ADV OU (OverUsed) Viability Rankings

Cacturne has long been an annoyance in my competitive battling experience. Unless the your team has a fast poke like Gyarados or Gengar to taunt Cacturne, or a teammate that can phase it out. it can easily switch in on a standard Leech Seed Celebi and do its thing. Theoretically, a lot of things should be able to counter it, but it just never seems to work out that way in practice. It wins games, and I can attest to the frustration of seeing this thing spam sub-seed and forcing me to switch on spikes a bunch of times just to outmaneuver it. I recommend placing it in the B- tier.

 

worth noting that noitulover's team is probably illegal in ADV 1U b/c of 3 BPer limit (full sets weren't revealed tho)

Not dismissing the overall point tho

 

I know, and I'm good friends with him b/c of WCoP, I think he's largely been using my teams on ladder btw [including that cacturne one probably]

 

I feel Venusaur could serve to move to at least the top of C if not somewhere in C+, it does so much awesome stuff and it's super splashable

 

Oh woops i meant to update this list ages ago and it just completely slipped my mind. I will get to that by the end of this week and hopefully we should be able to get some more discussion going!

 

Alright at long last, finally got around to making some changes:

-> C
It seems like this is kind of the middle ground for most people and personally I agree with this placement. It can be quite dangerous in the right circumstances but as many people have pointed out it has a number of flaws that keep it from being consistent and it requires a significant amount of support to be effective.
-> C
Moving this guy up because it hits extremely hard. With CB or Swords Dance sets it can severely punish the things that try and stop it. Lack of speed, combined with poor special defense and a bad defensive typing keep it from being higher.
-> Keep as is
It seems like most people agree with this so I'm inclined to keep it as is.
-> C+
This thing is ridiculously dangerous and everyone seems to agree. Moving it to the top of C+. I'm holding off on B- for now but I would like to hear more discussion as it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch.
-> C+
This thing doesn't provide much defensive synergy and can have a difficult time actually sweeping but as was pointed out, it has a very easy time killing/sleeping 1 or two pokemon which can be very crippling. Definitely deserves C+.
-> C+
There seem to be mixed opinions on this but after trying it out myself it's really not bad. Does a lot of similar things to swampert but has more physical bulk and power and rapid spin at the cost of special defense, a steel resist, and being more easily walled. As far as gengar goes it's actually pretty decent at luring and chunking it with HP ghost since they want to come in on rapid spin.
-> Keep as is
It seems like enough people including myself want to keep it in C+ so not moving it.
-> C-
I know Ninjax won't be happy about this but a lot of people aren't convinced by this poke so I'm moving it to the top of C-.
-> C-
Putting it in the bottom of C- as an honorable mention sort of thing. It has a niche for sure but it's just not effective enough game to game to be higher especially with PP's limits on baton pass.
-> Keep as is
It sounds like enough people are in agreement with keeping it in B- so I'm leaving it there.
-> Keeping as is
There was a lot of disagreement with these 3 so I'm keeping this order as it is for now until discussion can be made. They are all extremely different in terms of roles which makes them hard to compare but I believe all of them are very similar in terms of viability.
-> Keep as is
While there was some more discussion about putting this over pert, I believe the majority is still in favor of pert being at the top of A+.
-> S
Getting rid of S- due to popular demand and putting cune in S. It isn't as splashable as the other S mons but is one of the most dangerous and versatile pokemon in the tier.
-> C
Adding this to the list as it definitely deserves a spot. It seems like most people want it in C.
-> C+
Moving this to high C+. UD has shown just how reliable it is to me multiple times. It's bulky, has a very irritating movepool and takes on a number of common pokemon.

Hopefully we get some more discussion with these changes!

 

I'm on phone right now but making this post as a placeholder for later when I can add my full thoughts. Thanks for reigniting the discussion!

 

Lapras should probably be added in low C-

comparing with cuno and lanturn

pros:
Water Absorb - you beat up any cune other than cm 3 atks and cm roar + spikes up with absolute ease
Heal Bell [over lanturn]
Beat certain mence sets [not fucked by rock slide like cuno, not fucked by eq like lanturn]
water stab [unlike cuno]
beats gyarados [unlike non-hp electric cuno, and lanturn due to its eq weakness]
no duggy weak [unlike lanturn]

cons:
weaker tbolt than lanturn
no real room for toxic in ur set if u want bell
grounded [unlike cuno]
not comfortable vs gengar [unlike lanturn]
loses to electrics [unlike lanturn which beats most of them]
loses to grass move celebi [unlike cuno]
no access to roar [unlike cuno]
worse vs starmie than lanturn, better than cuno tho
worse vs fire types than lanturn, better than cuno tho

think I covered the important stuff

 

Alright it's been a few days so I'm just gonna make a new post altogether.

A lot of the Pokes in Dan's post to me look like the Pokes that you decide you want to make a team around, and then basically make the other five guys able to support him properly. That sounds pretty much exactly what C rank Pokes should be to me. Donphan and Venusaur are the only two, in my opinion, that don't really fit this definition. Donphan is basically just The Rock Resist, and you have to give yourself other ways of dealing with Mence/Flygon and Gengar too of course. Venusaur is just a nice water resist and electric counter.

Kingdra feels more to me like a C poke since he's the kinda guy you need to build the rest of the team around. But it is debatable and not that big of a deal if he ends up in low B as opposed to high C.

Lapras is sort of interesting. My biggest issue with him is his typing is pretty horrible, with the Ice type only benefitting him vs. Suicune and that's basically it. He does have an amazing movepool and is a pretty legit cleric on stall teams. But overall I think I personally prefer just about every other water Poke. Even Quagsire can be the Rock resist on a team. Ice STAB is pretty nice and all, and he can do some cool things with Water Absorb though, so Lapras probably does deserve a C ranking (C-?).

Anyway these are just my thoughts.

 

Tyvm Dan for doing this and getting something rolling again

Most of the C rank changes look fine, all of it is technically subjective but everything looks like it's in the right place, I'd prefer Tauros being a little lower and Hitmontop being bottom of C rather than top of C- but whatever. I also think Jolteon - Flygon - Heracross is the correct order but I'm willing to let it slide.

Lapras seems like a super cool tech, being Rock weak in an age where water types are expected to be back-up rock checks sucks but it eats opposing waters (Suicune and Kingdra mostly, as well as the bulky ones) for breakfast while Ice STAB allows it to do other fun things. C to C- seems fair.

Last but probably the most important is that Blaziken should go to C-, maybe even unranked. Like honestly in the age of no-attacks Skarm there's no reason to use it over Heracross, or even Medicham / Hariyama - it's slower, weaker, runs from Gengar, Salamence, Waters and almost everything else - hell, you can't stay even in on Celebi for fear of it being offensive CM with Psychic. (A similar discussion about Ken was had on the smogon discussion that ended with BKC saying 'it just feels wrong to put Blaziken in gimmick rank' and going on to talk about how it beats this HP Flying Steelix that Heracross doesn't...yeah you get the gist Blaziken is utterly outclassed by every other fighting and unless Drill Peck Skarm catches on heavily again it'll stay that way).

 

I sort of agree on Blaziken actually. Tried building a team around him one time and I was not impressed at all. I honestly can't think of a worse Pokémon defensively than him, short of Dugtrio and NFEs. And that's not even the worst thing about him. It's his super unfortunate speed tier. Once you start loading up on speed then you've really cut into one of the attacking stats, which then means he's no longer serving as the solid mixed attacking threat he's supposed to be.

The one positive I can see from him over other fighting types is that he could do a Reversal set without requiring Magneton support. But meh. It's just not a great Poke at all in my opinion. No real issue of his being ranked though. Low C isn't too important anyway.

 

I can get behind moving blaziken further down. One thing it does have over the other fighting types though is that Gengar is a lot more scared of it. Sure you can run HP Ghost on heracross and kill gengar but those STAB fire blasts are a hell of a lot more dangerous to be throwing around than an unstabbed HP ghost so gar has a much more difficult time coming in on it. This means people are more likely to bring in like a Suicune or a Milotic on it and just get nailed by a STAB fighting move. I also think it's important to look at it in comparison to other offensive fire types, where its ability to hurt blissey without any set up is quite nice. That being said everything else about it kinda sucks and unless I get some opposition I will probably move it more to the low end of the C rank.

 

CBless unboosted Heracross does like 75% and up to bulky Gengar with HP Ghost so idk about the entire 'Blaziken puts more pressure on it' thing (considering its Fire Blasts do less). Focus Punch Charizard, SubWisp Moltres and the standard Camerupt all pressure Blissey solidly enough that running Blaziken as 'a fire that can beat Blissey' seems really dumb...tbh Ken's niche is so tiny and marginal (not to mention that the important parts of it are done much much better by other things) that I can't see it above things like Hitmontop and whatever that actually can do things. Should join Shedinja in courtesy mention (I'm probably being really harsh but cmon what does Blaziken even do to justify higher?)

 

My point was that STAB fire blast is a lot more spammable than HP Ghost, blaziken can more easily throw those out and still hit something pretty hard even if it isn't gengar specifically that comes in whereas with HP ghost if it's not hitting gar there's not really anything that it's hitting hard. The difference between blaziken and the other fires is that it can switch in to bliss (not exactly comfortably i know) and force it out which none of the other fires can really do. That's why I specified without set up. Regardless I agree with you that Blaziken should be moved down, I'm just trying to get all the points on the table.

 

Alright I've gone ahead and made a few changes.

-> C-
Moved this guy just below hitmontop in C-. The general consensus seems to be to move it down and it just has too many flaws to be in C.

-> C-
Added Lapras to C- just below lanturn as requested.

 

Double posting to bump this thread.

What do people think about moving Magneton to A rank? With skarm being so ridiculously good right now, Magneton is finding more use than ever and making itself quite valuable in a number of match ups. Furthermore now more than ever you can definitely argue that it does way more than just trap steels. Toxic protect is a surprisingly annoying mon to switch in to. It hits ridiculously hard and a ton of the things that can safely take its attacks really don't like eating toxics. Its typing gives it a very nice set or resistances that allows it to bypass it's poor bulk and check a number of common attackers including Gengar, Aerodactyl, Jolteon and Zapdos while also giving a number of Choice Band users a really hard time, giving it more opportunities to wreak havoc on switches. I think if there was ever a time where Magneton deserved A rank it's now.