Smogon Shoddy Server Statistics - February & March 2010

[PK Gaming]

I really hope Tentacruel falls to UU at some point. His usage has been steadily declining in OU, and he would serve as an amazing Rapid Spinner and Toxic Spiker in UU, usurping Qwilfish, and providing the best Blaziken counter since Slowbro.

Jan 2010
| 41 | Tentacruel | 31799 | 4.23

Mar 2010
| 44 | Tentacruel | 29764 | 3.96

Slowking is still a fine Blaziken counter.
No... Tentacruel should focus more on Moltres.

 

[Torchic]

Oh, what happened to Moltres during Feb. and Mar.
Its usage increased quite a lot, just like doubled.

 

[Hood Dream]

Thanks for the stats.

Question for you all, with all the scarf tars roaming around, why not put an expert belt on you're tyranitar? It seems like a good idea, come in on a rotom that isnt a scarfer, crunch them, they assume it's a scarftar and they brings out lucario to set up then you superpower for the kill.

 

[Thorns]

except tyranitar doesn't outspeed most rotom

 

[SJCrew]

Expert Belt Ttar is a stupid idea because Ttar is already slow and has a lot of exploitable weaknesses. The drawback to Scarftar is that it doesn't hit as hard. The drawback to CB is that it's not fast enough. Take away both and you get a novelty shock value set that becomes almost immediately useless the second you use a move (which most likely won't kill anything because you are now too slow to kill sweepers and too weak to break walls). Ttar can run other useful sets/items besides scarf, but Expert Belt is definitely not one of them. Nor LO for that matter.

 

[Golden Sun]

Expert Belt might be useful but as SJCrew stated it would be nowhere near as good as the scarf or CB sets and thanks for the stats Doug

 

[haunter]

Actually expert belt is quite an useful item on TTar. Bait TTar can catch off guard several opponents bluffing a CB and eliminating things like Skarmory and Breloom that think they can set up on a pursuit-locked TTar. CB TTar is more of a wall breaker while scarf TTar is an excellent revenge killer, but both the sets allow Pokemon like Skarm, Forretress, Lucario and much more to set up on them while with the surprise factor granted by EB you can often eliminate at least 2 Pokemon with TTar before your opponent realizes that it's not choiced.

Thank you for the stats Doug.

 

[Vaz]

Thanks for all the hard work bro! This looks real good.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

thanks doug!

| Tentacruel | Move         | Rapid Spin       |    90.3 |
| Tentacruel | Move         | Toxic Spikes     |    83.3 |
| Tentacruel | Move         | Surf             |    81.8 |
| Tentacruel | Move         | Sludge Bomb      |    39.5 |

this came as a bit of a surprise but actually water + poison's coverage isn't that bad

| Tyranitar  | Item         | Choice Scarf     |    32.8 |
| Tyranitar  | Item         | Leftovers        |    21.1 |
| Tyranitar  | Item         | Choice Band      |    10.9 |
| Tyranitar  | Item         | Other (6)        | <   8.7 |

am i reading this incorrectly, or is tyranitar missing like 30 % of his items?

 

[PI-Dimension]

Infernape is on the rise... not surprised, since scarftar destroys latias.

| Infernape | Item | Life Orb | 48.5 |
| Infernape | Item | Focus Sash | 29.9 |
| Infernape | Item | Choice Scarf | 10.3 |

Yay, scarf is rising! It's rather useful, as it pawns a good portion of the top 10

Physical:

Scizor: Flare Blitz OHKOs
Tyranitar: Close Combat OHKOs
Salamence: Stone Edge OHKOs after SR and LO (no intimidate)
Heatran: Close Combat OHKOs
Rotom-A: Flare Blitz 2HKOs a good amount of the time
Latias: U-Turn does does 47% to 4HP/0Def
Gyarados: Stone Edge OHKOs after SR and LO (no intimidate)
Jirachi: Flare Blitz OHKOs
Metagross: Flare Blitz has a small chance of OHKOing
Swampert: CC does 32% min

Special

Scizor: Fire Blast OHKOs
Tyranitar: Close Combat OHKOs
Salamence: HP Ice OHKOs
Heatran: Close Combat OHKOs
Rotom-A: Fire Blast 2HKOs
Latias: U-Turn does 39% min to 4HP/0Def
Gyarados: Grass Knot 2HKOs Offensive DD
Jirachi: Fire Blast OHKOs
Metagross: Fire Blast OHKOs
Swampert: Grass Knot OHKOs half the time

Really, the difference is which two of Salamence, Gyara, Swampert you want to take out.

 

[Mundungu]

|   20 | Machamp    |  70081 |    9.33 |

I'm surprised this didn't rise even more than it did in the last two months (1.03%). I expect this trend to continue, as most of the top 10 have few answers to Machamp.

|   13 | Machamp    |  16404 |    2.18 |

Same with Machamp leads.

 

[Eternal]

|   20 | Machamp    |  70081 |    9.33 |

I'm surprised this didn't rise even more than it did in the last two months (1.03%). I expect this trend to continue, as most of the top 10 have few answers to Machamp.

|   13 | Machamp    |  16404 |    2.18 |

Same with Machamp leads.

In my opinion, I would say Machamp is the most annoying Pokemon in OU. Unlike Jirachi, Breloom, Togekiss, and other annoying Pokemon Machamp relies the most on luck. As almost all forms of Jirachi are weak to Heatrans. Pokemon like Bulky Salamence and Zapdos are able to easily wall Breloom (that is that it doesn't carry Stone Edge). Togekiss are easily walled by Blisseys with Toxic, Rotoms, etc. While Machamp, this thing CAN be predicted when it is about to use Dynamic Punch. While it can also be predicted that the opponent might go for Payback to kill your Ghost switch. In that case, you practically have nothing that can stop this thing from confusing one of your OU Pokemon. For instance, you send in Salamence in on Machamp's Dynamic Punch. You're confused and you're irritated because your opponent is basically going for chances when he's making a switch and either countering your Salamence or setting up on it with Confuse hax and sweeping you. And that is why I find Machamp the most annoying (as in creating a battle where luck is involved) Pokemon in OU. But, that's just my opinion on Machamp. There are other ways of stopping Machamp. Since Machamp only has 8 PP Dynamic Punch, you can easily take all of it out by Pressure stall. For instance, using a combination like Salamence's or Gyarados' Intimidate, then using Bold Suicune to take the Dynamic Punches (4 Dynamic Punch on it and Machamp's Dynamic Punches are done). While there are other bulky Pokemon that can take Dynamic Punch + Payback really well: Hippowdon, Celebi + Reflect, Impish Gyarados, etc. Just to show that this thing is not broken at all and is stoppable in many ways (that is when luck hax isn't in play).

 

[EvilMario]

Dynamic Punch's low PP is the exact reason that I run Sleep Talk Machamp. It covers him from things like Rotom that which in hoping to Will-O-Wisp me, and makes him a much better Counter to things like Tyranitar, as he can repeatedly switch in and abuse the free turn to Rest, or start tossing confusion around.

 

[Dummy007]

Totally off-topic, but Magikarp has more UU usage than Dustox (who happens to be the least-used fully-evolved Pokemon you can use in UU).

 

[Cshadow]

Hm, with all the ScarfTar running around, I was expecting Hariyama usage to spike honestly. Sure, he does not have a whole lot over Machamp, but he does have better defenses and a better supporting movepool, while Machamp is solely on the offense. Oh well, time will tell~

 

[Thund91]

77 | Lopunny | 2120 | 1.70

Let it be known, that as soon as Froslass gets the boot a Lopunny surge will begin.

Which is actually desperately needed IMO. UU needs more diversity in leads. I mean sure, you see a few innovative leads but look at that huge gap between Ambipom and Moltres.

 

[Lockeness]

Scarftar- wow. Latias has dropped to #5 and 18% usage. With both Scizor and Scarftar running around Latias could be in real trouble. It would be really hard to vote it uber now.

 

[zarator]

Scarftar- wow. Latias has dropped to #5 and 18% usage. With both Scizor and Scarftar running around Latias could be in real trouble. It would be really hard to vote it uber now.

I don't think so. The stats, if anything, show that you are almost forced to run them if you do not want to risk losing to Latias (granted, they are not useful only for Latias, but I bet many teams would forego them if Latias wasnt around nonetheless)

 

[EvilMario]

I don't think so. The stats, if anything, show that you are almost forced to run them if you do not want to risk losing to Latias (granted, they are not useful only for Latias, but I bet many teams would forego them if Latias wasnt around nonetheless)

Don't throw Scizor into the same category as Scarf Tyranitar. Scizor's usage was very high well before Latias dropped down to OU, and it is a pillar of what the current metagame is. Scarf Tyranitar on the other hand been discovered by Latias' drop.

 

[DA_Rampage]

Thanks Doug, been forever it seems like lol

 

[Mjolnir]

T-tar scarfed still has it's uses for killing of other pokes outside of latias. I am certain however the obvious use is related to Latias. Still I see it being used after the (sad) potential departure of Latias from OU.

 

[Phantom_IV]

Interesting, Rotom-A has nudged out Latias. Might be because Rotom checks sub + iron head Jirachis. Could also be because the metagame has shifted to counter Latias. Scarftar, more UTurn Infernapes, more Jirachis. Perhaps a sign of how much of an effect Latias has on the metagame.

 

[AJC]

so how about the potental of UU Heracross folks?

 

[lordkira]

mmmmm if it does go down, it wouldn't be too bad.
though with its usage rising nearly a whole percent in the last two months (not too much but it's been gradually increasing), I wouldn't say it would go down :/

 

[NightmareZ]

You know it seems that latias is better in ubers and latios is better in ou. As latias is much easier to use in ubers. Whereas latios got banned from OU. This only seems true in the March statistics however.

A bit weird if u think about it.

NightmareZ