(Gen 3) Unofficial ADV OU meta discussion

[voidzone]

Originally Posted by Fat ThePillsburyDoughBoy

Alright I've been wondering why unprotected Focus Punch is recommended on so many things. What makes it that popular in Gen 3 that doesn't make it that way in Gen 4/Gen 5.

The greater learnbase of this move in the 3rd Gen vs. the smaller movepools in general. Many pokemon that run unprotected fp by standard simply do not have a better option to hit anticipated switches, and in addition in an metagame without widespread viable physical moves of bp 100+ (besides earthquake) FPs basepower 150 is a lot.

[meteor64]

Originally Posted by Fat rekt

focus punch regice lead>

The only reason specially offensive stuff like Gar run FP is because its a relatively decent Bliss/Lax/Regice lure. Regice, unfortunately, simply doesn't have the offensive investment to spare to make it worthwile to do so, since its a special wall, not a sweeper. You're pretty much obligated to stuff 252 EVs into HP at the very least, so offensive investment is limited and not worth it.

On a side note, I got bored and decided to test out a wallbreaker Shiftry which also serves as a TTar lure. So far, its performed okayish, but I need more testing.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that Flygon is an excellent Swampert lure and yet it has access to Giga Drain. I think it certainly has a place in a few sets.

[shrapn3l]

regice with focus punch and explosion is actually not that bad. focus punch ohkos tyranitar and does decent damage to blissey and enemy regices with a good atk investment. explosion speaks for itself. but i feel perhaps less people are switching ttar into regice now that superman is not the #1 team.

anyway as for EVs, mixed gengar is definitely more annoying to make a spread for and splitting EVs into his attack stat is actually really sucky. he needs to be fast and have shittons of s.atk evs to be worth anything as a special cleaner, and when he's mixed his durability absolutely plummets which i suppose isn't important for everyone or every team. as for regice, you can max HP and it doesn't really matter where you put the rest of its EVs honestly... i usually put most of my EVs in s.atk and a bit in speed to be faster than swampert, and sometimes i make my regices modest. it doesn't really need special defense EVs and i don't usually bother with defense EV's since i never find myself needing them anyway. regice is there to take on water types, electric types, gengar, and some celebis, and it's much more beneficial to give it s.atk in those cases so it can do more damage to them and to whatever is switching in on it, because honestly it is tanking hits from zapdos and gengar like a champ no matter what the spread is. but it doesn't NEED a lot of special attack and you can really pump its attack to your heart's content if you're using a mixed set, i think, but i would keep a quiet nature or something if possible. if you're giving it explosion over rest in addition to focus punch you have to worry about defenses even less imo.

also you can try giga drain on flygon but it's definitely something that's been tried before. give the competitive community some credit. i think if you try it you'll find that swampert is not actually as common of a flygon switch as you initially thought, nor is it a particularly good one. stab earthquake does a bit too much for comfort considering the fact that flygon is rarely a team's main threat to swampert, unless it's CBed in which case cb earthquake demolishes swampert anyway. things like salamence, gengar, skarmory, celebi, claydol, enemy flygons, etc are all much better at switching into flygon and shutting it down or scaring it away. without some combination of fire blast/hp bug/hp ice(underrated!)/sub/toxic/screech in addition to quakeslide, flygon will not be versatile enough to be an offensive threat. considering how weak giga drain is i'm not sure how much s.atk you would need to kill swampert or if the investment is worth it. honestly 4 attack flygon with eq/rock slide/fire blast/hp bug is probably the only set worth using in this meta unless you have magneton or something. there are too many calm mind celebis and you can't risk being spike fodder for skarm.

focus punch is the best move because prediction and wimpy special walls

[Danilo]

flygon doesnt really have room in its moveset for Giga Drain which is sad :(

[Kaisser]

Good thread Triangles. I share most of your opinion you mention in the first post, ADV was, and remains, the best metagame. I will follow this thread.

[Triangles]

Flygon's probably better off using Toxic than Giga Drain for Swampert tbh, unless you're an actively full special set or mixed with just EQ. Anyway, Swampert just capitulates to repeatedly switching into the Spikes that are so commonly used alongside the likes of Screechgon and Subgon and repeated EQs. Giga Drain seems to me to be a waste of a moveslot that could be filled by FB or HP Bug. Also a Banded EQ is doing half to 240/148 Pert and 2HKOing with lefties - Giga Drain on a standard physical set and spread gonna be doin max 65% to el mudfish, but it's cool on a special set. I mean if Pert is a team's best Flygon switch-in then you're Flygon weak... However I have no aversion whatsoever to HP Ice Flygon on standard physical set - it fucking maims other Flygon which it is a very safe switch-in to and it can catch that other Flygon or a Mence unawares.

[Umby]

There are not enough Taunt DDTars. Too many Skarmory are getting in, thinking it's a free Roar/WW, though that's a silly switch regardless.

[shrapn3l]

isn't dat everything i said about flygon

the problem is taunt pretty much only deals with skarm, and like defensive celebi that don't have grass moves, and hp bug handles any celebi really. aint no weezings around these days to taunt

[Tiffanyy]

Originally Posted by Fat Umby

There are not enough Taunt DDTars. Too many Skarmory are getting in, thinking it's a free Roar/WW, though that's a silly switch regardless.

I agree with this, DD Taunt Tar is probably one of my favorite Ttars, all it lacks that regular DDTar has is HP Bug for Celebi.

[shrapn3l]

but in addition to killing celebi, hp bug also 2hkos claydol and non-bulky flygons (and since it is very nearly a 2hko against even BULKY flygon you just have to get a bit of chip damage on it or a flinch if you're desperate), the two best ddtar counters after swampert. it's a 100% accurate ohko on starmie too for whatever that's worth. taunt only helps against stuff that you beat anyway. the increased offensive versatility is more useful against the majority of teams.

[Umby]

It's probably just me, then. I hate giving openings for Spikes. I also hate giving up my setup when the opponent would otherwise have no other way to properly deal with me (if they're sending in Skarm as their TTar counter, something's wrong on their side, which seems to be the case lately.).

[Umby]

So I took two preexisting Magneton strategies and combined them into one:

Magneton @ Salac Berry
Trait: Magnet Pull
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Spd / 252 SAtk
Timid Nature (+Spd, -Atk)
- Hidden Power [Grass]
- Thunderbolt
- Endure
- Screech

Normally, I like Thunder Wave + Metal Sound because I could somewhat make Jirachi suffer, but in recent times where Substitute and Fire Punch are more popular, I can't utilize it as often.

I figured since Magneton's job ends after Skarmory and Forretress is taken care of, I'd combine the EndureSalac strategy with the Screech + Dugtrio strategy. If Dugtrio comes in, I scare it off, unless it doesn't believe I have HP Grass and takes the possible KO. From there, I can HP Grass Swampert or Screech Snorlax, Blissey, or Celebi and bring in Dugtrio for big damage (Blissey and Celebi get KO'd by EQ and HP Bug respectively and a standard Snorlax has a good chance of being OHKOd after a Screech).

Opinions on this?

[Umby]

Something I was randomly thinking about, with the latest Pokemon through the Ages, in regards to Machamp vs Hariyama:

[17:23] <%Umby> OK! I'm bad at these kinds of calculations, buuuuuuuut
[17:23] <%Umby> Piro once put me on the idea that Hariyama > Machamp
[17:24] <%Umby> Assuming that you're using something like 252 HP / 252 Attack Machamp, I'm thinking this is essentially true.
[17:25] <%Umby> Machamp beats it out in Attack by 10 base points, but essentially that is a non-factor.
[17:25] <%Umby> What is a factor is that Hariyama's HP allows for minimal HP investment to get the same defenses as Machamp, assuming the aforementioned EVs.
[17:26] <%Umby> If I did this correctly, 12 HP / 68 Def / 96 Sdef for Hariyama is about the same as 252 HP for Machamp.
[17:27] <%Umby> That's 176 total EVs spent vs 252 EVs Spent
[17:27] <%Umby> Which means Hariyama has even more room for defensive investment.
[17:28] <%Umby> Actually, I think it's closer to Machamp at 378 HP (228 EVs) but, you get the idea.

Granted that's only a surplus of 52-76 EVs (13-19~ Stat points), but the point is it's easier to make Hariyama bulkier, meaning Hariyama could potentially outperform Machamp, depending on what you're going for.

If someone could confirm these numbers...yeah...

[shrapn3l]

this is true actually. i made this one team with gyarados+magneton and i noticed it was wrecked by special tar and had nothing for last pokemon curselax, so i put restalk machamp on it with the EVs listed in the analysis here, but then when i went into netbattle's damage calc i figured out that hariyama can match that set's 352 attack with extra physical defensive bulk, and also has access to THICK FAT which makes it an even better counter for fire blast tyranitar. however, hariyama is lacking a bit in speed, but that doesn't matter too much because all of the things you need it to beat are pretty slow.

300 attack return to machamp with 252 hp/120 def = 37-43%

300 attack return to hariyama with 12hp/252 def = 35-41%

176 evs to make 352 attack (guaranteed to 2hko +1 def snorlax), then you can choose to tuck the rest of the evs in speed or s.def, it doesn't matter too much which. if you really need hariyama to counter like... regice or porygon2 or houndoom or something, you can give it tons of s.def instead and scrimp on def evs. its huge hp and even defenses makes it more versatile as a tank.

[Umby]

[17:38] <%Umby> Quick, what do you think would be fun to pair with Agility/BP Zapdos + Umbreon?
[17:39] <%Umby> (ADV OU)

Dream Wing (Zapdos) @ Leftovers
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 HP / 200 SAtk / 56 Spd
Modest Nature (+SAtk, -Atk)
- Agility
- Baton Pass
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Grass]

Margaret Moonlight (Umbreon) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Synchronize
EVs: 216 HP / 96 Def / 60 SDef / 136 Spd
Bold Nature (+Def, -Atk)
- Mean Look
- Baton Pass
- Taunt / Charm
- Wish / Moonlight


There's of course stuff like Celebi and Gengar for Perish Song shenanigans, but there are cool sweepers that could benefit from this, like Curselax and CalmCune. What other things do you think would benefit with a setup from these two? I know it's kinda running tangent to Triangles' CCaT, but I'm just fishing for thoughts and ideas here.

[Floppy]

SD Marowak and DD Taunt Tar would enjoy both, respectively. However, I'd suggest both Taunt AND Charm over Wish / Moonlight on umbreon

[Psyshock]

Gen III's metagame was a lot less of that "obvious who is on the foe's team/what set they're running"-I h8 Drizzletoed, Droughtales and the mundane weather teams in standard play. Politoed was mediocre before they gave it Drizzle. Gen III had stuff like Choice Band Alakazam and Focus Punching Regice that would be laughed at in Gen V. I do like Gen V though, don't get me wrong.

[Danilo]

what?

[Triangles]

I thought the same when I saw "Choice Band Alakazam". I deeply hope he meant Trickband special Zam (usually intended to give Blissey a Choice Band, and Calm Mind sweep later on with a weakened, useless, Blissey - although it often inadvertently releases a Choice Band Snorlax on its own team, or exchanges Band for Band with Metagross) not that strange "physical Trickster" set that somehow infiltrated its way onto the site. Focus Punch Regice can be fun though, but it'll have a hard time doing notable damage with Metagross around.

[JimBob]

Trickband Zam can carry Focus Punch too. You can invest in Atk enough to be dangerous to a Blissey or Tyranitar, then Trick it onto something after they know you've got Focus Punch, and then you still have Psychic and Ice Punch or something, albeit a bit less powerful.