Battle Maison Discussion & Records

[NoCheese]

NoCheese , I'm a girl; your link to my post about losing with Dragonite/Aegislash/MegaKhan says "how he lost".

Whoops! My apologies on the error. Fixed. Also, congrats on getting to 200!

 

[GG Unit]

I didn't realize Tornadus/Thundurus 4 would Taunt Durant, given that both of them have a pretty high chance to OHKO a 220/0 Durant without a crit. That doesn't work out so well. I wonder if they'd always go for the OHKO if it were guaranteed?

Nope. Just the random bad luck I tend to encounter. I've even had a Tornadus Taunt Sableye a couple times, so guaranteed OHKO doesn't promise anything.

 

[turtle328]

Hey guys! This is my first post ever :P
I just got 79 wins in Battle Maison! Does that count as a record? Here's the team, I probably played the game I lost really badly but I did get super unlucky as well.

Loss: GQJG-WWWW-WW2W-3E6C
It was VS. a female tourist. She had a Hariyama, Skunktank, and
Reuniclus.
The Reuniclus had a Toxic Orb so it put a timer on the amount of times I could Hone Claws with my Blaziken.

Durant @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Entrainment
- X-Scissor
- Iron Head
- Protect

Blaziken @ Focus Sash
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Hone Claws
- Protect
- Baton Pass
- Fire Punch

Heracross @ Heracronite
Ability: Guts
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Close Combat
- Pin Missile
- Rock Blast
- Protect

You guys can check out the vid, and tell me what you think I'm gonna try out the team the other guy just got to 200 wins with, I already got the Durant set so I just need the Drapion and Cloyster.

 

[VaporeonIce]

You guys can check out the vid, and tell me what you think I'm gonna try out the team the other guy just got to 200 wins with, I already got the Durant set so I just need the Drapion and Cloyster.

It's literally the post directly above you that indicates that she's a girl. Come on, (presumed) man.

 

[turtle328]

It's literally the post directly above you that indicates that she's a girl. Come on, (presumed) man.

Oh crap! I wasn't looking through every single post XD I just saw she got 200 wins with the Drapion/Cloyster/Durant team. Sorry :3 And yes I am a guy.

What Ability should the Drapion have, I know the Cloyster needs Skill Link obviously.

 

[Altissimo]

What Ability should the Drapion have, I know the Cloyster needs Skill Link obviously.

Battle Armor! Prevents crits from screwing you over, which is completely invaluable for setting up Drapion.

Anyway now that I've gotten some sleep I may as well post my actual team's stats and a few quick notes for posterity.

Durant @ Choice Scarf
Truant
Jolly
31/30/31/x/31/31
244 HP/12 Def/252 Spe
Entrainment
X-Scissor
Iron Head
Rock Slide

The attack IV was, during my breeding process, effectively "x" because the only thing I needed to attack that I knew of was Exeggutor (the Espeon realization came later) and even a 0 Attack IV would secure the KO on Exeggutor. I'm damn lucky it is 30, though, because Espeon is not a guaranteed KO at lower IV levels, and Espeon turned out to be the only thing I needed to auto-KO. In fact, without any Attack investment, even 31 IV Durant doesn't secure a KO on Espeon2 (which has some HP investment), though that one's only attack moves are Psyshock and Grass Knot so it is set-up fodder for Drapion anyway. But, if you're planning to use this team and don't want to breed for/don't have a 5IV Durant, then at least make sure the Attack IV is 18 or higher, which guarantees KOs on the other Espeon variants. Special Attack is, of course, completely unnecessary. Protect is an option on the set for fighting stuff that begins with Truant (Slaking, Durant, Trace users) and not taking damage, but you're so rarely gonna be using anything other than Entrainment that I don't know how much it matters.

Cloyster @ Focus Sash
Skill Link
Naughty
31/31/31/28/4/31
252 Atk/252 Spe/4 HP
Shell Smash
Protect
Icicle Spear
Surf

I was lazy and just accepted the first Shellder I bred with perfect IVs in HP, Attack, Defense, and Speed. Cloyster really wants to be 6IV, though. The low Special Defense IV didn't matter any to me because of Sash and getting to -3 Sp. Def with Shell Smash anyway. Special Attack would like to be higher to guarantee Surf KOs on Walrein and Volcarona (when not fully boosted) though.

Drapion @ Leftovers
Battle Armor
Adamant
31/31/31/x/31/10
252 HP/252 Atk/4 SpDef
Acupressure
Substitute
Protect
Knock Off

Decided to leave out Speed because of more breeding laziness and because Drapion outspeeds a lot with +2 Speed and outspeeds everything with +4 Speed anyway. I don't think it ever once affected my run that it didn't have perfect Speed. Careful over Adamant is an option because at +6 in everything the actual Attack stat doesn't matter, but Special Defense actually does matter during the set-up process; Jumpman's Drapion set was Careful. But I just copied GG Unit's set (from VaporeonIce 's set) wholesale, which uses Adamant, so meh.

Any threats to this kind of team have been identified by GG Unit and NoCheese in earlier posts on the subject (GG Unit's here and NoCheese's here (uses Garchomp over Drapion but responses to lead threats are often the same/similar). I bookmarked both these posts and referenced them whenever I was up against a lead (ex Jynx4) that I knew had been discussed in one of these posts. The last few pages, and the warstories I've posted and responses to them by Maison veterans, have provided a lot of insight to how to handle certain situations which can be quite useful. I'd say that this is probably the most efficient Singles team for getting to 100 or 200. 95% of the battles proceeded in a very easy fashion; it was just knowing how to handle the 5% that was tricky (and cost me my streak at a few points). Basic strat was "if Durant lives after using Entrainment, set up Cloyster; if Durant dies, set up Drapion. The exceptions are Sandstorm, in which case set up Drapion regardless, and enemies with Choice items, Toxic/Flame Orb that activates on them, Explosion, or HJK, in which case set up Cloyster regardless." Leads with Protect/Detect, Perish Song, Fake Out, Volt Switch, sometimes Sub (ex. Protect/Sub Venusaur4, Fake Out/Sub Kangaskhan4), Roar/Whirlwind, and enemy Espeon or Yanmega in general may require some careful play, as detailed by the two links I've posted. Everything else is pretty straightforward, though.

 

[GG Unit]

Check the #1 spot for whose Drapion set I copied ;)

Protect is pretty neat for avoiding damage from Truant leads, but against Slaking the benefit of using Entrainment to make sure it isn't actually a Zoroark outweighs the downside of taking a bit of damage from Night Slash. One use for Protect that I just realized last night was against Manectric 4; you could Protect, switch to Drapion, Protect, Acupressure, Protect, and switch back to Durant on Struggle to keep all 3 team members alive. I think I'd use Confide over Protect if I were to try it again, but that's such a tiny difference. Durant can get by with just 228 Speed EVs to have more Defense, which gives it a higher chance of surviving to use Entrainment against some physical Protect/Fake Out leads like Mienshao.

My own Cloyster had max Attack, enough Speed EVs (164) to outspeed Darmanitan 4 at +2 and everything else in Special Attack. I'd almost go as far as to say that Cloyster would rather be 5IV with imperfect Special Defense than 6IV in order to bait stuff like Skuntank or Blaziken 1 into using special atacks rather than Explosion or High Jump Kick; I've never been unable to get to +6 against Skuntank using Naughty Cloyster, but it'd occasionally Explode early against a 31 IV Adamant Cloyster.

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

That 79 win streak by @turtle238 was the exact same team I posted about like a month ago. There the exact same sets using focus sash and fire punch. I personally don't mind, as I never really had motivation to make, so I'm glad someone did. Good luck

 

[turtle328]

That 79 win streak by @turtle238 was the exact same team I posted about like a month ago. There the exact same sets using focus sash and fire punch. I personally don't mind, as I never really had motivation to make, so I'm glad someone did. Good luck

Yes! Thank you for that team, it worked out well! But it did have some flaws, but worked out much better than expected!

 

[Rasimpson]

I just lost at battle #99: 6SFW-WWWW-WW2W-48ZY

This was just a team I threw together on the spur of the moment. It did a lot better than I expected.

Kangaskhan @ Kangaskhanite
Scrappy
Adamant
31/31/31/x/24/31
4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spe
Return
Sucker Punch
Fake Out
Power-Up Punch

Durant @ Choice Scarf
Truant
Jolly
31/31/31/x/31/31
220 HP / 4 Atk / 108 Def / 84 SpDef / 92 Speed
Aerial Ace
Protect
X-Scissor
Entrainment

Volcarona @ Leftovers
Flame Body
Bold
31/x/31/31/31/31
252 HP/252 Def/4 SpD
Flamethrower
Quiver Dance
Bug Buzz
Protect

Honestly if any pokemon on the team wasn't pulling their weight, it was Khangaskhan. It never really beat any pokemon that I couldn't have beaten with durant and volcarona. It did make most fights go much faster though, so I don't really regret choosing it. If I were going for a really high streak I'd probably replace it with something else.

That last fight I probably could have won if I'd known more about the AI and the movesets, but this was my first attempt at a win streak so I don't feel too bad about it.

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

Just looking at your durants ev set, it looks like you took VaporeonIce's. Not saying that his set is bad(Its really good in fact), but you'll need more speed evs then that. VaporeonIce's didn't need all the speed because of prankster switcheroo taking away scarves. Making durant 1 point ahead of scarfchomp. But pretty good try for your first time. Good luck.

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

Also how does volcarona have 252Hp/252Def and 252SDEF?

 

[Rasimpson]

Also how does volcarona have 252Hp/252Def and 252SDEF?

Whoops typo

Just looking at your durants ev set, it looks like you took VaporeonIce's. Not saying that his set is bad(Its really good in fact), but you'll need more speed evs then that. VaporeonIce's didn't need all the speed because of prankster switcheroo taking away scarves. Making durant 1 point ahead of scarfchomp. But pretty good try for your first time. Good luck.

Yeah, I didn't really put a whole lot of thought into that. It just looked like a good durant set. I figured if I ended up going for a really long streak I would probably end up making more than one durant, but I was marginally more likely to get more use out of that one than a different one.

 

[Triert]

I'm here because I want to abuse the Battle Maison until it needs to call witness protection.

Jolly MegaKhan
252 ATK/SPD spread
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Return
- Power Up

Going to rip off someones Durant here

Durant @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Entrainment
- X-Scissor
- Iron Head
- Protect

Thank you turtle328

Can people give me suggestions as to what the optimal third partner/strategy could be here?

 

[sunzet-therian forme]

Drapion is probably the best booster because of its ability and defensive typing. The set you ripped of of turtle328 is not the best set. 228 spe evs is all that is needed. IMO, I see no use in having a pokemon before durant thats not aiding in the process to get entrainment off. Obviously you dont have to listen to me, those were just some suggestion:)

 

[GG Unit]

I'm here because I want to abuse the Battle Maison until it needs to call witness protection.

Jolly MegaKhan
252 ATK/SPD spread
- Fake Out
- Sucker Punch
- Return
- Power Up

Going to rip off someones Durant here

Durant @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Truant
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Entrainment
- X-Scissor
- Iron Head
- Protect

Thank you turtle328

Can people give me suggestions as to what the optimal third partner/strategy could be here?

I'd definitely have Earthquake over Fake Out on Kangaskhan. Fake Out gives you a chance to KO some leads without taking any damage, but with this kind of team you either want to sweep all the way with Kangaskhan or allow Durant to use Entrainment. I can envision a common scenario of Kanga getting weakened by the first Pokemon, KOed by a 2nd Pokemon that knows Explosion, and then having that mon Explode before you get set up. Strategy-wise, I would not hesitate to keep Kangaskhan alive by switching Durant in against anything that can't KO it with a critical hit or sleep/paralyze/freeze it. Here's a third team member:

Cloyster | Leftovers
Adamant
28 HP | 252 Atk | rest in Speed
-Sub
-Protect
-Shell Smash
-Icicle Spear


Also just had a crazy Durant move idea: Substitute.

 

[Altissimo]

Also just had a crazy Durant move idea: Substitute.

How do you envision that being used?

 

[GG Unit]

How do you envision that being used?

On Lapras and possibly Mismagius so they don't trap you.

 

[VaporeonIce]

So I didn't know this existed until just now, but thanks to wtset and Bautao , you can store your Pokemon's sets onto their enhanced version of the Pokemon Showdown calculator: located here.

To format it, you just do it like this:

Plaguarism (Drapion) @ Black Sludge
Ability: Battle Armor
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
- Protect
- Substitute
- Acupressure
- Knock Off

The nickname (in this case, "Plaguarism") becomes to set name that's stored in the calculator. Remember to use Spe for Speed EVs and SpD for SpDef EVs, and don't forget to set the level to 50! (That's possibly the most annoying part about using the calculator now).

Megas work exactly the same; you just type the name of the mega in the parentheses.

RockEmSockEm (Mega Kangaskhan) @ Kangaskhanite
Ability: Parental Bond
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Level: 50
Adamant Nature
- Power-Up Punch
- Earthquake
- Sucker Punch
- Return

But there's more! You can upload several sets at once. The sets are saved in your browser until you clear your history (I don't know anything about browsers, so I'm not sure exactly what you have to clear to clear out the sets in the calculator. And thanks to this Google doc I created, you can download a copy of the document (it's really slow to copy and paste the info directly from the Google doc), copy every set in the Maison, paste it into the text box, and click "Import." And voila! All of the Battle Maison sets are now immediately accessible in the Showdown calculator on your browser.

It's not 100% perfect. Sometimes the calculator doesn't display the "Import" button (I usually just have to clear my history and restart my browser for it to show up). It looks like there should be 864 total sets in the Maison (Super modes only, of course), but it says there are only 860 when I upload it; I'm not sure if I messed up the formatting somewhere. The text I used (the lists of sets in the first page) had some of the old spellings (e.g. "Hi Jump Kick" instead of "High Jump Kick"); I tried to find and replace all of those, but I might have missed some. So if a move doesn't show up when you pull up a Pokemon's set, that's probably why. The sets are all cleared from the calculator when you clear out your history (or cookies, or active logins, or something), but it's not hard to import them again.

Anyway, I was pretty excited by this and thought I'd share. It certainly makes things run much faster, especially when you want to try out new teams you're not familiar with yet. I hope people find some benefit from this!

EDIT: Just realized I could quickly use this to do calcs for my Triples team, who I never really bothered to do many calcs with. Even without uploading my own sets, it's much faster to build my Lickilicky set from Lickilicky 4 than from one of the other sets in Showdown. I also got this amazing calc:

252+ Atk Life Orb Lickilicky Helping Hand Explosion vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Magnezone: 114-135 (78.6 - 93.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

My team was pretty terrified of left-side Magnezone in battles where Aron goes down early, but a lot of that was because I didn't realize just how much damage Lickilicky actually does to it with a fully boosted Explosion. If Mega Audino survives the turn (Magnezone 4 needs a crit to OHKO with Flash Cannon), she can KO guaranteed next turn with Flamethrower. Pretty cool stuff! I've switched back to focusing more on Singles for now, though. It's really slow going, so don't expect me to be at 4000 any time soon! :)

 

[Altissimo]

Hah. Would have been nice to have before I went and had to manually fill in calcs all the time including setting level to 50 lol. Oh well, useful for everyone else doing the Maison now - perhaps a link/explanation in the OP is in order?

 

[VaporeonIce]

Hah. Would have been nice to have before I went and had to manually fill in calcs all the time including setting level to 50 lol. Oh well, useful for everyone else doing the Maison now - perhaps a link/explanation in the OP is in order?

Oh, I've been doing manual calcs for years; I just found this an hour ago. Yeah, it certainly would have saved a lot of time!

GG Unit , I LOVE the Sub idea on Durant. It's clearly terrible on non-lead Durant, but Lapras has to burn so many Body Slam PP to take down Durant (it needs a minimum of three to break Durant's Sub) that it's likely to use Perish Song well before that. Unfortunately, the loafing turn leaves you vulnerable to being hit by Block on the turn after Lapras breaks the Sub, but that's pretty unlikely, since Durant will probably lose its Sub on a loafing turn (unless Lapras uses Body Slam turn 1).

Mismagius is clearly more iffy (since Power Gem breaks the Sub in one hit), but switching to Drapion against it on turn 1 isn't super reliable anyway. If you can bait it into any move besides Mean Look, you increase your odds of bringing in Durant, getting up a Sub, and not getting trapped in the process. You could also make the potentially dubious choice of dropping Drapion's HP from 177 to 161, using 84 EVs in Speed (also outspeeding Zapdos 2), and putting the rest in SpDef to allow you to outspeed Mismagius and block a Mean Look with Substitute. Unfortunately, that boosts its chances of breaking the Sub in one hit with Power Gem to 75% and lowers overall bulk a bit. But with Durant having a chance to bait Mismagius into using any move besides Mean Look, that loss in overall bulk might be worth it to improve your odds.

 

[Altissimo]

Mismagius can be one-hit by an unboosted Knock Off from Drapion anyhow; regardless of when it uses Perish Song I don't think there's any threat in just trying to take out the damn thing by auto-switching to Drapion if it's a lead. I fought a Mismagius on my 200 streak, switched to Drapion on the Perish Song, used Knock Off as it used Mean Look, and then it's off the field and you're up 3-2.

 

[VaporeonIce]

Mismagius can be one-hit by an unboosted Knock Off from Drapion anyhow; regardless of when it uses Perish Song I don't think there's any threat in just trying to take out the damn thing by auto-switching to Drapion if it's a lead. I fought a Mismagius on my 200 streak, switched to Drapion on the Perish Song, used Knock Off as it used Mean Look, and then it's off the field and you're up 3-2.

Running that calc (6.3% chance to OHKO, BTW) made me realize another flaw of the calculator; if items have no effect on damage (like Bright Powder), they're not in the Showdown calculator, which will mess up Knock Off's calculated damage. I think there are also a few damaging moves that aren't in the calculator because no one uses them (like Round). It's not a big deal, you just need to remember it.

Using Knock Off with Drapion generally works fine against Missy, but I see baiting it into using Perish Song and then switching out as somewhat more reliable. That way, you don't run the risk of crap like Mean Look turn 1, Perish Song turn 2 (Knock Off misses thanks to Bright Powder), Protect turn 3, Knock Off fails to KO turn 4. Even that isn't catastrophic (you still have a good chance to get Entrainment off successfully next turn after Drapion faints), but I think baiting its Perish Song and switching back to Durant has slightly better odds overall.

 

[Altissimo]

I've never seen Knock Off not KO, so I just assumed it was a guaranteed KO. Well, screw that then lol, your idea is better

 

[Triert]

I'd definitely have Earthquake over Fake Out on Kangaskhan. Fake Out gives you a chance to KO some leads without taking any damage, but with this kind of team you either want to sweep all the way with Kangaskhan or allow Durant to use Entrainment. I can envision a common scenario of Kanga getting weakened by the first Pokemon, KOed by a 2nd Pokemon that knows Explosion, and then having that mon Explode before you get set up. Strategy-wise, I would not hesitate to keep Kangaskhan alive by switching Durant in against anything that can't KO it with a critical hit or sleep/paralyze/freeze it. Here's a third team member:

Cloyster | Leftovers
Adamant
28 HP | 252 Atk | rest in Speed
-Sub
-Protect
-Shell Smash
-Icicle Spear


Also just had a crazy Durant move idea: Substitute.

That would leave me with two pokemon weak to fighting types, I'm a simple man with a simple goal of hitting 50 so would that weakness to fighting types pose an issue for me?