eaten by a switch in. She will almost always move last in trick room which is a dominant speed control method in this meta due to fewer tailwind users, twave accuracy nerf, ect.

I mean, people often call Pheromosa Deoxys-Lite and Deoxys itself isn't A-tier in Smogon Doubles OU. Maybe not a totally fair comparison, but generally glass cannons are much weaker in doubles than in singles. Even M-Ray was somewhat manageable in the 2016 meta, at least to the extent where it was only the 3rd (IIRC) most common restricted choice compared to singles where it's so busted it needs its own personal tier. I mean yeah, not everything can be a defensive titan but 71/37/37 is just miserable to work with. I think B tier is very appropriate for its impact on the meta as it stands.
 

Jibaku

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Thread's dead for a while, and meta's moving around. Here are some tentative changes I propose for the next edit, but I want some opinions:

(and ye I'm kinda in charge of this now)

- Creation of A- rank
- Gyarados into B+
- Lilligant into B
- Oranguru into B
- Raichu-A to B
- Eevee into Z because it deserves its own tier

Drops:

Gastrodon: A -> B+
Gengar: A -> B (still a potent mon imo, but it's really hard to fit onto a team rn)
Milotic: A -> B+
Vikavolt: A -> A- (possibly B+)
Ninetales: A -> A- (unsure)
Krookodile: A -> A-
Gigalith: A -> A-
Salamence: B+ -> B

There may be some B tier mons worth moving down, but I'm not focused on that rn. B- will be made at some point.

Raises:

Snorlax: B+ -> A-
Nihilego: B -> A-
Pheromosa: B -> B+
Vanilluxe: C -> B
 
I know these are about lower tiers so they lesser priority but i still would like to discuss about them.

Firstly, would someone seriously explain why the heck is Decidueye even ranked? I mean, what it exactly does? Its slow, its quite weak, its abilities are bad with one of them being unreleased and its not even that bulky. And if you want Grass/Ghost both Trevenant and Dhelmise are better mons. Is there some kind of niche on it im missing? Is Spirit Shackle really good enough to bring it to rankings?

I think Clefairy and Clefable should be ranked in lower tiers. They obviously are significantly worse than in 2015 for many reasons but the fact they are only bulky redirectors in the entire metagame (that are not weak to million things like Parasect) automatically gives them atleast a small niche.
 
My opinions about Jibaku's proposed changes:

Thread's dead for a while, and meta's moving around. Here are some tentative changes I propose for the next edit, but I want some opinions:

(and ye I'm kinda in charge of this now)

- Creation of A- rank ofc
- Gyarados into B+ agree
- Lilligant into B its kinda niche mon that requires specific teambuilding, but its viable for sure. I think that B- is better for it when it becomes a thing
- Oranguru into B agree
- Raichu-A to B agree
- Eevee into Z because it deserves its own tier yea, its kinda hard to rank anyways

Drops:

Gastrodon: A -> B+ yea, not to mention that it cannot even protect its partner from Fini's most common water move, muddy water. Bulky set with stockpile, toxic etc. is not that great anymore because of how common Kartana is atm
Gengar: A -> B (still a potent mon imo, but it's really hard to fit onto a team rn) agree
Milotic: A -> B+ agree, probably should drop even further, Milotic just isnt as good as it used to be
Vikavolt: A -> A- (possibly B+) B+ imo, its good but A-rank is too high
Ninetales: A -> A- (unsure) A is fine tbh, Ninetales is very cool (no pun intended), although i dont mind if it drops to A-.
Krookodile: A -> A- agree
Gigalith: A -> A- agree
Salamence: B+ -> B agree

There may be some B tier mons worth moving down, but I'm not focused on that rn. B- will be made at some point.

Raises:

Snorlax: B+ -> A- agree, snorlax is good rn
Nihilego: B -> A- agree
Pheromosa: B -> B+ unsure, i would keep in B but then again it counters quite a lot of meta aswell as its fastest unboosted mon but has quite a few flaws
Vanilluxe: C -> B agree
 

Halcyon.

@Choice Specs
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Yeah I feel like this could use a massive overhaul. First of all, I think there are very easily defined "S-rank" Pokemon in the meta, those being Arcanine, Garchomp, and Porygon2. The first two are the most common Pokemon in the current meta, while also being versatile. Arcanine can run bulky support or Offensive builds, Chomp can run Tectonic Rage, AV, Scarf, and Sash. Porygon2 is good on pretty much any team, whether it is for TR or simply for how bulky it is and how it can actually reverse opposing TR.

Other shifts in the meta, such as Ninetales and Nihilego raising in usage, Snorlax and Vikavolt being seen more, and others, should be reflected in the rankings. We also, as Jibaku said, should probably include an Eevee rank just because it's something you need to be aware of, but the singular mons themselves aren't viable, the team is.

This is how I would arrange it.

S


A+


A


A-


B+


B


C


D


Eevee Pass Rank
 
Yeah I feel like this could use a massive overhaul. First of all, I think there are very easily defined "S-rank" Pokemon in the meta, those being Arcanine, Garchomp, and Porygon2. The first two are the most common Pokemon in the current meta, while also being versatile. Arcanine can run bulky support or Offensive builds, Chomp can run Tectonic Rage, AV, Scarf, and Sash. Porygon2 is good on pretty much any team, whether it is for TR or simply for how bulky it is and how it can actually reverse opposing TR.

Other shifts in the meta, such as Ninetales and Nihilego raising in usage, Snorlax and Vikavolt being seen more, and others, should be reflected in the rankings. We also, as Jibaku said, should probably include an Eevee rank just because it's something you need to be aware of, but the singular mons themselves aren't viable, the team is.

This is how I would arrange it.

S


A+


A


A-


B+


B


C


D


Eevee Pass Rank
I don't really agree with the S-rank comment. I think Arcanine, Garchomp, and Porygon2 are really good Pokemon, but I don't know why you think they are S-rank / so ubiquitous that they deserve that rank. Arcanine while useful at shuffling intimidate suffers from an inability to combine offensive sets with defensive sets and being not all that threatening. In the Tapu Fini meta (or Araquanid, other Garchomp, or what have you) it does do a lot of stuff, but isn't to the point where it's dominating. It's extremely easily splashable, but it's not a god--I've never brought it to an event, for example. Garchomp is similarly not that good at all, I don't even personally think it's an A+ mon. P2 is also very splashable but not intensely amazing. I'm not justifying this well, but that's because all of the Pokemon ARE REALLY GOOD...just I don't see S-rank at all. There's too many viable Pokemon, too many Pokemon that compete with these for slots (direct comparisons being Marowak to Arcanine, Krookodile to Garchomp, and Snorlax to Porygon2) and you don't need them to feel like you have a team that can win an event.
 

Halcyon.

@Choice Specs
is a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
I don't really agree with the S-rank comment. I think Arcanine, Garchomp, and Porygon2 are really good Pokemon, but I don't know why you think they are S-rank / so ubiquitous that they deserve that rank. Arcanine while useful at shuffling intimidate suffers from an inability to combine offensive sets with defensive sets and being not all that threatening. In the Tapu Fini meta (or Araquanid, other Garchomp, or what have you) it does do a lot of stuff, but isn't to the point where it's dominating. It's extremely easily splashable, but it's not a god--I've never brought it to an event, for example. Garchomp is similarly not that good at all, I don't even personally think it's an A+ mon. P2 is also very splashable but not intensely amazing. I'm not justifying this well, but that's because all of the Pokemon ARE REALLY GOOD...just I don't see S-rank at all. There's too many viable Pokemon, too many Pokemon that compete with these for slots (direct comparisons being Marowak to Arcanine, Krookodile to Garchomp, and Snorlax to Porygon2) and you don't need them to feel like you have a team that can win an event.
I largely agree with everything you said, I think we just see the makings of an S rank mon differently. I don't think S rank has to be necessary on a team for it to be effective, I just consider those three Pokemon I mentioned better than the ones in A+ but honestly they don't have to be S rank.
 
I agree on there not being a real S-Rank in this meta. There's just nothing that stands out as that dominant from my perspective, nothing on the level of Groudon-P in last year's rules. I think Porygon2 is probably the closest thing to fitting that bill in that it's a strong defensive presence that also brings the potential for offensive pressure via download, and not just offensive pressure but offensive pressure on both sides of the offensive spectrum with the return set, which with no investment and an attack boost lands neutral hits almost as strong as Garchomp's against single targets. But there's reasonable room for counterplay, you're not required to either use it or bring some ridiculously EV engineered counter set to deal with it to win events. Z-moves in particular make it much easier to build against defensive threats in this meta imo.

Things could change as the meta progresses, but I feel if there's an S rank it usually makes itself clear early on in the development of a meta. It's the lower ranks that take the longest to figure out. Sometimes threats come soaring up the tier list but generally, stuff that was considered good at the first events (koko, porygon2, lele, chomp, celesteela, marowak, arcanine, gyarados, ect) is still good.

I pastebinned my take on viability for simplicity's sake. Not radically different from most other lists but has more unlisted stuff in D tier as there are a lot of really niche but potentially viable pokemon in this meta.
http://pastebin.com/wb4MsA4Z
 

Adamant Zoroark

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It's going to be pretty hard to get people to agree to a new S-Rank definition when we've had a whole generation of VGC where S-Rank meant "DP Garchomp and GSC Snorlax tier", though. The way I see it, we're in a new meta where that standard no longer applies, but at the same time, it's hard to stop seeing S-Rank by that standard simply due to having an entire generation of VGC of things like CHALK in VGC15 and Primals in VGC16, even when that standard is unrealistically high for this metagame, where things that centralizing don't exist.

While I agree that we should be using a different S-Rank definition as the one that applied to VGC15/16 is far too high for a metagame like VGC17, there's so much precedent regarding the Gen VI standard that you'd be hard-pressed to convince people to use a different S-Rank definition, even when it simply doesn't apply to the current format (i.e. it's hard to change someone's mind when they've been thinking for so long that S-Rank means "You have to have two or three of these to have a semi-decent team")
 

Jibaku

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is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
I'm not proposing that we should use the same S-rank definition as last year. But out of the cast in A+, it's just -really hard- to pick a standout mon to make that tier jump. They're all imo about as equally as viable as each other (bit less for Kartana but that's bc people are hard prepping for it nowadays), and they're all very splashable Pokemon. Moving everything to S also does not sound like a play we can make because that tier is designed to be exclusive for the metagame standouts, and we can't just have a bunch of Pokemon in there. Anyways, I'm going to maintain A+ as the top tier for the time being, but feel free to continue arguing for why it should exist.

Anyways, comments on a few Pokemon:

Gastrodon: Absolutely does not deserve a mid A ranking. It's either too passive (or too frail if you're using offensive Gastro), with a relatively one dimensional use. There's a good reason why Gastrodon's usage plummeted since San Jose - there are other rain counters in the game and they're more active (Fini/Kart mainly. Also people just got better at dealing with rain). I'm keeping Gastro in B+ because it's still something people have to respect because its bulk and recovery can take over games if not prepared for, but no higher because it kills momentum if prepared for. It also kinda blows against the best Water type on the format.

Tapu Bulu: I'm probably bumping this up to B+ because it is one of the few Grass mons in the format. I think moving it to A- is a stretch for the time being, but it does have the movepool to work around its counters. Mediocre speed + unfortunate set of weaknesses (also just loses to a majority of the best mons in the game, save the other 3 Tapus) really blows for it. It's not bad, just difficult to use.

Gyarados: Will consider moving it to A when it gets Bounce next week (SUPERSONIC SKYSTRIKE!). Not so much rn though.

Ninetales: Will likely keep it in A
 
Gyarados: Will consider moving it to A when it gets Bounce next week (SUPERSONIC SKYSTRIKE!). Not so much rn though.
Hold on, are you saying that we can use mons from ORAS, as long as they are part of Alola dex? I mean, Bounce is tutor-only move for Gyara, and there is no legitimate way to get Bounce on Gyarados that is bred/caught in Gen VII. (its not egg move unless im mistaken)

This would mean we would get some quite a few nice new tools, such as Icy Wind Milotic and Earth Power Gastrodon.
 
Hold on, are you saying that we can use mons from ORAS, as long as they are part of Alola dex? I mean, Bounce is tutor-only move for Gyara, and there is no legitimate way to get Bounce on Gyarados that is bred/caught in Gen VII. (its not egg move unless im mistaken)

This would mean we would get some quite a few nice new tools, such as Icy Wind Milotic and Earth Power Gastrodon.
No, there's an incoming Gen 7 event featuring a Bounce Magikarp. This is the only VGC 2017 legal Magikarp with Bounce and what's being talked about, if it wasn't clear.
 
I'd like to propose:

Goodra: B -> B+

Goodra is a phenomenal defensive mon in this format. I've found it to be a rather reliable check to rain and sun strategies. Dazzling Gleam from LO Koko is a 4HKO with Assault Vest equipped and lets Goodra use Sludge Bomb to 2HKO back. Sap Sipper walls Tapu Bulu, prevents Leech Seed from Celesteela, and provides a stop to Kartana Leaf Blade. Goodra's move pool also makes it a great defensive pivot with answers. I've been running Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt, Dragon Pulse, and Flamethrower on mine.

Thanks for putting this thread together guys.
 
I wont suggest any ranking yet but now that Salazzle got Fake Out, i would assume it should be ranked somewhere. It was already "usable" without it (D or very low C tier i think, i got into ~1770 on Battle Spot with my very first version (which was quite imperfect) of hail team im using right now that had LO salazzle), but i guess Fake Out now gives it quite a nice niche. Its only really fast Pokemon with Fake Out in the entire meta, aswell as has good support movepool and very nice offensive typing. Being super frail, completely destroyed by Chomp and not that strong for such frailness kinda sucks, though.

Reason why i dont suggest any rank is because it havent seen any usage in events yet (ofc, FO became legal just yesterday!), and i havent tried it out, but i have seen few in BS and they "did something". Better wait for a while to see if it actually has any potential. I dont think that it will go very high anyway; somewhere at C or maybe at very best in B-.
 
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Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I'd suggest Gastrodon to be higher than that. I think it deserves an A.
4x to grass may sound horrible on paper, but in reality, very few viable Pokemon have access to strong enough grass moves.
Practically, with usage of Lilligant being dropped due to decline of Sun teams, Kartana is the only viable Pokemon left that counters Gastrodon.
 
Gastrodon is solid, but it actually just was A and got dropped from there. It deters water type move and is weak to only one type, sure, but it has other problems that imo shouldnt bump it to A or even A-.

First of all, (and this is quite important, too) most common Water-move of most common Water-Type in the meta is spread move, so while Gastro might absorb it for boost it still cant protect its partner from incoming Muddy Water. Gastrodon also has kinda akward dilemma, too. If it decides to go offensive, it loses quite a bit from its bulk while it still wont hit THAT hard. If it goes bulky, it relies on Toxic and Storm Drain boosts to do relevant damage. Doesnt help that Fini's ability prevents gastro from using Toxic.

Gastro in general is really passive, relies on its ability to get boosts. It falls on very similar boat as Milotic, although i could argue that Gastro is in slightly better position than Milotic is. Rather than bumping Gastro to A-rankings i would rather see Gastro staying B+ while Milotic dropping to B, although i heard recently about Scarf Milotic shenanigans which is something to keep on mind.
 
I'd suggest Gastrodon to be higher than that. I think it deserves an A.
4x to grass may sound horrible on paper, but in reality, very few viable Pokemon have access to strong enough grass moves.
Practically, with usage of Lilligant being dropped due to decline of Sun teams, Kartana is the only viable Pokemon left that counters Gastrodon.
I disagree with this, any Pokémon running a grass type move (Goodra, TAPU BULU, Celesteela, etc.) can utterly obliterate Gastrodon, I think it should stay where it is, because as the meta changes, (I don't know about anyone else, but I am seeing more of Bulu lately) Gastrodon will continue to have a harder time.
 

Jibaku

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is a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Updates:
Mimikyu: C -> B-
Silvally Normal: C -> B-
Whimsicott: C -> B-
Braviary: B- -> B
Raichu: Unranked (oops) -> B
Mudsdale: B -> B+

Gyarados/bank stuff coming later still.
 
Alola-Wak: A- ->A
I personally don't think that Wak got too weakened by the AFK's rise. It's virtually a slower Arcanine that's about as tanky, and as long as there's no Knock Off user, it can still maintain a good spot.

And I also think that no one's going to be on S for a while. If there's another crazy core or something that can outdo the AFK, I'm all for it if it brings at least one mon to S. Right now, though, there's not much hope.
 
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