Pokémon OU Player of the Week #35: AM

[AM]

will you bring back dewott and your ladybug badge?

do you have hair on your nips?

No

Classified

What advice would you give an intermediate teambuilder who wants to become great?

Teambuilding and battling are considered two separate parts of the game but you need one to understand the other and vice versa. Studying builds, understanding the formula of certain builds such as seeing the common things around them (Fairy resist, Water resist, Ground immunity), actually testing your builds to see if the theory behind it works in practice like you wanted to, asking advice from people in general to get some perspective and ideas, are some things I would say pushes you above that level. I'd also try to play around with different archtypes and see how they all function. When you understand how to play using a certain build like M-Sableye semi-stall for example and get a good grasp on it, you'll know how to build teams to go up against once. Every team has sort of a formula in how they function regardless of the player but in order to understand them you have to go out of your way to use them yourself.

Better builders as opinionated as that term might be also focus on exploiting meta trends. Early wcop and a little bit before that the majority of teams resorted to these fat balance squads that all sort of keeled over to Manaphy. As such the builders utilizing Manaphy had a slight edge against a majority of players thinking they were safe using fat balance, which is an idea set in stone that this is what is consistent when a lot of times it probably isn't. I'd also use the analysis sections as guideline...but not a law. Realize that every move and every choice you make team-building wise is suppose to be beneficial for the team itself, not necessarily always catering to what a dex entry says. A good example is the dex entry for Kyurem-B saying that a neutral speed nature like Mild should be the choice of nature, when a team that is exploitable to Manaphy should consider running a speed increasing nature in Naive to have better counterplay against Manaphys who don't run max speed which is a lot of them.

There's a lot of different intricacies and details that go into team-building but at some point it'll become second nature if you're invested in it. Don't over stress yourself though that's never necessary.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Do you think stall is a dead playstyle? Why or why not?

Do you think Rock Slide is an uncompetitve move?

What is your stance on likes being removed from Firebot?

 

[p2]

ou co-leader banner when?

least favourite mon?

thoughts on volcanion?

rby best gen yn?

what do you think the most versatile mon in the tier is aside from Clefable and Garchomp?

 

[Halcyon.]

Whose teams in the Team Building Shop do you like best?

fmk tdk, the ender, whitequeen

If you could start a new sub forum on smogon, what would it be?

What would you say to those who think of smogon as elitist, given the chance? In other words, what would you say to baharoth given the chance?

Favorite dpp mons?

 

[teamsnickers]

Why is mega obama so good
Ona scale of 1/10 how awesome am I?
should mega scizor be s rank in your opinion
why is politoed such a lord?

 

[AM]

Do you think stall is a dead playstyle? Why or why not?

Do you think Rock Slide is an uncompetitve move?

What is your stance on likes being removed from Firebot?

You be the judge of a match I just finished watching.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-ou-80021

Yes it flinches my Counter Skarmory trying to beat SD Excadrill. It's very uncompetitive.

I think it's for the better. The likes are good for the quote threads but they were always pretty bad on the other threads themselves. I'll still get good laughs from the forum anyways as I have gotten some today.

ou co-leader banner when?

least favourite mon?

thoughts on volcanion?

rby best gen yn?

what do you think the most versatile mon in the tier is aside from Clefable and Garchomp?

The appeal of a banner seems sort of weird, I don't get the logic of having a banner for basically just mediating discussions with other mods of the forum.

Maybe Mega Beedrill, it's annoying as hell and is a nightmare in UU.

Volcanion I'm looking forward to come its release. I think Steam Eruption is a ridiculous move though which might push it over the edge in some way.

N, ADV is

Manaphy

Whose teams in the Team Building Shop do you like best?

fmk tdk, the ender, whitequeen

If you could start a new sub forum on smogon, what would it be?

What would you say to those who think of smogon as elitist, given the chance? In other words, what would you say to baharoth given the chance?

Favorite dpp mons?

There's been a ton of builds and unfortunately haven't used most of them due to time and focus on other stuff, I test a lot of Vertex and bludz builds and suggest advice before they post though. I guess I'll give a nod to your Mega Latios DDance squad that Vertex used on me and almost swept me with until he choked on a turn he should've attacked. It's such a useless Pokemon but everything around the team made it a surprise. I don't use a lot of peoples teams tbh as most times I don't feel comfortable using them. It's also the fact PS needs folders really bad lol as my team list import is saved on my desktop but it's all over the place.

How do I even respond to that? lol

I know you and I talked about it awhile ago but a place for teambuilding compendiums or team shops w/e we're calling it now a days. That way everyone can dump their innovation and try to see which persons E-Penis is bigger.

Smogon has elitist attitudes so clearly Baharoths reply has some validity to it but it's not going to change and that's the blunt truth. We're way past the point of any sort of fix and the larger the community the stronger this mentality becomes. Forums like the ruins of alph don't really have this because the community is so tightly knit everyone knows and acknowledges their abilities and who they are. Here in OU when catering to ORAS there's so many people with so many opinions that aren't even stabilized at so many skill levels, you see the dynamics of it all intertwine. Also, Baharoths reply was on the implication of what I presumed was me not being nice and coincidentally was related to a remark I made in a conversation between ranking team in peoples "shitty logic" which I stood by simply by posting it on the thread, being honest which is something you can't do as I've come to learn now. His comment is also an exaggeration of the community who follows the stigma of everything that is bad with OU and Smogon in general, maybe from his own personal experience Idk and honestly not interested. You had a guy one time arguing for Forretress for D rank, who was new btw, and all the people were against it or saying Custap Forretress is what should be ranked. In the end it was ranked for what the larger userbase was arguing was its worst trait, its defensive set. So I think elitism is there but some of the mentality from people who take it way too seriously and change the topic from "insert topic here" to "oh I'm being attacked and disregarded" is just a cry for help that falls on deaf ears and other factors more personal to the user in question. This is as honest as it's going to be while someone behind their screen is cringing their teeth with the harsh reality and the others are appropriately not giving a single care in the world doing their own thing enjoying themselves. I commend the latter.

Favorite DPP mon goes to Gyarados or Tyranitar personally.

Why is mega obama so good
Ona scale of 1/10 how awesome am I?
should mega scizor be s rank in your opinion
why is politoed such a lord?

Teams are hard pressed to find good Ice switch ins that aren't exploitable to coverage move or typing the Ice user is packing. It's what makes stuff like Kyurem-B and Weavile so dangerous to certain archtypes by themselves. It's a Trick Room staple that works well on customized TR teams deviating from the normal TR mons which makes winning with it, especially in a meta geared towards offense, a breeze sometimes.

I'll give you like a 5, you hax the hell out of me too much to put you any higher when you want a test.

Mega Scizor most definitely should not be S rank. Mega Scizor seems like S rank when the team its facing has poor counterplay to Mega Scizor in general. This is, surprisingly, a lot of teams lately and I don't understand how when so many answers to it are perfectly viable on normal archtypes. It punishes tons of bad teambuilding or redundancies such as having one shaky check to it at best and not taking into account both its bulky and fast SD sets, the two you should prep for. In order for it to truly succeed in the face of a decent build and in a meta where Zard-X by itself is one of the best choices of a mega it needs enough support behind it to put it a notch below Char-X, Clefable, and even some of the other A+ stuff like Garchomp and Azumarill. Its resources by itself solidifies it at A+ but it doesn't have enough tools to make itself be a large enough team-building constraint to put it at S.

Politoed is the face of a playstyle that can turn most offense not packing something like Toxicroak into food.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Ik i've hardly talked to you (a bit in the OU Room on PS) but I've always felt people in the viability thread give you a harder time than you deserve. You did a really good job man and I really respect you as a leader :]

Favorite tier in ORAS not named OU (or is it even not OU :o)?

Thoughts on puns?

Thoughts on Pokepuns?

What do you think of the few posts I've dropped in the viability thread?

Do you call it soda or pop?

 

[Random Passerby]

1) What do you think of Goth's trapping? From what I see, people hype it up but rarely use it themselves.

2) Do you think Tornadus-Therain is overrated? 70% accuracy on its main STAB is really frustrating when I use it (although I click U-turn, Knock Off or Superpower most of the time)

3) Any gimmicky sets that you have used successfully recently?

 

[Anduril]

Thoughts on NP Slowking, Trick Room as a whole and Toxicroak?

Love your avatar btw

 

[AM]

Ik i've hardly talked to you (a bit in the OU Room on PS) but I've always felt people in the viability thread give you a harder time than you deserve. You did a really good job man and I really respect you as a leader :]

Favorite tier in ORAS not named OU (or is it even not OU :o)?

Thoughts on puns?

Thoughts on Pokepuns?

What do you think of the few posts I've dropped in the viability thread?

Do you call it soda or pop?

Part of the territory it's all good thanks though.

This is kind of tough but a lot of times I find myself playing UU when I'm free and don't feel like playing OU that day. Also the fact a lot of the CT auth are familiar with it so I watch a lot of games of UU. For the love of god though Sam and Hikari please suspect Feraligatr thing is stupid.

They disgust me

I think they're spot on for the most part. Nothing too huge to complain about it anyways.

Soda

1) What do you think of Goth's trapping? From what I see, people hype it up but rarely use it themselves.

2) Do you think Tornadus-Therain is overrated? 70% accuracy on its main STAB is really frustrating when I use it (although I click U-turn, Knock Off or Superpower most of the time)

3) Any gimmicky sets that you have used successfully recently?

As I've stated before it's overrated. It's more of a problem for a lot of super passive stall teams that autolose to Gothitelle. The increasing natural speed tiers of teams and the power of Dark types in the tier I find make it a bad choice in the meta but people make it work so I guess there's that.

I was talking to bludz the other day about the nom for Torn-T to S rank and have been judging it lately until we did some test matches. I think on average for every 4 Hurricanes I ended up missing like 3 and every single time it costed me valuable momentum. Torn-T isn't really overrated and is an incredible asset on some balanced builds but that ability to miss with Hurricane at such crucial moments just really sucks for it. Heat Wave is something you should consider along with Iron Tail as those are also good options for it.

Toxicroak @ Life Orb
Ability: Dry Skin
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Sludge Wave
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Vacuum Wave / Focus Blast
- Nasty Plot

Been using that with some success. I also used this today during some testing with bludz as well.

Landorus-Therian @ Focus Sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Smack Down
- Imprison
- Stealth Rock

Acts as a lead uses Imprison to prevent things like Hippowdon and Tankchomp from setting up rocks until Lando-T leaves the field. Something stupid but won some matches with it so technically it was a success.

Do you find Genesect OP or disgustingly centralizing? Is it retest worthy?
What guidelines should you follow when making offensive teams?
On a scale of 1-10 how good of a user am I?
Who do you look up to?

Which pokemon is a based lord in your opinion?

Centralizing and no I don't think it should be retested

Trinitrotoluene's guide to Hyper Offense

After that depends on the concept you're building around as different offensive teams put emphasis on different things. Hazard Offense, Dark Spam, Rain Offense, Sand Offense, an so on require different elements so it's a build by build thing.

You're getting better and giving me less headaches than before. What's with people and scales -.-

The hax lord

Based is a dumb word and should be thrown into a pit of fire.

Thoughts on NP Slowking, Trick Room as a whole and Toxicroak?

Love your avatar btw

NP Slowking is good but I think it's kind of lost its luster after Style / Bloo used it and people rode the bandwagon. It's a set that has a really good matchup against slower builds though but the builds it excels against are hard to find or have enough countermeasures to not really care in the end.

Trick Room is a super specific playstyle that's difficult to pull off well and its approach I find is the most systematic one after the old BP team formulas. It makes pulling off TR hard since almost every turn you're already providing a tell to the person facing it on what you'll be doing next. It's better utilize with threats nobody thinks about or don't know what they do like Audino as a TR setter, Pangoro as a wall-breaker. It's virtually a counter team to Hyper Offense also since most Hyper Offense teams lack good switch ins to the main wall-breakers of TR being M-Heracross, M-Camerupt, M-Abomasnow, Dragalge, and Crawdaunt who are normally seen on TR.

Toxicroak is a pretty nice Pokemon but I would probably not consider it for a raise anytime soon on the ranking thread. It has a tough time breaking a lot of Hippo Balance teams and the main set necessitates stuff like Talonflame, bulky Mega Scizor out of the way with a bunch of mind games with the Zards. It's a strong prediction reliant Pokemon but does sport some good utility like being one of the better water switch ins on offense.

 

[Machi]

What is your favorite typing?

Are you cute?

Does the viability thread give you nightmares at times given how hectic it can be?

 

[AM]

What is your favorite typing?

Are you cute?

Does the viability thread give you nightmares at times given how hectic it can be?

Water

Sure

Not at all. AllJokesAsides rant about stall, one of many gems on the VR thread I see, sparked such intellectual thoughts and left me enlightened. I've never seen such an amazing player like Jernmax provide such an informed opinion about the state of stall in the OU meta. >.>

 

[Agent Gibbs]

What is your stance on likes being removed from the entire forum?

 

[Flamer]

As cheesy as this sounds man, opinion on how I am as a poster and tips to moving forwards in the prestigious ranks of the real university known as Smogon?

What interests do you have outside of the babe magnet that is competetive pokemon? For example I love reading about psychology and the experiments they do, even if I understand none of it.

From what I can gather, you seem to be reeling back on a lot of your previous duties. Is this because you want to take more of a casual approach to mons or was it just getting too much to handle?

 

[SketchUp]

What is your opinion on people asking you what you think of them and deoxys-d / deoxys-s in ou?

 

[AM]

What is your stance on likes being removed from the entire forum?

I would be in favor of this in the near future. Up to ginganinja as well and the other mods.

As cheesy as this sounds man, opinion on how I am as a poster and tips to moving forwards in the prestigious ranks of the real university known as Smogon?

What interests do you have outside of the babe magnet that is competetive pokemon? For example I love reading about psychology and the experiments they do, even if I understand none of it.

From what I can gather, you seem to be reeling back on a lot of your previous duties. Is this because you want to take more of a casual approach to mons or was it just getting too much to handle?

you are a quality poster just keep contributing like you have with threads and common sense and you should be fine.

I enjoy watching playthroughs of videogames, listening to music, watching documentaries of beatmakers, and reading up on pointless stuff i will never use in my life.

Bit of both more of too much to handle. It is also weird that all the duties took time away from playing the game. You cant efficiently run a tier and make proper decisions on it if you dont invest time into playing it and understanding it.

Ill answers sketchups later

 

[ginganinja]

Nah, I like getting free likes whenever I call out Pocket.

 

[AM]

What is your opinion on people asking you what you think of them and deoxys-d / deoxys-s in ou?

Kind of weird ngl.

Deo-S is definitely broken lol. I can't exactly try to explain it to someone if their argument is that Mega Sableye and Mega Diancie in the tier makes them balanced when anyone knows that the two have their own share of problems, problems that are easily exploitable on the types of teams Deo-S resides on. Deo-S being faster than a Scarf Garchomp and having the ability to revenge kill a bunch of other scarfers is such a brainless concept, making the notion of it coming back laughable but regardless interesting to see.

Deo-D is probably more centralizing than it is busted but its best trait in providing hazards and not only being at a very significant speed tier to set up rocks while maintaining the bulk, recovery, and item slot to do so is disgusting. It's one of those mons that by itself isn't a problem but it can, and it will, enhance the effectiveness of others to almost broken like levels, such as Bisharp and Thundurus.

 

[Sanger Zonvolt]

Just one question: will you ever explain to me the connection between me and Swinub that you brought up last April?

 

[dice]

ur like one of those dudes that's on the cusp of enlightenment but ur not quite there yet. i think one day in the next year or so u will make a solid squad around a concept from ur perpetual ou metagamin and then be considered a playa.. until then tho....

this isn't rly a question just general lamentatin over the lack of new dudes

keep at it tho o my god it pains me to see ppl just cop squads and forgo the analysis and effort put into the nuances of teambuilding. eshewing the one factor of pokemon u can 100% control is such a prob in the new dudes nowadays. u should join more tours btw

 

[AM]

Just one question: will you ever explain to me the connection between me and Swinub that you brought up last April?

ur like one of those dudes that's on the cusp of enlightenment but ur not quite there yet. i think one day in the next year or so u will make a solid squad around a concept from ur perpetual ou metagamin and then be considered a playa.. until then tho....

this isn't rly a question just general lamentatin over the lack of new dudes

keep at it tho o my god it pains me to see ppl just cop squads and forgo the analysis and effort put into the nuances of teambuilding. eshewing the one factor of pokemon u can 100% control is such a prob in the new dudes nowadays. u should join more tours btw

Thanks man means a lot. I'll most definitely be joining more tours now that I've laid back on the all the leadership roles I had everywhere lol.

 

[asdfCookie]

when are you changing your avi

 

[yuruuu]

rate user Trinitrotoluene's avatar 0-10
how viable is the move flash in laddering to rank 1

 

[Reisuke]

Can you give your opinion on tiering megas seperately?

Could you rate mega lopunny on a scale from 1 to 10?

Why do you give me the impression you're a really nice guy?

 

[Wiz T7]

What's your favourite kinna soup?