Gen 3 Non-Ubers in Ubers

[MMII]

In later gens, it's kinda taken for granted that you can use a lot of lower tier Pokemon because of how small gap between the official Ubers and everybody else is. Adv came before a lot of that power creep but, surprisingly, there is still quite a large amount of non-ubers Pokemon that can do excellently in the meta. However, the metagame is quite unexplored or, at least, that exploration is mostly undocumented and lost to time.

So, let's fix that by talking about lower tier Pokemon that have potential in the Ubers metagame.


I'll keep a list and short description here of each Pokemon mentioned in this thread so that it can serve as an easy reference point.

Stops Lati@s and many other Pokemon. Supports team with Wish, screens, status. Can go offensive with CM.

Spins, Spikes, Booms. Also does steel things like check Lati@s and eat Shadow Balls.

Only Steel-type with a spammable STAB. Good stats lets it check tons and hit like a truck. Can even Pursuit Deo-A if needed.

Like Rayquaza, but has Intimidate for large physical bulk. Can do Wish if that's your kind of thing.

Resists BoltBeam, has strong STAB Thunder, traps Steels.

lol special attacks

Basically Blissey with Pursuit and good physical defense.

Blocks spin, can boom, can wisp.

Can revenge kill Psychic-types and Baton Pass Swords Dance and Speed Boost.

Can spinblock and check CM Psychic-types decently well.

Looks cool

CM, STAB Thunders, outspeeds Lati@s

Trolls Kyogre, annoys with SubSeeds, and is pretty good at dancing.

Can switch into anything Groudon uses and eats Steel-types for breakfast.

Reliable blanket check to CM mons and can hit hard with his high base Attack and access to boom.

Reliable blanket check to CM mons and can hit hard with Thunder and STAB Ice Beam coming from a solid Special Attack stat.

Checks the ever popular BoltBeam abusers without fearing the occasional Fire Blast. It can also be difficult to switch into with the threat of STAB EQ from 110 base attack as well as STAB, Rain-boosted Hydro Pumps.

Can Spike and hard stops most physical attackers in the metagame.

Super tanky boombot

Cleans after steels are gone, can also Spike or Explode if needed

Another CB rain cleaner. It trade Spikes, Boom, and Shadow Ball for Rapid Spin, Double Edge to 3HKO Groudon, and a mildly useful typing.

Groudon check and Booming Statusbot

Is fast in Sun with access to CB Shadow Ball and Explosion.

An alternative to Aggron? Poor guy is kinda left behind by the fact that the other Regis are good and he doesn't really have a noticable niche...

Can Pursuit CB Deo-A locked into Shadow Ball as well as hit really hard once every other turn

Pursuit support mon with solid stats and an interesting typing as well as a way to disrupt unwanted weather

One of the few Rapid Spin users that is also a Ground-type. Can check CM Jirachi, semi-check Groudon, and can Boom when no longer needed. Access to Shadow Ball insures Gengar can not Spinblock it as well as avoiding giving Lati@s free switch-ins.

125 base Spatk, STAB Thunders as well as a typing that allows it to safely check Rayquaza, Lugiass, and CB Ho-Oh under rain. Can also check Groudon without Rock Slide and switch into Metagross fairly well. Substitute + Metal Sound ensures that it bypasses Blissey and can even beat out Lati@s that were paralyzed from switching into Thunders one too many times.

Fast as fuck and can be a royal bitch when abusing Encore with SubSeeds and Sleep Powder.

Super fast CB mon with a moderately useful typing

Has Swift Swim Megahorn and stylish frills

One of the few Ground-types that isn't weak to Ice Beam (although it's Special Defense is lacking for it to be a solid Lati@s check) and MONSTER Physical Defense. Between CB EQ and Rock Head Double Edge it has very powerful moves that can be difficult to switch into. What those don't cover, Rock Slide hits and when you don't need him anymore you get to take a free life with his Explosion.

Sweep's waifu is good in this generation with the trademark super-fast and super-strong Hydro Pumps as well as just enough Special Attack to threaten the Lati twins with Blizzard. Has a useful typing and also doesn't desperately fear Ho-Oh Sacred Fire burns as a Special Attacker. For the games where it can't clean things or pump out damage, it can simply drop layers of Spikes to justify its use anyways.

The rarity of Tyranitar and the fact that Spikes are not super dominant as well as easily spin-able makes Shedinja actually a candidate for use. What's more, it checks the amazingly powerful CM Lati@s AND Kyogre as well as quite large number of other Pokemon. Just watch out for those handful of Pursuit users. Still too support reliant to be commonplace, however.

 

[MMII]

double post to keep op clean and cause I can


Jirachi is probably my favorite non-ubers pokemon to use in the metagame. It's a very versatile Pokemon that can support the team through Wish, Reflect, and status spread as well as take on offensive roles with CM. It's also very useful as it reliably checks the two best Pokemon in the metagame, Latios and Latias.

CM, Wish, Ice Punch, Thunder has been the set I've used the most so far and it's paid off well. If you aren't playing refresh/sub/safeguard Lati, you can just hit it with your Thunder and paralyze for the rest of the team to gobble up. If it can deal with paralysis, it'll be reliant on Dragon Claw as its sole means of damage output so you'll easily win the CM war. Ice Punch's 20% freeze rate can be quite handy for desperate plays and will punish your opponent for giving Jirachi too many free turns, as well was deal a hefty amount to Groudon.

 

[Aberforth]

Obviously Forretress is a big one that can be used, but that's a given, along with weather abusers like the fossil brothers and eggecutor.

Outside of those two though, I've used Salamence and Metagross a bit in ADV ubers, and both can pack a punch with the right team support, Mence getting dragon dance makes it a very decent cleaner late game and can sweep after things like rayquaza and groudon have holepunched the checks which it shares with them, and choice banded explosion from metagross can dent just about anything.

The only other non-uber I use with any consistancy is magneton, to trap and kill opposing forretress, which is quite matchup dependent. If your opponent doesn't have a forretress, you can essentially be playing with 5 mons.

 

[MMII]

Steels are all pretty good in adv cause of the latis imo. (and other stuff like cb aeroblast, hp flying, sball, etc). Even Magneton I think can manage on its own since it still takes boltbeams and dragonclaw quite well. It's reliant on toxic to actually beat the latis (which loses to refresh) but I don't think that is too bad a deal. Honestly, I'd rather use Magneton for reasons like that than try to explicitly abuse its ability. Forretress and Skarmory are pretty much the only steel types that lose to it and the later isn't a large target while the former could start running EQ if Magneton becomes problematic. (I guess you beat CB Meta too by coming in on a move not named EQ)

Salamence is interesting, seems hard to justifty over Ray but I guess there are teams that'd prefer Intimidate and 100 base speed. I guess you could always do the double dragon.

 

[Hack]

Steels are nice- they stop the very threatening CB Lugia from dealing much damage. Jirachi, Registeel, Magneton, Metagross are all intriguing mons with specific niches. I've never really tried skarmory much, it does seem a bit weak in this metat. Obviously Forry is good too but it misses out on the flying resist and is therefore not as comparable to the other ones.

Normals and Darks with pursuit can be pretty nice as they are immune to or resist shadow ball. I've tried Umbreon, Snorlax and Slaking mostly. Umbreon is kinda cool with the good sdef and access to wish and pursuit (for sball locked deo-a). Blissey is god level in the tier.

Some weather sweepers are pretty good: Qwilfish, Exeggutor and Shiftry mostly come to mind. I dislike most rain sweepers are they are much to weak, but Omastar is a considerably good mon due to having some key resists to flying and fire.

Gengar is cool, it blocks spin from the only common spinner in the tier while also having boom to ensure it can deal some nice damage. Will-o-wisp is much less widespread in gen3 and is obviously great tool to have vs physical stuff like Groudon.

Some other stuff like Ninjask and Shedinja are definitely worthwhile. Ninjask quickpass to Groudon can be really deadly, and to add on Ninjask has the pretty neat niche of being able to rk a couple of psychics. Shedinja walls most Latis and Kyogre. Has to be run with anti spikes+spinblock though, and I don't think a normal forretress set is cutting it so run something like hp ghost for gar.

 

[MMII]

Yooooo I really want to make Aggron work. It's got 110 attack, rock head double edge, stab rock slide, fire blast, earthquake, taunt, and some other things so I imagine a CB set or something could be good. It's a shame the spdef is low but it still takes sballs, booms, aeroblasts, hp flying, etc like a fucking champ and I imagine it would be difficult to switch into a CB set.
Choice Band Aggron Double-Edge vs. 252 HP Groudon: 145-171 (36.7 - 43.2%) -- 99.1% chance to 3HKO

Really, I just think the mon is cool which is why I want to make it work but yeah. There's that other stuff too.

Also, what are your thoughts on Dusclops for ghost mon? It is quite bulky, has a spammable shadow ball, can taunt and burn things and even gets fire punch if you want to kill forry fast. Seems quite viable. Oh and Pain Split.

 

[Hack]

Yeah dusclops is pretty cool as far as spinblocking goes but honestly isn't Gengar just fine for most teams? Dusclops being toxic prone is pretty ugh and absolutely 0 offensive presence is isn't fun. Having better defenses (although mind you no eviolite and piss HP certainly doesn't help) than Gengar is ok I guess but I can't think of many things it reliably counters. Gengar has to tread around HP Ghost from Forret but can also run Fire Punch get rid of it relatively fast.

I don't know about Aggron, feels like it pretty much just nets maybe 1 kill per game. It can come in on CB Lugia/Ray but fears EQ as much as it likes taking flying moves.

Honestly maybe a bit off topic but shouldn't Forret actually run HP Ghost > HP Bug as opposed to whatever the analysis says? I don't really see what bug hits at all that is important, while ghost gives a great chance getting around Gar. Ghost also hits all psychics for equal dmg- and though it misses out on damage vs Shiftry (and to an extent Egg I guess) I don't really feel it's too big a deal when Forret is a support mon in the strictest sense. Anything that helps it perform its main duty should be the first option, no?

 

[Aberforth]

Aggron I could see as being decent, if potentially not very good due to giving Groudon a free turn when Aggron is forced into switching out, but I dont really think Dusclops should be used over gengar. Ghost is not a particularly great defensive typing in this metagame, and its lack of reliable recovery outside of rest talk along with 0 offensive presence doesn't help it at all. I would personally always use gengar for its much better speed tier as well as its decent special attack. I suppose duclops would work somewhat decently with rest, double status and shadow ball when paired with a cleric like Blissey, but I would prefer gengar on most of my teams that require a spinblocker.

 

[MMII]

Soul Dew Latios Thunder vs. Dusclops: 122-144 (42.9 - 50.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

That's pretty impressive, imo. Meanwhile, SBall 2HKOs back (although doing more would be nice). It could also try pulling off a CM set and it can use resttalk/taunt to deal with Toxic. (depends on if you have a cleric or not) It may not have eviolite but most mons don't have super powerful spammable stabs like in later gens so it makes up for it with that.

HP bug has stab, which lets it get the 2HKO on latis. I agree hp ghost is a good alternative but hp bug still has it's place. Forry has a lot of options for that last slot. (discussing individual sets isn't off topic, imo)


and yeah, aggron is more "this mon looks cool, let's make it work" than anythign else.

 

[Hack]

Oh yeah totally forgot about STAB on hp bug tbf lol

meanwhile I don't really see the amazingness in that calc. I'd rather know for sure there were some offensive mons Dusclops reliably checked, but then again I can see your point

 

[DracoMaster Dab]

mm2 tried out sub cm raikou on me and i can see it working tbh as it sets up on lot of stuff like blissey,cb lugia locked into aeroblast etc etc.i can see ludicolo working but it doesnt rly have many niches apart from checking ogre very well and being extremely annoying with leech seed,toxic and substitute plus rain dish makes it extremely hard to take down. Flygon is another interesting mon in this meta as it checks groudon extremely well and also bakes steels with fire blast. another mon i am surprised wasn't mentioned is blissey as it checks most special sweepers especially with psych up which destroys most cm users. speaking of checks to cm mons snorlax is another cool mon which checks most cm mons effectively and stab boom is p much impossible to live unless ur outright immune lol. oh and umbreon looks cool too

 

[MMII]

i've been enjoying regice and swampert a lot but people are doubting the later

Regice is cool cause it has amazing stats and stab ice beam with thunder. It also gets psych up so cm isn't a solution to it. Last slot is kinda toss up but I like rest the most so far. It's just a good mon to pivot on a bunch of shit and punch holes in things.

Pert is kinda the same sorta utillity mon except not even Fire Blast is saving you. It takes Ice Beams surprisingly well and with EQ, Pump, HP Ghost, Rock Slide + rain not much wants to come into it. A good way to smooth out any weaks to the assorted cm boltbeamers as well as punish just about every steel type.

edit: mirror coat is a good option over rock slide; you give up coverage for sun ho oh (+ bonus damage on lugiass) but in exchange you get another way to beat the cm mons it checks.

 

[Fireburn]

Forretress, Jirachi, Metagross, and Blissey are staples. Forry is the only viable spinner and one of the few viable Spikers (the others being Deoxys-D and Skarm to some extent). Jirachi is a good check to Latis/CM BoltBeamers with Serene Grace BSlam and makes a solid team supporter with Wish and screens, CM sets aren't too bad either. Metagross is a solid Lati check that can also dispose of Deoxys-A with Pursuit and punch big holes with a strong Explosion. Blissey is legit amazing lol, not too many common physical mons (Groudon/Ray/band Birds/Metagross/Lax) and CM Bliss beats most Lati and Kyogre sets, can even run Serene Grace to spread para and freezes as well.

From my experience Skarm is a little meh, its a nice check to weird physical Mewtwos/DD Rayquaza/CB Lugia and it Spikes but lack of reliable healing + electric weakness + no ice resist hurts. Magneton is mostly nice to trap and eliminate Forretress/Skarm/CB Meta for Shedinja and stuff, though it is also a great switch-in to Lugia and can spread some Toxics around + resists BoltBeam. Registeel is like Jirachi, except it trades Wish and a degree of offensive presence for Explosion and resistance to Shadow Ball which can come in handy at times.

Snorlax is surprisingly decent - hits fairly hard with Body Slam and can spread para, learns Shadow Ball for Psychics, can use sun Fire Blast to stop Forry from Spiking on it, and can kill just about anything with STAB Selfdestruct. It shrugs off hits from Latis fairly well and does good damage back to a lot of things, but great special bulk + stab boom is the main appeal of it. Also Thick Fat gives it Ice/Fire resists.

Most weather sweepers are too weak to work but some can still be useful. Qwil Spikes and Explodes, Egg can switch into Groudon fairly well and has boom + Sleep Powder, Shiftry has Shadow Ball and boom (notice a theme here?). Omastar lacks boom but has enough attack power to function + Fire and Flying resists are useful. Kabutops might be decent since it hits hard with SD Rock Slides and Spins but it can't do much to Groudon or non-Forry Steel-types (unless you run HP Ground) which is meh.

Also Melee Mewtwo you might consider Regirock instead of Aggron, it doesn't have Steel typing but it has better SpD, can actually take EQs, and can explode.

 

[Inspirited]

[...]Snorlax is surprisingly decent - hits fairly hard with Body Slam and can spread para, learns Shadow Ball for Psychics, can Pursuit Deo-A choice locked into Shadow Ball[...]

This is where Slaking is better, Snorlax doesn't learn Pursuit in Gen 3, Slaking does however although it is kind of a mediocre Pursuit due to Truant giving a free turn for a free switch afterwards. Slaking also screws over those offensive teams with near bulkless Metagross as their Steel of choice because of the way it smashes Groudon and said Meta with just Double-Edge alone. it can also attempt to catch bulkier Steels with Earthquake if it really wants, but usually spamming Double-Edge does enough damage anyways.

I have noticed Melee Mewtwo attempting to use Dusclops and complaining how much of Spike bait it was. There is a Physically orientated Ghost that is faster than Forry and gets access to Taunt in Banette. Its pretty mediocre in every other department though besides its Attack, typing, and movepool. It needs to run Max Max Careful or close to it to not be OHKOed +1 Attacks from the eons, although it does do a butt load back and can Snatch their Recovers if need be. This bulk issue is a severe hindrance, but like i said, it does have a niche of hitting decently hard with Shadow Ball without a Choice Band and can stop Forry from piling on the Spikes while Banette is Spin blocking. Its an extremely mediocre and niche mon imo. It was good enough to get a 2005 analysis for Ubers though which I found odd.

 

[Fireburn]

This is where Slaking is better, Snorlax doesn't learn Pursuit in Gen 3, Slaking does however although it is kind of a mediocre Pursuit due to Truant giving a free turn for a free switch afterwards. Slaking also screws over those offensive teams with near bulkless Metagross as their Steel of choice because of the way it smashes Groudon and said Meta with just Double-Edge alone. it can also attempt to catch bulkier Steels with Earthquake if it really wants, but usually spamming Double-Edge does enough damage anyways.

Ah you're right, I thought it did. Slaking still seems iffy because of Truant even if it hits like a train though.

 

[Minority]

Speaking of Pursuit, Tyranitar is a pretty interesting Pokemon considering that a majority of Ubers in ADV are Psychic. While Pursuit is special, it can be a valuable asset against Deoxys-A, Gengar, and Mewtwo. Fighting being uncommon is also pretty great. There aren't really sand abusers in the same way there are sun and rain abusers, but the passive damage and dangerous prospect to Shedinja can be useful; it also pushes away sun and rain with a more neutral weather.

 

[DracoMaster Dab]

Forretress, Jirachi, Metagross, and Blissey are staples. Forry is the only viable spinner and one of the few viable Spikers (the others being Deoxys-D and Skarm to some extent). Jirachi is a good check to Latis/CM BoltBeamers with Serene Grace BSlam and makes a solid team supporter with Wish and screens, CM sets aren't too bad either. Metagross is a solid Lati check that can also dispose of Deoxys-A with Pursuit and punch big holes with a strong Explosion. Blissey is legit amazing lol, not too many common physical mons (Groudon/Ray/band Birds/Metagross/Lax) and CM Bliss beats most Lati and Kyogre sets, can even run Serene Grace to spread para and freezes as well.

From my experience Skarm is a little meh, its a nice check to weird physical Mewtwos/DD Rayquaza/CB Lugia and it Spikes but lack of reliable healing + electric weakness + no ice resist hurts. Magneton is mostly nice to trap and eliminate Forretress/Skarm/CB Meta for Shedinja and stuff, though it is also a great switch-in to Lugia and can spread some Toxics around + resists BoltBeam. Registeel is like Jirachi, except it trades Wish and a degree of offensive presence for Explosion and resistance to Shadow Ball which can come in handy at times.

Snorlax is surprisingly decent - hits fairly hard with Body Slam and can spread para, learns Shadow Ball for Psychics, can use sun Fire Blast to stop Forry from Spiking on it, and can kill just about anything with STAB Selfdestruct. It shrugs off hits from Latis fairly well and does good damage back to a lot of things, but great special bulk + stab boom is the main appeal of it. Also Thick Fat gives it Ice/Fire resists.

Most weather sweepers are too weak to work but some can still be useful. Qwil Spikes and Explodes, Egg can switch into Groudon fairly well and has boom + Sleep Powder, Shiftry has Shadow Ball and boom (notice a theme here?). Omastar lacks boom but has enough attack power to function + Fire and Flying resists are useful. Kabutops might be decent since it hits hard with SD Rock Slides and Spins but it can't do much to Groudon or non-Forry Steel-types (unless you run HP Ground) which is meh.



Also Melee Mewtwo you might consider Regirock instead of Aggron, it doesn't have Steel typing but it has better SpD, can actually take EQs, and can explode.

Actually me and mm2 theorymonned choice band regirock as it is extremely hard to wall with edgequake combo+focus punch and explosion while also checking dangerous threats like cb lugia and ho-oh.another mon we talked about was registeel as it is a good cm spam check due to psych up and good special bulk it also has much more physical bulk than regice and has fewer weaknesses.

 

[MMII]

Forry is the only viable spinner

I think Claydol is actually quite legit. If you run max attack addy along with eq, sball, boom, and spin it can do quite a few things for your team. You get a decent check to gdon, something that can slay steels quickly, can 2HKO lati switch ins, and, of course, boom on something for win. It's also hard to spin block and you can't just trap it with magneton. It's not super amazing but it's a cool mon to consider and can pay off on the right teams.

Also, wreckdra, Dusclops gets Taunt, too. The biggest problem I found with it is that it *only* 2HKOs latis/m2 which isn't terribly good seeing as its not tanking offensive thunders for *that* long. It's hard to justify over the other ghosts but I imagine it has it's niche for teams that don't want to rely on shedinja walking the thin line and getting fucked in certain matchups while desiring something a bit bulkier than gar, enough to switch in and check latias/ non-thunder M2. Maybe with max attack it could be better, I'm not really sure how to make it work tbh. Not really worth in the long run.

I'll update op later today or something.

 

[MMII]

I've been testing more steels. I've actually been making Aggron work LOL. It's cool at punishing physical attackers and if you got Sun it can soft check ThunderBeam Lati variants as well as the dclaw ones so that is cool. I've been using SubPunch instead of CB and it can be effective at sticking the opponent in a bind.

I've also played a bit with Registeel. I've only used CB so far which is okay. It doesn't really hit hard as much as just be really fat while still getting noiticable chip damage on things. When you don't need it anymore, you can OHKO a thing with explosion so that is cool. I imagine with Rain support, a Curse set would be effective. Just get the opposing Kyogre out of the way and start rocking.

Slaking is something I've tried and its honestly been underwhelming. In theory it hits super hard and can force game changing 50/50s but in practice it's just awkward. Early game you have to make blind predicts on whether they bring in their steel, which one they might be packing, and if it's not actually Gengar that shows up. Mid-late game, the other guy just fodders something off and then get a free turn to push your shit in without any risk to them. I feel like Snorlax just outclasses. What he may lack in less attack (that is still plenty tho) he makes up for with boom and a good ability.

oh and I partially updated the op, will finish it some other time

 

[BKC]

you can use curse boom on registeel to remove kyogre yourself while keeping the utility of the strong explosion. you also turn forretress into setup bait.

mention of garbage ass skarm but no jumpluff? kill yourself

 

[shrang]

Need to add Qwilfish and Exeggutor to that list too bro

 

[MMII]

you can use curse boom on registeel to remove kyogre yourself while keeping the utility of the strong explosion. you also turn forretress into setup bait.

mention of garbage ass skarm but no jumpluff? kill yourself

I've actually found Skarm to be quite useful. It's sorta nicheish in that it only covers physical attackers and every special mon just eats it alive. However, that's just about every physical mon in the meta and it hard stops them. I feel like in adv you can afford to have those more specialized mons because it's so easy to cover threats with multiple checks.

Tell me about jumpluff, though. I played it a few times and all it did was try to sleep me.

 

[Fireburn]

However, that's just about every physical mon in the meta and it hard stops them.

Not quite accurate since Groudon (the most common physical attacker in the meta) can break it with Fire Blast or SD boosted Rock Slides, it does a good job of stopping physical mons without random fire moves though.

And yeah add Qwilfish and Exeggutor

 

[MMII]

Not quite accurate since Groudon (the most common physical attacker in the meta) can break it with Fire Blast or SD boosted Rock Slides, it does a good job of stopping physical mons without random fire moves though.

+2 Groudon Rock Slide vs. Skarmory: 113-133 (33.8 - 39.8%) -- 31.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
That's taking things pretty damn well, imo.

Fire-type moves aren't always seen on Donner and then there's the possibility of him being a choice mon which makes it a prediction fest.

In any case, that's where the *just about* comes in as there are obviously exceptions. Skarm is still a thorn in gdon's side almost regardless of the set it runs which is a cool thing to have. Skarm + teammates works pretty well o.o

And yeah add Qwilfish and Exeggutor

Need to add Qwilfish and Exeggutor to that list too bro

oh and I partially updated the op, will finish it some other time

Also, there wasn't much discussion on either of those guys outside of mentioning their existence.

 

[Fireburn]

Qwilfish is a decent Choice Band user for Rain teams, it hits fairly hard with STAB Sludge Bomb + Shadow Ball, stops Forry switchins with rain boosted Hydro Pump, and it can Explode. There is actually a set for it on the analysis. :o

Exeggutor is a good switchin to Groudon and can mess up stuff with double powders, also hits hard with Solarbeam once you've cleared Ray/Kyogre. Also it Explodes. You need to predict well to use it effectively but it has a niche.