OU Gengar

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I mean, I assumed gengar didnt have mega drain, but night shade. That's what we were talking about anyway.
Sure, but the question at hand is what you switch into Gengar immediately after it's slept something (ie, t2 or t3). You won't know at that point what it's packing. Just saying that that's a reason to be cautious about sending Rhydon in as Gengar's first look after Hypnosis. If you know it doesn't Drain then Rhydon's a fine counter, but you typically don't.

The best look in that situation is Reflect Alakazam, since it takes serious balls to Explode on an unknown switch. Failing that, probably Earthquake Snorlax.
 
Sure, but the question at hand is what you switch into Gengar immediately after it's slept something (ie, t2 or t3). You won't know at that point what it's packing. Just saying that that's a reason to be cautious about sending Rhydon in as Gengar's first look after Hypnosis. If you know it doesn't Drain then Rhydon's a fine counter, but you typically don't.
this is a shitty argument. it's pointless to make a claim with the premise of a 6 moveslot pokemon. this is why gsc ttar is so god damn overrated, because he "could" have thunderbolt, eq, roar, rock slide, fire blast, crunch, dpunch, and pursuit. but he doesn't. he "could" though, but he doesn't. odds are, he probably has pursuit, roar, fb/dpunch/rock slide/crunch pick 2. not that unpredictable.

the "mega drain sucks ass" argument works too.

reflect zam is actually good, mega drain gengar/egg blows. that analogy doesn't work.
 
this is a shitty argument. it's pointless to make a claim with the premise of a 6 moveslot pokemon. this is why gsc ttar is so god damn overrated, because he "could" have thunderbolt, eq, roar, rock slide, fire blast, crunch, dpunch, and pursuit. but he doesn't. he "could" though, but he doesn't. odds are, he probably has pursuit, roar, fb/dpunch/rock slide/crunch pick 2. not that unpredictable.

the "mega drain sucks ass" argument works too.

reflect zam is actually good, mega drain gengar/egg blows. that analogy doesn't work.
Except you're talking about expecting 10 moves from 4 moveslots vs. expecting 5 moves from 4 moveslots. It is more likely that Gengar has Mega Drain than it is that Tyranitar has DynamicPunch/Crunch/Thunderbolt. And yes, GSC Tyranitar is hard to switch into before you know its set... unless of course you have one of the 2-3 Pokemon that wall it regardless of its set. The things that wall RBY Gengar regardless of its set are Chansey and Zam, which also happen to be great targets for Explosion - hence why we're having this conversation.

And against somebody following your advice, Mega Drain Gengar gets 2 kills per match. I can't help but picture your metaphor ending with a *CHOMP* followed by screams of pain.
 
Heh, to give some credit when credit is due, mega drain is still kinda okayish. After all, of all the plethora of gengar checks, rhydon/golem is the only one who doesnt care about explosion.

night shade still the better move though.
 

Isa

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Gengar with Mega Drain is only good in situations where

1. Night Shade is standard - if Mega Drain is considered standard the opponent will dodge using Rocks vs. Gengar
2. Gengar doesn't have to reveal Night Shade prior to revealing Mega Drain (so if Gengar is taking sleep vs. Exeggutor, using Thunderbolt twice effectively reveals that you lack Night Shade)

Using Mega Drain + Night Shade could be something though. Thunderbolt doesn't see a lot of use on Night Shade movesets and it would allow you to bait in the Rocks. The issue of course is that Mega Drain only barely 2HKOs, so you're gonna have to make a correct prediction or get a crit in order for it to pay off (unless weakening the rocks is good enough for a Jolteon sweep or something).
 

Jorgen

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If you don't have night shade on Gar, you can't punish an Egg for staying in after you sleep it. That's pretty big. The whole "Surprise! your Rock is fucked" isn't worth that loss, especially when you consider that Rocks generally don't enjoy taking Night Shades to begin with. And replacing Tbolt is not an option, you really want Gengar to be your 2nd defense against Lapras and (most) Slowbro. Otherwise he's even more niche than he already was.

I find that, in practice, Mega Drain Egg is actually a lot more handy than you'd think. It makes Rhydon a lot less likely to go for Rock Slides when you're paralyzed and ~50% (not uncommon at all), and little bits of healing off Zams and Chanseys (and hopefully overzealous Waters) really do give you noticeably more leeway in deciding when you can boom. But that's a different Pokemon, we'd need a whole new thread for that one.
 
If you don't have night shade on Gar, you can't punish an Egg for staying in after you sleep it. That's pretty big.
Well, yes, you can punish Egg for staying in, just not by staying in yourself. It's called Tauros.

And how often is Gengar sleeping Egg? What sort of opening leads to Gengar sleeping Egg? I mean I guess it's possible, but the only ways I can see that happening involve incompetence (lead Egg failing to switch out of lead Gar) or a very specific set of prediction plays involving a weird team (Mie vs. Gar lead -> t1 Egg vs. Chansey -> t2 something not Gar or Egg eats Sleep Powder -> t3 Ice-type vs. Egg -> t4 Gar eats STAB Blizzard -> t5 Egg eats Hypnosis).

The whole "Surprise! your Rock is fucked" isn't worth that loss, especially when you consider that Rocks generally don't enjoy taking Night Shades to begin with.
Golem doesn't enjoy them too much, but Rhydon's usually doing more than 24% on the switchout. And Gengar's hard to switch in; if you Night Shade on the switch then sure, you deal some damage, but you then have to switch Gengar out and bring it back in to make use of its Explosion (except oh wait, if Gengar's worn down faster than the Rocks, its Explosion is useless anyway). If you catch the Rocks on the switch with Mega Drain, then you can hold your ground and near-guarantee that you get your boom off.

And replacing Tbolt is not an option, you really want Gengar to be your 2nd defense against Lapras and (most) Slowbro. Otherwise he's even more niche than he already was.
Definitely not if you're running it alongside Articuno or Dragonite (which is IMO when Mega Drain is easiest to use, since you can fake out an opponent into not Quaking Gengar and getting Drained), I'd agree. Gengar needs Tbolt if it's going to beat the Waters that they have trouble with.

Of course, the other side of that coin is that if you are running it alongside Articuno (and to some extent Dragonite), Night Shade's less useful; if you anticipate Egg coming in, you can double-switch and get off a STAB Blizzard or (if Mega Drain Egg) Agility.

And I mean Jynx is still considered okay despite being almost the definition of a throwaway lead; Gengar still deals with Wrappers just fine if it's running Night Shade + Mega Drain.



But yeah by the current stats on PO I wouldn't use Gengar, because Alakazam's usage is so high and Psychic's usage on Starmie is so high. Also by the current stats on PO, half the people using Gengar have no clue what they are doing (the most common set is currently Hypnosis/Thunderbolt/Night Shade/Confuse Ray *headbutts screen*) and would be better off using any of the sets we're discussing.

(Also, just to clarify; I'm not saying Mega Drain should be standard. I'm saying it isn't garbage and its equilibrium level is significant - 85% each for Tbolt and Night Shade and 30% for Drain, or something along those lines.)
 
i'll give you the 85/85/30 spread (though i'd push for like 95/75/30). maybe -5% and give that to the odd psychic for mirror gengar/cray/whatever else he learns. i'll give you guys the 30% mega drain egg too. but 25-30% doesn't qualify as a good move imo. that's still well within "situational boundaries". reflect zam is easy 50%+ standard imo, with stoss being the runner up, and counter/kinesis being the "switchup moves". gengar has 2 moveslots, so the comparison's a bit wonky, but tbolt is easily #1, night shade 2, and drain a distant 3rd. that puts it in "counter zam" analogy bracket. exeggutor is probably stun spore first, then probably a tie between de/drain for me as both are pretty much specifically for 1 pokemon. 60/20/20 sounds fair.

reflect zam is a another level altogether. this is like comparing fb nidoking to curselax or something.

this adds nothing to the discussion.
 

Mr.E

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Reflect Zam is shit, Toss is the boss. MD Gengar blows but Eggy can 2HKO Starmie with it while drain tanking Blizzard damage pretty well, kinda handy.

Also by the current stats on PO, half the people using Gengar have no clue what they are doing
well yeah that's why they're using Gengar
 

Mr.E

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Huh, faulty memory. I thought it was right around 50% but I guess I was wrong. Nonetheless, it allows Eggy to decisively beat Starmie.

Mega Drain Gengar still blows because you still have to land it on the switch or Rhydon just OHKOs your ass anyway. (Golem is a little bitch and doesn't guaranteed OHKO Gengar, yet another reason why Rhydon is better.)
 
Me
But yeah by the current stats on PO I wouldn't use Gengar, because Alakazam's usage is so high and Psychic's usage on Starmie is so high. Also by the current stats on PO, half the people using Gengar have no clue what they are doing (the most common set is currently Hypnosis/Thunderbolt/Night Shade/Confuse Ray *headbutts screen*) and would be better off using any of the sets we're discussing.
*Raises hand* That would be me. I've never seen anyone else use this set on their Gengar so odds are I'm bumping up the stats personally. I would definitely say that I know what I'm doing (I've topped the ladder with teams with that Gengar as a lead and I'm currently using it right now and am sitting pretty high up there - I know ladder points aren't be-all-end-all but it's something), and as I mentioned before, I personally find that running Explosion on Gengar is a waste, because the boom is too weak against most things and I'd rather either have Gengar asleep or just going down fighting.

I wouldn't run Mega Drain though, just because the utility isn't there - Tbolt hits literally everything harder except the grounds, which is why Night Shade is there - you catch Goldon on the switch with Night Shade and they're not happy about it. You can't stay IN of course, but it's pretty damn easy to switch to Eggy when you've got a Gengar out against a Goldon - they're GOING to Earthquake, making it a pretty-close-to-free switch, so you don't lose much by not running Mega Drain, but you have a lot to lose by running it and replacing a more useful slot.
 
Huh, faulty memory. I thought it was right around 50% but I guess I was wrong. Nonetheless, it allows Eggy to decisively beat Starmie.
No, it does not. Starmie can PP-stall Mega Drain with Recover. Even a Starmie that's taken a special fall can usually hold its own against Mega Drain if it paralyses Exeggutor with Thunder Wave. Starmie lacking an Ice move does lose eventually to Mega Drain Egg because Egg can spam Psychic to get two Special falls, at which point Starmie is forced out. A Starmie that has been paralysed and does not have Thunder Wave itself is also in quite a bind.

Mega Drain Gengar still blows because you still have to land it on the switch or Rhydon just OHKOs your ass anyway. (Golem is a little bitch and doesn't guaranteed OHKO Gengar, yet another reason why Rhydon is better.)
Unless you fake them out into using some move other than Earthquake, or unless you crit Mega Drain.
 
Me


*Raises hand* That would be me. I've never seen anyone else use this set on their Gengar so odds are I'm bumping up the stats personally.
You've played over 9 battles a day this month and matches with you in them are 25% of the RBY played on PO? Wow.

I would definitely say that I know what I'm doing (I've topped the ladder with teams with that Gengar as a lead and I'm currently using it right now and am sitting pretty high up there - I know ladder points aren't be-all-end-all but it's something), and as I mentioned before, I personally find that running Explosion on Gengar is a waste, because the boom is too weak against most things and I'd rather either have Gengar asleep or just going down fighting.
Okay, you're right, Gengar's Explosion isn't the best Explosion there is.

But it's still better than bloody Confuse Ray. If you were using it to bluff Tbolt/Night Shade and then spring Mega Drain on the Rocks, that'd at least be breaking even with Explosion (when it worked). But Confuse Ray? Why?
 
You've played over 9 battles a day this month and matches with you in them are 25% of the RBY played on PO? Wow.
Well I haven't looked at the stats so I didn't know what your raw numbers were, I was making a generalization. 9+ battles a day for me isn't unusual so while I'm probably not the ONLY one using that set, I sure am a huge contributer to that number. But I'm surprised someone else is using that set. Either way, that wasn't really the point - I wasn't trying to claim complete ownership over Gengar in the usage stats, just that I use him a lot and I know what I'm doing, which was contrary to your "people who use this set don't know what they're doing" point. My comment about the usage stats was an incidental element to the point of my reply.

But back on topic: Confuse Ray is awesome. Even if I only used it twice in a match, that's still twice as often as I could have possibly used Explosion. If I know I don't like using Explosion, which we've established, I've gotta put something in that extra moveslot, and Confuse Ray has waaaaay more utility than Mega Drain. Are you opposed to Confuse Ray in general (as in, you would never use it on Lapras for instance) or just on Gengar?
 
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Bedschibaer

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I agree that confuse ray is an underrated move, because all it does is giving matchups a higher chance going your way. It's just that I (and great parts of all players) prefer the utilitly of other moves (explosion in this case) over that. Cray on lapras is mostly there to let chansey (and other) matchups go your way and for the lack of better alternatives (sing catches chansey and alot other things too, but is unreliable. And what else is there? Rest?).
 
But back on topic: Confuse Ray is awesome. Even if I only used it twice in a match, that's still twice as often as I could have possibly used Explosion. If I know I don't like using Explosion, which we've established, I've gotta put something in that extra moveslot, and Confuse Ray has waaaaay more utility than Mega Drain. Are you opposed to Confuse Ray in general (as in, you would never use it on Lapras for instance) or just on Gengar?
IIRC Confuse Ray gives 1-4 turns (3/3/1/1 ratio) of "X is confused!" followed by one turn of "X's confused no more!". Tell me if I'm wrong here, because it's crucial to my argument.

0.375 * 1 * 0.5 + 0.375 * 2 * 0.5 + 0.125 * 3 * 0.5 + 0.125 * 4 * 0.5 = mean 1 turn of hitting self in confusion per use of Confuse Ray. It's less if they're paralysed, or if they switch out before the 4 turns are up. (EDIT: Ugh, I noobed, it's 1/1/1/1, and the mean is 1.25 without paralysis. It's still under 1 given paralysis (0.9375) and under 1 given that they switch out before three turns of confusion.)

But Confuse Ray takes 1 turn to use. So, on average, using it doesn't get you anywhere. Using it is solely good for increasing variance, which is worthwhile only in either a) very fast matchups where you always lose but a single extra turn would make you always win, and the situation is such that this is worth the high risk of dying for free, b) attrition matchups where you kill them at least as fast as they kill you but they have recovery and you don't. Using it to ease switches is rather suboptimal; they're only going to spend 1 turn confused (since you're presumably switching to a counter, and so they'll switch out), so 50% of the time it has no effect (and you'd have been better off just hitting them on the switch or double-switching), and 50% of the time it'll be a Wrap switch that can't threaten to stay in and can't be used vs. a slower opponent that's already in.

Does Gengar have any matchups that fall under a)? Yes. Mega Drain Gengar vs. Rhydon, and to some extent Thunderbolt Gengar vs. Psychic Starmie and Night Shade Gengar vs. Zapdos/Jolteon. The first - and clearest - your Gengar cannot take advantage of thanks to its lack of Mega Drain. The second and third, on the other hand, are cases where even that single extra turn may not actually save you; a single Starmie Psychic has a 45.7% chance of preventing a cold Gengar Thunderbolt 2HKO (by either critting, and killing Gengar instantly, or by causing a special fall), and Zapdos and Jolteon have high chances to crit Drill Peck and Thunderbolt while Night Shade cannot crit. Overall, I'm not sold, particularly since in either case you take a high risk of getting one less hit in for no benefit, and as such these are very-high-risk gambles that are also situational.

Does Gengar have any matchups that fall under b)? Yes. Non-Thunderbolt Gengar vs. non-Psychic Starmie, and Gengar vs. Chansey. The first is not an issue for your Gengar, as it has Thunderbolt. In the second, Gengar's chance to beat Chansey is abysmal even with Confuse Ray, and a move that helps much more is... Explosion.

So yeah, I think Confuse Ray's not great on Gengar. It's an "option", I guess, but only over one of Gengar's attack slots. Never over Explosion. The only thing that could possibly be worth losing Explosion would be a successful surprise with Mega Drain.

Do I think Confuse Ray's bad on other things that get it? Well, I think Ninetales, Golbat and Magmar suck regardless of what they're using (Ninetales has a miniscule niche), so we're basically just talking about Lapras. I think it's decent on Lapras thanks to case b); Lapras has the unfortunate reality of bad matchups against all three Recover users, and Confuse Ray helps luck all of them (whereas Hyper Beam only helps against Chansey and Alakazam, not Starmie). It's definitely not as ironclad as Blizzard and Body Slam, though. If I were dropping Thunderbolt, I'd probably drop Confuse Ray for Hyper Beam since CRay has at most like a 5% better chance than HBeam and HBeam can improve chances compared to Confuse Ray by over 25% in some situations. CRay + Rest is usually an illusion since as mentioned it on average doesn't use more opposing turns than are required to use it.

I agree that confuse ray is an underrated move, because all it does is giving matchups a higher chance going your way. It's just that I (and great parts of all players) prefer the utilitly of other moves (explosion in this case) over that. Cray on lapras is mostly there to let chansey (and other) matchups go your way and for the lack of better alternatives (sing catches chansey and alot other things too, but is unreliable. And what else is there? Rest?).
Confuse Ray doesn't give matchups a higher chance of going your way. It gives matchups that you were going to lose a higher, but still under 50% chance of going your way, and matchups that you were going to win a lower chance of going your way. Slight exception for the aforementioned long attrition battles where an opponent has recovery; those can at least theoretically go over 50%.

Confuse Ray is a pretty cool guy. eh stops Recover as you switch out and doesnt afraid of anything
What's the point of stopping Recover as you switch out, when you've also stopped yourself from damaging them?

EDIT: If anyone wants a full analysis for the matchups I'm talking about with and without Confuse Ray, I'm game. Except in the case of Lapras vs. Alakazam, that matchup's a bit ugly.
 
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You neglected to mention the wonderful haxfest that is parafusion. I'm not going to do the math because I know you'll do it for me and this isn't theoretical - I face this scenario all the time: I often put my Gengar in front of a paralyzed Eggy (how it happens isn't important - sometimes I switch into Double-Edge/Egg Bomb, sometimes I predict a switch to Eggy and counter with Gengar, sometimes I bring it in after Eggy KOs something, whatever - point is Eggy and Gengar are both in and Eggy is paralyzed) and Confuse Ray once, then Night Shade it to death. Eggy needs two Psychics to KO Gengar and a special drop doesn't matter, so the odds are decent that Gengar will stay alive long enough to either KO Eggy (particularly if the Eggy had taken a hit from something else first) *or* put it into Tauros fodder range. And here's the thing, man: let's say I just boomed instead. That also can put the Eggy into Tauros KO range, but I've lost my Gengar. So yeah, there's a toss-up when I use Confuse Ray in this match-up: sometimes I get the KO and survive, sometimes Eggy gets two Psychics in and takes me out (but odds are good I'll have done some solid Night Shade damage to it before that happened). So in this match-up, Confuse Ray is either as good as Explosion, or better ... so why would I want to run Explosion over it? Never do I wish that I had boomed instead, because if parafusion works out in my favor, then I get to bring Gengar back in and do it again (maybe versus a paralyzed Lax, although that's harder because T-Bolt doesn't hit as hard vs Lax as Night Shade vs Eggy [although it can crit at least]), or save Gengar to pivot against normal moves/explosions, or put it in front of Wrap, or whatever. Basically, due to using Confuse Ray instead of Explosion, I did the same damage to Eggy the boom would have but half the time I at least get to keep my Gengar after it's done (again, I'm sure you're going to do the math so don't crucify me if the odds aren't literally 50%).

Confuse Ray is also helpful when something switches into Gengar. If you put something to sleep, and then Confuse Ray, that's a pretty safe bet. Say they stay in - well okay, the sleep counter ticks down, but you can attack again. If they continue to stay in, they'll be confused when they wake up. If they switch out right after, they're eating a Night Shade. Say they switched out right after the sleep hit though - they probably switched to a Rhydon or Golem like we talked about earlier. Sure, I didn't get to surprise them with a Mega Drain, but they're confused. Now I can switch to anything (probably an Eggy) and maybe they attack themselves? Maybe they don't, but either way my Gengar isn't harmed and I was going to switch anyway. At least this way I introduced the chance that they can't attack, or encouraged them to switch out to shake the confusion.

And now that I mentioned sleep, using Confuse Ray can be a good choice against a Resting opponent. When it's asleep, hit it with Confuse Ray. It can't hit back, but you can switch to a counter and when the opponent wakes up he's confused. Typically things that are resting have boosted in some way (Slowbro, Amnesia/Reflect Lax), so Confusion could encourage them to switch out. Gengar's crit rate is lower than the odds that Slowbro will hit itself in confusion, so in many cases it may be smarter to hit the sleeping and boosted Slowbro with Confuse Ray, THEN fish for the T-Bolt crit, instead of just fishing for the T-Bolt crit.

But long story short, there are tons of ways to use Confuse Ray that you don't seem to acknowledge. Confuse Ray vs anything paralyzed sure as hell increases the odds that the match-up is going to go your way. I think you might be assuming that the Gengar is getting played early game, because most people will have exploded by late game. But if you're not using Gengar as an exploder, he can come in when everything is paralyzed and Confuse Ray + Tbolt or Night Shade depending on the opponent has the potential to wreak a ton of havoc.
 
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Am doing the calcs for CRay Gengar vs. Exeggutor, which are more tedious than I expected (but do, I believe, demonstrate the main point of my argument). Will reply when finished.
 

Mr.E

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Just keep in mind that if the opponent switches out to evade confusion, you've effectively earned the turn back you used casting Confuse Ray.
 
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