ADV 50 Viability Rankings

Welcome to the ADV 50 Viability Ranking Thread! In case you're not familiar with the concept, we place Pokémon in certain ranks here, based on their impact on the tier as well as their general viability in the tier. This is an excellent help while teambuilding and it serves as a general outline of the tier. Furthermore it is used in our formation of the tier below.

If you feel that a Pokémon is misplaced, feel free to make a post about it - that's what this thread is for. As long as you are reasonably sensible and courteous this thread should run smoothly.

Pokémon are sorted into the respective categories based on how well they perform their roles. Within each ranking Pokemon are listed alphabetically.

S Rank

These Pokémon are the most effective Pokémon in the metagame. Their offensive and defensive prowess, as well as versatility, and ability to fulfil a variety of important roles lend themselves to this.

S

- Analysis
- Analysis


A Rank

These Pokemon perform significant roles in the metagame, and perform them very well, however they are not the most dominating forces.

A+



A


- Analysis



- Analysis





A-



- Analysis


B Rank

These Pokemon are strong choices in the metagame, but perform less important roles or are less consistent than Pokémon in the Rank above. They have larger flaws than Pokémon in above ranks, or face greater competition from similar Pokemon, reducing their usefulness.

B+





- Analysis



- Analysis

B













- Analysis


B-

- Analysis



- Analysis

C Rank

These Pokemon are more infrequent sights in the metagame, particularly in top level matches, but are nevertheless viable Pokemon. They are less effective in the metagame than Pokémon in above ranks, but are effective with proper support.

C



- Analysis

 

Reasoning for initial placements:

S -

Meganium is an amazing glue, providing a really reliable check to a lot of important offensive threats (particularly Golem, Sandslash, and Rain abusers), and with Leech Seed and Protect is pretty difficult to actually wear down. Muk is a great special sponge which can take back momentum against special attackers and can be a dangerous late-game sweeper.

A+ -

Golem hits like an absolute truck with 2 STABs with fairly few resists and perfect neutral coverage together, as well as Explosion and Rock Head Double-Edge. Whilst it's a little lackluster defensively (outside of an being an excellent Normal/Flying/Poison punisher), it's such a tremendous wallbreaker it deserves A+. Rapidash is excellent at putting pressure on against balance teams, with excellent speed, the ability to sub up against Meganium, and SubTox is pretty hard to deal with, at least without giving the Rapidash user momentum. Sandslash is one of the two best spinners, with a decent typing, and a lot of power. Whilst it takes a bit of support to really get the most out of it, it's a pretty great Pokemon.

A -

I found it kinda tricky to sort out the A and A-. Forretress and Glalie I felt were A-worthy as they're both solid Spikes users with their own flaws. Ampharos and Manectric are strong electric-types that are good at opening up teams but don't offer so much defensively. Kabutops is a good Spinner as well as Rain abuser, and Misdreavus is the best Spinblocker. Golduck is a bulky water with CM and Hypnosis, so it's pretty good.

A- -

The remaining part of A: Aggron is a decent wallbreaker but with exploitable flaws such as disappointing Special bulk as well as competition with Golem as a wallbreaker. Altaria does interesting stuff defensively but is not the go-to ground resist that Meganium is, and its Ice weakness makes it unreliable as a sole answer to Fires. It has a lot of cool tricks like Heal Bell, Dragon Dance, and Rest+Natural Cure, but it can't really do everything that it wants and has serious vulnerabilities. Camerupt has dual STABs that are difficult to deal with, and it answers Muk and Electrics well. Nonetheless it's slow and somewhat frail, but its typing is quite excellent. Hitmonlee is an okay CBer but the SubPunch Reversal set is really a phenomenal wallbreaker. It can also act as an offensive Spinner of sorts, though it ironically struggles to do that much against Forretress, as well as to fit Rapid Spin on its moveset. Huntail is emblematic of Rain archetypes in the tier (although I have run Rain without it); it's a solid sweeper and archetype. Lanturn is an excellent Electric and Rain answer, with good enough stats all around to do a lot of work. Mantine is great, though does suffer a lot from being Spikes bait. Vileplume is a step below Meganium, and the lack of Ground resist really hurts it, but the Fighting resistance, Toxic immunity, and access to Sleep Powder, Stun Spore, and the ability to act as a sun sweeper give it a lot of good tools and a prominent niche. Whiscash has the same problem as Mantine.

B+ -

B+ has a lot of Pokemon that seem very useful on paper but have some real problems that make them somewhat more lacklustre in practice. Blastoise is a bulky Water with Rapid Spin and Roar. The problem is it struggles to fit all that it wants onto its moveset, and it struggles to spin consistently against the Spikes and Spinblockers of the tier. Cacturne has good attacking stats and Spikes, and an interesting typing, but it's so slow and frail and a somewhat awkward fit in the metagame, and the stat spread just doesn't jive well with the natural sort of roles it wants to fill. Chimecho has Calm Mind and Hypnosis, as well as a great STAB, but its typing offers it little defensively, making it hard to actually get it going. Clefable has a deep movepool, but it can be overwhelmed on either end of the offensive spectrum, and its vulnerability to status makes Calm Mind sets difficult to use. Sableye is a solid spinblocker with a great typing, but its stats are so low and it's pretty slow, and it needs to not actually be Spikes bait itself, so it's surprisingly limited in what it can viably run. Scizor is pretty good, with SD and BP sets both working well, but it needs heavy support and Fire moves are absolutely everywhere. Steelix is an incredible normal resist, and decent Electric immunity... but it's also huge Spikes bait.

B -

Banette's movepool and typing wants it to be a bulky spinblocker, and its stat spread wants it to be a slow heavy hitter. It can definitely do both, but it doesn't do them as well as one would like due to its contradictory makeup. Crobat has a few really cool traits: a decent defensive typing, incredible speed, Taunt, and Pursuit, but CB sets struggle both with competition from Fearow and Raticate, and with being Forretress bait, whilst the Pursuit set is not incredibly effective at capturing spinblockers due to its Electric weakness, and bulkier TauntToxic variants are so frail it's hard to make work. Flareon has great stats and, similarly to Banette, kind of struggles to really turn it into a complete package. It can run a CB set, but it's slow and lacks STAB (though its attacking power is impressive), so the biggest draw is some sort of Wish variant, but those are fairly restricted to something like Wish / Protect / Fire STAB / Toxic. Overall, it has a lot going for it but it's hard to turn that into a useful set that is the best choice in a given slot on a team. Jumpluff is a strange one: it's a sleeper-sweeper and an annoyer. As a sleeper-sweeper, its high speed certainly helps, but its fairly inadequate defensive typing gives it few opportunities to set up, and low attacking stats and low BP moves make it somewhat lackluster and difficult to fit. The annoyer set is fine and it certainly has the speed and tools to do a good job in that role (tools such as SubSeed, Sleep Powder, and Encore are all very useful), but it's not a particularly useful role in the metagame overall. Shiftry is certainly not bad, but it's limited almost exclusively to Sun teams, where it has to compete with Vileplume, and for the most part has to bait-explode stuff like Fire-types and Altaria. It's good at that, but, even though its stat spread and movepool are both pretty solid, it's hard to justify more than that. Torkoal and Wailord are two slow exploders. Wailord suffers from being Forretress bait (outside of the rain), but Rain is a more prominent archetype, so it still sees a little more play. Torkoal is a little more useful on weatherless, and potentially taking out bulky waters for a team is always useful.

B- -

Just above the bottom of the barrel, we find 3 Pokemon which provide good support on rain - Castform, otherwise known as Rain's answer to Sun, Crawdaunt, a good user of Endeavor with an interesting typing, and Electrode, the fastest Pokemon in the tier, with Explosion. They don't do much outside of this archetype, and aren't necessarily the go-to choices, though are important options. Fearow and Scyther are two fast offensive Flying-types which struggle with being Forretress bait, but are a cut above the rest for one or two reasons. Fearow's Substitute set works nicely on superman-esque teams and its typing offers a little more than Raticate's, without the Fire weakness of Scyther, whilst Scyther has the unconventional Bug STAB and access to Reversal. In addition, both have Quick Attack which can help with Reversal abusers.

C -

Azumarill is a drum user primarily, which is not a terribly splashable position. It has Encore and could maybe be a band user. It's forretress bait though otherwise. Encore is cool, mind. Exploud only is useful as an unphazeable BP recipient, although it is decent in that role, but it is very niche. Granbull can hit pretty hard, and intimidate and heal bell are cool, but it is slow, Forretress bait, and there's numerous good Normal resists in the tier. Kadabra is incredibly frail: it can work but it's hard to build around sweeping with it. Magmar isn't in itself bad but it finds itself largely outclassed by Rapidash, with its only real advantage being a few niche options like SubPunch and Thief. Mightyena has a small but important niche as a Heal Bell user and excellent Chimecho/Kadabra answer, but it is so frail that it can't do much beyond that, although Intimidate is cool. Raticate occupies little defensive niche and is Forretress bait, but is a functional and fast CB user as well as EndRev abuser. It's hard to know what to do with Sharpedo, and alongside Magmar I'm not sure we shouldn't hunt for a replacement of. Shedinja obviously requires a ton of support to be usable. Venomoth competes with Vileplume and isn't particularly bulky or strong, though it has some cool options like Sleep Powder and Baton Pass.

 

Camerupt -> B+

Rupt has a great niche as CB user, lead attacker to hurt the spikes lead, etc; but is really slow, and thats really explotable cause its 2 common weakness and mediocre bulk. In the tier exist a big amount of bulky waters that can easily stop him, and ground coverage on mons like aggron can OHKO with no problems. All this added to its spikes weakness makes Camerupt not worthy to A-.

 

I don't think 'rupt is a great CB user though, it's only really useful for luring Mantine w CB Rock Slide (and even then ur 2HKOing but cos it's slow u have to switch out). I think Golem is really far better as a pursuit user. However, it's a really solid answer to Muk and Electrics other than Lanturn / HP Water Electrode, and its yet another mon that can boom on bulky waters (except Damp Golduck!). Its typing is so unique though... plus its a great answer to other Fire-types which is pretty cool, even if it's maybe not as good as other Fire-types at pressuring Meganium... I just think it has a lot of good tools and a really unique setup that gives it a solid niche, although i've personally not had to use it much

 

CB Rupt just was a example.

What.

 

fff brain fart I meant band user lmao

 

Also, since typhlosion has replaced magmar, will make that replacement on the VR. Going to put it up to A-:
- roar is a really cool advantage over rapidash, which helps it abuse spikes
- thunderpunch + hp ice coverage is a nice alternative option that lets it do fire type stuff without being bothered by altaria or mantine (ie abuse spikes)
- also gets subpunch and sub reversal which is a cool option

 

I think I'm going to move Rapidash down to A... it still has SunnyBeam, Hypnosis, and better speed (and Flash Fire) for SubToxic, but it now has far greater competition as the premier fast fire-type in the metagame

 

Discussed some changes with Eseque:

A- -> S - really tremendous wallbreaker with a lot of options, great speed and power. Fire Blast 3HKOs the common muk seen around, and it has earthquake and thunderpunch, for lanturn/muk and mantine, respectively, making a mixed set a very potent wallbreaker. Furthermore, it still has SubToxic, and SubSalac Reversal, which can work well too.
A- -> S Versatile, stunning special tank. Special attackers without electric moves will struggle to get through it, and unSTABed electric-type attacks usually only 2HKO. Hits hard enough with Hydro Pump to keep forry somewhat at bay, completely blanks all Altaria, great check to rain, can be used offensively on rain as a sweeper that doesn't mind grass-types, really great against sun teams... it's got so many strengths and is so versatile that we realised S is where it belongs, in spite of its limitations. Also, having room for Rest (except on rain teams), making itself invulnerable to status, is certainly handy.
S -> A Meg is more exploitable than we first perhaps realised. Fire-types switch in easily, only disliking leech seed and the rare toxic. Meg is vulnerable to status. Muk is very common nowadays. Heck, SubPass Fearow can set up against it. Whilst it's still the sturdiest Golem answer in the game, it's limited largely to balanced and stall builds, with some exploitable weaknesses. It's incredibly splashable on those sorts of teams, but its lack of versatility and exploitability lower its viability somewhat.
A+ -> A Golem hits like a truck, but it is quite slow with a lot of exploitable weaknesses, and its electric immunity doesn't offer much to it in practice due to ice/water/grass coverage on most electric-types, while normal-types are rare offensively too. In fact, it makes most use out of its poison-type resistance, but unlike aggron - although hitting harder - is slower, can be poisoned by sludge bomb, and is 2HKOd by Giga Drain. A+ -> A- Sandslash struggles to differentiate itself from Golem and Aggron significantly. It is marginally better versus Electric-types due to its lack of 4x water/grass-type weakness, and not vulnerable to Giga Drain muk in the same way, but it hits far less hard - and is almost never getting through meganium (though it may have an easier time if it runs Hidden Power Bug (or Flying) - at the cost of a moveslot for Rapid Spin, one of its best moves). As a spinner, whilst it is okay versus forretress, glalie can force it out easily - cacturne too, to an extent. Due to being quite slow and not hitting incredibly hard (especially with no rock stab) it's more of a glue Pokemon than Golem - a Pokemon you build teams around - and one that only fits on quite slow, balanced teams.
A -> A+ - the best spinner in the game, fits excellently on rain, offense, balance, stall. Not very easy to punish, and can be tricky to spinblock, although fast HP Grass Misdreavus is making it a little more difficult. ALways puts in work.
A- -> A good special wall, best rain answer, best electric answer, good golduck answer. It only has like three issues: 4MSS - Water/Ice/Electric move + status/weather on every set, forretress can spike on it if it lacks hydro pretty comfortably, and it's in practice pretty vulnerable to status.
A -> B competition w typhlosion really squeezes it, but still has sun & hypnosis. Also a faster subtoxic fire.
A- -> A versatile with a useful typing and good stats, although it does have competition with pokemon like golem.
A- -> B+ dd alt and mixed alt are fairly well blanked by mantine, which can be found on any team, really limiting it offensively. However, maybe the most reliable beller, which makes it pretty good.
A- -> B defensively, struggles to compete with meganium, offensively with shiftry, but sleep/stun and fighting resistance are cool. Also, toxic immune unlike meganium is a nice trait.
A- -> B vulnerable to status, forry bait, but does important stuff defensively, and is a good answer to mixplosion
B- -> B+ subpass gives it a new lease of life, turning problematic pokemon to encounter into set-up momentum-gaining opportunities
C -> B+ good speed with sleep and para, a typing which lets it check muk, baton pass for momentum, some versatility, and, in spite of its paltry stats it finds itself being a useful addition to the metagame
C -> B- not a bad mixed sweeper, albeit very frail and wishes it was a bit faster.

 

removed exploud/shedinja and added slowking/armaldo (put them in B rn as token)

 

swapped out blastoise and raticate for nidoqueen and stantler. Put them in B as token for now, the rankings needs a big redo right now anyway.