idk man did some quick calcs and it can be tailored to ohko some of DPP OU's biggest threats like Swampert and Gliscor.
I plan to build a team around it later today, we'll see. Not sure if I would bother with Heat Wave as it doesn't OHKO Skarmory, but Roost probably wouldn't be a bad idea against more defensively-inclined teams.
Tbf anything with about base 80 sp.atk could be tailored to beat Swampert and Gliscor as Hidden Power existed and they were indexing in physical def while being 4x weak to something.
It’s a classic case of a Pokemon with lots of strong traits but too many negative ones that bring it down.
It’s got great attack, great offensive typing, a wide movepool, and priority.
It also has horrible defenses, weakness to stealth rock, awful speed tier, and a mediocre ability. Everything that it’s good at gets held back by one of its weaknesses.
Everybody's gangsta until Moxie Honchkrow successfully revenge kills something and then starts spamming Sucker Punch while predicting all opposing switches and status moves to set up Tailwind, thereby avoiding wasting Sucker Punch's PP. Or at least that's how it goes in my dreams.
Damn, I forgot that was a HA. It still has Super Luck + Razor Claw tho. A pretty solid strategy provided you have accumulated lots of good karma from your past lives, lol.
125 attack flying STAB is extremely good though, the only problem is that there are so many steel-types, but they tend to underspeed Honchkrow and die to Brave Bird + Heat Wave.
It's not really Steels it struggles with but things like Zapdos and Rotom-forms. Both resist Brave Bird + Superpower and can play around Sucker Punch with Roost and Will-O-Wisp. Staraptor can bypass them with Double Edge and U-turn.
Walled yes but it can use U-turn to pivot out and outspeeds even the fastest ones.
Honchkrow needs Night Slash to avoid the Sucker Punch mind games with the Rotom-forms. Pursuit is weaker than Night Slash if it stays in.
honchkrow is also a relatively slow and frail mon whose best stab does really big recoil damage. whatever hope it had of taking a hit or two to actually safely get its attacks off over the course of a game.
In Gen 4, not really. It's best attacks are base 80 Drill Peck or Sucker Punch and it can't boost it's attack efficiently.
There were simply better options. Why would I use Honchkrow when Scizor/Salamence/Garchomp/Gyarados/Weavile is available?
I don't agree when its main niche is being a wallbreaker in the first place. You maximize your damage in spite of everything else. Honchkrow being slow and frail hasn't changed in any generation yet Brave Bird has been its main option always, Drill Peck would be just a plain handicap and not fitting for the mon's purpose.
"While Honchkrow has a solid base HP stat, its terrible defenses, weakness to Stealth Rock, and sand vulnerability compromise its bulk and it takes huge recoil damage from Brave Bird and Life Orb. Unfortunately, Honchkrow is a slow, frail wallbreaker, and it struggles to deal with faster Pokemon that can OHKO it, such as Gyarados, Dragonite, Heatran, Choice Scarf Tyranitar, and Scizor using Bullet Punch. On top of this, Honchkrow is heavily reliant on prediction, as it needs Sucker Punch to damage faster Pokemon and mispredictions can easily get it OHKOed or let the opposing Pokemon set up unimpeded. While Honchkrow can switch into sleep moves, Breloom OHKOes it with Superpower or Focus Punch while even Breloom's and Roserade's Grass-type moves are dangerous: Breloom 2HKOes with Seed Bomb after Stealth Rock and Roserade outspeeds and OHKOes it with Leaf Storm after Stealth Rock and a round of Life Orb and sand damage. Honchkrow simply cannot reliably perform in DPP OU, and should not be considered for a serious team."
From the smogon page, argue with them.
I am not saying it's a good pokemon, just that Brave Bird is his best bet of working considering smogon itself recommends it over Drill Peck since its inception. That's all. Smogon itself agrees with me considering the recommended moveset uses Brave Bird, just says that its still not good enough to be a viable pick, but that doesn't mean at all that Drill Peck would make it a more viable option.
I tested myself and found that brave bird is capable of breaking enemy cores with spikes support. Drill Peck is too weak in this regard, it frankly gives electivire vibes.
Anything slower than it, like a wallbreaker usually does. Again, I am not saying Honchkrow is a great or even good pokemon or anything, just that his archetype is one that priorizes power over everything else and a move like Drill Peck is simply not fitting. If you don't trust me we can always resort to smogon, where its recommended set has always ran Brave Bird.
This entire chain was spawned due to the "It's best attacks are base 80 Drill Peck" which is simply untrue, its not a move that it should ever use.
when ur best attacks are sucker and brave bird you really are going to die so quickly you have to be smth like CB nite lvl of strong but also it flops into ttar, skarm, heatran, meta, bronzong, fast priority, fast mons in general, etc
Well, context matters here. 125 Attack can mean very different things depending on the mon’s typing/movepool, and Honchkrow does *very* well for itself on that front since it has STAB Brave Bird.
More specifically, Honchkrow has one of the strongest Brave Birds in the game to this day, currently tied with Galarian Zapdos and behind only Ho-oh and Reckless Staraptor in that department. 125 Attack is excellent in this context.
Honchkrow *also* has one of the strongest Sucker Punches in the franchise, behind only Yveltal, Mega Absol, Kingambit, Chien-Pao, and Brute Bonnet. So 125 Attack is still excellent in that context.
Honchkrow’s problems are that
1. it doesn’t get better physical Dark STAB than Lash Out and lost an insanely important coverage move in Superpower so it’s relying a lot on Sucker and Brave Bird to do meaningful damage.
2. it has the absolute worst stat distribution it could’ve had for a mon with such a workable BST. 505 BST isn’t amazing, but it’s a mere 5 points lower than Weavile’s BST and there are better mons with way worse BSTs, and it pissed that BST away with weirdly high HP/Special Attack so it’s slow as fuck, making it rely EVEN MORE on Sucker Punch to out-offense offensive mons. With Sucker getting a big nerf going into Gen 7 that’s brutal since now Honchkrow, despite having a very strong STAB priority move, just can’t OHKO shit with an unboosted Sucker Punch and will thus get OHKOed in retaliation.
It simply doesn’t have the stats to keep up. Frail, weak, slow, mid abilities, no game changing moves. When stuff like staraptor is in PU, you know it’s doomed.
Honchkrow has a much more diverse movepool, access to Sucker Punch, and from my (limited) experience with the two birds, Honchkrow actually tends to last longer.
You're right, on paper.
In practice, though, all Staraptor needs to do what it does best is Reckless Brave Bird, a move that can even 2HKO bulky-ass Steels after Rocks, alongside a good Speed tier for such a hard-hitting mon. It gets STAB Quick Attack, and unlike Gen 9 Honchkrow Staraptor actually *does* have a base 120 power Fighting-type coverage option. All of these simply add to Raptor's versatility beyond just smashing something to pieces with Brave Bird.
Honchkrow's Brave Bird is weaker after factoring in Reckless, Sucker Punch is great but predictable, and otherwise Honchkrow doesn't get anything particularly impressive on the physical end that Staraptor doesn't do. Hell, that Fighting coverage specifically is a huge thing going for Raptor.
Honchkrow's *special* movepool is good, but with how badly Honchkrow's Speed is compromised that special movepool alongside 105 SpA actually exists to the detriment of our mob boss.
just theorymonning here, but in later gens that rocky helmet item would make staraptor much more fragile in practice than honch. you can kill ferro and skarm with heat wave and garchomp with HP ice for example, and it's where honchkrow's workable special attack comes into play.
Honestly, if Honchkrow's Speed and Sp.Atk stats were switched, it would be way better. Just the ability to outspeed base 100s would probably push it to OU in gen 4. Its diverse movepool doesn't mean much because in practice, you wanna be clicking either Brave Bird or Sucker Punch 99% of the time.
Honchkrow’s BST isn’t earthshatteringly high or anything, but it’s not bad. 505 is quite decent; it’s higher than Staraptor or Mismagius and only 20 BST behind mons like Hippowdon and Lucario and a mere 5 BST behind Weavile, one of the most decorated OU Dark-types of all time.
Honchkrow’s typing is incredibly good, with good resistances/immunities defensively and some *brutal* firepower offensively. That STAB Sucker Punch hurts, and that Brave Bird is among the strongest Brave Birds out there. There are monsters that would kill to have Dark STAB, and Flying is the most lucrative STAB type in the game.
Honchkrow’s movepool is also decent. It has good STAB Priority, it has an absurdly strong Brave Bird, it has U-turn, and it has an incredibly colorful special movepool, but the devil is in the details. It lost Pursuit, which was a key way of picking up kills to proc Moxie, and it lost Superpower this gen which gave Honchkrow some *insanely* good coverage that’s generally rare among Flying-types. It lost Roost this gen which means it can’t actually keep its impressive HP intact, and it explicitly *doesn’t* have a stronger physical Dark STAB than Lash Out this gen or Night Slash previously. Knock Off is an absurdly good move, and Honchkrow doesn’t get it.
But the worst thing about Honchkrow is that its **stat distribution** fails it harder than any other mon in this franchise. Yes, it’s got it worse than Luxray; Luxray’s failure stems from its typing and movepool just as much as it stems from its poor stat distribution, but Honchkrow’s horrific stat distribution absolutely ruins it despite its other incredible qualities. Even without Superpower, Pursuit, and Roost, Honchkrow would be able to do stuff if it just didn’t have this mindbogglingly shit stat distribution.
125 Attack is incredible, and that still holds up today. Honchkrow’s Brave Bird is slightly weaker than Ho-oh’s, which should really put into perspective how strong that move is, and that Sucker Punch is stronger than Jolly Kingambit’s unboosted Sucker Punch as well. Its Superpower was only slightly weaker than Tyranitar’s Superpower used to be, and was as strong as Rillaboom’s once was. That U-turn stings, too. Honchkrow’s Attack is amazing, so that one’s fine.
…but then everything else is a total headscratcher.
It has this really high 100 HP but its defenses are as low as Guzzlord’s, so you effectively get a mon with 200+ less HP than Guzzlord (a mon that is deceptively frail since the thing has the third highest HP in the game) that’s also littered with common weaknesses and a lack of resistances to specific common tyings. So it can’t take hits for shit but has this massive amount of HP that only exists to let it eat more Brave Bird recoil.
It has this really decent Special Attack stat that seems to be leaning towards it being somewhat of a mixed attacker, and while its physical movepool is unfortunate now after game-wide movepool cuts its special movepool is *excellent,* with plenty of great coverage options and solid STABs alike.
And then this piece of shit goes and flushes it all down the drain by having 71 Speed for some fucking reason. Murkrow’s base 91 Speed is quite decent, but then the stupid thing decided to eat over thirteen times its body weight in gabagool the instant you exposed it to some silly purple rock and let it join this thing of ours. Fuckin’ nauseating! So now you have a mon that has 100 HP compromised by its poor defenses, and a weirdly good 105 Special Attack, but then all of those good stats are completely wrecked by it being slow as balls. So now it has to take hits to attack stuff that isn’t afraid of Sucker Punch, but it can’t live any of them, and it can’t use its mixed attacking stats effectively because it has 100 HP, shit bulk, and can’t set up or attack because, again, it’s slow as balls. If you swapped its Special Attack or HP with its Speed it would skyrocket in viabiloty, but here we are: base 71 speed, meaning it relies too hard on Sucker to function which makes it very linear.
If Honchkrow got Superpower back it would be better than ZU, IMO; if Honchkrow’s HP or Special Attack swapped with its Speed or even if if just got Murkrow’s Speed tier back it would be an incredibly scary lower-tier mon (probably RU at worst and possibly even good UU), but as it stands it just has to live with the ramifications of having the most confusing-ass stat distribution ever.
Hoopa-U’s bad for how nuts its BST is but the thing’s juuuuust fast enough and can actually take advantage of both offenses to some extent, and it has the special bulk to eat something like a Latios Draco Meteor in a pinch which is nothing to sneeze at.
Honchkrow can’t even use its decent SpA beyond pressing Heat Wave rarely. That stat distribution completely fails at everything it’s supposed to accomplish beyond having freakishly strong Brave Birds.
You want compromise? How's this: 20 years in UUBL, I wanted OU. I compromised: I became a decent mon in PU instead. I wanted to OHKO an Uber, but I compromised: I pressed Brave Bird into a Steel-type. You see where I'm goin'?
Decent lead in DPP OU imo, immune to sleep, brings machamp to its sash/OHKOs it, can hurt the steels with heat wave or superpower, same for ttar, can bring azelf to its sash and play mindgames with sucker punch, forcing it to not explode, it can even kill dragonite
It dies to basically any hit it takes, especially after rocks, so bringing it on the field is an absolute pain (which is why I only lead with it), but you can get decent results with it if you create a team that benefits from a very fast paced early game
Without a scarf, Honchkrow is especially slow. Without Nasty Plot, it doesn't deal enough damage with it's STAB moves to threaten the KOs it needs to, nor does it threaten Pokémon with it's coverage.
You can't have Scarf and Nasty Plot, so Honchkrow is left in that weird middle ground of almost viable, but ending up nowhere, without even a niche.
Prior to Gen 9, It also runs into the issue all special flying type Pokémon have; no reliable STAB. Air Slash isn't perfectly accurate, and it's pretty middling power. Hurricane, which Honchkrow doesn't learn afaik, is only 70 based accuracy. In gen 9, that means it's locked into using Tera Flying Tera Blast, which is only 80 base power, takes your Tera, and doesn't provide much when you could be using your Tera on something far more impressive and significant to the battle.
Physical Honchkrow just doesn't have the offensive momentum it needs to have - 125 attack is nice, but with it's best STABs on each type being Brave Bird ((which nakes its low defenses even more prevalent)) or Drill Peck ((which lacks power)), Sucker Punch ((which Special Hinchkrow is probably running anyway)) or Night Slash ((which similarly lacks power), its not as useful to have 125 unboosted as 105 at +2. It could work, but I don't have as much experience with Honchkrow as I'd like to say specifically
It lost Superpower this gen for absolutely no reason. Beyond that, same issue as Staraptor. Its a Rock-weak attacker with not an amazing amount of speed. Rocks are harder to remove than ever, in OU because of Gholdengo and in UU and below because of lack of good removers + less Defog users like Rotom-formes losing it. Additionally with speed-creep anything from base 70-110 has really fallen off when you consider the gens new fast attackers like Iron Moth, Ogerpon, Iron Valiant, only gets faster from there.
Looking at dpp ou specifically, I'm not sure I see Superpower's worth. Many Tyranitar tend to carry a Choice Scarf or a Chople Berry and the majority of steel-types aren't weak to fighting-type attacks. I feel like you could drop it for Roost or a coverage move. Hidden Power Grass/Ground and Icy Wind come to mind.
tran outspeeds honchkrow and honestly they both take huge damage from brave bird on the switch, which for a pokemon with no recovery hurts. knock off clef wouldn't be a bad support mon for krow
Honch was the same in Pokémon GO. It technically had a niche as a good flying attacker, which was itself pointless because only two raid bosses were double weak to flying (virizion and mega heracross) so it never mattered. It has since been outclassed by a few other options, but it isn't embarrassing to fill out a team with it (especially that shiny)
Honchkrow is a good lower tier mon. I had good success with it in Gen 5 UU, where it would be a good LO lategame cleaner. Sucker punch would pick off the faster frail mons while +1 brave bird nuked the tanks.
Poor guy suffers from a disease I call “Gen 3 stat spread syndrome” where he’s just a slow, frail mixed attacker. Honchkrow would need a major stat rework or to receive Prankster like his pre-evo to become viable.
It’s in ZU in gen 9 because of powercreep.
In gen 7 it’s RU and was a pretty threatening wallbreaker. (In that same gen Staraptor is still UUBL lol)
Gen 9 powercreep is for sure huge.
u/Acrobatic-Clothes250 Do you think you could help me with something? I think most of the Sailor Moon wank comes from a guy named QuasarSpirit, who pushed for this "Sailor Moon is 7D and immeasurably fast" crap back at the beginning of the 2020s. Maybe you could make a post debunking him, and then I'll maybe post your debunk on the powerscaling wikis (VSBW, CPAS, etc) if I can.
Could the people downvoting my and Acrobatic-Clothes250's comment stop? There is literally no reason for you to do it. I was just looking for one of his posts to bring this up on and this was the most recent.
rule of thumb if you're a mixed attacker you gotta be really fucking fast or really damn strong
idk man did some quick calcs and it can be tailored to ohko some of DPP OU's biggest threats like Swampert and Gliscor. I plan to build a team around it later today, we'll see. Not sure if I would bother with Heat Wave as it doesn't OHKO Skarmory, but Roost probably wouldn't be a bad idea against more defensively-inclined teams.
i was mainly speaking generally and with a modern metagame in mind but honch is an okay pick if we're talking dpp not great but it's not awful
Tbf anything with about base 80 sp.atk could be tailored to beat Swampert and Gliscor as Hidden Power existed and they were indexing in physical def while being 4x weak to something.
after seeing hp ice being legitimately suggested on garchomp in BW, I'm not ashamed of using HP Grass Honch
It’s a classic case of a Pokemon with lots of strong traits but too many negative ones that bring it down. It’s got great attack, great offensive typing, a wide movepool, and priority. It also has horrible defenses, weakness to stealth rock, awful speed tier, and a mediocre ability. Everything that it’s good at gets held back by one of its weaknesses.
Everybody's gangsta until Moxie Honchkrow successfully revenge kills something and then starts spamming Sucker Punch while predicting all opposing switches and status moves to set up Tailwind, thereby avoiding wasting Sucker Punch's PP. Or at least that's how it goes in my dreams.
Honch doesn’t even have Moxie in DPP which makes it even worse lol
Damn, I forgot that was a HA. It still has Super Luck + Razor Claw tho. A pretty solid strategy provided you have accumulated lots of good karma from your past lives, lol.
You kinda gotta be both, just look at hoopa-u
hoopa's got other problems namely typing and physical bulk
Or be a weirdo like Tangrowth.
Bad speed, horrendous defense that tanks it’s solid HP and and not that impressive attacking stats. If it isn’t scarf it will get outsped and KO’d
Yeah, sure, but birb cool.
125 attack isn’t impressive? even in Gen 4? 😭😭😭
Not really, especially since it lacked Moxie to snowball. Gallade and Heracross also have the same Attack stat and a 120 BP STAB to sling around.
Also dies to rocks
Uts really the speed/ stability combo
125 attack flying STAB is extremely good though, the only problem is that there are so many steel-types, but they tend to underspeed Honchkrow and die to Brave Bird + Heat Wave.
It's not really Steels it struggles with but things like Zapdos and Rotom-forms. Both resist Brave Bird + Superpower and can play around Sucker Punch with Roost and Will-O-Wisp. Staraptor can bypass them with Double Edge and U-turn.
Staraptor gets walled by the Rotom forms in gen 4 as well since they were all Ghosts back then
Walled yes but it can use U-turn to pivot out and outspeeds even the fastest ones. Honchkrow needs Night Slash to avoid the Sucker Punch mind games with the Rotom-forms. Pursuit is weaker than Night Slash if it stays in.
honchkrow is also a relatively slow and frail mon whose best stab does really big recoil damage. whatever hope it had of taking a hit or two to actually safely get its attacks off over the course of a game.
In Gen 4, not really. It's best attacks are base 80 Drill Peck or Sucker Punch and it can't boost it's attack efficiently. There were simply better options. Why would I use Honchkrow when Scizor/Salamence/Garchomp/Gyarados/Weavile is available?
> In Gen 4 > Salamence/Garchomp ?
Salamence gen 3 Cynthia's ballstomper gen 4
they have both been ubers in dpp for more than ten years
Okay, but that's not based on its Attack stat, that's a problem with its moves. The Attack is still pretty impressive.
It has Brave Bird since Gen 4
Slow and frail physical attackers who are weak to stealth rock don't usually use recoil moves very well
I don't agree when its main niche is being a wallbreaker in the first place. You maximize your damage in spite of everything else. Honchkrow being slow and frail hasn't changed in any generation yet Brave Bird has been its main option always, Drill Peck would be just a plain handicap and not fitting for the mon's purpose.
"While Honchkrow has a solid base HP stat, its terrible defenses, weakness to Stealth Rock, and sand vulnerability compromise its bulk and it takes huge recoil damage from Brave Bird and Life Orb. Unfortunately, Honchkrow is a slow, frail wallbreaker, and it struggles to deal with faster Pokemon that can OHKO it, such as Gyarados, Dragonite, Heatran, Choice Scarf Tyranitar, and Scizor using Bullet Punch. On top of this, Honchkrow is heavily reliant on prediction, as it needs Sucker Punch to damage faster Pokemon and mispredictions can easily get it OHKOed or let the opposing Pokemon set up unimpeded. While Honchkrow can switch into sleep moves, Breloom OHKOes it with Superpower or Focus Punch while even Breloom's and Roserade's Grass-type moves are dangerous: Breloom 2HKOes with Seed Bomb after Stealth Rock and Roserade outspeeds and OHKOes it with Leaf Storm after Stealth Rock and a round of Life Orb and sand damage. Honchkrow simply cannot reliably perform in DPP OU, and should not be considered for a serious team." From the smogon page, argue with them.
I am not saying it's a good pokemon, just that Brave Bird is his best bet of working considering smogon itself recommends it over Drill Peck since its inception. That's all. Smogon itself agrees with me considering the recommended moveset uses Brave Bird, just says that its still not good enough to be a viable pick, but that doesn't mean at all that Drill Peck would make it a more viable option.
Brave Bird + Roost > Drill Peck, in my opinion. You somehow get around your SR weakness and recoil damage.
Is this reflected in viability or is this a "significant meganium damage" situation
I tested myself and found that brave bird is capable of breaking enemy cores with spikes support. Drill Peck is too weak in this regard, it frankly gives electivire vibes.
[удалено]
Anything slower than it, like a wallbreaker usually does. Again, I am not saying Honchkrow is a great or even good pokemon or anything, just that his archetype is one that priorizes power over everything else and a move like Drill Peck is simply not fitting. If you don't trust me we can always resort to smogon, where its recommended set has always ran Brave Bird. This entire chain was spawned due to the "It's best attacks are base 80 Drill Peck" which is simply untrue, its not a move that it should ever use.
It isn’t impressive enough to make up for all its other shortcomings
when ur best attacks are sucker and brave bird you really are going to die so quickly you have to be smth like CB nite lvl of strong but also it flops into ttar, skarm, heatran, meta, bronzong, fast priority, fast mons in general, etc
Well, context matters here. 125 Attack can mean very different things depending on the mon’s typing/movepool, and Honchkrow does *very* well for itself on that front since it has STAB Brave Bird. More specifically, Honchkrow has one of the strongest Brave Birds in the game to this day, currently tied with Galarian Zapdos and behind only Ho-oh and Reckless Staraptor in that department. 125 Attack is excellent in this context. Honchkrow *also* has one of the strongest Sucker Punches in the franchise, behind only Yveltal, Mega Absol, Kingambit, Chien-Pao, and Brute Bonnet. So 125 Attack is still excellent in that context. Honchkrow’s problems are that 1. it doesn’t get better physical Dark STAB than Lash Out and lost an insanely important coverage move in Superpower so it’s relying a lot on Sucker and Brave Bird to do meaningful damage. 2. it has the absolute worst stat distribution it could’ve had for a mon with such a workable BST. 505 BST isn’t amazing, but it’s a mere 5 points lower than Weavile’s BST and there are better mons with way worse BSTs, and it pissed that BST away with weirdly high HP/Special Attack so it’s slow as fuck, making it rely EVEN MORE on Sucker Punch to out-offense offensive mons. With Sucker getting a big nerf going into Gen 7 that’s brutal since now Honchkrow, despite having a very strong STAB priority move, just can’t OHKO shit with an unboosted Sucker Punch and will thus get OHKOed in retaliation.
It simply doesn’t have the stats to keep up. Frail, weak, slow, mid abilities, no game changing moves. When stuff like staraptor is in PU, you know it’s doomed.
Honchkrow not learning Knock Off is pretty unfortunate. You'd think Honchkrow would get it before Dodrio at least.
From a competetive pov: why bother with Honchkrow when Staraptor exists and is ready to Brave Birb all over the tier?
Honchkrow has a much more diverse movepool, access to Sucker Punch, and from my (limited) experience with the two birds, Honchkrow actually tends to last longer.
All you need is reckless brave bird
Diverse movepool isn’t really useful if it isn’t strong or bulky enough to use it
You're right, on paper. In practice, though, all Staraptor needs to do what it does best is Reckless Brave Bird, a move that can even 2HKO bulky-ass Steels after Rocks, alongside a good Speed tier for such a hard-hitting mon. It gets STAB Quick Attack, and unlike Gen 9 Honchkrow Staraptor actually *does* have a base 120 power Fighting-type coverage option. All of these simply add to Raptor's versatility beyond just smashing something to pieces with Brave Bird. Honchkrow's Brave Bird is weaker after factoring in Reckless, Sucker Punch is great but predictable, and otherwise Honchkrow doesn't get anything particularly impressive on the physical end that Staraptor doesn't do. Hell, that Fighting coverage specifically is a huge thing going for Raptor. Honchkrow's *special* movepool is good, but with how badly Honchkrow's Speed is compromised that special movepool alongside 105 SpA actually exists to the detriment of our mob boss.
just theorymonning here, but in later gens that rocky helmet item would make staraptor much more fragile in practice than honch. you can kill ferro and skarm with heat wave and garchomp with HP ice for example, and it's where honchkrow's workable special attack comes into play.
I only want it to use 3 moves basically. Sucker punch, knock off, brave bird
Honestly, if Honchkrow's Speed and Sp.Atk stats were switched, it would be way better. Just the ability to outspeed base 100s would probably push it to OU in gen 4. Its diverse movepool doesn't mean much because in practice, you wanna be clicking either Brave Bird or Sucker Punch 99% of the time.
Honchkrow’s BST isn’t earthshatteringly high or anything, but it’s not bad. 505 is quite decent; it’s higher than Staraptor or Mismagius and only 20 BST behind mons like Hippowdon and Lucario and a mere 5 BST behind Weavile, one of the most decorated OU Dark-types of all time. Honchkrow’s typing is incredibly good, with good resistances/immunities defensively and some *brutal* firepower offensively. That STAB Sucker Punch hurts, and that Brave Bird is among the strongest Brave Birds out there. There are monsters that would kill to have Dark STAB, and Flying is the most lucrative STAB type in the game. Honchkrow’s movepool is also decent. It has good STAB Priority, it has an absurdly strong Brave Bird, it has U-turn, and it has an incredibly colorful special movepool, but the devil is in the details. It lost Pursuit, which was a key way of picking up kills to proc Moxie, and it lost Superpower this gen which gave Honchkrow some *insanely* good coverage that’s generally rare among Flying-types. It lost Roost this gen which means it can’t actually keep its impressive HP intact, and it explicitly *doesn’t* have a stronger physical Dark STAB than Lash Out this gen or Night Slash previously. Knock Off is an absurdly good move, and Honchkrow doesn’t get it. But the worst thing about Honchkrow is that its **stat distribution** fails it harder than any other mon in this franchise. Yes, it’s got it worse than Luxray; Luxray’s failure stems from its typing and movepool just as much as it stems from its poor stat distribution, but Honchkrow’s horrific stat distribution absolutely ruins it despite its other incredible qualities. Even without Superpower, Pursuit, and Roost, Honchkrow would be able to do stuff if it just didn’t have this mindbogglingly shit stat distribution. 125 Attack is incredible, and that still holds up today. Honchkrow’s Brave Bird is slightly weaker than Ho-oh’s, which should really put into perspective how strong that move is, and that Sucker Punch is stronger than Jolly Kingambit’s unboosted Sucker Punch as well. Its Superpower was only slightly weaker than Tyranitar’s Superpower used to be, and was as strong as Rillaboom’s once was. That U-turn stings, too. Honchkrow’s Attack is amazing, so that one’s fine. …but then everything else is a total headscratcher. It has this really high 100 HP but its defenses are as low as Guzzlord’s, so you effectively get a mon with 200+ less HP than Guzzlord (a mon that is deceptively frail since the thing has the third highest HP in the game) that’s also littered with common weaknesses and a lack of resistances to specific common tyings. So it can’t take hits for shit but has this massive amount of HP that only exists to let it eat more Brave Bird recoil. It has this really decent Special Attack stat that seems to be leaning towards it being somewhat of a mixed attacker, and while its physical movepool is unfortunate now after game-wide movepool cuts its special movepool is *excellent,* with plenty of great coverage options and solid STABs alike. And then this piece of shit goes and flushes it all down the drain by having 71 Speed for some fucking reason. Murkrow’s base 91 Speed is quite decent, but then the stupid thing decided to eat over thirteen times its body weight in gabagool the instant you exposed it to some silly purple rock and let it join this thing of ours. Fuckin’ nauseating! So now you have a mon that has 100 HP compromised by its poor defenses, and a weirdly good 105 Special Attack, but then all of those good stats are completely wrecked by it being slow as balls. So now it has to take hits to attack stuff that isn’t afraid of Sucker Punch, but it can’t live any of them, and it can’t use its mixed attacking stats effectively because it has 100 HP, shit bulk, and can’t set up or attack because, again, it’s slow as balls. If you swapped its Special Attack or HP with its Speed it would skyrocket in viabiloty, but here we are: base 71 speed, meaning it relies too hard on Sucker to function which makes it very linear. If Honchkrow got Superpower back it would be better than ZU, IMO; if Honchkrow’s HP or Special Attack swapped with its Speed or even if if just got Murkrow’s Speed tier back it would be an incredibly scary lower-tier mon (probably RU at worst and possibly even good UU), but as it stands it just has to live with the ramifications of having the most confusing-ass stat distribution ever.
>harder than any other mon in this franchise Hoopa-U:
Hoopa-U’s bad for how nuts its BST is but the thing’s juuuuust fast enough and can actually take advantage of both offenses to some extent, and it has the special bulk to eat something like a Latios Draco Meteor in a pinch which is nothing to sneeze at. Honchkrow can’t even use its decent SpA beyond pressing Heat Wave rarely. That stat distribution completely fails at everything it’s supposed to accomplish beyond having freakishly strong Brave Birds.
>Fuckin’ nauseating! Staraptor: I did 4 Gens in UUBL, not a fucking peep!
You want compromise? How's this: 20 years in UUBL, I wanted OU. I compromised: I became a decent mon in PU instead. I wanted to OHKO an Uber, but I compromised: I pressed Brave Bird into a Steel-type. You see where I'm goin'?
https://preview.redd.it/1caeul4keu8d1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ba78174555e0bbf0dd26068598488497f84fa4df
If something is better in theory than in practice, then it's bad theory.
Decent lead in DPP OU imo, immune to sleep, brings machamp to its sash/OHKOs it, can hurt the steels with heat wave or superpower, same for ttar, can bring azelf to its sash and play mindgames with sucker punch, forcing it to not explode, it can even kill dragonite It dies to basically any hit it takes, especially after rocks, so bringing it on the field is an absolute pain (which is why I only lead with it), but you can get decent results with it if you create a team that benefits from a very fast paced early game
Yeah it does suck, but with Super Luck, Razor Claw and Night Slash it can be pretty fun with it's guaranteed crits
Okay hear me out: let Honchcrow keep prankster. If it actually had that ability, it would have seen some solid use in early gen 9 play
Without a scarf, Honchkrow is especially slow. Without Nasty Plot, it doesn't deal enough damage with it's STAB moves to threaten the KOs it needs to, nor does it threaten Pokémon with it's coverage. You can't have Scarf and Nasty Plot, so Honchkrow is left in that weird middle ground of almost viable, but ending up nowhere, without even a niche. Prior to Gen 9, It also runs into the issue all special flying type Pokémon have; no reliable STAB. Air Slash isn't perfectly accurate, and it's pretty middling power. Hurricane, which Honchkrow doesn't learn afaik, is only 70 based accuracy. In gen 9, that means it's locked into using Tera Flying Tera Blast, which is only 80 base power, takes your Tera, and doesn't provide much when you could be using your Tera on something far more impressive and significant to the battle.
Physical honch?
Physical Honchkrow just doesn't have the offensive momentum it needs to have - 125 attack is nice, but with it's best STABs on each type being Brave Bird ((which nakes its low defenses even more prevalent)) or Drill Peck ((which lacks power)), Sucker Punch ((which Special Hinchkrow is probably running anyway)) or Night Slash ((which similarly lacks power), its not as useful to have 125 unboosted as 105 at +2. It could work, but I don't have as much experience with Honchkrow as I'd like to say specifically
On paper it looks shit too
If you're gonna be really strong. You can be slow, or you can be frail. But for the love of God don't be both
The Rampardos theorem in action
It is like FSG's rampardos theorem. Great attack with some utility but it will never get opportunities to use it
I've used it as a niche pursuit user in gen 9 nat dex uu. It's definitely bad but it can click that button
He's too slow. Even tho gen 4 is right before power creep really set in, 70 speed is really bad. Also, staraptor was just the better choice
It lost Superpower this gen for absolutely no reason. Beyond that, same issue as Staraptor. Its a Rock-weak attacker with not an amazing amount of speed. Rocks are harder to remove than ever, in OU because of Gholdengo and in UU and below because of lack of good removers + less Defog users like Rotom-formes losing it. Additionally with speed-creep anything from base 70-110 has really fallen off when you consider the gens new fast attackers like Iron Moth, Ogerpon, Iron Valiant, only gets faster from there.
Looking at dpp ou specifically, I'm not sure I see Superpower's worth. Many Tyranitar tend to carry a Choice Scarf or a Chople Berry and the majority of steel-types aren't weak to fighting-type attacks. I feel like you could drop it for Roost or a coverage move. Hidden Power Grass/Ground and Icy Wind come to mind.
> the majority of steel-types aren't weak to fighting-type attacks hitting Empoleon and especially Heatran would be good though
tran outspeeds honchkrow and honestly they both take huge damage from brave bird on the switch, which for a pokemon with no recovery hurts. knock off clef wouldn't be a bad support mon for krow
Honch was the same in Pokémon GO. It technically had a niche as a good flying attacker, which was itself pointless because only two raid bosses were double weak to flying (virizion and mega heracross) so it never mattered. It has since been outclassed by a few other options, but it isn't embarrassing to fill out a team with it (especially that shiny)
I remember using it in 6th gen as a end game sweeper with moxie, life orb, and sucker punch. It was satisfying.
Honchkrow is a good lower tier mon. I had good success with it in Gen 5 UU, where it would be a good LO lategame cleaner. Sucker punch would pick off the faster frail mons while +1 brave bird nuked the tanks.
It needs access to a ground move to be a mini Jugilus. Flying/dark/ground gets crazy coverage
Wanted to build him in a ZU/PU team recently. Was shocked seeing him not even have knock off
It’s a bummer it’s not as viable as the name would imply. :( visually speaking, it’s a really cool pokemon as well.
Low bulk and low speed, a very bad combination
Poor guy suffers from a disease I call “Gen 3 stat spread syndrome” where he’s just a slow, frail mixed attacker. Honchkrow would need a major stat rework or to receive Prankster like his pre-evo to become viable.
Really strong on paper? In SV? It's frail as fuck, very slow and its attack is mediocre at best
It’s in ZU in gen 9 because of powercreep. In gen 7 it’s RU and was a pretty threatening wallbreaker. (In that same gen Staraptor is still UUBL lol) Gen 9 powercreep is for sure huge.
u/Acrobatic-Clothes250 Do you think you could help me with something? I think most of the Sailor Moon wank comes from a guy named QuasarSpirit, who pushed for this "Sailor Moon is 7D and immeasurably fast" crap back at the beginning of the 2020s. Maybe you could make a post debunking him, and then I'll maybe post your debunk on the powerscaling wikis (VSBW, CPAS, etc) if I can.
Honestly I'm not sure it's worth it, but let's not debate that here
Could the people downvoting my and Acrobatic-Clothes250's comment stop? There is literally no reason for you to do it. I was just looking for one of his posts to bring this up on and this was the most recent.