RBY Ubers / 1P vaporeon??

[juoean]

I haven't seen any mention of vaporeon in rby ubers and wondering if it has any viability / why the concept below isn't viable.

Haze
Acid armor
surf
rest

Haze is the primary move that could give vap a niche in this meta where it isn't outclassed. Basically it would be used in conjunction with vaps special bulk to come in after a KO from a 999 special mewtwo, tank a hit (assuming mewtwo is unparalyzed) and haze off the amnesia boosts. It would be kod next turn (select haze again in case mewtwo tries to boost instead) allowing a "counter" to come in but now with the boosts removed, which could obv be the difference in stopping a game ending sweep.
Haze could also be used on slowbro at +6, esp since slowbro all carry surf here plus vap is faster so vap would only be taking a +0 surf. but I'd think stopping a mewtwo sweep is more important.

Acid armor, rest, surf is enough to force physical lax to switch out (or selfdestruct), it also gives vap a chance against paralyzed offensive mew maybe 25-30% ish I'm struggling a little w the calculations (both would be reliant on hax to break through). (Sd/eq/hbeam unparalyzed mew still needs hax but is almost guaranteed to break through before running out of pp since any hbeam crit and sometimes eq crits will be enough to break rest loop, and vap can never break through soft boiled without paralysis other than stalling it out of pp.)
Ice beam could maybe be an option over surf, but vap can never attack mewtwo which is what you usually want to freeze, fishing for freeze against unparalyzed mew isn't any easier than hax to break through paralyzed mew plus only surf can pp stall soft boiled, and the extra damage does make a difference against snorlax (and switchins other than chansey.)

there are obv definite problems, vaps offensive presence is zero against most of the meta game (mewtwo slowbro ofc, and rly almost anything with any form of recovery), struggles with zapdos and gengar, neutral surfs will do something to the ou pieces but it's rly never going to be a real offensive threat. so very defensive/stall oriented, probably even more than most chansey.
rly the biggest problem I see rn is it can't lead at all and makes it hard to fit a sleeper on your team. since vap is so defensive the best option for the team is probably sing chansey, but chansey probably cant lead. idk im rly bad with actual in battle tactics so maybe someone else could address that (solution or if that dooms vap).
(there's also a possibility with hazing mewtwo that opponent could instead switch mewtwo out for a sleeping poke to remove the status with vaps haze. but since haze is an emergency stop to a sweep i don't rly see that as a serious problem, plus if ur sleeper is still alive you can ofc sleep something else. hazing off freeze is also not rly a concern since then you could get another chance at freezing mewtwo)

Despite its issues, vap with this set is the closest thing to a snorlax counter (which will rly help w predicting lax self-destructs), has some use against both mews, and also can stall slowbro. no OU pieces other than snorlax, slowbro and chansey can do anything close to that.

the biggest issues for vap in OU are its limited attacking moveset and second it's lack of recovery, so it's outclassed there by Lapras and esp starmie. the first doesn't matter in ubers rly at all (e.g. compare to chansey rarely using thunderbolt) and acid armor plus vaps special bulk makes rest viable recovery in some scenarios. and water typing is better in ubers i think bc of all the ice type attacks.
unlike in ou, haze rly isn't a gimmick bc of the importance of amnesia / mewtwo. Vap is also the only user of acid armor or barrier besides mewtwo that's at all viable, and while physical defense is obv less important than special, being able to switch in to snorlax if needed and survive setting up aa unless hax seems pretty valuable.

idk am I rly badly misanalyzing something?

 

[Enigami]

Because

1) Mewtwo may carry Thunderbolt, which can OHKO at 999 spc

2) Mewtwo 4HKOs, which means 1v1 Vap rest loops at best which it'll lose because of A) crits B) spc drops C) using Amnesia once then 2HKOing before Vap can move.

3) Mewtwo inflicts 66-77.7% before Haze and 26.9-31.7% after, adding up to 92.9-109.4% damage, which means Mewtwo has a chance of 2HKOing even after getting Hazed.

4) Vap takes a LOT of damage trying to Haze even Thunderbolt-less +4/+6 Mewtwo

5) Haze cures the opponent's status. Using it on a paralyzed Mewtwo cures it. Furthermore, once your opponent catches on they can try to predict Haze to remove status from other Pokemon.

6) Rest is very easy to take advantage of.

7) Victreebel is more viable here than in 1U and eats Vap alive.

It DOES kinda keep Slowbro, Snorlax and even Mew in check, but once it's forced to Rest you need to hope your opponent can't take advantage of its sleeping turns. Pretty much Vap just sits around and hopes for the best. On paper, it looks like it might have a small niche? I'd expect nothing past D rank though.

 

[juoean]

ty and I agree with about half of those points
1. I don't think this is too relevant since if mewtwo is already at 999 special and sweeping and you need vap to stop the sweep then you should already know it's attacking moves by then (and if you don't then you rly probably are lost anyway). my understanding is tbolt isn't too common. anyway yes obviously vap can only do this against ib/psychic (or barrier) mewtwo.

2-4. yes obviously vaporeon cannot actually counter mewtwo, maybe at best it could take away 3-4 pp of an attaking move if that's what you were trying to do, but that's not what I was suggesting.
to try to clarify the situation is e.g. you just lost a mewtwo freeze war and your other "counters" (maybe slowbro and especially snorlax) are at too low health to come in and take a 999 special psychic, so you "sacrifice" vap to haze off the boosts and after vap faints you bring in the "counter" but now on an unboosted mewtwo.
tho I realize now also that mewtwo criting on the counter would do almost as much so you're likely depending on a noncrit at least on that turn also, if mewtwo decides to stay in.
idk maybe I'm overestimating the value of this? and it could depend on the team, but aiming to freeze mewtwo is pretty common right and how a lot of games are won? and "half" of those games your mewtwo would be the one that gets frozen and this could be the only chance to not just lose, it seems to me it could happen pretty often. e.g. snorlax taking 35% instead of 80% or whatever it takes from a unboosted vs. a 999 psychic (i still rely on damage calculators I don't have it memorized yet) it definitely seems like it could be worth sacrificing vap for that 40-45% hp. also def depending on the snorlax set some sets would care more than others
I can't find anywhere to practice rby ubers or I'd test to get a better feel for that like how often freezes on mewtwo are decisive and when this would actually matter (im not a skilled player anyway but just to get some sense of it in practice)
disagree with this point

5. yes it cures status, I only mentioned sleep and freeze but para too. on the other hand in that scenario you aren't sacrificing vap since mewtwo switched out instead -- unless you lose a 50/50 guess where mewtwo stays in for the first haze but then switches out and you hazed again, so this is a rly important point bc you lost almost all of vaps health and cured another pokes status.
if mewtwo is paralyzed there's no reason to be sacrificing vap here (I guess unless you rly need mewtwo unparalyzed to go for the freeze), also if mewtwo is paralyzed and for some reason you need to haze it vap gets to haze first so you aren't sacrificing it, so I wouldn't worry about that scenario.
mostly agree

6. this is the biggest issue which I did consider at one point but "forgot". especially if the rest is predicted, giving an extra turn to break through it. the biggest issue is mewtwo coming in and setting up for free (or forcing vap to haze and sacrifice itself - vap can't even do that if the rest is predicted). if sd/eq/hbeam mew is unparalyzed then it coming in and setting up is an issue too. if zapdos or gengar are still around they can do a lot of damage if not break through the rest. "nothing else" rly can but esp mewtwo is a huge issue.
this would make vap better saved for after st like a mewtwo freeze war (acid armor/rest usable if you win, haze sacrifice if needed if you lose), except... snorlax is prob gone by then and snorlax is vaps best matchup. so yes this rly impacts vaps potential effectiveness.
Agree

7. yes and victreebel too. Agree

Agree with your summary, idk I see a lot of the b and c tier as not very useful beyond getting off sleep bc of uselessness wrt ubers so I see this as a little better than most of c rank, but your points make sense and this would be rly rly hard to use.
also didn't even address having to take bslams from snorlax and the effect of vap getting paralyzed.....

 

[Disaster Area]

Yeah Haze is a dreadful move to use in RBY in general, particularly in metagames that are more status focussed, which definitely includes RBY 1P. That is almost certain to hurt you more than help, and on top of that you're using it on a terrible Pokemon which is basically outclassed by Lapras besides having access to a move with major downsides and a very small niche.

 

[Ortheore]

I think Haze is interesting and that there are definitely scenarios where it could be useful, and it shouldn't be immediately written off as unviable. BUT although I disagree with writing it off at face value, I do agree that it's unviable.

In my analysis of M2 I identified three ways of dealing with it: freezing, paralysis+boom and PP stall (note that para+boom is incompatible with the other two, but you can potentially try to freeze and PP stall with the same team). The trouble with Haze is that it fits with none of those strategies. Its issues with para+boom are obvious; you're clearing status (counter-productive) and you also have boom as your emergency response (redundant). The issues with the other two strategies is that the whole concept of having an emergency reset move doesn't make sense. Such teams are built around stalling M2, which becomes an all-or-nothing issue. If things have progressed to the point where you're needing an emergency reset (ie. M2's on a rampage), that kind of team has already lost since it depends on stalling it out, so it should never reach that stage unless you're in a losing position. Such teams also tend to be passive enough that a one-time reset is ineffective as M2 can simply boost back up with little concern. So that's some alternate/in-depth reasoning for why Haze is probably terrible, and it doesn't even touch on the obvious drawbacks of the move.

Also fwiw Tbolt M2 is very common, mostly because Slowbro is more prominent in 1P while Electric resists are rare, with better PP than other obvious moves being a smaller advantage. As for freezes on M2, you'll usually find that there's a lot of bark, not so much bite. Getting your M2 frozen will usually cost you the game, so most players are EXTREMELY cautious about letting M2 take Ice attacks, so although freezing is generally a good approach it seldom works out in practice unless you make a concerted effort to ensure that your opponent's only response to your IB M2 is his own M2