Theorymonning: What if this Pokemon had...?

[Anser]

What if Starmie had Flamethrower and Shadow Ball? o:

 

[SharKing]

They might be rarely seen, but they are both somewhat useful. Flamethrower doesn't really need an explanation (though it is foiled by rain), and Shadow Ball can be good for punishing Spinblockers.

 

[colours]

If Starmie had fire blast, that would be a different story, however. Flamethrower by itself just doesn't seem enough to KO things such as Ferrothorn and/or Foretress. I can definitely imagine a set like Flamethrower/T-bolt/Ice Beam/Psyshock @ Life Orb, but a lot of things that flamethrower hits, Ice beam hits equally as hard, bar steel types which it could just Surf/Hydro Pump away, so that might not be the best option. u_u

 

[Tyrfing]

What if Samurott had a Water/Fighting type?

Defensively, I'm not sure how good that would be. Samurott's Psychic weakness wouldn't matter because of Megahorn (Due to my offensive idea, special attacking Samurott would be somewhat obsolete, but more on that later), and I don't remember the last time there was a usable flying type in NU (apart from Articuno). Offensively, it might seem pointless, given Samurott only learns two fighting moves, Rock Smash (fail) and Revenge. I am not very experienced with competitive Pokemon, but I know how Speed is an important quality. However, Revenge helps Samurott's low speed (Somewhat, anyway). Revenge makes you want to go last. I could see a set of Samurott with Swords Dance, Waterfall, Megahorn, and Revenge, holding the Lagging Tail. I wouldn't imagine it going to success in RU, but I could imagine it centralizing NU. If my theory were correct, then there would be no Sawk or Gurdurr; just Samurott.

 

[SharKing]

I don't remember the last time there was a usable flying type in NU (apart from Articuno)

Swellow and Braviary are major contenders.

 

[Tyrfing]

I don't remember the last time there was a usable flying type in NU (apart from Articuno)

Swellow and Braviary are major contenders.

Sorry, I'm not good with NU. And when you think about it, if Samurott was part Fighting, its probable that it would get Stone Edge, given that most Fighting Pokemon get rock moves, so maybe they wouldn't be an issue, but you never know.

 

[Spirit Zorua]

Okay, yeah, so Whimsy has a few problems. But imagine putting it in against a Rain team with all those Water-types. Giga Drain would be a bit of recovery even without CM boost, and after those it could wreck some serious shit. And even better-put Substitute on instead of Hurricane and invest in Sp. Atk and HP. Whimsy's sub would do good against rainers, and against Sandstorm too.

 

[slate]

If Starmie had fire blast, that would be a different story, however. Flamethrower by itself just doesn't seem enough to KO things such as Ferrothorn and/or Foretress. I can definitely imagine a set like Flamethrower/T-bolt/Ice Beam/Psyshock @ Life Orb, but a lot of things that flamethrower hits, Ice beam hits equally as hard, bar steel types which it could just Surf/Hydro Pump away, so that might not be the best option. u_u

that's essentially what i was thinking regarding ft not being the best option. water stab on starmie is more or less a given, and i really don't like using starmie unless i'm running rapid spin, so that only allows two of flamethrower/thunderbolt/ice beam/psyshock/recover. to be honest, i think flamethrower sort of exacerbates starmie's 4mss; although it's a viable option (ohkos ferrothorn outside of rain), it doesn't really... hit anything much harder than its normal moves would aside from ferrothorn. it still can't 2hko specially defensive jirachi with flamethrower and it sort of needs ice beam and thunderbolt to hit dragons and jellicent, respectively. i don't really like running a starmie that can't beat jelli, tbh. notwithstanding the fact that it can't really hurt jellicent without thunderbolt (or psyshock i guess, though that's iffy), i could foresee some starmie eschewing thunderbolt for flamethrower. i think flamethrower would probably find the most use on the rare choice set or the lo set you posted — just as a personal preference, though, i'd use surf or hydro pump over psyshock.

252 SpA Life Orb Starmie Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 168 SpD Ferrothorn: 343-406 (97.44 - 115.34%) -- 81.25% chance to OHKO

flamethrower does have its perquisites though. it makes starmie a lot more viable as a rapid spinner on sun teams since it acquires an ersatz stab move in flamethrower, and obviously its newfound ability to obliterate ferrothorn would be great. ironically, i think that flamethrower starmie would probably be best on sun teams, which not only benefit from having a spinner, but really appreciate having something that can at least damage things like latias, dragonite, etc. that so often become their scourge. one of the problems is that it now becomes walled by heatran of all things (!) in the sun, even if it carries hydro pump. gross. but anyway flamethrower in the sun would actually be really great on starmie, especially with analytic: you can now torch the jirachi or the celebi on the switch and render it virtually useless for the rest of the battle. nice. all kyurem still stomp on you though despite the sun boost and will blast pretty much anything with their dragon moves. less nice.

also, the original poster of the flamethrower starmie comment also asked about shadow ball: i don't foresee it being used on starmie much at all. to my recollection, shadow ball doesn't hit anything more effectively than one hydro pump, thunderbolt, and/or ice beam would, save for the extremely uncommon gengar in sun? a super-effective shadow ball does less than a stab hydro pump would; as a corollary, an nve hydro pump would do more than a shadow ball would. thunderbolt or psyshock will hit jellicent. honestly, starmie has more use for even signal beam than shadow ball, which at least allows it to hit celebi super-effectively.

 

[Karpi]

What if there was a Sleep Orb that put the holder to sleep? If Crobat had this item, it could use a moveset of just Sleep Talk and Whirlwind to shuffle the other team for 32 turns and they could do nothing about it! I expect this to be a major strategy because you can cause chaos and still have 5 regular pokemon as backup

 

[winstein]

What if there was a Sleep Orb that put the holder to sleep? If Crobat had this item, it could use a moveset of just Sleep Talk and Whirlwind to shuffle the other team for 32 turns and they could do nothing about it! I expect this to be a major strategy because you can cause chaos and still have 5 regular pokemon as backup

I would say that Murkrow is an even better user, because despite being slower, Prankster makes it a bit faster than most others. It even bypasses slower priority attackers like Breloom and Scizor, making them unable to react to the situation fast enough. Still, Murkrow is rather frail so if the opponent has something like Extreme Speed, then it doesn't work quite well, which is to Crobat's advantage: the defences.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Karpi]

What if there was a Sleep Orb that put the holder to sleep? If Crobat had this item, it could use a moveset of just Sleep Talk and Whirlwind to shuffle the other team for 32 turns and they could do nothing about it! I expect this to be a major strategy because you can cause chaos and still have 5 regular pokemon as backup

I would say that Murkrow is an even better user, because despite being slower, Prankster makes it a bit faster than most others. It even bypasses slower priority attackers like Breloom and Scizor, making them unable to react to the situation fast enough. Still, Murkrow is rather frail so if the opponent has something like Extreme Speed, then it doesn't work quite well, which is to Crobat's advantage: the defences.

Thanks for reading.

Crobat also deals with Fake Out much better. So basically, Murkrow is scared of priority, but Crobat has to deal with pokemon that have more than 394 speed. Your choice. Or, it would be if such an item as Sleep Orb did exist!

 

[slate]

what if metagross had both shift gear (and maybe regenerator)?

metagross, from its debut in rse, has always been a solid pokemon. its agility set in gen 3 struck fear in the hearts of callow and veteran trainers alike. its cb set launched meaty punches that could shatter bones (and rocks and stones). in gen 4 it was just as fearsome: with the physical/special split, it could now take advantage of zen headbutt being physical and could even run a mixed set to lure in the likes of swampert and scizor. its agility set was still as threatening as ever, but the likes of rotom-a did threaten its viability considerably. the point is that it was a consistently good pokemon.

with both the advent and the progression of the bw2 metagame, however, metagross' reputation has been calumniated. it's objectively one of the worst pokemon in the tier because there's not much incentive to use it. it's no longer that 'consistently solid' pokemon that it was in previous generations; jirachi can now fill most of its roles more successfully, having higher special stats and hp, and a semi-reliable recovery move. the only things that metagross has over jirachi are an agility set which, ironically, doesn't have the punch to kill things that it hits neutrally, and a pursuit trapper set with stealth rock (it can also run a niche scarf set which, though it has more punch better physical bulk than jirachi, suffers from a grievous lack of speed). but here's an idea: how about we give metagross semi-reliable recovery and some extra power? would it once again become a dominant pokemon?

the extra power that shift gear gives you allows you to eschew ice punch for meteor mash, since you ohko all relevant dragons with it or zen headbutt at +1 with a life orb. the interesting part about metagross is that it's extremely hard to kill with priority: life orb breloom's mach punch struggles to crack 40%, and all other common priority moves hardly chip off a fifth of meta's health (no, seriously, good luck trying to kill it with scizor's bullet punch, which does 21.19 - 25.16%).

after further cogitation, though, i've come to the conclusion that regenerator + shift gear would transform metagross into a virtually impregnable sweeper; it's almost assured to remain healthy through the entire match due to the extra 33% it gains per switch. moreover, most teams have more than one pokemon that it can set up on, which means that metagross can come in and set up multiple times in a match, which has some devastating implications: stopping metagross at 30% is one thing (but seriously, good luck killing it once it sets up because it outspeeds, bar none, every relevant threat in ou after a shift gear aside from like venusaur in the sun), but good luck trying to stop it at, say, 80%, which i'd imagine wouldn't be uncommon. there isn't much that's going to be interested in taking a +1 meteor mash twice in a match! so maybe no regenerator. just shift gear.

 

[colours]

I'm going to wholeheartedly agree with you and say that Shift Gear Metagross has the potential to turn into a deadly sweeper indeed. Problem is, are you setting up early, mid, or late-game? I feel that, depending on when you set up metagross would impact on its sweeping skills pretty heavily. I think it would be more recommended to sweep usually mid to late game, when most, if not all if metagross' usual counters are gone, then you wouldn't really have anything to stop you the entire match. The only thing I'd be careful about is Slowbro pretty much hard-walling you and utilizing Scald to greatly hinder your sweep. So unless you have Explosion, I can imagine Slowbro kinda being a problem. Then again, I don't imagine 'bro getting a whole lot of usage in OU, so yeah.

Also keep in mind that if Metagross had regenerator, it would be entirely possible for Landorus to come in and lower its attack, and therefore proceed to kill with earthquake. I believe it's better for meta to have clear body to avoid that. Other than that, I don't see a whole lot in OU that can stop a Metagross sweep. Perhaps Venusaur in Sun is a possibility with HP Fire, and that's situational. This meaning that if it puts you to sleep, or if it has gathered a +2 growth, then Metagross is pretty much screwed.

But I definitely agree that Metagross would be harder to stop as a whole with Shift Gear. I don't really think it needs regenerator as much.

 

[Angad]

What about Shirt Gear Scizor? And would it be used over SG Metagross?

 

[colours]

What about Shirt Gear Scizor? And would it be used over SG Metagross?

mmmmm.

The biggest problem with Scizor currently lies within its Speed. It's kinda amusing that (according from what I'm hearing) Scarf Scizor is apparently getting some usage in OU. But that's not exactly the wisest way to go about with things, but I digress.

If SG Scizor is going to exist, then it's pretty much a high recommendation that you run Superpower. The reason for this is so Magnezone doesn't completely wall you. So your set, hypothetically, would be something like Superpower/Bug Bite/Bullet Punch/Roost or Pursuit. Roost for Longevity of course, and Pursuit for prediction. If you're running LO though, you might want to go Roost then. n_n

 

[SharKing]

You do realize Shift Gear will take up one of those moveslots, right? The set would actually consist of Shift Gear, Bug Bite, Bullet Punch (or Iron Head), and probably Superpower or Roost. In fact, one idea I have in the case of Iron Head is to run Swarm over Technician and X-Scissor over Bug Bite; that way, you have a very powerful X-Scissor if your Scizor's low on health.

Scizor has potential for a sweep, but it's limited by its subpar STAB types; it would be forced to run Superpower, which is contradictory to setup, just to get past the ever-ubiquitous Steel-types. That's why I don't really see Shift Gear Scizor being more popular than its flagship Choice Band set.

 

[slate]

i think the problem with shift gear scizor is that you, well, already have swords dance and priority; that alone sort of obviates any need for shift gear and makes +2 atk scizor a lot more threatening than +1 atk +2 spd scizor: what, exactly, do you need to outspeed at +2 spd that you wouldn't beat using 252/252+ jolly with acro or the standard sd set? scarf jirachi, which you can only kill with lo bug bite? garchomp too i guess? idk, i don't think it's worth trading the ability to demolish jellicent and tentacruel to be able to kill one threat. there might be others, but i'm forgetting them at the moment.

scizor simply isn't fast enough to outspeed things like scarf keldeo and ohko them, either. shift gear metagross is so ridiculously threatening because it has more sheer power than scizor does: +1 lo meteor mash is incomparably more threatening than +1 lo bullet punch and is still considerably stronger than +1 iron head. moreover, metagross actually has enough speed to outrun scarf keldeo if it feels like it (it outruns every relevant scarfer that can actually harm it). although gross does have priority like scizor, it's not as effective at abusing it because it doesn't have technician, and gross' primary role is going to be sweeping. i feel like scizor is nine times out of ten going to want the extra power far more than the speed.

note that i'm not saying that it would never be effective. the best set is, beyond all doubt, shift gear / iron head or bullet punch / bug bite / superpower. you no longer have the power to damage jellicent and tentacruel like flying gem acro does, but you hit considerably harder and you don't have to worry about things like scarf jirachi and probably scarfchomp killing your grind. iron head is cheeky and hits a lot harder than bp, but you may not want to give up the nonpareil utility bullet punch lends you. it's just that i think that traditional sd scizor hits harder and compensates for the relative lack of speed with more power. it sounds cool in theory, but i feel like shift gear scizor would just be an inferior shift gear metagross tbh since it's actually less bulky than meta and doesn't hit as hard.

edit 2:

The biggest problem with Scizor currently lies within its Speed. It's kinda amusing that (according from what I'm hearing) Scarf Scizor is apparently getting some usage in OU. But that's not exactly the wisest way to go about with things, but I digress.

although it ostensibly sounds silly, scarf scizor is actually completely viable in ou! it depends on your team most of the time, to be honest: if you really need something fast and moderately strong to gain momentum, scarf scizor can definitely work. a lot of its effectiveness admittedly comes out of sheer surprise factor: scarf scizor outspeeds and annihilates psychics as fast as alakazam with u-turn, and people seldom see it coming. it's an excellent option if you absolutely need psychics gone, but it requires care. scizor actually isn't that bulky without defensive investment; it takes well over 70% from specs latios' draco meteor, for example, so it is no longer a reliable switch-in to any dragon. it requires prediction (read: glorified guessing) to use effectively, and one would do well to not make it one's only means of handling psychics, but it can potentially be game-changing if used properly.

i would argue that scarf scizor is generally an inferior choice to cb scizor, but it's a choice so heavily contingent on your team that i'd be wrong to assert that one is unequivocally better than the other. you're right about the speed tho, tbqh that 5 base speed that metagross has over scizor is unbelievably crucial in outpacing things that could potentially stymie your sweep (namely, terrakion and keldeo).

edit 3: 420th post, dae blaze it ron paul

 

[Karpi]

Choice Scarf Scizor switches in on a Draco Meteor from Latios, takes 70%, and threatens a U-Turn. Once. You get a free U-Turn ONCE, and then it becomes useless.

 

[Angad]

Choice Scarf Scizor switches in on a Draco Meteor from Latios, takes 70%, and threatens a U-Turn. Once. You get a free U-Turn ONCE, and then it becomes useless.

It's almost never safe to switch Scizor in on a Latios which has not moved yet, though.

 

[slate]

Choice Scarf Scizor switches in on a Draco Meteor from Latios, takes 70%, and threatens a U-Turn. Once. You get a free U-Turn ONCE, and then it becomes useless.

hence why i said it requires care. you, uh, don't switch it in unless you absolutely have to. you're usually going to want to make scarf scizor part of a voltturn/uturn core. this is where it's most effective. an obvious example is going to be using rotom-w to volt switch on the lati@s switch and ushering in scizor. this is especially effective on latias, considering it might get greedy and try to stay in and hp fire you. considering that even cb scizor can get 2hkoed by specs draco even without sr, it's not safe to switch scizor into any form of latios unless you're running heavy special defense investment; even then, it's not exactly recommended since they often carry hp fire and can predict your switch. it's sort of obvious that you probably don't want to switch in a 0/0 scizor into a draco meteor, then. you generally don't want to run scarf scizor without either a second/third momentum gainer, be it by u-turn, volt switch, or baton pass, and/or something that can take dracos reasonably well (e.g. tyranitar, heatran, jirachi) or can at least serve as a trapper (see: weavile).

it's not great on most teams by any stretch of the imagination, but it's definitely viable. i think you simplified its purpose a bit. it faces very stiff competition from scarf jirachi, who is bulkier and can revenge kill most dragons, but scizor gains the distinction of not being completely useless against heatran and ohkos breloom with (lol) scarf aerial ace. i'll concede that i may have exaggerated its utility, though, since i think scarfrach/cb scizor is largely better for the roles scarfzor plays. it certainly has a very specific function.

but i think i'm getting too far off topic...

what if hydreigon got regenerator?

regenerator hydreigon seems interesting: on one hand, regenerator + u-turn seems ideal, especially on a choiced attacker as potent as hydreigon; on the other, hydreigon really appreciates the ground-type immunity since it makes it so much easier for it to switch in on things. maybe losing the ability to switch into landorus-t can be brooked, but losing immunity to spikes and toxic spikes is huge. is it worth it? personally, i don't think so: spikes stacking is huge in this metagame, and levitate is sort of what makes hydreigon usable in ou. without it, it becomes just another pokemon too vulnerable to entry hazards that's not fast enough to compensate for its notable failing.

i don't really foresee hydreigon foregoing levitate for regenerator on most teams; although it's an awesome ability, i don't think that hydreigon really wants it over levitate in most scenarios. i might be aggrandizing the importance of the ground immunity, but i feel like having the ability to switch in on choiced ground moves and hippowdon is slightly more valuable than the extra 33% per turn, but i might be misjudging its utility. as it stands, hydra doesn't have the most amazing resists in the world — fire and water resistances are nice in this metagame, but it doesn't have lati@s-tier special bulk so it's still taking a lot from rain-boosted moves [just as an aside, rain is op imo, but it's not going anywhere in bw2]. hydreigon's main niche in this metagame is that it's probably one of the best wallbreakers in ou next to cb kyurem-b: blobless stall doesn't really have a safe switch-in to specs hydra since it makes appetizers of common stalwarts of defensive play. if the opposing hydreigon guesses well, then stall has a lot of difficulty with it. although the extra 33% per switch somewhat negates entry hazard damage, i think hydra likes the spike immunity more when it comes to breaking down walls. though you could just run a spinner, admittedly...

edit: scarf regenerator hydreigon actually sounds sort of annoying against offensive teams, since it doesn't care about simple stealth rock as much as it does about spikes. it checks a pretty sizable number of threats, not least among which are dragonite, heatran, sd garchomp, double dance landorus to an extent. it's pretty interesting, and i hadn't thought of it that way.