Cloud Nine (Ability)

[adman2]

While only a few Pokemon get Cloud Nine (Golduck, Altaria, Lickilicky), it can frustrate weather teams by negating their effects. Here's a silly replay of mine where the opponent forfeited on the first turn when Drought didn't work quite as well as expected:


http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-81529172

Seriously, if you're running a non-weather team, play with it a bit. I'll need to test it further before deciding whether Golduck and Lickilicky are good enough for OU, but since there hasn't been a discussion before, I think I'll post it here.

Also for some weird reason, Showdown hasn't accounted for Cloud Nine announcing itself like Mold Breaker does. If you find wild Psyducks in Pokemon X, the game tells you on the first turn if they have it.

EDIT: Actually it does, but it's a bit hard to see in the log.

 

[Lolk]

Why would you not just use weather inducers yourself to completely negate the opponent's weather? Would using Golduck to negate sun be any more worth it than sending out Politoed (who can completely stop the opposing weather as well as supporting its own STABs)? I don't think sacrificing team slots for Pokemon that have meager stats is worth going out of your way for when there are much easier ways to counter weather.

For starters, Terrakion reks practically every weather inducer. Rain could get sketchy if Politoed is bulkier but then again every bulky Grass-type is an answer to Rain teams. Protect also stalls out weather conditions.

 

[finally]

I think running ttar is usually a good anti-weather measure. He checks zard-y pretty well (he checks even better if he is mega-ttar because of negative priority sand summon stopping solar beam). Ttar also checks abomasnow and ninetales. Politoed however, beats him.
Perhaps problem with running ttar is boosting enemy sand abusers, but usually those aren't ~too~ hard to beat because those same pokemon are usually beaten by water or ice (which are common in teambuilding).
Like lolk said, usually it's better to run checks for the weather that you are having trouble with instead of using the pokemon that get cloud nine since they have rather meager stats.

 

[Electrolyte]

Yeah, weather definitely isn't what it was a generation ago.

Cloud Nine is an interesting ability, but running such a lackluster Pokemon such as most of the Cloud Nine Pokemon (Altaria, Lickilicky, Golduck) really isn't worth it considering the fact that weather isn't too popular, nor is it too powerful. The combined usage percentages of all possible auto-weather inducers is just less than 50% (even less than that, though, because only 80% of Charizard carry Charizardite Y)

In such a fast paced metagame as Doubles, teams simply cannot forsake a whole slot just to semi-reliably handle weather teams with more ease. It's inefficient to carry a Cloud Nine Pokemon, as Lolk stated.


Also, I don't even find weather abusers to be as threatening as they used to be. Nonweather does just fine by itself, and you'll have a hard time finding any actual weather based teams, as many of the teams that carry weather use it as a secondary strategy (such as independent sweeper CharY or MegaChomp+Sand.) Team solidity is more important when it comes to countering weather than a single anti-weather Pokemon, be it Cloud Nine or a whole different type of weather inducer.

 

[adman2]

Hard time finding weather based teams? 90% of the ones I tend to fight are weather (usually Sun). I wonder if we play different ladders. . .

 

[Nollan]

Hard time finding weather based teams? 90% of the ones I tend to fight are weather (usually Sun). I wonder if we play different ladders. . .

Based on usage statistics, its the lower ranked players that tend to spam Sun + Chlorophyll teams (we're typically talking lineups like Charizard / Ninetales / Typhlosion / Venusaur / Exeggutor / Shiftry here) on the ladder. This is because (as others have stated) opposing weather will shut down these teams, which have no options outside of abusing Sun and are hence not flexible enough to attain the higher rankings that well-built teams can. Solid play with a weatherless team on its own can usually beat these sorts of teams as well, granted they are very frail defensively in general. If you really want to hard counter Sun (or Sand), use Politoed or Rain Dance; they will both do better jobs than Cloud Nine.

And if you are determined to use weatherless teams, I highly recommend you have a member that matches up well against the 3 common weathers (i.e. Rotom-W/Ludicolo for rain, Chandelure/Heatran for sun, Hitmontop/Landorus-T for sand, etc), so you will have a solid answer to any weather based team you may run into (this is coming from someone who uses weatherless teams a lot, just so you are aware).

 

[Darkmalice]

While only a few Pokemon get Cloud Nine (Golduck, Altaria, Lickilicky), it can frustrate weather teams by negating their effects. Here's a silly replay of mine where the opponent forfeited on the first turn when Drought didn't work quite as well as expected:


http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogondoubles-81529172

Seriously, if you're running a non-weather team, play with it a bit. I'll need to test it further before deciding whether Golduck and Lickilicky are good enough for OU, but since there hasn't been a discussion before, I think I'll post it here.

Also for some weird reason, Showdown hasn't accounted for Cloud Nine announcing itself like Mold Breaker does. If you find wild Psyducks in Pokemon X, the game tells you on the first turn if they have it.

EDIT: Actually it does, but it's a bit hard to see in the log.

No competent player will ever select Solarbeam with Zard Y when your opponent has a Golduck. Your replay lost all validity on the first turn, and that's ignoring what Pokemon your opponent used (Chatot, seriously?). You cannot claim that Cloud Nine is viable based of just one replay, especially that replay.

Of note, Golduck was raised for being listed on the viability ranking list, and pretty much everyone believed it was too bad to be listed on it.

And everything else everyone said on this read. Cloud Nine sucks.

 

[Level 51]

Cloud Nine sucks.

I wouldn't say Cloud Nine sucks per se, but I would agree that there is no point in using a Pokemon just for Cloud Nine, since all of the users of Cloud Nine are pretty subpar (some more than others); furthermore, as other people have mentioned, you can simply cancel the weather with another weather Pokemon (usually Tyranitar). However, being one half of the resident bad/good gimmicks team, I will give a mention to Altaria, since it actually possesses reasonable bulk (75/90/105; in comparison Rotom-A is 50/107/107) and a neat support movepool, including Tailwind, Roost, Safeguard, Haze, Heal Bell, Feather Dance, and of course Perish Song. In this case Cloud Nine is the icing on the cake, since Altaria already beats CharYs not carrying Dragon Pulse or HP Ice 1-on-1:

252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Overheat vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Altaria: 129-153 (36.4 - 43.2%) -- 97.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Air Slash vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Altaria: 150-177 (42.3 - 50%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Ancient Power vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Altaria: 160-190 (45.1 - 53.6%) -- 2.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (hi youngjake!)

and that's with minimal SDef investment! Now look at the physical side:

252+ Atk Mega Tyranitar Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Altaria: 186-218 (52.5 - 61.5%) -- 96.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (I hope they're not carrying Stone Edge!)

but, you know, that's prolly just me being weird as usual. Feel free to now shoot this argument full of holes. Or devise a cool set for Altaria if you feel like it n_n!

 

[adman2]

No competent player will ever select Solarbeam with Zard Y when your opponent has a Golduck. Your replay lost all validity on the first turn, and that's ignoring what Pokemon your opponent used (Chatot, seriously?). You cannot claim that Cloud Nine is viable based of just one replay, especially that replay.

Of note, Golduck was raised for being listed on the viability ranking list, and pretty much everyone believed it was too bad to be listed on it.

And everything else everyone said on this read. Cloud Nine sucks.

Calm down a bit. That replay was mainly to show you something silly that happened with this gimmick. After playing with Golduck a little more, I've realized he's not all that good. Good point about the viability list.

I'm building a manual Rain team for Wifi, partly because I've already bred some Pokemon that would benefit from it (though don't necessarily REQUIRE it to function).

As for Chatot, maybe my opponent was used to playing Winter's Wont where Chatot was surprisingly decent thanks to Boomburst and 100% confusion Chatter? Of course, I don't think Exploud exists in that metagame, which would trump Chatot in every way. . .

 

[bearcanine]

Lickilicky was kind of effective with Trick Room in Gen 5. It had Hammer Arm against Tyranitar, Power Whip against Politoed, Aqua Tail against Ninetales, and STAB/Normal Gem Explosion for everything else. Sun seems to be the dominant weather though, and he lacks a solid Rock attack against Charizard Y. Weather is also less popular overall. I don't think he'd be as good in this gen.

Edit: Oh. He gets Rock Slide and Earthquake.

 

[Electrolyte]

Yeah the problem with Cloud Nine isn't the ability in and of itself, nor is it with the actual function- I mean, look at Rayquaza. The problem is just that the only options you have if you want to run a Cloud Nine user are Pokemon that are pretty terrible in other regards, enough to make such an endeavor not worth the team slot. It's more reliable to run a Pokemon like Rotom-W or Heatran or even your own weather to counteract other weathers because at least those Pokemon can do other things.

 

[Darkmalice]

Ok I was over exaggerating with Cloud Nine. I agree with Level 51 - it doesn't suck, but it's users are pretty bad. Same for Altaria - yes it has Tailwind, but otherwise it just sits there and deals little damage with its pitiful SpA (or Atk), whilst your opponent switches out Zard Y for something that counters Altaria. Even common Pokemon like Kang and Aegislash beat it without super-effective coverage because they take far less damage from it than they will deal to it.

On the plus side, it can wall all the weather inducers sans Abomasnow if it runs Roost. It removes that Rock-type and x4 Ice Beam weakness that would otherwise ruin its hopes against Tyranitar and Politoed. Though it's still a sitting duck, and your opponent has two Pokemon to beat up on it, or just leave it there and beat up its teammates.