Dont use Brightpowder in DP

Use leftovers.

With leftovers on a max health Cacturne, you can make 5 subs, meaning they have to hit you 6 times to faint you. That gives you a 74% chance of being missed at least once.

If you choose to use brightpowder instead you can only make 4 subs, but the added evasion of brightpowder means you have an 81% chance of being missed at least once.

Therefore brightpowder has a 7% chance of being beneficial in this case. It's going to pay off roughly once in every 14 battles..

Compare that with Gyarados. When you use Gyarados, you could use brightpowder over leftovers and that would have a 10% chance at minimum of being beneficial.

But I have never ever seen anyone ever suggest brightpowder on Gyarados, and yet it is the first suggested item on Cacturnes set. Can someone explain to me why it deserves any mention whatsoever? As far as I can see, it is just bad.

And when you add spikes or stealth rock, leftovers becomes even more worthwhile.

The thing is, that even with Cacturne, sometimes your opponent isnt going to attack you. And on those turns leftovers recovers your health, whereas brightpowder just makes you look silly. Maybe its because you switched in against something that cant really hurt you so they have to switch, or maybe they just happen to have a really good Cacturne counter, or maybe they decide to use recover or spikes or whatever, but these sorts of things are going to happen to you all the time, and brightpowder is not helping you.

I am even more confused about the suggestion to use brightpowder on Sandslash's analysis. It seems to be there just because Sandslash has sandveil. But given Sandslash's evasion is already being increased by sand veil, brightpowder has even less chance of doing anything on a Sandslash than any other poke.

It seems to me that brightpowder is best used when you feel that your chances of winning a game are very poor, so you need to play high risk high reward to win. But if you are going to use brightpowder for that, use it on a Salamence or a Tyranitar or something. Something that can really reap the benefits of a miss.

Unless there is something I am missing, brightpowder just isnt a very good item.

Have a nice day.

The thing is, Cacturne shouldn't just be sitting there Subbing. Odds are, you're going to want to throw up a sub as they switch out, then SD as they attempt to break the sub. If they fail to break the sub due to accuracy, you get another SD or a Focus Punch *for free*. Increasing evasion gives you a higher chance of this happening. Additionally, it gives you the ability to attempt to Focus Punch even with no Sub up and have a larger chance at success. I mean, if you're facing down something like a Stone Edge, it's base 80 accuracy is reduced to 56%, meaning you've got about a coinflip's chance of pulling off the Focus Punch.

Hip makes some good points. "Hax items are poor at best"

Even if you don't use Bright Powder, that chance of Stone Edge hitting is 64% anyway, which is still poor. So you can play the 56 < 64 game, but I would rather have the recovery and the ability to make an extra substitute.

I agree with Hipmonlee, I use leftovers on my snow-cloak frosslass and i believe it's more benificial, especially since they sometimes switch and snow cloak / sand veil already has a good chance of activating without brightpowder.

nobody really actually uses brightpowder in practice though

confirming my suspicions, only five of 492 pokemon used brightpowder in standard enough last month for it to have shown up on the stats, and eight the month before. this includes nu and nfe pokemon like gligar (203 usages), pidgey (28 usage), seaking (664 usages) and quilava (3 usages). the only remotely decent pokemon, and therefore remotely decent pokemon players by correlation, that used brightpowder last month are froslass, cacturne and glaceon. even though brightpowder is a slashed option in our analysis for sandslash's first set, it was used at most 9% of the time (while sandslash was used just 1002 times itself for #176 in usage in standard and #58 in uu).

froslass was the most used pokemon that used brightpowder with any regularity in standard in december with a usage of #62 in usage with 9738 uses. But 2401 of those were as a lead where it is say to say that pretty much everyone will have used focus sash since froslass used that most, a third of the time. meaning aside from leading it was #68 in usage, and brightpowder was still used less than ¼ of the time on it.

only one pokemon in uu used brightpowder enough last month, and that was seaking. seaking was used 62 times in uu last month and literally exactly 20 of those times was it equipped with brightpowder. froslass and cacturne are decidedly uu and literally less than 7% and 10% respectively did they bother with brightpowder in uu last month

maybe when the new uu stats come out it will show that more pokemon than have earlier are actually using brightpowder, but otherwise i don't know what you're basing your argument and the necessity of this thread on because it certainly isn't the only comprehensive stats we have on hand. so pretty much there's nothing to convince anyone of doing that isn't already in our analyses besides asking someone with site staff to change the few analyses where we suggest brightpowder, which people don't even follow in the case of sandslash and where we admit that Leftovers is superior with froslass. it's literally not a big deal at all, in theorymon or in actual practice

Jumpman16, do those statistics include random battles?

I've used Brightpowder only once in all the time I've been playing Pokemon; I simply didn't like any of my other item options for Roserade. It wasn't durable enough for Leftovers, and Life Orb didn't make sense for a set with two attacks. Nothing else jumped out at me, so it was down to Miracle Seed and Brightpowder. In other words, Brightpowder may not be very useful in general, but it's never a terrible idea when there aren't any good options. Did I ever win any matches I would've lost because of using Brightpowder on Roserade? One or two, if I recall. Did I lose any where having another item would've made a difference? I don't think so. My point is NOT that Brightpowder is a good item. My point is that its a decent choice when none of the good items seems like a good fit. Sortof a "Plan D" item.

Hip, I think there is something you're missing. You've measured the chance that BrightPowder will net you at least one miss over the expected number of turns. What you should be measuring is the average (or maybe median) number of misses it nets you before Cacturne dies. Each miss is a turn that Cacturne can use to do something other than Substitute. This is a bit more difficult to calculate, but I think you'd need a negative binomial formula for it.

The problem is that when you factor in Leftovers, the number of necessary successes is no longer constant, which makes it even harder to calculate. It may be that when all these calculations are done, Leftovers still wins out. All I'm saying is that it's not as simple as it appears to be.

What about Garchomp using Sand-Attack with Bright Powder and Sand Veil? Should that not be used/ and what is the percentage?

133tSneasel said:

What about Garchomp using Sand-Attack with Bright Powder and Sand Veil? Should that not be used/ and what is the percentage?

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The accuracy of moves targeting Garchomp after factoring in Sand Veil, BrightPowder, and one Sand-Attack is multiplied by 0.54. However, without the BrightPowder, it's 0.6, which isn't much worse.

I tried Brightpowder Froslass, and it wasn't all that great for me. Leftovers was indeed a much better item. And now that I see that the number-difference is that small, I don't think I'll use it again any time soon.

I have always used Pokémon as Cacturne or Sandslash, always with the Leftovers, otherwise to the long Pokémon as these could suffer the damages caused by the various indirect damages as Stealth Rock.

Hm. Didn't realize the number difference for evasion was so small. Thought it would be a bit higher than that.

Thanks for the numbers.

I confess that I have commited the terrible act of giving BrightPowder to a "Dancing Tank" Sand Veil Gliscor on multiple occasions, but only because it had Roost for recovery anyway. Leftovers is almost always the better item for Pokemon that have no healing move. In fact, now that I think about it, I should probably switch to Yache Berry for consistency.

I used Brightpowder Ninjask once upon a time. Every miss was a "bonus" that I used to pass the sub or get in a free swords dance, but I never hoped for or counted on a miss. I know it is really situational, but so long as you don't rely on it specifically, there is nothing wrong with using it. Reachzero has a good example of this.

Or maybe on a support Froslass not being used as a lead, where Sash is usually better. With Hail support and T-Wave and/or Confuse Ray, that extra little chance to miss can help a lot for when they get an attack off. Not the best strategy, but certainly usable, and Froslass is a but frail for Lefties to help a lot of the time.

I suppose it can help on a few things, but I'd never consider Brightpowder on Cacturne or anything. The small chance of being beneficial is nothing compared to the constant benefit from other items. Isn't it banned, anyway?

I honestly believe mathematics can't be employed (at least in any practical way) to settle the argument of Brightpowder vs Leftovers so I won't bother bringing probability into this. Let me explain why I believe this. It isn't practically feasible to model the effects of Brightpowder missing more often compared to Leftovers recovery. Furthermore, if I Substitute with Brightpowder and my opponent switches in Machamp - I obviously have to leave. So, would Leftovers small 6.25% recovery that turn have helped me more in the long run? This is what I'm referring to is that it's not feasible to compare the two in purely mathematical sense. Yes, you could figure out what is "better" over several turns as you Substitute quite easily, but that's a purely hypothetical situation and one that I don't think is realistic given common battle conditions.

For me, I will always opt for Leftovers on a Sand Veil Pokemon simply because I prefer to have an item on my Pokemon 100% of the time. It's the very essence of risk vs reward and I will always prefer reliability.

However, I can understand the case of Cacturne using Brightpowder more so than say something like Garchomp or Sandslash. Cacturne has 281 HP / 156 Def / 156 SpD - something with those defenses has trouble even taking resisted hits so you can make the case that it's more beneficial for it to not get hit at all. The case you brought up on Sandslash doesn't make sense to all at me since the given spread generates 354 HP / 281 Def / 146 SpD and so that can afford to take a good amount of (physical) hits so the opponent missing isn't as necessary so Leftovers is clearly the better choice.

diamondfan1910 said:

Isn't it banned, anyway?

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Generally speaking, standard play (be it tournaments, ladder etc.) do not ban Brightpowder. So, no is the answer.

Edit: In fact, Hip, I would remove Brightpowder as an option entirely from Sandslash now that you have pointed it out and add Leftovers to Cacturne but I don't want to make you look crazy for people that'll go to those pages so I might do it later ^__^

Edit 2: I also expect January UU stats to reveal more usage of Brightpowder simply because their are more Pokemon in UU who can viably use Brightpowder (Cacturne, Froslass etc).

Edit 3: For the curious


OU Play:
Cacturne | Item | Brightpowder | 56.6

Froslass | Item | Brightpowder | 18.7

Glaceon | Item | Brightpowder | 10.2

Seaking | Item | Brightpowder | 52.1

Tyrogue | Item | Brightpowder | 45.5

UU Play:

Seaking | Item | Brightpowder | 32.3

Uber Play:

Lanturn | Item | Brightpowder | 22.2

Luvdisc | Item | Brightpowder | 60.0

Qwilfish | Item | Brightpowder | 25.0

Sandslash | Item | Brightpowder | 33.3

Suspect Play:

Cacturne | Item | Brightpowder | 77.8

Shuckle | Item | Brightpowder | 1.6

Unrated Play:

Cacturne | Item | Brightpowder | 57.4

Froslass | Item | Brightpowder | 13.8

Magnemite | Item | Brightpowder | 50.0

Sunkern | Item | Brightpowder | 20.0

panamaxis said:

Jumpman16, do those statistics include random battles?

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no i purposely left those out because i personally dont care what people use in unrated battles and i doubt hip does either

Here's the thing: in your very first post, you admit that even given one less turn, BP Cacturne has a higher chance of getting off a free Swords Dance than Lefties Cacturne. That seems like a reason to use Brightpowder to me...

Bright Poweder is a pretty good item, however it shouldnt be relied on. its really helpful in battle cause it gives u free turn over. its also pretty good if u already have a healing move. plus if u are already using leftovers on another pokemon, might as well use bright powder

The fact that Leftovers recovery could essentially give me an extra turn, just like a miss is why I prefer it over Brightpowder on every pokemon, even Sand Veil and Snow Cloak pokemon. If Brightpowder doesn't work, you gain nothing, whilst Leftovers is more consistent at granting you a "free turn." As well, I hate relying on luck.

wildfire393 said:

The thing is, Cacturne shouldn't just be sitting there Subbing. Odds are, you're going to want to throw up a sub as they switch out, then SD as they attempt to break the sub. If they fail to break the sub due to accuracy, you get another SD or a Focus Punch *for free*. Increasing evasion gives you a higher chance of this happening. Additionally, it gives you the ability to attempt to Focus Punch even with no Sub up and have a larger chance at success. I mean, if you're facing down something like a Stone Edge, it's base 80 accuracy is reduced to 56%, meaning you've got about a coinflip's chance of pulling off the Focus Punch.

Click to expand...

When the accuracy of an attack decreases, the value of leftovers increases. Brightpowder is only going to prevent a 100% hit rate every time like once in every 30 battles compared with leftovers. And, every time you dont sub, leftovers is recovering your health.

Yeah TMN I am aware of that, however the first miss is by far the most important. Once you have got that much you can utilise your set. Any more misses are going to be less and less significant in terms of the final outcome. That ends up being far more complicated than anything I think anyone is capable of understanding. But I think it doesnt affect my original analogy: Brightpowder is still better on Gyarados than on Cacturne. But people (even Smogon) recommend BP on Cacturne just because Cacturne has sandveil.

I have no idea how to do the maths to work out the average or the median in this case, but yeah, honestly I dont think it matters. The odds would need to be significantly higher for this move to pay off against the usefulness of leftovers in pretty much all situations..

Caelum: against that Machamp you would get 12.5% recovery with leftovers. You subbed as it switched, and presumeably you attacked as it broke your sub. IE with leftovers you can survive almost twice as many switches to Machamp as you can with brightpowder. And that is sorta the point of my argument, leftovers is just a way, way more versatile item.

Also every time you switch in and revenge kill with sucker punch, or with seed bomb against a slower pokemon, leftovers is bringing you closer to an extra substitute, while brightpowder is doing nothing. There are millions of similar situations.. If not trying to suggest that brightpowder is doing nothing at all, but in general I'd go back to thinking of brightpowder on Cacturne as slightly less useful than brightpowder on Gyarados.

Have a nice day.

I am Gengar said:

Here's the thing: in your very first post, you admit that even given one less turn, BP Cacturne has a higher chance of getting off a free Swords Dance than Lefties Cacturne. That seems like a reason to use Brightpowder to me...

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Only one in fourteen (?) battles, if I understand correctly, which is a very inconsistent pull-off. Leftovers is more consistent and beneficial in most situations. I guess what Hip is trying to say is that BrightPowder is only situationally useless, whereas Lefties is always useful, if not better than BP.

blueyoshi said:

Bright Poweder is a pretty good item, however it shouldnt be relied on. its really helpful in battle cause it gives u free turn over. its also pretty good if u already have a healing move. plus if u are already using leftovers on another pokemon, might as well use bright powder

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(lol)

How is BP a good item? It is not really helpful as Hip proved, because it has such a small chance of actually being useful, whereas Lefties is not just more often useful but more useful in general, so it doesn't 'give you free turn over' (whatever that is meant to mean o_o). Not to mention standard clauses don't include item clause, so that last argument is absolutely irrelevant and nonsense.

Under item clause though, could Bright Powder be used on Froslass as a viable replacement?