How GOOD was Durant ACTUALLY? - History of Durant in Competitive Pokemon

the patrons have spoken and they have requested durant and we'll be examining how this iron insect splits time and defenses in both the nba and various pokemon metagames in this crossover of an episode and so we ask how good was durant actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats despite its excellent speed and solid attack boosted to huge levels with the built-in choice band of hustle durant was not able to break into ou in its debut generation as it struggled to switch in as a result of its abysmal hp ensuring it couldn't take many hits its defense set was great but not enough to make up for such a deficit and its pathetic special defense meant it actually folded to just about every one of the many special attackers in the tier it was a decent offensive threat but there was little reason to use it when it could not hope to match the effectiveness of ou's reigning bug steel type scizor who in addition to better utilizing its useful defensive typing by virtue of its superior bulk and ruse was also more effective offensively thanks to its excellent move pool consisting of swords dance u-turn pursuit and of course its trademark bullet punch as such durant never had any impact on ou or uu for that matter the tier had too many water fighting types electric fire and ground types for it to ever consistently threaten a significant enough portion of the tier however in ru durant not only came into its own but came to be one of the tier's best most dangerous and defining pokemon it tore through much of the meta game and could fulfill a variety of roles with its numerous excellent sets with choice band it was one of the tier's most vicious wall breakers easily able to threaten chaos against the large portion of the tier it outsped and being able to threaten two hit kills on even the tier's 30th defensive pokemon thanks to its massive power being perfectly augmented by its coverage options for example defensive steelex and intimidate coilfish both swarded durant's stab easily but got destroyed by superpower and thunderfang respectively durant was also one of the tier's best late game sweepers when utilizing home claws a move seemingly tailor made for it in addition to providing the attack boost that allowed durant to drop targets left and right holmclaws also allowed it to bypass the often crippling nature of hustle's accuracy impediment durant also ran another tremendous late game set with choice scarf which allowed it to clean up weakened teams with ease frailer offensive teams that relied on outspeeding durant with naturally faster pokemon and or choice scarfers were easily ripped apart durant was the fastest scarfer in the tier which wasn't only a great advantage in getting the jump on the tier's other fast scarfers in manetric and rota but also made it a great check to speed boosting setup sweepers like quiver dance liligan and dragon dance for alligator durant was tremendous not just because these sets were incredibly consistent performers on a game-to-game basis but because despite his relatively small movable it has several great options for other sets as well for example it could brutally punish defensive answers like aloma mola and coilfish with a substitute baton pass set which easily set up its destructive teammates with items like insect plate and iron plate it could power itself up while potentially bluffing a choice item and lending another layer of danger to its capability of switching its attacks up potentially luring in and grabbing a surprise kale against the pokemon thinking it was safe against the resisted attack durant has seemingly locked itself into for this purpose several gems were also effective with potentially even greater destructive power some players even utilized protect on durant for the purpose of racking up more damage against poison targets like alomamola and scouting the intentions of choice scarf revenge killers durant was absolutely amazing to the point of being controversial several players believed its presence was negative for the ru tier it wasn't just because it was so dangerous it was the rng factor innate to durant many games were affected by hustle turning 100 accurate attacks into stone edge this wasn't all of what players thought made durant undesirable though after all this wasn't much different from choosing to use focus blast or hydroponic no the part several players didn't like was durant's ability to cheese its way past would-be checks with iron head's nasty 30 flinch rate it was so strong that it often needed just one flinch to knock the opposing pokemon into ko range when paired with hustle end games involving durant had a nasty tendency to get messy leading to players experiencing rng induced heart attacks left and right nevertheless tearing action was not taken against iran and it continued to hold one of the most prominent places in our youth some players used swarm as the ability instead of hustle on scarf durant as they didn't quite need the extra power against frail or offensive pokemon and really just needed it to hit its attacks late game however hustle was still one of durant's most defining features for better and for worse many games were won if durant hit its attacks but that was a big if 80 accuracy meant a battle with durant was an exciting event 100 of the time durant returned to ru with a vengeance in generation 6. it was dangerous right out of the gate in xy and continued into early orest happily preying on the newly added fairy types with its vicious iron heads however it wasn't considered broken yet it was a massive threat but the tier had several solid options to check it through a moltres now supported by the buff defog as well as the massively bulky etholite duel of dual blade and glider however all three of these pokemon eventually rose to yuyu and durant jumped to the precipice of potential brokenness teetering on the edge as the metagame struggled to keep it in check forced to resort to desperate measures such as hidden power fired dogstro every team was threatened by durant the best offensive pokemon in the tier for its speed power and coverage bulky teams feared it above all louse as it ripped through defensive staples like slow king cresselia deansy reunicus and ryperia and even its more effective defensive switching such as mbor and mega stelix could still take heavy damage offensive teams weren't much better off as durant's excellent speed gave it the jump on common offensive pokemon already considered fast such as varisian del fox and sigilith it could also ruin offensive teams even more efficiently with its choice scarf set removing their few options to outspeed it such as the aforementioned dog shield as well as blazing past other scarfers like tyrantrum and metacham in the late game the tier tried to adapt for some time but eventually the playerbase realized that there was simply no reconciling with durant and aryu it was just too strong for the tier the vote on duran's fate in the tier wasn't close it was universally viewed as overbearing which was reflected in the fact that over 80 percent of the voters voted to ban it durant was one of the most devastating impactful pokemon in oraz ru sadly it was not able to find a niche in yuyu it wasn't nearly as capable of threatening the faster bulkier metagame as it was denied opportunities to switch in and the ability to wreak havoc once it had switched in as such durant languished in rubo unable to move either upwards or downwards still the sixth generation was a successful one for duran as it established itself as an ru icon once again generation 7 z moves were an incredible addition for durant not only did they provide devastating bursts of power that made durant even more brutally difficult to counter but they ignored accuracy on the turn of their use including that of the debilitating hustle lending durant even greater reliability in dissecting the opponent's team it ravaged ru once again as the tier possessed similar defensive pieces durant had naturally preyed on in the previous generation and its checks were far less reliable now for example gligar could no longer handle iron head when it was powered up not just by home claws but also stellium z into a colossally calamitous corkscrew crash with similar boosting options for crunch durant could even fell dual blade through the brutal horrifying extremity of black hole eclipse durant had a multitude of tremendous options for its z-crystal in addition to the aforementioned it was also an excellent user of phytaneum z superpower and bugginium z excessor and could even effectively use electrium z thunderfang it could choose which checks it wanted to lure and eliminate with terrifying ease which made it both a terrifying threat and an offensive facilitator for its other offensive teams of course durant didn't need z moves to be effective as his usual sets continued to thrive especially choiceman but it was just that zmu served to make an already excellent pokemon even better to the point of being ridiculous defensive teams were incredibly difficult to run because of durant as it wasn't just dealing with the ant itself though that certainly was arduous in its own right but because it was so easy to open holes for its teammates to exploit once again offensive teams weren't much better off given how fast durant was the metagame barely held itself together against durant's might during sun and moon and then not long after the release of ultra sun and moon the player base decided enough was enough and durant was put on the chopping block once again in a continuation of the mirroring of the events of the previous generation durant was once again banned with a resounding majority more than 85 percent of voters voted to get rid of it capping off a third generation of ru dominance for duran unfortunately durant also continued to mirror the previous generation by failing to make any sort of mark in yuyu which was even faster and bulkier than before plus it was now completely dominated by sizor ensuring durant would not find even a slight niche in the tier nevertheless the seventh generation was another successful one for this metal insect generation 8 removed z moves but it made up for this by gifting durant an incredible new bug stab in first impression and now had a priority move that was even stronger than exodus or it also received a new coverage move in stomping tantrum meaning fire types could no longer check it safely with these new tools in its metal mandibles durant embarked on a new journey throughout the tiering run instead of waiting for aryu to come around it quickly jumped out to dominance in the early stages of sword and shield yuyu the limited pokedex meant durant outspent nearly the entire tier save for neuburn which was incredibly popular but this still meant that durant usually outspent four to five members of the opposing team the metagame was incredibly balance focused at this point as milotek and the aforementioned neuron were two of the best pokemon around and umbreon was used quite commonly alongside them as well for its rare valuable ghost resistance in a metagame where polti geist was the top threat these slow balance chains with the noiser attacked on were absolutely obliterated by durant it barely even needed its coverage as it usually just clicked its stab moves and watched everything drop slower pokemon couldn't reliably take two hits from it and the faster northern was potentially one-hit killed by a light floor of ironhead durant terrorized the tear before pokemon home even returned home claws to it but even without the move it was monstrously overwhelming shortly afterwards it received a unanimous quick ban from the tier making its first appearance in and banned from yuyu in a short amount of time as if that wasn't enough yuyu eventually began giving ubl pokemon brief retest when it came to re-test durant it was promptly re-banned inside of a week durant stayed banned from uu until the crown tundra rolled around the massive pokedex expansion brought many bulky pokemon that could handle duran thus meaning it no longer had a place in yuyu it's humble to end you it didn't last long there though the tier had just about nothing that could switch into it safely and in a validated offense without compromising its wall breaking ability thanks to the absurd power of the priority first impression as such it didn't take long for durant to get banned to n-u-b-o this meant that durant would finally return to aru it didn't do so technically though for the first time in history durant was not quite good enough to be an ru mainstay and it retained its title of nubo rather than becoming a genuine ru pokemon however it still has a legitimate niche its potency has been diminished by the number of pokemon that packs significant bulk and resistant stabs it's harder for durant to destroy everything in sight as it did before with annoyances such as incineroar volcanion and dual blade thwarting its stab and being forced to use stomping tantrums to try and catch them can be exploited plus stomping attachment 75 base power can feel meager durant is also hurt by the many faster pokemon added to the tier and it can't spam first impression as readily as a result of the many solid resistances to the move using durant can be difficult prediction reliant and frustratingly inconsistent which is what holds its usage back that said first impression provides nice defensive utility and revenge in fast offensive pokemon like scarf circuitry and dragon dance tyrantrum priority is also generally helpful in dealing with the shell smashers polti geist and cloister and durant also naturally outspeeds several other popular offensive pokemon like kobalian giving it a unique niche in the tier as an offensively minded check to threats overall despite no longer being ru in name durant is still a genuinely good pokemon in the tier and has enjoyed a massively successful 8th generation overall the advent of gen 8 gave durant just the tool it needed to overcome its consistency issues with max moose perfect accuracy durant got all the upside of hustle with none of the downside at least while it was dynamaxx combine that with a life orb and you had an overwhelmingly powerful pokemon capable of running whole teams over if they were ill-prepared lead wrong against durant and you may have lost the game already durant's impressive move pull also looked even more impressive in dynamax while durant's fun new tool first impression was certainly attractive iron head was durant's bread and butter and it greatly appreciated the defense boost from max steel spike even after that durant's bug type moves arguably weren't the next important slot in its move set stopping tantrum was essential as coverage against opposing steel types and paired up nicely with steel spike to give durant access to boosting for both its defenses past that players had a choice to make between three types bug moves like first impression and exodus or were of course good for stab while rock slide provided a way to hit flying types and max rockfall's extra power compared to quake gave durant the ability to eliminate its biggest threats fire types rox flag could also potentially give durant a way to win in endgame scenarios if it was out of dynamax finally thunderfang sacrificed some power for the ability to hit bulky waters like milotic and rotom however max flutterby would often handle water types anyways lightning's real upside was setting electric terrain and protecting durant from getting put to sleep with so many offensive options most durant players for went protect spending a turn with durant not attacking especially in dynamics usually means you already have a problem on your hands of course durant's serious power comes with some serious caveats while durant was still strong outside of dynamaxx the accuracy dropped from hustle meant it wasn't a reliable threat what's more those thin defenses were just as weak as ever the extra help from dynamaxing helped durant out sure but the ant was still liable to end up roasted especially against common fire types like arcanine or charizard as such proper team support was vital for durant's teams whether it be through redirection fake out or other means we'll talk about later despite its overwhelming power durant wasn't the most popular team archetype purely because it necessitated so much support if your aunt was dead so were you at the start of the format players frequently brought follow me users like togekiss or even flash fire users like chandelure to shore up durant's weaknesses together especially could also give durant a boost with helping hand in case it needed a little extra oomph durant's best partner in crime however was milotic for one thing milotic obviously could handle fire types that gave durant a hard time and for another it greatly appreciated the boost from steel spike and quake which could get milotek to such astronomically high defenses that it could become unkillable the real boon however was milotek's ability competitive one of the main ways to handle durant was by repeatedly intimidating it but if milotek was on the field you were just boosting a different mod nearly every successful durant team during gen 8 vgc had a milotic right there alongside it speaking of successful durant teams the ramp made its power known as official tournaments got underway at dallas regionals to date the biggest in person pokemon tournament of all time bing ji wang took his durant team all the way to grand finals where he faced an explosive matchup with aaron trailer's charizard team being she showed that durant could match up against would-be quote-unquote counters like charizard due to its massive attacking prowess and additionally showcase just how scary a durant under whimsicott tailwind could be although bingji fell to aaron in the end the ripples of his durant success were felt throughout the bracket yihui shu and kareem de bliss also used the team to a good amount of success ending up with a pair of top 64 finishes a few weeks later a player named mr gaben watch took first place at the online gallery weekly 8 with his own durant team and just a few weeks after that eduardo mcconha gave durant another in-person silver medal at the oceana nationals eduardo's team was notable for a few reasons for one it didn't include milotic instead eduardo brought a gastrodon as his bulky water type in addition eduardo did bring protect on his durant giving it a bit more survivability on the field that shred would continue on in the new durant team developed by justin lukamir ramirez lukamir's team which he used to win the online rose tower open had no togekiss in fact it had no redirection at all instead lukamir brought gothitel who combined the helping hand of togekiss with its own fake out and of course shadow tag if you thought a gigantic ant was scary before just wait till it's a gigantic ant that you can't run away from as lukamir put it the threat of the gothic tell duran pin was so potent that it could disrupt opponents just from the team select placing other members like milo takes sylvia and tyranitar in a position to succeed it can't be overstated how hard it is to lead against a team like this lead and intimidate user into milotek and you were in incredible trouble lead something that couldn't handle gothel and durant and trust me that's quite a large swath of pokemon and you were up a creek with no paddle that's not even accounting for gotha tells trick room mode with tyranitar which should be mentioned precisely because one of the reasons it was so potent was the outsized fear durant could generate lukamir's team didn't just have online achievements though lucamier's friend andrew ding would bring the team with a few modifications to collinsville regionals the biggest change andrew made to durant was swapping rock slide for xazor as he was confident his tyranitar could handle charizard teams when the dust cleared andrew had piloted lucamier's team all the way to a first place regional finish meaning durant had tournament wins both on and offline it's also worth mentioning that veteran player alessio yuri basquetto placed third at collinsville with a durant team of his own that utilized raichu's support and gyarados as a secondary carry durant was a pokemon you absolutely had to prepare for its last two placements before in person tournaments were halted where a pair of fourth place finishes in malmo maddie morgan put his own spin on gothitel duran by replacing arcanine with torah cat while in perth chris giogoziglo gave it an extra dose of speed with whimsicott tailwind support just like bing jief had in dallas however durant still remained a less popular option as incineroar came back into the meta and pokemon like lapras became popular durant's power both became less reliable and less overwhelming and it was nowhere to be found by the time player's cup qualifiers rolled around nevertheless it left its mark on 8th gen vgc in a big way and if you see an ant on the other side of the field you should still feel a twinge of fear in your heart and that's it so how good was durant actually well it was one of the best most defining ru pokemon of all time some consider it so good as to be bandworthy in generation 5 to which durant responded by proceeding to remove all doubt and getting itself banned in generation 6 and 7. in generation 8 it ascended to a new level with its monstrous first impression which got it banned from uu twice and come the crown tundra nu as well the shifting landscape of aru has been harsher to it preventing it from even being an official ru pokemon anymore let alone one of the metagame's most dominant pokemon however it still has a unique bonafide niche in the tier also it may have took until gen 8 but durant's immediate power in dynamaxx allowed it to ascend to new heights it's never seen before for the early parts of gen 8bgc overall the lesson durant teaches is to always hustle even if it means you might miss 20 of the time you'll appreciate the fact that you hit 80 of the time thanks for watching everyone and thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and for voting for this pokemon for this month's patron pick and thank you to everyone else watching as well and as always if you like the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to fall swept gaming for more weekly pokemon content and in the comments i want to know what do you think about competitive durant would you ever buff it so that it goes into ou whatever it is let me know in the comments and follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all i got see you next time everyone you

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 344,109

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, Durant

Id: _A3akzTtLww

Length: 19min 5sec (1145 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021