Nidoking is a fun example where Life Orb is so good that people never expect you to run anything else. So it's why in gen 8 OU Scarf Nidoking was so good. Just nuking things like Garchomp and Lando with Ice Beam out of the blue is a good surprise factor.
I also learned that specs Luvdisk is surprisingly powerful when using ice beam on 4x weak mons but it's still impressive it two shots lando T especially when it's coming off 40 base sp attk
I'm a pretty inexperienced player but I remember that when I laddered Gen 4 OU sometime around 2017 with an account lost to time, I forgot to give my Jolteon an item for several battles (I don't think there was a warning for no items back then? Either that or I somehow didn't see it) and after I gave it Life Orb for damage I was losing more often due to recoil, so I gave it Leftovers instead lmao
I heard magic guard as magikarp for like the first 4 minutes of the video and I was waiting for the hottest Ryan gosling joke to come together with the life orb magikarp exaggeration gag but then I realized that I got plain goobed by my ears
Life Orb sometimes feels like giving your Pokemon a Toxic Orb and taking damage every time you attack instead of on every turn- You actually take *more damage from 2 attacks with Life Orb* than you do from 2 turns of Toxic damage, and that's not including other chip damage. You REALLY have to justify using it over the other options depending on your style of team. This is partially why I prefer the boosting items of Expert Belt or the Single-type boosting items when building- It doesn't reveal your item to keep opponents guessing, it still boosts your attacks (albeit not as much), but with the trade off of not being worn down nearly as easily over the course of the game.
Most of the issues with Life Orb being less and less common as generations go is that we got progressively better items to put on "offensive threats that need to change moves". Gems (when legal), mega stones, Z-moves, AV and Boots are all amazing at giving either bursts of power or longevity necessary to set up and win
I feel like randbats sets throws life orb on too many things too often when there's no specific ranges to hit. Sometimes you need that damage , but usually it just makes a potential check completely neutered and temporary. Especially setup mons that lose health on setup into only being able to get off 1-2 moves
@@DkKobaADV I'm not sure it's quite like this anymore, but I think in the past the way it worked was that if you had a certain number of attacking moves, you always had life orb, and otherwise had leftovers by default (unless there was some specific set that trumped that). Nowadays I think lefties are vastly better than LO, so that difference feels way huger especially with how good hazards are in gen 9 (not just in randbats, but it's felt especially there). Getting chipped down by rocks and spikes is bad enough, but if you want to attack (especially into the void of no team preview), LO is gonna wear you down way too fast while leftovers mons often make plenty of progress on their own and aren't dying of mesothelioma while they do it
LO definitely isn't a bad item. But like you said, longevity and the nature of the game currently have made it less desireable and we have more options now.
@@vyor8837 look life orb is great on sheer force mons but is detrimental to most other mons and that's just the truth. Also most pokemon do have a choice item they want to use lol poor example. Even if Assault Vest isn't optimal on a mon it doesn't hurt the mon's usability. Life Orb is actually worse than not having an item at all on most pokes.
@@ellachino4799 Assault Vest objectively makes some pokemon useless, like Blissey. Blissey also can't really use a choice item either... but it *can* use Life Orb with a boosting set.
I feel like Gen 7 subtly caused the shift away from Life Orb. A lot of would-be LO users used a Z Crystal instead. I think that went to show that the 30% boost was not as necessary for picking up KOs as many of us may have thought. It’s better to stack hazards and play around safe defensive pivots than to go all out, chip yourself, and die to priority moves. By Gen 8, I think the only common LO mons were Sheer Force and Magic Guard mons that don’t take the recoil anyway. Even still, a lot of these mons still seem to like Leftovers or Boots instead. Edit: And like how the Knock Off buff in Gen 6 encouraged Knock Off usage in older gens, the shift away from LO in new gens precipitates through the old gens as well.
Another interesting dynamic that rose with people moving away from Life Orb is that more offensive team structures started to favor even more bursts of power, either with using more choice items or having resilient setup sweepers, which certaingly compounds the issue of offensive threats feeling even more unbeareable
i think there's an additional aspect to today's games -- power creep and optimization. offensive pokemon would rather get as much damage as they can with a choice item -- and mixed attackers are much rarer nowadays than in the past (iron valiant, the most prominent mixed attacker, uses booster energy for its mixed set). you need as much damage as you can because bulky pokemon are bulkier, hits matter more when pokemon are getting an additional stab modifier off tera, there are things running around like specs dragapult hitting crazy neutral stab damage with shadow ball (which isnt even close to being an issue in the meta, its just so standard at this point). and speed has really shown itself this generation to be the be all end all, so many attackers that might have used life orb in the past are now using scarf and pivot moves, to outspeed and scout. i mean, the fact that darkrai runs timid max speed scarf, and needs it, is just testament to how much higher the bar is for speed.
To add some math to how bad the drawback of life orb is, in order to break even with life orb i.e deal 10% extra damage (assuming not optimal ev spreads) you would have to 3hko before life orb (to 43.33 after), everything below that is a net negative. Given the longevity of these teams if your life orb mon doesn't have longevity to match defensive mons, this "break even benchmark" is turning more into 2hkos/ 2/3s of the defensive mon's hp, where you are not going over any major thresholds and it would just be better to run a defensive item. If a mon is doing this much damage to the tier's best defensive switch ins for it (not counting set up), the mon is probably broken and life orb won't do anything. If it isn't, the mon is losing hp everytime it attacks and will be dead weight quickly. The only time life orb would be useful is to go over the 3hko -> 2hko or the 2hko -> ohko thresholds on common targets which in practice don't matter given how common chip damage is in most formats.
the problem with this take is that while chip damage will push you over damage benchmarks, it'll also get you close enough to other benchmarks that life orb boost will push you over them. life orb boost and chip damage complement each other, one doesn't invalidate the other
in addition, damage benchmarks aren't really useful anyways except to gauge generally how much damage a mob is doing. in a real battle, an opponent's pokemon will almost certainly be hit by more than one different damage source, making it pretty much meaningless if any given one of those hits would in a vacuum be a 3hko, 2hko, 4hko, etc. more damage is always a good thing
@@thejevilhimselfI agree one doesn't invalidate the other person say but his initial argument is sound in that it is most useful only if you actually are picking up earlier KO's then you would w/o LO in which case it's only justified if your running lots of calcs otherwise lefties is better IMO. To your point though a perfect example of a Pokemon who picks up MANY notable KO's with LO AND hazards is SD Lucario. Spikes can even allow it too KO some of the tiers most resilient defensive walls like hippo, which it cannot do without having both. Defensive starmies being gutted by e speed is another example aswell as Dragonite or zap who become e speed fodder at 75% (I think bold zap has a chance but then you can CC)
A fun side effect of this is that, as ir becomes less common, it becomes much more distractive when not expected. Even DD dragapult usually opts for other items, but life orb adamant dragon darts blows past so many of it's checks with power alone, same went with zeoraora.
I've seen most people swap out Life Orb for Heavy-Duty Boots or Protective Pads. Instead of taking extra chip, remove it entirely. Hell, I've seen setup sweepers with Leftovers pretty often. With how much residual damage there is now, every bit of health counts. Best example is Black Glasses Kingambit.
I’ve always said that there are only two (and a half) reasons to use life orb. 1: You don’t take damage from it cuz magic guard and sheer force are Op 1.5: you have a way to heal off the damage you’re taking ie: regenerator mienshao, giga drain on venusaur in sub, grassy terrain with rillaboom 2: you are ready and willing to have your life orb pokemon die, likely early on. If it’s neither of those, then life orb is probably not a great item for your Pokemon.
I recently switched LO to leftovers to my offensive starmie on my BW HO team a while ago and it did wonders… again emphasizing, offensive starmie on HO… mitigating stealth rock damage (once upon switching in and because it forces switches on the next) is so much better for my games
@@pikminologueraisin2139 i instead switched tbolt to thunder, and my mie’s primary purpose is an offensive spinner so it doesn’t really hurt much to miss ohkos
My viewpoint may be skewed because I primarily play the OMs on Showdown like STABmons or AAA, but I really like using Life Orb with mons that can mitigate the damage, like Mienshao with Regenerator, or stuff with Drain Punch or Giga Drain.
within these wacky metagames back when mega ray was legal in BH i'd run life orb aerilate fakespeed PLUS boomburst and it'd do such catastrophic damage, and changing it to Sky Plate made me really feel the difference in power, even if i wasn't taking upwards of 20% of my health every time i revenge killed something
I feel like the opposite kind of happened to Rocky Helmet. Back in Gen 5 I remember people brushing it off and saying Leftovers were far more practice as a defensive item. However when Gen 6 came around with Mega Kanga people started using it on Ferrothorn as an answer and suddenly people realized the item was good, even after Kanga got banned. Like it's not slapped on everything and anything but it's still considered a viable item to consider today.
The way I see it is that Lorb makes it too risky to get the wrong move. 1.3x on that Flamethrower that is killing Skarmory in two hits anyways, or 1.3x Flamethrower to do 12% damage to Milotic (recovering 6.25% with Lefties)
You get to potentially blow up 100% of your opponent's health for only 10% of your HP. That's how I see it. I play randbats a lot and use Showdex consistently. Scoring a clean KO and punching holes in your opponent's teams is infinitely better than taking a significant chip. Sometimes, that little bit of power boost is all you need to break through.
Life Orb feels like one of those items that you want to use on things that can ignore the damaging effect(with Magic Guard or Sheer Force in this case). Leftovers is such a busted item that things that do the opposite just feel like a potential liability. That said, there are exceptions to this conception, where that massive power spike can cause a huge swing in tempo, like a Normal Pokemon on STAB Guts Facade running the Burn/Toxic Orb, and Life Orb is still one of the better options for trying to run a mixed sweeper for cleanup, which is something you want to save for Endgame anyway so the self chip isn't AS much of an issue(assuming you can't just run Sheer Force Nidoking or whatever in your tier). It basically comes down to calculations though, that extra 30% has to finish things off or knock them into KO ranges that other items wouldn't to matter. You need to know what your format is running and at what EVs(and IVs in the case of Hidden Power shenanigans) to make the most of it. But that's probably going to be too much work in more volatile formats, but in more static ones you won't have as much of a surprise factor that allows it to make a difference. It's a rough situation, that's for sure.
Something to say about Urshifu(SSOU Rapid Strike to be specific), LO would not be good on it. You either go banded for maximum nukage or go Protective Pads to avoid rocky helmet and iron barbs recoil(which is very common)
Ive found for a few years now that I much rather run leftovers on a mon that would normally run life orb. The way I see it, I would rather have more turns alive doing damage than getting cut a few turns short. It especially helps with keeping your sweepers out of priority range
@@vyor8837 I agree. Which is why I find that I am able to get more KOs when my Pokémon doesn’t get revenge killed a priority move after a turn of chip from setting up + Life Orb damage and instead can take the hit and KO
@@masonnodar5140 Did life orb ensure that it could KO the first pokemon? No? Would it have let you get away with not using a setup move? No? Then don't use it. If it *did* allow you to get that KO after the setup then using it was a net positive because a swords dance or amnesia boost with life orb is worth more than 2 attacks (especially thanks to its multiplicative boost, where life orb+2x in an attacking stat is actually a 2.6x total damage boost instead of a 2.3x boost). If an extra 60% damage isn't needed or isn't enough after a setup move, don't use it (it's a 45% boost when used with a 1.5x boosting move, so almost an entire turn extra of setup).
@@vyor8837 from what I understand about your argument, you are talking about making sure you can knock out the Pokémon in front of you. I’m talking about making sure you’re alive after the next revenge killer. It can be situational for both but I see your point
I will never not use life orb on my mixed attackers, but only as long as I have hazard control and my mixed attackers aren't too worn down by passive damage
I'm so glad you made this video. I've always liked using Protean Greninja but I'm always "damn, this life orb is annoying" and always felt stupid for wanting to use a different item lol
I sometimes really hate having to eat LO recoil plus hazards plus Sand. It can way too quickly become too much. Infernape is a perfect example. It basically dies if you switch around it.
I’ve personally felt Life Orb is like the worst “viable” item (so no bottom of the barrel stuff no one would use like Focus Band or Shell Bell) for many years already. I remember discovering the item all the way back in PBR of all things when some dude online with a Mewtwo and other Ubers slapped Life Orb on literally every Pokémon, and my child self thought that was stupid. “Why would you want to damage yourself?”, basically. Nowadays I literally only run it on Sheer Force or Magic Guard mons cause chipping myself for a bit more damage is a GameStop trade, at least for how I prefer to play the game.
for megas its matters more, since are 1 per battle only. And using one means cnat use another, like its better to use LO latios + another mega like lopunny or charizard (either) then use mega Latios
So if lifeorb sucks what is good? Choice items lock you into one slot not like it always matters but what are all the options for offensive mons? Choice items, leftovers, berries to reduce dmg taken or heal up? Like what is good out of curiousity. Obviously i imagine stuff like gen 8 onwards is stuff like heavy duty boots and protective pads a lot. Focus sash any good or are there too many hazards to make that work? Is black belt any good for mons that abuse close combat a lot to give them more flexibility on their sweeping while boosting their main damaging move? Is uturn more popular nowadays?
I rarely see protective pads in gen 9, boots is very common though. The most common item for offensive mons today I would say is booster energy though, it's really good, but it's only useful in conjunction with a specific ability only certain gen 9 pokemon have, so it'll probably be much less of a thing next generation. Other than that, the most common items are choice items, boots, leftovers and rarely air balloon in mons that are really weak to ground. The one case of a pokemon running life orb as the standard set would be mixed Deoxys-Speed, you also see as a non-standard option on Dragon Dance Dragapult
I used life orb infernape in gen 7. Mixed attacker specifically designed to overheat, then throw out powerful physical moves after the sp.attk drop. With earthquake, it demolishes toxapex, and anything that couldn't outspeed it would struggle to take an overheat or close combat
I think that it’s a very gen 4 focused take, it’s true there, because you need to take into account the presence of both rocks and sand on every battles, so stuff like dragonite, Infernape, latias etc, are basically on a timer, but even then, you get orbgon, who’s pitiful offensive stats are boosted by life orb, sporting an immunity to (t)spikes, sand, resistance to rocks, and ability to easily generate switches, so it can capitalize on roost. Then gen 5 arrives, and we get sheer force, magic guard, regenerator, drizzle to remove sand etc etc, and the situation only gets better as gens go on, nah, life orb is one of the primary culprits of the power creep on our hands. Expert belt, now, that, is one useless item ever since their inception.
This is kinda sad to think abt tbh cuz I used to love this item so much that i put it on like everything. However, even I’m noticing I don’t use it anymore and it sucks to admit its just not that good like I thought it was 😢 still i remember getting so excited about the idea of like life orb magmar and other silly stuff like that lol (i also used to love magmar for some reason) so it’ll always have at least a small place in my heart.
IMO, life orb is good for when you really want a strong SE coverage movepool to grab those oneshots, or the mon using orb is such a glass cannon that it's unlikely to eat even one attack, like Weavile or Phermosa. A strat I personally like, is pairing LO with moves like blizzard and focus blast. Although I only ever used it in balanced hackmons.
I’ve been saying this for years. I’ll bring one in standard play occasionally but I’ve been playing draft since late gen 6 and brought maybe a handful of Life Orbs total (aside from Sheer Force/Magic Guard)
Life Orb Recover Luster Purge + Coverage Latios can have enough longevity to take a hit and then hit back pretty hard in Gen 9, these days you basically need to be able to live 2 hits even as a sweeper just to account for the variables you can face.
I can agree with this and have for years even as far back as Gen 4. However one exception to that rule for me is Clefable with Magic Guard. Since I run three Attacks and Either Soft Boiled. Or Moonlight on Sun Teams. Since I always run Flamethrower Anyways.
@@matthewchen8452the fact is that every item (besides leftovers) has drawbacks, so the video doesn’t make that much point. AV locks you on damaging moves, so you can’t use any type of status moves. Band, specs and scarf will only allow you to use one move, so if the enemy is able to predict your move in that specific turn you are forced to switch your pokemon out. Protective pads? Too situational. Expert belt? Only works with supereffective moves and the boost is barely noticeable. Focus sash? Almost worthless since there are too many hazards and hazards setters running in this meta. Life orb is the only actual item that grants you a very good damaging boost to all your moves.(1.3x when doing calculations does matter a lot) LO simply isn’t an item that you can put on whatever pokemon you want to
I've never liked life orb much either. The moment a Pokemon that holds it attacks, the opponent knows what item your pokemon has At least with choice items it's not immediately known. Your opponent can only exploit your choice item if they know you have it. Sometimes you can even put choice items on Pokemon that you wouldn't expect them to be on. I once used a choice scarf breloom with excellent results. Extremely fast Spore
Yee if you have lefties you effectively halve neutral rocks damage. Completely mitigating it if you have protect(?) Leftovers is a little less than 16% more health per turn (less than 16% since u dnt take orb damage on switch in) - basically like having poison heal when compared to the dmg taken over a game of life orb.
Life Orb pokemon are insane in my opinion. Salamance for example collocated with it's ability "Moxie" is prodigiously deleterious along with the fact that it can Dragon Dance.
I haven't watched the video yet and there is no way he doesn't address this in it, but just to spite someone that didn't read the first part of this comment: Kid named magic guard:
Honestly one of the few items that doesn't feel objectively bad, but not clearly good either. I accepted the downsides of Life Orb and basically only tried to run it on goofy off meta sets to make people uncomfortable, like Defiant Empoleon with Earthquake
The only time I really like life orb is on rain teams with rapid spin support What I hate most about life orb is the recoil you take on attacks where the extra power was really not necessary...
I literally just rocked 2 LO guys on a SV team: agility mixed dnite, and metagross. And I never run LO. So crazy coincidence that this vid is made afterwards.
As a random battles enjoyer, Life Orb is the worst fucking thing ever. Something like arbok constantly needs to eat some choise banded CCs because you rolled a rock type and 2 steel types. It feels so bad to throw out a limb eq knowing it is turning the 3hko into a 2hko but it's not like you have any choise on the matter either because the orb is forced on you. What's even worse is that the algorythm is hell bend on giving every set up sweeper life orb. It's basically impossible to use your sword dance whatevers to throw chip hits in early game because they just immediately go below whatever health they need to get their set up turn later. It's insane how many tines I would win a game if my random sandslash or whatever was 3 attack+sd lefties over 3 attacks+sd life ord
I had Life Orb on Latias, and was realy not happy on that. Latias is fast, but also bulky, but not that Bulky. It lost to much recoil from that, and whitout HP investment healing up wasnt that easy eighter.
I honestly take shell bell over life orb most of the time. Especially if the mon in question has 4 attacking moves or 3 and a recovery. It's like a slightly worse leftovers at that point and it's not bad. Would far prefer to gain health every turn than lose, despite the boost
I’m mostly in agreement with you on Life Orb, I tend to avoid putting it on recklessly on pokemon, ESPECIALLY in later generations where there are a lot more good items, but I think Life Orb is really good on super fast, strong attackers that really need that boost to start OKHO’ing stuff. I think Life Orb was at its best in gen 5 with crazy stuff like Latios/Keldeo running around, Life Orb can get you KO’s on these pokemon and others that wouldnt normally exist, but the health cost is a detriment, so its more of a specific niche item in my eyes rather than a competitive mainstay, but it can be devastating if you actually build around the extra power with your team and slot the item on with actual thought, rather than just slapping it on like you would leftovers or a choice item on many pokemon.
I play a meta where the best pokemon (zacian-hero) occasionally runs life orb, but it's terrible and a total noob trap. I've soured on life orb myself lately, and as someone who's come to appreciate bulky teams more and more, I'm definitely not a fan of losing 10% of my health for playing the game.
Third comment for this video (this must be a new record), but please do a Healing Wish video. I started using it in late ORAS and sometimes it feels like the best move in the game that nobody runs on ladder
Honestly I was never a fan of life orb i always felt it was overrated as hell, only time i found it useful was on Nidoking or anyone who can negate the recoil
This video applies well to so many later generations and explains why i hated this item outside from Magic Guard & Sheer Force mons or DPP Flygon/Lucario for years
here's the most reductive summary i could think of, with a limited amount of knowledge, using this video and another BKC video as a comparison: using a Life Orb pokemon should roughly be played like you're using a non-protect Ho-Oh in DPP Ubers, lead with it, or get it in while rocks arent up. its not even close to a 1 to 1 comparison, i just found it funny how similar the talking points were by nature of how quickly both die without proper defensive measures like healing or scouting.
I hope the nuanced use of a semicolon in the title has some people reconsider losing 10% of their health
simply understand semicolons
Their ability is Sheer Force; so they won't take any damage.
Can we talk about wise glasses and muscle band
cc@@SpookyRedBone can we talk about Jo?
@@SpookyRedBonedo NOT let this man cook 😭
Nidoking is a fun example where Life Orb is so good that people never expect you to run anything else. So it's why in gen 8 OU Scarf Nidoking was so good. Just nuking things like Garchomp and Lando with Ice Beam out of the blue is a good surprise factor.
Nidoking is an exception since its passive bypasses the drawback of lifeorb. This is isn’t a good reason to say why life orb is good overall.
@@martin99110that's why he didn't say that
@@martin99110 I'm not saying it's good overall, it's good on Nidoking specifically. Same for any good sheer force mon tbh
I also learned that specs Luvdisk is surprisingly powerful when using ice beam on 4x weak mons but it's still impressive it two shots lando T especially when it's coming off 40 base sp attk
@@destroyer4929 Tf are you using Luvdisc for in OU
I'm a pretty inexperienced player but I remember that when I laddered Gen 4 OU sometime around 2017 with an account lost to time, I forgot to give my Jolteon an item for several battles (I don't think there was a warning for no items back then? Either that or I somehow didn't see it) and after I gave it Life Orb for damage I was losing more often due to recoil, so I gave it Leftovers instead lmao
Jolteon doesn't hit hard enough for life orb to help without getting stat boosts.
I heard magic guard as magikarp for like the first 4 minutes of the video and I was waiting for the hottest Ryan gosling joke to come together with the life orb magikarp exaggeration gag but then I realized that I got plain goobed by my ears
Life Orb sometimes feels like giving your Pokemon a Toxic Orb and taking damage every time you attack instead of on every turn- You actually take *more damage from 2 attacks with Life Orb* than you do from 2 turns of Toxic damage, and that's not including other chip damage. You REALLY have to justify using it over the other options depending on your style of team. This is partially why I prefer the boosting items of Expert Belt or the Single-type boosting items when building- It doesn't reveal your item to keep opponents guessing, it still boosts your attacks (albeit not as much), but with the trade off of not being worn down nearly as easily over the course of the game.
this is why you run toxic orb for that heat status immunity instead, clearly
@@deneb1110 or flame orb on a physical attacker so you cant get burned by opposing pokemon
Experts report a drop on Life Orb usage of 90% in the upcoming month
Most of the issues with Life Orb being less and less common as generations go is that we got progressively better items to put on "offensive threats that need to change moves". Gems (when legal), mega stones, Z-moves, AV and Boots are all amazing at giving either bursts of power or longevity necessary to set up and win
nidoking: "wow imagine that. so anyway"
feraligtr: "we started blasting"
When I play random battles and one of my Pokémon with life orb gets knocked off, half the time I’m happy
I feel like randbats sets throws life orb on too many things too often when there's no specific ranges to hit. Sometimes you need that damage , but usually it just makes a potential check completely neutered and temporary. Especially setup mons that lose health on setup into only being able to get off 1-2 moves
Summed it up perfectly
@@DkKobaADV I'm not sure it's quite like this anymore, but I think in the past the way it worked was that if you had a certain number of attacking moves, you always had life orb, and otherwise had leftovers by default (unless there was some specific set that trumped that). Nowadays I think lefties are vastly better than LO, so that difference feels way huger especially with how good hazards are in gen 9 (not just in randbats, but it's felt especially there). Getting chipped down by rocks and spikes is bad enough, but if you want to attack (especially into the void of no team preview), LO is gonna wear you down way too fast while leftovers mons often make plenty of progress on their own and aren't dying of mesothelioma while they do it
LO definitely isn't a bad item. But like you said, longevity and the nature of the game currently have made it less desireable and we have more options now.
this video applies to basically every gen where life orb is available though
It's a bad item. Most pokes shouldn't use it.
@@ellachino4799 most pokes shouldn't use Assault Vest or a choice item either, doesn't make those bad items.
@@vyor8837 look life orb is great on sheer force mons but is detrimental to most other mons and that's just the truth. Also most pokemon do have a choice item they want to use lol poor example. Even if Assault Vest isn't optimal on a mon it doesn't hurt the mon's usability. Life Orb is actually worse than not having an item at all on most pokes.
@@ellachino4799 Assault Vest objectively makes some pokemon useless, like Blissey. Blissey also can't really use a choice item either... but it *can* use Life Orb with a boosting set.
I feel like Gen 7 subtly caused the shift away from Life Orb. A lot of would-be LO users used a Z Crystal instead. I think that went to show that the 30% boost was not as necessary for picking up KOs as many of us may have thought. It’s better to stack hazards and play around safe defensive pivots than to go all out, chip yourself, and die to priority moves. By Gen 8, I think the only common LO mons were Sheer Force and Magic Guard mons that don’t take the recoil anyway. Even still, a lot of these mons still seem to like Leftovers or Boots instead.
Edit: And like how the Knock Off buff in Gen 6 encouraged Knock Off usage in older gens, the shift away from LO in new gens precipitates through the old gens as well.
Another interesting dynamic that rose with people moving away from Life Orb is that more offensive team structures started to favor even more bursts of power, either with using more choice items or having resilient setup sweepers, which certaingly compounds the issue of offensive threats feeling even more unbeareable
Its all fun and games until Lucario extreme speeds you into the next life
i think there's an additional aspect to today's games -- power creep and optimization. offensive pokemon would rather get as much damage as they can with a choice item -- and mixed attackers are much rarer nowadays than in the past (iron valiant, the most prominent mixed attacker, uses booster energy for its mixed set). you need as much damage as you can because bulky pokemon are bulkier, hits matter more when pokemon are getting an additional stab modifier off tera, there are things running around like specs dragapult hitting crazy neutral stab damage with shadow ball (which isnt even close to being an issue in the meta, its just so standard at this point). and speed has really shown itself this generation to be the be all end all, so many attackers that might have used life orb in the past are now using scarf and pivot moves, to outspeed and scout. i mean, the fact that darkrai runs timid max speed scarf, and needs it, is just testament to how much higher the bar is for speed.
To add some math to how bad the drawback of life orb is, in order to break even with life orb i.e deal 10% extra damage (assuming not optimal ev spreads) you would have to 3hko before life orb (to 43.33 after), everything below that is a net negative. Given the longevity of these teams if your life orb mon doesn't have longevity to match defensive mons, this "break even benchmark" is turning more into 2hkos/ 2/3s of the defensive mon's hp, where you are not going over any major thresholds and it would just be better to run a defensive item. If a mon is doing this much damage to the tier's best defensive switch ins for it (not counting set up), the mon is probably broken and life orb won't do anything. If it isn't, the mon is losing hp everytime it attacks and will be dead weight quickly. The only time life orb would be useful is to go over the 3hko -> 2hko or the 2hko -> ohko thresholds on common targets which in practice don't matter given how common chip damage is in most formats.
the problem with this take is that while chip damage will push you over damage benchmarks, it'll also get you close enough to other benchmarks that life orb boost will push you over them. life orb boost and chip damage complement each other, one doesn't invalidate the other
in addition, damage benchmarks aren't really useful anyways except to gauge generally how much damage a mob is doing. in a real battle, an opponent's pokemon will almost certainly be hit by more than one different damage source, making it pretty much meaningless if any given one of those hits would in a vacuum be a 3hko, 2hko, 4hko, etc. more damage is always a good thing
@@thejevilhimselfI agree one doesn't invalidate the other person say but his initial argument is sound in that it is most useful only if you actually are picking up earlier KO's then you would w/o LO in which case it's only justified if your running lots of calcs otherwise lefties is better IMO. To your point though a perfect example of a Pokemon who picks up MANY notable KO's with LO AND hazards is SD Lucario. Spikes can even allow it too KO some of the tiers most resilient defensive walls like hippo, which it cannot do without having both. Defensive starmies being gutted by e speed is another example aswell as Dragonite or zap who become e speed fodder at 75% (I think bold zap has a chance but then you can CC)
A fun side effect of this is that, as ir becomes less common, it becomes much more distractive when not expected. Even DD dragapult usually opts for other items, but life orb adamant dragon darts blows past so many of it's checks with power alone, same went with zeoraora.
Very true actually. Ive been caught off guard before
I've seen most people swap out Life Orb for Heavy-Duty Boots or Protective Pads. Instead of taking extra chip, remove it entirely. Hell, I've seen setup sweepers with Leftovers pretty often. With how much residual damage there is now, every bit of health counts.
Best example is Black Glasses Kingambit.
It's also huge on gambit bc you want that HP to make your Tera matter more
I’ve always said that there are only two (and a half) reasons to use life orb.
1: You don’t take damage from it cuz magic guard and sheer force are Op
1.5: you have a way to heal off the damage you’re taking ie: regenerator mienshao, giga drain on venusaur in sub, grassy terrain with rillaboom
2: you are ready and willing to have your life orb pokemon die, likely early on.
If it’s neither of those, then life orb is probably not a great item for your Pokemon.
My opinion has arrived thank you BKC
I recently switched LO to leftovers to my offensive starmie on my BW HO team a while ago and it did wonders… again emphasizing, offensive starmie on HO… mitigating stealth rock damage (once upon switching in and because it forces switches on the next) is so much better for my games
I actually love life orb mie on HO. I know it makes it very volatile but sometimes you need the extra pourcentage dealt thanks to LO
@@pikminologueraisin2139 i instead switched tbolt to thunder, and my mie’s primary purpose is an offensive spinner so it doesn’t really hurt much to miss ohkos
Yup
My viewpoint may be skewed because I primarily play the OMs on Showdown like STABmons or AAA, but I really like using Life Orb with mons that can mitigate the damage, like Mienshao with Regenerator, or stuff with Drain Punch or Giga Drain.
within these wacky metagames back when mega ray was legal in BH i'd run life orb aerilate fakespeed PLUS boomburst and it'd do such catastrophic damage, and changing it to Sky Plate made me really feel the difference in power, even if i wasn't taking upwards of 20% of my health every time i revenge killed something
I feel like the opposite kind of happened to Rocky Helmet. Back in Gen 5 I remember people brushing it off and saying Leftovers were far more practice as a defensive item. However when Gen 6 came around with Mega Kanga people started using it on Ferrothorn as an answer and suddenly people realized the item was good, even after Kanga got banned.
Like it's not slapped on everything and anything but it's still considered a viable item to consider today.
Only really viable on stupidly fast mons that can clean lategame with the extra power
Doing 1/60th of your teams HP for 30% extra damage on one pokemon is how I've always looked at it. Never seemed that good in that context.
The way I see it is that Lorb makes it too risky to get the wrong move. 1.3x on that Flamethrower that is killing Skarmory in two hits anyways, or 1.3x Flamethrower to do 12% damage to Milotic (recovering 6.25% with Lefties)
You get to potentially blow up 100% of your opponent's health for only 10% of your HP. That's how I see it.
I play randbats a lot and use Showdex consistently. Scoring a clean KO and punching holes in your opponent's teams is infinitely better than taking a significant chip. Sometimes, that little bit of power boost is all you need to break through.
Life Orb feels like one of those items that you want to use on things that can ignore the damaging effect(with Magic Guard or Sheer Force in this case). Leftovers is such a busted item that things that do the opposite just feel like a potential liability.
That said, there are exceptions to this conception, where that massive power spike can cause a huge swing in tempo, like a Normal Pokemon on STAB Guts Facade running the Burn/Toxic Orb, and Life Orb is still one of the better options for trying to run a mixed sweeper for cleanup, which is something you want to save for Endgame anyway so the self chip isn't AS much of an issue(assuming you can't just run Sheer Force Nidoking or whatever in your tier).
It basically comes down to calculations though, that extra 30% has to finish things off or knock them into KO ranges that other items wouldn't to matter. You need to know what your format is running and at what EVs(and IVs in the case of Hidden Power shenanigans) to make the most of it. But that's probably going to be too much work in more volatile formats, but in more static ones you won't have as much of a surprise factor that allows it to make a difference. It's a rough situation, that's for sure.
Big pearl is the item to use.
Yall ain't ready for that though
fling big nugget sneasler is a real and viable strategy
Something to say about Urshifu(SSOU Rapid Strike to be specific), LO would not be good on it. You either go banded for maximum nukage or go Protective Pads to avoid rocky helmet and iron barbs recoil(which is very common)
First 30 seconds of the video, one must imagine BKC enjoying constantly switching into stealth rocks.
Ive found for a few years now that I much rather run leftovers on a mon that would normally run life orb. The way I see it, I would rather have more turns alive doing damage than getting cut a few turns short. It especially helps with keeping your sweepers out of priority range
It is always better to get the KO than to not get it. Every time. 10% damage is less than 40%.
@@vyor8837 I agree. Which is why I find that I am able to get more KOs when my Pokémon doesn’t get revenge killed a priority move after a turn of chip from setting up + Life Orb damage and instead can take the hit and KO
@@masonnodar5140 Did life orb ensure that it could KO the first pokemon? No? Would it have let you get away with not using a setup move? No?
Then don't use it.
If it *did* allow you to get that KO after the setup then using it was a net positive because a swords dance or amnesia boost with life orb is worth more than 2 attacks (especially thanks to its multiplicative boost, where life orb+2x in an attacking stat is actually a 2.6x total damage boost instead of a 2.3x boost).
If an extra 60% damage isn't needed or isn't enough after a setup move, don't use it (it's a 45% boost when used with a 1.5x boosting move, so almost an entire turn extra of setup).
@@vyor8837 from what I understand about your argument, you are talking about making sure you can knock out the Pokémon in front of you. I’m talking about making sure you’re alive after the next revenge killer. It can be situational for both but I see your point
I think the abundance of pivoting nowadays makes LO much worse, attacking with it can feel like giving a free rocky helmet for your opponent
Theres no way I would rather spend my MLK day than a BKC hot take
Imagine taking 10% chip when you could avoid chip altogether with boots. #oldgenstruggles
I will never not use life orb on my mixed attackers, but only as long as I have hazard control and my mixed attackers aren't too worn down by passive damage
Yeah LO on fast mixed attackers is a must for me
I'm so glad you made this video. I've always liked using Protean Greninja but I'm always "damn, this life orb is annoying" and always felt stupid for wanting to use a different item lol
Lucky dice water shuriken or choice item
came back from group meditation to BKC upload, peace truly is attainable
Not even going to watch the video, but am rushing over to teambuilder to strip all my Pokémon of life orb. Thanks BKC
The purge shall be commenced
This is the way
I sometimes really hate having to eat LO recoil plus hazards plus Sand. It can way too quickly become too much. Infernape is a perfect example. It basically dies if you switch around it.
I started thinking this a few days ago. I knew I wasn’t tripping.
When opponent uses life orb, I get KOd
When I use life orb, I get KOd
I’ve personally felt Life Orb is like the worst “viable” item (so no bottom of the barrel stuff no one would use like Focus Band or Shell Bell) for many years already. I remember discovering the item all the way back in PBR of all things when some dude online with a Mewtwo and other Ubers slapped Life Orb on literally every Pokémon, and my child self thought that was stupid. “Why would you want to damage yourself?”, basically. Nowadays I literally only run it on Sheer Force or Magic Guard mons cause chipping myself for a bit more damage is a GameStop trade, at least for how I prefer to play the game.
I have always hated the argument that x mega is worse because the pokemon hits harder with life orb.
Which is a very fair argument considering the mega could be used for some other mon...
for megas its matters more, since are 1 per battle only. And using one means cnat use another, like its better to use LO latios + another mega like lopunny or charizard (either) then use mega Latios
But it's true and valid. Life orb variants were better sometimes because you could save mega slot for a mega with a good change
Got the notification and immediately reread it for the semicolon consistent GOAT
So if lifeorb sucks what is good? Choice items lock you into one slot not like it always matters but what are all the options for offensive mons? Choice items, leftovers, berries to reduce dmg taken or heal up? Like what is good out of curiousity. Obviously i imagine stuff like gen 8 onwards is stuff like heavy duty boots and protective pads a lot. Focus sash any good or are there too many hazards to make that work? Is black belt any good for mons that abuse close combat a lot to give them more flexibility on their sweeping while boosting their main damaging move? Is uturn more popular nowadays?
I rarely see protective pads in gen 9, boots is very common though. The most common item for offensive mons today I would say is booster energy though, it's really good, but it's only useful in conjunction with a specific ability only certain gen 9 pokemon have, so it'll probably be much less of a thing next generation. Other than that, the most common items are choice items, boots, leftovers and rarely air balloon in mons that are really weak to ground. The one case of a pokemon running life orb as the standard set would be mixed Deoxys-Speed, you also see as a non-standard option on Dragon Dance Dragapult
Seeing bkc say something that i have been thinking to myself for months makes me feel good, like perhaps i am not so bad at the game 😓
Excellent video; currently converting all of my trick-scarf sets to trick-orb
Thank fucking god, someone said it
I used life orb infernape in gen 7. Mixed attacker specifically designed to overheat, then throw out powerful physical moves after the sp.attk drop.
With earthquake, it demolishes toxapex, and anything that couldn't outspeed it would struggle to take an overheat or close combat
I think that it’s a very gen 4 focused take, it’s true there, because you need to take into account the presence of both rocks and sand on every battles, so stuff like dragonite, Infernape, latias etc, are basically on a timer, but even then, you get orbgon, who’s pitiful offensive stats are boosted by life orb, sporting an immunity to (t)spikes, sand, resistance to rocks, and ability to easily generate switches, so it can capitalize on roost. Then gen 5 arrives, and we get sheer force, magic guard, regenerator, drizzle to remove sand etc etc, and the situation only gets better as gens go on, nah, life orb is one of the primary culprits of the power creep on our hands.
Expert belt, now, that, is one useless item ever since their inception.
This is kinda sad to think abt tbh cuz I used to love this item so much that i put it on like everything. However, even I’m noticing I don’t use it anymore and it sucks to admit its just not that good like I thought it was 😢 still i remember getting so excited about the idea of like life orb magmar and other silly stuff like that lol (i also used to love magmar for some reason) so it’ll always have at least a small place in my heart.
IMO, life orb is good for when you really want a strong SE coverage movepool to grab those oneshots, or the mon using orb is such a glass cannon that it's unlikely to eat even one attack, like Weavile or Phermosa.
A strat I personally like, is pairing LO with moves like blizzard and focus blast. Although I only ever used it in balanced hackmons.
I’ve been saying this for years. I’ll bring one in standard play occasionally but I’ve been playing draft since late gen 6 and brought maybe a handful of Life Orbs total (aside from Sheer Force/Magic Guard)
Life Orb Recover Luster Purge + Coverage Latios can have enough longevity to take a hit and then hit back pretty hard in Gen 9, these days you basically need to be able to live 2 hits even as a sweeper just to account for the variables you can face.
I can agree with this and have for years even as far back as Gen 4. However one exception to that rule for me is Clefable with Magic Guard. Since I run three Attacks and Either Soft Boiled. Or Moonlight on Sun Teams. Since I always run Flamethrower Anyways.
Can you do a video like this for Choice Scarf?
What's you view on unfreezing older tiers that have a dedicated council and large enough player base?
I'll let ya cook but this is quite the uphill battle you've got, to convince people.
Not really, Life Orb being ass is a very commonly accepted take these days outside of a few special cases
@@matthewchen8452the fact is that every item (besides leftovers) has drawbacks, so the video doesn’t make that much point. AV locks you on damaging moves, so you can’t use any type of status moves. Band, specs and scarf will only allow you to use one move, so if the enemy is able to predict your move in that specific turn you are forced to switch your pokemon out. Protective pads? Too situational. Expert belt? Only works with supereffective moves and the boost is barely noticeable. Focus sash? Almost worthless since there are too many hazards and hazards setters running in this meta. Life orb is the only actual item that grants you a very good damaging boost to all your moves.(1.3x when doing calculations does matter a lot) LO simply isn’t an item that you can put on whatever pokemon you want to
AGREED!!! But,I would still run LO on DPP Mixmence if unbanned though.
Expert belt does basically the same but without recoil so I've never used life orb unless I really need that extra damage
Plz sir, make a video theorizing about hdb in older gens ;)
I've never liked life orb much either. The moment a Pokemon that holds it attacks, the opponent knows what item your pokemon has
At least with choice items it's not immediately known. Your opponent can only exploit your choice item if they know you have it.
Sometimes you can even put choice items on Pokemon that you wouldn't expect them to be on.
I once used a choice scarf breloom with excellent results. Extremely fast Spore
Same applies for leftovers...
@@Blanktester685but leftovers isn’t really exploitable in that same way, so it usually doesn’t matter if your opponent knows you have it.
i would like a healing wish in DPP video, i checked out of the tier then back in and missed its introduction to the meta
Yee if you have lefties you effectively halve neutral rocks damage. Completely mitigating it if you have protect(?) Leftovers is a little less than 16% more health per turn (less than 16% since u dnt take orb damage on switch in) - basically like having poison heal when compared to the dmg taken over a game of life orb.
Life Orb pokemon are insane in my opinion. Salamance for example collocated with it's ability "Moxie" is prodigiously deleterious along with the fact that it can Dragon Dance.
Someone had to say it. Glad it was The Big Kicking Chicken.
I always felt like yveltal with life orb on gen 8 was way too busted
Oblivion wing is insane
I haven't watched the video yet and there is no way he doesn't address this in it, but just to spite someone that didn't read the first part of this comment:
Kid named magic guard:
Honestly one of the few items that doesn't feel objectively bad, but not clearly good either.
I accepted the downsides of Life Orb and basically only tried to run it on goofy off meta sets to make people uncomfortable, like Defiant Empoleon with Earthquake
The only time I really like life orb is on rain teams with rapid spin support
What I hate most about life orb is the recoil you take on attacks where the extra power was really not necessary...
jesus I can count the number of frames in the background footage
I literally just rocked 2 LO guys on a SV team: agility mixed dnite, and metagross. And I never run LO. So crazy coincidence that this vid is made afterwards.
As a random battles enjoyer, Life Orb is the worst fucking thing ever. Something like arbok constantly needs to eat some choise banded CCs because you rolled a rock type and 2 steel types. It feels so bad to throw out a limb eq knowing it is turning the 3hko into a 2hko but it's not like you have any choise on the matter either because the orb is forced on you.
What's even worse is that the algorythm is hell bend on giving every set up sweeper life orb. It's basically impossible to use your sword dance whatevers to throw chip hits in early game because they just immediately go below whatever health they need to get their set up turn later. It's insane how many tines I would win a game if my random sandslash or whatever was 3 attack+sd lefties over 3 attacks+sd life ord
Life Orb Simply does not give the Huge Bonuses people think it does
tfw getting hit with knock off is beneficial
@@Rarest26 New age Life orb + Trick sets incoming
@@MrEntinen Sticky barb but funnier
FFS
There is now a Life Orb meganium in random battles. This format is so stupid at times.
Thank you for validating my my 1200 elo opinion. Ever since beating an 1100 elo team with 5 life orb users I've known it was bad (6 years ago)
I love life orb... But only if I have the sheer power to back it up
I'm going to use this video as evidence that Lando-i would be perfectly balanced in any generation's respective OU or even UU.
Still over here wondering if Zit Remedy will ever write a second song #degrassi
I had Life Orb on Latias, and was realy not happy on that. Latias is fast, but also bulky, but not that Bulky. It lost to much recoil from that, and whitout HP investment healing up wasnt that easy eighter.
I honestly take shell bell over life orb most of the time. Especially if the mon in question has 4 attacking moves or 3 and a recovery. It's like a slightly worse leftovers at that point and it's not bad. Would far prefer to gain health every turn than lose, despite the boost
Sheer force users want to know your location.
IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOREVER
The item that is made for the King and Queen
D:
new vid when I wake up lesgoo
I use it to activate Blaze and dodge Moxie
I’m mostly in agreement with you on Life Orb, I tend to avoid putting it on recklessly on pokemon, ESPECIALLY in later generations where there are a lot more good items, but I think Life Orb is really good on super fast, strong attackers that really need that boost to start OKHO’ing stuff. I think Life Orb was at its best in gen 5 with crazy stuff like Latios/Keldeo running around, Life Orb can get you KO’s on these pokemon and others that wouldnt normally exist, but the health cost is a detriment, so its more of a specific niche item in my eyes rather than a competitive mainstay, but it can be devastating if you actually build around the extra power with your team and slot the item on with actual thought, rather than just slapping it on like you would leftovers or a choice item on many pokemon.
I was an early hater of life orb from gen 6. My Kyurem and Serp had it on and I had to get rid of it for roost and leftovers
Life orb? No thanks I’ll just upgrade from flamethrower to fire blast like a real gambling addict.
A true blessing
I play a meta where the best pokemon (zacian-hero) occasionally runs life orb, but it's terrible and a total noob trap. I've soured on life orb myself lately, and as someone who's come to appreciate bulky teams more and more, I'm definitely not a fan of losing 10% of my health for playing the game.
Third comment for this video (this must be a new record), but please do a Healing Wish video. I started using it in late ORAS and sometimes it feels like the best move in the game that nobody runs on ladder
Honestly I was never a fan of life orb i always felt it was overrated as hell, only time i found it useful was on Nidoking or anyone who can negate the recoil
first Pokeaim and now BKC? now I know for sure my opinion about life orb
im glad when a random thought i have gets validated by a good player
This video applies well to so many later generations and explains why i hated this item outside from Magic Guard & Sheer Force mons or DPP Flygon/Lucario for years
Life Orb is only good for Pokemon that can avoid the recoil. (Like Sheer Force Nidoking)
I 100% agree
Shoutout to Ogerpon who has a free life orb (1.2) with no downsides
here's the most reductive summary i could think of, with a limited amount of knowledge, using this video and another BKC video as a comparison:
using a Life Orb pokemon should roughly be played like you're using a non-protect Ho-Oh in DPP Ubers, lead with it, or get it in while rocks arent up.
its not even close to a 1 to 1 comparison, i just found it funny how similar the talking points were by nature of how quickly both die without proper defensive measures like healing or scouting.
this video's title gave me a bit of an heart attack
Tactful was the word you were looking for