The Ubers ladder is renowned for having a huge number of new players that have no idea what they are doing. Indeed, there are so many that we have previously needed to write a "http://www.smogon.com/smog/issue21/charizard" (Why the Ubers ladder sucks) article. While I can't say that people have gotten the message (they haven't really), there are also a large number of players, who while are not totally new to the game, use a some Pokemon and sets that are just either bad or pointless. This is not say that these are the totally awful sets that were mentioned in our previous article. These are sets that are relatively commonly seen on the ladder that appear decent, but if you look deeply, they do nothing better than sets that don't offer anything significant as opposed to the sets that are already on-site. There are also a number of Pokemon that may appear to have a niche, but just either bad or outclassed, that some people appear to have a intense, unjustifiable attraction to. Whatever the case, this article is here to show why these sets are not worth using. Creativity is something we endorse at Smogon, but we also encourage that if you've tried something and it sucks, that you stop using it.


Shedinja

We'll start off with Pokemon first, and the first Pokemon that we'll talk about is the infamous Shedinja. It's easy to see why a considerable amount of newer players can like this Pokemon. Hailed as a Pokemon who can totally and utterly wall virtually all Kyogre sets, it is the one-stop fix-all for every new Ubers player. However, it really doesn't take much playing experience to find out why this sad shell of a bug is just bad. Once Stealth Rock goes up (which it will), you can kiss your little bug goodbye. There are like a hundred things that stop Shedinja, all of which are pretty common in most Ubers teams. If you read the analysis, you'll realise how common those things really are. Even if you make your team to have two Rapid Spinners, a weather changer and a Magic Bounce user to stave off residual damage, and somehow miraculously have a functional team, you still have deal with random Toxic users, Will-O-Wisp users, Darkrai, Leech Seed or any other random sources of damage that kill Shedinja in one hit. Hell, people can just switch Ferrothorn into X-Scissor or something like that and make the bug kill itself. In short, Shedinja is worth too much effort for something that quite a number of Pokemon can do relatively efficiently already. Kyogre can be countered pretty reliably by Latias, Grass Arceus, Water Arceus, Gastrodon, and checked by Palkia, Ferrothorn, Blissey and Chansey, none of which requires an entire team built around them.

Donphan

Now this is a Pokemon that I completely do not understand the love for. Donphan should be in UU, it fits very well in there. I'm already at a loss on why Donphan is even OU. Seriously, there are way better spinners out there, why do people use Donphan? Seriously, if you want a spinner on an OU sun team to to check Terrakion, Claydol does that job better. Forretress can at least make up for its relative lack of offense by piling about 50 layers of hazards on the opposing team. Sandslash can use Swords Dance to get past Jellicent as well as pressure Sand teams. What the hell does Donphan have over them? Now that I've stopped ranting about Donphan in OU, you can probably extrapolate my reaction to seeing more than just a couple of randoms using it in Ubers. There is no reason to use Donphan as a hazard layer and Rapid Spinner over Excadrill, who has a better typing, more Speed and Attack, and Mold Breaker to get Stealth Rock past Magic Bounce as well as hitting Giratina-O hard with Earthquake. While it can't take Earthquake, it's not like Donphan can take Earthquake very well either, and in return, Excadrill can take Dragon-type attacks as well as a whole bunch of other attacks. Just stop using Donphan, seriously.

Deoxys-N

For some reason I still see this on the ladder from time to time. I don't know why people are using this thing. Is it just that they are too lazy on the teambuilder to scroll down one of two more on the list and pick a better forme? There is virtually nothing that Deoxys-N can do that its more specialised formes cannot. If you want a fast hazard layer, look further than Deoxys-S. If you want an attacker, use Deoxys-A. Even Deoxys-D has a niche over Deoxys-N if you want a bulkier hazard layer. The set on the analysis of an offensive Dual Screener was something we decided to put because there was literally nothing we can put on the analysis but we still needed an analysis. Just use another Deoxys forme if you want to use Deoxys at all.

Espeon

This is something that's sparked quite a bit of heated debate over C&C lately. While Espeon isn't completely unviable like Charizard is, the amount of love it gets on the ladder would make you believe it's the second coming of Arceus or something. It's just a very mediocre Pokemon in general, all it does is bounce back hazards once or twice and then dies. It contributes nothing else to a team. It's frail, not that powerful and offer virtually nothing in terms of synergy. I know supporters of this Pokemon LOVE to compare it to Xatu and other Rapid Spinners and point to its usage. I mean, Espeon was 37th on the usage lists, and lots of good players use it! Firstly, I will point out that the reason we have articles such as this one and the one in our previous issue was that the ladder sucks. Anyone can use anything and any team and get to #1 on the ladder. Trickroom does this on a regular basis with animal teams (snakes, anyone?). Blarajan stormed the ladder with a Little Cup team. Also, it is also interesting to note that a large number of these Espeon fanboys all come from the same clan who share the same teams. So now, you're telling me that Espeon is good because it has relatively high usage on the ladder, a usage that is only high because you yourselves took it there? Talk about circular logic.

Anyway, what IS so good about Espeon? Let's compare it to its rival Magic Bounce user, Xatu, who we approved an analysis for. Those arguing for Espeon demonises Xatu for its lack of offensive presence, its Stealth Rock weakness and its lower special bulk. I will concede that Espeon has a bigger offensive presence than Xatu. However, does that offensive presence even do anything in Ubers? Not much. How hard is an unboosted Psyshock hitting most of the Ubers Pokemon? Not very hard. I guess Grass Knot does deal a lot more damage to Groudon, while higher Speed does allow Espeon to beat suicide lead Terrakions (which are not common in Ubers at all). The Stealth Rock weakness is just irrelevant. If you've let Stealth Rock go up on Espeon or Xatu, they are useless automatically. An 87.5% Espeon is not going to survive any more hits than a 75% Xatu in Ubers. However, now that Xatu's typing and Stealth Rock weakness has been brought up, it has a Ground immunity and 4x Fighting resistance, which is better than what Espeon has. Sure, Xatu gets an Electric, Ice, and Rock weakness, but which of those attacks can Espeon take anyway? If we now look at actually keeping hazards off the field, which is Espeon's sole purpose of any use, we'll see that Xatu is generally better at that job too. It hard walls dedicated leads such as Skarmory, Forretress, and Ferrothorn, and while unlike Espeon, it doesn't get 2HKOed by Fire Punch from Deoxys-S in the sun (which is what Espeon would be used with). I could go into a million other reasons why Xatu is better than Espeon, but this is getting too long and we have a number of other sets to go through.

Now, I'm not saying that Espeon is totally unviable, but really, there should not be so many people using it and defending it like this. It has some use on ridiculously offensive teams, but that's about it.

Brave Bird Blaziken

I guess it's time we went into specific sets and variants. I'll start off with Brave Bird Blaziken. Really, I don't see the appeal of this move. There really isn't anything specifically wrong with it, it's just it doesn't add anything to what Blaziken already has. I think the main reason is that people see how amazing Brave Bird Ho-oh is, and then see that their starter from gen 3 is also pretty decent in Ubers, so they think "Hey why don't we combine the two". Unfortunately, Blaziken doesn't have STAB on Brave Bird, making it considerably weaker than his other options. It doesn't hit anything that Flare Blitz and Hi Jump Kick doesn't hit already, apart from Giratina, which you aren't doing much to with Brave Bird anyway. It's interesting to note that Flare Blitz in the sun hits harder than a neutral Brave Bird, the only time in which you'd want to use Brave Bird is in the rain. Even then, if you wanted to hit Giratina(-O) in the rain, why not just use Shadow Claw? Hi Jump Kick is already hitting everything else for absurd damage, you only need Shadow Claw to damage Latias, Latios, and Giratina-O. I guess Brave Bird Blaziken looks cool, but it's simply outclassed by better options.

Thunder Wave Palkia

Thunder Wave Palkia is another set which I question "what is this supposed to do?" While Thunder Wave Kyogre has utility due to its ability to lure in Latias and Palkia and paralyzing them, most of Palkia's counters are not too phazed by Thunder Wave. Palkia's main counters include Ho-oh, Grass Arceus, Blissey, and Chansey. Extreme Killer Arceus also tends to set up on Palkia. While paralysis does annoy Ho-oh and Grass Arceus, it's probably the status condition which they hate the least. Now that you've paralyzed them, you can't Toxic them, put them to sleep with Darkrai, in Arceus's case, burn them, or freeze them. Wouldn't you be slapping yourself because your Darkrai cannot put its counter to sleep because you paralyzed Ho-oh? Again, another set that sounds cool in theory, but Thunder Wave Palkia is a set that does very little apart wasting a moveslot.

Dragon Dance + V-Create Rayquaza

This set is a little less black and white in terms of good and bad. V-Create is not a bad move to spam with Rayquaza in the early game if you don't want to lock yourself into Outrage. However, there are plenty of downsides to it. The glaringly obvious one is the fact that when you use V-Create you can longer continue a sweep because you are now too slow. It's not bad for early game spamming, but it's horrible when attempting to sweep. When Rayquaza has moves like Fire Blast or Overheat to easily trounce its Steel-type switch-ins, V-Create is pretty outclassed as a coverage when it's sweeping. Now, I know early game spamming is pretty good, but when you have a Pokemon that is weak to Stealth Rock and has trouble with longevity, you don't want it to switch in and out very much, which is what V-Create makes it do. If Rayquaza had a resistance or even neutrality to Stealth Rock, maybe V-Create might be more appealing, but as it stands, it's too much trouble for what it's worth.

Sub + Dragon Tail + Shadow Sneak Giratina-A

This set frustrates me a lot when I see it. Offensive Giratina-A is in general, outclassed by Giratina-O. The only set that isn't is ChestoRest Giratina-A, since Giratina-O can't hold a Chesto Berry. It's just like using max HP Latios, when you can run the same set on Latias and get the same result. Giratina can actually hit hard with its attacks, and despite it not being able to hold Leftovers like Giratina-A can, Spikes and Toxic Spikes immunity tend to even out the Leftovers advantage pretty quickly. I guess Giratina-A is bulkier, but if you want to take full advantage of that, then Giratina-A won't be hitting anything very hard at all. When using sets, please learn to be able to evaluate the set you just created and make sure it's not outclassed by anything.

Calm Mind Lugia

Calm Mind Lugia is cute. It is another one of those sets that sound really good in theory. I mean, if you EV it with a stack of physical defense and enough speed to outrun Zekrom or something, you theoretically can't kill it, right? Unfortunately, these sets generally fail because Lugia is so damn weak. You're easily forced out by phazing moves while hitting Ho-oh or something most things for like 25% even at +3.

Leftovers Palkia / Rayquaza

Ice Beam Latios / Palkia / Darkrai / Dialga

Thunderbolt anything not named Thundurus or certain Arceus formes

SD Steelceus with ES or Sub

SD Ghostceus