Battle Maison Discussion & Records

turskain

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I've had AI try to trick mega sceptile multiple times, before it evolves. I wonder if that's exclusive to the ORAS megas.
That sounds very interesting - do you have any battle videos of it happening? I haven't ever gotten a Mega targeted with Trick in Doubles or Triples, but I haven't played it much of those in ORAS so it's possible there's some difference.
 
That sounds very interesting - do you have any battle videos of it happening? I haven't ever gotten a Mega targeted with Trick in Doubles or Triples, but I haven't played it much of those in ORAS so it's possible there's some difference.
No, but my streak is still going, I'll record it if I come across it.
 
I've had AI try to trick mega sceptile multiple times, before it evolves. I wonder if that's exclusive to the ORAS megas.
You say that it happened before Sceptile evolved. If it's the case that the AI only tried this before you Mega'ed, I would guess that the AI can't see, or know, your item at that point. It just sees a normal Sceptile, and to the AI it could have any holdable item as it's item. If Sceptile evolved already, the AI can clearly see that it is a Mega evolution, and it must have the corresponding stone. That's the only logical reasoning I can come up with.
 
Just chiming in from my experience: even on turn 1, Blastoise was NEVER targeted by Trick or Switcheroo. Even when that meant giving Talonflame a Flame Orb.
 
Somebody posted a link to this thread on reddit, so I decided to update the Smogon thread with my own progress. I guess this counts as a successful team built around Mega Salamence, as I just beat the super doubles chatelaine with it. Doubles/Triples seem to be easier formats to get to 50 with overall because with more mons, battles are decided less by hax, and the viability of protect gives the player more room to play with.

Salamence @ Salamencite

Timid 252 sp atk, 252 speed, 4 defense

Hyper Voice, Flamethrower, Hydro Pump, Protect

Terrakion @ Life Orb

Jolly 252 atk, 252 speed, 4 defense

Sacred Sword, Rock Slide, Earthquake, Protect

Aegislash @ Leftovers

Quiet 244 hp, 12 defense, 252 sp atk

Wide Guard, Shadow Ball, Flash Cannon, King's Shield

Gastrodon @ Lum Berry

Calm 252 hp, 120 defense, 136 sp defense

Muddy Water, Clear Smog, Toxic, Recover
 
You say that it happened before Sceptile evolved. If it's the case that the AI only tried this before you Mega'ed, I would guess that the AI can't see, or know, your item at that point. It just sees a normal Sceptile, and to the AI it could have any holdable item as it's item. If Sceptile evolved already, the AI can clearly see that it is a Mega evolution, and it must have the corresponding stone. That's the only logical reasoning I can come up with.
The AI seems to "know" our items pretty well most of the time. It sounds like the interpretation that's been hinted at is that, while the AI is programmed not to Trick against Pokemon holding mega stones, the AI wasn't updated with the new mega stones. This means that, while Blastoise is not a viable target (because Blastoisinite is in the list of "un-Trickable items"), Sceptile, Salamence, etc. ARE seen as viable targets, because Spectilite, Salamencite, and the like have not been added to the list of items you can't Trick. If the AI really does stop trying to Trick Sceptile post-mega evolution, then something about mega evolving might make it "kick in," or the AI might be programmed not to Trick against a mega evolution, regardless of the item detected.
 
Just chiming in from my experience: even on turn 1, Blastoise was NEVER targeted by Trick or Switcheroo. Even when that meant giving Talonflame a Flame Orb.
In the few hundred XY Super Multi battles I've done (haven't really done any other modes), I've never had an opponent use Trick, period. I've run into sets that I know had Switcheroo/Trick, but I've never seen them use it.

Although, looking at the sets that have Switcheroo/Trick, almost every single one can OHKO Gengar with one of their moves (which any of the Choiced users would then be locked into), which would probably mean they never thought to go for the Trick, but rather go for the kill. Gengar and M-Kangaskhan have always been the leads my friend and I used in Super Multi, so that would more than likely be the reason for the lack of Tricking. As a note, we always had Sash on Gengar, and it was more or less part of the plan for the opponents to focus on Gengar, to take the heat off Kangaskhan.

The AI seems to "know" our items pretty well most of the time. It sounds like the interpretation that's been hinted at is that, while the AI is programmed not to Trick against Pokemon holding mega stones, the AI wasn't updated with the new mega stones. This means that, while Blastoise is not a viable target (because Blastoisinite is in the list of "un-Trickable items"), Sceptile, Salamence, etc. ARE seen as viable targets, because Spectilite, Salamencite, and the like have not been added to the list of items you can't Trick. If the AI really does stop trying to Trick Sceptile post-mega evolution, then something about mega evolving might make it "kick in," or the AI might be programmed not to Trick against a mega evolution, regardless of the item detected.
That probably is the case. Given my inexperience in the rest of the Maison (besides Super Multi), I don't know the AI well enough to tell if they "know" our items. I was just making a guess. If the AI does work as you claim, it may be easy to abuse some of the Choiced Trick/Switcheroo users, and give, say Pre-Mega Salamence, a couple free turns to set up. Just thinking out loud with that idea though.
 


My streak just ended on a stupid note so I won't be running my sceptile team any time soon probably. I can say with certainty that the AI tried to switch multiple times with it, notably reuniclus, metagross and delphox. Seems like it registers mega evos as untrickable, but not the new stones themselves.

Edit: always kill curse gastrodon, because, unless it's alone, this team has no way to deal with it if sceptile dies.
 
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turskain

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Posting a streak of 732 wins in Super Doubles in XY Maison.

Battle video: FL3G-WWWW-WWWH-TRGD - #733 vs. Hawlucha/Altaria/Dragonite/Jolteon

This is going to be hard to explain.

1. I miss Jolteon using Hyper Beam and waste a turn with Protect on Talonflame because of it
2. I see text about a Pokémon whose name begins with Dra coming in. Oh yeah, it's Drapion! Good thing I sent out Gastrodon, time to Earth Power these mons to hell (I targeted Jolteon with Earth Power, I think)
3. Drapion used Outrage! ...what? Apparently, it was actually Dragonite and Set3, and the trainer was a Roller Skater (which was obvious from Hawlucha/Altaria/Jolteon being the other three Pokémon that I'd seen, even if I missed the trainer)
4. It is Set3 (Choice Band) and targets Gastrodon, OHKOing it
5. Versus a Dragonite locked into Outrage and a full-HP Jolteon with a Talonflame that can no longer use Protect thanks to wasting the previous turn, I lose

If I notice that Jolteon used Hyper Beam, I attack with Talonflame on that turn and win. If I don't hallucinate a Drapion and If I notice that it's Dragonite from a Roller Skater my brain cells should rub together and account for the possibility of Set3. There's not really much to say about it, except that this is a repeated brain failure on par with the Klefki loss in rotations.

Howewer, it must be said that even with the correct play, there could've been a chance to lose - if Dragonite had Multiscale and targeted Talonflame with Outrage while I played correctly, and then targeted Gastrodon while Jolteon doesn't waste time with Fake Tears/Hyper Beam, I might lose. Howewer, Dragonite did not have Multiscale, so this is a moot point and I would have won the battle easily by not being retarded.

Edit: actually no, there's no way for me to lose because if Talonflame dies, Gastrodon doesn't and I just win 2v1 no matter what happens. Screw this fucking loss.




Admittedly, Dragonite3 is a top threat if Greninja has gone down. Lower-speed Choice Banders and slower, bulkier Life Orb users and other physical hard hitters in general are Gastrodon's bane of existence, though often they can be played around, like in this case if I were on the ball. Once I get over this loss I will write more stuff, maybe.
 
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Battle #128: HTUW-WWWW-WWWH-M6CS

Durant-Cloyster-Drapion vs. Punk Guy Quinton

A noteworthy replay because a lead Roserade blocked Durant's Entrainment 4 straight times with Protect and took it out through Leech Seed and Giga Drain. Shoot, I must be the unluckiest guy in the world for something like that to happen so early on in my streak! Anyways, Drapion sets up a Substitute its first turn out against the predicted Leech Seed and gets started boosting with Acupressure because Giga Drain doesn't do enough to break the Sub.

So, what would be the overall strategy for this situation if Garchomp had been in Drapion's place?
I've a Chansey frozen for 12 turns straight in a Super Singles. The AI Froslass kept missing with Blizzard after it froze me and eventually died from Poison damage. I still didn't thaw out and his next pokemon just killed the frozen thing after also missing with Blizzard a couple of times. The hax is strong with this one.
 
Yeah! I beat Evelyn in Super Doubles! I did it with the Dusclops, Aron, Kangaskhan and Conkeldurr team. Many thanks to the creator of the team! That was Chatelaine number 2 for me!

Doubles Battle: 3RGW-WWWW-WWWH-VJ9M
Super Doubles Battle: 3BEW-WWWW-WWWH-VJFY
 
I appreciate everyone's advice on Sucker punch on MegaKhan. Now I've read in multiple places that pokemon are not put to sleep as often past battle #40. My question is how true is that and how does one gert past it to make it till #40. I've lost three streaks now to sleep related hax.
 

Lumari

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I appreciate everyone's advice on Sucker punch on MegaKhan. Now I've read in multiple places that pokemon are not put to sleep as often past battle #40. My question is how true is that and how does one gert past it to make it till #40. I've lost three streaks now to sleep related hax.
yeah that's true. In the set4 mons (the ones that generally appear after battle 40), there are only four mons that use sleep-inducing moves (Altaria, Drifblim, Crobat, and apparently Politoed - I say 'apparently' because I don't remember it ever using it, I guess it preferred to Focus Blast my Kangaskhan in singles and attack any of my fire-type leads in doubles/triples). Especially in set 1 - which generally appears in the first ten battles - it's a whole lot more lol. (honestly, battles 1-10 are so annoying if you have to start a new streak haha, easily the most annoying battles around and probably also the ones that create the huge bias against the maison AI) Some of the set 1 to 3 mons also appear after battle 40, but those are only used by specialised trainers (e.g. I only remember running into that dreaded Sash Hypnosis Gengar once after battle 40).

As for 'how to avoid sleep hax', the best advice I can give is simply to kill them before they put you to sleep (cheap, I know). If you use a setup sweeper as your lead, you can plow straight through the AI's backup mons after setting up so they shouldn't be a problem; if you also slap a Lum Berry on your lead, that provides a one-time safety net against sleep hax by the AI. That's why Lum Berry Multiscale Dragonite is generally considered a really good lead ^_^ alternatively, you could also slap a mon on your team that doesn't mind being asleep for a few turns that much (e.g. Suicune), or you could use a Substitute user (e.g. Gliscor, or Outrage/Earthquake/DD/Sub Haxorus).
 
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A question of my own, not directly related to the Maison- has anyone attempted to DexNav themselves an Adaptability Skrelp, and how much of a pain in the ass was the endeavor? I'm pretty much obligated to get one for myself now, so I'll be doing that before bringing the TR invasion to Ruby. I'm not quite up to the E4 yet, though.
 

Lumari

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A question of my own, not directly related to the Maison- has anyone attempted to DexNav themselves an Adaptability Skrelp, and how much of a pain in the ass was the endeavor? I'm pretty much obligated to get one for myself now, so I'll be doing that before bringing the TR invasion to Ruby. I'm not quite up to the E4 yet, though.
No Adaptability Skrelp, but I did catch some other HAs via dexnav chaining while I wasn't even trying lol - specifically, Cloud Nine Swablu (while chaining for a decent egg move for my playthrough), Sap Sipper Marill (while searching for a female Huge Power one), Rain Dish Pelipper (while chaining for a Lucky Egg), and Imposter Ditto (while grinding for as many different natures as possible), don't remember at all how much time it specifically took for each of them but I'd be surprised if it was more than an hour. It's gonna take a little time obviously, but it's nowhere near ridiculous.
edit: caught HA Skrelp within half an hour from scratch, search level was around 31. Even easier than I thought :)
 
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cant say

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ReptoAbysmal I know you're a keen Maison poster but you can ask stuff like this in one of Orange Island's simple questions threads (more specifically, the ORAS one for this question).

Anyway, to add to what The Dutch Plumberjack said, it's super easy to get hidden abilities via DexNav. You have to encounter the Pokemon several times to level up the search function before HAs start to show up though. For example, most recently it took me 17 encounters to get a Drought Vulpix and the search function was about 14 iirc. Just remember for Skrelp, you need to have the national dex first which means capturing/defeating Groudon and visiting Birch
 

NoCheese

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I appreciate everyone's advice on Sucker punch on MegaKhan. Now I've read in multiple places that pokemon are not put to sleep as often past battle #40. My question is how true is that and how does one gert past it to make it till #40. I've lost three streaks now to sleep related hax.
Lum Berry Dragonite works remarkably well at avoiding this sort of thing, setting up through attempts to sleep / paralyze it. In singles especially, I often find Lum berry to be a better option than Life Orb for my set up attackers. Substitute is another decent option. More generally, if your team is three offensive pokes, try subbing in something bulky that can take advantage of many status using foes. "Pure offensive" teams play really quickly, but are often very vulnerable to status and hax. Something like Suicune, that can switch into a lot of attacks, get itself behind a Substitute, and set up, can hugely reduce your vulnerability to status hax. Same goes for things like stall-Gliscor.

NoCheese edit: Totally missed that The Dutch Plumberjack beat me to this one!
 
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NoCheese

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Been playing some doubles lately, and though I've stopped at 50 until I finish getting all the trophies, the team I used was a ton of fun and makes me very eager to try to put together a big streak, especially since doubles is the format with which I have by far the least experience.

The team:
Dusclops @_Eviolite
Trait: Frisk
Nature: Relaxed (+Def, -Spe)

-Trick Room
-Night Shade
-Brick Break
-Sunny Day

Stats: 147 / 90 / 182 (273) / 68 / 167 (250) / 27
IVs: 31 / 31 / 31 / X / 31 / 0
EVs: 252 / 0 / 126 / 0 / 132 / 0

--

Aron (level 1) @_Berry Juice
Trait: Sturdy
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)

-Protect
-Endeavor
-Toxic
-Sunny Day

Stats: 12 / 5 / 7 / 6 / 5 / 5
IVs: ?
EVs: None

--

Camerupt @_Cameruptite
Trait: Solid Rock -> Sheer Force
Nature: Quiet (+SpA, -Spe)

-Eruption
-Earth Power
-Solar Beam
-Flamethrower

Stats (before Mega Evolution): 176 / 121 / 91 / 172 / 96 / 40
Stats (after Mega Evolution): 176 / 141 / 121 / 216 / 126 / 22
IVs: 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 0
EVs: 244 / 4 / 4 / 252 / 4 / 0

--

Eelektross @_Life Orb
Trait: Levivate
Nature: Quiet (+SpA, -Spe)

-Discharge
-Flamethrower
-Grass Knot
-Superpower

Stats: 191 / 136 / 101 / 172 / 101 / 49
IVs: 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 / 31 /0
EVs: 244 / 4 / 4 / 252 / 4 / 0


The team owes its genesis to cant say and Eppie. cant say, perhaps half-jokingly, suggested that since to date I've never changed my default Camerupt avatar, I might as well try to build a team around Mega Camerupt. That sounded fun to me, so I gave it a go. Mega Camerupt is absurdly slow, and his ugly 4x Water-type weakness makes it imprudent to play him as a pure tank, so Trick Room abuse is clearly his calling. Once I'm in Trick Room land, I figured I'd start with a tried-and-true opening pairing, so went with Eppie's beautiful Dusclops / Aron pair (including his EV spread on Dusclops). Eviolite Dusclops is absurdly bulky and immune to Fake Out, making it an extremely reliable Trick Room setter. And Aron, as is well known, is the best lure in the Maison, savagely taking advantage of the AI under Trick Room conditions.

A smooth, no problems match starts with Trick Room + Protect, and then three turns of Endeavor + Night Shade / Brick Break for a KO, depending on whether the foe is immune to either move. Assuming the AI's been beating on Aron this whole while, this leaves the AI with one Pokemon left, while I have Dusclops, two bulky Trick Room sweepers, and one turn of Trick Room left. Chalk up a win. Naturally, however, it isn't always that easy. Priority attacks, side-effect burns and paralysis, multiple Ghost-type foes, Sitrus berries, and even oddities like Fly and Dig can complicate things a bit, but the basic strategy holds up remarkably well.

The double-Ghost situation is most notable, since that shuts down Endeavor. Eppie played around this by having his Dusclops carry Foresight, which also handles nasty evasion boosters, but since I wanted the team to highlight Mega Camerupt, I went in a different direction with Sunny Day on both Dusclops and Aron. While Dusclops uses the move far more often, in the double Ghost-type lead situation, being able to open with Trick Room + Sunny Day (Aron surviving both attacks thanks to Sturdy + Berry Juice) is huge. Aron can then Protect on the second turn, giving Camerupt a free switch in, and proceed to wreck the Ghosts with sun-boosted Eruption on the third. Depending on the bulkiness of the foes and the need for extra chip damage from Night Shade, I can often even switch in Eelektross, getting extra firepower available.

More generally, when Aron gets killed a turn early and I'm left with multiple foes for Dusclops + Camerupt + Eelektross to handle, Sunny Day gives a huge sweeping boost. Most notably, when I first bring in Camerupt for KOed Aron, it keeps its non-Mega 40 Speed the turn it Mega Evolves. This would normally be irksome, since that lets a few more foes outspeed it that turn under Trick Room, but has one huge advantage: on that turn, Dusclops will go before it. This lets Dusclops set up Sunny Day as Camerupt Mega Evolves, and it gets the Sunny Day boost on its very first attack. A large fraction of my battles end in Dusclops Sunny Day + Mega Camerupt Eruption, and let me tell you, it's a remarkably fun feeling. Sunny Day also enables Camerupt to run Solar Beam, which is very helpful against certain Water-types. It also effectively reduces Camerupt's 4x Water-type weakness to 2x, which makes it quite resilient, though thanks to Trick Room, it doesn't usually have to do much tanking. I originally had Rock Slide in the Solar Beam slot (hence the 4 Atk EVs, which don't gain me a point moved anywhere else except Speed, so there's no reason to change them) but realized that I would do much better with more anti-Water capability, so made the switch. Earth Power provides nice complementary STAB coverage and benefits from Sheer Force, while Flamethrower is a hedge against Wide Guard users and situations where Camerupt has taken some damage. Also note that thanks to the Sheer Force boost and the split attack penalty, Flamethrower is actually slightly more powerful than full health Eruption against a single foe, if two foes are on the field: 90 x 1.3 = 117; 150 x 0.75 = 112.5.

Eelektross is by far the least used Pokemon on the team, but complements its teammates nicely. No weaknesses and an immunity to the Ground-type attacks that Camerupt fears make Eelektross a good partner, and with Camerupt being immune to Electric-type attacks, Eelktross can freely punish Water-type foes with Discharge. Grass Knot covers the plethora of Ground / Water types out there, Flamethrower plays nicely with Sunny Day and handles Steel- and Grass- types, and Superpower not only provides decent complementary coverage; it also hedges against high Special Defense, low Defense blobs. I considered Rotom-W in this slot, and it's still a very worthy option, which conveniently resists/is immune to both of Camerupt's weaknesses, but sadly, it's fast enough that it would need to carry a Power Lens or the like to work under Trick Room, so I decided to go with the naturally slower Eelektross for now.

You may note that there are no real theorymon calculations in this writeup save for the Flamethrower vs. Eruption trivia. That's because this team has been only very loosely theorymoned. I'm sure there are weaknesses I haven't noticed yet, and better move combinations to hedge against them. As I play the team more, I'll certainly do so, but wanted to get my first thoughts on paper now while the excitement is still fresh. On the subject of move options, note that both Camerupt and Eelektross have pretty wide movepools on both the physical and special side, so there are lots of options to consider. While the current sets do their jobs well and no immediate needs are leaping out at me (except for the need for Solar Beam, which I fixed around battle 10 or so), there are a lot of different options to try, and at this point I make no guarantee that my sets are ideal. One thing I can say for sure, however, is that this team is a ton of fun, and once I finish up the trophies, it's the first team I'll return to. Cheers once more to cant say and Eppie for leading me to this squad (and, if we want to go way back, R Inanimate too, who pioneered Aron abuse in doubles back in the fourth gen games)!
 
I finally beat the main story, so I'm finding out how Mega Slowbro works as a poor man's Suicune. I'm using it with my old Scarf Darmanitan/Garchomp combo, set is here:
Slobro@Slowbroite
Regenerator --> Shell Armor
Bold
244 HP 8 Def 252 SpDef
-Scald
-Calm Mind
-Rest
-Psyshock

I chose Regenerator over Own Tempo so I can stall out Starmie4's Ice Beam/Thunderbolts and to give it added utility as a pivot if I want to reset Darmanitan or something. I'm not totally sold on the last moveset, but I worry that replacing it with Substitute or similar would make it impossible to stall out some water immunities due to lack of Pressure. Thoughts?
 

NoCheese

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I'm not totally sold on the last moveset, but I worry that replacing it with Substitute or similar would make it impossible to stall out some water immunities due to lack of Pressure. Thoughts?
Well with Mega Slowbro's immunity to critical hits, Substitute becomes less important. The protection from status that Substitute provides is still extremely nice, but I think you can get away without it. Heck, Jumpman16 has had huge success with Suicune sans Substitute, so if that works, I'm sure Mega Slowbro can do likewise.

In a vacuum, I still suspect that, as you say, Mega Slowbro is going to end up as a "poor man's" Suicune: a decent substitute, but not quite the real thing. (I'm surely dating myself here, but gotta sneak in a "No Calvin, you were a Blue Light Special at K-mart. Almost as good, and a whole lot cheaper!")

First is the switch-in factor. Mega Slowbro doesn't want to lead, he wants to switch in when his more aggressive teammates won't be able to break through something. Unfortunately, this means that on the turn he switches in, he has to take a hit in his "normal" form, with lower Defense and no critical hit immunity. Then, thanks to Slowbro's Speed, he's almost certainly going to need to take a second hit before moving at all. I have no calculations available, but switching into a crit and then taking a second hit before moving can surely prove ugly. Suicune is fast enough that it outspeeds a lot of the typically bulky foes it switches into, letting it only take one hit before it gets to act.

You also don't get to hold an item, which costs you the "free sleep" which Suicune can use to stall out the one most powerful move that many Pokemon would otherwise use to beat Suicune. For those who prefer Leftovers Cune, I think the loss of Leftovers recovery is less of an issue here, though it does leave you a bit more vulnerable to weather.

Finally, as you note, there's the loss of Pressure. While Pressure is very convenient for stalling out Water-immune foes, letting Suicune comfortably run a mono-attacking set, it's more valuable for the role noted earlier: stalling out one particularly threatening move, putting Suicune in a position to then set up. Mega Slowbro will have to tank a lot more PP from the most threatening move the foe carries. While Suicune can often effectively get away with just tanking the three weakest attacks from the foe, Slowbro will need to tank all four.

NoCheese Edit: And, though not a factor for your specific team, there's the big opportunity cost of not being able to use another Mega Evolution.

The more I reflect on this, the more I think that if you are playing Substitute mono-attacking Slowbro, you are pretty much locking yourself into being a worse Suicune. Substitute + Pressure + Chesto berry kind of go together as a package, making it much easier for Suicune to stall out that one dangerous move and then set up. Even with Suicune's inability to boost its Defense, this lets it set up on a remarkable number of bulky physical attackers. Slowbro can't carry the full package, so if it tries to do this exact job, it's going to be worse at it. Accordingly, I think your instinct is right. If Slowbro's going to be better somewhere, it's going to be better by filling a slightly different niche. Let it take advantage of its ability and free up the Substitute moveslot. Hopefully, even if it can't Pressure + Sub stall out some of the attacks that Suicune can, it will still be able to beat a number of Pokemon that Suicune can't thanks to its insane post-Mega Evolution bulk and the benefits of having an extra coverage attack.

As an aside, I'm very interested in seeing the sorts of spreads people settle on with Mega Slowbro. So many variables: the ability to boost Special Defense but not Defense, the insane post-Mega Evolution Defense but notably weaker Defense on the switch in turn, the decent but not amazing base Special Defense, etc. There's no clear "this should be right" spread as there is with Suicune, where the biggest question is how many Speed EVs you want to slip in. Once people have had more chance to play with Mega Slowbro, I'm sure there's some interesting theorymoning to be done on the best spread.
 
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Another replay showing off my lack of skill at getting Durant to use Entrainment on things: JCAW-WWWW-WWWY-2VUL (vs. the ORAS version of Chef Andrei, the Hail specialist)

Samurott 4 uses Detect to block Entrainment turn 1 and KOes with a critical hit Hydro Pump turn 2. It has an 87.5% chance of KOing a 252 HP Durant without a critical hit, so not a big deal. But have no fear, Drapion is here to save the day. It's faster than Samurott, and once it Sub/Protect stalls out the 4 remaining Hydro Pumps, all Samurott has left is Blizzard, Giga Impact (haha), and Detect. Each of those moves has only 5 PP, so Drapion's not able to get all the way boosted, but the 15 or so Acupressures it was able to get off allowed it to beat Carracosta 2 and Vanilluxe.

Note the minor choke where I didn't have a Substitute up for the 2nd Pokemon - I went to the damage calculator to see if level 50 Samurott's HP was divisible by 4, and I forgot to remove the 4 HP EVs standard Samurott has, so I thought it would Struggle 5 times before fainting rather than 4. That could have opened the door slightly for a Glaceon 1 to come out and beat Drapion by freezing it with a Quick Claw Blizzard on turn 1 and finishing it off before Drapion thawed, but Drapion had at least +4 Special Defense and +2 Evasion by that point, so that'd have been pretty unlikely to say the least (0.84% times the odds of Glaceon coming out in the first place for that to happen on the first turn).


Regarding the above discussion of Suicune replacements, I happened upon a Japanese Battle Maison blog today and found a team that had put together a nice 4-digit streak (allegedly, couldn't see any battle video codes and am basing what I know about the team off of Google translate) with Mega Kanga (same moveset as Jumpman's), Gliscor (same moveset as Jumpman's) and Eviolite Chansey with Minimize, Substitute, Softboiled, and Seismic Toss. It obviously looks to perform the same role as Suicune (status absorbing and PP stalling the opponent out of any moves that may threaten a Kanga or Gliscor win), and I can see how that change would be very nice when it comes to peace of mind when dealing with a Flame Body Moltres 3, or against pretty much anything with Calm Mind (the Battle Maison is not exactly Smogon when it comes to making special sweepers that can break through the pink blobs). On the other hand, Suicune can sweep on its own a lot of the time and make the battles faster. Are there any other troublesome Pokemon where it would be much better to have Suicune than Chansey?

Well I'll be darned, I forgot to anticipate and adjust against a lead Samurott (Samurott 4 this time) once again and ended up with a KOed Durant on turn 2 and no Entrainment. LCLW-WWWW-WWWY-5AN3. No, I didn't upload the same battle twice even though both times the Hydro Pump landed a critical hit.

With Garchomp instead of Drapion, this is the kind of battle where you'd just have to use Shell Smash with Cloyster, hope Rock Blast hits, and hope you could sweep at +2 with 1 HP or clean up with Garchomp. In this case you wouldn't because Clawitzer would've come out 2nd, survived Rock Blast, taken out Cloyster with Aura Sphere, and Focus Sash Froslass is waiting in back for Garchomp.
 
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turskain

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Mega Slowbro's biggest problem is its Psychic-typing in my opinion. Let's assume a 252/252 Bold spread (though Calm wouldn't change the general picture):

Some example calcs:

252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Launcher Clawitzer Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Slowbro: 194-230 (96 - 113.8%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Heracross Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Slowbro: 110-132 (54.4 - 65.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Slowbro: 144-170 (71.2 - 84.1%)

This Vaporeon4 calc is especially sad:

252+ SpA Expert Belt Vaporeon Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Slowbro: 98-118 (48.5 - 58.4%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Expert Belt Vaporeon Shadow Ball vs. +1 252 HP / 252 SpD Slowbro: 67-79 (33.1 - 39.1%) -- 99.3% chance to 3HKO

Consider that Shadow Ball, a common move that MegaBro is weak to, has the chance to drop SDef, so being immune to critical hits will not save it from that much more common source of hax. There is also Signal Beam confusion which the AI has a fetish with.

Vaporeon4 is a key threat that bulky waters like Suicune and Milotic have an advantage over Greninja against, and losing to it is quite damning. It looks bad enough to just toss Mega Slowbro in the trash for and say "use Greninja or Suicune instead, or even Milotic".
 

turskain

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Some miscellaneous battle videos:



Battle video (XY Triples): G99G-WWWW-WWWY-47UC - #4694 vs. Registeel/Landorus/Latias/Entei/Heatran/Terrakion

11 turns of horrific misplays with the AI doing its best to save the streak while I sleep at the wheel.

This is the near-loss battle I described on the previous page. I didn't think highly of it, but thanks to VaporeonIce pointing out the novelty of pulling out an unlikely comeback because of the AI's questionable Will-O-Wisp usage, it's now here. The exact details were a bit off from my memory (the burn happened one turn later than I thought), but there were other stuff too, like Latios surviving Struggle with exactly one hit point, Heatran setting up Sunny Day for the team and targeting Fire Blast into Protect, and Entei's Pressure playing an important part in removing Terrakion's Stone Edge PP. This is definitely a fun watch in retrospect, even with the mistakes.



Battle video (ORAS Doubles): SPDW-WWWW-WWWF-44P9 - #235 vs. Talonflame/Trevenant/Whiscash/Walrein

Walrein4 dodges Return. Talonflame burns Greninja with Flare Blitz to KO it through Focus Sash. Walrein4 proceeds to hit 3 OHKO moves in a row to finish the battle. This is a Jumpman-style loss, with the final odds of what transpired landing somewhere around 0.03% - losses without misplays are rare, but this was one of them. Barring the hax, it would be a trivial battle. For bonus points, after Walrein's game-winning rampage is mostly complete, Whiscash4 shows up to double up on OHKO moves against a lone Aegislash that already had no chance.

The team used was Mega Salamence/Greninja/Gastrodon/Aegislash. This loss was the impetus for crawling back to Lucario/Greninja for one more Doubles run and the idea of improving it with Gastrodon, as Aura Sphere's perfect accuracy makes losing to Walrein4 like this all but impossible.

This is a leaderboard-eligible streak, but it's a bit small and I don't have the urge to write about it, so consider it not submitted; the battle video's here because of its absurd level of hax. I recommend using MegaMence (Return/EQ/DD/Protect) with Mat Block Greninja in ORAS Doubles, though - it's a combination on par with Lucario/Greninja, and even stronger in some situations. There are many challenges to building such a team, though; MegaMence needs EQ, so friendly fire is a concern, and its Ice weakness won't make things any easier.

On the topic of Mega Mence, I got the Doubles trophy in ORAS with Hyper Voice Mence; Hyper Voice's damage output is good enough. Howewer, what is a problem in my opinion is its movepool - covering Flying resists is quite difficult, as neither Flamethrower or Dragon Pulse hits Rock- or Electric-types for super-effective damage, and those targets usually have enough bulk that NVE Hyper Voice won't scratch them. In the end, I think physical Mega Mence is preferable for Doubles - not because of Return's power since Hyper Voice also works nicely, but because of its access to Earthquake for nearly perfect coverage as opposed to special Mence being reduced to a peashooter against more opponents than you'd like to see from your Mega (barring HP Ground, which would be unimpressive off of base 120 SAtk compared to MegaGarde's base 165 or physical Mence's 75% Earthquake off of base 145 Atk). In Triples, you'll have an easier time getting coverage from teammates with six slots and be able to hit three enemies with Hyper Voice, so it would probably be stronger there.
 
ReptoAbysmal I know you're a keen Maison poster but you can ask stuff like this in one of Orange Island's simple questions threads (more specifically, the ORAS one for this question).

Anyway, to add to what The Dutch Plumberjack said, it's super easy to get hidden abilities via DexNav. You have to encounter the Pokemon several times to level up the search function before HAs start to show up though. For example, most recently it took me 17 encounters to get a Drought Vulpix and the search function was about 14 iirc. Just remember for Skrelp, you need to have the national dex first which means capturing/defeating Groudon and visiting Birch
Apologies for leaving my post as is. I had originally posted two short paragraphs with my own input on the "AI won't Trick Mega/Stone pokes" while this topic was highly active with respondents; once I actually posted, though, I reread up to my own post and saw that the discussion had all but been closed since you guys had pretty much reached a consensus.

I thought my response looked trite by that point, so I went and deleted the blurbs on Trick, leaving my question. But, I am well aware of the rules, and thanks to both you and Dutch for the helpful responses nonetheless.

I'm struggling with finding a spread and set to use with Mega Slowbro, myself. I have enough team support primarily through setters to play the odds and forego a slot on recovery, but it practically needs CM to give Shell Armor a purpose and more importantly to distinguish itself from the other special-based waters in my pool.

Ditto for EVs, since an offensive spread is still weaker than my Specs Slowking, who still gets to reap the benefits of Regenerator, but as turskain illustrated, it's killed a little too easily on that front by common moves. My setter version of Slowbro worked around it well enough (that is, taking a round of abuse and living long enough to activate) but it also had no strength as a result.

Having said that, one thing my teams have serious problems with are lead Sniper Drapion4 (rapes most of my traditional setters via hax) and lead Tyrantrum4, and 212/0 MegaBro takes 64% max from that banded Head Smash, which raised my eyebrow (not that I was set on using a neutral nature with no investment.) Drapion can't rip down a wall without Sniper or retarded amounts of boosting; the AI isn't really able to abuse the latter tactic without Curse and neglect on our parts, and Sniper is handily nulled. I'm starting to wonder if I'd enjoy using MegaBro for the same reason I love getting Cressy: a setter that is really fucking hard to OHKO. Outside of losing two sweepers within the first two turns due to mispredictions, setter death is by and far the main ways I lose, so I might wind up really liking it for that.
 
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NoCheese

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I'm happy to report that I've grabbed all five trophies in Alpha Sapphire.

For singles, I used a basic speed team.

Naughty Focus Sash Cloyster: Shell Smash / Icicle Spear / Rock Blast / Surf
Jolly Mega Kangaskahn: Power-Up Punch / Return / Sucker Punch / Fake Out
Adamant Lum Berry Dragonite: Outrage / Dragon Dance / Earthquake / Fire Punch

The team is very fast, and Cloyster wrecks the Chatelaine, so seemed a good choice for racing to 50, but to emphasize, this is NOT a team you'll want to use for a long streak, as it badly needs a bulky switch-in like Suicune to increase its reliability. Also note that I decided to test Fake Out, was not impressed at all, and was eager to return to my old (if somewhat disfavored) standby of Crunch. Probably means that Fake Out should only be run with Earthquake in place of Power-Up Punch, though I'll defer to more experienced users of Fake Out Kangaskhan there.

For doubles, I used the Trick Room squad I discussed at moderate length here.

Relaxed Eviolite Dusclops: Trick Room / Night Shade / Brick Break / Sunny Day
Level 1 Berry Juice Aron: Protect / Endeavor / Toxic / Sunny Day
Quiet Mega Camerupt: Eruption / Earth Power / Solar Beam / Flamethrower
Quiet Life Orb Eelektross: Discharge / Flamethrower / Grass Knot / Superpower

This team was a blast to play, but as I noted in my writeup, I didn't heavily theorymon it. I'm sure there are better potential move choices / EV spreads out there, and I'm already strongly considering switching Eelektross to an Assault Vest. I plan to play this team a lot more, since I've never really put together a big doubles streak, so I expect there will be refinements coming.

For triples, I used the same team I used in my big streaks in Pokemon Y, discussed here and here.

Timid Focus Sash Greninja: Mat Block / Dark Pulse / Grass Knot / Ice Beam
Modest Mega Blastoise: Water Spout / Ice Beam / Aura Sphere / Protect
Adamant Sharp Beak Talonflame: Tailwind / Brave Bird / Flare Blitz / Protect
Modest Choice Specs Sylveon: Hyper Voice / Shadow Ball / Psyshock / Swift
Jolly Air Ballon Mienshao: Fake Out / Low Kick / Wide Guard / Knock Off
Jolly Life Orb Garchomp : Dragon Claw / Earthquake / Protect / Sword Dance

Why mess with success? The team is strong and I'm very used to playing it, so I didn't see any reason to mess with things. Note that the one change I made was taking Jumpman16's advice and adding Swift to Sylveon's moveset for a spread move that can hit through Soundproof. However, this is quite the corner case situation, and in these 50 battles, Sylveon never used anything but Hyper Voice.

For rotations, I went with the speed team mentioned briefly here.

Naughty Focus Sash Cloyster: Shell Smash / Icicle Spear / Rock Blast / Surf
Jolly Mega Kangaskahn: Power-Up Punch / Return / Sucker Punch / Earthquake
Adamant Lum Berry Dragonite: Outrage / Dragon Dance / Earthquake / Fire Punch
Adamant Choice Scarf Darmanitan: Flare Blitz / Earthquake / Rock Slide / Superpower

Earthquake certainly played better on Kangaskhan here than Fake Out did in singles, which fits, given that this seems to be the "standard" PuP Kangaskhan set. I remain partial to Crunch in singles, since it handles so many annoying Ghost-types, but it's certainly possible that Earthquake is just better overall. This team was fun and fast, but I'd absolutely want to add some sort of bulky cleric were I playing for a leaderboard streak. Cloyster despises status and Kangskahn doesn't like it much either, and with a "free" rotate in, clerical support seems a no-brainer.

For multis, I'm thrilled at the generally higher quality of the AI partners in ORAS. Steven seemed the best partner overall, so I went with him. Since Whisper0101 had some really nice success with Mat Block Greninja, I decided to use it too, especially since that didn't require me to change my Triples Greninja around at all. I paired it with Mega Kangaskahn, for general "good stuff" effectiveness, and had my team.

Timid Focus Sash Greninja: Mat Block / Dark Pulse / Grass Knot / Ice Beam
Jolly Mega Kangaskhan: Power-Up Punch / Return / Sucker Punch / Crunch

Now that I have all the trophies, I'm eager to play around more with Mega Camerupt, so I expect Doubles to be my initial focus. Good luck with the streaks everybody!

Proof Photo:Five Trohpies ORAS.jpg
 

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