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Official Serebii 5th Gen Tier List & Standard Rules Discussion Thread

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So, someone within my clan wants Jirachi to be banned due to how much it relies on hax, similar to Sand Veil. Never having to much trouble with Jirachi, I tried to debate, though I feel like I'm failing at it.

Lol, people have been crying "BAN RACHI!" for years, but such outcries never really go far. It's been brought up here and on Smogon numerous times.

For one thing, it's not enough for Jirachi to just hax things. It's actually gotta be able to capitalize on it in a way that makes it broken. Unfortunately, the only way for it to even go for the hax is by spamming a fairly weak 80 BP STAB coming off an average base 100 Atk stat. Seriously, we made fun of Electivire last Gen for having a weak STAB, and he hits HARDER than Rachi. Not to mention that in this metagame, you have to have a pretty bad team or some seriously terrible luck to be sweep by a Scarf Jirachi.

Aside from that, Iron Head + Serene Grace is almost completely uncomparable to Sand Veil in terms of hax since Sand Veil has one huge advantage: it's passive. If Jirachi wants to abuse hax, it has to spam Iron Head every turn. Back when Garchomp and Gliscor used to abuse Sand Veil, they literally just sat there and did whatever the heck they wanted while the opponent missed. Wanna throw up an extra Swords Dance? Go for it. Care for another Substitute? Be my guest. Prefer just get off a free attack, whatever attack you want? By all means, have at it. The passive nature of Sand Veil is what made it unberable at times, and Jirachi simply doesn't have that.

Not to degrade Jirachi or anything, because I love the Scarf set even more now with Genesect around, but it's not broken.
 

BLUES.

Something else
Actually I said banning the combination of Serene Grace + 30% Flinch moves...I said several times, set's other then Scarf Jirachi + Iron Head fit in well in OU. Just that one broken set
*Incoming random person that is actually quite active but doesnt talk much outside of CG*
If I recall correctly smogon tries to not create "complex bans" by not allowing a pokemon with a certain ability to be OU while banning the same pokemon to Ubers with a different ability:
Example: Blaziken with blaze wasnt even part of the OU tier prior to getting Speed Boost; yet when it received Speed Boost from the DW, Blaziken was banned to Ubers (including our UU/NU Blaze Blaziken).
etcz)
In this case, we would be banning either Serene Grace, which would mean banning Jirachi since Jirachi doesnt have another ability (as Bibarel does with moody, gliscor with sand veil), OR banning Iron Head.
The problem with the hypothetical banning of Serene Grace is that it would ban Jirachi altogether from all tiers.
If we were to ban Iron Head, similar to banning Double Team and OHKO moves,that would would still allow for players to abuse Serene Grace with other moves that have any side effect such as thunder/ice punch/firepunch etc. Most notably, it would still allow for Air Slash + Serene Grace to be abused by Togekiss...

So what do we do then?

Lol, people have been crying "BAN RACHI!" for years, but such outcries never really go far. It's been brought up here and on Smogon numerous times.

For one thing, it's not enough for Jirachi to just hax things. It's actually gotta be able to capitalize on it in a way that makes it broken. Unfortunately, the only way for it to even go for the hax is by spamming a fairly weak 80 BP STAB coming off an average base 100 Atk stat. Seriously, we made fun of Electivire last Gen for having a weak STAB, and he hits HARDER than Rachi. Not to mention that in this metagame, you have to have a pretty bad team or some seriously terrible luck to be sweep by a Scarf Jirachi.

Aside from that, Iron Head + Serene Grace is almost completely uncomparable to Sand Veil in terms of hax since Sand Veil has one huge advantage: it's passive. If Jirachi wants to abuse hax, it has to spam Iron Head every turn. Back when Garchomp and Gliscor used to abuse Sand Veil, they literally just sat there and did whatever the heck they wanted while the opponent missed. Wanna throw up an extra Swords Dance? Go for it. Care for another Substitute? Be my guest. Prefer just get off a free attack, whatever attack you want? By all means, have at it. The passive nature of Sand Veil is what made it unberable at times, and Jirachi simply doesn't have that.

Not to degrade Jirachi or anything, because I love the Scarf set even more now with Genesect around, but it's not broken.

Two things:
1) Serene Grace is passive in that you can increase the probability of abusing side effects to moves.

2) Its not that simple: The probability of San Veil activating is much less than Iron Head flinching you (especially with Serene Grace). Sand Veil has a 20% chance of activating randomly;whereas, Serene Grace allows for a 60% chance of a flinch to occur when using Iron Head or Air Slash.
Additionally, Sand Veil abuse doesn't cant be triggered in the form that you can trigger Serene Grace by repeatedly spamming Iron Head until your opponent dies.
Should an ability that is 3 times more statistically reliable to hax than another ability not be banned?
 

Zachmac

Well-Known Member
Ah, yes, I was speaking about counters, but I didn't think to bring up the fact that is has to use only one attack to flinch.
1) Serene Grace is passive in that you can increase the probability of abusing side effects to moves.
2) Its not that simple: The probability of San Veil activating is much less than Iron Head flinching you (especially with Serene Grace). Sand Veil has a 20% chance of activating randomly;whereas, Serene Grace allows for a 60% chance of a flinch to occur when using Iron Head or Air Slash.
Additionally, Sand Veil abuse doesn't cant be triggered in the form that you can trigger Serene Grace by repeatedly spamming Iron Head until your opponent dies.
Should an ability that is 3 times more statistically reliable to hax than another ability not be banned?
Yes, but it makes a bigger difference as well. Garchomp can OHKO or 2HKO almost everything in the metagame. Missing against Garchomp once usually makes a huge difference, but not so much when flinching to a resisted Iron Head.

Jirachi, in order to active the flinch, has to use Iron Head. So, anything that resist Iron Head can't really say they'll be OHKOed or 2HKOed. Jirachi also isn't nearly as powerful as Garchomp, and has a lot it can't OHKO or 2HKO even if it's other attacks flinched.
 

gigaboost

New Member
Lol, people have been crying "BAN RACHI!" for years, but such outcries never really go far. It's been brought up here and on Smogon numerous times.

For one thing, it's not enough for Jirachi to just hax things. It's actually gotta be able to capitalize on it in a way that makes it broken. Unfortunately, the only way for it to even go for the hax is by spamming a fairly weak 80 BP STAB coming off an average base 100 Atk stat. Seriously, we made fun of Electivire last Gen for having a weak STAB, and he hits HARDER than Rachi. Not to mention that in this metagame, you have to have a pretty bad team or some seriously terrible luck to be sweep by a Scarf Jirachi.

Aside from that, Iron Head + Serene Grace is almost completely uncomparable to Sand Veil in terms of hax since Sand Veil has one huge advantage: it's passive. If Jirachi wants to abuse hax, it has to spam Iron Head every turn. Back when Garchomp and Gliscor used to abuse Sand Veil, they literally just sat there and did whatever the heck they wanted while the opponent missed. Wanna throw up an extra Swords Dance? Go for it. Care for another Substitute? Be my guest. Prefer just get off a free attack, whatever attack you want? By all means, have at it. The passive nature of Sand Veil is what made it unberable at times, and Jirachi simply doesn't have that.

Not to degrade Jirachi or anything, because I love the Scarf set even more now with Genesect around, but it's not broken.

I don't feel that rachi is especially broken, but on the subject of a "fairly weak" iron head, I have to disagree.

With iron head, you have a chance to flinch 60% of the time. Hence, 60% of the time Rachi has the equivalent of a 240 base power move after stab (with max investment in rachi, equivalent to a latias's draco meteor without the drop). 40% of the time, it is the normal 120 base power after stab. Hence on average,iron head is equivalent to 192 bp after stab with perfect accuracy every turn - and no move comes near that base power without having some drawback - the closest is STAB EQ with 42 BP less, and so many OU threats are immune to it.
 
Two things:
1) Serene Grace is passive in that you can increase the probability of abusing side effects to moves.

No, that's not what "passive" means. In order for Serene Grace hax to even have a chance of happening, you have to actively choose to use an affected move every turn. In the realm of abusing Iron Head hax, you have no other choice but to use Iron Head, no choice in how to abuse the hax. This isn't like Sand Veil, where you can literally just set up Sandstorm sometime during the game, and from there on out Sand Veil will be active regardless of what action you choose.

2) Its not that simple: The probability of San Veil activating is much less than Iron Head flinching you (especially with Serene Grace). Sand Veil has a 20% chance of activating randomly;whereas, Serene Grace allows for a 60% chance of a flinch to occur when using Iron Head or Air Slash.
Additionally, Sand Veil abuse doesn't cant be triggered in the form that you can trigger Serene Grace by repeatedly spamming Iron Head until your opponent dies.
Should an ability that is 3 times more statistically reliable to hax than another ability not be banned?

It's not quite that simple either.
Characteristics of a Desirable Pokemon Metagame said:
Luck
The metagame should allow a reasonable degree of chance to affect all facets of gameplay and game outcomes.

Explanation:
Game players love the excitement, tension, and unpredictability associated with luck factors in games. While Pokemon is not a game of "pure chance", luck is a contributing factor in almost all major gameplay elements. If the metagame seeks to eliminate or unreasonably reduce elements of chance, it would run contrary to part of the basic appeal of Pokemon gameplay. The metagame should have many features that rely on random probability, and allow luck to have a significant role in determining competitive outcomes.

Issues and Concerns:
-Should luck be zero sum?
-How much luck is "reasonable"? What makes luck "unreasonable"?
-Are Skill and Luck mutually exclusive? Or complimentary?

Other Comments:
While some players supposedly despise luck, it is a compelling underlying lure for many players. While this characteristic can be maddeningly hard to quantify and analyze, it's existence as a positive feature of the game should not be ignored.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66515

As much as we hate luck from time to time, it still brings an element to the game that makes things interesting, and Smogon has no interest in banning every annoying luck factor out there. The only time that we ban luck based aspects of the game is they're game breaking when activated. That was often the case with Sand Veil, but it has almost never been with Serene Grace. A SD Gliscor or SD Garchomp usually only needed one Sand Veil miss before it completely mutilated your team. Jirachi, on the other hand, needs many, many flinches to sweep through a significant portion of most teams. This is simply not realistic at all, but it also nullifies the percentage advantage that a Serene Grace Iron Head has over Sand Veil. Serene Grace abusers simply cannot capiltalize on a single turn of hax like Sand Veil abusers could.

I don't feel that rachi is especially broken, but on the subject of a "fairly weak" iron head, I have to disagree.

With iron head, you have a chance to flinch 60% of the time. Hence, 60% of the time Rachi has the equivalent of a 240 base power move after stab (with max investment in rachi, equivalent to a latias's draco meteor without the drop). 40% of the time, it is the normal 120 base power after stab. Hence on average,iron head is equivalent to 192 bp after stab with perfect accuracy every turn - and no move comes near that base power without having some drawback - the closest is STAB EQ with 42 BP less, and so many OU threats are immune to it.

If you're going to count possible flinches, then you might as well say that a Super Luck Absol's Night Slash hits as hard as a Latios's Draco Meteor because of the crit chance, or that Cloyster is an absolute nuke since a King's Rock will give it a 41% chance to flinch every turn with Icicle Spear or Rock Blast. You have to assess each attack individually, because you can't assume that hax works on a predictable time table. Not only that, but in an offensive metagame like the one we're in now, there is a huge chance that you'll come up against something even faster than you. If not for the Def/SpD drops, Scarf Terrakion would beat Jirachi one-on-one every time since it outspeeds and easily 2HKOs with Close Combat, while Jirachi fails to OHKO with Iron Head after Stealth Rock. Toss on 2 layer of Spikes and Stealth Rock or 3 layers of Spikes and the KO is still not guaranteed. When a super effective STAB move fails to secure a OHKO an uninvested offensive Pokemon after 25% worth of passive damage, then it's pretty weak.
 

Ilan

Well-Known Member
I don't feel that rachi is especially broken, but on the subject of a "fairly weak" iron head, I have to disagree.

With iron head, you have a chance to flinch 60% of the time. Hence, 60% of the time Rachi has the equivalent of a 240 base power move after stab (with max investment in rachi, equivalent to a latias's draco meteor without the drop). 40% of the time, it is the normal 120 base power after stab. Hence on average,iron head is equivalent to 192 bp after stab with perfect accuracy every turn - and no move comes near that base power without having some drawback - the closest is STAB EQ with 42 BP less, and so many OU threats are immune to it.

240 BP from what base attack? oh, 100 base attack (which is average in OU) and a move with awful coverage iron head isn't that strong.
Did youi know? golurk is the only pokemon which can't be paralized by jirachi :D (actually by typing alone) (and limber users but they are not ghost robots)
 

gigaboost

New Member
If you're going to count possible flinches, then you might as well say that a Super Luck Absol's Night Slash hits as hard as a Latios's Draco Meteor because of the crit chance, or that Cloyster is an absolute nuke since a King's Rock will give it a 41% chance to flinch every turn with Icicle Spear or Rock Blast. You have to assess each attack individually, because you can't assume that hax works on a predictable time table. Not only that, but in an offensive metagame like the one we're in now, there is a huge chance that you'll come up against something even faster than you. If not for the Def/SpD drops, Scarf Terrakion would beat Jirachi one-on-one every time since it outspeeds and easily 2HKOs with Close Combat, while Jirachi fails to OHKO with Iron Head after Stealth Rock. Toss on 2 layer of Spikes and Stealth Rock or 3 layers of Spikes and the KO is still not guaranteed. When a super effective STAB move fails to secure a OHKO an uninvested offensive Pokemon after 25% worth of passive damage, then it's pretty weak.

You're absolutely correct about rachi being outsped, I was writing mainly in the context of scarfed rachi which obviously outspeeds all unscarfed things and flinches to death. Also, counting in the crit chance for night slash + super luck, the BP from absol is still only on average 131.25 after stab, *significantly* less than the calc for iron head and nowhere near draco meteor. CLoyster is indeed an absolute nuke with kings rock, on average every icicle spear will be 266 BP but *this will only happen if it is faster than the opponent*, and once cloyster has a shell smash up you're done for anyway without priority. Let's not forget, as well, that wish and steel typing are assets that cloyster and absol could only dream of.

Also, that is the definition of statistics and calcs; to reduce the meta to tables of values. People suggest that you need to be unlucky to be dom'd by rachi, this shows that on average, and in all likelihood, rachi's iron head is by a long shot the most powerful sustainable move in the game. Also, about iron head being inadequate stab, it hits 4 fifths of the tier at least neutrally. This is not bad neutral coverage, just bad s/e coverage.
 

BLUES.

Something else
You're absolutely correct about rachi being outsped, I was writing mainly in the context of scarfed rachi which obviously outspeeds all unscarfed things and flinches to death. Also, counting in the crit chance for night slash + super luck, the BP from absol is still only on average 131.25 after stab, *significantly* less than the calc for iron head and nowhere near draco meteor. CLoyster is indeed an absolute nuke with kings rock, on average every icicle spear will be 266 BP but *this will only happen if it is faster than the opponent*, and once cloyster has a shell smash up you're done for anyway without priority. Let's not forget, as well, that wish and steel typing are assets that cloyster and absol could only dream of.

About iron head being inadequate stab, it hits 4 fifths of the tier at least neutrally. This is not bad neutral coverage, just bad s/e coverage.
Unscarfed base 100's you mean. Garchomp can outspeed it and hit it with earthquake but the things that outspeed it are quite few. Others include ninjask scarf starmie, lati@s, etc
 

Ilan

Well-Known Member
You're absolutely correct about rachi being outsped, I was writing mainly in the context of scarfed rachi which obviously outspeeds all unscarfed things and flinches to death. Also, counting in the crit chance for night slash + super luck, the BP from absol is still only on average 131.25 after stab, *significantly* less than the calc for iron head and nowhere near draco meteor. CLoyster is indeed an absolute nuke with kings rock, on average every icicle spear will be 266 BP but *this will only happen if it is faster than the opponent*, and once cloyster has a shell smash up you're done for anyway without priority. Let's not forget, as well, that wish and steel typing are assets that cloyster and absol could only dream of.

Also, that is the definition of statistics and calcs; to reduce the meta to tables of values. People suggest that you need to be unlucky to be dom'd by rachi, this shows that on average, and in all likelihood, rachi's iron head is by a long shot the most powerful sustainable move in the game. Also, about iron head being inadequate stab, it hits 4 fifths of the tier at least neutrally. This is not bad neutral coverage, just bad s/e coverage.

99.9% of OU teams have a steel type to sponge iron head the 0.01% left have a water type to sponge it if not it is a sun team which can also sponge that.. the only team in srouble is a hail team but they also have heatran or tentacruel.

Also most teams have a scarfer (probably faster than jirachi)

even with your "smart" calculation you forgot absol's base 130 attack compared to jirachi's base 100 attack I am pretty sure a critical night slash is stronger than 2 iron heads.
(stoutland is an example for having equal sp.atack and attack and not resisting the moves)
0 Atk Jirachi Iron Head vs 0 HP/0 Def Stoutland: 30.23% - 36.01% (3-4 hits to KO)
252 SpAtk Latios (+SpAtk) Draco Meteor vs 0 HP/0 SpDef Stoutland: 88.1% - 104.18% (25% chance to OHKO)
252 Atk Jirachi (+Atk) Iron Head vs 0 HP/0 Def Stoutland: 42.44% - 50.16% (2-3 hits to KO)
252 Atk Absol (+Atk) Night Slash vs 0 HP/0 Def Stoutland: 89.07% - 105.14% (31.25% chance to OHKO)- crit

I was right both draco meteor and crit night slash are stronger than jirachi's iron head hitting twice.
 

gigaboost

New Member
99.9% of OU teams have a steel type to sponge iron head the 0.01% left have a water type to sponge it if not it is a sun team which can also sponge that.. the only team in srouble is a hail team but they also have heatran or tentacruel.

Also most teams have a scarfer (probably faster than jirachi)

even with your "smart" calculation you forgot absol's base 130 attack compared to jirachi's base 100 attack I am pretty sure a critical night slash is stronger than 2 iron heads.

^All very true things, which is why it is not broken. A critical night slash is slightly stronger (I think), but the chance of it happening is less than half than that of a flinch. I did not forget it at all, this was a base power calculation as I'm sure you noticed.

Also in response to your calcs, I did not say latios but rather latias, in which case the double iron head is in fact stronger. Crit night slash is also stronger than a flinch with iron head, but with such a low probability to get a crit the argument is invalid
 

Ilan

Well-Known Member
^All very true things, which is why it is not broken. A critical night slash is slightly stronger (I think), but the chance of it happening is less than half than that of a flinch. I did not forget it at all, this was a base power calculation as I'm sure you noticed.

Look above crit night slash> twice iron head.
then we can say victini is the most powerful pokemon ever with V-creates' 270 BP but actually darmanitan's flare blitz is stronger than victini's V-create.
 

gigaboost

New Member
Thing is, crit night slash's chance is 25%. Rachi's chance to flinch (and hence get double BP) is 60. That's an extraordinary difference, and one you seem to ignore.
Also, Darm's flare blitz is stronger than victini's v-create only because of sheer force. Irrelevant of sheer force, it is weaker.
 

Ilan

Well-Known Member
Thing is, crit night slash's chance is 25%. Rachi's chance to flinch (and hence get double BP) is 60. That's an extraordinary difference, and one you seem to ignore.
Also, Darm's flare blitz is stronger than victini's v-create only because of sheer force. Irrelevant of sheer force, it is weaker.

If it had a base atatck of 100 and sheer force it would be weaker it is also for his base 140 attack.
 
Also, that is the definition of statistics and calcs; to reduce the meta to tables of values. People suggest that you need to be unlucky to be dom'd by rachi, this shows that on average, and in all likelihood, rachi's iron head is by a long shot the most powerful sustainable move in the game.

Even with hax factored in, though, Jirachi's Iron Head is not all that powerful in the grand scheme of things. Landorus-I's Sand Force Earthquake has an effective 195 power, and the higher base Atk stat widens the gap even further. Adamant Landorus-T has a similar damage output regardless of weather. Surf and Flamethrower in their respective boosting weather types are very reliable and, with STAB, are more powerful than a STAB Draco Meteor. In their respective weather types, Thunder, Hurricane, and Blizzard also lose their drawbacks, while having very similar damage outputs with STAB factored in (not to mention the power of some of these abusers, such as Thundurus-T's Thunder). In fact, with hax factored in, the damage rate increases further. For example, factoring in the chance you might paralyze the opponent with Thunder and they will be unable to move in that same turn, a STAB Thunder will actually have an average power of 194, or 225 if the opponent was already paralyzed. Cloyster's Icicle Spear also hits with similar power on average, and that's before King's Rock or Shell Smash are factored in. In either case, it leaves Jirachi in the dust. Breloom's Bullet Seed does an average of about 169 damage and can range up 281. Again, the higher attack stat makes a real difference.

There's just a few examples off the top of my head. Now, you could probably argue that most of those need setup or team support to achieve similar or higher damage outputs or reliability (bar Landorus-T and Breloom), but those aren't unrealistic conditions. And then of course, if you weren't just counting fully reliable moves, ScarfRachi gets demolished by plenty of stuff. For example, CB Victini in the Sun is pulling an effective 608 power attack, and it doesn't need hax to do it. You also mentioned "most powerful in the game", in which case we could bring up cases like Kyogre's Surf and Mewtwo's Psystrike, both of which are more powerful when factoring in the higher offensive stats (or in Kyogre's case, even without).

Also, about iron head being inadequate stab, it hits 4 fifths of the tier at least neutrally. This is not bad neutral coverage, just bad s/e coverage.

Not quite. 23 of the 56 Pokemon in OU resist Iron Head, which is about 41% of the tier. Only 5 (Kyurem-B, Abomasnow, Mamowine, Terrakion, and Tyranitar) are hit super effectively, which means only half the tier is hit neutrally. Of the top 10 Pokemon in OU by last month's stats, 6 resist Iron Head, which is even more troublesome. You'd be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have at least two resists to Steel, especially since many teams tend to carry at least two of their own Steel types to keep Outrage and Draco Meteor spam in check. Against the basic team archetypes, Jirachi just finds too much trouble to sweep them. Offensive teams often carry a fast Scarf user like Keldeo or Terrakion which can outspeed it and do a ton of damage, if not kill it. Stall teams all too often have resists capable of taking Iron Heads until Jirachi's PP runs dry. For example, if you just try to spam Iron Head and the opponent brings in Ferrothorn, you'll end up dying to Iron Barbs damage before Ferrothorn dies.

I know you're not arguing Jirachi's brokeness, so that last bit wasn't directed particularly at you, but it gets the point across.
 

Zachmac

Well-Known Member
Anyway, the important thing isn't how much power it has, it's how much it can use that power to take out. Or actually, how much it can't take out, since the most important part is how many reliable checks and counters it has.

That's why we're not using Head Smash Rampardos, right?

I'm pretty sure Conkeldurr stops it rather well, and Ferrothorn just loves tanking NVE physical contact moves. Forretress and Skarmory will use that opportunity for spikes, the latter of which even phazing it out to take away a good chunk of it's health. Gliscor heals almost as quickly as it loses health, and can use protect every other turn to make sure it heals off all of it as long as Jirachi doesn't crit. Rotom-W x4 resist it, Metagross has massive defense and EQ, Gyarados has intimidate and water typing, Jellicent and Will-o-Wisp, Recover, and water typing, Volcarona uses that chance for a Quiver Dance, and even has flame body.

That's not even a full list.
 

gigaboost

New Member
Even with hax factored in, though, Jirachi's Iron Head is not all that powerful in the grand scheme of things. Landorus-I's Sand Force Earthquake has an effective 195 power, and the higher base Atk stat widens the gap even further. Adamant Landorus-T has a similar damage output regardless of weather. Surf and Flamethrower in their respective boosting weather types are very reliable and, with STAB, are more powerful than a STAB Draco Meteor. In their respective weather types, Thunder, Hurricane, and Blizzard also lose their drawbacks, while having very similar damage outputs with STAB factored in (not to mention the power of some of these abusers, such as Thundurus-T's Thunder). In fact, with hax factored in, the damage rate increases further. For example, factoring in the chance you might paralyze the opponent with Thunder and they will be unable to move in that same turn, a STAB Thunder will actually have an average power of 194, or 225 if the opponent was already paralyzed. Cloyster's Icicle Spear also hits with similar power on average, and that's before King's Rock or Shell Smash are factored in. In either case, it leaves Jirachi in the dust. Breloom's Bullet Seed does an average of about 169 damage and can range up 281. Again, the higher attack stat makes a real difference.

There's just a few examples off the top of my head. Now, you could probably argue that most of those need setup or team support to achieve similar or higher damage outputs or reliability (bar Landorus-T and Breloom), but those aren't unrealistic conditions. And then of course, if you weren't just counting fully reliable moves, ScarfRachi gets demolished by plenty of stuff. For example, CB Victini in the Sun is pulling an effective 608 power attack, and it doesn't need hax to do it. You also mentioned "most powerful in the game", in which case we could bring up cases like Kyogre's Surf and Mewtwo's Psystrike, both of which are more powerful when factoring in the higher offensive stats (or in Kyogre's case, even without).



Not quite. 23 of the 56 Pokemon in OU resist Iron Head, which is about 41% of the tier. Only 5 (Kyurem-B, Abomasnow, Mamowine, Terrakion, and Tyranitar) are hit super effectively, which means only half the tier is hit neutrally. Of the top 10 Pokemon in OU by last month's stats, 6 resist Iron Head, which is even more troublesome. You'd be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have at least two resists to Steel, especially since many teams tend to carry at least two of their own Steel types to keep Outrage and Draco Meteor spam in check. Against the basic team archetypes, Jirachi just finds too much trouble to sweep them. Offensive teams often carry a fast Scarf user like Keldeo or Terrakion which can outspeed it and do a ton of damage, if not kill it. Stall teams all too often have resists capable of taking Iron Heads until Jirachi's PP runs dry. For example, if you just try to spam Iron Head and the opponent brings in Ferrothorn, you'll end up dying to Iron Barbs damage before Ferrothorn dies.

I know you're not arguing Jirachi's brokeness, so that last bit wasn't directed particularly at you, but it gets the point across.

I'm not sure why I got the wrong info about the iron head resists, I stand corrected about that. You have me convinced that Rachi's iron head is, on the whole, not nearly the most powerful thing in the meta we're in; but equally I hope I've shown you that iron head from rachi still is a top tier move, and not "fairly weak" like you earlier said.
 
I'm not sure why I got the wrong info about the iron head resists, I stand corrected about that. You have me convinced that Rachi's iron head is, on the whole, not nearly the most powerful thing in the meta we're in; but equally I hope I've shown you that iron head from rachi still is a top tier move, and not "fairly weak" like you earlier said.

Factoring in hax and averages based on the possibility of a missed turn, it's certainly above average. But as a standalone move over the course of one turn, I stand by my original statement that Iron Head coming off a Scarf Jirachi is weak.
 

rocky505

Well-Known Member

Nowhere else is saying its stuck with Lax. Serebii said on a gamefaqs thread that its possible its stuck with lax because they showed an image of its stats screen with it saying Lax nature. He said its possible it was stuck with lax but he didn't say it 100% was.

Well the thing gets released in a week so we'll see if it is for sure stuck with lax or not.
 

Ðew™

Definition of insanity
Mew is a UU suspect.

Idk what to say about it in the tier other than the fact that it's the most versatile poke there is, one of the best baton passers, and an offensive threat to be reckoned with. Most of the posts thus far in the thread have called it a jack of all trades, master of none. I may have to consider making a team around it and look for actual reasons so I can better back up my opinions...
 
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