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Research Week #2
Research Week - Ubers Edition! http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/250.gifhttp://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/384.gifhttp://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/487.gif Duration: March 29th - April 10th Thanks to Texas Cloverleaf. It seems the posting of an under-appreciated Pokemon and asking people to play with it is not the best promoter of activity. For this reason, and a few others, I will be including several twists on the classic 'Research Week'. I aim for this Research Week to incorporate elements of Birkal's well known Dark Horse Project that is currently running in DST. I will select three Pokemon with less than 5% usage in the monthly Ubers stats, with which any of you can experiment with. You may use any number of the aforementioned Pokemon in any combination. They do not necessarily have to be used together but if you manage to make them work on the same team, kudos to you! Thats with the changes in this edition of the Research Week. Now, back to Research Week in itself. Research Week looks to investigate Pokemon that have potential in Ubers, be it in stats, movepool, or supporting their team, to serve as an innovative choice in today's metagame. These are Pokemon that, for the most part, remain relatively untested. I've selected 3 Pokemon I feel, with help from everyone else, could see the rise of new and powerful sets, or the fulfilment of a particular niche. Perhaps the title is a bit of a misnomer; in fact, this installment (and likely future ones) of Research Week will continue as long as the discussion does, and that's where you all come in. If you have anything to say about any of these Pokemon, please post about them! It doesn't matter if you've used them or have just faced them in battle, anything is fine (but please, do try them). Just be sure to back up your posts with good competitive reasoning, such as damage calculations! Posting replays showcasing the pokemon you selected is especially encouraged. • Be open-minded, don't just say something is terrible and walk away; at least look into them and see what options they may be able to utilize! • Feel free to theorymon, but make it clear that you are theorymon'ing. At the end of the week, however, I want discussion to move towards how useful the Pokemon actually are in Uber, and what sets are effective on them. • Just because an analysis has been done for a Pokemon doesn't mean there isn't more to explore; it's quite possible that something might have gone unnoticed or is missing. • Do not post in this thread complaining about the Pokemon I choose and/or suggesting ones we should do for future weeks. I want discussion to stay on topic about the 3 Pokemon we are "researching". Feel free to VM / PM me these suggestions, but don't expect the next research week to have all the Pokemon you suggested, or any of them. So, the 3 Pokemon we will be looking at this research week are Salamence, Deoxys-D and Espeon. .http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/373.gif.http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/386-defense.gif.http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/196.gif. http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/icon/373.pnghttp://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/icon/386d.pnghttp://www.serebii.net/pokedex-bw/icon/196.png How useful are these Pokemon in Uber? What sets can they run effectively? What gives them trouble? What advantages do they have over other Pokemon? What roles can they fill in teams? Are they worth the team slot on your team or is it outclassed? Discuss; the discussion that come out of this will surely be illuminating! Don't forget, you're not just limited to this topic to discuss these Pokemon. The #ubers irc channel is a perfectly suitable place to discuss them as well. Feel free to take the discussion to #pokemon as well. At the end of the discussion period, hope we can reach a general consensus on how good these Pokemon really are, and that we might find some interesting discoveries. Alright, now that that's out of the way we can get to the fun part of this. First up, Reasearch Week will now have a duration of roughly two weeks. The reason for this is as follows: The Research Week Challenge:In order to participate in the challenge, simply post what Pokemon you're trying and your fresh new alt (yes, this is mandatory). Post battle logs, experiences with your team on the ladder, and generally how a Pokemon has worked out for you: past or present. There will also be an archive of the successful teams who managed to break the ladder benchmarks. The archive will consist of the teams used along with the rating achieved by the said team and some comments for the user who built the team. Teams which displayed a significant amount of creativity but fell short of the points cutoff may also be featured in the archive. This will be decided on subjectively by the Uber moderators. Furthermore, quality posting may be rewarded with larger avatars or custom titles. So get out and post!
alt list
Research Week Hall of Fame
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Trying Salamence
alt- Uber Troll |
okay so espeon sucks but ill try deoxys-d.
account name: 3PAC |
Trying Salamence
Alt: MenceSala |
I'll be working with all 3. No alts as I can't play on PO, only PS. Will be updating this post alter with some results :).
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I think I'll try a HO-esque team with both Salamence and Deoxys-D.
Alt: SuperSaiyanKeiran i need to stop using up my good alts |
Going to try Salamence out I think.
Alt: amaryllis also going to try out deo-d under the name el che |
Trying Salamence.
EDIT: Just lost a 213 turn game with Salamence. Fuck him. Fuck Pokemon. |
Testing Mence
Alt: Dr. Pokemon |
trying Espeon.
alt: Nadalsucks |
Lol, I already have a successful team with Mence in it =).
Just using my main shrang, I can't be bothered using alts. |
I'll try salamence as Tabemono
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will be using the alt: illustrious illusion. Salamence should work well side by side with rayquaza.
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EDIT: Also forgot to mention that the alt list has been updated. |
I'll be using Mence.
Alt: Viva la Gofre |
Okay, let's spark discussion up.
http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/373.gif Salamence There's the Mence! Salamence's greatest quality for me is its brute force once it has used Dragon Dance. Being faster than Rayquaza meaning it has a bigger chance of sweeping. Pairing it with Rayquaza is just as good as it has been before, weakening the foe's team before the other sweeps. Now with V-create it would get even more brutal. But the set that attracted you guys is Choice Scarf. It's without a doubt a remarkable set, utilizing Salamence's newly introduced Moxie ability and great Speed to sweep. When I wrote this set in Salamence's analysis, QC members rushed to reject it. Once they have tested it, they were shocked of its effectiveness. The ability to revenge fast-paced sweepers such as Shaymin-S, Darkrai, and Mewtwo is just great, and add to that the Moxie boost. With Spikes on the ground it is very hard to stop Salamence once it has gathered a few Moxie boosts.http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/386-defense.gif Deoxys-D Big alien on campus. 160 base Defense and Special Defense is just out of this world. Shame its HP is so low... I've tried Deoxys-D once on a team Fiction. gave me, and it worked pretty great. It walls Ferrothorn and Skarmory all day every day, and makes them setup bait by using Taunt. This little fella here can take Modest Choice Scarf Kyogre's full-health rain-boosted Water Spout: Water Spout: 229-270 (75.32 - 88.81%). The only other Spiker (as in Spikes) that can stand up to this is Ferrothorn (which takes just below 50% maximum), but he makes setup bait to any other Spiker. I haven't tested the Agility set though. It looks so great. Deoxys-D is very bulky to take strong hits, and its base 90 Speed allows it to utilize Agility well. After Agility has been used the standard set outspeeds all Deoxys-S bar Choice Scarf, and the 228 Speed spread outspeeds all base 130s with Choice Scarf attached, such as Mewtwo, Shaymin-S, and Darkrai. Couple that with Toxic, Taunt, and Recover, along with its already high defenses, and you got yourself a prime fast staller.http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/196.gif Espeon This is Xatu's "offensive" variant. Base 130 Special Attack and 110 Speed makes it a decent sweeper. It's faster than most Ubers and it has a nice STAB move in Psychic or Psyshock. I honestly prefer Psyshock because fuck Chansey. Acess to Calm Mind is also pretty great, as with its already respectable base 95 Special Defense, Espeon can now take hits even better. For example, Modest 252 SpA Dialga does 68.56% maximum to a +1 252 HP Espeon. However, Espeon's Magic Bounce ability is what makes it so appealing. It basically messes Stall up. Switch into a Spiker such as Skarmory, get the Spikes bounced back, and set up or something. Skarmory can't do anything to Espeon, as most don't run Brave Bird. What I'm going to try is Dual Screens + Baton Pass. It's like the ideal partner for Salamence; it gets hazards off the field, it can set up screens for Salamence to set up safely, and it can send it in safely with Baton Pass. Pretty much a safe option, eh?Comment and add on any Pokemon, happy discussing~ |
from my testing so far this week, I found Salamence to be very underwhelming in almost every position I put him in. Choice Band, Choice scarf, bulky dragon dance, offensive dragon dance, in every role he seemed like just dead weight. His problems are either that he is too weak, not gaining necessary KOes, or that he would die to anything that hit him.
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Apart from Moxie Scarf Mence, which imo is excellent, I'm planning to try out Scarf and Dragon Dance Mixed. Salamence's speed at base 100 means Palkia has a 50% chance of getting killed. Draco Meteor + Outrage + DD is also cool. |
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I have been finding Deoxys-D rather underwelming. I've been using a simple 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD EV spread with Recover / Spikes / Taunt / Magic Coat (which I later replaced with Night Shade / Seismic Toss) and while it's pretty good at setting up Spikes, that's pretty much it. Other than that it is pretty much setup bait for any sweeper that can outspeed and set up on Deoxys-D before the Taunt. The things you can set up on are also mostly other Spikers, and since you have to Taunt them to prevent them from setting up Spikes themselves, they can switch to a counter that turn and you're forced out.
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I'll still try to get silver but imo my team is not very good. I'm kinda impressed I won a lot of matches. Anyways the set I'm using is: http://www.smogon.com/forums/data:im...BJRU5ErkJggg==http://sprites.pokecheck.org/i/196.gif Espeon @ Leftovers Nature: Bold EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpDef IVs: 30 SpAtk 2 Spe - HP Fire 70 - Reflect - Yawn - Morning Sun Not running speed because I don't want it to die to Gyro Ball from Ferro or Forry. Paired it with Groudon it can OHKO both of them back with HP Fire while MS now recovers more than half. Reflect so that you can take hits better from support Groudon who I still outspeed. It is a great Ferrothorn and Skarmory counter, while it is ok against Forretress and Tentacruel because of Rapid Spin. Yawn helps pseudo phazing. Overall, not super impressed as I'm using it just for research's sake. I guess it could prove useful for a very offensive team or a full stall team. My team is kinda balanced and most of the times I ended up using it as fodder. Still, I don't think it is outclassed by Xatu by any means. |
gonna go ahead and try espeon with the alt espeon sucks
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GOT ESPEON TO WORK
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Just broke the 1200 mark before being knocked down by hax, I hate Lugia. Will hopefully hit 1250 sometime tonight.
I really couldn't get the old pairing of two Dragon Dancers to work, it doesn't seem half as viable this gen from what I've played. I've taken Furai's suggestion of the Scarf+Moxie and that's been working great so far. The team I'm using is changing quite a bit and I'm still not 100% about what lineup works best or utilises Mence's qualities the most yet, so I'll post more if/when I hit bronze. EDIT: I've just seen bronze is 1200-1250, not 1250+, fuuuuu. Need to pay moar attention. |
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barry pretty much sums up my thoughts up on Scarf Moxie Salamence. While underwhelming at certain times (like not OHKOing full HP Zekrom), it has saved me on a number of occasions and is an effective cleaner for the end game. The team I used had Rayquaza to lure Pokes like Groudon in so it can take a Draco Meteor and get OHKO'd (switching Groudon isn't the wisest thing to do anyway unless you're certain it's not Mixed). Then I've been testing other Pokes like Dialga, Darkrai and a couple of others, which kind of explains my current rating of only 1212. also NTT I think the bronze class actually is 1250, Furai said it was in the challenge description then put 1200-1249 in the HoF thing so I don't know. |
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