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It just seems weird to me that it would do this, because in most circumstances, you can Wide Guard several times in a row until they Earthquake themselves to death. Seems just as likely to me that they would just stay in and kill themselves, especially seeing as how it wasn't my move.
Is there a list of all the circumstances in which the AI switches anywhere?
Here are the main only two ones that I'm aware of (listed on this page or the previous one):
-The AI having a Pokémon with an Ability that gives it immunity or absorb against a type (Levitate, Flash Fire, Dry Skin, Lightning Rod, Motor Drive, etc) as a back-up when an ally has been (non-fatally) hit by a move of that type - if these conditions are met, the AI will "always" make a predictive switch. Note that this only applies to immunity/absorb via Ability; the AI will not switch in a Flying-type on EQ. Like Dutch Plumberjack said, the AI's own field moves trigger this kind of switch as well, mostly EQ and Surf. The AI ignores Mold Breaker when making this switch - in Singles, it will often switch Gengar in on Haxorus Mold Breaker Earthquake, for example (it can also switch Gengar into its own Mold Breaker Earthquake for extra fun!). This can also give you information about what Ability the AI's back-ups have - for example, if you use Thunderbolt without KOing the target on Turn 1 and the AI later sends out Zebstrika (and didn't switch it in on Turn2), you know that it has Sap Sipper instead of Lightning Rod or Motor Drive. You can play around this tendency by avoiding hitting a target with a move of the same type twice in a row, if you are afraid of particular threats - against Veterans that may have Entei3 with a Sun team, for example, you may want to avoid using a Fire-type move twice on the same target to prevent Entei3 from copping a Flash Fire boost for its Sun-boosted Eruption.
-Being locked into an ineffective move with a Choice item - most commonly switching a Flying-type or Levitator into Landorus2 using Earth Power or another Scarfer that locks into a Ground-move, or a Ghost into Terrakion2's Sacred Sword. Note that the AI is unpredictable with this sort of switch - it may switch out immediately, or stay in for 5+ turns seemingly randomly. Additionally, in Doubles/Triples, the AI may switch out even if there is an effective target in range if it has made an ineffective attack - for example, the aforementioned Landorus2 locking into Earth Power aimed at Lucario in the left-side position into a Talonflame switch-in with Scizor (eligible Earth Power target) in the middle may cause an instant switch, even though it still has a target it can hit effectively. It's still unpredictable, though - if the AI is "staying in for several turns" as mentioned before, it may stay in in a situation like this and act smartly, so you can't rely on this anomaly. Being Choice-locked into Trick Room also causes a switch if you're TrickScarfing an enemy.
Get Truant on the opponent and do the Protect/Acupressure thing for a bit. Baton Pass to Sylveon, get a Sub up, and sweep with Medicham. A Ghost will probably target Mega Medicham with a super-effective STAB so you can just BP back to Sylveon and KO with Stored Power. Would probably go with Dynamic Punch on Medicham for an easier time against Sturdy/Focus Sash.
200 in a row is pretty tough if using a Mega Evolution slot on something that doesn't have good bulk that can synergize with other good Maison Pokemon (such as Mega Gyarados or Scizor) or something that's not Mega Kangaskhan, which is in a category of its own. At some point over the course of 200 battles, Mega Medicham is going to do nothing because needed to hit something with High Jump Kick and crashed, or Mega Manectric will be forced to switch out against a bunch of Ground types.
Pretty much every single team on the singles leaderboard has at least one Pokemon that can boost its stats, and since Mega Medicham/Manectric can't boost on their own and don't really provide a whole lot of team support (maybe you could use Lightning Rod Manectric in conjunction with Suicune, but that would leave a lot of holes for the 3rd Pokemon to fill) for other stat boosters, it'd be an uphill battle to get to 200.
If it's Baton Pass you're opposed to, just use a different 4th move on Medicham (Rock Slide or Bullet Punch, maybe) and have the 3rd Pokemon be something you can set up whenever the opponent could potentially have something that can beat an Accupressured Medicham, such as anything with Quick Claw, Sturdy or Focus Sash.
200 in a row is pretty tough if using a Mega Evolution slot on something that doesn't have good bulk that can synergize with other good Maison Pokemon (such as Mega Gyarados or Scizor) or something that's not Mega Kangaskhan, which is in a category of its own. At some point over the course of 200 battles, Mega Medicham is going to do nothing because needed to hit something with High Jump Kick and crashed, or Mega Manectric will be forced to switch out against a bunch of Ground types.
Pretty much every single team on the singles leaderboard has at least one Pokemon that can boost its stats, and since Mega Medicham/Manectric can't boost on their own and don't really provide a whole lot of team support (maybe you could use Lightning Rod Manectric in conjunction with Suicune, but that would leave a lot of holes for the 3rd Pokemon to fill) for other stat boosters, it'd be an uphill battle to get to 200.
That's fine with me, I like a challenge. I'm just not a fan of heavily relying gimmicks or relying on the 'go-to' Mega Evolutions. I use what I like and make it work, I just thought I'd ask her to see if I got any unique suggestions to try.
I'd point you to a Super Singles team that got the Starf Berry without relying on a better Mega Evolution, Truant, or a stat-boosting Dragon with 2 teammates that provided defensive synergy, but none seem to exist. Definitely keep us posted on your progress; whatever you manage to make work will certainly be unique!
"Centering around" either of those Pokemon won't work, because they're just not viable sweepers (due to their aforementioned lack of defensive synergy and inability to boost their stats). You could shelve them into established two-Pokemon combos, though (Dragonite + Aegislash; maybe Chansey + Gliscor? I'm not sure Medicham or Manectric are good enough at stopping set-up sweepers, though) and hope that they're viable enough for you to get to 200, despite them being sub-par. But they can't switch into much of anything (maybe pairing Manectric with Suicune for the Lightning Rod boost, but it can't exactly do anything with those boosts against opposing Electric-types) and they can't really function as leads, so I don't see a lot of potential there for them to pull their weight. A possibility is having a Manectric lead with a Dragonite back-up who can switch into the Earthquakes aimed at Manectric, but I'm not sure what Manectric would actually do against opposing leads.
Good luck, though! Hopefully you'll figure something out that I can't think of.
Give Manectric Snarl or Confide - now he can cripple leads to some extent with Intimidate and Confide/Snarl, with 130 base speed to boot! Add Thunder Wave and Thunderbolt/HP Ice for offense (for Garchomp4 and others), probably use a Timid 252HP/252Spe spread (you need to outspeed Chomp4 before Mega Evolution at the very least), and you've got a base 130-speed crippling lead with just one weakness that one of your other Pokémon can cover. Defiant/Competitive/Contrary aren't a concern, since your stat drops only kick in when you Mega Evolve, which you can choose not to do if there's a risk of those abilities. Pair it up with back-ups that can set up with minor crippling support, function together even if Manectric doesn't do much, and don't mind status from the likes of Weezing4 and others. I'm not convinced, but this seems like the best niche for Mega Manectric in Singles.
Or you could play for the Starf Berry in Doubles or Triples instead, where Mega Manectric is great and Mega Medicham isn't completely awful. Make sure you've got Low Kick from past-gen tutors for MegaCham, though, otherwise it will really be terrible with either HJK's inaccuracy or Drain Punch's general lack of power.
Give Manectric Snarl or Confide - now he can cripple leads to some extent with Intimidate and Confide/Snarl, with 130 base speed to boot! Add Thunder Wave and Thunderbolt/HP Ice for offense (for Garchomp4 and others), probably use a Timid 252HP/252Spe spread (you need to outspeed Chomp4 before Mega Evolution at the very least), and you've got a base 130-speed crippling lead with just one weakness that one of your other Pokémon can cover. Defiant/Competitive/Contrary aren't a concern, since your stat drops only kick in when you Mega Evolve, which you can choose not to do if there's a risk of those abilities. Pair it up back-ups that can set up with minor crippling support and can function even if Manectric doesn't do much and doesn't mind status from the likes of Weezing4 and others. I'm not convinced, but this seems like the best niche for Mega Manectric in Singles.
Or you could play for the Starf Berry in Doubles or Triples instead, where Mega Manectric is great and Mega Medicham isn't completely awful. Make sure you've got Low Kick from past-gen tutors for MegaCham, though, otherwise it will really be terrible with either HJK's inaccuracy or Drain Punch's general lack of power.
Dragonite (DD, Outrage, Roost, EQ or Fire Punch) + Suicune back-ups seem like the best choices to me. Regice (Clear Body) poses some problems, and I would worry about crit Earthquakes from lead Terrakion (though Suicune could probably beat a -1 Terrakion just fine), but it seems like those three should be reliable enough to hit 200. You can T-Wave Regice anyway; only one set has Special Attack EVs, so I think Suicune should be able to beat them. Regice 1 (with the SpAtk EVs) is a problem, but if you paralyze, you can probably get up two CMs with Suicune (making its Subs unbreakable by a single T-Bolt) in time to Rest and set up. I would normally say that EQ over Fire Punch is essential, but a back-up Togekiss could give you real problems if it flinches Suicune to death (which seems relatively likely), and there are decent odds that one would come up within 200 battles. I would definitely use HP Ice on Manectric; you don't want Garchomp sweeping your team. Given that you'd rely on stat drops, I'd probably use CroCune (Sub, Calm Mind, Rest, Scald); crits are more threatening to such a team because you only have one other offensive Pokemon to rely on.
I'm sorry but I'm new. Where the heck do I go to watch the videos of say Eppie's thousand and something win? Is there a secret link or something. CHTG-WWWW-WWW8-TFLX
I'm sorry but I'm new. Where the heck do I go to watch the videos of say Eppie's thousand and something win? Is there a secret link or something. CHTG-WWWW-WWW8-TFLX
Just a little update on the Aron/Aromatisse/Hariyama/Mega Ampharos doubles run-- #210 at SSYG-WWWW-WWWA-4MQR. Defensive Aromatisse takes hits like a mattress, and just keeps on giving..
The doubles streak ended at 321, courtesy of me not paying attention. I think this team can be taken a lot further, but, as the saying goes "The spirit is willing, yet the flesh is weak". WWYW-WWWW-WWWA-86YV
I'm afraid the team isn't really well thought out at all, we just brought some of our competititive Pokes that sort of worked well together and semi-casually did as well as we could. If these were specifically designed for Maison Multi, I think my Starmie would have had Natural Cure, for example. It looks from the replay like Jolly on the Staraptor may have been sub-ideal.
About the loss, it seems that our team was simply not up to the task. Although, I imagine we could've won if the Life Orb Earthquake hadn't crit me to death on turn 1.
I'm still surprised to see a Multis team break 100 without a single Mega on either side. They've proven to be the workhorses of multis, especially with the AI as a partner, and there are a bunch of extremely strong setups you can achieve with two of them.
I never would have reached or beaten Nita & Morgan without Zard Y, at least not with that amount of ease (I had countless streaks end in the high 40s prior to obtaining one.)
Though I originally planned to wait until ORAS before trying to put together another big triples streak (as there will surely be a Tower/Subway/Maison equivalent somewhere), the lure of four digits proved too much for me, and I started slowly building up the wins again. I'm happy to report that I now have an ongoing super triples streak of 1,111 wins with Greninja / Mega Blastoise / Talonflame / Sylveon / Mienshao / Garchomp. The team is exactly the same as my 962 win squad discussed in detail here. I played much more carefully this time, and was particularly conservative in battles against anything with Trick Room or Wide Guard. No more trying to slip a Water Spout in against a Bastiodon. Go straight for Aura Sphere! The result was a very smooth progression, with no super close calls and very few moderately close ones. Humorously, battle 1,000 was actually one of the more difficult ones, because it was the first time in the entire streak that a Honchkrow Snatched my first turn Tailwind. This happened a few times on my 962 win streak, but hadn't happened at all before then on my current run, and I had a sudden unpleasant vision of losing my streak on the thousandth battle, which would have been maddening. Thankfully, the team is strong, and after successfully setting Tailwind the next turn, I was able to power through and get the win.
For humorous moments, I once accidentally Brave Birded my own Greninja late in the streak, but sadly didn't save the video. Whoops!!
Objectively, it probably makes sense for me to take Jumpman16's advice and run Swift on Sylveon as a backup spread attack that isn't shut down by Soundproof, but since Sylveon so rarely needs to use any move other than Hyper Voice (I believe I used Shadow Ball once on the entire run, and that's it), I haven't made the change. I'd replace Baton Pass for sure save for the fact that it's only learnable by Eevee, not Sylveon, and I'm limited to one Hyper Voice Pixilate Sylveon until ORAS comes out and introduces sixth generation move tutors. Once I can breed additional Pixilate Sylveon, Swift will be added to the set.
I don't imagine myself trying to push this streak too much further, as cracking 1,000 was the big goal and all the streaks ahead of me are a long ways off. At a rate of roughly 1,000 battles in fifty hours, the time demand is sizable, too. Furthermore, only one of these streaks is complete, so I'd be chasing moving targets. Still, I'll probably continue to battle some at least until ORAS comes out, so I'll certainly post if I make notable progress.
It's been inspiring seeing some of the big success people have had in the Maison, and without the big streaks and excellent discussion/commentary from you fellow Maisoners, this run never would have happened. Thank you all!
Hello everyone! I've been lurking here for a long time but never posted, - also the last time I checked the records the top Triples was at 300+... - so I've come to seek advice for breaking 150 in Triples. I currently run a sun team with Ninetales and Mega Blaziken alongside defensive Zapdos as leads, with Mold Breaker Excadrill, HP Fire Greninja and Speed Boost Scolipede making the rest of the team. This works out quite well, so I gather it's a matter of playstyle - should I be more conservative in general when facing possible hax (especially with High Jump Kick), or in tougher situations (Trick Room)?
I'd also like to include this - achieved on the 12th July 2014! :)
The team's final form is pretty much here. If only my AI knowledge didn't have some pretty annoying gaps in it. Here's me hoping Manectite is available in ORAS, because I'm probably not gonna be able to squeeze out another attempt before those come out (or up to it, for that matter).
Cruel moment to lose, cruel opponent to lose against, especially because of /everything/ I've been taking into account when teambuilding: Mara (can I just lose to four consecutive crits after guessing a set wrong against a Veteran like everybody else does, just once? please?). Cruel way to lose also, because I got pretty much outretarded. She led off with Bronzong (left), Musharna (mid), Dusknoir (right), I naturally lead off with Greninja (left), Manectric (mid), and Talon (right). I don't really know for sure which one of those leads is gonna set up TR; Mush is out of the question because he's gonna target Ninja with Energy Ball, but Dusknoir and Bronzong both can't really threaten my leads. Because Bronzong at least has a powerful attack to hit Manectric neutrally, I guess Dusknoir, Taunt it, and double target Bronzong with Manectric and Greninja. Bronzong survives and sets up TR. Dusknoir tries to set up TR also, but can't because of the Taunt. wut. That's what I get for assuming -as I've always done- that she's only gonna have one of her leads set up TR, apparently I was giving her too much credit. Live and learn I suppose. I've mock battled it twice afterwards, both times Bronzong and Dusknoir both tried to set up TR (and thus ended up resetting it).
The remainder of her lineup was pretty bad as well, featuring Seismitoad (which severely dents Azumarill with Poison Jab), and TR-counter-counter Aromatisse. Because this also turned out to be that battle where Play Rough's 1% miss chance decided to kick in, another attempt ended prematurely. I would have won easily if I had just allowed Bronzong and Dusknoir to reset each other's TR. Guess I can bring that tidbit of knowledge along in a subsequent attempt (if there's gonna be one).
Right. Anyhoo, original team Greninja/Mega Manectric/Talonflame/Nidoking/Azumarill/Blaziken and teambuilding history here, a Mat Block/Volt Switch/Tailwind team. As gorgeous as this team was, it had one enormous flaw in Blaziken and Nidoking's downright terrible defensive synergy (as diagnosed by turskain and ReptoAbysmal ), which usually wasn't a problem because I was murdering everything first anyway, but that stuff kinda backfires when you're facing shit like Slowbro and Reuniclus after surprise mid-game TR. Unfortunately, this back line had a bunch of reallllly valuable traits that prevented me from making an easy one-on-one fix. It had to feature:
-two physical breakers and a special breaker, all of them with wide coverage
-a slow mon with HP investment, as a TR doorstop if nothing else
-a Ground-type
-a Toxic immunity in order to annoy Cresselia2 and autowin in a last mon situation
-a Fighting-type, because of annoying/otherwise hard to take down stuff like Regigigas, Slaking, Snorlax, Regigigas, the Regis, Blissey, and last but not least Regigigas (and Terrakion/Cobalion)
-as suggested by turskain, a Ground immunity because Earthquakes after Mat Block (especially with Quick Claw) kinda screw me over otherwise.
Yeah, good luck dismantling an otherwise good team and fitting all of this in. Couldn't really fix this conundrum without dismantling the back line, I thought. I started by thinking up the couple physical/special breaker, taking along as many of these traits as possible.. Candidates included Garchomp/Hydreigon (too much dragon though), Garchomp/Clawitzer (this way I could give Garchomp the Life Orb and make him worth using, but center Earthquake is hard to pull off without slaughtering your own team as well, and as such it's annoying to Volt Switch into), Swampert/Hydreigon (you're an evil genius, ~Mercury~ ... honestly, I never really appreciated how well that team synergises until I had to go think out my team in detail and realised it kinda ticked all the boxes as to what those backups had to bring), Blaziken/Clawitzer (gonna be hard to fit on a flier/levitator though...), yeah it wasn't easy. Eventually, I decided on Garchomp's STAB Earthquake as the Ground-type move; Clawitzer as the TR doorstop; and Blaziken as the Fighting-type. That lineup didn't feature a Toxic immunity, but I figured it would be alright because Clawitzer /usually/ 2HKOes Cresselia2 with Dark Pulse. It also didn't feature a flier, so I cheated by giving Blaziken an Air Balloon, piggybacking on turskain and NoCheese 's Balloon Infernape/Balloon Mienshao (and solving the problem of the distribution of the boosting items while I was at it). Balloon Mienshao was also an option because it brought additional utility in Fake Out/Wide Guard, but I knew I was already forfeiting power on a team that was weak as is, so I decided to see first how Balloon Blaze would work out. These were the sets:
Clawitzer @ Expert Belt
Ability: Mega Launcher
Nature: Modest
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
-Water Pulse
-Dark Pulse
-Aura Sphere
-Protect
The center Earthquake problem was honestly not as big as I thought it would be: the momentum loss of switching out Greninja for Blaziken wasn't big if I carefully measured out my first turn to KO as much as possible on the second turn, and with Life Orb it was as strong as it needed to be. However (by now you must've gotten the vibe that this wasn't meant to be), a lot of stuff just didn't... click. This team's first iteration was kinda weak, and this version was decidedly weaker. The first iteration managed to get the KOs it needed to get by OHKOing one enemy and 2HKOing another by ganging up on it, thus keeping the upper hand; however, this version didn't get as many OHKOs; notably, Blaziken just barely missed a ton of OHKOs the Expert Belt provided him with (Regice with Low Kick, Slaking, Regigigas, etc). Additionally, the team wasn't really flexible. Garchomp was the main powerhouse, and no matter how you look at it, when all is said and done he does need quite some careful guidance to safely launch an Earthquake. The first iteration's main draw was this very flexibility: every mon could put in a lot of work from every position on the field. It just didn't feel right, and I was quite sure there was gonna be some moment sooner rather than later where missing a crucial KO that I used to get or not being able to effectively launch the attack I needed to was gonna screw me over; there had already been some annoyingly close calls up to the chatelaine battle. (did like 99 battles with this lineup which should probably be a reasonable sample size, I lost a first streak right before Dana because I got cocky against Zapdos2, not exactly an opponent where you can afford that :p)
As such, back to the drawing board I went. However, just as was getting ready to revamp the back line once again, I thought to myself: 'you had a team. A bloody gorgeous team that just happened to miss a crucial bit of defensive synergy against Trick Room teams. Is your current iteration better against surprise mid-game TR setters? Yes. Is it worse in every fucking other situation? Hell yeah. Go back to the basics, fix what's meant to be fixed, and leave what works alone.' I then recapped one thought that had come up with me in that early naivete, but that I ignored because it didn't really fit in with that rigid list of characteristics provided earlier; I then just went with the simplest one-on-one fix available.
Anyhoo, with all this stuff I somehow have to retain I'm a tad stumped. The best I can come up with so far are Lucario (whose physical movepool quite blows, still has the earthquake weakness, and is helpless under TR. not Blaziken helpless but still Greninja helpless) and Hydreigon (sounds kinda cool tbqf and gets, albeit non-STAB, Earth Power. Honestly seems to be the best one-on-one Nidoking replacement not named Landorus in terms of role, but stacks coverage and weaknesses with Greninja.). But apart from the defensive synergy these are far worse than King and Blaze :<
So yeah, Hydreigon. That one dragon that should be amazing in singles because it 2HKOes basically every pokemon in existence but turns out to be the laughing stock of its pseudo-legendary brethren because of that trollish base Speed and that lack of boosting moves. Anyway, the main reason to add him was 'defensive synergy with Blaziken'; at first glance that should be alright, but when looking at it more in depth it turned out to be fucking hilarious. Let's take a look at it: Nidoking and Blaziken share no less than three common weaknesses. The first one is Water, which Hydreigon resists. The second one is Psychic, which Hydreigon is immune to. The third one is Ground, which Hydreigon is - get a load of this - immune to as well. As for the other weaknesses, Hydreigon at least isn't weak to Flying, which is easily taken care of by Greninja and Manectric, and he carries over Nidoking's Ice weakness (fiiiine), but Blaziken takes care of that. Hydreigon's other weaknesses are really manageable too: Dragon is taken care of by Greninja and Azu and even by Hydra himself when under Tailwind, Bug is lolBug and I have Talonflame and Blaziken, Fighting-types don't stand a chance at all with Talonflame on the field and are also demolished by Azu, and Fairy... kinda sucks tbqf, but there aren't really that many to begin with and they are usually easily overwhelmed with neutral hits. Yes I know the Fairy thing leaves something to be desired, and I know Focus Blast exists, but perfection's something we can only dream of. Anyway, Hydreigon doesn't quite tick the boxes in that list of characteristics I included earlier. Firstly, he lacks a Toxic immunity, but he easily 2HKOes Cresselia2 so that's /probably/ fine, and he can't switch in on Electric attacks. However, during the battles with Clawitzer and Garchomp I was starting to wonder whether it was all that needed to be able to switch in on those when one of my leads completely crippled most electrics by simply being on the field... a Ground typing just seemed kinda redundant with Lightningrod. I know this is kinda shaky because it relies on regular Manectric staying alive and not evolving, and I can't deny that the current iteration doesn't really like dealing with electrics, but honestly, they really are manageable and Hydreigon added so much to this team that it would be stupid not to at least try it for a minor reason like this. As for my other concerns, lol what was I thinking... 'stacks coverage with Greninja'... yeah they both know Dark Pulse I guess, but I didn't have a problem to slap Flamethrower on a mon when I already had two Fire attacks on this team... 'stacks weaknesses with Greninja'... stacks weaknesses with a mon that changes typing every turn? sounds impressive lol... 'is inferior to Nidoking in everything except defensive synergy'... let's just take a look at their stats (dat speed lol)
Timid Nidoking: hp 156 / atk 109 / def 98 / spa 137 (178 after Sheer Force) / spd 90 / spe 150
Modest Hydreigon: hp 167 / atk 109 / def 110 / spa 194 / spd 111 / spe 150
...i think I've made my point. Hydreigon's Earth Power is a little weaker of course, a little 40% weaker, but it still nabs several of the KOs Nidoking's did, and it's not like Dark and Dragon are mediocre STABs (lol@Poison). To tip it all off, Hydreigon brought something entirely new: ridiculously powerful neutral cross-field moves. So yeah. Done. Game on it was. I lost the streak I continued from the previous team somewhere in the high 70s (cringeworthy) because of a combination of an awkward matchup, hax, and misplays (honestly would've won if I had done one thing different in the second to last turn, but w/e), but afterwards the team completely demolished every AI that came along - until Mara's first real double TR lead.
Eddie (Hydreigon) @ Life Orb
Ability: Levitate
Nature: Modest
IVs: 31/X/31/31/31/31
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
-Dragon Pulse
-Dark Pulse
-Earth Power
-Protect
The team played similarly to the first iteration of course: use Mat Block, Volt Switch (or a different attack), and Tailwind (or Taunt or BB) to set up a situation where you can KO all three leads on the second turn; the broken Mat Block+Volt Switch combo (invented by turskain and inspired by ~Mercury~'s team) lets you effectively choose your own middle lead and hugely amplifies your potential coverage. Because of all the cross-field moves, it's really easy to remove potentially dangerous threats. The differences were that Manectric stayed in more often (either to kill stuff or to abuse Lightningrod) and that I Volt Switched to Blaziken more often in Nidoking's absence, also using Tailwind significantly less often (the lead trio doesn't need it, Blaziken only needs it if he needs to KO something faster right after he comes in, and it's generally wasted on Azumarill - only Hydreigon really, really appreciates it). Hydreigon proved to be an excellent replacement for Nidoking, covering a lot of holes the previous iteration had (Nidoking+Blaziken's offensive coverage kinda overlapped now that I think of it), and murdering Trick Room teams. Aside from the losing battle (and last mon situations against Mara), Trick Room went up like once in this streak, but that's ok; the general idea is more like 'don't let it ever get up' than 'slaughter them in it', which works because the lead trio can either Taunt or triple target every potential setter, and if Hydreigon Volt Switches in, every setter not named Aromatisse (which gets triple targeted anyway) gets brutally murdered. This approach is just more suited to this kind of speed team imo, and if I were to adjust my team to fit that second approach it would become worse in all other situations. Nothing can set up TR without multiple setters, Fake Out support, or my blessing (:p). If I do get caught in it, Hydreigon's typing prevents me from being run over - except against Aromatisse evidently :...( but really, you can't cover all the Psychic setters and Aromatisse in one teamslot, you just can't, unless you're to use trash like Bisharp or Skuntank (with all due respect to Drapion of course... need to make this disclaimer for obvious reasons, but Drapion's strenghths do not lie in Triples :p) Anyway, I think the team is pretty much finalised without a complete overhaul and that I'm just gonna have to step up my own game now. The only thing I'd change is to swap out Superpower for Protect on Azu - I haven't used the former even once on this run, and come to think of it, it's pretty much only there for Blissey and Empoleon. On the other hand, there were a couple of moments where I thought 'hm Protect would be nice right now', and I don't think the benefits of Superpower outweigh this - Azu's role is pretty much a glue mon and a secondary check to a lot of stuff, Empoleon is already beaten by Blaziken, Manectric, and Hydreigon, and I probably should be able to muscle my way through Blissey with Waterfall. Still, feedback/suggestions are appreciated of course, 298 just isn't as far as this team deserves :')
200: N4NG-WWWW-WWWA-ARDJ the clockwork being a clockwork
252: 2NJG-WWWW-WWWA-ARD9 A close call due to me making a horrible misplay on turn 1 (should've MEvolved Manectric and Taunted Luxray rather than trying to absorb TWave - Explosion doesn't even come close to KOing after Intimidate, even if QC does trigger)
296: E5DW-WWWW-WWWA-ARDG fun abusing Lightningrod
299: XCUG-WWWW-WWWA-ARDX rip
I don't want to come off as arrogant (especially considering this streak's general unimpressiveness), but I was hoping for... more, especially not losing against my nemesis playstyle before even beating my singles streak. The team is mathematically better than the previous iteration, and thank Azelf it did beat that record at least - but judging by how the streak went, I really started to think 400 was a realistic goal. I don't think it's the team, it's obviously me. The team literally steamrolled its way though every single battle - there was honestly only one close call, due to hax and me misplaying horribly on the first turn (replay included), and the loss, which was caused by me lacking AI behaviour knowledge against a verrrry dangerous opponent. I think it's safe to say that a team that murders everything on its way in 296 battles can get farther than 298 - if the captain knows what he's doing :') I'm still improving though, and it's not like I made things easy for me by building a team like this :p I just find it annoying that I've just spent 30 hours to learn that 'oh ok, apparently they've got no qualms setting up TR twice on the same turn', and I don't like the prospect of losing my next streak at, say, 360 to another 'oh I didn't know they did this in this specific situation'.
I now love this team even more than I've ever done before - granted, it now lacks the cool points for using Nidoking, but it's just incredibly good now. It can be really intense and draining to play with though, especially because it's rather skill-reliant as I've stated in my previous post, but that's probably for the most part just me being inexperienced with large streaks and extremely nervous. That said, ORAS are only like three weeks away now - well, four weeks for me, but I don't think this forum is gonna wait that one week just for me :p - and I don't think I can/should try to squeeze out another attempt before then; I can't play every day and if I can I can only play like 35 battles (my battles generally take 4 or 5 turns, but I pretty consistently average ten battles per hour, even though I've heard you guys can do 20 - I do play with the animations on though, does that take that much extra time?) and school's also gonna keep me extra busy the upcoming time, so it wouldn't really be wise to try squeezing out another 400 before then. I've also noticed I haven't always been playing for 'fun' the past time, which I should be doing of course, so I think it's better to just wait and see what ORAS is gonna bring. Then again, team Clockwork Angels is looking forward to slaughtering the AI there - it won't end this way. (not to mention I still have to come up with a nickname for Azumarill and Blaziken.) I just really hope Manectite is available there, because Specs Raichu lacks a bunch of valuable tools that Mega Manectric does have.
Congrats to NoCheese on a very impressive run, and good luck to everyone who is still riding high on an impressive streak, whether you've kept us informed (turskain, Jumpman) or not. Thanks for all your help and thanks for reading this novel, if you did. See you all in the Battle Resort - whatever the hell that's gonna be.
Hello everyone! I've been lurking here for a long time but never posted, - also the last time I checked the records the top Triples was at 300+... - so I've come to seek advice for breaking 150 in Triples. I currently run a sun team with Ninetales and Mega Blaziken alongside defensive Zapdos as leads, with Mold Breaker Excadrill, HP Fire Greninja and Speed Boost Scolipede making the rest of the team. This works out quite well, so I gather it's a matter of playstyle - should I be more conservative in general when facing possible hax (especially with High Jump Kick), or in tougher situations (Trick Room)?
I'd also like to include this - achieved on the 12th July 2014! :)
(sorry for double post, but the alert doesn't go through if I edit this into my previous post and it doesn't really belong there anyway :p)
It would help us a lot if you told us your pokemon's sets, the more we know the more feedback we can provide :p That said, your point about 'being more conservative with hax' is totally valid, if you wanna reach an even moderately long streak you really can't afford to use moves with imperfect accuracy. A situational coverage move with 95% accuracy is alright - a STAB move with 90% is not. Even running inaccurate STAB moves but being conservative with them is inadvised - you're pretty soon gonna run into a situation like 'well Hydro Pump has to hit now, otherwise I'm screwed', which statistically means that you're gonna lose after running into such a situation five times. In competitive battling that's alright because a single loss matters relatively less there, but consistency is by far the most important thing here.
As such, as one of the very few here who actually use Blaziken seriously in the maison, I vehemently advise against using HJK on him, run Low Kick instead. It's accurate (and not actively dangerous lol), and it reaches its highest power on the targets it needs to hit (such as the Regis and those fatass Normal-, Rock- and Steel-types).
(grats on the trophies btw :p)
The Dutch Plumberjack, Mara's Bronzong is nasty, as Set1 has Hypnosis to put your mons to sleep to make it a notable offensive threat and Sitrus Berry and high bulk investment to survive a lot of things that the more common Zong4 can't, while also setting up TR. If MaraZong is in Taunt range, it should always be the target getting taunted (because fuck Hypnosis) - which it wasn't in this case, and Manectric/Greninja/Talonflame can't KO Zong1 because of its bulk and Sitrus Berry. My team also has some problems with it, as the Sitrus Berry makes it a 3HKO at best - it's probably the second worst TR setter to face in the Maison in general, behind Cresselia3. Beauty Claire's Bronzong1 (the only set she runs) deserves a special mention, because it has all of Trick Room/Hypnosis/Rain Dance to fuck you up in any number of ways while all of Claire's other fun things are possible - Trick Room and Rain Dance both being up with enemies not having Swift Swim while Zong is throwing around Hypnosis on top is a hilariously terrible situation, and I've had a battle or two where that happened against her.
Given you had no way to stop Zong1 in the left-side position and multi-TR leads being highly unpredictable, I don't think you misplayed too badly on Turn 1. The one thing you maybe could've done (without crazy predictions which "never work" when dealing with unpredictable TR setters with unknown sets to boot) is Volt Switch + DP the Zong instead under the worst-case assumption that it's Set1 (the only threatening Zong set) and bringing in Hydreigon to deal with whatever is sent out.
Watched the battle - looking at it, a misplay happened on Turn 2 with Manectric's death - EQ is guaranteed, so Hydreigon can switch in for free and Dusknoir/Musharna can do nothing to it and having Intimidate in the back is "always useful" - it could have Intimidated Seismitoed right after and baited EQ with Protect to allow Hydreigon to clean up, for example.
Curiously, Mara's Seismitoad (Iron Ball) and a Dusknoir with Fire Punch (Set2, supposedly also Iron Ball) appeared on the same team!
Frisking them in Mock Battle, Dusknoir2 had Iron Ball. Frisking Seismitoad, it had... Iron Ball. What the hell is going on?
Testing whether you can enter two Iron Ball holders on the same team - it isn't possible. So was the AI violating the Item Clause? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I Frisked both the Dusknoir and the Seismitoad and both had Iron Ball, but that shouldn't be possible. Dusknoir (Iron Ball, Fling) was definitely Set2, as that is the only set that has Fire Punch and Seismitoad2 (also Iron Ball, Fling) is the only Seismitoad set that Hex Maniac Mara runs.
I have zero idea what could be going on here. I might need a Wake-Up Slap.
coqdorysme, HJK on Mega Chicken is indeed too risky. On regular Blaziken, it's usable if you run Wide Lens, which gives Hi Jump Kick and Rock Slide 99% accuracy - though it still has problems against Protect and Regigigas/Lickilicky's Brightpowder (and other forms of evasion to a lesser extent). A boosting item with Low Kick is probably still preferable, especially in the Sun where Flare Blitz is your main attack. 99% accurate Rock Slide from the center with Speed Boosts is a very neat coverage move to have, though.
Quality team and exceptional report, The Dutch Plumberjack! Really a joy to read your analysis. Sorry to see it end in a premature loss. A few random things:
The statement is clearly true, but in my rather silly way, what I like even more is the phrasing! I hope to someday see "the AI had the Darkrai's own luck that battle..."
My battles generally take 4 or 5 turns, but I pretty consistently average ten battles per hour, even though I've heard you guys can do 20 - I do play with the animations on though, does that take that much extra time?
Yeah, the animations definitely slow things a lot. They're fun for a little, but the time they require quickly becomes painful. Waiting through the end-of-turn damage process from sand/hail is irksome enough, but at least that only happens in a small subset of triples battles. But up to six attack animations a turn!? Ugh. Just turning animations off will definitely get you a few more battles/hour, but I suspect you'll still be a little short of 20, since my battles tended to be more in the 3-4 turn range than the 4-5. Powerful spread attacks tend to move battles along quickly.
I certainly hope you'll give this squad (or a similar variant) another go once ORAS is out, since it's very well thought out and uses some uncommon Pokemon to good effect.
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coqdorysme, I agree with everyone else with respect to Blaziken. High Jump Kick is just too risky for Maison play without a Wide Lens, and even then, you'll have to be very careful about Protect. Moreover, I think Mega Blaziken is not a particularly good use of your Mega slot in triples. Like turskain suggests, if you want to keep using Blaziken, try regular Blaziken with a Wide Lens, which will help with the accuracy issues on High Jump Kick and Rock Slide while also freeing up a slot for another mega. You could, for example, upgrade Ninetails to Charizard-Y, but you might also want to play something a bit bulkier that can help you out against Trick Room, since your team as built may struggle against Hex Maniac Mara and her evil army of Trick Roomers. Mega Kangaskhan is a bit boring, perhaps, but its power and bulk are always appreciated, and Fake Out and Sucker Punch mean it can do a lot of good work against Trick Room teams too. While you'll want to avoid Fire-type overload, also note that Talonflame is exceptional in Triples thanks to the combination of priority Tailwind support for its teammates and its ability to hit very hard (even cross-field) with 120 BP STAB moves, and in the sun, Flare Blitz will hit even harder.
In response to your other question, you absolutely want to play conservatively when facing possible hax. Get in the habit of considering the worst that could happen when you choose an attack. A well put-together team should not have much difficulty winning most battles in the "normal" state of the world, so you want to plan things to maximize your resilience when luck is running against you. Over your target 150 battles, bad runs of hax will definitely happen, so minimizing their harm is key to keeping a streak going.
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Leaderboard is updated through here. As per usual, please let me know if I've missed anything. coqdorysme, note that I've always just dated trophy hall of fame completions to the date of posting, rather than date of actual completion, because avoids verification difficulties and makes things more straightforward on my end. So I've used today's date. But congratulations on getting all five trophies, and good luck as you work to lengthen your triples streak!
Started Super Doubles tonight and up to 32 so far with my team which is doing really well for me so far and it doesn't even have a mega!
Breloom and Talonflame to start with, T-Flame sets up Tailwind, Sashed Breloom Spores and then we just Brave Bird and Drain Punch our way to victory with LO Hydreigon and Crocune at the back for either a Nuke or a Tank depending on what's needed.
Currently not running Protect on my front two, opting for Swords Dance on Breloom to counter Intimidate and U-Turn on T-Flame for switched vs obvious rock attacks.
Anyone else had success using a team with no Mega?
Oh god. If the players who cry foul of all other sorts of hax found out about the Iron Ball scandal, the mouth-frothing outrage would be as loud as it's ever been, and unquellable.
There must have been some err in the programming that would allow two pokemon with the same hold item to appear on a team. Perhaps it only applies to Mara, because her team is loaded with Iron Ball holders.
...what's more interesting is that I have MULTIPLE replays of this very occurrence, and never realised it until now! I'll share it after I toss my food for thought into the monkey cage.
Okay, I'm going to take a shot in the dark as to how this glitch could take place. Just run with me on this:
First, let's look at Mara's team. Her pool of hold items is EXTREMELY narrow: only Reuniclus and Cofagrigus have a unique hold item; a King's Rock and Maranga Berry, respectively. You then have two Leftovers, two Sitrus Berries, FIVE Lum Berries, and SIXTEEN Iron Balls. Yeow. If my team selection was this bad, I'd spend more time rerolling the RNG than actual battling.
This means that if Reuniclus and Cofagrigus are not both on this team, there WILL be an item conflict.
While I have no idea what kind of system the game might use to draw pokemon, it might not be all that complex; say the Maison picks a spot to begin on the list and selects Pokemon one at a time. Normally this allows the game to check if a hold item is already in use and reroll if necessary. The game might jump forward an arbitrary number of entries on the list and then check that Pokemon again. Here's where the glitch may occur: Mara's list is not only exceptionally short, but due to the freakishly high number of Iron Balls and only two unique items, it's not unreasonable to guess that the game repeatedly jumps to a spot on the list only to find that the hold item is already on a previously selected Poke.
Mara has 27 available Pokes. Perhaps the Maison gives up after a set number of failed checks and allows the latest selection to be chosen, or otherwise some oversight prevented this from working properly with a dysfunctional team pool like Mara's.
Quagsire and Avalugg with their Iron Balls. This vid contains another battle with Mara that has six unique items because it contains both the grave robber devourer and our blobby buddy.
And interestingly enough, enforcing my belief that the Pokemon selection algorithm was not made in consideration of Mara's team issues, we have proof that just because a team contains both Reuniclus and Cofagrigus, does not mean there will be no repeat items!
And there we have it. Reuniclus, Cofagrigus, aaaand two Iron Balls. No Sitrus Berry holder.
I've curbstomped Mara more times than I can remember, so I'm almost positive I've beaten dual Iron Balls repeatedly, as have most of you- we just didn't acknowledge it at the time, because we overwhelmingly had the upper hand and it didn't cross our minds that shit is not legit (but still too legit to quit.)
