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Elo menas nothing. GXE is something you should look for. From 70 GXE you are decent, 80 is really nice.
However ladder is still joke (people with stall, probably worst playstyle are 1# ;_;) and if you want to prove yourself you should look forward tournaments.
I've always seen ladder and tournaments as completely different, can't even say one is inherently better than another but a lot of the really good players are tournament players do I guess it is a bit better.
I quit League a while ago, but it's like how solo queue is completely different then LCS because one is based off of how well you can carry as an individual and the other is how well you can perform as a team and thus completely different comps are viable and unviable.
It's similar in Pokemon, one is based off of how consistent a team is in teams that aren't designed to counter yours, while in tournaments it's based off of being able to combine use of things like surprise factor and using a crap ton of teams and how well you can utilize them.
Question: Is it necessary to have a wincon on your team? I use teams w/o a setup sweeper, and I achieve victory a good portion of the time (my GXE proves it). Yet when I talk to people about improving my teams and how I issue commands, there's always that one guy who criticizes my lack of a wincon, and that other guy who's cool with the lack thereof.
I'm kinda confused. Is it optimal, recommended, or outright needed to have some kind of wincon on your team? Because if it's optimal, then obviously I should try and include one.
Question: Is it necessary to have a wincon on your team? I use teams w/o a setup sweeper, and I achieve victory a good portion of the time (my GXE proves it). Yet when I talk to people about improving my teams and how I issue commands, there's always that one guy who criticizes my lack of a wincon, and that other guy who's cool with the lack thereof.
I'm kinda confused. Is it optimal, recommended, or outright needed to have some kind of wincon on your team? Because if it's optimal, then obviously I should try and include one.
It's highly recommended and can make teams a lot more consistent in the long run, although a wincon doesn't always have to be a setup sweeper, it can also be like scarf lando who can clean up when ground resists are gone.
Question: Is it necessary to have a wincon on your team? I use teams w/o a setup sweeper, and I achieve victory a good portion of the time (my GXE proves it). Yet when I talk to people about improving my teams and how I issue commands, there's always that one guy who criticizes my lack of a wincon, and that other guy who's cool with the lack thereof.
I'm kinda confused. Is it optimal, recommended, or outright needed to have some kind of wincon on your team? Because if it's optimal, then obviously I should try and include one.
It makes it easy to have a set up for a Pokemon to work better on a team.
But I disagree with the concept of having a win con at team building.
With a pool as big as what we have in ORAS a wincon is figured out at team preview, also several wincon can be meet through a match if X mon is removed the opposing player can't touch this, if this Pokémon is removed this mon wins, do how do I preserve my wincon and force out the other player win deterrent.
I consider each match up wincon completely dependent of who am I facing, not on team building, yes even when I'm using a Excadrill Ttar Serperior core, traditionally Excadrill would be the aim of this build, but with opponents weakened scarf Ttar stone edge is not a joke and a serperior at +2 can end the game, so I leave the term wincon to my opponent team to decide.
This is gonna be a tall order, just warning ya'll.
How does one eliminate what I consider to be the Seven Major Breeds of Stall -- more specifically, is there a way to construct one team that can work past all Seven? If that's too tall of an order, then just give me a rough outline of a core/team that can work around the more dominant breeds of Stall.
For reference, here are the Seven Major Breeds of Stall I was talking about.
(borrowing a laptop, just copy and pasted teams owner already had, don't mind the nicknames, he absolutely hates Stall – reason he gave nicknames was because we have mock battles and he comes at me w/ Stall so that I can see where to improve)
Corruptor (Sableye) @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Fake Out
Infested Talonflame (Talonflame)
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Acrobatics
- Roost
- Bulk Up
- Will-O-Wisp
By the way, if you're up to answering a second question, please do: why do people hate the Stall? Granted, I don't like losing to it, but why do people actually hate it to the point of declaring it cancer? Is it PTSD, or the taunting way Chansey and Quagsire smile at you? I'm honestly curious, especially considering that users such as ABR, playerW17, Orda-X, and DJ Trump all work for the Stall, and no one criticizes them; they even get praised for contributing such "cancer" teams.
This is gonna be a tall order, just warning ya'll.
How does one eliminate what I consider to be the Seven Major Breeds of Stall -- more specifically, is there a way to construct one team that can work past all Seven? If that's too tall of an order, then just give me a rough outline of a core/team that can work around the more dominant breeds of Stall.
For reference, here are the Seven Major Breeds of Stall I was talking about.
(borrowing a laptop, just copy and pasted teams owner already had, don't mind the nicknames, he absolutely hates Stall – reason he gave nicknames was because we have mock battles and he comes at me w/ Stall so that I can see where to improve)
Corruptor (Sableye) @ Sablenite
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 248 HP / 112 Def / 144 SpD / 4 Spe
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Will-O-Wisp
- Recover
- Fake Out
Infested Talonflame (Talonflame)
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SpD / 8 Spe
Careful Nature
- Acrobatics
- Roost
- Bulk Up
- Will-O-Wisp
By the way, if you're up to answering a second question, please do: why do people hate the Stall? Granted, I don't like losing to it, but why do people actually hate it to the point of declaring it cancer? Is it PTSD, or the taunting way Chansey and Quagsire smile at you? I'm honestly curious, especially considering that users such as ABR, playerW17, Orda-X, and DJ Trump all work for the Stall, and no one criticizes them; they even get praised for contributing such "cancer" teams.
Volcanion + Pursuiter beats most of these teams, which is why BandTar + Volcanion is common. Chansey stops most of the special wallbreakers like Zard-Y, M-Diancie, and M-Garde steamrolling these teams. The ones that have trappers, with the exception of Dugtrio, still lose to the same stuff just need to play it differently. Branflakes stall team is weak to a lot and is only designed to handle common stuff from months ago, a simple lure is fine. Sub M-Hera puts a number on the builds that don't have Doublade and Clefable.
Second question is pretty subjective so not gonna answer that since there's no real facts to it other than tldr: people bitch.
It makes it easy to have a set up for a Pokemon to work better on a team.
But I disagree with the concept of having a win con at team building.
With a pool as big as what we have in ORAS a wincon is figured out at team preview, also several wincon can be meet through a match if X mon is removed the opposing player can't touch this, if this Pokémon is removed this mon wins, do how do I preserve my wincon and force out the other player win deterrent.
I consider each match up wincon completely dependent of who am I facing, not on team building, yes even when I'm using a Excadrill Ttar Serperior core, traditionally Excadrill would be the aim of this build, but with opponents weakened scarf Ttar stone edge is not a joke and a serperior at +2 can end the game, so I leave the term wincon to my opponent team to decide.
To further his point, a win con isn't something you need to team build around, it's just the Pokemon you use that the opposing team has a weakness to and your general goal should be using your Pokemon to weaken/remove the threats to allow for a clean victory at the end. It can be a stall team and your win con is Gliscor because their team only has Keldeo and Thundurus to answer it, so you focus them by baiting them out with hazards and having someone like Chesnaught and Zapdos to bait them out. It doesn't have to even be offensive, basically.
The necessity of these in a team is subjective general. One the one hand, you could argue that with certain types of builds wincons will be decided at team preview. However, there is also a counterargument that you are reducing the team's consistency by not building to increase the chance of a dedicated wincon to clean up. For example, if you build with Mega Charizard X as a dedicated wincon it could be argued that a build with Starmie, Spikes and offensive cores aimed at overwhelming things such as Landorus-T that give Mega Charizard X a headache would be more consistent than those which have Mega Charizard X as one of a few potential wincons that are dependent on team matchup. On offense, it is always better to aim to support a specific wincon because it makes it much more consistent due to being harder to prepare for 2 or 3 things which are all targetting similar Pokémon than it is to prepare for one targetting said things. However, with balance and semistall often being forced to function much more like a well-oiled piece of clockwork it can often be reliant on playing the matchup, and as such it is usually better to try and incorperate non-team-dependent wincons like Clefable if you are able to fit them without worrying too much if the build doesn't leave room for them (although you will usually be able to fit things like CM Slowbro/Slowking, Clefable etc. onto most balance builds generally) and to not be overly dependent on them so much as playing the matchup.
This is just my take on it though. I'm sure that different people have different standpoints regarding what it means to have a wincon on a team, but presonally I very rarely forgo one.
Defining wincons depend a lot of your matchup advantage (or disadvantage) so in order to determine what will be your wincon you would first have to take a look at your opponent team and see possible means of winning. For example: You have a scarf lando-t, facing an opponent with shaky ground resists. Your primary plan would be getting rid of x ground resist immunity then proceed to clean with Earthquake winning the match. Thats why metagame knowledge is such an important aspect while defining your win conditions cause making solid guesses on what your opponent could be running makes it easier to define them.
Some teams have clear cut Pokemon that can be defined as win conditions from the teambuilder (like on stall, there should a Pokemon or setup sweeper to win against opposing stall and counteract offensive pressure) and on offense where you could multiple setup sweepers supporting themselves for a common goal.
So yeah, take your time to look at your opponent team, try to identify sets and do your thing. Have fun!
Hello, my very first post ever in Smogon. Been quite a lurker for some time though. Anywho, glad to finally join up and such.
I've been entertainin' the idea of the move Attract for a bit. This is just all theorymon so bare with me for a bit. Since a few viable OU threats are single gender pre species only (Landorus-T, Latios, Tornadus-T, Thundurus, and MAYBE Nidoking for males and Chansey/Blissey, Latias, and MAYBE Mandibuzz), could it be possible that a few mons with genders be able to neutralize the said threats when they normally can't?
Now I know some arguments against this idea, so I've came up with some pros and cons of Attract usage. The biggest competitor would be Paralysis as a status so I will make note of that often.
Pros: No type immunity - Unlike Paralysis, Attract does not have a type immunity. Usually Paralysis inducin' moves are Electric types, so Ground-types are just as affect'd by Infatuation as any other type. Higher chance of inactivity - What it says on the tin. It's 50% for Full Infatuation vs 25% Full Paralysis. Goes through Substitute - Another big upside compare'd to paralysis inducin' moves. Bigger pool of users - Sure moves like Thunder Wave are very common, but Attract is as common as Protect and similar ilk.
Cons: Taunt - There's no moves with Infatuation as a secondary effect, so once a user is Taunt'd then the move is completely useless. Volatile Status - One of the biggest problem with the move, but at the same time this could turn a situation into a force-out or so. Gender dependent/Overspecialization - The second biggest problem that I can see. This can be seen as a move that's too specialize'd which would mean that it's a sub-optimal option. Of course there is that chance where yar foe's team did not consider which gender each member is and ya could profit big time, but again that's all up to chance. No Speed drop - Probably goes hand in hand with the Volatile Status issue and the main difference between Paralysis and Infatuation. Where Paralysis has the guarantee speed drop whilt Infatuation only has guarantee success on a few given species.
TL;DR
Is Attract a viable option to specifically deal with certain single gender species threats, given the differences between Infatuation and Paralysis?
Never, Attract is a joke move and is a waste of a moveslot, it depends so much on the opposing team because you don't know their genders and genderless pokemon are totally immune plus you spend a turn like that and don't know if the opposing switches and even if you hit them, it is still very luck dependant. Seriously, no way that move is ever going to be usable, how can you fit such a silly move on a pokemon's moveset? And doesn't matter, it would be still super mega luck dependant, you are never going to see Attract on a competitive moveset.
Never, Attract is a joke move and is a waste of a moveslot, it depends so much on the opposing team because you don't know their genders and genderless pokemon are totally immune plus you spend a turn like that and don't know if the opposing switches and even if you hit them, it is still very luck dependant. Seriously, no way that move is ever going to be usable, how can you fit such a silly move on a pokemon's moveset? And doesn't matter, it would be still super mega luck dependant, you are never going to see Attract on a competitive moveset.
i'm not a good competitive battler, so I ask: what reason is there for using mega alakazam?
all the times I have used him, he doesnt do much. i even managed to trace sheer force, but psychic still couldnt OHKO an inner focus dragonite or vaporeon. he just never does sufficient damage, and that's a really bad thing, because 9 times out of 10 he's going to get OHKO'd by any moderately powerful physical attack. am I doing something wrong?
for reference, this is the set I'm using:
Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Encore
I don't see how you are comparing a massively awful move that's ultra reliant on luck and the opposing's pokemon's gender and is a waste overall with a complementary coverage/lure move, EQ reliably beat Aegislash at +2 but it still gave you coverage against Heatran and rock types, Close Combat is used now because Aegislash is gone, Tyranitar is more common and it's good to deal neutral damage on pokemon like Skarmory and Rotom-W.
i'm not a good competitive battler, so I ask: what reason is there for using mega alakazam?
all the times I have used him, he doesnt do much. i even managed to trace sheer force, but psychic still couldnt OHKO an inner focus dragonite or vaporeon. he just never does sufficient damage, and that's a really bad thing, because 9 times out of 10 he's going to get OHKO'd by any moderately powerful physical attack. am I doing something wrong?
for reference, this is the set I'm using:
Alakazam @ Alakazite
Ability: Magic Guard
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Psychic
- Focus Blast
- Shadow Ball
- Encore
Mega Alakazam is quite great actually, it is ridiculously fast and hits fairly hard, i know that its physical defense is laughable but it's not its job to check those and it's good when it is against psychic weak pokemon like Amoonguss so it can try to wallbreak with Psychic or use the appropriate coverage move and psychic immunities/resists take heavy damage from Focus Blast/Shadow Ball or are downright 1HKOed, it outspeeds Tyranitar for example and beats with Focus Blast. Your set is pretty acceptable overall although Encore isn't the best last move on it, i'd use Calm Mind because with that it can take a sp. hit and try to sweep since its spA at +1 is really high, Substitute is an alternative however to scout the opponent and avoid Sucker Punch but CM seems more effective in general.
I honestly prefer substitute or taunt on Alakazam, sub against offense is great, taunt buys you a lot of momentum vs bulkier teams. Protect is a valid choice too.
I honestly prefer substitute or taunt on Alakazam, sub against offense is great, taunt buys you a lot of momentum vs bulkier teams. Protect is a valid choice too.
YungWalrus use Calm Mind Mega Alakazam and you will realise just how insanely threatening Alakazam can be. It's nice because it improves it's ability to clean late game (it'd prefer Nasty Plot but you can't win them all, and it's not like the SpD boost is useless (it can help it live a hit in a pinch, which is nice considering that Mega Alakazam will usually be at/close to full health due to it not normally staying in long enough to get hit)). It's probably it's best variant nowadays tbh.
Just a quick question regarding Volt Switch vs. Thunderbolt on Thundurus:
My team uses Mega Beedrill and has Starmie for hazard control, so I'm wondering if the good old Volt-Turn strategy is somewhat viable for maintaining momentum and generally complimenting Mega Beedrill in terms of hit-and-run strategies.
For reference, my team is MBeedrill/Thundurus/Starmie/Tyranitar/Garchomp/Ferrothorn; however, I hesitate to use Volt Switch since it would be purely for swapping into Mega Beedrill which has shit defenses, but wondered about other potential utility it might offer.
Just a quick question regarding Volt Switch vs. Thunderbolt on Thundurus:
My team uses Mega Beedrill and has Starmie for hazard control, so I'm wondering if the good old Volt-Turn strategy is somewhat viable for maintaining momentum and generally complimenting Mega Beedrill in terms of hit-and-run strategies.
For reference, my team is MBeedrill/Thundurus/Starmie/Tyranitar/Garchomp/Ferrothorn; however, I hesitate to use Volt Switch since it would be purely for swapping into Mega Beedrill which has shit defenses, but wondered about other potential utility it might offer.
Even on a team with mega bee, tbolt is better so that you can stay in vs threats that thund needs to 2HKO. If you really want to run volturn, use rotom wash, who's lower speed tier lets mega bee come in without having to take damage since rotom can go last a lot of the time if it doesn't run heavy speed investment.
Can someone tell me some offensive Pokemon that switches into both keldeo and Serp reliably (tang and tornt don't do well enough Vs Keld to my liking). I often find my offensive builds being weak to them in the latter stages of the build and being able to deal with both of them in the same team slot would be really nice. Mega venusaur is the only one that I can think of right now, but it really sucks that it takes up a mega slot.
Can someone tell me some offensive Pokemon that switches into both keldeo and Serp reliably (tang and tornt don't do well enough Vs Keld to my liking). I often find my offensive builds being weak to them in the latter stages of the build and being able to deal with both of them in the same team slot would be really nice. Mega venusaur is the only one that I can think of right now, but it really sucks that it takes up a mega slot.
AV tangrowth comes to mind but the hp fire at +2 will leave him unable to switch in and outside hp fire it can't really damage Serperior hard enough to count without SR support.
Amoonguss is there too, mega Altaria could stay there but you don't want to lose the stone on it.
Can someone tell me some offensive Pokemon that switches into both keldeo and Serp reliably (tang and tornt don't do well enough Vs Keld to my liking). I often find my offensive builds being weak to them in the latter stages of the build and being able to deal with both of them in the same team slot would be really nice. Mega venusaur is the only one that I can think of right now, but it really sucks that it takes up a mega slot.
