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Welcome to the Ruins of Alph Version of the ORAS UU Viability Ranking thread! In this thread, we as a community will be creating a valuable resource with the intent of helping people who are interested in learning how to play this metagame. With that in mind, the main goal is to organize all of the usable Pokemon in this tier into "tiers", from best to worst, with no differentiation between offensive and defensive threats. Everyone with experience is encouraged to comment, and every post will be taken into account when deciding possible rank changes.
The S tier contains a select few metagame-defining Pokemon, the best of the best, and the A tiers reflect on the Pokemon which are extremely effective but flawed in some aspects. The B tier is slightly more expansive, with the B+ tier representing Pokemon that are fairly common and threatening but don't quite make the cut for A-, while the B- tier represents Pokemon which fill minor, but relevant, niches. Below the B tier, the generic C tier displays the rest of the Pokemon that are usable in UU, but don't have a niche that is appreciated by most UU teams. Finally, the D rank will only include Pokemon that are tiered in UU by usage, but have no usability in the metagame.
All Pokemon are individually sorted within their rank by viability. This is quite subjective, and it's fine for users to make suggestions regarding each Pokemon's placement within those ranks in their posts, but it's usually better if they don't become the sole focus of the discussion.
Aerodactyl: Remained in A1. Despite a decent amount of support for Mega Aerodactyl to move from A1 to S, we decided to leave it in A1 for now. While Aerodactyl is undoubtedly one of the best Pokemon in the metagame, its lack of raw power leaves it unable to reliably check several key threats like Celebi and Conkeldurr. Overall Aerodactyl has several flaws, and while it's clearly better than anything in A1, isn't at quite the same threat level as the other S ranks are.
Klefki: A very late addition to ORAS UU, Klefki was placed near the top of A3 to begin with. It's a great Pokemon for offense to blanket check a significant portion of the tier with its typing + Prankster TWave, and is easily the best Spikes user in the tier. What holds it back from higher ranks is its mediocre raw bulk and the fact that several hazard removers (Empoleon, Tentacruel, Forretress) don't care about it and can remove its Spikes with ease.
Small changes
Empoleon moved down within A2
Infernape moved up within A3
Kyurem moved up within A4
Metagross moved up within A4 Doublade moved down to B+
Whimsicott moved down within B+ Mega Aggron moved up to B+
Froslass moved down to B
Mega Steelix moved up to B
Diancie moved up to B
Umbreon moved down to C+
Donphan moved down to C-
Pangoro added to C-
Aerodactyl: Remained in A1. Despite a decent amount of support for Mega Aerodactyl to move from A1 to S, we decided to leave it in A1 for now. While Aerodactyl is undoubtedly one of the best Pokemon in the metagame, its lack of raw power leaves it unable to reliably check several key threats like Celebi and Conkeldurr. Overall Aerodactyl has several flaws, and while it's clearly better than anything in A1, isn't at quite the same threat level as the other S ranks are.
So with UUPL, I've been playing a lot more ORAS again and I have to say: I still think Mega Aero not being S rank is an absurdity. "Lack of raw power" is very rarely an issue in practice. While it is true that it's not able to OHKO Mons like Conkeldurr and Celebi, those are pretty much the bulkiest offensive mons you're ever gonna have to deal with. Take a look at just about any offensive mon in the tier. Besides Hydrei, Krook, and one or two others, Mega Aero is a complete stop to them. And even those that isn't a complete stop to, it does enough against them to be able to threaten them late game or just get good damage on them when necessary. It does enough force most fat balance mons to recover, and is capable of wearing down those that don't have any recovery. It can even run Taunt to mess with fat teams even more. It's one major flaw is it's weakness to rocks, but against offensive teams I find it still gets enough switchins even with the weakness, and against fat teams it has ample opportunity to get a Roost off. Mega Aerodactyl is absolutely up there with the other 3 mons in S.
Yo, I'm hosting this thread now and I have some pretty big changes.
Rises:
Aerodactyl-Mega A1 -> S
Roserade B+ -> A3
Florges B+ -> A4
Mandibuzz B -> A5
Slowking B -> A5
Hoopa C+ -> B-
Virizion C -> B-
Mega Aerodactyl has seen a huge resurgence in UUPL. It can fit on any playstyle and offers teams a plethora of roles including a reliable revenge killer, Pursuit user, birds/Beedrill check, and even a setup sweeper via Hone Claws. These roles along with a wide variety of other viable moves allow Mega Aerodactyl's versatility to push it up to S.
I was honestly shocked to see Roserade this low initially. This may seem like a huge jump, but there are very few mons that threaten balance teams, more specifically their common Fairy/Water/Steel cores, to the extent that dual STAB, HP Fire, Sleep Powder Roserade does. Pursuit is ultimately what holds it back but this thing is just ridiculous if played well and is 100% on the level of some other Pokemon within this rank.
While mostly overshadowed by Sylveon, Florges is also a fine option that boasts a potent Calm Mind set while also providing a less-passive Wish passing set featuring Synthesis. Due to being forced to run WishTect, defensive Sylveon it often has to take a turn to Protect to heal up safely. This gives Pokemon like Nidoqueen and Mega Aggron opportunities to set up hazards on this turn and leaves it vulnerable to phazers that can prevent it from healing back to the point where it can fulfill its role. While Sylveon is still a better option than Florges in most cases due to its superior bulk and bigger Wishes, Florges can run Synthesis over Protect on its Wish set, meaning it avoids these aforementioned issues.
Another mon I was pretty surprised to see that low is Mandibuzz. It fares well against many of the mons near the top of the rankings in Celebi, Krookodile, Mega Sceptile, Mega Swampert, and Gyarados. Mandibuzz is also a solid Defog user and can get teammates into favorable positions through the use of U-turn, meaning it supports the rest of the team nicely. Weaknesses to stuff like Sylveon, Cobalion, and Conkeldurr ultimately prevent it from rising much higher, but when properly supported, Mandibuzz is a great asset to ORAS UU teams.
Slowking is really similar to Mandibuzz in that it does well against a lot of top stuff, offering a solid check to Sylveon when running Calm Mind, Entei (broken), Gyarados, Cobalion, Infernape, Nidos, and Conk (if running a whack set like Colbur Psychic). Slowking offers a unique mix of versatility with Regen, Calm Mind, Dragon Tail, TWave, and Toxic that can be tailored to the needs of just about any balance team. Again, not perfect since Celebi and Hydreigon exist but the utlity it offers teams is undeniable.
Hoopa offers teams a really unique and effective skill set that threatens the vast majority of balance teams with its Sub Nasty Plot set. Most teams lack a Ghost resist, and when Dark-types are present they aren't too keen on taking Focus Blasts from a Hoopa behind a sub. Aside from its high Special Defense, Hoopa doesn't offer much else defensively and suffers from a huge weakness to Pursuit, preventing it from rising any further from this but its definitely good enough to warrant a B- rank.
Virizion is a pretty decent mon that fits well next to Mega Aerodactyl, offering a sturdy answer to bulky Water-types and non-CB Krook, while appreciating Aero's ability to check Flying-types and Pursuit trap some of its more prominent answers like Celebi. It just seemed a bit out of place that low in the rankings as it really is a solid pick for bulky offensish teams in ORAS UU given its good speed tier and capability of dealing with the ever-present Waters.
Drops:
Beedrill-Mega A2 -> A3
Cresselia A2 -> lower in its rank
Reuniclus A3 -> lower in its rank (edited)
Bronzong A5 -> lower in its rank
Haxorus A5 -> B+
Sableye B -> B-
Porygon2 B -> B-
Mega Beedrill dropping is based purely on the support it needs to function effectively, and it obviously doesn't offer much of of anything defensively to the balance/bulky offense teams on which it fits best. That's honestly pretty big since ORAS UU teams are really strapped for Pokemon slots as is. I just don't see it on the same level as Pokemon like Mega Sceptile, Mega Swampert, and Cobalion that simply offer much more to teams.
Cresselia is really really passive and often deadweight against well-prepared teams especially given its vulnerability to Toxic and status as a whole. It's still a good mon because of its stupid bulk and defensive capablities, but it too is not on the same level of Mega Swampert, Mega Sceptile, Cobalion, etc.
Reuniclus can be really hard to justify using over stuff like Cresselia and Slowking since it offers pretty much 0 defensively, despite how threatening it can be in certain matchups. Picking a coverage move is really frustrating since you're either walled by Celebi/other Psychics if running Focus Blast (shaky accuracy can make dealing with darks/cobalion a bitch too) or by steels if running Signal Beam. This change is less so about its potency than its ability to actually fit on functional teams.
Bronzong is really weird since in theory it beats a bunch of the most common mons (Aero, Sylveon, non Shadow Ball Celebi), but it really suffers from the prevalence of CB Krook and Pursuit Escavalier, with Krook being one of the most common partners for the mons mentioned above. Zong can be pretty awkward to fit on teams as it's a steel that loses to Mega Bee and can potentially give wallbreakers like Entei and Crawdaunt free turns. Also, deciding on moveslots is a pain since you want Gyro Ball for the faster shit, a non Gyro Ball Steel move to actively pressure Sylveon, Protect so you can at least trade with CB Krook, and Psywave so you're not the one rocker Forretress actually beats (LOL).
Haxorus suffers a lot from the presence of Sylveon and the fact that it's hard to justify over Hydreigon, which offers wayy more defensive utility often in a similar breaker role. Haxorus is nearly always reluctant to lock into its most powerful move in Outrage, as it's pretty easily taken advantage of afterward, sometimes preventing it from dealing any meaningful damage in a given match. It's still a solid mon overall, but its negatives warrant a drop to B+.
Sableye has fallen off a huge amount following the drops of Sylveon, Conkeldurr, and Celebi. It simply has a much harder time fitting onto teams, given its constantly decreasing opportunities to fulfill its role.
Porygon2 had a similar drop off to Sableye as Celebi and Conk reduce its viability as a catch-all wall, coupling with its vulnerability to status, hazards, Knock Off, and whatever else. This thing is way past its prime and deserves to drop.
All of those look fine except the Reuniclus drop; saying it offers nothing defensively is pretty unfair when it punishes the shit out of anything fat (Sylveon, Bronzong, Mola, Swampert, Blissey, Tenta) and can even switch into some offensive stuff (most notably non-Crunch Aero, also Cobalion Croak and some other Fighting types and even Adamant Mega Pert under Rain needs a flinch to 2HKO it). It also beats every other slow booster besides Sub Protect or Roar Cune (Lax, Slowking, Cress, other Suicune). The fact that it punishes fat things so effectively means you can build your team to offensively check the stronger things like Gyara, Conk, Celebi etc while being able to easy fall back on Reuni the second that any support mon comes in. It definitely shouldn't be two whole sub ranks below Cresselia, which I'd argue is actually harder to fit on a team due to how passive and hampered by status, and how much Moonlight sucks.
Hi, hello. The ORAS UU metagame has seen numerous shifts since this thread was originally posted, so much so that revamping the viability rankings entirely was necessary in order to reflect its state today. With the help of Tony and Hogg, a team featuring Killintime, Pearl, and I ranked every Pokemon remotely usable in the tier from top to bottom. Then, the averages were taken, creating the new individual rankings. The five of us divided the list into the traditional sub ranks of S, A+, A, etc., as opposed to the previous A# shit which is simply a worse format imho. I compiled our personal rankings along with each mon's previous rank and the change that resulted in the spreadsheet below. For reference, here are the previous rankings and divisions themselves. (Note: the bottom of the old VR is in alphabetical order, but the difference column still gives a general idea of the changes they saw)
Mega Aerodactyl and Hydreigon are simply a cut above the rest in the tier, making them the sole S rank Pokemon. While others may rival them in raw effectiveness in their respective roles, what separates these two titans is both their versatility and splashability. Both can perform a variety of roles outstandingly, while also fitting well on nearly any team style.
Even though Conkeldurr didn't see much of a change in its individual ranking, you'll notice throughout these changes how much this (broken) Pokemon warps the tier around itself and its common support options accompanying it. Its most centralizing set is undoubtedly its Specially Defensive Bulk Up variant, which possesses very few reliable answers, while its ever-threatening Choice Band set also leaves unsuspecting opponents on the back foot.
The Pokemon seeing perhaps the most notable rise is Florges. While it was previously seen as the outright inferior bulky Fairy-type to its counterpart, Sylveon, it has separated itself in this regard by presenting a stronger check to the previously mentioned Bulk Up Conkeldurr. This is mainly due to its access to one-turn recovery in Synthesis. On the other hand, Sylveon relies heavily on WishTect as its form of recovery, a method capitalized on by the common combination of Bulk Up Conkeldurr + Fairy-resistant Roar user. Synthesis eliminates that dilemma entirely, giving Florges a much easier time staying healthy throughout a match. Additionally, Calm Mind Florges remains a potent sweeper in its own right, offering a strong win condition along with its natural defensive utility.
Big threats in Entei and Gyarados were both victims of decent knock downs in the rankings. While the two are unquestionably powerful offensively and should taken into account when teambuilding, their most effective sets have a similarly hard time fitting onto functional teams in the notoriously restrained tier that is ORAS UU. They simply do not offer much defensively, while other traits like their Stealth Rock weakness and mediocre Speed also play a part in holding them back. Obviously, they still hold relatively high positions because of their offensive capabilities, but it is their overall splashability that led to these drops.
I've talked about this 90 other times, but yeah Mandibuzz is hot heat. It checks top threats in Celebi, Choice Band Krookodile, Mega Swampert, and Gyarados among others, while doing a stellar job of getting teammates into favorable positions via its slow U-turns. The presence of Conkeldurr/Cobalion/Fairies and its vulnerability to status hold it back from rising higher, but it is a great Pokemon in the tier.
Mega Sceptile was another notable drop from the higher ranks. While it is still effective as an answer to Water-types and a strong revenge killer, some recent trends have put a damper on its overall consistency. Mandibuzz and the more-Specially-Defensive-bulky-Fairy Florges have risen more and more, offering two strong counters to any viable set it can muster. The presence of Hydreigon has largely led to Mega Scep's indirect downfall due to the heavy defensive counterplay like this often aimed in its direction, which just so happens to also deal with the weaker dragon gecko thing.
Oh, Cresselia. This is a mon that checks a solid number of top tier Pokemon, most notably Conk, and has potential as a long term win condition with Calm Mind. However, the main gripes with it have always its vulnerability to status and its general passiveness, tickling pretty much anything without 3 Calm Minds under its belt. Cress is simply too often dead weight or too easily abused, and has seen a drop as a result.
Gligar rose some. Gligar offers a unique blend of utility by checking VoltTurn/Fightings (not named Conk without Toxic), hazard removal/setting depending on your set up, and slow U-turn which lets it effectively pivot on a lot of goons, most notably Celebi. Its nothing spectacular but it has its uses for sure and that is reflected in the change.
Sylveon saw the biggest drop off of any relevant Pokemon, largely because of the issues touched on earlier. However, it still finds itself in a decent position because while it is less splashable than Florges, it is in fact bulkier and passes bigger wishes to teammates. Additionally, Specs is a pretty spooky set if you can fit it since Hyper Voice is strong as hell and its coverage is p hot. Still checks Hydreigon, etc.
While it is usually seen as a direct downgrade to Mega Aggron during much of ORAS, Mega Steelix saw a big resurgence this UUPL. To be fair, its ability is obviously outright worse than that of Mega Aggron, but Steelix makes up for that in splashability. It checks off the Ground-type that is essential on pretty much every team, opening up for a slot to do something else. Subtle, but it definitely makes a sizable difference in such a bogged down and restrained metagame.
I'm getting lazy, but Tyrantrum and Rhyperior are both really cool in a tier seeing a shit load of Crobat spam. The dino puts dents in the whole tier and is a dank wallbreaker, while the rhino is comparable to defensive Swampert in its uses. The key difference lies in its increased offensive presence and like I alluded to, checking Flying-types, although it does struggle with the obscene amount of bulky Water-types, making it a generally worse option than its competition.
Update update update update shoutouts KillintimeTSRWankaArkKreme for ranking help. Individuals rankings and averages can be found below, also the OP has been updated with the new rankings and divisions.
Significant Changes and Trends (that I may elaborate on more (or already have) in the other thread)
Slowking saw a huge rise to the nearly the highest heights of the tier. I'm (shockingly) a little lower on it than these other sirs, but it has stuck out over the last few years for its fantastic defensive traits in combination with its broken Regenerator ability. It's also really flexible with a bunch of good options, all while fulfilling what you generally want out of a bulky Water. On top of Regenerator, it also has reliable recovery in the form of Slack Off, making it pretty much the hardest Water to sufficiently beat down over the course of a game without sacrificing much momentum in remaining healthy.
Metagross has really picked up as well and it is due almost entirely to the emergence of its 'Demongross' bulky Toxic set. It had always been an Ark set looming here and there, but it caught on in a major way and it is weirdly one of the hardest things to kill in the entire tier. Especially if it can fit Protect instead of Rocks, it sits there and sits there, Toxic stalling shit and collecting its free Leftovers, also annoying the shit out of your Scarf Hydreigons and stuff. Choice Band and things are still around but this massive raise comes riding off the back of Demongross.
Seismitoad may have had the single biggest rise, both in usage and the ensuing viability rankings. It took us a long long time to realize that being immune to Scald is pretty flipping nutty for whatever reason. Pearl and I made a team with it over Swampert just to have another Water resist on hand next to a Technician Rose, and that's basically it in a nut shell. However, the key wrinkle on top of the simple Scald immunity is that also makes it a much better Stealth Rock user than Swampert, primarily since it is a lot lot better against Empoleon and Tentacruel 1v1. Knock off is cool too, but yeah, while it is a bit less bulky, it essentially fills the same type of roles as Swampert while gaining 25% from the tier's most spammed move, which saw a huge drop as a result.
Entei and Gyarados and their drops were hit on more thoroughly here and here.
Rhyperior has found a niche on certain team styles as a nice rock setter, actively abusing the Defog birds. One of its best traits is its ability to enable 'Steels' like Escavalier and even Forretress. They're ordinarily kind of awkward defensively, since they don't resist Rock or Flying, and that's where big Rhyperior comes in. Like I said, it's not as universally good as a Seismitoad or whatever, especially with the presence of Scald, but he has his spots where he excels.
Mega Beedrill is increasingly hard to justify, as alluded to here.
Gligar is weird. Theoretically, it has some nice traits going for it in slow U-turn, mixed bulk, and access to both Stealth Rock and Defog. The issue is as long as Conkeldurr is on the loose, Gligar usually needs some backup against Fightings, pretty much negating one of its better features. It also doesn't directly beat a ton despite not getting 2HKO'd by them, so justifying it on faster paced balance can be pretty tough considering how important every team slot is.
Infernape is a solid mon in a vacuum, possessing a decent amount of versatility too, but it has a tough time finding spots on teams. There isn't a lot it directly offers and it usually doesn't outright beat enough to offset its really bad bulk. Slowking's rise has done it no favors either.
Ergh Mega Sharpedo. This feels more like ranking HO as a playstyle rather than a mon itself, but that's really what it boils down to. It just isn't a super consistent style in such a balance-dominated tier, although if it hits, it hits super hard. I actually ended up ranking it a decent amount higher than the others due to that, but it has understandably seen a drop, mainly due to the omnipresence of some of its tougher checks in Conkeldurr and Florges.
Klefki rant here,Cresselia rant there, both dropped a lot.
Durant and Virizion rose, I talked about them after UUPL in this post. Both are solid but nothing spectacular, worthy of decent rises.
We also added Pelipper and Archeops (lead rocks) and unranked some dog shit
Thanks again to the squad helping me rank so it wasn't entirely biased. I feel 1000x better about things now and they should represent the current state of ORAS UU for the most part.
It will be eventually, but with conk’s absence there should be a significant shift in the tier. Without any tour play or experimentation, it would be pretty arbitrary and kind of a waste of time to re-rank everything at the moment. I’ll definitely try get to it ASAP when things are a bit more defined.
This has been updated to reflect the first ever Conkless meta. The individual and final rankings can be found in the spreadsheet below and thanks to Bouff, r0ady, Lyss, TSR, esche, Wanka, robjr, Ark, and Killintime for submitting their rankings. The OP has the new list and tier divisions. I decided the divisions based on natural cut offs and ideal mon totals in each rank, and also to include / exclude some mons completely arbitrarily but honestly anything below the 70ish mark or so could be nuked and there would basically be no difference.
hi, its 1 am and im bored so im gonna post my rankings and talk a little bit about some of the placements, mainly the ones that happened to be pretty different from the other rankers. the tier maker used for this can be found here so feel free to post your own :)
one thing i want to note is that this is a personal vr (for me at least, that's what i had in mind when making the tiermaker) so my biases will be p evident. i had made these like a week or so before everyone elses when it was agreed to be used for the actual vr, but i pretty much stand by more or less all of these even after the fact. the only thing i would probably change to be more objective is putting sceptile up a rank, i really do not like using it at all but it can be pretty obnoxious if played correctly.
- even with av mien rising to prominence as an abuser, it's still the best fairy in the tier and as such is very easy to slap on a team. on a fair portion of teams it can be replaced by av mien to give more fluid gameplay and swing momentum in your favor much more easily, but the distinguishing qualities florges has in wish, heal bell, and to a lesser extent calm mind are all very important for balances imo. if anything, what's a little annoying about this mon is that passing a wish to other stuff is...kind of difficult? because you do want to keep florges at a solid health when its not in, but that's not high maintenance enough for me to really want to put it in a.
- this mon is kind of weird to me when i tried to test with it. it's a regen mon, it checks a bunch of stuff very well on its own, and its movepool is expansive enough to where you can be really flexible with it. the reason i kinda have felt gross using it is that sometimes you end up trying to give it more than it can handle. it can deal with what its supposed to answer well on its own, but then when you get into situations where you end up in a scald war and get burned, or you trade a toxic with seismitoad. once you add hazards into the equation, it just feels like you're on the backfoot in such an awkward way that you can't do as much as you'd like with it. alongside that the psychic typing really does not do it that much favors, being weak to uturn sucks beyond belief. maybe ive just been building wrong with it or i need to l2p with it tho. b+ isnt even really harsh at all, this is moreso just in comparison to others ranking it much higher.
- seeing it at the top of b+ might be weird but i rate ho very very highly rn. if built well it just allows you to have so much legroom provided you get early turns right, which imo isn't that hard to do. in most cases you should be able to get a spike, which honestly can be just enough sometimes...if you get two i really consider it a miracle but if rocks manage to go up from a teammate like nidoking or krook then that can sway the game in your favor quite a bit because oras is a tier where its much easier to get hazards up than take them off. anyhow, the reason why lass is rated the most as a lead here is because its speed tier + icy wind is fantastic, and while all 3 of icy wind, taunt, and dbond will pretty much never come into play in the game, each of them and their different effects on the "game state" after froslass dies is something that has to be respected.
- this thing is a stupid mon in that it can just fall flat on its face if you get a turn or two wrong alongside sr neutrality making it not very hard to wear...but i really like the payoff it can give, mostly through the cb set. stab combo, priority and being able to outrun mien naturally is great.
Significant Changes and Trends (that I may elaborate on more (or already have) in the other thread)
Mega Aerodactyl, Hydreigon, and Mienshao are definitively a cut above the rest of the tier. Aero has always been top 3 or so in these types of rankings in the past, but this may very well be the best it has ever been. Teams are generally faster paced than they were in Conk meta, and that is due in large part to defensive Fairy-types becoming less and less prominent or necessary. As a result, teams are naturally frailer and do not have as much resilience, given that they aren't routinely catching Wishes from Florges. Also, it is one of the few very good options that can outrun and immediately threaten Mienshao. Hydreigon will always have massive pull in the metagame given how ridiculous Draco Meteor can be to switch into. Despite its hardest answer Florges seeing a bit of a drop off, I do think it has fallen off a slight amount with the rise of AV Mienshao and other viable approaches to handle it such as Mandibuzz + Gardevoir, but I do get the sentiment from the other rankers. I put Mienshao first, perhaps due in some capacity to recency bias, but in my mind there isn't a more influential mon in the tier. Its tremendous rise has fundamentally shifted the way the tier is played (although Conk leaving heavily plays into that too). Whatever the case, it is incredibly versatile and breeds incredibly fluid gameplay for the user. Not much is out there to directly punish it and supporting it is not difficult by any means. It makes just about any team more functionally sound and its counterplay isn't super extensive. I don't think it's broken or anything, but it is consistently the mon I'm most concerned about dealing with in the builder, giving it a higher place in my mind compared to the others.
Seismitoad has continued its monstrous trajectory upward over the last couple years. What it does isn't a secret by any means, but yeah the Scald immunity over its direct competition in Swampert is absolutely crucial when it comes to one-on-one matchups against common hazard removers such as Empoleon, and it generally provides some great utility to teams given how much Scald is thrown around in this tier. This mon isn't anything flashy, but it does what it does very very well, and that is reflected with its new ranking in the top 5.
Crobat has seen a huge resurgence beyond its previously standard in its passive Haze Acro set, as touched on more extensively here. Also with its newfound flexibility in the item department, Safety Goggles has become a strong utility option in completely shutting off Sleep Powder users such as Roserade and Psychicless Venomoth.
Celebi remains a strong Pokemon in the tier for obvious reasons, but recent trends have knocked it down from its past rankings within the top 5 of the tier. Conk leaving has had some huge negative ramifications. First of all, teams are generally more fast-paced now, limiting its offensive opportunities and providing opponents with more revenge killing options. Mandibuzz has only continued to rise as a bulky offense staple, as well as AV Mienshao with outspeeds and can literally throw itself into an unboosted Psychic from full. It leads to some really gross interactions on the side of the Celebi user, and getting this thing off the ground has never been harder.
Probably to the late kokoloko's dismay, Nidoking has passed Nidoqueen for the first time in years. I was thinking about making a post about this at some point but I guess it can be summarized pretty easily. The 220-295 Speed range is incredibly murky in ORAS. There are a ton of things that don't miss much by going with a non boosting Speed nature, which in turn makes there even less to miss out on outrunning. It's become more apparent that Nidoking can run a bulkier set with a Modest nature to tank hits like Aero EQ that it cannot with no bulk, essentially giving it the tradeoff Nidoqueen has historically had over it. The queen is still a good amount bulkier, but Nidoking's raw power is insane, giving it much better rolls than its counterpart against things like Mandibuzz, Slowking, and Mienshao. All very relevant.
I've made 400 posts on Snorlax but I still didn't expect it to be ranked this high. Bop, boop, bap.
Talked about Gardevoirhere. Very good option on bulky offense teams as a breaker with some outside utility. Sylveon has maintained a presence as a strong wall breaker, although it can be a little hit or miss with the faster pace of the tier. Still, Mandibuzz being big and there not being a broken Fighting that Fairy-types are meant to check help it out a lot.
Durant isn't anything crazy, but it is a good option on bulky offense. Very good Speed tier and coverage and also revenge kills Shao. Not the easiest thing to fit given its defensive limitations as a Steel, but seriously high pay off. Decent versatility between Hone Claws, AV, and Scarf. Virizion does some good things, absorbing Scald, outrunning Mienshao, offensively checking Krookodile, etc. It'll always have its limitations since beating its hard checks out right is super super tough, but it has a clear niche and presents a very good wincon in certain matchups. Rises reflect these traits.
Entei and Mamoswine saw further drops. I've talked about the former at nauseam which can still be summarized by this post. Mamoswine is kind of weird to talk about. Everyone has had their lunch money stolen by this thing at some point, since it has no real counters and certain frameworks' fast mons compose entirely of Ice weaks. Still, it is incredibly hard to make consistent use of this thing, given its complete lack of defensive utility as a Ground. It has a really high matchup ceiling, but ultimately that trait holds it back from fitting on essentially any of the most common team frameworks. I still ranked it fairly high compared to the others but yeah that's mostly why its usage is so low in tournaments.
Moltres good. It's honestly kinda wild how it in combination with Mandibuzz can just solo a good amount of teams and that's mostly due to Wisp being a broken move in ORAS, especially with the drop off in clerics, and also because a lot of teams are very reliant on rocks with making progress. That's generally fine since rocks are not hard to keep in this tier, but these two preventing them together leads to some nightmare matchups for the opponent. Its fits are still limited but it has a lot of utility and matchup ceiling.
Mega Sharpedo, Froslass, Slurpuff, and Venomoth all saw reasonable rises. Obviously these are some hyper offense staples, and the style has seen a bit more prominence over the last year or so. There are still plenty of tools to work around them, but the style is actually worth considering covering in the teambuilder now. Solid option and their collective rises have reflected that.
Kyurem dropped a hilarious amount. It honestly isn't that much worse than it was before, but I have no idea why it was ranked that high originally. Mostly, it just sees a lot of competition from Hydreigon, which is not nearly as hazards weak, has more defensive utility, is faster, has U-turn, etc. Kyurem's Specs Draco damage is fairly relevant versus AV Mienshao, but justifying this thing is super tough since aside from Hydra's positive traits, there isn't a ton this mon directly abuses.
-Shao #1, Aero #2
-Crobat is a borderline S rank for me, it's just that good atm.
-Hydreigon is still a top 5 threat in this meta, but I feel that it can be taken advantage of often enough to knock it out of S rank.
-Mega Aggron is the best Steel-type imo.
-Suicune had a whopping 2 uses in the last edition of UUPL, and as a shameless spammer of Suicune myself, it's pretty appalling how unprepared a lot of teams are vs it. Also let's not forget that we seriously considered banning this fucker when ORAS was the current meta.
-Krook is a bit more awkward to fit nowadays, but Choice Band is its most underrated set atm that I think will keep it in the A ranks.
-Gardevoir is the new best fairy in this meta. As much as I love using Florges, Garde has become a much better fit on bulky offenses as of late.
-Nidoking > Nidoqueen, but I think Queen is good enough to rise back up to A-.
-Jelli is still good but gets omega cucked by burn/poison enough to knock it out of the A ranks.
-The Celebi slide continues
-Mega Sceptile is still good but should have gotten booted from A ranks last year.
-I still think Virizion is sucky, but even I can admit it's a phenomenal fit on a lot of teams these days.
-Klefki has emerged as a spike setting option on hyper offense, and it has some nice utility options going for it.
-I had G word as low as B- in my personal vr months back, but I've come around to appreciate the defensive utility it provides.
-I had Froslass as high as borderline B+/A- prior to Slurpuff getting banned, but this goes in B now.
-Rotom-H is underrated, bulky Wisp sets and offensive sets are both solid.
-Magneton rises a whole rank in my vr, because its Magnet Rise set shreds through a lot of common defensive cores lacking Shao.
-Mega Houndoom is underrated.
-Qwilfish is good.
-Espeon is a decent screen setter.
-Specs Dragalge cleanly OHKOs AV Shao.
-Heliolisk is sucky.
-Bronzong is sucky.
-Scrafty is usable.
-Killintime made Gallade look decent.
-Glalie-Mega is usable.
-Hoopa dies.
-Shaymin dies.
S = Adding this Pokémon to your Team can't make it worse. Most splashable Mons in the Tier that will always do some treat for you
A+ = Not that splashable like S Rank but very solid and concluding the big 5 of the Meta. Would have been S- in other List but I think Empoleon and Hydreigon are just that much better than the Mons in A+ Rank.
A = Pokémon that serve defining purpose on many structures, that only they can fulfil.
A- = Solid Pokémon which are proven to be high ranked threats. They all have checks/outplay but the player can easily pivot around those, so they still fall in A
B+= Good Pokemon that can fill holes in team structures while being overall weaker in their power, but not to mistaken lightly
B = Individually good Pokémon which can start to require Support to function
B- = Can function well with a good climate around them but some of them starting to be niche but strong enough in their element that they are more scary than the C Rank.
C = Niche Pokemon that either fish for good matchup or truly only function with certain partners around them and still feel mediocre in the long run. Might have their popup moment in some game.
D = My own disappointment in some Pokémon which I tried and couldn't make them work or they didn't work for me.
no experience = as the name suggests I didn't play enough or even no games with those Pokémon at all so I can't rank them accordingly. I don't wanna pretend I know stuff, which I don't
Explaining big outliners from original Viabilty ranking
is at the top of this Metagame as it is the best Removal by a big margin. At the same Time it checks nearly all special Attacker, even tanking Focus Blasts (if they land). Providing excellent defensive utility with Knock, Defog, Scald. Access to Ice Beam for Grass Types or Signal Beam if needed in some mu. Punishes Clerics as well and just forces progress.
is by far the best Ground Type, which can like Empoleon always force Progress. It is also the best Stealth Rock Setter in this Tier, after Mega Aggron, which isn't that splashable like Seismigoat. + has proven itself as a well defined defensive Structure on many Bulky Offense and some Balances
has fallen off from it is throne. Many Teams have good short lived answer (primarly ground Types and some Steel Types which can live Eq to some level). Maero cleaning is a rare sight nowadays since player started to respect it while Maero itself struggles to play while Stealth Rocks being up. You can't click Suit that often freely or pivot in, which hurts the potential. It is still a big threat to high damage output and cleaning potential, player just adapted. Also it isn't that splashable as ppl think, it requires good support to force Progress on Pokemon like Colbur Slowking, Krookodile and Rhyperior or else it will trade 1 for 1 at max.
is the great and I am tired of pretending. It alone boosts the potential of all Bulky Offense Teams with the WispTect Set (analysis soon). Being able to trade with opposing Stealth Rockers is huge and spreading Burns as well. It feel like cheating being able to choose what you need to cripple in order to win. Since it only function on Bulky Offense and rarely Balance, it can only be A but I cannot stress enough that you need to try Mega Absol, it is great. Read Pak talk about Mega Absol for more Insight.
and are both great since Fairy Types give you key resistances in ORAS. But I think Sylveon is superior than Florges due to one simple reason, that Clerics aren't that good as People think. I think they are more than enough tools to punish the passive Flores trying to Wish / Aroma with Steels- and Poison Types that either force Status on it, Roar around or get free Turns on them. Sylveon has the benefit to run either Choice Specs or Sub Calm Mind which gives it more breaking power while forcing progress, even on resists. Especially Sylveon forces defined Checks and depending on your Team you can pivot on those well around. I think depending on the context the bulk from Sylveon and gain access to Protect can be worth to make it Cleric over Florges but being slower and not having Access to immediate Recovery makes Florges the supreme Cleric.
is another Reason to the succes of Bulky Offense. With Lum Berry it gets the one time "get free out of Scald Prison" for free while also blocking Toxic on Swords Dance. It benefits of getting free Turns on most grounds, water and some steels with the Combination of Leaf Blade. It struggles being walled by some Matchups like Duoblade and Celebi lacking X-Scissor and being slower and not hitting Crobat with Stabs (you need to Zen on Switch in) but it is overall a great Pokemon on Bulky Offense primarly, with a great Speed Tier.
This was my Opinion on the Metagame, I will post about more minor stuff and how I feel about the meta in general in the Discussion Thread.
-S rank is empty because we're now in a metagame state where nothing is truly dominant enough to belong there.
-A+ rank now consists of my top 6 mons, after short deliberation of whether to include #6.
-Hydreigon rises to #2, Mienshao drops to #5, and Seismitoad enters A+ territory as my top SR setter, sitting at #6.
-As a result, Mega Aggron and Roserade fall into A rank, both of which I over-ranked a bit to begin with anyways.
-Cobalion rises to #7 because it's become super splashable in this current metagame environment.
-Suicune and I are now married.
-Heracross, however, does not give a flying fuck about Suicune.
-Slowking moves down to #13 as the rise of status moves has somewhat hampered its ability to act as a long term switch-in sponge.
-Virizion makes its debut in my A ranks and effectively switches places with Florges, which has for the first time fallen outside of my A ranks.
-Mandibuzz is in a less favorable spot within this offensive metagame, reflecting in a subrank drop for it.
-Nidoking/Nidoqueen are now neck and neck for me again, mostly due to king falling a bit out of my favor.
-This wraps up my A ranks, which in my (current) criteria contains my top 20.
-Gyarados continues to be a terrorizing threat, despite hyper offense being much less prevalent post-Slurpuff ban.
-I contemplated replacing one of the Nidos with Rhyperior in A- rank, but for now it rises to the top of B+ due to its continued reliability in most matchups, despite its stiff competition as a SR setter.
-CM Sylveon has gotten some exploration lately and Specs is still strong.
-Whimsicott rises a whole subrank as more and more players appreciate its ability to be an emergency stopper.
-Absol-Mega was under-ranked.
-Jellicent continues to suffer the consequences of status spam, moving lower within my B+ ranks.
-Mega Sceptile now lands on the top of B rank due to its continued reputation of being one of the most hit/miss mons in this meta.
-Moltres was under-ranked.
-Qwilfish is awesome.
-Rotom-H was slightly over-ranked.
-Venomoth drops down to B-, but I'm sure someone will find something that makes it stupid to face again.
-Mega Ampharos is still the worst mega in this tier but it makes a marginal rise up to C here.
With UUSD being done for me and a VR update happening soon after a couple of years into the post-conk metagame (and post slurpuff now as well), I wanted to share what I'm going to submit/talk about some of the key points and the reasonings behind the choices I made, no script so hopefully not too rambly though.
- Mienshao: I probably overranked it a bit last time seeing as I went from ranking it 2nd all the way down in 27th. The mon doesn't perform awfully, mainly taking into consideration AV sets here as I think those are easier to fit into builds, but it feels a lot harder to justify. The meta got more offensive but also bulkier at the same time to the point where it's really hard for Mienshao to take a winning trade without very possibly being massively punished, Virizion's rise both means that it receives massive competition from it (and also Heracross) but also it's speedtier got a lot more awkward, and there is also the wanting 6 moves part (hjk knock turn pjab tomb/edge aace), with the 2 you end up dropping becoming massive liabilities/points to abuse. Overall it still has some of the qualities that first got us to believe in it, such as a really strong matchup into Roserade or Florges builds, or the decent role compression it provides, but it's to find a window where one of the two other meta-defining fighting types doesn't perform better than Mienshao would.
- The big 5+1: The 5 of aero, bat, seism, drei and empo have kinda established themselves at the top for a while now, they're both the best mons in the tier by a decent margin and also what the tier is built around and what it is about, but heracross makes a strong argument to enter that club imo. It's flexability is absurd, with all of SD Leftovers/Scarf/CB/AV and possibly more all being from decent to really good, it's movepool is great and the mon is capable of pretty much dealing with anything you throw at it and getting a favourable exchange, with SD Leftovers beating Florges and Jellicent 1v1 for example, Stone Edge being a good option to catch a greedy bat and Megahorn to avoid funny reuniclus scenarios. Being able to abuse many common mons like seismitoad, empoleon or mandibuzz is also a great plus and it's really, really hard for an heracross to not perform in every single game. Outside of that, aerodactyl still feels like the best mon in the tier to me although i understand the arguments for crobat, but between it's abilities to progress and clean up, the paths it opens to so many options thanks to pursuit, and how easy it is to find good sinergy with and fit on teams, aero is still the king. Seismitoad rises to top 3 as not only the best up in the meta, but also it's qualities are so great and I consider it to be the center point of the entire tier at the moment, it's also so hard to find anything that wants to enter on it it's kind of crazy. Empoleon feels like it has fallen off a bit, probably because the slower metagame doesn't help it in any way and scald+beam feels like a punching bag that aim at fogging once or twice or clutch one up with roar, there is probably some exploration to be done with it's moveset but fog empo+bat still feels amazing to place on teams and ice beamless in those structures just feels wrong.
- The A ranks enigmas: My A ranks are filled with a lot of questions remaining in my head. The first few I had were about virizion, because I feel like that's the only other mon that can easily make an argument to enter that fated top 6. It's speedtier is amazing, breaking qualities are brilliant and the flexability is still there with things such as 3a synthesis or zen/edge rising up in popularity as opposed to SD synth, which is honestly quite meh without some real specific support. My problem with virizion was consistency when I was putting it into comparison with heracross: the case it makes is strong but the way virizion approaches the role it's assigned to is a little questionable, being forced to switch into scald or wisps so often and it's strong reliance on lum berry or florges as a partner, it ends up being an inevitable gamble in some games and it being a core element to the gen in question it's pretty much unavoidable as sad as it is this being the biggest thing holding back virizion. Moving on from that, it came to another part of this big dilemma: where the hell to put suicune, and the answer i got to was a slightly coping A. I think the mon struggles a bit in current meta: it feels hard to find setup for suicune that doesn't come at a big cost, taking a knock is pretty much out of question as the law of the tier is controlling the field is pretty much not a thing, and knocked suicune with up is impossible to make work under any bit of pressure. The offensive nature of the tier is also a big problem, you cannot work as a sponge for hits because once you're forced asleep, it feels so hard to get the mon back online. And finally, the things you'd like to abuse are not that abuseble in reality, seismitoad carries both knock and can constantly send you to sleep opening up a lot of time for your opponent, empoleon carries roar everytime and it's always paired with something that messes with you badly, dtail maggron has also seen an increase in popularity, slowking occasionaly carries it as well, and if you go down the list there really isn't much else. Suicune does not feel like an A mon but you also need to consider how we got to this point and the answer comes back to it, it's because we've been through suicune dominance before that everything is teched to not let it play, and those elements cannot be removed or the mon is going back to farming games, which occasionaly still happens with support, and ultimately it's presence in the tier is too big to ignore as much as it's not that good of a payoff to me atm. And to finally close off this paragraph, metagross and slowking both felt hard to rank. I've decided to put them together in this because both of them have been falling off usage for unrelated reasons, but the mons themselves are still really strong and should be up here. Demongross has proven infinite times to be a massive pain to deal with, being capable of trading with virizion or take advantage of refresh-less seismitoad, while also being a solid check to a lot of mons in the highranks such as aero, roserade or florges. I'm not sure why it has fallen out of flavour as a mon, but it felt like a super strong pick still which was enough to me to keep it up there. And as for slowking, pinpointing the problem is much easier, and it's on to the teams it finds itself on not feeling as great as they used to, thanks to the rise of virizion/heracross demolishing the slowking-mandi cores, but the mon itself still performs strongly which was a good enough reason for me to probably keep it in the A ranks.
- The non-top 2 megas: If you ask anyone but London who the top 2 megas are they're obviously going to tell you aero and aggron and there is no debate, but the position of everything beyond that is highly debatable and it goes by personal preference at the end of the day. Personally, I think both swampert and sceptile make a strong case for themselves: I've always been really high on swampert but it was for slightly different reasons, mainly thinking that endgame pert was a menace, and as much as it still is, it's a lot harder to pull off now. In favour of that, 3 attacks + 1 (can be a bunch of different things) sets have risen up in popularity, and as much as dropping the actually useless water move (it's actually useless unless you wanna scald burn fish idk) didn't stick right with me at first (it's really useless btw it doesn't do anything), the mon becomes a trading machine capable of abusing pretty much everything slower than it and it performs really well, while also being a lot more flexible than cleanup previously was. In particular, being able to 2hko mandibuzz with stone edge into ice punch means that it enters the club of pokémon that don't let you play with a clean field, aka the good oras uu ups club. Sceptile is a lot less obvious of an high rank mon, but I think the way it critically sinergizes with some of the best abusers of it's answers, such as metagross for florges for example, or how i was talking earlier about heracross forcing florges into a trade, makes sceptile builds really consistent and some of the current trends really favour it in general, HO being more out of the picture helps a lot too, on top of it sitting at the top of the speedchart right after aero. Continuing with the list, I still gave strong respect to sharpedo's name. I tend to believe HO is still strong and it's only taking a time off before a new strong setup is found, and sharpedo still performs really well on the offensive klefki spikes builds, it's so hard to find answers to this thing and the nature of the everydamage sticks metagame really helps it shine extra time. And finally, Houndoom is a strong mega choice for offense as well. Pairs really well with some of the more open-to-have support options now like super fang crobat, can support itself with wow/the other last move options such as dbond, flame charge, taunt etc, and meta getting slower, aerodactyl and hydrei slightly decreasing in popularity, and the upward trends being food are all super great news for it, with the orasmegamechs still being the big thing holding it back from greatness. The last one I want to talk about is absol, which I really came to dislike and ended up giving a rather low rank to, putting it next to what I think is one of it's big payoffs in moltres. Absol was a big headache for me, obviously didn't expect anything consistent due to the nature of magic bounce, but it's really hard to make use of due to how weak it is both offensively and defensively, getting favourable trades being unreasonable, incapability of generating free turns for itself often and being forced to run protect to work, which also means not having access to tools such as pursuit who'd be a big reason for me to consider it further, especially consider how it would be pairing with it's specific payoffs. Overall it's definitely still worth using on some teams but it was really disappointing and probably requires more out of the ordinary exploration as atm I would only really consider it to access things such as Moltres, Heattom or Chandelure (maybe even kyurem), who are otherwise just not a thing.
- Miscellaneous: Using this final section for anything else in the lower ranks/things I didn't want to dedicate many words to. I think some mons may have been underranked, such as Sylveon who I think it's really good antimeta struck by having 0 field control, Jellicent being really hit or miss and having a lot of games come down to how many evs the jelli has in speed vs how many the opposing seismitoad does although when it hits it hits really hard. Klefki has an argument for entering the high high ranks, it's extremely good support especially since we're in the pre-prankster/twave nerfs era, I just haven't used it enough to know. Gardevoir would be so much better if scarf wasn't 1 point slower than m-aero, Celebi I think it's possibly underrated but it suffers from the pick-the-last-move syndrome and that sucks, Reuniclus is pretty much the same as to what i mentioned earlier about how hard it is to use Suicune in this very offensive oriented metagame, but it can also just win some games in preview which i might not be respecting enough, but it didn't happen enough for me to be shocked really. The HO mons are super hard to evaluate atm, Gyarados is probably better than B even in non-ho but nobody uses it idk, the one time i faced it I had 0 ways around it tbf and mandibuzz is turbo abusable, Froslass and Venomoth are impossible to find a good collocation for. I decided to keep anything that either had a random ever so reasonable use popping up, such as blastoise maybe being a seismitoad abuser, big MAYBE but you never know, or things that have strong legacy in the tier such as archeops for the Kreme HO infestation for years, although I find it hard to believe it's ever going to be the premiere suicide lead from here on out. The things I unranked i just couldn't pinpoint a niche use vs something else for.
I'm not sure when the next time I'll be playing this tier will be but I had more fun in this interaction than I previously had, the metagame feels in a much better place now and I hope we continue onto this tangent. Also I cba to reread my rambling again so I'm sorry if I made some big grammar mistakes idk I probably I shouldn't write these things at 2am.
To preface this, some of you will definitely notice that i've flip flopped on the viability on some of these mons, moving them up on my previous personal only to drop it back down. Part of this is because there's a relatively limited number of games to go off of in this field, and facing good players who are newer to the scene with a much different perspective on teambuilding (s/o london beats and pdt) tends to influence my own opinion on the meta as a whole. That being said:
-Crobat now sits at #2 due to the increased popularity of rocky helmet, which punishes u-turn spam and works fantastically with taunt/super fang, and also gives it the edge in helm vs non-helm crobat mirrors.
-Heracross moved up to #6 and probably should be a+, but i suck at piloting sd and as a result is getting punished for that. CB is still super strong too.
-Mienshao moves down to #9 with the strong possibility of me moving it down even further in a future post. Surprisingly enough, i'm actually of the dissenting opinion that it should stay in the a ranks because, despite all the adjustments the meta has made against it, it's still way more influential of a mon than anything existing below A- and the combination of regen/knock/u-turn is still a relatively reliable way of creating progress.
-Florges was B+ rank in my last personal VR, but it now finds itself reclaiming its title as best fairy, leapfrogging back into A rank as my #12, as a direct result of av shao losing popularity.
-Krook rounds out A rank at #13 because choice band is actually so fucking good rn.
-Cobalion falls a full subrank to #16, as its most prominent traits both offensively and defensively aren't as useful in this current meta, making it harder to justify on teams.
-Rhyperior makes its debut in A- rank at #19 due in large to its status as a premier rock setter that exerts an elite level of offensive pressure in this current meta.
-Rounding out the top 20 and barely hanging in the a ranks is mandibuzz, which, despite doing its job well most of the time, continues to struggle with 4mss and competition as hazard control with the likes of bat/empoleon.
-Klefki rises up to the top of B+ as it's become increasingly reliable as a spike setter that can actually keep it up, especially against teams running Crobat as the defogger. expect this to probably rise into my top 20 in my next update unless some seismic revolution happens against its favor.
-Both nidos dropped into B+ due to their increased difficulty to build with as of late.
-Gligar rises further up to B+ due to its strong defensive qualities against anything that isn't scald, wisp, or knock off.
-Sceptile rises up to B+ because i've come to the realization that it's still rly good when it doesn't miss its leaf storms.
-Absol drops back down to B as i find it slightly overrated and lass ho is kind of dead at the moment.
-Zong makes a massive jump to B as crunch m-aero has lost a lot of popularity and it's overall a great defensive fit for teams that appreciate a levitating steel-type.
-Crawdaunt rises to B because its antimeta SD set obliterates teams relying on shit like seis empo.
-Houndoom rises to B because i saw reina 1v1 a blissey with it.
-Darmanitan rises to B because its scarf set has become a lot more potent lately in this more offensive meta.
-Sableye moves up to B- rank as it's a massive annoyance and can sometimes win on preview against teams that lack strong deterrents like hera.
-Qwilfish drops to B- because my new toy syndrome for it died.
-Magneton drops to B- because the shit it traps is a bit less abusable atm.
-Froslass and co. drop a subrank because ho kinda dead atm.
-Dropped and unranked a bunch of shit that was seeing p much 0 usage
-Notably, shaymin dropped out of my rankings, but i will likely put it back in depending on how its specs hw set does.
-I will edit in shit that i didn't bother to add in earlier
wont go super in depth for these - to me, there arent really any S ranks in this tier rn (i forgot to put crobat back in a+, but i consider it the best just barely), and ranking things based in order for the entire tier is basically impossible.
- i find this the hardest pokemon, in a really strict sense, to punish, and i think putting it on teams will almost ALWAYS get you good value. the defensive typing is fantastic, rocky helmet sets are getting better to punish aero pursuits and whatnot, and its very good at disrupting things between super fang and taunt. yeah you can get clipped by stone edges from fightings on the switch, yeah you can get dicked by getting outplayed with sr up and doubles from their end, but i just dont think its enough for me to not put it at #1. but, again, there arent really s ranks in this tier and the vioability difference between it and aero etc are very minimal. also tbh defog bat has been seen as a sin for a few years now but i dont think its THAT bad.
- its still aero and not a whole lot has changed for it, but when building with it more and more i end up hating that it's the mega because it ends up meaning i cant use another mega with it,,,i also really dont like using the classic pursuit set and as of late i feel like id prefer to use other sets off the basis that while its harder to position i feel better about the upside, especially end game with hone claws aero or something.
- people have become much, much better at preparing for it, particularly through the usage of like...all the offensive mons that are faster than it...that's more or less it for me, reina covered most of it , but i ranked it so high because its still almost always gonna be a piece of shit, and you have to really respect it in the builder.
- i hated this thing for a while, but it is like the definition of snowballing. annoying to fit, but i feel like if you support it well enough whether it be on bulky offense or ho its just gonna force the opponent to tiptoe around it almost every turn to prevent it from reaming you. of course, it gets fucked by sr, but to me thats just oras idk.
- probably higher than it should be but i like this guy a lot. really good at disruption and specs sets are deceptively obnoxious to switch into. leech sets are also fun especially with roserade dying down (i think (if the usage stats say otherwise ignore me))
- i actually had this in b originally, but when i showed ppl my list originally they all called me a madman...i had it in B originally because i feel like most good teams in the tier will end up being naturally prepared for it, but to me, it also is like "the biggest scald guy", and if you end up fucking around too much you WILL lose on the spot, so i moved it up to b+. id still rather use reuni because magic guard is fucking broken but scald is also broken.
- prankster is nice! its still klefki so its gonna suck in some mus and is hard to build with but ive come to appreciate the emergency button that twave brings more and more, it helps a tiny bit in having the game flow in your favor.
- everyone else forgot. but not me. i still think hyper offense has a really high untapped potential in the tier that just hasnt been explored enough post slurpuff ban.
- these guys i dont think are really that great, but ive been seeing them win more in the past like 6 months than ive seen them win since the gen ended. idk.
- i think i had it lower than everyone else. i probably just need to use it more but i dont think i ever feel good about using this thing, being 4x weak to uturn fucking SUCKS and it always wants 15 million moves.
reasonings might be a little megh but w/e, i havent played as much as i should lately so these are mostly based off my observations in watching games over 2023 and testing with a few ppl here and there
What caused Entei to fall off so much in this tier? I remember years ago it was like A+ rank. Burn still deals 1/8 max HP damage this gen, which is pretty considerable chip.
What caused Entei to fall off so much in this tier? I remember years ago it was like A+ rank. Burn still deals 1/8 max HP damage this gen, which is pretty considerable chip.
despite sacred fire being a pretty broken move, it doesn't provide a whole lot defensively so it needs a considerable amount of support to switch in safely and work effectively
Hello everyone, since oraspl is finished I wanted to recap not only my experience but also how it evolved over time. I'm a very new face to this tier so I might be in a blue moon state so don't take my takes as they were facts, I'll just try to justify 'em the best way I can, and I hope you can understand better the viability ranking I submitted. With no further ado, I shall start:
First week was definitely an experience, I had 0 expertise in this tier. Sometimes I viewed some of my friends play it but never really got too much interest in it, until I watched a team with M-absol and Moltres and I got interested in the tier. I found that idea of using M-absol so attractive that I wanted to build and try new stuff as much as I could accompanied by a mon I liked so much. Then it is not surprising seeing that my first week's team was indeed a team based in the core I already saw, M-absol + moltres. I did some modifications and tested 'em a lot, actually a lot. I realized how interesting virizion was in the builder being a pseudo scald switchin, and I will speak more about this eventually but I really believe virizion is the best scald offensive switchin we can have, better than heracross, when they are paired with the correct support; aka any other water. After testing and speaking with sylvi, I came to the conclusion this tier is still unexplored in many ways, and it felt like a refreshing experience for me trying to provide my itty-bitty contribution. Team ended up not being as solid as the original version of Pak, but I didn't want it to be as solid as it could at first, I wanted it to be something done by me and something that had my takes. Being that said they were: Moltres is the best wow spreader of the whole tier, virizion is a great scald switchin if you play it correctly with the pressure and don't mindlessly send it in turns they are not intended to come in, and rypherior is by far the best rocker against crobat balanced.
Week 2, I wanted to build with Qwil so badly!!! I built like 5 teams and tested some public ones, and ended up with the conclusion that they weren't good at all. It is a mon I personally believe has a lot of uniqueness, and potential but it's too hard to fit. Teams with 'em ended up being bad no matter how much I tackled the weakness. When I resolved one there was another lurking in the shadows. I wasted almost 1 week trying to build with it, and the conclusion I ended up with was that I lacked the tier knowledge yet or it is just a mon to use if you kinda disrespect your opponent and know you will win almost no matter what in a fast paced game. I used a Pak team of snorlax, underrated mon imo, and lost. But I learned some stuff: Qwil isn't as interesting as I thought, Snorlax is def very unexplored and very interesting, the importance of hw, and Aggron teams tend to suck.
My partner in crime was Sylvi, so I'd eventually bring a Reuni team. I found almost any Reuni team I saw quite hard to justify, and I still do right now. But I tried to be creative and did one using my tools. I think TS are very interesting in general, especially in fat teams, and they synergize so well with Reuni. I thought that moltres would be a cool pair for Reuni, and we already lost the week so I was able to gamble a little, Moltres and TS can annoy a lot of pokemons that are sent to control Reuni, thanks to the status and how I understand Reuni game works. I was told Florges sucked, and I kinda agree with that statement since the structures I saw Florges in aren't my cup of tea. Though I needed some wish and cleric back up, since I was playing a fat, and then it came to my mind the combination of rest talk toise + Florges that also supported moltres very well.
The takes this week were: Florges + toise is a great combo, moltres is by far the best spreader of wows, fire types are kinda broken, Reuni is a great mon by itself but needs matchup and it only fits in fat though it offers stuff any other mon in the meta can, and that is definitely valuable.
W4 / 24 hours cinderella W W5 / Machine Gun Kiss W
The next week I had a challenge in my mind, using as many fire types as I could this oraspl. I found it fun yet competitive since I found 'em very broken not only offensively but defensively. Burn status is arguably the best status in oras uu, 12% in mons that can barely recover combined with the hazards is just too much for many mons. Being that said, the combination of no defoggers and clerics/magic guards makes this lopsidedness bigger and more difficult to take care of. This was week 4 already so gone are the days I was still cracking how the tier worked in terms of gameplay, I already understood some of the niceties of the tier by this time. I understood that this tier, as many others and this is maybe something that may be applied to any tier itself, focuses more on detailed and surgical playing rather than having a team that covers it all. Many times you cannot just cover every menace, but you can play around 'em. Being 'em either scald, wow, Aerodactyl you can always try to outplay 'em somehow if your team is equipped properly. So from now on I decided to take that approach to it fullest, and ended up with teams i loved so much onwards.
Being that said, and taking this new approach I strongly believe virizion was the pokemon that sprang up that idea in me, I said that virizion needs not only support but also a careful gameplay. Virizion is neither a jellicent or a suicune, you shouldn't use it as a scald answer every turn even if you have lum, imo. What offers virizion is a circumstantial switch rather than a wall per se, Virizion is just an amazing tool to pressure turns where people think scalding is free. Pressure, status, hazards, basically positioning is what makes virizion the pokemon it is, and that is what makes it a better scald punisher than heracross thanks to not only lum but also synthesis. I personally believe that the very few times virizion doesn't shine to its fullest has nothing to do with crobat usage but it is rather our personal fault playing it too recklessly.
These weeks takes were maybe the most important ones: Wow and burn is def broken and people disrespect it, entei can destroy many teams with the correct support and positioning, Virizion is one of the greatest punishers of this meta, and you don't need to do checklist in builders just play the game.
We are reaching that part of the tour where the remaining fire types weren't that good at all imo, so I tried something new since I had not played aero till now, and I personally didn't find that a problem using only 2 aero teams this tour. Aerodactyl wasn't the mon I wanted to build with, but was the mega that accompanied the best the real star of the team, heracross. I personally find Heracross an arguably S mon, they have so many good sets and they are all played differently, making it so hard for the oppo trying to outplay 'em in the first turns, making the hera user to force a trade at worst. The other big part of heracross is the ability to absorb status, guts is a big big tool to use in order to counter brainless wows, scalds, and toxics. But in a team like this I lacked some sauce, so I tried to look for some fire I could use, and I found roserade, since I already had my status counterplay in the form of the combination of heracross + seismitoad, I disregarded roserade's natural cure set and made it a technician one, since it is not going to eat scalds at all. It ended up working so well in tests and in the game itself. This team might not be the most unique I did, but it is one of my favourites this tour.
The takes of this week were quite simplistic, and I think they are already explained in the prior paragraph, but I'll point something out. Scald is not that broken, don't take me wrong it is a dumb move anyways, if you are well armed against it. Pressure and correct gameplay is more important than a Seismitoad spreading scalds over the field.
Semis / The battle for the dream W
We qualified for semifinals and my record maintained 5-1 by this time. I was quite stressed of not popping off properly at the beginning of the tour but somehow I ended up being able to crack the tier thanks to Sylvi, umbry and Garay. This week was important and I wanted to bring something I knew I could be the one that pressed the trigger the most during the game. So I declined for something more offensive; a mon I really wanted to try was M-Pert and it fitted very well my demands of being the one that held the reins all the match. I didn't use hydreigon as much as other people did, and that's because I didn't find it as good as everyone claimed. I find that hydreigon needs a lot of support to work properly. Maintaining hazards and pressuring mandibuzz and florges are the most important ones. Luckily swampert is a great tool in order to make the little hydra shine properly. Pak set with stone edge makes hydreigon a total demon to the opponent, pressuring one of the few counters of the specs sets, mandibuzz, is huge and biggest is the fact of being able to maintain rocks and spikes. I combined this with spikes in the form of klef, since I wanted to have a good back up against sylveon, I didn't want to enter in interactions of sylveon sitting in turn 1 and basically making my life miserable. Klef takes advantage of hyper voice relatively well, being able to status it and get some spikes in the field. Also helped against Aerodactyl giving some back up to the remaining parts of my team.
I lacked of scald counterplay by this point, so virizion came once again to save my day and so did empoleon, as i said before virizion punishes so well fat/bulky teams especially with spikes, and empoleon with roar made of spikes a total nightmare for balanced, especially if you pack it with knock. The last piece was Crobat, I needed some speed ,though I had tw support, in order to have that battle for the pressure always in my hands, and the fact that empoleon already freed Crobat to run a non defog set already synergized so perfectly. One miss accuracy made the game shakier but it ended up with a victory and being able to force a tie break.
Tie break time it was, I knew what I wanted to use already, I have not talked about it yet but I think fighting types are great, being two of 'em the biggest menaces you can play against, virizion and heracross. It might be ironic since crobat is so high in every VR, including mine, this is not problem for heracross since Stone edge is a more than common set, but How can i claim that virizion is one of the most menacing fighters when it basically cannot play when crobat is in? Well for me the response is simple, even if you don't run coverage for crobat, and many times you can afford either running LO 3 attacks or just sacrificing synthesis, if you play virizion you have to commit to the idea of being the one that takes the reins of the game. Crobat is a great mon for sure, but it has a big flaw virizion can exploit to its fullest. Crobat hates playing a game where it cannot be the one that u-turns, brave birds, super fangs everything and when he is constricted to roost over and over due to rocks and doubles. Virizion isn't a very counterable mon by parties that aren't crobat or moltres, the latter one getting completely demolished by Stone edge, then the virizion user gotta exploit this forcing that crobat to roost and roost, with switchins/stone edges/doubles, ect. when you play virizion pressure its all you need in order to succeed.
I wanted to have that offensive pressure in arguably the most important game of the season. I wanted to use rypherior in order to fulfill that, since as I understood in my first week it is the best rock setter against crobat, then i wanted to use some fighting and pressure with the rocks, as i already explained, my first idea was using heracross but i was so blocked that nothing came to my mind til almost friday, when i was speaking with garay and he started the toxicroak propaganda, and i totally loved that idea. Personally my problem was the scald counterplay, I ended up making the team super well equipped against scald, but i didn't want to lose momentum against seismitoad any time it clicked the move, so there was a croak to save my day.
The combination of rypherior and toxicroak works very similarly, you just gotta force progress with rocks and doubles until you get rid of crobat and then toxicroak really really shines. I wanted something that was a good response against krooko and aerodactyl, and as my rocker already decided the solutions to that question were very limited so I'd chosen blastoise to fulfill that task. Blastoise really synergized well with Florges which would be the next piece that came to my mind, Florges is a great pokemon when it is not restrained by spikes, so the blastoise + florges pair felt so natural to me. And surprise surprise, they worked phenomenal. There was no game they weren't clutch in tests they did all I needed 'em to do and more. The following piece was crobat, I lacked of speed by this point and needed that pressure only crobat can provide as well as that heracross counterplay, since my team was kinda slow. And to resolve that slow paced gaming. There was Metagross, yes scarf metagross isn't the best scarfer but it is so handy when you can afford it and make it synergize with the rest of the team, wish support makes of him quite difficult to take care of, and it's a very good way to get rid of those annoying gyarados that makes the most ghoulish scenario possible.
We did finals, my first idea was not kidding repeating the croak team but then I just got convinced to play Darm spikes again, which was my second option. This team is not mine, it's courtesy of Garay oak, but I believe this is the best Darm team you could ever play and I really love it, thanks for it. I'd like to explain a thought process more in detail but my idea was reusing so there isn't much sauce. I thought it would work well and so it did.
In my viability rank I wanted to emphasize building aspect:
S: That's why Empoleon is my top mon, having scald and defog and a large variety of coverage moves that varies depending of what you need, on top of that how well he synergizes with Crobat makes him my #1. Crobat wouldn't be as good as it is if it had to defog every game, yet it's amazing it is constrained by that role and it kinda needs that Empoleon or that hazard support to shine the most.
A+: The three of a kind that reside in A+ are basically 2 of the most dangerous offensive pokemon of the tier, and Seismitoad which is the best defensive scald counterplay you could ask for. Aerodactyl leads it thanks to how menacing it is due to its speed and variety of sets, as well as pursuit. Heracross needs no explanation already, best fighting type by far in terms of raw power and lack of counterplay.
A: Virizion, personally I could add virizion to A+ but I believe it kinda needs too much support in order to fulfill the role it has so I will stand by making him the king of the A tier, followed by metagross second best steel type with a variety of sets that makes him very hard to deal with sometimes, especially demongross which can be really annoying for some teams, scarf and band sets are both good if you find to fit 'em properly on a team, not splashable at all tho. Roserade, my #2 grass type I think roserade is a great pokemon, natural cure offers a lot of counterplay against scald, accompanied by real answers, and spikes makes of her a real menace, leaf storm and sludge bomb may sound not very difficult to wall for Crobat but coverage plays a really key factor on this. Solid mon overall. Hydreigon, I'm not that high on Hydreigon, personally if i didn't invest that much time making it work for me for my semifinals team, I'd have placed it in B+ hopefully I made the commitment. I still think it needs a lot of support to work properly, yea spamming dark pulse is nice but not that nice in a tier with sylveon and especially virizion, draco is not that spammable if you are scarf, and scarf set needs a lot of support or it just feels wasted.
A-: This area is where the very interesting mons start to appear, I find swampert the second best mega it is a great ground type and a decent water, it cannot switch to scald so it isn't a complete water per se, a mon that can maintain rocks against any defogger and hit like a truck with EQ, his speed though it isn't the greatest it is quite handy in order to pressure some defensive stuffs, great mon that needs support but when you find it it pays off intensively well. The following pokemon is Florges, I personally cannot give her the status of great splashable mon that A owns for me, I find that Florges yet she's amazing she needs a lot of stuff to work properly, wish and aromatherapy are great tool for balanced and fat, but also are spikes in contrast. There aren't many spikers but the two that reside in UU take a lot of advantage of Florges being able to not only freely spike it up but also status or hit the incoming pokemon. These interactions make typical Aggron Florges teams starve for defog Crobat, shooting their feet. Rypherior is the best rocker in order to restrain Crobat's gameplay, it's hard to enter to eq if you don't have a virizion and the ability of maintaining rocks almost every game makes him a great offense staple. Sylveon does what she always does, great wall breaker shouting everyone and with a good defensive niche taking advantage of mons like Hydreigon. Slowking is in my opinion the third best water type of the tier, psyshock allows you to control virizion safely, it is also a great scald answer overall and can check Krooko and toxic Hydreigon if it carries Colbur. Slowking's biggest problem is the momentum issue he has, especially after being statused, but barring that he's a honest mon that does what it is intended to. Doublade defensively and offensively better than metagross, sadly what they can do is very redacted and always the same. Being that said, that isn't bad what he does is basically shredding teams in late game and being one of the little counters of heracross this tier may provide. Sneak is a very good priority and the combination of Doublade + moltres to bait knocks/foul plays really pays off, great mon if it fits. Krooko, personally I have not tested Krooko enough, but it's a ground type so that should be enough to justify its position. It is also a menace if they run a band, even though not being able to spam knock off may hurt him, spamming eq is more than enough if you play it correctly. Rocky helmet set is also very solid overall
B+: Well, we start B+ with my third favorite mega of this tier M-Absol (spiritually my fav), I think M-absol enables structures and sets that wouldn't be able otherwise, Knock off is great and the combination with play rough makes it not an easy switch in for fighting types. But what makes it great is wow, Pak already made a post about it but wow is really really broken, forces so much progress in combination with rocks and if you combine this with knock and a relatively high attack stats, and magic bounce to outplay and create mind games to ur rival. Ye, you are a hell of a mon Absol. The next pokemon is Mienshao, to be honest I didn't expect adding Mienshao to this area, i thought i would rank her one area below but i got convinced that it really offers a lot of stuffs, I still believe almost every old AV shao team is lowkey unviable right now, and if we wanna use it we have to find new structures that works, but I think choiced sets have a very interesting niche we should look for. The all mighty chicken, Moltres is in my opinion the best fire type. It needs a lot of support but the ability it has to completely cremate a lot of teams is incredible. You can run it fast, bulky, offensive, slow with u-turn, using it as a second defogger. There are a lot of ways to use moltres depending on the team, and there are very few times it does nothing if your team is well built around this chicken, great mon and my surprise of this tournament.
Blastoise and Sceptyle are tied for this place, I find 'em very good. Blastoise is a defensive staple that needs a lot of specified support in form of heal bell, but what it offers its that longevity we need so much in this tier. Sceptile is the opposite, he needs support as well ideally spikes, he wants to end the game as soon as possible and it will do anything it can, coverage makes it very tough to handle, especially with spikes, and the speed makes it faster than pre mega or adamant Aero. For sure a mon I will look for in the future. Klef best defensive spiker, ye’ the competition is kinda the Benny Hill show in this department but it’s an achieve, it’s one of the very few mons that can actually threat sylveon as they come in, matters not how it gets in the field if its alive in front of it u gain something out of that exchange, either hazards or status; what i like the most of the keys is how well it synergizes in offense/balanced I ma not a fan of bulky teams with Klef that relies in hazard too much and gets overpressured. I think this mon shines the best if all the parts of your team can pressure accordingly, very similar to Ubers’ theory. Mandibuzz, prolly the second best defogger after Empoleon, I have not the best experience with mandibuzz personally, I think it does what it has to but too many are the times that the lammergeyer is not able to perform once the rocks are in the field. So many are the scenarios where you starve for a fifth move making it tougher to me rank the little bird higher. It is a good dark resist and it can be a bloody headache for many teams but I gotta try it more to rank it higher.
Gyarados, not gonna lie, don’t we all just suffer the yips anytime we see a gyarados? I personally do. This mon is TERRIFYING to see, yea Virizion cult might keep at bay of spreading terror but fucksake this mon is literally one of the worst punishers of the tier one bad step and you might enter in an interaction where it can easily sweep half of your team with a DD. I don’t rank it higher cuz building with it it’s quite difficult and you can check it offensively with some scarfs. Jellicent, I think the jellyfish does what it does greatly, and I personally believe that he is just better than Suicune doing this. Wow is broken, much better than scald and the fact of running Colbur eases you a lot of paths, being able to threaten with burns to not only Krooko but also Hydreigon. I don’t think you need spikes with Jellicent personally.
Suicune, yea i don’t get the hype with this mon, yea it limits structures but those structures are bad anyways. The whole point of running Suicune is winning with burns, being bulky, and being annoying. Yea Suicune doesn’t do anything of that against any team that is not poorly played or prepared against the most broken water move, scald. Virizion checks Suicune with Lum quite well, you are not supposed to bring virizion over and over, Suicune is too passive of a mon to actually being the one who is in a position to sit and just throwing some unpunished scalds, I really think any virizion team just wins if the MU is not horrible, and even then I don’t think Suicune contributed at all. But barring Virizion, Seismitoad is the second best water type of the tier, it will either force you to rest and if you are using roar, well that’s it; the incoming heracross will just sd and you are now threatened by a heracross, the worst mon to be threatened by in the whole tier if you are playing fat, shockingly the only style this mon fits. There are multiple examples that annoys Suicune such as: Taunt Sfang Crobat, Roar Empoleon (yea if you burn Empoleon that trade is immediately good for you nuisances aside), roserade, Dtail king if you are not roar, Jellicent, Toxicroak, celebi, and the list goes on. Does a mon that is this easy to check without having it in consideration prior to building the team that relevant? I don’t think so, I just think it’s just an extension of being afraid of scald, which is fair, but there are better burn spreaders in this tier, and Suicune is far from being not only in the podium of the water types but also from the best burners, IMO.
Snorlax, I think Snorlax is great. Unironically I believe the facade set is a great way to build around it and it's a hella problematic mon to deal with if it's packed with HW. Defensive sets are also interesting as well but tougher to justify imo. Snorlax is great when he can pressure, and that’s why I consider the facade set superior to any other booster one. Entei is an easier to fit fire type than Darm, that’s why it is here. I think Entei is ok, not great but a mu mon that it’s easy to maneuver with and if you are not very unlucky it’s very hard to not get what u expect. It can only run a set if you wanna be solid with it tho. Did I say hw is broken? Gardevoir is the best Healing wisher of the tier, there aren’t so many, but Garde can also run a lot of coverage and utility moves that makes her a pain in the ass for the opponent. Scarf is great for utility and revenge killing and so its specs for wallbreaking.
B: Yeah I hate Aggron. Well, it’s more complicated. I think Aggron it’s a good pokemon by itself, but I don’t see how it fits in this metagame. All teams so far I’ve played against have the same flaws, they don’t know what they are playing for. If you use Florges + Aggron you are ill-fated to lose against spikes of any kind as far as the other can pressure you, which being honest is not difficult against these kinds of teams that relies on bulky set uppers such as Suicune or Reuni. I think Nidoking could fit here though. There are structures where Aggron can play the game with spikes, as pak team illustrated, but those structures It’s miles away from being consistent and reliable. Maybe usable, but Good? I don’t think so. So we have a bulky mon that needs a lot of support such as spikes, ideally wish + aroma, and defog if you play the bulky way. Then, there are too many ifs to make this plausible long term. I hope I can be enlightened and shown what I am not understanding, but for the time being I cannot rank it higher than any of the other megas.
Nidoking it’s an interesting mon, I think the fall of Mienshao might help him in a way, but unluckily for ‘im Nidoking will always be a victim of the predicting conundrum. That inconsistency of always having to click the right move due to the speed costs a lot of games, spikes doesn’t help him either, is he doomed to be here alongside Aggron? Maybe, or maybe not time will tell. I personally think there are ways of making him work, but if a game could cost you an entire season, and you are playing against someone that is equally good Will you use Nidoking?
Arguably Darm is a better fire type than his companions mentioned before, but the problem here is how difficult it is to make it work. There is a team that is good with Darm, and that’s it. I have not found any way to make it better, the Mon is great, it's fast, hits hard, and has all the coverage you want in a wall breaker that immolates himself. As I said, in this PR i value the building aspect a lot and that way I cannot put higher a mon that can arguably only fit in a team consistently. He is great though I used it twice and it did exactly what I expected of him.
Toxicroak, the frog’s been hated so much when it is a great pokemon imo. It isn’t a splashable mon at all but it's a perfect glue and a better fighting/scald answer for some teams that hera will ever be. SD gunk shoot is able to kill slowking after a SD and the list goes on. Yeah Crobat but as I said with virizion we are not going to constrain the potential of a mon just because it is fully countered by one. If you play consistently with him and don’t splash it in teams that it shouldn’t be in you will see how great the croak can be, especially in long games unlike heracross. I encourage you all to try it more. It really is better than it looks.
Reuniclus, the clefable jr. it really is an incredible pokemon, magic guard is broken and that makes it a great tool especially against fat teams. But Reuniclus and Aggron have the same problem in my opinion, they are still looking for their place in this metagame. A lot of times you will try to build around Reuni and you will just end the week using other stuff instead, just because it is very very hard to make something good with it. You need to be very creative with this mon or you will just gamble you don’t play a lot of stuff or get fully countered by many others. Being that said, I strongly believe there is a place in the metagame for Reuniclus we just need to keep pushing towards and see what we end up with. PS. The debate between thunder and focus blast is also a very intense topic that def. needs its own post.
And that's it this are my thoughts on this delightfull metagame ORAS UU became, If you have ended up this HUGE post I wanna thank you for giving your time to my rambling about this metagame, I also wanna thank Pak for the great work done with all those resources I learned of and for inviting me to give my honest opinion about this tier that's now one of my favourites. See y'all in the future and keep slayin'.
Thank you once again Sylvi Garay and Umbry for all, I couldn't have done it without y'all
PS. I will edit and add more mons especially in the B analysis, and correct some grammar or confusing parts but I felt like I really needed to post this fast or I would keep stalling this ad infinitum.
This has been updated for the first time in a couple years. The individual and final rankings can be found in the spreadsheet below and thanks to Amukamara, Bouff, dingbat, Sylvi, London Beats, Lyssa, umbry, and Killintime for submitting their rankings. The OP has the new list and tier divisions. The cutoffs for the individual ranks themselves are relatively arbitrary, but I mostly stuck to certain cutoffs that came about in the rankings and just trying to keep reasonable amounts of mons in each rank.
Will make another post at some point breaking down some of the big changes here. There has been a ton of meta development since our last update when Conk was first banned (holy shit it's been over 2 years). I also got around to cutting some shitter mons that should've been gone for a while since this already takes way too long to do as is. Most of them are still technically usable it just adds more work than is really needed for stuff like this if they aren't even UU by usage.
Some of the biggest changes this shift came at the top. For many many years, Crobat has been around like an A/A- mon, and it has always done roughly the same thing. However, Conkeldurr being banned was ironically huge for it despite it being one of the only real answers, as it no longer had to use super passive bulky Haze sets to deal with Bulk Up. It can take much more proactive approaches now, much more feasibly featuring moves like Taunt and Super Fang. It may seem weird that it rose up the ranks as suddenly as it did without some sort of major breakthrough. It just so happens that most other mons around the top aren't quite what they used to be, and the combination of its Speed tier, typing, and general utility have only become more valuable as fighters like Virizion and Heracross have seen huge rises themselves. It is one of the best glue mons around in the current meta and the new ranking reflects that.
Alluded to it a bit in the last point, but there have been massive shifts among the Fighting-type hierarchy. After Conk's ban, Mienshao stepped in and became the new defining Fighting mon of the tier. It was widely agreed to be a top 3 best and most impactful mon in the metagame. I've talked about this extensively in my thread and on discord, but somehow someway the meta has just adapted around it. Shao used to really prey on the slow, balance-heavy meta that it took us a while to move out of when Conk left. Since then, things have sped up as a whole, and there has been a greater emphasis on mons that can either deter Shao early or outspeed and immediately threaten it. Ironically, the two best examples of these are the fighters that have now surpassed it in the rankings, being Heracross and Virizion. Heracross isn't really new. It has always been one of the best breakers in the tier. However, its Speed tier, access to Guts, and uniquely beneficial defensive typing in its role have only made it more valuable over time. I've beat the Virizion discussion to death, but it saw an absolutely massive rise due to its own Speed tier, defensive utility, sweeping potential, etc. They both just offer things that no other mon in the tier feasibly can in their own roles, all while providing additional means to dealing with Mienshao.
Going to start cutting to the chase a little more. Simply put, Krookodile is not the staple it once was. Previously a top 5 or so mon, it just isn't nearly as splashable now as it was in its hay day. It still offers some valuable traits such as being an extremely reliable rock setter or serving as a breaker with its CB set. It is just harder and harder to justify placing it on teams with how consistent other Grounds like Seismitoad, Mega Swampert, and others are in similar roles. The rises in Heracross and Virizion have also done it no favors in getting opportunities in early- to mid-game situations. Still good, just no longer deserving of A+ish type ranks.
As much as it may pain me to say this, Mandibuzz has seen better days as well. It's more so been a combination of things than any one shift knocking it down a peg. First, Mandibuzz + Slowking is just not as effective as it once was as a defensive core. This again can be traced back to Virizion and Heracross soaring through the ranks and directly threatening both mons. This comes in direct contrast to when these two could pivot into like 90% of offensive guys. Mienshao was annoying, but neither of them were truly threatened by it when it was the top fighter for a long time. There have also been shifts like more Stone Edge Mega Swampert, which is there to directly threaten Mandibuzz instead of getting into awkward cripple fights of trying to freeze it with Ice Punch, and more Aggron and Rhyperior which have no issue keeping rocks on it.
Klefki has seen more experimentation to many rankers' success. Nothing major has shifted in its favor really aside from the Conk ban. It can much more feasibly get away with being a Fairy that can't directly deal with Fighting types. We just don't have many Spikers in general and Klefki has more utility beyond that as a Steel and Prankster user, so yeah, makes sense.
Cobalion is another casualty of the Heracross Virizion takeover. Cobalion has always been awkward as hell as a mon. It is a Steel-type that essentially does nothing that you want of out of a Steel-type, and simply put, it does not apply much pressure until it really gets going. There are some defensive mons it has no means of getting around, and it just isn't as immediately threatening or pack as much utility as the other Fighting options available. Virizion in particular steals its schtick as a fast Fighting sweeper while possessing much more valuable traits in the context of this tier. It does get rocks and that's cool, but it just isn't the feared sweeper it once was, hence the drop.
Going to group together the rise of both Mega Absol and Mega Houndoom. I've talked about Absol's shift extensively in my other thread and my most recent RMT, so not going to go super in depth. It's just that in our last ranking, I hadn't theorized the New Set yet, so it was still seen as a C+ shitter mega. Now it's just a good mon and I think the new ranking is pretty accurate for what it provides. Not super splashable but definitely valuable in its role in the right context. I personally didn't expect Houndoom to leap frog so many of the other megas in this shift, but it did in fact happen. I've never been a huge proponent of it personally, but I do get it. It has seen a good amount of exploration from other rankers, and it does offer a unique blend of roles between its Speed tier (base 115 is basically faster than everything besides the super fast guys), immediate power, and wealth of utility moves available to it. ORAS mega speed mechanics will always suck, but it's a pretty solid pick right now.
Jellicent is past its prime. I made a post on this, but I'll give a quick summary. When Conk first left, there was still a ton of balance spam since that's all we knew in this tier for years. If people did stray from hard balance, it was probably for some new age Shao bulky offense. Both these structures are dream matchups for Jellicent, as it preys on the slower teams and just burns everything on the cleric-less Shao-reliant teams. You may have heard by now, but Virizion and Heracross are both good and immediately threaten it, as opposed to Shao which couldn't deal with it at all. Double whammy of becoming worse defensively and worse in its traditional role as a passivity punisher since the tier has sped up so much as well.
Man. No mon has seen a decline quite like Celebi. I was looking back to our old rankings in that document, and it was once unanimously seen as a top 5 mon. That was even the correct opinion at the time too; things have just changed a ton. To put this in obnoxious sports banter terms, Celebi was a "heavy balance meta merchant". It loved looking across and seeing 5 mons slower than it, 4 mons it could NP on, and 1 or 2 mons it had to chip before clean sweeping. The biggest shift against it was the rise of Mienshao. It could make so little progress against a healthy team, and with Mienshao pivoting in and out, and it was near impossible to finagle its way into positions to sweep. These days I'll just look at my builder and wish it had 5 moves before inevitably switching around between them and realizing there isn't any one combination that feels great. Now, I'm being a little dramatic and the Fighting hierarchy shift definitely worked in its favor, with there being less Shao and more Virizion of all things. In a much faster meta, it is just so hard to justify over other mons in a similar role, like even Virizion itself.
Darmanitan, aka the 1400 current gen ladder staple, has actually seen a decent amount of tour usage over the last couple years. It's fast, strong, and can U-turn. It immediately threatens a lot, even unboosted as a scarfer, and can getting the ball rolling in the user's favor. Can also tack on Wisp in the last slot to cripple its 1 or 2 defensive answers on the other side. It still isn't a great mon between the rocks weakness and general lack of other defensive uses as a pure Fire, but it is definitely a justifiable pick at the moment.
No other mon is really like Qwilfish. The stupid thing is pretty unassuming between its horrid stats and lack of offensive presence. However, it does have all of: Intimidate, TWave, Taunt, Spikes, TSpikes, Scald, and Pain Split. It checks Fighters and can pseudo check other stuff it shouldn't like Aero just because of Intim. Not perfect, but can easily find a spot on certain teams due to this unique blend of good moves/traits.
All this took a million years please give me likes
-Move over Aero, Crobat not takes over the #1 spot but also earns the prestigious S rank. The increased popularity of Super Fang has turned it into a flying terror of sorts, effectively chomping away at anything not named Doublade and making opponents think twice about recklessly switching in otherwise-counters. Additionally, this has strengthened its synergy with one of its biggest partner-in-crimes in Empoleon, as the two of them in tandem more effectively dissuade hazards from staying on the field. Speaking of which:
-Empoleon takes Crobat's former spot at #2. It continues to be the best and most reliable hazard remover in the tier despite idiot builders like me applying various techs to try and shut it down. What pushes it above Aero though is not a result of it getting better but rather because it's continued to maintain a consistently high usage, something that cannot be said about the latter.
-As a result, Aero falls to #3. While I don't believe that it's any less effective at its jobs than it was before, the player base has been a bit more hesitant on using it in large part due to it not being a Fighting-type switch-in in this current climate, leaving me no choice but to dethrone it from its former #1 spot.
-Speaking of Fighting-types, I decided to (finally) promote Heracross to A+ rank, placing it at the #5 spot. Whether you're more of a clicker or a more tactical thinker, Heracross will always be a fun, powerful mon to use, and that has held true for basically the entirety of its existence here.
-Florges makes another leap into my top 10, taking its spot at #7 just outside of A+ rank. It continues to be a reliable fit on almost any non-hyper offense team despite it having a viable movepool of about 5-6 moves and Sylveon/Gardevoir breathing down its stems.
-Also making its top 10 debut is Virizion, which I have also finally decided is far better than its sewage counterpart at this point.
-If you thought I was done shuffling my top 10, well, get fucked I guess because Mega Swampert has also moved in at the #9 spot. That mon is the textbook definition of "a literal fucking unit" and if there were mons in this meta I'd avoid making eye contact with irl at all costs, this would be one of them.
-Rhyperior is a mon I'm really high on right now (and possibly a little too high on), taking its spot in A rank at #12. Its popularity is at an all-time high right now, and I would argue that one of the biggest contributing factors is that it doesn't get 1v1'd by Super Fang Rocky Helmet Crobat, unlike a certain particular Steel-type whose spot Rhyperior basically took over.
-Krookodile didn't move in terms of its ordered position, but I dropped it to the top of A-. Truth be told, it's been teetering the line line between A and A- for me, but its rocks sets are hard to justify right now and in general its defensive profile is sometimes annoying to work with as a builder.
-Suicune and I divorced :-(
-Gardevoir is another mon I'm super high on right now, inching back up to about where it was when Florges was struggling. As long as you can brush aside the fact that it's not a Dark resist, it's not hard to realize how uniquely powerful its offensive and utility profile is. Its Choiced sets are great as is, but there are definitely some alternative sets that I've played around with that could be really fucking good in this metagame.
-Mienshao is not as bad as a lot of people make it out to be, but nevertheless it drops to my #17 spot. Simply put, I've run into more and more situations on the builder lately where I'd rather be running Virizion due to its better defensive profile + role compression. For me now, Mienshao's viability comes down to how much I value the Knock Off/U-turn bodybag, and as of now its stock has been on a steady decline.
-Mega Aggron is quite possibly the biggest casualty of Super Fang Crobat, dropping to #18. When London Beats came out with his steaming shit bomb against Aggron, we all collectively called bullshit and I still don't entirely agree with his stance on it (mostly the point that it's reliant on cleric support), but I absolutely saw where he was coming from in his argument and damn am I starting to see the cracks in its armor big time. This metagame has definitely turned it into a more passive shooting target despite its stronger offensive pedigree, and so far it has not adjusted entirely well.
-Sylveon enters A- territory at #19, due to the effectiveness and successful use of its offensive Calm Mind sets.
-Celebi rises into my top 20 again, but with a caveat. In my previous rankings, my A ranks consisted of everything within the top 20, but I was not entirely convinced that it deserved A- rank so I decided to place it in limbo. Anyways, the downfall of Aero usage coupled with the favoring of Virizion and Hera over Shao have taken a lot of pressure off Celebi as an offensive threat as of late, and that has resulted in a lot of success for it these past couple of months. Whether I end up moving it to A- or keeping it in B+ depends on how well it sustains its high level of performance, but things look promising for it again after its massive fall off over the past few years.
-The sewage mon itself finds itself outside of my A ranks for the first time at the top of B+. Whatever I said about it in my previous update has persisted, and, additionally, I have not been liking non-Volt Switch sets much lately.
-Mandibuzz has become increasingly difficult to justify using as well, also falling out of the A ranks and landing next to the B/B+ rank line.
- even with av mien rising to prominence as an abuser, it's still the best fairy in the tier and as such is very easy to slap on a team. on a fair portion of teams it can be replaced by av mien to give more fluid gameplay and swing momentum in your favor much more easily, but the distinguishing qualities florges has in wish, heal bell, and to a lesser extent calm mind are all very important for balances imo. if anything, what's a little annoying about this mon is that passing a wish to other stuff is...kind of difficult? because you do want to keep florges at a solid health when its not in, but that's not high maintenance enough for me to really want to put it in a.
- this mon is kind of weird to me when i tried to test with it. it's a regen mon, it checks a bunch of stuff very well on its own, and its movepool is expansive enough to where you can be really flexible with it. the reason i kinda have felt gross using it is that sometimes you end up trying to give it more than it can handle. it can deal with what its supposed to answer well on its own, but then when you get into situations where you end up in a scald war and get burned, or you trade a toxic with seismitoad. once you add hazards into the equation, it just feels like you're on the backfoot in such an awkward way that you can't do as much as you'd like with it. alongside that the psychic typing really does not do it that much favors, being weak to uturn sucks beyond belief. maybe ive just been building wrong with it or i need to l2p with it tho. b+ isnt even really harsh at all, this is moreso just in comparison to others ranking it much higher.
- seeing it at the top of b+ might be weird but i rate ho very very highly rn. if built well it just allows you to have so much legroom provided you get early turns right, which imo isn't that hard to do. in most cases you should be able to get a spike, which honestly can be just enough sometimes...if you get two i really consider it a miracle but if rocks manage to go up from a teammate like nidoking or krook then that can sway the game in your favor quite a bit because oras is a tier where its much easier to get hazards up than take them off. anyhow, the reason why lass is rated the most as a lead here is because its speed tier + icy wind is fantastic, and while all 3 of icy wind, taunt, and dbond will pretty much never come into play in the game, each of them and their different effects on the "game state" after froslass dies is something that has to be respected. 
- this thing is a stupid mon in that it can just fall flat on its face if you get a turn or two wrong alongside sr neutrality making it not very hard to wear...but i really like the payoff it can give, mostly through the cb set. stab combo, priority and being able to outrun mien naturally is great.
is at the top of this Metagame as it is the best Removal by a big margin. At the same Time it checks nearly all special Attacker, even tanking Focus Blasts (if they land). Providing excellent defensive utility with Knock, Defog, Scald. Access to Ice Beam for Grass Types or Signal Beam if needed in some mu. Punishes Clerics as well and just forces progress.
is by far the best Ground Type, which can like Empoleon always force Progress. It is also the best Stealth Rock Setter in this Tier, after Mega Aggron, which isn't that splashable like Seismigoat. 
has fallen off from it is throne. Many Teams have good short lived answer (primarly ground Types and some Steel Types which can live Eq to some level). Maero cleaning is a rare sight nowadays since player started to respect it while Maero itself struggles to play while Stealth Rocks being up. You can't click Suit that often freely or pivot in, which hurts the potential. It is still a big threat to high damage output and cleaning potential, player just adapted. Also it isn't that splashable as ppl think, it requires good support to force Progress on Pokemon like Colbur Slowking, Krookodile and Rhyperior or else it will trade 1 for 1 at max.
is the great and I am tired of pretending. It alone boosts the potential of all Bulky Offense Teams with the WispTect Set 
and 
is another Reason to the succes of Bulky Offense. With Lum Berry it gets the one time "get free out of Scald Prison" for free while also blocking Toxic on Swords Dance. It benefits of getting free Turns on most grounds, water and some steels with the Combination of Leaf Blade. It struggles being walled by some Matchups like Duoblade and Celebi lacking X-Scissor and being slower and not hitting Crobat with Stabs (you need to Zen on Switch in) but it is overall a great Pokemon on Bulky Offense primarly, with a great Speed Tier.
- i find this the hardest pokemon, in a really strict sense, to punish, and i think putting it on teams will almost ALWAYS get you good value. the defensive typing is fantastic, rocky helmet sets are getting better to punish aero pursuits and whatnot, and its very good at disrupting things between super fang and taunt. yeah you can get clipped by stone edges from fightings on the switch, yeah you can get dicked by getting outplayed with sr up and doubles from their end, but i just dont think its enough for me to not put it at #1. but, again, there arent really s ranks in this tier and the vioability difference between it and aero etc are very minimal. also tbh defog bat has been seen as a sin for a few years now but i dont think its THAT bad.
- people have become much, much better at preparing for it, particularly through the usage of like...all the offensive mons that are faster than it...that's more or less it for me, reina covered most of it , but i ranked it so high because its still almost always gonna be a piece of shit, and you have to really respect it in the builder.
- i hated this thing for a while, but it is like the definition of snowballing. annoying to fit, but i feel like if you support it well enough whether it be on bulky offense or ho its just gonna force the opponent to tiptoe around it almost every turn to prevent it from reaming you. of course, it gets fucked by sr, but to me thats just oras idk.
- probably higher than it should be but i like this guy a lot. really good at disruption and specs sets are deceptively obnoxious to switch into. leech sets are also fun especially with roserade dying down (i think (if the usage stats say otherwise ignore me))
- i actually had this in b originally, but when i showed ppl my list originally they all called me a madman...i had it in B originally because i feel like most good teams in the tier will end up being naturally prepared for it, but to me, it also is like "the biggest scald guy", and if you end up fucking around too much you WILL lose on the spot, so i moved it up to b+. id still rather use reuni because magic guard is fucking broken but scald is also broken.
- prankster is nice! its still klefki so its gonna suck in some mus and is hard to build with but ive come to appreciate the emergency button that twave brings more and more, it helps a tiny bit in having the game flow in your favor.
- everyone else forgot. but not me. i still think hyper offense has a really high untapped potential in the tier that just hasnt been explored enough post slurpuff ban.
- these guys i dont think are really that great, but ive been seeing them win more in the past like 6 months than ive seen them win since the gen ended. idk. 
- i think i had it lower than everyone else. i probably just need to use it more but i dont think i ever feel good about using this thing, being 4x weak to uturn fucking SUCKS and it always wants 15 million moves.
Hydreigon
Heracross
Swampert-Mega
Roserade
Metagross
Rhyperior
Krookodile
Gardevoir
Aggron-Mega
Cobalion
Doublade
Nidoking
Nidoqueen
Reuniclus
Sceptile-Mega
Rotom-C
Jellicent
Mandibuzz