August/September/October ORAS LU Tier & Potential Suspects

LU->UU
Doublade
Porygon2
Shaymin
Vaporeon

UU->LU
Alomomola
Altaria
Chesnaught
Cloyster
Metagross

LU->OU
Espeon

NU->OU
Pinsir

LU->NU
Claydol
Golbat
Hitmonchan
Magneton

NU->LU
Ferroseed
Glalie
Masquerain
Shuckle
Swellow

A lot of things will change with Porygon2 leaving the tier, we will have a Kingdra suspect soon, and maybe other things will have the same destiny (maybe Nidoqueen). We get Alomomola for Vaporeon and we lost two important threaths like Shaymin and Doublade. A lot of things will se a lot of new usage with doublade in UU (Hitmonlee, Birds, Escavelier, Durant, Virizion, Froslass and other Psychic).

We got some cool things like Chesnaught, and other things that can be annoying for the balance of the tier (Metagross e Cloyster will have a big impact on the tier now that Doublade is gone), I think that Altaria though will not have an easy life here and will drop lately in NU.

We also lost Espeon but it's ok; Things that are dropping really don't deserves LU (finally Hitmonchan dropped!!), while the things that are rising someway were strong forces in the last months in LU (Mega Glalie and Shuckle really deserves it, not sure about Ferroseed and Swellow; thanks Cirno for Masquerain :v)


As usual, this thread is for discussing the shifts in the tier and the meta, and discussing potential suspects in LU. Remember to stay smart with your suspect-related posts, try to offer evidence and not just say "this is really broken" without talking about why. (I CTRL+C/CTRL+V this from Aurist <(•θ•)>)

 

I don't even care about the other drops right now, Doublade and Porygon2 are gone. No more easy glues to just slap on a team. This is fucking awesome lol.

Now that Vaporeon's gone maybe people will see the obese wish passer that is Mega Audino. Much better than Aromatisse since it's bulky as shit even on the side that you don't invest EVs in.

But then we get alomomomomomomo so probably not.

Metagross is going to be a fun pokemon to play around with and interesting to see if it'll be too much. Main thing is even with 135 attack it still needs certain moves to get over all of our best walls, and missing out on one of them means that 3 or 4 pokemon win. Plus the fact that Banded Metagross is really no more scary than say Banded Tyrantrum or Emboar since 70 speed is just under things like Nidoqueen and its actual STAB combo is easily walled off. Still, kind of want to try hone claws and agility gross can still probably murder offensive teams we have here.

I'm glad we got Chesnaught since we got Metagross along with it, once more thing to keep it in check if it doesn't prove broken.

 

Here are my thoughts:

: Can be a problem since it has gigantic 135 Atk, but is kinda hindered by it's 70 Spd that holds it back. It has the coverage moves, but again is hindered by 4MSS since it can't deal with all it's check at once (which there are). The addition of Alomomola and Chestnaught also helps with coping with Metagross. Honestly need to play with it a little more, but for now it should not be suspected, until played with a little more.

: Now that Doublade and Porygon-2 are both gone, Kingdra can now roam freely destroying balanced teams and stall alike. Rain Dance, Critdra, LO Attacker all destroy the tier atm, and should honestly leave asap, thank god it is finally being considered to be suspected.

: Nidoqueen can potentially be a problem, since Pory 2 left, which kept it at bay, but yet again, it has a low Spd stat, and kinda helps deal with bulky threats like Tyrantrum and Emboar. I can see it potentially being suspected, but have to see the new meta adapt a little more.

 

Honestly, this may be the most boring tier shift ever. The only things of note are Magneton and Golbat back in NU, Metagross being potentially annoying here, and me no longer getting to use Espeon ;(.

But yeah, definitely glad for a Kingdra suspect, for reasons mentioned above. I'm iffy on a Nido suspect, and I feel it's in the exact same boat as Metagross. It's got solid bulk, power, and an amazing movepool, but low speed and 4MSS. It wants to run both STABs and all three elemental blasts, as well as be both bulky and fast. Any coverage move eliminated and 2 or three more checks come out, and it's still got a few universal counters like AV/Bulky Goodra, bulky Seismitoad, and specially defensive Weezing. Furthermore, scores of Pokemon like Flygon or Delphox can switch into a resisted hit, outspeed, and KO.

 

Don't worry Kingdra will happen. Honestly, unless @Aurist opposes it, we can probably start it right away, since multiple threats to it have left.

We did lose our biggest slap on any team and it will wall stuff for you in Porygon2. Really opens up a lot for more offensive teams, especially without Doublade to wall almost every fighting type, and Vaporeon being a great water Wish Cleric. Offensive loses Shaymin though and it's ability to run through stuff with large Drop/Hax rates on its moves, as well as a strong Psychic attacker in Espeon who while not the strongest with type resists and movepool limitations was one of the fastest attackers that could be used on teams.

Chesnaught is going to be some kind of threat to be dealt with, as we add another hazard setter, and a very bulky and hard to kill one at that. Alomomola replaces Vaporeon as a Wish Passer, though it does lack cleric ability, and offensive pressure like Vaporeon, but does have Knock Off and Regenerator to help teams be more defensive. If Alo doesn't become probably the most used Defensive Pokemon, I'll be surprised.

Cloyster and Metagross are going to be two huge things that teams will have to find a way to deal with

As far as potential things we can suspect:

Kingdra - This one will happen finally.

Metagross - Wouldn't be immediately, but Metagross has the power to 2HKO pretty much most every threat that has decent bulk. Speed is a problem, but the rest of it's stats are fairly superior to almost every other Pokemon in LU, with a nice typing, and speed can be mitigated through Agility or Sticky Web support. Also, just saying Mixed and Special Meta can be run, so never assume anything just based on how physically it is. 80 / 90 bulk for the special side leaves it a bit more open to many of the faster and offensive types as it'll be able to usually tank just one hit from most neutral hard hitters, works against it. But, Meta is something I see people will centralize around beating a set with a certain small group of Pokemon especially because it's "checks" really are set dependent, just speed will end up screwing it over most times against actually offensive teams from the get go. Doesn't really have 4MSS too badly, as Meteor Mash, EQ, and Zen Headbutt for a physical set will hit almost everything you need in 2 hits, bar some very certain things (Alo, Bronzong, etc). Either it'll be another powerful but slower attacker, or something that can be proven to be a bit too much due to how easy it might be to use, for now we'll give it a small amount of time in the tier.

Knock Off - Xdevo is going to bring this up to me multiple times, I know it. Anyway, there's always been the idea of trying for Knock Off and or just discussing it. There's pros and cons to it, and well this one is always open for discussion on. Especially with how it's become a central move on many Pokemon that come through LU, and basically can be a free spam and crippling move for both Offensive and Stall based teams.

Shuckle - One on the mind, that I'm really surprised no one actually brings up is Shuckle. Best Sticky Web user, out of the ones that learn it, it's capable of staying around more than once, and given it's supporting move pool to extend to Encore, Infestation + Toxic, and a fairly good typing with large defenses, it's an awesome support mon. Especially because the tier is filled with many slower but highly offensive threats, and being able to run Mental Herb to not get Taunted means it'll at least set up Sticky Web once, and it's not dying in one shot thanks to sturdy. Could bring up Sticky Web itself, but the other 4 mons that learn it that are LU/NU are bad, and most likely will set up Webs only once, and don't offer much in terms of support or offenses where they will actually live more than 1 hit (they really don't).

There's several more that I'd bring up, but I'd like to test more with other sets and our new drops to see if they are worth bringing up.

 

So just a quick bump, but we are going ahead with a dual suspect of Tornadus and Kingdra for pretty obvious reasons, with how the tier has shifted and losing more than gaining to combat these two who have been highly amazing threats during their tenure in LU, and we weren't allowed to quickban Kingdra due to how long it's been here despite losing a good 3 checks to it, go figure. Anyway, we're hoping to get these suspects done pretty quickly if we get at least some discussion on them happening within say the week.

After that I (we) would like opinions on the potential of: Shuckle, Froslass, Draglage, possibly Venomoth. We'll give some time to digest Metagross and possibly Cloyster and if people have opinions on those we'll hear them out. Don't really think there is too much else that's really needing to be discussed immediately with Porgyon2, Doublade, and Shaymin now out of the tier.

 

Shuckle: No. That thing is a one trick pony, has 0 offensives presence, is incredibly slow and is nowhere near as bulky as you might think due to its crap HP. And almost all teams have something with Rapid Spin/Defog anyway.

Froslass: This one's more tricky. It is a brilliant suicide Spiker, and thanks to a fast Destiny Bond can usually take something else with it. It is held back by its incredibly frailty though. I'm undecided.

Dragalge: Yes. This thing has power on par with Latios thanks to Adaptability, and it has really good coverage with its STABs, Surf and Focus Blast hitting everything you'd normally see for high damage. It also has great bulk, although it is slow and lacks reliable recovery.

Venomoth: No. Its stats are all around mediocre, and it's a total one trick pony: all it can do is Baton Pass Quiver Dance. Now that Espeon's gone, are there any good recipients? There is Nidoqueen I guess, but in my experience that thing's best used as a tank.

 

Meloetta, Kingdra, Exploud, Moltres, Emboar (yes this can go special), Goodra, Dragalge, Xatu, Yanmega (tinted lens fun :D). Think for more than 5 seconds. LU has a stupidly large amount of special attackers to abuse. Also Venomoth can actually be a threat with Life Orb Bug Buzz then pass whenever it's done and has sleep powder. It's basically a better Masquerain, but look what became a top LU threat!! Honestly it's just quiverpass that's broken sooo

 

OU just needs to ban baton pass already instead of implementing limitation after limitation on an obviously broken aspect of singles competitive pokemon.

On Froslass, the simple fact that it nearly guarantees a pokemon to die with it makes it so threatening. It's hilariously simple to use since it only requires Taunt+Spikes+Dbond, can circumvent switches that try to get out of Dbond with Icy Wind, and pretty much guarantees your layers of spikes while dooming any one pokemon to die. I'd say the thing that limits it is human error: over several turns of dancing around you're going to screw up a prediction and choose a wrong move, but if your opponent is careless they're going down along with Froslass.

Dragalge seems like every other hard hitting wall crusher we have in this tier. Amazing fire power, nice bulk, no speed and psychic+ground weakness are pretty common types to hit on in LU. With Slowking, Meloetta, Nidoqueen, and a few others roaming around it finds itself pressured when not able to just bear down on walls.

 

1. Don't suspect shuckle because it has 0 offensive presence? Dude, it's entirely a support Pokemon. It's job doesn't revolve around anything offensive, it's there to help the offenses do their jobs at a greater capacity. Access to Sticky Web + Rocks, as well as Encore, Toxic, Rest to keep it up, and being one of the few really awesome Mental Herb users, it doesn't need to do anything offensive at all. It's there to help the slower pokemon that lack reliable bulk outspeed many of the faster offensive ones that can be used as offensive checks which would kill the slower ones. Sticky Web might be the problem I'm getting at, but it does more than Masquerain, Ariados, and Levanny can for a team. HP might be bad, but against an average attacker, it's setting up fairly easily.

2. Froslass's frailty hinders it? Yes, getting down into a range that you can Destiny Bond an opponent is a great hindrance for it. Get 1 or 2 spikes off if possible, and Suicide with pretty much any offensive mon. Does hurt it a bit when playing against some bulkier stuff that won't deal a great damage maybe, since then you have to Taunt + play around attacks if their goal is to status you.

3. Drag opinion is actually fine. Reason I bring up as a low priority one is that unlike say Emboar or Exploud, it doesn't have as much of a think twice about spamming Specs Draco Meteor on everything not named a Fairy or Steel type, Sludge Wave hits a lot of things neutrally + that super on Fairy, and for steels it has Focus Blast though HP fire can probably be more reliable especially for say Escavalier. As well, Dragon/Poison typing offers it a lot more switch ins than Emboar or Exploud would be afforded whom usually have to get momentum switched in or have something be sacked.

4. Cirno handled this one very nicely. @Cirno you get a cookie for your effort.

 

I am pretty sure Cloyster will be suspected yet again. Now that P2 and Doublade left LU it would be a problem. Now what to do?
And OMG Metagross, yeah it is not Megagross but 135 ATK meep..

 

Gonna post here so @Aurist and @NaCl see this too. With the leaving of P2 and Doublade, basically both the Pokemon that were defining the metagame for months on end, I can see several things as possibly needing a suspect pretty soon. First thing that comes out is obviously Froslass, low risk high reward type that does it's job extremely well, and can lead to having to fight passively or giving up something in order to kill it (i.e. playing around fast Destiny Bond tactics that combine with Taunt are hard to do). The second I foresaw with P2 leaving, but I'm thinking Yanmega is gonna be truly a tough force in the tier for many team styles. Excellent coverage, superb power, highly useful abilities, a high speed, and a strong ability to 2HKO everything. Few things I can see as being good against it outside Goodra immediately and Draglage. LO has several ways of dealing with it I'll admit (though combination tactics with other moves/set ups of Pokemon will make it more fearful, atomicllamas portrayed that this week in POCL match vs NaCl), make it more fearful, and the all powerful Specs set just have the options to deal with pretty much all it's checks and most of it's conventional counters thanks to it's coverage moves. Over the last 2 weeks of playing, those 2 things have been pretty clear from my use of both. A close third that is swimming in my mind as well is Noivern just from it's sheer coverage, and while 97 base power isn't the strongest in Special Attack, high powered moves, being faster, and having multiple secondary options to run (Flamethrower/Focus Blast, Switcheroo/U-Turn, a bulkier Roost set), it just has many options being a driving force against most Pokemon without having to do much, though it requires obvious supports against certain threats pending how it's run, but without P2, Doublade, or Vaporeon being able to tank it's conventional hits around, it's something I figured I should bring up, because it's pretty good itself short of having to deal with fast scarf users. Those have been the three things that have really caught my eye over the last 2 weeks. I have several others to gripe on, but those were the three immediate things that seem to have a lot to threaten most every playstyle in LU right now.

 

PLEASE!!! Bring Alomomola back to UU, or even make it OU. It's an unkillable Pokemon using physical moves. 284 def is good enough, but srsly, 165 base HP? That's goddish.
As of the moves, it has acces to Knock Off, which is always good. Then we have the haxiest move ever, Scald. There are a lot of users who always hax. And there are some other users who have a terrible luck (like me). Scald has a 30% of burning. Ppl who hax always have a 99.9999% of burning me, and when i'm using a guts user, they have 0% of burning me fml. But i don't want to talk about my luck. If u burn with scald, we are talking of a Pokemon who has 534 HP and 568 def!!! Then we got Wish. Why the fk it has wish!!?? A physical wall with those stats does not need wish. But no, Game Freak wanted it with wish...wish+protect...and Scald...and obv, if u want a faster stall, u have Toxic...
Finally, if this is not too good, u have the best ability 4 a stallmon=REGENERATOR. Just do wish once and u will recover 1/3 of ur health and other mon will recover 100% of its health, cuz 500 HP is not enough.
The only bad thing is its SpD. But that's why u got a special wall, like chansey or blissey.
Conclussion: Just do one thing: BAN THIS PKMN FROM LU!!

 

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to post here, I see this is your first post. It's good to list the attributes of a pokemon and talk about why they're effective, but your post could be even more useful if you talked about the pokemon in the context of the LU tier itself. What stuff does Alomomola stop dead, as a defensive pokemon? What checks/counters does it have, and does it have any ways around those? You also listed Chansey and Blissey, pokemon which are OU and UU respectively, so are kinda irrelevant to the topic at hand - what pokemon are good partners for Alomomola in LU to alleviate its weaknesses? Definitely the best way to convince people about why a pokemon should be suspected/banned is to give a perspective on how few things might deal with the pokemon, and the ways it might have around those few things, especially if those ways require little to no support to pull off. If you can talk about some or all of these things you can definitely make a good case for why a pokemon needs to be suspected. I hope you feel like you can keep posting in this subforum, because more posters and opinions are always super welcome, it makes our tier more efficient and easy to run and make better for everyone to play :)

 

Unless you are of course, Lum SD Virizion. In any case, really Alomomola is doing it's job with having those stats and access to those moves. Base 80 Def is only passable thanks to that huge HP stat, with single water typing and moves to suit that large HP. For the most part it is hard to defeat with most standard offensive (Physical) Pokemon, though there are some that can do it. However, like counterparts that are more strictly Special Walls, you do to Alo what you do to them, exploit their weaknesses through having a good team. Alomomola is one giant fodder for almost every set up Pokemon in the tier, double so for Sub set ups, as it won't ever be strong enough to break subs unless the Pokemon has a weakness to Scald. The tier has some Physical Wallbreakers that can do damage to Alomomola (names like Hitmonlee, Emboar, Banded Rhyperior, Mega Glalie learns Freeze-Dry which works around Alo, Virizion), as well the tier is full of Special Attackers that exploit Alomomola's weak point and if it has to run away, that's essentially giving you a free turn to attack. Alo's really just doing it's job, and we can't fault it for that. It just makes it an extremely good Pokemon to use, and you just need to make sure you have a Pokemon on your team capable of dealing with it. Since I could list probably 50 or more that do it, (that's too much to list though), you just have to make sure you have a way of defeating it. Whether it being having Toxic to wear it down, Set up attackers, Hazards that wear it down, a Taunt user because lol if it can't wish, it can't do it's job. Alo's just a damn good Pokemon. Annoying? Yes, in every definition of the word. Broken or unhealthy at the moment in the current LU metagame? Not one bit. If you guys have suggestions on things that are absolutely too difficult to overcome, or just obviously overpowered feel free to discuss them. Tentative things we're going with are corrupt space duck (Porygon-Z) and Moth (Venomoth), but if there's other you'd like to discuss, just feel free to bring up, and we'll actually discuss it. However, if I hear anything on people wanting Emboar, you better be ready to have at least 5 paragraph's minimum on why it would be a higher priority than the probably 10 other Pokemon that are arguably more broken than it, and no CB Reckless Flare Blitz is not a singular reason from a suiciding and moderately slow Pig, compared to the vast amount of Pokemon that deal real damage to it fairly easily.

 

Whats the point of discussing Alomomola when Yanmega is in the tier. It either has 0 defensive counter play with Tinted Lens (except like Registeel which is terrible in this tier and easily exploitable), or it is incredible against offense with very little offensive counter play (Speed Boost backed with good enough physical bulk to take even super effective priority). Sure its 4x weak to rocks but, in the 3 games I've played for POCL I've never had hazards on my side, as the meta is so offensive, its incredibly easy to keep enough pressure up to keep hazards off, and there are adequate defoggers as well. Like I'm pretty sure this thing is more broken than Froslass which had counter play and relied heavily on prediction (don't get me wrong it was broken, Yanmega is just more so -_-).

 

Yo guys, idk why it hadn't been brought up yet in any tier's subforum but tier shifts are happening at the end of October now. Idk if it's gonna start being a regular thing for tier periods to be 3 months, but this one is for now so just a heads up. This is partly due to absent people who could shift for us, but also partly due to stats which got absolutely butchered in August for some reason.