Other Inverse Battles

[norelationstojfk]

For those of you who do not know, there is a trainer you can battle once a day on Route 18 who has a very unique battle style: Inverse Battle. In fact, it's so unique it's the only place in game that it happens as far as we know. Basically, every attack that is supposed to hit super effectively becomes not very effective, and vice versa, not very effective becomes super effective.

Since this battle style only happens once in the game, maybe making a thread about it is silly, but custom metagames have been established on battle simulators before, so why not this one?

When thinking about what types would be most affected, Steel immediately comes to mind. What is normally a defensive powerhouse type suddenly has a ton of weaknesses and only three resistances. On the flip side, Rock type gains five useful resistances in Water, Grass, Fighting, Ground, and Steel while becoming weak to Normal, Fire, Poison, and Flying.

Changes like these would really shake up what Pokemon are viable in the common meta, and even what move types pass as good coverage moves. What would you guys think about a meta with the Inverse Battle style?

 

[mrglass]

Steel, Poison, and Fire become really horrible typings.

Grass, Bug, and Ice become much stronger.

 

[Seraph's Fire]

I can clarify what happens with immunities. They become weaknesses. The Psychic's Medicham hit my Absol for SE damage.

 

[norelationstojfk]

Alright, I'll update the first post to reflect that. Thanks

 

[X5Dragon]

Superior Bug type with the ability to hit 7 types SE and 3 weaknesses? Yes plz.

 

[sunshinesan]

I am also fascinated by this mode. It would be cool to see a meta develop and what horribly typed pokemon(now) rise to the top.

 

[alphatron]

Auroras becomes and unstoppable monster whose only weaknesses are ice, normal and poison.

 

[Arcticblast]

A similar idea was brought up and posted as an Other Metagame some time ago:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/type-chart-swap.3482959/

I didn't play much of it and this metagame still had intact immunities, but I remember Normal being a very powerful type, and now it has perfect coverage on its own. MegKangaskhan, Snorlax, Tauros, Diggersby, and Staraptor are all looking really dangerous right about now...

 

[jas61292]

One thing to remember here is that you cannot simply look at numbers of weaknesses and get a good idea of if it will be good or not. Like, while, as noted above, Auroras only has 3 weaknesses, one of them is to Normal. While currently normal is mediocre, in inverse battles, it is arguably the single best offensive STAB, hitting 3 types super effectively and having 0 resists. Perfect coverage in one move. Being weak to Normal may not sound bad at first, but in a developed metagame, it would be far worse than most other weaknesses to have.

Basically, the point is that it is very hard to judge what will be good when you can't know which resists are good without knowing which offensive types are good, and vice versa. It really requires a lot of testing.

 

[norelationstojfk]

I like the sound of a better Aurorus (easily my favorite Pokemon of this generation). Refrigerate becomes even more useless, though, since Ice only hits Ice super effectively in inverse. But give Aurorus a Rock type move and Thunderbolt, and it basically has the same coverage it would in the real world. Although rock and electric seem to have kind of redundant coverage in inverse.

 

[Thorhammer]

So are there any immunities in Inverse, other than abilities?

 

[Spenstar]

Normal STAB just became amazing, completely unresisted from the get-go. Normal defensively has only one weakness, Ghost, which is actually still a strong type with only 2 resists. Dragon got better, from having one resist and one immunity to basically being like Gen I's psychic. Defensively though, it has 4 tough weaknesses, including Grass which hits 7 types SE.

Ice defensively just got awesome, with only one weakness. And that weakness is offensively... not too good, because grass and dragon resists it. Rock would be a good type now with that grass resist, but it's weak to normal so

 

[X5Dragon]

Suddenly a Farfetch'd with a Stick and almost 100% critical rate Slash doesn't sound so funny anymore..

Do you feel lucky? Do you, punk?

 

[sunshinesan]

The fact that there are no immunities based on type takes a little bit out of inverse battles in comparison to normal ones though. Would have been cool if immunities became super-susceptibility, 1HKO from those types. Maybe not.

 

[DDRMaster]

Regice and Avalugg will certainly shine in inverse battles. Speaking of Avalugg, how does SR work there?

I have a feeling everything that was weak to it now resists it, so Charizard now only loses 1/32 of its health while Lucario loses half. Flying types are probably going to still be good if that holds, since they all resist SR and are immune to the other hazards. Also, Shedinja might now be immune to SR thanks to Wonder Guard and can't be Pursuited. It would have to be hit by Normal, Poison, Bug, Grass, and Fighting, which all seem like common types besides the last one.

Rapid Spin is now unblockable, which makes Avalugg even better.

 

[Antar]

Is it confirmed that you can't have Inverse battles over Wi-Fi?

 

[DDRMaster]

Suddenly a Farfetch'd with a Stick and almost 100% critical rate Slash doesn't sound so funny anymore..

Due to the crit nerf, Farfetch'd's crit Slash only has effectively 105 Base Power, making it only slightly stronger than Return. Honestly, a 50% critting Return (so 127.5 average base power) sounds a lot more menacing.

 

[norelationstojfk]

Uh no, Ice hits ice, water, fire and steel for SE damage in inverse battles. Granted that two of those types (fire and steel) are downright horrible in inverse battles, and water is mediocre.
However it is the only type that is SE against ice, so that makes ice STAB valuable nonetheless.

Regice and Avalugg will certainly shine in inverse battles. Speaking of Avalugg, how does SR work there?

Shoot, I said what I meant wrong. Thanks for correcting me though.

I'm pretty sure Stealth Rock would work inversely as well, since the damage it outputs takes type resistance into account.

 

[sunshinesan]

I'm pretty sure Stealth Rock would work inversely as well, since the damage it outputs takes type resistance into account.

So no more immunities means nothing is immune to spikes outside of abilities?

 

[Zandock]

Due to the crit nerf, Farfetch'd's crit Slash only has effectively 105 Base Power, making it only slightly stronger than Return. Honestly, a 50% critting Return (so 127.5 average base power) sounds a lot more menacing.

There's a crit nerf?

 

[Mattman324]

There's a crit nerf?

Crits only do 1.5x as much power instead of the old 2x.

 

[norelationstojfk]

So no more immunities means nothing is immune to spikes outside of abilities?

Spikes I'm not sure about. I don't think that inverse flying type necessarily means "grounded". Spikes doesn't take type into account quite like Stealth Rock does. Only whether the Pokemon is grounded or not. The opponent in the Inverse Battle did have a Ferrothorn, but I don't know if it had spikes or not to properly test that.

 

[A Fhaol Bhig]

I can clarify what happens with immunities. They become weaknesses. The Psychic's Medicham hit my Absol for SE damage.

I nearly fell out of my seat when Giga Impact Snorlax OHKO'd my Rotom with super effective damage.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Why mess around with Return when you can use Thrash with 0 resistances, literally the only downside is you are locked into it.

 

[sunshinesan]

Inverse normal is pre-Gen VI Dragon on crack.