All Gens Small Niches

[Triangles]

• Articuno

Another large pro of Arti is that it is one of the safest switchins to standard Pert and gets free Roars off all game by switching in on it. On the subject of birds, Moltres in ADV is also pretty cool. You can either go offensive (in which case it works really well with CM BP Cele, Boomgar, and Dug), or as a hybrid pivot with Will-O-Wisp, Sunny Day, and Morning Sun. Wisp is excellent for catching TTar, Mence, Flygon, Lax, and Aero off guard. Even if you're not using Wisp, even a resisted Fire Blast hits these guys decently. If using Moltres, you ought to have a way to deal with/lure Blissey though as it will be almost dead weight otherwise.

 

[zfs]

ADV

• Alakazam
  Alakazam is basically a way less bulkier Jirachi with less set-up opportunities lacking a Toxic immunity. On the other hand, it can find its way in Special oriented teams thanks to its high speed allowing it to not being outright revenge killed by Dugtrio (still a Speed tie). It can also cripple/beat Blissey either thanks to the use of Trick (which is a rare sight in ADV) or the use of a Rune Protect / Recover moveset.

Zam is also the fastest user of Encore in the meta (and really the only viable user, unless you're a big fan of Jumpluff), which can be a nice way to disrupt slower set-up mons (in other words, anything not boosting speed), and gives Zam a free set-up turn for Sub or CM. Unfortunately, once your opponent knows you're packing Encore, it becomes much harder to switch Zam in safely on set-up turns.

 

[magic9mushroom]

RBY

• Moltres
  Agility + Fire Spin allows it to act as a pseudo-Dragonite to clean games. On the other hand, it has a poor speed and is hard walled by some common Pokémons (Rhydon, Golem, Starmie). Most people are also reluctant to use fire move in a metagame where Freeze is often a deciding game factor that you have to take into consideration. Unlike Zapdos, it can actually cripple its switch-in if you catch a Burn on them with Fire Blast and unlike Dragonite, it has a strong stabbed move to kill weakened Pokémons.

Moltres isn't hard-walled by Rhydon/Golem, as Fire Blast can 3HKO (and is quite likely to once you take that 30% burn chance into account). Also, burn + Fire Spin is really, really nasty. It also has the niche of being a Wrapper that isn't hard-walled by Gengar, unlike Dragonite, Cloyster and Victreebel.

The problem Moltres has is that it poses negative threat to a team with Starmie on it. Yes, negative threat. Starmie loves being burned, and resists Moltres' Fire Blast and Fire Spin, so it will switch in for free, and forces Moltres out with Thunder Wave and at least one super-effective move (Blizzard, Surf, or Thunderbolt). The increased power of STAB Fire Spin over non-STAB Wrap is also outweighed by Fire Spin's lower accuracy. Being able to use GolDon as setup bait is another really nice thing Dragonite has going for it, so typically people will pick Dragonite.

 

[Warped Worlds]

Abomasnow is a niche pick in DPP OU, but it can be extremely good under the proper circumstances. Ill edit why into my post after I eat and get back.

 

[Crystal_]

RBY

Clefable: Can act as both a decent normal-type physical attacker and status spreader. Chansey and, to an extent, Alakazam, who are usually the pokemon that end up absorbing status attacks from the special based pokemon that spread them, have a hard time dealing with Clefable's decent powered STAB Body Slam and Hyper Beam. Unlike other normal attackers like Tauros, Snorlax and Persian, Clefable can spread paralysis directly and can (inaccurately) induce sleep too. Unlike Zapdos and Jolteon, Clefable can Blizzard to 2HKO rocks, and can also use Thunderbolt to do more damage to Starmie, Cloyster and Lapras. Clefable is a kind of all trades master or none Pokemon and suffers from 4MS, but from experience I can tell it can be a pretty dangerous Pokemon, since it can play the role of nearly everyone, to a much lesser extent obviously.

Tangela: Growth, Mega Drain, Reflect, Rest. If it gets going, only critical hit ice attacks or maybe Persian's slash will be able to break it. Unfortunately, it's prone to being stalled out since mega drain at 999 special doesn't even 2hko alakazam. Exeggutor will also be a pain to take down since at least it can contribute to wear down Mega Drain PP effectively. Gengar should be a bit easier but still... And then Zapdos is the ultimate counter, since a crit Drill Peck will do over 90% to tangela. In general, it's better used late game I guess; it's also very hard to set everything up too, so better make sure first that stuff like Tauros is paralyzed. All in all, the ultimate obscure niche Pokemon

 

[M Dragon]

RBY

Poliwrath: It can take a BS from Lax/Bull, Sleep something with Hypnosis, and Counter the next turn. It is one of my fav gimmicks.
Charizard: 30% burn chance, it can SD, fire spin...
Dodrio: Faster than Jynx and with Snorlax attack. It can also Mimic Golem's EQ/Boom.



GSC

Clefable: It can be very dangerous with a BD set.
Muk: It's bulky, can curse, can boom. Grounds are annoying tho.
Tentacruel: This pokemon could have been great, but sadly, it can't use SD + Mirror Coat / Rapid Spin at the same time. Still a p dangerous sweeper with Sub SD.


ADV

Jynx: A very dangerous sweeper, which is fast, hits strong, and can sleep.
Regirock: It can be a good bulky water lure, with curse and boom, or t-wave DDers
Medicham: Medicham is p rare nowadays, and it's a very dangerous mon.

 

[BKC]

regirock kicks ass. i used to play triangles' team with it all the time, it's annoying as fuck to face cause it gets a ton of opportunities to curse up against cb hp flying etc and it's really hard to kill unless your switchin is like max satk hydro cune (and i think it even has a chance to live that with some spread) so it'll just explode and take out your mence/ttar counter. great pkmn.

for dpp i think staraptor is kinda niche since its typing sucks but it's strong as fuck and intimidate is the best ability in the game. needs a fair bit of support but can potentially fuck a lot of shit up.

 

[Pocket]

I remember Hypno being quite a niche lead to use in RBY. It's faster than Exeggutor, and unlike Zam it has Hypnosis to put something to sleep. It has less overall bulk than Exeggutor, but the lack of Grass-typing sort of helps against Starmie. It can make use of Reflect or Counter to dissuade physical assaults. One major caveat - if it wants to restore health, it needs to use Rest

I remember back when ADV was the main tier, there was a Choice Band Slaking hype ("real men use Slaking xP") Slaking has a monstrous attack, but its tremendous physical bulk is often under-appreciated. It's 100 base Speed tier is very good back in ADV, tying with Flygon and Salamence. I remember there used to be debates as to whether to use Return or Double-Edge as its choice of STAB / Adamant or Jolly as its nature. Fury Swipes was an interesting OO over a coverage move to break substitutes. It's probably as close as you can get to Kyurem-B in terms of immediate raw power back in the day. It's a very prediction heavy Pokemon, though, so it's no surprise that you hardly see it any more. ADV is probably the only gen you can legitimately pull off nuking things with CB King, though.

 

[magic9mushroom]

RBY Jolteon. It's an Electric that actually counters Starmie, unlike Zapdos which is outsped and 3HKOed. Outspeeding everything makes it a decent sweeper too - it can even 2HKO Tauros with Thunder. Problem is that it doesn't really fit into any of the main roles in RBY (stuff that can kill Chansey, stuff with instant recovery, and stuff with god-moves like sleep/Amnesia/Wrap). Lapras is in the same boat somewhat, but it has absurdly good bulk, Confuse Ray, and a very relevant resistance to make up the difference, which Jolteon doesn't.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Dodrio: Faster than Jynx and with Snorlax attack. It can also Mimic Golem's EQ/Boom.

Drill Peck, too. Egg's not coming in with that on the table.

Shame it's so fragile - it's got about Chansey's physical bulk, and a bit less than Golem's special bulk, plus BoltBeam weakness.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

for dpp i think staraptor is kinda niche since its typing sucks but it's strong as fuck and intimidate is the best ability in the game. needs a fair bit of support but can potentially fuck a lot of shit up.

I sort of agree, but I think he's a lot better than simply a niche. I can usually comfortably fit him on most of my teams as the scarfer (or bander). Instead of worrying about supporting him, I just use him as early as possible until rocks come up, then save him for cleaning, regardless of him killing himself. It's mainly about how much he can support your team by breaking down stuff with (after spamming U-turn some though) Brave Bird and crucial Intimidate drops. Of course, keeping rocks off the field is a plus and just makes him better. I love how the Band set 2HKOs most Heatran after SR damage.

One I thought up of for DPP. Alakazam. He's's not bad, but it's obvious what his problems are. He's got one crucial thing over Azelf, Gengar, and Starmie though. The ability to outspeed Choice Scarf Tyranitar. With Substitute, you can at least fire off Focus Blast twice. Recover gets that HP back. That said, when no sub is up, he dies to anything.

 

[Xeze]

GSC
Electabuzz. Decent Special Attack and nice Speed, coupled with a good movepool. Has pseudo-boltbeam coverage with Thunder(bolt) + Ice Punch, plus Fire Punch to hit things like Steelix, Forretress and Cross Chop to be able to damage threats like Snorlax, Blissey, Tyranitar and Umbreon. However he is a bit frail so he can't really switch into anything and he needs a critical hit with Cross Chop to be able to scare Snorlax and Umbreon. But being able to hit a lot of things in the metagame super effectively is nice.

 

[magic9mushroom]

GSC
Electabuzz. Decent Special Attack and nice Speed, coupled with a good movepool. Has pseudo-boltbeam coverage with Thunder(bolt) + Ice Punch, plus Fire Punch to hit things like Steelix, Forretress and Cross Chop to be able to damage threats like Snorlax, Blissey, Tyranitar and Umbreon. However he is a bit frail so he can't really switch into anything and he needs a critical hit with Cross Chop to be able to scare Snorlax and Umbreon. But being able to hit a lot of things in the metagame super effectively is nice.

Yup. Cross Chop is just devastating in GSC.

Raikou stops Electabuzz cold, though. :(



Speaking of GSC, Espeon's got a nice niche as a GrowthPasser that can heal instantly and not be walled forever by RoarKou. Not having Vap's bulk or Jolt's immediate threat on Skarm and Suicune hurts though.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Electabuzz gets Meditate and Screech, both can help taking down things like Raikou.
Gsc Sub Roar Curse Kangaskhan has a niche in defeating common curse counters. Growl and Charm stallers get stopped by Substitute and Roar outslows other phazers, assuming you have a Curse up. Only problem with this set is that there is only one moveslot left for an attack, leaving it pretty hardwalled by the likes of Skarmory and unable to touch the ghosts (even though pursuiters can handle those).

 

[Typhlito]

Glad to see how popular this thread has gotten.

Anyway, I think Ursaring has a niche in adv for being able to take advantage of status with guts. After guts it is able to 2hko pokemon that would otherwise wall it such as defensive suicune without any boosts if sand is up. Also, regardless of being slow, it has enough bulk to take a hit or 2. Only problem with it is that it faces competition with other guts abusers such as machamp who has a better stab and heracross who is faster AND has a better stab. It also faces competition with other status absorbers like celebi and starmie.

 

[Xeze]

Electabuzz gets Meditate and Screech, both can help taking down things like Raikou.
Gsc Sub Roar Curse Kangaskhan has a niche in defeating common curse counters. Growl and Charm stallers get stopped by Substitute and Roar outslows other phazers, assuming you have a Curse up. Only problem with this set is that there is only one moveslot left for an attack, leaving it pretty hardwalled by the likes of Skarmory and unable to touch the ghosts (even though pursuiters can handle those).

Meditate and Screech on Buzz are pretty mediocre though. Its physical attack is low and thus Cross Chop is only good for super effective damage.
As for Kanga, if it has a curse up it can continuously Roar Skarm out until it has enough Curses under its belt where it can do decent damage to Skarm on the switch-in. Ghosts are hard walls but, as you metioned, a Pursuiter can help with that.

GSC
Speaking of Pursuit, another nice Pokémon for OU is Houndoom. Exeggutor with Giga Drain can more or less fight back against Tyranitar, but against Houndoom it is scared of a OHKO from Fire Blast and can't do anything back (Ancientpower anyone?), making it very susceptible to being hit by a Pursuit on the switch (strongest Pursuit in the game btw). Ghosts can't do much either, except for Gengar with Dynamicpunch. It also has access to other moves like Counter to bounce back a physical attack attempting to benefit from Houndoom's weak physical defense, Crunch for another powerful STAB move, Sunny Day to boost Fire Blast's power and weaken water attacks, and Solarbeam. Frail Pokémon but gets its job done.

 

[Jorgen]

Oh that's a good one. Houndoom is the ultimate niche Pokemon in GSC. It's got some good points, but it's frail and a subpar Pokemon outside of the free KO against Egg. Using Houndoom is a coinflip: In the 50% of times where you're fighting an Exeggutor team, you're playing a 5.5 vs. 5 match. In the other 50% of times where you're not fighting an Exeggutor team, you're basically playing 5.5 vs. 6 (unless you can pull off the trade against a Missy team and go 5 vs. 5).

Also re: Kangaskhan, it struggles to get past Toxic Skarm. If you Curse on the switch, Skarm Toxics before you get a sub up. If you Sub on the switch, it outslows and Phazes you unless you drop Kanga's Speed DV, which would then render you unable to outspeed Lax after a Curse, so yeah. If you're up against Toxic Skarm, you gotta force it to Rest before Kang can come in.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Yea the problem is that a 999 attack return barely misses the 2hko on skarm (nor sure about this, i'm on phone and can't check the calcs atm), meaning you are able to curse up to +6, but in the long run you can't prevent skarm from coming in every time and try to phaze you out, get damage on your sub or use toxic, or at least burn a big part of your pp.

 

[Crystal_]

Talking about fire-types, Moltres deserves a mention in GSC too. Granted, there's nothing it can do to Suicune, Vap and Starmie, but otherwise it's a complete beast with a rest-talk FB SD set. Under sun it 2HKOes everything that doesn't resist fire except Snorlax and even 2hkoes it after spikes damage (as far as I remember). What's good about Sunny Day too is that it makes thunder electrics very unreliable checks. Being stopped cold by waters (oh, and Blissey!) is annoying though, and ST reliance for PP/whatever can also be quite a pain.

 

[magic9mushroom]

Yea the problem is that a 999 attack return barely misses the 2hko on skarm (nor sure about this, i'm on phone and can't check the calcs atm), meaning you are able to curse up to +6, but in the long run you can't prevent skarm from coming in every time and try to phaze you out, get damage on your sub or use toxic, or at least burn a big part of your pp.

How so?

Skarm comes in, Kangy uses Return
Skarm does something, Kangy uses Roar

Skarm comes in, Kangy uses Return
Skarm does something, Kangy uses Return (KO unless it was Rest)

If Rest:

Skarm is fast asleep, Kangy uses Return
Skarm is fast asleep, Kangy uses Return (KO)

5 PP isn't that much IMO? You'd need Sleep Talk Skarm to evade the 3HKO and burn a big chunk of PP, and Whirlwind can't phaze Kangy when called by Sleep Talk.

Am I forgetting something?

 

[Xeze]

Talking about fire-types, Moltres deserves a mention in GSC too. Granted, there's nothing it can do to Suicune, Vap and Starmie, but otherwise it's a complete beast with a rest-talk FB SD set. Under sun it 2HKOes everything that doesn't resist fire except Snorlax and even 2hkoes it after spikes damage (as far as I remember). What's good about Sunny Day too is that it makes thunder electrics very unreliable checks. Being stopped cold by waters (oh, and Blissey!) is annoying though, and ST reliance for PP/whatever can also be quite a pain.

Oh yes, Moltres can be quite a beast. Sporting the same Special Attack value as Zapdos plus Sun to back it up, can be scary. Under the Sun, with Charcoal and at +1 (after a Growthpass of course) it OHKOs Zapdos with Fire Blast and has a high chance of OHKOing Raikou as well. It also does almost 40-ish % damage to Suicune which is impressive. But yeah, Waters and Blissey are very annoying (it can run HP Grass for Waters though. Also helps vs Tyranitar).

 

[Crystal_]

(it can run HP Grass for Waters though

yeah, but the point is that hp grass doesn't really make any difference since it doesn't 2hko starmie or 3hko cune/vap. Unless you are planning to use it alongside a growth bper, that is.

 

[Xeze]

Yes HP Grass only makes sense with a Growthpasser. Otherwise it's too weak on its own.

 

[Jorgen]

Well HP Grass hits Rhydon and Quag. You know. Because those are everywhere.

More seriously, if you're running a Hidden Power without Growth support, it should be HP Fighting for Ttar.

 

[PROBLEMS]

Following up on Lizardmans post, I found E-Belt mixed Abomasnow to be a deadly mon in DPP especially vs Balance teams as it really has limited switch ins and it depends what you want to hit with your 4th coverage move. Playing ballsy with it in the early few turns can really pay off also lol

Heres the set I like using (Think Dice gave it to me)

Hide

Abomasnow (M) @ Expert Belt

Trait: Snow Warning

EVs: 148 Atk / 140 SAtk / 220 Spd

Hasty Nature (+Spd, -Def)

- Hidden Power [Fire]

- Wood Hammer

- Ice Shard

- Earthquake