OU ADV OU Viability Ranking and Metagame Discussion

Theasiancp3 said:
Exactly, you just proved my point.

These so called "expert voters" literally dont give af for the lower tiers, and they are literally just voting in pokemon that they unconsciously like, recognize, or view as good. Blaziken is the biggest example of this. Blaziken is god awful in gen 3 OU, like literally horrible. Yet voters are putting it in D tier because they recognize it as a "good pokemon" due to its play in later gens.
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I find it amusing that you will so carefree dismiss the chosen panel of voters, making baseless claims as to their validity and bringing into question their mastery of the tier. Myself, I've been playing ADV OU for 13 years. I suppose it never crossed my mind to test Camerupt in ADV OU right? I bet you highly doubt in thirteen years i dared experiment with anything resembling a lower tier mon. Let me know when i can finish this snarky paragraph.

Camerupt, as McMeghan (who also plays this tier for 13 years) so elegantly explained is great vs the electrics and wispgar which gives it a niche enough to be ranked but it struggles vs duggy and getting in vs everything else (including the status moves of electrics) which makes it limited in viability.

Son, my first recollection of a good Camerupt team in ADV has been in 2007 in (TO) Juggernaut's team. Good cohesion there, overlapping offense with metagross to remove waters for the endgame Cune. Then dead-silence for years until 2012 until Danilo and Dekzeh popularized their Gengar-walling set. It has since been a Pokemon used sporadically. It's not the most consistent Pokemon in the world. SIMILARLY, Donphan, not a great poke but it has a niche in Milo/Cune teams that can't afford a Claydol to minimize HP Bug Tar weaknesses. Same with Registeel, solid niche as a paraspreading mixed wall. Please see BKC's Donphan team and CZ's/Ibidem's Registeel teams for references as to those claims. I'm sure if you did your RESEARCH you wouldn't be as vocal and you'd understand how these ranks are decided.

Blaziken is two slots above Slaking. If Blaziken is by your definition trash, then that's pretty close to it. Stop trying to use Blaziken's standing as a way to dismiss the voting panel, the voters didn't make Blaziken to be some legendary poke. Now either lurk more to study the tier by ACTIVELY playing more and watching replays of proper games or please take your Dunning-Kruger effect away from this thread.
 
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Astamatitos said:
I find it amusing that you will so carefree dismiss the chosen panel of voters, making baseless claims as to their validity and bringing into question their mastery of the tier. Myself, I've been playing ADV OU for 13 years. I suppose it never crossed my mind to test Camerupt in ADV OU right? I bet you highly doubt in thirteen years i dared experiment with anything resembling a lower tier mon. Let me know when i can finish this snarky paragraph.

Camerupt, as McMeghan (who also plays this tier for 13 years) so elegantly explained is great vs the electrics and wispgar which gives it a niche enough to be ranked but it struggles vs duggy and getting in vs everything else (including the status moves of electrics) which makes it limited in viability.

Son, my first recollection of a good Camerupt team in ADV has been in 2007 in (TO) Juggernaut's team. Good cohesion there, overlapping offense with metagross to remove waters for the endgame Cune. Then dead-silence for years until 2012 until Danilo and Dekzeh popularized their Gengar-walling set. It has since been a Pokemon used sporadically. It's not the most consistent Pokemon in the world. SIMILARLY, Donphan, not a great poke but it has a niche in Milo/Cune teams that can't afford a Claydol to minimize HP Bug Tar weaknesses. Same with Registeel, solid niche as a paraspreading mixed wall. Please see BKC's Donphan team and CZ's/Ibidem's Registeel teams for references as to those claims. I'm sure if you did your RESEARCH you wouldn't be as vocal and you'd understand how these ranks are decided.

Blaziken is two slots above Slaking. If Blaziken is by your definition trash, then that's pretty close to it. Stop trying to use Blaziken's standing as a way to dismiss the voting panel, the voters didn't make Blaziken to be some legendary poke. Now either lurk more to study the tier by ACTIVELY playing more and watching replays of proper games or please take your Dunning-Kruger effect away from this thread.
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I am not dismissing the chosen panel of voters.

Unconscious bias is a real thing, please look it up. Just because the voters have played gen 3 OU for 10+ years does not mean that they are unaffected by such biases. I feel like I am constantly repeating the same thing now. Let me explain it to you more simply:

1. Voters dont really care about which pokemon go before others when it comes to the lower tiers
2. Blaziken is a highly popular pokemon that has been incredibly successful in later gens. It was also incredibly popular when adv meta first started in the mid 2000s, before people recognized that it was absolute shit.
3. Lots of young kids who play on pokemon showdown use Blaziken on their gen 3 OU teams because of reasons such as nostalgia, popularity, influence, etc. Thus, affecting how Blaziken is viewed when it comes time for voting

Again, I am NOT dismissing the voting panel, but I will not stop vouching for Camerupt until justice is done right. I have been actively playing gen 3 OU, using a Camerupt on my team, with good results. Please stop acting as if I "didn't do my research"

I have played 1000+ gen 3 OU games with Camerupt and I know for certain that it should be ranked higher than MULTIPLE pokemon on that tier list. That is just a fact.
 
Allow me to share the ladder usage statistics for May 2019 here: https://www.smogon.com/stats/2019-05/chaos/gen3ou-1760.json

There are four numbers in the "Viability Ceiling" statistic, referring to
1. Number of players using the mon
2. Top GXE
3. 99th percentile GXE (top 99% player)
4. 95th percentile GXE (top 95% player)

In other words, the first number is popularity and the last three numbers are player ratings. Doing a simple control F search, we get the following results

Camerupt: [167,76,71,58]
Steelix: [89,85,85,62]
Registeel: [50,81,81,59]
Donphan: [55,78,78,59]
Blaziken: [306,82,75,55]

Clearly, Camerupt is very popular (167 uses), but the best player that used Camerupt only achieved a GXE of 76. Whereas Steelix, Registeel and Donphan are less popular, but the GXE of the top players using those mons sit at 85, 81 and 78, all higher than the Camerupt user. In fact, the top 99% and 95% players for these mons also have higher GXE than those users of Camerupt respectively.

What about Blaziken? By far the most popular mon out of all you have mentioned, but its top GXE is 82, which is higher than Camerupt's, and its top 99% user is sitting at 75 which is almost the same as Camerupt's top user.

Consider yourself lucky dude, the panel of voters actually thinks of Camerupt as better than what the stats show of Blaziken. If you want to say that the smogon gen3ou stats are subject to unconscious bias of interference of electromagnetic fields from the server supporting other generations, that's a different story.
 
Theasiancp3 said:
1. Voters dont really care about which pokemon go before others when it comes to the lower tiers
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This would normally make sense if it weren't for the fact that it wasn't mandatory to do ratings beyond the higher ranks, which suggests that the people that did bother to rank the lower tiers actually do care about them to some extent.
2. Blaziken is a highly popular pokemon that has been incredibly successful in later gens. It was also incredibly popular when adv meta first started in the mid 2000s, before people recognized that it was absolute shit.
3. Lots of young kids who play on pokemon showdown use Blaziken on their gen 3 OU teams because of reasons such as nostalgia, popularity, influence, etc. Thus, affecting how Blaziken is viewed when it comes time for voting
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I can assure you that the guys doing these ratings are not going to be remotely affected by either of these things. If they make a "mistake", it's going to be from laziness or not thinking carefully about it. I don't know why you are going on about Blaziken when it was rated significantly lower than Camerupt anyway.

If Camerupt really is better than what it was rated, it's going to be far more productive to beat these people on the ladder with it than to continue on with words. Right now you are coming off as a layperson trying to argue against a panel of experts. Why should they listen to you? Give them a reason to by beating them.
 
vapicuno said:
Allow me to share the ladder usage statistics for May 2019 here: https://www.smogon.com/stats/2019-05/chaos/gen3ou-1760.json

There are four numbers in the "Viability Ceiling" statistic, referring to
1. Number of players using the mon
2. Top GXE
3. 99th percentile GXE (top 99% player)
4. 95th percentile GXE (top 95% player)

In other words, the first number is popularity and the last three numbers are player ratings. Doing a simple control F search, we get the following results

Camerupt: [167,76,71,58]
Steelix: [89,85,85,62]
Registeel: [50,81,81,59]
Donphan: [55,78,78,59]
Blaziken: [306,82,75,55]

Clearly, Camerupt is very popular (167 uses), but the best player that used Camerupt only achieved a GXE of 76. Whereas Steelix, Registeel and Donphan are less popular, but the GXE of the top players using those mons sit at 85, 81 and 78, all higher than the Camerupt user. In fact, the top 99% and 95% players for these mons also have higher GXE than those users of Camerupt respectively.

What about Blaziken? By far the most popular mon out of all you have mentioned, but its top GXE is 82, which is higher than Camerupt's, and its top 99% user is sitting at 75 which is almost the same as Camerupt's top user.

Consider yourself lucky dude, the panel of voters actually thinks of Camerupt as better than what the stats show of Blaziken. If you want to say that the smogon gen3ou stats are subject to unconscious bias of interference of electromagnetic fields from the server supporting other generations, that's a different story.
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LMFAO

1.I believe I know exactly who you are bud. Admins on pokemon showdown had you banned for a while because you harassed me endlessly because i beat you on showdown and you started whining and crying about it. Please stop acting like you are unbiased in this. Unless you want me to show them the messages you sent me on pokemon showdown?

2. GXE means jack when it comes to showing how good a pokemon is. Are you actually this delusional? It's basic statistics, lmfao. Unless you think users of pokemon showdown perfectly correlate with the usefulness of a pokemon, lmfao
 
I do not believe you have the right person in mind, but I am not here to pick a fight. You can check your logs again just to be sure you got my name right, and then please go ahead and share messages, though Im not sure what point you are trying to prove by doing so. Cheers!
 
Theasiancp3 said:
LMFAO

1.I believe I know exactly who you are bud. Admins on pokemon showdown had you banned for a while because you harassed me endlessly because i beat you on showdown and you started whining and crying about it. Please stop acting like you are unbiased in this. Unless you want me to show them the messages you sent me on pokemon showdown?

2. GXE means jack when it comes to showing how good a pokemon is. Are you actually this delusional? It's basic statistics, lmfao. Unless you think users of pokemon showdown perfectly correlate with the usefulness of a pokemon, lmfao
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1. No one cares about your personal love stories

2. The stat used is the BEST GXE got with the Pokemon, which means NO ONE did better with it. Go ahead when do it if you think it's that good. I personnaly think Camerupt is better than some Pokemon above it, but more experienced players than me don't think so, then guess what ? I discuss with them and ask them why it's ranked that low and why X or Y feels better to their eyes.

3. This is a VR, it's indicative, and it does not take into account a lot of stuff, everyone disagree with that VR, because everyone have it's own.
 
vapicuno said:
I do not believe you have the right person in mind, but I am not here to pick a fight. You can check your logs again just to be sure you got my name right, and then please go ahead and share messages, though Im not sure what point you are trying to prove by doing so. Cheers!
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Not trying to pick a fight (although I can see you're trying to push my buttons again by having a camerupt photo on your profile, it isn't going to work btw)

I have been using Camerupt for pretty much every single adv battle on showdown over the past week or so, and I can say for certain that Camerupt is much better than what its current rating suggests.

Along with everything I have mentioned above, Camerupt's movepool is incredibly diverse/unpredictable. Now whether that is because the pokemon is not used that often is yet to be determined, but Camerupt's ability to knock out countless pokemon on the switch makes it incredibly dangerous and versatile.

Not many of OU's top pokemon can even switch in safely because of its movepool. With CB, Skarm and Gengar get OHKO by Overheat/FB, TTar/Raikou/Jolteon/Dugtrio gets downed by EQ, Metagross/Jirachi/Magneton goes down to both, and pretty much everything goes down to Explosion. Compared to other similar pokemon, Camerupt has higher attack than Steelix (much higher special attack as well), has much better moovepool/matchups against the meta when compared to Donphan, and is much more versatile than a pokemon such as Marowak, which is walled completely by many pokemon.

It is an incredible lure as well (Again, not sure if thats because people are not used to playing against one). Explosion can rid of dangerous threats such as Starmie/Suicune on the switch, and it isnt affected by sand

I just dont understand how back in 2014/2015, people were finally coming around to the idea of Camerupt being a good gen 3 pokemon (look at previous pages of this thread, Camerupt was legitimately being considered as a B tier pokemon) and now people just see it as a shit pokemon (mostly because nobody uses it) because of its reputation as a terrible pokemon in later gens (not to mention that when gen 3 first started in the mid 2000s, Camerupt was put in UU immediately while shit pokemon such as Blaziken, Slaking, Tauros, Exxegutor were initially put in OU due to bias, influence, popularity, etc.)
 
Ophion said:
2014-2015 ADV is pretty different to how ADV is now as was our mindset. Just because we said it was a decent Pokemon back then doesn’t mean it’s a decent Pokemon now. And the things you’re saying about how the voters reached a conclusion is false because you’re pulling a straw man and attempting to strip their credibility just so the Pokemon you nommed rises. And you haven’t provided replays, teams, or anything to prove your point despite claiming to have so much experience with it. All you’re doing is talking shit and saying Camurupt deserves a rise with no basis, which is why everyone is fed up with you. Your “evidence” for why it’s good is bare-bones at best as well despite all the evidene stacked against Camurupt’s viability. Either have a good conversation with constructive evidence to prove your point or shut up, because no one wants to deal with your garbage. And stop insulting every person who disagrees with your stance no matter what, it doesn’t help your points at all and if anything makes you look like the inexperienced fuckwad that you’re claiming everyone else is because they disagree with you.
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1. How am i inexperienced? Again, I've played over 1000 games of OU gen 3 adv with Camerupt, beating many users that had 1600+ ELO and 88%+ GXE. Im not the "inexperienced fuckwad" that you claim I am. I can promise you that.

2. I will try to look for replays, although I have very few because I am not the type of person to save replays and stuff like that. I doubt that will change anyone's mind though, because everyone seems to be ganging up on me, which is fucking pathetic

3. No basis? I have gave my evidence for why it deserves a rise, nobody I've spoken to so far has given me ANY counter arguments on the idea that Camerupt should be a C tier pokemon. Everyone has been talking about how shit Camerupt is, but they forget WHAT camerupt is being compared to. Nobody is saying Camerupt is an A tier pokemon, but all of these complaints that people have about Camerupt are meaningless because pokemon such as Marowak, Rhydon, Steelix, Donphan have similar, if not worse weaknesses.

4. I have not insulted anybody (until now) you dumbfuck. You're the one talking shit and spewing shit thats not true.
 
Idrc if it’s a troll or not. You’re all taking the bait if it is, so in comes the fun police to stop the bleeding.
OP said:
In this thread, we as a community will rank every single usable Pokemon into "tiers." In this thread, you're encouraged to post your thoughts and opinions on the various Pokemon that are usable in ADV and what tier they should fall under.
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Enough. There has been ample discussion of Camerupt between various involved parties and the OP / panel of voters can decide to move it up or not in the future. The one good thing about these threads as an outsider is seeing people engage in experienced discussion about Pokemon in the metagame; let's make sure this does not devolve into any more of a shit-show and move back to the topic.

If there are future poor posts, I’ll talk to the subforum moderators about potential infractions / action.
 
Can we please get this Camerupt talk deleted since it doesn't add on anything to VR's.

Since this is primarily tool for new players to consult what mons define the tier and what does meta revolve around at the moment i don't believe 2 pages of "does this mon belong in D or C tier" is helpfull. Thank you.
 
kabutops.png


This isn't the most urgent nomination but I think Kabutops deserves to be added. With Endure/SD/Rock Slide/Flail @ Salac, it has a nice little niche on physical offense. It can set up on resisted CB moves and outspeed Aero/Jolt at +1, allowing it to clean up faster, frailer teams in the endgame - it's especially nice for turning the tables on offensive Starmie, whose Thunderbolt you can always survive with a little investment. +2 Flail cleaves through offensive Suicune and Celebi. If you can weaken Meta, which isn't unreasonable for phys off teams with Lax/Tar baiting and damaging it as well as Magneton helping out, then Tops is quite threatening; +2 Flail does a good chunk, hitting max HP for variants for around 43-51, and with how fast the offensive side of the metagame has become, Gross tends a lot less bulk these days. Rachi doesn't switch into these teams as much and thus isn't as easy to bait but Tops also hits it a lot harder, doing roughly 58-69 to Superachi. Also, most Earthquakes, including Pert's, don't OHKO it. Obviously it's a niche pick but I think it merits a spot on the list.
 
I can see the niche but I'd appreciate some replays, this all seems like ideal theory to me. I've seen every Pokemons until the D-rank used in tournaments or on the high ladder. I've also seen a few D-ranks in action. It's not the case with Kabutops and I think that's also a good reason why nobody even ranked it in the latest VR update.
 
I can see Kabutops work, I'll give it a try eventually. Nothing too much to add, I think it deserves a mention, it seems to be a very good anti-offense measure in the mirror, and it pairs well with some Pokemon very good vs sturdier builds. Also I'd like to point out the Dol + Bulky Lum DD Ttar core McMeghan used in Classic finals, you can add Kabutops + Magneton to it, and suddently it becomes very threatening, I'm sure there's things to do.


EDIT : I just did a spread to test it, it tanks 252+ EQ from Ttar, Tbolt from Starmie, and EQ from defensive Pert, this way you can SD in front of them if needed. It outspeed Jolteon and Aero at +1.

Kabutops @ Salac Berry
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 24 HP / 244 Atk / 44 Def / 20 SpD / 176 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flail
- Rock Slide
- Swords Dance
- Endure
 
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Been playing for 3 years. I've finally come around to the idea of swampert being top tier. I'm also starting to see why many veterans don't like claydol or forretress. I think cloyster is cheesy too but I see it's ranked B here so that makes sense.

I'm guessing that these A, B, C rankings don't translate to the OU BL UU rankings that we have on pokemon showdown.
 
Please forgive me if this is redundant or anything, however, I'd just like a little discussion about possibly moving Aerodactyl to B+

I understand Aero is extremely fragile, however being the fastest Pokemon aside from tieing with Jolteon, and being only outsped by Ninjask and Electrode (both of whom are excessively rare) is an awesome trait.

I do understand however, that Aero can have issues breaking through walls such as Swampert, Skarmory, and other Pokemon such as Metagross and Tyranitar depending upon the move locked into by Choice Band, and can become setup fodder by some Pokemon as well. While he has glaring weaknesses, I feel Aerodactyl shines much more as a late game cleaner better than any other role anyway.

Again, I completely understand him being B, I just wondered if there was any possibility of bumping up to B+

EDIT: Meant B rank, not A
 
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AlolanToaster said:
Please forgive me if this is redundant or anything, however, I'd just like a little discussion about possibly moving Aerodactyl to A+

I understand Aero is extremely fragile, however being the fastest Pokemon aside from tieing with Jolteon, and being only outsped by Ninjask and Electrode (both of whom are excessively rare) is an awesome trait.

I do understand however, that Aero can have issues breaking through walls such as Swampert, Skarmory, and other Pokemon such as Metagross and Tyranitar depending upon the move locked into by Choice Band, and can become setup fodder by some Pokemon as well. While he has glaring weaknesses, I feel Aerodactyl shines much more as a late game cleaner better than any other role anyway.

Again, I completely understand him being A, I just wondered if there was any possibility of bumping up to A+
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If my eyes dont deceive me, Aerodactyl is actually ranked at B, not A.

While i totally share your love to Aero and understand the potential it has, its also important to point out its problems, those are quite a few.
One of its problems is, as you mentioned, that it cant break through certain mons. And when you look at the mons you mentioned in that regard, you might see all of those mons have insanely high playrates, so this problem becomes quite a big problem. Now if you also add the fact that Protect is widely played move, its really hard to get any serious damage off. Protect is also rising in popularity in more offensive teams (Zapdos, Magneton, Swampert,...). It really gets problematic when you have an Astarachi getting free Wishes for its team off, or a Skarmory laying out spikes, not totally for free, but pretty reliably.

Furthermore it doesnt it doesn't check or counter a lot of stuff, its mostly used as a revengekiller or a cleaner, which makes its versatility go down by quite a bit, its pretty straightforward whats the Aero you face is going to do. Its very good vs a lot of niche strats tho, SD Celebi will never get a pass off vs HP Bug Aero, counters HP Flying Gyarados pretty well, serves as a great revenger for Endpert etc.pp.

Because of those mentioned flaws you'll find Aero end up mostly in very similar teams most of the time. Those will very often be some sort of Spikes + Magneton + Pursuit (+Gengar because spikes + gengar kek) teams. That again is a bad influence for its versatility statistic, which likely went into the ranking too.

I think the setup bait point you mentioned is also something that needs a little bit more explanation, because its a pretty big one too. I already mentioned the Wishes and the Spikes from Astarachi/Skarm, but theres more. For example a Tyranitar can be (should be) EVd for a 3hko from Aero Rockslide, which i have often seen, can make for some hard turns to plan out. Tar threatens Aero with a Rockslide ohko, while it also has an option to DD. If you are locked into Double-Edge its even worse. A choicebanded Metagross gets a free opportunity to fire off one of the most threatening moves in ADV. Jirachi can not only wish, if its a CM version it can freely setup on both Rockslide and Double-Edge.
On Earthquake it gets even worse, a Gengar can get a freeturn (Gengar!!!), a Celebi can set up a potential Baton Pass, Heracross gets a freeturn, Salamence gets a free DD and more. Those are all very dangerous situations you have to account for and make your options for teammates very narrowed down.

I also mentioned the team choices that develop from getting around Aeros weaknesses. The rising popularity of Claydol is also a big reason why Aeros winrate and influence went down, Aero basically gives Claydol a freeturn to remove the Spikes it so desperately needs. And due to the creation of a super amazing Claydol set by a certain player, the Gengar + Pursuit Combo dont have the best odds to stop it from doing so.

Again, don't get me wrong, i love Aero and think it very much has a place in the game, but looking at it objectively its simply not close as good as a lot of other pokemon, ranked higher than it, its very "predictable" and it doesn't match up vs a lot of the much played teams.

PS: don't be scared and don't apologize for asking or sharing your opinion, if anyones gonna judge you for that, he's an idiot.
 
pasy_g said:
If my eyes dont deceive me, Aerodactyl is actually ranked at B, not A.

While i totally share your love to Aero and understand the potential it has, its also important to point out its problems, those are quite a few.
One of its problems is, as you mentioned, that it cant break through certain mons. And when you look at the mons you mentioned in that regard, you might see all of those mons have insanely high playrates, so this problem becomes quite a big problem. Now if you also add the fact that Protect is widely played move, its really hard to get any serious damage off. Protect is also rising in popularity in more offensive teams (Zapdos, Magneton, Swampert,...). It really gets problematic when you have an Astarachi getting free Wishes for its team off, or a Skarmory laying out spikes, not totally for free, but pretty reliably.

Furthermore it doesnt it doesn't check or counter a lot of stuff, its mostly used as a revengekiller or a cleaner, which makes its versatility go down by quite a bit, its pretty straightforward whats the Aero you face is going to do. Its very good vs a lot of niche strats tho, SD Celebi will never get a pass off vs HP Bug Aero, counters HP Flying Gyarados pretty well, serves as a great revenger for Endpert etc.pp.

Because of those mentioned flaws you'll find Aero end up mostly in very similar teams most of the time. Those will very often be some sort of Spikes + Magneton + Pursuit (+Gengar because spikes + gengar kek) teams. That again is a bad influence for its versatility statistic, which likely went into the ranking too.

I think the setup bait point you mentioned is also something that needs a little bit more explanation, because its a pretty big one too. I already mentioned the Wishes and the Spikes from Astarachi/Skarm, but theres more. For example a Tyranitar can be (should be) EVd for a 3hko from Aero Rockslide, which i have often seen, can make for some hard turns to plan out. Tar threatens Aero with a Rockslide ohko, while it also has an option to DD. If you are locked into Double-Edge its even worse. A choicebanded Metagross gets a free opportunity to fire off one of the most threatening moves in ADV. Jirachi can not only wish, if its a CM version it can freely setup on both Rockslide and Double-Edge.
On Earthquake it gets even worse, a Gengar can get a freeturn (Gengar!!!), a Celebi can set up a potential Baton Pass, Heracross gets a freeturn, Salamence gets a free DD and more. Those are all very dangerous situations you have to account for and make your options for teammates very narrowed down.

I also mentioned the team choices that develop from getting around Aeros weaknesses. The rising popularity of Claydol is also a big reason why Aeros winrate and influence went down, Aero basically gives Claydol a freeturn to remove the Spikes it so desperately needs. And due to the creation of a super amazing Claydol set by a certain player, the Gengar + Pursuit Combo dont have the best odds to stop it from doing so.

Again, don't get me wrong, i love Aero and think it very much has a place in the game, but looking at it objectively its simply not close as good as a lot of other pokemon, ranked higher than it, its very "predictable" and it doesn't match up vs a lot of the much played teams.

PS: don't be scared and don't apologize for asking or sharing your opinion, if anyones gonna judge you for that, he's an idiot.
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Thank you for the input! I was just hoping to start a little discussion about it since I've overall had good results personally using Aero, as for the setup fodder part, I meant in cases such Double Edge or Rock Slide against a Tyranitar, giving it time to set up Dragon Dance, Skarmory getting time to set up Spikes, etc.

I would never use Aero early game but I've seen people do it decently before, hence why I was curious about his place as a late game cleaner bumping him up

EDIT: Also yes I meant from B to B+, I messed up that original post, my bad
 
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sumwun said:
Did Smeargle (or any of the baton pass users) get less viable when baton pass got nerfed in August?
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Not particularly.

Smeargle has 1 less facet you have to worry about when it comes in, but it's still a great spiker that can spread status and leverage Explosion to prevent setup and spins against it.

Vaporeon can still SubPass or keep CM/Agility passes on offensive teams. Its defensive sets are unchanged. It's unaffected by the ban.

Umbreon will still TrapPass, but now instead of starting a BP chain, it passes into threatening sweepers. It still absolutely neuters passive teams. Defensive sets are unaffected by the BP changes.
 
I'm no ADV expert, but I wanted to share a couple of thoughts on this VR.

The main thing that stands out to me is how low Magneton is. It feels like a real staple of ADV OU that you constantly have to worry about if you have skarm on your team. It certainly feels better than Starmie in my opinion. Magneton + physical attackers (magneton snorlax metagross etc.) is one of the main archetypes of ADV OU that is also consistently effective; people use it because it works. It's not the be all and end all of viability, but I pulled some tournament usage stats:
| 8 | Magneton | 25 | 26.04% | 60.00% | (SPL X: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/spl-x-weekly-usage-stats.3646001/)
| 10 | Magneton | 20 | 25.64% | 40.00% | (Smogon Classic: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/smogon-classic-v-usage-statistics.3652666/)
These are remarkably similar, and show a reasonable trend of Magneton around 10th in the metagame, with reasonable win rates. It sees a lot more use than Starmie ever does, and it kind of seems like a no brainer to me to rank it higher, either at the top of B+ or bottom of A-. The mons in B seem to all be good but semi fringe mons (like you have to build to their strengths and they are occasionally really good) but Magneton just seems a lot more consistent and splashable onto any team, provided you have like a Metagross or Snorlax or whatever on the same team. In short there are a lot more teams that it fits on. One could say that he's dead weight if your opponent doesn't have skarm, which is /sorta/ true, but that also means your skarm weak stuff like Snorlax or Mence or whatever can go nuts and just focus on overwhelming pert. Even if there is no Skarm, it's not like Magneton is total dead weight. It can sort of come in on Gengar and a good amount of teams don't have a good answer to strong electric grass coverage.

I kind of feel Gengar is overranked too, and A+ should arguably be just Metagross and Swampert (or Gengar at the bottom of A+.) I don't have a great explanation though, I just sort of feel they are more splashable onto any build, and useful in pretty much every game whereas if you don't bring the right variant of Gengar you fall short sometimes. The same can be said for Pert, but it just feels so consistent, maybe I'm just bad and use it as a crutch though. Lastly, a lot of teams weak to Gengar (like physical offense struggles with wisp + coverage) just put a special ttar on their team anyways. So even if Gengar is in theory a great countermeasure to those teams, if built well there's often an answer like ttar anyways. Gengar is a top 5 ish pick in ADV OU, but I don't think he's top three, idk.
 
Hi, first of all I need to compliment you on your username, which is hilarious.

To address your post, Magneton is relatively lowly ranked because of the reasons you mentioned, not in spite of them.

You say that Magneton enables your physical attackers to fully realize their potential against Skarmory teams, but that oversimplifies matters. Snorlax is Skarmory weak, but it is also WoW Gar weak, and Tar weak, depending on its set. CurseLax requires Magneton which means depending on your coverage move you will be weak against one of Gar or Tyranitar. MixLax doesn’t really need Magneton by virtue of, well, being MixLax. So your CurseLax still struggles against one of the two Mons most commonly paired with Skarmory. Non Skarmory builds always have something else for opposing Snorlax (Celebi, Metagross, Tyranitar etc.).

The rest of the physical attackers enabled by Skarmory removal via Magneton trap are all countered by a combination of the Water Mon + Gengar. So while it’s a good start, Magneton is not a one stop shop answer to Skarmory teams.

I would counter your point that Magneton isn’t dead weight in the absence of Skarmory because while it is a good initial switch to Gengar and Jolteon (not so much Zapdos because its T-Bolt borders on a 2HKO), Magneton not carrying Leftovers has remarkably poor longevity. You are really only good for one, two at most switches into a resisted CB attack or the aforementioned Gengar and Jolteon. And of course you must always be cautious of them potentially hard switching a Dugtrio into your T-Bolt / T-Wave, since that is a fairly risk free play for the Dugtrio user. (HP Grass is not a guaranteed OHKO, nor is it always the best coverage move on Mag - don’t forget that Forretress is one of the absolute worst Mons to be weak against in ADV.)

Regarding the comparison with Starmie, it’s important to note that the voters had a fairly difficult time deciding what to do with Starmie; it was the only Mon that ended up in the B+ tier. Starmie has a permanent place atop the threat list in ADV because of the imminent danger it poses to physical offense, coincidentally the kind of team Magneton frequently finds itself on. Starmie can often put itself in a position in the end game where it only needs to hit a few Hydro Pumps to sweep. Magneton will never really sweep barring some unusual end game scenarios. But I don’t think they should be directly compared anyway. If you wanted to compare them as anti-Spikes measures, then I would argue that Rapid Spin + Recover + Bulky Starmie is already one of the best anti-Spikes methods available anyway.

Win rate statistics should always be taken with a grain of salt, as they are a function of so many variables that it is difficult to suss out any truly useful information with regards to a particular Pokemon. I might watch those high level tournament games featuring Magneton. Chances are good you will see plenty of Magneton + Physical Offense archetypes like you said. But if I had to guess, I bet you will also find loads of Magneton + Spinner + Bulky Rest Sweeper builds. You can then analyze what role did Magneton fill in the context of those teams and those games. I think that is the best way to understand that Mag really is a supporting Mon first and foremost.

TL;DR

- Magneton trapping Skarmory is not a guarantee that your Metagross / Salamence / Tar / Snorlax / Gyarados will sweep
- Magneton’s early- and mid-game presence as a Gengar and Electric Mon check is overstated since it gets worn down very fast
- Magneton’s success (or lack of) isn’t as pertinent to Magneton itself as it is to the types of teams it is usually found on

Hope that helps.
 
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