Lower Tiers GSC UU - A comparative analysis - the main 4+1 Normal resists (and some honourable mentions)

A comparative analysis - the main Granbull checks (and some honourable mentions)

:gs/Haunter: :gs/magneton: :gs/Omastar::gs/shuckle::gs/Kabutops::gs/Graveler:

This topic is mainly aimed at discussion more than stating the facts. However,
I hope it can be a stepping stone when entering the builder for the uninitiated in gsc uu.​

Brief Intro:
So we've come a super long way with this metagame, far enough that a greater majority of its playerbase probably was not involved with it in its outset (myself included but players who pioneered the tier that come to mind are Choolio, Jorgen, Earthworm and later Diophantine). Ah yes, the good ol' days were way back in 2012 when Jorgen posted an list of all the different pokemon in the game on Mt.Silver with many mixed results in tiering, including Mr.Mime and Haunter below UU, Golem Jynx and Rhydon were BL pokemon, and we as a community basically took off from that list which you can still see today, and slowly edited, cut and appended the list as more and more stats came along.

Teambuilding has changed over the course of this tier's nearly decade long history of optimization. The meta, which is still quite untapped for what it's worth, is one in which we can more accurately describe each threat, partly thanks to those who have been tasked with literally shaping the playing-field (today there are actually quite a number of members of RoA and the UU community that have gotten involved and they are too many to mention).

So where does that bring us with building today?
I thought I'd talk about an especially fun activity when I am playing the tier and it's teambuilding. It has to do with normal resists.

Ghost, Rock and Steel types play a very key role in UU ever since Granbull became widely considered an S tier (and for good reason). They not only resist Normal type attacks from the likes of Granbull and Dodrio, the two main STAB Normal type attackers, but they offer some key utility and matchup advantages in the playing field and are the main reason why other physical attackers have to resort to coverage options such as Hidden Power Ground (take pinsir for instance, who cannot benefit from its own STAB with HP Bug without getting walled by Magneton).

The main 4
:gs/haunter: Let's start with the one that is perhaps the most popular team choice, Haunter
It is the fastest normal resist of the tier and often times the least predictable. It's not quite as malleable to the extent that Gengar is in OU but its different moves means that it can be full of different surprise combinations (eg. D Bond + Boom, Mean Look Trap, Thief sets). It functions in a very similar way to Mr.Mime with its offensive move pool and it comes with the benefit of Explosion to take something down with it. It's the only pokemon that offers a very simple solution to maintaining Spikes and that's by spin blocking Blastoise (Yes, you CAN use Destiny Bond to take out the opposing Rapid Spinner). Unfortunately, its frailty means that it can often be risky to come in on a pokemon like HP Ground Granbull, as it will get OHKO'd after a single boost. Depending on the preference for a specific Granbull set the opponent has and slight variations of the meta, the Haunter user can choose to use Explosion or Destiny Bond to secure safety against this deadly sweeper. Haunter unfortunately has a relatively poor matchup vs the likes of a healthy Dodrio, as it can cleanly get 2HKO'd by Drill Peck.
Common moves: Thunder, Thunderbolt, Psychic, Thief, Destiny Bond, Explosion, Hypnosis

:gs/Omastar: Next is perhaps the next most popular and in some remote cases more reliable, Omastar
Omastar is the first sleep talking Normal resist of the mix and it does exactly what you would expect it do to, wall things and hit really, really hard with Surf STAB off a strong base SpA. It doesn't have to use Sleep Talk but basically that makes it more reliable for taking repeated hits from Granbull and the like. Thief has occasionally been used because it normally has some very valuable special walls to deprive leftovers of, but you are essentially forfeiting the matchup vs non mono Granbull sets if you aren't careful. Its superior bulk means it has a very easy time walling and threatening Dodrio, it can actually survive a STAB eq from a Ground type and trade blows, and doesn't have to worry about HP Ground Granbull 2HKOing it after a single boost, but its Water typing does mean it can get haxed by Thunder from Granbull, a tech designed specifically for it. Omastar has in certain cases seen success on stall teams as well.
Scout your opponent wisely, folks!
Common moves: Surf, Ice Beam, Rest, Sleep Talk, Thief, Hidden Power Electric

:gs/Magneton: Now for one of my favorites, the magnetic triclops
Magneton is like a middle ground between Haunter and Omastar in terms of its speed tier and also the offensive capabilities it offers. It is the only Steel typing in the tier which means it can not only threaten Mono Granbull or any pokemon without Ground or Fighting coverage (hp bug syther, Dodrio, the rare Wigglytuff etc.) but it even can give many Psychic types a run for their money. Among the other options, it's the only one that can actually threaten to take out Curse Rest Sleep Talk Body Slam Hypno completely unboosted (see Kabutops below), thanks to its Thunder 3HKOing it. Magneton is nice in those scenarios where you will give up a bit of the defensive reliability in order to have a really strong wincondition, which is having the Ground type pokemon out of the way to spam the hell out of Thunder. But that is easier said than done, Grounds are super common and its Hidden Powers don't really leave much of a mark on Nidoqueen or Piloswine, which it constantly invites in. Mag can be very restrictive in the builder due to how its weaknesses hold it back (it too risks getting OHKO'd by an unboosted HP Ground Granbull). Personally, I believe that if you choose to go down this route in your builder, you should expect to make some neat double switches between it and your Water type(s).
Common moves: Thunder, Thunderbolt, Hidden Power Ice/Water, Rest, Sleep Talk, Thunder Wave, Substitute

:gs/Shuckle: And of course how could we forget Shuckle
If you have noticed a certain trend it's that all of the previously mentioned pokemon share a weakness to Ground typing. That's sort of the main reason why you won't see two of these pokemon on the same team, you are just stacking weaknesses to one of the most common attackers of the tier (an issue you can't just fix by adding a flying type). Shuckle is pretty much a one trick pony. It fits the role of a Normal resist while also being able to take Earthquakes rather reliably. I've seen it stall Piloswine out of its PP, and you know how much of a badass Piloswine is. The main gripe I have with this pokemon is that its very slow and can only be viably used on a Stall team. The other issue is that it lets the opponent have many opportunities to come in with Qwilfish and lay Spikes, so you will have to work extra hard if you want to defend your team from hazards.
Common moves: Toxic, Defense Curl, Flash, Rest, Sleep Talk

The Wild Card
:gs/Kabutops:

I totally forgot to mention my second favorite normal resist. I guess that shows how much of an impact it leaves on the tier.
What I like about Kabutops is it actually has a good offensive typing at least as far as its coverage and the few resistances to its movepool are concerned: with most Water types out of the way, a Kabutops that is used correctly can actually be very scary to face. Its attacking moves are kind of crappy though (poor fossil resurrections have a nice Rock typing but no good Rock STAB outside of Ancient Power) but that is at least somewhat made up for by access to Swords Dance.


Kabutops unfortunately is frail and also very vulnerable to many different attacks, making it even more susceptible to things Omastar already is. Like holly in her comment below, Kabutops is not meant to actually wall a pokemon like Curse Granbull. But that doesn't change the fact that it's relatively fast and can give it some issues. A Granbull user should think twice before setting up on Kabutops because even if it could be threatening to Kabutops at +1 or 2 with or without Hidden Power Ground, they will just expose themselves to the dangers of multiple Attack boosts (or even an all around +1 boost with Ancient Power). This is one of the gripes I had with Curse Talk Body Slam Hypno or Curse Chansey when people were trying it out.
Common moves: Swords Dance, Ancient Power, Hidden Power Ground, Hydro Pump, Surf, Substitute, Double Edge

The sad disappointments :graveler: :sudowoodo:
As honourable mentions we have the ancient relic Graveler and the hardly viable Sudowoodo.
Graveler looks like it could be good on paper due to its typing but it's susceptible to all kinds of status and attacks. The only reason I'm mentioning it at all was because way back people used to use this as a makeshift Rapid Spinner but I can't even tell if that was in UU or in NU. Of course there are some people that have dabbled with some offensive set in today's meta so I suggest you ask their opinions on it (Celebiii holly).
Basically it's a bad exploder and Sudowoodo kind of also is a not so great Self Destruct user (it doesn't even learn Explosion). Pure Rock typing would be nice but with all of the Water types and Ground types it doesn't really have much to offer. Moral of the story I advise against using these last two for the sole purpose of walling Granbull, because they have no reliable recovery and they will get overrun by curse sets.

(I did not mention Slowbro because the topic of discussion is Normal resists, not Pokemon that defensively check Mono Granbull, which is only one threat).

Conclusion
Having a Normal resist isn't always necessary to be successful in GSC Underused (I'm thinking of hyper offense builds), but it still is an important asset to teambuilding, especially for balance and stall teams. Having one too many Ground weaknesses can become a huge liability and it's best not to give pokemon like Nidoqueen or Piloswine too many opportunities to threaten your team.

Which of these Pokemon do you like to use? Let me know because I'm open to different kinds of suggestions and stuff.
 
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Jorgen

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Cool thread. I hadn't followed UU too closely, so was unaware that Haunter is apparently now the Normal resist du jour. To be honest, I always had trouble justifying any of them other than Magneton back in the day when Dodrio was considered a bigger issue and Granbull was still in the process of being "discovered". Even then, it was clear then that even Magnets was a huge liability. Alas, most Normal resists simply do not seem to be great against the broader pool of Pokes in UU.

That all out of the way, I feel compelled to clear the record a bit:

Ah yes, the good ol' days were way back in 2012 when Jorgen posted an list of all the different pokemon in the game on Mt.Silver with many mixed results in tiering, including Mr.Mime and Haunter below UU, Golem Jynx and Rhydon were BL pokemon, and we as a community basically took off from that list which you can still see today, and slowly edited, cut and appended the list as more and more stats came along.
The linked post was never binding, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was: iirc Borat spitballed a UU tier with Kingdra in a similar way on the PO forums not too long before that and that became the first official PO GSC UU tier. Instead, the original Mount Silver MimePika NU tier was determined by community vote organized by Crystal_. Now, the community was quite small and a post like the one you linked may have had an influence on things, but there was at least a process. As for the BL tier, things like Golem, Rhydon, and Jynx in BL were actually in line with Smogon's and PO's GSC tiers at the time, which were what we used for everything above NU.
 
Cool thread. I hadn't followed UU too closely, so was unaware that Haunter is apparently now the Normal resist du jour. To be honest, I always had trouble justifying any of them other than Magneton back in the day when Dodrio was considered a bigger issue and Granbull was still in the process of being "discovered". Even then, it was clear then that even Magnets was a huge liability. Alas, most Normal resists simply do not seem to be great against the broader pool of Pokes in UU.

That all out of the way, I feel compelled to clear the record a bit:



The linked post was never binding, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it was: iirc Borat spitballed a UU tier with Kingdra in a similar way on the PO forums not too long before that and that became the first official PO GSC UU tier. Instead, the original Mount Silver MimePika NU tier was determined by community vote organized by Crystal_. Now, the community was quite small and a post like the one you linked may have had an influence on things, but there was at least a process. As for the BL tier, things like Golem, Rhydon, and Jynx in BL were actually in line with Smogon's and PO's GSC tiers at the time, which were what we used for everything above NU.
I was a bit nostalgic but unfortunately I had little written resources to come by, especially after PO was discontinued.
It would be interesting to reconstruct how GSC UU was through some old replay logs.
 
I am of the opinion that one of these Normal resists is needed on absolutely every team, as otherwise CurseTalk Granbull is just too hard to reliably deal with (and you can also lose to the more passive Curse mons like Hypno and Wigglytuff ).

:haunter:Haunter is the best and most splashable normal resist, since its the fastest + is decent offensively + can spinblock. It was the most used mon in last UUSD for a reason. I think Destiny Bond + Explosion sets are generally the best since you can trade vs HP Ground Granbull semi reliably and Destiny Bond is just a good move on a fast and frail mon like Haunter.

:omastar:Omastar I would only really use on more defensive teams that do not want their Normal resist to be OHKOd by +1 HP Ground from Granbull, but also don’t want to use the completely passive Shuckle. While Omastar is the most secure vs non Thunder HP Ground Granbull, it also checks little beyond that, being pretty much limited to Dodrio and the passive mono Curse normals. It also lets in Qwilfish (which if you don’t run Toise alongside it sucks) and is also really not hard to wall even with its very high SpA. As for sets, Surf / HP Electric / RestTalk is the best by far, Ice Beam RestTalk lets in Qwilfish and Gyarados for free, and non RestTalk gets slept by Lovely Kiss bull and no longer checks it. A Qwilfish that tries to come in on Omastar will get hit hard by HP Electric, letting Blastoise spin easier later.

:magneton:Magneton is pretty odd. It notably resists Psychic and Thunder in addition to Normal unlike the other two mons, but that comes with a terrible 4X Ground weakness. It is also the worst against HP Ground Granbull. As a result I think its the least viable and splahable of the three, but its not all bad. With HP Water, it can outspeed and 3HKO Piloswine, which can make it a decent threat into a lot of Piloswine offense. It can also be an ok check to non Quagsire Water types (though its SpDef is fairly mediocre especially with HP Water so you gotta be careful). Overall if I was to build a Magneton team, I would o with Magnet + Gligar + a Water (prolly Blastoise, Gyarados, or Slowking), to help most against Nidoqueen and make the most out of Magnets unique defensive utilities.

I will go through the rest because they are all not very good. Shuckle is exclusively a stall mon that is extremely passive and free entry for all Water types (including Qwilfish), but it is the most secure Granbull answer possible so woohoo. Kabutops can pose a sweeping threat unlike the other Normal resists, but it is a pretty bad answer to even CurseRestTalk Granbull (and with HP Ground and Thunder getting more popular its even worse), and highly competes with both Scyther and Pinsir. It also is just pretty weak even at +2 due to Ancient Power’s low BP and very hard to fit as a result of its Ground and Thunder weaknesses in addition to its subpar Speed. Graveler does have Rapid Spin, but it has to Explode on Granbull to actually hurt it and is slow as dirt and has poor SpDef, in addition to being nuked by any Water attack. And last but not least, our boy Sudowoodo. Sudowoodo is actually really bad, but unlike Graveler, it is not nuked by any Water attack and has marginally better SpDef. I think it can be a decent 6th on HO, but thats about it.
 
I am of the opinion that one of these Normal resists is needed on absolutely every team, as otherwise CurseTalk Granbull is just too hard to reliably deal with (and you can also lose to the more passive Curse mons like Hypno and Wigglytuff ).

:haunter:Haunter is the best and most splashable normal resist, since its the fastest + is decent offensively + can spinblock. It was the most used mon in last UUSD for a reason. I think Destiny Bond + Explosion sets are generally the best since you can trade vs HP Ground Granbull semi reliably and Destiny Bond is just a good move on a fast and frail mon like Haunter.

:omastar:Omastar I would only really use on more defensive teams that do not want their Normal resist to be OHKOd by +1 HP Ground from Granbull, but also don’t want to use the completely passive Shuckle. While Omastar is the most secure vs non Thunder HP Ground Granbull, it also checks little beyond that, being pretty much limited to Dodrio and the passive mono Curse normals. It also lets in Qwilfish (which if you don’t run Toise alongside it sucks) and is also really not hard to wall even with its very high SpA. As for sets, Surf / HP Electric / RestTalk is the best by far, Ice Beam RestTalk lets in Qwilfish and Gyarados for free, and non RestTalk gets slept by Lovely Kiss bull and no longer checks it. A Qwilfish that tries to come in on Omastar will get hit hard by HP Electric, letting Blastoise spin easier later.

:magneton:Magneton is pretty odd. It notably resists Psychic and Thunder in addition to Normal unlike the other two mons, but that comes with a terrible 4X Ground weakness. It is also the worst against HP Ground Granbull. As a result I think its the least viable and splahable of the three, but its not all bad. With HP Water, it can outspeed and 3HKO Piloswine, which can make it a decent threat into a lot of Piloswine offense. It can also be an ok check to non Quagsire Water types (though its SpDef is fairly mediocre especially with HP Water so you gotta be careful). Overall if I was to build a Magneton team, I would o with Magnet + Gligar + a Water (prolly Blastoise, Gyarados, or Slowking), to help most against Nidoqueen and make the most out of Magnets unique defensive utilities.

I will go through the rest because they are all not very good. Shuckle is exclusively a stall mon that is extremely passive and free entry for all Water types (including Qwilfish), but it is the most secure Granbull answer possible so woohoo. Kabutops can pose a sweeping threat unlike the other Normal resists, but it is a pretty bad answer to even CurseRestTalk Granbull (and with HP Ground and Thunder getting more popular its even worse), and highly competes with both Scyther and Pinsir. It also is just pretty weak even at +2 due to Ancient Power’s low BP and very hard to fit as a result of its Ground and Thunder weaknesses in addition to its subpar Speed. Graveler does have Rapid Spin, but it has to Explode on Granbull to actually hurt it and is slow as dirt and has poor SpDef, in addition to being nuked by any Water attack. And last but not least, our boy Sudowoodo. Sudowoodo is actually really bad, but unlike Graveler, it is not nuked by any Water attack and has marginally better SpDef. I think it can be a decent 6th on HO, but thats about it.
Darn. I knew I was forgetting something.
Thanks for pointing out the Kabutops. Also you don't need a normal resist if your team is hyper offensive.
 

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