Game Mechanic Changes That Will Be Important To VGC '11

[mattj]

I used a Sunny Day team at Worlds in '09. I was really new to pokemon back then, and didn't know much about the game's mechanics beyond what I had stumbled upon and noticed here and there. My team was obviously rain weak, and especially Swift Swim weak, but what I thought I would do to counter that was scarf my crobat and spam sunny day because I THOUGHT that would drop their speed stat immediately. I never got a chance to test that though (until the night before the competition with DTrain), but as it turns out Speed is set in stone until the next turn. Wish I would have known that sooner (and used Garchomp fffffffffffffffffff).

Last year, I played a certain user here in a VGC '10 style test match. I was trying what would eventually become my Nats '10 team that got me T16 (Groudon/Shiftry/Giratina/Gengar). She was using some kind of Stall team. I remember her last two mons were bulky Cresselia and Bulky Ho-oh. I had already done a little damage to her Cress when I exploded T1 and took out her other mon. Somehow took out one more, so it was just Cress and Ho-oh on her side, and Gengar/Giratina-O/Groudon (in the back) left for me, so I was in a good position. I knew she couldn't switch, so I Shadow Forced her Cresselia to finish it off.

She protected lol

Apparently she didn't realize that Shadow Force breaks Protect.

I told those two stories to remind people that you need to know your game mechanics if you want to be successful in VGC. Now, I don't want to make this a list of odd game mechanics that were known in Gen 4, but if anybody else has been following the B&W Research Thread from post 1, you'll realize that there have been a CRAP TON of significant changes that you could either exploit for your own benefit, or have unknowingly used against you.

1) They need to be new to Gen 5. You should know the old weird mechanics by now :p
2) They need to apply to VGC '11. I don't care that tail glow and doom desire changed. :p
3) Provide a link to a post in the BWRT proving it's existence.
4) Give a short explanation of how this applies to VGC '11.

Here's just a few (gotta jet to work in a minute), but I'll update the OP with more once you guys list them.

• Feint's base power is now 30, +2 priority, and hits whether or not the opponent uses Protect. I never would use Feint in Gen 4 because it was really a 1 use move. As soon as they saw you had it they wouldn't protect again. Now it can be used over and over.
• Explosion/Self Destruct don't halve your opponent's Defense anymore. This effectively cut their damage in half. One of the reasons my '10 Nats team worked so well is because Explosion was frigging powerful. Not so much anymore. :/
• Sturdy is now a re-usable Focus Sash. I think the implications of this for VGC '11 are obvious. :p Sturdy used to suck bawls. Now it's hot.
• Encore and Taunt only last exactly 3 turns now. I've been Encored for like 7 freaking turns before. Thank God that's over.

[lucariojr]

Instead of saying "The attack missed!" It says "[Pokemon] avoided the attack!". Helpful when you need to know who to Protect with.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpos...postcount=2269

[Blades]

I think the biggest one is that fake out now for all intensive purposes out prioritizes follow me. It really doesn't, fake out is plus 3 priority now and anger powder and follow me are still +3 priority, BUT if you pay attention to fake out users/vs. available follow me/anger powder users, the fake out users just all have significantly higher base speed. Follow me will get trumped every time. So, that screen you were running before to set some crap up probably won't work against a more savvy player. Also, a lot more pokemon got inner focus this get, so even fake out loses out a little to well prepared inner focus teams. It's stuff like this that makes being FSPL really useful. We battle so often and talk about Pokemon so much that mistakes like this are laughable in our circles. Did you know you can taunt through a substitute as well thereby stopping the chain and for all intensive purposes making whimsicott useless? It may be 4th gen, but a lot of people don't know. Now you know.

[lucariojr]

Before I forget, If your HP gets knocked under half by passive damage like poison or weather, your Sitrus Berry will not activate. I think I had a video with it somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. I'll edit this post if/when I find it.

[Human]

Destiny Bond Explosion and Selfdestruct have the self ko clause against the user. Life Orb, Double Edge, Take Down and similar moves and items will have the self ko clause in favor of the user of them, if we draw to LO Recoil I win. If we draw to my explosion you win. Also for abilities like Rough Skin it works like LO Recoil. If we draw due to my Rough Skin / Iron Barbs or the item I still win.

[Tenodera]

Originally Posted by Fat Blades

intensive purposes

It's "intents and purposes". ;) But anyway...

-Hi Jump Kick's (and Jump Kick's) major power boosts
-Storm Drain and Lightningrod now providing an immunity and stat boost
-Stench giving the user's moves a 10% flinch chance

[Joshiro]

Mental Herb can now be used as a one-time taunt blocker. A ghost pokemon (can't be hit by fake out) with a mental herb gives you a pretty awesome chance to set TR up. You have to watch out for:
-Dragon Tail and other switch moves.
-Sleep Moves (particularly that Mushroom's spore)
-Imprison
-Getting 1HKO'd. Most TRers are weak to Ghost (I think Whimsicott is the only one in this meta that isn't) so Chandelure can be a pretty scary lead.
-Opponent's Pokemon using Trick Room as well (which is a lolz mistake usually).

Also, this is old news, but (Hi) Jump Kick "misses" when used against protect, so use at your own risk.

Blades said the FOers in this metagame are significantly faster than the Rage Powderers, but I want to add that Volcarona (learns RP) has 100 base speed while Scrafty (learns FO) has 58 speed. There are some situations where that priority change will once again favor the Rage Powder Pokemon.

And finally, there is a small glitch on Pokemon Online right now where Moxie users who KO Pokemon with the Mummy ability with a direct attack still get the Moxie attack boost (literally Moxie activates and then the ability is changed to Mummy), however this is not the case in game from what I've heard.

[Zog]

Synchronize affects every Pokémon on the field now, I think. Pretty sure it didn't do that before. Novelty Flame Orb Musharna, anyone?

I wasn't really watching the screen when this happened though so I'll test it.

[ΩDonut]

Originally Posted by Fat Human

Also for abilities like Rough Skin it works like LO Recoil. If we draw due to my Rough Skin / Iron Barbs or the item I still win.

You mean, if we draw because your Rough Skin \ Iron Barbs finished off my last Pokemon, I win. Not the other way around.

Originally Posted by Fat Zog

Synchronize affects every Pokémon on the field now, I think. Pretty sure it didn't do that before. Novelty Flame Orb Musharna, anyone?

I wasn't really watching the screen when this happened though so I'll test it.

Flame\Toxic Orb never activates Synchronize.

[Human]

OD, are you sure? I think I asked Shawa on Pokemon Online once and he told me that when I asked him to translate it for me.

[ΩDonut]

Originally Posted by Fat Human

OD, are you sure? I think I asked Shawa on Pokemon Online once and he told me that when I asked him to translate it for me.

I wish I could go back and look at the official rules, but now they've been replaced by the notice that Japan's WCS won't be happening this year.

But from that SPL dispute a few weeks back, it seemed pretty clear that if ANY recoil - whether it be Life Orb, Double-Edge, or Rough Skin - finishes off a competitor's last Pokemon as they deal the winning blow, that person wins.

[Human]

Yeah, I remember that, we were both part of it haha.
I mean that if Rough Skin KOs their pokemon the person who had the ability Rough Skin wins. I remember that these mechanics are the same for other battles. We can probably test this on Wifi or if someone experiences this in the Battle Subway they can tell us.

[Baldafor]

Originally Posted by Fat Zog

Synchronize affects every Pokémon on the field now, I think. Pretty sure it didn't do that before. Novelty Flame Orb Musharna, anyone?

I wasn't really watching the screen when this happened though so I'll test it.

Are you sure that you saw what you saw? There's a new move called Synchronoise that is a Psychic type move that hits all pokemon of the same type as the user.

If the ability Synchronize hits all pokemon, that is a new one on me.

[Zebstrika]

Wide Guard can possibly protect everything with just one pokemon.

[R_N]

Originally Posted by Fat Zebstrika

Wide Guard can possibly protect everything with just one pokemon.

Only from hit-all attacks, though. Otherwise it won't even protect the user.

[Sprocket]

Not that anyone uses it, but Thrash got upgraded to 120 BP, effectively equalling Outrage. Petal Dance received the same upgrade. Bouffalant and Braviary receive STAB from Thrash, and Lilligant and Maractus with Petal Dance.

Keep in mind that, since the VGC is fought at level 50, EV spreads may need to be slightly different to prevent wasted EV points (as minor as it is, it can make all the difference between a win and a loss).

After You's target will ignore priority with their selected move, effectively allowing Trick Room to outspeed it's priority (once After You is used). Cinccino is the fastest After You user, with base 115 speed (and is only outsped by Accelgor, Whimsicott and Zebstrika).

[Zog]

Originally Posted by Fat Baldafor

Are you sure that you saw what you saw?

Lol yes, I'm very sure. Situation went as follows:

My Garchomp, Zapdos Vs. Opponent Haxorus, Umbreon.

Zapdos used discharge with the hit appearing to only paralyse Umbreon (Wasn't watching closely since I was just hammering through the Subway).

Synchronize then activates, paralysing Zapdos, then I got distracted by the TV and looked away.

Then I noticed when I was choosing my next move that Haxorus was paralysed too somehow.

So my logic is that since Haxorus will have had the paralysis chance calculated first (faster than Umbreon), I would have noticed had it paralysed since at that point I was looking. I'm guessing Garchomp remained unhindered because of its ground typing and how it was an electrically-based paralysis. Sounds weird but I seem to remember something about electrical paralysis not being reflected onto thunder wave groudon. But anyway I'll try testing.

[ΩDonut]

Originally Posted by Fat Zog

Lol yes, I'm very sure.

then I got distracted by the TV and looked away.

:/

I weep for your standards of rigor testing.

1) It would be really dumb if Synchronize would paralyze YOUR OWN PARTNER especially when the paralysis was inflicted by the opponent. Like they could target your Synchronizers with Thunder Wave and a get a 2-for-1 deal.

2) Synchronize does not distinguish between electrical-based paralysis and any other paralysis.

3) Status effects from attacks are no longer processed in order of speed. They go from left to right. (Tested just now with a Snarl Zoroark in the Battle Subway, in all cases the Pokemon on the left had their SpAttk dropped first, regardless of whether it was the faster Pokemon or not.) This is probably another important mechanic that should be added to the first post.

It's way more likely that while you were looking away, Haxorus was paralyzed by Discharge, and not its own partner's Synchronize.

[mattj]

por favor:

This really isn't the Research thread. It's more of a concise list of what's already known, filtered for VGC '11, so you can look over it and see if there's anything pertinent that you didn't happen to know. If you're doing research you should probably post that in the B/W Research Thread, so it's all in one convenient place. I don't want to take anything away from the great work their doing there. Just post findings from there that pertain to VGC '11 here, with a link for proof. No conjecture please. That could be harmful.

kthks

I appreciate all the input though.

Updating the OP now.

[drcossack]

Originally Posted by Fat Zebstrika

Wide Guard can possibly protect everything with just one pokemon.

Yes, and it protects you from your partner as well.

Something else worth testing: Feint vs Wide Guard. Huy (I think) brought this up on IRC, and I volunteered to help him test it on WiFi. Unfortunately, wifi had other plans, and we never managed to connect.

If someone else can test this, let us know what happens.

[ΩDonut]

Originally Posted by Fat drcossack

Yes, and it protects you from your partner as well.

Something else worth testing: Feint vs Wide Guard. Huy (I think) brought this up on IRC, and I volunteered to help him test it on WiFi. Unfortunately, wifi had other plans, and we never managed to connect.

If someone else can test this, let us know what happens.

Originally Posted by Fat TheMaskedNitpicker

Well, I found out today in a match against a Japanese Beat Up/Justified team that Feint does indeed break Wide Guard. It doesn't just break it for the target, either. It breaks it for your entire team. And you don't have to hit the Wide Guard user with Feint to break it.

[poccil]

drcossack:

My own tests show that Feint prevents not only Wide Guard's effect, but also Quick Guard's effect, both when the opponent or its partner used either move. This behavior, for example, enables such combos as Feint + Bullet Punch.

[Showsni]

Wait, so if I'm against Pokémon A and B, and B uses Quick Guard, I can Feint Pokémon A and then hit B with Mach Punch?

[Havak]

Originally Posted by Fat Showsni

Wait, so if I'm against Pokémon A and B, and B uses Quick Guard, I can Feint Pokémon A and then hit B with Mach Punch?

Yes.

[Werecario]

Originally Posted by Fat Showsni

Wait, so if I'm against Pokémon A and B, and B uses Quick Guard, I can Feint Pokémon A and then hit B with Mach Punch?

I think it could even feint either of them thus allowing either to get hit with mach punch.