Kangaskhanite Tiering Discussion [+Demographics Poll Added to OP]

[KaminaSan]

I'm telling you right now. I said it in my previous post.

Kanga is going to be banned.
I am bummed, because I like it a lot, both fighting it, and when I use it on my team.

However, I know 100% that after that, the next poke coming in, is going to be Mega Lucario, with its Adaptability. Then all of you people who were against Mega Kang, are gonna be against Mega Lucario.

In time, Mega Lucario is going to be banned.

After that, we are going to chill for a while, and everyone is going to scramble to find the next Mega Kang/Lucario, and it will probably end up being Mega- Mawile or mega pinsir.

This is gonna be a never ending cycle of eliminating the Megas, until you are left with nothing to show for the new mechanics of Gen VI.

Might as well just import all of the new pokemon into Gen5 OU, ban Megas, and call it a day.

The game has Mega-Evolved, and Smogon needs to also! Complex bans were avoided? Well, it's become a more complex game. GROW. No need to send cool pokemon back to the land of CI(Completely Ignored) just because of one move that is the source of all of these +2 calculations and fear mongering. I have never faced a Kanga at +0 and said to myself, OH well, game over!

Pokemon that were once completely ignored got a new lease on life with Mega Stones. If one move means a pokemon can never be used again, ban the move dammit, don't ban the pokemon that is otherwise viable in OU. You have banned certain abilities on Pokemon, why can't you ban certain moves? It's not hard to program it in the simulator, and it's not like we are gonna suddenly have 100 pokemon we have to ban moves on.

Think forward!

 

[LordRandomness]

LordRandomness It's a combination of not having counters and destroying everything in sight.

Well yeah, this is sort of what I mean. I guess I didn't clarify that anything that doesn't specifically check it just loses with no chance of achieving ANYthing, but a lot of sweepers do that anyway (although I guess most of them don't do it to the major walls).

Also, no-one has mentioned Red Card yet, switching a Red Card mon into PuP forces Kanga out once. Probably not worthy of discussion, but PuP does have downsides too (particularly if the switch-in is, say, Acrobatics Talonflame or some other Acrobatics Pokemon, Gliscor maybe?).

Is it me, or does almost every anti-ban post start with:


Not that I want to discriminate against our newer members, but the vast majority of these posts (including the one I quoted) make me want to sigh because of the lack of substance in their argument-- it's clear many don't have a sense of what's good or bad for a metagame yet.

I would urge new members to consider whether their post is likely to add to discussion based on what has already been said-- especially if they have no experience following/shadowing in previous suspect or tiering discussions.

Er, I would like to apologize if this applies to me. I've been trying to avoid expressing an opinion for this reason and because I didn't have all the data, although my opinion that people are undervaluing a lot of Kanga checks still stands. Not that that makes it good for OU or anything, it would need a LOT more checks to avoid hampering teambuilding, but people arguing "OMG ONLY COFAGRIGUS AND KELDEO HAVE ANY CHANCE OF CHECKING IT" or similar appear to be just throwing around angry rhetoric in an attempt to get people to agree without thinking too much about it. So in summary, I am agreeing with the quickban, but only after running through many possible options and coming up with my own opinion.

Take into account you're using normal Kangashkan for your calcs, not MegaKanga.

I bumped up the Attack stat by 1.5 to simulate Parental Bond. Please advise if that doesn't actually produce the correct damage calcs.

metal burst does horrible damage, you're better off using counter on Megaggron, and if Megaggron can't even 2 hit KO Khan reliably without counter then it's not doing anything but being set up bait and then there's EQ

Oh, I wasn't aware that it even got Counter! That's what I get for only looking at the gen 6 movesets I guess, it gets it from FRLG. Well, since it reliably 2HKOs with Metal Burst I'd venture to say Counter would be even more reliable. I'm pretty sure Mega Aggron can take a +2 EQ (it's a mere 4HKO with PuP and the damage is less than tripled), and besides, a Kanga running PuP/Return/EQ/Sucker Punch is hard countered by any Ghost with Levitate that can use a Status move to get rid of or cripple it (Destiny Bond Gengar in fact cannot be killed without also bringing Kanga down if it runs EQ).

 

[JSND]

Wut? No, unless Guts or Flare Boost is present, your attack will still be halved, even though the move would be 140 BP, it still wouldn't be enough, WoW isn't that occasional, and running a 70 BP move over 102 BP move only for a situational WoW isn't that good, shouldn't be used IMO.

I'm pretty sure it is changed in 6th gen. Facade now ignores Burn attack decrease

Anyway, I'm a weird kind of player who feel like the game has already goes far enough that checks should be considered the norm over having counter.

My answer for Kanga has always been shaky, its either using "1 pokemon use support move for other pokemon to follow up" or try to use Whirlwind with Skarmory, and I don't have much experience with it, but Terrakion is perfect for checking Mega Kanga since not many things can switch in against it, it have nice bulk to take resisted Sucker Punch, and it can OHKO Mega Kanga while also resisting Sucker Punch

There is this weird thing about Mega Kangaskhan that seems to force the game to use 100 Speed and above as a norm, since it laugh at anything below base 100, and those same 100+ speed should not be weak to Dark, and I don't think it makes for a healthy metagame at all

 

[Srn]

Is it just me or should Cofagrigus not even be brought up as a counter to Mega Kangaskhan? It's relevance in XY OU is pretty much non-existant aside from possibly beating Mega Kangaskhan 1 vs 1, but even then you'd much rather run Sableye (which is still not that great of a pokemon if you ask me). A weakened Mega Kangaskhan can be revenge killed by CB Dragonite or CB Talonflame, as well as Breloom, Conkeldurr and Mega Lucario. Rocky Helmet Skarmory and Ferrothorn generally perform very well against it. Bulky Rocky Helmet Garchomp can take it down as well, but has to sacrifice all its health in the process. In general, Scarfed Fighting types with enough power can revenge kill Mega Kangaskhan reliably. Scarfed Hydreigon is guaranteed to outspeed and resists Sucker Punch, so it can get of a Focus Blast and kill a weakened Mega Kangaskhan. Scarf Landorus-T with Superpower achieves similar results. Aside from these, you're gonna have to dig pretty deep, only to find unviable pokemon like Cofagrigus and Dusclops.

The only problem is that you're losing a core member (ferrothorn,skarmory) of your team just to kill mega kang. Cofagrigus has a good chance to get a rest up before it dies, but honestly, you're better off just soft-checking the thing with a terrakion. Atleast you won't be swept as long as you keep it around.

To be honest I don't think sableye is even a counter, just a decent check. Terrakion is a counter IMO.

Terrakion is not a counter.

Definition of counter (imo anyway): A pokemon that can come in on any attack the threat has, outspeed and cripple/KO it or take another hit if it's slower and then be able to cripple/KO it 100% of the time.
Terrakion cannot come in on an eq, thus not a counter.

No. I have no idea how you got pursuit out of the equation, but something like Breloom, who is Pursuit resistant, has a perfectly good counter in Celebi. But anyways, all that I'm saying is that all that Kangaskhan has to use Crunch on the switch to Cofagrigus, which, in my opinion, isn't that hard of a predict (and besides, predicting is a horrible argument for both sides). After the one Parental Bond Crunch and SR, Kangaskhan has a good chance to KO with the next Crunch, even if the Cofagrigus hasn't even taken any prior damage. Or, it can take a safer option and switch to something that deals with Cofagrigus, and simply wait for the next time to catch Cofagrigus on the switch. And what are Cofagrigus's only two forms of recovery? Rest and Pain Split, both of which are unreliable, leaving Cofagrigus incapacitated or rely on other Pokemon to restore health, respectfully.

Which is why I truthfully state that Cofagrigus is not a good counter to Kangaskhan.

I can just switch out breloom until your celebi is weakened enough so that mach punch kills. I cannot switch out my threat if the counter has pursuit, which kills me.
Any counter of a threat can be weakened enough so that the said threat can kill it, even with a resisted hit if need be. Your counter kills your threat if it can trap it (preventing switching) and can take any hit if the threat decides to stay in.
That's where pursuit came from, guess I should've mentioned trapping abilities in general too. Sorry for the confusion.

What do you mean ''By that logic''? He just added up the numbers too show Cofag, like any other mega Kang counter, is extremely shaky if it's name is not Sableye. Honestly, if you check my calcs in the previous post, you'll see Cofag is, in general, and awful wall, being freakin One hit koed by +2 Aerilate Pinsir's Return.

+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
6.3%...
And besides, mega pinsir is simply ridiculous. You can calc some other bulky mons and see how well they take mega pinsir's return in comparison.

+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 295-348 (83.8 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 318-375 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 140-165 (41.9 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 306-360 (86.4 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

The amount of damage cofagrigus takes from mega pinsir is similiar to how much other bulky threats take. The above pokemon are NOT awful walls.
I also did not factor in SR or any prior damage

 

[MagicMissingno]

I bumped up the Attack stat by 1.5 to simulate Parental Bond. Please advise if that doesn't actually produce the correct damage calcs.

You need to put Mega Kang with Parental bond in the calculator to get accurate damage.

 

[Uvood]

I'm telling you right now. I said it in my previous post.

Kanga is going to be banned.
I am bummed, because I like it a lot, both fighting it, and when I use it on my team.

However, I know 100% that after that, the next poke coming in, is going to be Mega Lucario, with its Adaptability. Then all of you people who were against Mega Kang, are gonna be against Mega Lucario.

In time, Mega Lucario is going to be banned.

After that, we are going to chill for a while, and everyone is going to scramble to find the next Mega Kang/Lucario, and it will probably end up being Mega- Mawile or mega pinsir.

This is gonna be a never ending cycle of eliminating the Megas, until you are left with nothing to show for the new mechanics of Gen VI.

Might as well just import all of the new pokemon into Gen5 OU, ban Megas, and call it a day.

The game has Mega-Evolved, and Smogon needs to also! Complex bans were avoided? Well, it's become a more complex game. GROW. No need to send cool pokemon back to the land of CI(Completely Ignored) just because of one move that is the source of all of these +2 calculations and fear mongering. I have never faced a Kanga at +0 and said to myself, OH well, game over!

Pokemon that were once completely ignored got a new lease on life with Mega Stones. If one move means a pokemon can never be used again, ban the move dammit, don't ban the pokemon that is otherwise viable in OU. You have banned certain abilities on Pokemon, why can't you ban certain moves? It's not hard to program it in the simulator, and it's not like we are gonna suddenly have 100 pokemon we have to ban moves on.

Think forward!

Banning moves are extremely silly XD. And only the two megas you mention, Luke and Pinsir, could possibly be uber worthy, Mega-Mawile is way too slow, and no other mega kills the entire metagame so easily. It's not gonna create a slippery slope, banning moves however, is gonna make it so we could, from then on, ban Dark void nasty plot combination on Darkrai, so we can use Darkrai in OU.

 

[probationsmack]

And I'd argue its way too early to talk about what's 'standard for ou' at this point. Were at a point where people are playing around with a lot of new broken toys. I thought Aegislash was ridiculous from the outset because it was everywhere and it required a little more refined footsie to properly curtail. This is the first generation where I looked at mandibuzz seriously as a result. I found the blaziken ban especially egregious because I've never seen so many people up in arms about something with severe 4 moveslot syndrome I've been laughing at heartily with a rocky helmet slowbro thats not particularly useless in this environment of talonflames and uturn spam and lions and tigers and bears oh my. These are not particularly one trick pony mons you guys are making them out to be.

 

[RufflesPro]

I'm pretty sure it is changed in 6th gen. Facade now ignores Burn attack decrease

Ouch, just got owned xP, but you still don't want a 70 BP move over 102 BP move for a situational WoW.

 

[LordRandomness]

You need to put Mega Kang with Parental bond in the calculator to get accurate damage.

You appear to be correct, the calcs I got would have been off by one or two damage points (probably due to some weird rounding technicalities or a quirk of the damage formula). It's a pretty small difference though.

 

[Uvood]

The only problem is that you're losing a core member (ferrothorn,skarmory) of your team just to kill mega kang. Cofagrigus has a good chance to get a rest up before it dies, but honestly, you're better off just soft-checking the thing with a terrakion. Atleast you won't be swept as long as you keep it around.

Terrakion is not a counter.

Definition of counter (imo anyway): A pokemon that can come in on any attack the threat has, outspeed and cripple/KO it or take another hit if it's slower and then be able to cripple/KO it 100% of the time.
Terrakion cannot come in on an eq, thus not a counter.



I can just switch out breloom until your celebi is weakened enough so that mach punch kills. I cannot switch out my threat if the counter has pursuit, which kills me.
Any counter of a threat can be weakened enough so that the said threat can kill it, even with a resisted hit if need be. Your counter kills your threat if it can trap it (preventing switching) and can take any hit if the threat decides to stay in.
That's where pursuit came from, guess I should've mentioned trapping abilities in general too. Sorry for the confusion.



+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
6.3%...
And besides, mega pinsir is simply ridiculous. You can calc some other bulky mons and see how well they take mega pinsir's return in comparison.

+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 295-348 (83.8 - 98.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 318-375 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 140-165 (41.9 - 49.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 306-360 (86.4 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

The amount of damage cofagrigus takes from mega pinsir is similiar to how much other bulky threats take. The above pokemon are NOT awful walls.

All of those live a hit at +2, at which point they can paralyze or retaliate(except Slowbro). The fact that Cofag can't even live is kinda disapoitning, and it's been shown that one parental Crunch and normal Crunch, plus spikes and stealth rock, is a two hit ko on Cofag. So, the apparently good counter to Kanga does not work, and can't really counter any other relevant physical threat. Anyway, I was more getting at the whole pursuit thing, which you explained in your comment, so w/e.

 

[Don Honchkrorleone]

To all people saying that the "insert irrelevant Pokemon" in your team wasn't killed by Megaskhan and therefore is a counter, I have something to ask you. When you battle, before the match ends, if Megaskhan had problems with your "insert gimmick crap" through the battle, please ask how many evs your opponnent is using in Kanga's Attack and which is her set and nature. Then use this link here and calc how much a +2 252 Adamant against the "insert gimmick crap" set you're using. Because it's easy to go to Bulbapedia, press random Page, and mention the first Pokemon you see and assume it's a counter or dedicated check for A+B.

This is gonna be a never ending cycle of eliminating the Megas, until you are left with nothing to show for the new mechanics of Gen VI.

Don't worry dude. Megabomasnow will always have a special place on the dephts of UU (:

 

[JSND]

Ouch, just got owned xP, but you still don't want a 70 BP move over 102 BP move for a situational WoW.

I did not imply that Facade should be used, at all. It was way too specific.

To be honest I did not have much experience with Kang, but a set that I run was something like this

Return
Steroid Punch
Fire Blast
Earthquake

Not optimized, but I run it on a Volt-Turn-Shot based team, and it feels rather cheap. Weaken their wall a little bit, and suddenly it dominates the opponent team without any effort

 

[Srn]

All of those live a hit at +2, at which point they can paralyze or retaliate(except Slowbro). The fact that Cofag can't even live is kinda disapoitning, and it's been shown that one parental Crunch and normal Crunch, plus spikes and stealth rock, is a two hit ko on Cofag. So, the apparently good counter to Kanga does not work, and can't really counter any other relevant physical threat. Anyway, I was more getting at the whole pursuit thing, which you explained in your comment, so w/e.

Cofag is taking the +2 mega pinsir return just as well as a fully defensive gliscor...How is that bad?

 

[EternalZ]

Finally, Full Defense Aggron can also handle Mega Kanga well with minimum prediction. It takes an absolute pittance from Return, especially pre-mega:

+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aggron: 33-39 (18.6 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO
+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 54-64 (30.5 - 36.1%) -- 51% chance to 3HKO

And after Mega Evolving soaks Power-up Punch with equal ease:

+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Aggron: 43-52 (24.2 - 29.3%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO

Unfortunately Kangaskhan is JUST heavy enough to avoid the 100 damage from Heavy Slam, but you can easily phaze it out with Roar or simply go for the kill:

4 Atk Aggron Brick Break vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Kangaskhan: 78-92 (43 - 50.8%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO

While you can't get much better than 2HKO with SR, Even +4 PuP is not a threat, especially when Aggron came in resisting SR:

+4 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 64-76 (36.1 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 270-318 (78.4 - 92.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Your argument is invalid.

 

[Shiruba]

@ using blaziken as a justification

lmao dude do you even baton pass
it could just give away its boosts to another strong pokemon. aegislash, {mega}mawile, {any}lucario, azumarill...
nah bro you just never fought a good blaziken or no blaziken you ever fought happened to be a bping one.

furthermore, mandibuzz actually has a lot of cool utility with defog, the buffed dark type, reliable recovery, a buffed ability, the new physical threats, etc.

also lol @ something going to ubers = completely ignored. nice of you to remember that ubers is also a tier, and that you can still use the damn thing in random wi-fi matchups.
furthmore that's ridiculous. next we'll be saying that we can use ho-oh as long as it doesn't have eq, brave bird or sacred fire, that you can use mewtwo as long as it's level 50, etc. doing that then just makes a complex spiral into complete and utter stupidity.

 

[MagicMissingno]

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 270-318 (78.4 - 92.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Your argument is invalid.

Just to clarify...

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Mega Aggron: 202-238 (58.7 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Still not a good choice.

 

[AOPSUser]

Just to clarify...

+2 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Mega Aggron: 202-238 (58.7 - 69.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Still not a good choice.

Mega Aggron still cannot switch into Mega Kangaskhan as its Superpower does not OHKO with that EV spread, and 2 PuPs->EQ will rip Mega Aggron apart.

Also Mega Kangaskhan is probably just going to switch out, it's not really worth it to kill Mega Aggron at the cost of 70% of its health. Then it can come back later, after Mega Aggron is gone or weakened.

 

[Ajwf]

Just as a final note before I go back to ghosting on the slippery slope fallacy of banning megas.

The belief that it will be a sort of "next one up, next one banned" mentality is a bit obnoxious at best. Does banning mega kangaskhan give mega houndoom a secret base 20 SpA boost? Does it give mega bannette a decent offensive move pool? Last time I checked, banning mega gengar didn't give mega manectric a better looking design... and Lord knows mega manetric needs a better design more than any pokemon needs a stat boost.

These pokemon aren't getting any stronger by the bans. More appealing? Perhaps, but that could be said for the whole tier. Just because there is a mega stone slot taken up doesn't mean that they'll suddenly become more viable. I bet I couldn't force some people here to run mega alakazam, regardless of kan being OU or not. What needs to be banned because of it shaking the tier too badly will be banned.

Hell, to be honest, you could ban them all and I would hardly bat an eye. I just want a fair metagame where I can play any style on the spectrum from stall to hyper offense and, with good play, succeed. That currently does not exist and thus we must persist to correct the metagame.

Finally, Full Defense Aggron can also handle Mega Kanga well with minimum prediction. It takes an absolute pittance from Return, especially pre-mega:

+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Aggron: 33-39 (18.6 - 22%) -- possible 5HKO
+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 54-64 (30.5 - 36.1%) -- 51% chance to 3HKO

And after Mega Evolving soaks Power-up Punch with equal ease:

+2 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Aggron: 43-52 (24.2 - 29.3%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO

Unfortunately Kangaskhan is JUST heavy enough to avoid the 100 damage from Heavy Slam, but you can easily phaze it out with Roar or simply go for the kill:

4 Atk Aggron Brick Break vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Kangaskhan: 78-92 (43 - 50.8%) -- 2% chance to 2HKO

While you can't get much better than 2HKO with SR, Even +4 PuP is not a threat, especially when Aggron came in resisting SR:

+4 252+ Atk Kangaskhan Power-Up Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Aggron: 64-76 (36.1 - 42.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Calcs are missing parental bond. I'm assuming you are using the outdated calc as well, given the name "kangaskhan" over mega kan.

 

[Uvood]

Cofag is taking the +2 mega pinsir return just as well as a fully defensive gliscor...How is that bad?

+2 252+ Atk Aerilate Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 300-354 (93.7 - 110.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Without Stealth rock, the one hit ko is a 65% chance. With Stealth rock, it's guaranteed. Not very good when wall can't even live one hit guaranteed from a very dangerous poke. The others you mentioned, except Slowbro, all live barely and can at the very least Cripple Pinsir. Cofag can't, 5% prior damage guarantees he dies. That's what I'm saying.

Edit: and gliscor takes it slightly better, and has a much higher chance of living.

 

[Not a missingno]

I have no idea why this thing wasn't banned before gengar(ite).Seriously,the fact that you need to run things that maul physical contact attackers JUST for this is sickening.Let shit stay shit,and dont fuck with kangaroos.Ban to ubers.NOW.

 

[Tomiix]

I am not very experienced in the specifics of Pokemon and Damage Calculation. So I cannot do much in the way of that. But ever since my beloved Gengar was refused Gengarite and is forced to contend with Ubers, I want to put my say in when it comes to my equally loved Mommy Kanga.

I would like to point out a few things that will hopefully defend Momma right now.

You probably already know some of the info I will recount, but I encourage you to read it anyway just so I feel like it was worth my time and if I made a mistake you can correct me. ^.^

Typing

~~~~~~

1.) Mega Kanga is stuck on Normal Typing.

The only plus is that its immune to ghost and takes less damage from Stealth Rocks. Besides that it has a half resistance to Steel and Rock. Rock only having as far as I know one viable move because of its higher crit chance and Steel only having Bullet Punch which is just a weak priority. (Which is why Fariy's are a bit of a problem right now.) Besides that Normal takes a 2x weakness to the common offensive type Fighting. With the variety of powerful normal effectiveness moves that could OHKO Kanga, you would have to play her very cautiously.

Meaning that it's only stab moves are normal moves.
Normal Moves Kanga can use. Besides that Normal is a pretty bad type to have.

Comet Punch: Not a huge threat when it comes to competitive because of how luck based it is. If for some reason you come across this. If Kanga somehow hits 5 times in a row it will do 135, and the baby would only hit once for 13.5 pwr (not sure if pokemon rounds down or up).
1 Hit 27
2 Hit 54
3 Hit 81
4 Hit 108

It would need to hit at least 3-4 times to be useful and the odds are hardly with you.

Fake Out: An okay opening move that flinches the opponent. Good for predicting a switch and messing up a set up while at the same time damaging your opponent. This can screw Sash Sweepers and a variety of other sets. The problem lies in its damage.

60 Pwr with STAB accounted for. Plus Kanga wouldn't even be able to use the benefit of the scary Power Up Punch to aid it because this only gains its Flinch Potential the first turn Kanga is out. Making it one of the less powerful moves in her arsenal. This move is strong, but Kanga could use this before and was always low-tier. The second hit from the baby will add half of the dmg. Meaning that this priority move is more of a threat, but the fact that it only works once unless your opponent switches and the main concern appears to be 'power up punch for the win lol' means that he wont be doing that much.

Double Hit: 52.5 with stab. 90 accuracy .Guaranteed to hit twice (when it hits) with half damage from one of the hits coming from the baby.

Yeah this move is good. Yeah its another sash breaker. Which is something I would like to point out.

This Pokemon is a GREAT sash breaker, and having a good sash counter that isn't rocks feels fresh, which makes me want to defend it more.

But yeah... this move is a bit hard to defend. Besides the fact that normal offensively doesn't do any bonus damage to anything and does nothing to the increasing ghost threat.

Rage: 30 pwr with stab on first attack, with the baby doing 15pwr

In a competitive scene where switching out and team balance is key,rage will not fare very well anywhere, especially here.


Mega Punch: 120 Pwr 85 accuracy.

Sweet Damage, will hurt if it hits, but deemed unreliable a lot. (because it is)

Dizzy Punch 105 with stab.

This is a pretty dangerous move. 40% chance to confuse with good damage. This is one of those moves that make your really consider how strong Kangaskhan is... until you remember that confusion goes away when you switch out. The damage is nice, but when it confuses... it wont have that much impact.

Chip Away 105 with stab

Ignores defensive boosting abilities. Would be good if anyone used defense boosting moves in ou. You may as well use Dizzy Punch.

Endure: ???pwr (Not sure if it accounts for Stab)
An... interesting move where if you can predict your opponent was not predicting you to switch would be a really good move. Also, typical physical sweep couldnt use this.

Hyper Beam: 225 with stab second hit would do half of that. 90% acc

HOLY SHIT DAMAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would try to bullshit you and say that the 90% acc justifies this, but it doesn't.

The only downside is that Sp. Atk Kanga holds no weight. But still, I had to point this out.
(This makes me question why Normal Sp.Atk sweepers aren't popular. With how often you have to switch the lost move wouldn't matter on most occasions.)

Return 153 with stab with max friendship
EVERYBODY GET ON BOARD THE U.S.S. FRIENDSHIP, CAUSE IF YOU AREN'T ON IT, YOU WILL GET WRECKED.

Honestly, this is one of the big threats, and what makes Kanga competitive in OU. This is what makes her a good physical sweeper that can compete with the rest, and allows us to appreciate the return of the momma! Yet, this can be countered by a ghost type or someone physically defensive.

Other Threats I have seen that don't have stab.

Power Up Punch 40 pwr

It's a new move that is probably only really viable on Kangaskhan because of the fact that she gain the boost from this move twice. Giving her a swords dance that deals damage. Which is pretty nifty and unique.

Unfortunately, she doesn't gain stab.

A thing to note however is that Kanga gains the boost from each punch individually, giving the baby a boost in damage, meaning it will deal 75% of the damage of the first punch (i think).

Bite 60 power 30% chance to flinch

With the double hit this is a 60% chance to flinch.

This is really good and makes Kanga an even better Utility Sweeper.

Earthquake 100pwr

Okay, I get it. Strong non-stab type coverage that does tons of damage... this is sometimes a problem unless your opponent is flying. Also pretty good to catch your opponent off guard when they think they got you countered.

That's all the moves I could think of or find that seemed note-worthy

~~~~~~

Stats


Since Mega Evolution has max priority then I wont even bother mentioning base Kangaskhan's stats.

HP 105 Pretty average. Nice for a bulky physical sweeper, which is how I typically build Kanga because of its lack of resistances.
Attack 125 A nice upgrade but compared to most sweepers it's just average.
Defense 100 Pretty nice bonus. Kanga is a pretty balance stat bar line.
Sp.Atk 60 Another reason why Sp. Atk Kanga would never be a problem.
Sp.Def 100 Again, a nice flat bonus.
Spd 100 Not going to out speed anyone that stats into it. Might as well build bulky.

Building Kanga as a tank won't really get you anywhere. Like I mentioned Kanga has a great utility movepool made stronger by the second hit. Yet the highest chance disable like move you have is bite, and that is still 60%. Having mediocre and balanced defenses are both good and bad. You won't be a strong Def or Sp Def but you could be a balanced hp meat sack. Yet after taking note you would be wasting the bonus of the attack the strongest role that there is is the attack aspect. Which is really strong.

Yet I don't think its strong enough to warrant basically a ban in ubers, where she wouldn't last a second.

~~~~~~

In short.

If you keep Kanga in OU you have an above average sweeper that will do fine if its counter isn't out. Yet if anyone has a fair team balance they can easily catch Kanga in a sweep, or block her. Since her kit would be heavily based on Fighting and Normal, she is screwed when a ghost enters the picture. Just because Mega-Gengar is out doesn't ruin the competitiveness of Gengar, the new threat Aegislash, and other ghost threats like Mega-Bannete.

If you put Kanga in ubers because of its fast power boosting, you put this Pokemon in a position where it probably wouldn't last against a lot of the threats floating around in ubers. Kanga does not have the power to last there and just because of a reaction to one cheep combo that doesn't warrant starving Kanga in ubers.

Kanga has already gone a long way up the tier list, yet lets stop this train at OU.

I have to the best of my ability tried to defend Kanga. I'm not the most intelligent Pokemon player but I am giving my opinions with the knowledge I know to try and defend Kanga. Cause Gengar was put in Ubers and I felt bad not having a say in it. Hopefully this isn't too painful to read and my hour or so work on this post wont be in vain.

 

[Arcticblast]

I've been thinking about how to properly answer all of the "if we ban Mega Kangaskhan we'll ban all of the Megas and ruin the sixth generation!" posts. I think I've finally got it.

We all know at this point that much of Game Freak's balancing is done with double battles in mind - it is, after all, their VGC format. As someone who primarily plays Smogon's Doubles format (main difference being 6v6 instead of 4v4 and having some cool stuff unbanned), I've seen a fair few of these Mega Evolutions in play in a more natural environment and think that they've been handled marvelously well. They embrace the original idea behind Mega Evolution - powerful Pokemon that sacrifice their item slot for an incredibly powerful position on the team only they can hold. They're quite simply amazing - pretty much every single one of them (lol Alakazam). BUT they're all balanced reasonably well. With a few exceptions, they are all primarily single-target Pokemon that are fairly easy to cripple and remove from the match with some smart play - even Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Gengar fall victims to this. The ones that escape single-target syndrome (Gardevoir, Abomasnow, ZardY) are potent threats as well, but are limited by their inability to avoid things like Prankster Thunder Wave, vulnerability to Wide Guard, and being threatened by some of the top Pokemon in the 2013 metagame like Cresselia, Thundurus-I, and Tyranitar.

In singles, the dynamic changes. There are no longer four Pokemon on the field in an elaborate dance for victory. Now it's a one on one slugfest. Even the worst Megas in Doubles suddenly only have to worry about the Pokemon in front of them, and not its partner and their partner. And when there's only one thing in front of them, some of these things absolutely wreak havoc. Kangaskhan now no longer has to rely on a partner to take out that Landorus-T which will come in effortlessly otherwise and weaken it. Lucario no longer has to worry about literally anything that uses Earthquake. There's so much less for them to deal with, and already powerful Pokemon become even stronger (again, lol Alakazam). This is what makes them so powerful in OU - the environment they were balanced for simply does not exist, and in this environment where many of the forms of passive countering that they fear don't exist, they are able to wreak havoc.

 

[Srn]

+2 252+ Atk Aerilate Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 300-354 (93.7 - 110.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

Without Stealth rock, the one hit ko is a 65% chance. With Stealth rock, it's guaranteed. Not very good when wall can't even live one hit guaranteed from a very dangerous poke. The others you mentioned, except Slowbro, all live barely and can at the very least Cripple Pinsir. Cofag can't, 5% prior damage guarantees he dies. That's what I'm saying.

The previous calc was
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
Your calc is incorrect because mega pinsir always go jolly, they almost never go adamant.

Now, let's take a look at everything I mentioned but with rocks, shall we?
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
for reference
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 306-360 (86.4 - 101.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 318-375 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 140-165 (41.9 - 49.4%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 295-348 (83.8 - 98.8%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

With just 5% prior, all these guys lose as well.
Not to mention these walls usually don't go full defensive, but cofagrigus used for countering mega kang always does.

 

[Shiruba]

snip

one - nobody cares how well she'll do in ubers. ubers is a banlist first, tier second. it just happens to be functional as a tier.
two - kangaskhan is really quite nice in ubers. she has higher attack than arceus, while still having powerful priority, a cb that doesn't lock you in as an ability, can break subs, has a swords dance that does decent damage, and isn't susceptible to taunt, and has a nice movepool, though arceus is faster and bulkier. depends what you want/need.

 

[Uvood]

The previous calc was
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
Your calc is incorrect because mega pinsir always go jolly, they almost never go adamant.

Now, let's take a look at everything I mentioned but with rocks, shall we?
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cofagrigus: 274-324 (85.6 - 101.2%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
for reference
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 334-394 (84.7 - 100%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Gliscor: 306-360 (86.4 - 101.6%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 318-375 (75.7 - 89.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 140-165 (41.9 - 49.4%) -- 85.9% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 295-348 (83.8 - 98.8%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

With just 5% prior, all these guys lose as well.
Not to mention these walls usually don't go full defensive, but cofagrigus used for countering mega kang always does.

Adamant is used, maybe not as commonly as Jolly, but w/e, I get the point. Let's not clog up the thread with more stuff that has nothing to do with Mega Kanga.