Flavor of the Month: RU Edition (Week 2: Feraligatr, Lanturn)

Swamp-Rocket

Swamp-Rocket

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Approved by Molk. Idea stolen from NU. Op stolen from OU.

As we all know the metagame changes constantly. People come up with new revolutionary sets that get popularized very quickly and become the standard, threats are banned and overall usage drops. The purpose of this thread is to remember these once metagame-defining Pokemon of the 5th Generation, and elaborate and discover more reasons why they dropped in usage, why they were so effective, and why the metagame at the time allowed them to be so good. I will be usually weekly posting a new Pokemon that we can discuss. I will try to make the options as interesting as possible, and make sure we have variety for all parts of the BW1 and BW2 metagame.

Molk came up with the idea of doing two Pokemon per week on irc so here we got our first two Pokemon of discussion for now.

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Drapion was at one point one of the biggest offensive threats in RU. It's Swords Dance + Taunt set absolutely ripped through defensive teams for a large majority of BW1, it has quite a bit of versatility, and was in general a very good Pokemon, reaching 4th in the usage stats at one point iirc. However, Drapion now finds itself barely holding on, seeing itself as 50th in usage - now its considered just too weak to do anything, and not bulky enough to consistently perform, and people don't even mention it when they mention Pursuit. What changes occurred to make Drapion considered so mediocre in the metagame?

Crawdaunt, on the other hand, has never exactly been lacking in power, and was a huge threat in the early stages of BW2 (it got Superpower) as result of this, especially with its threatening Dragon Dance set thanks to its strong dual STAB combo. Even though Slowking is everywhere now which would seem good, Crawdaunt isn't really made out to be much of a threat, often completely dismissed for its lowish speed. What changes to the metagame resulted in Crawdaunt's low usage?

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Hmm, I guess I'll take a shot at this, the first thing that stands out to me about these pokemon, is that they are both dark types that rose in popularity during the reign of specific threats.

Taunt-SD Drapion was known as the best Cofagrigus counter in the tier, being one of the few things that could switch in and beat it's Nasty Room set, a very threatening set. After Cofagrigus left the tier, however, it definitely lost a lot of appeal, but continued to have some sort of usage in the tier as a decent check to Cresselia, allowing it to retain some usage. When Cressy left the tier for the final time (thank the lord), Drapion became pretty much outclassed as a SD mon by many other threats.

Crawdaunt has a similar story, it was really useful in the Cressy meta, because it was a great Cressy check and could set up on the best pokemon in the tier with little to fear. After Cressy left the tier, however, it really lacked a real reason to use it over Ferraligatr, as Ferraligatr can actually outspeed the unboosted tier after one DD (okay not Accelgor). Nidoqueen leaving the tier was also a bad thing for Crawdaunt (indirectly of course, as queen shat on Daunt 1v1), as Nidoqueen leaving the tier changed the speed to beat from neutral base 76 to neutral base 80, making its base 55 speed even lolsier.

The final thing that really hurt these mons, were the spammer that brought us Absol, Emboar, Amoonguss, and Cincinno. Absol gave them both competition, as frankly, it is a better offensive dark type than either atm. Emboar brought a strong attacker capable of revenge killing both of these mons when equipped with a scarf (its most common item). And Amoonguss just poops on both of these mons, giving approximately 0 shits about there existence, and can even clear smog their boosts like nothing ever happened.

I think of either of these mons, Drapion is still more usable, as Queen leaving allows it to use a solid T-spiking set. It also still has the second fastest taunt in the tier, and has amazing defensive typing. So yeah, hopefully my post is somewhat correct :).
 
Drapion: I'll agree with @atomicllamas on the vast majority of this one. Drapion was an incredible stallbreaker in BW1 and early BW2. However, once the two biggest stallwarts of RU stall, Cofagrigus and Cresselia, left and Nidoqueen entered, Drapion lost a lot of its appeal. Players didn't need a Taunt+SD user to punish stall when they could just throw out Nidoqueen to shit on stall without the need to boost or Taunt. With Queen gone, Drapion can still use a TSpikes set, but it has major issues with the likes of Qwilfish, Roselia, and Scolipede in the tier still.

Crawdaunt: Really, I feel like that the only times there was a reason to use Crawdaunt over Feraligatr was Cresselia's stints in the tier. Otherwise, Gatr has just always been the better mon thanks to its more balanced stats. The fact that Poliwrath is one of the better defensive walls in RU is really bad for Crawdaunt since it doesn't give 2 shits about Crawdaunt's STAB moves. The rise of Samurott hasn't helped either as that's just one more physical Water-type that Crawdaunt has to deal with. While SD Samurott is also stopped cold by Poliwrath (and Qwilfish too for that matter) it has Aqua Jet to overcome its low Speed and Megahorn to blast past most regenerator cores in a single hit each.

As for the other Pokemon atomicllamas mentioned, I have to disagree on the Amoonguss part considering Crawdaunt's STAB Crunch still does a buttload to it. But yeah, Absol gives both competition while Emboar can revenge kill both rather easily. Cinccino can as well to a certain extent I suppose.
 
I haven't typed anything up for Crawdaunt just yet (might do it in the future) but here are some of my thoughts about Drapion.

As someone who's been with RU for a while and has seen Drapion increase and decrease in performance across the metagames, i will say there was a time that Drapion was a very good Pokemon and definitely deserved all the usage it got, which were around say the Cresselia and Cofagrigus metagames. During these metagames stuff like Taunt SD Drapion could use these Pokemon as set up bait while they were somewhat hard to deal with otherwise (not impossible though) making it a very popular choice for people that needed something to handle these Pokemon. As these Pokemon left and the metagame shifted, though, things just got worse and worse for Drapion. During the Nidoqueen meta, Drapion lost a massive amount of appeal, as Nidoqueen did its stallbreaking job for it (and much, much, better) and made the defensive set not worth it most of the time, as simply put, it was totally helpless against the thing, not being able to do enough with Crunch and getting OHKO'd by Earth Power, all while its Toxic Spikes get absorbed. Eventually, the kind of teams that Drapion could beat just kinda fell off the radar :/. Things just got worse when Cofagrigus left the tier, as Drapion no longer had the niche of being one of the best checks to the thing, and it fell out of favor even more. Drapion had another surge in popular when cress was retested, but after she ended up being re (perma) banned, Drapion fell into obscurity again. Even after the end of the Nidoqueen metagame, Drapion still struggled quite a bit because of its surprising lack of power compared to other threats (if you go on #rarelyused you've probably seen me post silly drapion calcs) and the addition of two new Pokemon in the metagame: Durant and Escavalier. These Pokemon beat Drapion rather easily, and made other Pokemon that beat it such as Steelix and Poliwrath a bit more popular, making matters even worse for the scorpion. Of course Drapion still has a small niche in this metagame as a Toxic Spikes setter/physical sweeper i guess, i usually wouldn't use it in this metagame due to that combination of factors.
 
Hey cool thread Swamp, hope to see some good discussion here. Anyways, I'll talk about both Drapion and Crawdaunt; Drapion up first.

Once Drapion was an excellent Pokemon, and was one of the best things to use in RU. Back in late BW1, when Cofagrigus and TanKing were the most prominent forces in the tier, Taunt+SD Drapion was the best stallbreaker; it could stop the king Cofagrigus from setting up at all, while Cofagrigus couldn't do much of anything to Drapion while it could use Cofagrigus as setup fodder; the same applied to both Slowking and Tangrowth at the time. You could easily then sweep the team, and Drapion could fire strong Crunches; this was the best stallbreaker in the tier by far. Then as BW2 rolled along; Nidoqueen and Escavalier joined the RU club, and things began to look grim for Drapion; which indeed was the case. These two outclassed Drapion in the roles it could do; as a Poison-type stallbreaker, Nidoqueen is just so much better at stallbreaking by using its raw power with SF+LO to smash down walls like no other, whereas Escavalier does better at murdering Psychic-types like Mesprit and Uxie while it breaks TanKing better. Soon Cofagrigus left the tier, which really gave Drapion much less of a niche; that is, until Cresselia got a retest. Drapion was one of the most effective Cresselia counters; but once it left, Drapion fell out of favor once more, and things became even worse for the scorpion; not only do the BW2 drops continue to be prominent, people began realizing the power of the greatness we all know of as Absol. Durant was also freed, which makes Drapion a bigger liability. Absol also became the top Dark-type of the tier, and Drapion doesn't have that godly Attack and Sucker Punch that Absol brings to the table. Even though Nidoqueen has left the tier, Drapion still struggles to do well; because a power creep came in and Drapion cannot handle the pressure of RU; its 90 Attack is also a real letdown, so it can't do a significant amount of damage to...any kind of playstyle. Bulky Offense and Stall all have ways to handle Drapion well, such as Druddigon and Escavalier, while offense has fast mons that can wear Drapion down like Scolipede and Cinccino. There's still the specially defensive Toxic Spikes set; but Drapion suffers because it has no recovery and no real special bulk. Most of the time anyways, I would still prefer Scolipede, Roselia, or Qwilfish as my Toxic Spiker; because they offer better qualities such as great speed and coverage in Scolipede's case, and actual bulk and the ability to check threats from a certain side of the spectrum in Roselia and Qwilfish's case.

(yeah this is literally a story of Drapion's history lol)

As for Crawdaunt, it was a pretty solid Pokemon in the early BW2 days; it had no real counters with its power, and it could pulverize teams with its power; a lot of fairly powerful things cringed to it after a DD boost; Nidoqueen, Escavalier, Slowking, and Cofagrigus are just to name a few. It was great in the Cresselia meta too; it made a fantastic check, Subbing to block T-Wave, and boosted Crunches hurt. After Cress left though, Crawdaunt doesn't really shine; its poor Speed is a real big letdown; it's outsped by a lot of the faster Pokemon in the tier; namely Accelgor, Sceptile, Scolipede, Cinccino, Scarf Rotom-N, etc. Not only that, but Crawdaunt is too frail so it can't really grab many set up opportunities; its bad defensive typing does not help its case either. Crawdaunt isn't terrible, but it's a Pokemon that needs a lot of support to work well.
 
Drapion was always trash, being EQ weak without any good physical resists is terrible, it doesn't have recovery to be a clefable-esque special wall. And sd drapion has shit base power on its attacks (unlike say, bouffalant). Taunt and only decent speed aren't and were never enough to back up its lack of power. If drapion got gunk shot it would be a really solid pokemon.

Tspikes drapula was hindered by qwilfish being everywhere in early ru.
 
Drapion has always been weak because of his low powered attacks and middling offensive stats and it isn't the bulkiest pokemon ever.
Its pursuit trapping niche was taken over by Absol and i have no reasons to use it in RU at the moment
 
Alright, I got the next set of two now. This time we got a duo of Johto Water-types.

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Feraligatr was at one point one of the most dangerous physical attackers in RU, thanks to its bulk, Swords Dance, Dragon Dance, and a plethora of coverage moves, finding itself in the Top 10 without many complaints. However, the metagame has slowly shifted away from Gatr, with most people now preferring Kabutops, who packs a Rock STAB and Rapid Spin, over it. While Kabutops has always given Feraligatr competition, it has gone from being a fairly dangerous Pokemon to a rather average physical attacker, with two big offenders being it being weak (DD only) and a major case of 4MSS (along with the competition). Why do you think this happened?

Lanturn is considered to be one of the lesser Bulky Waters in RU nowadays despite its wide popularity beforehand. Early on, it was considered to be one of the greatest bulky waters in RU, giving even Slowking a run for its money, and it was used on a lot of teams, and it had (and still has) one of the best typings in the game. Even better was when Moltres got its major upgrade in Hurricane and it was really one of the only things that could even have a shot at dealing with it. Nowadays, Lanturn is considered to be rather weak, its lack of recovery is a serious hammer on its usage now, and a lot of types of Pokemon it should be walling can still do damage to it, and it has overall lost its appeal to many. Why do you think these flaws are a bigger issue now than before?
 
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I guess i'll chime in on Feraligatr a little bit.

To be honest, even now i don't really think i'd call Feraligatr an outright bad Pokemon, its still pretty capable of doing its sweeping job, and its definitely something that you need to take into account during teambuilding and something you need to think up a gameplan around when you see it in the team preview (especially to make sure you don't accidentally put it into torrent range, ouch). In my opinion the main real reason that Feraligatr's dropped a lot since is glory days is simply competition from the other physical Water-types in the tier :/. Most specifically Kabutops and the rare Samurott who are both used over Feraligatr somewhat frequently in higher level play. Kabutops is definitely the more common of the two and the one that (imo) ends up taking Feraligatr's teamslot the most, as it has one big, really important thing that Feraligatr lacks: access to a reliable Rapid Spin. As the best Rapid Spinner in the entire tier, Kabutops can fit on many teams that have Stealth Rock weak Pokemon such as Moltres, Scyther, and Entei, way better than Feraligatr can, and to make matters worse can still pull off a Swords Dance set somewhat effectively with Rapid Spin taking up a moveslot, although it misses Waterfall. This is possible because unlike Feraligatr Kabutops has a secondary STAB move to use in Stone Edge, which just happens to have excellent neutral coverage with Aqua Jet, only missing out on things such as Ferroseed. Samurott shares even more similarities with Feraligatr, and might even seem inferior at first, but Samurott has one important move that makes it better than Gatr on quite a few teams, Megahorn. Megahorn means Samurott can easily get past Tangrowth, a Pokemon that completely walls Feraligatr for the entire match, therefore Samurott has a much easier time against teams that rely on it or similar Pokemon to beat Physical Water-types, leaving gatr in the dust a lot of the time. Of course, Feraligatr could still try a DD set, but depending on the nature i find Feraligatr is either too weak or not fast enough after a boost, and even here it recieves competition from Crawdaunt as a Dragon Dancing Water-type.
 
Feraligatr: I've kinda got to agree with Molk on this one. While Gatr really hasn't gotten worse, his competition has become more relevant. Many teams appreciate the utility that SD Kabutops brings in Rapid Spin and Samurott's Megahorn allows it to blow past most Regenerator cores that don't use Alomomola, something Feraligatr simply can't do. While Gatr really hasn't changed much or gotten worse, its competition has just become more relevant with seemingly every tier shift in BW2.

Lanturn: Well, this was without a doubt, one of my favorite Pokemon in BW2. It dealt with Moltres so well (still does) and made Nidoqueen very predictable (it had to use Earth Power to OHKO, otherwise it got hit with Scald and risked a burn) which is something few Pokemon could do. However, the rise of Grass-types has really hurt Lanturn. Outside of Thunder Wave (which the likes of Tangrowth, Amoonguss, and Torterra don't give two shits about) Lanturn doesn't have a major way to deter them from switching in. The rise of Druddigon and Emboar hasn't helped matters any. Druddigon really doesn't care about paralysis and actually welcomes it to avert the possible burn from Scald. Meanwhile, Emboar is unique in that it's a Fire-type that can actually beat Lanturn one-on-one thanks to STAB Superpower. Moltres has also fallen out of favor slightly with most teams turning to Entei and Emboar as their Fire-types as they aren't nearly as reliant on Rapid Spin to function at their best. Perhaps the worst thing about using Lanturn as a bulky Water-type is that it lacks reliable recovery. Alomomola has Wish+Regenerator and Slowking has Regenerator as well. Poliwrath's ability to phaze with Circle Throw helps to mitigate its lack of reliable recovery while Qwilfish's ability to absorb Toxic Spikes and stop Entei and Emboar in a heart beat makes up for its lack of reliable recovery. Lanturn's typing, support movepool, and ability in Volt Absorb still combine to make it one of the better bulky Water-types in the tier, but its lack of reliable recovery and the rise of Grass-types, Druddigon, and Emboar has hurt it quite a bit.
 
So is this going to continue?
I liked it, gave me information about 'mons in RU(although I couldnt like write about them, I enjoyed learning what they used to do, etc)
 
I didn't continue it because it died... I'll come up with another week later today since someone seems interested in it still. (It will probably be just one Pokemon)
 
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