Lower Tiers ORAS NU Viability Rankings

[Machineae]

Why would I run it over Liepard? Steelix being 2HKOd is probably the only reason. Without LO it's frailer, weaker, and it's slower. Avoiding EQ is nice and taking fighting neutrally isn't too bad although you're still wet paper.

It has an expansive movepool but you need to cut certain moves you really wanna have. It seems like it's agreed upon that BB, SP and Twave is for sure, so you have the option of running stuff like heat wave, hp grass, psychic and tail wind. Giving up any of those offensive coverage moves means you're leaving yourself open for plenty of threats. The only way you're bringing Murkrow in is pivoting into and grabbing momentum better than your opponent or after something dies. Then your enemy simply switches into whatever they have in their that they think can handle Murkrow because I guarantee everyone has something, most likely even two things.

You run heat wave/twave/SP/BB you're walled by Don, any Rotom/-s variant carrying WoW simply burns you, then lives through SP and KOs you with Volt Switch. EBelt Rotom-S has nothing to fear really, as only two consecutive non burned SP will 2HKO, meanwhile non scarfed variants of Rotom carry WoW and sitrus/colbur. Lanturn eats twave and doesn't take much from anything else. Heat Wave is invaluable or else steels wall you (granted KK doesn't wanna get twaved, Mawile dgaf.) So if you run HP Grass you can sorta lure defensive Don and 2hko offensive if you HP grass on the switch.

4 SpA Life Orb Murkrow Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 172-203 (41.5 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO


4 SpA Life Orb Murkrow Hidden Power Grass vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 250-296 (71 - 84%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'll give you Twave being strong but uhh, Liepard has that too and runs it in a very effective lure set. Twave/Play Rough/Grass Knot/Gunk shot. And guess what? You can actually outspeed and kill Jynx assuming it doesn't have sash up, and not be dead weight against Rotom/-s. You're fucked against steel types but you gain so much more for running Liepard over Murkrow and you're not pideonholed into running one set but with one move slot being flexible. The lure set is dope but you have the pivot set featuring dark moves, uturn and Twave, copycat NP, etc. If I see Murkrow I think the enemy is either running the offensive LO set or some dumb set like perish trap or a defensive set. Barely any scouting is needed. From the team preview Liepard puts on much more pressure.


Maybe I'm being more strict but I don't see why things that are largely outclassed should be ranked. Murkrow isn't deadweight for sure, a guaranteed Twave atleast is something but this happens a few times every couple months, someone finds something cool but isn't necessarily good/great and we hop on it because we wanna try out/support the new thing. Creativity shouldn't be hampered but things should be looked at objectively. I LOVE Krow but Ill run so many other things before it.

 

[kay]

Flying STAB, different coverage with heat wave and being mixed, different Prankster options such as Tailwind would be good starting places as to why it's a viable option over Liepard. So I'll break it down a bit but I agree Liepard does give it some competition but not in such a way that one out classes the other.

So first off Flying STAB is really good seeing as we have mons like Hariyama and Vileplume making a small come back into the metagame. Having a STAB option that hits both is actually really good. The problem with the set you listed above for Liepard is it had no STAB so it's completely relying on its coverage to deal with things like Hariyama that Murkrow has STAB for.

Different coverage and the ability to go mixed makes Murkrow very unpredictable. You don't know if it's packing hp grass, heat wave, u-turn, pursuit, or dark pulse. It's extremely customizable to what your team needs which can lead to making team building a lot more flexible. With the set you posted above again it also lacks the prioirty that Murkow runs with Sucker Punch. Like you mentioned Murkrow having a way to kill Steelix is an extremely good reason to run it as normally other flying types like Archeops and Rotom-f are bothered by Lix, but Murkrow has a very good way around it.

And lastly we have different Prankser options. Over all I think this is the weakest point but it's something at least worth mentioning.
Murkrow has access to Tailwind which is something Ive seen been used to really great effect. It lets you turn the tides of some games before it dies which can come in clutch. This is more of a perk to picking it rather then a reason to use it over Liepard but it's worth pointing out.


tl;dr: It has the STAB that your lure set doesn't have, if it can't lure the things it can it's still useful by throwing out powerful Brave Birds which is something lure liepard can't do. If you compare Murkrow to the "standard" Liepard set it trades encore for more offensive presence. It's also extremely customizable in what coverage and utility moves you can run.

So yeah these are reasons you'd consider running it over Liepard.

 

[Teddeh]

Why would I run it over Liepard? Steelix being 2HKOd is probably the only reason. Without LO it's frailer, weaker, and it's slower. Avoiding EQ is nice and taking fighting neutrally isn't too bad although you're still wet paper.

It has an expansive movepool but you need to cut certain moves you really wanna have. It seems like it's agreed upon that BB, SP and Twave is for sure, so you have the option of running stuff like heat wave, hp grass, psychic and tail wind. Giving up any of those offensive coverage moves means you're leaving yourself open for plenty of threats. The only way you're bringing Murkrow in is pivoting into and grabbing momentum better than your opponent or after something dies. Then your enemy simply switches into whatever they have in their that they think can handle Murkrow because I guarantee everyone has something, most likely even two things.

You run heat wave/twave/SP/BB you're walled by Don, any Rotom/-s variant carrying WoW simply burns you, then lives through SP and KOs you with Volt Switch. EBelt Rotom-S has nothing to fear really, as only two consecutive non burned SP will 2HKO, meanwhile non scarfed variants of Rotom carry WoW and sitrus/colbur. Lanturn eats twave and doesn't take much from anything else. Heat Wave is invaluable or else steels wall you (granted KK doesn't wanna get twaved, Mawile dgaf.) So if you run HP Grass you can sorta lure defensive Don and 2hko offensive if you HP grass on the switch.

4 SpA Life Orb Murkrow Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 172-203 (41.5 - 49%) -- guaranteed 3HKO


4 SpA Life Orb Murkrow Hidden Power Grass vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 250-296 (71 - 84%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'll give you Twave being strong but uhh, Liepard has that too and runs it in a very effective lure set. Twave/Play Rough/Grass Knot/Gunk shot. And guess what? You can actually outspeed and kill Jynx assuming it doesn't have sash up, and not be dead weight against Rotom/-s. You're fucked against steel types but you gain so much more for running Liepard over Murkrow and you're not pideonholed into running one set but with one move slot being flexible. The lure set is dope but you have the pivot set featuring dark moves, uturn and Twave, copycat NP, etc. If I see Murkrow I think the enemy is either running the offensive LO set or some dumb set like perish trap or a defensive set. Barely any scouting is needed. From the team preview Liepard puts on much more pressure.


Maybe I'm being more strict but I don't see why things that are largely outclassed should be ranked. Murkrow isn't deadweight for sure, a guaranteed Twave atleast is something but this happens a few times every couple months, someone finds something cool but isn't necessarily good/great and we hop on it because we wanna try out/support the new thing. Creativity shouldn't be hampered but things should be looked at objectively. I LOVE Krow but Ill run so many other things before it.

You're comparing these pokemon simply as mono dark vs mono dark. My main reason to use murkrow would be for the STAB brave bird it offers, then everything else it offers is a bonus. By simply having this stab brave bird, you're then forcing out things such as vileplume (main one imo), you're doing some extremely nice damage to things like weezing, garb, neutral things that check murkrow.
252+ Atk Life Orb Murkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Weezing: 133-157 (39.8 - 47%)
252+ Atk Life Orb Murkrow Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 160+ Def Garbodor: 187-222 (51.3 - 60.9%)
Whilst it also beats and forces out the fighting types that check liepard like gurdur, yama etc.
Overall, it has niches that shouldn't allow it to be "completely outclassed by liepard" and I feel you're really under-valuing the secondary stab.

Secondly, I want to suggest a set that liepard or anything apart from lapras in this tier can do and that is this:
Murkrow @ Eviolite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Roost
- Mean Look
- Perish Song
- Feather Dance
Simply put, there's more than what meets the eye with this pokemon and several other pokemon on the ranking thread that are being talked about dropping out. I have used volbeat and it's remarkably good, I will post more on it in another post, but I want to support the rise of murkrow to D :)

 

[Machineae]

Maybe we're seeing this different then because I'm not seeing it as dark v dark. I'm seeing it as two mons that have decent offensive coverage and can lure in/hit a wide variety of things for strong neutral or SE damage+have access to a guaranteed safety button vs enemy sweepers/revenge killers in the form of twave.

I definitely do discount the bird stab, I don't like losing at least half my hp to LO+BB recoil, not also taking into account its weak to rocks. That definitely has a bit to do with why I don't value Krow as highly. Like fake out+BP from Hariyama does 68-80% so after a BB Krow is for sure dead. It has a chance to even die before it can BB if rocks is up. It definitely has an advantage or two over Liepard but I don't feel as if it's that great. D is appropriate IMO, I've been convinced a bit.

 

[Dentricos]

Hey guys I have some noms

Dentri's thoughts

Lanturn A+ ---> A

Lanturn is still good at checking what it does but it gives sceptile a great opportunity. Don't have to much to say on this but it made sense for this nom to be first.

Rotom-Fan B+ ---> A

This mon extremely useful typing right now in terms of dealing with both major drops sceptile and steelix. It is great at handling core people have been running with things like weezing, pelipper, steelix, mantine, and hariyama. It also enjoys the fact that lanturn is losing popularity after sceptile drop. With less lanturns this mon is back to being a serious threat and I think it deserves a raise :}

Klinklang A- ---> B-

Blast touched on this explaining how lix just makes this useless whenever it shows up. I would like to add things like torterra, weezing, and pelipper, who are good steelix responses, also end up checking/countering kling making it often not worth it to run as an offensive mon.

Vileplume A- ---> A/ A+

Not only does it work well on a core with steelix, but it enjoys what steelix has done to the rest of the tier! Less steel types running around give it more opportunity to run it's utility moves such as sleep powder or aromatherapy. It has a nice match-up vs steelix/sceptile, and is a great physical wall. Steelix already discourages a lot of physical attackers besides fighting types. More sawk? More Gurdurr? Vileplume doesn't mind.

Two downsides I will mention is that weezing's popularity will hurt it, and that it only checks a lot of fighting types. Personaly I see it as a good enough check to fightings to waraent a rise but that's just me. As for weezing; take a nice nap.

Scyther A+ ---> A

YES I will acknowledged that this mon is a good response to sceptile which might make some think it's great in the new meta. But steelix, pelipper, and weezing all end up making scyther do far less damage than it wants to.

Steelix has quite a few things it can run in it's third slot that all annoy the pesky bug. Among them; toxic, dragon tail, roar, and stone edge. {+2 8 Atk Scyther U-turn vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Steelix: 45-53 (12.7 - 14.9%) -- possibly the worst move ever}

Garbodor A+ ---> A

Whether it be a steelix, rhydon, claydol, special skuntank, piloswine, or a pelipper this mon has far more things who can suitably switch in making it's offensive presence far less then it used to be. But that's not why garb is used? What about the hazards? The helmet aftermath???

As for hazards we have a whole list of solid mons that prevent them; Claydol, Hitmonchan, Mantine, Pelipper, Prinplup, Sandslash, Skuntank, Xatu. Legit every popular physical attacker we use has earthquake. I took a list of all mons in the tier and took the physical mons with no eq or few ways to get out of contact; Banette, Gurdurr, Kecleon, Klinklang, Liepard, Malamar, Mawile, Samurott, Scyther, Zangoose. Note these mons are dropping in popularity.

Aurorus B+ ---> A

I never though of this mon as B+. However the cores that have appeared are very weak to the variants of this mon. Personally I think after you build a defensive core putting this mon on your squad will work great. In addition to that Steelix makes spamming ice moves somewhat easier.

The same mons give it trouble as before but honestly it's so frikin good it deserves a higher rank.

Piloswine B ---> ___

Piloswine got buffed and nerfed by this shift. Firstly it gains competition in steelix at being an overall bulky mon that sets rocks, where is already competed with rhydon. In addition to that the more popular peligod/weezing/mantine are the worse it is for piloswine.

At the same time the fact that it has the bulky ground role and is a stop to ice types is great, and it's access to ice shard priority got even better in this meta with so many scarfers, sceptiles, and swellows. Personally I never thought this thing should have ever been only B, but that is just me.

Just gonna throw some thoughts out there:

Agreements

Sceptile A+ ---> S

Agree with other people's points although I kinda want to wait to see how the meta adapts. For now either rank fits heh.

Jynx A ---> A+

Agree with Tmacbalanced, the utility and offensive presence of this thing is phenomenal.

Weezing B+ ---> A-/A

Agree with erisia, on paper this mon is so good right now. If it's found to be good in practice I fully agree with a rise.

Mawile B+ ---> B-/B

Agree with Boltsandbombers, Although it still has quite a few useful niches left it's standard sets are rendered fairly unviable leaving a mixed set to be the norm. Even then it doesn't pull off a very impressive show. Not only is lix here but responses to steelix like pellipper, weezing, and torterra will hurt it's usefulness on teams.

Clefairy Unranked ---> C

Agree with RealisticWaters, this thing scares me ;-;

Disagreements

Cradily

Disagree with BoltsandBombers and Marilli, I've used cradily extensively and can confirm it's already low enough. People over exaggerate how much it's passive nature tends to hurt it in real matches.

"Even dentri stopped using cradily on every team for some time now." (Marilli)

As soon as steelix dropped I was able to make far better cradily squads because the mon is a phenomenal pair with cradily. Cradily can confidently run it's coverage moves without having to worry about it's role of setting up rocks. Just get a good response to ice types and fighting fuckers and you should be good!

Marowak

Disagree with Realistic Waters, I've seen this thing put in work in so many matches I don't think it's worth being slept on.

 

[doomsday doink]

Hello friends, it's me: Flames Leader Ravenn

As an avid NU player, I have been engaging in combat with various individuals in NU with great success. I have fought numerous Steelix, Rotom-Fan, and Magmortar. I have fought copious amounts of Sceptile. I have also fought many teams that only have Xatu for hazard removal, something my good friend Flames Kiyo disagrees with strongly. These accolades merit my ability to suggest the following:

Tauros: S -> A+

The current metagame has shifted to bulkier Pokemon that can check Tauros and faster Pokemon that can easily revenge it. Steelix is almost omnipresent at this point and, although Tauros can chip at it with Earthquake and Fire Blast, it's still a very solid answer. Rhydon and Weezing are also much more common nowadays (Rhydon as much as ever) and it can check Tauros quite well. In terms of faster threats, Sceptile and Swellow both outspeed and severely damage Tauros and both Pokemon are being used frequently in this current metagame. Tauros is on the decline and it's impact on the metagame is dropping rapidly. It's still useful on Normal-spam teams alongside Kangaskhan, but I don't believe it be deserving of S-rank any longer.

I'd also like to throw in my support for Sceptile's rise to S-rank. It's most definitely the best Pokemon in the metagame at the moment and its unpredictability in terms of moveset makes it a force to be reckoned with.

 

[etern]

A > A+
The metagame has changed quite a bit with the dropping of Sceptile, and one mon in particular that has become even better imo is Swellow. It's the only (viable) mon in NU/PU able to outspeed Scept without a choice scarf, and that in its own right is an extremely valuable asset to have on any team. The most common set it runs, which is Specs Boomburst is able to 2HKO a good chunk of the tier besides resistant targets such as steelix and Rhydon (Which swellow can deal with through heat wave and hp grass respectively). Furthermore, while not as popular, a mixed set can be utilised with LO to give Swellow a more flexible and surprising way of wall breaking. Overall definitely a threatening and reliable mon which has a lot of good things going for it atm.

A- > A or B+
100% Agree with the nominations on Costa dropping. The new drops, mainly Lix and Scept have rendered Costa plain outclassed and vulnerable. The defensive SR set is arguably done better by Lix, and the shell smash set is better of done by Barb because it can actually outspeed Scept at +2, which is a mon you definitely want to be outspeeding. To put it simply, Costa is in a very awkward situation right now, in which it really gets outclassed in each of its sets.

B+ > B
Pinsir does have a nice niche in mold breaker rocks to get past Xatu, however other than that its additional sets are mediocre, primarily because of how weak its stab is (not to mention bug is a mediocre offensive typing in NU). The scarf Moxie set is just plain bad, and 9/10 times you're better of using something else as a wallbreaker.

On another note, I agree that Murkrow should be ranked, even if it's only D to start with. Murkrow's stab combo is very potent, and the utility of prankster + T-wave is always helpful.

 

[Aasgier]

To go as far as to say Prankster is the only reason Murkrow is better then Pikachu is simply absurd. And even if that was the case giving Prankster to a mon with such a deep move pool as Murkrow can be extremely good.

Machineae you said you need to support it a lot when it's Murkrow who is the one who supports your team. Bringing prioirty twave makes it extremely hard to revenge kill as the thing you're using to kill it will be paralyzed which opens the door for every other mon on your team to out speed that threat. In moments where you have to die it can cripple something before it drops. It's an offensive support mon, it's not something you build around and support in the same way you would an Aurorus.

Murkrow is also a flying type that isn't bothered by the likes of Steelix as Heat Wave will always 2hko 128/128 Steelix. This mon is extremely good into the meta as Sceptile can't revenge kill it for fear of twave, it beats lix, and even more it can't be revenge killed by weakened mons/ slower prioirty/ frail mons because it even has access to Sucker Punch. So things like Hitmonchan, weakened Kangaskan, Swellow, Jynx with a sash broken, and rotom-n all can not revenge kill it.
And even the things that can live a hit cleanly such as Samurott, Tauros, Archeops, Sceptile, and Pyroar all have to be willing to take a t-wave just to kill it.

Over all it offers a lot for offensive teams. The only down side is actually getting in it as it's too frail to safely switch into anything it's not immune to. But that doesn't mean it's horrible or should only be ranked in D or that pikachu us almost as good. This mon has a lot going for it that should honestly be enough to get a decent rank. Twave is broken.

What part of "joke post" did you miss? That, and it was more referring to the fact that you suggested a Murkrow with four attacks and Imsomnia... if you use Murkrow, then at least use Prankster and T-Wave/Tailwind/whatever for reasons you just highlighted.

Tailwind is especially important, as this helps differentiating it from its fellow Dark-type Prankster-abuser Liepard. Flying STAB and Heat Wave are also nice.
I used Murkrow a long time ago, and it was pretty nice back then and while the metagame around it changed, I have a feeling Murkrow itself didn't change much. It does what it always did and it does it well enough, but its role is niche.

 

[Evan.]

murkrow seems alright, i haven't used it a ton but from what i've been reading it seems fine in D. i agree with p much all of the other noms too, and they have a solid reasoning behind them. also as one of the main floatzel + spikes spammers in the previous meta even i have to say that floatzel is beyond ass right now, it should probably move to like B-, yea ik but thats how bad it is lol. also zangoose should be in B- too its really not good either.

i'd like to see

drop to B+/B since after using it a bit, its just really just kinda underwhelming right now. stuff like mantine, hariyama and vileplume, which are normally really good checks to it are really common right now and it just doesn't have the same threat level that it had in past metas. not to mention that there are just a lot of strong grass types in the meta and there's a bit more of an opportunity cost to using ludicolo than there was in the past. its definitely not as good as B+ staples like aurorus and supergeist and i think it's rank should reflect that.

also i don't think that

is really a B- mon right now and should probably rise to B. I know it doesn't really hit that hard and dragon dance isn't really that great, but this mon always seems to put in a fair bit of work in most of the games that i play with it. its typing is nice since its like the only offensive mon that isnt 2HKOd by magmortar, and its also nice for checking SD rott b/c of its good natural bulk. basically its combination of defensive traits like typing, recovery, heal bell support (on some sets) alongside decent enough offensive presence warrants a rise above stuff like roselia, kadabra, and prinplup.

 

[Realistic Waters]

Agreeing with Can-Eh-Dian's post.
Swellow to A+ seems like a stretch but it could work.
Agree with dropping Carracosta and Tauros.

Disagreeing with dropping Pinsir. Choice Band Pinsir with Mold Breaker is actually pretty effective and has very limited switch-ins but unlike Sawk its able to destroy psychic types without having to rely on knock off. Earthquake is actually amazing and it's not a bad thing to be locked into, Weezing and Garb are easily 2HKO'd and even gets past Steelix (rotom just dies lol). Stone edge break's past other bug resists and then it has a free moveslot to run. Close combat hits Audino before it megas and a few others but also has slightly stronger base power than EQ or you can even really run stealth rock (plenty of in game opportunities). Life orb with swords dance or stealth rock keeps it in B+ too. Bug typing offensively isn't really mediocre especially when you have the coverage to back it up and it's really just taking advantage of the metagame. It's basically a good mix between Scyther and Sawk but with it's own separate niche.

 

[Pokedots]

Swellow to A+ is actually a really interesting nom I kinda of agree with. I've been using it in all my teams outside of the ones using Sceptile because its incredibly splashable as just a blanket fastmon/revenge killer, and it outspeeds and kills (with some prior damage) any offensive threat you can think of, the most important one being Sceptile. It's never deadweight because STAB Boomburst is insane (3HKOs most resists), it's always useful to revenge kill something, and it has U-turn. It has honestly kinda replaced Tauros as my Normal-type of choice, and while it's more susceptible to priority (mainly Sucker), though not as much as Archeops due to its lack of weaknesses and Defeatist, I feel as though the advantages to using it over Tauros are greater in this Sceptile meta. I'm not entirely sure on this and people may argue that Kangaskhan and Tauros are better, but the meta's just so much in its favor currently that I think a rise to A+ is feasible

 

[soulgazer]

CB Pinsir is jesus christ in the form of a Bug-type

Zangoose is actually really good Can-Eh-Dian, Adamant CC easily 2HKOing Steelix and Facade doing a fuck ton to anything else. You can even be cool and run SD / CC / QA / Facade with a Pursuit 'mon to be a god against both offense and fat. Skuntank and Liepard pairs rly rly well with it.

I'm probably one of the few players who like DD Altaria. Adamant Lum Outrage + EQ is nice when paired with hazards. And also what Can-Eh said

Whether it be a steelix, rhydon, claydol, special skuntank, piloswine, or a pelipper this mon has far more things who can suitably switch in making it's offensive presence far less then it used to be. But that's not why garb is used? What about the hazards? The helmet aftermath???

As for hazards we have a whole list of solid mons that prevent them; Claydol, Hitmonchan, Mantine, Pelipper, Prinplup, Sandslash, Skuntank, Xatu. Legit every popular physical attacker we use has earthquake. I took a list of all mons in the tier and took the physical mons with no eq or few ways to get out of contact; Banette, Gurdurr, Kecleon, Klinklang, Liepard, Malamar, Mawile, Samurott, Scyther, Zangoose. Note these mons are dropping in popularity.

252+ SpA Garbodor Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 128 SpD Steelix: 210-248 (59.3 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Garbodor Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 188-224 (45.4 - 54.1%) -- 40.6% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Garbodor Giga Drain vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 276-328 (78.4 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Garbodor Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Pelipper: 130-154 (40.2 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Garbodor is still our lord and savior lol

lolbro ya LO is cool too, but a lot of teams still want the utility of helmet

 

[lolbro]

CB Pinsir is jesus christ in the form of a Bug-type

Zangoose is actually really good Can-Eh-Dian, Adamant CC easily 2HKOing Steelix and Facade doing a fuck ton to anything else. You can even be cool and run SD / CC / QA / Facade with a Pursuit 'mon to be a god against both offense and fat. Skuntank and Liepard pairs rly rly well with it.

I'm probably one of the few players who like DD Altaria. Adamant Lum Outrage + EQ is nice when paired with hazards. And also what Can-Eh said




252+ SpA Garbodor Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 128 SpD Steelix: 210-248 (59.3 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ SpA Garbodor Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 188-224 (45.4 - 54.1%) -- 40.6% chance to 2HKO

252+ SpA Garbodor Giga Drain vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Eviolite Rhydon: 276-328 (78.4 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Garbodor Sludge Bomb vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Pelipper: 130-154 (40.2 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Garbodor is still our lord and savior lol

You forget to mention life orb which just powers these up, making special garbodor viable lol. There's also the added utility of aftermath for getting convenient damage off on physical attackers and a good deterrent to priority users

 

[tcr]

Whats up my fellow NU mains, Flames TCR here looking to set an example in the NU tier.

When I type "Sliggod" or "Murkrow" in the viability rankings, I see nothing. Which is honestly just unfortunate. I think that if we were to rank Sliggod right now it would be B-. Sliggoo is one of the better answers to Sceptile right now, since Sceptile does jack shit to Sliggoo (meanwhile Sliggoo just ravages teams like Raseri does to his body pillow on Friday). Its actually incredibly strong, with coverage out the ass, and super easy to fit onto teams with fairly decent defensive typing. It easily lures in and shreds teams with Sludge Wave / Muddy Water / Thunderbolt, meaning it can fuck with common Draco Meteor switchins like Steelix. Its honestly pretty adorable as well, so that should boost its tiering up a couple tiers but I'll let the community decide on that one.

Murkrow also happens to be a fairly cool mon. Its another super good Sceptile counter, being 3hkoed by Focus Blast, with a spread of 252 / 168+. LO Murkrow is kinda ass, why would you run LO Krow when you could just run Swellow and have a much better Flying-type? I think that Murkrow's main selling point is its ability to run Eviolite and its access to Prankster Tailwind, which just sets up things like Sceptile, Samurott, Sawk, Magmortar, etc, things that are commonly really threatening but are also outsped and revenged by a lot of the metagame. Access to Haze / Thunder Wave / Tailwind / Taunt / Taunt / etc leave it pretty customisable for most teams, and fairly splashable since it happens to check Sceptile, Sawk, and common boosting mons like Altaria or Samurott. I'd say High C low B for this mon as well.

--> C+ / B-

--> B- / B

 

[doomsday doink]

Sorry for posting so soon after my previous nomination but I simply couldn't contain the flames. I'd like to nominate Weezing from B+ to A-. It's honestly just really good right now, simultaneously checking Sceptile, Sawk, Steelix, etc. As a fat Poison-type with Levitate that doesn't kill momentum, it can slide onto a plethora of teams and synergizes extremely well with Steelix, only really struggling against Pyroar and Sawk (with godly predictions). The set that I've found success with is Will-O-Wisp / Sludge Bomb / Flamethrower / Taunt with enough Speed investment to outrun Jolly Rhydon, as well as a Rocky Helmet. The item is simply personal preference, allowing Weezing to chip away at physical attackers upon switch-in, but this Pokemon's ability to severely cripple a majority of the metagame is awesome.

Also, I'd like to hear some thoughts on Aurorus. I've found most of my teams struggle to find a switch-in to Aurorus and when using it myself, I've found opposing teams seem to have similar issues a large majority of the time. Choice Specs dents everything in the tier and Rock Polish can easily clean up late-game. I feel like it could deserve a bump from B+ to A- as well, but it's not inherently fast and struggles against all common forms of priority.

Whats up my fellow NU mains, Flames TCR here looking to set an example in the NU tier.

When I type "Sliggod" or "Murkrow" in the viability rankings, I see nothing. Which is honestly just unfortunate. I think that if we were to rank Sliggod right now it would be B-. Sliggoo is one of the better answers to Sceptile right now, since Sceptile does jack shit to Sliggoo (meanwhile Sliggoo just ravages teams like Raseri does to his body pillow on Friday). Its actually incredibly strong, with coverage out the ass, and super easy to fit onto teams with fairly decent defensive typing. It easily lures in and shreds teams with Sludge Wave / Muddy Water / Thunderbolt, meaning it can fuck with common Draco Meteor switchins like Steelix. Its honestly pretty adorable as well, so that should boost its tiering up a couple tiers but I'll let the community decide on that one.

Murkrow also happens to be a fairly cool mon. Its another super good Sceptile counter, being 3hkoed by Focus Blast, with a spread of 252 / 168+. LO Murkrow is kinda ass, why would you run LO Krow when you could just run Swellow and have a much better Flying-type? I think that Murkrow's main selling point is its ability to run Eviolite and its access to Prankster Tailwind, which just sets up things like Sceptile, Samurott, Sawk, Magmortar, etc, things that are commonly really threatening but are also outsped and revenged by a lot of the metagame. Access to Haze / Thunder Wave / Tailwind / Taunt / Taunt / etc leave it pretty customisable for most teams, and fairly splashable since it happens to check Sceptile, Sawk, and common boosting mons like Altaria or Samurott. I'd say High C low B for this mon as well.

--> C+ / B-

--> B- / B

I definitely agree with the Murkrow nomination, but Sliggoo is really kinda lacking outside of checking Sceptile. Plus, Raseri uses it frequently which leads me to believe it's not very good...

 

[TTFTW]

Whats up my fellow NU mains, Flames TCR here looking to set an example in the NU tier.

When I type "Sliggod" or "Murkrow" in the viability rankings, I see nothing. Which is honestly just unfortunate. I think that if we were to rank Sliggod right now it would be B-. Sliggoo is one of the better answers to Sceptile right now, since Sceptile does jack shit to Sliggoo (meanwhile Sliggoo just ravages teams like Raseri does to his body pillow on Friday). Its actually incredibly strong, with coverage out the ass, and super easy to fit onto teams with fairly decent defensive typing. It easily lures in and shreds teams with Sludge Wave / Muddy Water / Thunderbolt, meaning it can fuck with common Draco Meteor switchins like Steelix. Its honestly pretty adorable as well, so that should boost its tiering up a couple tiers but I'll let the community decide on that one.

Murkrow also happens to be a fairly cool mon. Its another super good Sceptile counter, being 3hkoed by Focus Blast, with a spread of 252 / 168+. LO Murkrow is kinda ass, why would you run LO Krow when you could just run Swellow and have a much better Flying-type? I think that Murkrow's main selling point is its ability to run Eviolite and its access to Prankster Tailwind, which just sets up things like Sceptile, Samurott, Sawk, Magmortar, etc, things that are commonly really threatening but are also outsped and revenged by a lot of the metagame. Access to Haze / Thunder Wave / Tailwind / Taunt / Taunt / etc leave it pretty customisable for most teams, and fairly splashable since it happens to check Sceptile, Sawk, and common boosting mons like Altaria or Samurott. I'd say High C low B for this mon as well.

--> C+ / B-

--> B- / B

I agree with sliggoo being ranked, since it's the best special sponge we have rn, its great typing allows it check a whole bunch of threats in this current metagame (lilligant, magmortar, sceptile, special swellow, *insert any special attacker bar jynx here*.) And unlike most sponges it isn't insanely passive, with the ability to run a curse set (a surprisingly good wincon against non steelix balance) or coverage moves that hit its "counters" like sludge wave for fairies and muddy water for steelix. If you're going to use it you need resttalk curse or restalk 2 attacks (unless you're a god and go life orb 4 attacks or modest eviolite offensive :o). But anyways, I think B-/B is a bit high, it's not as strong as you might want it to be and it's extremely matchup reliant too, somewhere around C-/C fits better I think.

 

[Teddeh]

What were you saying about jynx? :O
252 SpA Jynx Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 72+ SpD Eviolite Sliggoo: 138-164 (40.5 - 48.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
The best set is by far the curse-set and I have demonstrated it's uses multiple times.
252 Atk Life Orb Sheer Force Tauros Rock Climb vs. +1 252 HP / 188 Def Eviolite Sliggoo: 117-138 (34.4 - 40.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

However, I'd say that sliggoo beats steelix as long as you have a way to get rid of steelix's leftovers, otherwise sliggoo wins by setting up on it. I'd have to say that this pokemon is a fantastic option right now, however extremely dead weight against fairies, just like musharna against skuntank for example. Difference being that mega-audi and mawile are now where near as common now since steelix is well good init. I'd like to suggest that it beats nearly all offensive physical attackers (apart from sawk's banded knocks + cc's) and sets up, whilst also refusing to die from any special attacker in the tier. Even aurorus can't ko.
252+ SpA Choice Specs Refrigerate Aurorus Hyper Voice vs. 252 HP / 72+ SpD Eviolite Sliggoo: 270-318 (79.4 - 93.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Overall I'd suggest that sliggoo deserves a solid C+ / B- rank after multiple use, obviously it has its flaws but it's the most underrated sweeper in this tier.

 

[soulgazer]

yea sliggoo is good

aurorus is fine in b+

i would honestly only use murkrow on non serious teams, but it does have some little gimmicks that other darks don't have

also if mukrow gets ranked, might as well rank larvesta in D too ; yes, it's actually good if you build around it properly.

 

[shiloh]

**Unranked -> D / C-

Yeah, this mon really does need to be ranked, as its one of the better spikers on HO. It has a bunch of cool things that other Spikers in the tier can't really offer, and I think those are enough for it to be ranked low C's or D. Just a quick list of everything it provides over the other dedicated lead spikers

• Inner Focus guarantees it a layer of Spikes even against Fake Out users like Yama
• Taunt stops the opponent from Defogging, getting up their own hazards, setting up and just other common anti-lead efforts
• Freeze-Dry allows it to actually threaten Defoggers like Pelipper / Mantine

Overall I think these things are enough to push Glalie into D / C- because it really does have a niche on HO teams that other Spikers really can't provide

quick thoughts on other noms

I get that people have been hyping this a lot recently because it can beat Sceptile and provide a lot of cool other roles, but it really isn't worthy of anything higher than C- / D imo

Similar to Sliggoo, but I really don't see this one going higher than D, and the noms for B- are completely overhyping it, so just keep it in D

Yeah I agree w/ this moving to B, specs is a great set that just nukes teams w/ Draco and Fire Blast to roast steel types like Lix and Ferro

Yeah this going down to A+ makes a lot of sense, Mambo covered it all basically

Yeah this should definitely stay in B+, both SD and CB are huge threats to Balance teams

Everything about Swellow has already been said, definitely deserving of A+

I think the meta has settled to the point where we can see Sceptile is deserving of S, I've seen no arguments against it so it definitely should be moved up there with the next update

 

[etern]

C+ > B-
Boufallant is a mon that has gotten a lot better with the new drops and the changing meta. Its impressive 95/95/95 bulk along with an amazing ability in Sap Sipper gives it the ability to easily check top tier threats such as Lilligant, Vivillion and Sceptile. With the appropriate EV spread it can substitute and set up on common defensive mons such Vileplume, Weezing and Gourgeist, serving as a nice win con late game once its checks have been removed (mainly fighting and ghost types). Overall, believe that being able to neutralise and set up on some of the tiers biggest threats, absorb sleep powder and provide both defensive and offensive utility justifies Bouffalant's position in the B- range at the very least.

Heres a quick replay showing Boufallant rendering an opposing Sceptile useless: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-306806687

 

[Winter's Howl]

C+ > B-
Boufallant is a mon that has gotten a lot better with the new drops and the changing meta. Its impressive 95/95/95 bulk along with an amazing ability in Sap Sipper gives it the ability to easily check top tier threats such as Lilligant, Vivillion and Sceptile. With the appropriate EV spread it can substitute and set up on common defensive mons such Vileplume, Weezing and Gourgeist, serving as a nice win con late game once its checks have been removed (mainly fighting and ghost types). Overall, believe that being able to neutralise and set up on some of the tiers biggest threats, absorb sleep powder and provide both defensive and offensive utility justifies Bouffalant's position in the B- range at the very least.

Heres a quick replay showing Boufallant rendering an opposing Sceptile useless: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nu-306806687

Before you go selling Bouffalant as a Sceptile wall or something, it must be noted that one of the most common Sceptile sets, Special LO, runs Focus Blast. And it's not like Bouffalant just shrugs the hits off either:
252 SpA Life Orb Sceptile Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 0 SpD Bouffalant: 307-361 (78.1 - 91.8%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock. Also, I fail to see how Bouffalant did anything in that game that demands a rise.

 

[Harald Glööökler]

Barbaracle to a-

Babaracle was worse than carracosta most of the time but with the nost recent drop sceptile it got much better. It is able to set up on many mons such as swellow while still being extremely strong with a nice ability. It has only a few checks and thos are at least 2hkoed aftee a boost. Its good offebsive typing let it packs punch wih the good ability. Now with the rise of offensive teams carrying fast mons such as swellow scarf rotom fan or sceptile it become much better than before. I think it should be at least in carracostas rank.

Ariados kricketune servine and frogadier to unraked. The first three are completely outclassed while the last mon is just bad in such a fast meta.

 

[Disjunction]

sup nerds

Rises:
Sceptile A+ --> S
Steelix A --> A+
Swellow A --> A+
Weezing B+ --> A-
Pelipper B --> B+
Piloswine B --> B+
Mantine C- --> C
Clefairy Unranked --> C-
Sliggoo Unranked --> C-
Glalie Unranked --> D

Drops:
Rhydon S --> A+
Tauros S --> A+
Lanturn A+ --> A
Carracosta A- --> B
Floatzel A- --> B
Klinklang A- --> B
Zangoose B+ --> B
Mawile B+ --> B-
Metang C --> D
Servine C- --> D
Ditto C- --> E

Little overdue on this one so I apologize. Love to see the activity here, though, so let's keep it up guys!

 

[Ren-chon]

Lilligant A+ -> A: Well, here I am again with hopefully a shorter post than my previous ones in the other threads. This time, I'm going to suggest dropping Lilligant to A. Don't get me wrong, it's still an awesome sweeper, but one thing I've noticed when looking through my teams is that they are way too prepared for Sceptile. What does that mean? Well, it means that they are way too prepared for Lilligant too.
Hariyama, Poison-types (including Vileplume), Rotom-F (who gets donked by HP Ice, but still a check if healthy), AV Magmortar and our lord and savior Goomy are some examples of what can check Lilligant. Ok, Lilligant has Sleep Powder going for it, but it's still not gonna get past a lot of checks. Heck, it's now even basically forced to run HP Ice because it hits Altaria + Flyings + Grasses making Steel-types a check 90% of the time. And also let's not forget that Sceptile is REALLY splashable in offense, making him more often than not the first offensive Grass-type choice for most teams, which negatively counts for Lilligant on the splashable topic too.

Samurott S -> A+: Don't know why anybody did this nomination yet, but this guy is another one that got hit pretty hard by the new additions. His special mixed set got hit pretty hard by Sceptile addition to the tier, as well as the rise in popularity of Mantine, Pelipper, Rotom-F and Hariyama. Meanwhile, the SD set doesn't like Sceptile, Mantine and Pelipper either, while also suffering from the rise in popularity once more of Vileplume. It's still our best offensive water-type, specially now that Floatzel is being used less and less, but like Lilligant, it isn't on its best days.

Mantine C -> C+/B-: Oh, what a nostalgia from back in the days when we had Megalix. Mantine is once more the bulky trend of the moment. His typing allows it to check a lot of things, like offensive water-types, steelix, grass-types, fire-types (not Maggy tho), also can double as a hazard remover and burn things with scald. Gosh, now that I think about it, why is it so low? I literally had to Ctrl+F to find it because I was looking in the B-ranks. Overall, one of the most splashable bulky mons we have at this moment, and for a good reason.

Well, those are just some quick nominations I thought were worth doing, so feel free to disagree with me and point some things I got wrong n_n

@EDIT
Screw you disjunction, you edited the OP literally as I was typing my nominations and only noticed after I posted, so sorry guys if there are some inconsistencies @_@

 

[Hootie]

--> A+

--> A-/A

Both these mons are amazing in the meta right now with things like Lanturn dying down in usage and Steelix being favored over Rhydon as most team's Stealth Rock user of choice. For Rotom it's HexTag set is very effective in this meta and a ton of teams are very vulnerable to it. The set I've toying around with is Hex with Discharge and works like a charm (s/o for rozes telling me about it). Very little Pokemon that are supposed to check it dislike getting burned by wisp or potentially paralyzed by Discharge. I've ran into many teams that are just flat out beat by it simply because it's very difficult to prep for when mons like Lanturn have diminished in their effectiveness. Defensive sets are also really good in this meta as well. Just an all around solid mon. For Rotom-S it should rise based solely on its Expert Belt set which handles some similar mons, but covers important things such as Swords Dance Sceptile and Special variants to an extent. The the recent shifts in the meta just favored both of these mons equally.