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I thought of a hilarious PDon (lure?) set:
Desolation (Groudon-Primal) @ Normal Gem
Ability: Simple
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 Atk / 128 Def / 128 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Shell Smash
- Fire Punch
- Thousand Arrows
- Explosion
Nobody will see it coming.
This set is fairly mediocre tbh; not only is it very difficult to anti-imposter, but I'm somewhat unclear as to what you're trying to lure; the most common Groudon counter is Giratina, which is immune to Explosion anyway. Overall I just think Groudon has a lot of better options. Also, Fire Punch is horrendously outclassed by Sacred Fire, Flare Blitz, and V-Create.
No this is a lure set
Groudon-Primal @ Icicle Plate
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- ExtremeSpeed
- Thousand Arrows
- V-create
Just something i run on my Mono-Don team. You can run boomburst/set up/other coverage but Mono-Don is much more limited due to imposter weakness.
So I'm going to double post cause discussion is dead. Sorry in advance. My first post on Primal-Groudon completely failed to mention the other very viable side of Groudon: his 150 Special Attack. Heaven forbid you run into some sorta Special Groudon set. Oh the options of a Special Groudon set. Quiver Dance singehandly patches Groudon's Special Defensive and Speed issues. Anyway here is some replays i got from today's BH daily. The results were hardly what i would call stellar and its not going to start a trend like assist don did, but the Mono Don team did compete with Jeran with some help from, uh "skill." Not to mention it won the first match against a good opponent.
Mind you this team being 5 dons and an imposter Chans, is shaky against Water types, Imposter, Protean Sets, and any sort of Sleep. And its got me at the helm. Alot of things holding it back, and it still seemed impressive.
Edit: Thank you Rumors for pointing out that mistake i've posted both replays now.
On potentially limiting the big five/anything that breaks the 720 tier, I'd also suggest either Mega-Lati@s or Soul Dew get included in that since Mega-Lati@s are pretty downright crazy with them. Using Latias as an example, its special attack and special defense are 316 and 336, respectively, with 31 IVs, no EVs, and a neutral nature. Add Soul Dew to that and the stats jump to 474 and 504, respectively. Invest fully 537 and 567. Positive nature yields 590 and 623, though you can't do both at once. But either way, this is equivalent to a base 219 Sp. A and 234 Sp. D, giving Mega-Latias an equivalent to a BST 834 Pokemon, again before investment. (For comparison, fully invested Modest Deo-A only hits a special attack stat of 504).
Considering the only items that come close to that item's strength are Assault Vest and Choice Specs and that both have very significant drawbacks and, yeah, it's pretty nuts. Sure, Knock Off and Trick are things, but if you're playing right, you're not going to let your Lati@s blunder into either if you can help it.
...actually, as I write this post and run some numbers, I really think Soul Dew should be looked at. Looking at the premiere special walls...
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Primal Kyogre: 190-225 (47 - 55.6%) -- 76.2% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Primal Kyogre: 220-259 (54.4 - 64.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Eviolite Chansey: 189-223 (26.8 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 376-444 (53.4 - 63%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Cresselia: 220-261 (49.5 - 58.7%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Lugia: 195-231 (46.8 - 55.5%) -- 72.7% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Registeel: 109-129 (29.9 - 35.4%) -- 23.7% chance to 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Psystrike vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Registeel: 76-90 (20.8 - 24.7%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
Registeel takes the STABs well, but better pray it doesn't have coverage for Steel types... 252+ SpA Choice Specs Mega Latias Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252 SpD Registeel: 204-240 (56 - 65.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Specs was used to simulate Soul Dew since the item was not on the calculator for whatever reason. I didn't bother calcing Psystrike against Cress and Lugia since they resist it but not Draco Meteor. These calcs do not take Latias' ability into consideration, which could be Adaptability, Contrary, or Tinted Lens for even more power. It also doesn't take Latios into consideration, who hits even harder at the cost of not taking hits as well. Or special attack drops from Draco but... again, would probably be running Contrary with that anyway and no Unaware could safely wall that.
Granted, Lati@s has a bad defensive typing that lets it be checked fairly easily, but switching in on any of those moves are near impossible. Diancie can get in on a predicted Dragon-STAB, but it won't survive a switch into Psystrike. Imposter helps check, but Lati@s actually isn't disadvantaged because, while Eviolite Chansey is bulkier, Soul Dew Lati@s still hits harder, making it a gamble for either side.
...of course, not proposing anything on this yet, just suggesting it gets looked at and for people to throw their opinions in on it. I don't think the Mega-Latis are broken without Soul Dew for certain, so I wouldn't suggest banning or limiting the Pokemon itself at all.
Edit: Kingslayer2779 Both of those replays are the same game.
Heres a BH team I've been using for a bit thats Hilariously fun.
Cthuhlu (Regigigas) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 248 HP / 252 Atk / 8 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Facade
- Knock Off
- Protect
- Shift Gear
Protect. Shift Gear. GG NO RE.
Phoenix 42 (Archeops) @ Choice Band
Ability: Gale Wings
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Diamond Storm
- Dragon Ascent <-Just this really.
- Extreme Speed
- Earthquake
This is Talonflame on the craziest steroids possible. Press Dragon's Ascent and watch as 75 percent of the BH meta is dead.
Energy Sword OP (Gallade-Mega) (M) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Hustle
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Close Combat
- Sacred Fire
- Diamond Storm
- Zen Headbutt
Designed to do one thing, kill Blissey. Over. and Over. and Over again.
Maximum Ded. (Kyurem-White) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Refrigerate
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Boomburst <- Basically just this.
- Draco Meteor
- Searing Shot
- Earth Power
It literally 2HKOs everything. EVERYTHING. IT KILLS LANDO-T 10 TIMES OVER. WUT.
U WOT M8 (Darmanitan-Zen) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
- Ingrain
- Psystrike
- Searing Shot
- Cosmic Power
Why don't more people use this? It's so bulky and powerful its not even funny. Barely needs offensive boosts, just sit in front of things and watch them die.
Which Blob R U? (Sceptile-Mega) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Spacial Rend
- Energy Ball
- Toxic
The ultimate lead. Trace to examine enemy leads, Grass typing for absorbing spores and messing up enemy Magic Bouncers. Toxic specifically for dealing with all and any Shedinja in existence. Quiver Dance and dual STAB just for fun :)
2 things here, 1 imposter chansey completely reks you if you switch this in, and another is what does this do that something like mega ray cant?its kinda outclassed (diamond storm hits just as hard too iirc)
U WOT M8 (Darmanitan-Zen) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magic Bounce
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
- Ingrain
- Psystrike
- Searing Shot
- Cosmic Power
Why don't more people use this? It's so bulky and powerful its not even funny. Barely needs offensive boosts, just sit in front of things and watch them die.
252 SpA Sky Plate Aerilate Mega Rayquaza Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Darmanitan-Z: 436-514 (105.3 - 124.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Adaptability Primal Groudon Land's Wrath vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Darmanitan-Z: 484-572 (116.9 - 138.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Primal Kyogre Scald vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Darmanitan-Z: 354-416 (85.5 - 100.4%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Spooky Plate Mega Gengar Judgment vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Darmanitan-Z: 458-542 (110.6 - 130.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
there was a time last gen where darm z was really good, but as of now, everything easily beats it.
Which Blob R U? (Sceptile-Mega) @ Focus Sash
Ability: Trace
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Quiver Dance
- Spacial Rend
- Energy Ball
- Toxic
The ultimate lead. Trace to examine enemy leads, Grass typing for absorbing spores and messing up enemy Magic Bouncers. Toxic specifically for dealing with all and any Shedinja in existence. Quiver Dance and dual STAB just for fun :)
To add to what Lcass said, that Gigas set would have difficulties with stuff like Mega-Ttar, Registeel, Maggron, and, funny enough, Poison Heal Giratina and Unaware Cresselia, despite you having a SE attack against them.
For Darm-Z, I see Ingrain. Ingrain, meet Perish Song, Choice Trick and Klutz AV Trick. Especially embarrasing if you get stuck with a choice item on the turn you Ingrain and get locked into Ingrain.
For Sceptile, Toxic is bad for Sheddy because most run Lum and many also carry Recycle. Not to mention you risk poisoning Poison Healers and getting it bounced back via Magic Bounce.
Also, on Sheddy, your only options are Sceptile Toxic and Gallade Sacred Fire. A well played Lum Sheddy will wall your team endlessly. You need a second way to deal with it. And no, Spiky Shield over Protect on Gigas counts since not all of them run Endeavor.
Or maybe Kings shield. I'm thinking that so that it can sit in front of physical attackers easier, and because of poison heal, Gigas doesn't really need to worry about status.
To add to what Lcass said, that Gigas set would have difficulties with stuff like Mega-Ttar, Registeel, Maggron, and, funny enough, Poison Heal Giratina and Unaware Cresselia, despite you having a SE attack against them.
For Darm-Z, I see Ingrain. Ingrain, meet Perish Song, Choice Trick and Klutz AV Trick. Especially embarrasing if you get stuck with a choice item on the turn you Ingrain and get locked into Ingrain.
For Sceptile, Toxic is bad for Sheddy because most run Lum and many also carry Recycle. Not to mention you risk poisoning Poison Healers and getting it bounced back via Magic Bounce.
Also, on Sheddy, your only options are Sceptile Toxic and Gallade Sacred Fire. A well played Lum Sheddy will wall your team endlessly. You need a second way to deal with it. And no, Spiky Shield over Protect on Gigas counts since not all of them run Endeavor.
Replaced Ingrain with Recover, Toxic with Rocks, and gave Gigas the Spiky Shield. Thinking about giving Gigas either a fighting move like Drain Punch or some easy way to deal with Bliss. Also trying to think on whether to keep Searing Shot or swap with Fiery Dance.
Also, for Archeops, I just wanted an excuse to sweep teams with Archeops. You don't get many chances like that.
Because Archeos is outclassed in every way. MegaRay outclasses it's offensive sets and MegAerodactyl beats everything else. Better Offensive and Defensive in Rayquaza's case and Better Bulk and much better speed in Aero's.
i guess after being inspired, its time for me to showcase my own "primal spam" team utilizing the OTHER primal: KYOGRE.
kyogre is actually very similar to don, except for all different reasons. kyogres typing is not all that amazing offensively, but for its bulks worth its rediculously good defensively, being one of the sole offensive PHers that is currently viable and capable of ripping teams apart that dont either have godly hax, or you lack a stop to rayquaza. i solely ran 6 kyogre, all that have at least a shimmer of "viability" and the results are winning a tour with it.
this is my team. not only does it outpower a lot of teams, it even gets past imposter, only having slight problems with shedinja and ironically..kyogre. heres some replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-231400590 fight against dinaisha, a semifinalist in the tour, and obviously a good battler as such. http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/balancedhackmons-231403211 and the finals of the tour, having some unique pokemon, my team managed to....ogreweigh his offensive threats.
the only reason im posing this here, rather then the rmt thread, is that although spamming 6 of the same pokes is bound to get good results, ogre, don, ray, mm2x and y, all have way too much power at NO downside whatsoever. as i can clearly spam this team against even good players, and still get winning results as they struggle to use their counters to stop different versions of my ogre sets. on top of that, i don't really consider 6 of the same poke to be a "team" as much of a "slaughterhouse" so w.e lmao[/hide]
The only defense really is that, I have noticed that the effectiveness of PDon pretty much exponentially increases the more you have. It doesn't seem so hard to manage a single Don or even two, but more of a problem with scaling. Would a solution where you are limited to a single don (or species) solve [the] problem rather than the outright ban of a pokemon? Is that a viable solution for BH?
If we do implement a species clause, there has to be an exception to allow for mm2x and mm2y on the same team, they serve basically completely different roles
If we do implement a species clause, there has to be an exception to allow for mm2x and mm2y on the same team, they serve basically completely different roles
And how exactly do POgres with different Abilities and Sets not serve different purposes?
I don't think Species clause is necessary.
I think the problem that set up mons have taken a deep dive in usage (There are still Contrary users). This is mainly due to the fact that Defense has priority Spore (And the less preferable, Confusion), Burn, King's Shield, Leech Seed and Destiny Bond to round it off. This deters setup and obviously gives the upper hand to Defense.
I'm not complaining still. I was against the -Ate Clause. Implementing only further restricted the amount of offensive mons in the tier.
School gets out for me next week, so I can be more attentive to this than I have in the past.
With regards to options. I am against banning Pokemon, period. That being said, this absolute position means that I'm going to be more willing to look at creative solutions (to an extent) to problems, interesting ideas brought up/thought up that I would be okay putting up for a vote are below. Do note that I haven't run any of these by the development team, so some may be more feasible than others
Species Clause
Requiring items for mega evolution (I'm iffy on this one)
Requiring Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza to use Primal Reversion (with item)/Dragon Ascent to mega-evolve (I think this is a neater solution)
Species clause greatly irks me cause the fault is not in the lower powerful mons but the more powerfuller ones, aka the big 5.
Pokemon that can have multiple roles in same team such as double chansey with furcoat + imposter get greatly deterred with species clause.
The issue still is the frailty and superior stats of the primal and the uber megas.
Species clause would be just a cheap way out and while it would slow down spamming the mons, you still have to face the fact; The mons alone are insanely strong compared to the rest, specially groudon and rayquaza.
I like the third option due of that, tho I also think that mewtwos should be maybe included in it, but idk, mewtwos still do suffer from the worse typing issue, so even primals + megaray limit would still be okay.
School gets out for me next week, so I can be more attentive to this than I have in the past.
With regards to options. I am against banning Pokemon, period. That being said, this absolute position means that I'm going to be more willing to look at creative solutions (to an extent) to problems, interesting ideas brought up/thought up that I would be okay putting up for a vote are below. Do note that I haven't run any of these by the development team, so some may be more feasible than others
Species Clause
Requiring items for mega evolution (I'm iffy on this one)
Requiring Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza to use Primal Reversion (with item)/Dragon Ascent to mega-evolve (I think this is a neater solution)
as a person who initially wanted all megas to be removed, i actually am really appealing to the last option, while i also agree with cactus about the mewtwos, even with their crap typing, its almost impossible to combat them without one of your own nowadays since they KS for priority users. another poke i feel we should mention given we go the mewtwo route, is mega gengar, which has the same upsides as the mewtwos, while also having a stellar typing to back it up. and although weak to priority, its only weak to 2 of them, and the "next best user" mega diancie is actually incapable of KOing it with espeed. but i digress, the primals and ray restriction is a godsend option that i highly doubt most of us would be opposed to.
Just to clarify, Species clause does not specify the number of the same mons you can use on a single team. We could have a 2 mon or 3 mon species clause that would prevent people from running 5 groudon-p/megaray/whatever + chansey teams without neutering strategies like multiple chanseys. Having multiple chanseys also encourages people to run other items on chansey such as lucky punch. If the species clause is just 1 of each species, a lot of commonplace strategies are flipped upside down, while a 2 or 3 mons species clause just focuses on full team spam. This is imo the best solution.
Making primals have their orb/move causes two problems. If we want to adhere to ingame mechanics, we have to make them revert to normal abilities as well - this means that every groudon-P has desolate lands, every Ogre has Primordial sea, and every mega ray has delta stream. The second is it takes access to items away from the primals, which is an important part of their viability. Sure, we get rid of tinted lens don, but do we really want to get rid of sets like Ph ogre? Its not that they are broken alone, its that they are broken when shoving a ton of them on the same team. By using this clause we almost make them unviable because they can't hold items and are restricted to their original abilities. Okay unviable is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly wouldn't be so good.
Making megas hold mega stones is even worse because it takes away a good portion of BH's viable mons. Megas can no longer run the abilities they want, but instead are limited to their mega's in-game ability. That's not what BH is about tbh; its about stretching the legality of in-game pokemon to the max. I feel like that would stray from the entire point of the meta. Even if this issue wasn't present, this still wouldn't be very practical. So many of BH's viable mons are megas it would be a crime to take everything away. The metagames diversity would massively decrease. Since BH is basically only the mons with the best stats and/or typings, taking away megas means taking away a good portion of the best mons, which will become a massive decrease in diversity because so many viable mons are completely nerfed at once. A few megas might still be good, but most are going to see major problems.
Species clause with 2 identical mons per team. Its just the most practical solution attm.
School gets out for me next week, so I can be more attentive to this than I have in the past.
With regards to options. I am against banning Pokemon, period. That being said, this absolute position means that I'm going to be more willing to look at creative solutions (to an extent) to problems, interesting ideas brought up/thought up that I would be okay putting up for a vote are below. Do note that I haven't run any of these by the development team, so some may be more feasible than others
Species Clause
Requiring items for mega evolution (I'm iffy on this one)
Requiring Kyogre/Groudon/Rayquaza to use Primal Reversion (with item)/Dragon Ascent to mega-evolve (I think this is a neater solution)
Making primals have their orb/move causes two problems. If we want to adhere to ingame mechanics, we have to make them revert to normal abilities as well - this means that every groudon-P has desolate lands, every Ogre has Primordial sea, and every mega ray has delta stream.
The second is it takes access to items away from the primals, which is an important part of their viability. Sure, we get rid of tinted lens don, but do we really want to get rid of sets like Ph ogre? Its not that they are broken alone, its that they are broken when shoving a ton of them on the same team. By using this clause we almost make them unviable because they can't hold items and are restricted to their original abilities. Okay unviable is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly wouldn't be so good.
short answer to this is "yes". i really don't know what to say, because this is exactly what we want to happen really... all groudon forms basically are only walled 100% by giratina and with a scarf, basically says "fuck you" to all offensive pokemon in the teir that dont scarf themselves. rayquaza is pretty self explanatory, no matter what it does, its a threat, it 2hkos spcdef registeel given it runs specs. even to imposter, which is 3hkoed by boomburst, and kyogre...kyogre is actually a oddball right now. the ONLY reason its not "viable" is because ray checks it to death, requiring it to team build heavily around it, given rayquaza is removed, it will be more potent then it was pre oras, remember when kyogre was being considered a huge problem, and people wanted it restricted? imagine that with MORE bulk and MORE spc attack. do we want to release that? the three are being called upon because all three have potential to really overpower the tier, and all three have proven it one way or another, even without having 6 on a team, kyogre basically requires you to run a fakespeeder to beat it, as otherwise it sets up on a poke that cant damage it hard enough and you lose. all three will still be viable due to their INSANE stats mixed with their amazing abilities, but at least they wont be completely dominating the tier.
their banning is a step in the right direction. species clause really does nothing but stop crappy gimmicks, really, its not like spamming was the reason we called for don/ray/ogres head, i mean heck, rayquazas best set can only be done ONCE due to its limitation, and other then donspam(which we already admit is a huge problem with just 1 don but you clearly agree its unhealthy due to your statement about tinted don) ph kyogre has CLEARLY been a problem,regular kyogre was considered "cancer" at the time. and even now, if you lack a fakespeeder/amazing hax with chansey, you basically lose to ogre once it sets up to +1.
Species clause's entire point is to limit the extremely broken spamming of the same mons, I think we can all agree that it needs to be a thing.
I feel like this is basically just banning those mons, just because you are banning so many viable sets. I can support it, I guess, if this was only the case. But its not. The problem is its arbitrary. If we do this we are opening ourselves up to many more "limitation" that are completely random in the scope of BH. BH isn't about this, its about taking the limitations in the games to their maximum and then banning whats broken. this means if we ban something, we need to BAN IT, not arbitrarily change the rules to make it less broken.
This is kinda of one of those moments where I feel that adamantly refusing to ban Pokemon is actually hurting the tier. Tradition is fine and all, but really, we're coming up with all these weird and arbitrary methods of dealing with horribly over-centralizing problems to dance around just banning the problem because it happens to be a Pokemon rather than an ability. If the problem is a particular or few Pokemon, let's just ban the damn Pokemon instead of soft-banning all megas or coming up with weird "these megas must hold items but these megas don't have to" clauses that just make things even more confusing and arbitrary and cause far more collateral damage than just dealing with the problem(s) it(them)self. "Double species clause" is the least odd but it's still strange and arbitrary considering that species clause in every single meta that it's in, official or OM, is single species clause going by dex number. [/opinion]
I'm seeing two problems here that everyone seems to basically agree on: single mon spam is bad. The big 3/5 are also bad. If I'm understanding things right and this is the general consensus, then why don't we just deal with those things instead of dancing around them for the sake of tradition?
This is kinda of one of those moments where I feel that adamantly refusing to ban Pokemon is actually hurting the tier. Tradition is fine and all, but really, we're coming up with all these weird and arbitrary methods of dealing with horribly over-centralizing problems to dance around just banning the problem because it happens to be a Pokemon rather than an ability. If the problem is a particular or few Pokemon, let's just ban the damn Pokemon instead of soft-banning all megas or coming up with weird "these megas must hold items but these megas don't have to" clauses that just make things even more confusing and arbitrary and cause far more collateral damage than just dealing with the problem(s) it(them)self. "Double species clause" is the least odd but it's still strange and arbitrary considering that species clause in every single meta that it's in, official or OM, is single species clause going by dex number. [/opinion]
I'm seeing two problems here that everyone seems to basically agree on: single mon spam is bad. The big 3/5 are also bad. If I'm understanding things right and this is the general consensus, then why don't we just deal with those things instead of dancing around them for the sake of tradition?
I honestly really like this idea. Perhaps we could implement a 'Suspect Test' for BH where the big 5 is banned. Right now we're only theorymonning at the moment and if we are ever going to do anything with the big 5, the best thing to do is see what it would be like to play without them. I personally think this new 'tier' would bring out a lot of diversity because the big 5 restricted so much stuff it's unbelievable. With the 5 most powerful attackers in the tier gone it would admittedly become more stall-y since the big 5 muscled past most walls.
