Simple Questions & Simple Answers & General Resources (OU Edition) MK II

[Tarrandus]

Does anyone know the mechanics of how ladder scores are calculated? I just finished a battle and I can't figure out how this happens:

The foe's Magnezone fainted!
Tarrandus won the battle!
Ladder updating...
Maddaffacca's rating: 1984 → 1999
(+15 for losing)
Tarrandus's rating: 1714 → 1731
(+17 for winning)

The other guy went up almost as much as me, despite losing and being 200 points higher. Not complaining, just wondering how exactly this is calculated. Is there a thread somewhere explaining it, I can't fin anything searching. Thanks :)

[Zacchaeus]

Originally Posted by Fat Tarrandus

Does anyone know the mechanics of how ladder scores are calculated? I just finished a battle and I can't figure out how this happens:

The foe's Magnezone fainted!
Tarrandus won the battle!
Ladder updating...
Maddaffacca's rating: 1984 → 1999
(+15 for losing)
Tarrandus's rating: 1714 → 1731
(+17 for winning)

The other guy went up almost as much as me, despite losing and being 200 points higher. Not complaining, just wondering how exactly this is calculated. Is there a thread somewhere explaining it, I can't fin anything searching. Thanks :)

Your rank might not have increased very much because you've already played a lot of battles or your rank is on average higher than his. Also his increased because his rank had accumulated decay

[Emilyn]

Originally Posted by Fat NixHex

Honestly, don't give yourself a challenge. Maximize your chances of winning with whatever strategy. Potentially locking yourself into Bug Bite is does not do that. If you really must use Scizor, use Life Orb. You will at least OHKO heatran and 2HKO Skarmory (possibly OHKO Specially Defensive after SR) with Superpower and are free to spam Bug Bite or (steel move) after that. Still, Haxorus is faster, stronger, and has way better coverage in just two moves. It murders stuff that normally hard-counter it, which is pretty cool. CB Scizor, not so much.

I mean like . Sure , ill run life orb . The only problem is , what EV split do I go for ?

[tintinwong]

Originally Posted by Fat Emilyn

I mean like . Sure , ill run life orb . The only problem is , what EV split do I go for ?

if its going to be a smash pass, it means you will be attempting a sweep. if you are attempting a sweep, you go 4hp/ 252 atk/ 252 spe

[alkinesthetase]

scizor is not an especially good baton pass recipient. BP recipients are generally distinguished by resistance to priority, solid stats and abusable movepool/ability. in addition you want them to be useful even when they don't have any boosts passed to them (unless you're running full BP, or they have good boosting options of their own). scizor is okay but it's got issues (slow, and squishy on the special side, relatively unremarkable movepool besides bullet punch and uturn - the latter being unviable on a BP receiver). it's honestly not going to be a quality BP recipient the way jirachi is

anyway if you want to use scizor as a receiver on a quick passing team there are two basic mindsets. either

1) i only intend to use this pokemon if i already have a pass in which case 4 attacks 252 attack / 252 speed whatever nature you want is probably the best way to go. 4 attacks life orb scizor is not especially distinguishing right now and that spread is totally crap for an unboosted scizor (fast scizor is generally not very good in OU - there's a reason CB scizor is 252 hp / 252 atk), but with a pass it'll be pretty good. the movepool you should use is probably something like bug bite / bullet punch / brick break (don't wanna run superpower). fourth slot could be roost, quick attack, night slash, even iron head... whatever you want. you don't have anything super effective against fire types anyway.

2) i intend to use this pokemon for a variety of things but i want it to be able to receive a pass effectively. truth be told this is going to be rather hard to pull off. one of the main reasons scizor is even good in OU is for u-turn and you can't use uturn on a smashpass receiver. sets that run bug bite generally are swords dancers so you could steal either the bulky SD/roost+2 set and spread or the offensive sd+3 LO scizor. both of them can swords dance independently but can still use a smashpass. refer to the analysis for more on those respective sets

[Emilyn]

Originally Posted by Fat alkinesthetase

scizor is not an especially good baton pass recipient. BP recipients are generally distinguished by resistance to priority, solid stats and abusable movepool/ability. in addition you want them to be useful even when they don't have any boosts passed to them (unless you're running full BP, or they have good boosting options of their own). scizor is okay but it's got issues (slow, and squishy on the special side, relatively unremarkable movepool besides bullet punch and uturn - the latter being unviable on a BP receiver). it's honestly not going to be a quality BP recipient the way jirachi is

anyway if you want to use scizor as a receiver on a quick passing team there are two basic mindsets. either

1) i only intend to use this pokemon if i already have a pass in which case 4 attacks 252 attack / 252 speed whatever nature you want is probably the best way to go. 4 attacks life orb scizor is not especially distinguishing right now and that spread is totally crap for an unboosted scizor (fast scizor is generally not very good in OU - there's a reason CB scizor is 252 hp / 252 atk), but with a pass it'll be pretty good. the movepool you should use is probably something like bug bite / bullet punch / brick break (don't wanna run superpower). fourth slot could be roost, quick attack, night slash, even iron head... whatever you want. you don't have anything super effective against fire types anyway.

2) i intend to use this pokemon for a variety of things but i want it to be able to receive a pass effectively. truth be told this is going to be rather hard to pull off. one of the main reasons scizor is even good in OU is for u-turn and you can't use uturn on a smashpass receiver. sets that run bug bite generally are swords dancers so you could steal either the bulky SD/roost+2 set and spread or the offensive sd+3 LO scizor. both of them can swords dance independently but can still use a smashpass. refer to the analysis for more on those respective sets

Ok . So I get it . Scizor isn't viable as a recipient . Kinda a let down but ok lol . If Scizor can't be a viable recipient , would Scrafty be one ? I mean like I THINK he would be good considering he has monster defenses and decent attack PLUS moxie ... Viable option ? If so what Evs do I run on this thing ?

[NixHex]

Scrafty may work, but even at +2, you underspeed Scarf Terrakion and Keldeo and you will get boned by Techniloom. It won't be able to utilize its monster defenses if it's running pure offense, and it basically forces you to run White Herb on your SmashPasser (you should anyways). Still, it does have a pretty nice offensive movepool, with perfect neutral coverage and then some. Maybe this will do the trick:

Scrafty @ Life Orb
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Hi Jump Kick / Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Zen Headbutt / Dragon Dance

Zen Headbutt is mainly for Tentacruel and Toxicroak but if you're feeling really greedy you can try to get another boost.

[Emilyn]

Originally Posted by Fat NixHex

Scrafty may work, but even at +2, you underspeed Scarf Terrakion and Keldeo and you will get boned by Techniloom. It won't be able to utilize its monster defenses if it's running pure offense, and it basically forces you to run White Herb on your SmashPasser (you should anyways). Still, it does have a pretty nice offensive movepool, with perfect neutral coverage and then some. Maybe this will do the trick:

Scrafty @ Life Orb
Trait: Moxie
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant / Jolly Nature
- Crunch
- Hi Jump Kick / Drain Punch
- Ice Punch
- Zen Headbutt / Dragon Dance

Zen Headbutt is mainly for Tentacruel and Toxicroak but if you're feeling really greedy you can try to get another boost.

Thanks <3

[alkinesthetase]

I mean like I THINK he would be good considering he has monster defenses and decent attack PLUS moxie ... Viable option ? If so what Evs do I run on this thing ?

i will be the bad cop in the room and say even harder no to scrafty than to scizor. scrafty is UU for a reason. scrafty is absolutely worthless without a boost (speed is pathetic, and attack is unbelievably low). that means 4 attacks scrafty will be dead weight guaranteed unless you make a pass to it. moreover even after a pass scrafty is weak and still exceptionally slow. mach punch weakness is also utterly unacceptable on ANY quickpass recipient - all your boosting effort will easily be disposed of by a single techniloom fight gem mach punch. (likewise goes for bullet punch - never run a pass receiver that is weak to mach punch or bullet punch, and don't run a pass receiver that can be outsped by standard scarfers after receiving a reasonable number of speed boosts)

a good pass recipient depends on your team (classic recips like jirachi might not fit in due to type overlap). however the vast majority of smashpass teams are one smashpassing mon plus a standard offensive package - you do not want to be caught without a boost and be dead in the water. using stuff like scrafty or infernape to receive a pass under those circumstances is catastrophe if you lose your passer. i have seen things like nidoking used effectively, but again they are pretty bad unless they've received a pass.

it ultimately depends on how aggressively you want to center your team around baton passing - there are degrees of extremity there. you could lean heavy and run multiple smashpassers (smeargle would probably be your secondary, as in molk's example) in which case you can generally get away with running more pass-dependent pokemon like nidoking. or you can run the passer as a one-off in a standard offensive team, hoping you sneak in the pass and turn a powerhouse like terrakion into a game-ender. how far you want to go determines the makeup of your team, what order you build in and most importantly what recipients are viable.

something strong and standard like special landorus-I or some kind of jirachi is probably a good start. they're solid recipients because of their flexibility and independence on a team - being relatively secure against most forms of priority and having all around fair stats also helps. don't start digging down into the barrel looking for a mon that "becomes viable" when it's received a pass though - that hurts your team and makes receiving and abusing a pass harder.

[Misdreavus]

How useful is Iron Fist Infernape? I noticed that the only set it's listed as an option on is the Choice Band one, where it's listed as the primary ability option, but none of the primary move options are boosted by it. The page for Iron Fist says it's "fantastic" compared to Blaze on Infernape though...

[voodoo pimp]

Originally Posted by Fat Misdreavus

How useful is Iron Fist Infernape? I noticed that the only set it's listed as an option on is the Choice Band one, where it's listed as the primary ability option, but none of the primary move options are boosted by it. The page for Iron Fist says it's "fantastic" compared to Blaze on Infernape though...

Out of Infernape's moveset, it boosts Fire Punch, Focus Punch, Mach Punch, and ThunderPunch. If you're using any of those, it's generally better. If you're not, then Blaze is obviously better.

[Onicon]

Two questions:

We (he and I) are currently trying to determine how much speed is appropiate for SD-Breloom (Adamant LO).
Cloyster has the same base speed as Breloom. To tie with the average Shell Smasher and KO it with Bullet Seed through Focus Sash you have to run max speed. No need when you can keep up SR, though.
Timid Gothitelle can be checked with enough speed. Unfortunately it needs to be Jolly/216 in order to do it but at least they are not common enough to emphasize the need.
Offensive Politoed will be OHKOed by +2 Mach Punch and SR. Defensive Politoed is slower, so this one won't be an issue.
Magnezone will always be OHKOed after +2 Mach Punch.
Offensive SD-Scizor will be OHKOed by Mach Punch, but has a priority move itself. So that may be a good start. To outpace the Adamant ones Breloom needs 216 speed.
The next step down would be 0 speed Gyarados. Just look at the stats: Less than 5% of all Gyarados' have no speed. Even 0/0/0/0/0/0 is more commen than 252/252/0/0/4/0 (just kidding). Trying to outspeed this one is probably a moot point, but in order to outspeed that thing we need 92 speed.
I haven't seen a lot of Vaporeons these days and if they appear, then usually in Baton Pass teams. You don't need speed to outspeed the slowest Vaporeon, but some of them appear to creep over defensive Cloyster, a rarity itself, for which we only need 8 speed. The Baton Pass version usually have enough to outspeed Jolteon after +2 speed, in which case it you shouldn't even try. Otherwise, look at Gyarados with 0 speed.

Our conclusion for SD-Breloom: 216 speed for SD-Scizor, 92 speed faster Vaporeon and slow Gyaradoses, the rest is speed creep.
Does that mean that SD-Breloom needs no speed or that SD-Breloom is generally weak?

Second question, which does not have something to do with the game itself:
People keep telling me that it is common to leave a "GG" remark after a match. How do I do it when the game just happened to be bad? I always get the feeling that GG can come across as borderline mocking when I throw it in after a bad one.

[tintinwong]

i cant really answer the first question well, but breloom usually have speed evs to outspeed slow pokemons to get a free spore and a swords dance and proceed to mach punch out everything else. (that is my opinion)

the second question. If you feel that the saying gg is borderline mocking, you could always try something like "good try" or something. usually putting out full words would makes you seem more polite. Thats what i think.

[alkinesthetase]

second question is easier to answer - etiquette is subjective, and it's anonymous pokemon on the internet, so you can only do so much to please people. make the response that, in your head, expresses the respect you think it should, close the match, and move on *shrug* pokemon hasn't established "standards" of politeness, like say starcraft where not gging is considered rather rude

as for your adamant SD loom - you can drop the speed if you want, but you only save ~40 EVs at the benchmarks you're observing, which, for something as frail as breloom, will make really no practical difference. you need BIG amounts of EVs if you want breloom to take hits better than a paper bag, and seeing as you're carrying LO, the "bulk" will fade away pretty fast anyway. in comparison going for the extra speed EVs will let you outrun other creepers and who knows might save you in a clutch situation - perhaps not often but definitely more so than having a tiny bit of extra health. getting spores faster is also useful.

[Onicon]

Thanks for answering, both of you.

Assuming one wants to creep over offensive Scizor, the amount of points saved is indeed poor. The only difference it makes is that it will survive one of Adamant Mamoswine's Ice Shard, and of course one coming from one of the Jolly ones. Breloom will kill itself with LO afterwards, but let's keep the freedom of treating LO as an option, not a necessity - in fact, I prefer the Fist Plate to OHKO Scarf-Toed after SR.
Spore is fine and dandy, but in Breloom's speed tier there is no thing that does not fall within a turn. The only creeper I see are Heatran, who is KOed by +2 Mach Punch, and Gliscor, who is out of reach for Adamant Breloom because it usually aims for Jolly Tyranitar. It may be useful for grabbing more SDs, though: At +4 you get a shot at Scarf-Mence (Fist Plate, guaranteed OHKO with LO), Latios after SR (chance, only with LO) and Espeon after SR.

Yes, and the thing with the online etiquette does not seem to be that much different from the Real Life, apart from not being able to see the opponent's face and to hear the opponent's voice, which is a source of misunderstandings. I'd rather do a complete match evaluation to show my respect but nobody has enough time for this, obviously.

[MajesticStar3800]

I need a filler for thundurus.

i don't eed offensive, what i really need is an entry hazard user/spinner. I plan on using Ferrothorn but i may need rapid spin. help?

[dragonuser]

Without knowing your team it is really impossible to give you accurate advice. Could you post the 6 pokemon on your team and I would be happy to help.

[Arceus Nui]

Does a core lose it's viability even if it's well known? For example, I wanna create a team based around a Keldeo and Ttar core, but in my mind I think it's no longer good just because it's somewhat well known... This is probably a stupid question to ask, but unless a person says otherwise, my mind will always think that way about a tried and true cores :l

EDIT: this is probably my biggest fault as a pokemon battler, because of this I try to create new and unique cores, but they end up not meeting my expectations, and sorry if I sound a bit whiny in this; I'm not sure how else to say it

[Turtle Soup]

If core is well know, like the one you mentioned it is because it so good and effective. The pokes cover each other weaknesses, have few counters etc. So if your less experienced or just not that good at team building it's in your best interest to use a well known tried and true core. It's quite unlikely that you will discover some new amazing core, of course experimenting never hurts and is good fun.

[JoshuaMunoz]

How to counter Weavile on sand teams?

[Zacchaeus]

Originally Posted by Fat JoshuaMunoz

How to counter Weavile on sand teams?

Heatran, Skarmory, or other Steel-types that can take a Low Kick would all work

[BlankZero]

Originally Posted by Fat JoshuaMunoz

How to counter Weavile on sand teams?

Heatran? Scarf Terrakion?

[DrunkDemon]

Keldeo also works, and has good synergy with Tyranitar.

[alkinesthetase]

smash it with a fighting type and force it out repeatedly with rocks down; it'll die. most reasonably bulky steels that can take a low kick can wall it. it's also super frail so most things will cripple it on the switch; it's only gonna get in after something dies usually (or if it comes in as you boost up - that's something to watch out for if the booster in question is weavile weak)

[Sciztar]

What is a good check or counter to Choice Scarf Terrakion and Swords Dance Breloom?