Metagame Analyses: Offense vs. Stall

[Groudon ex]

Choice: At least 5 Pokemon carry a Choice item.

I think this style may be worth looking at. Although it's simply a variant of Hyper Offence, it is played radically differently to the typical build, and it has been used to success before (therefore not a gimmick), so for those reasons I think it deserves a mention. Though technically a true Choice team needs all of its members to hold Choice items, I've seen exceptions where one member was used for roles such as setting hazards, Rapid Spin etc.

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3463029

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3454617

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76206

Here's a few examples to back up my claim.

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat Jimera0

I honestly don't mind the idea of having a section for monotype teams (not one category for each type just a single category "monotype") since it's got to be easy as all hell to impliment and unlike most of the other stuff is easily defined.

No to Monotype.

And btw I only described Assist teams for two reasons: 1) I know they exist in reality, however rare they are 2) Antar asked how they worked. I honestly think it's a really, really stupid strategy that's only good for the lols. At least it is a full team thing though, unlike most of the stuff people have mentioned here. If you're using Assist you basically HAVE to go all out with it or it just plain doesn't work (not that it works even if you do put it together properly but that's another issue).

I'm not against Assist teams. I just never responded to your last post on the subject. I'm mulling over the definition now.

Originally Posted by Fat UltiMario

Couldn't Pursuit fall under the definition for trapper teams as well?

Pursuit is a different kind of trapping. Obviously Latios in vs. Tyranitar is an effective trap, but Klinklang in vs. Skuntank? There's also a strong element of prediction to using Pursuit which isn't present when using the abilities or the switch-preventing moves. Note that I'm also not listing Whirlpool, Magma Storm or other temporary-trapping moves.

Originally Posted by Fat doublenikesocks

Intimidate: At least 3 Pokemon with the ability Intimidate.

Rejecting. This opens up the door to too much like Regenerator cores.

Originally Posted by Fat Groudon ex

Choice: At least 5 Pokemon carry a Choice item.

...

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3463029

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3454617

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76206

Here's a few examples to back up my claim.

I was skeptical when I read your description, but the RMTs back it up. I feel like requiring five choiced pokemon is a bit excessive (I would prefer three), but I'd like some feedback, as from my own experience, having only three choiced pokemon doesn't end up dominating the strategy.

[ginganinja]

I think 3 is a little easy tho. Just as an example, Specs Tornadus-T, Scarf Genosect, Specs Keldeo is pretty common on a rain team, but I wouldn't really call that a "choice team". Volt Turn also starts hitting around that "3 choice item" baseline. Ideally, and as a sort of middle ground, I think something like 4 is a good benchmark. From experience, when over half your team has a choice item, your strategy really is something like nuke through the opponent, whereas I think with 3 choice items, you have a bit more flexibility. This might end up coming down to personal preference, but I would prefer 4 Choice Items rather than 3, to better focus on the team style.

[Groudon ex]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59985

Here's an important example I missed out - I guess it also fits the bill of having 4 Choice users.

[Antar*]

Four it is!

[SpecsX]

I think you should remove Wonder/Magic Room from your list, or at least Magic Room. I don't think that Magic Room is hardly abusable. The only application for Wonder Room would be on something like Reuniclus with Wonder Room/Psychic/Shadow Ball/Focus Blast (which of course Reuniclus has Psyshock anyways, AND you would need 2 mons with this move in their moveset).




Am I correct in assuming there will be analyses for all the tiers?

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat SpecsX

I think you should remove Wonder/Magic Room from your list, or at least Magic Room. I don't think that Magic Room is hardly abusable. The only application for Wonder Room would be on something like Reuniclus with Wonder Room/Psychic/Shadow Ball/Focus Blast (which of course Reuniclus has Psyshock anyways, AND you would need 2 mons with this move in their moveset).

Unless someone shows me an example of either type team, I'll take them off the list.

I did a quick battle log search for "Magic Room" and found someone using an item-less team. :/

Also not seeing any viable Wonder Room strategies.

Am I correct in assuming there will be analyses for all the tiers?

Yes, these definitions will apply to all tiers (except Randbats/Challenge Cup).

[Arcticblast]

I can see a Magic Room team with Trick + Iron Ball on various things, but Wonder Room doesn't seem to have any practical application.

Yes, I am seriously going to attempt a Magic Room team.

[SpecsX]

Seems like Magic Room is more viable than I thought. I wonder if Magic Room could work in VGC? Hmmm...

[SpecsX]

Apologies for the double post, but I hink you should add SmashPass as a style, as it plays rather differently from Pure Baton Pass

[X5Dragon]

If I may suggest a redefinition of DragMag to include a mention of spinners "or a spinner" seeing how the creator of the team may want to focus on keeping rocks away and deal with steel using coverage moves and the like.

Also this just for the future but I'm thinking if GameFreak releases more priorities, especially from the special side we can have a Priority team, with 4/5 members each having one of more prioirty and a hazard layer and the optional spin blocker.

[Jimera0]

@X5Dragon

I think that including spinners in the dragmag formula is overcomplicating it and just makes the metric too difficult to design. Just leave it as is. As for priority move, I don't think that really qualifies as a team in the future or not. It's more of an added boon to an individual Pokemon that something you build a team around. Even in the future I don't see "priority teams" being a thing.

@Antar

sorry that post about the assist thing was more in a response to other people than to you XD I figured that was the case with you. I honestly don't care either way if assist teams get on or not.

[alkinesthetase]

If I may suggest a redefinition of DragMag to include a mention of spinners "or a spinner" seeing how the creator of the team may want to focus on keeping rocks away and deal with steel using coverage moves and the like.

dragmag is called drag mag because it's 2+ drags and a mag. that's all there is involved. the fact that most competitive teams in the modern era need a spinner is completely external to the concept of 2 drags and a mag.

i don't want to be rude, but i honestly feel like you're looking at everything that can potentially appear multiple times on a single team, and then suggesting that a team of 3+ of those things be defined as a strategy for antar to list. that mindset does not make sense to me. too many of those things are things that most teams could potentially carry multiple of for no reason other than synergy; every team needs synergy. is synergy a strategy?

[Pwnemon]

Paralysis Support - at least THREE Pokemon carrying a move with a 30% paralysis rate or Thunder wave, and at least ONE offensive Pokemon with less than 100 base speed and no way to boost speed.

this can be tweaked slightly, but the team Paralysis Support is a very effective strategy - gyarados, jirachi, Tinkerbell Celebi, parashuffle Dragonite, and Nidoking is an example of an effective paralysis core

[2sly4u]

Originally Posted by Fat Pwnemon

Paralysis Support - at least THREE Pokemon carrying a move with a 30% paralysis rate or Thunder wave, and at least ONE offensive Pokemon with less than 100 base speed and no way to boost speed.

this can be tweaked slightly, but the team Paralysis Support is a very effective strategy - gyarados, jirachi, Tinkerbell Celebi, parashuffle Dragonite, and Nidoking is an example of an effective paralysis core

Seconding this. As I said earlier, a team that focuses solely on paralysis is much different than one that focuses on status in general, which was already rejected. However, I think that the requirement should change from three moves with a 30% paralysis chance to two with at least a 60% chance. 30% doesn't seem high enough, and it prevents team strategies like Thunder spam from getting grouped in with this.

[Sewa]

Originally Posted by Fat 2sly4u

Seconding this. As I said earlier, a team that focuses solely on paralysis is much different than one that focuses on status in general, which was already rejected. I think that the requirement should change from three moves with a 30% paralysis chance to two with at least a 60% chance. 30% doesn't seem high enough, and it prevents team strategies like Thunder spam from getting grouped in with this.

Right. For my experience, I only needed Body Slam on Jirachi and T-Wave on Ferrothorn to easily spread paralysis.

[X5Dragon]

Yeah it should be moves with higher than 60% paralysis rate because that point it would be obvious the player is using the move primarily for spreading paralysis as opposed to damage and paralysis would be a plus.

Edit: Is a phazer/shuffler necessary in a paralysis support team?

===================

Originally Posted by Fat alkinesthetase

dragmag is called drag mag because it's 2+ drags and a mag. that's all there is involved. the fact that most competitive teams in the modern era need a spinner is completely external to the concept of 2 drags and a mag.

i don't want to be rude, but i honestly feel like you're looking at everything that can potentially appear multiple times on a single team, and then suggesting that a team of 3+ of those things be defined as a strategy for antar to list. that mindset does not make sense to me. too many of those things are things that most teams could potentially carry multiple of for no reason other than synergy; every team needs synergy. is synergy a strategy?

Actually it's more like "team of mostly hard hitting dragons + steel remover". DragMag is a homeage to the original teams and their format, if not for the catchy name.

Synergy in pokemon terms is a team that composes of members covering up each others weaknesses and supporting their strong points, be it type coverage, resistance, boosts or otherwise, and like you said every successful team needs it.

Strategy would then be the different types of synergy around or different ways of using synergy. For example a trapper team would have the trappers remove steels, weather inducers and the most hard hitting of the opponents foe to pave the way for the other half to sweep the halpless, exposed foe.

So no it's not just a 3+ members with the same thing (e.g. leftover teams), they have to define the main synergy in the team (e.g. choice team) and every post here naming teams is just a poll asking our expert players whether or not these different types define main synergies.

This whole topic could have been reduced to three words, stall, offense and in between, but we are here to define what are the main synergies are in different teams.

On second thought I don't think a spinner fits into the DragMag definition, it's primary focus is just to remove steels and spam dragon attacks. Maybe my actual problem is that I don't see Dragons lacking in handling steel, what dragons lack are trapper abilities, weather inducers and viable dual screeners, hazard layers and rapid spinners. Maybe we should make a new definition?

[SpecsX]

Originally Posted by Fat X5Dragon

What dragons lack are trapper abilities, weather inducers and viable dual screeners, hazard layers and rapid spinners. Maybe we should make a new definition?

Druddigon gets Stealth Rock. But I agree that a spinner is unnecessary for dragmag. A spinner is useful on any team, but not required.

[Superpowerdude]

Damn i was about to list para :( oh well it is also worthy to mention that you dont need a pokemon with liw base speed to abuse paraspreading substitute sweeperslike sub terakion subcm latias subcm jirachi and subcm keldeo benefit from paralaraysis even due to there. highbase speeds

[alkinesthetase]

On second thought I don't think a spinner fits into the DragMag definition, it's primary focus is just to remove steels and spam dragon attacks. Maybe my actual problem is that I don't see Dragons lacking in handling steel, what dragons lack are trapper abilities, weather inducers and viable dual screeners, hazard layers and rapid spinners. Maybe we should make a new definition?

no, because none of these things have anything to do with dragmag. you are now expanding the concept into a team that generally attempts to play towards a dragon sweep, which is too broad to define. do we now also define separate teams for water type sweeps? dark type sweeps? scarftar sweeps? a well constructed team of that sort probably will have hazards and spinning among other things but dragmag is more specific than that. i don't see the connection

EDIT: response was rushed because i had to head to the research MRI lab on the drop of a hat >_>

This whole topic could have been reduced to three words, stall, offense and in between, but we are here to define what are the main synergies are in different teams.

the problem with trying to "define synergy" is that it's an impossible concept to define. in and of itself synergy is little more than an airy buzzword. the most we can hope to accomplish is (i've used this phrase SO many times in this thread) extremely rigorous definitions of what we could call a team. "dragmag" can be defined as two or more dragons, plus one pokemon with magnet pull. "dragons plus spinners plus weather plus hazards plus wallbreaking support" has no definition. when we look at a team we can instantly see if we would call it "dragons plus spinners plus weather plus hazards plus wallbreaking support" but a computer will never understand what makes us say that. it's a definition we can see when we look at a team, but if you took the team away and tried to come up with the definition to then apply to teams, you'd have a very difficult time. keep it simple. dragmag has nothing to do with the mons that happen to synergize well with dragons - it focuses exclusively on a team that uses magnet pullers to explore that synergy. period. the concepts you keep trying to bring up are things that cannot be quantified in computer-friendly definitions and so are hopeless for the purposes of this thread. it just so happens that because dragmag can be encapsulated in three mons, we can define an explicit example for it in antar's list. but dragmag is a special case of something that cannot be captured on that list, which is why the rest of that stuff is ignored.

[Arcticblast]

This is DragMag.

    Is the opponent Steel-type?
               |
       ________|________
      |                 |
     Yes                No
      |                 |
Switch to Trapper     Outrage

There really isn't anything more to it.

[X5Dragon]

I need to think more in terms of a computer algorithm than rather say a bulbapedia entry, that is true, but I hope it is clear to you that this isn't about 3+ of the same thing, it's about the main types of synergies.

I also made it clear that I don't want to touch the definition of a DragMag team anymore because the support cast of the Dragons here play a very specific role, trapping and removing steels.

But it is not right to potray all Dragon heavy teams like that, others would focus on strengthening the role weaknesses of Dragons using other types (spinners, dual screeners, spin blockers, etc.).

You say that there are no attempts to define water sweeps and dark sweeps, yet DragMag is just that, a definition of Dragon sweeps. Dragons are different, they have higher stats, better resistances, wider movepools, more dual types and possibly even better abilities than any other type, are resisted by one type and nothing is immune to it or double resists it obviously, etc.

Can you convince anyone that if 3 or more Dragons were on a team, the player is trying anything BUT a Dragon sweep?

==

tldr: DragMag should be +3 Dragons with a trapper with respect to the RMT being quoted and because the emphasis would be on Dragons and removing steel instead of a coincidence of two popularly used dragons and a steel remover/trapper being on the same team. 3 removes all doubt about the purpose of such team. And 3 is not some random number, it's 50%, a majority.

If you would reconsider then about the other proposal Dragon Offense (or Dragon Spam, etc.) would have the algorithm simply count 3 or more like above, but detect no trapper.

Mono Dragon isn't in the general metagame viable so I wouldn't worry about going there, not at least Game Freak releases next gen mons to plug in the niches I mentioned.

I'm not going to add anything further about these two teams, wish we can hear more proposals...

[Antar*]

Originally Posted by Fat SpecsX

Apologies for the double post, but I hink you should add SmashPass as a style, as it plays rather differently from Pure Baton Pass

Rejecting. In my experience, SmashPass plays very similarly to Ninjask SD/Speed Boost passing in Gen IV.

Originally Posted by Fat X5Dragon

If I may suggest a redefinition of DragMag to include a mention of spinners "or a spinner" seeing how the creator of the team may want to focus on keeping rocks away and deal with steel using coverage moves and the like.

Keeping it simple. DragMag = 2 Dragons, 1 Cup Steel.

Also this just for the future but I'm thinking if GameFreak releases more priorities, especially from the special side we can have a Priority team, with 4/5 members each having one of more prioirty and a hazard layer and the optional spin blocker.

:/ Not seeing it, no.

Originally Posted by Fat Jimera0

@Antar

sorry that post about the assist thing was more in a response to other people than to you XD I figured that was the case with you. I honestly don't care either way if assist teams get on or not.

I think where I'm leaning on this is that I don't want to give validation to any strategy that involves using less than six pokemon, and "strong moves" to too vague to script for. Rejecting, with regrets.

Originally Posted by Fat Pwnemon

Paralysis Support

Rejecting for similar reasons that I'm rejecting things like regenerator core and entry hazard spam.

I'm actually going to go ahead and close this thread. I think we have enough teams types now, at least to start us off.

Thank you everyone who contributed!

[Antar*]

So after a long while thinking about how I wanted to do it, I came up with my own metric for measuring stall vs. offense. Edit: I'm not re-posting it in this thread or elsewhere on Smogon because certain sections are pretty math-heavy, and, afaik, vBulletin doesn't support TeX.

I'm reopening this thread to get some feedback (since I assume you all don't have Wordpress accounts), but I'm going to keep it pretty locked down. The relevant part for discussion is the "Moveset component" section. I'm willing to entertain the notion that I missed some moves or items that deserve modifiers.

Please follow the following rules in replying. If you don't, your post will be deleted

• No discussion of team types. That's over. We're moving on.
• No discussion of where the cutoffs between HO/Offense/Balance/Semi-Stall/Full Stall should be. I want to look at the actual data before I make any calls.
• This should go without saying, but read the blog post before commenting. You don't have to read the whole thing, just get a gist from where I'm coming from and read the "Moveset component" section.

[alkinesthetase]

okay right off the bat ima say that reflect should not be considered highly offensive in stalliness - not on its own (so if the metric was referring specifically to both screens at the same time, disregard me). light screen imo is more so than reflect. this is because many screen users are psychics, who tend to be lacking in physical bulk. bulky psychic pivots might not carry both screens but can still benefit a great deal from carrying reflect just to tank physical hits, ESPECIALLY if they cannot carry willowisp (only a few psychics can perform reliable burns, eg mew, sigilyph. for the rest, they have to suffer with flame orb + trick/psycho shift, or reflect). for example both xatu and latias can carry reflect on pivoting defensive sets, but they're certainly not aggressive mons. they could be part of offensive teams but they themselves function on bulk

i would generally say that light screen is not used in this way as much as reflect is, but rather, i'd ignore both light screen and reflect, and only give a +1 to the metric if a mon chooses to carry both, because true dual screening definitely only happens in offense teams. perhaps reflect on its own could be given an adding effect (to reflect its use on defensive mons), but reflect AND light screen together are given a subtraction instead.

also, i think you wrote originally that reflect and light screen would be adding. i thought this would indicate more stalliness? typo?