Is Toxic Spikes Worth It In Standard OU?

Farewell

I pose the question of whether Toxic Spike's 2, or even 1 turn of set-up, and overall use is worth the time and slot placement on a team.

The reason for this question is the number of Pokemon Immune to Toxic Spikes either through typing or ability, and/or whom actually benefit from it (like Breloom).

For sake of simplicity, I will only acknowledge OU and BL Pokemon in this discussion...

3/5 BL Pokemon are Immune to Toxic Spikes: Crobat, Staraptor, and Yanmega are all Immune to Toxic Spikes (especially Crobat, who will actually absorb them in Gravity). Additionally, Shaymin (Land Form), the 4th BL Pokemon, will be able to cure Toxic Spikes with its Natural Cure Ability upon switch, say, if you have a Rapid Spinner like Forretress whom can Spin them away. This leaves Abomasnow as the only BL Pokemon always exposed to Toxic Spikes, even after switching out.

30/51 OU Pokemon can be Immune to Toxic Spikes completely: (29 if you use Thick Fat Snorlax over Immunity, or again 30 if you include Breloom with Poison Heal), which leaves over half of OU unphased by these 2 turns of set-up, and combining BL with OU, we are left with 33/56 Pokemon Immune to Toxic Spikes

OU/BL Pokemon Immune by Type

Steel:
1. Skarmary
2. Bronzong
3. Scizor
4. Empoleon
5. Forretress
6. Heatran
7. Jirachi
8. Lucario
9. Magnezone
10. Metagross

Poison:
11. Tentacruel
12. Roserade
13. Gengar -
14. Crobat -
-Under Gravity, both Crobat and Gengar are able to absorb Toxic Spikes upon switching in.

Flying:
15. Aerodactyl
16. Zapdos
17. Gyarados
18. Salamence
19. Dragonite
20. Gliscor
21. Ninjask
22. Togekiss
23. Staraptor
24. Yanmega
Crobat
Skarmary
-Under Gravity, both Crobat and Skarmary, are still Immune to Toxic Spikes upon switching in, Crobat is also able to absorb Toxic Spikes.

Abilities that provide an Immunity to Toxic Spikes completely, or Immunity to the damage:
*= Immunity to Poison regardless.

Levitate [Ability]:
*Gengar*
*Bronzong*

25. Azelf
26. Cresselia
27. Flygon
28. Rotom- W, S, H, F, C
29. Latias

Immunity [Ability]:
30. Snorlax

Poison Heal [Ability]:
31. Breloom

Abilities that can gain benefits from Toxic Spikes/Status:

Guts [Ability]
32. Machamp
33. Heracross


Abilities on Pokemon Whom can rid themselves of Toxic Status:
*= Immunity to Poison regardless.

Natural Cure [Ability]:
*Roserade*

34. Celebi
35. Shaymin (Land Form)
36. Starmie
37. Blissey


Alot of these 37 Pokemon are quite common in OU: Scizor is still the number 1 used Pokemon as of September; in fact of the top 30 most used Pokemon in September, 9 are Steel, 4 others were Flying, ~6 were Levitators (2 are different forms of Rotom), and 1 was Breloom. This adds up to (9 + 4 = 13 + 6 = 19 + 1 = 20) 20 of the top 30 OU Pokemon Immune to Toxic Spikes from as recent as last month. With this is mind, is Toxic Spikes worth using, when the most popular of OU Pokemon are naturally Immune to the negative effects of Toxic Spikes?


Moves that can gain benefits from Toxic Spikes/Status:
1. Facade

Move(s) that remove Toxic Spikes, or Toxic Status:

1. Rapid Spin
2. Defog- On Teammate in 2v2, or on foe's side of field in 1v1.

3. Rest
4. Psycho Shift
5. Refresh
6. Aromatherapy
7. Heal Bell
8. Lunar Dance
9. Heal Wish

Move(s) that prevent Toxic Spikes from affecting user / teammate:

8. Safeguard
9. Substitute + Baton Pass
10. Magnet Rise + Baton Pass

11. Taunt
12. U-turn/ Baton Pass + Switch to Grounded Poison type (Roserade, Tentacruel)
13. Switching to a Grounded Poison type (Roserade, Tentacruel)

Common Battling Items that can prevent/remove Toxic Spikes' status effect:
1. Lum Berry
2. Flame Orb (after activation)



As you can tell, there are plenty of ways around either removing Toxic Spikes, or even preventing it from affecting your team (playing with Rapid Spin, or Steel types, for example). Overall, Toxic Spikes seems less guaranteed than regular Spikes, since Spikes at least hits everything mentioned above barring Flying and Levitating Pokemon, and provides a more reasonable benefit by doing flat damage immediately. Additionally, Toxic Spikes can be hard to fit on your team with the limited number of users of it, as well as the limits of other status moves on teammates: Do Thunderwave or W-o-w seem as appealing on multiple members of your team if you already abuse Toxic Spikes?

With these factors in mind, is it worth putting Toxic Spikes on your team? Wouldn't another set up move like Spikes prove more useful?
 
I think you forgot some part of your post "as you can tell there are"

But Toxic Spikes CAN be worth it on OU depending on your strategy. In old DP, they were a valuable check against Garchomp.

Even now however, they are a valuable tool for specially offensive teams. Toxic Spikes help deal with Blissey, so Pokemon like Life Orb Starmie, Sub Agility Petaya Empoleon, Sub Charge Rotom, and Sub CM Jirachi have a lot easier time sweeping.

Hitting Swampert and Hippowdon is also helpful for Rotom and Jirachi.
 
Pokemon that are susceptible to Toxic Spikes in OU:

Blissey
Celebi
Dusknoir
Electivire
Heracross
Hippowdon
Infernape
Jolteon
Kingdra
Machamp
Mamoswine
Porygon-Z
Snorlax
Starmie
Suicune
Swampert
Tyranitar
Vaporeon
Weavile

Notable Pokemon in bold.

Yeah, I know that's not a lot, but what it is is notable.

Hippowdon / Blissey / Celebi / Dusknoir / Swampert / Vaporeon

These Pokemon are potent defensive threats, and anything you can do to make them last not quite as long. This is especially notable for Empoleon, as Blissey, Celebi, and Vaporeon are three of Empoleon's biggest enemies.

Infernape / Machamp / Tyranitar

These might not be as immediately important, but if you're running stall, this is HUGE. When you've got one of these monstrous bastards beating down your door, the residual and constant damage from Toxic Spikes is priceless. Often, only having one layer down against these threats is more important than having more than one, as having a flat 12% damage racking up against the foe every turn is HUGE against opponents like Infernape, which take massive damage per turn between Sandstorm, Life Orb, and Toxic, as well as SR and Spikes. Machamp is also big, as SubChamp is vicious, and being able to beat it with Toxic Spike support can be priceless. Same with stuff like CB Tyranitar, which finds itself losing 44-50% of its HP after switching into Spikes / SR / Toxic just *once*.

Toxic Spikes is an amazing tool for both stall and offense to quell the potency of offensive and defensive threats, and it should never be underestimated. It might be completely useless against some teams, but against the things that are susceptible to it, it's second to none.
 
I agree with Aldaron that Toxic Spikes can be worthwhile. They are valuable for certain kinds of strategies. Special sweepers are much more effective when Blissey can only stay in a few turns before realizing it will lose all its health. Toxic Spikes also offer help teams cope with rain. Kingdra and the rest of them are not as threatening when they only get a few turns to knock out as many Pokemon as possible because they are taking damage from poison and LO every turn.

Spikes offer better support for sweeping in general in a high powered offensive team since you care more about how much health the opponent has upon switching in rather than how many turns it will take for them to be KOd. Not to mention that if your opponent has to double switch, they might take a significant amount of damage (whereas with Toxic Spikes there are no drawbacks to switching).
 
It is a truism that special sweepers love Toxic Spikes. However, not all special sweepers love them equally. Things like a Sub/Calm Mind Jirachi set up over many turns as the hazards work their magic on Blissey. Whereas something like an Offensive Calm Mind Raikou doesn't really care, as he is designed to sweep within one or two turns of setup. All in all, if you are relying on a quick-sweeping endgame special sweeper such as LO Latias, LO Raikou, or LO Suicune, its a good idea to pack your team with stuff like Explosion Heatran and Life Orb Gengar rather than investing in Toxic Spikes.

Also, Toxic Spikes don't originate from the best of sources...

Roserade is pretty useless outside the lead role, as its subpar typing and defenses make it difficult to repeatedly come in, let alone put up layers.

Forretress, particularly the new standard (Spikes/Toxic Spikes/Rapid Spin/Payback) gives a setup opportunity to every threatening sweeper in the game, such as Salamence, Gyarados, Lucario, Tyranitar, and Heatran. Therefore, only stall teams can afford to employ it, and even then the stall player must be Careful (no pun intended) about getting it on the field, performing a utility role, and leaving.

Tentacruel really is losing it in the current metagame. With the fall of SpecsLuke, Classic Mixmence, Yanmega, Scarftran (though its still pretty popular), Celebi, and other threats it used to set up on, Tentacruel is finding it harder and harder to get in and perform his utility roles. He's still useful, just harder to use.

All in all, Toxic Spikes are a gambit. Its inadvisable to use the strategy if your team is unwilling to invest in it.
 
Natural Cure doesn't mean anything at all. Switch in and you get poisoned anyways, Natural Cure might as well be any other ability for all that it matters when you get poisoned every single time on the switch in.
 
Recovery also doesent really matter as youre gonna lose a good bit of the recovered health at the end of the turn.

Personally i find that your team needs things to abuse the poisoned blissey/vaporeon like agility empoleon and crocune otherwise its a very useless move, especially when you could have set up rocks in just one of the two turns.
 
Kevin Garrett said:
I agree with Aldaron that Toxic Spikes can be worthwhile. They are valuable for certain kinds of strategies. Special sweepers are much more effective when Blissey can only stay in a few turns before realizing it will lose all its health. Toxic Spikes also offer help teams cope with rain. Kingdra and the rest of them are not as threatening when they only get a few turns to knock out as many Pokemon as possible because they are taking damage from poison and LO every turn.

Spikes offer better support for sweeping in general in a high powered offensive team since you care more about how much health the opponent has upon switching in rather than how many turns it will take for them to be KOd. Not to mention that if your opponent has to double switch, they might take a significant amount of damage (whereas with Toxic Spikes there are no drawbacks to switching).
Click to expand...


I find Toxic Spikes best on semi-stall and stall, along with heavy special offense or just special offense. Empoleon gets aided so much by Toxic Spikes, that it's almost a neccesity to beat stuff like Vaporeon and Celebi. Jirachi is aided by stuff like Swampert getting burdened by Poison status as well. Toxic Spikes is one of the BEST moves in the game in my opion. I use it on quite frankly most of my teams, and it's definitely worth it, when factoring in the stuff that's weak to it, is the stuff you want to be hitting. The only thing about special offense that stops it and is immune to Toxic Spikes is Latias. Latias is the single biggest threat to it, so you have to find another way around it.
 
unless you are absorbing or spinning them away, natural cure doesn't help against t-spikes, since the pokemon are just re-poisened upon entry
 
sprinkles said:
I find Toxic Spikes best on semi-stall and stall, along with heavy special offense or just special offense. Empoleon gets aided so much by Toxic Spikes, that it's almost a neccesity to beat stuff like Vaporeon and Celebi. Jirachi is aided by stuff like Swampert getting burdened by Poison status as well. Toxic Spikes is one of the BEST moves in the game in my opion. I use it on quite frankly most of my teams, and it's definitely worth it, when factoring in the stuff that's weak to it, is the stuff you want to be hitting. The only thing about special offense that stops it and is immune to Toxic Spikes is Latias. Latias is the single biggest threat to it, so you have to find another way around it.
Click to expand...

I guess a good way to handle Latias is to give your ending sweeper enough force to break through it: for example, an Offensive Calm Mind Raikou easily 2HKOes a Latias with Shadow Ball after a Calm Mind. Aside from that, its the old fashioned way that works: trapping, kabooming, whatever. Regardless, Latias is very difficult to lure and kill, so it must be overcome with force rather than deceit.

Similarly, players are never aggressive about using Celebi: it is produced to meet a threat and then put back in its Pokeball, lest it become setup for something like Forry or Pursuit/U-turn bait for Scizor. Therefore, it also becomes difficult to lure in and kill off. That is why I enjoy Toxic Spikes: it means I can defeat certain threats that I would otherwise need to dedicate valuable team slots towards overcoming.
 
imperfectluck said:
Natural Cure doesn't mean anything at all. Switch in and you get poisoned anyways, Natural Cure might as well be any other ability for all that it matters when you get poisoned every single time on the switch in.
Click to expand...

Natural Cure actually often works against the user. Blissey with normal poison on it is a minor nuisance, but Toxic is a major problem. Where other walls can just switch in on the first layer of Toxic Spikes and avoid the entire issue, Blissey and Celebi are guaranteed to be hit with Toxic the second time they come in.
 
Kevin Garrett said:
I agree with Aldaron that Toxic Spikes can be worthwhile. They are valuable for certain kinds of strategies. Special sweepers are much more effective when Blissey can only stay in a few turns before realizing it will lose all its health. Toxic Spikes also offer help teams cope with rain. Kingdra and the rest of them are not as threatening when they only get a few turns to knock out as many Pokemon as possible because they are taking damage from poison and LO every turn.

Spikes offer better support for sweeping in general in a high powered offensive team since you care more about how much health the opponent has upon switching in rather than how many turns it will take for them to be KOd. Not to mention that if your opponent has to double switch, they might take a significant amount of damage (whereas with Toxic Spikes there are no drawbacks to switching).
Click to expand...
I agree, your team needs to have specific strategies for Toxic spikes to work. I sometimes use Curselax, and it really helps me set up when my opponent has to keep switching because of poison. Umbreon also greatly benefits from TS, especially if it's of the Mean Look/Baton Pass variety.

Also @ Kevin Garrett. I LOVE your avatar, one of the best on Smogon. <3
 
In my opinion, it just isn't worth it. Teams based on special attackers such as AgilitySubPetya Empoleon and SubCM Jirachi generally have a hard time dealing with Blissey, so I can see why they'd want to use Toxic Spikes. However, you aren't always going to run into a team that uses Blissey. Looking at the top 10 Pokemon, 8/10 are immune to Toxic Spikes (and Tyranitar doesn't really mind, it hates burn more). Plus, when Empoleon is sitting at <25% health, Blissey's Seismic Toss is going to kill it regardless of whether Blissey is poisoned or not.

I use a team based on CM Jirachi and in my experience, it's better to carry a strong physical attacker that can switch into Blissey and set up on her. I also have 2 Explosion users that can take Blissey out (with careful prediction of course). In my opinion, this is a better way for special based teams to get rid of Blissey, because Explosion or strong physical attackers are also useful against other teams. Toxic Spikes, on the other hand, doesn't affect a huge chunk of the OU metagame. The standard hyper offense team of Azelf/Lucario/Gyarados/Salamence/Scizor/filler doesn't give a shit about Toxic Spikes, and Azelf leads will usually beat Roserade leads.

Another problem is that there is a limited number of viable Toxic Spikers. Roserade is one of the most reliable users of Toxic Spikes, but so many leads are designed to beat it that it will usually only manage 1 layer of Toxic Spikes. Forretress is just begging for Taunt-Gyarados to set up on it, and Tentacruel has a nasty ground weakness.
 
hhjj, just let everyone keep thinking Toxic Spikes is worth the time, it only makes it better for you who is smarter than that. :naughty:

I have never used Toxic Spikes when I tried to play stall, it was Sandstorm and a few Pokemon with Toxic as a move, which actually hits flying+levitators (minus steel obviously).

However Gravity+Roar/Whirlwind would bring everyone down and status the entire opponents team except steels+poison. Now that Gravity is more common in HG/SS stall teams could bring a new threat.

!
 
Actually...raikou loves tspikes as much as any special sweeper. The ability to cripple hippowdon and swampert is almost vital for raikou's sweeping power, as well as ttar, blissey, celebi, and others. 1 layer of toxic spikes is enough because it takes blissey down to 75% upon switching in. Wish protect blisseys suddenly get beaten by a cbscizor spamming pursuit (it outdoes 25), and so you don't need exploders and can run a more offensive team (outside of azelf there aren't many good and fast exploders). Celebi is suddenly in KO range after switching in twice. It is literally the difference in whether or not raikou can sweep at all.

The idea is that if you are running all pokes who aren't going to be affected by tspikes (all flying and steels), raikou's gonna destroy you. He outspeeds and ohko's lucario, gyara, sala, scizor, and ties with azelf, not to mention beats latias and sets up on rotom. Subpetaya empoleon is the same for all but gyara and rotom if it's not timid and latias. The same is the case for offensive cune and hell, even nasty plot ape.

Keep in mind, if toxic spikes hits only 1 poke on the opponent's team, but that poke is preventing your sweep (blissey, vaporeon, swampert), then it's worth that one (easy with roserade) turn of setup.
 
Well, it really depends on your team. Obviously, stall and defensive teams greatly appreciate the ability to wear down pokemon like Tyranitar and Infernape, while also giving light offense teams a chance to bring down Blissey and Celebi. On most teams, however, it comes down to Stealth Rock vs. Spikes vs. Toxic Spikes. In general, the other two entry hazards are more beneficial, and most teams don't have room to fit in a Toxic Spiker(let alone a Spiker for most teams).

Toxic Spikes are particularly useful for teams that have sweepers whom are hindered by grounded non-poison/steel pokemon, Blissey, Celebi, Dusknoir, Hippowdon, Machamp, Snorlax, Suicune, Swampert, Tyranitar, and Vaporeon. Examples of sweepers that highly benefit from Toxic Spikes are Lucario, Salamence, Tyranitar, and Latias. However, it is hard to justify many of these, namely Lucario and Salamence, when Stealth Rock hurts more of their common switchins harder.

Overall, I think you should plan your entry hazards accordingly, or if you can fit him in, use a Forretress that abuses the ability to set up all three entry hazards, allowing you to fit in two of the three.
 
I find toxic spikes often not worth it, because majority of the teams on ladder often carry pokemon that immune to toxic spikes, such as Latias, Lucario, or those who don't care about toxic spikes, such as Tyranitar, who cares about burn much more or Infernape. According to SDS, all of the bolded pokemon that actually care about toxic spikes are walls. Machamp carries rest, Infernape dies quickly anyways due to life orb recoil, Tyranitar rather be poisoned than burned anyways. The general stealth rock and 1 layer of spikes is actually very much more useful, than 2 layers of toxic spikes for Offense teams.
 
Unlike Stealth Rocks and (normal) Spikes, Toxic Spikes does not seek to cause damage to everything that switches in. Instead, it targets specific pokemon to help the sweeps / stalls of key pokemon, such as helping CroCune outstall Blissey or Celebi.

While Natural Cure pokemon can avoid this, the most notable Natural Cure pokemon, Blissey, still doesn't entirely escape. Blissey just sits there and walls, meaning that it is taking Toxic damage all along. If it switches out and back in to reset the Toxic counter, the setup sweeper has already boosted, and can begin to attack - its only a matter of time before both attacks and poison get to Blissey.

So, to answer your questions...it is only worth it when used in conjunction with certain pokemon.
 
akarias said:
Actually...raikou loves tspikes as much as any special sweeper...
Click to expand...

Sub/Calm Mind Raikou loves Toxic Spikes. Offensive Calm Mind, probably the best set for Raikou since Latias has entered OU, doesn't enjoy it as much, since its supposed to sweep in one or two turns of setup, and thus is better served by things like Explosion/Trick/Pursuit to break down walls.

And without Roserade, Toxic Spikes are probably going to become way more powerful in UU, although that's not important here.
 
As stated multiple times, Toxic Spikes is important for a lot of bulky set up pokemon - crocune (Vaporeon, Blissey), subcharge rotom (Blissey, Tyrantiar), cursetar (Swampert, Hippowdon), subcm jirachi (Swampert, Blissey), and agility + subPetaya empoleon (vaporeon, blissey, celebi), and more. Basically, if a pokemons check / counter is succeptible to toxic spikes, why not? Plus, alot of these pokemon are very capable of breaking stall with tspikes up. ie: rotom attracts blissey very quickly once the opponent realizes that you are not trick/choice. Sub lets you set up charge beam and you can ev rotom to make his subs survive any of blisseys attacks (except the RARE shadow ball), outspeed adamant lucario (just incase, for non-stall teams) and still 2hko Calm Blissey at +6 with Hp Fighting / Thunderbolt. Stall really doesn't have an answer to sub / charge beam / shadow ball / thunderbolt sets outside of blissey, who is going to be losing lots of health each turn from toxic spikes. meanwhile, rotom is immune to her seismic toss - the bane of other sub + set up special sweepers - and serves as a spin blocker for your tspikes.

mtr12 said:
And without Roserade, Toxic Spikes are probably going to become way more powerful in UU, although that's not important here.
Click to expand...

Venusaur is becoming pretty popular.
 
Toxic Spikes, in my opinion, is the least useful of the 3 entry hazards, for several reasons:

1: Deals no immediate damage. Spikes and SR can KO instantly, or allow for a KO before other other pokemon gets to move. Toxic Spikes has to wait a turn.

2: Can be removed without Rapid Spin. Big hitter.

3: Less viable set-up pokemon: Tentacruel is not used that often in OU, and Roserade only works as a lead, and, even then, has to rely on Sleep Powder hitting to do much, and anything that outspeeds it can ensure that 1 layer max is laid down.

4: Immunities: Also why Spikes is not used as much. However, with over half of OU imune to T-Spikes, I'd rather spend 1 turn setting up rocks, with something like Swampert, and be sure to deal instant damage to everything, than 3 turns setting up with Roserade, who's not exactly #1 pokemon (Grass is meh as a type. Not to mention somewhat lachluster ability to do much else in OU), and have half on OU LOL at them.

However, Toxic Spikes has advantages:

1: Cuts down Sweeper Time: Garchomp was the best thing here before it's ban, but it may return. As it stands, the only things that fall in here are Infernape, Tyranitar, and Rest-Less Snorlax/Suicune.

2: Deals more damage over time: Over the course of time, a pokemon will usually take more damage from Toxic Spikes (1 Layer, IMO, because of instant 12.5%, instead of 6.25%, and switching out ect), than from any other hazard. The exception being SR weak/Neutral pokemon who switch every single turn.
 
Toxic Spikes is one of the best ways to beat Bulky Waters (Suicune, Swampert, Vaporeon, etc) and also Blissey. Slowing down sweeps by Infernape and the like is always welcome and when used in conjecture with Stealth Rock, Flying foes won't enjoy switching around much.

Basically, they are a great way to kill specific threats. If your team relies on, say, a Gyarados or Empoleon or Heatran sweep, they are very, very useful.
 
I can tell you right now, as someone who has been playing a lot of Suspect lately, it is one of the easiest ways to deal with Garchomp, completely ruining Sub variants, and completely ruining it supported by Suicune or Skarmory.
 
Toxic Spikes are totally worth it IMO. All it takes is one turn (easy to find with Forretress, who can come in on choiced physical attacks EZ, or Roserade, who creates free turns with Sleep Powder), and then some big threats are much easier to handle.

For example, many teams will find Swampert a pain to take out- as a lead he can pretty easily plant his butt there and roar away, scouting a sizable chunk of your team. However, Swampert proves to be setup fodder for both Forretress and Roserade. If Swampert shows his butt again, he loses 12% HP a turn.
Jolteon, who can often get in and out while only taking SR damage, loses much more HP a turn.
Speaking of electrics, SubCM Raikou is a rare, but dangerous threat. I've seen quite a few SubCM variants in Suspect because of the speed to outrun Garchomp. Can you imagine how much less effective the SubCM version is when you are losing, not gaining HP every turn?
Speaking of suspect, there is one suspect *going OU* who hates Toxic Spikes. I am of course refering to...Manaphy (no not Garchomp...for OU). The non-RD versions lose significant bulkiness, while the RD versions waste a turn curing themselves with RD as you come in with your Latias/electric type and kill it.
Another bulky water: Suicune, who can be an absolute pain to take out before it gets a few CMs and rests, suddenly seems a lot more managable when it is losing HP at an alarming rate each turn.
Toxic Spikes (2 layers) lets Stuff like Suicune and Manaphy CM up in Vaporeon's face while it slowly dies to toxic spikes.
Special attackers who can stall out Blissey but also get stalled out can use toxic spikes to their huge advantage, calm minding as Blissey loses more and more per turn.
If you are playing against stall, Toxic Spikes help immensely to break down Infernape, Kingdra and TTar, dangerous wallbreakers who would otherwise rip through stall teams with much more ease.
Toxic also helps a lot against the more random stuff like Spiritomb, Mamoswine, Hippowdon, etc.

You can guess what I think about the topic...
 
Natural Cure negates the need for a cleric when used with Rapid Spin, so its rather situational, but still handy if you run Blissey/Celebi as they really don't like Toxic.

Toxic Spikes I honestly don't find to threatening, sure Swampert and TTar don't like it, but I usually find the 2-4 turns they spend setting it up very abusable. One of the things I keep in mind in team building is to make it so I don't really have to care about SR, TSpikes, SS and it really simplifies things.

Regular Spikes on the other hand are a major pain in the ass as they pretty much destroy any grounded Pokemon that can't recover HP reliably. Shuffling with just SR down is fairly harmless, yet with a couple of layers of Spikes down as well it can be utterly devastating. When they are used in conjunction with SR very few things are taking less than 12% upon entry. Realistically you aren't going to get all three types of entry hazards down, so if I were to pick two I wouldn't be picking TSpikes unless I had a specific strategy in mind.

In short there are better things you can be doing in stall, like knocking off items, but if you want to special sweep or execute some other strategy that greatly benefits from Toxic Spikes, then by all means go ahead.
 
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