phew...started to play the subway yesterday (btw. the game is awesome)
...and it´s really difficult
my first three streaks were 29, 43 and now 39...with starmie, garchomp and skarmory (the team I used to quickly get to 42 or 49 in platinum)
it seems to me that game freak sort of checked the records topic and made it much more difficult for the teams that worked well in the last generation...
I mean they made a special move in sacred sword just to ignore your stat boosts, dear registeel...then there´s moves that always CH, which again ignores your boosts...sturdy, omg sturdy...
starmie is still "good", but nowhere near as effective as it was before...sturdy has to be the most broken ability in the game and the ability is spread around pokémon starmie would want to beat...you simply can´t just sweep like before
examples for starmie:
Sawk - haha psychic OHKO? nope sturdy and payback...
Crustle - it survives the surf with sturdy and x-scissors you
other things I noticed: stuff uses sucker punch, stockpile rest snore walrein beat starmie, the worker who made up the no attack meganium should be sued...sawk has sturdy but throh doesn´t even need that to survive a STAB LO psychic...holy shit volcarona survives the surf, so did chandelure iirc...focus sash is everywhere...I can´t beat ferrothorn even if my life depended on that lol...stuff uses sash-destiny bond and TR destiny bond etc.
starmie is not the only one nerfed, with the ridiculous number of air baloon electrics garchomp is forced to outrage much more and that sucks...of course they send out a steel type to absorb it and then garchomp spends his time hurting itself in confusion, I feel the % is like 80-90 for me haha (used a yache, just now I got enough BP to get sash)...I mean what´s the point of using a garchomp if you can´t quake electric pokémon? also the sash shard abomasnow is like the perfect garchomp counter
surprisingly, skarmory still works quite well and stops a lot of physical attackers who don´t have stat boosting moves
my first streak (29) ended because at that time I couldn´t afford a life orb for starmie so I only had timid expert belt...I didn´t 2HKO some ice type that I would´ve with LO, didn´t use the database and didn´t know what to expect from one of the new pokémon...oh yeah vanilla ice beat me in the end, lol...
second streak (43) - lost to a fisherman...I think I lost starmie to vaporeon, garchomp finished it off and then SDed in front of poliwrath which subpunched...this is kind of hazy, but I outraged to finish it off after breaking its substitute with quake, don´t know why I outraged...anyway the trainer has one pokémon who resists dragon type moves in his roster and of course, empo was his last pokémon...skarmory didn´t do enough damage with brave bird and lost to an icy wind CH and surf...
third streak (39) - I lost to a rain/pure water team (parasol lady hilary), they´re not easy to handle with this team...she starts off with a dewgong that stockpiles but gets 2HKOed by bolt, out comes the pain that is kingdra...don´t know the set (could be all 4), it uses rain dance and psychic does just over 50% for sitrus to kick in, next psychic brings it to red after being hit by a rain boosted hydro pump (last time I faced this one, it used dragon pulse and I barely won that game by sacrificing skarm)...after starmie faints I go to garchomp, which now holds a sash...survives the ice beam and quakes, 2-1...out comes that water/ground frog (seismitoad?) I met during the story, but have no clue about its abilities nor stat distribution...long story short, chomp didn´t get to outrage, because apparently one of toad´s abilities is swift swim and it was the last turn of rain...skarmory has EVs in defense not in sp.def so it didn´t stand a chance against rain boosted muddy water (I should´ve tried to brave bird CH or something but I didn´t and it rain danced again, which meant game over for me)...
despite the trouble, I really enjoy to play the subway, if only because almost every battle is a real challenge...starting from super battle 1...also I´m slowly getting to know the new pokémon (I´m certain about their type, stat distribution is worse...for example I learned that I have to attack that crystal face thing on the physical side because of its pitiful defense)
...when I get enough BP to buy the other items, I´ll probably transfer over one of the double teams to see how well it does
good luck to everyone playing
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