What's more important? Actual bulk or Typing?

Defense is very important in the Ubers metagame, because of all the powerful attacks that all pokemon have to weather. The prominent attacking types of dark and dragon are excellent attacking types for a reason. Pokemon, such as Blissey and Groudon are picked for their stats, while others, such as Dialga and frail steel types, such as Scizor are picked for their resistances/neutrality.

Blissey is picked, not for her normal typing, but her massive 255/135 SpD, same for Groudon, for not only being immune to Thunder, a very common move in the metagame, due to Kyogre being everywhere, but for his 100/140 Def. Blissey's typing is a semi-blessing, as physical fighting moves are no where near as common as they are in OU, but her neutrality doesn't make her the best choice to sponge those specs draco meteors, her stats do. She only takes 37.4% - 44.2% from Dialga's specs meteor, and even less from the scarf version, which is far more common. She can just wish/thunder wave in front of Dialga's face. Groudon doesn't have to worry about unboosted Outrages too much, due to his massive powerful bulk, he may not resist it, but he can take a few and surely retaliate. He takes only 29% - 34.2% from ScarfChomp's Outrage, which is the most powerful unboosted Outrage in the metagame.

Dialga is typically picked, because his defensive typing yields a neutrality to dragon, but also a neutrality to ice, another semi-common attacking type. This typing is a mixed blessing, as it gives neutrality to virtually common type in the metagame. His only weaknesses are ground, which is typically earth power or earthquake, and fighting, which is typically aura sphere or close combat. His base SpD, being 100/100, while decent, not exactly stellar, considering he's only neutral, although the resistance to water does help for the Bulk up set. Scizor and Forretress, two very common steel types, they both have rather subpar special defenses, scizor being 80/80, and forretress being 75/60. Their only weakness, fire is somewhat mitigated through the common rain, although the only common fire attacks are non stabbed, fire blast and hp fire. Scared fire roasts them to a crisp anyways. Their resistance to the common attacks of dragon, darkness, and ice are what make the appealing, and good teammates to dragons, such as Rayquaza, and Garchomp who cover each other's weakness, while playing other roles, Scizor being a revenge killer/scout, and Forretress being a rapid spinner and entry hazard layer. Resistances is also why Lucario would be even considered for an Ubers team, as his paper defenses, 70/70/70 wouldn't last a hit, if it wasn't for his 2x resistance to dragon and ice, and 4x resist to darkness.

Post your thoughts.
 

ginganinja

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i believe typing matters the most although this is a comtemperary issue. Looking at Cressilia in OU (yes I know this is an ubers sub forum) as an example you can have awesome stats but a poor typing. Typing is also key when creating synergy in a team so that you can utalise it to your fullest extent and while maximising your offensive chances
 
I think it's a delicate balance of both, however, in some cases(Blissey) sheer stats can do the trick(come on, Normal is NOT a good defensive type >.>) I do think stats are a majority of this balance though... As in the Uber's metagame, the Offensive stats are so great that without sufficient stats, even resisted hits hurt alot.
 

Lockeness

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Typing definitley plays a big role in a pokemon's ability to succeed in any metagame. Latias would not be the same pokemon if she had say poison psychic typing and the same stats. Then again without stats any pokemon can be a horrible failure even with the best of typing. However, in my mind typing reigns supreme.
 

FlareBlitz

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Typing is definitely way more important. Shuckle, the Regis, and Bastiodon are examples of Pokemon who would be high OU if their excellent stats corresponded to an equally excellent typing. As it is, they're NU/UU.
 
I would say that typing would be more important in this case. Having strong defences are good, but if there are easily exploitable weaknesses then you're not going to get far anyways. Blissey is a good example of a Pokemon that doesn't need good typing to sponge up special attacks, but likewise is completely decimated by anything on the physical side of the spectrum. Defending one side is good, but there's a lot of physical attackers out there. I'd say that taking half damage from specific attacks is much more beneficial then a smaller amount of reduced damage as a whole, considering that predicting moves from certain Pokemon is fairly easy in the metagame.

When it boils down to it, though, it takes a balance of both good stats and typing to be the most successful in such a powerful metagame.
 
Bulk is always useful when you boost it. See Giratina.
Things like Stockpile Cradily are almost unstoppable, but Dily doesn't have a bad typing.
 
Typing is definitely way more important. Shuckle, the Regis, and Bastiodon are examples of Pokemon who would be high OU if their excellent stats corresponded to an equally excellent typing. As it is, they're NU/UU.
I would argue Registeel has a great typing, and Shuckle an excellent typing.
 
I would argue Registeel has a great typing, and Shuckle an excellent typing.
I agree with you on registeel, after all steel is broken, but not so much on shuckle. It only has two resists, normal and poison, with the second one almost never being seen on pokes. It's weakness to water (surf) rock (stealth rock) and steel (bullet punch) pretty much mean it will not make OU.
 

Ice-eyes

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Registeel and possibly Shuckle would be OU if they got reliable recovery.

I think it's a balance between bulk and typing - pokemon are either good because of their stats (Blissey), typing (Lucario), movepool (Smeargle is the most extreme example) or a combination of the three. For all pokemon, it is the combination that matters. Would Blissey be good with Rock/Ground typing or no reliable recovery? Would Lucario be good without its excellent Attack stat, or access to Swords Dance? Would Smeargle be good (in OU, not Ubers) without its passable 75 base Speed?
 
Idk about shuckle, that HP is kinda abysmal.

Bulk is definitely more important. Lugia's typing is arugably reasonably bad in ubers, yet its terrific bulk makes it a top tier defender. Then again pokemon like sabelye suck horribly even without any weaknesses because of their sub par stats.
 

Bluewind

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Don't forget no weaknesses =/= good typing. Rotom-A has its fair share of weaknesses and yet it sees much more usage than Spiritomb. Likewise in UU, Rotom, who has pathetic defenses, actually proves itself as a great defensive Ghost due to its typing, that gives it many key resistances that pokés like Spiritomb just don't have.
 
As more feul to the fire just look at the difference between registeel and regice. Both have uber defenses however regice is no where near as good of a wall as her typing sucks. Registeel suffers from having nothing specail to set him apart from other steels and no recovery preventing him from being OU or uber.
 
I'm guessing that it would be possible to give empirical values to bulk AND typing. After all, typing is nothing more than type-specific bulk, right? Maybe calculating "general bulk" is a mistake, and only type-specific bulk is worth examining. Pretty much, a Pokemon has double the typing bulk if they resist a particular move, half if they are weak to it, and complete bulk if they are immune to it. In Ubers, this means that lower-tier Steels are brought in for their doubled bulk to Dragon attacks, while other Pokemon are brought in for their immunities (lol Parasect). Most of the time, though, there is little that lower Pokemon can do defensively that can't be done with Ubers, so most of the introduced Pokemon are odd offensive threats (Shiftry comes to mind).

tl;dr The combination of the two is most important, explaining many stat-wise sub-par Pokemon in Ubers.
 
It depends on the Pokémon.
Blissey of course is selected by its bulkiness.
An example of typing would a Pokémon such as Skarmory.
Regirock is better than Skarmory when it comes to bulkiness. But as typing comes into play Regirock is out classed. Of course if they reveal a new pokemon that has decent special defense and HP with an amazing tying such as Skarmory. Blissey would go down the usage rank for sure.
Even with amazing typing Bulkiness is needed to survive. For Example Gengar. Its typing is very unique but using it for its bulkiness is just stupid.

Even though Blissey is neutral to every type it s bulkiness covers it's weakness.
Skarmory doesn't have as much defense as Regirock but its typing covers that weakness.
In the end typing and bulkiness are the same. Some Pokémon are protected by their bulkiness while others are protected by their typing.
 
It depends on the Pokémon.
Blissey of course is selected by its bulkiness.
An example of typing would a Pokémon such as Skarmory.
Regirock is better than Skarmory when it comes to bulkiness. But as typing comes into play Regirock is out classed. Of course if they reveal a new pokemon that has decent special defense and HP with an amazing tying such as Skarmory. Blissey would go down the usage rank for sure.
I would have to disagree with your blissey assertion. Unless that new pokemon is packing 200+ base HP and 110+ SpD with a brilliant typing (Ghost/Steel with levitate), it will not be better than blissey at what she is known so well for.
 
Resistances are definitely key here. Pokemon like Scizor and Forretress, despite their relatively low Sp.Def, thrive on resistances to dragon, dark, and ice. Dialga is another great example - while Blissey crumbles at the fear of Water Spout, Dialga can deal with it to some extent and punish Kyogre.

Take Lugia for example. It's legendary defenses, when combined with its HP, make it the most durable pokemon in the game. Regardless, it is forced to use its defensive prowess to wall physical attacks, as it's weaknesses to the common special Electric, Ice, and Ghost attacks hinder its ability to wall special moves. The same is true of Giratina-O, who would hate to try walling Draco Meteors or Ice Beams. Blissey gets away with it because fighting is such a physically skewed attacking type, in addition to its monstrous HP and SpD.
 
I think if one were talking in terms of Ubers, then they'd have to look at typing as the more important factor. I'm surprised Palkia hasn't been mentioned in this thread. It's auspicious defensive typing means it's one of the few viable answers to Choice Specs Kyogre. Latias is another that comes to mind, but that's simply due to Soul Dew, since nothing really has the natural bulk (stats) without a 4x resistance to take a Specs Water Spout. Steel-types are also extremely valuable, if not necessary, for the tier to sponge the abundant Dragon-type attacks. Specially Defensive Scizor, Forretress and Jirachi are all great defensive Pokes, since even neutral walls like Dialga can't keep up with repeated Spacial Rends. Mons like Bliss are exceptions I suppose because of its unreal bulk, but I think ultimately, the more important factor is typing.
I considered Palkia, but didn't mention him in the OP, because his only weakness is the most common attacking type in ubers, and the his broader neutrality doesn't help as much as Dialga, that resistance to dark does help. Also Dialga isn't a defensive wall, but can be played defensively due to his typing, and decent defense stats. Dialga is hailed as a wall breaker, and excellent sd rayquaza counter with a scarf.
 
I agree with the Palkia thing, but its specific calling card is it's 4x resistance to Water Spout. Overall Dialga is the better defensive presence for sure, but even 252/252 Sp.Def Careful Dialga is 2HKO'ed by Specs Kyogre which is just ridiculous. Speaking of which, the Dialga reference was exclusively meant for the Bulk Up variant, who can counter every other Kyogre set other than Specs, and is a solid defensive wall. It's also a decent check for things like Scarf Palkia, but not to the degree of Scizor when looking at absorbing Spacial Rends/Draco Meteor.
 
Palkia's resistances aren't really anything special, I find, except for when it comes to checking specific sets (Water Spout on SpecsOgre, a Fire Blast thrown around here and there). It's fire resistance isn't something that can be too heavily relied upon, as the common users of the type (HP Fire Latios, Overheat Ray, Fire Blast Dialga) typically use them to provide secondary coverage alongside their STAB Dragon moves.

Aside from the rare Surf Latios and opposing Palkia, Kyogre is really the only pokemon hurling Water attacks around, and can catch Palkia with a strong neutral hit (Palkia is 2HKOd by +1 Timid Thunder, and the same applies for Ice Beam if Stealth Rock is down). Switching into opposing Palkia (or Kingdra) is risky, because both carry Dragon attacks that will decimate Palkia should they make contact. So while ScarfDialga doesn't mind switching in to outspeed and revenge...Palkia has to tread carefully since it takes neutral hits from 13 types (which, ironically, is about how many Dialga resists). Though I guess a BP resist is good for sweeping sets.
 

Mr.378

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I would say that typing matters more than stats. Not useful to have good defences if the attacks they are trying to defend from do x2 damage. Though it obviously is useful to have both, I'd say typing is the better of them.

This could also be considered in all tiers and not just ubers. I'd say it applys more so here becaause of ubers colossal offensive stats.
 

FlareBlitz

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Well, let me put it this way. If Blissey were Ice/Fire or something, I can pretty much guarantee that it wouldn't see anywhere near as much usage as it does now in Ubers, or OU for that matter. Hell, it would probably be NU.
 

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