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Post by Agent Syrup on May 11, 2013 8:12:56 GMT -8
What is the team to support BL Pokemon like Victreebel or Kingler? (Or others)
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 11, 2013 10:35:52 GMT -8
Kingler is fragile and loathes status but strong and fearsome once he gets to set up. Problem is to find something to set up upon.
Gengar and Exeggutor are scary. Gengar negates Swords Dance and forces him to rely on Crabhammer for damage. Meanwhile Thunderbolt is a world of pain (although not a OHKO, but Jolteon/Zapdos gets that). Exeggutor can take Crabhammer like it's nothing, has the physical bulk to take a +2 Body Slam/Hyper Beam, can paralyze with Stun Spore or 2HKO with Mega Drain + Psychic (or just Mega Drain*2, which has ~95% chance of 2HKOing, but Psychic guarantees it if you get a minimum roll first time around). Ideally, get rid of these two.
The main issue is getting Kingler in on something, because he cannot take paralysis or special attacks, and must force the foe out. This means that you should try to bring Kingler in on either a GolDon, or something paralyzed with little HP, ideally that cannot paralyze you or hit with a strong Special attack...say, paralyzed Persian without TBolt? Really, that's a big problem for Kingler. He can't come in on anything.
To use Kingler, you need paralysis support. Snorlax BSlams whatever he feels like and can get lucky with that. Chansey can paralyze some things, I reckon - get rid of opposing Snorlaxes in order to get more paralysis spread. You also need to get rid of Gengar somehow. Gengar tends to get rid of himself when Gengar wants to though - either he booms, or he mispredicts and takes a Psychic in the face from Exeggutor. I guess you can provoke a boom from him by sending in Chansey or Alakazam repeatedly.
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Post by jorgen on May 11, 2013 11:25:38 GMT -8
What exactly is the question? Are you looking to make an all-BL-or-below team in OU, or to use a single BL Pokemon?
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 11, 2013 12:11:24 GMT -8
I laddered for fun with Dugtrio/Articuno/Persian/Hypno/Jolteon/Kingler, it did not work well, but I beat Lilith once with it. =p
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 11, 2013 17:40:07 GMT -8
What exactly is the question? Are you looking to make an all-BL-or-below team in OU, or to use a single BL Pokemon? He's asking what you need to have in an OU team to allow a BL mon to be useful, I think. Cloyster and Dragonite are legitimate OUs if their trapping moves are allowed and are totally outclassed (by Lapras and Tauros respectively) otherwise. Hypno's a decent sleeper lead, because it's damned bulky, laughs at Mie/Zam, and gets paralysis moves to follow up. The main issue is that it's trolled by Jynx leads and Hypnosis has shaky accuracy. Victreebel generally needs status absorbers and some way to get it in facing stuff that it can troll, for the Wrap set (Wrap Victreebel has no true counters, because of Stun Spore and the ghetto U-Turn). For the Swords Dance set, you need a way to deal with Gengar, since Gengar totally walls that set, and preferably a way to paralyse, chip or kill Starmie, since it can switch in on Swords Dance and kill Victreebel (Hyper Beam and Razor Leaf both fall just short of the OHKO, and Starmie will always 2HKO with either Blizzard or Psychic). Raichu needs support that can remove Exeggutor, Chansey, and to an extent Alakazam, since Raichu otherwise isn't accomplishing much against those. The bigger issue, though, is that Raichu's only draw is Surf, so it needs to always be kept free of paralysis - this severely limits how much you can actually use it for anything.  Dodrio's only useful as an anti-Jynx and anti-Exeggutor lead, because it has the rare distinction of possessing a >50% chance to OHKO Jynx with Hyper Beam, and deals horrific damage to Exeggutor with Drill Peck (and OHKOs it, too, if it crits). Other than that, it's too fragile, particularly specially - there are too many things with Ice and Electric attacks for something that's always 2HKOed by them to prosper, and it's hard-walled by Rocks. Dugtrio usually needs Wrap support or an awful lot of prediction to get in unscathed, but it's surprisingly good at smashing things once it's in. The issue is that most teams don't have room for two Grounds, and Dugtrio doesn't have the Normal resist that's so attractive about GolDon. Maybe use Gengar to cover that? Haunter is completely outclassed by Gengar. Kadabra and Mr. Mime are completely outclassed by Alakazam. Kangaskhan is (almost) completely outclassed by Tauros. Counter's the only real advantage, and that makes it incredibly obvious. Moltres is almost completely outclassed by Dragonite. Fire Spin's too inaccurate, and it can't do much to Starmie or GolDon. Venusaur is almost completely outclassed by Victreebel due to the latter's better Attack for Swords Dance and better movepool for utility. Haven't tried the others. Sandslash is a UU that initially appears viable in OU - it's undermined by the contradicting properties of "needs setup" and "is 2HKOed by all Ice attacks". Standard Tauros counters Sandslash, for instance, and Sandslash can't straight-up beat Chansey unless Chansey FPs. Dragonite can get away with that contradiction because AgiliWrap stops Ice attacks from hitting it; Sandslash doesn't have that luxury. |
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Post by Agent Syrup on May 11, 2013 19:06:37 GMT -8
Well, thanks for the info.
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Post by shadow on May 11, 2013 22:14:02 GMT -8
A team to support someone like Kingler should be able to take out the hard counters (Gengar, Zapdos) and spread paralysis to what needs to be paralyzed (Starmie, Alakazam). Not that the team necessarily has to have hard counters for those pokemon; just prioritize statusing/killing them before revealing your hand.
By the way, there are plenty of totally viable pokemon that aren't used as much as they should be. Consider using some of the following:
Hypno is a solid lead, as it can sleep, paralyze, and deal some damage with psychic/stoss. If put to sleep itself, it can wake up later and participate in stall wars with rest. It can even use counter pretty well.
Victreebel is really good, too. It can sleep, SD+Hbeam does great damage to Zam and Chansey, and razor leaf kills water types (including cutting through Slowbro's amnesias). It can even spread paralysis with stun spore. Wrap would make it even better, but that's no fun.
Cloyster can take physical hits and it can explode. Exploding is pretty good, and it gives Cloyster a niche even without clamp.
Kingler is a late-game sweeper. It can come in after something dies, when something rests, on a frozen pokemon, on a switch, on a chansey, on a physical hit, on an ice beam, etc. With one swords dance, Kingler's hyper beam can KO a ton of pokemon, particularly late-game when most things are weakened. For example, one seismic toss will put Exeggutor into range. And even if Kingler can't set up, crabhammer deals solid damage.
Pinsir is like Kingler. Pinsir takes thunderbolts better, resists ground, and can use slash, but is a bit weaker and lacks crabhammer. Submission does decent damage to rocks, but only stoss can hurt Gengar.
Lickitung is a SDer with some interesting move options, but is rather slow. I haven't really tried him.
Kangaskhan is outclassed by Tauros, sure, but Tauros is pretty damn good. Plus, Kangaskhan gets counter and surf. Use with Tauros and Snorlax and overwhelm your opponent with physical power. Too bad its special is awful.
Gyarados can be pretty useful. Immunity to ground and water STAB means it can switch in and hurt stuff. Must use hypah b34m. GYAAAAA
Edit: I think Gyarados does pretty well against wrappers.
Dragonite's ice weakness and lack of STAB are really a pain. But he might have some niche I've overlooked. Deals decent damage to most things and can use twave. Generally outclassed by Gyarados.
Dugtrio is really fast. If CHs and FPs go your way (substitute can help), it can do a lot of damage, but it dies easily.
Clefable has an amazing movepool; counter can hurt or scare Tauros/Snorlax, hyper beam is as strong as Kingler's, it has twave, tbolt, blizzard, body slam, stoss, and even sing.
Poliwrath can do a ton of things with the right movepool; sleep with hypnosis, amnesia+blizz/surf to hurt stuff, submission/hyper beam to hurt other stuff, earthquake to hurt gengar, counter to fight physicals, etc.
Raticate deals tons of damage if you predict right.
Machamp and Hitmonlee can also hit hard against the right teams.
Tentacruel might be effective under a different ruleset.
Nidoking is bad but cool. Sometimes being cool is enough.
By the way:
Raichu loses to most standards, often accomplishing very little.
Moltres is outclassed by Articuno.
Dodrio has generally poor match-ups and is hard countered.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 11, 2013 23:21:47 GMT -8
A team to support someone like Kingler should be able to take out the hard counters (Gengar, Zapdos) and spread paralysis to what needs to be paralyzed (Starmie, Alakazam). Not that the team necessarily has to have hard counters for those pokemon; just prioritize statusing/killing them before revealing your hand. Indeed, hard counters to a threat aren't very good at removing that threat. Chansey's Thunder Wave, for example, will basically never hit Starmie. What WILL hit Starmie is Exeggutor's Stun Spore or Slowbro's Thunder Wave. Exploding is good, but Cloyster can't hurt Gengar and thus can't threaten it out of coming in to absorb that Explosion. Exeggutor, Golem, and Snorlax all do. Cloyster should be using Clamp. Lickitung has STAB Wrap. Against paralysed opponents, it's horrifically deadly. The issue is getting those opponents paralysed. Immunity to Ground is good. But I should mention that Gyarados (and Dragonite, and Articuno) are only going to get one free switch out of that - this being, hopefully, the moment that you reveal you have a Flying-type. Trying to pull the same trick twice will usually land you with a SE Rock Slide or Body Slam to the face. Having Articuno switch in on Rhydon once is terrifying. Having Articuno switch in on Rhydon twice is one very dead ice bird. Agility. Wrap. What is there to overlook? Heck, I figured that combo out the first time I played through the games. Clefable's utility is its blessing and its curse. It can do pretty much literally anything, but it can't do everything at once. It's got value for being initially a great big unknown, but once it reveals its set it's not very threatening. Rather than trying to have a bad sleeper that also uses Amnesia badly, it's generally better to have a good sleeper and a good Amnesia user. Slowbro is bulkier on both sides and isn't afraid of STAB Psychic. Well, no, since Moltres's best set is Agility + Fire Spin. Unfortunately for Moltres, Dragonite is better at that since Fire Spin is terribly inaccurate, causes thaws, and won't do anything to Starmie. Having four crippling weaknesses (Rock, Water, Electric, Ice) is also worse than having two (which is really only one, since Dragonite murders the Rocks with Surf). As I said, only good as a lead. But its matchups against Exeggutor and Jynx are pretty darned good. |
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 12, 2013 2:09:25 GMT -8
GYAAAAAAAAAAAAA General rule of thumb - if you want to use something not commonly seen in OU, bring paralysis support, unless it paralyzes its foes on its own, in which case it is Hypno and should be treated as a Hypnosis Zam with potentially Counter. |
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Post by lilith on May 12, 2013 22:51:11 GMT -8
I laddered for fun with Dugtrio/Articuno/Persian/Hypno/Jolteon/Kingler, it did not work well, but I beat Lilith once with it. =p meanie!  |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 16, 2013 0:56:53 GMT -8
Victreebell is countered by gengar and anything faster with paralysis. A smart player can nearly always avoid having his counters take stun spore unless they're trading para on the same turn. Just bait bel into wrapping something else, then switch so that bel auto wraps your counter. Victreebel loses a lot of its aility when its paralysed, so often the paralysis trade is good (if they're willing to do it, and in a lot of cases they won't be). Just make sure you have other mean of dealing with other wrappers like cloyster or dragonite.
I think kingler is one of those pokemon that benefits more from the non-wrap meta than the wrap one. Kingler's niche was always that he was a mixed end-game sweeper who had good match ups with other end-game pokemon like tauros and snorlax. He's easier to switch in with wrap, but I feel like those favourable match ups are less common with wrap as well.
As for BLs in OU, a lot of them (and just pokemon in general) are viable in wrap because of the ability to get in for free. This is what always hld pokemon like persian and dodrio back (as well as other things like a specifc hard counter). Even stuff like raticate become viable due to having the ability to get in for free and start forcing mindgames on their wrap counters.
I personally think dodrio is one those pokemon that is OU in terms of ability in the wrap meta (but shouldn't be pushed up unless it gets the usage). It uses eggy and chansey (kind of) as offensive pivots and nothing wants to switch into it except rocks, but even they don't want to take paraslams. You have to remember getting your rock paralysed in wrap is a bigger deal in wrap than in non-wrap because you can no longer use the opponent's chansey as an offensive pivot if you do.
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Post by shadow on May 21, 2013 1:28:38 GMT -8
Cloyster can fight off physical attackers and can explode on special sponges. Neither Starmie nor Lapras can take out Chansey reliably. So I'd say that warrants Cloyster a niche in a clamp-less metagame. Also, Cloyster fills very different roles from Exeggutor, Golem, and Snorlax. And there are plenty of things that can switch into Gengar if need be.
Cloyster may be better with clamp, but even without it he's useful.
You're risking the rock slide even before you show your Gyarados. In order you make Gyarados' ground resistance useful, you have to outpredict your opponent. But if can do that, you can get Gyarados in for free and/or make Rhydon rock slide your other pokemon. So if you're confident in your prediction, or you just want a little extra oomph in your hyper beam, get your Gyarados now for just 500 pokedollars*!
*(may require assembly)
I'm not so sure that that's a very efficient strategy for beating the games.
Clefable should have done it's job by the time its set has been revealed. And you can force the situation where Clefable is best suited (to an extent). Clefable's main problem is shitty stats. But against the right opponent, with the right moveset, Clefable could be just what you need.
Hypnosis and amnesia are just some of the many options that make Poliwrath unpredictable. Even without hypnosis OR amnesia Poliwrath can seriously hurt a lot of standards. Poliwrath plays completely differently than Slowbro.
Unfortunately for Dodrio, the opponent can switch.
Victreebel may or may not be countered by Gengar, depending on Gengar's moveset. I probably wouldn't even use stun spore on Victreebel. Razor leaf is great, sleep powder is great, and a swords danced hyper beam can come in handy. Under a different ruleset, wrap is handy for utility.
By the way, the BL tier is based on a ruleset where wrap is banned, so it wouldn't make much sense to refer to pokemon as BLs when talking about wrap.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 21, 2013 4:59:59 GMT -8
I'm not so sure that that's a very efficient strategy for beating the games. Buy Dratini in Celadon - it starts with Wrap and Thunder Wave, and learns Agility shortly afterward. Very few things in-cartridge have Ice attacks, and the AI doesn't know how to PP-stall Wrap, so you can trivially mow down most of the game from that point onward just by using Dratini (and then Dragonair) as a lead. Indeed. Well, Moltres is BL whether or not Fire Spin is allowed, because AgiliWrap Dnite > AgiliSpin Moltres except maybe against Gengar. |
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Post by jorgen on May 21, 2013 6:09:39 GMT -8
Wrapping things to death in-cart is incredibly tedious. The game is easy enough as is, so there's really no point to cheesing it with agiliwrap dratini.
Also on the topic I like using Kingler the most, even though he's technically UU. Kingler is both cool AND good, can smash most things with Crabhammer while having higher Attack than SandSlash to beat up on Egg/Chansey with its +2 Body Slams and Hyper Beams.
Actually Body Slam is pretty weak on Kingler, usually it's Hyper Beam or bust when attacking with him. But I seriously don't know if there's even a better 4th move for Kingler.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 21, 2013 14:22:53 GMT -8
But I seriously don't know if there's even a better 4th move for Kingler. Stomp (lolflinch) and Ice Beam (freeze Gar) are the only ones which have any benefits. It only gets Normal physical moves, and all its special moves are outclassed by STAB Crabhammer anyway. I suppose you could use Mimic and try for Earthquake, but Kingler's fragile enough as it is without wasting a turn on Mimic. Oh, and it gets DE, but with Kingler's terrible HP and Swords Dance that's not a great idea. |
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Post by shadow on May 21, 2013 18:54:34 GMT -8
Stomp is a reasonable alternative to body slam on Kingler.
Crabhammer 3HKOs Gengar, so don't use ice beam (although it could be useful against Dragonite). Surf can be used on Rhydon/Golem without risking a Crabhammer miss, but it isn't nearly as cool. Substitute might let you survive an extra hit, if they FP at the right time.
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 21, 2013 22:44:16 GMT -8
Honestly the only thing I can think of that's remotely worthwhile on kingler is double-edge over hyper beam if you're worried about recharge catches.
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Post by magic9mushroom on May 22, 2013 2:58:05 GMT -8
Crabhammer 3HKOs Gengar, so don't use ice beam (although it could be useful against Dragonite). But it doesn't have a 10% chance of effectively OHKOing it. Which Kingler really, really wants since Kingler's setup requirement prevents it from coming in repeatedly to chip at Gengar. Dre: +2 DE doesn't OHKO Chansey and won't usually OHKO Zam. Those two OHKOs being the entire reason to use Kingler in the first place. :V |
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 22, 2013 6:21:17 GMT -8
They're not the reason you should be using kingler. Kingler's draw is that he is a mixed set up sweeper who has good match ups with common end game pokemon like tauros and snorlax. These match ups matter for sweepers because you often save them until the end of the game. Besides, if you're trying to set up kingler you'd hope everything is damaged and paralysed first, which you obviously know.
But yeah I don't think DE is a good idea either, I just think it's the best 'other option'.
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Isa
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Post by Isa on May 22, 2013 7:24:24 GMT -8
If you were to hit Chansey three times with Kingler's Double-Edge somehow, you'd 3HKO yourself. =p
(Those good matchups come partly from having Hyper Beam, btw)
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Dre
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Post by Dre on May 22, 2013 17:42:28 GMT -8
Yeah I know DE is bad, I just couldn't think of a better alternate move.
I'm not sure why people are assuming everything is going to full health though, You'd like to think that you crippled everything before trying to set up with kingler lol.
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