LC Viability Thread

[YettoDie]

Dont know if people get nominated for this...... but im just about the only consistent LC player and with Darkshade announcing its getting automated tournament support next update I figured what a better time than any. If you do get asked to do these then just trash this and steal all the content

 

Also shoutout to robo because I stole his OU format

Shoutout to DoctorPBJ for typing it down after discussion.

 

 

This is a thread to rank LC Pokemon by their viability. If this doesn't make sense, you should consult a dictionary, because I don't know how to make it any more cut and dried.

 

Like other threads of this nature, this is a general thread, meaning we won't call things a Defensive S Rank or an Offensive S Rank or anything weird like that. If you don't know what an S Rank is, you should read below.

 

Discussion is welcome whether you're challenging Gastly's Status as an A+ Rank or Onix's status as a C. Please be respectful of people (even if they're bad/dumb). Walls of text are welcome as long as other people don't need to parse it in order to see your points. For example:

 

 

Abra for A+ rank (insert reasoning here)

 

Is a good format.

 

 

 

"Well Abra is good but I don't know if it's really A. It gets destroyed by Houndour so maybe it's B? I dunno I guess probably A though because it's really fast"

 

Is bad, don't do it.

 

 

 

PokeMMO LC Viability Ranking

 

(in no order whatsoever)

(definitions of each rank blatantly stolen borrowed from Smogon)

 

S Rank: Reserved for Pokemon that are the pinnacle of the LC metagame. These Pokemon are able to perform a variety of roles very effectively, or can just do one extremely well. They are low risk involved and high reward. Pokemon in this rank have very few flaws or flaws that are patched up by numerous positive traits. These Pokemon define the metagame.

 

S Rank:

 

Chinchou

 

 

A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon that are strong in the LC metagame, and can sweep, support, or wall significant portions of the metagame. These Pokemon require less support than most others to be used effectively and have few flaws that can easily be compensated for when compared to their positive traits.

 

 

A+ Rank:

 

Gastly Maybe S

Elekid

 

A Rank:

 

Abra

Magnemite

Ponyta

Staryu

Porygon

Omanyte

Dratini

Pineco (B+)

Aron

Anorith

Onix

 

 

B Rank: These Pokemon have more notable flaws than those above them that affect how they function in the tier. Their positive traits still outshine their negatives, but they require a bit more team support to bring out their full potential. These Pokemon exert an above average presence in the metagame.

 

B+ Rank:

Doduo

Exeggcute

Krabby

Voltorb

Meowth

Houndour (B)

Magby

Taillow

Carvanna

Wailmer

Remoraid

 

B  Rank:

 

Psyduck

Mankey

Growlithe

Poliwag

Bellsprout

Horsea (B+)

Goldeen

Kabuto

Cyndaquil

Natu (B+)

Snubbull

Smoochum

Treecko

Wingull

Cacnea

Barboach

Corpfish

Clamperl

 

C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon that are mediocre in the LC metagame, but have just as many notable flaws that prevent them from being effective. Pokemon in the C tier often require significant support to be effective. Pokemon from this rank tend to face a lot of competition with the more commonly used Pokemon. These Pokemon exert a below average presence in the metagame.

 

Bulbasaur

Charmander

Squirtle

Ratatta

Spearow

Ekans

Sandshrew

Vulpix

Oddish

Paras

Machop

Tentacool

Geodude

Slowpoke

Seel

Grimer

Drowzee

Cubone

Koffing

Rhyhorn

Totodile

Teddiursa

Larvitar

Zigzagoon

Surskit

Shroomish

Elektrike (B)

Gulpin

Numel

Spoink

Trapinch

Swablu

Baltoy

Lileep

Shuppet

Duskull (B)

Snorunt

Bagon

 

 

D Rank: Reserved for Pokemon that are very mediocre in the LC metagame, but are viable enough to justify their use on select teams. These Pokemon are only capable of doing their specific task and fail at doing anything more than that. Pokemon from this rank have multiple crippling flaws that prevent them from being successful a majority of the time, and are often severely outclassed because of it. These Pokemon exert a poor presence in the metagame.

 

 

Nidoran-F

Nidoran-M

Zubat

Venonat

Shellder

Eevee

Chikorita

Hoothoot

Ledyba

Spinarak

Pichu

Mareep

Hoppip

Wooper

Swinub

Phanpy

Tyrogue

Torchic

Mudkip

Poochyena

Lotad

Nincada

Whismur

Makuhita

Spheal

Edited October 8, 2016 by YettoDie
Updated

[DoctorPBC]

mfw u actually put Kabuto B

[YettoDie]

1 minute ago, DoctorPBC said:

mfw u actually put Kabuto B

Told you i did it.

[DoubleJ]

HYPE

[BurntZebra]

Now all 7 LC players will know what's viable. Also I doubt clamperl can be S rank when its gg'ed by pretty much every S and A pokemon

[DoctorPBC]

7 minutes ago, BurntZebra said:

Now all 7 LC players will know what's viable. Also I doubt clamperl can be S rank when its gg'ed by pretty much every S and A pokemon

Hue I remember when u used to trash talk doubles too... good times

 

16 hours ago, Appelsap said:

Discussion is welcome whether you're challenging Gastly's Status as an A+ Rank or Onix's status as a C. Please be respectful of people (even if they're bad/dumb). Walls of text are welcome as long as other people don't need to parse it in order to see your points. For example:

 

 

Abra for A+ rank (insert reasoning here)

 

Is a good format.

 

 

 

"Well Abra is good but I don't know if it's really A. It gets destroyed by Houndour so maybe it's B? I dunno I guess probably A though because it's really fast"

 

Is bad, don't do it.

 

How is it GGd, please explain more and follow the format outlined in the OP.. right now your comment consists of  'all the good stuff beats it so it must be bad kek'

 

thx

[YettoDie]

21 minutes ago, BurntZebra said:

Now all 7 LC players will know what's viable. Also I doubt clamperl can be S rank when its gg'ed by pretty much every S and A pokemon

Darkshade mentioned that LC will have the same support as the other tiers, therefore more people might be intrested in LC as you dont need as much money anymore to play the tier.

[Rendiz]

9 minutes ago, Appelsap said:

Darkshade mentioned that LC will have the same support as the other tiers, therefore more people might be intrested in LC as you dont need as much money anymore to play the tier.

Its going to cost less? Are they going to scale levels down or something?

[DoctorPBC]

Just now, Rendiz said:

Its going to cost less? Are they going to scale levels down or something?

yeah, it got confirmed

 

start team building!!!

[BurntZebra]

32 minutes ago, DoctorPBC said:

Hue I remember when u used to trash talk doubles too... good times

 

How is it GGd, please explain more and follow the format outlined in the OP.. right now your comment consists of  'all the good stuff beats it so it must be bad kek'

 

thx

Doubles still isn't great. Not many people have dedicated doubles comps even though doubles has been around forever. Doubles centralizes around specific pokemon and there are limited viable strategies within the tier. Metagross also has insane usage in doubles, was up to 90% at one point.

 

How is it GG'ed? Well let's look at S rank definition. "Low risk and high reward". I'd say its very risky to run clamperl when the opposing player is most likely going to be running five things that are faster than clamperl and most can probably ohko too. And even if clamperl gets in vs that one slow defensive pokemon, it's still faced with a big predict to hp grass that chinchou and risk not killing that slow pokemon, or to surf to actually ohko something. The risk is greater than the reward typically. I'd much rather run elekid or ponyta with the speed+coverage to beat other pokemon, rather than hoping to play someone with 6 -speed nature pokemon, so that clamperl can actually outspeed something. 

[DoctorPBC]

17 minutes ago, BurntZebra said:

Doubles still isn't great. Not many people have dedicated doubles comps even though doubles has been around forever. Doubles centralizes around specific pokemon and there are limited viable strategies within the tier. Metagross also has insane usage in doubles, was up to 90% at one point.

 

How is it GG'ed? Well let's look at S rank definition. "Low risk and high reward". I'd say its very risky to run clamperl when the opposing player is most likely going to be running five things that are faster than clamperl and most can probably ohko too. And even if clamperl gets in vs that one slow defensive pokemon, it's still faced with a big predict to hp grass that chinchou and risk not killing that slow pokemon, or to surf to actually ohko something. The risk is greater than the reward typically. I'd much rather run elekid or ponyta with the speed+coverage to beat other pokemon, rather than hoping to play someone with 6 -speed nature pokemon, so that clamperl can actually outspeed something. 

 

Not gonna go into details about your little doubles argument aside from stating that you are making up facts with information you dont have and basing the fact there is limited viable strategies around your experience with the tier (good stuffs, rain, baton pass, sand stall, follow me setup sweeps, follow me status spam)

 

As for the input on clamperl, I actually agree with a bunch of your points. I ran it yesterday and if played correctly it was an OHKO machine but you really need to be on point with predictions and make sure you arent caught in a 1v1 against something that can OHKO you in return. If played right it can usually take a 2 for 1 which in LC is something not a whole lot of mons can do. 

 

Though if/when berry juice gets banned (and it should be, allowing a full hp heal on LC mons is just insanity) chinchou cant switch into a surf more than once otherwise its KOd

[BurntZebra]

15 minutes ago, DoctorPBC said:

 

Not gonna go into details about your little doubles argument aside from stating that you are making up facts with information you dont have and basing the fact there is limited viable strategies around your experience with the tier (good stuffs, rain, baton pass, sand stall, follow me setup sweeps, follow me status spam)

 

As for the input on clamperl, I actually agree with a bunch of your points. I ran it yesterday and if played correctly it was an OHKO machine but you really need to be on point with predictions and make sure you arent caught in a 1v1 against something that can OHKO you in return. If played right it can usually take a 2 for 1 which in LC is something not a whole lot of mons can do. 

 

Though if/when berry juice gets banned (and it should be, allowing a full hp heal on LC mons is just insanity) chinchou cant switch into a surf more than once otherwise its KOd

Baton pass isn't really that useful in most matchups. Sand "stall" basically just comes down to praying for rock slide flinches with ttar+aero. Spamming rock types aren't entirely ideal when so many teams have metagross and a few other rock resists like swampert/hitmontop/hariyama.

 

I'd say those 1v1 situations are too common. Offense is definitely the way to go in the tier still, even if there are viable defensive pokemon. And if you run an offensive core of like elekid+gastly+ponyta, along with chinchou and some other filler pokemon, clamperl really has limited switch in opportunities and is forced out vs pretty much the entire team. 

 

I'm still not sure about berry juice. It was never banned in any smogon LC tier. I don't think its a bad idea to incentivize running something besides 6x life orb/choice item pokemon. Most offensive pokemon would probably still prefer life orb or a choice item and berry juice isn't entirely consistent either. A pokemon needs to be below 50% to actually have berry juice activate and they also can't die from the hit either. 

[Senile]

3 minutes ago, BurntZebra said:

Baton pass isn't really that useful in most matchups. Sand "stall" basically just comes down to praying for rock slide flinches with ttar+aero. Spamming rock types aren't entirely ideal when so many teams have metagross and a few other rock resists like swampert/hitmontop/hariyama.

 

I'd say those 1v1 situations are too common. Offense is definitely the way to go in the tier still, even if there are viable defensive pokemon. And if you run an offensive core of like elekid+gastly+ponyta, along with chinchou and some other filler pokemon, clamperl really has limited switch in opportunities and is forced out vs pretty much the entire team. 

 

I'm still not sure about berry juice. It was never banned in any smogon LC tier. I don't think its a bad idea to incentivize running something besides 6x life orb/choice item pokemon. Most offensive pokemon would probably still prefer life orb or a choice item and berry juice isn't entirely consistent either. A pokemon needs to be below 50% to actually have berry juice activate and they also can't die from the hit either. 

Actually, Berry Juice was banned in both 4th/5th gens, since it was inception, and just hasn't been banned in Gen 6. Attacks putting you under 50% really isn't anywhere near as difficult as you're making it sound, especially in LC, and when the reward of literally a full heal is pretty damn good. Although, you are right that life orb is pretty great.

[BurntZebra]

Just now, Senile said:

Actually, Berry Juice was banned in both 4th/5th gens, since it was inception, and just hasn't been banned in Gen 6. Attacks putting you under 50% really isn't anywhere near as difficult as you're making it sound, especially in LC, and when the reward of literally a full heal is pretty damn good. Although, you are right that life orb is pretty great.

Tbh I was too lazy to actually check the 4th/5th gen rules. I just checked on the formats dex page on smogon for gen 5 and there was nothing there so just assumed berry juice was allowed. I'd say the only thing that makes berry juice potentially broken is having something that can set up once or two turns, then have the berry juice activate so you have a set up sweeper that is set up and at full hp again, but I'm not sure of how many pokemon can pull something like that off (lf recycle curse munchlax). 

[DoctorPBC]

4 hours ago, BurntZebra said:

Tbh I was too lazy to actually check the 4th/5th gen rules. I just checked on the formats dex page on smogon for gen 5 and there was nothing there so just assumed berry juice was allowed. I'd say the only thing that makes berry juice potentially broken is having something that can set up once or two turns, then have the berry juice activate so you have a set up sweeper that is set up and at full hp again, but I'm not sure of how many pokemon can pull something like that off (lf recycle curse munchlax). 

Well the best pokemon in the tier is one of them, Chinchou... I would argue it was the reason yetto won yesterday because not much stops it when it outspeeds literally everything

 

Also it really helps for special sponges, again referring to yesterday yetto got a full heal switching his porygon into a gastly which would have otherwise 2hkod him

 

Not my jurisdiction because the TC does what they feel is necessary but it should be banned 

[BurntZebra]

1 hour ago, DoctorPBC said:

Well the best pokemon in the tier is one of them, Chinchou... I would argue it was the reason yetto won yesterday because not much stops it when it outspeeds literally everything

 

Also it really helps for special sponges, again referring to yesterday yetto got a full heal switching his porygon into a gastly which would have otherwise 2hkod him

 

Not my jurisdiction because the TC does what they feel is necessary but it should be banned 

Hm I guess agility chinchou would be a potential threat, although the question would be is it chinchou that's overpowered or berry juice? And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for porygon to be able to switch in vs gastly at least one time safely, since gastly was considered to be quite powerful. 

[DoctorPBC]

1 minute ago, BurntZebra said:

Hm I guess agility chinchou would be a potential threat, although the question would be is it chinchou that's overpowered or berry juice? And I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for porygon to be able to switch in vs gastly at least one time safely, since gastly was considered to be quite powerful. 

chin is OP but not necessarily ban worth, with agility it has 4MSS and without its slow as shit and if its opponent plays smart it can be neutered before setup. Think DD kingdra, if left unchecked it will destroy teams but it needs to really have a good setup to get to that stage... chin is much the same but with berry juice it allows it to get out of priority range after taking a hit

 

also in such a high paced tier 2hkos are common place, most switches have to be to resistances or tanked by the mon still in play... allowing tanks to freely switch in destroys momentum with an item that provides a genuine unfair advantage 

[BurntZebra]

1 minute ago, DoctorPBC said:

chin is OP but not necessarily ban worth, with agility it has 4MSS and without its slow as shit and if its opponent plays smart it can be neutered before setup. Think DD kingdra, if left unchecked it will destroy teams but it needs to really have a good setup to get to that stage... chin is much the same but with berry juice it allows it to get out of priority range after taking a hit

 

also in such a high paced tier 2hkos are common place, most switches have to be to resistances or tanked by the mon still in play... allowing tanks to freely switch in destroys momentum with an item that provides a genuine unfair advantage 

But anyone can run berry juice. And it's not really an item you want to spam on all your pokemon either, especially in an offense oriented tier like this, since in most cases, something like elekid would obviously benefit more from a 30% damage boost on all of its attacks, rather than hoping to survive an attack so berry juice activates. And for something like chinchou, it also wouldn't mind having life orb instead of berry juice, as it misses some kos on pokemon, especially if it runs surf instead of hydro pump. Cant ohko elekid, can't 2hko porygon etc, although I'm not sure how easy/difficult it is for chinchou to set up without berry juice (would people keep something like aron in vs chinchou to avoid it agility'ing, otherwise life orb agility chinchou seems to have more offensive potential). 

[Raederz]

Clamperl still S rank, with the banned item ?

 

(I never did LC, but want to know)

[YettoDie]

2 minutes ago, Raederz said:

Clamperl still S rank, with the banned item ?

 

(I never did LC, but want to know)

ill try to look into it tomorrow

[Edniss]

Where's Magikarp?

[gbwead]

1 hour ago, Edniss said:

Where's Magikarp?

If Dragon Rage was allowed, Magikarp, as the fastest Dragon Rage user, would be S rank. However, Dragon Rage is banned, so Magikarp probably falls to Z rank (if that even exists). 

 

[YettoDie]

Clamperl will have 0/0/0/248/76/184 ev spread modest nature

 

242+ SpA Chinchou Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 76 SpD Deep Sea Scale Clamperl: 14-18 (70 - 90%)

248+ SpA Clamperl Surf vs. 76 HP / 0 SpD Chinchou: 8-9 (32 - 36%)

 

252 Atk Life Orb Elekid Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Clamperl: 23-31 (115 - 155%)

248+ SpA Clamperl Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Elekid: 16-19 (84.2 - 100%)

 

200 SpA Life Orb Gastly Sludge Bomb vs. 0 HP / 76 SpD Deep Sea Scale Clamperl: 9-13 (45 - 65%)

200 SpA Life Orb Gastly Thunderbolt vs. 0 HP / 76 SpD Deep Sea Scale Clamperl: 13-18 (65 - 90%)

200 SpA Life Orb Gastly Giga Drain vs. 0 HP / 76 SpD Deep Sea Scale Clamperl: 13-16 (65 - 80%)

248+ SpA Clamperl Surf vs. 0 HP / 80 SpD Gastly: 16-21 (84.2 - 110.5%) -- 50% chance to OHKO

 

240 SpA Life Orb Abra Psychic vs. 0 HP / 76 SpD Deep Sea Scale Clamperl: 9-13 (45 - 65%)

248+ SpA Clamperl Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Abra: 16-19 (84.2 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

keep in mind abra has 19-20 hp in most cases, lo damage will get it to a high ko rate

 

Imo i think clamperl is not S worthy anymore, B+ or A seems more fitting, surely it is still a strong pokemon, but it doesnt have the almost guaranteed take another poke with it potential anymore.

 

It now gets outclassed by almost all the A+ pokemons

 

Discuss

 

[DoubleJ]

Dratini master race

[dastan]

diglet b is a joke right guys ?