RBY 4U (Under3U) Viability Rankings

COMPLETE MADMAN

also interesting points about graveler and dragonair...

 

Is this metagame any fun? Been playing RBY OU/1U and wanted to give the lower tiers a chance.

 

Yeah definitely dude, come check it out. My favourite lower tier personally though is RBY 3U. But I've just built a ton for this, and it's actually a pretty intense meta full of mindgames. A bit less teambuilding variety than 3U (honestly, even less than 1U maybe?) but battling is pretty great in it

 

Once and for all, we've been enjoying this tier despite recognizing it's centralized and luck based.
Having Nidoking banned at this point is only a matter of "can we have a better tier or not?", that we won't know until we actually try it.
We need to play games, lots of them so that it looks obvious to make real time things instead of tournament games.

Omastar, Blastoise, and maybe Slowpoke as well....

TBH I do oppose, what is Diglett doing? It's RNG based even vs Nidoking, as it needs a crit or it's OHKO'd with a 50-50 roll...
And Arcanine, I'd put it into C...
About Scyther and Staryu, I'm kinda sorry, but usage stats justify that.
Idk about Dragonair and Gravler, D is outside of 4U nonetheless, so basically I only oppose to Diglett and Arcanine.

 

The thing with Diglett is that you (Enigami) use it pretty well. That means you predict a ton to switch it in safely. Once u have successfully predicted a switch to something that does not wanna stay in on Digglet, switching into it is kinda hard, since even Blastoise cannot do that too comfartably, so the only thing there really is is Tangela.
Playing that strategy (predicting the right switch to pressure with Diglett, at best multiple times) is somewhat risky, since one mispredict spells (or almost spells) death to Diglett since it is frail as fuck. In addition to that it competes with Nidoking for a slot (I know u used both, but still).
I'm not an expert on rank descriptions so make of that what you will but that's how Diglett works...

 

Sorry man, didn't notice!
I think it's plain gimmicky (that's good part of why I didn't see it coming): 5HKO on Blastoise, 4HKOs on Slowpoke/Porygon (and possibly Venomoth)... it basically hopes for crits and predictions (plus Porygon not carrying Blizzard).
Should see it in action to understand how it works in the big picture, at the end of the day it has good matchups too.

 

Well both a good and a weaker player's perspectives are relevant here. Diglett in D is possible.

And ok so marco wants a suspect test, does anyone else? We need to talk about how to do it too. If marco's the only person who still wants a suspect then we probably won't do it, it's a lot of work and I want at least a couple of people to want it before we figure out how to do it. ;~;

 

That looks like a "let's gather some people and play some games, then we'll see what to do". All we know about that potential tier comes from a game between Lusch and me, where he didn't even bother to use Blastoise!

 

I'm just saying is that if at least 2 people think that we should see what a Nidoking-less meta looks like, then we should put in some time and effort to plan a proper suspect test, and suspect Nidoking.

 

After only playing a few matches. I can definitely say without a doubt that Nidoking is insanely good. Not sure however if he warrants a suspect test. I'm only a new player, so I wont give my opinion on the matter.

 

I feel like Pidgeot's a little out of place in E, it hits really hard with STAB normal attacks. Also you can switch into Nidoking's EQ and do 40% with Mirror Move which is cute.. anyhow when Oma's not around it hits hard and does a similar job to Nidoking, but switches into ground moves instead of electric. Also it outspeeds Abra which is sick.

Spoiler: My Pidgeot team importable

Venomoth
- Sleep Powder
- Stun Spore
- Psychic
- Double-Edge

Abra
- Psychic
- Seismic Toss
- Thunder Wave
- Counter

Pidgeot
- Hyper Beam
- Double-Edge
- Mirror Move
- Agility

Porygon
- Psychic
- Recover
- Thunder Wave
- Thunderbolt

Omastar
- Blizzard
- Hydro Pump
- Body Slam
- Seismic Toss

Nidoking
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
- Thunderbolt
- Substitute

I do wonder if maybe Oma's a better lead on this team.

Anyway I think E is too low for it, it's at least as viable as the rest of D. Maybe even a candidate for C.

--

Anyone tested Dragonair yet?

 

No fire weakness helps, as well as better special bulk; nido can't fire off quite as strong attacks versus you at least. Also Mirror move eq vs nidoking does more than scyther's slash.

So I guess the answer is:
1 No Fire weakness
2 Better special bulk
3 Cannot be paralyzed by Body Slam [vaguely relevant vs waters]
4 Stronger unboosted Hyper Beam
5 Mirror Move - can abuse vs Nidoking and maybe Venomoth [switch in on a psychic?]

Is that enough for D? How often are you able to actually get an SD boost with Scyther anyway?

 

I have used Dragonair and pretty much wrote about it a few posts back. Not much to say, it is an AgiliWrapper, I think we know what that means. It also finds set up opportunities vs sleeping/resting/frozen opponents that definitely appear in this tier reasonably often. Ice attacks are rare, which is the only weakness it has and rarely anyhing in this tier has the sheer force to 2HKO with neutral hits (Nidoking does not 2HKO with EQ). BlizzBolt deals damage... (I prefer Blizzard>Fire Blast, but if one wants to hit Moth instead of Nido one can switch those, but Moth goes down faster to Wrap...)
In addition one can slap Toxic on randon stuff that does not need its 4th moveslot so that Dragonair needs to hit less Wraps when sweeping, but that's rather unimportant and tricky due to blocking other status ailments that might be more useful in general.

 

I think Electrode should go up to D rank. Whilst it's inconsistent, if you manage to use it successfully it's a really potent threat. Obviously Nidoking is a huge roadblock but that's a part of how you use it. I definitely think it belongs with at least Muk, Magneton, and the other members of D.

It has some echoes of dnite in 1U even, insofar as in some ways it effectively turns the game into a roll of the dice, in this case whether you time an explosion correctly or not rather than whether you miss wrap or not. Whilst I don't think it's quite as new-player-destroying as dnite can be it does give you a better shot at beating a significantly better player than using a regular team, I think.

 

I also think dragonair needs to also move up to D.
[Gen 1] NU replay: Disaster Area vs. Lusch - Pokmon Showdown
just had a game with Lusch and it was fairly impressive and could have swept.