Gen 1 OU for a reason.

[Crystal_]

The only significant difference between Starmie and Alakazam is what happens against Chansey or another Zam.

ST is all Zam need to use against Eggy. Eggy has still time to explode against Blizzard Starmie, and exploding is the only way it will beat both. In fact Stun Spore cripples Starmie much more.

And I still don't know why people here think that versatility is the more important thing to sweep. For example if Alakazam learned Tbolt it will rarely be used and Blizzard / ice Beam will be used mostly for the freeze.

Starmie can only sweep a bit better Tauros because of his defense but Alakazam can actually revenge kill Tauros, Snorlax and Persian much better.

And actually Alakazam gives you a pretty much needed defensive support against Chansey if yours get frozen, or you accidentally paralyse your opponent's. A para Zam switch into Chansey is not very far from a Rhydon switch into Zapdos.

pardon me but in case you, crystal_, are the same crystal_ from nbs, i'd suggest you to avoid discussing about rby battling when you're an almost worthless rbyer. no offense really, 90% of the people thinking they are playing rby on nbs are just jerks trying out their luck.

Actually you are not going to find more than 8-10 RBY players in NBS, and rarely more than 3-4 at the same time. The only worthless players you are going to find are DPPers who have recently come form Game Boy games. Are RBY players you are going to find (including me) have played some RBY tournaments and are at least decent players.

And if you dont want "worthless" players discussing abaut competitive, you don't want abaut 70% of Smogon members participating in the forum unless it is to ask "how I can find Ratata in FireRed".

 

[Borat]

Starmie will 2HKO Egg 40% of the time (60% chance of two consecutive non-crit off 115 base speed), whereas ST is a guaranteed 4HKO. That means, Egg can switch on Starmie a grand total of once, on average, whereas it can switch into ST Zam 3 times. That's huge, but of course, in your book, that's the "same".

For example if Alakazam learned Tbolt it will rarely be used and Blizzard / ice Beam will be used mostly for the freeze.

You're a moron. I'm going to disregard the rest of your post now. You've lost all credibility.

People do play for the freeze on Zam too, because it's the only way to beat it with a Chansey.

You shouldn't rely on Chansey to kill Zam. Ever. Likewise, you shouldn't rely on Chansey to kill Chansey.

you said Chansey beats Zam

Where did I say this?

I think I mentioned the other way around though.

I'm saying because other pokemon are present, it's highly unlikely that a Zam will ever flatout KO a Chansey. That just doesn't happen. 4%, 1 out of 25 games, that's not such unbelievable odds of that happening. And you're telling me, with Zam paralyzed, it still poses that much of a threat to your team? If I'm underrating Zam, you're doing a horrendous job overrating it. Realistically, something like Golem would force it to switch.

 

[waterwizard]

heck, Zam takes 5 turns to kill Eggy with S-Toss, as Eggy can just use Mega Drain once to bump him up to +400 HP

 

[Hipmonlee]

Horrendously overrating it? All I said is it is better than Starmie.

It does beat Chansey. And it happens a lot more often than 1 in 25 battles..

Have a nice day.

 

[PK Gaming]

You know, I don't understand why you would even WANT to beat Chansey with Alakazam? You cripple yourself (A Paralyzed Alakazam is utterly useless) just to have a chance at beating Chansey. This is assuming it stays in because taking down Chansey is a slow and painful process. You can always use other pokemon to take out Chansey as opposed to using Alakazam who will get crippled in the dog fight.

I've got to go with Borat on this one, Starmie's got significantly stronger STAB, Better typing, bulk and coverage. If I had choice between 2 special sweepers, I would certainly go with Starmie.

 

[Crystal_]

I still cannot understand why the coverage is useful in RBY.

The problem is not between beating Chansey or not. Starmie is forced to switch out every time Chansey comes in, while Alakazam can decide to stall Chansey out.

A paralyzed Alakazam is more useful than a paralyzed Starmie for a simple reason. The former can handle Chansey and decide between stalling it or Psychic it, which is mostly for set-upping a physical attacker sweep.

And Zam vs Zam is much more useful than Star vs Zam unless Starmie is running Psychic (where still zam is on advantage) or [to score a CH] Hyper Beam (lol?). Otherwise Starmie needs something like 3 consecutive CHs or FPs with Hydro Pump / Surf. Alakazam is much more likely to beat Starmie with ST due to the speed and the 32 PP.

Actually there is no much difference between a para zam and a para star (with a STAB move obv) against physicals. The defense of one is balanced with the special of the other. In fact I will say that unless star is running Psychic, Alakazam is somewhat better).

And then Starmie has problems with the "versatility". If you don't run both a STAB move and TW you are likely to lose against Tauros (Alakazam becomes much better here), and are in a big disadvantage against a para Zam. If you dont run Blizzard you won't do much to Eggy, and Chansey will wall you even more (no matter if is para or no); if you don't run Tbolt other Starmie is going to come as easily as Chansey, and you won't do much to Lapras (unless you go with Psychic) or to Jynx (unless you go with Surf). Bro could set up as well.

 

[Borat]

It doesn't beat Chansey.

Certainly not with enough regularity to make any sort of claim. Chansey-tie-er perhaps?

 

[Pirotechnix]

It doesn't beat Chansey.

Certainly not with enough regularity to make any sort of claim. Chansey-tie-er perhaps?

I speak from only personal experience, but with impressive regularity (somewhere around 80%+ of the time over the span of 75-100 battles in the last few months, I don't keep exhaustive data on all of my matches because I honestly cba), in a situation that was 1vs1 with Zam vs. Chansey, Zam paralyzed or not, Zam won. It did this either through sufficient special downs/full paras over the course of the PP usage to cause it to switch/be KO'd or through PP stall.

Mathematically, it shouldn't, you're correct, but that's the issue with probability.

 

[Borat]

in a situation that was 1vs1 with Zam vs. Chansey

Situation dismissed.

A GSC Machamp will probably beat Snorlax 97 times out of 100, but guess who'll probably win in a real match? I'm not saying Chansey will "beat" Alakazam per say, I'm just saying Alakazam won't beat Chansey. Should it ever come down to a 1v1 not-low PP Alakazam vs Chansey, you've played the match wrong and deserve to lose.

A paralyzed Alakazam has a few options. Risk Twave and having something like Rhydon/Golem/Sandslash/Snorlax come in, which are all far more dangerous than an active Alakazam. Use Recover/Kinesis/whatever inconsequential move and risk even harder hitters like Snorlax/Rhydon/Golem/Tauros/Persian/whatever, depending on whatever's necessary. Or to pound away with Psychic and either waste PP and risk another switch to something like Starmie, Egg, Slowbro, Jynx even, or an opposing Alakazam, or heck, a -2 Chansey still takes relatively minimal damage. If you see this as a matchup heavily favoring Alakazam, then ok. There's really no point arguing. Play better. It's a tie at best.

If you want to take into consideration a non-paralyzed Alakazam, then it shouldn't matchup with a Chansey at all.

EDIT: I think I've found a niche for Alakazam. Taking/walling sleep from Gengar/Egg/Jynx.

EDIT2: Never mind, Chansey can do the same, but better. Just that people don't... because Chansey's "better".

 

[Darx]

giga drain didnt existed in RBY.

his gengar already got explosion, and there is a rule that no pokemon can have the same moves like that.

oh zam, one of the pokemons i used to hate most simply because he look like a pedo, both zam and starmie work in different ways and should not be compared like that, i cant say anything someone else didnt said yet, so i am only going to agree with hipmonlee on what he said.

I didn't know there was a rule like that. Is that only for rby? Also, if that is the case. I would recommend rydon. I only ever used golem over him because of explosion.

 

[Lucalibur]

i think that the rule just goes for TM moves but i am not really sure.

can someone confirm that to me?

 

[Crystal_]

And I still don't know why people here think that versatility is the more important thing to sweep. For example if Alakazam learned Tbolt it will rarely be used and Blizzard / ice Beam will be used mostly for the freeze.

Thunderbolt would really be only useful against Starmie (unless you are really afraid of Slowbro), which Zam can almost always beat anyway.

It would be: now Starmie can't come as one of the psychics that enter to wall Alakazam after it has Psychic Chansey until is forced to switch. But actually Starmie takes a TW on the switch or when is para a ST. And using TBolt leaves you without ST to be used against Eggy and other Zam (which still has 8 more PP for stall purposes against Chansey and Zam) or without Reflect, and beating Snorlax (and usually Tauros) is imo much more important than using Tbolt for a Starmie that you can still beat withourt bolt.

And Blizzard would be used mainly for the freeze. You can't OHKO grounds with Blizzard anyway without a CH and Eggy has still time to beat it by the same way it can only beat one without Blizzard: exploding. It can come in any of Recover, Psychic, or TW, and take a Blizzard after. Obviously you are only going to have to predict one/two turn(s) (instead of the three/four with ST) and Eggy won't still come to wall unless is sure Zam is not going to blizzard, and to help stalling it, so that's very important, and the Ice move (i would use IB) would still be used because of the freeze.

 

[Borat]

With the exception of the first part of the first sentence, everything is wrong.

You do realize you're trying to justify that a boltbeam Alakazam won't be an improvement right? Apart from Zapdos, I don't think there's anyone else that can benefit more from such an addition. Please don't respond anymore.

 

[Lucalibur]

well with the backwards thing zam can get thunder and ice punch but that is not important.

if zam was used to be a sweeper then of course he would love boltbeam, but i would rather use zam to support and spread paralyze because he is that good on doing that.

if i want a sweeper then i would rather use starmie if only for the fact he can actually take strong physical hit with no help from reflect(what open a new slot for a different move) and his hydro pump hurt about the same zam psychic.

 

[420]

With the exception of the first part of the first sentence, everything is wrong.

You do realize you're trying to justify that a boltbeam Alakazam won't be an improvement right? Apart from Zapdos, I don't think there's anyone else that can benefit more from such an addition. Please don't respond anymore.

You do realize you're trying to justify something completely retarded that countless players have tried to tell you you were wrong about but you're too stubborn to listen right? Please don't respond anymore.

 

[Borat]

What can I say, controversy breeds thought.

Are you also advocating that Zam with boltbeam won't at all be utilized? Y/N. This could be fun.

 

[Mr.E]

Stand back, I'm going to try Pokémon. And yes, Alakazam has absolutely no use for elemental moves in RBY. (Most recent post, so reply at the top!) Simply put, every Alakazam needs to have Psychic, Recover, T-Wave. There's only one free move slot with which to use an elemental punch. Do you use Tpunch for Starmie or Ice Punch for Eggy and its freeze chance? The answer is: Neither. You use Seismic Toss because it's neutral to both, not to mention other Alakazam, and has the most PP.

lol at Eggy being afraid of Starmie... Eggy beats it with Mega Drain regardless of Blizzard and, by golly, why is it never switching in against anything but Blizzard in this silly hypothetical? Starmie vs. Starmie is annoying and all too common a scenario for Eggy to switch in and say "lol thunderbolt." Starmie's first move is usually T-Wave, why isn't Eggy coming in then? It doesn't care all that much about being paralyzed, it's already slow as dirt. Switch in as it Recovers, yeah? Starmie doesn't have four move slots all filled with Blizzard, give people some credit. You'll need to be making awfully bold move choices to catch Eggy switching into a Blizzard.

Starmie's major downfall is that it severely lacks punch against Tauros and friends without Surf (Hydro Pump? Seriously? And don't even tell me Psychic.)... Unfortunately, you need to dump Blizzard to make room for Surf. No way around it, Starmie can't take Tauros, Persian, and doesn't even come close to threatening Snorlax without Surf but Eggy eats that shit up all day. Stupid enough to dump Tbolt? Lose to other Starmie, Lapras, and have fun getting swept by Slowbro. Starmie also doesn't like Gengar very much, since you're never carrying Psychic and weak to the only threatening special attack it can muster.

Alakazam, for the most, doesn't give a shit about any of them except Slowbro. (Yeah, Starmie wins that one.) Alakazam doesn't like eating status from Eggy -- what does? -- but Eggy can't kill it without Exploding. It's more vulnerable to Tauros and friends but likewise far more dangerous in return which, considering 'Zam is faster, is overall a plus. Alakazam beats Chansey in end-game scenarios, Starmie loses the instant it FPs or gets crit by its Tbolt. That's not to say Alakazam is flat-out better than Starmie but it's certainly no slouch and largely performs better than Starmie against most pokémon. Where Alakazam is weak is that it's much more vulnerable to paralysis than Starmie. (Chansey is good at absorbing PAR because it's slow and doesn't care about the Speed drop, duh guys.) When 'Zam misses a turn to FP, it's much more likely to die to a strong physical attack. Starmie is not 2HKOed by Golem's Earthquake and can threaten Golem/Rhydon with a OHKO Surf where 'Zam cannot. Tauros can just Body Slam 'Zam twice where it has to Hyper Beam Starmie (and risk hitting a healthy, or a Golem/Rhydon, switch-in), and so on.

Also, use Seismic Toss on 'Zam. Yes, Psychic alone runs out of PP quickly... That's why you use Seismic Toss, so you have something to do against your fellow Psychics in the mid-game without draining your precious Psychic PP. I used to use Kinesis in the past and that's kinda nifty too, though. It lets you switch in other things more safely and automatically wins the game in any 1v1 end-game scenario.

"Also" also, I paralyze Chansey instead of playing for the freeze. Yeah, that's right. Trolling for the freeze, though eventually inevitable given enough time, is a second-tier tactic. In the long run, Chansey is going to be hurt more often by the 25% chance to miss a turn and losing its speed against Golem / Rhydon / Snorlax. Chansey is eventually going to find a way to switch into a T-Wave aimed at something else 99% of the time anyway and you'd be a fool to play cautious with T-Wave just to maybe avoid paralyzing a Chansey... and the only Pokémon that can even reliably freeze Chansey is another Chansey. Starmie barely has a 50% chance to freeze it with its entire stock of Blizzard, Lapras/Jynx aren't that common (Lapras would rather try to parafuse it to death anyway), and Tauros is better off attacking it physically. If you wanna play Chansey vs. Chansey freeze wars, be my guest. I'll PAR yours and switch off to Snorlax or something.

And 'Zam still fucking owns in GSC but I don't know why you're bringing GSC shit up here. We could talk tradebacks, except they're not typically legal and the only relevant ones are Hypnosis Persian and Quick Attack Dodrio. I already elaborated on "Elemental 'Zam" and Amnesia on some UU Pokémon (Clefable, Tangela) isn't enough to make them worthy of OU. Nothing else is worth mentioning.

EDIT: I think I've found a niche for Alakazam. Taking/walling sleep from Gengar/Egg/Jynx.

EDIT2: Never mind, Chansey can do the same, but better. Just that people don't... because Chansey's "better".

A reason that has not yet been elaborated upon as to why Alakazam is a better sleep absorber than Chansey (or almost anything else): it's very fast. Speed is great for sleep absorption because you don't attack on the turn you wake up in RBY. Even if Chansey wakes up, it can do nothing against sleep users except hope they miss re-sleeping. When 'Zam wakes up, it can paralyze whatever put it to sleep before getting re-slept. If they try to predict when you're waking up and pre-emptively use their sleep move, then they're just giving you free time to wake up when they're usually incorrect.

 

[Borat]

Alakzam can have Psychic, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Recover. A new dimension of play!

Blizzard is a 2HKO almost half the time. One proper prediction is all it takes to take Egg out of the picture.

Egg learns DE.

The rest has been touched on (TWSS).

And that's definitely not the primary deciding factor when deciding what people want slept. I know when I'm playing, I'm prioritizing whatever's gonna be useless to me. You can prioritize whatever's fast all you want, and justify it as so, but it's a lie, and not a very good one at that.

 

[Mr.E]

What Pokémon is "useless" in RBY? OU isn't very large. The closest thing to useless is Zapdos or Jolteon when the opponent's Golem/Rhydon is still alive but revealing them early to eat a sleep move rather defeats the purpose... Same with Golem/Rhydon in the likely event your opponent doesn't have an Electric, they still hit pretty damn hard and can't be paralyzed by T-Wave. Nothing becomes "useless" until things start dying, long after you've had to allow something to be slept.

 

[Borat]

Not Tauros/Chansey. 4 left.
Not egg, unless it already slept something, then egg.

Then it depends on matchup.

Alakazam isn't game changing, losing him doesn't affect your "strategy" (if you have one). You don't plan to KO many pokemon with him, he's just kind of... there. He paralyzes stuff, usually Chansey. Or egg, if you get lucky. And you know if he doesn't take sleep, he'll just eat the paralysis (again, probably from Chansey), which doesn't do you any good.

 

[green_flash]

i'd go tpunch every single time if i could. losing to slowbro is unsatisfying; not that this is going to be a guarantee anyway, as i've had opponents' slowbroes setting up on my tbolting starmies MORE THAN ONCE (and winning). i quitted starmie since there.

waterwizard, we also battled once. i've won. as i've won last rby tourney i've attended, last week. you're quite nice of an rby battler though.

borat, i still think that the "rational metagamization" is a process to be trusted. although i run tauros in every single serious team i use, while i almost never run rhydon, technically (mathematically) rhydon is not "better" than tauros, not being what we could define a strictly dominated strategy, as it has an advantageous (different) match-up in zapdos. same with the zam/starmie differences; in case they exist, even if situationals, we have two different strategies in which we cannot define a strictly dominated strategy and, as such, we are not legitimated to say that starmie should be preferred over zam every single time, which is the point of the thread.

 

[Borat]

"Every" is probably not the appropriate word, I don't think any superlative would be in the game of pokemon, especially when we're considering offensive potential. It's much easier to make a conclusive statement with defensive pokemon. Alakazam will probably fare better against team Chansey, Tauros, Persian, Starmie, Lapras, Gengar.

 

[Crystal_]

He paralyzes stuff, usually Chansey. Or egg, if you get lucky.

Starmie paralyzes stuff. Always Chansey. Or egg if your opponent is stupid. And if you don't have T-Wave you at least dont para Chansey.

i'd go tpunch every single time if i could. losing to slowbro is unsatisfying

ST is enough Alakazam needs for Slowbro. Slowbro will be forced to rest every time after 3 STs ( 1ST - Fast Asleep ; 2ST - Woke Up ; 3ST - If it don't use Rest it will be KOed. ). It will obvously lose when it gets FP'd, but anway TP Zam would also be likely to lose and after a Amnesia ST will do much more than a non-CH TP . And Bro is pretty disapeared nowadays anyway.

And actually, the fact that makes Alakazam more useful than Starmie is that it can beat it {Chansey}**, along with many other things like waking up or using recover against it as you can switch into a Chansey whenever you want unless you are abaut at 30% HP and para. After that you can prepare your strategy when you have Zam vs Chansey; and the Zam owner is likely to have the advantage because it can beat Chansey (or force it to switch out if you prefer) and his Psychic is much more threatening for an incoming Tauros/Snorlax/whatever. And although weaker it has a faster TW.

If you run Starmie it will usually be:

- Starmie vs anything:
- Anything switchs out; Go Chansey! Starmie uses whatever
- Starmie go back!

Just try to predict Chansey and switch to something else here and perhaps you can do something else. And at abaut the 3-4 time you do it your opponent could be afraid of going with Chansey and well you may para or hit something like Alakazam! Yeah Starmie also loses to Alakazam! So if you mnaged to kill (with anything else) or freezing Chansey you will probably be stopped by Zam.
Really, the best thing you could do with this is freezing Chansey as long as yo avoid paralyzing it.

EDIT= {}** Sorry.

 

[Charlie Brown]

Switching is against a predicted chansey switch occurs more often than you think, that's what makes Starmie a looming threat along with a physical attacker. Pokemon isn't one dimensional, and you shouldn't treat it as one dimensional when analyzing something. It's the same deal with Alakazam. You're doing it wrong if you're trying to KO Chansey with Alakazam.

 

[Crystal_]

Switching is against a predicted chansey switch occurs more often than you think

Lol, that is what i said. Definitely, Stamie succes when Chansey is alive depends on your prediction skills. But like what happens with Zapdos vs Gol/Rhy you won't be able to do this very often. For exaple if this could be done whenever you want Zapdos will be on every team, as you would go with something like Eggy / Starmie / Tauros / w/e in the ground switch.
And then you also have Zam that can also switch in on Starmie with no problem.