[UU Discussion] Zangoose [Banned to BL]

[Tyrone]

Zangoose. Zangoose has long been a controversial pokemon in the UU tier. Whether it's running CB, Swords dance, Life orb, or even SIlk Scarf, it can wreak havoc like no other in the tier.

 

Choice band lead can cripple the opponents team with little prediction as the damage output alone usually dents Goose's main counter or check. Don't feel like being locked into a move? No problem - Zangoose can Swords dance and with its great speed and access to priority in Quick attack it can out pace the vast majority of the meta and KO them. If you can get rid of ghosts (which are the only thing that can stop this set) then Zangoose pretty much sweeps with ease.

 

It boasts a wonderful stab, solid coverage, stab priority and other moveset options. Clearly, though, the two most problematic sets are the CB and swords dance ones, which both can be deadly late game. Zangoose's hard hitting options boil a lot of battles down to risky 50/50s trying to avoid a massive blow from the mongoose, even the risky iron tail or fire punch can cripple ghost types like Misdreavus and Haunter preventing them from being used to subdue zang again. Although it's defense are pretty brittle, Zangoose has some daunting offense and a unique ability which cuts it a lot of slack in UUs meta. Also, silk Scarf can give a nice boost to its powerful Stab normal moves without the health loss that life orb has. Life Orb sets give an overall improved damage output that allows for a KO on things like Haunter Switch ins. 

 

Some Key moves: Fire Punch, Return (Double-edge if feeling risky), Pursuit, Quick attack, Low Kick, Iron Tail, Swords Dance, Aerial Ace, Façade, Thunder Punch, Swords Dance

 

Common Sets:

Silk Scarf/Life Orb:

Return, Swords Dance, Low Kick, Fire Punch/ Thunder Punch/ Ice Punch depending on what your team needs to look out for, Scizor or Omastar or even Alteria

Return, Quick Attack, Swords Dance, Fire Punch is most commonly ran.

Quick Attack, Swords Dance, Low Kick, Fire Punch, if you prefer coverage over power.

This is the standard late game clean up crew. Take out your opponents switch in or cripple it and then proceed to sweep. Life orb sets are all similar to these sets but with the added bonus as providing boosts to all of Zangoose's moves instead of only the Normal ones.

 

Choice Band:

Return, Low Kick, Fire Punch, Thunder Punch/ Ice Punch

Lead and predict accordingly. Deals out instant damage and has insane coverage. One mis-predict from your opponent and its game over

 

Some Calcs:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Steelix: 156-185 (85.7 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Steelix: 90-108 (49.4 - 59.3%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Fire Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Steelix: 99-117 (54.3 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Kangaskhan: 218-257 (102.8 - 121.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Return vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Kangaskhan: 208-246 (98.1 - 116%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Return vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Kangaskhan: 120-142 (56.6 - 66.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Low Kick (80 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Kangaskhan: 126-150 (59.4 - 70.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Return vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 175-208 (96.6 - 114.9%) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Return vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 102-120 (56.3 - 66.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Ice Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 200-236 (110.4 - 130.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Haunter: 119-141 (99.1 - 117.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO   Same calc for Thunder Punch and Ice Punch

 

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Thunder Punch vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowking: 108-128 (53.7 - 63.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Choice Band Zangoose Return vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowking: 109-129 (54.2 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Return vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowking: 188-224 (93.5 - 111.4%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO

 

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Thunder Punch vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Omastar: 153-182 (86.4 - 102.8%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

 

 

In conclusion, the TC would like your opinion about whether or not to Ban Zangoose to BL under the Uber Offensive Characteristics. First hand experience in the UU tier either spectating or battling is always helpful. Please keep it civil and on topic.

 

Thanks to Artemiseta and Gunthug for the write-up

[RysPicz]

Bwahahahahaha you already corrected it, grats! :p Was it you T, or Darkshade? At least tell me who overlooked it, I had such a solid laugh from it.

 

 

Right, well.

I've been using Zangooses for seriously quite a while. SD, CB, even Flail- you really, really have to take this one into account too. There isn't much of common priority in UU nowdays, setting up on specs shadow ball or let's say, Resting Kanga (which is very common), might really win the game with ease.

Goose has it's ups and downs. Most of sets get revenged by Haunter which is becoming more and more popular (for a reason), but Haunter is very frail and very easily pursuit trapped by a scarf Absol, Swellow and in some examples Scizor.

Thing is about CB, getting locked into a move in current meta can be really punishing. The set which I see most threatening is SD, with most likely silk scarf.

It can setup on omnipresent Vileplume or Tentacruel without the fear of getting the sludgebomb poison which would limit it's longevity during the sweep. Altaria does not have any tools for it either (unless Dragon Claw- which can 3hko, but Altaria can deal only 2 hits before it dies:

+2 252+ Atk Silk Scarf Zangoose Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 160-190 (87.9 - 104.3%) -- 25% chance to OHKO

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Zangoose Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 175-208 (96.1 - 114.2%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

0 Atk Altaria Dragon Claw vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Zangoose: 51-61 (34.2 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO)

This is what makes it so powerful- ability to set up on 3 of the top usage pokes. +2 Silk Scarf Return and either Low Kick or Fire Punch are so powerful lategame that it becomes brainless sweeping machine.

 

It's not being used that much often though, because CB set like I said, can really backfire if you get yourself locked into a wrong move, and you might not have an opportunity to setup against a well prepaired team- and Zangoose really needs that setup in order to actually sweep.

 

I don't remember who said it (I think it was Gunt? If not, sorry- I really don't remember who said it and where), but the best proof of Zangoose being OP would be a massive spike in it's usage.

Edited August 9, 2016 by RysPicz

[gbwead]

Omastar, Haunter, Armaldo and Sableye - with the right set - can stop it somewhat consistently. Zangoose also has some trouble getting through Misdreavus Twave + Disable.

Considering that Zangoose should NEVER be full HP with a SD, there are several ways to RK it. Pikachu Adamant with Fake Out + Espeed kills 90% HP Zangoose. Scarf Hitmonlee or Scarf Nidoking kill 75% HP Zangoose. Crobat or Swellow can kill 50% HP Zangoose.

 

Low Kick Zangoose can't even get through Bold Corsola with Reflect, Recover and Surf. That is how much Zangoose doesn't fit Offensive Uber characteristics.

 

Edit: Beside Corsola that should clearly be banned because of its defensive uber characteristics, all the pokemons I listed are viable in UU. Zangoose doesn't force people to run pokemons that they don't want to run. Omastar/Armaldo/Sableye are already needed to counter Swellow. Haunter is a powerful sweeper that no longer get destroyed by Houndoom/Scizor cores. Hitmonlee and Nidoking outspeed everything with Scarf and are immune to paralysis. Despite its low usage, Pikachu should always be a pokemon people that people should be prepared to face. Crobat and Swellow are both seen quite often and have a nice niche in the tier.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by gbwead

[DoubleJ]

Sweepers gonna sweep. Spheal with it.

 

Zangoose can beat a lot of the highly used defensive cores used today. That's why it's so damn op. Experienced players are starting to experiment with new pokes like sableye and using scarf with better skill in order to stop zangoose and many other threats. Not necessary to ban imo. 4mss too stronk. 

[Guerinf]

I agree Zangoose is a really strong set up sweeper, but it really has only one chance to set up because of it's weak bulk. And there are different candidates at this job as gbweadmentionned it. I'd like to ad Shuckle (who can encore it), defensive donphan, defensive miltank and defensive steelix.

So it seems to me like sweeping with zangoose isn't magical. It clearly needs support to beat its counters and then a moment to set up a sweep. It's a really strong pokemon for sure, but not too strong for the UU

[myhugeboijoe]

Can we just close this thread and make a ban thread for kangaskhan? I mean...

[BurntZebra]

25 minutes ago, myhugeboijoe said:

Can we just close this thread and make a ban thread for kangaskhan? I mean...

Usage isn't always an indicator of banworthiness, especially when you're not looking at the UU tier as a whole. Several other Pokemon in UU are in the 30+ range of usage and there are like 15 above 20%. The deviation of usage isn't really that large which is what makes one usage stat more significant. If kangaskhan was 60% usage and the next most used Pokemon was like 15%, then yeah there are some issues, but currently UU is just in a rut atm, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just makes usage appear a lot more extreme than it actually is.

[Tyrone]

I'd like to propose a lot of Discussion in here tonight and tomorrow, as the Tier Council will make a decision on Zangoose this month on Monday after the tournament.

Should Zangoose remain UU, even after the movement of Haunter to OU?

Why yes, why not?

[xXBlu3BreathXx]

At a first glance I believe zangoose will be problematic for UU, with the exclusion of haunter it is safe to presume many more zangoose will carry low kick, the only real reason to carry fire punch currently would be ohkoing scizor.

 

However goose might have a harder time setting up with the absence of kanga (switch in on the rest) but there are still some mons it can take advantage of like altaria and rest cradily. I see goose as primarily a wallbreaker so forcing those things out or getting the ko is to be expected but we have next to nothing left with stopping it from sweeping after it goes +2. Most rock/steel types outside of armaldo/scizor are shredded by low kick (even those are always 2hkod by adamant +2 orb) and the mons which outspeed either get ohkod by quick attack or die after a layer or two of spikes. 

 

I would be careful with banning it, personally I believe at this stage it is too damn good at killing everything but we could see mons like misd move up to deal with it, not to mention that goose will have a poor matchup against offensive teams.

[soyhector]

Yesterday I participated in the UU Tourment and i lost in 1st round becuase i couldnt use my Haunter >:c If Haunter was moved to OU, Zangoose should be moved too because actually there isnt a safe way to stop it. Look at all the UU an NU pokemons and think how are you going to counter it. If zangoose uses 1 sword dance can kill all the UU tier using Return, Quick Attack and Low Kick >:c

 

PS: It will happen the same is happening with Snorlax in OU, the people are obligated to build a team around it...and the duels turns really boring and monotonous seeing in every duel the people using all the same pokemons :/

[Tyrone]

By a unanimous vote, the Tier Council has decided to ban Zangoose from UU to BL1 under the Uber Offensive Characteristic.

 

After just one swords dance, Zangoose can slice through the tier like a hot knife through butter. Steelix and Omastar are the only viable UU pokemon able to switch into Zangoose and not be afraid of taking a +2 return, a move which kills almost every other Pokemon in the tier in one hit. But even then those two Pokemon don't appreciate coverage moves such as low kick. Revenge killing is also quite difficult as Zangoose has access to STAB quick attack, which at +2 threatens nearly all of the faster Pokemon in the tier. Haunter was a reliable revenge killer and switch in, but with its move to OU and the lack of other viable ghost types in the tier, Zangoose had the perfect environment to thrive in. 

 

With plenty of chances to set up thanks to solid typing and a great ability in immunity, goose just exerts far too much offensive pressure in the UU metagame. It is for this reason that it has been sent along to BL for fitting the Offensive Uber criteria