AAA Almost Any Ability

IK it sucks/is useless against mons that aren't walls, but besides shed shell/ghost types, what type of wall can't this Gengar beat?
Gengar @ Chesto Berry
Ability: Corrosion
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mean Look
- Toxic
- Skill Swap
- Rest
Anything with a switching move (so most gengar answers), anything with whirlwind / roar, most magic bounce mons and anything that can kill gengar.

You might want to look into either perishtrap normalize gar, perishtrap azu or whirlpool / taunt tapu fini.
 
Anything with a switching move (so most gengar answers), anything with whirlwind / roar, most magic bounce mons and anything that can kill gengar.
please remember that
a. it has skill swap so magic bounce can be dealt with, then rest to remove any toxic effect the wall gave it
b. we're talking about walls. just walls. i don't know of any walls that run EQ or any other gengar killing move
the first 2 are valid points tho, just wondering what mons like that are actually used?
 
please remember that
a. it has skill swap so magic bounce can be dealt with, then rest to remove any toxic effect the wall gave it
b. we're talking about walls. just walls. i don't know of any walls that run EQ or any other gengar killing move
the first 2 are valid points tho, just wondering what mons like that are actually used?
Going through the walls in the current VR, this set loses to Magearna, Snorlax, Skarm, Zygarde, Suicune, Zapdos, Mandibuzz, Doublade, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Meloetta, Muk, Hippodown, Celesteela etc etc... I think you get the idea.

You can't trap Mb mons and when you've used mean look and skill swap your set is already pretty obvious so they'll switch out to a counter and you're not going to beat them.

EDIT: Sniped.
 
Going through the walls in the current VR, this set loses to Magearna, Snorlax, Skarm, Zygarde, Suicune, Zapdos, Mandibuzz, Doublade, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Meloetta, Muk, Hippodown, Celesteela etc etc... I think you get the idea.

You can't trap Mb mons and when you've used mean look and skill swap your set is already pretty obvious so they'll switch out to a counter and you're not going to beat them.
fair enough, ty.
 
aaareqs.png
Ban Kartana, the combination of decent physical bulk and speed and raw power means that it will at least net one or two kills a game no matter what. I used this core when I laddered:


Magearna @ Leftovers
Ability: Grassy Surge
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 SpA
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk / 0 Spe
- Fleur Cannon
- Volt Switch
- Energy Ball
- Protect


Kartana @ Grassium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Leaf Blade
- Smart Strike
- Sacred Sword
- Swords Dance

Grassy Terrain Magearna is pretty solid itself, as it gets the equivalent of Poison Heal recovery every turn and it loses its Ground weakness for the most part. But once Kartana manages to get in, if the opponent doesn't have Unaware Skarmory he's going to have to sac something:
+2 252 Atk Tinted Lens Kartana Bloom Doom (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory in Grassy Terrain: 312-366 (93.4 - 109.5%)

252 Atk Kartana Bloom Doom (175 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia in Grassy Terrain: 351-414 (79.2 - 93.4%)

252 Atk Tinted Lens Kartana Bloom Doom (175 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Buzzwole in Grassy Terrain: 312-370 (74.6 - 88.5%)

252 Atk Kartana Bloom Doom (175 BP) vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Zygarde in Grassy Terrain: 466-550 (111.7 - 131.8%)

252 Atk Kartana Bloom Doom (175 BP) vs. 240 HP / 252+ Def Zygarde in Grassy Terrain: 348-409 (83.4 - 98%)
 
Last edited:
When Dugtrio is quickbanned, but Kartana suspected :thinking:
upload_2017-3-27_21-2-27.png

I'm going to vote ban because this thing is obviously broken. It has at best 3 reliable walls, and it can lure all of them (Doublade with TC or SD Grassium, Skarmory with Galvanize, and Buzzwole with SD Grassium or Aerilte). Outside of that, you have to make constant predictions and reads in order to not sack a mon every time it comes in, and even then you end up failing more often than not.

After this, though, I'd like to call some attention to Hoopa-U. While it's much slower than kartana, and thus (mostly) only lethal to stall instead of to both stall and offense, but it's basically unwallable. Choice Band sets have about one wall in Hippowdon, which they can 2hko with uninvested psychic, sheer force sets can only be walled if you know the coverage, Specs sets can destroy any special wall, scarf sets can clean offense... it's just too impossible to predict, and even once you know what it runs its still one of the most terrifyingly potent pokemon in the metagame with each set. At team preview, you have to basically check off what you don't need and can afford to sack to learn its set, upon which you hope you brougth the one answer that varient has. It's just too good; no one mon should be the best wallbreaker, the best lure, and (one of) the best cleaners in a single pokemon, much less in a single set.
 

Attachments

https://gyazo.com/23eba9ed66578f07186689cf81e66184

For once, a suspect that I smashed through.
(...Though yes, why wasn't this the thing that was quickbanned? I guess Duggy would have caused too big of a stink with a suspect thread.)

Even though I personally didn't have terribly much trouble with Kartana, that was because hyper bulky Zygarde actually serves as a soft counter to the sets I faced.

...But I'm still voting to ban Kartana. Outside of some Sap Sipper Pokémon, answers to Kartana are few and far, FAR, between. Giving what effectively has the highest Attack stat in the game Tinted Lens or one of two further 1.5x boosts to its STAB moves is a recipe for disaster. I've watched enough of Laxpras, jrdn, and Quantum Tesseract to know the terror of Kartana first-hand. The only reason I actually survived it was either because my opponents ended up wasting Kartana, or they did not think to weaken Zygarde beforehand... and lacked a Z-crystal, for some reason. With a Z-crystal, Sap Sipper Volcanion, of all things, is the closest thing to a counter, and it loses to +2 All-Out Pummeling (though SR might be needed). Sap Sipper Hippowdon might also do the trick.

With everything given, you either need a very bulky physical wall, or a faster special attack to remotely have a chance, and that's dumb.

To get back to Z-Crystals, here's a set ported almost verbatim from something I used from that Kanto X Alola competition that I just adore.



Battle Maiden (Primarina) (F) @ Primarium Z
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 212 HP / 252 SpA / 44 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sparkling Aria
- Moonblast
- Encore
- Perish Song/Psychic/Ice Beam/Aqua Jet

A veritable nuke of a Water-type, and Tinted Lens makes it so much more satisfying. Ferrothorn? Enjoy that nice 80% damage upon switch-in. Tapu Fini? Have fun with Oceanic Operetta bringing you as far down as it does Ferrothorn. The Z-move also bops many things in a single hit, including Metagross, Manaphy, Noivern... the list goes on.
Moonblast is secondary STAB, and also really hurts just about anything.
Encore is the move that makes Primarina really stand out. Lob this on a predicted status move, and just visualize that rage that will inevitably follow. It also ensures that overpredictions on Primarina can be punished incredibly hard.
The last slot is a bit of a filler, though Psychic and priority are the most useful moves in there.
Speed EVs are to creep Magearna and other base 65s with 0 speed.
Just be sure to watch out for Poison types, because this loses to every single one that is remotely offensive.
 
Last edited:
Can we pleeeease suspect PH next? Even more so with kart gone... double PH is just plain unhealthy (especially in combination with double regen). motherlove
kindly reminded me of how much nicer the meta was last gen back when PH was suspected... and how much worse the meta is now with double PH a thing.

Also I might just get reqs for kart suspect and vote NO BAN cos lol :P
 
Last edited:
Poison heal is quite a pain. I'm forced to run a Banded Merciless mon just to counter it.
While it can be easy to set up on, any decent stall team with double PH has a way to deal with set-up, and the rate it which PH heals just causes games to be slowly drawn out.
Though my experience is fairly limited in AAA, to be fair. Certainly not a quick ban, but a suspect might be worth looking in to.
 
This is by no means a viable Pokémon, but it's kinda unexpected.
I was looking around for potential Drizzle abusers that have Thunder and Hurricane along with a decent water type move and found this guy.



Dragonite @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Surf

Special Dragonite, I know, is not as good as the Dragon Dancing variant, but I believe that the special variant can fully abuse an ability other than Multiscale that isn't just a splashable one like Magic Bounce or the sort.
With Specs, it's special attack becomes that of Scarfed Kyogre, which dominated Ubers for quite some time. It's Surf is not as powerful as Kyogre's due to the lack of stab, but Hurricane is nearly just as strong along with D-nite's Thunder being the exact same just barely stronger compared to Kyogre's. Draco is for a good Stab to fight off other dragons. Surf is pretty much just coverage for potential ground types (uhh... Excadrill? M-Camerupt..?) while still taking advantage of Drizzle.

252+ SpA Kyogre Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew in Rain: 195-229 (48.2 - 56.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragonite Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 178-210 (44 - 51.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


252+ SpA Kyogre Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 106-125 (26.2 - 30.9%) -- 22.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragonite Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 119-140 (29.4 - 34.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock


Yeah it's not bad. It catches opponents off guard but probably can be outclassed by something.
 
This is by no means a viable Pokémon, but it's kinda unexpected.
I was looking around for potential Drizzle abusers that have Thunder and Hurricane along with a decent water type move and found this guy.



Dragonite @ Choice Specs
Ability: Drizzle
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Hurricane
- Thunder
- Surf

Special Dragonite, I know, is not as good as the Dragon Dancing variant, but I believe that the special variant can fully abuse an ability other than Multiscale that isn't just a splashable one like Magic Bounce or the sort.
With Specs, it's special attack becomes that of Scarfed Kyogre, which dominated Ubers for quite some time. It's Surf is not as powerful as Kyogre's due to the lack of stab, but Hurricane is nearly just as strong along with D-nite's Thunder being the exact same just barely stronger compared to Kyogre's. Draco is for a good Stab to fight off other dragons. Surf is pretty much just coverage for potential ground types (uhh... Excadrill? M-Camerupt..?) while still taking advantage of Drizzle.

252+ SpA Kyogre Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew in Rain: 195-229 (48.2 - 56.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragonite Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 178-210 (44 - 51.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock


252+ SpA Kyogre Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 106-125 (26.2 - 30.9%) -- 22.9% chance to 3HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Dragonite Thunder vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 119-140 (29.4 - 34.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock


Yeah it's not bad. It catches opponents off guard but probably can be outclassed by something.
Have you tried this? If you had, you should have realized that dragonite is banned from AAA.
 
Apart from that, if you don't want to support other mons in your team with the rain, Primordial Sea is strictly better than drizzle.

Apart from Draco Meteor, you can run the exact same set on Gyarados, and you have STAB on both Surf and Hurricane xD
 

Sylveon.

Penny saved is still a fucking penny
Actually it doesn't get walled by much with galvanize either, as grass/electric has pretty decent coverage except like ferrothorn and some others but it does get sacred sword, so that's that.
The main fact is that it has such a high attack stat it doesn't matter whether it gets STAB or not until you get off a neutral hit as even without choice band it still manages to 2hko most stuff which are neutral to it's coverage. So till you can manage that, it'll be always get those relevant KOes irrespective of it's ability except on hardcore defensive walls like intimidate buzzwole, unaware skarm etc. it forces teams to run.
 
Looking through a lot of sets, Tinted Lens seems to be more of an issue than some of the pokemon themselves.
Kartana earned a ban with it's stats, but I feel like Tinted Lens is too strong an ability, able to be put haphazardly on any attacker with marvelous results.
 

Jrdn

Not a promise, I'm just gonna call it.
Looking through a lot of sets, Tinted Lens seems to be more of an issue than some of the pokemon themselves.
Kartana earned a ban with it's stats, but I feel like Tinted Lens is too strong an ability, able to be put haphazardly on any attacker with marvelous results.
It's really quite a fine line. I don't think tinted lens should be bad. It offers a way to beat stall, depending on the match up. The issue arises when the matchup doesn't matter. Keldeo and Kartana were able to just decimate every team, but other pokemon won't be able to be break through stall like that.
 
And in the case of keldeo, Kartana and even hoopa (might as well) I don't think tinted lens would entirely remove the issue. Keldeo's PH set can still 6-0 stall and pull its weight against any other playstyle. Kartana has a couple of other sets other than tinted but I would argue that its other options are under-explored because of the prevalence of tinted, but it's not like mold breaker with fighting z move has any counters either. And hoopa just runs anything and recks shit and I would even argue that his sheer force set is to some extent more threatening that band tinted.

It's a good point thought and worth keeping in mind since it's not the first time it's brought up.
 
Note: I hate stall with a passion, but TL to me just seems like too straightforward of an ability. Straight up removing resistances seems too easy. Toss it on a strong enough attacker of any type or physical/special and the ability works wonders with no real sacrifice.

Abilities like Sheer force and adapt have tradeoffs or balances for their power, sacrificing secondary effects and only effecting one or two types respectively.
I personally feel like Kartana and Hoopa-U are symptoms of TL being so powerful.

Though this is coming from a casual player who only dabbles in competitive play. I'm interested in seeing different perspectives from more experienced players.
 
Got reqs!
aaareqs.PNG


I'm voting for a ban.

I haven't played Kartana myself while laddering, but faced multiple of those pieces of... paper on the ladder and used a tinted lens Victini myself. Kartana has a sky high attack stat, but is hold back by its lackluster movepool and bad offensive typing, and is easily walled by, for example, Skarmory. In AAA however, Kartana can run tinted lens, which completely nullifies its big drawback, so that it can simply spam its STAB moves to 2HKO everything. Even physical defensive Skarmory, which is one of the few pokemon that don't get completely destroyed, is simply stalled out of roost PP by a banded Kartana spamming smart strike (or killed by a crit). If Kartana isn't banded, it can also run Z-moves and/or Swords Dance to get past its "checks" like the mentioned Skarmory. Kartana, unlike other tinted lens options like Victini and Hoopa-U, has good speed, outspeeding the majority of the meta, bar scarfers and some very fast mons like Tapu Koko and Weavile, has usable physical bulk and has no weakness to any of the -ate types, so that it can't get revenge-killed easily.

I don't think that tinted lens itself should be banned, as its other users aren't anywhere near as mighty as Kartana is.

Altough Victini hits even a bit harder than Kartana with its absurdly powerful V-Create, it has a big disadvantage: It can't spam V-create due to its stat-lowering, so that it has to be played in a hit-and-run style with hitting one v-create, hopefully scoring the kill, and then immediately switching out into a teammate, which costs momentum (and requires a reliable defogger due to its rock weakness). Also, Victini's V-Create is neutralized by flash fire and primordial sea, so that it has to rely on its teammates to kill such mons, or try it with the much weaker bolt strike, which, on the other hand, is stopped by ground types and volt absorb/motor drive/lightning rid.
It has good natural bulk, but still support in form of a slow voltturn core (I used Landorus and Magearna, both with RegenVest) is needed to bring Victini safely into battle, to get as many V-creates off as possible.

Tinted Lens Hoopa (wich I haven't played myself) is a huge threat to pure stall teams, since there are no immunities to Hyperspace Fury, but it has an awful typing combined with lackluster speed and can be revenged by something as simple as Landorus's U-turn.
 
Last edited:

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top