Also suggesting
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RBY 5U Viability Rankings
- Thread starter Enigami
- Start date
Also suggesting
I disagree with dropping Waters, I like Seadra freeze wars as little as Chansey freeze wars. Seadra + Seaking is strong against mono-Seadra even if it's passive, Seadra + Wartortle is far from bad, especially against Seadra + Seaking teams. Also dropping both and dropping Ninetales at the same time doesn't rly make sense.
I don't mind Parasect raising, but I'd see it on the same rank as Plume, outspeeding Drowzee is better, and it can annoy Waters way more with Mega Drain. They're pretty much on the same level. Outspeeding Graveler is always more comfortable. I wouldn't drop plume at all.
Lickitung can have consistency problems, notably due to the fact that it needs setting up and is slow. It's 5U worthy though. I would be ok with a Graveler raise, and I would be ok with it staying in C.
Also your proposal means empty A rank, which is kinda weird
I don't mind Parasect raising, but I'd see it on the same rank as Plume, outspeeding Drowzee is better, and it can annoy Waters way more with Mega Drain. They're pretty much on the same level. Outspeeding Graveler is always more comfortable. I wouldn't drop plume at all.
Lickitung can have consistency problems, notably due to the fact that it needs setting up and is slow. It's 5U worthy though. I would be ok with a Graveler raise, and I would be ok with it staying in C.
Also your proposal means empty A rank, which is kinda weird
Maybe it's just how I play but to me you can always aggressively play around seadra: force it to rest and force it out, or if i'm freeze warring which is rarer, you use sub so it's not really like you need a second water. Waters don't really have that many great matchups in this metagame anyway, mainly just the fires and graveler. Seadra is enoguh.
Outspeeding drowzee is nice but being neutral to psychic is nicer. And yea outspeeding graveler is nice I guess.
I think this might change. We need more testing.
I agree with Disaster Area regarding the Water Types, not much to add to my previous comments.
About Parasect - it´s double weakness against fire types is kinda important, meaning it would never survive unless Fire Blast misses. I don´t know how it could affect rankings but it´s something to keep at mind. Other then that I agree with Parasect being more reliable then Vileplume, from what I have seen so far.
Lickitung is a candidate for B, but I´m not 100 percent sure about Lickitung yet.
Graveller shouldn´t rise to B, it sure has a niche but Waters being present, not being able to switch into other special Stabs and having to relly on predictions with it versus Hyper Beam users kinda hinder it from releasing it´s potential (not to mention that this is usually just relevant vs Arbok and Lickitung, which are by far not in every single team).
Ninetails at B is ok, after all what it does is counter Leading, which doesn´t justify being rank A (this should be self explaining), and being an aggressive High Risk lead would suit it being ranked alongside Poliwag at least if anything.
About Parasect - it´s double weakness against fire types is kinda important, meaning it would never survive unless Fire Blast misses. I don´t know how it could affect rankings but it´s something to keep at mind. Other then that I agree with Parasect being more reliable then Vileplume, from what I have seen so far.
Lickitung is a candidate for B, but I´m not 100 percent sure about Lickitung yet.
Graveller shouldn´t rise to B, it sure has a niche but Waters being present, not being able to switch into other special Stabs and having to relly on predictions with it versus Hyper Beam users kinda hinder it from releasing it´s potential (not to mention that this is usually just relevant vs Arbok and Lickitung, which are by far not in every single team).
Ninetails at B is ok, after all what it does is counter Leading, which doesn´t justify being rank A (this should be self explaining), and being an aggressive High Risk lead would suit it being ranked alongside Poliwag at least if anything.
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What are ppl's thoughts on Wag?
Iirc I used to be fairly high on it, but now I just think it's so underwhelming. In the lead position it usually gets off a sleep, but other than that it doesn't really do much- defensively it gives you nothing, while offensively teams are just too prepared for it. Other water types, although taking a bit of damage, are still largely unthreatened by it, and usually have options to KO in return. Then there are other checks to contend with- Electrode and Parasect are real problems for it. Then of course there's issues of reliability, faster physical attacking leads, etc. As a non-lead it again gives you nothing defensively while requiring a decent amount of support to work, as it struggles to find openings.
As for other stuff, I think an empty A rank, although a little weird, is fine. Also I am adamant that Ninetales be ranked higher than Magmar, as Magmar just offers less overall, while being terrible at the one thing it does have over Ninetales, outside of the Wag matchup
I like Plume's overall better stats, particularly that it's better at causing problems for opposing waters than Sect. I don't think SubDra makes dual waters obsolete, since the idea isn't just beating Seadra (which Sub only really does if the opponent lacks Sub), but also having two waters to use because they're really bloody good
edit: also Fire Spin is awesome
Iirc I used to be fairly high on it, but now I just think it's so underwhelming. In the lead position it usually gets off a sleep, but other than that it doesn't really do much- defensively it gives you nothing, while offensively teams are just too prepared for it. Other water types, although taking a bit of damage, are still largely unthreatened by it, and usually have options to KO in return. Then there are other checks to contend with- Electrode and Parasect are real problems for it. Then of course there's issues of reliability, faster physical attacking leads, etc. As a non-lead it again gives you nothing defensively while requiring a decent amount of support to work, as it struggles to find openings.
As for other stuff, I think an empty A rank, although a little weird, is fine. Also I am adamant that Ninetales be ranked higher than Magmar, as Magmar just offers less overall, while being terrible at the one thing it does have over Ninetales, outside of the Wag matchup
I like Plume's overall better stats, particularly that it's better at causing problems for opposing waters than Sect. I don't think SubDra makes dual waters obsolete, since the idea isn't just beating Seadra (which Sub only really does if the opponent lacks Sub), but also having two waters to use because they're really bloody good
edit: also Fire Spin is awesome
Should stay in B. It's unreliable but it can have a high reward. Versus a team with like a lead seadra, and no parasect/electrode, if you hit hypnosis t1, then it can go to down and do serious damage before it goes down.
Yeah I think empty A rank is right. I don't think tales > magmar by a whole rank's difference tho; both are decent leads, both belong in B, both do a good job at what they're meant to do. Magmar does more damage before it takes sleep, but ninetales takes that sleep more reliable.
Gastly is everywhere tho so it's super easily blocked, and drowzee/dragonair/gastly which you should have on almost every team give you tools to pressure sleeping seadra and waters anyway.
I never said they were obsolete and I still run double water here and there
agree to disagree
imo it's just okay.
Ok more concrete proposal time:
A -> B
B -> C
second waters just aren't that good. They make you sturdier vs a few things (mainly fires) but 1 don't provide you with as much of a new approach offensively as most other stuff in the A-C range does. Still definitely worth using but they're not as good as that. Their bulk is just a bit lackluster too for roles primarily focussed around taking hits more than giving them out. [I still think Wartortle should be 5U fwiw]
B -> A
It doesn't really have a counter and it's an amazing paralysis spreader. Downsides are it doesn't hit that hard (ok attack but no good STAB) [although EQ hits a lot of stuff SE which makes up for it in many ways] and it doesn't really switch into anything; nonethelessit's not actually too hard to get into play and be seriously threatening. Anything that outspeeds it at worst 2HKOs without a crit (and only barely 2HKOing with moves with imperfect accuracy, like Seadra Hydro Pump and Ninetales Fire Blast, whilst Magmar Psychic is a roll) and Wrap is very dangerous. One of my most favourite Pokemon to use in the tier right now.
B -> A
Although graveler fucks it hard (you have some tools in the tier to lure graveler though) versus basically any other team, at worst it can paralyze some useful things and abuse its amazing speed to make sure that various partial trapping threats are manageable (ninetales arbok dragonair etc), at best be a nightmare for a team without proper preparation (never run double water without an electric resist not named dragonair! that's bad teambuilding). Very much a threat for some teams (e.g. if you run a team with like S4 + arbok and something specially bulky like lickitung or ninetales) in a similar way to how zapdos is dangerous in 1U maybe.
C -> B
talked about this already
C -> B?
Very unsure about it, but it is strong and bones a few things hard but on the flipside it has some horrible matchups where it doesn't do much / it's liable to getting lucked once in a while by stuff like gastly's crit psychic
E -> D
I tested little ball of fur and power. I think putting it on a similar level to pidgeot and kabutops is fair. It's strong and quite bulky but it's annoyed a lot by water types and it's slow and bad luck can really suck for it. It's not a consistent pokemon, mainly because of that speed. But it can put in work: versus the no-double-water teams that are reasonably popular, once seadra is neutralised to some degree it can start doing damage; the fact that it 2HKOs drowzee with bslam+hyper beam and is only 4HKOd by Psychic without drops/crits is nice, and it 2HKOs Gastly reliably (and gastly only 5HKOs in return discounting crits and drops!!). I'm not saying it's a great Pokemon or anything but it has enough potential and positive traits for a place in D.
second waters just aren't that good. They make you sturdier vs a few things (mainly fires) but 1 don't provide you with as much of a new approach offensively as most other stuff in the A-C range does. Still definitely worth using but they're not as good as that. Their bulk is just a bit lackluster too for roles primarily focussed around taking hits more than giving them out. [I still think Wartortle should be 5U fwiw]
It doesn't really have a counter and it's an amazing paralysis spreader. Downsides are it doesn't hit that hard (ok attack but no good STAB) [although EQ hits a lot of stuff SE which makes up for it in many ways] and it doesn't really switch into anything; nonethelessit's not actually too hard to get into play and be seriously threatening. Anything that outspeeds it at worst 2HKOs without a crit (and only barely 2HKOing with moves with imperfect accuracy, like Seadra Hydro Pump and Ninetales Fire Blast, whilst Magmar Psychic is a roll) and Wrap is very dangerous. One of my most favourite Pokemon to use in the tier right now.
Although graveler fucks it hard (you have some tools in the tier to lure graveler though) versus basically any other team, at worst it can paralyze some useful things and abuse its amazing speed to make sure that various partial trapping threats are manageable (ninetales arbok dragonair etc), at best be a nightmare for a team without proper preparation (never run double water without an electric resist not named dragonair! that's bad teambuilding). Very much a threat for some teams (e.g. if you run a team with like S4 + arbok and something specially bulky like lickitung or ninetales) in a similar way to how zapdos is dangerous in 1U maybe.
talked about this already
Very unsure about it, but it is strong and bones a few things hard but on the flipside it has some horrible matchups where it doesn't do much / it's liable to getting lucked once in a while by stuff like gastly's crit psychic
I tested little ball of fur and power. I think putting it on a similar level to pidgeot and kabutops is fair. It's strong and quite bulky but it's annoyed a lot by water types and it's slow and bad luck can really suck for it. It's not a consistent pokemon, mainly because of that speed. But it can put in work: versus the no-double-water teams that are reasonably popular, once seadra is neutralised to some degree it can start doing damage; the fact that it 2HKOs drowzee with bslam+hyper beam and is only 4HKOd by Psychic without drops/crits is nice, and it 2HKOs Gastly reliably (and gastly only 5HKOs in return discounting crits and drops!!). I'm not saying it's a great Pokemon or anything but it has enough potential and positive traits for a place in D.
Regarding the team you describe vs Wag, I just don't think that's a good team since it appears to entirely neglect covering Wag. If you don't cover it, it's obviously going to wreak havoc, but it's not hard to cover it and once it is covered it does practically nothing- there's no middle ground between ripping a team to shreds and getting walled hard and dying early
As for Tales/Mag, if they're met with a Seadra neither of them are dealing significant damage. Mag's niche of dealing slightly more isn't significant when it's still bad (except for Wag obviously). Meanwhile Tales' superior bulk means it's much better at taking status and it's also much better at taking on neutral opponents such as Gast and Drow.
edit: Tales in B and Mag in C sounds spot on
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I mean to some extent what you can do is just paralyze it with drowzee, and either wear it down with attacks from stuff that can just barely take its attacks, like Drowzee and Wartortle, or you can wrap it to death with Dragonair. It doesn't neglect wag, it just gives it more room than your average team in return for whatever upsides such a build provides versus other teams.
Not always true, for Ninetales. If you can land a Toxic on a Seadra as it swithces in, then Fire Spin can take it down surprisingly quickly. Also there's plenty of tools to help neutralise the opposing Seadra, and once it's slept or forced to Rest it's much easier to cope with anyway.
I already wrote about the Waters, Parasect and Graveller, so I´m gonna focus on the other proposals.
Electrode - I have to take my earlier statements back, it´s B worthy, however, it is not A worthy, as it is hardwalled by Vileplume and Parasect, and since Parasect is atm more Popular then Vileplume is, it will face even tougher times (not considering a number of Crits and Full Paras in a row
), but in teams that don´t have either (or Graveller) it will for sure cause Havoc. So in that Way it is pretty much the Zapdos of 5u, and i don´t mean just because of the typing.
However, even more Counters for Electrode mean it will have a harder time trying to achieve what it wants to achieve, resulting either in sacrificing or risking a lot of damage on switchouts. If it comes through, however, the player playing Electrode will usually have an advantage enough of winning the game, so it is more risky to carry it in your team, but even more rewarding. Therefore B
Arbok - As I wrote before it is the most reliable Physical attacker of 5u IMO, can cause great harm to Gastly, Para Seadra and Wrap it, Wrap and Para Dnair, Wrap Drowzee till it is KO, and even more. That it, in one way or another, counters the whole S Rank is Reason enough for it to be A Rank worthy.
Flareon - I am pretty sure that it could be a dominating force of 6U if it does not get Banned later on, so it should share ranks with Kabutops
Electrode - I have to take my earlier statements back, it´s B worthy, however, it is not A worthy, as it is hardwalled by Vileplume and Parasect, and since Parasect is atm more Popular then Vileplume is, it will face even tougher times (not considering a number of Crits and Full Paras in a row
), but in teams that don´t have either (or Graveller) it will for sure cause Havoc. So in that Way it is pretty much the Zapdos of 5u, and i don´t mean just because of the typing.However, even more Counters for Electrode mean it will have a harder time trying to achieve what it wants to achieve, resulting either in sacrificing or risking a lot of damage on switchouts. If it comes through, however, the player playing Electrode will usually have an advantage enough of winning the game, so it is more risky to carry it in your team, but even more rewarding. Therefore B
Arbok - As I wrote before it is the most reliable Physical attacker of 5u IMO, can cause great harm to Gastly, Para Seadra and Wrap it, Wrap and Para Dnair, Wrap Drowzee till it is KO, and even more. That it, in one way or another, counters the whole S Rank is Reason enough for it to be A Rank worthy.
Flareon - I am pretty sure that it could be a dominating force of 6U if it does not get Banned later on, so it should share ranks with Kabutops
Hey guys i'm gonna post a message regarding the viablity rankings *cries* Idk if we'll end up at any kind of consensus, but i suppose we make things move forward by posting:
Arbok to A I agree, see stuff in the previous posts
I'd raise Trode and Graveler to A and B respectively, just because of how meta-defining they are (and because they're very good mons in general too)
Magmar could drop to C, I like it but Ninetales is better, as long as it's considered 5U i'm fine with C, people prefer tales in general anyway
I agree with double Waters down 1 rank each, they're good but kind of difficult to make good use of (even if I like them), Tortle doesn't rest well, it would make sense with a Graveler raise. As long as Tortle is 5U
I honestly think Plume is A worthy because it's a very good all-around mon and it's easier to use/make good use of than Parasect. I'd raise Parasect tho. So plume A sect B. I'd raise Ape to B too because it's very annoying to face, it will always do good damage and the meta is becoming more agressive because that's how you punish all the slow/non bulky/resting mons. The rest is at its place, no opinion on Flareon as long as it doesn't get 5U
So that would look like (with what i suggested):
A = Ninetales, Electrode, Vileplume, Arbok
B = Seaking, Poliwag, Parasect, Graveler, Primeape
C = Wartortle, Magmar, Lickitung
Which I think describes the actual trends/viability/usage of now pretty well
Arbok to A I agree, see stuff in the previous posts
I'd raise Trode and Graveler to A and B respectively, just because of how meta-defining they are (and because they're very good mons in general too)
Magmar could drop to C, I like it but Ninetales is better, as long as it's considered 5U i'm fine with C, people prefer tales in general anyway
I agree with double Waters down 1 rank each, they're good but kind of difficult to make good use of (even if I like them), Tortle doesn't rest well, it would make sense with a Graveler raise. As long as Tortle is 5U
I honestly think Plume is A worthy because it's a very good all-around mon and it's easier to use/make good use of than Parasect. I'd raise Parasect tho. So plume A sect B. I'd raise Ape to B too because it's very annoying to face, it will always do good damage and the meta is becoming more agressive because that's how you punish all the slow/non bulky/resting mons. The rest is at its place, no opinion on Flareon as long as it doesn't get 5U
So that would look like (with what i suggested):
A = Ninetales, Electrode, Vileplume, Arbok
B = Seaking, Poliwag, Parasect, Graveler, Primeape
C = Wartortle, Magmar, Lickitung
Which I think describes the actual trends/viability/usage of now pretty well
I personally don't see Arbok A; Yes it's annoying and you have to dance around it, but in the end it doesn't get that much work done.
Everything else seems fine by me.
Nah Arbok gets a TON of work done and it's super threatening.
My only real disagreements are plume A / primeape B. I just don't think plume is that much better than Parasect or really even does that much. Also it's blanked so easily by Gastly which is on every team anyway. Ape kinda relies on being a luckbox to do a lot of work. Ape is frail / doesn't switch in easily / has 4MSS and it doesn't have partial trapping either, whilst gastly / drowzee are ok checks and on every team, even stuff like twave dnair is a good check (also ape lets dnair set up) and arbok checks it too and electrode / ninetales outspeed and status / hit it hard and seadra can take a couple hits and parasect checks and graveler beats submission-less apes and magmar checks. And obviously vileplume is a good check too. It can hax its way through pretty much all of these though, but how much opportunity does it get to do that?
My only real disagreements are plume A / primeape B. I just don't think plume is that much better than Parasect or really even does that much. Also it's blanked so easily by Gastly which is on every team anyway. Ape kinda relies on being a luckbox to do a lot of work. Ape is frail / doesn't switch in easily / has 4MSS and it doesn't have partial trapping either, whilst gastly / drowzee are ok checks and on every team, even stuff like twave dnair is a good check (also ape lets dnair set up) and arbok checks it too and electrode / ninetales outspeed and status / hit it hard and seadra can take a couple hits and parasect checks and graveler beats submission-less apes and magmar checks. And obviously vileplume is a good check too. It can hax its way through pretty much all of these though, but how much opportunity does it get to do that?
I know Flareon got bumped recently, but I think it could be C rank (prob not 5U, but maybe in the fringes of the conversation). It's very similar to Ninetales in that it packs a lot of neutral power and bulk. Its key advantage over Ninetales is its much stronger physical attack, which makes a very noticeable difference vs Waters as BS 4HKOs. Of course the flipside is that it can't really revenge kill or lead, and it's too slow to make effective use of Fire Spin. Maybe Rest could be effective? Other big issues with its speed are being outsped by all waters and Gastly, so there's that
I'm not sure on that you'd have to do some test games with me to be convinced
that being said if you bump into me we should definitely play some
that being said if you bump into me we should definitely play some
Still insisting on Arbok to A. It matches up well with the big 4 as Ch01W0n5h1n said, and furthermore it doesn't really have any bad matchups persay. When something is threatening to an Arbok team, Arbok can at worst be used to trade paralysis, for example with an Electrode or Ninetales, making the threat manageable. Also, it partners quite well with Pokemon which appreciate paralysis support - lickitung, graveler, and flareon - although unfortunately those teams have to use gastly or drowzee to lead.
I don't disagree with that. I'm not sure I'd support it, but after my set with Peasounay I'll definitely not oppose it, as Arbok can definitely put in a lot of work.
While we're discussing A, Parasect could maybe go there? I'm not 100% on it, but its combination of status and boosting is good, but especially its SD set can be a huge threat. It combines excellent power with actual capacity to support the team (I run status, usually Stun Spore, alongside SD/Beam/Leech)
While we're discussing A, Parasect could maybe go there? I'm not 100% on it, but its combination of status and boosting is good, but especially its SD set can be a huge threat. It combines excellent power with actual capacity to support the team (I run status, usually Stun Spore, alongside SD/Beam/Leech)
with all the rest mons... ditto to F? Could see it getting actual changes to use transform...