DP Regice

[Imran]

Sure the Stealth Rock weakness hurts the power of this set, I even mentioned that in set comments, but if you disable your opponants SRer be it through Taunt or whatever suddenly your only taking say 25% from Zapdos and you get a free shot at whatever is coming in. I mean who really uses any other Regice set anyway with the SR weak and all that but in terms of "sets viable fore regice" this one probably works better than a support set as you don't actually have to switch as much, and it can do a lot more damage in the process.

As for Speed EVs, I will add that in the Set Comments that IF you are running Focus Blast then 48 Spd EVs is reccomended, for that after all is a good point.

 

[Caelum]

Sure the Stealth Rock weakness hurts the power of this set, I even mentioned that in set comments, but if you disable your opponants SRer be it through Taunt or whatever suddenly your only taking say 25% from Zapdos and you get a free shot at whatever is coming in. I mean who really uses any other Regice set anyway with the SR weak and all that but in terms of "sets viable fore regice" this one probably works better than a support set as you don't actually have to switch as much, and it can do a lot more damage in the process.

As for Speed EVs, I will add that in the Set Comments that IF you are running Focus Blast then 48 Spd EVs is reccomended, for that after all is a good point.

Speaking of EVs, you should probably bump the HP EVs down to 248. This gives you a stat of 363 HP, which if odd, as opposed to with max HP 364, which is even. This allows Regice to switch into Stealth Rock 4 times as opposed to 3. So, 248 HP EVs. Not that it matters on something so slow really but it's one of those "mine as well" things.

 

[diinbong]

Someone mentioned this in the N / C moveset thread, and I was surprised to see that it was not on the analysis. I asked permission and wrote it this evening. Its a relativly simple set so I didn't feel that it needed too much explaining. I was unsure about the EVs, I decided in the end that emphasising HP and SpA was more important than Speed, as you want to come in on things that cant hurt it, Tentacruel for example and then hit things on the switch, but I'm prepared to be swayed. So any thoughts?

http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/regice

[SET]
name: Choice Specs
move 1: Ice Beam / Blizzard
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Hidden Power Ground
move 4: Explosion / Focus Blast
item: Choice Specs
nature: Quiet / Modest
evs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
ivs: 27 Atk / 30 SpA / 30 SpD

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Due to its considerable bulk, Regice has the ability to switch in regularly and dish out damage. It is, however, limited in its ability to do this due to the prevalence of Stealth Rock in the OU metagame. With the Choice Specs, Regice’s Special Attack stat reaches a respectable 492, allowing it to hit hard with any unresisted attack. Thunderbolt and Ice Beam provide excellent coverage, and Hidden Power Ground hits, for super effective damage, anything that resists the Bolt/Beam combo, mostly notably Magnezone. It also provides a handy OHKO on the ever popular Heatran. Explosion will put a large dent in Blissey, but won’t manage to KO unless it has taken 30% or so damage first. Focus Blast will do 33-40% to Blissey, but comes with the added bonus of OHKOing most Tyranitar. Even a 252 HP / 252 SpD variant will be OHKOed 80% of the time with Stealth Rock down. If running Focus Blast, you may wish to invest in 48 Speed EVs in order to outspeed no Speed Blissey. The EVs emphasize Regice’s bulk, but you may choose to invest more in Speed to hit specific targets. If you wish to do this Modest nature is recommended (do what, exactly? Not really following), but remember that it will detract from the power of Explosion (why don't you say Modest with Focus Blast and Quiet with Expolsion?). Blizzard will provide Regice with more power enough to OHKO Gyarados, and give it at least a chance of OHKOing Celebi and Heracross with Stealth Rock up. This is only really recommended with use alongside Hail, as the accuracy is too low to be consistantly relied on.</p>

 

[Imran]

The Reason that I reccomend Modest Nature when trying to reach Specific Speed Targets is because you won't have to invest so many EVs into the Speed stat allowing Regice to maintain it's bulk and power even when reaching higher Speeds. I thought that was fairly self-explaintory. Made Caelums EVs edit.

 

[husk]

I'm with Sapientia. This Regice set really does not deserve a mention, at least not until we are testing a SR-less metagame.

 

[Imran]

I'm with Sapientia. This Regice set really does not deserve a mention, at least not until we are testing a SR-less metagame.

Surely following that logic using any Regice set is stupid. We have Scarf Moltres an the Analysis, with U-Turn on the set, should we remove that simply because Stealth Rock is commonplace?

EDIT: When this is ready, I don't think there is much point uploading it, I will just let Skiddle C/P it into his re-vamp, any objections to that?

 

[Bourbon]

i strongly disagree husk, I'm sorry.

I was under the impression that the whole point of the Smogon analysis is to help people find out how to use the Pokemon they want. We should be trying to make the analysis's as good as they can be, regardless of how viable the pokemon is. If there is something it can do that nothing else can, we should put it on the analysis. Regice isn't the best pokemon by any stretch of the imagination, but this is one of the few things it can do that Blissey and Snorlax cannot.

Glaceon has a stronger Ice Beam, but lacks Focus Blast and Thunderbolt. Froslass lacks Focus Blast and hits way weaker. I'm pretty sure Regice is the only Ice type that gets Focus Blast and Thunderbolt. I'm pretty sure firing off STAB Ice Beams off of 492 special attack isn't much to scoff at either! Ice is the game's best attacking type, and backed by STAB and Choice Specs, it really hurts.

The whole stealth rock thing is bothering me too... people act like anything that is weak to stealth rock is completely unusable. this doesn't stop Zapdos, Togekiss, Salamence or Gyarados from being used. Stealth Rock is annoying, and cripples many Pokemon, but there are ways around it.

 

[Imran]

On that note, do we think this is ready to move. I guess when its done we can move it to PEA, then simply C/P to Skiddles revamp. Any objections?

 

[husk]

Surely following that logic using any Regice set is stupid. We have Scarf Moltres an the Analysis, with U-Turn on the set, should we remove that simply because Stealth Rock is commonplace?

I guess I should explain this with more words. When you place a choice item on a pokemon that is not immune to sandstorm, loses 25% of its health when it comes into battle, and is slower than just about every pokemon you will commonly see (meaning, it will have to take a hit before it attacks) things are probably not going to end well. To avoid taking a hit when regice is switched in we could switch it in only after one of our own pokemon is koed. That would be the dumbest way to use regice as you're basically playing defense with 5 pokemon and regice isn't enough of a powerhouse to merit that sort of treatment no matter how you look at it. So, we can assume we're switching regice into attacks...then if you switch regice into an attack as it comes into play like lets say a zapdos tbolt or something (which is a pretty ideal situation) at the end of the turn you're pushing 50% from entering play, meaning you sure as hell can't leave play and come in again. So I guess you can choose your 1 attack from regice and hope you do some damage before you're KOed. My point isn't that regice is useless it's that this set uses him in a non-competitive manner.

And as far as moltres goes, that's a terrible arguement because you are somehow trying to compare scarf moltres and this regice and both of them have totally different purposes. It, no offense, shows a lack of fundamental understanding. Scarfmoltres was initially introduced in a metagame where SR was not as prevalent but it is still in the analysis now so that's irrelevant I guess. Scarfmoltres was meant to be a lead and be in play (when SR was not on the field!!). Moltres took care of most of the leads in the top 10 at the time (and still does a fairly good job) and by doing that gave your team the initiative. Further, since most people lead their SRers moltres scaring them off prevented SR from being placed on the field immediately anyway. End game if your opponent succeeded in placing SR you could still bring moltres back in and have it pretty much guaranteed get off one attack. Late game sending in something with that sort of speed and power has a high chance of ending the match or disrupting a sweep. Oh, and it has uturn for tyranitar in particular.

i strongly disagree husk, I'm sorry....stealth rock...

You're, right skiddle in that each pokemon should have a unique, competitive set posted. This particular regice set while being unique is not competitive at all and I realize people are not forced to use the set just because you uploaded it but I'm under the impression the smogon website wants as little clutter as possible. Uploading a set just because you can isn't the objective here.

And as far the stealth rock thing goes I'm just being realistic, which I think is our job. You can read my response to Goldfan for more details. Regice isn't nearly as fast as zapdos/mence/gyara/togekiss and it doesn't pose nearly as much of a threat to commonly seen pokemon as they do. Not to mention, aside from gyara they all get better recovery than regice does too. There are other viable regice sets which is why I don't think this one in particular deserves to be uploaded it's only a little less of a gimmick than placing choice specs on any random pokemon. Just to sell this set you have to straight up lie to the reader and say "Due to its considerable bulk, Regice has the ability to switch in regularly and dish out damage." That's ridiculous. I realize that this is covered up in the next line with a mention of SR but the impression the reader gets is that Regice can come in a few times if SR is down and a whole bunch when SR isn't. Both of those are false in common situations!

 

[Bourbon]

hmmm, you make a good point husk, I see what you meant now. It does seem kind of stupid to use this set when Regice is taking a beating AND stealth rock damage, and possibly a second beating before even attacking.

after reading that, I'm sort of on the fence about this one. Has it been tested?

EDIT: I just realized that Regice isn't even Calm on this set. If there is any hope of it working, there should be a Calm nature and some Special Defensive investment. Weak attacks like Zapdos' Thunderbolt and Starmie's Surf do around 18-20%, while Gengar's unboosted Shadow Ball does over 21%. After Stealth Rock that's like 45% damage before even moving. If this was a faster Pokemon it could be excused but...

 

[Imran]

I hate to say it, but Stealth Rock is not the be all and end all. If we had to change the analysis for every small change in the Metagame then that would be a large task indeed. I understand that Stealth Rock is a large factor in the Metagame today, but when Garchomp was hugely prevolant we didnt say anything along the lines of "Don't run Arcanine, it is Garchomp set up Fodder." (For lack of clear thinking to find a better example) The analysis didn't change at all. You may also ask why we have "BellyZard" on the analysis seeing as it functions even more poorly in Stealth Rock conditions.

I understand your point about the Scarf Moltres set, don't get me wrong, but you yourself admitted that it was only really for 1 or 2 uses a particular battle :/ We also have a tank set, and an analysis for Pokemon like Delibird who have little or no competitive viability. If I wanted to build a team around Regice (which is not amazingly "competitive" in the first place) then I would keep in mind packing Rapid Spin and probably Wish Support, similarly if you want to run Jolteon you make sure you have something that deals with Blissey.

To say this set is less competitavly viable than other Regice sets doesn't make sense to me, as Regice can pack a reasonable punch (Same base Sp. Atk as Celebi and some others, its not "amazing" but in terms of Regice and other BL Pokemon it works well.) Surely the page is for "people who want to use Regice" rather than "People looking through the entire Smogon StrategyDex for viable movesets" it's BL for a reason, and I dont see how this set is any "worse" than the others who all work on similar Principals, i.e. Switch in on special attacks and try to damage the opponant in some way.

I dont see why when running this in Battle you might not choose to attempt to remove threats to it first, meaning you dont have to switch moves as much. There are sets on the analysis pages that do require (or are helped more by) Support, in tis case wish works especially well, if you have a Wish Vaporeon and they switch in ZApdos (something not too uncommon) you wish on the switch and pass to Regice, there you go its in for free SR or no.

Main point is I feel that this set Reflects a more aggressive way of using Regice. Something that it is capable of with decent STABs and good type coverage. Even if it does have 40% shaved off upon switching in (and you may choose to use it to revenge) people will be capable of supporting it as they would any other mon. If the other mons stays in it will recieve a powerful attack (super effective in a lot of cases), if it switches out you are free to predict with an excellent array of type coverage.

 

[husk]

As far as charizard, arcanine, and delibird go Smogon has the most competitively viable sets posted. We obviously can't do anything about the typing/stats/movepool that make some pokemon unusable.

I'm not saying SR is the end all or whatever I'm saying that in common situations this Regice set is far less useful than the posted sets. Rapid spin is a rather feeble arguement against SR. And yeah with vaporeon wish support your regice can survive more than 1 turn but notice that you've neglected to heal your vaporeon to keep your regice alive. Vaporeon can't ever keep a wish for itself because regice is doomed if it has to switch in without an immidiate wish healing it.

I mentioned how silly it would be to keep regice for revenge killing earlier. It's not like he's about to stop pokemon that have just used set up moves anyway.

 

[Bourbon]

OK Goldfan, Husk, how about this. We cut down Regice' Special Attack to 288, no Modest nature. This does 100% average to Celebi with Ice Beam, and of course, annihilates anything else that is weak to Ice Beam. Does 100% minimum to Skarmory with Thunderbolt. Still OHKOs Heatran, and has a good shot at OHKOing Lucario and Infernape with Hidden Power Ground. Then we give it 361 HP to round down residual damage. I don't think outrunning Blissey is necessary, as Focus Blast can't do much to it. so we should just run Sassy. Stealth Rocks will take their toll eventually so Explosion is probably better over Focus Blast anyways. The coverage of Ice / Ground / Electric is unresisted already, Explosion can be a "last hurrah" for the wounded Regice, hopefully taking something down with him.

My proposed EV spread: 240 HP, 208 SpA, 60 SpD. Has a whopping 60 more Special Defense points than the previous build, which is more than 10% tougher. Regice might get two or three switches in with Stealth Rcok up, maybe more if it is not present.

 

[Imran]

OK then, but revenge killing doesnt nessecarily apply to only pokemon who use set up moves, but lets scrap situational analogies and lets get down to the bare bones of this. You are saying that this is not competitvly viable as it cannot attack more than say 2 times maximum, I'm saying it is competitivly viable because you can attempt to play around this and even within those two turns if used intelligantly can deal a lot of damage. Obviously an intelligant player would not attempt to use this too early for fear of hard and fast counter (Blissey instantly comes to mind) A lot of Pokemon sets only have a small timeslot to work in, and I feel that this one can do enough in that timeslot to be dubbed viable, and you don't. I think in essence that sums up the arguments, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong of course.

This seems to me to be a differing in opinion that reason and logic doesnt seem to get through, as we both know the logical output, but do not agree on whether it is desirable or not. I think were going to need clarification from others here really, but thanks for your posts. I agree that any set does indeed need to be questioned.

@ Skiddle, thanks for the post I'm inclined to agree with you after the calcs you posted, I'll test that out this evening and see how this goes

 

[Imran]

I've been testing the EV spread, and I have to say it does its job very well. The set still hits hard, and the extra bulk on the special side really aids its ability to switch in. I've been running it with Wish support and although I don't claim it to be "gamebreaking" obviously, I do feel it performs up to the Standard that other Regice sets do. I have re-written a lot of the set comments to reflect this but if there is anything that I have missed please point it out to me. If you still have quarms about the usefulness of the set, please still do bring it up, as we have to be sure this is fine before we do anything else with it.

Thanks very much to Skiddle for the EVs

 

[diinbong]

Editing Monster

[SET]
name: Choice Specs
move 1: Ice Beam / Blizzard
move 2: Thunderbolt
move 3: Hidden Power Ground
move 4: Explosion / Focus Blast
item: Choice Specs
nature: Sassy / Modest
evs: 240 HP / 208 SpA / 60 SpD
ivs: 27 Def / 30 SpA / 30 SpD

[SET COMMENTS]
<p>Due to its considerable bulk, Regice has the ability to switch in regularly and dish out damage. Thunderbolt and Ice Beam are the core of this set and provide excellent coverage. Hidden Power Ground hits, for super effective damage, anything that resists the BoltBeam combo, mostly notably Magnezone. It also provides a handy OHKO on the ever popular Heatran. Explosion will put a large dent in Blissey, but won’t manage to KO unless it has taken 30% damage or so (rearanged) first. Focus Blast will do around a third to Blissey, but comes with the added bonus of OHKOing most Tyranitar. Even a 252 HP / 252 SpD Careful variant will take 80% on average. If running Focus Blast, you may wish to invest in 48 Speed EVs in order to outspeed 0 Speed Blissey. Blizzard will provide Regice with extra power, enough to give it at least a chance to OHKO Heracross and Gyarados with Stealth Rock up. This is only really recommended with use alongside Hail, as the accuracy is too low to be consistantly relied on.</p>

<p>The presence of Stealth Rock hinders this set (removed "somewhat" for sounding better), so the EVs are designed to compensate for that. With these EVs, Regice has a lot more special bulk to allow it to switch into Special attacks better. This Regice can switch into a standard defensive Zapdos’ Thunderbolt and take a maximum of 18% damage, a Timid Life Orb Zapdos can only do a maximum of 28%. This allows (removed "this") Regice to switch in and fire off attacks more often than it could do otherwise. You can still severly damage Infernape and Lucario. If lucky you will OHKO them, however, they will die from their own Life Orb recoil next turn when not KOed, anyway. Celebi and Heatran are still always OHKOed by Ice Beam and Hidden Power Ground, respectively. Finally, the HP stat hits 361 allowing you to switch into Stealth Rock one extra time if need be.</p>

 

[Bourbon]

After you make these changes I will add this to the Regice revamp, if that's all right with you. I'll be sure to mention you wrote it at the top of the page, so that you get creditted on the "C & C" news thing on the front page.

 

[Imran]

yeah sure Skiddle you take care of it from now, I only worry that this "viability" question isn't over yet. What shall we do with this thread now?

EDIT: Thanks a lot diinbong

 

[Bourbon]

To be honest, I think it's viable, as the only advantage Regice has over the other Special Wall choices, Blissey, Cradily (in SS) and Snorlax is his usable Special Attack stat.

I'll C/P it now, and if anyone objects they can take it up with me in the Regice revamp thread.

 

[maddog]

If you decide to use Focus Blast, you may wish to invest in 48 Speed EVs in order to outspeed no Speed Blissey

Blizzard provides Regice with extra power; it can even OHKO Heracross and Gyarados some of the time with Stealth Rock damage included.

This Regice can switch into a standard defensive Zapdos’ Thunderbolt and take a maximum of 18% damage, while a Timid Life Orb Zapdos can only do a maximum of 28%

You can still severly damage Infernape and Lucario.

I would delete this sentence, and change the following sentence like this:

If lucky you will OHKO Infernape and Lucario, and if you don't quite do enough damage, their own Life Orb will finish them off.

assuming Stealth Rock is on the field. Finally, the HP stat hits 361, allowing you to switch into Stealth Rock one extra time if necessary.

 

[Imran]

This has now been moved to Skiddle's re-vamp. Obviously this isn't "on site" as such, so what to do with this thread seems to be a little confusing, I seems to be just cluttering up the forums if it stays here, does anyone further up have any idea as to what to do with it?

 

[darkie]

Closed. PM me if you need it again.


If anyone has further commentary on this set, please use this thread: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48677