RBY Middle Cup!
Dec 9, 2014 13:30:57 GMT -8
Post by piexplode on Dec 9, 2014 13:30:57 GMT -8
this sounds Legal pokemon:
Ivysaur
Charmeleon
Wartortle
Metapod
Kakuna
Pidgeotto
Nidorina
Nidorino
Gloom
Poliwhirl
Machoke
Weepinbell
Graveler
Dragonair
There's only 16 Pokemon. Kakuna/Metapod suck. Kadabra is very obviously OP when it can one-shot most of the tier with psychic, outspeed everyone. I feel it's probably too powerful for the tier. Haunter is perhaps more broken but less obviously so; in a tier without Kadabra, Psychic/Tbolt/Mega Drain hits everything super-effectively bar dragonair which can hardly touch it, as well as outspeeding the whole metagame, having hypnosis, and explosion. All in all it's just too good.
Some theorymonning..
Ivysaur - SD/Body Slam/Sleep Powder/Razor Leaf - physical sweeper, needs foe paralysed to get in often. Wrap support can help it get in too. Main checks are Charmeleon, Pidgeotto, and poliwhirl, but with its status, speed, bulk, grass stab, and boosting move, it seems like a good threat.
Charmeleon - Fire Spin/Fire Blast/Body Slam/Submission - It's faster than Dragonair, but its main use is being a pivot with fire spin - the move innacuracy sucks, but freeze is rare, grass types dislike it, and its cool speed is helpful. Wartortle, Poliwrath, Graveler all check this very nicely; it's basically incapable of sweeping with fire spin due to its shaky accuracy, the ease of fitting 2 resists, and that to try and get through graveler requires the unreliable and recoil-inducing submission. Rest is a serious
Wartortle - Quite what to run on it is not obvious. Blizzard seems solid, only charmeleon really prefering it to surf (and the already-scared graveler), reflect, rest, withdraw, surf, hydro pump, body slam, ice beam, and even seismic toss and counter. Its main issues are dragonair [wrap might let it wake up from a rest but ultimately dragonair has the upper hand) and grass types (you outspeed and can blizzard weepinbell, but ivysaur outspeeds you and threatens you with razor leaf and sleep, as well as sword dance).
(Metapod and Kakuna are joke pokemon)
Pidgeotto - This pokemon is pretty bad; walled by graveler, and effectively walled by Haunter, it probably has more issues as a late game sweeper than say Ivysaur. Agility, Double Edge, Quick Attack, Sky Attack, Sand Attack, Toxic, Mimic, and Reflect are the moves that seem somewhat usable. Probably terrifying if the opponent lacks graveler, but if they have it then it's difficult to make use of. I'd argue that Double Edge/Agility/Quick Attack/Toxic or Double Edge/Rest/Reflect/Agility or Toxic is a potentially interesting set.
Nidorina - Outclassed by Nidorino. The added bulk doesn't help it survive anything major, but the added speed lets it outspeed Ivysaur and Wartortle. You could theoretically stack them both together to make use of it.
Nidorino - Thunder/Blizzard/Body Slam/Filler - Thunder has massively increased KO chances versus Wartortle and Poliwhirl (although this outspeeds and takes it out in 3 hits) compared to Thunderbolt. Blizzard is your best option versus most pokemon. It lacks any worthwhile STAB, and Body Slam does about as much damage as Bubblebeam to Charmeleon, but has the added chance of Paralysis. Thunderbolt is probably the best filler move, although substitute, leer, ice beam, rest, etc. all are about equally viable.
Gloom - Outclassed. Similar bulk to Ivysaur, but less movepool options. Sleep Powder/Stun Spore/Sword Dance/Double Edge/Razor Leaf would work if it had 5 moveslots, but since it doesn't it's outclassed, since take away any one move and Ivysaur/Weepinbell outclass. Stacking grass types makes it theoretically an option I guess.
Poliwhirl - Blizzard/Psychic/Amnesia/Hypnosis - Access to Amnesia and Hypnosis make this insane, but Rest is a free switch in for Agiliwrap Dnair. It needs to use Amnesia twice to be able to KO a grass type (and only with blizzard), whilst razor leaf is a 71.8% chance or 43.6% chance to OHKO respectively from Weepinbell and Ivysaur's razor leafs. Whilst this is an unreliable looking pokemon, it also looks highly powerful.
Machoke -
Weepinbell - Wrap/Stun Spore/Sleep Powder/Razor Leaf - No body slam/hyper beam; double powder+wrap+grass makes it hard to switch in on. Only really comes in versus machoke and graveler; haunter running psychic eats this up.
Graveler - Rock Slide/Earthqauke/Explosion/Body Slam - eats explosions, beats pidgeotto, late-game sweeper. Like Golem. However, with pidgeotto being pretty terrible, it's more relegated to late game sweeping, and eating wraps/fire spins/explosions, and exploding itself. Rock Slide could be dropped for substitute to help with sweeping, (or could explosion), since the only pokemon it hits harder with rock slide than any other attack bar explosion is Pidgeotto. You're then vulnerable to Reflect/Rest bird, but sub is potentially useful.
Dragonair - Agility/Wrap/Blizzard or Surf/Hyper Beam. Basically Dragonite. Top tier threat that makes graveler basically mandatory, since it lacks a 4x weakness, and has already good speed. Will suspect this. Without partial trapping, it'd probably still be okay as a charmeleon check, able to threaten the ground/grass types with blizzard, charmeleon with surf, hyper beam to KO stuff, but it'd be more mediocre. Only playtesting will tell.
Pokemon - Speed - Crit Rate - Stats
Poliwhirl - 90 - 17.59% - 65/65/65/50/90 - 335
Charmeleon - 80 - 15.63% - 58/64/58/65/80 - 325
Pidgeotto - 71 - 13.87% - 63/60/55/50/71 - 299
Dragonair - 70 - 13.67% - 61/84/65/70/70 - 350
Nidorino - 65 - 12.70% - 61/72/57/55/65 - 310
Ivysaur - 60 - 11.71% - 60/62/63/80/60 - 325
Wartortle - 58 - 11.33% - 59/63/80/65/58 - 325
Nidorina - 56 - 10.94% - 70/62/67/55/56 - 310
Weepinbell - 55 - 10.74% - 65/90/50/85/55 - 345
Machoke - 45 - 8.79% - 80/100/70/50/45 - 345
Gloom - 40 - 7.81% - 60/65/70/85/40 - 320
Graveler - 35 - 6.84% - 55/95/115/45/35 - 345
Kakuna - 35 - 6.84% - 45/25/50/25/35 - 180
Metapod - 30 - 5.86% - 50/20/55/25/30 - 180
Amnesia, Wrap, and Hypnosis are fairly suspect moves.
Viability Rankings (approximate)
S Rank - Top Tier
Dragonair
Poliwhirl - You must run this.
A Rank
Graveler
Ivysaur
Weepinbell
B Rank
Charmeleon
Machoke
Pidgeotto
Wartortle
C Rank - Severely Outclassed but not unusable.
Gloom
Nidorina
D Rank - Joke.
Kakuna
Metapod
Lead Metagame?
Poliwrath is the most obvious contender for a lead. Fastest pokemon in the metagame, with Hypnosis. Nothing appears to be an especially good sleep absorber.. maybe graveler or wartortle? Either way, whatever you lead with, is either going to be put to sleep 50% or 60% of the time. I'd consider Gloom as another option for a lead; it, like Weepinbell, OHKOs Poliwrath 71.6% of the time that it hits with Razor Leaf, but really, lead hypnosis Poliwrath looks kinda godly.
Stuff I'm further suspecting from the theorymonning:
Some combo of Poliwrath + Amnesia, Poliwrath + Hypnosis, Dragonair + Wrap, these seem like the most overpowered elements of the tier. Amnesiawrath looks handleable with any of the 3 grass types who OHKO it pretty frequently, as well as threaten the whole tier with status.
Things that stop you sweeping
Ivysaur - Nidorino's faster blizzard, non-SLP/PAR Poliwhirl, charmeleon, dragonair. Coming in avoiding status and major damage is important. Charmeleon's checks, bar Poliwrath, serve as good Ivysaur bait.
Charmeleon - Poliwrath, Graveler, Wartortle. Grass types help with these.
Pidgeotto - Graveler, Poliwrath (can't switch in to it however).
Nidorino - Machoke [Machoke Earthquake vs. Nidorino: 202-238 (62.1 - 73.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO, Nidorino Blizzard vs. Machoke: 91-107 (25 - 29.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO, Nidorino Body Slam vs. Machoke: 62-74 (17 - 20.3%) -- possible 5HKO], Poliwhirl (can't switch into thunder/tbolt though), Charmeleon [Nidorino Blizzard vs. Charmeleon: 79-93 (24.7 - 29.1%) -- 100% chance to 4HKO, Nidorino BubbleBeam vs. Charmeleon: 86-102 (26.9 - 31.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO, crit rate helps I guess]
Poliwhirl - Once you've laid sleep, unless you have amnesia'd a lot already, Ivysaur/Gloom/Weepinbell are great checks.
Machoke - Poliwhirl, Gloom/Ivysaur/Weepinbell are the main hurdles. That, and other pokemon bar graveler all generally being faster.
Weepinbell - Lack of real ability to make use of Swords Dance. More of an offensive utility pivot.
Graveler - Everything faster bar Pidgeotto and Charmeleon (maybe).. does not have an easy time sweeping, but can open holes with its tier-exclusive explosion.
Dragonair - Before-Agility, Poliwhirl and Charmeleon can stop it being too threatening. Graveler, Pidgeotto, Wartortle, and anything slower without threatening status really, are all possible set up targets. Nothing is a real guaranteed stop to it, but equally it's a very unreliable sweeper.
How are we going to nerf Poliwhirl? Cos it is kinda OP, and then if it's nerfed, similar is true for dragonair. Outright banning sleep moves even seems an option, since stuff absorbs sleep much worse than in OU here, but at the same time everything is kinda balky, particularly the sleepers, so you can't stop sleep going up either easily.
Status:
Sleep
Hypnosis - Poliwhirl. Broken
Sleep Powder - Gloom, Ivysaur, Weepinbell; Ivy is fastest.
Burn
Fire Blast - Charmeleon - Not dire in this tier it has to be said. No recover users, etc.
Paralysis
Stun Spore - Weepinbell, Gloom (not Ivysaur!)
Body Slam - Charmeleon, Nidorino, Graveler, Machoke, possibly Wartortle.
Thunder Wave - Dragonair (unlikely to use it)
Freeze
Blizzard - Poliwrath, Dragonair, Nidorino.
