Fire types: Underate at your own risk.

[cloudk]

^you forgot starmie, which serves well not only as a lead but as a backup sweeper

 

[darkgamerGS]

It's not all bad for fire types.

There's:

Blaziken
Infernape
Magcargo
Heatran

Wow, it is all bad for fire types.

Only four fully evolved fire types that have types that resist stealth rock.

Magcargo's other typing doesn't resist Stealth Rock. Camerupt's other typing does.

Here's hoping Gen V brings something to counter the ever too common Stealth Rock

Stealth Icicle, a move where most of the Dragons lose half their HP and get bumped down a few tiers (Bye bye Salamence and Garchomp.) Also, only if this and Stealth Rock can't be out at the same time, and if one's used after one's already out, the last one goes away.

 

[Lazaruskun]

Fire types are hardly underated, its the oposite, they are too overated and stelth rock just put them in their place.

*thinks of a good ordinary fire type*...

Infernape? I cant actually think of one off the top of my head.

 

[Dattebayo]

^ Heatran says hi.

^you forgot starmie, which serves well not only as a lead but as a backup sweeper

Starmie is from the 1st gen, not from the other gens after it. He's also the only 1st gen Psychic type who is OU.

 

[Magcargo96]

Yeah, I also hate it that there are not so many Fire types.
I hated it even more in D/P, when you didn't chose Infernape, you had to work with Rapidash ingame. :/
And Stealth Rock, maaaan. It ruined pretty much every Fire type.
For fun; The Fire Smogon tiers:

Charizard: NU
Nintails: NU
Arcanine: UU
Rapidash: NU
Flareon: NU
Moltres: UU
Typhlosion: NU
Magcargo: NU
Houndoum: UU
Entei: NU
Ho-Oh: Uber
Blaziken: UU
Camerupt: NU
Toarkoal: NU
Infernape: OU
Magmortar: NU
Heatran: OU
Arceus: Uber

It is sad IMO.

 

[jellsprout]

Yes, they get some bonuses. However, for Celebi, the Psychic typing gives it a Ghost weakness, a 4x to Bug, along with the Pursuit weakness. With Scizor, Tyranitar and Gengar being such prominent threats, it just hampers Celebi.

...

Rotom-A and Gengar also have a Ghost and Pursuit weakness. Doesn't stop them from being top 10 Pokémon.
Now, to compare Psychic and Ghost. Both resist Fighting, both are weak to Ghost and Dark. The main difference lies in Psychic's weakness and Ghost's resistance to Bug. However, the only Bug attack that ever gets used is U-Turn, which is not something you want to switch into as a Ghost as it'll just mean a Tyranitar is coming in, and which Steel resists anyway. The spin blocking is only useful on a stall team, as the effort/reward of spinning against an offensive team is just far too low.

Tyranitar and Scizor are fearful of switching into Celebi. Tyranitar is OHKO'd by Leaf Storm and 2HKO'd by Grass Knot and Scizor is OHKO'd by HP Fire. Tyranitar gets OHKO'd by the Swords Dance Passing set too, and with Baton Pass Celebi can switch out without Pursuit getting the attack boost. And if they face a defensive set, they fail to OHKO. Tyranitar and Scizor have more trouble with Celebi than with Gengar.

Celebi is more than able to beat all the Fighting types you've mentioned, with the exception of Infernape. Have you forgotten that base 100 Speed? Lucario may have Crunch, but it won't be able to use it before getting OHKO'd.
And no bulky Water short of Tentacruel and RestTalk Gyarados dare switching in on Infernape. NP Grass Knot makes sure of that.
Also, Gengar often carries Focus Blast, Dragonite often carries SuperPower, Electivire often carries Cross Chop, Scizor always carries SuperPower or Brick Break and Weavile always carries Low Kick. There are also the rare Hammer Arm Metagross and HP Fighting Rotom-A (which is severely underrated by the way). Celebi loses to Gengar, Weavile and Dragonite, but so does Rotom-A.
Remember there is more to the game than "Psychic is weak to Dark, so every Psychic type loses to anything with a Dark type attack".

If Rock is such a great type, explain why Tyranitar and Aerodactyl are the only OU Rock types? Even Poison has more, with Gengar, Tentacruel and Roserade. A weakness to Water, Fighting, Ground, Grass and Steel doesn't help the type one bit, especially not when you only get a resistance to Normal, Flying, Poison, Bug and Fire in return.

But most of the normal types in the first gen were terrible, and the only good ones are Persian, Snorlax, Chansey, and Tauros.

...

And the only good Psychics were Starmie, Alakazam, Eggy, Slowbro and Jynx. Still doesn't change the fact that R/B/Y was dominated by Normal types.
Psychics weren't scary at all at the time, as none of them had any chance of breaking through Chansey or the other Psychics. Tauros, on the other hand, was like Garchomp without the need to use Swords Dance. If your opponent send him in your only option was pray he wouldn't cause too much damage.
Also, people mention the lack of Psychic weaknesses in R/B/Y. Have people forgotten that only Ghost and Rock resisted Normal back then, which was easily taken care of with Earthquake, Blizzard or Bubblebeam, and that no decent Fighting attack existed yet?

You forgot Claydol and Medicham, which were OU in the third gen, and Wynaut, the only NFE evolved to hit Ubers. Also, why the random discrimination against legendaries? It is nothing more than a title. Or are you seriously going to try and argue that Regigigas is better than Tyranitar?
And what Rock Pokémon, other than Tyranitar and Rhyperior, are worth mentioning? Poison? Electric? Ice? I think you gave a pretty large there, especially when you also add Azelf, Uxie and Jirachi

Also, you know what is a fun fact? In all four the generations there are only 2 Rock types in OU. Rhydon and Golem in the first gen, Rhydon and Tyranitar in the second gen and Aerodactyl and Tyranitar in the third and fourth gen.

 

[Dattebayo]

And the only good Psychics were Starmie, Alakazam, Eggy, Slowbro and Jynx. Still doesn't change the fact that R/B/Y was dominated by Normal types.

You've forgot Hypno and Mr. Mime.

Psychics weren't scary at all at the time, as none of them had any chance of breaking through Chansey or the other Psychics. Tauros, on the other hand, was like Garchomp without the need to use Swords Dance. If your opponent send him in your only option was pray he wouldn't cause too much damage.

I really never knew that, I thought Tauros was just a regular OU normal type in the 1st gen's metagame.

You forgot Claydol and Medicham, which were OU in the third gen, and Wynaut, the only NFE evolved to hit Ubers.

I considered Medicham as one of the weaker Psychic types due to its base stats, and don't remind me about its ability because even that couldn't keep it from plummeting to NU in the 4th gen. Claydol is meh because of its Atk and SpA, and I don't usually include pre-evolves.

Also, why the random discrimination against legendaries? It is nothing more than a title. Or are you seriously going to try and argue that Regigigas is better than Tyranitar?

It's because I'm too laziness to mention them on my list as I know they're already powerful due to their base stats. Also, I was only referring to the Psychic-type legendaries, not legendaries in general, so there's no need to mention Regigigas.

 

[Noheart]

Getting one attack out of the picture would bump up a Pokemon two tiers?

Yes, in this case it would.

Stealth Rock revolutionized the metagame, actually. Charizard would probably be a feared OU threat if it weren't for Stealth Rock.

 

[Dattebayo]

Yes, in this case it would.

Stealth Rock revolutionized the metagame, actually. Charizard would probably be a feared OU threat if it weren't for Stealth Rock.

Wouldn't that be a good thing for Charizard fans everywhere? Everyone wants their favorite Pokemon that is low tiered to be in OU/UU so they won't be insulted by other players.

 

[Lazaruskun]

^ Heatran says hi.

Heatran says bye bye, keyword: ordinary -_-

But thats my point, there arent any. It isnt even stealth rocks fault. Although it alone did screw most of them over, i believe its all the new alternatives Gen 4 brought over to battle with. Some things just made fire pokemon obsolete.

Fire super effective against grass becomes redundant as noone enters a comp battle without a dragon slaying ice type.

Fire super effective against steel which is fine if Earthquake and Brickbreak werent the most over used moves around.

Fire super effective against ice, see above post ^

And the actual pokemon in particular became replacable. Arcanine got overshadowed by all the now much faster alternatives which have become a must in most teams. Although sure they had Blazekin, but his clone just made it so, that there isnt enough room for the both of them and he kinda faded off. Dont get me started on Crapizard

 

[hitoshura0]

Heatran says bye bye, keyword: ordinary -_-

But thats my point, there arent any. It isnt even stealth rocks fault. Although it alone did screw most of them over, i believe its all the new alternatives Gen 4 brought over to battle with. Some things just made fire pokemon obsolete.

Fire super effective against grass becomes redundant as noone enters a comp battle without a dragon slaying ice type.

Fire super effective against steel which is fine if Earthquake and Brickbreak werent the most over used moves around.

Fire super effective against ice, see above post ^

And the actual pokemon in particular became replacable. Arcanine got overshadowed by all the now much faster alternatives which have become a must in most teams. Although sure they had Blazekin, but his clone just made it so, that there isnt enough room for the both of them and he kinda faded off. Dont get me started on Crapizard

What? I believe Garchomp would run Fire Fang/Blast on some of its sets, and I know that Salamence in Ubers fires off Fire Blasts. Arcanine isn't overshadowed due to Speed, base 95 speed and the best priority attack in the game got that covered, but its dismal movepool. He really wants Earthquake, but when you have to settle for Iron Tail, you know you're in trouble. Also the Stealth Rock weakness hurts when firing off those Flare Blitzes, really weakening it.

Blaziken may be able to hit harder than Infernape, but it is too slow and its move pool is inferior to Infernape. You get Brave Bird, but lose Close Combat and Nasty Plot. Not that great.

Also Fire destroys Scizor and Forretress, who take neutral off Earthquake and Fighting attacks.

Speaking of fighting attacks, who uses Brick Break anymore with access to Close Combat and Superpower almost being universal?

 

[BlitzBlast]

...You know, I'm not sure what exactly this thread is.

Far as I can tell, it's a chimera of the "Stealth Rock sucks" thread, "Charizard is awesome and should be higher" thread, "Fire types need love" thread, and the "Jellsprout owning everyone in an argument about the metagame" thread.

With that said, even the lack of Stealth Rock wouldn't save Charizard now.

Thing is, Charizard is weak to water. That is a fact. It's main strategy involves sacrificing health to boost attack and speed, then dominating with Fire Punch or something like that.

Problem is, it sounds like the kind of strategy a bulky water type would absolutely destroy.

And bulky water types are fairly popular to say the least.

Wouldn't that be a good thing for Charizard fans everywhere? Everyone wants their favorite Pokemon that is low tiered to be in OU/UU so they won't be insulted by other players.

...Yeah, that's completely missing the entire point of the tier system.

 

[Typhlosion Trainer]

I wish there were more fire types. But yeah, I do believe Charizard and Moltres would be OU if it wasnt for Stealth Rock. But for some of there other fire types who are UU or NU, I dont think that Stealth Rock is the main/only reason why they are UU or NU.

 

[Lazaruskun]

What? I believe Garchomp would run Fire Fang/Blast on some of its sets, and I know that Salamence in Ubers fires off Fire Blasts.

Yh, my point, fire POKEMON arent necesary, i didnt say fire type altogether

Arcanine isn't overshadowed due to Speed, base 95 speed and the best priority attack in the game got that covered,

Who do you know uses an arcanine in a serious battle? Heck, do you? or would you?

Speaking of fighting attacks, who uses Brick Break anymore with access to Close Combat and Superpower almost being universal?

^ Point is, fighting type moves are more used therefore removing some of the usefullness of a fire move.

 

[Indragon]

Fire types are hardly underated, its the oposite, they are too overated and stelth rock just put them in their place.

*thinks of a good ordinary fire type*...

Infernape? I cant actually think of one off the top of my head.

"Put them in their place"? lol. Fire types aren't the best type, but their pretty good. They're hardly overrated (whatever gave you that idea?) and a lot of that has to do with SR.

Rotom-A and Gengar also have a Ghost and Pursuit weakness. Doesn't stop them from being top 10 Pokémon.

My point exactly. Ghost types are useful. Rotom-A: best Spin-blocker, great typing and Ability, counters OU's #1, and can burn stuff to own physical sweepers and nullify Pursuit's usefulness. Gengar: great Speed and SpA, great revenge killer, great Ability (once again), insane movepool, which includes many disruptive moves. Ghosts tend to get a lot of these disruptive moves; and STAB Shadow Ball is actually used (since it's useful), unlike Psychic.

And when did I ever say being a (part) Psychic type/having a Pursuit weakness means you can't be in the top 10? I was talking about Celebi's Psychic typing hampering more than helping; this is a tad irrelevant =/

Now, to compare Psychic and Ghost. Both resist Fighting, both are weak to Ghost and Dark. The main difference lies in Psychic's weakness and Ghost's resistance to Bug. However, the only Bug attack that ever gets used is U-Turn, which is not something you want to switch into as a Ghost as it'll just mean a Tyranitar is coming in, and which Steel resists anyway.

No, you can switch in a Ghost type quite easily into a U-turn. I'm talking Rotom and Dusknoir here, who can cripple Tyranitar with a burn. Heck, even Gengar OHKOes with Focus Blast, but you wouldn't really want to be switching Gengar in too much against anything, except Choice-locked moves it's immune too :/

Incidentally, OU's foremost U-turn user also happens to have Superpower at it's disposal, which makes Ghost's immunity to Fighting a lot more appealing than a risky Steel switch-in.

The spin blocking is only useful on a stall team, as the effort/reward of spinning against an offensive team is just far too low.

Firstly, stall is THE most dominant strategy around right now, so Spin blocking is nothing to scoff at. Secondly, a lot of offensive teams rely on SR to get their OHKOes/2HKOs and Rotom-A fits into virtually every team because it's so useful; so Spin blocking is useful here too.

Tyranitar and Scizor are fearful of switching into Celebi. Tyranitar is OHKO'd by Leaf Storm and 2HKO'd by Grass Knot and Scizor is OHKO'd by HP Fire.

Admittedly, Tyranitar doesn't have an easy time switching in (though Leaf Storm isn't seen outside the Lead set), but it can revenge kill once it's in. Scizor isn't going to be switching in on a HP Fire. It'll come in on a Grass Knot aimed at your Swampert/after a KO and then proceed to OHKO with U-turn, because HP Fire doesn't OHKO.

Tyranitar gets OHKO'd by the Swords Dance Passing set too, and with Baton Pass Celebi can switch out without Pursuit getting the attack boost. And if they face a defensive set, they fail to OHKO.

Even the most defensive Celebi is OHKOed by the most common sets of Tyranitar and Scizor.

And like I said, Tyranitar isn't the best matchup, but Swords Dance Passing? Really? I haven't seen one since...like 2007.

Celebi is more than able to beat all the Fighting types you've mentioned, with the exception of Infernape. Have you forgotten that base 100 Speed? Lucario may have Crunch, but it won't be able to use it before getting OHKO'd.

The only one it beats is Breloom, and that's because of the Grass typing. It *may* beat Machamp if you get lucky, but you lose out against the others.

Oh, as for Lucario, let me tell you what usually happens. You bring it out on something like a Blissey or a Choice-locked Pursuit, Swords Dance on the switch, then outrun Celebi because it's never runs more than 36 Spe EVs, and OHKO with a +2 LO Crunch.

And standard Celebi's HP Fire doesn't manage to do more than 56.9% to Lucario. Huh.

And no bulky Water short of Tentacruel and RestTalk Gyarados dare switching in on Infernape. NP Grass Knot makes sure of that.

Yes, I had those two in mind. Don't forget Vaporeon, too, who can take a +2 Grass Knot and OHKO back. But it's not like MixApe runs NP anyway.

Also, Gengar often carries Focus Blast, Dragonite often carries SuperPower, Electivire often carries Cross Chop, Scizor always carries SuperPower or Brick Break and Weavile always carries Low Kick. There are also the rare Hammer Arm Metagross and HP Fighting Rotom-A (which is severely underrated by the way).

I lol'ed at Electivire, but that's beside the point. And HP Fighting Rotom-A must be underrated indeed, I've never seen a single one. It has far better things to take up moveslots unless you're running a Choiced set.

Celebi loses to Gengar, Weavile and Dragonite, but so does Rotom-A.

You forgot Scizor in that list. Yup. While Rotom-A counters Scizor very well. Ironically, even Electivire can 2HKO Celebi, while it can't touch Rotom.

As for the others, at least Rotom can burn Weavile. And Gengar doesn't like switching in on Rotom's STAB attacks, unlike Grass Knot, so Celebi's comparatively worse here.

If Rock is such a great type, explain why Tyranitar and Aerodactyl are the only OU Rock types? Even Poison has more, with Gengar, Tentacruel and Roserade.

Exactly. The number of Pokemon in OU of a certain typing doesn't show anything. Poison is pretty much THE worst type, but it outnumbers Rock? Why would that be? It's because of the Pokemon themselves. Typing's just part of a Pokemon's strength - stats, movepools are important too. A lot of Rock types may be sub-par, but that doesn't mean the type itself/Rock type attacks are bad. Look at Celebi, even with that crappy typing, it's still a top OU because of its stats and movepool. As for those Poison types, one can almost ignore their Poison typing except for Tentacruel. Gengar could just be plain Ghost for all that's going to change while Roserade is used as a Sleep lead. Even the arguably best TSpiker is Forretress, and it's not a Poison type.

You seem to think that defensive typings are the only worthwhile typings, but that's not the case.

A weakness to Water, Fighting, Ground, Grass and Steel doesn't help the type one bit, especially not when you only get a resistance to Normal, Flying, Poison, Bug and Fire in return.

And once again, defense isn't the only thing which counts. That's one of the reasons Psychic, Poison, etc. are bad. The fact that Rock hits 4 types SE, gets neutral on all others but 3, has nothing immune to it, and gets virtually perfect coverage when paired with Ground makes it a decent offensive type.

Also, you know what is a fun fact? In all four the generations there are only 2 Rock types in OU. Rhydon and Golem in the first gen, Rhydon and Tyranitar in the second gen and Aerodactyl and Tyranitar in the third and fourth gen.

And that, sadly, doesn't go to show anything. The commonness of Stone Edge and the fact that the most effing game-changing attack in Pokemon, which screws up like, half the Pokemon in existence, belongs to the Rock type just shows that the type itself is useful and important, even if there aren't more than two OU Rock types.

Wouldn't that be a good thing for Charizard fans everywhere? Everyone wants their favorite Pokemon that is low tiered to be in OU/UU so they won't be insulted by other players.

*Facepalm*

But thats my point, there arent any. It isnt even stealth rocks fault. Although it alone did screw most of them over, i believe its all the new alternatives Gen 4 brought over to battle with. Some things just made fire pokemon obsolete.

There are Fire types which are good without SR, Charizard, Magmortar, Arcanine and Typhlosion to name a few.

And yes, they're perfectly usable.

Dont get me started on Crapizard

Let me get you started.

Problem is, it sounds like the kind of strategy a bulky water type would absolutely destroy.

ThunderPunch pretty much owns every bulky water after SR/1 layer of Spikes is down, except for Swampert. You'll need to weaken it beforehand, but otherwise, Charizard's got a pretty clean shot. I can't say whether people would use it enough for OU, but it'd be a top UU at least, without SR.

Phew...I'm done.

 

[Z1FE]

hey guys soz for not being on topic but ive got like a charizard golden star card its like black backgroung hes spraying fire and the flames a coming out of it its 100/101....... is it rare cheers guys im loving the site

 

[Profesco]

To be perfectly honest, I feel like many people love Fire-types, so much that it's a fan-favorite. It may not be perfect competitively, but everyone who doesn't care about Smogon and their jazz say that Fires are their favorite. To be honest, I feel like they're overrated (I'd take Water's Bulk and Grass' Status any day).

I think so too. Fire is one of those types that's great to attack with, but not great to be. (Incidentally, jellsprout, I think Rock is considered a great type because of its offensive use rather than because there are many powerful and reliable Rock types themselves.)

Again, Fire type attacks are good; Fire type Pokemon got shortchanged. It's hard to be a sturdy, reliable, long-living Pokemon when you're weak to the most common attack in the history of the game, and as a result Fire, Rock and Electric are pretty much sweeper-only types. Earthquake immunity is largely why Zapdos and Rotom are the best defensive Electric types.

Stealth Rock may have been the final nail in the Fire types' coffin, but it was just that - one of many nails.

 

[John13wb]

It really didn't help that Psychics had few checks Gen I, as the two types that were super-effective against them were incredible fragile, and in some cases weak to Psychics. Dark, Steel (One of my fave types by the way) and Special Defence were brought in as effective checks and to balance out a flawed meta game. You could look no further than Gen II to see Dattebayo's point about crappy psychic Pokemon, with Sloking, Espeon and Uberfett (However, it took 'till Gen III for him to jump to ubers) being the only new ones that were serviceable, unless you want to try and beat Gold with a team of Unowns spelling a 6-letter profanity (Not a whole barrels of laughs that I thought it would be, first try at the Elite Four, Lance's last Dragonite ripped through Uwnon F through E, leaving R to do the heavy work).

However, Charizard being one of my faves, I would agree that Stealth Rock really hampers things, especially once your RS'er is off the field. I was actually amazed how much one move could affect the meta game.

Holy ****. This is the funniest damn thing I've read on here in a long time. Sigged.

 

[jellsprout]

You've forgot Hypno and Mr. Mime.

Mr. Mime is a poor Alakazam, who in turn is a poor Chansey. Hypno is a poor Alakazam combined with a very poor Eggy/Jynx. There isn't really any use for either of them.

I really never knew that, I thought Tauros was just a regular OU normal type in the 1st gen's metagame.

It has to do with CH rate being dependent on Speed stat, which gave Tauros a 21% crit rate, Hyper Beam not having a recharge turn on the KO, Blizzard have 90% accuracy and Gengar not having Levitate. The only useful Pokémon that resisted Normal, Golem, Rhydon and Gengar, are all hit SE by Tauros. This while Alakazam has no possible way to get past anything that resists Psychic. The fact that there is no physical Chansey also helped Tauros immensely.
Persian was also very dangerous with its almost guaranteed critical Slashes, but didn't have any way to get past Gengar and I've already mentioned the god that Chansey was enough. On the Psychic side, Starmie was a dangerous sweeper, but can't get past Chansey, Eggy was a very good lead with Sleep Powder, Explosion and all-around solid stats and Alakazam was a poor Chansey that might sweep against less experienced players.

I considered Medicham as one of the weaker Psychic types due to its base stats, and don't remind me about its ability because even that couldn't keep it from plummeting to NU in the 4th gen. Claydol is meh because of its Atk and SpA, and I don't usually include pre-evolves.

Medicham's Attack is higher than Deoxys-A's. Fourth generation is dominated by priority and fast Pokémon, making Medicham worthless. But in the third generation he was definitely a very powerful Psychic type.
Before the Special/Physical split Claydol was the most reliable Spinner and an amazing Physical wall. Again, he was pretty good in the 3rd gen.

My point exactly. Ghost types are useful. Rotom-A: best Spin-blocker, great typing and Ability, counters OU's #1, and can burn stuff to own physical sweepers and nullify Pursuit's usefulness. Gengar: great Speed and SpA, great revenge killer, great Ability (once again), insane movepool, which includes many disruptive moves. Ghosts tend to get a lot of these disruptive moves; and STAB Shadow Ball is actually used (since it's useful), unlike Psychic.

And when did I ever say being a (part) Psychic type/having a Pursuit weakness means you can't be in the top 10? I was talking about Celebi's Psychic typing hampering more than helping; this is a tad irrelevant =/

And don't think you quite understood my post, as I explained how Ghost and Psychic have the same strengths and weaknesses, with two differences, yet Ghosts are still powerful enough to have 2 Pokémon in the top 10.
And another thing. Psychic had 3 types in the top 10, Jirachi, Metagross and Starmie. Only Steel has more Pokémon in the top 10. How is that one of the "five worst types in the game" is one of the most types in the game?

No, you can switch in a Ghost type quite easily into a U-turn. I'm talking Rotom and Dusknoir here, who can cripple Tyranitar with a burn. Heck, even Gengar OHKOes with Focus Blast, but you wouldn't really want to be switching Gengar in too much against anything, except Choice-locked moves it's immune too :/

ScarfTar does 154.8% - 182.4% to Gengar. He does 65.1% - 77% to defensive Rotom-A, which is a 2HKO even after the burn. He does 53.7% - 63.9% to tank Dusknoir, which is a 2HKO after the burn when you take the U-Turn into account.

Incidentally, OU's foremost U-turn user also happens to have Superpower at it's disposal, which makes Ghost's immunity to Fighting a lot more appealing than a risky Steel switch-in.

Scizor will rarely scout with Superpower. U-Turn will always give you the momentum and most Steels aren't even hit SE by Superpower. Superpower is only effective in a 1 vs 1 situation.

Firstly, stall is THE most dominant strategy around right now, so Spin blocking is nothing to scoff at. Secondly, a lot of offensive teams rely on SR to get their OHKOes/2HKOs and Rotom-A fits into virtually every team because it's so useful; so Spin blocking is useful here too.

Look at June's statistics, no more than 13% of all teams used Stall, probably a lot less with all the "balanced" teams running around. In Suspect it is even less. Now that Salamence and Latias are gone, no Stall team is able to withstand Infernape. At the moment Stall is probably the worst of all the team types.

Admittedly, Tyranitar doesn't have an easy time switching in (though Leaf Storm isn't seen outside the Lead set), but it can revenge kill once it's in. Scizor isn't going to be switching in on a HP Fire. It'll come in on a Grass Knot aimed at your Swampert/after a KO and then proceed to OHKO with U-turn, because HP Fire doesn't OHKO.

| Celebi | Move | Leaf Storm | 36.8 |

Tinkerbell does 125.9% - 149.3% to Scizor. Defensive does 71.1% - 84% with HP Fire and 9.3% - 11.1% with Grass Knot. Scizor loses to offensive Celebi, has a high chance to lose against defensive Celebi if the Celebi uses Leech Seed and has a decent chance to lose if Celebi uses Grass Knot. Either way, Scizor will get KO'd by Stealth Rock the next time it switches in.

Even the most defensive Celebi is OHKOed by the most common sets of Tyranitar and Scizor.

Defensive Celebi takes 53% - 62.4% from CBScizor's Pursuit if it switches out. ScarfTar does 49.5% - 58.4% with Pursuit if switching out or with Crunch if Celebi stays in.

And like I said, Tyranitar isn't the best matchup, but Swords Dance Passing? Really? I haven't seen one since...like 2007.

Just saying, every Celebi set beats Tyranitar. Something Rotom and Gengar can't say.

The only one it beats is Breloom, and that's because of the Grass typing. It *may* beat Machamp if you get lucky, but you lose out against the others.

Tinkerbell does 79.8% - 94% with Leaf Storm and 102.4% - 121.3% with Psychic. Defensive does 31.8% - 37.8% with Grass Knot. Machamp's Ice Punch does 45.1% - 53.1% to Tinkerbell with Ice Punch, 59.6% - 70.7% with Payback and 22.3% - 26.3% with Dynamic Punch. Against Defensive Celebi the attacks do 33.2% - 39.1%, 44.1% - 52% and 16.3% - 19.3% respectively. It's luck based (as is practically every battle against Machamp), but Celebi is still my favorite here.

Oh, as for Lucario, let me tell you what usually happens. You bring it out on something like a Blissey or a Choice-locked Pursuit, Swords Dance on the switch, then outrun Celebi because it's never runs more than 36 Spe EVs, and OHKO with a +2 LO Crunch.

And standard Celebi's HP Fire doesn't manage to do more than 56.9% to Lucario. Huh.

| Celebi | Speed EV | High (150-200) | 22.3 |
I wouldn't take the risk here.
Lucario does 81.2% - 95.5% with a +2 Crunch against Celebi. He also does 107.2% - 126.3% against defensive Rotom-A with +2 Crunch.
Still, you only lose if you switch in on his Swords Dance. This is risky for the Lucario user, as a faster Pokémon that OHKOs it could switch in.

Yes, I had those two in mind. Don't forget Vaporeon, too, who can take a +2 Grass Knot and OHKO back. But it's not like MixApe runs NP anyway.

| Infernape | Move | Nasty Plot | 14.4 |
Already decent and it will only rise with the Salamence ban.
Vaporeon still has to be careful, as it gets 2HKO'd by an unboosted Close Combat and OHKO'd by +2 Close Combat.

You forgot Scizor in that list. Yup. While Rotom-A counters Scizor very well. Ironically, even Electivire can 2HKO Celebi, while it can't touch Rotom.

Scizor will always use U-Turn unless it already knows your entire team. And as I already explained, it is not advisable to switch Rotom in on a U-Turn.
Tinkerbell OHKOs Electivire. But yes, defensive Celebi loses.

You still haven't been able to show me how Ghost is so much better than Psychic.

Exactly. The number of Pokemon in OU of a certain typing doesn't show anything. Poison is pretty much THE worst type, but it outnumbers Rock? Why would that be? It's because of the Pokemon themselves. Typing's just part of a Pokemon's strength - stats, movepools are important too. A lot of Rock types may be sub-par, but that doesn't mean the type itself/Rock type attacks are bad. Look at Celebi, even with that crappy typing, it's still a top OU because of its stats and movepool. As for those Poison types, one can almost ignore their Poison typing except for Tentacruel. Gengar could just be plain Ghost for all that's going to change while Roserade is used as a Sleep lead. Even the arguably best TSpiker is Forretress, and it's not a Poison type.

Poison outnumbers Rock because a Fighting resist pretty useful and the ability to set up Toxic Spikes is pretty useful. Gengar is the only Poison OU that doesn't take advantage of the type.
Celebi's Psychic type allows it to resist Fighting, aside from Water and Ground. This makes it a perfect team partner for Heatran.
Roserade outclasses Forretress as a Toxic Spiker due Sleep Powder and not being a sitting duck to anything that switches in. Forretress is pretty overrated. It is outclassed by Skarmory as a Spiker or physical wall, by Starmie as a Rapid Spinner and by Roserade and even Tentacruel as a Toxic Spiker. With no healing moves besides Rest, the inability to use Leftovers due to Magnezone, being limited to 4 moves and the inability to hurt any switch-in, Forretress has too much difficulty in this metagame.

You seem to think that defensive typings are the only worthwhile typings, but that's not the case.

And once again, defense isn't the only thing which counts. That's one of the reasons Psychic, Poison, etc. are bad. The fact that Rock hits 4 types SE, gets neutral on all others but 3, has nothing immune to it, and gets virtually perfect coverage when paired with Ground makes it a decent offensive type.

This is a resist based metagame. If you can't switch in, you won't make it. Rock is also a pretty bad offensive type for OU. What does it hit Super Effective? Gyarados, Dragonite, Zapdos, Togekiss, Aerodactyl, Weavile and Ninjask. One Pokémon that you don't want to be up against as a Rock type, two Pokémon that die to anything and only three Pokémon that it would actually help against. And how many Pokémon resist the type? 11. Combine that with 80% accuracy and you've got a crappy offensive type.

And that, sadly, doesn't go to show anything. The commonness of Stone Edge and the fact that the most effing game-changing attack in Pokemon, which screws up like, half the Pokemon in existence, belongs to the Rock type just shows that the type itself is useful and important, even if there aren't more than two OU Rock types.

This is a discussion about the Pokémon. The moves aren't important at all.


And another note about Fire Pokémon. Never before have this many Fire Pokémon been OU. In the third gen only Blaziken was OU and in the first and second gen there were no Fire OUs at all. Ho-oh is also better in Ubers than it has ever been. Fire doesn't really appear to have suffered so much under Stealth Rock.

 

[Aquadon]

Just sayin', but I couldn't tell that we were talking about Fire-types based on a few of the last posts.

I think so too. Fire is one of those types that's great to attack with, but not great to be. (Incidentally, jellsprout, I think Rock is considered a great type because of its offensive use rather than because there are many powerful and reliable Rock types themselves.)

Again, Fire type attacks are good; Fire type Pokemon got shortchanged. It's hard to be a sturdy, reliable, long-living Pokemon when you're weak to the most common attack in the history of the game, and as a result Fire, Rock and Electric are pretty much sweeper-only types. Earthquake immunity is largely why Zapdos and Rotom are the best defensive Electric types.

Stealth Rock may have been the final nail in the Fire types' coffin, but it was just that - one of many nails.

I'll agree on this, and add that Fire has 3 MASSIVE Weaknesses: Bulky Waters have always been popular (and Surf has been the go to move from the get-go), Earthquake has always been a great move, and Stealth Rock was the final straw. Fire's good for power; just if you're a Fire-type expect to be defused by many good Pokemon.

Also, if I'm not mistaken Blaziken was at one point BL; it's only UU because Infernape outclasses it 4 out of 5 times. Just to add another possibly good Pokemon to the mix.