Heavy Offense

[Stathakis]

I got to 4th a long long time ago with a non-ho team. ladder rank is pretty irrelevant anyways, though I did get to #1 at the end of a suspect test once which isn't as monumental as #1 on ou but still shows that ho can work.

anyways

Really? Because I played with and against these type of teams myself. I myself had success with it at a decent rate generally. I find that it is truly just mindless attacking your opponent till he no longer has the ability to defend against you. In all my experience that was generally what happened in the battles.

so by attacking mindlessly you got a decent win rate? did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason your win rate was decent rather than great was because you were attacking mindlessly? the way you play isn't the only way to play, you know. and while we're on this topic, you can argue that any team or playstyle can be successful with mindless play. I've heard IPL say that laddering is like autopilot for him with zero thought, and we've seen how successful he is on the ladder and in tournaments. are we gonna call stall a mindless playstyle now?

PS. "Heavy offense" teams been around since the beginning of DP.

while this is true, the nuances of such teams weren't really explored all that much (read: at all). I know if I posted an all-special offense team in the beginning of dp I would get laughed at.


but anyways, I'm one of the dumbest idiots here, what do I know

 

[Carmelo Anthony]

Stall has always been a mindless state of play. Creating the team probably is the most thought when it comes to stall. Battling is actually the easiest part once the team is finished.

 

[franky]

Stall has always been a mindless state of play. Creating the team probably is the most thought when it comes to stall. Battling is actually the easiest part once the team is finished.

Actually stall is the easiest build and the easiest to play. Offense is much harder to build to get good type coverage and get good lures and whatnot. With Stall its actually pretty basic in terms of which spikes, sr's, spin blocks for you. If you want to think outside the box, thats when it gets a little difficult to build but harder to play on the ladder. Regardless, offense is still a harder build

 

[Carmelo Anthony]

Actually stall is the easiest build and the easiest to play. Offense is much harder to build to get good type coverage and get good lures and whatnot. With Stall its actually pretty basic in terms of which spikes, sr's, spin blocks for you. If you want to think outside the box, thats when it gets a little difficult to build but harder to play on the ladder. Regardless, offense is still a harder build

Stall isn't hardly about spikes sr's and spin blocker. It's only a few effective ones. It's about defending major threats and know which Pokemon arent' effected by your Spikes and Toxic Spikes and still be able to not let them beat you. Offense is pretty easy. Pokemon don't even have to complement each other. Lures are the most easiest thing to create, you either add a hidden power or a certain item.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

I find stall to be pretty hard to build, as you must be able to check each and every threat in the metagame, which can prove difficult.

 

[franky]

Stall isn't hardly about spikes sr's and spin blocker. It's only a few effective ones. It's about defending major threats and know which Pokemon arent' effected by your Spikes and Toxic Spikes and still be able to not let them beat you. Offense is pretty easy. Pokemon don't even have to complement each other. Lures are the most easiest thing to create, you either add a hidden power or a certain item.

of course it is. Its the key components, of course you dont think about the certain moves solely. The easy part about making Stall is finding out which one Spikes better, which one Stealth Rocks better, best Spin block. After you pick out the Pokemon, the moveset selection should be cake from there on.

In offense, Pokemon DO have to compliment each other. Once Salamence dies from a Bullet Punch per say, you bring in Lucario, Gyarados, or Infernape to set up. So yes, it does involve complimenting each other through sacrifice. Finding out which does better is much easier than finding a lure for the team.

 

[Darklord]

These kind of teams are really inconsistent on the ladder. A simple mistake or a critical miss can lose you the match right away. In most cases you will not be able to make a comeback.

Let's say you sacrificed something to let you DD Gyara set up early in the match. You have SD Lucario, Agiligross, and SD Scizor waiting in the wings to clean up whatever is left. Zapdos switches in your Gyara and it kills you because your Stone Edge missed. Now what? Or, your T-Tar got paralyzed when trying to set up on Rotom, a Scraftran burned your DDMence, etc, etc

These things happen all the time.

Hyper offense is pretty fun but is pretty frustrating when you lose matches you could have easily won.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

The probability of that stuff happening is relatively low, so it's not happening all the time. Nextly, why would you leave that many pokemon left so weak to 1 pokemon, when you should be THINKING AHEAD and considering how a zapdos could wreck your team. You should think "maybe if I sacrifice my answer to this too soon, then I'll lose."

 

[The Plant]

I don't get how people can say X-team doesn't take any skill to win with. Why then do I have a great record against stall except when Goofball/IPL plays it? No team is all that easy to run in my opinion and I don't understand how people who aren't exactly mopping up tournaments can say a team-style takes no skill

On topic I think the team is very match-up dependant. If they have machamp and scarf rotom its probally not gonna be a win for you.

 

[Darklord]

The probability of that stuff happening is relatively low, so it's not happening all the time. Nextly, why would you leave that many pokemon left so weak to 1 pokemon, when you should be THINKING AHEAD and considering how a zapdos could wreck your team. You should think "maybe if I sacrifice my answer to this too soon, then I'll lose."

That was just one mere example. I mentioned a few pokemon that are quite common in HO. Attacks like Stone Edge(80%), Meteor Mash(85%), Focus Blast(70%) etc, have a good chance of missing at some point. Especially if you have more than one pokemon with one those moves.

I think it was ipl who said that he wins with his stall team about 95% of the time and most good stall teams probably have about the same ratio. Do you actually think that a HO team will get you that kind of percentage when you're spamming those moves around? You're gonna get haxed(and lose) at some point.

This whole thinking ahead theory won't get you very far unless you have a "plan B" just in case something goes wrong, and as far as I know most HO teams don't have one.

 

[GoldDraconian]

Points:

* Rock Polish Torterra has worked pretty well for me, immunity to Electric is absolutely beautiful in HO and having a good Grass attack to destroy bulky waters (and occasionally Hippowdon) is strong. I am curious about testing Gliscor as well, just because he has the electric immunity. (On a related note, if Garchomp ever goes OU again, HO's power level goes through the roof. Enemy ScarfChomps would just be setup fodder, and your own Garchomp would give you incredibly useful resistances, Electric being key, as well as obviously threaten to SD up and win the game.)

* Anachronism, don't know if much will get done here, but I'd be curious to try to hammer something out on Shoddy sometime. If I had to guess, I would suggest that Metagross+Scizor might be the best pair of Steels if you're only picking two, though passing up on Lucario is kind of odd.

* Darklord, you do open yourself up to hax with a lot of the variants, but whether or not that is a problem depends on your goal. In a tournament, a game loss to hax knocks you out, so you're probably better off playing a team that minimizes the impact of luck vs. you. On the ladder however, over time you will do more damage with the riskier attacks, and given that losing one Poke isn't typically that big a deal for HO, you'll just take the extra damage. I have played some teams that really spam inaccurate, powerful attacks, and while you certainly lose some games to miss hax, you'd also be losing games if you had more accurate attacks, because rather than (say) an 80% chance to hit and OHKO, you'll instead have a 100% chance to hit and fall short of OHKO, or to deal too little damage for the followup to finish the enemy off.
The need for "plan B" is part of the reason I think HO teams are so hard to build properly. They need to give you a plan B Poke for all kinds of situations, so if you just mash them together without thinking it through properly, you will often generate situations where you still have 5-6 guys left, but can't possibly win.

* Sparko, I've also often been disappointed by DS Azelf. I understand in theory why it's a good lead, but I'm often tempted to use something like Uxie or Bronzong instead. If you don't have a big SR weakness (i.e. do not use Gyarados and Salamence together, which is admittedly a big concession), I think it's probably acceptable to give up Taunt in exchange for the possibility to put screens up more than once. If you ever do get to DS multiple times in a game, you almost certainly win. On the other hand, without the ability to Taunt vs. random DDGyara leads, maybe you just become too vulnerable. I've even considered going really crazy and using Taunt Gyarados or Gliscor lead, and just giving up SR in exchange for a sixth threat Pokemon. It's at least worth testing and exploring the options.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

SR is pretty damn important on heavy offense, because without it, you'll miss out on some crucial kos which could fuck you up.

 

[Carmelo Anthony]

of course it is. Its the key components, of course you dont think about the certain moves solely. The easy part about making Stall is finding out which one Spikes better, which one Stealth Rocks better, best Spin block. After you pick out the Pokemon, the moveset selection should be cake from there on.

In offense, Pokemon DO have to compliment each other. Once Salamence dies from a Bullet Punch per say, you bring in Lucario, Gyarados, or Infernape to set up. So yes, it does involve complimenting each other through sacrifice. Finding out which does better is much easier than finding a lure for the team.

Not so fast my friend. Spikes, Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock are always going to be same on a stall team. Skarmory or Forretress have Spikes. Toxic Spikes is either Forretress, Roserade or Nidoqueen. Lastly, Stealth Rock can be thrown on even Blissey. The move set section is hardly cake because you don't know if you want Wish support, or maybe a Thunder Wave on Blissey to slow down some Steels. You also could prefer Light Screen because you have 5 physical walls, and Light Screen could seriously help. Not to mention, oh shit, i need a Ape counter. Do i want Vaporeon? No CB Close Combat is a 2hko. Do i want Gyarados? Fuck, Stealth Rock is going to kill me. Ok i'll go Latias, but now i have to worry about Tar and Scizor. Do i want HP Fire for Scizor or HP Fight for Tyranitar or Reflect. I could go on and on, and that's seriously just the beginning. To much to even think about.

Yet i can run
Lucario
Metagross
Heatran
Bronzong
Scizor
Jirachi

A mono steel team, with no type of compliments from one another. It's probably a bad team, but with a couple Occa Berries or Shucca Berry, would probably win more games, than a bad stall team would. So a bad stall team would lose way more than a bad offensive team with no compliments to another.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

The probability of that stuff happening is relatively low, so it's not happening all the time. Nextly, why would you leave that many pokemon left so weak to 1 pokemon, when you should be THINKING AHEAD and considering how a zapdos could wreck your team. You should think "maybe if I sacrifice my answer to this too soon, then I'll lose."

Are you referring to building a team that isn't wrecked by Zapdos? Or gameplanning the battle so you have something (still) available to take on Zapdos?

After playing almost HO exclusively lately, I've realized just how important scouting is to an HO team. Problem is, most HO teams don't have to luxury of carrying a phazer or multiple U-turners to scout. If the opponent doesn't switch out Pokemon like a madman, there will be unknown Pokemon waiting for you at the endgame - how do I know which things should be sac'd early game against an opposing offensive team? I've lost a number of matches because I sac'd Scizor too early, a Gyarados too early, etc...all because of that unknown late game threat.

Points:

* Rock Polish Torterra has worked pretty well for me, immunity to Electric is absolutely beautiful in HO and having a good Grass attack to destroy bulky waters (and occasionally Hippowdon) is strong. I am curious about testing Gliscor as well, just because he has the electric immunity. (On a related note, if Garchomp ever goes OU again, HO's power level goes through the roof. Enemy ScarfChomps would just be setup fodder, and your own Garchomp would give you incredibly useful resistances, Electric being key, as well as obviously threaten to SD up and win the game.)

[...]

* Sparko, I've also often been disappointed by DS Azelf. I understand in theory why it's a good lead, but I'm often tempted to use something like Uxie or Bronzong instead. If you don't have a big SR weakness (i.e. do not use Gyarados and Salamence together, which is admittedly a big concession), I think it's probably acceptable to give up Taunt in exchange for the possibility to put screens up more than once. If you ever do get to DS multiple times in a game, you almost certainly win. On the other hand, without the ability to Taunt vs. random DDGyara leads, maybe you just become too vulnerable. I've even considered going really crazy and using Taunt Gyarados or Gliscor lead, and just giving up SR in exchange for a sixth threat Pokemon. It's at least worth testing and exploring the options.

SD Gliscor is amazing in my experience. Moreso than Torterra. I guess I'm just not especially fond of Wood Hammer's recoil coupled with LO. The Rock resist is handy but Gliscor's Fighting/Bug resists seem to work better on my teams.

As for different leads, I'm not sure going with an even slower lead on a HO team is that great of an idea. I realize the usefulness in being able to DS multiple times in a game but getting shutdown by Taunt early on really leaves me scrambling to regain the momentum. Maybe I'm playing the style incorrectly but I hardly ever find myself making comebacks against quality opponents. Unless I'm playing a dolt who lets me setup with ease, it's really difficult for me to regain momentum with HO.

A DS/SR/U-turn Uxie lead would certainly help with the scouting issue I mentioned earlier and could allow to switch in something that doesn't get Taunted by fast leads (since Uxie takes the Taunt).

 

[sora13]

What? Torterra doesn't resist bug... it's weak to it. And doesn't resist steel either. AND it's neutral to grass.
Skarmory, Celebi and most Latias... AND Breloom walls the hell out of Torterra.And no matter how much speed you got, Weavile and Mamoswine always revenge you with Ice Shard. Not to say Scizor that can take a EQ and kill you with Bug Bite/U-Turn.
He's better mid game when you know what pokes your enemy has, and the ones Torterra doesn't like are weakened or gone.

Yeah, i agree about the resists thing, but torterrs provides easy set up bait for other members, like Lucario, Inferape, and Agiligross who can scare them out and set up SDs/Agilities, annhilating their team.

 

[sora13]

Hey guys, I want some help with a new HO team I am thinking of that is based on taking out steels and bulky grounds. I know that Stathakis has wanted to create a team like this and it seems quite promising, considering how many things in the metagame that Scizor checks for people. The old HOs that focus on breaking down bulky waters is kind of not working like it used to, mostly because so many of the members have specific counters other than bulky waters. This team must have more synergy to prevent this problem.

The basis will be a pair of outragers ( probably DD Mence and DD Nite), and then some steel sweepers that draw in other steels. All of these together should make it easy to take out the 2-3 steels commonly on teams and then will allow for an easy sweep of the other members.

DS Azelf is obvious for the lead position

DD Mence and DD Nite obviously get spots

The steel types are the hard part. I see 4 possible options:

RP Aggron, Agiligross, SD Lucario, and SD Scizor. Opinions on this would be appreciated. We should probably choose 2 of these.

The last slot should probably go with DD Tar. It has a miraculous ability to draw in Scizor while also filling in some defensive holes in our lineup. He would go especially well with RP Aggron I think (the main reason that Aggron appears on the list considering the other 3 are probably better out of the context of this team). If we don't use Aggron, this slot could also go to Kingdra if we feel the need for a third outrager.

Anyway, this could be a cool new team. Any opinions on sets would be appreciated. I am not sure when I will have time to test this, so that is another thing that would be helpful. This could be like a create-a-team specifically for HO!

Try out RP Torterra for the reasons already steted. YOu said it yourself, you wanted grounds and steels taken out. Also a set i recommend with screen support. It works wonders:

Dragonite @ Liechi Berry
Adamant
6 Hp/ 252 Atk/ 252 Spd
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Substitute

Why use this on Dragonite over Salamence? Well even without screens, can Salamence boast about surviving a Ice Beam knocking it into Liechi range, Dragon Dancing while being attacked, and OHKOing the Swampy with an Outrage? There are many other important attacks that knock it into Liechi range.

Anyways, this likes to set up on something like a scarf tran, dding up on the switch, subbing down to liechi and sweeping. It works beautifully. Not much can resist +2 Outrage that are incredibly powerful. Try it out.

 

[Myzozoa]

I remember that one time I saw someone laddering a hyper offense that used yache nite, agiligross, Mence, kingdra, and scizor. It was winning like 95% on the ladder and it pretty much ran through everything even without lucario, it seems like it is similar to what anachronism was talking about.

 

[_Flygon_]

this dragonite is still an inferior salamence since mence has pretty much the same power with dd+lo then this with dd+lichie. just with more speed, a move to bypass those annoying steels, and more hp left.

 

[goofball]

so by attacking mindlessly you got a decent win rate? did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason your win rate was decent rather than great was because you were attacking mindlessly?

Because you can't get a "great win rate" with this type of team. It simply too "flawed" to handle a long run in the ladder over a long period of time. It doesn't matter if I played it "smart or stupid" Also, your definition of decent and great might be different from mine. A decent win rate for me might be considered high for others. it really depends on your definition of it.

the way you play isn't the only way to play, you know. and while we're on this topic, you can argue that any team or playstyle can be successful with mindless play. I've heard IPL say that laddering is like autopilot for him with zero thought, and

There is a huge difference between players like IPL and randomXYZ. The thought process of a good players could easily go through all the options within seconds. While what may be "autopilot" for him, could be totally different for your average player.

we've seen how successful he is on the ladder and in tournaments. are we gonna call stall a mindless playstyle now?

Playing the ladder and tournaments are two totally different things. I'm sure IPL record in tournaments doesn't matchup with his record on the ladder. The ladder is how well you can win over a long period of time with a stable team. Tournaments you only need favorable matchups through only maybe 7-8 battles at the most.

while this is true, the nuances of such teams weren't really explored all that much (read: at all). I know if I posted an all-special offense team in the beginning of dp I would get laughed at.

maybe you were laughed at because you were a complete newbie at the moment. There has been plenty of good players using similar offensive style teams. I'm sure if you dig around there are plenty of teams dating back to early DP that ran similar play-style.

its 5 AM. Why am I even posting this -_-

 

[The SPrinkLer]

Are you referring to building a team that isn't wrecked by Zapdos? Or gameplanning the battle so you have something (still) available to take on Zapdos?

Precisely, you wouldn't save 4 Pokemon left that are all steels...or else Rotom could shit all over you, same with Zapdos.

 

[GoldDraconian]

SD Gliscor is amazing in my experience. Moreso than Torterra. I guess I'm just not especially fond of Wood Hammer's recoil coupled with LO. The Rock resist is handy but Gliscor's Fighting/Bug resists seem to work better on my teams.

Yeah, the recoil is kind of rough. He does get Seed Bomb as an alternative, though the loss of power is pretty disappointing (for example, does ~50-60% vs. 252/252+ Suicune, rather than 80-95% for Wood Hammer). It will at least still annihilate Swampert, I suppose... It occurs to me that it would be cool to do some kind of Empoleon-style SubLiechi set to abuse Overgrow with Seed Bomb, although I think your coverage is too poor for that to be really viable. Even three attack Torterra is disappointingly walled by Celebi and Breloom and Skarm, and can't really even sacrifice itself to good effect.

As for different leads, I'm not sure going with an even slower lead on a HO team is that great of an idea. I realize the usefulness in being able to DS multiple times in a game but getting shutdown by Taunt early on really leaves me scrambling to regain the momentum. Maybe I'm playing the style incorrectly but I hardly ever find myself making comebacks against quality opponents. Unless I'm playing a dolt who lets me setup with ease, it's really difficult for me to regain momentum with HO.

A DS/SR/U-turn Uxie lead would certainly help with the scouting issue I mentioned earlier and could allow to switch in something that doesn't get Taunted by fast leads (since Uxie takes the Taunt).

Well,I certainly agree that increased vulnerability to Taunt is bad. On the other hand, even Azelf only gets a coinflip vs. enemy Azelf, and you still get shut down by Aerodactyl leads (though those are thankfully becoming rare). Uxie lead still at worst hits a speed tie with the second-fastest Taunt lead I can think of (Gliscor), and in practice they rarely run 317 so you can just max your own speed to get around them.

U-Turn on Uxie (or even on Azelf, probably skipping Taunt) is an interesting possibility. While it moves away from being "pure" HO, you could probably rig up a team with a U-Turn core of like Azelf/Uxie + Scizor (with both SD and U-Turn) + Gliscor (SD/U-Turn/Stone Edge/EQ or something to that effect) which would have a much easier time scouting early-game and inflicting residual damage with U-Turns without losing your basic elements of DS on the lead and sweeping threats from the remaining members.

I would like to note that I think late-game screens can be way more devastating than early-game, because their walls should be battered enough (or dead enough) that a guy like Salamence or Lucario can really just set up once or twice (as HP permits) and then eat everything that's still alive. I think DS is strong enough that it might even be viable to run a second screener, assuming the remaining four guys have enough power to finish the job (for example, I think Lucario becomes completely required, while Gliscor and Torterra and Kingdra are probably not realistic considerations anymore).

(Maybe someone wants to run with one of those ideas...?)

 

[Anachronism]

Thank you sora13 for the suggestions, I might try that Dragonite set, but you seem to be missing the point. When I say "I want to take out Grounds and Steels," this means my entire team must be walled by these two. I want to force them to come in on me so that I can take them out then sweep. Torterra will bring in completely different things, which defeats the purpose.

Heavy Offense is about cracking the 1-3 bulky Steels/Waters/Grounds and possibly the scarfer and then rampaging throught the rest of the team members. If I give his bulky Ground a break with torterra and allow him to make another wall relevant torterra will cause more problems than it solves. You want a team with all the same counters.

Also, Torterra's ice weakness would leave me with 3 4x ice weaks! clearly I can't have that.

 

[sora13]

this dragonite is still an inferior salamence since mence has pretty much the same power with dd+lo then this with dd+lichie. just with more speed, a move to bypass those annoying steels, and more hp left.

But can salamence set up on Celebi, Rotom-A, or other statusing walls?
Dragonitee easily subs, ignoring their T-wave/WoW and DD-ing up while they struggle to even break the sub? no, they can't. Salamence can never repalce that bulk.

 

[Valantaro]

But can salamence set up on Celebi, Rotom-A, or other statusing walls?
Dragonitee easily subs, ignoring their T-wave/WoW and DD-ing up while they struggle to even break the sub? no, they can't. Salamence can never repalce that bulk.

Just to let you know, Salamence can use Substitute as well...so whatever you're saying about Dragonite being able to set up on "statusing walls" is invalid because Salamence can do it just as well.

 

[The SPrinkLer]

My current team (non-heavy offense) uses Substitute LO Kingdra and it sets up on stuff like Celebi easily. Isn't Kingdra even less bulky than Salamence?