General Dubs Meta Discussion II

Speaking of Tyranitar, I was wondering what people like to run as their 4th move slot (assuming you're already running Rock Slide, Crunch, Protect). As I already mentioned, I've been testing Taunt, but you have to run a shit ton of speed to even outspeed Cresselia, which I find kind of subtracts from Tyranitar's overall bulk. Fire Punch/Fire Blast seems like the most useful move, since you can nail Genesect, Scizor, Abomasnow, etc. Ice Beam/Ice Punch actually seems pretty viable to me, considering Garchomps and Landos are running around, and I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to support Tyranitar with Intimidate/Wide Guard support (coughhitmontopcough). Superpower is also useful to hit other Tyranitar and Bisharp. Tyranitar also has some pretty nice support moves in Roar, Thunder Wave, Torment, and Toxic.

Personally, I have actually liked Taunt. I find that the surprise factor is actually pretty insanely useful if you can keep Tyranitar healthy throughout the match. I don't say I'd use Taunt over something like Fire Blast regularly, but he's a pretty nifty Trick Room check for some Pokemon.

Anyways, I guess it really depends on what sort of support your team needs, but this is just some brain food. I'd like to hear other people's thoughts.
 
i can't see how anyone could go without low kick. without low kick, you basically lose against other ttar, terrakion, mamoswine and other stuff, but when you forgo crunch all you miss out on is like cress and latios, both of which can be dealt with because of psychic immune and sandstream, even though it takes longer w/o it. so my ttars are usually rock slide/low kick/xxx/xxx, the last slot being open because sometimes i use scarftar.
 
Tyranitar is, according to most people in the Doubles community, a slow sack of shit. I see no reason why you would ever use Taunt on something that is outsped by pretty much everything it is trying to Taunt. Coverage is also usually preferred.

Other than that, this post is very great as an example of multiple cores in a team. I kind of thought the whole "successful teams contain numerous cores" was pretty self-explanatory and obvious, even if one is transitioning from Singles, but it was nice you pointed it out, since it is very true :)
Taunt is actually a perfectly viable choice on Tyranitar if you are not in need of coverage (Fighting-type teammates or such). Its main role is to combat Trick Room iirc. Whether or not you should consider Taunt is highly reliant on your team and what it needs covered, though (this isn't really new).

I do however, disagree with Taunt on Pen Ink's team, mostly because it has a lot of methods to work around Trick Room and doesn't really need Taunt (tbh, Trick Room Cress is a possible set over the current one to both counter opposing Trick Room and allow the slower members of the team to abuse it).
 

Punchshroom

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I occasionally see Fire Blast or even Ice Beam Tyranitars that want to f**k with Escavalier/Scizor and Landorus-T respectively, as well as Brelooms who mistake T-Tar for a non-threat.
 
Anyone tried Thunder Wave Tyranitar? With paralysis and Rock Slide flinches stacking, it looks like it could be more than viable...
 
Anyone tried Thunder Wave Tyranitar? With paralysis and Rock Slide flinches stacking, it looks like it could be more than viable...
I was entirely unaware it learned TWave. I think I found my next test subject cuz Bulky Paralyzer TTar sounds fucking amazing.
 

nv

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I was entirely unaware it learned TWave. I think I found my next test subject cuz Bulky Paralyzer TTar sounds fucking amazing.
I was thinking the same thing, lol...(I am not a great Doubles player yet but I will soon be there, >:D)
 
I was entirely unaware it learned TWave. I think I found my next test subject cuz Bulky Paralyzer TTar sounds fucking amazing.
I was thinking the same thing, lol...(I am not a great Doubles player yet but I will soon be there, >:D)
According to the moveset stats, Thunder Wave is found on just over 2% of Tyranitar. Mind you, the ladder still sucks if the most popular move on Kingdra is Ice Beam (71%), meanwhile 13% run Muddy Water.
 
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Arcticblast

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That could just mean that people are using a lot of different moves on Kingdra, and Ice Beam is just the move that most Kingdra tend to use. There's certainly a lot of competition for slots between Surf / Muddy Water / Hydro Pump, Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse, and some of Kingdra's other options, but Ice Beam doesn't really have a replacement on a 3 Attacks Kingdra.
 
ive toyed with the idea before but the main problem ive had with twave tar is that i miss either crunch or fire punch when using it. it probably could help screw over rain more than it already does with sand stream though, but it doubt it will be anything mind blowingly amazing.
 
I feel this is why you pair TTar with prankster Thundurus and just go crazy with paralysis. If ground types bother you, then switch over to Whimsicott for stun spore support even though this pairing is not as practical. Afterwards, you could just clean teams with Shaymin-S and Jirachi by haxing them to death. I know I'm getting carried away, but a haxer can only dream of such annoying battles lol.

On a more serious note though, if a team with the above 5 mons are mentioned, you can also count on passive sandstorm damage to wear teams down. The only thing you would need is a strong fire/fighting/ground attack to remove steels from the picture seeing as how they resist air slash and iron head.
 
ive toyed with the idea before but the main problem ive had with twave tar is that i miss either crunch or fire punch when using it. it probably could help screw over rain more than it already does with sand stream though, but it doubt it will be anything mind blowingly amazing.
I dunno, all my teams seem to end up having a Fighting-type anyway so I would happily just run two STABs + Thunder Wave. My concern is more that there are better bulky Thunder Wave users out there, not limited to Cresselia, Latias, Jirachi, Gyarados, Ferrothorn, Togekiss, Dragonite and of course Thundurus. Tyranitar, on the other hand, can't spread paralysis quite so well due to its large number of weaknesses undermining its bulk.
 

Stratos

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That could just mean that people are using a lot of different moves on Kingdra, and Ice Beam is just the move that most Kingdra tend to use. There's certainly a lot of competition for slots between Surf / Muddy Water / Hydro Pump, Draco Meteor / Dragon Pulse, and some of Kingdra's other options, but Ice Beam doesn't really have a replacement on a 3 Attacks Kingdra.
OH GOD WHY IS ANYBODY EVER USING ICE BEAM ON KINGDRA

I've posted this before but,

ice beam's bap: 95*1 = 95
Hydro Pump's bap: 120*1.5*1.5 = 270
Draco Meteor's bap: 140*1.5 = 210

so for ice beam to outdamage kingdra's STABs it needs to be not 2x but 4x more effective than both. Ice is SE on Grass, Flying, Dragon, and Ground—so the only pokemon in the entire fucking metagame which is damaged most by Ice Beam is skymin. but wait:

252+ SpA Life Orb Kingdra Draco Meteor vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Shaymin-S: 331-391 (97.06 - 114.66%) -- 81.25% chance to OHKO

If you're running a third attack on kingdra and it's not hydro pump, then i have no words.
 
Agreed. That is why, IMO, the ONLY set for Kingdra is Muddy Water / Draco Meteor / Substitute / Protect with a Life Orb. Substitute is mostly filler but it's superior filler to Ice Beam.
 

Audiosurfer

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hydro pump is also a legit option in 3rd slot for reasons pwne listed already. and i wouldn't say substitute is filler, as that cheapens its value a lot. it lets you avoid status like non-priority t-waves that can ruin you since you'll outspeed everything in rain, it can act as a way to simply block attacks without having to risk protect failing, and it can allow you to play around things like sucker punch and take advantage of free turns, especially since a kingdra in rain behind a substitute is pretty frightening for an opposing team. there are plenty of times where i switch kingdra into things ik can't hurt it and use the opportunity to set up a sub even if rain isnt up, just because it cranks up the offensive pressure on the opponent alot since then they'll need two hits just to damage kingdra, which can really mess with them both strategy wise and mentally. dragon gem or something (maybe like mystic water if you really wanted) can also work for an item, so saying that that is the only set for kingdra is kinda sketchy really.
 
The thing is, Politoed isn't actually that bad a Pokemon in its own right. It's still only used because of rain, but there aren't actually many Pokemon with access to as many useful support options like Icy Wind, Helping Hand and Encore (Icy Wind + Encore is particularly nice as it makes Politoed's Encore a pseudo-fast one). On top of that, Rain is much a much more powerful field effect than sand. Let's be honest, when you're using sand it's mostly for the purposes of eliminating opposing weather. Even the one proper sand abuser Excadrill doesn't actually synergise very well with Tyranitar outside of Sand Stream + Sand Rush as it doubles up on several weaknesses (so they often have the same counters eg Hitmontop) and its own Earthquake will take a huge lump out of Tyranitar.
 
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Bummer

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Not related to metagame, but since Doubles is now a meta out of its nest, I looked over the logo and saw that I could improve it in various ways.





Edit: Now with Jirachi!



Better symmetry and snazzier font, basically. If you need 'em any bigger, let me know.
 
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Never thought about this before, but it's odd that Victini features on the banner when it's hardly a metagame-defining Pokemon, at least not compared to Cress, Top and Landog. I understand that maybe we want representation from something banned in VGC, but in that case stuff like Shaymin-S probably fits the bill better, as it is both more common and more threatening (IMO), whilst also being banned in VGC and OU, which further illustrates the uniqueness of the metagame.

Cool logo though.

EDIT: Oh, Shaymin-S actually appears in the old logo.
 
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Bummer

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Shaymin was removed to shorten the banner and have all visible 'mons divisible by two. If Victini is deemed unrelevant to the meta then do let me know if you're considering changing it (and/or Cress). But then again, everything will be flooded by new species next week so I don't know if we need to change the banner to how things are now and instead let it reflect how the meta used to be. I'm up for making a Gen VI banner too, although I'd like for the dust to settle first.
 

Stratos

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i didnt want to suggest this when you were in chat because i thought it'd be cruel after youd done so much work on the banner already but i was thinking the same thing as noob^3

i think the best way to handle it would be to remove both cress and victini, and instead just put a jirachi up there being the center of attention (get it because follow me yuk yuk) so we still get the vgc-banned representation while having something actually good in its spot; that would also help flatten the banner so we wouldn't need two versions
 

Bummer

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Put Thundurus-I in it, replacing Hitmontop's spot (for double genie formation!) while Top replaces Victini.
Reason why I (or the fine people at #doubles, can't recall) picked Landorus and Top to begin with is that both have brown as a dominant color in their design, as well as being two good users of Intimidate in the tier. So if anything, it's easier to change the two mons on top of the banner rather that the ones on the side. Cress and Vic have a similar color scheme though so they work well together (not to mention Vic is small enough to mount it), so if anything were to replace Vic, one would need to consider how well it works with Cresselia's and the banner's colors too (Thundurus, for instance, does), or consider changing both.

i didnt want to suggest this when you were in chat because i thought it'd be cruel after youd done so much work on the banner already but i was thinking the same thing as noob^3
19:08 <Bummer> Pwnemon, I feel betrayed
19:08 <Bummer> appalled even
19:08 <Bummer> you could have told me you didn't like the banner and yet you did not
19:08 <Bummer> I trusted you
19:08 <Bummer> why do you not trust meeeeeeeeee
19:08 <Pwnemon> I'M SORRY :(

Either way, this has apparently spurred more discussion that I initially thought, so I'll try to be more available on #doubles to talk about how things should go down, as we seem to have multiple bids on what people want to see perched on top. Either that or keep replying here, but why clutter up the thread with non-meta discussion?
 

Pocket

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Thank you for the upgrade logo, @Bummer!!! This is a very pleasant surprise :heart: I still love the original bad ass logo, but this new logo does look a lot more compact and streamlined. I edited the op of this thread with this new bummer, and it's refreshing ;d
 

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