Hyper Offense in UU

FlareBlitz

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I didn't mean to get involved in this panty-wringing bitch fest but there is one thing that I feel can be salvaged from this discussion: whether scarfers are necessary on an offensive team. I have used exactly one scarfer in the dozens and dozens of offensive teams that I've created (a scarf skunktank, which I mostly used to eliminate ghosts, hit Raikou really hard with Punishment, and then blow up on things) and my teams are...not unsuccessful, to put it mildly. RPers are very easy to handle, just run some priority and bulky offensive Pokemon that can take a hit and hit back hard (Torterra for Aggron, Rhyperior for other Rhyperior, Leafeon/Sceptile for Torterra, etc). The only time I will ever use a Scarfer is if it learns Trick or Explosion, because otherwise you might as well start 5-6 against stall. Even then, I hate being locked into moves that don't do any extra damage; if your opponent switches a resist into CB Rhyperior at least it's still gonna hit really fucking hard, whereas I treat a scarfer like I treat Dugtrio (i.e. set up bait).
 
Torterra is OHKOed by Aggron's Ice Punch and 2HKOed by Low Kick (if it doesn't run Ice Punch). What then? Hope your opponent auto-loses to your RP-less RP Torterra (and yes I realize that a lot of teams do but they're bad teams)?

And Rhyperior for other Rhyperior? Really? Unless you're CB using Aqua Tail, you can't even check RPerior (ie sacrifice something and then switch in and KO it) nevermind counter it.

If you run something like Swellow (ironically, probably the best offensive Pokemon in my opinion) you're going to get set up on by these Pokemon and they won't just RP and suicide, they'll hit you hard then switch out and be able to counter your checks until they can set up again. On most of my purely offensive teams, a Scarfer / many priority users are needed. This means that if you have Azumarill for Rhyperior/Aggron and Cloyster or even Absol for Torterra, you should be fine. Otherwise Scarfers are needed.

And the Scarfer really doesn't need Trick or Explosion. For example, Scarf Primape is still great against stall. Scarf Hitmonlee is great too. Scarf Absol is actually one of the best anti-stall scarfers that functions well against offense. It traps Chansey and Ghosts with Pursuit allowing other Pokemon to sweep or spin.
 

FlareBlitz

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No Aggron runs Ice Punch, I mean, really? Ice Punch Aggron? ffs. Anyway if it does run Ice Punch that means it either doesn't have EQ or Aqua Tail which means rhyperior/croak handle it fine. And uh, my Rhyperior checks RPerior by any reasonable definition, since it's not ohko'd by EQ and does enough damage back that with LO and some chip damage that it dies. Sure they could just EQ on the switch but then I could just switch to Torterra on the EQ. Which brings me to your "they're just gonna hit you and switch out" theory; if I never switch to my counter they'll never weaken it. I can't count the number of times I've kept Toxicroak in on Scyther just to have them U-Turn away as I Swords Dance, and then switch to Rhyperior when it comes back with revenge on its mind. Your entire "you'll get swept if you don't run scarfers" argument relies on my opponent being a better player than me (by knowing when I'll switch to a counter and knowing when I'll just switch to a resist), which isn't much of an argument as far as scarfers being necessary for a successful team goes. Really all that argument proves is "you'll get swept by shitty sweepers if you're terrible at prediction".

Speaking of shitty sweepers...Swellow is admittedly pretty crappy, but I can't believe you mentioned Rhyperior/Aggron as being able to set up on it. If you're using Swellow right AT ALL, the only move they'll be switching into is U-Turn or boosted Facades when they're at ~50%. The only reason I would consider Swellow to even be mediocre is because it can run away from its counters with U-Turn, if you're not abusing that you're basically just using a worse Tauros.

Scarf Primeape is not great against stall. What is with all these people claiming random things are great against stall? Next we'll have people saying "oh yeah that bibarel, eh's a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of stall". ScarfPrimeape can't do anything to any Pokemon with any sort of defensive inclination. I know this because I use a Taunt Bulk Up Primeape in one of my troll teams and it only does like 60% to venusaur even with +1 Ice Punch. The Scarf set can't even 2hko Milotic. That's not impressive...at all.

Man I'm really trying not to come across like I'm picking apart everything in your post but it's really hard when you say things like "scarf absol traps chansey and ghosts" without any sort of calcs or substantiation. Adamant Absol's Pursuit does a pathetic 24.3% - 28.7% to 0/252 Calm Chansey if it stays in, while it happily paralyzes/poisons you and wish stalls. It does 40.1% - 48% to WoW Rotom, meaning it burns you and renders you utterly useless without a second thought while easily resting off the damage. And of course Absol can switch into neither due to the status they pack in the first place. It does even worse against Tomb due to its bulk and Mismagius due to it commonly opening with Substitute/WoW.

tl;dr Scarfers are not necessary for offense to function if you build your team with an eye towards synergy, Scarfers are bad against stall without trick/explosion, therefore scarfers are at best as useful as anything else and at worst a liability.
 
Torterra is OHKOed by Aggron's Ice Punch and 2HKOed by Low Kick (if it doesn't run Ice Punch). What then? Hope your opponent auto-loses to your RP-less RP Torterra (and yes I realize that a lot of teams do but they're bad teams)?

And Rhyperior for other Rhyperior? Really? Unless you're CB using Aqua Tail, you can't even check RPerior (ie sacrifice something and then switch in and KO it) nevermind counter it.

If you run something like Swellow (ironically, probably the best offensive Pokemon in my opinion) you're going to get set up on by these Pokemon and they won't just RP and suicide, they'll hit you hard then switch out and be able to counter your checks until they can set up again. On most of my purely offensive teams, a Scarfer / many priority users are needed. This means that if you have Azumarill for Rhyperior/Aggron and Cloyster or even Absol for Torterra, you should be fine. Otherwise Scarfers are needed.

And the Scarfer really doesn't need Trick or Explosion. For example, Scarf Primape is still great against stall. Scarf Hitmonlee is great too. Scarf Absol is actually one of the best anti-stall scarfers that functions well against offense. It traps Chansey and Ghosts with Pursuit allowing other Pokemon to sweep or spin.
Scarf Absol is a beast. A real beast. I used Adamant with Night Slash / Stone Edge / Psycho Cut / Superpower and it hit things like crap.

On my own HO team, I use DS Uxie / Swellow / DD Feraligatr / SD Absol / SD Sceptile / SD Blaziken. I really like the team, the only problem is that Uxie is almost setup bait, because I reaaaly need that Reflect unless I'll be hitten HARD. I used SubRoost Moltres instead of SD Blaziken, and it surprisingly worked well. Without spinning.
IMO Heavy Offense only needs a scarfer as a resort. If you have priority abusers (Absol and such) you're fine to go, but don't count on them too much.

I only play HO in UU, in OU it's also my regular team, and in NU HO doesn't seem to work too much for me. Perhaps I'm missing the right sweepers. (I did an mono-normal team that worked fin
If I build a balanced team I'll do it like Lead/Wall/sweeper/sweeper/sweeper/sweeper.

HO can work, but you need to know what you're doing. But if you got your screens, SR, and DD on your Feraligatr expect to see some hurt. (5 turns..)
 
No Aggron runs Ice Punch, I mean, really? Ice Punch Aggron? ffs. Anyway if it does run Ice Punch that means it either doesn't have EQ or Aqua Tail which means rhyperior/croak handle it fine. And uh, my Rhyperior checks RPerior by any reasonable definition, since it's not ohko'd by EQ and does enough damage back that with LO and some chip damage that it dies. Sure they could just EQ on the switch but then I could just switch to Torterra on the EQ. Which brings me to your "they're just gonna hit you and switch out" theory; if I never switch to my counter they'll never weaken it. I can't count the number of times I've kept Toxicroak in on Scyther just to have them U-Turn away as I Swords Dance, and then switch to Rhyperior when it comes back with revenge on its mind. Your entire "you'll get swept if you don't run scarfers" argument relies on my opponent being a better player than me (by knowing when I'll switch to a counter and knowing when I'll just switch to a resist), which isn't much of an argument as far as scarfers being necessary for a successful team goes. Really all that argument proves is "you'll get swept by shitty sweepers if you're terrible at prediction".
Your Toxicroak that takes 71.4% - 84.4% from Head Smash checks Aggron?

The same way your Rhyperior is somehow better then their Rhyperior who gets a one turn advantage and all it needs to do is 67.9% - 80.4% to flat out beat you anyway (ie if you switch into Stone Edge, you lose). That has absolutely nothing to do with prediction, don't try to claim that as my argument when my argument is clearly "those checks are shitty and won't work in almost every scenario". It's not a matter of prediction when you can predict correctly and still get destroyed.

FlareBlitz said:
Speaking of shitty sweepers...Swellow is admittedly pretty crappy, but I can't believe you mentioned Rhyperior/Aggron as being able to set up on it. If you're using Swellow right AT ALL, the only move they'll be switching into is U-Turn or boosted Facades when they're at ~50%. The only reason I would consider Swellow to even be mediocre is because it can run away from its counters with U-Turn, if you're not abusing that you're basically just using a worse Tauros.
There comes a point when sweeping with Swellow is a valid option, and your opponent may still have something like RP Aggron/Rhyperior left. There is also the possibility that you are revenge killing something, which is one of Swellow's biggest perks as a sweeper: it's faster then everything.

Swellow is one of the best offensive sweepers if not the best. It is a great asset vs both stall and offense because of U-turn, status immunity, and Speed.
FlareBlitz said:
Scarf Primeape is not great against stall. What is with all these people claiming random things are great against stall? Next we'll have people saying "oh yeah that bibarel, eh's a pretty cool guy and doesn't afraid of stall". ScarfPrimeape can't do anything to any Pokemon with any sort of defensive inclination. I know this because I use a Taunt Bulk Up Primeape in one of my troll teams and it only does like 60% to venusaur even with +1 Ice Punch. The Scarf set can't even 2hko Milotic. That's not impressive...at all.
Scarf Primape has this neat move called U-turn where your opponent switches their counter in and takes Spikes/SR/U-turn damage and lets you switch out in one turn. So if Spiritomb comes in, I'm going to U-turn to Moltres. Once Moltres is in, you know what's coming in at least soon: Chansey. Spiritomb can't keep taking U-turns and Spikes damage, Primape is eventually going to just break through it. Similar thing happens with Venusaur, Milotic, etc.
FlareBlitz said:
Man I'm really trying not to come across like I'm picking apart everything in your post but it's really hard when you say things like "scarf absol traps chansey and ghosts" without any sort of calcs or substantiation. Adamant Absol's Pursuit does a pathetic 24.3% - 28.7% to 0/252 Calm Chansey if it stays in, while it happily paralyzes/poisons you and wish stalls. It does 40.1% - 48% to WoW Rotom, meaning it burns you and renders you utterly useless without a second thought while easily resting off the damage. And of course Absol can switch into neither due to the status they pack in the first place. It does even worse against Tomb due to its bulk and Mismagius due to it commonly opening with Substitute/WoW.
You were accusing me of being "unfair" with prediction earlier and now Chansey - a teams crutch special wall - is going to stay in on Absol - one of the most dangerous sweepers a stall team can face? No, it won't. A switching Chansey takes 48.4% - 57.1% from Pursuit making it no longer able to take a Fire Blast from Moltres.

And you don't just switch Absol into Ghosts, you hit it with Stone Edge or Assurance with Donphan once, and then switch it in next time. Absol can stop the ghosts from fleeing and recovering on something like Swellow.


FlareBlitz said:
tl;dr Scarfers are not necessary for offense to function if you build your team with an eye towards synergy, Scarfers are bad against stall without trick/explosion, therefore scarfers are at best as useful as anything else and at worst a liability.
It depends where you're drawing the line of this "hyper offense" team. There isn't much a team with a bunch of fast heavy hitters can do to stop threats besides hit harder and faster then them. A Scarfer is one of the options to deal with them, priority is the other

Does offense in general really need those? No, not as much as a "hyper offense" team would need.
 

FlareBlitz

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Your Toxicroak that takes 71.4% - 84.4% from Head Smash checks Aggron?

The same way your Rhyperior is somehow better then their Rhyperior who gets a one turn advantage and all it needs to do is 67.9% - 80.4% to flat out beat you anyway (ie if you switch into Stone Edge, you lose). That has absolutely nothing to do with prediction, don't try to claim that as my argument when my argument is clearly "those checks are shitty and won't work in almost every scenario". It's not a matter of prediction when you can predict correctly and still get destroyed.
First of all, I've already covered this. If I think Rhyperior is going to attack instead of set up, I'll switch to Toxicroak, Torterra, or Mespirit, not my own Rhyperior.
If it does set up or makes the wrong move, then I made a wrong prediction and I will be losing a Pokemon. That's how this game works.

Honestly it's like saying "Latias can't check DDMence because it could just outrage right away". Well yes, but no Mence ever Outrages right away, because that's stupid, so people still consider Latias a check to DDMence. And if you switch in a Latias into Draco Meteor you can't exactly complain about it being a "shitty check"; you just don't know how to use it.

Oh and yeah, my Toxicroak checks Aggron without Earthquake because it either a) Rock Polishes, meaning I come in at nearly full health and survive the head smash or B) attacks, meaning I'm faster and can attack for the KO or force it out. That's what "checking" means, please familiarize yourself with the term before continuing the discussion.

There comes a point when sweeping with Swellow is a valid option, and your opponent may still have something like RP Aggron/Rhyperior left. There is also the possibility that you are revenge killing something, which is one of Swellow's biggest perks as a sweeper: it's faster then everything.
In that case you need to put up with the fact that revenge killing with such an easily walled Pokemon is going to open you up to a ton of threats.

Swellow is one of the best offensive sweepers if not the best. It is a great asset vs both stall and offense because of U-turn, status immunity, and Speed.
No competent stall team is ever going to let you U-Turn all over the place, and neither is it beneficial for you to do so with Hazards and Toxic Orb eating a third of its health every time it comes in. Not to mention that nothing on stall will ever die immediately to Facade, so there's really no reason to switch out; hell, things like Milotic can stall it out easily, and even Chansey survives a hit if it's Bold!. Only if you bring in Swellow on something like Venusaur (good luck eating a sludge bomb, no good user will powder if they know you have a Toxic'd swellow) will you ever get to successfully U-Turn.
I will grant that Swellow outruns pretty much everything on offense, so if you ever run into an offensive team consisting of Blazikens and Venusaurs you'll probably sweep it. However, against other offensive teams (i.e. well built ones), you'll continuously run into Pokemon like Rotom, Rhyperior, Aggron, Mespirit, Spiritomb, Donphan, etc. etc. who can easily tank a +1 Facade or Brave Bird and massacre you. You could U-Turn out of these, sure, but you just lost 32% of your health.
Sweepers in UU that rely on STAB that gets mostly neutral coverage will never be good in my eyes. UU Sweepers need good SE coverage against a large number of Pokemon to really be efficient, mostly because we don't have something with base 100+ offenses that can spam Draco Meteor down here, so defense in UU is more dependent on typing than straight out stats. I could go on about this but this isn't really the place. Suffice to say that I don't consider Swellow much of a threat at all.

Scarf Primape has this neat move called U-turn where your opponent switches their counter in and takes Spikes/SR/U-turn damage and lets you switch out in one turn. So if Spiritomb comes in, I'm going to U-turn to Moltres. Once Moltres is in, you know what's coming in at least soon: Chansey. Spiritomb can't keep taking U-turns and Spikes damage, Primape is eventually going to just break through it. Similar thing happens with Venusaur, Milotic, etc.
This is even worse than your Swellow example. What would possibly switch out of Primeape on stall? Chansey? It's just going to Protect to scout your move and then stay in if it's U-Turn. Venusaur? Why? Even specially defensive variants aren't 2hko'd by Ice Punch (45.6% - 53.8%, physically defensive ones take way, way less), and it'll just smack you around with sludge bomb and outstall with Synthesis. Milotic? Lol, 36.1% - 42.7% from Close Combat. Registeel? Maybe. Or it could just stay in, easily survive the Close Combat (61% - 72.5%) and paralyze your goofy ass. It's even worse if you U-Turn since then it's Moltres getting paralyzed. Seriously, what kind of stall teams are you facing that are letting your non-threatening sweepers U-Turn all over the place?



You were accusing me of being "unfair" with prediction earlier and now Chansey - a teams crutch special wall - is going to stay in on Absol - one of the most dangerous sweepers a stall team can face? No, it won't.
Uh, yes it will, unless you subscribe to the "DD Lapras" school of prediction thought. A player who knows your Absol is scarfed has absolutely no reason to switch out once he Protects and finds out you didn't use Superpower. Surprise value is not a legitimate argument for the utility of a Pokemon, if it were I could say that Hitmonlee beats Tangrowth by getting three hits against it because my opponent doesn't know it has Limber and uses Stun Spore

And you don't just switch Absol into Ghosts, you hit it with Stone Edge or Assurance with Donphan once, and then switch it in next time. Absol can stop the ghosts from fleeing and recovering on something like Swellow.
Oh okay so now you need excellent prediction on your side and your opponent being completely brain dead and not using WoW on the switch for a scarfer who is supposedly "great against stall" to beat defensively frail Pokemon that are weak to its STAB. You've won me over, Absol is clearly the UU incaration of NP Mixape.

It depends where you're drawing the line of this "hyper offense" team. There isn't much a team with a bunch of fast heavy hitters can do to stop threats besides hit harder and faster then them. A Scarfer is one of the options to deal with them, priority is the other

Does offense in general really need those? No, not as much as a "hyper offense" team would need.
A team with a bunch of frail stat-uppers obviously won't be able to handle other threats once they set up. That's why these sorts of teams rely on "not letting them set up". A scarfer directly contradicts this idea by locking itself into an unboosted move. You might say a hyper offense team would need a scarf rotom to revenge a DD Feraligatr once it sets up, but what happens when your opponent immediately switches in an RPerior? How can a defensively frail offensive team handle that?
This is why scarfers are discouraged on Hyper Offense; I call it "Dugtrio syndrome". Scarfers might be able to revenge dangerous threats, but they do so at the cost of letting OTHER dangerous threats have easy set up, which prevents them from being very useful on such a team.
 
Hyper Offense is a term better used in OU. Hyper Offense in OU means Azelf/Aerodactyl, Infernape, Jolteon, Starmie, Lucario, etc.

I agree that Scarf Primeape is really good, but Heysup, what does that part about Chansey switching into Moltres have to do with it? If you mean you switch Primeape into Chansey, that is stupid, because you'll just get T-Wave'd, rendering Primeape useless.

Also, who is the best offensive spiker now that Froslass is gone. Don't say Omastar, he is the best spiker in the tier, but nowhere near offensive.

First of all, I've already covered this. If I think Rhyperior is going to attack instead of set up, I'll switch to Toxicroak, Torterra, or Mespirit, not my own Rhyperior.

You would switch Toxicroak into Rhyperior? There's this neat little move called Earthquake that Rhyperior can learn, and I don't think Toxicroak would enjoy switching into it.
 
There is no "strict definition" of the term, it is completely arbitrary and made up by people who don't feel the term "offense" suffices when it very clearly does. The term "Hyper Offense" makes more sense then "Heavy Offense", but really it's all just a style of offense. I've used Pokemon to wear down my opponent's walls then sweep with another Pokemon. That's just offense. I've set up Spikes and Stealth Rock while using powerful sweepers to keep my opponent from setting up and spinning while eventually breaking through their core. That's just offense. I've used Dual Screen Pokemon with a number of stat up users. That is still offense.
of course there's no strict definition of the term. it was made up among like 5 guys who wanted to talk about pokemon, and didn't want to differentiate every single time between offense that tries to switch around and predict and offense that doesn't. if you want to say that offense is offense and stall is stall, they both try to kill the other 6 pokemon first right? so why don't we call each team a team that tries to kill all 6 enemy pokemon first? because then during discussion you have to take lots of time to explain how you plan on winning, rather than just saying a word and being understood. which is why we use words like offense and stall in the first place. I'll admit that the term has been bastardized and that its original purpose was meant for private use, almost like an inside joke if you will, but you can't get mad at the people who made up the word because other people overuse it.

as for choice scarves.... *shrugs* it depends on the metagame
 

FlareBlitz

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Lonewolf, the people I commonly play are intelligent enough not to open with Earthquake, preferring the superior Stone Edge as an opening scouting move. This is partially because nothing is immune to Stone Edge, so you can at least weaken whatever switches in instead of giving things free turns, but it's mostly because nothing is funnier than a crappy player going "Hey this is a rhyperior it can learn earthquake lets go to moltres :D :D" and then ragequitting after it takes 427% from a Stone Edge.
 
I've use hyper offense in UU i guess, pokemon like Primeape, Ambipom, LO Electrode, Specs Raikou, Hitmonchan & Hitmonlee, Magmortar, NP Slowking, Aggron, Swellow, Dugtrio, and some others i can say i have seen success with on the UU ladder (A few of these being NU) I'm not so sure how the perfect hyper offense UU team would be like since I usually just experiment with a few sweepers, and see how things work.

I can definitely see how a good hyper offense team would be a lot harder to manage than in OU, and its harder to deal with toxic spikes and stall, even with a poison type like Drapion to suck up the toxic spikes, i'm also curious what the best rapid spinner would be, one that can spin well while being able to deal decent damage, other than Donphan.
 
The answer to that last part is easy. There's no need to run a spinner in HO because doing so means using a poke that will sacrifice your momentum. If you're dying for one (or are using Moltres + scyther), Hitmonlee is workable, but won't have many chances to spin, and Hitmontop leaves much to be desired offensively. The best way to combat entry hazards for HO teams is to stop them from being set up in the first place.
 
First of all, I've already covered this. If I think Rhyperior is going to attack instead of set up, I'll switch to Toxicroak, Torterra, or Mespirit, not my own Rhyperior.
If it does set up or makes the wrong move, then I made a wrong prediction and I will be losing a Pokemon. That's how this game works.
But it still beats your own Rhyperior. You lose 3 Pokemon (ie it Rock Polishes, OHKOes your Mesprit/whatever, then beats your Rhyperior (it's faster so it 2HKOes you first), then KOes another one of your Pokemon with it's remaining HP (which isn't much after Life Orb, I guess)) instead of just two if you predict wrong. You lose one Pokemon at worst if you have a Pokemon like Azumarill with Aqua Jet or a Scarfer like Venusaur.

FlareBlitz said:
Honestly it's like saying "Latias can't check DDMence because it could just outrage right away". Well yes, but no Mence ever Outrages right away, because that's stupid, so people still consider Latias a check to DDMence. And if you switch in a Latias into Draco Meteor you can't exactly complain about it being a "shitty check"; you just don't know how to use it.
Salamence is a horrible example no matter how you put it because these Pokemon aren't using Outrage. I don't need to make a reference to OU to explain that a Pokemon does not counter itself and a check should at least be able to comfortably survive a single attack.
FlareBlitz said:
Oh and yeah, my Toxicroak checks Aggron without Earthquake because it either a) Rock Polishes, meaning I come in at nearly full health and survive the head smash or B) attacks, meaning I'm faster and can attack for the KO or force it out. That's what "checking" means, please familiarize yourself with the term before continuing the discussion.
So Registeel checks Moltres because it survives an attack. You can call whatever you want a check, but if it's shitty it will not work.

FlareBlitz said:
In that case you need to put up with the fact that revenge killing with such an easily walled Pokemon is going to open you up to a ton of threats.
You need to activate its orb, revenge killing something like a Sashed Qwilfish makes a perfect target. Additionally, you are focusing on an example of a point that I made and not on the actual point of the argument. I could switch Swellow with, for example, Arcanine who is walled by Rhyperior and doesn't OHKO Aggron. "Don't get set up on" is not going to be possible in real matches (maybe it's possible in ladder matches) but against a good player who's thinking about his moves this tactic is not going to cut it.
FlareBlitz said:
No competent stall team is ever going to let you U-Turn all over the place, and neither is it beneficial for you to do so with Hazards and Toxic Orb eating a third of its health every time it comes in. Not to mention that nothing on stall will ever die immediately to Facade, so there's really no reason to switch out; hell, things like Milotic can stall it out easily, and even Chansey survives a hit if it's Bold!. Only if you bring in Swellow on something like Venusaur (good luck eating a sludge bomb, no good user will powder if they know you have a Toxic'd swellow) will you ever get to successfully U-Turn.
Respectable stall players beg to differ. I use Swellow as a switch in for Chansey when I send out Moltres. The very threat of Moltres is enough to lure Chansey out, and that makes it an easy switch in for Swellow. Swellow will then U-turn because Chansey is not able to recover the damage back if it stays in, and if it switches out to something like Omastar you can just rinse and repeat, but this time Moltres will beat Chansey.

And there should not be hazards if you're playing offense vs stall. Once they set up hazards you're going to have a much tougher match, the odds will not be in your favor.

FlareBlitz said:
I will grant that Swellow outruns pretty much everything on offense, so if you ever run into an offensive team consisting of Blazikens and Venusaurs you'll probably sweep it. However, against other offensive teams (i.e. well built ones), you'll continuously run into Pokemon like Rotom, Rhyperior, Aggron, Mespirit, Spiritomb, Donphan, etc. etc. who can easily tank a +1 Facade or Brave Bird and massacre you. You could U-Turn out of these, sure, but you just lost 32% of your health.
You don't just immediately sweep a team with Swellow, that's not what I said at all. It's just easy to pull off a sweep late game when their Rotom / Rhyperior are gone because it naturally outpaces everything. Unless of course they have a Scarfer.
FlareBlitz said:
This is even worse than your Swellow example. What would possibly switch out of Primeape on stall? Chansey? It's just going to Protect to scout your move and then stay in if it's U-Turn. Venusaur? Why? Even specially defensive variants aren't 2hko'd by Ice Punch (45.6% - 53.8%, physically defensive ones take way, way less), and it'll just smack you around with sludge bomb and outstall with Synthesis. Milotic? Lol, 36.1% - 42.7% from Close Combat. Registeel? Maybe. Or it could just stay in, easily survive the Close Combat (61% - 72.5%) and paralyze your goofy ass. It's even worse if you U-Turn since then it's Moltres getting paralyzed. Seriously, what kind of stall teams are you facing that are letting your non-threatening sweepers U-Turn all over the place?
You know Torterra, Omastar, Registeel, Chansey, Venusaur (Ice Punch is a 2HKO with SR), etc. One of those is enough to exploit. I'm not saying it "destroys stall by itself spam close combat and you win", which is basically what you're trying to refute. I'm saying it forces specific walls out and can abuse entry hazards.
FlareBlitz said:
Uh, yes it will, unless you subscribe to the "DD Lapras" school of prediction thought. A player who knows your Absol is scarfed has absolutely no reason to switch out once he Protects and finds out you didn't use Superpower. Surprise value is not a legitimate argument for the utility of a Pokemon, if it were I could say that Hitmonlee beats Tangrowth by getting three hits against it because my opponent doesn't know it has Limber and uses Stun Spore
So now you know that Absol is Scarfed in addition to knowing it's going to Pursuit. You're good!

And not to sound snarky, but it's ironic that you mention this and then proceed to say:
FlareBlitz said:
Oh okay so now you need excellent prediction on your side and your opponent being completely brain dead and not using WoW on the switch for a scarfer who is supposedly "great against stall" to beat defensively frail Pokemon that are weak to its STAB. You've won me over, Absol is clearly the UU incaration of NP Mixape.
Don't strawman me. If you're misunderstanding what I said re-evaluate what I could (and did) have possibly meant by "don't switch Absol in". I'd think it's clear but I guess not.


FlareBlitz said:
A team with a bunch of frail stat-uppers obviously won't be able to handle other threats once they set up. That's why these sorts of teams rely on "not letting them set up". A scarfer directly contradicts this idea by locking itself into an unboosted move. You might say a hyper offense team would need a scarf rotom to revenge a DD Feraligatr once it sets up, but what happens when your opponent immediately switches in an RPerior? How can a defensively frail offensive team handle that?
This is why scarfers are discouraged on Hyper Offense; I call it "Dugtrio syndrome". Scarfers might be able to revenge dangerous threats, but they do so at the cost of letting OTHER dangerous threats have easy set up, which prevents them from being very useful on such a team.
So you're whole argument is that "they can't set up". Well sorry but they can no matter what you do. An Aggron is going to come in on your Mesprit (assuming standard Psychic, Energyball, SR, and U-turn) and OHKO your whole team unless your Toxicroak has miraculously has not lost 10% while carrying a Life Orb. Arcanine is going to get walled and set up on by Rhyperior. These are just examples, but it would be foolish to think that you won't get set up on.
 
I haven't played heavy offense in a while, but when I do I never use a scarfer. Simply attacking anything that tries to set up more often than not takes care of the problem. If you use the correct setup sweepers then there should only be a few pokemon that can set up on you reliably. As I have prevously stated, offense doesn't necessitate "hyper frail" pokemon. While this is less true in UU, there are plenty of sweepers that have fairly sufficient bulk and typing to take an attack from something that does manage it. Priority helps a lot here too, but that isn't too common if you use a team of nasty plotters.

Regarding Flare Blitz' statement that a team of Rock Polishers would be easy to handle, I disagree. The number of explosions they have available to take down your threats could make things quite difficult indeed. I am going to have to try out one of these teams to figure out if it works as well in practice as it does in theory however.
 
There is no "strict definition" of the term, it is completely arbitrary and made up by people who don't feel the term "offense" suffices when it very clearly does. The term "Hyper Offense" makes more sense then "Heavy Offense", but really it's all just a style of offense. I've used Pokemon to wear down my opponent's walls then sweep with another Pokemon. That's just offense. I've set up Spikes and Stealth Rock while using powerful sweepers to keep my opponent from setting up and spinning while eventually breaking through their core. That's just offense. I've used Dual Screen Pokemon with a number of stat up users. That is still offense.

However, I'll disregard this ill-defined term...
It is all offense, hence why there is still the word offense in hyper offense. Is it a sin to classify further than "offense" and "defense"? Because right now it sure seems like you're arguing that. Offense suffices, sure, but how else do you describe a team devoted to the wearing down of one specific counter through only sacrificing and little-to-no prediction? I'd rather forget that mouthful and just say hyper offense. You can go about offense in different ways and each of these are entitled to their own separate classification...

-----------

In UU it doesn't work. There, I said it. Every viable member of a hyper offense team in UU has to be able to take out Swellow without being killed/hit back and still never lose their momentum. Swellow is the sole (and if not the sole, definitely the main) reason that ho in UU just doesn't flow. Because nothing in UU outspeeds it naturally, it will always be able to come in after a poke dies and run through your whole team. Anachronism has so kindly pointed out again and again, truthfully, that scarfers just cannot be used on ho. Momentum can't be lost. Scarfers do just that. Specs and Band should be refrained from at all costs - actually in UU they can't be used at all. Nothing can viably use them without losing momentum.

Trust me, I have tried time and time again to create a team that keeps the offensive momentum in every situation while I still actually win games. The closest I've come is a team with 4 Sub users to ensure safety from Swellow's revenge kills while still keeping power, but it still doesn't have the same momentum-feel that a true all-out ho team has.
 
hehe...my rock polish team is working well :) Not gonna talk specifics right now, but it is cleaning up. I only lose to stone edge misses, but stone edge is rarely even used so its ok :)
 

shrang

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The way HO works without a Scarfer is simply by revenge killing or by synergy, and simply, not letting your opponent gain the momentum in the first place, which Scarfers easily do. For example, RP Torterras or Rhyperiors would generally find it difficult to set up on you anyway, but even if they do, something like Torterra will find it hard to sweep you if you have SD Leafeon waiting in the wings, for example. I used LO Electrode just so Rhyperior didn't sweep me, and it worked reasonably well, since he could clean up late game or weaken Raikou's counters as well (Last round, obviously).
 
First off, Swellow does suck ass. Second, Hyper Offense is godly cause Stall is just gay and so are weather teams, especially in UU (i fucking hate clefables.) Hyper offense doesn't need at set up pokemon (I try not to have more than half my team set up) because some pokemon really don't need it (like alakazam.) But there are a lot of good pokemon that could be good offensively that are overlooked. Things like Magmortar, he has epic special attack and decent enough speed to rape things hard, along with not a 4x weakness to SR like Moltres. Another reason is that it can learn epic moves like Thunderbolt. There are plenty of underrated pokemon that would be epic on Hyper Offensive UU teams and plenty that are overrated. It is an effective team strategy but it still needs some support or it is doomed.
 
I was using pseudo hyper offense, with like three/four Swords Dance sweepers, a Stealth Rock lead(sometimes one of the SD sweepers), a Fire Poke(sometimes FFArcanine and sometimes Blaziken), and Spiritomb(to eff over Ambipom/Uxie/Mesprit leads).

now I'm trying out a team with CM/SR Clefable lead, NPCroak, NPHoundoom, NP/Sub Mismagius, CM/Sub Grumpig, and CM Golduck; it's not going well, though, I must say. Chansey and Registeel wall the team to no end, more or less.
 
About Choice Scarfers...

I think what's exacerbating this Heysup vs. Flareblitz issue is that they have different playstyles. If you're running a team with nothing but setup sweepers (Flareblitz), then using a Scarfer isn't a great idea, because things can easily set up scarfers, and if all of your switch-ins are setup sweepers, chances are they won't handle boosted opponents very well. As such, you want all of your pokemon to be able to at least switch attacks and preferably boost at a moments notice, preventing the opponent from getting breakaways.

However, if you are utilizing pokemon that are meant to hit hard right off the bat (Heysup), you are less likely to suffer a sudden reversal, and so you can make use of the advantages of a Choice Scarfer without it being as much of a liability to the rest of your team. Your team still needs to be able to deal with the things that set up easily on your scarfer, but that's something that can be handled with smart team-building.

For instance, if you're running Scarf Hitmonlee, your main problem will be Ghosts. You can spam Close Combat relatively safely if you have Spiritomb waiting to take on any Ghosts who want to set up on you. If you're met with resists such as Moltres, you can still sack Hitmonlee, or switch safely if they are Roost stalling you. If you put some thought into your Scarfer and choose one whose counters your team can deal with, then I think using a Scarfer on a HO team can work.

I don't really run HO (I know I posted a team I used earlier in this thread, but looking back it clearly leans towards "balance" more than "heavy offense" : /), so my own experience doesn't apply perfectly, but personally the only Scarfer I've tried that I really liked was Porygon-Z (lol). This leads me to believe that if you're going to run a Scarfer, it ought to have a powerful, spammable STAB move, because if you're using your coverage moves anywhere near early-game you'll probably just get set up on. Having strong, spammable STAB also lets you predict what types of things will be trying to set up on you, so you can plan your team accordingly. Dual-STAB and Trick can also help with the setup bait issue.

It may seem like I've contradicted myself here, but keep in mind I'm talking about how different things function in the context of different teams and playstyles. Namely, FlareBlitz', Heysup's, and my own recent styles. Also I hope I didn't misrepresent you guys, but I'm sure if I did I'll hear about it : P.
 
yeah, well that follows along the concept of what people are referencing when they use the term Heavy/Hyper Offense; to some, it's just a strategy that involves all out offense assaults(i.e. not "bulky offense" or "balance"), and to others to use the term for anything other than Dual Screen lead and five stat-up sweepers is incorrect nomenclature(as the term seemingly originated in OU by a few select battlers).
if your entire team's composition is based around type synergy, stat-up sweepers, and sacrifices versus switching and prediction based matchups(i.e. the "original definition" for the term", then obviously a Choiced Pokemon(unless it is your very last switch in every game) will stunt the momentum of your assault, i.e. the whole reason your team exists.
now if you use an offensive team that is not so much the strict definition, then having a Choiced 'mon may be more viable.
so to me it is more a debate of semantics than anything else.
 
yeah, well that follows along the concept of what people are referencing when they use the term Heavy/Hyper Offense; to some, it's just a strategy that involves all out offense assaults(i.e. not "bulky offense" or "balance"), and to others to use the term for anything other than Dual Screen lead and five stat-up sweepers is incorrect nomenclature(as the term seemingly originated in OU by a few select battlers).
if your entire team's composition is based around type synergy, stat-up sweepers, and sacrifices versus switching and prediction based matchups(i.e. the "original definition" for the term", then obviously a Choiced Pokemon(unless it is your very last switch in every game) will stunt the momentum of your assault, i.e. the whole reason your team exists.
now if you use an offensive team that is not so much the strict definition, then having a Choiced 'mon may be more viable.
so to me it is more a debate of semantics than anything else.
I think in this thread the particular defining factor between offense and heavy offense is the part about sacrificing versus switching and prediction. If you have four sweepers of any sort and a defensive core, you are running offense, rather than heavy offense. However, if you are running nothing but sweepers (of any sort), or just hazard support and sweepers, you are running heavy offense. The distinction, as far as I can tell, is whether or not you are going to scout the opponents team while protecting your own, analyze their weaknesses, and work your way to a sweep, or whether you are going to make constant sacrifices in order to weaken and break their walls. This may not be the definition, but it seems to be how this thread is treating it.
 

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