OU Altaria

AccidentalGreed

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Mention Dragon Claw in the Moves section of offensive DD, it's useful for Talonflame, Mega Vensaur, Mega Charizard Y, Amoonguss, and Mega Charizard X (to check it better), and should be used over Roost obviously.

In the overview, mention the big amount of Pokemon that Mega Altaria checks as a pro, and one of the main reasons to use it, as its defensive utility is fantastic, even when going max Atk and max Speed.

On the first two set's teammates, mention some lures or early / mid-game wallbreakers that wear down Mega Altaria's checks and counters, such as SD Diggersby, EQ + HP Fire Latios, SD +3 attacks LO Breloom, and Choice Band Azumarill with Superpower.

On the support set, remove Facade and Body Slam, Return outclassed both. Facade is very situational and Altaria likes to get rid of status asap anyway, due to the lack of lefties, while Return gets many OHKOes on Pokemon that Mega Altaria wants to check, such as Mega Gyarados, Mega Heracross, Garchomp, and Thundurus after SR (50% chance, sure OHKO after LO), making it way better than Body Slam overall. Body Slam can go to OO, but not any higher.

Mention that specially attacking Mega Altaria fits nice on sand balance / sand bulky offense, as it covers perfectly the weaknesses of Tyranitar / Hippowdon / Excadrill (Grass, Fighting, Water, Bug).

Good job AG!

QC APPROVED 1/3
Sorry for the wait! Made the changes (although Return isn't an option on the Support set like you implied? After doing a few calculations, though, I'm slashing Impish and Return), and merry christmas!
 
It needs to be emphasized, and not just mentioned that the Defensive Dragon Dance set needs a lot of offensive support. It needs a lot of offensive support to sweep, especially when locked into mono-fairy coverage (even with Earthquake, Altaria still needs its teammates to provide a lot of offensive pressure). Altaria is still quite weak and unable to break through bulkier Pokemon after +2, so offensive support needs to be emphasized.
 

AccidentalGreed

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It needs to be emphasized, and not just mentioned that the Defensive Dragon Dance set needs a lot of offensive support. It needs a lot of offensive support to sweep, especially when locked into mono-fairy coverage (even with Earthquake, Altaria still needs its teammates to provide a lot of offensive pressure). Altaria is still quite weak and unable to break through bulkier Pokemon after +2, so offensive support needs to be emphasized.
Ah, very true. Edited, with a little more work done on the Support set as well.
 

Jukain

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i like to run a spread of 24 hp / 248 spatk / 236 spe timid for special mega altaria as it outspeeds timid tran, which is very useful considering it's a prime target of earthquake and only a few evs more than the current investment.
 

AccidentalGreed

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i like to run a spread of 24 hp / 248 spatk / 236 spe timid for special mega altaria as it outspeeds timid tran, which is very useful considering it's a prime target of earthquake and only a few evs more than the current investment.
Nice catch, change made.
 
requesting special be moved above support. you also might want to mention in usage tips that the preferred move to finish off a weakened foe, if you bring mega altaria in to kill something at low health to get the mega opportunity, to use earthquake to lure the opponent into thinking the set is physical so a check to physical sets can then be koed, like ferrothorn. this might seem convoluted but in reality there can be situations where the opponent has two checks like heatran + ferrothorn or heatran + bronzong so using fire blast on the switch isn't completely preferable, especially if mega altaria is modest. using eq is safer in these scenarios. i dont feel like i'm explaining this right but it's a small part of using special mega altaria which has come into play various times. essentially the use of earthquake encourages opponents to believe mega altaria is physical, thus luring them into bringing in their physical mega altaria counter.
 
Why is Cloud Nine bad? You can switch into a rain-boosted Water move, Thunder or Hurricane, a Sun-boosted Fire move or Solarbeam, etc and cancel the boost, as well as one less turn of Sand and Hail damage.
Natural Cure would only be useful if you switch in and switch out immediately, and you already get Refresh and Heal Bell anyway
 

Karxrida

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I actually think Cloud Nine should be slashed on EVERY set. It makes switching into Zard Y significantly easier (on top of screwing it over on Solar Beam mis-predicts), neuters Weather sweepers when you switch in, and Mega mechanics let you rob them of Speed advantage on the turn you Mega.
 

Shurtugal

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OP said:
Set Details
========
  • Given EV spread with a Timid nature outruns max speed Jolly Mega Heracross, Timid Heatran, Adamant Excadrill, and Adamant Lucario.
  • Modest Max Speed and Special Attack is slower but hits harder, doesn't gain too many notable KOes
  • Investment in bulk possible at the cost of speed
  • Modest because Mega Altaria needs as much power as possible
This is contradicting. Change it? I'm assuming Timid is better - what does Modest do better? Seems the OP is inconclusive on which is better?
 
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AccidentalGreed

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Smash Frog is gone. why

As for set order, I'm open to anything, though I'll refrain for now as I believe the defensive set generally has as much usefulness as the special attacker in terms of checking and luring in foes, with more bulk to help it in exchange for power and speed.
 
For the set order, I suggest : Defensive DD / Support / Special attacker / Offensive DD

Defensive DD is the better set, it makes Mega Altaria a defensive threat but also an offensive one !
Support is good because Mega Altaria has a great typing which allows him to wall many threats.
Special attacker is not bad but is worse than the other sets. Mega Altaria lacks bulk to wall some threats and is not really powerful. Mega Gardevoir outclasses this set but Altaria has some niches.
Offensive DD is the worst set because it is inferior to the Defensive DD and outclassed by Megazard X. However, it also has some niches which makes this set viable.
 

AM

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I mean I wouldn't go as far as to say Offensive DDance being the worst set considering the amount of firepower it has along with its coverage option. It's really good on offensive builds and unlike the defensive DDance spread with mono attack it isn't reliant on taking out every Steel type in existent to secure a sweep. Not saying that Offensive DDance should be before it but putting it last is just silly.
 

Jukain

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defensive dd is the worst or second worst set imo, it just struggles to really do much in the metagame...it loses to all common steels (ferro, scizor, skarm, jirachi, gross, tran, zone...) which means it needs pretty significant support and even then a pretty good matchup to put in work, as it just doesn't have the same level of power. special is easily the best set because it simply slaughters bulky offense and balance builds, which struggle to handle it defensively due to its great coverage and power. it's a very consistent and useful set on the whole. offensive dd is easily worn down, granted, but i'd say it's even much more potent because it can just set up a dd and slam the foe with its array of coverage and rather powerful boosted attacks. i'd also say it's the most difficult to handle for defensive teams, as unaware clefable is 2hkoed after rocks by return and little else wants to deal with it besides like mega venusaur. bulky dd is easily the most matchup-reliant of the sets and requires pretty significant support -- it's definitely not the best set.
 

AccidentalGreed

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Switched sets according to recent responses and experiences; Offensive DD is actually p. good because of its power and coverage, and if you use Fire Blast, that's pretty much a free kill on Skarmory, Ferrothorn, and other threats sometimes (bait with Return first). It's definitely not going to the bottom.

Defensive DD is safe, but rather difficult to pull off without great team support, and as a supporter, the Support set does a better job since it typically has another move to harass steels, and isn't pressured at all to sustain itself to sweep late-game. So I'm moving DDD down.

That being said, aside from set order, I do believe I covered everything that Altaria can do, if QC's okay with that.
 
Ok, so hear me out here: I think that it's a bit silly to just assume sweeper --> max attack max speed. Altaria has a pretty AMAZING typing, and it is usually more important to use the typing to your advantage than be as fast as possible at + 1. Max speed hits 388, which seems unnecessarily fast to me. As far as I'm concerned, you need to outspeed base 115s. And base 115s usually only run enough to outspeed Thundurus. So... you need enough to outspeed Thundurus. Of course you can run some more, but I think this should be the standard idea. Speed before you boost also seems kind of irrelevant to me. You need to outspeed Rotom-W to finish it off, but thats about it. I use 160 speed, which lets me outspeed said Thundurus and a few things that speed creep it. I like the bulk a lot, but perhaps even a small adjustment to the given EVs would be worth it. For my set, (96 HP/4 SpD) latios psyshock maxes out at 58.7%. For the set listed, it can do 63.5%. To me, that's a pretty big difference because with my set you can dd against latios and then ko it and live azumarill aqua jet or something, while the set listed cannot do that. I still run max attack adamant ftr.
 

AM

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It's sort of important to outrun Weavile with the given spread cause without enough investment it just floors you at +1. Can't really speak on your spread but that's just a heads up.
 

boltsandbombers

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It's sort of important to outrun Weavile with the given spread cause without enough investment it just floors you at +1. Can't really speak on your spread but that's just a heads up.
You need 240 speed EVs to outspeed Jolly Weavile at +1, so you might as well just go with max.
 
It's sort of important to outrun Weavile with the given spread cause without enough investment it just floors you at +1. Can't really speak on your spread but that's just a heads up.
I know it loses to Weavile... but pretty much nobody uses Weavile. I think at a certain point the ability to outspeed random things is overtaken by the ability to take hits. I guess it's just my opinion, but I think it's somewhat valid. Weavile is pretty much non existent, so I think the HP investment is much more important. Also, if you only need 240 EVs, save the rest for bulk! Altaria needs it badly, and I think it's a waste to throw them in because it's not very many.
 

AM

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Never said your point wasn't valid just stating something that should be noted regardless. All up to QC anyways.
 
defensive dd is the worst or second worst set imo, it just struggles to really do much in the metagame...it loses to all common steels (ferro, scizor, skarm, jirachi, gross, tran, zone...) which means it needs pretty significant support and even then a pretty good matchup to put in work, as it just doesn't have the same level of power. special is easily the best set because it simply slaughters bulky offense and balance builds, which struggle to handle it defensively due to its great coverage and power. it's a very consistent and useful set on the whole. offensive dd is easily worn down, granted, but i'd say it's even much more potent because it can just set up a dd and slam the foe with its array of coverage and rather powerful boosted attacks. i'd also say it's the most difficult to handle for defensive teams, as unaware clefable is 2hkoed after rocks by return and little else wants to deal with it besides like mega venusaur. bulky dd is easily the most matchup-reliant of the sets and requires pretty significant support -- it's definitely not the best set.
When you say that the special set is the best, which set are you referring to?

Draco Meteor/EQ | Hyper Voice | Fire Blast | Roost

or

Heal Bell | Roost | Hyper Voice | EQ

Also, what are your opinions on nature for the special and offensive DD sets? I was thinking Timid with heavy speed investment to outspeed Timid Heatran for the special set, but that would only be necessary if running EQ. For DD I'm not sure what's more important: fire power or speed..This pokemon honestly has so many sets/natures/ev's combinations that it's very difficult to hone in on a specific set without knowing the rest of the team. I'm confused :/
 
give four more speed evs for special altaria, the current spread speedties with diggersby if running modest. slash cloud nine on all altaria sets please. not getting 2hkod by zard-y after rocks is pretty significant if your team lacks solid switch-ins to it. dragon dance variants also benefit from being able to outspeed sandexca or swift swimmers after +1 and ohkoing back. i'd get rid of mentions of haze and substitute it with roar. it still gets rid of set up sweepers that might trouble you but it also forces unwanted switches, which are especially beneficial if hazards are up. get rid of safeguard in oo, it has better support options ._. .not much else to say, this is well done. 2/3
 
give four more speed evs for special altaria, the current spread speedties with diggersby if running modest. slash cloud nine on all altaria sets please. not getting 2hkod by zard-y after rocks is pretty significant if your team lacks solid switch-ins to it. dragon dance variants also benefit from being able to outspeed sandexca or swift swimmers after +1 and ohkoing back. i'd get rid of mentions of haze and substitute it with roar. it still gets rid of set up sweepers that might trouble you but it also forces unwanted switches, which are especially beneficial if hazards are up. get rid of safeguard in oo, it has better support options ._. .not much else to say, this is well done. 2/3

I'm glad you mentioned Cloud Nine.

I was discussing the option of Natural Cure vs. Cloud Nine with AM and he mentioned it was great as a Char-Y switch in. Just curious, do you think it's the superior ability overall or do you think Natural Cure is still better provided your team has a decent Char-Y switch in?
 
Just an observation, but why exactly is Cloud Nine preferred for the Special Attacking set?

Granted, it lets Altaria serve as a neat switch-in to Charizard-Y (halting its wallbreaking), but what is it going to do in return? Zard-Y resists Fairy, Fire, Ground, and can heal off any damage Altaria does with Roost. You aren't running DD, so you can't setup on it either.

Would you just Roost-stall until Sunlight wears off or something? That's all I can think of. Natural Cure at least lets you absorb crippling Scald burns and T-Waves before Mega Evolving.
 

AM

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Just an observation, but why exactly is Cloud Nine preferred for the Special Attacking set?

Granted, it lets Altaria serve as a neat switch-in to Charizard-Y (halting its wallbreaking), but what is it going to do in return? Zard-Y resists Fairy, Fire, Ground, and can heal off any damage Altaria does with Roost. You aren't running DD, so you can't setup on it either.

Would you just Roost-stall until Sunlight wears off or something? That's all I can think of. Natural Cure at least lets you absorb crippling Scald burns and T-Waves before Mega Evolving.
Cloud Nine deters weather offense as well which some such as Excadrill and Rain Offense play-style are reliant upon in maintaing that weather to achieve their goal. Being a switch in to Char-Y is just an added effect of having Cloud Nine at your disposable.

Edit: This is my 1000th post I guess and people wanted something so here it is.
 
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