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

what's up guys I guess since the patrons didn't put me in to hell last time you felt like it was your responsibility to do that literally huh yep that's right we've got a literal hellhound this video with houndoom listen I usually believe in two universal truths that there are no bad dogs and no bad pokemons houndoom C is pretty much designed to reject that concept it said that in olden times people literally thought it was the grim reaper and if it burns you the pain will never go away literally that's dark guess they didn't have a burn heal back then huh now as far as memories of houndoom go that one rocket executive in the radio tower has one in gold and silver which if you pick photodiodes their starter it probably wasn't a problem for you as a kid Karen the leaf four member who specializes in dark types also has one which is cool I guess oh there's also that one Pichu brothers short with houndour in it and it gets pissed off and chases after them so that's kind of funny anyway that makes houndoom one bad puffer but as scary as it might be how good was it actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats how dude stats are just good enough for it to be a threat 110 special attack is certainly nothing to scoff at but it's also lower than things like almost our Ampharos and even Kadabra hunter 95 speed is very similar in that regard what han Dube did have going for it was the strongest non legendary fire type special attack beating out Charizard by one point but really it was houndoom typing that set it apart unlike Moltres or Charizard who's flying type stabs were fairly useless except for hitting fighting of water types houndoom stabs crunch a pursuit allowed it to put the hurt on some psychic types and this is especially useful when you factor in that a lot of popular water types like star me and slow bro for example had a secondary psychic typing and so how do you became possibly the best fire type in GSC because of its ability to threaten many of its threats unfortunately even the best fire type in GSC had a mountain to climb and no wings to speed up it Snorlax and Blissey gave special attackers a very hard time in general and the only set of how new had to his name was a subpar rest talk set what's more while half the water types had to be scared the other half ate houndoom up that being sweet 10 Kingdra and Quagsire houndoom also had to be very afraid of Pokemon that could take a hit via typing her special defense and then hit its weak defenses like Dragon Knight Muk and especially Tyranitar how lose move pull simply wasn't wide enough to deal with most of these threats with the exception of its odds sunny day solar beam set to hit water types which only made it even more vulnerable to other special walls we're just ok stats buoyed by a unique typing houndoom found itself in borderline fun fact there are absolutely no fire types in overuse in Gen 2 all of Hamelin dooms problems got worse in gentry it's that's where even more subpar as other attackers were introduced Milotic did everything sweet can did and more and the infestation known as arena trap Dugtrio ate it for breakfast what's more the ubiquitous nature of the scarm bliss Carman hound ooh could be certain one of its biggest counters was almost always gonna be around however that same core led to one of how news biggest strengths yeah yeah it killed Skarmory but that's not even what I'm talking about houndour was a critical part of any anti spin blocker strategy as the user of the strongest pursuit in the game gang guard the most relied upon spin blocker had to be incredibly afraid of an enemy houndoom as Houndoom took everything in gangers huge loophole except for explosion with relative ease and one-hit ko de would pursuit if Gengar tried to switch out the removal of Gengar meant many things the biggest was that dual spike setters and spinners like fortress and cloister could now run free it also meant sets like earthquake curse lakhs or exploders no longer had to fear the sudden appearance of a levitating cackling ghost to ruin their day while hounding was primarily a Ghost Buster it also had favorable matchups against the duel pixies of Celebi and Jirachi thanks to its typing and the rest of its loophole was just tailored to be as annoying as possible if forced into unfavorable matchups with hidden power grass hidden power ice willow s and toxic chosen for whatever book one hand you might need to deal with as said before though hound boobs counters were wide ranging and popular My Luck six Marvel skill meant it could even scout for a hound dream seeking to lay down that legendary burn in its pokedex and a bevy of new attackers like Flygon Salamence and Aerodactyl could all destroy hound him as well but those attackers also in turn feared being burned either way how new was a niche pic and as with most niche pics it ended up in borderline once again what niche Hound you did have arguably came even more valuable as stealth rock was introduced but those rocks were certainly not fun for houndoom itself to deal with oh yeah and Gengar had focus blast now and for that matter why not just use Weavile now that pursuit was a physical move yea houndoom lost its one calling card but did the old dog learn some new tricks sort of found who made a pretty scary nastyplot sweeper if they got set up especially because that's sort of good attacks that meta had a nice priority moving sucker punch while all its stats were just a bit too low to get the setup off and even then it lost hard to so many things in overuse yeah there's the water tights but there's also Mach punch he ran and Poli on Tyranitar the list goes on it's funny because looking at hound rubra did everything you expected it to horrible scheming with special attacking damage it just didn't do it well enough and underused though it was a force to be reckoned with when that nasty plus set plus it's good mix coverage houndoom was a versatile and powerful threat and it could even function as an anti lead but as for overused houndoom just couldn't cut it anymore those stats and it's typing just really held it back as time went on how do you found itself leaning even more on it's mixed attacking capabilities because it couldn't quite cut it as a straight-up special attacker but make no mistake it still wasn't overuse especially with the influx of fighting types into the gen5 meta game but the movement of its calm encounters like sweet corn and Snorlax to underused editor hound ooh as it's nice mixed attacking stats and good setup meant it still had a place in the meta good and underused not so good out of it in fact while how newb could be a viable set of sweeper and Jennifer overused with the right team support it was much harder to pull off in Gen 5 even with Sun support cuz you know yeah rain and sand as for doubles how new found itself relying on something it hadn't made much use of yet unearthed in a berry heavy metal game unnerve can make all the difference such as letting houndoom one-hit ko och you bury Metagross or blast Garchomp and Dragonite with HP ice by disabling their Yosh berry the other car in the set was sucker-punched which gave houndoom a chance to go after prominent psychic types like Latios and Cresselia past that though hound to have found it rough going being weak to pretty much every common spread move and faltering hard in the omnipresent sand and rain or any physical fighting attacks it also faced steep competition as an unnerved user with Tyranitar and Aerodactyl how noobs only notable appearance was on a team that took seven place in 2013 at the Wayne regional tournaments in the masters division shoutouts to dr. Fisher for pulling that off by utilizing snarl double down on housing support capabilities but yeah other than that yes sorry how new gen six brought houndoom a terrifying mega evolution and I'm not just talking about the way it looks here Rita's pokedex entry it's red claws and the tips of its tails are melting from high internal temperatures that are painful to houndoom itself yes maybe those theories about mega evolution being a bad thing or right I mean a couple metas did band a bunch of them so anyways no regular houndoom fell all the way to rarely use mega hound you did have sort of a niche in the sun mega houndoom solar power made it a horrific ly strong wall breaker especially with a nasty plot boost up that lacking speed from the pre evolution was shored up nicely as was the atrocious defense mega how noobs typing let it check threats such as bish art mega Sableye and latias it's access to amazing utility moves liked on and will Louis meant Stoll teams or common switch ins could both suddenly find themselves Timmy completely unfortunately that fire typing game for mega houndoom a lot more problems than boons especially when losing HP and the Sun stealth rocks and it attacking twice will take it down to 50% on its own and while its defenses were better Mach punch would still well punch through it like nothing and there was still the tiny problem of being destroyed by water types something mega houndoom had even more trouble with if it was running utility which it usually was oh yeah and fairy types ruined it especially two though at least I had the fire type to resist those attacks but that didn't stop fairy types like mega diancie this dog might have bark but not much bite it's borderline - for a houndoom which is the banlist for rarely use and as for mega hound zooming VGC there unfortunately doesn't seem to be any notable placings or data for mega houndoom or at least we couldn't find any although theoretically it is useful versus steel types like Farrah Thor and an egg / it doesn't seem like mega houndoom is use much because although it works very well against some teams hoping your opponent brings a son team while sacrificing a mega slot doesn't sound like that good of a strategy especially considering other Megas are better suited for more situations than it even with primal Groudon and it's desolate land being rapping at VGC 2016 players seem to have opted to use different Megas like Salamence or something and to get the most firepower out of it you would have to set up your own son even if you do set up your own Sun solar power decreases the help every turn even if you protect make it more squishy than it already is so I suppose people just prefer to use a different mega like Charizard life you really wanted to utilize Sun and that's it so how good was houndoom actually it was honestly a little underwhelming you wouldn't guess it from looking at it but how to him just didn't have the fierceness to compete even once it mega evolve any fire time looking to make a name for itself has to have firepower out the wazoo especially considering how many weaknesses it has and what stealth rocks came up yeah you really need something to compensate for that typing and unfortunately houndoom just didn't have that unfortunately this is just more proof that those pokedex entries are pretty faked to be honest thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video you want to see more be sure to subscribe to false wipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and of course as I always say comment on what pokemon you want to see next also thank you so much to our patrons for continued support of our videos and thank you to all of you as well 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: 877,155

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

Id: pCF0sNXLEVU

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Thick_Duck]

Wow, this is a great format! About to watch all this guys videos.

In Gen II Houndoom was one of the only Pokémon that I was nervous about battling. I think it was that one lead Rocket Admin who used a level 40 one. (Edit: it was FRLG and he was lv. 55)I just remember his crunch and flamethrower huuuurt.

[u/198587]

Houndoom is one of my favorite pokemon and I tried really hard to make Mega Houndoom work in Gen VI. It was never as good as I wanted it to be though.

[u/MrSunga]

Despite being one of the best, if not the best looking mega, it still did not serve it justice. It could've been one hell of a wall breaker, but adding 40 to its defense stat hindered it a little, as well as its ability. The thing is a freaking hell hound! Who wouldn't be scared by it? It should've had intimidate as its ability and have its increased defense stat put into sp.atk or speed.

[u/powersunk]

I don't get excited about much anymore, but I look forward to False Swipe's post every Sunday.

[u/noodles355]

Houndoom has to be without a doubt one of my favourite Pokemon. It’s design is just so damn cool. I’ve always wished it (and it’s Mega) we’re better than they are...

I should never build a team with my 6 favourites because it would have terrible typing XD

[u/T-Rex_Is_best]

I don't care how Houndoom is competitively. Still one of my top 6 Pokemon ever and one that's likely the most important to me personally.

[u/PkmnTrainerMike]

Always my favorite! Usually named Cerberus haha

[u/stapellini]

His script has gotten so much better lately