T.I.A.
formerly Ticktock
Gale Wings is banned, so use something like Blaziken.
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Inheritance [Prime Council Elected]
- Thread starter Snaquaza
- Start date
SpartanMalice
Y'all jokers must be crazy
Do you ever read posts properly before quoting the whole lot of them for a one-liner? He explicitly stated that it doesn't work after recent bans. He's posting it as a showcase if anything. It's the post exactly above yours, quoting it just make it looks ugly.
I feel like stall isn't as good as it was last time, the reasoning for this is how many dedicated counters you have. Last time around you didn't need that many counters to specific pokemonc this time around the list of specialized counter has grown tenfolds.
Hoopa-U demands you run a dark type, without it you just... Lose.
Mega Medicham demands you run a ghost type, even then you need intimidate users because how hilariously good CC + Crunch is, even tho fairy resists it, no pure fairy typing can really check it viably because of the lack of defence, or they have a duel typing like steel/rock.
Mega gyarados just... Fucking, ugh. The belly drum set beats. Everything. It just doesn't care about your walls, everything just dies
Mega gardevoir is also dumb af. There's too many good Boomburst user, with different moves, making breaking stall easy as fuck. Chatter, NP, sub & Boomburst is just so frustrating to face.
Mega charizard-X is also threatening, but not so awful. It's got some tricks up its sleeve that makes it, aswell, basically uncounterable.
Eruption/Water spout. Demands something like regenerator Goodra lol.
Banded TTar w/ Adapt demands a fighting type since a lot of srall mons are weak to it.
Altaria
Pinsir
Chansey
Random setup-sweepers
Protean
It's just getting really difficult to check them all without losing to something else
Hoopa-U demands you run a dark type, without it you just... Lose.
Mega Medicham demands you run a ghost type, even then you need intimidate users because how hilariously good CC + Crunch is, even tho fairy resists it, no pure fairy typing can really check it viably because of the lack of defence, or they have a duel typing like steel/rock.
Mega gyarados just... Fucking, ugh. The belly drum set beats. Everything. It just doesn't care about your walls, everything just dies
Mega gardevoir is also dumb af. There's too many good Boomburst user, with different moves, making breaking stall easy as fuck. Chatter, NP, sub & Boomburst is just so frustrating to face.
Mega charizard-X is also threatening, but not so awful. It's got some tricks up its sleeve that makes it, aswell, basically uncounterable.
Eruption/Water spout. Demands something like regenerator Goodra lol.
Banded TTar w/ Adapt demands a fighting type since a lot of srall mons are weak to it.
Altaria
Pinsir
Chansey
Random setup-sweepers
Protean
It's just getting really difficult to check them all without losing to something else
xJownage
Even pendulums swing both ways
You shouldn't be able to check them all in the first place; that just means stall is unbeatable. In all balanced metas, stall has to pick and choose what it wants to consistently beat, and teambuilding the best stall team is all about building to the point where the least common/viable mons are the ones that beat you.
All these things existed last time around, it's just that they weren't used. Well, now they are. The metagame has never been more balanced in my opinion; I've seen a large portion of the ladder running stall to the same degree of success as the many offensive teams on the ladder, and you know what else I've seen that I never saw before? Balance.
All these things existed last time around, it's just that they weren't used. Well, now they are. The metagame has never been more balanced in my opinion; I've seen a large portion of the ladder running stall to the same degree of success as the many offensive teams on the ladder, and you know what else I've seen that I never saw before? Balance.
I think the problem is, or at least the problem im having is that teambuilding for stall is fairly restrictive at the moment.
For example to deal with water spout / eruption + weather pretty much your only option is a assault vest goodra. I thought that this set would be cool:
Emolga (Mantine) @ Leftovers
Ability: Motor Drive
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Roost
- Nuzzle
- Baton Pass
- Knock Off
Only weak to rock, able to pass speed boosts from motor drive and gives out paralysis and item removal. Sounds neat right? It also has over 400 spd so i thought it could tank a fair few hits, but no:
252 SpA Choice Specs Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mantine in Harsh Sunshine: 156-184 (46.8 - 55.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Empoleon Water Spout (150 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Mantine in Heavy Rain: 140-165 (42 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Even non specs pose a problem, you have to remain completely healthy in order to check these two threats which then makes it hard to check other things you need to so you're pretty much stuck with old goodra
This is exactly how I am thinking about it. Yeah, maybe there are some overpowered pokemon and yes, stall cannot handle all of them at the same time, but it can handle the majority at the same time making it as viable as all the other playstyles. Balanced teams won't win against any other team either and nor should stall. Stall is viable, so saying a pokemon breaks stall is imo not a reason to ban it.
Yeah, I just got wrecked by an extreme speed Mega Pinsir. And what moves should I replace ice punch with?
Another issues with illegalities:
Sableye @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Foul Play
- Knock Off
Regular Sableye-Mega is seen as illegal, probably because inheriting from Sableye is banned. This should not make me unable to use Sableye himself tho. Also, I cannot just change it to Keen Eye, as Prankster pre-mega is needed to let it check what it needs to check if it has not mega-evolved yet.
Sableye @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Foul Play
- Knock Off
Regular Sableye-Mega is seen as illegal, probably because inheriting from Sableye is banned. This should not make me unable to use Sableye himself tho. Also, I cannot just change it to Keen Eye, as Prankster pre-mega is needed to let it check what it needs to check if it has not mega-evolved yet.
+2 252+ SpA Hoopa Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Escavalier: 452-532 (131.3 - 154.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Azelf, Mew, Slowking, and Togekiss all provide the core moves of Psyshock/Shadow Ball/Nasty Plot, and provide Flamethrower.
+2 252+ SpA Hoopa Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Meloetta: 260-306 (64.3 - 75.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Porygon-Z provides Dark Pulse, among others. Arguably mostly redundant with Shadow Ball, admittedly.
Hoopa's fragility is also misleading, as Special walls generally have Special offenses, or awful offenses. As such, anything that can switch in on Shadow Ball on the basis of bulk is likely to be unable to seriously injure it. Most exceptions are Ubers or Megas. The list of Pokemon that has more than 100 Attack and Special Defense that aren't Ubers or Megas is...
Flareon, Escavalier, regular Gallade, Hitmonchan, Hitmonlee, Hoopa itself, Mesprit, Regigigas (Banned from Inheritance), and Snorlax.
The Hitmons are of course weak to Psyshock. No.
Escavalier can be OHKOed by Flamethrower, and inheriting from Slowking gives Hoopa the excellent Regenerator Ability -or it can go for immunity to Taunt et al. It's not a bad scenario.
Gallade and Mesprit are weak to Shadow Ball.
Hoopa is doubly weak to Shadow Ball.
Flareon... is not very good, and unfortunately doesn't resist Psyshock.
+2 252+ SpA Hoopa Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Snorlax: 303-357 (57.8 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Physically Defensive Snorlax is an answer! You know, assuming Hoopa doesn't have Focus Blast and we're assuming Unaware Snorlax.
That seems a bit specific that I need Unaware Snorlax on my stall team to not be in dire trouble against Hoopa.
252 SpA Life Orb Azelf Extrasensory vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Throh: 265-315 (59.6 - 70.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
(Greninja gets Extrasensory)
I don't think I can overstate the impact Protean has on a Pokemon's move choices. Protean Pokemon can get away with basically arbitrary move choices, and until you've seen their entire movepool, you have to treat them as if they could have any move available to Greninja or every move available to Kecleon. (Or both, if you haven't seen anything unique to one or the other)
This makes scouting problematic. You can have scouted three out of four moves, and still have no idea what Pokemon is safe to bring in on this particular Protean abuser. None. That makes it really easy to score KOs or so-close-they're-probably-dead-really damage.
Remember how Aegislash got banned from OU, because you had to scout it and it would often kill things in the process of scouting it?
To expand a bit on my prior commentary about needing a ridiculous mixed wall to deal with Protean: after investment, IVs, and Eviolite, Chansey has the equivalent of an un-invested and un-IVed 90~ base Defense. Since it has 250 HP, its Physical bulk is actually directly comparable to Physically Defensive Mew, and in fact is slightly better. (This is assuming Chansey takes the standard spread of investing into Defense and Special Defense and Nature-boosting Defense)
That means your mixed wall needs to have something akin to... oh, Giratina's statline, to have any chance of walling Protean.
252 SpA Life Orb Protean Azelf Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Giratina: 213-252 (42.3 - 50%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
Oh hey, speaking of, one of Uber's greatest walls can just barely wall Protean Azelf!
0- Atk Life Orb Protean Azelf Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Giratina: 252-299 (50 - 59.4%) -- 77% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
... oh.
Oh, by the way, Azelf isn't even the hardest-hitting reasonably fast mixed attacking Protean abuser. Hoopa has substantially higher Special Attack -with a Life Orb Dark Pulse is a 98.8% chance to 2HKO Specially Defensive Giratina after Leftovers- and only slightly lowers Physical Attack and a perfectly good Speed tier for stallbreaking.
Don't believe me?
252+ SpA Life Orb Protean Hoopa Dark Pulse vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Giratina: 265-315 (52.6 - 62.6%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
But mixed Protean attackers are totally wall-able. You just need to first invent a wall better than existing Ubers!
/extreme sarcasm
And then it runs Focus Blast, or Dazzling Gleam. :(
Though Unbound is actually banned. It's Confined that's still running around, eating souls.
I don't think Ghost types are actually all that good a counter to it unless you're talking Spiritomb or Mega Sableye in specific. Most Ghosts just aren't bulky enough to tank Zen Headbutts readily.
On the other hand, I've actually been able to consistently check it with Physically Defensive Unaware Zapdos, and in general haven't found it to be too nightmarish from a stall perspective, for whatever reason.
I think that's more a commentary on Chatter than on Mega Gardevoir. My own experience using and facing Mega Gardevoir is that it's good, but imperfect.
Basically, yeah. Way too much overwhelming firepower, to the point that they can 2HKO Chansey with enough of a damage margin it not only can't switch in but it also can't PP stall via healing, no need for them to carry boosting to get past it.
There's a difference between "your stall team has a bad matchup with this powerful thing" and "you cannot build a stallmon it can't kill easily" or "you can build a stallmon it can't kill easily, but the only thing that stallmon does is check/counter that one threat". I'm fine with the former, even if it can be frustrating to face. The latter two points are bad.
----
To expand a bit on my point about Illusion: I think Illusion is damaging to the skill component of the game. Since there's no way of knowing whether the opponent even has Illusion on their team or not, there's basically two strategies you can employ regarding Illusion.
Strategy 1: Ignore it until it crops up.
Problem: When it crops up, it will basically always KO or cripple a Pokemon, barring blind luck in terms of you making a decision that happens to be the right one, having nothing to do with any personal competency on your part.
Strategy 2: Assume everything you're facing is Illusion until proven otherwise. Always open with a Protect lead, Fake Out lead, etc, in an attempt to determine whether the thing in front of you is an Illusion or not.
Problem: Severely compromises your viability when not faced with an Illusion. Less conservative strategies are also effectively shifting the game toward luck, in that either your opponent is an Illusion and your guess is on target, or they're not (Or they are, but a different Pokemon than you think), and you're screwed over, with no way for you to utilize real prediction, and as a result no way for your opponent to meaningfully predict you.
In Standard, Illusion is fine because Zoroark is underwhelming. In Inheritance the Illusion can be something with just ridiculous firepower on call, horribly punishing a misplay that you have no way of knowing can be a misplay.
I really think Illusion is unhealthy for the same sort of reason RNG-stuff is unhealthy, because in a more roundabout way dealing with it amounts to "get lucky or always suffer from it".
And to add on to Ghoul King's points about Illusion, inheriting from Zoroark is no hardship at all as you get Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball, Focus Blast, Extrasensory, Flamethrower, Grass Knot, Sucker Punch, Knock Off, Low Kick and Taunt.
I really feel like Illusion might become a problem once people really start using it a lot. As stated it can pretty much just come out of nowhere because anything can inherit from it. This is contrary to OU or regular tiers where you can see Zoroark at team preview, knowing that you have to watch out for possible 'illusions'.
Althought I'm not really convinced there needs to be any bans aside from maybe Illusion or even Protean, there is something I want to point out. If someone is saying they found a counter/check to a pokemon, this actually means they found a counter to the most used set(s) of that particular pokemon. However, someone may find another set of that same pokemon (inheriting from another pokemon) that can destroy said counter/check and thus making the first person's statement false. But does this mean that 'counter' isn't viable as a counter to that pokemon?
For example: Suicune, Suicune can check most of Landorus-T's sets, from Aerilate to Speed Boost or even inheriting from Rayquaza. So, you have Suicune on your team, the other has his Landorus out. You think: Alright, let's just switch in Suicune, it can handle it pretty well. NOPE, it's Landorus-T inheriting from Victini and it bops you with Bolt Strike. Gone is your Suicune. This is something that probably won't ever happen but this is what is being said as argument (to an extent). I could say right now my SpD Mandibuzz counters Hoopa, while Hoopa can easily inherit Thunderbolt and bop it. But have you seen stallbreaking Hoopa running Thunderbolt ever? I have yet to encounter it and if I encounter one of those, I'll probably lose with my stall team. But any time it is not that Hoopa, I'll be able to handle it. Just like the fact you can run Leaf Blade M-Medicham. Yeah, they can run it, but I have never seen anybody using it and I don't blame them. "Oh, well I'm running Leaf Blade on my M-Medicham because that way M-Slowbro can't wall it", is not something I would see many people say. Sableye-Mega functions pretty well as a counter to M-Medicham as well, but I'm sure someone can come up with a set that easily 2HKO's M-Sableye.
So, in a nutshell: Different pokemon can run different sets inheriting from different pokemon. Stall chooses which pokemon and which sets it wants to counter. This is something stall has to do in any metagame (the main difference here is that everything is less predictable) and if it would not have to do that and just pick 6 mons which as a whole could counter any given pokemon with any given set, stall would be unbreakable, overpowered and uncounterable. Stall is not unviable.
Also, I want to mention, while some pokemon need to drop certain moves for others (or even whole sets because there isn't something like a 'perfect donor') because they want to be able to break certain stuff and 1 particular pokemon cannot offer them both at the same time, Protean does not have that problem to an extent. They can run specific moves to break the counters they want while still being pretty viable overall. Kecleon and Greninja's movepool is so wide and diverse and this as well as being very unpredictable overall (the fact that almost any pokemon with offensive presence can run it) is what makes Protean so broken, not the fact that it is Protean.
Althought I'm not really convinced there needs to be any bans aside from maybe Illusion or even Protean, there is something I want to point out. If someone is saying they found a counter/check to a pokemon, this actually means they found a counter to the most used set(s) of that particular pokemon. However, someone may find another set of that same pokemon (inheriting from another pokemon) that can destroy said counter/check and thus making the first person's statement false. But does this mean that 'counter' isn't viable as a counter to that pokemon?
For example: Suicune, Suicune can check most of Landorus-T's sets, from Aerilate to Speed Boost or even inheriting from Rayquaza. So, you have Suicune on your team, the other has his Landorus out. You think: Alright, let's just switch in Suicune, it can handle it pretty well. NOPE, it's Landorus-T inheriting from Victini and it bops you with Bolt Strike. Gone is your Suicune. This is something that probably won't ever happen but this is what is being said as argument (to an extent). I could say right now my SpD Mandibuzz counters Hoopa, while Hoopa can easily inherit Thunderbolt and bop it. But have you seen stallbreaking Hoopa running Thunderbolt ever? I have yet to encounter it and if I encounter one of those, I'll probably lose with my stall team. But any time it is not that Hoopa, I'll be able to handle it. Just like the fact you can run Leaf Blade M-Medicham. Yeah, they can run it, but I have never seen anybody using it and I don't blame them. "Oh, well I'm running Leaf Blade on my M-Medicham because that way M-Slowbro can't wall it", is not something I would see many people say. Sableye-Mega functions pretty well as a counter to M-Medicham as well, but I'm sure someone can come up with a set that easily 2HKO's M-Sableye.
So, in a nutshell: Different pokemon can run different sets inheriting from different pokemon. Stall chooses which pokemon and which sets it wants to counter. This is something stall has to do in any metagame (the main difference here is that everything is less predictable) and if it would not have to do that and just pick 6 mons which as a whole could counter any given pokemon with any given set, stall would be unbreakable, overpowered and uncounterable. Stall is not unviable.
Also, I want to mention, while some pokemon need to drop certain moves for others (or even whole sets because there isn't something like a 'perfect donor') because they want to be able to break certain stuff and 1 particular pokemon cannot offer them both at the same time, Protean does not have that problem to an extent. They can run specific moves to break the counters they want while still being pretty viable overall. Kecleon and Greninja's movepool is so wide and diverse and this as well as being very unpredictable overall (the fact that almost any pokemon with offensive presence can run it) is what makes Protean so broken, not the fact that it is Protean.
If only mega audino doesn't have such a shit ability, then you can use that to wall protean and hoopa but alas it does not seem like game freak likes stall
Actually, Mega-Audino can be a check to Hoopa:
252+ SpA Life Orb Adaptability Hoopa Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Audino: 172-203 (41.9 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
It can run Flash Cannon (inheriting from Reuniclus) tho:
252+ SpA Life Orb Hoopa Flash Cannon vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Audino: 229-270 (55.8 - 65.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
But yeah, don't use Mega-Audino. ;)
Dude, of course one pokemon isn't going to wall every hoopa set in existence. That's a given in a meta like inheritence. No need to show every niche move hoopa can run to try and prove me over wise.
Other than that, theses calcs are pretty interesting, so basically a non adapt hoopa is walled by ff escavalier (which isn't a niche mon at all). And pretty much any hoopa is walled by meloetta (or even better, regenvest meloetta) with a bit of defense investement.
What's that you say? Meloetta only has special offense?
0 Atk Meloetta Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Hoopa: 340-404 (112.9 - 134.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
You need a base 60 attack to kill hoppa on a non stab knock off, I don't think managing to kill hoopa is the issue here.
Yes there are some overpowered stuff, but hoopa feels like it's a really good stallbreaker, but still manageable with sets that aren't completely unreasonable or specific to this particular mon.
Unlike gyarados.
Tbh, there are way more things making offense hard to play than things making stall hard to play and they are way more common making stall / some kind of balance arguably the better playstyle currently.
A really awesome battle I just had!
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290541451
This was a really intense one, great job to my opponent! Just a little something to show off my team, both for their successes and flaws. Really enjoying Rampardos and Jolteon, I have to say
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290541451
This was a really intense one, great job to my opponent! Just a little something to show off my team, both for their successes and flaws. Really enjoying Rampardos and Jolteon, I have to say
bp scrub
rub a dub dub one scrub in a tub
lol shittyass team with all 6 pokemon having hustle
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290582895
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290583902
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290582895
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290583902
One thing I've been having a lot of fun and success with is Sub-Punch Metagross, inheriting from Kecleon.
The set I've been using looks like this:
Metagross @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Tail
I find that Metagross gets a ridiculous amount of opportunities to sub, often made by its bulk and resistances, forced switches, or random slow defensive shit trying to burn or para it. Focus Punch and Sucker Punch are two of the strongest moves in the game to be firing off from behind a sub, and thanks to Protean, Metagross gets STAB on both of them. STAB Focus Punch coming off LO 135 base Atk Adamant is an absolute nuke which is almost guaranteed to go off once you have sub up, guaranteed to OHKO pre mega Diancie (50/150 Def). In fact I don't think anything can avoid the 2HKO from a neutral F-Punch (Unless they're running some ability like Multiscale or Fur Coat, note however that Substitute blocks Intimidate). Sucker Punch is also really strong from behind Sub because they are forced to attack you in order to break the Sub, and gives you really strong priority capable of finishing off a lot of offensive mons from as high as 80%ish. Iron Tail rounds out the set by giving you perfect neutral coverage, and bopping Fairy types. Overall though just the mind games of if they attack they cop Sucker Punch, and if they don't they cop Focus Punch are extremely fun to play with and rewarding when pulled off.
I know that this is just one replay but it really shows off how strong this set can be if you play it well with good predictions.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290261009
Also no pressure or anything, but I was just curious as to roughly how far off the updated Viability Rankings are?
The set I've been using looks like this:
Metagross @ Life Orb
Ability: Protean
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Substitute
- Focus Punch
- Sucker Punch
- Iron Tail
I find that Metagross gets a ridiculous amount of opportunities to sub, often made by its bulk and resistances, forced switches, or random slow defensive shit trying to burn or para it. Focus Punch and Sucker Punch are two of the strongest moves in the game to be firing off from behind a sub, and thanks to Protean, Metagross gets STAB on both of them. STAB Focus Punch coming off LO 135 base Atk Adamant is an absolute nuke which is almost guaranteed to go off once you have sub up, guaranteed to OHKO pre mega Diancie (50/150 Def). In fact I don't think anything can avoid the 2HKO from a neutral F-Punch (Unless they're running some ability like Multiscale or Fur Coat, note however that Substitute blocks Intimidate). Sucker Punch is also really strong from behind Sub because they are forced to attack you in order to break the Sub, and gives you really strong priority capable of finishing off a lot of offensive mons from as high as 80%ish. Iron Tail rounds out the set by giving you perfect neutral coverage, and bopping Fairy types. Overall though just the mind games of if they attack they cop Sucker Punch, and if they don't they cop Focus Punch are extremely fun to play with and rewarding when pulled off.
I know that this is just one replay but it really shows off how strong this set can be if you play it well with good predictions.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/inheritance-290261009
Also no pressure or anything, but I was just curious as to roughly how far off the updated Viability Rankings are?
Viability rankings sill be worked on today at six, UK time (seven hours from now). If you want to help, be on then!
I was spectating a match between AJA and Angry2 (I don't know what his name is on the forum) and Angry2 was running Tornadus-T with this set:
Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Big Pecks/Keen eye/Tangled Feet
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Chatter
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
(I could be wrong with the EV spread but SpA was fully invested)
In this battle, the only thing AJA could do with his stall-ish team was to let Tornadus-T die from its own recoil damage by switchin between his Unaware Aegislash and Regenvest Goodra. We agreed that if Tornadus was packing the Leftovers over the Life orb, he would have been hax'd to death prob.
While I don't have a replay of that match, I do have a replay of the match me and Angry2 had afterwards. He with only Tornadus-T (now packing the leftovers) and me with a full stall-team of 6. I did have sort of a solution to it setting up any Nasty Plots in my Prankster Mandibuzz with Taunt/Haze but even then he manages to hax it to death as well as my Chansey which he could set-up on because I could not get enough Night Shades off. After that I sent my Suicune in and because he was not behind a sub I could kill it with Ice Beam. If I would have hit myself in confusion that one turn, I could've prob lost and yes, it did not happen, but it still took down 2 pokemon (one which could prevent it from setting up and the other being the one and only Chansey). If he would've had a full team, this could have cost me the game as he could have had something else only my Chansey can wall.
Here is the replay: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/inheritance-290639936
While those 2 battles were happening (and between them), we were discussing why we would ban or not ban Chatter. He (Angry2) was against a ban and I was for. We came to the conclusion that no matter what, there would be people hatin'. 1) If you ban it, people will hate the meta for the fact something got banned that wasn't even the most broken thing in it and 2) If you don't ban it, people will hate the meta because things like Chatter do run around. Also, if we ban Chatter, things like Zap Cannon and Dynamic Punch should go as well because they are also uncompetitive.
On this topic, there is no good solution, only bad ones. We just need to determine which solution is less worse. I'm still on the side of banning it, as I personally don't care that much about the length of the banlist, more about uncompetitive stuff, but I know there are people that put the banlist-length higher on there priority list than uncompetitiveness.
Tornadus-Therian (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Big Pecks/Keen eye/Tangled Feet
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Heat Wave
- Chatter
- Substitute
- Nasty Plot
(I could be wrong with the EV spread but SpA was fully invested)
In this battle, the only thing AJA could do with his stall-ish team was to let Tornadus-T die from its own recoil damage by switchin between his Unaware Aegislash and Regenvest Goodra. We agreed that if Tornadus was packing the Leftovers over the Life orb, he would have been hax'd to death prob.
While I don't have a replay of that match, I do have a replay of the match me and Angry2 had afterwards. He with only Tornadus-T (now packing the leftovers) and me with a full stall-team of 6. I did have sort of a solution to it setting up any Nasty Plots in my Prankster Mandibuzz with Taunt/Haze but even then he manages to hax it to death as well as my Chansey which he could set-up on because I could not get enough Night Shades off. After that I sent my Suicune in and because he was not behind a sub I could kill it with Ice Beam. If I would have hit myself in confusion that one turn, I could've prob lost and yes, it did not happen, but it still took down 2 pokemon (one which could prevent it from setting up and the other being the one and only Chansey). If he would've had a full team, this could have cost me the game as he could have had something else only my Chansey can wall.
Here is the replay: http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/inheritance-290639936
While those 2 battles were happening (and between them), we were discussing why we would ban or not ban Chatter. He (Angry2) was against a ban and I was for. We came to the conclusion that no matter what, there would be people hatin'. 1) If you ban it, people will hate the meta for the fact something got banned that wasn't even the most broken thing in it and 2) If you don't ban it, people will hate the meta because things like Chatter do run around. Also, if we ban Chatter, things like Zap Cannon and Dynamic Punch should go as well because they are also uncompetitive.
On this topic, there is no good solution, only bad ones. We just need to determine which solution is less worse. I'm still on the side of banning it, as I personally don't care that much about the length of the banlist, more about uncompetitive stuff, but I know there are people that put the banlist-length higher on there priority list than uncompetitiveness.
xJownage
Even pendulums swing both ways
The problem with banning chatter is pretty simple and you touched on it already: it sets an unfair precedent towards other similar moves. If we are banning something without extreme effectiveness because it's RNG based, we suddenly are forced to ban things like dynamicpunch and prankster confuse ray, the latter doing similar things chatter does if used correctly anyways. Banning chatter is certainly still a viable option though.
Seeing that it actually will 6-0 stall when used right makes me think it might be worth the precedent to set.
Seeing that it actually will 6-0 stall when used right makes me think it might be worth the precedent to set.
Funbot28
Banned deucer.
In the OP
Random concept for an offensive core:
Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch / Knock Off
Hoopa @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Dazzling Gleam
Diancie inherits from Absol, Hoopa inherits from Sigilyph. Tinted Lens Hoopa is an incredible wallbreaker, easily 2HKOing Heatran and Meloetta and crippling potential walls with Trick. Meanwhile, Diancie can switch in on Knock Offs aimed for Hoopa and trigger Justified, threatening offense with its newly boosted STABS and Sucker Punch/Knock Off.
Incidentally, while I was rooting around for possible sets for Hoopa I stumbled across the fact that Jynx gets Dry Skin in conjunction with NP/Shadow Ball/Psyshock/Coverage or Lovely Kiss. Could be kind of interesting for using Hoopa's nice SDef for a bulky rain check.
Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Justified
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Play Rough
- Stone Edge
- Swords Dance
- Sucker Punch / Knock Off
Hoopa @ Choice Specs
Ability: Tinted Lens
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpA / 8 Spe
Modest Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Dazzling Gleam
Diancie inherits from Absol, Hoopa inherits from Sigilyph. Tinted Lens Hoopa is an incredible wallbreaker, easily 2HKOing Heatran and Meloetta and crippling potential walls with Trick. Meanwhile, Diancie can switch in on Knock Offs aimed for Hoopa and trigger Justified, threatening offense with its newly boosted STABS and Sucker Punch/Knock Off.
Incidentally, while I was rooting around for possible sets for Hoopa I stumbled across the fact that Jynx gets Dry Skin in conjunction with NP/Shadow Ball/Psyshock/Coverage or Lovely Kiss. Could be kind of interesting for using Hoopa's nice SDef for a bulky rain check.
You'll note that I haven't been positing sets that make any real sacrifices to the Pokemon's core functionality. Landorus-Therian inheriting from Victini has no STAB moves of any competency. That's basically a lure set. Hoopa running a coverage move while still having Nasty Plot, Shadow Ball, and Psyshock is not remotely equivalent: it makes no sacrifices, or very minor sacrifices (Swapping out Adaptability for Regenerator, say) to achieve this result.
In Hoopa's case, my concern is that if you don't have a Dark type, it can break your wall, because of how hideously powerful its Psyshock is. If you do have a Dark type...
252+ SpA Life Orb Hoopa Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Umbreon: 250-296 (63.4 - 75.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
... this is the bulkiest possible Unaware Dark type Special wall. But let's look at Mandibuzz.
252+ SpA Life Orb Hoopa Dazzling Gleam vs. 248 HP / 252 SpD Mandibuzz: 229-270 (54.1 - 63.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Now, of course, any given Hoopa can only kill one or the other, assuming the Nasty Plot set, but this is exceedingly narrow constraints for having any shot of a stall team being able to beat Nasty Plot Hoopa.
252+ SpA Life Orb Protean Hoopa Dark Pulse vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Assault Vest Meloetta: 172-203 (42.5 - 50.2%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
I'll admit this is more of an argument for Protean being stupid than Hoopa being stupid, but Specially Defensive Meloetta must be Assault Vest to be able to switch in on and survive Hoopa inheriting from Greninja (Oh, and it still has a .04% chance of being 2HKOed anyway), and then it can't KO Hoopa because it's not doubly weak to Knock Off anymore.
Also, with no investment -though it's Kecleon as the donor in this scenario- Hoopa can do this:
0 Atk Life Orb Protean Hoopa Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Meloetta: 351-416 (86.8 - 102.9%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
to your Assault Vest Meloetta.
I'm not talking niche builds being able to kill a stallmon. I'm talking "let's build a dedicated counter and then switch it in and they OHKO or cripple my dedicated counter while running a highly viable, powerful set that made no real sacrifices to achieve this result".
I get that Inheritance is diverse and there's always going to be the possibility they inherited a really weird set that happens to murder your counter set, or is even explicitly built to lure in and kill your set. There's a reason the term 'lure' even exists within competitive Pokemon. But there's a world of difference between "I can't counter every conceivable set this Pokemon can run because it's Inheritance" (Yeah, sure, fair enough) and "There's no way to simultaneously counter more than one or two of its dozen+ sets that are insanely powerful and make no substantial sacrifices to instantly destroy my dedicated counter." Exactly how is the latter healthy?
Prankster Confuse Ray can be switch-stalled if no hazards are up and made to backfire with Magic Bounce and Magic Coat. It's not remotely equivalent to using Chatter to get a Nasty Plot that you can abuse with Chatter to get more Nasty Plots to create more powerful Chatters.
Dynamic Punch might actually be worth the ban, since inheriting from Machamp gives you reliable Dynamic Punch and Knock Off, making Ghosts an extreme unsafe switch-in and everything else trying to switch in basically luck-based as to whether it's a valid switch-in. You'd basically need a Physically bulky Regenerator Fairy to absorb the damage from something like Terrakion inheriting from Machamp, to have a reasonably safe switch-in. Or be forced to inherit from one of the Own Tempo Pokemon.
I've already said my piece on Chatter itself.
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Having been disappointed with Chansey inheriting from Xatu, I shopped around for other Magic Bouncers that could heal. I ended up inheriting from Espeon, expecting to abandon it in disgust in short order, just like Xatu.
Espeon Chansey is amazing.
It can switch in on most stallmons and the vast majority of Special attackers, Wish, and then Baton Pass to react to the enemy's switch (Or lack thereof) if I'm not confident a manual switch is safe. By far the biggest implication of this is safe Wish-passing. If my relevant Unaware wall is so badly mauled it can't actually switch into a Special setup sweeper, or worse yet so badly mauled I can't even sacrifice something and revenge with it, Chansey can ensure it comes in on full health without being hurt anyway. Espeon also provides the ever-valuable Heal Bell, and the fact that Wish is slow isn't even a problem: I can Wishtect, and Protect is itself useful for burning PP on low PP moves, scouting for possible Trick or Knock Off attempts, or waiting out temporary effects such as Sandstorm.
The result isn't even really Taunt bait, because they need Mold Breaker to get past Magic Bounce, and Mold Breaker Taunt A: isn't that popular and B: isn't a surprise. (Because Mold Breaker announces itself) Plus, most Mold Breaker Taunters are Physical attackers you shouldn't be switching Chansey into anyway. Mega Ampharos is really the only exception, and I haven't actually seen it yet.
It can even stall out the PP of most non-Choice Specs Desolate Land/Primordial Sea Eruption/Water Spout spam via Wishtecting.
252+ SpA Heatran Eruption (150 BP) vs. 4 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey in Harsh Sunshine: 207-244 (32.2 - 38%) -- 95.8% chance to 3HKO
It's a fairly passive Pokemon, but I can even see it being used on more offensive teams as a way to, for instance, safely bring in more fragile Scarfers, bounce enemy hazards, clear major status problems, and maybe even extend the life of your Pokemon via Wish. I dunno. It's great stuff for stall, anyway.
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