VGC Ask a Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer - Mark II

[Burgba]

Would this make a decent Helping Hand Dusclops?
HP/ATK/DEF/SP.ATK/SP.D/SPEED

28/15/25/22/27/13- Careful Nature. It sure was a pain in my butt to get, and even then soft reseting for it took a long time too.

[voodoo pimp]

Originally Posted by Fat Psyshock

Its meant to be bulky too. I already said,
there are better coverage moves than Surf, but you
need it. Also, who'd you use for a mixed attacker sporting
surf? I'm stumped on this...
My team is:
Charizard-Alakazam-Infernape-Venusaur-Porygon-Z
if that helps........

But there are plenty of bulky Pokémon that have much better attacking stats, so if you want to use a bulky attacker you should be using one of them instead. If you want to use Audino, you should play to its strengths, particularly its excellent support movepool.

You really should not be using Surf on that team, Venusaur is the only one that can handle being hit by it. If you want the Water coverage, use an attack that doesn't hit the partner instead. As for good Water attackers, there are quite a few good choices. If you want bulk, then Vaporeon, Suicune, Slowbro/king, Gastrodon, and Rotom-W are probably your best choices.

Originally Posted by Fat Burgba

Would this make a decent Helping Hand Dusclops?
HP/ATK/DEF/SP.ATK/SP.D/SPEED

28/15/25/22/27/13- Careful Nature. It sure was a pain in my butt to get, and even then soft reseting for it took a long time too.

Personally I would consider keeping, but you can probably get better than that since three stats are basically irrelevant.

[Psyshock]

Rotom-W can't have surf. Would a
slowbro do? Idc about double/triple battles hitting stuff much
Slowbro
-Surf
-Psyshock
-???
-Slack Off
If I give him CM....I already have cm Alakazam.
Thunder Wave?
I was looking more for a sweeper, idk.
Surf is obligatory for in game

[voodoo pimp]

I just said you shouldn't use Surf -_- Every time you use it, the partner Pokémon has to either Protect or take a hard hit. It's really only viable on rain teams where you're likely to have multiple Water resists/immunities. I'd also recommend against CM in general - setup moves are usually a bad idea in doubles, especially on a Pokémon with no spread moves.

[TheMantyke]

Are you... designing a team for the VGC rule set? It seems more like you're throwing several Pokemon together without any rhyme or reason. Is this an in game team or am I missing some underlying team design?

[Psyshock]

My god you ppl take this seriously.
They are a balanced ingame/world tournament (the npcs use
ev trained pokemon)EV
trained team all lv36 ready to trade to black2
My reason for my choices are that they have no massive weaknesses.
I'm not that stupid, if this was VGC i would be using very different Pokemon
and moves...Venusaur's Sleep Powder lets
Bellyzard wreak havoc with fire punch & fly

WHY DO YOU THINK THIS
IS DOUBLES?
excuse my caps, but i had to stress that.
Its ingame/for driftveil city's world tourny.

[voodoo pimp]

This is the VGC forum, we only discuss VGC which is only doubles. If you want in-game/singles advice, then this is not the place to ask about it.

As for why we "take this seriously," Smogon is a site dedicated to competitive battling, what did you expect?

[Psyshock]

Ik about the seriously part. What I meant was
bear with me, Im very young compared to the majority on this site and I lack experience.
Oh shit, this is the VGC faq area? Urgh, fuck....Howd that happen?
(Urgh...)

[voodoo pimp]

There's many different subforums, each about a certain subject. If singles are what interest you, then you'll want to look at one of the Smogon Metagames forums, probably Overused to start with since that's the most popular. Orange Islands is the subforum for in-game stuff.

[Golden Piloswine]

I know I asked a similar question before, but do simple teams excel at regionals? Because KeepBayleefing took 1st at Philly with the most standard good stuff, I've ever seen.

[TheMantyke]

Originally Posted by Fat Golden Piloswine

I know I asked a similar question before, but do simple teams excel at regionals? Because KeepBayleefing took 1st at Philly with the most standard good stuff, I've ever seen.

The way I see it, there are two ways to win in Pokemon: either you get lucky or you outplay your opponent. Going the whole way with standard Pokemon is possible, but demands little room for error and some timely luck. Bringing along an unothadox moveset, EV spread, or Pokemon can give you a facet to outplay your opponent as they may be unfamiliar with how to handle such a Pokemon. Be warned though that, as R Inanimate mentioned earlier, the top cut best of three rounds we have this season makes one and done gimmicks a less viable as your opponent will probably know what's headed towards them after the first match. It's important to make sure any rogue Pokemon you bring with you have enough usefulness to operate outside that initial surprise and to make sure they aren't blatantly outclassed by some other option.

[Golden Piloswine]

Originally Posted by Fat TheMantyke

The way I see it, there are two ways to win in Pokemon: either you get lucky or you outplay your opponent. Going the whole way with standard Pokemon is possible, but demands little room for error and some timely luck. Bringing along an unothadox moveset, EV spread, or Pokemon can give you a facet to outplay your opponent as they may be unfamiliar with how to handle such a Pokemon. Be warned though that, as R Inanimate mentioned earlier, the top cut best of three rounds we have this season makes one and done gimmicks a less viable as your opponent will probably know what's headed towards them after the first match. It's important to make sure any rogue Pokemon you bring with you have enough usefulness to operate outside that initial surprise and to make sure they aren't blatantly outclassed by some other option.

Clearly a lot goes into creating the "perfect" team, wonder why people at VGC'12 used only standard rain, most of them did'nt win half their battles, I think my newer team should at least get me 6 wins.

[Wiretap]

Is it even worth putting any speed investment into Kingdra? Modest Kingdra outspeeds max speed base 130s in the rain with no investment. I was wondering if that'd be better spent on bulk instead.

[R Inanimate]

Originally Posted by Fat Wiretap

Is it even worth putting any speed investment into Kingdra? Modest Kingdra outspeeds max speed base 130s in the rain with no investment. I was wondering if that'd be better spent on bulk instead.

The one main concern Kingdra has in rain is other swift swimmers (Ludicolo, and Kingdras usually). Also, if you don't invest anything into speed, some Choice Scarf users may also have a chance to outrun you. So while you can invest into Kingdra's bulk a bit. It should probably have at least 123 Speed or so, such that you can outrun Modest 252 Speed Ludicolo.

[BlueAquaRabbit]

Hello. I know this sounds like a stupid question, but.....
As a person who really (and I mean REALLY) relies on swift swim to win, I often find that I lose or barely win against tailwind teams. Would it be out of the question to use Floatzel in order to outspeed common tailwind pokes (like Tornadus-I, Thundurus-I, etc)?

[Dimsun]

I wouldn't pick Floatzel, and neither would I rely heavily on swift swim. The best way around Tailwind is to play defensively, in my opinion. Do you carry Protect on most of your Pokemon? Since Rain is an automatic and everlasting weather, as long as a Sand Stream, Drought, or Snow Warning Pokemon doesn't switch in, you really have the whole game to sweep with Swift Swim. Perhaps your best choice is to knock out the Tailwind user the turn it uses Tailwind, and then Protect and switch to wait until Tailwind runs out. If that doesn't work, you can also run a Pokemon with Trick Room or Thunder Wave on your team to make Tailwind either a hindrance or useless, respectively. The Trick Room option would only really work with at maximum two Pokemon with Swift Swim, though, because otherwise you'd be forced to not play Politoed in order to counter Tailwind.
Hopefully that helped, and you'll find some sort of solution in the future. It'd be nice to know what the rest of your team was for more accurate advice, but in general it seems that 85/55/50 defenses might be a shaky plan in a meta wrought with priority.

[barone13]

So I'm thinking of a scarfmixmence for vgc, intimidate of course, and along the lines of:
draco meteor
fire blast
rock slide
dragon claw

It would be great if no speed EVs and neutral speed nature + scarf would be enough to outrun most everything I would want to outrun, but I'm not sure.

What to do for EVs and nature comes down to the diff speed tiers, but I'm not sure how to calculate everything.

I typically use the stats on smogon and serebii for figuring stuff out, but both give ranges for stats and don't tell me which include EV investment and which don't, or if IVs are assumed 31s, or if that variance is part of the range as well.

Any information anyone can provide would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Golden Piloswine]

Originally Posted by Fat barone13

So I'm thinking of a scarfmixmence for vgc, intimidate of course, and along the lines of:
draco meteor
fire blast
rock slide
dragon claw

It would be great if no speed EVs and neutral speed nature + scarf would be enough to outrun most everything I would want to outrun, but I'm not sure.

What to do for EVs and nature comes down to the diff speed tiers, but I'm not sure how to calculate everything.

I typically use the stats on smogon and serebii for figuring stuff out, but both give ranges for stats and don't tell me which include EV investment and which don't, or if IVs are assumed 31s, or if that variance is part of the range as well.

Any information anyone can provide would be appreciated.

Thanks.

I personally don't think that Salamence should run a Mixed set, but if so:


Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Mild
116 Atk/140 SpAtk/252 Speed

Draco Meteor
Rock Slide
Heat Wave
Dragon Rush

The goal of this set is for Salamence to outspeed most things, and deal major damage with special moves, as well as physical moves. So Draco Meteor as it's major Special Move STAB move dealing major damage to almost anything, and Heat Wave > Fire Blast, just to give it a real good spread move, and so Salamence is not to walled by Ferrothorn. Rock Slide is good to, but I feel that Salamence needs Protect so either one will do. Then Dragon Rush for a hard hitting Physical STAB move, or Protect if you decide to go with Rock Slide. Either way Salamence should have Protect.

Check out the VGC Strategy Pokedex here for more helpful hints on Salamence, or other VGC Pokemon!

[barone13]

What's the point of putting protect on a choice item user?

Is heat wave only teachable on BW2, or can mence get it from a hgss move tutor, too?

And I'm still interested to know how to interpret the stats on smogon and serebii...do their ranges take IVs/EVs into account?

[The Knights of Wario Land]

^ Dragon Claw >>>>>>>>>>>> Dragon Rush, no question. 20 less BP is much much better than a 25% accuracy loss.

Also, why are you putting Protect on a Choice user?

[voodoo pimp]

Originally Posted by Fat barone13

So I'm thinking of a scarfmixmence for vgc, intimidate of course, and along the lines of:
draco meteor
fire blast
rock slide
dragon claw

It would be great if no speed EVs and neutral speed nature + scarf would be enough to outrun most everything I would want to outrun, but I'm not sure.

What to do for EVs and nature comes down to the diff speed tiers, but I'm not sure how to calculate everything.

I typically use the stats on smogon and serebii for figuring stuff out, but both give ranges for stats and don't tell me which include EV investment and which don't, or if IVs are assumed 31s, or if that variance is part of the range as well.

Any information anyone can provide would be appreciated.

Thanks.

With 108 Speed EVs and a neutral nature, you outspeed unboosted base 130s, which are the fastest Pokémon you're likely to encounter much outside of weather. You're going to have a hard time beating weather boosters, though; for instance, you can never outspeed Modest Kingdra (assuming they put a lot of EVs in Speed), which is the main thing you'd want to beat with Salamence. So make sure you have another plan for dealing with weather.

Originally Posted by Fat Golden Piloswine

I personally don't think that Salamence should run a Mixed set, but if so:


Salamence @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Intimidate
Nature: Mild
116 Atk/140 SpAtk/252 Speed

Draco Meteor
Rock Slide/Protect
Heat Wave
Dragon Rush/Protect

The goal of this set is for Salamence to outspeed most things, and deal major damage with special moves, as well as physical moves. So Draco Meteor as it's major Special Move STAB move dealing major damage to almost anything, and Heat Wave > Fire Blast, just to give it a real good spread move, and so Salamence is not to walled by Ferrothorn. Rock Slide is good to, but I feel that Salamence needs Protect so either one will do. Then Dragon Rush for a hard hitting Physical STAB move, or Protect if you decide to go with Rock Slide. Either way Salamence should have Protect.

Check out the VGC Strategy Pokedex here for more helpful hints on Salamence, or other VGC Pokemon!

I'm not at all seeing the value of Protect on this set. Why would you ever lock yourself into a move that makes you totally useless until you switch? And don't ever use Dragon Rush, the accuracy loss isn't worth it.

[Golden Piloswine]

Oh, my I made a mistake allow me to fix it.

I like to use Dragon Rush, I'd rather take risks than play it safe.

[barone13]

Ok, so, after further thought, I don't anticipate using Sp Atk as much as reg atk, so it's more of a change of pace, to deal with people who aren't expecting it.

So this is what I'm thinking:

choice scarf

draco meteor
fire blast
dragon claw
earthquake

108 spe EVs
252 atk Evs
144 sp atk Evs

And I would think I should go with Lonely nature, but I'm open to a Mild nature if anyone thinks that Lonely would leave Sp Atk just far too weak?

[Branny00]

Do you need to pay for ANYTHING (except for gas) if you go to VGC? Registration, anything?

NVM my last post, I figured it out. Now let me ask: What time does it start in EST? Like does it last from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST? Also, what is VGC 2013 format? Single Elimination, Swiss Pairings?

[voodoo pimp]

Originally Posted by Fat Branny00

NVM my last post, I figured it out. Now let me ask: What time does it start in EST? Like does it last from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST? Also, what is VGC 2013 format? Single Elimination, Swiss Pairings?

Each event has its own start time, look at the link to the Play! Pokémon page for whichever one you're going to. End time depends on a lot of factors, particularly how many rounds are played (which depends on attendance), but probably ~8-10 hours long.

Format is Swiss with a Top Cut (top 8, single elimination best 2 of 3).