Yeah, but the problem with Sucker Punch is that it isn't reliable, as it's not uncommon for Gengar to carry Substitute. Then again, with Taunt and some good prediction...
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Pokémon Banette
- Thread starter AccidentalGreed
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Well needless to say it's not that great in practice but it was interesting to try, I did discover one thing is that I underestimated a full defensive Banette's ability to take attacks. It's quite a bit sturdier than I imagined but not quite enough to be pulling off a full defensive set, I do however actually see a practical application for Phantom Force on Banette however.
It compliments it's power a lot better, even without any attack investment Banette effectively has the same attack as if it was fully EV'd before Mega Evo so quite respectable actually. With Infestation in effect it basically locks your opponent into place whilst threatening them with a massive hit from Phantom Force, effectively it guarantees they take at least 25% damage minimum before the attack even connects.
Posted this in the Phantom Force thread and I kind of like the idea:
Brave Bannette@Bannettetite: Destiny Bond | Infestation | Phantom Force | Protect/Will-o-wisp/Sucker Punch
Just max out its attack and possibly HP (with Phantom Force, it might be OK if she survives weak attacks and hits back)
Like most MegaBannette sets it's built around the Prankster Destiny Bond which sets her apart.
Protect is there for ensuring Bannette can Mega Evolve and to buy another safe turn when needed.
Alternate Destiny Bond with Infestation, Phantom Force, and Protect (if a little residual damage is needed to seal the deal).
The proposition presented to Bannette's unfortunate ex-lover is to pick its poison.
If it balks at joining her in the pits of hell she gradually manouevres matters to send her jilter there alone.
Brave Bannette@Bannettetite: Destiny Bond | Infestation | Phantom Force | Protect/Will-o-wisp/Sucker Punch
Just max out its attack and possibly HP (with Phantom Force, it might be OK if she survives weak attacks and hits back)
Like most MegaBannette sets it's built around the Prankster Destiny Bond which sets her apart.
Protect is there for ensuring Bannette can Mega Evolve and to buy another safe turn when needed.
Alternate Destiny Bond with Infestation, Phantom Force, and Protect (if a little residual damage is needed to seal the deal).
The proposition presented to Bannette's unfortunate ex-lover is to pick its poison.
If it balks at joining her in the pits of hell she gradually manouevres matters to send her jilter there alone.
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It has priority taunt. Maybe like
Attacking Banette @ Mega stone
252 Hp, 252 atk
Sucker Punch
Taunt
Destiny bond
Pursuit
Anything that tries to set up on it gets taunted, and you can then hit it with either sucker punch or pursuit.
It would presumably go something like this
Mega Banette uses taunt
Gengar failed to use Substitute
Gengar tries to switch out
Mega Banette uses pursuit
=
Dead Gengar
If for whatever reason it is in trouble, priority destiny bond.
With priority taunts, this thing has some offensive serious potential. Wall-breaking aside, with well timed sucker punches it can utilize a MASSIVE 155 attack. Aegislash has nothing on him. I worry about TalonFlame, however. Gale wings gets on my nerves, but I always pack a barbaracle.
Sorry can someone explain to me how Banette has priority for Infestation because I have researched on prankster and it says:
Increases the priority of non-attacking moves by 1. However, moves still circumvent Quick Guard. If a move such as Assist or Metronome calls a two-turn attack such as Fly, the second turn of the move does not fall under the effect of Prankster.
I think Infestation is considered an attacking move, no?
Yes, but the point is that priority on the infestation itself doesn't matter as long as you don't get OHKOed on that turn anyway. The advantage of the prankster infestation are especially priority will-o-wisps and priority substitutes.
MegaBannette has it's use, but honestly he needs a way more extensive movepool if he wants to be anything except for UU. Offensively he gets no coverage, and prankster-wise outside of Destiny Bond there's nothing special he can do that Sabeleye doesn't do better with priority recover and a better typing.
Ghost is a decent offensive typing but even on it's own it still gets walled by common dark-types and normal types. Sucker Punch is an option but that also has it's own problems... Taunt helps but it takes a lot of skill to taunt at just the right time.
Ghost is a decent offensive typing but even on it's own it still gets walled by common dark-types and normal types. Sucker Punch is an option but that also has it's own problems... Taunt helps but it takes a lot of skill to taunt at just the right time.
Speaking about prankster + destiny bond...Just like how everyone has mentioned here, MegaBanette+prankster+DB is the way to go. However once this become well known, I doubt many people will really fall for this anymore, at least the veteran will not. People will just poison/burn/confused and wait till it dies by itself. So I was thinking, what if we change DB into something else?
It can run T-Bolt with its decent enough 93 base special attack, though I wouldn't want to have to do so.
It doesn't have priority. The point is after firing an Infestation it has a bunch of priority support moves it can fire off to support itself after which inadvertently also lets it avoid being Taunted. Most Infestation users don't have this luxury being mostly slow, examples being Dusclops, Gastrodon and Tangrowth who all have massive bulk but are very much vulnerable to something going wrong when trying to support themselves.
Either way I already shot down my own idea, as I pointed out it's better for softening someone up to get run over by a train. Which Banette does pretty well.
Even if it becomes predictable it doesn't stop it being any less dangerous. You seem to forget that when Banette isn't D-Bonding it has a massive attack and priority status to fall back on. The fear of D-Bond is extremely powerful, it alone can make some mediocre Pokemon like Froslass (provided they have something to take advantage of it) powerful enough to have been considered too strong for lower tiers in previous gens. Even in regular standard a fast D-Bond can threaten almost anything.
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When it comes to breeding moves on to pokes, I'm a noob, I only just started mastering how to get perfect IV pokemon. Can someone explain what the breeding chain would look like to get Pursuit and Destiny Bond on to Banette or is that not possible?
This is my favorite Mega, evolving it is sometimes difficult but once he's on he's a tricky little bastard, very fun to troll opposing pokemon with. I like that he stops MGengar, and his attack stat is huge-an unpredictable support pokemon that can murder anything with its sky high attack or D-Bond
This is my favorite Mega, evolving it is sometimes difficult but once he's on he's a tricky little bastard, very fun to troll opposing pokemon with. I like that he stops MGengar, and his attack stat is huge-an unpredictable support pokemon that can murder anything with its sky high attack or D-Bond
Has anyone tested wether Banette/Shuppet gets trick-or-treat as egg move?
Infestation doesn't get priority. But with Infestation + threat/reality of priority Destiny Bond Bannette's opponent can easily be placed in a position where submitting to the trade is the better option. Remember that Bannette is rather slow so her priority Destiny Bond is likely to be in effect for TWO of its opponent's moves if the move Bannette uses after DB does NOT have Prankster priority. So on the second turn the opponent must still decide whether to faint Bannette and die or let her use another move freely. It's up to the Bannette user to ensure that Bannette removes a key Pokemon. Bannette can always switch out after inflicting a bit of residual damage. Toxic Spikes support could be useful too. Bannette can easily remove half the HP of a poisoned Pokemon that switches into Infestation just by Protect-ing on the following turn. If Bannette's opponent miscalculates she could even win a mon outright.
BTW, Bannete's priority Destiny Bond is something else Gale Wing Talonflame screws over...
BTW, Bannete's priority Destiny Bond is something else Gale Wing Talonflame screws over...
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Right...Right...this little pokemon is too damn tricky, never thought about this.
So this set will have the following moves:
-DB
-Protect
-Infestation
-WoW/Shadow Sneak?
I proposed something similar but with Phantom Force as a possibility (I've heard it's an egg move). A priority attack does allow Bannette to pick off a Pokemon at low health.
OTOH, Phantom Force guarantees two turns of Infestation (+ any additional status) damage and will hit very hard as a base 90 STAB move off 471 Atk.
Since it does not have priority, if Bannete had previously used Destiny Bond she will likely go second while the previous Destiny Bond is still in effect.
This is a subtle Taunt because if Bannete is not fainted under Destiny Bond her chance of winning a Pokemon outright just goes up.
If she naturally outspeeds that's OK too as she enters the invulnerability turn and residual damage accrues followed by a massive attack that may KO.
So it seems to me that if the average Pokemon switches into Infestation and Bannete wants it to die (even at the cost of Bannete's life) it probably will.
EDIT: Worth noting that Ageislash probably cannot block SE Phantom Force with King's Shield. Anyone tested?
This is one mon you probably want to outspeed so that DB goes up before Shadow Sneak.
Mostly, slow is good as you can use the weak Infestation under DB 'protection' and you'll finish Phantom Force after the target has already hit the air.
OTOH, Phantom Force guarantees two turns of Infestation (+ any additional status) damage and will hit very hard as a base 90 STAB move off 471 Atk.
Since it does not have priority, if Bannete had previously used Destiny Bond she will likely go second while the previous Destiny Bond is still in effect.
This is a subtle Taunt because if Bannete is not fainted under Destiny Bond her chance of winning a Pokemon outright just goes up.
If she naturally outspeeds that's OK too as she enters the invulnerability turn and residual damage accrues followed by a massive attack that may KO.
So it seems to me that if the average Pokemon switches into Infestation and Bannete wants it to die (even at the cost of Bannete's life) it probably will.
EDIT: Worth noting that Ageislash probably cannot block SE Phantom Force with King's Shield. Anyone tested?
This is one mon you probably want to outspeed so that DB goes up before Shadow Sneak.
Mostly, slow is good as you can use the weak Infestation under DB 'protection' and you'll finish Phantom Force after the target has already hit the air.
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Yes I can confirm that it has Phantom Force as an egg move. You can breed it to Shuppet from the Phantump together with DB, but I never thought it will be useful XD
EDIT:
back after several run with this set:
-DB
-Protect
-Infestation
-Phantom Force.
Most player veteran players actually realize I can keep DB almost permanently unless they sent in slower pokemon or use negative priority move or kill me with status. As a result, they decided to just kill of Banette-M and go for the 1 to 1 trade.
Also assuming that Banette move slower, Banette will get hit twice, once when setting infestation and once when doing phantom force.
Before doing this set, I run Banette-M with DB/Protect/WoW/Shadow Sneak while sometimes they predict my DB and switch out resulting in fail DB, I feel this has much utilities as it can revenge kill, burn pokemon and DB. Usually it will result in at least 1 killed/burned pokemon and 1 DBed pokemon.
EDIT:
back after several run with this set:
-DB
-Protect
-Infestation
-Phantom Force.
Most player veteran players actually realize I can keep DB almost permanently unless they sent in slower pokemon or use negative priority move or kill me with status. As a result, they decided to just kill of Banette-M and go for the 1 to 1 trade.
Also assuming that Banette move slower, Banette will get hit twice, once when setting infestation and once when doing phantom force.
Before doing this set, I run Banette-M with DB/Protect/WoW/Shadow Sneak while sometimes they predict my DB and switch out resulting in fail DB, I feel this has much utilities as it can revenge kill, burn pokemon and DB. Usually it will result in at least 1 killed/burned pokemon and 1 DBed pokemon.
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Banette @ Banettite
Nature: Adamant / Jolly
-Curse
-Shadow Sneak
-Will-O-Wisp
-Destiny Bond
This set allows Banette to pick off weakened targets or ones would who be KO'd by Shadow Sneak such as Gengar (who I believe would be OHKO'd and can't do anything against it) or Alakazam (whose only way of defense would be Trace Banette's Prankster and get off Reflect), cover it's defense using Curse if possible, and also raise it's attack from Curse to make Shadow Sneak much more viable. The Pokemon that walls this set best is Pyroar who is immune to Shadow Sneak and Will-O-Wisp due to it's Normal/Fire typing, and it still falls to Destiny Bond. With Will-O-Wisp, Banette would be able to cripple physical attackers such as Salamence who would otherwise have a very easy time destroying the poor ghost, and then possibly using Curse afterwards to survive the following hit to finish off with Shadow Sneak.
I'm not sure for the EV spread. You could raise Defense to make Curse even more useful but make yourself worse against Special Sweepers, you could raise Sp.Def to survive Special Sweepers, raise HP to help with both, raise Attack to make Shadow Sneak more powerful, or raise Speed to attempt to get a Curse off before other Pokemon around the same speed tier.
I believe the main problem with this set is that getting a Curse off without getting priority on the first turn is very tough, especially with a base 75 speed. Nonetheless, Banette can set-up on something that would fear a Snadow Sneak and be useful support to a team, especially late game. Good teammates for it could be Florges to switch into Special Sweepers and set up Wish, or Conkeldurr to switch into Dark types moves and threaten with Mach Punch/Drain Punch.
EDIT: I forgot how to Pokemon....
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Want to share some awesome story that I experienced yesterday...
S0 I got a challenge from a random passerby and he lead on with Drifblim that do Minimize. Cant really do anything since I dont have a phaser and I think the Drifblim held an item that decrease opponent accuracy. After so many buff, it baton pass it to blaziken-M which proceed to kill my whole team...or at least that was his plan. I switch out to my banette and do protect+mega evolve. I do a DB but somehow survive a Mega-Blaziken attack. The opponent took a long time to think and decide to withdraw the Blaziken and there losing all the minimize buff!
Banette-M saves the day! Really loving this Mega XD
S0 I got a challenge from a random passerby and he lead on with Drifblim that do Minimize. Cant really do anything since I dont have a phaser and I think the Drifblim held an item that decrease opponent accuracy. After so many buff, it baton pass it to blaziken-M which proceed to kill my whole team...or at least that was his plan. I switch out to my banette and do protect+mega evolve. I do a DB but somehow survive a Mega-Blaziken attack. The opponent took a long time to think and decide to withdraw the Blaziken and there losing all the minimize buff!
Banette-M saves the day! Really loving this Mega XD
Its best use on Wifi is definitely the surprise factor. No one even knows it gets priority D-Bond. But several times they fail to KO Banette (due to lack of EV training I'm guessing) and realize what it can do to them, then they either switch out or spam Swords Dance forcing you to attempt to attack or keep D-Bonding until you run out of PP. It's always a Blaziken too.
Yea, in that sense I really hope banette remain as an obscure Mega ><
As far as OU Megas go, I don't think Banette has what it needs to survive in the higher tiers.
It's physical movepool is fairly barren and even for greater coverage, I'm not sure why you'd play on its Sp.Atk. It best looks like it could be played as an annoyer, hiding behind a priority Sub, pain-spliting and hitting back with Sucker Punch/Foul Play.
Lack of reliable recovery is just... terrible. If it had Recover, I'd almost say it could make a OU. Like a physical attacking Gengar only with a much worst movepool, but still the potential to be just as annoying. It's not all bad though and I can see where M-Banette would have its value.
I feel like its best set, an annoyer/stall would look something like this:
Mega-Banette @ Banettite
Ability: Frisk | Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk/ 252 SpD /
Brave Nature/Careful
Substitute
Pain Split
Sucker Punch/Foul Play
Will-O-Wisp/Taunt/Infestation/
Other Options: Destiny Bond/Thunder Wave/Disable/
Frisk over Insomina as your starting ability, you can scout out what set your opponent's likely running and Hypnosis has bad accuracy so I doubt Insomina is worth running it for the short time before you Mega. Unless your opponent has a Spore user, like Breloom - but you usually know them when you see them and can avoid them. Brave Nature because everything you're running is Priority anyway, unless it isn't - then go Careful, but you're still slow anyway.
Running Pain Split you want your HP fairly low, a more exact set could afford investment there but this is all theory. Attack EVs are mainly for the Sucker Punch set, if you're only running Foul Play - you should put them in Spd. I'm iffy on whether the last EVs should go in SpD or Def, if you're running Will-O-Wisp go Spd. Otherwise, they can probably go in Def.
I've chosen not to have Shadow Sneak on this set, even though its STAB almost makes it as powerful as Sucker Punch. They're both hitting the same super-effectively, Ghost has an immunity but Sucker Punch has 3 resists. I think the Dark/Fighting/Fairy resist is better than a Normal immunity, that way you can win against Blissey if need be. Sucker Punch, on paper, looks more reliable than Foul Play but they look like they can both fit on this set, the lack of priority hurts it though. Foul Play helps Banette with those looking to come in and hit it on its weaker Defense side, but Will-O-Wisp also does the trick there.
The last slot is really up to personal preference. Taunt allows Banette to stop other's healing on him, setting-up, preventing others from potentially taunting him as well. The earlier suggested Infestation lets M-Banette almost act like a M-Gengar, allowing it to Pain Split/Sucker Punch/ opponents that preferably can't do much back to it. There's also other options, but I feel they're inferior or outclassed by Banette's other options. Destiny Bond does the exact opposite of Infestation, preventing set-ups like Taunt does but also causing switches.
Thunder Wave seems a bit redundant if you're hiding behind a Sub and Will-O-Wisp seems better, stunting physical attackers and putting them on a timer. Disable just makes Banette an even greater nuisance, forcing more switches, disabling set-up moves after one go, etc.
It's physical movepool is fairly barren and even for greater coverage, I'm not sure why you'd play on its Sp.Atk. It best looks like it could be played as an annoyer, hiding behind a priority Sub, pain-spliting and hitting back with Sucker Punch/Foul Play.
Lack of reliable recovery is just... terrible. If it had Recover, I'd almost say it could make a OU. Like a physical attacking Gengar only with a much worst movepool, but still the potential to be just as annoying. It's not all bad though and I can see where M-Banette would have its value.
I feel like its best set, an annoyer/stall would look something like this:
Mega-Banette @ Banettite
Ability: Frisk | Prankster
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk/ 252 SpD /
Brave Nature/Careful
Substitute
Pain Split
Sucker Punch/Foul Play
Will-O-Wisp/Taunt/Infestation/
Other Options: Destiny Bond/Thunder Wave/Disable/
Frisk over Insomina as your starting ability, you can scout out what set your opponent's likely running and Hypnosis has bad accuracy so I doubt Insomina is worth running it for the short time before you Mega. Unless your opponent has a Spore user, like Breloom - but you usually know them when you see them and can avoid them. Brave Nature because everything you're running is Priority anyway, unless it isn't - then go Careful, but you're still slow anyway.
Running Pain Split you want your HP fairly low, a more exact set could afford investment there but this is all theory. Attack EVs are mainly for the Sucker Punch set, if you're only running Foul Play - you should put them in Spd. I'm iffy on whether the last EVs should go in SpD or Def, if you're running Will-O-Wisp go Spd. Otherwise, they can probably go in Def.
I've chosen not to have Shadow Sneak on this set, even though its STAB almost makes it as powerful as Sucker Punch. They're both hitting the same super-effectively, Ghost has an immunity but Sucker Punch has 3 resists. I think the Dark/Fighting/Fairy resist is better than a Normal immunity, that way you can win against Blissey if need be. Sucker Punch, on paper, looks more reliable than Foul Play but they look like they can both fit on this set, the lack of priority hurts it though. Foul Play helps Banette with those looking to come in and hit it on its weaker Defense side, but Will-O-Wisp also does the trick there.
The last slot is really up to personal preference. Taunt allows Banette to stop other's healing on him, setting-up, preventing others from potentially taunting him as well. The earlier suggested Infestation lets M-Banette almost act like a M-Gengar, allowing it to Pain Split/Sucker Punch/ opponents that preferably can't do much back to it. There's also other options, but I feel they're inferior or outclassed by Banette's other options. Destiny Bond does the exact opposite of Infestation, preventing set-ups like Taunt does but also causing switches.
Thunder Wave seems a bit redundant if you're hiding behind a Sub and Will-O-Wisp seems better, stunting physical attackers and putting them on a timer. Disable just makes Banette an even greater nuisance, forcing more switches, disabling set-up moves after one go, etc.
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