Competitive Suicide

[alphatron]

Grudge is a poor man's destiny bond and is a rather situational move at best. I suppose it should be trated like momento, as eliminating the PP of a the only move the enemy pokemon could have used against you may allow somebody else to set up. I used to use it as a last ditch effort on Ninetales in the past and it did save me on occasion. Removing the enemy heatran's earth power so that my own heatran could start a flame charge sweep was great. It was also nice when CB Scizor killed my Ninetales with bullet punch and I got to sweep with terrakion.

But then, the pokemon who learn grudge all learn the superior destiny excluding Vulpix and Ninetales. And outside of gimmicks, you really don't want to run grudge on that pokemon.

 

[Spaniard]

I run Scarf Gengar in Ubers. With Destiny Bond, of course.
-Takes out Kyogre, who blithely Surfs me when I come out to revenge it. Destiny Bond KO. Then I bring in Groudon for some Sun, I now have control over the weather.
-Takes out Extremekiller Arceus, which needs Shadow Claw to KO it. Destiny Bond KO.
-Takes out all forms of offensive Arceus.
-Takes out Darkrai.
-Takes out Mewtwo.
-Takes out all Scarfed Pokemon that it outspeeds (i.e. Palkia)

There's a reason why I love it <3 The only problem is that I can only have one Gengar per team :o

I agree that it can be very useful, but you're just seeing the good part of it. It would be a good idea to adress that it's a very double edged resource.

I can image many scenarios where you send gengar expecting an inminent kill but get caught with a non damaging move for whatever reason. Now you're in very bad shape.

I used to run a leftovers gengar with shadow ball focus blast hypnosis destiny bond. While non standard it worked fine. I had to be very careful when using it, for destiny bond needs very good timing. If you fail once, your oponent will react acordingly and you will have a hard time pulling it off but at least you're not locked.

Grudge is a poor man's destiny bond and is a rather situational move at best. I suppose it should be trated like momento, as eliminating the PP of a the only move the enemy pokemon could have used against you may allow somebody else to set up. I used to use it as a last ditch effort on Ninetales in the past and it did save me on occasion. Removing the enemy heatran's earth power so that my own heatran could start a flame charge sweep was great. It was also nice when CB Scizor killed my Ninetales with bullet punch and I got to sweep with terrakion.

But then, the pokemon who learn grudge all learn the superior destiny excluding Vulpix and Ninetales. And outside of gimmicks, you really don't want to run grudge on that pokemon.

Your post really intrigued me.

Could trading a poke for a move be a good gambit? I don't have the answer as I haven't tested grudge, but I suspect it isn't. Not only does it require expert prediction to get KO'd by the right move, but you need your oponent to have just one move that prevents you from steamrolling him.

However, I'd like you to give more examples where cutting some move's PP unleashes a clean sweep.

 

[The Silent Storm]

Actually I prefer Uxie, he doesn't have the dragon type like Latios, but he learns sr and he also have greater defences.

 

[SillySod]

Woah, thanks for the response, lots of things to think about there.

Curious if anyone thinks much of a selfdestruct snorlax. Snorlax can potentially cause alot of paralysis damage before going out with a bang and he is the only poke that gets a STAB bonus on the explosion.

I think its worth mentioning Healing Wish/ Lunar Dance in the OP as well.

Cheers, I knew there would be some really sweet moves I'd missed... and those are pretty excellent moves! While I cant see healing wish fitting into a carefully planned set piece play I can absolutely see it winning games.

At some point I'll ammend the original post to include the best ideas people have put forward along with some little bits and pieces I forgot to talk about. Life orb really deserves a mention in the explosion section and healing wish needs adding. Grudge deserves a mention too but someone is going to have to come up with something really dickish for it to get more than "here is a move that exists". All that stuff takes time though so I'll spend time testing the ideas and let the dust settle a bit before giving it another pass.

Oh, and a quick shout of thanks to Byrne, I wouldnt have remembered to explore this stuff if it wasnt for his excellent prankster warstory. Memento tailwind anyone? :)

 

[NoUserName]

Woah, thanks for the response, lots of things to think about there.

Curious if anyone thinks much of a selfdestruct snorlax. Snorlax can potentially cause alot of paralysis damage before going out with a bang and he is the only poke that gets a STAB bonus on the explosion.



Cheers, I knew there would be some really sweet moves I'd missed... and those are pretty excellent moves! While I cant see healing wish fitting into a carefully planned set piece play I can absolutely see it winning games.

At some point I'll ammend the original post to include the best ideas people have put forward along with some little bits and pieces I forgot to talk about. Life orb really deserves a mention in the explosion section and healing wish needs adding. Grudge deserves a mention too but someone is going to have to come up with something really dickish for it to get more than "here is a move that exists". All that stuff takes time though so I'll spend time testing the ideas and let the dust settle a bit before giving it another pass.

Oh, and a quick shout of thanks to Byrne, I wouldnt have remembered to explore this stuff if it wasnt for his excellent prankster warstory. Memento tailwind anyone? :)

Don't forget Exploding Lickilicki, and of course Smeargle who is capable of 10KOing Caterpie, Pidgey and Rattata.


Not much few days ago, I faced an interesting strategy in PO, Memento Chandelure, I put SR into my opponent field, so, when Chandelure was about to do anything except switching because it will die after taking SR damage, it used Memento, for facilitate his(or her, who knows?) last set up sweeper to set up.

 

[alphatron]

Your post really intrigued me.

Could trading a poke for a move be a good gambit? I don't have the answer as I haven't tested grudge, but I suspect it isn't. Not only does it require expert prediction to get KO'd by the right move, but you need your oponent to have just one move that prevents you from steamrolling him.

However, I'd like you to give more examples where cutting some move's PP unleashes a clean sweep.

There was one battle where I grudged a scarf terrakion (who didn't want ot rely on stone edge hitting my four remaining pokes) and locked him into struggle as my weakened jirachi finished him off. I've also sacc'd Ninetales against a CB Snorlax Return so I could set up with Ninetales, and another time against a gliscor's earthquake so I could once again nab a flame charge with heatran.

My screw ups with this move are numerous. One alakazam caught on to the fact that he would be needing his psychic for my roserade later, as well as shadow ball for my latias, and decided to take his chances with focus blast the very next turn.

Cute as it is, grudge isn't really worth it. You don't usually send in your weather inducer to die, and in Ninetales case, you have no guarentee that your opponent will use the move you want them to.

For all other pokemon who learn grudge, they learn the infinitely superior destiny bond. As opposed to getting rid of the threatening move, why not just ohko the pokemon altogether?

 

[Spaniard]

Sadly that doesn't look very useful :(

You also mention that destiny bond is superior to grudge because it knocks the foe off. However, there could be some obscure strategy that requires the grudged pokemon alive so that it becomes set up fodder.

 

[elchupo]

Something for the lower tiers to consider is Lickilicky. A lot of noise was made last gen about it being the only user (well, bar Smeargle) to gain STAB on Explosion, but before the nerf, with STAB or not, the opponent was going to die anyway so having STAB was less of a boon.

This gen however, Lickilicky is possibly one of the only users of the move that is guaranteed a kill with it. It can SD too, but that may just be overkill.

 

[JohnWesleyX]

I find Healing Wish as a second chance to start a sweep. I once used it with garchomp when he was still around with a dual screens+Healing Wish Clefable

 

[Lamppost]

Final Gambit Victini works like a charm, I generally lead with it and lot of times a i pair it with something that's walled by Heatran like Volcarona or Celebi. Basically what happens a lot of the time is a Heatran comes in on V-Create and since most Victini are choiced, i just use Final Gambit while it uses Stealth Rocks expecting me to switch. Then Pokemon that are walled by Heatran like Volcarona and Celebi can sweep pretty freely. It's also pretty good for putting dents in stall teams because you're essentially taking out a member of their team every time you use the move if you're leading with it, and every member of a stall team is very important for the team to work.

 

[Aeromence]

CB or LO Shiftry is awesome; it just explodes on anything and kills it. I'm really obsessed with that move, because I also run it on CB Landorus. It's still a great move, just not on mons like Gengar or Heatran anymore. Lunar Dance is also cool, on a dual screens cress with Twave. It sets up a frail sweeper so perfectly, and using that tactic, I swept with and Extremekiller Belly Drum Linoone :) I love all these suicide moves.

 

[BattleStar]

This is one of the best threads I seen in a long time. I love this. I to have been pondering about this. However I have to say the best Final Gambit user is accelgor.
Accelgor HP peaks around 366 and that is a massive damage to some. Also think about with Hazard damage. Accelgor can HoKO pokes with less than 90 base HP with hazard damage. He is crazy fast and can get rid of a early game sweeper.

 

[Byrne]

It's kind of upsetting that the two best Final Gambit users (Victini and Accelgor) are weak to Stealth Rock. This severely hampers their effectiveness, and if you plan to use them as anything but a lead you're basically forced to have a spinner.

 

[Lamppost]

It's kind of upsetting that the two best Final Gambit users (Victini and Accelgor) are weak to Stealth Rock. This severely hampers their effectiveness, and if you plan to use them as anything but a lead you're basically forced to have a spinner.

It is unfortunate that they are both weak to Stealth Rock, but it's not a bad thing to be forced to run a spinner. With how common Rain Stall is on the ladder now, I feel like most of my teams are forced to run a spinner to be effective anyway. I agree that they are most effective as leads, but I think have a spinner would definitely benefit you anyway. I don't want to turn this into a Rapid Spin discussion, but IMO i think the best spinner for Accelgor and Victini is Starmie. Starmie is generally used on offensive teams, not stall teams and i don't think a Final Gambit user will ever find a spot on a Stall team. They just go together better than any of the other spinners.

 

[BattleStar]

The most viable set here I think is the DestinyBond-Sash Gengar. It great that it can be used as a revenge killer and then knock out the next Pokemon sent out. The accelgor set is great you can use it as a lead and final gambit a max HP ferrothorn and really gain you momentum!

 

[BurningMan]

Staraptor and Lucario also learn Final Gambit.
Staraptor is propably inferior to Victini but with just 76 Points invested in HP you can take down Skarmory and Bronzong after they took SR damage (assuming your at 100%) so it could pair nicely with things like Landorus and Haxorus. He also got a nice surprise value because most people don't even won't suspect Final Gambit on him, having reliable recovery in form of Roost isn't a bad thing either.

Lucario is noteworthy because he is 4x resistant to SR although he gets moves to get past almost every counter he has with Crunch, Bullet Punch and Ice Punch and with 70 base HP you are not going to dent Lucarios more defensive counters anyway even with 252 HP EVs :/

 

[666lumberjack]

The problem with Staraptor+Final Gambit is that you basically can't do anything other than Final Gambit if you're running it since he relies so heavily on recoil moves for the bulk of his damage. Also, you need max attack investment and a Band to 2HKO 252 HP Jirachi after SR, which is able to endure a Final Gambit decently with 100 base HP and Wish off the damage. I would rather Just U-Turn to Magnezone if you're going to use up a teamslot to deal with mons like Skarm. (as a side note, more people should use Staraptor. Sure, it's unlikely to actually survive any battles, but Adamant Band Reckless Brave bird does 45% MINIMUM to 252 HP Jirachi, while Close Combat is hitting for 50.5% Min. There are a lot of teams with a flying resist that's very vulnerable to Close Combat and once you pick them off you're lookin at a kill every time you come in. Even if they're running Rotom-W, you can just click Double Edge
(252 Atk Choice Band Staraptor Double-Edge vs 252 HP/252 Def Rotom-W: 90.79% - 106.91% (and nobody runs 252/252 Rotom. 252/0 is just wrecked)) and then it's dead and next time you come in they're losing horribly to Brave Bird since if you don't resist it it WILL 2HKO you. Hell, 248 HP Scizor, a mon with pretty good physical bulk, is easily OHKOd after Stealth Rock with a Jolly nature. God forbid you get 3 layers of spikes, because in that situation you're looking at Skarm as the only safe switchin in the entire game which is pretty darn exploitable on a mon with U-turn. Or, if you'd rather, you can use STAB Quick attack that's actually pretty strong and fully capable of picking off weakened sweepers. I'd actually like to try it out on rain or sun since a lot of teams have Tyranitar as their own flying resist and only an idiot (or someone who has never seen Staraptor so doesn't realise it's so good) is switching Tyranitar into a Pokemon with access to Close Combat - if they do, Tyranitar is dead and you just won the weather war. Or you can U-turn out of it for a ton of damage and get weather straight back up.

 

[raijinken]

Is CB Gross still viable as an Explosion user? I haven't used Explosion much even prior to its nerf outside of Gross but I'm wondering if it is still a usable move since it is still a 250 BP move coming off an effective 607 attack. That should still hurt enough to warrant use, especially since it mauls most of Gross' common counters except for Heatran right?

 

[Taylor]

Is CB Gross still viable as an Explosion user? I haven't used Explosion much even prior to its nerf outside of Gross but I'm wondering if it is still a usable move since it is still a 250 BP move coming off an effective 607 attack. That should still hurt enough to warrant use, especially since it mauls most of Gross' common counters except for Heatran right?

The trouble with Metagross' Explosion is that there are other ways to deal high based-power and that's where Explosion exclusively shined in gens prior to the current metagame, where it no longer halves the opponent's defense before damage is calculated.

Also, Metagross' Meteor Mash is resisted by similar types that Explosion is to, so you're best aiming for coverage with its CB set; perhaps with Trick/Bullet Punch to give it some diversity.

 

[??????]

I'm surprised only suicide moves are being discussed, what about death fodder and the like?

 

[mode.9800]

something i used to do in gen 4 was using explosion in conjunction with trick room, now that explosion and selfdestruct dont half defense i dont know it would still work as well but it was a great way to get free switches for trick room sweepers and give them as many turns are possible to sweep and often getting a kill, Bronzong, executor, claydol and even now renuculus can all do it which can be relatively effective.