Arcanine = Underrated

Kurow

I don't understand why people consider him to be BL. This isn't about tiers, but rather his standing as a physical sweeper as compared to the other options. His movepool is still somewhat small, but still it contains very dangerous moves. With a base 95 speed, and 110 for attack, he seems like an excellent candidate for a life orb. With this equipped he can finish off so many pokes with flare blitz and extreme speed. And hey, why not throw in thunder fang for gyarados right?

Can someone tell my why hes got so little love?
 
His defensive prowess means he gets 2HKO'd by most things. And Base 95 Speed means Choice Band or Scarf. The only boosting attack he gets is Howl. Crap movepool. Crap resistances.
 
Because Fire types in general are pretty defensively bleh. Besides, 95 Speed is workable, but Arcanine doesn't have anything to stand out amongst OUs with a similar speed ranking - STAB Flare Blitz/Crunch/Thunder Fang/Extreemspeed pales in comparison to Electivire's absurd movepool or Porygon-Z's stacked attack bonuses.
 
Well, IMO there are a few reasons why Arcanine isn't OU. First of all, and probably most importantly, it's the combination of having a very poor defensive typing, combined with not really being all that fast. It is very easy to scare Arcanine away and stop a sweep. Extremespeed helps this a little, but unstabed it can only do so much

Secondly, his movepool is pretty weak. Flare Blitz is nice, Extremespeed is alright... then your'e left with Crunch, which is situational, but mostly useless, and Thunder Fang, which hits Gyara, but is really a poor move in general due to low bp... SE it still does much less than neutral Flare Blitz

Lastly I would say that he is outclassed by most other attacking oriented pokemon. He does have respectable defenses + intimidate going for him, but he can't compete stats or movepool-wise with a majority of physical sweepers. Infernape in particular seems to be a much more usable choice, thanks to his higher speed. Like I said, Arcanine has the advantage of actually being able to possibly take a hit if need be, but that's kind of wasted with his typing.


But Arcanine is far from useless, I'm just stating why he isn't OU. If I were to use Arcanine, I think I would probably go with a Choice Scarfer (or possibly CBer), and use Flash Fire. Flash Fire boosted Flare Blitz, backed by great speed sounds very cool.
 
Playing with Infernape is like playing with a 5-Pokemon team until they kill something on your team, since he eats a lot even from stuff he resists.
IMO, Arcanine is a solid choice for your fire STAB needs.
 
I think arcanine was able to reversal but there are better pokes doing his job but I would use an arcanine just to save me with his extremespeed.
 
Dragons and waters resist Flare Blitz, which really hurts arcanine. Heatran makes it less usable. Stealth rocks really hurts the choice using versions. The fact that flare blitz is it's only really good physical offensive option really hurts it, for the first reasons. Like many older pokes in DP, Arcy cries that it didnt get one particular move that it should have: Dragon Claw. Hopefully the next DS gen game that comes out will grant it to him.

I'm thinking about using an arcanine that uses howl and life orb. Scare something away with your CB Flare Blitz, and howl on the switch. Then you will hopefully be able to hit whatever came in with s/e hit with thunder fang or Iron Tail. Life Orb + Howl gives you a 1.95x boost in power. Plus you wont have to switch him out as much, lessening his stealth rocks problem. Still debating wether to use Iron Tail or Extreme Speed.
 
I don't understand why people consider him to be BL. This isn't about tiers, but rather his standing as a physical sweeper as compared to the other options.
Click to expand...

This is nonsense in my eyes...you want to fight his position as a BL yet are not concerned about tiers?

Here's a list of why Arcanine is not in the "OU" tier, which is made only for dominant standards.
- Weak to Stealth Rock, and with no immunity to most other forms of residual damage (Spikes, Sand Stream, Toxic, the exception is burn) it automatically becomes fragile against stalling teams
- It is easily walled by most common bulky Waters and Grounds. It can Crunch Slowbro but will need severe boosting to break through. Against Milotic, Suicune, Swampert, Donphan and Hippowdon, it is not getting past them. Not to mention common Dragon Dancers and Heatran and stuff.
- It is hard to switch in. Don't be fooled by Intimidate and "decent" defensive stats - Arcanine's weaknesses as a Fire type are just awful. You are pretty much limited to Tangrowth, Celebi, other Grassers and Weezing.
 
I personally use an Arcanine, and it has worked well for me. Intimidate and Extremespeed is great for a Breloom counter. It has worked well for me, but that's just me, it might be terrible for others. It desperately needs dragon claw to even kinda sorta maybe possibly even be considered for OU. A CS, Max speed Arcanine can outspeed quite a lot of things that aren't named Aerodactyl. I think people should use him more, but not that he should be in OU, or at least not until he gets some significant upgrades.
 
Arcanine gets 2HKOed nearly all the time by Breloom Focus Punch after Intimidate. And he does in fact outspeed Aerodactyl with Choice Scarf (as long as Aerodactyl doesn't have Choice Scarf himself, which would be a little silly), but on a Pokemon with Extremespeed I see little reason to use scarf.
 
Mekkah said:
This is nonsense in my eyes...you want to fight his position as a BL yet are not concerned about tiers?

Here's a list of why Arcanine is not in the "OU" tier, which is made only for dominant standards.
- Weak to Stealth Rock, and with no immunity to most other forms of residual damage (Spikes, Sand Stream, Toxic, the exception is burn) it automatically becomes fragile against stalling teams
- It is easily walled by most common bulky Waters and Grounds. It can Crunch Slowbro but will need severe boosting to break through. Against Milotic, Suicune, Swampert, Donphan and Hippowdon, it is not getting past them. Not to mention common Dragon Dancers and Heatran and stuff.
- It is hard to switch in. Don't be fooled by Intimidate and "decent" defensive stats - Arcanine's weaknesses as a Fire type are just awful. You are pretty much limited to Tangrowth, Celebi, other Grassers and Weezing.
Click to expand...

It gets Solarbeam over the 100 sp.atk for water/ground types(you need a Sunny Day,ok...). Its probably a 2hko in Slowbro/Milotic,but not against Suicune. Oh, thunder fang too for water(the damage is weak though)
 
Calciphoce said:
I personally use an Arcanine, and it has worked well for me. Intimidate and Extremespeed is great for a Breloom counter. It has worked well for me, but that's just me, it might be terrible for others. It desperately needs dragon claw to even kinda sorta maybe possibly even be considered for OU. A CS, Max speed Arcanine can outspeed quite a lot of things that aren't named Aerodactyl. I think people should use him more, but not that he should be in OU, or at least not until he gets some significant upgrades.
Click to expand...
I use one as well, and it's really great he even KO'ed an Aerodactyl with Thunder Fang(I guess aero had a bad EV Spread since I outsped it too of course with CS), pretty good Breloom counter, and KO Gyara as well, the only thing I don't like is the recoil damage it takes from Flare Blitz, other than that it has material to become OU, at least IMO
 
TheMantyke said:
Ninetales and houndoom kind of out class Arcanine. Altough a max Spatt CS dragonpulse may KO some dragon type.
Click to expand...

Defense Tiers :
Arcanine : 115.93 115.93 121.70 121.70
Houndoom : 111.07 114.90 118.08 120.85
Ninetales : 114.21 116.71 120.32 122.24

Houndoom is uber-fragile, with physical defenses WORSE than Weavile's (112.79). Even without Intimidate, Arcanine has the best physical defenses of the bunch and is within a tier of Ninetails in Special Defense.

At least stat-wise, these guys are most certainly different.

Houndoom probably is better suited as a sweeper with 10 more base Sp. Atk and a better movepool. However, Houndoom is a special sweeper and not a physical one with Nasty Plot and a bit lower Atk. Arcanine hits hard from both sides with 100+ stats in both physical and special attack, making him a mixed sweeper. His decent defenses probably make him a good phazer with roar. (Doesn't match Skarm though...)

Ninetails... I just keep thinking "double-status" with Hypnosis and Will-o-Wisp and confuse ray. Comparing these pokemon to Ninetails is like comparing Gallade to Medicham. It may look like they're similar... but they will almost certainly play differently.
 
BrazilianDragonite said:
It gets Solarbeam over the 100 sp.atk for water/ground types(you need a Sunny Day,ok...). Its probably a 2hko in Slowbro/Milotic,but not against Suicune. Oh, thunder fang too for water(the damage is weak though)
Click to expand...

I was talking about a physical Arcanine set - something among the lines of Howl/Extremespeed/Flare Blitz/Thunder Fang. But since you insist, Sunny Day Arcanine isn't any good either. A turn set-up is unattractive, especially since Arcanine is already stealing some kind of free turn somewhere to come in at all since it counters practically nothing really common except Weezing and Grassers.

Then Tyranitar can come in on your Solarbeam, absorb it with the SpDef boost and Stone Edge you while you're locked in. Or you shoot it against some Salamence.

Solarbeam versus max HP, minimum SpDef Milotic:
328 attack vs 349 defense, 120 power(* 2), 394 max HP: 41.37% - 48.73%

Under normal circumstances I'd chime in and hype residual damage and call Milotic a shaky counter. But here the main form of residual damage (Sand Stream) is completely moot due to Sunny Day, and Milotic can just Recover repeatly until the sun wears out, only losing if Arcanine gets a critical hit.

Slowbro does, indeed, get 2HKOed.

328 attack vs 196 defense, 120 power(* 2), 394 max HP: 73.35% - 86.29%

Slowbro will also Thunder Wave you to ruin any attempt at sweeping, and unless you want to further mangle your EV spread to fit in Extremespeed to finish him off, it will just Slack Off as long as possible to wear out the Sunny Day...which is pretty long if you take 25% full paralysis rate into account.
 
Dragontamer said:
Defense Tiers :
Arcanine : 115.93 115.93 121.70 121.70
Houndoom : 111.07 114.90 118.08 120.85
Ninetales : 114.21 116.71 120.32 122.24

Houndoom is uber-fragile, with physical defenses WORSE than Weavile's (112.79). Even without Intimidate, Arcanine has the best physical defenses of the bunch and is within a tier of Ninetails in Special Defense.

At least stat-wise, these guys are most certainly different.

Houndoom probably is better suited as a sweeper with 10 more base Sp. Atk and a better movepool. However, Houndoom is a special sweeper and not a physical one with Nasty Plot and a bit lower Atk. Arcanine hits hard from both sides with 100+ stats in both physical and special attack, making him a mixed sweeper. His decent defenses probably make him a good phazer with roar. (Doesn't match Skarm though...)

Ninetails... I just keep thinking "double-status" with Hypnosis and Will-o-Wisp and confuse ray. Comparing these pokemon to Ninetails is like comparing Gallade to Medicham. It may look like they're similar... but they will almost certainly play differently.
Click to expand...

Ninetales can sweep better than Arcanine though, considering it has the ability to buff AND double-status. Ninetales also has decent Sp. Def, so it can switch in on an unSTAB'd special move (as long as it isn't a water move), Hypnosis the counter, and buff for the big sweep. It also gets Energy Ball to deal with a lot of it's counters and *just* hits that crucial 100 base speed mark.
 
I always run CB Arcy. CB Extremespeed is godly, especially when, of the three things that resist/immune normal, One is weak to Arcy's STAB Flare Blitz, Half of the ghosts don't like eating any hit like that, which leaves Rock types, which Arcy doesn't really have an answer for anyway short of Reversal, which isn't effective on a CB set.

A mispredict against CB Arcy is catastrophic for most enemies, since that turn you thought you could set up ends up landing you in Extremespeed kill range.

Granted the loss of a CB boosted HP is unfortunate, but at least Arcy picked up physical Crunch and got Thunder Fang and Reversal. There's nothing really stopping you from throwing HP Ice or whatever on there, Arcy still has 100 Base SA. Mixed sweepers are an absolute nightmare to EV though.
 
CBArcanine is a good lead. Flare blitz hurts a lot of shit, and extremespeed is really useful for finishing off random pokemon. Intimdate is an awesome trait, especially for a starter. Thunderfang owns gyarados and crunch hurts rocks and slowbro more.
 
A Pokemon has to be pretty damn good to be in the elite tier of Pokemon called OU. Hell, Alakazam isn't in there -- why should Arcanine? Just because a Pokemon can function well in OU (Jumpluff and Butterfree can too, you know) doesn't mean it should get the label.
 
Aero said:
A Pokemon has to be pretty damn good to be in the elite tier of Pokemon called OU.
Click to expand...

What this guy said. Quite a few pokemon that can compete fairly effectively in OU aren't in OU simply because, even though they CAN compete, they just don't measure up.

Arcanine, though...IMO it's far, far from OU. Fairly good stats, but stealth rock weakness hurts and it's movepool is just plain awful (Physically, it's got Flare Blitz and Extremespeed...and then a few afterthought options, like Thunder Fang and Crunch. Seriously, if Iron Tail is a considerable option, then you know you're in trouble). At least Entei gets Stone Edge.
 
choop, Flare Blitz has 90 bp after STAB and resistance, and Crunch has 80, so your actually better off using Flare Blitz against rock types. Crunch only does more damage against slowbro and starmie, and staying in against one of those is a bad idea. Your better off going with iron tail, even though it has shitty acc, it at least gives you better type coverage.

If Arcy had gotten Dragon Claw, Stone Edge, and Swords Dance/Nasty Plot, it would have made bottom tier of OU. Right now Arcy's moveset is ass and so is it. We'll have to wait for the GSC remake or the DP yellow version. Or wait for competitor to come out and then make a mod.
 
TVboyCanti said:
choop, Flare Blitz has 90 bp after STAB and resistance, and Crunch has 80, so your actually better off using Flare Blitz against rock types. Crunch only does more damage against slowbro and starmie, and staying in against one of those is a bad idea. Your better off going with iron tail, even though it has shitty acc, it at least gives you better type coverage.

If Arcy had gotten Dragon Claw, Stone Edge, and Swords Dance/Nasty Plot, it would have made bottom tier of OU. Right now Arcy's moveset is ass and so is it. We'll have to wait for the GSC remake or the DP yellow version. Or wait for competitor to come out and then make a mod.
Click to expand...

Actually, crunch is a lot better for taking out things like Cresselia as well. Using Flare Blitz against rock types isn't very smart to be honest, because if they're a rock, they'll usually carry ROCK type moves. Combined with Flare Blitzes recoil, Arcanine probably won't live if it tries to pull off something like that. Iron tail is only going to be for rock types, what's the point? Crunch will at least hurt Psychics and Ghosts when they come in. Most of the time, Arcanine shouldn't be staying in against rocks anyway.

Heh, the only move Arcanine has any chance at getting in a future sub-version of diamond and pearl is Nasty Plot. The main reason being that the other 3 are TMs...
 
Kurow - I used to share your sentiments somewhat. Then I tried him. He just didn't work. There are so many things that do what he does better, and so many things kill him/stall him to death its rediculous.
 
Bologo said:
Actually, crunch is a lot better for taking out things like Cresselia as well. Using Flare Blitz against rock types isn't very smart to be honest, because if they're a rock, they'll usually carry ROCK type moves. Combined with Flare Blitzes recoil, Arcanine probably won't live if it tries to pull off something like that. Iron tail is only going to be for rock types, what's the point? Crunch will at least hurt Psychics and Ghosts when they come in. Most of the time, Arcanine shouldn't be staying in against rocks anyway.

Heh, the only move Arcanine has any chance at getting in a future sub-version of diamond and pearl is Nasty Plot. The main reason being that the other 3 are TMs...
Click to expand...

Doesn't neutral STAB Flare Blitz do more damage than super-effective Crunch? Not even doing a full damage calculation, simply applying the modifiers for the base powers gives you:

Flare Blitz: 120 x 1.5 = 180
Crunch: 80 x 2 = 160

Now, consider that STAB Return on Normal types outdamages Super Effective Brick Break...and that only comes to a single digit difference when you're applying modifiers to base power. This is a 20 point difference.

So really, Crunch is only useful for Slowbro and Starmie; Cresselia still takes more from Flare Blitz.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top