Battle Maison Discussion & Records

[theyen]

I would say Nidoqueen but that would leave you vulnerable to basically any pokemon with Water/Ice coverage. And you still wont beat Shuca Berry Electivire. What other pokemon can you use? i would recommend a Greninja/Aegislash backup, in the vein of Turskain's 1010 win streak team.

 

[Yohe]

Uhm, let's see...

Mega Altaria is a must this time, but the two remaining slots are ??? right now

Options (or the ones I can think of right now)

Hide

-Typhlosion
-Milotic
-Cloyster
-Nidoqueen
-Eeveelution
-Gardevoir/Gallade
-Dragonite
-Garchomp
-Togekiss
-Charizard

 

[cant say]

Just posting to say that the unreleased berries (ie: Custap, Micle, Rowap, Jaboca and Enigma) are available as prizes from the new attraction on the Pokemon Global Link; Pokedoll Grabber!

How viable do you think these berries would be in the Maison? Custap Berry is definitely the most interesting / viable in my opinion and allows for some interesting combinations. I'm personally interested in trying out CounterCoat Wobbuffet with Destiny Bond (even Aegislash could benefit from a fast Destiny Bond). Could Trick Room + Explosion Carbink be a thing in singles? I really don't have that many ideas but I'm sure you guys could come up with some stuff. Maybe this could help with my 1v1 mon problem?

 

[iamfanboy]

Yohe, A Mold Breaker Excadrill would help when nailing things resistant to Pixilate Hyper Voice - and covers Poison, Steel, and Fairy weaknesses. Chansey and Porygon2 are both excellent users of Eviolite that have reliable recovery, Toxic, and a reasonable offensive presence. Talonflame or Choiced Staraptor could wreck some face revenge-killer style. Mat Block Protean Greninja is NEVER a bad teammate - it's the Pokemon that is #1 in multipoke battles. I'd say Milotic really isn't that great, not if you can get Suicune with reasonable stats.

 

[Togon]

I have a quick question. On ORAS, I beat the super doubles Châtelaine Evelyn using a combo of Mega Kangaskhan and a level 1 Aron. I'm trying to use a less cheap but similar tactic on X by combining Kanga with a Follow Me Togetic. Right now I've given it:

Togetic @Eviolite
Bold 252 Def/Sp.Def
Serene Grace
-Follow Me
-Substitute
-Protect
-Endeavour

Basically it spams Follow Me, occasionally setting up a sub if I think it's safe. Protect comes in when there's wide-hitting moves or a guaranteed Thunder/Stone Edge/etc coming his way. Endeavour is only used when all other options are exhausted or pointless and I make a last attempt to weaken an opponent before it's KO'd. In most cases Kangaskhan can set up just fine and proceed to win, but the problems are usually in either a stray status move hitting Kangaskhan or Togetic getting a bad status and then being unable to use Follow Me.

So without going into too much detail with my team, am I doing something wrong or is a distracting Togetic a lost cause? I really like these two together and I don't mind losing when they beat the majority of their enemies, but I don't like wasting so many hours trying to reach the Châtelaine with all the hiccups between round 20 and 45.

 

[VaporeonIce]

I have a quick question. On ORAS, I beat the super doubles Châtelaine Evelyn using a combo of Mega Kangaskhan and a level 1 Aron. I'm trying to use a less cheap but similar tactic on X by combining Kanga with a Follow Me Togetic. Right now I've given it:

Togetic @Eviolite
Bold 252 Def/Sp.Def
Serene Grace
-Follow Me
-Substitute
-Protect
-Endeavour

Basically it spams Follow Me, occasionally setting up a sub if I think it's safe. Protect comes in when there's wide-hitting moves or a guaranteed Thunder/Stone Edge/etc coming his way. Endeavour is only used when all other options are exhausted or pointless and I make a last attempt to weaken an opponent before it's KO'd. In most cases Kangaskhan can set up just fine and proceed to win, but the problems are usually in either a stray status move hitting Kangaskhan or Togetic getting a bad status and then being unable to use Follow Me.

So without going into too much detail with my team, am I doing something wrong or is a distracting Togetic a lost cause? I really like these two together and I don't mind losing when they beat the majority of their enemies, but I don't like wasting so many hours trying to reach the Châtelaine with all the hiccups between round 20 and 45.

Togetic's weaknesses are super awful; it's only natural you'd lose to a lot of paralysis/freeze when your primary defender is weak to Ice and Electric. Why not try Follow Me Clefable? It's not as bulky as Togetic, but it gets Aromatherapy to heal status, Moonblast to deal actual damage, Thunder Wave if you want to do status stuff, Magic Guard to prevent annoying Toxic/burn damage, and its weaknesses aren't nearly as bad. Tons of stuff resists Poison and Steel, making it very easy to switch out. The free item slot can be used on Sitrus Berry for extra health, or you could just use Lum Berry as a preventative measure against freeze/paralysis/sleep (sleep is REALLY rare). Obviously, Clefable will still have to take STAB TBolts and Ice Beams, but when they're coverage moves, the AI won't be throwing them out at you nearly as much with Clefable as they did with Togetic.

Good luck!

 

[faith_grins]

And yeah, Chansey beats Ghosts by Toxic-stalling them. It can beat most opponents that way, really.

The one caveat to Chansey is that there are ZERO Chansey sets that can beat any version of Gengar by doing anything but forcing it to Struggle itself to death, unless you want to be the weirdo who uses Charge Beam on her. I have run into this multiple times in the Maison with the only other standing member of the team left being Slowbro, or someone else who obviously couldn't stay in on the Ghost. It's a little bit tedious when it's something that just happens by coincidence once in a while (like it was for my team), but it's something else entirely when your team strategy defaults to relying on Chansey to kill things.

So, yeah, Chansey can deal with Ghosts, but I highly recommend keeping a team member who can deal with Ghosts themselves. To that end, I think Gengar/Sharpedo/Chansey isn't a bad team at all. Gengar is a fast special attacker with a great backup strategy, Sharpedo is a pretty solid physical attacker who reaches a ridiculous speed tier (speed ties with Manectric4 after Mega Evolution and a single speed boost), and Chansey is the ultimate stall machine. I think leading with Gengar there is the right call: get in a Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb if the opposing lead isn't threatening, or easily KO'd, switch to Chansey otherwise. Chansey doesn't mind switching into things in the least - between Natural Cure, Softboiled, and Substitute, there are very few things that can happen to her on the switch that are actually a serious problem, and since the switch out is immune to Fighting and Ground, several of the most threatening things are just that much less likely to happen.

 

[Togon]

Togetic's weaknesses are super awful; it's only natural you'd lose to a lot of paralysis/freeze when your primary defender is weak to Ice and Electric. Why not try Follow Me Clefable? It's not as bulky as Togetic, but it gets Aromatherapy to heal status, Moonblast to deal actual damage, Thunder Wave if you want to do status stuff, Magic Guard to prevent annoying Toxic/burn damage, and its weaknesses aren't nearly as bad. Tons of stuff resists Poison and Steel, making it very easy to switch out. The free item slot can be used on Sitrus Berry for extra health, or you could just use Lum Berry as a preventative measure against freeze/paralysis/sleep (sleep is REALLY rare). Obviously, Clefable will still have to take STAB TBolts and Ice Beams, but when they're coverage moves, the AI won't be throwing them out at you nearly as much with Clefable as they did with Togetic.

Good luck!

I chose Togetic for the extra bulk and assumed the AI would be throwing as many Focus Blasts and Hi Jump Kicks as it could at Kangaskhan, so the double resistance seemed good there.

Good call on the Clefable. I avoided it for the lower defences but it has all the pros you listed. Would Magic Guard + Toxic/Burn orb be a decent combo or am I overreacting to the status problem? I guess I'll grab one with Magic Guard regardless then I can play around with the hold items. Thanks!

 

[VaporeonIce]

I chose Togetic for the extra bulk and assumed the AI would be throwing as many Focus Blasts and Hi Jump Kicks as it could at Kangaskhan, so the double resistance seemed good there.

Good call on the Clefable. I avoided it for the lower defences but it has all the pros you listed. Would Magic Guard + Toxic/Burn orb be a decent combo or am I overreacting to the status problem? I guess I'll grab one with Magic Guard regardless then I can play around with the hold items. Thanks!

I probably wouldn't use a status orb, primarily because you need to Protect turn 1 to guarantee its activation, which means spending a moveslot on Protect. I don't see it as a particularly valuable move on Clefable, because it has fewer weaknesses than Togetic and won't be an obvious target most of the time. If you don't run Protect and use Follow Me on turn 1 anyway, the AI can just freeze/paralyze you, making the orb pointless anyway. So while a status orb definitely isn't a terrible idea, I think Lum Berry would place fewer limits on your move options, reducing the odds of misplays.

 

[Togon]

I probably wouldn't use a status orb, primarily because you need to Protect turn 1 to guarantee its activation, which means spending a moveslot on Protect. I don't see it as a particularly valuable move on Clefable, because it has fewer weaknesses than Togetic and won't be an obvious target most of the time. If you don't run Protect and use Follow Me on turn 1 anyway, the AI can just freeze/paralyze you, making the orb pointless anyway. So while a status orb definitely isn't a terrible idea, I think Lum Berry would place fewer limits on your move options, reducing the odds of misplays.

Fair point. I think I have enough to work with now, should be able to get those 50 wins. Thanks for the advice!

 

[GG Unit]

The one caveat to Chansey is that there are ZERO Chansey sets that can beat any version of Gengar by doing anything but forcing it to Struggle itself to death, unless you want to be the weirdo who uses Charge Beam on her. I have run into this multiple times in the Maison with the only other standing member of the team left being Slowbro, or someone else who obviously couldn't stay in on the Ghost. It's a little bit tedious when it's something that just happens by coincidence once in a while (like it was for my team), but it's something else entirely when your team strategy defaults to relying on Chansey to kill things.

So, yeah, Chansey can deal with Ghosts, but I highly recommend keeping a team member who can deal with Ghosts themselves. To that end, I think Gengar/Sharpedo/Chansey isn't a bad team at all. Gengar is a fast special attacker with a great backup strategy, Sharpedo is a pretty solid physical attacker who reaches a ridiculous speed tier (speed ties with Manectric4 after Mega Evolution and a single speed boost), and Chansey is the ultimate stall machine. I think leading with Gengar there is the right call: get in a Shadow Ball or Sludge Bomb if the opposing lead isn't threatening, or easily KO'd, switch to Chansey otherwise. Chansey doesn't mind switching into things in the least - between Natural Cure, Softboiled, and Substitute, there are very few things that can happen to her on the switch that are actually a serious problem, and since the switch out is immune to Fighting and Ground, several of the most threatening things are just that much less likely to happen.

Forcing Gengar to struggle is very easy, especially if you get a Sub up without getting poisoned by Sludge Bomb the first turn Chansey's out (even crit Sludge Bomb won't take out a Chansey Sub). If Chansey did get poisoned in my case, it was no problem to switch to Gliscor and back to Chansey, but if switching out isn't an option Chansey might need Aromatherapy or Rest or something. Otherwise, just switching to Sharpedo on Shadow Ball will grant you a 3-2 lead with a +2 or +3 speed Sharpedo at low health for an enticing Destiny Bond kill on the 2nd opponent.

 

[ReptoAbysmal]

Ooooooh! Custap Destiny Bond! I've had a Wobbuffet sitting in a box being completely useless because the only reason I'd wanted to use one is because of its Destiny Bond.

It might make a pretty nice OSHI- item for some of my pokes if TR wears off too soon, or for some item conflicts (though they don't really come up anymore.)

 

[frigidkitsune]

Hello, everyone. I thought I'd share my ORAS Super Triples streak with you guys. It is still an ongoing streak of 220 wins, so it won't be put on the records list, but I figured it'd be cool to share still

I should also note that half of this team was copied from Eppie's record setting Super Doubles team, but there are a few Pokemon that are crucial to this team's success in Super Triples

Mia Fey (Dusclops) (F) @ Eviolite
Ability: Frisk
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 126 Def / 132 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
- Trick Room
- Night Shade
- Foresight
- Brick Break

The Trick Room setter. Dusclops has incredible bulk, and even then, Aron attracts most all single target attacks, so it usually sets up TR unscathed, bar spread moves. Night Shade and Brick Break are to finish off Aron's victims after he uses Endeavor. EVs are for mixed bulk.

Mr. Wright (Aron) (M) @ Berry Juice
Ability: Sturdy
Level: 1
EVs: None
Jolly Nature
IVs: Unknown. Who needs them anyway?
- Protect
- Toxic
- Endeavor
- Swagger

The little Aron lawyer. He gets the front and center position because almost all Pokemon forgo their strategies and try to take him out ASAP. With Protect, this essentially gives the other two a free turn to do whatever they want. Toxic and Swagger as filler.

Edgeworth (Togekiss) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Serene Grace
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 132 Def / 126 SpD
Relaxed Nature
IVs: 31/x/31/31/31/00
- Air Slash
- Sunny Day
- Follow Me
- Roost

This Togekiss is absolutely Aron's best friend. The general strategy behind this is that if Togekiss can successfully wall the center and right Pokemon, Togekiss can freely spam Follow Me, while Aron and Dusclops KO the left Pokemon. The match will continue the same way until the two Pokemon affected by Follow Me are the last two Pokemon left. Sunny Day is useful to get rid of Hail from Abomasnow or HA Aurorus, prevent freezehax, weaken Water attacks, and decrease the accuracy of Thunder. Not to mention supporting the next Pokemon coming up! While Sunny Day is very useful, though, I refrain from using it if the opponent leads with a Fire type Pokemon. Air Slash is a nice move to have when the foes are using spread moves or powerful attacks that Togekiss can't wall. The 60% flinch rate can stop any Pokemon from taking their turn, prolonging Aron's sweep. It has never been crucial for wins, but it does help keep the advantage. Finally, Roost helps keep Togekiss healthy. Thanks to Aron's presence, he can go for Protect, while attracting every Pokemon's attacks, allowing a free Roost. This is less likely to work if Togekiss is very low on health, however.

Gumshoe (Camerupt) (M) @ Cameruptite
Ability: Solid Rock
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Quiet Nature
IVs: 31/00/31/31/31/00
- Eruption
- Earth Power
- Ancient Power
- Protect

The beast known as Mega Camerupt. With sun and Trick Room up, it is free to nuke the entire opposition with Eruption! This Pokemon usually takes Aron's place if the foes on field can't handle sun boosted Eruption, which is relatively often. The other two attacks are for STAB and coverage, respectively, though they aren't used nearly as much, thanks to Aron being able to weaken the foe's team beforehand. Protect is here so that Dusclops and Togekiss can set Trick Room and Sunny Day back up, since they are almost always still healthy once Camerupt comes into the field.

Franziska (Conkeldurr) (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Iron Fist
Level: 50
EVs: 108 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def / 144 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
- Drain Punch
- Mach Punch
- Knock Off
- Ice Punch

Same Conkeldurr set that Eppie used. Iron Fist is more reliable than Guts since getting statused is very rare. The moves are pretty self explanatory, just click the best move to use against the opposing Pokemom. The EVs allow it to survive a Psychic from Specs Latias, according to Eppie

Judge (Aegislash) (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Stance Change
Level: 50
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 31/31/31/x/31/00
- Iron Head
- Sacred Sword
- Shadow Claw
- King's Shield

A slightly different Aegislash set than usual. There's no Weakness Policy here because with Trick Room, Aegislash can't tank a hit and retaliate with +2 attacks, so I opted to use Life Orb instead for more immediate power. He does his job well, too, cleaning up the remains after Aron's done punching holes in the foe's team. Shadow Claw over Shadow Sneak because its never really needed thanks to Trick Room.

A couple threats to this team include multiple spread move users and opposing Trick Room users. For Spread Moves, Togekiss can usually either Follow Me a harmless attack or use Air Slash to flinch a target. But if all three use spread moves, Aron is less likely to live for long. Special mention goes to Blizzard and Muddy Water for possible freeze and accuracyhax. As for opponent TR users, the best thing to do is use TR first turn and Air Slash the other possible TR user with Togekiss. If TR is used twice on the first turn, Togekiss's support options can help preserve Aron until either the opposing Pokemon sets TR for me or I do it myself.

If everything goes according to plan, however, Dusclops, Aron, and Togekiss can sweep the entire team.

Here's the replay of my 220th Battle in Super Triples
KQRG-WWWW-WWX8-JTCV

Very effective team in this mode :)

 

[faith_grins]

Forcing Gengar to struggle is very easy, especially if you get a Sub up without getting poisoned by Sludge Bomb the first turn Chansey's out (even crit Sludge Bomb won't take out a Chansey Sub). If Chansey did get poisoned in my case, it was no problem to switch to Gliscor and back to Chansey, but if switching out isn't an option Chansey might need Aromatherapy or Rest or something. Otherwise, just switching to Sharpedo on Shadow Ball will grant you a 3-2 lead with a +2 or +3 speed Sharpedo at low health for an enticing Destiny Bond kill on the 2nd opponent.

Gengar1 has 65 PP worth of moves. It is absolutely not a credible threat to Chansey without some insanely bad luck, but if you wind up facing it without a switch option, you are in for a very, very long wait.

I recognize that you probably think a 65 move stallfest is a perfectly reasonable edge case given your willingness to default to 40 turns of setup, but I believe there are other people in this thread who appreciate the warning. =)

 

[GG Unit]

Gengar1 has 65 PP worth of moves. It is absolutely not a credible threat to Chansey without some insanely bad luck, but if you wind up facing it without a switch option, you are in for a very, very long wait.

I recognize that you probably think a 65 move stallfest is a perfectly reasonable edge case given your willingness to default to 40 turns of setup, but I believe there are other people in this thread who appreciate the warning. =)

I wasn't even thinking about non set 4 Gengar, but I've stalled that one out too and it's not bad - once an awake Chansey gets a Sub up Gengar spams Hypnosis followed by Shadow Ball so you get out of the deal with no damage taken (since if Chansey does get slept you can just switch out on the Nightmare/Dream Eater and switch back to try again) and don't even need to stall the Dream Eater and Nightmare PP. Even then, you could probably try to speed things up with your own Shadow Ball since Gengar 1 is gonna be showing up on teams that are generally walled by Chansey or Crunched by Mega Sharpedo.

But yeah, when looking for something that beats the most stuff 1 on 1 (especially in the context of "beat what can't easily be Destiny Bonded" which will be a mix of fast, not necessarily strong, attackers and status users) you're either gonna have to tolerate the occasional stallfest or just run Dragonite/MegaKhan and lose to more common hax.

I think with any possible 3rd member, Crobat will be a problem for this team if it's hitting with Hypnosis. The saving grace with Chansey is that Crobat likes to Taunt it a lot after putting it to sleep, so if it got a Seismic Toss off at some point you could bring in Sharpedo, grab a Speed Boost, and finish it off with Crunch.

 

[GG Unit]

Have we ever determined whether the AI "knows" what item you're holding? The reason I ask is that from running Moody enough, I know that the AI tracks your stat boosts in that something with both physical and special attacks will go for your weaker defense and opponents will switch between moves like Icy Wind/Bulldoze and stronger ones depending on whether you outspeed (and I suspect even something like this needs further investigation; for example, the Glalie I use outspeeds Froslass 4 at +1 Speed but one with no Speed EVs would not, so would Froslass switch to Icy Wind against all +1 Speed Glalies or would it depend on the actual speed stat).

In recent battles, Froslass has used Icy Wind and Jolteon 1 has used Thunder Wave after Durant used Entrainment, which seems to indicate that the AI knew Durant had a Scarf and therefore executed its "if faster, lower its speed" strategy. I will note that knowing the answer one way or another will have a fairly limited application - I'd think that the strategy for which Pokemon to send out 2nd based on how much damage it can do to what you currently have out overrules this, so if you had a Garchomp KO something with Choice Band Earthquake the AI would still send out something like Empoleon before Unfezant, but it's be interesting to see if this applied for any other items that don't announce themselves like an Air Balloon.

 

[turskain]

Have we ever determined whether the AI "knows" what item you're holding? The reason I ask is that from running Moody enough, I know that the AI tracks your stat boosts in that something with both physical and special attacks will go for your weaker defense and opponents will switch between moves like Icy Wind/Bulldoze and stronger ones depending on whether you outspeed (and I suspect even something like this needs further investigation; for example, the Glalie I use outspeeds Froslass 4 at +1 Speed but one with no Speed EVs would not, so would Froslass switch to Icy Wind against all +1 Speed Glalies or would it depend on the actual speed stat).

In recent battles, Froslass has used Icy Wind and Jolteon 1 has used Thunder Wave after Durant used Entrainment, which seems to indicate that the AI knew Durant had a Scarf and therefore executed its "if faster, lower its speed" strategy. I will note that knowing the answer one way or another will have a fairly limited application - I'd think that the strategy for which Pokemon to send out 2nd based on how much damage it can do to what you currently have out overrules this, so if you had a Garchomp KO something with Choice Band Earthquake the AI would still send out something like Empoleon before Unfezant, but it's be interesting to see if this applied for any other items that don't announce themselves like an Air Balloon.

I don't believe the AI knows your item in the general case. When using Trick, it doesn't use it on Pokémon holding XY Mega Stones (but does use it on ORAS stone holders), and does use it on Pokémon holding a Choice item even if the target is already holding the same item (and Flame Orb on Fire-types, Toxic Orb on Steels, and so on) - but that's the only "item awareness" I've seen, barring "not using Earthquake on a Pokémon with Balloon".

The AI's usage of Thunder Wave doesn't seem to be affected by whether or not you outspeed it - Jolteon1 and others seem eager to try out Thunder Wave regardless of the relative Speed, and status-inflicting moves seem to be high on the AI's priority list in general (except for Teeter Dance, which it may strangely use repeatedly even if all Pokémon on the field are already confused). I think the case of Froslass using Icy Wind on Scarf Durant would be caused by it knowing your current Speed like with other Pokémon, assuming it's capable of tracking Speed changes - judging from it using Icy Wind repeatedly on some faster targets until it outspeeds, it might be able to track Speed drops caused by its own Icy Wind, at least. Another case in Singles is Krookodile4, which often uses Low Sweep on Dragonite over Rock Slide after you've used Dragon Dance if you try to stall it with Roost.

This is all anectodal, of course - the fine details are difficult to determine, and there's seemingly a small (1-10%) chance of the AI using an unexpected, seemingly random move over better options even when "you know what it's going to do". For example, I saw Latios3 use Trick over going for a guaranteed OHKO on any of the Pokémon it could target in a recent case - it seems even more rare than Alakazam4 Trick with its rarity and higher KO power.

 

[VaporeonIce]

I've had the same experience with stuff like Cryogonal 4 (it usually uses Icy Wind on Durant and sometimes uses Hail; it never uses Blizzard, and my Durant is slower than Cryogonal without Scarf), while it NEVER uses Icy Wind on Drapion until Drapion outspeeds. My guess is that the AI has "intermittent item awareness," or that it's programmed to "know" in some cases but not others. So I think it "reads" Choice Scarf when calculating speed, but it may not read hold items the same way when deciding whether or not to use Trick. I think Thunder Wave is affected by whether or not you outspeed; I think T-Wave is a "high priority" move if you're faster, but a "low/equal-priority move" if you're slower. But, like turskain said, this is anecdotal.

Yeah, the AI's use of Teeter Dance is hilarious. It doesn't get that Sub blocks it (presumably because of its "hit all Pokemon on the field" status), making it the easiest set-up for Drapion in the entire Maison.

 

[Robo Mike]

Finally, finally! I'm SO DONE with Multi with AI in ORAS. All the allies are BAD, TERRIBLE, POOR, HORRIBLE!
My bro Archie... he's just the least of all the evils.
(I already miss my AI buddy in X&Y who has that Eruption Entei...)

MULTI WITH AI
After losing a bunch of times and taking forever in general, I did it with by bro Archie!

Typhlosion (Modest, Blaze, Choice Scarf) - Eruption, Flamethrower, Focus Blast, Extrasensory
Suicune (Bold, Pressure, Leftovers) - Ice Beam, Scald, Calm Mind, Protect

Teammate: Archie
Crobat (Inner Focus, Life Orb) - Brave Bird, Roost, Cross Poison, Super Fang
Sharpedo (Sharpedonite) - Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Crunch, Ice Fang*
* I swear it is Ice Fang sometimes, despite what Bulbapedia says...

First I tried hyper offense but after my first loss at the 50th I just couldn't get my mojo back. So I gave up and decided to go with a Frail + Bulky Pokemon setup.

Here's a list of teams that I lost with...
1. Typhlosion, M. Lopunny w/ Archie x3
* Why it failed: Vulnerable to Hax. Vulnerable to T. Wave.
2. Typhlosion, M. Metagross w/ Archie
* Why it failed: Metagross was to tank Rock attacks, but it and Typhlosion are both Earthquake bait.
3. Metagross, M. Salamence w/ Archie
* Why it failed: Megamence + Crobat was just ice bait. Also the point where I decided that I would have no more 4x weaknesses for me.
4. Typhlosion, M. Kanga w/ Steven
5. Medicham, M. Kanga w/ Steven
6. M. Kanga, Azumarill w/ Steven
* Why it failed: I tried Steven for a bit, but I decided I had enough of Steven's very useless Aerodactyl... if only it had Sky Drop...
6. Typhlosion, M. Kanga w/ Archie x2

What I kinda learned from fighting with the A.I. partner (may not apply to opponents!)
1. They are sub-optimal (duh) and you should save my heartbreak and just find a friend to do Super Multis at the Maison.
2. They are fairly easy to predict, but sometimes will not do an obvious play like Aqua Jet a low health Pokemon that can't possibly have Water Absorb in favor of taking a huge chunk off the other Pokemon... and speaking of which...
3. The A.I. knows the opponent's Pokemon's ability at all times. Sharpedo NEVER ever triggered an opponent's Water Absorb or Storm Drain. Archie is a prophet. But still not smart.
4. One biggest frustration of fighting with the A.I. is only having one Pokemon on the field at the time that I chose, so I don't have enough support or consistency to properly run things like the Sharpedo protect bait or lv1 Aron. Most AI teams in particular are very frail with the exception of Steven's Metagross.

So what worked this time? Besides getting lucky of course...
Bold Suicune with 255 defense EV's is just what the doctor ordered. Typhlosion isn't that tough, so will draw fire from the AI, particularly Water, Rock and Ground attacks... Suicune resists water, and Rock and Ground are primarily physical attacks.

Before Suicune, I would almost always just sacrifice Typhlosion after spending a few turns Erupting. Lopunny isn't that tough, Metagross was worthless if the attack I'm trying to avoid is an Earthquake, Kanga's bulk is just not enough.

In addition, using Suicune allowed my side to be entirely Special attacks to go with Archie's/Steven's entirely Physical attacking move list.

Initially I used Icy Wind over Ice Beam, but realized there are hardly any things that Archie's Crobat will not outspeed.

Chatelaine Battle Recap

56DG-WWWW-WWX9-3XMB

In the 50th Battle I was mulling the use of Greninja again, but decided to go on with Suicune and Typhlosion. Morgan and Nita came out which is unfortunate since at least Dana would have a better chance to have Regice, Registeel and Articuno--which Typhlosion would just wipe off the field.

I got a pretty bad start facing down Landorus and Cobalion with my Typhlosion and Archie's Crobat. Knowing Landorus is Scarfed, I just switched out to Suicune which tanked an Earth Power for over 1/3 damage. Crobat does half to Landorus. Luckily Cobalion goes with Metal Burst for nada.
Next turn I decided to Scald instead of Protect, and Lando is left with almost no health after being Brave Birded by Crobat, so that was a good decision. Cobalion does Metal Burst again for nothing.
Tornadus comes out and kills Crobat with a Hurricane, but not after getting Scald and Brave Bird for about 70%. Cobalion starts used Sacred Sword on Suicune.
Next turn Tornadus Hurricaned Suicune, while Sacred Sword took out Sharpedo.
After an exchange of Scalds and Sacred Swords, Cobalion took Suicune down to over 30HP before it went down. If Virizion came out it would have been a shoe-in for the win, but instead Terrakion came out. Joy.
Terrakion earthquaked Suicune to death leaving Typhlosion to roll the dice with a Focus Blast for the win.

Recap of my other ORAS Maison Teams:

Recap

SINGLES http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battle-maison-discussion-records.3492706/page-112#post-5942631

Typhlosion (Modest, Blaze, Choice Scarf) - Eruption, Flamethrower, Focus Blast, Extrasensory
Azumarill (Adamant, Huge Power, Choice Band) - Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Superpower, Play Rough
Kangaskhan (Jolly, Scrappy, Kangaskhanite) - Sucker Punch, Return, Earthquake, Power-up Punch

DOUBLES http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battle-maison-discussion-records.3492706/page-110#post-5935340

Salamence "Sylphie" (Modest, Intimidate, Salamencite) - Protect, Hyper Voice, Flamethrower, Dragon Pulse
Sharpedo "Shark Weak?" (Adamant, Speed Boost, Focus Sash) - Protect, Crunch, Waterfall, Destiny Bond
Metagross "Juggernaut" (Adamant, Clear Body, Choice Band) - Bullet Punch, Meteor Mash, Hammer Arm, Earthquake
Conkeldurr "Gut Puncher" (Adamant, Guts, Assault Vest) - Drain Punch, Mach Punch, Ice Punch, Knock Off

TRIPLES http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battle-maison-discussion-records.3492706/page-113#post-5954462

Zapdos (Timid, Pressure, Sitrus Berry) - Lightscreen, Heat Wave, Thunderbolt, Roost
Typhlosion (Modest, Blaze, Choice Scarf) - Eruption, Flamethrower, Focus Blast, Extrasensory
Lopunny (Adamant, Limber, Lopunnite) - Fake Out, Return, Ice Punch, High Jump Kick
Tokegiss (Calm, Serene Grace, Leftovers) - Follow Me, Air Slash, Protect, Dazzling Gleam
Garchomp (Adamant, Rough Skin, Lum Berry) - Earthquake, Dragon Claw, Iron Head, Protect
Gengar (Timid, Levitate, Black Sludge) - Protect, Will-O, Sludge Bomb, Shadow Ball

ROTATION http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/battle-maison-discussion-records.3492706/page-112#post-5943036

Mega Kangaskhan (Jolly, Scrappy, Kangaskhanite) - Power-up Punch, Sucker Punch, Earthquake, Return
Florges (Bold, Flower Veil, Leftovers) - Misty Terrain, Aromatherapy, Wish, Moonblast
Azumarill (Adamant, Huge Power, Assault Vest) - Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Superpower, Play Rough
Dragonite (Adamant, Multiscale, Weakness Policy) - Protect, Earthquake, Dragon Claw, Dragon Dance

What's next for me?
I'm not really in the scoreboards yet... maybe I'll continue my other streaks. Particularly Rotation.

 

[turskain]

I've had the same experience with stuff like Cryogonal 4 (it usually uses Icy Wind on Durant and sometimes uses Hail; it never uses Blizzard, and my Durant is slower than Cryogonal without Scarf), while it NEVER uses Icy Wind on Drapion until Drapion outspeeds. My guess is that the AI has "intermittent item awareness," or that it's programmed to "know" in some cases but not others. So I think it "reads" Choice Scarf when calculating speed, but it may not read hold items the same way when deciding whether or not to use Trick. I think Thunder Wave is affected by whether or not you outspeed; I think T-Wave is a "high priority" move if you're faster, but a "low/equal-priority move" if you're slower. But, like turskain said, this is anecdotal.

Yeah, the AI's use of Teeter Dance is hilarious. It doesn't get that Sub blocks it (presumably because of its "hit all Pokemon on the field" status), making it the easiest set-up for Drapion in the entire Maison.

Whether or not T-Wave's priority is affected by Speed is difficult to determine with all the other variables:

• Luxray4, Regice4, Porygon-24, Regigigas3, and most other low Speed T-Wave users are very low-offense; unless they can hit a 4x weakness, they probably don't have any attacks that KO, which makes Thunder Wave a more favorable option. When Garchomp switches in on Luxray4 and Regice4, Ice Fang/Ice Beam are highly favored
  
• Luxray4 specifically also has Light Screen. Thunder Wave vs Light Screen seems like a 50-50 with this Pokémon; if Thunder Wave had high priority due to the Speed factor, I'd expect to see a lot less Light Screen (presumably neutral priority / preferred as a status move if no highly effective attacks are available) usage from it
• There is only one Set4 T-Wave user that has Speed investment and isn't getting outsped by most Pokémon: Zebstrika4. Non-set4s include Raichu3, Togekiss3 and Jolteon1. The frequency of "Thunder Wave users that outspeed your Pokémon" is considerably lower as a result; to make things more difficult, Zebstrika4 also has the bizarre Me First (it seems to like using the move against Dragons, and rarely against others).
• A particularly interesting Thunder Wave user is Honchkrow4 - the highest-offense user of the move in the Maison. It seems to like both Thunder Wave and its high-powered Sucker Punch a lot.

If Thunder Wave had higher priority in move selection when the player has a speed advantage, that would be in effect most of the time as the AI's Thunder Wave-using sets tend to be slow and lack any Speed investment. When the AI is using Icy Wind to gain a Speed advantage, the move's likelihood goes from "very unlikely" to "50%+"; if a similar mechanic exists for Thunder Wave, it'd have to be a much less dramatic effect as you said.

 

[GG Unit]

So it looks like the better way of phrasing it may be that the AI knows your exact stats, even factoring in modifications from items, EVs, and nature. That could probably be tested with something like Chansey, where an opponent would go for KOs on one with low IVs and no EVs in HP and Defense but would use moves like Swords Dance and Dragon Dance against a 252/252+ Eviolite Chansey.

The other interesting case to test would be if the AI knows about type resist berries, so if you had a Grass type out against Electivire would attaching a Yache or Occa Berry influence whether it used Fire or Ice Punch?

 

[scoobydoobydrew]

Guys, I'd like a quick item suggestion. What item would be better for this Porygon-Z in Super Singles?

Porygon-Z
Modest / Adaptability
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
- Hyper Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock

The purpose of this guy was to fire off full power Hyper Beams because in my new team strategy, battles usually end 1-on-1 with Porygon-Z vs. opponent. Porygon-Z destroys nearly everything with a 280 power Hyper Beam coming off a Special Attack stat of 205. The other moves are there just to hit x4 weaknesses, Ghosts, and Blissey. I was wondering, what would be the best item for its purpose of just hitting as hard as it can? I was debating between:

- Silk Scarf, which bring Hyper Beam up to 336 power but doesn't affect the other moves,
- Wide Lens, which gives Hyper Beam 99% accuracy (I almost lost once from 2 misses in a row) but also doesn't affect other moves,
- Life Orb, which boosts ALL moves but doesn't work well with Porygon-Z's middling Speed and the recharge turn from Hyper Beam (in case it's 1-2), and
- Sitrus Berry, for increasing its longevity during the recharge.

Of course, any other items with good reason would be appreciated as well as thoughts about the Porygon-Z, thanks!

 

[Doubt]

Call_Me_Charlie Wide Lens for sure. You're using Hyper Beam as a main STAB, and that miss chance is brutal, as the miss (as you have found), can and will happen during a long streak at a critical moment. Even running the 99% can be a bit risky, but it should be fine...I think. Good luck!

 

[cant say]

Guys, I'd like a quick item suggestion. What item would be better for this Porygon-Z in Super Singles?

Porygon-Z
Modest / Adaptability
IVs: 31/xx/31/31/31/31
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpAtk / 252 Spe
- Hyper Beam
- Thunderbolt
- Ice Beam
- Psyshock

The purpose of this guy was to fire off full power Hyper Beams because in my new team strategy, battles usually end 1-on-1 with Porygon-Z vs. opponent. Porygon-Z destroys nearly everything with a 280 power Hyper Beam coming off a Special Attack stat of 205. The other moves are there just to hit x4 weaknesses, Ghosts, and Blissey. I was wondering, what would be the best item for its purpose of just hitting as hard as it can? I was debating between:

- Silk Scarf, which bring Hyper Beam up to 336 power but doesn't affect the other moves,
- Wide Lens, which gives Hyper Beam 99% accuracy (I almost lost once from 2 misses in a row) but also doesn't affect other moves,
- Life Orb, which boosts ALL moves but doesn't work well with Porygon-Z's middling Speed and the recharge turn from Hyper Beam (in case it's 1-2), and
- Sitrus Berry, for increasing its longevity during the recharge.

Of course, any other items with good reason would be appreciated as well as thoughts about the Porygon-Z, thanks!

This seems like a horribly unreliable strategy for a Maison set, let alone something that's being made specifically to win in a 1v1 situation. There's no way to really improve except for choosing a totally different Pokemon altogether, but if you're really set on using P-Z then I would suggest adding Dark Pulse to the set to beat Ghosts better (it also hits Rock/Steel types neutrally). Psyshock may be a 4HKO on Blissey but Blissey4 will just Toxic you and Minimize / Softboiled her way to victory, so you really want something in your team that can handle her, as well as the Fighting types that will just KO P-Z before it does anything.

 

[NoCheese]

Besides the ugly (and very likely fatal) accuracy issue, Porygon-Z's frailty and middling Speed make me think that it can't possibly be the best choice for covering as much as possible one-on-one. Just as one example, the musketeers are very strong against it, and once Porygon-Z concedes defeat to them, you seem strictly inferior to Mega Kanga. Now, naturally, you may have already filled your mega spot, but there should be plenty of better options available in the regular ranks too. A bulky stallish poke is likely the best bet in terms of reliability, so I'm tempted to suggest good old Poison Heal Stall Gliscor. But if you want something offensive, a bulky hard hitter like Choice Band Rough Skin Garchomp with Outrage / Earthquake / Iron Head / Fire Fang (or Rock Slide) would be a decent fit. No, it absolutely won't beat everything (anything that can survive a hit and retaliate with a powerful Ice-type attack is a threat), but its power, Speed, and bulk do cover a lot, and I had success leading with Choice Band Garchomp last generation. Certain Dragonite sets might work too, especially since Multiscale makes it extremely hard to OHKO.

More generally though, if you are looking to trade off Pokemon and fight a regular stream of one-on-ones, recognize that you'll be putting a cap on your streak length. Nothing is flawless in solo combat, particularly when long streaks make runs of poor fortune a near certainty, and when I find a team of mine is finishing too many battles with just one Pokemon left, I view it as a sign that some team refinement is needed. So best of luck, but know that your road will not be easy.