Doubles Overview, Benchmarks, and Q&A Thread—Read before asking!

[Checkmater]

What are some thoughts on Mega Venusaur and its current place in the metagame? How exactly do you build Mega Venusaur? I usually just try Venu + a huge number of checks to fires while ignoring rain weaknesses (because I have venu), and then I worry about Kang a little and deal with that with like Intimidates + Fighting types. Any interesting options / team choices?

 

[xzern]

What are some thoughts on Mega Venusaur and its current place in the metagame? How exactly do you build Mega Venusaur? I usually just try Venu + a huge number of checks to fires while ignoring rain weaknesses (because I have venu), and then I worry about Kang a little and deal with that with like Intimidates + Fighting types. Any interesting options / team choices?

I like mega venusaur a lot. He's a great mega to use and build around. Nobody really prepares for mega venusaur, so they might use volcanion or infernape or something as their grass check instead of talonflame when those two arent foolproof checks to venusaur like they are to amoonguss.

This is one of my venusaur teams, which uses the core of venusaur + kyurem. A really nice core if you ask me. Something that ive noticed is that mega venusaur teams are usually forced to be a bit on the bulky side to take full advantage of venusaur's walling and tanking abilities against so many relevant mons (thundurus, landorus, rotom, volcanion.) The goal of this team is to kill all of the mons that can deal heavy damage to venusaur so that it can stall out the rest of the team with leech seed or synthesis.

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

with mega venu fire types are not my main concern. its Latios, gard, kyrurm, Talon who are the most threating. which you cant cover with one mon.
but Scarf Lando does best vs all them. Strong EQ for Gard, uturn for latios, super power for kyurem, rock slide for talon.
so you need another ground immune which is why I like gengar because with full HP and a sash he does well vs all of them except kyurem. and thundy obviously good

interesting options are scarf ttar. he survives hypervoice from gard and OHKO with iron head after sand damage. crunches latios. best talon check in the game. and with rockslide/low kick hes by no means dead weight vs kyurem.

other interesting choice for mega venu is HP ground, catches heatrans off guard.

 

[kaori]

Me and MajorBowman have both used Venu teams to success in DPL/Seasonals, I don't know what Jake uses in seasonals but I'm 5-1 with my team in DPL/Seasonals and he was 2-0 in DPL with his. I really think Venu is a fantastic Mega with really good team options.

My team:

I've also been trying Hydreigon over Entei with mostly positive results.

Bowmans:

Feel free to fill out sets on these and deviate a bit from them, I think the concepts are really good and Venu is heavily underused.

 

[boxofkangaroos]

Why is Clefable unranked while Clefairy is?

 

[talkingtree]

Clefairy has access to Friend Guard and Eviolite, which makes it functionally slightly bulkier than Clefable.

 

[Bughouse]

There are only 2 particular reasons to use Clefable over Clefairy (because of the aforementioned reasons that Clefairy is generally better). 1) Unaware lets it redirect +6 Aqua Jets from Azumarill as unboosted attacks, which also slightly helps against Kanga, though Clef doesn't like Kanga either way. 2) It's less taunt bait. Clefable's Moonblast/Ice Beam at least does /some/ damage, unlike Clefairy.

In reality though, both Clefairy and Clefable are pretty vastly outclassed by Amoonguss and Jirachi, and probably even Togekiss too, unless you really can't afford another rock/electric/ice weakness.

 

[BlueSkiddo]

There are only 2 particular reasons to use Clefable over Clefairy (because of the aforementioned reasons that Clefairy is generally better). 1) Unaware lets it redirect +6 Aqua Jets from Azumarill as unboosted attacks, which also slightly helps against Kanga, though Clef doesn't like Kanga either way. 2) It's less taunt bait. Clefable's Moonblast/Ice Beam at least does /some/ damage, unlike Clefairy.

In reality though, both Clefairy and Clefable are pretty vastly outclassed by Amoonguss and Jirachi, and probably even Togekiss too, unless you really can't afford another rock/electric/ice weakness.

Don't forget that clefable can run safety goggles to provide sleep immunity. That is, imo, one of the big reasons it's better than clefairy.

 

[Bughouse]

honestly if you really need to prevent sleep and you're dead set on Clefable, you're probably better off with Magic Guard Flame Orb. Also prevents Paras and Freezes as well as being a nice thing to switch into the rare Trick.

 

[hublo]

Hi, I'm trying to get in this metagame, I've got a technical question: in the role compendium thread is it possible to highlight the pic of the pokemon? Sort of what we usually do with shift+f3 to look for words in a text?

 

[BlueSkiddo]

Hi, I'm trying to get in this metagame, I've got a technical question: in the role compendium thread is it possible to highlight the pic of the pokemon? Sort of what we usually do with shift+f3 to look for words in a text?

I'm not quite sure how that would work because you can't search for image url's like you can words in text. I really like the idea if anyone knows how you could do it though. I do know that the url's for each sprite is the same except for a number, which corresponds to each pokemon's pokedex number, and if it's a mega it's the pokedex number then "-m". That would not be very difficult to search for if there was a way to search through the url's.

 

[talkingtree]

I know that PS! lets you search for the name and it will highlight the relevant Pokemon sprite, so I'll see what I can do to replicate that effect for the roles compendium thread.

EDIT: Zarel has it set up so that each sprite has a caption of its name in 0pt font, which isn't something that I can do on forums. I'll see if there's an easier way to make them searchable but for now I'm stuck.

 

[Checkmater]

So there's something I've been having a lot of trouble understanding about the doubles community

Everyone always says Majorbowman is a Sam alt but what if Sam is a Majorbowman alt? How do we know?

Please respond soon I need to sleep in an hour or so and this keeps me up at night

 

[MajorBowman]

 

[sam-testings]

If you are interested in LC doubles, come over to gracidea.psim.us/littlecup where we have set up LC Doubles as a playable tier! We are in the LC room if you want to chat and play with others. LC doubles is a pretty fun tier, so I hope you come and check it out =)

 

[VCrakeV]

I've been running into issues in both DOU and DUU, strategies I can't counter. These are ones that center around nerfing your 'mons to shit (state lowers and status) while setting up an indestructible wall or a super sweeper. Stuff like double intimidate, thunder wave, baton pass setup, wil-o-wisp, snarl, and, last but not least, shadow tag. This cluster fuck of infuriating tactics are what stops me from laddering... how do I counter them? Is state boosting/nerfing common enough to Warrenton haze? What about heal bell and such?

 

[Platinum God n1n1]

This cluster fuck of infuriating tactics are what stops me from laddering

ladder sucks. dont ladder.
but you should know how to deal with these things

Stuff like double intimidate - always make sure you account for landoT on your teams with at least one counter and one switch-in preferably more if possible. Such as a LandoT of your own or another intimidate mon like Gyarados or scrafty; Wide Guard checks LandoT. Other good mons vs LandoT are bulky waters particularly RotomWash. Also if double intimidate is a huge problem you probably have too many physical attackers.

thunder wave - have an electric and/or ground mon to switch in. also have a slow mon that doesnt mind taking a Twave like Amoonguss. have a mon with guts like Conkeldurr

baton pass setup - hyper offense prevents them from getting into position to set up. Taunt is easy check. Unorthodox counters are haze and roar/whirlwind.

wil-o-wisp - 90% of your teams should have a fire mon. and if you have a fire mon and you still have wisp problems you may have too many physical attackers

snarl - I'm guessing that the problem is more that you are unable to take out snarl users such as suicune. always have ways to beat bulky waters if suciune is a problem

shadow tag - hyper offense, uturn/volt switch, taunt. bring your own mega gengar.


after you play for long enough you will have mental check list of things you need to beat and building a solid team that doesnt have terrible match ups vs these things will not be difficult

 

[DarkKnight2.6]

will everything be unbanned at the release of sun/moon or do we keep the same banlist to start?

 

[kamikaze]

will everything be unbanned at the release of sun/moon or do we keep the same banlist to start?

this is under discussion and nothing is finalized yet. you will probably hear more about it leading up to release.

 

[BetaSierraPoster]

How well does stall work in OU Doubles?

 

[sam-testings]

How well does stall work in OU Doubles?

Not that well. The abundance of hard hitting mons such as Mega Kangaskhan and Mega Charizards that are popular in this tier make stall virtually unviable. The format itself also does not exactly help stall thrive because offensive teams can simply have both mons target one mon to kill it or leave it severely weakened.

 

[Test Bot #]

How well does stall work in OU Doubles?

Although not entirely popular, Stealth Rock is the most common "Hazard" that you can use, especially on a team that is weak to Mega Charizard or Talonflame. With the addition of a Mon that knows Leech Seed (Mega Venusaur or Ferrothorn), you sensibly have a way to "stall" your opponents, and this is only possible due to their lack of weaknesses + bulk. You can also use Will-O-Wisp, Thunder Wave, Sleep Powder / Spore, & Intimidate to further your "stallish" pressure against your opponents. However, I don't recommend using Mons such as Chansey, Mega Sableye, & Shedinja as they are easily eliminated as explained by Sam-testings. Remember, the offensive pressure in this Meta-Game is much stronger, so you must play that much more cautiously. I recommend using moves such as Follow Me / Rage Powder, Wide Guard / Quick Guard, or even Fake Out to support the team's defensive needs. And obviously, you need STAB moves of your own; Taunt is very common. Just don't try to use anything silly like Spikes and Toxic.

You'll never get use Single's strategy of stall, but this is the closest you'll get with "stalling".

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-442086569 (Leech Seed Mega Venu + Stealth Rock Jirchi)
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/doublesou-448746059 (Leech Seed Mega Venu + Stealth Rock Jirchi + Will-O-Wisp Rotom-W)

 

[Hashtag]

http://pastebin.com/61JLzNmy

have fun my dude
i think i went 21-0 w this squad?

edit at below: hes right of course

 

[Idyll]

Against bad-to-average players?

For the sake of having actual content, no, Stall the team archetype is not viable in Doubles play because of the format's inherent offensive nature. Some mons such as Ferrothorn can "stall" out some foes and you can burn some turns for wisp damaage, etc, but that's more about taking advantage of situations and matchups than anything else.

 

[peere]

From what I've seen, it looks like Pokemon like Scrafty or Hitmontop run Detect instead of Protect. For what reason is Detect better?