I pretty much agree with the bans, as much as I love using scorch, it needed to go. The fish needed to go as well.
If the council would have banned everything that is against Salazzle, they would have banned Indeedee too. Even thinking that Darmanitan would fall to RU shows that you don't know what you are talking about. Darm is such a huge threat, even if Drought gets banned in UU so nobody considers to think about such a unrealistic scenario. More so there is the possibility that Drought get's banned in UU so you don't have to think about sun becomming broken since the bans will apply to the lower tiers as well.Skorch needed to go. But seriously. Why does the council like salazzle so much? All these bans and rises have benefitted Salazzle. Next thing you know, they're gonna ban lax, the only thing that can check Salazzle and its partner in crime, Ninetails. Every team is gonna be sun spam, Darmanitan will fall to RU for sun spam, and RU will become unplayable.
Haha Steam Power Coalossal go zoomI went on a long road trip across the country for past few weeks, and I made many new friends. Along the way, I preached the gospels of whatever walls of text it was that Nat posted. Even at the end of my journeys, I still could not comprehend her incredible wisdom and sheer prowess with the English language, scripting itself into a deep yet insightful analysis of the current state of RU.
that being said I will now attempt to throw my three cents into the pool and stir up some discussion surrounding the metagame right now because nobody else except based Nat seems to be doing it. as a counterpart to nat's veil-focused discussion, I will instead be focusing on another slightly less controversial but still very much disliked aspect of rarelyused: our resident fire-types.
It really shouldn't be anything close to a secret that 95% of RU teams nowadays come with one of these three Pokemon attached to them. The addition of Timbs removed the single biggest issue of Fire-types for four straight generations, that being their inability to set foot onto the battlefield without watching where they put their feet. Every team needs dedicated Fire checks, and while many manage this with the blanket nature of Snorlax, a lot of teams just can't fit the fat bastard. Rhydon, Mudsdale, Gastrodon, Jellicent all can work to certain extents, while Mudsdale isn't exactly Fire-weak, it can OHKO all three. The way teams are structured right now lends itself to a certain vulnerability- Fire-types have always been excellent offensively, but have traditionally been held back because the Almighty Rocks of Death ate them for breakfast. Teams that rely on Steelix as their rocker can't fend off a single one of these Fire-types, and those that rely on Rhydon fall victim to Godtales. All three of these carry Toxic besides sun-team variants of Charizard, further nullifying any switchin not named Snorlax. Let's take a look at some RUPL usage stats provided by my good friend Expulso to see their rise to power.
Week 1: | 19 | Charizard | 2 | 6.25% | 50.00% |
Week 2: | 12 | Charizard | 5 | 15.62% | 80.00% |
Week 3: | 13 | Charizard | 6 | 18.75% | 66.67% |
Week 4: | 5 | Charizard | 9 | 28.12% | 66.67% |
Cumulative: | 13 | Charizard | 14 | 14.58% | 71.43% |
Week 1: | 7 | Salazzle | 10 | 31.25% | 50.00% |
Week 2: | 6 | Salazzle | 10 | 31.25% | 40.00% |
Week 3: | 3 | Salazzle | 13 | 40.62% | 38.46% |
Week 4: | 10 | Salazzle | 7 | 21.88% | 28.57% |
Cumulative: | 5 | Salazzle | 33 | 34.38% | 39.39% | this thing is broken how did more than half of you lose with it
Week 1: | 13 | Ninetales | 3 | 9.38% | 33.33% |
Week 2: | 16 | Ninetales | 3 | 9.38% | 33.33% |
Week 3: | 29 | Ninetales | 1 | 3.12% | 0.00% |
Week 4: MIA
Cumulative: | 22 | Ninetales | 7 | 7.29% | 28.57% |
We can look at this data and extract a number of lessons from it. First and foremost, Salazzle has been utterly dominant, as it's the fifth most used Pokemon overall. Charizard was a bit of a late bloomer, but as its capabilities as a Ground-immune offensive defogger came to be realized, it came into its own, now boasting high usage across the board. Last but not least, you all suck ass at using Ninetales. This thing is broken holy shit. However, if we look at the entire context of the meta, especially at the cumulative usage stats, it becomes apparent as to why these three are so good. The top 10 in RUPL usage, excluding Mantine and Silvally, are the following Pokemon: Indeedee, Steelix, Vileplume, Salazzle, Passimian, Rhydon, Mudsdale, Snorlax, Rotom, and Rillaboom. Only three of these ten are able to stand up to the tier's Fire-types in any way. and all but Snorlax gets eviscerated by Ninetales. Mudsdale and Rhydon are merely a well-placed Toxic away from soon being rendered unable to check them. Mudsdale really can't comfortably take Fire Blasts as is, leaving the amount of highly used Pokemon that check Fire-types being incredibly narrow.
In terms of how they operate in battle, you can roughly place Salazzle and Charizard into one category, and Ninetales into another. Salazzle and Charizard are checked by the more "traditional" Fire-type answers, those being the Rock-types and Water-types, namely Jellicent, Gastrodon, Dongossal, and of course, Snorlax. However, checking Ninetales is entirely different due to its Drought as well as Solarbeam access. Many teams don't really pack Ninetales "switchins", per se, instead electing to maintain offensive pressure with a handful of Pokemon that can take a single hit and then return fire with a powerful hit. Obviously Snorlax is a hard counter, but you can't exactly fit that on every single team without some concessions. Therefore, checking Ninetales usually involves prediction games, I.E. going into your Gastrodon to bait out a Solarbeam for your Passimian to comfortably switch in on, then force the opposing Ninetales out. Checking Salazzle and Charizard is much easier, as usually you're one Rhydon switch away from blanking them, barring Toxic. This raises the question, then: if Ninetales is so much harder to check, why isn't it used more?
The answer to this lies in Ninetales' relative lack of defensive use outside of being a simple offense machine. It can't threaten opposing walls with a guaranteed Toxic the same way Salazzle can, or outspeed Alolan Raichu or Virizion to kill them before they can take it out. Charizard makes up for having neither the blistering speed of Salazzle or the Drought of Ninetales with two crucial things: Defog and a Ground immunity. Instead of dying to the first Earthquake thrown its way, Charizard flies above them with impunity, and can use its immunity to Defog consistently, as well as being able to Toxic its switchins, namely Rhydon. Ninetales is purely an offensive machine with no defensive utility outside of Drought. Charizard's presence can sometimes force Passimian to run the otherwise-inferior-to-earthquake Rock Slide, which hilariously misses the OHKO on Salazzle by less than 1%, and doesn't even come close to OHKOing Ninetales. Rillaboom can't even learn Rock Slide, but then again, you're using a Rillaboom to check these Pokemon anyways, so who's really losing here? Techs have developed to handle the three Fire-types, most notably the sideline presence of Occa Berry Copperajah, as well as Snorlax becoming much more mainstream, as it's the only surefire answer to all three.
So, what does this all mean?stop using plumeFor the most part, every team needs a Fire-type stopgap as well as a way to revenge kill them. Centiskorch was banned in the last round of voting, which makes this a little bit easier, but these Pokemon are still incredibly dangerous and can fit on an exceedingly wide variety of teams. If anyone has teams that utilize Fire-types well they'd like to share as well as give their thoughts on, I'd love to see some more discussion regarding these Pokemon. Seeing the flames of battle alight after a relatively Fire-lacking USM RU is both relieving and terrifying, and if something as previously laughed at as Charizard can find RU success with the addition of Boots, it makes me wonder what else has the potential to do the same.
Sorry chief, Steel Beam bypasses recoil prevention abilities.I was wondering, would Rock Head prevent the 50% max health removal from Steel Beam? Because if it did, Steel(beam)lix would have a pretty good asset at hand.
Steelix @ Leftovers
Ability: Rock Head
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Steel Beam
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
- Curse
Heres the set if its true that Rock Head prevents the drawback from Steel Beam
ok, thanks for the info , i seriously thought that would work to be honestSorry chief, Steel Beam bypasses recoil prevention abilities.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen8ru-1113668358