OU ADV OU Viability Ranking

1) Zard is underrated. It has good coverage in Dragon Claw, Focus Punch, and Hp grass. Fire it also a great STAB as Skarm, Meta, and Celebi are all weak to it. Base 100 speed it also very important. The Sunnyzard set is also a nuke.
2) Moltres is basically Zard if it was slower, bulkier, had direct status and recovery. But I think Zard is better because it doesn’t have the hp grass vs hp ice problem while Moltres has to Toxic/Will-o-wisp or give up hitting Swampert.
3) Blissey is overrated. That’s not to say it’s bad but it’s too passive, forced out by common mons such as Ttar, and ironically it’s best friend, Skarm. It also gets deleted by Trio.
 

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3) Blissey is overrated. That’s not to say it’s bad but it’s too passive, forced out by common mons such as Ttar, and ironically it’s best friend, Skarm. It also gets deleted by Trio.
Blisseys with thunderbolt or flamethrower beat Skarm 1v1 as long as you have the support to handle the 1-2 layers of spikes it will get up. While sing can put a lot of awkward pressure on offensive teams that need their skarm awake to deal with Cune, Aero, or other set up sweepers.

And Blissey isn't helpless in the Tar match up either. 1 good toxic on a switch in makes Tar much less likely to come in again later, especially if Blissey is throwing out t-bolts and seismic tosses to cover the switch. Blissry willl be forced out after Tar comes in, but any well made team should have a bulky rock resist to take a hit from Tar.

I think that Metagross has a much stronger match up in to Bliss than Tar does because of its toxic immunity and ice beam resistance. Explode is also much more immediately threatening than anything Tar has besides focus punch. Plus meteor mash cab sets you up nicely to abuse the skarm switch if you get the attack raise and agility can end games if used at the right time. Blissey needs to run t-wave or flamethrower to handle Metagross, but both are less common than toxic and ice beam because of Swampert.
 
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Blisseys with thunderbolt or flamethrower beat Skarm 1v1 as long as you have the support to handle the 1-2 layers of spikes it will get up. While sing can put a lot of awkward pressure on offensive teams that need their skarm awake to deal with Cune, Aero, or other set up sweepers.

And Blissey isn't helpless in the Tar match up either. 1 good toxic on a switch in makes Tar much less likely to come in again later, especially if Blissey is throwing out t-bolts and seismic tosses to cover the switch. Blissry willl be forced out after Tar comes in, but any well made team should have a bulky rock resist to take a hit from Tar.

I think that Metagross has a much stronger match up in to Bliss than Tar does because of its toxic immunity and ice beam resistance. Explode is also much more immediately threatening than anything Tar has besides focus punch. Plus meteor mash cab sets you up nicely to abuse the skarm switch if you get the attack raise and agility can end games if used at the right time. Blissey needs to run t-wave or flamethrower to handle Metagross, but both are less common than toxic and ice beam because of Swampert.
Do u at least agree that Zard is underrated?
 
Do u at least agree that Zard is underrated?
I think Zard has some nice qualities that earn it a solid B tier position: spikes immunity, 100 base speed, fire/grass coverage, but it has splashability issues, is generaly frail + a bad defensive typing, and a has a tough match-up into blissey.

Zard wants to outspeed and 1HKO to 2HKO as many mons as possible. So it wants to run max speed Timid to speed tie Zap and Mence, while outrunning the base 95 and below mons. But this sacrifices the power boost of the modest nature that makes up for Zards reliance on non-stab moves. Zard needs modest to guarantee a 1hko on Pert after 1 layer of spikes, but this means potentially getting outspeed and 1 shot by Zap and Mence.

Dragon Claw and Focus Punch are nice coverage, but Mence can live a max sp atk dragon claw after switching in on 8% damage hp grass. While Focus Punch is entirely prediction reliant and if you predict wrong Tar comes in and forces you out. (Hp grass doesn't guarantee a 2HKO after 3 layers of spikes on bulky Tar)

252+ SpA Charizard Dragon Claw vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Salamence: 227-268 (68.5 - 80.9%)

252+ SpA Charizard Hidden Power Grass vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Tyranitar: 149-176 (36.9 - 43.6%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO after 3 layers of Spikes.

You also have to heavily rely on Focus Punch predicts to 2HKO Blissey or you just get walled.

252+ SpA Charizard Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Blissey: 147-174 (22.5 - 26.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery

Not to mention that Gengar, Starmie, Aero, Suicune, and Moltres are all super unfavorable match ups.

None of this is to say that Zard doesn't have a place in OU, because it does as fire/grass coverage on a base 100 speed mon is amazing. But it's kept in check by its bad match ups against many of the tiers most viable mons.
 
1) Zard is underrated. It has good coverage in Dragon Claw, Focus Punch, and Hp grass. Fire it also a great STAB as Skarm, Meta, and Celebi are all weak to it. Base 100 speed it also very important. The Sunnyzard set is also a nuke.
2) Moltres is basically Zard if it was slower, bulkier, had direct status and recovery. But I think Zard is better because it doesn’t have the hp grass vs hp ice problem while Moltres has to Toxic/Will-o-wisp or give up hitting Swampert.
3) Blissey is overrated. That’s not to say it’s bad but it’s too passive, forced out by common mons such as Ttar, and ironically it’s best friend, Skarm. It also gets deleted by Trio.
Okay, 1 by 1, lemme check in on these

1) Zard is good but not underrated, it's pretty accurately rated. I adore Zard, but it has its downsides- mainly, you're *stone* walled vs milo/suicune and you rely on prediction and/or spikes to consistently beat bliss. Zard also lacks the initial power that Molt has, meaning it often needs to get put into blaze range at some point of the match for it to really break.

2) I'm gonna be real w/ you, Zard is the mon w/ the hp grass vs ice problem (a very common set is Blast, Ice, Beat Up, Toxic). Molt is almost always Fire/Grass/Wisp + fourth move. Personally, I'm a very big fan of Roar + Spikes support for molt because that means molt grinds out Blissey and most of the tier. Molt also has a lot more raw power off rip which means long term it's much more threatening, even if it's slower.

3) Blissey is pretty well understood as #4 in the tier behind Meta Ttar Skarm (not in that order) because of its sheer bulk, even into physical breakers. Access to basically every broken utility choice other than wisp and spike is pretty fucking nutty alongside the bulk to even take +1 hits from mence, let along stone walling a lot of special attackers in the tier without consistent pressure. Every offense team mandates a strong plan for skarmbliss, and "it loses to dugtrio" when it can even live direct hits from dugtrio and force it to risk freeze/crit shows just how nutty it is
 
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As with my previous post, these are my views and they should be taken with a grain of salt.

Thoughts:
1. Suittar is one of the best tars. I think it's the best ttar without dragon dance.
2. Celebi is the best offensive special check by a lot. It harms Skarmory, 1v1s Zapdos, beats Blissey, and blasts through every water. On top of this, all the stuff I want sand stream for defensively, such as Suicune and Snorlax, Celebi also takes care of with leech seed. This enables Celebi to function very effectively on slow teams that want their walls to heal with leftovers or otherwise can't fit tar. It's also an amazing Gengar switchin. The other grass types (the ones with sleep) are said to beat stall, but I think Cele is even better at beating stall, with a certain forbidden set. I am very close to putting this above Metagross.
3. Rorozap is an extremely potent matchup fish that I see used very rarely, except by Roro. Others would do well to put it into their toolkit.
4. Blissey is impossible to kill, but it gives away many free turns, and even worse, it doesn't adequately handle most of the special attackers that are actually good (granted, their ability to beat Blissey is a big part of what makes them good). On the other hand, Blissey was blessed with Wish and Calm Mind, both of which are overpowered.
5. I used to view Flygon as a necessary evil for omitting spin on slower spikes teams, but I now see that it's an attraction in its own right because of its ability to flummox Swampert overload strategies -- I'm talking HP grass, stacking boom Meta + physicals, and repeated spikes chip. I think there's a wide variety of strong supermans, from fast to mid speed to slow.
6. My current view on Gyarados (and to a lesser extent Hera) is that back in 2004-2021 everyone was obsessed with running physical offense, even if it killed them. They were surrounded by styles that were favored vs Swampert but they were so obsessed with making phys off work that they started inventing weirdo trickshot technology to allow them to beat Swampert convincingly while still running the style that they loved. Somehow, Gyarados rode this wave into the overused tier. In 2022+, I consider Gyarados (when played properly) a niche 20% usage mon on a niche 10% usage style. I believe that equates to 2% usage, below the OU threshhold. These are numbers I made up in my head btw, so don't take them that seriously.
7. I have Kingdra over Ludicolo simply because I think the best weather clear payoff (and maybe the best set in general?) is subroar Suicune, and Kingdra is much better at enabling subroar Suicune because it covers the ddmence matchup, enabling subcune to drop its ice coverage. On the other hand, I believe we're on the verge of a Ludicolo renaissance, and I for one cannot wait. It's the same typing that I imagine Jesus would have, if He were a Pokemon.
8. The beauty of Missy is that it walls a weird variety of things. I'm talking like pert, certain laxes, Gengar (sometimes). And it still has its blowout potential vs slow Dol/Mie.
9. Registeel is by far the best Regi in terms of winning. It fits on the most teams, it does the most things on the teams it does fit on, and it's the best in every way. But 2/3 of Registeel's teams that are good at winning would do better with one of its competitors in its place, and the remaining 1/3 would do OK with one of its competitors in its place. On the other hand, Regice is extremely niche and it sucks and has few teams that are good at winning. The strong teams it does have, however, would look very different, or not exist at all, if they couldn't run Regice. The fact that I placed Ice over Steel is reflective of the fact that I think a viability ranking should rate Pokemon based on how hard they are to never use, rather than how easy they are to use often.
10. Regirock would do better if its users stopped running it on shit teams. Its most useful traits are providing a zap/fire check and allowing you to boom on ground types (I'm talking like Dol and Gon) which its competitor and perennial teammate Metagross is unable to do.
11. Yama: it's like Registeel. It's viable, it's strong, and it's outclassed left and right by other stuff. Yama's claim to fame is its amazing stall matchup in 1 Pokemon. So far in this VR I mentioned a certain Celebi, rorozap, subroar cune, and missy. And all these Pokemon also have insane stall matchups in one Pokemon, yet they also provide ambiguity in team structure, defensive utility, and other things that Yama is relatively bad at. There are other 1 mon stall killers I didn't mention, and there are even more potent ways to destroy stall on a structural level with more than 1 Pokemon. Given it has this competition, why choose Yama? Btw, are you even sure Yama itself beats stall that badly? I mean Yama famously "mandates" wish/spin which already gives you a nice stall mu even if Yama was absent.
12. I feel there's a negative pattern in this tier. The pattern is that people pick up a team/style with a wacky, strong, polarizing MU spread, then they decide to minimize the team's weaknesses instead of exacerbating its strengths, and they add a weird shitmon that does nothing for the team offensively but patches a certain defensive hole. P2 epitomizes this perfectly.
Going to have to disagree with you on Hariyama. Yes it has a lot of switchins in OU and only a few reliable entry points (tyranitar, blissey, snorlax, and miscellaneous status moves) but all of its switchins suffer from being hit by knock off. Think pokemon like salamence, celebi, starmie, and gengar, really hate losing their leftovers especially in sand, and then the checks like skarmory metagross swampert, if they get knocked off suddenly theyre now vulnerable to every single percent of chip damage and cannot rely on leftovers in sand anymore to bring back games. Hariyama is amazing because it facilitates the timers on these pokemon amazingly and can be taken advantage of in infinite ways, WHILE being a bulky and threatening fighting type in OU which is a necessary niche because fighting STAB hits many important pokemon very hard, and it has the coverage to keep up. Rock Slide hits fliers after you probably knocked them off already, giving you extremely good pressure vs these pokemon, and it can run hp bug/ghost to round out coverage or even phaze with whirlwind. Hariyama has some big problems which is why its not a metagame staple but it has earned and deserves its C ranking.
 
Hey, so I'm new to ADV, and I'm a bit curious about Alakazam. I have never seen this Mon used, despite seemingly being a pretty good sweeper. The only reason I can think of is that it doesn't do much else, but surely it's good enough at its job to justify being on some teams, but it isn't even on the VR. Can anyone explain to me why this is?
 
Hey, so I'm new to ADV, and I'm a bit curious about Alakazam. I have never seen this Mon used, despite seemingly being a pretty good sweeper. The only reason I can think of is that it doesn't do much else, but surely it's good enough at its job to justify being on some teams, but it isn't even on the VR. Can anyone explain to me why this is?
Mono Psychic typing holds it back a lot, makes it much easier to take on both offensively and defensively, its pretty outclassed by jirachi for the most part even if its a lot faster and seems stronger because jirachi's steel typing actually makes it way more threatening vs offensive teams because they have to focus on hitting it hard back while alakazam dies to any physical attack if it cannot OKHO the target. It has encore to potentially screw over blissey and has other really good moves like knock off, but it is a poor knock off user and encore compromises on coverage you might need, so youre likely walled by something very common. Tyranitar if fire punch, metagross/jirachi if ice punch or hp grass, defensive starmie ruins you with thunder wave, etc, so it has quite a tough time competing with other more versatile psychic types. Not bad though and you can definitely use a lot worse.
 
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My Opinions

1. Blissey is underrated because every team needs to have some sort of way to deal with it. A lot of people say that Blissey should not be higher because it is passive and can be pressure stalled or set up on which is true but Calm Mind Blissey and Sing Blissey puts a lot more pressure on the opponent. Blissey is also a very versatile Pokémon, with a lot of moves that can be ran as a option like Aromatherapy, Sing, Counter, Wish.

2.Metagross is overrated mainly because its slow and most of the time invites Skarmory in, and lets it set up Spikes. I think that Choice Band Metagross is massively overrated while other Metagross sets are still very good. The Choice Band set has the issue of having to play the prediction game once your opponent knows that its Choice Banded, I think that Choice Band is in general better on faster Pokémon like Aerodactyl rather than slower ones like Metagross. I think that Metagross is best with Leftovers although Lum Berry is also decent on some teams. There's also a lot of underrated moves on Metagross like Reflect/Lightscreen and Pursuit.

3. Laturn is bad but it is still usable on some teams. It has a lot of great traits like water with electric immunity that doesn't take 4x from grass. It has BoltBeam which is always great. Confuse ray + Thunderwave is good. Pairs well with Skarmory. I think it should be D rank or at least F rank its better than Roselia and Armaldo.

4. Suicune is underrated. While Suicune isn't as good versus Tyranitar or Aerodactyl as Swampert its still a amazing bulky water that has the ability to just win the game on it own. With how common grass coverage is because of Swampert, being able to use a bulky water that can shrug grass attacks off is very good.

5. Regirock is underrated. It has a good move pool with Thunder Wave+ Explosion. Thunder wave plus Rock Slide can pull off some miracles. With that said it still not that great but better than its currently ranked.
 
Curious as to why Lunatone is ranked in this OU Viability ranking? Not trying to downplay its value just curious.

Also when you click on Lunatones hyperlink, it takes you to Steelix's analyses on the official Smogon Website, so that needs to be fixed.
 
I think Charizard is at least as good as Moltres, if not just a slight bight worse for not having roar or will-o'wisp. But I don't think it deserves to be an entire tier below Moltres. Zard does everything offensive Moltres does but at the premium base 100 speed tier with focus punch/beat-up to directly damage Blissey. Zard can't run defensive sets like Moltres can, but I don't think those sets are good enough to justify Moltres position an entire tier above Zard.

I do agree that Suicune is very underrated. The bold sets easily wall Tar and Aero unless they get multiple 10% finches, while the fast, modest sets can break through soft checks like Celebi, Salamence, or Swampert if your opponent expects a defensive Suicune.

Personally I also disagree with Celebi and Jirachi below Aero and Salamance. I think Aero's reliance on CB makes it prediction reliant and weak to protect users. So while it can get immense value and sweep teams I feel like it needs more team support to work than either Celebi or Jirachi does. I believe leech seed alone justifies a higher position for Celebi just for how easily it forces switches against basically the entire metagame. Celebi also has positive match ups into each of the pokemon you ranked as metagame warping just by running leech seed and depending on its set it matches up well into everything in the amazing tier besides Dugtrio and Salamence.

Jirachi should also be higher. At least above the trappers, Lax, and Salamence (probably not Metagross though). The wish/protect sets are very hard to break through if you don't have t-wave/will-o'wisp or Dugtrio on your team. The serene grace paras and burns give all of your breaks more sweeping potential and spamable 20% freezes are disgusting. But personally I've swept too many people with this calm mind set to to believe it deserves a higher rank.

Jirachi @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 248 HP / 40 Def / 152 SpA / 68 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 2 Atk / 30 SpA
- Calm Mind
- Psychic
- Fire Punch
- Hidden Power [Grass]

You have enough defense to guarantee that Swampert and Tyranitar never 1hko you:
252+ Atk Swampert Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Jirachi: 307-362 (76.1 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Tyranitar Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Jirachi: 236-278 (58.5 - 68.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

While you outspeeding Swampert and 1hko back after a calm mind:
+1 152+ SpA Jirachi Hidden Power Grass vs. 248 HP / 44 SpD Swampert: 401-472 (99.5 - 117.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

And if you get a calm mind up on a switch you have a decent chance to 2hko bulky Tyranitar and can survive a jolly Dugtrio EQ and 1hko back:
+1 152+ SpA Jirachi Hidden Power Grass vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Tyranitar: 192-226 (47.6 - 56%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Dugtrio Earthquake vs. 248 HP / 40 Def Jirachi: 341-402 (84.6 - 99.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+1 152+ SpA Jirachi Hidden Power Grass vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dugtrio: 256-302 (121.3 - 143.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

You can also freely boost on all non-cm variant's of Blissey and then fish for sp def drops. You can match suicune 1 to 1 for boosts, out damage defensive variants and then fish for sp def drops while its sleeping.

I've found that its very hard for this set to not go at least 1 for 2 against most teams, if not just outright 6-0 some teams that play too cautiously around the potential of a defensive set and let you get up a cm or 2 without taking damage
 
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StupidFlandrs48

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Curious as to why Lunatone is ranked in this OU Viability ranking? Not trying to downplay its value just curious.

Also when you click on Lunatones hyperlink, it takes you to Steelix's analyses on the official Smogon Website, so that needs to be fixed.
Lunatone is a niche CMpasser that’s immune to sand and spikes, unlike Celebi. It’s also a nice Mence check since it resists flying/ground coverage without a rock weakness, and the fire resistance helps a little bit for teams that Celebi would make too Molt-weak (takes a chonk from HP grass though). Also has explosion but no clue if that gets used

But yeah it’s really bad, surprised it got recognized when similarly specific stuff like Wailord and Linoone got snubbed.
 
Lunatone is a niche CMpasser that’s immune to sand and spikes, unlike Celebi. It’s also a nice Mence check since it resists flying/ground coverage without a rock weakness, and the fire resistance helps a little bit for teams that Celebi would make too Molt-weak (takes a chonk from HP grass though). Also has explosion but no clue if that gets used

But yeah it’s really bad, surprised it got recognized when similarly specific stuff like Wailord and Linoone got snubbed.
Fair enough, though if that is the case would Solrock also belong in this category ranking too? It seems like it can fulfill the same role while also having a high defense stat to better check Mence, along with a higher attack stat to have a harder-hitting explosion and/or rock slide.
 

vapicuno

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Fair enough, though if that is the case would Solrock also belong in this category ranking too? It seems like it can fulfill the same role while also having a high defense stat to better check Mence, along with a higher attack stat to have a harder-hitting explosion and/or rock slide.
Solrock's main niche as a cmpasser is exploding. It used to be better when you could use it with salac berry and Endure, allowing you to pass the speed boost or boom on the faster target. Unfortunately, this became disallowed as passing two stats was banned.
 
several links in the 1st post link to a page for a different pokemon than the pictured one
umbreon, articuno, donphan, lunatone, & ninjask.
 

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