ADV OU Viability Rankings

S:
Tyranitar
Gengar
Skarm

A+:
Celebi
Suicune
Blissey
Jirachi
Metagross

A:
Swampert
Dugtrio
Zapdos
Salamence
Aerodactyl
Snorlax

A-:
Magneton
Starmie
Flygon
Forretress
Heracross
Jolteon

Those are my current ratings. I tend to rate things that "warp the metagame" highly.
 
Think these rankings need to be overhauled, the metagame has shifted a ton across the past year and our resources need to reflect that.

Gen 3 - ADV Viability Ranking (OU) | Page 13 | Smogon Forums

^ control F 2017 on that page, start with UD's post and work your way down for arguments about what to shift and why.

Also have my personal rankings:
S Rank: Tyranitar, Gengar
S- Rank: Skarmory, Jirachi, Suicune
A+ Rank: Salamence, Metagross, Swampert, Celebi, Blissey, Zapdos
A Rank: Aerodactyl, Dugtrio, Snorlax, Heracross, Starmie
A- Rank: Flygon, Magneton, Jolteon, Milotic
B+ Rank: Claydol, Porygon2, Venusaur, Forretress, Moltres

Like this post if you agree the rankings need changes.
 
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Stockings

Mum stole me darts
Member
Tiers are ordered.
S+: Glalie
S: Tyranitar, Gengar, Skarmory
A+: Jirachi, Metagross, Suicune, Celebi, Swampert, Salamence
A: Zapdos, Heracross, Snorlax, Aerodactyl, Dugtrio, Blissey
A-: Flygon, Starmie, Magneton, Jolteon, Porygon2
B+: Claydol, Milotic, Forretress, Moltres
B: Cloyster, Venusaur, Raikou, Ludicolo
B- Regice, Kingdra, Camerupt
 
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Sure, I'll put forward some opinions. First, I disagree strongly with there being an S+ rank as we have currently. While S implies a pokemon is one of the best in the meta, which is absolutely true of Tyranitar, S+ implies that it shouldn't be dropped from any team. This isn't true of Tyranitar, because while it is the best and has a lot to offer every team, it doesn't offer so much that dropping it will always make a team worse.

My rankings for S to the A- are as follows:

S Rank: Tyranitar, Gengar
A+ Rank: Skarmory, Suicune, Blissey, Jirachi, Metagross, Swampert, Celebi, Salamence
A Rank: Zapdos, Dugtrio, Aerodactyl, Snorlax
A- Rank: Magneton, Starmie, Flygon, Heracross, Jolteon

Gengar is one of the most offensively threatening pokemon in the tier. It offers powerful status in either Wisp, or Hypnosis, and also has amazing coverage that can hit a huge portion of the tier. Blissey risks being exploded on, and even without explosion, with a combination of taunt and wisp, supported by sand and spikes, Gengar can wear down Blissey over the course of a game. As for recent development, this year we've seen bulky Gengar get more and more popular. This lets it live Tyranitar's pursuit trap, and generally gives it more longevity. For these reasons I believe it should be the only other pokemon in S rank, and I'll now explain why I don't think any pokemon other than TTar or Gengar deserves to be.

Celebi should certainly drop from S rank. Defensive sets let Skarm and Forre come in easily, and lay down spikes, while it can't really do that much in return. This is a very notable disadvantage. Depending on what moves it chooses to drop, it can find itself in serious trouble.
If it doesn't run Hidden Power Grass, it's unable to kill Dugtrio in 1 hit, which leaves it much more vulnerable to trapping. It is also unable to damage Tyranitar outside of Leech Seed. However, without Psychic, Celebi can't take on Taunt Gengar well at all, and also lets Heracross come in. If you choose to run both, then you miss out on the many useful support moves that bulky Celebi can run, such as Perish Song, Screens, BP to keep momentum. Celebi also has CM sets, and can BP those boosts to team mates. However, I don't believe these other sets are strong enough to keep it in S either. They can also be roared out by Zap, or whirled out by Skarm, though they do get a decent hit off before that happens. Celebi has many merits as a pokemon, but the drawbacks are enough to keep it in A+.

As for Suicune, I don't believe this deserves S rank either, although it is a closer case. When you look at Suicune, you have to weigh it up vs other bulky waters to see how good it is. Suicune is the best water type in the tier, but not to such an extent that it deserves S. Compared to Swampert, it lacks a rock resist, which is pretty crucial. Secondly, it also takes sand damage whereas Swampert does not. Therefore, Swampert can run protect to gain additional recovery, Suicune can't. As a result, Suicune runs rest. This gives the opponent free turns, and makes Suicune not as strong of an answer for pokemon such as DDttar and Aerodactyl. Due to the lack of ground typing, and therefore not running protect, Suicune becomes a much easier target for pokemon such as Metagross to boom on. Those defensive merits Swampert has means it tends to get higher usage than Suicune. However, overall, Suicune is still the best water type. It offers a strong wincon with its CM sets, and while Swampert gets destroyed by surprise HP grass from pokemon such as a TTar, Suicune can shoulder them quite easily. Suicune also can very strong with offensive sub CM sets, which are fantastic considering how Fire Blast Blissey has become more common. However, it must give up bulk, and heavily dislikes sand and spikes. I don't think it is strong enough for S.

Finally, the last candidate is Skarmory. I don't think that deserves S. Skarmory is integral to a lot of teams. It is unquestionably the best spiker in the tier, it offers strong defensive merits, isn't set up bait because it whirls, and can wear down most pokemon it is afraid of, such as offensive Zapdos, Moltres, Jolteon etc with toxic, while it recovers by using Protect. However, it too has enough disadvantages to keep it out of S rank. The only way it has of applying pressure is through Spikes, and Toxic + Protect stalling, so in matchups where the opponent has a hazard remover that doesn't care about toxic, such as Refresh Claydol, Skarmory will be less useful. However, that's a lesser point.
While Skarmory sets up spikes, the opponent has a free switch into Gengar, one of the most dangerous pokemon in the tier, which can be very punishing to switch into. In addition, I don't think a pokemon being trappable is such a huge disadvantage. However, the difference is that TTar, Celebi, can KO Dug if it tries to come in and trap them. Skarmory can't do anything against Magneton short of a very very niche offensive HP Ground set. Skarmory is exceptionally susceptible to trapping and I think that is the key difference. The fact that spikes have decent counterplay, and in particular that Skarmory can be punished so heavily by Gengar and Magneton, are the reasons why I think it should stay out of S.
 
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I think renaming S+ & S to S & S- is a good idea.

I think
TTar S
Gar S-
Skarm top of A+ with celebi/suicune slotted somewhere else in A+ or A.
Uh I'm on phone rn but I think that Tar and Gar are close enough in viability that they don't need two different subranks, while Skarm / Jirachi / Suicune are all significantly ahead of the other A+ mons to the point that they merit a S- Rank for themselves. Will edit with more thoughts on this as well as the other A mons when I have time
 
Uh I'm on phone rn but I think that Tar and Gar are close enough in viability that they don't need two different subranks, while Skarm / Jirachi / Suicune are all significantly ahead of the other A+ mons to the point that they merit a S- Rank for themselves. Will edit with more thoughts on this as well as the other A mons when I have time
Is gar really that good now? :eek: I'm not confident enough in my abilities at the game to say whether I agree or disagree honestly

Skarm Jirachi Suicune in S- doesn't seem ridiculous to me

Interesting suggestions, what do other people think of what Ninjax suggested?
 
Gengar’s always been that good, dealing with it’s options is always hard. There’s a reason why pursuit tar despite not being super dangerous in its own right is the most common set. I don’t see why you’d clutter by adding an S-, I agree they are really good, with Jirachi definitely being the most versatile of the three. Just having them at the top of A+ is fine.
 
yo sorry but I think this seriously needs an update. Meta's changed a ton recently and I think VRs should reflect that to be a good resource.

Think Tar and Gar are clearly the only S ranks - their offensive / defensive presence as well as the insane attributes they bring to just about any team and how huge sand is in practice in adv, they're easily the best mons in the tier and are guaranteed to do something in 95% of matchups. Cele Cune despite still being good are clearly not even in the same tier as this

Think A+ - A need a general restructuring as well. A+ imo looks like Skarm - Jira - Pert - Cune - Zap - Bliss, A is Meta - Cele - Aero - Dug - Lax - Mence. Skarm being top A+ is fairly self-explanatory considering how the meta runs around spikes, Jira is simply absurd in the current metagame bc it checks Aero / Gar / Electrics in one slot while also threatening to be a deadly wincon in just about any circumstances (CM / Mixed sets), Wish is also amazing for team support and the ToxTect set never dies. Pert is still the best rock resist and ddtar / aero answer, people are also innovating with it via offensive sets that hit skarm harder with hydro and refresh sets that deal with tox spam by saying no. Offensive Cune is also making a comeback, hits insanely hard with Hydro and Sub / Tox allows it to bypass a decent amount of its counters, makes a nice pivot vs Offense, Rest sets are still good too (try Rest Hydro for cool factor). Zapdos is The Electric, the devastating one, super versatile, covers a decent bunch of threats like FPunch / HP Grass Gar, Meta, Cune, ResTalk is hard to kill, offensive sets can just let loose, either way you abuse the hell out of spikes. Plenty of ways to tech with Zap aswell. Blissey is just Blissey, very hard to kill and it just pressures a ton of things with smart predicts and spikes support, being Bliss weak can turn against you really fast.

Will say more later but Cele is spikes bait or weak to offense depending on what set ur running, all Meta's sets are flawed either offensively or defensively and either way u risk running into something like Refresh Milo that just stonewalls you or getting picked off by Mag / Dug. Mence just sucks, all of its sets require significant support to do anything and even then it's kinda weak, slow by comparison to other major threats and you need to predict a lot of the time to get anything out of it, other 3 As are pretty self-explanatory tbh, A's where they've always been and probably where they'll always be.

Also Milo / Clay / potentially Molt to A-, all are pretty good atm.
 
Think Tar and Gar are clearly the only S ranks - their offensive / defensive presence as well as the insane attributes they bring to just about any team and how huge sand is in practice in adv, they're easily the best mons in the tier and are guaranteed to do something in 95% of matchups. Cele Cune despite still being good are clearly not even in the same tier as this
agree

Think A+ - A need a general restructuring as well. A+ imo looks like Skarm - Jira - Pert - Cune - Zap - Bliss, A is Meta - Cele - Aero - Dug - Lax - Mence. Skarm being top A+ is fairly self-explanatory considering how the meta runs around spikes, Jira is simply absurd in the current metagame bc it checks Aero / Gar / Electrics in one slot while also threatening to be a deadly wincon in just about any circumstances (CM / Mixed sets), Wish is also amazing for team support and the ToxTect set never dies. Pert is still the best rock resist and ddtar / aero answer, people are also innovating with it via offensive sets that hit skarm harder with hydro and refresh sets that deal with tox spam by saying no. Offensive Cune is also making a comeback, hits insanely hard with Hydro and Sub / Tox allows it to bypass a decent amount of its counters, makes a nice pivot vs Offense, Rest sets are still good too (try Rest Hydro for cool factor). Zapdos is The Electric, the devastating one, super versatile, covers a decent bunch of threats like FPunch / HP Grass Gar, Meta, Cune, ResTalk is hard to kill, offensive sets can just let loose, either way you abuse the hell out of spikes. Plenty of ways to tech with Zap aswell. Blissey is just Blissey, very hard to kill and it just pressures a ton of things with smart predicts and spikes support, being Bliss weak can turn against you really fast.
I don't object to this, but if someone suggested a different order of the A+/A mons I would be open to it

Also Milo / Clay / potentially Molt to A-, all are pretty good atm.
Idk about molt to A- but I think molt in B+ is fine and milo/clay in A- i agree with.
 
all Meta's sets are flawed either offensively or defensively and either way u risk running into something like Refresh Milo that just stonewalls you or getting picked off by Mag / Dug. Mence just sucks, all of its sets require significant support to do anything and even then it's kinda weak, slow by comparison to other major threats and you need to predict a lot of the time to get anything out of it.

I disagree with most of this portion. I think metagross is a clear A+ right now. It's amazing what it provides both offensively and defensively to a team. The rock resist is huge and makes it one of the best counters to aerodactyl, one of the most important pokemon to have a counter for in the tier. The mixed sets can take on gengar, and it can also check tyranitar. It just provides such an amazing defensive backbone for offensive teams. Offensively it has so many different options. Explosion is massively important as both an offensive and defensive tool. It can be used to break open things like refresh milo that you mentioned or to put an emergency stop to an opposing threat. Mixgross is one of the best things for wearing down swampert/skarm cores, especially helpful with the rise of refresh pert. CB gross can mash its way through just about anything with a little bit of luck and agiligross is one of the best late game cleaners around (try lum berry on it, it's amazing). Toxic gross isn't as effective as it used to be but it can still put in work against a number of teams. This is a pokemon i get value out of every time I use it even if just for the ever present threat of explosion.

Mence probably belongs in A instead of A+ but I disagree that it just sucks. Mixmence and CB mence are still terrifying threats and dd mence is one of the best late game cleaners to have against all the offensive tss teams running around nowadays. It also always has the ability to provide defensive utility thanks to intimidate, allowing offensive teams the ability to play around most physical threats with the right predictions. Id say it's at least better than dug and lax.

Overall though I agree with most of this and am excited to see what you do with the VRs!
 
move weezing up to B- at least. Great mon. Also move breloom up to like C+ or something, the stun spore hp bug variants work very well. Machamp should also be at least C+, the CB set mauls. Just ask linear

Also dusclops sucks, should be below at least Exeggutor

Also gonna be bold and say Umbreon to B-: it's a very effective special wall (great vs Gengar, Starmie, Pert, Claydol, Non-BP Celebi, non-Sub Cune), can Pursuit and WishPass. Whilst it needs support (primarily anti-skarm support), it's a pretty reliable support mon that can do a lot of stuff. Pursuit without sand is useful for lax, too.

Not to mention that trap-passing is always dangerous too.
 
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hey I'm in charge now, bop. Made a preliminary set of changes to the vr (basically everything I put in my post).

Responding to Dan, Meta and Mence are definitely still good, but they have a lot of issues. Metagross is either cb, physical (encompasses agility and defensive sets as well as mm eq boom filler ada gross) and mixed. CB is just defensively unreliable imo outside of checking Aero because of how it gets chipped away by Spikes and resisted hits throughout the game and you need to play really well to preserve it. All Physical sets need to be paired with Mag or positioned on a heavy offense team otherwise Skarm's taking free layers off of you and even accounting for that it still tends to fall flat vs more defensive teams until it resorts to boom. Mixed does take on a few things but it's super slow which sucks vs Blissey, Tar, Pert and a few other things, and it's also forced to compromise on bulk so it can't check Aero and DDTar as well (cost of needing 252+ in spa). Plus all these sets despite their different attributes tend to share the same sets of counters - Swampert (which now runs Refresh so Toxic isn't as reliable), Milotic, Suicune, Rest Zapdos, Skarmory, Magneton (traps CB, forces Mix to Boom because HP Fire doesn't do enough back, and it picks off any physical Metagross that's hovering around 40%). It can definitely do work offensively and cut loose vs some standard archetypes, while it's a sturdy rock resist to boot and utility boom checks everything but yeah it has drawbacks and bad matchups.

Mence sucks is an extreme ig, but yeah I really don't like it atm. Mixed has always suffered from being comparatively slow and being just not powerful enough, which means that waters and Zapdos just sit on it, Tar can tank Brick Break once, heck even Gengar and Aero can switch in without fear of being 2hkoed and force it out. Plus Blissey doesn't get 2hkoed by BB and it ohkos back with Ice Beam...I could go on but yeah MixMence struggles to break without spikes and / or heavy support and it gets forced out by way too much (Starmie, Jolteon, Gengar, Aerodactyl, Ice Punch Superachi, IB Tyranitar, I could go on but I think I've made my point). CB is just prediction reliant, unlike every other viable CB user you have a terrible stab that half the tier resists so you have to constantly win 50/50s on prediction to get any use out of it, plus it's on a timer thanks to sand (unlike every other viable CB user), and heck, even stuff like PursuiTar can come in on a predicted HP Flying / Rock Slide and take half its life off by Pursuiting as it switches out. It can do work but it's very easy to find yourself in a nightmare scenario where you're just giving your opponent set-up fodder while Mence slowly dies. DDMence is just weak af and it only really does well in offense vs offense where it can actively take advantage of more open games, vs more defensive stuff it will fall flat in the lategame.

[Gen 3] OU replay: Hclat vs. Clip Paper Wings - Pokémon Showdown

The fact that standard defensive Celebi (I was only running like 120 defense btw) takes only 70% from +1 HP Flying (a STAB super effective move) is laughable. Mence does have some scenarios where it does well (like offense vs offense) and a good player can get some decent mileage out of Intimidate / good predictions but yeah it just struggles so much of the time that I'm hesitant to place it higher than A.

Will probs move up stuff like Weezing Yama Wak Regirock Houndoom etc, maybe Zam too bc it's actually nb in the Gar metagame. Want to hear other people's thoughts on them before I do though. Loom and Champ are kinda meh but a rise might be possible.

Oh also I need to repopulate B- lmk what you guys think would slot in there.

Edit: Claydol's A-, I forgot to take it out of B, bop.

Also yeah I was talking about MixMence in general rather than the Smogon set but the alternatives aren't great either, if you go naive then DClaw is doing jack to anything (like now you lose the rolls you had vs Gar / Aero), HP Grass and Fire Blast also do noticeably less to their targets, etc etc. It's not bad per se (improves your mu vs Gar and some offenses) but acting like it's a cheap easy fix is silly when it's exacerbating other issues that MixMence has (also noting how IB DDTar is the in thing bc that set just snacks on Naive MixMence). Giving up DClaw is giving up your best source of damage output and you're even more reliant on predicting switches correctly, you now lose to opposing Flygon and Salamence, relying on Rock Slide which is weak af considering lack of stab, it really isn't all that good. Smogon MixMence isn't the outright best set but there's a reason it's used more often than the alternative MixMences (and there are plenty of alternatives, stuff like Wish, Toxic, Double-Edge, lure items, etc). Sadly all MixMences just struggle against the same sort of things and the meta isn't super conducive to it.

252 SpA Salamence Dragon Claw vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Zapdos: 96-114 (25 - 29.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 SpA Salamence Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 156+ SpD Jirachi: 183-216 (45.6 - 53.8%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
unimpressive damage output / 10
 
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Here's how I would rank it rn if it were up to me.
S
Tyranitar, Gengar
A+
Skarmory, Jirachi, Blissey, Zapdos, Suicune
A
Swampert, Salamence, Aerodactyl, Celebi, Snorlax, Dugtrio, Magneton, Starmie
A-
Heracross, Jolteon, Claydol, Flygon,Milotic
B
Moltres, Cloyster, Porygon2, Forretress, Weezing, Venusaur
C+
Hariyama, Gyarados, Marowak, Regice, Donphan, Camerupt
C-
Smeargle, Houndoom, Ludicolo, Jynx, Rhydon, Raikou, Regirock, Lapras, Vaporeon, Registeel, Umbreon, Kingdra, Medicham, Steelix, Machamp, Alakazam, Charizard, Cacturne

Everything else shouldn’t be used if you’re trying to win
 
Hey Ninjax glad to see you got what you wanted in that you are over viab rankings for ADV. First of all congrats.

Just replying because I saw your post regarding the usefulness of mixmence. Although you make some strong points I would just like to address the 2 main issues you have with mixmence
1: You stated that mixmence is generally just too slow
2: You stated that zap comes in on it fairly comfortably.


Before I go any further I just wanna say I totally agree with you. However here are some "solution sets" to those issues.

1) First off all I would like to suggest the Noitu set which uses 328 speed. This set is incredibly underrated. It still hits relatively hard. It 2hkos most rachis, speedties CB gon, outspeeds +1 ttar and most other mences. If you watch my PPL game vs Lycomedes you will see that my 305 speed zap could not get the expected sweep against Noitu mence + the rest of his team and thus costed me the game.(first found this set on a noitu team and since attributed it to him, its just a more speedy mence really)
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
IVs: 30 Def / 30 SpA
- Dragon Claw
- Fire Blast
- Brick Break
- Hidden Power [Grass]

2) Second I would like to suggest Actual mixmence as I call it. This mence beats variants of zap on the switch, guarantee 2hkos blissey, ohkos tyranitar after a couple of layers of spikes, and 2hkos bulky zap in sand with Rock Slide.
Salamence (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 176 Atk / 188 SpA / 144 Spe
Naughty Nature
- Brick Break
- Fire Blast
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Rock Slide


Obviously both sets have their drawbacks:
  • On set 1 you lose notable damage output
  • On set 2 you are reduced to 272 speed, implying you only outspeed adamant hera and midspeed zapdos.
  • On set 2 you lose your strongest stab move in exchange for utility attacks.

As a conclusion I would just like to say that you will NEVER see me use the Smogon preset for mixmence. Not only is it terrible but a huge amount of the standard smogon sets are God awful.(Eg dd Tar should probably have its speed and attack EVs swapped on the smogon profile.)

I totally agree with your critiques of mixed salamence, but I feel as if the standard one is the one most people consider, and that set in general is just a plain shamble. Hope this helped :)
 
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