Houndoom

houdoom.jpg

Houndoom

Dark/Fire

Base Stats

HP:75
Atk:90
Def:50
SpA:110
SpD:80
Spe:95

Abilities

Flash Fire
Early Bird
Unnerve



From a theorymon standpoint, Houndoom looks as if it will be incredibly useful in the upcoming UU metagame. With great psychic types such as Mew, Azelf, Celebi, Espeon, and Victini, dark types in general will rise up to check them. What's more is Doom's resistance to grass and immunity to fire, allowing it to check some of the special chlorophyll sweepers and fire types that we will no doubt be seeing. Immunity to fire also makes it one of few things that won't just straight up die to Victini V-create and it can even trap it with pursuit or wreck it with sucker punch. Aside from it's ability to check sun pokes, it can abuse sun as well! Few things will be able to survive a sun-boosted LO fire blast off of 110 base Special Attack, especially if Doom has a nasty plot under it's belt.

Personally I think Houndoom will be at least as useful, if not moreso than it was in last generations UU and I'm curious as to what you guys think!
 
Houndoom is looking really good right about now! Flash Fire, Dark priority, Fire STAB, Nasty Plot... Might have to run TechniTop for this thing alone!
 
i never cared much for houndoom but now i'm considering using it in this meta, might be useful on a stall team as a stallbreaker-breaker as it destroys mew / sigilyph / sun / other stuff stall hates.

i find it is a tad too slow to do lots of damage but it might be useful.
 
walling victini's stabs is a pretty big perk, and the other bonus that it feeds off the sun could just make houndoom pretty important in this metagame. the problem is of course that it's a bit too frail to be switching in on much else in a tier filled with offensive monsters.
 
hate to rain on this parade but Victini can outspeed and OHKO with a LO boosted Brick Break, so this isn't a hard counter, nor a check, without scarf.

It still looks good in everything else though.
 
i want to point how baloon can be an interesting item in houndoom, specially for switching in...

and if people care, i've found that Houndoom have an interesting synergy with venomoth, which usually attracts pshychic and fire attacks like no tomorrow, and venomoth having x4 fighting resist makes extremly unwise to attack it with fightng.



using this immunities you can even baton pass some quiver dances and/or substitues to houndie, both things help him.... A LOT.

add to the mix a special attacker that can resist rock and you can even take unprepared OU teams.

also, with gengar and starmie gone maybe sucker punch won't be so mandatory if you can boost doom speed, and certainly it helps him a lot that the premiere mach punchers are out.
 
I've been running a ScarfDoom on my team lately.. It's actually the only one doing anything good for my team. >_>. But yeah, ScarfDoom has been a very good revenge killer so far.
 
hate to rain on this parade but Victini can outspeed and OHKO with a LO boosted Brick Break, so this isn't a hard counter, nor a check, without scarf.

It still looks good in everything else though.
hate to rain on your raining on the parade, but houndoom can ohko with sucker punch with rocks.
using this immunities you can even baton pass some quiver dances and/or substitues to houndie, both things help him.... A LOT.
honestly am i the only person that actually uses venomoth to sweep?
 
honestly am i the only person that actually uses venomoth to sweep?

nope, but seriously, the interesting combination of bugtype STAB and tinted lenses make venomoth actually one of the only viable "Monoattackers".

I run a Bug Buzz, Quiver Dance, Substitute, Baton Pass Venomoth and certainly does wonders.

i remember this time when someone tricked my venomoth a specs after i got my second quiver dance ... pain was delivered, that is fact :)
 
The ol' standard Nasty Plot/Sucker Punch/Dark Pulse/Flamethrower actually does pretty solidly.

There isn't a lot that can take +2 LO hits from Houndoom, and being able to switch in on nearly every Psychic type in the tier (and even some fire types!) makes it quite a threat. Of course, Hitmontop puts a dead stop to it, but that IS why you have six slots on a team.
 
252 Atk Victini U-turn vs Houndoom = 72%-85%
easily a OHKO with rocks, this is scarfed so banded is OHKO even without

so houndoom is nothing to victini thanks to team preview
 
Just having Houndoom around helps prevent Victini from spamming things like V-Generate all over the place. Of course Victini can kill it with stuff like U-Turn or Brick Break regardless, but if Houndoom safely gets in on Victini, Sucker Punch WILL make it have to reconsider staying in.
 
I can see a Physical (or Mixed at least) set becoming standard if Victini is around, with Max Speed Hasty to speed tie with Kyurem, and enough Attack EVs to OHKO Victini with Sucker Punch, the rest going into Special Attack to fire off powerful Overheats on a mixed set. If Victini and/or Kyurem isn't sticking around, I can see it being faced with competition for more powerful special or mixed sweepers that have an easier time with Chansey.
 
252 Atk Victini U-turn vs Houndoom = 72%-85%
easily a OHKO with rocks, this is scarfed so banded is OHKO even without

so houndoom is nothing to victini thanks to team preview

Where exactly did you get those calcs?
Even Adamant Choice Scarf Victini only does 46.74% - 54.98% to Hasty Houndoom.
 
Only that it falls to prediction, if victini uses v-create and houndoom doesn't swich in beacuse he overpredicted then you lost a poke, if you do bring him and your opponent uses u-turn, is dead houndoom (and if houndoom is uninvested in defenses, you know like EVERY houndoom, he is probably OHKO by u-turn/brick break) he can revenge with pursuit, but then you are better off with Moxie Honchcrow or the sand crocodile, if you catch in the swich in and survive, then still comes down to prediction in even Sucker Punch or Pursuit (and carrying both is just dumb considering the amount of coverage you loose)
 
(and carrying both is just dumb considering the amount of coverage you loose)

Not necessarily. The combo of Sucker Punch + Pursuit can put some opponents in a very difficult situation. I've seen people successfully utilize both on the same set. I've also seen Nasty Plot sets that don't use a coverage move (i.e. Hidden Power), instead opting for Fire Blast/Dark Pulse/Sucker Punch.
 
houndoom was excellent toward the end of dpp uu, and it seems like on an offensive team, its your best fire-type pokemon, even better than arcanine. houndoom allows you to just straight up kill almost every annoying psychic type, especially taunt + wow mew, which is like THE MOST annoying pokemon on the planet haha.
 
Choice Specs Houndoom is so beast these days, especially in the sun. Getting a Flash Fire boost from fire attacks makes it virtually impossible to switch into (Dark Pulse does stacks to Arcanine and friends). I don't know why so many people are using the crappy piece of shit called Charizard when Houndoom does pretty much everything better, lol.
 
it's always great to see one of your favourite Pokemon doing brilliantly. Personally I find Doom to frail too frail to NP up, so I prefer the all-out attacking set. For those of you who DO use Nasty Plot, how do you set him up? Mabye Wobbs...
 
it's always great to see one of your favourite Pokemon doing brilliantly. Personally I find Doom to frail too frail to NP up, so I prefer the all-out attacking set. For those of you who DO use Nasty Plot, how do you set him up? Mabye Wobbs...

Houndoom has two immunities he can use to set up on, which is plenty. If you give him Balloon, he has three. Wobbuffet can also help him set up, but he really doesn't need that.

Oh, Charizard has counters alright, it's name is Stealth Rock and Solar Power. Oh hi, I lose 62% of my health just for switching in o_0.
 
^That really isn't fair at all. In the same vain, Volcorona is hurt even worse than chairzard is. If you're using charizard, you should have a spinner somewhere on your team.

Nasty Plot houndoom is wonderful. Unfortunately, I got tired of every other team carrying hitmontop, weaville, or ambipom. Since I wasn't going to dedicate my team to removing those guys, I just changed the set.
 
Houndoom @ Life Orb
Max speed, Hasty, enough attack to hit 240ish, rest in special attack
-Pursuit
-Sucker Punch
-Dark Pulse
-Fire Blast

Works wonders on a team that has trouble with sun. Sure Victini can outpredict and hit with U-Turn, but if you have rocks up, your opponent can only do that 3-4 times before Tini is death fodder. Not to mention most, if not all, Victini I've seen are choiced, so he revenge kills after a V-Generate very well. Don't think this is overspecialization, though; Fire Blast does tons, Dark Pulse is great and the other two moves are very useful/surprisingly powerful. 317 speed nice too, tying with Kyurem and beating Nidoking, Heracross, etc.
 
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