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Ranked PvP Viability Rankings (Last updated 6-30-2020)


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i disagree with s rank too...conk and rotom are the only two s for me...rotom can only be effectively countered from seismitoad and conk from sableye and cofagrigus...also conk is the most gifted in game when it comes to its abilities... guts (x1,5 and no poison), iron fist (x1,56 with l.orb and probability to freeze or par), sheer force (x1,69, no orb damage)...

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weavile is a mach/ bullet punch story...in a meta dominated by conk, scizor and clefable (bold in most cases), weavile cannot be in s rank...it is useful, but there are many restrictions in its use...even in moveset...

The metagame is not dominated by Conkeldurr or Scizor. They just simply don't dominate in a metagame where Rocky Helmet Garchomp and Rotom-W are on every single team. They are also slow, so they have obvious flaws unlike Weavile. As I said, you can definitely Mach and Bullet Punch Weavile to kill it, but of course It's not always that simple. When it comes to Clefable, all you need is a bit of prior damage to 2hko it. Please elaborate more on the restrictions it has because personally I can't see how it's moveset is restricted at all.

 

 

i disagree with s rank too...conk and rotom are the only two s for me...rotom can only be effectively countered from seismitoad and conk from sableye and cofagrigus...also conk is the most gifted in game when it comes to its abilities... guts (x1,5 and no poison), iron fist (x1,56 with l.orb and probability to freeze or par), sheer force (x1,69, no orb damage)...

 

Conkeldurr is a good Pokemon. I think it is fair to keep it at A rank. It has it's drawbacks. It can easily pressure teams, but the biggest issue with it is prediction. It can be easily worn down if you predict incorrectly. It is also checked relatively easily because of low speed. When it comes to Rotom-W, I think the S rank is fair for it and won't argue much there.

weavile cannot break through the walls most used in pro...ferrothorn, clefable, rotom - w, skarmory counter it easily...it works better with ch.band, but still not hit hard...its moveset is the three standard moves (ice shard, knock -off and icicle crash) and you have to pick between poison jab for fairies or low kick for mirror fights...the trap weavile (fake out, ice shard, pursuit) works only the first time you face somebody, like modest magic guard clefable...they have the element of surprise, they make you excited at first, but as time passes by and your opponents adjust, they will disappoint you and you will come back to the regular set...it is weak to st.rocks (x2 damage) and to priority moves due to weaknesses and low defense stat, thus it is easy prey for the most sweepers like conkeldurr (mach punch), scizor (bullet punch), lucario (bullet punch - extreme speed), dragonite (extreme speed)...if rocks are set it needs just a priority move to kill it most of the times...also with the regular moveset (ice shard, icicle crash, knock off, low kick) gives a chance for azu to emerge with low cost in hp...

i personally use weavile in my team...but i have built my team around it, so it works good...conk on the other hand can pass through anything...ice punch 1hko def chomps and scarfed togekiss...skarmorys and mandibuzzes cannot roost in front of it, because drain punch will destroy them...if iron fist/sheer force breaks multiscale...the only unbreachable walls are cofagrigus and sableye, as i mentioned before...as for guessing, it comes with every sweeper...guess wrong with weavile and you just gave azu a free chance to play rough, or roto -w to defog...

also conk has a variety of abilities and sets to use...it a wall breaker due to the way it handles elemental punches with its 2 abilities (sheer force, iron fist)...u can also go with the mainstream option (guts) and spam facade...u can build it defensively and bulk up, when your opponent switches out of fear...it works with trick room and then its disadvantage is bigger advantage...it speads terror to its checks when it comes to switching in...it is a beast...

Kinda feel like Conkeldurr could be moved up a notch since it has lots of coverage moves, great wallbreaker, work with lots of different kinds of teams and is one out of the most used offensive mons tied with Azumarill and Dragonite.

 

Only major weakness it has is fairy type, this due to the fact that it's fairly rare to see psychic mons in ranked pvp on PRO aren't that common, those are moslty legendaries that you should have counters to. Most flying types doesn't even use flying type moves, exception being the newly added Tornadus. Like I mentioned is fairy the major threat due to it's typing counters dragon and dark mons and is in general a type with few weaknesses and

 

 

I'd say it deserves a move to A or possibly A+ tier.

 

Conkeldurr is a coinflip simulator that saps momentum from your own team. Sure, it does a lot of damage... but it fails to get through most common stall cores and is easily punished by anything faster due to its garbage speed and mediocre bulk.

 

I have no idea why Weavile isn't in S Tier, if not being discussed for a ban already, whereas a Pokemon like Tornadus-Therian suddenly is. Weavile is easily the best revenge-killer in the game. It has 125 base speed meaning it outspeeds the vast majority of the metagame. Whenever you're down a Poke you can easily go to a Choice-Banded Weavile without issue and fire off something your opponent has trouble dealing with. It fits on every team archetype and literally every single one of its moves has insane viability. It has priority Ice Shard and two high-powered stab moves (Knock Off and Icicle Crash), which can easily 2hko the majority of the metagame. Oh, and it gets Pursuit too, which means you're rolling the dice whenever Weavile switches in on something slower and frailer than it. I wouldn't say this is the most troubling aspect of Weavile, however, it does cause 50/50 scenarios. Icicle Crash has a 30% flinch chance that can easily be the deciding factor whether you win or lose a game. It creates 30/70 scenarios far too often and forces you to play more defensively against it. There are certainly priority users that can revenge-kill Weavile like Aqua Jet Azumarill, Bullet Punch Scizor, Mach Punch Conkeldurr etc, but if you just spam the priority move, that can put you into a pretty crappy situation especially if they have something to absorb the hits like a Rocky Helmet Garchomp. If your plan is to counter Weavile defensively, then those defensive Pokemon can also easily succumb to a flinch chance, especially after knocking off Leftovers i.e Skarmory, Clefable, Quagsire, Ferrothorn, Chansey.

 

I mean, just look at these calcs for reference:

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 172-204 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 10.5% chance to 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 112-133 (33.5 - 39.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Quagsire: 157-186 (39.8 - 47.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 118-139 (33.5 - 39.4%) -- 81.3% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 135-159 (38.3 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 297-351 (42.2 - 49.9%) -- 90.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 261-307 (37.1 - 43.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 242-288 (59.9 - 71.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

 

Now, let's see how much damage Weavile deals out to more offensive Pokemon:

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Volcarona: 319-376 (102.5 - 120.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 90-107 (26.3 - 31.2%) -- 32.5% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 118-140 (34.5 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Dragonite: 235-277 (72.7 - 85.7%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Greninja: 155-183 (54.3 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 213-252 (55.1 - 65.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 213-252 (65.9 - 78%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 225-265 (65.9 - 77.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Bisharp: 111-132 (40.9 - 48.7%) -- 10.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Bisharp: 98-116 (36.1 - 42.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 337-397 (93.3 - 109.9%) -- 75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Excadrill: 297-349 (82.2 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Tyranitar: 181-214 (44.8 - 52.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 132-156 (46.9 - 55.5%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Lucario: 150-177 (53.3 - 62.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 225-265 (65.5 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 225-265 (80 - 94.3%) -- 50% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 205-243 (58.4 - 69.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and burn damage

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 205-243 (49.5 - 58.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and burn damage

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Serperior: 194-230 (66.6 - 79%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Latios: 224-266 (74.4 - 88.3%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Togekiss: 194-230 (62.3 - 73.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 199-235 (70.5 - 83.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

 

I could go on and on about the brute power of Weavile, but I dont want to flood this thread with calcs. In the many games I've played over the past few months I've considered it stressful and aggravating to play against. As I see it now, Weavile is just too much of an omnipotent force in the metagame to not be considered for a ban let alone S rank.

 

While Band Weavile can be difficult to play against for balance teams, its bad matchups against virtually every other archetype in the game make it incredibly difficult to justify moving up (weathers nullifying its speed advantage, stall playing Alomomola and utterly nullifying it, offense spamming priority). Unfortunately hidden by those calcs is the fact that you must choose a move - clicking Pursuit or Ice Shard may kill 1 but donates plenty of momentum to the opponent in return. These situations aside, the Weavile user is more often than not faced with a 50/50 between Knock Off and Icicle Crash - what do you click if your opponent has Rotom-Wash and Clefable available? Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that its soft checks happen to be some of the best and most common Pokemon in the game - Clefable, Rotom-W, Ferrothorn, and Azumarill, just to name a few, - it is not difficult to have a team capable of handling Weavile without explicitly considering it. With perfect play, perhaps, Weavile could be considered for S-rank, but if you have that degree of prescience, I would suggest Wall Street instead of wasting time here.

 

Weavile is a phenomenal Pokemon, no doubt, but it does not define the metagame.

 

Things I"m considering:

---

Rotom-W S -> A+

Fu2zc9T.jpg

Thanks to MadFrost for the signature!

Conkeldurr is a coinflip simulator that saps momentum from your own team. Sure, it does a lot of damage... but it fails to get through most common stall cores and is easily punished by anything faster due to its garbage speed and mediocre bulk.

I don't quite agree that it fails to get through the most common walls, for example it wrecks ferrothorn, chansey/blissey, skarmory, umbreon, ttar, garchomp etc. The ones I can see it struggling with are bold alomomola, mantine, milotic, possibly impish mandibuzz and clefable. Those one are fairly easy to counter with serperior and other electric pokemons or they can also easily be walled by alolan-muk and ferrothorn (except clefable if it knows flamethrower).

Keep in mind those are mostly counters if they are trained in defense, if not Conk can easily break through those if it has a status condition with guts and facade.

The most mayor counters are togekiss and azumarill.

 

The fact that it has low speed isn't really that big of a deal since it kills for example greninja and weavile with mach punch, the weavile will most likely use a priority move in those cases which gives you a free opportunity to use drainpunch and heal up.

accidac_sig_copy.png

I don't quite agree that it fails to get through the most common walls, for example it wrecks ferrothorn, chansey/blissey, skarmory, umbreon, ttar, garchomp etc. The ones I can see it struggling with are bold alomomola, mantine, milotic, possibly impish mandibuzz and clefable. Those one are fairly easy to counter with serperior and other electric pokemons or they can also easily be walled by alolan-muk and ferrothorn (except clefable if it knows flamethrower).

Keep in mind those are mostly counters if they are trained in defense, if not Conk can easily break through those if it has a status condition with guts and facade.

The most mayor counters are togekiss and azumarill.

 

The fact that it has low speed isn't really that big of a deal since it kills for example greninja and weavile with mach punch, the weavile will most likely use a priority move in those cases which gives you a free opportunity to use drainpunch and heal up.

 

They will always be trained in Defense. Stall != walls, stall will run Wish Alomomola and nullify anything Conkeldurr tries to do. Azumarill is not a counter, it is a check. Speed is the most important stat in the game, and while priority can mitigate the problem somewhat, being forced to use Mach Punch gives your opponent free momentum.

Fu2zc9T.jpg

Thanks to MadFrost for the signature!

They will always be trained in Defense. Stall != walls, stall will run Wish Alomomola and nullify anything Conkeldurr tries to do. Azumarill is not a counter, it is a check. Speed is the most important stat in the game, and while priority can mitigate the problem somewhat, being forced to use Mach Punch gives your opponent free momentum.

I meant trained in the def and not sp.def stat since for example mantine is really common to be trained in sp.def.

I agree that thing about speed being most important stat in the game and I now understand why you've placed Conk so low, even though I still believe it should be moved up a notch.

accidac_sig_copy.png

I meant trained in the def and not sp.def stat since for example mantine is really common to be trained in sp.def.

I agree that thing about speed being most important stat in the game and I now understand why you've placed Conk so low, even though I still believe it should be moved up a notch.

 

I think Mantine in particular loses to Conkeldurr regardless of its EVs, but the Pokemon which can handle Conkeldurr with max Defense will usually run Def EVs.

Fu2zc9T.jpg

Thanks to MadFrost for the signature!

weavile cannot break through the walls most used in pro...ferrothorn, clefable, rotom - w, skarmory counter it easily...it works better with ch.band, but still not hit hard...its moveset is the three standard moves (ice shard, knock -off and icicle crash) and you have to pick between poison jab for fairies or low kick for mirror fights...the trap weavile (fake out, ice shard, pursuit) works only the first time you face somebody, like modest magic guard clefable...they have the element of surprise, they make you excited at first, but as time passes by and your opponents adjust, they will disappoint you and you will come back to the regular set...it is weak to st.rocks (x2 damage) and to priority moves due to weaknesses and low defense stat, thus it is easy prey for the most sweepers like conkeldurr (mach punch), scizor (bullet punch), lucario (bullet punch - extreme speed), dragonite (extreme speed)...if rocks are set it needs just a priority move to kill it most of the times...also with the regular moveset (ice shard, icicle crash, knock off, low kick) gives a chance for azu to emerge with low cost in hp...

i personally use weavile in my team...but i have built my team around it, so it works good...conk on the other hand can pass through anything...ice punch 1hko def chomps and scarfed togekiss...skarmorys and mandibuzzes cannot roost in front of it, because drain punch will destroy them...if iron fist/sheer force breaks multiscale...the only unbreachable walls are cofagrigus and sableye, as i mentioned before...as for guessing, it comes with every sweeper...guess wrong with weavile and you just gave azu a free chance to play rough, or roto -w to defog...

 

I dont think it's fair to compare Pursuit Weavile to Magic Guard Clefable because they are not really all that similar. Sure, if your opponent has a Life Orb Magic Guard Clefable you can take advantage of that rather niche set easily, but adjusting to Pursuit Weavile is a much more difficult task. There really is no problem at all if your opponent knows you have Pursuit on Weavile, it's still going to be a viable asset to the team. It's not like using Pursuit Weavile is a generally unviable gimmick akin to Counter Chansey. When it comes to the moveset, I stand by what I said about Pursuit, Icicle Crash, Knock, Ice Shard being the best. I think Poison Jab is a niche move only used for Pokemon like Azumarill and perhaps Clefable. Even then, It doesn't do that much to the most commonly used Clefable spread: 252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Poison Jab vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 190-224 (48.2 - 56.8%) -- 34.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery The fact of the matter is Pursuit is just too good not to use. You can trap the likes of Gengar, Chandelure, Excadrill, Serperior, and the list goes on. Low Kick on Weavile has use for mirror matches, sure, but otherwise I see no reason to use it. Sure, you can OHKO Tyranitar, Heatran and of course Bisharp, but Weavile generally has partners that can deal with those adequately enough anyway.

 

Conkeldurr is a coinflip simulator that saps momentum from your own team. Sure, it does a lot of damage... but it fails to get through most common stall cores and is easily punished by anything faster due to its garbage speed and mediocre bulk.

 

 

 

While Band Weavile can be difficult to play against for balance teams, its bad matchups against virtually every other archetype in the game make it incredibly difficult to justify moving up (weathers nullifying its speed advantage, stall playing Alomomola and utterly nullifying it, offense spamming priority). Unfortunately hidden by those calcs is the fact that you must choose a move - clicking Pursuit or Ice Shard may kill 1 but donates plenty of momentum to the opponent in return. These situations aside, the Weavile user is more often than not faced with a 50/50 between Knock Off and Icicle Crash - what do you click if your opponent has Rotom-Wash and Clefable available? Further exacerbating this problem is the fact that its soft checks happen to be some of the best and most common Pokemon in the game - Clefable, Rotom-W, Ferrothorn, and Azumarill, just to name a few, - it is not difficult to have a team capable of handling Weavile without explicitly considering it. With perfect play, perhaps, Weavile could be considered for S-rank, but if you have that degree of prescience, I would suggest Wall Street instead of wasting time here.

 

Weavile is a phenomenal Pokemon, no doubt, but it does not define the metagame.

 

Things I"m considering:

---

Rotom-W S -> A+

 

I can agree that Weavile is practically deadweight against stall teams because of Alomomola — a hard counter to it — but against the most common weather teams (rain and sun), Weavile can hold its own. It can deal massive damage with Ice Shard to the sun sweepers because they are all grass types and Knock Off Torkoal's Heat Rock to minimize sun turns.

Same deal with Pelipper. Keep in mind that rocks will be up in most of these scenarios, so if you click Ice Shard, it isn't always just a free switch if your opponent predicts it.

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Venusaur: 218-258 (72.4 - 85.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Victreebel: 264-312 (87.7 - 103.6%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO

252 Atk Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Shiftry: 312-368 (97.1 - 114.6%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

 

Weavile can also threaten rains sweepers with Ice Shard chip damage and by Pursuiting the rain sweepers once the rain expires. Against offense, as I said before, there are drawbacks from just clicking the priority move. If you're looking at the typical offensive team, you have priority in the form of Dragonite Extreme-Speed, Bisharp Sucker Punch, or Lucario Bullet Punch/E-Speed. If they go for the priority move, and you go into something that can take the hit — they lose massive momentum. I understand that it is a double-edged sword if they instead predict and go for something like Swords Dance, or Dragon Dance, however. I have seen a common core of Weavile and Rotom-W which allows for immediate momentum into Weavile and an easy Pursuit. I'd say this is one of the most powerful cores in the metagame right now. I'd say it plays a huge role in the metagame as of now.

 

I'm also trying to get behind the reasoning of putting something like Tornadus-Therian — a Pokemon that has barely even seen use yet — on S rank.

It isn't that powerful and you could argue it sucks against offense because of priority users. While it has a nice speed tier and good defensive and offensive stats, Rotom-Wash also dominates the metagame and you have to rely on flimsy Hurricane/Focus Blast's 70% accuracy to do damage. Weavile is also on almost every team. I'm just not to sure about this final decision.

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