Suspect Discussion - Kingdra (Banned)

(Credit for this lovely Kingdra goes to one, Celestial Phantom.)

Discuss the possibility of banning Kingdra from the ORAS LU metagame.

Make sure you post intelligently based off of experience in the tier. Posts based off theorymon risk forum infractions.

Attempt to find the checks and counters (or lack thereof) for Kingdra as well as its impact and power in the metagame. Do not simply say "it's broken" or "it's not broken". Back up your arguments on why you think it should be banned or not.

Most importantly, elaborate on your points and try to think of counter arguments as you're posting. No one or two sentence posts will be allowed, and this will be strictly enforced.

If a consensus is reached, the result will likely be implemented in the metagame.​

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Yes finally this suspect is happening. Ok to make things simple, Kingdra completely dominates the meta after Pory-2 left the tier. it even was causing trouble before the August shifts, but now it is full up unstoppable. Critdra, Rain Dance, DD, LO Attacker, Choiced are all it's different sets it can run pretty effectively. The two however that push it being broken are Critdra and Rain Dance however imo. After setting up a Focus Energy, there are very few switchins that would like to take a Critical Hit Sniper and STAB boosted Hydro Pump/Draco Meteor. It is literally insane, and unstoppable. The RD set also causes a problem thanks to it's buddy Tornadus-I who can set up Rain easily for Kingdra (Torn is another problem that will discuss in other thread). Honestly it completely limits teambuilding, as it has access to all these sets, and is extremely unhealthy for the tier. I thought with recent inclusions in Chestnaught and Metagross will help, but they only limit DD sets. Imo Kingdra should get banned without a question.

 

I don't think there really is a whole lot to say on Kingdra. The CritDra set literally gives it a pass to systematically destroy teams, and not even our bulkiest special defenders are safe. The only ones that have a shot of crippling would be Slowking with Thunder Wave or Dragon Tail, and Registeel with Thunder Wave. Jellicent, Bronzong, and Alomomola have no real ways to doing anything back to it. There is an offensive weakness players can harness, but the set can use the 4th slot for Agility to negate any potential offensive backlash. None of the new drops really are adapt to take it on, and we lost Shaymin and P2 whom actually were fairly solid answers to the CritDra set in certain conditions. I mean based on this set alone, I think it's unhealthy for the metagame to keep it.

If I can go one, the Special rain one is fairly difficult for most all the Pokemon outside bulky water types to counter, and though some Grass types can actually tank an Ice Beam, and do damage back, but they don't necessarily kill it, only put it in a range where something else might be able to kill it, or it kills itself to LO damage. It has great partners that can set up Rain for it with Tornadus, Bronzong, or Uxie. One of which forms an amazing offensive tandem with Kingdra, and makes the core incredibly hard to stop. The other two have suicide moves in Explosion and Memento respectively, and can be used to give a free switch in turn to Kingdra. Slightly more manageable than CritDra, but the pure offensive power it holds requires some very specific Pokemon to be on most teams.

As far as any other set the Dragon Dance set is hindered by the arrivals of Cloyster, Chesnaught, and Metagross. It can use Alomomola for set up Bait though. The fairy types still exist, and pretty much they will wall it hard, and force it out. However against anything else, +1 Attack/Speed Kingdra has a fair time sweeping, when paired with Rest to keep it's HP up and attack from near full HP.

If anything CritDra alone makes it un-enjoyable to play against in the tier, the more people can give a deciding opinion or majority opinion on Kingdra, the faster we can get this done and move on to more stuff. So, if you got something to say, say it.

 

We should not have made people aware that Quagsire should be UU and not LU because it can counter DD sets perfectly

There's not much I really want to add, just throwing in my support for ban. I'll argue if needed but I don't see that happening.

 

There are a lot of things to say when talking about Kingdra here, firstly its wonderful type, Water Dragon is a so good type, it has only two weakness (both aren't so common in LU), and a lot of cool resistances, that combined with an above average bulk (75/95/95 it's really good for an offensive Pokemon like Kingdra), make it really difficult to disrupt, and make it easier to take some turns to setup and extremely difficult to revengekill with priorities. Secondly it has nice distributed stats, meaning that it can use effectively very different sets (mixed, special or ddancer), that make Kingdra utterly difficult to check/counter because some Pokemon that hard checks one set are just setup fodder for another set. Finally it gets two abilities that allows it to abuse of some of the "unfairiest" things in the game: 1) Rain+Swift Swim is a lethal combination, making Kingdra one of the faster threat in the tier, while having a powerup on water moves, making it extremely difficult to switch-in if you lost your bulky waters, also having some great partners like Tornadus, Uxie or Bronzong, makes rain based teams extremely difficult to deal for more offensive teams; 2) Sniper+Focus Energy, that's terrible, reaching 100% crit allows kingdra to bypass all of its checks, doing massive damage even to the premium walls in the tier (252+ SpA Sniper Kingdra Draco Meteor vs. 248 HP / 184+ SpD Slowking on a critical hit: 303-357 (77 - 90.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery, 252+ SpA Sniper Kingdra Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Registeel on a critical hit: 193-229 (53 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery), this set also use Agility/Substitute to be effective against faster teams, or even Combusken baton pass (Focus Energy+Speed Boost).

Kingdra was borderline broken even with Porygon2 (p2 was pretty good at stopping CritDra, while also being an effective general check to all other sets), now that its gone Kingdra is becoming overcentralizing for the current metagame and I think it should go, so I agree for the BAN.

 

Hard to add much info to what people have already posted, so I'll just post my general perspective / add myself to the deluge of pro-ban posts.

The LU tier has over time been running out of its already limited choices for Kingdra checks. Even when it had a few checks to its numerous sets like Whimsicott, Porygon2, Doublade et al, Kingdra was always very difficult to deal with, unpredictable and borderline broken. A suspect was inevitable even without the recent tier changes but the current state of the tier as far as Kingdra is concerned is pretty clear, its Critdra set has little to no answers in the tier, requires no support to function well but benefits from a large amount of the tier supporting it nonetheless, its Rain and DD sets are a bit easier to deal with in comparison but are pretty scary threats in their own right, DD Chesto in particular setting up on a lot of the tier. There are barely singular answers to individual Kingdra sets in the tier, let alone any pokemon that can take on 2 or more of its sets. You can look at posts above to see exactly what works and doesn't work against it, I don't feel a need to repeat the same facts. So yeah we should ban it.

Hopefully we can get this thing gone before Week 1 of POCL so the entire week doesn't revolve around this broken thing.

 

So, my last post and some of the others before hand, from some people have gotten a bit of a paper thin reaction. I guess I'm going to go a bit more in-depth with a second post, and see if that changes some minds or sways people's opinions.

As NaCl said, Kingdra's got an awesome typing. Dragon/Water means it has 3 resistances, 2 weaknesses, and is neutral against every thing else. Other Dragon types are fairly common in Flygon, Goodra, DRUDDIGON NEEDS MORE USE, Tyrantrum, Dragalge, and Noivern. Good Fairies to use against it would be Aromatisse, Granbull, Mega Audino, and to a certain degree Togetic. Due to it's 75/95/95 stat line and a large neutrality to everything (especially seeing as any Dragon/Fairy move on a non Dragon or Fairy is actually exceedingly rare), it's bulk actually gives way to it living many hits from full HP where the more common stronger attacks will do upwards of around 80% of it's health. I won't say that there aren't potential checks and counters to each set, because there most certainly are.

CritDra: CritDra is basically any balanced or defensive team's nightmare. Kingdra has a natural Speed that is faster than many Pokemon in the tier, and while people go for the Modest CritDra, I favor the Timid one, as with Hazards it helps beat a few extra Checks/Counters to it. Pre-Mega Glalie for example is one, as well as any Base 80+ speed, Nidoqueen, and Hitmonlee falls into this group too. The thing about the set though is that against Hyper Offensive, generally it's useless, as well as certain balanced teams needing a certain help in setting up. CritDra usually has to set up on a support based Pokemon or one of the weaker offensive ones, and doesn't like facing off against potential Scarf users that it thinks it has a set up on, because they would naturally be slower. Combining the set with Agility will help mitigate potential loss against HO, as Draco Meteor and Hydro Pump are so strong that many HO style of Pokemon won't live a hit from either even without the critical damage done, and it pairs highly well with Hazards to help get into that ranges by making the opponent switch out just in case you don't have safe set ups initially. The problem I've found is that sometimes against any Offensive team is that you will be slower against common Pokemon threats unless they are bulky offensives, and might not get a set up chance at all, so you may just have to spam your stronger two attacks, and hope for the best in certain cases.

Rain: Honestly, I don't like single set up RD Kingdra. It's not that great, but as a lure for certain defensive Pokemon like Aromatisse or weaker attackers that you can take advantage of. Makes for a great initial threat if you can force them to switch into a Pokemon that isn't expecting single set up Rain, but against pretty much all the bulky Water types we have, just having one of those immediately eliminates your ability to just set this up freely. Given the rain boost Hydro Pump is going to put a large dent in everything that doesn't resist it, and with even SR up, will push some of those that can live into making it a KO. Preferably, I think the overall rain team set up helps Kingdra out more, there are several options that can run Damp Rock with Rain Dance giving Kingdra the extra turns to attack, as well as setting up support first or being a sacrificial Pokemon so Kingdra doesn't have to worry about taking damage while setting up. Also, it gives it the merit to run Choice Specs and play a hit and run game with Specs Draco Meteor and Hydro Pump, which will further deal more damage than just LO would. Speed wise, under Rain there is only 4 things that can out speed Kingdra if it's Modest and two require a lot of luck, one requires setting up, and the other requires being a set with a certain ability. Really outside bulky water types or teams that build without hazards to give it a little extra support, or getting into using Assault Vest, I can't give you a formal counter play. The RD set I can say that having offensive Pokemon at the ready to go helps out as spamming Draco Meteor will force it out eventually, and LO won't make up for CritDra or Specs power, and will help slowly kill it off, especially if it takes a hit in setting up the RD turn.

Dragon Dance: Really more of Offensive teams nightmare. +1/+1 Attack and Speed Kingdra can deal massive damage into teams, as it's faster than most common Scarf users at this point, and takes a really Bulky type to actually quell it's spammable moves. The DD set has a few variations to it, the most common of course is Chesto Resto, and the other one which is just as good is just a simple Substitute Dragon Dance set. Both basically use a different way of preventing Status from happening to Kingdra in set up. The Chesto set in the face of defensive types and support types let's Kingdra set up multiple times and after a point of taking damage or Status, rest up then immediately be able to sweep after. The subtitute set let's it take on weaker attacks from say incoming defensive types, so it can avoid Thunder Wave/Will-O-Wisp/Scald Burns, whom would actually threaten the other sets due to residual damage and effects it would cause them. Again thanks to it's relatively neutral typing and fairly good bulk, it will almost always live a shot from max HP unless it's from a weakness again which it only has 2 of, and after a DD, only say Scarf Flygon or Noivern would be able to provide those. Arguably there's a fair amount of checks to it in pretty much every fairy, because Kingdra can't do anything to them without being at +2 with hazard support, or would need a natural +3 set up to beat them.

Kingdra really isn't going to be setting up on anything offensive, and in 1 on 1 situations a variety of things can beat it as long as you can manage not to let it set up something that increases it's speed (namely the critdra set being the one with the most trouble of doing so while maintaining power without having to leave the field). Slowking is one of the best potential switch ins to any set up that Kingdra has with access to Dragon Tail and Thunder Wave all around to it's sets. After that it gets to be pretty specific based on team build and the set it's running. Against CritDra any fast offensive will do, as it has to set up speed or it won't do much, and even then it'll have to spam offensives and there are a fair few number of faster offensive Pokemon that tank both Hydro Pump and Draco Meteor, that would be common on any teams. The basis really is just to wear it down to try and stop it from doing it's job with a good attack and then following up with a stronger one if you have to make a sacrifice of one Pokemon. Kingdra is really susceptible to damages over 50% going up to 85% on most commonly offensive Pokemon.

Again Rain really has to have the bulky waters, and then it's not really a problem, but Kingdra in that regard Kingdra would need to pair with a strong Grass or Electric type knowing that those are really the set's 1 weakness. Dragon Dance's enemy is Fairy types, as well as a few bulky Steel types.

An extra helpful way of dealing with it honestly ends up being Sucker Punch too. It's bulk only goes so far, and like I said above, damage outputs generally average at doing around 50% at least unless they are from a fairly weak attacker. Zoroark, Shiftry, and a more offensive Skuntank can be used to help clean up most sets. After those three, you really start pulling at certain strings for Priority users in the tier that you want to do enough damage to effectively revenge or clean it up if that's the intention. Given the experience I've had with it, using it, and fighting against it, it's one of the more unpredictable ones that I've fought over the last 5 months of the tier, and each shift removes common Pokemon that deal with it, given that the shifts also favor other Pokemon like Kingdra, though they aren't as unpredictable in nature as Kingdra can be outside say an entirely obvious set up to Rain with full team Rain support. Given it can't counter everything to it at once, the ambiguity of the set it is possibly running, leaves it more than apt at clearing through teams upon getting a proper set up to which ever set it is, and may end up forcing a sack to find out, and to determine whether or not your team is capable of even handling the revealed set.

It is like most every other highly offensive Pokemon, is capable of spamming absurdly strong moves of which it gains STAB on both, where it just has a better typing and speed than most others, and few type checks and counters where after doing something it can flee to a teammate if it feels threatened, which can be a fairly simple rinse and repeat option used for taking down weaker support Pokemon, or be a set up that threatens an entire team, or just be the entire center point of a team with a very specific check group.

 

After some reasoning we decided that Kingdra will be banned from the LU tier.

Kingdra is a top threat in the current metagame, it can run different sets effectively being often deadly if it manages to setup. Also losing Porygon2 allowed the Focus Energy set to be extremely dangerous, being able to ohko the majority of the tier with only one boost (the best special walls in the tier take massive damage and are at least 2hkoed). We also had to consider that Kingdra has a fantastic type combined with a reasonable 75/95/95 bulk, and having acces to speed boosting moves like Dragon Dance or Agility (or Swift Swim for the Rain Sweeper set), make it really difficult to revengekill once it gets a boost, even with priorities. The best ways to deal with Kingdra is to paralyze it and revengekill it later or just phaze it (Pokemon able to do that without risking too much are Milotic, Slowking and Registeel) or making enough pressure to don't let it get a boost (though the Dragon/Water type and the good bulkyness makes Kingdra life easier when trying to get a boost). Due to all these reason and due to the lack of reliable checks/counters to the CritDra set, Kingdra will leave the tier tonight OoO.