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The Fate of Dragonite on Standard Play


Dragon God Goomy

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Dragonite, the 1st official Dragon-Type Pokemon in the series. It's been tagged as one of the top-dogs in OU for 6 generations. It has a good movepool and great stats that let's it stand against other Pokemon such as Metagross, Tyranitar, or even other dragons such as Salamance and Garchomp.

But recently, 6th gen brought many threats on it, such as fairies and Mega evolutions, particularly Mega Garchomp and Mega Salamance. Although it's still standing firm on standard play, it may not be long until Dragonite will be dethroned in OU, unless Gamefreak gives it a nice power-up.

So wht do you think of Dragonite's fate on upcoming generations? Will it remain the same of it will change?

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Mega Garchomp is almost useless, and a definite waste of a Mega Spot. Dragonite does better against MegaMence than 99% of the meta, thanks to it's ability.

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This was moved to the right section now, wasn't it?

So, Dragonite. Crippled by its own schyzofrenic learnset in the first 3 generations (all Dragon-type attacks were special back then, and Dragonite's defining stat is physical Atk), overshadowed by the horridly broken Garchomp and Salamence in the fourth, when those two were actually Ubers (and by the way their ban was what allowed Dragonite to find a spot in Gen 4 OU as the only dancing dragon left), finally got a boost that gave it the edge over its cousins in Gen 5, the ability Multiscale that pushed it to the top of the food chain.

Now Gen 6 has come out and all top-tier Dragon have obtained a Mega form, to compensate for their reduced effectiveness courtesy of the new Fairy type... Except Dragonite. Granted, Multiscale is still one heck of an ability, but while in Gen 5 that ability allowed you to punch holes into teams to allow a companion to sweep away the weakened opponents later on (all you had to do was to lead with Lum Berry Multiscale Dragonite, use Dragon Dance twice, and then just spam Outrage to sensibly weaken anything that dared to switch in. When Dragonite eventually goes down, bring in some nasty sweeper to finish opponents off), nowadays that is not possible because Fairies running rampant prevent you from carelessly locking yourself into Outrage, and Dragon Claw is just not strong enough.

Does this mean Dragonite's era is over? In my opinion, yes. Dragonite is not an effective sweeper/hole puncher anymore, and there are a lot of dragons that can do the job better. But does this mean Dragonite is destined to become a b-series dragon? Hell no. What people seem to forget is Dragonite's exceptional versatility: one generation of people running the same set over and over caused everyone to believe that's the ONLY set Dragonite can run. It isn't: Dragonite has a decent Special Attack too, his Multiscale ability is great, and it is the only Pokemon to learn BOTH Thunder AND Hurricane (which is STAB). Use him in rain with a bulky set, with maxed HP and Sp Atk, and Roost to recharge health and keep Multiscale alive, and watch some serious pseudo-parafusion happen.

"But Tomas! Weather was nerfed this gen too!". As I mentioned, Dragonite has decent bulk, and that insane ability named Multiscale. So why not trying out the Parashuffler set? Thunder Wave, Dragon Tail, Roost and a filler, with an EV spread to put the emphazis on bulk: if you have a powerful but slow sweeper in your team, this is the ideal companion.

All in all, Dragonite has lost the status as top-tier physical sweeper it had in Gen 5 (this is not to say it cannot do that job anymore: simply, dragons as a whole are worse at sweeping now, and if you really want to sweep with a dragon there are better choices, like the trio of megas Garchomp-Salamence-Charizard X), but there are still a lot of things it can do for any good OU team. So let's not assume Dragonite as a Pokemon is finished just yet.

Edited by Tomas Elliot
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Well, in own opinion, Dragonite can still do the job. The sets for Dragonite is still effective despite the Fairy Outbreak, so all you need to do is acquire a support to it like Magnezone or Heatran or anything that can hit fairies hard or even OHKO it.

Eh, the problem however is that the opponent can pack a counter-counter of their own and keep on switching... That's what we call a core! In Gen 5 everything was easy: the number one defensive threat to dragons was Skarmory, and Magnezone could easily dispose of that thanks to its Magnet Pull ability...

This aside, I'll repeat: I did NOT say that Dragonite is unable to sweep this generation, what I said is that dragons as a whole are less effective at sweeping this generation because they cannot just spam Outrage mindlessly (which was their standard way of sweeping to begin with), and I have also said that, in such a scenario, there are other dragons that do a slightly better job at sweeping, which kinda causes Dragonite to be overshadowed. But I also said that this does NOT mean that Dragonite's days in OU are numbered: as I explained in more details earlier, there are many other things Dragonite can do other than sweeping, many different sets one can try. I just hope this situation, in which Dragonite is overshadowed by better sweepers in a tier chock full of counters and checks, will encourage people to experiment more, instead of sticking to the old HG/SS set consisting of Outrage, EQ, D-dance and E-speed...

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Mega Dragonite, while great on paper, would need an exceptional ability; without Lum Berry, it's too susceptible to being burnt/paralyzed and being shut down altogether. Without Life Orb, it loses a huge punch that it could have had.

Dragonite is by far one of my favorite pokemon, don't get me wrong. The fucker carried me through the later stages of the Reborn League in Season 2. But I think it's time as a "Dragon Dance and click to kill" sweeper is over, unless you get the right team support for it. And even then, there's always something that will be able to switch in on it. A Dragonite that takes Earthquake loses coverage on Scizor and Ferrothorn, while one taking Fire Punch loses the ability to touch Heatran. Fire Punch is a 2HKO at best on Skarmory at +2, and Sylveon and the new Mega Altaria will be able to switch in and take pittance from anything Dragonite can hit it with, barring the very rare and heavily ill-advised Iron Head. Mega Salamence can switch in, Intimidate, and then Mega Evolve to become faster AND stronger than Dragonite.

Dragonite's only saving grace was Multiscale, but with the prevalence of Stealth Rock, you'll have a hard time preserving it. Yes, Dragonite is by far the bulkiest of non-ubers Dragons (Not anymore, really; MegaMence can tank things better than Dragonite on the physcial spectrum, presuming Multiscale is broken.) but it just doesn't have the tools to keep up in this metagame.

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Mega Salamence is probably going to be banned like 100%. That thing like sets up a sub game is over like right there. The other Mega so far are looking decently balanced though.

On Dragonite himself....I don't know, I have never really used it much. I do know he needs team support right out the gate. ((defogger/Rapid Spinner is kinda necessary, cause SR ruins his day. And it super helps having a Cleric if you can afford to run one. [which you should if relying on D.nite to sweep.] and even if Dragonite isn't sweeping, his Bulky attacker/Choice Band sets are actually pretty nice to help another poke sweep.

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I know this is thread is about dragons but I think Mega Slowbro will get banned too. It gets shell armor, plus that staggering physical bulk. All it needs are a few calm minds and thats gg.

Plus Dragonite needs to keep Multiscale as it helps it take a hit better to potentially setup as it has a really mediocre speed stat, or hit back hard with a choice band. I don't see Dnite getting lowered primarily becuase of Multiscale.

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There are some pokes that can still counter Mega Slowbro, Anything with Unaware for one, but yeah it can be difficult to counter if you aren't prepared. It may go through suspect test but ah well. Regarding Dragonite. It could be a classic case of where it's before and after mega evolution abilities can be useful and make someone think about when they may mega evolve.

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I kinda wish they would do that with more of the Megas, so that Mega-Evolving is a more interesting choice then oh yea....definitely going to do that right this second without thinking about it.

Yeah. . . I like Mega Garchomp's concept on paper, too bad it's so useless in practice.

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I think there are two possibilities there, and both of them hinge of the fate Mega-Salamence has with the Smogon tiers.

- If MegaMence gets banned to Ubers...Dragonite might remain an OU pokemon.

- If it doesn't...It -could- very well be possible Dragonite falls to Underused or Borderline.

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well, you all forgot that dragonite has something to go in OU: he does not use the megaslot, thus he can join forces with his mega-brothers to weaken their checks with a lure set to make even easier for them to sweep, and Vice-Versa

Which is also true, I somehow forgot to mention this. So yeah, I think we can all agree that Dnite's days in OU are far from over, even with the new stuff brought upon by ORAS...

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megamence is 100% guaranteed going to be banned. it's already banned on PO, smogon are just waiting for ORAS to become the 'official metagame' before proceeding with bans.

^^^^^^^^

same thing with the overpowered megas currently allowed in lower tiers

Edited by MMM
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