FU Metagame Discussion Thread (Heat Rock has been banned)

[HJAD]

Pidgeot aka Jesus Burd

Im making this post on behalf of my good friend Realistic Waters who discovered that actually, pidgeot does have a niche outside of the Physical Attacking Birds we already have in FU. Infact, Waters theorised that, now especially with Articuno leaving the tier, that a special Choice Specs Pidgeot has huge potential in this tier, and after looking at a few calcs, he convinced me that it is a true threat. Thanks to its good coverage options and extremely high powered Hurricanes (which nothing wants to switch into, that doesnt resist it) it provides an strong and potent special wall breaker that people might want to use :o

calcs

252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Metang: 168-198 (51.8 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Lairon: 304-360 (93.8 - 111.1%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Klang: 158-188 (48.7 - 58%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Simisear: 259-306 (89 - 105.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Electabuzz: 150-178 (55.3 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Electabuzz: 102-120 (37.6 - 44.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Zweilous: 109-129 (31.3 - 37%) -- 74% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rampardos: 226-268 (67.4 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regigigas: 166-196 (39.1 - 46.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Stunfisk: 132-156 (31.2 - 36.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Those are some impressive Calcs, and the neutral damage a specs hurricane does (even off of base 70 SpA) is quite scary, for anything to take. Not to mention, that besides the pretty much perfect coverage that hurricane + heat wave + hp ground gives, you can click U-Turn to gain huge initiative on a switch in, if you feel like your opponent has a nice mon to check Pidge. With Articuno gone, this i feel can take its place and be quite good.

Its certainly not the outclassed mon that has been talked about, as RW has opened my eyes to. Give it a try imo, you might find a new fetish mon. :]
fuck stunfisk tho

 

[brightobject]

252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Electabuzz: 150-178 (55.3 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Electabuzz: 102-120 (37.6 - 44.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Zweilous: 109-129 (31.3 - 37%) -- 74% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regigigas: 166-196 (39.1 - 46.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Stunfisk: 132-156 (31.2 - 36.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Doesn't Electabuzz outspeed and kill?
And even if Zweilous does take a hit it will probably be OHKO-ing back, wouldn't it? (e.g. even if it switches in on one hurricane, then takes another, it can just hit you with an outrage etc etc)
And Regigias can just T-wave you, start subbing down and wait for you to miss or get para'd.
Not to mention Stunfisk's T-Wave /Discharge shenanigans...

Not to mention Hurricane's garbage accuracy (and Heat Wave's imperfect accuracy), as well as the general disadvantages of using a Choiced 'mon, I'm not really convinced by those calcs. :s I'd rather use a more versatile, more powerful special attacker.

 

[Kushalos]

Pidgeot aka Jesus Burd

Im making this post on behalf of my good friend Realistic Waters who discovered that actually, pidgeot does have a niche outside of the Physical Attacking Birds we already have in FU. Infact, Waters theorised that, now especially with Articuno leaving the tier, that a special Choice Specs Pidgeot has huge potential in this tier, and after looking at a few calcs, he convinced me that it is a true threat. Thanks to its good coverage options and extremely high powered Hurricanes (which nothing wants to switch into, that doesnt resist it) it provides an strong and potent special wall breaker that people might want to use :o

calcs

252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Metang: 168-198 (51.8 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Lairon: 304-360 (93.8 - 111.1%) -- 68.8% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Heat Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Klang: 158-188 (48.7 - 58%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Simisear: 259-306 (89 - 105.1%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Electabuzz: 150-178 (55.3 - 65.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Electabuzz: 102-120 (37.6 - 44.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Eviolite Zweilous: 109-129 (31.3 - 37%) -- 74% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Rampardos: 226-268 (67.4 - 80%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Regigigas: 166-196 (39.1 - 46.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Pidgeot Hidden Power Ground vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Stunfisk: 132-156 (31.2 - 36.9%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Those are some impressive Calcs, and the neutral damage a specs hurricane does (even off of base 70 SpA) is quite scary, for anything to take. Not to mention, that besides the pretty much perfect coverage that hurricane + heat wave + hp ground gives, you can click U-Turn to gain huge initiative on a switch in, if you feel like your opponent has a nice mon to check Pidge. With Articuno gone, this i feel can take its place and be quite good.

Its certainly not the outclassed mon that has been talked about, as RW has opened my eyes to. Give it a try imo, you might find a new fetish mon. :]
fuck stunfisk tho

Why would you use it over Swanna though when Swanna has better typing, can hit Stunfisk, higher special attack. The only thing Pidgeot has going for it is its access to U-turn and slightly higher speed which honestly doesnt justify its use over Swanna since it doesnt always outspeed Simicyook. Swanna also has a lot of opportunities to use Defog because of Roost+good typing and its ability to force switches, making it a much better team supporter.

Edit: Not to mention it doesn't always have to rely on a 70% accuracy STAB because it can just click Scald and try to fish for burns.

 

[HJAD]

Doesn't Electabuzz outspeed and kill?
And even if Zweilous does take a hit it will probably be OHKO-ing back, wouldn't it? (e.g. even if it switches in on one hurricane, then takes another, it can just hit you with an outrage etc etc)
And Regigias can just T-wave you, start subbing down and wait for you to miss or get para'd.
Not to mention Stunfisk's T-Wave /Discharge shenanigans...

Not to mention Hurricane's garbage accuracy (and Heat Wave's imperfect accuracy), as well as the general disadvantages of using a Choiced 'mon, I'm not really convinced by those calcs. :s I'd rather use a more versatile, more powerful special attacker.

about ebuzz, it was more so about the switching in of ebuzz on Pidgeot. After they see that the first HP ground does over half, they may be more tentative when switching it in.
about zwei, which is a specially defensive tank set, it can't be a constant switch in since with hurricane 3hkoing, one hurricane amount of pre damage on it, pidge can 2hko it
above for regigigas

stunfisk is a bitch to Pidgeot, the HP ground calc shows that it can do decent to ok'ish damage to it if it is sufficiently weakened.

Why would you use it over Swanna though when Swanna has better typing, can hit Stunfisk, higher special attack. The only thing Pidgeot has going for it is its access to U-turn and slightly higher speed which honestly doesnt justify its use over Swanna since it doesnt always outspeed Simicyook. Swanna also has a lot of opportunities to use Defog because of Roost+good typing and its ability to force switches, making it a much better team supporter.

Edit: Not to mention it doesn't always have to rely on a 70% accuracy STAB because it can just click Scald and try to fish for burns.

Swanna doesn't get U-Turn, or Heat Wave. That's about all I could think of really.
But if we look into it, U-Turn is a huge advantage in running Pidgeot since it can just "U-Turn Out" on the [counter] in question into something that can deal with it appropriately. It might not seem like a huge deal at first, but generally just scouting for what the opponents check for pidge is, is an extremely useful utility.
Heat Wave in comparison isnt really too big of a deal, since it hits stuff like Metang and Klang quite hard, but not really much else I'll admit.

In Conclusion, yeah, Pidgeot is probably a quite niche Mon rather than a top ranked threat, but it has certain utility's which make using it worthwhile, like its access to U-Turn and high powered hurricanes. I get that it might not be as good as Swanna, but it can definitely rival it as an offensive wall breaker.

 

[Kushalos]

about ebuzz, it was more so about the switching in of ebuzz on Pidgeot. After they see that the first HP ground does over half, they may be more tentative when switching it in.
about zwei, which is a specially defensive tank set, it can't be a constant switch in since with hurricane 3hkoing, one hurricane amount of pre damage on it, pidge can 2hko it
above for regigigas

stunfisk is a bitch to Pidgeot, the HP ground calc shows that it can do decent to ok'ish damage to it if it is sufficiently weakened.



Swanna doesn't get U-Turn, or Heat Wave. That's about all I could think of really.
But if we look into it, U-Turn is a huge advantage in running Pidgeot since it can just "U-Turn Out" on the [counter] in question into something that can deal with it appropriately. It might not seem like a huge deal at first, but generally just scouting for what the opponents check for pidge is, is an extremely useful utility.
Heat Wave in comparison isnt really too big of a deal, since it hits stuff like Metang and Klang quite hard, but not really much else I'll admit.

In Conclusion, yeah, Pidgeot is probably a quite niche Mon rather than a top ranked threat, but it has certain utility's which make using it worthwhile, like its access to U-Turn and high powered hurricanes. I get that it might not be as good as Swanna, but it can definitely rival it as an offensive wall breaker.

It can't "just U-turn" out because Stunfisk and Electabuzz, the two major mons it will be using it on tend to have this little annoying ability called Static.

 

[Gary]

Choice Specs Pidgeot isn't a terrible Pokemon, but come on, if you're using Pidgeot, then you must be using it for the sake of using it then for actually trying to win. I'm all for using for using Pokemon that I personally enjoy using, but when it comes down to it, I use what's best and what's good in order to win as many matches as possible. And by saying that, Pidgeot seems to be the perfect example of a Pokemon that everyone is trying to find something good about so it doesn't seem completely worthless even in the FU tier, but trust me when I say this that Pidgeot has VERY little competitive worth on any serious FU team.

Pidgeot was in FU for quite a long time before it got a Mega so it's not like I'm just theorymoning here. Even back then I could never see any real reason to use it over the other birds. Offensive Defog? Swanna all the way. Revenge killer? Fearow. Wallbreaker? Hell, even Unfezent seemed like a better option just because Return coming from 115 base Attack was really good at the time and it had shit like Taunt or Hypnosis to fuck with its checks/counters.

The biggest set that everyone seems to want to use on Pidgeot is the special set, which as Kushalos said is pretty much 100% outclassed by Swanna. Heat Wave is irrelevant considering that Scald hits every Steel-type in the tier hard enough AND its burn chance deters things such as Klang or Metang from trying to stay in on it. Furthermore, its secondary STAB allows it to get away with not running shitty coverage options such as HP Ground in order to patch up its subpar coverage. Pidgeot doesn't even have any move like Hyper Voice to abuse its secondary STAB, so by using Pidgeot you're basically using a slightly faster, shittier Swanna. Swanna doesn't give a fuck that it doesn't have U-turn because what's really switching in on Swanna safely? Everything that can switch in on it, such as Buzz, Zweilous, Wartortle, and Toed either take VERY heavy damage from Hurricane or hate being burned by Scald. And on top of that, Swanna can run a really dangerous set with Rain Dance in order to have stronger Scalds, perfect Hurricanes, AND an immunity to status. Pidgeot has one thing going for it, and that's the chance to outspeed the Simis, which Swanna beats Simisear 1v1 while Pidgeot risks being OHKOed by Gunk after rocks anyway so it wont want to risk staying in on Sage.

tl;dr Pidgeot sucks and is completely outclassed by practically every other bird mon in the tier.

 

[Clarisaxx22]

I'm just here to say that even Noctowl is better than Pidgeot. Noctowl soaks up hits, has reliable STAB's and doesn't care about anything cuz T-wave/Hypnosis

 

[Realistic Waters]

I'm just here to say that even Noctowl is better than Pidgeot. Noctowl soaks up hits, has reliable STAB's and doesn't care about anything cuz T-wave/Hypnosis

ok so maybe special Pidgeot faces a lot competition from Swanna but it still has a decent niche even it it's mostly outclassed. Sitting at the same speed tier as Simisage is pretty good if you ask me, simi's not able to take you out even if stealth rocks are on the field. And im pretty sure Simisage can just OHKO swanna with leaf storm and even gunk shot can OHKO after stealth rock so i'd say that really forces Swanna out. And being able to pivot out of bad situations (excluding static stunfisk and E-buzz) is pretty useful. The added bulk comes in useful too.

252 Atk Life Orb Simisage Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Pidgeot: 177-209 (57.6 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
4 SpA Life Orb Simisage Leaf Storm vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Swanna: 263-309 (90.3 - 106.1%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

and what you've just said about Noctowl really doesn't make it any better, I don't recall Noctowl being very fast which makes it unable to outspeed a large proportion of the meta, it's not even able to soak up hits with base 50 physical defence, any other competitors have the ability to use a more reliable stab as well but the fact they can learn Hurricane lets them act as more of a wallbreaker. Not to mention Noctowl doesn't even learn Thunder wave while Hypnosis is generally always a poor option.

 

[MZ]

But it's a speed tie, so while pidgeot has the advantage thanks to being able to KO with a 100% accurate move, it's nowhere near reliable. Pidge is outclassed.

 

[Gary]

Pidgeot is a terrible check to Sage considering that it doesn't even reliably outspeed it, like Megazard and myself stated above. Its bulk isn't good enough to justify its use over Swanna either. Pidgeot has no niche, therefore there is no reason to discuss it any further.

 

[Skankovich]

Here's a neat set that I've been impressed by, since things have been kind of dead here recently:

Duosion @ Eviolite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
- Future Sight
- Thunder Wave
- Psychic
- Energy Ball

Duosion has a very hefty base 125 spattk which means with a modest nature it hits a higher stat than max timid simisear, leaving its Psychics hitting as hard as LO Swanna's scald, which is pretty great. With this, the special bulk investment and regenerator makes it into a special pivot that can do its job throughout the game. Electabuzz's volt switch does around 20%, which means even after rocks duosion will be back to full hp to come in again, it has a very low chance to be 2hko'd after rocks by swanna's hurricane and can easily twave it and switch out, scarf seviper only 4hkos etc.

These switch in opportunities give it a chance to spam paralysis and future sight attacks, which really helps other mons on the team to wallbreak- for example none of simisage's answers like a 120bp special psychic move.

 

[Gary]

Tier Update:

Heat Rock has been banned

​

This may seem like completely random to most people but the council and I have been discussing sun recently now that Buck has dropped and we ultimately decided that Buck was enough to push sun over the edge, and it needed to be nerfed in some one in order to promote a healthier metagame. Buck had been around for quite a while in the past and it caused sun to be very unamanageable, but we didn't do anything about it because Buck rose to PU before we could ban it. Now that it's back, we decided to take action. While sun was manageable without Buck around, do not think that we are banning Heat Rock in order to keep Buck around, because that's far from the case. To us, it's the combination of how everything that is commonly used to check most of the Chlorophyll users such as Quillidan, Dusclops, Vullaby, Murkrow, Zweilous, and Dragonair, are all heavily worn down or just straight OHKOed by Simisear, a staple on sun. Simisear already lacks solid switch-ins, but with sun support, those switch-ins its once had are pretty much eliminated as a Specs Overheat or +2 Fire Blast just mows through everything in existence. So yeah you could say that the combination of sun having a VERY potent Chloro sweeper as well as an insanely good wallbreaker that practically beats all of Buck's checks and counters, it seems clear to me that banning Buck or Sear wouldn't 100% solve anything, as both of them by themselves are not broken, it's the easy sun support that pushes them over the edge.

While Damp Rock has also been discussed, we've decided that at this moment rain is still pretty manageable. While Beartic is very strong and Golduck is an outstanding swimmer, there are several universal ways to deal with rain such as Toed, Taunt Simicyook which just has an amazing matchup against rain overall, Buzz, opposing SS Duck or Huntail, Sash Butterfree, and DD Nair. Sun has very few reliable checks, as most of them are all beaten by the combination of Simicyook-Gay + Chloro mon. Damp Rock might be looked at in the future, especially if a few more swimmers drop to FU that end up breaking the fuck out of it, but as of now, there seems to be real no reason to ban Damp Rock even though it's most likely an inevitable ban in the future. I'm not about theory banning though so it will have to wait.

 

[Gary]

Heat Rock has been banned, but Damp Rock hasn't? Any sun teams in FU are F-U-C-K-E-D. Still gonna use Simisear, though.

P.S. Simicyook is broken.

If you read the post above you'd know why Damp Rock was kept but Heat Rock was banned. Simicyook isn't any more broken than E-Buzz, which also isn't broken. The meta has adapted to it pretty well so far by using things like Eviolite Whirl which is an amazing hazard stacker + T-Spikes is amazing, Swalot which checks a LOT of other shit and is really underrated in genearl, Scarf Viper, Sash Butterfree, Heatmor, Persian, Nair/Shelgon, and Scarf Fearow. While it lacks a lot of switch-ins, it still has plenty of checks, and without Synthesis it gets worn down VERY easily with hazards + LO recoil and its frail as fuck considering how it has to use a negative defense nature. It looks broken on paper, but in practice there's multiple ways to handle it that doesn't require you to use shitty Pokemon.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

If you read the post above you'd know why Damp Rock was kept but Heat Rock was banned. Simicyook isn't any more broken than E-Buzz, which also isn't broken. The meta has adapted to it pretty well so far by using things like Eviolite Whirl which is an amazing hazard stacker + T-Spikes is amazing, Swalot which checks a LOT of other shit and is really underrated in genearl, Scarf Viper, Sash Butterfree, Heatmor, Persian, Nair/Shelgon, and Scarf Fearow. While it lacks a lot of switch-ins, it still has plenty of checks, and without Synthesis it gets worn down VERY easily with hazards + LO recoil and its frail as fuck considering how it has to use a negative defense nature. It looks broken on paper, but in practice there's multiple ways to handle it that doesn't require you to use shitty Pokemon.

I didn't say Damp Rock should be banned, I just said any sun teams in the tier are screwed. And in case you're saying Simisear is shit, it's not. While it has gotten worse due to the Heat Rock ban, It's still a good Pokémon. And as for Simicyook, by "broken" I meant "insanely good". I guess E-buzz is "broken" in that case, though.

 

[Gary]

I didn't say Damp Rock should be banned, I just said any sun teams in the tier are screwed. And in case you're saying Simisear is shit, it's not. While it has gotten worse due to the Heat Rock ban, It's still a good Pokémon. And as for Simicyook, by "broken" I meant "insanely good". I guess E-buzz is "broken" in that case, though.

Simicyook-Gay wasn't even S because of Sun, hell sun barely contributed at all to its rank. While sun Sear was practically uncounterable, NP Sear just practically nukes every team in existence, as it only has like 3 reliable counters. Hell, Simisear is partially the reason why defensive teams are so shitty in FU, considering how outside of Tentacool and Tortle which have no reliable recovery + are Knock Off bait, stall has pretty much nothing for a well played NP Sear. Its movepool is good as fuck too so it can run shit like Knock off to fuck with AV Heatmor/Dragons or Taunt to set up on balance better. It's far from shit, even with sun gone, it's one of the best Pokemon in the tier.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

Okay Magnemite, I'll stop shitposting and actually contribute. How about this Cosplay Pikachu set?
Pikachu-Belle @ Light Ball
Ability: Lightning Rod
Nature: Timid/Jolly
EVs: 252 Spe, 128 Atk, 128 Sp.A
- Thunderbolt
- Icicle Crash
- Knock Off
- Signal Beam

It may look like a shitty moveset, but... Yeah, it's outclassed. But can MLK learn Icicle Crash?

 

[Gary]

Okay Magnemite, I'll stop shitposting and actually contribute. How about this Cosplay Pikachu set?
Pikachu-Belle @ Light Ball
Ability: Lightning Rod
Nature: Timid/Jolly
EVs: 252 Spe, 128 Atk, 128 Sp.A
- Thunderbolt
- Icicle Crash
- Knock Off
- Signal Beam

It may look like a shitty moveset, but... Yeah, it's outclassed. But can MLK learn Icicle Crash?

You just use HP Ice on Buzz lol. Yeah that can't OHKO Gabite unless Specs but Pikachu is not fast enough to make up for its terrible bulk, and if it fails to OHKO something then it's pretty much going to die to anything. Pikachu ain't bad, but it ain't good either. This is still a shitpost lol, you do nothing to explain the set other than LOL Icicle Crash your EV spread makes no sense aside from the fact that you just split the investment in offenses down the middle. There's no purpose in doing that unless it actually accomplishes something significant, such as securing certain OHKOs and 2HKOs.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

You just use HP Ice on Buzz lol. Yeah that can't OHKO Gabite unless Specs but Pikachu is not fast enough to make up for its terrible bulk, and if it fails to OHKO something then it's pretty much going to die to anything. Pikachu ain't bad, but it ain't good either. This is still a shitpost lol.

Well, FUCK! Is there anything I can do that won't get me banned!?
Wait, I got it. Where's a good damage calculator? I'll check to see just how utterly outclassed Pikachu really is.

 

[Gary]

Well, FUCK! Is there anything I can do that won't get me banned!?
Wait, I got it. Where's a good damage calculator? I'll check to see just how utterly outclassed Pikachu really is.

Pikachu hits a lot harder than Buzz, has better overall coverage and priority. It's ability is also really cool, although it can't abuse it well considering that all the Electric-types in the tier can 2HKO it with a coverage move. Buzz has an insane amount of offensive and even defensive utility, is fast, bulky, and coverage good enough to cover most of the meta. Pika is too slow to abuse its massive power and too frail to clean up. It's a cool wallbreaker, but there are better ones out there. Pika was pretty cool during Sticky Web meta, but with Webs gone it's constantly cursed with that low subpar Speed stat, which puts it below most of the offensive metagame which it would otherwise have a very good matchup against. It just has too many major flaws to be considered on most teams, but its decent qualities are enough to keep it above the very low ranks.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

Pikachu hits a lot harder than Buzz, has better overall coverage and priority. It's ability is also really cool, although it can't abuse it well considering that all the Electric-types in the tier can 2HKO it with a coverage move. Buzz has an insane amount of offensive and even defensive utility, is fast, bulky, and coverage good enough to cover most of the meta. Pika is too slow to abuse its massive power and too frail to clean up. It's a cool wallbreaker, but there are better ones out there. Pika was pretty cool during Sticky Web meta, but with Webs gone it's constantly cursed with that low subpar Speed stat, which puts it below most of the offensive metagame which it would otherwise have a very good matchup against. It just has too many major flaws to be considered on most teams, but its decent qualities are enough to keep it above the very low ranks.

Yeah, about the "hitting harder than Buzz" argument...
252 SpA Light Ball Pikachu Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Lairon: 178-210 (54.9 - 64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Electabuzz Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Lairon: 193-228 (59.5 - 70.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
See, I can do stuff on this forum.

 

[Gary]

Yeah, about the "hitting harder than Buzz" argument...
252 SpA Light Ball Pikachu Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Lairon: 178-210 (54.9 - 64.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Electabuzz Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Lairon: 193-228 (59.5 - 70.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
See, I can do stuff on this forum.

Yeah that's a Specs buzz lol it commonly runs Eviolite. It hits a lot harder than Buzz with the ability to switch moves. Can we just stop lol.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

Yeah that's a Specs buzz lol it commonly runs Eviolite. It hits a lot harder than Buzz with the ability to switch moves. Can we just stop lol.

Fine... But seriously, I need to help out on this forum. How about letting me test to see how broken certain Pokémon are?

 

[WhiteDMist]

Fine... But seriously, I need to help out on this forum. How about letting me test to see how broken certain Pokémon are?

Dude, just go on Pokemon Showdown and head towards the PU chatroom. You can pitch ideas among the people there for PU and FU stuff, discuss the effectiveness of certain Pokemon, and get to know both communities as well. This thread is not the place for this, nor a place to debate what Pokemon is stronger, as that really doesn't have much relevance to the actual metagame. Regarding Pikachu, as a wallbreaker it is hard to ignore the fact that the Simis are faster and have similar wallbreaking powers; as an Electric-type, Speed becomes a very defining factor, which Pikachu lacks sadly.

 

[Mega-Pokebattlerz]

OK. Anyways, this thread seems a bit dead. How about a discussion about the most utterly broken Pokémon in the tier? MLK seems a bit dangerous, and so does Simicyook.

 

[Gary]

OK. Anyways, this thread seems a bit dead. How about a discussion about the most utterly broken Pokémon in the tier? MLK seems a bit dangerous, and so does Simicyook.

I literally just discussed why Simicyook is not broken a few posts ago. And as for Buzz, it's overcentralizing as fuck, but its overall impact on the meta is very healthy. Its ability to pivot into so many threats found on offense such as Swanna, Duck, Klang, Krow, Huntail, Butterfree, Toed, Swoobat, Vanilluxe, and opposing Buzz makes it the cornerstone of team building in FU. While many find centralizing Pokemon that can blanket check a lot of the meta to be ban worthy, Buzz's ability to keep a ton of things found on offense in check as well as gluing most bulky offensive teams together actually prevents things like rain spam, flying spam, and the Simis from being absolutely ridiculous. It also gives offense something that can switch into Swanna, which otherwise would just lose a mon to it every time it comes in. I have had a talk with the council a lot and Buzz was always brought up as a potential suspect, but we always decided that Buzz actually helps balance out the tier and without it team building would become more restricting to combat the now hard to check playstyles. Buzz is nothing like Aegi was in OU, despite it being able to fit on most teams and blanket check the meta. Unlike Aegi it can be check, it's completely shutdown by bulky Grass-, Ground-types, and fat shit (Toxic can annoy these things but Buzz will still lose a shit ton of momentum when they come in, and the Ground-types will prevent it from maintaining momentum.)