Explosion Discussion

[Dre]

Basically this is a discussion about the explosion metagame. I didn't just want to look at which exploders are better than others, but also things like-

What exploders can realistically explode on.

What are good trades (eg. muk for alakazam is probably a better trade than snorlax for alakzam).

What roles exploders have (cloyster walls snorlax and tauros then explodes on a special, snorlax tries to go 2 for 1 etc.)

How to set up explosions on the right pokemon.

What exploders should be trying to explode on.

Can't think of anything else at the moment, but you get the idea.

[Isa]

Exeggutor is a tricky one. I find that while it does its job of sleeping something and walling Rhydon/Golem just fine, but when it is boom time, I rarely find something I *want* to boom on. To me, Eggy sticks around and booms on whatever is in front of it once it reaches 40% and paralysis, or so. The ideal boom victim is of course Chansey, and while that can happen, I never feel secure doing that early on.

A good trade is going at least 1 for 1 in a way that does not hurt your team. Golem for Exeggutor might seem like a good trade, until your opponent reveals his Zapdos.

[Dre]

I find that low percent explosions are pretty predictable though, so I prefer to explode at higher percents.

The problem I find with exploding is that 1v1 trades are only beneficial if you're team is designed to capitalise on the lack of the victim. A prime example would be booming on a chansey so your starmie can run wild.

[Isa]

To me, Explosions are more of a back-up plan. Your Snorlax got gimped by a paraCHSlam from Tauros on the switch? Boom. Your Eggy took three STosses before finally sleeping that Zam? Boom.

Exploding at higher percentages means that you have to guarantee a good trade. Booming 75% Eggy on a fresh Chansey would be a good trade - booming it on a 100% sleeping Zam would not. It's very high risk, decent reward. Using it at lower percentages makes the reward stay the same (or with a minor adjustment downwards) but the risk is lowered as you have less to lose.

Also note that I am not saying that you should boom as soon as you get to a certain percentage, but I do think that you should save your boomers for as long as possible until you've seized a good opportunity to boom (Eggy boom trade when you carry Golem/Rhydon, for example).

[Dre]

But at the same time, people expecting a low percent boom from my eggy often go to golem only for me to psychic them. So I don't think exploding is always the best option.

[Isa]

Of course not - that's what predicting is for.

(PS Mega Drain rules)

[Dre]

Mega drain would be great for that, but I still don't think it justifies a spot over double edge or stun spore.

Also, I'm starting to think weezing is a better pokemon than muk, but that could be bias talking seeing as I love weezing. I think it's better at exploding too, being faster than eggy and chansey and being to switch into phsyical hits better really makes a difference in my opinion.

[Isa]

I thought you always thought Weezing was better =p

Chansey is very prone to catching paralysis and doesn't threaten you a lot - a very likely 5HKO is what's threatening you. Exeggutor is kind of a different beast, but Muk is guaranteed to live through one Psychic, so he has enough time to explode there too - and Eggy (and Chansey!) has a much higher chance of living through an explosion from Weezing than from Muk. The power drop is noticeable.

Also, Muk is superior versus any other given Pokémon commonly seen in the OU tier as the speed drop is irrelevant.

[Dre]

I never paralyse chanseys accidently anymore, it's pretty easy to avoid of you're careful.

The power difference is rather negligent when you consider the fact that fire blast- explosion KOs eggy, and basically any move-explosion is virtually a guranteed KO on the chansey. The burn chance is nice on eggy as it can nerf his explosion, which makes chansey a good switch in to him.

Weezing 2HKOs pretty much all the pokemon as muk does. He has thunderbolt for starmie, which narrowly misses out on 2HKOing (it technically does if you get two max rolls). So he can 2HKO with thunder or thunderbolt-explosion.

Muk is better against rocks, but weezing can at least try to burn them.

Weezing is better at switching into body slams as well, which helps.

Don't forget about haze either. The current meta is loaded full of slowbros and reflect users, so he can remove their boost and either take the fall to get in a counter without taking a hit, or threaten with explosion depending on the scenario.

Weezingbestpokemanzevaaa

[Isa]

I frequently paralyze Chansey on purpose. It's only a bad thing if you plan for Chansey dittos, in which case, you're a boring player. =p Paralyzed Chansey is great to have if you run Rhydon and/or Snorlax though, and not bad in any other scenario.

You're only looking at two specific Pokémon now, Eggy and Chansey. I said Weezing was better against those already - moving on.

Muk is ~10% worse at taking physical attacks. That's not significant enough for me.

Haze is just asking your opponent if he wants to get rid of his status in OU and is a wasted move slot in many cases.

[Dre]

Weezing is better against starmie, snorlax, eggy, chansey, tauros, slowbro, cloyster, zapdos, articuno and probably some other fringe threats that I can't think of/don't really matter.

The extra attack doesn't mean much because neither of them are going to sweep, they're basically trying to put something into explosion range, which weezing does in the same amount if turns on pretty much every pokemon that matters. On top of that, weezing outspeeds two important pokemon, takes hits better, can hit specially, and can burn stuff (although this can backfire, so can sludge poison too).

Haze is definitely good if you can predict well. If you predict a switch out, just hit the switch or make an offensive switch yourself. Or, can you just play it safe and haze. Even if they switch out to cure a status, you still just stopped them from sweeping your team.

Of course, that's assuming the opponent is awake. If they're resting, just hit them and haze them on the wake-up turn. That way, you don't haze a switch-in, and you don't wake up them up prematurely.

Sludge is pretty redundant in OU anyway, so I drop it for haze. Fire blast is stronger, and still puts the necessary pokemon into explosion range anyway. Burn and poison both have a 30% chance of happening, and burn is always better than poison. The only time I don't run sludge is in NU, to hit dragoniar and fire types harder, and because there's nothing really to haze there.

[jorgen]

Lax - good for letting it trade with other Lax even after being disadvantaged by switching into a Body Slam, allowing you to check Lax with Lax if you need to. Also a failsafe for when Lax is at 40% or so and realistically only has one more turn to make a difference.

Egg - Should rarely be used as a failsafe, because Eggy targets prominent defensive monsters Chansey and Zam. Probably the most offensively useful Explosion.

Golem - DONT BLOW HIM UP ON EGGY unless you really have no choice. Eggy's main job after putting something to sleep is to wall Golem, and if you blow him up on Egg, well, mission fucking accomplished, Golem isn't doing anything anymore. Golem imo is better off using Explosion as a failsafe, because it's so threatening as an attacker in its own right, but takes a lot of damage from ill-predicted turns to make a burst-heavy attack handy for maintaining usefulness even after it takes an Ice Beam or a couple of Earthquakes.

Gengar - Its explosion is so weak, but Gengar isn't threatening anything anyway so this is the best it's got. At least it trades with Jynx in lead matchups and can finish off a 50% Eggy, meaning if it switches in on Night Shade you're one turn away from putting it in Explosion range. I realized that I'd rather keep Gengar around, though, because that Explosion isn't really worth not having your Normal resist for keeping them honest with their own Explosions, plus it's a decent semi-defensive stop to Aquatics like Lapras and Slowbro (and of course a hardwall to goddamn Persian and, in Wrap metas, basically any Wrapper).

Cloy - Explodes on Chansey, Alakazam, Lapras, or Starmie in the midgame, OR you keep it around to wall Snorlax/Tauros, abusing Clamp along the way if you're playing that metagame. You generally don't get both. I like to keep it around, but in non-Wrap metas, it's better off Exploding.

No other Exploder is worth using in OU.

[Isa]

Jul 31, 2012 23:54:08 GMT -8 Dre said:

Weezing is better against starmie, snorlax, eggy, chansey, tauros, slowbro, cloyster, zapdos, articuno and probably some other fringe threats that I can't think of/don't really matter.

You missed Gengar, Muk cannot touch him in the slightest =p

Either way: while Weezing has a higher damage output in many of these matchups (why is Zapdos there? Muk fares better versus special attackers), they're not significant. Yes, Weezing can 2-3HKO Starmie with Thunderbolt - but it doesn't matter because Weezing is 2HKO'd by Psychic. Weezing can try to burn Snorlax with Fire Blast twice, but Earthquake + Hyper Beam kills. And so on.

The matchups that I'd give to Weezing are Gengar, Tauros (barely, and you are suspectible to CH's making your boom not happening), Articuno, Slowbro, Cloyster and the aforementioned Exeggutor/Chansey (but I do lol at you not having Sludge for those - have fun dealing chip damage with Fire Blast versus Chansey). I haven't ran any calcs for Lapras but I could see that one going to Weezing too. However, the advantage Weezing has on Muk versus these Pokémon is a very small one compared to the advantage Muk has on Weezing versus Rhydon/Golem. Let's be honest, I don't think that you'll face a lot of Articunos/Cloysters with either Muk or Weezing. Tauros is not something you want to come in on - and it won't come in on you either - unless you go for the flat-out immediate boom, in which case Muk is better.

[Dre]

A single fire blast puts chansey in explosion range, so I don't see how not having sludge is a problem. Neither poison is going to beat chansey or eggy 1v1 without exploding, so attack power doesn't matter too much seeing as they're both 2HKOd with explosion. Also, burning eggy is much better than poisoning it.

Where exactly does muk have a practical advantage? Both poisons are going to lose to the majority of OU pokemon 1v1 without exploding, so again I don't see how the extra attack matters when they're both KOing pokemon in the same amount of turns. If you're talking about picking off paralysed pokemon, weezing is better due to having better coverage.

[Isa]

Aug 1, 2012 9:37:33 GMT -8 Dre said:

Where exactly does muk have a practical advantage? Both poisons are going to lose to the majority of OU pokemon 1v1 without exploding, so again I don't see how the extra attack matters when they're both KOing pokemon in the same amount of turns. If you're talking about picking off paralysed pokemon, weezing is better due to having better coverage.

Rhydon/Golem, as I've said. =p

[WaterWizard]

Gengar is of course highly relevant to this discussion, having the second fastest explosion and being the only option for taking 0%.

[Dre]

Aug 1, 2012 9:38:18 GMT -8 Isa said:

Aug 1, 2012 9:37:33 GMT -8 Dre said:

Where exactly does muk have a practical advantage? Both poisons are going to lose to the majority of OU pokemon 1v1 without exploding, so again I don't see how the extra attack matters when they're both KOing pokemon in the same amount of turns. If you're talking about picking off paralysed pokemon, weezing is better due to having better coverage.

Rhydon/Golem, as I've said. =p

If I saw a muk use acid armour, I'd probably switch my rock out since it's not worth losing it for muk. One good matchup doesn't outweigh good match ups with a few pokemon (if you consider an explosion trade a good match up) and being able to hit specially. I'd also say having good matchups against eggy and chansey is better than a good one against rocks, because the former generally have a much better match up spread than the rocks do and are more valuable to take out, especially in the case of chansey.

Also, starmie's rarely run psychic, and if you're going to contest starmie without exploding, it's probably going to be paralysed or beaten up. If the starmie is perfectly healthy, then it's likely you still have your chansey around.

[WaterWizard]

Starmies run Psychic more than "rarely" I'd say. It's like a 25% chance at least...

[Zilch]

Explosion?

Koga exploding his Weezing and giving me a free badge.

[Dre]

In R2 Prime Cup basically every pokemon that knows explosion will explode immediately, so it was hilarious seeing them explode into my mewtwo's substitute. It also looks really cool as mewtwo's sub will dissappear and he'll just stand there as the explosion goes past him.