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Excadrill and Thundurus are now Uber

Legendaryseeker99 said:
Wait what since when was Excadrill Ground/Steel?

I thought it was Ground/Dark??

I am so confused right now.
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Krookodile (did I spell that right hurr. The alligator thingy) is ground/dark.

Excadrill is ground/steel. What's really notable about ground/steel is that, besides its numerous resistances, it's immune to both toxic and thunder wave, so you can't rely on those to stop/shorten its sweep.
 
Yes, of course. However Will-o-Wisp has shaky accuracy, poor distribution, and a lot of its users are murdered by Excadrill. Even max hp/def Dusknoir is almost always OHKO'd by +2 Adamant Excadrill's Earthquake without Life Orb; with SR, it's guaranteed OHKO. Weezing is better off, only being 2HKO'd under the same circumstances using Rock Slide, but Weezing is hardly used in OU. Offensive Heatran is 2HKO'd with Rock Slide so it can serve as a shaky check, but only once. Even then, if it switches into a Rock Slide it will lose its balloon and then fall victim to Earthquake the turn after. Standard Rotom is 2HKO'd. Sableye may be able to get the drop on it with a priority WoW, but a +2 Excadrill can still 2HKO Sableye after the burn.

To summarize, almost all viable users of Will-o-Wisp are severely dented by Excadrill and are fairly shaky checks.
 
Lirris said:
Gentlemen
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I left out Cofagrigus because I doubt I've ever seen one in OU. I've used it a few times in UU and RU, but it functions best as a Trick Room sweeper rather than a supporter.

That Excadrill is forcing people to use otherwise-outclassed Pokemon is a testament to its overcentralizing ability. Much like rain has made Gastrodon jump from NU (or was it RU) to OU. tbh I hope Drizzle is banned soon, too, as it's pretty broken even without Swift Swimmers.

Edit: Just ran some calcs, and +2 Excadrill 2HKOs with Earthquake anyway, assuming max hp/def. In fact, Cofagrigus performs worse than Rotom and Weezing and such. He's hit for around 75% average.

Edit 2: Didn't see ls99's post. Yes, max hp/def Serperior can tank a hit and phaze it out. However, it's 2HKO'd by +2 Rock Slide after rocks, so it'll be heavily dented. Also, Excadrill sometimes carry X-Scissor, which is guaranteed OHKO after rocks (75% chance to KO without). You may as well use Skarmory, who can phaze out with Whirlwind or Roar, but he's 3HKO'd by +2 Rock Slide. Skarmory can Roost to heal off the damage. Gliscor is also 3HKO'd and can heal with Poison Heal. Off the top of my head those are the only two reliable checks to Excadrill, but teams rarely carry both. Once those are down, Excadrill can proceed to punch holes in the team or sweep.
 
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blazheirio889 said:
I left out Cofagrigus because I doubt I've ever seen one in OU. I've used it a few times in UU and RU, but it functions best as a Trick Room sweeper rather than a supporter.

That Excadrill is forcing people to use otherwise-outclassed Pokemon is a testament to its overcentralizing ability. Much like rain has made Gastrodon jump from NU (or was it RU) to OU. tbh I hope Drizzle is banned soon, too, as it's pretty broken even without Swift Swimmers.

Edit: Just ran some calcs, and +2 Excadrill 2HKOs with Earthquake anyway.
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OK, then if Excadrill is this overcapable, then what of Darmanitan (as per sweeping), what stops it from being as good as the Drill?

(I'll assume the lack of immunity to Toxic as well as the weakness to SR would contribute...)
 
Lirris said:
OK, then if Excadrill is this overcapable, then what of Darmanitan (as per sweeping), what stops it from being as good as the Drill?

(I'll assume the lack of immunity to Toxic as well as the weakness to SR would contribute...)
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Lack of immunity to Toxic and Thunder Wave, much worse defensive typing that gives it a harder time switching in, weakness to SR, less bulk, lack of Swords Dance, worse coverage, and not nearly as fast as Excadrill. Excadrill can outspeed most scarfers in the sand.

Edit: Oh right, I forgot to mention something else. Of all things, Excadrill is also a godly spinner. It can squash most ghosts on a whim, so they wouldn't dare switch in, letting it spin practically unhindered. It can attain near-perfect coverage with Rock Slide and Earthquake, so it's not that much of a problem to dedicate a moveslot to Rapid Spin.
 
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Lirris said:
OK, then if Excadrill is this overcapable, then what of Darmanitan (as per sweeping), what stops it from being as good as the Drill?

(I'll assume the lack of immunity to Toxic as well as the weakness to SR would contribute...)
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Well for one, Darmanitan is either choiced or useless. Without a scarf it doesn't have the speed to take the metagame and a choiced pokemon such as Darmanitan is always easy to predict. Also because it's a fire type, which is a terrible typing, it dies from Stealth Rocks, and from Flare Blitz recoil (Fire Punch misses out on so many crucial kills). And any non-STAB attacks aren't that strong compared to Excadrill because Excadrill can boost its stats while reaching godly speeds :O

Also it gets rapid spin (:
 
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blazheirio889 said:
I left out Cofagrigus because I doubt I've ever seen one in OU. I've used it a few times in UU and RU, but it functions best as a Trick Room sweeper rather than a supporter.

That Excadrill is forcing people to use otherwise-outclassed Pokemon is a testament to its overcentralizing ability. Much like rain has made Gastrodon jump from NU (or was it RU) to OU. tbh I hope Drizzle is banned soon, too, as it's pretty broken even without Swift Swimmers.

Edit: Just ran some calcs, and +2 Excadrill 2HKOs with Earthquake anyway, assuming max hp/def. In fact, Cofagrigus performs worse than Rotom and Weezing and such. He's hit for around 75% average.

Edit 2: Didn't see ls99's post. Yes, max hp/def Serperior can tank a hit and phaze it out. However, it's 2HKO'd by +2 Rock Slide after rocks, so it'll be heavily dented. Also, Excadrill sometimes carry X-Scissor, which is guaranteed OHKO after rocks (75% chance to KO without). You may as well use Skarmory, who can phaze out with Whirlwind or Roar, but he's 3HKO'd by +2 Rock Slide. Skarmory can Roost to heal off the damage. Gliscor is also 3HKO'd and can heal with Poison Heal. Off the top of my head those are the only two reliable checks to Excadrill, but teams rarely carry both. Once those are down, Excadrill can proceed to punch holes in the team or sweep.
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You forgot Bronzong, many people had to resort to using it just to (or at least try to) force it to switch out. It couldn't really do anything in return though, outside of trick I guess, and that again falls under the overcentralization factor of being forced to use something just so something doesn't sweep your face x_x.
 
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I'll really miss Excadrill, it could revenge kill and rapid spin like no other Pokemon could. While it does have a good amount of counters, the main argument was that is crushed the heavy offense playstyle [which it did], either way, it was bandwagon banned.

People say that it's ban helped stall, although I heavily disagree, as Jellicent is still a poor spinblocker and generally inferior to Gyarados or Quagsire as a wall, and Heavy Offense is now more viable. Excadrill itself could also fit its way into stall teams as a revenge killer/rapid spinner.

I'm impartial to Thundurus's ban, as it could be stalled easily out via LO damage, but it had very few true counters.
 
The difference between Scizor and Excadrill should be quite obvious. Bullet Punch is horrible coverage compared to earthquake. Both of its stab attacks are resisted by one type. You can pretty much guarantee that people will have a steel resist. Water, fire and steel are all common types.

It doesn't really change a lot, it only switches up the metagame for those who abused it in the first place.

And a meinshao's SD can really boost its attack, especially if someone switches into a ghost expecting a fake out/u-turn. 130 stab +2 fighting move is nothing to laugh at.

It was coming to the point where you needed a counter for both on your team, the metagame revolved around how well certain pokemon could deal with those two threats.
 
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