How GOOD was Heracross ACTUALLY? - History of Heracross in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 2-6)

what's up you guys this week we've got another bug type for you but don't worry this one actually does things to contrast the stalwart wall that was chuckled today's episode is heracross the single horn Pokemon what a weird designation for a pokedex century I have memories of heracross from my early days in pokemon crystal work head-butting trees in Azalea town led to an early game monster that proceeded to destroy everything at face with stats way too good for where I was in the game it really makes you happy Bugsy didn't have one although sure Santa was still pretty good for those stats enough to carry hair across into the upper echelon so competitive play let's find out I always say every single video since I just talked about hair crossed the stats let's go over them the immediate standout is its base 125 attack which is absurd in Gen 2 that's tied for third highest overall and is tied for first among all non evolve Pokemon alongside pincer in fact pincer and hair crafts were designed as semi counterparts despite being a generation apart they share the same base that total of 500 but it's where those stats go that matters while pincer may have a great defense of 100 it died quickly the special attacks due to its low special defense in HP heracross trades in some physical bulk to beef up those two stats and lost some special attack in comparison which really isn't a loss at all considering that both of its stabs fighting a bug we're all physical in Gen 2 that slight shift makes all the difference with better overall bulk hair cross is able to survive and wreak havoc well maybe it stats aren't all the difference heracross also had access to megahorn the strongest bug type move in the game while pincer had to be content with hidden power bugs with that comparison out of way let's talk about what hair cross actually did in Gen 2 it was as many other Pokemon were by the latter half of the metagame arrest talk user with dual attacking muslem megahorn and earthquake hair cross could hit the majority of the Pokemon population with some bug type justice and bought poisonous steel types who resisted it with earthquake this made it a powerful check to some of the premier threats in Gen 2 like curse Machamp and noodle king provided they weren't running fire blasts of course that set only exacerbated hair cross his biggest weakness flying types birds like Skarmory and Zapdos resisted or flat-out evaded both of hair crosses attacking moves and absolutely destroyed it by targeting its four times weakness to flying drill Peck from either of those Pokemon easily one-hit kales the beetle hair crossed sometimes around hidden power rock or seismic toss to deal with those Pokemon but it was acknowledging that you were still gonna die afterwards if heracross was the seismic toss variant the certain poison types with fire moves like Gengar and the Afro mentioned needle cane could tank it effectively and respond in kind but it all came down to whether it was running earthquake or not and if it was the mega horn earthquake said nothing really wanted to tank those hits hair across the sheer power combined with the survivability from rest talk and its overall good stats landed and comfortably in the a tier of Nintendo Cup and then later in the overuse and smoke and meta it was slow but man did it hurt gen 3 brought hair across a veritable Christmas wish list of tools what was once a fairly linear pokemon suddenly had numerous options for sets due to its expand and move pull an amazing ability and several great items for it to abuse first hair cross got guts making it burn proof what guts hair crosses rest talk set got even better it was allowed to run leftovers for even more recovery because being asleep actually boosted its attack power even higher now with new coverage moves at Brick Break and rockslide it was far more unpredictable with all that said dalla considering that sleep talk to rest doesn't heal you up to Foley that wasn't even hair across his most popular set the item it really took advantage of in the advanced meta was choice ban hair crosses already huge attack became boosted to disgusting levels when banded it was always threatening because in addition to mega horn for a stupidly strong stab move it also had focused punch and effectively based 225 attack that made switching out a potential death sentence for whatever unfortunate Pokemon will pop out of that pokeball focus punch Cotuit KO its old nemesis Skarmory and even a guts boost it could even one-hit ko Skarmory rockslide was a staple for coverage on Pokemon alike Gyarados elements and gang guard that resisted at stats but the last slot was largely variable facade could do 70% to even wheezing after being status sleep-talk man hair cross could switch in on a potential narcotic meant for another pokemon and drastically changed the tide of the battle though admittedly you would never want willing when we put your Pokemon to sleep as you have less control but the point is the stone option and HP ghosts and brick break could be run for reliable coverage instead of counting on mega Hornet focus punch past that intimidating set hair cross still had a lot of options sword dance gave it access to a whole list of ways to pull off a sweet there was a vanilla sword dance set but it was slow so like Barry says with either endure and reversal or substitute remedy tear across as mediocre speed and took advantage of its other ability swarm to boost this bug type attack specifically even higher it also had the possibility of running bulk up as if it didn't have enough options already so if Eric Ross is so great what was in week 2 well with his lackluster speed hair crossed sometimes had a hard time actually switching in unlike the other sweepers in the tier like Salamence gee-tar and meta girls speaking of Salomon's is flying-type and access to intimidate meant it could actually switch in on heracross already deployed something Gyarados could do as well although both had to be careful of rockslide we've already mentioned wheezing in star marie who under normal conditions can do all right well wheezing had to be sure not to Willa was hair crossed and skarmory could still take a considerable amount of damage really that's true of everything hair across face no matter what it could heavily dent even its best checks depending on the set we said it was slow but rekt stuff last gen and guess what that was even more true in this generation and heracross was one of the most terrifying physical attackers in Gen 3 overused hey Jed 4 it was really choice scarfed that define hair cross for better and for worse hair across still had as many sets as ever including a fun spin on its rest talk set then also utilized bulk up to make a mega horn spamming machine but choice scarf was a guaranteed patch for its biggest problem its speed of course that meant a drop in power since it wouldn't have the boost from vans sword dancer guts so scarf hair cross is mostly used for revenge killing lucky for Hera it got upgrades to two of its coverage moves in the form of close combat and stone edge ensuring it still had a good amount of power this hair cross would frequently be used on teams that had status pay Pokemon like meta girls or swapper if you thought you were going to be burning or poisoning an important threat and ended up facing down a very angry guts boosted beetle instead you are in for a rude awakening the final slot on this set was variable night slash to deal with its ever prevalent ghost problem sleep talked to switch into sleep as always and most interestingly sometimes toxic since this heracross didn't quite have the raw power its other says dead being able to walls through status was sometimes a better option while choice ban became less popular because hair crossed simply couldn't keep up in speed para crosses sword dance set acknowledged there drop in speed and went for even more power utilizing flame warm and toxic orb to boost their attack immediately with guts bulk up also became more prevalent simply since hair crosses low speed was starting to be more and more of a problem point that low speed is what really gave it a hard time this with everything faster and running choice scarf hair cross was easily revenge killed itself the list of things that resisted his staffs just got longer in addition to all threats like Zapdos Gengar and Gyarados Dragonite the road ohms and Gliscor all gave it huge problems as well hair cross could as always create massive damage with proper prediction but if you guessed wrong choice variants were a sitting duck and even if it wasn't choice is low speed guarantees certain speedy fire and psychic types could always eliminate it before it had a chance to do anything finally it was simply outclassed by caesar who was not only the best bug type in Gen 4 but one of the best Pokemon period as with many Pokemon we've seen who have robbed power but also a host of other problems heracross ended up in borderline it's attacking paris was just too much for underused but it was hard to make work and overuse we talked before about how gen 5 was a great gen for fighting types but that wasn't quite true for hair cross it did get some fun new things like its new ability Moxie which gives you a +1 attack if you land a KO on your opponent's Pokemon this light it potentially boosts up even with the choice scarf for the potential to sweet guts was still a good option but it was less reliable and more dangerous if he needed the boost other options were still there flame orb choice been and even sub boxy but it always came down to your hair crosses speed issues other good faster fighting types in this generation out plastic and its list of checks just keeps getting longer Landers T was the biggest culprit this generation who even took neutral damage from Stone Edge and shrugged it off Jellison can also pose problems to sets without nice flash and the amount of things that packed both the speed and the power to dispatch hair cross was actually quite large by this point scarf Jirachi tornadoes Volcarona there's a lot with the odds stacked up against it hair cross finally dropped to under use where of course it was one of the most common heracross wasn't used much overall in VGC by a good amount of players but it was actually used in all three years of gen-5 VGC by player Steven Morioka so we have a decent understanding of how it worked even though it was considered unconventional heracross has a number of things that worked well for VGC for one it resists earthquake meaning it can viably be used as a partner for that move and it packs earthquake of its own and rockslide as spread moves though fondly enough Steven Morioka used the bug gem set for extra powerful mega horns to take out dressed like Cresselia other psychic types and amoonguss as for the powerhouse of Tyranitar hair cross is a fighting type so that's pretty self-explanatory but it could also be used with satis orbs guts is a great ability for VGC in general to absorb status and with more accessible support in the form of trick room or tailwind hair cross had room to make use of his destructive power its counters are the same as usual and are part of an ever-growing list flying types are of course the major culprits with Zapdos being a huge nuisance in particular but faster fire and psychic types also destroyed hair cross whose bulk at this point was still okay but not nearly as impressive as it once had been if you needed a fighting type there are faster ones like Taraki on or once that could take hits like conch elder and of course hitmontop thanks to intimidate with everything becoming so much faster heracross really needed a miracle to keep it from sliding down the tiers but luckily and got one in the form of its mega evolution in exchange for just ten points of speed make a hair cross got a base 115 defense stat 105 special defense and an astronomical base 185 attack stat holy moly that's even more than deoxys attack and mega rayquaza in fact it's attacks that is second only to mega Mewtwo X with its mega evolution mega hair cross also got a nifty new ability that completely changes its play style skill link guarantees that every multi hit move will hit its max amount of times suddenly pin missile is a base 125 move that also breaks substitute which now in a majority of situations is better than mega and it doesn't end there with rock flats and Bullet Seed mega hair cross had ample options to use its ability as for a fighting type stab close combat is still strong AF what's more its bulk in its mega form is really quite good so it can tank hits from threats like fish shark mega lopunny and weave while and then threaten to boost with either substitute or sword dance both of which would most likely cause a sinking feeling in your opponent's stomach if it's switched into a choice attacker and resisted the move that was the cue for it to start wreaking havoc unfortunately it was weak to a bunch of common offensive types flying fire fairy and psychic there are a lot of Pokemon that can out speed it and kill it like talonflame the laddies mega diancie Charizard and as ever it hates things that resist the stats like most Pokemon do so glice car and Landorus tea are as big a threat as always with all that said though it has 185 attack and an amazing ability so yeah it's overused VGC jet 6 mega hair cross is again pretty damn unconventional it's a physical threat match by very little when it has bee control like trick rooms tail win or paralysis support and is able to take out mega kangaskhan even at -1 it is also capable of one-hit ko a huge portion of the meta game with that said it's very susceptible to burn since it loses his guts ability upon mega evolving it doesn't do anything to egg a slash Intimidators are very rampant and there's a certain priority brave bird spamming user that ruins mega hair crosses date no points for guessing who so again you can't deny that attack stat but it was still considered unconventional and was still used but not used by a lot of players and that's it so how good was heracross actually honestly it was pretty good despite playing pretty linearly for the first few gens it's amazing stabs and base stats just couldn't be ignored it actually had access to a wide range of sets in gen 3 by far its highest point that made it a hard to prepare for a threat that could wreck unsuspecting teams well its mess speed kept it down in later gens as the metas got faster its mega form let it come back basically because it just doubled down and everything heracross already had great bulk and great attack to the point where it speeds that though it was annoying store a decent workarounds for it man that was a long one but thanks so much for watching and of course if you liked the video be sure to subscribe to false white gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and of course comment on which Pokemon you want to see next also thank you so much to our patients for continued support of our videos and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music]

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 1,659,032

Keywords: Heracross, Ash's Heracross, Heracross vs. Darkrai, Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Gold, Silver, Crystal, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, Black, White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Sun & Moon, false swipe gaming, competitive history, Smogon, VGC

Id: RKrTO71_Slk

Length: 13min 26sec (806 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/athena1224]

Old fart here.... Been playing since 1999 and have absolutely LOVED Heracross since his debut on GS games! Long before his movepool became better and he got a Gender distinction or an amazing Mega Evolution, Hercross has been one of my go to Pokemon in any Generation. Unless of course it was not available in a Region initially I almost have always had one on my team! A truly great and classic powerhouse Pokemon with a variety of movesets and placements on almost any team. Great Post here! :)

[u/metalflygon08]

Heracross is the most "Pokemon" Pokemon, if that makes sense, it represents everything Pokemon in one package.

[u/Veteran_Trainer]

5 Secrets Professors Don't Want You To Know About Heracross!

[u/bluehairblondeeyes]

Amazing as usual

[u/[deleted]]

im playing Pokémon Gold on the 3DS since like 5-7 years since I last played and never knew Heracross could cheese almost everything that wasn't a flying type. God, Im gonna get one as soon as I can

[u/LVL100Heracross]

:D

[u/reddit_lonely]

Keep making videos man!

[u/Ethanlac]

I still think it should have been a Metal Coat evolution of Pinsir, to tie in with Scyther/Scizor.