Manaphy in ranked PVP

[Baganha]

Breloom sash is not commun but its op here, can pass Manaphy with Spore+Bullet Seed.

 

This pokemon is not really strong here.

 

Gen6 meta add some Pokemon, if PRO was in gen5, we will be banned from OU but its not.

 

 

Sash breloom is not reliable whatsoever, because it needs its sash to be intact, so no damage or hazards in the field are a must which is very hard and not consistent, scarf breloom is by far the safer and optimal choice as it ohkos with bullet seed (x3) and always outspeeds it.

[Johncampita211]

So im not sure if making a new thread is the best idea instead of discussing it in another thread such as pvp rules but whatever im just gonna do it.

 

The reason im making this thread is to discuss manaphy's place in the pvp ranked ladder and why i believe it should be considered "broken" in the meta.

 

I wanna startoff by saying that i do not have a lot of experience in pvp, there might be some things i get wrong in this post and if thats the case i obviously would appreciate if anyone corrected me/tell me why im wrong.

 

For my experience, manaphy has had the most amount of usage in rain teams, which is fair since it boosts its stab while giving it the ability to not get statused thanks to hydration, with this manaphy 6-0 the vast majority of stall teams and if it doesnt do that it gets minimum 2-3 kills, in rain it 2hko chansey at +6 surf which im sure if you've seen manaphy against stall you'd know how easy it is to get 2 tgs up. The only switchins that would threaten manaphy to not get up 2 tg would be av tang, amoonguss and ferro. To which tang gets 1v1 if its switching on a tg, unless it has leaf storm, which is an ohko after rocks, needless to say leaf storm is very if not completely unused due to its lack of recovery that giga offers and low pp and overall less reliable stab. Amoonguss is ohko'd after +3 ice beam/psychic unless its an av set which again is 1v1'd. This in itself wouldnt be a bad thing if stall/bulkier balances were the only thing manaphy had a good time against, however this is not the case as manaphy has the tools to be devastating against every playstyle.

 

Firstly there is its typing and stats which are fenomenal, 100 across the board means that this pokemon definetely has the bulk to set up tail glow with ease, even against the more offensive threatning mons such as drill, scizor, ttar (unless banded), weavile(unless banded), volc etc and can always take a hit from mons like conk, bish, mamo, shell smashed cloyster, gengar, togekiss and so on. Manaphy is able to put so much pressure to offensive teams that the only way to beat it at that point is mainly with the use of priority between sucker from bish plus espeed from banded dnite or using something like latios that can dish out a big hit in draco meteor and potentially ohko if its specs. While playing against manaphy with offensive teams may not feel as if youre pushed into a corner as if you were using more bulkier teams, its still has the firepower to completely breakdown your team, right now ive only been talking about one set in particular which is tg +3 attacks, and id argue it is for sure the best set, but options like tg + rest on rain teams is also insanely dificult to deal with, more so for offensive teams since it gives much more longetivity to manaphy also it is much easier to setup against chansey with rest, so thats also a bigger issue for stall. Cm rain dance manaphy while a very unpopular set and i honestly dont believe it will have much presence in the meta does have its uses, having some better niches compared to crocune, better speed, better spatk, better recovery, no status etc.

In fact i dont see why ho wouldnt want to have this in a team, providing immense wallbreaking power whilst still matchup very well against faster teams.

 

Regarding to actual counters, i believe there is av goodra, unaware clef and spdef ferro (unless manaphy is hp fire), which is a very limited amount to say the least, also taking into account that spdef ferro is the only rather splashable mon of these three.

Checks consist in a bigger number such as serp, latis, cloro venusaur, ss kingdra on non rest variants, and in general if it not at full, mons like gengar and zam.

 

This last point is pretty subjective and im not sure how exactly pro deals with this kind of things but afaik the only way to get manaphy was through this xmas event, which seems a bit unfair for all the other players that maybe didnt join the game at that time or were too busy and just simply couldnt finish the event, specially when were talking about manaphy, which whether you agree or not to be busted, i think we all agree that its an insanely good mon that no player would refuse to not try to get him for pvp purposes.

 

With that i conclude this post (sorry for the walls of text) i do hope to hear the opinions of the community regarding this, if you dont agree with my points you are more than welcome to explain why, i believe discussions like these should be more implemented in this community and with pvp expanding in interest for a lot of players, i think there needs to be a more critical aproach to what people want pvp to turn into and maybe reducing its influences on communities like smogon because they are very diferent metas.

 

 

I agree with him,Manaphy is op even chansey( most common and reliable sp def wall ) cant wall it. Just like blaziken it is also op but now on my opinion blaziken can be playable because of the abudance of azumarill and rain team. Back on my point there is nothing a pokemon that can wall a manaphy.

[Iceflake]

Johncampita211 Blaziken was Banned Because it was technically "Uber" because of its ability. Just like Dugtrio's Areana trap. As For breloom it doesnt even need Sash to beat Manaphy. All it needs is 80 ev's in spedf to live any move Manaphy wants to throw at it. Baganha, i was never talking about 6v1 battle. I was just listing mons that could ohko it or wall it. They obviously have other purposes then just countering manaphy there's no such thing as a one trick Pokemon, and by your logic then i could name a few pokemon that would seem "bannable" in your eyes.

 

Like Serperior (which can live a ice beam and then take out manaphy) Most teams dont have one since it is only in the pve shop or boss rewards but there are still very good ones out there. A serperior can completely run through a team if your not careful. Just like manaphy, Serperior has its checks and balances such as ha azu.

 

In battle you should always think what mons can take out other mons. Is "random" mon even useful in this battle, can i sack it? I Think if i lose "this" mon i lose to "opponents" mon and he just sweeps me. But if i can take out this "oppenents" mon then my "mon" can 2 or one shot anything.

 

Im not saying you need to build a team around countering one mon. I am saying That in order to Learn to counter a mon you should either take the time knowing what it can do and which of your mons can take it out. I also recommend you play showdown with a friend using pro teams using manaphy. The best way to see what can take out manaphy is playing with it.

[Baganha]

Johncampita211 Blaziken was Banned Because it was technically "Uber" because of its ability. Just like Dugtrio's Areana trap. As For breloom it doesnt even need Sash to beat Manaphy. All it needs is 80 ev's in spedf to live any move Manaphy wants to throw at it. Baganha, i was never talking about 6v1 battle. I was just listing mons that could ohko it or wall it. They obviously have other purposes then just countering manaphy there's no such thing as a one trick Pokemon, and by your logic then i could name a few pokemon that would seem "bannable" in your eyes.

 

Like Serperior (which can live a ice beam and then take out manaphy) Most teams dont have one since it is only in the pve shop or boss rewards but there are still very good ones out there. A serperior can completely run through a team if your not careful. Just like manaphy, Serperior has its checks and balances such as ha azu.

 

In battle you should always think what mons can take out other mons. Is "random" mon even useful in this battle, can i sack it? I Think if i lose "this" mon i lose to "opponents" mon and he just sweeps me. But if i can take out this "oppenents" mon then my "mon" can 2 or one shot anything.

 

Im not saying you need to build a team around countering one mon. I am saying That in order to Learn to counter a mon you should either take the time knowing what it can do and which of your mons can take it out. I also recommend you play showdown with a friend using pro teams using manaphy. The best way to see what can take out manaphy is playing with it.

 

The point is, is that youre bringing checks that arent really that reliable, mainly the weather based ones, giving that manaphy takes advantage of weather itself. Also serperior imo isnt the best example to showcase this, it is much easier to check/counter it than manaphy is and im sure you agree with this as well, for starters serp isnt as reliable on weather as manaphy, making checks like venusaur/kingdra much more consistent compared to manaphy. Its always conflicted in using between hp fire/ground so its always gonna have targets he wont effectively deal with, weather it be ferro/heatran/amoonguss/tangrowth/gengar etc, dimming even more its targets to hit. It has 4mss, giving it a hard time to find consistent sweeping capabilities from various matchups through stall to hyper offense, it could use leech seed+tect to give a better matchup for stall (although not perfect since it cant use sub) or it could have coverage like dragon pulse to deal with dragons like latis or dnite for a better MU in more offensive teams. Manaphy would appreciate all the coverage it could get of course, but giving how much power tg gives him to begin with coverage like surf+ice beam is already insanely good for whatever MU, any ho crumbles to that (as explained in my response to imtrippin), its not perfect coverage but it targets much more than serp would ever do; and while serps bulk is pretty nice, it does not compare to manaphy's which also has a much better typing, giving even more checks to serp such as gengar, scarf medicham, rotom-h, staraptor, dnite etc. and even some hard counters such as goodra, av amoonguss, volcarona, chansey/blissey, the almight spdef unaware clef. These amount of checks/counters do not exist for manaphy, they cannot be considered equivalent in its presence in the meta and like ive mentioned in my post before, i am aware there are things that deal with manaphy, even if they are pretty limited, im just stating that having simply something that can deal with it doesnt make it balanced.

 

While im no master in the "arts" of competitive pokemon, i do consider myself somewhat capable in always geting a game plan for whatever matchup, the thing is, this game isnt just as simply as "beating the pokemon that beats me, makes me victorious", every battle is diferent from each other, thinking of a game plan is one of the most basic things to do in competitive mons, that doesnt mean there arent other variable sn the game tho, your opponent predicting you, using a move you didnt expect, hax etc. ive beaten people with manaphy before, but that doesnt change the fact that it does have very little counterplay.

 

I dont intend to use showdown for pro purposes, mostly because i play pretty diferently on both, giving how shitty the battle UI for pro is (no percentage hp, moves working incorrectly, no number of turns for weather, no logs etc.) (or maybe im just too attached to showdown lol). Like ive said before i dont have the most amount of experience playing pvp, being about a month or so, however it seems to me that i didnt get much wrong regarding manaphy and the state of the current meta, so i dont really feel like i need much practice on showdown, not claiming im really good or anything but i do believe i've caught on the gist of it.

[Sixpacks]

I do agree with most of your points since there are no reliable checks for manaphy in this game aside from faster mons which can outspeed and prolly revenge kill it. However, the main problem is the team with which it is mainly used, f.e, it is mainly used in rain teams which are really broken with kingdra having the potential to finish the game in less than 16 turns against unprepared teams. Apart from that its more broken when combined with klefki screens. I have seen players abusing this and its almost a free win everytime.

 

Also, with scarf toge and conkeldurr around they just synergize well with manaphy taking out all the checks of manaphy. It just makes the meta more rain centralized and encourages people to play more rain teams making the meta even worse and monotonous.

Edited February 25, 2019 by navneeth

[Envymeister]

The real question here is: Is manaphy broken? or Rain is? I would say i rather ban Rain than manaphy...

[Baganha]

The real question here is: Is manaphy broken? or Rain is? I would say i rather ban Rain than manaphy...

 

That is a good point, given that rain offers so much for manaphy and checking it would eventually be much easier without it, although i have to say that rain, while pretty good, just doesnt have the edge to be considered broken without manaphy imo but i do understand the predicament here. I'd prioritize banning manaphy over rain for sure and if it were up to me, i would only ban drizzle if anything, setting up rain dance has its costs and would make the playstyle a bit more constricted but still somewhat usable, the thing is, how much influence would sun/sand teams have after that nerf tho?

[Baganha]

I do agree with most of your points since there are no reliable checks for manaphy in this game aside from faster mons which can outspeed and prolly revenge kill it. However, the main problem is the team with which it is mainly used, f.e, it is mainly used in rain teams which are really broken with kingdra having the potential to finish the game in less than 16 turns against unprepared teams. Apart from that its more broken when combined with klefki screens. I have seen players abusing this and its almost a free win everytime.

 

Also, with scarf toge and conkeldurr around they just synergize well with manaphy taking out all the checks of manaphy. It just makes the meta more rain centralized and encourages people to play more rain teams making the meta even worse and monotonous.

 

Pretty good points, probably the most important being that manaphy wipes out anything kingdra/kabutops cannot which after that becomes extremely hard to deal with one or both of these mons.

 

Screens seem pretty effective as well, even something like safeguard could be considered for extra longitivity for matchups like chansey or status mons like amoonguss/clef

[Imtrippin]

Rain is not near broken. It's just a noob sweeper that beats unskilled opponents quick. If you're up against an actual good player I'd say rain might even be bad. And @iceflake, learn the difference between a soft check and an actual counter. Like "As For breloom it doesnt even need Sash to beat Manaphy. All it needs is 80 ev's in spedf to live any move Manaphy wants to throw at it". HAHA. So let's picture the scenario real quick. The opponent switches in manaphy against your Gliscor. You need the discord to not get swept by another mon in the back, Manaphy either attacks or sets up while you switch to Breloom and you lose no matter which one the opponent chooses. If it has set up then you can't even revenge kill it. I'm genuinely wondering what your thought process was while writing your post if you even had one.

 

Serperior and Manaphy are not similar.

 

If you believe that something needs to be sacked every time Manaphy is brought it you're contradicting yourself since a meta where something needs to be sacked because of 1 mon that doesn't have a switch in is not healthy. Either that or you don't know how to build/steal good teams. "Im not saying you need to build a team around countering one mon". Except if you can literally get 1v6ed by a certain pokemon then maybe there is a problem with your team, especially since I can imagine the very few players with some IQ in this game who still pvp would abuse it if they cared. Basically being unstoppable because nobody is improving or using good teams except them which is uncompetetive. "The best way to see what can take out manaphy is playing with it." Yes dude, make those casuals use manaphy, stay in on Ferrothorn power whips without setting up and just ice beaming twice and think "oh Ferrothorn is an excellent counter!"

 

?XD

[Envymeister]

That is a good point, given that rain offers so much for manaphy and checking it would eventually be much easier without it, although i have to say that rain, while pretty good, just doesnt have the edge to be considered broken without manaphy imo but i do understand the predicament here. I'd prioritize banning manaphy over rain for sure and if it were up to me, i would only ban drizzle if anything, setting up rain dance has its costs and would make the playstyle a bit more constricted but still somewhat usable, the thing is, how much influence would sun/sand teams have after that nerf tho?

mate u saying rain isnt broken? have u pvped last seasons? players are using more and more Rain team centered and togekiss scarf. why u ask? well doesnt require skill to use. togekiss u just gotta press a button a pray for flinch, rain u just dont want ur rain setter and rain abuser die and u win. Many of you arent old enough in the game to remember when Talonflame was around, but sand+talon was meta, and was just too good, many ppl start using those types of team, and teambuilding become so monotonous that started to be annoying, rn its happening the same... Manaphy itself yes its strong, but the same can be applied to conkeldurr, volcarona, lucario, if u dont have something for those pokes, they will sweep you, thats why u need teambuilding, which again, right now its rain or scarf kiss....