Lower Tiers ADV UU Viability Rankings

[Glue]

ADV UU Viability Rankings
​

Welcome to the ADV UU Viability Rankings Thread. In this thread the ADV UU community ranks every single usable Pokemon into "tiers."
Pokemon are ranked in order within their respective tiers, if Slowking and Manectric are ranked A rank, but Slowking is listed before Manectric, then Slowking is the better Pokemon.

S Rank
Kangaskhan
Arcanine

A+ Rank
Omastar
Scyther:
Ampharos
Lapras
Tentacruel
Solrock

A Rank
Blastoise
Granbull
Gligar
Slowking
Lanturn
Misdreavus

A- Rank
Vileplume
Glalie
Qwilfish
Feraligatr
Golem
Nidoqueen
Hitmontop

B+ Rank
Electabuzz
Electrode
Walrein
Sandslash
Hitmonlee
Quagsire
Nidoking
Muk
Grumpig

B Rank
Roselia
Altaria
Haunter
Pinsir
Gorebyss
Cradily
Golduck
Sableye

B- Rank
Manectric
Lunatone
Girafarig
Hypno
Fearow

C+ Rank
Mr.Mime
Raichu
Xatu
Aggron
Clefable

C Rank:
Azumarill
Camerupt
Poliwrath
Kabutops
Banette
Metang
Cacturne
Ninjask

C- Rank:
Primeape
Jumpluff
Meganium
Stantler

D Rank:
Magmar
Shiftry
Sharpedo
Mantine
Victreebel
Ninetales
Politoed
Exploud
Persian
Sneasel
Absol


Rules:
1. Post intelligently. Posts like "I think Pokemon X should be in this tier" will not be tolerated
2. No flaming
3. Stay objective. The fact that you love X or Y Pokemon doesn't mean it's objectively a beast.

 

[Glue]

This is how we did the voting for the ADV UU Viability Rankings
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...RsSAZ6GvszxI-cKddZkAOyiN32zeh9YDFXcGx/pubhtml

I want to thank fatty r0ady Accel TSR Bouff Heysup Plas A Hero's Destiny BigFatMantis and esche who took their time to help make the new ADV UU VR

Special mention goes to Shiba who not only helped out but made the spreadsheet to make this all possible

 

[Glue]

The Viability Ranking is need of an update thanks to the new updated banlist, I propose these changes.

S+ Rank -
S Rank -
A+ Rank -
A Rank -
A- Rank -
B+ Rank-
B Rank -
B- Rank -
C+ Rank -
C Rank -

Important Change Proposals

S- Has been removed
UR -> A+
UR -> A-
UR -> B-
UR -> C
UR -> C
S- -> S
S- -> A+
S- -> A+
S- -> A
S- -> A-
C+ -> A
B -> A
B+ -> A-
A+ -> B-
A+ -> B-
C+ -> B

Everything else I did mention either is C rank or The mon has only moved one Sub Rank.

Shiba Heysup fatty Bouff Parpar Garay oak ArcticBreeze shiloh crying LpZ BigFatMantis Cubic Skunk EllingtonReborn
Let me know if you lads and gals have any recommendations or you can do your own VR. If you have not been highlighted please be free to post!
I currently don't know who is playing these days.

 

[Expulso]

S+ Rank -
S Rank -
A+ Rank -
A Rank -
A- Rank -
B+ Rank-
B Rank -
B- Rank -
C+ Rank -


some descriptions on my more unusual rankings:
- arcanine is def S not A+ or lower imo. amazing speed tier, priority, extremely hard-hitting fire blast w great coverage for resists, thief to cripple kanga... it really does it all.
- haunter is a really good mon, forcing kanga to run sball or outright walling certain kanga sets is huge. spreading wisp is also great once arcanine is weakened. can trade well with dbond, be a good safety net with endure-salac, and is generally easier to fit on a team than anything in A or below.
- top and toise are somewhere in the A ranks for me, spinning while checking top mons (kanga and arcanine/tenta, respectively) is great role compression.
- ninjask is actually a good mon in my eyes, with spikes up running adamant + bulk invest makes it hit really hard and 1v1 a lot of shaky lategame checks. hp ground is so annoying on it

 

[Amity]

Updated June 29th thoughts after immersing myself in this meta much more, explaining some placings and adding metagame commentary:

Every time I use it, face it, and think about it in the builder, the more I think Arcanine might be creeping on Oma's #2 status. This thing poses such an unreplaceable threat level and wears down its checks pretty easy with Spikes support HP Elec and ESpeed that every team dedicates a check to it. This is all to say I don't think it is S+ mandatory as some people would imply, you have to be very careful of being a Tenta magnet and on some structures I would prefer Scyther and Gligar in that slot (if im not running them alongside Arc), but the replays and usage stats show RK9 is a very centralizing part of the metagame.

I think much higher of Cradily now as one of the most defensively sound mons in the tier, absolute staple on bulky toxspam balances and has many positive contributions in the builder from QuakeSlide, walling Electrics, being a normal resist, and to top it all off a coveted 32 PP Recover only possessed by it and Sableye. Its defensive qualities made it A for me a while back, but its effect on my building shot it up to A+.

No longer a metagame defining titan but very useful when you need a utility-based bulky water, the omni-checking it does is very helpful, checking Arcanine Omastar Scyther Tentacruel Gligar in the same slot.

Terrifying Rain sweeper, my colloquialism for it being "Water Linoone". Gorebyss is actually very easy to set up by hard switching on Kanga Rest/Oma Spikes or punishing Arcanine/Gligar for getting a kill. Gorebyss is just a great balance breaker with Spikes, worthy of A- and no lower.

Amazing wallbreakers, though Nidoqueen is my preferred twin over Nidoking. Nidoqueen's bulk is a major boon since longevity is very valued in this tier, sticking around longer to check Electric-types, and Superpower is a great tool to smash through Kanga Walrein and Cradily. Nidoking has good attributes like its better speed, better power, and set unpredictability, but aren't preferable to Nidoqueen's traits coming through on a game-to-game basis.

I think it might be me but I feel Pig is super underrated right now, Thick Fat is as important as ever and this is an Arcanine check that can sweep your team. Scyther is still obnoxious, but this has serious potential as a CM sweeper and utility mon.

Midmontop, living proof that role compression is not everything. Although this mon can check Kanga, theres always ways Kanga can deal with it like Toxic, and its a spinner that really eats into Ghosts (huge liability into spikestack teams). It does two things, but not amazingly, although some structures can use it as a last resort compression mon.

Manec fell off pretty badly in the modern meta, Buzz isn't as strong on Tbolt but being very walled by Lanturn and having limited ways of dealing with Kanga and Amphy isn't appealing. Still a decent Spikes abuser and its Speed is good, but it's nobody's preferred Electric even on Elec spam.

I wasn't a huge believer of these mons at first but now I see some merit to the NU Spikers. Although Glalie isn't as good a lead anymore, it works well as a midgame spiker on bulky offense not walled by Tentacruel, and boom is really good as always. Heysup shown me the way with Roselia, Spikes + Bell compression is actually really neat and sponges Water and Electric moves nicely. I think Cacturne is the ugly duckling of these, I barely find places I want to fit it over Roselia unless Offensive Kanga/Haunter/Psychics are issues, still both it's a decent offensive utility mon and it and Roselia are center-pieces of modern Fire-Water-Grass cores.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I glanced over the PRs and I think I would mainly just add in the new additions without drastically affecting the rest since, while I have a different opinion on some things, I don't think too many things drastically shifted in viability with the exception of a few. So rather than do a complete VR, I'll just note what changes I would make:

Arcanine: NEW -> S Rank: Arcanine is fairly meta defining imo, tho not as much as Kang. I would rank it higher than all the other S ranks personally and sit right below Kang, but just including it amongst S is fine.

Haunter: NEW -> A+ Rank: Haunter is very very good, and has really helped decentralize the Kang meta with its introduction (Kang is still top, but not what it used to be).

Ninjask: NEW -> B- Rank: Ninjask is a bit underrated imo - it is one of the few things to revenge Scyther, outspeeds most weather nonsense, and can be a dangerous SD Sweeper to clean a weakened team late game with Spikes. It is still a bit niche, but better than a lot of the stuff below B-

Pikachu: NEW -> C+ Rank: There are two types of people in this world. Those that use Raichu and those that use Light Ball Pikachu. I am part of the latter, and believe the Pika deserves a slightly higher slot.

Metang: NEW -> C Rank: I'm sorry but I really just don't think this mon is good. It can be somewhat useful vs non-EQ Kangs I guess but I really feel you always have a better option than running this thing. Maybe if Kadabra was freed this would get more mileage. Until then I'd get much more use out of Golem most situations than Metang.

Glalie: A+ Rank -> B Rank: The Glalie HO era ended when Arcanine entered the tier. It's still useable for sure but it will never have the same impact it used to have with the loss of Brightpowder and Arcanine being on most teams now, even as a lead. Qwilfish generally outclasses Glalie now in most lead HO situations.

Qwilfish: B+ Rank -> A- Rank: Not that big of a change, but I feel it's an important one. Qwilfish is the dominant HO Spike setter now with Glalie falling, as noted above. And you can even use Qwil spikes on a non-HO sort of.

Vileplume: S- Rank -> A Rank: Vileplume is still great, but the new additions have not been kind to it. I have yet to see the SD set sweep a team since the new meta started, and the support set has to be careful to never double into an Arcanine. The Sun set can still be ok too, provided you're not setting it up with an Arcanine still at full health. It's still a useful, versatile mon, but not nearly as tier defining as it used to be, and generally Ampharos works better in the support role.

Ampharos: S- Rank -> S Rank: Ampharos should join its brethren in the S Ranks as it's the clear dominant support option on most teams. You need a specific reason as to why you are using a different Heal Beller besides Ampharos, and while those reasons do exist, Ampharos is always first option.

Gligar: S-Rank -> A+ Rank: It hasn't changed much at all, but it's been harder to keep pace with a faster paced meta, and being KOd by Arcanine with minimal chip (FBlast does 88-102) really hurts it. It also loses the 1v1 vs. Ampharos which is sad. It can still sweep late game and can help check Scyther but it just isn't the same Gligar we've known in the past.

Walrein: S- Rank -> A+ Rank: You would think Walrein got better with the Arcanine meta, and yet it seems to actually get less use than before. This could be for a number of different reasons, including Ampharos skyrocketing in usage and Kang still able to switch in freely most of the time. It could probably stay S- Rank, but since I moved all the other S- ranks elsewhere I think we can just nuke that rank altogether.

Granbull: S- Rank -> A+ Rank: Granbull is just as good as it's always been. But I want to get rid of S- Rank, and can't justify ranking it alongside the other S Ranks.

Banette: B- Rank -> C Rank: I'd probably unrank it tbh, I don't see any reason to use this mon over Haunter or Sableye. But maybe there's still something of value there waiting to be explored.

Ninetales: C+ Rank -> UR: I don't see any reason to use this over Arcanine, like absolutely none. It gets Wisp I guess, but so does Haunter. It can counter an opposing Arcanine with its Flash Fire but so can another Arcanine with Flash Fire. It gets Hypnosis so you can spread the worst status in ADV UU. Just unrank this.

Magmar: C+ Rank -> C- Rank: The only reason to not unrank this is because it can still provide some coverage that Arcanine cannot if you happen to be needing it. I think it is extremely niche, but I can see someone getting some use out of it on a very specific team that thrives with a Fire + Boltbeam user.

Cradily: C+ Rank -> B+ Rank: I'm not that high on Cradily, but it's definitely much better now in the new meta. Last UUSD was the beginning of the Cradily revolution. Ability to soft check Kang + Arcanine is huge, though it can't check all variants as some Kangs run FP more frequently now and some RK9s run HP Fighting. But it's still a solid defensive pivot to have on a lot of teams, so I think B+ is appropriate.

Manetric: A+ Rank -> A- Rank: I think electrics are still good, but at this point Manectric and Electabuzz are basically the same viability wise, so I'd put them both in the same A- Rank.

There's probably other stuff that could move but I think the other stuff is far more subjective than these. These I think are all sensible moves that I think most people can agree with the general direction (if not the specific rank). I don't think we should do a huge overhaul on the VRs just yet though, I think we should wait for UUFPL to finish and get the final ADV UU slate completed. At least I think it's the final one, I can't see anything else being voted on after that unless we do some sort of omega drop at once.

 

[grrgrrgrr]

I see a several UU Pokemon such as Politoad, Rapidash and Persian being unranked for quite a while. Isn't it time to drop them to NU? Especially with the introduction of PU.

 

[BigFatMantis]

I see a several UU Pokemon such as Politoad, Rapidash and Persian being unranked for quite a while. Isn't it time to drop them to NU? Especially with the introduction of PU.

UU can't place anything in NU - at best it can move the unranked mons to NUBL and have NU decide what they want to do with them. But I think we are going to do one final VR Update after the next ADV UU voting slate before that happens.

 

[BigFatMantis]

A legendary congregation of Amukamara BigFatMantis Bouff EllingtonReborn fatty Garay oak Glue HANTSUKI Heysup LpZ and Parpar have banded together to finally update the ADV UU Viability Rankings for the 2023 Arcanine metagame! Here are the new official ranks:

S+ Rank


S Rank


S- Rank


A+ Rank


A Rank


A- Rank


B+ Rank


B Rank


B- Rank


C+ Rank


C Rank


C- Rank


Unranked but UU:

(these "unranked" mons are not viable at all in UU, though they are technically "UU" by old usage stats, and should never reasonably be used - would most certainly be dropped to an even lower tier if this was a current generation or non-usage based tiering, not sure if anyone wants to try to do anything about that but they are not really UU's problem anymore)

Spreadsheet Link for reference of where everyone voted: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11UfDWdRDFMhygr2ZvoYQh7f7rabLNrHrZaJalWH6eRs/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Glue]

I updated the Viability Ranking in the OP
I Included Lapras as "Needed to be ranked"

I think we should do another big update on the VR after UUPL & ADVPL
My opinion has certainly changed from last year on a couple to several mons in the tier

 

[BigFatMantis]

A stellar round of applause to BigFatMantis Amity Bouff Chaos23333 FadedCharm fatty Glue Heysup Killintime LpZ Xrn for taking part in this year, 2024, latest edition of the new and improved updated...

ADV UU VIABILITY RANKINGS​

Here are the new official rankings:

S Rank


A+ Rank


A Rank


A- Rank


B+ Rank


B Rank


B- Rank


C+ Rank


C Rank


C- Rank


D Rank


For transparency's sake, here is a copy of the spreadsheet with everyone's votes:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C4Jyb1y8oAlFqOmu_60DsnqkTOWGf5S6uxy9yE0BtMk/edit?usp=sharing